Helen and Arthur Part 11

When Arthur Hazleton was first introduced to the reader, he was only eighteen; and consequently was now about twenty-four years of age. There was a blending of firmness and gentleness, of serene gravity and beaming cheerfulness in his character and countenance, which even in early boyhood had given him an ascendency over his young companions. There was a searching power in the glance of his grave, dark eye, from which one might shrink, were it not often softened by an expression of even womanly sweetness harmonizing with the gentle smile of his lips. He very seldom spoke of his feelings, but the rich, mantling color that ever and anon came glowingly to his cheek, indicated a depth of sensibility he was unwilling words should reveal. Left his own master at a very early age, his _will_ had become strong and invincible. As he almost always willed what was right, his mother seldom sought to bend it, and she was the only being in the world whose authority he acknowledged, and to whom he was willing to sacrifice his pride by submission.

An incident which occurred the evening after his arrival, may ill.u.s.trate his firmness and his power.

It was a lovely summer afternoon, and Arthur rambled with Helen and Alice amid the charming groves and wild glens of his native place. His local attachments were exceedingly strong, for they were cherished by dear and sacred a.s.sociations. There was a history attached to every rock and tree and waterfall, making it more beautiful and interesting than all others.

"Here, Alice," he would say, "look at this magnificent tree. Our father used to sit under its shade and sketch the outline of his sermons. Here, in G.o.d's own temple, he wors.h.i.+ped, and his pure thoughts mingled with the incense that arose from the bosom of nature."

Then Alice would clasp her fair arms round the tree, and laying her soft check against the rough bark, consecrate it to the memory of the father, who had died ere she beheld the light. Alas! she never had beheld it; but ere the light had beamed on the sightless azure of her eyes.

"Helen, do you see that beetling rock, half covered with lichens and moss, hanging over the brawling stream? It was there I used to recline, when a little boy, shaded by that gnarled and fantastic looking tree, with book in hand, but studying most of all from the great book of nature. Oh! I love that spot. If I ever live to be an old man, though I may have wandered to the wide world's end, I want to come back and throw myself once more on the shelving rock where I made my boyhood's bed."

While he was speaking, he led Alice and Helen on to the very verge of the rock, and looked down on the waterfall, tumbling below. Alice stood calm and still, holding, with perfect confidence, her brother's hand, but Helen recoiled and shuddered, and her cheek turned visibly paler.

"We are close to the edge, brother--I know it by the sound of your voice," said Alice. "It seems to sink down and mingle with the roar of the water-fall."

"Do you not fear, Alice?" asked her brother, drawing her still a little nearer.

"Oh, no," she answered, with a radiant smile. "How can I fear, when I feel your hand sustaining me? I know, you would not lead me into danger.

You would never let me fall."

"Do you hear her?" asked he, looking reproachfully at Helen. "Oh, thou of little faith. When will you learn to confide, with the undoubting trust of this helpless blind girl? Do you believe that _I_ would willingly expose you to danger or suffering?"

He withdrew his hand as he spoke, and Helen believing him seriously displeased, turned away to hide the tears that swelled into her eyes. In the meantime, Arthur led Alice along the edge of the rock to a little, natural bower beyond, which Alice called her bower, and where she and Helen had made a bed of moss, and adorned it with sh.e.l.ls. Helen stood a moment alone on the rock, feeling as desolate as if she were the inhabitant of a desert island. She thought Arthur unkind, and the beautiful, embowering trees, gurgling waters, and sweet, singing birds, lost their charms to her. Slowly turning her steps homeward, yet not willing to enter the presence of Mrs. Hazleton without her companions, she lingered in the garden, making a bouquet, which she intended to give as a peace-offering to Arthur, when he returned. She did not enter the house till nearly dark, when she was surprised by seeing Arthur alone.

"Where is Alice?" said he.

"Alice!" repeated she, "I left her in the woods with you."

"Yes! but I left her there also, in the arbor of moss, supposing you would soon return to her."

"Left her alone!" cried Helen, wondering why Arthur, who seemed to idolize his lovely, blind sister, could have been so careless of her safety.

"Alice is not afraid to be alone, Helen, she knows that G.o.d is with her.

But it will soon be night, and she must not remain in the dark, damp woods much longer. You will go back and accompany her home, Helen, before the night-dew falls?"

Helen's heart died within her at the mere thought of threading alone a path so densely shaded, and of pa.s.sing over that beetling rock, beneath the gnarled, fantastic looking tree. It would be so dark before she returned! She went to the window, and looked out, then turned towards him with such a timid, wistful look, it was astonis.h.i.+ng how he could have resisted the mute appeal.

"Make haste, Helen," said he, gently, "it will be dark if you do not."

"Will you not go with me?" she at length summoned boldness to ask.

"Are you afraid to go, Helen?"

She felt the dark power of his eye to her inmost soul. Death itself seemed preferable to his displeasure.

"I _am_ afraid," she answered, "but I will go since you _will_ it."

"I do wish it," he replied, "but I leave it to your own will to accomplish it."

Helen could not believe that he really intended she should go alone, when _he_ had left his sister behind. She was sure he would follow and overtake her before she reached the narrow path she so much dreaded to traverse. She went on very rapidly, looking back to see if he were not behind, listening to hear if her name were not called by his well-known voice. But she heard not his footsteps, nor the sound of his voice. She heard nothing but the wind sighing through the trees, or the notes of some solitary bird, seeking its nest among the branches.

"Arthur is not kind, to-day," thought she. "I wonder what has changed him so. It was not my place to go after Alice, when he left her himself in the woods. What right has he to command me so? And how foolish I am to obey him, as if he were my master and lord!"

She was at first very angry with Arthur, and anger always gives one strength and power. Any excited pa.s.sion does. She ran on, almost forgetting her fears, and the shadows lightened up as she met them face to face. Then she thought of Alice alone in the woods--so blind and helpless. Perhaps she would be frightened at the darkening solitude, and try to find her path homeward, on the edge of that slippery, beetling rock. With no hand to sustain, no eye to guide, how could she help falling into the watery chasm below? In her fears for Alice, she forgot her own imaginary danger, and flew on, sending her voice before her, bearing on its trembling tones the sweet name of Alice.

She reached the rock, and paused under the tree that hung so darkly over it. The waterfall sounded so much louder than when she stood there last, she was sure the waters had acc.u.mulated, and were threatening to dash themselves above. They had an angry, turbulent roar, and keeping close in a line with the tree, she hurried on to the silver bower Alice so much loved, and which she had seen her enter, clinging to the hand of Arthur. Helen, had to lift up the hanging boughs and sweeping vines at the entrance of the arbor, and cold s.h.i.+vers of terror ran through her frame, for no voice responded to hers, though she had made the silence all the way vocal with the name of Alice.

"If she is not here, she is dead," she cried, "and I will lie down and die, too; for I cannot return without her."

Creeping slowly in, with suppressed breath and trembling limbs, she discovered something white lying on the bed of moss, so still and white, that it might have been mistaken in the dimness for a snow-drift, were it not a midsummer eve. All the old superst.i.tions implanted in her infant mind by Miss Thusa's terrific legends, seized upon her imagination. Any thing white and still, reminded her of the never-to-be-forgotten moment when she gazed upon her dead mother, and sunk overpowered by the terror and majesty of death. If it was Alice lying there, she must be dead, and how could she approach nearer and encounter that _cold presence_ which had once communicated a death-chill to her young life? Then the thought of Alice's death was fraught with such anguish, it carried her out of herself. The grief of Arthur, the agony of his mother; it was too terrible to think of. Springing into the arbor, she ran up to the white object, and kneeling down, beheld the fair, cl.u.s.tering ringlets and rosy cheek of Alice dimly defined through the growing shadows. She inhaled her warm breath as she stooped over her, and knew it was sleep, not death, that bound her to the spot. As she came in contact with life, warm, breathing vitality, an instantaneous conviction of the folly, the preposterousness of her own fears, came over her. Alice calmly and quietly had fallen asleep as night came on, not knowing it by its darkness, but its stillness. Helen felt the presence of invisible angels round the slumbering Alice, and her fears melted away. Putting her arms softly round her, and laying her cheek to hers, she called upon her to wake and return, for the woods were getting dark with night.

"Oh! how I love to sleep on this soft, mossy bed," cried Alice, sitting up and pa.s.sing her fingers over her eyes. "I fell asleep on brother's arm, with the waterfall singing in my ears. Where is he, Helen? I do not hear his voice."

"He is at home, and sent me after you, Alice," replied Helen. "How could he leave you alone?" she could not help adding.

"I am never afraid to be left alone," said Alice, "and he knows it. But I am not alone. I hear some one breathing in the grotto besides you, Helen. I heard it when I first waked."

Helen started and grasped the hand of Alice closer and closer in her own. Looking wildly round the grotto, she beheld a dark figure crouching in the corner, half-hidden by the shrubbery, and uttering a low scream, was about to fly, when a hoa.r.s.e laugh arrested her.

"It's only me," cried a rough, good-natured voice. "It's n.o.body but old Becky. Young master told me to stay and watch Miss Alice, while she slept, till somebody came after her. He knew old Becky wouldn't let anybody harm the child--not she."

Old Becky, as she called herself, was a poor, harmless, half-witted woman, who roamed about the neighborhood, subsisting on charity, whom everybody knew and cared for. She was remarkably fond of children, and had always shown great attachment for the blind girl. She had the fidelity and sagacity of a dog, and would never leave any thing confided to her care. She would do any thing in the world for young Master Arthur as she styled him, or Mrs. Hazleton, for at the Parsonage she always found a welcome, and it seemed to her the gate of Heaven. During the life of Mr. Hazleton, she invariably attended public wors.h.i.+p, and listened to his sermons with the most reverential attention, though she understood but a small portion of them--and when he died, her chief lamentation was that he could not preach at her funeral. If young master were a minister, that would be next best, but as he was only a doctor, she consoled herself by asking him for medicine whenever he visited home, whether she needed it or not, and Arthur never failed to make up a quant.i.ty of bread pills and starch powders to gratify poor, harmless Becky.

"Walk before us, please, Becky," cried Helen with a lightened heart, and Becky marched on, proud to be of service, looking back every moment to see if they were safe.

When they reached home, the candles were burning brightly in the sitting-room, and the rose trees at the windows shone with a kind of golden l.u.s.tre in their beams. Helen suffered Becky to accompany Alice into the house, knowing it would be to her a source of pride and pleasure, and seating herself on the steps, tried to school herself so as to appear with composure, and not allow Arthur to perceive how deeply his apparent unkindness had wounded her feelings. While she thus sat, breathing on the palm of her hand, and pressing it against her moist eyelids to absorb the welling tears, Arthur himself crossed the yard and came rapidly up the steps.

"What are you doing here, my sister?" said he, sitting down by her and drawing away the hand from her showery eyes. Never had he spoken so gently, so kindly. Helen could not answer. She only bowed her head upon her lap.

"My dear Helen," said he, in that grave, earnest tone which always had the effect of command, "raise your head and listen to me. I have wounded my own feelings that I might give you a needed lesson, and prove to yourself that you have moral courage sufficient to triumph over physical and mental weakness. You have thought me cruel. Perhaps I have been so--but I have given present pain for your future joy and good. I followed you, though you knew it not, ready to ward off every real danger from your path. Oh, Helen, I grieve for the sufferings const.i.tutional sensitiveness and inculcated fear occasion you, but I rejoice when I see you struggling with yourself, and triumphing through the strength of an exerted will."

"I deserve no credit for going," sobbed Helen. "I could not help it."

"But no one _forced_ you, Helen."

"When you say I _will_ do any thing, I feel a force acting upon me as strong as iron."

"It is the force of your own inborn sense of right called into action by me. You knew it was not right to leave our blind Alice in the dark woods alone. If I were cruel enough to desert her, and refuse to seek her, her claim on your kindness and care was not the less commanding.

You could not have laid your head upon your pillow, or commended yourself to the guardians.h.i.+p of Providence, thinking of Alice in the lonely woods, damp with the dews of night. Besides, you knew in your secret heart I could not send you on a dangerous mission. Oh! Helen, would that I could inspire you, not so much with implicit confidence in me, as in that Mighty guardian power that is ever around and about you, from whose presence you cannot flee, and in whose protection you are forever safe."

"Forgive me," cried Helen, in a subdued, humble tone. "I have done you great wrong in thinking you cruel. I wonder you have not given me up long ago, when I am so weak and foolish and distrustful. I thought I was growing brave and strong--but the very first trial proved that I am still the same, and so it will ever be. Neither the example of Alice, nor the counsels of your mother, nor your own efforts, do me any good. I shall always be unworthy of your cares."

"Nay, Helen, you do yourself great injustice. You have shown a heroism this very night in which you may glory. Though you have encountered no real danger, you battled with an imaginary host, which no man could number, and the victory was as honorable to yourself as any that crowns the hero's brow with laurels. Mark me, Helen, the time will come when you will smile at all that now fills you with apprehension, in the development of your future, n.o.bler self."

Helen looked up and smiled through her tears.

"Oh! if I dared to promise," said she, "I would pledge my word never to distrust you, never to be so foolish and weak again. But I think, I believe that I never will."

"Do not promise, my dear Helen, for you know not your own strength. But, remember, that without _faith_ you will grope in darkness through the world--faith in your friends--faith in your G.o.d--and I will add--faith in yourself. From the time I first saw you a little, terror-stricken child, to the present moment, I have sought only your happiness and good--and yet forgetting all the past, you distrusted my motives even now, and your heart rose up against me. From the first dawn of your being to this sweet, star-lighted moment, G.o.d has been to you a tender, watchful parent, tenderer than any earthly parent, kinder than any earthly friend--and yet you fear to trust yourself to His providence, to remain with Him who fills immensity with His presence. You have no faith in yourself, though there is a legion of angels, nestling, with folded wings in that young heart, ready to fly forth at your bidding, and fulfil their celestial mission. Come, Helen," added he, rising, and lifting her at the same time from her lowly seat, "let us go in--but tell me first that I am forgiven."