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Queechy

<h1> Chapter VII. </h1> <blockquote> He from his old hereditary nook Must part; the summons came,--our final leave we took. </blockquote> <blockquote> Wordsworth. </blockquote> Mr. Carleton came the next day, but not early, to take Fleda to Montepoole. She had told her grandfather that she did not think he would come, because after last night he must know that she would not want to go. About twelve o'clock however he was there, with a little wagon, and Fleda was fain to get her sun bonnet and let him put her in. Happily it was her maxim never to trust to uncertainties, so she was quite ready when he came and they had not to wait a minute. Though Fleda had a little dread of being introduced to a party of strangers and was a good deal disappointed at being obliged to keep her promise, she very soon began to be glad. She found her fear gradually falling away before Mr. Carleton's quiet kind reassuring manner; he took such nice care of her; and she presently made up her mind that he would manage the matter so that it would not be awkward. They had so much pleasant talk too. Fleda had found before that she could talk to Mr. Carleton, nay she could not help talking to him; and she forgot to think about it. And besides, it was a pleasant day, and they drove fast, and Fleda's particular delight was driving; and though the horse was a little gay she had a kind of intuitive perception that Mr. Carleton knew how to manage him. So she gave up every care and was very happy. When Mr. Carleton asked after her grandfather, Fleda answered with great animation, "O he's very well! and such a happy thing--You heard what that man said last night, Mr. Carleton, didn't you?" "Yes." "Well it is all arranged;--this morning Mr. Jolly--he's a friend of grandpa's that lives over at Queechy Run and knew about all this--he's a lawyer--he came this morning and told grandpa that he had found some one that could lend him the money he wanted and there was no trouble about it; and we are so happy, for we thought we should have to go away from where we live now, and I know grandpa would have felt it dreadfully. If it hadn't been for that,--I mean, for Mr. Jolly's coming--I couldn't have gone to Montepoole to-day." "Then I am very glad Mr. Jolly made his appearance," said Mr. Carleton. "So am I," said Fleda;--"but I think it was a little strange that Mr. Jolly wouldn't tell us who it was that he had got the money from. Grandpa said he never saw Mr. Jolly so curious." When they got to the Pool Fleda's nervousness returned a little; but she went through the dreaded introduction with great demureness and perfect propriety. And throughout the day Mr. Carleton had no reason to fear rebuke for the judgment which he had pronounced upon his little paragon. All the flattering attention which was shewn her, and it was a good deal, could not draw Fleda a line beyond the dignified simplicity which seemed natural to her; any more than the witty attempts at raillery and endeavours to amuse themselves at her expense, in which some of the gentlemen shewed their wisdom, could move her from her modest self-possession. Very quiet, very modest, as she invariably was, awkwardness could not fasten upon her; her colour might come and her timid eye fall; it often did; but Fleda's wits were always in their place and within call. She would shrink from a stranger's eye, and yet when spoken to her answers were as ready and acute as they were marked for simplicity and gentleness. She was kept to dinner; and though the arrangement and manner of the service must have been strange to little Fleda, it was impossible to guess from word or look that it was the first time within her recollection that she had ever seen the like. Her native instincts took it all as quietly as any old liberalized traveller looks upon the customs of a new country. Mr. Carleton smiled as he now and then saw a glance of intelligence or admiration pass between one and another of the company; and a little knowing nod from Mrs. Evelyn and many a look from his mother confessed he had been quite right. Those two, Mrs. Evelyn and Mrs. Carleton, were by far the most kind and eager in their attention to Fleda. Mrs. Thorn did little else but look at her. The gentlemen amused themselves with her. But Mr. Carleton, true to the hopes Fleda had founded upon his good-nature, had stood her friend all the day, coming to her help if she needed any, and placing himself easily and quietly between her and anything that threatened to try or annoy her too much. Fleda felt it with grateful admiration. Yet she noticed, too, that he was a very different person at this dinner-table from what he had been the other day at her grandfather's. Easy and graceful, always, he filled his own place, but did not seem to care to do more; there was even something bordering on haughtiness in his air of grave reserve. He was not the life of the company here; he contented himself with being all that the company could possibly require of him. On the whole Fleda was exceedingly well pleased with her day, and thought all the people in general very kind. It was quite late before she set out to go home again; and then Mrs. Evelyn and Mrs. Carleton were extremely afraid lest she should take cold, and Mr. Carleton without saying one word about it wrapped her up so very nicely after she got into the wagon, in a warm cloak of his mother's. The drive home, through the gathering shades of twilight, was to little Fleda thoroughly charming. It was almost in perfect silence, but she liked that; and all the way home her mind was full of a shadowy beautiful world that seemed to lie before and around her. It was a happy child that Mr. Carleton lifted from the wagon when they reached Queechy. He read it in the utter lightheartedness of brow and voice, and the spring to the ground which hardly needed the help of his hands. "Thank you, Mr. Carleton," she said when she had reached her own door; (he would not go in) "I have had a very nice time!" He smiled. "Good night," said he. "Tell your grandfather I will come to-morrow to see him about some business." Fleda ran gayly into the kitchen. Only Cynthia was there. "Where is grandpa, Cynthy?" "He went off into his room a half an hour ago. I believe he's laying down. He ain't right well, I s'pect. What's made you so late?" "O they kept me," said Fleda. Her gayety suddenly sobered, she took off her bonnet and coat and throwing them down in the kitchen stole softly along the passage to her grandfather's room. She stopped a minute at the door and held her breath to see if she could hear any movement which might tell her he was not asleep. It was all still, and pulling the iron latch with her gentlest hand Fleda went on tiptoe into the room. He was lying on the bed, but awake, for she had made no noise and the blue eyes opened and looked upon her as she came near. "Are you not well, dear grandpa?" said the little girl. Nothing made of flesh and blood ever spoke words of more spirit-like sweetness,--not the beauty of a fine organ, but such as the sweetness of angel-speech might be; a whisper of love and tenderness that was hushed by its own intensity. He did not answer, or did not notice her first question; she repeated it. "Don't you feel well?" "Not exactly, dear!" he replied. There was the shadow of somewhat in his tone, that fell upon his little granddaughter's heart and brow at once. Her voice next time, though not suffered to be anything but clear and cheerful still, had in part the clearness of apprehension. "What is the matter?" "Oh--I don't know, dear!" She felt the shadow again, and he seemed to say that time would shew her the meaning of it. She put her little hand in one of his which lay outside the coverlets, and stood looking at him; and presently said, but in a very different key from the same speech to Mr. Carleton, "I have had a very nice time, dear grandpa." Her grandfather made her no answer. He brought the dear little hand to his lips and kissed it twice, so earnestly that it was almost passionately; then laid it on the side of the bed again, with his own upon it, and patted it slowly and fondly and with an inexpressible kind of sadness in the manner. Fleda's lip trembled and her heart was fluttering, but she stood so that he could not see her face in the dusk, and kept still till the rebel features were calm again and she had schooled the heart to be silent. Mr. Ringgan had closed his eyes, and perhaps was asleep, and his little granddaughter sat quietly down on a chair by the bedside to watch by him, in that gentle sorrowful patience which women often know but which hardly belongs to childhood. Her eye and thoughts, as she sat there in the dusky twilight, fell upon the hand of her grandfather which still fondly held one of her own; and fancy travelled fast and far, from what it was to what it had been. Rough, discoloured, stiff, as it lay there now, she thought how it had once had the hue and the freshness and the grace of youth, when it had been the instrument of uncommon strength and wielded an authority that none could stand against. Her fancy wandered over the scenes it had known; when it had felled trees in the wild forest, and those fingers, then supple and slight, had played the fife to the struggling men of the Revolution; how its activity had outdone the activity of all other hands in clearing and cultivating those very fields where her feet loved to run; how in its pride of strength it had handled the scythe and the sickle and the flail, with a grace and efficiency that no other could attain; and how in happy manhood that strong hand had fondled and sheltered and led the little children that now had grown up and were gone!--Strength and activity, ay, and the fruits of them, were passed away;--his children were dead;--his race was run;--the shock of corn was in full season, ready to be gathered. Poor little Fleda! her thought had travelled but a very little way before the sense of these things entirely overcame her; her head bowed on her knees, and she wept tears that all the fine springs of her nature were moving to feed--many, many,--but poured forth as quietly as bitterly; she smothered every sound. That beautiful shadowy world with which she had been so busy a little while ago,--alas! she had left the fair outlines and the dreamy light and had been tracking one solitary path through the wilderness, and she saw how the traveller foot-sore and weather-beaten comes to the end of his way. And after all, he comes to the end.--"Yes, and I must travel through life and come to the end, too," thought little Fleda,--"life is but a passing through the world; my hand must wither and grow old too, if I live long enough, and whether or no, I must come to the end.--Oh, there is only one thing that ought to be very much minded in this world!" That thought, sober though it was, brought sweet consolation. Fleda's tears, if they fell as fast, grew brighter, as she remembered with singular tender joy that her mother and her father had been ready to see the end of their journey, and were not afraid of it, that her grandfather and her aunt Miriam were happy in the same quiet confidence and she believed she herself was a lamb of the Good Shepherd's flock. "And he will let none of his lambs be lost," she thought. "How happy I am! How happy we all are!" Her grandfather still lay quiet as if asleep, and gently drawing her hand from under his, Fleda went and got a candle and sat down by him again to read, carefully shading the light so that it might not awake him. He presently spoke to her, and more cheerfully. "Are you reading, dear?" "Yes, grandpa!" said the little girl looking up brightly. "Does the candle disturb you?" "No, dear!--What have you got there?" "I just took up this volume of Newton that has the hymns in it." "Read out." Fleda read Mr. Newton's long beautiful hymn, "The Lord will provide;" but with her late thoughts fresh in her mind it was hard to get through the last verses;-- <blockquote> "No strength of our own,   Or goodness we claim; But since we have known   The Saviour's great name, In this, our strong tower,   For safety we hide: The Lord is our power,   The Lord will provide. </blockquote> <blockquote> "When life sinks apace,   And death is in view, This word of his grace   Shall comfort us through. No fearing nor doubting,--   With Christ on our side, We hope to die shouting,   The Lord will provide." </blockquote> The little reader's voice changed, almost broke, but she struggled through, and then was quietly crying behind her hand. "Read it again," said the old gentleman after a pause. There is no 'cannot' in the vocabulary of affection. Fleda waited a minute or two to rally her forces, and then went through it again, more steadily than the first time. "Yes--" said Mr. Ringgan calmly, folding his hands,--"that will do! That trust won't fail, for it is founded upon a rock. 'He is a rock; and he knoweth them that put their trust in him!' I have been a fool to doubt ever that he would make all things work well--The Lord will provide!" "Grandpa," said Fleda, but in an unsteady voice, and shading her face with her hand still,--"I can remember reading this hymn to my mother once when I was so little that 'suggestions' was a hard word to me." "Ay, ay,--I dare say," said the old gentleman,--"your mother knew that Rock and rested her hope upon it,--where mine stands now. If ever there was a creature that might have trusted to her own doings, I believe she was one, for I never saw her do anything wrong,--as I know. But she knew Christ was all. Will you follow him as she did, dear?" Fleda tried in vain to give an answer. "Do you know what her last prayer for you was, Fleda?" "No, grandpa." "It was that you might be kept 'unspotted from the world.' I heard her make that prayer myself." And stretching out his hand the old gentleman laid it tenderly upon Fleda's bowed head, saying with strong earnestness and affection, even his voice somewhat shaken, "God grant that prayer!--whatever else he do with her, keep my child from the evil!--and bring her to join her father and mother in heaven!--and me!" He said no more;--but Fleda's sobs said a great deal. And when the sobs were hushed, she still sat shedding quiet tears, sorrowed and disturbed by her grandfather's manner. She had never known it so grave, so solemn; but there was that shadow of something else in it besides, and she would have feared if she had known what to fear. He told her at last that she had better go to bed, and to say to Cynthy that he wanted to see her. She was going, and had near reached the door, when he said, "Elfleda!" She hastened back to the bedside. "Kiss me." He let her do so twice, without moving, and then holding her to his breast he pressed one long earnest passionate kiss upon her lips, and released her, Fleda told Cynthy that her grandfather wished her to come to him, and then mounted the stairs to her little bedroom. She went to the window and opening it looked out at the soft moonlit sky; the weather was mild again and a little hazy, and the landscape was beautiful. But little Fleda was tasting realities, and she could not go off upon dream-journeys to seek the light food of fancy through the air. She did not think to-night about the people the moon was shining on; she only thought of one little sad anxious heart,--and of another down stairs, more sad and anxious still, she feared;--what could it be about? Now that Mr. Jolly had settled all that troublesome business with McGowan?-- As she stood there at the window, gazing out aimlessly into the still night,--it was very quiet,--she heard Cynthy at the back of the house calling out, but as if she were afraid of making too much noise, "Watkins!--Watkins!" The sound had business, if not anxiety, in it. Fleda instinctively held her breath to listen. Presently she heard Watkins reply; but they were round the corner, she could not easily make out what they said. It was only by straining her ears that she caught the words, "Watkins, Mr. Ringgan wants you to go right up on the hill to Mis' Plumfield's and tell her he wants her to come right down--he thinks"--the voice of the speaker fell, and Fleda could only make out the last words,--"Dr. James." More was said, but so thick and low that she could understand nothing. She had heard enough. She shut the window, trembling, and fastened again the parts of her dress she had loosened; and softly and hastily went down the stairs into the kitchen. "Cynthy!--what is the matter with grandpa?" "Why ain't you in bed, Flidda?" said Cynthy with some sharpness. "That's what you had ought to be. I am sure your grandpa wants you to be abed." "But tell me," said Fleda anxiously. "I don't know as there's anything the matter with him," said Cynthy. "Nothing much, I suppose. What makes you think anything is the matter?" "Because I heard you telling Watkins to go for aunt Miriam." Fleda could not say,--"and the doctor." "Well your grandpa thought he'd like to have her come down, and he don't feet right well,--so I sent Watkins up; but you'd better go to bed, Flidda; you'll catch cold if you sit up o'night." Fleda was unsatisfied, the more because Cynthy would not meet the keen searching look with which the little girl tried to read her face. She was not to be sent to bed, and all Cynthy's endeavours to make her change her mind were of no avail. Fleda saw in them but fresh reason for staying, and saw besides, what Cynthy could not hide, a somewhat of wandering and uneasiness in her manner which strengthened her resolution. She sat down in the chimney corner, resolved to wait till her aunt Miriam came; there would be satisfaction in her, for aunt Miriam always told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It was a miserable three-quarters of an hour. The kitchen seemed to wear a strange desolate look, though seen in its wonted bright light of fire and candles, and in itself nice and cheerful as usual. Fleda looked at it also through that vague fear which casts its own lurid colour upon everything. The very flickering of the candle blaze seemed of ill omen, and her grandfather's empty chair stood a signal of pain to little Fleda whenever she looked at it. She sat still, in submissive patience, her cheek pale with the working of a heart too big for that little body. Cynthia was going in and out of her grandfather's room, but Fleda would not ask her any more questions, to be disappointed with word-answers; she waited, but the minutes seemed very long,--and very sad. The characteristic outward calm which Fleda had kept, and which belonged to a nature uncommonly moulded to patience and fortitude, had yet perhaps heightened the pressure of excited fear within. When at last she saw the cloak and hood of aunt Miriam coming through the moonlight to the kitchen door, she rushed to open it, and quite overcome for the moment threw her arms around her and was speechless. Aunt Miriam's tender and quiet voice comforted her. "You up yet, Fleda! Hadn't you better go to bed? 'Tisn't good for you." "That's what I've been a telling her," said Cynthy, "but she wa'n't a mind to listen to me." But the two little arms embraced aunt Miriam's cloak and wrappers and the little face was hid there still, and Fleda's answer was a half smothered ejaculation. "I am so glad you are come, dear aunt Miriam!" Aunt Miriam kissed her again, and again repeated her request. "O no--I can't go to bed," said Fleda crying;--"I can't till I know--I am sure something is the matter, or Cynthy wouldn't look so. Do tell me, aunt Miriam!" "I can't tell you anything, dear, except that grandpa is not well--that is all I know--I am going in to see him. I will tell you in the morning how he is." "No," said Fleda, "I will wait here till you come out. I couldn't sleep." Mrs. Plumfield made no more efforts to persuade her, but rid herself of cloak and hood and went into Mr. Ringgan's room. Fleda placed herself again in her chimney corner. Burying her face in her hands, she sat waiting more quietly; and Cynthy, having finished all her business, took a chair on the hearth opposite to her. Both were silent and motionless, except when Cynthy once in a while got up to readjust the sticks of wood on the fire. They sat there waiting so long that Fleda's anxiety began to quicken again. "Don't you think the doctor is a long time coming, Cynthy?" said she raising her head at last. Her question, breaking that forced silence, sounded fearful. "It seems kind o' long," said Cynthy. "I guess Watkins ha'n't found him to hum." Watkins indeed presently came in and reported as much, and that the wind was changing and it was coming off cold; and then his heavy boots were heard going up the stairs to his room overhead; but Fleda listened in vain for the sound of the latch of her grandfather's door, or aunt Miriam's quiet foot-fall in the passage; listened and longed, till the minutes seemed like the links of a heavy chain which she was obliged to pass over from hand to hand, and the last link could not be found. The noise of Watkins' feet ceased overhead, and nothing stirred or moved but the crackling flames and Cynthia's elbows, which took turns each in resting upon the opposite arm, and now and then a tell-tale gust of wind in the trees. If Mr. Ringgan was asleep, why did not aunt Miriam come out and see them,--if he was better, why not come and tell them so. He had been asleep when she first went into his room, and she had come back for a minute then to try again to get Fleda to bed; why could she not come out for a minute once more. Two hours of watching and trouble had quite changed little Fleda; the dark ring of anxiety had come under each eye in her little pale face; she looked herself almost ill. Aunt Miriam's grave step was heard coming out of the room at last,--it did not sound cheerfully in Fleda's ears. She came in, and stopping to give some direction to Cynthy, walked up to Fleda. Her face encouraged no questions. She took the child's head tenderly in both her hands, and told her gently, but it was in vain that she tried to make her voice quite as usual, that she had better go to bed--that she would be sick. Fleda looked up anxiously in her face. "How is he?" But her next word was the wailing cry of sorrow,--"Oh grandpa!--" The old lady took the little child in her arms and they both sat there by the fire until the morning dawned. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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