Conyers sat alone in his barrack-room, very sad and dispirited. Hunter had left that same morning, and the young soldier felt utterly friendless. He had obtained some weeks' leave of absence, and already two days of the leave had gone over, and he had not energy to set out if he had even a thought as to the whither. A variety of plans passed vaguely through his head. He would go down to Portsmouth and see Hunter off; or he would nestle down in the little village of Inistioge and dream away the days in quiet forgetfulness; or he would go over to Paris, which he had never seen, and try whether the gay dissipations of that brilliant city might not distract and amuse him. The mail from India had arrived and brought no letter from his father, and this, too, rendered him irritable and unhappy. Not that his father was a good correspondent; he wrote but rarely, and always like one who snatched a hurried moment to catch a post. Still, if this were a case of emergency, any great or critical event in his life, he was sure his father would have informed him; and thus was it that he sat balancing doubt against doubt, and setting probability against probability, till his very head grew addled with the labor of speculation.
It was already late; all the usual sounds of barrack life had subsided, and although on the opposite side of the square the brilliant lights of the mess-room windows showed where the convivial spirits of the regiment were assembled, all around was silent and still. Suddenly there came a dull heavy knock to the door, quickly followed by two or three others.
Not caring to admit a visitor, whom, of course, he surmised would be some young brother-officer full of the plans and projects of the mess, he made no reply to the summons, nor gave any token of his presence. The sounds, however, were redoubled, and with an energy that seemed to vouch for perseverance; and Conyers, partly in anger, and partly in curiosity, went to the door and opened it. It was not till after a minute or two that he was able to recognize the figure before him. It was Tom Dill, but without a hat or neckcloth, his hair dishevelled, his face colorless, and his clothes torn, while from a recent wound in one hand the blood flowed fast, and dropped on the floor. The whole air and appearance of the young fellow so resembled drunkenness that Conyers turned a stern stare upon him as he stood in the centre of the room, and in a voice of severity said, “By what presumption, sir, do you dare to present yourself in this state before me?”
“You think I'm drunk, sir, but I am not,” said he, with a faltering accent and a look of almost imploring misery.
“What is the meaning of this state, then? What disgraceful row have you been in?”
“None, sir. I have cut my hand with the glass on the barrack-wall, and torn my trousers too; but it's no matter, I 'll not want them long.”
“What do you mean by all this? Explain yourself.”
“May I sit down, sir, for I feel very weak?” but before the permission could be granted, his knees tottered, and he fell in a faint on the floor. Conyers knelt down beside him, bathed his temples with water, and as soon as signs of animation returned, took him up in his arms and laid him at full length on a sofa.
In the vacant, meaningless glance of the poor fellow as he looked first around him, Conyers could mark how he was struggling to find out where he was.
“You are with me, Tom,—with your friend Conyers,” said he, holding the cold clammy hand between his own.
“Thank you, sir. It is very good of you. I do not deserve it,” said he, in a faint whisper.
“My poor boy, you mustn't say that; I am your friend. I told you already I would be so.”
“But you 'll not be my friend when I tell you—when I tell you—all;” and as the last word dropped, he covered his face with both his hands, and burst into a heavy passion of tears.
“Come, come, Tom, this is not manly; bear up bravely, bear up with courage, man. You used to say you had plenty of pluck if it were to be tried.”
“So I thought I had, sir, but it has all left me;” and he sobbed as if his heart was breaking. “But I believe I could bear anything but this,” said he, in a voice shaken by convulsive throes. “It is the disgrace,—that 's what unmans me.”
“Take a glass of wine, collect yourself, and tell me all about it.”
“No, sir. No wine, thank you; give me a glass of water. There, I am better now; my brain is not so hot. You are very good to me, Mr. Conyers, but it 's the last time I'll ever ask it,—the very last time, sir; but I 'll remember it all my life.”
“If you give way in this fashion, Tom, I 'll not think you the stout-hearted fellow I once did.”
“No, sir, nor am I. I 'll never be the same again. I feel it here. I feel as if something gave, something broke.” And he laid his hand over his heart and sighed heavily.
“Well, take your own time about it, Tom, and let me hear if I cannot be of use to you.”
“No, sir, not now. Neither you nor any one else can help me now. It's all over, Mr. Conyers,—it's all finished.”
“What is over,—what is finished?”
“And so, as I thought it would n't do for one like me to be seen speaking to you before people, I stole away and climbed over the barrack-wall. I cut my hand on the glass, too, but it's nothing. And here I am, and here's the money you gave me; I've no need of it now.” And as he laid some crumpled bank-notes on the table, his overcharged heart again betrayed him, and he burst into tears. “Yes, sir, that's what you gave me for the College, but I was rejected.”
“Rejected, Tom! How was that? Be calm, my poor fellow, and tell me all about it quietly.”
“I'll try, sir, I will, indeed; and I'll tell you nothing but the truth, that you may depend upon.” He took a great drink of water, and went on. “If there was one man I was afraid of in the world, it was Surgeon Asken, of Mercer's Hospital. I used to be a dresser there, and he was always angry with me, exposing me before the other students, and ridiculing me, so that if anything was done badly in the wards, he 'd say, 'This is some of Master Dill's work, is n't it?' Well, sir, would you believe it, on the morning I went up for my examination, Dr. Coles takes ill, and Surgeon Asken is called on to replace him. I did n't know it till I was sent for to go in, and my head went round, and I could n't see, and a cold sweat came over me, and I was so confused that when I got into the room I went and sat down beside the examiners, and never knew what they were laughing at.
“'I have no doubt, Mr. Dill, you 'll occupy one of these places at some future day,' says Dr. Willes, 'but for the present your seat is yonder.' I don't remember much more after that, till Mr. Porter said, 'Don't be so nervous, Mr. Dill; collect yourself; I am persuaded you know what I am asking you, if you will not be flurried.' And all I could say was, 'God bless you for that speech, no matter how it goes with me' and they all laughed out.
“It was Asken's turn now, and he began. 'You are destined for the navy, I understand, sir?'
“'No, sir; for the army,' said I.
“'From what we have seen to-day, you 'll prove an ornament to either service. Meanwhile, sir, it will be satisfactory to the court to have your opinion on gun-shot wounds. Describe to us the case of a man laboring under the worst form of concussion of the brain, and by what indications you would distinguish it from fracture of the base of the skull, and what circumstances might occur to render the distinction more difficult, and what impossible?' That was his question, and if I was to live a hundred years I 'll never forget a word in it,—it's written on my heart, I believe, for life.
“'Go on, sir,' said he, 'the court is waiting for you.'
“'Take the case of concussion first,' said Dr. Willes.
“'I hope I may be permitted to conduct my own examination in my own manner,' said Asken.
“That finished me, and I gave a groan that set them all laughing again.
“'Well, sir, I 'm waiting,' said Asken. 'You can have no difficulty to describe concussion, if you only give us your present sensations.'
“'That's as true as if you swore it,' said I. 'I 'm just as if I had a fall on the crown of my head. There's a haze over my eyes, and a ringing of bells in my ears, and a feeling as if my brain was too big.'
“'Take my word for it, Mr. Dill,' said he, sneeringly, 'the latter is a purely deceptive sensation; the fault lies in the opposite direction. Let us, however, take something more simple;' and with that he described a splinter wound of the scalp, with the whole integuments torn in fragments, and gunpowder and sticks and sand all mixed up with the flap that hung down over the patient's face. 'Now,' said he, after ten minutes' detail of this,—'now,' said he, 'when you found the man in this case, you 'd take out your scalpel, perhaps, and neatly cut away all these bruised and torn integuments?'
“'I would, sir,' cried I, eagerly.
“'I knew it,' said he, with a cry of triumph,—'I knew it. I 've no more to ask you. You may retire.'
“I got up to leave the room, but a sudden flash went through me, and I said out boldly,—
“'Am I passed? Tell me at once. Put me out of pain, for I can't bear any more!'
“'If you'll retire for a few minutes,' said the President—
“'My heart will break, sir,' said I, 'if I 'm to be in suspense any more. Tell me the worst at once.'
“And I suppose they did tell me, for I knew no more till I found myself in the housekeeper's room, with wet cloths on my head, and the money you see there in the palm of my hand. That told everything. Many were very kind to me, telling how it happened to this and to that man, the first time; and that Asken was thought very unfair, and so on; but I just washed my face with cold water, and put on my hat and went away home, that is, to where I lodged, and I wrote to Polly just this one line: 'Rejected; I 'm not coming back.' And then I shut the shutters and went to bed in my clothes as I was, and I slept sixteen hours without ever waking. When I awoke, I was all right. I could n't remember everything that happened for some time, but I knew it all at last, and so I went off straight to the Royal Barracks and 'listed.”
“Enlisted?—enlisted?”
“Yes, sir, in the Forty-ninth Regiment of Foot, now in India, and sending off drafts from Cork to join them on Tuesday. It was out of the dépôt at the bridge I made my escape to-night to come and see you once more, and to give you this with my hearty blessing, for you were the only one ever stood to me in the world,—the only one that let me think for a moment I could be a gentleman!”
“Come, come, this is all wrong and hasty and passionate, Tom. You have no right to repay your family in this sort; this is not the way to treat that fine-hearted girl who has done so much for you; this is but an outbreak of angry selfishness.”
“These are hard words, sir, very hard words, and I wish you had not said them.”
“Hard or not, you deserve them; and it is their justice that wounds you.”
“I won't say that it is not, sir. But it isn't justice I 'm asking for, but forgiveness. Just one word out of your mouth to say, 'I 'm sorry for you, Tom;' or, 'I wish you well.'”
“So I do, my poor fellow, with all my heart,” cried Con-yers, grasping his hand and pressing it cordially, “and I 'll get you out of this scrape, cost what it may.”
“If you mean, sir, that I am to get my discharge, it's better to tell the truth at once. I would n't take it. No, sir, I 'll stand by what I 've done. I see I never could be a doctor, and I have my doubts, too, if I ever could be a gentleman; but there's something tells me I could be a soldier, and I'll try.”
Conyers turned from him with an impatient gesture, and walked the room in moody silence.
“I know well enough, sir,” continued Tom, “what every one will say; perhaps you yourself are thinking it this very minute: 'It 's all out of his love of low company he 's gone and done this; he's more at home with those poor ignorant boys there than he would be with men of education and good manners.' Perhaps it's true, perhaps it is 'n't! But there 's one thing certain, which is, that I 'll never try again to be anything that I feel is clean above me, and I 'll not ask the world to give me credit for what I have not the least pretension to.”
“Have you reflected,” said Conyers, slowly, “that if you reject my assistance now, it will be too late to ask for it a few weeks, or even a few days hence?”
“I have thought of all that, sir. I 'll never trouble you about myself again.”
“My dear Tom,” said Conyers, as he laid his arm on the other's shoulder, “just think for one moment of all the misery this step will cause your sister,—that kind, true-hearted sister, who has behaved so nobly by you.”
“I have thought of that, too, sir; and in my heart I believe, though she 'll fret herself at first greatly, it will all turn out best in the end. What could I ever be but a disgrace to her? Who 'd ever think the same of Polly after seeing me? Don't I bring her down in spite of herself; and is n't it a hard trial for her to be a lady when I am in the same room with her? No, sir, I'll not go back; and though I haven't much hope in me, I feel I'm doing right.”
“I know well,” said Conyers, pettishly, “that your sister will throw the whole blame on me. She 'll say, naturally enough, You could have obtained his discharge,—you should have insisted on his leaving.”
“That's what you could not, sir,” said Tom, sturdily. “It's a poor heart hasn't some pride in it; and I would not go back and meet my father, after my disgrace, if it was to cost me my right hand,—so don't say another word about it. Good-bye, sir, and my blessing go with you wherever you are. I 'll never forget how you stood to me.”
“That money there is yours, Dill,” said Conyers, half haughtily. “You may refuse my advice and reject my counsel, but I scarcely suppose you 'll ask me to take back what I once have given.”
Tom tried to speak, but he faltered and moved from one foot to the other, in an embarrassed and hesitating way. He wanted to say how the sum originally intended for one object could not honestly be claimed for another; he wanted to say, also, that he had no longer the need of so much money, and that the only obligation he liked to submit to was gratitude for the past; but a consciousness that in attempting to say these things some unhappy word, some ill-advised or ungracious expression might escape him, stopped him, and he was silent.
“You do not wish that we should part coldly, Tom?”
“No, sir,—oh, no!” cried he, eagerly.
“Then let not that paltry gift stand in the way of our esteem. Now, another thing. Will you write to me? Will you tell me how the world fares with you, and honestly declare whether the step you have taken to-day brings with it regret or satisfaction?”
“I'm not over-much of a letter-writer,” said he, falter-ingly, “but I'll try. I must be going, Mr. Conyers,” said he, after a moment's silence; “I must get back before I'm missed.”
“Not as you came, Tom, however. I'll pass you out of the barrack-gate.”
As they walked along side by side, neither spoke till they came close to the gate; then Conyers halted and said, “Can you think of nothing I can do for you, or is there nothing you would leave to my charge after you have gone?”
“No, sir, nothing.” He paused, and then, as if with a struggle, said, “Except you 'd write one line to my sister Polly, to tell her that I went away in good heart, that I did n't give in one bit, and that if it was n't for thinking that maybe I 'd never see her again—” He faltered, his voice grew thick, he tried to cough down the rising emotion, but the feeling overcame him, and he burst out into tears. Ashamed at the weakness he was endeavoring to deny, he sprang through the gate and disappeared.
Conyers slowly returned to his quarters, very thoughtful and very sad.
While poor Tom Dill, just entering upon life, went forth in gloom and disappointment to his first venture, old Peter Barrington, broken by years and many a sorrow, set out on his journey with a high heart and a spirit well disposed to see everything in its best light and be pleased with all around him. Much of this is, doubtless, matter of temperament; but I suspect, too, that all of us have more in our power in this way than we practise. Barrington had possibly less merit than his neighbors, for nature had given him one of those happy dispositions upon which the passing vexations of life produce scarcely any other effect than a stimulus to humor, or a tendency to make them the matter of amusing memory.
He had lived, besides, so long estranged from the world, that life had for him all the interests of a drama, and he could no more have felt angry with the obtrusive waiter or the roguish landlord than he would with their fictitious representatives on the stage. They were, in his eyes, parts admirably played, and no more; he watched them with a sense of humorous curiosity, and laughed heartily at successes of which he was himself the victim. Miss Barrington was no disciple of this school; rogues to her were simply rogues, and no histrionic sympathies dulled the vexation they gave her. The world, out of which she had lived so long, had, to her thinking, far from improved in the mean while. People were less deferential, less courteous than of old. There was an indecent haste and bustle about everything, and a selfish disregard of one's neighbor was the marked feature of all travel. While her brother repaid himself for many an inconvenience by thinking over some strange caprice, or some curious inconsistency in human nature,—texts for amusing afterthought,—she only winced under the infliction, and chafed at every instance of cheating or impertinence that befell them.
The wonderful things she saw, the splendid galleries rich in art, the gorgeous palaces, the grand old cathedrals, were all marred to her by the presence of the loquacious lackey whose glib tongue had to be retained at the salary of the “vicar of our parish,” and who never descanted on a saint's tibia without costing the price of a dinner; so that old Peter at last said to himself, “I believe my sister Dinah would n't enjoy the garden of Eden if Adam had to go about and show her its beauties.”
The first moment of real enjoyment of her tour was on that morning when they left Namur to drive to the Convent of Bramaigne, about three miles off, on the banks of the Meuse. A lovelier day never shone upon a lovelier scene. The river, one side guarded by lofty cliffs, was on the other bounded by a succession of rich meadows, dotted with picturesque homesteads half hidden in trees. Little patches of cultivation, labored to the perfection of a garden, varied the scene, and beautiful cattle lay lazily under the giant trees, solemn voluptuaries of the peaceful happiness of their lot.
Hitherto Miss Dinah had stoutly denied that anything they had seen could compare with their own “vale and winding river,” but now she frankly owned that the stream was wider, the cliffs higher, the trees taller and better grown, while the variety of tint in the foliage far exceeded all she had any notion of; but above all these were the evidences of abundance, the irresistible charm that gives the poetry to peasant life; and the picturesque cottage, the costume, the well-stored granary, bespeak the condition with which we associate our ideas of rural happiness. The giant oxen as they marched proudly to their toil, the gay-caparisoned pony who jingled his bells as he trotted by, the peasant girls as they sat at their lace cushions before the door, the rosy urchins who gambolled in the deep grass, all told of plenty,—that blessing which to man is as the sunlight to a landscape, making the fertile spots more beautiful, and giving even to ruggedness an aspect of stern grandeur.
“Oh, brother Peter, that we could see something like this at home,” cried she. “See that girl yonder watering the flowers in her little garden,—how prettily that old vine is trained over the balcony,—mark the scarlet tassels in the snow-white team,—are not these signs of an existence not linked to daily drudgery? I wish our people could be like these.”
“Here we are, Dinah: there is the convent!” cried Barrington, as a tall massive roof appeared over the tree-tops, and the little carriage now turned from the high-road into a shady avenue of tall elms. “What a grand old place it is! some great seigniorial château once on a time.”
As they drew nigh, nothing bespoke the cloister. The massive old building, broken by many a projection and varied by many a gable, stood, like the mansion of some rich proprietor, in a vast wooded lawn. The windows lay open, the terrace was covered with orange and lemon trees and flowering plants, amid which seats were scattered; and in the rooms within, the furniture indicated habits of comfort and even of luxury. With all this, no living thing was to be seen; and when Barrington got down and entered the hall, he neither found a servant nor any means to summon one.
“You'll have to move that little slide you see in the door there,” said the driver of the carriage, “and some one will come to you.”
He did so; and after waiting a few moments, a somewhat ruddy, cheerful face, surmounted by a sort of widow's cap, appeared, and asked his business.
“They are at dinner, but if you will enter the drawing-room she will come to you presently.”
They waited for some time; to them it seemed very long, for they never spoke, but sat there in still thoughtfulness, their hearts very full, for there was much in that expectancy, and all the visions of many a wakeful night or dreary day might now receive their shock or their support. Their patience was to be further tested; for, when the door opened, there entered a grim-looking little woman in a nun's costume, who, without previous salutation, announced herself as Sister Lydia. Whether the opportunity for expansiveness was rare, or that her especial gift was fluency, never did a little old woman hold forth more volubly. As though anticipating all the worldly objections to a conventual existence, or rather seeming to suppose that every possible thing had been actually said on that ground, she assumed the defence the very moment she sat down. Nothing short of long practice with this argument could have stored her mind with all her instances, her quotations, and her references. Nor could anything short of a firm conviction have made her so courageously indifferent to the feelings she was outraging, for she never scrupled to arraign the two strangers before her for ignorance, apathy, worldliness, sordid and poor ambitions, and, last of all, a levity unbecoming their time of life.
“I 'm not quite sure that I understand her aright,” whispered Peter, whose familiarity with French was not what it had once been; “but if I do, Dinah, she 's giving us a rare lesson.”
“She's the most insolent old woman I ever met in my life,” said his sister, whose violent use of her fan seemed either likely to provoke or to prevent a fit of apoplexy.
“It is usual,” resumed Sister Lydia, “to give persons who are about to exercise the awful responsibility now devolving upon you the opportunity of well weighing and reflecting over the arguments I have somewhat faintly shadowed forth.”
“Oh, not faintly!” groaned Barrington.
But she minded nothing the interruption, and went on,—
“And for this purpose a little tract has been composed, entitled 'A Word to the Worldling.' This, with your permission, I will place in your hands. You will there find at more length than I could bestow—But I fear I impose upon this lady's patience?”
“It has left me long since, madam,” said Miss Dinah, as she actually gasped for breath.
In the grim half-smile of the old nun might be seen the triumphant consciousness that placed her above the “mundane;” but she did not resent the speech, simply saying that, as it was the hour of recreation, perhaps she would like to see her young ward in the garden with her companions.
“By all means. We thank you heartily for the offer,” cried Barrington, rising hastily.
With another smile, still more meaningly a reproof, Sister Lydia reminded him that the profane foot of a man had never transgressed the sacred precincts of the convent garden, and that he must remain where he was.
“For Heaven's sake! Dinah, don't keep me a prisoner here a moment longer than you can help it,” cried he, “or I'll not answer for my good behavior.”
As Barrington paced up and down the room with impatient steps, he could not escape the self-accusation that all his present anxiety was scarcely compatible with the long, long years of neglect and oblivion he had suffered to glide over.
The years in which he had never heard of Josephine—never asked for her—was a charge there was no rebutting. Of course he could fall back upon all that special pleading ingenuity and self-love will supply about his own misfortunes, the crushing embarrassments that befell him, and such like. But it was no use, it was desertion, call it how he would; and poor as he was he had never been without a roof to shelter her, and if it had not been for false pride he would have offered her that refuge long ago. He was actually startled as he thought over all this. Your generous people, who forgive injuries with little effort, who bear no malice nor cherish any resentment, would be angels—downright angels—if we did not find that they are just as indulgent, just as merciful to themselves as to the world at large. They become perfect adepts in apologies, and with one cast of the net draw in a whole shoal of attenuating circumstances. To be sure, there will now and then break in upon them a startling suspicion that all is not right, and that conscience has been “cooking” the account; and when such a moment does come, it is a very painful one.
“Egad!” muttered he to himself, “we have been very heartless all this time, there's no denying it; and if poor George's girl be a disciple of that grim old woman with the rosary and the wrinkles, it is nobody's fault but our own.” He looked at his watch; Dinah had been gone more than half an hour. What a time to keep him in suspense! Of course there were formalities,—the Sister Lydia described innumerable ones,—jail delivery was nothing to it, but surely five-and-thirty minutes would suffice to sign a score of documents. The place was becoming hateful to him. The grand old park, with its aged oaks, seemed sad as a graveyard, and the great silent house, where not a footfall sounded, appeared a tomb. “Poor child! what a dreary spot you have spent your brightest years in,—what a shadow to throw over the whole of a lifetime!”
He had just arrived at that point wherein his granddaughter arose before his mind a pale, careworn, sorrow-struck girl, crushed beneath the dreary monotony of a joyless life, and seeming only to move in a sort of dreamy melancholy, when the door opened, and Miss Barrington entered with her arm around a young girl tall as herself, and from whose commanding figure even the ungainly dress she wore could not take away the dignity.
“This is Josephine, Peter,” said Miss Dinah; and though Barrington rushed forward to clasp her in his arms, she merely crossed hers demurely on her breast and courtesied deeply.
“It is your grandpapa, Josephine,” said Miss Dinah, half tartly.
The young girl opened her large, full, lustrous eyes, and stared steadfastly at him, and then, with infinite grace, she took his hand and kissed it.
“My own dear child,” cried the old man, throwing his arms around her, “it is not homage, it is your love we want.”
“Take care, Peter, take care,” whispered his sister; “she is very timid and very strange.”
“You speak English, I hope, dear?” said the old man.
“Yes, sir, I like it best,” said she. And there was the very faintest possible foreign accent in the words.
“Is n't that George's own voice, Dinah? Don't you think you heard himself there?”
“The voice is certainly like him,” said Miss Dinah, with a marked emphasis.
“And so are—no, not her eyes, but her brow, Dinah. Yes, darling, you have his own frank look, and I feel sure you have his own generous nature.”
“They say I'm like my mother's picture,” said she, unfastening a locket she wore from its chain and handing it. And both Peter and his sister gazed eagerly at the miniature. It was of a very dark but handsome woman in a rich turban, and who, though profusely ornamented with costly gems, did, in reality, present a resemblance to the cloistered figure before them.
“Am I like her?” asked the girl, with a shade more of earnestness in her voice.
“You are, darling; but like your father, too, and every word you utter brings back his memory; and see, Dinah, if that is n't George's old trick,—to lay one hand in the palm of the other.”
As if corrected, the young girl dropped her arms to her sides and stood like a statue.
“Be like him in everything, dearest child,” said the old man, “if you would have my heart all your own.”
“I must be what I am,” said she, solemnly.
“Just so, Josephine; well said, my good girl. Be natural,” said Miss Dinah, kissing her, “and our love will never fail you.”
There was the faintest little smile of acknowledgment to this speech; but faint as it was, it dimpled her cheek, and seemed to have left a pleasant expression on her face, for old Peter gazed on her with increased delight as he said, “That was George's own smile; just the way he used to look, half grave, half merry. Oh, how you bring him back tome!”
“You see, my dear child, that you are one of us; let us hope you will share in the happiness this gives us.”
The girl listened attentively to Miss Dinah's words, and after a pause of apparent thought over them, said, “I will hope so.”
“May we leave this, Dinah? Are we free to get away?” whispered Barrington to his sister, for an unaccountable oppression seemed to weigh on him, both from the place and its belongings.
“Yes; Josephine has only one good-bye to say; her trunks are already on the carriage, and there is nothing more to detain us.”
“Go and say that farewell, dear child,” said he, affectionately; “and be speedy, for there are longing hearts here to wish for your return.”
With a grave and quiet mien she walked away, and as she gained the door turned round and made a deep, respectful courtesy,—a movement so ceremonious that the old man involuntarily replied to it by a bow as deep and reverential.
I suppose, nay, I am certain, that the memory of our happiest moments ought ever to be of the very faintest and weakest, since, could we recall them in all their fulness and freshness, the recollection would only serve to deepen the gloom of age, and imbitter all its daily trials. Nor is it, altogether, a question of memory! It is in the very essence of happiness to be indescribable. Who could impart in words the simple pleasure he has felt as he lay day-dreaming in the deep grass, lulled by the humming insect, or the splash of falling water, with teeming fancy peopling the space around, and blending the possible with the actual? The more exquisite the sense of enjoyment, the more will it defy delineation. And so, when we come to describe the happiness of others, do we find our words weak, and our attempt mere failure.
It is in this difficulty that I now find myself. I would tell, if I could, how enjoyably the Barringtons sauntered about through the old villages on the Rhine and up the Moselle, less travelling than strolling along in purposeless indolence, resting here, and halting there, always interested, always pleased. It was strange into what perfect harmony these three natures—unlike as they were—blended!
Old Peter's sympathies went with all things human, and he loved to watch the village life and catch what he could of its ways and instincts. His sister, to whom the love of scenery was a passion, never wearied of the picturesque land they travelled; and as for Josephine, she was no longer the demure pensionnaire of the convent,—thoughtful and reserved, even to secrecy,—but a happy child, revelling in a thousand senses of enjoyment, and actually exulting in the beauty of all she saw around her. What depression must come of captivity, when even its faintest image, the cloister, could have weighed down a heart like hers! Such was Barrington's thought as he beheld her at play with the peasant children, weaving garlands for a village fête, or joyously joining the chorus of a peasant song. There was, besides, something singularly touching in the half-consciousness of her freedom, when recalled for an instant to the past by the tinkling bell of a church. She would seem to stop in her play, and bethink her how and why she was there, and then, with a cry of joy, bound away after her companions in wild delight.
“Dearest aunt,” said she, one day, as they sat on a rocky ledge over the little river that traverses the Lahnech, “shall I always find the same enjoyment in life that I feel now, for it seems to me this is a measure of happiness that could not endure?”
“Some share of this is owing to contrast, Fifine. Your convent life had not too many pleasures.”
“It was, or rather it seems to me now, as I look back, a long and weary dream; but, at the same time, it appears more real than this; for do what I may I cannot imagine this to be the world of misery and sorrow I have heard so much of. Can any one fancy a scene more beautiful than this before us? Where is the perfume more exquisite than these violets I now crush in my hand? The peasants, as they salute us, look happy and contented. Is it, then, only in great cities that men make each other miserable?”
Dinah shook her head, but did not speak.
“I am so glad grandpapa does not live in a city. Aunt, I am never wearied of hearing you talk of that dear cottage beside the river; and through all my present delight I feel a sense of impatience to be there, to be at 'home.'”
“So that you will not hold us to our pledge to bring you back to Bramaigne, Fifine,” said Miss Dinah, smiling.
“Oh no, no! Not if you will let me live with you. Never!”
“But you have been happy up to this, Fifine? You have said over and over again that your convent life was dear to you, and all its ways pleasant.”
“It is just the same change to me to live as I now do, as in my heart I feel changed after reading out one of those delightful stories to grandpapa,—Rob Roy, for instance. It all tells of a world so much more bright and beautiful than I know of, that it seems as though new senses were given to me. It is so strange and so captivating, too, to hear of generous impulses, noble devotion,—of faith that never swerved, and love that never faltered.
“In novels, child; these were in novels.”
“True, aunt; but they had found no place there had they been incredible; at least, it is clear that he who tells the tale would have us believe it to be true.”
Miss Dinah had not been a convert to her brother's notions as to Fifine's readings; and she was now more disposed to doubt than ever. To overthrow of a sudden, as though by a great shock, all the stem realism of a cloister existence, and supply its place with fictitious incidents and people, seemed rash and perilous; but old Peter only thought of giving a full liberty to the imprisoned spirit,—striking off chain and fetter, and setting the captive free,—free in all the glorious liberty of a young imagination.
“Well, here comes grandpapa,” said Miss Dinah, “and, if I don't mistake, with a book in his hand for one of your morning readings.”
Josephine ran eagerly to meet him, and, fondly drawing her arm within his own, came back at his side.
“The third volume, Fifine, the third volume,” said he, holding the book aloft. “Only think, child, what fates are enclosed within a third volume! What a deal of happiness or long-living misery are here included!”
She straggled to take the book from his hand, but he evaded her grasp, and placed it in his pocket, saying,—
“Not till evening, Fifine. I am bent on a long ramble up the Glen this morning, and you shall tell me all about the sisterhood, and sing me one of those little Latin canticles I'm so fond of.”
“Meanwhile, I 'll go and finish my letter to Polly Dill. I told her, Peter, that by Thursday next, or Friday, she might expect us.”
“I hope so, with all my heart; for, beautiful as all this is, it wants the greatest charm,—it's not home! Then I want, besides, to see Fifine full of household cares.”
“Feeding the chickens instead of chasing the butterflies, Fifine. Totting up the house-bills, in lieu of sighing over 'Waverley.'”
“And, if I know Fifine, she will be able to do one without relinquishing the other,” said Peter, gravely. “Our daily life is all the more beautiful when it has its landscape reliefs of light and shadow.”
“I think I could, too,” cried Fifine, eagerly. “I feel as though I could work in the fields and be happy, just in the conscious sense of doing what it was good to do, and what others would praise me for.”
“There's a paymaster will never fail you in such hire,” said Miss Dinah, pointing to her brother; and then, turning away, she walked back to the little inn. As she drew nigh, the landlord came to tell her that a young gentleman, on seeing her name in the list of strangers, had made many inquiries after her, and begged he might be informed of her return. On learning that he was in the garden, she went thither at once.
“I felt it was you. I knew who had been asking for me, Mr. Conyers,” said she, advancing towards Fred with her hand out. “But what strange chance could have led you here?”
“You have just said it, Miss Barrington; a chance,—a mere chance. I had got a short leave fron| my regiment, and came abroad to wander about with no very definite object; but, growing impatient of the wearisome hordes of our countrymen on the Rhine, I turned aside yesterday from that great high-road and reached this spot, whose greatest charm—shall I own it?—was a fancied resemblance to a scene I loved far better.”
“You are right. It was only this morning my brother said it was so like our own cottage.”
“And he is here also?” said the young man, with a half-constraint.
“Yes, and very eager to see you, and ask your forgive ness for his ungracious manner to you; not that I saw it, or understand what it could mean, but he says that he has a pardon to crave at your hands.”
So confused was Conyers for an instant that he made no answer, and when he did speak it was falteringly and with embarrassment, “I never could have anticipated meeting you here. It is more good fortune than I ever looked for.”
“We came over to the Continent to fetch away my grand-niece, the daughter of that Colonel Barrington you have heard so much of.”
“And is she—” He stopped, and grew scarlet with confusion; but she broke in, laughingly,—
“No, not black, only dark-complexioned; in fact, a brunette, and no more.”
“Oh, I don't mean,—I surely could not have said—”
“No matter what you meant or said. Your unuttered question was one that kept occurring to my brother and myself every morning as we journeyed here, though neither of us had the courage to speak it. But our wonders are over; she is a dear good, girl, and we love her better every day we see her. But now a little about yourself. Why do I find you so low and depressed?”
“I have had much to fret me, Miss Barrington. Some were things that could give but passing unhappiness; others were of graver import.”
“Tell me so much as you may of them, and I will try to help you to bear up against them.”
“I will tell you all,—everything!” cried he. “It is the very moment I have been longing for, when I could pour out all my cares before you and ask, What shall I do?”
Miss Barrington silently drew her arm within his, and they strolled along the shady alley without a word.
“I must begin with my great grief,—it absorbs all the rest,” said he, suddenly. “My father is coming home; he has lost, or thrown up, I can't tell which, his high employment. I have heard both versions of the story; and his own few words, in the only letter he has written me, do not confirm either. His tone is indignant; but far more it is sad and depressed,—he who never wrote a line but in the joyousness of his high-hearted nature; who met each accident of life with an undaunted spirit, and spurned the very thought of being cast down by fortune. See what he says here.” And he took a much crumpled letter from his pocket, and folded down a part of it “Read that. 'The time for men of my stamp is gone by in India. We are as much bygones as the old flint musket or the matchlock. Soldiers of a different temperament are the fashion now; and the sooner we are pensioned or die off the better. For my own part, I am sick of it. I have lost my liver and have not made my fortune, and like men who have missed their opportunities, I come away too discontented with myself to think well of any one. They fancied that by coldness and neglect they might get rid of me, as they did once before of a far worthier and better fellow; but though I never had the courage that he had, they shall not break my heart.' Does it strike you to whom he alludes there?” asked Conyers, suddenly; “for each time that I read the words I am more disposed to believe that they refer to Colonel Barrington.”
“I am sure of it!” cried she. “It is the testimony of a sorrow-stricken heart to an old friend's memory; but I hear my brother's voice; let me go and tell him you are here.” But Barrington was already coming towards them.
“Ah, Mr. Conyers!” cried he. “If you knew how I have longed for this moment! I believe you are the only man in the world I ever ill treated on my own threshold; but the very thought of it gave me a fit of illness, and now the best thing I know on my recovery is, that I am here to ask your pardon.”
“I have really nothing to forgive. I met under your roof with a kindness that never befell me before; nor do I know the spot on earth where I could look for the like to-morrow.”
“Come back to it, then, and see if the charm should not be there still.”
“Where 's Josephine, brother?” asked Miss Barrington, who, seeing the young man's agitation, wished to change the theme.
“She's gone to put some ferns in water; but here she comes now.”
Bounding wildly along, like a child in joyous freedom, Josephine came towards them, and, suddenly halting at sight of a stranger, she stopped and courtesied deeply, while Conyers, half ashamed at his own unhappy blunder about her, blushed deeply as he saluted her. Indeed, their meeting was more like that of two awkward timid children than of two young persons of their age; and they eyed each other with the distrust school boys and girls exchange on a first acquaintance.
“Brother, I have something to tell you,” said Miss Barrington, who was eager to communicate the news she had just heard of General Conyers; and while she drew him to one side, the young people still stood there, each seeming to expect the other would make some advance towards acquaintanceship. Conyers tried to say some commonplace,—some one of the fifty things that would have occurred so naturally in presence of a young lady to whom he had been just presented; but he could think of none, or else those that he thought of seemed inappropriate. How talk, for instance, of the world and its pleasures to one who had been estranged from it! While he thus struggled and contended with himself, she suddenly started as if with a flash of memory, and said, “How forgetful!”
“Forgetful!—and of what?” asked he.
“I have left the book I was reading to grandpapa on the rock where we were sitting. I must go and fetch it.”
“May I go with you?” asked he, half timidly.
“Yes, if you like.”
“And your book,—what was it?”
“Oh, a charming book,—such a delightful story! So many people one would have loved to know!—such scenes one would have loved to visit!—incidents, too, that keep the heart in intense anxiety, that you wonder how he who imagined them could have sustained the thrilling interest, and held his own heart so long in terrible suspense!”
“And the name of this wonderful book is—”
“'Waverley.'”
“I have read it,” said he, coldly.
“And have you not longed to be a soldier? Has not your heart bounded with eagerness for a life of adventure and peril?”
“I am a soldier,” said he, quietly.
“Indeed!” replied she, slowly, while her steadfast glance scanned him calmly and deliberately.
“You find it hard to recognize as a soldier one dressed as I am, and probably wonder how such a life as this consorts with enterprise and danger. Is not that what is passing in your mind?”
“Mayhap,” said she, in a low voice.
“It is all because the world has changed a good deal since Waverley's time.”
“How sorry I am to hear it!”
“Nay, for your sake it is all the better. Young ladies have a pleasanter existence now than they had sixty years since. They lived then lives of household drudgery or utter weariness.”
“And what have they now?” asked she, eagerly.
“What have they not! All that can embellish life is around them; they are taught in a hundred ways to employ the faculties which give to existence its highest charm. They draw, sing, dance, ride, dress becomingly, read what may give to their conversation an added elegance and make their presence felt as an added lustre.”
“How unlike all this was our convent life!” said she, slowly. “The beads in my rosary were not more alike than the days that followed each other, and but for the change of season I should have thought life a dreary sleep. Oh, if you but knew what a charm there is in the changeful year to one who lives in any bondage!”
“And yet I remember to have heard how you hoped you might not be taken away from that convent life, and be compelled to enter the world,” said he, with a malicious twinkle of the eye.
“True; and had I lived there still I had not asked for other. But how came it that you should have heard of me? I never heard of you!”
“That is easily told. I was your aunt's guest at the time she resolved to come abroad to see you and fetch you home. I used to hear all her plans about you, so that at last—I blush to own—I talked of Josephine as though she were my sister.”
“How strangely cold you were, then, when we met!” said she, quietly. “Was it that you found me so unlike what you expected?”
“Unlike, indeed!”
“Tell me how—tell me, I pray you, what you had pictured me.”
“It was not mere fancy I drew from. There was a miniature of you as a child at the cottage, and I have looked at it till I could recall every line of it.”
“Go on!” cried she, as he hesitated.
“The child's face was very serious,—actually grave for childhood,—and had something almost stern in its expression; and yet I see nothing of this in yours.”
“So that, like grandpapa,” said she, laughing, “you were disappointed in not finding me a young tiger from Bengal; but be patient, and remember how long it is since I left the jungle.”
Sportively as the words were uttered, her eyes flashed and her cheek colored, and Conyers saw for the first time how she resembled her portrait in infancy.
“Yes,” added she, as though answering what was passing in his mind, “you are thinking just like the sisters, 'What years and years it would take to discipline one of such a race!' I have heard that given as a reason for numberless inflictions. And now, all of a sudden, comes grandpapa to say, 'We love you so because you are one of us.' Can you understand this?”
“I think I can,—that is, I think I can understand why—” he was going to add, “why they should love you;” but he stopped, ashamed of his own eagerness.
She waited a moment for him to continue, and then, herself blushing, as though she had guessed his embarrassment, she turned away.
“And this book that we have been forgetting,—let us go and search for it,” said she, walking on rapidly in front of him; but he was speedily at her side again.
“Look there, brother Peter,—look there!” said Miss Dinah, as she pointed after them, “and see how well fitted we are to be guardians to a young lady!”
“I see no harm in it, Dinah,—I protest, I see no harm in it.”
“Possibly not, brother Peter, and it may only be a part of your system for making her—as you phrase it—feel a holy horror of the convent.”
“Well,” said he, meditatively, “he seems a fine, frank-hearted young fellow, and in this world she is about to enter, her first experiences might easily be worse.”
“I vow and declare,” cried she, warmly, “I believe it is your slipshod philosophy that makes me as severe as a holy inquisitor!”
“Every evil calls forth its own correction, Dinah,” said he, laughing. “If there were no fools to skate on the Serpentine, there had been no Humane Society.”
“One might grow tired of the task of resuscitating, Peter Barrington,” said she, hardly.
“Not you, not you, Dinah,—at least, if I was the drowned man,” said he, drawing her affectionately to his side; “and as for those young creatures yonder, it's like gathering dog-roses, and they 'll stop when they have pricked their fingers.”
“I'll go and look after the nosegay myself,” said she, turning hastily away, and following them.
A real liking for Conyers, and a sincere interest in him were the great correctives to the part of Dragon which Miss Dinah declared she foresaw to be her future lot in life. For years and years had she believed that the cares of a household and the rule of servants were the last trials of human patience. The larder, the dairy, and the garden were each of them departments with special opportunities for deception and embezzlement, and it seemed to her that new discoveries in roguery kept pace with the inventions of science; but she was energetic and active, and kept herself at what the French would call “the level of the situation;” and neither the cook nor the dairymaid nor Darby could be vainglorious over their battles with her. And now, all of a sudden, a new part was assigned her, with new duties, functions, and requirements; and she was called on to exercise qualities which had lain long dormant and in disuse, and renew a knowledge she had not employed for many a year. And what a strange blending of pleasure and pain must have come of that memory of long ago! Old conquests revived, old rivalries and jealousies and triumphs; glorious little glimpses of brilliant delight, and some dark hours, too, of disappointment,—almost despair!
“Once a bishop, always a bishop,” says the canon; but might we not with almost as much truth say, “Once a beauty, always a beauty”?—not in lineament and feature, in downy cheek or silky tresses, but in the heartfelt consciousness of a once sovereign power, in that sense of having been able to exact a homage and enforce a tribute. And as we see in the deposed monarch how the dignity of kingcraft clings to him, how through all he does and says there runs a vein of royal graciousness as from one the fount of honor, so it is with beauty. There lives through all its wreck the splendid memory of a despotism the most absolute, the most fascinating of all!
“I am so glad that young Conyers has no plans, Dinah,” said Barrington; “he says he will join us if we permit him.”
“Humph!” said Miss Barrington, as she went on with her knitting.
“I see nothing against it, sister.”
“Of course not, Peter,” said she, snappishly; “it would surprise me much if you did.”
“Do you, Dinah?” asked he, with a true simplicity of voice and look.
“I see great danger in it, if that be what you mean. And what answer did you make him, Peter?”
“The same answer that I make to every one,—I would consult my sister Dinah. 'Le Roi s'avisera' meant, I take it, that he 'd be led by a wiser head than his own.”
“He was wise when he knew it,” said she, sententiously, and continued her work.
And from that day forth they all journeyed together, and one of them was very happy, and some were far more than happy; and Aunt Dinah was anxious even beyond her wont.