Afloat and Ashore Part 37

My sister looked at me intently, for a moment, as if to ascertain how far I could, or could not, ask such a question with indifference. It will be remembered that no verbal explanations had ever taken place between us, on the subject of our feelings towards the companions of our childhood, and that all that was known to either was obtained purely by inference. Between myself and Lucy nothing had ever pa.s.sed, indeed, which might not have been honestly referred to our long and early a.s.sociation, so far as the rules of intercourse were concerned, though I sometimes fancied I could recall a hundred occasions, on which Lucy had formerly manifested deep attachment for myself; nor did I doubt her being able to show similar proofs, by reversing the picture. This, however, was, or I had thought it to be, merely the language of the heart; the tongue having never spoken. Of course, Grace had nothing but conjecture on this subject, and alas! she had begun to see how possible it was for those who lived near each other to change their views on such subjects; no wonder, then, if she fancied it still easier, for those who had been separated for years.

"I have not told you, Miles," Grace answered, after a brief delay, "because it would not be proper to communicate the secrets of my friend to a young man, even to you, were it in my power, as it is not, since Lucy never has made to me the slightest confidential communication, of any sort or nature, touching love."

"Never!" I exclaimed--reading my fancied doom in the startling fact; for I conceived it impossible, had she ever really loved me, that the matter should not have come up in conversation between two so closely united--"Never! What, no girlish--no childish preference--have you never had no mutual preferences to reveal?"

"Never"--answered Grace, firmly, though her very temples seemed illuminated--"Never. We have been satisfied with each other's affection, and have had no occasion to enter into any unfeminine and improper secrets, if any such existed."

A long, and I doubt not a mutually painful pause succeeded.

"Grace," said I, at length--"I am not envious of this probable accession of fortune to the Hardinges, but I think we should all have been much more united--much happier--without it."

My sister's colour left her face, she trembled all over, and she became pale as death.

"You may be right, in some respects, Miles," she answered, after a time.

"And, yet, it is hardly generous to think so. Why should we wish to see our oldest friends; those who are so very dear to us, our excellent guardian's children, less well off than we are ourselves? No doubt, no doubt, it may seem better to _us_, that Clawbonny should be the castle and we its possessors; but others have their rights and interests as well as ourselves. Give the Hardinges money, and they will enjoy every advantage known in this country--more than money can possibly give us--why, then, ought we to be so selfish as to wish them deprived of this advantage? Place Lucy where you will, she will always be Lucy; and, as for Rupert, so brilliant a young man needs only an opportunity, to rise to anything the country possesses!"

Grace was so earnest, spoke with so much feeling, appeared so disinterested, so holy I had almost said, that I could not find, in my heart, the courage to try her any farther. That she began to distrust Rupert, I plainly saw, though it was merely with the glimmerings of doubt. A nature as pure as her's, and a heart so true, admitted with great reluctance, the proofs of the unworthiness of one so long loved.

It was evident, moreover, that she shrunk from revealing her own great secret, while she had only conjectures to offer in regard to Lucy; and even these she withheld, as due to her s.e.x, and the obligations of friendship. I forgot that I had not been ingenuous myself, and that I made no communication to justify any confidence on the part of my sister. That which would have been treachery in her to say, under this state of the case, might have been uttered with greater frankness on my own part. After a pause, to allow my sister to recover from her agitation, I turned the discourse to our own more immediate family interests, and soon got off the painful subject altogether.

"I shall be of age, Grace." I said, in the course of my explanations, "before you see me again. We sailors are always exposed to more chances and hazards than people ash.o.r.e; and, I now tell you, should anything happen to me, my will may be found in my secretary; signed and sealed, the day I attain my majority. I have given orders to have it drawn up by a lawyer of eminence, and shall take it to sea with me, for that very purpose."

"From which I am to infer that I must not covet Clawbonny," answered Grace, with a smile that denoted how little she cared for the fact--"You give it to our cousin, Jack Wallingford, as a male heir, worthy of enjoying the honour."

"No, dearest, I give it to _you_. It is true, the law would do this for me; but I choose to let it be known that I wish it to be so. I am aware my father made that disposition of the place, should I die childless, before I became of age; but, once of age, the place is all mine; and that which is all mine, shall be all thine, after I am no more."

"This is melancholy conversation, and, I trust, useless. Under the circ.u.mstances you mention, Miles, I never should have expected Clawbonny, nor do I know I ought to possess it. It comes as much from Jack Wallingford's ancestors, as from our own; and it is better it should remain with the name. I will not promise you, therefore, I will not give it to him, the instant I can."

This Jack Wallingford, of whom I have not yet spoken, was a man of five-and-forty, and a bachelor. He was a cousin-german of my father's, being the son of a younger brother of my grandfather's, and somewhat of a favourite. He had gone into what was called the new countries, in that day, or a few miles west of Cayuga Bridge, which put him into Western New York. I had never seen him but once and that was on a visit he paid us on his return from selling quant.i.ties of pot and pearl ashes in town; articles made oh his new lands. He was said to be a prosperous man, and to stand little in need of the old paternal property.

After a little more conversation on the subject of my will, Grace and I separated, each more closely bound to the other, I firmly believed, for this dialogue in the "family room." Never had my sister seemed more worthy of all my love; and, certain I am, never did she possess more of it. Of Clawbonny she was as sure, as my power over it could make her.

The remainder of the week pa.s.sed as weeks are apt to pa.s.s in the country, and in summer. Feeling myself so often uncomfortable in the society of the girls, I was much in the fields; always possessing the good excuse of beginning to look after my own affairs. Mr. Hardinge took charge of the Major, an intimacy beginning to spring up between these two respectable old men. There were, indeed, so many points of common feeling, that such a result was not at all surprising. They both loved the church--I beg pardon, the Holy Catholic Protestant Episcopal Church.

They both disliked Bonaparte--the Major hated him, but my guardian hated n.o.body--both venerated Billy Pitt, and both fancied the French Revolution was merely the fulfilment of prophecy, through the agency of the devils. As we are now touching upon times likely to produce important results, let me not be misunderstood. As an old man, aiming, in a new sphere, to keep enlightened the generation that is coming into active life, it may be necessary to explain. An attempt has been made to induce the country to think that Episcopalian and tory were something like synonymous terms, in the "times that tried men's souls." This is sufficiently impudent, _per se_, in a country that possessed Washington, Jay, Hamilton, the Lees, the Morrises, the late Bishop White, and so many other distinguished patriots of the Southern and Middle States; but men are not particularly scrupulous when there is an object to be obtained, even though it be pretended that Heaven is an incident of that object. I shall, therefore, confine my explanations to what I have said about Billy Pitt and the French.

The youth of this day may deem it suspicious that an Episcopal divine--_Protestant_ Episcopal, I mean; but it is so hard to get the use of new terms as applied to old thoughts, in the decline of life!--may deem it suspicious that a Protestant Episcopal divine should care anything about Billy Pitt, or execrate Infidel France; I will, therefore, just intimate that, in 1802, no portion of the country dipped more deeply into similar sentiments than the descendants of those who first put foot on the rock of Plymouth, and whose progenitors had just before paid a visit to Geneva, where, it is "said or sung," they had found a "church without a bishop, and a state without a king." In a word, admiration of Mr. Pitt, and execration of Bonaparte, were by no means such novelties in America, in that day, as to excite wonder. For myself, however, I can truly say, that, like most Americans who went abroad in those stirring times, I was ready to say with Mercutio, "a plague on both your houses;" for neither was even moderately honest, or even decently respectful to ourselves. Party feeling, however, the most inexorable, and the most unprincipled, of all tyrants, and the bane of American liberty, notwithstanding all our boasting, decreed otherwise; and, while one half the American republic was shouting hosannas to the Great Corsican, the other half was ready to hail Pitt as the "Heaven-born Minister." The remainder of the nation felt and acted as Americans should. It was my own private opinion, that France and England would have been far better off, had neither of these worthies ever had a being.

Nevertheless, the union of opinion between the divine and the Major, was a great bond of union, in friendship. I saw they were getting on well together, and let things take their course. As for Emily, I cared very little about her, except as she might prove to be connected with Rupert, and through Rupert, with the happiness of my sister. As for Rupert, himself, I could not get entirely weaned from one whom I had so much loved in boyhood; and who, moreover, possessed the rare advantage of being Lucy's brother, and Mr. Hardinge's son. "Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother," gave him a value in my eyes, that he had long ceased to possess on his own account.

"You see, Neb," I said, towards the end of the week, as the black and I were walking up from the mill in company, "Mr. Rupert has altogether forgotten that he ever knew the name of a rope in a ship. His hands are as white as a young lady's!"

"Nebber mind dat, Ma.s.ser Mile. Ma.s.ser Rupert nebber feel a saterfaction to be wracked away, or to be prisoner to Injin! Golly! No gentleum to be envy, sir, 'em doesn't enjoy _dat!_"

"You have a queer taste. Neb, from all which I conclude you expect to return to town with me, in the Wallingford, this evening, and to go out in the Dawn?"

"Sartain, Ma.s.ser Mile! How you t'ink of goin' to sea and leave n.i.g.g.e.r at home?"

Here Neb raised such a laugh that he might have been heard a hundred rods, seeming to fancy the idea he had suggested was so preposterous as to merit nothing but ridicule.

"Well, Neb, I consent to your wishes; but this will be the last voyage in which you will have to consult me on the subject, as I shall make out your freedom papers, the moment I am of age."

"What dem?" demanded the black, quick as lightning.

"Why, papers to make you your own master--a free man--you surely know what that means. Did you never hear of free n.i.g.g.e.rs?"

"Sartin--awful poor debble, dey be, too. You catch Neb, one day, at being a free n.i.g.g.e.r, gib you leave to tell him of it, Ma.s.ser Mile!"

Here was another burst of laughter, that sounded like a chorus in merriment.

"This is a little extraordinary, Neb! I thought, boy, all slaves pined for freedom?"

"P'rhaps so; p'rhaps not. What good he do, Ma.s.ser Mile, when heart and body well satisfy as it is. Now, how long a Wallingford family lib, here, in dis berry spot?"--Neb always talked more like a "n.i.g.g.e.r," when within hearing of the household G.o.ds, than he did at sea.

"How long? About a hundred years, Neb--just one hundred and seven, I believe; to be accurate."

"And how long a Clawbonny family, at 'e same time, Ma.s.ser Mile?"

"Upon my word, Neb, your pedigree is a little confused, and I cannot answer quite as certainly. Eighty or ninety, though, I should think, at least; and, possibly a hundred, too. Let me see--you called old Pompey your grand-father; did you not, Neb?"

"Sart'in--berry good grandfader, too, Ma.s.ser Mile. Ole Pomp a won'erful black!"

"Oh! I say nothing touching the quality--I dare say he was as good as another. Well, I think that I have heard old Pompey's grandfather was an imported Guinea, and that he was purchased by my great-grandfather about the year 1700."

"Dat just as good as gospel! Who want to make up lie about poor debble of n.i.g.g.e.r? Well, den, Ma.s.ser Mile, in all dem 1700 year, did he ebber hear of a Clawbonny that want to be a free n.i.g.g.e.r? Tell me dat, once, an' I hab an answer."

"You have asked me more than I can answer, boy; for, I am not in the secret of your own wishes, much less in those of all your ancestors."

Neb pulled off his tarpaulin, scratched his wool, rolled his black eyes at me, as if he enjoyed the manner in which he had puzzled me; after which he set off on a tumbling excursion, in the road, going like a wheel on his hands and feet, showing his teeth like rows of pearls, and concluding the whole with roar the third, that sounded as if the hills and valleys were laughing, in the very fatness of their fertility. The physical _tour de force,_ was one of those feats of agility in which Neb had been my instructor, ten years before.

"S'pose I free, who do sich matter for you, Ma.s.ser Mile?" cried Neb, like one laying down an unanswerable proposition. "No, no, sir,--I belong to you, you belong to me, and we belong to one anodder."

This settled the matter for the present, and I said no more. Neb was ordered to be in readiness for the next day; and at the appointed hour, I met the a.s.sembled party to take my leave, on this, my third departure from the roof of my fathers. It had been settled the Major and Emily were to remain at the farm until July, when they were to proceed to the Springs, for the benefit of the water, after living so long in a hot climate. I had pa.s.sed an hour with my guardian alone, and he had no more to say, than to wish me well, and to bestow his blessing. I did not venture an offer to embrace Lucy. It was the first time we had parted without this token of affection; but I was shy, and I fancied she was cold. She offered me her hand, as frankly as ever, however, and I pressed it fervently, as I wished her adieu. As for Grace, she wept in my arms, just as she had always done, and the Major and Emily shook hands cordially with me, it being understood I should find them in New York, at my return. Rupert accompanied me down to the sloop.

"If you should find an occasion, Miles, let us hear from you," said my old friend. "I have a lively curiosity to learn something of the Frenchmen; nor am I entirely without the hope of soon gratifying the desire, in person."

"You!--If you have any intention to visit France, what better opportunity, than to go in my cabin? Is it business, that will take you there?"

"Not at all; pure pleasure. Our excellent cousin thinks a gentleman of a certain cla.s.s ought to travel; and I believe she has an idea of getting me attached to the legation, in some form or other."

This sounded so odd to me! Rupert Hardinge, who had not one penny to rub against another, so lately, was now talking of his European tour, and of legations! I ought to have been glad of his good fortune, and I fancied I was. I said nothing, this time, concerning his taking up any portion of my earnings, having the sufficient excuse of not being on pay myself.

Rupert did not stay long in the sloop, and we were soon under way. I looked eagerly along the high banks of the creek, fringed as it was with bushes, in hopes of seeing Grace, at least; nor was I disappointed.

She and Lucy had taken a direct path to the point where the two waters united, and were standing there, as the sloop dropped past. They both waved their handkerchiefs, in a way to show the interest they felt in me; and I returned the parting salutations by kissing my hand again and again. At this instant, a sail-boat pa.s.sed our bows, and I saw a gentleman standing up in it, waving his handkerchief, quite as industriously as I was kissing my hand. A look told me it was Andrew Drewett, who directed his boat to the point, and was soon making his bows to the girls in person. His boat ascended the creek, no doubt with his luggage; while the last I saw of the party it was walking off in company, taking the direction of the house.

CHAPTER XXV.

"Or feeling--, as the storm increases, The love of terror nerve thy breast, Didst venture to the coast: To see the mighty war-ship leap From wave to wave upon the deep, Like chamois goat from steep to steep, Till low in valley lost."