———
BY MRS. CAROLINE H. BUTLER.
———
I have been induced to a brief series of heart-histories by a remark of Longfellow, in Kavanagh. In speaking of the ever sanguine yet irresolute schoolmaster, who was “forced to teach grammar when he would fain have written poems,” he says, “Mr. Churchill never knew that while he was exploring the Past for records of obscure and unknown martyrs, in his own village, ——, the romance he was longing to find and record, had really occurred in his neighborhood, among his own friends.” Again, Emerson says, “Every roof is agreeable to the eye until it is lifted, and then we find tragedy, and moaning women, and hard-eyed husbands, and deluges of lethe.”
There is truth in this. Beneath every roof-tree some romance is at work—some heart-history compiling. The evening lights twinkle from cottages sleeping peacefully upon the hill-sides and valleys—music and mirth break on the air from brilliantly illuminated dwellings—then the night wears on—the cottage-lights no longer gleam—silence wraps the abode of wealth—and from out the majesty of the heavens encircling all, the gentle moon and bright, flashing stars look down alike on sheltered cot or marble dome. Yet, “lift the roof,” lay bare the heart which pulsates in every bosom, and we shall find each has its own tale of romance woven from life’s mingled threads of grief, of love, of happiness—perhaps of shame.
Let me, then, from out the “simple annals” of a quiet country town, sketch, with a faithful pen, these heart-histories—these romances from real life.
The little village to which they may be traced, I must forbear to name. That it does not exist merely in the imagination, let it suffice the incredulous reader. There are bright, dancing rills spangling its broad meadows—the “sweet south wind” plays over innumerable fields of billowy grain, and the tinkle of the cow-bell is heard within the sweet-scented pine forests which crown the summit of each rising hill. The roots, some of which I am about to “lift,” cover no costly edifices. They are for the most part humble and unpretending, yet so embosomed among fruit and forest-trees as to render each cottage of itself a coup d’œil of beauty. There are, to be sure, two or three exceptions; the large, three-story brick house of Judge Porter, for instance, with its long, winding avenues, and, as Mrs. Malaprop would say, its “statutes” placed in awful frigidity about the grounds, frightening the children of the neighborhood as so many sheeted ghosts. The beautiful villa, too, of Dr. Bartine, (these names are, of course, fictitious,) which stands on a gentle eminence somewhat remote from the village. It was built by a gentleman of wealth and cultivated taste, who lived only to see it completed. It was then knocked down under the hammer of Tom Pepper, the village auctioneer, to the highest bidder, a worthy farmer, with as many children as barn-door fowl. For six months, droning spinning-wheels, and rattling looms, made music in the classic rooms—squashes and red-peppers hung on the frescoed walls, while the conservatory, with its marble fount, served admirably for the dairy of the notable Mrs. Grimes—pots of butter, and round, yellow cheeses, taking the place of rhododendrons and fragrant jessamines. Fortunately for the preservation of this tasteful dwelling, at the end of six months, it was purchased by young Doctor Bartine, who, after putting it in complete repair, and removing the unseemly pig-stye and other excrescences from the face of the beautiful lawn, brought hither his pretty young bride. There is the parsonage sequestered from the street by elms a century old; and the venerable church, from whose well-worn portals a narrow foot-path conducts to that peaceful spot where, “when life’s fitful fever ended,” the villagers come one by one and lie down to their dreamless rest. There all is hushed. The wind, as it softly sweeps the pliant willow, seems to whisper a requiem for the peaceful dead; a few birds flit noiselessly about, but no song of gladness trills from their little throats, their notes are low and plaintive, as if they mourned for the hand which once fed them, but will never feed them more.
Such are the prominent local features of the little village, into whose quiet precincts I have wandered. And there are many such primitive towns nestling among our hills and valleys, some even less pretending; and there are lone cottages scattered by the road-side, and huts of squalid poverty, and the thrifty homestead of the farmer, all of which have their heart-histories.
Love’s autocrasy must form the theme of my first romance from the real; and, indeed, if the truth was known, there are but few heart-histories in whose compilation that troublesome little sprite has not more or less interfered.
Lucy Leyton, with that bright, roguish eye of hers, and her sunny smile shall attest the truth of my words.