LXV.
That morning,—it was the 22d of September, in the year 1842,—Mr. Brindlock came into his counting-room some two hours before noon, and says to his porter and factotum, as he enters the door, "Well, Roger, I suppose you 'll be counting this puff of a southeaster the equinoctial, eh?"
"Indeed, sir, and it 's an awful one. The Meteor 's gone ashore on Long Beach; and there 's talk of young Mr. Johns being lost."
"Good Heavens!" said Brindlock, "you don't tell me so!"
By half past three he was upon the spot; a little remaining fragment only of the Meteor hanging to the sands, and a great débris of bales, spars, shattered timbers, bodies, drifted along the shore,—Reuben's among them.
But he is not dead; at least so say the wreckers, who throng upon the beach; the life-buoy is still fast to him, though he is fearfully shattered and bruised. He is borne away under the orders of Brindlock to some near house, and presently revives enough to ask that he may be carried—"home."
As, in the opening of this story, his old grandfather, the Major, was borne away from the scene of his first battle by easy stages homeward, so now the grandson, far feebler and after more terrible encounter with death, is carried by "easy stages" to his home in Ashfield. Again the city, the boat, the river,—with its banks yellowing with harvests, and brightened with the glowing tints of autumn; again the sluggish brigs drifting down with the tide, and sailors in tasselled caps leaning over the bulwarks; again the flocks feeding leisurely on the rock-strewn hills; again the ferryman, in his broad, cumbrous scow, oaring across; again the stoppage at the wharf of the little town, from which the coach still plies over the hills to Ashfield.
On the way thither, a carriage passes them, in which are Adèle and her father. The news of disaster flies fast; they have learned of the wreck, and the names of passengers. They go to learn what they can of the mother, whom the daughter has scarce known. The passing is too hasty for recognition. Brindlock arrives at last with his helpless charge at the door of the parsonage. The Doctor is overwhelmed at once with grief and with joy. The news had come to him, and he had anticipated the worst. But "Thank God! 'Joseph, my son, is yet alive!' Still a probationer; there is yet hope that he may be brought into the fold."
He insists that he shall be placed below, upon his own bed, just out of his study. For himself, he shall need none until the crisis is past. But the crisis does not pass; it is hard to say when it will. The wounds are not so much; but a low fever has set in, (the physician says,) owing to exposure and excitement, and he can predict nothing as to the result. Even Aunt Eliza is warmed into unwonted attention as she sees that poor battered hulk of humanity lying there; she spares herself no fatigue, God knows, but she sheds tears in her own chamber over this great disaster. There are good points even in the spinster; when shall we learn that the best of us are not wholly good, nor the worst wholly bad?
Days and days pass. Reuben hovering between life and death; and the old Doctor, catching chance rest upon the little cot they have placed for him in the study, looks yearningly by the dim light of the sick-lamp upon that dove which his lost Rachel had hung upon his wall above the sword of his father. He fancies that the face of Reuben, pinched with suffering, resembles more than ever the mother. Of sickness, or of the little offices of friends which cheat it of pains, the old gentleman knows nothing: sick souls only have been his care. And it is pitiful to see his blundering, eager efforts to do something, as he totters round the sick-chamber where Reuben, with very much of youthful vigor left in him, makes fight against the arch-enemy who one day conquers us all. For many days after his arrival there is no consciousness,—only wild words (at times words that sound to the ears of the good Doctor strangely wicked, and that make him groan in spirit),—tender words, too, of dalliance, and eager, loving glances,—murmurs of boyish things, of sunny, school-day noonings,—hearing which, the Doctor thinks that, if this light must go out, it had better have gone out in those days of comparative innocence.
Over and over the father appeals to the village physician to know what the chances may be,—to which that old gentleman, fumbling his watch-key, and looking grave, makes very doubtful response. He hints at a possible undermining of the constitution in these later years of city life.
God only knows what habits the young man may have formed in these last years; surely the Doctor does not; and he tells the physician as much, with a groan of anguish.
Meantime, Maverick and Adèle have gone upon their melancholy search; and, as they course over the island to the southern beach, the sands, the plains, the houses, the pines, drift by the eye of Adèle as in a dream. At last she sees a great reach of water,—piling up, as it rolls lazily in from seaward, into high walls of waves, that are no sooner lifted than they break and send sparkling floods of foam over the sands. Bits of wreck, dark clots of weed, are strewed here and there,—stragglers scanning every noticeable heap, every floating thing that comes in.
Is she dead? is she living? They have heard only on the way that many bodies are lying in the near houses,—many bruised and suffering ones; while some have come safe to land, and gone to their homes. They make their way from that dismal surf-beaten shore to the nearest house. There are loiterers about the door; and within,—within, Adèle finds her mother at last, clasps her to her heart, kisses the poor dumb lips that will never more open,—never say to her rapt ears, "My child! my darling!"
Maverick is touched as he has never been touched before; the age of early sentiment comes drifting back to his world-haunted mind; nay, tears come to those eyes that have not known them for years. The grief, the passionate, vain tenderness of Adèle, somehow seems to sanctify the memory of the dead one who lies before him, her great wealth of hair streaming dank and fetterless over the floor.
Not more tenderly, scarce more tearfully, could he have ministered to one who had been his life-long companion. Where shall the poor lady be buried? Adèle answers that, with eyes flashing through her tears,—nowhere but in Ashfield, nowhere except beside the sister, Marie.
It is a dismal journey for the father and the daughter; it is almost a silent journey. Does she love him less? No, a thousand times, no. Does he love her less? No, a thousand times, no. In such presence love is awed into silence. As the mournful cortége enters the town of Ashfield, it passes the home of that fatherless boy, Arthur, for whom Adèle had shown such sympathy. The youngster is there swinging upon the gate, his cap gayly set off with feathers, and he looking wonderingly upon the bier. He sees, too, the sad face of Adèle, and, by some strange rush of memory, recalls, as he looks on her, the letter which she had given him long ago, and which till then had been forgotten. He runs to his mother: it is in his pocket,—it is in that of some summer jacket. At last it is found; and the poor woman herself, that very morning, with numberless apologies, delivers it at the door of the parsonage.
Phil is the first to meet this exceptional funeral company, and is the first to tell Adèle how Reuben lies stricken almost to death at the parsonage. She thanks him: she thanks him again for the tender care which he shows in all relating to the approaching burial. When an enemy even comes forward to help us bury the child we loved or the parent we mourn, our hearts warm toward him as they never warmed before; but when a friend assumes these offices of tenderness, and takes away the harshest edge of grief by assuming the harshest duties of grief, our hearts shower upon him their tenderest sympathies. We never forget it.
Of course, the arrival of this strange freight in Ashfield gives rise to a world of gossip. We cannot follow it; we cannot rehearse it. The poor woman is buried, as Adèle had wished, beside her sister. No De Profundis except the murmur of the winds through the crimson and the scarlet leaves of later September.
The Tourtelots have been eager with their gossip. The dame has queried if there should not be some town demonstration against the burial of the Papist. But the little Deacon has been milder; and we give our last glimpse of him—altogether characteristic—in a suggestion which he makes in a friendly way to Squire Elderkin, who is the host of the French strangers.
"Square, have they ordered a moniment yit for Miss Maverick?"
"Not that I 'm aware of, Deacon."
"Waal, my nevvy's got a good slab of Varmont marble, which he ordered for his fust wife; but the old folks did n't like it, and it's in his barn on the heater-piece. 'T ain't engraved, nor nothin'. If it should suit the Mavericks, I dare say they could git it tol'able low."