CHAPTER XVIII.
Faith did not have as uninterrupted a time for studies as she had counted upon for the next few months. In the first place, letters took a great many hours. In the second place, her studies were pretty frequently broken up of an evening by Dr. Harrison.
He certainly came often; whether it was because of the strength of attraction in that particular house, or the failure of any attraction beside in all the coasts of Pattaquasset, was a problem which remained unsolved by anything in the doctor's manner. His manner was like what it had been the evening just recounted. He amused himself, after his nonchalant fashion, and amused his hearers; he did not in the mean time call upon them for any help at all. He discerned easily that Faith had a little shyness about her; that might mean one thing or it might mean another; and Dr. Harrison was far too wise to risk the one thing by endeavouring to find out whether it was the other. The doctor was no fisher had no favour for the sport; but if he had been, he might have thought that now he was going to give his fish a very long line indeed, and let it play to any extent of shyness or wilfulness; his hand on the reel all the time.
The talk that would do for Miss Essie would not please Faith. The doctor knew that long ago. He drew upon his better stores. His knowledge of the earth we live on; his familiarity with nature's and art's wonders; history and philosophy; literature and science; and a knowledge of the world which he used as a little piquant spice to flavour all the rest of his knowledge. Thrown in justly, with a nice hand, so as not to offend, it did rather serve to provoke a delicate palate; while it unmistakably gratified his own. It was the salt to the doctor's dish.
But everything wants breaking up with variety, and variety itself may come to be monotonous. He asked Faith one evening if she knew anything of chymistry; and proceeded upon her reply to give her sundry bits of detail and some further insight into the meaning and bearing of the science. It was not August then, but it might have been, for the leisurely manner in which the doctor "unwound his skein" of talk, as if he were talking to himself or for himself; and yet he was, and he knew it, filling Faith's ears with delight. He took up the same subject afterwards from time to time; beginning from any trifle of suggestion, he would go off into an exquisite chymical discussion, illustrated and pointed and ornamented, as no lecturer but one loving both his subject and his object could ever make it. After a while the doctor began to come with bits of metal and phials of acids, and delight Faith and astonish Mrs. Derrick by turning her sitting-room into an impromptu laboratory. Such fumes! such gaseous odours! such ominous "reports", were never known in and about Mrs. Derrick's quiet household; nor were her basins and tumblers ever put to such strange, and in her view hideous, uses. But Dr. Harrison rather seemed to enjoy what appeared at first sight inconveniences; triumphed over the imperfections of tools and instruments, and wrought wonders over which Faith bent with greater raptures than if the marvels of Aladdin's lamp had been shewn before her. The doctor began by slow degrees; he let all this grow up of itself; he asked only for a tumbler the first time. And insensibly they went on, from one thing to another; till instead of a tumbler, the doctor would sometimes be surrounded with a most extraordinary retinue and train of diversified crockery and china. An empty butter-tub came to do duty for a water-bath; bottles and jars and cups and glasses, of various shapes and dimensions, attended or waited upon the doctor's operations; and with a slight apology and assurance to Mrs. Derrick he on more than one or two occasions appropriated the clock-shade for his use and behoof as a receiver. Then siphons began to come in the doctor's pocket; and glass tubes, bent and straight, open and sealed, in the doctor's hand; and one of his evenings came to be "better than a play." A most beautiful and exquisite play to Faith. Yet Dr. Harrison never forgot his tactics; never let his fish feel the line; and to Faith's joyous "How shall I ever thank you, Dr. Harrison!"—would reply by a dry request that she would induce Mrs. Derrick to have muffins for tea some evening and let him come.
And what did Dr. Harrison gain by all this? He did gain some hours of pleasure—that would have been very exquisite pleasure, but for the doubt that haunted him, and respecting which he could get no data of decision. The shyness and reserve did pass away from Faith; she met him and talked with him as a pleasant intimate friend whose company she enjoyed and who had a sort of right to hers; the right of friendship and kindliness. But then he never did anything to try her shyness or to call up her reserve. He never asked anything of her that she could refuse. He never advanced a step where it could with decency be repressed. He knew it. But he bided his time. He did not know what thorough and full accounts of all his evenings went—through the post-office.
He knew, and it rather annoyed him, that Reuben Taylor was very freely admitted and very intimately regarded in the house. There was perhaps no very good reason why this should have annoyed the doctor. Yet somehow he always rather identified Reuben Taylor with another of his friends. He found out, too, that Reuben much preferred the times when he, the doctor, was not there; for after once or twice coming in upon sulphuric acid and clock shades (from which he retreated faster than if it had all been gun-powder) Reuben changed his hour; and the doctor had the satisfaction of wishing him good evening in the porch—or of passing him on the sidewalk—or of hearing the swing of the little gate and Reuben's quick bound up the steps when his own feet were well out in the common ground of the road.
Mrs. Derrick expressed unequivocally (to Faith, not the doctor) her dislike of all chymical "smells" whatever, and her abhorrence of all "reports" but those which went off after the doctor's departure; the preparation of which Mrs. Derrick beheld with a sort of vindictive satisfaction. Mr. Linden enjoyed his letters unqualifiedly, sometimes wrote chymical answers—now and then forestalling the doctor, but rarely saying much about him. Faith was in little danger of annoyance from anything with her mother sitting by, and for the rest Dr. Harrison was at his own risk. Letters were too precious—every inch of them—to be much taken up with discussing him. Other things were of more interest,—sometimes discussion, sometimes information, oftenest of all, talk; and now and then came with the letter some book to give Faith a new bit of reading. Above all, the letters told her—in a sort of indefinable, unconscious way, how much, how much her presence was missed and longed for; it seemed to her as if where one letter laid it down the next took it up—not in word but in atmosphere, and carried it further. In that one respect (though Faith never found it out) the chymical accounts gave pain.
Faith in her letters never spoke directly of this element of his; but she made many a gentle effort to meet it and soothe what could be soothed. To this end partly were her very full accounts of all the course of her quiet life. As fearlessly and simply as possible Faith talked, to him; quite willing to be found wrong and to be told so, wherever wrong was. It was rather by the fulness of what she gave him, than by any declaration of want on her own part, that Mr. Linden could tell from her letters how much she felt or missed in his absence. She rarely put any of that into words, and if it got in atmospherically it was by the subtlest of entrances. When she spoke it at all, it was generally a very frank and simple expression of strong truth.
Of out-door work, during all this time, she had a variety. For some time after Mr. Linden's going away, neither Mrs. Stoutenburgh nor the Squire had been near the house; but then they began to amuse themselves with taking her to drive, and whenever Faith could and would go she was sure of a pleasant hour or two out in the brisk autumn air, and with no danger of even hearing Mr. Linden's name mentioned. The silence indeed proved rather too much, but it was better than speech. Then she and Reuben had many excursions, short and long. Sometimes the flowers or eggs or tracts were sent by him alone, but often Faith chose to go too; and he was her ever ready, respectful, and efficient escort,—respect it was truly, of the deepest and most affectionate kind. And thus—on foot or with Jerry—the two went their rounds; but at such houses Faith must both hear and speak of Mr. Linden—there was always some question to answer, some story to hear.
It happened, among Dr. Harrison's other pleasures, that he several times met them on these expeditions; generally when he was driving, sometimes when they were too; but one late November afternoon—not late in the month but late in the day, fortune favoured him. Strolling along for an unwonted walk, the doctor beheld from a little hill Faith and Reuben in the valley below,—saw them go up to the door of a cottage, saw Faith go in, and Reuben sit down in the porch and take out his book. It was a fair picture,—the brown woodland, the soft sunlight, the little dark cottage, the pretty youthful figures with their quick steps and natural gestures, and the evening hue and tone of everything. But the doctor did not admire it—and went down the hill without even taking off his hat to the chickadees that bobbed their black caps at him from both sides of the road. By the porch the doctor suddenly slackened his pace, looked within, nodded to Reuben, and came to a halt.
"Have I accidentally found out where you live, Reuben?"
"I live down by the shore, sir," said Reuben standing up.
"I thought—" said the doctor, "I had got an impression that you were not a thorough-going Pattaquasseter—but you looked so much at home there.—Where do you live? whereabouts, I mean; for the shore stretches a long way."
Reuben gave the vernacular name of the little rocky coast point which was his home, but the point itself was too much out of the doctor's 'beat' to have the name familiar.
"How far off is that?"
"About four miles from here, sir."
"May I ask what you are studying so diligently four miles from home at this hour?"
Reuben coloured a good deal, but with not more than a moment's reluctance held out his book for the doctor's inspection. It was a Bible. The doctor's face changed, ever so little; but with what feeling, or combination of feelings, it would have taken a much wiser reader of men and faces than Reuben to tell. It was only a moment, and then he stood with the book in his hand gravely turning it over, but with his usual face.
"I once had the pleasure of asking you questions on some other matters," he remarked,—"and I remember you answered well. Can you pass as good an examination in this?"
"As to the words, sir? or the thoughts?—I don't quite know," said
Reuben modestly.
"Words are the signs of thoughts, you know."
"Yes, sir—but nobody can know all the Bible thoughts—though some people have learned all the Bible words."
The doctor gave a little sort of commenting nod, rather approving than otherwise. "You are safe here," he paid as he handed the book back to Reuben; "for in this study I couldn't examine you. What are you pursuing the study for?—may I ask?"
"If you don't know!" was in the boy's full gaze for a moment. But he looked down again, answering steadily—"'Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee!'—I love it, Dr. Harrison—and it shews me the way to serve God."
"Well," said the doctor rather kindly—"if I hadn't interrupted you, how much more study would you have accomplished before you thought it time to set oft for that four miles' walk home—to that unpronounceable place?"
"I don't know, sir—I am not obliged to be there by any particular time of night."
"No, I know you are not. But—excuse my curiosity!—are you so fond of the Bible that you stop on the way home to read it as you go along? or are you waiting for somebody?"
The words brought the colour back with a different tinge, but Reuben simply answered, "No, sir—I did not stop here to read. I am waiting."
"For Miss Derrick, are you not?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then I dare say Miss Derrick will release you for this time, and allow me to attend her home, whither I am going myself."
"I must wait till she comes out, sir," Reuben said, with the respectful intractability which the doctor remembered.
"Of course!" he said. "Did you ever take lessons of anybody but Mr.
Linden?—" But at this point the house door opened and Faith came out.
"Miss Faith," said the doctor, after his greeting which was thoroughly in character, "if you will tell your escort here—who I am sure is a staunch one—that you need him no longer, he will feel free to begin his long walk to the shore,—and I shall have the rare pleasure and honour of going home with you."
Faith turned frankly. "Do you want to go home, Reuben?"
"No, Miss Faith"—was the equally frank, low-spoken answer,—"not unless you want me to go." Reuben could but speak the truth—and he did try to speak it with as little offence as possible; though with an instinctive feeling that the time "when truth will be truth and not treason," had not yet arrived. "I mean, that I want to do just what you wish," he added looking up at her.
"I don't want you to go, then," said Faith laughing, "for I mean that you shall come home to tea with me. Dr. Harrison, I will invite you too," she said turning her bright face towards him. "I believe—there are muffins to-night."
"Miss Faith,"—said the doctor,—"you are an angel!"
"What is the connexion between that and muffins?" said Faith merrily, for Reuben was at her side and she felt free.
"You mistake the connexion," said the doctor gravely. "Angels are supposed to be impartial in their attentions to the human race, and not swayed by such curious—and of course arrogant—considerations as move the lower herd of mortals. To an immaterial creature, how can the height of a door be material!"
"But I think you are mistaken," said Faith gently. "I don't believe any creatures mind more what they find inside the door."
"What did you find inside that door?" said the doctor.
Faith hesitated. "Do you know to-morrow is Thanksgiving day, Dr.
Harrison?"
"I am not quite sure that I ought to say I know it—though my father did read the proclamation. I suppose I know it now."
"I found inside of that door some people who could not make pumpkin pies—and Reuben and I have been carrying them one of mother's."
"What a day they will have of it!" said the doctor,—"if Mrs. Derrick's pies are made in the same place as her muffins. But can you find nothing better to do than running round the country to supply the people that haven't pies?"
"Not many things pleasanter,"—said Faith looking at him.
"I see I was right," said he smiling. "I have no doubt angels do that sort of thing. But it is a sort of pleasure of which I have no knowledge. All my life I have pleased only myself. Yet one would wish to have some share in it, too. I can't make pies! And if I could, I shouldn't know in the least where to bestow them. Do you think you could take this now," said he producing a gold eagle, "and turn it into pumpkins or anything else that you think will make people happy—and see that they get to the right places?—for me?"
"Do you mean it seriously, Dr. Harrison?"
"If you will have the condescension!"
"Oh thank you!" said Faith flushing with joy,—"oh thank you! I am very glad of this, and so will many others be. Dr. Harrison, I wish you could know the pleasure this will give!—the good it will do."
"I don't think a ten-dollar piece ever gave me so much pleasure," said he looking a little moved. "About the good I don't know; that's not so easy."
Faith left that point for him to consider, though with many a wish in her own heart. But the walk home brightened into a very pleasant one after that.