“I have come, haven’t I?” said the young man, leaning his elbow on the window-seat and looking at her with an air of comic determined frankness, which yet had in it such wholesome honesty that it was scarcely possible to be angry. “The fact is, Mary,” he added, with a sudden earnest darkening of the face, “I won’t stand this nonsense any longer. Aunt Katy has been holding me at arm’s length ever since I got home; and what have I done? Haven’t I been to every prayer-meeting and lecture and sermon, since I got into port, just as regular as a psalm-book? and not a bit of a word could I get with you, and no chance even so much as to give you my arm. Aunt Kate always comes between us and says, ‘Here, Mary, you take my arm.’ What does she think I go to meeting for, and almost break my jaws keeping down the gapes? I never even go to sleep, and yet I’m treated in this way! It’s too bad! What’s the row? What’s anybody been saying about me? I always have waited on you ever since you were that high. Didn’t I always draw you to school on my sled? didn’t we always use to do our sums together? didn’t I always wait on you to singing-school? and I’ve been made free to run in and out as if I were your brother;—and now she is as glum and stiff, and always stays in the room every minute of the time that I am there, as if she was afraid I should be in some mischief. It’s too bad!”
“Oh, James, I am sorry that you only go to meeting for the sake of seeing me; you feel no real interest in religious things; and besides, mother thinks now I’m grown so old, that—Why, you know things are different now,—at least, we mustn’t, you know, always do as we did when we were children. But I wish you did feel more interested in good things.”
“I am interested in one or two good things, Mary,—principally in you, who are the best I know of. Besides,” he said quickly, and scanning her face attentively to see the effect of his words, “don’t you think there is more merit in my sitting out all these meetings, when they bore me so confoundedly, than there is in your and Aunt Katy’s doing it, who really seem to find something to like in them? I believe you have a sixth sense, quite unknown to me; for it’s all a maze,—I can’t find top, nor bottom, nor side, nor up, nor down to it, it’s you can and you can‘t, you shall and you sha’n‘t, you will and you won’t,”—
“James!”
“You needn’t look at me so. I’m not going to say the rest of it. But, seriously, it’s all anywhere and nowhere to me; it don’t touch me, it don’t help me, and I think it rather makes me worse; and then they tell me it’s because I’m a natural man, and the natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit. Well, I am a natural man,5—how’s a fellow to help it?”
“Well, James, why need you talk everywhere as you do? You joke, and jest, and trifle, till it seems to everybody that you don’t believe in anything. I’m afraid mother thinks you are an infidel, but I know that can’t be; yet we hear of all sorts of things that you say.”
“I suppose you mean my telling Deacon Twitchel that I had seen as good Christians among the Mahometans as any in Newport. Didn’t I make him open his eyes? It’s true, too!”
“In every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him,” said Mary; “and if there are better Christians than we are among the Mahometans,6 I am sure I’m glad of it. But, after all, the great question is, ‘Are we Christians ourselves?’ Oh, James, if you only were a real, true, noble Christian!”
“Well, Mary, you have got into that harbor, through all the sand-bars and rocks and crooked channels; and now do you think it right to leave a fellow beating about outside, and not go out to help him in? This way of drawing up, among you good people, and leaving us sinners to ourselves, isn’t generous. You might care a little for the soul of an old friend, anyhow!”
“And don’t I care, James? How many days and nights have been one prayer for you! If I could take my hopes of heaven out of my own heart and give them to you, I would. Dr. Hopkins preached last Sunday on the text, ‘I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen’; and he went on to show how we must be willing to give up even our own salvation, if necessary, for the good of others. People said it was hard doctrine, but I could feel my way through it very well. Yes, I would give my soul for yours; I wish I could.”
There was a solemnity and pathos in Mary’s manner which checked the conversation. James was the more touched because he felt it all so real from one whose words were always yea and nay so true, so inflexibly simple. Her eyes filled with tears, her face kindled with a sad earnestness, and James thought, as he looked, of a picture he had once seen in a European cathedral, where the youthful Mother of Sorrows is represented,
“Radiant and grave, as pitying man’s decline;
All youth, but with an aspect beyond time;
Mournful, but mournful of another’s crime;
She looked as if she sat by Eden’s door,
And grieved for those who should return no more.“7
James had thought he loved Mary; he had admired her remarkable beauty, he had been proud of a certain right in her before that of other young men, her associates; he had thought of her as the keeper of his home; he had wished to appropriate her wholly to himself;—but in all this there had been, after all, only the thought of what she was to be to him; and, for this poor measure of what he called love, she was ready to offer, an infinite sacrifice.
As a subtile flash of lightning will show in a moment a whole landscape, tower, town, winding stream, and distant sea, so that one subtile ray of feeling seemed in a moment to reveal to James the whole of his past life; and it seemed to him so poor, so meagre, so shallow, by the side of that childlike woman, to whom the noblest of feelings were unconscious matters of course, that a sort of awe awoke in him; like the Apostles of old, he “feared as he entered into the cloud”;8 it seemed as if the deepest string of some eternal sorrow had vibrated between them.
After a moment’s pause, he spoke in a low and altered voice:—
“Mary, I am a sinner. No psalm or sermon ever taught it to me, but I see it now. Your mother is quite right, Mary; you are too good for me; I am no mate for you. Oh, what would you think of me, if you knew me wholly? I have lived a mean, miserable, shallow, unworthy life. You are worthy, you are a saint, and walk in white! Oh, what upon earth could ever make you care so much for me?”
“Well, then, James, you will be good? Won’t you talk with Dr. Hopkins?”
“Hang Dr. Hopkins!” said James. “Now, Mary, I beg your pardon, but I can’t make head or tail of a word Dr. Hopkins says. I don’t get hold of it, or know what he would be at. You girls and women don’t know your power. Why, Mary, you are a living gospel. You have always had a strange power over us boys. You never talked religion much, but I have seen high fellows come away from being with you as still and quiet as one feels when one goes into a church. I can’t understand all the hang of predestination,9 and moral ability and natural ability, and God’s efficiency, and man’s agency, which Dr. Hopkins is so engaged about; but I can understand you,—you can do me good!”
“Oh, James, can I?”
“Mary, I’m going to confess my sins. I saw, that, somehow or other, the wind was against me in Aunt Katy’s quarter, and you know we fellows who take up the world in both fists don’t like to be beat. If there’s opposition, it sets us on. Now I confess I never did care much about religion, but I thought, without being really a hypocrite, I’d just let you try to save my soul for the sake of getting you; for there’s nothing surer to hook a woman than trying to save a fellow’s soul. It’s a dead-shot, generally, that. Now our ship sails to-night, and I thought I’d just come across this path in the orchard to speak to you. You know I used always to bring you peaches and juneatings across this way, and once I brought you a ribbon.”
“Yes, I’ve got it yet, James.”
“Well, now, Mary, all this seems mean to me,—mean, to try and trick and snare you, who are so much too good for me. I felt very proud this morning that I was to go out first mate this time, and that I should command a ship nex
t voyage. I meant to have asked you for a promise, but I don’t. Only, Mary, just give me your little Bible, and I’ll promise to read it all through soberly, and see what it all comes to. And pray for me; and if, while I’m gone, a good man comes who loves you, and is worthy of you, why, take him, Mary,—that’s my advice.”
“James, I am not thinking of any such things; I don’t ever mean to be married. And I’m glad you don’t ask me for any promise,—because it would be wrong to give it; mother doesn’t even like me to be much with you. But I’m sure all I have said to you to-day is right; I shall tell her exactly all I have said.”
“If Aunt Katy knew what things we fellows are pitched into, who take the world headforemost, she wouldn’t be so selfish. Mary, you girls and women don’t know the world you live in; you ought to be pure and good; you are not tempted as we are. You don’t know what men, what women,—no, they’re not women!—what creatures, beset us in every foreign port, and boarding-houses that are gates of hell; and then, if a fellow comes back from all this and don’t walk exactly straight, you just draw up the hems of your garments and stand close to the wall, for fear he should touch you when he passes. I don’t mean you, Mary, for you are different from most; but if you would do what you could, you might save us.—But it’s no use talking, Mary. Give me the Bible; and please be kind to my dove,—for I had a hard time getting him across the water, and I don’t want him to die.”
If Mary had spoken all that welled up in her little heart at that moment, she might have said too much; but duty had its habitual seal upon her lips. She took the little Bible from her table and gave it with a trembling hand, and James turned to go. In a moment he turned back, and stood irresolute.
“Mary,” he said, “we are cousins; I may never come back; you might kiss me this once.”
The kiss was given and received in silence, and James disappeared among the thick trees.
“Come, child,” said Aunt Katy, looking in, “there is Deacon Twitchel’s chaise in sight,—are you ready?”
“Yes, mother.”
CHAPTER IV
Theological Tea
AT THE CALL of her mother, Mary hurried into the “best room,” with a strange discomposure of spirit she had never felt before. From childhood, her love for James had been so deep, equable, and intense, that it had never disturbed her with thrills and yearnings; it had grown up in sisterly calmness, and, quietly expanding, had taken possession of her whole nature, without her once dreaming of its power. But this last interview seemed to have struck some great nerve of her being,—and calm as she usually was, from habit, principle, and good health, she shivered and trembled, as she heard his retreating footsteps, and saw the orchard-grass fly back from under his feet. It was as if each step trod on a nerve,—as if the very sound of the rustling grass was stirring something living and sensitive in her soul. And, strangest of all, a vague impression of guilt hovered over her. Had she done anything wrong? She did not ask him there; she had not spoken love to him; no, she had only talked to him of his soul, and how she would give hers for his,—oh, so willingly!—and that was not love; it was only what Dr. Hopkins said Christians must always feel.
“Child, what have you been doing?” said Aunt Katy, who sat in full flowing chintz petticoat and spotless dimity short-gown, with her company knitting-work in her hands; “your cheeks are as red as peonies. Have you been crying? What’s the matter?”
“There is the Deacon’s wife, mother,” said Mary, turning confusedly, and darting to the entry-door.
Enter Mrs. Twitchel,—a soft, pillowy little elderly lady, whose whole air and dress reminded one of a sack of feathers tied in the middle with a string. A large, comfortable pocket, hung upon the side, disclosed her knitting-work ready for operation; and she zealously cleansed herself with a checked handkerchief from the dust which had accumulated during her ride in the old “one-hoss shay,”1 answering the hospitable salutation of Katy Scudder in that plaintive, motherly voice which belongs to certain nice old ladies, who appear to live in a state of mild chronic compassion for the sins and sorrows of this mortal life generally.
“Why, yes, Miss Scudder, I’m pretty tol‘able. I keep goin’, and goin’. That’s my way. I’s a-tellin’ the Deacon, this mornin’, I didn’t see how I was to come here this afternoon; but then I did want to see Miss Scudder and talk a little about that precious sermon, Sunday. How is the Doctor? blessed man! Well, his reward must be great in heaven, if not on earth, as I was a-tellin’ the Deacon; and he says to me, says he, ‘Polly, we mustn’t be man-worshippers.’ There, dear,” (to Mary,) “don’t trouble yourself about my bonnet; it a‘n’t my Sunday one, but I thought ’twould do. Says I to Cerinthy Ann, ‘Miss Scudder won’t mind, ’cause her heart’s set on better things.’ I always like to drop a word in season to Cerinthy Ann, ’cause she’s clean took up with vanity and dress. Oh, dear! oh, dear me! so different from your blessed daughter, Miss Scudder! Well, it’s a great blessin’ to be called in one’s youth, like Samuel and Timothy,2 but then we doesn’t know the Lord’s ways. Sometimes I gets clean discouraged with my children,—but then ag‘in I don’t know; none on us does. Cerinthy Ann is one of the most master hands to turn off work; she takes hold and goes along like a woman, and nobody never knows when that gal finds the time to do all she does do; and I don’t know nothin’ what I should do without her. Deacon was saying, if ever she was called, she’d be a Martha,3 and not a Mary; but then she’s dreadful opposed to the doctrines. Oh, dear me! oh, dear me! Somehow they seem to rile her all up; and she was a-tellin’ me yesterday, when she was a-hangin’ out clothes, that she never should get reconciled to Decrees and ’Lection,4 ‘cause she can’t see, if things is certain, how folks is to help ’emselves. Says I, ‘Cerinthy Ann, folks a’n’t to help themselves; they’s to submit unconditional.’ And she jest slammed down the clothes-basket and went into the house.”
When Mrs. Twitchel began to talk, it flowed a steady stream, as when one turns a faucet, that never ceases running till some hand turns it back again; and the occasion that cut the flood short at present was the entrance of Mrs. Brown.
Mr. Simeon Brown was a thriving ship-owner of Newport, who lived in a large house, owned several negro-servants and a span of horses, and affected some state and style in his worldly appearance. A passion for metaphysical Orthodoxy had drawn Simeon to the congregation of Dr. Hopkins, and his wife of course stood by right in a high place there. She was a tall, angular, somewhat hard-favored body, dressed in a style rather above the simple habits of her neighbors, and her whole air spoke the great woman, who in right of her thousands expected to have her say in all that was going on in the world, whether she understood it or not.
On her entrance, mild little Mrs. Twitchel fled from the cushioned rocking-chair, and stood with the quivering air of one who feels she has no business to be anywhere in the world, until Mrs. Brown’s bonnet was taken and she was seated, when Mrs. Twitchel subsided into a corner and rattled her knitting-needles to conceal her emotion.
New England has been called the land of equality; but what land upon earth is wholly so? Even the mites in a bit of cheese, naturalists say, have great tumblings and strivings about position and rank; he who has ten pounds will always be a nobleman to him who has but one, let him strive as manfully as he may; and therefore let us forgive meek little Mrs. Twitchel for melting into nothing in her own eyes when Mrs. Brown came in, and let us forgive Mrs. Brown that she sat down in the rocking-chair with an easy grandeur, as one who thought it her duty to be affable and meant to be. It was, however, rather difficult for Mrs. Brown, with her money, house, negroes, and all, to patronize Mrs. Katy Scudder, who was one of those women whose natures seem to sit on thrones, and who dispense patronage and favor by an inborn right and aptitude, whatever be their social advantages. It was one of Mrs. Brown’s trials of life, this secret, strange quality in her neighbor, who stood apparently so far below her in worldly goods. Even the quiet, positive style of Mrs. Katy’s knitting made her n
ervous; it was an implication of independence of her sway; and though on the present occasion every customary courtesy was bestowed, she still felt, as she always did when Mrs. Katy’s guest, a secret uneasiness. She mentally contrasted the neat little parlor, with its white sanded floor and muslin curtains, with her own grand front-room, which boasted the then uncommon luxuries of Turkey carpet and Persian rug, and wondered if Mrs. Katy did really feel as cool and easy in receiving her as she appeared.
You must not understand that this was what Mrs. Brown supposed herself to be thinking about; oh, no! by no means! All the little, mean work of our nature is generally done in a small dark closet just a little back of the subject we are talking about, on which subject we suppose ourselves of course to be thinking;—of course we are thinking of it; how else could we talk about it?
The subject in discussion, and what Mrs. Brown supposed to be in her own thoughts, was the last Sunday’s sermon on the doctrine of entire Disinterested Benevolence,5 in which good Doctor Hopkins had proclaimed to the citizens of Newport their duty of being so wholly absorbed in the general good of the universe as even to acquiesce in their own final and eternal destruction, if the greater good of the whole might thereby be accomplished.
“Well, now, dear me!” said Mrs. Twitchel, while her knitting-needles trotted contentedly to the mournful tone of her voice,—“I was tellin’ the Deacon, if we only could get there! Sometimes I think I get a little way,—but then ag‘in I don’t know; but the Deacon he’s quite down,—he don’t see no evidences in himself. Sometimes he says he don’t feel as if he ought to keep his place in the church,—but then ag’in he don’t know. He keeps a-turnin’ and turnin’ on’t over in his mind, and a-tryin’ himself this way and that way; and he says he don’t see nothin’ but what’s selfish, no way.
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