A SIN AND A SHAME
It was May again; a soft, sunny day, with spring showers falling, or
gathering in glistening clouds in the blue sky. The bells chimed for
morning service, as the people came up to church from the old-fashioned
streets. They greeted one another as they met in the churchyard,
whispering that it had been a very bad week for poor Mr. Chantrey. Every
one knew how uncontrollable his wife had been for some time past, except
a few strangers, who still drove in from a distance. The congregation,
some curiously, some wistfully, gazed earnestly at him, as with a worn
and weary face, and with bowed-down head already streaked with gray, he
took his place in the reading-desk. Ann Holland wiped away her tears
stealthily, lest he should see she was weeping, and guess the reason. In
the rectory pew the young, fair-haired boy sat alone, as he had often
done of late; for his mother was to unfit to appear in church.
Mr. Chantrey read the service in a clear, steady voice, but with a tone
of trouble in it which only a very dull ear could have missed. When he
ascended his pulpit, and looked down with sad and sunken eyes upon his
people, every face was lifted up to him attentively, as he gave out the
text, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Mrs. Bolton moved uneasily in her pew,
for she knew he was going to preach a disagreeable sermon. It was not as
eloquent as many of his old ones; but it had a hundredfold more power.
His hearers had often been pleased and touched before; now they were
stirred, and made uncomfortable. Their responsibilities, as each one the
keeper of his brother's soul, were solemnly laid before them. The
listless, contented indifference to the sins and sorrows of their
fellow-men was rudely shaken. Their satisfaction in their own safety was
attacked. As clearly as words could put it, they were told that not one
of them could go to heaven alone; that there was no solitary path of
salvation for any foot to tread. As long as any fell because of
temptation, they were bound, as far as in them lay, to remove every kind
of temptation. If each one was not careful to be his brother's keeper,
then the voice of their brother's blood would cry unto God against them.
There was scarcely a person present who could listen to their rector's
sermon with feelings of self-satisfaction.
He left his pulpit at the close of it, troubled and exhausted. His
little son followed him into the vestry to wait until the congregation,
that loved to linger a little about the porch, should have dispersed.
But hardly had he entered, than, looking out, as it was his wont to do,
upon the grave of his other child, he saw a figure stretched across it,
asleep. Could it possibly be his wife? Large drops of rain were
beginning to fall upon her upturned face, but they did not rouse her
from her heavy slumber; nor did the noise of many feet passing by along
the churchyard path. It was a moment of unutterable shame and agony to
him. His people saw her; they had heard of his trouble before, but now
they saw it; and they were lingering to look at her. He must go out in
the midst of them all, and they must see him take his miserable wife
home.
Those who were there that day will never forget the sight. His people
made way for him, as he passed among them, still in the gown he had worn
while preaching, with a rigid and wan face, and eyes that seemed blind
to every object except the unhappy woman he could not save. His little
boy was pressing close behind him, but he bade him go back into the
church, and wait until he came for him. Then he knelt down beside his
wife in the falling rain, and lifted her gently, calling her by her
name, "Sophy! Sophy!" But her heavy head fell back again upon the grave,
and he was not strong enough to raise her from it. He burst into tears,
a passion of tears; such as men only weep in hours of extreme anguish of
mind. Slowly his people melted away, helpless to do anything for him;
except two or three of his most familiar friends, who stayed to assist
him in taking the wretched wife back to her home.
Ann Holland lingered unseen in the porch until all were out of sight.
The child she loved so fondly was standing with the great door ajar,
holding it with his small hand, and peeping out now and then. She called
to him when all were gone, and he came out of the church gladly, yet
with an air of concern on his round, rosy face.
"My mother is ill, very ill," he said, putting his hand into hers. "I
saw her lying on baby's grave. Couldn't anything be done for her to make
her well? Isn't there any doctor clever enough to cure her?"
"I don't know, dear," answered Ann Holland.
"My father never lets me go to see her when she's worst," he went on,
"only Sarah goes into her room, and him. She talks and laughs often, and
yet my father says she is ill. When I am a man I shall be a doctor, and
learn how to make her well. But it will be a long time before I am
clever enough for that, I'm afraid. My father says she's too ill for
anybody to come to see us; isn't it a pity?"
"Yes, my dear," she answered.
"She can never hear me say my hymns now," he said; "and when she's not
so ill that my father won't let me see her, she sits crying, crying ever
so; and if I want to play with her, or read to her, she can't bear it,
she says. I should think there ought to be somebody to cure her, if we
could only find out. My father scarcely ever laughs now, because she's
so ill; and when he plays with me he only looks sad, and he speaks in a
quiet voice as if it would make her worse. Do try, Miss Holland, and ask
everybody that comes to your house if they don't know of some very, very
clever doctor for my mother."
"I will try," she said. "I'll do all I can. But you may run home now,
Master Charlie, See! There's your father coming back for you."
"I know I sha'n't see my mother again to-day," he answered; "good-by,
and remember, please."
She watched him running across the little meadow to his father; and then
she turned away, and walked slowly through the street homeward. Little
knots of the towns-people lingered still about the doorways, discussing
their rector's troubles. Though most of them greeted her, anxious to
hear her opinion as one who was considered on friendly terms with the
rector's family, she evaded their questionings, and passed on to the
solitude of her own dwelling. It had been solitary now for some days,
for her brother had disappeared early in the week; having stripped the
house of money, and set off on one of his vagrant tramps, of which she
knew nothing except that he always returned penniless, and generally
with the good clothes she provided for him exchanged for worthless rags.
How many years it was that her life had been embittered by his
drunkenness she could hardly reckon, so many had they been. These
strange absences of his had at first been a severe trial to her; but of
late years they had been a holiday time of rest, except for the
continual anxiety she felt on his behalf. Her quaint and quiet kitchen,
as she unlocked the door and entered it, seemed a haven of refuge, where
she could indulge in the tears she had kept under control till now. The
love she felt for Mr. Chantrey was so deep and true, that any sorrow of
his must have grieved her. But she knew so well what this sorrow was!
She knew through what long years it might last; and how hopeless it
might grow before the end came. Looking back upon her own blighted life,
she could foresee for him only a weary, miserable, ever-deepening
wretchedness. The Sunday afternoon passed by slowly, and the evening
came, The soft sunshine and spring showers of the morning were gone; and
a sullen sweep of rain, driven by the east wind, was beating through the
streets. A neighbor looked in to say she had seen the curate from the
next parish pass through the town toward the church; and she thought Mr.
Chantrey would very likely not be there. But Ann Holland had already
decided not to go. At any moment she might hear her brother's shambling
step draw near the door, and his fingers fumbling at the latch. She
could not bear the neighbors to see him when he came off one of his
vagabond tramps, dirty and ragged as he usually was. She must stay at
home again for him; again, as she had done hundreds of times, mourning
pitifully over him, and ready to receive him patiently, impenitent as he
was. She went up stairs to make his bed quite ready for him; and to put
out of his way everything that could by any chance hurt him, if he
should stumble and fall in his drunken weakness. When she returned to
the kitchen, she lighted a candle, and opened the old family Bible, with
its large type, which seemed to her a more sacred book than the little
one she used daily. But she could not read; the words passed vaguely and
without meaning beneath her eyes. Her mind was full of the thought of
her unhappy brother, and Mr. Chantrey's miserable wife.
It was past her usual hour of going to bed before she made up the
kitchen fire to be in readiness, lest her brother should knock her up at
any hour during the night. At the last moment she opened the
street-door, and stood listening for a little while, as she always did
when he was not at home. The rain was still sweeping through the street,
which was as silent as if the town had been deserted. The gas-lights in
the lamps flickered with the wind, and lit up the pools and channels of
water running down the pavements.
But just as she turned to go in, her quick ear caught the sound of
distant footsteps, growing louder as they came in her direction. It was
the tramp of several feet, marching slowly like those of persons bearing
a heavy burden. She waited to see who and what it could be so late this
Sunday night; and soon, under the flickering lamps, she caught sight of
several men, carrying among them a hurdle, with a shapeless heap upon
it. A sudden, vague panic seized her, and she hastily retreated inside
her house, shutting and barring the door. She said to herself she did
not wish to see what they were carrying past. But were they going past?
She heard them still, tramping slowly on toward her house; would they
pass by with their burden? She put down the light, for her hand trembled
too much to hold it; and she stood listening, her ears quickened for
every sound, and her white face turned toward the closed and fastened
door.
A knock came upon it, which almost caused her to shriek aloud. Yet it
was a quiet rap, and a neighbor's voice answered as she asked
tremulously who was there. She hastened to open the door, so welcome was
the sound of the well-known voice; but there, opposite to her, in the
driving rain, rested the hurdle, with the confused mass lying huddled
together upon it. The men who bore it were silent, standing with their
faces turned toward her; all of them strangers, except the one neighbor,
who was on her threshold.
"They found him lying out in the fields near the Woodhouse farm," said
her neighbor, in a loud whisper; "he'd strayed there, we reckon."
"Is he dead?" she asked, mechanically.
"Not dead, bless your heart! no!" was the answer; "we'll carry him in.
There now! Don't take on. There's a special providence over folks like
him; they never come to much harm, you know. Show us where to lay him."
Ann Holland made way for the men to pass her, as they carried their
burden into the quiet, pleasant kitchen. She followed with the light,
and looked down upon him; her brother, who had played with her, and
learned the same lessons, when they were innocent little children
together. His gray hair was matted, and his bloated face smeared with
dust and damp. He was barefooted and bareheaded. But as she gazed down
upon him, and listened to his heavy struggle for breath, she cried in a
tone of terror. "He is dying."