"Apart she lived, and still she rests alone:
Yon earthly heap awaits no flattering stone."
As it was mentioned in Edith's letter, the old woman who lived at the
cottage by the cliff had become very ill, and it was apparent that she
would never leave her bed again. Edith had been assiduous in her
kindness. Dinah had been with her a part of every day, and had watched
with her many nights. Edith insisted, at last, that her poor slave
should sleep, and resolved herself to take her place by the bedside.
The old woman had made herself feared and hated by the scattered
inhabitants. She was called a witch, and they deserted her sick bed,--a
thing most rare among the kind-hearted dwellers in a thinly-peopled
neighborhood.
It was a threatening evening when Edith took her station by the low
pallet of the sick woman. The solitary hut, as I have mentioned, stood
on the edge of the little bay; and, at high water, it was almost washed
by the waves.
How different the whole scene from that brilliant morning when Edith
visited the tenant of the cottage! A leaden cloud seemed now to rest on
the water, shutting out the fair sky; and, as the sullen waves rolled on
the beach, a close and stifling air oppressed Edith's spirits.
The old woman was alone: her poor grandchild, wearied with the services
of the day, had fallen asleep with her hand in her grandmother's, and
her head falling over the pillow: her long hair rested on the old
woman's face, which she seemed not to have strength to remove.
Edith's first care was to take the little girl from her grandmother's
pillow; and, laying her gently on the foot of the bed, she took off her
own shawl, and made a pillow for her head. The old woman looked at her
without speaking, and a tear coursed slowly down her cheek.
Edith hoped the hardness was melting from her heart. She took her hand
tenderly in hers, and whispered, "Cannot you put your trust in God?"
"I cannot pray--to God; no, it is too late. But"--and her voice was
interrupted with short, impeded breath. She pointed to the child, and
looked at Edith with an expression so imploring, so full of tenderness
for the child, of agony that she must leave her, of appeal to Edith's
compassion, that the tears started to her eyes, and she answered, "Fear
nothing: I will take care of her; I will be a mother to her."
The old woman pressed her hand: the look of agony passed away from her
features, and she closed her eyes to sleep.
Edith sat silently by the bedside. The tempest that had been gathering
over the water now shook the little dwelling: torrents of rain fell, and
frequent flashes lighted the little room. At last, a gust of wind from
the broken window extinguished the taper, and Edith was in total
darkness. It was a warm night for the season, and no fire on the hearth
to afford a spark by which she could relight it.
Edith trembled; but she tried to be calm. She only feared the old woman
would die while she held her hand, which she imagined was already
growing cold in hers.
The storm gradually passed away into silence. There was no sound but the
short, interrupted breath of her patient, and the soft, healthful,
regular breathing of infancy. Edith longed for the dawn, and looked
anxiously through the little casement for the first gray streak. As far
as the eye could reach, the bay was white with foam; but no light yet
dawned upon it from the morning.
The old woman awoke. "I cannot see you," she said; "a film is over my
eyes."
Edith told her the lamp had been extinguished with the wind.
"Alas!" she said; "and I must die as I have lived,--in darkness."
Edith assured her she was not then dying, and begged her to try to pray,
or to listen while she endeavored, as far as she was able, to offer a
prayer to God.
"No," she said; "I have lived without prayer, and I will not mock God on
my death-bed; but, if there is mercy for me, God may listen to you, pure
and good as you have ever been."
Edith knelt; and, with lips trembling with timidity and responsibility,
she uttered a low, humble, and earnest prayer.
The old woman seemed at first to listen; but her mind soon wandered:
broken and, as it afterwards would almost appear, prophetic sentences
escaped from her lips: "Judgments are coming on this unhappy
land,--delusions and oppression. Men and devils shall oppress the
innocent. The good like you, the innocent and good, shall not escape!"
Then she looked at the sleeping child: "Can the lamb dwell with the
tiger, or the dove nestle with the hawk? But you have promised: you will
keep your word; and when God counts his jewels"--
Edith arose from her knees, and trembled like a leaf. With inexpressible
joy, her eyes fell on her own Dinah, standing looking on, with the
deepest awe in her countenance. She had risen before the dawn, and come
to relieve her young mistress, and had entered while Edith was kneeling.
She now insisted on taking her place. Edith committed to her care the
sleeping child, and then sought the repose the agitation of the night
had rendered so necessary.
Before evening, the old woman died; and the next day she was to be
committed to the earth. Little preparation was necessary for her
funeral. No mourners were to be summoned from afar: there was no mockery
of grief. She had lived disliked by her neighbors. A few old women came
from curiosity to see old Nanny, who had never been very courteous in
inviting her neighbors to visit her; and they came now to see how she
had contrived to live upon nothing.
The poor child, since the death of her only friend, had refused to leave
the body, but sat subdued and tearless, like a faithful dog, watching by
the side of her grandmother, apparently expecting her to return again to
life.
Towards evening, a few persons were assembled in the hut to pay the last
Christian services to the dead. The old woman had always said she would
be buried, not in the common grave-yard, but near a particular rock
where her last son who was drowned had been washed on shore and buried.
The neighbors were whispering among themselves, as to what was to be the
fate of the poor child; every one avoiding to look at her, lest it
should imply some design to take charge of her. The child looked on with
wonder, as though she hardly knew why they were there. She had clung to
Dinah as the best known among them; but, when the prayer was finished,
and they began to remove the coffin, she uttered a loud cry, flew from
Dinah's arms, and clung to the bier with all her strength.
The men instinctively paused and laid down their burden. The voice of
nature in that little child was irresistible. They looked at Edith, who
had now made known her promise to the grandmother to take care of the
child, to ask what they should do. She took the child in her arms and
quieted her till all was over, and then, consigning her to the care of
Dinah, she was taken to their own home.
Edith felt deeply the responsibility she had assumed in the care and
instruction of this child. She knew the tenderness of her own heart, her
yielding nature, and feared she should err on the side of too much
indulgence. She said to herself, "She shall never need a mother's care.
I know the heart of the orphan, and no unkindness shall ever make her
feel that she is motherless."
The poor little Phoebe had cried herself to sleep in Dinah's arms, and
had been put to bed in her soiled and dirty state. The next morning a
clean new dress banished the memory of her grandmother, and her childish
tears were dried, and grief forgotten.
Dinah had brought to aid her the power of soap and water, and had
disentangled her really soft and beautiful hair; and when Edith came
down, she would scarcely have known her again. The soil of many weeks
had been taken from the child's skin, and, under it, her complexion was
delicately fair: her cheeks were like pale blush roses, and her lips
were two crimson rosebuds. But with this youthful freshness, which was
indeed only the brilliancy of color, there was an expression in her face
that marred its beauty. It was coarse and earthly, and the absence of
that confiding openness we love to see in children. It reminded one of
her old grandmother; although the one was fair, and smooth, and
blooming, the other dark and wrinkled, a stranger would have said they
were related.
Edith called the child to her, and kissed her fair cheek; but when she
observed the likeness to the old woman, she turned away with a slight
shudder, and something like a sigh.
Dinah, an interested observer of every passing emotion, said, softly,
"The cloud is not gone over yet; a few more tears, and it will pass away
from her young brow, and then it will be fair as your own."
"It is too fair already," answered Edith; "so much beauty will be hard
to guide; and then look at that dark, wayward expression."
"Say not so, my dear mistress;" and Dinah drew back the hair from her
fair forehead. "Look at her beautiful face: in a few days your heart
will yearn to her as mine does to you."
"God grant I may be as faithful to my duty," said Edith; but this is not
the way to begin it; and she drew the child to her knee, and a few
moments of playful caressing brought smiles to the young countenance
that nearly chased away the dark expression.
Edith, although superior to the age in which she lived, could not but be
influenced by its peculiarities. The belief that an all-pervading and
ever-present Providence directed the most minute, as well as the more
important events of life, was common to the Puritans. She could not free
herself from a superstitious feeling that this child was to have, in
some way or other, she knew not how, an unfavorable influence upon her
happiness. She was free, indeed, from that puerile superstition
"That God's fixed will from nature's wanderings learns."
But the tempest that shook the little building, the incoherent ravings
of the old woman's mind, and the solemn darkness of the hour when she
promised to take charge of the child, had made a deep impression on her
mind.
It is true "that coming events cast their shadows before." Who has not
felt presentiments that certain persons and certain places are, in some
mysterious way, we know not how, connected by invisible links with our
own destiny? The ancients gave to this hidden and mysterious power the
name of Fate. The tragedy of life arises from the powerless efforts of
mortals to contend with its decrees. All that the ancient tragedy taught
was, to bear evils with fortitude, because they were inevitable; but the
"hope that is full of immortality" has taught us that they are the
discipline appointed by Heaven to perfect and prepare our souls for
their immortal destiny.