THE STORM.
About midnight the Painesville hearse drove up, accompanied by the
four young pall-bearers, of the Painesville Bar, who attended the
remains of their young brother. The coffin was deposited in the little
parlor, and the carriages drove to Parker's for the night.
The stricken and lonely mother was in the sanctity of her own room.
The children had cried themselves to sleep and forgetfulness. The
brother, who had been sent for, could not reach home until the next
morning.
Barton had declined the offers of kind friends to remain, and was
alone with his dead. The coffin-lid had been removed, and he lifted
the dead-cloth from the face. He could not endure the sharp angle of
the nose, that so stabbed up into the dim night, unrelieved by the
other features.
The wrath of a strong, deep nature, thoroughly aroused, is sublime;
its grief, when stirred to its depths, is awful. Barton knew now
what had happened and what he had lost. The acuteness of his fine
organization had recovered its sharpest edge. The heavens had been
darkened for him nearly a year before, but now the solid earth had
been rent and one-half cloven away, and that was the half that
held the only hopes he had. He didn't calculate this now. Genius,
intellect, imagination, courage, pride, scorn, all the intensities of
his nature, all that he supposed he possessed, all that lay hidden
and unsuspected, arose in their might to overcome him now. He did not
think, he did not aspire, or hope, or fear, or dream, or remember: he
only felt, and bled, and moaned low, hopeless, helpless moans. If it
is given to some natures to enjoy intensely, so such correspondingly
suffer; and Bart, alone with his pale, cold, dead brother, through
this deep, silent night, abandoned himself utterly to the first
anguish at his loss, and it was wise. As it is healthful and needful
for young children to cry away their pains and aches, so the stricken
and pained soul finds relief in pouring itself out in oversweeping
grief.
The storm swept by and subsided, and Bart, kneeling by the coffin of
his brother, in the simple humility of a child, opened his heart
to the pitying eye of the Great Father. His lips did not move, but
steadily and reverently he turned to that sweet nearness of love and
compassion. Finally he asked that every unworthy thought, passion,
folly, or pride, might be exorcised from his heart and nature; and
then, holding himself in this steady and now sweet contemplation and
silent communion, a great calm came into his uplifted soul, and he
slept. And, as he passed from first slumber to oblivious and profound
sleep, there floated, through a celestial atmosphere, a radiant cloud,
on which was reclining a form of light and beauty. He thought it must
be his departed brother, but it turned fully towards him, and the face
was the face of Julia, with sweetest and tenderest compassion and love
in her eyes; and he slept profoundly.
In the full light of the early morning, the elder brother stole into
the room, to be startled and awed by the pale faces of his dead and
his sleeping brothers, now so near each other, and never before so
much alike. How kingly the one in death! How beautiful the other in
sleep! And while he held his tears in the marvellous presence, his
pale, sweet mother came in, and placed her hand silently in his,
and gazed; and then the young boys, with their bare feet; and so the
silent, the sleeping, and the dead, were once more together.
* * * * *
At mid-day, those who had heard of the event gathered at the Ridgeley
house, sad-faced and sorrow-stricken. The family had always been much
esteemed, and Henry had been nearly as great a favorite as was Morris,
and all shared in the hope and expectation of his future success and
eminence. Uncle Aleck came, feeble and heart-stricken. A sweet prayer,
a few loving words, a simple hymn, and the young pall-bearers carried
out their pale brother, and, preceding the hearse in their carriage,
followed by the stricken ones and the rest in carriages and on foot,
the little procession went sadly to the burying-ground. There a
numerous company, attracted from various parts where the news had
reached, were assembled and awaiting the interment. The idle and
curious were rewarded by the sight of a hearse, and the presence of
the deputation of the Painesville Bar, and impressed with a sense of
the importance and consideration of the young man in whose honor such
attentions were bestowed.
The ceremony of interment was short, and of the simplest. The
committing of the dead to final rest in the earth, is always
impressive. Man's innate egotism always invests the final hiding
away of the remains of one of his race in perpetual oblivion, with
solemnity and awe. One of the lords has departed; let man and nature
observe and be impressed.
Uncle Aleck was too feeble to go to the grave.
The mourners--the mother sustained by Barton, and Morris, attended by
his promised bride, a sweet and beautiful girl, and the two young
boys so interesting in their childish sorrow, so few in number, and
unsupported by uncles, aunts or cousins--were objects of unusual
interest and commiseration. But now, when the last act was performed
for them, and the burial hymn had been sung, there was no one to speak
for them the usual thanks for these kindnesses, and just as this came
painfully to the sensibilities of the thoughtful, Barton uncovered his
head and said the few needed words in a clear, steady voice, with such
grace, that matronly women would gladly have kissed him; and young
maidens noticed, what they had observed before, that there was
something of nameless attraction in his face and manner.
Kind hands and sympathizing hearts were about the Ridgeleys, to
solace, cheer and help; but the great void in their circle and hearts,
only God and time could fill. The heart, when it loses out of it one
object of tenderness and love, only contracts the closer and more
tenderly about what it has left.
* * * * *
Time elapses. It kindly goes forward and takes us with it. No matter
how resolutely we cling to darkness and sorrow, time loosens
our hearts, dries our tears, and while we declare we will not be
comforted, and reproach ourselves, as the first poignancy of grief
consciously fades, yet we are comforted. The world will not wait for
us to mourn. The objects of love and of hate we may bear along with
us, but distance will intervene between us and the sources of deep
sorrow.
So far as Bart was concerned, his nature was in the main healthy,
with only morbid tendencies, and the great blow of his brother's death
seemed in some way to restore the equilibrium of his mind, and leave
it to act more freely, under guidance of the strong common sense
inherited from his mother. He knew he must not linger about his
brother's grave and weep.
He knew now that he was entirely upon his own resources. His brother
Morris's speculations, and dashing system of doing things, had already
hopelessly involved him, and Bart knew that no aid could be expected
from him. He had returned to Painesville, and closed up the few
matters of his brother Henry; had written to Ranney, at Jefferson,
and already had resumed his books with a saddened and sobered
determination. He supposed that Henry had died in consequence of a too
close and long-continued application to his studies; and while this
admonished him, he still believed that his own elasticity and power of
endurance would carry him forward and through, unscathed.
He began also to mingle a little with others, and to take an interest
in their daily affairs. People affected to find him changed, and
vastly for the better. "He's had enough to sober him." "It is well he
has been warned, and heeds it." "God will visit with judgments, until
the thoughtless forbear," and other profound and Christian remarks
were made concerning him. As if Providence would cut off the best
and most promising, for such indirect and uncertain good as might, or
might not be produced in another less worthy!