OVER NORA'S GRAVE.
Oh, Mother Earth! upon thy lap,
Thy weary ones receiving,
And o'er them, silent as a dream,
Thy grassy mantle weaving,
Fold softly, in thy long embrace,
That heart so worn and broken,
And cool its pulse of fire beneath
Thy shadows old and oaken.
Shut out from her the bitter word,
And serpent hiss of scorning:
Nor let the storms of yesterday
Disturb her quiet morning.
--_Whittier_.
When the funeral ceremonies were over and the mourners were coming away
from the grave, Mr. Wynne turned to them and said:
"Friends, I wish to have some conversation with Hannah Worth, if you
will excuse me."
And the humble group, with the exception of Reuben Gray, took leave of
Hannah and dispersed to their several homes. Reuben waited outside for
the end of the parson's interview with his betrothed.
"This is a great trial to you, my poor girl; may the Lord support you
under it!" said Mr. Wynne, as they entered the hut and sat down.
Hannah sobbed.
"I suppose it was the discovery of Mr. Brudenell's first marriage that
killed her?"
"Yes, sir," sobbed Hannah.
"Ah! I often read and speak of the depravity of human nature; but I
could not have believed Herman Brudenell capable of so black a crime,"
said Mr. Wynne, with a shudder.
"Sir," replied Hannah, resolved to do justice in spite of her bleeding
heart, "he isn't so guilty as you judge him to be. When he married Norah
he believed that his wife had been killed in a great railway crash, for
so it was reported in all the newspaper accounts of the accident; and he
never saw it contradicted."
"His worst fault then appears to have been that of reckless haste in
consummating his second marriage," said Mr. Wynne.
"Yes; and even for that he had some excuse. His first wife was an artful
widow, who entrapped him into a union and afterwards betrayed his
confidence and her own honor. When he heard she was dead, you see, no
doubt he was shocked; but he could not mourn for her as he could for a
true, good woman."
"Humph! I hope, then, for the sake of human nature that he is not so bad
as I thought him. But now, Hannah, what do you intend to do?"
"About what?" inquired the poor woman sadly.
"About clearing the memory of your sister and the birth of her son from
unmerited shame," replied Mr. Wynne gravely.
"Nothing," she answered sadly.
"Nothing?" repeated the minister, in surprise.
"Nothing," she reiterated.
"What! will you leave the stigma of undeserved reproach upon your sister
in her grave and upon her child all his life, when a single revelation
from you, supported by my testimony, will clear them both?" asked the
minister, in almost indignant astonishment.
"Not willingly, the Lord above knows. Oh, I would die to clear Nora from
blame!" cried Hannah, bursting into a flood of tears.
"Well, then, do it, my poor woman! do it! You can do it," said the
clergyman, drawing his chair to her side and laying his hand kindly on
her shoulder. "Hannah, my girl, you have a duty to the dead and to the
living to perform. Do not be afraid to attempt it! Do not be afraid to
offend that wealthy and powerful family! I will sustain you, for it is
my duty as a Christian minister to do so, even though they--the
Brudenells--should afterwards turn all their great influence in the
parish against me. Yes, I will sustain you, Hannah! What do I say? I? A
mightier arm than that of any mortal shall hold you up!"
"Oh, it is of no use! the case is quite past remedying," wept Hannah.
"But it is not, I assure you! When I first heard the astounding news of
Brudenell's first marriage with the Countess of Hurstmonceaux, and his
wife's sudden arrival at the Hall, and recollected at the same time his
second marriage with Nora Worth, which I myself had solemnized, my
thoughts flew to his poor young victim, and I pondered what could be
done for her, and I searched the laws of the land bearing upon the
subject of marriage. And I found that by these same laws--when a man in
the lifetime of his wife marries another woman, the said woman being in
ignorance of the existence of the said wife, shall be held guiltless by
the law, and her child or children, if she have any by the said
marriage, shall be the legitimate offspring of the mother, legally
entitled to bear her name and inherit her estates. That fits precisely
Nora's case. Her son is legitimate. If she had in her own right an
estate worth a billion, that child would be her heir-at-law. She had
nothing but her good name! Her son has a right to inherit
that--unspotted, Hannah! mind, unspotted! Your proper way will be to
proceed against Herman Brudenell for bigamy, call me for a witness,
establish the fact of Nora's marriage, rescue her memory and her child's
birth from the slightest shadow of reproach, and let the consequences
fall where they should fall, upon the head of the man! They will not be
more serious than he deserves. If he can prove what he asserts--that he
himself was in equal ignorance with Nora of the existence of his first
wife, he will be honorably acquitted in the court, though of course
severely blamed by the community. Come, Hannah, shall we go to Baymouth
to-morrow about this business?"
Hannah was sobbing as if her heart would break.
"How glad I would be to clear Nora and her child from shame, no one but
the Searcher of Hearts can know! But I dare not! I am bound by a vow! a
solemn vow made to the dying! Poor girl! with her last breath she
besought me not to expose Mr. Brudenell, and not to breathe one word of
his marriage with her to any living soul!" she cried.
"And you were mad enough to promise!"
"I would rather have bitten my tongue off than have used it in such a
fatal way! But she was dying fast, and praying to me with her uplifted
eyes and clasped hands and failing breath to spare Herman Brudenell. I
had no power to refuse her--my heart was broken. So I bound my soul by a
vow to be silent. And I must keep my sacred promise made to the dying; I
must keep it though, till the Judgment Day that shall set all things
right, Nora Worth, if thought of it all, must be considered a fallen
girl and her son the child of sin!" cried Hannah, breaking into a
passion of tears and sobs.
"The devotion of woman passes the comprehension of man," said the
minister reflectively. "But in sacrificing herself thus, had she no
thought of the effect upon the future of her child?"
"She said he was a boy; his mother would soon be forgotten; he would be
my nephew, and I was respected," sobbed Hannah.
"In a word, she was a special pleader in the interest of the man whose
reckless haste had destroyed her!"
"Yes; that was it! that was it! Oh, my Nora! oh, my young sister! it was
hard to see you die! hard to see you covered up in the coffin! but it is
harder still to know that people will speak ill of you in your grave,
and I cannot convince them that they are wrong!" said Hannah, wringing
her hands in a frenzy of despair.
For trouble like this the minister seemed to have no word of comfort. He
waited in silence until she had grown a little calmer, and then he said:
"They say that the fellow has fled. At least he has not been seen at the
Hall since the arrival of his wife. Have you seen anything of him?"
"He rushed in here like a madman the day she died, received her last
prayer for his welfare, and threw himself out of the house again, Heaven
only knows where!"
"Did he make no provision for this child?"
"I do not know; he said something about it, and he wrote something on a
paper; but indeed I do not think he knew what he was about. He was as
nearly stark mad as ever you saw a man; and, anyway, he went, off
without leaving anything but that bit of paper; and it is but right for
me to say, sir, that I would not have taken anything from him on behalf
of the child. If the poor boy cannot have his father's family name he
shall not have anything else from him with my consent! Those are my
principles, Mr. Wynne! I can work for Nora's orphan boy just as I worked
for my mother's orphan girl, which was Nora, herself, sir."
"Perhaps you are right, Hannah. But where is that paper. I should much
like to see it," said the minister.
"The paper he wrote and left, sir?"
"Yes; show it to me."
"Lord bless your soul, sir, it wasn't of no account; it was the least
little scrap, with about three lines wrote on it; I didn't take any care
of it. Heavens knows that I had other things to think of than that. But
I will try to find it if you wish to look at it," said Hannah, rising.
Her search of course was vain, and after turning up everything in the
house to no purpose she came back to the parson, and said:
"I dare say it is swept away or burnt up; but, anyway, it isn't worth
troubling one's self about it."
"I think differently, Hannah; and I would advise you to search, and make
inquiry, and try your best to find it. And if you do so, just put it
away in a very safe place until you can show it to me. And now good-by,
my girl; trust in the Lord, and keep up your heart," said the minister,
taking his hat and stick to depart.
When Mr. Wynne had gone Reuben Gray, who had been walking about behind
the cottage, came in and said:
"Hannah, my dear, I have got something very particular to say to you;
but I feel as this is no time to say it exactly, so I only want to ask
you when I may come and have a talk with you, Hannah."
"Any time, Reuben; next Sunday, if you like."
"Very well, my dear; next Sunday it shall be! God bless you, Hannah; and
God bless the poor boy, too. I mean to adopt that child, Hannah, and
cowhide his father within an inch of his life, if ever I find him out!"
"Talk of all this on Sunday when you come, Reuben; not now, oh, not
now!"
"Sartinly not now, my dear; I see the impropriety of it. Good-by, my
dear. Now, shan't I send Nancy or Peggy over to stay with you?"
"Upon no account, Reuben."
"Just as you say, then. Good-by, my poor dear."
And after another dozen affectionate adieus Reuben reluctantly dragged
himself from the hut.