Y
THE RESULT OF AN IMPULSE.
BY CATHARINE PROCTOR.
CHAPTER I.
“Oh, heaven is very kind!” I said, as it were,
involuntarily. I was startled. My speaking
was, as it were, a riddle to myself, as I lay
quietly and wearily behind those heavy, purple
curtains, on those large downy pillows.
My whole life had been a bitter rebellion against Providenee; my whole tone and thought antagonistic to every reverential feeling, to everything like Christian spirit.
So heavy the burden I bore, so weak and helpless my powers to struggle through and buffet the tempests, that, instead of prayer, complaints had erer been upon my lips; and 1 had gradually come to allow myself to be borne aim¬ lessly, and at the will of every surrounding ob¬ ject in any direction; and now that my tongue had involuntarily given heaven praise, I was in bewilderment.
The day had been one of wondrous beauty; wondrous, for the resurrection of earth from her torpid estate is ever beautiful. It is like the gradual but startling development of a child’s intellect, ever seeming endearingly original, yet in every child the same, except when it is now and then frozen back by unkindness or imbecility. The days had grown so warm that every well, living thing left roof and covert, and went out to gather the manna of sunshine, falling broadcast over the earth. Oh, pity for the sick and helpless, that all the spring warmth and light they could feel, must come through windows and doors! Pity for the soulless, that they could plod every hour for the earth’s sordid gold, when the heavens were so bountiful with that, which, not only fills the hands, but the hearts of men!
I had ever loved storms better than sunshine. Something there was of sympathy between the darkness and tumult of the elements and the grim, restless spirit in me. I had finished my tasks; completed every repulsive item in the little round of daily drudgery, and then, without one joyful feeling, with only an undefinable and never-ending desire to get away from myself, I went to the woods. My eyes were blinded with the same dark shadow which bang upon my heart.
My whole being was fettered, and I did not
very deep, and made sluggish by being dammed
below. It looked to me as I bad imagined the
bayous of the South might—dork, sullen, and
^ yet quiet; then suddenly breaking away from
^ the mirrored shadows, and the dripping fringes
^ of brake and hazel, from the heavy, molten sun
£ at midday, and from the white, motionless moon
£ at night, it flung itself, like a suicide, maddened
and desperate, in white impetuosity over the
stones and timbers of the dam, then struggling
\ for awhile with pitiful roaring, subsided to an
\ even flow. I loved it. It was the miniature of
my stream of life—only quiet never could reach
me, until I floated out upon the dim, far-away
\ ocean of eternity, glimpses of which I imagined I had had through the turbulence and
mists of the torrents of my ungoverned passions.
| It was now swollen high with spring rains, \ and instead of the sullenness which the gloomy skies of winter, and the heavy shades of summer \ cast upon its face, it was as clear as the spring j: heavens, and glowing ns the sun.
A multitude of children were at play upon its
banks, some gathering the blue violets, some
- with fishing-rods, stoically waiting a bite All
\ were gleeful and happy.
} “Margaret!”
It was the frightened scream of childrens’ voices, a simultaneous shriek at once of petition and fear. I saw a convulsive plashing of water, and, without thought of doing a good deed, I sprang to the bank and into the stream. The \ first dash at once strangled and invigorated me. The child bad gone under, and I just saw a flutter of her blue dress. The first time she rose, $ I reached, clutched her dress, and took her in $ my arms, but in so doing I had lost my footing, | and I was but a very slight thing to stem the \ current if we should be carried out. It was an $ effort such as I never put forth before—and it was successful. I pushed her in reach of tho $ dozen little hands stretched out for her; and then, $ without motive for exertion, chilled through, I \ sank down and was drifted out. I was just con- % soious of the renewed screaming of the children; i and that was all.
I woke warmly nettled in bed; the light
109
