132 HOW I BECAME A BENEDICT.
composed and left one myself; but not having these requisites, I had to resign myself to my fate. Divesting myself of the new, blue-cloth coat, and hanging it very carefully and conspicuously on the branch of a tree, I prepared to make the fatal plunge. But at that instant my mother’s face, wan and pallid, and full of beseeching love, seemed looking up from the moonlit waters. A keen pang shot through my heart. How would she bear my loss, she who had always loved me so? I could not do this deed without even bidding her farewell—I could not break my mother’s heart! Snatching down my coat, I struck across the meadows at a rapid pace. At the cottage-gate I paused, chilled to the very soul by a feeling of awe and dread. The moonlight streamed down. There sat my mother in her low sewing-chair; I could see her wan, white face plainly. I opened the gate, and went up the gravel-walk with suppressed steps. She might be asleep, I thought—and she was, that quiet, dreamless sleep that knows no waking. She was dead.
Two or three days after her funeral, our old pastor came down to see me.
“Well, Chancy, my lad,” he said, after a few moments’ comforting conversation, “what do you purpose doing in the way of making a living?”
“I am undecided, sir—I haven’t thought much about it. I've been writing a good deal of late, and I thought, perhaps——
But he cut me short by a gesture.
“No, my lad, no! Give that up, it isn’t your vocation. Follow in your good mother’s foot- steps—stick to your dairy, and you'll make a man of yourself.”
I was cut to the very heart, but, somehow, his words stuck to me. The more I thought of them, the more I was convinced of their sense; and after a while I made up my mind to take his advice. I threw away my pens and paper, and took to my mother’s old occupation, driving the cows, and making butter-pats for market. It was a solitary life, yet I soon grew to love it. Twenty years after I found myself a rich man, the proprietor of the great Pearl Valley Dairy, and owner of Walnut Hill Farm.
I had ample means, so I gratified my love for travel. I wandered all over Europe, launched my barque upon the waters of the Nile, and sat beneath the shadow of the Pyramids; returning home again, sun-burned and foot-sore, with a weary, loveless heart. I shut myself up, having no intercourse with my fellow men, only in my business relations, and regarding woman kind with a bitter feeling of hate and distrust.
One sunny, autumn afternoon—I have a vivid remembrance of it, even to this day: it was
remembrance of it, even to this day; it was early in October, and the sunlight, streaming down upon the great walnut-trees in front of my dwelling, and glinting through the tawny chestnut-leaves, seemed to have a peculiar warmth and brightness, I lay on a little hillside, just beyond the house, half-buried in yellow broom-sedge, listening to tlie distant roar of the pines, and watching, by turns, the blue smoke curling up from my meerschaum, and the busy village-folk down below me. There was a fair, or something of the kind, on foot, and an unusual bustle prevailed.
After awhile, I noticed a trim, girlish figure, wearing a brown robe, and a jaunty little hat, coming up from the town in the direction of Walnut Hill. I watched her with a feeling of interest, in spite of myself; and when she actually turned into the lane that led up to my door, I felt my heart palpitating like a boy’s. Could it be possible that any woman would have the audacity to force herself into my house, to beard the lion in his den? On she came, her brown veil and streaming ribbons fluttering in the wind, her little gaiter-boots beating a brisk tattoo on the gravel. I lay quite still till she passed me, then rising on my elbow, I watched her covertly. On she went, straight up to my house, up the front steps, and then, bang! went the knocker. I heard the door open, and knowing that she had been admitted, I arose, and sauntered up myself, thoroughly vexed at the tremulous eagerness I felt to know who and what she was. She rose from her seat as I entered, saluting me with a pretty little bow.
“Excuse me, sir,’’ she said; “but you are Mr. Chancellor Trowbridge, I believe, and I am Jessie Dunbar.”
The silvery voice, the familiar face, the name, and some glittering ornament in her bosom, all struck me at one and the same moment. I felt my head spinning round like a top; but I managed to ask her to be seated again, and as she complied, I satisfied myself in regard to the ornament she wore. It was my ruby-brooch, the one for which I had given the hard-earned proceeds of poor mother’s butter-pats—I could have sworn to that. What could it mean?
“We are holding a fair, Mr. Trowbridge.” she began, “for the benefit of the soldiers orphans; every one is giving us something, and I’ve come up to see if you won’t help us. You will, I am sure.”
“No, Miss,” I answered, assuming a sternness I did not feel; “ 'tis a principle with me, never to encourage such institutions.”
“Sir!” patting her dainty foot impatiently
�
