As he said this, his manner, hitherto full of humour and vivacity, turned
grave, and his voice, sinking to a lower tone, became charged with
sweetness. It was the voice in which one refined and sincere soul confides
to another refined and sincere soul the secret of some new happiness that
has come to it.
But noticing the negro lad, who had paused in his work several paces off and
stood watching them, he said to her: "May I have a drink?"
She turned to the negro:"Go to the spring-house and bring some water."The
lad moved away, smiling to himself and shaking his head.
"He has broken all my pitchers," she added. "To-day I had to send my last
roll of linen to town by Amy to buy more queen's-ware. The moss will grow on
the bucket before he gets back."
When the boy was out of hearing, she turned again to him: "What is it? Tell me quickly."
"I have had news from Philadelphia. The case is at last decided in favour of
the heirs, and I come at once into possession of my share. It may be eight
or ten thousand dollars." His voice trembled a little despite himself.
She took his hands in hers with a warm, close pressure, and tears of joy
sprang to her eyes.
The whole of his bare, bleak life was known to her; its half-starved
beginning; its early merciless buffeting; the upheaval of vast circumstance
in the revolutionary history of the times by which he had again and again
been thrown back upon his own undefended strength; and stealthily following
him from place to place, always closing around him, always seeking to
strangle him, or to poison him in some vital spot, that most silent, subtle
serpent of life--Poverty. Knowing this, and knowing also the man he had
become, she would in secret sometimes liken him to one of those rare unions
of delicacy and hardihood which in the world of wild flowers Nature refuses
to bring forth except from the cranny of a cold rock. Its home is the
battle-field of black roaring tempests; the red lightnings play among its
roots ; all night seamless snow-drifts are woven around its heart; no bee
ever rises to it from the valley below where the green spring is kneeling;
no morning bird ever soars past it with observant song; but in due time,
with unswerving obedience to a law of beauty unfolding from within, it sets
forth its perfect leaves and strains its steadfast face toward the sun.
These paltry thousands! She realized that they would lift from him the
burden of debts that he had assumed, and give him, without further waiting,
the libertyof his powers and the opportunities of the world."God bless you!"
She said with trembling lips. "It makes me happier than it does you. No one
else in the whole world is as glad as I am."Silence fell upon them. Both
were thinking, but in very different ways--of the changes that would now
take place in his life.