A Dream of Empire Part 16

"Does he write to her?"

"No, not that I know of."

"He is an idiot."

"You show a jealous interest in the young man." Here madam halted abruptly. "Pardon me; I hear the boys; their father must have returned."

She rose expecting to receive her husband at the dining-room door, but the footsteps she heard were not his. The vociferous boys came rus.h.i.+ng in. "Fort Byle" was finished. Wouldn't "General" Burr come and see?

"You should not storm in, rudely, children; you disturb us. Harman, you have ruined your clothes; you are covered from head to foot with--I don't know what!"

"Spanish needles and sticktights; they won't hurt. Juno will sc.r.a.pe them off. We're hungry."

"Won't he come to the fort after luncheon?" importuned Dominick.

"Yes, I will come."

"Listen," said the mother. "My son, you must first go with me to the ferry. I am uneasy about papa. He did not intend to be gone longer than a couple of hours. We must try to meet him. Perhaps the colonel will go along, down to the landing."

"Certainly," replied the colonel, studying how to get rid of the "sticktights."

After luncheon, all set out on the proposed walk to the river-side.

The island and the vistas it commanded naturally drew folks out of doors. Finer weather could not be imagined. The distance from the lawn to the wharf, by way of the winding road, measured not less than a quarter of a mile. The boys raced ahead in the frolic fas.h.i.+on of human colts, yelling, leaping and throwing stones. Slowly the matron and her escort followed, far in the wake of the obstreperous juveniles.

"They are growing up like savages," said the mother, deprecatingly.

"What shall I do with them? To teach them properly seems impossible. I am the parent of a brace of barbarians. Yet they are dear sweet boys--loving and brave. They despise meanness and never tell lies."

"Then you are the mother of n.o.bles. They will be men--to-morrow.

Plato truly says the boy is the most unmanageable of animals. Boys have an element of the cruel and ferocious. But we need not take this much to heart. They will outgrow the savage. We must not look for ripe fruit on green sprouts, nor for elaborate reason or virtue in children."

"Yet I cannot bear to have them grow up in wild ignorance."

"No; youth must be guided. No greater evil can befall a lad than to be left to do as he pleases. Yet in well-born children, such as yours, much may be trusted to nature. I rely on human essence. Freedom is the best school. I don't believe we are born with evil pa.s.sions and base propensities. G.o.d made our faculties. The doctrine of total depravity slanders the Creator. The perfect man uses all, abuses none of his organs or energies. To educate a man is to give his hands, brain, and heart their maximum power. This can be done outside of academies. The free schooling out of school, which your sons now enjoy, is a discipline towards success in life. Those fellows will be of some account, depend upon it. The ancient Eastern wisdom said, 'Know thyself'; the new Western oracle says, 'Do something worth doing.'"

"How true and how encouraging," exclaimed the enthusiast at his side.

"I wish Mr. Blennerha.s.sett could hear your broad views. But I am not sure you are right in relying entirely on weak human nature. I was taught to mistrust the natural man. Is not conversion necessary?"

"In case the soul begins with a pure inheritance, I see no necessity for regeneration. We come into the world potentially complete. The thorough development of body and mind will furnish the world with a perfect man. The best education gives man's natural powers the right direction and the greatest efficiency. _We must trust_ in what we are,--in our own selfhood. Give man elbow room, give him breathing s.p.a.ce, liberty to think, feel and do. This is true living."

Mrs. Blennerha.s.sett stooped to pick up a blood-red leaf. They were nearing the boat-landing. The way was overarched by spreading branches of gigantic maple-trees. The boys had wandered to the head of the island, two furlongs away.

"What of woman's education? Should it differ from man's?"

"No; I train my daughter as I might train a son."

"Are her thoughts like yours?"

"I put slight restraint on her thoughts or emotions. There is no s.e.x in soul. Woman should be free as the free breeze singing in the leaves over our head, and ruffling the waves out yonder on the river."

"You grow eloquent. Is it the singing breeze or the rippling water that causes you to put your principles in language so poetical?"

"Do I speak poetically? That grand oak tree may shed Dodonian influence. It looks the king of trees--the emperor. These magnificent maples, robed and crowned in emerald, gold, and royal crimson, are the queens."

"I am glad you love the forest, and are susceptible to nature's subtile appeals. I don't like people who have no feeling for scenery, and are not affected by the sublime and beautiful in nature. Mr.

Blennerha.s.sett does not agree with me in applying such a test to judge one's friends by. He thinks I might be deceived, and says that very wicked folks may delight in very lovely scenes. In my opinion the good and the beautiful are in harmony, and a wicked heart seldom goes with an aesthetic taste. I may be wrong, but I like to think that souls which are thrilled by the stars and the mountains and the sea, and by such forms and colors as we now contemplate, must be the n.o.bler and purer for the experience."

Burr listened attentively to this rhapsody. The melodious voice spoke on: "I never grow tired gazing on this landscape. Splendid!"

"Splendid!" echoed Burr.

A subdued rapture animated the lady's features and imparted fresh vitality of beauty to her breathing form. She advanced to the edge of the water, stepped upon the ferryboat, an uncouth scow, like a floating wharf, with stout railing upon the sides. From this platform she could take in a fuller prospect. The joy of admiration possessed her. She stood, self-forgetful, looking upon the gleaming river and the distant, gorgeous Ohio hills. Burr, lingering on the bank, a few yards behind, certainly took an intense human interest in the landscape, seeing in the foreground that symmetrical figure, with plump arm outstretched. To be the sole spectator of that unstudied pose was worth more than the Vatican and all the galleries in the world.

"See the bright suns.h.i.+ne, the soft shadow, the dim gold of the water, and the misty blue of the sky! Those magnificent hills seem not solid substance but piled clouds, yellow, and green, and scarlet. Can any other valley in the world show a more satisfactory picture, outlines as lovely, tints so delicate!"

"Nowhere else, in all my travels," murmured Burr, speaking from his point of view. "Nowhere have I seen so much beauty at a single glance.

The picture is unrivalled."

"Do you say this in earnest or only to please me?" queried the frank gentlewoman, turning her face sh.o.r.eward in time to see a pair of dark eyes regarding her with unaccountable ardor. Burr courteously proffered his hand to a.s.sist her from the pedestal, the deck of the scow. She accepted his aid, and lightly sprang to the damp sand of the beach, into which her foot sank deep enough to print a pretty track.

"Look out, you will soil your shoes; shall I remove the mud?" said Burr, taking out his handkerchief.

"No, thanks; it is only clean sand." A tuft of soft green gra.s.s furnished a ready mat, on which she wiped her small foot, not invisible to Burr while he modestly inspected the mussel sh.e.l.ls and polished pebbles washed ash.o.r.e by the plas.h.i.+ng ripples. From the beach he picked a bone-like fragment resembling milky quartz. This he brought to the lady, who had chosen a mossy seat on the trunk of a fallen sycamore.

"It is a lucky-stone," she remarked. "It brings fortune."

"I will send it to Theodosia," said the finder, pocketing the treasure.

A pensive mood had succeeded the anxious wife's elation. She gazed across the river expectantly. Not a rowboat in sight, excepting a skiff lying alongside the scow.

"I fear he is having needless bother. How miserable! Our slaves are a burden, not worth the trifles they pilfer. I wish they would all run away, then we might have an excuse for flying."

"And could you leave your earthly paradise?"

"Yes; though I am attached to the island. I should regret to lose the trees, the river, the sky."

"Earth and sky stretch far. I sympathize with your feeling for the place. I told your husband it was like Bunyan's Enchanted Ground.

Beulah, however, and the Delectable Mountains lie beyond the Enchanted Ground."

"More poetry!"

"Could I make verse, I would sing of October in the Ohio Valley, or of Indian Summer, which comes in November, don't it?"

She glanced up inquiringly. He held some leaves of pink paper covered with writing, recognizing which, she flushed.

"How did you come by that? Did he--?"

She made a motion as if to take the paper. Burr, pretending not to see the gesture, began to read in a low voice, infusing into the verse more thought and sentiment than it contained. His perfect reading gave the commonplace stanzas aesthetic effect. The auth.o.r.ess confessed their merit to her secret soul.

"I am vexed that Harman gave you that. It is silly stuff."