Silent Struggles Part 41

"The poor child--and she will take nothing," said the old woman, while her face, dark and wrinkled like a dried peach, began to work, the nearest approach to weeping her Indian blood ever permitted. "What can I do? Where is the young brave?"

"Yonder," said Elizabeth, bitterly, "going toward the sea!"

"Shall I bring him back? Shall I tell him he has left your heart full of tears?"

t.i.tuba clenched her little withered hands with energy, as if she were about to give a leap, and start off at full speed, while her sharp eyes followed the retreating figure of the young man. But Elizabeth held her back.

"No, no. See, Abigail is coming down. I will tell her. Abigail! cousin Abigail!"

But Abigail Williams, who had been so caressing and kind half an hour before, came into the pa.s.sage with the dull, heavy frown on her forehead which had become habitual now; answering her cousin's appeal with a repulsive motion of the hand, she pa.s.sed by her, and went into the open air.

The sun was very bright, and for an instant she stood upon the stepping-stone, shading her eyes with one hand, looking first toward the forest, and again, with more lingering earnestness, sweeping the horizon with her gaze, where the sky melted into the ocean. A boat lay like a speck amid the brightness of the water. If Abigail had not been searching for it, an object so diminished by distance would have escaped observation. But she saw the floating speck, and, without a look or word for those she left behind, started off for the sh.o.r.e.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

UNACCOUNTABLE SYMPATHIES.

Barbara Stafford sat upon the roots of an old oak, that held the edges of forest turf together, just where they verged into the white sands of the beach. The woods had been thinned on that portion of the coast, and the oak stood out almost alone, amid a sea of whortleberry bushes, ferns, and low-vined blackberries, that covered the spa.r.s.e soil with their many-tinted herbage. Behind her loomed the forest; before her rolled the ocean. The suns.h.i.+ne lay upon both, turning one to sapphires, the other to s.h.i.+fting emeralds. The suns.h.i.+ne lay everywhere, save in her own heart--there was unutterably darkened.

I do not say that all this brightness in nature fell around her like a mockery; for her soul was too heavy even for a thought of external objects. It is only sudden or light sorrows that shrink and thrill to outward things. When depression becomes the habit of a life, it weighs upon the existence, as stagnant waters sleep in a landscape. When they are disturbed, miasma starts forth, and makes the earth feel that a weight is forever upon its bosom, whose breath is poison, which no power can fathom, and brightness can warm.

This great burden lay upon Barbara Stafford. Had the ocean been lashed with storms, she might have looked upon it in awe, for she was a woman full of feminine timidity, and only a few weeks before had been s.n.a.t.c.hed from the waves by the very youth from whom she had just parted. She was thinking of the youth, but not of the waves from which he had rescued her--thinking of him with vague yearnings and fond regrets, which seemed all of human tenderness that gleamed across the desolation of her hopes.

She felt something like joy singing through the dreariness of her life, whenever the image of this young man presented itself. Why was it? she asked herself again and again. Were the blossoms of a new love springing up from her soul, after it had been laid waste for so many years? Had the ashes of dead hopes fertilized her life afresh, that she should feel this glow of affection, when the lad spoke or looked into her eyes?

Barbara was no girl to wave these questions with blushes. She knew their meaning well, and searched her own heart to its depths, as the surgeon probes a wound. The unnaturalness of this attachment did not startle her pride as at first; for she was one of those who measure souls by their capacity, not the years that might have fallen upon them. Still every sensitive feeling was wounded by the very idea of love, in its broadest and most beautiful meaning, as connected with this youth. Affection deep and steadfast, a love that thrilled her with holy impulses, she found; but nothing that could bring the pure matronly blood warmer to her cheeks, or cause her frank eyes to turn aside from his glances. The feelings that she was forced to acknowledge to herself were inexplicable, for grat.i.tude was never half so tender, love never in a degree so unselfish. Barbara had never experienced the sweet wors.h.i.+p which a mother feels for a living child, therefore could not judge how far these sensations approached that most holy feeling; but she knew that the presence of this strange emotion had filled her with ineffable content. The hard realities of her condition faded away at the approach of this young man, and all the gentle sensations of her youth came softly back across the desert of her life, keeping her soul from the despair that for a time had threatened it.

She was thinking of the youth, nothing else, though her eyes gazed wistfully across the sea, and her face was thoughtful, as if she expected some pleasant approach from the far-off blue of the deep. So, when footsteps came across the bench, she started, and the wings of a brooding dove seemed to unfold in her bosom as Norman Lovel approached and seated himself on a fragment of stone at her feet.

Barbara could not resist the impulse, but laid her hand caressingly on his head, burying her fingers in the rich waves of his hair.

He looked up, and smiled. This gentle caress was pleasant, after the coldness with which Elizabeth had driven him from her side.

"How profoundly you were thinking!" he said. "I was almost afraid to disturb you."

"Yes," answered Barbara, "I was trying to find out what has swept so much of the darkness from my life within the last hour."

"And did you find a happy conclusion? I hope so, for then I shall think that some pleasure at my coming was mingled with your thoughts. Oh, dear lady, you never will know how keenly we felt your loss."

"And yet I am a stranger to you all."

"Some people are never strangers. I feel as if I had known you from the cradle up--as if my happiness would never be complete if you were away.

The touch of your hand soothes me, and your voice stirs my heart, like music heard before thought or memory comes. When I am near you, a solemn gladness quiets me into a very child. Oh, lady, I love you dearly."

Barbara did not start, or change color. This language seemed natural to her, as the rush of the waves on the beach. She simply bent down and laid her hand on his forehead. He drew a deep breath and was silent. The smile upon his lips was like that of an infant Samuel when he prays.

"I have found you at last; you will never, never leave us again!"

"When the s.h.i.+p sails I must go yonder," she answered, pointing seaward.

"To England! Why should you go? Have you friends there more dear than those you will leave behind?" questioned the youth, anxiously.

"I have no friends there, but many duties," said Barbara, and her voice trembled painfully. "When I leave these sh.o.r.es, every living being that I love will be left behind."

"Why go, then? Why abandon those who regard you tenderly, for a land that contains no friends?"

Barbara turned pale as she looked down into those beautiful, eager eyes.

"Because," she said, extending her hand toward the ocean, "because that must roll between us and--and this continent, before I can fall into the heavy rest, which is all I hope or ask for now."

"But why go away? This is a new country; a mind and energy like yours may find ample scope for exertion here. Become the missionary of intelligence. We have school-houses, but few teachers. What grand men and n.o.ble women would be given to the world, from a teacher at once so strong and so gentle."

Barbara smiled a little proudly. The idea of becoming a school-teacher in one of the colonies had evidently never entered her mind.

Norman saw the smile and blushed.

"You think it a humble means of good," he said, "and are, perhaps, offended with me for naming it. But Governor Phipps thinks it a calling of the utmost importance in these settlements. He says that the man, or woman, who gives wisdom and Christianity to our little ones, holds an office higher than that of any judge or statesman in the land."

Barbara gazed wistfully in Norman's face, while he was speaking. An earnest gleam came into her eyes, and her lips began to quiver. Why was her voice so like a hoa.r.s.e whisper when she spoke?

"Did--did Governor Phipps speak of me in this connection?"

"No, but when I had been speaking of you, he said it, as if the idea came with your name."

Barbara shook her head, slowly and mournfully.

"It can never happen. This land holds no corner of rest for me now. Here is struggle, temptation, bitter soul-strife; there, is rest, that leaden rest, which comes when there is nothing to hope or fear. Oh, my young friend, it is a terrible thing, when one reaches the hill-tops of life, and finds a broad, ashen desert beyond, with a grave on the other side, which you long to reach, but must not."

"But surely this is not your case, lady?"

"Alas! what else?" she whispered, casting that wistful look seaward again. "What of joy, or hope, can ever come to me again?"

"And are you so unhappy?" questioned the youth, almost with tears in his eyes.

"Unhappy! I do not know--but let us talk of other things: this fair girl Elizabeth."

"Do not speak of her--she wounds me with her coldness, she insults me with suspicions--let us talk of any thing rather than her."

"But she loves you, for all that."

"I do not believe it!" cried the youth, impetuously: "love does not turn a maiden into stone, when a true heart appeals to hers. You would not repulse me one hour, and adore me the next. I am tired of girls!"

Barbara smiled, as if the prattle of an infant had amused her.

"Fiery young heart," she said, laying her hand on his shoulder, "how little you comprehend the feelings that trouble you!"