"We are not sent here at all, my good old lady," I now thought it time to interpose, for the poor woman was very obviously much alarmed, and in a distress that even her aged and wrinkled countenance could not entirely conceal. "We are just what you see--people belonging to that sloop, who have come ash.o.r.e to stretch their legs, and have never heard of any Mr.
Van Ta.s.sel, or any money, or any mortgage."
"Thank Heaven for that!" exclaimed the old woman, seeming to relieve her mind, as well as body, by a heavy sigh. ""Squire Van Ta.s.sel is a hard man; and a widow woman, with no relative at hand but a grand-darter that is just sixteen, is scarce able to meet him. My poor old husband always maintained that the money had been paid; but, now he is dead and gone, "Squire Van Ta.s.sel brings forth the bond and mortgage, and says, "If you can prove that these are paid, I"m willing to give them up.""
"This is so strange an occurrence, my dear old lady," I observed, "that you have only to make us acquainted with the facts, to get another supporter in addition to your grand-daughter. It is true, I am a stranger, and have come here purely by accident; but Providence sometimes appears to work in this mysterious manner, and I have a strong presentiment we may be of use to you. Relate your difficulties, then; and you shall have the best legal advice in the State, should your case require it."
The old woman seemed embarra.s.sed; but, at the same time, she seemed touched. We were utter strangers to her, it is true; yet there is a language in sympathy which goes beyond that of the tongue, and which, coming _from_ the heart, goes _to_ the heart. I was quite sincere in my offers, and this sincerity appears to have produced its customary fruits.
I was believed; and, after wiping away a tear or two that forced themselves into her eyes, our hostess answered me as frankly as I had offered my aid.
"You do not look like "Squire Van Ta.s.sel"s men, for they seem to me to think the place is theirs already. Such craving, covetous creatur"s I never before laid eyes on! I hope I may trust you?"
"Depend on us, mother," cried Marble, giving the old woman a cordial squeeze of the hand. "My heart is in this business, for my mind was half made up, at first sight, to own this spot myself--by honest purchase, you"ll understand me, and not by any of your land-shark tricks--and, such being the case, you can easily think I"m not inclined to let this Mr.
Ta.s.sel have it,"
"It would be almost as sorrowful a thing to _sell_ this place," the good woman answered, her countenance confirming all she said in words, "as to have it torn from me by knaves. I have told you that even my father was born in this very house. I was his only child; and when G.o.d called him away, which he did about twelve years after my marriage, the little farm came to me, of course. Mine it would have been at this moment, without let or hindrance of any sort, but for a fault committed in early youth. Ah! my friends, it is hopeless to do evil, and expect to escape the consequences."
"The evil _you_ have done, my good mother," returned Marble, endeavouring to console the poor creature, down whose cheeks the tears now fairly began to run; "the evil you have done, my good mother, can be no great matter.
If it was a question about a rough tar like myself, or even of Miles there, who"s a sort of sea-saint, something might be made of it, I make no doubt; but your account must be pretty much all credit, and no debtor."
"That is a state that befalls none of earth, my young friend,"--Marble _was_ young, compared to his companion, though a plump fifty,--"My sin was no less than to break one of G.o.d"s commandments."
I could see that my mate was a good deal confounded at this ingenuous admission; for, in his eyes, breaking the commandments was either killing, stealing, or blaspheming. The other sins of the decalogue he had come by habit to regard as peccadilloes.
"I think this must be a mistake, mother," he said, in a sort of consoling tone. "You may have fallen into some oversights, or mistakes; but this breaking of the commandments is rather serious sort of work."
"Yet I broke the fifth; I forgot to honour my father and mother.
Nevertheless, the Lord has been gracious; for my days have already reached threescore-and-ten. But this is His goodness--not any merit of my own!"
"Is it not a proof that the error has been forgiven?" I ventured to remark. "If penitence can purchase peace, I feel certain you have earned that relief."
"One never knows! I think this calamity of the mortgage, and the danger I run of dying without a roof to cover my head, may be all traced up to that one act of disobedience, I have been a mother myself--may say I am a mother now, for my grand-daughter is as dear to me as was her blessed mother--and it is when we look _down_, rather than when we look _up_, as it might be, that we get to understand the true virtue of this commandment."
"If it were impertinent curiosity that instigates the question, my old friend," I added, "it would not be in my power to look you in the face, as I do now, while begging you to let me know your difficulties. Tell them in your own manner, but tell them with confidence; for, I repeat, we have the power to a.s.sist you, and can command the best legal advice of the country."
Again the old woman looked at me intently through her spectacles; then, as if her mind was made up to confide in our honesty, she disburthened it of its secrets.
"It would be wrong to tell you a part of my story, without telling you all," she began; "for you might think Van Ta.s.sel and his set are alone to blame, while my conscience tells me that little has happened that is not a just punishment for my great sin. You"ll have patience, therefore, with an old woman, and hear her whole tale; for mine is not a time of life to mislead any. The days of white-heads are numbered; and, was it not for Kitty, the blow would not be quite so hard on me. You must know, we are Dutch by origin--come of the ancient Hollanders of the colony--and were Van Duzers by name. It"s like, friends," added the good woman, hesitating, "that you are Yankees by birth?"
"I cannot say I am," I answered, "though of English extraction. My family is long of New York, but it does not mount back quite as far as the time of the Hollanders."
"And your friend? He is silent; perhaps he is of New England? I would not wish to hurt his feelings, for my story will bear a little hard, perhaps, on his love of home."
"Never mind me, mother, but rowse it all up like entered cargo," said Marble, in his usual bitter way when alluding to his own birth. "There"s not the man breathing that one can speak more freely before on such matters, than Moses Marble."
"Marble!--that"s a _hard_ name," returned the woman slightly smiling; "but a _name_ is not a _heart_. My parents were Dutch; and you may have heard how it was before the Revolution, between the Dutch and the Yankees. Near neighbours, they did not love each other. The Yankees said the Dutch were fools, and the Dutch said the Yankees were knaves. Now, as you may easily suppose, I was born before the Revolution, when King George II. was on the throne and ruled the country; and though it was long after the English got to be our masters, it was before our people had forgotten their language and their traditions. My father himself was born after the English governors came among us, as I"ve heard him say; but it mattered not--he loved Holland to the last, and the customs of his fathers."
"All quite right, mother," said Marble, a little impatiently; "but what of all that? It"s as nat"ral for a Dutchman to love Holland, as it is for an Englishman to love Hollands. I"ve been in the Low Countries, and must say it"s a muskrat sort of a life the people lead; neither afloat nor ash.o.r.e."
The old woman regarded Marble with more respect after this declaration; for in that day, a travelled man was highly esteemed among us. In her eyes, it was a greater exploit to have seen Amsterdam, than it would now be to visit Jerusalem. Indeed, it is getting rather discreditable to a man of the world not to have seen the Pyramids, the Red Sea, and the Jordan.
"My father loved it not the less, though he never saw the land of his ancestors," resumed the old woman. "Notwithstanding the jealousy of the Yankees, among us Dutch, and the mutual dislike, many of the former came among us to seek their fortunes. They are not a home-staying people, it would seem; and I cannot deny that cases have happened in which they have been known to get away the farms of some of the Netherlands stock, in a way that it would have been better not to have happened."
"You speak considerately, my dear woman," I remarked, "and like one that has charity for all human failing."
"I ought to do so for my own sins, and I ought to do so to them of New England; for my own husband was of that race."
"Ay, now the story is coming round regularly, Miles," said Marble, nodding his head in approbation. "It will touch on love next, and, if trouble do not follow, set me down as an ill-nat"red old bachelor. Love in a man"s heart is like getting heated cotton, or shifting ballast, into a ship"s hold."
"I must confess to it," continued our hostess, smiling in spite of her real sorrows--sorrows that were revived by thus recalling the events of her early life--"a young man of Yankee birth came among us as a schoolmaster, when I was only fifteen. Our people were anxious enough to have us all taught to read English, for many had found the disadvantage of being ignorant of the language of their rulers, and of the laws. I was sent to George Wetmore"s school, like most of the other young people of the neighbourhood, and remained his scholar for three years. If you were on the hill above the orchard yonder, you might see the school-house at this moment; for it is only a short walk from our place, and a walk that I made four times a day for just three years."
"One can see how the land lies now," cried Marble, lighting a segar, for he thought no apology necessary for smoking under a Dutch roof. "The master taught his scholar something more than he found in the spelling-book, or the catechism. We"ll take your word about the school-house, seeing it is out of view."
"It was out of sight, truly, and that may have been the reason my parents took it so hard when George Wetmore asked their leave to marry me. This was not done until he had walked home with me, or as near home as the brow on yon hill, for a whole twelvemonth, and had served a servitude almost as long, and as patient, as that of Jacob for Rachel."
"Well, mother, how did the old people receive the question? Like good-natured parents, I hope, for George"s sake."
"Rather say like the children of Holland, judging of the children of New England. They would not hear of it, but wished me to marry my own cousin, Petrus Storm, who was not greatly beloved even in his own family."
"Of course you down anchor, and said you never would quit the moorings of home?"
"If I rightly understand you, sir, I did something very different. I got privately married to George, and he kept school near a twelvemonth longer, up behind the hill, though most of the young women were taken away from his teaching."
"Ay, the old way; the door was locked after the horse was stolen! Well, you were married, mother----"
"After a time, it was necessary for me to visit a kinswoman who lived a little down the river. There my first child was born, unknown to my parents; and George gave it in charge to a poor woman who had lost her own babe, for we were still afraid to let our secret be known to my parents.
Now commenced the punishment for breaking the fifth commandment."
"How"s that, Miles?" demanded Moses. "Is it ag"in the commandments for a married woman to have a son?"
"Certainly not, my friend; though it is a breach of the commandments not to honour our parents. This good woman alludes to her marrying contrary to the wishes of her father and mother."
"Indeed I do, sir, and dearly have I been punished for it. In a few weeks I returned home, and was followed by the sad news of the death of my first-born. The grief of these tidings drew the secret from me; and nature spoke so loud in the hearts of my poor parents, that they forgave all, took George home, and ever afterwards treated him as if he also had been their own child. But it was too late; had it happened a few weeks earlier, my own precious babe might have been saved to me."
"You cannot know that, mother; we all die when our time comes."
"His time had not come. The miserable wretch to whom George trusted the boy, exposed him among strangers, to save herself trouble, and to obtain twenty dollars at as cheap a rate as possible----"
"Hold!" I interrupted. "In the name of Heaven, my good woman, in what year did this occur?"
Marble looked at me in astonishment, though he clearly had glimpses of the object of my question.
"It was in the month of June, 17--. For thirty long, long years, I supposed my child had actually died; and then the mere force of conscience told me the truth. The wretched woman could not carry the secret with her into the grave, and she sent for me to hear the sad revelation."
"Which was to say that she left the child in a basket, on a tombstone, in a marble-worker"s yard, in town; in the yard of a man whose name was Durfee?" I said, as rapidly as I could speak.
"She did, indeed! though it is a marvel to me that a stranger should know this. What will be G.o.d"s pleasure next?"
Marble groaned. He hid his face in his hands, while the poor woman looked from one of us to the other, in bewildered expectation of what was to follow. I could not leave her long in doubt; but, preparing her for what was to follow, by little and little I gave her to understand that the man she saw before her was her son. After half a century of separation, the mother and child had thus been thrown together by the agency of an inscrutable Providence! The reader will readily antic.i.p.ate the character of the explanations that succeeded. Of the truth of the circ.u.mstances there could not be a shadow of doubt, when everything was related and compared. Mrs. Wetmore had ascertained from her unfaithful nurse the history of her child as far as the alms-house; but thirty years had left a gap in the information she received, and it was impossible for her to obtain the name under which he had left that inst.i.tution. The Revolution was just over when she made her application, and it was thought that some of the books had been taken away by a refugee. Still, there were a plenty of persons to supply traditions and conjecture; and so anxious were she and her husband to trace these groundless reports to their confirmation or refutation, that much money and time were thrown away in the fruitless attempts. At length, one of the old attendants of the children"s department was discovered, who professed to know the whole history of the child brought from the stone-cutter"s yard. This woman doubtless was honest, but her memory had deceived her. She said that the boy had been called Stone, instead of Marble; a mistake that was natural enough in itself, but which was probably owing to the fact that another child of the first name had really left the inst.i.tution a few months before Moses took his leave. This Aaron Stone had been traced, first, as an apprentice to a tradesman; thence into a regiment of foot in the British army, which regiment had accompanied the rest of the forces, at the evacuation, November 25th, 1783.