Chapter XXIV

I watch thee from the quiet shore; Thy spirit up to mine can reach; But in dear words of human speech We two communicate no more. TENNYSON.

Mrs. Nettley was putting the finishing touches to her breakfast -- that is, to her breakfast in prospect. A dish of fish and the coffee-pot stood keeping each other cheerful on one side the hearth; and Mrs. Nettley was just, with some trouble, hanging a large round griddle over the blazing fire. Her brother stood by, with his hands on his sides, and a rather complacent face.

"What's that flap-jack going on for?"

"For something I like, if you don't," said his sister. "George --"

Mrs Nettley stopped while her iron ladle was carefully bestowing large spoonfuls of batter all round the griddle.

"What?" said Mr. Inchbald, when it was done.

"Somebody up-stairs likes 'em. Don't you suppose you could get Mr. Landholm to come down. He likes 'em, and he don't get 'em now-a-days -- nor too much of anything that's good. I don't know what he _does_ live on, up there."

"Anything is better than those things," said her brother.

"Other people are more wise than you. Do go up and ask him, will you, George? I hope he gets good dinners somewhere, for it's very little of anything he cooks at that smoky little fireplace of his. Do you ever see him bring anything in?"

"Nothing. I don't see him bring himself in, you know. But he'll do. He'll have enough by and by, Dame Nettley. I know what stuff he's of."

"Yes, but no stuff'll last without help," said Mrs. Nettley, taking her cakes off the griddle and piling them up carefully. "Now I'm all ready, George, and you're standing there -- it's always the way -- and before you can mount those three pair of stairs and down again, these'll be cold. Do go, George; Mr. Landholm likes his cakes hot -- I'll have another plateful ready before you'll be here; and then they're good for nothing but to throw away."

"That's what I think," said Mr. Inchbald; "but I'll bring him down if I can, to do what you like with 'em -- only I must see first what this knocking wants at the front door."

"And left this one open too!" -- said Mrs. Nettley, -- "and now the whole house'll be full of smoke and everything -- Well! -- I might as well not ha' put this griddleful on." --

But the door having refused to latch, gave Mrs. Nettley a chance to hear what was going on. She stood, slice in hand, listening. Some unaccustomed tones came to her ear -- then Mr. Inchbald's round hearty voice, saying,

"Yes sir -- he is here -- he is at home."

"I'd like to see him --"

And then the sounds of scraping feet entering the house.

"I'd like to go somewheres that I could see a fire, too," said the strange voice. "Ben ridin' all night, and got to set off again, you see, directly."

And Mrs. Nettley turned her cakes in a great hurry, as her brother pushed open the door and let the intruder in.

He took off his hat as he came, shewing a head that had seen some sixty winters, thinly dressed with yellow hair but not at all grey. The face was strong and Yankee-marked with shrewdness and reserve. His hat was wet and his shoulders, which had no protection of an overcoat.

"Do you wish to see Mr. Landholm in his room?" said Mr. Inchbald. "He's just coming down to breakfast."

"That'll do as well," said the stranger nodding. "And stop -- you may give him this -- maybe he'd as lieve have it up there."

Mr. Inchbald looked at the letter handed him, the outside of which at least told no tales; but his sister with a woman's quick instinct had already asked,

"Is anything the matter?"

"Matter?" -- said the stranger, -- "well, yes. -- He's wanted to hum."

Both brother and sister stood now forgetting everything, both saying in a breath,

"Wanted, what for?"

"Well -- there's sickness --"

"His father?"

"No, his mother."

Mrs. Nettley threw down her slice and ran out of the room. Mr. Inchbald turned away slowly in the other direction. The stranger, left alone, took a knife from the table and dished the neglected cakes, and sat down to dry himself between them and the coffee.

Mr. Inchbald slowly mounted the stairs to Winthrop's door, met the pleasant face that met him there, and gave the letter.

"I was coming to ask you down to breakfast with us, Mr. Landholm; but somebody has just come with that for you, and wishes you to have it at once."

The pleasant face grew grave, and the seal was broken, and the letter unfolded. It was a folio half sheet, of coarse yellowish paper, near the upper end of which a very few lines were irregularly written.

"My dear son

"It is with great pain I write to tell you that you must leave all and hasten home if you would see your mother. Friend Underhill will take this to you, and your shortest way will be, probably, to hire a horse in M. and travel night and day; as the time of the boat is uncertain and the stage does not make very good time -- Her illness has been so short that we did not know it was necessary to alarm you before. My dear son, come without delay --

"Your father,

"W. Landholm."

Mr. Inchbald watched the face and manner of his friend as he read, and after he read, these few words, -- but the one expressed only gravity, the other, action. Mr. Inchbald felt he could do nothing, and slowly went down stairs again to Mr. Underhill. He found him still over the fire between the cakes and the coffee. But Mr. Inchbald totally forgot to be hospitable, and not a word was said till Winthrop came in and he and the letter-bringer had wrung each other's hand, with a brief 'how d' ye do.'

"How did you leave them, Mr. Underhill?"

"Well -- they were wantin' you pretty bad --"

"Did _she_ send for me?"

"Well -- no -- I guess not," said the other with something of hesitancy, or of consideration, in his speech. Winthrop stood silent a moment.

"I shall take horse immediately. You will go -- how?"

"May as well ride along with you," said Mr. Underhill, settling his coat. "I'm wet -- a trifle -- but may as well ride it off as any way. Start now?"

"Have you breakfasted?"

"Well -- no, I hain't had time, you see -- I come straight to you."

"Mr. Inchbald, I must go to the office a few minutes -- will you give my friend a mouthful?"

"But yourself, Mr. Landholm?"

"I have had breakfast."

Mr. Inchbald did his duty as host then; but though his guest used despatch, the 'mouthful' was hardly a hungry man's breakfast when Winthrop was back again. In a few minutes more the two were mounted and on their way up the right bank of the river.

They rode silently. At least if Mr. Underhill's wonted talkativeness found vent at all, it was more than Winthrop was able ever to recollect. He could remember nothing of the ride but his own thoughts; and it seemed to him afterwards that they must have been stunning as well as deafening; so vague and so blended was the impression of them mixed up with the impression of everything else. It was what Mr. Underhill called 'falling weather'; the rain dropped lightly, or by turns changing to mist hung over the river and wreathed itself about the hills, and often stood across his path; as if to bid the eye turn inward, for space to range without it might not have. And passing all the other journeys he had made up and down that road, some of them on horseback as he was now, Winthrop's thoughts went back to that first one, when through ill weather and discouragement he had left the home he was now seeking, to enter upon his great-world career. Why did they so? He had been that road in the rain since; he had been there in all weathers; he had been there often with as desponding a heart as brought him down that first time; which indeed did not despond at all then, though it felt the weight of life's undertakings and drawbacks. And the warm rain, and yellow, sun-coloured mist of this April day, had no likeness to the cold, pitiless, pelting December storm. Yet passing all the times between, his mind went back constantly to that first one. He felt over again, though as in a dream, its steps of loneliness and heart-sinking -- its misty looking forward -- and most especially that Bible word '_Now_' -- which his little sister's finger had pointed out to him. He remembered how constantly that day it came back to him in everything he looked at, -- from the hills, from the river, from the beat of the horses' hoofs, from the falling rain. 'Now' -- 'now' -- he remembered how he had felt it that day; he had almost forgotten it since; but now it came up again to his mind as if that day had been but yesterday. What brought it there? Was it the unrecognized, unallowed sense, that the one of all the world who most longed to have him obey that word, might be to- day beyond seeing him obey it -- for ever? Was it possibly, that passing over the bridge of Mirza's vision he suddenly saw himself by the side of one of the open trap-doors, and felt that some stay, some security he needed, before his own foot should open one for itself? He did not ask; he did not try to order the confused sweep of feeling which for the time passed over him; one dread idea for the time held mastery of all others, and kept that day's ride all on the edge of that open trap-door. Whose foot had gone down there? -- And under that thought, -- woven in with the various tapestry of shower and sunshine, meadow and hillside, that clothed his day's journey to the sense, -- were the images of that day in December -- that final leaving of home and his mother, that rainy cold ride on the stage-coach, Winnie's open Bible, and the 'Now,' to which her finger, his mother's prayers, and his own conscience, had pointed all the day long.

It made no difference, that as they went on, this April day changed from rain and mist to the most brilliant sunshine. The mists rolled away, down the river and along the gulleys of the mountains; the clouds scattered from off the blue sky, which looked down clear, fair, and soft, as if Mirza's bridge were never under it. The little puddles of water sparkled in the sunshine and reflected the blue; the roads made haste to dry; the softest of spring airs wafted down from the hill-sides a spicy remembrance of budding shoots and the drawn-out sweetness of pine and fir and hemlock and cedar. The day grew sultrily warm. But though sunlight and spring winds carried their tokens to memory's gates and left them there, they were taken no note of at the time, by one traveller, and the other had no mental apparatus fine enough to gather them up.

He had feeling or delicacy enough of another kind, however, to keep him quiet. He sometimes looked at Winthrop; never spoke to him. Almost never; if he spoke at all, it was in some aside or counsel-taking with himself about the weather, the way, or the prospect and management of the farming along the river. They stopped only to bait or to rest their horses; even at those times Mr. Underhill restrained himself not only from talking to Winthrop but from talking before him; and except when his companion was at a distance, kept as quiet as he. Winthrop asked no questions.

The road grew hilly, and in some places rough, trying to the horses; and by the time they were fairly among the mountain land that stood down far south from Wut-a-qut-o, the sun was nearing the fair broken horizon line of the western shore. The miles were long now, when they were no longer many; the road was more and more steep and difficult; the horses weary. The sun travelled faster than they did. A gentler sunlight never lay in spring-time upon those hills and river; it made the bitter turmoil and dread of the way seem the more harsh and ungentle. Their last stopping-place was at Cowslip's Mill -- on the spot where seven years before, Winthrop had met the stage- coach and its consignment of ladies.

"The horses must have a minute here -- and a bite," said Mr. Underhill letting himself slowly down from his beast; -- "lose no time by it."

For a change of posture Winthrop threw himself off, and stood leaning on the saddle, while his travelling companion and Mr. Cowslip came up the rise bringing water and food to the horses. No more than a grave nod was exchanged between Winthrop and his old neighbour; neither said one word; and as soon as the buckets were empty the travellers were on their way again.

It was but a little way now. The sun had gone behind the mountain, the wind had died, the perfect stillness and loveliness of evening light was over hill and river and the home land, as the riders came out from the woods upon the foot of the bay and saw it all before them. A cloudless sky, -- the white clear western light where the sun had been, -- the bright sleeping water, -- the sweet lights and shades on Wut-a-qut-o and its neighbour hills, the lower and darker promontory throwing itself across the landscape; and from one spot, that half-seen centre of the picture, the little brown speck on Shah-wee-tah, -- a thin, thin wreath of smoke slowly went up. Winthrop for one moment looked, and then rode on sharply and Mr. Underhill was fain to bear him company. They had rounded the bay -- they had ridden over the promontory neck -- they were within a little of home, -- when Winthrop suddenly drew bridle. Mr. Underhill stopped. Winthrop turned towards him, and asked the question not asked till then.

"How is it at home, Mr. Underhill?"

And Mr. Underhill without looking at him, answered in the same tones, a moment of pause between,

"She's gone."

Winthrop's horse carried him slowly forward; Mr. Underhill's was seen no more that night -- unless by Mr. Cowslip and his son.

Slowly Winthrop's horse carried him forward -- but little time then was needed to bring him round to the back of the house, at the kitchen door, whither the horse-path led. It was twilight now; the air was full of the perfume of cedars and pines, -- the clear white light shone in the west yet. Winthrop did not see it. He only saw that there was no light in the windows. And that curl of thin smoke was the only thing he had seen stirring about the house. He got off his horse and went into the kitchen.

There was light enough to see who met him there. It was his father. There was hardly light to see faces; but Mr. Landholm laid both hands on his son's shoulders, saying,

"My dear boy! -- it's all over! --"

And Winthrop laid his face on his father's breast, and for a few breaths, sobbed, as he had not done since -- since his childish eyes had found hiding-place on that other breast that could rest them no more.

It was but a few minutes; -- and manly sorrow had given way and taken again its quiet self-control; once and for ever. The father and son wrung each other's hands, the mute speech of hand to hand telling of mutual suffering and endurance, and affection, -- all that could be told; and then after the pause of a minute; Winthrop moved on towards the family room, asking softly, "Is she here?" -- But his father led him through, to the seldom-used east-room.

Asahel was there; but he neither spoke nor stirred. And old Karen was there, moving about on some trifling errand of duty; but her quick nature was under less government; it did not bear the sight of Winthrop. Dropping or forgetting what she was about, she came towards him with a bursting cry of feeling, half for herself, half sympathetic; and with the freedom of old acquaintance and affection and common grief, laid her shrivelled black hand on his shoulder and looked up into his face, saying, almost as his father had done, but with streaming eyes and quivering lips,

"My dear son! -- she has gone! --"

Winthrop took the hand in his and gave it a moment's pressure, and then saying very gently but in a way that was obeyed, "Be quiet Karen," -- he passed her and stood at his mother's bedside.

She was there -- lying quietly in her last sleep. Herself and not another. All of her that _could_ write and leave its character on features of clay, was shewn there still -- in its beauty. The brow yet spoke the calm good sense which had always reigned beneath it; the lines of toil were on the cheek; the mouth had its old mingling of patience and hope and firm dignity -- the dignity of meek assurance which looked both to the present and the future. It was there now, unchanged, unlessened; Winthrop read it; that as she had lived, so she had died, in sure expectation of 'the rest that remaineth.' Herself and no other! -- ay! that came home too in another sense, with its hard stern reality, pressing home upon the heart and brain, till it would have seemed that nature could not bear it and must give way. But it did not. Winthrop stood and looked, fixedly and long, so fixedly that no one cared to interrupt him, but so calmly in his deep gravity that the standers-by were rather awed than distressed. And at last when he turned away and Asahel threw himself forward upon his neck, Winthrop's manner was as firm as it was kind; though he left them all then and forbade Asahel to follow him.

"The Lord bless him!" said Karen, loosing her tongue then and giving her tears leave at the same time. "And surely the Lord has blessed him, or he wouldn't ha' borne up so. She won't lose that one of her childr'n -- she won't, no she won't! -- I know she won't! --"

"Where is Winnie, Karen?" said Asahel suddenly.

"Poor soul! -- I dun know," said Karen; -- "she was afeard to see the Governor come home, and dursn't stop nowheres -- I dun know where she's hid. -- The Lord bless him! nobody needn't ha' feared him. He's her own boy -- aint he her own boy! --"

Asahel went out to seek for his little sister, but his search was in vain. She was not to be seen nor heard of. Neither did Winthrop come to the sorrowful gathering which the remnant of the family made round the supper-table. _In_ the house he was not; and wherever he was out of the house, he was beyond reach.

"Could they have gone away together?" said Asahel.

"No!" said his father.

"They didn't," said Clam. "I see him go off by himself."

"Which way?"

"Off among the trees," said Clam.

"Which way?" said Mr. Landholm.

"His back was to the house, and he was goin' off towards the river some place -- I guess he didn't want no one to foller him."

"There aint no wet nor cold to hurt him," said Karen.

There was not; but they missed him.

And the house had been quiet, very quiet, for long after supper-time, when softly and cautiously one of the missing ones opened the door of the east-room and half came in. Only Karen sat there at the foot of the bed. Winnie came in and came up to her.

"He's not here, darlin'," said the old woman, -- "and ye needn't ha' started from him. -- O cold face, and white face! -- what ha' you done with yourself, Winnie, to run away from him so? Ye needn't ha' feared him. Poor lamb! -- poor white lamb! --"

The girl sat down on the floor and laid her face on Karen's lap, where the still tears ran very fast.

"Poor white lamb!" said the old woman, tenderly laying her wrinkled hand on Winnie's fair hair, -- "Ye haven't eat a crumb -- Karen'll fetch you a bit? -- ye'll faint by the way --"

Winnie shook her head. "No -- no."

"What did you run away for?" Karen went on. "Ye run away from your best comfort -- but the Lord's help, Winnie; -- he's the strongest of us all."

But something in that speech, Karen could not divine what, made Winnie sob convulsively; and she thought best to give up her attempts at counsel or comforting.

The wearied and weakened child must have needed both, for she wept unceasingly on Karen's knees till late in the night; and then in sheer weariness the heavy eyelids closed upon the tears that were yet ready to come. She slumbered, with her head still on Karen's lap.

"Poor lamb!" said Karen when she found it out, bending over to look at her, -- "poor lamb! -- she'll die of this if the Governor can't help her, -- and she the Lord's child too. -- Maybe best, poor child! -- maybe best! -- 'Little traveller Zion-ward' -- I wish we were all up at those gates, O Lord! --"

The last words were spoken with a heavy sigh, and then the old woman changed her tone.

"Winnie! -- Winnie! -- go to bed -- go to bed! Your mother'd say it if she was here."

Winnie raised her head and opened her eyes, and Karen repeating her admonition in the same key, the child got up and went mechanically out of the room, as if to obey it.

It was by this time very late in the night; the rest of the inmates of the house had long been asleep. No lights were burning except in the room she had left. But opening the door of the kitchen, through which her way lay to her own room, Winnie found there was a glimmer from the fire, which usually was covered up close; and coming further into the room, she saw some one stretched at full length upon the floor at the fireside. Another step, and Winnie knew it was Winthrop. He was asleep, his head resting on a rolled-up cloak against the jamb. Winnie's tears sprang forth again, but she would not waken him. She kneeled down by his side, to look at him, as well as the faint fireglow would let her, and to weep over him; but her strength was worn out. It refused even weeping; and after a few minutes, nestling down as close to him as she could get, she laid one arm and her head upon his breast and went to sleep too. More peacefully and quietly than she had slept for several nights.

The glimmer from the fire-light died quite away, and only the bright stars kept watch over them. The moon was not where she could look in at those north or east kitchen windows. But by degrees the fair April night changed. Clouds gathered themselves up from all quarters of the horizon, till they covered the sky; the faces of the stars were hid; thunder began to roll along among the hills, and bright incessant flashes of white lightning kept the room in a glare. The violence of the storm did not come over Shah-wee-tah, but it was more than enough to rouse Winthrop, whose sleep was not so deep as his little sister's. And when Winnie did come to her consciousness she found herself lifted from the floor and on her brother's lap; he half sitting up; his arms round her, and her head still on his breast. Her first movement of awakening was to change her position and throw her arms around his neck.

"Winnie --" he said gently.

The flood-gates burst then, and her heart poured itself out, her head alternately nestling in his neck and raised up to kiss his face, and her arms straining him with nervous eagerness.

"O Winthrop! -- O Winthrop! -- O dear Winthrop! --" was the cry, as fast as sobs and kisses would let her.

"Winnie --" said her brother again.

"O Winthrop! -- why didn't you come!"

He did not answer that, except by the heaving breast which poor Winnie could not feel.

"I am here now, dear Winnie."

"O Winthrop! --" Winnie hesitated, and the burden of her heart would burst forth, -- "why aren't you a Christian! --"

It was said with a most bitter rush of tears, as if she felt that the most precious thing she had, lacked of preciousness; that her most sure support needed a foundation. But when a minute had stilled the tears, and she could hear, she heard him say, very calmly,

"I am one, Winnie."

Her tears ceased absolutely on his shoulder, and Winnie was for a moment motionless. Then as he did not speak again, she unclasped her arms and drew back her head to look at him. The constant flashes of light gave her chance enough.

"You heard me right," he said.

"Are you?" -- she said wistfully.

"By God's help -- this night and for ever."

Winnie brought her hands together, half clapping, half clasping them, and then threw them to their former position around his neck, exclaiming, --

"Oh if _she_ had known it before --!"

There was no answer to that, of words; and Winnie could not see the sudden paleness which witnessed to the answer within. But it came, keen as those lightning flashes, home-thrust as the thunderbolts they witnessed to, that his 'now' had come too late for her.

The lightnings grew fainter, and failed -- the thunder muttered off in the distance, and ceased to be heard -- the clouds rolled down the river and scattered away, just as the dawn was breaking on Wut-a-qut-o. There had been nothing spoken in the farmhouse kitchen since Winnie's last words. Winthrop was busy with his own thoughts, which he did not tell; and Winnie had been giving hers all the expression they could bear, in tears and kisses and the strong clasp of her weak arm, and the envious resting, trusting, lay of her head upon Winthrop's shoulder and breast. When the glare of the lightning had all gone, and the grey light was beginning to walk in at the windows, her brother spoke to her.

"Winnie, -- you would be better in bed."

"Oh no, -- I wouldn't. -- Do you want me to go, Governor?" she added presently.

"Not if you could rest as well here, but you want rest, Winnie."

"I couldn't rest so well _anywhere!_" -- said Winifred energetically.

"Then let me take the big chair and give you a chance."

He took it, and took her in his arms again, where she nestled herself down as if she had been a child; with an action that touchingly told him anew that she could rest so well nowhere else.

"Governor --" she said, when her head had found its place -- "you haven't kissed me."

"I did, Winnie, -- it must have been before you were awake."

But he kissed her again; and drawing one or two long breaths, of heart-weariness and heart-rest, Winnie went to sleep.

The grey dawn brightened rapidly; and a while after, Karen came in. It was fair morning then. She stood by the hearth, opposite the two, looking at them.

"Has she been here all night?" she whispered.

Winthrop nodded.

"Poor lamb! -- Ye're come in good time, Master Winthrop."

She turned and began to address herself to the long gone-out fire in the chimney.

"What are you going to do, Karen?" he said softly.

She looked back at him, with her hand in the ashes.

"Haven't you watched to-night?"

"I've watched a many nights," she said shaking her head and beginning again to rake for coals in the cold fireplace, -- "this aint the first. _That_ aint nothin'. I'll watch now, dear, 'till the day dawn and the shadows flee away'; -- what else should Karen do? 'Taint much longer, and I'll be where there's no night again. O come, sweet day! --" said the old woman clasping her hands together as she crouched in the fireplace, and the tears beginning to trickle down, -- "when the mother and the childr'n'll all be together, and Karen somewheres -- and our home won't be broken up no more! --"

She raked away among the ashes with an eager trembling hand.

"Karen, --" said Winthrop softly, -- "Leave that."

"What, dear?" -- she said.

"Leave that."

"Who'll do it, dear?"

"I will."

She obeyed him, as perhaps she would have done for no one else. Rising up, Winthrop carried his sleeping sister without wakening her, and laid her on the bed in her own little room, which opened out of the kitchen; then he came back and went to work in the fireplace. Karen yielded it to him with equal admiration and unwillingness; remarking to herself as her relieved hands went about other business, that, "for sure, nobody could build a fire handsomer than Mr. Winthrop"; -- and that "he was his mother's own son, and deserved to be!"