The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 55, May, 1862

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LYRICS OF THE STREET

I. THE TELEGRAMS  Bring the hearse to the station,    When one shall demand it, late;  For that dark consummation    The traveller must not wait.  Men say not by what connivance    He slid from his weight of woe,  Whether sickness or weak contrivance,    But we know him glad to go.            On, and on, and ever on!                     What next?  Nor let the priest be wanting    With his hollow eyes of prayer,  While the sexton wrenches, panting,    The stone from the dismal stair.  But call not the friends who left him,    When Fortune and Pleasure fled;  Mortality hath not bereft him,    That they should confront him, dead.            On, and on, and ever on!                     What next?  Bid my mother be ready:    We are coming home to-night:  Let my chamber be still and shady,    With the softened nuptial light.  We have travelled so gayly, madly,    No shadow hath crossed our way;  Yet we come back like children, gladly,    Joy-spent with our holiday.             On, and on, and ever on!                      What next?  Stop the train at the landing,    And search every carriage through;  Let no one escape your handing,    None shiver or shrink from view.  Three blood-stained guests expect him,    Three murders oppress his soul;  Be strained every nerve to detect him    Who feasted, and killed, and stole.              On, and on, and ever on!                       What next?  Be rid of the notes they scattered;    The great house is down at last;  The image of gold is shattered,    And never can be recast.  The bankrupts show leaden features,    And weary, distracted looks,  While harpy-eyed, wolf-souled creatures    Pry through their dishonored books.              On, and on, and ever on!                       What next?  Let him hasten, lest worse befall him,    To look on me, ere I die:  I will whisper one curse to appall him,    Ere the black flood carry me by.  His bridal? the friends forbid it;    I have shown them his proofs of guilt:  Let him hear, with my laugh, who did it;    Then hurry, Death, as thou wilt!              On, and on, and ever on!                       What next?  Thus the living and dying daily    Flash forward their wants and words,  While still on Thought's slender railway    Sit scathless the little birds:  They heed not the sentence dire    By magical hands exprest,  And only the sun's warm fire    Stirs softly their happy breast.              On, and on, and ever on!                       God next!

THE SOUTH BREAKER

IN TWO PARTS

PART I

Just a cap-full of wind, and Dan shook loose the linen, and a straight shining streak with specks of foam shot after us. The mast bent like eel-grass, and our keel was half out of the water. Faith belied her name, and clung to the sides with her ten finger-nails; but as for me, I liked it.

"Take the stick, Georgie," said Dan, suddenly, his cheeks white. "Head her up the wind. Steady. Sight the figurehead on Pearson's loft. Here's too much sail for a frigate."

But before the words were well uttered, the mast doubled up and coiled like a whip-lash, there was a report like the crack of doom, and half of the thing crashed short over the bows, dragging the heavy sail in the waves.

Then there came a great laugh of thunder close above, and the black cloud dropped like a curtain round us: the squall had broken.

"Cut it off, Dan! quick!" I cried. "Let it alone," said he, snapping together his jack-knife; "it's as good as a best bower-anchor. Now I'll take the tiller, Georgie. Strong little hand," said he, bending so that I didn't see his face. "And lucky it's good as strong. It's saved us all.—My God, Georgie! where's Faith?"

I turned. There was no Faith in the boat. We both sprang to our feet, and so the tiller swung round and threw us broadside to the wind, and between the dragging mast and the centre-board drowning seemed too good for us.

"You'll have to cut it off," I cried again; but he had already ripped half through the canvas and was casting it loose.

At length he gave his arm a toss. With the next moment, I never shall forget the look of horror that froze Dan's face.

"I've thrown her off!" he exclaimed. "I've thrown her off!"

He reached his whole length over the boat, I ran to his side, and perhaps our motion impelled it, or perhaps some unseen hand; for he caught at an end of rope, drew it in a second, let go and clutched at a handful of the sail, and then I saw how it had twisted round and swept poor little Faith over, and she had swung there in it like a dead butterfly in a chrysalis. The lightnings were slipping down into the water like blades of fire everywhere around us, with short, sharp volleys of thunder, and the waves were more than I ever rode this side of the bar before or since, and we took in water every time our hearts beat; but we never once thought of our own danger while we bent to pull dear little Faith out of hers; and that done, Dan broke into a great hearty fit of crying that I'm sure he'd no need to be ashamed of. But it didn't last long; he just up and dashed off the tears and set himself at work again, while I was down on the floor rubbing Faith. There she lay like a broken lily, with no life in her little white face, and no breath, and maybe a pulse and maybe not. I couldn't hear a word Dan said, for the wind; and the rain was pouring through us. I saw him take out the oars, but I knew they'd do no good in such a chop, even if they didn't break; and pretty soon he found it so, for he drew them in and began to untie the anchor-rope and wind it round his waist. I sprang to him.

"What are you doing, Dan?" I exclaimed.

"I can swim, at least," he answered.

"And tow us?—a mile? You know you can't! It's madness!"

"I must try. Little Faith will die, if we don't get ashore."

"She's dead now, Dan."

"What! No, no, she isn't. Faith isn't dead. But we must get ashore."

"Dan," I cried, clinging to his arm, "Faith's only one. But if you die so,—and you will!—I shall die too."

"You?"

"Yes; because, if it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't have been here at all."

"And is that all the reason?" he asked, still at work.

"Reason enough," said I.

"Not quite," said he.

"Dan,—for my sake"–

"I can't, Georgie. Don't ask me. I mustn't"—and here he stopped short, with the coil of rope in his hand, and fixed me with his eye, and his look was terrible—"we mustn't let Faith die."

"Well," I said, "try it, if you dare,—and as true as there's a Lord in heaven, I'll cut the rope!"

He hesitated, for he saw I was resolute; and I would, I declare I would have done it; for, do you know, at the moment I hated the little dead thing in the bottom of the boat there.

Just then there came a streak of sunshine through the gloom where we'd been plunging between wind and water, and then a patch of blue sky, and the great cloud went blowing down river. Dan threw away the rope and took out the oars again.

"Give me one, Dan," said I; but he shook his head. "Oh, Dan, because I'm so sorry!"

"See to her, then,—fetch Faith to," he replied, not looking at me, and making up with great sturdy pulls.

So I busied myself, though I couldn't do a bit of good. The instant we touched bottom, Dan snatched her, sprang through the water and up the landing. I stayed behind; as the boat recoiled, pushed in a little, fastened the anchor and threw it over, and then followed.

Our house was next the landing, and there Dan had carried Faith; and when I reached it, a great fire was roaring up the chimney, and the tea-kettle hung over it, and he was rubbing Faith's feet hard enough to strike sparks. I couldn't understand exactly what made Dan so fiercely earnest, for I thought I knew just how he felt about Faith; but suddenly, when nothing seemed to answer, and he stood up and our eyes met, I saw such a haggard, conscience-stricken face that it all rushed over me. But now we had done what we could, and then I felt all at once as if every moment that I effected nothing was drawing out murder. Something flashed by the window, I tore out of the house and threw up my arms, I don't know whether I screamed or not, but I caught the doctor's eye, and he jumped from his gig and followed me in. We had a siege of it. But at length, with hot blankets, and hot water, and hot brandy dribbled down her throat, a little pulse began to play upon Faith's temple and a little pink to beat up and down her cheek, and she opened her pretty dark eyes and lifted herself and wrung the water out of her braids; then she sank back.

"Faith! Faith! speak to me!" said Dan, close in her ear. "Don't you know me?"

"Go away," she said, hoarsely, pushing his face with her flat wet palm. "You let the sail take me over and drown me, while you kissed Georgie's hand."

I flung my hand before her eyes.

"Is there a kiss on those fingers?" I cried, in a blaze. "He never kissed my hands or my lips. Dan is your husband, Faith!"

For all answer Faith hid her head and gave a little moan. Somehow I couldn't stand that; so I ran and put my arms round her neck and lifted her face and kissed it, and then we cried together. And Dan, walking the floor, took up his hat and went out, while she never cast a look after him. To think of such a great strong nature and such a powerful depth of feeling being wasted on such a little limp rag! I cried as much for that as anything. Then I helped Faith into my bedroom, and running home, I got her some dry clothes,—after rummaging enough, dear knows! for you'd be more like to find her nightcap in the tea-caddy than elsewhere,—and I made her a corner on the settle, for she was afraid to stay in the bedroom, and when she was comfortably covered there she fell asleep. Dan came in soon and sat down beside her, his eyes on the floor, never glancing aside nor smiling, but gloomier than the grave. As for me, I felt at ease now, so I went and laid my hand on the back of his chair and made him look up. I wanted he should know the same rest that I had, and perhaps he did,—for, still looking up, the quiet smile came floating round his lips, and his eyes grew steady and sweet as they used to be before he married Faith. Then I went bustling lightly about the kitchen again.

"Dan," I said, "if you'd just bring me in a couple of those chickens stalking out there like two gentlemen from Spain."

While he was gone I flew round and got a cake into the bake-kettle, and a pan of biscuit down before the fire; and I set the tea to steep on the coals, because father always likes his tea strong enough to bear up an egg, after a hard day's work, and he'd had that to-day; and I put on the coffee to boil, for I knew Dan never had it at home, because Faith liked it and it didn't agree with her. And then he brought me in the chickens all ready for the pot, and so at last I sat down, but at the opposite side of the chimney. Then he rose, and, without exactly touching me, swept me back to the other side, where lay the great net I was making for father; and I took the little stool by the settle, and not far from him, and went to work.

"Georgie," said Dan, at length, after he'd watched me a considerable time, "if any word I may have said to-day disturbed you a moment, I want you to know that it hurt me first, and just as much."

"Yes, Dan," said I.

I've always thought there was something real noble between Dan and me then. There was I,—well, I don't mind telling you. And he,—yes, I'm sure he loved me perfectly,—you mustn't be startled, I'll tell you how it was,—and always had, only maybe he hadn't known it; but it was deep down in his heart just the same, and by-and-by it stirred. There we were, both of us thoroughly conscious, yet neither of us expressing it by a word, and trying not to by a look,—both of us content to wait for the next life, when we could belong to one another. In those days I contrived to have it always pleasure enough for me just to know that Dan was in the room; and though that wasn't often, I never grudged Faith her right in him, perhaps because I knew she didn't care anything about it. You see, this is how it was.

When Dan was a lad of sixteen, and took care of his mother, a ship went to pieces down there on the island. It was one of the worst storms that ever whistled, and though crowds were on the shore, it was impossible to reach her. They could see the poor wretches hanging in the rigging, and dropping one by one, and they could only stay and sicken, for the surf stove the boats, and they didn't know then how to send out ropes on rockets or on cannon-balls, and so the night fell, and the people wrung their hands and left the sea to its prey, and felt as if blue sky could never come again. And with the bright, keen morning not a vestige of the ship, but here a spar and there a door, and on the side of a sand-hill a great dog watching over a little child that he'd kept warm all night. Dan, he'd got up at turn of tide, and walked down,—the sea running over the road knee-deep,—for there was too much swell for boats; and when day broke, he found the little girl, and carried her up to town. He didn't take her home, for he saw that what clothes she had were the very finest,—made as delicately,—with seams like the hair-strokes on that heart's-ease there; and he concluded that he couldn't bring her up as she ought to be. So he took her round to the rich men, and represented that she was the child of a lady, and that a poor fellow like himself—for Dan was older than his years, you see—couldn't do her justice: she was a slight little thing, and needed dainty training and fancy food, maybe a matter of seven years old, and she spoke some foreign language, and perhaps she didn't speak it plain, for nobody knew what it was. However, everybody was very much interested, and everybody was willing to give and to help, but nobody wanted to take her, and the upshot of it was that Dan refused all their offers and took her himself.

His mother'd been in to our house all the afternoon before, and she'd kept taking her pipe out of her mouth,—she had the asthma, and smoked,—and kept sighing.

"This storm's going to bring me something," says she, in a mighty miserable tone. "I'm sure of it!"

"No harm, I hope, Miss Devereux," said mother.

"Well, Rhody,"—mother's father, he was a queer kind,—called his girls all after the thirteen States, and there being none left for Uncle Mat, he called him after the state of matrimony,—"Well, Rhody," she replied, rather dismally, and knocking the ashes out of the bowl, "I don't know; but I'll have faith to believe that the Lord won't send me no ill without distincter warning. And that it's good I have faith to believe."

And so when the child appeared, and had no name, and couldn't answer for herself, Mrs. Devereux called her Faith.

We're a people of presentiments down here on the Flats, and well we may be. You'd own up yourself, maybe, if in the dark of the night, you locked in sleep, there's a knock on the door enough to wake the dead, and you start up and listen and nothing follows; and falling back, you're just dozing off, and there it is once more, so that the lad in the next room cries out, "Who's that, mother?" No one answering, you're half lost again, when rap comes the hand again, the loudest of the three, and you spring to the door and open it, and there's nought there but a wind from the graves blowing in your face; and after a while you learn that in that hour of that same night your husband was lost at sea. Well, that happened to Mrs. Devereux. And I haven't time to tell you the warnings I've known of. As for Faith, I mind that she said herself, as we were in the boat for that clear midnight sail, that the sea had a spite against her, but third time was trying time.

So Faith grew up, and Dan sent her to school what he could, for he set store by her. She was always ailing,—a little, wilful, pettish thing, but pretty as a flower; and folks put things into her head, and she began to think she was some great shakes; and she may have been a matter of seventeen years old when Mrs. Devereux died. Dan, as simple at twenty-six as he had been ten years before, thought to go on just in the old way, but the neighbors were one too many for him; and they all represented that it would never do, and so on, till the poor fellow got perplexed and vexed and half beside himself. There wasn't the first thing she could do for herself, and he couldn't afford to board her out, for Dan was only a laboring-man, mackerelling all summer and shoemaking all winter, less the dreadful times when he stayed out on the Georges; and then he couldn't afford, either, to keep her there and ruin the poor girl's reputation;—and what did Dan do but come to me with it all?

Now for a number of years I'd been up in the other part of the town with Aunt Netty, who kept a shop that I tended between schools and before and after, and I'd almost forgotten there was such a soul on earth as Dan Devereux,—though he'd not forgotten me. I'd got through the Grammar and had a year in the High, and suppose I should have finished with an education and gone off teaching somewhere, instead of being here now, cheerful as heart could wish, with a little black-haired hussy tiltering on the back of my chair.—Rolly, get down! Her name's Laura,—for his mother.—I mean I might have done all this, if at that time mother hadn't been thrown on her back, and been bedridden ever since. I haven't said much about mother yet, but there all the time she was, just as she is to-day, in her little tidy bed in one corner of the great kitchen, sweet as a saint, and as patient; and I had to come and keep house for father. He never meant that I should lose by it, father didn't; begged, borrowed, or stolen, bought or hired, I should have my books, he said: he's mighty proud of my learning, though between you and me it's little enough to be proud of; but the neighbors think I know 'most as much as the minister,—and I let 'em think. Well, while Mrs. Devereux was sick I was over there a good deal,—for if Faith had one talent, it was total incapacity,—and there had a chance of knowing the stuff that Dan was made of; and I declare to man 'twould have touched a heart of stone to see the love between the two. She thought Dan held up the sky, and Dan thought she was the sky. It's no wonder,—the risks our men lead can't make common-sized women out of their wives and mothers. But I hadn't been coming in and out, busying about where Dan was, all that time, without making any mark; though he was so lost in grief about his mother that he didn't take notice of his other feelings, or think of himself at all. And who could care the less about him for that? It always brings down a woman to see a man wrapt in some sorrow that's lawful, and tender as it is large. And when he came and told me what the neighbors said he must do with Faith, the blood stood still in my heart.

"Ask mother, Dan," says I,—for I couldn't have advised him. "She knows best about everything."

So he asked her.

"I think—I'm sorry to think, for I fear she'll not make you a good wife," said mother, "but that perhaps her love for you will teach her to be—you'd best marry Faith."

"But I can't marry her!" said Dan, half choking; "I don't want to marry her,—it—it makes me uncomfortable-like to think of such a thing. I care for the child plenty–Besides," said Dan, catching at a bright hope, "I'm not sure that she'd have me."

"Have you, poor boy! What else can she do?"

Dan groaned.

"Poor little Faith!" said mother. "She's so pretty, Dan, and she's so young, and she's pliant. And then how can we tell what may turn up about her some day? She may be a duke's daughter yet,—who knows? Think of the stroke of good-fortune she may give you!"

"But I don't love her," said Dan, as a finality.

"Perhaps–It isn't–You don't love any one else?"

"No," said Dan, as a matter of course, and not at all with reflection. And then, as his eyes went wandering, there came over them a misty look, just as the haze creeps between you and some object away out at sea, and he seemed to be searching his very soul. Suddenly the look swept off them, and his eyes struck mine, and he turned, not having meant to, and faced me entirely, and there came such a light into his countenance, such a smile round his lips, such a red stamped his cheek, and he bent a little,—and it was just as if the angel of the Lord had shaken his wings over us in passing, and we both of us knew that here was a man and here was a woman, each for the other, in life and death; and I just hid my head in my apron, and mother turned on her pillow with a little moan. How long that lasted I can't say, but by-and-by I heard mother's voice, clear and sweet as a tolling bell far away on some fair Sunday morning,—

"The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try the children of men."

And nobody spoke.

"Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. Thou wilt light my candle: the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness. For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light."

Then came the hush again, and Dan started to his feet, and began to walk up and down the room as if something drove him; but wearying, he stood and leaned his head on the chimney there. And mother's voice broke the stillness anew, and she said,—

"Hath God forgotten to be gracious? His mercy endureth forever. And none of them that trust in him shall be desolate."

There was something in mother's tone that made me forget myself and my sorrow, and look; and there she was, as she hadn't been before for six months, half risen from the bed, one hand up, and her whole face white and shining with confident faith. Well, when I see all that such trust has buoyed mother over, I wish to goodness I had it: I take more after Martha. But never mind, do well here and you'll do well there, say I. Perhaps you think it wasn't much, the quiet and the few texts breathed through it; but sometimes when one's soul's at a white heat, it may be moulded like wax with a finger. As for me, maybe God hardened Pharaoh's heart,—though how that was Pharaoh's fault I never could see. But Dan,—he felt what it was to have a refuge in trouble, to have a great love always extending over him like a wing; he longed for it; he couldn't believe it was his now, he was so suddenly convicted of all sin and wickedness; and something sprang up in his heart, a kind of holy passion that he felt to be possible for this great and tender Divine Being; and he came and fell on his knees by the side of the bed, crying out for mother to show him the way; and mother, she put her hand on his head and prayed,—prayed, oh, so beautifully, that it makes the water stand in my eyes now to remember what she said. But I didn't feel so then, my heart and my soul were rebellious, and love for Dan alone kept me under, not love for God. And in fact, if ever I'd got to heaven then, love for Dan'd have been my only saving grace; for I was mighty high-spirited, as a girl. Well, Dan he never made open profession; but when he left the house, he went and asked Faith to marry him.

Now Faith didn't care anything about Dan,—except the quiet attachment that she couldn't help, from living in the house with him, and he'd always petted and made much of her, and dressed her like a doll,—he wasn't the kind of man to take her fancy: she'd have maybe liked some slender, smooth-faced chap; but Dan was a black, shaggy fellow, with shoulders like the cross-tree, and a length of limb like Saul's, and eyes set deep, like lamps in caverns. And he had a great, powerful heart,—and, oh, how it was lost! for she might have won it, she might have made him love her, since I would have stood wide away and aside for the sake of seeing him happy. But Faith was one of those that, if they can't get what they want, haven't any idea of putting up with what they have,—God forgive me, if I'm hard on the child! And she couldn't give Dan an answer right off, but was loath to think of it, and went flirting about among the other boys; and Dan, when he saw she wasn't so easily gotten, perhaps set more value on her. For Faith, she grew prettier every day; her great brown eyes were so soft and clear, and had a wide, sorrowful way of looking at you; and her cheeks, that were usually pale, blossomed to roses when you spoke to her, her hair drooping over them dark and silky; and though she was slack and untidy and at loose ends about her dress, she somehow always seemed like a princess in disguise; and when she had on any thing new,—a sprigged calico, and her little straw bonnet with the pink ribbons, and Mrs. Devereux's black scarf, for instance,—you'd have allowed that she might have been daughter to the Queen of Sheba. I don't know, but I rather think Dan wouldn't have said any more to Faith, from various motives, you see, notwithstanding the neighbors were still remonstrating with him, if it hadn't been that Miss Brown—she that lived round the corner there; the town's well quit of her now, poor thing!—went to saying the same stuff to Faith, and telling her all that other folks said. And Faith went home in a passion,—some of your timid kind nothing ever abashes, and nobody gets to the windward of them,—and, being perfectly furious, fell to accusing Dan of having brought her to this, so that Dan actually believed he had, and was cut to the quick with contrition, and told her that all the reparation he could make he was waiting and wishing to make, and then there came floods of tears. Some women seem to have set out with the idea that life's a desert for them to cross, and they've laid in a supply of water-bags accordingly,—but it's the meanest weapon! And then again, there's men that are iron, and not to be bent under calamities, that these tears can twist round your little finger. Well, I suppose Faith concluded 'twas no use to go hungry because her bread wasn't buttered on both sides, but she always acted as if she'd condescended ninety degrees in marrying Dan, and Dan always seemed to feel that he'd done her a great injury; and there it was.