Prue and I Part 12

"Certainly," interposed the old Alchemist; "you may be sure that you will not get into the Hole, until you have left yourself behind."

The pale young man grasped his hand, and gazed into his eyes.

"And then I can drink and be happy," murmured he, as he leaned over the side of the ship and listened to the rippling water, as if it had been the music of the fountain of oblivion.

"Drink! drink!" said the smoking old man. "Fountain! fountain! Why, I believe that is what I am after. I beg your pardon," continued he, addressing the Alchemist. "But can you tell me if I am looking for a fountain?"

"The fountain of youth, perhaps," replied the Alchemist.

"The very thing!" cried the smoker, with a shrill laugh, while his pipe fell from his mouth, and was shattered upon the deck, and the old man tottered away into the mist, chuckling feebly to himself, "Youth!

youth!"

"He'll find that in the Hole, too," said the Alchemist, as he gazed after the receding figure.

The crowd now gathered more nearly around us.

"Well, gentlemen," continued the Alchemist, "where shall we go, or, rather, where are we going?"

A man in a friar's habit, with the cowl closely drawn about his head, now crossed himself, and whispered:

"I have but one object. I should not have been here if I had not supposed we were going to find Prester John, to whom I have been appointed father confessor, and at whose court I am to live splendidly, like a cardinal at Rome. Gentlemen, if you will only agree that we shall go there, you shall all be permitted to hold my train when I proceed to be enthroned as Bishop of Central Africa."

While he was speaking, another old man came from the bows of the ship, a figure which had been so immoveable in its place that I supposed it was the ancient figure-head of the craft, and said in a low, hollow voice, and a quaint accent:

"I have been looking for centuries, and I cannot see it. I supposed we were heading for it. I thought sometimes I saw the flash of distant spires, the sunny gleam of upland pastures, the soft undulation of purple hills. Ah! me. I am sure I heard the singing of birds, and the faint low of cattle. But I do not know: we come no nearer; and yet I felt its presence in the air. If the mist would only lift, we should see it lying so fair upon the sea, so graceful against the sky. I fear we may have pa.s.sed it. Gentlemen," said he, sadly, "I am afraid we may have lost the island of Atlantis for ever."

There was a look of uncertainty in the throng upon the deck.

"But yet," said a group of young men in every kind of costume, and of every country and time, "we have a chance at the Encantadas, the Enchanted Islands. We were reading of them only the other day, and the very style of the story had the music of waves. How happy we shall be to reach a land where there is no work, nor tempest, nor pain, and we shall be for ever happy."

"I am content here," said a laughing youth, with heavily matted curls. "What can be better than this? We feel every climate, the music and the perfume of every zone, are ours. In the starlight I woo the mermaids, as I lean over the side, and no enchanted island will show us fairer forms. I am satisfied. The ship sails on. We cannot see but we can dream. What work or pain have we here? I like the ship; I like the voyage; I like my company, and am content."

As he spoke he put something into his mouth, and, drawing a white substance from his pocket, offered it to his neighbor, saying, "Try a bit of this lotus; you will find it very soothing to the nerves, and an infallible remedy for home-sickness."

"Gentlemen," said M. le Baron Munchausen, "I have no fear. The arrangements are well made; the voyage has been perfectly planned, and each pa.s.senger will discover what he took pa.s.sage to find, in the Hole into which we are going, under the auspices of this worthy Captain."

He ceased, and silence fell upon the ship's company. Still on we swept; it seemed a weary way. The tireless pedestrians still paced to and fro, and the idle smokers puffed. The ship sailed on, and endless music and odor chased each other through the misty air. Suddenly a deep sigh drew universal attention to a person who had not yet spoken.

He held a broken harp in his hand, the strings fluttered loosely in the air, and the head of the speaker, bound with a withered wreath of laurels, bent over it.

"No, no," said he, "I will not eat your lotus, nor sail into the Hole. No magic root can cure the home-sickness I feel; for it is no regretful remembrance, but an immortal longing. I have roamed farther than I thought the earth extended. I have climbed mountains; I have threaded rivers; I have sailed seas; but nowhere have I seen the home for which my heart aches. Ah! my friends, you look very weary; let us go home."

The pedestrian paused a moment in his walk, and the smokers took their pipes from their mouths. The soft air which blew in that moment across the deck, drew a low sound from the broken harp-strings, and a light shone in the eyes of the old man of the figure-head, as if the mist had lifted for an instant, and he had caught a glimpse of the lost Atlantis.

"I really believe that is where I wish to go," said the seeker of the fountain of youth. "I think I would give up drinking at the fountain if I could get there. I do not know," he murmured, doubtfully; "it is not sure; I mean, perhaps, I should not have strength to get to the fountain, even if I were near it."

"But is it possible to get home?" inquired the pale young man. "I think I should be resigned if I could get home."

"Certainly," said the dry, hard voice of Prester John's confessor, as his cowl fell a little back, and a sudden flush burned upon his gaunt face; "if there is any chance of home, I will give up the Bishop's palace in Central Africa."

"But Eldorado is my home," interposed the old Alchemist.

"Or is home Eldorado?" asked the poet, with the withered wreath, turning towards the Alchemist.

It was a strange company and a wondrous voyage. Here were all kinds of men, of all times and countries, pursuing the wildest hopes, the most chimerical desires. One took me aside to request that I would not let it be known, but that he inferred from certain signs we were nearing Utopia. Another whispered gaily in my ear that he thought the water was gradually becoming of a ruby color--the hue of wine; and he had no doubt we should wake in the morning and find ourselves in the land of c.o.c.kaigne. A third, in great anxiety, stated to me that such continuous mists were unknown upon the ocean; that they were peculiar to rivers, and that, beyond question, we were drifting along some stream, probably the Nile, and immediate measures ought to be taken that we did riot go ash.o.r.e at the foot of the mountains of the moon. Others were quite sure that we were in the way of striking the great southern continent; and a young man, who gave his name as Wilkins, said we might be quite at ease for presently some friends of his would come flying over from the neighboring islands and tell us all we wished.

Still I smelled the mouldy rigging, and the odor of cabbage was strong from the hold.

O Prue, what could the ship be, in which such fantastic characters were sailing toward impossible bournes--characters which in every age have ventured all the bright capital of life in vague speculations and romantic dreams? What could it be but the ship that haunts the sea for ever, and, with all sails set, drives onward before a ceaseless gale, and is not hailed, nor ever comes to port?

I know the ship is always full; I know the gray-beard still watches at the prow for the lost Atlantis, and still the alchemist believes that Eldorado is at hand. Upon his aimless quest, the dotard still asks where he is going, and the pale youth knows that he shall never fly himself. Yet they would gladly renounce that wild chase and the dear dreams of years, could they find what I have never lost. They were ready to follow the poet home, if he would have told them where it lay.

I know where it lies. I breathe the soft air of the purple uplands which they shall never tread. I hear the sweet music of the voices they long for in vain. I am no traveller; my only voyage is to the office and home again. William and Christopher, John and Charles sail to Europe and the South, but I defy their romantic distances. When the spring comes and the flowers blow, I drift through the year belted with summer and with spice.

With the changing months I keep high carnival in all the zones. I sit at home and walk with Prue, and if the sun that stirs the sap quickens also the wish to wander, I remember my fellow-voyagers on that romantic craft, and looking round upon my peaceful room, and pressing more closely the arm of Prue, I feel that I have reached the port for which they hopelessly sailed. And when winds blow fiercely and the night-storm rages, and the thought of lost mariners and of perilous voyages touches the soft heart of Prue, I hear a voice sweeter to my ear than that of the syrens to the tempest-tost sailor: "Thank G.o.d!

Your only cruising is in the Flying Dutchman!"

FAMILY PORTRAITS.

"Look here upon this picture, and on this."

_Hamlet_

We have no family pictures, Prue and I, only a portrait of my grandmother hangs upon our parlor wall. It was taken at least a century ago, and represents the venerable lady, whom I remember in my childhood in spectacles and comely cap, as a young and blooming girl.

She is sitting upon an old-fashioned sofa, by the side of a prim aunt of hers, and with her back to the open window. Her costume is quaint, but handsome. It consists of a cream-colored dress made high in the throat, ruffled around the neck, and over the bosom and the shoulders. The waist is just under her shoulders, and the sleeves are tight, tighter than any of our coat sleeves, and also ruffled at the wrist. Around the plump and rosy neck, which I remember as shrivelled and sallow, and hidden under a decent lace handkerchief, hangs, in the picture, a necklace of large ebony beads. There are two curls upon the forehead, and the rest of the hair flows away in ringlets down the neck.

The hands hold an open book: the eyes look up from it with tranquil sweetness, and, through the open window behind, you see a quiet landscape--a hill, a tree, the glimpse of a river, and a few peaceful summer clouds.

Often in my younger days, when my grandmother sat by the fire, after dinner, lost in thought--perhaps remembering the time when the picture was really a portrait--I have curiously compared her wasted face with the blooming beauty of the girl, and tried to detect the likeness. It was strange how the resemblance would sometimes start out: how, as I gazed and gazed upon her old face, age disappeared before my eager glance, as snow melts in the sunshine, revealing the flowers of a forgotten spring.

It was touching, to see my grandmother steal quietly up to her portrait, on still summer mornings when every one had left the house,--and I, the only child, played, disregarded,--and look at it wistfully and long.

She held her hand over her eyes to shade them from the light that streamed in at the window, and I have seen her stand at least a quarter of an hour gazing steadfastly at the picture. She said nothing, she made no motion, she shed no tear, but when she turned away there was always a pensive sweetness in her face that made it not less lovely than the face of her youth.

I have learned since, what her thoughts must have been--how that long, wistful glance annihilated time and s.p.a.ce, how forms and faces unknown to any other, rose in sudden resurrection around her--how she loved, suffered, struggled and conquered again; how many a jest that I shall never hear, how many a game that I shall never play, how many a song that I shall never sing, were all renewed and remembered as my grandmother contemplated her picture.

I often stand, as she stood, gazing earnestly at the picture, so long and so silently, that Prue looks up from her work and says she shall be jealous of that beautiful belle, my grandmother, who yet makes her think more kindly of those remote old times. "Yes, Prue, and that is the charm of a family portrait."

"Yes, again; but," says t.i.tbottom when he hears the remark, "how, if one's grandmother were a shrew, a termagant, a virago?"

"Ah! in that case--" I am compelled to say, while Prue looks up again, half archly, and I add gravely--"you, for instance, Prue."

Then t.i.tbottom smiles one of his sad smiles, and we change the subject.

Yet, I am always glad when Minim Sculpin, our neighbor, who knows that my opportunities are few, comes to ask me to step round and see the family portraits.

The Sculpins, I think, are a very old family. t.i.tbottom says they date from the deluge. But I thought people of English descent preferred to stop with William the Conqueror, who came from France.