Margret Howth, a Story of To-Day, Rebecca Harding Davis [best novels for students TXT] 📗

under all his good-humour. It was a bitter disappointment to give up the girl; for, beside the great work, he loved her in an uncouth fashion, and hated Holmes. He met her alone in the morning; but when he saw how pale she grew, expecting his outbreak, and how she glanced timidly in at the room where Stephen was, he relented. Something in the wet brown eye perhaps recalled a forgotten dream of his boyhood; for he sighed sharply, and did not swear as he meant to. All he said was, that "women will be women, and that she had a worse job on her hands than the House of Refuge,"--which she put down to the account of his ill-temper, and only laughed, and made him shake hands.
Lois and her father came out in the old cart in high state across the bleak, snowy hills, quite aglow with all they had seen at the farm-houses on the road. Margret had arranged a settle for the sick girl by the kitchen-fire, but they all came out to speak to her.
As for the dinner, it was the essence of all Christmas dinners: Dickens himself, the priest of the genial day, would have been contented. The old school-master and his wife had hearts big and warm enough to do the perpetual honours of a baronial castle; so you may know how the little room and the faces about the homely table glowed and brightened. Even Knowles began to think that Holmes might not be so bad, after all, recalling the chicken in the mill, and,--"Well, it was better to think well of all men, poor devils!"
I am sorry to say there was a short thunderstorm in the very midst of the dinner. Knowles and Mr. Howth, in their anxiety to keep off from ancient subjects of dispute, came, for a wonder, on modern politics, and of course there was a terrible collision, which made Mrs. Howth quite breathless: it was over in a minute, however, and it was hard to tell which was the most repentant. Knowles, as you know, was a disciple of Garrison, and the old school-master was a States'-rights man, as you might suppose from his antecedents,--suspected, indeed, of being a contributor to "DeBow's Review." I may as well come out with the whole truth, and acknowledge that at the present writing the old gentleman is the very hottest Secessionist I know. If it hurts the type, write it down a vice of blood, O printers of New England!
The dinner, perhaps, was fresher and heartier after that. Then Knowles went back to town; and in the middle of the afternoon, as it grew dusk, Lois started, knowing how many would come into her little shanty in the evening to wish her Happy Christmas, although it was over. They piled up comforts and blankets in the cart, and she lay on them quite snugly, her scarred child's-face looking out from a great woollen hood Mrs. Howth gave her. Old Yare held Barney, with his hat in his hand, looking as if he deserved hanging, but very proud of the kindness they all showed his girl. Holmes gave him some money for a Christmas gift, and he took it, eagerly enough. For some unexpressed reason, they stood a long time in the snow bidding Lois good-bye; and for the same reason, it may be, she was loath to go, looking at each one earnestly as she laughed and grew red and pale answering them, kissing Mrs. Howth's hand when she gave it to her. When the cart did drive away, she watched them standing there until she was out of sight, and waved her scrap of a handkerchief; and when the road turned down the hill, lay down and softly cried to herself.
Now that they were alone they gathered close about the fire, while the day without grew gray and colder,--Margret in her old place by her father's knee. Some dim instinct had troubled the old man all day; it did now: whenever Margret spoke, he listened eagerly, and forgot to answer sometimes, he was so lost in thought. At last he put his hand on her head, and whispered, "What ails my little girl?" And then his little girl sobbed and cried, as she had been ready to do all day, and kissed his trembling hand, and went and hid on her mother's neck, and left Stephen to say everything for her. And I think you and I had better come away.
It was quite dark before they had done talking,--quite dark; the wood-fire had charred down into a great bed of crimson; the tea stood till it grew cold, and no one drank it.
The old man got up at last, and Holmes led him to the library, where he smoked every evening. He held Maggie, as he called her, in his arms a long time, and wrung Holmes's hand. "God bless you, Stephen!" he said,--"this is a very happy Christmas-day to me." And yet, sitting alone, the tears ran over his wrinkled face as he smoked; and when his pipe went out, he did not know it, but sat motionless. Mrs. Howth, fairly confounded by the shock, went up-stairs, and stayed there a long time. When she came down, the old lady's blue eyes were tenderer, if that were possible, and her face very pale. She went into the library and asked her husband if she didn't prophesy this two years ago, and he said she did, and after a while asked her if she remembered the barbecue-night at Judge Clapp's thirty years ago. She blushed at that, and then went up and kissed him. She had heard Joel's horse clattering up to the kitchen-door, so concluded she would go out and scold him. Under the circumstances it would be a relief.
If Mrs. Howth's nerves had been weak, she might have supposed that free-born serving-man seized with sudden insanity, from the sight that met her, going into the kitchen. His dinner, set on the dresser, was flung contemptuously on the ashes; a horrible cloud of burning grease rushed from a dirty pint-pot on the table, and before this Joel was capering and snorting like some red-headed Hottentot before his fetich, occasionally sticking his fingers into the nauseous stuff, and snuffing it up as if it were roses. He was a church-member: he could NOT be drunk? At the sight of her, he tried to regain the austere dignity usual to him when women were concerned, but lapsed into an occasional giggle, which spoiled the effect.
"Where have you been," she inquired, severely, "scouring the country like a heathen on this blessed day? And what is that you have burning? You're disgracing the house, and strangers in it."
Joel's good-humour was proof against even this.
"I've scoured to some purpose, then. Dun't tell the mester: it'll muddle his brains t'-night. Wait till mornin'. Squire More'll be down his-self t' 'xplain."
He rubbed the greasy fingers into his hair, while Mrs. Howth's eyes were fixed in dumb perplexity.
"Ye see,"--slowly, determined to make it clear to her now and forever,--"it's water: no, t' a'n't water: it's troubled me an' Mester Howth some time in Poke Run, atop o' 't. I hed my suspicions,--so'd he; lay low, though, frum all women-folks. So 's I tuk a bottle down, unbeknown, to Squire More, an' it's oil!"--jumping like a wild Indian,--"thank the Lord fur his marcies, it's oil!"
"Well, Joel," she said, calmly, "very disagreeably smelling oil it is, I must say."
"Good save the woman!" he broke out, sotto voce, "she's a born natural! Did ye never hear of a shaft? or millions o' gallons a day? It's better nor a California ranch, I tell ye. Mebbe," charitably, "ye didn't know Poke Run's the mester's?"
"I certainly do. But I do not see what this green ditch-water is to me. And I think, Joel,"----
"It's more to ye nor all yer States'-rights as I'm sick o' hearin' of. It's carpets, an' bunnets, an' slithers of railroad-stock, an' some colour on Margot's cheeks,--ye 'ed best think o' that! That's what it is to ye! I'm goin' to take stock myself. I'm glad that gell 'll git rest frum her mills an' her Houses o' Deviltry,--she's got gumption fur a dozen women."
He went on muttering, as he gathered up his pint-pot and bottle,--
"I'm goin' to send my Tim to college soon's the thing's in runnin' order. Lord! what a lawyer that boy'll make!"
Mrs. Howth's brain was still muddled.
"You are better pleased than you were at Lincoln's election," she observed, placidly.
"Lincoln be darned!" he broke out, forgetting the teachings of Mr. Clinche. "Now, Mem, dun't ye muddle the mester's brain t'-night wi' 't, I say. I'm goin' t' 'xperiment myself a bit."
Which he did, accordingly,--shutting himself up in the smoke-house and burning the compound in divers sconces and Wide-Awake torches, giving up the entire night to his diabolical orgies.
Mrs. Howth did not tell the master; for one reason: it took a long time for so stupendous an idea to penetrate the good lady's brain; and for another: her motherly heart was touched by another story than this Aladdin's lamp of Joel's wherein burned petroleum. She watched from her window until she saw Holmes crossing the icy road: there was a little bitterness, I confess, in the thought that he had taken her child from her; but the prayer that rose for them both took her whole woman's heart with it.
The road was rough over the hills; the wind that struck Holmes's face bitingly keen: perhaps the life coming for him would be as cold a struggle, having not only poverty to conquer, but himself. But he is a strong man,--no stronger puts his foot down with cool, resolute tread; and to-night there is a thrill on his lips that never rested there before,--a kiss, dewy and warm. Something, some new belief, too, stirs in his heart, like a subtile atom of pure fire, that he hugs closely,--his for all time. No poverty or death shall ever drive it away. Perhaps he entertains an angel unaware.
After that night Lois never left her little shanty. The days that followed were like one long Christmas; for her poor neighbors, black and white, had some plot among themselves, and worked zealously to make them seem so to her. It was easy to make these last days happy for the simple little soul who had always gathered up every fragment of pleasure in her featureless life, and made much of it, and rejoiced over it. She grew bewildered, sometimes, lying on her wooden settle by the fire; people lead always been friendly, taken care of her, but now they were eager in their kindness, as though the time were short. She did not understand the reason, at first; she did not want to die: yet if it hurt her, when it grew clear at last, no one knew it; it was not her way to speak of pain. Only, as she grew weaker, day by day, she began to set her house in order, as one might say, in a quaint, almost comical fashion, giving away everything she owned, down to her treasures of colored bottles and needle-books, mending her father's clothes, and laying them out in her drawers; lastly, she had Barney brought in from the country, and every day would creep to the window to see him fed and chirrup to him, whereat the poor old beast would look up with his dim eye, and try to neigh a feeble answer.