Arlo Bates

“ He was not yet past those years when a man still finds amusement in imitating fate and nature by yielding to his impulses; the gleam suggested pleasant draughts of fresh milk; and without more ado, he headed the trig little craft in which he and a brother artist were skirting the coast of the Gulf of Maine for the little inlet upon which Gran’sir’ Welch’s red cottage stood.
In those days yachts were less common than now, and both Ruth and Bethiah left their work to watch the boat as it ran up to the low wharf, and the snowy sail fell with a musical rattle and clash of metallic rings. ”

“ She had received extreme unction just before noon, but this moment in which she commended her grandson to God was to her no less solemn than that of her own last communion. Then she put out her hand to Dr. Lommel with her smile of wonderful sweetness and an air of noble simplicity.
“You have been so kind to old Mère Marchette,” were her words; “the good God will reward you.”
He looked at the old dying peasant woman and tried to speak, but his sobs choked him. He bent and kissed her hand and laid it back gently in that of Victor. Her little strength was evidently failing fast. ”

“ Placid and content in the gathering dusk, she smiled her own grave, sweet smile, which it were scarcely too fanciful to liken to the odor of the clove pink of her garden-plot whose hue half a century ago had been in her cheek. She had but one regret in leaving life, and that was to leave her moorlands. She had found existence so pleasant and had been so well content that she could not understand why people so usually spoke of life as sad; but she could not think without pain of [251] leaving the plains behind and going away to lie in the bleak hillside graveyard where slept her kinsfolk. ”

“ There still lingers among certain old gossips of tenacious memory the tradition of a stone which had on it “some sort of a flower.” It was the slab upon which John Friendleton, imaginative at sorest need, had caused to be carved simply a bunch of tuberoses.
If John had been happy in anticipation, he was, if such a thing be possible, no less so in reality. It is as trite to attempt as it is impossible to effect the portraying of the life of two young people who are profoundly happy in each other. Joy may be named, but not painted. ”

“ Granton uttered a low, sharp whistle, and doffed his cap.
“All right,” the master of ceremonies returned. “Be as quick as you can.”
“I’ll not keep you waiting long,” she assured him, and turned to beckon Dora to her.
As the two girls disappeared into the hotel, the bustle and chatter began again with renewed vigor, and swelled and buzzed in the liveliest fashion. Here was a genuine sensation for Maugus. Betty was too lovely and too great a favorite with the men wholly to escape the censure of the young ladies, who now had a string of pretty things to say of her boldness and presumption. ”

“ It was such trifles as this that were the great events in the life of Mère Marchette and Pierre. There was a tenderness, an unselfishness, an idyllic devotion in their [172] love which no amount of wealth, or culture, or rank could have heightened; but in the lad’s veins was the blood of a soldier, that stirred hot with the currents of a vigorous youth. Of the army he had dreamed from his cradle, and strong as was his love for Mère Marchette the force of destiny was stronger. ”

“ Farnsworth opened the sagging and unpainted gate of the enclosure, he became aware that the place was not empty. The head and shoulders of a human being were visible half-way down the hill, now and then obscured by the dull-reddish heap of earth thrown up from a partially dug grave.
The visitor made his way down the irregular path, so steep as to be almost like a rude flight of stairs, and as he neared the worker, he suddenly perceived, with something of a shock, that the grave-digger was a woman. ”

“ When Farnsworth had left her in the afternoon, Delia crouched in the bottom of the grave she was digging, her first feeling being an unreasoning desire for concealment. She thought she should remain passive if the sides of the pit collapsed and buried her. In the old days before her boy was born she had been night after night out on the old wharves, praying for courage to drown herself. ”

“ Even self-pity in Farnsworth’s breast began to vanish in the depth of compassion which the sexton excited.
“Delia,” he said, “I must think for us both, and for the boy. He must be considered. For his sake we must be married.”
It was at once with a sense of relief and of humiliation that he saw how she shrank from this proposition. To have fallen from godhood in the meanest woman’s eyes is the keenest thrust at man’s pride. It gave Farnsworth a new conception that the gulf between them must look as impassable from her side as from his. ”

“ He sat now waiting for Columbine to appear, and fondly picturing to himself the delight of telling his love when the time came that he dare speak. Each day increased his attachment, and he believed, as every lover will, [39] that his love was returned. A smile of brooding contentment, so deep that even the impatience of his passion could not disturb it, dwelt upon his face as he inhaled the fragrant odors from the burning marshes, and listened for the step of the maiden he loved. ”

“ THE TUBEROSE. I.
“I shall feel honored, Mistress Henshaw, if you will accept this posie as a token which may perchance serve to keep me in remembrance while I am over the sea.”
“I am extremely beholden to you,” replied the old dame addressed, her wrinkled face illuminated with a smile of pleasure. “But for keeping you in remembrance it needs not this posie or other token. I do not hold my friends so lightly.”
“I thank you for counting me one of your friends,” John Friendleton said frankly. “I have no kindlier memories of Boston than of the home under your roof.” ”

“ He had no means of adequately measuring the force of the storms of scorn and poverty and sorrow which had beaten upon Delia Grimwet in the years that had made of him the cultured, delicately nurtured man he was. What man ever appreciated the woe of the woman he betrays? Indeed, what measure has a man of the sorrow of any woman? Farnsworth had painfully to adjust himself to a condition of affairs for which he should have been prepared, yet which took him absolutely by surprise. ”

“ To and fro among the grass-grown mounds the sexton went daily, quite unmindful of being the unique feature of Kempton by belonging to the weaker sex. With masculine stride and coarse hands, her unkempt locks blown by the salt winds, the woman went her way and did her work with a steadfastness and a vigor which might have put to shame many a man idling about the boats under the hill. She was not an old woman,—not even middle-aged, except with the premature age of toil and sorrow ”

“ The wind rustled mournfully among the dry leaves, the pebbles rattled against the spade of the grave-digger, [309] increasing the sombreness of a scene which might easily affect one at all susceptible to outward influences. In such an atmosphere a sensitive nature not unfrequently experiences a certain feeling of unreality, as if dealing with scenes and creatures of the imagination rather than with actualities; and Farnsworth, whatever the delicacy of his mental fibre, was conscious of such a sense at this moment. ”

“ The color flamed into his pale cheeks with a sudden throb of intense emotion; then faded, to leave him whiter than ever.
“Besides,” Columbine continued, after a moment’s pause, her glance still downcast, “why shouldn’t you stay? Your being here makes no difference to papa; he smokes and grubs after the roots of his ancestral tree the same as ever; and as for me,” lifting her eyes with a sudden smile that showed all her dimples, “you know how much you amuse me. You are as good as a continued story, and are alive, too, the last being a good deal in this desert.” ”

“ Even were it easy to picture their existence, their self-absorption would prevent their being interesting. As I have sometimes passed the old house on Moon Street, standing worn and stained with [83] the storms of two centuries, a picture has risen before me of the young bride and groom sitting together and inhaling the fragrance of a quaint pot of tuberoses, blooming so wonderfully that the whole house was filled with their odor; and the memory brings always the tears to my eyes.
IV.
November was at its last day. A severe storm, half rain, half snow, was sweeping over Boston. ”

“ Both carpet and wall-paper were dingy and faded, and in the darkening winter twilight the attic was gloomy enough to depress the spirits of one in a frame of mind far more cheerful than that in which West found himself.
Most authors are too unhappily familiar with the fact that a financial crisis is apt to be so desperately unproductive of marketable ideas that even the excitement of a definite order is likely, at such a time, to beget in the brain rather a confused sense of impotence than a creative inspiration. ”

“ MÈRE MARCHETTE. I.
It was half-past eleven of a hot July day in Paris. The sunlight lay over the whole city and shone nowhere more strongly than upon the great hospital of the Salpêtrière. The hush of noon brooded over all the place. Nobody was stirring unless forced to activity by some pressing duty. In the long white wards the patients were asleep or lying quiet in exhaustion under the burning fervor of the summer heat. ”

“ The two, so quiet outwardly, sat with beating hearts, when suddenly a wandering [42] breeze brought into the summer-house a puff of smoke from the burning salt meadows. It was laden with the fetid odor of consuming animal matter, and so powerful was it that both involuntarily turned away their heads.
“Bah!” Columbine cried. “How horrible! There must be a dead animal of some sort there that the fire has reached.”
She stopped speaking and gazed with surprise at Tom, who had buried his face in his hands with a groan. ”

“ John stood in amazement, unable to utter a word, so bewildered was he by the beauty of the maiden who stood before him; a [78] beauty which now, after nearly two centuries, is still a tradition of marvel. Something unreal and almost supernatural there might seem in the wonderful loveliness of this exquisite creature, were it not that she seemed so to overflow with life and vitality. Her soft and dove like eyes were full of gleams of human energy, of joy, of passion; she had all the beauty of a perfect dream without its unreality ”

“ It is between twenty and thirty that the temperament of a woman becomes fixed, and all her future irrevocably made or marred. Before this her character is too flexible, after this too rigid for impressions to be lasting. During these years the peace of the wide, calm, and sombre moorlands stamped indelibly upon Ruth a sweet, grave content which nothing could destroy or shake. ”

“ In defiance of the proverb which condemns all true lovers to uneven ways and obstructed paths, the wooing of lovely Mistress Rose by John Friendleton ran smoothly and happily on, seeming to have begun with the young man’s first meeting with his lovely landlady. The gossips of Boston town, strangely enough, left the relations of the lovers untouched by any but friendly comment; and in a fashion as natural as the ripening of the year, their love ripened into completeness. ”