That twilight of the year called spring, most delightful of all seasons,
is scarcely known in Italy. Winter dies languidly away, and summer
bursts forth at once, and in a few days the trees are clothed in full
foliage, the tall grass is waving, and panting lizards sun themselves on
the rocks over which so lately the mountain torrent was foaming. There
are, however, a few days of transition, and these are inexpressibly
delicious. The balmy air scented with the rose and the violet stirs
gently through the olive-trees, shaking the golden limes amidst the dark
leaves, and carrying away the sweet perfume on its breath; rivulets run
bright and clear through rocky channels, mingling their murmurs with the
early cicala. The acacia sheds its perfume on the breeze,--a breeze so
faint, as though it loved to linger on its way; and so, above, the lazy
clouds hang upon the mountains, or float in fragments out to sea, as day
wears on. What vitality there is in it all!--the rustling leaves, the
falling water, the chirping birds, the softly plashing tide, all
redolent of that happy season,--the year's bright youth.
On such a day as this Alfred Layton strolled languidly through the
grounds of Marlia. Three months of severe illness had worn him to a
shadow, and he walked with the debility of one who had just escaped from
a sick-room. The place was now deserted. The Heathcotes had gone to Rome
for the winter, and the Villa was shut up and untenanted. It had been a
cherished wish of poor Layton to visit the spot as soon as he could
venture abroad; and Quackinboss, the faithful friend who had nursed him
through his whole illness, had that day yielded to his persuasion and
brought him there.
Who could have recognized the young and handsome youth in the broken-
down, feeble, careworn man who now leaned over the palings of a little
flower-garden, and gazed mournfully at a rustic bench beneath a lime-
tree? Ay, there it was, in that very spot, one chapter of his life was
finished. It was there she had refused him! He had no right, it is true,
to have presumed so highly; there was nothing in his position to warrant
such daring; but had she not encouraged him? That was the question; he
believed so, at least. She had seen his devotion to her, and had not
repulsed it. Nay, more, she had suffered him to speak to her of feelings
and emotions, of hopes and fears and ambitions, that only they are led
to speak who talk to willing ears. Was this encouragement, or was it the
compassionate pity of one, to him, so friendless and alone? May
certainly knew that he loved her. She had even resented his little
passing attentions to Mrs. Morris, and was actually jealous of the hours
he bestowed on Clara; and yet, with all this, she had refused him, and
told him not to hope that, even with time, her feeling towards him
should change. “How could it be otherwise?” cried he to himself. “What
was I, to have pretended so highly? Her husband should be able to offer
a station superior to her own. So thought she, too, herself. How her
words ring in my ears even yet: 'I _do_ love rank'! Yes, it was there,
on that spot, she said it. I made confession of my love, and she, in
turn, told me of _hers_; and it was the world, the great and gorgeous
prize, for which men barter everything. And then her cold smile, as I
said, 'What is this same rank you prize so highly; can I not reach it--
win it?' 'I will not waste youth in struggle and conflict,' said she.
'Ha!' cried I, 'these words are not yours. I heard them one short week
ago. I know your teacher now. It was that false-hearted woman gave you
these precious maxims. It was not thus you spoke or felt when first I
knew you, May.' 'Is it not well,' said she, 'that we have each grown
wiser?' I heard no more. I have no memory for the passionate words I
uttered, the bitter reproaches I dared to make her. We parted in anger,
never to meet again; and then poor Clara, how I hear her faint, soft
voice, as she found me sitting there alone, forsaken, as she asked me,
'May I take these flowers?' and oh! how bitterly she wept as I snatched
them from her hand, and scattered them on the ground, saying, 'They were
not meant for you!' 'Let me have one, dear Alfred,' said she, just then;
and she took up a little jasmine flower from the walk. 'Even that you
despise to give is dear _to me!_ And so I kissed her on the forehead,
and said, 'Good-bye.' Two partings,--never to meet again!” He covered
his face with his hands, and his chest heaved heavily.
“It's main dreary in these diggin's here,” cried Quackinboss, as he came
up with long strides. “I 've been a-lookin' about on every side to find
some one to open the house for us, but there ain't a crittur to be
found. What 's all this about? You haven't been a-cryin', have you?”
Alfred turned away his head without speaking.
“I'll tell you what it is, Layton,” said he, earnestly, “there's no
manner of misfortune can befall in life that one need to fret over, but
the death of friends, or sickness; and as these are God's own doin', it
is not for us to say they 're wrong. Cheer up, man; you and I are a-
goin' to fight the world together.”
“You have been a true friend to me,” said Layton, grasping the other's
hand, while he held his head still averted.
“Well, I mean to, that's a fact; but you must rouse yourself, lad. We're
a-goin' 'cross seas, and amongst fellows that, whatever they do with
their spare time, give none of it to grief. Who ever saw John C. Colhoun
cry? Did any one ever catch Dan Webster in tears?”
“I was n't crying,” said Layton; “I was only saddened to see again a
spot where I used to be so happy. I was thinking of bygones.”
“I take it bygones is very little use if they don't teach us something
more than to grieve over 'em; and, what's more, Layton,--it sounds harsh
to say it,--but grief, when it's long persisted in, is downright
selfishness, and nothing else.”
Layton slipped his arm within the other's to move away, but as he did so
he turned one last look towards the little garden.
“I see it all now,” said Quackinboss, as they walked along; “you've been
and met a sweetheart down here once on a time, that's it. She's been
what they call cruel, or she's broke her word to you. Well, I don't
suppose there's one man livin'--of what might be called real men--as has
n't had something of the same experience. Some has it early, some late,
but it's like the measles, it pushes you main hard if you don't take it
when you 're young. There's no bending an old bough,--you must break
it.”
There was a deep tone of melancholy in the way the last words were
uttered that made Layton feel his companion was speaking from the heart.
“But it's all our own fault,” broke in Quackinboss, quickly; “it all
comes of the way we treat 'em.”
“How do you mean?” asked Layton, eagerly.
“I mean,” said the other, resolutely, “we treat 'em as reasonable
beings, and they ain't. No, sir, women is like Red-men; they ain't to be
persuaded, or argued with; they 're to be told what is right for 'em,
and good for 'em, and that's all. What does all your courting and
coaxing a gal, but make her think herself something better than all
creation? Why, you keep a-tellin' her so all day, and she begins to
believe it at last. Now, how much better and fairer to say to her,
'Here's how it is, miss, you 've got to marry me, that's how it's
fixed.' She 'll understand that.”
“But if she says, 'No, I won't'?”
“No, no,” said Quackinboss, with a half-bitter smile, “she 'll never say
that to the man as knows how to tell her his mind. And as for that
courtship, it's all a mistake. Why, women won't confess they like a man,
just to keep the game a-movin'. I'm blest if they don't like it better
than marriage.”
Layton gave a faint smile, but, faint as it was, Quackinboss perceived
it, and said,--
“Now, don't you go a-persuadin' yourself these are all Yankee notions
and such-like. I'm a-talkin' of human natur', and there ain't many as
knows more of that article than Leonidas Shaver Quackinboss. All you
Old-World folk make one great mistake, and nothing shows so clearly as
how you 're a worn-out race, used up and done for. You live too much
with your emotions and your feelin's. Have you never remarked that when
the tap-root of a tree strikes down too far, it gets into a cold soil?
And from that day for'ard you 'll never see fruit or blossom more.
That's just the very thing you 're a-doin'. You ain't satisfied to be
active and thrivin' and healthful, but you must go a-specu-latin' about
why you are this, and why you ain't t' other. Get work to do, sir, and
do it.”
“It is what I intend,” said Layton, in a low voice.
“There ain't nothing like labor,” said Quackinboss, with energy; “work
keeps the devil out of a man's mind, for somehow there's nothing that
black fellow loves like loafing. And whenever I see a great, tall, well-
whiskered chap leaning over a balcony in a grand silk dressing-gown,
with a gold stitched cap on his head, and he a-yawning, I say to myself,
'Maybe I don't know _who 's_ at your elbow now;' and when I see one of
our strapping Western fellows, as he has given the last stroke of his
hatchet to a pine-tree, and stands back to let it fall, wiping the
honest sweat from his brow, as his eyes turn upward over the tree-tops
to something higher than them, I say to my heart, 'All right, there; he
knows who it was gave him the strength to lay that sixty-foot stem so
low.'”
“You say truly,” muttered Layton.
“I know it, sir; I 've been a-loafing myself these last three years, and
I 've run more to seed in that time than in all my previous life; but I
mean to give it up.”
“What are your plans?” asked Layton, not sorry to let the conversation
turn away from himself and his own affairs.
“My plans! They are ours, I hope,” said Quackinboss. “You're a-coming
out with me to the States, sir. We fixed it all t' other night, I reckon
! I 'm a-goin' to make your fortune; or, better still, to show you how
to make it for yourself.”
Layton walked on in moody silence, while Quackinboss, with all the
zealous warmth of conviction, described the triumphs and success he was
to achieve in the New World.
A very few words will suffice to inform our reader of all that he need
know on this subject. During Layton's long convalescence poor
Quackinboss felt his companionable qualities sorely taxed. At first,
indeed, his task was that of consoler, for he had to communicate the
death of Alfred's mother, which occurred in the early days of her son's
illness. The Rector's letter, in conveying the sad tidings, was
everything that kindness and delicacy could dictate, and, with scarcely
a reference to his own share in the benevolence, showed that all care
and attention had waited upon her last hours. The blow, however, was
almost fatal to Layton; and the thought of that forlorn, deserted death-
bed clung to him by day, and filled his dreams by night.
Quackinboss did his utmost, not very skilfully nor very adroitly,
perhaps, but with a hearty sincerity, to combat this depression. He
tried to picture a future of activity and exertion,--a life of sterling
labor. He placed before his companion's eyes the objects and ambitions
men usually deem the worthiest, and endeavored to give them an interest
to him. Met in all his attempts by a dreary, hopeless indifference, the
kind-hearted fellow reflected long and deeply over his next resource;
and so one day, when Layton's recovered strength suggested a hope for
the project, he gave an account of his own neglected youth, how, thrown
when a mere boy upon the world, he had never been able to acquire more
than a smattering of what others learn at school. “I had three books in
the world, sir,--a Bible, Robinson Crusoe, and an old volume of
Wheatson's Algebra. And from a-readin' and readin' of 'em over and over,
I grew to blend 'em all up in my head together. And there was Friday,
just as much a reality to me as Father Abraham; and I thought men kept
all their trade reckoning by simple equations. I felt, in fact, as if
there was no more than these three books in all creation, and out of
them a man had to pick all the wisdom he could. Now, what I 'm a-
thinkin' is that though I 'm too old to go to school, maybe as how you
'd not refuse to give me a helpin' hand, by readin' occasionally out of
those languages I only know by name? Teachin' an old fellow like me is
well-nigh out of the question; but when a man has got a long, hard-
earned experience of human natur', it's a main pleasant thing to know
that oftentimes the thoughts that he is struggling with have occurred to
great minds who know how to utter them; and so many an impression comes
to be corrected, or mayhap confirmed, by those clever fellows, with
their thoughtful heads.”
There was one feature in the project which could not but gratify Layton;
it enabled him to show his gratitude for the brotherly affection he had
met with, and he accepted the suggestion at once. The first gleam of
animation that had lighted his eyes for many a day was when planning out
the line of reading he intended them to follow. Taking less eras of
history than some of the great men who had illustrated them, he thought
how such characters would be sure to interest one whose views of life
were eminently practical, and so a great law-giver, a legislator, a
great general, or orator, was each evening selected for their reading.
If it were not out of our track, we might tell here how much Layton was
amused by the strange, shrewd commentaries of his companion on the
characters of a classic age; or how he enjoyed the curious resemblances
Quackinboss would discover between the celebrities of Athens and Rome
and the great men of his own country. And many a time was the reader
interrupted by such exclamations as, “Ay, sir, just what J. Q. Adams
would have said!” or, “That 's the way our John Randolph would have
fixed it!”
But Quackinboss was not satisfied with the pleasure thus afforded to
himself, for, with native instinct, he began to think how all such
stores of knowledge and amusement might be utilized for the benefit of
the possessor.
“You must come to the States, Layton,” he would say. “You must let our
people hear these things. They 're a main sharp, wide-awake folk, but
they ain't posted up about Greeks and Romans. Just mind me, now, and
you'll do a fine stroke of work, sir. Give them one of these pleasant
stories out of that fellow there, Herod--Herod--what d'ye call him?”
“Herodotus?”
“Ay, that's he; and then a slice out of one of those slapping speeches
you read to me t' other night. I'm blessed if the fellow did n't lay it
on like Point Dexter himself; and wind up all with what we can't match,
a comic scene from Aristophanes. You see I have his name all correct. I
ain't christened Shaver if you don't fill your hat with Yankee dollars
in every second town of the Union.”
Layton burst out into a hearty laugh at what seemed to him a project so
absurd and impossible; but Quackinboss, with increased gravity,
continued,--
“Your British pride, mayhap, is offended by the thought of lecturin' to
us Western folk; but I am here to tell you, sir, that our own first men-
-ay, and you 'll not disparage _them_--are a-doin' it every day. It's
not play-actin' I 'm speaking of. They don't go before a crowded theatre
to play mimic with face or look or voice or gesture. They 've got a
something to tell folk that's either ennobling or instructive. They've
got a story of some man, who, without one jot more of natural advantages
than any of those listening there, made himself a name to be blessed and
remembered for ages. They've to show what a thing a strong will is when
united with an honest heart; and how no man, no matter how humble he be,
need despair of being useful to his fellows. They 've got many a lesson
out of history to give a people who are just as ambitious, just as
encroaching, and twice as warlike as the Athenians, about not neglecting
private morality in the search after national greatness. What is the
lecturer but the pioneer to the preacher? In clearing away ignorance and
superstition, ain't he making way for the army of truth that's coming
up? Now I tell you, sir, that ain't a thing to be ashamed of!”
Layton was silent; not convinced, it is true, but restrained, from
respect for the other's ardor, from venturing on a reply too lightly.
Quackinboss, after a brief pause, went on:--
“Well, it is possible what I said about the profit riled you. Well,
then, don't take the dollars; or take them, and give them, as some of
our Western men do, to some object of public good,--if you 're rich
enough.”
“Rich enough! I'm a beggar,” broke in Layton, bitterly, “I 'm at this
instant indebted to you for more than, perhaps, years of labor may
enable me to repay.”
“I put it all down in a book, sir,” said Quackinboss, sternly, “and I
threw it in the fire the first night you read out Homer to me. I said to
myself, 'You are well paid, Shaver, old fellow. You never knew how your
heart could be shaken that way, and what brave feelings were lying there
still, inside of it.'”
“Nay, dear friend, it is not thus I 'm to acquit my debt Even the
moneyed one--”
“I tell you what, Layton,” said Quackinboss, rising, and striking the
table with his clenched fist, “there's only one earthly way to part us,
and that is by speaking to me of this. Once, and forever, I say to you,
there's more benefit to a man like me to be your companion for a week,
than for _you_ to have toiled, and fevered, and sweated after gold, as I
have done for thirty hard years.”
“Give me a day or two to think over it,” said Layton, “and I 'll tell
you my resolve.”
“With all my heart! Only, I would ask you not to take my showing of its
goodness, but to reason the thing well out of your own clear head. Many
a just cause is lost by a bad lawyer; remember that” And thus the
discussion ended for the time.
The following morning, when they met at breakfast, Layton took the
other's hand, and said,--
“I 've thought all night of what you 've said, and I accept,--not
without many a misgiving as regards myself, but I accept.”
“I'd not take ten thousand dollars for the engagement, sir,” said
Quackinboss, as he wrung Layton's hand. “No, sir, I 'd not take it, for
even four cities of the Union.”
Although thus the project was ratified between them, scarcely a day
passed that Layton did not experience some compunction for his pledge.
Now, it was a repugnance to the sort of enterprise he was about to
engage in, the criticisms to which he was to expose himself, and the
publicity he was to confront; nor could all his companion's sanguine
assurances of success compensate him for his own heartfelt repugnance to
try the ordeal.
“After all,” thought he, “failure, with all its pangs of wounded self-
love, will only serve to show Quackinboss how deeply I feel myself his
debtor when I am content to risk so much to repay him.”
Such was the bond he had signed, such his struggles to fulfil its
obligations. One only condition he stipulated for,--he wished to go to
Ireland before setting out for the States, to see the last resting-place
of his poor mother ere he quitted his country, perhaps forever. Dr.
Millar, too, had mentioned that a number of letters were amongst the few
relics she had left, and he desired, for many reasons, that these should
not fall into strangers' hands. As for Qnackinboss, he agreed to
everything. Indeed, he thought that as there was no use in reaching the
States before “the fall,” they could not do better than ramble about
Ireland, while making some sort of preparation for the coming campaign.
“How sad this place makes me!” said Layton, as they strolled along one
of the leaf-strewn alleys. “I wish I had not come here.”
“That's just what I was a-thinkin' myself,” said the other. “I remember
coming back all alone once over the Michigan prairie, which I had
travelled about eight months before with a set of hearty companions, and
whenever I 'd come up to one of the spots where our tent used to be
pitched, and could mark the place by the circle of greener grass, with a
burned-up patch where the fire stood, it was all I could do not to burst
out a-cryin' like a child! It's a main cruel thing to go back alone to
where you 've once been happy in, and there 's no forgettin' the misery
of it ever after.”
“That's true,” said Layton; “the pleasant memories are erased forever.
Let us go.”