Bohemian Days Part 36

"I only deceived myself. A foolish habit, formed in pique, of affecting not to hear, adhered to me long before we were acquainted. If you will let me drive you out into the country to-morrow I will tell you the whole of my silly story. The country roads are what you need, and I need your consideration as much."

The next day a buggy stopped at the door, and Podge, sitting at the window with her bonnet on, saw Duff Salter, hale and strong, holding the reins. She was helped into the buggy by Andrew Zane, and in a few minutes the two were in the open country pointing toward old Frankford.

They rode up the long stony street of that old village, whose stone or rough-cast houses suggested the Swiss city of Basle whence the early settlers of Frankford came. Then turning through the factory dale called Little Britain, they sped out the lane, taking the general direction of Tacony Creek, and followed that creek up through different little villages and mill-seats until they came to nearly the highest mill-pond, in the stony region about the Old York road. A house of gray and reddish stones, in irregular forms, mortised in white plaster, sat broadside to the lawn before it, which was covered with venerable trees, and bordered at the roadside by a stone rampart, so that it looked like a hanging lawn. A gate at the lawn-side gave admission to a lane, behind which was the ancient mill-pond suspended in a dewy landscape, with a path in the gra.s.s leading up the mill-race, and on the pond a little scow floated in pond-lilies. All around were chestnut trees, their burrs full of fruit.

Across the lane, only a few feet from the house, the ancient mill gave forth a snoring and drumming together as if the spirit of solitude was having a dance all to itself and only breathing hard. Then the crystal water, shooting the old black mill-wheel, fell off it like the beard from Duff Salter's face, and went away in pools and flakes across a meadow, under spontaneous willow trees which liked to stand in moisture and cover with their roots the harmless water-snakes. A few cottages peeped over the adjacent ridges upon the hidden dale.

"What a restful place!" exclaimed Podge Byerly. "I almost wish I might be spirit of a mill, or better still, that old boat yonder basking in the pond-lilies and holding up its shadow!"

"I am glad you like it," said Duff Salter. "Let us go in and see if the house is hospitable."

As Podge Byerly walked up the worn stone walk of the lawn she saw a familiar image at the door--her mother.

"You here, mother?" said Podge. "What is the meaning of it?"

"This is my house, my darling. There is our friend who gave it to us.

You will need to teach no more. The mill and a little farm surrounding us will make us independent."

Podge turned to Duff Salter.

"How kind of you!" she said. "Yet it frightens me the more. These surprises, tender as they are, excite me. Everything about you is mysterious. You are not even deaf as you were. What silly things you may have heard us say."

"Dear girl," exclaimed Duff Salter, "nothing which I heard from your lips ever affected me except to love you. You cured me of years of suspicion, and I consented to hear again. The world grew candid to me; its sounds were melodious, its silence was sincere. It is you who are deaf. You cannot hear my heart."

"I hear no other's, at least," said Podge. "Tell me the story of your strange deceit."

They drew chairs upon the lawn. Podge took off her bonnet and looked very delicate as her color rose and faded alternately in the emotions of one wooed in earnest and uncertain of her fate.

"I have not come by money without hard labor," said the hale and handsome man. "This gray beard is not the creation of many years. It is the fruit of anxiety, toil, and danger. My years are not double yours."

"You have recovered at least one of your faculties since I knew you,"

said Podge slyly.

"You mean hearing. The sense of feeling too, perhaps--which you have lost. But this is my tale: After I went to Mexico, and became the superintendent of a mine, I found my nature growing hard and my manner imperious, not unlike those of my dead friend, William Zane. The hot climate of Mexico and confinement in the mines, hundreds of feet below the surface and in the salivating fumes of the cinnabar retorts, a.s.sisted to make me impetuous. I fought more than one duel, and, like all men who do desperate things, grew more desperate by experience until, upon one occasion, I was made deaf by an explosion in the bowels of the ground. For one year I could hear but little. In that year I was comparatively humble, and one day I heard a workman say, 'If the boss gets his hearing back there will be no peace about the mine.' This set me to thinking. 'How much of my suspicion and anger,' I said, 'is the result of my own speaking. I provoked the distemper of which I am afflicted. I start the inquiries which make me distrustful. I hear the echo of my own idle words, and impeach my fellow-man upon it. Until I find a strong reason for speech, I will remain deaf as I have been.'

That strong reason never arrived, my little girl, until all reason ceased to be and love supplanted it."

"There is no reason, then, in your present pa.s.sion," said Podge dryly.

"No. I am so absolutely in love that there is no resisting it. It is boyishness wholly."

"I think I should be afraid of a man," said Podge, "who could have so much will as to hold his tongue for seven years. Suppose you had a second attack, it might never come to an end. What were you thinking about all that time?"

"I thought how deaf, blind, and dumb was any one without love. I found the world far better than it had seemed when I was one of its chatterers. By my voluntary silence I had banished the disturbing element in Nature; for our enemy is always within us, not without. In that seven years, for most of which I heard everything and answered none, except by my pencil, I was prosperous, observant, sober, and considerate. The deceit of affecting not to hear has brought its penalty, however. You are afraid of me."

"Were you ever in love before?"

"I fear I will surprise you again by my answer," said Duff Salter. "I once proposed marriage to a young girl on this very lawn. It was in the springtime of my life. We met at a picnic in a grove not far distant.

She was a coquette, and forgot me."

Podge said she must have time to know her heart. Every day they made a new excursion, now into the country of the Neshaminy, and beyond it to the vales of the Tohicken and Perkiomen. They descended the lanes along the Pennypack and Poqessing, and followed the Wissahickon to its sources. Podge rapidly grew in form and spirits, and Agnes and Andrew Zane came out to spend a Sat.u.r.day with them.

Mean time Andrew Zane was in a mystic condition--uncertain of purpose, serious, and studious, and he called one night at the Treaty tavern to see Duff Salter. Duff had gone, however, up the Tacony, and in a listless way Andrew sauntered over to the little monument erected on the alleged site of the Indian treaty. He read the inscription aloud:

"Treaty Ground of William Penn and the Indian Nations, 1682. Unbroken Faith! Pennsylvania, founded by deeds of Peace!"

As Andrew ceased he looked up and beheld a man of rather portly figure, with the plain clothes of a Quaker, a broad-brimmed hat, knee-breeches, and buckled shoes. Something in his countenance was familiar. Andrew looked again, and wondered where he had seen that face. It then occurred to him that it was the exact likeness of William Penn. The man locked at Andrew and said,

"Thee is called to preach!"

"Sir?" exclaimed Andrew.

In the same tone of voice the man exclaimed,

"Thee is called to preach!"

Andrew looked with some slight superst.i.tion at the peculiar man, with such a tone of authority, and said again, but respectfully:

"Do I understand you as speaking to me, sir?"

"Thee is called to preach!" said the object, in precisely the same tone of voice, and vanished.

Andrew Zane walked across to the hotel and saw Duff Salter, freshly arrived, looking at him intently.

"Did you see a person in Quaker dress standing by the monument an instant past?"

"I saw n.o.body but yourself," said Duff heartily. "I have been looking at you some moments."

"As truly as I live, a man in Quaker dress spoke to me at the monument's side."

"What did he say?"

"He said three times, deliberately, 'Thee is called to preach!'"

"That's queer," said Duff, looking curiously at Andrew. "My friend, that man spoke from within you. Do you know that it is the earnest desire of your wife, and a subject of her prayers, that you may become a minister?"

"I didn't know it," said Andrew. "But there is something startling in this apparition. I shall never be able to forget it."

To the joy of Agnes, now a happy wife and mother, her husband went seriously into the church, and the moment his intention was announced of entering the ministry, there arose a spontaneous and united wish that he would take the pulpit in his native suburb.

"Agnes," said the young man, "the dangers I have pa.s.sed, the tragedy of my family, your piety and my feelings, all concur in this step. I feel a new life within me, now that I have settled upon this design."

"I would rather see you a good minister than President," exclaimed Agnes. "The desires of my heart are fully answered now. When you saw the image standing by the Treaty tree at that instant I was upon my knees asking G.o.d to turn your heart toward the ministry."

"Here in Kensington," spoke Andrew, "we will live down all imputation and renew our family name. Here, where we made our one mistake, we will labor for others who err and suffer. Such an escape as ours can be celebrated by nothing less than religion."

Duff Salter went to Tacony for the last time on the Sunday Andrew Zane entered the church. He did not speak a word, but at the appearance of Podge Byerly drew out the ancient ivory tablets and wrote:

"I'll never speak again until you accept or refuse me."

She answered, "What are you going to do if I say _no_?"