Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863

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"Good little comfort-giver!" Miss Lettie said; and she left the package,
containing the precious jewel, in my hands.

Bewildered by the story, filled with sorrow for sufferers passed away
from the great, suffering earth, aching for those that still were in the
void of misery, I arose to go. "It was near to mid-day; Aaron and Sophie
would wait dinner for me," I said to Miss Lottie's pleading for another
hour. Ere I went, the conventionalities that signalled our meeting were
repeated, and, wrapped in the web and woof Miss Axtell had woven, I went
down the staircase and through the wide hall and out of the solemn
old house, wondering if ever again Anna Percival would cross its
entrance-porch. Kino heard the noise of the closing of the door, and
came around the corner to see who it might be. I stayed a moment to say
a few comforting words to the dog. Kino saw me safely outside of the
gate by way of gratitude. I walked on toward the parsonage.

Redleaf seemed very silent, almost deserted. I met none of the villagers
in my homeward walk. "It will be ten minutes yet ere Sophie and Aaron
will, waiting, say, 'I wonder why Anna does not come,'" I thought, as I
drew near, and my fingers held the tower-key. I had not been there since
the Sunday morning memorable to me through all coming time. I lifted the
fastening to the church-yard, and went in. My sister Mary lay in this
church-yard now. I had until this day known only sister Sophie, and
in my heart I thanked Miss Axtell for her story. I went in to look
at Mary's grave. A sweet perfume filled the inclosure; it came to me
through the branching evergreens; it was from Mary's grave, covered
with the pale pink flowers of the trailing-arbutus. I knew that Abraham
Axtell had brought them hither. I gathered one, the least of the
precious fragments. I knew that Mary, out of heaven seeing me, would
call it no sacrilege, and with it went to my tower.

Spring fingers had gathered up the leaves of snow, winter's growth, from
in among the crevices of stone. I noticed this as I went in. The great
stone was over the passage-opening, just where Mr. Axtell had dropped
it, lest Aaron should see. Something said to me that my love for the
tower was gone, that never more would I care to come to it; and I think
the voice was speaking truly, everything did seem so changed. The time
moss was only common moss to me, the old rocks might be a part of _any_
mountain now. I had caught up all the romance, all the poetry, which is
mystery, of the tower, and henceforth I might leave it to stand guard
over the shore of the Sea of Death, white with marble foam. I went up to
the very window whence I had taken the brown plaid bit of woman's wear.
I looked out from where I had seen the dying day go down. I heard the
sound, from the open door of the parsonage, of Sophie's voice,
humming of contentment; I saw the little lady come and look down the
village--street for me; I saw her part those bands of softly purplish
hair, with fingers idly waiting the while she stood looking for me. I
looked up at the window, down at the floor, down through the winding way
of stair, where once I had trembling gone, and, with a farewell softly
spoken, I left my churchyard tower with open door and key in the lock.
Henceforth it was not mine. I left it with the hope that some other
loving soul would take up my devotion, and wait and watch as I had done.

Aaron chanced at dinner-time to let fall his eyes on the door, swinging
in the wind. Turning, he looked at me. I, divining the questioning
intent of his eyes, answered,--

"It is I, Aaron. I've left the key in the door. I resign ownership of
the tower."

The grave minister looked pleased. Sophie said,--

"Oh, I am so glad, you _are_ growing rational, Anna!"--and Anna Percival
did not tell these two that she had emptied the tower of all its
mystery, and thrown the cup afloat on the future.

Aaron and Sophie were doomed to wonder why I came to Redleaf. Sophie
begged my longer stay; Aaron thought, with his direct, practical way of
looking at all things, save Sophie, that I "had better not have come at
all, if only to stay during the day-journey of the sun."

The stars were there to see, when I bade good--bye to Chloe at the
parsonage, and went forth burdened with many messages for Jeffy. Aaron
and Sophie went with me to the place of landing. It was past Miss
Axtell's house. Only one light was visible; that shone from Miss
Lettie's room. Aaron said,--

"I saw Mr. Axtell this morning. He was going across the country, he
said."

No one asked him "Where?" and he said no more.

We were late at the steamboat. I had just time to bid a hasty farewell,
and hear a plank-man say, "Better hurry, Miss, if you're going on," and
in another minute I was at sea.

I had so much to think of, I knew it would be impossible for sleep to
come to me; and so I went on deck to watch the twinkling lights of
Redleaf and the stars up above, whilst my busy brain should plan a way
to keep my promise to Miss Axtell. I could not break up her fancied
security; I could not deprive her of the "time to think" before crossing
the great bridge, by telling her of the stranger sick in Doctor
Percival's house, and so I let her dream on. It might be many weeks,
nay, months, ere Mr. McKey would recover, hence there was no need that
she should know; by that time she would be quite strong again.

Once on deck, and well wrapped from the March sea-breeze, blowing its
latest breath over the sea, I took a seat near a large party who seemed
lovers of the ocean, they sat so quietly and so long.

My face was turned away from all on deck. I heard footsteps going,
coming, to and fro, until these steps came into my reverie. I wished to
turn and see the owner, but, fearing that the charm would vanish, I kept
my eyes steadily seaward. I scarcely know the time, it may have been an
hour, that thus I had sat, when once again the footsteps drew near. The
owner paused an instant in passing me. I fancied some zephyr of emotion
made his footsteps falter a little. Nothing more came. He walked, as
before, and once, when I was certain that all the deck lay between my
eyes and him who so often had drawn near, I turned to look. I saw only
a gentleman far down the boat, wrapped in an ordinary travelling-shawl.
Neither form nor walk was, I thought, familiar, and I lost my interest.

I began to dream of other things,--of the going home, and should I find
Mr. McKey improved during my absence? The party near me began to talk;
it was pleasant to hear soft home words spoken by them,--it gave me,
alone as I was, a sense of protection.

When the owner of the footsteps again came near, I scarcely noticed it.
I had reason to do so a moment later. Instead of going straight on, as
before, the gentleman stopped an instant,--then, with a strong gesture
of excitement, stepped quite near to me, and saying hurriedly, as one
does in sudden emergencies, "I beg your pardon, Madam," he bent to look
at the railing of the guard, just beside me. It so happened that a
boat-light illumined a little space just there, and that within it lay
a hand whose glove I had a few moments before removed, to put back some
stray hairs the sea-breeze had brought from their proper place. No
sooner did I divine his intent than I took my hand from off the railing.
The gentleman looked up suddenly; he was quite near then, and no more
light than that the stars gave was needful for me. I saw Mr. Axtell, and
Mr. Axtell must have seen Miss Percival, for he said,--

"This is a great surprise. I did not hear of your being in Redleaf, Miss
Anna."

"Why should you, when I have only been there one day?"

"Did you see my sister?" he asked.

"I was with her during the morning," I said.

"And she was as usual?"

"Better, I thought."

"I trust so, for I have not been home since morning. I received a
letter, as I came through the village, from your father, desiring to
see me, and I had time only to send a message to Lettie. I hope Doctor
Percival is well?"

"Oh, yes,--else I should not be here."

I had gloved my hand again during these words of recognition. Mr. Axtell
noticed it, and asked to see a ring that had attracted his attention.

"Excuse me," I said,--"it is one of my father's gifts to me,--I cannot
take it off,--it is a simple ring, Mr. Axtell"; and I held it out for
him to see.

"I knew it!" he exclaimed; "there could not be two alike; years have not
changed its lustre. Mary wore it first on the day we were engaged."

"Was it your gift to her, Mr. Axtell?"

He answered, "Yes"; and I, drawing it off, handed it to him, saying, "It
should have been returned to you long ago."

"No, no," he said, quite solemnly, "it is in better keeping"; and he
took the tiny circlet of gold, and looked a moment at it, with its
shining cluster of brilliants, then gave it back to me.

"Have you no claim upon this?" I asked.

"On the ring? Oh, no,--none."

I put back with gladness the gift my father gave.

My time had come. The opportunity was most mysteriously given me to
redeem the promise made in the morning to Miss Lettie. I began, quite
timidly at first, to say that I had a message for Mr. Axtell, one from
his sister,--that I was to tell him of events whose occurrence he never
knew. He listened quietly, and I went on, commencing at the afternoon of
my imprisonment in the tower. I told every word that I had heard from
Miss Axtell,--no more. I trembled, it is true, when I came to the death
of Alice, and the new life that came to his elder sister. I came at last
to Mary. I told it all, the night when he came home, the very words he
had spoken to his sister I repeated in his ears, and he was quiet,
with a quietness Axtells know, I took out the package and opened it,
saying,--

"Your sister bade me give this to you."

The careful folds were unwrapped, and within a box lay only a silver
cup. Mr. Axtell took it into his hands, turned it to the light, and read
on it the name of my sister. I said to him,--

"Look on the inside."

He did. It was the fatal cup from which Mary Percival drank the
death-drops. Poisonous crystals lay in its depth. I told him so. I told
him how Bernard McKey, driven to despair, had made the fatal mistake.

I thought to have seen the sunlight of joy go up his face. I looked for
the glance whose coming his sister so dreaded; but it came not. My story
gave no joy to this strange man. He asked a few questions only, tending
to illumine points that my statement had left in uncertainty, and then,
when my last words were said, he rose up, and, standing before me, very
lowly pronounced these words:--

"Until to-night, Abraham Axtell never knew the weight of his guilt. He
must work out his punishment."

"How can you, Mr. Axtell? Heaven hath appointed forgiveness for the
repentant."

"And freedom from punishment, Miss Percival, is that, too, promised?"

"Strength to bear is freely offered in forgiveness."

"May it come to me! In all God's earth to-night there dwells not one
more needy of Heaven's mercy."

"Mary forgives you," I said.

"Bernard McKey, whom I have made most miserable, Lettie's life-long
suffering, is there any atonement that I can offer to them?"

"Yes, Mr. Axtell"; and I, too, arose, for the party had gone whilst I
was telling my story.

"Will you name it?"

"Give unto the two a brother's love. Good night, Mr. Axtell."

"I will," said a deep, solemn voice close beside me. I turned, and
Mr. Axtell was gone. I heard footsteps all that night upon deck. They
sounded like those that came and stood beside me hours before.

Day was scarcely breaking when we came to land in New York. I waited for
the carriage to come from home. Mr. Axtell, was it he who came, with
whitened hair, to ask for Miss Percival, to know if he could offer her
any service? What a night of agony he must have lived through! He saw my
look of astonishment, and said,--

"It is but the beginning of my punishment."

Ere I had answered Mr. Axtell's question, my father appeared. He had
come for me so early on this March morning,--or was it to meet Mr.
Axtell? He said more, in words, to him than to his child. It was several
years since my father had met Mr. Axtell, therefore he did not note the
change last night had wrought. As I looked at him, during our homeward
drive, I repented not having said words of comfort, not telling him that
I believed Bernard McKey was at that hour in my father's house; but I
had not exceeded my instructions, by one word I had not gone beyond Miss
Lettie's story. Until Mr. McKey chose to reveal himself, he must exist
as a stranger.

Jeffy reported the "hospital man" as "behaving just like other people."
Jeffy evidently regretted, with all the intensity of his Ethiopian
nature, the subsiding of the delirium.

Not long after our arrival home, father went, with Mr. Axtell, into his
own room, where, with closed doors, the two remained through half the
morning. What could my father have to say to the "incomprehensible
man," his daughter Anna asked herself; but no answer breathed through
mahogany, as several times she passed near. All was silent in there to
other ears than those inside.

At last I heard the door open, and footsteps along the hall. "Surely," I
thought, "they are going the way to Mr. McKey's room." I was right. They
went in. What transpired in there I may never know, but this much was
revealed to me: there came thence two faces whereon was written the
loveliness of the mercy extended to erring man. My father looked, like
all who feel intensely, older than he did in the morning, and yet withal
happier. Mr. Axtell went away without seeing me. Father made apology
for him by saying that it was important that he should return home
immediately, and asked "could I make ready to receive some visitors the
following day?"

"Who, papa?" I asked.

"Mr. Axtell and his sister."

Mr. McKey was able that evening to cross the room, and sit beside the
fire. I went in to inquire concerning his comfort. Papa was away. Mr.
Axtell must have told him something of me, for I had not been long
there, when he, turning his large, luminous eyes from the coals, into
which he had been peering, said,--

"Do you know the sweetness of reconciliation, young lady? If not, get
angry with some one immediately."

"I never had an enemy in my life, Mr. McKey," I replied.

He started a little at the name, and only a little, and he questioned,--

"Where did you learn the name you give to me?"

"From Miss Axtell, yesterday."

Question and answer succeeded, until I had told him half the story that
I knew. I might have said more, but father's coming in interrupted me.

"I expect our visitors by the day-boat," papa said to me the day
following. The carriage went for them. I watched its coming from afar
down the street. I knew the expression of honest Yest's hat out of all
the street-throng. The carriage came laden. I saw faces other than the
Axtells', even Aaron's and Sophie's.

What glad visitors they were, Aaron and Sophie! and what a surprise
to them to see Miss Axtell there! I took off her wrappings, drew
an easy-chair, made her sit in it, and she actually looked quite
comfortable, outside of the solemn old house. "She had endured the
journey well," she said. Abraham was so anxious that she should come
that she would not refuse his request. "Abraham has forgiven me," she
whispered, as I bent over her to adjust some stray folds,--"forgiven me
for all my years of silent deceit."

I shook my head a little at the word; speak I could not, for the
minister's wife was not deaf.

Aaron called her away a moment later.

"It was deceit, Miss Percival," Miss Axtell said, so soon as she found
our two selves alone. "I could not well avoid it; if I were tried again,
I might repeat the sin; but, thank Heaven, two such trials never come
into a single life. I sometimes wish Bernard were not at sea, that he
were here to know my release and his forgiveness; it will be so sweet to
feel that no longer I have the sin to bear of concealing his wrong."

I knew from this that Miss Axtell did not know of Mr. McKey's presence
in the house; but she ought to know. What if a sound from his voice
should chance to come down the passage-way, as I often had heard it?
I watched the doors painfully, to see that not one was left open a
hair's-breadth, until the time Miss Axtell went up to her own room.
Talking rapidly, giving her no time to speak, I went on with her. Safely
ignorant, I had her at last where ears of mortals could not intrude.
Then I said,--

"We all of us are become wonderful story-tellers. Now it comes to pass
that I have a little story to tell; my time is come at last"; and,
watching every muscle of her face, and all the little veins of feeling
that I had learned so well, I began.

Carefully I let in the light, until, without a shock, Miss Axtell
learned that the room below contained Bernard McKey.

"They did not understand me," she said, "or they would not have brought
me here thus."

After a long, long lull, Miss Axtell thanked me for telling her alone,
where no one else could see how the knowledge played around her heart.
Dear Miss Axtell, sitting there, in my father's house, only last March,
with a holy joy stealing up, in spite of her endeavor to hide it from my
eyes even, and suffusing her white face with warm, rosy tints, dear Miss
Axtell, I hoped your day-dawn drawing near.

Miss Axtell said "she hated to have other people see her feel"; she
asked "would I manage it for her, that no one should be nigh when she
met Mr. McKey?"

It was that very evening that papa, calling Sophie and me into his room,
told us a little of the former history of the people in his house.

"I want you to help me, children," he said; "ladies manage such things
better than we men know how to."

I said, close to papa's astonished hearing, "I know all about it; just
let me take care of this mission"; and he appointed me diplomate on the
occasion.

Sophie was strangely disconcerted; she had such fearsome awe of the
Axtells, "she couldn't think of interfering," she said, "unless to make
gruel or some condiment."

I coaxed Miss Lettie to have her tea in her own room: she certainly did
not look like going down. Under pretext of having the care of her, I
seated sister Sophie at my station, and thus I had the house, outside of
the tea-room, under my control.

"Come down now; don't lose time," I said to Miss Axtell, running up to
her, half breathless from my haste.

"What for? What is it?" she said.

"Papa is anticipating some grand effort in the managerial line from me,
regarding two people in his house, and I don't choose to manage at all.
Mr. McKey is waiting to see you. I knocked to see, as I came up, and all
the family are at tea."

I went down with her. There was no trembling, only a stately calm in her
manner, as she drew near.

I knocked. Mr. McKey answered, "Come in," in his low, musical, variant
tones. I turned the knob; the door opened. A moment later, I stood alone
within the hall. I walked up and down, a true sentinel on true duty,
that no enemy might draw near to hear the treaty of true peace which I
knew was being written out by the Recording Angel for these two souls.
They must have had a pleasant family-talk in the tea-room, they stayed
so long.

At last I heard footsteps coming. I told Miss Lettie, thinking that she
would leave; but no, she said "she would stay awhile"; and so, later on,
the two were sitting there in quietness of joy, when my father came up
to see his patient. Mr. Axtell was with him. They went in; indifferent
words were spoken,--until, was it Abraham Axtell that I saw as I kept up
my walking in the hall? What mysterious change had come to transfigure
his face so that I scarcely believed the evidence of my own eyes? He
came to the door and said, "Will you come in, Miss Percival?" I obeyed
his request. He closed the door, and turned the key.

"In the presence of those against whom he had sinned he would confess
his fault," were his first words; and he went on, he of whom _they_ had
asked a pardon, and drew a fiery picture of all that he had done, of the
murder that he had doubly committed, for he had made another soul to
bear his sin.

It was terrible to hear him accuse himself. It was touching to see
this proud Axtell begging forgiveness. He offered the fatal cup to my
father,--

"Therein lies the evidence of my murder. It was I who killed your
daughter, Doctor Percival. Although no court on earth condemns me, the
Judge of all the Earth holds me responsible for her death."

Doctor Percival tried to reason with him, said words of comfort, but he
heeded them not: they might as well have fallen on the vacant air.

"Blessings be upon you two! if, out of suffering, God will send joy, it
will be yours," Mr. Axtell said; and he offered his hand to Mr. McKey
and his sister, as one does when taking farewell.

He went from them to my father, and offered his hand doubtingly, as if
afraid it might be refused.

Papa took it in both his own. An instant later Mr. Axtell came to me.
Surely he had no forgiveness to ask of Anna Percival. No; he only said,
and I am certain that no one heard, save me, "I thank God that He has
not let me shadow _your_ life. Farewell!"

He left the room. We all looked, one at another, in that dim
astonishment which is never expressed in words. Papa broke the spell by
putting on fresh coals.

Miss Lettie said, "Poor Abraham!" and yet she looked so happy, so as I
had never seen her yet!

A few moments later Jeffy came rushing in, his eyes dilate with
amazement.

"The gentleman is gone," he said, "gone entirely."

It was even so. Mr. Axtell had gone, no one knew whither. It was late at
night, when a letter came for Doctor Percival by a special messenger.

I never saw it. I only know that in it Mr. Axtell explained his
intention of absence, and wrote, for his sister's sake, to make
arrangements for her future. She was to return to Redleaf, at such time
as she chose to go hence, with Mr. McKey; and to Aaron's and Sophie's
care Mr. Axtell committed her.

Papa gave the letter to Miss Lettie. She read it in silence, and her
face was immovable. I could divine nothing from it.

Last March! how long the time seems! Scarce six months have gone since I
gave the record, and now the summer is dying.

I thought Miss Axtell would have ventured out on the bridge, far and
high, ere now; but no, she says "the time is not yet,--that she will
wait until Abraham comes home"; and Bernard McKey is content.

The solemn old house is closed. No longer Katie opens the door and Kino
looks around the corner. Kino died, perhaps of grief: such deaths have
been.

Miss Axtell has put off the old Dead-Sea-wave face. She has just put a
calm, beautiful, happy one in at my door, to ask Anna Percival "why she
sits and writes, when the last days of summer are drawing nigh?" Miss
Axtell stays with me, and a great contentment sings to those who have
ears to hear through all her life. If only Mr. Axtell would come home!
Why does he stay away so long, and take such a dreary line of travel,
where old earth is seamed _in memoriam_ of man's rebellion? I'll send to
him the althea-bud, when next his sister writes.

The leaves are fallen now. Winter is almost come. There is no need that
I should send out the althea-fragment. Mr. Axtell wrote to me. Last
night I received these words only,--and yet what need I more?

"God hath given me peace. I am coming home."

THE LEGEND OF RABBI BEN LEVI.

Rabbi Ben Levi, on the Sabbath, read
A volume of the Law, in which it said,
"No man shall look upon my face and live."
And as he read, he prayed that God would give
His faithful servant grace with mortal eye
To look upon His face and yet not die.

Then fell a sudden shadow on the page,
And lifting up his eyes, grown dim with age,
He saw the Angel of Death before him stand,
Holding a naked sword in his right hand.
Rabbi Ben Levi was a righteous man,
Yet through his veins a chill of terror ran,
With trembling voice he said, "What wilt thou here?"
The Angel answered, "Lo! the time draws near
When thou must die; yet first, by God's decree,
Whate'er thou askest shall be granted thee."
Replied the Rabbi, "Let these living eyes
First look upon my place in Paradise."

Then said the Angel, "Come with me and look."
Rabbi Ben Levi closed the sacred book,
And rising, and uplifting his gray head,
"Give me thy sword," he to the Angel said,
"Lest thou shouldst fall upon me by the way."
The Angel smiled and hastened to obey,
Then led him forth to the Celestial Town,
And set him on the wall, whence gazing down,
Rabbi Ben Levi, with his living eyes,
Might look upon his place in Paradise.

Then straight into the city of the Lord
The Rabbi leaped with the Death Angel's sword,
And through the streets there swept a sudden breath
Of something there unknown, which men call death.
Meanwhile the Angel stayed without, and cried,
"Come back!" To which the Rabbi's voice replied,
"No! in the name of God, whom I adore,
I swear that hence I will depart no more!"

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