Chapter XIX: The Journey

“If any two creatures grew into one,
They shall do more than the world has done;
Tho’ each apart were never so weak,
Yet vainly thro’ the world would you seek
For the knowledge and the might
Which, in such union, grew their right.”—_Browning._

“Rosalie, my own blessed wife, you spoke the truth, or, rather, you applied it fitly—‘out of the heart are the issues of life!’ I feel and recognize it now. It is with far different emotions that I tread this deck, that bears us on to the great West, to those which oppressed and discouraged my soul two years ago. Then, dearest, I went forth alone, unloved, unloving; now your form hangs upon my arm, not an incumbrance, but a source of strength and joy. But, O Rosalie, how is it—how _will_ it be with you? Can you love the wild West as you love your own sunny South?”

“‘Westward the star of empire wends its way.’ Who can look upon the shores of this great river, and note the many thriving new villages, without joyfully perceiving that? The South is a beautiful, a luxuriant region, where, ‘lapped in Elysium,’ you may dream your soul away; but the West is a magnificently vigorous land, whose clarion voice summons you to action. The South might be illustrated by a beautiful epicurienne, like India—the West only by a vigorous young Titan, like”——

“Whom?”

“Mark Sutherland!” answered Rosalie, with her eyes sparkling with delight.

They were standing upon the hurricane deck of the steamer Indian Queen, which was puffing and blowing its rapid course down the Ohio river. She was leaning on the arm of her husband; their heads were bare, the better to enjoy the freshness of the morning air; her eyes were sparkling, and her cheeks glowing with animation, and her sunny ringlets, blown back, floated on the breeze.

From their elevated site they commanded a view of both shores of the river, and turned their eyes alternately from the north to the south side.

“Does my dear Rosalie perceive any very remarkable difference in the aspect of these opposite shores?” asked Mark, bending his serious gaze upon her.

“Yes! I notice that one shore is thickly studded with thriving villages and flourishing fields, while the other is a comparative wilderness, with here and there a plantation house, and at long intervals a stunted town. What can be the reason of this?”

“Have you not already surmised the reason?”

The thoughtful eyes of Rosalie roved slowly over the scene, and then raised and fixed their earnest gaze upon her husband’s face, and she said—

“It is so. There is only one set of persons in the civilized world who are more unhappy than the negroes.”

“And they are”——

“Their masters.”

“Yes, Rosalie; and it is from among their number that the first great successful reformer of the great evil must arise!”

“Why do you think so, Mark?”

“From _fitness_: we are unwilling to be taught our duty by an antagonist who reasons in partial ignorance of the facts, judges harshly and unjustly, and speaks not the truth in love so often as falsehood in hatred; and from _analogy_: all great successful reformers that the world has ever known, have arisen—not from the outside, but from the very midst of the evil to be reformed. Martin Luther sprang, not from among the Illuminati, but from the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church and priesthood. Nay, Christ himself came not in clouds of glory, clothed with the majesty of Godhead from Heaven—he arose from the midst of the people whom he came to redeem. So, Rosalie, the apostle of liberty must arise in the South.”

She had listened to his words with loving and reverent attention, and now she fixed her gaze upon his eyes, and said, with penetrating earnestness—

“Mark Sutherland—‘_Thou art the man!_’”

His very soul thrilled to her inspiring words and glance. He walked hastily from her side in agitation, but, soon returning, said—

“Nay, Rosalie, nay; this mission is not for me. I hear no voice from heaven calling me to the work!”

“_Have you listened?_ The voice of God speaks not often in thunder from Heaven. It is a ‘still, small voice,’ breathed from the depths of your spirit. ‘The word of God is within you.’”

He pressed his hand to his brow, throwing back the dark hair that fell in waves around it. He was still agitated, excited.

“You trouble my soul even as the descending angel troubled the pool of Bethesda, Rosalie!” he said.

“Only to arouse its powers,” she answered, carrying out the simile. While speaking, she anxiously sought his eyes, which at last met hers in a loving gaze, and then she continued,—“You have consecrated your mission as only such a mission can be consecrated, by a great sacrifice at its commencement—_can you pause_ now?”

“Rosalie! Rosalie! why had I not known you better before? Why could I not have loved you only from the first? Why have the last two or three years of my life been lonely and wasted?”

“I had to grow up for you. I had to be left to mature in solitude and silence. I was a child three years ago.”

“And you are a child still, young priestess of liberty! A child still in all things but the inspired wisdom of your heart!”

We have no time nor space to follow the course of this young pair, step by step, or to relate the many conversations they held together, in which hand upheld hand, heart strengthened heart, spirit inspired spirit, until the two grew into one—with one heart, soul, and spirit—one interest, purpose, and object.

The boat wended on her way, reached the mouth of the Ohio river, and turned up the Mississippi; and in five days more landed at the new village of S——, in the Northwest Territory. It was very early in the morning; the sun had not yet risen, and the fog still lay, white and heavy, upon the wilderness shores—for here the wilderness, exuberant and luxuriant in vegetation, lay all around—and the new village of S—— was at the very outskirts of pioneer civilization. It was situated on the right or east bank of the Upper Mississippi, and the dwellings were scattered up and down the high bluff so oddly, that a passenger, looking upon the hamlet, said it seemed as if a giant had gathered a handful of houses and flung them at the bluff, and that they had settled at random where they had fallen.

Our young couple were the only passengers for S——, and they followed their baggage into the skiff, and were landed just as the sun arose, gilding the windows of the village, and lighting up into splendour all the glorious scene.

“See, Mark! It is a happy omen,” said Rosalie smiling.

He pressed her hand, and turned upon her a look of unspeakable love, as he handed her to the shore.

There was a porter even in that rude, remote place. He took charge of the baggage, and led the way to the hotel on the top of the bluff.

It was a large, unfinished, two-story frame house, rudely built of rough pine boards, unpainted without, and unplastered within. Our young couple followed their guide, the porter, who was also the landlord, into the large bare parlour, which was also the kitchen of the inn. This room was scantily furnished, with a few rough chairs, a table neatly enough set out for breakfast, and a glowing cooking-stove, in full blast, at which stood the cook, who was also the landlady, getting breakfast.

The rudeness of the whole scene disturbed Mark, for Rosalie’s sake. She felt that it did. She looked at him with a gladdening smile, exclaiming—

“Oh! I like it, Mark. I like it so much. Everything is so new and strange, and so free and easy. And so large and grand,” she added, going to one of the windows, and looking out, with delighted eyes, upon the magnificent virgin country. “The air is fine here, Mark. There is a springiness and life in it I never felt before, even on the mountains. And see, the fog is all dispersed already.”

“Yes—it’s allowed to be healthy in these parts; no ague here,” said the landlady.

“And so near the river—that is strange,” said Mark.

“Well, you see the winds blow mostly from the shore; and the fog—when there _is_ a fog—settles on the other side of the river. And then, many folks allow that this, being a high, lime-stone country, is naterally healthy.”

“Have you many boarders now?” inquired Rosalie, kindly interesting herself in the fortunes of her hostess.

“Only bachelors, for constant. Sometimes, when a boat-load of people arrive, we have a house full, till they gets settled or goes somers else,” replied the landlady, setting the coffee-pot on the table, and ordering her lord and master to go to the door and blow the horn. She then invited her guests to sit down to breakfast, and had just begun to help them, when her other boarders, the bachelors—half-a-dozen robust, rudely-clothed, but earnest, intelligent-looking men—entered, and gathered around the table. The breakfast was plain, but substantial, well-cooked, and abundant. And our young pair, as well as the bachelors, did justice to the fare.

After breakfast “the bachelors” left the table and the house, and went about their various businesses—some to their stores, some to their workshops. The landlady bustled about to wash up and clear away her breakfast service; and Mark Sutherland followed his young wife to the window, and said—

“And now, dear Rosalie, I must leave you here, _at least_ till noon.”

“You must?”

“Yes; there is much to be done, that must be done immediately. Lauderdale’s deserted law office must be opened and aired, and my sign—or _shingle_, as the folks here call it—tacked up, and the place generally prepared for the transaction of any business that may turn up. Then I have to write and send off an advertisement to the nearest newspaper—which, by the way, is published in a town thirty miles distant. And lastly, dear Rose, I have to look up a cabin, or part of a frame house, where ‘two mortal mice,’ like you and I, may go to housekeeping. Whether all this can be accomplished in a forenoon, or not, I do not know; but, at all events, I shall try to be back again at twelve. Good bye.”

And, pressing her hand, he left her.

Rosalie seated herself by the window, and looked out upon the new country. From the river, and from the grove that crowned the bluff on which the village was situated, the country stretched eastward, out and out—a high, level, and limitless prairie, its flat and green monotony broken, at wide intervals, by groves similar to this which surrounded S——, and relieved by countless millions of wild flowers, whose rich, gorgeous, and brilliant hues surpassed anything the observer had ever seen before.

“What is that splendid scarlet flower that grows so tall, and is as abundant on the prairie as clover in our own fields?” inquired Rosalie.

“I reckon you are talking about the prairie pink; but I haven’t much time, myself, to take notice of flowers—’specially wild weeds,” replied the landlady, rattling the dishes and tea-cups, and bustling about between the cooking-stove, the table, and the cupboard.

“Are you not a Marylander?” asked Rosalie.

“Yes,” said the woman. “How did you know?”

“By your speech.”

Just at this moment the cry of a child commenced in an adjoining room, and continued during the whole of the hostess’s morning work. She set aside the table, and began to sweep the room, raising a great dust from the dried and pulverized mud left by the bachelors’ shoes. Rosalie thoughtlessly threw her pocket-handkerchief over her head, to protect her hair from the dust—thoughtlessly, for else she might have guessed it would displease the touchy pride of the hard-working pioneer woman.

“You don’t like the dust—maybe you never saw a broom?” she asked, looking somewhat contemptuously at the young lady’s delicate person.

“Oh! yes, I have,” said Rosalie, gently, “and _used_ a broom, too; but I always sprinkle the floor, and tie a handkerchief over my head before sweeping.”

“And what do you take all that trouble for?”

“Because I dislike the dust to settle on my hair.”

“Ha! ha! ha! You’ll get out of that, if you _settle_ in these parts,” laughed the woman—not ill-naturedly this time—resuming her broom, and continuing her sweeping to its completion. Then she fired up the cooking-stove afresh; and while it was drawing, and roaring, and heating the room to suffocation in this sultry summer weather, she wiped down the chairs with her apron, and finally went into the next chamber and brought out her baby which was still squalling at the top of his voice. Giving him a piece of bread, she sat him in the cradle and went about her work, notwithstanding that the child threw away the bread, and was screaming louder than ever. Rosalie got up and lifted the babe, and took him to the window, where she sat down with him, and soon soothed his temper. The over-worked mother looked pleased, but said, deprecatingly—

“You needn’t adone that; ’tain’t a bit o’ use; it’ll only spile him. You’ll find ’twon’t do. And if ever you have a house of your own, and a baby of your own, and no one to tend to nyther but yourself—_mark my words_—just exactly when the loaf of bread is burning up in the oven, and the tea-kettle is boiling over, and the fat is catching afire in the frying-pan, that very time the baby’s going to take to open its throat and squall you deaf. Let it squall! You ain’t got twenty pair o’ hands—you can’t tend to everything at once. You’ll find it so, too—mark my words—I never knew it to fail!”

“That is a very discouraging picture, indeed,” said Rosalie; “nevertheless, I should try to foresee and prevent such a combination of perplexities.”

“Oh! _would_ you? You may thank goodness if, on top of all that, your man aint down with a spell of sickness, and the cow lost in the woods, and the well dry!” said the hostess, going to the door, and rapping, and calling out—

“John! _You_ John!”

The landlord, _her_ “man,” obeyed the summons, entering from the bar-room. She met him with a sharp rebuke, for not bringing water enough, not splitting wood enough, not bringing the vegetables for dinner—“An’ _it_ drawin’ on to ’leven o’clock—and he knew the bachelors would be home to dinner at twelve.” And pushing the empty pail into his hand, she bade him make haste to the well, and be back in no time with the water, and so she hustled him out of the house. And soon the process of dinner-cooking was commenced; and in addition to the melting heat of the stove, the various mingled steams of boiling, stewing, and frying arose, and filled the summer air with thick, greasy vapour.

“Surely cooking-stoves were first invented by the demon,” Rosalie could not help thinking, while she resolved, whenever she had to cook, it should be in an open fire-place, where the stifling vapours could ascend the chimney.

When dinner was ready, the sound of the horn summoned the same company, who entered first an adjoining shed, where they all washed their faces and hands, using the same tin basin and the same crash towel, and then—coarse, ruddy, healthful, and hungry—they came in, and gathered around the table. A few minutes after they had sat down, Mark Sutherland returned from his morning’s ramble, and took his seat among them.

“How have you prospered in your enterprise to-day, Mark?” asked Rosalie, as they left the table.

“I have got through all I wished to do to my perfect satisfaction, except one thing.”

“And that?”

“I have not been able to rent a house, or a part of a house, either for love or money! And so, dear Rosalie, I shall have to leave you again this afternoon, in order to renew my search. And I am afraid you find the time hang very heavily.”

“Not at all, I assure you, Mark. I have been occupied and interested. Everything is so different here from what I have ever been accustomed to.”

“Yes, very different, indeed!” said Mark Sutherland, with a sigh.

“Now, I didn’t mean that,” said Rosalie, smiling. “I meant that everything is so new and strange that I am entertained and amused every moment.”

“Entertain and amuse yourself, then, as well as you can, until I come back in the evening; then, my love,” whispered Mark, stealthily pressing her hand to his heart, as he left her.

The landlady rattled and clattered the dishes, and bustled about between table, cupboard, and cooking-stove, until she had cleared away the dinner-service. And then she proceeded to wash off the stove, raising a more offensive vapour than before. Then she swept the floor again; then she got a tub of water and a mop, and washed it all over. And then, after wiping and putting away the tub, and pan, and mop, and doing numberless other “last jobs,” she finally cleansed her own face and hands, put on a clean apron, and sat down to nurse her baby, and talk to Rosalie. But by this time the afternoon was so far spent, that the poor woman had not rested half an hour before it was time to get up, fire up the cooking-stove once more, and prepare supper for her family and her boarders, who would be back, she said, at six.

Rosalie was sympathetically fatigued, only to witness her labours, and she could not refrain from saying, as she once more took charge of the fretful, teething child—

“Indeed, you have a great deal to do. I do not know how you have strength to go through so much.”

“Ah! you will know after a bit; wait a little. Lord, child, this is nothing at all! wait till wash-day,” said the hostess, putting a great tray of flour on the table, and preparing to make bread.

And once more the process of cooking went on, with the same accompaniments of melting heat, stifling vapour, &c. And again the horn sounded, and the company gathered; but this time Mark Sutherland did not appear during the whole course of the meal—no, nor after it was over.

The table was cleared away, the room once more put in order, the candles lighted for the evening, and the men gathered in the kitchen, with their pipes, but still Mark did not come.

The landlady was rocking her baby to sleep, and entering at intervals into the conversation. At last she arose, and put her child to bed, and asked Rosalie if she should not like to be shown to her sleeping-room.

Rosalie replied in the affirmative; and the hostess lighted a candle and conducted her through the middle passage, and up the stairs, and opened a door to the right of the landing, leading into a large room, unplastered, and nearly unfurnished. The room was divided in the middle by a temporary partition of hanging blankets. In the first division there were two double beds, covered with coarse patch-work quilts. The hostess passed between these, and, putting aside the blankets, led her guest to the interior division, which was smaller, and contained only one bed, covered like the others.

“You are to sleep here. Is there anything you want?” she asked, setting down the candle on a chest that served as toilet-table and washstand.

“Yes; water and towels, if you please,” replied Rosalie.

“I’ll get them for you in a minute. When do you look for _him_ in?”

“Mr. Sutherland?—every moment!”

“Umph! humph! Now tell me the truth—I sha’n’t blame you—it’s none o’ my business you know, but—_ain’t_ you and that young man a runaway match?”

“Why, no, certainly not,” said Rosalie, reddening and laughing. “We were married in my uncle’s house, and left it with his blessing and good wishes.”

“That’s right; you must excuse my asking, but you somehow looked so young and delicate for such a life as you’re come to, that I couldn’t help thinking that it must o’ been a _love-match_.”

Rosalie did not say that she hoped it _was_ a love-match, and the landlady departed on her errand.

When she entered, bringing a tin basin and a crash towel, she put them down upon the chest, and said:

“I forgot to tell you that there are four bachelors sleep in the fore part of the room.”

Rosalie looked up, surprised and shocked. This feature of western life was quite new to her, and she was totally unprepared for it.

The hostess saw her expression, and hastened to say—“Oh! they’re very nice, steady young men; they won’t make a noise, and keep you awake.”

“But have you no private room unoccupied? Your house seems large; I should think there were at least four chambers on this floor?”

“Lor’ bless you, child, so there are; but the floors ain’t laid to none o’ them except this one, which is the reason I have to put so many in it. Bless you, you mus’n’t mind such things out here—nobody does—’tain’t like where you come from, you know. And now, child, if there’s nothing else I can do for you, I hope you’ll excuse me, for indeed I am so tired I am almost ready to drop.”

“Certainly; indeed, I am sorry to have given you so much trouble. Good night!”

“Good night!” said the hostess, taking up her candle, and disappearing through the opening folds of the blanket.

Rosalie did not wish to sleep. The not unpleasant restlessness, induced by a new and strange position, drove sleep for a time from her eyes. She drew the chest to the only window in her part of the room, and sat down, and opened it, and looked out upon the dark green prairie, that seemed to roll out like the ocean to meet the eastern horizon, where the harvest moon was just rising. The full moon! It was the only familiar object that met her eyes in all the strange, wild, lonely, beautiful scene—the only old acquaintance—the only thing she had known at home! Tears—but not of sadness—rushed to her eyes. And then she thought of the vicissitudes of the last two years, and especially of the last two months; of her life of almost oriental luxury in the valley of the Pearl; of her home in the mountains of Virginia, where she was surrounded by all the advantages of wealth, taste, elegance, and comfort—where the eyes of affection watched her motions all day long, and many servants waited on her lightest bidding; and then of the roughness and ruggedness of her present lot. But not in repining, and not in regret did she compare these various phases of her life. She was happy if ever young wife was so. She looked upon the prairie, bathed in the silvery splendour of moonlight, with its mystic boundaries lost under the horizon, and its vastness and vagueness cast a glamour over her imagination, and charmed her with the fancy of wandering on and on in quest of its unknown limits, or as far as the vanishing boundaries might entice her. In the midst of these eyrie reveries sleep surprised her, and her fair head sank upon her folded hands on the window-sill.

She was awakened by a gentle clasp around her waist and a gentle voice in her ear, saying—

“My Rosalie—asleep at the window with the night dews falling on your head?”

She started, blushed, smiled, and exclaimed, “O, Mark, is it you? I am so glad that you have come!”

He let down the window, and placed his hand upon her head to see if it was damp, and asked—

“Why did you not go to rest, Rosalie?”

“Why, at first I was not sleepy; and I heard that there were strangers in the next room—or, rather, on the other side of the blankets—and it seemed so odd. I could not get used to the thought in a minute, Mark.”

He answered with a laugh and said, as he looked around—

“Yes, it is rather a rude place, with rather primitive accommodations, for the first and best hotel in the great city of Shelton. But, never mind; wait a bit. In a year or two you shall see this house well and completely finished, within and without, and the rooms all properly and comfortably fitted up and furnished, and the establishment provided with suitable waiters and chamber-maids; and in half-a-dozen years the host will probably have made his fortune.”

“Well, Mark, and what success have you had this afternoon?”

“The best success. I have found a house, which I think will suit us exactly. Come to the window for a moment again. Do you see, immediately under the moon, that distant grove, that looks as if it were just against the horizon? You see the trees stand up straight and dark against the sky?”

“Yes, I see it.”

“That is Wolf’s Grove. It is not more than three miles from here. I can easily walk the distance twice a day. There is one building on the spot—a large log cabin, that was put up for a meeting-house, but has fallen into disuse since the rise of this village. The cabin is in good repair, and I have already engaged it. So, dear wife, we have only to wait for the arrival of our little furniture, to go to housekeeping. And to-morrow we will go over to Wolf’s Grove, and review the premises.”