The grip was returned, and looking first in father’s face, then towards his home, where quiet now reigned, and above which hung a slip of a moon, August’s gift to September, he said solemnly, “Dochtor, if the gude Lord had na been a mon, what wad hae become o’ the warld!”
| [1] | Victoria. |
IX
GROUNDSEL-TREE
SEPTEMBER—THE MOON OF FALLING LEAVES
The summer that old Madam Hale died had been followed by a swift autumn. Frost trod so closely upon the heels of the last thunder shower that the samphire glowed red in the marshes, while there was yet aftermath of clover in the uplands, and shy groundsel-tree garnished her plain summer garb with white feathers, before blue gentian had opened her fringed lids wide enough to show the colour of her eyes.
Unusual as the season was, it received scant attention from people of Westover Heights, so absorbed were they in the question of “What will become of John Hale?”
The Hales belonged to one of the old county families, and, in fact, a decided type, known as the Hale nose, a cross between Roman and aquiline, might be traced the length and breadth of the state and well across its western border, while a corresponding mental strength had marked both the men and women; Judge Hale, Madam Hale’s husband, having been both a judge and a national legislator. But, like many another American family, prominent in the last century, the line direct had dwindled to John Hale, the only living child of the judge, and John, in his fifty-eighth year, was only now beginning his life as an independent being.
To any one born and bred outside of a certain circle and unacquainted with the intricate weave of the social fabric of certain conservative New England towns, such a condition is inconceivable. No one would have denied the possibility of such a happening more decidedly than John Hale himself when he graduated from college with distinct literary honours, and set out upon a year of travel, before taking a congenial position offered him by his alma mater.
It was during this year of absolute freedom that John Hale formed the only decided opinions that he ever seemed destined to be allowed, the most conclusive of these being that Jane Mostyn was the only woman with whom he could imagine wishing to spend his life.