For a moment I was bewildered by this startling discovery. My first impulse was to open the old envelope, and reseal it, as originally directed by the orders of Macfarisee, but I must have torn the envelope through his initials; my second impulse was to read over once again the contents of the will; then, as the whole web of hypocrisy and wrong unfolded itself more vividly before me, and the sweet face of Amy, on one hand, was contrasted with the odious idea of Macfarisee on the other, I twisted up the paper, to procure which he had spent years of prayer and hypocrisy, fawning and twaddle. I then tossed it into the fire, and in a moment it was consumed!
CHAPTER VIII.
FROM POETRY TO PROSE AGAIN.
After two weeks of joy and pleasure, I found myself again in the establishment of those limbs of the law, Messrs. Harpy, Quirky, and Macfarisee, and chained, as it were, to my inkspotted desk, like the son of Clymene to his rock; overlooking the miserable back-court, where the two old and half-dead Dutch poplars, surrounded by smoke-blackened walls of stone, vegetated feebly among the soot that covered their leaves, and the dust that was washed down from the eaves of adjacent houses. Then, when looking on their sickly verdure, and the lonely sparrow, evidently a misanthrope, that hopped from branch to branch, I thought of the green shady avenue of sycamores, and sighed for the grassy slopes, the brilliant flower-garden, the thick copses, and the blue-eyed fairy of Applewood.
If application to work had been repugnant to me before, it was insupportable now. I had ever in my ears the voice of Amy Lee, and before me all her pretty ways, her thick black tresses and her soft bright eyes. My hours of reverie were hours of happiness; for then I shut out the external world to commune with my own thoughts, and this beautiful girl was the planet around which they all revolved,—the guiding star to which I turned.
Poor though I was, and all but friendless,—timid as a boy and a lover, I did not shrink from raising my eyes to Amy Lee, whose hand might have been sought by the wealthiest proprietors in the county; but after I returned to town, our meetings were casual, and seemed far, so very far, between. And so I dreamed on, even my old aspirations after the rattle of the drum and the smoke of gunpowder being, for the time, almost forgotten.
I knew the church which her aunt's household attended; it was a branch of Mr. Jedediah Pawkie's establishment, and was nearly ten miles distant from ours; yet I often walked there on Sunday, that I might see Amy,—might be under the same roof with her, and when she bowed to me, as we left the church porch together, her smile, so full of brightness, welcome, and meaning, sent me home happy,—happy over the hills, amid gusts of wind and winter snow. Her weekly smile rewarded me for hours of toil, of dull drudgery, and nameless, hopeless longings.
I had never thought of Amy as my wife. Boy-like, all I knew, and felt, or cared for, was, that I loved this girl and desired to be loved in return. My wife! At seventeen, the idea would have frightened me. I, so poor,—I, who had the great battle of life to fight—to combat manfully for bread, and who saw no certain future, not even that vague but bright horizon which the eye of every imaginative boy sees; a horizon that too often recedes, grows fainter, and disappears as years roll on, like the waves of ocean, with their many hues, their sorrows and their changes.
Love for my mother on one hand, and this new love for Amy on the other, now combined to inspire me. I toiled and struggled on at my desk and at my studies, hoping for some change, as the young and ardent ever hope, against fate itself; but alas for the poor human heart, when honest pride, honour, and laudable ambition have to contend with stern adversity, wealthy snobbery, or successful hypocrisy!
The servitude which was exacted from me, and the absurd hauteur with which I was treated, were fast increasing my abhorrence of an occupation which had nothing to relieve its monotony. I was glad when the dreary hours of business were over, and I was permitted to snatch my hat and rush home. There to Lotty I would pour out all the bitterness of my discontent, and whisper of my secret longings after scenes more stirring and congenial, for the conviction was daily growing stronger in my heart, that