i/Jt. - DOCTOR JOHNS: BEING A NARRATIVE OF CERTAIN EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF AN ORTHODOX MINISTER OF CONNECTICUT. BY THE AUTHOR OF MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD. f: ft / /O ^ "Vl IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER AND COMPANY. 654 BROADWAY. 1866. z Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year I860, by CHARLES SCRIBNER AND COMPANY, in the Clerk s Office of the District Court for the Southern District o New York. 1UVEKS1DE, CAMBRIDGE : STEREOTYPED AND PRIX TED BY U. 0. IIOlCiUTON AND COMPANY. DOCTOR JOHNS. I. TN the summer of 1812, when the good people of -*- Connecticut were feeling uncommonly bitter about the declaration of war against England, and were abusing Mr. Madison in the roundest terms, there lived in the town of Canterbury a fiery old gentleman, of near sixty years, and a sterling Democrat, who took up the cudgels bravely for the Administration, and stoutly belabored Governor Roger Griswold for his tardy obedience to the President in calling out the militia, and for what he called his absurd pretensions in regard to State sovereignty. He was a man, too, who meant all that he said, and gave the best proof of it by offering his military services, first to the Governor, and then to the United States General com manding the Department. Nor was he wholly unfitted: he was erect, stanch, well knit together, and had served with immense credit in the local militia, in which he wore the title of Major. 2 DOCTOR JOHNS. It does not appear that his offer was immediately ac cepted ; but the following season he was invested with the command of a company, and was ordered back and forth to various threatened points along the sea board. His home affairs, meantime, were left in charge of his son, a quiet young man of four-and- twenty, who for three years had been stumbling with a very reluctant spirit through the law-books in the Major s office, and who shared neither his father s ar dor of temperament nor his political opinions. Eliza, a daughter of twenty summers, acted as mistress of the house, and stood in place of mother to a black- eyed little girl of thirteen, the Major s daughter by a second wife, who had died only a few years before. Notwithstanding the lack of political sympathy, there was yet a strong attachment between father and son. The latter admired exceedingly the energy and full- souled ardor of the old gentleman ; and the father, in turn, was proud of the calm, meditative habit of mind which the son had inherited from his mother. " There is metal in the boy to make a judge of," the Major used to say. And when Benjamin, shortly after his graduation at one of the lesser New England col leges, had given a hint of his possible study of the ology, the Major answered with a " Pooh ! pooh ! " which disturbed the son possibly weighed with him more than the longest opposing argument could have DOCTOR JOHNS. 3 done. The manner of the father had conveyed, un wittingly enough, a notion of absurdity as attaching to the lad s engaging in such sacred studies, which overwhelmed him with a sense of his own un worthi ness. The Major, like all sound Democrats, had always been an ardent admirer of Mr. Jefferson and of the French political school. Benjamin had a wholesome horror of both ; not so much from any intimate knowl edge of their theories, as by reason of a strong re ligious instinct, which had been developed under his mother s counsels into a rigid and exacting Puritanism. The first wife of the Major had left behind her the reputation of " a saint." It was not undeserved : her quiet, constant charities, her kindliness of look and manner, which were in themselves the best of charities, a gentle, Christian way she had of dealing with all the vagrant humors of her husband, and the con stancy of her devotion to all duties, whether religious or domestic, gave her better claim to the saintly title than most who wear it. The Major knew this, and was very proud of it. " If," he was accustomed to say, " I am the most godless man in the parish, my wife is the most godly woman." Yet his godlessness was, after all, rather outside than real ; it was a kind of effrontery, provoked into noisy display by the ex travagant bigotries of those about him. He did not 4 DOCTOR JOHNS. believe in monopolies of opinion, but in good average dispersion of all sorts of thinking. On one occasion he had horrified his poor wife by bringing home a full set of Voltaire s Works ; but having reasoned her or fancying he had into a belief in the entire harm- lessness of the offending books, he gratified her im mensely by placing them out of all sight and reach of the boy Benjamin. He never interfered with the severe home course of religious instruction entered upon by the mother. On the contrary, he said, " The boy will need it all as an offset to the bedevilments that will overtake him in our profession." The Major had a very consider able country practice, and had been twice a member of the Legislature. His second wife, a frivolous, indolent person, who had brought him a handsome dowry, and left him the pretty black-eyed Mabel, never held equal position with the first. It was observed, however, with some surprise, that under the sway of the latter he was more punctilious and regular in religious observances than before, a fact which the shrewd ones explained by his old doctrine of adjusting averages. Benjamin, Eliza, and Mabel, each in their way, waited news from the military campaign of the Major with great anxiety ; all the more because he was un derstood to be a severe disciplinarian, and it had been DOCTOR JOHNS. 5 rumored in the parish that two or three of his com pany, of rank Federal opinions, had vowed they would sooner shoot the captain than any foreign enemy of the State. The Major, however, heard no guns in either front or rear up to the time of the British at tack upon the borough of Stonington, in midsummer of 1814. In the defence here he was very active, in connection with a certain artillery force that had come down the river from Norwich ; and although the attack of the British Admiral was a mere feint, yet for a while there was a very lively sprinkling of shot. The people of the little borough were duly frightened, the Kamilies seventy-four gun-ship of his Majesty en joyed an excellent opportunity for long-range practice, and the militia gave an honest airing to their patri otism. The Major was wholly himself. " If the ras cals would only attempt a landing ! " said he ; and as he spoke, a fragment of shell struck his sword-arm at the elbow. The wound was a grievous one, and the surgeon in attendance declared amputation to be necessary. The Major combated the decision for a while, but loss of blood weakened his firmness, and the operation was gone through with very bunglingly. Next morning a country wagon was procured to trans port him home. The drive was an exceeding rough one, and the stump fell to bleeding. Most men would have lain by for a day or two, but the Major insisted 6 DOCTOR JOHNS. upon pushing on for Canterbury, where he arrived late at night, very much exhausted. The country physician declared, on examination next morning, that some readjustment of the amputated limb was necessary, which was submitted to by the Major in a very irritable humor. Friends and enemies of the wounded man were all kind and full of sym pathy. Miss Eliza was in a flutter of dreary appre hension that rendered her incapable of doing anything effectively. Benjamin was as tender and as devoted as a woman. The wound healed in due time, but the Major did not rally. The drain upon his vitality had been too great ; he fell into a general decline, which within a fortnight gave promise of fatal results. The Major met the truth like a veteran ; he arranged his affairs, by the aid of his son, with a great show of method, closed all in due time; and when he felt his breath growing short, called Benjamin, and like a good officer gave his last orders. " Mabel," said he, " is provided for ; it is but just that her mother s property should be settled on her; I have done so. For yourself and Eliza, you will have need of a close economy. I don t think you 11 do much at law ; you once thought of preaching ; if you think so now, preach, Benjamin ; there s something in it ; at least it s better than Fed Federalism." DOCTOR JOHNS. 1 A fit of coughing seized him here, from which he never fairly rallied. Benjamin took his hand when he grew quiet, and prayed silently, while the Major slipped off the roll militant forever. II. nnilE funeral was appointed for the second clay -*- thereafter. The house was set in order for the occasion. Chairs were brought in from the neighbors. o o A little table, with a Bible upon it, was placed in the en trance-way at the foot of the stairs, that all might hear what the clergyman should say. The body lay in the parlor, with the Major s sword and cocked hat upon the coffin ; and the old gentleman s face had never worn an air of so much dignity as it wore now. Death had refined away all trace of his irritable humors, of his passionate, hasty speech. It looked like the face of a good man, so said nine out of ten who gazed on it that day ; yet when the immediate family ca-ne up to take their last glimpse, the two girls being in tears, in that dreary half-hour after all was arranged, and the flocking-in of the neighbors was waited for, Benja min, as calm as the dead face below him, was asking himself if the poor gentleman, his father, had not gone away to a place of torment. lie feared it ; nay, was he not bound to believe it by the whole force of his educa tion ? and his heart, in that hour, made only a feeble DOCTOR JOHNS. 9 revolt against the belief. In the very presence of the ffrim messenger of the Eternal, who had come to seal O O the books and close the account, what right had human affection to make outcry ? Death had wrought the work given him to do, like a good servant ; had not he, too, Benjamin, a duty to fulfill ? the purposes of Eternal Justice to recognize, to sanction, to approve ? In the exaltation of his religious sentiment it seemed to him, for one crazy moment at least, that he would be justified in taking his place at the little table where prayer was to be said, and in setting forth, as one who knew so intimately the shortcomings of the deceased, all those weaknesses of the flesh and spirit by which the Devil had triumphed, and in warning all those who came to his burial of the judgments of God which would surely fall on them as on him, except they re pented and believed. Was he not, indeed, commis sioned, as it were, by the lips of the dead man to " cry aloud and spare not " ? Happily, however, the officiating clergyman was of a more even temper, and he said what little he had to say in way of " improvement of the occasion " to the text of " Judge not, that ye be not judged." " We are too apt," said he, (and he was now addressing a company that crowded the parlors and flowed over into the yard in front, where the men stood with heads uncovered,) " we are too apt to measure a man s posi- 10 DOCTOR JOHNS. tion in the eye of God, and to assign him his rank in the future, by his conformity to the external observ ances of religion, not remembering, in our compla cency, that we see differently from those who look on from beyond the world, and that there are mysterious and secret relations of God with the conscience of every man, which we cannot measure or adjust. Let us hope that our deceased friend profited by such to in sure his entrance into the Eternal City, whose streets are of gold, and the Lamb the light thereof." The listeners said " Amen " to this in their hearts ; but the son, still exalted by the fervor of that new pur pose which he had formed by the father s death-bed, and riveted more surely as he looked last on his face, asked himself, if the old preacher had not allowed a kindly worldly prudence to blunt the sharpness of the Word. " Why not tell these friendly mourners," thought he, " that they may well shed their bitterest tears, for that this old man they mourn over has lived the life of the ungodly, has neglected all the appointed means of escape, has died the death of the unrighteous, and must surely suffer the pains of the second death ? Should not the swift warning be brought home to me and to them ? " Sudden contact with Death had refined all his old religious impressions to an intensity that shaped itself into a flaming sword of retribution. All this, however, DOCTOR JOHNS. 11 as yet, lay within his own mind, not beating down his natural affection, or his grief, but struggling for recon cilement with them ; no outward expression, even to those who clung to him so nearly, revealed it. The memorial-stone which he placed over his father s grave, and which possibly is standing now within the old church-yard of Canterbury, bore only this : HERE LIES THE BODY OF REUBEN JOHNS. A GOOD HUSBAND ; A KIND FATHER; A PATRIOT, WHO DIED FOR HIS COUNTRY, IST SEPT., 1814. And a little below, "Christ died for all." I III. T will be no contravention of the truth of this epi taph, to say that the Major had been always a most miserable manager of his private business affairs ; it is even doubtful if the kindest fathers and best husbands are not apt to be. Certain it is, that, when Benjamin came to examine, in connection with a village attorney, (for the son had inherited the father s inaccessibility to " profit and loss " statements,) such loose accounts as the Major had left, it was found that the poor gentle man had lived up so closely to his income whether as lawyer or military chieftain as to leave his little home property subject to the payment of a good many outstanding debts. There appeared, indeed, a great parade of ledgers and day-books and statements of ac counts ; but it is by no means unusual for those who are careless or ignorant of business system to make a pretty show of the requisite implements, and to confuse them selves in a pleasant way with the intricacy of their own figures. The Major sinned pretty largely in this way ; so that it was plain, that, after the sale of all his available DOCTOR JOHNS. 13 effects, including the library with its inhibited Voltaire, there would remain only enough to secure a respecta ble maintenance for Miss Eliza. To this end, Benja min determined at once that the residue of the estate should be settled upon her, reserving only so much as would comfortably maintain him during a three years course of battling with Theology. The younger sister, Mabel, as has already been intimated, was provided for by an interest in certain distinct and dividend-bearing securities, which to the honor of the Major had never been submitted to the alembic of his figures and " accounts current." She was placed at a school where she accomplished herself for three or four years ; and put the seal to her accom plishments by marrying very suddenly, and without family consultation, under which she usually proved restive, a young fellow, who by aid of her snug for tune succeeded in establishing himself in a thriving business ; and as early as the year 1820, Mabel, under her new name of Mrs. Brindlock, was the mistress of one of those fine merchant-palaces at the lower end of Greenwich Street, in New York city, which com manded a view of the elegant Battery, and were the admiration of all country visitors. Benjamin had needed only his father s hint, (for which he was ever grateful,) and the solemn scenes of his death and burial, to lead him to an entire remmcia- 14 DOCTOR JOHNS. tion of his law-craft and to an engagement in fervid study for the ministry. This he prosecuted at first with a devout old gentleman who had been a pupil of Presi dent Edwards ; and this private reading was finished off by a course at Andover. His studies completed, he was licensed to preach ; and not long after, without any consideration of what the future of this world might have in store for him, he committed the error which so many grave and serious men are prone to commit, that is to say, he married hastily, after only two or three months of solemn courtship, a charming girl of nineteen, whose only idea of meeting the diffi culties of this life was to love her dear Benjamin with her whole heart, and to keep the parlor dusted. But unfortunately there was no parlor to dust. The consequence was that the newly married couple were compelled to establish a temporary home upon the sec ond floor of the comfortable house of Mr. Handby, a well-to-do farmer, and the father of the bride. Here the new clergyman devoted himself resolutely to Tillot- son, to Edwards, to John Newton, and in the intervals prepared some score or more of sermons, to all which Mrs. Johns devoutly listening in their fresh state, without ever a wink, entered upon the conscientious duties of a wife. From time to time some old clergy man of the neighborhood would ask the Major s son to assist him in the Sabbath services ; and at rarer inter- DOCTOR JOHNS. 15 vals the Reverend Mr. Johns was invited to some far away township where the illness or absence of the set tled minister might keep the new licentiate for four or five weeks ; on which occasions the late Miss Handby was most zealous in preparing a world of comforts for the journey, and invariably followed him up with one or two double letters, "hoping her dear Benjamin was careful to wear the muffler which his Rachel had knit for him, and not to expose his precious throat," or " longing for that quiet home of their own, which would not make necessary these cruel separations, and where she should have the uninterrupted society of her dear Benjamin." To all such the conscientious husband dutifully re plied, " thankful for his Rachel s expression of interest in such a sinner as himself, and trusting that she would not forget that health or the comforts of this world were but of comparatively small importance, since this was not our abiding city. He trusted, too, that she would not allow the transitory affections of this life, however dear they might be, to engross her to the neglect of those which were far more important. He permitted himself to hope that Rachel " (he was chary of endearing epi thets) " would not murmur against the dispensations of Providence, and would be content with whatever He might provide ; and hoping that Mr. Handby and fam ily were in their usual health, remained her Christian friend and devoted husband, Benjamin Johns." 16 DOCTOR JOHNS. It so happened, that, after this discursive life had lasted for some ten months, a serious difficulty arose between the clergyman and the parish of the neighbor ing town of Ashfield. The person who served as the spiritual director of the people was suspected of leaning strongly toward some current heresy of the day ; and the suspicion being once set on foot, there was not a sermon the poor man could preach but some quidnunc of the parish snuffed somewhere in it the taint of the false doctrine. The due convocations and committees of inquiry followed sharply after, and the incumbent received his dismissal in due form at the hands of some " brother in the bonds of the Gospel." A few weeks later, Giles Elderkin of Ashfield, " So ciety s Committee," invited, by letter, the Reverend Benjamin Johns to come and " fill their pulpit the fol lowing Lord s day " ; and added, " If you conclude to preach for us, I shall be pleased to have you put up at my house over the Sabbath." " There you are," said Mr. Handby, when the matter was announced in family conclave, "just the man for them. They like sober, solid preaching in Ashfield." " I call it real providential," said Mrs. Handby ; " fust- rate folks, and t a n t a long drive over for Rachel." Little Mrs. Johns looked upon the grave, earnest face of her husband with delight and pride, but said nothing. DOCTOR JOHNS. 17 " I know Squire Elderkin," says Mr. Handby, medi tatively, "a clever man, and a forehanded man, very. It s a rich parish, son-in-law ; they ought to do well by you." " I don t like," says Mr. Johns, " to look at what may become my spiritual duty in that light." " I would n t," returned Mr. Handby : " but when you are as old as I am, son-in-law, you 11 know that we have to keep a kind of side look upon the good things of this world, else we should n t be placed in it." " He heareth the young ravens when they cry," said the minister, gravely. " Just it," says Mr. Handby ; " but I don t want your young ravens to be crying." At which Rachel, with the slightest possible suffusion of color, and a pretty affectation of horror, said, " Now, papa ! " There was an interruption here, and the conclave broke up ; but Rachel, stepping briskly to the place she loved so well, beside the minister, said, softly, " J hope you 11 go, Benjamin ; and do, please, preach that beautiful sermon on Revelations." IV. rilHIRTY or forty years ago there lay scattered about -*- over Southern New England a great many quiet in land towns, numbering from a thousand to two or three thousand inhabitants, which boasted a little old-fash ioned " society" of their own, which had their impor tant men who were heirs to some snug country property, and their gambrel-roofed houses odorous with traditions of old-time visits by some worthies of the Colonial period, or of the Revolution. The good, prim dames, in starched caps and spectacles, who presided over such houses, were proud of their tidy parlors, of their old India china, of their beds of thyme and sage in the garden, of their big Family Bible with brazen clasps, and, most times, of their minister. One Orthodox Congregational Society extended its benignant patronage over all the people of such town ; or, if a stray Episcopalian or Seven-Day Baptist were here and there living under the wing of the parish, they were regarded with a serene and stately gravity, as necessary exceptions to the law of Divine Provi- DOCTOR JOHNS. 19 dence, like scattered instances of red hair or of bow- legs in otherwise well-favored families. There were no wires stretching over the country to shock the nerves of the good gossips with the thought that their neighbors knew more than they. There were no heathenisms of the cities, no tenpins, no traveling circus, no progressive young men of heretical tenden cies. Such towns were as quiet as a sheepfold. Saun tering down their broad central street, along which all the houses were clustered with a somewhat dreary uni formity of aspect, one might of a summer s day hear the nimble of the town mill in some adjoining valley, busy with the town grist ; in autumn, the flip-flap of the flails came pulsing on the ear from half a score of wide- open barns that yawned with plenty ; and in winter, the clang of axes on the near hills smote sharply upon the frosty stillness, and would be straightway followed by the booming crash of some great tree. But civilization and the railways have debauched all such quiet, stately, steady towns. There are none of them left. If the iron cordon of travel, by a little diver gence, has spared their quietude, leaving them stranded upon a beach where the tide of active business never flows, all their dignities are gone. The men of fore sight and enterprise have drifted away to new centers of influence. The bustling dames in starched caps have gone down childless to their graves, or, disgusted 20 DOCTOR JOHNS. with gossip at second hand, have sought more immedi ate contact with the world. A German tailor, may be, has hung out his sign over the door of some moulder ing mansion, where, in other days, a doughty judge of the county court, with a great raft of children, kept his honors and his family warm. A slatternly " carry all," with a driver who reeks of bad spirit, keeps up uneasy communication with the outside world, travers ing twice or three times a day the league of drive which lies between the post-office and the railway-station. A few iron-pated farmers, and a few gentlemen of Irish extraction who keep tavern and stores, divide among themselves the official honors of the town. If, on the other hand, the people maintain their old thrift and importance by actual contact with some great thoroughfare of travel, their old quietude is ex ploded ; a mushroom station has sprung up ; mush room villas flank all the hills ; the girls wear mush room hats. A turreted monster of a chapel from some flamboyant tower bellows out its Sunday warn ing to a new set of church-goers. There is a little coterie of " superior intelligences," who talk of the humanities, and diffuse their airy rationalism over here and there a circle of the progressive town. Even the meeting-house, which was the great congregational center of the town religion, has lost its venerable air, taken off by some new fancy of variegated painting. DOCTOR JOHNS. 21 The high, square pews are turned into low-backed seats, that flame on a summer Sunday with such gor geous millinery as would have shocked the grave people of thirty years ago. The deep bass note which once pealed from the belfry with a solemn and solitary dig nity of sound has now lost it all amid the jangle of a half-dozen bells of lighter and airier twang. Even the parson himself will not be that grave man of stately bearing, who met the rarest fun only benig- nantly, and to whom all the villagers bowed ; but some new creature full of the logic of the schools and the latest conventionalisms of manner. The homespun disciples of other days would be brought grievously to the blush, if some deep note of the old bell should suddenly summon them to the presence of so fine a teacher, encompassed with such pretty appliances of upholstery ; and, counting their chances better in the strait path they knew on uncarpeted floors and between high pews, they would slink back into their graves content, all the more content, perhaps, if they should listen to the service of the new teacher, and, in their common-sense way, reckon what chance the dapper talker might have as compared with the solemn soberness of the old pastor in opening the ponderous doors for them upon the courts above. Into this metamorphosed condition the town of Ash- field has possibly fallen in these latter days ; but in 22 DOCTOR JOHNS. the good year 1819, when the Reverend Benjamin Johns was invited for the first time to fill its pulpit of an early autumn Sunday, it was still in possession of all its palmy quietude and of its ancient cheery importance. And to that old date we will now trans fer ourselves. V. other day the stage-coach comes into Ash- field from the north, on the Hartford turnpike, and rumbles through the main street of the town, seesaw ing upon jts leathern thoroughbraces. Just where the pike forks into the main northern road, and where the scattered farm-houses begin to group more thickly along the way, the country Jehu prepares for a triumphant entry by giving a long, clean cut to the lead-horses, and two or three shortened, sharp blows with his doubled lash to those upon the wheel ; then, moisten ing his lip, he disengages the tin horn from its socket, and, with one more spirited " chirrup " to his team and a putulant flirt of the lines, he gives out, with tremendous explosive efforts, a series of blasts that are heard all down the street. Here and there a blind is coyly opened, and some old dame in ruffled cap peers out, or some stout wench at a backdoor stands gazing with her arms a-kimbo. The horn rattles back into its socket again ; the lines are tightened, and the long lash smacks once more around the reeking flanks of the leaders. Yonder, in his sooty shop, stands the 24 DOCTOR JOHNS. smith, keeping up with his elbow a lazy sway upon his bellows, while he looks admiringly over coach and team, and gives an inquisitive glance at the nigh lead er s foot, that he shod only yesterday. A flock of geese, startled from a mud-puddle through which the coach dashes on, rush away with outstretched necks, and wings at their widest, and a great uproar of gab ble. Two school-girls home for the nooning are idling over a gateway, half swinging, half musing, gazing intently. There is a gambrel-roofed mansion, with a balustrade along its upper pitch, and quaint ogees of ancient joinery over the hall-door ; and through the cleanly scrubbed parlor-windows is to be seen a prim dame, who turns one spectacled glance upon the passing coach, and then resumes her sewing. There are red houses, with their corners and barge- boards dressed off with white, and on the door-step of one a green tub that flames with a great pink hy drangea. Scattered along the way are huge ashes, syca mores, elms, in somewhat devious line ; and from a pendent bough of one of these last a trio of school boys are seeking to beat down the swaying nest of an oriole with a convergent fire of pebbles. The coach flounders on, past an old house with stone chimney, (on which an old date stands coarsely cut,) and with front door divided down its middle, with a huge brazen knocker upon its right half, with two DOCTOR JOHNS. 25 St. Luke s crosses in its lower panels, and two dia mond-shaped "lights" above. Hereabout the street widens into what seems a common ; and not far be low, sitting squarely and authoritatively in the mid dle of the common, is the red-roofed meeting-house, with tall spire, and in its shadow the humble belfry of the town academy. Opposite these there comes into the main street a highway from the east; and upon one of the corners thus formed stands the Eagle Tavern, its sign creaking appetizingly on a branch of an overhanging sycamore, under which the stage coach dashes up to the tavern-door, to unlade its pas sengers for dinner, and to find a fresh relay of horses. Upon the opposite corner is the country store of Abner Tew, Esq., postmaster during the successive administrations of Mr. Madison and Mr. Monroe. He comes out presently from his shop-door, which is divided horizontally, the upper half being open in all ordinary weathers ; and the lower half, as he closes it after him, gives a warning jingle to a little bell with in. A spare, short, hatchet-faced man is Abner Tew, who walks over with a prompt business-step to re ceive a leathern pouch from the stage-driver. He returns with it, a few eager towns-people following upon his steps, reenters his shop, and delivers the pouch within a glazed door in the corner, where the postmistress ex officio, Mrs. Abner Tew, a tall, 26 DOCTOR JOHNS. gaunt woman in black bombazine and spectacles, pro ceeds to assort the Ashfield mail. By reason of this division of duties, the shop is known familiarly as the shop of " the Tew partners." Among the waiting expectants who loiter about among the sugar-barrels of the grocery department, there presently appears with a new tinkle of the little bell a stout, ruddy man, just past middle age, in broad-brimmed white beaver and sober homespun suit, who is met with a deferential " Good day, Squire," from one and another, as he falls successively into short parley with them. A self-possessed, cheery man, who has strong opinions, and does not fear to express them ; Selectman for the last eight years, who has presided in town-meeting time out of mind ; mem ber of the Legislature, and once a Senator for the district. This was Giles Elderkin, Esq., the gentle man who. on behalf of the Ecclesiastical Society, had conducted the correspondence with the Reverend Mr. Johns ; and he was now waiting his reply. This is presently brought to him by the postmistress, who, catching a glimpse of the Squire through the glazed door, has taken the precaution to adjust her cap-strings and dexterously to flirt one or two of the more ap parent creases out of her dingy bombazine. The let ter brings acceptance, which the Squire, having made out by private study near to the dusky window, an- DOCTOR JOHNS. 27 nounces to Mrs. Tew, begging her to inform the people who should happen in from " up the road." " I hope he 11 suit, Squire," says Mrs. Tew. " I hope he may, hope he may, Mrs. Tew ; I hear well of him ; there s good blood in him. I knew his father, the Major, likely man. I hope he may, Mrs. Tew." And the Squire, having penned a little notice, by favor of one of the Tew partners, proceeds to affix it to the meeting-house door ; after which he walks to his own house ; with the assured step of a man who is con scious of having accomplished an important duty. It is the very house we just now saw with the ponderous ogees over its front, the balustrade upon its roof, and the dame in spectacles at the window ; this latter being the spinster, Miss Meacham, elder sister to the wife of the Squire, and taking upon herself, with active zeal and a neatness that knew no bounds, the office of house keeper. This was rendered necessary in a manner by the engagement of Mrs. Elderkin with a group of young flax-haired children, and periodic threats of addition to the same. The hospitalities of the house were fully es tablished, and no state official could visit the town with out hearty invitation to the Squire s table. The spinster received the announcement of the minister s coming with a quiet gravity, and betook herself to the needed preparation. VI. "1% /TR. JOHNS, meanwhile, when he had left the -*-"-- Handby parlor, where we saw him last, and was fairly upon the stair, had replied to the suggestion of his little wife about the sermon on Revelations with a fugitive kiss, and said, " I will think of it, Rachel." And he did think of it, thought of it so well, that he left the beautiful sermon in his drawer, and took with him a couple of strong doctrinal discourses, upon the private hearing of which his charming wife had commented by dropping asleep (poor thing !) in her chair. But the strong men and women of Ashfield relished them better. There was a sermon for the morning on " Regeneration the work only of grace " ; and another for the afternoon, on the outer leaf of which was written, in the parson s bold hand, " The doctrine of Election compatible with the infinite goodness of God." It is hard to say which of the two was the better, or which commended itself most to the church full of people who listened. Deacon Tourtelot, a short, wiry man, with reddish whiskers brushed primly forward, sitting un- DOCTOR JOHNS. 29 der the very droppings of the pulpit, with painful erect- ness, and listening grimly throughout, was inclined to the sermon of the morning. Dame Tourtelot, who over topped her husband by half a head, and from her great scoop hat, trimmed with green, kept her keen eyes fastened intently upon the minister on trial, was enlisted in the same belief, until she heard the Deacon s timid expression of preference, when she pounced upon him, and declared for the Election discourse. It was not her way to allow him to enjoy an opinion of his own getting. Miss Almira, their only child, and now grown into a spare womanhood, that was decorated with another scoop hat akin to the mother s, from under which hung two yellow festoons of ringlets tied with lively blue ribbons, was steadfastly observant ; though wearing a fagged air before the day was over, and consulting on one or two occasions a little phial of " salts," with a side movement of the head, and an in quiring nostril. Squire Elderldn, having thrown himself into a com fortable position in the corner of his square pew, is cheerfully attentive ; and at one or two of the more marked passages of the sermon bestows a nod of ap proval, and a glance at Miss Meacham and Mrs. Elder- kin, to receive their acknowledgment of the same. The young Elderkins (of whom three are of meeting-house size) are variously affected ; Miss Dora, being turned 30 DOCTOR JOHNS. of six, wears an air of some weariness, and having dispatched all the edible matter upon a stalk of cara way, she uses the despoiled brush in keeping the youngest boy, Ned, in a state of uneasy wakefulness. Bob, ranking between the two in point of years, and being mechanically inclined, devotes himself to turning in their sockets the little bobbins which form a balus trade around the top of the pew ; but being diverted from this very suddenly by a sharp squeak that calls the attention of his Aunt Joanna, he assumes the peni tential air of listener for full five minutes ; afterward he relieves himself by constructing a small meeting house out of the psalm-books and Bible, his Aunt Joan na s spectacle-case serving for a steeple. There was an air of subdued reverence in the new clergyman, which was not only agreeable to the people in itself, but seemed to very many thoughtful ones to im ply a certain respect for them and for the parish. The men of that day in Ashfield were intolerant of mere ele gances, or of any jauntiness of manner. But Mr. Johns was so calm and serious, and yet gave so earnest ex pression to the old beliefs they had so long cherished, he was so clearly wedded to all those rigidities by which the good people thought it a merit to cramp their religious thinking, that there was but one opinion of his fitness. Deacon Tourtelot, sidling down the aisle after service, DOCTOR JOHNS. 31 out of hearing of his consort, says to Elderkin, " Smart man, Squire." And the Squire nods acquiescence. " Sound sermon- izer, sound sermonizer, Deacon." These two opinions were as good as a majority-vote in the town of Ashfield, all the more since the Squire was a thorough -going Jeffersonian Democrat, and the Deacon a warm Federalist, so far as the poor man could be warm at any thing, who was on the alert every hour of his life to escape the hammer of his wife s re proaches. So it happened that the parish was called together, and an invitation extended to Brother Johns to continue his ministrations for a month further. Of course the novitiate understood this to be the crucial test ; and he accepted it with a composure, and a lack of impertinent effort to please them overmuch, which altogether charmed them. On four successive Saturdays he drove over to Ashfield, sometimes stopping with one or the other of the two deacons, and at other times with Squire Elderkin, and on one or two occasions taking his wife by special invitation. Of her, too, the people of Ashfield had but one opinion : that she was of a duc tile temper was most easy to be seen ; and there was not a strong-minded woman of the parish but antici pated with delight the power and pleasure of moulding her to her wishes. The husband continued to preach 32 DOCTOR JOHNS. agreeably to their notions of orthodoxy, and at the end of the month they gave him a " call," with the promise of four hundred dollars a year, besides sundry odds and ends made up by donation visits and otherwise. This sum, which was not an inconsiderable one for those days, enabled the clergyman to rent as a parson age the old house we have seen, with the big brazen knocker, and diamond lights in either half of its green door. It stood under the shade of two huge ashes, at a little remove back from the street, and within easy walk from the central common. A heavy dentilated cornice, from which the paint was peeling away in flaky patches, hung over the windows of the second floor. Within the door was a little entry (for years and years the pastor s hat and cane used to lie upon a table that stood just within the door) ; from the entry a cramped stairway, by three sharp angles, led to the floor above. To the right and left were two low parlors. The sun was shining broadly in the south one when the couple first entered the house. " Good ! " said Rachel, with her pleasant, brisk tone, " this shall be your study, Benjamin ; the bookcase here, the table there, a nice warm carpet, we 11 paper it with blue, the Major s sword shall be hung over the mantel." " Tut ! tut ! " says the clergyman ; " a sword, Rachel, in my study ? " DOCTOR JOHNS. 33 " To be sure ! why not ? " says Rachel. " And if you like, I will hang my picture, with the doves and the olive-branch, above it ; and there shall be a shelf for hyacinths in the window." Thus she ran on in her pretty housewifely manner, cooing like the doves she talked of, plotting the ar rangement of the parlor opposite, of the long dining- room stretching athwart the house in the rear, and of O * the kitchen under a roof of its own, still farther back, he all the while giving grave assent, as if he listened to her contrivance : he was only listening to the music of a sweet voice that somehow charmed his ear, and thanking God in his heart that such music was be- O stowed upon a sinful world, and praying that he might never listen too fondly. Behind the house were yard, garden, orchard, and this last drooping away to a meadow. Over all these the pair of light feet pattered beside the master. " Here shall be lilies," she said ; " there, a great bunch of mother s peonies ; and by the gate, hollyhocks " ; he, by this time, plotting a sermon upon the vanities of the world. Yet in due time it came to pass that the parsonage was all arranged according to the fancies of its mistress, even to the Major s sword and the twin doves. Es ther, a stout middle-aged dame, and stanch Congrega tion alist, recommended by the good women of the par- VOL. I. 3 34 DOCTOR JOHNS. ish, is installed in the kitchen as maid-of-all-work. As gardener, groom, (a sedate pony and square-topped chaise forming part of the establishment,) factotum, in short, there is the frowzy-headed man Larkin, who has his quarters in an airy loft above the kitchen. The brass knocker is scoured to its brightest. The parish is neighborly. Dame Tourtelot is impressive in her proffers of advice. The Tew partners, Elderkin, Meacham, and all the rest, meet the new housekeepers open-handed. Before mid-winter, the smoke of this new home was piling lazily into the sky above the tree- tops of Ashfield, a home, as we shall find by and by, "of much trial and much cheer. Twenty years after, and the master of it was master of it still, strong, seemingly, as ever ; the brass knocker shining on the door ; the sword and the doves in place. But the pattering feet, the voice that made music, the tender, wifely plotting, the cheery sunshine that smote upon her as she talked, alas for us ! " All is Vanity ! " VII. TT was not easy in that day to bring together the -"- opinions of a Connecticut parish that had been jostled apart by a parochial quarrel, and where old grievances were festering. Indeed, it is never easy to do this, and unite opinions upon a new-comer, un less he have some rare gift of eloquence, which so dazes the good people that they can no longer re member their petty griefs, or unless he manage with rare tact to pass lightly over the sore points, and to anoint them by a careful hand with such healing salves as he can concoct out of his pastoral charities. Mr. Johns had neither art nor eloquence, as commonly understood ; yet he effected a blending of all interests by the simple, earnest gravity of his character. He ignored all angry disputation ; he ignored its results. He came as a shepherd to a deserted sheepfold ; he came to preach the Bible doctrines in their literalness. He had no reproofs, save for those who refused the offers of God s mercy, no commendation, save for those who sought His grace whose favor is life ever lasting. There were no metaphysical niceties in his 36 DOCTOR JOHNS. discourses, athwart which keen disputants might poise themselves for close and angry conflict ; he recog nized no necessities but the great ones of repentance and faith ; and all the mysteries of the Will he was accustomed to solve by grand utterance of that text which he loved above all others, however much it may have troubled him in his discussion of Election, "Whosoever ivill, let him come and drink of the water of life freely." Inheriting as he did all the religious affinities of his mother, these were compacted and made sensitive by years of silent protest against the proud worldly sufficiency of his father, the Major. Such qualities and experience found repose in the unyielding dog mas of the Westminster divines. At thirty the clergy man was as aged as most men of forty-five, seared by the severity of his opinions, and the unshaken tenacity with which he held them. He was by nature a quiet, almost a timid man ; but over the old white desk and crimson cushion, with the choir of singers in his front and the Bible under his hand, he grew into wonderful boldness. He cherished an exalted idea of the dignity of his office, a dignity which he determined to maintain to the utmost of his power ; but in the pulpit only did the full measure of this exaltation come over him. Thence he looked down serenely upon the flock of which he was the appointed DOCTOR JOHNS. 37 guide, and among whom his duty lay. The shepherd leading his sheep was no figure of speech for him ; he was commissioned to their care, and was conducting them old men and maidens, boys and gray-haired women athwart the dangers of the world, toward the great fold. On one side always the fires of hell were gaping ; and on the other were blazing the great candlesticks around the throne. But when, on some occasion, he had, under the full weight of his office, inveighed against a damning evil, and, as he fondly hoped by the stillness in the old meeting-house, wrought upon sinners effectually, it was disheartening to be met by some hoary member of his flock, whom perhaps he had borne particularly in mind, and to be greeted cheerfully with, " Capital sermon, Mr. Johns ! those are the sort that do the business ! I like those, parson ! " The poor man, hu miliated, would bow his thanks. He lacked the art (if it be an art) to press the matter home, when he met one of his parishioners thus. Indeed, his sense of the importance of his calling and his extreme con scientiousness gave him an air of timidity outside the pulpit, which offered great contrast to that which he wore in the heat of his sermonizing. Not that he for- D got the dignity of his position for a moment, but he wore it too trenchantly ; he could never unbend to the free play of side-talk. Hence he could not look 38 DOCTOR JOHNS. upon the familiar spirit of badinage in which some of his brethren of the profession indulged, without serious doubts of their complete submission to the Heavenly King. Always the weight of his solemn duties pressed sorely on him ; always amid pitfalls he was conducting his little flock toward the glories of the Great Court. There is many a man narrowed and sharpened by metaphysical inquiry to such a de gree as to count the indirection and freedom of kindly chat irksome, and the occasion of a needless blunting of that quick mental edge with which he must scathe all he touches. But the stiffness of Mr. Johns was not that of constant mental strain ; he did not refine upon his dogmas; but he gave them such hearty en tertainment, and so imvrapped his spirit with their ponderous gravity, that he could not disrobe in a mo ment, or uncover to every chance comer. It is quite possible that by reason of this grave taciturnity the clergyman won more surely upon the respect of his people. " He is engrossed," said they, " with greater matters ; and in all secular affairs he recognizes our superior discernment." Thus his in aptitude in current speech was construed by them into a delicate flattery. They greatly relished his didactic, argumentative sermonizing, since theirs was a religion not so much of the sensibilities as of the intellect. They agonized toward the truth, if not by DOCTOR JOHNS. 39 intense thinking, yet by what many good people are apt to mistake for it, immense endurance of the prolix thought of others. If the idea of universal depravity had been ignored, as it sometimes is in these latitudinarian days, or the notion of any available or worthy Christian culture, as distinct from a direct and clearly defined agency, both as to time and force, of the Spirit, had been entertained, he would have lost half of the ele ments by which his arguments gained logical sequence. But, laboring his way from stake to stake of the old dogmas of the Westminster divines, he fastened to them stoutly, and swept round from each as a center a great scathing circle of deductions, that beat wofully upon the heads of unbelievers. And if a preacher attack only unbelievers, he has the world with him, now as then ; it is only he who has the bad taste to meddle with the caprices of believers who gets the raps and the orders of dismissal. Thus it happened that good Mr. Johns came to win the good-will of all the parish of Ashfield, while he challenged their respect by his uniform gravity. It is even possible that a consciousness of a certain stateliness and stiffness of manner became in some measure a source of pride to him, and that he enjoyed, in his subdued way, the disposition of the lads of the town to give him a wide pass, instead of brushing 40 DOCTOR JOHNS. brusquely against him, as if he were some other than the parson. In those days he wrote to his sister Eliza, " We are fairly settled in a pleasant home upon the main street The meeting-house, which you will re member, is near by ; and I have, by the blessing of God, a full attendance every Lord s day. They lis ten to my poor sermons with commendable earnest ness ; and I trust they may prove to them a savor of life unto life. We also find the people of the town neighborly and kind. Squire Elderkin has proved particularly so, and is a very energetic man in all matters relating to the parish. I fear greatly, however, that he still lacks the intimate favor of God, and has not humbled himself to entire submission. Yet he is constant in his observance of nearly all the outward forms of devotion and of worship ; and we hear of his charities in every house we enter. Strange mystery of Providence, that he should not long since have been broken down by grace, and become in all things a devout follower of the Master ! I hope yet to see him brought a humble suppliant into the fold. His wife is a most excellent person, lowly in her faith, and zealous of good works. The same may also be said of their worthy maiden sister, Miss Joanna Mea- cham, who is, of a truth, a matron in Israel. Rachel and myself frequently take tea at their house ; and she DOCTOR JOHNS. 41 is much interested in the little family of Elderkins, who, I am glad to say, enjoy excellent advantages, and such of them as are of proper age are duly taught in the Shorter Westminster Catechism. " Deacon Tourtelot, another of our neighbors, is a devout man ; and Dame Tourtelot (as she is com monly called) is a woman of quite extraordinary zeal and capacity. Their daughter Almira is untiring in attendance, and aids the services by singing treble. Deacon Simmons, who lives at quite a distance from us, is represented to be a man of large means and earnest in the faith. He has a large farm, and also a distillery, both of which are said to be managed with great foresight and prudence. I trust that the re ports which I hear occasionally of his penuriousness are not wholly true, and that in due time his hand will be opened by divine grace to a more effectual showing forth of the deeds of charity. I do not allow myself to entertain any of the scandals which un fortunately belong more or less to every parish, and which so interrupt the growth of that Christian love which is the parent of all virtues ; and I trust that these good people may come in time to see that it is better to live together in harmony than to foment those bickerings which have led so recently to the dismissal of my poor brother in the Gospel. Our home affairs are, I believe, managed prudently, the 42 DOCTOR JOHNS. two servants being most excellent persons, and my little Rachel a very sunbeam in the house." And the little sunbeam writes to Mrs. Ilandby at about the same date, we will say from six to eight months after their entry, " Every thing goes on delightfully, dear mamma. Esther is a good creature, and helps me wonderfully. You would laugh to see me fingering the raw meats at the butcher s cart to choose nice pieces, which I really can do now ; and it is fortunate I can, for the goodman Benjamin knows positively nothing of such things, and I am sure would n t be able to tell mutton from beef. " The little parlor is nicely furnished ; there is an elegant hair sofa, and over the mantel is the portrait of Major Johns ; and then the goodman has insisted upon hanging under the looking-glass my old sampler in crewel, with a gilt frame around it ; on the table is the illustrated Pilgrim s Progress papa gave me, and a volume of Calmet s Dictionary I have taken out of the study, it is full of such beautifid pictures, and Mrs. Hannah More in full gilt. The big Bible you gave us, the goodman says, is too large for easy handling ; so it is kept on a stand in the corner, with the great fly-brush of peacock s feathers hanging over it. I have put charming blue chintz curtains in the spare chamber, and arranged every thing there very DOCTOR JOHNS. 43 nicely ; so that before a certain event, you must be sure to come and take possession. " Last night we took tea again with the Elderkins, and Mrs. Elderkin was as kind to me as ever, and Miss Meacham is an excellent woman, and the little ones are loves of children ; and I wish you could see them. But you will, you know, quite soon. Sometimes I fall to crying, when I think of it all ; and then the goodman comes and puts his hand on my head, and says, Rachel ! Rachel, my dear ! is this your gratitude for all God s mercies ? And then I jump up, and kiss his grave face, and laugh through my tears. He is a dear good man. This is all very foolish, I suppose ; but, mamma, is n t it the way with all women ? " Dame Tourtelot is a great storm of a creature, and she comes down upon us every now and then, and ad vises me about the housekeeping and the table, arid the servants, and Benjamin, giving me a great many good hints, I suppose ; but in such a way, and calling me my child, as makes me feel good for nothing, and as if I were not fit to be mistress. Miss Almira is a quiet thing, and has a piano. She dresses very queerly, and, I have been told, has written poetry for the Hart- fort Courant, over two stars * *. She seems a good creature, though, and comes to see us often. The chaise is a great comfort, and our old horse Dobbins is a good, sober horse. Benjamin often takes me with 44 DOCTOR JOHNS. him in his drives to see the parishioners who live out of town. He tells me about the trees and the flowers, and a thousand matters I never heard of. Indeed, he is a good man, and he knows a world of things." The tender-hearted, kind soul makes her way into the best graces of the people of Ashfield : the older ones charmed with that blithe spirit of hers, and all the younger ones mating easily with her simple, outspoken naturalness. She goes freely everywhere ; she is not stiffened by any ceremony, nor does she carry any stately notions of the dignity of her office, some few there may be who wish that she had a keener sense of thf importance of her position ; she even bursts unan nounced into the little glazed corner of the Tew part ners, where she prattles away with the sedate Mistress Tew in good, kindly fashion, winning that stiff old lady s heart, and moving her to declare to all customers that the parson s wife has no pride about her, and is " a dear little thing, to be sure ! " On summer evenings, Dobbins is to be seen, two or three times in the week, jogging along before the square-topped chaise, upon some highway that leads into the town, with the parson seated within, with slack ened rein, and in thoughtful mood, from which he rouses himself from time to time with a testy twitch and noisy chirrup that urge the poor beast into a faster gait. All the while the little wife sits beside him, as if a twitter- DOCTOR JOHNS. 45 ing sparrow had nestled itself upon the same perch with some grave owl, and sat with him side by side, watching for the big eyes to turn upon her, and chirping some pretty response for every solemn utterance of the wise old bird beside her. VIII. the return from one of these parochial drives, t long after their establishment at Ashfield, it happened that the good parson and his wife were not a little startled at sight of a stranger lounging familiarly at their door. A little roof jutted out over the entrance to the parsonage, without any apparent support, and flanking the door were two plank seats, with their ends toward the street, cut away into the shape of those " set tles " which used to be seen in country taverns, and which here seemed to invite a quiet out-of-door gossip. But the grave manner of the parson had never invited to a very familiar use of this loitering-place, even by the most devoted of the parishioners ; and the appear ance of a stranger of some two-and-thirty years, with something in his manner, as much as in his dress, which told of large familiarity with the world, lounging upon this little porch, had amazed the passers-by, as much as it now did the couple who drove up slowly in the square-topped chaise. " Who can it be, Benjamin ? " says Rachel. " I really can t say," returns the parson. DOCTOR JOHNS. 47 " He seems very much at home, my dear," as in deed he does, with his feet stretched out upon the bench, and eying curiously the approaching vehicle. As it draws near, his observation being apparently satisfactory, he walks briskly down to the gate, and greets the parson with, " My dear Johns, I m delighted to see you ! " At this the parson knew him, and greets him, " Maverick, upon my word ! " and offers his hand. " And this is Mrs. Johns, I suppose," says the stranger, bowing graciously. " Allow me, Madam ; " and he assists her to alight. " Your husband and my self were old college-friends, partners of the same bench, and I ve used no ceremony, you see, in finding him out." Rachel, eying him furtively, and with a little rus tic courtesy, " is glad to see any of her husband s old friends." The parson upon his feet now shakes the stranger s hand heartily again. " I am very glad to see you, Maverick ; but I thought you were out of the country." " So I have been, Johns ; am home only upon a visit, and hearing by accident that you had become a clergy man as I always thought you would and were set tled hereabout, I determined to run down and see you before sailing asrain." 48 DOCTOR JOHNS. " You must stop with me. Rachel, dear, will you have the spare room made ready for Mr. Maverick ? " " My dear Madam, don t give yourself the least trouble ; I am an old traveler, and can make myself quite comfortable at the tavern yonder ; but if it s al together convenient, I shall be delighted to pass the night under the roof of my old friend. I shall be off to-morrow noon," continued he, turning to the parson, " and until then I want you to put off your sermons and make me one of your parishioners." So they all went into the parsonage together. Frank Maverick, as he had said, had shared the same bench with Johns in college ; and between them, un like as they were in character, there had grown up a strong friendship, one of those singular intimacies which bind the gravest men to the most cheery and reckless. Maverick was forever running into scrapes and consulting the cool head of Johns to help him out of them. There was never a tutor s windows to be broken in, or a callithumpian frolic, (which were in vogue in those days,) but Maverick bore a hand in both ; and somehow, by a marvelous address that be longed to him, always managed to escape, or at most to receive only some grave admonition from the aca demic authorities. Johns advised with him, (giving as serious advice then as he could give now,) and added from time to time such assistance in his studies as a DOCTOR JOHNS. 49 plodding man can always lend to one of quick brain, who makes no reckoning of time. Upon a certain occasion Maverick had gone over with Johns to his home, and the Major had taken an immense fancy to the buoyant young fellow, so full of spirits, and so charmingly frank. " If your characters could only be welded together," he used to say to his son, " you would both be the better for it ; he a little of your gravity, and you something of his rollicking care lessness." This bound Johns to his friend more closely than ever. There was, moreover, great honesty and conscientiousness in the lad s composition : he could beat in a tutor s window for the frolic of the thing, and by way of paying off some old grudge for a black mark ; but there was a strong spice of humanity at the bottom even of his frolics. It happened One day, that his friend Ben Johns told him that one of the bats which had done terrible excution on the tutor s windows had also played havoc on his table, breaking a bottle of ink, and delug ing some half-dozen of the tutor s books ; " and do you know," said Johns, " the poor man who has made such a loss is saving up all his pay here for a mother and two or three fatherless children ? " " The Deuce he is ! " said Maverick, and his hand went to his pocket, which was always pretty full. " I say, Johns, don t peach on me, but I think I must have thrown that bat, (which Johns knew to be hardly possi- 50 DOCTOR JOHNS. ble, for he had only come up at the end of the row,) and I want you to get this money to him, to make those books good again. Will you do it, old fellow ? " This was the sort of character to win upon the qniet son of the Major. " If he were only more earnest," he used to say, " if he could give up his trifling, if he would only buckle down to serious study, as some of us do, what great things he might accomplish ! " A common enough fancy among those of riper years, as if all the outlets of a man s nerve-power could be dammed into what shape the possessor would ! Maverick was altogether his old self this night at the parsonage. Eachel listened admiringly, as he told of his travel and of his foreign experiences. He was the son of a merchant of an Eastern seaport who had been long engaged in the Mediterranean trade, with a branch o o o house at Marseilles ; and thither Frank had gone two or three years after leaving college, to fill some subor dinate post, and finally to work his way into a partner ship, which he now held. Of course he had not lived there those seven or eight years last past without his visit to Paris ; and his easy, careless way of describing what he had seen there in Napoleon s day the fetes, the processions, the display was a kind of talk not often heard in a New England village, and which took a strong hold upon the imagination of Rachel. " And to think," says the parson, " that such a peo ple are wholly infidel ! " DOCTOR JOHNS. 51 " Well, well, I don t know," says Maverick ; " I think I have seen a good deal of faith in the Popish churches." " Faith in images ; faith in the Virgin ; faith in mum mery," says Johns, with a sigh. " T is always the scar let woman of Babylon ! " " I know," says Maverick, smiling, " these things are not much to your taste ; but we have our Protestant chapels, too." " Not much better, I fear," says Johns. " They are sadly impregnated with the Genevese Socinianism." This was about the time that the orthodox Louis Empaytaz was suffering the rebuke of the Swiss church authorities for his " Considerations upon the Divinity of Jesus Christ." Aside from this, all the parson s notions of French religion and of French philosophy were of the most aggravated degree of bitterness. That set of Voltaire, which the Major, his father, had once pur chased, had not been without its fruit, not legitimate, indeed, but most decided. The books so cautiously put out of sight like all such had caught the attention of the son ; whereupon his mother had given him so terrible an account of French infidelity, and such a fearful story of Voltaire s dying remorse, current in orthodox circles, as had caught strong hold upon the mind of the boy. All Frenchmen he had learned to look upon as the children of Satan, and their Ian- 52 DOCTOR JOHN S.i guage as the language of hell. With these sentiments very sincerely entertained, he regarded his poor friend as one living at the very door-posts of Pandemonium, and hoped, by God s mercy, to throw around him even now a little of the protecting grace which should keep him from utter destruction. But though this was up permost in his mind, it did not forbid a grateful out flow of his old sympathies and expressions of interest in all that concerned his friend. It seemed to him that his easy refinement of manner, in such contrast with the ceremonious stiffness of the New England cus toms of speech, was but the sliming over of the Ser pent s tongue, preparatory to a dreadful swallowing of soul and body ; and the careless grace of talk, which so charmed the innocent Rachel, appeared to the exact ing Puritan a token of the enslavement of his old friend to sense and the guile of this world. Nine o clock was the time for evening prayers at the parsonage, which under no circumstances were ever omitted ; and as the little clock in the dining-room chimed the hour, Mr. Johns rose to lead the way from his study, where they had passed the evening. " It s our hour for family prayer," says Johns ; " will you come with us ? " " Most certainly," says Maverick, rising. " I should be sorry not to have this little scene of New England life to take back with me ; it will recall home pleas antly." DOCTOR JOHNS. 53 The servants were summoned, and the parson read in his wonted way a chapter, not selected, but desig nated by the old book-mark, which was carried forward from day to day throughout the sacred volume. In his prayer the parson asked specially for Divine Grace to overshadow all those journeying from their homes, to protect them, to keep alive in their hearts the teachings of their youth, to shield them from the in sidious influences of sin and of the world, and to bring them in God s own good time into the fold of the elect. Shortly after prayers Rachel retired for the night. The parson and his old friend talked for an hour or more in the study, but always as men whose thoughts were unlike : Maverick rilled and exuberant with the prospects of this life ; and the parson, by a settled pur pose, which seemed like instinct, making all his obser vations bear upon futurity. " The poor man has grown very narrow," thought Maverick. And yet Johns entered with friendly interest into the schemes of his companion. " So you count upon spending your life there ? " said the parson. " It is quite probable," said Maverick. " I am doing exceedingly well ; the climate, bating some harsh winds in winter, is enjoyable. Why should n t I ? " " It s a question to put to your conscience," says 54 DOCTOR JOHNS. Johns, "not to me. A man can but do his duty, as well there as here perhaps. A little graft of New Englandism may possibly work good. Do you mean to marry in France, Maverick ? " A shade passed over the face of his friend ; but re covering himself, with a little musical laugh, he said, " I really can t say : there are very charming women there, Johns." " I am afraid so," uttered the parson, dryly. " By the way," said Maverick, " you will excuse me, but you will be having a family by and by," at which the parson fairly blushed, " you must let me send over some little gift for your first boy ; it sha n t be one that will harm him, though it comes from our heathen side of the world." " There s a gift you might bestow, Maverick, that I should value beyond price." " Pray what is it ? " " Live such a life, my friend, that I could say to any boy of mine, Follow the example of that man. " " Ah," said Maverick, with his easy, infectious laugh, " that s more than I can promise. To tell the truth, Johns, I don t believe I could by any possibility fall into the prim, stiff ways which make a man commenda ble hereabout. Even if I were religiously disposed, or should ever think of adopting your profession, I fancy I should take to the gown and liturgy, as giving a little DOCTOR JOHNS. 55 freer movement to my taste. You don t like to think of that, I 11 wager." " You might do worse things," said the parson, sadly. " I know I might," said Maverick, thoughtfully ; " I greatly fear I shall. Yet it s not altogether a bad life I m looking forward to, Johns : we 11 say ten or fifteen more years of business on the other side ; marrying sometime in the interval, certainly not until I have a good revenue ; then, possibly, I may come over among you again, establish a pretty home in the neighborhood of one of your towns ; look after a girl and boy or two, who may have come into the family ; get the title of Squire ; give fairly to the missionary societies ; take my place in a good big family-pew ; dabble in politics, perhaps, so that people shall dub me Honorable : is n t that a fair show, Johns ? " There was a thief in the candle, which the parson removed with the snuffers. " As for yourself," continued Maverick, " they 11 give you the title of Doctor after a few years ! " - The par son raised his hand, as if to put away the thought. " I know," continued his friend, " you don t seek worldly honors : but they will drift upon you ; they 11 all love you hereabout, in spite of your seriousness (the parson smiled) ; you 11 have your house full of children ; you 11 be putting a wing here and a wing there ; and when I come back, twenty years hence, if I live, I shall find 56 DOCTOR JOHNS. you comfortably gray, and your pretty wife in spectacles, knitting mittens for the youngest boy, and the oldest at college, and your girls grown into tall village belles ; but, Johns, don t, I beg, be too strict with them ; you can t make a merry young creature the better by insisting upon seriousness ; you can t crowd goodness into a body by pounding upon it. What are you think ing of, Johns ? " The parson was sitting with his eyes bent upon a certain figure in the green and red Scotch carpet. " Thinking, Maverick, that in twenty years time, if alive, we may be less fit for heaven than we are to- day." There was a pitying kindliness in the tone of the minister, as he said this, which touched Maverick. " There s no doubt on your score, Johns, God bless you ! But we must paddle our own boats ; I dare say you 11 come out a long way before me ; you always did, you know. Every man to his path." " There s but one" said Johns, solemnly, " that lead- eth to eternal rest." " Yes, I know," said Maverick, with a gay smile upon his face, which the parson remembered long after, " we are the goats ; but you must have a little pity on us, for all that." With these words they parted for the night Next morning, before the minister was astir, Maver- DOCTOR JOHNS. 57 ick was strolling about the garden and the village street, and at breakfast appeared with a little bunch of violets he had gathered from Rachel s flower-patch, and laid them by her plate. (It was a graceful attention, that not even the clergyman had ever paid to her.) And he further delighted her with a description of some floral fete which he had witnessed at Marseilles, in the year of the Restoration. " They welcomed their old masters, then ? " said the parson. " Perhaps so ; one can never say. The French ex press their joy with flowers, and they bury their grief with flowers. I like them for it ; I think there s a ripe philosophy in it." " A heathen philosophy," said the minister. At noon Maverick left upon the old swaying stage coach, looking out, as he passed, upon the parsonage, with its quaintly panelled door, and its diamond lights, of which he long kept the image in his mind. That brazen knocker he seemed to hear in later years, beat ing, beating as if his brain lay under it. " I think Mr. Frank Maverick is a most charming man," said the pretty Mrs. Johns to her husband. " He is, Rachel, and generous and open-hearted, and yet, in the sight of Heaven, I fear, a miserable sin ner." " But, Benjamin, my dear, we are all sinners." All, all, Rachel, God help us ! " IX. TN December of the year 1820 came about a certain -* event of which hint has been already given by the party chiefly concerned ; and Mrs. Johns presented her husband with a fine boy, who was in due time chris tened Reuben. Mrs. Handby was present at this eventful period, oc cupying the guest-chamber, and delighting in all the little adornments that had been prepared by the loving hands of her daughter ; and upon the following Sab bath, Mr. Johns, for the first time since his entrance upon the pastoral duties of Ashfield, ventured to repeat an old sermon. Dame Tourtelot had been present on the momentous occasion, with such a tempest of sug gestions in regard to the wrappings and feeding of the new-comer, that the poor mother had quietly begged the good clergyman to decoy her, on her next visit, into his study. This he did, and succeeded in fastening her with a discussion upon the import of the word baptize, in which he was in a fair way of being carried by storm, if he had not retreated under cover of his Greek Lexicon. DOCTOR JOHNS. 59 Mrs. Elderkin had been zealous in neighborly offices, and had brought, in addition to a great basket of needed appliances, a silver porringer, which, with wonderful foresight, had been ordered from a Hartford jeweller in advance. The out-of-door man, Larkin, took a well- meaning pride in this accession to the family, walk ing up and down the street with a broad grin upon his face. He also became the bearer, in behalf of the Tew partners, of a certain artful contrivance of tin ware for the speedy stewing of pap, which, considering that the donors were childless people, was esteemed a very great mark of respect for the minister. Would it be strange, if the father felt a new ambition stirring in him, as he listened from his study to that cry of a child in the house ? He does feel it, and struggles against it. Are not all his flock his spiritual children ? and is he not appointed of Heaven to lead them toward the rest which is promised ? Should that babe be more to him than a hundred others who are struggling through life s snares wearily ? It may touch him, indeed, cruelly to think it; but is not the soul of the most worthless person of his parish as large in the eye of the Master as this of his first-born ? Shall these human ties supplant the spiritual ones by which we are all coheirs of eternal death or of eternal life ? And in this way the minister schools himself against too demonstrative a joy or love, and prays God silently that His gift may not be a temptation. 60 DOCTOR JOHNS. For all this, however, there is many a walk which would have been taken of old under the orchard trees now transferred to the chamber, where he paces back and forth with the babe in his arms, soothing its outcry, as he thinks out his discourse for the following Sab bath. In due time Mrs. Handby returns to her home. The little child pushes through its first month of venture some encounter with the rough world it has entered upon bravely; and the household is restored to its uni form placidity. The affairs of the parish follow their accustomed course. From time to time there are meet ings of the " Consociation," or other ministerial assem blages, in the town, when the parsonage is overflow- ing, and Rachel, with a simple grace, is compelled to do the honors to a corps of the Congregational brother hood. As for the parson, he was like a child in all household matters. Over and over he would invite his brethren flocking in from the neighboring villages to pass the night with him, when Rachel would decoy him into a corner, and declare, with a most pitiable look of distress, that not a bed was unoccupied in the house. Whereupon the gooclman would quietly take his hat, and trudge away to Squire Elderkin s, or, on rarer oc casions to Deacon Tourtelot s, and ask the favor of lodging with them one of his clerical brethren. At other times, before some such occasion of clerical DOCTOR JOHNS. 61 entertainment, the little housewife, supported by Esther with broom and a great array of mops, would wait upon the parson in his study and order him away to his walk in the orchard, an order which the poor man never ventured to resist ; but, taking perhaps a pocket volume of Doddridge, or of Cowper, the only poet he habitu ally read, he would sally out with hat and cane, this latter a gift of an admiring parishioner, which it pleased Rachel he should use, and which she always brought to him at such times, with a winning, mischiev ous look of half-entreaty and half-command that it was not in his heart to resist, and which on rare occasions (that were subject of self-accusation afterward) pro voked him to an answering kiss. At which Rachel : " Now go and leave us, please ; there s a good man ! And mind," (shaking her forefinger at him,) "dinner at half past twelve : Larkin will blow the shell." The parson, as he paced back and forth under the apple-trees, out of sight, and feeling the need of more vigorous exercise than his usual meditative gait af forded, would on occasions brandish his cane and as sume a military air and stride, (he remembered the Major s only too well,) getting in a glow with the un usual movement, and in the heat of it thanking God for all the blessings that had befallen him : a pleasant home ; a loving wife ; a little boy to bear the name, in which, with all his spiritual tendencies, he yet took a 62 DOCTOR JOHNS. very human pride ; health, and he whisked his cane as vigorously as ever the Major had done his cumbrous sword, the world s comforts ; a congregation that met him kindly, that listened kindly. Was he not leading them in the path of salvation, and rejoicing in the lead ership ? And then, to himself, "Be careful, careful, Benja min Johns, that you take not too great a pride in this work and home of yours. You are but an instrument in greater hands ; He doeth with you what seemeth Him best. Let not the enticements of the world be too near your thought." In this way it was that the minis ter pruned clown all the shoots of his natural affections, lest they might prove a decoy to him, and wrapped him self ever more closely in the rigors of his chosen the ology. As the boy Reuben grows, and gains a firmer footing, he sometimes totters beside the clergyman in these or chard walks, clinging blindly to his hand, and lifting his uncertain feet with great effort over the interrupting tufts of grass, unheeded by the minister, who is ponder ing some late editorial of the " Boston Recorder." But far oftener the boy is with the mother, burying his face in that dear lap of hers, lifting the wet face to have tears kissed away and forgotten. And as he thrives and takes the strength of three or four years, he walks beside her under the trees of the village street, clad in such DOCTOR JOHNS. 63 humble finery as the Handby grandparents may have bestowed ; and he happens oftenest, on these strolls with Rachel, into the hospitable home of the Elderkins, where there are little ones to romp with the boy. Most noticeable of all, just now, one Philip Elderkin, (of whom more will have to be said as this story pro gresses,) only a year the senior of Reuben, but of far stouter frame, who looks admiringly on the minister s child, and as he grows warm in play frights him with some show of threat, which makes the little Reuben run for cover to the arms of Rachel. Whereat the mother kisses him into boldness, and tells him that Phil is a good boy and means no harm to him. Often, too, in the square-topped chaise, the child is seated on a little stool between the parson and his wife, as they drive away upon their visits to the outskirts of the parish, puzzling them with those strange questions which come from a boy just exploring his way into the world of talk. " Benjamin," says Rachel, as they were nearing home upon one of these drives, " Reuben is quite a large boy now, you know ; have you ever written to your friend, Mr. Maverick ? You remember he promised a gift for him." "Never," said the minister, whose goodness rarely took the shape of letter- writing, least of all where the task would seem to remind of a promised favor. 64 DOCTOR JOHNS. " You ve not forgotten it ? You ve not forgotten Mr. Maverick? " " Not forgotten, Rachel, not forgotten to pray for him." " I would write, Benjamin ; it might be something that would be of service to Reuben. Please don t for get it, Benjamin." And the minister promised. X. TN the autumn of 1824, the minister of Ashfield being still in good favor with nearly all his parish ioners, and his wife Rachel being still greatly beloved, a rumor ran through the town, one day, that there was serious illness at the parsonage, the Doctor s horse and saddle-bags being observed in waiting at the front gate for two hours together. Following close upon this, the Tew partners reported having received un doubted information from Larkin, who still kept in his old service that a daughter was born to the minister, but so feeble that there were grave doubts if the young Rachel could survive. The report was well founded ; and after three or four days of desperate struggle with life, the poor child dropped away. Thus death came into the parsonage with so faint and shadowy a tread, it hardly startled one. The babe had been christened in the midst of its short struggle, and in this the father found such comfort as he could ; yet reckoning the poor, fluttering little soul as a sinner in Adam, through whom all men fell, he confided it with a great sigh to God. It would have been well, if his grief had rested there. VOL. I. 5 66 DOCTOR JOHNS. But two days thereafter there was a rumor on the village street, flying like the wind, as such rumors do, from house to house, " The minister s wife is dead ! " "I want to know!" said Mrs. Tew, lifting herself from her task of assorting the mail, and removing her spectacles in nervous haste. " Do tell ! It a n t possi ble ! Miss Johns dead ? " " Yes," says Larkin, " as true as I live, she s dead ; " and his voice broke as he said it, the kind little woman had so won upon him. Squire Elderkin, like a good Christian, came hurrying to the parsonage to know what this strange report could mean. The study was unoccupied. With the famil iarity of an old friend he made his way up the cramped stairs. The chamber-door was flung wide open : there was no reason why the whole parish might not come in. The nurse, sobbing in a corner, was swaying back and forth, her hands folded across her lap. Reuben, cling ing to the coverlet, was feeling his way along the bed, if by chance his mother s hand might catch hold upon his ; and the minister standing with a chair before him, his eyes turned to heaven (the same calm attitude which he took at his evening prayer-meeting), was entreating God to " be over his house, to strengthen him, to pour down his Spirit on him, to bind up the bruised hearts, to spare, spare " DOCTOR JOHNS. 67 Even the stout Squire Elderkin withdraws outside the door, that he may the better conceal his emotion. The death happened on a Friday. The Squire, after a few faltering expressions of sympathy, asked regard ing the burial. " Should it not be on Sunday ? " Not on Sunday," said Mr. Johns ; " God help rne, Squire, but this is not a work of necessity or mercy. Let it be on Monday." " On Monday, then," said Elderkin, " and let me take the arrangement of it all off your thought ; and we will provide some one to preach for you on the Sabbath." " No, Mr. Elderkin, no ; I am always myself in the pulpit. I shall find courage there." And he did. A stranger would not have suspected that the preacher s wife lay dead at home ; the same unction and earnestness that had always characterized him ; the same unyielding rigidity of doctrine : " Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish" Once only it was in the reading of the last hymn in the afternoon service his voice broke, and he sat down half through. But as the song rose under the old roof of the meeting-house, his courage rose with it. He seemed ashamed of the transitory weakness. What right had he to bring private griefs to such a place ? What right had the leader to faint, when the army were pressing forward to the triumph God had 68 DOCTOR JOHNS. promised to the faithful ? So it was in a kind of ecstasy that he rose, and joined with a firm, loud voice in the final doxology. One or two of the good old ladies, with a sad mis conception of the force that was in him, and of the divine aid which seemed vouchsafed to him during the service, came to him, as he passed out, to give him greeting and a word of condolence. For that time only he passed them by, as if they had been wooden images. His spirit had been strained to its uttermost, and would bear no more. He made his way home with an ungainly, swift gait, home to the dear bedside, down upon his knees, struggling with his weakness, praying. At the tea-hour Esther knocked ; but in vain. An hour after, his boy came, came at the old woman s suggestion, (who had now the care of him,) and knelt by his side. " Reuben, my boy ! " " She s in heaven, is n t she, father ? " u God only knows, my son. He hath mercy on whom He will have mercy." Small as he was, the boy flushed at this : " I think it s a bad God, if she is n t in heaven." " Nay, Reuben, little one, blaspheme not : His ways are not as our ways. Kiss her now, and we will sit down to our supper." DOCTOR JOHNS, 69 And so they passed out together to their lonely repast. It had been a cheerful meal in days gone, this Sunday s supper. For the dinner, owing to the scruples of the parson, was but a cold lunch always ; and in the excited state in which the preacher found himself between services, there was little of speech ; even Reuben s prattle, if he ventured upon it, caught a quick " Hist ! " from the mamma. But with the return of Esther from the afternoon Bible-class, there was a big fire lighted in the kitchen, and some warm dishes served, such as diffused an appetizing odor through the house. The clergyman, too, wore an air of relief, having preached his two sermons, and show ing a capital appetite, like most men who have ac quitted themselves of a fatiguing duty. Besides which, the parson guarded that old New England custom of beginning his Sabbath at sundown on Saturday, so that, by the time the supper of Sunday was fairly over, Reuben could be counting it no sin, if he should steal a run into the orchard. Nay, it is quite proba ble that the poor little woman who was dead had al ways welcomed cheerily the opened door of Sunday evening, and the relaxing gravity, as night fell, of her husband s starched look. What wonder, if she had loved, even as much as the congregational singing, the music of the birds at the dusk of a summer s day ? It was hard measure 70 DOCTOR JOHNS. which many of the old divines meted out, in exclud ing from their ideas of worship all alliance with the charms of Nature, or indeed with any beauties save those which were purely spiritual. It is certain that the poor woman had enjoyed immensely those Sab bath-evening strolls through the garden and orchard, hand in hand with Reuben and the minister, with such keen and exhilarating sense of God s goodness, of trust in Him, of hope, as was not invariably wak ened by the sermons of her Benjamin. On the evening of which we speak, the father and son walked down the orchard alone. The birds sang their merriest as day closed in ; and as they turned upon their walk, and the good man saw through the vista of garden and orchard a bright light flitting across an upper window of his house, the mad hope flashed upon him for an instant (such baseless fancies will sometimes possess the calmest minds) that she had waked, his Rachel, and was there to meet him. The next moment the light and the hope were gone. His fingers gave such a convulsive grip iipon the hand of his little boy that Reuben cried out with pain, " Papa, papa, you hurt me ! " The parson bent down and kissed him. XL Tf^HERE were scores of people in Ashfield who -*- would have been delighted to speak consolation to the bereaved clergyman ; but he was not a man to be approached easily with the ordinary phrases of sympathy. He bore himself too sternly under his grief. What, indeed, can be said in the face of afflic tion, where the manner of the sufferer seems to say, " God has done it, and God does all things well " ? Ordinary human sympathy falls below such a stand point, and is wasted in the utterance. Yet there are those who delight in breaking in upon the serene dignity which this condition of mind im plies with a noisy proffer of consolation, and an aggra vating rehearsal of the occasion for it ; as if such com forters entertained a certain jealousy of the serenity they do not comprehend, and were determined to test its sufficiency. Dame Tourtelot was eminently such a person. " It s a dreadful blow to ye, Mr. Johns," said she ; " I know it is. Almiry is a most as much took down by it as you are. She was such a lovely woman, 72 DOCTOR JOHNS. she says ; and the poor, dear little boy, won t you let him come and pass a day or two with us ? Almiry is very fond of children." "Later, later, my good woman," said the parson. " I can t spare the boy now ; the house is too empty." " O Mr. Johns, the poor lonely thing ! " (And she says this, with her hands in black mits, clasped together.) "It s a bitter blow! As I was a-sayin to the Deacon, Such a lovely young woman, and such a good comfortable home, and she, poor thing, enjoyin it so much ! I do hope you 11 bear up under it, Mr. Johns." " By God s help, I will, my good woman." Dame Tourtelot was disappointed to find the par son wincing so little as he did under her stimulative sympathy. On returning home, she opened her views to the Deacon in this style : " Tourtelot, the parson is not so much broke down by this as we ve been thinkin ; he was as cool, when I spoke to him to-day, as any man I ever see in my life. The truth is, she was a flighty young person, noways equal to the parson. I ve been a-suspectin it, this long while ; she never, in my opinion, took a real hard hold upon him. But, Tourtelot, you should go and see Mr. Johns ; and I hope you 11 talk con solingly and Scripterally to him. It s your duty." And hereupon she shifted the needles in her knit- DOCTOR JOHNS, 73 ting, and, smoothing down the big blue stocking-leg over her knee, cast a glance at the Deacon which sig nified command. The dame was thoroughly mistress in her own household, as well as in the households of not a few of her neighbors. Long before, the meek, mild-mannered little man who was her hus band had by her active and resolute negotiation been made a deacon of the parish, for which office he was not indeed ill fitted, being religiously disposed, strict in his observance of all duties, and well-grounded in the Larger Catechism. He had, moreover, certain secular endowments which were even more marked, among them, a wonderful instinct at a bargain, which had been polished by Dame Tourtelot s su perior address to a wonderful degree of sharpness ; and by reason of this the less respectful of the towns people were accustomed to say, " The Deacon is very small at home, but great in a trade." Not that the Deacon could by any means be called an avaricious or miserly man : he had always his old Spanish milled quarter ready for the contribution-box upon Collec tion-Sundays ; and no man in the parish brought a heavier turkey to the parson s larder on donation- days ; but he could no more resist the sharpening of a bargain than he could resist a command of his wife. He talked of a good trade to the old heads up and down the village street as a lad talks of a new toy. 74 DOCTOR JOHNS. " Squire," he would say, addressing a neighbor on the Common, " what do you s pose I paid for that brindle ye rlin o mine ? Give us a guess." " Waal, Deacon, I guess you paid about ten dollars." " Only eight ! " the Deacon would say, with a smile that was fairly luminous, " and a pootty likely crit ter I call it for eight dollars." " Five hogs this year," (in this way the Deacon was used to soliloquize,) "I hope to make em three hundred apiece. The price works up about Christ mas ; Deacon Simmons has sold his n at five, dis tillery-pork ; that s sleezy, wastes in bilin ; folks know it : mine, bein corn-fed, ought to bring half a cent more, and say, for Christmas, six ; that 11 give a gain of a cent, on five hogs, at three hundred apiece, will be fifteen dollars. That 11 pay half my pew-rent, and leave somethin over for Ahniry, who s always wantin fresh ribbons about New- Year s." The Deacon cherished a strong dread of formal visits to the parsonage ; first, because it involved his Sunday toilet, in which he was never easy, except at conference or in his pew at the meeting-house ; and next, because he counted it necessary on such oc casions to give a Scriptural garnish to his talk, in which attempt he almost always, under the authorita tive look of the parson, blundered into difficulty. Yet Tourtelot, in obedience to his wife s suggestion, and DOCTOR JOHNS. 75 primed with a text from Matthew, undertook the visit of condolence, and, being a really kind-hearted man, bore himself well in it. Over and over the good par son shook his hand in thanks. " It 11 all be right," says the Deacon. " Blessed are the mourners, is the Scripteral language, for they shall inherit the earth. " " No, not that, Deacon," says the minister, to whom a misquotation was like a wound in the flesh ; " the last thing I want is to inherit the earth. They shall be comforted, that s the promise, Deacon, and I count on it." It was mortifying to his visitor to be caught nap ping on so familiar a text ; the parson saw it, and spoke consolingly. But if not strong in texts, the Dea con knew what his strong points were ; so, before leav ing, he invites a little off-hand discussion of more familiar topics. " Pootty tight spell o weather we ve been havin , Parson." " Rather cool, certainly," says the unsuspecting clergyman. " Got all your winter s stock o wood in yit ? " " No, I have n t," says the parson. " Waiil, Mr. Johns, I ve got a lot of pastur -hickory cut and corded, that s well seared over now, and if you d like some of it, I can let you have it very reasonable indeed." 76 DOCTOR JOHNS. The sympathy of the Elderkins, if less formal, was none the less hearty. The Squire had been largely instrumental in securing the settlement of Mr. Johns, and had been a political friend of his father s. In early life he had been engaged in the West India trade from the neighboring port of Middletown ; and on one or two occasions he had himself made the voyage to Porto Rico, taking out a cargo of horses, and bringing back sugar, molasses, and rum. But it was remarked approvingly in the bar-room of the Eagle Tavern that this foreign travel had not made the Squire proud, nor yet the moderate fortune which he had secured by the business, in which he was still understood to bear an interest. His pater nal home in Ashfield he had fitted up some years before with balustrade and other architectural adorn ments, which, it was averred by the learned in those matters, were copied from certain palatial residences in the "West Indies. The Squire united eminently in himself all those qualities which a Connecticut observer of those times expressed by the words, " right down smart man." Not a turnpike enterprise could be started in that quarter of the State, but the Squire was enlisted, and as share holder or director contributed to its execution. A clear-headed, kindly, energetic man, never idle, prone rather to do needless things than to do nothing ; an ar- DOCTOR JOHNS. 77 dent disciple of the Jeffersonian school, and in this com bating- many of those who relied most upon his sagacity in matters of business ; a man, in short, about whom it was always asked, in regard to any question of town or State policy, " What does the Squire think ? " or " How does the Squire mean to vote ? " And the Squire s opinion was sure to be a round, hearty one, which he came by honestly, and about which one who thought differently might safely rally his columns of attack. The opinion of Giles Elderkin was not inquired into for the sake of a tame following-after, that was not the Connecticut mode, but for the sake of discussing and toying with it : very much as a sly old grimalkin toys with a mouse, now seeming to entertain it kindly, then giving it a run, then leaping after it, crunching a limb of it, bearing it off into some private corner, giv ing it a new escape, swallowing it perhaps at last, and appropriating it by long process of digestion. And even then, the shrewd Connecticut man, if accused of modulating his own opinions after those of the Squire, would say, " No, I allers thought so." Such a man as Giles Elderkin is of course ready with a hearty, outspoken word of cheer for his minister. Nay, the very religion of the Squire, which the parson had looked upon as somewhat discursive and human, giving too large a place to good works, was decisive and to the point in the present emergency. 78 DOCTOR JOHNS. " It s God s doing," said he ; " we must take the cup He gives us. For the best, is n t it, Parson ? " " I do, Squire. Thank God, I can." There was good Mrs. Elderkin who made up by her devotion to the special tenets of the clergyman many of the shortcomings of the Squire insisted upon sending for the poor boy Reuben, that he might forget his grief in her kindness, and in frolic with the Elderkins through that famous garden, with its huge hedges of box, such a garden as was certainly not to be matched elsewhere in Ashfield. The same good woman, too, sends down a wagon-load of substantial things from her larder, for the present relief of the stricken household ; to which the Squire has added a little round jug of choice Santa Cruz rum, remember ing the long watches of the parson. This may shock us now ; and yet it is to be feared that in our day the sin of hypocrisy is to be added to the sin of indulgence : the old people nestled under no cover of liver specifics or bitters. Reform has made a grand march indeed ; but the Devil, with his square bottles and Scheidam schnapps, has kept a pretty even pace with it. XII. E boy Reuben, in those first weeks after his loss, wandered about as if in a maze, wondering at the great blank that death had made ; or, warming himself at some out-door sport, he rushed in with a pleasant forgetfulness, shouting, up the stairs, to the ac customed door, and bursts in upon the cold chamber, so long closed, where the bitter knowledge comes upon him fresh once more. Esther, good soul that she is has heard his clatter upon the floor, his bound at the old latch, and, fancying what it may mean, has come up in time to soothe him and bear him off with her. The parson, forging some sermon for the next Sabbath, in the room at the foot of the stairs, hears, may be, the stifled sobbing of the boy, as the good Esther half leads and half drags him down, and opens his door upon them. " What now, Esther ? Has Reuben caught a fall ? " " No, sir, no fall ; he s not harmed, sir. It s only the old room, you know, sir, and he quite forgot him self." " Poor boy ! Will he come with me, Esther ? " 80 DOCTOR JOHNS. " No, Mr. Johns. I 11 find something 11 amuse him ; hey, Ruby?" And the parson goes back to his desk, where he for gets himself in the glow of that great work of his. He has been taught, as never before, that " all flesh is grass." He accepts his loss as a punishment for having thought too much and fondly of the blessings of this life ; henceforth the flesh and its affections shall be mortified in him. He has transferred his bed to a little chamber which opens from his study in the rear, and which is at the end of the long dining-room, where every morning and evening the prayers are said, as before. The parishioners see a light burning in the window of his study far into the night. For a time his sermons are more emotional than be fore. Oftener than in the earlier days of his settlement he indulges in a forecast of those courts toward which he would conduct his people, and which a merciful God has provided for those who trust in Him ; and there is a coloring in these pictures which his sermons never showed in the years gone. " We ask ourselves," said he, " my brethren, if we shall knowingly meet there where we trust His grace may give us entrance those from whom you and I have parted ; whether a fond and joyous welcome shall greet us, not alone from Him whom to love is life, but from those dear ones who seem to our poor senses to be DOCTOR JOHNS. 81 resting under the sod yonder. Sometimes I believe that by God s great goodness," (and here he looked, not at his people, but above, and kept his eye fixed there) "I believe that we shall ; that His great love shall so delight in making complete our happiness, even by such little memorials of our earthly affections (which must seem like waifs of thistle-down beside the great harvest of His abounding grace) ; that all the dear faces of those written in the Golden Book shall beam a welcome, all the more bounteous because reflecting His joy who has died to save." And the listeners whispered each other as he paused, " He thinks of Rachel." With his eyes still fixed above, he goes on, " Sometimes I think thus ; but oflener I ask myself, Of what value shall human ties be, or their memories, in His august presence whom to look upon is life ? What room shall there be for other affections, what room for other memories, than those of " the Lamb that was slain " ? " Nay, my brethren," (and here he turns his eyes upon them again,) " we do know in our hearts that many whom we have loved fondly infants, fathers, mothers, wives, may be shall never, never sit with the elect in Paradise ; and shall we remember these in heaven, going away to dwell with the Devil and his angels ? Shall we be tortured with the knowledge that 82 DOCTOR JOHNS. some poor babe we looked upon only for an hour is wearing out ages of suffering ? No, you may say, for we shall be possessed in that day of such sense of the ineffable justice of God, and of His judgments, that all shall seem right. Yet, my brethren, if this sense of His supreme justice shall overrule all the old longings of our hearts, even to the suppression of the dearest ties of earth, where they conflict with His ordained pur pose, will they not also overrule all the longings in re spect of friends who are among the elect, in such sort that the man we counted our enemy, the man we avoided on earth, if so be he have an inheritance in heaven, shall be met with the same yearning of the heart as if he were our brother ? Does this sound harshly, my brethren ? Ah, let us beware, let us beware how we entertain any opinions of that future condition of holiness and of joy promised to the elect, which are dependent upon these gross attachments of earth, which are colored by our short-sighted views, which are not in every iota accordant with the universal love of Him who is our Master ! " " This man lives above the world," said the people ; and if some of them did not give very cordial assent to these latter views, they smothered their dissent by a lofty expression of admiration ; they felt it a duty to give them open acceptance, to venerate the speaker the more by reason of their utterance. And yet their lim- DOCTOR JOHNS. 83 ited acceptance diffused a certain chill, very likely, over their religious meditations. But it was a chill which unfortunately they counted it good to entertain, a rigor of faith that must needs be borne. It is doubtful, indeed, if they did not make a merit of their placid in tellectual admission of such beliefs as most violated the natural sensibilities of the heart. They were so sure that affectionate instincts were by nature wrong in their tendencies, so eager to cumulate evidences of the origi nal depravity, that, when their parson propounded a theory that gave a shock to their natural affections, they submitted with a kind of heroic pride, however much their hearts might make silent protest, and the grounds of such a protest they felt a cringing unwillingness to investigate. There was a determined shackling of all the passional nature. What wonder that religion took a harsh aspect ? As if mere intellectual adhesion to the ological formulas were to pave our way to a knowledge of the Infinite ! as if our sensibilities were to be out raged in the march to heaven ! as if all the emo tional nature were to be clipped away by the shears of the doctors, leaving only the metaphysic ghost of a soul to enter upon the joys of Paradise ! Within eight months after his loss, Mr. Johns thought of Rachel only as a gift that God had bestowed to try him, and had taken away to work in him a humiliation of the heart. More severely than ever he wrestled 84 DOCTOR JOHNS. with the dogmas of his chosen divines, harnessed them to his purposes as preacher, and wrought on with a zeal that knew no abatement and no rest. In the spring of 1825 Mr. Johns was invited by Gov ernor Wolcott to preach the Election Sermon before the Legislature convened at Hartford: an honorable duty, and one which he was abundantly competent to fulfill. The " Hartford Courant " of that date said, " A large auditory was collected last week to listen to the Election Sermon by Mr. Johns, minister of Ash- field. It was a sound, orthodox, and interesting dis course, and won the undivided attention of all the list eners. "We have not recently listened to a sermon more able or eloquent." In that day even country editors were church-goers and God-fearing men. XIII. TN the latter part of the summer of 1826, a reas- - enable time having now elapsed since the death of poor Rachel, the gossips of Ashfield began to discuss the lonely condition of their pastor, in connection with any desirable or feasible amendment of it. The sin of such gossip if it be a sin is one that all the preaching in the world will never extirpate from coun try towns, where the range of talk is by the necessity of the case exceedingly limited. In the city, curiosity has an omnivorous maw by reason of position, and finds such variety to feed upon that it is rarely except in the case of great political or public scandal personal in its attentions ; and what we too freely reckon a per verted and impertinent country taste is but an ordinary appetite of humanity, which, by the limitation of its feeding-ground, seems to attach itself perversely to pri vate relations. There were some invidious persons in the town who had remarked that Miss Almira Tourtelet had brought quite a new fervor to her devotional exercises in the parish within the last year, as well as a new set of rib- 86 DOCTOR JOHNS. bons to her hat ; and two maiden ladies opposite, of distinguished pretensions and long experience of life, had observed that the young Reuben, on his passage back and forth from the Elderkins, had sometimes been decoyed within the Tourtelot yard, and presented by the admiring Dame Tourtelot with fresh doughnuts. The elderly maiden ladies were perhaps uncharitable in their conclusions ; yet it is altogether probable that the Deacon and his wife may have considered, in the inti macy of their fireside talk, the possibility of some time claiming the minister as a son-in-law. Questions like this are discussed in a great many families even now. Dame Tourtelot had crowned with success all her schemes in life, save one. Almira, her daughter, now verging upon her thirty-second year, had long been upon the anxious-seat as regarded matrimony ; and with a sentimental turn that incited much reading of Cowper and Montgomery and (if it must be told) " Thaddeus of Warsaw," the poor girl united a sickly, in-door look, and a peaked countenance, which had not attracted wooers. The wonderful executive capacity of the mother had unfortunately debarred her from any active interest in the household ; and though the Tour- telots had actually been at the expense of providing a piano for Almira, (the only one in Ashfield,) upon which the poor girl thrummed, thinking of " Thaddeus," and, we trust, of better things, this had not won a DOCTOR JOHNS. 87 roseate hue to her face, or quickened in any percepti ble degree the alacrity of her admirers. Upon a certain night of later October, after Almira has retired, and when the Tourtelots are seated by the little fire, which the autumn chills have rendered nec essary, and into the embers of which the Deacon has cautiously thrust the leg of one of the fire-dogs, pre paratory to a modest mug of flip, (with which, by his wife s permission, he occasionally indulges himself,) the good dame calls out to her husband, who is dozing in his chair, Tourtelot ! " But she is not loud enough. " TOUKTELOT ! you re asleep ! " "No," says the Deacon, rousing himself, "only thinkin ." What are you thiukin of, Tourtelot ? " " Thinkin thinkin ," says the Deacon, rasped by the dame s sharpness into sudden mental effort, " thinkin , Huldy, if it is n t about time to butcher : we butchered last year nigh upon the twentieth." " Nonsense ! " says the dame ; " what about the par son ? " " The parson ? Oh ! Why, the parson 11 take a side and two hams." " Nonsense ! " says the dame, with a great voice ; "you re asleep, Tourtelot. Is the parson goin to 88 DOCTOR JOHNS. marry, or is n t he ? that s what I want to know " ; and she rethreads her needle. (She can do it by candle-light at fifty-five, that woman !) " Oh, marry ! " replies the Deacon, rousing himself more thoroughly, " waal, I don t see no signs, Huldy. If he doos mean to, he s sly about it ; don t you think so, Huldy ? " The dame, who is intent upon her sewing again, she is never without her work, that woman ! does not deign a reply. The Deacon, after lifting the fire-dog, blowing off the ashes, and holding it to his face to try the heat, says, " I guess Almiry ha n t much of a chance." " What s the use of your guessin ? " says the dame ; " better mind your flip." Which the Deacon accordingly does, stirring it in a mild manner, until the dame breaks out upon him again explosively : " Tourtelot, you men of the parish ought to talk to the parson ; it a n t right for things to go on this way. That boy Reuben is growin up wild ; he wants a woman in the house to look arter him. Besides, a min ister ought to have a wife ; it a n t decent to have the house empty, and only Esther there. Women want to feel they can drop in at the parsonage for a chat, or to take tea. But who s to serve tea, I want to know ? DOCTOR JOHNS. 89 Who s to mind Reuben in meetin ? He broke the cover off the best hymn-book in the parson s pew last Sunday. Who s to prevent him a-breakin all the hymn-books that belong to the parish ? You men ought to speak to the parson ; and, Tourtelot, if the others won t do it, you must" The Deacon was fairly awake now. He pulled at his whiskers deprecatingly. Yet he clearly foresaw that the emergency was one to be met ; the manner of Dame Tourtelot left no room for doubt ; and he was casting about for such Scriptural injunctions as might be made available, when the dame interrupted his re flections in more amiable humor, " It is n t Almiry, Samuel, I think of, but Mr. Johns and the good of the parish. I really don t know if Almiry would fancy the parson ; the girl is a good deal taken up with her pianny and books ; but there s the Hapgoods, opposite ; there s Joanny Meacham " " You 11 never make that do, Huldy," said the Dea con, stirring his flip composedly ; " they re nigh on as old as the parson." " Never you mind, Tourtelot," said the dame, sharp ly ; " only you hint to the parson that they re good, pious women, all of them, and would make proper min isters wives. Do you think I don t know what a man is, Tourtelot ! Humph ! " And she threads her needle again. 90 DOCTOR JOHNS. The Deacon was apt to keep in mind his wife s ad vices, whatever he might do with Scripture quotations. So when he called at the parsonage, a few days after, ostensibly to learn how the minister would like his pork cut, it happened that little Reuben came bound ing in, and that the Deacon gave him a fatherly pat upon the shoulder. " Likely boy you ve got here, Mr. Johns, likely boy. But, Parson, don t you think he must feel a kind o hankerin arter somebody to be motherly to him ? I most wonder that you don t feel that way yourself, Mr. Johns." " God comforts the mourners," said the clergyman, seriously. " No doubt, no doubt, Parson ; but He sometimes provides comforts ag in which we shet our eyes. You won t think hard o me, Parson, but I ve heerd say about the village that Miss Meacham or one of the Miss Hapgoods would make an excellent wife for the minister." The parson is suddenly very grave. " Don t repeat such idle gossip, Deacon. I m mar ried to my work. The Gospel is my bride now." " And a very good one it is, Parson. But don t you think that a godly woman for helpmeet would make the work more effectooal ? Miss Meacham is a pattern of a person in the Sunday-school. The women of the DOCTOR JOHNS. 91 parish would rather like to find the doors of the par sonage openin for em ag in." " That is to be thought of certainly," said the minis ter, musingly. " You won t think hard o me, Mr. Johns, for droppin a word about this matter ? " says the Deacon, rising to leave. " And while I think on t, Parson, I see the sill under the no theast corner o the meetin -house has a little settle to it. I ve jest been cuttin a few sticks o good smart chestnut timber ; and if the Committee thinks best, I could haul down one or two on em for repairs. It won t cost nigh as much as pine lumber, and it s every bit as good." Even Dame Tourtelot would have been satisfied with the politic way of the Deacon, both as regarded the wife and the prospective bargain. The next evening the good woman invited the clergyman begging him " not to forget the dear little boy " to tea. This was by no means the first hint which the min ister had had of the tendency of village gossip. The Tew partners, with whom he had fallen upon very easy terms of familiarity, both by reason of frequent visits at their little shop, and by reason of their steady at tendance upon his ministrations, often dropped hints of the smallness of the good man s grocery account, and insidious hopes that it might be doubled in size at some day not far off. 92 DOCTOR JOHNS. Squire Elderkin, too, in his bluff, hearty way, had occasionally complimented the clergyman upon the increased attendance latterly of ladies of a certain age and had drawn his attention particularly to the ardent zeal of a buxom, middle-aged widow, who lived upon the skirts of the town, and was " the owner," he said, " of as pretty a piece of property as lay in the county." " Have you any knack at farming, Mr. Johns ? " con tinued he, playfully. " Farming ? why ? " says the innocent parson, in a maze. " Because I am of opinion, Mr. Johns, that the wid ow s little property might be rented by you, under con ditions of joint occupancy, on very easy terms." Such badinage was so warded off by the ponderous gravity which the parson habitually wore, that men like Elderkin loved occasionally to launch a quiet joke at him, for the pleasure of watching the rebound. When, however, the wide-spread gossip of the town had taken the shape (as in the talk of Deacon Tourte- lot) of an incentive to duty, the grave clergyman gave to it his undivided and prayerful attention. It was over-true that the boy Reuben was running wild. No lad in Ashfield, of his years, could match him in mis chief. There was surely need of womanly direction and remonstrance. It was eminently proper, too, that the parsonage, so long closed, should be opened freely DOCTOR JOHNS. 93 to all his flock ; and the truth was so plain, he won dered it could have escaped him so long. Duty re quired that his home should have an established mis tress ; and a mistress he forthwith determined it should have. Within three weeks from the day of the tea-drinking with the Tourtelots, the minister suggested certain changes in the long-deserted chamber which should bring it into more habitable condition. He hinted to his man Larkin that an additional fire might probably be needed in the house during the latter part of winter ; and before January had gone out, he had most agree ably surprised the delighted and curious Tew partners with a very large addition to his usual orders, em bracing certain condiments in the way of spices, dried fruits, and cordials, which had for a long time been foreign to the larder of the parsonage. Such indications, duly commented on, as they were most zealously, could not fail to excite a great buzz of talk and of curiosity throughout the town. " I knew it," says Mrs. Tew, authoritatively, setting back her spectacles from her postal duties ; "these ere grave widowers are allers the first to pop off, and git married." " Tourtelot ! " said the dame, on a January night, when the evidence had come in overwhelmingly, " Tourtelot ! what does it all mean ? " 94 DOCTOR JOHNS. "D n know," says the Deacon, stirring his flip, " d n know. It s my opinion the parson has his sly humors about him." " Do you think it s true, Samuel ? " " Waal, Hulcly, I du." " Tourtelot ! finish your flip, and go to bed : it s past ten." And the Deacon went XIV. the latter end of the winter there arrived - at the parsonage the new mistress, in the per son of Miss Eliza Johns, the elder sister of the incum bent, and a spinster of the ripe age of three-and-thirty. For the last twelve years she had maintained a lonely, but matronly, command of the old homestead of the late Major Johns, in the town of Canterbury. She was intensely proud of the memory of her father, and of his father before him, every inch a Johns. Xo light cause could have provoked her to a sacrifice of the name ; and of weightier causes she had been spared the trial. The marriage of her brother had always been more or less a source of mortification to her. The Handbys, though excellent plain people, were of no particular distinction. Eachel had a pretty face, with which Benjamin had grown suddenly demented. That source of mortification and of disturbed intimacy was now buried in the grave. Benjamin had won a reputation for dignity and ability which was immensely gratifying to her. She had assured him of it again and again in her occasional letters. The success of 96 DOCTOR JOHNS. his Election Sermon had been an event of the greatest interest to her, which she had expressed in an epistle of three pages, with every comma in its place, and full of gratulations. Her commas were always in place ; so were her stops of all kinds : her precision was something marvelous. This precision had enabled her to manage the little property which had been left her in such a way as to maintain always about her estab lishment an air of well-ordered thrift. She concealed adroitly all the shifts if there were any by which she avoided the reproach of seeming poor. In person she was not unlike her father, the Major, tall, erect, with a dignified bearing, and so trim a figure, and so elastic a step even at her years, as would have provoked an inquisitive follower to catch sight of the face. This was by no means attractive. Her features were thin, her nose unduly prominent ; and both eye and mouth, though well formed, carried about them a kind of hard positiveness that would have challenged respect, perhaps, but no warmer feeling. Two little curls were flattened upon either temple ; and her neck tie, dress, gloves, hat, were always most neatly arranged, and ordered with the same precision that governed all her action. In the town of Canterbury she was an in stitution. Her charities and all her religious observ ances were methodical, and never omitted. Her whole life, indeed, was a discipline. Without any great love DOCTOR JOHNS. 97 for children, she still had her Bible-class ; and it was rare that the weather or any other cause forbade attend ance upon its duties. Nor was there one of the little ones who listened to that clear, sharp, metallic voice of hers but stood in awe of her ; not one that could say she was unkind ; not one who had ever bestowed a childish gift upon her, such little gifts as children love to heap on those who have found the way to their hearts. Sentiment had never been effusive in her ; and it was now limited to quick sparkles, that sometimes flashed into a page of her reading. As regarded the serious question of marriage, implying a home, position, the mar ried dignities, it had rarely disturbed her ; and now her imaginative forecast did not grapple it with any vigor or longing. If, indeed, it had been possible that a man of high standing, character, cultivation, equal, in short, to the Johnses in every way, should woo her with pertinacity, she might have been disposed to yield a dignified assent, but not unless he could be made to understand and adequately appreciate the immense favor she was conferring. In short, the suitor who could abide and admit her exalted pretensions, and submit to them, would most infallibly be one of a character and temper so far inferior to her own that she would scorn him from the outset. This dilemma, imposed by the rigidity of her smaller dignities, that were never mastered or overshadowed either by her sentiment or 98 DOCTOR JOHNS. her passion, not only involved a life of celibacy, but was a constant justification of it, and made it eminently easy to be borne. There are not a few maiden ladies who are thus lightered over the shoals of a solitary existence by the buoyancy of their own intemperate vanities. Miss Johns did not accept the invitation of her brother to undertake the charge of his household without due consideration. She by no means left out of view the contingency of his possible future mar riage ; but she trusted largely to her own influences in making it such a one, if inevitable, as should not be discreditable to the family name. And under such conditions she would retire with serene contentment to her own more private sphere of Canterbury, or, if circumstances should demand, would accept the posi tion of guest in the house of her brother. Nor did she leave out of view her influence in the training of the boy Reuben. She cherished her own hopes of moulding him to her will, and of making him a pride to the family. There was of course prodigious excitement in the parsonage upon her arrival. Esther had done her best at all household appliances, whether of kitchen or chamber. The minister received her with his wonted quietude, and a brotherly kiss of salutation. Reuben gazed wonderingly at her, and was thinking dreamily DOCTOR JOHNS. 99 if he should ever love her, while he felt the dreary rustle of her black silk dress swooping round as she stooped to embrace him. " I hope Master Reuben is a good boy," said she ; " your Aunt Eliza loves all good boys." He had nothing to say ; but only looked back into that cold gray eye, as she lifted his chin with her gloved hand. " Benjamin, there s a strong look of the Handbys ; but it s your forehead. He s a little man, I hope," and she patted him on the head. Still Reuben looked wonderingly at her shining silk dress, at her hat, at the little curls on either temple, at the guard-chain which hung from her neck with a glittering watch-key upon it, at the bright buckle in her belt, and most of all at the gray eye which seemed to look on him from far away. And with the same stare of wonderment, he followed her up and down through out the house. At night, Esther, who has a chamber near him, creeps in to say good-night to the lad, and asks, "Do you like her, Ruby, boy? Do you like your Aunt Eliza?" " I d n know," says Reuben. " She says she likes good boys ; don t you like bad uns, Esther ? " " But you re not very bad," says Esther, whose or thodoxy does not forbid kindly praise. 100 DOCTOR JOHNS. " Did n t mamma like bad uns, Esther ? " " Dear heart ! " and the good creature gives the boy a great hug ; it could not have been warmer, if he had been her child. The household speedily felt the presence of the new comer. Her precision, her method, her clear, sharp voice, never raised in anger, never falling to tender ness, ruled the establishment. Under all the cheeri- ness of the old management, there had been a sad lack of any economic system, by reason of which the minis ter was constantly overrunning his little stipend, and making awkward appeals from time to time to the Par ish Committee for advances. A small legacy that had befallen the late Mrs. Johns, and which had gone to the purchase of the parsonage, had brought relief at a very perplexing crisis ; but against all similar troubles Miss Johns set her face most resolutely. There was a daily examination of butchers and grocers accounts, that had been previously unknown to the household. The kitchen was placed under strict regimen, into the observance of which the good Esther slipped, not so much from love of it, as from total inability to cope with the magnetic authority of the new mistress. Nor was she harsh in her manner of command. " Esther, my good woman, it will be best, I think, to have breakfast a little more promptly, at half-past six, we will say, so that prayers may be over and the DOCTOR JOHNS. 101 room free by eight ; the minister, you know, must have his morning in his study undisturbed." " Yes, marm," says Esther ; and she would as soon have thought of flying over the house-top in her short gown as of questioning the plan. Again, the mistress says, " Larkin, I think it would be well to take up those scattered bunches of lilies, and place them upon either side of the walk in the garden, so that the flowers may be all together." " Yes, marm," says Larkin. And much as he had loved the little woman now sleeping in her grave, who had scattered flowers with an errant fancy, he would have thought it preposterous to object to an order so calmly spoken, so evidently intend ed for execution. There was something in the tone of Miss Johns in giving directions that drew off all moral power of objection as surely as a good metallic conduc tor would free an overcharged cloud of its electricity. The parishioners were not slow to perceive that new order prevailed at the quiet parsonage. Curiosity, no less than the staid proprieties which governed the action of the chief inhabitants, had brought them early into contact with the new mistress. She received all with dignity and with an exactitude of deportment that charmed the precise ones and that awed the younger folks. The bustling Dame Tourtelot had 102 DOCTOR JOHNS. come among the earliest, and her brief report was, " Tourtelot, Miss Johns s as smart as a steel trap." Nor was the spinster sister without a degree of cul tivation which commended her to the more intellectual people of Ashfield. She was a reader of " Rokeby " and of Miss Austen s novels, of Josephus and of Rollin s " Ancient History." The Miss Hapgoods, who were the blue-stockings of the place, were charmed to have such an addition to the cultivated circle of the parish. To make the success of Miss Johns still more decided, she brought with her a certain knowledge of the conventionalisms of the city, by reason of her oc casional visits to her sister Mabel, (now Mrs. Brind- lock, of Greenwich Street,) which to many excellent women gave larger assurance of her position and dignity than all besides. Before the first year of her advent had gone by, it was quite plain that she was to become one of the prominent directors of the female world of Ashfield. Only in the parsonage itself did her influence find its most serious limitations, and these in connection with the boy Reuben. XV. r MIIERE is a deep emotional nature in the lad, -*- which, by the time he has reached his eighth year, Miss Eliza having now been in the position of mis tress of the household a twelvemonth, works itself off in explosive tempests of feeling, with which the prim spinster has but faint sympathy. No care could be more studious and complete than that with which she looks after the boy s wardrobe and the ordering of his little chamber ; his supply of mittens, of stockings, and of underclothing is always of the most ample ; nay, his caprices of the table are not wholly overlooked, and she hopes to win upon him by the dishes that are most toothsome ; but, however grateful for the moment, his boyish affections can never make their way with any force or passionate flow through the stately pro prieties of manner with which the spinster aunt is al ways hedged about. He wanders away after school-hours to the home of the Elderkins, Phil and he being sworn friends, and the good mother of Phil always having ready for him a beamin<r look of welcome and a tender word or two 104 DOCTOR JOHNS. that somehow always find their way straight to his heart. He loiters with Larkin, too, by the great stable- yard of the inn, though it is forbidden ground. He breaks in upon the precise woman s rule of punctuality sadly ; many a cold dish he eats sulkily, she sitting bolt upright in her place at the table, looking down at him with glances which are every one a punishment. Other times he is straying in the orchard at the hour of some home-duty, and the active spinster goes to seek him, and not threateningly, but with an assured step and a firm grip upon the hand of the loiterer, which he knows not whether to count a favor or a pun ishment, (and she as much at a loss, so inextricably interwoven are her notions of duty and of kindness,) leads him homeward, plying him with stately precepts upon the sin of negligence, and with earnest story of the dreadful fate which is sure to overtake all bad boys who do not obey and keep " by the rules " ; and she instances those poor lads who were eaten by the bears, of whom she has read to him the story in the Old Testament. " Who was it they called bald - head, Reuben ? Elisha or Elijah ? " He, in no mood for reply, is sulkily beating off the daisies with his feet, as she drags him on ; sometimes hanging back, with impotent, yet concealed struggle, which she not deiffninji to notice overcomes with DOCTOR JOHNS. 105 even sharper step, and plies him the more closely with the dire results of badness, has not finished her talk, indeed, when they reach the door-step and enter. There he, fuming now with that long struggle, fuming the more because he has concealed it, makes one violent discharge with a great frown on his little face, " You re an ugly old thing, and I don t like you one bit ! " Esther, good soul, within hearing of it, lifts her hands in apparent horror, but inwardly indulges in a wicked chuckle over the boy s spirit. But the minister has heard him, too, and gravely summons the offender into his study. " My son, Reuben, this is very wrong." And the boy breaks into a sob at this stage, which is a great relief. " My boy, you ought to love your aunt." " Why ought I ? " says he. " Why ? why ? Don t you know she s very good to you, and takes excellent care of you, and hears you say your catechism every Saturday ? You ought to love her." " But I can t make myself love her, if I don t," says the boy. " It is your duty to love her, Reuben ; and we can all do our duty." Even the staid clergyman enjoys the boy s discom- 106 DOCTOR JOHNS. fiture under so orthodox a proposition. Miss Johns, however, breaks in here, having overheard the latter part of the talk : " No, Benjamin, I wish no love that is given from a sense of duty. Reuben sh an t be forced into loving his Aunt Eliza." And there is a subdued tone in her speech which touches the boy. But he is not ready yet for surren der ; he watches gravely her retirement, and for an hour shows a certain preoccupation at his play ; then his piping voice is heard at the foot of the stairway, " Aunt Eliza ! Are you there ? " Yes, Master Reuben ! " Master ! It cools somewhat his generous intent ; but he is in for it ; and he climbs the stair, sidles un easily into the chamber where she sits at her work, stealing a swift, inquiring look into that gray eye of hers, " I say Aunt Eliza I m sorry I said that you know what." And he looks up with a little of the old yearning, the yearning he used to feel when another sat in that place. " Ah, that is right, Master Reuben ! I hope we shall be friends, now." Another disturbed look at her, remembering the time when he would have leaped into a mother s arms, after such struggle with his self-will, and found glad- DOCTOR JOHNS. 107 ness. That is gone ; no swift embrace, no tender hand toying with his hair, beguiling him from play. And he sidles out again, half shamefaced at a surrender that has wrought so little. Loitering, and playing with the balusters as he descends, the swift, keen voice comes after him, " Don t soil the paint, Reuben ! " " I have n t." And the swift command and as swift retort put him in his old, wicked mood again, and he breaks out into a defiant whistle. (Over and over the spinster has told him it was improper to whistle in-doors.) Yet, with a lingering desire for sympathy, Reuben makes his way into his father s study ; and the minister lays clown his great folio, it is Poole s " Annotations," and says, " Well, Reuben ! " " I told her I was sorry," says the boy ; " but I don t believe she likes me much." " Why, my son ? " " Because she called me Master, and said it was very proper." " But does n t that show an interest in you ? " " I don t know what interest is." It s love." " Mamma never called me Master," said Reuben. The grave minister bites his lip, beckons his boy to 108 DOCTOR JOHNS. him, " Here, my son ! " passes his arm around him, had almost drawn him to his heart, " There, there, Reuben ; leave me now ; I have my sermon to finish. I hope you won t be disrespectful to your aunt again. Shut the door." And the minister goes back to his work, ironly hon est, mastering his sensibilities, tearing great gaps in his heart, even as the anchorites once fretted their bodies with hair-cloth and scourgings. In the summer of 1828 Mr. Johns was called upon to preach a special discourse at the Commencement exercises of the college from which he had received his degree ; and so sterlingly orthodox was his sermon, at a crisis when some sister colleges were bolstering up certain new theological tenets which had a strong taint of heresy, that the old gentlemen who held rank as fellows of his college, in a burst of zeal, bestowed upon the worthy man the title of D. D. It was not an honor he had coveted ; indeed, he coveted no human honors ; yet this was more wisely given than most : his dignity, his sobriety, his rigid, complete adherence to all the accepted forms of religious belief made him a safe recipient of the title. The spinster sister, with an ill-concealed pride, was most zealous in the bestowal of it ; and before a month had passed, she had forced it into current use throughout the world of Ashfield. DOCTOR JOHNS. 109 Did a neglectful neighbor speak of the good health of " Mr. Johns," the mistress of the parsonage said, " Why, yes, the Doctor is working very hard, it is true ; but he is quite well ; the Doctor is remarkably well." Did a younger church-sister speak in praise of some late sermon of " the minister," Miss Eliza thanked her in a dignified way, and was sure " the Doctor " would be most happy to hear that his efforts were appreciated. As for Larkin and Esther, who stumbled dismally over the new title, the spinster plied them urgently. " Esther, my good woman, make the Doctor s tea very strong to-night." " Larkin, the Doctor won t ride to-day ; and mind, you must cut the wood for the Doctor s fire a little shorter." Reuben only rebelled, with the mischief of a boy : "What for do you call papa Doctor? He don t carry saddle-bags." To the quiet, staid man himself it was a wholly in different matter. In the solitude of his study, how ever, it recalled a neglected duty, and in so far seemed a blessing. By such paltry threads are the colors woven into our life ! It recalled his friend Maverick and his jaunty prediction ; and upon that came to him a recollection of the promise which he had made to Rachel, that he would write to Maverick. So the minister wrote, telling his old friend what 110 DOCTOR JOHNS. grief had stricken his house, how his boy and he were left alone, how the church, by favor of Provi dence, had grown under his preaching, how his sister had come to be mistress of the parsonage, how he had wrought the Master s work in fear and trembling ; and after this came godly counsel for the exile. He hoped that light had shone upon him, even in the " dark places " of infidel France, that he was not alienated from the faith of his fathers, that he did not make a mockery, as did those around him, of the holy institution of the Sabbath. " My friend," he wrote, " God s "Word is true ; God s laws are just ; He will come some day in a chariot of fire. Neither moneys nor high places nor worldly hon ors nor pleasures can stay or avert the stroke of that sword of divine justice which will pierce even to the dividing asunder of the joints and marrow. Let no siren voices beguile you. Without the gift of His grace who died that we might live, there is no hope for kings, none for you, none for me. I pray you consider this, my friend ; for I speak as one commissioned of God." Whether these words of the minister were met, after their transmission over seas, with a smile of derision, with an empty gratitude, that said, " Good fellow ! " and forgot their burden, with a stitch of the heart, that made solemn pause and thoughtfulness, and short, vain struggle against the habit of a life, we will not DOCTOR JOHNS. Ill say; our story may not tell, perhaps. But to the mind of the parson it was clear that at some great coming day it icvuld be known of all men where the seed that he had sown had fallen, whether on good ground or in stony places. The cross-ocean mails were slow in those days ; and it was not until nearly four months after the transmis sion of the Doctor s letter he having almost forgot ten it that Reuben came one day bounding in from the snow in mid-winter, his cheeks aflame with the keen, frosty air, his eyes dancing with boyish excite ment : " A letter, papa ! a letter ! and Mr. Troop " (it is the new postmaster under the Adams dynasty) " says it came all the way from Europe. It s got a funny post mark." The minister lays down his book, takes the letter, opens it, reads, paces up and down his study thoughtfully, reads again, to the end. " Reuben, call your Aunt Eliza." There is matter in the letter that concerns her, that in its issues will concern the boy, that rnay possibly give a new color to the life of the parsonage, and a new direction to our story. XVI. ItlTISS ELIZA being fairly seated in the Doctor s -*"-- study, with great eagerness to hear what might be the subject of his communication, the parson, with the letter in his hand, asked if she remembered an old college friend, Maverick, who had once paid them a vacation visit at Canterbury. " Perfectly," said Miss Eliza, whose memory was both keen and retentive ; " and I remember that you have said he once passed a night with you, during the lifetime of poor Rachel, here at Ashficld. You have a letter from him ? " " I have," said the parson ; " and it brings a pro posal about which I wish your opinion." And the Doctor cast his eye over the letter. "He expresses deep sympathy at my loss, and al ludes very pleasantly to the visit you speak of, all which I will not read ; after this he says, I little thought, when bantering you in your little study upon your family prospects, that I too was destined to be come the father of a child, within a couple of years. Yet it is even so ; and the responsibility weighs upon DOCTOR JOHNS. 113 me greatly. I love my Aclele with my whole heart ; I am sure you cannot love your boy more, though perhaps more wisely." " And he had never told you of his marriage ? " said the spinster. " Never ; it is the only line I have had from him since his visit ten years ago." The Doctor goes on with the reading : o o " It may be from a recollection of your warnings and of your distrust of the French character, or pos sibly it may be from the prejudices of my New Eng land education, but I cannot entertain pleasantly the thought of her growing up to womanhood under the influences which are about her here. What those influences are you will not expect me to explain in detail. I am sure it will be enough to win upon your sympathy to say that they are Popish and thoroughly French. I feel a strong wish, therefore, much as I am attached to the clear child, to give her the advantages of a New England education and training. And with this wish, my thought reverts naturally to the calm quietude of your little town and of your household ; for I cannot doubt that it is the same un der the care of your sister as in the old time." " I am glad he thinks so well of me," said Miss Eliza, but with an irony in her tone that she was sure the good parson would never detect. VOL. I. 8 114 DOCTOR JOHNS. The Doctor looks at her thoughtfully a moment, over the edge of the letter, as if he, too, had his quiet comparisons to make, then goes on with the letter : " This wish may surprise you, since you remember my old battlings with what I counted the rigors of a New England bringing-up ; but in this case I should not fear them, provided I could assure myself of your kindly supervision. For my little Adele, besides inheriting a great flow of spirits (from her father, you will say) and French blood, has been used thus far to a catholic latitude of talk and manner in all about her, which will so far counterbalance the grav ities of your region as to leave her, I think, upon a safe middle ground. At any rate, I see enough to persuade me to choose rather the errors that may grow upon her girlhood there than those that would grow upon it here. " Frankly, now, may I ask you to undertake, with your good sister, for a few years, the responsibility which I have suggested ? " The Doctor looked over the edge of the sheet to ward Miss Eliza. " Read on, Benjamin," said she. " The matter of expenses, I am happy to say, is one which need not enter into your consideration of the question. My business successes have been such DOCTOR JOHNS. 115 that any estimate which you may make of the moneys required will be at your call at the office of our house in Newburyport. " I have the utmost faith in you, my dear Johns ; and I want you to have faith in the earnestness with which I press this proposal on your notice. You will wonder, perhaps, how the mother of my little Adele can be a party to such a plan ; but I may assure you, that, if your consent be gained, it will meet with no opposition in that quarter. This fact may possibly confirm some of your worst theories in regard to French character; and in this letter, at least, you will not expect me to combat them. " I have said that she has lived thus far under Popish influences ; but her religious character is of course unformed; indeed, she has as yet developed in no serious direction whatever ; I think you will find a tabula rasa to write your tenets upon. But, if she comes to you, do not, I beg of you, grave them too harshly ; she is too bird-like to be treated with severity ; and I know that under all your gravity, my dear Johns, there is a kindliness of heart, which, if you only allowed it utterance, would win greatly upon this little fondling of mine. And I think that her open, laughing face may win upon you. " Adele has been taught English, and I have pur posely held all my prattle with her in the same tongue, 116 DOCTOR JOHhS. and her familiarity with it is such that you would hardly detect a French accent. I am not particularly anxious that she should maintain her knowledge of French ; still, should a good opportunity occur, and a competent teacher be available, it might be well for her to do so. In all such matters I should rely greatly on your judgment. "Now, my dear Johns," Miss Eliza interrupts by saying, " I think your friend is very familiar, Benjamin." " Why not ? why not, Eliza ? "We were boys to gether." And he continues with the letter : " My dear Johns, I want you to consider this mat ter fairly ; I need not tell you that it is one that lies very near my heart. Should you determine to ac cept the trust, there is a ship which will be due at this port some four or five months from now, whose master I know well, and with whom I should feel safe to trust my little Adele for the voyage, providing at the same time a female attendant upon whom I can rely, and who will not leave the little voyager until she is fairly under your wing. In two or three years thereafter, at most, I hope to come to receive her from you ; and then, when she shall have made a return visit to Europe, it is quite possible that I may establish myself in my own country again. DOCTOR JOHNS. 117 Should you wish it, 1 could arrange for the attendant to remain with her ; but I confess that I should pre fer the contrary. I want to separate her for the time, so far as I can, from all the influences to which she has been subject here ; and further than this, I have a strong faith in that self-dependence which seems to me to grow out of your old-fashioned New England training." " That is all," said the Doctor, quietly folding the letter. " What do you think of the proposal, Eliza?" " I like it, Benjamin." The spinster was a woman of quick decision. Had it been proposed to receive an ordinary pupil in the house for any pecuniary consideration, her pride would have revolted on the instant. But here was a child of an old friend of the Doctor, a little Christian waif, as it were, floating toward them from that unbelieving world of France. " Surely it will be a worthy and an honorable task for Benjamin" (so thought Miss Eliza) "to redeem this little creature from its graceless fortune ; possibly, too, the companionship may soften that wild boy, Reuben. This French girl, Adele, is rich, well-born ; what if, from being inmates of the same house, the two should come by and by to be joined by some tenderer tie ? " 118 DOCTOR JOHNS. The possibility, even, of such a dawn of sentiment under the spinster s watchful tutelage was a delight ful subject of reflection to her. It is remarkable how even the cunningest and the coolest of practical- minded women delight in watching the growth of sentiment in others, and all the more strongly, if they can foster it by their artifices and provoke it into demonstration. Miss Johns, too, without being imaginative, pre figured in her mind the image of the little French stranger, with foreign air and dress, tripping beside her up the meeting-house aisle, looking into her face confidingly for guidance, attracting the attention of the simple towns-people in such sort that a distinction would belong to her protegee which would be pleas antly reflected upon herself. A love of distinction was the spinster s prevailing sin, a distinction grow ing out of the working of good deeds, if it might be, but at any rate some worthy and notable distinction. The Doctorate of her good brother, his occasional dis courses which had been subject of a public mention that she never forgot, were objects of a more than sisterly fondness. If her sins were ever to meet with a punishment in the flesh, they would know no sharper one than in a humiliation of her pride. " I think," said she, " that you can hardly decline the proposal of Mr. Maverick, Benjamin." DOCTOR JOHNS. 119 " And you will take the home care of her ? " asked the Doctor. " Certainly. She would at first, I suppose, attend school with Reuben and the young Elderkins ? " " Probably," returned the Doctor ; " but the more special religious training which I fear the poor girl needs must be given at home, Eliza." " Of course, Benjamin." It was further agreed between the two that a FVench attendant would make a very undesirable addition to the household, as well as sadly compromise their ef forts to build up the little stranger in full knowledge of the faith. The Doctor was earnest in his convictions of the duty that lay before him, and his sister s consent to share the charge left him free to act. He felt all the best impulses of his nature challenged by the proposal. Here, at least, was one chance to snatch a brand from the burning, to lead this poor little misguided wayfarer into those paths which are " paths of pleasantness." No image of French grace or of French modes was prefigured to the mind of the par son ; his imagination had different range. He saw a young innocent (so far as any child in his view could be innocent) who prattled in the terrible lan guage of Rousseau and Voltaire, who by the provi dence of God had been born in a realm where all 120 DOCTOR JOHNS. iniquities flourished, and to whom, by the further and richer providence of God, a means of escape was now offered. He would no more have thought of declin ing the proposed service, even though the poor girl were dressed in homespun and clattered in sabots, than he would have closed his ear to the cry of a drowning child. Within that very week the Doctor wrote his reply to Maverick. He assured him that he would most gladly undertake the trust he had proposed, " hop ing, by God s grace, to lead the little one away from the delusions of sense and the abominations of An tichrist, to the fold of the faithful." " I could wish," he continued, " that you had given me more definite information in regard to the char acter of her early religious instruction, and told me how far the child may still remain under the mother s influence in this respect ; for, next to special inter position of Divine Grace, I know no influence so strong in determining religious tendencies as the early instruction or example of a mother. " My sister has promised to give home care to the little stranger, and will, I am sure, welcome her with zeal. It will be our purpose to place your daughter at the day-school of a worthy person, Miss Betsey Onthank, who has had large experience, and under whose tuition my boy Reuben has been for some time DOCTOR JOHNS. 121 established. My sister and myself are both of opin ion that the presence of any French attendant upon the child would be undesirable. " I hope that God may have mercy upon the French people, and that those who dwell temporarily among them may be watched over and be graciously snatched from the great destruction that awaits the ungodly." XVII. 1% TEANTIME Reuben grew into a knowledge of -^ all the town mischief, and into the practice of such as came within the scope of his years. The proposed introduction of the young stranger from abroad to the advantages of the parsonage home did not weigh upon his thought greatly. The prospect of such a change did not soften him, whatever might come of the event. In his private talk with Esther, he had said, " I hope that French girl 11 be a clever un ; if she a n t, I 11 " and he doubled up a little fist, and shook it, so that Esther laughed outright. Not that the boy had any cruelty in him, but he was just now learning from his older companions of the village, who were more steeped in iniquity, that defiant manner by which the Devil in all of us makes his first pose preparatory to the onslaught that is to come. " Nay, Ruby, boy," said Esther, when she had re covered from her laughter, " you would n t hurt the little un, would ye ? Don t ye want a little playfellow, Ruby ? " DOCTOR JOHNS. 123 "I don t play with girls, I don t," said Reuben. * But, I say, Esther, what 11 papa do, if she dances ? " " What makes the boy think she 11 dance ? " said Esther. " Because the Geography says the French people dance ; and Phil Elderkin showed me a picture with girls dancing under a tree, and, says he, That s the sort that s comin to y r house. " " Well, I don t know," said Esther, " but I guess your Aunt Eliza d cure the dancin ." " She would n t cure me, if I wanted to," said Reu ben, who thought it needful to speak in terms of bra vado about the spinster, with whom he kept up a series of skirmishing fights from week to week. The truth is, the keen eye of the good lady ferreted out a great many of his pet plans of mischief, and nipped them before they had time to ripen. Over and over, too, she warned him against the evil associates whom he would find about the village tavern, where he strayed from time to time to be witness to some dog-fight, or to receive a commendatory glance of recognition from one Nat Boody, the tavern-keeper s son, who had run away two years before and made a voyage down the river in a sloop laden with apples and onions to " York." He was a head taller than Reuben, and the latter admired him intensely : we never cease admiring those " a head taller " than ourselves. Reuben absolutely pined in 124 DOCTOR JOHNS. longing wonderment at the way in which Nat Boody could crack a coach-whip, and with a couple of hickory sticks could " call the roll " upon a pine table equal to a drum-major. Wonderful were the stories this boy could tell, to special cronies, of his adventures in the city : they beat the Geography " all hollow." Such an air, too, as this Boody had, leaning against the pump-handle by his father s door, and making cuts at an imaginary span of horses ! such a pair of twilled trousers, cut like a man s ! such a jacket, with lapels to the pockets, which he said " the sailors wore on the sloops, and called em monkey-jackets " ! such a way as he had of putting a quid in his mouth ! for Nat Boody chewed. It is not strange that Reuben, feeling a little of ugly constraint under the keen eye of the spinster Eliza, should admire greatly the free-and-easy manner of the tavern-boy, who had such familiarity with the world and such large range of action. The most of us never get over a wonderment at the composure and complacency which spring from a wide knowledge of the world ; and the man who can crack his whip well, though only at an imaginary pair of horses, is sure to have a throng of admirers. By this politic lad, Nat Boody, the innocent Reuben was decoyed into many a little bargain which told more for the shrewdness of the tavern than for that of the parsonage. Thus, he bartered one day a new pocket- DOCTOR JOHNS. 125 knife, the gift of his Aunt Mabel, of Greenwich Street, for a knit Scotch cap, half-worn, which the tavern trav eler assured him could not be matched for any money. And the parson s boy, going back with this trophy on his head, looking very consciously at those who give an admiring stare, is pounced upon at the very door-step by the indefatigable spinster. " What now, Reuben ? Where in the world did you get that cap ? " " Bought it," in a grand way. "But it s worn," says the aunt. "Ouf! whose was it?" " Bought it of Nat Boody," says Reuben ; " and he says there is n t another can be had." u Bah ! " says the spinster, making a dash at the cap, which she seizes, and, straightway rushing in-doors, souses in a kettle of boiling water. After which comes off a new skirmish, followed by the partial defeat of Reuben, who receives such a comb ing down (with sundry killed and wounded) as he re members for a month thereafter. The truth is, that it was not altogether from admira tion of the accomplished Nat Boody that Reuben was prone to linger about the tavern neighborhood. The spinster had so strongly and constantly impressed it upon him that it was a low and vulgar and wicked place, that the boy, growing vastly inquisitive in these years, 126 DOCTOR JOHNS. was curious to find out what shape the wickedness took; and as he walked by, sometimes at dusk, when thoroughly infused with the lust teachings of Miss Eliza, it seemed to him that he might possibly catch a glimpse of the hoofs of some devil (as he had seen devils pict ured in an illustrated Milton) capering about the door way, and if he had seen them, truth compels us to say that he would have felt a strong inclination to fol low them up, at a safe distance, in order to see what kind of creatures might be wearing them. But he was far more apt to see the lounging figure of the shoe maker from down the street, or of Mr. Postmaster Troop, coming thither to have an evening s chat about Vice-President Calhoun, or William Wirt and the Anti- Masons. Or possibly, it might be, he would see the light heels of Suke Boody, the pretty daughter of the tavern- keeper, who had been pronounced by Phil Elderkin. who knew, (being a year his senior,) the handsomest girl in the town. This might well be ; for Suke was just turned of fifteen, with pink arms and pink cheeks and blue eyes and a great flock of brown hair : not very startling in her beauty on ordinary days, when she appeared in a pinned-up quilted petticoat, and her curls in papers, sweeping the tavern-steps ; but of a Saturday afternoon, in red and white calico, with the curls all streaming, no wonder Phil Elderkin, who was tall of his age, thought her handsome. So it happened that DOCTOR JOHNS. 127 the inquisitive Reuben, not finding any cloven feet in his furtive observations, but encountering always either the rosy Suke, or " Scamp," (which was Nat s pet fight ing-dog,) or the shoemaker, or the round-faced Mr. Boody himself, could justify and explain his aunt s charge of the tavern wickedness only by distributing it over them all. And when, one Sunday, Miss Suke ap peared at meeting (where she rarely went) in hat all aflame with ribbons, Reuben, sorely puzzled at the sight, says to his Aunt Eliza, " Why did n t the sexton put her out ? " " Put her out ! " says the spinster, horrified, " what do you mean, Reuben ? " " Is n t she wicked ? " says he ; " she came from the tavern, and she lives at the tavern." " But don t you know that preaching is for the wicked, and that the good had much better stay away than the bad ? " " Had they ? " said Reuben, thoughtfully, pondering if there did not lie somewhere in this averment the basis for some new moral adjustment of his own con duct. There are a vast many prim preachers, both male and female, in all times, who imagine that certain styles of wickedness or vulgarity are to be approached Avith propriety only across a church ; as if better preach ing did not lie, nine times out of ten, in the touch of a hand or a whisper in the ear ! 128 DOCTOR JOHNS. Pondering, as Reuben did, upon the repeated warn ings of the spinster against any familiarity with the tavern or tavern people, he came in time to reckon the old creaking sign-board of Mr. Boody, and the pump in the inn-yard, as the pivotal points of all the town wickedness, just as the meeting-house was the center of all the town goodness ; and since the great world was very wicked, as he knew from overmuch iteration at home, and since communication with that wicked world was kept up mostly by the stage-coach that stopped every noon at the tavern-door, it seemed to him that relays of wickedness must flow into the tavern and town daily upon that old swaying stage-coach, just as relays of goodness might come to the meeting-house on some old lumbering chaise of a neighboring parson, who once a month, perhaps, would " exchange " with the Doctor. And it confirmed in Reuben s mind a good deal that was taught him about natural depravity, when he found himself looking out with very much more eagerness for the rumbling coach, that kept up a daily wicked activity about the tavern, than he did for Par son Hobson, who snuffled in his reading, and who drove an old, thin-tailed sorrel mare, with lopped ears and lank jaws, that made passes at himself and Phil, if they teased her, as they always did. So, too, he came to regard, in virtue of misplaced home instruction, the monkey-jacket of Nat Boody, and DOCTOR JOHNS. 129 his fighting-dog " Scamp," and the pink arms and pink cheeks and brown ringlets of Suke Boody, as so many types of human wickedness ; and, by parity of reason ing, he came to look upon the two flat curls on either temple of his Aunt Eliza, and her pragmatic way, and upon the yellow ribbons within the scoop-hat of Al- mira Tourtelot, who sang treble and never went to the tavern, as the types of goodness. What wonder, if he swayed more arid more toward the broad and easy path that lay around the tavern-pump, (" Scamp " lying there biting at the flies,) and toward the bar-room, with its flaming pictures of some past menagerie-show, and big tumblers with lemons atop, rather than to the strait and narrow path in which his Aunt Eliza and Miss Almira would guide him with sharp voices, thin faces, and decoy of dyspeptic doughnuts ? Phil and he sauntering by one day, Phil says, " Darst you go in, Reub ? " Phil was under no law of prohibition. And Reuben, glancing around the Common, says, Yes, / 11 go." " Then," says Phil, " we 11 call for a glass of lemon ade. Fellows most always order something when they go in." So Phil, swelling with his ten years, and tall of his age, walks to the bar and calls for two tumblers of lem onade, which Old Boody stirs with an appetizing rattle VOL. I. 9 130 DOCTOR JOHNS. of the toddy-stick, dropping, meantime, a query or two about the Squire, and a look askance at the par son s boy, who is trying very hard to wear an air as if he, too, were ten, and knew the ropes. " It s good, a n t it ? " says Phil, putting down his money, of which he always had a good stock. " Prime ! " says Reuben, with a smack of the lips. And then Suke comes in, hunting over the room for last week s " Courant " ; and the boys, with furtive glances at those pink cheeks and brown ringlets, go down the steps. " A n t she handsome ? " says Phil. Reuben is on the growth. And when he eats dinner that day, with the grave Doctor carving the rib-roast and the prim aunt ladling out the sauces, he is elated with the vague, but not unpleasant consciousness, that he is beginning to be familiar with the world. XVIII. "T T was some four or five months after the dispatch -"- of the Doctor s letter to Maverick before the reply came. His friend expressed the utmost gratitude for the Doctor s prompt and hearty acceptance of his pro posal. With his little Adele frolicking by him, and fastening more tenderly upon his heart every year, he was sometimes half disposed to regret the scheme ; but, believing it to be for her good, and confident of the in tegrity of those to whom he intrusted her, he reconciled himself to the long separation. It docs not come within the limits of this simple New England narrative to enter upon any extended review of the family relations or the life of Maverick abroad. Whatever details may appear incidentally, as the story progresses, the reader will please to regard as the shreds and raveled edges of another and distinct life, which cannot be fairly interwoven with the homespun one of the parsonage, nor yet be wholly brushed clear of our story. " I want," said Maverick in his letter, " that Adele, while having a thorough womanly education, should 132 DOCTOR JOHNS. grow up with simple tastes. I think I see a little tend ency in her to a good many idle coquetries of dress, (which you will set down, I know, to her French blood,) which I trust your good sister will see the prudence of correcting. My fortune is now such that I may reason ably hope to put luxuries within her reach, if they be desirable ; but of this I should prefer that she remain ignorant. I want to see established in her what you would call those moral and religious bases of character that will sustain her under any possible reverses or dis appointments. You will smile, perhaps, at my talking in this strain ; but if I have been afloat in these matters, at least you will do me the credit that may belong to hoping better things for my little Adele. It s not much, I know ; but I do sincerely desire that she may find some rally ing-point of courage and of faith within herself against any possible misfortune. Is it too much to hope, that, under your guidance, and under the quiet religious atmosphere of your little town, she may find such, and that she may possess herself of the consola tions of the faith you teach, without sacrificing alto gether her natural French vivacity ? " And now, my dear Johns, I come to refer to a cer tain allusion in your letter with some embarrassment. You speak of the weight of a mother s religious influ ence, and ask what it may have been. Since extreme childhood, Adele has been almost entirely under the DOCTOR JOHNS. 133 care of her godmother, a quiet old lady, who, though a devotee of the Popish Church, you must allow me to say, is a downright good Christian woman. I am quite sure that she has not pressed upon the conscience of little Adele any bigotries of the Church. My wish in this matter I am confident that she has religiously re garded ; and while giving the example of her own faith by constant and daily devotions, I think, as I said in my previous letter, that you will find the heart of my little girl as open as the sky. Why it is that the mother s relations with the clu ld have been so broken you will spare me the pain of explaining. " Would to God, I think at times, that I had married years ago one nurtured in our old-fashioned faith of New England, some gentle, pure, loving soul ! Shall I confess it, Johns ? the little glimpse of your lost Rachel gave me an idea of the tenderness and depth of devotion and charming womanliness of many of those whom I had counted stiff and utterly repulsive, which I never had before. " Pardon me. my friend, for an allusion which may provoke your grief, and which may seem utterly out of place in the talk of one who is just now confiding to you his daughter. " Johns, I have this faith in you, from our college- days : I know that on the score of the things touched upon in the last paragraphs of my letter you will not 134 DOCTOR JOHNS. press me with inquiries. It is enough for you to know that my life has not been all plain-sailing. For the present, let us say nothing of the griefs. "As little Adele comes to me, and sits upon my knee, as I write, I almost lose courage. " Adele, I say, will you leave your father, and go far away over seas, to stay perhaps for years ? " You talk nonsense, papa, she says, and leaps into my arms. " My heart cleaves strangely to her : I do not know wholly why. And yet she must go : it is best. " The vessel of which I spoke will sail in three weeks from the date of my letter for the port of New York. I have made ample provision for her comfort on the passage ; and as the date of the ship s arrival in New York is uncertain, I must beg you to arrange with some friend there, if possible, to protect the little stranger, until you are ready to receive her. I inclose my draft for three hundred dollars, which I trust may be suffi cient for a year s maintenance, seeing that she goes well provided with clothing : if otherwise, you will please inform me." Dr. Johns was not a man to puzzle himself with idle conjectures in regard to the private affairs of his friend. With all kind feeling for him, and Maverick s con fidence in the Doctor had insensibly given large growth to it, the parson dismissed the whole affair with this logical reflection : DOCTOR JOHNS. 135 My poor friend has been decoyed into marrying a Frenchwoman. Frenchwomen (like Frenchmen) are all children of Satan. He is now reaping the bitter results. " As for the poor child," thought the Doctor, and his heart glowed at the thought, " I will plant her little feet upon safe places. With God s help, she shall come into the fold of the elect." He arranges with Mrs. Brindlock to receive the child temporarily upon her arrival. Miss Eliza puts even more than her usual vigor and system into her arrange ments for the reception of the new-comer. Nothing could be neater than the little chamber, provided with its white curtains, its spotless linen, its dark old mahog any furniture, its Testament and Catechism upon the toilet-table ; one or two vases of old china had been brought up and placed upon brackets out of reach of the little hands that might have been tempted by their beauty, and a coquettish porcelain image of a flower- girl had been added to the other simple adornments which the ambitious spinster had lavished upon the chamber. Her pride as housekeeper was piqued. The young stranger must be duly impressed with the advan tages of her position at the start. " There," said she to Esther, as she gave a finishing touch to the disposal of the blue and white hangings about the high-post bedstead, " I wonder if that will be to the taste of the little French lady ! " 136 DOCTOR JOHNS. " I should think it might, marm ; it s the beautiful- lest room I ever see, marm." Reuben, boy-like, passes in and out with an air of affected indifference, as if the arrangements for the new arrival had no interest for him ; and he whistles more defiantly than ever. XIX. TN early September of 1829, when the orchard behind -*- the parsonage was glowing with its burden of fruit, when the white and crimson hollyhocks were lifting their slanted pagodas of bloom all down the garden, and the buckwheat was whitening with its blossoms broad patches of the hill-sides east and west of Ash- field, news came to the Doctor that his expected guest had arrived safely in New York, and was waiting his presence there at the elegant home of Mrs. Brindlock. And Sister Mabel writes to the Doctor, in the letter which conveys intelligence of the arrival, " She s a charming little witch ; and if you don t like to take her with you, she may stay here." Mrs. Brindlock had no children. A visit to New York was an event for the parson. The spinster, eager for his good appearance at the home of her stylish sister, insisted upon a toilet that made the poor man more awkward than ever. Yet he did not think of rebelling. He rejoiced, indeed, that he did not dwell where such hardships would be daily demanded; but remembering that he was bound to a 138 DOCTOR JOHNS. city of strangers, he recalled the Scriptural injunc tion, " Render unto Caesar the things which be Cae sar s." The Brindlocks, well-meaning and showy people, re ceived the parson with an effervescence of kindness that disturbed him almost as much as the stiff garni ture in which he had been invested by the solicitude of Miss Eliza ; and when, in addition to his double em barrassment, a little saucy-eyed, brown-faced girl, full of mirthful exuberance, with her dark hair banded in a way that was utterly strange to him, and with coquet tish bows of ribbon at her throat, at either armlet of her jaunty frock, and all down either side of her silk pinafore, came toward him with a smiling air, as if she were confident of his caresses, the awkwardness of the poor Doctor was complete. But, catching sight of a certain frank outlook in the little face which reminded him of his friend Maverick, he felt his heart stirred within him, and in his grave way dropped a kiss upon her forehead, while he took both her hands in his. " This, then, is little Adaly ? " " Ha ! ha ! " laughed Adele, merrily, and, turning round to her new-found friends, says, " My new papa calls me Adaly ! " The straightforward parson was, indeed, as inacces sible to French words as to French principles. Adele DOCTOR JOHNS. 139 had somehow a smack in it of the Gallic Pandemonium : Adaly, to his ear, was a far honester sound. And the child seemed to fancy it, whether for its novelty, or the kindliness that beamed on her from the gravest face she had ever seen, it would be hard to say. " Call me Adaly, and I will call you New Papa," said she. And though the parson was not a bargaining man, every impulse of his heart went to confirm this ar rangement. It was flattering to his self-love, if not to his principles, to have apparent sanction to his preju dices against French forms of speech ; and the " New Papa " on the lips of this young girl touched him to the quick. Wifeless men are more easily accessible to demonstrations of even apparent affection on the part of young girls than those whose sympathies are hedged about by matrimonial relations. From all this it chanced that the best possible under standing was speedily established between the Doctor and his little ward from beyond the seas. For an hour after bis arrival, the little creature hung upon his chair, asking questions about her new home, about the schools, about her playmates, patting the great hand of the Doctor with her little fingers, and reminding him sadly of days utterly gone. Mrs. Brindlock, with her woman s curiosity, seizes an occasion, before they leave, to say privately to the Doc tor, 140 DOCTOR JOHNS. " Benjamin, the child must have a strange mother to allow this long separation, and the little creature so lov ing as she is." " It would be strange enough for any but a French woman," said he. " But Adele is full of talk about her father and her godmother ; yet she can tell me scarce anything of her mother. There s a mystery about it, Benjamin." " There s a mystery in all our lives, Mabel, and will be until the last day shall come." The parson said this with extreme gravity, and then added, " He has written me regarding it, a very unfortu nate marriage, I fear. Only this much he has been dis posed to communicate ; and for myself, I am only con cerned to redeem his little girl from gross worldly attachments to the truths which take hold upon heaven. The next day the Doctor set off homeward upon the magnificent new steamboat Victory, which, with two wonderful smoke-pipes, was then plying through the Sound and up the Connecticut River. It was an ob ject of almost as much interest to the parson as to his little companion. A sober costume had now replaced the coquettish one with its furbelows, which Adele had worn in the city ; but there was a bright lining to her little hat that made her brown face more piquant than ever. And as she inclined her head jauntily to this DOCTOR JOHNS. 141 side or that, in order to a better listening to the old gentleman s somewhat tedious explanations, or with a saucy smile cut him short in the midst of them, the parson felt his heart warming more and more toward this poor child of heathen France. Nay, he felt almost tempted to lay his lips to the little white ears that peeped forth from the masses of dark hair and seemed fairly to quiver with the eagerness of their listening. With daylight of next morning came sight of the rambling old towns that lay at the river s mouth, being little more than patches of gray and white, strewed over an almost treeless country, with some central spire rising above them. Then came great stretches of open pasture, scattered over with huge gray rocks, amid which little flocks of sheep were ram bling; or some herd of young cattle, startled by the splashing of the paddles, and the great plumes of smoke, tossed their tails in the air, and galloped away in a fright, at which Adele clapped her hands, and broke into a laugh that was as cheery as the new dawn. Next came low, flat meadows of sedge, over which the tide oozed slowly, and where flocks of wild ducks, scared from their feeding-ground, rose by scores, and went flapping off seaward in long, black lines. And from between the hills on either side came glimpses of swamp woodland, in the midst of which some maple, earlier than its green fellows, had taken a tinge of 142 DOCTOR JOHNS. orange, and flamed in the eyes of the little traveler with a gorgeousness she had never seen in the woods of Provence. Then came towns nestling under bluffs of red quarry-stones, towns upon wooded plains, all with a white newness about them ; and a brig, with horses on its deck, piled over with bales of hay, comes drifting lazily down with the tide, to catch an offing for the West Indies ; and queer-shaped flat-boats, propelled by broad-bladed oars, surge slowly athwart the stream, ferrying over some traveler, or some fish-peddler bound to the " P int " for " sea-food." Toward noon the travelers land at a shambling dock that juts into the river, from which point they are to make their way, in such country vehicle as the little village will supply, across to Ashfield. And when they are fairly seated within, the parson, judging that ac quaintance has ripened sufficiently to be put to serious uses, says, with more than usual gravity, I trust, Adaly, that you are grateful to God for hav ing protected you from all the dangers of the deep." " Do you think there was much danger, New Papa ? " " There s always danger," said the parson, gravely. " The Victory might have been blown in pieces last night, and we all been killed, Adaly." " Oh, terrible ! " says Aclele. " And did such a thing ever really happen ? " " Yes, my child." DOCTOR JOHNS. 143 " Tell me all about it, New Papa, please ; " and she put her little hand in his. " Not now, Adaly, not now. I want to know if you have been taught about God, in your old home." " Oh, the good God ! To be sure I have, over and over and over ; " and she made a little piquant gesture, as if the teaching had been sometimes wearisome. This gayety of speech on such a theme was painful to the Doctor. " And you have been taught to pray, Adaly ? " " Oh, yes ! Listen now. Shall I tell you one of my prayers, New Papa ? Voyons, how is it " " Never mind, never mind, Adaly ; not here, not here. We are taught to enter into our closets when we pray." " Closets ? " "Yes, my child, to be by ourselves, and to be solemn." " I don t like solemn people much," said Adele, in a quiet tone. " But do you love God, my child ? " " Love Him ? To be sure I do ; " and after a little pause, " All good children love Him ; and I m good, you know, New Papa, don t you ? " and she turned her eyes up toward him with a half-coaxing, half-mis chievous look that came near to drive away all his so lemnity. 144 DOCTOR JOHNS. " Ah, Adaly ! Adaly ! we are all wicked ! " said he. Adele stared at him in amazement. " You, too ! Yet papa told me you were so good ! Ah, you are telling me now a little what you call lie ! a n t you, New Papa ? " And she looked at him with such a frank, arch smile, so like the memory he cherished of the col lege-boy, Maverick, that he could argue the matter no further, but only patted her little hand, as it lay upon the cushion of the carriage, as much as to say, " Poor thing ! poor thing ! " Upon this, he fell away into a train of grave reflec tion on the method which it would be best to pursue in bringing this little benighted wanderer into the fold of the faithful. And he was still musing thus, when suddenly the spire of Ashfield broke upon the view. " There it is, Adaly ! There is to be your new home ! " " Where ? where ? " says Adele, eagerly. And straightway she is all aglow with excitement. Her swift questions patter on the ears of the old gen tleman thick as rain-drops. She looks at the houses, the hills, the trees, the face of every passer-by, won dering how she shall like them all ; fashioning to her- o o self some image of the boy Reuben and of the Aunt Eliza who are to meet her ; yet, through all the torrent DOCTOR JOHNS. 145 of her vexed fancies, carrying a great glow of hope, and entering, with all her fresh, girlish enthusiasms un checked, upon that new phase of life, so widely differ ent from any thing she has yet experienced, under the grave atmosphere of a New England parsonage. VOL. I. 10 XX. "]% /PISS JOHNS meets the new-comer with as large ~U-*- a share of kindness as she can force into her manner ; but her welcome lacks, somehow, the sympa thetic glow to which Adele has been used ; it has not even the spontaneity and heartiness which had belonged to the greeting of that worldly woman, Mrs. Brindlock. And as the wondering little stranger passes up the path, and into the door of the parsonage, with her hand in that of the spinster, she cannot help contrasting the one cold kiss of the tall lady in black with the shower of warm ones which her old godmother had bestowed at parting. Yet in the eye of the Doctor sister Eliza had hardly ever worn a more beaming look, and he was duly grateful for the strong interest which she evidently showed in the child of his poor friend. She had equipped herself indeed in her best silk and with her most elaborate toilet, and had exhausted all her strat egy, whether in respect of dress, of decorations for the chamber, or of the profuse supper which was in course of preparation, to make a profound and favor able impression upon the heart of the stranger. DOCTOR JOHNS. 147 The spinster was not a little mortified at her evident want of success, most notably in respect to the elabo rate arrangements of the chamber of the young guest, who seemed to regard the dainty hangings of the little bed, and the scattered ornaments, as matters of course ; but making her way to the window which commanded a view of both garden and orchard, Adele clapped her hands with glee at sight of the flaming hollyhocks and the trees laden with golden pippins. It was, indeed, a pretty scene : silvery traces of the brook sparkled in the green meadow below the orchard, and the hills be- O * yond were checkered by the fields of buckwheat in broad patches of white bloom, and these again were skirted by masses of luxuriant wood that crowned all the heights. To the eye of Adele, used only to the bare hill-sides and scanty olive-orchards of Marseilles, the view was marvelously fair. " Tiens ! there are chickens and doves," said she, still gazing eagerly out ; " oh, I am sure I shall love this new home ! " And thus saying, she tripped back from the window to where Miss Eliza was admiringly intent upon the unpacking and arranging of the little wardrobe of her guest. Adele, in the flush of her joyful expectations from the scene that had burst upon her out of doors, now prattled more freely with the spinster. tossing out the folds of her dresses, as they successively came 148 DOCTOR JOHNS. to light, with her dainty fingers, and giving some quick, girlish judgment upon each. " This godmother gave me, dear, good soul ! and she sewed this bow upon it ; is n t it coquette ? And there s the white muslin, oh, how crushed! that was for my church-dress, first communion, you know ; but papa said, Better wait, so I never wore it." Thus woman and child grew into easy acquaintance over the great trunk of Adele : the latter plunging her little hands among the silken folds of dress after dress with the careless air of one whose every wish had been petted ; and the spinster forecasting the pride she would herself take in accompanying this little sprite, in these French robes, to the house of her good friends, the Hapgoods, or in exciting the wonderment of those most excellent people, the Tourtelots. Meantime Reuben, with a resolute show of boyish indifference, has been straying off with Phil Elderkin, although he has caught a glimpse of the carriage at the door. Later he makes his way into the study, where the Doctor, after giving him kindly reproof for not being at home to welcome them, urges upon him the duty of kindness to the young stranger who has come to make her home with them, and trusts that Provi dence may overrule her presence there to the improve ment and blessing of both. It is, in fact, a little lecture which the good, but prosy Doctor pronounces to the DOCTOR JOHNS. 149 boy ; from which he slipping away, so soon as a good gap occurs in the discourse, strolls with a jaunty affec tation of carelessness into the parlor. His Aunt Eliza is there now, seated at the table, and Adele standing by the hearth, on which a fire has just been kindled. She gives a quick, eager look at him, under which his as sumed carelessness vanishes in an instant. " This is Adele, our little French guest, Reuben." The lad throws a quick, searching glance upon her, but is abashed by the look of half-confidence and half-merriment that he sees twinkling in her eye. The boy s awkwardness seems to infect her, too, for a moment. " I should think, Reuben, you would welcome Adele to the parsonage," said the spinster. And Reuben, glancing again from under his brow, sidles along the table, with far less of ease than he had worn when he came whistling through the hall, sidles nearer and nearer, till she, with a coy ap proach that seems to be full of doubt, meets him with a little furtive hand-shade. Then he, retiring a step, leans with one elbow on the friendly table, eying her curiously, and more boldly when he discovers that her look is downcast and that she seems to be warming her feet at the blaze. Miss Johns has watched narrowly this approach of her two proteges, with an interest quite uncom- 150 DOCTOR JOHNS. mon to her ; and now, with a policy that would have honored a more adroit tactician, she slips quietly from the room. Reuben feels freer at this, knowing that the gray eye is not upon the watch ; Adele too, perhaps ; at any rate, she lifts her face with a look that invites Reuben to speech. "You came in a ship, did n t you?" " Oh, yes, a big, big ship ! " " I should like to sail in a ship," said Reuben ; "did you like it?" "Not very much," said Adele, "the deck was so slippery, and the waves were so high, oh, so high ! " and the little maid makes an explanatory gesture with her two hands, the like of which for grace and expressiveness Reuben had certainly never seen in any girl of Ashfield. His eyes twinkled at it. " Were you afraid ? " said he. "Oh, not much." " Because you know," said Reuben, consolingly, " if the ship had sunk, you could have come on shore in the small boats." He saw a merry laugh of wonder ment threatening in her face, and continued author itatively, "Nat Boody has been in a sloop, and he says they always carry small boats to pick up people when the big ships go down." Adele laughed outright. " But how would they DOCTOR JOHNS. 151 carry the bread, and the stove, and the water, and the anchor, and all the things? Besides, the great waves would knock a small boat in pieces." Reuben felt a humiliating sense of being no match for the little stranger on sea topics, so he changed the theme. " Are you going to Miss Onthank s ? " " That s a funny name," says Adele ; " that s the school, is n t it ? Yes, I suppose I 11 go there : you go, don t you ? " " Yes," says Reuben, " but I don t think I 11 go very long." "Why not?" says Adele. " I m getting too big to go to a girls school," said Reuben. " Oh ! " and there was a little playful malice in the girl s observation that piqued the boy. " Do the scholars like her ? " continued Adele. " Pretty well," said Reuben ; " but she hung up a little girl about as big as you, once, upon a nail in a corner of the school-room." " Quelle bete ! " exclaimed Adele. " That s French, is n t it ? " " Yes, and it means she s a bad woman to do such things." In this way they prattled on, and grew into a cer tain familiarity ; the boy entertaining an immense 152 DOCTOR JOHNS. respect for her French, and for her knowledge of the sea and ships ; but stubbornly determined to maintain the superiority which he thought justly to belong to his superior age and sex. That evening, after the little people were asleep, the spinster and the Doctor conferred together in regard to Adele. It was agreed between them that she should enter at once upon her school duties, and that particular inquiry concerning her religious beliefs, or particular instruction on that score, fur ther than what belonged to the judicious system of Miss Onthank, should be deferred for the present. At the same time the Doctor enjoined upon his sister the propriety of commencing upon the next Saturday evening the usual instructions in the Shorter Catechism, and of insisting upon punctual attendance vipon the family devotions. The good Doctor hoped by these appointed means gradually to ripen the re ligious sensibilities of the little stranger, so that she might be prepared for that stern denunciation of those follies of the Romish Church amid which she had been educated, and that it would be his duty at no distant day to declare to her. The spinster had been so captivated by a certain air of modish elegance in Adele as to lead her almost to forget the weightier obligations of her Christian duty toward her. She conceived that she DOCTOR JOHNS. 153 would find in her a means of recovering some in fluence over Reuben, never doubting that the boy would be attracted by her frolicsome humor, and would be eager for her companionship. It was pos sible, moreover, that there might be some appeal to the boy s jealousies, when he found the favors which he had spurned were lavished upon Adele. It was therefore in the best of temper and with the airiest of hopes (though not altogether spiritual ones) that Miss Eliza conducted the discussion with the Doctor. In two things only they had differed, and in this each had gained and each lost a point. The Doctor utterly refused to conform his pronunciation to the rigors which Miss Eliza prescribed ; for him Adele should be always and only Aclaly. On the other hand, the parson s exactions in regard to sundry modifications of the little girl s dress miscarried ; the spinster insisted upon all the furbelows as they had come from the hands of the French modiste ; and in this she left the field with flying colors. The next day Doctor Johns wrote to his friend Maverick, announcing the safe arrival of his child at Ashfield, and spoke in terms which were warm for him, of the interest which both his sister and him self felt in her welfare. " He was pained," he said, u to perceive that she spoke almost with gayety of serious things, and feared greatly that her keen 154 DOCTOR JOHNS. relish for the beauties and delights of this sinful world, and her exuberant enjoyment of mere tem poral blessings, would make it hard to wean her from them and to center her desires upon the eternal world. But, my friend, all things are possible with God ; and I shall diligently pray that she may return to you, in a few years, sobered in mind, and a self-denying missionary of the true faith." XXI. ""VTO such event could take place in Ashfield as -^^ the arrival of this young stranger at the par sonage, without exciting a world of talk up and down the street. There were stories that she came of a vile Popish family, and there were those who gravely believed that the poor little creature had made only a hair-breadth escape from the thongs of the In quisition. There were few even of those who knew that she was the daughter of a wealthy gentleman, now domiciled in France, and an old friend of the Doctor s, who did not look upon her with a tender interest, as one miraculously snatched by the hands of the good Doctor from the snares of perdition. The gay trappings of silks and ribbons in which she paced up the aisle of the meeting-house upon her first Sunday, under the patronizing eye of the stern spinster, were looked upon by the more elderly worshipers most of all by the mothers of young daughters as the badges of the Woman of Babylon, and as fit belongings to those accustomed to dwell in the tents of wickedness. Even Dame Tourtelot, 156 DOCTOR JOHNS. in whose pew the face of Miss Almira waxes yellow between two great saffron bows, commiserates the poor heathen child who has been decked like a lamb for the sacrifice. " I wonder Miss Eliza don t pull off them ribbons from the little minx," said she, as she marched home in the " intermission," locked commandingly to the arm of the Deacon. " Waal, I s pose they re paid for," returns the Deacon. What s that to do with it, Tourtelot ? " " Waal, Huldy, we do pootty much all we can for Almiry in that line : this ere Maverick, I guess, doos the same. What s the odds, arter all ? " " Odds enough, Tourtelot," as the poor man found before bedtime : he had no flip. The Elderkins, however, were more considerate. Very early after her arrival, Adele had found her way to their homestead, under the guidance of Miss Eliza, and by her frank, demonstrative manner had estab lished herself at once in the affections of the whole family. The Squire, indeed, had rallied the parson not a little, in his boisterous, hearty fashion, upon his in troduction of such a dangerous young Jesuit into so orthodox a parish. At all which, so seriously uttered as to take the Doc tor fairly aback, good Mrs. Elderkin shook her finger warningly at the head of the Squire, and said, " Now, for shame, Giles ! " DOCTOR JOHNS. 157 Good Mrs. Elderkin was, indeed, the pattern woman of the parish in all charitable deeds ; not only outside, (where so many charitable natures find their limits,) but in-doors. With gentle speech and gentle manner, she gave, may be, her occasional closet-counsel to the Squire ; but most times her efforts to win him to a more serious habit of thought are covered under the shape of some charming plea for a kindness to herself or the " dear girls," which she knows that he will not have the hardihood to resist. And even this method she does not push too far, making it a cardinal point in her womanly strategy that his home shall be always grateful to the Squire, that he shall never be driven from it by any thought or suspicion of her exactions. Thus, if Grace who is her oldest daughter, and al most woman grown has some evening appointment at Bible class, or other such gathering, and, the boys being out, appeals timidly to the father, good Mrs. Elderkin says, " I am afraid your papa is too tired, Grace ; do let him enjoy himself." At which the Squire, shaking off his lethargy, says, " Get your things, child ! " And as he goes out with Grace, he is rewarded by one of those tender smiles upon the lip of the mother which captivated him twenty years before, and which still make his fireside the most cherished spot in the town. 158 DOCTOR JOHNS. No wonder that the little half-orphaned creature, Adele, with her explosive warmth of heart, is kindly received among the Elderkins. Phil was some three years her senior, a ruddy-faced, open-hearted fellow, who had been well-nurtured, like his two elder brothers, but in whom a certain waywardness just now appearing was attributed very much, by the closely observing mother, to the influence of that interesting, but mis chievous boy, Reuben. Phil was the superior in age, indeed, and in muscle, (as we may find proof,) but in nerve-power the more delicate-featured boy of the par son outranked him. Rose Elderkin was a year younger than the French stranger, and a marvelously fair type of New England girl-beauty : light brown hair in unwieldy masses ; skin wonderfully clear and transparent, and that flushed at a rebuke, or a run down the village street, till her cheeks blazed with scarlet ; a lip delicately thin, but blood- red, and exquisitely cut ; a great hazel eye, that in her mo ments of glee, or any occasional excitement, fairly danced and sparkled with a kind of insane merriment, and at other times took on a demure and pensive look, which to future wooers might possibly prove the more dangerous of the two. The features named make up a captivating girlish beauty, but one which, under a New England atmosphere, is rarely carried forward into womanhood. The lips grow pinched and bloodless ; DOCTOR JOHNS. 159 the skin blanched against all proof of blushes ; the eyes sunken, and the blithe sparkle that was so full of infectious joy is lost forever in that exhausting blaze of girlhood. But we make no prophecy in regard to the future of our little friend Rose. Adele thinks her very charming ; Reuben is disposed to rank her whatever Phil may think or say far above Suke Boody. And in his reading of the delightful " Chil dren of the Abbey," which he has stolen, (by favor of Phil, who owns the book,) he has thought of Rose when Amanda first appeared ; and when the divine Amanda is in tears, he has thought of Rose ; and when Amanda smiles, with Mortimer kneeling at her feet, he has still thought of Rose. These four, Adele, Phil, Rose, and Reuben, are fel low-attendants at the school of the excellent Miss Betsy Onthank. The school-house itself is a modest one, and stands upon a cross-road leading from the main street of the village, and is upon the side of the little brook which courses through the valley lying to the westward. A half-dozen or more of sugar-maples stand near it, and throw over it a grateful shade in August. In March these trees are exposed to a series of tappings on the part of the more mechanically inclined of the pupils, Phil Elderkin being chiefest, and gimlets, quills, and dinner-pails are brought into requisition with prodigious results. In the heats of summer, and 160 DOCTOR JOHNS. when the brook is low, adventurous ones, of whom Reuben is chiefest, undertake to dam its current; and it being traditional in the school that one day a strange fisherman once took out two trout, half as long as Miss Onthank s ruler, from under the bridge by which the high road crosses the brook, Reuben plies every arti fice, whether of bent pins, or hooks purchased from the Tew partners, (unknown to Aunt Eliza, who is preju diced against fish-hooks as dangerous,) to catch a third ; and finding other resources vain, he punches two or three holes through the bottom of his little dinner-pail, to make a scoop-net of it, and manfully wades under the bridge to explore all the hollows of that unknown region. While in this precarious position, he is re ported by some timid child to the mistress, who straight way sallies out, ferule in hand and cap-strings flying, and orders him to land ; which Reuben, taking warning by the threatening tone of the old lady, refuses, unless she promises not to flog him ; and the kind-hearted mistress, fearing too long exposure of the lad to the chilly water, gives the promise. But with the tell-tale pail dangling at his belt, he does not escape so easily the inquisitive Aunt Eliza. The excellent Miss Onthank for by this title the parson always compliments her is a type of a school mistress which is found no longer : grave, stately, with two great moppets of hair on either side her brow, (as DOCTOR JOHNS. 161 in the old engravings of Louis Philippe s good queen Amelia,) very resolute, very learned in the boundaries of all Christian and heathen countries, patient to a fault, with a marvelous capacity for pointing out with her bodkin every letter to some wee thing at its first stage of spelling, and yet keeping an eye upon all the school room ; reading a chapter from the Bible, and saying a prayer each morning upon her bended knees, the little ones all kneeling in concert, with an air that would have adorned the most stately prioress of a con vent ; using her red ferule betimes on little, mischiev ous, smarting hands, yet not over-severe, and kind be neath all her gravity. She regards Adele with a pe culiar tenderness, and hopes to make herself the hum ble and unworthy instrument of redeeming her from the wicked estate in which she has been reared. And AdMe, though not comprehending the excess of her zeal, and opening her eyes in great wonderment when the good woman talks about her " providential deliver ance from the artful snares of the adversary," is as free in her talk with the grave mistress as if she were her mother confessor. Phil and Reuben, being the oldest boys of the school, resent the indignity of being still subject to woman rule by a concerted series of rebellious out breaks. Some six or eight months after the arrival of Adele upon the scene, this rebel attitude culminates in VOL. I. 11 162 DOCTOR JOHNS. an incident that occasions a change of programme. The rebels on their way to school espy a few clam shells before some huckster s door, and, putting two or three in their pockets, seize the opportunity when the good lady s eyes are closed in the morning prayer to send t\vo or three scaling about the room, which fall with a clatter among the startled little ones. One, aimed more justly by Reuben, strikes the grave mis tress full upon the forehead, and leaves a red cut from which one or two beads of blood trickle down. Adele, who has not learned yet that obstinate closing of the eyes which most of the scholars have been taught, and to whom the sight recalls the painted heads of martyrs in an old church at Marseilles, gives a little hysteric scream. But the mistress, with face unchanged and voice uplifted and unmoved, completes her relig ious duty. The whole school is horrified, on rising from their knees, at sight of the old lady s bleeding head. The mistress wipes her forehead calmly, and, picking up the shell at her feet, says, Who threw this ? " There is silence in the room. " Adele." she continues, " I heard you scream, child ; do you know who threw this ? " Adele gives a quick, inquiring glance at Reuben, whose face is imperturbable, rallies her courage for a struggle against the will of the mistress, and then bursts into tears. DOCTOR JOHNS. 163 Reuben cannot stand this. " / threw it, marm," says he, with a great tremor in his voice. The mistress beckons him to her, and, as he walks thither, motions to a bench near her, and says gravely, " Sit by me, Reuben." There he keeps till school-hours are over, wondering what shape the punishment will take. At last, when all are gone, the mistress leads him into her private closet, and says solemnly, " Reuben, this is a crime against God. I forgive you ; I hope He may ; " and she bids him kneel beside her, while she prays in a way that makes the tears start to the eyes of the boy. Then, home, she walking by his side, and leading him straight into the study of the grave Doctor, to whom she unfolds the story, begging him not to punish the lad, believing that he is penitent. And the meek ness and kindliness of the good woman make a Chris tian picture for the mind of Reuben, in sad contrast with the prim austerity of Aunt Eliza, a picture that he never loses, that keeps him meekly obedient for the rest of the quarter ; after which, by the advice of Miss Onthank, both Phil and Reuben are transferred to the boys academy upon the Common. xxn. MEANTIME, Adele is making friends in Ashfield and in the parsonage. The irrepressible buoy ancy of her character cannot be kept under even by the severity of conduct which belongs to the home of the Doctor. If she yields rigid obedience to all the laws of the household, as she is taught to do, her vivacity sparkles all the more in those short intervals of time when the laws are silent. There is something in this beaming mirth of hers which the Doctor loves, though he struggles against the love. lie shuts his door fast, that the snatches of some profane song from her little lips (with him all French songs are profane) may not come in to disturb him ; but as her voice rises cheerily, higher and higher, in the summer dusk, he catches himself lending a profane ear ; the blithcness, the sweetness, the mellowness of her tones win upon his dreary solitude ; there is something softer in them than in the measured vocables of sister Eliza ; it brings a souvenir of the girlish Rachel, and his memory floats back upon the strains of the new singer, to the days when that dear voice filled his heart ; and he thinks DOCTOR JOHNS. 165 thanking Adaly for the thought she is singing with the angels now ! But the spinster, who has no ear for music, in the midst of such a carol, will cry out in sharp tones from her chamber, " Adele, Adele, not so loud, child ! you will disturb the Doctor ! " Even then Adele has her resource in the garden and the orchard, where she never tires of wandering up and down, and never wandering there but some frag ment of a song breaks from her lips. From time to time the Doctor summons her to his study to have serious talk with her. She has, indeed, shared the Saturday-night instruction in the Catechism, in company with Reuben, and being quick at words, no matter how long they may be, she has learned it all ; and Reuben and she dash through " what is required " and " what is forbidden " and " the reasons annexed " like a pair of prancing horses, kept diligently in hand by that excellent whip, Miss Johns. But the study has not wrought that gravity in the mind of the child which the good parson had hoped for ; the seed, he fears, has fallen upon stony places. He therefore, as we have said, summons her from time to time to his study. And Adele comes, always at the first summons, with a tripping step, and, with a little coquettish adjustment of her dress and hair, flings herself into the big chair before him, 166 DOCTOR JOHNS. " Now, New Papa, here I am ! " " Ah, Adaly ! I wish, child, that you could be more serious than you are." " Serious ! ha ! ha ! " (she sees a look of pain on the face of the Doctor,) " but I will be, I am ; " and with great effort she throws a most unnatural expres sion of repose into her face. " You are a good girl, Adaly ; but this is not the seriousness I want to find in you. I want you to feel, my child, that you are walking on the brink of a preci pice, that your heart is desperately wicked." " Oh, no, New Papa ! you don t think I m desper ately wicked ? " and she says it with a charming eagerness of manner. " Yes, desperately wicked, Adaly, leaning to the things of this world, and not fastening your affections on things above, on the realities beyond the grave." " But all that is so far away, New Papa ! " " Not so far as you think, child ; they may come to-day." Adele is sobered in earnest now, and tosses her little feet back and forth, in an agony of apprehension. The Doctor continues, " To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts " ; and the sentiment and utterance are so like to the usual ones of the pulpit, that Adele takes cour age again. DOCTOR JOHNS. 167 The little girl has a profound respect for the Doctor ; his calmness, his equanimity, his persistent zeal in his work, would alone provoke it. But she sees, further more, what she does not see always in " Aunt Eliza," a dignity of character that is proof against all irri tating humors ; then, too, he has appeared to Adele a very pattern of justice. She had taken exceptions, indeed, when, on one or two rare occasions, he had reached down the birch rod which lay upon the same hooks with the sword of Major Johns, in the study, and had called in Eeuben for extraordinary discipline ; but the boy s manifest acquiescence in the affair when his cool moments came next morning, and the melancholy air of kindness with which the Doctor went in to kiss him a good-night, after such regimen, kept alive her faith in the unvarying justice of the parson. Therefore she tried hard to torture her poor little heart into a feeling of its own blackness, (for that it was very black she had the good man s averment,) she listened gravely to all he had to urge, and when he had fairly over burdened her with the enumeration of her wicked, worldly appetites, she could only say, with a burst of emotion, " Well, but, New Papa, the good God will forgive me." " Yes, Adaly, yes, I trust so, if forgiveness be sought in fear and trembling. But remember, When 168 DOCTOR JOHNS. God created man, he entered into a covenant of life with him upon condition of perfect obedience. " This brings back to poor Adele the drudgery of the Saturday s Catechism, associated with the sharp cor rectives of Aunt Eliza ; and she can only offer a plead ing kiss to the Doctor, and ask plaintively, " May I go now ? " " One moment, Adaly," and he makes her kneel beside him, while he prays, fervently, passionately, drawing her frail little figure to himself, even as he prays, as if he would carry her with him in his arms into the celestial presence. The boy Reuben, too, has had his seasons of this closet struggle ; but they are rarer now ; the lad has shrewdly learned to adjust himself to all the require ments of such occasions. lie has put on a leaden ac quiescence in the Doctor s theories, whether with regard to sanctification or redemption, that is most dishearten ing to the parson. Does any question of the Doctor s, by any catch - word, suggest an answer from the " Shorter Catechism " as applicable, Eeuben is ready with it on the instant. Does the Doctor ask, " Do you know, my son, the sinfulness of the estate in which you are living ? " " Sinfulness of the estate whereunto man fell ? " says Reuben, briskly. " Know it like a book : Con- DOCTOR JOHNS. 169 sists in the guilt of Adam s first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called original sin, together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it. There s a wasp on your shoulder, father, there s two of em. I 11 kill em." No wonder the good Doctor is disheartened, and trusts more and more, in respect to his boy, to the silent influences of the Spirit. Adele has no open quarrels with Miss Johns ; she is obedient ; she, too, has fallen under the influence of that magnetic voice, and accepts the orders and the commendations conveyed by it as if they were utter ances of Fate. Yet, with her childish instincts, she has formed a very fair estimate of the character of Miss Eliza ; it is doubtful even if she has not fathomed it in certain directions more correctly and profoundly than the grave Doctor. She sees clearly that the spin ster s unvarying solicitude in regard to the dress and appearance of " dear Adele " is due more to that hard pride of character which she nurses every day of her life than to any tenderness for the little stranger. For at the hands of her old godmother and of her father Adele has known what real tenderness was. It is a lesson children never unlearn. " Adele, my dear, you look charmingly to-day, with that pink bow in your hair. Do you know, I think pink is becoming to you, my child ? " 170 DOCTOR JOHNS. And Adele listens with a composed smile, not unwil ling to be admired. What girl of any age is ? But the admiration of Miss Johns does not touch her ; it never calls a tear to her eye. In the bright belt- buckle, in the big leg-of-mutton sleeves, in the glittering brooch containing coils of the Johns hair, in the jaunty walk and authoritative air of the spinster, the quick, keen eye of Adele sees some thing more than the meek Christian teacher and friend. It is a sin in her to see it, perhaps ; but she cannot help it. Miss Johns has not succeeded in exciting the jeal ousy of Reuben, at least, not in the manner she had hoped. Her influence over him is clearly on the wane. He sees, indeed, her exaggerated devotion to the little stranger, which serves in her presence, at least, to call out all his indifference. Yet even this, Adele, with her girlish instinct, seems to understand, too, and bears the boy no grudge in consequence of it. Nay, when he has received some special administration of the par son s discipline, she allows her sympathy to find play in a tender word or two that touch Reuben more than he dares to show. And when they meet down the orchard, away from the lynx eye of Aunt Eliza, there are rare apples far out upon overhanging limbs that he can pluck, by dint of venturous climbing, for her; and as he sees through DOCTOR JOHNS. 171 the boughs her delicate figure tripping through the grass, and lingers to watch it, there comes a thought that she must be the Amanda of the story, and not Rose, and he, perched in the apple-tree, a glowing Mortimer. XXIII. TTN the year 183 -, Mr. Maverick writes to his friend -*- Johns that the disturbed condition of public affairs in France will compel him to postpone his intended visit to America, and may possibly detain him for a long time to come. He further says, " In order to prevent all possible hazards which may grow out of our revolutionary fervor on this side of the water, I have invested in United States securities, for the bene fit of my dear little Adele, a sum of money which will yield some seven hundred dollars a year. Of this I propose to make you trustee, and desire that you should draw so much of the yearly interest as you may deter mine to be for her best good, denying her no reasona ble requests, and making your household reckoning clear of all possible deficit on her account. " I am charmed with the improved tone of her let ters, and am delighted to see by them that even under your grave regimen she has not lost her old buoyancy of spirits. My dear Johns, I owe you a debt in this matter which I shall never be able to repay. Kiss the little witch for me ; tell her that Papa always thinks DOCTOR JOHNS. 173 of her, as he sits solitary upon the green bench under the arbor. God bless the dear one, and keep all trouble from her ! " She, gaining in height now month by month, wins more and more upon the grave Doctor, wins upon Rose, who loves her as she loves her sisters, wins upon Phil, whose liking for her is becoming demonstra tive to a degree that prompts a little jealousy in the warm-blooded Reuben, and that drives out all thought of the pink cheeks and fat arms of Suke Boody. Miss Johns still regards her with admiring eyes, and shows all her old assiduity in looking after the comforts and the silken trappings of the French guest. Day after day, in summer weather, Rose and she idle together along the embowered paths of the village ; the Tew partners greet the pair with smiles ; good Mistress El- derkin has always a cordial welcome ; the stout Squire stoops to kiss the little Jesuit, who blushes at the ten der affront through all the brownness of her cheek, like a rose. Day after day the rumble of the mill breaks on the country quietude ; and as autumn comes in, burn ing with all its forest fires, the farmer s flails beat time together, as they did ten years before. At the academy, Phil and Reuben plot mischief, and they cement their friendship with not a few boyish quarrels. Thus, Reuben, in the way of the boyish pomologists 174 DOCTOR JOHNS. of those days, has buried at midsummer in the orchard a dozen or more of the finest windfalls from the early apple-trees, that they may mellow, away from the air, into good eating condition, and he has marked the spot in his boyish way with a little pyramid of stones. Strolling down the orchard a few days later, he sees Phil coming away from that locality, with his pockets bulging out ominously, and munching a great apple with extraordinary relish. Perhaps there is a thought that he may design a gift out of the stolen stores for Adele ; at any rate, Reuben flies at him. " I say, Phil, that s doosed mean now, to be stealing my apples ! " " Who s stole your apples ? " says Phil, with a great roar of voice. " You have," says Reuben ; and having now come near enough to find his pyramid of stones all laid low, he says more angrily, " You re a thief! and you ve got em in your pocket ! " "Thief!" says Phil, looking threateningly, and throwing away his apple half-eaten ; " if you call me a thief, I say you re a you know what." " Well, blast you," says Reuben, boiling with rage, " say it ! Call me a liar, if you dare ! " " I do dare," says Phil, " if you accuse me of steal ing your apples ; and I say you re a liar, and be darned to you ! " DOCTOR JOHNS. 175 At this, Reuben, though he is the shorter by two or three inches, and no match for his foe at fisticuffs, plants a blow straight in Philip s face. (He said af terward, when all was settled, that he was ten times more mortified to think that he had done such a thing O in his father s orchard.) But Phil closed upon him, and kneading him with his knuckles in the back, and with a trip, threw him heavily, falling prone upon him. Reuben, in a frenzy, and with a torrent of much worse language than he was in the habit of using, was struggling to turn him, when a sharp, loud voice, which they both knew only too well, came down the wind, " Boys ! boys ! " and presently the Doctor comes up panting. " What does this mean ? Philip, I m ashamed of you ! " he continues ; and Philip rises. Reuben, rising, too, the instant after, and with his fury unchecked, dashes at Phil again ; when the Doc tor seizes him by the collar and drags him aside. " He struck me," says Phil. " And he stole my apples and called me a liar," says Reuben, with the tears starting, though he tries desperately to keep them back, seeing that Phil shows no such evidence of emotion. " Tut ! tut ! " says the Doctor, " you are both too angry for a straight story. Come with me." And taking each by the hand, he led them through 176 DOCTOR JOHNS. the garden and house, directly into his study. There he opens a closet-door, with the sharp order, " Step in here, Reuben, until I hear Philip s story." This Phil tells straightforwardly, how he was passing through the orchard with a pocketful of apples, which a neighbor s boy had given, and how Reuben came upon him with swift accusation, and then the fight. " But he hurt me more than I hurt him," says Phil, wiping his nose, which showed a little ooze of blood." " Good ! " says the Doctor, "I think you tell the truth." " Thank you," says Phil, " I know I do, Doctor." Next Reuben is called out. " Do you know he took the apples ? " asks the Doctor. " Don t know," says Reuben, " but he was by the place, and the stones thrown down." " And is that sufficient cause, Reuben, for accusing your friend ? " At which, Reuben, shifting his position uneasily from one foot to the other, says, " I believe he did, though." " Stop, sir ! " says the Doctor in a voice that makes Reuben sidle away. " Here," says Phil, commiserating him in a grand way, and beginning to discharge his pockets on the Doctor s table, " he may have them, if he wants them." Reuben stares at them a moment in astonishment, DOCTOR JOHNS. 177 then breaks out with a great tremor in his voice, but roundly enough, " By George ! they re not the same apples at all. I m sorry I told you that, Phil." " Don t say By George before me, or anywhere else," says the Doctor, sharply. " It s but a sneaking oath, sir ; yet " (more gently) " I m glad of your honesty, Reuben." At the instigation of the parson they shake hands ; after which he leads them both into his closet, beckon ing them to kneel on either side of him, as he com mends them in his stately way to Heaven, trusting that they may live in good-fellowship henceforth, and keep His counsel, who was the great Peacemaker, always in their hearts. . Next morning, when Reuben goes to reconnoiter the place of his buried treasure, he finds all safe, and taking the better half of the fruit, he marches away with a proud step to the Elderkin house. The basket is for Phil. But Phil is not at home ; so he leaves the gift, and a message, with a short story of it all, with the tender Rose, whose eyes dance with girlish admiration at this stammered tale of his, and her fingers tremble when they touch the boy s in the transfer of his little burden. Reuben walks away prouder yet ; is not this sweet- faced girl, after all, Amanda ? VOL. I. 12 178 DOCTOR JOHNS. There come quarrels, however, with the academy teacher not so easily smoothed over. The Doctor and the master hold long consultations. Reuben, it is to be feared, has bad associates. The boy makes interest, through Nat Boody, with the stage-driver ; and one day the old ladies are horrified at seeing the parson s son mounted on the box of the coach beside the driver, and putting his boyish fingers to the test of four-in- hand. Of course he is a truant that day from school, and toiling back footsore and weary, after tea, he can give but a lame account of himself. He brings, another time, a horrid fighting cur, (as Miss Eliza terms it in her disgust,) for which he has bartered away the new muffler that the spinster has knit. He thinks it a .splendid bargain. Miss Johns and the Doctor do not. He is reported by credible witnesses as loitering about the tavern in the summer nights, long after prayers are over at the parsonage, and the lights are out ; thus it is discovered, to the great horror of the household, that by connivance with Phil he makes his way over the roof of the kitchen from his cham ber-window to join in these night forays. After long consideration, in which Grandfather Handby is brought into consultation, it is decided to place the boy for a while under the charge of the latter for discipline, and with the hope that removal from his town associ- DOCTOR JOHNS. 179 ates may work good. But within a fortnight after the change is made, Grandfather Handby drives across the country in his wagon, with Reuben seated beside him with a comic gravity on his face ; and the old gentleman, pleading the infirmities of age, and giv ing the boy a farewell tap on the cheek, (for he loves him, though he has whipped him almost daily,) re stores him to the paternal roof. At this crisis, Squire Elderkin who, to tell truth, has a little fear of the wayward propensities of the parson s son in misleading Phil recommends trial of the discipline of a certain Parson Brummem who fills the parish-pulpit upon Bolton Hill. This dig nitary was a tall, lank, leathern-faced man, of incor ruptible zeal and stately gravity, who held under his stern dominion a little flock of two hundred souls, and who, eking out a narrow parochial stipend by the week-day office of teaching, had gained large re pute for his subjugation of refractory boys. A feeble little invalid wife cringed beside him along the journey of life ; and it would be pitiful to think that she had not long ago entered, in way of remuner ation, upon paths of pleasantness beyond the grave. Parson Brummem received Brother Johns, when he drove with Reuben to the parsonage-door, on that wild waste of Bolton Hill, with all the unction of manner that belonged to him ; but it was so grave 180 DOCTOR JOHNS. an unction as to chill poor Reuben to the marrow of his bones. A week s experience only dispersed the chill when the tingle of the parson s big rod wrought a glow in him that was almost madness. Yet Reuben chafed not so much at the whippings to which he was well used as at the dreariness of the new home, the melancholy waste of common over which March winds blew all the year, the pinched faces that met him without other recognition than, " One o Parson Brummem s b ys." Nor in-doors was the aspect more inviting: a big red table around which sat six fellow - martyrs with their slates and geographies, a tall desk at which Brummem indited his sermons, and from time to time a little side-door opening timidly, through which came a weary wom an s voice, " Ezekiel, dear, one minute ! " at which the great man strides thither, and lends his great ear to the family council. Ah, the long, weary mornings, when the sun, pouring through the curtainless south windows a great blaze upon the oaken floor, lights up for Reuben only the cob- webbed corners, the faded roundabouts of fellow-mar tyrs, the dismal figures of Daboll, the shining tail-coat of Master Brummem, as he stalks up and down from hour to hour, collecting in this way his scattered thoughts for some new argumentative thrust of the quill into the sixthly or the seventhly of his next week s ser- DOCTOR JOHNS. 181 mon ! And the long and weary afternoons, when the sun with a mocking bounty pours through the dusty and curtainless windows to the west, lighting only again the gray and speckled roundabouts of the fagging boys, the maps of Malte-Brun, and the shining forehead of the Brummem ! There is a dismal, graceless, bald air about town and house and master, which is utterly revolting to the lad, whose childish feet had pattered beside the tender Rachel along the embowered paths of Ashfield. The lack of congeniality affronts his whole nature. In the keenness of his martyrdom, (none the less real because fancied,) the leathern-faced, gaunt Brummem takes the shape of some Giant Despair with bloody maw and mace, and he, the child of some Christiana, for whose guiding hand he gropes vainly : she has gone before to the Celestial City ! The rod of the master does not cure the chronic state of moody rebellion into which Reuben lapses, with these fancies on him. It drives him at last to an act of desperation. The lesson in Daboll that day was a hard one ; but it was not the lesson, or his short-comings in it, it was not the hand of the master, which had been heavy on him, but it was a vague, dismal sense of the dreariness of his surroundings, of the starched looks that met him, of the weary monotony, of the lack of sympathy, which goaded him to the final overt act of 182 DOCTOR JOHNS. rebellion, which made him dash his leathern-bound arithmetic full into the face of the master, and then sit down, burying his face in his hands. The stern doctrines of Parson Brummem had taught him, at least, a rigid self-command. He did not strike the lad. But recovering from his amazement, he says, " Very well, very well, Master Reuben, we will sleep upon this ; " and then, tapping at the inner door, " Keziah, make ready the little chamber over the hall for Master Johns : he must be by himself to-night : give him a glass of water and a slice of dry bread : nothing else, sir, (turning to Reuben now,) until you come to me to-morrow at nine, in this place, and ask my pardon ; " and he motions him to the door. Reuben staggers out, staggers up-stairs into the dismal chamber. It looks out only upon a bald waste of common. Shortly after, a slatternly maid brings his prison fare, and, with a little kindly discre tion, has added secretly a roll of gingerbread. Reuben thanks her, and says, " You re a good woman, Keziah ; and I say, won t you fetch me my cap, there s a good un ; it s cold here." The maid, with great show of caution, complies ; a few minutes after, the parson comes, and, looking in warningly, closes and locks the door outside. A weary evening follows, in which thoughts of Adele, of nights at the Elderkins , of Phil, of Rose, flash upon DOCTOR JOHNS. 183 him, and spend their richness, leaving him more madly disconsolate. Then come thoughts of the morning humiliation, of the boys pointing their fingers at him after school. " No, they sha n t, by George ! " And with this decision he dropped asleep ; with this decision ripened in him, he woke at three in the morn ing, waited for the hall clock to strike, that he might be sure of his hour, tied together the two sheets of Mistress Brummem s bed, opened the window gently, dropped out his improvised cable, slid upon it safely to the ground, and before day had broken or any of the towns-folk were astir, had crossed all the more open portion of the village, and by sunrise had plunged into the wooded swamp-land which lay three miles westward toward the river. XXIV. A T nine next morning, prayers and breakfast be- ing dispatched, during which Parson Brum- mem had determined to leave Reuben to the sting of his conscience, the master appears in the school room with his wristbands turned up, and his ferule in hand, to enforce judgment upon the culprit. It had been a frosty night, and the cool October air had not tempted the boys to any wide movement out of doors, so that no occupant of the parsonage had as yet detected the draggled white banner that hung from the prison-window. Through Keziah, the parson gave orders for Master Johns to report himself at once in the school-room. The maid returned presently, clattering down the stairs in a great fright, " Reuben s gone, sir ! " " Gone ? " says the tall master, astounded. lie re presses a wriggle of healthful satisfaction on the part of his pupils by a significant lift of his ferule, then moves ponderously up the stairs for a personal visit to the chamber of the culprit. The maid had given DOCTOR JOHNS. 185 true report ; there was no one there. Never had he been met with such barefaced rebellion. Truants, indeed, there had been in days gone by ; but that a pupil under discipline should have tied together Mistress Brummem s linen and left it draggling in oo o this way, in the sight of every passer-by, was an affront to his authority which he had not deemed possible. An hour thereafter, and he had assigned the morn ing s task to the boys (which he had ventured to lengthen by a third, in view as he said, with a grim humor of their extremely cheerful spirits) ; established Mistress Brummem in temporary charge, and was driving his white-faced nag down the road which led toward Ashfield. The frosted pools crackled under the wheels of the old chaise ; the heaving horse wheezed as the stern parson gave his loins a thwack with the slackened reins, and urged him down the turnpike which led away through the ill-kept fields, from the rambling, slatternly town. Stone walls that had borne the upheaval of twenty winters reeled beside the way. Broad scars of ocher- ous earth, from which the turnpike-menders had dug material to patch the wheel-track, showed ooze of yellow mud with honeycombs of ice rimming their edges, and supporting a thin film of sod made up of lichens and the roots of five-fingers. Raw, shapeless 186 DOCTOR JOHNS. stones, and bald, gray rocks, only half unearthed, cumbered the road ; while bunches of dwarfed birches, browsed by straying cattle, added to the repulsiveness of the scene. Nor were the inclosed lands scarcely more inviting. Lean shocks of corn that had swayed under the autumn winds stretched at long intervals across fields of thin stubble ; a few half-ripened pumpkins, hanging yet to the seared vines, whose leaves had long since been shriveled by the frost, showed their shining green faces on the dank soil. In other fields, overrun with a great shaggy growth of rag- weed, some of the parson s flock father and blue-nosed boys were lifting poor crops of " bile-whites " or " merinos." From time to time, a tall house jutted upon the road, with unctuous pig-sty under the lee of the garden-fence and wood pile sprawling into the highway, where the parson would rein up his nag, and make inquiry after the truant Reuben. A half-dozen of these stops and inquiries proved wholly vain ; yet the sturdy parson urged his poor, heaving nag forward, until he had come to the little gate-house which thrust itself quite across the high road at some six miles distance from Bolton Church. No stray boy had passed that day. Thereupon the parson turned, and, after retracing his way for two miles or more, struck into a cross-road which led DOCTOR JOHNS. 187 westward. There were the same fruitless inquiries here at the scattered houses, and Avhen he came at length upon the great river-road along which the boy had passed at the first dawn, there was no one who could tell any thing of him; and by noon the parson reentered the village, disconsolate and hungry. He was by no means a vindictive man, and could very likely have forgiven Reuben the blow he had struck. He had no conception of the hidden causes which had wrought in the lad such burst of anger. He conceived only that Satan had taken hold of him, and he had strong faith in the efficacy of the rod for driving Satan out. After dinner he administered a sharp lecture to his pupils, admonishing them of the evils of disobe dience, and warning them that " God sometimes left bad boys to their own evil courses, and to run like the herd of swine into which the unclean spirits entered, of which account might be found in Mark v. 13, down a steep place, and be choked." The parson still had hope that Reuben might ap pear at evening ; and he forecast a good turn which he would make, in such event, upon the parable of the Prodigal Son (with the omission, however, of the fatted calf). But the prodigal did not return. Next day there was the same hope, but fainter. Still, the 188 DOCTOR JOHNS. prodigal Reuben did not return. Whereupon the parson thought it his duty to write to Brother Johns, advising him of the escape of Reuben, " he having stolen away in the night, tying together and much draggling Mrs. Brummem s pair of company sheets, (no other being out of wash,) and myself following after vainly, the best portion of a day, much perturbed in spirit, in my chaise. I duly instructed my parish ioners to report him, if found, which has not been the case. I trust that in the paternal home, if he has made his way thither, he may be taught to open his ear to discipline, and return from iniquity. Job xxxvi. 10." The good parson was a type of not a few retired country ministers in New England forty years ago : a heavy-minded, right-meaning man ; utterly inacces sible to any of the graces of life ; no bird ever sang in his ear ; no flower ever bloomed for his eye ; a man to whom life was only a serious spiritual toil, and all human joys a vanity to be spurned; preach ing tediously long sermons, and counting the fatigue of the listeners a fitting oblation to spiritual truth ; staggering through life with a great burden of theolo gies on his back, which it was his constant struggle to pack into smaller and smaller compass, not so much, we fear, for the relief of others as of himself. Let us hope that the burden like that of Christian DOCTOR JOHNS. 189 in the " Pilgrim s Progress " slipped away before he entered the Celestial Presence, and left him free to enjoy and admire, more than he found time to do on earth, the beauty of that blessed angel in the higher courts whose name is Charity. XXV. T)EUBEN, meantime, pushed boldly down the --^ open road, until broad sunlight warned him to a safer path across the fields. He had been too much of a rambler during those long Saturday af ternoons at Ashfield, to have any dread of a tramp through swamp-land or briers. " Who cared for wet feet or a scratch ? Who cared for a rough scramble through the bush, or a wade (if it came to that) through ever so big a brook ? Who cared for old Brummem and his white-faced nag ? " In fact, he had the pleasure of seeing the parson s venerable chaise lumbering along the public road at a safe distance away, an hour before noon ; and he half wished he were near enough to give the jolly old nag a good switching across the flanks. He had begged a bit of warm breakfast in the morning at an outlying house, and at the hour when he caught sight of his pursuer he was lying under the edge of a wood, lunching upon the gingerbread Keziah had provided, and beginning to reckon up soberly what was to be done. DOCTOR JOHNS. 191 His first impulse had been simply to escape a good flogging and the taunts of the boys. He had shunned the direct Ashfield turnpike, because he knew pursuit if there were any would lead off in that direction. From the river road he might diverge into that, if he chose. But if he went home, what then ? The big gray eyes of Aunt Eliza he knew would greet him at the door, looking thunderbolts. Adele, and may be Rose, would wel come him in kindly way enough, but very pity ingly, when the Doctor should summon him quietly into his low study. For they knew, and he knew, that the big rod would presently come down from its place by the Major s sword, a rod that never came down, except it had some swift office to per form. And next day, perhaps, whatever might be the kindly pleadings of Adele, (thus far he flattered himself,) the old horse Dobbins would be in harness to carry him back to Bolton Hill, where of a surety some new birch was already in pickle for the trans gressor. Or, if this mortification were spared, there would be the same weary round of limitations and exactions from which he longed to break away. And as he sits there under the lee of the wood, seeing presently Brummem s heavy cavalry wheel and retire from pursuit, the whole scene of his last alterca tion in the study at Ashfield drifts before him again clear as day. 192 DOCTOR JOHNS. "I m bad," (this was the way he broke out upon the old man after the usual discipline,) "I know I ra bad, and all the worse for the way you try to make me good. There s Phil Elderkin, now, you say to me, over and over, See Phil, he does n t do so. But he does, only his father knows he does ; he a n t punished, if he is n t in at nine o clock for prayers, without telling where he s been. It s all underhanded with me, and with Phil it s all above- board. I have to read proper books that I don t care a copper about, and so I steal em into my cham ber ; and Aunt Eliza, prying about, finds Arabian Nights hid under the sheets ; and then there s a row ! Phil reads em ; and there s nobody forever look ing over his shoulder to see what he s reading. I think Phil s father trusts him more than you do me." " But, my son, you tell me you are bad, and that I can t trust you." " You can t, because you don t ; and that makes me feel the Devil in me." " My son ! " " I know it ; you think it s a bad word ; but Phil says Devil ; and it s true. And besides, you forbid my going where the other boys go, and that maddens me and makes me swear, and the fellows laugh ; and be cause I can t go, I do something worse." DOCTOR JOHNS. 193 " My poor Reuben, do you know where such badness will lead you ? " " Oh, yes, I know ; I ve heard it often enough ; it 11 lead to hell, I guess." " Reuben ! Reuben ! what does this mean ? " " I can t help it, father. There s Phil and Gus Hapgood went chestnutting the other Saturday, and be cause you were afraid I should n t be back before sun down you kept me at home. I know I was ten times worse than if I d been out chestnutting all night and half Sunday. I hate Sunday ! " " That, Reuben, is because you are wicked." " Yes, I suppose so." " I am glad, my son, that you see your sins and ad mit them." " There s not much comfort in that," Reuben had said. " I m none the better for it." " It s the first step, my son, toward repentance." Reuben laughed a bitter laugh, a laugh that made his father shudder. " Sit down with me now, Reuben, and read a chap ter in God s "Word ; and after it we will pray for His help." " There it is again ! " the boy had replied. " I knew it would come to that ! " " And do you refuse, Reuben ? " " No, sir, I don t, because I know it would n t be any VOL. i. 13 194 DOCTOR JOHNS. use; for if I did, I should have to go up-stairs and mope in my chamber, and have Aunt Eliza staring in upon me as if I was a murderer. But I sha n t know what you read five minutes after." " My son, don t you know that will be an offense against God ? " " I can t help it." " You can help it, my son ! you can ! " And at this the Doctor, in an agony of spirit, (the boy recalled it perfectly,) had risen and paced back and forth in his study ; then, after a little, threw him self upon his knees near to Reuben, and prayed si lently, with his hands clasped. The boy had melted somewhat at this, and still more when the father rose with traces of a tear in his eye. " Are you not softened now, my son ? " " I always am when I see you going on that way," said Reuben. " My poor son ! " and he had drawn the boy to him, gazing into the face from which the blue eyes of the lost Rachel looked calmly out, moved beyond him self. If, indeed, the lost Rachel had been really there be tween the two, to interpret the heart of the son to the father ! Is Reuben whimpering as the memory of this last tender episode comes to his memory ? What would DOCTOR JOHNS. 195 Phil or the rest of the Ashfielcl fellows say to a runa way boy sniffling under the edge of the wood ? Not he, by George ! And he munches at his roll of gin gerbread with a new zest, confirming his vagabond purpose, that just now wavered, with a thought of those tedious Saturday nights and the " reasons annexed," and Aunt Eliza s sharp elbow nudging him upon the hard pew-benches, as she gives a muffled, warning whis per, " Attend to the sermon, Eeuben ! " And so, with glorious visions of Sindbad the Sailor in his mind, and a cheery remembrance of Crusoe when he cut himself adrift from home and family for his wonderful adventures, Reuben pushes gallantly on through the woods in the direction of the river. He knows that somewhere, up or down, a sloop will be found bound for New York. From the heights around Ashfield, he has seen, time and again, their white sails specking some distant field of blue. Once, too, upon a drive with the Doctor, he had seen these marvelous vessels from a nearer point, and had looked wistfully upon their white decks and green companion-ways. Overhead the jays cried from the bare chestnut- trees ; from time to time the whirr of a brood of par tridges startled him ; the red squirrels chattered ; still he pushed on, catching a chance dinner at a wayside farm-house, and by night had come within plain sight of the water. The sloop Princess lay at the Glasten- 196 DOCTOR JOHNS. bury dock close by, laden with wood and potatoes, and bound for New York the next morning. The kind- hearted skipper, who was also the owner of the vessel, took a sudden fancy to the sore-footed, blue-eyed boy who came aboard to bargain for a passage to the city. The truant was not, indeed, overstocked with ready money, but was willing to pawn what valuables he had about him, and hinted at a rich aunt in the city who would make good what moneys were lacking. The skipper has a shrewd suspicion how the matter stands, and, with a kindly sympathy for the lad, consents to give him passage on condition he drops a line into the mail to tell his friends which way he has gone ; and taking a dingy sheet of paper from the locker under his berth, he seats Reuben with pen in hand at the cabin-table, whereupon the boy writes, " DEAR FATHER, I have come away from school. I don t know as you will like it much. I walked all the way from Bolton, and my feet are very sore ; I don t think I could walk home. Captain Saul says he will take me by the way of New York. I can go and see Aunt Mabel. I will tell her you are all well. " How is Adele and Phil and Rose and the others ? I hope you won t be very angry. I don t think Mr. Bmmmem s is much of a school. I don t learn so much there as I learned at home. I don t think the boys DOCTOR JOHNS. 197 there are good companions. I think they are wicked boys sometimes. Mr. Brummem says they are. And he whips awful hard. " Yr affect, son, " REUBEN." And the skipper, taking the letter ashore to post it, adds upon the margin, " I opened the "Within to see who the boy was ; and This is to say, I shall take him Aboard, and shall be off Chatham Red Quarries to-morrow night and next day morning, and, if you signal from the dock, can send him Ashore. Or, if this don t Come in time, my berth is Peck Slip, in York. " JOHN SAUL, Sloop Princess" Next day they go drifting down the river. A quiet, smoky October day ; the distant hills all softened in the haze ; the near shores green with the fresh-spring ing aftermath. Reuben lounged upon the sunny side of the mainsail, thinking, with respectful pity, of the poor fagged fellows in roundabouts who were seated at that hour before the red desks in Parson Brummem s school-room. At length he was enjoying a taste of that outside life of which he had known only from travelers books, or from such lucky ones as the ac- 198 DOCTOR JOHXS. complished Tavern Boody. Henceforth he, too, would have his stories to tell. The very rustle of the water around the prow of the good sloop Princess was full of Sindbad echoes. Was it not remotely possible that he, too, like Captain Saul sitting there on the taffrail smok ing his pipe, should have his vessel at command some day, and sail away wherever Fortune, with her iris- hued streamers, might beckon ? Not much of senti ment in the boy as yet, beyond the taste of freedom, or what is equivalent to it in the half-taught vaga bondage. As for Rose, what does she know of sloops and the world ? And Adele ? "Well, from this time forth at least, the boy can match her nautical experi ence with an experience of his own. Possibly his hu miliation and conscious ignorance at the French girl s story of the sea were, as much as any thing, at the bottom of this wild vagary of his. For ten hours the Captain lies off Chatham Quarries, taking on additional freight there ; but there is no signal from the passenger dock. The next morning the hawsers were cast off, and the mainsail run up again, while the Princess surged away into the middle of the current. " Now, my boy, we re in for a sail ! " said Captain Saul. " I m glad," said Reuben, who would have been doubly glad, if he had known of his narrow escape at the last landing. DOCTOR JOHNS. 199 " I suppose you have n t much of a kit ? " said the Captain. The truth is, that a pocket-comb was the extent of Reuben s equipment for the voyage. It came out on further talk with the Captain ; and the boy was morti fied to make such small show of appliances. " Well, well," says the Captain, " we must keep this toggery for the city, you know ; " and he finds a blue woolen shirt, for the boy is of good height for his years, and a foremast hand shortens in a pair of old duck trousers for him, in which Reuben paces up and down the deck, with a mortal dread at first lest the boom may make a dash against the wind and knock him overboard, in quite sailorly fashion. The beef is hard indeed ; but a page or two out of " Dampier s Voyages," of which an old copy is in the cabin, makes it seem all right. The shores, too, are changing from hour to hour ; a brig drifts within hail of them, which Reuben watches, half envying the fortunate fellows in red shirts and tasseled caps aboard, who are bound to Cuba, and in a fortnight s time can pluck oranges off the trees there, to say nothing of pine-apple and sugar cane. Over the Saybrook Bar there is a plunging of the vessel which horrifies him somewhat ; but smooth weather follows, with long lines of hills half-faded on the rim of the water, and the country sounds at last all 200 DOCTOR JOHNS. dead. A day or two of this, with only a mild autum nal breeze, and then a sharp wind, with the foam flying over forecastle and wood-pile, between the wind ing shores, toward Flushing Bay, brings sight of great white houses with green turf coming down to the rocks, where the waves play and break among the drifted sea-weed. Captain Saul is fast at his helm, while the big boom creaks and crashes from side to side as he beats up the narrowing channel, rounding Throg s Point, where the light-house and old white washed fort stand shining in the sun, skirting low rocky islands, doubling other points, dashing at half- tide through the roar and whirl of Hell Gate, Reu ben glowing with excitement, and mindful of Kick! and of his buried treasure along these shores. Then came the turreted Bridewell, and at last the spires, the forest of masts, with all that prodigious, crushing, bewilder ing effect with which the first sight of a great city weighs upon the thought of a country-taught boy. " Now mind the rogues, Reuben," said Captain Saul, when they were fairly alongside the dock ; " and keep by your bunk for a day or two, boy. Don t stray too far from the vessel, Princess, Captain Saul, remem ber." XXVI. Doctor is not a little shocked by the note which -*- he receives from Reuben, and which comes too late for the interception of the boy upon the river. He writes to Mrs. Brindlock, begging the kind offices of her husband in looking after the lad, until such time as he can come down for his recovery. The next day, to complete his mortification, he receives the epistle ot Brother Brummem. The good Doctor cannot rightly understand, in his simplicity, how such apparent headlong tendency to sin should belong to this child of prayer. At times he thinks he can trace back somewhat of the adventurous spirit of the poor lad to the restless energy of his father, the Major; was it not possible also and the thought weighed upon him grievously that he inherited from him besides a waywardness in regard to spiritual mat ters, and that " the sins of the fathers " were thus vis ited terribly upon the children ? The growing vaga bondage of the boy distressed him the more by reason of his own responsible connection with the little daugh ter of his French friend. How should he, who could 202 DOCTOR JOHNS. not guide in even courses the child of his own loins, presume to conduct the little exile from the heathen into paths of piety? And yet, strange to say, the character of the blithe Adele, notwithstanding the terrible nature of her early associations, seems to fuse more readily into agreement with the moral atmosphere about her than does that of the recreant boy. There may not be, indeed, perfect accord ; but there are at least no sharp and fatal antag onisms to overcome. If the lithe spirit of the girl bends under the grave teachings of the Doctor, it bends with a charming grace, and rises again smilingly, when sober speech is done, like the floweret she is. And if her mirth is sometimes irrepressible through the long hours of their solemn Sundays, it breaks up like bub bles from the deep quiet bosom of a river, cheating even the grave parson to a smile that seems scarcely sinful. " Oh, that sermon was so long, so long to-day, New Papa ! I am sure Dame Tourtelot pinched the Deacon, or he would never, never have been awake through it all." Or, may be, she steals a foot out of doors on a Sun day to the patch of violets, gathering a little bunch, and appeals to the Doctor, who comes with a great frown on his face, "New Papa, is it most wicked to carry flowers or DOCTOR JOHNS. 203 fennel to church ? Godmother always gave me a flower on holyclays." And the Doctor is cheated of his rebuke ; nay, he sometimes wonders, in his self-accusing moments, if the Arch-Enemy himself has not lodged under cover of that smiling face of hers, and is thus winning him to a sinful gayety. There are times, too, when, after some playful badinage of hers which has touched too nearly upon a grave theme, she interrupts his solemn admoni tion with a sudden rush toward him, and a tap of those little fingers upon his furrowed cheek : " Don t look so solemn, New Papa. Nobody will love you, if you look in that way." What if this, too, be some temptation of the Evil One, withdrawing him from the grave thought of eternal things, diverting him from the solemn aims of his mis sion ? There were snatches, too, of Latin hymns, taught her by the godmother, and only half remembered, hymns of glorious rhythm, which, as they tripped from her halting tongue, brought a great burden of sacred mean ings, and were full of the tenderest associations of her childhood. To these, too, the Doctor was half pained to find himself listening, sometimes at nightfall of a Sunday, with an indulgent ear, and stoutly querying with himself if Satan could fairly lurk in such holy words as " Dulcis memoria lesu." 204 DOCTOR JOHNS. Adele, as we have said, had accepted the duties of attendance upon the somewhat long sermons of the Doctor and of weekly instructions in the Catechism, with a willing spirit, and had gone through them cheer fully, not, perhaps, with the grave air of devotion which by education and inheritance belonged to the sweet face of her companion, Rose. Nay, she had sometimes rallied Rose upon the exaggerated serious ness which fastened upon her face whenever the Bible tasks came up. But Adele, with that strong leaning which exists in every womanly nature toward religious faith of some kind, had grown into a respect for even the weightiest of the Christian gravities around her ; not that they became the sources of a new trust, but, through a sympathy that a heart like hers could not resist, they rallied an old childish one into fresh action. The strange, serious worship of those about her was only a new guise so at least it seemed to her sim plicity in which to approach the same good God whom the godmother with herself had praised with chants that rang once under the dim arches of the old chapel, smoky with incense and glowing with pictures of saints, at Marseilles. And if sometimes, as the shrill treble of Miss Almira smote upon her ear, she craved a better music, and remembered the fragrant cloud rising from the silver censers as something more grateful than the smoke leaking from the joints of the DOCTOR JOHNS. 205 stove-pipe in Ashfield meeting-house, and would have willingly given up Miss Eliza s stately praises of her recitation for one good hug of the godmother. she yet saw, or thought she saw, the same serene trust that belonged to her in the eyes of good Mistress Onthank, in the kind face of Mrs. Elderkin, and in the calm look of the Doctor when he lifted his voice every night at the parsonage in prayer for " all God s people." Would it be strange, too, if in the heart of a girl taught as she had been, who had never known a mother s tenderness, there should be so-ne hidden leaning toward those traditions of the Romish faith in which a holy mother appeared as one whose favor was to be supplicated ? The worship of the Virgin was, indeed, too salient an object of attack among the heresies which the New England teachers com bated, not to inspire a salutary caution in Adele and entire concealment of any respect she might still feel for the Holy Mary. Nor was it so much a respect that shaped itself tangibly among her religious be liefs as a secret craving for that outpouring of mater nal love denied her on earth, a craving which found a certain repose and tender alleviation in entertain ing fond regard for the sainted mother of Christ. When, therefore, on one occasion, Miss Eliza had found among the toilet treasures of Adele a little lithographic print of the Virgin, with the Christ s 206 DOCTOR JOHNS. head surrounded by a nimbus of glory, and in her chilling way had sneered at it as a heathen vanity, the poor child had burst into tears, and carried the treasure to her bosom to guard it from sacrilegious touch. The spinster, rendered watchful, perhaps, by this circumstance, had on another day been still more shocked to find in a corner of the escritoire of Aclele a rosary, and with a very grave face had borne it down for the condemnation of the Doctor. " Adaly, my child, I trust you do not let this bau ble bear any part in your devotions ? " And the Doctor made a movement as if he would have thrown it out of the window. "No, New Papa!" said Adele, darting toward him, and snatching it from his hand, with a fire in her eye he had never seen there before, a welling-up for a moment of the hot Proven9al blood in her veins ; " de grace ! je vous en prie ! " (in ecstatic moments her tongue ran to her own land and took up the echo of her first speech,) then growing calm, as she held it, and looked into the pitying, wondering eyes of the poor Doctor, said only, " It was my mother s." Of course the kind old gentleman never sought to reclaim such a treasure, but in his evening prayer besought God fervently " to overrule all things, our joys, our sorrows, our vain affections, our delight in DOCTOR JOHNS. 207 the vanities of this world, our misplaced longings, to overrule all to His glory and the good of those that love Him." The Doctor writes to his friend Maverick at about this date, " Your daughter is still in the enjoyment of ex cellent health, and is progressing with praiseworthy zeal in her studies. I cannot too highly commend her general deportment, by which she has secured the affection and esteem of all in the parish who have formed an acquaintance with her. In respect of her religious duties, she is cheerful and punctual in the performance of them ; and I find it hard to believe that they should prove only a savor of death unto death. She listens to my discourse, on most occa sions, with a commendable patience, and seems kindly disposed toward my efforts. Still I could wish much to see in her a little more burdensome sense of sin and of the enormity of her transgressions. We hope that she may yet be brought to a realizing sense of her true condition. " She is fast becoming a tall and graceful girl, and it may soon be advisable to warn her against the van ities that overtake those of her age who are still en grossed with carnal things. This advice would come with a good grace, perhaps, from the father. " A little rosary found among her effects has been 208 DOCTOR JOHNS. the occasion of some anxieties to my sister and my self, lest she might still have a leaning toward the mockeries of the Scarlet Woman of Babylon ; and I was at first disposed to remove it out of her way. But being advised that it is cherished as a gift of her mother, I have thought it not well to take from her the only memento of so near and, I trust, dear a rela tive. " May God have you, my friend, in His holy keep ing!" XXVJL EUBEN, taking the advice of Captain Saul, with whom he would cheerfully have gone to China, had the sloop been bound thither, came back to his bunk on the first night after a wandering stroll through the lower part of the city. It is quite possible that he would have done the same, viewing the narrow ness of his purse, upon the second night, had he not encountered at noon a gentleman in close conversa tion with the Captain, whom he immediately recog nized though he had seen him but once before as Mr. Brindlock. This person met him very kindly, and with a hearty shake of the hand, " hoped he would do his Aunt Mabel the honor of coming to stay with them." There was an air of irony in this speech which Reuben was quick to perceive ; and the knowing look of Captain Saul at once informed him that all the romance of his runaway voyage was at an end. Both Mr. and Mrs. Brindlock received him at their home with the utmost kindness, and were vastly entertained by his story of the dismal life upon Bolton Hill, the VOL. I. 14 210 DOCTOR JOHNS. pursuit of the parson with his white-faced nag, and the subsequent cruise in the sloop Princess. Mrs. Brindlock, a good-natured, self-indulgent woman, was greatly taken with the unaffected country naturalness of the lad, and was agreeably surprised at his very presentable appearance : for Reuben at this date he may have been thirteen or fourteen was of good height for his years, with a profusion of light, wavy hair, a thoughtful, blue eye, and a lurking humor about the lip which told of a great faculty for mis chief. There was such an absence, moreover, in this city home, of that stiffness with which his Aunt Eliza had such a marvelous capacity for investing every thing about her, that the lad found himself at once strangely at his ease. Was it, perhaps, (the thought flashed upon him,) because it was a godless home ? The spinster aunt had sometimes expressed a fear of this sort, whenever stories of the Brindlock wealth had reached them. Howbeit, he was on most familiar footing with both master and mistress before two days had gone by. " Aunt Mabel," he had said, " I suppose you 11 be writing to the old gentleman, and do please take my part. I can t go back to that abominable B rum mem ; if I do, I shall only run away again, and go farther : do tell him so." " But why could n t you have stayed at home, pray ? DOCTOR JOHNS. 211 Did you quarrel with the little French girl ? eh, Reu ben ? " The boy flushed. " Not with Adele, never ! " Brindlock, a shrewd, successful merchant, was, on his part, charmed with the adventurous spirit of the boy, and with the Captain s report of the way in which the truant had conducted negotiations for the trip. From all which it came about, that Mrs. Brindlock, in writing to the Doctor to inform him of Reuben s safe arrival, added an urgent request that the boy might be allowed to pass the winter with them in New York; in which event he could either attend school, (there being an excellent one in her neighbor hood,) or, if the Doctor preferred, Mr. Brindlock could give him some light employment in the count ing-room, and try his capacity for business. At first thought, this proposition appeared very shocking to the Doctor ; but, to his surprise, Miss Eliza was strongly disposed to entertain it. Her ambitious views for the family were flattered by it ; and she kindly waived, in view of them, her objections to the godless life which she feared her poor sister was lead ing. The Doctor was not fully persuaded by her, and took occasion to consult, as was his wont in practical affairs, his friend Squire Elderkin. 212 DOCTOR JOHNS. " I rather like the plan," said the Squire, after some consideration, "quite like it, Doctor, quite like it. " You see, Doctor," and he slipped a finger into a button-hole of the good parson s, (the only man in the parish who would have ventured upon such familiarity,) "I think we ve been a little strict with Reuben, a little strict. He s a fine, frank, straightfor ard lad, but impulsive, impulsive, Doctor. Your father, the Major, had a little of it, quicker blood than you or I, Doctor. We can t wind up every boy like a clock ; there s some that go with weights, and there s some that go with springs. Then, too, I think, Doctor, there s a little of the old Major s fight in the boy. I think he has broken over a good many of our rules very much because the rules were there, and provoked him to try his strength. " Now, Doctor, there s been a good deal of this kind of thing, and our Aunt Eliza puts her foot clown rather strongly, which won t be a bugbear to the boy with Mrs. Brindlock ; besides which, there s your old friend, Rev. Dr. Mowry, at the Fulton-Street Church close by"- " So he is, so he is," said the Doctor ; " I had for gotten that." " And then, to tell the truth, Doctor, between you and I," (and the Squire was working himself into some earnestness,) " I don t believe that all the wickedness DOCTOR JOHNS. 213 in the world is cooped up in the cities. In my opinion, the small towns have a pretty fair sprinkling, a pretty fair sprinkling, Doctor ; and if it s contagious, as I ve heerd, I think I know of some places in coun try parishes that might be called infectious. And I tell you what it is, Doctor, the Devil " (and he twitched upon the Doctor s coat as if he were in a political ar gument) " does n t confine himself to large towns. He goes into the rural deestricts, in my opinion, about as regularly as the newspapers ; and he holds his ground a confounded sight longer." How much these views may have weighed with the Doctor it would be impossible to say. If they did not influence directly, they were certainly suggestive of considerations which did have their weight. The re sult was, that permission was given for the stay of Reuben, on condition that Mr. Erindlock could give him constant occupation, and that he should be regular in his attendance on the Sabbath at the Fulton-Street Church. Shortly after, the Doctor goes to the city, provided, by the watchful care of Miss Eliza, with a complete wardrobe for the truant boy, and bearing kind messages from the household. But chiefly it is the Doctor s object to give his poor boy due admonition for his great breach of duty, and to insist upon his writing to the worthy Mr. Brummem a full apology for his conduct. He also engages his friend of the 214 DOCTOR JOHNS. Fulton-Street parish to have an eye upon his son, and to report to him at once any wide departure from the good conduct he promises. Reuben writes the apology insisted upon to Mr. Brummem in this style : " MY DEAR Siu, I am sorry that I threw Daboll in your face as I did, and hope you will forgive the same. " Yours respectfully." But after the Doctor s approval of this, the lad can not help adding a postscript of his own to this effect : " P. S. I hope old Whiteface did n t lose a shoe when you drove out on the river road ? I saw you ; for I was sitting in the edge of the woods, eating Keziah s gingerbread. Please thank her, and give my respects to all the fellows." Miss Johns considers it her duty to write a line of expostulation to her nephew, which she does, with faultless penmanship, in this strain : " We were shocked to hear of your misconduct toward the worthy Mr. Brummem. I could hardly believe it possible that Master Reuben Johns had been guilty of such an indiscretion. Your running away DOCTOR JOHNS. 215 was, I think, uncalled for, and the embarkment upon the sloop, under the circumstances, was certainly very reprehensible. I trust that we shall hear only good accounts of you from this period forth, and that you will be duly grateful for your father s distinguished kindness in allowing you to stay in New York. I shall be happy to have you write to me an occasional epistle, and hope to see manifest a considerable improvement in your handwriting. Does Sister Mabel wear her ermine cape this winter ? I trust we shall hear of your constant attendance at the Fulton-Street Church, and hear only commendation of you in whatever duties you may be called to engage. Adele speaks of you often, and I think misses you very much indeed." Yet the spinster aunt was not used to flatter Reuben with any such mention as this. " What can she mean," said he, musingly, " by talking such stuff to me ? " Phil Elderkin, too, after a little, writes long letters that are full of the daily boy-life at Ashfield : how " the chestnutting has been first-rate this year," and he has a bushel of prime ones seasoning in the garret ; how Sam Troop, the stout son of the old postmas ter, has had a regular tussle with the master in school, " hot and heavy, over the benches, and all about, and Sam was expelled, and old Crocker got a black eye, and, darn him, he s got it yet " ; and how " somebody (name unknown) tied a smallish tin kettle to old Hob- 216 DOCTOR JOHNS. son s sorrel mare s tail last Saturday night, and the way she went down the street was a caution ! " and how Nat Boody has got a new fighting-dog, and such a ratter ! and how Suke, " the divine Suke, is, they say, going to marry the stage-driver. Sic trasit gloria mulie something, for I 11 be hanged, if I know the proper case." And there are some things this boisterous Phil writes in tenderer mood : how " Rose and Adele are as thick as ever, and Adele comes up pretty often to pass an evening, glad enough, I guess, to get away from Aunt Eliza, and I see her home, of course. She plays a stiff game of backgammon ; she never throws but she makes a point ; she beats me." And from such letters the joyous shouts and merry halloos of the Ashfield boys come back to him again; he hears the rustling of the brook, the rumbling of the mill ; he sees the wood standing on the hills, and the girls at the door-yard gates ; the hum of voices in the old academy catches his ear, and the drowsy song of the locusts coming in at the open windows all the long afternoons of August ; and he watches again the glancing feet of Rose who was once Amanda tripping away under the sycamores ; and the city Mor timer bethinks him of another Amanda, of browner hue and in coquettish straw, idling along the same street, with reticule lightly swung upon her finger ; DOCTOR JOHNS. 217 and the boy bethinks him of tender things he might have said in the character of Mortimer, but never did say, and of kisses he might have stolen, (in the char acter of Mortimer,) but never did steal. And now these sights, voices, vagaries, as month after month passes in his new home, fade, fade, yet somehow abide. The patter of a thousand feet are on the pavement around him. What wonder, if, in the surrounding din, the tranquillity of Ashfield, its scenes, its sounds, should seem a mere dream of the past ? What wonder, if the solemn utterances from the old pulpit should be lost in the roar of the new voices ? The few months he was to spend in their hearing run into a score, and again into another score. Two or three years hence we shall meet him again, changed, certainly ; but whether for better or for worse the se quel will show. And Rose ? and Adele ? Well, well, we must not overleap the quiet current of our story. While the May violets are in bloom, let us enjoy them and be thankful ; and Avhen the autumn flowers are come to take their places, let us enjoy those, too, and thank God. XXVIII. T~\OCTOR, we miss Reuby," said the Tew partners. -*-^ And the good old people said it with feeling, though, over and over, at winter s dusk, the boy had given a sharp rattle to their shop-door, and the warn ing bell called them away from their snug fire only to see his light pair of heels whisking around the corner of the Eagle Tavern. The mischief in the lad was, indeed, of such elastic, irrepressible temper, that even the gravest of the parishioners were disposed to regard it with a frown in which a comic pardon was always lurking. Even the Tourtelots " quite missed the boy ; " though over and over the brindled cow of the Deacon was found to have slipped the bars, (a thing the or derly creature was never known to do of her own head,) and was reported at twilight by the sober-faced Reuben as strolling far down upon the Common. It is but a small bit of canvas we have chosen for the painting in of these figures of ours ; and returning to the old town of Ashfield, as we do now, where the central interest must lie, there is little of change to de- DOCTOR JOHNS. 219 clare, still less of dramatic incident. A serene quie tude, year after year, is the characteristic of most of the interior New England towns. The elections come and go with their fury of previous declamation. The Squire presides over the deliberations of his party, and some leading Adams man presides over the delibera tions of the other ; even the boys are all Jackson men or Adams men ; but when the result is declared, there is an acquiescence on all hands that is beautiful to be hold ; and in process of time, Mr. Troop, the postmas ter, yields up the mail pouches and locks and canvas bags to some active little Jackson partisan with the ut most suavity, and smokes off his discontent upon the porch of the Eagle Tavern, under the very shadow of the tall hickory pole, which for one third of its height is protected by old wagon-tire heavily spiked on, against the axes of zealous political opponents. The old blear-eyed Boody is not so cheery as we have seen him, although his party has won brilliant success. There is a sad story of domestic grief that has marked a new wrinkle in his forehead and given a droop to his eye, which, had all gone fairly, he might have weathered for ten years more. The glory of the ringleted Suke has indeed gone, as Phil had told ; but it has not gone in the way of marriage. God only knows where those pink cheeks are showing their graces now, not, surely, in any home of hers, not 220 DOCTOR JOHNS. in any home at all. God only knows what repinings have come, all too late, over the glitter and the tri umph of an hour. The elderly, grave ones shake their heads dismally over this fall, and talk of the ter ribly demoralizing associations amidst which the poor child has lived ; but do they ask themselves if they did their best to mend them ? Decoyed toward evil fast and frequently enough, without doubt ; but were there any decoys, such as kind hands and welcoming words, in the other direction ? The meeting-house doors have, indeed, been always open, for the just and for the un just. But have not the starched, good women of the parish been a little disposed to count the pretty tavern- keeper s daughter as outside the fold so far as all social influences were concerned from the begin ning ? That exuberant life in her which led to the dance at a tavern ball, was there any palliative for it, any hope for it, except to go on in the way of destruc tion ? But we would not judge unjustly. Certain it is, that Miss Johns indulged in such scathing condemnation of the poor sinner as made Aclele shiver : with the spin ster at least, there would be little hope for a Magdalen, or a child of a Magdalen. Xor could such as she fully understand the measured and subdued tone with which the good Doctor talked of a lapse from virtue which had so shocked the little community. But the parson DOCTOR JOHNS. 221 lived so closely in that spiritual world where all his labor and love centered, that he saw under its ineffable light only two great ranks of people pressing toward the inevitable goal : a lesser rank, which had found favor of God ; and a greater, tumultuous one, toward whom his heart yearned, that with wavering and doubt and evil intention pressed on to destruction. What mattered to him the color of the sin, or who was he to judge it ? When the secret places of the heart were so full of wickedness, why anathematize above the rest those plague-spots which revealed themselves to mor tals ? " Fearful above all others," he was wont to say, " will be those sins which, being kept cautiously smol dering through life, will, at the blast of the Archangel s trump, blaze out in inextinguishable fire ! " The Doctor kept himself and his pulpit mostly free of that theological fermentation which in those years was going on throughout New England, at least of all such forms of it as marked a division in the ortho dox churches. If he had a leaning, it was certainly in favor of the utmost severity of Calvinism. He dis trusted human philosophy, and would rather have ac cepted the theory of natural inability in all its harshness than see it explained away by any metaphysic subtilties that should seem to veil or place in doubt the para mount efficiency of the Spirit. But though slow to accept theological reforms, the 222 DOCTOR JOHNS. Doctor was not slow to advocate those which promised good influence upon public morals. Thus he had en tered with zeal into the Temperance movement ; and after 1830, or 1832 at the latest, there was no private locker in the parsonage for any black bottle of choice Santa Cruz. His example had its bearing upon others of the parish ; and whether by dint of the Doctor s effective preaching, or whether it were by reason of the dilapidated state of the buildings and the leaky condi tion of the stills, it is certain that about this time Dea con Simmons, of whom casual mention has been made, abandoned his distillery, and invested such spare capi tal as he chose to keep afloat in the business of his son- in-law, Mr. Bowrigg of New York, who had up to this time sold the Deacon s gin upon commission. Mr. Bowrigg was a thriving merchant, and continued his wholesale traffic with eminent success. In proof of this success, he astonished the good people of Ash- field by building, in the summer of 1833, at the insti gation of his wife, an elegant country residence upon the main street of the town ; and the following year, the little Bowriggs two daughters of blooming girl age brought such a flutter of city ribbons and silks into the main aisle of the meeting-house as had not been seen in many a day. Anne and Sophia Bowrigg, aged respectively thirteen and fifteen, fell naturally into somewhat intimate associations with our little friends, DOCTOR JOHNS. 223 Adele and Rose : an association that was not much to the taste of the Doctor, who feared that under it Adele might launch again into those old coquetries of dress against which Maverick had cautioned him, and which in their quiet country atmosphere had been subdued into a modest homeliness that was certainly very charm ing. Miss Sophia, however, the elder of the two Bowrigg daughters, was a young lady not easily balked of her intent ; and conceiving a violent fondness for Adele, whether by reason of the graces of her character, or by reason of her foreign speech, in which she could stam- meringly join, to the great mystification of all others, she soon forced herself into a patronizing intimacy with Adele, and was a frequent visitor at the parsonage. With a great fund of assurance, a rare and unappeasa ble glibness of tongue, and that lack of refined delicacy which invariably belongs to such noisy demonstrative- ness, Miss Sophia had after only one or two interviews ferreted out from Adele all that the little stranger her self knew respecting her history. " And not to know your mother, Adele ! that s so very queer ! " Adele winces at this, but seems to so coarse an observer only preoccupied with her work. "Is n t it queer?" persists the garrulous creature. " I knew a girl in the city who did not see her mother 224 DOCTOR JOHNS. after she was three, think of that ! But then, you know, she was a bad woman." The hot Provenfal blood mounts to the cheek and brow of Adele in an instant, and her eye flashes. But it is quite impossible to show anger in view of the stolid face of her companion, with nothing in it but an unthinking, girlish curiosity. " We will talk of something else, Sophia." " Oh ! then you don t like to speak of it ! Dear me ! I certainly won t, then." Yet this rattle-brained girl has no real ill-nature ; and it is surprising what a number of such well-mean ing people go blundering about society, inflicting cheer ful wounds in all directions by mere reason of their bluntness and lack of all delicacy of feeling. But it is by no means the first time the sensibilities of Adele have been touched to the quick. She is ap proaching that age when they ripen with marvelous rapidity. There is never an evening now at that cheer ful home of the Elderkins lighted up as it is with the beaming smiles of that Christian mother, Mrs. Elderkin but there sweeps over the mind of the poor girl, at some interval in the games or the chat, a terri ble sense of some great loss she has suffered, of which she knows not the limits, a cruel sense of isolation in which she wanders, and on which conies betimes the recollection of a father s kindly face, that in the grow- DOCTOR JOHNS. 225 ing distance makes her isolation seem even more ap palling. Rose, good soul, detects these humors by a keen, girlish instinct, and, gliding up to her, passes her arm around her, " What is it now, Adele, dear ? " And she, looking down at her, (for Adele was the taller by half a head,) says. " What a good mother you have, Rose ! " "Only that!" and Rose laughs gleefully for a moment, when, bethinking herself where the secret grief lay, her sweet face is overcast in an instant, and reaching up her two hands, she draws down the face of Adele to hers, and kisses her on either cheek. Phil, who is at a game of chess with Grace, pretends not to see this side demonstration ; but his next move is to sacrifice his only remaining castle in the most needless manner. Dame Tourtelot, too, has pressed her womanly pre rogative of knowing whatever could be known about the French girl who comes occasionally with Miss Eliza to her tea-drinkings, and who, with a native taste for music, is specially interested in the piano of Miss Almira. " It must be very tedious," says the Dame, " to be so long away from home and from those that love you. Almiry, now, hardly goes for a week to Cousin Jerushy s VOL. I. 15 226 DOCTOR JOHNS. at Har ford but she is a-frettin to be back in her old home. Don t you feel it, Acleel ? " (The Dame is not to be driven out of her own notions of pronunciation by any French accents.) " But don t be downhearted, my child ; it s God s providence that s brought you away from a Popish country." And she pushes her inquiries regarding the previous life of Adele with an earnestness and an authoritative air which at times do not fail to provoke a passionate retort. To this the old lady is wholly unused ; and con demning her straightway as a hot-headed Romanist, it is to be feared that we must regard the Dame hence forth as one disposed to look upon the least favorable lights which may appear, whether in the past history of Adele or in the developments to come. The spinster, also, who is mistress of the parsonage, though never giving up her admiring patronage of Adele, and governing her curiosity with far more tact than belongs to Dame Tourtelot, has yet shown a per sistent zeal in pushing her investigations in regard to all that concerned the family history of her little protegee. She has lent an eager ear to all the commu nications which Maverick has addressed to the Doctor ; and in moments of what seemed exceptional fondness, when she has toyed with the head-gear of Adele, has plied the little brain with motherly questions that have somehow widely failed of their intent. DOCTOR JOHNS. 227 Under all this, Adele ripens into a certain reserve and individuality of character which might never have be longed to her, had the earlier circumstances of her life been altogether familiar to the circle in which she was placed. The Doctor fastens, perhaps, an undue reli ance upon this growing reserve of hers : sure it is that an increasing confidence is establishing itself between them, which it is to be hoped nothing will shake. And as for Phil, when the Squire teases him with his growing fondness for the little Jesuit of the parson age, the boy, though past seventeen now, and " with views of his own," (as most young men have at that age,) blushes like a girl. Rose, seeing it, and her eyes flashing with sisterly pride, says to herself, " Oh, I hope it may come true ! " XXIX. TjlROM time to time Maverick had written in reply -*- to the periodical reports of the Doctor, and always with unabating confidence in his discretion and kind ness. "I have remarked what you say" (he had written thus in a letter which had elicited the close attention of Miss Eliza) " in regard to the rosary found among the girlish treasures of Adele. I am not aware how she can have come by such a trinket from the source named ; but I must beg you to take as little notice as possible of the matter, and please allow her possession of it to remain entirely unmarked. I am specially anxious that no factitious importance be given to the relic by opposition to her wishes." Heavy losses incident to the political changes of the year 1831 in France had kept him fastened at his post ; and with the reviving trade under the peaceful regime of Louis Philippe, he had been more actively engaged even than before. Yet there was no interrup tion to his correspondence with Adele, and no falling off in its expressions of earnest affection and devotion. DOCTOR JOHNS. 229 "I fancy you almost a woman grown now, dear Adele. Those cheeks of yours have, I hope, not lost their roundness or their rosiness. But, however much you may have grown, I am sure that my heart would guide me so truly that I could single you out from a great crowd of the little Puritan people about you. I can fancy you in some simple New England dress, in which I would rather see you, my child, than in the richest silks of those about me here, gliding up the pathway that leads to the door of the old parsonage ; I can fancy you dropping a word of greeting to the good Doctor within his study (he must be wearing spectacles now) ; and at evening I seem to see you kneeling in the long back dining-room, as the parson leads in family prayer. Well, well, don t forget to pray for your old father, my child. I shall be all the safer for it, in what the Doctor calls this wicked land. And what of Reuben, whose mischief, you told me, threatened such fearful results ? Sobered down, I sup pose, long before this, wearing a stout jacket of home spun, driving home the keow at night, and singing in the choir of a Sunday. Don t lose your heart, AdMe, with any of the youngsters about you. I claim the whole of it ; and every day and every night mine beats for you, my child." And Adele writes back : "My heart is all yours, papa, only why do you 230 DOCTOR JOHNS. never come and take it ? So many, many years that I have not seen you ! " Yes, I like Ashfield still ; it is almost a home to me now, you know. New Papa is very kind, but just as grave and stiff as at the first. I know he loves me, but he never tells me so. I don t believe he ever told Reuben so. But when I sing some song that he loves to hear, I see a little quirk by his tem ple, and a glistening in his eye, as he thanks me, that tells it plain enough ; and most of all when he prays, as he sometimes does after talking to me very gravely, with his arm tight clasped around me, oh, I am sure that he loves me ! and indeed, and indeed, I love him back again ! " It was funny what you said of Reuben ; for you must know that he is living in the city now, and hap pens upon us here sometimes with a very grand air, as fine, I dare say, as the people about Marseilles. But I don t think I like him any better ; I don t know if I like him as well. Miss Eliza is, of course, very proud of him, as she always was." As the nicer observing faculties of his child de velop, of which ample traces appear in her letters, Maverick begs her to detail to him as fully as she can all the little events of her every-day life. He has an eagerness, which only an absent parent can feel, to know how his pet is received by those about her ; DOCTOR JOHNS. 231 and would supply himself, so far as he may, with a full picture of the scenes amid which his child is growing up. Sheet after sheet of this simple, girlish narrative of hers Maverick delights himself with, as he sits upon his balcony, after business hours, look ing down upon the harbor of Marseilles. " After morning prayers, which are very early, you know, Esther places the smoking dishes on the table, and New Papa asks a blessing, always. Then he says, I hope Adaly has not forgotten her text of yesterday. And I repeat it to him. Such a quantity of texts as I can repeat now ! Then Aunt Eliza says, I hope, too, that Adele will make no mistake in her " Paradise Lost " to-day. Are you sure you ve not forgotten that lesson in the parsing, child ? Indeed, papa, I can parse almost any page in the book. " I think, says New Papa, appealing to Miss Eliza, that Larkin may grease the wheels of the chaise this morning, and, if it should be fair, I will make a visit or two at the north end of the town ; and I think Adaly would like to go with me. " Yes, dearly, New Papa, I say, which is very true. " And Miss Eliza says, very gravely, I am perfectly willing, Doctor. " After breakfast is over, Miss Eliza will sometimes walk with ine a short way down the street, and will 232 DOCTOR JOHNS. say to me, Hold yourself erect, Adele ; walk trimly. She walks very trimly. Then we pass by the Hap- good house, which is one of the grand houses ; and I know the old Miss Hapgoods are looking through the blinds at us, though they never show themselves until they have taken out their curl-papers in the after noon. " Dame Tourtelot is n t so shy ; and we see her great, gaunt figure in a broad sun-bonnet, stooping down with her trowel, at work among the flower- patches before her door ; and Miss Almira is reading at an upper window, in pink muslin. And when the Dame hears us, she lifts herself straight, sets her old flapping bonnet as square as she can, and stares through her spectacles until she has made us out ; then says, " Good mornin , Miss Johns. You re arly this mornin . " Quite early, says Miss Eliza. Your flowers are looking nicely, Mrs. Tourtelot. " "Well, the pi nys is blowed pretty good. Would n t Adeel like a pi ny ? " It s a great red monster of a flower, papa ; but I thank her for it, and put it in my belt. Then the Dame goes on to tell how she has shifted the striped grass, and how the bouncing-Bets are spreading, and where she means to put her nasturtiums the next DOCTOR JOHNS. 233 year, and brandishes her trowel, as the brigands in the story-books brandish their swords. " And Miss Eliza says, Almira is at her reading, I see. " Dear me ! says the Dame, glancing up ; she s always a-readin . What with novils and histories, she s injurin her health, Miss Johns, as sure as you re alive. " Then, as we set off again, the Dame calling out some last word, and brandishing her trowel over the fence, old Squire Elderkin comes swinging up the street with the Courant in his hand ; and he lifts his hat, and says, Good morning to you, Miss Johns ; and how is the little French lady this morn ing? Bright as ever, I see, (for he does n t wait to be answered,) a peony in her belt, and two roses in her cheeks. Yet my cheeks are not very red, papa ; but it s his way " After school, I go for the drive with the Doctor, which I enjoy very much. I ask him about all the flowers along the way, and he tells me every thing, and I have learned the names of all the birds ; and it is much better, I think, than learning at school. And he always says, It s God s infinite love, my child, that has given us all these beautiful things, and these songsters that choir His praises. When I hear him say it, I believe it, papa. I am very sure that 234 DOCTOR JOHNS. the priest who came to see godmother was not a bet ter man than he is. " Then, very often, he lifts my hand in his, and says, Adaly, my dear, God is very good to us, sin ners though we are. We cannot tell His meaning always, but we may be very sure that He has only a good meaning. You do not know it, Adaly, but there was once a dear one, whom I loved perhaps too well ; she was the mother of my poor Reuben ; God only knows how I loved her ! But He took her from me. Oh, how the hand of New Papa griped on mine, when he said this ! He took her from me, my child ; He has carried her to His home. He is just. Learn to love Him, Adaly. The love we give to Him we can carry with us always. He does not die and leave us. He is everywhere. The birds are messengers of His, when they sing ; the flowers you love come from His bounty : O Adaly, can you not, will you not, love Him ? " I do ! I do ! I said. " He looked me full in the face, (I shall never for get how he looked,) Ah, Adaly, is this a fantasy of yours, said he, or is it true ? Could you give up the world and all its charms, could you forego the admiration and the love of all others, if only He who is the Savior of us all would smile upon you ? " I felt I could, I felt I could, papa. DOCTOR JOHNS. 235 " But then, directly after, he repeated to me some of those dreary things I had been used to hear in the Catechism week after week. I was so sorry he repeated them, for they seemed to give a change to all my thought. I am sure I was trustful before, when he talked to me so earnestly ; but when he repeated only what I had learned over and over, every Satur day night, then I am afraid my faith drooped. " Don t tell me that, New Papa, said I, it is so old ; talk to me as you were talking. " And then the Doctor looked at me with the keen est eyes I ever saw, and said, " My child, are you right, and are the Doctors wrong ? " Is it the Catechism that you call the Doctors ? said I. " Yes, said he. " But were they better men than you, New Papa ? " l All men alike, Adaly, all struggling toward the truth, all wearying themselves to interpret it in such way that the world may accept it, and praise God who has given us His Son a sacrifice, by whom, and whom only, we may be saved. And at this he took my hand and said, Adaly, trust Him ! " By this time " (for Adele s letter is a true tran script of a day) " we have reached the door of some one of his people to whom he is to pay a visit. The 236 DOCTOR JOHNS. blinds are all closed, and nothing seems to be stirring but a gray cat that is prowling about under the lilac bushes. Dobbins is hitched to the post, and the Doctor pounds away at the big knocker. Presently two or three white-headed children come peeping around the bushes, and rush away to tell who has come. After a little the stout mistress opens the door, and wipes her fingers on her apron, and shakes hands, and bounces into the keeping-room to throw up the window and open the blinds, and dusts off the great rocking-chair for the Doctor, and keeps saying all the while that they are very back ard with the spring work, and she really had no time to slick up, and asks after Miss Eliza and Reuben, and the Tourtelots, and all the people on the street, so fast that I wonder she can keep her breath ; and the Doctor looks so calm, and has no time to say anything yet. Then she looks at me, Sissy is looking well, says she, and dashes out to bring in a great plate of gingerbread, which I never like at all, and say, No. But she says, It won t hurt ye ; it a n t p ison, child. So I find I must eat a little ; and while I sit mumbling it, the Doctor and she talk on about a great deal I don t understand, and I am glad when she bounces up again, and says, Sis would like to get some posies, p raps, and leads me out of doors. There s lalocs, child, and flower-de-luce pick what you want. DOCTOR JOHNS. 237 " So I go wandering among the beds along the gar den, with the bees humming round me ; and there are great tufts of blue-bell, and spider-wort, and moss- pink ; and the white-haired grandchildren come and put their faces to the paling, looking at me through the bars like animals in a cage ; and if I beckon to them, they glance at each other, and dash away." Thus much of Adele s account. But there are three or four more visits to complete the parson s day. Pos sibly he comes upon some member of his flock in the field, when* he draws up Dobbins to the fence, and his parishioner, spying the old chaise, leaves his team to blow a moment while he strides forward with his long ox-goad in hand, and, seating himself upon a stump within easy earshot, says, " Good mornin, Doctor." And the parson, in his kindly way, " Good morning, Mr. Pettibone. Your family pretty well ? " " Waal, middlin, Doctor, only middlin . Miss Pet tibone is a-havin faintish spells along back ; complains o pain in her side." " Sorry, sorry," says the good man : and then, " Your team is looking pretty well, Mr. Pettibone." " Waal, only tol able, Doctor. That nigh ox, what with spring work an grass feed is gittin kind o thin in the flesh. Any news abaout, Doctor ? " " Not that I learn, Mr. Pettibone. We re having fine growing weather for your crops." 238 DOCTOR JOHNS. " Waal, only tol able, Doctor. You see, arter them heavy spring rains, the sun has kind o baked the graound ; the seed don t seem to start well. I don t know as you remember, but in 29, along in the spring, we had jist sich a spell o wet, an corn hung back that season amazin ly." "Well, Mr. Pettibone, we must hope for the best: it s all in God s hands." " Waal, I s pose it is, Doctor, I s pose it is." And he makes a cut at a clover-head with the lash upon his ox-goad ; then as if in recognition of the change of subject he says, " Any more talk on the street abaout repairin the ruff o the meetin -house, Doctor ? " At sundown, all visits being paid, they go jogging into town again, the Doctor silent by this time, and thinking of his sermon. Dobbins is tied always at the same post, always the hitch-rein buckled in the third hole from the end. After tea, perhaps, Phil and Rose come sauntering by, and ask if Adele will go up " to the house " ? Which request, if Miss Eliza meet it with a nod of approval, puts Adele by their side : Rose, with a beau tiful recklessness common to New England girls of that day, wearing her hat drooping half down her neck, and baring her clear forehead to the falling night-dews. Phil, with a pebble in his hand, makes a feint of DOCTOR JOHNS. 239 throwing into a flock of goslings that are waddling disturbedly after a pair of staid old geese, but is ar rested by Rose s prompt " Behave, Phil ! " The Squire is reading his paper by the evening lamp, but cannot forbear a greeting to Adele : " Ah, here we are again ! and how is Madamoizel ? " (this is the Squire s style of French,) " and has she brought me the peony ? Phil would have given his head for it, eh, Phil ? " Rose is so bright, and glowing, and happy ! Mrs. Elderkin in her rocking-chair, with her gray hair carefully plaited under the white lace cap whose broad strings fall on either shoulder, is a picture of motherly dignity. Her pleasant " Good - evening, Adele," would alone have paid the warm-hearted exile for her walk. Then follow games, chat, and an occasional noisy joke from the Squire, until the nine o clock town-bell gives warning, and Adele wends homeward under con voy of the gallant Phil. " Good-night, Adele ! " " Good-night, Phil ! " Only this at the gate. Then the Doctor s evening prayer ; and after it, in the quiet chamber, where her sweet head lay upon the pillow, dreams. With rec ollections more barren than those of most of her years, of any early home, Adele still dreamed as hopefully as any of a home to come. XXX. "IN the autumn of 1836, Maverick wrote to his friend, -*- the Doctor, that, in view of the settled condition of business, he intended to visit America some time in the course of the following season. He preferred, however, that Adele should not be made acquainted with his expected coming. He believed that it would be a pleasant surprise for his child ; nor did he wish her anticipations of his arrival to divert her from the usual current of her study and every-day life. " Above all," he writes, " I wish to see her as she is, without any note of preparation. You will therefore, I beg, my dear Johns, keep from her scrupulously all knowledge of my present intentions, (which may pos sibly miscarry, after all,) and let me see, to the very finest touch, whether of a ribbon or of a ringlet, how far you have New-Englanclized my dear girl. I form a hundred pictures in my fancy ; but every new letter from her somehow disturbs the old image, and another is conjured up. The only real thing in my mind is, after all, a little child of eight, rosy and piquantly co quettish, who slaps my cheek when I tease her, and DOCTOR JOHNS. 241 who, as I bid her adieu at last upon the ship s deck, looks through her tears at me and waves her little kerchief. " It is quite possible that I may manage for her re turn with me, (of this plan, too, I beg you to give no hint,) and in view of it I would suggest that any avail able occasion be seized upon to revive her knowledge of French, which, I fear, in your staid household, she may almost have forgotten. Tell dear Adele that I am sometimes at Le Pin, where her godmother never fails to inquire after her and call down blessings on the dear child." Upon this the Doctor and Miss Johns take counsel. Both are not a little disturbed by the anticipation of Adele s leave. The grave Doctor finds his heart wrapped about by the winning ways of the little stran ger in a manner he could hardly have conceived possi ble on the day when he first greeted her. On the score of her religious beliefs, he is not, indeed, as yet thor oughly satisfied ; but he feels sure that she is at least in a safe path. The old idols are broken : God, in His own time, will do the rest. The spinster, though she has become unconsciously attached to Adele to a degree of which she hardly be lieves herself capable, is yet not so much disconcerted by the thought of any violence to her affections, for all violence of this kind she has schooled herself to re- VOL. I. 16 242 DOCTOR JOHNS. gard with cool stoicism, but the possible interruption of her ambitious schemes with respect to Eeuben and Adele discomposes her sadly. Such a scheme she has never given over for one moment. No plan of hers is ever given over lightly ; and she has that persistent faith in her own sagacity and prudence which is not easily shaken. The growing intercourse with the El- derkins, in view of the evident devotion of Phil, has been, indeed, the source of a little uneasiness ; but even this intimacy she has moderated to a certain de gree by occasional judicious fears in regard to Adele s exposure to the night air ; and has made the most in her quiet manner of Phil s exceptional, but some what noisy, attentions to that dashing girl, Sophia Bow- rirror. **&e " A very suitable match it would be," she says some evening, casually, to the Doctor ; " and I really think that Phil, if there were any seriousness about the lad, would meet his father s wishes in the matter. Adele, child," (she is sitting by at her worsted,) " are you sure you ve the right shade of brown there ? " But, like most cool schemers in what concerns the affections, she makes her errors. Her assurance in regard to the improved habits and character of Reu ben, and her iteration of the wonderful attachment which the Brindlocks bear to the lad, have a somewhat strained air to the ear of Adele. And when the spin- DOCTOR JOHNS. 243 ster says, folding up his last letter, " Good fellow ! always some tender little message for you, my dear," Adele thinks as most girls of her age would be apt to think that she would like to see the tender mes sage with her own eyes. But what of the French ? Where is there to be found a competent teacher ? Not, surely, in Ashfield. Miss Eliza, with grave doubts, however, suggests a win ter in New York with the Brindlocks. The Doctor shakes his head : " Not to be thought of, Eliza. It is enough that my boy should undergo the perils of such godless associa tion : Adaly shall not." The question, however, of the desired opportunity is not confined to the parsonage ; it has currency up and down the street ; and within a week the buoyant Miss Bowrigg comes to the rescue. " Delighted above all things to hear it. They have a charming teacher in the city, Madame Aries, who has the best accent. And now, Adele, dear, you must come down and pass the winter with us. It will be charming." It is, indeed, a mere girlish proposal at first ; but, much to the delight of Miss Eliza, it is abundantly con firmed by a formal invitation from Mrs. Bowrigg, a few weeks after, who, besides being attracted by the man ners and character of Adele, sees in it an admirable opportunity for the accomplishment of her daughters 244 DOCTOR JOHNS. in French. Her demonstrative girls and a son of twenty comprise her family. For these reasons, she will regard it as a favor, if the Doctor will allow Miss Maverick to establish herself with them for the winter. Miss Eliza is delighted with the scheme, but fears the cool judgment of the Doctor : and she has abun dant reason. " It cannot be," he said, and was quite inexorable. The truth is, that Mrs. Bowrigg, like a good many educated with a narrow severity, had expanded her views under the city influences in directions that were by no means approved by the good Doctor. Hers was not only a godless household, but given over to the lusts of the eye and the pride of life. It was quite im possible for him to entertain the idea of submitting Adele to any such worldly associations. Miss Eliza pleaded the exigencies of the case in vain ; and even Adele, attracted by the novelty of the pro posed situation, urged her claim in the cheeriest little manner conceivable. " Only for the winter, New Papa ; please say * Yes ! " And the tender hands patted the grave face, as she seated herself with a childish coquetry upon the elbow of his chair. " Impossible, quite impossible," says the Doctor. " You are too dear to me, Adaly." DOCTOR JOHNS. 245 " Oh, now, New Papa, you don t mean that, not positively ?" and the winning fingers tap his cheek again. But for this time, at least, Adele is to lose her claim ; the Doctor well knows that to suffer such endearments were to yield ; so he rises brusquely, " I must be just, my child, to the charge your father has imposed upon me. It cannot be." It will not be counted strange, if a little ill-disguised petulance appeared in the face of Adele that day and the next. The winter of 183G-7 was a very severe one through out New England. Perhaps it was in view of its se verity, that, on or about New Year s Day, there came to the parsonage a gift from Reuben for Adele, in the shape of a fur tippet, very much to the gratification of Miss Eliza and to the pleasant surprise of the Doctor. Rose and Phil, sitting by the fire next day, Rose says, in a timid voice, with less than her usual sprightli- ness, " Do you know who has sent a beautiful fur tippet to Adele, Phil ? " " No," says Phil, briskly. " Who ? " " Reuben," says Rose, in a tone as if a blush ran over her face at the utterance. If there was one, however, Phil could not have seen it; he was looking steadfastly into the fire, and said only, 246 DOCTOR JOHNS. " I don t care." A little after, (nothing having been said, meantime,) he has occasion to rearrange the wood upon the hearth, and does it with such preposterous violence that the timid little voice heside him says, " Don t, Phil, be angry with the fire ! " It was a winter, as we have said, for fur tippets and for glowing cheeks ; and Adele had now been long enough under a Northern sky to partake of that exhil aration of spirits which belongs to every true-born New Englander in presence of one of those old-fashioned snow-storms, which, all through the day and through the night, sifts out from the gray sky its fleecy crystals, covering the frosted high-roads, covering the with ered grasses, covering the whole summer s wreck in one glorious white burial ; and after it, keen frosty morn ings, the pleasant jingling of scores of bells, jets of white vapor from the nostrils of the prancing horses, and a quick electric tingle to the blood, that makes every pulse beat a thanksgiving. Squire Elderkin never made better jokes, the flame upon his hearth never danced more merrily, the Doctor never preached better sermons, and the people never listened more patiently than in those weeks of the dead of winter. But in the midst of them a black shadow fell upon the little town. News came overland, (the river being DOCTOR JOHNS. 247 closed,) that Mrs. Bowrigg, after an illness of three clays, was dead ; and the body of the poor woman was to come home for burial. She had been reared, as we have said, under a harsh regimen, and had signalized her married escape from the somewhat oppressive for malities of home by a pretty free entertainment of all the indulgences accessible in her new life. Not that she offended against any of the larger or lesser propri eties of society, but she showed a zest for the pleasures of the world, and for a certain measure of display, which had been the occasion of many a sober shake of the head along the streets of Ashfield, and the subject of particular commiseration on the part of the good Doctor. Now that her brilliant career (as it seemed to many of the staid folk of Ashfield) was so suddenly closed, the Doctor could not forbear taking advantage of the opportunity to press home upon his people, under the influences of this somber funeral procession, the vani ties of the world and the fleeting character of its wealth and pride. " We may build palaces," said he, (and people thought of the elegant Bowrigg mansion,) " but God locks the door and assigns to us a narrower home ; we may court the intoxicating air of cities, but its breath, in a day, may blast our strength, and, except He keep us, may blast our souls." Never had the Doctor been more eloquent, and never had he so moved 248 DOCTOR JOHNS. his people. After the evening prayer, Adele stole into the study of the Doctor, and said, " New Papa, it was well I stayed with you." The old gentleman took her hand in his, " Right, I believe, Adaly ; but vain, utterly vain, ex cept you be counted among the elect." The poor girl had no reply, save only to drop a kiss upon his forehead and pass out. With the opening of the spring the towns-people were busy with the question, if the Bowriggs would come again to occupy their summer residence, that, with its closed doors and windows, was mournfully silent. But soon the gardeners were set to work ; it was understood that a housekeeper had been engaged, and the family were to occupy it as usual. Sophia writes to Adele, confirming it all, and adding, " Madame Aries had proposed to make us a visit, which papa hearing, and wishing us to keep up our studies, has given her an in vitation to pass the summer with us. She says she will. I am so glad ! We had told her very much of you, and I know she will be delighted to have you as a scholar." At this Adele feels a thrill of satisfaction, and looks longingly forward to the time when she shall hear again from native lips the language of her childhood. "Mafille! ma file!" The voices of her early home seem to ring again in DOCTOR JOHNS. 249 her ear. She basks once more in the delicious flow of the sunshine, and the perfume of the orange-blossoms regales her. "MajiUe!" Is it the echo of your voice, good old godmother, that comes rocking over the great reach of the sea, and so touches the heart of the exile ? XXXI. MADAME ARLES was a mild and quiet little woman, with a singular absence of that vivacity which most people are disposed to attribute to all of French blood. Her age so far as one could judge from outward indications might have been anywhere from twenty-eight to forty. There were no wrinkles in that smooth, calm forehead of hers ; and if there were lines of gray amid her hair, this indication of age was so contradicted by the youthfulness of her eye, that a keen observer would have been disposed to attribute it rather to some weight of past grief that had left its silvery imprint than to the mere burden of her years. There are those who stolidly measure a twelvemonth always by its count, and age by such token as a gray head; but who has not had experience of months so piled with life that two or three or four of them count more upon the scale of mortality than a score of other and sunny ones ? Who cannot reckon such ? Who, looking back, cannot summon to his thought some pas sage of a week in which he seemed to stride toward the END with a crazy swiftness, and under which he felt DOCTOR JOHNS. 251 that every outward indication of age was deepening its traces with a wondrous surety? Ay, we slip, we are forged upon the anvil of Time, God, who deals the blows, only knows how fast ! Yet in Madame Aries we have no notable character to bring forward ; if past griefs have belonged to her, they have become long since a part of her character ; they are in no way obtrusive. There was, indeed, a singular cast in one of her eyes, which in moments of excitement such few as came over her impressed the observer very strangely ; as if, while she looked straight upon you and calmly with one eye, the other were bent upon some scene far remote and out of range, some past episode it might be of her own life, by over-dwelling upon which she had brought her organs of sight into this tortured condition. Nine out of ten observers, however, would never have remarked the peculiarity we have mentioned, and would only have commented upon Madame Aries if they had com mented at all as a quiet person, in whom youth and age seemed just now to struggle for the mastery, and in whom no trace of French birth and rearing was appar ent, save her speech, and a certain wonderful aptitude in the arrangement of her dress. The poor lady, moreover, who showed traces of a vanished beauty, was a sad invalid, and for this reason, perhaps, had readily accepted the relief afforded by this summer vacation 252 DOCTOR JOHNS. with two of her city pupils. A violent palpitation of the heart, from time to time, after sudden or undue exertion or excitement, shook the poor woman s frail hold upon life. Possibly from this cause as is the case with many who are compelled to listen to those premonitory raps of the grim visitor at the very seat of life Madame Aries was a person of strong religious proclivities. Death is knocking at all hearts, indeed, pretty regularly, and his pace toward triumph is as for mally certain as a pulse-beat ; but it is, after all, those disorderly summons of his, when in a kind of splen etic rage he grips at our heart-strings, and then lets go, which keep specially active the religious sentiment. Madame Aries had been educated in the Romish faith, and accepted all its tenets with the same unquestion ing placidity with which she enjoyed the sunshine. Without any particular knowledge of the way in which this faith diverged from other Christian forms, she leaned upon it (as so many fainting spirits do and will) because the most available and accessible prop to that religious yearning in her which craved support. So instinctive and unreasoning a faith was not, however, such as to provoke any proselytizing zeal or noisy dem onstration. Had it been otherwise, indeed, it could hardly have disturbed her position with the Bowriggs, or interrupted relations with her city patrons. In Ashfield the case was far different. DOCTOR JOHNS. 253 Adele, accompanied by her friend Rose, who, not withstanding the quiet remonstrances of the Doctor, had won her mother s permission for such equipment in French as she could gain from a summer s teaching, went with early greeting to the Bowriggs. The curiosity of Adele was intense to listen to the music of her native speech once more ; and when Madame Aries slipped quietly into the room, Adele darted toward her with warm, girlish impulse, and the poor woman, excited beyond bounds by this heartiness of greeting, and murmuring some tender words of endear ment, had presently folded her to her bosom. Adele, blushing as much with pleasure as with a half-feeling of mortification at the wild show of feeling she had made, was stammering her apology, when she was arrested by a sudden change in the aspect of her new friend. " My dear Madame, you are suffering ? " " A little, my child ! " It was too true, as the quick glance of her old pupils saw in an instant. Her lips were pinched and blue ; that strange double look in her eyes, one fastened upon Adele, and the other upon vacancy ; her hands clasped over her heart as if to stay its mad throbbings. While Sophia supported and conducted the sufferer to her own chamber, the younger sister explained to Adele that such spasmodic attacks were of frequent 254 DOCTOR JOHNS. occurrence, and their physician had assured them must, at a very early day, destroy her. Nothing more was needed to enlist Adele s sympa thies to the full. She carried home the story of it to the Doctor, and detailed it in such an impassioned way, and with such interpretation of the kind lady s recep tion of herself, that the Doctor was touched, and abated no small measure of the prejudice he had been disposed to entertain against the Frenchwoman. But her heresies in the matter of religion remained, it being no secret that Madame Aries was thor oughly Popish ; and these disturbed the good Doctor the more, as he perceived the growing and tender intimacy which was establishing itself, week by week, between Adele and her new teacher. Indeed, he has not sanctioned this without his own private conversa tion with Madame, in which he has set forth his re sponsibility respecting Adele and the wishes of her father, and insisted upon entire reserve of Madame s religious opinions in her intercourse with his protegee. All which the poor lady had promised with a ready zeal that surprised the minister. " Indeed, I know too little, Doctor ; I could wish she might be better than I. May God make her so ! " " I do not judge you, Madame ; it is not ours to judge ; but I would keep Adaly securely, if God per mit, in the faith which we reverence here, and which I DOCTOR JOHNS. 255 much fear she could never learn in her own land or her own language." " May be, may be, my good Doctor ; her faith shall not be disturbed by me, I promise you." Adele. with her quick ear and eye, has no difficulty in discovering the ground of the Doctor s uneasiness and of Miss Eliza s frequent questionings in regard to her intercourse with the new teacher. " I am sure they think you very bad," she said to Madame Aries, one day, in a spirit of mischief. "Bad! bad! Adele, why? how?" and that strange tortuous look came to her eye, with a quick flush to her cheeks. " Ah, now, dear Madame, don t be disturbed ; t is only your religion they think so bad, and fear you will mislead me. Tenez! this little rosary" (and she dis plays it to the eye of the wondering Madame Aries) " they would have taken from me." Madame pressed the beads reverently to her lips, while her manner betrayed a deep religious emotion, (as it seemed to Adele,) which she had rarely seen in her before. " And you claimed it, my child ? " "Not for any faith I had in it; but it was my mother s." The good woman kissed Adele. " You must long to see her, my child ! " 256 DOCTOR JOHNS. A shade of sorrow and doubt ran over the face of the girl. This did not escape the notice of Madame Aries, who, with a terribly dejected and distracted air, replaced the rosary in her hands. " Man ange ! " (in this winsome way she was accus tomed at times to address Adele) " we cannot talk of these things. I have promised as much to the Doc tor ; it is better so ; he is a good man." Adele sat toying for a moment with the rosary upon her fingers, looking down ; then, seeing that woe-be- gone expression that had fastened upon the face of her companion, she sprang up, kissed her forehead, and, restoring thus as she knew she could do a cheer- iness to her manner, resumed her lesson. But from this time forth she showed an eagerness to unriddle, so far as she might, the mystery of that faith which the Doctor clothed in his ponderous discourses, weighed down and oppressed by his prolixity, and confounded by doctrines she could not comprehend, yet recognizing, under all, his serene trust, and gratefully conscious of his tender regard and constant watchful ness. But, more than all, it was a subject of confusion to her, that the prim and austere Miss Eliza, whose pride and selfishness her keen eye could not fail to see, should be possessed of a truer faith than the poor stranger whose gentleness, and suffering so patiently borne, seemed in a measure to Christianize and dignify DOCTOR JOHNS. 257 character. And if she dropped a hint of these doubts, as she sometimes did, in the ear of the motherly Mrs. Elderkin, that good woman took her hand tenderly, " My dear Adele, we are all imperfect ; but God sees with other eyes than ours. Trust Him, trust Him above all, Adele ! " Yes, she trusts Him, she knows she trusts Him. Why not ? Whom else to trust ? No tender motherly care and guidance ; the father, by these years of ab sence, made almost a stranger. The low voice of her native land, that comes to her ear with a charming flow from the lips of her new teacher, never to speak of her doubts or questionings ; the constrained love of the Doctor, her New Papa, framing itself, whenever it touches upon the deeper motives of her nature, in stark formulas of speech, that blind and confound her ; the spinster sister talking kindly, but commending the tie of her hat-ribbons in the same tone with which she iirges adherence to some cumbrous enunciation of doc trine. And Adele cherishes her little friendships (most of all with Rose) ; not alive as yet to any tenderer and stronger passion that shall engross her, and make or mar her life ; swinging her reticule, as in the days gone by, under the trees that embower the village street ; loving the bloom, the verdure, the singing of the birds, but with every month now as she begins to fathom the abyss of life with her own thought grown more seri- VOL. I. 17 258 DOCTOR JOHNS. ous. It is always thus : the girl we toyed with yester day with our inanities of speech is to-morrow, by some sudden reach of womanly thought, another creature, out of range, and so alert, that, if we would conquer her, we must bring up our heaviest siege-trains. XXXII. TN the summer of 1837, Maverick, who had con- -*- tinued eminently successful, determined to sail for America, and to make good his promise of a visit to the Doctor and Adele. It may appear somewhat inex plicable that a father should have deferred to so late a day the occasion of meeting and greeting an only child. That his attachment was strong, his letters, full of ex pressions of affection, had abundantly shown ; but the engrossments of business had been unceasing, and he had met them with that American abandonment of other thought, which, while it insures special success, is too apt to make shipwreck of all besides. He was living, moreover, without experience of those tender family ties which ripen a man s domestic affections, and make the absence of a child most of all, an only child a daily burden. Maverick shows no more appearance of age than when we saw him ten years since, placing his little offering of flowers upon the breakfast-table of poor Rachel, an excellently well-preserved man, dressed always in that close conformity to the existing mode 260 DOCTOR JOHNS. which of itself gives a young air, brushing his hair sedulously so as to cover the growing spot of bald ness, regulating all his table indulgences with the same precision with which he governs his business, using all the appliances of flesh-brushes and salt-baths to baffle any insidious ailment, a strong, hale, cheery man, who would have ranked by a score (judging from his exterior) younger than the Doctor. In our time the clerical fraternity are putting a somewhat wiser valuation upon those aids to firm muscle and good digestion which forty years ago in New England their brethren gave over contemptuously to men of the world. What fearful, pinching dyspepsias, what weak, trembling knees and aching sides have been carried into pulpits, and have been strained to the propagation of spiritual doctrine, under the absurd belief that these bodies of ours were not given us to be cherished ! As if a Gabriel would not need clean limbs and a firm hand in a grapple with the ministers of misrule ! Shall we look for a moment at the French home which Maverick is leaving ? A compact country-house of yellow stone upon a niche of the hills that over look the blue Bay of Lyons ; a green arbor over the walk leading to the door ; clumps of pittosporum and of jessamine, with two or three straggling fig-trees, within the inclosure ; a billiard-room and salle-a-man- DOCTOR JOHNS. 261 ger in the basement, and on the first floor a salon, opening, by its long, heavily draped windows, upon a balcony shielded with striped awning. Here on many an evening, when the night wind comes in from the sea, Maverick lounges sipping at his demi-tasse, whiffing at a fragrant Havana, (imported to order,) and chatting with some friend he has driven out from the stifling streets of Marseilles about the business chances of the morrow. A tall, agile Alsatian woman, with a gilt crucifix about her neck, and a great deal of the peasant beauty still in her face, glides into the salon from time to time, acting apparently in the ca pacity of mistress of the establishment, respect fully courteous to Maverick and his friend, yet show ing something more than the usual familiarity of a dependent housekeeper. The friend who sits with him enjoying the night breeze and those rare Havanas is an open-faced, mid dle-aged companion of the city, with whom Maverick has sometimes gone to a bourgeois home near to Mon- tauban, where a wrinkle-^faced old Frenchman in vel vet skull - cap the father of his friend has re ceived him with profound obeisance, brought out for him his best cru of St. Peray, and bored him with long stories of the times of 1798, in which he was a participant. Yet the home-scenes there, with the wrinkled old father and the stately mamma for part- 262 DOCTOR JOHNS. ners at whist or boston, have been grateful to Mav erick, as reminders of other home-scenes long passed out of reach ; and he has opened his heart to this son of the house. " Monsieur Papiol," (it is the Alsatian woman who is addressing the friend of Maverick,) " ask, then, why it is Monsieur Frank is going to America." " Ah, Lucille, do you not know, then, there is a cer tain Puritan belle he goes to look after ? " " Pah ! " says the Alsatian. " Monsieur is not so young ! " Maverick puffs at his cigar thoughtfully, a thoughtfulness that does not encourage the Alsatian to other speech, and in a moment more she is gone. " Seriously, Maverick," says Papiol, when they are alone again, " what will you do with this Puritan daughter of yours ? " " Keep her from ways of wickedness," said Mav erick, without losing his thoughtfulness. " Excellent ! " said the friend, laughing ; " but you will hardly bring her to this home of yours, then?" " Hardly to this country of yours, Pierre." " Nonsense, Maverick ! You will be too proud of her, mon ami. I m sure of that. You 11 never keep her cribbed yonder. We shall see you escorting her some day up and down the Prado, and all the fine young fellows hereabout paying court to the belle DOCTOR JOHNS. 268 Americaine. My faith ! I shall be wishing myself twenty years younger ! " Maverick is still very thoughtful. " What is it, my good fellow ? Is it that the family question gives annoyance among your friends yonder ? " "On the contrary," says Maverick, and reaching a file of letters in his cabinet, he lays before his com panion that fragment of the Doctor s epistle which had spoken of the rosary, and of his discovery that it had been the gift of the mother, " so near, and he trusted dear a relative." " Mais, comme il est innocent, your good old friend there ! " " I wish to God, Pierre, I were as innocent as he," said Maverick, and tossed his cigar over the edge of the balcony. Upon his arrival at New York, Maverick did not communicate directly with the Doctor, enjoying the thought, very likely, of surprising his old friend by his visit, very much as he had surprised him many years before. He takes boat to a convenient point upon the shore of the Sound, and thence chooses to approach the town that holds what is most dear to him by an old, lumbering stage-coach, which still plies across the hills, as twenty years before, through the 264 DOCTOR JOHNS. parish of Ashfield. The same patches of tasseled corn, (it is August,) the same outlying bushy pastures, the same reeling walls of mossy cobble-stones meet his eye that he remembered on his previous visit. But he looks upon all wayside views carelessly, as one seeing, and yet not seeing them. His daughter Adele, she who parted from him a toy-child eight years gone, whom a new ribbon would amuse in that day, must have changed. That she has not lost her love of him, those letters have told ; that she has not lost her girlish buoyancy, he knows. She must be tall now, and womanly in stature, he thinks. She promised to be graceful. That he will love her, he feels ; but will he be proud of her ? A fine figure, a sweet, womanly voice, an arch look, a winning smile, a pretty coquetry of glance, will he find these ? And does he not build his pride on hope of these ? Will she be clever ? Will there be traces, ripened in these last years, of the mother, offen sive traces possibly ? But Maverick is what the world calls a philosopher ; he hums, unconsciously, a snatch of a French song, by which he rouses the attention of the spectacled old lady, (the only other occupant of the coach,) with whom he has already made some conversational ven tures, and who has just finished a lunch which she has drawn from her capacious work-bag. Reviving DOCTOR JOHNS. 265 now under the influence of Maverick s chance frag ment of song, and dusting the crumbs from her lap, she says, "We don t have very good singin now in the Glostcnbury meetin ." " Ah ! " says Maverick. "No; Squire Peter s darters have bin gittin mar ried, and the young girls ha n t come on yit. " You attend the Glostenbury Church, then, mad am ? " says Maverick, who enjoys the provincialisms of her speech, like a whiff of the lilac perfume which he once loved. " In gineral, sir ; but we come down odd spells to hear Dr. Johns, who preaches at the Ashfield meet- in -house. He s a real smart man." " Ah ! And this Dr. Johns has a family, I think ? " " Waal, the Doctor lost his wife, you see, quite airly ; and Miss Johns that s his sister has bin a-keepin house for him ever sence. I m not ac quainted with her, but I ve heerd she s a very smart woman. And there s a French girl that came to live with em, goin on now seven or eight year, who was a reg lar Roman Catholic ; but I kind o guess the old folks has tamed her down afore now." " Ah ! I should think that a Roman Catholic would have but a poor chance in a New England village." 2G6 DOCTOR JOHNS. "Not much of a chance anywhere, I guess," said the old lady, wiping her spectacles, "if folks only preached the Gospil." Even now the coach is creaking along through the outskirts of Ashfield ; and presently the driver s horn wakes the echoes of the hills, while the horses plunge forward at a doubled pace. The eyes of Maverick are intent upon every house, every open window, every moving figure. " It s a most a beautiful town," said the old lady. " Charming, charming, madam ! " and even as he spoke, Maverick s eye fastens upon two figures before them with a strange yearning in his gaze, two figures of almost equal height : a little, coquet tish play of ribbons about the head of one, which in the other are absent ; a girlish, elastic step to one, that does not belong to the other. Is there something in the gait, something in the poise of the head, to which the memory of Maverick so cleaves? It is, indeed, Adele, taking her noon day walk with Madame Aries. A lithe figure and a buoyant step, holding themselves tenderly in check for the slower pace of the companion. Maverick s gaze keeps fast upon them, fast upon them, until the old coach is fairly abreast, fast upon them, DOCTOR JOHNS. 267 until by a glance back he has caught full sight of the faces. " Mon Dieu ! " he exclaims, and throws himself back in the coach. " Haow ? " says the old lady. " Mon Dieu, it is she ! " continues Maverick, speak ing under intense excitement to himself, as if un conscious of any other presence. " Iliiow," urged the old lady, more persistently. " Damn it, nothing, madam ! " "And the old lady drew the strings of her bag closely, and looked full out of the opposite window. Within a half-hour the stage-coach arrived at the Eagle Tavern. Maverick demanded a chamber, and asked to see the landlord. The stout, blear-eyed Boody presently made his appearance. " How can I reach New York soonest, my friend ? " Mr. Boody consulted his watch. "Well, by fast driving you might catch the night- boat on the river." " Can you get me there in time ? " " Well, sir," reflecting a moment, " I guess I can." " Very good. Have your carriage ready as soon as possible." And within an hour, Maverick, dejected, and with an anxious air, was on his return to the city. 268 DOCTOR JOHNS. Three days after, the Doctor summons Adele into his study. " Adaly, here is a letter from your father, which I wish you to read." The girl takes it eagerly, and at the first line exclaims, " He is in New York ! Why does n t he come here?" " MY DEAR JOHNS," (so his letter runs,) " I had counted on surprising you completely by dropping in upon you at your parsonage, (so often in my thought,) at Ashfield ; but circumstances have pre vented. Can I ask so large a favor of you as to bring my dear Adele to meet me here ? If your parochial duties forbid this utterly, can you not see her safely on the river-boat, and I will meet her at the wharf in New York ? But, above all, I hope you will come with her. I fancy her now so accom plished a young lady, that there will be needed some ceremony of presentation at your hands ; besides which, I want a long talk with you. We are both many years older since we have met; you have had your trials, and I have escaped with only a few rubs. Let us talk them over. Slip away quietly, if you can ; beyond Adele and your good sister, can t you conceal your errand to the city ? Your DOCTOR JOHNS. 269 country villages are so prone to gossip, that I would wish to clasp my little Adele before your towns-folk shall have talked the matter over. Pray ask your good sister to prepare the wardrobe of Adele for a month or two of absence, since I mean she shall be my attendant on a little jaunt through the coun try. I long to greet her ; and your grave face, my dear Johns, is always a welcome sight." Adele is in a fever of excitement. In her happy glee she would have gone out to tell all the village what pleasure was before her. Even the caution she receives from the Doctor cannot control her spirits absolutely. She makes her little adieux, for a while, under a certain control that surprises her self. But when, in her light-hearted ramble, she comes to say good-by to Madame Aries, toward whom her sympathies seem to flow in spite of her self, she cannot forbear saying, " What harm, pray, can there be in this ? " " Such a secret, chere Madame ! I am going to New York, you know, with Dr. Johns, the good man ! and such a secret ! don t whisper it ! Papa has come, and has sent for me, and we are to travel together ! " And she sprang at Madame Aries, and, clasping her arms around her neck, kissed her with a vehemence that might have startled even a less excitable person. 270 DOCTOR JOHNS. " Is it possible, my child ! I wish you joy, with all my heart" And as if the exuberance of the wish had started her old ailment into new vigor, she has clasped her hands wildly over that bosom, to stay, if it might be, those inordinate throbbings. But the adieux are at last all spoken. Mrs. El- derkin had said, " My child, I rejoice Avith you ; and if I never see you again," (for she had her sus picions that the sudden movement had some connec tion with the wishes of her father,) " if I never see you again, I hope you may keep always the simplic ity and the love of truth I believe you have now." Rose, almost bewildered by the gleeful excitement of her friend, enters eagerly into all her arrange ments, trips into her chamber to assist in her pack ing, insists, over and over, that she must write often and long letters. Girls of sixteen or thereabout are prone to ex pectancies of this kind. Their friendships cover reams. Their promises of never-dying attachment are so full, so rich ! But as the years drop these girl friends into their separate spheres, with a new world of interests, domestic buffetings, nursery clamor, growing up around them, the tender correspondence, before they know it, is gone by. And the budget of sweet and gushing school-day epistles is cut through DOCTOR JOHNS. 271 and through with the ruthless family shears, to kindle the family lamp or to light the cigar of some ex acting and surly pater-familias. "I suppose you will see Reuben in the city," Rose had said, in a chance way. " Oh, I hope so ! " said Adele. And of Reuben neither of them said any thing more. Then with what a great storm of embraces Adele parted from Rose ! A parting only for a month, perhaps: both knew that. But the friendship of young girls can build a week into a monstrous void. God bless their dear hearts, and, if the wish be not wicked, keep them always as fresh ! " Phil, who is a sturdy and somewhat timid lover, without knowing it, affects an air of composure, and says, " I hope you 11 have a good time, Adele ; and I suppose you 11 forget us all here in Ashfield." " No, you don t suppose any such thing, Mister Philip," says Adele, roundly, and with a frank, full look at him that makes the color come to his face ; and he laughs, but not easily. "Well, good-by, Adele." She takes his hand, eagerly. " Good-by, Phil ; you re a dear, good fellow ; and you ve been very kind to me." 272 DOCTOR JOHNS. Possibly there may have been a little water gather ing in her eye as she spoke. It is certain that the upper lip of Phil trembled as he strolled away. After walking a few paces out of sight and hearing, snap ping his fingers nervously the while, he used some bad interjectional language, which we shall express more moderately. " Hang it, I m sorry, deused sorry ! I did n t think I liked her so." Walking, with head down, snapping those fin gers of his, past his own gate a long way, (though it is full dinner-hour,) mumbling again, " By George ! I believe I ought to have said some thing ; but, Jiang it, what could a fellow say ? " He hears the coach driving off, and with a sudden thought rushes home, enters quietly, goes up the stairs, makes a feint as if he were entering his chamber, but passes on tiptoe into the garret, opens the roof-door, and from the house-top catches a last glimpse of the stage-coach rattling down the south road. A wood hides it presently. " Confound it all ! " he says, with great heartiness, and goes down to dinner. " My son, you have n t a good appetite," says the kindly mother. " I ate a big lunch," says Phil. He knew it was a whopper. XXXIIL TT is at Jennings s old City Hotel, far down Broad- -*~ way, that Maverick has taken rooms and awaits the arrival of Adele. That glimpse of her upon the street of Ashfield (ay, he knew it must be she !) has added pride to the instinctive love of the parent. The elastic step, the graceful figure, the beaming, sunny face, they all haunt him ; they put him in a fever of expectation. He reads over again the few last letters of hers under a new light ; up and down along the page, that lithe, tall figure is always coming for ward, and the words of endearment are coupled with that sunny face. He even prepares his toilet to meet her, as a lover might do to meet his affianced. And the meeting, when it comes, only deepens the pride. Graceful ? Yes ! That bound toward him, can any thing be fuller of grace ? Natural ? The look and the speech of Aclcle are to Maverick a new revelation of Nature. Loving ? That clinging kiss of hers was worth his voyage over the sea. And she, too, is so beautifully proud of her father ! She has loved the Doctor for his serenity, his large VOL. I. 18 274 DOCTOR JOHNS, justice, notwithstanding his stiffness and his awkward gravity ; but she regards with new eyes the manly grace of her father, his easy self-possession, his pli ability of talk, his tender attention to her comfort, hi? wistful gaze at her, so full of a yearning affection, which, if the Doctor had ever felt, he had counted it a duty to conceal. Nay, the daughter, with a womanly eye, took pride in the aptitude and becomingness of his dress, so different from what she had been used to see in the clumsy toilet of the Doctor, or of the good-natured Squire Elderkin. Henceforth she will have a new standard of comparison, to which her lovers, if they ever declare themselves, must submit. Adele, enjoying this easy familiarity with such a pat tern of manhood, as she fondly imagines her father to be, indulges in full, hearty story of her experi ences, at school, with Miss Johns, with the Elderkins, with all those whom she has learned to call friends. And Maverick listens, as he never listened to a grand opera in the theater of Marseilles. " And so you have stolen a march upon them all, Adele ? I suppose they have n t a hint of the person you were to meet ? " " All, at least nearly all, dear papa ; there was only good Madame Aries, to whom I could not help saying that I was coming to see you." A shade passed over the face of Maverick, which it DOCTOR JOHNS. 275 required all his self-possession to conceal from the quick eye of his daughter. " And who, pray, is this Madame Aries, Adele ? " " Oh, a good creature ! She has taught me French ; no proper teaching, to be sure ; but in my talk with her, all the old idioms have come back to me : at least, I hope so." And she rattles on in French speech, explaining how it was, how they walked together in those sunny noontides at Ashfield; and taking a girlish pride in the easy adaptation of her language to forms which her father must know so well, she rounds off a little torrent of swift narrative with a piquant, coquettish look, and says, " N est ce pas, quefy suis, mon pere ? " " Pctrfattement, ma chere" says the father, and drops an admiring kiss upon the glowing cheeks of Adele. But the shade of anxiety has not passed from the face of Maverick. " This Madame Aries, Adele, has she been long in the country ? " " I don t know papa ; yet it must be some years ; she speaks English passably well." " And she has told you, I suppose, very much about the people among whom you were born, Adele ? " " Not much, papa, and never any thing about her self or her history ; yet I have been so curious ! " 276 DOCTOR JOHNS. " Don t be too curious, petite ; you might learn only Df badness." " Not badness, I am very, very sure, papa ! " Adele is sitting on the arm of his chair, fondling those sparse locks of his, sprinkled with gray. It is a wholly new sensation for him ; charming, doubtless ; but even under the caresses of this daughter, of whom he has reason to be proud, anxious thoughts crowd upon him. Are not our deepest loves measured, after all, by the depth of the accompanying solicitude ? The Doctor is met very warmly by Maverick, and feels something like a revival of the glow of his youth ful days as he takes his hand ; and yet they are wider apart by far than when they met in the lifetime of Rachel. Both feel it ; they have traveled widely di vergent roads, these last twenty years. The Doctor is satisfied by the bearing and talk of Maverick (what ever kindness may lie in it) that his worldliness is more engrossing and decided than ever. And Maverick, on his part, scrutinizing carelessly, but unerringly, that embarassed country manner of the parson s, that stark linen in which he is arrayed by the foresight of the spinster sister, and the constraint of his speech, is sure that his old friend more than ever bounds his thought by the duties of his sacred office. The Doctor is, moreover, sadly out of place in that little parlor of the hotel, looking out upon Broadway ; DOCTOR JOHNS. 277 there is no adaptiveness in his nature : he comes out from the little world of his study, where Tillotson and Poole and Newton have been his companions, athwart the roar of the city street which sounds in his ear like an echo of the murmurs of Pandemonium. Under these circumstances he scarce dares to expostulate so boldly as he would wish with Maverick upon the world- liness of his career ; it would seem like bearding the lion in his own den. Nor, indeed, does Maverick pro voke such expostulation ; he is so considerate of the Doctor s feelings, so grateful for his attentions to Adele, so religiously disposed (it must be said) in all that con cerns the daughter s education and future, and waives the Doctor s personal advices with so kind and easy a grace, that the poor parson despairs of reaching him with the point of the sword of Divine truth. " My good friend," says Maverick, " you have been a father to my child, a better one than I have made, I wish I could repay you." The Doctor bows stiffly ; he has lost the familiarity which at their last interview had lingered from their boyish days at college. "I suppose that under your teaching," continues Maverick, u she is so fixed in the New England faith of our fathers, that she might be trusted now even to my bad guidance." "I have tried to do my duty, Maverick. I could 278 DOCTOR JOHNS. have wished to see more of self-abasement in her, and a clearer acceptance of the doctrine we are called upon to teach." " But she has been constant in the performance of all the duties you have enjoined, has n t she, Doc tor ? " " Entirely so, entirely ; but, my friend, our poor worldly efforts at duty do not always call down the gift of Grace." " By Jove, Doctor, but that seems hard doctrine." " Hard to carnal minds, Maverick ; but the evi dences are abundant that justification " " Nay, nay," said Maverick, interrupting him ; " you know I m not strong in theology ; I don t want to be put hors du combat by you ; I know I should be. But about that little affair of the rosary, no harm came of it, I hope ? " " None, 1 believe," said the Doctor ; " but I must not conceal from you, Maverick, that a late teacher of hers, to whom, unfortunately, she seems very much attached, is strongly wedded to the iniquities of the Eomish Church." " That would seem a very awkward risk to take, Doctor," said Maverick, with more of seriousness than he had yet shown. " A risk, certainly ; but I took the precaution of warning Madame Aries, who is the party in question, DOCTOR JOHNS. 279 against any conversation with Adaly upon religious subjects." " And you ventured to trust her ? Upon my word, Johns, you give me a lesson in faith. I should have" been more severe than you. I would n t have ad mitted such intercourse ; and, my good friend, if I should ask permission to reinstate Adele in your house hold for a time, promise me that all intercourse with Madame Aries shall be cut off. I know Frenchwomen better than you, my friend." The Doctor assured him that he would do as he desired, and would be glad to have the father s au thority for the interruption of an intercourse which had almost the proportions of a tender friendship. Maverick was thoughtful for a moment. " Well, yes, Doctor, be gentle I know you are always with the dear girl; but if there be any de mur on her part, pray give her to understand that what you will ask in this respect has my express sanc tion. If I know myself, Johns, there is no object I have so near at heart as the happiness of my child ; not alone now ; but in her future, I hope to God (I speak reverently, Doctor) that she may have im munity from suffering of whatever kind. I wish wealth could buy it ; but it can t. Mind the promise, Johns ; keep her away from this Frenchwoman." The Brindlocks, of course, with whom the Doctor DOCTOR JOHNS. was quartered during his stay, took an early occasion to show civilities to Mr. Maverick and his daughter; and Mrs. Brindlock kindly offered her services to Adele in negotiating such additions to her wardrobe as the proud father insisted upon her making ; and in the necessary excursions up and down the city, Reuben, by the pleasant devices of Mrs. Brindlock, was an almost constant out-of-door attendant. He was no longer the shy boy Adele had at first encountered. Nay, grown bold by his city experiences, he was disposed to assume a somewhat patronizing air toward the bright-eyed country-girl who was just now equipping herself for somewhat larger contact with the world. Adele did not openly resent the proffered patronage, but, on the contrary, accepted it with an excess of grateful expressions, whose piquant irony, for two whole days, Reuben, with his blunter percep tions, never suspected. "What boy of eighteen is a match for a girl of sixteen ? Patronize, indeed ! But suspicion came at last, and full knowledge broke upon him under a musical little laugh of Adelc s, (half smothered in her kerchief,) when the gallant young man had blundered into some idle compliment. The instinct of girls in matters of this sort is marvelously quick. But if the laugh of Adele cured Reuben of his patronage, it did not cure him of thought about her. DOCTOR JOHNS. 281 It kindled a new train, indeed, of whose drift he was himself unconscious. " Is n t she pretty ? " said Mrs. Brindlock, on a cer tain occasion, upon their return from one of the ex cursions named. " Oh, so, so ! " said Reuben. " But I think she s perfectly charming," said Mrs. Brindlock. " Pho, Aunt Mabel ! I could name ten girls as pretty." And he could. But this did not forbid his accept ing his Aunt Mabel s invitation for the next day s shopping. He is not altogether the same lad we saw upon the deck of the Princess, under Captain Saul. He would hardly sail for China now in a tasseled cap. He never will, this much we can say, at least, without anticipating the burden of our story. XXXIV. T) EUBEN has in many respects vastly improved L^ under his city education. It would be wrong to say that the good Doctor did not take a very human pride in his increased alertness of mind, in his vivacity, in his self-possession, nay, even in that very air of world-acquaintance which now covered entirely the old homely manner of the country lad. He thought within himself, what a glad smile of triumph would have been kindled upon the face of the lost Rachel, could she but have seen this tall youth with his kindly attentions and his graceful speech. May be she did see it all, but with far other eyes, now. Was the child ripening into fellowship with the sainted mother ? The Doctor underneath all his pride carried a great deal of anxious doubt ; and as he walked beside his boy upon the thronged street, elated in some strange way by the touch of that strong arm of the youth, whose blood was his own, so dearly his own, he pondered gravely with himself, if the mocking delusions of the Evil One were not the occasion of his pride ? Was not Satan setting himself artfully to the work of quiet ing all sense of responsibility in regard to the lad s DOCTOR JOHNS. 283 future, by thus kindling in his old heart anew the van ities of the flesh and the pride of life ? " I say, father, I want to put you through now. It 11 do you a great deal of good to see some of our wonders here in the city." " The very voice, the very voice of Rachel ! " says the Doctor to himself, quickening his laggard step to keep pace with Reuben. " There are such lots of things to show you, father ! Look in this store, now. You can step in, if you like. It s the largest carpet-store in the United States, three stories packed full. There s the head man of the firm, the stout man in a white choker ; with half a million, they say : he s a deacon in Mowry s Church." " I hope, Reuben, that he makes a worthy use of his wealth." " Oh, he gives thunderingly to the missionary socie ties," said Reuben, with a glibness that grated on the father s ear. " You see that building yonder ? That s Gothic. They ve got the finest bowling-alleys in the world there." " I hope, my son, you never go to such places ? " " Bowl ? Oh, yes, I bowl sometimes : the physicians recommend it ; good exercise for the chest. Besides, it s kept by a fine man, and he s got one of the pret tiest little trotting horses you ever saw in your life." 284 DOCTOR JOHNS. " Why, my son, you don t mean to tell me that you know the keeper of this bowling-alley ? " " Oh, yes, father, we fellows all know him ; and he gave me a splendid cigar the last time I was there." " You don t mean to say that you smoke, Reuben ? " said the old gentleman, gravely. " Not much, father : but then, every body smokes now and then. Mowry Dr. Mowry smokes, you know ; and they say he has prime cigars." " Is it possible ? Well, well ! " " You see that fine building over there ? " said Reu ben, as they passed on. " Yes, my son." " That s the theater, the Old Park." The Doctor ran his eye over it, and its effigy of Shakspeare upon the niche in the wall, as Gabriel might have looked upon the armor of Beelzebub. " I hope, Reuben, you never enter those doors ? " " Well, father, since Kean and Mathews are gone, there s really nothing worth the seeing." " Kean ! Mathews ! " said the Doctor, stopping in his walk and confronting Reuben with a stern brow, " is it possible, my son, that I hear you talking in this famil iar way of play-actors ? You don t tell me that you have been a participant in such orgies of Satan ? " " Why, father ! " said Reuben, a little startled by the Doctor s earnestness, the truth is, Aunt Mabel goes DOCTOR JOHNS. 285 occasionally, like most all the ladies ; but we go, you know, to see the moral pieces, generally." " Moral pieces ! " said the Doctor, with a withering scowl. " Reuben ! those who go thither take hold on the door-posts of hell ! " " That s the Tract Society building yonder," said Reuben, wishing to divert the Doctor, if possible, from the special objects of his reflections. " Rachel s voice ! always Rachel s voice ! " said the Doctor to himself. " Would you like to go in, father ? " " No, my son, we have no time ; and yet " meditat ing, and thrusting his hand in his pocket " there is a tract or two I would like to buy for you, Reuben." " Go in, then," says Reuben. " Let me tell them who you are, father, and you can get them at wholesale prices. It s the merest song." " No, my son, no," said the Doctor, disheartened by the blithe air of Reuben. " I fear it would be wasted effort. Yet I trust that you do not wholly neglect the opportunities for religious instruction on the Sab bath?" " Oh, no," says Reuben, gayly. " I see Dr. Mowry off and on. pretty often. He s a clever old gentleman, Dr. Mowry." Clever old gentleman ! The Doctor walked on, oppressed with grief, silent, 286 DOCTOR JOHNS. but with lips moving in prayer, beseeching God to take away the stony heart from this poor child of his, and to give him a heart of flesh. Reuben had improved, as we said, by his New York schooling. He was quick of apprehension, well in formed ; and his familiarity with the counting-room of Mr. Brindlock had given him a business promptitude that was specially agreeable to the Doctor, whose habits in that regard were of woful slackness. But religiously, the good man looked upon his son as a castaway. It was only too apparent that Reuben had not derived the desired improvement from attendance at the Fulton- Street Church. That attendance had been punctual, indeed, for nearly all the first year of his city life, in virtue of the inexorable habit of his education ; but Dr. Mowry had not won upon him by any personal mag netism. The city Doctor was a ponderously good man, preaching for the most part ponderous sermons, and possessed of a most imposing friendliness of manner. When Reuben had presented to him the credentials from his father, (which he could hardly have done, save for the urgency of the Brindlocks,) the ponderous Doctor had patted him upon the shoulder, and said, " My young friend, your father is a most worthy man, most worthy. I should be delighted to see you fol lowing in his steps. I shall be most glad to be of ser vice to you. Our meetings for Bible instruction are on DOCTOR JOHNS. 287 Wednesdays, at seven : the young men upon the left, the young ladies on the right. The Doctor appeared to Reuben a man solemnly preoccupied with the immensity of his charge ; and it seemed to him (though it was doubtless a wicked thought of the boy) that the ponderous minister would have counted it a matter of far smaller merit to in struct, and guide, and save a wanderer from the coun try, than to perform the same offices for a good fat sin ner of the city. As we have said, the memory of old teachings, for a year or more, made any divergence from the severe path of boyhood seem to Reuben a sin ; and these di vergencies so multiplied by easy accessions as to have made him, after a time, look upon himself very confi dently, and almost cheerily, as a reprobate. And if a reprobate, why not taste the Devil s cup to the full ? That first visit to the theater was like a bold push into the very domain of Satan. Even the ticket-seller at the door seemed to him on that eventful night an understrapper of Beelzebub, who looked out at him with the goggle eyes of a demon. That such a man could have a family, or family affections, or friendships, or any sense of duty or honor, was to him a thing in comprehensible ; and when he passed the wicket for the first time into the vestibule of the old Park Thea ter, the very usher in the corridor had to his eye a 288 DOCTOR JOHNS. look like the Giant Dagon, and he conceived of him as mumbling, in his leisure moments, the flesh from hu man bones. And when at last the curtain rose, and the damp air came out upon him from behind the scenes as he sat in the pit, and the play began with some wonderful creature in tight bodice and painted cheeks, sailing across the stage, it seemed to him that the flames of Divine wrath might presently be bursting out over the house, or a great judgment of God break down the roof and destroy them all. But it did not ; and he took courage. It is so easy to find courage in those battles where we take no bodily harm ! If conscience, sharpened by the severe discipline he had known, pricked him awkwardly at the first, he bore the stings with a good deal of sturdi- ness. A sinner, no doubt, that he knew long ago : a little slip, or indeed no slip at all, had ranked him with the unregenerate. Once a sinner, (thus he pleas antly reasoned,) and a fellow may as well be ten times a sinner : a bad job anyhow. If in his moments of reflection these being not yet wholly crowded out from his life there comes a shadowy hope of better things, of some moral poise that should be in keeping with the tenderer recollections of his boyhood, all this can never come, (he bethinks himself, in view of his old teaching,) except on the heel of some terrible conviction of sin ; and the conviction will hardly come DOCTOR JOHNS. 289 without some deeper and more damning weight of it than he feels as yet. A heavy cumulation of the weight may some day serve him a good turn. Thus the Devil twists his vague yearning for a condition of spiritual repose into a pleasantly smacking lash with which to scourge his grosser appetites ; so that, upon the whole, Reuben drives a fine, showy team along the high-road of indulgence. Yet the minister s son had no love for gross vices ; there were human instincts in him (if it may be said) that rebelled against his more deliberate sinnings. Nay, he affected with his boon companions an enjoy ment of wanton excesses that he only half felt. A certain adventurous, dare-devil reach in him craved exercise. The character of Reuben at this stage would surely have offered a good subject for the study and the handling of Dr. Mowry, if that worthy gentleman could have won his way to the lad s confidence ; but the ponderous methods of the city parson showed no fineness of touch. Even the father, as we have seen, could not reach down to any religious convictions of the son ; and Reuben keeps him at bay with a banter, and an exaggerated attention to the personal comforts of the old gentleman, that utterly baffle him. Reuben holds too much in dread the old catechismal dogmas and the ultimate " anathema maran-atha." VOL. I. 19 290 DOCTOR JOHNS. So it was with a profound sigh that the father bade his son adieu after this city visit. " Good-by, father ! Love to them all in Ashfield." So like Rachel s voice ! So like Rachel s ! And the heart of the old man yearned toward him and ached bitterly for him. " my son Absalom ! my son ! my son Absalom ! " XXXV. MAVERICK hurried his departure from the city ; and Adele, writing to Rose to announce the pro gramme of her journey, says only this much of Reu ben : " We have of course seen R , who was very attentive and kind. He has grown tall, taller, I should think, than Phil ; and he is quite well-looking, and gentlemanly. I think he has a very good opinion of himself." The summer s travel offered a season of rare enjoy ment to Adcle. The lively sentiment of girlhood was not yet wholly gone, and the thoughtfulness of woman hood was just beginning to tone, without controlling, her sensibilities. The delicate attentions of Maverick were more like those of a lover than of a father. Through his ever-watchful eyes, Adele looked upon the beauties of Nature with a new halo on them. How the water sparkled to her vision ! How the days came and went like golden dreams ! Ah, happy youth-time ! The Hudson, Lake George, Saratoga, the Mountains, the Beach, to us old sta gers, who have breasted the tide of so many years, and 292 DOCTOR JOHNS. flung off long ago all the iridescent sparkles of our sentiment, these are only names of summer thronging- places. Upon the river we watch the growth of the crops, or ask our neighbors about the cost of our friend Faro s new country-seat ; we lounge upon the piazzas of the hotels, reading price-lists, or (if not too old) an editorial ; we complain of the windy currents upon the lake, and find our chiefest pleasure in a trout boiled plain, with a dressing of champagne sauce ; we linger at Fabian s on a sunny porch, talking politics with a rheumatic old gentleman in his overcoat, while the youngest go ambling through the fir woods and up the mountains with shouts and laughter. Yet it was not always thus. There were times in the lives of us old travelers let us say from sixteen to twenty when the great river was a glorious legend trailing its storied length through the Highlands ; when in every opening valley there lay purple shadows whereon we painted castles: when the corridors and shaded walks of the " United States " were like a fairy land, with flitting skirts and waving plumes, and some delicately gloved hand beating its reveille upon the heart ; and when every floating film of the mist along the sea, whether at Newport or Nahant, tenderly entreated the fancy. But we forget ourselves, and we forget Adele. In her wild exuberance of joy Maverick shares with a spirit that he had believed to be dead in him utterly. DOCTOR JOHNS. 293 And if he finds it necessary to check from time to time the noisy effervescence of her pleasure, as he certainly does at the first, he does it in the most tender and con siderate way ; and Adele learns, what many of her warm-hearted sisters never do learn, that a well-bred control over our enthusiasms in no way diminishes the exquisiteness of their savor. Maverick should be something over fifty now, and his keenness of observation in respect to feminine charms is not perhaps so great as it once was ; but even he can not fail to see, with a pride that he makes no great ef fort to conceal, the admiring looks that follow the lithe, graceful figure of Adele, wherever their journey may lead them. Nor, indeed, were there any more comely toilets for a young girl to be met with anywhere than those which had been provided for the young traveler under the advice of Mrs Brindlock. It may be true what his friend Papiol had pre dicted that Maverick will be too proud of his child to keep her in a secluded corner of New England. For his pride there is certainly abundant reason ; and what father does not love to see the child of whom he is proud admired ? Yet weeks had run by, and Maverick had never once broached the question of a return. The truth was, that the new experience was so charming and so engrossing for him, the sweet, intelligent face ever at his side was 294 DOCTOR JOHNS. so full of eager wonder, and he so delightfully intent upon providing new sources of pleasure, and calling out again and again the gushes of her girlish enthusiasm, that he shrunk instinctively from a decision in which must be involved so largely her future happiness. At last it was Adele herself who suggested the in quiry, " Is it true, dear papa, what the Doctor tells me, that you may possibly take me back to France with you?" " What say you, Adele ? Would you like to go ? " " Dearly ! " " But," said Maverick, " your friends here, can you so easily cast them away ? " " No, no, no ! " said Adele, " not cast them away ! Could n t I come again some day? Besides, there is your home, papa ; I should love any home of yours, and love your friends." " For instance, Adele, there is my book-keeper, a lean Savoyard, who wears a red wig and spectacles, and Lucille, a great, gaunt woman, with a golden cruci fix about her neck, who keeps my little parlor in order, and Papiol, a fat Frenchman, with a bristly mus<- tache and iron-gray hair, who, I dare say, would want to kiss the pet of his dear friend, and Jeannette, who washes the dishes for us, and wears great wooden sa bots " DOCTOR JOHNS. 295 " Nonsense, papa ! I am sure you have other friends ; and then there s the good godmother." " Ah, yes, she indeed," said Maverick ; u what a precious hug she would give you, Adele ! " " And then and then should I see mamma ? " The pleasant humor died out of the face of Maver ick on the instant; and then, in a slow, measured tone, " Impossible, Adele, impossible ! Come here, dar ling ! " and as he fondled her in a wild, passionate way, " I will love you for both, Adele ; she was not worthy of you, child." Adele, too, is overcome with a sudden seriousness. " Is she living, papa ? " And she gives him an ap pealing look that must be answered. And Maverick seems somehow appalled by that inno cent, confiding expression of hers. "May be, may be, my darling; she was living not long since ; yet it can never matter to you or me more. You will trust me in this, Adele ? " And he kisses her tenderly. And she, returning the caress, but bursting into tears as she does so, says, " I will, I do, papa." " There, there, darling ! " as he folds her to him ; " no more tears, no more tears, cherie ! " But even while he says it, he is nervously searching 296 DOCTOR JOHNS. his pockets, since there is a little dew that must be wiped from his own eyes. Maverick s emotion, how ever, was but a little momentary contagious sympathy with the daughter, he having no understanding of that unsatisfied yearning in her heart of which this sudden tumult of feeling was the passionate out break. Meantime Adele is not without her little mementos of the life at Ashfield, which come in the shape of thick double letters from that good girl Rose, her dear, dear friend, who has been advised by the little traveler to what towns she should direct these tender missives ; and Adele is no sooner arrived at these postal stations than she sends for the budget which she knows must be waiting for her. And of course she has her own little pen in a certain traveling-escritoire the good papa has given her ; and she plies her white fingers with it often and often of an evening, after the day s sight-see ing is over, to tell Rose in return what a charming journey she is having, and how kind papa is, and what a world of strange things she is seeing ; and there are descriptions of sunsets and sunrises, and of lakes and of mountains, on those close-written sheets of hers, which Rose, in her enthusiasm, declares to be equal to many descriptions in print. We dare say they were better than a great many such. Poor Rose feels that she has only very humdrum DOCTOR JOHNS. 297 stories to tell in return for these ; but she ekes out her letters pretty well, after all, and what they lack in nov elty is made up in affection. l - There is really nothing new to tell," she writes, " except it be that our old friend, Miss Almira Tourte- lot. astonished us all with a new bonnet last Sunday, and with new saffron ribbons ; and she has come out, too, in the new tight sleeves, in which she looks drolly enough. Phil is very uneasy, now that his schooling is done, and talks of going to the West Indies about some business in which papa is concerned. I hope he will go, if he does n t stay too long. He is such a dear, good fellow ! Madame Aries asks after you, when I see her, which is not very often now ; for since the Doctor has come back from New York, he has had a new talk with mamma, and has quite won her over to his view of the matter. So good-by to French for the present! Heigho ! But I don t know that I m sorry, now that you are not here, dear Ady. " Another queer thing I had almost forgotten to tell you. The poor Boody girl, you must remember her ? Well, she has come back on a sudden ; and they say her father would not receive her in his house, there are terrible stories about it ! and now she is living with an old woman far out upon the river-road, only a little garret-chamber for herself and the child she brought back with her. Of course nobody goes near her, 298 DOCTOR JOHNS. or looks at her, if she comes on the street. But the queerest thing ! when Madame Aries heard of it and of her story, what does she do but walk far out to visit her, and talked with her in her broken English for an hour, they say. Papa says she (Madame A.) must be a very bad woman or a very good woman. Miss Johns says she always thought she was a bad woman. The Bowriggs are, of course, very indignant, and I doubt if Madame A. comes to Ashfield again with them." And again, at a later date, Rose writes, " The Bowriggs are all off for the winter, and the house closed. Reuben has been here on a flying visit to the parsonage ; and how proud Miss Eliza was of her nephew ! He came over to see Phil, I suppose ; but Phil had gone two weeks before. Mamma thinks he is fine-looking. I fancy he will never live in the country again. When shall I see you again, dear, dear Ady ? I have so much to talk to you about ! " A month thereafter Maverick and his daughter find their way back to Ashfield. Of course Miss Johns has made magnificent preparations to receive them. She surpassed herself in her toilet on the day of their ar rival, and fairly astonished Maverick with the warmth of her welcome to his child. Yet he could not help observing that Adele met it more coolly than was her wont, and that her tenderest words were reserved for the good Doctor. And how proud she was to walk with DOCTOR JOHNS. 299 her father upon the village street, glancing timidly up at the windows from which she knew those stiff old Miss Hapgoods must be peeping out ! How proud to sit beside him in the parson s pew, feeling that the eyes of half the congregation were fastened on the tall gen tleman beside her ! Ah, happy daughter ! may your beautiful filial pride never have a fall ! Important business letters command Maverick s early presence abroad ; and, after conference with the Doctor, he decides to leave Adele once more under the roof of the parsonage. " Under God, I will do for her what I can," said the Doctor. " I know it, I know it, my good friend," says Mav erick. " Teach her self-reliance ; she may need it some day. And mind what I have said of this French woman. Adele seems to have a tendresse that way. Those French women are very insidious, Johns." " You know their ways better than I," said the Doc tor, dryly. " Good ! a smack of the old college humor there, Johns. Well, well, at least you don t doubt the sacred- ness of my love for Adele ? " " I trust, Maverick, I may never doubt the sacredness of your love in any direction. I only hope you may direct it where I fear you do not" 300 DOCTOR JOHNS. " God bless you Johns ! I wish I were as good a man as you." A little afterwards Maverick was humming a snatch from an opera under the trees of the orchard ; and Adele went bounding toward him, to take the last walk with him for so long, so long ! END OF VOLUME I. DATE DUE