CHAPTER XI.

Yesterday we were more than usually still after the enjoyment of Christmas, and a little quiet chit-chat seemed all of which we were capable, but to-day every thing about us and within us began to settle into its usual form, and this evening there was a general call for our accustomed entertainment. I was inexorable to all entreaties, and Mr.

Arlington was compelled to open his portfolio for our gratification.

"Select your subject," he said with a smile, as he drew forth sketch after sketch and spread them on the table before us. "I have no story to tell of any of them."

"I select this," said Annie, as she held up a drawing, ent.i.tled, "The Exiled Hebrews."

"Ah!" said Mr. Arlington, as he glanced at it, "you have chosen well; the subject is interesting."

"But can you really tell us nothing of these figures, so n.o.ble yet so touching in their aspect?"

"No; nothing of _them_. I could tell you indeed of a _dying_ Hebrew, whose portrait you may imagine you have before you in that turbaned old gentleman."

"Well, let us hear it."

THE DYING HEBREW.

A HEBREW knelt in the dying light, His eye was dim and cold, The hair on his brow was silver white, And his blood was thin and old.

He lifted his eye to his latest sun, For he felt that his pilgrimage was done, And as he saw G.o.d's shadow[3] there, His spirit pour'd itself in prayer.

"I come unto Death's second birth Beneath a stranger air, A pilgrim on a chill, cold earth, As all my fathers were; And _men_ have stamp'd me with a _curse_, I feel it is not _Thine_.

Thy mercy, like yon sun, was made On me, as all to shine; And therefore dare I lift mine eye Through that to Thee, before I die.

In this great temple, built by Thee, Whose altars are divine, Beneath yon lamp that ceaselessly Lights up Thine own true shrine, Take this my latest sacrifice, Look down and make this sod Holy as that where long ago The Hebrew met his G.o.d.

I have not caused the widow's tears, Nor dimm'd the orphan's eye, I have not stain'd the virgin's years, Nor mock'd the mourner's cry.

The songs of Zion in my ear Have ever been most sweet, And always when I felt Thee near, My shoes were 'off my feet.'

I have known Thee in the whirlwind, I have known Thee on the hill, I have known Thee in the voice of birds, In the music of the rill.

I dreamt Thee in the shadow, I saw Thee in the light, I heard Thee in the thunder-peal, And worshipp'd in the night.

All beauty, while it spoke of Thee, Still made my heart rejoice, And my spirit bow'd within itself To hear 'Thy still, small voice.'

I have not felt myself a thing Far from Thy presence driven, By flaming sword or waving wing Cut off from Thee and heaven.

Must I the whirlwind reap, because, My fathers sow'd the storm?

Or shrink because another sinn'd, Beneath Thy red, right arm?

Oh! much of this we dimly scan, And much is all unknown, I will not take my _curse_ from _man_, I turn to THEE alone.

Oh! bid my fainting spirit live, And what is dark, reveal, And what is evil--oh, forgive!

And what is broken--heal.

And cleanse my spirit from above, In the deep Jordan of Thy love!

I know not if the Christian's heaven Shall be the same as mine, I only ask to be forgiven, And taken home to THINE.

I weary on a far, dim strand, Whose mansions are as tombs, And long to find the Father-land, Where there are many homes.

Oh! grant of all yon shining throngs Some dim and distant star, Where Judah's lost and scatter'd sons May worship from afar!

When all earth's myriad harps shall meet In choral praise and prayer, Shall Zion's harp, of old so sweet, Alone be wanting there?

Yet place me in the lowest seat, Though I, as now, lie there, The Christian's jest--the Christian's scorn, Still let me see and hear, From some bright mansion in the sky, Thy loved ones and their melody."

The sun goes down with sudden gleam, And beautiful as a lovely dream, And silently as air, The vision of a dark-eyed girl With long and raven hair, Glides in as guardian spirits glide, And lo! is standing by his side, As if her sudden presence there Was sent in answer to his prayer.

Oh! say they not that angels tread Around the good man's dying bed?

His child--his sweet and sinless child, And as he gazed on her, He knew his G.o.d was reconciled, And this the messenger.

As sure as G.o.d had hung on high His promise-bow before his eye, Earth's purest hopes were o'er him flung, To point his heaven-ward faith, And life's most holy feelings strung To sing him into death.

And on his daughter's stainless breast, The dying Hebrew sought his rest.[4]

"Have I fulfilled my task?" asked Mr. Arlington, as he touched the picture on which Annie's eyes were still fixed.

"By no means," she answered; "the poem is beautiful; but is the drawing from your own pencil?"

"Oh, no! It is a copy of a copy. The original is by Biederrmanns, and may be seen, I believe, in the Dresden Gallery. This sketch was made from a copy in the possession of my friend, Mr. Michael Grahame. He had it done while he was in Russia. By-the-by--if I had Aunt Nancy's powers as a _raconteur_, I think I could interest you in the history of Mr. and Mrs. Grahame."

"Let us have it," exclaimed Col. Donaldson; "we will be lenient in our criticisms; and should we ever call on you to give it to severer critics, Aunt Nancy will dress it up for you."

Mr. Arlington in vain sought to excuse himself.

"It is of no use," cried Col. Donaldson; "I am a thoroughbred story hunter, and now you have shown me the game, I must have it."

To Mr. Arlington, therefore, the reader is indebted for the following incidents, though I have fulfilled the promise made for me by the Colonel, and dressed it up a little for its present appearance. I have called the narrative thus prepared,

"ONLY A MECHANIC."

With beauty, wealth, an accomplished education, and a home around which cl.u.s.tered all the warm affections and graceful amenities of life, Lilian Devoe was considered by her acquaintances as one of fortune's most favored children. Yet in Lilian's bright sky there was a cloud, though it was perceptible to none but herself. She was the daughter of an Englishman, who, on his arrival in America with a sickly wife and infant child, had esteemed himself fortunate in obtaining the situation of farm-steward, or bailiff, at Mr. Trevanion's country-seat, near New-York.

"This is a pleasant home, Gerald," said Mrs. Devoe, on the day she took possession of her small but neat cottage, as she stood with him beneath a porch embowered with honey-suckle, and looked out upon a scene to which hill and dale and river combined to give enchantment.

"If you can be well and happy in it, love, I will try and forget that I had a right to a better," said Gerald Devoe, with a grave yet tender smile, as he drew his invalid wife close to his side.

Grave, Gerald Devoe always was; and none wondered at it who knew his early history. His family belonged to the gentry of England, and he had been born to an inheritance sufficient to support him respectably in that cla.s.s. His mother, from whom he derived a sound judgment, and a firm and vigorous mind, died while he was yet a child, leaving his weak and self-indulgent father to the management of a roguish attorney, by whose aid he made the future maintain the present, till, at his death, little was left to Gerald beyond the bare walls of his paternal home and the small park by which it was surrounded. He had been, for two years before this time, married to one who had brought him little wealth, and whose delicate health seemed to demand the luxuries which he could no longer afford. For her sake, far more than for his own--even more than for that of his cherished child--he shrank from the new condition under which life was presenting itself to him. When at length his resources utterly failed, and he could no longer veil the truth from his wife, her gentle tender smile, her confiding caress, and above all, her ready inquiry into his plans for the future, and her earnest effort to aid him in bringing the chaos of his mind into order, taught him that there lies in woman's affections a source of strength equal to all the requirements of those who have won their way to that hidden fountain. It was by her advice that, instead of wasting his energies in the vain struggle to maintain his present position, he determined to carve out for himself a new life in another land. The first step towards the fulfilment of this resolution was also the most painful. It was the sacrifice of his home, the home of his childhood, his youth, his manhood, with which all that was dear in the present or tender in the past was a.s.sociated. And yet higher claims it had. It had been the home of his fathers. For three hundred years those walls had owned a Devoe for their master, and now they must pa.s.s into a stranger's hands, and he and his must go forth with no right even to a grave in that soil which had seemed ever an inalienable part of himself. It was a stern lesson, but life teaches well, and it was learned. He could not turn to the liberal professions for support, because he had no means of maintaining himself and his family during the preparatory studies. Of farming he knew already something, and spent some months in acquiring yet further information respecting it, before he sailed from England. The determination and energy with which Gerald Devoe had entered on his new career, had won for him friends among practical men, and when he left England it was with recommendations that insured his success.

It was a fortunate circ.u.mstance for Mr. and Mrs. Devoe that Mr.

Trevanion required a farm-steward on their arrival, for in him and his wife they found liberal employers, and persons of true Christian benevolence, who, having discovered the superiority of their minds and manners to their present station, hesitated not to receive them into their circle of friends, when a knowledge of their past history had acquainted them with their claims on their sympathy. Howsoever valuable the friendship of persons at once so accomplished and so excellent was to Mr. and Mrs. Devoe, for their own sakes, they prized it yet more for their Lilian's. She was their only child, and their poverty lost its last sting when they saw her linked arm in arm with young Anna Trevanion, the companion of her lessons and her sports. They could not have borne to see her, so lovely in outward form, and with a mind so full of intelligence, condemned either to the dreariness of a life without companionship, or to the degradation of a.s.sociation with the rude and uncultivated. That this feeling was wholly unconnected with any false views of their own position, or vain estimation of the claims derived from their birth and former condition, was evident from their readiness to receive into their friendly regards those in their present sphere in whose moral qualities they could confide, and who did not repel their courtesies by a rude and coa.r.s.e manner. There was one of this latter cla.s.s who held a place in their esteem not less exalted than that occupied by Mr. Trevanion himself. This was a Scotchman, living within two miles of Mr. Trevanion's seat, who found at once an agreeable occupation and a respectable support in a garden, from which he supplied the markets of New-York with some of their choicest vegetables, and its drawing-rooms with some of their choicest bouquets. Mr. Grahame was one who, in those early ages when physical endowments const.i.tuted the chief distinction between men, might have been chosen king of the tribe with which he had chanced to be a.s.sociated. Even now, in this self-styled enlightened age, his tall and stalwart frame, his erect carriage, his firm and vigorous step, his broad, commanding brow, his bright, keen eye, and the firm, frank expression of his whole face, won from every beholder an involuntary feeling of respect, which further acquaintance only served to deepen. With little of the education of schools, he was a man of reading, and, what schools can never make, he was a man of thought, and of that sober, practical good sense, and those firm, religious principles which are the surest, the only true and safe guides in life. Mrs. Grahame was a gentle and lovely woman, with an eye to see and a heart to feel her husband's excellences. And a worthy son of such a father was Michael Grahame, the only child of this excellent pair. He was six years older than Lilian Devoe, and having no sister of his own, had been her playfellow and protector from her cradle. Even Anna Trevanion could not rival Michael in Lilian's heart, nor all the luxuries of Trevanion Hall compete with the delight of wandering with him through the gardens of Mossgiel, listening to his history of the various plants--for Michael had learned from his father where most of them had first been found, and how and by whom they had been introduced to their present abodes--and learning from him the chief points of distinction between the different tribes of the vegetable world, and many other things of which older people are often ignorant. But acquainted as Michael was with the inhabitants of the garden, they did not afford him his most vivid enjoyment. Mechanical pursuits were his pa.s.sion.

Before Lilian was four years old, she had ridden in a carriage of his construction, which he boasted the most unskilful hand on the most unequal road could not, except from _malice prepense_, upset. To see Michael a clergyman, or, if that might not be, a lawyer, was Mrs.

Grahame's dream of life; but when she whispered it to her husband, he shook his head, with a grave smile, and pointed to the boy, who stood near, putting the finishing touch to what he called his "magical gla.s.s."

This was the case of an old spy-gla.s.s, in which he had so disposed several mirrors, made of a toilet-gla.s.s long since broken, as to enable the person using the instrument to see objects in a very different direction from that to which it appeared to be directed. The fond parents watched his movements in silence for a few minutes: suddenly he called in a glad voice, "Here, father, come and look through my magical gla.s.s."

Mr. Grahame obeyed the summons, saying to his wife, "He'll make a good mechanic--better not spoil that, for a poor clergyman or lawyer."

Michael had the advantage of the best schools to which his father could gain access; and his teachers joined in declaring that his father might make what he would of him, but his own inclination for mechanics continued as fixed as ever, and Mr. Grahame was equally fixed in his determination to let his inclination decide his career.

"Let him be what he will, he must be something above the ordinary, or your high people will remember against him that his father was a gardener," said Mr. Grahame to his wife; "and you may be sure he'll rise highest in what he loves."

At sixteen Michael Grahame commenced his apprenticeship to the trade of a mathematical instrument maker, to the perfect satisfaction of himself and his father, the secret annoyance of his mother, and the openly expressed chagrin of Lilian Devoe, who had shared all Mrs. Grahame's ambitious hopes for her friend. From this period Lilian became the inseparable companion of the young Trevanions, their only rival in her heart being removed from her circle. She still considered Michael as greatly superior to them, and indeed to all others, in personal attributes, but she could seldom enjoy his society, since he resided in the city; and as she approached to womanhood, and he exchanged the vivacity of the boy for the man's thoughtful brow and more controlled expression of feeling, their manner in their occasional interviews a.s.sumed a formality which made it a poor interpreter of her heart's true emotions.

At seventeen Lilian Devoe was an orphan, left to the guardianship of Mr.

Trevanion and Mr. Grahame, with a fortune which secured to her a prospect of all the comforts, and many of the elegancies of life. This fortune was the result of a successful speculation made by Mr. Devoe about a year before his death, with the little sum, which, by judicious management, he had saved from his salary during many years. It was a sum too small to secure to his daughter a maintenance in case of his death, and with a trembling and almost despairing heart he had thrown it on the troubled sea of speculation. From that hour he knew no peace. His life was probably shortened by his anxieties, and when he received the a.s.surance of the successful issue of his experiment, he had but a few days to live. Before his death, Mr. Trevanion had spoken very kindly to him, and both he and Mrs. Trevanion had expressed the most friendly interest in Lilian, and had offered to receive her as a member of their own family, when her "home should be left unto her desolate." Mr.

Grahame and his kind-hearted wife had already made the same offer, and Mr. Devoe, with the warmest expression of grat.i.tude, commended his daughter to the guardianship of both his friends. It was winter when Mr.

Devoe died--the Trevanions were in the city, and, by her own wish, Lilian pa.s.sed the first few months of her orphanage at the cottage of Mr. Grahame. Never was an orphan more tenderly received, more dearly cherished.

Michael Grahame had now acquired his trade, and had entered into an already established and profitable business with his former master, who predicted that with his application, and his unusual talent and his delight both in the theory of mechanics and the actual development of that theory in practice, he must one day acquire a high reputation.

Perhaps this opinion might have been in some degree shaken by the long and frequent holidays of his young partner during this winter. Michael had never been so much at home since he left it, a boy of sixteen, and before the winter had pa.s.sed, all formality between him and Lilian had vanished. Again they wandered together, as in childhood, through the garden walks; again Lilian learned to regard him, not only as a loved friend, but as a guide and protector.