[CHAPTER XXIII.]
THE ABSENT-MINDED JUDGE.
Burnbrae, the home of the Barings, with its productive acres fringed by vine-clad vales and hills, had by an irrevocable event passed irredeemably out of the possession of its embarrassed owner, and heart-broken the old man yielded his tenure to the new master. The mortgage debt and taxes, like omniverous caterpillars, began to eat away at its four corners at one and the same time. Mr. Baring could only await the inevitable hour with the saddest apprehensions. For himself it was a matter of little consequence, for like the sea-tossed sailor, he could discern within the length of a cable the ultimate haven, land-locked and tranquil; but for his two daughters who would survive him the stroke was almost heart-crushing.
The forced sales of beautiful homesteads like Burnbrae, in the days of reconstruction were not much of an incident; when there was no halting by that unbrigaded army that was laying waste field and plantation, and scourging the land into nakedness; when by the extra judicial processes of assimilation and absorption the spoils system was budding into a vigorous life and the spoilsmen were animated, remorseless and persevering.
Around this home there were memories dear and tender, trellissed in the affections of the Barings; incense came forth from chambers and bowers, and out yonder where the smooth white stones glisten in the moonlight like platoons of white-gowned maidens, the Baring generations lay in unbroken files.
It is a sad thing to see a home, like a worthless chattel, under the hammer of a callous-hearted auctioneer; to hear him cry going, going, going, with as much delight as if he were parting company with a pestilence; but alas! with the owner it is like a judgment of outlawry to pass the keys, the symbolical title, to the purchaser, who is animated by no kind sentiment; who sees no tears and hears no sighs. "Going, going, going!" There slips out of the master's control the nursery where infancy was cradled, swathed in the manifolding of love and tenderness.
I see in retrospection a beautiful young mother, with a redundance of soft black hair as velvety as the wing of a raven, with her foot upon the rocker smiling so sweetly upon the sleepy-eyed child, who arouses her little tired self only long enough to whisper dreamily,
"Sing please, again, mama; sing Dix—" and falls asleep. And then there is the old conservatory just under mother's window, aromatic with memories. Mother called it her "Flowery kingdom," because every morning and every evening she entered her throne-room there with its dais of japonicas and camelias; and there were her little maids of honor in russet and gold and carmine glistening in dewy diamonds and pearls; and they would thrust back their silky night-caps and their little eyes would be bright, as they peeped out of tiny hoods of blue and purple, red and white. Ah, this was a royal realm of the queen mother, and those little star rayed princesses were so loyal in their beauty and fragrance. And this, too, like a beautiful pantomime, was passing away, leaving only shadows that, like some horrid dream, were darkening the soul. Oh, the charm, the aroma of the vine-clad conservatory, dear mother's "Flowery kingdom" and her little royal maids?
And there is the old drawing-room with a bountiful bouquet of memories. This hallowed chamber was so often refreshed in the golden twilight by mother's presence, by mother's devotions, by mother's voice as it blended softly with the harmonies of the old harpsichord; and it seems as if there were sweet chimes out of doors in the stilly air, and perhaps the stars were re-enforcing the old songs with whispering symphonies.
Then there was the chamber just next to mother's, embowered in columbine and the trailing arbutus where there are treasured still old letters, books and shoes and articles of vertu that belonged to Walter; just where he placed them before he enlisted in the Confederate cavalry; before he died and was rudely buried without a winding sheet, under the clods of the Shenandoah valley, that day that Stonewall Jackson unfurled the star barred banner in the streets of Winchester; to rest, aye, to rest until the bugler of the skies shall pipe the reveille. Going, going, going. It is the knell of happy days; the dirge of hearts crushed by sacrifices, sorrows; it is the thud of the cold clay upon the coffin of hope; the shroud that a remorseless destiny has flung around our idols as they fall one by one from their pedestals. "Going, going, going," the echo is thrust back upon the bruised heart from the white cold stones out yonder under the Mulberry. Perhaps Mr. Baring's daughters, who planted about these sacred mounds the star eyed daisies and the lily white violets, never thought of the dance that should go on and on to the fascination of lute and harp in the resounding halls, when the stranger should occupy in his right dear old Burnbrae. So bewildering are the changes in this life. It seems to them but yesterday that their lovely sister, a maiden of sixteen years, was laid away by the side of their mother, to arise one day transfigured and glorified; and now they were going to tell the old home with its cherished memorials good-bye; and the old graveyard and mother's vine clad "Flowery kingdom" too. Ah, every footfall is like an echo from some deserted shrine; and there is no kind voice to bid them "come again." The little twittering birds are piping the refrain of the sad, sad song of the auctioneer. Others enter now with the keys of a lawful dominion; they unlock the dead chambers, but the fragrance of happy lives is gone like the breath exhaled from the nostril. The stranger never heard the old harpsichord with its responsive chords, as they were swept by mother's lily white hands and almost syllabled her angel voice. They were never charmed by that sweet sunny voice that in so many twilights has been singing vespers in heaven; they know naught of the dead white ashes that lay in the unlighted furnaces of the poor souls, who are saying now so tenderly, so tearfully, to their old home and its memorials, its idols, "Good-bye, good-bye!"