Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 - Various
"Then I don't see what you are so flurried about."
"Ef so be Squire Ker-Kinloch was alive, I could tell you ber-better;
or rather, I shouldn't have to go to yer-you about it. He allers give
Mark to underst-hand that he shouldn't be hard upon him,--th-that he
could pay along as he ger-got able."
"Why should he favor him more than others? I am sure not many men
would have lent the money in the first place, and I don't think it
looks well to be hanging back now."
"As to why yer-your husband was disposed to favor Mark, I have
_my_ opinion. But the der-dead shall rest; I sh-sha'n't call up
their pale faces." He drew his breath hard, and his eyes looked full
of tender memories.
After a moment he went on. "I don't w-wish to waste words; I
mum-merely come to say that Mark has five hunderd dollars, and that I
can scrape up a couple o' hunderd more, and will give my note w-with
him for the balance. Th-that's all we can handily do; an' ef that'll
arnswer, we should ler-like to have you give word to stop the suit."
"You will have to go to Squire Clamp," was the reply. "I don't presume
to dictate to my lawyer, but shall let him do what he thinks best. You
haven't been to him, I conclude? I don't think he will be
unreasonable."
Mr. Hardwick looked steadily at her.
"Wer-well, Mrs. Kinloch," said he, slowly, "I th-think I
understand. Ef I don't, it isn't because you don't mum-make the matter
plain. I sha'n't go to Squire Clamp till I have the mum-money, all of
it. I hope no a-a-enemy of yourn will be so hard to y-you as my
friends are to me."
With singular command over her tongue and temper, Mrs. Kinloch
contented herself with hoping that he would find no difficulty in
arranging matters with the lawyer, bade him good-morning, civilly, and
shut the door behind him. But when he was gone, her anger, kept so
well under control before, burst forth.
"Stuttering old fool!" she exclaimed, "to come here to badger me!--to
throw up to me the wood he cut, or the apples he brought me!--as
though Mr. Kinloch hadn't paid that ten times over! He'll find how it
is before long."
"What's the matter?" asked Mildred, meeting her step-mother in the
hall, and noticing her flushed cheek, her swelling veins, and
contorted brows.
"Why, nothing, but a talk with Uncle Ralph, who has been rather
saucy."
"Saucy? Uncle Ralph saucy? Why, he is the most kindly man in the
world,--sometimes hasty, but always well-mannered. I don't see how he
could be saucy."
"I advise you not to stand up for him against your mother."
"I shouldn't defend him in anything wrong; but I think there must be
some misunderstanding."
"He is like Mark, I suppose, always perfect in your eyes."
This was the first time since Mr. Kinloch's death that the step-mother
had ever alluded to the fondness which had existed between Mark and
Mildred as school-children, and her eyes were bent upon the girl
eagerly. It was as though she had knocked at the door of her heart,
and waited for its opening to look into the secret recesses. A quick
flush suffused Mildred's face and neck.
"You are unkind, mother," she said; for the glance was sharper than
the words; and then, bursting into tears, she went to her room.
"So it has come to this!" said Mrs. Kinloch to herself. "Well, I did
not begin at all too soon."
She walked through the hall to the back piazza. She heard voices from
beyond the shrubbery that bordered the grass-plot where the clothes
were hung on lines to dry. Lucy, the maid, evidently was there, for
one; indeed, by shifting her position so as to look through an opening
in the bushes, Mrs. Kinloch could see the girl; but she was not busy
with her clothes-basket. An arm was bent around her plump and graceful
figure. The next instant, as Mrs. Kinloch saw by standing on tiptoe,
two forms swayed toward each other, and Lucy, no way reluctantly,
received a kiss from--Hugh Branning!
Very naughty, certainly,--but it is incumbent on me to tell the truth,
and accordingly I have put it down.
Now my readers are doubtless prepared for a catastrophe. They will
expect to hear Mrs. Kinloch cry, "Lucy Ransom, you jade, what are you
doing? Take your clothes and trumpery and leave this house!" You will
suppose that her son Hugh will be shut up in the cellar on bread and
water, or sent off to sea in disgrace. That is the traditional way
with angry mistresses, I know; but Mrs. Kinloch was not one of the
common sort. She did not know Talleyrand's maxim,--"Never act from
first impulses, for they are always--_right_!" Indeed, I doubt if
she had ever heard of that slippery Frenchman; but observation and
experience had led her to adopt a similar line of policy.
Therefore she did not scold or send away Lucy; she could not well do
without her; and besides, there were reasons which made it desirable
that the girl should remain friendly. She did not call out to her
hopeful son, either,--although her fingers _did_ itch to tweak
his profligate ears. She knew that a dispute with him would only end
in his going off in a huff, and she thought she could employ him
better. So she coughed first and then stepped out into the yard. Hugh
presently came sauntering down the walk, and Lucy sang among the
clothes-lines as blithely and unconcerned as though her lips had never
tasted any flavor more piquant than bread and butter.
It was rather an equivocal look which the mistress cast over her
shoulder at the girl. It might have said,--"Poor fool! singe your
wings in the candle, if you will." It might have been only the scorn
of outraged virtue.
"Hugh," said Mrs. Kinloch, "come into the house a moment. I want to
speak with you."
The young man looked up rather astonished, but he could not read his
mother's placid face. Her hair lay smooth on her temples, under her
neat cap; her face was almost waxy pale, her lips gently pressed
together; and if her clear, gray eyes had beamed with a warm or more
humid light, she might have served a painter as a model for a
"steadfast nun, devout and pure."
When they reached the sitting-room, Mrs. Kinloch began.
"Hugh, do you think of going to sea again? Now that I am alone in the
world, don't you think you can make up your mind to stay at home?"
"I haven't thought much about it, mother. I suppose I should go when
ordered, as a matter of course; I have nothing else to do."
"That need not be a reason. There is plenty to do without waiting for
promotion in the navy till you are gray."
"Why, mother, you know I have no profession, and, I suppose I may say,
no money. At least, the Squire made no provision for me that I know
of, and I'm sure you cannot wish me to live on your 'thirds.'"
"My son, you should have some confidence in my advice, by this
time. It doesn't require a great fortune to live comfortably here."
"Yes, but it is deused dull in this old town. No theatre,--no
concert,--no music at all, but from organ-grinders,--no
parties,--nothing, in fact, but prayer-meetings from one week's end to
another. I should die of the blues here."
"Only find something to do, settle yourself into a pleasant home, and
you'll forget your uneasiness."
"That's very well to say"----
"And very easy to do. But it isn't the way to begin by flirting with
every pretty, foolish girl you see. Oh, Hugh! you are all I have now
to love. I shall grow old soon, and I want to lean upon you. Give up
the navy; be advised by me."
Hugh whistled softly. He did not suppose that his mother knew of his
gallantry. He was amused at her sharp observation.
"So you think I'm a flirt, mother?" said he. "You are out,
entirely. I'm a pattern of propriety at home!"
"You need not tell me, Hugh! I know more than you think. But I didn't
know that a son of mine could be so simple as I find you are."
"She's after me," thought Hugh. "She saw me, surely."
His mother went on.
"With such an opportunity as you have to get yourself a wife----Don't
laugh! I want to see you married, for you will never sow your wild
oats until you are. With such a chance as you have"----
"Why, mother," broke in Hugh, "it isn't so bad as that."
"Isn't so bad? What do you mean?"
"Why, _you_ know what you're driving at, and so do I. Lucy is a
good girl enough, but I never meant anything serious. There's no need
of my marrying her."
"What _are_ you talking about?"
"Now, mother, what's the use? You are only trying to read me a moral
lecture, because I gave Lucy a harmless smack."
"Lucy Ransom!" repeated Mrs. Kinloch, with ineffable scorn. "Lucy
Ransom! I hope my son isn't low enough to dally with a housemaid, a
scullion! If I _had_ seen such a spectacle, I should have kept my
mouth shut for shame. 'A guilty conscience needs no accuser'; but I am
sorry you had not pride enough to keep your disgusting fooleries to
yourself."
"Regularly sold!" muttered Hugh, as he beat a rat-tattoo on the
window-pane.
"I gave you credit for more penetration, Hugh. Now, just look a
minute. What would you think of the shrewdness of a young man, who
had no special turn for business, but a great fondness for taking his
ease,--with no money nor prospect of any,--and who, when he had the
opportunity to step at once into fortune and position, made no
movement to secure it?"
"Well, the application?"
"The fortune may be yours, if you will."
"Don't tell me riddles. Show me the prize, and I'm after it."
"But it has an incumbrance."
"Well?"
"A pretty, artless, affectionate little woman, who will make you the
best wife in the world."
"Splendid, by Jove! Who is she?"
"You needn't look far. We generally miss seeing the thing that is
under our nose."
"Why, mother, there isn't an heiress in Innisfield except my sister
Mildred."
"Mildred is not your sister. You are no more to each other than the
two farthest persons on earth."
"True enough! Well, mother, you _are_ an old 'un!"
"Don't!"--with a look of disgust,--"don't use your sailor slang here!
To see that doesn't require any particular shrewdness."
"But Mildred never liked me much. She always ran from me, like the
kitten from old Bose. She has always looked as though she thought I
would bite, and that it was best she should keep out of reach under a
chair."
"Any young man of good address and fair intelligence can make an
impression on a girl of eighteen, if he has the will, the time, and
the opportunity. You have everything in your favor, and if you don't
take the fortune that lies right in your path, you deserve to go to
the poor-house."
Hugh meditated.
"Good-morning," said Mrs. Kinloch. "You know the horse and carriage,
or the saddle-ponies, are always yours when you want to use them."
Great discoveries seem always so simple, that we wonder they were not
made from the first. The highest truths are linked with the commonest
objects and events of daily life.
Hugh looked about him as much astonished as though he had been shown a
gold mine in old Quobbin, where he could dig for the asking. What
determination he made, the course of our story will show.
CHAPTER VIII.
Hugh had ordered George, the Asiatic, to saddle the ponies after
dinner, intending to ask Mildred to take a ride northward, through the
pine woods; but on making inquiries, he found that she had walked out,
leaving word that she should be absent all day.
"Confound it!" thought he,--"a mishap at the start! I'm afraid the
omen isn't a good one. However, I must kill time some way. I can't lay
up here, like a ship in ordinary; better be shaken by storms or
covered with barnacles at sea than be housed up, worm-eaten or
crumbled into powder by dry-rot on shore."
He went to ride alone, but did not go in the direction of the pine
woods.
Mildred could not get over the unpleasant impressions of the morning,
so, rather than remain in her room this fine day, she had walked
across the meadow, east of the mill-pond, to a farm-house, where she
was a frequent and welcome visitor. On her way, she called for Lizzy
Hardwick, the blacksmith's daughter, who accompanied her. Mr. Alford,
the farmer, was a blunt, good-humored, and rather eccentric man,
shrewd and well to do, but kindly and charitable. He had no children,
and he enjoyed the occasional visits of his favorites heartily; so did
his wife, Aunt Mercy. Her broad face brightened as she saw the girls
coming, and her plump hands were both extended to greet them. They
went to the dairy to see the creaking cheese-presses, ate of the fresh
curd, saw the golden stores of butter;--thence to the barn, where they
clambered upon the hay-mow, found the nest of a bantam, took some of
the little eggs in their pockets;--then coming into the yard, they
patted the calves' heads, scattered oats for the doves, that, with
pink feet and pearly blue necks, crowded around them to be fed, and
next began to chase a fine old gander down to the brook, when
Mr. Alford, getting over the fence, called out, "Hold on, girls! don't
bother Uncle Ralph!--don't!"
"Where is Uncle Ralph?" asked Mildred.
"Why, that gander you've been chasin'; and he's about the harn'somest
bird I know on, too. Talk about swans! there never was a finer neck,
nor a prettier coat of feathers on anything that ever swum. His wings
are powerful; only let him spread 'em, and up he goes; but as for his
feet, he limps just a little, as you see. No offence, Lizzy. I love
your father as well as you do; but when I hear him, with his idees so
grand,--the minister don't begin with him,--and yet to be bothered, as
he is sometimes, to get a word out, I think of my good old fellow
here, whose wings are so much better'n his legs. Come here, Ralph! You
see he knows his name. There!"--patting his head,--"that's a good
fellow! Now go and help marm attend to your goslins."
The kindly tone and the caress took away from the comparison any idea
of disrespect, and the girls laughed at the odd conceit,--Lizzy, at
least, not a little proud of the implied compliment. Mr. Alford left
them, to attend to his affairs, and they went on with their
romp,--running on the top of the smooth wall beside the meadow,
gathering clusters of lilac blossoms from the fatherly great posy that
grew on the sunny side of the house, and admiring the solitary state
of the peacock, as, with dainty step, he trailed his royal robe over
the sward. Soon they heard voices at the house, and, going round the
corner of the shed, saw Uncle Ralph and Mark Davenport talking with
Mr. Alford at the door.
Not to make a mystery of a simple matter, the blacksmith had come to
borrow of Mr. Alford the money necessary to make up the amount owing
by Mark to the Kinloch estate.
The young man had shown great readiness to accompany his uncle;
praiseworthy, certainly; but I am inclined to think he had somehow got
an intimation that the girls had preceded him.
Fortunately, the farmer was able to lend the sum wanted, and, as he
had an errand in town, he took Mr. Hardwick with him in his wagon.
Mark was left, nothing loath, to walk home with the girls. Do not
think he was wanting in affection for his cousin Lizzy, if he wished
that she were, just for one hour, a hundred miles away. They took a
path that led over the plain to the river, intending to cross upon a
foot-bridge, a short distance above the village. But though Mark was
obliged to be silent on the matter he had most at heart, Mildred was
not unaware of his feelings. A tone, a look, a grasp of the hand
serves for an index, quite as well as the most fervent speech. The
river makes a beautiful bend near the foot-bridge, and its bank is
covered with a young growth of white pines. They sat down on a
hillock, under the trees, whose spicy perfume filled the air, and
looked down the stream towards the village. How fair it lay in the
soft air of that June day! The water was deep and blue, with a
reflected heaven. The mills that cluster about the dam, a mile below,
were partially concealed by young elms, silver-poplars, and
water-maples. Gardens sloped on either bank to the water's edge. Neat,
white houses gleamed through the trees and shrubbery around the bases
of the hills that hem in the valley; and the tall, slender spire of
the meeting-house shewed fairly against its densely-wooded
background. Verily, if I were a painter, I should desire no lovelier
scene for my canvas than that on which Mark and Mildred looked. Lizzy
walked away, and began hunting checkerberries with an unusual
ardor. She _did_ understand; she would not be Mademoiselle de
Trop any longer. Kind soul! so unlike young women in general, who
won't step aside gracefully, when they should! Further I can vouch,
that she neither hemmed, nor made eyes, nor yet repeated the well-worn
proverb, "Two's company, but three's none." No, she gathered berries
and sang snatches of songs as though she were quite alone.
Now those of my readers who have the good-fortune still to linger in
teens are expecting that I shall treat them to a report of this
delightful _tete-a-tete_. But it must not be told. The older
people would skip it, or say, "Pshaw!" And besides, if it were set
down faithfully, you would be sadly disappointed; the cleverest men,
even, are quite sure to appear silly (to other people) when in
love. The speeches of the Romeos and Claude Melnottes, with which you
have been so enchanted, would be common-place enough, if translated
into the actual prose in which they were delivered. When Shakspeare
wooed Anne Hathaway, it might have been different; but consider, you
will wait some time before you find a lover like him. No, when your
time comes, it will be soon enough. You will see your hero in his
velvet cloak and plumed hat, with the splendor of scenery and the
intoxication of the music. I don't choose to show him to you in
morning dress at rehearsal, under daubed canvas and dangling
machinery.
However full of poetry and passion Mark's declaration was for Mildred,
to him it was tame and hesitating enough. It seemed to him that he
could not force into the cold formula of words the emotion that
agitated him. But with quickening breath he poured out his love, his
hopes, and his fears,--the old burden! She trembled, her eyelids
fell; but at length, roused by his pleading tones, she looked
up. Their eyes met; one look was enough; it was a reciprocal electric
flash. With a sudden energy he clasped her in his arms; and it was a
very pretty tableau they made! But in the quick movement his heedless
foot chanced to touch a stone, which rolled down the bank and fell
into the stream with a splash. The charm was broken.
"What's that?" cried Lizzy from a distance, forgetting her
discretion. "Did a pickerel jump?"
"No," replied Mark, "the pickerel know me of old, and don't come about
for fear that I have a hook and line in my pocket. It was only a stone
rolling into the river."
"You come here a moment," continued the unthoughtful Lizzy; "here's a
beautiful sassafras sapling, and I can't pull it up by the roots
alone."
"Send for the dentist, then."
"Go and help her," said Mildred, softly.
"Well," said Mark, with a look of enforced resignation,--"if I must."
The sapling grew on the steep bank, perhaps fifty yards from where he
had been sitting. He did not use sufficient care to brace himself, as
he pulled with all his might, and in a moment, he knew not how, he
rolled down into the river. The girls first screamed, and then, as he
came out of the water, shaking himself like a Newfoundland dog, they
laughed immoderately. The affair did not seem very funny to Mark, and
he joined in the laugh with no great heartiness. The shock had
effectually dispelled all the romance of the hour.
"I'm so sorry!" said Lizzy, still laughing at his grotesque and
dripping figure.
"You must hurry and get dry clothes on, Mark," said Mildred. "Squire
Clamp's is the nearest house across the bridge."
"Hang Squire Clamp! his clothes would poison me. I'd as lief go to a
quarantine hospital to be dressed."
"Don't!" said Lizzy.
But he kept on in the same mercurial strain.--"Clamp lives on poison,
like Rappaccini's daughter, in Hawthorne's story; only it makes him
ugly instead of fair, as that pretty witch was. His wife never had any
trouble with spiders as long as she lived; he had only to blow into a
nest, and the creatures would tumble out, and give up their venomous
ghosts. No vermin but himself are to be seen in his neighborhood; the
rats even found they couldn't stand it, and had to emigrate."
"The breath that killed spiders must have been a little too powerful,
at times, for Mrs. Clamp, one would think," said Mildred.
"It was," said Mark. "She died one day, after Clamp had cheated a
widow out of her dower."
"Don't stop longer for your fun," said Mildred, "you'll surely take
cold. Besides, I can't have you making any disparaging remarks upon my
guardian."
"Bless my soul! your guardian! how imprudent, to be sure!"--with a
significant twinkle. "Well, I'm going. Banfield's is the nearest
house; so we'll part here."
The girls went towards the village; and Mark, making vigorous strides
across the meadow, took a straight line for Banfield's. Near the
house is a piece of woods,--one corner of the leafy mantle that covers
the hill slipped down its side and trailing upon the borders of the
fertile field below. Just as he passed the woods he saw Hugh Branning
letting down the bars and leading his pony out into the road. The only
bridle-path through the woods led over the hill to the little house on
the westerly slope, where lived Dame Ransom, Lucy's bowed and wrinkled
grandmother. Mark wondered not a little where the midshipman had been;
but as he still retained the memory of the old quarrel, he did not
accost him, and presently thought no more of it. Reaching the house,
he got some dry clothes and then went home with bounding steps. The
earth was never so beautiful nor the sky so benign. The cloud of
doubt had furled off and left his heaven blue. He had spoken and found
that the dream of his boyhood and the hope of his youth had become the
proud triumph of his manhood. Mildred Kinloch loved him! loved him as
sincerely as when they were both children! What higher felicity was
to be thought of? And what a motive for exertion had he now! He would
be worthy of her, and the world should acknowledge that the heiress
had not stooped when she mated with him.
CHAPTER IX.
Mrs. Kinloch was surprised at finding that neither Hugh nor Mildred,
nor yet Lucy Ransom, was in the house.
Mildred came home first and was not accompanied by Hugh, as
Mrs. Kinloch had hoped. He had not found her, then,--perhaps he had
not sought for her. Next Lucy returned, coming through the garden
which stretched up the hill. Being questioned, she answered that she
had been to her grandmother's, and had come back the nearest way over
the hill, through the woods.
"What had she gone for after the fatigue of washing-day?"
"Because Squire Clamp, who owned the house her grandmother lived in,
wanted her to take a message."
Mrs. Kinloch began to become interested. "Squire Clamp!" she
exclaimed,--"when did you see him?"
"He called here yesterday evening,--on his way to Mr. Hardwick's, I
guess."
"Why didn't he ask _me_ if you could go? I think he's pretty free
to send my girls about the town on his errands."
"You were out, Ma'am,--in the next house; and after he'd gone I forgot
it."
"You remembered it to-day, it seems."
"Yes'm; after dinner I thought of it and hurried right off; but granny
was sick and foolish, and didn't want to let me come away, so I
couldn't get back as quick as I meant to."
"Well, you can go to the kitchen."
"Yes'm."
"I must keep an eye on that girl," thought Mrs. Kinloch. "She is
easily persuaded, fickle, without strong sense, and with only a very
shallow kind of cunning. She might do mischief. What can Squire Clamp
want? The old hovel her grandmother lives in isn't worth fifty
dollars. Whatever has been going on, I'm glad Hugh is not mixed up in
it."
Just then Hugh rode up, and, tying his horse, came in. He seemed to
have lost something of the gayety of the morning. "I am tired," he
said. "I had to get off and lead the pony down the hill, and it's
steep and stony enough."
"There are pleasant roads enough in the neighborhood," said his
mother, "without your being obliged to take to the woods and clamber
over the mountains."
"I know it," he replied; "but I had been up towards the Allen place,
and I took a notion to come back over the hill."
"Then you passed Lucy's house?"
"Yes. The bridle-path leads down the hill about a mile above this; but
on foot one may keep along the ridge and come down into the valley
through our garden."
"So I suppose; in fact, I believe Lucy has just returned that way."
"Indeed! it's strange I didn't see her."
"It is strange."
Hugh bore the quiet scrutiny well, and his mother came to the
conclusion that the girl had told the truth about her going for the
lawyer.
Presently Mildred came down from her room, and after a few minutes
Mrs. Kinloch went out, casting a fixed and meaning look at her
son. She seemed as impatient for the issue of her scheme, as the child
who, after planting a seed, waits for the green shoot, and twice a day
digs down to see if it has not sprouted.