Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 by Various

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To this plank a child was bound,--a little creature that might be three
years old. At the sight of this form, and this helplessness, the heart
of the woman seemed to break into sudden living flame. She carried the
plank down to a level spot with an energy that would have made light of
a burden even ten times as great; she stooped upon the sand; she unbound
the body; and she thought, "The child is dead!" Nevertheless she took
him in her arms; she dried his limbs with her apron; she wiped his face,
and rubbed his hair;--but he gave no sign of life. Then she wrapped him
in her shawl, and laid him in the boat, and rowed home.

There was no one in the cabin when Clarice went in. When Dame Briton
came home, she found her daughter with a ring upon her finger, bending
over the body of a child that lay upon her bed.

The dame was quickly brought into service, and there was no reason to
fear that she would desist from her labors until she had received some
evidence of death or life. She and Clarice worked all night over the
body of the child, and towards morning were rewarded by the result. The
boy's eyes opened, and he tried to speak. By noon of that day he was
lying in the arms of Clarice, deathly pallor on his little face; but he
could speak, and his pretty eyes were open.

All those hours of mutual sympathy and striving, Dame Briton had been
thinking to say, "Clarice, what's the ring for?" But she had not said
it, when, in the afternoon, Bondo Emmins came into the cabin, and saw
Clarice with a beautiful boy in her arms, wrapped in her shawl, while
before the fire some rags of infant garments were drying.

They talked over the boy's fortune and the night's work, the dame taking
the chief conduct of the story; and Bondo was so much interested,
and praised the child so much, and spoke with so much concern of the
solitary, awful voyage the little one must have made, that, when he
subsequently offered to take the child in his arms, Clarice let him go,
and explained, when the young man began to talk to the boy, that he
could not understand a word, neither could she make out the meaning of
his speech.

Emmins heard Clarice say that she must go to the Port the next day and
learn what vessel had been lost, and if any passengers were saved; and
by daybreak he set out on that errand. He returned early in the morning
with the news that a merchantman, the "Gabriel," had gone down, and
that cargo and crew were lost. While he was telling this to Clarice he
observed the ring upon her finger, and he coupled the appearing of that
token with the serenity of the girl's face, and hailed his conclusion as
one who hoped everything from change and nothing from constancy.

Clarice had found the boy in the place where she had looked for Luke
that night when his cap was washed to her feet. Over and over again she
had said this to her father and mother while they busied themselves
about the unconscious child; now she said it again to Bondo Emmins, as
if there were some special significance in the fact, as indeed to her
there was. He was her child, and he should be her care, and she would
call him Gabriel.

People could understand the burden imposed upon the laborious life of
Clarice by this new, strange care. But they did not see the exceeding
great reward, nor how the love that lingered about a mere memory seemed
blessed to the poor girl with a blessing of divine significance.

To make the child her own by some special act that should establish her
right became the wish of Clarice. It was not enough for her that she
should toil for him while others slept, that she should stint herself in
order to clothe him in a becoming manner, that she should suffer anxiety
for him in the manifold forms best known to those who have endured it.
She had given herself to Luke, so that she feared no more from any man's
solicitation. She would fain assert her claim to this young life which
Providence had given her. But this desire was suggested by external
influence, as her marriage covenant had been.

Now and then a missionary came down to Diver's Bay, and preached in the
open air, or, if the weather disappointed him, in the great shed built
for the protection of fish-barrels and for the drying of fish. No
surprising results had ever attended his preaching; the meetings were
never large, though sometimes tolerably well attended; the preacher
was almost a stranger to the people; and the wonder would have been a
notable one, had there been any harvest to speak of in return for the
seed he scattered. The seed was good; but the fowls of the air were free
to carry it away; the thorns might choke it, if they would; it was not
protected from any wind that blew.

A few Sundays after Gabriel became the charge of Clarice, the missionary
came and preached to the people about Baptism. Though burdened with a
multitude of cares which he had no right to assume, which kept him busy
day and night in efforts lacking only the concentration that would have
made them effective, the man was earnest in his labor and his speech,
and it chanced now and then that a soul was ready for the truth he
brought.

On this occasion he addressed the parents in their own behalf and
that of their children. The bright day, the magnificent view his eyes
commanded from the place where he stood to address the handful of
people, the truth, with whose importance he was impressed, made him
eloquent. He spoke with power, and Clarice Briton, holding the hand of
little Gabriel, listened as she had never listened before.

"Death unto sin," this baptism signified, he said. She looked at the
child's bright face; she recalled the experience through which she had
passed, by which she was able to comprehend these words. She had passed
through death; she had risen to life; for Luke was dead, and was alive
again,--therefore she lived also. Tears came into the girl's eyes,
unexpected, abundant, as she listened to the missionary's pleading with
these parents, to give their little ones to their Heavenly Father, and
themselves to lives of holiness.

He would set the mark of the cross on their foreheads, he said, to show
that they were Christ's servants;--and then he preached of Christ,
seeking to soften the tough souls about him with the story of a divine
childhood; and he verily talked to them as one should do who felt that
in all his speaking their human hearts anticipated him. It was not
within the compass of his voice to reach that savage note which in
brutal ignorance condemns, where loving justice never could condemn.
He had an apprehension of the vital truth that belief in the world's
Saviour was not belief in a name, but the reception of that which Jesus
embodied. He came down to Diver's Bay, expecting to find human nature
there, and the only pity was that he had not time to perform what he
attempted. Let us, however, thank him for his honest endeavor; and be
glad, that, for one, Clarice was there to hear him,--she heard him so
gladly.

To take a vow for Gabriel, to give him to God, to confirm him in
possession of the name she had bestowed, became the desire of Clarice.
One day when she had some business to transact in the market, she
dressed Gabriel in a new frock she had made for him, and took him with
her to the Port, carrying him in her arms half the way. She did not find
the minister, but she had tested the sincerity of her desire. When he
came down again to the Bay, as he did the next Sunday, she was waiting
to give him the first fruits of his labors there.

He arrived early in the morning, that he might forestall the fishermen
and their families in whatever arrangements they might be making for the
day. When Clarice first saw him, her heart for a moment failed her,--she
wished he had not come, or that she had gone off to spend the day before
she knew of his coming. But, in the very midst of her regrets, she
caught up Gabriel and walked forth to meet the preacher.

The missionary recognized Clarice, and he had already heard the story
of the child. He was the first to speak, and a few moments' talk, which
seemed to her endless, though it was about Gabriel, passed before she
could tell him how she had sought him in his own home on account of the
boy, and what her wish was concerning him.

A naturalist, walking along that beach and discovering some long-sought
specimen, at a moment when he least looked and hoped for it, would have
understood the feeling and the manner of the missionary just then.
Surprise came before gladness, and then followed much investigation,
whereby the minister would persuade himself, even as the naturalist
under similar circumstances would do, of the genuineness of what was
before him;--he must ascertain all the attending circumstances.

It was a simple story that his questioning drew forth. The missionary
learned something in the interview, as well as Clarice. He learned what
confidence there is in a noble spirit of resignation; that it need not
be the submission of helplessness. He saw anew, what he had learned for
himself under different circumstances, the satisfaction arising from
industry that is based on duty, and involves skill in craft, judgment in
affairs, and that integrity which keeps one to his oath, though it be
not to his profit. He heard the voice of a tender, pitiful, loving
womanhood, strongly manifesting its right to protect helplessness, by
the utterance of its convictions concerning that helplessness. He knew
that to such a woman the Master would have spoken not one word of
reproach, but many of encouragement and sympathy. So he spoke to her
of courage, and shared her hopes, by directing them with a generous
confidence in her. He was the man for his vocation, for in every strait
he looked to his human heart for direction,--and in his heart were not
only sympathy and gentleness, but justice and judgment.

While he talked to Clarice, the idea which had taken cognizance of
Gabriel alone enlarged,--it involved herself.

"What doth hinder me to be baptized?" she asked, in the words of Philip.

"If thou believest, thou mayest."

Accordingly, at the conclusion of the morning prayer, when the preacher
said, "Those persons to be baptized may now come forward," Clarice
Briton, leading little Gabriel by the hand, rose from her seat and
walked up before the congregation, and stood in the presence of all.

Not an eye was turned from her during the ceremony. When she lifted
Gabriel, and held him in her arms, and promised the solemn promises for
him as well as for herself, the souls that witnessed it thought that
they had lost Clarice. The tears rolled down Old Briton's cheeks when he
looked upon the girl. What he saw he did not half understand, but there
was an awful solemnity about the transaction, that overpowered him. He
and Dame Briton had come to the meeting because Clarice urged them to do
so;--she had said she was going to make a public promise about Gabriel,
and that was all she told them; for, beside that there was little time
for explanation in the hurry of preparing Gabriel and herself, Clarice's
heart was too deeply stirred to admit of speech. After she had obtained
the promise of her parents, she said no more to them; they did not hear
her speak again until her firm "I will" broke on their ears.

Dame Briton was not half pleased at what she saw and heard, during this
service. She looked at Bondo Emmins to see what he was thinking,--but
little she learned from his solemn face. When the sign of the cross was
laid on the forehead of Clarice, and on the forehead of Gabriel, a
frown for an instant was seen on his own; but it was succeeded by an
expression of feature such as made the dame look quickly away, for in
that same instant his eyes were upon her.

Enough of surprise and gaping wonder would Dame Briton have discovered
in other directions, had she sought the evidences; but from Bondo Emmins
she looked down at her "old man," and she saw his tears. Then came
Clarice, and before she knew it she was holding the little Christian
Gabriel in her stern old arms, and kissing away the drops of hallowed
water that flashed upon his eye-lids.

A sermon followed, the like of which, for poetry or wonder, was never
heard among these people. The preacher seemed to think this an occasion
for all his eloquence; nay, for the sake of justice, I will say, his
heart was full of rejoicing, for now he believed a church was grafted
here, a Branch which the Root would nourish. His words served to deepen
the impression made by the ceremonial. Clarice Briton and little Gabriel
shone in white raiment that day; and, thanks to him, when he went on to
prove the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth one with that mysterious majesty
on high, a single leap took Clarice Briton over the boundaries of faith.

VII.

But if to others Clarice seemed to have passed the boundary line of
their dominion, to herself the bond of neighborhood was strengthened.
The missionary told her all he had a right to expect of her now, as a
fellow-worker, and pointed out to her the ways in which she might second
his labors at the Bay. It was but a new form of the old work to which
she had been accustomed her life long. Never, except in the dark summer
months when all her life was eclipsed, had Clarice lived unmindful of
the old and sick and helpless, or of the little children. Her kindliness
of heart could surprise no one; her generosity was nothing strange; her
caution, her industry, her courage, her gentleness, were not traits to
which her character had been a stranger hitherto. But now they had
a brighter manifestation. She became more than ever diligent in her
service; the Sunday-school was the result of old sentiments in a new
and intelligent combination; and the neighbors, who had always trusted
Clarice, did not doubt her now. Novelty is always pleasing to simple
souls among whom innovation has not first taken the pains to excite
suspicion of itself.

For a long time, more than usual uncertainty seemed to attend the
chances of Gabriel's life. In the close watching and constant care
required of Clarice, the child became so dear to her, that doubtless
there was some truth in the word repeated in her hearing with intent to
darken any moment of special tenderness and joy, that this stranger was
dearer to her than her "born relations."

As much as was possible by gentle firmness and constant oversight,
Clarice kept him from hurtful influences. He was never mixed up in the
quarrels of ungoverned children; he never became the victim of their
rude sport or cruelty. She would preserve him peaceful, gentle, pure;
and in a measure her aim was accomplished. She was the defender,
companion, playmate of the child. She told him pretty tales, the
creations of her fancy, and strove by them to throw a soft illusion
around the rough facts of their daily life. The mystery surrounding him
furnished her not meagrely with material for her imagination; she could
invent nothing that seemed to herself incredible; her fairy tales were
not more wonderful than facts as she beheld them. She taught the boy
songs; she gave him language. The clothes he wore, bought with her own
money, fashioned by her own hands, were such as became the beauty of the
child, and the pure taste and the little purse of Clarice.

Never had a childhood so radiant in beauty, so wonderful in every
manifestation, developed before the eyes of the folk of Diver's Bay.
He became a wonder to the old and young. His sayings were repeated.
Enchantment seemed added to mystery;--anything might have been believed
of Gabriel.

Sometimes, when she had dressed him in his Sunday suit, and they were
alone together, Clarice would put upon his finger the pearl ring,--her
marriage ring. But she kept to herself the name of Luke Merlyn till the
time should come when, a child no longer, he should listen to the story;
and she would not make that story grievous for his gentle heart, but
sweet and full of hope. Well she knew how he would listen as none other
could,--how serious his young face would look when the sacred dawn of a
celestial knowledge should begin to break; then a new day would rise on
Gabriel, and nothing should separate them then.

But, lurking near her joy, and near her perfect satisfaction, even in
the days when some result much toiled for seemed to give assurance that
she was doing well and justly, was the shadow of a doubt. One day the
shadow deepened, and the doubt appeared. Clarice was sitting in the
doorway, busy at some work for Gabriel. The boy was playing with Old
Briton, who could amuse him by the hour, drawing figures in the sand.
Dame Briton was busy performing some household labor, when Bondo Emmins
came rowing in to shore. Gabriel, at the sound of the oars, ran to meet
the fisherman, who had been out all day; the fisherman took the child
in his arms, kissed him, then placed in his hands a toy which he had
brought for him from the Point, and bade him run and show it to Clarice.
Gabriel set out with shouts, and Emmins went back smiling to look after
his boatload.

"He's a good runner," said Old Briton, watching the child with laughter
in his eyes. Dame Briton, drawn to the door by the unusual noise, looked
out to see the little fellow flying into Clarice's arms, and she said,
softly, "Pretty creature!" while she strode back to her toil.

Presently, the little flutter of his joy having subsided, Gabriel sat
on the doorstep beside Clarice, his eyes seriously peering into the
undiscoverable mystery of the toy. Then Bondo came up, and the toy was
forgotten, the child darting away again to meet him. Emmins joined the
group with Gabriel in his arms, looking well satisfied.

"Gabriel is as happy as if this was his home in earnest," said he. He
dropped the words to try the group.

"His home!" cried Dame Briton, quickly. "Well, ain't it? Where then? I
wonder."

The sharp tone of her voice told that the dame was not well pleased with
Bondo's remark; for the child had found his way into her heart, and she
would have ruined him by her indulgence, had it not been for Clarice's
constant vigilance. And this was not the least of the difficulties the
girl had to contend with. For Dame Briton, you may be sure, though she
might be compelled to yield to her daughter's better sense, could never
be constrained by her own child to hold her tongue, and the arguments
with which she abandoned many of her foolish purposes were almost
as fatal to Clarice's attempts at good government as the perfect
accomplishment of these purposes would have been.

Bondo answered her quick interrogatory, and the troubled wonder in the
eyes of Clarice, with a confused, "Of course it is his home; only I was
thinking, that, to be sure, they must have come from some place, and
maybe left friends behind them."

Now it seemed as if this answer were not given with malicious purpose,
but in proper self-defence; and by the time Clarice looked at him, and
made him thus speak, Bondo perhaps supposed that he had not intended to
trouble the poor soul. But he could not avoid perceiving that a deep
shadow fell upon the face of Clarice; and the conviction of her
displeasure was not removed when she arose and led the child away. But
Clarice was not displeased. She was only troubled sorely. She asked her
surprised self a dreary question: If anywhere on earth the child had
a living parent, or if he had any near of kin to whom his life was
precious, what right to Gabriel had she? Providence had sent him to her,
she had often said, with deep thankfulness; but now she asked, Had he
sent the child that she might restore him not only to life, but to
others, whom, but for her, death had forever robbed of him?

From the day that the shadow of this thought fell across her way, the
composure and deep content of the life of Clarice were disturbed. Not
merely the presence of Emmins became a trouble and annoyance, but the
praise that her neighbors were prompt to lavish on Gabriel, whenever she
went among them, became grievous to her ears. The shadow which had swept
before her eyes deepened and darkened till it obscured all the future.
She was experiencing all the trouble and difficulty of one who seeks to
evade the weight of a truth which has nevertheless surrounded and will
inevitably capture her.

Nothing of this escaped the eyes of the young fisherman. Time should
work for him, he said; he had shot an arrow; it had hit the mark; now he
would heal the wound. He might easily have persuaded himself that the
wound was accidental, and so have escaped the conviction of injury
wrought with intention. All would have been immediately well with him
and Clarice, had it not been for Clarice! There are persons, their name
is Legion, who are as wanton in offence as Bondo Emmins,--whose souls
are black with murderous records of hopes they have destroyed; yet they
will condole with the mourners!

To this doubt as to her duty, this evasion of knowledge concerning it,
this silence in regard to what chiefly occupied her conscience, was
added a new trouble. As Gabriel grew older, a restless, adventurous
spirit began to manifest itself in him. From a distance regarding the
daring feats of other children, his impulse was to follow and imitate
them. At times, in ungovernable outbreaks of merriment, he would escape
from the side of Clarice, with fleet, daring steps which seemed to set
her pleasure at defiance; and when, after his first exploit, which
filled her with astonishment, she prepared to join him in his sport, and
did follow, laughing, a wilfulness, which made her tremble, roused to
resist her, and gave an almost tragic ending to the play.

One day she missed the lad. Searching for him, she found that he had
gone out in a boat with other children, among whom he sat like a little
king, giving his orders, which the rest were obeying with shouted
repetitions. When Clarice called to him, and begged the children to
return, he followed their example, took off his cap, and waved it at
her, in defiance, with the rest.

Clarice sat down on the shore in despair. Bitter tears ran down her
cheeks.

Bondo Emmins passed by, and saw what was going on. "Ho! ho! Clarice
needs some one to help her hold the rein," said he to himself; and going
to the water's edge, he raised his voice, and beckoned the children
ashore. He enforced the gesture by a word,--"Come home!"

The little rebels did not wait a second summons, but obeyed the strong
voice of the strong man, trembling. They paddled the boat to the shore,
and landed quite crestfallen, ashamed, it seemed. Then Bondo, having bid
the youngsters disperse, with a threat, if he ever saw them engaged in
the like business, walked away, without speaking to Gabriel, or even
looking at him.

VIII.

Clarice was half annoyed at this interference; it seemed to suppose, she
thought, that she was unequal to the management of her own affairs.--But
_was_ she equal to it?

After Bondo had walked away, she called to Gabriel, who stood alone when
the other children had deserted him, and knew not what to do. He would
have run away, had he not been afraid of fisherman Emmins.

"Come here, my son," said Clarice. She did not speak very loud, nor in
the least sternly; but he heard her quite distinctly, and he hesitated.

"I'm not your son!" he concluded to answer.

A sword through the heart of Clarice would have killed her, but there
are pains which do not slay that are worse than the pains of death.
Clarice Briton's face was pale with anguish, when she arose and said,--

"Gabriel, come here!"

The child saw something awful in her eyes, and heard in her voice
something that made him tremble. He came, and sat down in the place to
which Clarice pointed. It was a hard moment for her. Other words bitter
as this, which disowned her love and care and defied her authority, the
child could not have spoken. She answered him as if he had not been a
child; and a truth which no words could have made him comprehend seemed
to break upon and overwhelm him, while she spoke.

"It is true," she said, "you are not my son. I have no right to call you
mine. Listen, Gabriel, while I tell you how it happens that you live
with me, and I take care of you, as if you were my child. I was down at
the Point one day,--that place where we go to watch the birds, you know,
my--Gabriel. While I sat there alone, I saw a plank that was dashed by
the waves up and down, as you see a boat carried when the wind blows
hard and sounds so terrible; but there was nobody to take care of that
plank except God,--and He, oh, He, is always able to take care! When
that plank was washed near to the shore, I stepped out on the rocks and
caught it, and then I saw that a little child was tied fast to it; so I
knew that some one must have thrown him into the water, hoping that he
would be picked up. I do not know what they who threw the little child
into the sea called him; but I, who found him, called him Gabriel, and I
carried him, all dripping with the salt sea-water, to my father's cabin.
I laid him on my bed, and my mother and I never stopped trying to waken
him, till he opened his eyes; for he lay just like one who never meant
to open his eyes or speak again. At last my mother said, 'Clarice, I
feel his heart beat!' and I said in my heart, 'If it please God to spare
his life, I will work for him, and take care of him, and be a mother to
him.' And I thought, 'He will surely love me always, because God has
sent him to me, and I have taken him, and have loved him.' But now he
has left me! He is mine no more! And oh, how I have loved him!"

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