Page:New Peterson magazine 1859 Vol. XXXV.pdf/284

 THE

MINISTER HAWTHORNWOLD.

BY MART W. JANVRIN, AUTHOR OP “PEACE.

CHAPTER I.

“Paul, my son, be careful of your health.”

“I will, mother!”

The speakers were a care-worn, pleasant- Toiced, elderly woman, and a young man of slight, elegant form, whose pale face with its intellectual cast of features betrayed the scholar.

They stood in the low entry of an old brown farm houseamong the country hills; and the . yellow sunlight of a September morning Hooded the fields around the little garden in the front yard where gay fall flowers bloomed, gilded the small window-panes of the old farm house, and streamed broadly into the low entry, where the mother and son stood in a parting embrace.

Giles Henderson had bidden his son good-bye early in the morning and hastened to his daily toil, for he was a rough, hard-working, almost a hard-hearted man, who never had “time to waste in idle talkin’;” but Mrs. Henderson’s dark eyes brimmed anew with tears—and it seemed, as she stood there, that she could never release the son whom she folded tenderly in her arms.

And yet, why had she cause for sorrow in bidding him farewell that morning? Was not his toiling period of scholastic life at an end?— his genius recognized, and the long-cherished wish of her heart, that she might see him a minister of the Cross, fulfilled? And why, when the prosperous church of Hawthorn wold lay within a day’s ride of his native home, and the young minister stood ready to depart for the field of his future labors, did the mother’s heart so cling to her child’s?

As the two stood there, side by side, while the driver fastened the trunks upon the stage-coach at the gate, the young man coughed slightly—a quick, nervous cough, which brought a sudden flush to his thin cheek and a perspiration to his forehead, delicate and blue-veined as a woman’s. The mother started, and looked scnrchingly into his face. That anxious gaze betrayed why she was so loath at parting, for the mother’s eye never deceives her.

“You are not strong yet, Paul. That cold has not left you. You cough still. I shall feel anxious about you.”

“Ob, I am gaining fast, mother! and I feel much stronger now the summer’s heat is over. Besides, you know I have studied hard of late— but I shall get rest in Haw thorn wold,” replied Paul Henderson, hopeftilly. “I anticipate a busy life there, it is true—but not a laborious one; for, settled among a warm-hearted, sympathizing people, who will co-operate with me in doing my Master’s work, I shall grow refreshed in body and soul. I go from you very strong in hope, mother.”

“God grant it may prove so, my son, for I shall be very anxious till I hear that you are stronger,” said the fond mother.

“Oh, I hope to return to you next spring famously improved in the outward man!” smiled the young man. “But I see the stage is waiting. Good-bye, dear mother! Don’t be anxious—I will write often,” and with a farewell kiss on a pale, furrowed cheek, while his mother’s head lay a moment on his shoulder, he passed out from the old brown farm house.

Margaret Henderson re-entered her little sitting-room, from which all the sunshine seemed departed, and sank down with a heavy sigh into a seat at the window, burying her face in her hands.

The one wish of her heart was at last realized —Paul was to be settled over his own parish, a minister of the gospel. The fruit of long years of self-denial was reaped—self-denial and rigid economy on her part, for Giles Henderson was a stern, avaricious man to his youngest son, allowing him no time or money “to waste in books or book larnin’,” because, forsooth, “he had got through the world without privileges of schooling or eddication—and if folks wanted ’em now, they’d got to put their own shoulders to the wheel and make their own way.”

Giles, his father’s namesake, and his favorite eldest son, “took” to “farming,” cattle, horses, and the rough village company—the life that best pleased Giles Henderson, senior; but Paul was “puny” and “tied to his mother’s apron string,” “and if he wanted to study metaphysics and algebra and Greek, he must do it by the sweat of his own forehead, as he had always got along through the world!”

This, alas! was poor encouragement to the ambitious boy who early began to look forward