For the Major: A Novelette

Miss Corinna accepted this; and sent Alexander Mann on his errand. Ferdinand Kenneway, in the dusk of the back row, smiled to himself, thinly; but as nature had made him thin, especially about the cheeks, he was not able to smile in a richer way.

During the organ-boy's absence the choir rested. The voices of the ladies were, in fact, a little husky.

"No, it's all right; that's the hymn he meaned," said Alexander Mann, returning. "An' I ast him if he weern't coming over ter-night, an' he says, 'Oh yes!' says he, an' he get up. Old Senator Ashley's theer, an' he get up too. So I reckon the parson's comin', ladies." And Alexander smiled cheerfully on the row of bonnets as he went across to his box beside the organ.

But Miss Corinna stopped him on the way. "What could have possessed you to ask questions of your rector in that inquisitive manner, Alexander Mann?" she said, surveying him. "It was a piece of great impertinence. What are his intentions or his non-intentions to you, pray?"

"Well, Miss Corinna, it's orful late, an' I've blowed an' blowed till I'm clean blowed out. An' I knewed that as long as the parson stayed on over theer, you'd all – "

"All what?" demanded Miss Corinna, severely.

But Alexander, frightened by her tone, retreated to his box.

"Never mind him, dear Miss Corinna," said little Miss Tappen, from behind; "he's but a poor motherless orphan."

"Perhaps he is, and perhaps he is not" said Miss Corinna. "But in any case he must finish his sentence: propriety requires it. Speak up, then, Alexander Mann."

"I'll stand by you, Sandy," said Mr. Phipps, humorously.

"You said," pursued Miss Corinna, addressing the box, since Alexander was now well hidden within it – "you said that as long as the rector remained in his study, you knew – "

"I knewed you'd all hang on here," said Alexander, shrilly, driven to desperation, but safely invisible within his wooden retreat.

"Does he mean anything by this?" asked Miss Corinna, turning to the soprani.

"I am sure we have not remained a moment beyond our usual time," said Miss Greer, with dignity.

"I ask you, does he mean anything?" repeated Miss Corinna, sternly.

"Oh, dear Miss Corinna, I am sure he has no meaning at all – none whatever. He never has," said good-natured little Miss Tappen, from her piled chant-books. "And he weeds flower-beds so well!"

Here voices becoming audible outside, the ladies stopped; a moment later the rector entered. His junior warden was not with him. Having recollected suddenly the probable expression upon Miss Honoria's face at this hour, the junior warden had said good-night, paced down the knoll and up Edgerley Street with his usual careful little step until the safe seclusion of Ashley Lane was reached, when, laying aside his dignity, he took its even moonlit centre, and ran, or rather trotted, as fast as he could up its winding ascent to his own barred front door, where Miss Honoria let him in, candle in hand, and on her head the ominous cap (frilled) which was with her the expression of the hour. For Miss Honoria always arranged her hair for the night and put on this cap at ten precisely; thus crowned, and wrapped in a singularly depressing gray shawl, she was accustomed to wait for the gay junior warden, when (as had at present happened) he had forgotten her wishes and the excellent clock on her mantel that struck the hours. Meanwhile the rector was speaking to his choir about the selections for Trinity Sunday. He addressed Miss Corinna. At rehearsals he generally addressed Miss Corinna. This was partly due to her martial aspect, which made her seem the natural leader far more than Phipps or Kenneway, but principally because, being well over fifty, she was no longer troubled by the flutter of embarrassment with which the other ladies seemed to be oppressed whenever he happened to speak to them – timid young things as they were, all of them under thirty-five.

Miss Corinna responded firmly. The other ladies maintained a gently listening silence. At length the rector, having finished all he had to say, glanced at his watch. "Isn't it rather late?" he said.

And they were all surprised to find how late it was.

Like a covey of birds rising, they emerged from the pen made by the music-stand and organ, and moved in a modest group towards the door. The rector remained behind for a moment to speak to Bell-ringer Flower. When he came out, they were still fluttering about the steps and down the front path towards the gate. "I believe our roads are the same," he said.

As indeed they were: there was but one road in Far Edgerley. This was called Edgerley Street, and all the grassy lanes that led to people's residences turned off from and came back to it, going nowhere else. There were advantages in this. Some persons had lately felt that they had not sufficiently appreciated this excellent plan for a town; for if any friend should happen to be out, paying a visit or taking the air, sooner or later, with a little patience, one could always meet her (or him); she (or he), without deliberate climbing of fences, not being able to escape.

The little company from the church now went down the church knoll towards this useful street. Far Edgerley was all knolls, almost every house having one of its own, and crowning it. The rector walked first, with Miss Corinna; the other ladies followed in a cluster which was graceful, but somewhat indefinite as to ranks, save where Mr. Phipps had determinedly placed himself beside Miss Lucy Rendlesham, and thus made one even rank of two. Ferdinand Kenneway walked by himself a little to the right of the band; he walked not with any one in particular, but as general escort for the whole. Ferdinand Kenneway often accompanied Far Edgerley ladies homeward in this collective way. It was considered especially safe.

Flower, the bell-ringer, left alone on the church steps, looked after their departing figures in the moonlight. "A riddler it is," he said to himself – "a riddler, and a myst'rous one, the way all womenkind feels itself drawed to parsons. I suppose they jedge anything proper that's clirrycal." He shook his head, locked the church door, and went across to close the study.

Flower was a Chillawassee philosopher who had formerly carried the mail on horseback over Lonely Mountain to Fox Gap. Age having dimmed somewhat his youthful fires, lessening thereby his interest in natural history, as exemplified by the bears, wolves, and catamounts that diversified his route, he had resigned his position, judging it to be "a little too woodsy," on the whole, for a man of his years. He then accepted the office of bell-ringer of St. John's, a place which he had been heard to say conferred a dignity second only to that of mails. He was very particular about this dignity, and the title of it. "Item," he said, "that I be not a sexton; for sexton be a slavish name for a free-born mountaineer. Bell-ringer Flower I be, and Bell-ringer Flower you may call me."

Now the bell of St. John's was but a small one, suspended rustically, under a little roof of thatch, from the branch of an old elm near the church door; to ring it, therefore, was but a slight task. But Flower made it a weighty one by his attitude and manner as he stood on Sunday mornings, rope in hand, hat off, and eyes devotionally closed, beside his leafy belfry, bringing out with majestic pull the one little silver note.

He now re-arranged the chairs in the study, and came upon a framed motto surrounded by rosebuds in worsted-work, a fresh contribution to the rector's walls from the second Miss Greer. "Talk about the mil'try – my! they're nothing to 'em – nothing to these unmarried reverints!" he said to himself, as he surveyed this new memento. He hung it on the wall, where there was already quite a frieze of charming embroidery in the way of texts and woollen flowers. "Item – however, very few of them is unmarried. Undoubted they be drove to it early, in self-defence."

CHAPTER II

"YOU are a little tired, Major?"

"Possibly. Somewhat. Sara has been reading aloud to me from the Review. She read all the long articles."

"Ah – she does not know how that tires you. I must tell her. She does not appreciate – she is still so young, you know – that with your extensive reading, your knowledge of public affairs and the world at large, you can generally anticipate, after the first few sentences, all that can be said."

The Major did not deny this statement of his resources.

"I am going to the village for an hour or two," continued Madam Carroll; "I shall take Sara with me." (Here the Major's face seemed to evince a certain relief.) "We must call upon Miss Honoria Ashley. And also at Chapultepec, upon Mrs. Hibbard."

"Yes, yes – widow of General Hibbard, of the Mexican War," said the Major, half to himself.

"I do not pay many visits, as you know, Major; our position does not require it. We open our house – that is enough; our friends come to us; they do not expect us to go to them. But I make an exception in the case of Mrs. Hibbard and of Miss Ashley, as you have advised me to do; for the Ashleys are connected with the Carrolls by marriage, though the tie is remote, and Mrs. Hibbard's mother was a Witherspoon. I know you wish Sara to understand and recognize these little distinctions and differences."

"Certainly. Very proper," said the Major.

"We shall be gone an hour and a half, perhaps two hours. I will send Scar to you for his lessons; and I shall tell Judith Inches to allow no one to disturb you, not even to knock at this door. For Scar's lessons are important, Major."

"Yes, very important – very."

"Good-bye, then," said his wife, cheerfully, resting her hand on his shoulder for a moment, as she stood beside his chair. The Major drew the slender hand forward to his gray moustache.

"Fie, Major! you spoil me," said the little woman, laughing.

She left the room, making, with her light dress and long curls, a pretty picture at the door, as she turned to give him over her shoulder a farewell nod and smile. The Major kept on looking at the closed door for several minutes after she had gone.

Not long after this the same door opened, and a little boy came in; his step was so light and his movements so careful that he made no sound. He closed the door, and laid the book he had brought with him upon a table. He was a small, frail child, with a serious face and large blue eyes; his flaxen hair, thin and fine, hung in soft, scanty waves round his little throat – a throat which seemed too small for his well-developed head, yet quite large enough for his short, puny body. He was dressed in a blue jacket, with an embroidered white collar reaching to the shoulders, and ruffles of the same embroidery at the knee, where his short trousers ended. A blue ribbon tied his collar, and his slender little legs and feet were incased in long white stockings and low slippers, such as are worn by little girls. His whole costume, indeed, had an air of effeminacy; but he was such a delicate-looking little fellow that it was not noticeable. From a woman's point of view, he was prettily dressed.

He crossed the room, opened a closet door, and took from a shelf two boxes, which he carried to the table, making a separate journey with each. He arranged these systematically, the book in the centre, a box on each side; then he pushed the table over the carpet towards the Major's chair. The table was narrow and light, and made no sound. He moved onward slowly, his hands, widely apart, grasping its top, and he paused several times to peer round the corner of it so as to bring it up within an inch of the Major's feet, yet not to touch them. This accomplished, he surveyed the position gravely. Satisfied with it, he next brought up a chair for himself, which, while not the ordinary high-chair of a child, seemed yet to have been made especially for him on account of his low stature. He drew this chair close to the table on the opposite side, climbed into it, and then, when all was prepared, he spoke. "I am quite ready now, papa, if you please." His slender little voice was clear and even, like his mother's; his words followed each other with slow precision.

The Major woke, or, if he had not been asleep, opened his eyes. "Ah, little Scar," he said, "you here?" And he patted the child's hand caressingly. Scar opened his book; then one of the boxes, which contained white blocks with large red letters painted upon them. He read aloud from the book a sentence, once, twice. Then he proceeded to make it from memory with the blocks on the table, working slowly, and choosing each letter with thoughtful deliberation.

"Good – blood – can – not – lie," he read aloud from his row of letters when the sentence was completed. "I think that is right. Your turn, papa."

And then the Major, with almost equal slowness, formed, after Scar had read it, the following adage: "A brave father makes a brave son." "That's you and I, Scar."

"Yes, papa. And this is the next: 'The – knights – are – dust. – Their – good – swords – rust. – Their – souls – are – with – the – saints – we – trust.' That is too long for one. We will call it three."

Father and little son completed in this slow way eight of the sentences the little book contained. It was a small, flat volume in manuscript, the letters clearly printed with pen and ink. The Major's wife had prepared it, "from the Major's dictation," she said. "A collection of the fine old sayings of the world, which he greatly admires, and which he thinks should form part of the preliminary education of our son."

"Eight. The lesson is finished, papa," said Scar. "If you think I have done sufficiently well, I may now amuse myself with my dominoes." As he spoke he replaced the letters in their box, put on the cover, and laid the manuscript book on the top. Then he drew forward the second box, and took out his dominoes. He played by himself, one hand against the other. "You will remember, papa, that my right hand I call Bayard and my left Roland."

"Yes," answered the Major, looking on with interest.

Roland won the first game. Then the second. "The poor chevalier seems to have no luck to-day. I must help him a little," said the Major. And he and Scar played a third game.