Robert Cleland

“ I will not have them say that I could trifle with a woman's regard. Though what care we, either you or I, for people's idle talk? Have we not been walking hand-in-hand, each helping and supporting the other to live aright? And has not our companionship been for good to both? Let us marry, Judith! and silence babbling tongues. It will be best so. Look up, my friend, and answer. And yet, Judith, I must own it, I am poor. I have nothing but the stipend of my curacy; and when the poor, my brothers, have had their share, and my yearly bills are paid, there is nothing over. Not a cent. ”

“ There were six of them, those youthful ones, whose merry voices disturbed the slumbrous heat, walking or running, heedless alike of shade and sunshine, their hands full of roses. Muriel was one of them, the ladies' niece, and Tilly Martindale, Miss Matilda's goddaughter, and Betsey Bunce, a niece of the rector, and so a sort of cousin to the family. There was Gerald Herkimer, Ralph's only child, whose mother Martha was sitting with the ladies in the shade, and Randolph Jordan, the son of Matilda's friend Amelia who was sitting by her at that moment. ”

“ Ralph sighed with profound relief as the idea passed through his mind. There had been another shadowy suggestion present there all the afternoon, which he had been contemplating as it were with averted eyes, shuddering to consider or reduce to shape, yet refusing to dismiss it, harbouring it as one may an outlaw, whom it would be confusion to acknowledge as a guest. If Paul would undertake the business, the child might live out its life as a squaw among the wigwams of the upper Ottawa, without troubling any one. ”

“ Ralph had been meditating and considering, calmly, earnestly, and at length, in a way he was not accustomed to consider, and out here amid evening's impressive silence, where the brooding peace suggested presences far enough removed at other times in the common hubbub of life; and he felt--what? That he must not give in, or acquiesce in a fiddler's children getting all that money!
"The higher fitness" was he to call it?--and old Gerald himself, who must be near, he was sure, though he could not gain speech of him--must disapprove the misapplication of so many dollars. ”

“ So, when a wound begins to heal, one will touch and trifle with it, reviving the smart as an easement from the weary numbness of the congested tissues. She was absorbed in her sorrowful musings and did not note the entrance of her sisters, till, in their sabled gowns, coming between her and the light, they bent over her. Susan kissed her on the forehead, and Judith's tightened lips delivered a peck upon her mouth. Then she opened her eyes with a wan smile, and faintly bade them welcome, endeavouring to raise herself the while.
"Keep still, Mary," said Susan. "Do not attempt to move. ”

“ Such is the sad lot of spinsterhood in modern life, when woman misses her natural vocation of house-mother, and fortune exempts her from the need to earn her living. The instincts and traits which society for its own entertainment encouraged and cultivated in youth lose their power to please when bloom and sprightliness have vanished. Then the love of applause and excitement so attractive in the youthful beauty turn like famished hounds on their forsaken mistress, and rend her own heart when she can furnish them no other game. ”

“ There was a box--a soap-box seemingly, from the village store--hammer and nails, a bundle of withered grass, and the baby asleep lying on it. The sight of the baby must have been too much for Paul, for part of an old buffalo robe had been thrown over it. He had his design fixed and firm, but having also a squaw why should he likewise discompose himself? Civilization had at least eaten so far into his nature that to extinguish a helpless and unresisting life was no longer delightful enough to compensate the risk--and he had the squaw. ”

“ Muriel looking up, saw Pierre disappearing among the bushes along the approach.
"Auntie," she whispered to Matilda, "give me a big heaped-up plate of strawberries and ice-cream for poor Pierre. See, there he goes away home, all by himself. How lonely he must feel! and hot, and thirsty, to see us all sitting out here eating nice things. Quick! Tilly, dear, or he will be through the gate, and at his own door before I can catch him; and then I may meet Annette, who is never nice to me. I don't like Annette." ”

“ Even Miss Judy can appraise to a cent the good to be achieved with part in saving souls, and still leave unexpressed the balance--the pride and finery which what remains will bring the priests and priestesses of Goody.
Millions of dollars! That was the burden and refrain which repeated itself over and over in Ralph's mind; and it ought by right to be his. Was not he grandson of the father of this childless Gerald who had made the money? The only grandson too, and the only person through whom future generations of Herkimers could connect themselves with this fortune? ”

“ He was so good a young man, and so shy, that he failed, perhaps, to fill all the social uses of a curate, and grew somewhat out of intimacy with the younger ladies of his cure, who, though they saw him daily at matins, had learned not to look for his presence at garden parties and afternoon teas. Judith listened to him with so ardent an interest that he forgot his diffidence and reserve in conversing with her, and grew even eloquent at times, as he knew by the admiring reverence in her face ”

“ The moonlight glittered on the tin belfry of the church, and there were houses, low-browed habitant houses, with deep projecting eaves and great black shadows lurking under the stoops and porches. Not a soul was stirring, but from those coverts of obscurity what or who might not rush forth on her as she went by? The law in some mysterious way might be lying in wait for her among the dusky shadows, or Paul himself might be in hiding to watch her pass, and see that he was obeyed. ”

“ If he had lived, how different all would have been; and Ralph looked out into the empty evening air, feeling as if he might catch some shadowy glimpse of a disembodied presence, which would look on him friendly-wise, and which he would have greeted--oh, so reverently!--the revisiting shadow of a millionaire, come back regretfully to make amends to an ill-used relative whom the glamour of life and the flesh had led him to misjudge. Ralph felt he could meet his uncle in a fitting spirit, friendly, forgiving, and open to any suggestions the other state might have enlightened him to make ”

“ Miss Stanley accepted the invitation to inaction and let things take their course.
That day was a royal one for Miss Matilda. Instead of loitering between her flowers and her sofa, fanning herself and dropping asleep, a new interest had come into her life; and such a pretty one! It crept and rolled and tumbled about on the matting at her feet; while she sat at her worktable in the bay window with scissors and cambric, sewing strange garments, and pricking her fingers a good deal, for the needle was an unfamiliar implement in her hands ”

“ One squaw is so like another in white folks' eyes. It might turn pursuit in a wrong direction while she is getting away."
"Ouff," Paul grunted again, but nothing more. The two dusky shadows swung silently on the dim bosom of the waters, whitening now beneath the glimmer of the rising moon.
"See here, Paul," Ralph said at last; "I shall be better than my word after all. Here are ten dollars in hand, for you. Come round to my office as soon as the work is done and your squaw safely off, and I will pay you your fifty dollars. ”

“ If the taste in which Judith had endeavoured to rejuvenate her appearance was doubtful, the acquisition of a spouse had still had the best influence in softening and sweetening her nature, and her gratitude and devotion to the man who had looked on her in her loneliness were pleasant to see. For him, it was only after marriage and the worship which it brought him at his own fireside, that it began to dawn on Mr. Bunce what a very superior man he must surely be, and he felt beholden to his helpmate for making the discovery. ”

“ No, the people of this history are still geographically where they were, standing on their own ground, while the big tumultuous river rushes by--but the figure which their permanence suggests is even a sadder one, that of the fabled maidens drawing water in their sieves, water which will not be drawn or held, but keeps oozing through and slipping away, just as the stream runs by and will not wait; for life is but a sorry comedy with its stayless passing. ”

“ Stinson returned with the proceeds of the cheque, and Ralph counted over two hundred dollars to hand to Paul. His fingers lingered lovingly over the bits of paper, touching each dollar with a dainty caress as though he loved it and was sad to part.
It is strange how a rich man hates to part with money, while the poor are free and even lavish so far as their little "pile" will go; but perhaps we only invert the statement of what is a truism, that they who dislike to part with their money keep it and grow rich, while they who spend it lavishly grow poor. ”

“ Ralph's acquisition of an uncle on his Aunt Judith's marriage was rather an ancient ground of amusement by this time, for the marriage had taken place years before; but the idea of his maiden aunt created a wife, and the cleric, his junior, transformed into his uncle, was a perennial joke, from which time and familiarity could not rub the point. His other uncle, Gerald, had been one to make a nephew quail; and that this mild, shaven, unwealthy, and, so far, youthful parson should have stepped into the redoubtable title, was inexhaustibly droll. ”

“ Before two months had passed they had come to recognize their little visitor as a member of the household and one of the family--"of our own family, sister," Matilda said one day. "Let us make her a Stanley and call her our niece--Muriel Stanley. What do you say?"
"But how can we, with neither brother nor sister, call her that?" said Penelope the business-minded and literal. "Think of the stories we should have to make up; and if anybody asked questions we should have to make some more, and there would be discrepancies, and the most dreadful things might be said." ”

“ Captain Lorrimer may have called her a muse, and Major Hopkins may have looked in her eyes, but these things had never been carried to a disturbing length; just enough to afford a little pensive self-consciousness, when she read of deserted maids, or Love's young dream, and make her fancy that she understood it all, and ejaculate that "it was so true." Then she would look up and shake her curls with a quite comfortable sigh, and her prosaic sister would watch her admiringly, and wonder where the men's eyes could have been that she was still unmarried. ”

“ Perhaps it would be well, at least it would be comfortable, for many of us if our hearts would sleep through life, and leave digestion to do its work in peace. How sweet and enjoyable to lead untroubled lives, free from the ecstasies alike of joy and woe, as do the flowers, as did this "muse"--this "grass of Parnassus"--basking in summer suns and drinking dews, without ambition or desire or strife. ”

“ McQuirter and the two were left together. Judith's confusion was too great to permit her to lift her head, but there was a tremor of expectancy in the heap of silk and sealskin into which she had collapsed, which made itself felt in the surrounding air. She had ceased to sob, and became all ear. Even the silk of her gown, though she was crouched so close that to draw breath without a movement seemed impossible, forbore to rustle. ”

“ People die and marry and move away, and the ladies' shopping expeditions to Montreal grew briefer and less frequent as time went on, till from lasting over weeks and ending in tender partings from regretful friends, they dwindled into excursions accomplished between a morning and an afternoon. Soon, too, there came into the neighbourhood a sprinkling of English-speaking settlers, which, productive in the end of life and spirit, was like yeast turbid and disturbing at first, when dropped into that sweet but stagnant reservoir of old-world manners ”

“ There must be people in the house, people asleep, who would not awake till she had time to escape. She stepped on the little porch, laid down her burden, knocked, and fled into a neighbouring bank of shadow, where her dark blanketed figure was swallowed up in the gloom and she could wait and watch. Her moccasined feet made no sound, but the knock awoke a dog within. The dog barked, and presently a head looked out of the open casement. The baby, uncovered to the night air and laid on the hard boards, began to cry, and the head--it was a woman's and a mother's--recognized the voice of a bébé. ”

“ An ear in which to pour our complaints, an eye to look pitifully on our pain, soothes and strengthens, if it cannot mitigate the anguish. And Mary had these. Her nephew Ralph Herkimer and his wife were, as the servants said, most attentive; and the sympathy of the wife at least was very genuine, while Ralph's was equally well expressed. And after all, till men become able to read each other's souls--a state of things which even the best of us would not relish--it is the expression which is efficacious or otherwise, not the prompting spirit. ”