Adele Dubois Part 4

"You've a snug place here, Mr. Micah", said Mr. Norton, who, having found some difficulty in restraining a smile, when repeating Mr.

Mummychog's surname, concluded to drop it altogether, "but what could have induced you to leave the pleasant Kennebec and come to this distant spot?"

"Well, I cam' to git a chance and be somwhere, where I could jest be let alone".

"A chance for what, Mr. Micah?"

"Why, hang it, a chance to live an' dew abeout what I want tew. The moose an' wolves an' wildcats hev all ben hunted eout o' that kentry.

Thar wa'nt no kind ev a chance there. So I cam' here".

"You have a wife, I suppose, Mr. Micah?"

"Wife! no. Do ye spose I want to hev a woman kep' skeered a most to death abeout me, all the time? I'm a fis.h.i.+n' an' huntin good part o'

the year. Wild beasts and sech, is what I like".

"Don't you feel lonely here, sometimes, Mr. Micah?"

"Lunsum! no. There's plenty o' fellers reound here, all the time.

They're a heowlin' set tew, ez ever I see".

"You have a good gun there", suggested the missionary.

"Well, tolable", said Micah, looking up for the first time since Mr.

Norton had entered the house, and scanning him from head to foot with his keen, penetrating glance. "I spose you aint much used to firearms?"

"I have some acquaintance with them; but my present vocation don't require their use".

Here Mr. Mummychog rose, and laying his gun on the table, scratched his head, turned toward Mr. Norton and said, "Hev yeou any pertikilar business with me?"

"Yes sir, I have. I came to Miramichi to accomplish an important object, and I don't know of another person who can help me about it so well as you can".

"Well, I dunno. What upon arth is it?"

"To be plain upon the point", said the missionary, looking serious and earnest, "I have come here to preach the gospel of Christ".

"Whew! religin, is it? I can tell ye right off, its no go en these ere parts".

"Don't you think a little religion is needed here, Mr. Micah?"

"Well, I dunno. Taint _wanted_. Folks ez lives here, can't abide sermans and prayers en that doleful stuff".

"You say you came here for a chance, Mr. Micah. I suppose your friends came for the same purpose. Now, I have come to show them, not a _chance_, but a glorious certainty for happiness in this world and in the eternity beyond".

"Well, they don't want tew know anything abeout it. They just want tew be let alone", said Micah.

"I suppose they do wish to be let alone", said Mr. Norton. "But I cannot permit them to go down to wretchedness and sorrow unwarned. You have influence with your friends here, Mr. Micah. If you will collect the men, women, and children of this neighborhood together, some afternoon, in your beautiful grove, I will promise to give them not a long sermon, but something that will do them good to hear".

"I can't dew it no heow. There's ben preachers along here afore, an'

a few 'ud go eout o' curiosity, an' some to make a disturbance an'

sech, an' it never 'meounts to anything, no heow. Then sposin we haint dun jest as we'd oughter, who'se gin _yeou_ the right tew twit us on it?"

"I certainly have no right, on my own responsibility, to reproach you, or your friends for sin, for I am a sinful man myself and have daily need of repentance. But I trust I have found out a way of redemption from guilt, and I wish to communicate it to my fellow-beings that they also may have knowledge of it, and fly to Christ, their only safety and happiness in this world".

Micah made no reply.

There was a pause of several minutes, and then the missionary rose and said, "Well, Mr. Micah, if you can't help me, you can't. The little maiden that came with me, told me you could render me aid, if any one could, and from what she said, I entertained a hope of your a.s.sistance. The Lord will remove the obstacles to proclaiming this salvation in some way, I know".

"Miss Ady didn't say I could help ye neow, did she?" said Micah, scratching his head.

"Certainly. Why did she bring me here?"

"Well, ef that aint tarnal queer", said Micah, falling into a deep reverie.

In a few moments, Mr. Norton shook his new acquaintance heartily by the hand and bade him good morning. Was the good man discouraged in his efforts? By no means.

He had placed in the mind of Micah Mummychog a small fusee, so to speak, which he foresaw would fire a whole train of discarded ideas and cast-off thoughts, and he expected to hear from it.

He filled up the day with a round of calls upon the various families of the neighborhood, and came home to his lodgings at Mr. Dubois's with his heart overwhelmed by the ignorance and debas.e.m.e.nt he had witnessed.

Yet his courage and hopes were strong.

CHAPTER V.

MRS. LANSDOWNE.

P---- is a city by the sea. Built upon an elevated peninsula, surrounded by a country of manifold resources of beauty and fertility, with a fine, broad harbor, it sits queenlike in conscious power, facing with serene aspect the ever-restless waves that wash continually its feet. The place might be called ancient, if that term could properly be applied to any of the works of man on New England sh.o.r.es. There are parts of it, where the architecture of whole streets looks quaint and time-worn; here and there a few antique churches appear, but modern structures predominate, and the place is full of vigorous life and industry.

It was sunset. The sky was suffused with the richest carmine. The waters lay quivering beneath the palpitating, rosy light. The spires and domes of the town caught the ethereal hues and the emerald hills were bathed in the glowing atmosphere.

In a large apartment, in the second story of a tall, brick mansion on ---- street, sat Mrs. Lansdowne. Susceptible though she was to the attractions of the scene before her, they did not now occupy her attention. Her brow was contracted with painful thought, her lip quivered with deep emotion. The greatest sorrow she had known had fallen upon her through the error of one whom she fondly loved.

Though enwrapped in a cloud of grief, one could see that she possessed beauty of a rich and rare type. She had the delicate, aquiline nose, the dark, l.u.s.trous eyes and hair, the finely arched eyebrows of the Hebrew woman. But she was no Jewess.

Mrs. Lansdowne could number in her ancestry men who had been notable leaders in the Revolutionary war with England, and, later in our history, others, who were remarkable for patriotism, n.o.bility of character, intellectual ability, and high moral and religious culture.

Early in life, she had been united to Mr. Lansdowne, a gentleman moving in the same rank of society with herself. His health obliged him to give up the professional life he antic.i.p.ated, and he had become a prosperous and enterprising merchant in his native city. They had an only child, a son eighteen years old, who in the progress of his collegiate course had just entered the senior year.

Edward Somers was Mrs. Lansdowne's only brother, her mother having died a week after his birth. She was eleven years of age at the time, and from that early period had watched over and loved him tenderly. He had grown up handsome and accomplished, fascinating in manners and most affectionate toward herself. She had learned that he had been engaged in what appeared, upon the face of it, a dishonorable affair, and her sensitive nature had been greatly shocked.

Two years before, Mr. Lansdowne had taken him as a junior partner in his business. He had since been a member of his sister's family.

A young foreigner had come to reside in the city, professing himself a member of a n.o.ble Italian family. Giuseppe Rossini was poet, orator, and musician. As poet and orator he was pleasing and graceful; as a musician he excelled. He was a brilliant and not obtrusive conversationalist. His enthusiastic expressions of admiration for our free inst.i.tutions won him favor with all cla.s.ses. In the fas.h.i.+onable circle he soon became a pet.

Mrs. Lansdowne had from the first distrusted him. There was no tangible foundation for her suspicions, but she had not been able to overcome a certain instinct that warned her from his presence. She watched, with misgivings of heart, her brother's growing familiarity with the Italian. A facility of temper, his characteristic from boyhood, made her fear that he might not be able to withstand the soft, insinuating voice that veils guilty designs by winning sophistics and appeals to sympathy and friends.h.i.+p. And so it proved.