Evenings At Donaldson Manor Part 19

"So much the better, if it give us a little variety in our smooth lives.

I dare say we shall all like it very much. I shall, at least, and if the rest do not, they can return."

The Glen was a wild rural spot among the Highlands, where Sir Edward had delighted occasionally to spend a few weeks with his wife and child and one or two chosen friends, in the enjoyment of country sports. For several years before his father's death, Edward had been too much engaged in his collegiate studies to share these visits. During the three years which had pa.s.sed since that event, neither Lady Houstoun nor her son had visited the Glen, and it was not without emotion that she heard him name his intention of taking a party thither; but she offered no opposition to the plan, and in a little more than a week he was established in the comfortable dwelling-house there, with Walter Osgood; Philip Van Schaick, and Peter Schuyler, companions who were soon persuaded to leave the somewhat formal circles of the city for a few days of adventure in the country. They had arrived late in the night, and wearied by fifteen hours' confinement on board a small sloop, the visitors slept late the next morning, while Edward Houstoun, haunted by tender memories, was early awake and abroad. Standing in the porch, he looked forth through the gray light of the early dawn on hill and dale and river, endeavoring to recall the feelings with which he had gazed on them seven years before. Then he was a boy of scarcely sixteen, eager only for the holiday sport or the distinction of the school-room--now, he stood there--a boy still, his heart indignantly p.r.o.nounced, though he had numbered nearly twenty-three years. Edward Houstoun was beginning to wake to somewhat of n.o.ble scorn in viewing his own position--beginning to feel that to amuse himself was an object hardly worthy a _man's_ life. Turning forcibly from such thoughts, he sprang down the steps, and pursued a path leading by the orchard and through a flowery lane, towards the dwelling of the farmer to whom the management of the Glen had been intrusted, first by Sir Edward and afterwards by Lady Houstoun. The sun was just touching with a sapphire tint the few clouds that specked the eastern sky; the branches of the wild rose and mountain laurel which skirted the lane on the right were heavy with the dews of night, and the birds seemed caroling their earliest song in the orchard and clover-field on the left, yet the farmer's horses were already harnessed to the wagon, and through the open door of the house Edward Houstoun as he approached caught a glimpse of Farmer Pye himself and his men seated at breakfast. As he was not perceived by them, he pa.s.sed on, without interrupting them, to the dairy, where the good dame was busy with her white pails and bright pans. A calico bonnet with a very deep front concealed his approach from Mrs. Pye until he stood beside her; but there was one within the dairy who saw him, and whose coquettish movement in s.n.a.t.c.hing from her glossy brown ringlets a bonnet of the same unbecoming shape with that of Mrs.

Pye, did not escape his observation.

"Well, now--did I ever see the like! Why, Mr. Edward, you've grown clean out of a body's memory--but after all, n.o.body couldn't help knowing you that ever seen your papa, good gentleman--how much you are like him!"

Thus ran on Dame Pye, while Edward, except when compelled by a question to attend to her, was wondering who the fair girl could be, who was separated from her companion not less by the tasteful arrangement of her dress--simple and even coa.r.s.e as it was in its material--and by a certain grace of movement, than by her delicate beauty. Her form was slender in proportion to its height, yet gave in its graceful outline promise of a development "rich in all woman's loveliness;" and her face, with its dark starry eyes, its clear, transparent skin, and rich, waving curls of glossy brown, recalled so vividly to Edward Houstoun's memory his favorite description of beauty, that he repeated almost audibly:--

"One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impair'd the nameless grace That waves in every glossy tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face, Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, how dear their dwelling-place."

His admiration, if not audible, was sufficiently evident to its object--at least so we interpret her tremulous and uncertain movements, the eloquent blood which glowed in her cheeks, and the mistakes which at length aroused Mrs. Pye's attention.

"Why, Lucy! what under the sun and earth's the matter with you, child?

Dear--dear--to go putting the cream into the new milk, instead of emptying it into the churn! There--there--child--better go in now--I'll finish--and just tell Mr. Pye that Mr. Edward is here," said Mrs. Pye, fearful of some new accident.

The discarded bonnet was put on with a heightened color, and the young girl moved rapidly yet gracefully toward the house.

"I did not remember you had a daughter, Mrs. Pye," said Edward Houstoun, as she disappeared.

"And I haven't a daughter--only the two boys, Sammy and Isaac--good big boys they are now, and help their father quite some--but this girl's none of mine, though I'm sure I love her 'most as well--she's so pretty and nice, and has such handy ways, though what could have tempted her to put the cream in the new milk just now, I'm sure I can't tell."

"But who is she, Mrs. Pye?"

"Who is she? Why, sure, and did you never hear of Lucy Watson? Oh!

here's Mr. Pye."

Edward Houstoun was too much interested in learning something more of Lucy Watson, not to find a sufficient reason for lingering behind the farmer, who was impatient to be in his hay-field. Mrs. Pye was communicative, and he soon learned all she knew--that Lucy was the daughter of a soldier belonging to a company commanded by Sir Edward Houstoun during the war--that this soldier had received his death-wound in defending his commander from a sword-cut, and that Sir Edward had always considered his widow and only child as his especial charge. The widow had soon followed her husband to the grave, and the child had been placed by Sir Edward with the wife of a country clergyman. To Mr. and Mrs. Merton, Lucy had been as an own and only daughter.

"The good old people made quite a lady of her," said Mrs. Pye. "She can read and write equal to the parson himself, and I've hearn folks say that her 'broidery and music playin' was better than Mrs. Merton's own; but, poor thing! Mrs. Merton died, and still the parson begged Sir Edward to let her stay with him--she was all that was left now, he said--so Sir Edward let her stay. Mr. Merton died a year ago, and when Mr. Pye wrote to the lady--that's your mother, Mr. Edward--about her, she said she'd better come here and stay with us, and she would pay her board, and give her money for clothes, and five thousand dollars beside, whenever she should get married. I'm sure she's welcome to stay, if it was without pay, for we all love her, but, somehow, it don't seem the right place for her--and, as to marrying, I don't think she'll ever marry any body around her, for, kind-spoken as she is, they wouldn't any of them dare to ask her, though they're all in love with her beautiful face."

In a week Edward Houstoun's friends had grown weary of ruralizing--they found no longer any music in the crack of a fowling-piece, or any enjoyment in the dying agonies of the feathered tribes, and, having resisted all their persuasions to return with them, he was left alone.

"I shall report you as love-sick, or brain-sick, reclining by purling streams, under shady groves, to read Shakspeare, or Milton, or Spenser, for each of these books I have seen you at different times put in your pocket, and wander forth with a most sentimental air--doubtless to make love to some Nymph or Dryad."

"Make love! Ah! there, I take it, you have winged the right bird, Van Schaick."

"If I had seen a decent petticoat since we took leave of Mynheer Van Winkle and his daughter, on board the good sloop St. Nicholas, I should think so too, Osgood."

"At any rate, it would be wise to report our suspicions to his lady mother."

"Your suspicions of what--lunacy or love?" asked Edward Houstoun.

"A distinction without a difference--they are equivalent terms."

Thus jested his friends, and thus jested Edward Houstoun with them--well a.s.sured that no gleam of the truth had s.h.i.+ned on them--that they never supposed his visits at Farmer Pye's possessed any greater attraction than could be derived from the farmer's details of improvements made at the Glen, of the increased value of lands, or the proceeds of the last year's crop. They had never seen Lucy Watson, and how could they suspect that while the farmer smoked his pipe at the door, and the good dame bustled about her household concerns, he sat watching with enamored eyes the changes of a countenance full of intelligence and sensibility, and listening with charmed ears to a soft, musical voice recounting, with all the simple eloquence of genuine feeling, obligations to the father whose memory was with him almost an idolatry. Still less could they divine that Shakspeare, and Milton, and Spenser were indeed often read beside a purling stream, and within the dense shadow of a grove of oak and chestnut-trees--not to Nymph or Dryad, but to a "mortal being of earth's mould,"

"A creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food, For simple pleasures, harmless wiles, For love, blame, kisses, tears and smiles."

Here, one afternoon, a fortnight after the departure of his friends, sat Edward Houstoun with Lucy at his side. They had lingered till the sunlight, which had fallen here and there in broken and changeful gleams through over-arching boughs, touching with gold the ripples at their feet, had faded into that

"mellow light Which heaven to gaudy day denies."

Edward Houstoun held a book in his hand, but it had long been closed, while he was engaged in a far more interesting study. He had with a delicate tact won his companion to speak as she had never spoken before of herself--not of the few events of her short life, for these were already known to him, but of the influence of those events on feeling and character. Tenderness looked forth without disguise from the earnest eyes which were fastened on her, as he said, "You say, Lucy, that you have found friends every where, have met only kindness, and yet you weep--you are sad."

"Do not think me ungrateful," she replied. "I have indeed found friends and kindness--but these give exercise only to my grat.i.tude--stronger, tenderer affections I have, which no father, or mother, or brother, or sister, will ever call forth."

"Nay, Lucy, were you not adopted by my father, and am I not your brother?"

A glance whose brightness melted into tears was her only answer.

"Fie! fie! tears again? I shall have to scold my sister," said Edward Houstoun. "What complaint can you make now that I have found you a brother?"

Lucy laughed, but soon her face grew grave, and, after a thoughtful pause, she said, "I believe those cannot be quite happy who feel that they have nothing to do in the world. Better be the poorest drudge, with powers fitted to your station, than to be as I am, an idler--a mere looker-on at the world."

"Why, Lucy! what else am I?"

"You! You, with fortune to bless, and influence to guide hundreds!

What are you? G.o.d's representative to your less fortunate fellow-creatures--the steward of his bounty. Oh! be sure that you use your gifts faithfully."

Lucy spoke solemnly, and it was with no light accent that Edward Houstoun replied--"You mistake, Lucy--you mistake--I am in truth no less an idler than yourself--a looker-on, with no part in the game of life.

To the Lady Houstoun belong both the fortune and the influence." A mocking smile had arisen to his lip, but, as he caught her look of surprise, it pa.s.sed away, leaving a gentle gravity in its place, while he continued--"Do not think I mean to complain of my mother, Lucy. She has been ever affectionate and indulgent to me. She leaves me no want that she can perceive. My purse is always full, and my actions unrestrained. I suppose I ought to be happy."

"And are you not happy?"

"No, Lucy, no! There has long been a vague restlessness and dissatisfaction about me--and, now, your words have thrown light on its cause. I am weary of the perpetual holiday which life has been to me since I left the walls of a college. I want to be doing--I want an object--something for which to strive and hope and fear--what shall it be, Lucy?"

"I have heard Mr. Merton say that no one could choose for another his aims in life, but were I choosing for myself, it should be something that would connect me with the minds of others--something by which I could do service to their spiritual beings. Were I a man, I should like to write books--such books as would give counsel and comfort to erring and sad hearts--"

Edward Houstoun shook his head--"Even had I an author's gifts, Lucy, that would not do for me--I must have action in my life--"

"What say you to the pulpit?"

"The n.o.blest of all employments, Lucy--but it is a heavenly employment and needs a heavenly spirit. I would not dare to think of that. Try again--"

"The law? Ah! now I see I have chosen rightly--you will be a lawyer--a great lawyer, like Mr. Patrick Henry."

"You have spoken, Lucy--and I will do my best to fulfil your prophecy. I may not be a Patrick Henry--two such men belong not to one age--but I may at least hew out for myself a place among men, where I may stand with a man's freedom of thought and action. The very decision has emanc.i.p.ated me--has emboldened me to speak what a moment since I scarcely dared to think--nay, turn not from me, beloved--oh how pa.s.sionately beloved! Life has now its object for me, Lucy--your love--for that I will strive--hope--whisper me that I need not fear--that when I have a right to claim my bride--"

When Edward Houstoun commenced this pa.s.sionate apostrophe, he had clasped Lucy's hand, and, overcome by his emotions and her own--forgetting all but his love--conscious only of a bewildering joy--she had suffered it to rest for one instant in his clasp. It was but for one instant--the next, struggling from him as he strove to retain her, she started to her feet, and stood leaning against the trunk of the tree that overshadowed them, with her face hidden by her clasped hands. He rose and drew near, saying, in low, tremulous tones--"Lucy, what means this?"

"Mr. Houstoun," she exclaimed, removing her hands from her face, and wringing them in pa.s.sionate sorrow--"how could you speak those words?"

"Wherefore should I not speak them--are they so terrifying to you, Lucy?"

"Can they be otherwise, since they must separate us for ever? Think you that the Lady Houstoun would endure that the creature of her bounty should become the wife of her son?"

"I asked, Lucy, that you would promise to be mine when I had won a right to act independently of the Lady Houstoun's opinions."