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Queechy, Volume I

by Susan Warner · English · Gutenberg #18690 · 802,754 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Queechy, Volume I

Author: Susan Warner


        
Release date: June 26, 2006 [eBook #18690]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18690


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUEECHY, VOLUME I ***


Susan Warner (1819-1885), Queechy (1852), Tauchnitz edition
1854



Produced by Daniel FROMONT





COLLECTION

OF

BRITISH AUTHORS


TAUCHNITZ EDITION.


VOL. 311


QUEECHY. BY ELIZABETH WETHERELL .


IN TWO VOLUMES.


VOL. I.




TAUCHNITZ EDITION

by the same author,


THE WIDE WIDE WORLD 1 vol.

THE HILLS OF THE SHATEMUC 2 vols.

SAY AND SEAL 2 vols.

THE OLD HELMET 2 vols.




QUEECHY.


BY


ELIZABETH WETHERELL

AUTHOR OF "THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD."


IN TWO VOLUMES.


_AUTHOR'S EDITION_.


IN TWO VOLUMES


VOL. I


LEIPZIG

BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ

1854


"I hope I may speak of woman without offence to the ladies."

THE GUARDIAN.


CONTENTS

OF VOLUME I.


Chapter I. Curtain rises at Queechy

II. Things loom out dimly through the smoke

III. You amuse me and I'll amuse you

IV. Aunt Miriam

V. As to whether a flower can grow in the woods

VI. Queechy at dinner

VII. The curtain falls upon one scene

VIII. The fairy leaves the house

IX. How Mr. Carleton happened to be not at home

X. The fairy and the Englishman

XI. A little candle

XII. Spars below

XIII. The fairy peeps into an English house, but does not stay there

XIV. Two Bibles in Paris

XV. Very literary

XVI Dissolving view, ending with a saw-mill in the distance

XVII. Rain and water-cresses for breakfast

XVIII. Mr. Rossitur's wits sharpened upon a ploughshare

XIX. Fleda goes after help and finds Dr. Quackenboss

XX. Society in Queechy

XXI. "The sweetness of a man's friend by hearty counsel"

XXII. Wherein a great many people pay their respects, in form and
substance

XXIII. The Captain out-generalled by the fairy

XXIV. A breath of the world at Queechy

XXV. "As good a boy as you need to have"

XXVI. Pine knots

XXVII. Sweet — in its consequences


QUEECHY.


VOL. I


CHAPTER I.


A single cloud on a sunny day,
When all the rest of heaven is clear,
A frown upon the atmosphere,
That hath no business to appear,
When skies are blue and earth is gay.
BYRON.


"Come, dear grandpa! — the old mare and the wagon are at the
gate — all ready."

"Well, dear! — responded a cheerful hearty voice, "they must
wait a bit; I haven't got my hat yet."

"O, I'll get that."

And the little speaker, a girl of some ten or eleven years
old, dashed past the old gentleman, and running along the
narrow passage which led to his room soon returned with the
hat in her hand.

"Yes, dear, — but that ain't all. I must put on my great-coat
— and I must look and see if I can find any money —"

"O yes — for the post-office. It's a beautiful day, grandpa.
Cynthy! — wont you come and help grandpa on with his great-
coat? — And I'll go out and keep watch of the old mare till
you're ready."

A needless caution. For the old mare, though spirited enough
for her years, had seen some fourteen or fifteen of them, and
was in no sort of danger of running away. She stood in what
was called the back meadow, just without the little paling
fence that enclosed a small courtyard round the house. Around
this courtyard rich pasture-fields lay on every side, the high
road cutting through them not more than a hundred or two feet
from the house.

The little girl planted herself on the outside of the paling,
and setting her back to it, eyed the old mare with great
contentment; for besides other grounds for security as to her
quiet behaviour, one of the men employed about the farm, who
had harnessed the equipage, was at the moment busied in
putting some clean straw in the bottom of the vehicle.

"Watkins," said the child presently to this person, "here is a
strap that is just ready to come unbuckled."

"What do you know about straps and buckles?" said the man
rather grumly. But he came round, however, to see what she
meant; and while he drew the one and fastened the other, took
special good care not to let Fleda know that her watchful eyes
had probably saved the whole riding party from ruin; as the
loosing of the strap would of necessity have brought on a
trial of the old mare's nerves, which not all her philosophy
could have been expected to meet. Fleda was satisfied to see
the buckle made fast, and that Watkins, roused by her hint, or
by the cause of it, afterwards took a somewhat careful look
over the whole establishment. In high glee then she climbed to
her seat in the little wagon, and her grandfather coming out
coated and hatted, with some difficulty mounted to his place
beside her.

"I think Watkins might have taken the trouble to wash the
wagon, without hurting himself," said Fleda; "it is all
speckled with mud since last time."

"Ha'n't he washed it!" said the old gentleman in a tone of
displeasure. "Watkins!""

"Well."

"Why didn't you wash the wagon as I told you?"

"I did."

"It's all over slosh."

"That's Mr. Didenhover's work — he had it out day 'fore
yesterday; and if you want it cleaned, Mr. Ringgan, you must
speak to him about it. Mr. Didenhover may file his own doings;
it's more than I'm a going to."

The old gentleman made no answer, except to acquaint the mare
with the fact of his being in readiness to set out. A shade of
annoyance and displeasure for a moment was upon his face; but
the gate opening from the meadow upon the high road had hardly
swung back upon its hinges after letting them out, when he
recovered the calm sweetness of demeanour that was habitual
with him, and seemed as well as his little granddaughter to
have given care the go-by for the time. Fleda had before this
found out another fault in the harness, or rather in Mr.
Didenhover, which like a wise little child she kept to
herself. A broken place which her grandfather had ordered to
be properly mended, was still tied up with the piece of rope
which had offended her eyes the last time they had driven out.
But she said not a word of it, because "it would only worry
grandpa for nothing;" and forgetting it almost immediately,
she moved on with him in a state of joyous happiness that no
mud-stained wagon nor untidy rope-bound harness could stir for
an instant. Her spirit was like a clear still-running stream,
which quietly and surely deposits every defiling and obscuring
admixture it may receive from its contact with the grosser
elements around; the stream might for a moment be clouded; but
a little while, and it would run as clear as ever. Neither
Fleda nor her grandfather cared a jot for the want of
elegancies which one despised, and the other, if she had ever
known, had well nigh forgotten. What mattered it to her that
the little old green wagon was rusty and worn, or that years
and service had robbed the old mare of all the jauntiness she
had ever possessed, so long as the sun shone and the birds
sang? And Mr. Ringgan, in any imaginary comparison, might be
pardoned for thinking that he was the proud man, and that his
poor little equipage carried such a treasure as many a coach
and four went without.

"Where are we going first, grandpa? to the post-office?"

"Just there!"

"How pleasant it is to go there always, isn't it, grandpa? You
have the paper to get, and I — I don't very often get a
letter, but I have always the _hope_ of getting one; and that's
something. May be I'll have one to-day, grandpa?"

"We'll see. It's time those cousins of yours wrote to you."

"O _they_ don't write to me — it's only Aunt Lucy; I never had a
letter from a single one of them, except once from little
Hugh, — don't you remember, grandpa? I should think he must be
a very nice little boy, shouldn't you?"

"Little boy? why I guess he is about as big as you are, Fleda
— he is eleven years old, ain't he?"

"Yes, but I am past eleven, you know, grandpa, and I am a
little girl."

This reasoning being unanswerable, Mr. Ringgan only bade the
old mare trot on.

It was a pleasant day in autumn. Fleda thought it particularly
pleasant for riding, for the sun was veiled with thin, hazy
clouds. The air was mild and still, and the woods, like brave
men, putting the best face upon falling fortunes. Some trees
were already dropping their leaves; the greater part standing
in all the varied splendour which the late frosts had given
them. The road, an excellent one, sloped gently up and down
across a wide arable country, in a state of high cultivation,
and now showing all the rich variety of autumn. The reddish
buckwheat patches, and fine wood-tints of the fields where
other grain had been; the bright green of young rye or winter
wheat, then soberer-coloured pasture or meadow lands, and ever
and anon a tuft of gay woods crowning a rising ground, or a
knot of the everlasting pines looking sedately and steadfastly
upon the fleeting glories of the world around them; these were
mingled and interchanged, and succeeded each other in ever-
varying fresh combinations. With its high picturesque beauty,
the whole scene had a look of thrift, and plenty, and promise,
which made it eminently cheerful. So Mr. Ringgan and his
little granddaughter both felt it to be. For some distance,
the grounds on either hand the road were part of the old
gentleman's farm; and many a remark was exchanged between him
and Fleda, as to the excellence or hopefulness of this or that
crop or piece of soil; Fleda entering into all his enthusiasm,
and reasoning of clover leys and cockle, and the proper
harvesting of Indian corn, and other like matters, with no
lack of interest or intelligence.

"O grandpa," she exclaimed, suddenly, "wont you stop a minute
and let me get out. I want to get some of that beautiful
bittersweet."

"What do you want that for?" said he. "You can't get out very
well."

"O yes, I can — please, grandpa! I want some of it very much —
just one minute!'

He stopped, and Fleda got out and went to the roadside, where
a bittersweet vine had climbed into a young pine tree, and
hung it, as it were, with red coral. But her one minute was at
least four before she had succeeded in breaking off as much as
she could carry of the splendid creeper; for not until then
could Fleda persuade herself to leave it. She came back, and
worked her way up into the wagon with one hand full as it
could hold of her brilliant trophies.

"Now, what good 'll that do you?" inquired Mr. Ringgan, good-
humouredly, as he lent Fleda what help he could to her seat.

"Why, grandpa, I want it to put with cedar and pine in a jar
at home; it will keep for ever so long, and look beautiful.
Isn't that handsome? — only it was a pity to break it."

"Why, yes, it's handsome enough," said Mr. Ringgan, "but
you've got something just by the front door there, at home,
that would do just as well — what do you call it — that
flaming thing there?"

"What, my burning bush? O grandpa! I wouldn't cut that for
anything in the world! It's the only pretty thing about the
house; and, besides," said Fleda, looking up with a softened
mien, "you said that it was planted by my mother. O grandpa! I
wouldn't cut that for anything."

Mr. Ringgan laughed a pleased laugh. "Well, dear!" said he,
"it shall grow till it's as big as the house, if it will."

"It wont do that," said Fleda. "But I am very glad I have got
this bittersweet; this is just what I wanted. Now, if I can
only find some holly —"

"We'll come across some, I guess, by and by," said Mr.
Ringgan; and Fleda settled herself again to enjoy the trees,
the fields, the roads, and all the small handiwork of nature,
for which her eyes had a curious intelligence. But this was
not fated to be a ride of unbroken pleasure.

"Why, what are those bars down for?" she said, as they came up
with a field of winter grain. "Somebody's been in here with a
wagon. O grandpa! Mr. Didenhover has let the Shakers have my
butternuts! — the butternuts that you told him they mustn't
have."

The old gentleman drew up his horse. "So he has!" said he.

Their eyes were upon the far end of the deep lot, where, at
the edge of one of the pieces of woodland spoken of, a
picturesque group of men and boys, in frocks and broad-brimmed
white hats, were busied in filling their wagon under a clump
of the now thin and yellow-leaved butternut trees.

"The scoundrel!" said Mr. Ringgan, under his breath.

"Would it be any use, grandpa, for me to jump down and run and
tell them you don't want them to take the butternuts? — I
shall have so few".

"No, dear — no," said her grandfather; "they have got ’em
about all by this time; the mischief's done. Didenhover meant
to let 'em have 'em unknown to me, and pocket the pay himself
Get up!"

Fleda drew a long breath, and gave a hard look at the distant
wagon, where her butternuts were going in by handfuls. She
said no more.

It was but a few fields further on, that the old gentleman
came to a sudden stop again.

"Ain't there some of my sheep over yonder there, Fleda — along
with Squire Thornton's?"

"I don't know, grandpa," said Fleda; "I can't see — yes, I do
see — yes, they are, grandpa; I see the mark."

"I thought so!" said Mr. Ringgan, bitterly; "I told
Didenhover, only three days ago, that if he didn't make up
that fence the sheep would be out, or Squire Thornton's would
be in; — only three days ago! Ah, well!" said he, shaking the
reins to make the mare move on again, — "it's all of a piece.
Everything goes — I can't help it."

"Why do you keep him, grandpa, if he don't behave right?"
Fleda ventured to ask, gently.

" 'Cause I can't get rid of him, dear," Mr. Ringgan answered,
rather shortly.

And till they got to the post-office, he seemed in a
disagreeable kind of muse, which Fleda did not choose to break
in upon. So the mile and a half was driven in sober silence.

"Shall I get out and go in, grandpa?" said Fleda, when he drew
up before the house.

"No, deary," said he, in his usual kind tone; "you sit still.
Holloa, there! — Good-day, Mr. Sampion — have you got anything
for me?"

The man disappeared and came out again.

"There's your paper, grandpa," said Fleda.

"Ay, and something else," said Mr. Ringgan: "I declare! —
'Miss Fleda Ringgan — care of E. Ringgan, Esq.' —There, dear,
there it is."

"Paris!" exclaimed Fleda, as she clasped the letter and both
her hands together. The butternuts and Mr. Didenhover were
forgotten at last. The letter could not be read in the jolting
of the wagon, but, as Fleda said, it was all the pleasanter,
for she had the expectation of it the whole way home.

"Where are we going now, grandpa?"

"To Queechy Run."

"That will give us a nice long ride. I am very glad. This has
been a good day. With my letter and my bittersweet I have got
enough, haven't I, grandpa?"

Queechy Run was a little village, a very little village, about
half a mile from Mr. Ringgan's house. It boasted, however, a
decent brick church of some size, a school-house, a lawyer's
office, a grocery store, a dozen or two of dwelling-houses,
and a post-office; though for some reason or other Mr. Ringgan
always chose to have his letters come through the
Sattlersville post-office, a mile and a half further off At
the door of the lawyer's office Mr. Ringgan again stopped, and
again shouted "Holloa!" —

"Good-day, Sir. Is Mr. Jolly within?"

"He is, Sir."

"Will you ask him to be so good as to step here a moment? I
cannot very well get out."

Mr. Jolly was a comfortable-looking little man, smooth and
sleek, pleasant and plausible, reasonable honest, too, as the
world goes; a nice man to have to do with; the world went so
easy with his affairs that you were sure he would make no
unnecessary rubs in your own. He came now fresh and brisk to
the side of the wagon, with that uncommon hilarity which
people sometimes assume when they have a disagreeable matter
on hand that must be spoken of.

"Good-morning, Sir! Fine day, Mr. Jolly."

"Beautiful day, Sir! Splendid season! How do you do, Mr.
Ringgan?"

"Why, Sir, I never was better in my life, barring this
lameness, that disables me very much. I can't go about and see
to things any more as I used to. However — we must expect
evils at my time of life. I don't complain. I have a great
deal to be thankful for."

"Yes, Sir, — we have a great deal to be thankful for," said
Mr. Jolly, rather abstractedly, and patting the old mare with
kind attention.

"Have you seen that fellow, McGowan?" said Mr. Ringgan,
abruptly, and in a lower tone.

"I have seen him," said Mr. Jolly, coming back from the old
mare to business.

"He's a hard customer, I guess, aint he?"

"He's as ugly a cur as ever was whelped!"

"What does he say?"

"Says he must have it."

"Did you tell him what I told you?"

"I told him, Sir, that you had not got the returns from your
farm that you expected this year, owing to one thing and
'nother; and that you couldn't make up the cash for him all at
once; and that he would have to wait a spell, but that he'd be
sure to get it in the long run. Nobody ever suffered by Mr.
Ringgan yet, as I told him."

"Well?"

"Well, Sir, — he was altogether refractible; he's as pig-
headed a fellow as I ever see."

"What did he say?"

"He gave me names, and swore he wouldn't wait a day longer —
said he'd waited already six months."

"He has so. I couldn't meet the last payment. There's a year's
rent due now. I can't help it. There needn't have been an
hour, if I could go about and attend to things myself. I have
been altogether disappointed in that Didenhover."

"I expect you have."

"What do you suppose he'll do, Mr. Jolly? — McGowan, I mean."

"I expect he'll do what the law 'll let him, Mr. Ringgan; I
don't know what 'll hinder him."

"It's a worse turn than I thought my infirmities would ever
play me," said the old gentleman after a short pause — "first
to lose the property altogether, and then not to be permitted
to wear out what is left of life in the old place — there wont
be much."

"So I told him, Mr. Ringgan. I put it to him. Says I, 'Mr.
McGowan, it's a cruel hard business; there ain't a man in town
that wouldn't leave Mr. Ringgan the shelter of his own roof as
long as he wants any, and think it a pleasure, if the rent was
anyhow.' "

"Well — well!" said the old gentleman, with a mixture of
dignity and bitterness, — "it doesn't much matter. My head
will find a shelter somehow, above ground or under it. — The
Lord will provide. — Whey! stand still, can't ye! What ails
the fool? The creature's seen years enough to be steady," he
added, with a miserable attempt at his usual cheerful laugh.

Fleda had turned away her head and tried not to hear when the
lowered tones of the speakers seemed to say that she was one
too many in the company. But she could not help catching a few
bits of the conversation, and a few bits were generally enough
for Fleda's wit to work upon; she had a singular knack at
putting loose ends of talk together. If more had been wanting,
the tones of her grandfather's voice would have filled up
every gap in the meaning of the scattered words that came to
her ear. Her heart sank fast as the dialogue went on; and she
needed no commentary or explanation to interpret the bitter
little laugh with which it closed. It was a chill upon all the
rosy joys and hopes of a most joyful and hopeful little
nature.

The old mare was in motion again, but Fleda no longer cared or
had the curiosity to ask where they were going. The
bittersweet lay listlessly in her lap; her letter, clasped to
her breast, was not thought of; and tears were quietly running
one after the other down her cheeks and falling on her sleeve;
she dared not lift her handkerchief nor turn her face towards
her grandfather lest they should catch his eye. Her
grandfather? — could it be possible that he must be turned out
of his old home in his old age? could it be possible? Mr.
Jolly seemed to think it might be, and her grandfather seemed
to think it must. Leave the old house! But where would he go?
— Son or daughter he had none left; resources he could have
none, or this need not happen. Work he could not; be dependent
upon the charity of any kin or friend she knew he would never;
she remembered hearing him once say he could better bear to go
to the almshouse than do any such thing. And then, if they
went, he would have his pleasant room no more where the sun
shone in so cheerfully, and they must leave the dear old
kitchen where they had been so happy; and the meadows and
hills would belong to somebody else, and she would gather her
stores of butternuts and chestnuts under the loved old trees
never again. But these things were nothing, though the image
of them made the tears come hot and fast, these were nothing
in her mind to the knowledge or the dread of the effect the
change would have upon Mr. Ringgan. Fleda knew him, and knew
it would not be slight. Whiter his head could not be, more
bowed it well might; and her own bowed in anticipation as her
childish fears and imaginings ran on into the possible future.
Of McGowan's tender mercies she had no hope. She had seen him
once, and being unconsciously even more of a physiognomist
than most children are, that one sight of him was enough to
verify all Mr. Jolly had said. The remembrance of his hard,
sinister face sealed her fears. Nothing but evil could come of
having to do with such a man. It was, however, still not so
much any foreboding of the future that moved Fleda's tears as
the sense of her grandfather's present pain, — the quick
answer of her gentle nature to every sorrow that touched him.
His griefs were doubly hers. Both from his openness of
character and her penetration, they could rarely be felt un-
shared; and she shared them always in more than due measure.

In beautiful harmony, while the child had forgotten herself in
keen sympathy with her grandfather's sorrows, he, on the other
hand, had half lost sight of them in caring for her. Again,
and this time not before any house but in a wild piece of
woodland, the little wagon came to a stop.

"Aint there some holly berries that I see yonder?" said Mr.
Ringgan, — "there, through those white birch stems? That's
what you were wanting, Fleda, aint it? Give your bittersweet
to me while you go get some, — and here, take this knife,
dear, you can't break it. Don't cut yourself."

Fleda's eyes were too dim to see white birch or holly, and she
had no longer the least desire to have the latter; but with
that infallible tact which assuredly is the gift of nature and
no other, she answered, in a voice that she forced to be
clear, "O yes! thank you, Grandpapa;" — and stealthily dashing
away the tears, clambered down from the rickety little wagon,
and plunged with a _cheerful_ step at least, through trees and
underbrush to the clump of holly. But if anybody had seen
Fleda's face! — while she seemed to be busied in cutting as
large a quantity as possible of the rich shining leaves and
bright berries. Her grandfather's kindness, and her effort to
meet it had wrung her heart; she hardly knew what she was
doing, as she cut off sprig after sprig, and threw them down
at her feet; she was crying sadly, with even audible sobs. She
made a long job of her bunch of holly. But when at last it
must come to an end, she choked back her tears, smoothed her
face, and came back to Mr. Ringgan smiling and springing over
the stones and shrubs in her way, and exclaiming at the beauty
of her vegetable stores. If her cheeks were red, he thought it
was the flush of pleasure and exercise, and she did not let
him get a good look at her eyes.

"Why, you've got enough to dress up the front room chimney,"
said he. "That'll be the best thing you can do with 'em, wont
it?"

"The front room chimney! No, indeed I wont, Grandpa. I don't
want 'em where nobody can see them, and you know we are never
in there now it is cold weather."

"Well, dear! anyhow you like to have it. But you ha'n't a jar
in the house big enough for them, have you?"

"O, I'll manage — I've got an old broken pitcher without a
handle, Grandpa, that'll do very well."

"A broken pitcher! that isn't a very elegant vase," said he.

"O you wouldn't know it is a pitcher when I have fixed it.
I'll cover up all the broken part with green you know. Are we
going home now, Grandpa?"

"No, I want to stop a minute at uncle Joshua's."

Uncle Joshua was a brother-in-law of Mr. Ringgan, a
substantial farmer, and very well to do in the world. He was
found not in the house, but abroad in the field with his men,
loading an enormous basket wagon with corn-stalks. At Mr.
Ringgan's shout he got over the fence, and came to the wagon-
side. His face showed sense and shrewdness, but nothing of the
open nobility of mien which nature had stamped upon that of
his brother.

"Fine morning, eh?" said he. "I'm getting in my corn-stalks."

"So I see," said Mr. Ringgan. "How do you find the new way of
curing them answer?"

"Fine as ever you see. Sweet as a nut. The cattle are mad
after them. How are you going to be off for fodder this
winter?"

"It's more than I can tell you," said Mr. Ringgan. "There
ought to be more than plenty; but Didenhover contrives to
bring everything out at the wrong end. I wish I was rid of
him."

"He'll never get a berth with me, I can tell you," said uncle
Joshua, laughing.

"Brother," said Mr. Ringgan, lowering his tone again, "have
you any loose cash you could let me have for six months or
so?"

Uncle Joshua took a meditative look down the road, turned a
quid of tobacco in his cheek, and finally brought his eyes
again to Mr. Ringgan and answered.

"Well, I don't see as I can," said he. "You see, Josh is just
a going to set up for himself at Kenton, and he'll want some
help of me; and I expect that'll be about as much as I can
manage to lay my hands on."

"Do you know who has any that he would be likely to lend?"
said Mr. Ringgan.

"No, I don't. Money is rather scarce. For your rent, eh?"

"Yes, for my rent! The farm brings me in nothing but my
living. That Didenhover is ruining me, brother Joshua."

"He's feathering his own nest, I reckon."

"You may swear to that. There wa'n't as many bushels of grain,
by one fourth, when they were threshed out last year, as I had
calculated there would be in the field. I don't know what on
earth he could have done with it. I suppose it'll be the same
thing over this year."

"May be he has served you as Deacon Travis was served by one
of his help last season — the rascal bored holes in the
granary floor and let out the corn so, and Travis couldn't
contrive how his grain went till the floor was empty next
spring, and then he see how it was."

"Ha! — did he catch the fellow?"

"Not he — he had made tracks before that. A word in your ear —
I wouldn't let Didenhover see much of his salary till you know
how he will come out at the end."

"He has got it already!" said Mr. Ringgan, with a nervous
twitch at the old mare's head; "he wheedled me out of several
little sums on one pretence and another, — he had a brother in
New York that he wanted to send some to, and goods that he
wanted to get out of pawn, and so on, — and I let him have it!
and then there was one of those fatting steers that he
proposed to me to let him have on account, and I thought it
was as good a way of paying him as any; and that made up
pretty near the half of what was due to him."

"I warrant you his'n was the fattest of the whole lot. Well,
keep a tight hold of the other half, brother Elzevir, that's
my advice to you."

"The other half he was to make upon shares."

"Whew! — well — I wish you well rid of him; and don't make
such another bargain again. Good-day to ye!"

It was with a keen pang that little Fleda saw the down-hearted
look of her grandfather as again he gave the old mare notice
to move on. A few minutes passed in deep thought on both
sides.

"Grandpa," said Fleda, "wouldn't Mr. Jolly perhaps know of
somebody that might have some money to lend?"

"I declare!" said the old gentleman, after a moment, "that's
not a bad thought. I wonder I didn't have it myself."

They turned about, and without any more words measured back
their way to Queechy Run. Mr. Jolly came out again, brisk and
alert as ever; but after seeming to rack his brains in search
of any actual or possible money-lender, was obliged to confess
that it was in vain; he could not think of one.

"But I'll tell you what, Mr. Ringgan," he concluded, "I'll
turn it over in my mind to-night and see if I can think of
anything that'll do, and if I can I'll let you know. If we
hadn't such a nether millstone to deal with, it would be easy
enough to work it somehow."

So they set forth homewards again.

"Cheer up, dear!" said the old gentleman, heartily, laying one
hand on his little granddaughter's lap; "it will be arranged
somehow. Don't you worry your little head with business. God
will take care of us."

"Yes, grandpa!" said the little girl, looking up with an
instant sense of relief at these words; and then looking down
again immediately to burst into tears.




CHAPTER II.


Have you seen but a bright lily grow,
Before rude hands have touched it?
Ha' you mark'd but the fall o' the snow,
Before the soil hath smutch'd it?
BEN JONSON.


Where a ray of light can enter the future, a child's hope can
find a way — a way that nothing less airy and spiritual can
travel. By the time they reached their own door Fleda's
spirits were at par again.

"I am very glad we have got home, aren't you, grandpa?" she
said, as she jumped down; "I'm so hungry. I guess we are both
of us ready for supper, don't you think so?"

She hurried up stairs to take off her wrappings, and then came
down to the kitchen, where, standing on the broad hearth and
warming herself at the blaze, with all the old associations of
comfort settling upon her heart, it occurred to her that
foundations so established could not be shaken. The blazing
fire seemed to welcome her home, and bid her dismiss fear; the
kettle singing on its accustomed hook, looked as if quietly
ridiculing the idea that they could be parted company; her
grandfather was in his cushioned chair at the corner of the
hearth, reading the newspaper, as she had seen him a thousand
times; just in the same position, with that collected air of
grave enjoyment, one leg crossed over the other, settled back
in his chair but upright, and scanning the columns with an
intent but most un-careful face. A face it was that always had
a rare union of fineness and placidness. The table stood
spread in the usual place, warmth and comfort filled every
corner of the room, and Fleda began to feel as if she had been
in an uncomfortable dream, which was very absurd, but from
which she was very glad she had awoke.

"What have you got in this pitcher, Cynthy?" said she.
"Muffins! — O let me bake them, will you? I'll bake them."

"Now, Flidda," said Cynthy, "just you be quiet. There ain't no
place where you call bake 'em. I'm just going to clap 'em in
the reflector — that's the shortest way I can take to do 'em.
You keep yourself out o' muss."

"They wont be muffins if you bake 'em in the reflector,
Cynthy; they aren't half so good. Ah, do let me! I wont make a
bit of muss."

"Where'll you do 'em? "

"In grandpa's room — if you'll just clean off the top of the
stove for me; now do, Cynthy! I'll do 'em beautifully, and you
wont have a bit of trouble. — Come!"

"It'll make an awful smoke, Flidda; you'll fill your grandpa's
room with the smoke, and he wont like that, I guess. "

"O, he wont mind it," said Fleda. "Will you, grandpa?"

"What, dear?" said Mr. Ringgan, looking up at her from his
paper, with a relaxing face which indeed promised to take
nothing amiss that she might do.

"Will you mind if I fill your room with smoke?"

"No, dear!" said he, the strong heartiness of his acquiescence
almost reaching a laugh; "no, dear! — fill it with anything
you like!"

There was nothing more to be said; and while Fleda in triumph
put on an apron and made her preparations, Cynthy on her part,
and with a very good grace, went to get ready the stove;
which, being a wood stove, made of sheet iron, with a smooth,
even top, afforded, in Fleda's opinion, the very best possible
field for muffins to come to their perfection. Now Fleda cared
little in comparison for the eating part of the business; her
delight was, by the help of her own skill and the stove-top,
to bring the muffins to this state of perfection; her greatest
pleasure in them was over when they were baked.

A little while had passed. Mr. Ringgan was still busy with his
newspaper, Miss Cynthia Gall going in and out on various
errands, Fleda shut up in the distant room with the muffins
and the smoke; when there came a knock at the door, and Mr.
Ringgan's "Come in!" was followed by the entrance of two
strangers, young, welldressed, and comely. They wore the usual
badges of seekers after game, but their guns were left
outside.

The old gentleman's look of grave expectancy told his want of
enlightening.

"I fear you do not remember me, Mr. Ringgan," said the
foremost of the two, coming up to him, —"my name is Rossitur —
Charlton Rossitur — a cousin of your little granddaughter. I
have only" —

"O, I know you now!" said Mr. Ringgan, rising and grasping his
hand heartily, — "you are very welcome, Sir. How do you do? I
recollect you perfectly, but you took me by surprise. — How do
you do, Sir? Sit down — sit down."

And the old gentleman had extended his frank welcome to the
second of his visitors, almost before the first had time to
utter,

"My friend, Mr. Carleton."

"I couldn't imagine what was coming upon me, "said Mr.
Ringgan, cheerfully, "for you weren't anywhere very near my
thoughts; and I don't often see much of the gay world that is
passing by me. You have grown since I saw you last, Mr.
Rossitur. You are studying at West Point, I believe."

"No, Sir; I was studying there, but I had the pleasure of
bringing that to an end last June."

"Ah! — Well, what are you now? not a cadet any longer, I
suppose."

"No, Sir; we hatch out of that shell lieutenants."

"Hum; and do you intend to remain in the army?"

"Certainly, Sir, that is my purpose and hope."

"Your mother would not like that, I should judge. I do not
understand how she ever made up her mind to let you become
that thing which hatches out into a lieutenant. Gentle
creatures she and her sister both were; how was it, Mr.
Rossitur? were you a wild young gentleman that wanted
training?"

"I have had it, Sir, whether I wanted it or no."

"Hum! How is he, Mr. Carleton? — sober enough to command men?"

"I have not seen him tried, Sir," said this gentleman,
smiling; "but from the inconsistency of the orders he issues
to his dogs, I doubt it exceedingly."

"Why, Carleton would have no orders issued to them at all, I
believe," said young Rossitur; "he has been saying 'hush' to
me all day."

The old gentleman laughed in a way that indicated intelligence
with one of the speakers, — which, appeared not.

"So you've been following the dogs to-day," said he. "Been
successful?"

"Not a bit of it," said Rossitur. "Whether we got on the wrong
grounds, or didn't get on the right ones, or the dogs didn't
mind their business, or there was nothing to fire at, I don't
know; but we lost our patience, and got nothing in exchange."

"Speak for yourself," said the other. "I assure you I was
sensible of no ground of impatience while going over such a
superb country as this."

"It is a fine country," said Mr. Ringgan — "all this tract —
and I ought to know it, for I have hunted every mile of it for
many a mile around. There used to be more game than partridges
in these hills, when I was a young man; bears and wolves, and
deer, and now and then a panther, to say nothing of
rattlesnakes."

"That last-mentioned is an irregular sort or game, is it not."
said Mr. Carleton, smiling.

"Well, game is what you choose to make it," said the old
gentleman. "I have seen worse days' sport than I saw once when
we were out after rattlesnakes, and nothing else. There was a
cave, Sir, down under a mountain, a few miles to the south of
this, right at the foot of a bluff some four or five hundred
feet sheer down; it was known to be a resort of those
creatures, and a party of us went out — it's many years ago,
now — to see if we couldn't destroy the nest; exterminate the
whole horde. We had one dog with us, a little dog, a kind of
spaniel, a little white and yellow fellow, and he did the
work! Well, Sir, how many of those vermin do you guess that
little creature made a finish of that day? of large and small,
Sir, there were two hundred and twelve."

"He must have been a gallant little fellow."

"You never saw a creature, Sir, take to a sport better; he
just dashed in among them, from one to another, he would catch
a snake by the neck and give it a shake, and throw it down and
rush at another; poor fellow, it was his last day's sport, he
died almost as soon as it was over; he must have received a
great many bites. The place is known as the rattlesnakes' den
to this day, though there are none there now, I believe."

"My little cousin is well, I hope," said Mr. Rossitur.

"She? yes, bless her! she is always well. Where is she? Fairy,
where are you? Cynthy, just call Elfleda here."

"She's just in the thick of the muffins, Mr. Ringgan."

"Let the muffins burn! Call her."

Miss Cynthia accordingly opened a little way the door of the
passage, from which a blue stifling smoke immediately made its
way into the room, and called out to Fleda, whose little voice
was heard faintly responding from the distance.

"It's a wonder she can hear through all that smoke," remarked
Cynthia.

"She," said Mr. Ringgan, laughing; "she's playing cook or
housekeeper in yonder, getting something ready for tea. She's
a busy little spirit, if ever there was one. Ah! there she is.
Come here, Fleda — here's your cousin Rossitur from West
Point, and Mr. Carleton."

Fleda made her appearance flushed with the heat of the stove
and the excitement of turning the muffins, and the little iron
spatula she used for that purpose still in her hand; and a
fresh and larger puff of the unsavoury blue smoke accompanied
her entrance. She came forward, however, gravely, and without
the slightest embarrassment, to receive her cousin's somewhat
unceremonious "How do, Fleda?" and, keeping the spatula still
in one hand, shook hands with him with the other. But at the
very different manner in which Mr. Carleton _rose_ and greeted
her, the flush on Fleda's cheek deepened, and she cast down
her eyes and stepped back to her grandfather's side with the
demureness of a young lady just undergoing the ceremony of
presentation.

"You come upon us out of a cloud, Fleda," said her cousin. "Is
that the way you have acquired a right to the name of Fairy?"

"I am sure, no," said Mr. Carleton.

Fleda did not lift up her eyes, but her mounting colour showed
that she understood both speeches.

"Because, if you are in general such a misty personage," Mr.
Rossitur went on, half laughing, "I would humbly recommend a
choice of incense."

"O, I forgot to open the windows!" exclaimed Fleda,
ingenuously. "Cynthy, wont you, please, go and do it! And take
this with you," said she, holding out the spatula.

" She is as good a fairy as _I_ want to see," said her
grandfather, passing his arm fondly round her. "She carries a
ray of sunshine in her right hand; and that's as magic-working
a wand as any fairy ever wielded — hey, Mr. Carleton?"

Mr. Carleton bowed. But whether the sunshine of affection in
Fleda's glance and smile at her grandfather, made him feel
that she was above a compliment, or whether it put the words
out of his head, certain it is that he uttered none.

"So you've had bad success to-day," continued Mr. Ringgan,
"Where have you been? and what after? partridges?"

"No, Sir," said Mr. Carleton, "my friend Rossitur promised me
a rare bag of woodcock, which I understand to be the best of
American feathered game; and, in pursuance of his promise, led
me over a large extent of meadow and swamp land, this morning,
with which, in the course of several hours, I became extremely
familiar, without flushing a single bird."

"Meadow and swamp land!" said the old gentleman.
"Whereabouts?"

"A mile or more beyond the little village over here, where we
left our horses," said Rossitur. "We beat the ground well, but
there were no signs of them even."

"We had not the right kind of dog," said Mr. Carleton.

"We had the kind that is always used here," said Rossitur;
"nobody knows anything about a Cocker in America."

"Ah, it was too wet," said Mr. Ringgan. "I could have told you
that. There has been too much rain. You wouldn't find a
woodcock in that swamp, after such a day as we had a few days
ago. But speaking of game, Mr. Rossitur, I don't know anything
in America equal to the grouse. It is far before woodcock. I
remember, many years back, going a grouse shooting, I and a
friend, down in Pennsylvania; we went two or three days
running, and the birds we got were worth a whole season of
woodcock. But, gentlemen, if you are not discouraged with your
day's experience, and want to try again, _I'll_ put you in a way
to get as many woodcock as will satisfy you — if you'll come
here to-morrow morning. I'll go out with you far enough to
show you the way to the best ground _I_ know for shooting that
game in all this country; you'll have a good chance for
partridges, too, in the course of the day; and that aint bad
eating, when you can't get better — is it, Fairy?" he said,
with a sudden smiling appeal to the little girl at his side.
Her answer again was only an intelligent glance.

The young sportsmen both thanked him and promised to take
advantage of his kind offer. Fleda seized the opportunity to
steal another look at the strangers; but meeting Mr.
Carleton's eyes fixed on her with a remarkably soft and gentle
expression, she withdrew her own again as fast as possible,
and came to the conclusion that the only safe place for them
was the floor.

"I wish I was a little younger, and I'd take my gun and go
along with you myself," said the old gentleman, pleasantly;
"but," he added, sighing, "there is a time for everything, and
my time for sporting is past."

"You have no right to complain, Sir," said Mr. Carleton, with
a meaning glance and smile, which the old gentleman took in
excellent good part.

"Well," said he, looking half proudly, half tenderly, upon the
little demure figure at his side, "I don't say that I have. I
hope I thank God for his mercies, and am happy. But in this
world, Mr. Carleton, there is hardly a blessing but what draws
a care after it. Well — well — these things will all be
arranged for us!"

It was plain, however, even to a stranger, that there was some
subject of care, not vague nor undefined pressing upon Mr.
Ringgan's mind as he said this.

"Have you heard from my mother lately, Fleda?" said her
cousin.

"Why, yes," said Mr. Ringgan, — "she had a letter from her
only to-day. You ha'n't read it yet, have you, Fleda?"

"No, grandpa," said the little girl; "you know I've been
busy."

"Ay," said the old gentleman; "why couldn't you let Cynthia
bake the cakes, and not roast yourself over the stove till
you're as red as a turkey-cock?"

"This morning I was like a chicken," said Fleda, laughing,
"and now like a turkey-cock."

"Shall I tell mamma, Fleda," said young Rossitur, "that you
put off reading her letter to bake muffins?"

Fleda answered without looking up, "Yes, if he pleased."

"What do you suppose she will think?"

"I don't know."

"She will think that you love muffins better than her."

"No," said Fleda, quietly, but firmly, — "she will not think
that, because it isn't true."

The gentlemen laughed, but Mr. Carleton declared that Fleda's
reasoning was unanswerable.

"Well, I will see you to-morrow," said Mr. Rossitur, "after
you have read the letter, for I suppose you will read it some
time. You should have had it before, — it came enclosed to me,
— but I forgot unaccountably to mail it to you till a few days
ago."

"It will be just as good now, Sir," said Mr. Ringgan.

"There is a matter in it, though," said Rossitur, "about which
my mother has given me a charge. We will see you to-morrow. It
was for that partly we turned out of our way this evening."

"I am very glad you did," said Mr. Ringgan. "I hope your way
will bring you here often. Wont you stay and try some of these
same muffins before you go?"

But this was declined, and the gentlemen departed; Fleda, it
must be confessed, seeing nothing in the whole leave-taking
but Mr. Carleton's look and smile. The muffins were a very
tame affair after it.

When supper was over, she sat down fairly to her letter, and
read it twice through before she folded it up. By this time
the room was clear both of the tea equipage and of Cynthia's
presence, and Fleda and her grandfather were alone in the
darkening twilight with the blazing wood fire; he in his usual
place at the side, and she on the hearth directly before it;
both silent, both thinking, for some time. At length Mr.
Ringgan spoke, breaking as it were the silence and his
seriousness with the same effort.

"Well, dear!" said he, cheerfully, — "what does she say?"

"O, she says a great many things, grandpa; shall I read you
the letter?"

"No, dear, I don't care to hear it; only tell me what she
says."

"She says they are going to stay in Paris yet a good while
longer."

"Hum!" — said Mr. Ringgan. "Well — that aint the wisest thing
I should like to hear of her doing."

"Oh, but it's because uncle Rossitur likes to stay there, I
suppose, isn't it, grandpa?"

"I don't know, dear. Maybe your aunt's caught the French
fever. She used to be a good sensible woman; but when people
will go into a whirligig, I think some of their wits get blown
away before they come out. Well — what else?"

"I am sure she is very kind," said Fleda. "She wants to have
me go out there and live with her very much. She says I shall
have everything I like, and do just as I please, and she will
make a pet of me, and give me all sorts of pleasant things.
She says she will take as good care of me as ever I took of
the kittens. And there's a long piece to you about it, that
I'll give you to read as soon as we have a light. It is very
good of her, isn't it, grandpa? I love aunt Lucy very much."

"Well," said Mr. Ringgan, after a pause, "how does she propose
to get you there?"

"Why," said Fleda, — "isn't it curious? — she says there is a
Mrs. Carleton here, who is a friend of hers, and she is going
to Paris in a little while, and aunt Lucy asked her if she
wouldn't bring me, if you would let me go, and she said she
would with great pleasure, and aunt Lucy wants me to come out
with her."

"Carleton! — Hum —" said Mr. Ringgan; " that must be this
young man's mother?'"

"Yes, aunt Lucy says she is here with her son, — at least she
says they were coming."

"A very gentlemanly young man, indeed," said Mr. Ringgan.

There was a grave silence. The old gentleman sat looking on
the floor; Fleda sat looking into the fire with all her might.

"Well," said Mr. Ringgan after a little, "how would you like
it, Fleda?"

"What, grandpa?"

"To go out to Paris to your aunt, with this Mrs. Carleton?"

"I shouldn't like it at all," said Fleda, smiling and letting
her eyes go back to the fire. But looking, after the pause of
a minute or two, again to her grandfather's face, she was
struck with its expression of stern anxiety. She rose
instantly, and coming to him, and laying one hand gently on
his knee, said in tones that fell as light on the ear as the
touch of a moonbeam on the water, "_You_ do not want me to go,
do you, grandpa?"

"No, dear!" said the old gentleman, letting his hand fall upon
hers, — "no, dear! — that is the last thing I want!"

But Fleda's keen ear discerned not only the deep affection,
but something of _regret_ in the voice, which troubled her. She
stood, anxious and fearing while her grandfather lifting his
hand again and again, let it fall gently upon hers; and amid
all the fondness of the action, Fleda somehow seemed to feel
in it the same regret.

"You'll not let aunt Lucy, nor anybody else, take me away from
you, will you, grandpa?" said she after a little, leaning both
arms affectionately on his knee, and looking up into his face.

"No, indeed, dear!" said he, with an attempt at his usual
heartiness, — "not as long as I have a place to keep you.
While I have a roof to put my head under, it shall cover
yours."

To Fleda's hope that would have said enough; but her
grandfather's face was so moved from its wonted expression of
calm dignity, that it was plain _his_ hope was tasting bitter
things. Fleda watched in silent grief and amazement the
watering eye and unnerved lip; till her grandfather,
indignantly dashing away a tear or two, drew her close to his
breast and kissed her. But she well guessed that the reason
why he did not for a minute or two say anything, was because
he could not. Neither could she. She was fighting with her
woman's nature to keep it down, — learning the lesson early!

"Ah well," — said Mr. Ringgan at length, in a kind of tone
that might indicate the giving up a struggle which he had no
means of carrying on, or the endeavour to conceal it from the
too keen-wrought feelings of his little grand-daughter, —
"there will be a way opened for us somehow. We must let our
Heavenly Father take care of us."

"And he will, grandpa," whispered Fleda.

"Yes, dear! We are selfish creatures. Your father's and your
mother's child will not be forgotten."

"Nor you either, dear grandpa," said the little girl, laying
her soft cheek alongside of his, and speaking by dint of a
great effort.

"No," said he, clasping her more tenderly, — "no — it would be
wicked in me to doubt it. He has blessed me all my life long
with a great many more blessings than I deserved; and if he
chooses to take away the sunshine of my last days, I will bow
my head to his will, and believe that he does all things well,
though I cannot see it."

"Don't, dear grandpa," said Fleda, stealing her other arm
round his neck and hiding her face there, — "please don't!"

He very much regretted that he had said too much. He did not,
however, know exactly how to mend it. He kissed her, and
stroked her soft hair, but that and the manner of it only made
it more difficult for Fleda to recover herself, which she was
struggling to do; and when he tried to speak in accents of
cheering, his voice trembled. Fleda's heart was breaking, but
she felt that she was making matters worse, and she had
already concluded, on a mature review of circumstances, that
it was her duty to be cheerful. So, after a few very heartfelt
tears which she could not help, she raised her head and
smiled, even while she wiped the traces of them away.

"After all, grandpa," said she, "perhaps Mr. Jolly will come
here in the morning with some good news, and then we should be
troubling ourselves just for nothing."

"Perhaps he will," said Mr. Ringgan, in a way that sounded
much more like "Perhaps he wont!" But Fleda was determined now
not to _seem_ discouraged again. She thought the best way was to
change the conversation.

"It is very kind in aunt Lucy, isn't it, grandpa, what she has
written to me?"

"Why, no," said Mr. Ringgan, decidedly; "I can't say I think
it is any very extraordinary manifestation of kindness in
anybody to want you."

Fleda smiled her thanks for this compliment.

"It might be a kindness in me to give you to her."

"It wouldn't be a kindness to me, grandpa."

"I don't know about that," said he, gravely. They were getting
back to the old subject. Fleda made another great effort at a
diversion.

"Grandpa, was my father like my uncle Rossitur in anything?"

The diversion was effected.

"Not he, dear!" said Mr. Ringgan. "Your father had ten times
the man in him that ever your uncle was."

"Why, what kind of a man is uncle Rossitur, grandpa?"

"Ho dear! I can't tell. I ha'n't seen much of him. I wouldn't
judge a man without knowing more of him than I do of Mr.
Rossitur. He seemed an amiable kind of man. But no one would
ever have thought of looking at him, no more than at a shadow,
when your father was by."

The diversion took effect on Fleda herself now. She looked up
pleased.

"You remember your father, Fleda."

"Yes, grandpa, but not very well always. I remember a great
many things about him, but I can't remember exactly how he
looked, except once or twice."

"Ay, and he wa'n't well the last time you remember him. But he
was a noble-looking man — in form and face too — and his looks
were the worst part of him. He seemed made of different stuff
from all the people around," said Mr. Ringgan, sighing, "and
they felt it too, I used to notice, without knowing it. When
his cousins were 'Sam,' and 'Johnny,' and 'Bill,' he was
always, that is after he grew up, '_Mr. Walter_.' I believe they
were a little afeard of him. And with all his bravery and fire
he could be as gentle as a woman."

"I know that," said Fleda, whose eyes were dropping soft tears
and glittering at the same time with gratified feeling. "What
made him be a soldier, grandpa? "

"Oh, I don't know, dear! — he was too good to make a farmer of
— or his high spirit wanted to rise in the world — he couldn't
rest without trying to be something more than other folks. I
don't know whether people are any happier for it."

"Did _he_ go to West Point, grandpa?"

"No, dear! — he started without having so much of a push as
that; but he was one of those that don't need any pushing; he
would have worked his way up, put him anywhere you would, and
he did, — over the heads of West Pointers and all, and would
have gone to the top, I verily believe, if he had lived long
enough. He was as fine a fellow as there was in all the army.
_I_ don't believe there's the like of him left in it."

"He had been a major a good while, hadn't be, grandpa?"

"Yes. It was just after he was made captain that he went to
Albany, and there he saw your mother. She and her sister, your
aunt Lucy, were wards of the patroon. I was in Albany, in the
legislature, that winter, and I knew them both very well; but
your aunt Lucy had been married some years before. She was
staying there that winter without her husband — he was abroad
somewhere."

Fleda was no stranger to these details, and had learned long
ago what was meant by "wards" and "the patroon."

"Your father was made a major some years afterwards," Mr.
Ringgan went on, "for his fine behaviour out here at the West
— what's the name of the place? — I forget it just now —
fighting the Indians. There never was anything finer done."

"He was brave, wasn't he, grandpa?"

"Brave! — he had a heart of iron sometimes, for as soft as it
was at others. And he had an eye, when he was roused, that I
never saw anything that would stand against. But your father
had a better sort of courage than the common sort — he had
enough of _that_ — but this is a rarer thing — he never was
afraid to do what in his conscience he thought was right.
Moral courage I call it, and it is one of the very noblest
qualities a man can have."

"That's a kind of courage a woman may have," raid Fleda.

"Yes — you may have that; and I guess it's the only kind of
courage you'll ever be troubled with," said her grandfather,
looking laughingly at her. "However, any man may walk up to
the cannon's mouth, but it is only one here and there that
will walk out against men's opinions because he thinks it is
right. That was one of the things I admired most in your
father."

"Didn't my mother have it too?" said Fleda.

"I don't know — she had about everything that was good. A
sweet pretty creature she was as ever I saw."

"Was she like aunt Lucy?"

"No, not much. She was a deal handsomer than your aunt is or
ever could have been. She was the handsomest woman, I think,
that ever I set eyes upon; and a sweet, gentle, lovely
creature. _You_'ll never match her," said Mr. Ringgan, with a
curious twist of his head and sly laughing twist of his eyes
at Fleda; — "you may be as _good_ as she was, but you'll never
be as good-looking."

Fleda laughed, nowise displeased.

"You've got her hazel eyes though," remarked Mr. Ringgan,
after a minute or two, viewing his little grand-daughter with
a sufficiently satisfied expression of countenance.

"Grandpa," said she, "don't you think Mr. Carleton has
handsome eyes?"

"Mr. Carleton? — hum — I don't know; I didn't look at his
eyes. A very well-looking young man though — very gentlemanly
too."

Fleda had heard all this and much more about her parents some
dozens of times before; but she and her grandfather were never
tired of going it over. If the conversation that recalled his
lost treasures had of necessity a character of sadness and
tenderness, it yet bespoke not more regret that he had lost
them than exulting pride and delight in what they had been, —
perhaps not so much. And Fleda delighted to go back and feed
her imagination with stories of the mother whom she could not
remember, and of the father whose fair bright image stood in
her memory as the embodiment of all that is high and noble and
pure. A kind of guardian angel that image was to little Fleda.
These ideal likenesses of her father and mother, the one drawn
from history and recollection, the other from history only,
had been her preservative from all the untoward influences and
unfortunate examples which had surrounded her since her
father's death, some three or four years before, had left her
almost alone in her grandfather's house. They had created in
her mind a standard of the true and beautiful in character,
which nothing she saw around her, after, of course, her
grandfather and one other exception, seemed at all to meet;
and partly from her own innate fineness of nature, and partly
from this pure ideal always present with her, she had shrunk
almost instinctively from the few varieties of human nature
the country-side presented to her, and was in fact a very
isolated little being, living in a world of her own, and
clinging with all her strong out-goings of affection to her
grandfather only; granting to but one other person any
considerable share in her regard or esteem. Little Fleda was
not in the least misanthropical; she gave her kindly
sympathies to all who came in her way on whom they could
possibly be bestowed; but these people were nothing to her;
her spirit fell off from them, even in their presence; there
was no affinity. She was in truth what her grandfather had
affirmed of her father, made of different stuff from the rest
of the world. There was no tincture of pride in all this;
there was no conscious feeling of superiority; she could
merely have told you that she did not care to hear these
people talk, that she did not love to be with them; though she
_would_ have said so to no earthly creature but her grandfather,
if even to him.

"It must be pleasant," said Fleda, after looking for some
minutes thoughtfully into the fire, — "it must be a pleasant
thing to have a father and mother."

"Yes, dear!" said her grandfather, sighing, — "you have lost a
great deal! But there is your aunt Lucy — you are not
dependent altogether on me."

"Oh, grandpa!" said the little girl, laying one hand again
pleadingly on his knee; — "I didn't mean — I mean — I was
speaking in general — I wasn't thinking of myself in
particular."

"I know, dear!" said he, as before taking the little hand in
his own, and moving it softly up and down on his knee. But the
action was sad, and there was the same look of sorrowful stern
anxiety. Fleda got up and put her arm over his shoulder,
speaking from a heart filled too full.

"I don't want aunt Lucy — I don't care about aunt Lucy, I
don't want anything but you, grandpa. I wish you wouldn't talk
so."

"Ah well, dear," said he, without looking at her, — he
couldn't bear to look at her, — "it's well it is so. I sha'n't
last a great while — it isn't likely — and I am glad to know
there is some one you can fall back upon when I am gone."

Fleda's next words were scarce audible, but they contained a
reproach to him for speaking so.

"We may as well look at it, dear," said he, gravely; "it must
come to that —- sooner or later — but you mustn't distress
yourself about it beforehand. Don't cry — don't dear!" said
he, tenderly kissing her. "I didn't mean to trouble you so.
There — there — look up, dear — let's take the good we have
and be thankful for it. God will arrange the rest, in his own
good way. Fleda! — I wouldn't have said a word if I had
thought it would have worried you so."

He would not indeed. But he had spoken as men so often speak,
out of the depths of their own passion or bitterness,
forgetting that they are wringing the chords of a delicate
harp, and not knowing what mischief they have done till they
find the instrument all out of tune, — more often not knowing
it ever. It is pity, — for how frequently a discord is left
that jars all life long; and how much more frequently still
the harp, though retaining its sweetness and truth of tone to
the end, is gradually unstrung.

Poor Fleda could hardly hold up her head for a long time, and
recalling bitterly her unlucky innocent remark which had led
to all this trouble, she almost made up her mind, with a
certain heroine of Miss Edgeworth's, that "it is best never to
mention things". Mr. Ringgan, now thoroughly alive to the
wounds he had been inflicting, held his little pet in his
arms, pillowed her head on his breast, and by every tender and
soothing action and word endeavoured to undo what he had done.
And after a while the agony was over, the wet eyelashes were
lifted up, and the meek sorrowful little face lay quietly upon
Mr. Ringgan's breast, gazing out into the fire as gravely as
if the panorama of life were there. She little heeded at first
her grandfather's cheering talk, she knew it was for a
purpose.

"Aint it most time for you to go to bed?" whispered Mr.
Ringgan, when he thought the purpose was effected.

"Shall I tell Cynthy to get you your milk, grandpa?" said the
little girl, rousing herself.

"Yes dear. — Stop, — what if you and me were to have some
roast apples? — wouldn't you like it?"

"Well — yes, I should, grandpa," said Fleda, understanding
perfectly why he wished it, and wishing it herself for that
same reason and no other.

"Cynthy, let's have some of those roast apples," said Mr.
Ringgan, "and a couple of bowls of milk here."

"No, I'll get the apples myself, Cynthy," said Fleda.

"And you needn't take any of the cream off, Cynthy," added Mr.
Ringgan.

One corner of the kitchen table was hauled up to the fire, to
be comfortable, Fleda said, and she and her grandfather sat
down on the opposite sides of it to do honour to the apples
and milk; each with the simple intent of keeping up
appearances and cheating the other into cheerfulness. There
is, however, deny it who can, an exhilarating effect in good
wholesome food taken when one is in some need of it; and Fleda
at least found the supper relish exceeding well. Every one
furthermore knows the relief of a hearty flow of tears when a
secret weight has been pressing on the mind. She was just
ready for anything reviving. After the third mouthful she
began to talk, and before the bottom of the bowls was reached,
she had smiled more than once. So her grandfather thought no
harm was done, and went to bed quite comforted; and Fleda
climbed the steep stairs that led from his door to her little
chamber just over his head. It was small and mean, immediately
under the roof, with only one window. There were plenty of
better rooms in the house, but Fleda liked this because it
kept her near her grandfather; and indeed she had always had
it ever since her father's death, and never thought of taking
any other.

She had a fashion, this child, in whom the simplicity of
practical life and the poetry of imaginative life were
curiously blended, — she had a fashion of going to her window
every night when the moon or stars were shining, to look out
for a minute or two before she went to bed; and sometimes the
minutes were more than any good grandmother or aunt would have
considered wholesome for little Fleda in the fresh night air.
But there was no one to watch or reprimand; and whatever it
was that Fleda read in earth or sky, the charm which held her
one bright night was sure to bring her to her window the next.
This evening a faint young moon lighted up but dimly the
meadow and what was called the "east-hill," over against which
the window in question looked. The air was calm and mild;
there was no frost to-night; the stillness was entire, and the
stars shone in a cloudless sky. Fleda set open the window, and
looked out with a face that again bore tokens of the
experiences of that day. She wanted the soothing speech of
nature's voice; and child as she was, she could hear it. She
did not know, in her simplicity, what it was that comforted
and soothed her, but she stood at her window enjoying.

It was so perfectly still, her fancy presently went to all
those people who had hushed their various work and were now
resting, or soon would be, in the unconsciousness and the
helplessness of sleep. The _helplessness_, — and then that Eye
that never sleeps; that Hand that keeps them all, that is
never idle, that is the safety and the strength alike of all
the earth, and of them that wake or sleep upon it, —

"And if he takes care of them all, will he not take care of
poor little me?" thought Fleda. "Oh, how glad I am I know
there is a God! — How glad I am I know he is such a God! and
that I can trust in him; and he will make everything go right.
How I forget this sometimes! But Jesus does not forget his
children. Oh, I am a happy little girl! — Grandpa's saying
what he did don't make it so — perhaps I shall die the first —
but I hope not, for what would become of him! — But this and
everything will all be arranged right, and I have nothing to
do with it but to obey God and please him, and he will take
care of the rest. He has forbidden _us_ to be careful about it
too."

With grateful tears of relief Fleda shut the window and began
to undress herself, her heart so lightened of its burden, that
her thoughts presently took leave to go out again upon
pleasure excursions in various directions; and one of the last
things in Fleda's mind before sleep surprised her was, what a
nice thing it was for any one to bow and smile so as Mr.
Carleton did!




CHAPTER III.


I know each lane, and every alley green,
Dingle or bushy dell of this wild wood,
And every bosky bourne from side to side;
My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood.
MILTON.


Fleda and her grandfather had but just risen from a tolerably
early breakfast the next morning, when the two young sportsmen
entered the room.

"Ha!" said Mr. Ringgan, "I declare! you're stirring betimes.
Come five or six miles this morning a'ready. Well — that's the
stuff to make sportsmen of. Off for the woodcock, hey? And I
was to go with you and show you the ground? I declare I don't
know how in the world I can do it this morning, I'm so very
stiff — ten times as bad as I was yesterday. I had a window
open in my room last night, I expect that must have been the
cause. I don't see how I could have overlooked it; but I never
gave it a thought, till this morning I found myself so lame I
could hardly get out of bed. I am very sorry, upon my word!"

"I am very sorry we must lose your company, Sir," said the
young Englishman, "and for such a cause; but as to the rest, I
dare say your directions will guide us sufficiently."

"I don't know about that," said the old gentleman. " It is
pretty hard to steer by a chart that is only laid down in the
imagination. I set out once to go in New York from one side of
the city over into the other, and the first thing I knew I
found myself travelling along half a mile out of town. I had
to get in a stage and ride back, and take a fresh start. Out
at the West they say, when you are in the woods you can tell
which is north by the moss growing on that side of the trees;
but if you're lost, you'll be pretty apt to find the moss
grows on _all_ sides of the trees. I couldn't make out any
waymarks at all, in such a labyrinth of brick corners. Well,
let us see — if I tell you now it is so easy to mistake one
hill for another — Fleda, child, you put on your sun-bonnet,
and take these gentlemen back to the twenty-acre lot, and from
there you can tell 'em how to go, so I guess they wont mistake
it."

"By no means!" said Mr. Carleton; "we cannot give her so much
trouble; it would be buying our pleasure at much too dear a
rate."

"Tut, tut," said the old gentleman; "she thinks nothing of
trouble, and the walk 'll do her good. She'd like to be out
all day, I believe, if she had any one to go along with; but
I'm rather a stupid companion for such a spry little pair of
feet. Fleda, look here; when they get to the lot, they can
find their own way after that. You know where the place is —
where your cousin Seth shot so many woodcock last year, over
in Mr. Hurlbut's land; when you get to the big lot you must
tell these gentlemen to go straight over the hill, not Squire
Thornton's hill, but mine, at the back of the lot. They must
go straight over it, till they come to cleared land on the
other side; then they must keep along by the edge of the wood,
to the right, till they come to the brook; they must _cross the
brook_, and follow up the opposite bank, and they'll know the
ground when they come to it; or they don't deserve to. Do you
understand? Now run and get your hat, for they ought to be
off."

Fleda went, but neither her step nor her look showed any great
willingness to the business.

"I am sure, Mr. Ringgan," said Mr. Carleton, "your little
granddaughter has some reason for not wishing to take such a
long walk this morning. Pray allow us to go without her."

"Pho, pho," said the old gentleman, "she wants to go."

"I guess she's skeered o' the guns," said Cynthy, happy to get
a chance to edge in a word before such company; "it's that
ails her."

"Well, well; she must get used to it," said Mr. Ringgan. "Here
she is!"

Fleda had it in her mind to whisper to him a word of hope
about Mr. Jolly; but she recollected that it was at best an
uncertain hope, and that if her grandfather's thoughts were
off the subject it was better to leave them so. She only
kissed him for good-by, and went out with the two gentlemen.

As they took up their guns, Mr. Carleton caught the timid
shunning glance her eye gave at them.

"Do you dislike the company of these noisy friends of ours,
Miss Fleda?" said he.

Fleda hesitated, and finally said, "she didn't much like to be
very near them when they were fired."

"Put that fear away then," said he, " for they shall keep a
respectful silence so long as they have the honour to be in
your company. If the woodcock come about us as tame as quails
our guns shall not be provoked to say anything till your
departure gives them leave."

Fleda smiled her thanks, and set forward, privately much
confirmed in her opinion that Mr. Carleton had handsome eyes.

At a little distance from the house Fleda left the meadow for
an old apple-orchard at the left, lying on a steep side hill.
Up this hill-side they toiled; and then found themselves on a
ridge of tableland, stretching back for some distance along
the edge of a little valley or bottom of perfectly flat smooth
pasture-ground. The valley was very narrow, only divided into
fields by fences running from side to side. The table-land
might be a hundred feet or more above the level of the bottom,
with a steep face towards it. A little way back from the edge
the woods began; between them and the brow of the hill the
ground was smooth and green, planted as if by art with
flourishing young silver pines, and once in a while a hemlock,
some standing in all their luxuriance alone, and some in
groups. With now and then a smooth grey rock, or large
boulderstone, which had somehow inexplicably stopped on the
brow of the hill instead of rolling down into what at some
former time no doubt was a bed of water, — all this open strip
of the table-land might have stood with very little coaxing
for a piece of a gentleman's pleasure-ground. On the opposite
side of the little valley was a low rocky height, covered with
wood, now in the splendour of varied red and green and purple
and brown and gold; between, at their feet, lay the soft quiet
green meadow; and off to the left, beyond the far end of the
valley, was the glory of the autumn woods again, softened in
the distance. A true October sky seemed to pervade all, mildly
blue, transparently pure, with that clearness of atmosphere
that no other month gives us; a sky that would have conferred
a patent of nobility on any landscape. The scene was certainly
contracted and nowise remarkable in any of its features, but
Nature had shaken out all her colours over the land, and drawn
a veil from the sky, and breathed through the woods and over
the hill-side the very breath of health, enjoyment, and
vigour.

When they were about over-against the middle of the valley,
Mr. Carleton suddenly made a pause and stood for some minutes
silently looking. His two companions came to a halt on either
side of him, one not a little pleased, the other a little
impatient.

"Beautiful!" Mr. Carleton said, at length.

"Yes," said Fleda, gravely, "I think it's a pretty place. I
like it up here."

"We sha'n't catch many woodcock among these pines," said young
Rossitur.

"I wonder," said Mr. Carleton, presently, "how any one should
have called these 'melancholy days.' "

"Who has?" said Rossitur.

"A countryman of yours," said his friend, glancing at him. "If
he had been a countryman of mine there would have been less
marvel. But here is none of the sadness of decay — none of the
withering — if the tokens of old age are seen at all it is in
the majestic honours that crown a glorious life — the graces
of a matured and ripened character. This has nothing in
common, Rossitur, with those dull moralists who are always
dinning decay and death into one's ears; this speaks of Life.
Instead of freezing all one's hopes and energies, it quickens
the pulse with the desire to _do_. — 'The saddest of the year' —
Bryant was wrong."

"Bryant? — oh!" — said young Rossitur; "I didn't know who you
were speaking of."

"I believe, now I think of it, he was writing of a somewhat
later time of the year, — I don't know how all this will look
in November."

"I think it is very pleasant in November," said little Fleda,
sedately.

"Don't you know Bryant's 'Death of the Flowers,' Rossitur?"
said his friend, smiling. "What have you been doing all your
life?"

"Not studying the fine arts at West Point, Mr. Carleton."

"Then sit down here, and let me mend that place in your
education. Sit down! and I'll give you something better than
woodcock. You keep a game-bag for thoughts, don't you?"

Mr. Rossitur wished Mr. Carleton didn't. But he sat down,
however, and listened with an unedified face; while his
friend, more to please himself, it must be confessed, than for
any other reason, and perhaps with half a notion to try Fleda,
repeated the beautiful words. He presently saw they were not
lost upon one of his hearers; she listened intently.

"It is very pretty," said Rossitur, when he had done. "I
believe I have seen it before somewhere."

"There is no 'smoky light' to-day," said Fleda.

"No," said Mr. Carleton, smiling to himself. "Nothing but that
could improve the beauty of all this, Miss Fleda."

"_I_ like it better as it is," said Fleda.

"I am surprised at that," said young Rossitur. "I thought you
lived on smoke."

There was nothing in the words, but the tone was not exactly
polite. Fleda granted him neither smile nor look.

"I am glad you like it up here," she went on, gravely doing
the honours of the place. "I came this way because we
shouldn't have so many fences to climb."

"You are the best little guide possible, and I have no doubt
would always lead one the right way," said Mr. Carleton.

Again the same gentle, kind, _appreciating_ look. Fleda
unconsciously drew a step nearer. There was a certain
undefined confidence established between them.

"There's a little brook down there in spring," said she,
pointing to a small, grass-grown water-course in the meadow,
hardly discernible from the height, — "but there's no water in
it now. It runs quite full for a while after the snow breaks
up; but it dries away by June or July."

"What are those trees so beautifully tinged with red and
orange, down there by the fence in the meadow?"

"I am not woodsman enough to inform you," replied Rossitur.

"Those are maples," said Fleda — "sugar maples. The one all
orange is a hickory."

"How do you know?" said Mr. Carleton, turning to her. "By your
wit as a fairy?"

"I know by the colour," said Fleda, modestly; "and by the
shape too."

"Fairy," said Mr. Rossitur, "if you have any of the stuff
about you, I wish you would knock this gentleman over the head
with your wand, and put the spirit of moving into him. He is
going to sit dreaming here all day."

"Not at all," said his friend, springing up; "I am ready for
you; but I want other game than woodcock just now, I confess."

They walked along in silence, and had near reached the
extremity of the table-land, which, towards the end of the
valley, descended into ground of a lower level covered with
woods; when Mr. Carleton, who was a little ahead, was startled
by Fleda's voice, exclaiming, in a tone of distress, "Oh, not
the robins!" and turning about, perceived Mr. Rossitur
standing still with levelled gun, and just in the act to
shoot. Fleda had stopped her ears. In the same instant, Mr.
Carleton had thrown up the gun, demanding of Rossitur, with a
singular change of expression — "what he meant!"

"Mean?" said the young gentleman, meeting with an astonished
face the indignant fire of his companion's eyes — "why, I mean
not to meddle with other people's guns, Mr. Carleton. What do
_you_ mean?"

"Nothing, but to protect myself."

"Protect yourself!" said Rossitur, heating as the other cooled
— "from what, in the name of wonder?"

"Only from having my word blown away by your fire," said
Carleton, smiling. "Come, Rossitur, recollect yourself —
remember our compact."

"Compact! one isn't bound to keep compacts with unearthly
personages," said Rossitur, half sulkily and half angrily;
"and besides, I made none."

Mr. Carleton turned from him very coolly, and walked on.

They left the table-land and the wood, entered the valley
again, and passed through a large orchard, the last of the
succession of fields which stretched along it. Beyond this
orchard the ground rose suddenly, and on the steep hill-side
there had been a large plantation of Indian corn. The corn was
harvested, but the ground was still covered with numberless
little stacks of the cornstalks. Halfway up the hill stood
three ancient chestnut-trees; veritable patriarchs of the nut
tribe they were, and respected and esteemed as patriarchs
should be.

"There are no 'dropping nuts' to-day, either," said Fleda, to
whom the sight of her forest friends in the distance probably
suggested the thought, for she had not spoken for some time.
"I suppose there hasn't been frost enough yet."

"Why, you have a good memory, Fairy," said Mr. Carleton. "Do
you give the nuts leave to fall of themselves?"

"Oh, sometimes grandpa and I go a nutting," said the little
girl, getting lightly over the fence — "but we haven't been
this year."

"Then it is a pleasure to come yet?"

"No," said Fleda, quietly; "the trees near the house have been
stripped; and the only other nice place there is for us to go
to, Mr. Didenhover let the Shakers have the nuts. I sha'n't
get any this year."

"Live in the woods and not get any nuts! that wont do, Fairy.
Here are some fine chestnuts we are coming to — what should
hinder our reaping a good harvest from these?"

"I don't think there will be any on them," said Fleda; "Mr.
Didenhover has been here lately with the men getting in the
corn; I guess they have cleared the trees."

"Who is Mr. Didenhover?"

"He is grandpa's man."

"Why didn't you bid Mr. Didenhover let the nuts alone?"

"Oh, he wouldn't mind if he was told," said Fleda. "He does
everything just as he has a mind to, and nobody can hinder
him. Yes, they've cleared the trees — I thought so."

"Don't you know of any other trees that are out of this Mr.
Didenhover's way?"

"Yes," said Fleda; "I know a place where there used to be
beautiful hickory trees, and some chestnuts too, I think; but
it is too far off for grandpa, and I couldn't go there alone.
This is the twenty-acre lot," said she, looking, though she
did not say it, "Here I leave you."

"I am glad to hear it," said her cousin. "Now give us our
directions, Fleda, and thank you for your services."

"Stop a minute," said Mr. Carleton. "What if you and I should
try to find those same hickory-trees, Miss Fleda? Will you
take me with you — or is it too long a walk?"

"For me? — oh no!" said Fleda, with a face of awakening hope;
"but," she added, timidly, "you were going a shooting, Sir?"

"What on earth are you thinking of, Carleton?" said young
Rossitur." Let the nuts and Fleda alone, do!"

"By your leave, Mr. Rossitur," said Carleton. "My murderous
intents have all left me, Miss Fleda; I suppose your wand has
been playing about me, and I should like nothing better than
to go with you over the hills this morning. I have been a
nutting many a time in my own woods at home, and I want to try
it for once in the New World. Will you take me?"

"Oh, thank you, Sir!" said Fleda; " but we have passed the
turning a long way; we must go back ever so far the same way
we came to get to the place where we turn off to go up the
mountain."

"I don't wish for a prettier way — if it isn't so far as to
tire you, Fairy?"

"Oh, it wont tire me!" said Fleda, overjoyed.

"Carleton!" exclaimed young Rossitur. "Can you be so absurd!
Lose this splendid day for the woodcock, when we may not have
another while we are here!"

"You are not a true sportsman, Mr. Rossitur," said the other,
coolly, "or you would know what it is to have some sympathy
with the sports of others. But _you_ will have the day for the
woodcock, and bring us home a great many, I hope. Miss Fleda,
suppose we give this impatient young gentleman his orders and
despatch him."

"I thought you were more of a sportsman," said the vexed West
Pointer, — "or your sympathy would be with me."

"I tell you the sporting mania was never stronger on me," said
the other, carelessly. "Something less than a rifle, however,
will do to bring down the game I am after. We will rendezvous
at the little village over yonder, unless I go home before
you, which I think is more probable. Au revoir!"

With careless gracefulness he saluted his disconcerted
companion, who moved off with ungraceful displeasure. Fleda
and Mr. Carleton then began to follow back the road they had
come, in the highest good humour both. Her sparkling face told
him with even greater emphasis than her words,

"I am so much obliged to you, Sir."

"How you go over fences!" said he, — "like a sprite, as you
are."

"Oh, I have climbed a great many," said Fleda, accepting,
however, again with that infallible instinct, the help which
she did not need. — "I shall be so glad to get some nuts, for
I thought I wasn't going to have any this year; and it is so
pleasant to have them to crack in the long winter evenings."

"You must find them long evenings indeed, I should think."

"Oh no, we don't," said Fleda. "I didn't mean they were long
in _that_ way. Grandpa cracks the nuts, and I pick them out, and
he tells me stories; and then you know he likes to go to bed
early. The evenings never seem long."

"But you are not always cracking nuts."

"Oh no, to be sure not; but there are plenty of other pleasant
things to do. I dare say grandpa would have bought some nuts,
but I had a great deal rather have those we get ourselves, and
then the fun of getting them, besides, is the best part."

Fleda was tramping over the ground at a furious rate.

"How many do you count upon securing to-day?" said Mr.
Carleton, gravely.

"I don't know," said Fleda, with a business face, — "there are
a good many trees, and fine large ones, and I don't believe
anybody has found them out — they are so far out of the way;
there ought to be a good parcel of nuts."

"But," said Mr. Carleton, with perfect gravity, "if we should
be lucky enough to find a supply for your winter's store, it
would be too much for you and me to bring home, Miss Fleda,
unless you have a broomstick in the service of fairydom."

"A broomstick!" said Fleda.

"Yes, — did you never hear of the man who had a broomstick
that would fetch pails of water at his bidding?"

"No," said Fleda, laughing. "What a convenient broomstick! I
wish we had one. But I know what I can do, Mr. Carleton, — if
there should be too many nuts for us to bring home, I can take
Cynthy afterwards and get the rest of them. Cynthy and I could
go — grandpa couldn't, even if he was as well as usual, for
the trees are in a hollow away over on the other side of the
mountain. It's a beautiful place."

"Well," said Mr. Carleton, smiling curiously to himself, "in
that case I shall be even of more use than I had hoped. But
shan't we want a basket, Miss Fleda?"

"Yes, indeed," said Fleda, — "a good large one — I am going to
run down to the house for it as soon as we get to the turning-
off place, if you'll be so good as to sit down and wait for
me, Sir, — I wont be long after it."

"No," said he; "I will walk with you and leave my gun in safe
quarters. You had better not travel so fast, or I am afraid
you will never reach the hickory-trees."

Fleda smiled, and said there was no danger, but she slackened
her pace, and they proceeded at a more reasonable rate till
they reached the house.

Mr. Carleton would not go in, placing his gun in an outer
shelter. Fleda dashed into the kitchen, and after a few
minutes' delay came out again with a huge basket, which Mr.
Carleton took from her without suffering his inward amusement
to reach his face, and a little tin pail which she kept under
her own guardianship. In vain Mr. Carleton offered to take it
with the basket, or even to put it in the basket, where he
showed her it would go very well; it must go nowhere but in
Fleda's own hand.

Fleda was in restless haste till they had passed over the
already twice-trodden ground and entered upon the mountain
road. It was hardly a road; in some places a beaten track was
visible, in others Mr. Carleton wondered how his little
companion found her way, where nothing but fresh-fallen leaves
and scattered rocks and stones could be seen, covering the
whole surface. But her foot never faltered, her eye read way-
marks where he saw none; she went on, he did not doubt
unerringly, over the leaf-strewn and rock-strewn way, over
ridge and hollow, with a steady light swiftness that he could
not help admiring. Once they came to a little brawling stream
of spring water, hardly three inches deep anywhere, but making
quite a wide bed for itself in its bright way to the lowlands.
Mr. Carleton was considering how he should contrive to get his
little guide over it in safety, when quick, — over the little
round stones which lifted their heads above the surface of the
water, on the tips of her toes, Fleda tripped across before he
had done thinking about it. He told her he had no doubt now
that she was a fairy, and had powers of walking that did not
belong to other people. Fleda laughed, and on her little
demure figure went picking out the way, always with that
little tin pail hanging at her side, like — Mr. Carleton
busied himself in finding out similes for her. It wasn't very
easy.

For a long distance their way was through a thick woodland,
clear of underbrush and very pleasant walking, but permitting
no look at the distant country. They wound about, now up hill
and now down, till at last they began to ascend in good
earnest; the road became better marked, and Mr. Carleton came
up with his guide again. Both were obliged to walk more
slowly. He had overcome a good deal of Fleda's reserve, and
she talked to him now quite freely, without however losing the
grace of a most exquisite modesty in everything she said or
did.

"What do you suppose I have been amusing myself with all this
while, Miss Fleda?" said he, after walking for some time
alongside of her in silence. "I have been trying to fancy what
you looked like as you travelled on before me with that
mysterious tin pail."

"Well, what _did_ I look like?" said Fleda, laughing.

"Little Red Riding-Hood, the first thing, carrying her
grandmother the pot of butter."

"Ah, but I haven't got any butter in this, as it happens,"
said Fleda; "and I hope you are not anything like the wolf,
Mr. Carleton?"

"I hope not," said he, laughing. "Well, then, I thought you
might be one of those young ladies the fairy-stories tell of,
who set out over the world to seek their fortune. That might
hold, you know, a little provision to last for a day or two
till you found it."

"No," said Fleda, — "I should never go to seek my fortune."

"Why not, pray?"

"I don't think I should find it any the sooner."

Mr. Carleton looked at her, and could not make up his mind
whether or not she spoke wittingly.

Well, but after all, are we not seeking our fortune?" said he.
"We are doing something very like it. Now up here on the
mountain-top perhaps we shall find only empty trees — perhaps
trees with a harvest of nuts on them."

"Yes, but that wouldn't be like finding a fortune," said
Fleda; — "if we were to come to a great heap of nuts all
picked out ready for us to carry away, _that_ would be a
fortune; but now if we find the trees full, we have got to
knock them down, and gather them up, and shuck them."

"Make our own fortunes, eh?" said Mr. Carleton, smiling.

"Well! people do say those are the sweetest nuts. I don't know
how it may be. Ha! that is fine. What an atmosphere!"

They had reached a height of the mountain that cleared them a
view, and over the tops of the trees they looked abroad to a
very wide extent of country undulating with hill and vale, —
hill and valley alike far below at their feet. Fair and rich,
— the gently swelling hills, one beyond another, in the
patchwork dress of their many-coloured fields, — the gay hues
of the woodland softened and melted into a rich autumn glow, —
and far away, beyond even where this glow was sobered and lost
in the distance, the faint blue line of the Catskill — faint,
but clear and distinct, through the transparent air. Such a
sky! — of such etherialized purity as if made for spirits to
travel in, and tempting them to rise and free themselves from
the soil; and the stillness, — like nature's hand laid upon
the soul, bidding it think. In view of all that vastness and
grandeur, man's littleness does bespeak itself. And yet, for
every one, the voice of the scene is not more humbling to
pride than rousing to all that is really noble and strong in
character. Not only "What thou art," — but "What thou mayest
be!" What place thou oughtest to fill — what work thou hast to
do, — in this magnificent world. A very extended landscape,
however genial, is also sober in its effect on the mind. One
seems to emerge from the narrowness of individual existence,
and take a larger view of Life as well as of Creation.

Perhaps Mr. Carleton felt it so, for, after his first
expression of pleasure, he stood silently and gravely looking
for a long time. Little Fleda's eye loved it too, but she
looked her fill, and then sat down on a stone to await her
companion's pleasure, glancing now and then up at his face,
which gave her no encouragement to interrupt him. It was
gravely, and even gloomily thoughtful. He stood so long
without stirring, that poor Fleda began to have sad thoughts
of the possibility of gathering all the nuts from the hickory-
trees, and she heaved a very gentle sigh once or twice; but
the dark blue eye which she with reason admired, remained
fixed on the broad scene below, as if it were reading, or
trying to read there a difficult lesson. And when at last he
turned and began to go up the path again, he kept the same
face, and went moodily swinging his arm up and down, as if in
disturbed thought. Fleda was too happy to be moving to care
for her companion's silence; she would have compounded for no
more conversation, so they might but reach the nut-trees. But
before they had got quite so far, Mr. Carleton broke the
silence, speaking in precisely the same tone and manner he had
used the last time.

"Look here, Fairy," said he, pointing to a small heap of
chestnut burs piled at the foot of a tree — "here's a little
fortune for you already."

"That's a squirrel!" said Fleda, looking at the place very
attentively. "There has been nobody else here. He has put them
together, ready to be carried off to his nest."

"We'll save him that trouble," said Mr. Carleton. "Little
rascal! he's a Didenhover in miniature."

"Oh, no!" said Fleda; "he had as good a right to the nuts, I
am sure, as we have, poor fellow. — Mr. Carleton —"

Mr. Carleton was throwing the nuts into the basket. At the
anxious and undecided tone in which his name was pronounced,
he stopped, and looked up at a very wistful face.

"Mightn't we leave these nuts till we come back? If we find
the trees over here full, we shan't want them; and if we
don't, these would be only a handful —"

"And the squirrel would be disappointed?" said Mr. Carleton,
smiling. "You would rather we should leave them to him!"

Fleda said yes, with a relieved face, and Mr. Carleton, still
smiling, emptied his basket of the few nuts he had put in, and
they walked on.

In a hollow, rather a deep hollow, behind the crest of the
hill, as Fleda had said, they came at last to a noble group of
large hickory-trees, with one or two chestnuts standing in
attendance on the outskirts. And, also, as Fleda had said, or
hoped, the place was so far from convenient access, that
nobody had visited them; they were thick hung with fruit. If
the spirit of the game had been wanting or failing in Mr.
Carleton, it must have roused again into full life at the
joyous heartiness of Fleda's exclamations. At any rate, no boy
could have taken to the business better. He cut, with her
permission, a stout long pole in the woods; and swinging
himself lightly into one of the trees, showed that he was a
master in the art of whipping them. Fleda was delighted, but
not surprised; for, from the first moment of Mr. Carleton's
proposing to go with her, she had been privately sure that he
would not prove an inactive or inefficient ally. By whatever
slight tokens she might read this, in whatsoever fine
characters of the eye, or speech, or manner, she knew it; and
knew it just as well before they reached the hickory-trees as
she did afterwards.

When one of the trees was well stripped, the young gentleman
mounted into another, while Fleda set herself to hull and
gather up the nuts under the one first beaten. She could make
but little headway, however, compared with her companion; the
nuts fell a great deal faster than she could put them in her
basket. The trees were heavy laden, and Mr. Carleton seemed
determined to have the whole crop; from the second tree he
went to the third. Fleda was bewildered with her happiness;
this was doing business in style. She tried to calculate what
the whole quantity would be, but it went beyond her; one
basketful would not take it, nor two, nor three, — it wouldn't
_begin to_, Fleda said to herself. She went on hulling and
gathering with all possible industry.

After the third tree was finished, Mr. Carleton threw down his
pole, and resting himself upon the ground at the foot, told
Fleda he would wait a few moments before he began again..
Fleda thereupon left off her work too, and going for her
little tin pail, presently offered it to him temptingly
stocked with pieces of apple-pie. When he had smilingly taken
one, she next brought him a sheet of white paper, with slices
of young cheese.

"No, thank you," said he.

"Cheese is very good with apple-pie," said Fleda, competently.

"Is it?" said he laughing. "Well — upon that — I think you
would teach me a good many things, Miss Fleda, if I were to
stay here long enough."

"I wish you would stay and try, Sir," said Fleda, who did not
know exactly what to make of the shade of seriousness which
crossed his face. It was gone almost instantly.

"I think anything is better eaten out in the woods than it is
at home," said Fleda.

"Well, I don't know," said her friend. "I have no doubt that
is the case with cheese and apple-pie, and especially under
hickory trees which one has been contending with pretty
sharply. If a touch of your wand, Fairy, could transform one
of these shells into a goblet of Lafitte, or Amontillado, we
should have nothing to wish for."

'Amontillado' was Hebrew to Fleda, but 'goblet' was
intelligible.

"I am sorry!" she said; "I don't know where there is any
spring up here, but we shall come to one going down the
mountain."

"Do you know where all the springs are?"

"No, not all, I suppose," said Fleda; "but I know a good many.
I have gone about through the woods so much, and I always look
for the springs."

"And who roams about through the woods with you?"

"Oh, nobody but grandpa," said Fleda. "He used to be out with
me a great deal, but he can't go much now — this year or two."

"Don't you go to school?"

"O no!" said Fleda, smiling.

"Then your grandfather teaches you at home?"

"No," said Fleda; father used to teach me; grandpa doesn't
teach me much."

"What do you do with yourself all day long?"

"O, plenty of things," said Fleda, smiling again. "I read, and
talk to grandpa, and go riding, and do a great many things."

"Has your home always been here, Fairy?" said Mr. Carleton,
after a few minutes' pause.

Fleda said, "No, Sir," and there stopped; and then seeming to
think that politeness called upon her to say more, she added —

"I have lived with grandpa ever since father left me here,
when he was going away among the Indians; I used to be always
with him before."

"And how long ago is that?"

"It is — four years, Sir; more, I believe. He was sick when he
came back, and we never went away from Queechy again."

Mr. Carleton looked again silently at the child, who had given
him these pieces of information with a singular, grave
propriety of manner; and even as it were reluctantly.

"And what do you read, Fairy?" he said, after a minute.
"Stories of fairy-land?"

"No," said Fleda; "I haven't any. We haven't a great many
books — there are only a few up in the cupboard, and the
Encyclopaedia; father had some books, but they are locked up
in a chest. But there is a great deal in the Encyclopaedia."

"The Encyclopaedia!" said Mr. Carleton; — "what do you read in
that? what can you find to like there?"

"I like all about the insects, and birds, and animals; and
about flowers, — and lives of people, and curious things.
There are a great many in it."

"And what are the other books in the cupboard, which you
read?"

"There's Quentin Durward," said Fleda, — "and Rob Roy, and Guy
Mannering in two little bits of volumes; and the
Knickerbocker, and the Christian's Magazine, and an odd volume
of Redgauntlet, and the Beauties of Scotland."

"And have you read all these, Miss Fleda?" said her companion,
commanding his countenance with difficulty.

"I haven't read quite all of the Christian's Magazine, nor all
of the Beauties of Scotland."

"All the rest."

"O yes," said Fleda, — "and two or three times over. And there
are three great red volumes besides, Robertson's History of
something, I believe. I haven't read that either."

"And which of them all do you like the best?"

"I don't know," said Fleda, — "I don't know but I like to read
the Encyclopaedia as well as any of them. And then I have the
newspapers to read too."

"I think, Miss Fleda," said Mr. Carleton, a minute after, "you
had better let me take you with my mother over the sea, when
we go back again, — to Paris."

"Why, Sir?"

"You know," said he, half smiling, "your aunt wants you, and
has engaged my mother to bring you with her, if she can."

"I know it," said Fleda. "But I am not going."

It was spoken not rudely, but in a tone of quiet
determination.

"Aren't you too tired, Sir?" said she gently, when she saw Mr.
Carleton preparing to launch into the remaining hickory trees.

"Not I!" said he. "I am not tired till I have done, Fairy. And
besides, cheese is working man's fare, you know, isn't it?"

"No," said Fleda, gravely, — "I don't think it is."

"What then?" said Mr. Carleton, stopping as he was about to
spring into the tree, and looking at her with a face of
comical amusement.

"It isn't what our men live on," said Fleda, demurely eyeing
the fallen nuts, with a head full of business.

They set both to work again with renewed energy, and rested
not till the treasures of the trees had been all brought to
the ground, and as large a portion of them as could be coaxed
and shaken into Fleda's basket, had been cleared from the
hulls and bestowed there. But there remained a vast quantity.
These with a good deal of labour, Mr. Carleton and Fleda
gathered into a large heap in rather a sheltered place by the
side of a rock, and took what measures they might to conceal
them. This was entirely at Fleda's instance

"You and your maid Cynthia will have to make a good many
journeys, Miss Fleda, to get all these home, unless you can
muster a larger basket."

"O _that_'s nothing," said Fleda. "It will be all fun. I don't
care how many times we have to come. You are _very_ good, Mr.
Carleton."

"Do you think so?" said he. "I wish I did. I wish you would
make your wand rest on me, Fairy."

"My wand?" said Fleda.

"Yes — you know your grandfather says you are a fairy, and
carry a wand. What does he say that for, Miss Fleda?"

Fleda said she supposed it was because he loved her so much;
but the rosy smile with which she said it would have let her
hearer, if he had needed enlightening, far more into the
secret than she was herself. And if the simplicity in her face
had not been equal to the wit, Mr. Carleton would never have
ventured the look of admiration he bestowed on her. He knew it
was safe. _Approbation_ she saw, and it made her smile the
rosier; but the admiration was a step beyond her; Fleda could
make nothing of it.

They descended the mountain now with a hasty step, for the day
was wearing well on. At the spot where he had stood so long
when they went up, Mr. Carleton paused again for a minute. In
mountain scenery every hour makes a change. The sun was lower
now, the lights and shadows more strongly contrasted, the sky
of a yet calmer blue, cool and clear towards the horizon. The
scene said still the same that it had said a few hours before,
with a touch more of sadness; it seemed to whisper, "All
things have an end — thy time may not be for ever — do what
thou wouldest do — 'while ye have light, believe in the light,
that ye may be children of the light.' "

Whether Mr. Carleton read it so or not, he stood for a minute
motionless, and went down the mountain looking so grave, that
Fleda did not venture to speak to him till they reached the
neighbourhood of the spring.

"What are you searching for, Miss Fleda?" said her friend.

She was making a busy quest here and there by the side of the
little stream.

"I was looking to see if I could find a mullein leaf," said
Fleda.

"A mullein leaf? what do you want it for?"

"I want it — to make a drinking-cup of," said Fleda, her
intent bright eyes peering keenly about in every direction.

"A mullein leaf! that is too rough; one of these golden leaves
— what are they? — will do better, wont it?"

"That is hickory," said Fleda. " No; the mullein leaf is the
best because it holds the water so nicely. — Here it is."

And folding up one of the largest leaves into a most artist-
like cup, she presented it to Mr. Carleton.

"For me was all that trouble?" said he. "I don't deserve it."

"You wanted something, Sir," said Fleda. "The water is very
cold and nice."

He stooped to the bright little stream, and filled his rural
goblet several times.

"I never knew what it was to have a fairy for my cup-bearer
before," said he. "That was better than anything Bordeaux or
Xeres ever sent forth."

He seemed to have swallowed his seriousness, or thrown it away
with the mullein leaf. It was quite gone.

"This is the best spring in all grandpa's ground," said Fleda.
"The water is as good as can be."

How come you to be such a wood and water spirit? you must live
out of doors. Do the trees ever talk to you? I sometimes think
they do to me."

"I don't know — I think _I_ talk to _them_," said Fleda.

"It's the same thing," said her companion, smiling. "Such
beautiful woods!"

"Were you never in the country before in the fall, Sir?"

"Not here — in my own country often enough; but the woods in
England do not put on such a gay face, Miss Fleda, when they
are going to be stripped of their summer dress — they look
sober upon it — the leaves wither and grow brown, and the
woods have a dull russet colour. Your trees are true Yankees —
they 'never say die.' "

"Why are the Americans more obstinate than the English?" said
Fleda.

"It is difficult to compare unknown quantities," said Mr.
Carleton laughing, and shaking his head. "I see you have good
ears for the key-note of patriotism."

Fleda looked a little hard at him, but he did not explain; and
indeed they were hurrying along too much for talking; leaping
from stone to stone, and running down the smooth orchard
slope. When they reached the last fence, but a little way from
the house, Fleda made a resolute pause.

"Mr. Carleton," — said she.

Mr. Carleton put down his basket, and looked in some surprise
at the hesitating anxious little face that looked up at him.

"Wont you please not say anything to grandpa about my going
away?"

"Why not, Fairy?" said he, kindly.

"Because I don't think I ought to go."

"But may it not be possible," said he, "that your grandfather
can judge better in the matter than you can do?"

"No," said Fleda, "I don't think he can. He would do anything
he thought would be most for my happiness; but it wouldn't be
for my happiness," she said, with an unsteady lip, — "I don't
know what he would do if I went!"

"You think he would have no sunshine if your wand didn't touch
him?" said Mr. Carleton, smiling.

"No, Sir," said Fleda, gravely, "I don't think that, — but
wont you please, Mr. Carleton, not to speak about it?"

"But are you sure," he said, sitting down on a stone hard by,
and taking one of her hands, — "are you sure that you would
not like to go with us? I wish you would change your mind
about it. My mother will love you very much, and I will take
the especial charge of you till we give you to your aunt in
Paris; — if the wind blows a little too rough I will always
put myself between it and you," he added, smiling.

Fleda smiled faintly, but immediately begged Mr. Carleton "not
to say anything to put it into her grandfather's head."

"It must be there already, I think, Miss Fleda; but at any
rate you know my mother must perform her promise to your aunt
Mrs. Rossitur; and she would not do that without letting your
grandfather know how glad she would be to take you."

Fleda stood silent a moment, and then with a touching look of
waiting patience in her sweet face suffered Mr. Carleton to
help her over the fence; and they went home.

To Fleda's unspeakable surprise it was found to be past four
o'clock, and Cynthy had supper ready. Mr. Ringgan with great
cordiality invited Mr. Carleton to stay with them, but he
could not; his mother would expect him to dinner.

"Where is your mother?"

"At Montepoole, Sir; we have been to Niagara, and came this
way on our return, partly that my mother might fulfil the
promise she made Mrs. Rossitur — to let you know, Sir, with
how much pleasure she will take charge of your little
granddaughter, and convey her to her friends in Paris, if you
can think it best to let her go."

"Hum! — she is very kind," said Mr. Ringgan, with a look of
grave and not unmoved consideration which Fleda did not in the
least like; — "How long will you stay at Montepoole Sir?"

"It might be several days," Mr. Carleton said.

"Hum — You have given up this day to Fleda, Mr. Carleton, —
suppose you take to-morrow for the game, and come here and try
our country fare when you have got through shooting? — you and
young Mr. Rossitur? — and I'll think over this question and
let you know about it."

Fleda was delighted to see that her friend accepted this
invitation with apparent pleasure.

"You will be kind enough to give my respects to your mother,"
Mr. Ringgan went on, "and thanks for her kind offer. I may
perhaps — I don't know — avail myself of it. If anything
should bring Mrs. Carleton this way we should like to see her.
I am glad to see my friends," he said, shaking the young
gentleman's hand, — "as long as I have a house to ask 'em to!"

"That will be for many years, I trust," said Mr. Carleton,
respectfully, struck with something in the old gentleman's
manner.

"I don't know, Sir!" said Mr. Ringgan, with again the
dignified look of trouble: — " it may not be! — I wish you
good day, Sir."




CHAPTER IV.


A mind that in a calm angelic mood
Of happy wisdom, meditating good,
Beholds, of all from her high powers required,
Much done, and much designed, and more desired. —
WORDSWORTH.


"I've had such a delicious day, dear grandpa," said little
Fleda, as they sat at supper; "you can't think how kind Mr.
Carleton has been."

"Has he? Well, dear, I'm glad on't; he seems a very nice young
man."

"He's a smart-looking feller," said Cynthy, who was pouring
out the tea.

"And we have got the greatest quantity of nuts!" Fleda went
on; "enough for all winter. Cynthy and I will have to make
ever so many journeys to fetch 'em all; and they are splendid
big ones. Don't you say anything to Mr. Didenhover, Cynthy."

"I don't desire to meddle with Mr. Didenhover unless I've got
to," said Cynthy, with an expression of considerable disgust.
"You needn't give no charges to me."

"But you'll go with me, Cynthy?"

"I s'pose I'll have to," said Miss Gall, drily, after a short
interval of sipping tea and helping herself to sweet-meats.

This lady had a pervading acidity of face and temper, but it
was no more. To take her name as standing for a fair setting
forth of her character would be highly injurious to a really
respectable composition, which the world's neglect (there was
no other imaginable cause) had soured a little.

Almost Fleda's first thought on coming home had been about Mr.
Jolly. But she knew very well, without asking, that he had not
been there; she would not touch the subject.

"I haven't had such a fine day of nutting in a great while,
grandpa," she said again; "and you never saw such a good hand
as Mr. Carleton is at whipping the trees."

"How came he to go with you?"

"I don't know; I suppose it was to please me, in the first
place; but I am sure he enjoyed it himself; and he liked the
pie and cheese, too, Cynthy."

"Where did your cousin go?"

"O, he went off after the woodcock. I hope he didn't find
any."

"What do you think of those two young men, Fairy?"

"In what way, grandpa?"

"I mean, which of them do you like the best?"

"Mr. Carleton."

"But t'other one's your cousin," said Mr. Ringgan, bending
forward and examining his little granddaughter's face with a
curious, pleased look, as he often did when expecting an
answer from her.

"Yes," said Fleda; "but he isn't so much of a gentleman."

"How do you know that?"

"I don't think he is," said Fleda, quietly.

"But why, Fairy?"

"He doesn't know how to keep his word as well, grandpa."

"Ay, ay? let's hear about that," said Mr. Ringgan.

A little reluctantly, for Cynthia was present, Fleda told the
story of the robins, and how Mr. Carleton would not let the
gun be fired.

"Wa'n't your cousin a little put out by that?"

"They were both put out," said Fleda; "Mr. Carleton was very
angry for a minute, and then Mr. Rossitur was angry, but I
think he could have been angrier if he had chosen."

Mr. Ringgan laughed, and then seemed in a sort of amused
triumph about something.

"Well, dear!" he remarked after a while; "you'll never buy
wooden nutmegs, I expect."

Fleda laughed, and hoped not, and asked him why he said so.
But he didn't tell her.

"Mr. Ringgan," said Cynthy, "hadn't I better run up the hill
after supper, and ask Mis' Plumfield to come down and help to-
morrow? I s'pose you'll want considerable of a set-out; and if
both them young men comes, you'll want some more help to
entertain 'em than I can give you, it's likely."

"Do so — do so," said the old gentleman. "Tell her who I
expect, and ask her if she can come and help you, and me too."

"O, and I'll go with you, Cynthy," said Fleda. "I'll get aunt
Miriam to come, I know."

"I should think you'd be run off your legs already, Flidda,"
said Miss Cynthia; " what ails you to want to be going again?"

But this remonstrance availed nothing. Supper was hurried
through, and leaving the table standing, Cynthia and Fleda set
off to "run up the hill."

They were hardly a few steps from the gate when they heard the
clatter of horses' hoofs behind them, and the two young
gentlemen came riding hurriedly past, having joined company
and taken their horses at Queechy Run. Rossitur did not seem
to see his little cousin and her companion; but the doffed cap
and low inclination of the other rider as they flew by called
up a smile and blush of pleasure to Fleda's face; and the
sound of their horses' hoofs had died away in the distance,
before the light had faded from her cheeks, or she was quite
at home to Cynthia's observations. She was possessed with the
feeling, what a delightful thing it was to have people do
things in such a manner.

"That was your cousin, wa'n't it?" said Cynthy, when the spell
was off.

"No," said Fleda, "the other one was my cousin."

"Well — I mean one of them fellers that went by. He's a
soldier, ain't he?"

"An officer," said Fleda.

"Well, it does give a man an elegant look to be in the
militie, don't it? I should admire to have a cousin like that.
It's dreadful becoming to have that — what is it they call it?
— to let the beard grow over the mouth. I s'pose they can't do
that without they be in the army, can they?"

"I don't know," said Fleda. "I hope not. I think it is very
ugly."

"Do you? Oh! I admire it. It makes a man look so spry!"

A few hundred yards from Mr. Ringgan's gate the road began to
wind up a very long heavy hill. Just at the hill's foot, it
crossed by a rude bridge the bed of a noisy brook that came
roaring down from the higher grounds turning sundry mill and
factory wheels in its way. About half-way up the hill one of
these was placed, belonging to a mill for sawing boards. The
little building stood alone, no other in sight, with a dark
background of wood rising behind it on the other side of the
brook; the stream itself running smoothly for a small space
above the mill, and leaping down madly below, as if it
disdained its bed, and would clear at a bound every impediment
in its way to the sea. When the mill was not going, the
quantity of water that found its way down the hill was indeed
very small, enough only to keep up a pleasant chattering with
the stones; but as soon as the stream was allowed to gather
all its force and run free, its loquacity was such that it
would prevent a traveller from suspecting his approach to the
mill, until, very near, the monotonous hum of its saw could be
heard. This was a place Fleda dearly loved. The wild sound of
the waters, and the lonely keeping of the scene, with the
delicious smell of the new-sawn boards, and the fascination of
seeing the great logs of wood walk up to the relentless,
tireless, up-and-down-going steel; as the generations of men
in turn present themselves to the course of those sharp events
which are the teeth of Time's saw; until all of a sudden the
master spirit, the man regulator of this machinery, would
perform some conjuration on lever and wheel, and at once, as
at the touch of an enchanter, the log would be still and the
saw stay its work; the business of life came to a stand, and
the romance of the little brook sprang up again. Fleda never
tired of it — never. She would watch the saw play and stop,
and go on again; she would have her ears dinned with the
hoarse clang of the machinery, and then listen to the laugh of
the mill-stream; she would see with untiring patience one
board after another cut and cast aside, and log succeed to
log; and never turned weary away from that mysterious image of
Time's doings. Fleda had, besides, without knowing it, the eye
of a painter. In the lonely hill-side, the odd-shaped little
mill, with its accompaniments of wood and water, and the great
logs of timber lying about the ground in all directions and
varieties of position, there was a picturesque charm for her,
where the country people saw nothing but business and a place
fit for it. Their hands grew hard where her mind was refining.
Where they made dollars and cents, she was growing rich in
stores of thought and associations of beauty. How many
purposes the same thing serves!

"That had ought to be your grandpa's mill this minute,"
observed Cynthy.

"I wish it was!" sighed Fleda. "Who's got it now, Cynthy?"

"O, it's that chap McGowan, I expect; he's got pretty much the
hull of everything. I told Mr. Ringgan I wouldn't let him have
it if it was me, at the time. Your grandpa 'd be glad to get
it back now, I guess."

Fleda guessed so too; but also guessed that Miss Gall was
probably very far from being possessed of the whole rationale
of the matter. So she made her no answer.

After reaching the brow of the hill, the road continued on a
very gentle ascent towards a little settlement half a quarter
of a mile off; passing, now and then, a few scattered
cottages, or an occasional mill or turner's shop. Several
mills and factories, with a store and a very few dwelling-
houses, were all the settlement; not enough to entitle it to
the name of a village. Beyond these and the millponds, of
which in the course of the road there were three or four, and
with a brief intervening space of cultivated fields, a single
farmhouse stood alone; just upon the borders of a large and
very fair sheet of water, from which all the others had their
supply; so large and fair, that nobody cavilled at its taking
the style of a lake, and giving its own pretty name of
Deepwater both to the settlement and the farm that half
embraced it. This farm was Seth Plumfield's.

At the garden gate Fleda quitted Cynthy, and rushed forward to
meet her aunt, whom she saw coming round the corner of the
house, with her gown pinned up behind her, from attending to
some domestic concern among the pigs, the cows, or the
poultry.

"O, aunt Miriam," said Fleda, eagerly, "we are going to have
company to tea to-morrow — wont you come and help us?"

Aunt Miriam laid her hands upon Fleda's shoulders, and looked
at Cynthy.

"I came up to see if you wouldn't come down to-morrow, Mis'
Plumfield," said that personage, with her usual dry, business
tone, always a little on the wrong side of sweet; "your
brother has taken a notion to ask two young fellers from the
Pool to supper, and they're grand folks, I s'pose, and have
got to have a fuss made for 'em. I don't know what Mr. Ringgan
was thinkin' of, or whether he thinks I have got anything to
do or not; but anyhow, they're a comin', I s'pose, and must
have somethin' to eat; and I thought the best thing I could do
would be to come and get you into the works, if I could. I
should feel a little queer to have nobody but me to say
nothin' to them at the table."

"Ah, do come, aunt Miriam!" said Fleda; "it will be twice as
pleasant if you do; and besides, we want to have everything
very nice, you know."

Aunt Miriam smiled at Fleda, and inquired of Miss Gall what
she had in the house.

"Why, I don't know, Mis' Plumfield," said the lady, while
Fleda threw her arms round her aunt, and thanked her; "there
ain't nothin' particler — pork and beef, and the old story.
I've got some first-rate pickles. I calculated to make some
sort o' cake in the morning."

"Any of those small hams left?"

"Not a bone of 'em, these six weeks. _I_ don't see how they've
gone, for my part. I'd lay any wager there were two in the
smoke-house when I took the last one out. If Mr. Didenhover
was a little more like a weasel I should think he'd been in."

"Have you cooked that roaster I sent down."

"No, Mis' Plumfield, I ha'n't; it's such a plaguy sight of
trouble!" said Cynthy, with a little apologetic giggle; "I was
keepin' it for some day when I hadn't much to do."

"I'll take the trouble of it. l'll be down bright and early in
the morning, and we'll see what's best to do. How's your last
churning, Cynthy?"

"Well, I guess it's pretty middlin', Mis' Plumfield."

" 'T isn't anything very remarkable, aunt Miriam," said Fleda,
shaking her head.

"Well, well," said Mrs. Plumfield, smiling; "run away down
home now, and I'll come to-morrow, and I guess we'll fix it.
But who is it that grandpa has asked?"

Fleda and Cynthy both opened at once.

"One of them is my cousin, aunt Miriam, that was at West
Point, and the other is the nicest English gentleman you ever
saw; you will like him very much; he has been with me getting
nuts all to-day."

"They're a smart enough couple of chaps," said Cynthia; "they
look as if they lived where money was plenty."

"Well, I'll come to-morrow," repeated Mrs. Plumfield, "and
we'll see about it. Good night, dear!"

She took Fleda's head in both her hands, and gave her a most
affectionate kiss; and the two petitioners set off homewards
again.

Aunt Miriam was not at all like her brother, in feature,
though the moral characteristics suited the relationship
sufficiently well. There was the expression of strong sense
and great benevolence; the unbending uprightness of mind and
body at once; and the dignity of an essentially noble
character, not the same as Mr. Ringgan's, but such as well
became his sister. She had been brought up among the Quakers,
and though now, and for many years, a staunch Presbyterian,
she still retained a tincture of the calm efficient gentleness
of mind and manner that belongs so inexplicably to them. More
womanly sweetness than was in Mr. Ringgan's blue eye, a woman
need not wish to have; and perhaps his sister's had not so
much. There was no want of it in her heart, nor in her manner,
but the many and singular excellences of her character were a
little overshadowed by super-excellent housekeeping. Not a
taint of the littleness that sometimes grows therefrom, — not
a trace of the narrowness of mind that over-attention to such
pursuits is too apt to bring; — on every important occasion
aunt Miriam would come out, free and unshackled, from all the
cobweb entanglements of housewifery; she would have tossed
housewifery to the winds, if need were, (but it never was, for
in a new sense she always contrived to make both ends meet).
It was only in the unbroken everyday course of affairs that
aunt Miriam's face showed any tokens of that incessant train
of _small cares_ which had never left their impertinent
footprints upon the broad high brow of her brother. Mr.
Ringgan had no affinity with small cares; deep serious matters
received his deep and serious consideration; but he had as
dignified a disdain of trifling annoyances or concernments as
any great mastiff or Newfoundlander ever had for the yelping
of a little cur.




CHAPTER V.


Ynne London citye was I borne,
Of parents of grete note;
My fadre dydd a nobile arms
Emblazon onne hys cote.
CHATTERTON.


In the snuggest and best private room of the House at
Montepoole, a party of ladies and gentlemen were gathered,
awaiting the return of the sportsmen. The room had been made
as comfortable as any place could be in a house built for "the
season," after the season was past. A splendid fire of hickory
logs was burning brilliantly and making amends for many
deficiencies; the closed wooden shutters gave the reality if
not the look of warmth, for though the days might be fine and
mild, the mornings and evenings were always very cool up there
among the mountains; and a table stood at the last point of
readiness for having dinner served. They only waited for the
lingering woodcock hunters.

It was rather an elderly party, with the exception of one
young man whose age might match that of the absent two. He was
walking up and down the room with somewhat the air of having
nothing to do with himself. Another gentleman, much older,
stood warming his back at the fire, feeling about his jaws and
chin with one hand, and looking at the dinner-table in a sort
of expectant reverie. The rest, three ladies, sat quietly
chatting. All these persons were extremely different from one
another in individual characteristics, and all had the
unmistakable mark of the habit of good society; as difficult
to locate, and as easy to recognise, as the sense of _freshness_
which some ladies have the secret of diffusing around
themselves; — no definable sweetness, nothing in particular,
but making a very agreeable impression.

One of these ladies, the mother of the perambulating young
officer, (he was a class-mate of Rossitur's,) was extremely
plain in feature, even more than _ordinary_. This plainness was
not, however, devoid of sense, and it was relieved by an
uncommon amount of good-nature and kindness of heart. In her
son the sense deepened into acuteness, and the kindness of
heart retreated, it is to be hoped, into some hidden recess of
his nature; for it very rarely showed itself in open
expression; that is, to an eye keen in reading the natural
signs of emotion; for it cannot be said that his manner had
any want of amenity or politeness.

The second lady, the wife of the gentleman on the hearth-rug,
or rather on the spot where the hearth-rug should have been,
was a strong contrast to this mother and son; remarkably
pretty, delicate, and even lovely; with a black eye, however,
that though in general soft, could show a mischievous sparkle
upon occasion; still young, and one of those women who always
were and always will be pretty and delicate at any age.

The third had been very handsome, and was still a very elegant
woman, but her face had seen more of the world's wear and
tear. It had never known placidity of expression, beyond what
the habitual command of good-breeding imposed. She looked
exactly what she was, a perfect woman of the world. A very
good specimen, — for Mrs. Carleton had sense and cultivation,
and even feeling enough, to play the part very gracefully; yet
her mind was bound in the shackles of "the world's" tyrannical
forging, and had never been free; and her heart bowed
submissively to the same authority.

"Here they are! Welcome home," exclaimed this lady, as her son
and his friend at length made their appearance; — "Welcome
home — we are all famishing; and I don't know why in the world
we waited for you, for I am sure you don't deserve it. What
success? What success, Mr. Rossitur?"

"Faith, Ma'am, there's little enough to boast of, as far as I
am concerned. Mr. Carleton may speak for himself."

"I am very sorry, Ma'am, you waited for me," said that
gentleman. "I am a delinquent, I acknowledge. The day came to
an end before I was at all aware of it."

"It would not do to flatter you so far as to tell you why we
waited," said Mrs. Evelyn's soft voice. And then perceiving
that the gentleman at whom she was looking gave her no answer,
she turned to the other. "How many woodcock, Mr. Rossitur?"

"Nothing to show, Ma'am," he replied. "Didn't see a solitary
one. I heard some partridges, but I didn't mean to have room
in my bag for them."

"Did you find the right ground, Rossitur?"

"I had a confounded long tramp after it if I didn't," said the
discomfited sportsman, who did not seem to have yet recovered
his good humour.

"Were you not together?" said Mrs. Carleton. - "Where were
you, Guy?"

"Following the sport another way, Ma'am; I had very good
success, too."

"What's the total?" said Mr. Evelyn. "How much game did you
bag?"

"Really, Sir, I didn't count. I can only answer for a bagful."

"Ladies and gentlemen!" cried Rossitur, bursting forth, —
"What will you say when I tell you that Mr. Carleton deserted
me and the sport in a most unceremonious manner, and that he,
— the cynical philosopher, the reserved English gentleman, the
gay man of the world, — you are all of 'em by turns, aren't
you, Carleton? — _he!_ — has gone and made a very cavaliero
servente of himself to a piece of rusticity, and spent all to-
day in helping a little girl pick up chestnuts."

"Mr. Carleton would be a better man if he were to spend a good
many more days in the same manner," said that gentleman, drily
enough. But the entrance of dinner put a stop to both laughter
and questioning for a time, all of the party being well
disposed to their meat.

When the pickerel from the lakes, and the poultry and half-
kept joints had had their share of attention, and a pair of
fine wild ducks were set on the table, the tongues of the
party found something to do besides eating.

"We have had a very satisfactory day among the Shakers, Guy,"
said Mrs. Carleton; "and we have arranged to drive to Kenton
to-morrow — I suppose you will go with us?"

"With pleasure, mother, but that I am engaged to dinner about
five or six miles in the opposite direction."

"Engaged to dinner! — what with this old gentleman where you
went last night? And you too, Mr. Rossitur?"

"I have made no promise, Ma'am; but I take it I must go."

"Vexatious! Is the little girl going with us, Guy?"

"I don't know yet — I half apprehend, yes; there seems to be a
doubt in her grandfather's mind, not whether he can let her
go, but whether he can keep her, and that looks like it."

"Is it your little cousin who proved the successful rival of
the woodcock to-day, Charlton?" said Mrs. Evelyn. "What is
she?"

"I don't know, Ma'am, upon my word. I presume Carleton will
tell you she is something uncommon and quite remarkable."

"Is she, Mr. Carleton?"

"What, Ma'am?"

"Uncommon?"

"Very."

"Come? That _is_ something, from _you_," said Rossitur's brother
officer, Lieut. Thorn.

"What's the uncommonness?" said Mrs. Thorn, addressing herself
rather to Mr. Rossitur as she saw Mr. Carleton's averted eye;
— "Is she handsome, Mr. Rossitur?"

"I can't tell you, I am sure, Ma'am. I saw nothing but a nice
child enough, in a calico frock, just such as one would see in
any farm-house. She rushed into the room when she was first
called to see us, from somewhere in distant regions, with an
immense iron ladle a foot and a half long in her hand, with
which she had been performing unknown feats of housewifery;
and they had left her head still encircled with a halo of
kitchen smoke. If, as they say, 'coming events cast their
shadows before,' she was the shadow of supper."

"O, Charlton, Charlton!" said Mrs. Evelyn, but in a tone of
very gentle and laughing reproof, — "for shame! What a
picture! and of your cousin!"

"Is she a pretty child, Guy?" said Mrs. Carleton, who did not
relish her son's grave face.

"No, Ma'am —something more than that."

"How old?"

"About ten or eleven."

"That's an ugly age."

"She will never be at an ugly age."

"What style of beauty?"

"The highest — that degree of mould and finish which belongs
only to the finest material."

"That is hardly the kind of beauty one would expect to see in
such a place," said Mrs. Carleton. "From one side of her
family, to be sure, she has a right to it."

"I have seen very few examples of it anywhere," said her son.

"Who were her parents?" said Mrs. Evelyn.

"Her mother was Mrs. Rossitur's sister — her father" —

"Amy Charlton!" exclaimed Mrs. Evelyn, — "Oh, I knew her! Was
Amy Charlton her mother? O, I didn't know whom you were
talking of. She was one of my dearest friends. Her daughter
may well be handsome — she was one of the most lovely persons
I ever knew; in body and mind both. O, I loved Amy Charlton
very much. I must see this child."

"I don't know who her father was," Mrs. Carleton went on.

"Oh, her father was Major Ringgan," said Mrs. Evelyn. "I never
saw him, but I have heard him spoken of in very high terms. I
always heard that Amy married very well."

"Major Ringgan!" said Mrs. Thorn; "his name is very well
known; he was very distinguished."

"He was a self-made man, entirely," said Mrs. Evelyn, in a
tone that conveyed a good deal more than the simple fact.

"Yes, he was a self-made man," said Mrs. Thorn, "but I should
never think of that where a man distinguishes himself so much;
he was very distinguished."

"Yes, and for more than officer-like qualities," said Mrs.
Evelyn. "I have heard his personal accomplishments as a
gentleman highly praised."

"So that little Miss Ringgan's right to be a beauty may be
considered clearly made out," said Mr. Thorn.

"It is one of those singular cases," said Mr. Carleton, "where
purity of blood proves itself, and one has no need to go back
to past generations to make any inquiry concerning it."

"Hear him!" cried Rossitur; "and for the life of me I could
see nothing of all this wonder. Her face is not at all
striking."

"The wonder is not so much in what it is, as in what it
indicates," said Mr. Carleton.

"What does it indicate?" said his mother.

"Suppose you were to ask me to count the shades of colour in a
rainbow," answered he.

"Hear him!" cried Thorn, again.

"Well, I hope she will go with us, and we shall have a chance
of seeing her," said Mrs. Carleton.

"If she were only a few years older, it is my belief you would
see enough of her, Ma'am," said young Rossitur.

The haughty coldness of Mr. Carleton's look, at this speech,
could not be surpassed.

"But she has beauty of feature, too, has she not?" Mrs.
Carleton asked again of her son.

"Yes, in very high degree. The contour of the eye and brow I
never saw finer."

"It is a little odd," said Mrs. Evelyn, with the slightest
touch of a piqued air, (she had some daughters at home) —
"that is a kind of beauty one is apt to associate with high
breeding, and certainly you very rarely see it anywhere else;
and Major Ringgan, however distinguished and estimable, as I
have no doubt he was, — and this child must have been brought
up with no advantages, here in the country."

"My dear madam," said Mr. Carleton, smiling a little, "this
high breeding is a very fine thing, but it can neither be
given nor bequeathed; and we cannot entail it."

"But it can be taught, can't it?"

"If it could be taught, it is to be hoped it would be oftener
learned," said the young man, drily.

"But what do we mean, then, when we talk of the high breeding
of certain classes — and families? and why are we not
disappointed when we look to find it in connection with
certain names and positions in society?"

"I do not know," said Mr. Carleton.

"You don't mean to say, I suppose, Mr. Carleton," said Thorn,
bridling a little, "that it is a thing independent of
circumstances, and that there is no value in blood?"

"Very nearly — answering the question as you understand it."

"May I ask how you understand it?"

"As you do, Sir."

"Is there no high breeding then in the world?" asked good-
natured Mrs. Thorn, who could be touched on this point of
family.

"There is very little of it. What is commonly current under
the name, is merely counterfeit notes which pass from hand to
hand of those who are bankrupt in the article."

"And to what serve, then," said Mrs. Evelyn, colouring, "the
long lists of good old names which even you, Mr. Carleton, I
know, do not disdain?"

"To endorse the counterfeit notes," said Mr. Carleton,
smiling.

"Guy, you are absurd!" said his mother. "I will not sit at the
table and listen to you if you talk such stuff. What do you
mean?"

"I beg your pardon, mother, you have misunderstood me," said
he, seriously. "Mind, I have been talking, not of ordinary
conformity to what the world requires, but of that fine
perfection of mental and moral constitution, which, in its own
natural necessary acting, leaves nothing to be desired, in
every occasion or circumstance of life. It is the pure gold,
and it knows no tarnish; it is the true coin, and it gives
what it proffers to give; it is the living plant ever
blossoming, and not the cut and art-arranged flowers. It is a
thing of the mind altogether; and where nature has not
curiously prepared the soil, it is in vain to try to make it
grow. _This_ is not very often met with!"

"No, indeed," said Mrs. Carleton; " but you are so
fastidiously nice in all your notions! — at this rate nothing
will ever satisfy you."

"I don't think it is so very uncommon," said Mrs. Thorn. "It
seems to me one sees as much of it as can be expected, Mr.
Carleton."

Mr. Carleton pared his apple with an engrossed air.

"O no, Mrs. Thorn," said Mrs. Evelyn, "I don't agree with you
— I don't think you often see such a combination as Mr.
Carleton has been speaking of — very rarely! But, Mr.
Carleton, don't you think it is generally found in that class
of society where the habits of life are constantly the most
polished and refined?"

"Possibly," answered he, diving into the core of his apple.

"No, but tell me; I want to know what you think."

"Cultivation and refinement have taught people to recognize
and analyze and imitate it; the counterfeits are most current
in that society; but as to the reality, I don't know; it is
nature's work, and she is a little freaky about it."

"But, Guy!" said his mother, impatiently, "this is not selling
but giving away one's birthright. Where is the advantage of
birth if breeding is not supposed to go along with it? Where
the parents have had intelligence and refinement, do we not
constantly see them inherited by the children? and in an
increasing degree from generation to generation?"

"Very extraordinary!" said Mrs. Thorn.

"I do not undervalue the blessings of inheritance, mother,
believe me, nor deny the general doctrine; though intelligence
does not always descend, and manners die out, and that
invaluable legacy, a name, may be thrown away. But this
delicate thing we are speaking of is not intelligence nor
refinement, but comes rather from a happy combination of
qualities, together with a peculiarly fine nervous
constitution; the _essence_ of it may consist with an omission,
even with an awkwardness, and with a sad ignorance of
conventionalities."

"But even if that be so, do you think it can ever reach its
full development but in the circumstances that are favourable
to it?" said Mrs. Evelyn.

"Probably not often; the diamond in some instances wants the
graver; — but it is the diamond. Nature seems now and then to
have taken a princess's child and dropped it in some odd
corner of the kingdom, while she has left the clown in the
palace."

"From all which I understand," said Mr. Thorn, "that this
little chestnut girl is a princess in disguise."

"Really, Carleton!" — Rossitur began.

Mrs. Evelyn leaned back in her chair, and quietly eating a
piece of apple, eyed Mr. Carleton with a look half amused and
half discontented, and behind all that, keenly attentive.

"Take for example those two miniatures you were looking at
last night, Mrs. Evelyn," the young man went on; — "Louis XVI.
and Marie Antoinette — what would you have more unrefined,
more heavy, more _animal_, than the face of that descendant of a
line of kings?"

Mrs. Evelyn bowed her head acquiescingly, and seemed to enjoy
her apple.

"_He_ had a pretty bad lot of an inheritance, sure enough, take
it all together," said Rossitur.

"Well," said Thorn, — "is this little stray princess as well-
looking as t'other miniature?"

"Better, in some respects," said Mr. Carleton, coolly.

"Better!" cried Mrs. Carleton.

"Not in the brilliancy of her beauty, but in some of its
characteristics; — better in its promise."

"Make yourself intelligible, for the sake of my nerves, Guy,"
said his mother. "Better looking than Marie Antoinette!"

"My unhappy cousin is said to be a fairy, Ma'am," said Mr.
Rossitur; "and I presume all this may be referred to
enchantment."

"That face of Marie Antoinette's," said Mr. Carleton, smiling,
"is an undisciplined one — uneducated."

"Uneducated!" exclaimed Mrs. Carleton.

"Don't mistake me, mother, — I do not mean that it shows any
want of reading or writing, but it does indicate an untrained
character — a mind unprepared for the exigencies of life."

"She met those exigencies indifferently well, too," observed
Mr. Thorn.

"Ay — but pride, and the dignity of rank, and undoubtedly some
of the finer qualities of a woman's nature, might suffice for
that, and yet leave her utterly unfitted to play wisely and
gracefully a part in ordinary life."

"Well, she had no such part to play," said Mrs. Carleton.

"Certainly, mother — but I am comparing faces."

"Well — the other face?"

"It has the same style of refined beauty of feature, but — to
compare them in a word, Marie Antoinette looks to me like a
superb exotic that has come to its brilliant perfection of
bloom in a hothouse — it would lose its beauty in the strong
free air — it would change and droop if it lacked careful
waiting upon and constant artificial excitement; — the other,"
said Mr. Carleton, musingly, — "is a flower of the woods,
raising its head above frost and snow and the rugged soil
where fortune has placed it, with an air of quiet patient
endurance; a storm wind may bring it to the ground, easily, —
but if its gentle nature be not broken, it will look up again,
unchanged, and bide its time in unrequited beauty and
sweetness to the end."

"The exotic for me!" cried Rossitur, — "if I only had a place
for her. I don't like pale elegancies."

"I'd make a piece of poetry of that if I was you, Carleton,"
said Mr. Thorn.

"Mr. Carleton has done that already," said Mrs. Evelyn,
smoothly.

"I never heard you talk so before, Guy," said his mother,
looking at him. His eyes had grown dark with intensity of
expression while he was speaking, gazing at visionary flowers
or beauties through the dinner-table mahogany. He looked up
and laughed as she addressed him, and rising, turned off
lightly with his usual air.

"I congratulate you, Mrs. Carleton," Mrs. Evelyn whispered as
they went from the table, "that this little beauty is not a
few years older."

"Why?" said Mrs. Carleton, "If she is all that Guy says, I
would give anything in the world to see him married."

"Time enough," said Mrs. Evelyn, with a knowing smile.

"I don't know," said Mrs. Carleton, — "I think he would be
happier. He is a restless spirit — nothing satisfies him. —
nothing fixes him. He cannot rest at home — he abhors politics
— he flits away from country to country and doesn't remain
long anywhere."

"And you with him."

"And I with him. I should like to see if a wife could not
persuade him to stay at home."

"I guess you have petted him too much," said Mrs. Evelyn,
slyly.

"I cannot have petted him too much, for he has never
disappointed me."

"No, of course not; but it seems you find it difficult to lead
him."

"No one ever succeeded in doing that," said Mrs. Carleton,
with a smile, that was anything but an ungratified one. "He
never wanted driving, and to lead him is impossible. You may
try it; and while you think you are going to gain your end, if
he thinks it worth while, you will suddenly find that he is
leading you. It is so with everybody — in some inexplicable
way."

Mrs. Evelyn thought the mystery was very easily explicable, as
far as the mother was concerned; and changed the conversation.




CHAPTER VI.


To them life was a simple art
Of duties to be done,
A game where each man took his part,
A race where all must run;
A battle whose great scheme and scope
They little cared to know,
Content, as men-at-arms, to cope
Each with his fronting foe.
MILNES.


On so great and uncommon an occasion as Mr. Ringgan's giving a
dinner-party, the disused front parlour was opened and set in
order; the women-folks, as he called them, wanting the whole
back part of the house for their operations. So when the
visitors arrived, in good time, they were ushered into a large
square, bare-looking room — a strong contrast even to their
dining-room at the Pool — which gave them nothing of the
welcome of the pleasant farm-house kitchen, and where nothing
of the comfort of the kitchen found its way but a very strong
smell of roast pig. There was the cheerless air of a place
where nobody lives, or thinks of living. The very chairs
looked as if they had made up their minds to be forsaken for a
term of months; it was impossible to imagine that a cheerful
supper had ever been laid upon the stiff, cold-looking table,
that stood with its leaves down so primly against the wall.
All that a blazing fire could do to make amends for
deficiencies, it did; but the wintry wind that swept round the
house shook the paper window-shades in a remorseless way; and
the utmost efforts of said fire could not prevent it from
coming in, and giving disagreeable, impertinent whispers at
the ears of everybody.

Mr. Ringgan's welcome, however, was, and would have been the
same thing anywhere — genial, frank, and dignified; neither he
nor it could be changed by circumstances. Mr. Carleton admired
anew, as he came forward, the fine presence and noble look of
his old host; a look that it was plain had never needed to
seek the ground; a brow that in large or small things had
never been crossed by a shadow of shame. And to a discerning
eye the face was not a surer index of a lofty than of a
peaceful and pure mind; too peace-loving and pure, perhaps,
for the best good of his affairs in the conflict with a
selfish and unscrupulous world. At least, now, in the time of
his old age and infirmity; in former days, his straightforward
wisdom, backed by an indomitable courage and strength, had
made Mr. Ringgan no safe subject for either braving or over-
reaching.

Fleda's keen-sighted affection was heartily gratified by the
manner in which her grandfather was greeted by at least one of
his guests, and that the one about whose opinion she cared the
most. Mr. Carleton seemed as little sensible of the cold room
as Mr. Ringgan himself. Fleda felt sure that her grandfather
was appreciated; and she would have sat delightedly listening
to what the one and the other were presently saying, if she
had not taken notice that her cousin looked _astray_. He was
eyeing the fire with a profound air, and she fancied he
thought it poor amusement. Little as Fleda in secret really
cared about that, with an instant sacrifice of her own
pleasure, she quietly changed her position for one from which
she could more readily bring to bear upon Mr. Rossitur's
distraction the very light artillery of her conversation; and
attacked him on the subject of the game he had brought home.
Her motive and her manner both must have been lost upon the
young gentleman. He forthwith set about amusing himself in a
way his little entertainer had not counted upon, namely, with
giving a chase to her wits; partly to pass away the time, and
partly to gratify his curiosity, as he said, "to see what
Fleda was made of." By a curious system of involved,
startling, or absurd questions, he endeavoured to puzzle, or
confound, or entrap her. Fleda, however, steadily presented a
grave front to the enemy, and would every now and then
surprise him with an unexpected turn or clever doubling, and
sometimes when he thought he had her in a corner, jump over
the fence and laugh at him from the other side. Mr. Rossitur's
respect for his little adversary gradually increased, and
finding that she had rather the best of the game, he at last
gave it up, just as Mr. Ringgan was asking Mr. Carleton if he
was a judge of stock? Mr. Carleton saying with a smile, "No,
but he hoped Mr. Ringgan would give him his first lesson," —
the old gentleman immediately arose with that alacrity of
manner he always wore when he had a visitor that pleased him,
and taking his hat and cane led the way out; choosing, with a
man's true carelessness of housewifery etiquette, the kitchen
route, of all others. Not even admonished by the sight of the
bright Dutch oven before the fire, that he was introducing his
visitors somewhat too early to the pig, he led the whole party
through, Cynthia scuttling away in haste across the kitchen
with something that must not be seen, while aunt Miriam looked
out at the company through the crack of the pantry door, at
which Fleda ventured a sly glance of intelligence.

It was a fine though a windy and cold afternoon; the lights
and shadows were driving across the broad upland and meadows.

"This is a fine arable country," remarked Mr. Carleton.

"Capital, Sir, capital, for many miles round, if we were not
so far from a market. I was one of the first that broke ground
in this township, — one of the very first settlers — I've seen
the rough and the smooth of it, and I never had but one mind
about it from the first. All this — as far as you can see — I
cleared myself; most of it with my own hand."

"That recollection must attach you strongly to the place, I
should think, Sir."

"Hum, perhaps I cared too much for it," he replied, "for it is
taken away from me. Well, it don't matter now."

"It is not yours?"

"No, Sir! it was mine a great many years; but I was obliged to
part with it, two years ago, to a scoundrel of a fellow —
McGowan, up here — he got an advantage over me. I can't take
care of myself any more as I used to do, and I don't find that
other people deal by me just as I could wish —"

He was silent for a moment and then went on —

"Yes, Sir! when I first set myself down here, or a little
further that way, my first house was, — a pretty rough house,
too, — there wa'n't two settlers beside within something like
ten miles round. — I've seen the whole of it cleared, from the
cutting of the first forest trees till this day."

"You have seen the nation itself spring up within that time,"
remarked his guest.

"Not exactly — that question of our nationality was settled a
little before I came here. I was born rather too late to see
the whole of that play — I saw the best of it, though — boys
were men in those days. My father was in the thick of it from
beginning to end."

"In the army, was he?"

"Ho, yes, Sir! he and every child he had that wasn't a girl —
there wasn't a man of the name that wa'n't on the right side.
I was in the army myself when I was fifteen. I was nothing but
a fifer — but I tell you, Sir! there wasn't a general officer
in the country that played his part with a prouder heart than
I did mine!"

"And was that the general spirit of the ranks?"

"Not altogether," replied the old gentleman, passing his hand
several times abstractedly over his white hair, a favourite
gesture with him, — "not exactly that — there was a good deal
of mixture of different materials, especially in this state;
and where the feeling wasn't pretty strong, it was no wonder
if it got tired out; but the real stuff, the true Yankee
blood, was pretty firm! Ay, and some of the rest! There was a
good deal to try men in those days. Sir, I have seen many a
time when I had nothing to dine upon but my fife, and it was
more than that could do to keep me from feeling very empty!"

"But was this a common case? did this happen often?" said Mr.
Carleton.

"Pretty often — pretty often, sometimes," answered the old
gentleman. "Things were very much out of order, you see, and
in some parts of the country it was almost impossible to get
the supplies the men needed. Nothing would have kept them
together, — nothing under heaven — but the love and confidence
they had in one name. Their love of right and independence
wouldn't have been strong enough, and besides a good many of
them got disheartened. A hungry stomach is a pretty stout
arguer against abstract questions. I have seen my father
crying like a child for the wants and sufferings he was
obliged to see, and couldn't relieve."

"And then you used to relieve yourselves, grandpa," said
Fleda.

"How was that, Fairy?"

Fleda looked at her grandfather, who gave a little preparatory
laugh, and passed his hand over his head again.

"Why, yes," said he, — "we used to think the tories, King
George's men, you know, were fair game; and when we happened
to be in the neighbourhood of some of them that we knew were
giving all the help they could to the enemy, we used to let
them cook our dinners for us once in a while."

"How did you manage that, Sir?"

"Why, they used to have little bake-ovens to cook their meats
and so on, standing some way out from the house, — did you
never see one of them? — raised on four little heaps of stone;
the bottom of the oven is one large flat stone, and the arch
built over it; — they look like a great beehive. Well — we
used to watch till we saw the good woman of the house get her
oven cleverly heated, and put in her batch of bread, or her
meat-pie, or her pumpkin and apple pies! — whichever it was —
there didn't any of 'em come much amiss — and when we guessed
they were pretty nigh done, three or four of us would creep in
and whip off the whole — oven and all! — to a safe place. I
tell you," said he, with a knowing nod of his head at the
laughing Fleda, — "those were first-rate pies!"

"And then did you put the oven back again afterwards,
grandpa?"

"I guess not often, dear!" replied the old gentleman.

"What do you think of such lawless proceedings, Miss Fleda?"
said Mr. Carleton, laughing at or with her.

"O, I like it," said Fleda. "You liked those pies all the
better, didn't you, grandpa, because you had got them from the
tories?"

"That we did! If we hadn't got them, maybe King George's men
would, in some shape. But we weren't always so lucky as to get
hold of an oven full. I remember one time several of us had
been out on a foraging expedition — there, Sir, what do you
think of that for a two-and-a-half year old?"

They had come up with the chief favourite of his barnyard, a
fine deep-coloured Devon bull.

"I don't know what one might see in Devonshire," he remarked,
presently, "but I know _this_ county can't show the like of
him?"

A discussion followed of the various beauties and excellencies
of the animal; a discussion in which Mr. Carleton certainly
took little part, while Mr. Ringgan descanted enthusiastically
upon "hide" and "brisket" and "bone," and Rossitur stood in an
abstraction — it might be scornful, it might be mazed. Little
Fleda quietly listening and looking at the beautiful creature,
which from being such a treasure to her grandfather was in a
sort one to her, more than half understood them all; but Mr.
Ringgan was too well satisfied with the attention of one of
his guests to miss that of the other.

"That fellow don't look as if _he_ had ever known short
commons," was Rossitur's single remark as they turned away.

"You did not give us the result of your foraging expedition,
Sir," said Mr. Carleton, in a different manner.

"Do, grandpa," said Fleda, softly.

"Ha! — Oh, it is not worth telling," said the old gentleman,
looking gratified; — "Fleda has heard my stories till she
knows them by heart — she could tell it as well herself. What
was it? — about the pig? — We had been out, several of us, one
afternoon, to try to get up a supper — or a dinner, for we had
had none — and we had caught a pig. It happened that I was the
only one of the party that had a cloak, and so the pig was
given to me to carry home, because I could hide it the best.
Well, Sir! — we were coming home, and had set our mouths for a
prime supper, when just as we were within a few rods of our
shanty, who should come along but our captain! My heart sank
as it never has done at the thought of a supper before or
since, I believe! I held my cloak together as well as I could,
and kept myself back a little, so that if the pig showed a
cloven foot behind me, the captain might not see it. But I
almost gave up all for lost when I saw the captain going into
the hut with us. There was a kind of a rude bedstead standing
there; and I set myself down upon the side of it, and gently
worked and eased my pig off under my cloak till I got him to
roll down behind the bed. I knew," said Mr. Ringgan, laughing,
"I knew by the captain's eye, as well as I knew anything, that
he smelt a rat; but he kept our counsel, as well as his own;
and when he was gone we took the pig out into the woods behind
the shanty and roasted him finely, and we sent and asked Capt.
Sears to supper; and he came and helped us eat the pig with a
great deal of appetite, and never asked no questions how we
came by him!"

"I wonder your stout-heartedness did not fail, in the course
of so long a time," said Mr. Carleton

"Never, Sir!'" said the old gentleman. "I never doubted for a
moment what the end would be. My father never doubted for a
moment. We trusted in God and in Washington!"

"Did you see actual service yourself?"

"No, Sir — I never did. I wish I had. I should like to have
had the honour of striking one blow at the rascals. However,
they were hit pretty well. I ought to be contented. My father
saw enough of fighting — he was colonel of a regiment — he was
at the affair of Burgoyne. _That_ gave us a lift in good time.
What rejoicing there was everywhere when that news came! I
could have fifed all day upon an empty stomach and felt
satisfied. People reckoned everywhere that the matter was
settled when that great piece of good fortune was given us.
And so it was! — wa'n't it, dear?" said the old gentleman,
with one of those fond, pleased, sympathetic looks to Fleda
with which he often brought up what he was saying.

"General Gates commanded there?" said Mr. Carleton.

"Yes, Sir. Gates was a poor stick — I never thought much of
him. That fellow Arnold distinguished himself in the actions
before Burgoyne's surrender. He fought like a brave man. It
seems strange that so mean a scamp should have had so much
blood in him!"


"Why; are great fighters generally good men, grandpa?" said
Fleda.

Not exactly, dear!" replied her grandfather; — "but such
little-minded rascality is not just the vice one would expect
to find in a gallant soldier."

"Those were times that made men," said Mr. Carleton, musingly.

"Yes," answered the old gentleman, gravely, — "they were times
that called for men, and God raised them up. But Washington
was the soul of the country, Sir!"

"Well, the time made him," said Mr. Carleton.

"I beg your pardon," said the old gentleman, with a very
decided little turn of his head. — "I think he made the time.
I don't know what it would have been, Sir, or what it would
have come to, but for him. After all, it is rather that the
things which try people show what is in them; — I hope there
are men enough in the country yet, though they haven't as good
a chance to show what they are."

"Either way," said his guest, smiling, "it is a happiness, Mr.
Ringgan, to have lived at a time when there was something
worth living for."

"Well — I don't know —" said the old gentleman; — "those times
would make the prettiest figure in a story or a romance, I
suppose; but I've tried both, and on the whole," said he, with
another of his looks at Fleda, "I think I like these times the
best!"


Fleda smiled her acquiescence. His guest could not help
thinking to himself that however pacific might be Mr.
Ringgan's temper, no man in those days that tried men could
have brought to the issue more stern inflexibility and gallant
fortitude of bearing. His frame bore evidence of great
personal strength, and his eye, with all its mildness, had an
unflinching dignity that _could_ never have quailed before duty
or danger. And now, while he was recalling with great
animation and pleasure the scenes of his more active life, and
his blue eye was shining with the fire of other days, his
manner had the self-possession and quiet sedateness of triumph
that bespeak a man always more ready to do than to say.
Perhaps the contemplation of the noble Roman-like old figure
before him did not tend to lessen the feeling, even the sigh,
of regret with which the young man said,

"There was something then for a man to do!"

"There is always that," said the old gentleman, quietly. "God
has given every man his work to do; and 'tain't difficult for
him to find out what. No man is put here to be idle."

"But," said his companion, with a look in which not a little
haughty reserve was mingled with a desire to speak out his
thoughts, "half the world are busy about humdrum concerns, and
the other half doing nothing, or worse."

"I don't know about that," said Mr. Ringgan; — "that depends
upon the way you take things. 'Tain't always the men that make
the most noise that are the most good in the world. Humdrum
affairs needn't be humdrum in the doing of 'em. It is my
maxim," said the old gentleman, looking at his companion with
a singularly open, pleasant smile, — "that a man may be great
about a'most anything — chopping wood, if he happens to be in
that line. I used to go upon that plan, Sir. Whatever I have
set my hand to do, I have done it as well as I knew how to;
and if you follow that rule out you'll not be idle nor humdrum
neither. Many's the time that I have mowed what would be a
day's work for another man, before breakfast."

Rossitur's smile was not meant to be seen. But Mr. Carleton's,
to the credit of his politeness and his understanding both,
was frank as the old gentleman's own, as he answered, with a
good-humoured shake of his head,

"I can readily believe it, Sir; and honour both your maxim and
your practice. But I am not exactly in that line."

"Why don't you try the army?" said Mr. Ringgan, with a look of
interest.

"There is not a cause worth fighting for," said the young man,
his brow changing again. "It is only to add weight to the
oppressor's hand, or throw away life in the vain endeavour to
avert it. I will do neither."

"But all the world is open before such a young man as you,"
said Mr. Ringgan.

"A large world," said Mr. Carleton, with his former mixture of
expression, — "but there isn't much in it."

"Politics?" said Mr. Ringgan.

"It is to lose oneself in a seething-pot, where the scum is
the most apparent thing."

"But there is society?" said Rossitur.

"Nothing better or more noble than the succession of motes
that flit through a sunbeam into oblivion."

"Well, why not, then, sit down quietly on one's estates and
enjoy them, one who has enough?"

"And be a worm in the heart of an apple."

"Well, then," said Rossitur, laughing, though not knowing
exactly how far he might venture, "there is nothing left for
you, as I don't suppose you would take to any of the learned
professions, but to strike out some new path for yourself —
hit upon some grand invention for benefiting the human race
and distinguishing your own name at once."

But while he spoke, his companion's face had gone back to its
usual look of imperturbable coolness; the dark eye was even
haughtily unmoved, till it met Fleda's inquiring and somewhat
anxious glance. He smiled.

"The nearest approach I ever made to that," said he, "was when
I went chestnuting the other day. Can't you find some more
work for me, Fairy?"

Taking Fleda's hand with his wonted graceful lightness of
manner, he walked on with her, leaving the other two to follow
together.

"You would like to know, perhaps, "observed Mr. Rossitur, in
rather a low tone, "that Mr. Carleton is an Englishman."

"Ay, ay?" said Mr. Ringgan. "An Englishman, is he? Well, Sir,
what is it that I would like to know?"

"_That_," said Rossitur. "I would have told you before if I
could. I supposed you might not choose to speak quite so
freely, perhaps, on American affairs before him."

"I haven't two ways of speaking, Sir, on anything," said the
old gentleman, a little dryly. "Is your friend very tender on
that chapter?"

"O, not that I know of at all," said Rossitur; "but you know
there is a great deal of feeling still among the English about
it — they have never forgiven us heartily for whipping them;
and I know Carleton is related to the nobility, and all that,
you know; so I thought —"

"Ah, well!" said the old gentleman — "we don't know much about
nobility and such gimcracks in this country. I'm not much of a
courtier. I am pretty much accustomed to speak my mind as I
think it. He's wealthy, I suppose?"

"He's more than that, Sir. Enormous estates! He's the finest
fellow in the world — one of the first young men in England."

"You have been there yourself, and know?" said Mr. Ringgan,
glancing at his companion.

"If I have not, Sir, others have told me that do."

"Ah, well," said Mr. Ringgan, placidly; "we sha'n't quarrel, I
guess. What did he come out here for — eh?"

"Only to amuse himself. They are going back again in a few
weeks, and I intend accompanying them to join my mother in
Paris. Will my little cousin be of the party?"

They were sauntering along towards the house. A loud calling
of her name the minute before, had summoned Fleda thither at
the top of her speed; and Mr. Carleton turned to repeat the
same question.

The old gentleman stopped, and striking his stick two or three
times against the ground, looked sorrowfully undetermined.

"Well, I don't know!" he said, at last — "It's a pretty hard
matter — she'd break her heart about it, I suppose —"

"I dare urge nothing, Sir," said Mr. Carleton. "I will only
assure you that if you entrust your treasure to us, she shall
be cherished as you would wish, till we place her in the hands
of her aunt."

"I know that, Sir, — I do not doubt it," said Mr. Ringgan;
"but, I'll tell you by and by what I conclude upon," he said,
with evident relief of manner, as Fleda came bounding back to
them. "Mr. Rossitur, have you made your peace with Fleda?"

"I was not aware that I had any to make, Sir," replied the
young gentleman. "I will do it with pleasure, if my little
cousin will tell me how. But she looks as if she needed
enlightening as much as myself."

"She has something against you, I can tell you," said the old
gentleman, looking amused, and speaking as if Fleda were a
curious little piece of human mechanism which could hear its
performances talked of with all the insensibility of any other
toy. "She gives it as her judgment that Mr. Carleton is the
most of a gentleman, because he keeps his promise."

"Oh, grandpa!"

Poor Fleda's cheek was hot with a distressful blush. Rossitur
coloured with anger. Mr. Carleton's smile had a very different
expression.

"If Fleda will have the goodness to recollect," said Rossitur,
"I cannot be charged with breaking a promise, for I made
none."

"But Mr. Carleton did," said Fleda.

"She is right, Mr. Rossitur, she is right," said that
gentleman; "a fallacy might as well elude Ithuriel's spear as
the sense of a pure spirit — there is no need of written
codes. Make your apologies, man, and confess yourself in the
wrong."

"Pho, pho," said the old gentleman, — "she don't take it very
much to heart, I guess _I_ ought to be the one to make the
apologies," he added, looking at Fleda's face.

But Fleda commanded herself, with difficulty, and announced
that dinner was ready.

"Mr. Rossitur tells me, Mr. Carleton, you are an Englishman,"
said his host. "I have some notion of that's passing through
my head before, but somehow I had entirely lost sight of it
when I was speaking so freely to you a little while ago, about
our national quarrel — I know some of your countrymen owe us a
grudge yet."

"Not I, I assure you," said the young Englishman. "I am
ashamed of them for it. I congratulate you on being
Washington's countryman, and a sharer in his grand struggle
for the right against the wrong."

Mr. Ringgan shook his guest's hand, looking very much pleased;
and having by this time arrived at the house, the young
gentlemen were formally introduced at once to the kitchen,
their dinner, and aunt Miriam.

It is not too much to say that the entertainment gave perfect
satisfaction to everybody — better fate than attends most
entertainments. Even Mr. Rossitur's ruffled spirit felt the
soothing influence of good cheer, to which he happened to be
peculiarly sensible, and came back to its average condition of
amenity.

Doubtless that was a most informal table, spread according to
no rules that, for many generations at least, have been known
in the refined world; an anomaly in the eyes of certainly one
of the company. Yet the board had a character of its own, very
far removed from vulgarity, and suiting remarkably well with
the condition and demeanour of those who presided over it — a
comfortable, well-to-do, substantial look, that could afford
to dispense with minor graces; a self-respect that was not
afraid of criticism. Aunt Miriam's successful efforts deserve
to be celebrated.

In the middle of the table, the polished amber of the pig's
arched back elevated itself — a striking object — but worthy
of the place he filled, as the honours paid him by everybody
abundantly testified. Aunt Miriam had sent down a basket of
her own bread, made out of the new flour, brown and white,
both as sweet and fine as it is possible for bread to be; the
piled-up slices were really beautiful. The superb butter had
come from aunt Miriam's dairy, too, for on such an occasion
she would not trust to the very doubtful excellence of Miss
Cynthia's doings. Every spare place on the table was filled
with dishes of potatoes, and pickles, and sweetmeats, that
left nothing to be desired in their respective kinds; the cake
was a delicious presentment of the finest of material; and the
pies, pumpkin pies, such as only aunt Miriam could make, rich
compounds of everything _but_ pumpkin, with enough of that to
give them a name; Fleda smiled to think how pleased aunt
Miriam must secretly be to see the homage paid her through
them. And most happily Mrs. Plumfield had discovered that the
last tea Mr. Ringgan had brought from the little Queechy store
was not very good, and there was no time to send up on "the
hill" for more, so she made coffee. Verily, it was not Mocha,
but the thick yellow cream with which the cups were filled,
really made up the difference. The most curious palate found
no want.

Everybody was in a high state of satisfaction, even to Miss
Cynthia Gall; who, having some lurking suspicion that Mrs.
Plumfield might design to cut her out of her post of tea-
making, had slipped herself into her usual chair behind the
tea-tray, before anybody else was ready to sit down. No one at
table bestowed a thought upon Miss Cynthia, but as she thought
of nothing else, she may be said to have had her fair share of
attention. The most unqualified satisfaction, however, was no
doubt little Fleda's. Forgetting, with a child's happy
readiness, the fears and doubts which had lately troubled her,
she was full of the present, enjoying, with a most unselfish
enjoyment, everything that pleased anybody else. She was glad
that the supper was a fine one, and so approved, because it
was her grandfather's hospitality, and her aunt Miriam's
housekeeping; little beside was her care for pies or coffee.
She saw with secret glee the expression of both her aunt's and
Mr. Ringgan's face; partly from pure sympathy, and partly
because, as she knew, the cause of it was Mr. Carleton, whom,
privately, Fleda liked very much. And after all, perhaps, he
had directly more to do with her enjoyment than all other
causes together.

Certainly that was true of him with respect to the rest of the
dinner-table. None at that dinner-table had ever seen the
like. With all the graceful charm of manner with which he
would have delighted a courtly circle, he came out from his
reserve and was brilliant, gay, sensible, entertaining, and
witty, to a degree that assuredly has very rarely been thrown
away upon an old farmer in the country and his unpolite
sister. They appreciated him though, as well as any courtly
circle could have done, and he knew it. In aunt Miriam's
strong sensible face, when not full of some hospitable care,
he could see the reflection of every play of his own; the
grave practical eye twinkled and brightened, giving a ready
answer to every turn of sense or humour in what he was saying.
Mr. Ringgan, as much of a child for the moment as Fleda
herself, had lost everything disagreeable, and was in the full
genial enjoyment of talk, rather listening than talking, with
his cheeks in a perpetual dimple of gratification, and a low
laugh of hearty amusement now and then rewarding the
conversational and kind efforts of his guest with a complete
triumph. Even the subtle charm which they could not quite
recognise wrought fascination. Miss Cynthia declared
afterwards, half admiring and half vexed, that he spoiled her
supper, for she forgot to think how it tasted. Rossitur — his
good humour was entirely restored; but whether even Mr.
Carleton's power could have achieved that without the perfect
seasoning of the pig and the smooth persuasion of the richly-
creamed coffee, it may perhaps be doubted. He stared,
mentally, for he had never known his friend condescend to
bring himself out in the same manner before; and he wondered
what he could see in the present occasion to make it worth
while.

But Mr. Carleton did not think his efforts thrown away. He
understood and admired his fine old host and hostess; and with
all their ignorance of conventionalities and absence of what
is called _polish_ of manner, he could enjoy the sterling sense,
the good feeling, the true, hearty hospitality, and the
dignified courtesy, which both of them showed. No matter of
the outside; this was in the grain. If mind had lacked much
opportunity, it had also made good use of a little; his host,
Mr. Carleton found, had been a great leader, was well
acquainted with history, and a very intelligent reasoner upon
it; and both he and his sister showed a strong and quick
aptitude for intellectual subjects of conversation. No doubt
aunt Miriam's courtesy had not been taught by a dancing-
master, and her brown satin gown had seen many a fashion come
and go since it was made, but a _lady_ was in both; and while
Rossitur covertly smiled, Mr. Carleton paid his sincere
respect where he felt it was due. Little Fleda's quick eye
hardly saw, but more than half felt, the difference. Mr.
Carleton had no more eager listener now than she, and perhaps
none whose unaffected interest and sympathy gave him more
pleasure.

When they rose from the table Mr. Ringgan would not be
_insinuated_ into the cold front room again.

"No, no," said he, "what's the matter? the table? Push the
table back, and let it take care of itself, — come, gentlemen,
sit down — draw up your chairs round the fire, and a fig for
ceremony! Comfort, sister Miriam, against politeness, any day
in the year; don't you say so too, Fairy? Come here by me."

"Miss Fleda," said Mr. Carleton, "will you take a ride with me
to Montepoole to-morrow? I should like to make you acquainted
with my mother."

Fleda coloured, and looked at her grandfather.

"What do you say, deary?" he inquired fondly; "will you go? —
I believe, Sir, your proposal will prove a very acceptable
one. You will go, wont you, Fleda?"

Fleda would very much rather not! But she was always
exceedingly afraid of hurting people's feelings; she could not
bear that Mr. Carleton should think she disliked to go with
him, so she answered yes, in her usual sober manner.

Just then the door opened, and a man unceremoniously walked
in, his entrance immediately following a little sullen knock
that had made a mockery of asking permission. An ill-looking
man, in the worst sense; his face being a mixture of cunning,
meanness, and insolence. He shut the door, and came with a
slow, leisurely step into the middle of the room, without
speaking a word. Mr. Carleton saw the blank change in Fleda's
face. She knew him.

"Do you wish to see me, Mr. McGowan?" said Mr. Ringgan, not
without something of the same change.

"I guess I ha'n't come here for nothing," was the gruff
retort.

"Wouldn't another time answer as well?"

"I don't mean to find you here another time," said the man,
chuckling; "I have given you notice to quit, and now I have
come to tell you you'll clear out. I ain't a going to be kept
out of my property for ever. If I can't get my money from you,
Elzevir Ringgan, I'll see you don't get no more of it in your
hands."

"Very well, Sir," said the old gentleman. "You have said all
that is necessary."

"You have got to hear a little more, though," returned the
other; "I've an idee that there's a satisfaction in speaking
one's mind. I'll have that much out of you! Mr. Ringgan, a man
hadn't ought to make an agreement to pay what he doesn't _mean_
to pay; and what he has made an agreement to pay, he ought to
meet and be up to, if he sold his soul for it! You call
yourself a Christian, do you, to stay in another man's house,
month after month, when you know you ha'n't got the means to
give him the rent for it! That's what _I_ call stealing; and
it's what I'd live in the County House before I'd demean
myself to do! and so ought you."

"Well, well! neighbour," said Mr. Ringgan, with patient
dignity; "it's no use calling names. You know as well as I do
how all this came about. I hoped to be able to pay you, but I
haven't been able to make it out, without having more time."

"Time!" said the other. "Time to cheat me out of a little more
houseroom. If I was agoing to live on charity, Mr. Ringgan,
I'd come out and say so, and not put my hand in a man's pocket
this way. You'll quit the house by the day after to-morrow, or
if you don't I'll let you hear a little more of me that you
wont like."

He stalked out, shutting the door after him with a bang. Mr.
Carleton had quitted the room a moment before him.

Nobody moved or spoke at first, when the man was gone, except
Miss Cynthia, who, as she was taking something from the table
to the pantry, remarked, probably for Mr. Rossitur's benefit,
that "Mr. Ringgan had to have that man punished for something
he did a few years ago, when he was justice of the peace, and
she guessed likely that was the reason he had a grudge agin
him ever since." Beyond this piece of dubious information
nothing was said. Little Fleda stood beside her grandfather,
with a face of quiet distress; the tears silently running over
her flushed cheeks, and her eyes fixed upon Mr. Ringgan with a
tender, touching look of sympathy, most pure from self-
recollection.

Mr. Carleton presently came in to take leave of the disturbed
family. The old gentleman rose, and returned his shake of the
hand with even a degree more than usual of his manly dignity,
or Mr. Carleton thought so.

"Good day to you, Sir!" he said, heartily. "We have had a
great deal of pleasure in your society, and I shall always be
very happy to see you — wherever I am." And then following him
to the door, and wringing his hand with a force he was not at
all aware of, the old gentleman added in a lower tone, "I
shall let her go with you."

Mr. Carleton read his whole story in the stern self-command of
brow, and the slight convulsion of feature, which all the
self-command could not prevent. He returned warmly the grasp
of the hand, answering merely, "I will see you again."

Fleda wound her arms round her grandfather's neck when they
were gone, and did her best to comfort him, assuring him that
"they would be just as happy somewhere else." And aunt Miriam
earnestly proffered her own home. But Fleda knew that her
grandfather was not comforted. He stroked her head, with the
same look of stern gravity and troubled emotion which had
grieved her so much the other day. She could not win him to a
smile, and went to bed at last, feeling desolate. She had no
heart to look out at the night. The wind was sweeping by in
wintry gusts; and Fleda cried herself to sleep, thinking how
it would whistle round the dear old house when their ears
would not be there to hear it.




CHAPTER VII.


He from his old hereditary nook
Must part; the summons came, — our final leave we took.
WORDSWORTH.


Mr. Carleton came the next day, but not early, to take Fleda
to Montepoole. She had told her grandfather that she did not
think he would come, because after last night he must know
that she would not want to go. About twelve o'clock, however,
he was there, with a little wagon, and Fleda was fain to get
her sunbonnet and let him put her in. Happily it was her maxim
never to trust to uncertainties, so she was quite ready when
he came, and they had not to wait a minute.

Though Fleda had a little dread of being introduced to a party
of strangers, and was a good deal disappointed at being
obliged to keep her promise, she very soon began to be glad.
She found her fear gradually falling away before Mr.
Carleton's quiet kind reassuring manner; he took such nice
care of her; and she presently made up her mind that he would
manage the matter so that it would not be awkward. They had so
much pleasant talk, too. Fleda had found before that she could
talk to Mr. Carleton, nay, she could not help talking to him;
and she forgot to think about it. And besides, it was a
pleasant day, and they drove fast, and Fleda's particular
delight was driving; and though the horse was a little gay she
had a kind of intuitive perception that Mr. Carleton knew how
to manage him. So she gave up every care and was very happy.

When Mr. Carleton asked after her grandfather, Fleda answered
with great animation, "O, he's very well! and such a happy
thing. You heard what that man said last night, Mr. Carleton,
didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, it is all arranged; — this morning Mr. Jolly — he's a
friend of grandpa's that lives over at Queechy Run and knew
about all this — he's a lawyer — he came this morning and told
grandpa that he had found some one that could lend him the
money he wanted, and there was no trouble about it; and we are
so happy, for we thought we should have to go away from where
we live now, and I know grandpa would have felt it dreadfully.
If it hadn't been for that, — I mean, for Mr. Jolly's coming,
— I couldn't have gone to Montepoole to-day."

"Then I am very glad Mr. Jolly made his appearance," said Mr.
Carleton.

"So am I," said Fleda; — "but I think it was a little strange
that Mr. Jolly wouldn't tell us who it was that he had got the
money from. Grandpa said he never saw Mr. Jolly so curious."

When they got to the Pool, Fleda's nervousness returned a
little; but she went through the dreaded introduction with
great demureness and perfect propriety. And throughout the day
Mr. Carleton had no reason to fear rebuke for the judgment
which he had pronounced upon his little paragon. All the
flattering attention which was shown her, and it was a good
deal, could not draw Fleda a line beyond the dignified
simplicity which seemed natural to her; any more than the
witty attempts at raillery and endeavours to amuse themselves
at her expense, in which some of the gentlemen showed their
wisdom, could move her from her modest self-possession. _Very_
quiet, _very_ modest, as she invariably was, awkwardness could
not fasten upon her; her colour might come and her timid eye
fall — it often did; but Fleda's wits were always in their
place and within a call. She would shrink from a stranger's
eye, and yet when spoken to her answers were as ready and
acute as they were marked for simplicity and gentleness. She
was kept to dinner; and though the arrangement and manner of
the service must have been strange to little Fleda, it was
impossible to guess from word or look that it was the first
time within her recollection that she had ever seen the like.
Her native instincts took it all as quietly as any old
liberalized traveller looks upon the customs of a new country.
Mr. Carleton smiled as he now and then saw a glance of
intelligence or admiration pass between one and another of the
company; and a little knowing nod from Mrs. Evelyn, and many a
look from his mother, confessed he had been quite right.

Those two, Mrs. Evelyn and Mrs. Carleton, were by far the most
kind and eager in their attention to Fleda. Mrs. Thorn did
little else but look at her. The gentlemen amused themselves
with her. But Mr. Carleton, true to the hopes Fleda had
founded upon his good-nature, had stood her friend all the
day, coming to her help if she needed any, and placing himself
easily and quietly between her and anything that threatened to
try or annoy her too much. Fleda felt it with grateful
admiration. Yet she noticed, too, that he was a very different
person at this dinner-table from what he had been the other
day at her grandfather's. Easy and graceful always, he filled
his own place, but did not seem to care to do more; there was
even something bordering on haughtiness in his air of grave
reserve. He was not the life of the company here; he contented
himself with being all that the company could possibly require
of him.

On the whole Fleda was exceedingly well pleased with her day,
and thought all the people in general very kind. It was quite
late before she set out to go home again; and then Mrs. Evelyn
and Mrs. Carleton were extremely afraid lest she should take
cold; and Mr. Carleton, without saying one word about it,
wrapped her up so very nicely after she got into the wagon, in
a warm cloak of his mother's. The drive home, through the
gathering shades of twilight, was to little Fleda thoroughly
charming. It was almost in perfect silence, but she liked
that; and all the way home her mind was full of a shadowy
beautiful world that seemed to lie before and around her.

It was a happy child that Mr. Carleton lifted from the wagon
when they reached Queechy. He read it in the utter
lightheartedness of brow and voice, and the spring to the
ground which hardly needed the help of his hands.

"Thank you, Mr. Carleton," she said, when she had reached her
own door; (he would not go in) "I have had a very nice time!"

He smiled.

"Good night," said he. "Tell your grandfather I will come to-
morrow to see him about some business."

Fleda ran gaily into the kitchen. Only Cynthia was there.

"Where is grandpa, Cynthy?"

"He went off into his room a half an hour ago. I believe he's
layin' down. He ain't right well, I s'pect. What's made you so
late?"

"O, they kept me," said Fleda. Her gayety suddenly sobered,
she took off her bonnet and coat, and throwing them down in
the kitchen, stole softly along the passage to her
grandfather's room. She stopped a minute at the door, and held
her breath to see if she could hear any movement which might
tell her he was not asleep. It was all still, and pulling the
iron latch with her gentlest hand, Fleda went on tiptoe into
the room. He was lying on the bed, but awake, for she had made
no noise, and the blue eyes opened and looked upon her as she
came near.

"Are you not well, dear grandpa?" said the little girl.

Nothing made of flesh and blood ever spoke words of more
spirit-like sweetness, — not the beauty of a fine organ, but
such as the sweetness of angel-speech might be; a whisper of
love and tenderness that was hushed by its own intensity. He
did not answer, or did not notice her first question; she
repeated it.

"Don't you feel well?"

"Not exactly, dear!" he replied.

There was the shadow of somewhat in his tone, that fell upon
his little granddaughter's heart and brow at once. Her voice
next time, though not suffered to be anything but clear and
cheerful still, had in part the clearness of apprehension.

"What is the matter?"

"Oh — I don't know, dear!"

She felt the shadow again, and he seemed to say that time
would show her the meaning of it. She put her little hand in
one of his which lay outside the coverlets, and stood looking
at him; and presently said, but in a very different key from
the same speech to Mr. Carleton, —

"I have had a very nice time, dear grandpa."

Her grandfather made her no answer. He brought the dear little
hand to his lips and kissed it twice, so earnestly that it was
almost passionately; then laid it on the side of the bed
again, with his own upon it, and patted it slowly and fondly,
and with an inexpressible kind of sadness in the manner.
Fleda's lip trembled, and her heart was fluttering, but she
stood so that he could not see her face in the dusk, and kept
still till the rebel features were calm again, and she had
schooled the heart to be silent.

Mr. Ringgan had closed his eyes, and perhaps was asleep, and
his little granddaughter sat quietly down on a chair by the
bedside to watch by him, in that gentle sorrowful patience
which women often know, but which hardly belongs to childhood.
Her eye and thoughts, as she sat there in the dusky twilight,
fell upon the hand of her grandfather which still fondly held
one of her own; and fancy travelled fast and far, from what it
was to what it had been. Rough, discoloured, stiff, as it lay
there now, she thought how it had once had the hue, and the
freshness, and the grace of youth, when it had been, the
instrument of uncommon strength, and wielded an authority that
none could stand against. Her fancy wandered over the scenes
it had known; when it had felled trees in the wild forest; and
those fingers, then supple and slight, had played the fife to
the struggling men of the Revolution; how its activity had
outdone the activity of all other hands in clearing and
cultivating those very fields where her feet loved to run;
how, in its pride of strength, it had handled the scythe, and
the sickle, and the flail, with a grace and efficiency that no
other could attain; and how, in happy manhood, that strong
hand had fondled, and sheltered, and led, the little children
that now had grown up and were gone! — Strength and activity,
ay, and the fruits of them, were passed away; — his children
were dead; his race was run; — the shock of corn was in full
season, ready to be gathered. Poor little Fleda! her thought
had travelled but a very little way before the sense of these
things entirely overcame her, her head bowed on her knees, and
she wept tears that all the fine springs of her nature were
moving to feed — many, many, — but poured forth as quietly as
bitterly; she smothered every sound. That beautiful shadowy
world with which she had been so busy a little while ago, —
alas! she had left the fair outlines and the dreamy light, and
had been tracking one solitary path through the wilderness,
and she saw how the traveller, foot-sore and weather-beaten,
comes to the end of his way. And, after all, he comes to _the
end_. ''Yes, and I must travel through life, and come to the
end, too," thought little Fleda; "life is but a passing
through the world; my hand must wither and grow old too, if I
live long enough; and whether or no, I must come to _the end_.
Oh, there is only one thing that ought to be very much minded
in this world!"

That thought, sober though it was, brought sweet consolation.
Fleda's tears, if they fell as fast, grew brighter, as she
remembered, with singular tender joy, that her mother and her
father had been ready to see the end of their journey, and
were not afraid of it; that her grandfather and her aunt
Miriam were happy in the same quiet confidence, and she
believed she herself was a lamb of the Good Shepherd's flock.
"And he will let none of his lambs be lost," she thought. "How
happy I am! How happy we all are!"

Her grandfather still lay quiet, as if asleep, and gently
drawing her hand from under his, Fleda went and got a candle
and sat down by him again to read, carefully shading the light
so that it might not awake him.

He presently spoke to her, and more cheerfully.

"Are you reading, dear?"

"Yes, grandpa!" said the little girl, looking up brightly.
"Does the candle disturb you?"

"No, dear! — What have you got there'?

"I just took up this volume of Newton that has the hymns in
it."

"Read out."

Fleda read Mr. Newton's long beautiful hymn, "The Lord will
provide;" but with her late thoughts fresh in her mind it was
hard to get through the last verses; —


'No strength of our own,
Or goodness we claim;
But since we have known
The Saviour's great name,
In this, our strong tower,
For safety we hide;
The Lord is our power,
The Lord will provide.


'When life sinks apace,
And death is in view,
This word of his grace
Shall comfort us through.
No fearing nor doubting, —
With Christ on our side,
We hope to die shouting,
The Lord will provide !'


The little reader's voice changed, almost broke, but she
struggled through, and then was quietly crying behind her
hand.

"Read it again," said the old gentleman, after a pause.

There is no "cannot" in the vocabulary of affection. Fleda
waited a minute or two to rally her forces, and then went
through it again, more steadily than the first time.

"Yes," said Mr. Ringgan, calmly, folding his hands, "that will
do! That trust wont fail, for it is founded upon a rock. 'He
is a rock; and he knoweth them that put their trust in him!' I
have been a fool to doubt ever that he would make all things
work well — 'The Lord will provide!"

"Grandpa," said Fleda, but in an unsteady voice, and shading
her face with her hand still, "I can remember reading this
hymn to my mother once when I was so little that 'suggestions'
was a hard word to me."

"Ay, ay — I dare say," said the old gentleman; "your mother
knew that Rock, and rested her hope upon it, — where mine
stands now. If ever there was a creature that might have
trusted to her own doings, I believe she was one, for I never
saw her do anything wrong, as I know. But she knew Christ was
all. Will you follow him, as she did, dear?"

Fleda tried in vain to give an answer.

"Do you know what her last prayer for you was, Fleda?"

"No, grandpa."

"It was that you might be kept 'unspotted from the world.' I
heard her make that prayer myself." And stretching out his
hand, the old gentleman laid it tenderly upon Fleda's bowed
head, saying with strong earnestness and affection, even his
voice somewhat shaken, "God grant that prayer! — whatever else
he do with her, keep my child from the evil! — and bring her
to join her father and mother in heaven! — and me!"

He said no more; but Fleda's sobs said a great deal. And when
the sobs were hushed, she still sat shedding quiet tears,
sorrowed and disturbed by her grandfather's manner. She had
never known it so grave, so solemn; but there was that shadow
of something else in it besides, and she would have feared if
she had known what to fear. He told her at last that she had
better go to bed, and to say to Cynthy that he wanted to see
her. She was going, and had near reached the door, when he
said,

"Elfleda!"

She hastened back to the bedside.

"Kiss me."

He let her do so twice, without moving, and then holding her
to his breast he pressed one long earnest passionate kiss upon
her lips, and released her.

Fleda told Cynthy that her grandfather wished her to come to
him, and then mounted the stairs, to her little bedroom. She
went to the window, and opening it, looked out at the soft
moonlit sky; the weather was mild again, and a little hazy,
and the landscape was beautiful. But little Fleda was tasting
realities, and she could not go off upon dream-journeys to
seek the light food of fancy through the air. She did not
think to-night about the people the moon was shining on; she
only thought of one little sad anxious heart, — and of another
down stairs, more sad and anxious still, she feared; what
could it be about? Now that Mr. Jolly had settled all that
troublesome business with McGowan?

As she stood there at the window, gazing out aimlessly into
the still night, — it was very quiet, — she heard Cynthy at
the back of the house, calling out, but as if she were afraid
of making too much noise, "Watkins! Watkins!"

The sound had business, if not anxiety, in it. Fleda
instinctively held her breath to listen. Presently she heard
Watkins reply; but they were round the corner, she could not
easily make out what they said. It was only by straining her
ears that she caught the words.

"Watkins, Mr. Ringgan wants you to go right up on the hill to
Mis' Plumfield's, and tell her he wants her to come right down
— he thinks" — the voice of the speaker fell, and Fleda could
only make out the last words — "Dr. James." More was said, but
so thick and low that she could understand nothing.

She had heard enough. She shut the window, trembling, and
fastened again the parts of her dress she had loosened; and
softly and hastily went down the stairs into the kitchen.

"Cynthy! — what is the matter with grandpa!"

"Why aint you in bed, Flidda?" said Cynthy, with some
sharpness. "That's what you had ought to be. I am sure your
grandpa wants you to be abed."

"But tell me," said Fleda, anxiously.

"I don't know as there's anything the matter with him," said
Cynthy. "Nothing much, I suppose. What makes you think
anything is the matter?"

"Because I heard you telling Watkins to go for aunt Miriam."
Fleda could not say, —- "and the doctor."

"Well, your grandpa thought he'd like to have her come down,
and he don't feel right well, — so I sent Watkins up; but
you'd better go to bed, Flidda; you'll catch cold if you sit
up o' night."

Fleda was unsatisfied, the more because Cynthy would not meet
the keen searching look with which the little girl tried to
read her face. She was not to be sent to bed, and all Cynthy's
endeavours to make her change her mind were of no avail. Fleda
saw in them but fresh reason for staying, and saw besides,
what Cynthy could not hide, a somewhat of wandering and
uneasiness in her manner which strengthened her resolution.
She sat down in the chimney corner, resolved to wait till her
aunt Miriam came; there would be satisfaction in her, for aunt
Miriam always told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth.

It was a miserable three quarters of an hour. The kitchen
seemed to wear a strange desolate look, though seen in its
wonted bright light of fire and candles, and in itself nice
and cheerful as usual. Fleda looked at it also through that
vague fear which casts its own lurid colour upon everything.
The very flickering of the candle blaze seemed of ill omen,
and her grandfather's empty chair stood a signal of pain to
little Fleda whenever she looked at it. She sat still, in
submissive patience, her cheek pale with the working of a
heart too big for that little body. Cynthia was going in and
out of her grandfather's room, but Fleda would not ask her any
more questions, to be disappointed with word-answers; she
waited, but the minutes seemed very long, — and very sad.

The characteristic outward calm which Fleda had kept, and
which belonged to a nature uncommonly moulded to patience and
fortitude, had yet perhaps heightened the pressure of excited
fear within. When at last she saw the cloak and hood of aunt
Miriam coming through the moonlight to the kitchen door, she
rushed to open it, and quite overcome for the moment, threw
her arms around her and was speechless. Aunt Miriam's tender
and quiet voice comforted her.

"You up yet, Fleda! Hadn't you better go to bed? 'Tisn't good
for you."

"That's what I've been a-telling her," said Cynthy, "but she
wa'n't a mind to listen to me."

But the two little arms embraced aunt Miriam's cloak and
wrappers, and the little face was hid there still, and Fleda's
answer was a half smothered ejacul

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