Rose Clark Part 39

"The light is but dim, sir," said the old lady, as the traveler took it in his hand, and held the letter between his face and Mrs. Bond's.

Yes--the light _was_ dim, so were the traveler's eyes; he must have been sadly feeble too, for his hands trembled so that he could scarcely hold the letter.

"And you never heard from her, after this?" he asked, his eyes still riveted on the letter.

"Not a word, sir; it makes me so sad when I think of it; perhaps she may be dead."

"Perhaps so," answered the traveler, shuddering.

"May be you could make some inquiries, sir, if it would not trouble you, as you go along; her name was Rose, though she looked more like a lily when she left us, poor thing! Rose--and her lover's name was Vincent; perhaps you may have heard of _him_."

"The name sounds familiar," said the stranger; "perhaps I shall be able to get some clew to it."

"Thank you," said Mrs. Bond, gratefully; "and now, sir, as I get up early I go to rest early; so, if you please, I will show you your room; it is very plain--but it is all the spare one I have. It was poor Rose's room;" and Mrs. Bond taking her candle, led the way to it.

"There," said she, setting the light down upon the table, "many a time when she stood at that little window, sir, she and the babe, people stopped here to ask who they were, they were both so handsome, and so different from our country folks.

"On that very little table she left her letter; it was a long time before I could come here and feel that it was all right she should suffer so, although I know that G.o.d's ways are just; but I shall know all about it when I get to heaven; perhaps it was only 'the narrow way'

to take _her_ there--who knows? I would rather be Rose than they who brought her here; and yet," said the mild old lady, hesitatingly, "perhaps they _thought_ they did right, but riches make us take strange views of things; it takes grace to be a _rich_ Christian. And when I feel displeased with Mrs. Howe's heartlessness, I say, _money_ might have turned _me_ aside too--who knows? Good-night, sir; heaven send you sweet sleep;" and Mrs. Bond went down into her small kitchen.

And it was here--in this very room, that Rose had wept, and suffered, and wrestled with her great sorrow! On that very pillow her aching head vainly sought rest; at that window she had sat thinking--thinking--till brain and heart grew sick, and G.o.d himself seemed to have forsaken her; and down that road she had fled, like a hunted deer, with slander's cruel arrow rankling in her quivering heart!

Not on _that_ pillow could sleep woo our weary traveler.

At the little window he sat and saw the night-shadows deepen, and only the shivering trees, as the night-wind crept through them, made answer to his low moan,

"Rose! Rose!"

CHAPTER LVIII.

"Dear Tom,--

"I am glad you are going abroad. You see I _can_ be unselfish. How I wish _I_ were going! Of course you mean to take notes on the way.

For Heaven's sake, if you do, don't bore us with re-vamping the travelers' guide-book, like all your predecessors; don't prate stereotyped stupidities about Madonnas, and Venuses, and Gladiators, or go mad over a bit of Vesuvius lava, or wear Mont Blanc or the Rhine threadbare. Spare us also all egotistical descriptions of your dinners and breakfasts with foreign literary lions, and great lords and ladies. Strike out a new path, 'an thou lovest me, Hal, or I will write your book down with one dash of my puissant goose-quill.

"Mrs. John has gone to the dogs. Well, listen, and I will tell you.

As John's allowance to her grew fitful, so did my attentions; a man can not live on air you know, or waste his time where it will not pay. Mrs. John pouted, and I whistled. Mrs. John coaxed, and I sulked. Mrs. John took to drinking, and I took French leave, making love to little Kate, who, I hear, has lately had a fortune left her. Well, I had quite lost sight of old Mrs. John for some months; I only knew that her husband was a hanger-on at Gripp's gambling-house, and, like all steady fellows when they break loose, was out-heroding Herod in every sort of dissipation, leaving Mrs.

John to take care of herself.

"Well, the other night Harry and I--you remember Harry? that clever dog who always beat us at billiards--Harry and I were coming home about midnight, when we came across a policeman dragging off a woman, who was swearing at him like a privateersman. That was nothing to us, you know, or would not have been, had I not heard my name mentioned. I turned my head; the light from the gas-lamp fell full upon her bloated face, and, by Jove! if it was not old Mrs.

John! her clothes half torn off her in the drunken scuffle, looking like the very witch of Endor. Wasn't it a joke? She died that night, at the station-house, of delirium tremens, shrieking for 'John,' and 'Rose,' and 'Finels,' and the deuce knows who. So we go. Have you seen the new danseuse, Felissitimi? If not, do so by all means when she comes to Baltimore. She will dance straight into your heart with her first _pas_. I'm off, like all the world, to see her.

"As ever, yours, "FINELS."

CHAPTER LIX.

"And here we are in Boston!" said Gertrude. "Find me any thing lovelier than this Common," she exclaimed, as she seated herself under the trees one sweet summer morning.

"See! Beyond Charles River the hills stretch away in the distance, while the fragrant breath of their woods and hay-fields come wafted on every pa.s.sing breeze.

"And the Common! one might look till the eye grows weary through those long shady vistas, on whose smoothly-trodden paths the shifting sunlight scarce finds place, through the leafy roofs, to play.

"Look, Rose, at those lovely children gamboling on the velvet gra.s.s, fresher and sweeter than the clover-blossoms they hide in their bosoms.

"See! Up springs the fountain! like the out-gushing of Nature's full heart at its own sweet loveliness; leaping upward, then falling to earth again, only to rise with fresher beauty. No aristocratic 'park' key keeps out the poor man's child, for Bunker Hill lifts its granite finger of warning there in the distance, and the little plebeian's soiled fingers are as welcome to pluck the b.u.t.ter-cups as his more dainty little neighbor's.

"G.o.d be thanked for that!" said Gertrude. "I well remember one balmy summer morning in New York, when my gipsy feet carried me out over the pavements in search of a stray blade of gra.s.s or a fresh blossom. My new dress was an 'open sesame' to one of the 'locked parks' under the charge of an old gardener. Lovely flowers were there, odorous shrubs, and graceful trees. The children of the privileged few, daintily clad, played in its nicely-graveled, shady walks.

"It was beautiful; but outside, the poor man's child, hollow-eyed and sad, crouched that balmy morning on the heated pavement, pressing his pale face close against the iron rails, looking and longing, as only the children of poverty _can_ look and long, into that forbidden Eden!

"It made my heart ache. I could not walk there. That little pale, sad face haunted me at every step. The very flowers were less sweet, the drooping trees less graceful, and the lovely green hedge seemed some tyrant jailor, within whose precincts my very breath grew thick; and so," said Gertrude, "I thank G.o.d for this 'Common'--free to all--yes, _Common_. I like the homely, democratic word.

"Not that there is no aristocracy in Boston," said she, laughing; "on the contrary, the Beacon-street millionaire, whose father might have made his _debt_ three years ago as a tin peddler, looks down contemptuously on those who live outside this charmed locality. The Boston Unitarian never dreams of sharing the same heaven as the Boston Presbyterian, and this is the only platform on which he and the Boston Presbyterian meet! And 'High Church' and 'Low Church' are fenced off and labeled, with a touch-me-not precision, for which the 'Great Shepherd of the sheep' furnished no precedent.

"Still, Boston is a nice little place. One does not, as in New York, need to drive all the afternoon to get out into the country. Start for an afternoon drive in New York, you have your choice between the unmitigated gutter of its back streets, or a half hour's blockading of your wheels every fifteen minutes, in the more crowded thoroughfares.

Add to this your detention at the ferry, blocked in by teams and carts, and forced to listen to their wrangling drivers, and you can compute, if you have an arithmetical turn, how much to subtract from the present, or prospective, enjoyment of the afternoon; which, by the way, the first evening star announces to be at an end, just as you arrive where a little light on a fine prospect would be highly desirable. This, to one whose preoccupied morning hours admit of no choice as to the time for riding, may, perhaps, without wresting the king's English, be called--tantalizing! But what drives are _Boston_ drives! What green, winding lanes, what silver lakes, what lovely country-seats, what tasteful pleasure-grounds! And the carriages, so handsome, so comfortable; and the drivers so decent, respectable, and intelligent; so well-versed in the history of the city environs. Send for a chance carriage in New York, one hesitates to sit on its soiled cushions, dreads its dirty steps and wheels, and turns away disgusted from its loaferish driver, whiffing tobacco-smoke through the window in your face, and exchanging oaths with his comrade whom he is treating to a ride on the box. A handsome, cleanly public carriage, in New York, is as rare there, as a tastefully-dressed woman or a healthy-looking child.

"Then, Boston has its Sabbaths--its quiet, calm, blessed Sabbaths. No yelling milk-men or newsboys disturb its sacred stillness. Engines are not Sabbatically washed, and engine companies do not take that day to practice on tin horns; military companies do not play funereal Yankee Doodles; fruit-stalls do not offend your eye at street-corners, or open toy-shops in the back streets; but instead, long processions of families thread their way over the clean pavements to their respective churches, where the clergymen can preach three times a day without fainting away; where no poor servant-girl, whose morning hours are unavoidably occupied, finds, after a long walk there, her church closed in the afternoon, while her minister is at home taking his nap; where churches are _not_ shut up in the summer months, while the minister luxuriates in the country at his ease."

"You are severe," said John; "ministers are but men; their health requires respites."

"I am not speaking of cases where a clergyman is really unable to labor," said Gertrude; "but that habit of closing churches whole months in the summer, strikes me most painfully. Death has all seasons for his own--sorrow casts her shadow regardless of summer's heat or winter's cold. I can not think it right that families should be left without _some_ kind shepherd. Even then, with a subst.i.tute, every one knows there are sorrows, as well as joys, with which the most well-meaning stranger can not intermeddle.

"O, it is from the lips of one's _own_ pastor the parting soul would fain hear the soul-cheering promise. _His_ confiding ear that one would entreat for the tearful bed-side weepers! Verily those ministers have their reward, who, like their blessed Master, are 'not weary of well-doing.' It were worth some sacrifice of luxurious pleasure to ease one dying pang, to plume one broken wing for its eternal flight! It were sad to think the smallest and weakest lamb of the fold perished uncheered by the voice of its earthly shepherd. Ah! it was a life of self-denial that the 'Man of Sorrows' led."

"Quite a homily, Gertrude; you are evidently behind the progressive spirit of the times; when clergymen yacht and boat, and hunt and fish, and electioneer in the most layman-wise manner."

"I confess to conservatism on these points," said Gertrude; "I dislike a starched minister, as much as I dislike an undignified one. I dislike a stupid sermon, as much as I dislike a facetious or a ranting one; I dislike a pompous, solemn clergyman, as much as I dislike a jolly, story-telling, jovial one. A dignified, gentlemanly, courteous, consistent, genial clergyman, it were rare to find; though there are such, to whom, when I meet them, my very heart warms; to whom I would triumphantly point the carping unbeliever, who, because of the spots which defile too many a clerical ca.s.sock, sneers indiscriminately at the pulpit."

"Well--to change the subject, what have you to show Rose and me, here in Boston?" asked John.

"Use your eyes," said Gertrude; "do you not see that the gutters are inodorous; that the sidewalks are as clean as a parlor-floor; that the children are healthy, and sensibly dressed; that the gentlemen here do not smoke in public; that the intellectual, icicle women glide through the streets, all dressed after one pattern, with their mouths puckered up as if they were going to whistle; and that there is a general air of substantiality and well-to-do-ativeness pervading the place; a sort of touch-me-not, pharisaical atmosphere of 'stand-aside' propriety?

"Do you not see that slops are not thrown at your ankles from unexpected back doors, bas.e.m.e.nts, or windows; that tenement-houses and palatial residences do not stand cheek by jowl; that Boston men are handsome, but provincial, and do you not know that the munificence of her rich men is proverbial.

"Yes, John, Boston is a nice little place; that its inhabitants go to church three times on Sunday, is a fixed fact, and that many of them discuss fashions going, and slander their neighbors coming back, is quite as fixed a fact. If I should advise her, it would be after this wise.

"Hop out of thy peck measure, oh Boston! and take at least a _half_ bushel view of things, so shalt thou be weighed in the balance, and not be found wanting!

"And yet thou hast thy sweet Mount Auburn! and for that I will love thee. What place of sepulture can compare with it? Planted by Nature's own prodigal and tasteful hand, with giant oaks and cedars nesting myriad birds, now flitting through the sun-flecked branches, now pluming their wings from some moss-grown grave-stone, and soaring upward like the freed spirit, over whose mortal dust their sweetest requiem is sung.