Chapter XXVI: The Desolate Home

While the assembly within the minister’s house was in that wild state which follows an event which no one thoroughly understands, Joshua Leonard came in from the orchard, where he had been superintending a swing on which some of the little folks had been amusing themselves, till the twinkle of a star or two between the apple-tree boughs warned them that night was coming on.

As the strong man came in anxious glances were cast upon him, and the whispers that had been running from group to group were hushed.

“Ah,” he said, all in a glow of cheerfulness, won from his kindly exercise among the children, “it takes us young folks to enjoy ourselves! How can you all mope here?”

No one answered, but the guests looked at each other with significant glances, and broke up into pairs, gliding away from his path.

“Where is Amy and the old woman?” he inquired, without much heeding this constraint among his friends. “It’s getting nigh on time to go home, I reckon.”

No one answered him. But that moment Hr. Blake came out of the little room which everybody knew as the minister’s study, and, laying his hand on Leonard’s arm, drew him in and closed the door.

The minister was sitting by a little table, from which many a score of sermons, with innumerable heads, had been given to the people. A single candle shed its light on his face, which was more than grave, and he looked towards the door with a troubled eye as Leonard entered.

“What is this?” said the mill owner, somewhat bewildered by the gloom which filled the little apartment. “Oh, you wish a reckoning of accounts. Very good. We have all given in our contributions, and here is a list set down with a pencil. Short reckonings make long friends; it won’t take more than half an hour, anyway.”

The minister looked at Blake imploringly. He had no courage to execute the task imposed on him; the unconsciousness, the easy confidence of Leonard’s manner went to his heart. It was like dealing a death-blow between the eyes of a Newfoundland dog while looking trustfully in your face.

“Be it so,” said Dr. Blake, in answer to this mute appeal; and in after days he spoke of this as the greatest trial of his life. “Be it so. I will speak to brother Leonard, and may the Lord of Hosts be with him and bear him up.”

“Amen!” whispered the minister, shading his eyes with a hand that shook in the candle-light.

“What is this?” cried Leonard, becoming alarmed. “What has befallen? Any thing to our Amy? any thing to her mother?”

“Sit down,” answered the minister, softly; “sit down, brother.”

Leonard sat down as he was requested, looking first at his friend, then at the minister, in a stern, questioning way, for he began to feel that there was something terribly wrong.

The doctor sat down also, but it was some moments before he could speak. At last, with all his manhood, he was able to utter a single word only.

“Brother!”

Leonard turned his honest, questioning eyes on his friend.

“Brother, I begin to wish we had spoken of this before. It is hard to bring trouble on an old friend.”

“If there is trouble for me, doctor, speak out. I hope I can bear it with patience. God has been merciful to me hitherto. Shall I not take his crosses as well as his blessings. So long as the woman and her child are not smitten, I can bear any thing.”

“But it is through your child that this trouble comes. God help and forgive her!”

“Forgive her,—my child,—our Amy! What has she done? Oh, brother, tell me, what has she done?”

Dr. Blake shrunk away from the wild questioning of those eyes. The minister shaded his face with one pale hand, while he reached forth the other and grasped that of Leonard, which lay half clenched upon the table.

“Speak to me,—speak to me! I can bear this no longer,” cried the poor father.

The minister bent down his head, grasped the hand which began to struggle and shake, with both his, and began to speak in a low, rapid voice, like one who fears to stop lest his breath or courage should fail.

It was terrible to watch that strong man as the story of his daughter’s disgrace was unfolded to him: the whiteness of death crept slowly over his noble face; his hand grew cold as ice; drops of anguish stole out on his broad forehead and stood there like globules of ice. But he listened in silence. That which the society had known long he heard at last,—how Arnold had been at his house evening after evening, alone with his daughter while he was at lectures and prayer-meetings,—how, but why go into the harrowing details of his disgrace, of her terrible downfall?

“And now,” said the minister, with tears in his eyes, “now we can delay no longer. We had hoped that something might have prevented the painful steps we are now compelled to take.”

Leonard did not speak, but a terrible anguish smouldered in his eyes.

“She is a member of our society. Without confession and atonement no sinner can remain in communion with God’s people.”

The shudder that crept through that strong frame made the table on which the unhappy father leaned tremble visibly: a low groan broke from his lips.

“We have been forbearing,—we have prayed for you, wept for you, brother Leonard; nay, against such evidence have been resolutely unbelieving in the poor child’s actual guilt. We were fain to believe that a secret marriage had taken place somewhere; but now certain news comes that the young man is about to wed another person.”

Leonard started and looked up with a sharp, burning glance. The minister understood it, and answered sadly,

“Yes, news came to-night that Benedict Arnold is about to marry the young French woman who spent last Thanksgiving at his father’s house.”

Here Leonard started to his feet, dashed the minister’s hand from him and turned his white face upon Dr. Blake. Then the agony that tore him broke forth.

“Is this thing true?”

“I have feared it long, known it of a surety during the last two weeks,” answered the doctor.

Leonard strode towards the door, then came suddenly back, and, leaning hard on the table with both hands, spoke to the minister.

“Wait,—have a little patience before you bring the young critter that was my child into the broad aisle for public scorn. She will not stand there alone. I call on you both to witness that I, Joshua Leonard, have been a God-fearing man since the beard was black on my chin; but if this young man crosses my path I must kill him!”

“Brother!” almost shrieked the minister, trembling in all his limbs at the whirlwind of human passion that rushed by him.

“Joshua Leonard,” cried the doctor, in a voice of stern rebuke, seizing the hand that Leonard lifted heavily from the table as he ceased speaking, “have you forgotten that vengeance belongeth to God?”

He might as well have grasped an iron gauntlet, for any response that hand gave to his, or have argued with a whirlwind when it tears an oak up by the roots. The bosom tempter that had dwelt with that man, almost unsuspected from his birth up, had been his pride,—the strong, inborn pride that had its growth in a vigorous, independent nature. Now they were tearing it up root and branch, and rebuked him that he struggled against the tempest that was to make his heart a desert. After a time “the still small voice” would whisper through all this whirl of passion, but it was not yet.

Again he strode to the door and opened it. There, upon the other side, he found his wife, her cheeks crimson and wet with tears that she was trying to wipe dry with a gorgeous silk handkerchief, while she indignantly refused the consolation which half a dozen of the sisters were offering.

“Come, Joshua, come home. This isn’t the place for you and I. There’s neither charity, nor truth, nor the milk of human kindness anywhere for us and ours. No, sisters, don’t speak; I know what I’m a-saying, and stand by it. You’re slanderers, unbelievers, blasphemers! Do you hear? Yes, you are; for she, my Amy,—our Amy, Joshua,—is innocent and good as a little child, and of such is the kingdom of heaven—there! Come, Joshua, come, husband. It’s high time to be a-going when human beings can say what these sisters have been trying to make me believe.”

Leonard did not seem to know that she was speaking, but suffered her to put her arm through his and walked on, without heeding the crowd that drew respectfully back, or the glances of Christian sympathy that followed him. But she called out with hysterical force, “Yes, it’s my duty,—I forgive you one and all; but don’t ask me to forget, for I can’t do it.”

Leonard literally did not hear this. His faculties were locked up. He walked forth like an iron man.

The couple got into their one-horse wagon, and drove home. Leonard was hard and silent all the way; while the good wife sat folded in her shawl, crying bitterly, but with a hushed grief; for, now that she had no one to struggle against, her high spirit broke down, and many thoughts came to her mind that left her completely heart-broken.

“What if it were all true?”

It would force itself upon her; first as a doubt; then a dread; then—God help the poor mother!—almost as a certainty. How many little things came crowding to her mind, each bringing its bitter proof of what she dreaded to believe, resented against herself, and yet could not drive out of her heart!

When these feelings had fastened themselves upon her, she felt the yearning want of contradiction with which the soul strives to fling off a painful belief.

Had he heard it? Did his heart prove traitor to his wishes, as hers was doing? She longed to know, but felt an unaccountable dread of disturbing the silence into which he had fallen. At last she reached forth her hand, touching his arm with a strange feeling of awe.

“Joshua, you don’t believe it? Oh, do speak and say just that.”

He attempted to answer, but the words of shame grew husky in his throat and died there.

“Won’t you speak to me, husband?”

“Yes, mother. No, not that; you ain’t a mother now, only a poor, childless woman, who will never lift up her head again.”

“And you turn agin her, too! Oh, Joshua, who will stand by her if we believe that?”

He did not answer, but a low, hoarse moan told that an effort had been made.

“Oh, father! does your heart ache like that?” cried the wife, piteously.

“It will never stop aching,” he said, heavily.

She had nothing more to say. The conviction of Amy’s guilt closed more and more darkly around her. What could she say?

Meantime Amy had fled homeward with wild speed. She did not seek the highway, for there would be wagons and groups of old neighbors going home from the donation party. They would ask her to ride, might question her of the reason why she was on foot and alone. No, she would avoid all living things.

The fields were wet and misty with dew, but she took no heed of that, nor cared for the stone walls and rail fences that blocked her passage across them. Once or twice she stopped and looked vaguely around, like a deer seeking some covert. Then she would spring forward, and struggle through the moist grass till her garments were wet through and through. There was fever in her blood, and the dampness did her good. More than once she stooped down to the red clover tufts and white daisies, that seemed to have closed themselves against her, and, sweeping up handfuls of dew, bathed her lips and her burning forehead. But nothing would appease the fire within except sharp motion. So away she rushed through the sweeping grass, while the bent, but scarcely trampled meadow flowers, startled back as if affrighted from her tread; and the pure stars looked down upon her in heavenly sorrow, that any thing they and the angels knew to be innocent should take that guilty seeming.

Amy went homeward, not with any definite intent, but because she had no other place in which to hide herself. Indeed she had no formed wish or plan, but, like a wounded bird, fled onward to escape the great pain aching at her heart.

At last she came within hearing of the falls,—within sight of the mill, and of her father’s cabin. Every thing was dark there. The rushing waters made her stop and think. What if she turned that way,—not towards the saw-mill, the thought of those dark logs made her nerves creep; but higher up in the rush of the whirlpool, where the starlight could fall upon her as she died?

As this thought held her in thrall, a whip-poor-will, hid in some tree back of her father’s house, began to wail forth his protest; and, strange to say, there was something in his song that won her back from the evil temptation that was drawing her fascinated towards the falls. It seemed like some friend, who had known trouble, calling her away home.

The cabin was dark and still. No light but the stars,—no sound but the whip-poor-will, who seemed plaintively bewailing her sorrow. There was little occasion for bolts in those days; a latch-string drawn in was sufficient indication that no one was at home. Amy felt for the knot to this leathern thong, and let herself in. A few gleams of starlight stole after her, so that she was not left in utter darkness. But, now that the poor child had reached home, what could she do? In a few moments her parents might be there. She must meet them,—must look in her father’s face. The thought drove her mad; she turned and prepared to flee again. Ah, if her mother would but come alone! But that kind, stern father,—she could not meet him.

But where could she go? Who would receive her? Where, in the wide, wide world was there a roof to shelter her, save that which now seemed to frown her away? As these dreary questions sunk into her heart, she heard a sharp rattle of wheels coming up the road. It was her father and mother.

Amy started, and attempted to rise, but her limbs gave way; the breath seemed to struggle in her throat, and, before she had power to move, the wagon stopped, and she heard her parents coming. Desperation gave her strength, and she stood up; but the corner into which she had shrunk was dark, and the room seemed empty to the two persons who darkened the door.

“She is not here! Oh, Joshua, she has not reached home! Where can my child be gone?” cried the good woman, calling out piteously, and beating the air with her hands. “They have driven her wild! They have hunted her to death! She is lost,—dead!”

“Hush!” commanded the stern-voiced man. “It would be a mercy if what you say is true!”

“Oh, Joshua! Joshua! she is our child,—our only child!”

“No; not our child. She was the apple of this eye, but I pluck her out.”

A sharp, low wail broke out from the darkness of the room; then, with the fleetness of a bird and the stillness of a ghost, Amy passed by her father and away. He saw her a moment, flitting through the starlight which fell across the road; then she was suddenly engulfed in the black shadows of the saw-mill.

“Oh, Joshua! Joshua Leonard! what have you done? It was our own poor angel child,—for she is an angel! Cover her with sin and iniquity like a garment, heap ashes on her head, and she would come out white as snow compared to them that make charges against her! What have you done, Joshua Leonard, but turned, like a pelican of the wilderness, agin your own flesh and blood! Why don’t you speak? Why don’t you move? Can’t you call out and bring her back, as the prodigal father called for his son? Amy! Amy!”

Poor woman! her voice was so choked with the passion of her grief, that what she meant for a shout scarcely rose above a hoarse whisper.

“Oh, mercy! mercy! God has taken away my voice! Shout! you hard-hearted man. Scream till the woods ring! My child shall not be turned out-of-doors!”

Her voice broke forth now. She struggled past her husband, pushing him aside with force, and ran wildly up the road, calling with frantic grief for her child.

“Come back, Amy—my own, own Amy! Come back and take poor mother along. Since he turns agin us, and believes us guilty, and wishes us dead, we’ll leave him all that there is, and go off into the cold, wide world all alone. Amy! Oh, Amy! do speak to your mother! She loves you just as well as ever! She’ll stand by you, right or wrong! She’ll die for you—starve for you—work for you! She’ll go down on her two knees to that committee and beg ’em to let you off! If they won’t do that, she’ll stand up by your side in the broad aisle of the meeting-house, afore the hull world, and tell ’em all that it was her own fault,—that she did it all by her miserable way of bringing you up! Come back, Amy darling! come back to your mother!”

But there was no answer to this pathetic cry. It rang through the darkness of the saw-mill, and sobbed itself to death among the rushing waters; but, though she paused to listen, holding in her grief, no reply reached her, save that of the whip-poor-will, that sounded harsh and cruel, mocking her anguish, as if the strange voice joined with her daughter’s enemies and clamored for punishment.

Then a horrible fear came to her heart. Had Amy plunged into the watery grave from which God had once saved her? Was she then floating, stark and cold, among the logs under her feet? The pangs of her anguish came sharp with the thought. She bent over the black abyss, shrieking forth the unhappy girl’s name in heart-rending cries.