"You mean," said Elizabeth slowly, "that his life was given in place of mine."
Winthrop was silent. Elizabeth stood apparently considering.
"'Everything that is contrary to his authority'" — she added after a minute, — "how can I know exactly all that?"
He still said nothing, but touched with his finger once or twice the book in his hand.
Elizabeth looked, and the tears came to her eyes.
"You know, —" she said, hesitating a little, — "what physicians say of involuntary muscular resistance, that the physical frame makes sometimes?"
He answered her with an instant's light of intelligence, and then with the darkened look of sorrow. But he took his bible away with him and said no more.
Elizabeth sat down and struggled with herself and with the different passions which had been at work in her mind, till she was wearied out; and then she slept.
She waked up in the middle of the night, to find the lamps burning bright and Clam asleep on the floor by her side; she herself was sitting yet where she had been sitting in the evening, on a low seat with her head on the sofa cushion. She got up and with a sort of new spring of hope and cheer, whence come she knew not, laid herself on the sofa and slept till the morning.
"You'd best be up, Miss 'Lizabeth," were Clam's first words.
"Why?" said Elizabeth springing up.
"It's time," said her handmaiden.
Elizabeth rose from her sofa and put her face and dress in such order as a few minutes could do. She had but come back from doing this, and was standing before the table, when Winthrop came in. It was much earlier than usual. Elizabeth looked, but he did not answer, the wonted question. He led her gently to the window and placed himself opposite to her.
"You must leave here, Miss Elizabeth," he said.
"Must I?" — said Elizabeth looking up at him and trembling.
"You must —" he answered very gently.
"Why, Mr. Landholm?" Elizabeth dared to say.
"Because there is no longer any reason why you should stay here."
She trembled exceedingly, but though her very lips trembled, she did not cry. He would have placed her on a chair, but she resisted that and stood still.
"Where do you want me to go, Mr. Winthrop?" she said presently, like a child.
"I will take you wherever you say — to some friend's house?"
She caught at his arm and her breath at once, with a kind of sob; then releasing his arm, she said,
"There isn't anywhere."
"No house in the city?"
She shook her head.
"If you will let me, I will take you to a safe and quiet place; and as soon as possible away from the city."
"When?"
"When from here? — Now, — as soon as you can be ready."
Elizabeth's eye wandered vaguely towards the table like a person in a maze.
"Mayn't I go up stairs again?" she said, her eye coming back to his.
"I would rather you did not."
She gave way then and sat down covering her face with her hands. And sobs as violent as her tremblings had been, held her for a little while. The moment she could, she rose up and looked up again, throwing off her tears as it were, though a sob now and then even while she was speaking interrupted her breath.
"But Mr. Winthrop — the house, —how can I go and leave it with everything in it?"
"I will take care, if you will trust me."
"I will trust you," she said with running tears. "But you? —"
"I will take care of it and you too. — I will try to."
"That was not what I meant —"
"I am safe," he said.
He gently seated her; and then going off to Clam at the other side of the room he bade her fetch her mistress's bonnet and shawl. He himself put them on, and taking her arm in his, they went forth of the house.
CHAPTER IX.
The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows flee;
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass
Stains the clear radiance of Eternity,
Until Death shiver it to atoms.
SHELLEY.
The dawn of the summer morning was just flushing up over the city, when Winthrop and his trembling companion came out of the house. The flush came up upon a fair blue sky, into which little curls of smoke were here and there stealing; and a fresh air in the streets as yet held place of the sun's hot breath. One person felt the refreshment of it, as he descended the steps of the house and began a rather swift walk up the Parade. But those were very trembling feet that he had to guide during that early walk; though his charge was perfectly quiet. She did not weep at all; she did not speak, nor question any of his movements. Neither did he speak. He kept a steady and swift course till they reached Mr. Inchbald's house in Little South Street, and then only paused to open the door. He led Elizabeth up-stairs to his own room, and there and not before took her hand from his arm and placed her on a chair. Himself quietly went round the room, opening the windows and altering the disposition of one or two things. Then he came back to her where she sat like a statue, and in kind fashion again took one of her hands.
"I will see that you are waited upon," he said gently; "and I will send Clam to you by and by for your orders. Will you stay here for a little while? — and then I will take care of you."
How she wished his words meant more than she knew they did.
She bowed her head, thinking so.
"Can I give you anything?"
She managed to say a smothered 'no,' and he went; first pulling out of his pocket his little bible which he laid upon the table.
Was that by way of answering his own question? It might be, or he might not have wanted it in his pocket. Whether or no, Elizabeth seized it and drew it towards her, and as if it had contained the secret charm and panacea for all her troubles, she laid her hands and her head upon it, and poured out there her new and her old sorrows; wishing even then that Winthrop could have given her the foundation of strength on which his own strong spirit rested.
After a long while, or what seemed such, she heard the door softly open and some one come in. The slow careful step was none that she knew, and Elizabeth did not look up till it had gone out and the door had closed again. It was Mrs. Nettley, and Mrs. Nettley had softly left on the table a waiter of breakfast. Elizabeth looked at it, and laid her head down again.
The next interruption came an hour later and was a smarter one. Elizabeth had wearied herself with weeping, and lay comparatively quiet on the couch.
"Miss 'Lizabeth," said the new-comer, in more gentle wise than it was her fashion to look or speak, — "Mr. Winthrop said I was to come and get your orders about what you wanted."
"I can't give orders — Do what you like," said Elizabeth keeping her face hid.
"If I knowed what 'twas," — said Clam, sending her eye round the room for information or suggestion. "Mr. Winthrop said I was to come. — Why you haven't took no breakfast?"
"I didn't want any."
"You can't go out o' town that way," said Clam. "The Governor desired you would take some breakfast, and his orders must be follered. You can't drink cold coffee neither —"
And away went Clam, coffee-pot in hand.
In so short a space of time that it shewed Clam's business faculties, she was back again with the coffee smoking hot. She made a cup carefully and brought it to her mistress.
"You can't do nothin' without it," said Clam. "Mr. Winthrop would say, 'Drink it' if he was here —"
Which Elizabeth knew, and perhaps considered in swallowing the coffee. Before she had done, Clam stood at her couch again with a plate of more substantial supports.
"He would say 'Eat,' if he was here —" she remarked.
"Attend a little to what I have to say," said her mistress.
"While you're eatin'," said Clam. "I wasn't to stop to get breakfast."
A few words of directions were despatched, and Clam was off again; and Elizabeth lay still and looked at the strange room and thought over the strange meaning and significance of her being there. A moment's harbour, with a moment's friend. She was shiveringly alone in the world; she felt very much at a loss what to do, or what would become of her, She felt it, but she could not think about it. Tears came again for a long uninterrupted time.
The day had reached the afternoon, when Clam returned, and coming into Mrs. Nettley's kitchen inquired if her mistress had had any refreshment. Mrs. Nettley declared that she dursn't take it up and that she had waited for Clam. Upon which that damsel set about getting ready a cup of tea, with a sort of impatient promptitude.
"Have you got all through?" Mrs. Nettley asked in the course of this preparation.
"What?" said Clam.
"Your work."
"No," said Clam. "Never expect to. My work don't get done."
"But has Mr. Landholm got through his work, down at the house?"
"Don't know," said Clam. "He don't tell me. But if we was to work on, at the rate we've been a goin' to-day — we'd do up all Mannahatta in a week or so."
"What's been so much to do? — the funeral, I know."
"The funeral," said Clam, "and everything else. That was only one thing. There was everything to be locked up, and everything to be put up, and the rest to be packed; and the silver sent off to the Bank; and everybody to be seen to. I did all I could, and Mr. Winthrop he did the rest."
"He'll be worn out!" said Mrs. Nettley.
"No he won't," said Clam. "He ain't one o' them that have to try hard to make things go — works like oiled 'chinery — powerful too, I can tell you."
"What's going to be done?" said Mrs. Nettley meditatively.
"Can't say," said Clam. "I wish my wishes was goin' to be done — but I s'pose they ain't. People's ain't mostly, in this world." She went off with her dish of tea and what not, to her mistress up-stairs. But Elizabeth this time would endure neither her presence nor her proposal. Clam was obliged to go down again leaving her mistress as she had found her. Alone with herself.
Then, when the sun was long past the meridian, Elizabeth heard upon the stair another step, of the only friend, as it seemed to her, that she had. She raised her head and listened to it. The step went past her door, and into the other room, and she sat waiting. "How little he knows," she thought, "how much of a friend he is! how little he guesses it. How far he is from thinking that when he shall have bid me good bye — somewhere — he will have taken away all of help and comfort I have. —"
But clear and well defined as this thought was in her mind at the moment, it did not prevent her meeting her benefactor with as much outward calmness as if it had not been there. Yet the quiet meeting of hands had much that was hard to bear. Elizabeth did not dare let her thoughts take hold of it.
"Have you had what you wanted?" he said, in the way in which one asks a question of no moment when important ones are behind.
"I have had all I could have," Elizabeth answered.
There was a pause; and then he asked,
"What are your plans, Miss Elizabeth?"
"I haven't formed any. — I couldn't not, yet."
"Do you wish to stay in the city, or to go out of it?"
"Oh to go out of it!" said Elizabeth, — "if I could — if I knew where."
"Where is your cousin?"
"She was at Vantassel; but she left it for some friend's house in the country, I believe. I don't want to be where she is."
Elizabeth's tears came again.
"It seems very strange —" she said presently, trying to put a stop to them, but her words stopped.
"What?" said Winthrop.
"It seems very strange, — but I hardly know where to go. I have no friends near — no near friends, in any sense; there are some, hundreds of miles off, in distance, and further than that in kind regard. I know plenty of people, but I have no friends. — I would go up to Wut-a-qut-o, if there was anybody there," she added after a minute or two.
"Shahweetah has passed into other hands," said Winthrop.
"I know it," said Elizabeth; — "it passed into mine."
Winthrop started a little, and then after another moment's pause said quietly,
"Are you serious in wishing to go there now?"
"Very serious!" said Elizabeth, "if I had anybody to take care of me. I couldn't be there with only Clam and Karen."
"You would find things very rough and uncomfortable."
"What do you suppose I care about how rough?" said Elizabeth. "I would rather be there than in any other place I can think of."
"I am afraid you would still be much alone there — your own household would be all."
"I must be that anywhere," said Elizabeth bitterly. "I wish I could be there."
"Then I will see what I can do," said he rising.
"About what?" said Elizabeth.
"I will tell you if I succeed."
Mr. Landholm walked down stairs into Mrs. Nettley's sanctum, where the good lady was diligently at work in kitchen affairs.
"Mrs. Nettley, will you leave your brother and me to keep things together here, and go into the country with this bereaved friend of mine?"
Mrs. Nettley stood still with her hands in the dough of her bread and looked at the maker of this extraordinary proposition.
"Into the country, Mr. Landholm! — When?"
"Perhaps this afternoon — in two or three hours."
"Dear Mr. Landholm! —"
"Dear Mrs. Nettley."
"But it's impossible."
"Is it?"
"Why — What does she want me for, Mr. Landholm?"
"She is alone, and without friends at hand. She wishes to leave the city and take refuge in her own house in the country, but it is uninhabited except by servants. She does not know of my application to you, which I make believing it to be a case of charity."
Mrs. Nettley began to knead her dough with a haste and vigour which told of other matters on hand.
"Will you go, Mr. Landholm?"
"Certainly — to see you safe there — and then I will come back and take care of Mr. Inchbald."
"How far is it, sir?"
"So far as my old home, which Miss Haye has bought."
"What, Wut — that place of yours?" said Mrs. Nettley.
"Yes," Winthrop said gravely.
"And how long shall I be wanted, Mr. Landholm?"
"I do not know, Mrs. Nettley."
Mrs. Nettley hastily cut her dough into loaves and threw it into the pans.
"You are going, Mrs. Nettley?"
"Why sir — in two hours, you say?"
"Perhaps in so little as that — I am going to see."
"But Mr. Landholm," said the good lady, facing round upon him after bestowing her pans in their place, and looking somewhat concerned, — "Mr. Landholm, do you think she will like me? — Miss Haye?"
Winthrop smiled a little.
"I think she will be very thankful to you, Mrs. Nettley — I can answer no further."
"I suppose it's right to risk that," Mrs. Nettley concluded.
"I'll do what you say, Mr. Landholm."
Without more words Mr. Landholm went out and left the house.
"Are Miss Haye's things all ready?" asked Mrs. Nettley of
Clam, while she nervously untied her apron.
"All's ready that he has to do with," Clam answered a little curtly.
"But has he to do with your mistress's things?"
"He has to do with everything, just now," said Clam. "I wish the now'd last for ever!"
"How can we go to-night? — the boats and the stages and all don't set off so late."
"Boats don't stop near Wutsey Qutsey," said Clam.
Mrs. Nettley went off to make her own preparations.
When Mr. Landholm came again, after an interval of some length, he came with a carriage.
"Are you ready, Mrs. Nettley?" he said looking into that lady's quarters.
"In a little bit, Mr. Landholm! —"
Whereupon he went up-stairs.
"If you wish to go to Wut-a-qut-o, Miss Elizabeth," he said, "my friend Mrs. Nettley will go with you and stay with you, till you have made other arrangements. I can answer for her kindness of heart, and unobtrusive manners, and good sense. Would you like her for a companion?"
"I would like anybody — that you can recommend."
"My friend Cowslip's little sloop sets sail for the neighbourhood of Wut-a-qut-o this evening."
"Oh thank you! —Will she take us?"
"If you wish it."
"Oh thank you! —"
"Would you not be better to wait till to-morrow? — I can make the sloop wait."
"Oh no, let us go," said Elizabeth rising. "But your friend is very good — your friend who is going with me, I mean."
"Mrs. Nettley. But you need not move yet — rest while you can."
"Rest!" — said Elizabeth. And tears said what words did not.
"There is only one rest," said Winthrop gravely; "and it is in Christ's hand. 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST.'" —
Elizabeth's sobs were bitter. Her counsellor added no more however; he left the room after a little while, and soon returned to tell her that all was ready. She was ready too by that time.
"But Mr. Winthrop," she said looking at him earnestly, "is everything here so that you can leave it?"
She dared not put the whole of her meaning into words. But Winthrop understood, and answered a quiet "yes;" and Elizabeth lowered her veil and her head together and let him lead her to the carriage.
A few minutes brought them to the pier at the end of which the
Julia Ann lay.
"You're sharp upon the time, Mr. Landholm," said her master; — "we're just goin' to cast off. But we shouldn't have done it, nother, till you come. All right!"
"Is all right in the cabin?" said Winthrop as they came on board.
"Well, it's slicked up all it could be on such short notice," said the skipper. "I guess you wont have to live in it long; the wind's coming up pretty smart ahind us. Haul away there! — "
It was past six o'clock, and the August sun had much lessened of its heat, when, as once before with Mr. Landholm for a passenger, the Julia Ann stood out into the middle of the river with her head set for the North.
Mrs. Nettley and Clam hid themselves straightway in the precincts of the cabin. Elizabeth stood still where she had first placed herself on the deck, in a cold abstracted sort of carelessness, conscious only that her protector was standing by her side, and that she was not willing to lose sight of him. The vessel, and her crew, and their work before her very eyes, she could hardly be said to see. The sloop got clear of the wharf and edged out into the mid-channel, where she stood bravely along before the fair wind. Slowly the trees and houses along shore were dropped behind, and fresher the wind and fairer the green river-side seemed to become. Elizabeth's senses hardly knew it, or only in a kind of underhand way; not recognized.
"Will you go into the cabin? or will you have a seat here?" she heard Winthrop say.
Mechanically she looked about for one. He brought a chair and placed her in it, and she sat down; choosing rather the open air and free sky than any shut-up place, and his neighbourhood rather than where he was not; but with a dulled and impassive state of feeling that refused to take up anything, past, present or future. It was not rest, it was not relief, though there was a seeming of rest about it. She knew then it would not last. It was only a little lull between storms; the enforced quiet of wearied and worn-out powers. She sat mazily taking in the sunlight, and the view of the sunlighted earth and water, the breath of the sweeping fresh air, the creaking of the sloop's cordage, in the one consciousness that Winthrop kept his place at her side all this time. How she thanked him for that! though she could not ask him to sit down, nor make any sort of a speech about it.
Down went the sun, and the shadows and the sunlight were swept away together; and yet fresher came the sweet wind. It was a sort of consolation to Elizabeth, that her distress gave Winthrop a right and a reason to attend upon her; she had had all along a vague feeling of it, and the feeling was very present now. It was all of comfort she could lay hold of; and she clutched at it with even then a foreboding sense of the desolation there would be when that comfort was gone. She had it now; she had it, and she held it; and she sat there in her chair on the deck in a curious half stupor, half quiet, her mind clinging to that one single point where it could lean.
There came a break-up however. Supper was declared to be ready; and though nobody but Winthrop attended the skipper's table, Elizabeth was obliged to take some refreshments of her own, along with a cup of the sloop's tea, which most certainly she would have taken from no hand but the one that presented it to her. And after it, Elizabeth was so strongly advised to go to the cabin and take some rest, that she could not help going; resting, she had no thought of. Her companions were of easier mind; for they soon addressed themselves to such sleeping conveniencies as the little cabin could boast. Miss Haye watched them begin and end their preparations and bestow themselves in resting positions to sleep; and then drawing a breath of comparative rest herself, she placed herself just within the cabin threshold, on the floor, where she could look out and have a good view of the deck through the partly open door.
It was this night as on the former occasion, a brilliant moonlight; and the vessel had no lamps up to hinder its power. The mast and sails and lines stood out in sharp light and shadow. The man at the helm Elizabeth could not see; the moonlight poured down upon Winthrop, walking slowly back and forth on the deck, his face and figure at every turn given fully and clearly to view. Elizabeth herself was in shadow; he could not look within the cabin door and see her; she could look out and see him right well, and she did. He was pacing slowly up and down, with a thoughtful face, but so calm in its thoughtfulness that it was a grievous contrast to Elizabeth's own troubled and tossed nature. It was all the more fascinating to her gaze; while it was bitter to her admiration. The firm quiet tread, — the manly grave repose of the face, — spoke of somewhat in the character and life so unlike what she knew in her own, and so beautiful to her sense of just and right, that she looked in a maze of admiration and self-condemning; rating herself lower and lower and Winthrop higher and higher, at every fair view the moonlight gave, at every turn that brought him near or took him further from her. And tears — curious tears — that came from some very deep wells of her nature, blinded her eyes, and rolled hot down her cheeks, and were wiped away that she might look. "What shall I do when he gets tired of that walk and goes somewhere else?" — she thought; and with the thought, as instantly, Elizabeth gathered herself up from off the floor, wiped her cheeks from the tears, and stepped out into the moonlight. "I can't say anything, but I suppose he will," was her meditation. "Nobody knows when I shall have another chance." —
"They could not make it comfortable for you in there?" said
Winthrop coming up to her.
"I don't know — yes, — I have not tried."
"Are you very much fatigued?"
"I suppose so. — I don't feel it."
"Can I do anything for you?"
The real answer nearly burst Elizabeth's bounds of self- control, but nevertheless her words were quietly given.
"Yes, — if you will only let me stay out here a little while."
He put a chair for her instantly, and himself remained standing near, as he had done before.
"Walk on, if you wish," said Elizabeth. "Don't mind me."
But instead of that he drew up another chair, and sat down.
There was silence then that might be felt. The moonlight poured down noiselessly on the water, and over the low dusky distant shore; the ripples murmured under the sloop's prow; the wind breathed gently through the sails. Now and then the creak of the rudder sounded, but the very stars were not more calmly peaceful than everything else.
"There is quiet and soothing in the speech of such a scene as this," Winthrop said after a time.
"Quiet!" said Elizabeth. Her voice choked, and it was a little while before she could go on. — "Nothing is quiet to a mind in utter confusion."
"Is yours so?"
"Yes."
The sobs were at her very lips, but the word got out first.
"It is no wonder," he observed gently.
"Yes it is wonder," said Elizabeth; — "or at least it is what needn't be. Yours wouldn't be so in any circumstances."
"What makes the confusion?" — he asked, in a gentle considerate tone that did not press for an answer.
"The want of a single fixed thing that my thoughts can cling to."
He was silent a good while after that.
"There is nothing fixed in this world," he said at length.
"Yes there is," said Elizabeth bitterly. "There are friends — and there is a self-reliant spirit — and there is a settled mind."
"Settled — about what?"
"What it will and what it ought to do."
"Is yours not settled on the latter point?" he asked.
"If it were," said Elizabeth with a little hesitation and struggling, — "that don't make it settled."
"It shews where the settling point is."
"Which leaves it as far as ever from being settled," said
Elizabeth, almost impatiently.
"A self-reliant spirit, if it be not poised on another foundation than its own, hath no fixedness that is worth anything, Miss Elizabeth; — and friends are not safe things to trust to."
"Some of them are," said Elizabeth.
"No, for they are not sure. There is but one friend that cannot be taken away from us."
"But to know that, and to know everything else about him, does not make him our friend," said Elizabeth in a voice that trembled.
"To agree to everything about him, does."
"To agree? — How? — I do agree to it," said Elizabeth.
"Do you? Are you willing to have him for a King to reign over you? — as well as a Saviour to make you and keep you safe?"
She did not answer.
"You do not know everything about him, neither."
"What don't I know?"
"Almost all. You cannot, till you begin to obey him; for till then he will not shew himself to you. The epitome of all beauty is in those two words — Jesus Christ."
She made no answer yet, with her head bowed, and striving to check the straining sobs with which her breast was heaving. She had a feeling that he was looking on compassionately; but it was a good while before she could restrain herself into calmness; and during that time he added nothing more. When she could look up, she found he was not looking at her; his eyes were turned upon the river, where the moon made a broad and broadening streak of wavy brightness. But Elizabeth looked at the quiet of his brow, and it smote her; though there was now somewhat of thoughtful care upon the face. The tears that she thought she had driven back, rushed fresh to her eyes again.
"Do you believe what I last said, Miss Elizabeth?" he said turning round to her.
"About the epitome of all beauty?"
"Yes. Do you believe it?"
"You say so — I don't understand it," she said sadly and somewhat perplexed.
"I told you so," he answered, looking round to the moonlight again.
"But Mr. Landholm," said Elizabeth in evident distress, "won't you tell me something more?"
"I cannot."
"Oh yes you can, — a great deal more," she said weeping.
"I could," he said gravely, — "yet I should tell you nothing — you would not understand me. You must, find it out for yourself."
"How in the world can I?"
"There is a promise, — 'If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine.'"
"I don't know how to begin, nor anything about it," said
Elizabeth, weeping still.
"Begin anywhere."
"How? What do you mean?"
"Open the Bible at the first chapter of Matthew, and read. Ask honestly, of your own conscience and of God, at each step, what obligation upon you grows out of what you are reading. If you follow his leading he will lead you on, — to himself."
Elizabeth sobbed in silence for some little time; then she said,
"I will do it, Mr. Landholm."
"If you do," said he, "you will find you can do nothing."
"Nothing!" said Elizabeth.
"You will find you are dependent upon the good pleasure of God for power to take the smallest step."
"His good pleasure! — Suppose it should not be given me."
"There is no 'suppose' about that," Winthrop answered, with a slight smile, which seen as it was through a veil of tears, Elizabeth never forgot, and to which she often looked back in after time; — "'Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.' But he does not always get a draught at the first asking. The water of life was not bought so cheap as that. However, 'to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.'"
Elizabeth hearkened to him, with a curious mixture of yielding and rebellion at once in her mind. She felt them both there. But the rebellion was against the words; her yielding was for the voice that brought the words to her ear. She paused awhile.
"At that rate, people might be discouraged before they got what they wanted," she observed, when the silence had lasted some little time.
"They might," said Winthrop quietly.
"I should think many might."
"Many have been," he answered.
"What then?" she asked a little abruptly.
"They did not get what they wanted."
Elizabeth started a little, and shivered, and tears began to come again.
"What's to hinder their being discouraged, Mr. Landholm?" she asked in a tone that was a little querulous.
"Believing God's word."
So sweet the words came, her tears ceased at that; the power of the truth sank for a moment with calming effect upon her rebellious feeling; but with this came also as truly the thought, "You have a marvellous beautiful way of saying things quietly!" — However for the time her objections were silenced; and she sat still, looking out upon the water, and thinking that with the first quiet opportunity she would begin the first chapter of Matthew.
For a little while they both were motionless and silent; and then rising, Winthrop began his walk up and down the deck again. Elizabeth was left to her meditations; which sometimes roved hither and thither, and sometimes concentred themselves upon the beat of his feet, which indeed formed a sort of background of cadence to them all. It was such a soothing reminder of one strong and sure stay that she might for the present lean upon; and the knowledge that she might soon lose it, made the reminder only the more precious. She was weeping most bitter tears during some of that time; but those footsteps behind her were like quiet music through all. She listened to them sometimes, and felt them always, with a secret gratification of knowing they would not quit the deck till she did. Then she had some qualms about his getting tired; and then she said to herself that she could not put a stop to what was so much to her and which she was not to have again. So she sat and listened to them, weary and half bewildered with the changes and pain of the last few days and hours; hardly recognizing the reality of her own situation, or that the sloop, Winthrop's walk behind her, the moonlight, her lonely seat on the deck, and her truly lonely place in the world, were not all parts of a curious phantasm. Or if realizing them, with senses so tried and blunted with recent wear and tear, that they refused to act and left her to realize it quietly and almost it seemed stupidly. She called it so to herself, but she could not help it; and she was in a manner thankful for that. She would wake up again. She would have liked to sit there all night under that moonlight and with the regular fall of Winthrop's step to and fro on the vessel.
"How long can you stand this?" said he, pausing beside her.
"What?" said Elizabeth looking up.
"How long can you do without resting?"
"I am resting. — I couldn't rest so well anywhere else."
"Couldn't you?"
"No! —" she said earnestly.
He turned away and went on walking. Elizabeth blessed him for it.
The moon shone, and the wind blew, and steadily the vessel sailed on; till higher grounds began to rise on either side of her, and hills stood back of hills, ambitious of each other's standing, and threw their deep shadows all along the margin of the river. As the sloop entered between these narrowing and lifting walls of the river channel, the draught of air became gentler, often hindered by some outstanding high point she had left behind; more slowly she made her way past hill and hill- embayed curves of the river, less stoutly her sails were filled, more gently her prow rippled over the smoother water. Sometimes she passed within the shadow of a lofty hill-side; and then slipped out again into the clear fair sparkling water where the moon shone.
"Are we near there?" said Elizabeth suddenly, turning her head to arrest her walking companion. He came to the back of the chair.
"Near Wut-a-qut-o?"
"Yes."
"No. Nearing it, but not near it yet."
"How soon shall we be?"
"If the wind holds, I should think in two hours."
"Where do we stop?"
"At the sloop's quarters — the old mill —about two miles down the river from Shahweetah."
"Why wouldn't she carry us straight up to the place?"
"It would be inconvenient landing there, and would very much delay the sloop's getting to her moorings."
"I'll pay for that! —"
"We can get home as well in another way."
"But then we shall have to stay here all night."
"Here, on the sloop, you mean? The night is far gone already."
"Not half!" said Elizabeth. "It's only a little past twelve."
"Aren't you tired?"
"I suppose so, but I don't feel it."
"Don't you want to take some sleep before morning?"
"No, I can't. But you needn't walk there to take care of me,
Mr. Winthrop. I shall be quite safe alone."
"No, you will not," he said; and going to some of the sloop's receptacles, he drew out an old sail and laying it on the deck by her side he placed himself upon it, in a half sitting, half reclining posture, which told of some need of rest on his part.
"You are tired," she said earnestly. "Please don't stay here for me!"
"It pleases me to stay," he said lightly. "It is no hardship, under ordinary circumstances, to pass such a night as this out of doors."
"What is it in these circumstances?" said Elizabeth quickly.
"Not a hardship."
"You don't say much more than you are obliged to," thought Elizabeth bitterly. "It is 'not a hardship' to stay there to take care of me; — and there is not in the world another person left to me who could say even as much." —
"There is a silent peace-speaking in such a scene as this," presently said Winthrop, lying on his sail and looking at the river.
"I dare say there is," Elizabeth answered sadly.
"You cannot feel it, perhaps?"
"Not a particle. I can just see that it might be."
"The Bible makes such constant use of natural imagery, that to one familiar with it, the objects of nature bring back as constantly its teachings — its warnings — its consolations."
"What now?" said Elizabeth.
"Many things. Look at those deep and overlapping shadows. 'As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people, from henceforth'" —
"Stop, Mr. Winthrop!" Elizabeth exclaimed; — "Stop! I can't bear it."
"Why?"
"I can't bear it," she repeated, in a passion of tears.
"Why?" said he again in the same tone, when a minute had gone by.
"Those words don't belong to me — I've nothing to do with them," she said, raising her head and dashing her tears right and left.
But Winthrop made no sort of answer to that, and a dead silence fell between the parties. Again the prow of the sloop was heard rippling against the waves; and slowly she glided past mountain and shadow, and other hills rose and other deep shadows lay before them. Elizabeth, between other thoughts, was tempted to think that her companion was as impassive and cold as the moonlight, and as moveless as the dark mountain lines that stood against the sky. And yet she knew and trusted him better than that. It was but the working of passing impatience and bitter feeling; it was only the chafing of passion against what seemed so self-contained and so calm. And yet that very self-continence and calmness was what passion liked, and what passion involuntarily bent down before.
She had not got over yet the stunned effect of the past days and nights. She sat feeling coldly miserable and forlorn and solitary; conscious that one interest was living at her heart yet, but also conscious that it was to live and die by its own strength as it might; and that in all the world she had nothing else; no, nor never should have anything else. She could not have a father again; and even he had been nothing for the companionship of such a spirit as hers, not what she wanted to make her either good or happy. But little as he had done of late to make her either, the name, and even the nominal guardianship, and what the old childish affection had clung to, were gone — and never could come back; and Elizabeth wept sometimes with a very bowed head and heart, and sometimes sat stiff and quiet, gazing at the varying mountain outline, and the fathomless shadows that repeated it upon the water.
The night drew on, as the hills closed in more and more upon the narrowing river channel, and the mountain heads lifted themselves more high, and the shadows spread out broader upon the river. Every light along shore had long been out; but now one glimmered down at them faintly from under a high thick wooded bluff, on the east shore; and the Julia Ann as she came up towards it, edged down a little constantly to that side of the river.
"Where are we going?" said Elizabeth presently. "We're getting out of the channel."
But she saw immediately that Winthrop was asleep. It made her feel more utterly alone and forlorn than she had done before. With a sort of additional chill at her heart, she looked round for some one else of whom to ask her question, and saw the skipper just come on deck. Elizabeth got up to speak to him.
"Aren't we getting out of our course?"
"Eg-zackly," said Mr. Hildebrand. "Most out of it. That light's the Mill, marm."
"The Mill! Cowslip's Mill?"
"Well, it's called along o' my father, 'cause he's lived there, I s'pose, — and made it, — and owns to it, too, as far as that goes; — I s'pose it's as good a right to have his name as any one's."
Elizabeth sat down and looked at the light, which now had a particularly cheerless and hopeless look for her. It was the token of somebody's home, shining upon one who had none; it was a signal of the near ending of a guardianship and society which for the moment had taken home's place; a reminder that presently she must be thrown upon her own guidance; left to take care of herself alone in the world, as best she might. The journey, with all its pain, had been a sort of little set- off from the rest of her life, where the contrasts of the past and the future did not meet. They were coming back now. She felt their shadows lying cold upon her. It was one of the times in her life of greatest desolation, the while the sloop was drawing down to her berth under the home light, and making fast in her moorings. The moon was riding high, and dimly shewed Elizabeth the but half-remembered points and outlines; — and there was a contrast! She did not cry; she looked, with a cold chilled feeling of eye and mind that would have been almost despair, if it had not been for the one friend asleep at her side. And he was nothing to her. Nothing. He was nothing to her. Elizabeth said it to herself; but for all that he was there, and it was a comfort to see him there.
The sails rattled down to the deck; and with wind and headway the sloop gently swung up to her appointed place. Another light came out of the house, in a lantern; and another hand on shore aided the sloop's crew in making her fast.
"How can he sleep through it all!" thought Elizabeth. "I wonder if anything ever could shake him out of his settled composure — asleep or awake, it's all the same."
"Ain't you goin' ashore?" said the skipper at her side.
"No — not now."
"They'll slick up a better place for you than we could fix up in this here little hulk. Though she ain't a small sloop neither, by no means."
"What have you got aboard there, Hild'?" called out a voice that came from somewhere in the neighbourhood of the lantern. "Gals?"
"Governor Landholm and some company," said the skipper in a more moderate tone. The other voice took no hint of moderation.
"Governor Landholm? — is he along? Well — glad to see him. Run from the yallow fever, eh?"
"Is mother up, father?"
"Up? — no! — What on arth!"
"Tell her to get up, and make some beds for folks that couldn't sleep aboard sloop; and have been navigatin' all night."
"Go, and I'll look after the sloop till morning, Captain," said Winthrop sitting up on his sail.
"Won't you come ashore and be comfortable?" said father and son at once.
"I am comfortable."
"But you'll be better off there, Governor."
"Don't think I could, Hild'. I'm bound to stay by the ship."
"Won't you come, Miss?" said the skipper addressing Elizabeth.
"You'll be better ashore."
"Oh yes — come along — all of you," said the old sloop-master on the land.
"I'm in charge of the passengers, Captain," said Winthrop; "and I don't think it is safe for any of them to go off before morning."
The request was urged to Elizabeth. But Winthrop quietly negatived it every time it was made; and the sloop's masters at last withdrew. Elizabeth had not spoken at all.
"How do you do?" said Winthrop gravely, when the Cowslips, father and son, had turned their backs upon the vessel.
"Thank you —" said Elizabeth, — and stopped there.
"You are worn out."
"No," — Elizabeth answered under her breath; and then gathering it, went on, — "I am afraid you are."
"I am perfectly well," he said. "But you ought to rest."
"I will, — by and by," said Elizabeth desperately. "I will stay here till the daylight comes. It will not be long, will it?"
He made no answer. The sloop's deck was in parts blockaded with a load of shingles. Winthrop went to these, and taking down bundle after bundle, disposed them so as to make a resting-place of greater capabilities than the armless wooden chair in which Elizabeth had been sitting all night. Over this, seat, back, sides and all, he spread the sail on which he had been lying.
"Is there nothing in the shape of a pillow or cushion that you could get out of the cabin now?" said he.
"But you have given me your sail," said Elizabeth.
"I'm master of the sloop now. Can't you get a pillow?"
Since so much had been done for her, Elizabeth consented to do this for herself. She fetched a pillow from the cabin; and Winthrop himself bestowed it in the proper position; and with a choking feeling of gratitude and pleasure that did not permit her to utter one word, Elizabeth placed herself in the box seat made for her, took off her bonnet and laid her head down. She knew that Winthrop laid her light shawl over her head; but she did not stir. Her thanks reached only her pillow, in the shape of two or three hot tears; then she slept.
CHAPTER X.
Beneath my palm-trees, by the river side,
I sat a weeping; in the whole world wide
There was no one to ask me why I wept, —
And so I kept
Brimming the water-lily cups with tears
Cold as my fears.
SHELLEY.
The dawn had fairly broken, but that was all, when Winthrop and old Mr. Cowslip met on the little wharf landing which served instead of courtyard to the house. The hands clasped each other cordially.
"How do you do? Glad to see you in these parts!" was the hearty salutation of the old man to the young.
"Thank you, Mr. Cowslip," said Winthrop, returning the grasp of the hand.
"I don't see but you keep your own," the old man went on, looking at him wistfully. "Why don't you come up our way oftener? It wouldn't hurt you."
"I don't know about that," said Winthrop. "My business lies that way, you know."
"Ah! — 'tain't as good business as our'n, now," said Mr. Cowslip. "You'd better by half be up there on the old place, with your wife and half a dozen children about you. Ain't married yet, Governor, be you?"
"No sir."
"Goin' to be?"
"I don't know what I am going to be, sir."
"Ah! —" said the old miller with a sly smile. "Is that what you've got here in the sloop with you now? I guessed it, and Hild' said it wa'n't — not as he knowed on — but I told him he didn't know everything."
"Hild' is quite right. But there are two ladies here who are going up to Shahweetah. Can you give us a boat, Mr. Cowslip?"
"A boat? — How many of you?"
"Four — and baggage. Your boat is large enough — used to be when I went in her."
"Used to be when I went in her," said the old skipper; "but there it is! She won't hold nobody now."
"What's the matter?"
"She took too many passengers the other day, — that is, she took one too many. Shipped a cargo of fresh meat, sir, and it wa'n't stowed in right, and the 'Bessie Bell' broke her heart about it. Like to ha' gone to the bottom."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, I was comin' home from Diver's Rock the other day — just a week ago last Saturday — I had been round there up the shore after fish; — you know the rock where the horse mackerel comes? — me and little Archie; lucky enough we had no more along. By the by, I hope you'll go fishing, Winthrop — the mackerel's fine this year. How long you're goin' to stay?"
"Only a day or two, sir."
"Ah! — Well — we were comin' home with a good mess o' fine fish, and when we were just about in the middle of the river, comin' over, — the fish had been jumping all along the afternoon, shewing their heads and tails more than common; and I'd been sayin' to Archie it was a sign o' rain — 'tis, you know, — and just as we were in the deepest of the river, about half way over, one of 'em came up and put himself aboard of us."
"A sturgeon?"
"Just that, sir; as sound a fellow as ever you saw in your life — just the length of one of my little oars — longer than I be — eight feet wanting one inch, he measured, for the blade of that oar has been broken off a bit — several inches, — and what do you think he weighed? — Two hundred and forty pound."
"So it seems you got him safe to land, where you could weigh him."
"And measure him. I forgot I was talkin' to a lawyer," said the old man laughing. "Yes, I didn't think much how long he was at the time, I guess! He came in as handsome as ever you saw anything done — just slipped himself over the gunwale so — and duv under one of the th'arts, and druv his nose through the bottom of the boat."
"Kept it there, I hope?"
"Ha, ha! Not so fast but there came in a'most water enough to float him again by the time we got to land. He was a power of a fellow!"
"And the 'Bessie' don't float?"
"No; she's laid up with three broken ribs."
"No other boat on hand?"
"There's a little punt out there, that Hild' goes a fishin' in — that'd carry two or three people. But it wouldn't take the hull on ye."
"There's the sloop's boat."
"She leaks," said the miller. "She wants to be laid up as bad as the 'Bessie.'"
"Have you any sort of a team, Mr. Cowslip?"
"Yes! — there's my little wagon — it'll hold two. But you ain't wanting it yet, be you?"
"As soon as it can go — if it can go. Is there a horse to the wagon?"
"Sartain! But won't you stop and take a bit?"
"No sir. If you will let some of the boys take up the punt with her load, I'll drive the wagon myself, and as soon as you can let me have it."
"Jock! — tackle up the wagon! —that 'ere little red one in the barn," shouted the miller. "Hild' 'll see to the boat-load — or I will, — and send it right along. I'm sorry you won't stop."
Winthrop turned back to the sloop. Elizabeth met him there with the question, "if she might not go now?"
"As soon as you please. I am going to drive you up to Shahweetah. The boat will carry the rest, but it is too small to take all of us."
"I'm very glad!" — Elizabeth could not help saying.
She granted half a word of explanation to Mrs. Nettley, her bonnet was hastily thrown on, and she stood with Winthrop on the wharf before the little wagon was fairly ready. But Jock was not tardy neither; and a very few minutes saw them seated and the horse's head turned from the Mill.
The dawn was fresh and fair yet, hardly yielding to day. In utter silence they drove swiftly along the road, through the woods and out upon the crest of tableland overlooking the bay; just above the shore where the huckleberry party had coasted along, that afternoon years before. By the time they got there, the day had begun to assert itself. Little clouds over Wut-a-qut-o's head were flushing into loveliness, and casting down rosy tints on the water; the mountain slopes were growing bright, and a soft warm colouring flung through all the air from the coming rays of the coming sun. The cat-birds were wide awake and very busy; the song sparrows full of gladness; and now and then, further off, a wood-thrush, less worldly than the one and less unchastened than the other, told of hidden and higher sweets, in tones further removed from Earth than his companions knew. The wild, pure, ethereal notes thrilled like a voice from some clear region where earthly defilement had been overcome, and earthly sorrows had lost their power. Between whiles, the little song sparrows strained their throats with rejoicing; but that was the joy of hilarious nature that sorrows and defilement had never touched. The cat-birds spoke of business, and sung over it, ambitious and self-gratulatory, and proud. And then by turns came the strange thrush's note, saying, as if they knew it and had proved it,
"WHEN HE GIVETH QUIETNESS, THEN WHO CAN MAKE TROUBLE?"
The travellers had ridden so far without speaking a word. If Elizabeth was sometimes weeping, she kept herself very quiet, and perfectly still. The sights and sounds that were abroad entered her mind by a side door, if they entered at all. Winthrop might have taken the benefit of them; but up to the bend of the bay he had driven fast and attentively. Here he suffered the horse to slacken his pace and come even to a walk, while his eye took note of the flushing morning, and perhaps the song of the birds reached his ear. It was not of them he spoke.
"Do you mean to begin upon the first chapter of Matthew?" he said, when the horse had walked the length of some two or three minutes.
"Yes! — I do" — said Elizabeth, turning her face towards him.
"According to the rules?"
The answer was spoken more hesitatingly, but again it was 'yes.'
"I am glad of that," he said.
"Mr. Winthrop," said Elizabeth presently, speaking it seemed with some effort, — "if I get into any difficulty — if I cannot understand, — I mean, if I am in any real trouble, — may I write to you to ask about it?"
"With great pleasure. I mean, it would give me great pleasure to have you do so."
"I should be very much obliged to you," she said humbly.
She did not see, for she did not look to see, a tiny show of a smile which spread itself over her companion's face. They drove on fast, till the bottom of the bay was left and they descended from the tableland, by Sam Doolittle's, to the road which skirted the south side of Shahweetah. Winthrop looked keenly as he passed at the old fields and hillsides. They were uncultivated now; fallow lands and unmown grass pastures held the place of the waving harvests of grain and new-reaped stubblefields that used to be there in the old time. The pastures grew rank, for there were even no cattle to feed them; and the fallows were grown with thistles and weeds. But over what might have been desolate lay the soft warmth of the summer morning; and rank pasture and uncared fallow ground took varied rich and bright hues under the early sun's rays. Those rays had now waked the hilltops and sky and river, and were just tipping the woods and slopes of the lower ground. By the bend meadow Winthrop drew in his horse again and looked fixedly.
"Does it seem pleasant to you?" he asked.
"How should it, Mr. Winthrop?" Elizabeth said coldly.
"Do you change your mind about wishing to be here?"
"No, not at all. I might as well be here as anywhere. I would rather — I have nowhere else to go."
He made no comment, but drove on fast again, till he drew up once more at the old back door of the old house. It seemed a part of the solitude, for nothing was stirring. Elizabeth sat and watched Winthrop tie the horse; then he came and helped her out of the wagon.
"Lean on me," said he. "You are trembling all over."
He put her arm within his, and led her up to the door and knocked.
"Karen is up — unless she has forgotten her old ways," said
Winthrop. He knocked again.
A minute after, the door slowly opened its upper half, and Karen's wrinkled face and white cap and red shortgown were before them. Winthrop did not speak. Karen looked in bewilderment; then her bewilderment changed into joy.
"Mr. Winthrop! — Governor!" —
And her hand was stretched out, and clasped his in a long mute stringent clasp, which her eyes at least said was all she could do.
"How do you do, Karen?"
"I'm well — the Lord has kept me. But you —"
"I am well," said Winthrop. "Will you let us come in, Karen? — This lady has been up all night, and wants rest and refreshment."
Karen looked suspiciously at 'this lady,' as she unbolted the lower half of the door and let them in; and again when Winthrop carefully placed her in a chair and then went off into the inner room for one which he knew was more easy, and made her change the first for it.
"And what have ye come up for now, governor?" she said, when she had watched them both, with an unsatisfied look upon her face and a tone of deep satisfaction coming out in her words.
"Breakfast, Karen. What's to be had?"
"Breakfast? La!" — said the old woman, — "if you had told me you's coming — What do you expect I'll have in the house for my breakfast, Governor?"
"Something —," said Winthrop, taking the tongs and settling the sticks of wood in the chimney to burn better. Karen stood and looked at him.
"What have you got, Karen?" said Winthrop, setting up the tongs.
"I ha'n't got nothing for company," said Karen, grinning.
"That'll do very well," said Winthrop. "Give me the coffee and I'll make it; and you see to the bread, Karen. You have milk and cream, haven't you?"
"Yes, Governor."
"And eggs?"
"La! yes."
"Where are they?"
"Mr. Landholm, don't trouble yourself, pray!" said Elizabeth.
"I am in no hurry for anything. Pray don't!"
"I don't intend it," said he. "Don't trouble your self. Would you rather go into another room?"
Elizabeth would not; and therefore and thereafter kept herself quiet, watching the motions of Karen and her temporary master. Karen seemed in a maze; but a few practical advices from Winthrop at last brought her back to the usual possession of her senses and faculties.
"Who is she?" Elizabeth heard her whisper as she began to bustle about. And Winthrop's answer, not whispered,
"How long ago do you suppose this coffee was parched?"
"No longer ago than yesterday. La sakes! Governor, — I'll do some fresh for you if you want it."
"No time for that, Karen. You get on with those cakes."
Elizabeth watched Winthrop with odd admiration and curiosity, mixed for the moment with not a little of gratified feeling; but the sense of desolation sitting back of all. He seemed to have come out in a new character, or rather to have taken up an old one; for no one could suppose it worn for the first time. Karen had been set to making cakes with all speed. Winthrop seemed to have taken the rest of the breakfast upon himself. He had found the whereabout of the eggs, and ground some coffee, and made it and set it to boil in Karen's tin coffeepot.
"What are you after now, Mr. Winthrop?" said Karen, looking round from her pan and moulding board. "These'll be in the spider before your coffee's boiled."
"They'll have to be quick, then," said Winthrop, going on with his rummaging.
"What are you after, Governor? — there's nothin' there but the pots and kittles."
One of which, however, Winthrop brought out as if it was the thing wanted, and put upon the fire with water in it. Going back to the receptacle of 'pots and kittles,' he next came forth with the article Karen had designated as the 'spider,' and set that in order due upon its appropriate bed of coals.
"La sakes! Governor!" said Karen, in a sort of fond admiration, — "ha'n't you forgot nothin'?"
"Now Karen," said Winthrop, when she had covered the bottom of the hot iron with her thin cakes, — "you set the table and I'll take care of 'em."
"There's the knife, then," said Karen. "Will ye know when to turn them? There ain't fire enough to bake 'em by the blaze."
"I've not forgotten so much," said Winthrop. "Let's have a cup and saucer and plate, Karen."
"Ye sha'n't have one," said Karen, casting another inquisitive and doubtful glance towards the silent, pale, fixed figure sitting in the middle of her kitchen. He did have one, however, before she had got the two ready; despatched Karen from the table for sugar and cream; and then poured out himself a cup of his own preparation, and set it on Karen's half-spread table, and came to Elizabeth. He did not ask her if she would have it, nor say anything in fact; but gently raising her with one hand, he brought forward her chair with the other, and placed both where he wanted them to be, in the close neighbourhood of the steaming coffee. Once before, Elizabeth had known him take the same sort of superintending care of her, when she was in no condition to take care of herself. It was inexpressibly soothing; and yet she felt as if she could have knelt down on the floor, and given forth her very life in tears. She looked at the coffee with a motionless face, till his hand held it out to her. Not to drink it was impossible, though she was scarcely conscious of swallowing anything but tears. When she took the cup from her lips, she found an egg, hot out of the water, on her plate, which was already supplied also with butter. Her provider was just adding one of the cakes he had been baking.