Town and Country; Or, Life at Home and Abroad Part 51

"'You miserable, good-for-nothing scamp!' said he. 'Why do you seek to lower yourself in the estimation of every man, and bring disgrace on the name and fame of my family, by a.s.sociating with the poor daughter of a worthless laborer?'

"This fired my brain; but I was timid and dare not speak my thoughts in his presence. I listened. He showered upon me all the evil epithets his tongue could dispense, and, raving like a madman, he pushed me to the door, and told me to cease my visits upon Evelina or leave his house forever and change my name, for he would not shelter me, or own any relationship to me.

"Poor girl! She little thought how much I that night endured for her, or how much I was willing to bear. She was a beautiful being,--so much like my mother, so gentle, and loving, and benevolent! We were one. True, no earthly law recognized us as such; but G.o.d's law did,--a law written with his hand on our beating hearts. We had been joined far, far back, ages gone by, when our souls first had their birth,--long ere they became enshrined in earth forms. The church might have pa.s.sed its ceremonial bond about us, but that would have been mere form--that would have been a union which man might have put asunder, and often does. But of a true union of souls it is useless to say 'what G.o.d has joined let no man put asunder;' for he cannot any more than he can annul any other of his great laws.

"My father's reprimands and threatenings could not, therefore, dissolve that bond which united me to Evelina, and she to me. So, as soon as I left his room, I sought her presence. I told her all, and she wept to think of what she had caused, as she said. But I tried to convince her, and succeeded in doing so finally, that it was not she who had caused it. She had not made her soul or its attributes.

G.o.d had made them, and if they were in unison with mine, or if they had attractions that drew my. soul to hers, the law under which they came together and would not be separated was G.o.d's law, and we could not escape it.

"That night we walked down by the river's side, and we talked of those great principles that govern us. We studied, there in the clear moonlight, G.o.d's works, and I asked her whether in loving the beautiful and the good we did not love G.o.d.

"Her mind opened a bright effulgence of light to my spirit. 'Yes,'

said she, 'it is even so. G.o.d is a spirit. He fills immensity,--and if so, then he imbues this little flower with his own life, for he is the life of all things. It is as he made it, and as we love it we love him. When we love a being for his goodness, we love G.o.d; for that goodness is of G.o.d."

"'Yes,' I remarked; 'I see it is so. I do not love you as a material being. It is not your flesh and bones merely that I love, but it is the goodness dwelling in you. As that goodness is more abundant in you than in others, in like degree does G.o.d dwell in you more than in them. If, therefore, I love you more than I love them, I love G.o.d more than I should did my supreme love find its highest object in them. In loving you, therefore, I love G.o.d so far as you possess the characteristics by which we personify that being. It is not wrong, therefore, to love you or the flower; for goodness exists in one, and beauty in the other, and they both are of G.o.d, and in loving them we love G.o.d.'

"We parted at a late hour. I went with her to the door of the little cottage in which she dwelt with her father. Her mother had died, as they call it, long years before; and, as I kissed her, and pressed her hand and bade her good-by, I felt more strongly than ever a determination to bear any privation, endure any suffering, for her sake.

"I reached my home. I found the doors fastened and all quiet. The moon shone very clear, and it was nearly as light as at noon-day. I tried the windows, and fortunately found one of them unfastened. I raised it very carefully, and crept in, and up to my room. The next morning at breakfast my father spoke not a word, but I knew by his manner that he was aware of my disregard of his command, and I thought that all that prevented him from talking to me was a want of language strong enough to express the pa.s.sionate feelings that ran riot in his soul.

"I judged rightly. For at night his pa.s.sion found vent in words, and such a copious torrent of abuse that I shuddered. Nevertheless, I yielded not one position of my heart, and was conscious that I had a strength of purpose that would ever defend the right, and could not be swayed by mere words.

"There was no limit to my father's abuse when it became known to a few of his friends that I had been seen in company with the collier's daughter. I endured all, and was willing to endure more.

He seemed to have a peculiar dislike of Evelina's father, as also to her. This I could not account for.

"At length I became of age, and on my birthday my father called me to him, and, in his usual stern, uncompromising way, asked me if I persisted in paying attention to Evelina. I answered promptly that I did. I had had so many conflicts that I had lost much of my timidity, and I now defined my position clear, and maintained it resolutely.

"'Then leave my house at once!' said my father. 'I throw you from me as I would a reptile from my clothes; and go, go with my curse upon you! Take your penniless girl, and build yourself a name if you can; for you have lost the one you might have held with honor to yourself and to me. I had chosen for you a wife, a rich and fashionable lady, the daughter of a n.o.bleman, and one of whom to be proud; but you have thought best to be your own judge in such matters, and you made a fool of yourself. But you shall not stamp my family with such folly, or wed its name to dishonor.'

"I endeavored to reply; but he would hear no word from my lips. He sprang from his seat, walked the room in the greatest rage, and whenever I opened my mouth to speak would shout, 'Stop your noise, you ungrateful, heartless wretch!'

"He was determined to carry out his threat. That night he locked me out of the house, and took special pains to make the windows fast.

In the papers of the next day he advertised me as disinherited and cast off, and warned the world against me. He also circulated false reports respecting me, and spared neither money nor effort to injure me. He prejudiced my employers, so that they at once discharged me, without a moment's warning. And all this from a father! How often I thought of that loving, sympathizing mother! How often I recognized her presence in my silent hours of thought! Dear, sainted friend!

she was with me often, unseen but not unfelt.

"Evelina faltered not. She bore all the opprobrium of false friends with a brave heart, and rested on my promises as the dove rests its weary head beneath its downy wing. Her father had confidence in me.

"It was astonishing how changed all things were. The day previous, I was the son of a wealthy and influential man. I was respected, apparently, by all. Very many professed a friendship for me, and told me how much they valued my company. Young ladies politely recognized me as I pa.s.sed through the streets; and old ladies singled me out as an example for their sons to follow. But on that day no one knew me. Not one of those who had professed such friendship for me came and took me by the hand when I needed their friendly grasp the most! Young ladies, when we met, cast their glances on the earth, on the sky, anywhere but on me. Old ladies scandalized me, and warned the objects of their paternal consideration against a course like mine.

"And why all this? It was because I loved Evelina,--a poor man's only child!"

CHAPTER III.

Egbert's health seemed to improve now that he was in more comfortable quarters, and had sympathizing friends to whom he could narrate the story of his life. In the course of a few days he rode out a short distance. After a rest of a week, during which his strength had increased, he continued his narrative, in which we had become deeply interested.

"I found a home at the cottage of Evelina. We made arrangements to be married according to law, and in due time I applied to the minister of the town to perform the ceremonies. I was surprised when he refused; yet I well knew what inducements led him to act thus. My father was the leading man in his church. The minister looked to him as one of the chief pillars of support to his society, and consequently to his means of livelihood. There was no one in the town upon whom the public eye, religious or political, rested with more hope than upon my father. He exhorted in the meetings with an earnestness worthy of the most devoted follower of Cromwell; and was as strict and rigid in the performance of his public religious duties as the most precise Puritan of the old school could wish. Did the chapel need repairs, my father was consulted. Was it proposed to make a donation to the pastor, my father was expected to head the list with a large subscription, and he did. Was it strange, then, that he gave such a decided refusal to my simple request, knowing, as he did, and everybody did, my circ.u.mstances? It seems not.

Perhaps it was foolish for me to ask a favor of such a man; but I did, and he had an opportunity of exhibiting his allegiance to public opinion, and his disregard of the voice within, that must have commanded him to do right, and to adhere to truth and justice in the face of all opposition.

"It was soon noised abroad that I had endeavored to get married and had failed. There was great rejoicing, and one old lady took the trouble to send her man-servant to me with the message that she was glad to know that her good pastor had indignantly refused to place his seal on my bond of iniquity.

"The dark cloud that all this time overshadowed my path rested also on the path of Evelina's father. This was all that troubled me. He, good man, had more true religion in his soul than the pastor and all the people in theirs; yet he was scorned and ill-treated. All this was not new to him. He had lived in that town four-and-forty years, and had always been frowned upon by the boasting descendants of proud families, and had received but little good from their hands.

The church looked upon him as a poor, incorrigible sinner. No one spoke to him, unless it was to ask him to perform some hard job. It was not strange that, judging from the works of the people who called themselves Christians, he had a dislike to their forms. He chose a living Christianity; and theirs, with all its rites, with all its pretensions, with all its heralded faith, was but a mockery to him. It was but a shadow of a substantial reality. He chose the substance; he rejected the shadow, and men called him 'infidel' who had not a t.i.the of vital religion in their own souls, while his was filled to repletion with that heavenly boon. For a time the war of persecution raged without, and slander and base innuendoes the weapons were employed against us. But within all was peace and quiet, and our home was indeed a heaven,--for we judged that heaven is no locality, no ideal country staked off so many leagues this way, and so many that; but that it is in our own souls, and we could have our heaven here as well as beyond the grave. We thought Christ meant so when he said 'the kingdom of heaven is within you'! We pitied those who were always saying that when they reached heaven there would be an end of all sorrow, and wished they could see as we did that heaven was to reach them, not they to reach it. We feared that the saying of Pope, 'Man never is, but always to be, blest,'

might prove true of them, and that even when they had pa.s.sed the boundary which they fancied divided them from heaven, they would yet be looking on to so the future state for the antic.i.p.ated bliss.

"What cared we, in our home, for the jibes and sneers and falsehoods without? Those who are conscious of being in the right have no fear of the goal to which their feet are tending. I heard from my father often, but never met him. By some means he always evaded me. That which troubled him most was the calmness with which I received the results of his course towards me. He knew that I was happy and contented. This was what troubled him. Had I manifested a great sorrow and writhing beneath what he deemed troubles, he would have greatly rejoiced, and so would all his friends. I had acc.u.mulated a small property, and was prospering, notwithstanding the efforts of many to embarra.s.s me. A few began to see that I was not so bad as I had been represented to be, and they began to sympathize with me.

This aroused my father's anger afresh. We had been married by a magistrate of another town, and the clouds above our outside or temporary affairs seemed breaking away, when an event occurred that frustrated all our plans.

"One evening I heard the cry of 'fire,' and, on attempting to go out, I found the entry of the house filled with a dense smoke. The smoke poured into the room in which Evelina and her father were seated. I rushed to the window, dashed it out, and, having seen my wife and her father safely deposited without, secured what of the property I could. In a few moments the cottage was enveloped in flames, and it was not long before no vestige of our happy home remained, except the smoking embers and a heap of ashes. We were now, indeed, poor in gold and lands; but it seemed to each of us that what had been taken from our purse had been put in our hearts, for we loved each other more than ever before, if such a love were possible; and, though we received but little sympathy from without, we had a fund of sympathy within, that made us forget our seeming sorrows, and rejoice in bliss unspeakable.

"It was reported that I had fired the cottage. I well knew with whom this charge originated, and I had good reasons for believing that the match that fired our house came from the same source.

"Our condition was such that we concluded to leave the place where so much had been endured, and those who had strewn our path with what they intended for thorns and brambles.

"We left. We journeyed to Liverpool, and engaged a pa.s.sage in a New York packet for the United States. It was a beautiful morning when we set sail, and everything seemed reviving in the possessing of life. Our ship's flags looked like smiling guardians as they fluttered above us, and all on board the 'White Wing' were happy.

There were about three hundred pa.s.sengers. There were old and young; some travelling on business, some for a place they might call their home, some for pleasure, and a few for the improvement of their health. There were entire families, and, in some cases, those of three generations. How varied were the hopes that filled their souls! how different the objects that led them forth over the deep and trackless sea, exposing themselves to countless perils!

"Evelina and myself mused thus as we sat on the deck at twilight of the first day out, and watched the movements, and listened to the various expressions that fell from the lips of the crowded pa.s.sengers.

"She always had a bright gleam of religious, philosophical thought, with which to illumine every hour of our existence, and radiate, with heavenly joy, our every conversation. 'There are not more dangers here than on land,' said she; 'to be true to our inner consciousness, we must say that wherever we are we are exposed to peril, and wherever we are we are protected from evil. I have known a man to cross the ocean a hundred times, and fall at last at his own door, and by it become maimed for life. There is no such a thing as an accident. Every result has a legitimate cause. Everything acts in obedience to undeviating laws of G.o.d. We complain when we fall, but the same law that causes us to fall guides planets in their course, and regulates every motion of every object. It is only when we disobey these laws that evil comes, and every transgression receives its own penalty. It is impossible that it should be otherwise.'

"We soon became acquainted with a number of the pa.s.sengers, and pa.s.sed very many pleasant and profitable hours together. Evelina was the light of every circle, and the days flew by on rapid wings. The ship had made a rapid pa.s.sage, and we were fast nearing our destined haven.

"One Sabbath evening a storm commenced. The wind blew a hurricane.

Everything on deck was lashed, and the sea rolled and pitched our vessel about as though it had been but a feather on its surface. We had all day expected the storm, and were prepared for it. As night advanced the storm increased. The rain fell in torrents, and the darkness was most intense. After a while, the lightning came, and the thunder reverberated with terrific peals over us. There were shrieks and wailings aboard our vessel, and many a brave heart quailed beneath the terror upon us.

"I cared not for myself. My chief concern was for my dear wife and her father. We kept our state-room for a long time, but at length deemed it prudent to leave it. As we did so, we heard an awful crash, and many a shriek and hurried prayer. I myself began to fear, as the mast and flying rigging went by us; but Evelina, even in such an hour, had words to cheer us all. She seemed, indeed, more of heaven than earth; and I cared not for my fate, provided we both met the same.

"The captain ordered the boats to be got in readiness, and it was quickly done. Soon another crash, and another mast fell, bearing to the raging abyss of waters another company of helpless men, women and children.

"I clasped my wife in my arms, and, amid the wreck and frantic crowd of pa.s.sengers, sprang to a boat. I placed Evelina in it, and was just about to a.s.sist her father to the same boat, when a large wave dashed over the ship and bore me alone over the wide waters. I remembered no more until I opened my eyes, and the sun was shining brightly all around me, and a young man was bathing my head, and brushing back my wet hair, while some were standing by expressing great joy.

"I soon became conscious of my situation, and I asked for Evelina.

What a sadness filled my soul when I was told she was not there,--that they had not heard of any such person! Human language is weak with which to express the sorrow I then felt. Through all my varied life I had had nothing that so crushed my spirit, and filled it with a sense of loneliness which it is impossible to describe. I ascertained that I was on board of a vessel bound to Boston; that I, was found holding on a raft, almost insensible when found, and quite so a few moments afterwards. For a long time no one expected that I would recover my consciousness, but the constant efforts of the pa.s.sengers and crew were finally crowned with success, and I opened my eyes.

"I gave all the information I could respecting the fate of the vessel, but thoughts of my wife, and surmisings as to her fate and that of her father, often choked my utterance, and my words gave way for my tears.

"The next morning I was delirious, with a fever. My anxiety for my wife, and the exposure I had suffered, brought my body and mind into a very critical state. For several days I talked wildly. At the close of the fifth, I became sane in mind. I was yet quite ill. That night the ship entered Boston harbor. It anch.o.r.ed in the stream, and the next morning it hauled up to a wharf."

CHAPTER IV.