Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 102, June, 1876

Some of us had gone back to the afternoon work when Mr. Wholesome, who had lingered behind, strayed thoughtfully into the little back garden. There under a thin-leaved apricot tree sat Mistress White, very pretty, with her long fair fingers clasped over a book which lay face down on her lap. Presently she was aware of Richard Wholesome walking to and fro and smoking a long-stemmed clay pipe, then, as yet in England, called a churchwarden. These were two more than commonly good-looking persons, come of sturdy English breeds, fined down by that in this climate which has taken the coarseness of line and feature out of so many of our broods, and has made more than one English painter regret that the Vandyke faces had crossed the ocean to return no more.

Schmidt and I looked out a moment into the long vista where, between the rose-boughs bending from either wall under the apricot, we could see the gray silvery shimmer of the woman's dress, and beyond it, passing to and fro, the broad shoulders of the ex-captain.

"Come," I said, "walk down with me to the wharf."

"Yet leave me," he returned. "I shall wisely do to sit here on the step over the council-fire of my pipe. Besides, when there are not markets and flowers, and only a straight-down, early-afternoon sun, I shall find it a more noble usage of time to see of my drama another scene. The actors are good;" and he pointed with his pipe-stem down to the garden. "And this," he said, "is the mute chorus of the play," indicating a kitten which had made prey of the grand-dame's ball of worsted, and was rolling it here and there with delight.

"But," I answered, "it is not right or decent to spy upon others' actions."

"For right!" he said. "Ach! what I find right to me is my right; and for decent, I understand you not. But if I tell you what is true, I find my pleasure to sit here and see the maiden when at times the winds pull up the curtain of the leaves."

"Well! well!" said I, for most of the time he was not altogether plain as to what he meant, as when he spoke of the cat as a chorus—"Well! well! you will go out with me on the water at sundown?"

"That may be," he answered; and I went away.

I have observed since then, in the long life I have lived, that the passion called love, when it is a hopeless one, acts on men as ferments do on fluids after their kind—turning some to honest wine and some to vinegar. With our stout little German all trials seemed to be of the former use, so that he took no ill from those hurts and bruises which leave other men sore and tender. Indeed, he talked of Mistress White to me, or even to Wholesome, whom he much embarrassed, in a calm, half-amused way, as of a venture which he had made, and, having failed, found it pleasant to look back upon as an experience not altogether to be regretted. We none of us knew until much later that it was more than a mere fancy for a woman who was altogether so sweet and winsome that no man needed an excuse for loving her. When by and by I also came to love a good woman, I used to try myself by the measure of this man's lack of self-love, and wonder how he could have seen with good-will the woman he cared for come to like another man better. This utter sweetness of soul has ever been to me a riddle.

An hour passed by, when Schmidt heard a footfall in the room behind him, and rising saw an old member of the Society of Friends who came at times to our house, and was indeed trustee for a small estate which belonged to Mistress White. Nicholas Oldmixon was an overseer in the Fourth street meeting, and much looked up to among Friends as a prompt and vigilant guardian of their discipline. Perhaps he would have been surprised to be told that he had that in his nature which made the post of official fault-finder agreeable; but so it was, I fancy, and he was here on such an errand. The asceticism of Friends in those days, and the extent to which Mr. Oldmixon, like the more strict of his sect, carried their views as to gravity of manner and the absence of color in dress and furniture, were especially hateful to Schmidt, who lived and was happy in a region of color and sentiment and gayety. Both, I doubt not, were good men, but each was by nature and training altogether unable to sympathize with the other.

"Good-evening!" said Schmidt, keeping his seat in the low window-sill.

Mr. Oldmixon returned, "Thee is well, I trust?"

"Ach! with such a sun and the last roses, which seem the most sweet, and these most lovely of fall-flowers, and a good book and a pipe," said Schmidt, "who will not be well? Have you the honest blessing of being a smoker?"

"Nay," said the Quaker, with evident guarding of his words. "Thee will not take it amiss should I say it is a vain waste of time?"

"But," answered Schmidt, "time hath many uses. The one is to be wasted; and this a pipe mightily helps. I did think once, when I went to meeting, how much more solemn it would be for each man to have a pipe to excuse his silence."

"Thee jests idly, I fear," said the Friend, coloring and evidently holding himself in check. "Is that friend Wholesome in the garden? I have need to see him."

"Yea," said Schmidt, with a broad smile, "he is yonder under a tree, like Adam in the garden. Let us take a peep at Paradise."

Mr. Oldmixon held his peace, and walked quietly out of the window and down the graveled path. There were some who surmised that his years and his remembrance of the three wives he had outlived did not altogether suffice to put away from him a strong sentiment of the sweetness of his ward. Perhaps it was this notion which lit up with mirth the ruddy face of the German as he walked down the garden behind the slim ascetic figure of the overseer of meeting in his broad hat and drab clothes. On the way the German plucked a dozen scarlet roses, a late geranium or two and a few leaves of motley Poinsetta.

Wholesome paused a moment to greet quietly the new-comer, and straightway betook himself absently to his walk again to and fro across the garden. Mistress White would have had the old overseer take her seat, but this he would not do. He stood a moment near her, as if irresolute, while Schmidt threw himself down on the sward, and, half turning over, tossed roses into the gray lap of Mistress White, saying, "How prettily the God of heaven has dressed them!"

Mistress White took up the flowers, not answering the challenge, but glancing under her long lashes at the ex-captain, to whom presently the overseer turned, saying, "Would thee give me a word or two with thee by ourselves, Richard?"

"There are none in the parlor," said Priscilla, "if thee will talk there."

"If," said Wholesome, "it be of business, let it wait till to-morrow, and I will call upon thee: I am not altogether myself to-day."

"Nay," said Nicholas, gathering himself up a little, "thee must know theeself that I would not come to thee here for business: thee knows my exactness in such matters."

"And for what, then, are you come?" said Wholesome with unusual abruptness.

"For speech of that in thee conduct which were better, as between an elder friend and a younger, to be talked over alone," said Mr. Oldmixon severely.

Now, Wholesome, though disgusted by his lack of power to keep the silent pledges he had given when he entered the Society of Friends, was not dissatisfied with his conduct as he judged it by his own standard of right. Moreover, like many warm-hearted people, he was quick of temper, as we have seen. His face flushed, and he paused beside the overseer: "There are none here who do not know most of what passed this morning; but as you do not know all, let me advise you to hold your peace and go your ways, and leave me to such reproach as God may send me."

"If that God send thee any," muttered Schmidt.

But Nicholas Oldmixon was like a war-horse smelling the battle afar off, and anything like resistance to an overseer in the way of duty roused him into the sternness which by no means belonged to the office, but rather to the man. "If," he said, "any in membership with us do countenance or promote tumults, they shall be dealt with as disorderly persons. Wherefore did thee give way to rash violence this morning?"

Priscilla grew pale, I think. She said, "Friend Nicholas, thee forgets the Christian courtesy of our people one to another. Let it rest a while: friend Richard may come to think better of it by and by."

"And that I trust he may never," muttered Schmidt.

But the overseer was not to be stayed. "Thee would do better to mind the things of thy house and leave us," he said. "The ways of this young man have been more than once a scandal, and are like to come before the preparative meeting to be dealt with."

"Sir," returned Wholesome, approaching him and quite forgetting his plain speech to make it plainer, "your manners do little credit to your age or your place. Listen: I told you to speak no more of this matter;" and he seized him by the lappel of his coat and drew him aside a few paces. "For your own sake, I mean. Let it die out, with no more of talk or nonsense."

"For my sake!" exclaimed the overseer; "and why? Most surely thee forgets theeself."

"For your own sake," said Wholesome, drawing him still farther away, and bending toward him, so that his words were lost to Schmidt and Priscilla, "and for your son John's. It was he I struck to-day."

Mr. Oldmixon grew white and staggered as if stricken. "Why did thee not come and tell me?" he said. "It had been kinder; and where is that unhappy man?"

"I do not know," returned Wholesome.

"Nevertheless, be it he or another, thee was in the wrong, and I have done my duty,—God help us all! and is my son yet alive?" and so saying, he turned away, and without other words walked through the house with uncertain steps and went down the street, while Wholesome, with softened face, watched him from the doorstep. Then he went back quietly into the garden, and turning to Schmidt, said, "Will you oblige me by leaving me with Mistress White? I will explain to thee by and by."

Schmidt looked up surprised, but seeing how pale and stern he looked, rose and went into the house. The woman looked up expectant.

"Priscilla, the time has come when thee must choose between me and him."

"He has come back? I knew always he would come."

"Yes, he has come back: I saw him to-day," said Wholesome, "and the John Oldmixon of to-day is more than ever cruel and brutal. Will thee trust me to make thee believe that?"

"I believe thee," she returned; "but because he is this and worse, shall I forget my word or turn aside from that which, if bitter for me, may save his soul alive?"

"And yet you love me?"

"Have I said so?" she murmured with a half smile.

The young man came closer and seized both hands in his: "Will it not be a greater sin, loving me, to marry him?"

"But he may never ask me, and then I shall wait, for I had better die fit in soul to be yours than come to you unworthy of a good man's love."

He dropped her hands and moved slowly away, she watching him with full eyes. Then he turned and said, "But should he fall—fall as he must—and come to be what his life will surely make him, a felon whom no woman could marry—"

"Thee makes duty hard for me, Richard," she answered. "Do not make me think thee cruel. When in God's good time he shall send me back the words of promise I wrote when he went away a disgraced man, to whom, nevertheless I owed my life, then—Oh, Richard, I love thee! Do not hurt me. Pray for me and him."

"God help us!" he said. "We have great need, to be helped;" and suddenly leaning over he kissed her forehead for the first time, and went away up the garden and into the house.

    EDWARD KEARSLEY.