The Dog Crusoe and his Master | Page 8

Crusoe, who, although comfortable in body, was ill at ease in spirit, gave utterance to a melancholy howl. The mother's love instantly prevailed. For one moment she pricked up her ears at the sound, and then, lowering them, trotted quietly after her new master, and followed him to his cottage on the margin of the lake.
CHAPTER THREE.
SPECULATIVE REMARKS WITH WHICH THE READER MAY OR MAY NOT AGREE--AN OLD WOMAN--HOPES AND WISHES COMMINGLED WITH HARD FACTS--THE DOG CRUSOE'S EDUCATION BEGUN.
It is pleasant to look upon a serene, quiet, humble face. On such a face did Richard Varley look every night when he entered his mother's cottage. Mrs Varley was a widow, and she had followed the fortunes of her brother, Daniel Hood, ever since the death of her husband. Love for her only brother induced her to forsake the peaceful village of Maryland, and enter upon the wild life of a backwoods settlement. Dick's mother was thin, and old, and wrinkled, but her face was stamped with a species of beauty which never fades--the beauty of a loving look. Ah! the brow of snow and the peach-bloom cheek may snare the heart of man for a time, but the loving look alone can forge that adamantine chain that time, age, eternity, shall never break.
Mistake us not, reader, and bear with us if we attempt to analyse this look which characterised Mrs Varley. A rare diamond is worth stopping to glance at, even when one is in a hurry! The brightest jewel in the human heart is worth a thought or two! By a loving look, we do not mean a look of love bestowed on a beloved object. That is common enough, and thankful should we be that it is so common in a world that's over-full of hatred. Still less do we mean that smile and look of intense affection with which some people--good people too--greet friends and foe alike, and by which effort to work out their beau ideal of the expression of Christian love, they do signally damage their cause, by saddening the serious and repelling the gay. Much less do we mean that perpetual smile of good-will which argues more of personal comfort and self-love than anything else. No, the loving look we speak of is as often grave as gay. Its character depends very much on the face through which it beams. And it cannot be counterfeited. Its ring defies imitation. Like the clouded sun of April, it can pierce through tears of sorrow; like the noontide sun of summer, it can blaze in warm smiles; like the northern lights of winter, it can gleam in depths of woe--but it is always the same, modified, doubtless, and rendered more or less patent to others, according to the natural amiability of him or her who bestows it. No one can put it on. Still less can any one put it off. Its range is universal; it embraces all mankind, though, of course, it is intensified on a few favoured objects; its seat is in the depths of a renewed heart, and its foundation lies in love to God.
Young Varley's mother lived in a cottage which was of the smallest possible dimensions consistent with comfort. It was made of logs, as, indeed, were all the other cottages in the valley. The door was in the centre, and a passage from it to the back of the dwelling divided it into two rooms. One of these was subdivided by a thin partition, the inner room being Mrs Varley's bedroom, the outer Dick's. Daniel Hood's dormitory was a corner of the kitchen, which apartment served also as a parlour.
The rooms were lighted by two windows, one on each side of the door, which gave to the house the appearance of having a nose and two eyes. Houses of this kind have literally got a sort of expression on--if we may use the word--their countenances. Square windows give the appearance of easy-going placidity; longish ones, that of surprise. Mrs Varley's was a surprised cottage, and this was in keeping with the scene in which it stood, for the clear lake in front, studded with islands, and the distant hills beyond, composed a scene so surprisingly beautiful that it never failed to call forth an expression of astonished admiration from every new visitor to the Mustang Valley.
"My boy," exclaimed Mrs Varley, as her son entered the cottage with a bound, "why so hurried to-day? Deary me! where got you the grand gun?"
"Won it, mother!"
"Won it, my son?"
"Ay, won it, mother. Druve the nail almost, and would ha' druve it altogether had I bin more used to Joe Blunt's rifle."
Mrs Varley's heart beat high, and her face flushed with pride as she gazed at her son, who laid the rifle on the table