Chapter X

Beneath my palm-trees, by the river side, I sat a weeping; in the whole world wide There was no one to ask me why I wept, -- And so I kept Brimming the water-lily cups with tears Cold as my fears. SHELLEY.

The dawn had fairly broken, but that was all, when Winthrop and old Mr. Cowslip met on the little wharf landing which served instead of courtyard to the house. The hands clasped each other cordially.

"How do you do? Glad to see you in these parts!" was the hearty salutation of the old man to the young.

"Thank you, Mr. Cowslip," said Winthrop, returning the grasp of the hand.

"I don't see but you keep your own," the old man went on, looking at him wistfully. "Why don't you come up our way oftener? It wouldn't hurt you."

"I don't know about that," said Winthrop. "My business lies that way, you know."

"Ah! -- 'tain't as good business as our'n, now," said Mr. Cowslip. "You'd better by half be up there on the old place, with your wife and half a dozen children about you. Ain't married yet, Governor, be you?"

"No sir."

"Goin' to be?"

"I don't know what I am going to be, sir."

"Ah! --" said the old miller with a sly smile. "Is that what you've got here in the sloop with you now? I guessed it, and Hild' said it wa'n't -- not as he knowed on -- but I told him he didn't know everything."

"Hild' is quite right. But there are two ladies here who are going up to Shahweetah. Can you give us a boat, Mr. Cowslip?"

"A boat? -- How many of you?"

"Four -- and baggage. Your boat is large enough -- used to be when I went in her."

"Used to be when I went in her," said the old skipper; "but there it is! She won't hold nobody now."

"What's the matter?"

"She took too many passengers the other day, -- that is, she took one too many. Shipped a cargo of fresh meat, sir, and it wa'n't stowed in right, and the 'Bessie Bell' broke her heart about it. Like to ha' gone to the bottom."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, I was comin' home from Diver's Rock the other day -- just a week ago last Saturday -- I had been round there up the shore after fish; -- you know the rock where the horse mackerel comes? -- me and little Archie; lucky enough we had no more along. By the by, I hope you'll go fishing, Winthrop -- the mackerel's fine this year. How long you're goin' to stay?"

"Only a day or two, sir."

"Ah! -- Well -- we were comin' home with a good mess o' fine fish, and when we were just about in the middle of the river, comin' over, -- the fish had been jumping all along the afternoon, shewing their heads and tails more than common; and I'd been sayin' to Archie it was a sign o' rain -- 'tis, you know, -- and just as we were in the deepest of the river, about half way over, one of 'em came up and put himself aboard of us."

"A sturgeon?"

"Just that, sir; as sound a fellow as ever you saw in your life -- just the length of one of my little oars -- longer than I be -- eight feet wanting one inch, he measured, for the blade of that oar has been broken off a bit -- several inches, -- and what do you think he weighed? -- Two hundred and forty pound."

"So it seems you got him safe to land, where you could weigh him."

"And measure him. I forgot I was talkin' to a lawyer," said the old man laughing. "Yes, I didn't think much how long he was at the time, I guess! He came in as handsome as ever you saw anything done -- just slipped himself over the gunwale so -- and duv under one of the th'arts, and druv his nose through the bottom of the boat."

"Kept it there, I hope?"

"Ha, ha! Not so fast but there came in a'most water enough to float him again by the time we got to land. He was a power of a fellow!"

"And the 'Bessie' don't float?"

"No; she's laid up with three broken ribs."

"No other boat on hand?"

"There's a little punt out there, that Hild' goes a fishin' in -- that'd carry two or three people. But it wouldn't take the hull on ye."

"There's the sloop's boat."

"She leaks," said the miller. "She wants to be laid up as bad as the 'Bessie.'"

"Have you any sort of a team, Mr. Cowslip?"

"Yes! -- there's my little wagon -- it'll hold two. But you ain't wanting it yet, be you?"

"As soon as it can go -- if it _can_ go. Is there a horse to the wagon?"

"Sartain! But won't you stop and take a bit?"

"No sir. If you will let some of the boys take up the punt with her load, I'll drive the wagon myself, and as soon as you can let me have it."

"Jock! -- tackle up the wagon! --that 'ere little red one in the barn," shouted the miller. "Hild' 'll see to the boat-load -- or I will, -- and send it right along. I'm sorry you won't stop."

Winthrop turned back to the sloop. Elizabeth met him there with the question, "if she might not go now?"

"As soon as you please. I am going to drive you up to Shahweetah. The boat will carry the rest, but it is too small to take all of us."

"I'm very glad!" -- Elizabeth could not help saying.

She granted half a word of explanation to Mrs. Nettley, her bonnet was hastily thrown on, and she stood with Winthrop on the wharf before the little wagon was fairly ready. But Jock was not tardy neither; and a very few minutes saw them seated and the horse's head turned from the Mill.

The dawn was fresh and fair yet, hardly yielding to day. In utter silence they drove swiftly along the road, through the woods and out upon the crest of tableland overlooking the bay; just above the shore where the huckleberry party had coasted along, that afternoon years before. By the time they got there, the day had begun to assert itself. Little clouds over Wut-a-qut-o's head were flushing into loveliness, and casting down rosy tints on the water; the mountain slopes were growing bright, and a soft warm colouring flung through all the air from the coming rays of the coming sun. The cat-birds were wide awake and very busy; the song sparrows full of gladness; and now and then, further off, a wood-thrush, less worldly than the one and less unchastened than the other, told of hidden and higher sweets, in tones further removed from Earth than his companions knew. The wild, pure, ethereal notes thrilled like a voice from some clear region where earthly defilement had been overcome, and earthly sorrows had lost their power. Between whiles, the little song sparrows strained their throats with rejoicing; but that was the joy of hilarious nature that sorrows and defilement had never touched. The cat-birds spoke of business, and sung over it, ambitious and self-gratulatory, and proud. And then by turns came the strange thrush's note, saying, as if they knew it and had proved it,

"WHEN HE GIVETH QUIETNESS, THEN WHO CAN MAKE TROUBLE?"

The travellers had ridden so far without speaking a word. If Elizabeth was sometimes weeping, she kept herself very quiet, and perfectly still. The sights and sounds that were abroad entered her mind by a side door, if they entered at all. Winthrop might have taken the benefit of them; but up to the bend of the bay he had driven fast and attentively. Here he suffered the horse to slacken his pace and come even to a walk, while his eye took note of the flushing morning, and perhaps the song of the birds reached his ear. It was not of them he spoke.

"Do you mean to begin upon the first chapter of Matthew?" he said, when the horse had walked the length of some two or three minutes.

"Yes! -- I do" -- said Elizabeth, turning her face towards him.

"According to the rules?"

The answer was spoken more hesitatingly, but again it was 'yes.'

"I am glad of that," he said.

"Mr. Winthrop," said Elizabeth presently, speaking it seemed with some effort, -- "if I get into any difficulty -- if I cannot understand, -- I mean, if I am in any real trouble, -- may I write to you to ask about it?"

"With great pleasure. I mean, it would give me great pleasure to have you do so."

"I should be very much obliged to you," she said humbly.

She did not see, for she did not look to see, a tiny show of a smile which spread itself over her companion's face. They drove on fast, till the bottom of the bay was left and they descended from the tableland, by Sam Doolittle's, to the road which skirted the south side of Shahweetah. Winthrop looked keenly as he passed at the old fields and hillsides. They were uncultivated now; fallow lands and unmown grass pastures held the place of the waving harvests of grain and new-reaped stubblefields that used to be there in the old time. The pastures grew rank, for there were even no cattle to feed them; and the fallows were grown with thistles and weeds. But over what might have been desolate lay the soft warmth of the summer morning; and rank pasture and uncared fallow ground took varied rich and bright hues under the early sun's rays. Those rays had now waked the hilltops and sky and river, and were just tipping the woods and slopes of the lower ground. By the bend meadow Winthrop drew in his horse again and looked fixedly.

"Does it seem pleasant to you?" he asked.

"How should it, Mr. Winthrop?" Elizabeth said coldly.

"Do you change your mind about wishing to be here?"

"No, not at all. I might as well be here as anywhere. I would rather -- I have nowhere else to go."

He made no comment, but drove on fast again, till he drew up once more at the old back door of the old house. It seemed a part of the solitude, for nothing was stirring. Elizabeth sat and watched Winthrop tie the horse; then he came and helped her out of the wagon.

"Lean on me," said he. "You are trembling all over."

He put her arm within his, and led her up to the door and knocked.

"Karen is up -- unless she has forgotten her old ways," said Winthrop. He knocked again.

A minute after, the door slowly opened its upper half, and Karen's wrinkled face and white cap and red shortgown were before them. Winthrop did not speak. Karen looked in bewilderment; then her bewilderment changed into joy.

"Mr. Winthrop! -- Governor!" --

And her hand was stretched out, and clasped his in a long mute stringent clasp, which her eyes at least said was all she could do.

"How do you do, Karen?"

"I'm well -- the Lord has kept me. But you --"

"I am well," said Winthrop. "Will you let us come in, Karen? -- This lady has been up all night, and wants rest and refreshment."

Karen looked suspiciously at 'this lady,' as she unbolted the lower half of the door and let them in; and again when Winthrop carefully placed her in a chair and then went off into the inner room for one which he knew was more easy, and made her change the first for it.

"And what have ye come up for now, governor?" she said, when she had watched them both, with an unsatisfied look upon her face and a tone of deep satisfaction coming out in her words.

"Breakfast, Karen. What's to be had?"

"Breakfast? La!" -- said the old woman, -- "if you had told me you's coming -- What do you expect I'll have in the house for my breakfast, Governor?"

"Something --," said Winthrop, taking the tongs and settling the sticks of wood in the chimney to burn better. Karen stood and looked at him.

"What have you got, Karen?" said Winthrop, setting up the tongs.

"I ha'n't got nothing for company," said Karen, grinning.

"That'll do very well," said Winthrop. "Give me the coffee and I'll make it; and you see to the bread, Karen. You have milk and cream, haven't you?"

"Yes, Governor."

"And eggs?"

"La! yes."

"Where are they?"

"Mr. Landholm, don't trouble yourself, pray!" said Elizabeth. "I am in no hurry for anything. Pray don't!"

"I don't intend it," said he. "Don't trouble _your_ self. Would you rather go into another room?"

Elizabeth would not; and therefore and thereafter kept herself quiet, watching the motions of Karen and her temporary master. Karen seemed in a maze; but a few practical advices from Winthrop at last brought her back to the usual possession of her senses and faculties.

"Who is she?" Elizabeth heard her whisper as she began to bustle about. And Winthrop's answer, not whispered,

"How long ago do you suppose this coffee was parched?"

"No longer ago than yesterday. La sakes! Governor, -- I'll do some fresh for you if you want it."

"No time for that, Karen. You get on with those cakes."

Elizabeth watched Winthrop with odd admiration and curiosity, mixed for the moment with not a little of gratified feeling; but the sense of desolation sitting back of all. He seemed to have come out in a new character, or rather to have taken up an old one; for no one could suppose it worn for the first time. Karen had been set to making cakes with all speed. Winthrop seemed to have taken the rest of the breakfast upon himself. He had found the whereabout of the eggs, and ground some coffee, and made it and set it to boil in Karen's tin coffeepot.

"What are you after now, Mr. Winthrop?" said Karen, looking round from her pan and moulding board. "These'll be in the spider before your coffee's boiled."

"They'll have to be quick, then," said Winthrop, going on with his rummaging.

"What are you after, Governor? -- there's nothin' there but the pots and kittles."

One of which, however, Winthrop brought out as if it was the thing wanted, and put upon the fire with water in it. Going back to the receptacle of 'pots and kittles,' he next came forth with the article Karen had designated as the 'spider,' and set that in order due upon its appropriate bed of coals.

"La sakes! Governor!" said Karen, in a sort of fond admiration, -- "ha'n't you forgot nothin'?"

"Now Karen," said Winthrop, when she had covered the bottom of the hot iron with her thin cakes, -- "you set the table and I'll take care of 'em."

"There's the knife, then," said Karen. "Will ye know when to turn them? There ain't fire enough to bake 'em by the blaze."

"I've not forgotten so much," said Winthrop. "Let's have a cup and saucer and plate, Karen."

"Ye sha'n't have _one_," said Karen, casting another inquisitive and doubtful glance towards the silent, pale, fixed figure sitting in the middle of her kitchen. He did have one, however, before she had got the two ready; despatched Karen from the table for sugar and cream; and then poured out himself a cup of his own preparation, and set it on Karen's half-spread table, and came to Elizabeth. He did not ask her if she would have it, nor say anything in fact; but gently raising her with one hand, he brought forward her chair with the other, and placed both where he wanted them to be, in the close neighbourhood of the steaming coffee. Once before, Elizabeth had known him take the same sort of superintending care of her, when she was in no condition to take care of herself. It was inexpressibly soothing; and yet she felt as if she could have knelt down on the floor, and given forth her very life in tears. She looked at the coffee with a motionless face, till his hand held it out to her. Not to drink it was impossible, though she was scarcely conscious of swallowing anything but tears. When she took the cup from her lips, she found an egg, hot out of the water, on her plate, which was already supplied also with butter. Her provider was just adding one of the cakes he had been baking.

"I can't eat!" said Elizabeth, looking up.

"You must, --" Winthrop answered.

In the same tone in which he had been acting. Elizabeth obeyed it as involuntarily.

"Who is the lady, Governor?" Karen ventured, when she had possessed herself of the cake-knife, and had got Winthrop fairly seated at _his_ breakfast.

"This lady is the mistress of the place, Karen."

"The mistress! Ain't you the master?" -- Karen inquired instantly.

"No. I have no right here any longer, Karen."

"I heered it was selled, but I didn't rightly believe it," the old woman said sadly. "And the mistress 'll be turning _me_ away now?"

"Tell her no," whispered Elizabeth.

"I believe not, Karen, unless you wish it."

"What should I wish it for? I've been here ever since I come with Mis' Landholm, when she come first, and she left me here; and I want to stay here, in her old place, till I'm called to be with her again. D'ye think it'll be long, Governor?"

"Are you in haste, Karen?"

"I don't want fur to stay" said the old woman. "She's gone, and I can't take care o' you no longer, nor no one. I'd like to be gone, too -- yes, I would."

"You have work to do yet, Karen. You may take as good care as you can of this lady."

Again Karen looked curiously and suspiciously at her, for a minute in silence.

"Is she one of the Lord's people?" she asked suddenly.

Elizabeth looked up on the instant, in utter astonishment at the question; first at Karen and then at Winthrop. The next thing was a back-sweeping tide of feeling, which made her drop her bread and her cup from her hands, and hide her face in them with a bitter burst of tears. Winthrop looked concerned, and Karen confounded. But she presently repeated her question in a half whisper at Winthrop.

"Is she? --"

"There is more company coming, Karen, for you to take care of," he said quietly. "I hope you have cakes enough. Miss Haye -- I see the boat-load has arrived -- will you go into the other room?"

She rose, and not seeing where she went, let him lead her. The front part of the house was unfurnished; but to the little square passage-way where the open door let in the breeze from the river, Winthrop brought a chair, and there she sat down. He left her there and went back to see to the other members of the party, and as she guessed to keep them from intruding upon her. She was long alone.

The fresh sweet air blew in upon her hot face and hands, reminding her what sort of a world it came from; and after the first few violent bursts of pain, Elizabeth presently raised her head to look out and see, in a sort of dogged willingness to take the contrast which she knew was there. The soft fair hilly outlines she remembered, in the same August light; -- the bright bend of the river -- a sloop sail or two pushing lazily up; -- the same blue of a summer morning overhead; -- the little green lawn immediately at her feet, and the everlasting cedars, with their pointed tops and their hues of patient sobriety -- all stood nearly as she had left them, how many years before. And herself -- Elizabeth felt as if she could have laid herself down on the doorstep and died, for mere heart-heaviness. In this bright sunny world, what had she to do? The sun had gone out of her heart. What was to become of her? What miserable part should she play, all alone by herself? She despised herself for having eaten breakfast that morning. What business had she to eat, or to have any appetite to eat, when she felt so? But Winthrop had made her do it. What for? Why should he? It was mere aggravation, to take care of her for a day, and then throw her off for ever to take care of herself. How soon would he do that? --

She was musing, her eyes on the ground; and had quite forgotten the sunny landscape before her with all its gentle suggestions; when Winthrop's voice sounded pleasantly in her ear, asking if she felt better. Elizabeth looked up.

"I was thinking," she said, "that if there were nothing better to be had in another world, I could almost find it in my heart to wish I had never been born into this!"

She expected that he would make some answer to her, but he did not. He was quite silent; and Elizabeth presently began to question with herself whether she had said something dreadful. She was busily taking up her own words, since he had not saved her the trouble. She found herself growing very much ashamed of them.

"I suppose that was a foolish speech," she said, after a few moments of perfect silence, -- "a speech of impatience."

But Winthrop neither endorsed nor denied her opinion; he said nothing about it; and Elizabeth was exceedingly mortified.

"If you wanted to rebuke me," she thought, "you could not have done it better. I suppose there is no rebuke so sharp as that one is obliged to administer to oneself. And your cool keeping silence is about as effectual a way of telling me that you have no interest in my concerns as even you could have devised."

Elizabeth's eyes must have swallowed the landscape whole, for they certainly took in no distinct part of it.

"How are you going to make yourself comfortable here?" said Winthrop presently; -- "these rooms are unfurnished."

She might have said that she did not expect to be comfortable anywhere; but she swallowed that too.

"I will go and see what I can do in the way of getting some furniture together," he went on. "I hope you will be able to find some way of taking rest in the mean time -- though I confess I do not see how."

"Pray do not!" said Elizabeth starting up, and her whole manner and expression changing. "I am sure you are tired to death now."

"Not at all. I slept last night."

"How much? Pray do not go looking after anything! You will trouble me very much."

"I should be sorry to do that."

"I can get all the rest I want."

"Where?"

"On the rocks -- on the grass."

"Might do for a little while," said Winthrop; -- "I hope it will; but I must try for something better."

"Where can you find anything -- in this region?"

"I don't know," said he; "but it must be found. If not in this region, in some other."

"To-morrow, Mr. Landholm."

"To-morrow -- has its own work," said he; and went.

"Will he go to-morrow?" thought Elizabeth, with a pang at her heart. "Oh, I wish -- no, I dare not wish -- that I had never been born! What am I to do with myself?"

Conscience suggested very quietly that something might be done; but Elizabeth bade conscience wait for another time, though granting all it advanced. She put that by, as she did Mrs. Nettley and Clam who both presently came where Winthrop had been standing, to make advances of a different nature.

"What'll I do, Miss 'Lizabeth?" said the latter, in a tone that argued a somewhat dismal view of affairs.

"Anything you can find to do."

"Can't find nothin, --" said Clam, "'cept Karen. One corner of the house is filled enough with her; and the rest ha'n't got nothin' in it."

"Let Karen alone, and take care of your own business, Clam."

"If I knowed what 'twas," said the persevering damsel. "I can't make the beds, for there ain't none; nor set the furnitur to rights, for the rooms is 'stressed empty."

"You can let me alone, at all events. The rooms will have something in them before long. You know what to do as well as any one; -- if you don't, ask Mr. Landholm."

"Guess I will!" said Clam; "when I want to feel foolisher than I do. Did the furnitur come by the sloop?"

"No. Mr. Landholm will send some. I don't care anything about it."

"Ha! then if _he's_ goin' to send it," said Clam turning away, "the place 'll have to be ready for it, I s'pose."

Mrs. Nettley appeared in Clam's place. Elizabeth was still sitting on the door-step, and though she knew by a side view that one had given place to the other, she did not seem to know it and sat looking straight before her at the sunny landscape.

"It's a beautiful place," said Mrs. Nettley after a little pause of doubt.

"Very beautiful," said Elizabeth coldly.

"I did not know it was so beautiful. And a healthy place, I should suppose."

Elizabeth left the supposition unquestioned.

"You are sadly fatigued, Miss Haye," said Mrs. Nettley after a longer pause than before.

"I suppose I am," said Elizabeth rising, for patience had drawn her last breath; -- "I am going down by the water to rest. Don't let any one follow me or call me -- I want nothing -- only to rest by myself."

And drawing her scarf round her, she strode through the rank grass to the foot of the lawn, and then between scattered rocks and sweetbriars and wild rose-bushes, to the fringe of cedar trees which there clothed the rocks down to the water. Between and beneath them, just where she came out upon the river, an outlooking mass of granite spread itself smooth and wide enough to seat two or three people. The sun's rays could not reach there, except through thick cedar boughs. Cedar trees and the fall of ground hid it from the house; and in front a clear opening gave her a view of the river and opposite shore, and of a cedar-covered point of her own land, outjutting a little distance further on. Solitude, silence, and beauty invited her gently; and Elizabeth threw herself down on the grey lichen-grown stone; but rest was not there.

"Rest!" -- she said to herself in great bitterness; -- "rest! How can I rest? -- or where can there be rest for me? --"

And then passionate nature took its will, and poured out to itself and drank all the deep draughts of pain that passion alone can fill and refill for its own food. Elizabeth's proud head bowed there, to the very rock she sat on. Yet the proud heart would not lay itself down as well; _that_ stood up to breast pain and wrestle with it, and take the full fierce power of the blast that came. Till nature was tired out, -- till the frame subsided from convulsions that racked it, into weary repose, -- so long the struggle lasted; and then the struggle was not ended, but only the forces on either side had lost the power of carrying it on. And then she sat, leaning against a cedar trunk that gave her its welcome support, which every member and muscle craved; not relieved, but with that curious respite from pain which the dulled senses take when they have borne suffering as long and as sharply as they can.

It was hot in the sun; but only a warm breath of summer air played about Elizabeth where she sat. The little waves of the river glittered and shone and rolled lazily down upon the channel, or curled up in rippling eddies towards the shore. The sunlight was growing ardent upon the hills and the river; but over Elizabeth's head the shade was still unbroken. A soft aromatic smell came from the cedars, now and then broken in upon by a faint puff of fresher air from the surface of the water. Hardly any sound, but the murmur of the ripple at the water's edge and the cheruping of busy grasshoppers upon the lawn. Now and then a locust did sing out; he only said it was August and that the sun was shining hot and sleepily everywhere but under the cedar trees. His song was irresistible. Elizabeth closed her eyes and listened to it, in a queer kind of luxurious rest-taking which was had because mind and body would have it. Pain was put away, in a sort; for the senses of pain were blurred. The aromatic smell of the evergreens was wafted about her; and then came a touch, a most gentle touch, of the south river-breeze upon her face; and then the long dreamy cry of the locust; and the soft plashing sound of the water at her feet. All Elizabeth's faculties were crying for sleep; and sleep came, handed in by the locust and the summer air, and laid its kind touch of forgetfulness upon mind and body. At first she lost herself leaning against the cedar tree, waking up by turns to place herself better; and at last yielding to the overpowering influences without and within, she curled her head down upon a thick bed of moss at her side and gave herself up to such rest as she might.

What sort of rest? Only the rest of the body, which had made a truce with the mind for the purpose. A quiet which knew that storms were not over, but which would be quiet nevertheless. Elizabeth felt that, in her intervals of half-consciousness. But all the closer she clung to her pillow of dry moss. She had a dispensation from sorrow there. When her head left it, it would be to ache again. It should not ache now. Sweet moss! -- sweet summer air! -- sweet sound of plashing water! -- sweet dreamy lullaby of the locust! -- Oh if they could put her to sleep for ever! -- sing pain out and joy in! --

A vague, half-realized notion of the fight that must be gone through before rest 'for ever' could in any wise be hoped for -- of the things that must be gained and the things that must be lost before that 'for ever' rest could in any sort be looked forward to, -- and dismissing the thought, Elizabeth blessed her fragrant moss pillow of Lethe and went to sleep again.

How she dreaded getting rested; how she longed for that overpowering fatigue and exhaustion of mind and body to prolong itself! And as the hours went on, she knew that she was getting rested, and that she would have to wake up to everything again by and by. It should not be at anybody's bidding.

"Miss 'Lizabeth! --" sounded Clam's voice in the midst of her slumbers.

"Go away, Clam!" said the sleeper, without opening her eyes.

"Miss 'Lizabeth, ain't ye goin' to eat nothin'?"

"No -- Go away."

"Miss 'Lizabeth! -- dinner's ready."

"Well! --"

"You're a goin' to kill yourself."

"Don't _you_ kill me!" said Elizabeth impatiently. "Go off."

"To be sure," said Clam as she turned away, -- "there ain't much company."

It was very vexing to be disturbed. But just as she was getting quiet again, came the tread of Mrs. Nettley's foot behind her, and Elizabeth knew another colloquy was at hand.

"Are you asleep, Miss Haye?" said the good lady a little timidly.

"No," said Elizabeth lifting her head wearily, -- "I wish I were."

"There's dinner got ready for you in the house."

"Let anybody eat it that can. -- I can't."

"Wouldn't you be better for taking a little something? I'm afraid you'll give way if you do not."

"I don't care," said Elizabeth. "Let me give way -- only let me alone!"

She curled her head down determinately again.

"I am afraid, Miss Haye, you will be ill," said poor Mrs. Nettley.

"I am willing," -- said Elizabeth. "I don't care about anything, but to be quiet! --"

Mrs. Nettley went off in despair; and Elizabeth in despair also, found that vexation had effectually driven away sleep. In vain the locust sang and the moss smelled sweet; the tide of feeling had made head again, and back came a rush of disagreeable things, worse after worse; till Elizabeth's brow quitted the moss pillow to be buried in her hands, and her half-quieted spirit shook anew with the fresh-raised tempest. Exhaustion came back again; and thankfully she once more laid herself down to sleep and forgetfulness.

Her sleep was sound this time. The body asserted its rights; and long, long she lay still upon her moss pillow, while the regular deep-drawn breath came and went, fetching slow supplies of strength and refreshment. The sun quitted its overhead position and dipped towards Wut-a-qut-o, behind the high brow of which, in summer-time, it used to hide itself. A slant ray found an opening in the thick tree-tops, and shone full upon Elizabeth's face; but it failed to rouse her; and it soon went up higher and touched a little song sparrow that was twittering in a cedar tree close by. Then the shadows of the trees fell long over the grass towards the rocks on the east.

Elizabeth was awakened at last by a familiar adjuration.

"Miss 'Lizabeth! -- you'll catch a Typhus, or an agur, or somethin' dreadful, down there! Don't ye want to live no more in the world?"

Elizabeth sat up, and rested her face on her knees, feeling giddy and sick.

"Don't ye feel bad?"

"Hush, Clam! --"

"I'm sent after ye," said Clam, -- "I dursn't hush. Folks thinks it is time you was back in the house."

"Hush! -- I don't care what folks think."

"Not what _nobody_ thinks?" said Clam.

"What do you mean!" said Elizabeth flashing round upon her. "Go back into the house. -- I will come when I am ready."

"You're ready now," said Clam. "Miss 'Lizabeth, ye ain't fit for anything, for want of eatin'. Come! -- they want ye."

"Not much," -- thought Elizabeth bitterly, -- "if they left it to her to bring me in."

"Are you sick, Miss 'Lizabeth?"

"No."

"He's come home," Clam went on; -- "and you never saw the things he has brought! Him and me's been puttin' 'em up and down. Lots o' things. Ain't he a man!"

"'Up and down!'" repeated Elizabeth.

"Egg-zackly," -- said Clam; -- "Floor-spreads -- what-d'ye- call'ems? -- and bedsteads -- and chairs. He said if he'd know'd the house was all stripped, he'd never have fetched you up here."

"Yes he would," said Elizabeth. "What do I care for a stripped house!" -- "with a stripped heart," her thought finished it.

"Well don't you care for supper neither? -- for that old thing is a fixin' it," said Clam.

"You must not call her names to me."

"Ain't she old?" said Clam.

"She is a very good old woman, I believe."

"Ain't you comin' Miss 'Lizabeth? They won't sit down without you."

"Who sent you out here?"

"Karen axed where you was; and Mrs. Nettley said she dursn't go look for you; and Mr. Landholm said I was to come and bring you in."

"He didn't, Clam! --"

"As likely as your head's been in the moss there, he did, Miss 'Lizabeth."

"Go yourself back into the house. I'll come when I am ready, and I am not ready yet."

"He ha'n't had nothin' to eat to-day, I don't believe," said Clam, by way of a parting argument. But Elizabeth let her go without seeming to hear her.

She sat with her hands clasped round her knees, looking down upon the water; her eyes slowly filling with proud and bitter tears. Yet she saw and felt how coolly the lowering sunbeams were touching the river now; that evening's sweet breath was beginning to freshen up among the hills; that the daintiest, lightest, cheeriest gilding was upon every mountain top, and wavelet, and pebble, and stem of a tree. "Peace be to thee, fair nature, and thy scenes!" -- and peace from them seems to come too. But oh how to have it! Elizabeth clasped her hands tight together and then wrung them mutely. "O mountains -- O river -- O birds!" -- she thought, -- "If I could but be as senseless as you -- or as good for something!"