CHAPTER I
“You told a LIE?”
“You confess it — you actually confess it — you told a lie!”
CHAPTER II
The family consisted of four persons: Margaret Lester, widow, aged thirty six; Helen Lester, her daughter, aged sixteen; Mrs. Lester’s maiden aunts, Hannah and Hester Gray, twins, aged sixty-seven. Waking and sleeping, the three women spent their days and night in adoring the young girl; in watching the movements of her sweet spirit in the mirror of her face; in refreshing their souls with the vision of her bloom and beauty; in listening to the music of her voice; in gratefully recognizing how rich and fair for them was the world with this presence in it; in shuddering to think how desolate it would be with this light gone out of it.
By nature — and inside — the aged aunts were utterly dear and lovable and good, but in the matter of morals and conduct their training had been so uncompromisingly strict that it had made them exteriorly austere, not to say stern. Their influence was effective in the house; so effective that the mother and the daughter conformed to its moral and religious requirements cheerfully, contentedly, happily, unquestionably. To do this was become second nature to them. And so in this peaceful heaven there were no clashings, no irritations, no fault-finding, no heart-burnings.
In it a lie had no place. In it a lie was unthinkable. In it speech was restricted to absolute truth, iron-bound truth, implacable and uncompromising truth, let the resulting consequences be what they might. At last, one day, under stress of circumstances, the darling of the house sullied her lips with a lie — and confessed it, with tears and self-upbraidings. There are not any words that can paint the consternation of the aunts. It was as if the sky had crumpled up and collapsed and the earth had tumbled to ruin with a crash. They sat side by side, white and stern, gazing speechless upon the culprit, who was on her knees before them with her face buried first in one lap and then the other, moaning and sobbing, and appealing for sympathy and forgiveness and getting no response, humbly kissing the hand of the one, then of the other, only to see it withdrawn as suffering defilement by those soiled lips.
Twice, at intervals, Aunt Hester said, in frozen amazement:
“You told a LIE?”
Twice, at intervals, Aunt Hannah followed with the muttered and amazed ejaculation:
“You confess it — you actually confess it — you told a lie!”
It was all they could say. The situation was new, unheard of, incredible; they could not understand it, they did not know how to take hold of it, it approximately paralyzed speech.
At length it was decided that the erring child must be taken to her mother, who was ill, and who ought to know what had happened. Helen begged, besought, implored that she might be spared this further disgrace, and that her mother might be spared the grief and pain of it; but this could not be: duty required this sacrifice, duty takes precedence of all things, nothing can absolve one from a duty, with a duty no compromise is possible.
Helen still begged, and said the sin was her own, her mother had had no hand in it — why must she be made to suffer for it?
But the aunts were obdurate in their righteousness, and said the law that visited the sins of the parent upon the child was by all right and reason reversible; and therefore it was but just that the innocent mother of a sinning child should suffer her rightful share of the grief and pain and shame which were the allotted wages of the sin.
The three moved toward the sick-room.
At this time the doctor was approaching the house. He was still a good distance away, however. He was a good doctor and a good man, and he had a good heart, but one had to know him a year to get over hating him, two years to learn to endure him, three to learn to like him, and four and five to learn to love him. It was a slow and trying education, but it paid. He was of great stature; he had a leonine head, a leonine face, a rough voice, and an eye which was sometimes a pirate’s and sometimes a woman’s, according to the mood. He knew nothing about etiquette, and cared nothing about it; in speech, manner, carriage, and conduct he was the reverse of conventional. He was frank, to the limit; he had opinions on all subjects; they were always on tap and ready for delivery, and he cared not a farthing whether his listener liked them or didn’t. Whom he loved he loved, and manifested it; whom he didn’t love he hated, and published it from the housetops. In his young days he had been a sailor, and the salt-airs of all the seas blew from him yet. He was a sturdy and loyal Christian, and believed he was the best one in the land, and the only one whose Christianity was perfectly sound, healthy, full-charged with common sense, and had no decayed places in it. People who had an ax to grind, or people who for any reason wanted wanted to get on the soft side of him, called him The Christian — a phrase whose delicate flattery was music to his ears, and whose capital T was such an enchanting and vivid object to him that he could SEE it when it fell out of a person’s mouth even in the dark. Many who were fond of him stood on their consciences with both feet and brazenly called him by that large title habitually, because it was a pleasure to them to do anything that would please him; and with eager and cordial malice his extensive and diligently cultivated crop of enemies gilded it, beflowered it, expanded it to “The ONLY Christian.” Of these two titles, the latter had the wider currency; the enemy, being greatly in the majority, attended to that. Whatever the doctor believed, he believed with all his heart, and would fight for it whenever he got the chance; and if the intervals between chances grew to be irksomely wide, he would invent ways of shortening them himself. He was severely conscientious, according to his rather independent lights, and whatever he took to be a duty he performed, no matter whether the judgment of the professional moralists agreed with his own or not. At sea, in his young days, he had used profanity freely, but as soon as he was converted he made a rule, which he rigidly stuck to ever afterward, never to use it except on the rarest occasions, and then only when duty commanded. He had been a hard drinker at sea, but after his conversion he became a firm and outspoken teetotaler, in order to be an example to the young, and from that time forth he seldom drank; never, indeed, except when it seemed to him to be a duty — a condition which sometimes occurred a couple of times a year, but never as many as five times.
Necessarily, such a man is impressionable, impulsive, emotional. This one was, and had no gift at hiding his feelings; or if he had it he took no trouble to exercise it. He carried his soul’s prevailing weather in his face, and when he entered a room the parasols or the umbrellas went up — figuratively speaking — according to the indications. When the soft light was in his eye it meant approval, and delivered a benediction; when he came with a frown he lowered the temperature ten degrees. He was a well-beloved man in the house of his friends, but sometimes a dreaded one.
He had a deep affection for the Lester household and its several members returned this feeling with interest. They mourned over his kind of Christianity, and he frankly scoffed at theirs; but both parties went on loving each other just the same.
He was approaching the house — out of the distance; the aunts and the culprit were moving toward the sick-chamber.
CHAPTER III
The three last named stood by the bed; the aunts austere, the transgressor softly sobbing. The mother turned her head on the pillow; her tired eyes flamed up instantly with sympathy and passionate mother-love when they fell upon her child, and she opened the refuge and shelter of her arms.
“Wait!” said Aunt Hannah, and put out her hand and stayed the girl from leaping into them.
“Helen,” said the other aunt, impressively, “tell your mother all. Purge your soul; leave nothing unconfessed.”
Standing stricken and forlorn before her judges, the young girl mourned her sorrowful tale through the end, then in a passion of appeal cried out:
“Oh, mother, can’t you forgive me? won’t you forgive me? — I am so desolate!”
“Forgive you, my darling? Oh, come to my arms! — there, lay your head upon my breast, and be at peace. If you had told a thousand lies— “
There was a sound — a warning — the clearing of a throat. The aunts glanced up, and withered in their clothes — there stood the doctor, his face a thunder-cloud. Mother and child knew nothing of his presence; they lay locked together, heart to heart, steeped in immeasurable content, dead to all things else. The physician stood many moments glaring and glooming upon the scene before him; studying it, analyzing it, searching out its genesis; then he put up his hand and beckoned to the aunts. They came trembling to him, and stood humbly before him and waited. He bent down and whispered:
“Didn’t I tell you this patient must be protected from all excitement? What the hell have you been doing? Clear out of the place!”
They obeyed. Half an hour later he appeared in the parlor, serene, cheery, clothed in sunshine, conducting Helen, with his arm about her waist, petting her, and saying gentle and playful things to her; and she also was her sunny and happy self again.
“Now, then;” he said, “good-by, dear. Go to your room, and keep away from your mother, and behave yourself. But wait — put out your tongue. There, that will do — you’re as sound as a nut!” He patted her cheek and added, “Run along now; I want to talk to these aunts.”
She went from the presence. His face clouded over again at once; and as he sat down he said:
“You too have been doing a lot of damage — and maybe some good. Some good, yes — such as it is. That woman’s disease is typhoid! You’ve brought it to a show-up, I think, with your insanities, and that’s a service — such as it is. I hadn’t been able to determine what it was before.”
With one impulse the old ladies sprang to their feet, quaking with terror.
“Sit down! What are you proposing to do?”
“Do? We must fly to her. We— “
“You’ll do nothing of the kind; you’ve done enough harm for one day. Do you want to squander all your capital of crimes and follies on a single deal? Sit down, I tell you. I have arranged for her to sleep; she needs it; if you disturb her without my orders, I’ll brain you — if you’ve got the materials for it.”
They sat down, distressed and indignant, but obedient, under compulsion. He proceeded:
“Now, then, I want this case explained. THEY wanted to explain it to me — as if there hadn’t been emotion or excitement enough already. You knew my orders; how did you dare to go in there and get up that riot?”
Hester looked appealing at Hannah; Hannah returned a beseeching look at Hester — neither wanted to dance to this unsympathetic orchestra. The doctor came to their help. He said:
“Begin, Hester.”
Fingering at the fringes of her shawl, and with lowered eyes, Hester said, timidly:
“We should not have disobeyed for any ordinary cause, but this was vital. This was a duty. With a duty one has no choice; one must put all lighter considerations aside and perform it. We were obliged to arraign her before her mother. She had told a lie.”
The doctor glowered upon the woman a moment, and seemed to be trying to work up in his mind an understand of a wholly incomprehensible proposition; then he stormed out:
“She told a lie! DID she? God bless my soul! I tell a million a day! And so does every doctor. And so does everybody — including you — for that matter. And THAT was the important thing that authorized you to venture to disobey my orders and imperil that woman’s life! Look here, Hester Gray, this is pure lunacy; that girl COULDN’T tell a lie that was intended to injure a person. The thing is impossible — absolutely impossible. You know it yourselves — both of you; you know it perfectly well.”
Hannah came to her sister’s rescue:
“Hester didn’t mean that it was that kind of a lie, and it wasn’t. But it was a lie.”
“Well, upon my word, I never heard such nonsense! Haven’t you got sense enough to discriminate between lies! Don’t you know the difference between a lie that helps and a lie that hurts?”
“ALL lies are sinful,” said Hannah, setting her lips together like a vise; “all lies are forbidden.”
The Only Christian fidgeted impatiently in his chair. He went to attack this proposition, but he did not quite know how or where to begin. Finally he made a venture:
“Hester, wouldn’t you tell a lie to shield a person from an undeserved injury or shame?”
“No.”
“Not even a friend?”
“No.”
“Not even your dearest friend?”
“No. I would not.”
The doctor struggled in silence awhile with this situation; then he asked:
“Not even to save him from bitter pain and misery and grief?”
“No. Not even to save his life.”
Another pause. Then:
“Nor his soul?”
There was a hush — a silence which endured a measurable interval — then Hester answered, in a low voice, but with decision:
“Nor his soul?”
No one spoke for a while; then the doctor said:
“Is it with you the same, Hannah?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“I ask you both — why?”
“Because to tell such a lie, or any lie, is a sin, and could cost us the loss of our own souls — WOULD, indeed, if we died without time to repent.”
“Strange... strange... it is past belief.” Then he asked, roughly: “Is such a soul as that WORTH saving?” He rose up, mumbling and grumbling, and started for the door, stumping vigorously along. At the threshold he turned and rasped out an admonition: “Reform! Drop this mean and sordid and selfish devotion to the saving of your shabby little souls, and hunt up something to do that’s got some dignity to it! RISK your souls! risk them in good causes; then if you lose them, why should you care? Reform!”
The good old gentlewomen sat paralyzed, pulverized, outraged, insulted, and brooded in bitterness and indignation over these blasphemies. They were hurt to the heart, poor old ladies, and said they could never forgive these injuries.
“Reform!”
They kept repeating that word resentfully. “Reform — and learn to tell lies!”
Time slipped along, and in due course a change came over their spirits. They had completed the human being’s first duty — which is to think about himself until he has exhausted the subject, then he is in a condition to take up minor interests and think of other people. This changes the complexion of his spirits — generally wholesomely. The minds of the two old ladies reverted to their beloved niece and the fearful disease which had smitten her; instantly they forgot the hurts their self-love had received, and a passionate desire rose in their hearts to go to the help of the sufferer and comfort her with their love, and minister to her, and labor for her the best they could with their weak hands, and joyfully and affectionately wear out their poor old bodies in her dear service if only they might have the privilege.
“And we shall have it!” said Hester, with the tears running down her face. “There are no nurses comparable to us, for there are no others that will stand their watch by that bed till they drop and die, and God knows we would do that.”
“Amen,” said Hannah, smiling approval and endorsement through the mist of moisture that blurred her glasses. “The doctor knows us, and knows we will not disobey again; and he will call no others. He will not dare!”
“Dare?” said Hester, with temper, and dashing the water from her eyes; “he will dare anything — that Christian devil! But it will do no good for him to try it this time — but, laws! Hannah! after all’s said and done, he is gifted and wise and good, and he would not think of such a thing.... It is surely time for one of us to go to that room. What is keeping him? Why doesn’t he come and say so?”
They caught the sound of his approaching step. He entered, sat down, and began to talk.
“Margaret is a sick woman,” he said. “She is still sleeping, but she will wake presently; then one of you must go to her. She will be worse before she is better. Pretty soon a night-and-day watch must be set. How much of it can you two undertake?”
“All of it!” burst from both ladies at once.
The doctor’s eyes flashed, and he said, with energy:
“You DO ring true, you brave old relics! And you SHALL do all of the nursing you can, for there’s none to match you in that divine office in this town; but you can’t do all of it, and it would be a crime to let you.” It was grand praise, golden praise, coming from such a source, and it took nearly all the resentment out of the aged twin’s hearts. “Your Tilly and my old Nancy shall do the rest — good nurses both, white souls with black skins, watchful, loving, tender — just perfect nurses! — and competent liars from the cradle.... Look you! keep a little watch on Helen; she is sick, and is going to be sicker.”
The ladies looked a little surprised, and not credulous; and Hester said:
“How is that? It isn’t an hour since you said she was as sound as a nut.”
The doctor answered, tranquilly:
“It was a lie.”
The ladies turned upon him indignantly, and Hannah said:
“How can you make an odious confession like that, in so indifferent a tone, when you know how we feel about all forms of— “
“Hush! You are as ignorant as cats, both of you, and you don’t know what you are talking about. You are like all the rest of the moral moles; you lie from morning till night, but because you don’t do it with your mouths, but only with your lying eyes, your lying inflections, your deceptively misplaced emphasis, and your misleading gestures, you turn up your complacent noses and parade before God and the world as saintly and unsmirched Truth-Speakers, in whose cold-storage souls a lie would freeze to death if it got there! Why will you humbug yourselves with that foolish notion that no lie is a lie except a spoken one? What is the difference between lying with your eyes and lying with your mouth? There is none; and if you would reflect a moment you would see that it is so. There isn’t a human being that doesn’t tell a gross of lies every day of his life; and you — why, between you, you tell thirty thousand; yet you flare up here in a lurid hypocritical horror because I tell that child a benevolent and sinless lie to protect her from her imagination, which would get to work and warm up her blood to a fever in an hour, if I were disloyal enough to my duty to let it. Which I should probably do if I were interested in saving my soul by such disreputable means.
“Come, let us reason together. Let us examine details. When you two were in the sick-room raising that riot, what would you have done if you had known I was coming?”
“Well, what?”
“You would have slipped out and carried Helen with you — wouldn’t you?”
The ladies were silent.
“What would be your object and intention?”
“Well, what?”
“To keep me from finding out your guilt; to beguile me to infer that Margaret’s excitement proceeded from some cause not known to you. In a word, to tell me a lie — a silent lie. Moreover, a possibly harmful one.”
The twins colored, but did not speak.
“You not only tell myriads of silent lies, but you tell lies with your mouths — you two.”
“THAT is not so!”
“It is so. But only harmless ones. You never dream of uttering a harmful one. Do you know that that is a concession — and a confession?”
“How do you mean?”
“It is an unconscious concession that harmless lies are not criminal; it is a confession that you constantly MAKE that discrimination. For instance, you declined old Mrs. Foster’s invitation last week to meet those odious Higbies at supper — in a polite note in which you expressed regret and said you were very sorry you could not go. It was a lie. It was as unmitigated a lie as was ever uttered. Deny it, Hester — with another lie.”
Hester replied with a toss of her head.
“That will not do. Answer. Was it a lie, or wasn’t it?”
The color stole into the cheeks of both women, and with a struggle and an effort they got out their confession:
“It was a lie.”
“Good — the reform is beginning; there is hope for you yet; you will not tell a lie to save your dearest friend’s soul, but you will spew out one without a scruple to save yourself the discomfort of telling an unpleasant truth.”
He rose. Hester, speaking for both, said; coldly:
“We have lied; we perceive it; it will occur no more. To lie is a sin. We shall never tell another one of any kind whatsoever, even lies of courtesy or benevolence, to save any one a pang or a sorrow decreed for him by God.”
“Ah, how soon you will fall! In fact, you have fallen already; for what you have just uttered is a lie. Good-by. Reform! One of you go to the sick-room now.”
CHAPTER IV
Twelve days later.
Mother and child were lingering in the grip of the hideous disease. Of hope for either there was little. The aged sisters looked white and worn, but they would not give up their posts. Their hearts were breaking, poor old things, but their grit was steadfast and indestructible. All the twelve days the mother had pined for the child, and the child for the mother, but both knew that the prayer of these longings could not be granted. When the mother was told — on the first day — that her disease was typhoid, she was frightened, and asked if there was danger that Helen could have contracted it the day before, when she was in the sick-chamber on that confession visit. Hester told her the doctor had poo-pooed the idea. It troubled Hester to say it, although it was true, for she had not believed the doctor; but when she saw the mother’s joy in the news, the pain in her conscience lost something of its force — a result which made her ashamed of the constructive deception which she had practiced, though not ashamed enough to make her distinctly and definitely wish she had refrained from it. From that moment the sick woman understood that her daughter must remain away, and she said she would reconcile herself to the separation the best she could, for she would rather suffer death than have her child’s health imperiled. That afternoon Helen had to take to her bed, ill. She grew worse during the night. In the morning her mother asked after her:
“Is she well?”
Hester turned cold; she opened her lips, but the words refused to come. The mother lay languidly looking, musing, waiting; suddenly she turned white and gasped out:
“Oh, my God! what is it? is she sick?”
Then the poor aunt’s tortured heart rose in rebellion, and words came:
“No — be comforted; she is well.”
The sick woman put all her happy heart in her gratitude:
“Thank God for those dear words! Kiss me. How I worship you for saying them!”
Hester told this incident to Hannah, who received it with a rebuking look, and said, coldly:
“Sister, it was a lie.”
Hester’s lips trembled piteously; she choked down a sob, and said:
“Oh, Hannah, it was a sin, but I could not help it. I could not endure the fright and the misery that were in her face.”
“No matter. It was a lie. God will hold you to account for it.”
“Oh, I know it, I know it,” cried Hester, wringing her hands, “but even if it were now, I could not help it. I know I should do it again.”
“Then take my place with Helen in the morning. I will make the report myself.”
Hester clung to her sister, begging and imploring.
“Don’t, Hannah, oh, don’t — you will kill her.”
“I will at least speak the truth.”
In the morning she had a cruel report to bear to the mother, and she braced herself for the trial. When she returned from her mission, Hester was waiting, pale and trembling, in the hall. She whispered:
“Oh, how did she take it — that poor, desolate mother?”
Hannah’s eyes were swimming in tears. She said:
“God forgive me, I told her the child was well!”
Hester gathered her to her heart, with a grateful “God bless you, Hannah!” and poured out her thankfulness in an inundation of worshiping praises.
After that, the two knew the limit of their strength, and accepted their fate. They surrendered humbly, and abandoned themselves to the hard requirements of the situation. Daily they told the morning lie, and confessed their sin in prayer; not asking forgiveness, as not being worthy of it, but only wishing to make record that they realized their wickedness and were not desiring to hide it or excuse it.
Daily, as the fair young idol of the house sank lower and lower, the sorrowful old aunts painted her glowing bloom and her fresh young beauty to the wan mother, and winced under the stabs her ecstasies of joy and gratitude gave them.
In the first days, while the child had strength to hold a pencil, she wrote fond little love-notes to her mother, in which she concealed her illness; and these the mother read and reread through happy eyes wet with thankful tears, and kissed them over and over again, and treasured them as precious things under her pillow.
Then came a day when the strength was gone from the hand, and the mind wandered, and the tongue babbled pathetic incoherences. This was a sore dilemma for the poor aunts. There were no love-notes for the mother. They did not know what to do. Hester began a carefully studied and plausible explanation, but lost the track of it and grew confused; suspicion began to show in the mother’s face, then alarm. Hester saw it, recognized the imminence of the danger, and descended to the emergency, pulling herself resolutely together and plucking victor from the open jaws of defeat. In a placid and convincing voice she said:
“I thought it might distress you to know it, but Helen spent the night at the Sloanes’. There was a little party there, and, although she did not want to go, and you so sick, we persuaded her, she being young and needing the innocent pastimes of youth, and we believing you would approve. Be sure she will write the moment she comes.”
“How good you are, and how dear and thoughtful for us both! Approve? Why, I thank you with all my heart. My poor little exile! Tell her I want her to have every pleasure she can — I would not rob her of one. Only let her keep her health, that is all I ask. Don’t let that suffer; I could not bear it. How thankful I am that she escaped this infection — and what a narrow risk she ran, Aunt Hester! Think of that lovely face all dulled and burned with fever. I can’t bear the thought of it. Keep her health. Keep her bloom! I can see her now, the dainty creature — with the big, blue, earnest eyes; and sweet, oh, so sweet and gentle and winning! Is she as beautiful as ever, dear Aunt Hester?”
“Oh, more beautiful and bright and charming than ever she was before, if such a thing can be” — and Hester turned away and fumbled with the medicine-bottles, to hide her shame and grief.
CHAPTER V
After a little, both aunts were laboring upon a difficult and baffling work in Helen’s chamber. Patiently and earnestly, with their stiff old fingers, they were trying to forge the required note. They made failure after failure, but they improved little by little all the time. The pity of it all, the pathetic humor of it, there was none to see; they themselves were unconscious of it. Often their tears fell upon the notes and spoiled them; sometimes a single misformed word made a note risky which could have been ventured but for that; but at last Hannah produced one whose script was a good enough imitation of Helen’s to pass any but a suspicious eye, and bountifully enriched it with the petting phrases and loving nicknames that had been familiar on the child’s lips from her nursery days. She carried it to the mother, who took it with avidity, and kissed it, and fondled it, reading its precious words over and over again, and dwelling with deep contentment upon its closing paragraph:
“Mousie darling, if I could only see you, and kiss your eyes, and feel your arms about me! I am so glad my practicing does not disturb you. Get well soon. Everybody is good to me, but I am so lonesome without you, dear mamma.”
“The poor child, I know just how she feels. She cannot be quite happy without me; and I — oh, I live in the light of her eyes! Tell her she must practice all she pleases; and, Aunt Hannah — tell her I can’t hear the piano this far, nor hear dear voice when she sings: God knows I wish I could. No one knows how sweet that voice is to me; and to think — some day it will be silent! What are you crying for?”
“Only because — because — it was just a memory. When I came away she was singing, ‘Loch Lomond.’ The pathos of it! It always moves me so when she sings that.”
“And me, too. How heartbreakingly beautiful it is when some youthful sorrow is brooding in her breast and she sings it for the mystic healing it brings.... Aunt Hannah?”
“Dear Margaret?”
“I am very ill. Sometimes it comes over me that I shall never hear that dear voice again.”
“Oh, don’t — don’t, Margaret! I can’t bear it!”
Margaret was moved and distressed, and said, gently:
“There — there — let me put my arms around you. Don’t cry. There — put your cheek to mine. Be comforted. I wish to live. I will live if I can. Ah, what could she do without me!... Does she often speak of me? — but I know she does.”
“Oh, all the time — all the time!”
“My sweet child! She wrote the note the moment she came home?”
“Yes — the first moment. She would not wait to take off her things.”
“I knew it. It is her dear, impulsive, affectionate way. I knew it without asking, but I wanted to hear you say it. The petted wife knows she is loved, but she makes her husband tell her so every day, just for the joy of hearing it.... She used the pen this time. That is better; the pencil-marks could rub out, and I should grieve for that. Did you suggest that she use the pen?”
“Y — no — she — it was her own idea.”
The mother looked her pleasure, and said:
“I was hoping you would say that. There was never such a dear and thoughtful child!... Aunt Hannah?”
“Dear Margaret?”
“Go and tell her I think of her all the time, and worship her. Why — you are crying again. Don’t be so worried about me, dear; I think there is nothing to fear, yet.”
The grieving messenger carried her message, and piously delivered it to unheeding ears. The girl babbled on unaware; looking up at her with wondering and startled eyes flaming with fever, eyes in which was no light of recognition:
“Are you — no, you are not my mother. I want her — oh, I want her! She was here a minute ago — I did not see her go. Will she come? will she come quickly? will she come now?... There are so many houses ... and they oppress me so... and everything whirls and turns and whirls... oh, my head, my head!” — and so she wandered on and on, in her pain, flitting from one torturing fancy to another, and tossing her arms about in a weary and ceaseless persecution of unrest.
Poor old Hannah wetted the parched lips and softly stroked the hot brow, murmuring endearing and pitying words, and thanking the Father of all that the mother was happy and did not know.
CHAPTER VI
Daily the child sank lower and steadily lower towards the grave, and daily the sorrowing old watchers carried gilded tidings of her radiant health and loveliness to the happy mother, whose pilgrimage was also now nearing its end. And daily they forged loving and cheery notes in the child’s hand, and stood by with remorseful consciences and bleeding hearts, and wept to see the grateful mother devour them and adore them and treasure them away as things beyond price, because of their sweet source, and sacred because her child’s hand had touched them.
At last came that kindly friend who brings healing and peace to all. The lights were burning low. In the solemn hush which precedes the dawn vague figures flitted soundless along the dim hall and gathered silent and awed in Helen’s chamber, and grouped themselves about her bed, for a warning had gone forth, and they knew. The dying girl lay with closed lids, and unconscious, the drapery upon her breast faintly rising and falling as her wasting life ebbed away. At intervals a sigh or a muffled sob broke upon the stillness. The same haunting thought was in all minds there: the pity of this death, the going out into the great darkness, and the mother not here to help and hearten and bless.
Helen stirred; her hands began to grope wistfully about as if they sought something — she had been blind some hours. The end was come; all knew it. With a great sob Hester gathered her to her breast, crying, “Oh, my child, my darling!” A rapturous light broke in the dying girl’s face, for it was mercifully vouchsafed her to mistake those sheltering arms for another’s; and she went to her rest murmuring, “Oh, mamma, I am so happy — I longed for you — now I can die.”
Two hours later Hester made her report. The mother asked:
“How is it with the child?”
“She is well.”
CHAPTER VII
A sheaf of white crape and black was hung upon the door of the house, and there it swayed and rustled in the wind and whispered its tidings. At noon the preparation of the dead was finished, and in the coffin lay the fair young form, beautiful, and in the sweet face a great peace. Two mourners sat by it, grieving and worshipping — Hannah and the black woman Tilly. Hester came, and she was trembling, for a great trouble was upon her spirit. She said:
“She asks for a note.”
Hannah’s face blanched. She had not thought of this; it had seemed that that pathetic service was ended. But she realized now that that could not be. For a little while the two women stood looking into each other’s face, with vacant eyes; then Hannah said:
“There is no way out of it — she must have it; she will suspect, else.”
“And she would find out.”
“Yes. It would break her heart.” She looked at the dead face, and her eyes filled. “I will write it,” she said.
Hester carried it. The closing line said:
“Darling Mousie, dear sweet mother, we shall soon be together again. Is not that good news? And it is true; they all say it is true.”
The mother mourned, saying:
“Poor child, how will she bear it when she knows? I shall never see her again in life. It is hard, so hard. She does not suspect? You guard her from that?”
“She thinks you will soon be well.”
“How good you are, and careful, dear Aunt Hester! None goes near herr who could carry the infection?”
“It would be a crime.”
“But you SEE her?”
“With a distance between — yes.”
“That is so good. Others one could not trust; but you two guardian angels — steel is not so true as you. Others would be unfaithful; and many would deceive, and lie.”
Hester’s eyes fell, and her poor old lips trembled.
“Let me kiss you for her, Aunt Hester; and when I am gone, and the danger is past, place the kiss upon her dear lips some day, and say her mother sent it, and all her mother’s broken heart is in it.”
Within the hour, Hester, raining tears upon the dead face, performed her pathetic mission.
CHAPTER VIII
Another day dawned, and grew, and spread its sunshine in the earth. Aunt Hannah brought comforting news to the failing mother, and a happy note, which said again, “We have but a little time to wait, darling mother, then we shall be together.”
The deep note of a bell came moaning down the wind.
“Aunt Hannah, it is tolling. Some poor soul is at rest. As I shall be soon. You will not let her forget me?”
“Oh, God knows she never will!”
“Do not you hear strange noises, Aunt Hannah? It sounds like the shuffling of many feet.”
“We hoped you would not hear it, dear. It is a little company gathering, for — for Helen’s sake, poor little prisoner. There will be music — and she loves it so. We thought you would not mind.”
“Mind? Oh no, no — oh, give her everything her dear heart can desire. How good you two are to her, and how good to me! God bless you both always!”
After a listening pause:
“How lovely! It is her organ. Is she playing it herself, do you think?” Faint and rich and inspiring the chords floating to her ears on the still air. “Yes, it is her touch, dear heart, I recognize it. They are singing. Why — it is a hymn! and the sacredest of all, the most touching, the most consoling.... It seems to open the gates of paradise to me.... If I could die now....”
Faint and far the words rose out of the stillness:
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee,
E’en though it be a cross
That raiseth me.
With the closing of the hymn another soul passed to its rest, and they that had been one in life were not sundered in death. The sisters, mourning and rejoicing, said:
“How blessed it was that she never knew!”
CHAPTER IX
At midnight they sat together, grieving, and the angel of the Lord appeared in the midst transfigured with a radiance not of earth; and speaking, said:
“For liars a place is appointed. There they burn in the fires of hell from everlasting unto everlasting. Repent!”
The bereaved fell upon their knees before him and clasped their hands and bowed their gray heads, adoring. But their tongues clove to the roof of their mouths, and they were dumb.
“Speak! that I may bear the message to the chancery of heaven and bring again the decree from which there is no appeal.”
Then they bowed their heads yet lower, and one said:
“Our sin is great, and we suffer shame; but only perfect and final repentance can make us whole; and we are poor creatures who have learned our human weakness, and we know that if we were in those hard straits again our hearts would fail again, and we should sin as before. The strong could prevail, and so be saved, but we are lost.”
They lifted their heads in supplication. The angel was gone. While they marveled and wept he came again; and bending low, he whispered the decree.
CHAPTER X
Was it Heaven? Or Hell?
A CURE FOR THE BLUES
By courtesy of Mr. Cable I came into possession of a singular book eight or ten years ago. It is likely that mine is now the only copy in existence. Its title-page, unabbreviated, reads as follows:
“The Enemy Conquered; or, Love Triumphant. By G. Ragsdale McClintock, (1) author of ‘An Address,’ etc., delivered at Sunflower Hill, South Carolina, and member of the Yale Law School. New Haven: published by T. H. Pease, 83 Chapel Street,
No one can take up this book and lay it down again unread. Whoever reads one line of it is caught, is chained; he has become the contented slave of its fascinations; and he will read and read, devour and devour, and will not let it go out of his hand till it is finished to the last line, though the house be on fire over his head. And after a first reading he will not throw it aside, but will keep it by him, with his Shakespeare and his Homer, and will take it up many and many a time, when the world is dark and his spirits are low, and be straightway cheered and refreshed. Yet this work has been allowed to lie wholly neglected, unmentioned, and apparently unregretted, for nearly half a century.
The reader must not imagine that he is to find in it wisdom, brilliancy, fertility of invention, ingenuity of construction, excellence of form, purity of style, perfection of imagery, truth to nature, clearness of statement, humanly possible situations, humanly possible people, fluent narrative, connected sequence of events — or philosophy, or logic, or sense. No; the rich, deep, beguiling charm of the book lies in the total and miraculous ABSENCE from it of all these qualities — a charm which is completed and perfected by the evident fact that the author, whose naive innocence easily and surely wins our regard, and almost our worship, does not know that they are absent, does not even suspect that they are absent. When read by the light of these helps to an understanding of the situation, the book is delicious — profoundly and satisfyingly delicious.
I call it a book because the author calls it a book, I call it a work because he calls it a work; but, in truth, it is merely a duodecimo pamphlet of thirty-one pages. It was written for fame and money, as the author very frankly — yes, and very hopefully, too, poor fellow — says in his preface. The money never came — no penny of it ever came; and how long, how pathetically long, the fame has been deferred — forty-seven years! He was young then, it would have been so much to him then; but will he care for it now?
As time is measured in America, McClintock’s epoch is antiquity. In his long-vanished day the Southern author had a passion for “eloquence”; it was his pet, his darling. He would be eloquent, or perish. And he recognized only one kind of eloquence — the lurid, the tempestuous, the volcanic. He liked words — big words, fine words, grand words, rumbling, thundering, reverberating words; with sense attaching if it could be got in without marring the sound, but not otherwise. He loved to stand up before a dazed world, and pour forth flame and smoke and lava and pumice-stone into the skies, and work his subterranean thunders, and shake himself with earthquakes, and stench himself with sulphur fumes. If he consumed his own fields and vineyards, that was a pity, yes; but he would have his eruption at any cost. Mr. McClintock’s eloquence — and he is always eloquent, his crater is always spouting — is of the pattern common to his day, but he departs from the custom of the time in one respect: his brethren allowed sense to intrude when it did not mar the sound, but he does not allow it to intrude at all. For example, consider this figure, which he used in the village “Address” referred to with such candid complacency in the title-page above quoted— “like the topmost topaz of an ancient tower.” Please read it again; contemplate it; measure it; walk around it; climb up it; try to get at an approximate realization of the size of it. Is the fellow to that to be found in literature, ancient or modern, foreign or domestic, living or dead, drunk or sober? One notices how fine and grand it sounds. We know that if it was loftily uttered, it got a noble burst of applause from the villagers; yet there isn’t a ray of sense in it, or meaning to it.
McClintock finished his education at Yale in 1843, and came to Hartford on a visit that same year. I have talked with men who at that time talked with him, and felt of him, and knew he was real. One needs to remember that fact and to keep fast hold of it; it is the only way to keep McClintock’s book from undermining one’s faith in McClintock’s actuality.
As to the book. The first four pages are devoted to an inflamed eulogy of Woman — simply woman in general, or perhaps as an institution — wherein, among other compliments to her details, he pays a unique one to her voice. He says it “fills the breast with fond alarms, echoed by every rill.” It sounds well enough, but it is not true. After the eulogy he takes up his real work and the novel begins. It begins in the woods, near the village of Sunflower Hill.
Brightening clouds seemed to rise from the mist of the fair Chattahoochee, to spread their beauty over the thick forest, to guide the hero whose bosom beats with aspirations to conquer the enemy that would tarnish his name, and to win back the admiration of his long-tried friend.
It seems a general remark, but it is not general; the hero mentioned is the to-be hero of the book; and in this abrupt fashion, and without name or description, he is shoveled into the tale. “With aspirations to conquer the enemy that would tarnish his name” is merely a phrase flung in for the sake of the sound — let it not mislead the reader. No one is trying to tarnish this person; no one has thought of it. The rest of the sentence is also merely a phrase; the man has no friend as yet, and of course has had no chance to try him, or win back his admiration, or disturb him in any other way.
The hero climbs up over “Sawney’s Mountain,” and down the other side, making for an old Indian “castle” — which becomes “the red man’s hut” in the next sentence; and when he gets there at last, he “surveys with wonder and astonishment” the invisible structure, “which time has buried in the dust, and thought to himself his happiness was not yet complete.” One doesn’t know why it wasn’t, nor how near it came to being complete, nor what was still wanting to round it up and make it so. Maybe it was the Indian; but the book does not say. At this point we have an episode:
Beside the shore of the brook sat a young man, about eighteen or twenty, who seemed to be reading some favorite book, and who had a remarkably noble countenance — eyes which betrayed more than a common mind. This of course made the youth a welcome guest, and gained him friends in whatever condition of his life he might be placed. The traveler observed that he was a well-built figure which showed strength and grace in every movement. He accordingly addressed him in quite a gentlemanly manner, and inquired of him the way to the village. After he had received the desired information, and was about taking his leave, the youth said, “Are you not Major Elfonzo, the great musician (2) — the champion of a noble cause — the modern Achilles, who gained so many victories in the Florida War?” “I bear that name,” said the Major, “and those titles, trusting at the same time that the ministers of grace will carry me triumphantly through all my laudable undertakings, and if,” continued the Major, “you, sir, are the patronizer of noble deeds, I should like to make you my confidant and learn your address.” The youth looked somewhat amazed, bowed low, mused for a moment, and began: “My name is Roswell. I have been recently admitted to the bar, and can only give a faint outline of my future success in that honorable profession; but I trust, sir, like the Eagle, I shall look down from the lofty rocks upon the dwellings of man, and shall ever be ready to give you any assistance in my official capacity, and whatever this muscular arm of mine can do, whenever it shall be called from its buried GREATNESS.” The Major grasped him by the hand, and exclaimed: “O! thou exalted spirit of inspiration — thou flame of burning prosperity, may the Heaven-directed blaze be the glare of thy soul, and battle down every rampart that seems to impede your progress!”
There is a strange sort of originality about McClintock; he imitates other people’s styles, but nobody can imitate his, not even an idiot. Other people can be windy, but McClintock blows a gale; other people can blubber sentiment, but McClintock spews it; other people can mishandle metaphors, but only McClintock knows how to make a business of it. McClintock is always McClintock, he is always consistent, his style is always his own style. He does not make the mistake of being relevant on one page and irrelevant on another; he is irrelevant on all of them. He does not make the mistake of being lucid in one place and obscure in another; he is obscure all the time. He does not make the mistake of slipping in a name here and there that is out of character with his work; he always uses names that exactly and fantastically fit his lunatics. In the matter of undeviating consistency he stands alone in authorship. It is this that makes his style unique, and entitles it to a name of its own — McClintockian. It is this that protects it from being mistaken for anybody else’s. Uncredited quotations from other writers often leave a reader in doubt as to their authorship, but McClintock is safe from that accident; an uncredited quotation from him would always be recognizable. When a boy nineteen years old, who had just been admitted to the bar, says, “I trust, sir, like the Eagle, I shall look down from lofty rocks upon the dwellings of man,” we know who is speaking through that boy; we should recognize that note anywhere. There be myriads of instruments in this world’s literary orchestra, and a multitudinous confusion of sounds that they make, wherein fiddles are drowned, and guitars smothered, and one sort of drum mistaken for another sort; but whensoever the brazen note of the McClintockian trombone breaks through that fog of music, that note is recognizable, and about it there can be no blur of doubt.
The novel now arrives at the point where the Major goes home to see his father. When McClintock wrote this interview he probably believed it was pathetic.
The road which led to the town presented many attractions Elfonzo had bid farewell to the youth of deep feeling, and was now wending his way to the dreaming spot of his fondness. The south winds whistled through the woods, as the waters dashed against the banks, as rapid fire in the pent furnace roars. This brought him to remember while alone, that he quietly left behind the hospitality of a father’s house, and gladly entered the world, with higher hopes than are often realized. But as he journeyed onward, he was mindful of the advice of his father, who had often looked sadly on the ground, when tears of cruelly deceived hope moistened his eyes. Elfonzo had been somewhat a dutiful son; yet fond of the amusements of life — had been in distant lands — had enjoyed the pleasure of the world, and had frequently returned to the scenes of his boyhood, almost destitute of many of the comforts of life. In this condition, he would frequently say to his father, “Have I offended you, that you look upon me as a stranger, and frown upon me with stinging looks? Will you not favor me with the sound of your voice? If I have trampled upon your veneration, or have spread a humid veil of darkness around your expectations, send me back into the world, where no heart beats for me — where the foot of man had never yet trod; but give me at least one kind word — allow me to come into the presence sometimes of thy winter-worn locks.” “Forbid it, Heaven, that I should be angry with thee,” answered the father, “my son, and yet I send thee back to the children of the world — to the cold charity of the combat, and to a land of victory. I read another destiny in thy countenance — I learn thy inclinations from the flame that has already kindled in my soul a strange sensation. It will seek thee, my dear ELFONZO, it will find thee — thou canst not escape that lighted torch, which shall blot out from the remembrance of men a long train of prophecies which they have foretold against thee. I once thought not so. Once, I was blind; but now the path of life is plain before me, and my sight is clear; yet, Elfonzo, return to thy worldly occupation — take again in thy hand that chord of sweet sounds — struggle with the civilized world and with your own heart; fly swiftly to the enchanted ground — let the night-OWL send forth its screams from the stubborn oak — let the sea sport upon the beach, and the stars sing together; but learn of these, Elfonzo, thy doom, and thy hiding-place. Our most innocent as well as our most lawful DESIRES must often be denied us, that we may learn to sacrifice them to a Higher will.”
Remembering such admonitions with gratitude, Elfonzo was immediately urged by the recollection of his father’s family to keep moving.
McClintock has a fine gift in the matter of surprises; but as a rule they are not pleasant ones, they jar upon the feelings. His closing sentence in the last quotation is of that sort. It brings one down out of the tinted clouds in too sudden and collapsed a fashion. It incenses one against the author for a moment. It makes the reader want to take him by this winter-worn locks, and trample on his veneration, and deliver him over to the cold charity of combat, and blot him out with his own lighted torch. But the feeling does not last. The master takes again in his hand that concord of sweet sounds of his, and one is reconciled, pacified.
His steps became quicker and quicker — he hastened through the PINY woods, dark as the forest was, and with joy he very soon reached the little village of repose, in whose bosom rested the boldest chivalry. His close attention to every important object — his modest questions about whatever was new to him — his reverence for wise old age, and his ardent desire to learn many of the fine arts, soon brought him into respectable notice.
One mild winter day, as he walked along the streets toward the Academy, which stood upon a small eminence, surrounded by native growth — some venerable in its appearance, others young and prosperous — all seemed inviting, and seemed to be the very place for learning as well as for genius to spend its research beneath its spreading shades. He entered its classic walls in the usual mode of southern manners.
The artfulness of this man! None knows so well as he how to pique the curiosity of the reader — and how to disappoint it. He raises the hope, here, that he is going to tell all about how one enters a classic wall in the usual mode of Southern manners; but does he? No; he smiles in his sleeve, and turns aside to other matters.
The principal of the Institution begged him to be seated and listen to the recitations that were going on. He accordingly obeyed the request, and seemed to be much pleased. After the school was dismissed, and the young hearts regained their freedom, with the songs of the evening, laughing at the anticipated pleasures of a happy home, while others tittered at the actions of the past day, he addressed the teacher in a tone that indicated a resolution — with an undaunted mind. He said he had determined to become a student, if he could meet with his approbation. “Sir,” said he, “I have spent much time in the world. I have traveled among the uncivilized inhabitants of America. I have met with friends, and combated with foes; but none of these gratify my ambition, or decide what is to be my destiny. I see the learned world have an influence with the voice of the people themselves. The despoilers of the remotest kingdoms of the earth refer their differences to this class of persons. This the illiterate and inexperienced little dream of; and now if you will receive me as I am, with these deficiencies — with all my misguided opinions, I will give you my honor, sir, that I will never disgrace the Institution, or those who have placed you in this honorable station.” The instructor, who had met with many disappointments, knew how to feel for a stranger who had been thus turned upon the charities of an unfeeling community. He looked at him earnestly, and said: “Be of good cheer — look forward, sir, to the high destination you may attain. Remember, the more elevated the mark at which you aim, the more sure, the more glorious, the more magnificent the prize.” From wonder to wonder, his encouragement led the impatient listener. A strange nature bloomed before him — giant streams promised him success — gardens of hidden treasures opened to his view. All this, so vividly described, seemed to gain a new witchery from his glowing fancy.
It seems to me that this situation is new in romance. I feel sure it has not been attempted before. Military celebrities have been disguised and set at lowly occupations for dramatic effect, but I think McClintock is the first to send one of them to school. Thus, in this book, you pass from wonder to wonder, through gardens of hidden treasure, where giant streams bloom before you, and behind you, and all around, and you feel as happy, and groggy, and satisfied with your quart of mixed metaphor aboard as you would if it had been mixed in a sample-room and delivered from a jug.
Now we come upon some more McClintockian surprise — a sweetheart who is sprung upon us without any preparation, along with a name for her which is even a little more of a surprise than she herself is.
In 1842 he entered the class, and made rapid progress in the English and Latin departments. Indeed, he continued advancing with such rapidity that he was like to become the first in his class, and made such unexpected progress, and was so studious, that he had almost forgotten the pictured saint of his affections. The fresh wreaths of the pine and cypress had waited anxiously to drop once more the dews of Heaven upon the heads of those who had so often poured forth the tender emotions of their souls under its boughs. He was aware of the pleasure that he had seen there. So one evening, as he was returning from his reading, he concluded he would pay a visit to this enchanting spot. Little did he think of witnessing a shadow of his former happiness, though no doubt he wished it might be so. He continued sauntering by the roadside, meditating on the past. The nearer he approached the spot, the more anxious he became. At that moment a tall female figure flitted across his path, with a bunch of roses in her hand; her countenance showed uncommon vivacity, with a resolute spirit; her ivory teeth already appeared as she smiled beautifully, promenading — while her ringlets of hair dangled unconsciously around her snowy neck. Nothing was wanting to complete her beauty. The tinge of the rose was in full bloom upon her cheek; the charms of sensibility and tenderness were always her associates. In Ambulinia’s bosom dwelt a noble soul — one that never faded — one that never was conquered.
Ambulinia! It can hardly be matched in fiction. The full name is Ambulinia Valeer. Marriage will presently round it out and perfect it. Then it will be Mrs. Ambulinia Valeer Elfonzo. It takes the chromo.
Her heart yielded to no feeling but the love of Elfonzo, on whom she gazed with intense delight, and to whom she felt herself more closely bound, because he sought the hand of no other. Elfonzo was roused from his apparent reverie. His books no longer were his inseparable companions — his thoughts arrayed themselves to encourage him to the field of victory. He endeavored to speak to his supposed Ambulinia, but his speech appeared not in words. No, his effort was a stream of fire, that kindled his soul into a flame of admiration, and carried his senses away captive. Ambulinia had disappeared, to make him more mindful of his duty. As she walked speedily away through the piny woods, she calmly echoed: “O! Elfonzo, thou wilt now look from thy sunbeams. Thou shalt now walk in a new path — perhaps thy way leads through darkness; but fear not, the stars foretell happiness.”
To McClintock that jingling jumble of fine words meant something, no doubt, or seemed to mean something; but it is useless for us to try to divine what it was. Ambulinia comes — we don’t know whence nor why; she mysteriously intimates — we don’t know what; and then she goes echoing away — we don’t know whither; and down comes the curtain. McClintock’s art is subtle; McClintock’s art is deep.
Not many days afterward, as surrounded by fragrant flowers she sat one evening at twilight, to enjoy the cool breeze that whispered notes of melody along the distant groves, the little birds perched on every side, as if to watch the movements of their new visitor. The bells were tolling, when Elfonzo silently stole along by the wild wood flowers, holding in his hand his favorite instrument of music — his eye continually searching for Ambulinia, who hardly seemed to perceive him, as she played carelessly with the songsters that hopped from branch to branch. Nothing could be more striking than the difference between the two. Nature seemed to have given the more tender soul to Elfonzo, and the stronger and more courageous to Ambulinia. A deep feeling spoke from the eyes of Elfonzo — such a feeling as can only be expressed by those who are blessed as admirers, and by those who are able to return the same with sincerity of heart. He was a few years older than Ambulinia: she had turned a little into her seventeenth. He had almost grown up in the Cherokee country, with the same equal proportions as one of the natives. But little intimacy had existed between them until the year forty-one — because the youth felt that the character of such a lovely girl was too exalted to inspire any other feeling than that of quiet reverence. But as lovers will not always be insulted, at all times and under all circumstances, by the frowns and cold looks of crabbed old age, which should continually reflect dignity upon those around, and treat the unfortunate as well as the fortunate with a graceful mien, he continued to use diligence and perseverance. All this lighted a spark in his heart that changed his whole character, and like the unyielding Deity that follows the storm to check its rage in the forest, he resolves for the first time to shake off his embarrassment and return where he had before only worshiped.
At last we begin to get the Major’s measure. We are able to put this and that casual fact together, and build the man up before our eyes, and look at him. And after we have got him built, we find him worth the trouble. By the above comparison between his age and Ambulinia’s, we guess the war-worn veteran to be twenty-two; and the other facts stand thus: he had grown up in the Cherokee country with the same equal proportions as one of the natives — how flowing and graceful the language, and yet how tantalizing as to meaning! — he had been turned adrift by his father, to whom he had been “somewhat of a dutiful son”; he wandered in distant lands; came back frequently “to the scenes of his boyhood, almost destitute of many of the comforts of life,” in order to get into the presence of his father’s winter-worn locks, and spread a humid veil of darkness around his expectations; but he was always promptly sent back to the cold charity of the combat again; he learned to play the fiddle, and made a name for himself in that line; he had dwelt among the wild tribes; he had philosophized about the despoilers of the kingdoms of the earth, and found out — the cunning creature — that they refer their differences to the learned for settlement; he had achieved a vast fame as a military chieftain, the Achilles of the Florida campaigns, and then had got him a spelling-book and started to school; he had fallen in love with Ambulinia Valeer while she was teething, but had kept it to himself awhile, out of the reverential awe which he felt for the child; but now at last, like the unyielding Deity who follows the storm to check its rage in the forest, he resolves to shake off his embarrassment, and to return where before he had only worshiped. The Major, indeed, has made up his mind to rise up and shake his faculties together, and to see if HE can’t do that thing himself. This is not clear. But no matter about that: there stands the hero, compact and visible; and he is no mean structure, considering that his creator had never structure, considering that his creator had never created anything before, and hadn’t anything but rags and wind to build with this time. It seems to me that no one can contemplate this odd creature, this quaint and curious blatherskite, without admiring McClintock, or, at any rate, loving him and feeling grateful to him; for McClintock made him, he gave him to us; without McClintock we could not have had him, and would now be poor.
But we must come to the feast again. Here is a courtship scene, down there in the romantic glades among the raccoons, alligators, and things, that has merit, peculiar literary merit. See how Achilles woos. Dwell upon the second sentence (particularly the close of it) and the beginning of the third. Never mind the new personage, Leos, who is intruded upon us unheralded and unexplained. That is McClintock’s way; it is his habit; it is a part of his genius; he cannot help it; he never interrupts the rush of his narrative to make introductions.
It could not escape Ambulinia’s penetrating eye that he sought an interview with her, which she as anxiously avoided, and assumed a more distant calmness than before, seemingly to destroy all hope. After many efforts and struggles with his own person, with timid steps the Major approached the damsel, with the same caution as he would have done in a field of battle. “Lady Ambulinia,” said he, trembling, “I have long desired a moment like this. I dare not let it escape. I fear the consequences; yet I hope your indulgence will at least hear my petition. Can you not anticipate what I would say, and what I am about to express? Will not you, like Minerva, who sprung from the brain of Jupiter, release me from thy winding chains or cure me— “ “Say no more, Elfonzo,” answered Ambulinia, with a serious look, raising her hand as if she intended to swear eternal hatred against the whole world; “another lady in my place would have perhaps answered your question in bitter coldness. I know not the little arts of my sex. I care but little for the vanity of those who would chide me, and am unwilling as well as ashamed to be guilty of anything that would lead you to think ‘all is not gold that glitters’; so be no rash in your resolution. It is better to repent now, than to do it in a more solemn hour. Yes, I know what you would say. I know you have a costly gift for me — the noblest that man can make — YOUR HEART! You should not offer it to one so unworthy. Heaven, you know, has allowed my father’s house to be made a house of solitude, a home of silent obedience, which my parents say is more to be admired than big names and high-sounding titles. Notwithstanding all this, let me speak the emotions of an honest heart — allow me to say in the fullness of my hopes that I anticipate better days. The bird may stretch its wings toward the sun, which it can never reach; and flowers of the field appear to ascend in the same direction, because they cannot do otherwise; but man confides his complaints to the saints in whom he believes; for in their abodes of light they know no more sorrow. From your confession and indicative looks, I must be that person; if so deceive not yourself.”
Elfonzo replied, “Pardon me, my dear madam, for my frankness. I have loved you from my earliest days — everything grand and beautiful hath borne the image of Ambulinia; while precipices on every hand surrounded me, your GUARDIAN ANGEL stood and beckoned me away from the deep abyss. In every trial, in every misfortune, I have met with your helping hand; yet I never dreamed or dared to cherish thy love, till a voice impaired with age encouraged the cause, and declared they who acquired thy favor should win a victory. I saw how Leos worshiped thee. I felt my own unworthiness. I began to KNOW JEALOUSLY, a strong guest — indeed, in my bosom, — yet I could see if I gained your admiration Leos was to be my rival. I was aware that he had the influence of your parents, and the wealth of a deceased relative, which is too often mistaken for permanent and regular tranquillity; yet I have determined by your permission to beg an interest in your prayers — to ask you to animate my drooping spirits by your smiles and your winning looks; for if you but speak I shall be conqueror, my enemies shall stagger like Olympus shakes. And though earth and sea may tremble, and the charioteer of the sun may forget his dashing steed, yet I am assured that it is only to arm me with divine weapons which will enable me to complete my long-tried intention.”
“Return to yourself, Elfonzo,” said Ambulinia, pleasantly: “a dream of vision has disturbed your intellect; you are above the atmosphere, dwelling in the celestial regions; nothing is there that urges or hinders, nothing that brings discord into our present litigation. I entreat you to condescend a little, and be a man, and forget it all. When Homer describes the battle of the gods and noble men fighting with giants and dragons, they represent under this image our struggles with the delusions of our passions. You have exalted me, an unhappy girl, to the skies; you have called me a saint, and portrayed in your imagination an angel in human form. Let her remain such to you, let her continue to be as you have supposed, and be assured that she will consider a share in your esteem as her highest treasure. Think not that I would allure you from the path in which your conscience leads you; for you know I respect the conscience of others, as I would die for my own. Elfonzo, if I am worthy of thy love, let such conversation never again pass between us. Go, seek a nobler theme! we will seek it in the stream of time, as the sun set in the Tigris.” As she spake these words she grasped the hand of Elfonzo, saying at the same time— “Peace and prosperity attend you, my hero; be up and doing!” Closing her remarks with this expression, she walked slowly away, leaving Elfonzo astonished and amazed. He ventured not to follow or detain her. Here he stood alone, gazing at the stars; confounded as he was, here he stood.
Yes; there he stood. There seems to be no doubt about that. Nearly half of this delirious story has now been delivered to the reader. It seems a pity to reduce the other half to a cold synopsis. Pity! it is more than a pity, it is a crime; for to synopsize McClintock is to reduce a sky-flushing conflagration to dull embers, it is to reduce barbaric splendor to ragged poverty. McClintock never wrote a line that was not precious; he never wrote one that could be spared; he never framed one from which a word could be removed without damage. Every sentence that this master has produced may be likened to a perfect set of teeth, white, uniform, beautiful. If you pull one, the charm is gone.
Still, it is now necessary to begin to pull, and to keep it up; for lack of space requires us to synopsize.
We left Elfonzo standing there amazed. At what, we do not know. Not at the girl’s speech. No; we ourselves should have been amazed at it, of course, for none of us has ever heard anything resembling it; but Elfonzo was used to speeches made up of noise and vacancy, and could listen to them with undaunted mind like the “topmost topaz of an ancient tower”; he was used to making them himself; he — but let it go, it cannot be guessed out; we shall never know what it was that astonished him. He stood there awhile; then he said, “Alas! am I now Grief’s disappointed son at last?” He did not stop to examine his mind, and to try to find out what he probably meant by that, because, for one reason, “a mixture of ambition and greatness of soul moved upon his young heart,” and started him for the village. He resumed his bench in school, “and reasonably progressed in his education.” His heart was heavy, but he went into society, and sought surcease of sorrow in its light distractions. He made himself popular with his violin, “which seemed to have a thousand chords — more symphonious than the Muses of Apollo, and more enchanting than the ghost of the Hills.” This is obscure, but let it go.
During this interval Leos did some unencouraged courting, but at last, “choked by his undertaking,” he desisted.
Presently “Elfonzo again wends his way to the stately walls and new-built village.” He goes to the house of his beloved; she opens the door herself. To my surprise — for Ambulinia’s heart had still seemed free at the time of their last interview — love beamed from the girl’s eyes. One sees that Elfonzo was surprised, too; for when he caught that light, “a halloo of smothered shouts ran through every vein.” A neat figure — a very neat figure, indeed! Then he kissed her. “The scene was overwhelming.” They went into the parlor. The girl said it was safe, for her parents were abed, and would never know. Then we have this fine picture — flung upon the canvas with hardly an effort, as you will notice.
Advancing toward him, she gave a bright display of her rosy neck, and from her head the ambrosial locks breathed divine fragrance; her robe hung waving to his view, while she stood like a goddess confessed before him.
There is nothing of interest in the couple’s interview. Now at this point the girl invites Elfonzo to a village show, where jealousy is the motive of the play, for she wants to teach him a wholesome lesson, if he is a jealous person. But this is a sham, and pretty shallow. McClintock merely wants a pretext to drag in a plagiarism of his upon a scene or two in “Othello.”
The lovers went to the play. Elfonzo was one of the fiddlers. He and Ambulinia must not been seen together, lest trouble follow with the girl’s malignant father; we are made to understand that clearly. So the two sit together in the orchestra, in the midst of the musicians. This does not seem to be good art. In the first place, the girl would be in the way, for orchestras are always packed closely together, and there is no room to spare for people’s girls; in the next place, one cannot conceal a girl in an orchestra without everybody taking notice of it. There can be no doubt, it seems to me, that this is bad art.
Leos is present. Of course, one of the first things that catches his eye is the maddening spectacle of Ambulinia “leaning upon Elfonzo’s chair.” This poor girl does not seem to understand even the rudiments of concealment. But she is “in her seventeenth,” as the author phrases it, and that is her justification.
Leos meditates, constructs a plan — with personal violence as a basis, of course. It was their way down there. It is a good plain plan, without any imagination in it. He will go out and stand at the front door, and when these two come out he will “arrest Ambulinia from the hands of the insolent Elfonzo,” and thus make for himself a “more prosperous field of immortality than ever was decreed by Omnipotence, or ever pencil drew or artist imagined.” But, dear me, while he is waiting there the couple climb out at the back window and scurry home! This is romantic enough, but there is a lack of dignity in the situation.
At this point McClintock puts in the whole of his curious play — which we skip.
Some correspondence follows now. The bitter father and the distressed lovers write the letters. Elopements are attempted. They are idiotically planned, and they fail. Then we have several pages of romantic powwow and confusion dignifying nothing. Another elopement is planned; it is to take place on Sunday, when everybody is at church. But the “hero” cannot keep the secret; he tells everybody. Another author would have found another instrument when he decided to defeat this elopement; but that is not McClintock’s way. He uses the person that is nearest at hand.
The evasion failed, of course. Ambulinia, in her flight, takes refuge in a neighbor’s house. Her father drags her home. The villagers gather, attracted by the racket.
Elfonzo was moved at this sight. The people followed on to see what was going to become of Ambulinia, while he, with downcast looks, kept at a distance, until he saw them enter the abode of the father, thrusting her, that was the sigh of his soul, out of his presence into a solitary apartment, when she exclaimed, “Elfonzo! Elfonzo! oh, Elfonzo! where art thou, with all thy heroes? haste, oh! haste, come thou to my relief. Ride on the wings of the wind! Turn thy force loose like a tempest, and roll on thy army like a whirlwind, over this mountain of trouble and confusion. Oh friends! if any pity me, let your last efforts throng upon the green hills, and come to the relief of Ambulinia, who is guilty of nothing but innocent love.” Elfonzo called out with a loud voice, “My God, can I stand this! arouse up, I beseech you, and put an end to this tyranny. Come, my brave boys,” said he, “are you ready to go forth to your duty?” They stood around him. “Who,” said he, “will call us to arms? Where are my thunderbolts of war? Speak ye, the first who will meet the foe! Who will go forward with me in this ocean of grievous temptation? If there is one who desires to go, let him come and shake hands upon the altar of devotion, and swear that he will be a hero; yes, a Hector in a cause like this, which calls aloud for a speedy remedy.” “Mine be the deed,” said a young lawyer, “and mine alone; Venus alone shall quit her station before I will forsake one jot or tittle of my promise to you; what is death to me? what is all this warlike army, if it is not to win a victory? I love the sleep of the lover and the mighty; nor would I give it over till the blood of my enemies should wreak with that of my own. But God forbid that our fame should soar on the blood of the slumberer.” Mr. Valeer stands at his door with the frown of a demon upon his brow, with his dangerous weapon (3) ready to strike the first man who should enter his door. “Who will arise and go forward through blood and carnage to the rescue of my Ambulinia?” said Elfonzo. “All,” exclaimed the multitude; and onward they went, with their implements of battle. Others, of a more timid nature, stood among the distant hills to see the result of the contest.
It will hardly be believed that after all this thunder and lightning not a drop of rain fell; but such is the fact. Elfonzo and his gang stood up and black-guarded Mr. Valeer with vigor all night, getting their outlay back with interest; then in the early morning the army and its general retired from the field, leaving the victory with their solitary adversary and his crowbar. This is the first time this has happened in romantic literature. The invention is original. Everything in this book is original; there is nothing hackneyed about it anywhere. Always, in other romances, when you find the author leading up to a climax, you know what is going to happen. But in this book it is different; the thing which seems inevitable and unavoidable never happens; it is circumvented by the art of the author every time.
Another elopement was attempted. It failed.
We have now arrived at the end. But it is not exciting. McClintock thinks it is; but it isn’t. One day Elfonzo sent Ambulinia another note — a note proposing elopement No. 16. This time the plan is admirable; admirable, sagacious, ingenious, imaginative, deep — oh, everything, and perfectly easy. One wonders why it was never thought of before. This is the scheme. Ambulinia is to leave the breakfast-table, ostensibly to “attend to the placing of those flowers, which should have been done a week ago” — artificial ones, of course; the others wouldn’t keep so long — and then, instead of fixing the flowers, she is to walk out to the grove, and go off with Elfonzo. The invention of this plan overstrained the author that is plain, for he straightway shows failing powers. The details of the plan are not many or elaborate. The author shall state them himself — this good soul, whose intentions are always better than his English:
“You walk carelessly toward the academy grove, where you will find me with a lightning steed, elegantly equipped to bear you off where we shall be joined in wedlock with the first connubial rights.”
Last scene of all, which the author, now much enfeebled, tries to smarten up and make acceptable to his spectacular heart by introducing some new properties — silver bow, golden harp, olive branch — things that can all come good in an elopement, no doubt, yet are not to be compared to an umbrella for real handiness and reliability in an excursion of that kind.
And away she ran to the sacred grove, surrounded with glittering pearls, that indicated her coming. Elfonzo hails her with his silver bow and his golden harp. They meet — Ambulinia’s countenance brightens — Elfonzo leads up the winged steed. “Mount,” said he, “ye true-hearted, ye fearless soul — the day is ours.” She sprang upon the back of the young thunderbolt, a brilliant star sparkles upon her head, with one hand she grasps the reins, and with the other she holds an olive branch. “Lend thy aid, ye strong winds,” they exclaimed, “ye moon, ye sun, and all ye fair host of heaven, witness the enemy conquered.” “Hold,” said Elfonzo, “thy dashing steed.” “Ride on,” said Ambulinia, “the voice of thunder is behind us.” And onward they went, with such rapidity that they very soon arrived at Rural Retreat, where they dismounted, and were united with all the solemnities that usually attended such divine operations.
There is but one Homer, there is but one Shakespeare, there is but one McClintock — and his immortal book is before you. Homer could not have written this book, Shakespeare could not have written it, I could not have done it myself. There is nothing just like it in the literature of any country or of any epoch. It stands alone; it is monumental. It adds G. Ragsdale McClintock’s to the sum of the republic’s imperishable names.
1. The name here given is a substitute for the one actually attached to the pamphlet.
2. Further on it will be seen that he is a country expert on the fiddle, and has a three-township fame.
3. It is a crowbar.