Chapter III: Mrs. Clifton, of Hardbargain

She is a lady of confirmed honor, of an unmatchable spirit, and
determinate in all virtuous resolutions; not hasty to anticipate
affront, nor show to feel where just provocation is given.—CHARLES
LAMB.

Clifton by the morning sunlight! Oh! that I could show it to you as Fairfax saw it from the balcony of his chamber on the morning after his arrival! The whole face of the country was very high, yet even this elevated land was broken into hills and valleys, rocks and glens. Behind the house arose the white cliffs so often mentioned, shutting out the Northern view, but before the house lay the valley in which the plantation was situated, and around that, East, West and South, stretched a magnificent panorama, ridge beyond ridge of mountains, covered with gigantic forests, clothed with the richest verdure, rolling on until they gradually faded away in the distance, their forms lost among the clouds of the horizon. It seemed a vast, boundless ocean of greenery, of which the vales and mountains were the stupendous waves, charmed to sleep.

It was a magnificent solitude. Not a human dwelling to be seen. The planters’ mansions—if there were any in the neighborhood, were low in the vales, and hidden from sight. The mountain torrent, as it came leaping down the side of the cliff, running through the wooded lawn, losing itself in the forest vale, and reappearing as a mountain lake among the distant hills, was a beautiful feature in the landscape. The deep intense blue of the clear skies, the early splendor of the sunlight, the murmur of the breeze among the waving trees, the joyous songs of birds, gladdened all the scene, and put to flight Frank’s blue devils, long before Dandy called him to breakfast.

The breakfast-table was set in the lawn under the shadow of the pine elms.

The old gentleman, in his suit of cool white linen—the sisters in neat morning dresses of white cambric, and the dark Georgia, in her usual dress of black, were assembled on the piazza. They greeted Mr. Fairfax with lively welcome, telling him that Clifton had not yet made his appearance. But even while they spoke, Captain Clifton joined them, and they sat down to breakfast. Those breakfasts on the lawn! How many times in after years, in the sultry heat of the city hotel, did Fairfax recall them!

Soon after breakfast, Captain Clifton invited Mr. Fairfax to accompany him in a ride up the ridge to his mother’s farm. And after taking leave of the ladies they set out. They left the house by the back way, and took a winding bridle-path up the side of the cliffs. The day was very fine and cool, and their path was shaded by overhanging trees. It was altogether a delightful ride, and as they went up, Clifton, who led the way, turned his head around and inquired—

“Frank! what instigated you to romance so last night about our sojourn at the mountain hut?”

“Romance? I didn’t romance, except in saying that the girl was beautiful. I said _that_ for your credit!”

“Oh! I ought to be _exceedingly_ obliged to you!”

“Yes—I think so, too—but what malicious Puck gave _you_ a love-weed, and fooled you into sitting and studying that ugly little girl’s hard face all the evening?”

“I did not think her ugly at all. She has a noble countenance. A _most_ noble countenance. One, of which an empress might be proud of!”

“Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! _I_ saw nothing but a mountainous forehead, and a strong portcullis jaw! ‘Noble!’ Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! I said you’d taken the love-powder!”

“Yet even you cannot find any but a _noble_ simile in speaking of her ‘ugly’ features!”

“Ah! what will Miss Clifton think of this admiration?”

“Sir, Miss Clifton has my deepest homage, and when she is my wife, she will indulge no follies. But, Fairfax, you are absurd, and I beg you will abandon this ridiculous conversation. You know that I have always had a proclivity to the study of character. Nature made me something of a physiognomist. And if there be any truth in my favorite science, that mountain-girl’s face presented the most extraordinary combination of power and goodness I have ever met with.”

“Oh! then you only studied the maiden as the botanist would study a new plant, the geologist a new fossil, or the naturalist a strange animal?—”

—“Or the astronomer a new STAR? Precisely, sir! Except that the human being is the highest and most absorbing study of all!”

“Really! really! this passes belief—the proud, fastidious Archer Clifton, to be smitten with an ugly mountain-girl!”

“Frank! Nonsense—you really anger me. Listen, then, and I will tell you why that child—for she is but a child—interested me so much. I saw in her face the signs of wonderful force of character, as yet undeveloped, and I saw in all her actions that which corroborated their testimony. I was surprised to find all that in the humble mountaineer, and speculated as to what, in her _very_ humble situation, it might lead. That was simply all!”

“And did you not wish to be a providence to the mountain girl, and open a field for so much energy?”

“Perhaps such a thought might have presented itself to my mind. If so, it was dismissed at once. A highly gifted _man_ of low birth must have extraordinary talents indeed, and be placed in extraordinary circumstances, to elevate himself above his condition—for a _girl_ in such a case it is impossible. But, Fairfax, really this conversation has taken a more serious tone than I designed it should. Really, nobility of character, though very rare among the lower classes of society, is yet not so impossible as to excite our wonder. There are others like Kate Kavanagh—”

—“How pat you’ve got her name! Now _I_ had forgotten it!”

“Pooh! I say there are others like her. They are born great—they live and die, and the world hears nothing of them. And talents that might have swayed the counsels of a monarch, and decided the destinies of an empire, have been employed to direct the household of a shepherd, and determine the fate of a sheep! Such is the order of society, and better, far better so, than that its boundaries should be thrown down, its ranks intermingled!”

“There spoke a Clifton of Clifton!” said Frank.

They were now at the top of the ridge, and entering upon a hard, stony, half-reclaimed farm, in the midst of which stood a rude, but substantial house, built of hewn rocks of every shade of gray, and surrounded by trees. Below them, all around, rose the forest-crowned hills; behind them the white cliffs concealed the mansion of Clifton from their sight, all around them lay fields of stunted corn.

“This is Hardbargain,” said Captain Clifton, opening a rude farm gate, and holding it open, while his companion passed through.

“Hardbargain! a most appropriate name! I should think it the hardest of all bargains, to receive this farm as a precious gift,” replied Frank, looking around upon the stony field and stunted corn.

“Yes,” admitted Captain Clifton, “it is a well-merited title. It was once called Rocky Ridge. A poor man got a grant of it, and settled there first—spent all his health and strength in trying to bring the rugged soil under cultivation—failed—christened the place Hard_scrabble_, and sold it to my grandfather for thrice its value. My grandfather repented the purchase, re-christened the ill-starred farm Hard_bargain_, and, as the Clifton estate was entailed upon his eldest son, gave this farm as a portion to his younger son, my father. My father was then a subaltern officer in the Continental Army, and absent with Washington, at Valley Forge. My mother, with myself, then an infant, was a temporary sojourner at Clifton. No sooner had my grandfather made a gift to my father of this nearly barren farm, than my mother set all her faculties at work for its cultivation and improvement. My mother was nearly penniless, being the daughter of a family of decayed fortune. My father was unable to send her anything except the Continental notes, with which he himself was paid, but which would scarcely pass farther. But being determined not to eat the bread of dependence by remaining at Clifton after my grandfather’s death, my mother sold all her jewelry and plate, which had been left her by a deceased maiden aunt, and applied the proceeds of the sale to the improvement of Hardbargain. She hired laborers. There was a rude log hut, built by the first settler upon the land. She hired a woman, and placed her in that hut to keep house and cook for them. She read books on agriculture, and consulted my uncle’s overseer upon the same subject. And every morning she rode up and spent the day at Hardbargain, overlooking the laborers. She was her own overseer! Frank! you appreciate high worth when you see it. I may, besides, tell you anything—you are my only companion—I tell you that my dear mother was one in ten thousand. She was a true heroine, a heroine of domestic life. Abandoning all her habits of elegance and refinement, despising luxury, ease and comfort, disdaining the sneers of the world, and giving herself to toil and hardship, and weariness of body and mind, that she might win from the desert an independent home for her family! My dear mother had no reason to suppose, and never admitted the possibility that my uncle would not be blessed with a male heir, that _I_, her son, for whom she toiled to secure a rugged farm, would be the inheritor of entailed Clifton! And so she toiled, year after year, until at the end of the war, when the army was reduced, and my father came home, he found a comfortable house, and a productive farm.”

Clifton seemed to have fallen into one of his fits of reminiscence; scarcely conscious that he was talking to his true but volatile friend, scarcely conscious that he was talking _at all_, he went on—

“My first recollection of my dearest mother, is of a very noble looking lady, of dark complexion, black hair, and gray eyes. I recollect, when an infant of four years old, being brought out from the mansion-house of Clifton every morning, to the back road gate, where she sat upon her horse awaiting me, with a little basket, containing our dinner, hanging on the horn of the saddle. I used to be lifted to the saddle before her, and while her left arm encircled me, with her right hand she would guide her horse around the base of the cliff, and take the winding bridle-path that led up the Rocky Ridge, upon which lay her sterile farm of Hardbargain. Oh! I remember how she used to ride from field to field, making investigations, and giving directions to her rude workmen—and with what deference the rough men were used to address her—hat in hand. I remember, too, our cold dinners, taken under the shade of an elm tree, whose lowest branches sheltered a fine spring—the head waters of that very torrent, which, in course of time and space, swells into the mighty river I told you of. Oh! my noble mother! how few would have displayed her courage and fortitude!—not one in a million but would have rather sat down in the luxurious ease and abundance of Clifton, where she had a long welcome for as long as she should choose to stay—rather than have dared the toil and hardship that she endured. The land was at last cleared up, the farm laid off in order, and brought under the best possible cultivation. A comfortable house was built, and my mother moved into it to receive my father when he should come home, at the disbanding of his company. He came at last—it was a happy time—and well I remember how my mother’s young, but stern and weather-beaten face, bloomed and softened again into youth and beauty and womanhood, by her soldier’s side. But, ah! he had survived all the horrible perils and sufferings by cold, hunger, and the foe, endured by our army during that long and terrible struggle, and returned safe, to die in a time of peace—to die at home, where every care and comfort surrounded him. Yes, he came home in the winter of —82. Towards the spring, he took a slight cold—it was neglected as of little account—it settled upon his lungs—before winter came again, he died, and the first snow that fell, fell upon his grave. My honored mother was a strong-minded woman. After what I have told you, you know that she was! She loved him as only the strong can love. She suffered as only the strong can suffer. She rose above that death-blow to her happiness as only the strong can rise. But she has never been the same woman since. When a few years had passed, and her son’s welfare demanded her care, she aroused every faculty of her mind and body, for the ‘purpose of insuring’ his greatest good. Even at that epoch of time, there was no reason to suppose that I should inherit the Clifton estate. My uncle was then in the prime of manhood, had married his second wife, and by no means despaired of male issue. My dear mother taxed soul, body and estate to the utmost, to defray my expenses at college, during the seven years of my residence there. It was also to her persevering exertions, as well as to the late military services of my deceased father, that I owed my commission in the army. They say that _misfortunes_ never come single. _Good fortune_ certainly ne’er does, if I may judge of our own experience of both. When I had left college, the heaviest tax was raised from our income, and when I obtained a commission in the army, my year’s pay more than doubled the annual income from the proceeds of the farm. At this time also my mother received a legacy from an aged and distant relative, which enabled her to stock her farm well, and furnish her house comfortably. Furthermore, my uncle having lost his _third_ wife, and at last given up all thoughts of a son of his own, began to take quite a paternal interest in me—insisting, when off duty, I should spend all my time with him—and finding neither myself nor my mother disposed to forego each other’s society, would have persuaded the latter to take up her abode under his roof. But that arrangement did not suit my mother. She, who in her young womanhood had too high a spirit for dependence—preferring to give herself to severest toil and privation, rather than live in easy luxury under another’s roof—could not in her stern maturity be bribed to give up her well-earned independence. Nor indeed, under any circumstances, should I have consented to the plan. We compromised the matter by my agreeing to spend half the time of furlough at Clifton. This was the more congenial to my feelings, as my cousin Carolyn had now left school permanently. As for my uncle, he consoled himself for his disappointment in not getting my mother’s society at Clifton, by marrying a fourth wife.”

“I am impressed with the idea that your mother is a very proud woman, Clifton!” said Frank, taking advantage of Captain Clifton’s first thoughtful pause.

“No, no,” he answered, slowly, as in half reverie, “no—she is not what the world calls proud—she is no conservator of rank, as I am. She is the only _true_ republican I know in this whole Republic. Sprung, herself, from an ancient, noble, and haughty race, she yet honors talent and virtue, when met with in the lowest ranks, as much—nay, I verily believe, _more_, than when found in the highest circles, where it is natural they should be more frequently seen.

——“But here we are, and you shall judge for yourself,” concluded Captain Clifton, as he opened a gate admitting them into a shady yard, in the midst of which stood the house. They alighted at the gate and gave their horses into the charge of a negro boy, and walked on to the house. It was a plain oblong stone building, of two stories, with a deep, shady piazza, running the whole length of the front. It was divided through the centre by a wide passage way, the front and back doors of which were both open and drawing a fine draft of air, and from which opened four large airy rooms, two on a side. They stepped up on the piazza, and were met at the front door by a neatly clothed negro girl, who admitted them into the passage, and opening a door on the right hand next the front, showed them into a cool, breezy, but plainly furnished parlor; the walls and ceiling being simply white-washed, and the floor bare but highly polished with wax, as was the summer custom of the country at that day. The fire-place was open and filled with green bushes. The window-curtains, and the lounge, and easy-chair covers, were all of chintz. There was a reality of substantial and permanent comfort about the place, that Frank thought he had never seen elsewhere. And when Clifton invited him to be seated, and he rested himself in one of those cool arm-chairs in that shaded room, he declared that a feeling of at-home-ativeness came over him, such as he had never experienced since he left his own mother’s house, and never hoped to feel again until he should have a house of his own. The negro girl whom Clifton addressed as Hennie, then left the room to summon her mistress, and shortly after the lady of the house entered.

Mrs. Clifton, of Hardbargain, was now about fifty years of age—tall, and inclining to _en bon point_, but not more so than well became her years. Her complexion was dark, and her hair and eyes black. Her features were strongly marked and commanding, indicative of great strength of will and indomitable firmness of purpose, all moderated, however, by the expression of her countenance, which was at once composed and gracious. Her manner was marked by unaffected dignity and courtesy—her dress was of very plain dark silk, made high to the throat, and with sleeves coming down to the wrists, a small ruff set closely around her neck, fastened with a mourning pin. Her only head-dress was her own black hair, which, though slightly mingled with gray, was worn uncovered. Indeed, cap or turban upon that noble head would have looked impertinent. She advanced into the room and greeted her son with affection, and welcomed Mr. Fairfax with courtesy, though her words were so few, and her manner was so calm, as to seem cool. Frank thought her a very noble looking woman, though somewhat stiff and cold. Indeed, all strangers, and superficial observers, thought her cold and proud. Never was a greater misapprehension of character—never did a larger or more generous heart live in the bosom of woman—albeit, its pulsations were of the calmest and most regular character. She sat down and entered into an easy conversation with her son and his friend, inquiring into the particulars of their journey, and making comments as they were related. Once during the recital her cheek almost imperceptibly changed. It was at the telling of the hair-breadth escape at the brink of the Devil’s Staircase, but upon that she made no observation whatever. She rang a little hand bell, which was answered by the entrance of Hennie. She took a bunch of keys from her pocket, and giving them to the girl, directed her to bring refreshments. Hennie left the room, but soon returned bearing a large waiter with home-made wine, cake, and a basket of fine peaches and pears. While they regaled themselves upon these luxuries, she inquired after the health and well-being of the family of White Cliffs, and having received satisfactory answers, turned to Mr. Fairfax and hoped that he was sufficiently well pleased with their neighborhood to favor it with a long sojourn. Frank assured her that he should never grow weary of the delights of his visit, and should conclude it only when compelled to do so, and _then_ with great regret. The conversation then became of more general interest. The weather, the condition of the roads, the health of the neighborhood, &c., were discussed. And then the discourse took a higher tone, and the agricultural and political condition and prospects of the whole country, and the great probability of another speedy war with Great Britain, were debated. And Mr. Fairfax wondered at the extent of information, the strong grasp of mind, and the depth and justness of thought, displayed by this recluse lady upon subjects apparently so foreign to her daily experience.

They made quite a long morning visit, and before their departure, Captain Clifton took an opportunity—while Mr. Fairfax was walking around the room and staring at some old family pictures, among which hung a portrait by ——, of Oliver Cromwell, as Lord Protector of England—to draw his mother aside, and say to her—

“Madam, I have a proposition to make to you, or a favor to ask—as it may turn out.”

“What is it, my son?” gravely inquired the lady.

“You heard Mr. Fairfax speak of the young mountain-girl whom we met just before the storm, and who kindly conducted us to her grandfather’s cabin?”

“Yes.”

“It is of her that I would speak, and for her that I would enlist your sympathy and protection—”

“Go on, I attend, my son.”

“You have given me some credit for insight into character. If my judgment is worthy of your consideration, this young girl is deserving of your kindest offices.”

“Does she deserve them?”

“Madam, she impressed me as being a child of high moral and mental endowments, and the trying experience of one night proved the truth of that impression.”

“Does she need my good offices?”

“Mother! with the finest intellectual capacities, she is nearly destitute of all opportunities of intellectual culture. That is bad—but not so deplorable as what follows. Kate Kavanagh—that is her name—is far removed from all of her own sex. Her young brother, her only protector, is absent from home from earliest dawn till late at night. Her only companion is an old man, an habitual drunkard, subject to frequent and furious fits of _mania-a-potu_. Her case, upon my showing, may not be so exigent. But if you had seen her as I did, it would seem so. Her brother being best acquainted with the circumstances, is the best judge in the premises, and is very anxious upon his sister’s account, and wishes to get her a place at service.”

“But if she is a girl of so excellent a nature as you have supposed, will she leave her aged relative?”

“Not willingly, certainly—but—I wish the opportunity of improving her condition afforded her, indeed, I promised her brother Carl that it should be presented.”

“I know Carl Kavanagh—he worked for me during the last year. I formed a good opinion of him. If his sister is equal to him she must be a meritorious girl.”

“She is very superior to him, madam.”

The lady was mistress of great promptitude and decision of action. With her eyes fixed upon the ground she reflected for a few moments, then lifting them, said—

“Write to your friend Carl Kavanagh—”

“Not my _friend_, dear madam, an’ it please you!” haughtily interrupted her son.

A slight shade of disapproval or of displeasure clouded the lady’s brow for a moment, and she said—

“Write then to your dependent, Carl Kavanagh, and let him know that I am willing to receive his sister into my own service on trial—and that he may bring her hither as soon as is convenient.”

“Thank you, dearest madam, I will write to-day, and send a messenger with the letter. I am really pleased and grateful for this kindness,” said Archer Clifton, pressing his lips to the cheek she offered to his salute.

The young men soon after took leave, being engaged to dine that day at home at White Cliffs.

“Clifton!” said Mr. Fairfax, as they rode along, “excuse me for telling you freely how highly I honor your mother. Yes! you may stare! _I_—the irreverent—the rash said—_excuse_ me for telling you how highly I honor your mother—for, by my faith, she is a lady whom to praise is presumption! But, my dear Clifton, how is it that she resembles so closely that old portrait of Oliver Cromwell, which hangs, besides, between two family portraits. It is not possible you claim descent from _him_?”

“My mother does, by the female line. I do not think I have much of his nature. In his time I should have been a royalist. My mother venerates his character very highly.”

“By my soul! she is like him enough in feature.”

“Yes, and in many points of character, she is strikingly like him.”

In conversation such as this the friends reached White Cliffs, and Mr. Fairfax retired to his chamber to dress for dinner, and Captain Clifton entered the library for the purpose of writing a letter to Carl Kavanagh.