THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA LIBRARY THE WILMER COLLECTION OF CIVIL WAR NO\TLS PRESENTED BY RICHARD H. WILMER, JR. JOHK GUILDERSTRIIG'S SIN. 21 UomI C. FEEISrCH EICHAKDS. He's sowing wild oats, He'll outgrow his sins, And make a good man yet. Common Saying. A fallen woman is shunned by the good, and left alone with her bitterness and shame and death. Shall men be guilty of like deeds, and not suffer like degradation ? Ask God if this be just ! Anon- ^. NEW YORK: Carle ton, Publisher^ 4.13 Broadway. M DCCC LXIV. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1664, by GEO. W. CAELETON, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. &. CBAIGHEAI), Primer, Si-re( typtr, anfl Electrotyper, Caiton 13uiltiing, SI. S, ond 85 Centre Street N. Y CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I. Face to Face 7 CHAPTER II. Girlhood 10 CHAPTER III. A Night Adventure — " She was beautiful, but lost, lost." 15 CHAPTER IV. For Ever, and Ever, and Ever 24 CHAPTKR Y. Charlotte CI ey tone— Materia Medica— The Shadow of Death 31 CHAPTER VI. Over the River — I become Acquainted with my Father 38 CHAPTER VII. The Last Days at the Pines— My Father's Plan for my Future 45 CHAPTER VIIL Watts's Hymns— Going out from Home. Hoylestown Seminary 51 CHAPTER IX. Last Days at Mrs. Osgood's— Annie Glyde and I— Womanhood 58 CHAPTER X. Oak Side— Annie Glyde's Lover— The New Tenant in the Old House at the Pines 63 CHAPTER XL The Sweezey Sisters— Mr. Jamieson 72 CHAPTER XII. Annie Glyde's Trouble — The Somnambulist 79 CHAPTER XIII. Aunt Dinah's Fright — Old Christopher 86 CHAPTER XIV. Thirteen at Table— Who came to my Father's Dinner-Party , . . . . 94 CHAPTER XV. Deacon Mudge's Superstition— John Guilderstring's Confession 102 CHAPTER XVI. The War of Sweezey versus Jamieson— The Incidents of an Afternoon Ill CHAPTER XVII. A Jealous Love 119 CHAPTER XVIII. Hopkins's Mills— What John Guilderstring'said to me — Wait 126 808673 VI CONTENTS. PACK CHAPTER XIX. The Mill — Tennyson— An Encounter— William liartless 1:33 ClIAPTKR XX. The Fire — Doubtinga — A Hound on the Track — Suspicion 141 CH. AFTER XXI. The Furnace of Fire — Old Christopher at the Grove 149 CFIAPIER XXII. Fleeing from ^lyself— The Storm and the Curse— The Accusing Finger and John Guilderstring's Confession — Old Christopher's Death 155 CHAI^ER XXIII. Foi Ever and Evermore— Sick unto Death — Jemima Sweezey — A Philosophic Lover 164 CHAPTER XXIV. Tlie Diary and Letters— Charlotte Cleytone'a Fall — .John Guilderstring's Sin —Annie Clyde's ■\Vedding 175 CHAPTER XXY. The Doubting Bride — An Accidental Wound — The Walking Dreamer — Mar- riage and Death — Alone 1S2 CHAPTER XXVI. Annie Clyde's Honeymoon— My Cousin Lucy— Mrs. Whipple finds a Lover — What True Love is 1S9 CHAPTER XXVII. A Family Secret — The River of Death Flows between Two Hearts— My Little Charge 196 CHAPTER XXVIII. Three Years After — The Proposal— Cousin Lucy's Lover 202 CHAPTER XXIX. The Girl that did not believe in Love caught in the Meshes— The Lovers 208 CHAPTER XXX. A Letter — Gone into Battle — The Gloom — What my Heart said unto my Hands 215 CHAPTER XXXI. Mrs. Whipple's Departure- News — The Parting— Knitting Socks — Gone to the War 221 CHAPTER XXXII. In the Hospital— The Battle— Captain Courtenay's Wound— My Confession. . 227 CHAPTER XXXIII. The Enemy's Retreat — Number 23 — William Hartless — I have told God only— In his Arms— The Meeting of Lips and the Parting on the Shores of Time 234 CHAPTER XXXIV. life's Afternoon— Conclusion 241 JOHN GUILDEESTRING'S SIN. CHAPTER I. Face to Face. I— that egotistical I— first person singular, feminine —for I am a feminine woman— let that be distinctly understood on my debut into the world of feminine men and masculine women— I am a woman. That one expressive dissyllable contains, compressed within its limits, the essence of a type of excellence that I may not have attained ; and in claiming the conven tional phrase, I do not pretend to the exalted idea of perfection which men of sentiment and poetry asso- ciate with it. I am merely a woman, whom God in His good providence has seen fit to bring forth out of human chaos, endowed with all the passions, frail- ties, and human nature that constitute flesh and blood, and form an ingredient in all character. In adopting the first person, let me not be accused of egotism. I have always maintained that, in literature FACE TO FACE. as well as in diplomacy, there is nothing to be gained in veiling one's self under the obscurity of a second personage. I prefer meeting the public face to face, clothed only in my own individuality. It certainly will lend a charm to our intercourse that otherwise would be lacking. As I like to encounter a man with soul flashing from his eyes, and enthusiasm beaming on his counte- nance — his open brow a page that I can gaze upon and peruse, his every feature and lineament depicting passions that I can trace to their sources and interpret at my pleasure, his discourse proved by each emotion revealed by the personality displayed there. As I like to meet a fellow-creature face to face in my intercourse with him; so I shall abandon the fallacious disguise of a fashionable mask, and meet the public face to face, and heart to heart. I ask not a lenient judgment for my frailties and errors; but into whatever indiscretion my pen may have led me, 1 only ask the reader to suspend his harsher judg- ment, and remember that I am a woman ; and a tremor of mute anguish creeps into my heart when I think and remember what it is to be a woman. Tears are for woman ; sighs and sobbings are for woman ; courage, courage, they say, is man's. Perhaps so, for I am weak, very weak, as I sit down here and look into the dim tracery of a dead face. Oh, the unsullied atmosphere that clings about his memory now, the sinless love that rises up and FACE TO FACE. ^ 9 battles for his forgiveness, the prayers that wrestle with my soul and straggle up to the throne — these are the giants that conquer ; and I tremble and strug- gle with them until the weak human nature gains the mastery, and I press the trinket to my lips and weep — weep because I'm a woman ; because I loved him with a woman's love : loved him ! — Loved who? I look within the golden case and read the initials ; the artisan has executed bis work well ; only two small letters. Should Eve weep in Eden ? Should woman weep for love ? Ah, thereby hangs a tale — the story of a life ; not the old, old story ; a story of to-day, of a woman's struggle and victory — my story. 10 GIKLHOOD. CHAPTER 11. Girlliood. It was an old house; and, like an old man's visage, its face was wrinkled, begrimed, and grey with the stains of time. The interstices of the walls and the shingles were verdant with an emerald, mossy green ; and, with this hue surmounting the rotten old gables, and the great lightning rod leaning like a bayonet over the highest chimney top, "it looked not unlike an old Hibernian soldier in his native military garb. I have lain for hours together under an old willow that curtained the porch ; and, giving my imagination wing, have seen the great giant standing there in the twilight, ghost-like, and still, with its windows lit from within, like great eyes glaring out upon me, and its huge arms stretching on either side, as if to enclasp me in their embrace ; the great naked roof standing out like brawny shoulders against the dark sky ; the immense bayonet, and the smoke, like a plume curl- ing from the brow of a gladiator ; in the kaleidoscope of fancy I remember nothing that made so strong an impression on my young mind as this idea of a tenement possessing personality. GIRLHOOD. 11 Beneath these old gables I was ushered into the world — the stage on which I am to plaj a part as a character in this book. If jou ask how I came here, or why I came here at all, I must respectfully refer you for information to good Dr. Woodruff, who brought me into the world, and who is supposed to know all about it; at all events, I solemnly protest against answering such a question, on the positive declaration that I know nothing at all about the matter. -- I once remember asking my mother the question for myself, and she told me, with a smile, that Doctor Woodruff brought me to her. I believed this until my further curiosity prompted me to ask where he came across me, when she told me I was found in the woods. My better judgment rebelled against being found in the society of owls and bats, and I no longer sought to penetrate the mystery that sur- rounded my entrance into mortality with so much obscurity, but was content in my ignorant bliss. Notwithstanding all this, however, as I have told you, one cold winter's morning, in the year 18 — , I, Martha Klopenstene, was given a habitation and a name amongst the living ; one more soul flung out from creative power amid earth's millions ; one more drop in the great seething ocean of humanity. Here, amongst the acres of my paternal home, I lived the short and evanescent^fe of girlhood. It was not a place of romantic surroundings. A. 12 GIRLHOOD. great pine grove drew a dark boundar}^ line on the east ; and here, amid its sighing branches, was my dream-land. I would wander for hours amid its chequered shades and watch the heraldic precursors of coming storms. At such tinjes my soul seemed to take wings unto itself, and my mind expand with the sublime thoughts that filled my brain, until, almost frightened, I would recoil with terror from myself. The sough of the wind amongst the branches, the eternal symphony of sounds, touched a chord of deep melancholy within me that charmed me as music would a serpent, and I would coil myself down on the soft, yielding leaves and undergrowth, and, closing my eyes, lie for hours listening to this unearthly paean of nature, until the weight of its sad- ness and woe overpowered me ; then I would shout and sing, with all my soul up in arms, striving to deaden the solemn hymn, until with my feeble voice I felt like a great soprano soaring high up above the grand deep basso of the old spirits of the pines. On the west the distant horizon was unbroken, and the eye at sunset caught a glimpse of the hidden inner glory ; when the great blood-shot eye of day veiled its lid behind the west and left ajar the door of his exit, I formed my first conceptions of heaven. I was left so much to myself about this period, that I should have learned little about such a place had not my invalid mother called use occasionally to her bedside, and, laying her wasted hand on my head, told GIRLHOOD. 13 me about the temple not made with hands and eternal in the beyond. My poor mother invariably ended by saying, again and again : " Poor Martha I" " Poor child 1" " What will become of thee when I am in heaven I" I never doubt but she is there. These lessons, however, made little impression on me at the time, and I went out again to my old haunts amongst the pines, the same neglected, half- wild, untamable creature that I was before. Nature was my God, my only confidante. I would find my- self muttering thoughts aloud in the lonely woods ; in fact I formed an early habit of talking and commun- ing with myself aloud, sohloquizing. I remember in a fit of anger I once swore an oath — a childish oath — and it was then I was conscious what a great and controlling power nature had over me. It was uttered aloud, and my lips no sooner formed the words than the great pulsing nostril of inanimate creation seemed to breathe forth a censure ; the mighty pines stirred their giant arms and sighed forth a gentle admonition ; the flowers looked up with a pitying rebuke ; remorse seized me, until a conviction settled down into my heart that I had sinned — had profaned the holy presence of nature with a blasphemy. \ From the front of the house a broad lane, shaded on either side by trees, swept directly north until it joined the road that ran eastward to the village of 14 GIRLHOOD. Haddonsfield and westward to what was then known as Hopkins' Mills. At the end of this lane, which was macadamized with red gravel taken from a quarry on the roadside, was a hill sloping towards the vil- lage, at the base of which stood a tenement house belonging to my father. Just beyond this house was a piece of fenced ground used as a graveyard, sold to the county by my fixther as a place of sepulture for its poor. This secluded spot, on the environs of the woods, was a place of much superstitious dread to me. I never passed it in the light of broad day without a keen sense of pity for the lonely dead, lying there in earth's bosom, their little hillocks sunken, and no headstones to mark the spot ; not even a name or a date; no church near to hallow their resting-place with the shadow of its spire. This first impression of death made me recoil from futurity ; and the great shadow of my soberer moods was death, the grave, and this lonely resting-place, with its poor and nameless sleepers. A NIGHT ADVENTUKE. 15 CHAPTER III. A Night Adventure, — " She was heautiful, hut lost, lost." In the early autumn of 184 — , my mother was taken suddenly ill. It was at dusk, and there was no one in the house but my father and myself. He called me to him, and patting me tenderly on the cheek — the warmest token of affection that I had re- ceived from him for a long time — made me acquainted with the imminent danger that attended my mother's sudden illness, and then bade me haste with all speed to the village, about two miles distant, and summon Dr. Woodruff, my mother's physician ; and he added . "If he's not at home, call on Dr. Thornton." The latter was an allopathic physician of the old school, and was employed by my father, while the former was a disciple of Hahnemann, a homoeopathist, and attend- ed on my mother. This was the only point on which I ever knew my parents to seriously differ. I thought of the darkness, the lonely road through the woods, and of all the stories I had heard of ghosts, the haunted graveyard at the lane's end, and of a murder once supposed to have been committed 16 A NIGHT ADVENTURE. at the same spot. I stood still as if paralysed, and from my terrified soul burst forth but one word — " Father 1'' I must have spoken it imploringly, for a look of pity shot into his eyes for a moment, and then he bad.e me, in his stern, severe manner, begone and do his bidding. I cast one look back upon the pale and suffenng flice of my mother, wasted and worn, I think, more by some hidden grief than by disease, and wrapping myself in my slight mantle, I shot out across the lawn and along the lonely lane with all the speed I was mistress of. The twilight had not yet lost the golden suffusion that the autumnal sunsets leave behind them, and I passed the haunted ground, the graveyard, and the pines without much trepidation, although I did not encounter any one on the road but a drunken laborer lying on the wayside in harmless imbecility. My cheeks aglow with the exercise and excitement of my hurried journey, I was glad when the lights of tiie village began to twinkle before me. I met no one that I knew in the village street, save old Deacon Mudge, who hurried by without even recognising me. At last, tired and out of breath, I reached the fine showy residence of Dr. Woodruff. Physicians always have fine houses and silver door plates, and in a village like Haddonsfield it was only necessary to search for this glistening ornament, and you might know that physics were an appendage to A NIGHT ADVENTURE. 17 it ; so I was not at a loss in finding Dr. Woodruff's office. I pulled the bell energetically. Ah, how eagerly had many another applicant pulled that same bell, with, .perhaps, despair in his heart and no gold in his pocket. I waited patiently what seemed to me a very long time, until I heard the shufiling of steps, which proved to be the housekeeper coming down stairs. I must have looked pale and meagre indeed, as she caught a glimpse of me through the half-open door. She looked at me for some moments silently, as if to satisfy her- self that I was not a beggar come to demand a share of her charity, and then in the high, peculiar, bell-like tone common to most housekeepers, she said : " What do you want, child ?" " Is Dr. Woodruff at home, ma'am ?" I said, res- pectfully, my voice still tremulous with the rapid palpitation of my heart. She did not stop to ask me what I wanted with him, but, leaving the front door open, she knocked at the door of the front room, on the window curtain of which was printed, in gold ktters, " Dr. Woodruff, Office," and I could see was lighted up within. " Come in," answered a voice that I recognised at once as the Doctor's. Pushing the office door ajar, she said, in a mock ironical tone : " Doctor, is this the day 'for the reception of the poor ? The marble has just been scrubbed, the entry 18 A NIGHT ADVENTURE. cleaned, and the bell knob polished ; and here comes one of your pauper patients demanding admittance/' I did not wait to hear his reply or what further she might have said ; I was insulted. The blood fled from my face. I was cold with anger, and rushing across the threshold, regardless of consequences, I struck her — ^yes, I struck that harsh, cruel woman a blow with all the might I was mistress of, and, push- ing her aside, I entered the presence of Dr. Wood- ruff with a proud defiance that made his eyes flash with admiration, even amid his astonishment at my ?udden appearance before him. " She lies. Dr. Woodruff; I come not to beg. 1 come because father sent me, and to tell you that mother is very ill, and he wants you to come out to the Pines as soon as you can." I looked that hard woman directly in the face, and had I not mentioned the Doctor's name, he might have supposed that it was to her the communication was addressed. She heard me through with impatience ; and sneering disdainfully, vanished from the room. The Doctor said nothing then, but in after years he told me how his admiration was enkindled for me in that moment when, forgetting my girlhood, I so boldly rebuked his housekeeper. Packing together a few vials in his saddle-bags, he prepared to set out immediately on his journey to the Pines. A feeling of horror now seized me ; and I would have begged the Doctor to place me on A NIGHT ADVENTURE. 19 his horse before him, had not that instinctive fear of ridicule, so common to children, prevented me from expressing my terror. I had fondly hoped that he would go in his carriage ; but alas, too late ; the groom let go his hold on the rein, the Doctor mounted and sped away with the speed of the whirlwind, leaving me standing there desolate and alone on the village pave. I summoned up all the courage at my command, and started with a beating heart homeward. I walked rapidly until I gained the last light that twinkled on the street, and then I was to bid farewell to my friend the light, and go out to meet and wrestle with my mortal enemy the darkness. How often I turned to watch that light, glimmer- ing fainter and fainter in the distance, I know not. I never was conscious of fear at all when wandering through the gloomy pines in daylight. I could hear the serpent rustle among the leaves as he glided away, come suddenly upon a herd of half-wild cattle or a baying hound and not start ; but night, and a dark night like this, I recoiled from it. If grown persons were only aware of the superlative horror children have for darkness, of the mortal dread and terror that shakes every bone in their puny bodies -when left alone at such hours as this, I think there would be fewer cowards in the rising generation. On leaving the village I walked rapidly until the last ray of light was lost in the thickening darkness ; 20 A NIGHT ADVENTURE. and then starting, I ran at full speed until I reached the foot of the hill. The wind whistled by my ears and brushed my face like the rustling touch of gar- ments. The sere leaves that fell eddying to the ground with a crackling sound, scarce perceptible by day, par- took of what seemed to me the ghost-like stealth of giant footsteps. I imagined I was pursued. I was afraid to look behind ; I dreaded what was before me. A huge old gnarled stump that I had seen a hundred times by day lying in the road, once sent all the blood back to my heart; and a cow lowing in an adjoining field made me halt and listen, trembling with fear ; while a cold sweat broke out on my fore- head when I came again upon the drunken laborer moaning by the wayside at the same spot where I had left him earlier in the evening. I had now reached the tenement house, but it was dark and still as death, no tenant having occupied it for as long back as I could remember. The grave- yard was yet to be passed ; the whitewashed fence was visible through the darkness, and only hidden by occasional clusters of shrubbery and groups of trees. In order to shorten my journey somewhat, and my fear slightly abating, I determined to climb the grave- yard fence and cross the corner where no interments had as yet been made. I had some difficulty in clambering over the briers and wild hedge-bushes, but I had no sooner alighted within the inclosure than a figure, draped in white, met. my view. A NIGHT ADVENTURE. 21 This figure, which my child imagination soon elevated to the dignity of a supernatural visitor, was apparently leaning on a staff. It was before hidden by the trees, and now that it stood revealed, its face was turned towards me. My fear of the supernatural gained the ascendency of my reason ; at the sight of that white form standing there still and motionless in the cold autumnal starlight the blood froze in my veins. I strove to speak, to scream, but I could do neither, my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth. I uttered a strange, unnatural, guttural sound, and fell in a swoon to the earth. For some minutes I was perfectly inanimate. I knew nothing until, suddenly awaking from my unconscious stupor with a start, I found myself in the arms of a stout laborer. I cannot define my sensations of relief; it was like awakening from a horrible dream. The man w^s bathing my brow with cool water, and sitting upon a new made grave, upon which the turf had not yet grown. A spade was lying on a pile of loose earth and stones that formed a pyramid beside a newly dug grave, and a few yards distant was a rough wooden box contain- ing a corpse awaiting burial. ' The man was in his shirt-sleeves and whistled some low tune to me as I awoke. "Oh," I cried, *'whereaml?" " Here, m;^ little chit, safe in the arms of John Day, the grave-digger." " Where is the ghost?" I asked, the old terror seizing 22 A NIGHT ADVENTURE. me, and then, ashamed at having betrayed myself, I added : " John, is it you ? and who are you going to put in that hole?" " Oh, my little lady, I seldom trouble myself as to the names of them as lies here; but this was a beautiful, a poor forsaken creature. I heard her name — let me see;" and he struck his fist upon the rough box so sharply as to startle me with its echo, while he strove to recall it from his memory. " Kow I have it," he said, after a time ; " it was an outish name ; Charlotte Cleytone ; that was it, that was it ; my mother's name was Charlotte, and it will be many a year before I forget that." " Why do they bury one so beautiful in this dismal spot, John?" said I, pityingly. "Has she no father or mother; no relations, no friends?" " Oh, she was beautiful, to be sure ; but lost, lost, my little lady. You have yet to learn that there are acts committed which will shut one out from even a father's and a mother's heart, and leave one friendless in the midst of friends and relatives. You are too young to understand these things*3^et, and God grant you never may; but come, you must get home out of the damp night air, and I must finish this hole before daylight." Taking my little hand in his roi^gh, weather- beaten palm, he shut down upon it like a vice, and led me along without another word, while A NIGHT ADVENTURE. 23 I mused on my adventure and that strange young creature nailed so rudely in the rough wooden box, and his words, " Her name, Charlotte Cleytone ; she was beautiful, but lost, lost." What did it mean ? I bade him good night, and was met at the door by the housekeeper, Mrs. Whipple, who had been to make a call at a neighboring farm-house, and was glad enough to find that my mother's illness prevented her from asking me any questions about my prolonged absence. I went quietly to bed, and Mrs. Whipple came and tucked in my coverlid, asking me if I had said my prayers. In spite of my nocturnal adventure, I slept very soundly until early morning. 24 FOR EVER, AND EVER, AND EVER. CHAPTER I\ For Ever, and Ever, and Ever. My father was in the habit of ringing a huge bell at early morn, and woe unto the sleeper who disre- garded its summons. I no sooner heard its brazen clang than, shaking the weight of slumber from my eyelids, I prepared for the visit which I had determined on making to witness the burial of that poor, unfortunate Char- lotte Cleytone, The morning was a close, chill, gloomy, and foggy one, common to our early autumn, and the sun would not shake himself out of the mist for some hours later. I took my course along a secluded by-path that made a sinuous way through the pines, and ended at the southern part of the lonely habitation of the dead. The sere and fall- ing leaf is not an inspiring theme for meditative thought ; and, as they dropped, one by one, from bough and twig, an indescribable sadness pervaded my childish thoughts that I could not check. The golden maple hung out its yellow banners in striking con- trast with the flaming dogwood, the deeper orange of the sassafras, and the lighter scarlet of the sumac. FOR EVER, AND EVER, AND EVER. 25 There were far more gorgeous tints from nature's palette painted against that dark, sombre background of pines and framed in the mist, than ever Weber's exquisite pencil threw into his gloriously tinged sun- sets. Autumn was to me the season of seasons; the sere and death-hectic leaf was the brightest orna- ment in the chaplet that crowned the year. Spring had its flowers, summer its fruits, and old winter his diamond-dust of snow ; but autumn brought an argosy of thoughts, of fancies, and dreams. My childhood was one season of revery ; I had not as yet learned to think deeply, to reason, and therefore I loved the still hazy autumn because it humored my moody nature. I had not as yet re covered fully from the effects of my nocturnal visit to this spot on the previous night ; but, like most young persons, these things failed to trouble me deeply after seven hours of sound sleep. I was somewhat assured as I neared the spot at hear- ing the cheery whistle of John Day, and a little surprised at the hardihood he had acquired that could stand there whistling over the open grave. I knew little of what human nature is capable, then, or I might have said with Hamlet — " Has this fellow no feeling of his business ? he sings at grave- making." And Horatio's answer — " Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness." 2 26 FOR EVER, A^D EVER, AND EVER. He ceased whistling and assisted me to climb the fence, which was so encumbered with briers and poisonous vines that it was not an easy undertaking for myself. Reaching over and taking me in his strong arms, he lifted me clear of the hedge and set me on my feet within the inclosure. It was a matter of little surprise for him to meet me thus early in the morn- ing, for I had frequently come across John Day in my rambles, and we had formed an intimacy that was characteristic between the weak and strong. I always would cling in girlhood to anything that embodied strength in any form, and later years form no exception to this rule. Women cleave to men like ivy to the oak. Weak, frail, and beautiful women are sure to fancy great, strong, physical monstrosities. It is a law of our nature and of God. Weak minds should seek the companionship of strong ones ; hopeless spirits be linked to those buoyant hearts that see naught but rainbow hues in the bubble of life. One extreme will act upon and neutralize the other. Add an acid to a caustic and the result will produce a beautiful crystal. Where the characters of a man and woman are the most extreme opposites, there look for the strongest love or the most inve- terate hatred. A beautiful wife will declare her husband handsome, even though he be as ugly as sin, if she looks at him through the eyes of wifely FOB ETER, AND EVER, AND EVER. 27 love. There is no one thing in the wide, wide world than to see a frail woman sheltered by the arms and It .s a 1 vmg picture that only God can paint-weak- suS. '™' '^'^'""°*- ^"* ^ -*"™ ^% used t^'Lptf -''^"^^ of my father's, which he He 17 V T.*™' '"'^ "S^*" '» "^y boyhood." road and If "'''"'^ ^"'^ "^"' -* ^--d^ the road, and left me s.tt.ng there alone on his great- oa^wh.eh he had spread forme on the dampgrS I had remamed thus but a few moments, and L bt gmnmg to shiver a little with the chill consruent upon my machon, when I heard the muffled sou^d of approachmg carriage-wheels. It was not longTefo/e o« trb :• r^;; ^-^^ °^P— ^^ st.eds,°dastd spot w7er.t' : °°P''' '""^ ^'^'^'^ ''' =»» °bscure spot, where n was shut out entirely from the view of any one who might happen to pass on the road It was some time before John Day returned hnf when at last he entered the yard, he was ^0"^^ by two stranger.. The elder of the two I shouTdlv had seen fifty winters, and the traces of sorrow n he ,deep and furrowed lines of his face made him se m somewhat older even than that. There was a fi'mZ abou h,s compressed lips, and an intense depth m h s ejes that made me think of a hero after batde The 28 younger man, his companion, I did not particularly notice ; I only remember that he whispered cheerful words of assurance to the elder gentleman, and sup- ported him with his right arm as they drew near to the corpse. The countenance of the elder stranger was very pale, and I remember hearing his teeth chatter, and a tremor shook his body as he stood there, his face expressing a mortal agony I hope never to wit- ness again, and his hands clasped across his bosom in mute despair. His companion noticed his distress, and, admonishing him to forbear his purpose, said : " Come away, sir, this will kill you. Mr. Cleytone, I implore you not to have the box opened ; you have a death-damp on you now ; you are perilling 3'ourlife standing here in the chill morning air." The old man spoke not a word, but motioned John Day to proceed to remove the covering ; even as he lifted his arm, it fell limp and nerveless to his side. He was a man of good physical stature, but his energy and muscular endurance availed him naught, for, when the last screw was removed and the lid about to be lifted from the corpse, he would have fallen to the earth had he not been supported by his compa- nion. " You are killing yourself, sir ; let us go at once to the carriage ; come, assist us. my good man ; nail up the lid, and bury the corpse without us ; it is better he should not see her." This seemed to rouse the dormant mind of the elder FOR EVEE, AND EVER, AND EVER. 29 Stranger, and, pushing awaj his escort, he said, in an imperative voice : " Wm. Hartless, you are not a father, and God save you from being one, or you could feel for my grief!" and he bade John Day remove the lid. The two men gathered closer as the lid was removed. It was a strange scene there in the grey dawn of that Septem- ber morning. The old man stood transfixed, his hands clasped tightly on his bosom ; not a tear fell from his stony eyes for many minutes, but with his gaze fixed upon the corpse, he seemed frozen to a statue. Oh, the horror of such a sight ! If he had only wept as I did there in my childish grief. Only his eyes, his brilliant flashing eyes, changed from hue to hue ; his stern mouth relented not, his proud head maintained its rectitude ; no sorrow heaved his bosom as he looked down on the corpse in mo- mentary silence. At last I noticed the mouth quiver in its corners, the eyes soften with a dewy warmth, and the hands relax their clasp upon his bosom. Bending over the dead form, he knelt down by the rude box, and with the tears raining from his eyes, he seemed in his soft and childlike voice to be parley- ing with death. I could not hear all he said ; I only caught fragments, for his sentences were broken with sobs. " Poor, poor child ; poor Lottie ! Lost to me now for ever. I have forgotten all, forgiven all, but she 30 FOR EVER, AND EVER, AND EVER. cannot come back to me now. This bosom should have been her resting-place, and do they lay her here? O God ! here, here, here ! Here, to lie for ever, and ever, and ever." Imprinting a kiss on the clay-cold brow, he arose hurriedly and said : "Come, Hartless, quick I quick I Take me away from here ; take me away !" I heard him still sobbing as they neared the carriage, and caught incoherent fragments of conversation. The carriage-door closed with a slam, and the vehicle rolled away along the same road that brought it, towards the village, with its strange occupants, who had come upon the stage of my life like actors, of whose coming and going I knew nothing. John Day did not return immediately, and gather- ing a few flowers from the wild hedge, I made a breast- knot, and, tying it with grass, placed it on the bosom of the corpse. It was so beautiful, that in spite of my childish fear of death I imprinted a kiss on the brow, and stole away by the path that brought me, with that cry of anguish ringing in my ears : " For ever, and ever, and HAELOTTE CLEYTONE. 31 CHAPTEK Y. Charlotte Cleytone — Materia Medica — Tlie Shadow of Death. Heretofore mj life had been one devoid of inci- dent, but now it seemed stirred like a quiet lake breaking into ripples from a stone cast rudely into its still waters. I pitied the fate of that poor girl, friend- less and an outcast, lying buried there in that unhal- lowed spot, amid the poor of the county. Her delicate face, with its sensuous beauty e'en in death, haunted me like a spirit demanding retribution ; she must have a history ; she was not always the outcast. The interest taken in her by the strangers, the old gentleman calling her his child, his Lottie ; these things awakened my curiosity, and set me to specu- lating about the terrible sin she must have com- mitted, the enormity of which could bring such an awful punishment upon her. I would sit by her grave and muse for hours, but the truth was not long in thrusting itself upon my mind; I was growing older, and began to launch out imaginary barques into the world that was lying out like an inexplicable dream before me. I thought of the man, free and unreproached, striding on in the paths of society, and 32 CHARLOTTE CLEYTONE. then I looked down on the little mound with its eternal sleeper. At mj request John Day had placed a wooden slab at the head of the grave, and on its face was traced in black letters : Charlotte Cleytone, Buried Septetnber 10, 185 — • History Uxknowx. This was all I knew of the poor unfortunate creature lying below; and little did I think that when that unknown history should be revealed, those very words would be seared on my heart as with a burning coal. I gathered the gorgeously tinted leaves of autumn, and made wreaths for its adornment. I bade John Day keep the turf green at all seasons, and out of his sincere affection for me I believe he performed the duty faithfully as long as he lived. But this was not all. Other things of great moment were occurring around me. My mother continued to grow worse, for consumption was gnawing at the vitals. I happened to be present one morning at a consul- tation which was held in the old familiar sitting- room between Drs. Woodruff and Thornton. It was then that the awful truth flashed suddenly upon me ; I was soon to be motherless. My mother had been an invalid for a long time back, and although I have spoken little of our intercourse, we had been much CHARLOTTE CLEYTONE. 83 together. The only redeeming traits in my childish nature were planted there by my mother, and I loved her beyond any other earthly being. The consulta- tion alluded to was heard only in part by me. It was a hot contest between those two old followers of Esculapius. They were seated on either side of a little table, on which stood a half-emptied decanter and several glasses. Could my mother have heard them, she might have likened them to two hungry vultures quarrelling for her blood. I think they did not hear me enter, for the door was partly open, and I trod very softly. I heard Dr. Thornton say : "I tell you. Woodruff, she cannot last another twenty -four hours." " And yet you would continue your heretical course of administering nauseous doses of poisonous drugs, to the infinite torture of a body whose soul will take wing, secundum naturam^ in twenty-four hours for eternity. I cannot understand your physics. Doctor," said the homoeopathist. If there were not many more exalted and noble traits in Dr. Woodruff's character, my heart would always have warmed towards him for these words. The idea of racking the body with bitter and painful remedies, and making experimental doses to save a life that is fast setting behind the hills of eternity, has always been distasteful to me. If death is knocking at the door, let it be quietly opened, and the soul go out of its tenement in peace. 2^^ 34 CHARLOTTE CLEYTOXE. Dr. Woodruff was a fine representation of the father of medicine ; he possessed a high and expan- sive brow, an aquiline nose, dark, penetrating eyes, hair slightly flecked with grey, rather an effeminate mouth, and alimentiveness largely developed, with prominent cheek bones. Withal, he was a hand- some man. Philanthropy, generosity, and gallantry combined with blandness and dignity. I never remember seeing him without his rather delicate and effeminate hand was gloved with kid. He always entered my mother's chamber with his right hand bared, and his unworn glove clasped in his left. He had a peculiar habit of wiping his pen on the inside of this glove after writing a prescription. His slight corpulency argued somewhat to the disproval of his favorite maxim, " Similia similibus curantur," for I doubt whether the administration of his aliment in homoeopathic doses would have been beneficial to his health. Dr. Thornton was neither dignified nor handsome. He was one of those ordinary men we meet with often in life, who have amassed fortunes, are respectable and well thought of, but in whom we can detect nothing but mediocrity, and oftentimes is it a matter of wonder to us how such men can succeed as lawyers, physicians, and merchants. I do not think he was conscious of the great re- sponsibility that rested upon him as one holding the keys of life and death, and I should much have pre- CHARLOTTE CLEYTONE. 85 ferred being usliered into eternity with Dr. Doctor Woodruff's calm, dignified face looking down over the confines of earth upon me as I launched out on the brink of eternity. It would lend courage to the faltering soul, and give strength to the arm that plied the untried oar. After much unnecessary word-wasting on the part of Thornton, and much sound reasoning and common sense on the part of Woodruff", the former conceded the point in dispute — that nothing remained but to render the patient as comfortable as possible, and make her exit from life as pleasant as circumstances would warrant. I felt somewhat relieved at this result. My mother's weary spirit was to be left in peace while it plumed its wings for its flight over the dark waters. Dr. Thornton was the village apothecary, and I have no doubt this was one reason why he insisted so strenuously on prescribing for the patient, even in her dying hours. If a post-mortem were held after the death of any one of his patients, I fear the verdict would invariably be — Died from the effects of poison administered by the hands of Dr. . But, stop. Perhaps I am too severe a judge. The Doctor still lives and pursues his avocation. I remember a Latin inscription that he had painted in gold letters on a sign over the entrance to his shop — Amicus humani generis — a friend of the human race. It was a long time before I could make out its significance, and now 36 CHARLOTTE CLETTOXE. I laugh when I think of it, And suggest aut vincere aut mori, as a more appropriate one, because the Doctor's maxim was undoubtedly to kill or cure. You would have coincided with me, perhaps, had you stood for hours in his shop, striving to make English out of the hieroglyphical Latin that was dis- played on the drawers and bottles. There was fft/- drarg. cum Creta on a black bottle in a row by the door. I remember it was mysterious in significance to me, and I was ashamed of my ignorance when the Doctor told me it was only mercury and chalk. There was Sal Epsom on a drawer. If the vil- lage dressmaker's name had not been Sallie Smith, I should have taken it for a relative of hers ; but this lady I was certainly unacquainted with. Then there was Antimonil Tartras, another name for simple Tar- tar Emetic ; Hy drarg. Chhridum Corrosivum^ a nom de plume for Corrosive Sublimate ; and I might have eaten arsenic under the cognomen of Arsenicum^ as sugar, and not have been the wiser. I began to feel afraid of Dr. Thornton after my first visit to his shop. What wonder, with all the poisons in the Materia Medica at his fingers' ends, nicely hidden under Latin masks, the Doctor fooled the dear confiding public, and cajoled his patients into the belief that his reme- dies were the simplest in the world. And now one word about this prevalent practice of writing prescriptions in a dead language. I say that it shows a lack of manliness to work thus under a mask. CHARLOTTE CLEYTONE. 37 Good deeds seek the light rather than darkness and obscurity. If a physician prescribes for me bread- pills, let him write it out in plain, broad English, and I will take them as bread-pills. They will have no better effect if concealed under a subterfuge. Every man has a right to know what passes into his own stomach, and nature has provided him with taste and smell that he may reject what is hurtful ; and if so in regard to food, how much more so in regard to medi- cine? But de mortuo nil nisi honum, I suppose, I must adopt as a motto. 38 OVER THE RIVER. CHAPTER YI. Over the River — I become Acquainted with my Father. I CANNOT lay my mother's death at the door of either man's conscience. I only know that my father came to me one morning with his eyes suffused with tears, and a cry of '' God ! she's dead !" on his lips. I only remember the cold, still face, the coffin, the covered mirrors, the hearse with its black nodding plumes, a'hd my emotions at the time. I was yet too young to feel the momentous truth in all its solemn realities, as some years later I did. It was a large concourse gathered at my mother's funeral. 1 remem- ber looking out of my father's carriage, and striving to catch a glimpse of the end of the cortege as it wound slowly and solemnly down the hill. My poor mother never would have dreamed of possessing so numerous a circle of friends during life. It shocked even my sensibility. Many whom I had never seen cross my father's threshold during life and illness, came now to witness the grand finale — the grave; some out of curiosity, many out of sincere respect, a few out of friendship, very few impelled by love. I think it would be a consolation to me on OVER THE RIVER. 89 my death-bed to issue funeral invitations only to those whom I grapple to me in life with the iron bond of friendship. It is a lamentable and censurable mock- ery. I have known persons enter the house which was the earthly home of the holy dead with no other desire than to gratify a shallow and heartless curiosity, to gaze on the trappings of the coffin, to read the in- scription on the plate, to inspect the shroud, and afterwards make the corpse the subject of idle gossip, saying, with mock gravity : " How sweet she looked, poor creature !" I believe I should stir in my shroud to rebuke those who would lean over my narrow house with a hypocritical lie on their very faces, which are long drawn out, while a smile lurks in the heart, perhaps, at the figure cut by my poor relations, who gather around me with sincere and heartfelt grief depicted in face and eye, and whose hearts are full of the shadowy presence. We had, however, few relatives, rich or poor, within the borders of the State, and I only remember an introduction to my Uncle Philip and his quiet, demure daughter Lucy, who, I remember, sobbed and cried in a refuse-to-be- comforted sort of way about my mother's death, and who seemed to take the matter a great deal worse to heart than I did ; I think I bore it with a sort of philosophic heroism. One good resulted from my mother's demise. My father and I, after a hfelong estrangement, were beginning at last to become more intimately acquainted with each other, and we went 40 OVER THE RIVER. about it in an odd manner, too — more like strangers breaking through the ice of civility than father and daughter assuming the attitude of love which God designed as our heritage. I remember the first collision we had. The old house had grown lonely and desolate to him now, and he seldom remained in doors long at a time unless in the evenings; nor indeed did I, for the autumn winds made a sad and mournful sound amongst the old gables, that made me shiver some- times. I was passing my third term at the county school, that old black, dingy, dreary-looking, one- story school-house, standing in a grove of oaks, and to whose threshold a cow-path made a bee-line across my father's fields. There, good old Miss Joyce was mistress of the ruler and the birch. She might have been severe on the young and tender palms, and per- haps the tingling sensation she once sent all over my muscular system has left a prejudice in my mind against country school-marms in general ; but she has gone to her long, long home, and we will not assail the prostrate dead who cannot defend them- selves. It was a cold blustering evening in the later autumn. "We were gathered about the cheerful fire in the old sitting-room ; this was the only apartment in the house in which I felt perfectly at home. The whole place had an air of unassuming comfort. The soft, subdued color of the carpet, the tastily paper- OVER THE RIVER. 41 ed walls, the mellow flow of light that fell from beneath a shade adorned with gaudy pictures of Oriental ornithology, the huge sea-shells with their couleur de rose cheeks on the mantel, the great clock with a half-moon on its brazen face, that ticked loudly in the corner, and a picture that hung between the windows of a lady, young and beautiful, which I had been told was my mother in her girlish freshness — these lent a charm to my father's sitting-room. My father, on this particular evening, in conformity with his usual custom, was perusing the columns of the Evening Press, a paper that came to him from the city by daily mail. The housekeeper, Mrs. Whipple, was seated opposite, her glasses astride her nose, and her needle busily plying some household work. I had determined on the perusal of a questionable work of fiction. I had studied my geography and lexicon until I was seized with a sort of mental nausea that comes nearer to the physical one of sea-sickness than anything else I can liken it to. I do" not remem- ber what prompted me to read this book, unless it was the mystery which was rather deepened than explained by a wood-cut representing a man leaping from a great height down a dark and rocky precipice without any apparent cause. I had seen few novels ; for my father's library, besides his works on agricul- ture and chemistry (for he was an intelligent farmer), consistedmainly of the "Pilgrim's Progress," "Baxter's Saints' Best," and the " Family Bible." There was a 42 OVER THE RIVER. great red fire glowing on the hearth, and a great fire burning in my brain as I read the description of an exciting race for life which led the hero of the romance to precipitate himself from that fatal height, as repre- sented in the picture. I had reached this point, wdien my father looked up from his paper, and, glancing over my shoulder, his eye fell on the wood-cut. He seemed to be aware for the first time that he had a daughter. Taking the book quietly from my rather tremulous hands, he said to Mrs. \Yhipple, rather than to me, in his rather stern manner : " What is this girl reading, Mrs. Whipple ? I hope you will take some supervision in the matter, and see that she reads proper books," He did not seem to expect an answer ; but, taking the book and glancing over its contents, he tore the leaves out one by one, and cast them into the blazing fire. My cheeks flushed with mortification and anger. Mrs. Whipple proceeded to take her specs delibe- rately from her nose, placed her needle back in her work-basket, and, withdrawing her flaring silk hand- kerchief from her pocket, blew her nose. I knew from these movements that she was about to make a charge in self-defence. " Mr. Klopenstene, your daughter is an odd girl." Here she stopped to take breath and recruit, while my father said : " I am aware of that fact, Mrs. Whipple." The housekeeper re-tied her cap-strings. OVER THE RIVER. 43 " She has arrived at that mature age when a woman's character is formed ; she is quite a girl." " True, I forget ; how old is she, Mrs. Whipple ?" That lady took off her glasses, and, having wiped them on her handkerchief, answered : " She is fifteen to-day, sir." She looked at him with some astonishment at the question. " And it is high time she were getting an education that will fit her for her station." My father put his hand to his head, and appeared to be thinking deeply as Mrs. Whipple continued : " You have not forgot, sir, that her mother wished her to be sent to Mrs. Osgood's school when she should be fifteen? I intended speaking of the matter before, but this is the first fitting occasion that has presented," My father turned his eyes towards me when the housekeeper mentioned my mother, and our glances met. He said-^more to himself than to any one present — " True ; she looks like her mother ; wby, I had almost forgotten that the child will soon be a woman." Putting out his hand, he said kindly : "Mattie, come here and let me look at you." I went to him with some timidity ; but when I saw two great tears gather in the corners of his eyes, and fall athwart his cheeks, I learned with what a yearn- ing love I loved him. He smoothed the hair back from my brow ; he called me Mattie and little woman, with so much endearment in his tone, that I could not 44 OVER THE RIVER. account for the sudden change. lie imprinted a kiss on my brow — the first fatherly kiss I remembered receiving for a long time back. As he folded his paper and prepared to leave the room, he said to Mrs. Whipple : " Let her wardrobe be prepared as soon as possible, for she must go to Mrs. Osgood's in a few days at furthest." As he passed my chair, he stooped and kissed me again, whispering : "Good-night, daughter." " Good-night, father," I said, and throwing my arms about his neck, I burst into tears. THE LAST DAYS AT THE PINES. 45 CHAPTER VII. The Last Days at the Pines — My Father's Plan for my Future. "Where's Mattie?" I heard my father ask the morning of the day prior to that on which I was to set out for sshooL " She's out in the pines, I expect, as usual," said Mrs. Whipple, "on the rampage; she likes not to stop in-doors after daybreak." "Poor child!" said my father, in a pitiful tone; " her home must indeed possess few attractions if she prefer the gloom of the woods." "Why, la, sir, it's not gloomy to her ; she exhausts her vocabulary in trying to set forth its attractions. I hope a few years of school-life will sober her down and change her notions a little, sir. Why, she has no more idea how to be a lady than the man of the moon. She can't sew a stitch, cook a partridge, tell when the roast is done, set a table ; in fact, she can do nothing becoming a girl of her age. Why, sir, when I was fifteen, I