A New England Tale/Chapter XII
CHAPTER XII.
The world is still deceived with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But, being season'd with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil?
Jane entered upon the duties of her new vocation with more energy and interest than could have been reasonably expected from a young lady who had so recently entered into an engagement, and one which opened upon her the most flattering prospects. She already felt the benefits resulting from the severe discipline she had suffered in her aunt's family. She had a rare habit of putting self aside: of deferring her own inclinations to the will, and interests, and inclinations of others. A superficial survey of the human mind in all its diversity of conditions, will convince us that it may be trained to any thing; else, how shall we account for the proud exultation of a savage amidst the cruellest tortures his triumphant enemy can inflict; or for any of the wonderful phenomena of enterprise, of fortitude, of patience, in beings whose physical natures are so constituted, that they instinctively shrink from suffering?
Our fair young readers (if any of that class condescend to read this unromantic tale) will smile at the idea that Jane had any further occasion for the virtues of adversity; but she was far from being happy; she had not that firm confidence in the character of her lover that could alone have inspired the joy of hope, and secured a quiet spirit. Since her engagement, and even before, and ever since she had been interested in Erskine, she had not dared to sound the depths of her heart. Though quite a novice in the experience of love, she would have been able to detect its subtleties; she would have been able to ascertain the nature, and amount of her affection for Erskine, had she not been driven by his apparent magnanimity, and the oppression of her relations, to a sudden decision. We appeal then once more to our fair young readers, and trust their justice will award to our heroine some praise, for her spirited and patient performance of her duties to her young pupils, who were very far from imagining that their kind and gentle teacher had any thing in the world to trouble her, or to engage her mind, but their wants and pursuits.
Her disquietude did not escape the quickened vision of her vigilant friend Mr. Lloyd; he observed the shadows of anxiety settling on her usually bright and cheerful countenance, but even he had no conception of the extent of her busy apprehensions and secret misgivings.
Week after week passed away, and there seemed to be no prospect that any thing would occur to free Jane from the very unpleasant situation in which her aunt's accusations had placed her. Erskine became restless and impatient, derided all Jane's arguments in favour of delaying their marriage, and finally affected to distrust her affection for him. If the undefined, and undefinable sentiment which was compounded in Jane's heart of youthful preference and gratitude, was not love, Jane believed it was, and she at last yielded a reluctant consent, that the marriage should take place at the end of three months, even though nothing should occur to release her from her aunt's power.
It was a few days after this promise had been given, that as she was one day returning from her school, Erskine joined her.—"Your friend Robert Lloyd," said he, "has taken a mighty fancy to me of late, I cannot conceive what is the reason of it."
Jane blushed, for she thought he might have guessed the reason. "I am glad of it," she replied, "for he seems to have withdrawn his friendship from me, and you are the only person, Edward, to whom I should be resigned to have it transferred."
"Ah, Jane! you need not be alarmed; he and I should never mix, any more than oil and vinegar."
"I am sorry for that; but which is the oil, and which the vinegar?"
"Oh, he is the oil, soft—neutralizing—rather tasteless; while I, you know, have a character of my own—am positive—ambut perhaps it would not be quite modest for me to finish the parallel. To confess the truth to you, Jane, I have always had an aversion to Quakers; they are a very hypocritical sect, depend upon it; pretending, sly, cheating rogues."
"That's a harsh judgment," replied Jane, with some warmth, "and a prejudice, I think; is not Mr. Lloyd the only Quaker you know?"
"Why—ye—yes, the only one I know much of."
"And does he justify your opinion?"
"I don't know; it takes a great while to find them out; and even if Lloyd should be what he would seem, the exception only proves the rule. I have always disliked Quakers. I remember a story my father used to tell, when I was a child, about his being over-reached in a most ingenious, practised manner, by one of the scoundrels, as he called the whole race. It was not an affair of any great moment; but no man likes to be outwitted in a bargain, and my father used to say it gave him an antipathy to the very name of a Quaker."
"I think your father was in fault," replied Jane, "so carelessly to implant a prejudice, which, as it seems to have had very slight ground, I trust has not taken such deep root that it cannot be easily eradicated."
"There is more reason in my judgment than you give me credit for," replied Edward pettishly. "If they are an upright, frank people, why is the world kept in ignorance of their belief? The Quakers have no creed; and though I have no great faith in the professors of any sect, yet they ought to let you know what they do think: it is fair and above board. You may depend upon it, Jane, the Quakers are a jesuitical people."
"Have you ever read any of their books?" inquired Jane.
"I read them!" he replied, laughing; "why, my dear girl, do you take me for a theologian? No—I never read the books of any sect; and Quaker books, I believe there are not. Quaker book!" he continued, still laughing, "no, no—I shall never addict myself to divinity, till Anne Ratcliffe writes sermons, and Tom Moore warbles hymns."
Jane did not join in his laugh; but replied, "There is a book, Edward, that contains the creed of the Quakers; a creed to which they have never presumed to add any thing, nor have they taken any thing from it; the only creed to which they think it right to require the assent of man, and from which no rational man can dissent—that book is the Bible! and," she continued, earnestly, "their faith in this creed is shown by their works. My dear Edward, examine their history for their vindication."
"That I shall not, while their cause has so fair a champion."
"Spare me your sarcasms, Edward, and let me entreat you to look at the life of their wise and excellent Penn. See him patiently and firmly enduring persecution, and calumny, and oppression at home; giving up his time, his fortune, his liberty, to the cause of suffering humanity, in every mode of its appeal to his benevolence. Follow him with his colony to the wilderness, and see him the only one of all the colonial leaders (I grieve that I cannot except our fathers, the pilgrims) the only one who treated the natives of the land with justice and mercy. Our fathers, Edward, refused to acknowledge the image of God in the poor Indian. They affected to believe they were the children of the evil one, and hunted them like beasts of prey, calling them 'worse than Scythian wolves;' while Penn, and his peaceful people, won their confidence, their devotion, by treating them with even-handed justice, with brotherly kindness; and they had their reward; they lived unharmed among them, without forts, without a weapon of defence. Is it not the Friends that have been foremost and most active in efforts for the abolition of slavery? Among what people do we find most reformers of the prisons—guardians of the poor and the oppressed—most of those who 'remember the forgotten, and attend to the neglected—who dive into the depths of dungeons, and plunge into the infection of hospitals'?"
There was a mingled expression of archness and admiration in Edward's smile as he replied, "My dear Jane, you are almost fit to speak in meeting. All that your defence wants in justness, is made up by the eloquence of your eye and your glowing cheek. I think friendship is a stronger feeling in your heart than love, Jane," he continued, with a penetrating look that certainly did not abate the carnation of her cheek. "If I, and all my ancestors had gone on crusades and pilgrimages, the spirit would not have moved you to such enthusiasm in our cause, as you manifest for the broad-brimmed, straight-coated brethren of friend Lloyd."
"Edward, have you yet to learn of me, that I speak least of what I feel most?"
The gentleness of Jane's manner, and the tenderness of her voice, soothed her lover; and he replied, "Forgive me, dear Jane, a little jealousy; you know jealousy argues love. To confess to you the honest truth, I felt a little more ticklish than usual, this evening, on the subject of quakerism. I had just parted with Mr. Lloyd; and he has been earnestly recommending to me, to undertake a reform in our poor-laws, by which, he thinks, that we should rid ourselves of the burden of supporting many who are not necessarily dependant on us, and improve the condition of those who are. The plan seems to me to be good and feasible."
"And what then, Edward, provoked your displeasure?"
"Why, he wished me to take the whole conduct of it. He preferred the plan should appear to originate with me; that I should head a petition to the Legislature; and, if we succeeded, that I should superintend the execution of the plan."
"Still, dear Edward, I see any thing but offence in all this."
"Because your eye-sight is a little dimmed by your partiality. Do you believe, Jane, that any man would be willing to transfer to another all the merit and praise of a scheme, which, if it succeeds, will be a most important benefit to the community; will be felt, and noticed, and applauded by every body? No—there is some design lurking under this specious garb of disinterestedness—disinterestedness! it only exists in the visions of poets, or the Utopian dreams of youth; or, perhaps, embodied in the fine person of a hero of romance."
"Oh! my dear Edward, it does exist; it is the principle, the spirit of the Christian!"
"Par exemple—of your aunt Wilson, and of sundry other stanch professors I could mention, who,
"If self the wavering balance shake,
It's never right adjusted."
"Is it fair," replied Jane, "to condemn a whole class because some of its members are faithless and disloyal? A commander does but decimate a mutinous corps; and you exclude the whole from your confidence, because a few are treacherous. I allow," continued Jane, "there are few, very few, who are perfectly disinterested; but every Christian, in proportion to his fidelity to the teachings and example of his Master, will be moved and governed by this principle."
Perhaps Edward felt a passing conviction of the truth of Jane's assertions; at any rate, he made no reply, and afterwards he shunned the subject; and even Jane seemed to shrink from it as one upon which they had no common feeling.
The day before entering on the duties of her second school-term, Jane determined to indulge herself in a solitary walk to the cottage of old John of the Mountain. She had purchased some comforts for the old people, with a part of her small earnings, and she knew if she carried them herself she should double their value. She found the way without difficulty, for her night-walk had indelibly impressed it on her memory. On her approach to the cottage, and as she emerged from the wood, she perceived just on its verge a slight rising in the form of a grave; a wild rose-bush grew beside it. Jane paused for a moment, and plucking one of the flowers, she said, 'fragrant and transient, thou art a fit emblem of the blasted flower below!' As she turned from the grave, she perceived that a magical change had been wrought upon John's hut. Instead of a scarcely habitable dwelling, of decayed logs, filled in with mud, she saw a neat little framed house, with a fence around it, and a small garden annexed to it, enclosed by the logs of the former building. Jane hastened forward, and entered the cottage with the light step of one who goes on an errand of kindness.
"Who would have thought," said the good dame, as she dusted a chair and offered it to Jane, "of your coming all this way to see whether we were above ground yet?"
"Ah," said John, "there are some in this world, a precious few, who remember those that every body else forgets."
"I could not forget you, my good friends," replied Jane, "though John does not come any more to put me in mind of you."
"Why, Miss Jane," said John, "I grow old, and I have been but twice to the village since that mournful night you was here, and then I was in such a worrying matter that I did not think even of you."
"What have you had to disturb you?" inquired Jane. "I hoped from finding you in this nice new house that all had gone well since I saw you."
"Ah," replied John, "I have been greatly favoured; but the storm came before the calm. Miss Jane, did you never hear of my law-suit? the whole town was alive with it."
Jane assured John that she had never heard a word of it; that she had a little school to take care of; and that she saw very few persons, and heard little village news, even when it was so important as his law-suit.
"Then, Miss Jane," said John, "if you have time and patience to hear an old man's story, I will tell you mine.—It is fifty years since my old woman and I settled down in these woods. Like all our fellow-creatures, we have had our portion of storms and sunshine: it has pleased the Lord to lop off all our branches, to cut down the little saplings that grew up at our feet, and leave us two lonely and bare trunks, to feel, and resist the winds of heaven as we may: two old evergreens," he continued, with a melancholy smile, "that flourish when every thing has faded about them. Yes, fifty years I have seen the sun come over that mountain every morning; and there is not a tree in all these thick woods but it seems like an old friend to me. Here my sons and daughters have been born to me, and here I have buried them, all but poor Jem, who you know was lost at sea. They died when they were but little children, and nobody remembers them but us; but they are as fresh in our minds as if it was but yesterday they were playing about us, with their laughing eyes and rosy cheeks. This has not much to do with my law-suit," continued John, after a pause, and clearing his voice, "only that I shall want some excuse for loving the old rookery so well before I get through with my story. I hired this bit of land of a man that's been dead twenty years, and it has changed hands many a time since, but I have always been able to satisfy for the rent; it was but a trifle, for no one but I would fancy the place. Lately it's come into the hands of the two young Woodhulls, by the death of the Deacon their father. They are two hard-favoured, hard-hearted, wild young chaps, Miss Jane, that think all the world was made for them, and their pleasure. If my memory serves me, it was just one week after you was here, that they were hunting up in these woods with young Squire Erskine. John, the oldest, took aim at a robin that was singing on the tree just before my door: it had built its nest there early in the summer; we had fed it with crumbs from our table, and it was as tame as a chicken. I told this to them, and begged the little innocent's life so earnestly, that the boys laughed, but Erskine said, "Let the old fool have his way." They said it was nonsense to give up to my whims, and told me to take away my hand, (for I had raised it up to protect the nest) or they would fire through it. I did take it away, and the nest with it, and brought it into the house. They came swearing in, and demanded the bird. I refused to give it up; they grew more and more angry: may be Erskine might have brought them to reason, but he had walked away. They said it was their land, and their bird, and they would not be thwarted by me; and they called me, and my wife too, many a name that was too bad for a decent person's ear. They worked themselves up to a fury, and then warned me off the ground. I made no reply; for I thought when they got over their passion they'd forget it. But they returned the next day with handspikes, and threatened to pull the house down on our heads, if we did not come out of it. I have had a proud spirit in my day, Miss Jane, but old age and weakness have tamed it. I begged them to spare us our little dwelling, with tears in my eyes; and my poor old woman prayed she might bring out the few goods we had; but oh! 'a fool in his folly is like a bear robbed of her whelps.' They said they would dust our goods for us; and so we came out and turned away our faces; but we heard the old house that had sheltered us so long crumble to pieces, as you'd crush an egg-shell in your hand; yes, and we heard their loud deriding laugh; but thank the Lord, we were too far off, to hear the jokes they passed between every peal of laughter. Ah, there is more hope of any thing than of a hard heart in a young body."
"Can it be possible," interrupted Jane, "that for so slight a cause the Woodhulls could do you such an injury?"
"It is even so," replied John; "youth is headstrong, and will not bear crossing."
"But where did you find a shelter?"
"I led my wife down the other side of the mountain, to one Billy Downie's, a soft feeling creature, who has more goodness in his heart than wit in his head, and he made us kindly welcome. I left my wife there, and the next day I came over to the village, to see if the law would give me justice of those that had no mercy. I should have gone to Squire Erskine with my case, for I knew he was called a fine pleader, though he is too wordy to suit me—but he was a friend of the Woodhulls, and so I applied to the stranger that's lately moved in: he proved a raw hand. The trial was appointed for the next Saturday. The day came; and all the men in the village were collected at the tavern, for Erskine was to plead for the Woodhulls, and every body likes to hear his silver tongue."
"Erskine plead for the Woodhulls!" exclaimed Jane.
"Oh yes, Miss Jane; for, as I told you, they are very thick. My attorney was a kind of a 'prentice-workman at the law; he was afraid of Erskine too; and he stammered, and said one thing and meant another, and made such a jingle of it, I could not wonder the justice and the people did not think I had a good claim for damages. But still, the plain story was so much against the Woodhulls, and the people of the village are so friendly-like to me, that it is rather my belief, I should have been righted if Erskine had not poured out such a power of words, that he seemed to take away people's senses. He started with what he called a proverb of the law, and repeated it so many times, I think I can never forget it, for it seemed to be the hook he hung all his argufying upon. It was 'cujus est solum, ejus est usque ad cœlum', (we have taken the liberty slightly to correct the old man's quotation of the Latin); which, if I rightly understood, it means, that whoever owns the soil, owns all above it to the sky; and though it stands to reason it can't be so, yet Erskine's fine oration put reason quite out of the question; and so the justice decided that the Woodhulls had a right to do what seemed good in their own eyes with my furniture; and then he gave me a bit of an exhortation, and told me I should never make out well in the world, if I did not know more of the laws of the land! and concluded with saying, I ought to be very thankful I had so little to be destroyed. I said nothing; but I thought it was late in the day for me to study the laws of the land; and my mite was as much to me as his abundance to him. When the trial was over, Erskine and the Woodhulls invited the justice and the company into the bar-room to treat them; and through the open door I heard Erskine propose a bumper to those who knew how to maintain their rights. "No," Woodhull said, "it should be to him who knew how to defend a friend"—right or wrong, thought I. But," said John, pausing, "my story is too long for you, Miss Jane."
Jane had turned away her head; she now assured John, she was listening to every word he said, and begged him to go on.
"Well, Miss, I thought I was alone in the room, and I just let out my heart, as you know a body will when he thinks there is no eye, but His that's above, sees him. I saw nothing before Sarah and I, but to go upon the town, and that's what I always had a dread of; for, though I have been a poor man all my life, Miss Jane, what I had was my own. I have been but weakly since I was a boy, but my woman and I have been sober and industrious. We have always had a shelter for ourselves; and sometimes, too, for a poor houseless creature that had not a better; and we wanted but little, and we were independent: and then you know, what the town gives is neither given nor taken with a good will. Well, as I said, I thought I was alone in the room; but I heard a slight noise behind me, and there was one who had not followed the multitude; he had a clear open face, and that look—I can't justly describe it, Miss Jane, but it seems as if it was the light of good deeds sent back again; or, may be, the seal the Lord puts upon his own children—and pity and kindness seemed writ in every line of his face. Do you know who I mean?"
"Mr. Lloyd," she replied, in a scarcely audible voice.
"Yes, yes—any body that had ever seen him would guess. He beckoned to me to shut the door, and asked me if I had any particular attachment to this spot; and I owned to him, as I have to you, my childishness about it; and he smiled, and said, he was afraid I was too old to be cured of it; and then asked, if I believed I could persuade the young men to sell as much of the land as I should want. I was sure I could, for I know they are wasteful and ravenous for money, and besides they had had their will, and the land was of no use to them. And then he told me, Miss Jane, that he would give me the money for the land, if I could make a bargain with the Woodhulls, and enough besides to build me a comfortable little house. I could not thank him—I tried, but I could not; and so he just squeezed my hand, and said, he understood me—and charged me to keep it a secret where I got help; and I have minded him till this day, but I could not keep it from you."
"You'd better stop now, John," said the old woman, "for the long walk, and the long story, have quite overdone Miss Jane; she has had the flushes this half hour."
Jane was obliged to own she did not feel well; but after drinking some water, she made an effort to compose herself, and asked the old man, "What reason he had to think the Woodhulls and Erskine were intimate friends?"
"Why, did you never hear, Miss, that it was Erskine that got John Woodhull clear when Betsy Davis sued him for breach of promise? I was summoned to court as a witness. It was a terrible black business; but Erskine made it all smooth; and after the trial was past, I overheard these chaps flattering Erskine till they made him believe he was more than mortal. At any rate, they put such a mist before his eyes, that he could not see to choose good from evil, else he never would have chosen them for his companions; he never would have been led to spend night after night with them at the gambling club."
"At the gambling club, John!—where—what do you mean?" and poor Jane clasped her hands together, and looked at him with an expression of such wretchedness, that the old man turned his eyes from her to his wife and back again to Jane, as if he would, but dared not, inquire the reason of her emotion.
"I have done wrong," he stammered out, "old fool that I was. Erskine is your friend, Miss Jane. The Lord forgive me," he added, rising and walking to the door. Jane had risen also, and with a trembling hand was tying on her hat. "And the Lord help thee, child," he continued, turning again towards her, "and keep thee from every snare. Well, well!—I never should have thought it."
Jane felt humbled by the old man's sympathy; and yet it was too sincere, too kindly felt, to be repressed. She was hastening away, when Sarah said, "You have forgotten your bundle, Miss."
"It is for you, my good friend," she replied; and, without awaiting their thanks, she bade them farewell, and was soon out of sight of the old man, whose eye followed her quick footsteps till she was hid by the adjoining wood. He then turned from the door, and raised his hands and his faded eyes, glistening with the gathering tears, to Heaven—"Oh Lord!" he exclaimed, "have mercy on thy young servant. Suffer not this child of light to be yoked to a child of darkness."
We believe that, in all classes and conditions, women are more inclined to look on the bright side of matrimony than men. In this case Sarah, after a little consideration, said, "I'm a thinking, John, you take on too much; you are a borrowing trouble for Miss Jane. She is a wise, discreet young body, and she may cure Mr. Erskine of his faults. Besides, he may have his vagaries, and that's no uncommon thing for a young man; but then he is not wicked and hard-hearted like the Woodhulls."
"No, no, Sarah, he an't so bad as the Woodhulls, but he has been a wilful spoilt child from the beginning: he is a comely man to look to, and he has a glib tongue in his head; but he is all for self—all for self, Sarah. You might as well undertake to make the stiff branches of that old oak tender and pliable as the sprouts of the sapling that grows beside it, as to expect Miss Jane can alter Erskine. No—he alone can do it with whom all things are possible. We have no right to expect a miracle. She has no call to walk upon the sea, and we cannot hope a hand will be stretched out to keep her from sinking. It is the girl's beauty has caught him; and when that is gone, and it is a quickly fading flower, she will have no hold whatever on him."
We know not how long the old man indulged in his reflections, for he was not again interrupted by Sarah, whose deference for her husband's superior sagacity seems to have been more habitual than even her namesake's of old.
Our unhappy heroine pursued her way home, her mind filled with 'thick-coming' and bitter fancies, revolving over and over again the circumstances of John's narrative. He had thrown a new light on the character of her lover; and she blamed herself, that faults had seemed so dim to her, which were now so glaring. She was not far from coming to the result, which, we trust, our readers have expected from the integrity and purity of her character. "If I had remained ignorant of his faults," she thought, "I should have had some excuse; I might then have hoped for assistance and blessing in my attempts to reform him. It would be presumption to trust, now, in any efforts I could make; and what right have I, with my eyes open, to rush into a situation where my own weak virtues may be subdued by trialsmust be assailed by temptation? Oh! when I heard him speak lightly of religion, how could I hope he would submit to its requisitions and restraints? I started at the first thought, that he was unprincipled; and yet I have always known there was no immoveable basis for principle, but religion. Selfish—vain—how could I love him! And yet—and she looked at the other side of the picture—his preference of me was purely disinterested—an orphan—destitute—almost an outcast—liable to degradation—and he has exposed himself to all the obloquy I may suffer—and does he not deserve the devotion of my life?" A moment before, she would have answered her self-interrogation in the negative; but now she seemed losing herself in a labyrinth of opposing duties. She thought that she ought not to place implicit reliance in John's statements. He might have exaggerated Erskine's faults. In his situation, it was natural he should; but he had such a calm, sober way with him, every word bore the impress of truth. The story of the gambling club had turned the scale; but John might have been misinformed.
Thus, after all her deliberations, Jane re-entered her home, without having come to any decision. Though we believe the opinion of a great moralist is against us, we doubt if "decision of character" belongs to the most scrupulously virtuous.