第31章 A VISITOR FROM TOWN(2)

"Mr.Moodie," said I, "do you remember selling me one of those very pretty little silk purses, of which you seem to have a monopoly in the market? I keep it to this day, I can assure you.""Ah, thank you," said our guest."Yes, Mr.Coverdale, I used to sell a good many of those little purses."He spoke languidly, and only those few words, like a watch with an inelastic spring, that just ticks a moment or two and stops again.He seemed a very forlorn old man.In the wantonness of youth, strength, and comfortable condition,--making my prey of people's individualities, as my custom was,--I tried to identify my mind with the old fellow's, and take his view of the world, as if looking through a smoke-blackened glass at the sun.It robbed the landscape of all its life.Those pleasantly swelling slopes of our farm, descending towards the wide meadows, through which sluggishly circled the brimful tide of the Charles, bathing the long sedges on its hither and farther shores; the broad, sunny gleam over the winding water; that peculiar picturesqueness of the scene where capes and headlands put themselves boldly forth upon the perfect level of the meadow, as into a green lake, with inlets between the promontories; the shadowy woodland, with twinkling showers of light falling into its depths;the sultry heat-vapor, which rose everywhere like incense, and in which my soul delighted, as indicating so rich a fervor in the passionate day, and in the earth that was burning with its love,--I beheld all these things as through old Moodie's eyes.When my eyes are dimmer than they have yet come to be, I will go thither again, and see if I did not catch the tone of his mind aright, and if the cold and lifeless tint of his perceptions be not then repeated in my own.

Yet it was unaccountable to myself, the interest that I felt in him.

"Have you any objection," said I, "to telling me who made those little purses?""Gentlemen have often asked me that," said Moodie slowly; "but I shake my head, and say little or nothing, and creep out of the way as well as Ican.I am a man of few words; and if gentlemen were to be told one thing, they would be very apt, I suppose, to ask me another.But it happens just now, Mr.Coverdale, that you can tell me more about the maker of those little purses than I can tell you.""Why do you trouble him with needless questions, Coverdale?" interrupted Hollingsworth."You must have known, long ago, that it was Priscilla.

And so, my good friend, you have come to see her? Well, I am glad of it.

You will find her altered very much for the better, since that winter evening when you put her into my charge.Why, Priscilla has a bloom in her cheeks, now!""Has my pale little girl a bloom?" repeated Moodie with a kind of slow wonder."Priscilla with a bloom in her cheeks! Ah, I am afraid I shall not know my little girl.And is she happy?""Just as happy as a bird," answered Hollingsworth.

"Then, gentlemen," said our guest apprehensively," I don't think it well for me to go any farther.I crept hitherward only to ask about Priscilla;and now that you have told me such good news, perhaps I can do no better than to creep back again.If she were to see this old face of mine, the child would remember some very sad times which we have spent together.

Some very sad times, indeed! She has forgotten them, I know,--them and me,--else she could not be so happy, nor have a bloom in her cheeks.

Yes--yes--yes," continued he, still with the same torpid utterance; "with many thanks to you, Mr.Hollingsworth, I will creep back to town again.""You shall do no such thing, Mr.Moodie," said Hollingsworth bluffly.

"Priscilla often speaks of you; and if there lacks anything to make her cheeks bloom like two damask roses, I'll venture to say it is just the sight of your face.Come,--we will go and find her.""Mr.Hollingsworth!" said the old man in his hesitating way.

"Well," answered Hollingsworth.

"Has there been any call for Priscilla?" asked Moodie; and though his face was hidden from us, his tone gave a sure indication of the mysterious nod and wink with which he put the question."You know, Ithink, sir, what I mean."