Evenings at Donaldson Manor

M >> Maria J. McIntosh >> Evenings at Donaldson Manor

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And now what have we more to tell of Meeta? It cannot be denied that
there were hours of darkness, in which the joyous hopes and memories of
her youth rose up vividly before her, making her present life seem sad
and lonely in contrast. But these visitors from the realm of shadows
were neither evoked nor welcomed by Meeta. Resolutely she turned from
the dead past, to the active, living present, determined that no shadow
from her should darken the declining days of her father and mother. She
is the light of their home, and often they bless the Providence which
has left her with them. What would they have done without her cheerful
voice to inspire them in bearing the burdens of advancing life?

But not only in her home was Meeta a consolation and a blessing. The
poor, the sick, the sorrowing, knew ever where to find true sympathy and
ready aid. She was the "Lady Bountiful" of her neighborhood. But there
was one house where more especially her presence was welcomed; where no
important step was taken without her advice; where sorrow was best
soothed by her, and joy but half complete till she had shared it. This
house was Ernest Rainer's. To him and Sophie she was a cherished sister,
to whose upright and self-forgetting nature they looked up with a
species of reverence; and to their children she was "Dear Aunt Meeta!
the kindest and best friend, except mamma, in the world!"

How many more useful, more noble, or happier persons than our old maid
can married life present? Is she not more worthy of imitation than the
"Celias" and "Daphnes" whose delicate distresses have formed the staple
of circulating libraries, or than those feeble spirits in real life,
who, mistaking selfishness for sensibility, turn thanklessly from the
blessings and coldly from the duties of life, because they have been
denied the gratification of some cherished desire?

CHAPTER X.

It is Christmas, merry Christmas, as we have been duly informed this
morning by every inhabitant of Donaldson Manor, from Col. Donaldson to
the pet and baby Sophy Dudley, who was taught the words but yesterday,
for the occasion. Last evening our readings were interrupted, for all
were busy in preparing for this important day. Miss Donaldson was
superintending jellies and blanc-manges, custards and Charlottes des
Russes; Col. and Mrs. Donaldson were preparing gifts for their servants,
not one of whom was forgotten, and Annie and I, and, by his own special
request, Mr. Arlington, were arranging in proper order the gifts of that
most considerate, mirthful and generous of spirits, Santa Claus. This
morning the sun rose as clear and bright as though it, too, rejoiced in
the joy of humanity; but long before the sun had showed himself, little
feet were pattering from room to room, and childish voices shouting in
the unchecked exuberance of delight. I sometimes doubt whether the
children are so happy as I am, on such occasions. One incident that
occurred this morning would have been enough, in my opinion, to repay
all the time, the trouble, and the gold, which Santa Claus, or his
agents, had expended on their preparations. Aroused by the voices of the
children, I threw on a dressing-gown and hastened to the room
appropriated to their patron saint, which I entered at one door just as
little Eva Dudley appeared at another. Without being in the least a
beauty, Eva has the most charming face I know; merry and bright as
Puck's, or as her own life, which from its earliest dawn has been joyous
as a bird's carol. She gazed now with eager delight on the toys
exhibited by her brothers and sisters, without, apparently, one thought
of herself, till Robert said, "But see here, Eva, look at your own."

As her eyes rested on the large baby-house, with its folding-doors open
to display the furniture of the parlors, and the two dolls, mother and
daughter, seated at a table on which stood a neat china breakfasting
set, she clasped her dimpled hands in silent ecstasy for half a minute,
then rising to her utmost height on her rosy little toes, she exclaimed,
"Oh, isn't I a happy little woman!"

Dear Eva! a little _girl's_ heart would not have seemed to her large
enough to contain such a rapture.

Our party has been augmented since breakfast by the arrival of several
families of Donaldsons--some of whom live at too great a distance for
visits at any other time than Christmas, when all who stand in any
conceivable, or I was about to say inconceivable, degree of relationship
to the Donaldsons of Donaldson Manor, are expected to be here. Among
this host of uncles and aunts and cousins, I was really grateful for my
own prefix of aunt, and I heard Mr. Arlington whisper a request to
Robert to call him uncle--a title to which I have no doubt he would
willingly make good his claim.

In the midst of this general hilarity, the religious character of the
day was not forgotten, and all the family and some of the visitors
attended the morning services in the church. We know that there are
those who, doubting the testimony on which the Christian world has
agreed to observe the 25th of December as the birthday into our mortal
life of the world's Saviour, and the era from which man may date his
hopes of a happy immortality, consider the religious observances of this
day a sheer superstition. On such a controversy I could say but little,
and I should be very unwilling so say that little here; but I would ask
if it can be wrong in the opinion of any--nay, if it be not right, very
right, in the opinion of all--to celebrate once in the year an event so
solemn and so joyous to our race; and whether any day can be better for
such a purpose, than that which has been for centuries associated with
it wherever the Angel's song of "Peace on earth and good will to man"
has been heard? Another class of objectors there are who complain that a
day so sacred should be desecrated, as they express it, by revelry and
mirth. To their objection I should not have a word of reply, if it were
limited to a condemnation of that wild uproar and senseless jollity by
which men sometimes make fools or brutes of themselves; but when they
condemn the cheerfulness that has its home and its birthplace in a
grateful heart, when they frown upon the happy family gathering once
more within the old walls that had echoed to their childish gambols,
calling up by the spells of association, from the dim recesses of the
past, the very tones and looks of the mother that watched their cradled
sleep, and the father that guided their first tottering steps in the
pursuit of truth; tones and looks by which, if by any thing, the cold,
selfish spirit of the world to whose dominion they have yielded, may be
exorcised, and the loving and generous spirit of their earlier life may
again enter within them; when they declare these things inconsistent
with the Christian's joyful commemoration of that event to which he owes
his earthly blessings as well as his heavenly hopes. I can only pity
them for their want of harmony with the Great Spirit of the Universe,
the spirit of Love and Joy.

Our Christmas was continued and concluded in the same spirit in which it
was commenced--the spirit of kindly affection to Man and devout
gratitude to Heaven. Those guests whose homes were distant remained for
the night, and in the evening, before any of our party had left us,
Col. Donaldson called on Robert Dudley to repeat a poem winch he had
learned at his request for the occasion. Robert was a little abashed at
first at being brought forward so conspicuously; but he is a manly,
intelligent boy, and his voice soon gathered strength and firmness, and
his eyes lost their downward tendency, and kindled with earnest feeling,
as he recited those beautiful lines of Charles Sprague, entitled--

THE FAMILY MEETING.

We are all here!
Father, mother,
Sister, brother,
All who hold each other dear.
Each chair is fill'd, we're all at home,
To-night let no cold stranger come;
It is not often thus around
Our own familiar hearth we're found.
Bless, then, the meeting and the spot;
For once be every care forgot;
Let gentle Peace assert her power,
And kind affection rule the hour;
We're all--all here.

We're NOT all here!
Some are away--the dead ones dear,
Who throng'd with us this ancient hearth,
And gave the hour to guiltless mirth.
Fate, with a stern, relentless hand,
Look'd in and thinn'd our little band:
Some like a night-flash pass'd away,
And some sank, lingering, day by day;
The quiet grave-yard--some lie there--
And cruel Ocean has his share--
We're _not_ all here.

We _are_ all here!
Even they--the dead--though dead so dear.
Fond Memory, to her duty true,
Brings back their faded forms to view.
How life-like, through the mist of years,
Each well-remember'd face appears!
We see them as in times long past,
From each to each kind looks are cast,
We hear their words, their smiles behold,
They're round us as they were of old--
We _are_ all here.

We are all here!
Father, mother,
Sister, brother,
You that I love with love so dear.
This may not long of us be said,
Soon must we join the gather'd dead,
And by the hearth we now sit round
Some other circle will be found.
Oh, then, that wisdom may we know,
Which yields a life of peace below!
So, in the world to follow this,
May each repeat, in words of bliss.
We're all--all _here_!

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, entitled, "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 noble 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 God'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 God.
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 God was reconciled,
And this the messenger.
As sure as God 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
clustered 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 class. 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 associated. 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 pass 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 circumstance 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 association 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 coarse manner. There was one of
this latter class 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 constituted the chief
distinction between men, might have been chosen king of the tribe with
which he had chanced to be associated. 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
passion.

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 glass."
This was the case of an old spy-glass, in which he had so disposed
several mirrors, made of a toilet-glass 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
glass."

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
assumed a formality which made it a poor interpreter of her heart's true
emotions.

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