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From Jest to Earnest, a novel by Edward Payson Roe |
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Chapter 37. In Earnest |
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_ CHAPTER XXXVII. IN EARNEST When Lottie awoke the storm had passed away. The moon, in her last quarter, was rising in pale, unclouded light over eastern mountains, and bringing into dusky outline many intervening hills. At first, bewildered, and not knowing where she was, she rose up hastily, but after a moment the events of the preceding evening came to her, and she remembered, with gratitude, how they had found partial shelter from the storm. With something of a child's wonder and pleasure, she looked around upon a scene more wild and strange than any she had ever seen, even in pictures of gypsy encampments. Bel and Addie were sleeping by her side as soundly as if such a nightly bivouac were an ordinary experience. In like heavy stupor De Forrest lay near the fire, though the music of his dreams was by no means sweet. He had made his watch a very brief one, and, having piled the fire high with light brush-wood that would soon be consumed, and leaving no supply on hand, he had succumbed to the combined influence of the cold and the brandy; and now, with the flames lighting up his face, he looked like a handsome bandit. The patient horses stood motionless and shadowy, a little at one side. Above her head rose high, rocky crags, from whose crevices clung bushes and stunted trees with their crest of snow. And snow, bright and gleaming near the fire, but growing pale and ghostly, dull and leaden, in the distance, stretched away before her, as far as she could see, while from this white surface rose shrubs, evergreens, and the gaunt outline of trees, in the hap-hazard grouping of the wilderness. Where, before, the storm had rushed, with moan and shriek, now brooded a quiet which only the crackling of the flames and De Forrest's resonant nasal organ disturbed. But Hemstead was nowhere to be seen. She was becoming very solicitous, fearing that he had straggled off alone, in order to bring them relief, when a sound caught her attention, and she saw him coming with a load of cord-wood upon his shoulder. She reclined again, that she might watch him a few moments unperceived. He threw his burden down, and put a stick or two of the heavy wood on the fire. Then Lottie noticed that the genial heat no longer came from the quickly-consumed brush, but from solid wood, of which there was a goodly store on hand. The student stood a few moments looking at the fire; then his eyes drooped, and he swayed back and forth as if nearly overpowered by sleep and weariness. Then he would straighten himself up in a way that made Lottie feel like laughing and crying at the same time, so great was his effort to patiently maintain his watch. At last he tried the expedient of going to the horses and petting them, but, before he knew it, he was leaning on the neck of one of them half asleep. Then Lottie saw him come directly toward her, and half closed her eyes. The student looked long and fixedly at her face, as the firelight shone upon it; then drew himself up straight as a soldier, and marched back and forth like a sentinel on duty. But after a little while his steps grew irregular, and he was evidently almost asleep, even while he walked. Then she saw him turn off abruptly and disappear in the shadowy forest. She sprang up, and, secreting herself behind an adjacent evergreen, waited for his return. Soon she saw him staggering back under another great load of cord-wood. He at once noticed her absence, and was wide awake instantly. He seized a heavy stick for a club, as if he would pursue an enemy who might have carried her off, when her low laugh brought him to her side. "Don't you hit me with that," she said, advancing to the fire. "I thank you very cordially for waking me up so thoroughly," he said, delighted at finding her so bright and well, and in such good spirits, after all her exposure. "I admit, to my shame, that I was almost asleep two or three times." "Here is another assertion of your masculine superiority," she replied, in mock severity. "I may sleep, as a matter of course; but you, as a man, are to rise superior, even to nature herself, and remain awake as long as your imperious will dictates." "I am much afraid," he said, ruefully, "if you had not spoken to me, my imperious will would soon have tumbled helplessly off its throne, and you would have found your watchman and protector little better than one of these logs here." "Who has decreed that you must watch all night, while the rest of us sleep? Come, it's my turn now, and I will watch and protect you for a little while." "Do you mean for me to sleep while you sit here alone and watch?" "Certainly." "I'll put my hand in the fire first, if in no other way I can keep awake." "Didn't you call me 'captain'? You will have to obey your orders." "I'll mutiny in this case, rest assured. Besides, I'm not sleepy any more." "Why, what's the matter?" "Do you think I could sleep while you were awake and willing to talk to me?" "I slept a long time while you were awake." She pulled out her watch, and exclaimed: "Mr. Hemstead! in ten minutes more we enter on a new year." "How much may happen within a year, and even a few days of a year," he said, musingly. "It seems an age since I tossed my books aside, and yet, it was within this month. The whole world has changed to me since that day." "I hope for the better," said Lottie, gently. "Yes, for the better, whatever may be the future. That Sabbath afternoon, when you led me to the One whom I was misrepresenting and wronging, cannot fail to make me, and that little bit of the world which I can reach, the better. I feel that I shall owe to you my best Christian experience and usefulness." "And I feel that I should never have been a Christian at all if I had not met you," she said, looking gratefully up. "Whatever may be the future, as you cay, I trust God will never permit me to be again the false, selfish creature that I was when I first took your hand in seeming kindness." "I trust that God has been leading us both," said Hemstead, gravely and thoughtfully. Lottie again took out her watch, and said, in the low tone which we use in the presence of the dying, "Mr. Hemstead, the old year is passing; there is but a moment left." He uncovered his head, and, bowing reverently, said, "May God forgive us all the folly and evil of the past year, for the sake of His dear Son." Lottie's head bowed as low and reverently as his and for several moments neither spoke. Then he turned, and took her hand as he said: "Many have wished you a 'happy new year' before, but I can scarcely think that any one ever meant the words as I do. Miss Lottie, I would do anything, suffer anything, and give up anything, save honor and duty, to make you happy. You have often laughed at me because I carried my thoughts and feelings in my face. Therefore, you know well that I love you with all the truth and strength of which I am capable. But I have had a great dread lest my love might eventually make you unhappy. You know what my life will be, and duty will never permit me to change." Her answer was very different from what he expected. Almost reproachfully she asked, "Mr. Hemstead, is earthly happiness the end and aim of your life?" "No," he said, after a moment. "What then?" "Usefulness, I trust,--the doing faithfully the work that God gives me." "And must I of necessity differ from you in this respect?" "Miss Lottie, forgive me. I am not worthy of you. But can it be possible that you are willing to share in my humble, toilsome life? I fear you have no idea of the hardships and privations involved." "I stood by you faithfully last night in the storm, did I not?" she said, with a shy, half-mischievous glance. "It seems too good to be true," he said, in a low tone. "Was there ever such a diffident, modest creature!" she said, brusquely. "Mr. Hemstead, you will never ENTER Heaven. The angels will have to pull you in." "One angel has made a heaven of this dreary place already," he answered, seeking to draw her to him. "Wait a moment; what do you mean, sir? I have made you no promises and given you no rights." "But I have made you no end of promises, and given you absolute right over me. My every glance has said, 'Lottie Marsden, I am yours, body and soul, so far as a man with a conscience can be.'" "All this counts for nothing," said Lottie, with a little impatient stamp of her foot. "I promised that dear old meddler, Uncle Dimmerly, that you, in deep humility and penitence for having arrogantly assumed that you could be a missionary and I couldn't, should ask me to be a home missionary; and you have wasted lots of precious time." He caught her quaint humor, and, taking her hand and dropping on one knee, said: "Lottie Marsden, child of luxury, the prize which the proudest covet, will you leave your elegant home,--will you turn your back upon the world which is at your feet,--and go with me away to the far West, that you may become a poor, forlorn home missionary?" "Yes, Frank, in your home; but never forlorn while I have you to laugh at, and never poor while I possess your big, unworldly heart." "Have I any rights now?" he exclaimed; and, springing up, he exercised them to a degree that almost took away her breath. "Here, behave yourself," she said. "The idea of one who had plumed himself on his heroic self-sacrifice acting so like an ordinary mortal! You have had more kisses now than you ought in a week. If we are to be so poor, we ought to begin practising economy at once." "You are the most beautiful and spicy compound that nature ever fashioned," he exultingly replied, holding her off, devouring her with his eyes. "I plainly foresee that you can fill the poorest little home with light and music." "Yes, I warn you, before it's too late, that I can never become a solemn, ghostly sort of a missionary." "O, it's too late now, I assure you," he said: "my mind is made up." "So is mine,--that you shall take a long nap, while I mount guard." "Nap, indeed!" he said, indignantly. "When the gates of pearl bang after one with their musical clangor, and shut out forever the misery of earth, will one's first impulse on the threshold of heaven be to take a nap?" "What extravagant language! You ministers talk much too familiarly of heaven, and such things." "No, indeed, Lottie, dear! the more familiar the thought of heaven is to us, the better. You shall have a good home there, if a very humble one here. But do you realize how much you are giving up?" "Yes," she said, ruefully, "the worst heartache I ever had. I don't believe you felt half so badly as I did." "But when the hard and prosaic life comes, with its daily cares and weary burdens, are you sure that you will not regret your action?--are you sure that you will not wish yourself again the queenly belle, with the world at your feet?" "Who with right claims the higher rank," Lottie answered, her lovely face growing noble with her thought,--"a queenly belle with a false, selfish heart, or a Christian woman? And what is that world which you say is at my feet? Where is it to-night? Where was it when the tempest made it doubtful whether we should ever see this new year? Here I am in the solemn midnight, and upon this desolate mountain. It is not the softness of a summer night to which we are exposed; it is midwinter. And yet I am certain that there is not a queen on the earth as happy as I am. But what part has that world to which you refer had in making me happy? I knew there was danger last night. I had read of people perishing in the snow almost at their own doors. I think I realized that death might be near, but my heart was so light and happy in the consciousness of your love and God's love, that I could look at the grim old fellow, and laugh in his face. But suppose that I had had nothing better then to think of than this vague world, about which you are making so much ado? Once before, when the world was at my feet, as you term it, I faced a sudden danger in your company. Thanks to God's mercy and your skill and strength, we were not dashed down into that ravine when the horses ran away. What did the world do for me then? Did it throw a ray of light into that black gulf of death, which yawned on every side? Oh, thank God," she said with passionate earnestness, "that I was not sent out of life that night, a shivering ghost, a homeless wanderer forever! But what could the world do to prevent it? I know all about that glittering world, Frank, to gain which so many are staking their all, and I know it's more of a phantom than a reality. It flattered me, excited and intoxicated me, but it never made me one-hundredth part as happy as I am tonight. And when I thought I had lost your respect and your love, I no more thought of turning to the world for solace and happiness, than I would look in a coal-bin for diamonds. I knew all about the world, and in the depths of my soul realized that it was a sham. How far away it is to-night, with these solemn mountains rising all around us; and yet how near seem God and heaven, and how sweet and satisfying the hopes they impart! I have thought it all out, Frank. The time is coming when illness or age, mortal pain and weakness, will shut me away, like these dark, wintry hills, even from your love,--much more from the uncaring, heartless world; but something in my heart tells me that my Saviour, who wept for sympathy when no one else would weep, will be my strong, faithful friend through it all, and not for all the worlds glittering there in yonder sky, much less for ray poor little gilt and tinsel world in New York, will I give up this assurance." "I am satisfied," said Hemstead, in a tone of deep content; "God wills it." They sat for a long time without speaking, in the unison of feeling that needed no words. At last, in sudden transition to one of her mirthful, piquant expressions, Lottie turned to her companion and said: "Frank, you are on the mountain-top of exalted thought and sentiment: Your face is as rapt as if you saw a vision." "Can you wonder?" "Well, I'm going to give you an awful tumble,--worse than the one you feared last night when the sleigh tipped. I'm hungry as any wolf that ever howled in these mountains." "What a comparison!" said the student, laughing heartily. Then, his face becoming all solicitude, he queried, "What shall I do?" and he was about to rise with the impression that he ought to do something. "Do as I bid you, of course; sit still while I tell you what I shall do. I shall patiently endure this aching void, as I trust I shall the other inevitable ills of our lot. What could be more appropriate than this prelude of hunger in one proposing to marry a home missionary?" With an odd blending of delight and sympathy in his face, Hemstead exclaimed: "Lottie! You have received more compliments than you could count in a year, but I am going to give you one different from any that you ever had before. There's not even a trace of morbidness in your nature." Thus, in playful and serious talk, they passed the hours until the snow-clad mountains were sparkling in the rising sun. Hemstead placed upon Lottie's hand a plain seal-ring that had been his father's, but she covered it with her glove, not wishing the fact of her engagement to transpire until they should reach home. At last the others awoke, and what they had passed through seemed like a grotesque, horrible dream. De Forrest looked suspiciously at Hemstead and Lottie, but could gather nothing from their quiet bearing towards each other. Early in the day relief reached them, and by the middle of the forenoon they were doing ample justice to Mrs. Marchmont's sumptuous breakfast. Then the telltale ring on Lottie's finger revealed the secret, and there was consternation. But poor De Forrest was so outrageously hungry that he had to eat even in this most trying emergency. And yet he had a painful sense that it was not the proper thing to do under the circumstances, and so was exceedingly awkward, for once in his life. Mr. Dimmerly chuckled all that Sunday with "unbecoming levity," his sister said. She, poor woman, had lost all confidence in herself as a good manager. In her bosom indignation at her nephew and Lottie contended with the dread of Mrs. Marsden's reproaches. Bel tried to think that it was not her fault, and Addie did not much care. The holiday visit came to an end. The months sped away. Lottie's purpose was severely tested. Every possible motive, reason, and argument was brought to bear upon the brave girl. Worse than all, she had to endure the cold, averted looks of those she fondly loved. She pleaded her own cause eloquently. She frequently quoted her friend's example, who was about to marry the army officer. "But that is very different," they said. Only once she lost her temper. There was a sort of family conclave of aunts and relatives, and they had beset her sorely. At last she turned upon them suddenly, and asked: "Are you Christians? Do you believe there is a God?" "Why, certainly. Do you think we are heathen?" "Why talk, then, like heathen, and act like infidels? If it's the thing in the fashionable world to marry a trusted servant of a human government, how much better must it be to marry a servant of the King of All! I honor my friend because she marries the man she loves, and I shall marry the one I love. I am of age--I have chosen my lot. Mark my words! you will yet be proud of the one whom you now so despise; while the one you wish me to marry will cover his own and the names of all connected with him with shame"; and she left them to recover from this bombshell of truth, as best they might. But the patient gentleness which she usually manifested at length won even their obdurate hearts. Her father was the first to relent, and was finally brought, by Lottie's irresistible witchery, quite over on her side. But, in her mother's case, there was only partial resignation to a great but inevitable misfortune. Mrs. Marsden was a sincere idolater of the world for which she lived. In Aunt Jane, Lottie had a stanch ally, and a sympathizing and comforting helper. But the postman, who brought, with increasing frequency, letters that were big and heavy, like the writer, was the man whom Lottie most doted on in all the city. With the whole energy of her forceful, practical nature, she trained herself for her work, as Hemstead was training himself for his. And when, a year later, she gave him her hand at the sacred altar, it was not a helpless hand. Years have passed. Mr. and Mrs. Hemstead are the chief social, refining, and Christianizing influences of a growing Western town. They have the confidence and sympathy of the entire community, and are people of such force that they make themselves felt in every department of life. They are shaping and ennobling many characters, and few days pass in which Lottie does not lay up in memory some good deed, though she never stops to count her hoard. But, in gladness, she will learn in God's good time that such deeds are the riches that have no wings. She made good her warning, and never became a "solemn, ghostly sort of a missionary." She was usually as wholesome as the sunshine, or if the occasion required, as a stiff north wind, and had a pronounced little way of her own, when things went wrong at home or in the church, of giving all concerned the benefit of some practical common sense. But she also, in the main, kept her pledge to endure patiently, as she had borne her hunger on the mountain, and many privations and trials of their lot. While she sustained her husband's hands and doubled his usefulness abroad, he generally found at home a sunny philosopher who laughed him out of half his troubles. With increasing frequency he said, "Lottie, you are so wholesome; there is not a morbid, unnatural trait in you." And she inspired him to preach such a wholesome, sunny Gospel that it won even the most prejudiced. One evening, a feeble, aged man stepped down from the train, and was borne off in triumph by Hemstead to the warmest corner of his hearth. Lottie gave him such a welcome that the old gentleman cried out: "Hold on. My goodness gracious! haven't you sobered down yet?" Then, while Frank stood near, with his hand upon her shoulder, looking as proud of her as a man could be, and with just such a black-eyed cherub in her arms as she must have been herself twenty odd years before, her face aglow with health, happiness, and content, she asked, "Well, uncle, what do you think of your meddling now?" Mr. Dimmerly went off into one of his old-time chuckles, as he said, "This is one of the things which the world never can 'stop.'" [THE END] _ |
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