CHAPTER XXII.
MARY returned to the house with her basket of warm, fresh eggs, whichshe set down mournfully upon the table. In her heart there was oneconscious want and yearning, and that was to go to the friends of himshe had lost—to go to his mother. The first impulse of bereavement isto stretch out the hands towards what was nearest and dearest to thedeparted.
Her dove came fluttering down out of the tree and settled on her hand,and began asking in his dumb way to be noticed. Mary stroked his whitefeathers, and bent her head down over them till they were wet withtears. ‘Oh, birdie, you live, but he is gone!’ she said. Then suddenlyputting it gently from her, and going near and throwing her arms aroundher mother’s neck,—‘Mother,’ she said, ‘I want to go up to CousinEllen’s.’ (This was the familiar name by which she always called Mrs.Marvyn.) ‘Can’t you go with me, mother?’
‘My daughter, I have thought of it. I hurried about my baking thismorning, and sent word to Mr. Jenkyns that he needn’t come to see aboutthe chimney, because I expected to go as soon as breakfast should beout of the way. So hurry, now, boil some eggs, and get on the cold beefand potatoes, for I see Solomon and Amaziah coming in with the milk.They’ll want their breakfast immediately.’
The breakfast for the hired men was soon arranged on the table, andMary sat down to preside while her mother was going on with her baking,introducing various loaves of white and brown bread into the capaciousoven by means of a long iron shovel, and discoursing at intervals withSolomon with regard to the different farming operations which he had inhand for the day.
Solomon was a tall, large-boned man, brawny and angular, with a facetanned by the sun, and graven with those considerate lines which NewEngland so early writes on the faces of her sons. He was reputedan oracle in matters of agriculture and cattle, and, like oraclesgenerally, was prudently sparing of his responses. Amaziah was oneof those uncouth over-grown boys of eighteen, whose physical bulkappears to have so suddenly developed that the soul has more matterthan she has learned to recognize, so that the hapless individual isalways awkwardly conscious of too much limb; and in Amaziah’s case thisconsciousness grew particularly distressing when Mary was in the room.He liked to have her there, he said, ‘but somehow she was so white andpretty, she made him feel sort o’ awful-like.’
Of course, as such poor mortals always do, he must, on this particularmorning, blunder into precisely the wrong subject.
‘S’pose you’ve heerd the news that Jeduthan Pettibone brought home inthe “Flying Scud,” ’bout the wreck o’ the “Monsoon;” it’s an awfulprovidence, that ’ar’ is—a’n’t it? Why Jeduthan says she jest crushedlike an egg-shell’—and with that Amaziah illustrated the fact bycrushing an egg-shell in his great brown hand.
Mary did not answer. She could not grow any paler than she was before;a dreadful curiosity came over her, but her lips could frame noquestion. Amaziah went on:
‘Ye see, the cap’en he got killed with a spar when the blow fust comeon, and Jim Marvyn he commanded; and Jeduthan says that he seemed tohave the spirit of ten men in him. He worked, and he watched, and hewas everywhere at once, and he kep’ ’em all up for three days, tillfinally they lost their rudder, and went drivin’ right onto the rocks.When they come in sight, he come up on deck, and says he, “Well, myboys, we’re headin’ right into eternity,” says he, “and our chancesfor this world a’n’t worth mentionin’, any on us; but we’ll all haveone try for our lives. Boys, I’ve tried to do my duty by you and theship—but God’s will be done! All I have to ask now is, that if any ofyou git to shore, you’ll find my mother and tell her I died thinkin’ ofher and father and my dear friends.” That was the last Jeduthan saw ofhim, for in a few minutes more the ship struck, and then it was everyman for himself. Laws! Jeduthan says there couldn’t nobody have stoodbeatin’ agin them rocks unless they was all leather and inger-rubberlike him. Why, he says the waves would take strong men and jest crush’em against the rocks like smashin’ a pie-plate!’
Here Mary’s paleness became livid; she made a hasty motion to rise fromthe table, and Solomon trod on the foot of the narrator.
‘You seem to forget that friends and relations has feelin’s,’ he said,as Mary hastily went into her own room.
Amaziah, suddenly awakened to the fact that he had been trespassing,sat with mouth half open and a stupefied look of perplexity on his facefor a moment, and then, rising hastily, said: ‘Well, Sol, I guess I’llgo an’ yoke up the steers.’
At eight o’clock all the morning toils were over, the wide kitchen cooland still, and the one-horse waggon standing at the door, into whichclimbed Mary, her mother, and the Doctor, for, though invested with nospiritual authority, and charged with no ritual or form for hours ofaffliction, the religion of New England always expects her minister asa first visitor in every house of mourning.
The ride was a sorrowful and silent one. The Doctor, propped upon hiscane, seemed to reflect deeply.
‘Have you been at all conversant with the exercises of our youngfriend’s mind on the subject of religion?’ he asked.
Mrs. Scudder did not at first reply. The remembrance of James’s lastletter flashed over her mind, and she felt the vibration of the frailchild beside her, in whom every nerve was quivering. After a moment shesaid: ‘It does not become us to judge the spiritual state of any one.James’s mind was in an unsettled way when he left; but who can say whatwonders may have been effected by Divine grace since then?’
This conversation fell on the soul of Mary like the sound of clodsfalling on a coffin to the ear of one buried alive; she heard itwith a dull, smothering sense of suffocation. _That_ question to beraised!—and about one, too, for whom she could have given her ownsoul! At this moment she felt how idle is the mere hope or promise ofpersonal salvation made to one who has passed beyond the life of self,and struck deep the roots of his existence in others. She did not uttera word—how could she? A doubt—the faintest shadow of a doubt—in sucha case, falls on the soul with the weight of mountain certainty, andin that short ride she felt what an infinite pain may be locked in onesmall, silent breast.
The waggon drew up to the house of mourning. Cato stood at the gate,and came forward, officiously, to help them out. ‘Mass’r and Missiswill be glad to see you,’ he said. ‘It’s a drefful stroke has come upon’em.’
Candace appeared at the door. There was a majesty of sorrow in herbearing as she received them. She said not a word, but pointed with herfinger towards the inner room; but as Mary lifted up her faded, wearyface to hers, her whole soul seemed to heave towards her like a billow,and she took her up in her arms and broke forth into sobbing, and,carrying her in, as if she had been a child, set her down in the innerroom and sat down beside her.
Mrs. Marvyn and her husband sat together, holding each other’s hands,the open Bible between them. For a few moments nothing was to be heardbut sobs and unrestrained weeping, and then all kneeled down while theDoctor prayed.
After they rose up, Mr. Zebedee Marvyn stood for a moment thoughtfully,and then said: ‘If it had pleased the Lord to give me a sure evidenceof my son’s salvation, I could have given him up with all my heart; butnow, whatever there may be, I have seen none.’ He stood in an attitudeof hopeless, heart-smitten dejection, which contrasted painfully withhis usual upright carriage and the firm lines of his face.
Mrs. Marvyn started as if a sword had pierced her, passed her arm roundMary’s waist, with a strong, nervous clasp, unlike her usual calmself, and said, ‘Stay with me, daughter, to-day!—stay with me!’
‘Mary can stay as long as you wish, cousin,’ said Mrs. Scudder; ‘wehave nothing to call her home.’
‘_Come_ with me!’ said Mrs. Marvyn to Mary, opening an adjoiningdoor into her bedroom, and drawing her in with a sort of suppressedvehemence, ‘I want you!—I must have you!’
‘Mrs. Marvyn’s state alarms me,’ said her husband, lookingapprehensively after her when the door was closed; ‘she has not shedany tears nor slept any since sh
e heard this news. You know that hermind has been in a peculiar and unhappy state with regard to religiousthings for many years. I was in hopes she might feel free to open herexercises of mind to the Doctor.’
‘Perhaps she will feel more freedom with Mary,’ said the Doctor. ‘Thereis no healing for such troubles except in unconditional submission toInfinite Wisdom and Goodness. The Lord reigneth, and will at last bringinfinite good out of evil, whether _our_ small portion of existence beincluded or not.’
After a few moments more of conference, Mrs. Scudder and the Doctordeparted, leaving Mary alone in the house of mourning.