Ernest Linwood Part 2

I did not think Mr. Regulus capable of so much unkindness. He has cancelled this day a debt of grat.i.tude."

"My poor Gabriella," she again repeated, laying her delicate hand gently on my head. "I fear you have a great deal to contend with in this rough world. The flowers of poesy are sweet, but poverty is a barren soil, my child. The dew that moistens it, is tears."

I felt a tear on my hand as she spoke. Child as I was, I thought that tear more holy and precious than the dew of heaven. Flowers nurtured by such moisture must be sweet.

"I will never write any more," I exclaimed, with desperate resolution.

"I will never more expose myself to ridicule and contempt."

"Write as you have hitherto done, for my gratification and your own.

Your simple strains have beguiled my lonely hours. But had I known your purpose, I would have warned you of the consequences. The child who attempts to soar above its companions is sure to be dragged down by the hand of envy. Your teacher saw in your effusion an unpardonable effort to rise above himself,--to diverge from the beaten track. You may have indulged too much in the dreams of imagination. You may have neglected your duties as a pupil. Lay your hand on your heart and ask it to reply."

She spoke so calmly, so soothingly, so rationally, the fever of imagination subsided. I saw the triumph of reason and principle in her own self-control,--for, when I was describing the scene, her mild eye flashed, and her pale cheek colored with an unwonted depth of hue. She had to struggle with her own emotions, that she might subdue mine.

"May I ask him to pardon Richard Clyde, mother?"

"The act would become your grat.i.tude, but I fear it would avail nothing.

If he has required submission of him, he will hardly accept yours as a subst.i.tute."

"Must I ask him to forgive me? Must I return?"

I hung breathlessly on her reply.

"Wait till morning, my daughter. We shall both feel differently then. I would not have you yield to the dictates of pa.s.sion, neither would I have you forfeit your self-respect. I must not rashly counsel."

"I would not let her go back at all," exclaimed a firm, decided voice.

"They ain't fit to hold the water to wash her hands."

"Peggy," said my mother, rebukingly, "you forget yourself."

"I always try to do that," she replied, while she placed on the table my customary supper of bread and milk.

"Yes, indeed you do," answered my mother, gratefully,--"kind and faithful friend. But humility becometh my child better than pride."

Peggy looked hard at my mother, with a mixture of reverence, pity, and admiration in her clear, honest eye, then taking a coa.r.s.e towel, she rubbed a large silver spoon, till it shone brighter and brighter, and laid it by the side of my bowl. She had first spread a white napkin under it, to give my simple repast an appearance of neatness and gentility. The bowl itself was white, with a wreath of roses round the rim, both inside and out. Those rosy garlands had been for years the delight of my eyes. I always hailed the appearance of the glowing leaves, when the milky fluid sunk below them, with a fresh appreciation of their beauty. They gave an added relish to the Arcadian meal. They fed my love of the beautiful and the pure. That large, bright silver spoon,--I was never weary of admiring that also. It was ma.s.sive--it was grand--and whispered a tale of former grandeur. Indeed, though the furniture of our cottage was of the simplest, plainest kind, there were many things indicative of an earlier state of luxury and elegance. My mother always used a golden thimble,--she had a toilet case inlaid with pearl, and many little articles appropriate only to wealth, and which wealth only purchases. These were never displayed, but I had seen them, and made them the corner-stones of many an airy castle.

CHAPTER IV.

And who was Peggy?

She was one of the best and n.o.blest women G.o.d ever made. She was a treasury of heaven's own influences.

And yet she wore the form of a servant, and like her divine Master, there was "no beauty" in her that one should desire to look upon her.

She had followed my mother through good report and ill report. She had clung to her in her fallen fortunes as something sacred, almost divine.

As the Hebrew to the ark of the covenant,--as the Greek to his country's palladium,--as the children of Freedom to the star-spangled banner,--so she clung in adversity to her whom in prosperity she almost wors.h.i.+pped.

I learned in after years, all that we owed this humble, self-sacrificing, devoted friend. I did not know it then--at least not all--not half. I knew that she labored most abundantly for us,--that she ministered to my mother with as much deference as if she were an empress, antic.i.p.ating her slightest wants and wishes, deprecating her grat.i.tude, and seeming ashamed of her own goodness and industry. I knew that her plain sewing, a.s.sisted by my mother's elegant needle-work, furnished us the means of support; but I had always known it so, and it seemed all natural and right. Peggy was strong and robust. The burden of toil rested lightly on her st.u.r.dy shoulders. It seemed to me that she was born with us and for us,--that she belonged to us as rightfully as the air we breathed, and the light that illumined us. It never entered my mind that we could live without Peggy, or that Peggy could live without us.

My mother's health was very delicate. She could not sew long without pressing her hand on her aching side, and then Peggy would draw her work gently from her with her large, kind hand, make her lie down and rest, or walk out in the fresh air, till the waxen hue was enlivened on her pallid cheek. She would urge her to go into the garden and gather flowers for Gabriella, "because the poor child loved so to see them in the room." We had a sweet little garden, where Peggy delved at early sunrise and evening twilight. Without ever seeming hurried or overtasked, she accomplished every thing. We had the earliest vegetables, and the latest. We had fruit, we had flowers, all the result of Peggy's untiring, providing hand. The surplus vegetables and fruit she carried to the village market, and though they brought but a trifle in a country town, where every thing was so abundant, yet Peggy said, "we must not despise the day of small gains." She took the lead in all business matters in-doors and out-doors. She never asked my mother if she had better do this and that; she went right ahead, doing what she thought right and best, in every thing pertaining to the drudgery of life.

When I was a little child, I used to ask her many a question about the mystery of my life. I asked her about my father, of my kindred, and the place of my birth.

"Miss Gabriella," she would answer, "you mustn't ask questions. Your mother does not wish it. She has forbidden me to say one word of all you want to know. When you are old enough you shall learn every thing. Be quiet--be patient. It is best that you should be. But of one thing rest a.s.sured, if ever there was a saint in this world, your mother is one."

I never doubted this. I should have doubted as soon the saintliness of those who wear the golden girdles of Paradise. I am glad of this. I have sometimes doubted the love and mercy of my Heavenly Father, but never the purity and excellence of my mother. Ah, yes! once when sorely tempted.

We retired very early in our secluded, quiet home. We had no evening visitors to charm away the sober hours, and time marked by the sands of the hour-gla.s.s always seems to glide more slowly. That solemn-looking hour-gla.s.s! How I used to gaze on each dropping particle, watching the upward segment gradually becoming more and more transparent, and the lower as gradually darkening. It was one of Peggy's inherited treasures, and she reverenced it next to her Bible. The gla.s.s had been broken and mended with putty, which formed a dark, diagonal line across the venerable crystal. This antique chronometer occupied the central place on the mantel-piece, its gliding sands, though voiceless, for ever whispering of ebbing time and everlasting peace. "Pa.s.sing away, pa.s.sing away," seemed continually issuing from each meeting cone. I have no doubt the contemplation of this ancient, solemn instrument, which old Father Time is always represented as grasping in one unclenching hand, while he brandishes in the other the merciless scythe, had a lasting influence on my character.

That night, it was long before I fell asleep. I lay awake thinking of the morning's dawn. The starlight abroad, that came in through the upper part of the windows, glimmered on the dark frame and gla.s.sy surface of the old timepiece, which stood out in bold relief from the whitewashed wall behind it. Before I knew it, I was composing a poem on that old hour-gla.s.s. It was a h.o.a.ry pilgrim, travelling on a lone and sea-beat sh.o.r.e, towards a dim and distant goal, and the print of his footsteps on the wave-washed sands, guided others in the same lengthening journey.

The scene was before me. I saw the ancient traveller, his white locks streaming in the ocean blast; I heard the deep murmur of the restless tide; I saw the footsteps; and they looked like sinking graves; when all at once, in the midst of my solemn inspiration, a stern mocking face came between me and the starlight night, the jeering voice of my master was in my ears, a dishonored fragment was fluttering in my hand. The vision fled; I turned my head on my pillow and wept.

You may say such thoughts and visions were strangely precocious in a child of twelve years old. I suppose they were; but I never remember being a child. My sad, gentle mother, the sober, earnest, practical Peggy, were the companions of my infancy, instead of children of my own age. The sunlight of my young life was not reflected from the golden locks of childhood, its radiant smile and unclouded eye. I was defrauded of the sweetest boon of that early season, a confidence that this world is the happiest, fairest, best of worlds, the residence of joy, beauty, and goodness.

A thoughtful child! I do not like to hear it. What has a little child to do with thought? That sad, though glorious reversion of our riper and darker years?

Ah me! I never recollect the time that my spirit was not travelling to grasp some grown idea, to fathom the mystery of my being, to roll away the shadows that surrounded me, groping for light, toiling, then dreaming, not resting. It was no wonder I was weary before my journey was well begun.

"What a remarkable countenance Gabriella has!" I then often heard it remarked. "Her features are childish, but her eyes have such a peculiar depth of expression,--so wild, and yet so wise."

I wish I had a picture of myself taken at this period of my life. I have no doubt I looked older then than I do now.

CHAPTER V.

I knew the path which led from the boarding-place of Mr. Regulus crossed the one which I daily traversed. I met him exactly at the point of intersection, under the shadow of a great, old oak. The dew of the morning glittered on the shaded gra.s.s. The clear light blue of the morning sky smiled through upward quivering leaves. Every thing looked bright and buoyant, and as I walked on, girded with a resolute purpose, my spirit caught something of the animation and inspiration of the scene.

The master saw me as I approached, and I expected to see a frown darken his brow. I felt brave, however, for I was about to plead for another, not myself. He did not frown, neither did he smile. He seemed willing to meet me,--he even slackened his pace till I came up. I felt a sultry glow on my cheek when I faced him, and my breath came quick and short. I was not so very brave after all.

"Master Regulus," said I, "do not expel Richard Clyde,--do not disgrace him, because he thought I was not kindly dealt with. I am sorry I ran from school as I did,--I am sorry I wrote the poem,--I hardly knew what I was doing when I s.n.a.t.c.hed the paper from your hands. I suppose Richard hardly knew what he was doing when he stopped you at the door."

I did not look up while I was speaking, for had I met an angry glance I should have rebelled.

"I am glad I have met you, Gabriella," said he, in a tone so gentle, I lifted my eyes in amazement. His beamed with unusual kindness beneath his shading brows. Gone was the mocking gleam,--gone the deriding smile.

He looked serious, earnest, almost sad, but not severe. Looking at his watch, and then at the golden vane, as if that too were a chronometer, he turned towards the old oak, and throwing himself carelessly on a seat formed of a broken branch, partially severed from the trunk, motioned me to sit down on the gra.s.s beside him. Quick as lightning I obeyed him, untying my bonnet and pus.h.i.+ng it back from my head. I could scarcely believe the evidence of my senses. There reclined the formidable master, like a great, overgrown boy, his att.i.tude alone banis.h.i.+ng all restraint and fear, and I, perched on a mossy rock, that looked as if placed there on purpose for me to sit down upon, all my wounded and exasperated feelings completely drowned in a sudden overflow of pleasant emotions. I had expected scolding, rebuke, denial,--I had armed myself for a struggle of power,--I had resolved to hazard a martyr's doom.

Oh, the magic of kindness on a child's heart!--a lonely, sensitive, proud, yearning heart like mine!--'Tis the witch-hazel wand that shows where the deep fountain is secretly welling. I was ashamed of the tears that _would_ gather into my eyes. I shook my hair forward to cover them, and played with the green leaves within my reach.

The awful s.p.a.ce between me and this tall, stern, learned man seemed annihilated. I had never seen him before, divested of the insignia of authority, beyond the walls of the academy. I had always been compelled to look up to him before; now we were on a level, on the green sward of the wild-wood. G.o.d above, nature around, no human faces near, no fear of man to check the promptings of ingenuous feeling. Softly the folded flower petals of the heart began to unfurl. The morning breeze caught their fragrance and bore it up to heaven.

"You thought me harsh and unkind, Gabriella," said the master in a low, subdued voice, "and I fear I was so yesterday. I intended to do you good. I began sportively, but when I saw you getting excited and angry, I became angry and excited too. My temper, which is by no means gentle, had been previously much chafed, and, as is too often the case, the irritation, caused by the offences of many, burst forth on one, perhaps the most innocent of all. Little girl, you have been studying the history of France; do you remember its Louises?--Louis the Fourteenth was a profligate, unprincipled, selfish king. Louis the Fifteenth, another G.o.d-defying, self-adoring sensualist. Louis the Sixteenth one of the most amiable, just, Christian monarchs the world ever saw. Yet the acc.u.mulated wrongs under which the nation had been groaning during the reign of his predecessors, were to be avenged in his person,--innocent, heroic sufferer that he was. This is a most interesting historic fact, and bears out wonderfully the truth of G.o.d's words. But I did not mean to give a lecture on history. It is out of place here. I meant to do you good yesterday, and discourage you from becoming an idle rhymer--a vain dreamer. You are not getting angry I hope, little girl, for I am kind now."

"No, sir,--no, indeed, sir," I answered, with my face all in a glow.