Part 12

I missed, too, the old preacher, whom we all feared so much, and in place of him was a jaunty-looking man, whom I thought I would not be at all afraid to speak to, or, if need be, to slap on the shoulder. And when I did meet him after church, I looked him in the eye as boldly as a lion—what a change was that from the school days!

Here and there I could detect about the church some old farmer by the stoop in his shoulders, or by a particular twist in his nose, and one or two young fellows who used to storm into the gallery in my school days in very gay jackets, dressed off with ribbons—which we thought was astonishing heroism, and admired accordingly—were now settled away into fathers of families, and looked as demure and peaceable at the head of their pews, with a white-headed boy or two between them and their wives, as if they had been married all their days.

There was a stout man, too, with a slight limp in his gait, who used to work on harnesses, and strap our skates, and who I always thought would have made a capital Vulcan—he stalked up the aisle past me, as if I had my skates strapped at his shop only yesterday.

The bald-pated shoemaker, who never kept his word, and who worked in the brick shop, and who had a son called Theodore—which we all thought a very pretty name for a shoemaker’s son—I could not find. I feared he might be dead. I hoped, if he was, that his broken promises about patching boots would not come up against him.

The old factor of tamarinds and sugar crackers who used to drive his covered wagon every Saturday evening into the play-ground, I observed, still holding his place in the village choir, and singing—though with a tooth or two gone—as serenely and obstreperously as ever.

I looked around the church to find the black-eyed girl who always sat behind the choir—the one I loved to look at so much. I knew she must be grown up; but I could fix upon no face positively; once, as a stout woman with a pair of boys, and who wore a big red shawl, turned half around, I thought I recognized her nose. If it was she, it had grown red though, and I felt cured of my old fondness. As for the other, who wore the hat trimmed with fur—she was nowhere to be seen, among either maids or matrons; and when I asked the tavern-keeper, and described her, and her father, as they were in my school days, he told me that she had married, too, and lived some five miles from the village; and, said he—“I guess she leads her husband a devil of a life!”

I felt cured of her, too, but I pitied the husband.

One of my old teachers was in the church; I could have sworn to his face; he was a precise man; and now I thought he looked rather roughly at my old shooting jacket. But I let him look, and scowled at him a little, for I remembered that he had feruled me once. I thought it was not probable that he would ever do it again.

There was a bustling little lawyer in the village who lived in a large house, and who was the great man of that town and country—he had scarce changed at all; and he stepped into the church as briskly and promptly as he did ten years ago. But what struck me most was the change in a couple of pretty little white-haired girls that at the time I left were of that uncertain age when the mother lifts them on a Sunday and pounces them down one after the other upon the seat of the pew; these were now grown into blooming young ladies. And they swept by me in the vestibule of the church, with a flutter of robes and a grace of motion that fairly made my heart twitter in my bosom. I know nothing that brings home upon a man so quick the consciousness of increasing years as to find the little prattling girls, that were almost babies in his boyhood, become dashing ladies, and to find those whom he used to look on patronizingly and compassionately, thinking they were little girls, grown to such maturity that the mere rustle of their silk dresses will give him a twinge, and their eyes, if he looks at them, make him unaccountably shy.

After service I strolled up by the school buildings; I traced the names that we had cut upon the fence; but the fence had grown brown with age, and was nearly rotted away. Upon the beech tree in the hollow behind the school the carvings were all overgrown. It must have been vacation, if indeed there was any school at all; for I could see only one old woman about the premises, and she was hanging out a dishcloth to dry in the sun. I passed on up the hill, beyond the buildings, where in the boy-days we built stone forts with bastions and turrets; but the farmers had put the bastions and turrets into their cobblestone walls. At the orchard fence I stopped and looked—from force, I believe, of old habit—to see if any one were watching—and then leaped over, and found my way to the early-apple tree; but the fruit had gone by. It seemed very daring in me, even then, to walk so boldly in the forbidden ground.

But the old head-master who forbade it was dead, and Russell and Burgess, and I know not how many others, who in other times were culprits with me, were dead, too. When I passed back by the school I lingered to look up at the windows of that corner room, where I had slept the sound, healthful sleep of boyhood—and where, too, I had passed many, many wakeful hours, thinking of the absent Bella, and of my home.

—How small, seemed now, the great griefs of boyhood! Light floating clouds will obscure the sun that is but half risen; but let him be up—mid-heaven, and the cloud that then darkens the land must be thick and heavy indeed.

—The tears started from my eyes—was not such a cloud over me now?

COLLEGE

SCHOOLMATES slip out of sight and knowledge, and are forgotten; or if you meet them they bear another character; the boy is not there. It is a new acquaintance that you make, with nothing of your fellow upon the benches but the name. Though the eye and face cleave to your memory, and you meet them afterward, and think you have met a friend—the voice or the action will break down the charm, and you find only—another man.

But with your classmates in that later school, where form and character were both nearer ripeness, and where knowledge, labored for together, bred the first manly sympathies—it is different. And as you meet them, or hear of them, the thought of their advance makes a measure of your own—it makes a measure of the NOW.

You judge of your happiness by theirs—of your progress by theirs, and of your prospects by theirs. If one is happy, you seek to trace out the way by which he has wrought his happiness; you consider how it differs from your own; and you think with sighs how you might possibly have wrought the same; but _now_ it has escaped. If another has won some honorable distinction, you fall to thinking how the man—your old equal, as you thought, upon the college benches—has outrun you. It pricks to effort, and teaches the difference between now and then. Life, with all its duties and hopes, gathers upon your present like a great weight, or like a storm ready to burst. It is met anew; it pleads more strongly; and action that has been neglected rises before you—a giant of remorse.

Stop not, loiter not, look not backward, if you would be among the foremost! The great Now, so quick, so broad, so fleeting, is yours—in an hour it will belong to the eternity of the past. The temper of life is to be made good by big, honest blows; stop striking, and you will do nothing; strike feebly, and you will do almost as little. Success rides on every hour; grapple it, and you may win; but without a grapple it will never go with you. Work is the weapon of honor, and who lacks the weapon will never triumph.

There were some seventy of us—all scattered now. I meet one here and there at wide distances apart; and we talk together of old days, and of our present work and life—and separate. Just so ships at sea, in murky weather, will shift their course to come within hailing distance, and compare their longitude, and—part. One I have met wandering in southern Italy, dreaming—as I was dreaming—over the tomb of Virgil, by the dark grotto of Pausilippo. It seemed strange to talk of our old readings in Tacitus there upon classic ground; but we did; and ran on to talk of our lives; and, sitting down upon the promontory of Baie, looking off upon that blue sea, as clear as the classics, we told each other our respective stories. And two nights after, upon the quay, in sight of Vesuvius, which shed a lurid glow upon the sky that was reflected from the white walls of the Hotel de Russie, and from the broad lava pavements, we parted—he to wander among the isles of the Ægean, and I to turn northward.

Another time, as I was wandering among those mysterious figures that crowd the foyer of the French opera upon a night of the Masked Ball, I saw a familiar face; I followed it with my eye until I became convinced. He did not know me until I named his old seat upon the bench of the division rooms, and the hard-faced Tutor G——. Then we talked of the old rivalries, and Christmas jollities, and of this and that one, whom we had come upon in our wayward tracks; while the black-robed grisettes stared through their velvet masks; nor did we tire of comparing the old memories with the unearthly gayety of the scene about us until daylight broke.

In a quiet mountain town of New England I came not long since upon another; he was hale and hearty, and pushing his lawyer work with just the same nervous energy with which he used to recite a theorem of Euclid. He was father, too, of a couple of stout, curly-pated boys; and his good woman, as he called her, appeared a sensible, honest, good-natured lady. I must say that I envied him his wife much more than I had envied my companion of the opera his Domine.

I happened only a little while ago to drop into the college chapel of a Sunday. There were the same hard oak benches below, and the lucky fellows who enjoyed a corner seat were leaning back upon the rail, after the old fashion. The tutors were perched up in their side boxes, looking as prim and serious and important as ever. The same stout doctor read the hymn in the same rhythmical way; and he prayed the same prayer for (I thought) the same old sort of sinners. As I shut my eyes to listen, it seemed as if the intermediate years had all gone out, and that I was on my own pew bench, and thinking out those little schemes for excuses, or for effort, which were to relieve me, or to advance me, in my college world.

There was a pleasure, like the pleasure of dreaming about forgotten joys, in listening to the doctor’s sermon; he began in the same half embarrassed, half awkward way, and fumbled at his Bible leaves, and the poor pinched cushion, as he did long before. But as he went on with his rusty and polemic vigor, the poetry within him would now and then warm his soul into a burst of fervid eloquence, and his face would glow and his hand tremble, and the cushion and the Bible leaves be all forgot, in the glow of his thought, until, with a half cough and a pinch at the cushion, he fell back into his strong but tread-mill argumentation.

In the corner above was the stately, white-haired professor, wearing the old dignity of carriage, and a smile as bland as if the years had all been playthings; and had I seen him in his lecture-room, I daresay I should have found the same suavity of address, the same marvelous currency of talk, and the same infinite composure over the exploding retorts.

Near him was the silver-haired old gentleman—with a very astute expression—who used to have an odd habit of tightening his cloak about his nether limbs. I could not see that his eye was any the less bright; nor did he seem less eager to catch at the handle of some witticism or bit of satire—to the poor student’s cost. I remembered my old awe of him, I must say, with something of a grudge; but I had got fairly over it now. There are sharper griefs in life than a professor’s talk.

Farther on, I saw the long-faced, dark-haired man who looked as if he were always near some explosive, electric battery, or upon an insulated stool. He was, I believe, a man of fine feelings; but he had a way of reducing all action to dry, hard, mathematical system, with very little poetry about it. I know there was not much poetry in his problems in physics, and still less in his half-yearly examinations. But I do not dread them now.

Over opposite, I was glad to see still the aged head of the kind and generous old man who in my day presided over the college, and who carried with him the affections of each succeeding class—added to their respect for his learning. This seems a higher triumph to me now than it seemed then. A strong mind, or a cultivated mind, may challenge respect; but there is needed a noble one to win affection.

A new man now filled his place in the president’s seat, but he was one whom I had known and been proud to know. His figure was bent and thin—the very figure that an old Flemish master would have chosen for a scholar. His eye had a kind of piercing luster, as if it had long been fixed on books; and his expression—when unrelieved by his affable smile—was that of hard midnight toil. With all his polish of mind, he was a gentleman at heart, and treated us always with a manly courtesy that is not forgotten.

But of all the faces that used to be ranged below—four hundred men and boys—there was not one with whom to join hands and live back again. Their griefs, joy and toil were chaining them to their labor of life. Each one in his thought coursing over a world as wide as my own—how many thousand worlds of thought upon this one world of ours!

I stepped dreamily through the corridors of the old Atheneum, thinking of that first fearful step, when the faces were new and the stern tutor was strange, and the prolix Livy _so_ hard. I went up at night, and skulked around the buildings when the lights were blazing from all the windows, and they were busy with their tasks—plain tasks, and easy tasks—because they are certain tasks. Happy fellows—thought I—who have only to do what is set before you to be done. But the time is coming, and very fast, when you must not only do, but know what to do. The time is coming when, in place of your one master, you will have a thousand masters—masters of duty, of business, of pleasure, and of grief—giving you harder lessons, each one of them, than any of your Fluxions.

MORNING will pass, and the NOON will come—hot and scorching.

THE PACKET OF BELLA

I HAVE not forgotten that packet of Bella; I did not once forget it. And when I saw Lilly—now the grown-up Lilly, happy in her household, and blithe as when she was a maiden—she gave it to me. She told me, too, of Bella’s illness, and of her suffering, and of her manner when she put the little packet in her hand “for Cousin Paul.” But this I will not repeat—I can not.

I know not why it was, but I shuddered at the mention of her name. There are some who will talk, at table and in their gossip, of dead friends; I wonder how they do it? For myself, when the grave has closed its gates on the faces of those I love—however busy my mournful thought may be—the tongue is silent. I can not name their names; it shocks me to hear them named. It seems like tearing open half-healed wounds, and disturbing with harsh, worldly noise the sweet sleep of death.

I loved Bella. I know not how I loved her—whether as a lover, or as a husband loves a wife; I only know this—I always loved her. She was so gentle—so beautiful—so confiding, that I never once thought but that the whole world loved her as well as I. There was only one thing I never told to Bella; I would tell her of all my grief, and of all my joys; I would tell her my hopes, my ambitious dreams, my disappointments, my anger, and my dislikes; but I never told her how much I loved her.

I do not know why, unless I knew that it was needless. But I should as soon have thought of telling Bella on some winter’s day—Bella, it is winter—or of whispering to her on some balmy day of August—Bella, it is summer—as of telling her, after she had grown to girlhood—Bella, I love you!

I had received one letter from her in the old countries; it was a sweet letter, in which she told me all that she had been doing, and how she had thought of me, when she rambled over the woods where we had rambled together. She had written two or three other letters, Lilly told me, but they had never reached me. I had told her, too, of all that made my happiness; I wrote her about the sweet girl I had seen on shipboard, and how I met her afterward, and what a happy time we passed down in Devon. I even told her of the strange dream I had, in which Isabel seemed to be in England, and to turn away from me sadly because I called—Carry.

I also told her of all I saw in that great world of Paris—writing as I would write to a sister; and I told her, too, of the sweet Roman girl, Enrica—of her brown hair, and of her rich eyes, and of her pretty Carnival dresses. And when I missed letter after letter I told her that she must still write her letters, or some little journal, and read it to me when I came back. I thought how pleasant it would be to sit under the trees by her father’s house and listen to her tender voice going through that record of her thoughts and fears. Alas, how our hopes betray us!

It began almost like a diary, about the time her father fell sick. “It is”—said she to Lilly, when she gave it to her, “what I would have said to Cousin Paul if he had been here.”

It begins:“—I have come back now to father’s house; I could not leave him alone, for they told me he was sick. I found him not well; he was very glad to see me, and kissed me so tenderly that I am sure, Cousin Paul, you would not have said, as you used to say, that he was a cold man! I sometimes read to him, sitting in the deep library window (you remember it), where we used to nestle out of his sight at dusk. He can not read any more.

“I would give anything to see the little Carry you speak of; but do you know you did not describe her to me at all; will you not tell me if she has dark hair, or light, or if her eyes are blue, or dark, like mine? Is she good; did she not make ugly speeches, or grow peevish, in those long days upon the ocean? How I would have liked to have been with you, on those clear starlit nights, looking off upon the water! But then I think that you would not have wished me there, and that you did not once think of me even. This makes me sad; yet I know not why it should; for I always liked you best, when you were happy; and I am sure you must have been happy then. You say you shall never see her after you have left the ship; you must not think so, cousin Paul; if she is so beautiful, and fond, as you tell me, your own heart will lead you in her way some time again; I feel almost sure of it.

* * * “Father is getting more and more feeble, and wandering in his mind; this is very dreadful; he calls me sometimes by my mother’s name; and when I say—it is Isabel—he says—what Isabel! and treats me as if I was a stranger. The physician shakes his head when I ask him of father; oh, Paul, if he should die—what could I do? I should die, too—I know I should. Who would there be to care for me? Lilly is married, and Ben is far off, and you, Paul, whom I love better than either, are a long way from me. But God is good, and He will spare my father.

* * * “So you have seen again your little Carry. I told you it would be so. You tell me how accidental it was; ah, Paul, Paul, you rogue, honest as you are, I half doubt you there! I like your description of her, too—dark eyes like mine, you say—’almost as pretty;’ well, Paul, I will forgive you that; it is only a white lie. You know they must be a great deal prettier than mine, or you would never have stayed a whole fortnight in an old farmer’s house far down in Devon! I wish I could see her; I wish she was here with you now; for it is midsummer, and the trees and flowers were never prettier. But I am all alone; father is too ill to go out at all. I fear now very much that he will never go out again. Lilly was here yesterday, but he did not know her. She read me your last letter; it was not so long as mine. You are very—very good to me, Paul.

* * * “For a long time I have written nothing; my father has been very ill, and the old housekeeper has been sick, too, and father would have no one but me near him. He can not live long. I feel sadly—miserably; you will not know me when you come home; your ‘pretty Bella’—as you used to call me—will have lost all her beauty. But perhaps you will not care for that, for you tell me you have found one prettier than ever. I do not know, Cousin Paul, but it is because I am so sad and selfish—for sorrow is selfish—but I do not like your raptures about the Roman girl. Be careful, Paul; I know your heart; it is quick and sensitive; and I dare say she is pretty and has beautiful eyes; for they tell me all the Italian girls have soft eyes.

“But Italy is far away, Paul; I can never see Enrica; she will never come here. No—no, remember Devon. I feel as if Carry was a sister now. I can not feel so of the Roman girl; I do not want to feel so. You will say this is harsh, and I am afraid you will not like me so well for it; but I can not help saying it. I love you too well, Cousin Paul, not to say it.

* * * “It is all over! Indeed, Paul, I am very desolate! ‘The golden bowl is broken’—my poor father has gone to his last home. I was expecting it; but how can we expect that fearful comer—death? He had been for a long time so feeble that he could scarce speak at all; he sat for hours in his chair, looking upon the fire or looking out at the window. He would hardly notice me when I came to change his pillows or to smooth them for his head. But before he died he knew me as well as ever. ‘Isabel,’ he said, ‘you have been a good daughter. God will reward you!’ and he kissed me so tenderly, and looked after me so anxiously, with such intelligence in his look that I thought perhaps he would revive again. In the evening he asked me for one of his books that he loved very much. ‘Father,’ said I, ‘you can not read; it is almost dark.’

“‘Oh, yes,’ said he, ‘Isabel, I can read now.’ And I brought it; he kept my hand a long while; then he opened the book—it was a book about death.

“I brought a candle, for I knew he could not read without.

“‘Isabel, dear,’ said he, ‘put the candle a little nearer.’ But it was close beside him even then.

“‘A little nearer, Isabel,’ repeated he, and his voice was very faint, and he grasped my hand hard.

—“‘Nearer, Isabel!—nearer!’

“There was no need to do it, for my poor father was dead! Oh! Paul, Paul!—pity me. I do not know but I am crazed. It does not seem the same world it was. And the house, and the trees, oh, they are very dismal!

“I wish you would come home, Cousin Paul; life would not be so very, very blank as it is now. Lilly is kind—I thank her from my heart. But it is not _her_ father who is dead!

* * * “I am calmer now; I am staying with Lilly. The world seems smaller than it did; but heaven seems a great deal larger; there is a place for us all there, Paul—if we only seek it! They tell me you are coming home. I am glad. You will not like, perhaps, to come away from that pretty Enrica you speak of; but do so, Paul. It seems to me that I see clearer than I did, and I talk bolder. The girlish Isabel you will not find, for I am much older, and my air is more grave, and this suffering has made me feeble—very feeble.