"How do you do, Mr. Landholm," said the one, with a bow.
"O Mr. Winthrop!" cried the other, — "what shall we do? we can't get home, and I'm so frightened! —"
Winthrop had not time to open his lips, for either civility or consolation, when a phaeton, coming at a furious rate, suddenly pulled up before them, and Mr. Satterthwaite jumped out of it and joined himself to the group. His business was to persuade Miss Haye to take the empty place in his carriage and escape with him to the shelter of her own house or his father's. Miss Haye however preferred getting wet, and walking through the mud, and being blinded with the lightning, all of which alternatives Mr. Satterthwaite presented to her; at least no other conclusion could be drawn, for she very steadily and coolly refused to ride home with him.
"Mr. Landholm," said Mr. Satterthwaite in desperation, "don't you advise Miss Haye to agree to my proposition?"
"I never give advice, sir," said Winthrop, "after I see that people's minds are made up. Perhaps Miss Cadwallader may be less stubborn."
Mr. Satterthwaite could do no other than turn to Miss
Cadwallader, who wanted very little urging.
"But Rose!" said her cousin, — "you're not going to leave me alone?"
"No, I don't," said Rose. "I'm sure you've got somebody with you; and he's got an umbrella."
"Don't, Rose!" said Elizabeth, — "stay and go home with me — the storm will be over directly."
"It won't — I can't," said Rose, — "It won't be over this hour, and I'm afraid —"
And into Mr. Satterthwaite's phaeton she jumped, and away Mr.
Satterthwaite's phaeton went, with him and her in it.
"You had better step under shelter, Miss Haye," said Winthrop; "it is beginning to sprinkle pretty fast."
"No," said Elizabeth, "I'll go home — I don't mind it. I would rather go right home — I don't care for the rain."
"But you can't go without the umbrella," said Winthrop, "and that belongs to me."
"Well, won't you go with me?" said Elizabeth, with a look half doubtful and half daunted.
"Yes, as soon as it is safe. This is a poor place, but it is better than nothing. You must come in here and have patience till then."
He went in and Elizabeth followed him, and she stood there looking very doubtful and very much annoyed; eyeing the fast falling drops as if her impatience could dry them up. The little smithy was black as such a place should be; nothing looked like a seat but the anvil, and that was hardly safe to take advantage of.
"I wish there was something here for you to sit down upon," said Winthrop peering about, — "but everything is like Vulcan's premises. It is a pity I am not Sir Walter Raleigh for your behoof; for I suppose Sir Walter didn't mind walking home without his coat, and I do."
"He only threw off his cloak," said Elizabeth.
"I never thought of wearing mine this afternoon," said
Winthrop, "though I brought an umbrella. But see here, Miss
Elizabeth, — here is a box, one end of which, I think, may be
trusted. Will you sit down?"
Elizabeth took the box, seeming from some cause or other tongue-tied. She sat looking out through the open door at the storm in a mixture of feelings, the uppermost of which was vexation.
"I hope more than one end of this box may be trusted," she presently roused herself to say. "I have no idea of giving half trust to anything."
"Yet that is quite as much as it is safe to give to most things," said Winthrop.
"Is it?"
"I am afraid so."
"I wouldn't give a pin for anything I couldn't trust entirely," said Elizabeth.
"Which shews what a point of perfection the manufacture of pins has reached since the days of Anne Boleyn," said Winthrop.
"Of Anne Boleyn! — What of them then?"
"Only that a statute was passed in that time, entitled, 'An act for the true making of pins;' so I suppose they were then articles of some importance. But the box may be trusted, Miss Haye, for strength, if not for agreeableness. A quarter of agreeableness with a remainder of strength, is a fair proportion, as things go."
"Do you mean to compare life with this dirty box?" said
Elizabeth.
"They say an image should always elevate the subject," said
Winthrop smiling.
"What was the matter with the making of pins," said Elizabeth, "that an act had to be made about it?"
"Why in those days," said Winthrop, "mechanics and tradespeople were in the habit occasionally of playing false, and it was necessary to look after them."
Elizabeth sat silently looking out again, wondering — what she had often wondered before — where ever her companion had got his cool self-possession; marvelling, with a little impatient wonder, how it was that he would just as lief talk to her in a blacksmith's shop in a thunder-storm, as in anybody's drawing- room with a band playing and fifty people about. She was no match for him, for she felt a little awkward. She, Miss Haye, the heiress in her own right, who had lived in good company ever since she had lived in company at all. Yet there he stood, more easily, she felt, than she sat. She sat looking straight out at the rain and thinking of it.
The open doorway and her vision were crossed a moment after by a figure which put these thoughts out of her head. It was the figure of a little black girl, going by through the rain, with an old basket at her back which probably held food or firing that she had been picking up along the streets of the city. She wore a wretched old garment which only half covered her, and that was already half wet; her feet and ancles were naked; and the rain came down on her thick curly head. No doubt she was accustomed to it; the road-worn feet must have cared little for wet or dry, and the round shock of wool perhaps never had a covering; yet it was bowed to the rain, and the little blackey went by with lagging step and a sort of slow crying. It touched Elizabeth with a disagreeable feeling of pain. The thought had hardly crossed her mind, that she was sorry for her, when to her great surprise she saw her companion go to the door and ask the little object of her pity to come in under the shed. The child stopped her slow step and her crying and looked up at him.
"Come in here till the rain's over," he repeated.
She gave her head a sort of matter-of-course shake, without moving a pair of intelligent black eyes which had fixed on his face.
"Come in," said Winthrop.
The child shook her head again, and said,
"Can't!"
"Why not?" said Winthrop.
"Mustn't!"
"Why mustn't you?"
"'Cause."
"Come in," said Winthrop, — and to Elizabeth's exceeding astonishment he laid hold of the little black shoulder and drew the girl into the shop, — "it is going to storm hard; — why mustn't you?"
The little blackey immediately squatted herself down on the ground against the wall, and looking up at him repeated,
"'Cause."
"It's going to be a bad storm; — you'll be better under here."
The child's eyes went out of the door for a moment, and then came back to his face, as if with a sort of fascination.
"How far have you to go?"
"Home."
"How far is that?"
"It's six miles, I guess," said the owner of the eyes.
"That's too far for you to go in the storm. The lightning might kill you."
"Kill me!"
"Yes. It might."
"I guess I'd be glad if it did," she said, with another glance at the storm.
"Glad if it did! — why?"
"'Cause."
"'Cause what?" said Winthrop, entering more into the child's interests, Elizabeth thought, than he had done into hers.
"'Cause," repeated the blackey. — "I don't want to get home."
"Who do you live with?"
"I live with my mother, when I'm to home."
"Where do you live when you are not at home?"
"Nowheres."
The gathered storm came down at this point with great fury. The rain fell, whole water; little streams even made their way under the walls of the shanty and ran across the floor. The darkness asked no help from black walls and smoky roof.
"Isn't this better than to be out?" said Winthrop, after his eyes had been for a moment drawn without by the tremendous pouring of the rain. But the little black girl looked at it and said doggedly,
"I don't care."
"Where have you been with that basket?"
"Down yonder — where all the folks goes," she said with a slight motion of her head towards the built-up quarter of the country.
"Do you bring wood all the way from there on your back?"
"When I get some."
"Aren't you tired?"
The child looked at him steadily, and then in a strange somewhat softened manner which belied her words, answered,
"No."
"You don't bring that big basket full, do you?"
She kept her bright eyes on him and nodded.
"I should think it would break your back."
"If I don't break my back I get a lickin'."
"Was that what you were crying for as you went by?"
"I wa'n't a cryin'!" said the girl. "Nobody never see me a cryin' for nothin'!"
"You haven't filled your basket to-day."
She gave an askant look into it, and was silent.
"How came that?"
"'Cause! — I was tired, and I hadn't had no dinner; and I don't care! That's why I wished the thunder would kill me. I can't live without eatin'."
"Have you had nothing since morning?"
"I don't get no mornin' — I have to get my dinner."
"And you could get none to-day?"
"No. Everything was eat up."
"Everything isn't quite eaten up," said Winthrop, rummaging in his coat pocket; and he brought forth thence a paper of figs which he gave the girl. "He isn't so short of means as I feared, after all," thought Elizabeth, "since he can afford to carry figs about in his pocket." But she did not know that the young gentleman had made his own dinner off that paper of figs; and she could not guess it, ever when from his other coat pocket he produced some biscuits which were likewise given to eke out the figs in the little black girl's dinner. She was presently roused to very great marvelling again by seeing him apply his foot to another box, one without a clean side, and roll it over half the length of the shed for the child to sit upon.
"What do you think of life now, Miss Elizabeth?" he said, leaving his charge to eat her figs and coming again to the young lady's side.
"That isn't life," said Elizabeth.
"It seems without the one quarter of agreeableness," he said.
"But it's horrible, Mr. Winthrop! —"
He was silent, and looked at the girl, who sitting on her coal box was eating figs and biscuits with intense satisfaction.
"She is not a bad-looking child," said Elizabeth.
"She is a very good-looking child," said Winthrop; "at least her face has a great deal of intelligence; and I think, something more."
"What more?"
"Feeling, or capacity of feeling."
"I wish you had a seat, Mr. Landholm," said Elizabeth, looking round.
"Thank you — I don't wish for one."
"It was very vexatious in Rose to go and leave me!"
"There isn't another box for her if she had stayed," said
Winthrop.
"She would have me go out with her this afternoon to see her dressmaker, who lives just beyond here a little; and father had the horses. It was so pleasant an afternoon, I had no notion of a storm."
"There's a pretty good notion of a storm now," said Winthrop.
So there was, beyond a doubt; the rain was falling in floods, and the lightning and thunder, though not very near, were very unceasing. Elizabeth still felt awkward and uneasy, and did not know what to talk about. She never had talked much to Mr. Landholm; and his cool matter-of-fact way of answering her remarks, puzzled or baffled her.
"That child sitting there makes me very uncomfortable," she said presently.
"Why, Miss Elizabeth?"
Elizabeth hesitated, and then said she did not know.
"You don't like the verification of my setting forth of life," he said smiling.
"But that is not life, Mr. Winthrop."
"What is it?"
"It is the experience of one here and there — not of people in general."
"What do you take to be the experience of people in general?"
"Not mine, to be sure," said Elizabeth after a little thought, — "nor hers."
"Hers is a light shade of what rests upon many."
"Why Mr. Winthrop! do you think so?"
"Look at her," he said in a low voice; — "she has forgotten her empty basket in a sweet fig."
"But she must take it up again."
"She won't lessen her burden, but she will her power of forgetting."
Elizabeth sat still, looking at her vis-à-vis of life, and feeling very uneasily what she had never felt before. She began therewith to ponder sundry extraordinary propositions about the inequalities of social condition and the relative duties of man to man.
"What right have I," she said suddenly, "to so much more than she has?"
"Very much the sort of right that I have to be an American, while somebody else is a Chinese."
"Chance," said Elizabeth.
"No, there is no such thing as chance," he said seriously.
"What then?"
"The fruit of industry, talent, and circumstance."
"Not mine."
"No, but your father's, who gives it to you."
"But why ought I to enjoy more than she does? — in the abstract, I mean."
"I don't know," said Winthrop. — "I guess we had better walk on now, Miss Elizabeth."
"Walk on! — it rains too hard."
"But we are in the shed, while other people are out?"
"No but, — suppose that by going out I could bring them in?"
"Then I would certainly act as your messenger," he said smiling. "But you can't reach all the people who are so careless as to go out without umbrellas."
Elizabeth was betrayed into a laugh —a genuine hearty laugh of surprise, in which her awkwardness was for a moment forgotten.
"How came you to bring one, such a day?"
"I thought the sun was going to shine."
"But seriously, Mr. Landholm, my question," — said Elizabeth.
"What was it?"
"How ought I to enjoy so much more than she has?"
"Modestly, I should think."
"What do you mean?"
"If you were to give the half of your fortune to one such, for instance," he said with a slight smile, "do you fancy you would have adjusted two scales of the social balance to hang even?"
"No," said Elizabeth, — "I suppose not."
"You would have given away what she could not keep; you would have put out of your power what would not be in hers; and on the whole, she would be scantly a gainer and the world would be a loser."
"Yet surely," said Elizabeth, "something is due from my hand to hers."
Her companion was quite silent, rather oddly, she thought; and her meditations came back for a moment from social to individual distinctions and differences. Then, really in a puzzle as to the former matter, she repeated her question.
"But what can one do to them, then, Mr. Winthrop? — or what should be one's aim?"
"Put them in the way of exercising the talent and industry and circumstance which have done such great things for us."
"So that by the time they have the means they will be ready for them? — But dear me! that is a difficult matter!" said Elizabeth.
Her companion smiled a little.
"But they haven't any talent, Mr. Landholm, — nor industry nor circumstance either. To be sure those latter wants might be made up."
"Most people have talent, of one sort or another," said
Winthrop. "There's a little specimen pretty well stocked."
"Do you think so?"
"Try her."
"I don't know how to try her!" said Elizabeth. "I wish you would."
"I don't know how, either," said Winthrop. "Circumstances have been doing it this some time."
"I wish she hadn't come in," said Elizabeth. "She has unsettled all my ideas."
"They will rest the better for being unsettled."
Elizabeth looked at him, but he did not acknowledge the look. Presently, whether to try how benevolence worked, or to run away from her feeling of awkwardness, she got up and moved a few steps towards the place where the little blackey sat.
"Have you had dinner enough?" she said, standing and looking down upon her as a very disagreeable social curiosity.
"There aint no more, if I hain't," said the curiosity, with very dauntless eyes.
"Where do you get your dinner every day?"
"'Long street," said the girl, turning her eyes away from
Elizabeth and looking out into the storm.
"Do you often go without any?"
"When the folks don't give me none."
"Does that happen often?"
"They didn't give me none to-day."
"What do you do then?"
The eyes came back from the door to Elizabeth, and then went to Winthrop.
"What do you do then?" Elizabeth repeated.
"I gets 'em."
"You didn't get any to-day?" said Winthrop.
She shook her head.
"You mustn't any more."
"Nobody ha'n't no business to let me starve," said the blackey stoutly.
"No, but I'll tell you where to go the next time you can't get a dinner, and you shall have it without stealing."
"I ha'n't stole it — nobody never see me steal — I only tuk it," — said the girl with a little lowering of her voice and air.
"What's your name?"
"Clam."
"Clam!" said Elizabeth, — "where did you get such an odd name?"
"'Long street," said the girl, her black eyes twinkling.
"Where did you get it?" said Winthrop gravely.
"I didn't get it nowheres — it was guv to me."
"What's your other name?"
"I ha'n't got no more names — my name's Clam."
"What's your mother's name?"
"She's Sukey Beckinson."
"Is she kind to you?" asked Elizabeth.
"I don' know!"
"Did you have dinner enough?" said Winthrop with a smile.
Clam jumped up, and crossing her hands on her breast dropped a brisk little courtsey to her benefactor. She made no other answer, and then sat down again.
"Are you afraid to go home with your empty basket when the storm's over?" said he kindly.
"No," she said; but it was with a singular expression of cold and careless necessity.
"The rest of the basketful wouldn't be worth more than that, would it?" said he giving her a sixpence.
Clam took it and clasped it very tight in her fist, for other place of security she had none; and looked at him, but made no more answer than that.
"You won't forget where to come the next time you can't get an honest dinner," said he. "The corner of Beaver and Little South Streets. You know where it is? That is where I live. Ask for Mr. Landholm."
Clam nodded and said, "I know!"
"I hope you'll get some supper to-night," said he.
"I will!" said Clam determinately.
"How will you?" said Elizabeth.
"I'll make mammy give me some," said the girl flourishing her clasped fist.
"Wouldn't you like to leave picking things out of the street, and go to live with somebody who would take care of you and teach you to be a good girl?" said Elizabeth.
Clam tossed her sixpence up and down in her hand, and finally brought her eyes to bear upon Elizabeth and said,
"I don't want nobody to take care of me."
"If she could be taught, and would, I'd take care of her afterwards," said Elizabeth to Winthrop.
"If he'd say so, I would," said Clam.
"Look here," said Winthrop. "Would you like to come into some kind house — if I can find you one — and learn to do clean work?"
"It don't make no odds," said Clam looking at her basket.
"What do you say?"
"I guess no one don't want me."
"Perhaps not; but if somebody would have you, would you be a good girl?"
"I s'pose I'd get dinner reglar," said the little black girl, still fingering the edge of her basket.
"Certainly! —and something better than figs."
"Be them figs?" said Clam, suddenly looking up at him.
"Yes — the sweet ones."
"Goody! — I didn't know that before."
"Well — you haven't answered me yet."
"I don't care much," — said Clam. "Is it your house?"
"Maybe."
"I'll come!" said she clapping her hands. "I'll clear out, and mother won't never give it to me no more. — Nor nobody else sha'n't?" said she looking up at Winthrop.
"If you behave yourself."
"I'll go now right off!" said Clam, jumping up in great spirits. Then with a changing and doubtful tone she added, looking to Winthrop, "Will you take me?"
"Yes," he said smiling, "but not this evening. You must go home now, when the storm is over, for to-night; and I'll come and see your mother about it."
"What for?" was the very earnest and prompt answer.
"If you agree to come, I must get her to bind you out."
"I aint goin' to be bound," said Clam shaking her head; — "if you bind me, I'll run."
"Run as fast as you please," said Winthrop; — "run whenever you want to; — but I can't take you unless you be bound, for I won't have your mother coming after you."
"Can't she do nothin' to me if I'm bound?" said Clam.
"Nothing at all, till you grow up to be a woman; and then you can take care of yourself."
"I'll take care of myself all along," said Clam. "Nobody else aint a goin' to."
"But somebody must give you clothes to wear, and a bed to sleep in, and your dinner, you know; and you must do work for somebody, to pay for it."
"To pay for my dinner?"
"Yes."
"Very good!" said Clam. "I guess I'll stand it. Will it be for you?"
"No, I think not."
"Won't you?" said Clam wishingly. "I'll do work for you."
"Thank you. Maybe you shall."
"I'm goin' home now," said Clam, getting up and shouldering her basket.
"The storm's too bad yet," said Winthrop.
"Crackey! what do you think I care for that! The rain won't wet me much."
"Come to my house to-morrow, if you want to see me again," said Winthrop, — "about dinner-time."
Clam nodded, and fixing her bright eyes very intently first on one and then on the other of the friends she was leaving, she ended with a long parting look at Winthrop which lasted till she had passed from sight out of the door of the shed.
The violence of the storm was gone over; but though the thunder sounded now in the distance and the lightning played fainter, the rain fell yet all around them, in a gentle and very full shower.
"Do you suppose she has six miles to go?" said Elizabeth.
"No."
"I thought you answered as if you believed her when she said so."
"It isn't best to tell all one's thoughts," said Winthrop smiling.
Elizabeth went back to her box seat.
"I wish the rain would let us go home too," she said.
"Your wishes are so accustomed to smooth travelling, they don't know what to make of a hindrance," said her companion.
Elizabeth knew it was true, and it vexed her. It seemed to imply that she had not been tried by life, and that nobody knew what she would be till she was tried. That was a very disagreeable thought. There again he had the advantage of her. Nothing is reliable that is not tried. "And yet," she said to herself, "I am reliable. I know I am."
"What can anybody's wish make of a hindrance?" was her reply.
"Graff it in well, and anybody can make a pretty large thorn of it."
"Why Mr. Winthrop! — but I mean, in the way of dealing with it pleasantly?"
"Pleasantly? — I don't know," said he; "unless they could get my mother's recipe."
"What does her wish do with a hindrance?"
"It lies down and dies," he said, with a change of tone which shewed whither his thoughts had gone.
"I think I never wish mine to do that," said Elizabeth.
"What then? Remember you are speaking of hindrances absolute — that cannot be removed."
"But Mr. Winthrop, do you think it is possible for one's wish to lie down and die so?"
"If I had not seen it, I might say that it was not."
"I don't understand it —I don't know what to make of it," said
Elizabeth. "I don't think it is possible for mine."
Winthrop's thoughts went back a moment to the sweet calm brow, the rested face, that told of its truth and possibility in one instance.. He too did not understand it, but he guessed where the secret might lie.
"It must be a very happy faculty," said Elizabeth; — "but it seems to me — of course it is not so in that instance, — but in the abstract, it seems to me rather tame; — I don't like it. I have no idea of giving up!"
"There is no need of your giving up, in this case," said
Winthrop. "Do you see that sunshine?"
"And the rainbow!" said Elizabeth.
She sprang to the door; and they both stood looking, while the parting gifts of the clouds were gently reaching the ground, and the sun taking a cleared place in the western heaven, painted over against them, broad and bright, the promissory token that the earth should be overwhelmed with the waters no more. The rain-drops glittered as they fell; the grass looked up in refreshed green where the sun touched it; the clouds were driving over from the west, leaving broken fragments behind them upon the blue; and the bright and sweet colours of the rainbow swept their circle in the east and almost finished it in the grass at the door of the blacksmith's shop. It was a lovely show of beauty that is as fresh the hundredth time as the first. But though Elizabeth looked at it and admired it, she was thinking of something else.
"You have no overshoes," said Winthrop, when they had set out on their way; — "I am afraid you are not countrywoman enough to bear this."
"O yes I am," said Elizabeth, — "I don't mind it — I don't care for it. But Mr. Winthrop —"
"What were you going to say?" he asked, when he had waited half a minute to find out.
"You understood that I did not mean to speak of your mother, when I said that, about thinking it seemed tame to let one's wishes die out? — I excepted her entirely in my thought — I was speaking quite in the abstract."
"I know that, Miss Elizabeth."
She was quite satisfied with the smile with which he said it.
"How much better that odd little black child liked you than she did me," she went on with a change of subject and tone together.
"You were a little further off," said Winthrop.
"Further off?" said Elizabeth.
"I suppose she thought so."
"Then one must come near people in order to do them good?"
"One mustn't be too far off," said Winthrop, "to have one's words reach them."
"But I didn't mean to be far off," said Elizabeth.
"I didn't mean to be near."
Elizabeth looked at him, but he was grave; and then she smiled, and then laughed.
"You've hit it!" she exclaimed. "I shall remember that."
"Take care, Miss Elizabeth," said Winthrop, as her foot slipped in the muddy way, — "or you will have more to remember than would be convenient. You had better take my arm."
So she did; musing a little curiously at herself and that arm, which she had seen in a shirt-sleeve, carrying a pickaxe on shoulder; and making up her mind in spite of it all that she didn't care! So the walk home was not otherwise than comfortable. Indeed the beauty of it was more than once remarked on by both parties.
"Well!" said Rose, when at last Elizabeth came into the room where she was sitting, — "have you got home?"
"Yes."
"What have you been doing all this while?"
"Getting very angry at you in the first place; and then cooling down as usual into the reflection that it was not worth while."
"Well, I hope Winthrop made good use of his opportunity?"
"Yes, he did," said Elizabeth coolly, taking off her things.
"And you have engaged him at last as your admirer?"
"Not at all; — I have only engaged a little black girl to be my servant."
"A servant! What?"
"What do you mean by 'what'?" said Elizabeth contemptuously.
"I mean, what sort of a servant?"
"I am sure I don't know — a black servant."
"But what for?"
"To do my bidding."
"But what is she? and where did you pick her up?"
"She is an odd little fish called Clam; and I didn't pick her up at all; — Mr. Landholm did that."
"O ho!" said Rose, — "it's a joint concern! — that's it. But I think you are beginning to make up your household very early."
Elizabeth flung down her shoe and lifted her head, and Miss Cadwallader shrunk; even before her companion said with imperious emphasis, "Rose, how dare you! —"
Rose did not dare, against the flushed face and eye of fire which confronted her. She fell back into her chair and her book and was dumb.
CHAPTER XX.
Ford. They do say, if money go before, all ways do lie open. Fal. Money is a good soldier, sir, and will on. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
Somewhat to Winthrop's surprise, Clam came the next day to remind him of his promise; very much in earnest to wear a clean frock and have her dinner regular. She was duly bound, and entered into clean service accordingly. The indentures were made out to Miss Haye; but for the present Clam was put to learn her business under somebody that knew it; and for that end was finally sent to Mrs. Landholm. A week or two with Mrs. Nettley proved to the satisfaction of both parties that neither would much advantage the other. At Shahweetah, Clam, as Mrs. Landholm expressed it, "took a new start," and got on admirably. What much favoured this, was the fact that she speedily became very much attached to the whole family; with the single exception of Karen, between whom and herself there was an unallayed state of friction; a friction that probably served only to better Clam's relish of her dinner, while poor Karen declared "she didn't leave her no rest day nor night."
"She's not a bad child, Karen," said her mistress.
"Which part of her 's good?" said Karen. "'Taint her eyes, nor her fingers; and if the Bible didn't say there wa'n't no such a fountain, I should think her tongue was one o' them fountains that sent out at the same place both salt water and fresh."
"Her fingers are pretty good, Karen."
"There's a two-sided will in 'em, Mrs. Landholm."
There was no two-sided will in Clam's first friend, nor in the energies which were steadily bearing him on towards his aim. Steadily and surely, as he knew. But his life in those days had almost as little to tell of, as it had much to do. From early morning till — almost till early morning again, or till a new day had begun to count the hours, — every minute had its work; yet the record of the whole could be given in very few words, and those would not be interesting. How should the record be, when the reality was not, even to himself. It was all preparatory work; it must be done; but the interest of the matter lay beyond, at that point whither all these efforts tended. Meanwhile work and have patience, and work, — was the epitome of his life.
There were some breaks, but not many. Now and then a swift and sweet run home, to live for a moment in the midst of all this preparing to live; to rest among the home hearts; to breathe a few breaths in absolute freedom; to exchange Mr. De Wort's dusty office for the bright little keeping-room of the farmhouse, and forget the business of the hard brick and stone city under the shadow or the sunshine that rested on Wut-a- qut-o. Then Winthrop threw off his broadcloth coat and was a farmer again. Then Mrs. Landholm's brow laid down its care, and shewed to her son only her happy face. Then poor Winifred was strong and well and joyous, in the spite of sickness and weakness and nervous ail. And then also, Clam sprang round with great energy, and was as Karen averred, "fifty times worse and better than ever."
But all faded and died away, save the sweet memory and refreshment; that staid yet a little while. Winthrop went back to his musty parchments and lonely attic; and the little family at home gathered itself together for a new season of duty-doing, and hope, and looking forward. The sunshine and the shadow slept upon Wut-a-qut-o, as it did a little while ago; but neither sunshine nor shadow was the same thing now, for Winthrop was away.
He had lost perhaps less than they; though the balance was struck pretty fair. But he was actively bending every energy to the accomplishment of a great object. The intensity of effort might swallow up some other things, and the consciousness of sure and growing success might make amends for them. Besides, he had been long fighting the battle of life away from home, and was accustomed to it; they never got accustomed to it. Every fresh coming home was the pledge of a fresh parting, the pleasure of the one not more sure than the pain of the other. If Winthrop had changed, in all these years and goings and comings, it might have been different; if they could have found that their lost treasure was less true or strong or fair, than when they first let it go. But he was so exactly the same Winthrop that they had been sorry for that first time, that they could only be sorry again with the same sorrow; — the same, but for the lost novelty of that first time, and the added habit of patience, and the nearer hope of his and their reward.
So through the first winter and the first summer, and the second winter and the second summer, of his city apprenticeship, Winthrop wrought on; now with a cold room and little fire in his chimney, and now with the sun beating upon the roof, and the only hope of night's sea-breeze. But the farmer's boy had known cold and heat a great while ago, and he could bear both. He could partly forget both, sometimes in literary unbending with Mr. Herder and his friends; and at other times in a solitary walk on the Green overlooking the bay, to catch the sea-breeze more fresh and soon, and look up the river channel towards where the shadows lay upon Wut-a- qut-o. And sometimes in a visit at Mr. Haye's.
Of late, in the second summer, this last sort of pleasure- taking grew to be more frequent. Mr. Herder was less visited, and Mr. Haye more. Winthrop was always welcome, but there was no change in the manner of his being received. Unless perhaps a little more graciousness on Elizabeth's part, and a trifle less on Rose's, might be quoted.
So the sea-breezes blew through the dog-days; and September ushered in and ushered out its storms; and October came, clear and fair, with strength and health for body and mind. With October came Rufus, having just made an end of his work in the North country. He came but for a few days' stay in passing from one scene of labours to another. For those few days he abode with his brother, sharing his room and bed.
"Well, Winthrop, I've stuck to my choice," he remarked, the second evening of his being there. The tone indicated the opening of a great budget of thoughts. Winthrop was bending over a parchment-coloured volume, and Rufus pacing up and down the longest stretch of the little room.
"I am glad of it," said Winthrop, without looking up.
"I am not sure that I am."
"What's the matter?"
"I don't see that I gain much by it, and I certainly lose."
"What do you expect to gain?"
"Nothing but money, — and I don't get that."
"It's safe, isn't it?"
"Yes, and so are winter's snows, in their treasury; — and I could as soon get it by asking for it."
"Let us hope it will come with the snows," said Winthrop, his head still bent down over his book.
"You may talk; — it is easy waiting for you."
"Query, how that would give me a right to talk," said Winthrop turning over a leaf; — "supposing it to be a fact; of which I have some doubts."
"What have you been doing all to-day?"
"The usual routine — which after all is but preparing to do."
"What has been the routine to-day?"
"You saw my breakfast and saw me get it. — Then I went out. —
Then I read, according to custom."
"What?"
"Classics."
"Do you!"
"For awhile. The rest of the morning between engrossing deeds and the Record Office. First half of the afternoon, or rather a larger proportion, ditto; the rest to meet my friends Messrs. Jones and Satterthwaite."
"Satterthwaite! — what does he want?"
"To read Greek with me."
"Greek! What has put that into his head? Bob. Satterthwaite!" — and Rufus threw back his head and laughed in a great state of amusement. "What has put that into his head? — eh, Winthrop?"
"I don't inquire. It puts money in my pocket."
"Not much," said Rufus.
"No, not much."
"What's the reason, do you think? What moves him to woo the Muses? — I'm afraid it's because he thinks it is a preliminary wooing he must go through before he can be successful in another quarter."
And again Rufus laughed, in high delight.
"I have no business with that," said Winthrop.
"What are you doing now?"
"Studying law."
"Stop."
"What for?"
"To talk to me."
"It seems to me I have been doing that for some time," said
Winthrop, without looking off his book.
"But I haven't begun. Winthrop, — I have a great mind to give up this engineering business."
"To do what instead?"
"Why — you know I shall have some money coming to me — quite a little sum; — Mr. Haye has very kindly offered to put me in the way of laying it out to good advantage, and eventually of getting into another line of occupation which would at the same time be more lucrative, less laborious, and would keep me in the regions of civilization. — And perhaps — Winthrop — something might follow thereupon, —"
"What?" said his brother looking up.
"Something —"
"More definite in your purpose than in your speech."
"Not my purpose, exactly," said Rufus, — "but in possibility."
"There is no peg in possibility for a wise man to hang his cap on."
"Perhaps I am not a wise man," said Rufus, with a very queer face, as if his mind were giving an askance look at the subject.
"That's a supposititious case I shall leave you to deal with."
"Why it's the very sort of case it's your business to deal with," said Rufus. "If the world was full of wise men you'd stand a pretty fair chance of starving, Governor. But seriously, — do you think it is unbecoming a wise man to take any lawful means of keeping out of the way of that same devil of starvation?"
"Do you mean to say that you are in any danger of it?" said
Winthrop looking up again.
"Why no, — not exactly; taking the words literally. But one may starve and yet have enough to eat."
"If one refuses one's food."
"If one don't! I tell you, I have been starving for these two years past. It is not living, to make to-day only feed to- morrow. Besides — I don't see any harm in purchasing, if one can, an exemption from the universal doom of eating one's bread in the sweat of one's brow."
"I think it depends entirely on what one pays for the purchase," said Winthrop.
"Suppose one pays nothing."
"One executes a most unaccountable business transaction."
Rufus stopped and looked at him, and then took up his walk, and half laughing went on.
"Suppose we leave talking in the dark, and understand one another. Do you know what I am driving at?"
"Have you set off?" said Winthrop, with again a glance which seemed to add to Rufus's amusement.
"No," he said, — "I am just waiting for you to give me leave."
"The reins are not in my hands."
"Yes they are. Seriously, Winthrop, do you know what we are talking about? — What do you think of my making suit to one of these ladies?"
"I do not think about it."
"You do not conceive it would be any disfavour to either of them to induce her to accept me, I suppose. — What do you say?"
"You are indifferent towards which of them the suit should incline?" said Winthrop.
"Why, that's as it may be — I haven't thought enough about it to know. They're a pretty fair pair to choose from —"
"Supposing that you have the choice," said Winthrop.
"Do you know anything to the contrary? —Has anybody else a fairer entrance than myself?"
"I am not on sufficiently near terms with the family to be able to inform you."
"Do you think of entering your plough, Governor?"
"Not in your field."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I am not in your way."
"Shall I be in yours?"
"No," said his brother coolly.
"In whose way then?"
"I am afraid in your own, Will."
"How do you mean?" asked the other a little fiercely.
"If you are so intent upon marrying money-bags, you may chance to get a wife that will not suit you."
"You must explain yourself!" said Rufus haughtily. "In what respect would either of these two not suit me?"
"Of two so different, it may safely be affirmed that if one would the other would not."
"Two so different!" said Rufus. "What's the matter with either of them?"
"There is this the matter with both —that you do not know them."
"I do know them!"
"From the rest of the world; but not from each other."
"Why not from each other?"
"Not enough for your liking or your judgment to tell which would suit you."
"Why would not either suit?" said Rufus.
"I think — if you ask me — that one would not make you happy, in the long run; and the other, with your present views and aims, you could not make happy."
"Which is which?" said Rufus, laughing and drawing up a chair opposite his brother.
"Either of them is which," said Winthrop. "Such being the case, I don't know that it is material to inquire."
"It is very material! for I cannot be satisfied without the answer. I am in earnest in the whole matter, Winthrop."
"So am I, very much in earnest."
"Which of them should I not make happy?" — Rufus went on. —
"Rose? — She is easily made happy."
"So easily, that you would be much more than enough for it."
"Then it is the other one whose happiness you are afraid for?"
"I don't think it is in much danger from you."
"Why? —what then?" said Rufus quickly.
"I doubt whether any one could succeed with her whose first object was something else."
Rufus drew his fingers through his hair, in silence, for about a minute and a half; with a face of thoughtful and somewhat disagreeable consideration.
"And with the other one you think he could?"
"What?"
"Succeed? — one whose first object, as you say, was something else?"
"With the other I think anybody could."
"I don't know but I like that," said Rufus; — "it is amiable.
She has more simplicity. She is a lovely creature!"
"If you ask your eye."
"If I ask yours!" —
"Every man must see with his own eyes," said Winthrop.
"Don't yours see her lovely?"
"They might, if they had not an inward counsellor that taught them better."
"She is very sweet-tempered and sweet-mannered," said Rufus.
"Very."
"Don't you think so?"
"Certainly — when it suits her."
"When it suits her!"
"Yes. She is naturally rude, and politically polite."
"And how's the other one? isn't she naturally rude too?"
"Not politically anything."
"And you think she wouldn't have me?"
"I am sure she would not, if she knew your motive."
"My motive! — but my motive might change," said Rufus, pushing back his chair and beginning to walk the floor again. "It isn't necessary that my regards should be confined to her gracious adjunctive recommendations. —"
He walked for some time without reply, and again the leaves of Winthrop's book said softly now and then that Winthrop's head was busy with them.
"Governor, you are very unsatisfactory!" said his brother at length, standing now in front of him.
Winthrop looked up and smiled and said, "What would you have?"
"Your approbation!" — was the strong and somewhat bitter thought in Rufus's mind. He paused before he spoke.
"But Governor, really I am tired of this life — it isn't what I am fit for; — and why not escape from it, if I can, by some agreeable road that will do nobody any harm?"
"With all my heart," said Winthrop. "I'll help you."
"Well? —"
"Well —"
"You think this is not such a one?"
"The first step in it being a stumble."
"To whom would it bring harm, Governor?"
"The head must lower when the foot stumbles," said Winthrop.
"That is one harm."
"But you are begging the question!" said Rufus a little impatiently.
"And you have granted it."
"I haven't!" said Rufus. "I don't see it. I don't see the stumbling or the lowering. I should not feel myself lowered by marrying a fine woman, and I hope she would not feel her own self-respect injured by marrying me."
"You will not stand so high upon her money-bags as upon your own feet."
"Why not have the advantage of both?"
"You cannot. People always sit down upon money-bags. The only exception is in the case of money-bags they have filled themselves."
Rufus looked at Winthrop's book for three minutes in silence.
"Well, why not then take at once the ease, for which the alternative is a long striving?"
"If you can. But the long striving is not the whole of the alternative; with that you lose the fruits of the striving — all that makes ease worth having."
"But I should not relinquish them," said Rufus. "I shall not sit down upon my money-bags."
"They are not your money-bags."
"They will be — if I prove successful."
"And how will you prove successful?"
"Why!" — said Rufus, — "what a question! —"
"I wish you would answer it nevertheless — not to me, but to yourself."
Whether Rufus did or not, the answer never came out. He paced the floor again; several times made ready to speak, and then checked himself.
"So you are entirely against me, —" he said at length.
"I am not against you, Will; — I am for you."
"You don't approve of my plan."
"No —I do not."
"I wish you would say why."
"I hardly need," said Winthrop with a smile. "You have said it all to yourself."
"Notwithstanding which assumption, I should like to hear you say it."
"For the greater ease of attack and defence?"
"If you please. For anything."
"What do you want me to do, Will?" said Winthrop looking up.
"To tell me why I should not marry Miss Haye or Miss
Cadwallader."
"You not knowing, yourself."
"Yes — I don't," said Rufus.
Winthrop turned over a few leaves of his book and then spoke.
"You are stronger, not to lean on somebody else's strength. You are more independent, not to lean at all. You are honester, not to gain anything under false pretences. And you are better to be yourself, Will Landholm, than the husband of any heiress the sun shines upon, at such terms."
"What terms?"
"False pretences."
"What false pretences?"
"Asking the hand, when you only want the key that is in it. Professing to give yourself, when in truth your purpose is to give nothing that is not bought and paid for."
Rufus looked very grave and somewhat disturbed.
"That's a very hard characterizing of the matter, Governor," said he. "I don't think I deserve it."
"I hope you don't," said his brother.
Rufus began again to measure the little apartment with his long steps.
"But this kind of thing is done every day, Winthrop."
"By whom?" said Winthrop.
"Why! — by very good men; — by everybody."
"Not by everybody."
"By what sort of people is it not done?"
"By you and me," said Winthrop smiling.
"You think then that a poor man should never marry a rich woman?"
"Never, — unless he can forget that she is rich and he poor."
Rufus walked for some time in silence.
"Well," he said, in a tone between dry and injured, — "I am going off to the West again, luckily; and I shall have no opportunity for the present to disturb you by making false pretences, of any sort."
"Is opportunity all that you lack?" said Winthrop looking up, and with so simple an expression that Rufus quitted his walk and his look together.
"Why did you never make trial for yourself, Winthrop?" he said. "You have a remarkably fine chance; and fine opening too, I should think. You are evidently very well received down yonder."
"I have a theory of my own too, on the subject," said Winthrop, — "somewhat different from yours, but still enough to work by."
"What's that?"
"I have no mind to marry any woman who is unwilling to be obliged to me."
Rufus looked at his brother and at the fireplace awhile in gravity.
"You are proud," he said at length.
"I must have come to it by living so high in the world," said
Winthrop.
"So high?" — said Rufus.
"As near the sun as I can get. I thought it was very near, some time in August last."
Winthrop laid by his book; and the two young men stood several minutes, quite silent, on opposite sides of the hearth, with folded hands and meditative countenances; but the face of the one looked like the muddy waters of the Shatemuc tossed and tumbled under a fierce wind; the other's was calm and steady as Wut-a-qut-o's brow.
"So you won't have any woman that you don't oblige to marry you!" Rufus burst out. "Ha, ha, ha! — ho, ho, ho! —"
Winthrop's mouth gave the slightest good-humoured token of understanding him, — it could not be called a smile. Rufus had his laugh out, and cooled down into deeper gravity than before.
"Well!" — said he, — "I'll go off to my fate, at the limitless wild of the West. It seems a rough sort of fate."
"Make your fate for yourself," said Winthrop.
"You will," said his brother. "And it will be what you will, and that's a fair one. And you will oblige anybody you have a mind to. And marry an heiress."
"Don't look much like it — things at present," said Winthrop.
"I don't see the way very clear."
"As for me, I don't know what ever I shall come to," Rufus added.
"Come to bed at present," said Winthrop. "That is one step."
"One step towards what?"
"Sleep in the first place; and after that, anything."
"What a strange creature you are, Governor! and how doubtlessly and dauntlessly you pursue your way," Rufus said sighing.
"Sighs never filled anybody's sails yet," said Winthrop. "They are the very airs of a calm."
"Calm!" said Rufus.
"A dead calm," said his brother laughing.
"I wish I had your calm," said Rufus. And with that the evening ended.
CHAPTER XXI.
O what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do! not knowing what they do! MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
One morning, about these days, Mr. and Miss Haye were seated at the opposite ends of the breakfast-table. They had been there for some time, silently buttering rolls and sipping coffee, in a leisurely way on Mr. Haye's part, and an ungratified one on the part of his daughter. He was considering, also in a leisurely sort of way, the columns of the morning paper; she considering him and the paper, and at intervals knocking with her knife against the edge of her plate, — a meditative and discontented knife, and an impassive and unimpressed plate. So breakfast went on till Elizabeth's cup was nearly emptied.
"Father," said she, "it is very unsociable and stupid for you to read the paper, and me to eat my breakfast alone. You might read aloud, if you must read."
Mr. Haye brought his head round from the paper long enough to swallow half a cupful of coffee.
"Where's Rose?"
"In bed, for aught I know. There is no moving her till she has a mind."
"'Seems to me, it is quite as difficult to move you," said her father.
"Ay, but then I have a mind — which makes all the difference."
Mr. Haye went back to his paper and considered it till the rest of his cup of coffee was thoroughly cold. Elizabeth finished her breakfast, and sat, drawn back into herself, with arms folded, looking into the fireplace. Finding his coffee cold, Mr. Haye's attention came at length back upon his daughter.
"What do you want me to talk about?" he said.
"It don't signify, your talking about anything now," said Elizabeth. "Everything is cold — mind and matter together. I don't know how you'll find the coffee, father."
Mr. Haye stirred it, with a discontented look.