John Tincroft, bachelor and benedict

by George E. Sargent

And so the intimacy increased as weeks and even months wore on, till Elizabeth was called upon, as she thought, to yield up her heart, or what she believed to be that seat of affection, without much struggling, to the—Ah, well! We will not talk about the little blind god Cupid, which is heathenish; but without even so much as mentioning the name, you know what I mean, darling wife and daughters.

But poor Elizabeth was unwise. To be sure, it was pleasant to think of stopping from the hard work of Low Beech Farm, which now she began to despise for its smallness and meanness, into the cosy, comfortable position of a rich farmer's wife, with no occasion to do more work than she pleased, and with fine furniture and plenty of servants at her command. And, oh! Who of all the fair readers of this history has not had day-dreams like this? Nevertheless, Miss Elizabeth would have been happier if she had not yielded up her fortress so readily; for Mr. Admirer had never yet taken a step that he could not retrace without fear of "damages."

And he did retrace his steps, every one of them. First, the attendances at church slackened—but perhaps Mr. Rubric was getting prosy; or perhaps the new curate (for he had now made his appearance) was not to the gentleman's taste. Still, there were other days in the week besides Sunday, when he would have been welcomed to Low Beech. But he did not come. And then—but let us draw a veil over the rest; only it soon became known that the cautious gentleman (an admirer no longer) was about to be married, indeed—but not to Elizabeth Wilson. Worse even than this, the unfeeling man had the hardihood to boast of his achievement at Low Beech Farm, saying that at last the blushing damsel there did go in for it so strong, and was so sentimental over it, that he could not stand it any longer.

This being conveyed to the forsaken one by a dear female friend, who thought she ought to know what the perfidious man said of her, was the sharpest, deepest cut Of all. She could have borne anything else, Elizabeth said; but to be called SENTIMENTAL!—she who had despised sentiment in her cousin Sarah!

One Sunday, a few weeks after this terrible blow, Miss Elizabeth opened the great family Bible, which, covered with green baize, ordinarily lay in repose on a side-table in the state-room (otherwise called the parlour) of Low Beech farmhouse, a room always smelling damp and musty, but carefully swept and garnished every seventh day, and put to use after dinner every first day (unless the roads were muddy), and on first days only.

Well, one first day, or Sunday, Miss Elizabeth, happening to be curious concerning some birth, death, or marriage therein recorded, opened the family Bible to refresh her memory respecting that particular event. And then, being in a reflective mood, she turned over the leaves of the heavy volume, not to find consolation under her trial, nor instruction to her ignorance, I am sorry to say, but to forget her harassment in meditating over the wonderful engravings interspersed throughout the book. In doing this, her eye caught the word "treacherously" on the large letterpress of the page opposite one of those pretty pictures. The word tallied with the poor forlorn one's thoughts; for had she not known treachery? So she read the verse. This it was:

"Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! When thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; and when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee."

Now, I am grieved to say, Elizabeth Wilson was not a Bible student. But, like many others who rarely open the sacred book, she had a kind of superstitious reverence for, not unmingled with fear of, its "lively oracles." And now, without knowing or seeking to know of whom and on what occasion those ominous words were originally spoken by the prophet, she gave them, rightly enough, a general application. More than this, she believed that they had a particular application to herself, and that they now stared her in the face to taunt and condemn her.

"Oh, it is true!" she cried, hastily shutting up the book. "I did deal treacherously with poor dear Sarah, and now it is come home to me just as the Bible says. He" (the false and fickle one, she meant) "has dealt treacherously with me, to punish me for what I did to my poor cousin and my brother Walter."

We need not follow the distressed girl in her self-reproaches, which were loud and long, and were openly as well as often repeated—so often that her father and mother and brothers got tired of hearing them; the more so, that they themselves did not mean to repent of their misdeeds as Elizabeth was doing. It is enough to say that since that time, the heart-stricken girl has always stood up for her cousin Sarah and her brother Walter when they have been spoken about; and, indeed, often drags in their names and their virtues, and their sufferings of social and domestic martyrdom—so often that father, mother, and brothers now dread to make the slightest allusion to them, in Elizabeth's presence, at all events. Possibly they also feel some pangs of remorse, especially when they think of the absent and expatriated eldest son and brother. But remorse is not real sorrow.