The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866

"Reuben has sent for me,"—she murmurs it to herself with pride and joy.

She is in full black now; but never had she looked more radiantly beautiful than when she stepped to the side of the sick-bed, and took the hand of Reuben with an eager clasp—that was met, and met again. The Doctor is in his study, (the open door between,) and the spinster is fortunately just now busy at some of her household duties.

Reuben fumbles under his pillow nervously for that cherished bit of paper, (Adèle knows already its history,) and when he has found it and shown it (his thin fingers crumpling it nervously) he says, "Thank you for this, Adèle!"

She answers only by clasping his hand with a sudden mad pressure of content, while the blood mounted into either cheek with a rosy exuberance that magnified her beauty tenfold.

He saw it,—he felt it all; and through her beaming eyes, so full of tenderness and love, saw the world to which he had bidden adieu shining before him more beguilingly than ever. Yesterday it was a dim and weary world that he could leave without a pang; to-day it is a brilliant world, where hopes, promises, joys pile in splendid proportions.

He tells her this. "Yesterday I would have died with scarce a regret; to-day, Adèle, I would live."

"You will, you will, Reuben!" and she grappled more and more passionately those shrunken fingers. "'T is not hopeless!" (sobbing).

"No, no, Adèle, darling, not hopeless. The cloud is lifted,—not hopeless!"

"Thank God, thank God!" said she, dropping upon her knees beside him, and with a smile of ecstasy he gathered that fair head to his bosom.

The Doctor, hearing her sobs, came softly in. The son's smile, as he met his father's inquiring look, was more than ever like the smile of Rachel. He has been telling the poor girl of her mother's death, thinks the old gentleman; yet the Doctor wonders that he could have kept so radiant a face with such a story.

Of these things, however, Reuben goes on presently to speak: of his first sight of the mother of Adèle, and of her devotional attitude as they floated down past the little chapel of Nôtre Dame to enter upon the fateful voyage; he recounts their talks upon the tranquil moon-lit nights of ocean; he tells of the mother's eager listening to his description of her child.

"I did not tell her the half, Adèle; yet she loved me for what I told her."

And Adèle smiles through her tears.

At last he comes to those dismal scenes of the wreck, relating all with a strange vividness; living over again, as it were, that fearful episode, till his brain whirled, his self-possession was lost, and he broke out into a torrent of delirious raving.

He sleeps brokenly that night, and the next day is feebler than ever. The physician warns against any causes of excitement. He is calm only at intervals. The old school-days seem present to him again; he talks of his fight with Phil Elderkin as if it happened yesterday.

"Yet I like Phil," he says (to himself), "and Rose is like Amanda, the divine Amanda. No—not she. I've forgotten: it's the French girl. She's a – Pah! who cares? She's as pure as heaven; she's an angel. Adèle! Adèle! Not good enough! I'm not good enough. Very well, very well, now I'll be bad enough! Clouds, wrangles, doubts! Is it my fault? Ædificabo meam Ecclesiam. How they kneel! Puppets! mummers! No, not mummers, they see a Christ. What if they see it in a picture? You see him in words. Both in earnest. Belief—belief! That is best. Adèle, Adèle, I believe!"

The Doctor is a pained listener of this incoherent talk of his son. "I am afraid,—I am afraid," he murmurs to himself, "that he has no clear views of the great scheme of the Atonement."

The next day Reuben is himself once more, but feeble, to a degree that startles the household. It is a charming morning of later September; the window is wide open, and the sick one looks out over a stretch of orchard (he knew its every tree), and upon wooded hills beyond (he knew every coppice and thicket), and upon a background of sky over which a few dappled white clouds floated at rest.

"It is most beautiful!" said Reuben.

"All things that He has made are beautiful," said the Doctor; and thereupon he seeks to explore his way into the secrets of Reuben's religious experience,—employing, as he was wont to do, all the Westminster formulas by which his own belief stood fast.

"Father, father, the words are stumbling-blocks to me," says the son.

"I would to God, Reuben, that I could make my language always clear."

"No, father, no man can, in measuring the Divine mysteries. We must carry this draggled earth-dress with us always,—always in some sort fashionists, even in our soberest opinions. The robes of light are worn only Beyond. Thought, at the best, is hampered by this clog of language, that tempts, obscures, misleads."

"And do you see any light, my son?"

"I hope and tremble. A great light is before me; it shines back upon outlines of doctrines and creeds where I have floundered for many a year."

"But some are clear,—some are clear, Reuben!"

"Before, all seems clear; but behind—"

"And yet, Reuben," (the Doctor cannot forbear the discussion,) "there is the cross,—Election, Adoption, Sanctification—"

"Stop, father; the cross, indeed, with a blaze of glory, I see; but the teachers of this or that special form of doctrine I see only catching radiations of the light. The men who teach, and argue, and declaim, and exorcise, are using human weapons; the great light only strikes here and there upon some sword-point which is nearest to the cross."

"He wanders," says the Doctor to Adèle, who has slipped in and stands beside the sick-bed.

"No wandering, father; on the brink where I stand, I cannot."

"And what do you see, Reuben, my boy?" (tenderly).

Is it the presence of Adèle that gives a new fervor, a kind of crazy inspiration to his talk? "I see the light-hearted clashing cymbals; and those who love art, kneeling under blazing temples and shrines; but the great light touches the gold no more effulgently than the steeple of your meeting-house, father, but no less. I see eyes of chanting girls streaming with joy in the light; and haggard men with ponderous foreheads working out contrivances to bridge the gap between the finite and the infinite. Father, they are no nearer to a passage than the radiant girls who chant and tell their beads. Angels in all shapes of beauty flit over and amid the throngs I see,—in shape of fleecy clouds that fan them,—in shape of brooks that murmur praise,—in shape of leafy shadows that tremble and flicker,—in shape of birds that make a concert of song." The birds even then were singing, the clouds floating in his eye, the leafy shadows trailing on the chamber floor, and, from the valley, the murmur of the brook came to his sensitive ear.

"He wanders,—he wanders!" said the poor Doctor.

Reuben turns to Adèle. "Adèle, kiss me!" A rosy tint ran over her face as she stooped and kissed him with a freedom a mother might have shown,—leaving one hand toying caressingly with his hair. "The cloud is passing, Adèle,—passing! God is Justice; Christ is Mercy. In him I trust."

"Reuben, darling," says Adèle, "come back to us!"

"Darling,—darling!" he repeated with a strange, eager, satisfied smile,—so sweet a sound it was.

The chamber was filled with the delightful perfume of a violet bed beneath the window. Suddenly there came from the Doctor, whose old eyes caught sooner than any the change, a passionate outcry. "Great God! Thy will be done!"

With that one loud, clear utterance, his firmness gave way,—for the first time in sixty years broke utterly; and big tears streamed down his face as he gazed yearningly upon the dead body of his first-born.

LXVII

In the autumn of 1845, three years after the incidents related in our last chapter, Mr. Philip Elderkin, being at that time president of a railroad company, which was establishing an important connection of travel that was to pass within a few miles of the quiet town of Ashfield, was a passenger on the steamer Caledonia, for Europe. He sailed, partly in the interest of the company,—to place certain bonds,—and partly in his own interest, as an intelligent man, eager to add to his knowledge of the world.

At Paris, where he passed some time, it chanced that he was one evening invited to the house of a resident American, where, he was gayly assured, he would meet with a very attractive American heiress, the only daughter of a merchant of large fortune.

Philip Elderkin—brave, straightforward fellow that he was—had never forgotten his early sentiment. He had cared for those French graves in Ashfield with an almost religious attention. In all the churchyard there was not such scrupulously shorn turf, or such orderly array of bloom. He counted—in a fever of doubt—upon a visit to Marseilles before his sail for home.

But at the soirée we have mentioned he was amazed and delighted to meet, in the person of the heiress, Adèle Maverick,—not changed essentially since the time he had known her. That life at Marseilles—even in the well-appointed home of her father—has none of that domesticity which she had learned to love; and this first winter in Paris for her does not supply the lack. That she has a great company of admirers it is easy to understand; but yet she gives a most cordial greeting to Phil Elderkin,—a greeting that by its manner makes the pretenders doubtful. Philip finds it possible to reconcile the demands of his business with a week's visit to Marseilles. To the general traveller it is not a charming region. The dust abounds; the winds are terrible; the sun is scalding. But Mr. Philip Elderkin found it delightful. And, indeed, the country-house of Mr. Maverick had attractions of its own; attractions so great that his week runs over into two,—into three. There are excursions to the Pont du Gard, to the Arène of Arles. And, before he leaves, he has an engagement there (which he has enforced by very peremptory proposals) for the next spring.

On his return to Ashfield, he reports a very successful trip. To his sister Rose (now Mrs. Catesby, with a blooming little infant, called Grace Catesby) he is specially communicative. And she thinks it was a glorious trip, and longs for the time when he will make the next. He, furthermore, to the astonishment of Dame Tourtelot (whose husband sleeps now under the sod), has commenced the establishment of a fine home, upon a charming site, overlooking all Ashfield. The Squire, still stalwart, cannot resist giving a hint of what is expected to the old Doctor, who still wearily goes his rounds, and prays for the welfare of his flock.

He is delighted at the thought of meeting again with Adèle, though he thinks with a sigh of his lost boy. Yet he says in his old manner, "'T is the hand of Providence; she first bloomed into grace under the roof of our church; she comes back to adorn it with her faith and her works."

At a date three years later we take one more glimpse at that quiet village of Ashfield, where we began our story. The near railway has brought it into more intimate connection with the shore towns and the great cities. But there is no noisy clatter of the cars to break the quietude. On still days, indeed, the shriek of the steam-whistle or the roar of a distant train is heard bursting over the hills, and dying in strange echoes up and down the valley. The stage-driver's horn is heard no longer; no longer the coach whirls into the village and delivers its leathern pouch of letters. The Tew partners we once met are now partners in the grave. Deacon Tourtelot (as we have already hinted) has gone to his long home; and the dame has planted over him the slab of "Varmont" marble, which she has bought at a bargain from his "nevvy."

The Boody tavern-keeper has long since disappeared; no teams wheel up with the old dash at the doors of the Eagle Tavern. The creaking sign-board even is gone from the overhanging sycamore.

Miss Almira is still among the living. She sings treble, however, no longer; she wears spectacles; she writes no more over mystical asterisks for the Hartford Courant. Age has brought to her at least this much of wisdom.

The mill groans, as of old, in the valley. A new race of boys pelt the hanging nests of the orioles; a new race of school-girls hang swinging on the village gates at the noonings.

As for Miss Johns, she lives still,—scarce older to appearance than twenty years before,—prim, wiry, active,—proof against all ailments, it would seem. It is hard to conceive of her as yielding to the great conqueror. If the tongue and an inflexibility of temper were the weapons, she would whip Death from her chamber at the last. It seems like amiability almost to hear such a one as she talk of her approaching, inevitable dissolution,—so kindly in her to yield that point!

And she does; she declares it over and over, there are far feebler ones who do not declare it half so often. If she is to be conquered and the Johns banner go down, she will accept the defeat so courageously and so long in advance that the defeat shall become a victorious confirmation of the Johns prophecy.

She is still earnest in all her duties; she gives cast-away clothing to the poor, and good advice with it. She is rigorous in the observance of every propriety; no storm keeps her from church. If the children of a new generation climb unduly upon the pew-backs, or shake their curly heads too wantonly, she lifts a prim forefinger at them, which has lost none of its authoritative meaning. She is the impersonation of all good severities. A strange character! Let us hope that, as it sloughs off its earthly cerements, it may in the Divine presence scintillate charities and draw toward it the love of others. A good, kind, bad gentlewoman,—unwearied in performance of duties. We wonder as we think of her! So steadfast, we cannot sneer at her,—so true to her line of faith, we cannot condemn her,—so utterly forbidding, we cannot love her! May God give rest to her good, stubborn soul!

Upon Sundays of August and September there may be occasionally seen in the pew of Elderkin Junior a gray-haired old gentleman, dressed with scrupulous care, and still carrying an erect figure, though somewhat gouty in his step. This should be Mr. Maverick, a retired merchant, who is on a visit to his daughter. He makes wonderful gifts to a certain little boy who bears a Puritan name, and gives occasional ponderous sums to the parish. In winter, his head-quarters are at the Union Club.

And Doctor Johns? Yes, he is living still,—making his way wearily each morning along the street with his cane. Going oftenest, perhaps, to the home of Adèle, who is now a matron,—a tender, and most womanly and joyful matron,—and with her little boy—Reuben Elderkin by name—he wanders often to the graves where sleep his best beloved,—Rachel, so early lost,—the son, in respect to whom he feels at last a "reasonable assurance" that the youth has entered upon a glorious inheritance in those courts where one day he will join him, and the sainted Rachel too, and clasp again in his arms (if it be God's will) the babe that was his but for an hour on earth.

TIED TO A ROPE

You don't know what a Hircus Œpagrus is, Tommy? Well, it is a big name for him, isn't it? And if you should ask that somewhat slatternly female, who appears to employ tubs for the advantage of others rather than herself, what the animal is, she would tell you it is a goat. See what a hardy, sturdy little creature he is; and how he lifts up his startled head, as the cars come thundering along, and bounds away as if he were on the rugged hills that his ancestors climbed, ages ago, in wild freedom. O that cruel rope! how it stops him in his career with a sudden jerk that pulls him to the ground! See where it has worn away the hair round his neck, in his constant struggles to escape. See how he has browsed the scanty grass of that dry pasture, in the little circle to which he is confined, and is now trying to reach an uncropped tuft, just beyond his tether. And the sun is beating down upon him, and there is not the shade of a leaf for him to creep into, this July day. Poor little fellow!

Not waste my sympathy on a common goat? My dear Madam, I can assure you that ropes are not knotted around the neck of Hirci Œpagri alone. And when I was bemoaning the captivity of yonder little browser we have left behind, I was bewailing the fortune of another great order of the Mammalian class,—an order that Mr. Huxley and Mr. Darwin and other great thinkers of the day are proving to be close connections of their humbler brethren that bleat and bark and bray. The bimanal species of this order are similarly appendaged, though they are not apt to be staked beside railways or confined to a rood of ground.

Do you see Vanitas at the other end of the car? Does he look as though he carried about with him a "lengthening chain"? No one would certainly suppose it. Yet he is bound as securely as the poor little goat. We may go to the fresh air of his country-seat this July day, or to the sea-breezes of his Newport cottage next month, or he may sit here, "the incarnation of fat dividends," while you and I envy him his wealth and comforts; but he can never break his bonds. They are riveted to the counters of the money-changers, knotted around the tall masts of his goodly ships, bolted to the ore of his distant mines. He bears them to his luxurious home, and his fond wife, his caressing children, his troops of friends, can never strike them off. Ever and anon, as the car of fortune sweeps by to start him from his comfortable ease, they gall him with their remorseless restraint. You may cut the poor goat's rope and set him free, to roam where he will; but Vanitas has forged his own fetters, and there comes to him no blessed day of emancipation.

My dear Madam, the bright blue ether around us is traversed by a wonderful network of these invisible bonds that hold poor human beings to their fate. Over the green hills and over the blue waters, far, far away they reach,—a warp and woof of multiform, expansive strands, over which the sense of bondage moves with all the wondrous celerity of that strange force which, on the instant, speaks the thought of the Antipodes. You don't know that you carry about any such? Ah! it is well that they weigh so lightly. Utter your grateful thanks, to-night, when you seek your pillow, that the chains you wear are not galling ones. But you are most irrevocably bound. Frank holds you fast. One of these days, when you are most peaceful and content in your bondage, scarcely recognized, there may come a stately tread, a fiery eye, a glowing heart, to startle you from your quiet ease; and when you bound, trembling and breathless in their mighty sway, you may feel the chain—before so light—wearing its way deep into your throbbing heart. May you never wake on the morn of that day, Madam! You don't carry any such? Round a little white tablet, half hidden in the sighing grass, is linked a chain which holds you, at this moment, by your inmost soul. You are not listening to me now; for I have but touched it, and your breast is swelling 'neath its pressure, and the tears start to your eyes at its momentary tightness. You don't carry any such? We all carry them; and were human ears sensitive to other than the grosser sounds of nature, they would hear a strange music sweeping from these mystic chords, as they tremble at the touch of time and fate.

Master Tommy seems to be tolerably free from any sort of restraint, I acknowledge. In fact, it is he who keeps myself and Mrs. A. in the most abject servitude. He holds our nasal appendages close to the grindstone of his imperious will. And yet—please take him into the next car, Madam, while I speak of him. You cannot? What is this? Let me see, I pray you. As I live, it is his mother's apron-string. Ah! I fear, Madam, that all your efforts cannot break that tie. In the years to come, it will doubtless be frayed and worn; and, some day or other, he will bound loose from his childhood's captivity; but long ere that he will have other bonds thrown around him, some of which he can never break. He will weave with his own hands the silken cord of love, coil it about him, knot it with Gordian intricacy, net it with Vulcan strength, and then, with blind simplicity, place it in Beauty's hand to lead him captive to her capricious will. My dear Madam, did not Tommy's father do the same foolish thing? And is he not grateful to the lovely Mrs. Asmodeus for the gentleness with which she holds him in her power? Some of our bonds are light to bear. We glory in them, and hold up our gyves to show them to the world. Tommy may be a little shamefaced when his playmates jeer at the maternal tie; but he will walk forth, glowing with pride and joy, to parade his self-woven fetters ostentatiously in the sight of men. When you had done some such foolish thing yourself, did not your young mates gather round to view, with wondering and eager eyes, the result of your own handiwork at the cordage of love? Were there not many loquacious conclaves held to sit in secret judgment thereon? Were there not many soft cheeks flushing, and bright eyes sparkling, and fresh hearts beating, as you brought forth, with a pride you did not pretend to hide, the rose-colored fabric you had woven? And did they not all envy you, and wonder when their distaffs were to whirl to the tread of their own ready feet?

But we are not always eager or proud to exhibit our bonds. Indeed, we sedulously conceal them from every eye; we cover up the marks upon our scarred hearts with such jealous care, that none, not even our bosom friends, can ever see them. They hold us where the sweet herbage of life has become dry and sere, where no shelter offers us a grateful retreat. Vanitas can bear away with him his "lengthening chain" to his leafy groves; but Scripsit is confined to the torrid regions of his scanty garret. In vain he gazes afar, beyond the smoky haze of his stony prison, upon the green slopes and shady hills. In vain he toils and strains to burst the links that bind him. His soul is yearning for the cooling freshness, the sweet fragrance, the beauty, the glory, of the outer world. It is just beyond his reach; and, wearied with futile exertions, he sinks, fainting and despairing, in his efforts to rend the chain of penury. And there are many other bonds which hold us to areas of life from which we have gathered all the fresh bloom and the rich fruit. We may tread their barren soil with jewelled sandals, wrap around us ermined robes in winter's cold, and raise our silken tents in summer's glare, while our souls are hungering and thirsting for the ambrosia and the nectar beyond our tethered reach. We are held fast by honor, virtue, fidelity, pity,—ties which we dare not break if we could. We must not even bear their golden links to their extremest length; we must not show that they are chains which bind us; we must not show that we are hungering and thirsting in the confines to which they restrain us. We must seem to be feasting as from the flesh-pots of Egypt,—fattening on the husks which we have emptied,—while our souls are starving and fainting and dying within us. 'T is a sad music that swells from these chords. How fortunate that our ears are not attuned to their notes. And we are not always solitary in our bondage; nor do we tread round the cropped circuit, held to senseless pillars. We are chained to each other; and unhappy are they who, straining at the bond, seek food for their hearts in opposite directions. We are chained to each other; and light or heavy are the bonds, as Fortune shall couple us. Now you and Frank, I know, are leashed with down; and when Mrs. Asmodeus went to the blacksmith, the Vulcan of our days, to order my fetters, she bespoke gossamers, to which a spider's web were cable. But we are among the favored of Fortune's children. There are many poor unfortunates whose daily round is but the measured clank of hateful chains; who eat, drink, sleep, live together, in a bondage worse than that of Chillon,—round whom the bright sun shines, the sweet flowers bloom, the soft breezes play,—and yet who stifle in the gloom of a domestic dungeon.

And there are others fettered as firmly,—but how differently! The clasping links are soft, caressing arms; the tones their sounding chains give out are cheerful voices, joyous accents, words of love, that echo far beyond the little circle that they keep, and spread their harmony through many hearts. That little circle is a happy home; love spun the bonds that hold them close therein, and many are the strands that bind them there. They come from beauteous eyes that beam with light; from lisping tongues more sweet than seraph choirs; from swelling hearts that beat in every pulse with fond affection, which is richer far than all the nectar of the ancient gods. Bind me with these, O Fortune! and I hug my chains o'erjoyed. Be these the cords which hold me to the rock around which break the surging waves of time, and let the beak of Fate tear as it will, I hold the bondage sweet and laugh at liberty.