Culm Rock | Page 4

and wretchedness had worn heavy lines in his face. As he sat in the library this September afternoon, looking up at the portrait on the wall, he seemed almost an old man. The room was wide and high, with tall oaken bookcases at either end. Two great windows, before one of which he sat, looked out upon the sea and the white line of foam curling upon the sand. The waves were but mere ripples this calm afternoon, but from the shore there came up a ceaseless, steady murmur that made itself heard in the quiet of the room; and by and by Trafford's eyes turned from the calm face above him and looked out seaward. White and shining lay the vast expanse, with here and there the faint film of a sail upon the horizon. Nothing to be seen but water and the great dome of sky and the little spit of yellow sand where the tide was murmuring. How many sunny afternoons he had thus looked out upon the sea, vast and gleaming! How many lonely afternoons and long, weary nights he had listened to the slow chanting of the tide, watched it creep up the sand with its puffs of thick foam, watched it as it slowly receded and left its burden of weed and shell behind! Flowing and ebbing forever, alway at its work, in and out, in and out, through storm and shine, through night and day, it seemed to mock his own idle, useless life, and reproach him with its never silent voice. Of what use, he wondered as he sat there, was such a life as his? To-morrow the tide would be at its work again, the ships go on, the sun shine warm and bright over all,--and he? For him to-morrow would be but the repetition of to-day; the same dragging hours, the same apathetic poring over books, the same half-hours at the organ with the music-books, playing sad melodies which accorded well with his own sombre feelings. He looked up at the portrait and sighed; remembered the dear one's dying words, and thought, "I might have found Him once; but it's too late now. All that passed away a long time ago, and now,--it's only to plod on and on, year in and year out, till the end." And what then?
There came a soft rap at the door.
"Come in, Hagar," said he, heavily, without taking his eyes off the sea; and then the door was pushed open, and a head, surmounted by a great yellow turban, looked in.
"Somethin' fur you, Mas'r Dick," said the owner of the turban, without coming in, however.
"What is it?" said Trafford, abstractedly.
The door opened wider, and the old housekeeper entered. She was bent and thin, with great wrinkles in her forehead and face, and wherever a tuft of wool peeped out from under the fanciful headgear, it showed quite gray; but her step was quick and firm as she went across the floor to the figure by the great window.
"A letter, Mas'r Dick," said she, standing by Trafford's chair; "dat yer old skipper brought it. Said he brung it straight from de city."
"Ben Tate?" asked the master.
Hagar nodded assent. "Said ye was to hev it dis yer afternoon, sure," said she; "'twa'n't no letter to be lyin' 'round in dem Culm huts, so he cum up here wid it hisself. Be it frum Hastings, Mas'r Dick?"
Hagar had lived in the Trafford family from childhood, and Richard had grown up to manhood under her eyes, had married, and she went to live with the young people. She had seen the wife fade and die, and the husband grow stern and gloomy, and out of solicitude and affection had clung faithfully to him through all fortunes. It would seem, to hear her talk, that she never had quite realized that Richard Trafford, the man of forty, was any other than "Mas'r Dick," the boy whose smartness at school, and whose popularity among his companions, had always been her boast and pride. Gray and worn he was getting, gloomy, sad, even harsh at times to her, yet he was only "Mas'r Dick," and her own little boy, for whom she must watch and care to the best of her ability. Now, as she queried where the letter might be from, she dropped down in a chair a little way from him, and waited till he should see fit to answer her question; for could there be a paradise on earth, it would have been represented to Hagar by Hastings,--that great city where their old home had been, where her own childhood had been spent, and where all the friends of her kin and color dwelt. It was a hard matter to tear herself away from them all and follow