Part 15

And after your return Jamie will insist that you should go with him to the brook, and sit down with him upon a tuft of the brake, to fling off a line into the eddies, though only the nibbling roach are sporting below. You have instructed the workmen to spare the clumps of bank-willows, that the wood-duck may have a covert in winter, and that the Bob-o’-Lincolns may have a quiet nesting place in the spring.

Sometimes your wife—too kind to deny such favor—will stroll with you along the meadow banks, and you pick meadow daisies in memory of the old time. Little Carry weaves them into rude chaplets, to dress the forehead of Paul, and they dance along the greensward, and switch off the daffodils, and blow away the dandelion seeds, to see if their wishes are to come true. Jamie holds a buttercup under Carry’s chin, to find if she loves gold; and Paul, the rogue, teases them by sticking a thistle into sister’s curls.

The pony has hard work to do under Carry’s swift riding—but he is fed by her own hand, with the cold breakfast rolls. The nuts are gathered in time, and stored for long winter evenings, when the fire is burning bright and cheerily—a true, hickory blaze—which sends its waving gleams over eager, smiling faces, and over well-stored book shelves, and portraits of dear, lost ones. While from time to time, that wife, who is the soul of the scene, will break upon the children’s prattle, with the silver melody of her voice, running softly and sweetly through the couplets of Crabbe’s stories, or the witchery of the Flodden tale.

Then the boys will guess conundrums, and play at fox and geese; and Tray, cherished in his age, and old Milo petted in his dotage, lie side by side upon the lion’s skin before the blazing hearth. Little Tomtit the goldfinch sits sleeping on his perch, or cocks his eye at a sudden crackling of the fire for a familiar squint upon our family group.

But there is no future without its straggling clouds. Even now a shadow is trailing along the landscape.

It is a soft and mild day of summer. The leaves are at their fullest. A southern breeze has been blowing up the valley all the morning, and the light, smoky haze hangs in the distant mountain gaps, like a veil on beauty. Jamie has been busy with his lessons, and afterward playing with Milo upon the lawn. Little Carry has come in from a long ride—her face blooming, and her eyes all smiles and joy. The mother has busied herself with those flowers she loves so well. Little Paul, they say, has been playing in the meadow, and old Tray has gone with him.

But at dinner time Paul has not come back.

“Paul ought not to ramble off so far,” I say.

The mother says nothing, but there is a look of anxiety upon her face that disturbs me. Jamie wonders where Paul can be, and he saves for him whatever he knows Paul will like—a heaping plateful. But the dinner hour passes and Paul does not come. Old Tray lies in the sunshine by the porch.

Now the mother is indeed anxious. And I, though I conceal this from her, find my fears strangely active. Something like instinct guides me to the meadow; I wander down the brook-side, calling—Paul—Paul! But there is no answer.

All the afternoon we search, and the neighbors search; but it is a fruitless toil. There is no joy that evening; the meal passes in silence; only little Carry, with tears in her eyes, asks—if Paul will soon come back? All the night we search and call—the mother even braving the night air, and running here and there, until the morning finds us sad and despairing.

That day—the next—cleared up the mystery, but cleared it up with darkness. Poor little Paul!—he has sunk under the murderous eddies of the brook! His boyish prattle, his rosy smiles, his artless talk, are lost to us forever!

I will not tell how nor when we found him, nor will I tell of our desolate home, and of _her_ grief—the first crushing grief of her life.

* * * * *

The cottage is still. The servants glide noiseless, as if they might startle the poor little sleeper. The house seems cold—very cold. Yet it is summer weather; and the south breeze plays softly along the meadow and softly over the murderous eddies of the brook.

* * * * *

Then comes the hush of burial. The kind mourners are there; it is easy for them to mourn! The good clergyman prays by the bier: “Oh, Thou, who didst take upon Thyself human woe, and drank deep of every pang in life, let Thy spirit come and heal this grief, and guide toward that better Land, where justice and love shall reign, and hearts laden with anguish shall rest for evermore!”

Weeks roll on, and a smile of resignation lights up the saddened features of the mother. Those dark mourning robes speak to the heart deeper and more tenderly than ever the bridal costume. She lightens the weight of your grief by her sweet words of resignation: “Paul,” she says, “God has taken our boy!”

Other weeks roll on. Joys are still left—great and ripe joys. The cottage smiling in the autumn sunshine is there; the birds are in the forest boughs; Jamie and little Carry are there; and she, who is more than them all, is cheerful and content. Heaven has taught us that the brightest future has its clouds—that this life is a motley of lights and shadows. And as we look upon the world around us, and upon the thousand forms of human misery, there is a gladness in our deep thanksgiving.

A year goes by, but it leaves no added shadow on our hearthstone. The vines clamber and flourish; the oaks are winning age and grandeur; little Carry is blooming into the pretty coyness of girlhood, and Jamie, with his dark hair and flashing eyes, is the pride of his mother.

There is no alloy to pleasure, but the remembrance of poor little Paul. And even that, chastened as it is with years, is rather a grateful memorial that our life is not all here than a grief that weighs upon our hearts.

Sometimes, leaving little Carrie and Jamie to their play, we wander at twilight to the willow tree beneath which our drowned boy sleeps calmly for the great Awaking. It is a Sunday, in the week-day of our life, to linger by the little grave—to hang flowers upon the head-stone, and to breathe a prayer that our little Paul may sleep well in the arms of Him who loveth children.

And her heart, and my heart, knit together by sorrow, as they had been knit by joy—a silver thread mingled with the gold—follow the dead one to the land that is before us, until at last we come to reckon the boy as living in the new home which, when this is old, shall be ours also. And my spirit, speaking to his spirit, in the evening watches, seems to say joyfully—so joyfully that the tears half choke the utterance—“Paul, my boy, we will be _there_!”

And the mother, turning her face to mine, so that I see the moisture in her eye, and catch its heavenly look, whispers softly—so softly that an angel might have said it—“Yes, dear, we will be THERE!”

* * * * *

The night had now come, and my day under the oaks was ended. But a crimson belt yet lingered over the horizon, though the stars were out.

A line of shaggy mist lay along the surface of the brook. I took my gun from beside the tree, and my shot-pouch from its limb, and, whistling for Carlo—as if it had been Tray—I strolled over the bridge, and down the lane, to the old house under the elms.

I dreamed pleasant dreams that night—for I dreamed that my reverie was real.

Transcriber’s note:

○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.

○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.

○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book.