Part 19 (2/2)
The long silence was so uncomfortable that the boy was fain to break it, with, ”I've one more thing to show you, Uncle Richard. It's not much,--only just a beginning,--but I'd like you to see and know about it.”
Trafford followed, without a word, and Noll led the way to the little schoolroom, with its two benches and three-legged stool and pile of well-thumbed primers and spelling-books.
”It's not much,” said Noll, apologetically, ”but it's a beginning, and they all know their letters, and some can spell a little.”
Trafford evinced no surprise, much to Noll's wonder, and merely asked, ”Where do you find the time?”
”After recitations,” replied the nephew; and that was all that was said about the matter.
Trafford went out and sat down on the little wharf, and Noll lingered in the doorway of his schoolroom, thinking that he had never seen Uncle Richard act more strangely. Was he offended at what he had done and was doing for the Culm people? he wondered. He looked out and saw that his uncle had turned his face away, and was looking off upon the sea with the same dreamy, thoughtful look which he had noticed in his eyes of late. Noll would have given a great deal could he have known his thoughts at that moment. To human eyes this grave and thoughtful man, who sat on the wharf, was not a whit less the stern and gloomy creature that he had been an hour before. Yet, all hidden from others'
gaze, and almost from his own consciousness, a sudden sense of regret and of a great short-coming in himself had welled up through the crust of his hardened heart. His heart had been deeply stirred, and now it smote him. His thoughts took some such shape as this,--even while he was looking with such apparent calmness upon the changing, shadowy lights of the sea:--
”This boy has done more in this short summer for his fellow-men and for his G.o.d than I have done in my whole forty years of life! Oh, what a life mine has been!--all a wreck, a failure, a miserable waste! And he? Why, in this short summer-time, and on this barren Rock, he has made his very life a blessing to every one upon it. I suppose those dirty, ignorant fishermen bless the day that brought him here. And I?
O Heaven! what a failure, what a failure! I've done the world no good,--it's no better for my having lived in it,--it would miss me no more than one of these useless pebbles which I cast into the sea. And this boy--_my_ boy--always at work to make others rejoice that he was born into the world!”
For all the calmness and repose that was on his face, he longed to cry out. Oh! was there no deliverance? Might not these long wasted years yet be paid for by deeds of mercy and charity? But where was there a deliverer? and who could tell how many years of good deeds and charity could pay for forty years of wasted ones?
CHAPTER XX.
NEW THOUGHTS AND NEW PLANS.
Noll, sitting in the doorway, was presently aroused from a little reverie into which he had fallen by hearing a voice call, ”Noll, my boy, come here.” He obeyed the call, and started for the little wharf, half expecting that Uncle Richard was about to reprove him for what he had done. Trafford gazed in his nephew's face for a short s.p.a.ce, and then, smothering what his heart longed to cry out, and what he had intended to say to the boy, he sighed only, ”We will start homeward, if you are ready.”
Noll was sure that his uncle had kept back something which it was in his heart to say, and, wondering what it could be, he followed after the tall figure along the homeward path.
The sun was getting well down into the west. The fair clearness of the sky was broken by a soft, mellow haze which began to steal across it, yet the afternoon was no less beautiful, and along the horizon there were long and lovely trails of misty color,--faint, delicate flushes of amber and purple,--which gave an added charm to the day's declining.
Not a word did uncle and nephew speak till, as they rounded the curve of the sh.o.r.e, and the stone house came in sight, Trafford asked, abruptly, ”Noll, where did your pocket-money go?”
The boy explained the whole matter, with an account of Ned Thorn's bounty and help, at the last, and then they paced along the sand in silence, as before. Noll managed to get many looks at his uncle's face, and seeing that it wore no stern nor forbidding aspect, ventured to ask,--
”Are you offended with me, or what, Uncle Richard?”
Trafford took his nephew's hand as he replied, ”Not in the least, Noll.”
His voice was strangely kind and tender, and Noll exclaimed, looking up joyfully and brightly, ”I'm very glad, Uncle Richard! and do you know your voice sounded like papa's just now?”
They walked hand in hand along the sh.o.r.e,--Noll, at least, very happy,--and looking afar at the sea through glad and hopeful eyes. He mentally prayed that Uncle Richard's gloom and sternness might never return, and that he might always be in his present softened and subdued mood. They came to the stone house at last, and, as they reached the steps, Noll took one long look at his uncle's face, thinking to himself that not soon again should he see it so gentle and tender, for the gloom of the library would soon shadow it, and make it once more stern and forbidding. But, just as if he felt something of this himself, Trafford lingered on the steps, as if loath to go in, and at last sat down. Noll inwardly rejoiced, and seated himself on the bit of green which he had caused to grow, by much watering and nouris.h.i.+ng, close beside the piazza. That little breadth of gra.s.s, with its deep verdure, was a wonderfully pleasant thing for the eyes to rest upon in this waste of rock and sand. Trafford looked down at it and at the boy sitting there,--his curly locks blown all about his face by the warm wind,--and thought to himself, that, wherever the lad went, brightness and pleasantness sprang up about him, even though the soil was naught but sand and barrenness. His heart was full of reproachful cries. ”What this boy has done,--and _I_!” was a thought continually haunting him. And he did not try to put it away; but, as he sat there, went back over all the months of the lad's stay, remembering what he had done to brighten the old stone house and himself, and contrasting all the boy's actions and motives with his own,--sparing himself not at all in the condemnation which his own heart was ready to p.r.o.nounce. ”What this boy has done,--and _I_! I?
Nothing, nothing! The earth will never miss me, for I have had no part in its life, and have cared naught for its joys or its sorrows; and beyond--where this boy's heaven lies--there will be no place for me, because I have not sought it, and have cared only for my own peace. So I have no part nor place in the world or out of it.” A more vivid sense of this truth came to Trafford here, and he sighed long and heavily, thinking of what might have been. He saw and felt what a great matter it was to have a heart wherein G.o.d's love dwelt so steadfastly that eye nor ear could ever be closed against the wants of his creatures, and the work of his that lay waiting for the doing. And it was another matter to have a heart so cold and frozen that no warmth of his love ever thrilled it with pity or compa.s.sion,--ever drew it with tender, gentle guidance toward himself,--ever stirred it with longings for his love and his blessing and upholding. It was no wonder, he thought, that for one heart the earth was joyous and beautiful, while for the other it was but a gloomy, unhappy waste; for over the pure, warm heart's earth G.o.d reigned, and his suns.h.i.+ne lighted it, and his flowers blossomed by the wayside, and they who lived in the land were his own, and their needs the needs of his children. All doing was but doing for G.o.d, while in a cold, frozen heart his work is not remembered, and the suns.h.i.+ne is but gloom, because it does not come from him, and the flowers are not his, and the poor soul mourns and sorrows, wrapped up in its own darkness and chilliness, and fails to find the earth bright or beautiful.
With such thoughts as these in his heart, Trafford was silent a long time. The sun set, and shadows began to steal over the sea, gradually and softly wrapping its farther distances in hazy indistinctness.
Hagar's voice, from the kitchen-door, where she was calling her chickens to their supper, floated around to his ears and awoke him from his long and sorrowful reverie. He started up, surprised to see how fast the light had flitted from sky and earth. Noll still sat on the bit of gra.s.s, busy over a heap of sh.e.l.ls and pebbles, which he had gathered during his afternoon walk. Trafford looked at him a few minutes in silence, and finally asked,--
<script>