Autumn Leaves Part 5

Then he sat entirely silent, with his eyes fixed upon the sacred page. He did not utter one word of lamentation, he did not shed a tear, but as he turned his eye on me, in pa.s.sing, its expression went to my heart. Stealing softly out, I left him to the silent Comforter whose blessing is on the mourner.

Now the scene was changed. One was suddenly taken from his side who had been a companion from boyhood to old age. They had played and worked in company; together they had embarked on their first voyage, and their last; and they had settled down in close neighborhood in the evening of their days. Each had preserved the other's life in some moment of peril, but took small praise to himself for so simple an act of duty. Few words of fondness had ever pa.s.sed between them. They had gone along the path of life, without perhaps being conscious of any peculiarly strong tie of friends.h.i.+p binding them together, till they were thus torn asunder. The death of a daughter, long and slowly wasting away before his eyes, could be calmly borne. But this blow was wholly unforeseen, and his chest heavily rose and fell, and by the bright firelight I saw tears rolling over his weather-beaten cheeks.

"A child will weep a bramble's smart, A maid to see her sparrow part, A stripling for a woman's heart; Talk not of grief, till thou hast seen The hard-drawn tears of bearded men."

The fury of the storm being abated, I resolved to follow Stephen down to the sh.o.r.e. He was not in sight, and I knew not what direction to take. It was a gloomy night, the transient glimpses of the moon between driving ma.s.ses of clouds only making the scene more wild and appalling. I could see the tops of the tall trees bending under the fury of the blast, ere it came to sweep the beach. The heaving billows were covered with foam, far as the eye could reach, and, rising and tumbling, seemed striving with each other as they rolled on towards the sands. I had seen storms upon the ocean before, but never had it presented so awful and majestic an appearance. As the breakers struck upon the sh.o.r.e, and sent a huge ma.s.s of water upon the sands, their sullen roar mingled with the howling and rus.h.i.+ng of the wind, and filled me with awe.

There were torches upon the beach, and as I drew near, I saw the fishermen run together to one point. The body had just been washed ash.o.r.e, and lay stretched upon the sands. The head was bare, and long locks of white hair streamed down upon the shoulders. The heavy pea-jacket was off from one arm, as if he had endeavored to extricate himself from it in the water. The sinewy arms lay powerless and free from tension then, but they told me that, when they first drew him from the surf, both hands were grasping a broken oar with such strength that they were unable to loose his hold, till suddenly the muscles relaxed, and the arms fell upon the ground. They turned the body, and a little water ran from the mouth. Then, gently raising it upon their shoulders, they bore it home.

LAUGHTER.

In some individuals the risibles lie so near the surface that you may tickle them with a feather. In others, they are so deeply imbedded in phlegm, or so protected by the crust of ill-humor, that a strong thrust and a keen weapon are required to reach them.

A laugh is in itself a different thing in different individuals. Some persons laugh inwardly, unsocially, bitterly. It is a pure grimace on your part when you join in their merriment, unless you are superior to the fear of ridicule. On the other hand, there is a laugh of so contagious a nature, that you are irresistibly moved to sympathy while ignorant of the exciting cause, or out of the sphere of its influence. You will laugh loud and long, and afterwards confess that you had not the least gleam of a funny idea, all the while.

You doubt the power of the sympathetic laugh? Come with me into the nursery. Here is a rosy little horror, a year and a half old. Sit down and take him upon your knees. Hold his dimpled hands in yours, and look steadily into his roguish eyes. Repeat a nursery rhyme, no matter what, in a humdrum recitative; he is sober, and very attentive.

Suddenly spring a mine upon him with a "Boo!" His "Hicketty-hick!"

follows, and his eyes begin to s.h.i.+ne. Repeat the experiment.

"Hicketty-hick!" again, more heartily than at first, with the baby encore, "Adin!" The same process awakens the rapturous little pearls again and again, and you are quite in the spirit of the thing yourself. Now for a more ecstatic burst. You purposely prolong his suspense; he is all atilt, expecting the delightful surprise. You drawl out each word; you drone the ditty over and over again, till every tiny nerve is tense with expectation. "Boo!" at last, and over he goes, in the complete _abandon_ of baby glee; his cherry lips are wide asunder, his head hangs powerless back, and the "Hicketty-hicks"

burst tumultuously from his little, beating throat. And _you_, sir; what are _you_ doing? Laughing, I declare, in full roar, till the tears run down your cheeks. You catch the boy in your arms, toss him, almost throttle him with kisses, and so enhance the merry spasms, that mamma, who has a philosophical instinct with regard to excited nerves, and dreads the reaction, comes to the rescue.

Let me introduce you to another effective laughter. You shall not hear a sound, yet you cannot choose but laugh, if she does, quiet as she is about it. See how her shoulders shake,--and look at her face! Every feature is instinct with mirth; the color mounts to the roots of the hair; the curls vibrate; the eyes sparkle through tears; the white teeth glisten; the very nose and ears seem to take a part; like Nourmahal, she "laughs all over," and while you wonder what the joke may be, you are laughing too.

Do you feel dismal, or anxious? You should hear L. tell a story. She is one of the very few who can undertake with impunity to talk and laugh at the same time. Look and listen, while she describes some comic occurrence. There is no unladylike, boisterous noise, but musical peals of laughter come thick and fast; and faster and thicker, preternaturally fast and thick, come the words with them. And yet each word is distinct; you do not lose a syllable. And I should like to see the man who can resist her, if she chooses he should laugh, even at his own expense.

There is an odd sort of power, too, in the gravity with which B.

tells a humorous anecdote. He invariably maintains a sober face while every body is in an agony of laughter around him. Just as it begins to subside, the echo of his own wit comes back to him, and, as if he had just caught the idea, he bursts into one little abrupt explosion, so genuine, so full of heartiness, that it sets every body off upon a fresh score.

Nothing so melts away reserve among strangers, nothing so quickly develops the affinities in chance society, as laughter. A person might be ever so polite, and even kind, and talk sentiment a whole day, and it would not draw me so near to him as the mutual enjoyment of one heartfelt laugh. It is a perfect bond of union; for the time being, you have but one soul between you.

TO STEPHEN.

I saw thee only once, dear boy, and it may be, perchance, That ne'er again on earth my eyes shall meet thy gentle glance; Years have gone by since then, and thou no longer art the child, With earnest eye, and frolic laugh, and look so clear and mild; For thee, the smiles and tears and sports of infancy are gone, And youth's bright promise, gliding into manhood, has come on;-- And yet thine image, as a child, will ever stay with me, As bright as when, so long ago, I met and welcomed thee.

What was the charm that lay enshrined within thy smiling eyes?

What made me all thy childish, winning ways so dearly prize?

It was thy likeness to another,--one whose looks of love, No longer blessing earth, were met by angel eyes above.

Yet thou hadst not the golden hair, the brow of radiant white, Nor the blue eyes so soft and deep, like violets dewy bright; But the smiles that played about thy mouth, the sweetness in thine eyes, The dimpling cheek that said, "Within, a sunny spirit lies,"

The true and open brow, the bird-like voice, so free and clear, The glance that told, "I have not learned the meaning yet of fear,"

And more than all, the trusting heart, so lavish of its treasure, In simple faith, its earnest love bestowing without measure; These, more than lines and colors, made a picture, warm and bright, Of one whose face no more might cheer and bless my earthly sight.

The nature, beautiful and pure, he carried to the skies, Has been trained by angel teaching, has been watched by seraph eyes.

Dear boy! through this cold world _thy_ earth-bound feet have trod; and now, Is the loving heart still thine? Hast kept that true and open brow?

THE OLD CHURCH.

There are certain old-fas.h.i.+oned people who find fault with the luxuriousness of our churches, and ascribe to the warmth and comfort, which contrast so strongly with the hards.h.i.+ps of early times, the acknowledged sleepiness of modern congregations. For my part, I see no necessary connection between discomfort and devotion. _My_ soul, at least, sympathizes so much with its physical adjunct, that, when the latter is uncomfortable, the former is never quite free and active.

Let me call to remembrance the church my childhood knew, with its capacious square pews, in which half the audience turned their backs upon the minister; the seats made to rise and fall, for the convenience of standing, and which closed every prayer with a clap of thunder; its many aisles, like streets and lanes; the old men's seats, and the queer but venerable figures that were seen in them,--some with black-silk caps to protect their bald heads from the freezing draughts of air from the porchless doors; the old women's seats, on the opposite side; the elevated row of pews round the sides of the church, and the envied position of certain little children who had an extensive prospect through the open pew-top within doors, and a view of the hay-scales and the town-pump through the window besides. Those windows, in a double row, with the gallery between,--how regularly I counted the small panes, always forgetting the number, to make the same weary task necessary every Sunday! The singing-seats, projecting from the central portion of the gallery, furnished me with another hebdomadal study, in large gilt letters of antique awkwardness, which so impressed themselves on my mind that I see them now. This was the golden legend: "BUILT, 1770. ENLARGED, 1795." I remember hearing a wag propose to add as another remarkable fact, "SCOURED, 1818."

Opposite to the singing-seats towered the pulpit, from which the clergyman looked down upon us like a sparrow upon the house-top. He seemed in perpetual danger of being extinguished by a huge sounding-board. Very earnestly I used to gaze at the slender point by which it hung suspended, and wished, if it _must_ come down, that I might make the gilt ornament at the apex, resembling a vase turned upside down, my prize. Under the pulpit was a closet, which some one veraciously a.s.sured me was the place where the t.i.thingman imprisoned incautiously playful urchins. The terrors of that dark, mysterious cell had little effect on my conduct, however, as I was not entirely convinced of the existence of any such lynx-eyed functionary.

The largest church in the county, it was, however, well filled, many of the congregation coming five and some even six miles, and remaining there through the noon intermission, which, on their account, was made as short as possible. But in winter the vast airy s.p.a.ce had a peculiar and searching chill. No barn could be colder, except that the numerous footstoves made some little change in the air during service. The minister stood upon a heated slab of soap-stone. I used to watch this in its progress up the broad aisle and the pulpit stairs, under the arm of the boy from the parsonage, and the irreverent way in which he made his descent, in view of the a.s.sembly, after depositing his burden, was thus rebuked by an old lady who was always droll and quaint. "Why, Matthew, when you come down the pulpit stairs of a Sunday, you throw up your heels like a horse coming out of a stable-door."

Older grew the church, and colder; and if people then staid at home on Sunday afternoons, they had a better excuse for doing so than their successors can muster. The chorister, even, was frequently among the missing, but was charitably supposed to be subject to the ague.

Efforts were made to prevail upon the elderly part of the parish to permit the introduction of stoves with long funnels. They scorned the enervating luxury! Their fathers had wors.h.i.+pped in the cold, and their sons might. But ah! how degenerate were the descendants of the n.o.ble old Puritan church-goers! The services curtailed to half their proper length, yet finding the patience of the listeners all too short! The degenerate descendants carried the day, however, the most bigoted of their opposers becoming disabled by rheumatism. The old s.e.xton, resignation to inevitable evils being a lesson he had had much opportunity to learn, submitted with a good grace, though very much of opinion that fires in a church were an absurdity and a waste. The stoves were provided, and an uncommonly full attendance the next Sabbath showed the very general interest the matter had excited. How would it seem? Would any one faint?

There was by no means a superabundance of heat; there was something wrong, but the lack of warmth was a hundred-fold made up in smoke. No one could see across the church, and the minister loomed up, as if in a dense fog; all eyes were fountains of tears. At last the old s.e.xton went with a slow and subdued step up to the pulpit, and, wiping his eyes, respectfully inquired, in a whisper, whether there was not a _little_ too much smoke. This suggestion being very smilingly a.s.sented to, he proceeded to extinguish the fires, and for that day the services were not indebted to artificial warmth to promote their effect.

How sad are improvements in places to which our childish recollections cling! The gus.h.i.+ng fulness of unchilled love is lavished even on inanimate and senseless things, in a happy childhood. How was my heart grieved when the old-fas.h.i.+oned meeting-house was converted into the modern temple! Time and decay had rendered the tall spire unsafe, yet its fall by force and premeditated purpose seemed a sacrilege. I felt affronted for the huge weatherc.o.c.k, reclining sulkily against a fence, no more to point his beak to the east with obstinate preference. I mourned over the broad, old-fas.h.i.+oned dial, on which young eyes could discern the time a mile off. The old s.e.xton lived to see this change, and at the end of half a century of care under that venerable roof he went to his rest. The beloved minister, and many, many who sat with trustful and devoted hearts under his teachings, are gone to their reward. A board from the old pulpit, a piece of the red-damask curtain, and the long wished-for gold vase, are now in my possession.

"SOMETHING THAN BEAUTY DEARER."

You ask me if her eyes are fair, And touched with heaven's own blue, And if I can her cheek compare To the blush-rose's hue?

Her clear eye sheds a constant gleam Of truth and purest love, And wit and reason from it beam, Like the light of the stars above.

Good-humor, mirth, and fancy throng The dimples of her cheek, And to condemn the oppressor's wrong Her indignant blush doth speak.

You ask me if her form is light And graceful as the fawn; You ask me if her tresses bright Are like the golden dawn?

Her step is light on an errand of love, Scarce doth she touch the earth, And in graceful kindness doth she move Around her father's hearth; And when to bless his child he bends, His comfort and delight, The silver with her dark hair blends, Like a crown of holy light.

A TALE

FOUND IN THE REPOSITORIES OF THE ABBOTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

Swept from his saddle by a low branch, Count Robert lay stunned upon the ground. The hunting-party swept on, the riderless steed galloping wildly among them. No man turned back; not one loved the Count better than his sport.

There came to the spot a man in a woodman's garb, yet of a knightly and n.o.ble aspect. He bent over the fallen man, and bathed his temples, turning back the heavy, cl.u.s.tering locks. The Count, opening his eyes, gazed on him at first without surprise; he thought himself at home, however he came there, so familiar was the face.