Hills of the Shatemuc Part 141

"It will dry."

"I can hang it up, I s'pose; but what'll I do with you if you get sick?"

"Nothing whatever! Let me alone, Clam."

"Mis' Nettles! --" said Clam going in towards the kitchen, -- "Mis' Nettles! -- where's Mr. Landholm? -- Governor Winthrop -- here's Miss 'Lizabeth unhookin' all them blinds you've been a hookin' up."

"What do you mean, Clam?"

"I don't mean no harm," said Clam lowering her tone, -- "but Miss 'Lizabeth does. I wish you would go and see what she _is_ doing, Mr. Winthrop; she's makin' work for somebody; and if it ain't n.o.body else, it's the doctor."

Winthrop however sat still, and Clam departed in ignorance how he had received her information. Presently however his supper was finished, and he sauntered round to the front of the house. He paused before the doorway where its mistress sat.

"It is too damp for you there."

"I don't feel it."

"I do."

"I am not afraid of it."

"If the fact were according to your fears, that would be a sufficient answer."

"It will do me no harm."

"It must not; and that it may not, you must go in," he said gravely.

"But you are out in it," said Elizabeth, who was possessed with an uncompromising spirit just then.

"I am out in it. Well?"

"Only -- that I may venture --" she did not like to finish her sentence.

"What right have you to venture anything?"

"The same right that other people have."

"I risk nothing," said he gravely.

"I haven't much to risk."

"You may risk your life."

"My life!" said Elizabeth. "What does it signify! --" But she jumped up and ran into the house.

The next morning there was an early breakfast, for which Elizabeth was ready. Then Winthrop took her directions for things to be forwarded from Mannahatta. Then there was a quiet leave-taking; on his part kind and cool, on hers too full of impa.s.sioned feeling to be guarded or constrained. But there was reason and excuse enough for that, as she knew, or guard and restraint would both have been there. When she quitted his hand, it was to hide herself in her room and have one struggle with the feeling of desolation. It was a long one.

Elizabeth came out at last, book in hand.

"Dear Miss Haye!" Mrs. Nettley exclaimed -- "you're dreadful worn with this hot weather and being out of doors all day yesterday!"

"I am going out again," said Elizabeth. "Clam will know where to find me."

"If you had wings, I'd know where to find you," said Clam; "but on your feet 'taint so certain."

"You needn't try, unless it is necessary," said Elizabeth dryly.

"But dear Miss Haye!" pleaded Mrs. Nettley, -- "you're not surely going out to try the sun again to-day?"

Elizabeth's lip quivered.

"It's the pleasantest place, Mrs. Nettley -- I am quite in the shade -- I can't be better than I am there, thank you."

"Don't she look dreadful!" said the good lady, as Elizabeth went from the house. "Oh, I never have seen anybody so changed!"

"She's pulled down a bit since she come," said Karen, who gave Elizabeth but a moderate share of her good will at any time.

"She's got her mind up high enough, anyway, for all she's gone through."

"Who hain't?" said Clam. "Hain't the Governor _his_ mind up high enough? And you can't pull him down, but you can her."

"His don't never need," said Karen.

"Well -- I don' know, --" said Clam, picking up several things about the floor -- "but them high minds is a trial."

"Hain't you got one yourself, girl?" said old Karen.

"Hope so, ma'am. I take after my admirers. That's all the way I live, -- keeping my head up -- always did."

Karen deigned no reply, but went off.

"Mis' Nettles," said Clam, "do _you_ think Miss Haye 'll ever stand it up here all alone in this here place?"

"Why not?" said Mrs. Nettley innocently.

"I guess your head ain't high enough up for to see her'n,"

said Clam, in scornful impatience. And she too quitted the conversation in disgust.

CHAPTER XII.

'Resolve,' the haughty moralist would say, 'The single act is all that we demand.'

Alas! such wisdom bids a creature fly Whose very sorrow is, that time hath shorn His natural wings.

WORDSWORTH.

The book in Elizabeth's hand was her bible. It was the next thing, and the only thing to be done after Winthrop's going away, that she could think of, to begin upon the first chapter of Matthew. It was action, and she craved action. It was an undertaking; for her mind remembered and laid hold of Winthrop's words -- "Ask honestly, of your own conscience and of G.o.d, at each step, what obligation upon you grows out of what you read." And it was an undertaking that Winthrop had set her upon. So she sought out her yesterday's couch of moss with its cedar canopy, and sat down in very different mood from yesterday's mood, and put her bible on her lap. It was a feeling of dull pa.s.sive pain now; a mood that did not want to sleep.