Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub
[graphic][merged small][subsumed][merged small]

FROM THE ORNL PAINTING IN POSESSION OF RICH RD JENNEP LSQ

Published by Blackie & Son, Glasgow

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC DIBRARY

X AND

DEN FOUNDATIONS

L

THE ORPHAN.

A COUNTRY TALE.*

BY THE HON. MRS NORTON.

"Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days."

MANY years since, as a farmer of the name of Somers was returning home late one autumn evening on horseback, he heard a faint wailing cry, as if from an infant. He was a kind, good man, and his heart pitied the child who was left unsheltered at such an hour; so he stopped and listened, but he heard no sound except the low wind sweeping by him, and it was too dark to distinguish objects at a distance. He walked his horse up and down that part of the road from which the cry had appeared to come, but it was not repeated; and he was just turning homewards, when he thought he saw something like a heap of white linen lying close to the large iron gates of a park that opened on the road. The farmer's heart sank, for he thought murder had been done in that lonely place, and for a moment he hesitated whether he should not first obtain assistance before he advanced; but the faint cry he had heard was again audible, and there was no one near but an old deaf woman who kept the gate of the park, and her daughter who was but a child. He tied his horse to the iron railing, and knelt down by the white heap, which proved to be the body of a female, quite stiff and cold: on her bosom lay a little infant, in which there was still life, though it was numbed by the bleak wind which must have blown over it for many hours; and again it moaned feebly as the farmer lifted it in his arms. He knocked at the door of the park lodge, and begged of the old woman to allow the body to be carried in there; but she was so terrified at the thought, that he was obliged to think of some other plan. Having obtained a light, therefore, and assured himself that the female was indeed dead, he left the body, and rode home. The first thing he did on arriving, was to order two labouring men to go and fetch the corpse. Then stealing softly into the sleeping room, where his wife sate watching by the cradle of their youngest child, he laid the little foundling on her lap, and told her where and how he had found it. "And God bless you for "that God who tempers

it," exclaimed the poor woman, weeping: the wind to the shorn lamb;" and she turned her tearful eyes to the cradle where her own pet lamb was lying in a sweet quiet sleep. All that night they watched over the frail life thus committed to

From Friendship's Offering.' 1832.

their care. Many times they thought its sufferings were over, and that it had joined its unhappy mother in another and better world; but at length the shadow of death passed away from its fair pale face it moved its lips as if asking for nourishment; and, after swallowing a few drops of warm milk, opened its large blue eyes and faintly smiled on the good woman who tended it. Farmer Somers himself wept with joy on this occasion; and, leaving a little girl to watch the sleepers, he proceeded with his wife to the room where the body lay.

It was an awful sight to see, by the dim light of a single candle, and a lantern which stood at the corpse's head, the eager expression of fear, curiosity, horror, or pity, in the countenances of the bystanders, and to contrast these evidences of human passion, with the eternal quiet of the dead woman's face, and the stiff, unnatural repose of her form. There was no mark of violence on the body, but it was so wasted and thin as to look almost like a skeleton. Mrs Somers assisted in laying out the corpse, and cut off a lock of the long golden hair which was all of beauty that now remained. This, and the certificate of the child's baptism, which was found in the woman's pocket, she sealed up till the little orphan should be old enough to value them. And after that, the cold lip and the closed eye, whose smile and glance had once, perhaps, gladdened many hearts, were hidden under the heavy earth; and in a few years, the circumstance which placed the Orphan Mary an inmate in Farmer Somers' house, were almost forgotten; nor was the history of the poor woman ever known, nor any inquiry made about her, after all had been made public in the newspapers of the day.

The little child, thus rescued from destruction, was brought up with Farmer Somers' own daughter, and the same care and tenderness was shown to both; but both did not thrive equally. The sparkling beauty and mental quickness of "Gipsey Jessie," as she was called in the village, formed a striking contrast with the paleness of Mary's delicate features, and her slow progress in what Jessie called "her learning." But Jessie's two brothers loved meek Mary as well if not better than their true sister; and Jessie herself poured out all the warmth of her affectionate heart in behalf of her companion, nor was she conscious of any superiority except that of being two years Mary's senior. Children are slow to feel their own inferiority unless it is forced on their minds by those around them. The orphan knew that Jessie was the prettiest and the cleverest, just as she knew that the hair of the latter was darker, and her limbs stronger to bear fatigue, than her own; but the knowledge gave her no pain; and, secure in the affection of all around her, she enjoyed

a quiet happiness, till accident caused her to institute a comparison in her own mind, between her merits and those of her more sprightly companion.

She was sitting at the door of the farm house one sultry day in August, watching Jessie and her brothers, who were helping the reapers at some distance. The orphan had exerted herself to the utmost that day-even beyond her strength; and had stolen home to the threshold of the house to rest a little while. Farmer Somers had returned a few minutes before, and was speaking to his wife within doors, so that Mary scarcely heard their conversation till the sound of her own name awoke her attention. 66 Yes, Mary was there, too, poor thing;" said the farmer, in answer to his wife's question, "doing her best-and that was but little." "She always does her best," said Mrs Somers, quietly. "Yes, yes, I know the girl does all she can, but there's no more strength in her than a bit of wash-leather-you should have seen Jessie, the little sturdy gipsey, she did as much as a grown woman; and with such a merry smile on her sun-burnt face, God bless her, as did one's heart good to look at. The other will never be any thing but a burden upon us all her life long." "Oh don't say so, Richard; it was she who put the cider ready for you that you've just been drinking: she's a deal more thoughtful than Jessie, and pretty enough, too, if beauty goes for any thing. Don't speak as if you repented the great charity God has put it in your power to do." "I don't repent it," said the farmer vehemently; "I never see her enjoying a summer's day with the boys and Jessie, or warming her little shivering hands at our hearth in winter, without thanking heaven for having made me the means of saving her life. But that's no reason I should think of her as of my own girl; and I tell you that she will never be fit for any thing,-never."

Mary heard no more. She rose from the place where she had been sitting, and walked very slowly to a little bank which overlooked the field they were reaping; and there she sat down and sobbed bitterly. She was roused by a peal of merry laughter from the field; and presently Jessie and her brothers came bounding towards her. The little orphan dried her tears, and watched them till they reached the sunk fence which formed the boundary of the cornfield. The eldest of the boys cleared it; then the next; and lastly, Jessie threw over her little sheaf of gleaned ears for the "Harvest home," and jumped across it as lightly and fearlessly as her brothers

"Ah!" sighed poor Mary, "I couldn't do that; I always go round to the little gate." And she looked wistfully up in Jessie's face, as she bent over her and jested her for laziness, with a pain

« PředchozíPokračovat »