Part 19 (1/2)

”Certainly,” said Bachelor Lot; ”certainly! and a veery unfortunate poseetion for Sapf_i_ry it was, too. I weesh you would be so kind as to eenform the company in what part of the Sacred Writ this little anecdote is recorded, Captain, as I for one should very much leike to look it up.”

Captain Sartell took a determined step forward. ”Look y' here, Bachelder,” said he; ”I don't want no hard words betwixt you and me, for there never has been. But a man's word is a man's word, and a man's friends had ought to stick by it, and I want you to understand that, on this ere point, I ain't agoin' to have no lookin' up.”

”Heh!” Bachelor Lot smiled and nodded his head, cheerfully. ”I'd be willing to waeger my life, Captain, that if anybody's made a mistake on this point--heh--it ain't you.” And with this amicable conclusion, the two stars withdrew.

George Olver sometimes rose in meeting and made a few remarks indicative of a manly spirit and much sound common sense. He was very fond of Rebecca, that was plain. Her continued indifference to him made him sore at heart, and the people in Wallencamp suggested that on this account he was more serious than he would otherwise have been.

As for Rebecca, they said she had given up ”seekin' religion,” and had returned to the world. She did not rise for prayers any more, and she did not ”lead the singin'” any more. And it was true that she seemed to me to have changed, somehow. I knew that she was as girlishly devoted to me as ever, as thoughtful as ever to please me. One Sat.u.r.day morning, knowing that I had letters in the West Wallen Post Office, which I was anxious to get before Sunday, she walked the whole distance alone to get them, and sent them up to me by one of the school children, so that I should not know who went after them. She was careful lest I should notice any change in her. But I caught a reckless, mocking gleam in her eyes, at times, that had never shone there when I knew her first. She a.s.sociated more with the ”other girls,” now. I heard her talking and laughing with them in as loud and careless a tone as their own. She even whispered and laughed in the evening meetings. And this, after all the earnest, serious discourse I had had with her, the ”refining,” ”elevating” influences I had tried to throw around her, having first taken her so graciously under my wing! She knew what belonged to agreeable manners, and the advantage of paying a graceful obedience to the dictates of one's moral sense!

Something must be very innately wrong in Rebecca, I thought, something I Had not hitherto suspected, else why should she fail in any degree under so admirable a method!

”My dear,” I said to her: ”I am often tempted to do wrong--especially because my life has been hitherto so vain and thoughtless--but, having resolved to struggle with temptation, and to repel my own selfish inclinations, I will not be content until I come off conqueror; I will not fall out or loiter by the way; I have trials and perplexities, but I will not submit to them, nor be driven from my purpose. Now, are you struggling to resist the little temptations that come to you day by day?

Are you striving to make the very best of yourself, Becky?”

I knew how easily I could move Rebecca, either to laughter or tears, so I was not surprised to see her lip tremble, and her eyes fill; but I was surprised at the look of intense anguish, almost of horror, that came into her face. I had not supposed that she was capable of such strong emotion, and I marvelled greatly, what could be the cause.

”Oh,” she said; ”you don't know, teacher, you don't know! It never seemed so bad before I knew you. I was different brought up from you, and I loved you, and when I knew, oh, then I could die, but I couldn't tell you! Oh, you wouldn't kiss me again, ever, if you knew; and I wish you wouldn't, for it hurts, it hurts worse than if you didn't!”

Rebecca had turned very pale, and drew her breath in long gasping sobs.

”Baby!” I said rea.s.suringly, stroking her hair; ”I don't believe you have done anything very wrong.” But Rebecca drew away from me.

”You don't know,” she said. ”I was brought up different--and it was before you came, and I never knew that, what you told me about not trusting people. I thought it was all true, and oh!--there ain't anybody to help! Oh, I wish I was dead! I wish I was dead!”

”Rebecca,” I said, a little frightened, and convinced that the girl had some serious trouble at heart. ”Tell me what the trouble is? Has any one deceived you? And why should any one wish to deceive you, child?”

Rebecca only moaned and shook her head.

”But you must tell me,” I said; ”I can't help you unless you do.”

She drew herself farther away from me, with only these convulsive sobs for a reply. I did not attempt to get nearer to her, to comfort her as it had been my first impulse to do. She had repulsed me once. ”You are nervous and excited, my dear,” I decided to say; ”and something of little consequence, probably, looks like a mountain of difficulty to you. At any rate, when you get ready to confide in me, you must come to me. I shall not question you again.”

So I left her, less with a feeling of commiseration for her than with a deep sense of my own pressing burdens and responsibilities.

I had another ex-pupil (Rebecca had been out of school for several weeks), who was a source of considerable anxiety to me--Luther Larkin. He had ceased coming to the Ark to sing with the others. He had not played on his violin since that first night when the string broke.

I heard that he had gone to New Bedford; and it was a day or two afterwards that, coming out of the school-house after the meeting, I saw him standing on the steps alone. I knew that an escort from among the Wallencamp youths was close behind me. I hastened to put my hand on Luther's arm.

”Will you walk home with me?” I said, looking up in his face and smiling.

I knew that the face lifted to his then was a beautiful one, that the hand resting on his arm was small and daintily gloved, unlike the bare coa.r.s.e hands of the Wallencampers. I knew that my dress had an air and a grace also foreign to Wallencamp, that a delicate perfume went up from my garments, that my voice was more than usually winning. I experienced a dangerous sense of satisfaction in the conquest of this unsophisticated youth--a conquest not wholly without its retributive pain and intoxication.

I felt the Cradlebow's arm tremble as we walked up the lane.

”I have a little private lecture to give you, Luther,” I said. ”Of course you have been very much absorbed in your own affairs lately, but is that an excuse for forsaking your old friends entirely? Especially if you are going away. Are you going away?”

”Yes,” said Luther.

”When?” I asked.