III.

Manly Hope.

You are at home again; not your own home,—­that is gone,—­but at the home of Nelly and of Frank.  The city heats of summer drive you to the country.  You ramble, with a little kindling of old desires and memories, over the hill-sides that once bounded your boyish vision.  Here you netted the wild rabbits, as they came out at dusk to feed; there, upon that tall chestnut, you cruelly maimed your first captive squirrel.  The old maples are even now scarred with the rude cuts you gave them in sappy March.

You sit down upon some height overlooking the valley where you were born; you trace the faint, silvery line of river; you detect by the leaning elm your old bathing-place upon the Saturdays of Summer.  Your eye dwells upon some patches of pasture-wood which were famous for their nuts.  Your rambling and saddened vision roams over the houses; it traces the familiar chimney-stacks; it searches out the low-lying cottages; it dwells upon the gray roof sleeping yonder under the sycamores.

Tears swell in your eye as you gaze; you cannot tell whence or why they come.  Yet they are tears eloquent of feeling.  They speak of brother-children,—­of boyish glee,—­of the flush of young health,—­of a mother’s devotion,—­of the home affections,—­of the vanities of life,—­of the wasting years,—­of the Death that must shroud what friends remain, as it has shrouded what friends have gone,—­and of that Great Hope, beaming on your seared manhood dimly from the upper world!

Your wealth suffices for all the luxuries of life; there is no fear of coming want; health beats strong in your veins; you have learned to hold a place in the world with a man’s strength, and a man’s confidence.  And yet in the view of those sweet scenes which belonged to early days, when neither strength, confidence, nor wealth were yours,—­days never to come again,—­a shade of melancholy broods upon your spirit, and covers with its veil all that fierce pride which your worldly wisdom has wrought.

You visit again with Frank the country homestead of his grandfather:  he is dead; but the old lady still lives; and blind Fanny, now drawing toward womanhood, wears yet through her darkened life the same air of placid content, and of sweet trustfulness in Heaven.  The boys, whom you astounded with your stories of books, are gone, building up now with steady industry the queen cities of our new western land.  The old clergyman is gone from the desk, and from under his sounding board; he sleeps beneath a brown stone slab in the churchyard.  The stout deacon is dead; his wig and his wickedness rest together.  The tall chorister sings yet; but they have now a bass-viol—­handled by a new schoolmaster—­in place of his tuning-fork; and the years have sown feeble quavers in his voice.

Once more you meet at the home of Nelly the blue-eyed Madge.  The sixpence is all forgotten; you cannot tell where your half of it is gone.  Yet she is beautiful, just budding into the full ripeness of womanhood.  Her eyes have a quiet, still joy, and hope beaming in them, like angel’s looks.  Her motions have a native grace and freedom that no culture can bestow.  Her words have a gentle earnestness and honesty that could never nurture guile.