Books: Opening a Chestnut Burr

E >> Edward Payson Roe >> Opening a Chestnut Burr

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29

"O'er the land and o'er the sea
Swiftly fly my thoughts to thee;
Haste thee and come back to me:
I'm waiting.

"Thou away, how sad my song!
When alone, the days are long;
Soon thou'lt know how glad and strong
My welcome.

"Haste thee, then, o'er sea and land:
Quickly join our loving band,
Waiting here to clasp thy hand
In greeting."

"Indeed, Miss Walton," said Gregory, leaning upon the piano, "that
would bring me from the antipodes."

She did not like his tone and manner, and also became conscious that
in her choice of a ballad she had expressed thoughts that were not for
him; so she tried to turn the matter lightly off by saying, "Where you
probably were in your thoughts. What have you been thinking about all
this long time while I have fallen into the old habit of talking to
myself over the piano?"

"You, I might say; but I should add, in truth, what you have said to
me this evening."

"I hope only the latter."

"Chiefly, I've been enjoying your singing. You have a very peculiar
voice. You don't 'execute' or 'render' anything, any more than a bird
does. I believe they have been your music teachers."

"Crows abound in our woods," she answered, laughing.

"So do robins and thrushes."

Her face suddenly had an absent look as if she did not hear him. It
was turned from the light, or the rich color that was mantling it
would have puzzled him, and might have inspired hope. With some
abruptness and yet hesitation, such as is often noted when a delicate
subject is broached, she said, "Mr. Gregory, I wish I could make peace
between you and Mr. Hunting. I think you are not friendly."

As she looked to see the effect of her remark the light shone on his
face, and she was again deeply pained to see how instantly it
darkened. For a moment he did not reply; then in a cold, constrained
voice, he said, "He is a friend of the family, I suppose."

"Yes," she replied, eagerly.

"I too would like to be regarded as a friend, and especially to you;
so I ask it as a great personal favor that you will not mention that
gentleman's name again during the brief remnant of my visit."

"Do you mean any imputation against him?" she asked, hotly.

Policy whispered, "Don't offend her. Hunting may be a near relation;"
so he said, quietly, "Gentlemen may have difficulties concerning which
they do not like to speak. I have made no imputation against him
whatever, but I entreat you to grant my request."

Annie was not satisfied, but sat still with knit brows. At that moment
she heard her father's step and ran joyfully to meet him. He had come
home chilled from a long ride in the raw wind, and she spent the rest
of the evening in remorseful ministrations to his comfort. As she
flitted around him, served his tea and toast, and petted him
generally, Gregory felt that he would ride for a night after the "Wild
Huntsman" to be so treated.

He also rightly felt that Annie's manner was a little cool toward him.
It was not in her frank, passionate nature to feel and act the same
toward one who had just expressed such bitter hostility toward her
lover. But the more he thought of it the more determined he was that
there should be no alienation between them on account of Hunting.

"Curse him!" he muttered, "he has cost me too much already."

He had the impression that Hunting was a relative of the family. That
he was the accepted lover of the pure and true girl that he himself
was unconsciously learning to love was too monstrous a thought to be
entertained. Still Annie's words and manner caused him some sharp
pangs of jealousy, till he cast the very idea away in scorn as
unworthy of both himself and her.

"Evil as my life has been, it is white compared with his," he said to
himself.

In accordance with his purpose to keep the vantage-ground already
gained, he was geniality itself, and so entertained Miss Eulie and Mr.
Walton that Annie soon relented and smiled upon him as kindly as ever.
She was in too humbled and softened a mood that evening to be
resentful, except under great provocation, and she was really very
grateful to Gregory for his readiness to overlook her weakness and
give her credit for trying to do right. Indeed, his sincere admiration
and outspoken desire for her esteem inclined her toward him, for was
she not a woman?

"After all," she thought, "he has said nothing against Charles. They
have had a quarrel, and he no doubt is the one to blame. He is
naturally very proud and resentful, and would be all the more so in
that degree that he was wrong himself. If I can help him become a
Christian, making peace will be an easy affair; so I will not lose the
hold that I have gained upon him. When Charles comes he will tell me
all about it, and I will make him treat Gregory in such a way that
enmity cannot last."

How omnipotent girls imagine themselves to be with those who swear
they will do anything under heaven to please them, but who usually go
on in the old ways!

It was late when the family separated for the night, but later far
when Gregory retired. The conclusion of his long revery was that in
Annie Walton existed his only chance of life and happiness. She seemed
to possess the power to wake up all the man left in him, and if there
were any help in God, she only could show him how to find it.

Thus his worldly wisdom had taught him, as many others had been
taught, to lean on a human arm for his main support and chief hope,
while possibly in the uncertain future some help from heaven might be
obtained. He was like a sickly plant in the shade saying to itself,
"Yonder ray of sunlight would give me new life," while it has no
thought of the sun from which the ray came. He truly wished to become
a good man for his own sake as well as Annie's, for he had sufficient
experience in the ills of evil; but he did not know that a loving God
does not make our only chance dependent on the uncertain action and
imperfect wisdom of even the best of earthly friends. The One who
began His effort of saving man by dying for him will not afterward
neglect the work, or commit it wholly to weak human hands.

The next morning, being that of Saturday, brought Annie many duties,
and these, with callers, so occupied her time that Gregory saw but
little of her. The shadow between them seemed to have passed away, and
she treated him with the utmost kindness. But there was a new shadow
on her face that he could not understand, and after breakfast he said
to her as they were passing to the parlor, "Miss Walton, you seem out
of spirits. I hope nothing painful has happened."

"Jeff found my lost letter this morning," she said, "and I have been
deservedly punished anew, for it brought me unpleasant tidings;" and
she hastily left the room, as if not wishing to speak further on the
matter.

It had indeed inflicted a heavy disappointment, for it was from
Hunting, stating that business would detain him some days longer in
Europe. But she had accepted it with resignation, and felt that it was
but a light penalty for all her folly of the two preceding days.

Gregory was not a little curious about it, for he was interested now
in everything connected with her; but as she did not speak of it
again, good taste required that he should not. An uncomfortable
thought of Hunting as the possible writer crossed his mind, but he
drove it from him with something like rage.

As Gregory sat brooding by his fire, waiting till the sun should grow
higher before starting for a walk, Jeff came up with an armful of
wood, and seemed bubbling over with something. He, too, had suffered
sorely in the storm he had helped to raise the preceding day, and had
tremblingly eaten such dinner as the irate Zibbie had tossed on the
table for him, as a man might lunch in the vicinity of a bombshell. He
seemed to relieve himself by saying, with his characteristic grin, as
he replenished the fire, "It was dreadful 'pestuous yesterday, but de
winds is gone down. I'se glad dat ole hen is done for, but she hatch a
heap ob trouble on her las' day."

Jeff belonged to that large school of modern philosophers who explain
the evils of the day on very superficial grounds. The human heart is
all right. It's only "dat ole hen" or unfavorable circumstances of
some kind, that do the mischief.

CHAPTER XXIV

"THE WORM-INFESTED CHESTNUT"--GREGORY TELLS THE WORST

In his solitary ramble, Gregory again thought long and deeply over the
situation. The impression was growing strong that the supreme hour of
his life, which would decide his destiny for good or evil, was fast
approaching. For years previously he had given up the struggle against
the latter, and had sunk deep in moral apathy, making greater effort
to doubt everything concerning God than to believe. Then he had lost
even his earthly ambition, and become mere driftwood on the tide of
time. But a sweet, true woman was doing a work for him like that of
Elsie for Prince Henry in the Golden Legend. A consciousness of power
to take up his burden again and be a man among men was coming back,
and old Daddy Tuggar's words were growing into a hope-inspiring
prophecy: "She could take the wickedest man livin' to heaven, if she'd
stay right by him."

And yet his self-distrust was painfully and dangerously great, and he
feared that when Annie came to know the worst about him, and how he
had plotted against her, she would shrink from him. If she despaired
of him he would despair of himself. He was certain that he could not
win even an intimate congenial acquaintance, much less a more tender
regard, unless he became a true, good man, worthy of her confidence.
He could not become such by commencing in deception--by hiding the
past, and trying to appear what he was not. For in the first place she
would certainly find him out and despise him, and in the second place
his own nature now revolted at anything false in his relations with
her. After long anxious thought, he concluded that the only safe, as
well as the only honorable, course was perfect frankness. If he began
wrong, the end would be disastrous. He was no longer subject to
school-boy impulses, but was a mature and thoughtful man, and had
trained himself in business to look far and keenly into the
consequences of present action. He saw in this Walton blood an intense
antipathy to deceit. His own nature was averse to it also, and his
experience with Hunting had made it doubly hateful. His pride revolted
at it, for his lack of hypocrisy had been the one ground of self-
respect that remained in him. If in his folly and wickedness he had
blotted out the possibility of a happy future, he must endure the
terrible truth as he could. To try to steal into heaven, earthly or
celestial, by the back door of specious seeming, only to be discovered
in his true character and cast out with greater ignominy, was a course
as revolting as foolish. Annie knew him to be a man of the world, with
sceptical tendencies, but to her guileless nature and inexperience
this might not mean anything very bad. In the secret of his own soul,
however, he had to meet these terrible questions:

"Can God receive and pardon a willing unbeliever, a man who has sinned
against the clearest light, a gambler, a libertine, an embodiment of
selfishness? Can it be that Annie Walton will ever receive even
friendship from one so stained, knowing the additional fact that I
plotted against her and sought for my own senseless gratification to
prove that she was a weak, vain woman, who would be no better than
myself if tempted in like manner? It is true that I never betrayed
innocence or wronged a man out of a dollar. It is true that in the
code of the world I have done nothing to lose my character as a
gentleman, and even my design upon Miss Walton would pass as a
harmless flirtation in society; but the code of the world has no force
in her pure mind, and the license it permits is an insult to the law
of God. And now it is not with the world, but with her and Heaven that
I have to deal. Things at which society shrugs its shoulders
indifferently are to them crimes, and black ones too. I might as well
seek her love with a felon's indictment hanging over me as to seek it
hiding my past life. When she came to find me out she would feel that
I had wronged her unutterably, and confidence, the only basis of
lasting esteem, would be gone.

"Deep in my heart I have never doubted my mother's faith. When I
imagined I did I was self-deceived. Everything here confirms it, and
Miss Walton more than all. I will consult the divine oracle. She shall
be the fair vestal, the gentle priestess. She lives near to heaven,
and knows its mind. If her kind and womanly nature shrinks from me, if
she coldly draws her skirts aside that I pollute them not even with a
touch--if she by word or even manner proves that she sees an
impassable gulf between us--then she need waste no breath in homilies
over repentance and in saying that God can receive those whom man
cannot. I'll not even listen, but go back to the city and meet my
fate. If imperfect human creatures cannot forgive each other--if I
have gone so far beyond the mercy of a tender-hearted woman--then I
need look for nothing from a just and holy God. It's mockery for good
people, with horror and disgust slightly veiled upon their faces, to
tell poor wretches that God will receive them and love them, while
they would no more take them into their confidence and esteem than
they would a pestilence. It's like people saying to one in the last
stage of consumption, 'I hope you will be better soon.' They don't
hope or expect any such thing. The Bible is said to teach that a man
can sin away his day of grace. I had about believed that I had sinned
away mine. This genuine, honest Christian girl has made me think
differently. She has inspired the strong hope that she could lead me
to become a good man--even a Christian. She shall either fulfil that
hope or show it to be false."

Such was the outline of his thoughts that long day, during which hope
and fear balanced an even scale. But the evening shadows found fear
predominating. His awakened conscience and his recent contact with
true moral standards revealed him to himself in darker and still
darker shadow. At times he was almost ready to despair, to bid his
entertainers a courteous farewell on Monday, and go back to the city
as he came, with the additional wretchedness of having seen the heaven
he could not enter.

But when he came down to supper, Annie smiled so sweetly and looked so
gentle and kind, that he thought, "She does not seem one to push a
wretch over a precipice. That warm little hand that charmed away my
headache so gently cannot write Dante's inscription over my 'Inferno,'
and bid me enter it as 'my own place'; and yet I dread her sense of
justice."

In his anxiety and perturbation of mind he was unusually grave and
silent during the meal and evening. Annie exulted secretly over him.

"He is thinking in earnest now. His old apathy and trifling manner are
gone."

He was indeed thinking in terrible earnest. Her effort had awakened no
school-girl interest and penitence that she could soothe and reward by
quoting a few sweet promises, but had aroused a spirit like that which
came down from the hills of Gadara, and which no man could bind.

Men and women in good society may be very polished and refined, and
yet their souls in God's sight and their own be shameful, "naked,"
wearing no robe of righteousness, bound by no laws of purity and
right, and "always, night and day, crying and cutting" themselves in
the unrest of remorse. Sad and yet true it was that the demon-
possessed man, the terror of the Gadarenes, was but too true a type of
the gentlemanly and elegant Walter Gregory, as he sat that night in a
torment of dread and hope at the peaceful fireside of a Christian
family. If his fears were realized--if Annie turned from him when he
revealed his true self to her--there seemed to him every probability
that evil evermore would be his master. While she was innocently
hoping and praying that her words and influence might lead him to read
his Bible, go to church, and eventually find his way into the "green
pastures beside the still waters," it seemed that within a few hours
she would either avert or complete that most awful of tragedies--the
loss of a soul.

He accompanied them to church the following morning, and his manner
was grave even to solemnity. Little wonder. In a certain sense, in
view of his resolution, the Judgment Day had come to him.

With heavy, contracted brows he listened to a sermon anything but
reassuring. The good old minister inclined to a legal and doctrinal
gospel, and to-day his subject was the perfection and searching
character of the divine law. He showed how God could make no terms
with sin--that he hated it with a terrible and vindictive hatred,
because in all respects it was opposite and antagonistic to His
nature--because it defiled, degraded, and destroyed. He traced all
human wretchedness to this poisonous root, and Gregory trembled and
his face grew dark with despair as he realized how it was inwoven with
every fibre of his heart. Then in simple but strong language the
silver-haired old man, who seemed a type of the ancient prophets,
portrayed the great white throne of God's justice, snowy, too dazzling
for human eyes, and the conscience-stricken man shrunk and cowered.

He turned to Annie to see how this train of thought, so terrific to
him, affected her. Not a trace of fear was upon her face, but only
serene, reverent awe. He glanced at Mr. Walton, but the old magistrate
sat in his place, calm and dignified, evidently approving the action
of the greater Judge. Miss Eulie's face, as seen between himself and
the light of the window, appeared spirit-like.

"Thus they will look on the Judgment Day," thought Gregory, "while I
tremble even at its picture. O the vital difference between guilt and
innocence, between faith and unbelief!"

If the venerable clergyman had been talking personally to Gregory or
any sinful creature, he would not have concluded his subject where he
did. He would have shown how between the throne of justice and the
sinner there stood an Advocate, an Intercessor, a Saviour. But having
logically developed his text, he finished his discourse. Perhaps on
the following Sabbath he might present the mercy of God with equal
clearness. But the sermon of the day, standing alone and confirming
the threatenings of an accusing conscience, depressed Gregory greatly.
It did not anger him, as such truth usually did. He was too weak and
despairing. He now felt the hopelessness and folly of opposition. The
idea of getting into a passion with fate! Only weak natures fume at
the inevitable. There is a certain dignity in silent, passive despair.

Annie's voice singing the closing hymn beside him sounded like an
angel's voice across the "great gulf." Almost mechanically he walked
down the aisle out into the sunny noon of a warm October day. Birds
were twittering around the porch. Fall insects filled the air with
their cheery chirpings. The bay of a dog, the shrill crowing of a
cock, came softened across the fields from a neighboring farm. Cow-
bells tinkled faintly in the distance, and two children were seen
romping on a hillside, flitting here and there like butterflies. The
trees were in gala dress of crimson and gold, and even the mountains
veiled their stern grandeur in a purple haze, through which the sun's
rays shimmered with genial but not oppressive warmth.

The people lingered around the door, shaking hands and greeting one
another with the plain but cordial courtesy of the country. Gregory
heard one russet-apple-faced man say that "Betsy was better," and an
old colored woman, with a visage like that apple in black and mottled
decay, said in cheerful tones that "little Sampson was gittin' right
peart." A great raw-boned farmer asked a half-grown boy, "How's yer
mare?" and the boy replied that the animal was better also. All seemed
better that bright day, and from a group near came the expression,
"Crops were good this year." While the wealthier and more cultured
members of the congregation had kindly nods and smiles for all, they
naturally drew together, and there seemed a little flutter of
excitement over the renewal of the sewing society that had been
discontinued during the summer.

Gregory stood apart from all this, with the heavy contraction still
upon his brow, and asked himself, "What have these simple, cheery,
commonplace people, with their petty earth-born cares and interests,
to do with that 'great white throne' of which we have just heard? and
where in this soft, dreamy landscape, so suggestive of peace, rest,
and everyday life, lurks any hint of the 'wrath of a just and holy
God'?"

And then the old pastor, who a little before had seemed a prototype of
John, the stern reformer from the wilderness, came out smiling and
benignant, greeting his flock as a father might his children. The very
hand that had been raised in denunciation, and in threatening a doom
that would appall the heart of courage itself, was given to Gregory in
a warm and cordial grasp. The man he had trembled before now seemed
the personification of sweet-tempered human kindness. The contrast was
so sharp that it seemed to Gregory that either what he saw or what he
had heard must be an utter delusion.

As they were driving home, he suddenly broke the moody silence by
asking Miss Walton, "How do you reconcile the scene at the church
door, so matter-of-fact, cheery, and earthly, with the terrible
pictures suggested by the sermon? If such things are before us, it
seems to me that bright, sunny days like these are mockery."

She looked at him wistfully. The sermon had not been what she would
have wished, but she trusted it would do him good by cutting away
every hope based on anything in himself or in vague general ideas of
God's indiscriminate mercy. She answered gently, "The contrast was
indeed great, now I think of it, and yet each scene was matter-of-fact
to me in the sense of being real. Besides, that one which our pastor
described was a court of justice. I shall have an Advocate there who
will clear me. As for 'bright days,' I believe they are just what God
means His people to have always."

"Yes," said he, gloomily, "that is your side of the question."

"It may be yours also," she replied, in a low tone.

He shook his head and looked away to hide his pain.

After a short time he again said, "Do you not think that the view of
God which your minister gave is very depressing to the average man? Is
not His law too perfect for imperfect humanity?"

"Not at all," she answered, eagerly; but before she could say more,
Mr. Walton, unaware of the subject occupying them, turned from the
front seat and introduced another topic.

After dinner, Gregory went to his room, which he restlessly paced.

"Even her creed, her faith, as well as her purity and truth, raises a
wall as high as heaven between us," he exclaimed, bitterly. "She has
only to see me as God sees, to shrink away appalled, disgusted. Well,
she shall," he muttered, grinding his teeth; "I shall not add the
worst torment of all to my perdition by deceiving her."

As he came down stairs, Annie had just finished reading to the
children, and he said, "Miss Walton, will your ideas of Sabbath-
keeping prevent you from taking a stroll in the garden with me?"

"Not at all," she replied, smiling. "A garden is a good place to keep
Sunday in."

He walked silently at her side across the lawn down a shady walk.
Annie hoped much from this interview, and sent a swift, earnest prayer
to Heaven that she might speak wisely. She feared that his dejection
would pass into discouragement and despair. She saw that he was much
depressed, and judged correctly that it was because he had seen only
one side of a great truth. She hoped to cheer and inspire him with the
other side. Moreover, her religion was very simple. It was only
becoming God's friend, instead of remaining indifferent or hostile. To
her, no matter what the burden, it was simply leading the heavy-laden
to the strong Divine Friend as people were brought to Him of old, and
establishing the personal relations of love, faith, and following.

But she did not realize the desperate nature or the complications of
Gregory's moral infirmity. Still she was a safe adviser, for she did
not propose to cure him herself. She wished to rally and cheer him, to
inspire hope, and to turn his eyes from sin to the Saviour, so she
said, "Mr. Gregory, why do you look as if marching to execution?"

"Perhaps because I feel as if I were," he said.

Just then a variegated leaf parted from a spray overhanging the path
somewhat in advance of them, and fluttered to their feet.

"Poor little leaf!" said Gregory, picking it up, "your bright colors
will soon be lost. Death has come to you too. Why must this wretched
thought of death be thrust on one at every turn? Nature is full of it.
Things only live, apparently, for the sake of dying. Just as this leaf
becomes most beautiful it drops. What a miserable world this is, with
death making havoc everywhere! Then your theology exaggerates the evil
a thousand-fold. If a man must die, let him die and cease to be. But
your minister spoke to-day of a living death, in which one only exists
to suffer. What a misfortune to have existed!"

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29