CHAPTER VIII.
The silk well could she twist and twine, And make the fine march-pine, And with the needle work: And she could help the priest to say His matins on a holiday And sing a psalm in kirk.
DOWSABEL.
With such attractions for old and young it will readily be believedthat the Rose Croft was a favourite resort of the inhabitants of St.Mary's. The maidens gathered around Blanche as a May-day queen; thematrons possessed in Mistress Alice a discreet and kind friend, and themore sedate part of the population found an agreeable host in theworthy official himself.
The family of the Lord Proprietary sustained the most intimaterelations with this household. It is true that Lady Baltimore, beingfeeble in health and stricken with grief at the loss of her son, whichyet hung with scarcely abated poignancy upon her mind, was seldom seenbeyond her own threshold; but his Lordship's sister, the Lady Maria--asshe was entitled in the province--was a frequent and ever most welcomeguest. Whether this good lady had the advantage of the Proprietary inyears, would be an impertinent as well as an unprofitable inquiry,since no chronicler within my reach has thought fit to instruct theworld on this point; and, if it were determined, the fact could neitherheighten nor diminish the sober lustre of her virtues. Suffice it thatshe was a stirring, tidy little woman, who moved about withindefatigable zeal in the acquittal of the manifold duties which herlarge participation in the affairs of the town exacted of her--the LadyBountiful of the province who visited the sick, fed the hungry, clothedthe naked and chid the idle. She especially befriended suchnursing-mothers as those whose scanty livelihood withheld from them thenecessary comforts of their condition, and, in an equal degree,extended her bounty to such of the colonists as had been disabled inthe military service of the province,--holding these two concerns ofpopulation and defence to be high state matters which her familyconnexion with the government most cogently recommended to her care.Though it is reported of her, that a constitutional tendency towards atoo profuse distribution of nick-nacks and sweet-meats amongst herinvalids, gave great concern and embarrassment to the physician of thetown, and bred up between him and the lady a somewhat stubborn, butaltogether good-natured warfare. She was wont to look in upon theprovincial school-house, where, on stated occasions, she gave the youngtrain-bands rewards for good conduct, and where she was also diligentto rebuke all vicious tendencies. In the early morning she trippedthrough the dew, with scrupulous regularity, to mass; oftensuperintended the decorations of the chapel; gossiped with theneighbours after service, and, in short, kept her hands full ofbusiness.
Her interest in the comfort and welfare of the towns-people grew partlyout of her temperament, and partly out of a feudal pride that regardedthem as the liegemen of her brother the chief,--a relation which sheconsidered as creating an obligation to extend to them her countenanceupon all proper occasions: and, sooth to say, that countenance was notperhaps the most comely in the province, being somewhat sallow, but itwas as full of benevolence as became so exemplary a spirit. She watchedpeculiarly what might be called the under-growth, and was verysuccessful in worming herself into the schemes and plans of the youngpeople. Her entertainments at the mansion were frequent, and no lessacceptable to the gayer portion of the inhabitants than they were toher brother. On these occasions she held a little court, over which shepresided with an amiable despotism, and fully maintained the state ofthe Lord Proprietary. By these means the Lady Maria had attained to anover-shadowing popularity in the town.
Blanche Warden had, from infancy, engaged her deepest solicitude; andas she took to herself no small share of the merit of that nurture bywhich her favourite had grown in accomplishment, she felt, in themaiden's praises which every where rang through the province, an almostmaternal delight. Scarcely a day passed over without some manifestationof this concern. New patterns of embroidery, music brought by the lastship from _home_, some invitation of friendship or letter of counsel,furnished occasions of daily intercourse between the patroness and themaiden of the Rose Croft; and not unfrequently the venerable spinsterherself,--attended by a familiar in the shape of a little Indian girl,Natta, the daughter of Pamesack, arrayed in the trinketry of hertribe--alighted from an ambling pony at the Collector's door, with aface full of the importance of business. Perchance, there might be anoccasion of merry-making in contemplation, and then the lady Mariaunited in consultation with sister Alice concerning the details of thematter, and it was debated, with the deliberation due to so interestinga subject, whether Blanche should wear her black or her crimson velvetboddice, her sarsnet or her satin, and such other weighty matters ashave not yet lost their claims to thoughtful consideration on similaremergencies.
In the frequent interchange of the offices of good neighbourhoodbetween the families of the Proprietary and of the Collector, it couldscarce fall out that the Secretary should not be a large participator.The shyness of the student and the habitual self-restraint taught himin the seminary of Antwerp, in some degree, screened from commonobservation the ardent character of Albert Verheyden. The deferentialrelation which he held to his patron threw into his demeanour a reserveexpressive of humility rather than of diffidence; but under this therebreathed a temperament deeply poetical and a longing for enterprise,that all the discipline of his school and the constraint of hisposition could scarce suppress. He was now at that time of life whenthe imagination is prone to dally with illusions; when youth, not yetyoked to the harness of the world's business, turns its spirit forth toseek adventure in the domain of fancy. He was thus far a dreamer, anddreamed of gorgeous scenes and bold exploits and rare fortune. He hadthe poet's instinct to perceive the beautiful, and his fancy hung itwith richer garlands and charmed him into a worshipper. A muteworshipper he was, of the Rose of St. Mary's, from the first momentthat he gazed upon her. That outward form of Blanche Warden, and themotion and impulses of that spirit, might not often haunt theSecretary's dream without leaving behind an image that should live forever in his heart. To him the thought was enchantment, that in thisremote wild, far away from the world's knowledge, a flower of suchsurpassing loveliness should drink the glorious light in solitude,--forso he, schooled in populous cities, deemed of this sequesteredprovince,--and with this thought came breathings of poetry whichwrought a transfiguration of the young votary and lifted him out of thesphere of this "working-day world." Day after day, week after week, andmonth after month, the Secretary watched the footsteps of the beautifulgirl; but still it was silent, unpresuming adoration. It entered notinto his mind to call it love: it was the very humbleness of devotion.
Meantime the maiden, unconscious of her own rare perfections andinnocent of all thought of this secret homage, found Master Albert muchthe most accomplished and gentle youth she had ever seen. He had,without her observing how it became so, grown to be, in some relationor other, part and parcel of her most familiar meditations. Hisoccasions of business with the Collector brought him so often to theRose Croft that if they happened not every day, they were, at least,incidents of such common occurrence as to be noted by noceremony--indeed rather to be counted on in the domestic routine. TheCollector was apt to grow restless if, by any chance, they weresuspended, as it was through the Secretary's mission he received thetidings of the time as well as the official commands of theProprietary; whilst Albert's unobtrusive manners, his soft step andpretensionless familiarity with the household put no one out of the wayto give him welcome. His early roaming in summer sometimes brought him,at sunrise, beneath the bank of the Rose Croft, where he looked, withthe admiration of an artist, upon the calm waters of St. Inigoe'sCreek, and upon the forest that flung its solemn shades over itsfarther shores. Not unfrequently, the fresh and blooming maiden hadleft her couch as early as himself, and tended her plants before thedew had left the leaves, and thus it chanced that she would find him inhis vocation; and, like him, she took pleasure in gazing on that brightscene, when it was the delight of both to tell each other how beautifulit was. And when, in winter, the rain pattere
d from the eaves and theskies were dark, the Secretary, muffled in his cloak, would find hisroad to the Collector's mansion and help the maiden to while away thetedious time. Even "when lay the snow upon a level with the hedge," thetwo long miles of unbeaten track did not stop his visit, for theSecretary loved the adventure of such a journey; and Blanche oftensmiled to see how manfully he endured it, and how light he made of thesnow-drift which the wind had sometimes heaped up into billows, behindwhich the feather of his bonnet might not be discovered while he satupon his horse.
In this course of schooling Blanche and Albert grew into a nearintimacy, and the maiden became dependent, for some share of herhappiness, upon the Secretary without being aware. Master Albert had anexquisite touch of the lute and a rich voice to grace it, and Blanchefound many occasions to tax his skill: he had a gallant carriage onhorseback, and she needed the service of a cavalier: he was expert inthe provincial sport of hawking, and had made such acquaintance withBlanche's merlin that scarce any one else could assist the maiden incasting off Ariel to a flight. In short, Blanche followed the bent ofher own ingenuous and truthful nature, and did full justice to theSecretary's various capacity to please her, by putting his talents inrequisition with an unchidden freedom, and without once pausing toexplore the cause why Master Albert always came so opportunely to herthoughts. Doubtless, if she had had the wit to make this inquiry thecharm of her liberty would have been broken, and a sentinel would, everafter, have checked the wandering of her free footstep.
The Collector, in regard to this intercourse, was sound asleep. Hiswise head was taken up with the concerns of the province, his estate,and the discussion of opinions that had little affinity to the topicslikely to interest the meditations of a young maiden. He was not apt tosee a love-affair, even if it lay, like a fallen tree, across his path,much less to hunt it out when it lurked like a bird amongst the flowersthat grew in the shady coverts by the wayside. The astuteness of thelady Maria, however, was not so much at fault, and she soon discovered,what neither Blanche nor Albert had sufficiently studied to make themaware of their own category. But the Secretary was in favour with thelady Maria, and so, she kept her own counsel, as well as a good-naturedwatch upon the progress of events.
Rob of the Bowl: A Legend of St. Inigoe's. Vol. 1 (of 2) Page 8
