Reader, can you go back for twenty years? You do it every day. You
say, "Twenty years ago I was a boy--twenty years ago I was a
youth--twenty years ago I played at peg-top and at marbles--twenty
years ago I wooed--was loved--I sinned--I suffered!"
What is there in twenty years that should keep us from going back
over them? You go on so fast, so smoothly, so easily on the forward
course--why not in retrogression? But let me tell you: it makes a very
great difference whether Hope or Memory drives the coach.
But let us see what we can do. Twenty years before the period at which
the last chapter broke off, Philip Hastings, now a father of a girl of
fifteen, was a lad standing by the side of his brother's grave. Twenty
years ago Sir John Hastings was the living lord of these fine lands
and broad estates. Twenty years ago he passed, from the mouth of the
vault in which he had laid the clay of the first-born, into the open
splendor of the day, and felt sorrow's desolation in the sunshine.
Twenty years age, he had been confronted on the church-yard path by a
tall old woman, and challenged with words high and stern, to do her
right in regard to a paltry rood or two of land. Twenty years ago he
had given her a harsh, cold answer, and treated her menaces with
impatient scorn.
Do you remember her, reader? Well, if you do, that brings us to the
point I sought to reach in the dull flat expanse of the far past; and
we can stand and look around us for awhile.
That old woman was not one easily to forget or lightly to yield her
resentments. There was something perdurable in them as well as in her
gaunt, sinewy frame. As she stood there menacing him, she wanted but
three years of seventy. She had battled too with many a storm--wind
and weather, suffering and persecution, sorrow and privation, had beat
upon her hard--very hard. They had but served to stiffen and wither
and harden, however.
Her corporeal frame, shattered as it seemed, was destined to outlive
many of the young and fair spirit-tabernacles around it--to pass over,
by long years, the ordinary allotted space of human life; and it
seemed as if even misfortune had with her but a preserving power. It
is not wonderful, however, that, while it worked thus upon her body,
it should likewise have stiffened and withered and hardened her heart.
I am not sure that conscience itself went untouched in this searing
process. It is not clear at all that even her claim upon Sir John
Hastings was not an unjust one; but just or unjust his repulse sunk
deep and festered.
Let us trace her from the church-yard after she met him. She took her
path away from the perk and the hamlet, between two cottages, the
ragged boys at the doors of which called her "Old Witch," and spoke
about a broomstick.
She heeded them little: there were deeper offences rankling at her
heart.
She walked on, across a corn-field and a meadow, and then she came
upon some woodlands, through which a little sandy path wound its way,
round stumps of old trees long cut down, amidst young bushes and
saplings just springing up, and catching the sunshine here and there
through the bright-tinted foliage overhead. Up the hill it went, over
the slope on which the copse was scattered, and then burst forth again
on the opposite side of wood and rise, where the ground fell gently
the other way, looking down upon the richly-dressed grounds of Colonel
Marshall, at the distance of some three miles.
Not more than a hundred yards distant was a poor man's cottage, with
an old gray thatch which wanted some repairing, and was plentifully
covered with herbs, sending the threads of their roots into the straw.
A. little badly-cultivated garden, fenced off from the hill-side by a
loose stone wall, surrounded the horse, and a gate without hinges gave
entrance to this inclosed space.
The old woman went in and approached the cottage door. When near it
she stopped and listened, lifting one of the flapping ears of her
cotton cap to aid the dull sense of hearing. There were no voices
within; but there was a low sobbing sound issued forth as if some one
were in bitter distress.
"I should not wonder if she were alone," said the old woman; "the
ruffian father is always out; the drudging mother goes about this time
to the town. They will neither stay at home, I wot, to grieve for him
they let too often into that door, nor to comfort her he has left
desolate. But it matters little whether they be in or out. It were
better to talk to her first. I will give her better than
comfort--revenge, if I judge right. They must play their part
afterwards."
Thus communing with herself, she laid her hand upon the latch and
opened the door. In an attitude of unspeakable grief sat immediately
before her a young and exceedingly beautiful girl, of hardly seventeen
years of age.
The wheel stood still by her side; the spindle had fallen from her
hands; her head was bowed down as with sorrow she could not bear up
against; and her eyes were dropping tears like rain.
The moment she heard the door open she started, and looked up with
fear upon her face, and strove to dash the tears from her eyes; but
the old women bespoke her softly, saying, "Good even, my dear; is your
mother in the place?"
"No," replied the girl; "she has gone to sell the lint, and father is
out too. It is very lonely, and I get sad here."
"I do not wonder at it, poor child," said the old woman; "you have had
a heavy loss, my dear, and may well cry. You can't help what is past,
you know; but we can do a good deal for what is to come, if we but
take care and make up our minds in time."
Many and strange were the changes of expression which came upon the
poor girl's face as she heard these few simple words. At first her
cheek glowed hot, as with the burning blush of shame; then she turned
pale and trembled, gazing inquiringly in her visitor's face, as if she
would have asked, "Am I detected?" and then she cast down her eyes
again, still pale as ashes, and the tears rolled forth once more and
fell upon her lap.
The old woman sat down beside her, and talked to her tenderly; but,
alas! very cunningly too. She assumed far greater knowledge than she
possessed. She persuaded the poor girl that there was nothing to
conceal from her; and what neither father nor mother knew, was told
that day to one comparatively a stranger. Still the old woman spoke
tenderly--ay, very tenderly; excused her fault--made light of her
fears--gave her hope--gave her strength. But all the time she
concealed her full purpose. That was to be revealed by degrees.
Whatever had been the girl's errors, she was too innocent to be made a
party to a scheme of fraud and wrong and vengeance at once. All that
the woman communicated was blessed comfort to a bruised and bleeding
heart; and the poor girl leaned her head upon her old companion's
shoulder, and, amidst bitter tears and sobs and sighs, poured out
every secret of her heart.
But what is that she says, which makes the old woman start with a look
of triumph?
"Letters!" she exclaimed; "two letters: let me see them, child--let me
see them! Perhaps they may be more valuable than you think."
The girl took them from her bosom, where she kept them as all that she
possessed of one gone that day into the tomb.
The old woman read them with slow eyes, but eager attention; and then
gave them back, saying, "That one you had better destroy as soon as
possible--it tells too much. But this first one keep, as you value
your own welfare--as you value your child's fortune, station, and
happiness. You can do much with this. Why, here are words that may
make your father a proud man. Hark! I hear footsteps coming. Put them
up--we must go to work cautiously, and break the matter to your
parents by degrees."
It was the mother of the girl who entered; and she seemed faint and
tired. Well had the old woman called her a drudge, for such she was--a
poor patient household drudge, laboring for a hard, heartless, idle,
and cunning husband, and but too tenderly fond of the poor girl whose
beauty had been a snare to her.
She seemed somewhat surprised to see the old woman there; for they
were of different creeds, and those creeds made wide separation in the
days I speak of. Perhaps she was surprised and grieved to see the
traces of tears and agitation on her daughter's face; but of that she
took no notice; for there were doubts and fears at her heart which she
dreaded to confirm. The girl was more cheerful, however, than she had
been for the last week--not gay, not even calm; but yet there was a
look of some relief.
Often even after her mother's entrance, the tears would gather thick
in her eyes when she thought of the dead; but it was evident that hope
had risen up: that the future was not all darkness and terror. This
was a comfort to her; and she spoke and looked cheerfully. She had
sold all the thread of her and her daughter's spinning, and she had
sold it well. Part she hid in a corner to keep a pittance for bread
from her husband's eyes; part she reserved to give up to him for the
purchase of drink: but while she made all these little arrangements,
she looked somewhat anxiously at the old woman, from time to time, as
if she fain would have asked, "What brought you here?"
The crone was cautious, however, and knew well with whom she had to
deal. She talked in solemn and oracular tones, as if she had possessed
all the secrets of fate, but she told nothing, and when she went away
she said in a low voice but authoritative manner, "Be kind to your
girl--be very kind; for she will bring good luck and fortune to you
all." The next day she laid wait for the husband, found and forced him
to stop and hear her. At first he was impatient, rude, and brutal;
swore, cursed, and called her many and evil names. But soon he
listened eagerly enough: looks of intelligence and eager design passed
between the two, and ere they parted they perfectly understood each
other.
The man was then, on more than one day, seen going down to the hall.
At first he was refused admission to Sir John Hastings; for his
character was known. The next day, however, he brought a letter,
written under his dictation by his daughter, who had been taught at a
charitable school of old foundation hard by; and this time he was
admitted. His conversation with the Lord of the Manor was long; but no
one knew its import. He came again and again, and was still admitted.
A change came over the cottage and its denizens. The fences were put
in order, the walls were repaired, the thatch renewed, another room or
two was added; plenty reigned within; mother and daughter appeared in
somewhat finer apparel; and money was not wanting.
At the end of some months there was the cry of a young child in the
house. The neighbors were scandalized, and gossips spoke censoriously
even in the father's ears; but he stopped them fiercely, with proud
and mysterious words; boasted aloud of what they had thought his
daughter's shame; and claimed a higher place for her than was
willingly yielded to her companions. Strange rumors got afloat, but
ere a twelvemonth had passed, the father had drank himself to death.
His widow and her daughter and her grandson moved to a better house,
and lived at ease on money none knew the source of, while the cottage,
now neat and in good repair, became the dwelling of the old woman, who
had been driven with scorn from Sir John's presence. Was she
satisfied--had she sated herself? Not yet.