For the Major: A Novelette

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

"I was so much interested in our American poet's description of the Italian poet's grave, on the Janiculum," she said. "It was such a touching passage, and it contained this truly poetical sentence: 'He sleeps midway between his cradle at Sorrento and his dungeon at Ferrara.' I can never go in person, Mr. Owen; Fate has denied me that. But I can think of the inscription, which Longfellow gives: 'Torquati Tasso ossa hic jacet,' and be there in mind."

She had called it "hic jacket." "Jacent, I think," said the rector, gently.

"Yes, certainly; that is what I meant—jacinth," said Miss Dalley, correcting herself. "A beautiful word, is it not? And so appropriate, too, for a poet's grave, mentioned, as it is, in Revelations!"

On Friday Dupont really did go. The rector himself saw him pass in the high red wagon of the Washington Inn on his way down the mountain to the lower town, the eastward-bound stage, and thence—wherever he pleased, the gazer thought, so long as he did not return. But although the rector gave this vagueness to the musician's destination, it was understood in other quarters that he was going back to the West India Islands—"where he used to live, you know."

"Upon which one did he live?" asked the junior warden. "There are about fifty thousand of them, large and small; he can't have lived on them all."

"For my part, I think him quite capable of it," answered Miss Honoria, grimly.

Having seen the musician depart, Owen jumped on his horse and went off to one of his mission stations far up among the crags of Lonely Mountain. For, not content with a rector's usual duties, all of which he attended to with a modern promptness unknown in the days of good old Parson Montgomery, he had established mission stations at various points in the mountains above Far Edgerley. Wherever there were a few log-houses gathered together, there he held services, or started a Sunday-school. He was by far the most energetic rector the parish of St. John in the Wilderness had ever had; so much so, indeed, that the parish hardly knew how to take his energy, and thought that he was perhaps rather too much in the wilderness—more than necessity demanded or his bishop required. Miss Honoria Ashley had even called these journeyings of his "itinerant;" but Miss Honoria was known to disapprove, on general principles, of everything the rector did: she had once seen him wearing a sack-coat.

On this particular Friday he was out all day among the peaks, close up under the sky. Coming down at sunset, and entering Edgerley Street, with its knolls and flower-gardens and rambling old houses, his home seemed to him a peaceful and pleasant one. And then, as he passed Carroll Farms, he became conscious that the cause for its seeming especially peaceful to him this evening was the absence of the intruder, that man from another world, who was no longer there to contaminate its sweet, old-fashioned simplicity with his dubious beauty, his dangerous character, and his enchanting voice. For Owen believed that the musician's character was dangerous; his face bore the marks of dissipation, and though indolent, and often full of gay good-nature, he had at times a reckless expression in his eyes. Nothing deterred him from amusing himself; and probably, in the same way, nothing would deter him from any course towards which he should happen to feel an inclination. He was not dangerous by plan or calculation; he was dangerous from the very lack of them. He was essentially erratic, and followed his fancies, and no one could tell whither they would lead him. But he might have been all this, and the clergyman would still have felt able to guard his parish and people from any harm his presence might do them, had it not been for the favor shown him by Madam Carroll. This had been a blow to Owen. He said to himself that the gentle lady's love of music had blinded her judgment, and carried her astray. It was a satisfaction that Miss Carroll's judgment remained unblinded. But it was greatest satisfaction of all that the man was gone; he congratulated himself upon this anew as he rode by the gateway of the Farms.

It was well that he had this taste of comfort. It did not last long. Less than three weeks had passed when he learned one afternoon that Dupont had returned. And not long afterwards he was in possession of other knowledge, which troubled him more than anything that had happened since he came to Far Edgerley.

In the meantime his parish, unaware of its rector's opinion, had welcomed back the summer visitor with various graceful little attentions. The summer visitor had been seriously ill, and needed attentions, graceful or otherwise. He had journeyed as far as New York, and there had fallen ill of a fever, which was not surprising, the parish thought, when one considered the dangerously torrid climate of that business metropolis at this season. Upon recovery, he had longed with a great longing for "our pure Chillawassee air," and had returned to pass the time of convalescence "among our noble peaks;" this was repeated from knoll to knoll. Dupont's appearance bore testimony to the truth of the tale. He had evidently been ill: his cheeks were hollow, and he moved about slowly, as though he had not much strength; his eyes, large and dark, looked larger and darker than ever, set in his thin, brown face. But he was still Dupont; his moustache was still waxed, and he had some new articles of finery, a gold watch-chain, and a seal-ring on his long-fingered hand. This time he did not stay at the inn; he preferred to try a farm-house, and selected Walley's Cove, a small farm a little above the village, in one of the high ravines which, when wide enough for a few fields along the mountain-brook that flowed through the centre, were called coves. Dupont liked the place on account of the view; and also, he said, because he could throw a stone from the cove's mouth "into every chimney in Far Edgerley." This was repeated. "Do you suppose," said Mrs. General Hibbard, solemnly—"do you suppose he is going to do it?"