The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 62, December, 1862

"Anemones never know which way the wind blows, until it comes down close to the ground," she said; "but souls which are on bleak mountain-summits must watch whirlwinds, poised in space, and note their airy march. So I saw, clearly cut into the rock of the future, my own face, with all the lines and carvings wrought into it that the life of Bernard McKey would chisel out, and I only waited. I might have waited on forever, for Mr. McKey had not cast one pebbly word that must send up wavy ripples from deep spirit-waters; he only wandered, as any other might have done, upon the shore of my life, along its quiet, dewy sands, above its chalk-cliffs, and by the side of its green, sloping shores. He never questioned why rose and fell the waves; he never went down where 'tide, the moon-slave, sleeps,' to find the foundations of my heart's mainland. I had only seen him standing at times, as one sees a person upon a ship's deck, peering off over Earth's blue ocean-cheek, simply in mute, solemn wonder at what may be beyond, without one wish to speed the ship on.

"It might have been forever thus, but Abraham came home. He is my brother, you know. If he made me suffer, he has been made to suffer with me. Bernard McKey was Doctor Percival's favorite. He made him his friend, and was everything to him that friend could be. I cannot tell you my story without mention of my brother, he has been so woven into every part of it. An unaccountable fancy for the study of medicine developed itself in his erratic nature soon after he came home; and he relinquished his brilliant prospects and devoted himself to the little white office near Doctor Percival's house, with Bernard McKey for his hourly companion. The two had scarce a thought in common: one was impulsive, prone to throw himself on the stream of circumstance, to waft with the wind, and blossom with the spring; the other was the great mountain-pine, distilling the same aroma in all atmospheres, extending fibrous roots against Nature's granite, whenceever it comes up. How could the two harmonize? They could not, and a time of trial came. We knew, before it came, why Doctor Percival's little white office held Abraham so many hours in the day. It was because the Mountain-Pine found in the moss of Redleaf the sweet Trailing-Arbutus."

She asked me if I knew the flower; and when I answered her with my words of love of it, she said, "she had always thought it was one of Eden's own bits of blossomry, that, missing man from the hallowed grounds, crept out to know his fate, and, finding him so forlornly unblest, had sacrificed its emerald leaves, left in the Garden, and, creeping into mosses, lived, waiting for man's redemption. We used to call Mary 'The Arbutus,' and it was pleasant to see the great rough branches of Abraham's nature drooping down, more and more, toward the pink-and-white pale flower that looked into the sky, from a level as lofty as the Pine's highest crown. Abraham goes out to search for the type of Mary every spring"; and rising, she brought to me the waxen buds that were yet unopened.

I took them in my hands, with the same feeling that I would have done a tress of Mary's hair, or a fragment that she had handled. I think Miss Axtell divined this feeling; for she cautiously opened the door leading into her brother's room, and finding that he was not there, she bade me "come and see." It was Mary's portrait that once more I looked upon; framed in a wreath of the trailing-arbutus, it was hanging just where he could look at it at night, as I my strange tower-key.

We went back. Miss Axtell closed the sash; she was looking weary and pale. I was afraid she would suffer harm from the continued recital. She said "No," to my fear,—that "it must all be spoken now, once, and that forever,"—and I listened unto the story's end.

"One year had passed since Alice's death before Abraham's coming. Another had almost fled before the eventful time when I began to feel the weight of my cross. I know not how it came to Abraham's knowledge that Bernard McKey felt in his soul my presence. I only know that he came home one night, with a storm of rage whitening his lips and furrowing his forehead. He came up here, where I was sitting. I had watched his figure coming through tree-openings from Doctor Percival's house, and mingled with the memories of the fair young girl whom I had seen dead by lightning were fears for Mary Percival. For several days she had been ill, and I knew that Abraham felt anxious; therefore I did not wonder at his hasty coming in and instant seeking of me. He came quite close. He wound his face in between me and the darkening sky; he whispered hoarsely,—

"'Do you care for him?'

"'What is it, Abraham?' I asked, startled by his words and manner, but with not the faintest idea of the meaning entering in with his words.

"'Bernard McKey, is he anything to you?'

"'You've no right to question me thus,' I said.

"'And you will not answer me?'

"'I will not, Abraham.'

"The next morning Abraham was gone. He had not told me of his intended absence. He had only left a note, stating the time of his return.

"It was a week ere he came. Mary had not improved in his absence, yet no one deemed her very ill.

"I dreaded Abraham's coming home, because he had left me in silent anger; but how could I have replied to his question otherwise than I did? No one, not Mr. McKey himself, had asked me; and should I give him, my brother, my answer first?

"Lazily the village-clock swung out the hours that summer's afternoon.

The stroke of three awakened me. I had not seen Mary that day.

"'I would go and see her,' I decided.

"'She was sleeping, the dear child,' Chloe said. 'She would come and tell me when she was awake, if I would wait.'

"I said that I would stay awhile, and I wandered out under the shade of the great whispering trees, to wait the waking hour.

"I remember the events of that afternoon, as Mary and Martha must have remembered the day on which Lazarus came up from the grave unto them.

"The air was still, save a humming in the very tree-tops that must have been only echoes tangled there, breezes that once blew past. The long grape-arbor at the end of the lawn looked viny and cool. I walked up and down under the green archway, until Chloe's words summoned me.

"Mary was 'better,' she said; 'a few days, and she should feel quite strong, she hoped'; but she looked weary, and I only waited a little while, until her father and mother came in, and then I went.

"Mr. McKey was sitting in the door of the little white office. He came out to meet me ere I had reached the street,—asked if I was on my way home.

"I said 'Yes,' with the lazy sort of languor born of the indolence of the hour.

"'Have you energy enough for a walk to the sea-shore?' he asked.

"It had been my wish that very day. I had not been there since Mary's illness. I hesitated in giving an answer. Abraham would be home at sunset.

"'Don't go, if it is only to please me,' he said.

"'I am going to please myself,' I answered; 'only I wish to be at home on Abraham's coming.'

"That afternoon, Bernard McKey for the first time told me of himself, and what the two years in Redleaf had done for him. One month more, and he should leave it. He put into words the memory of that first look across the dead. He talked to me, until the sea lost its sunlight sheen,—until I no longer heard its beat of incoming tide,—until I forgot the hour for Abraham's coming. It was he who reminded me of it. Once more we paced the sands, already sown with our many footsteps, that the advancing waters would soon overwhelm. After that we went village-ward. The gloaming had come down when we reached home.

"'Abraham must have been an hour here,' I thought, as alone I went in.

"He met me in the hall.

"'Where have you been, Lettie?' was his greeting.

"'On the sands.'

"'Not alone?'

"'No, Abraham; Bernard McKey has been with me.'

"'By what right?' he demanded, with that mighty power of voice that is laid up within him for especial occasions.

"'By the right that I gave him, by the right that is his to walk with me,' I said; for I grew defiant, and felt a renewal of strength, enough to tell Abraham the truth.

"Don't start so, Anemone," she said to me. "You think defiance unwomanly, and so do I; but it was for once only, and I felt that my brother had no right to question me.

"But one word came from his lips, as he confronted me there, with folded arms; it was,—

"'When?'

"'This very afternoon, Abraham.'

"Mother came out at the moment. She saw the cloud on Abraham's brow even in the dim light. She asked, 'What is it?' and Abraham answered us both at the same time.

"He had been to the home of Bernard McKey. He proved to my mother's utmost satisfaction that her daughter had no right to care for one like Bernard McKey. He did not know the right that came on that night almost two years before. He saw that his proofs were idle to me; but he said 'he had another, one that I would accept, for I was an Axtell.'

"'Yes, Abraham, I am an Axtell, and I shall prove my right to the name, come what will'; and without waiting to hear more, I glided into the darkness up-stairs.

"For a long time I heard mother and Abraham talking together; it seemed as if they would never cease. At last, mother sent up to know if I was not coming to take my tea. I had forgotten its absence till then. I went down. A half-hour later, during which time a momentous mist of silence hung over the house, I heard steps approaching. You know that it was summer time, and the windows were all thrown open, after the heat of the day. I had been wondering where every one was gone. I recognized both of the comers, as their footsteps fell upon the walk, but I heard no words. Oh, would there had been none to come! I heard Abraham go on up the stairs, and knew that he was searching for me. I knew who had come in with him, and I arose from my concealment in the unlighted library, and went into the parlor. It was Mr. McKey who sat there.

"'What is it?' I asked,—for a gnome of ill was walking up and down in my brain, as we had walked on the sands so few hours before.

"'What is it? I don't know,' he said. 'Your brother asked me to come over for a few minutes.'

"Evidently Abraham had not shown him one coal of the fire that burned under his cool seeming. That is the way with these mountain pine-trees: one never knows how deep into volcanic fires their roots are plunged.

"'Something has happened,' I whispered. 'Whatever comes, bear it bravely.'