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 circumstances? 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 tithe 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 passed the boundary which they fancied divided them from heaven, they would yet be looking on to so the future state for the anticipated 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 accumulated a small property, and was prospering, notwithstanding the efforts of many to embarrass 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 passage 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 passengers. 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 passengers.
"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 God. 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 passengers, and passed 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 passage, 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 passengers, sprang to a boat. I placed Evelina in it, and was just about to assist 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 passengers 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 anchored in the stream, and the next morning it hauled up to a wharf."