Part 15

Harry, at least, was in no mood for disputing. He was very happy. He had a gayety of manner I had hardly seen in him. The Doctor soon fell into tune with it, and reconciled himself to the pleasure he had caused.

WEDNESDAY, April 17, 1844.

The Friday came. We had made our last evening a long one, but we were up early on the last morning. Harry and I had our walk together. Coming back, we found the Doctor under Keith's Pine, busy making up his dried grasses and flowers into little compact packages. We sat down there with him as usual. I read aloud. My reading gave us matter of discussion on the way home.

After breakfast, Hans, Karl, and Fritz came up to the house. Good Friday we always keep alone with our own family; but these three are of it, though they are lodged under a different roof. I read part of a sermon of South's:--"For the transgression of my people was he stricken."

How real seemed to me, that morning, the sacred story! I had hitherto contemplated the Christ in his divine being, looking up to him from a reverent distance. Now he seemed suddenly brought near to me in his human nature. I felt that our earth had, indeed, once owned him. And then how vivid the sense of loss and waste,--a beautiful and beneficent life cut short by violence! "Dying, not like a lamp that for want of oil can burn no longer, but like a torch in its full flame blown out by the breath of a north wind!"

Everything that I read with Harry, or that I talk over with him, has new meaning for me, or a new force.

Why are we so careful to avoid pain? If it was a necessary part of the highest mortal experience, how can we ask that it may be left out from ours? And yet, on every new occasion, we strive to put from us the offered cross. Even while we say, "Thy will be done!" an inward hope entreats that will to be merciful. Such remonstrances with myself rose in me as I read. They did not prevent me from feeling a thrill of dread as this warning passed over my lips:--"Who shall say how soon God may draw us from our easy speculations and theories of suffering, to the practical experience of it? Who can tell how soon we may be called to the fiery trial?" I turned involuntarily to Harry. He, too, had heard a summons in these words. I read in his eyes the answer that came from his steady breast,--"My Father, I am here!" I felt my spirit lifted with the closing words,--"If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him"; but there was no change in Harry's clear, prepared look. I have never known a faith so implicit as his. He does not ask after threats or promises; he only listens for commands.

When the services were over, Hans came forward to say good-bye to the Doctor and Harry. He took a hand of each, and stood looking from one to the other.

"We cannot spare you, Harry Dudley. We shall miss you, Doctor. Harry, when you are ready to set up your farm, come and take a look round you here again. We are good people, and love you. There will be land near in the market before long. Sooner should you have it than old Rasey. Think of it; we can talk things over, evenings."

"You shall have your turn," he said to his boys, who were waiting, one on either side of him. "I am an old man, and leave-taking comes hard. Youth has many chances more."

He gave his benediction, repeated a little rhyming German couplet,--a charm, perhaps, for a good journey,--and then turned away sturdily, went slowly out of the door and down the steps, leaving Karl and Fritz to say their words of farewell. Karl spoke for both. What Fritz had in his heart to say he could not utter, for the tears would have come with it.

At a quarter before twelve Harry brought down the russet knapsack,--brought down the little flower-press,--brought down the long umbrella.

He transferred from the over-full knapsack to his own some packages of flowers. The flower-press would not enter either knapsack. The Doctor had it strapped on outside his. I watched these little arrangements, glad of the time they took. Harry helped the Doctor on with his pack. I would have done the same for Harry, but he was too quick for me. I adjusted the strap from which the green tin case hung, that I might do something for him.

Doctor Borrow took a serious leave of my mother,--for this, at least, was a final one. But Harry would not have it so. The tears were gathering in her eyes. "You will see us again," he said, confidently.

The Doctor shook his head. "You have made us too happy here for us not to wish that it might be so."

But my mother accepted Harry's assurance.

They looked round for Tabitha. She appeared from my mother's room, the door of which had been a little open. Both thanked her cordially for her kind cares. She gave them her good wishes, affectionately and solemnly, and disappeared again.

"I shall not bid you good-bye," said the Doctor, yet taking my hand.

"Only till the nineteenth," said Harry, clasping it as soon as the Doctor relinquished it. "Till the eighteenth," I mean; "till the eighteenth," he repeated, urgently.

"Till the eighteenth," I answered.

The Doctor mounted the blue spectacles. This was the last act of preparation. The minute-hand was close upon the appointed moment.

At the first stroke of twelve, they were on their way. I followed, slowly, as if the reluctance of my steps could hold back theirs. The gate closed behind them. The Doctor took at once his travelling gait and trudged straight on; but Harry turned and gave a glance to the house, to the barn, to the little patch of flowers,--to all the objects with which the week had made him familiar. Then his look fell upon me, who was waiting for it. He searched my face intently for an instant, and then, with a smile which made light of all but happy presentiments, waved me adieu, and hastened on to overtake the Doctor.

I was glad it was not a working-day,--glad that I could go in and sit down by my mother, to talk over with her, or, silent, to think over with her, the scenes which had animated our little room, and which were still to animate it. Harry's parting look stayed with me. I felt all my gain, and had no more sense of loss. Can we ever really lose what we have ever really possessed?

EVENING.

I have been over to Blanty's. I should have gone yesterday, but it rained heavily from early morning until after dark. Such days I consider yours. I had been anxious about Blanty since Sunday, and not altogether without reason. He has had a threatening of fever. I hope it will prove a false alarm. I found him sitting at his door, already better,--but still a good deal cast down, for he was never ill in his life before. He had been wishing for me, and would have sent to me, if I had not gone. He could hardly let me come away, but pressed me to stay one hour longer, one half hour, one quarter. But I had some things to attend to at home, and, as he did not really need me, I bade him good-bye resolutely, promising to go to him again next Monday. I cannot well go sooner.

If I had stayed, I should have missed a visit from Frederic Harvey. When I came within sight of our gate, on the way back, a horseman was waiting at it, looking up the road, as if watching for me. He darted forward, on my appearance,--stopped short, when close beside me,--dismounted, and greeted me with a warmth which I blamed myself for finding it hard to return. He did not blame me, apparently. Perhaps he ascribes the want he may feel in my manner to New-England reserve; or perhaps he feels no want. He is so assured of the value of his regard, that he takes full reciprocity for granted. The docile horse, at a sign, turned and walked along beside us to the gate, followed us along the path to the house, and took his quiet stand before the door when we went in.

Frederic Harvey, having paid his respects to my mother, seated himself in the great arm-chair, which now seems to be always claiming the Doctor, and which this new, slender occupant filled very inadequately.

"I stayed in New York three weeks too long," he exclaimed, after looking about him a little--for traces of Harry, it seemed. "Time goes so fast there! But I thought, from one of my sister's letters, that Dudley was to go back to World's End after he left you. Is he changed? Oh, but you cannot tell. You never knew him till now. I need not have asked, at any rate. He is not one to change. While I knew him, he was only more himself with every year."

"It is two years since you met, is it not?"

"Yes; but what are two years to men who were children together? We shall take things up just where we laid them down. Ours is the older friendship. I shall always have the advantage of you there. But you and he must have got along very well together. Your notions agree with his better than mine do. It does not matter. Friendship goes by fate, I believe. He may hold what opinions he likes, for me; and so may you."

"I believe that on some important subjects my opinions differ very much from yours."--I am determined to stand square with Frederic Harvey.

"In regard to our institutions, you mean? I know, that, spoken or unspoken, hatred of them is carried in the heart of every New-Englander. It is sometimes suppressed through politeness or from interest, but I never saw a Northerner who was good for anything, in whom it did not break out on the first provocation. I like as well to have it fairly understood in the outset. I have had a letter from Harry in answer to one of mine. It is explicit on this point."

I had no doubt it was very explicit. Frederic's eye meeting mine, he caught my thought, and we had a good laugh together, which made us better friends.

"The Northerners are brought up in their set of prejudices, as we in ours. I can judge of the force of theirs by that of my own. I only wish there was the same unanimity among us. We are a house divided against itself."

And Frederic's face darkened,--perhaps with the recollection of the rupture of old ties in Shaler's case,--or rather, as it seemed, with the rankling of some later, nearer pain. He turned quickly away from the intrusive thought, whatever it was. He does not like the unpleasant side of things.

"At any rate, because Harry Dudley and I are to be adverse, it does not follow that we are to be estranged. I cannot forget our school-days,--our walks on the boulevards and the quays,--our rides in the Bois,--our journeys together, when we were like brothers. I was never so happy as in those days, when I had not a care or a duty in the world."

He had the air, with his twenty-one years, of a weary man-of-the-world. There was no affectation in it. Unless report have done him injustice, the last two years have put a gulf between him and that time.

I reminded him of the conversation between him and his sister, in which they spoke of Harry Dudley before I knew who Harry Dudley was. He remembered it, and returned very readily to the subject of it. He related many incidents of the tour in Brittany, and spoke warmly of the pleasure of travelling with a companion who is alive to everything of interest in every sort. He said his travels in Germany, and even in Italy, had hardly left with him so lively and enduring impressions as this little journey into Brittany; for there he had gone to the heart of things.

"I must see him again. We must meet once more as we used to meet. We must have one good clasp of the hand; we must, at least, say a kind good-bye to the old friendship. If, hereafter, we find ourselves opposed in public life, I shall deal him the worst I can, but with openness and loyalty like his own, and doing him more justice in my heart, perhaps, than he will do me."

Frederic Harvey inquired anxiously where Harry was to be found, and I was obliged to tell him of our intended meeting. I was afraid he would propose to go with me. He was on the point of doing so, but refrained, seeing that I was not expecting such a suggestion.

We could easily have arranged to meet at Quickster, which is about the same distance from him that it is from me. But a ride of twenty miles, most of them slow ones, beside a man with whom you are not in full sympathy, is a trial. I did not feel called upon to undergo it for him. When he took leave of me, he again seemed about to propose something, and I felt it was this plan which was so natural; but he was again withheld, by pride or by delicacy. Either feeling I could sympathize with, and I was more touched by this reserve than by all his friendly advances; but I hardened my heart. He mounted his horse. I saw him go slowly down the path to the road, stoop from the saddle to open the gate,--pass out. And then I was seized with sudden compunction. I heard the slow step of his horse, receding as if reluctantly, and ready to be checked at a hint. I ran to the gate. Frederic was just turning away, as if he had been looking back, expecting to see me; but in the same instant he gave an intimation to his horse, and was out of the reach of my repentance.

"_I liked him._" With Harry these words mean a great deal. Could Harry ever have liked him, if he had not been worthy to be liked? How sad his look was, when he spoke of his happy boyish days!--happier than these only because they were blameless. Was not this regret itself an earnest of the power of return? He had good blood in him. He is Charles Shaler's cousin. He has a weak, shallow mother,--a father whose good qualities and whose faults are overlaid with the same worldly varnish impartially. He feels the need of other influences, and clings to Harry. He comes to me instinctively seeking something he has not in his home. My mother has always judged him more kindly than I have. If he had been a poor outcast child, I should have felt his coming to me so frankly and so persistently to be a sign I was to do something for him. Is there a greater need than that of sympathy and honest counsel? I have been selfish, but this pain is punishment enough. I feel a remorse surely out of proportion to my sin. I do not prevent his going to meet Harry by not asking him to go with me. He is not one to give up his wish; and in this case there is no reason that he should. He will arrive; I am sure of it. And I will atone, at least in part. I will ask him to join me on the ride home.

Old Jasper has told me stories of Frederic Harvey's good-heartedness in childhood: tells them to me, indeed, every time he sees me. I remember one in particular, of the pretty little boy in his foreign dress, and speaking his foreign language, carrying his own breakfast one morning to the cabin where the old man lay sick; and another of his taking away part of her load from a feeble woman; and another of his falling on a driver and wresting from him the whip with which he was lashing a fainting boy. But Jasper has only these early stories to tell of him; and what different ones are current now!

In dear old New England the child is father of the man. There the lovely infancy is the sure promise of the noble maturity. But where justice is illegal! where mercy is a criminal indulgence! where youth is disciplined to selfishness, and the man's first duty is to deny himself his virtues! If the nephew of Augustus had lived, would he indeed have been Marcellus? _Heu pietas! Heu prisca fides!_--these might have been mourned, though Octavia had not wept her son.

THURSDAY, April 18, 1844.

It is thirty-five miles to Omocqua by the common road through Metapora and Tenpinville; but I shall save myself five, going across fields and through wood-paths, and coming out at Quickster. You left the Omocqua road there, and took that to Quarleston. I shall stop half an hour at Quickster to rest my horse and have a little talk with Barton. I mean to allow myself ample time for the journey, that Brownie may take it easily and yet bring me to Omocqua in season for a stroll about the neighborhood with the Doctor and Harry before nightfall. Some miles of my way are difficult with tree-stumps and brush; a part of it is sandy; the last third is hilly. I have never been farther on that road than Ossian, about three miles beyond Quickster; but the country between Ossian and Omocqua is, I know, very much like that between Quarleston and Cyclops, which you found so beautiful and so tiresome.

I do not mean that my parting with Harry shall be a sad one. After that day at Omocqua, I shall not meet his smile,--his hand will not clasp mine again; but he will leave with me something of himself which will not go from me. His courage, the energy of his straightforward will, shall still nerve and brace me, though his cordial voice may never again convey their influence to my heart. Wherever he is, I shall know we are thinking, feeling together, and working together; for I shall surely do what he asks of me: that he thinks it worth doing is enough.

And Dr. Borrow does not leave me what he found me. It was with a continual surprise that I learned how much there is of interest and variety in our uniform neighborhood for a man who knows the meaning of what he sees. How many things are full of suggestion now that were mute before! He has given me glimpses of undreamed-of pleasures. A practical man, following him in his walks, and gathering up the hints he lets fall, might turn them to great real use.

What a part the Doctor and such as he, disciples and interpreters of Nature, would have in the world, how warmly they would be welcomed everywhere, if these were only times in which men could live as they were meant to live, happy and diligent, cherishing Earth and adorning her, receiving her daily needful gifts, and from time to time coming upon precious ones, which she, fond and wise mother, has kept back for the surprise of some hour of minuter search or bolder divination!

But now, how can we be at ease to enjoy our own lot, however pleasantly it may have been cast for us, or to occupy ourselves with material cares or works, even the most worthy and the most rational?

We are taught to pray, "Thy kingdom come," before we ask for our daily bread.

To pray for what we do not at the same time strive for, is it not an impiety?

Dr. Borrow says that Harry is out of place in our time. I should rather say that it is he himself who is here a century, or perhaps only a half-century, too soon. Our first need now is of men clear-sighted to moral truths, and intrepid to announce and maintain them.

It was through the consciousness, not yet lost, of eternal principles, that primitive poetry made Themis the mother of the gracious Hours,--those beneficent guardians, bringers of good gifts, promoters and rewarders of man's happy labor. When Justice returns to make her reign on earth, with her come back her lovely daughters, and all the beautiful attendant train.

When that time arrives, the Doctor will have found his place, and Harry will not have lost his.

Perhaps I shall not come back until Saturday. According to their plan, Dr. Borrow and Harry are to leave Omocqua again to-morrow afternoon; but I shall try to persuade them to remain until the next morning. While they stay, I shall stay. When they go, Brownie and I take our homeward road. In any case, I will write to you Friday night, and send off my budget on Saturday without fail.

To-day has not given me anything to tell of it yet, except that it has opened as it should, fresh and cloudless. In five hours I shall be on the road.

My paper is blistered and the writing blurred with wet drops. It is only that some freshly gathered flowers on my table have let fall their dew upon the page. You, with the trace of mysticism that lurks in your man of the world's heart, would be drawing unfavorable auguries. I am too happy to accept any to-day. If fancy will sport with this accident, let it feign that these morning tears are of sympathy, but not of compassion; that they fall, not to dim my hopes, but to hallow them.

EVENING.

"In five hours I shall be on the road." So I wrote at six o'clock. I wrote too confidently.

At eleven I had mounted my horse, had sent my last good-bye through the open window, and had caught the last soft answer from within. I lingered yet an instant, held by those links of tenderness and solicitude that bind to home and make the moment of parting for any unusual absence, even though a pleasant and desired one, a moment of effort. A heavy, dragging step, which I almost knew before I saw the lounging figure of Phil Phinn, warned me of a different delay. I watched his slow approach with a resignation which had still a little hope in it; but when he at last stood beside me and began his ingratiating preamble, I felt my sentence confirmed. His woe-begone face, his quivering voice, announced the suppliant before he reached the recital of his wrongs; while the utter self-abandonment of his attitude conveyed renunciation of all cares and responsibilities in favor of his elected patron. I will not give you the details of the difficulty of to-day,--an absurd and paltry one, yet capable of serious consequences to him. I obeyed instinctively the old-fashioned New-England principle I was brought up in, which requires us to postpone the desire of the moment to its demands. Sadly I led my horse to the stable, took off the saddle and put him up. "I cannot be back until two," I thought, "perhaps not before three. I shall lose our walk and our sunset; but even if it is as late as four, I will still go." I ran into the house to say a word of explanation to my mother; but she had heard and understood. She gave me a look of sympathy, and I did not wait for more.

I set out resolutely in a direction opposite to that in which my own road lay. Phil Phinn followed, already raised to complacency, though not to energy. I outwalked him continually, and was obliged to stop and wait for him to come up. He plainly thought my haste unseasonable, and did not disguise that he was incommoded by the sun and the mud. It was a tedious way, a long five miles for him and for me.

We arrived at last at the house of his adversary, who, having, besides the advantage of being in a superior position, also that of justice on his side, could the more easily give way. I should soon have come to an understanding with him, if my client, while leaving me the whole responsibility of his case, had not found himself unable to resign its management: he must lend me the aid of his argumentative and persuasive gifts. After some hours of wrangling and pleading, the matter was accommodated, and Phil Phinn, without a care in the world, or the apprehension of ever having one again, sauntered away toward his home. I set off for mine, already doubtful of myself, remembering that I was not the only disappointed one.

When I reached home, it was half-past six o'clock. I felt strongly impelled to go, even then. My mother did not offer any objection, but her look showed so plainly the anxiety the thought of a night-ride caused her, that I gave it up without a word. I could not, indeed, have arrived at Omocqua before midnight, and Harry would long have done expecting me.

I am not as well satisfied with myself as I ought to be, having made such a sacrifice to duty. I begin to ask myself, Was it made to duty? After all, a little suspense would have done Phil Phinn good,--if anything can do him good. And are not the claims of friendship paramount to all other? Harry will be pained by needless anxiety. Can he believe that I would, without grave cause, lose any of the time we might yet have together? But a few hours will set all right.

FRIDAY NIGHT, April 19.

I am at home again. I take out the package which has been waiting for the day at Omocqua. Hoarding is always imprudence. If these letters of last week had gone on their day, they would have been faithful messengers. Now they go to tell you of a happiness which already is not mine,--of hopes and plans that you can never share.