house wid a po' relation dat come f'um somewhar, an' fur two or three
weeks she didn' do nuttin' but set an' look at de fire an' go ev'y
evenin' an' stan' by Marse Page grave. Den she 'gin ter ax Tubal 'bout
things, an' Tubal tole her how kin' de cap'n had been, an' sen' Marse
Page brandy an' things, an' come ev'y day ter see ef he couldn' do
sumpin' fer him--an' all dis heah 'fo' Marse Page wuz laid out--an' how
he had done see 'bout de coffin, an' had tole Tubal what wuz fitten
ter do. De cap'n didn' call ter see her, but ev'y day er two he sen' de
orderly ter ax how she do, wid de cap'n's compliments, an' sometimes he
sen' her er basket er grapes or er bokay. Miss Letty she wroten him er
little note an' ax him ter come an' receive her thanks in pusson, an'
he come. Tubal say it discomfuse him ter have Miss Letty seein' cump'ny
in dat d'yar ole overseer's house, but she wuz fust quality, jes' de
same ez ef she wuz at de Shelter in de ole time. Naix day Miss Patty
Corbin, dat wait fo'teen year ter git ole marse, come in her gre't big
kerridge to quile wid Miss Letty fer receivin' Yankee orficers.
"'De bes' people in de county doan' countenance it,' she say.
"'Very well,' answer Miss Letty, wid her cheeks afire, 'it seems they
didn't countenance my poor father much after he left the Shelter, but
this Yankee orficer _he_ countenance my father when he was ill an' poor
an' want frien's--and, Miss Patty,' she say wid her eyes blazin', 'it's
a subject I won't have mentioned to me again--please understand--an' I
wish you good-morning.' Miss Patty she flounce out ter her gre't big
kerridge in a huff, an' Miss Letty she walk back inter de overseer's
house like it wuz a palace, an' she wuz a queen.
"Tubal he meet de cap'n on de road dat very day, an' tole him de whole
contention. De cap'n grin when Tubal tole him de way Miss Letty sen'
Miss Patty off, same like she wuz shoot out ov a gun.
"Naix Sunday, at chu'ch, Miss Letty see de cap'n comin' in jes' ez she
wuz; an' she wait fer him, an' smile, an' ax him inter her pew, an'
let him walk up de aisle 'longside o' her. Dey sut'ny wuz a han'some
couple--she look so pretty in her black frock, an' he wuz jes' ez
straight as a Injun.
"Arter chu'ch, 'stid o' folks stoppin' ter speak wid Miss Letty, dey
jes' went by her wid a nod an' a scowl. Miss Letty she had a sperrit,
ez Marse Page say; she smile an' keep on talkin' wid de cap'n, an' let
him walk home wid her. Tubal he had done gone in de woods ter play
de fiddle--'kase dat sinner acshilly play de fiddle Sunday same ez
week days--he seen 'em walkin' 'long home, an' he see de cap'n when
he tooken Miss Letty han' an' say, 'Can you bear that treatment fer
me?' An' Miss Letty she say, 'Yes, and a great deal more.' Ef you will
believe dis nigger, Miss Letty she marry dat cap'n! She did, fer a
fac'! She married him, sartin an' sho! She marry him 'fo' de summer
wuz out. Dey went away, an' dey want ter take Tubal wid 'em, but Tubal
he say naw, he c'yarn leave Marse Page all by hisse'f in de graveyard,
an' ef he could jes' live on at de overseer's house, an' had he fiddle
an' sumpin' ter eat, he wus all right. Miss Letty fix fer him ter
stay, an' de' wuz a little g'yarden patch fer him; but Tubal he warn'
never no 'count ter wuk; he wuz too much uv a artis', de cap'n say. So
arter dey wuz married an' gone, Tubal useter take he fiddle an' go an'
set in de sun by Marse Page grave, an' play ter him, an' dat nigger
had de s'prisin' owdaciousness ter play hymn tunes on de fiddle, like
'Roll, Jordan, roll,' an' 'Dem Golden Slippers.' Dem wuz fer hisse'f,
he say, but de reels an' jigs wuz fer Marse Page, 'kase he allers
like dat sort o' music. An' it seem ter me like Tubal play mo' like
de birds ev'y day; when he play a reel, it wuz like de win' sweepin'
ober de wheat fiel', er de water in de mill-race po'in' ober de dam.
Dat was in de fall, but todes winter Tubal cotch de rheumatiz, an' he
couldn't git outen de house, an' he finger-j'ints got kinder rusty, an'
he couldn' play no mo'. It sut'ny wuz pitiful ter see him settin' wid
de fiddle on he knee an' he c'yarn play it. He wuz mighty po'ly, an'
he keep on sayin' he ain' gwi' live long. When de spring come he got
outen de house when it was sunshiny, an' he useter creep wid he fiddle
ter de graveyard, but he couldn' hardly walk. An' one day we had done
miss him, but it wuz sunshiny, so we knowed he was somewhar 'bout dat
graveyard; we-all went ter look fer him, an' d'yar, layin' on Marse
Page grave, wuz Tubal wid he fiddle. He wuz done dade.
"He had ax us 'fo' dat ter bury him an' de fiddle close by Marse Page,
'kase Miss Letty had promise him he could be laid in de white folks'
buryin' groun', an' he wuz laid right d'yar. He look mighty natchel in
de coffin wid he fiddle an' he bow by him. So we-all buried Tubal, an'
I 'ain' never see sech a fiddler sence."
PRISCILLA.
Priscilla's beauty was of that shadowy and spiritual kind that it
took a good while to find out that she was a beauty at all. Certainly
Priscilla's sisters, the Misses Mildmay, had sublime faith in
Priscilla's charms; but the poor girl herself had spent so much of
her twenty-five years of life trying to conform to the standard of
behavior inculcated in the Misses Mildmay's boarding and day school
for young ladies and little girls that it had robbed her of that
delicious and ingenuous vanity which is the glorious inheritance
of pretty young things of her gender. The Misses Mildmay lived in
an imposing four-story brick mansion in a street of the sternest
respectability; there was not a suspicion of the shop in the stately
front door, and the heavily draped windows bore no advertising sign.
The tall man-servant who opened the door was loftily oblivious to the
pupils who sneaked in by the garden way. The Misses Mildmay had made
money in their school--and it was all for Priscilla. Had this youngest
birdling in the dove-cote been like her elder sisters, nothing could
have been better contrived than the scheme of happiness proposed to
her. But unfortunately Priscilla was no more a Mildmay than she was a
Montmorency or a Condé. It is true that she conformed outwardly to the
Mildmay model, but Nature's original Priscilla was a merry, fiery young
creature with peachy cheeks and a perpetual smile and a good appetite.
All these things, however, were kept in abeyance--particularly her
color and her appetite. Had that dignified footman been cut up into
juicy chops for Priscilla's breakfast, and that mahogany door been
made into rich soups for Priscilla's dinner, she would no doubt have
lost some of that pretty pallor, that pathetic look out of her dark
eyes. But the income of the Misses Mildmay did not admit of the footman
and the mahogany door and the juicy chops and rich soups too, so they
skimped on the dinners, skimped on the amusements, skimped on all those
vanities that had never had any charms for them, but which Mother
Nature, who is obstinate as well as perverse, had meant for the younger
sister.
The Mildmay religion was necessarily of a well-bred and repressive
type; but Priscilla was given to getting up early and walking long
distances to a church in East Harrowby, where not one single person
could be found who might be called "in society" except Priscilla
herself. The clergyman, it is true, was a gentleman, but he was said
to be so cold, so stern, so unsocial, that he strongly repelled his
own class. There was, however, a reason for the Rev. Mr. Thorburn's
indifference to general society. He had met with the most awful of
domestic calamities. The wife whom he loved had lost her mind, and
was then in a private asylum. The only shifting of his burden that
the stern Mr. Thorburn showed was, he had given up the charge which
he had held for ten years, and where his happy married life had been
spent, and had taken a very small and pitifully poor church in East
Harrowby. His congregation was made up entirely of working people, to
Mr. Thorburn's intense satisfaction. He had the spirit of an apostle,
but he was handicapped by his temperament and by the traditions of
his class. He could not be persistent, or aggressive, or personally
solicitous about the highly educated, moral, and well-bred persons who
made up his first congregation. He desired earnestly and even fiercely
to wake them up to a spiritual life, but all of them, pastor as well
as people, were too well bred for that sort of intimate discussion to
be forced between them. He found, after some years' experience, that
they were willing to let him look after their morals, but they proposed
to look after their spiritual affairs themselves--which is one of the
commonest and queerest developments of modern religious thought.
In the course of time, Thorburn grew weary of trying to spiritualize
a congregation of people who were so well off in this world that they
regarded their probable transposition to heaven with great distaste.
He sickened of being restricted in his spiritual efforts to emotional
women and priggish boys and girls. Religion, he felt, was an affair for
men--but of the few men communicants in the church, every one of them
would have instantly withdrawn his subscription and quitted the church
had the clergyman showed any undue solicitude about his soul. And if
he had ventured to speak of their sins, in any except the most general
way, the bishop would have come down upon him. So this zealous man,
so cruelly misplaced, found his fashionable congregation and handsome
salary utterly unendurable after that frightful and heart-breaking
tragedy in his life. He was glad enough for the chance to preach
to a congregation of decent brick makers, such as made up most of
the population of East Harrowby, and who did not find this world so
pleasant that they could not grasp the idea of a better one.
Dr. Sunbury, the rector of the handsome stone church in West Harrowby,
was a good man, but he would have cut a poor figure as an apostle
alongside of that independent citizen, Paul of Tarsus, or Peter the
fisherman. The doctor had the kindest heart, though, and the most
liberal mind in West Harrowby, and having early had a safe and easy
path to heaven pointed out to him, he had walked along it for forty
years, never doubting that he would get there in the end. It is true
that the spectacle of Mr. Thorburn, going night and day among his
poor parishioners, being doctor, nurse, adviser, everything to them,
sometimes gave the excellent old doctor a qualm, but he had sense
enough to see that, even if he wished to follow the same life as
the Rev. Mr. Thorburn, he couldn't do it. There were no sick, poor,
ignorant people in the well-bred, well-fed congregation that listened
to Dr. Sunbury's mild and strictly general exhortations.
Priscilla Mildmay alone of all the doctor's flock went after the new
parson at East Harrowby and his shabby, uncomfortable church. But
Priscilla always had an odd way with her, so her elder sisters gently
lamented. For example, instead of reading the religious flapdoodle with
which they were quite satisfied, Priscilla would devour her Thomas à
Kempis as if all of truth was to be found therein, and declared she
could not read anything after that except the four Gospels. The Misses
Mildmay had not failed to report Priscilla's iniquity to Dr. Sunbury,
but they got cold comfort.
"Let the girl alone," he said. "Thorburn's a better preacher than I
am, and, God knows, he is a better man" (the doctor possessed, without
knowing it, one of the greatest Christian' virtues--humility) "and
don't bother her. She is right. I'd go to hear Thorburn myself if I
didn't have to preach." The two clergymen were upon the most friendly
terms, although so widely apart in every respect but that of mutual
good-will. The only house in West Harrowby that Thorburn visited
was Dr. Sunbury's and the old doctor trudged over to East Harrowby
sometimes, to smoke a pipe of peace in Thorburn's dingy lodgings. Dr.
Sunbury hated walking, but he could not find it in his conscience to
drive over to that woe-begone community in his snug brougham--all of
which the recording angel put down in his favor.
Priscilla's face had not escaped Thorburn's notice. He had keen eyes,
and he saw everything. He saw Priscilla with wonder. Women, as a rule,
did not flock to his church. They said they found his sermons cold.
Men, and some of them none of the best, chiefly made up his audiences.
It was not hard anywhere to observe Priscilla's snow-drop face in her
little black bonnet, with her eager, beseeching eyes. After a while Mr.
Thorburn began to feel their mesmeric influence, as Dr. Sunbury had
done ever since she was fifteen. He began to watch for her, to preach
at her, to feel that she understood him--a very comfortable thing for a
public speaker. Of course he knew who Miss Priscilla Mildmay was--"Very
nice, but not the equal of the elder Misses Mildmay," he usually
heard--and sometimes they had met at Dr. Sunbury's. As Mr. Thorburn was
naturally a silent man, and Priscilla lacked courage in a drawing-room,
they scarcely exchanged half a dozen words. It came about, though, as
these things will, that in the course of his parish work he came upon
Priscilla--Priscilla teaching a class of ragged boys their lessons,
after having taught the most stylish young ladies in West Harrowby
the most elegant branches of a polite education. Some way, all the
restraint they had felt in Dr. Sunbury's drawing-room melted away in
the little bare school room. There Priscilla reigned supreme, calmly
confident under Mr. Thorburn's searching gaze. She had a peculiar knack
of teaching. Her gentle, "Now, please, boys," had the same effect
as Mr. Thorburn's stern, "See, you fellows, behave yourselves." Mr.
Thorburn watched with admiration the tact with which she managed her
somewhat unruly crowd.
Of course all this teaching did not go on with the unqualified
approbation of the Misses Mildmay. Priscilla showed a phenomenal
determination about it, and being upheld by Dr. Sunbury, who in some
way always encouraged her vagaries, the Misses Mildmay, although they
might look coldly on it, could not forbid it.
It did not take much to violently excite West Harrowby; and therefore
when the Harrowby Union-Palladium published one morning, with a big
display head that covered half the first page of the paper, the burning
of the Northern Lunatic Asylum, a certain circumstance connected
therewith gave West Harrowby something to talk about for a week.
Five inmates of the women's ward were missing, and among them was
Mrs. Eleanor Thorburn. Five bodies, charred beyond recognition, were
found in the ruins. Some days after a notice appeared in the obituary
column of the Union-Palladium: "Suddenly, on the 17th of February,
Mrs. Eleanor Thorburn, wife of the Reverend Edmund Thorburn, of East
Harrowby." That was all.
Nobody--not the most censorious--could accuse Mr. Thorburn of not
paying scrupulous respect to his wife's memory. Yet it made but little
outward difference in his life. For two or three Sundays he was absent
from his pulpit, and when he reappeared he wore a band of crape upon
his hat.
So things went on until nearly two years had slipped past. One spring
afternoon Dr. Sunbury, with his particular chum and crony, Dr. Forman,
the great light of the medical profession in and about Harrowby, was
enjoying a quiet saunter through the familiar shady street. They had
wrestled in argument so often, and practiced in company so much, that
Dr. Sunbury had become a pretty good doctor of medicine, and Dr.
Forman was no mean proficient in theology. Right in the midst of a
friendly-fierce wrangle on the subject of ecclesiastical history, Dr.
Forman suddenly remarked, "That's going to be a match."
Dr. Sunbury glanced up, and saw Mr. Thorburn, as he met Priscilla
Mildmay, stop, smile, speak a few words, and, lifting his hat, go upon
his way.
"Bless my soul!" almost shouted Dr. Sunbury, stopping short and gazing
at Dr. Forman's immovable face.
"Why not?" said the doctor testily. "I see them together half a dozen
times a week."
Dr. Sunbury was at heart an inveterate matchmaker, as all truly
benevolent old persons are apt to be, and as soon as he allowed his
imagination to feast upon the idea of a match between Thorburn and
Priscilla, its manifest fitness impressed itself so upon him that
he would fain have got out a license, gone to them, and commanded
them to stand up and be married immediately. He did, however, firmly
resolve to give Thorburn a hint; but giving Thorburn hints was always
a matter of more or less difficulty with everybody. At last, however,
the opportunity came, and Dr. Sunbury seized it courageously. He had
been spending the evening with Mr. Thorburn at his lodgings, and the
other clergyman happening to mention, as Dr. Sunbury was taking his
leave, that he thought of getting lodgings elsewhere, Dr. Sunbury
remarked quite naturally that he "had heard something regarding Mr.
Thorburn and Miss Priscilla Mildmay which perhaps accounted for the
proposed change." They were standing at Mr. Thorburn's door, and by the
bright moonlight Dr. Sunbury saw the dark flush which overspread Mr.
Thorburn's somewhat saturnine face.
"I--I assure you--" he began; and then, after a pause, "I am too old."
"Nonsense!" replied Dr. Sunbury. "Priscilla is nearly twenty-six" (ah!
doctor, you know she was only twenty-five month before last), "and you
are--let me see--thirty-seven."
"Thirty-nine," conscientiously said Mr. Thorburn.
"Well, thirty-nine. You are enough man of the world to see that age
interposes no obstacle in the case. However, I shall say no more.
Good-night."
"If I hadn't been going just then, I don't think I could have said it,"
confidentially remarked Dr. Sunbury to Dr. Forman.
The little seed that Dr. Sunbury had planted in Mr. Thorburn's mind
grew, and waxed to be a great tree. But all the time he looked upon
it as impossible. Priscilla was but a child, and he was a man grown
old in sorrow, in suffering, and labor. No, it could never be. And
having come to the conclusion that he was in no danger whatever, Mr.
Thorburn fared just as such presumptuous Samsons always do. He met
Priscilla under the most adverse circumstances, running home from a
shower, and in a manner the most unexpected to himself, proposed to
her just as they came in front of the West Harrowby savings-bank,
which was also the post-office and the principal apothecary's shop.
Priscilla's behavior was of a piece with his own. The idea had never
been presented to her mind before, and it was a matter that required
the utmost circumspection in deciding, and yet by the time she reached
her own door she had accepted Mr. Thorburn, the rain meanwhile from his
umbrella trickling in little rivers down her back. There was neither
time nor opportunity for love-making in the midst of a pouring shower,
upon the pavement in front of the Mildmay mansion, so Mr. Thorburn
could only take her little cold hand and say, "God bless you, God bless
you, my Priscilla!"
In due course of time the wedding--a very quiet one--came off, and Mr.
and Mrs. Thorburn were settled in a modest rectory in East Harrowby.
The Misses Mildmay had suggested--indeed, urged--that Mr. Thorburn
should establish his rectory in the more fashionable precinct of West
Harrowby, but Mr. Thorburn demurred, on the ground of its being a
clergyman's duty to live in his parish.
They were as happy as the day was long. Priscilla, under the new
influence of happiness and good roast beef and a daily pint of porter,
grew rosy, and blossomed out into a regular beauty, and Mr. Thorburn's
face lost that painful expression it had been wont to wear when he
strode through the streets on his parish work. And time went by so
fast--so fast; they had been married nearly three years, when they felt
as if their honey-moon was just beginning.
It was getting toward dusk one misty November afternoon when Priscilla
went tripping past Dr. Forman's house, which stood on the opposite side
of the street. The moisture from the over-hanging branches of the elm
trees was dripping upon her, and her boots were quite soaked through.
Across the way the doctor was just stepping out of his buggy, and she
stopped and debated whether she should not go over and ask him to drive
her a quarter of a mile further down the road to the rectory. As she
stood hesitating, a woman approached her out of the mist, and spoke.
"May I inquire," she said, "the way to the house of the Rev. Mr.
Thorburn?"
She was perhaps forty, and had once been pretty. Even now a certain
pathetic charm attached to her, and the voice and accent were of that
cultivated kind which established her title to be called a lady, in
spite of the extreme plainness of her attire.
Her hair, which was a beautiful auburn, curled over her forehead in
little natural rings, and her eyes were strangely bright. She looked as
if she had just recovered from illness, and was not physically strong,
but there was a look of tremulous happiness in her face. When she said
"the Rev. Mr. Thorburn," her voice was musically lowered, and her gray
eyes became radiant. Priscilla took all this in at a glance. She was
some woman whom Thorburn had befriended, and who had come to him to lay
down her load of gratitude at his feet.
"Yes," said Priscilla, with ready politeness; "just down the road, the
first house to the left. You will have to wait an hour or two, perhaps,
though, for Mr. Thorburn. He is seldom in before half past-six. I am
Mrs. Thorburn, you see," she said, smiling.
The stranger looked at her for a moment with a kind of wide-eyed
horror, and, throwing her arms up in the air, fell prone on the ground
as if she had received a pistol shot through the heart.
Priscilla had never been brought face to face with any startling
emergencies during her quiet life. She stood for a moment frozen with
terror, and then ran like a deer across to where Dr. Forman stood
giving some directions to his man.
"Oh, doctor, come! run as fast as you can." She pointed to the
prostrate figure lying in the muddy road. Dr. Forman gave one glance,
and started at a smart pace, Priscilla keeping up with him, and telling
him breathlessly what had occurred. The doctor bent down, turned the
unfortunate woman over on her back, and said two words, "Dead faint."
"Can't I do something?" said Priscilla, hovering near.
"Yes. Go and tell Sam to come here at once, and then go home yourself.
You'll have another touch of rheumatism if you go out in this weather.
I shall speak to Thorburn about it."
The doctor was a man of authority; so Priscilla, after sending Sam
over, and returning only to be sharply ordered about her business,
went home. Mr. Thorburn was later than usual that night. A strike was
threatened among the brick makers, and they had said they would treat
with him and with no one else. He was troubled and harassed--and,
contrary to the custom of some women in like circumstances, Priscilla
did not choose grewsome stories, like strange women fainting in the
street, to entertain him--so nothing was said of the somewhat tragic
occurrence of the afternoon. Next morning he was off bright and early,
Priscilla making no mention of her aching joints. Before night the
doctor's promised touch of rheumatism had set in. Priscilla made light
of it, but agreed to send for Dr. Forman, and insisted that Thorburn
should attend to the business of averting the strike. Instead of coming
himself, young Dr. Curtis, Dr. Forman's assistant, came. Dr. Forman
had a very ill patient. Mrs. Thorburn inquired eagerly about the woman
who had dropped in the street. Dr. Curtis had heard Dr. Forman say
something about it, but supposed it was all right, as he had heard
nothing further on the subject. Mrs. Thorburn would be all right too if
she would stay in the house in bad weather, and take care of herself.
The incident made no very particular impression on Priscilla. But
on the night after it had happened, Dr. Sunbury got a very pressing
message from Dr. Forman. He went at once to the doctor's house, picking
his way through the dark November night; and Dr. Forman opened the door
himself, and led the way into his little back office, where he told
his visitor of the patient he had found in the street, and who at that
moment lay up-stairs in the doctor's spare bedroom, with the doctor's
housekeeper in attendance on her.
"And--she--is--" Dr. Forman hesitated. A strange pallor was upon his
homely, good-natured face, and his voice was tremulous. He took a
moment or two to recover himself, and then burst out: "She is--the
first wife of Mr. Thorburn."
Dr. Sunbury rose from his chair and fell back in it again. He raised
his hand as if in denunciation. "May God--"