Two days of drizzling rain followed, and did their best to make the black roof and mouldy walls of Bergan Hall look more cheerless than ever. But a counteracting influence was busy within. An energetic young spirit was rapidly organizing a home for itself in one corner; turning the shadows out of nooks where they had lain so long as almost to have established a pre-emption right, and making short work with dust, mould, and dead air. And, in some inexplicable way, the whole house seemed to catch the pleasant infection, and to be faintly astir with life. A passer-by of delicate instincts would have seen at once that the long lease of silence and emptiness had expired. And in truth, it would have been strange if a dwelling, so old—so long familiar with human affairs and interests, the very timbers of which must have been oozy with the exhalations of a long succession of joys and sorrows—had not shown itself ready to sympathize with every passing phase of life, and especially to welcome back to its empty old bosom a fresh, young, beating heart.
That it did so, Bergan felt intuitively. In return, he did what he could to vivify with his single personality its whole wide indoor world. Having received unlimited discretionary powers from his uncle, in regard to choice of rooms and furniture, as well as the most unrestrained privilege of exploration, he went from room to room, ransacking and arranging, here picking up a quaintly carved chair, and there an absurdly contorted little table, and setting wide open doors and windows wherever he could find a reasonable excuse for doing so. He even mounted to the garret, a great twilight-hall, stored with the lumber of many vanished generations, and dived into nooks of dingiest obscurity, with the eager zeal of a discoverer; coming forth covered with dust and cobwebs, and laden with spoils. File upon file of yellow papers, having a possible interest as family annals, a curiously gnarled and twisted genealogical tree, a dust-choked flute, several Spanish songs in manuscript, a discolored sketch-book, and a quaint old secretary, from the innumerable pigeon-holes of which sprang a whole colony of alarmed mice,—these were among the treasures that he unearthed, and transferred to his own room for examination or use. Every hour, the home-feeling grew upon him. Despite the gray and dripping sky, and the disconsolate, water-soaked earth, these days had their own peculiar illumination and charm. Oldness and newness combined to produce one rich—albeit, a little heavy—atmosphere of enjoyment.
Occasionally, his uncle came to watch his progress, and favor him with half-serious, half-jocular commentary. He was both interested and amused to observe how readily the new inmate fitted himself into his surroundings, and what talent he displayed in organizing various crude and chaotic elements into one harmonious whole. By turns he adapted, invented, or altered, until his room presented an aspect of pleasantness, as well as an array of conveniences, in striking contrast with the rude accommodations of the cottage, and even with the oldtime appliances that had served former occupants. His uncle wondered and admired even while he shook his head over the un-Bergan-like trait, and questioned if, after all, it were not a sign of degeneracy. This doubt wellnigh culminated in conviction when, on the afternoon of the second day, in a lull of the storm, he discovered his nephew calmly seated astride the high ridge-pole, with a bundle of shingles and a pocketful of nails, stopping the leaks with which the long rain and his visits to the garret had made him acquainted; and accompanying his work with a very sweet and deftly executed whistle.
"That settles the question, Harry," he shouted to the amateur carpenter, a smile and a frown struggling for supremacy on his upturned face. "There never was a Bergan, from first to last, who could have done that!"
"Do not speak so disrespectfully of our common ancestors, uncle! As if they had not the use of their hands!"
"Humph! It\'s plain that you have the use of yours, and of your head, too! How in the world did you reach that dizzy altitude?"
Bergan laughed. "\'Where there\'s a will there\'s a way.\' What should you say to the chimney?"
"Nonsense! How did you get up there?"
"I really cannot answer that question as it stands. There is a mistake in the terms."
"You rascal! what do you mean?\'"
"I did not \'get up;\' I came down." And Bergan glanced at a great oak-bough, swinging full ten feet above his head.
The Major uttered a cry of admiration. "You are a Bergan, and no mistake!" he cried, emphasizing the statement with an oath. "You\'ve got the real, old, brave Bergan stuff in you, Harry, and I\'m proud of you, in spite of your tinkering. But that bough is now out of your reach; you cannot come down by that route."
"A new one will be more interesting. And the chimney has a most capacious throat; the builders must have contemplated the passage of other things than smoke."
"Harry! you\'ll break your neck! Don\'t you dare to come down till I send you a ladder! At the same time, I\'ll order the carpenter to finish up that job, if it must be done."
"He will be too late, uncle; I am just laying the last shingle."
"Speak lower, you scamp! lest the old portraits under your feet should hear you and blush."
"Their thanks would be much more to the point—especially Sir Harry\'s," coolly replied Bergan. "Two hours ago, the water from this very leak was pouring in a stream down his long ancestral nose; you would have said the picture had an influenza."
The Major emitted a sound between a laugh and a growl, and vanished.
Poor Brick was even more scandalized by his young master\'s plebeian readiness with his hands. The very ease with which Bergan performed his self-imposed, and, for the most part, unaccustomed tasks, misled the dusky spectator. To be sure, Brick was a little comforted to observe that those agile hands knew the trick of the ivory piano-keys full well, and could evolve soulful melody from the flute, that they were not ignorant of the mysteries of sketching, and betrayed a scholarly familiarity with books and papers, pen and ink; yet he doubted if even these gracious accomplishments could wash from them the stain of that dreadful manual labor in which they were erewhile engaged,—the only redeeming feature of which was that it was not done for bread.
Nevertheless, Brick loved his young master with all his heart. He had succumbed at once to the rare charm of Bergan\'s manner,—so grave and thoughtful for his years, yet so richly illuminated, at times, with soft gleams of humor, and always so genuinely kind. He followed him like his shadow; he could scarcely be happy out of his presence; and notwithstanding his own inward struggles with doubt and mortification, he continually held him up to the admiration of the quarter in the strongest language of encomium that he could command, as a "bery high-tone gemman, and jes\' de bes\' massa dat ebber stepped foot on de old place."
The appearance of this "high-toned gentleman" on the roof, in the humble r?le of carpenter, was, therefore, a rude shock to Brick\'s finer sensibilities. He watched him from the ground below, groaning simultaneously over probable fractures to his limbs, and certain damage to his reputation. It gave him some consolation to find that the Major was inclined to treat the matter in a jocular rather than a serious light; and he was profoundly impressed with his hearty admiration of the gymnastic feat with which the questionable performance had opened. That, at least, his own dusky friends of the quarter could understand and approve.
Brick was still further reassured by Maumer Rue, to whom he stood in the relation of grandson. On being consulted, she had replied, loftily,—
"A Bergan can do what he pleases, child. He is not obliged to walk by rule and measure, like people whose pedigree stops with their grandfathers. If a king chooses to make a box, a barrel, or a piece of furniture, for his own use, it is not a meanness, but an eccentricity." And the long word not only floored Brick\'s last remaining doubt, but furnished him with the means of silencing other critics. In view of carpentry and tinkering, dignified with the sonorous title of "exkingtricities," nothing was left to the quarter but to roll its eyes and shut its mouth in mute amazement.
On the morning of the third day, the sky pushed aside its gray veil of clouds, and smiled once more upon the wet and melancholy earth. Thereupon the latter quickly dried up some of its tears, and made what shift for joy it could with the remainder. Every pool reflected a bit of the sky\'s wide smile, or the pleasant stir of overhanging foliage. The grand old evergreen oaks around Bergan Hall shook from their far-reaching boughs broken sunlight and dancing shadows, fresh breeze and shining raindrops, in nearly equal measure. The whisper of the pine-woods became a song rather than a sigh;—or, if it were a sigh, it was of that pleasant kind which struggles up unconsciously from a heart a little overfull of pleasure. Even the long streamers of gray moss decked themselves with prismatic jewels, and forgot to be mournful.
"If you do not mind a little mud," said the Major, at the dinner-table, "we will order our horses, and ride over to Berganton this afternoon. You must be tired of being cooped up in the house, by this time, in spite of your ready knack at finding occupation and amusement where most people would gape their heads off with ennui. Besides, it is high time that you should see something of the neighborhood, outside our own plantation,—as well as the village which your ancestors founded. To be sure, there is precious little to see,—Berganton is not what it was once,—but I shall be glad to show you that little, and also, to introduce you to some of my old acquaintances."
As the two gentlemen we............