Ishmael; Or, In the Depths Part 91

"Certainly, miss, if you please to do so."

"By the way, what is to be their names?"

"John and Mary, miss--after Reuben's father and my mother."

"Very well; I will be spiritually responsible for John and Mary!

Good-by, Mrs. Gray."

"Good-by, and thank you, Miss Merlin."

Claudia shook hands and departed. She had scarcely got beyond the threshold of the chamber door when she heard the voice of Hannah calling her back:

"Miss Merlin!"

Claudia returned.

"I beg your pardon, miss; but I hear my nephew, Ishmael Worth, is up at the house, doing something for the judge."

"He is up there," answered Claudia evasively.

"Well, do pray tell him, my dear Miss Merlin, if you please, that I want to see him as soon as he can possibly get home. Oh! I beg your pardon a thousand times for taking the liberty of asking you, miss."

"I will tell him," said Claudia, smiling and retiring.

When Miss Merlin had gone Hannah stooped and contemplated her own two children with a mother's insatiable pride and love. Suddenly she burst into penitential tears and wept.

Why?

She was gazing upon her own two fine, healthy, handsome babies, that were so much admired, so well beloved, and so tenderly cared for; and she was remembering little Ishmael in his poor orphaned infancy--so pale, thin, and sickly, so disliked, avoided, and neglected! At this remembrance her penitent heart melted in remorseful tenderness. The advent of her own children had shown to Hannah by retrospective action all the cruelty and hardness of heart she had once felt and shown towards Ishmael.

"But I will make it all up to him--poor, dear boy! I will make it all up to him in the future! Oh, how hard my heart was towards him! as if he could have helped being born, poor fellow! How badly I treated him!

Suppose now, as a punishment for my sin, I was to die and leave my babes to be despised, neglected, and wished dead by them as had the care of 'em! How would I feel? although my children are so much healthier and stronger, and better able to bear neglect than ever Ishmael was, poor, poor fellow! It is a wonder he ever lived through it all. Surely, only G.o.d sustained him, for he was bereft of nearly all human help. Oh, Nora!

Nora! I never did my duty to your boy; but I will do it now, if G.o.d will only forgive and spare me for the work!" concluded Hannah, as she raised both her own children to her lap.

Meanwhile, attended by her maid, Miss Merlin went on her way homeward.

She reached Tanglewood in time for dinner, at six o'clock.

At table the judge said to her:

"Well, Claudia! the doctor has been here on his evening visit, and he says that you may see our young patient in the morning, after he has had his breakfast; but that no visitor must be admitted to his chamber at any later hour of the day."

"Very well, papa. I hope you will give old Katie to understand that, so she may not give me any trouble when I apply at the door," smiled Claudia.

"Katie understands it all, my dear," said the judge.

And so it was arranged that Claudia should visit her young preserver on the following morning.

CHAPTER XLV.

THE INTERVIEW.

The lady of his love re-entered there; She was serene and smiling then, and yet She knew she was by him beloved--she knew, For quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart Was darken'd by her shadow; and she saw That he was wretched; but she saw not all.

He took her hand, a moment o'er his face A tablet of unutterable thoughts Was traced, and then it faded as it came.

--_Byron_.

It was as yet early morning; but the day promised to be sultry, and all the windows of Ishmael's chamber were open to facilitate the freest pa.s.sage of air. Ishmael lay motionless upon his cool, white bed, letting his glances wander abroad, whither his broken limbs could no longer carry him.

His room, being a corner one, rejoiced in four large windows, two looking east and two north. Close up to these windows grew the cl.u.s.tering woods. Amid their branches even the wildest birds built nests, and their strange songs mingled with the rustle of the golden green leaves as they glimmered in the morning sun and breeze.

It was a singular combination, that comfortable room, abounding in all the elegancies of the highest civilization, and that untrodden wilderness in which the whip-poor-will cried and the wild eagle screamed.

And Ishmael, as he looked through the dainty white-draped windows into the tremulous shadows of the wood, understood how the descendant of Powhatan, weary of endless brick walls, dusty streets, and crowded thoroughfares, should, as soon as he was free from official duties, fly to the opposite extreme of all these--to his lodge in this unbroken forest, where scarcely a woodman's ax had sounded, where scarcely a human foot had fallen. He sympathized with the "monomania" of Randolph Merlin in not permitting a thicket to be thinned out, a road to be opened, or a tree to be trimmed on his wild woodland estate; so that here at least, nature should have her own way, with no hint of the world's labor and struggle to disturb her vital repose.

As these reveries floated through the clear, active brain of the invalid youth, the door of his chamber softly opened.

Why did Ishmael's heart bound in his bosom, and every pulse throb?

She stood within the open doorway! How lovely she looked, with her soft, white muslin morning dress floating freely around her graceful form, and her glittering jet black ringlets shading her snowy forehead, shadowy eyes, and damask cheeks!

She closed the door as softly as she had opened it, and advanced into the room.

Old Katie arose from some obscure corner and placed a chair for her near the head of Ishmael's bed on his right side.

Claudia sank gently into this seat and turned her face towards Ishmael, and attempted to speak; but a sudden, hysterical rising in her throat choked her voice.

Her eyes had taken in all at a glance!--the splintered leg, the bandaged arm, the plastered chest, the ashen complexion, the sunken cheeks and the hollow eyes of the poor youth; and utterance failed her!

But Ishmael gently and respectfully pressed the hand she had given him, and smiled as he said:

"It is very kind of you to come and see me, Miss Merlin. I thank you earnestly." For, however strong Ishmael's emotions might have been, he possessed the self-controlling power of an exalted nature.

"Oh, Ishmael!" was all that Claudia found ability to say; her voice was choked, her bosom heaving, her face pallid.

"Pray, pray, do not disturb yourself, Miss Merlin; indeed I am doing very well," said the youth, smiling. The next instant he turned away his face; it was to conceal a spasm of agony that suddenly sharpened all his features, blanched his lips, and forced the cold sweat out on his brow.

But Claudia had seen it.

"Oh, I fear you suffer very much," she said.

The spasm had pa.s.sed as quickly as it came. He turned to her his smiling eyes.

"I fear you suffer very, very much," she repeated, looking at him.

"Oh, no, not much; see how soon the pain pa.s.sed away."