Kerchey, convalescent, in love with Sarah Royden.

XXIX.

MRS. ROYDEN'S DINNER-PARTY.

How fast the time fled! How quickly, yet how smoothly, the old clergyman's vacation rounded to its close!

Looking back to the day of his arrival, it was hard to realize that more than three weeks had glided away. Yet when he and his friends remembered what had been done, and how many happy and profitable hours they had spent together, the wonder was that so much could have been crowded within so brief a s.p.a.ce of time.

The present chronicle of the old clergyman's vacation is necessarily meager. It would require a larger volume to do anything like justice to the scenes which opened, shifted and closed, during his stay. I have only seized upon a few salient points, that presented themselves to my mind, and portrayed them with as few hasty touches as I could, without order, and with little study for effect. How much must be gone over in silence, and left entirely to the imagination!

The day before that which Father Brighthopes had set for his departure, Mrs. Royden gave a dinner-party. He had become so extensively known and so widely beloved in the society of the neighborhood, that old and young wished to a.s.semble and bid him an affectionate farewell.

Was ever a more cheerful gathering? We doubt it. It was a jolly, democratic party. Father Brighthopes was grand-master of the ceremonies.

If there was one present more humble than another, he made it his business to take him encouragingly and lovingly by the hand, and lift him up. If it was a sister, how delicately, how tenderly he talked to her, and showed her that bright angel of Hope, his guardian spirit, or genius, and the ready consoler of sorrowing hearts!

Deacon Dustan was there, _without_ his new meeting-house schemes; his quiet wife, and Harry and Jane, who were not so quiet, came in his carriage. The Smiths were present; the deacon and his lady. Benjamin, and Josephine, who was so "ecthethively fond of minithterth," and who was sure she could not "thurvive the loth" of so delightful an old man as Father Brighthopes.

Mr. Corlis came early, and had a long and earnest conversation with his elder brother, to whom he already owed so much for his kindly warnings and wise suggestions. Mark Wheeler was invited, but he did not come, being unused to such society; but there was one, still less accustomed to the ways of the world, who could not excuse himself, when Mr. Royden sent to have him brought by main force.

It was Job, the soldier-shoemaker. He came, with his wooden leg, his subdued voice, his sunny old face, his queer bald pate and prominent ears, and the exhaustless fountain of good humor within his heart.

It was the first honor of the kind Job had ever received at the hands of his neighbors. But of late a good deal of interest had been taken in his family, and some who had laid up money to aid in the new meeting-house project had been induced to invest a little of it in comforts and necessaries for the poor man. He felt as though he could really afford to abandon his bench for that day, and enjoy himself, his only objection being the impossibility of Mrs. Bowen leaving the house and going with him. But she was comfortable now at home, and Job was easy in his mind about her.

We should not forget to mention that the old soldier made his appearance in an entirely new suit of clothes, and with his Sunday leg on. He joked a good deal about these externals, and amused the company by his genial humor. His coat was one presented him by Mr. Corlis; the waistcoat had belonged to Deacon Dustan, and the trousers were a gift from Father Brighthopes. Job acknowledged half a dozen shirts from the fair hands of Miss Sedley, the school-ma'am, Sarah Royden and Julia Keller; one of which he had on his back. The handkerchief he wore was a present from Chester. His boot alone was the product of his own labor.

Job had cut off the trousers to fit his wooden leg, and made a jaunty cap of the fragment. The leg itself was an extra one he had kept by him a long time, using it only on Sunday, Fast Day, Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July. It was quite a handsome stick, elegantly finished, and "well seasoned," Job declared.

"I am careful of this leg," he said, in his subdued voice, and quiet, cheerful manner, when the old clergyman joked him about it. "I always keep it on the top shelf at home, with a newspaper around it, to protect it from dust and flies. If you had the gout, sir, you couldn't be more careful of your limbs."

This was after dinner. Job was sitting in the easy-chair, out doors, where the shadow of the house sloped across the gra.s.sy lawn. The guests were forming a circle around him and the old clergyman, some sitting upon the green sward, others supporting their dignity upon chairs, and a few of the young people lying at their ease along the ground.

Mr. Kerchey, who happened to be standing near, with his arm in a swing, exerted himself to speak, and made a comparison between his useless and painful member and Job's comfortable leg.

"Get a wooden one, get a wooden one," said Job. "But, then, an arm of that sort wouldn't be so convenient as a leg. I don't think I could make shoes with only one hand. Dear me! when I think of it, how thankful I ought to be that only my leg was taken off! Supposing I had lost an arm,--or my head,--and been obliged to get a new one?"

"You wouldn't be the first man to go about with a wooden pate," said Chester. "There are plenty of block-heads in the world."

"I believe I was one when I enlisted," laughed Job.

"At least, your head was turned," quietly observed Father Brighthopes.

Anything the old clergyman said in a facetious vein was sure to raise a laugh. When silence was restored, Job replied,

"Very good! capital!"--in his soft half-whisper, and rubbing his hands.

"And I am thankful that, although my head was turned then, only my leg has been turned since. My folly was cut off with my offending member, and my ambition was buried with it."

The company let Job talk in this way a good while. It was refreshing to hear him; and he delighted to be garrulous. There was not a happier heart present than his; and its simple philosophy and genial humor flowed out and mingled in such a sunny, babbling brook, that no one desired it should be checked.

But at length Job himself refused to talk any more.

"I'm pumped dry," said he. "If you want anything more from me, Father Brighthopes will have to _prime_ me. I haven't another joke that isn't musty; and now, I say, we'll have a regular-built speech from the old patriarch. Silence!" cried Job, tapping his wooden leg; "attention, every one! Father Brighthopes, we wait to hear from you."

The old clergyman, having sat down upon the gra.s.s, was so tangled up in the children, who clung to his neck and arms, that he could not arise to respond.

"Georgie," said Mrs. Royden, in a tone of gentle reproach, "you shouldn't lie upon Father Brighthopes. Get down, Willie. Lizzie, you are too big to be hanging around his neck."

"She is crowning him with a wreath of flowers," murmured Hepsy, who was comfortably seated in the midst of the group.

The poor girl's health was much improved; there was a faint flush on her cheeks; but, although in good spirits, she had scarcely spoken before since dinner, having been absorbed in weaving the wreath for the old man's venerable and beloved head.

At length he was crowned, the children released him, and he got up, radiant and beautiful, with his young and hopeful spirit shining through his glorious old face.

We wish there had been a reporter on the spot. That speech would well be worth preserving, word for word. But we are able to give only a meager outline of it, very imperfect, and without regard to the order in which the sentiments--like so many waves of liquid light--rippled upon the hearts of his hearers.

x.x.x.

THE OLD CLERGYMAN'S FAREWELL.

The speaker was about to bid farewell, he said, to all those kind friends. (Sensation.) He would leave them, and be soon forgotten. (Cries of "No, no! never!" from old and young. Job smites his wooden leg, and exclaims, with enthusiasm, "Not that, by a long thread!")

"Well," continues Father Brighthopes, with suffused features, "I thank you. I hope you will remember me, as I shall remember you. G.o.d has been very good to me, in giving me friends, all my life long."

"You deserve them, if anybody does," whispers Job, loud enough to be heard by the entire audience.

He rubs his hands as if he meant it.

"Let me give you a little hint about getting and keeping friends," adds the clergyman, smiling around upon the old people in the chairs, and the young people on the gra.s.s or standing up. "I thank Brother Job for suggesting the thought."

"Hear, hear!" says Mr. Royden, pulling Willie away from the speaker's legs, and silencing Georgie, who is inclined to blow his gra.s.s "squawker."

"My friends have generally been of the right kind," proceeds the old man. "If you wish to have your friends of the right kind,"--glancing at the younger portion of the audience,--"I'll tell you how to go to work.

"Be always ready to lend a helping hand to those who need a.s.sistance. Do so with a hearty good will, not feeling as though you were throwing something away; for, although you get no material return,--which should be the last thing to expect,--you will find in the end that you have been exercising your own capacities for happiness, which grow with their use. Do good for the sake of good, and you will see that the bread thus cast upon the waters comes right back to feed your own hungry souls.

"Be ready to sacrifice all externals to friendship, but maintain your integrity. Give the glittering bubbles of the stream and the current will still be yours, clear and strong as ever. What I mean is, abandon circ.u.mstances and outside comforts for the sake of those you love, but never desert a principle to follow any man or set of men. If you do, few friends will be obtained, and they will not be firmly attached; while many who would soon have come round to you will be lost forever. But plant yourself on the rock of principle; and, however men may shun it at first, it shall in the end prove a magnet to draw all true souls to your standard. Royal hearts shall then be yours. They can rely on you, and you on them; so there will be no falling off, when the wind shifts to the northeast. Truth is the sun which holds friends in their orbits, like revolving planets, by the power of its magnetism. If the sun forsake its place in the heavens, and go chasing after the bright tail of some gay comet, what will become of the planets? Let the sun be true to itself, and even the comet comes around in time."

The old man looks at Chester with a smile which asks, "Is it not so?"

"Your philosophy is excellent for men of courage, like yourself," says Chester. "But few can bear to be hated all their lives by the ma.s.s of their fellow-men, as many have been, for the sake of the truth."