Spring opens early on the southwestern section of Virginia, and leaves, flowers and birds come soon.
Palma and her babies were out with the violets and the bluebirds. And no one could have more enjoyed the beautiful weather in this glorious scene than the city-bred girl.
Even in April, the cup-shaped vale, shut in by green-wooded mountains, seemed a Garden of Eden, or the fairy “Valley of Calm Delights.”
Stuart had taken to agricultural life as to his native element, and often declared his delight in it, and expressed his wonder how he, the descendant of a hundred generations of farmers, could have been contented to live in a city.
Directly after breakfast every morning he mounted his horse and rode out afield to look after the laborers. Certainly, much of the theory and practice of farming he had to learn from his uncle; but he was an apt pupil. So apt, he said to Palma, that his learning seemed to him more like the recollection of forgotten knowledge than the acquisition of new ideas.
Palma, for her part, loved to put her two babies in the double perambulator that had been brought from the nearest town for their use, and, attended by Hatty, wheel them out to the road that ran around the vale and was dotted with the log huts and little gardens of the negroes on the side 310next to the mountain. This was like a royal progress. Everywhere the young mother and children were greeted with joy by the colored women and girls in the cabins.
On week days none but women and children could be found there; all the men were afield.
On Sunday they would all, or nearly all, go to church; and it was a strange thing that a little community, numbering less than one hundred, men, women and children all counted, should include so many religious sects; for here were to be found Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists. I think that was all; for of finer sub-divisions of doctrine or opinion they knew nothing, and a more Christian community than the people of this plantation, notwithstanding their sectarian differences, could scarcely be found anywhere. And this was owing, in a great measure, to the teachings and example of their master—a pure Christian.
He was accustomed to say to them:
“By whatever sectarian name you choose to call yourselves matters little; be Christian. ‘The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.’ ‘For there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved but that of Christ.’”
Old ’Sias being asked one day by a stranger as to his religious faith and experience answered that he was Christian, and his law of life was love of God and his neighbor.
The people loved their master well. Not one left him when emancipation was proclaimed. Even the young men, who longed to see life, would not leave old master while he should live on earth.
Old Cleve was the friend, teacher and patriarch of his people.
Never in his life, however, had the old man been so happy as at present. The society of Stuart, Palma and their babies opened new springs of joy in his heart and home. He loved to spend hours reclining in his easy-chair on the piazza, with the young mother seated near him and the infants in their pretty basket cradle beside her, while Mrs. Pole would be looking after household affairs within, and Stuart would be supervising agricultural matters afield.
The twins were little more than two months old when John Cleve saw, or thought he saw, a growing likeness between 311the tiny Clarice and the angel for whom she was named. As for him, he was waiting the call to come and rejoin his own Clarice in one of the many mansions of our Father’s house.
Nor was the summons long delayed.
It was a lovely morning in May.
The vale was more like than ever to a Garden of Eden. It was a chalice full of bloom, fragrance and music lifted up in offering to Heaven.
Stuart was absent on horseback, riding from field to field, overlooking the workmen.
All the other members of the family were gathered on the front porch.
Mrs. Pole, with a pair of shears in her hands, was walking about the place, carefully clipping a few dead leaves from the rose vines that climbed about the pillars. She had taken to gardening with as much enthusiasm as Stuart had taken to farming.
Palma sat on a little, low chair, busy with her needlework. At her feet stood the pretty basket cradle in which lay the twin babes, sleeping.
Near them sat John Cleve, reclining in a large resting-chair. His hands were folded before him, and he was gazing out upon the scene with a face illumined by reverence and serene rapture. Not a word had he spoken since the babies went to sleep. Now he murmured:
“Oh! the beauty and the glory of Thy sunlit earth and heavens, our Father.”
The words seemed to issue involuntarily from the lips of the speaker in the midst of the deep silence.
“Oh! the loveliness of Thy celestial angels!” he murmured in a lower and a slower tone.
Palma looked up from her sewing.
He did not speak again.
She turned around to look at him.
He had sunk back in his chair and shrunken together. His hands lay folded on his knees, his head bowed on his chest, and his silver hair shining in the morning sunlight. His face could not possibly be whiter than it had always been since she had known him, but something else in his aspect startled and alarmed her.
312She sprang up and went to him, bent over him, and laid her hand on his shoulder.
“Uncle! Uncle!” she said softly but eagerly, anxiously—“Uncle!”
“Don’t distress—yourself, dear—it is all right—bless you.”
These were his last words. His whole slight frame seemed to collapse and shrink closer together, his head sank lower, his hands slipped apart and dropped down by his sides.
When Mrs. Pole, startled by some sound, hurried to the spot, she found Palma in a panic of grief and amazement too deep for utterance, standing over the lifeless body of the good old man.
Mrs. Pole in great emergencies had but little self-possession.
She threw up her hands in horror, and then ran wildly in and out of the house, shrieking:
“Polly! Hatty! ’Sias!”
And as the frightened servants came running at her call, the women from the kitchen, the man from the lawn, they found the young mistress down on the floor at the feet of the dead master, with her hands clasped around his knees and her head bowed upon them, sobbing as if her heart must break. Tears had come and broken the trance of sorrow.
“Run for the doctor! Run for Mr. Stuart! Run all of you!” cried Mrs. Pole.
And the servants ran in all directions to spread the news or to bring efficient help.
Mrs. Pole went to Palma.
“Get up, my dear child! Let me help you up.”
“Don’t—don’t,” gasped Palma in a smothered tone.
“Come, come with me,” persisted the woman, taking hold of her arm and trying to lift her.
“Leave me! Leave me!” cried the mourner, clinging the closer to her dead, and continuing obdurate to all entreaty.
Cleve Stuart, found and summoned by ’Sias, soon came galloping up to the house, threw himself off his horse and hurried up on the porch.
One look of awe, sorrow and reverence to the changed face of his uncle showed him what had happened. Then he looked on his wife.
313“Make her get up, sir. Do make her get up. I can’t get her to move from that!” sobbed Mrs. Pole.
“When did this happen?” inquired Stuart in a low tone.
“Not twenty minutes ago, I reckon, though I’m not sure. It was as quick as lightning. One moment he was talking bright and cheerful, and the next moment he was gone like a flash! Oh! make her get up, sir. She will kill herself.”
“Palma, dear, you must let me take you in,” he said, laying his hand gently on the bowed head of his wife.
But sobs were her only reply.
“Palma, we will have to take him in and lay him on his bed. Come with me first.”
But she only wept and sobbed.
With gentle force he took her arms from around the dead, lifted her, bore her into the parlor, laid her on the sofa and called Polly to attend her.
He returned to the porch, told Mrs. Pole to look after the babies and leave everything else to him, and called the grief-stricken ’Sias to help him to carry the dead into the house.
It was a very light weight for so tall and broad-shouldered a man, but, then, it was but little more than skin and bone, a human chrysalis.
They bore it to the chamber in the rear of the parlor on the ground floor, that had been John Cleve’s sleeping-room. Here they laid it on the bed to await the arrival of the family physician. The latter could do no good, but all the same he must come.
Not until afternoon could the busy country doctor, whose practice extended over many miles, be found and brought to Wolfscliff.
He was conducted by Stuart to the room of death.
“A death from old age, pure and simple,” was the verdict of science.
“Did you ever see a body more thoroughly consumed by the life of the spirit? I have known Mr. Cleve all my life, as my father and my grandfather knew him before me, and I never knew of, or heard of, his having a day’s illness,” concluded Dr. Osborne as they sat together beside the bed.
“He was a saint prepared for heaven,” reverently replied the young man.
Then they arose, and standing on each side of the bed, 314drew the sheet up over the calm, cold face and left the room together.
The doctor went away, kindly offering to transact any business that was now required for the family and for the deceased at Wolfswalk.
Stuart went to inquire about the condition of his wife.
Polly had put her to bed, and Mrs. Pole had laid her sleeping infants in with her, the one on her right side and the other on her left. They were the best sedatives, for the tender mother was obliged to control herself for fear of disturbing them.
Mrs. Pole, now as quiet and decorous as in the morning she had been noisy and turbulent, sat in a large easy-chair, watching the three.
As Stuart softly opened the door she raised her finger in warning, and then silently arose and went to him.
“She has just fallen asleep herself. I wouldn’t speak to her now, if I was you. She is sleeping very quiet,” she said in a low tone.
“Thank Heaven! Take care of her, Mrs. Pole,” murmured Cleve in a low tone as he withdrew.
Mrs. Pole closed the door and went back to resume her watch.
Three days later the mortal body of John Cleve, of Wolfscliff, was borne to the family burial ground on the plateau on one of the hills that looked up to the sky. It was followed by a great concourse of people, consisting of kindred, friends, servants and neighbors from far and near.
The services were concluded there, with these few words of such divine love and truth that I quote them here for the comfort they may give to all sorrowing souls who grieve because they think, and think wrongly, that they have laid their loved ones in the grave.
The minister said:
“‘And now, having performed the last service of love to our dear brother by laying his body in the earth from which it came, we leave it there, as he has left it, to follow him by faith to his eternal home.’”
Will my readers note the use of the pronouns there? There is deep meaning in that.
After the obsequies, life went on very calmly at Wolfscliff.
315Stuart and Palma wrote every week to their friends in England, and quite as often got letters from them.
Again Ran and Judy urged Stuart and Palma to come and visit them, as there was nothing now to keep the latter at Wolfscliff. They wrote that they had given up their plan of leaving Haymore Hall to study in London. That the attractions of the country and the home were so great that they could not tear themselves away from it. That they had formed attachments not only to the place, but to the people. That they should remain there, and that the Rev. James Campbell had undertaken to direct their studies, and they expected to derive quite as much—if not more—benefit from his instructions as they could from professional teachers.
The correspondence resulted in a promise from the Stuarts to run over to England after the wheat harvest should be gathered.
It was while Stuart was thinking of setting a certain day for their embarkation and purchasing their tickets that a strange visitor arrived at Wolfscliff.
It was a glorious day in the latter part of June.
Stuart was afield, looking after the wheat.
Palma was seated on the front piazza, with her babies placed face to face in their cradle on her right hand, and her workbasket, overflowing with work, on her left.
She was singing to herself in a low key when she heard the sound of wheels on the gravel walk.
Looking up, she saw the hack from the Wolfshead tavern, at Wolfswalk, approaching. It drew up before the porch.
The coachman got off his box and went to the carriage door and opened it.
A gentleman got out—a tall, thin man of about forty years of age, with dark, reddish-brown hair and beard.
Palma laid aside her work and stood up to receive the visitor.
He came up the steps of the piazza, stopped, raised his hat, and as he looked at the childlike young matron before him, said with some hesitation:
“Mrs.—Stuart? Have I the honor of speaking to Mrs. Stuart?”
“That is my name, sir,” replied Palma politely.
316He bowed and handed her a card, on which she read: “The O’Melaghlin, Carrick Arghalee, Antrim, Ireland.”
“Will you come into the house, sir? Mr. Stuart is not here at present, but he is not far off, and I will send for him at once,” said Palma, leading the way into the hall and touching a call-bell as she passed a stand.
“Thank you, madam,” said the stranger, following her.
She conducted him into the drawing-room, gave him a seat and turned to speak to Hatty, who had come in answer to the bell.
“Ask Mrs. Pole, please, to go to the children on the piazza. Then send ’Sias to look for Mr. Stuart, to tell him that there is a gentleman here waiting to see him, and give him this card,” said Palma, putting the slip of pasteboard into the girl’s hands.
“Is ’Sias for to gib dis to young marster?” inquired Hatty, dubiously.
“Yes, certainly. Go away now and do your errands. Go to Mrs. Pole first,” said the anxious young mother. And then she sat down near the front window, through which, from time to time, she could glance out and see that no harm should come to the babies until the arrival of her relief sentinel, Mrs. Pole.
Palma was not very well versed in the ways of the world, yet she felt it incumbent on her to entertain the stranger, but she did not exactly know how to do it.
“You are recently from Ireland. I have some very dear friends of that country. Indeed, my nearest kinsman married a young girl of that nation.”
“Yes; I am aware of that fact. Mr. Randolph Hay married Miss Judith Man—that brings me here to-day. But as for myself, I have not seen Ireland for twenty-one years,” said the stranger.
Palma looked up in surprise.
“I have been in California, Colorado, Australia, Tasmania, Cape Colony—everywhere else but in my native land,” continued the visitor.
Palma looked up inquiringly.
“And I came last from California,” concluded the stranger.
Palma suddenly remembered that it was rude to stare in 317silence at any one, especially at a visitor in one’s own house; so she dropped her eyes and said demurely:
“I am glad you knew Judith Man, Mrs. Randolph Hay, of Haymore, my cousin by marriage.”
“I don’t know her at all. All the same, she is my daughter—my only daughter—and I hope to find her soon, with your assistance, and to make her acquaintance. It is for that purpose that I am here,” said the stranger.
Now Palma stared in right good earnest, without once thinking whether she was rude or not. Moreover, she committed another breach of good manners—she echoed his words:
“Your daughter!” she exclaimed in astonishment and incredulity. “I never did hear of such a thing!”
“Perhaps not,” said the visitor, laughing good-humoredly; “but it is true, nevertheless. And, besides, there are a great many million
“‘More things in heaven and earth’than you ever did hear of, or ever will hear of, my dear young lady.”
“I beg your pardon, sir; but indeed I was so taken by surprise!” said Palma, apologetically, and with a pretty blush.
“Not at all!” exclaimed the stranger, rather irrelevantly. “Say no more about it; but tell me something of my son and my daughter. You said nothing about my son, yet I have been told that they are both equally and intimately well known to you and to your excellent husband. What are these young people like, madam, if you please?”
“Mike and Judy? They are both lovely! Just lovely!” warmly responded Palma.
“That is exceedingly complimentary, and would be highly satisfactory, only it is not quite exact enough. A rose is lovely, so is a pearl, so is a fawn, so is a baby.”
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed the young mother.
“So many things are lovely, you see, that to say they are lovely gives me no clear idea of them. Be more precise, dear lady.”
“Oh, then, they are so good, so sweet—but I think I had better show you their photographs,” said Palma, with sudden inspiration.
318“The very thing!” exclaimed the visitor.
Palma sprang up and ran like an eager child to the other end of the drawing-room and to an etagere that stood in the corner, and took from it a large-paged but thin photograph album, with which she returned to her visitor.
“This book,” she said, “contains only the pictures of our dearest friends. There are not more than thirty-three pictures in the collection; but then there are in some cases several of each person. I will show you Mike’s and Judy’s.”
“No!” exclaimed the visitor. “Pray let me have the book and see if I can find them for myself. I have never seen them. You are naturally amazed to hear me say that, but you shall know the reason of the fact in good time,” said The O’Melaghlin, as he received the book from Palma, who, having placed it in his hands, resumed her seat, watched him as he turned over the leaves, and speculated with much interest whether he would be able to identify the pictures of his son and daughter, whom he had never seen.
Presently his face lighted up.
“Here they are!” he exclaimed, pointing to the open pages that presented full-length cabinet photographs of Mike and Judy—the former being on the left-hand page and the latter on the right.
“Yes, you are right,” replied Palma in surprise; “but how could you tell?”
“Because this,” he replied, laying his finger on Judy’s picture, “is a perfect likeness of my dear lost Moira; and this,” he added, indicating Mike’s, “is as like her as a youth can be like his mother.”
“They are faithful likenesses of the twin brother and sister,” replied Palma.
“Now tell me, my dear young lady, about my boy and girl.”
“Your daughter, I have said, is sweet and good and very dear to us all who know her. To say that she is married to one of the wealthiest land owners of one of the oldest families in Yorkshire would be true, but it would not be so much as to say that her husband is one of the best, the truest, the most generous and most magnanimous of men.”
“Your praise is enthusiastic, therefore extravagant.”
“It could not be. Ask Judy herself.”
“Ask a young woman still in love! She would be a very 319impartial witness, no doubt,” laughed The O’Melaghlin. “But now about my boy?”
“He is altogether worthy of his sister and his brother-in-law. I could not say any more for him than that.”
“Which is to say that he is good, true and brave.”
“Yes, he is all that.”
“But his objects in life?”
“To be of the best use to any whom he may serve; and the better to do this, he wishes to get a good education.”
“Quite right! And he is young enough still to go to college, not being quite twenty years of age.”
“Oh, I am so glad for his sake that you have come forward; because Michael has that spirit of independence that he shrinks from being indebted to his good brother-in-law for his college fees.”
“Quite right is that also. He is a true O’Melaghlin, and I am proud of him! And now, my dear young lady, you may be wondering how I discovered yourself and your husband and your connection—happy connection for them—with my children.”
“It has been equally happy for us, sir, indeed. Michael and Judith are among our most esteemed friends.”
“I am glad to hear you say so, dear madam.”