"Beautiful tyrant--fiend angelical--
Dove-feathered raven!--wolf-devouring lamb--
Oh, serpent heart--hid in a flowering cave,
Did e'er deceit dwell in so fair a mansion!"--_Shakspeare._
"Pray for the dead.
Why for the dead, who are at rest?
Pray for the living, in whose breast
The struggle between right and wrong
Is raging terrible and strong."--_Longfellow._
"Are you willing to remain with her alone, all night?" asked the young
doctor.
Helen glanced towards the figure reclining on the bed, whose length
appeared almost supernatural, and whose appearance was rendered more
gloomy by the dun-colored counterpane that enveloped it--and though her
countenance changed, she answered, "Yes."
"Have you no fears that the old superstitions of your childhood will
resume their influence over your imagination, in the stillness of the
midnight hour?"
"I wish to subject myself to the trial. I am not quite sure of myself. I
know there is no real danger, and it is time that I should battle
single-handed with all imaginary foes."
"But supposing your parents should object?"
"You must tell them how very ill she is, and how much she wishes me to
remain with her. I think they will rejoice in my determination--rejoice
that their poor, weak Helen has any energy of purpose, any will or power
to be useful."
"If you knew half your strength, half your power, Helen, I fear you
would abuse it."
A bright flame flashed up from the dark, serene depths of his eyes, and
played on Helen's downcast face. She had seen its kindling, and now
felt its warmth glowing in her cheek, and in her inmost heart. The
large, old clock behind the door, struck the hour loudly, with its
metallic hands. Arthur started and looked at his watch.
"I did not think it was so late," he exclaimed, rising in haste. "I have
a patient to visit, whom I promised to be with before this time. Do you
know, Helen, we have been talking at least two hours by this fireside?
Miss Thusa slumbers long."
He went to the bedside, felt of the sleeper's pulse, listened
attentively to her deep, irregular breathing, and then returned to
Helen.
"The opiate she has taken will probably keep her in a quiet state during
the night--if not, you will recollect the directions I have given--and
administer the proper remedies. Does not your courage fail, now I am
about to leave you? Have you no misgivings now?"
"I don't know. If I have, I will not express them. I am resolved on
self-conquest, and your doubts of my courage only serve to strengthen my
resolution."
Arthur smiled--"I see you have a will of your own, Helen, under that
gentle, child-like exterior, to which mine is forced to bend. But I will
not suffer you to be beyond the reach of assistance. I will send a woman
to sleep in the kitchen, whom you can call, if you require her aid. As I
told you before, I do not apprehend any immediate danger, though I do
not think she will rise from that bed again."
Helen sighed, and tears gathered in her eyes. She accompanied Arthur to
the door, that she might put the strong bar across it, which was Miss
Thusa's substitute for a lock.
"Perhaps I may call on my return," said he, "but it is very doubtful.
Take care of yourself and keep warm. And if any unfavorable change takes
place, send the woman for me. And now good-night--dear, good, brave
Helen. May God bless, and angels watch over you."
He pressed her hand, wrapped his cloak around him, and left Helen to her
solitary vigils. She lifted the massy bar with trembling hands, and slid
it into the iron hooks, fitted to receive it. Her hands trembled, but
not from fear, but delight. Arthur had called her "dear and brave"--and
long after she had reseated herself by the lonely hearth, the echo of
his gentle, manly accents, seemed floating round the walls.
The illness of Miss Thusa was very sudden. She had risen in the morning
in usual health, and pursued until noon her customary occupation--when,
all at once, as she told the young doctor, "it seemed as if a knife went
through her heart, and a wedge into her brain--and she was sure it was a
death-stroke." For the first time, in the course of her long life, she
was obliged to take her bed, and there she lay in helplessness and
loneliness, unable to summon relief. The young doctor called in the
afternoon as a friend, and found his services imperatively required as a
physician. The only wish she expressed was to have Helen with her, and
as soon as he had relieved the sufferings of his patient, Arthur brought
Helen to the Hermitage. When she arrived, Miss Thusa was under the
influence of an opiate, but opening her heavy eyes, a ray of light
emanated from the dim, gray orbs, as Helen, pale and awe-struck,
approached her bedside. She was appalled at seeing that powerful frame
so suddenly prostrated--she was shocked at the change a few hours had
wrought in those rough, but commanding features. The large eye-balls
looked sunken, and darkly shaded below, while a wan, gray tint, melting
off into a bluish white on the temples, was spread over the face.
"You will stay with me to-night, my child," said she, in a voice
strangely altered. "I've got something to tell you--and the time is
come."
"Yes. I will stay with you as long as you wish, Miss Thusa," replied
Helen, passing her hand softly over the hoary looks that shaded the brow
of the sufferer. "I will nurse you so tenderly, that you will soon be
well again."
"Good child--blessed child!" murmured she, closing her eyes beneath the
slumberous weight of the anodyne, and sinking into a deep sleep.
And now Helen sat alone, watching the aged friend, whose strongly-marked
and peculiar character had had so great an influence on her own. For
awhile the echo of Arthur's parting words made so much music in her ear,
it drowned the harsh, solemn ticking of the old clock, and stole like a
sweet lullaby over her spirit. But gradually the ticking sounded louder
and louder, and her loneliness pressed heavily upon her. There was a
little, dark, walnut table, standing on three curiously wrought legs, in
a corner of the room. On this a large Bible, covered with dark, linen
cloth, was laid, and on the top of this Miss Thusa's spectacles, with
the bows crossing each other, like the stiffened arms of a corpse. Helen
could not bear to look upon those spectacles, which had always seemed to
her an inseparable part of Miss Thusa, lying so still and melancholy
there. She took them up reverently, and laid them on a shelf, then
drawing the table near the fire, or rather carrying it, so as not to
awaken the sleeper, she opened the sacred book. The first words which
happened to meet her eye, were--
"Where is God, my Maker, who giveth me songs in the night?"
The pious heart of the young girl thrilled as she read this beautiful
and appropriate text.
"Surely, oh God, Thou art here," was the unspoken language of that
young, believing heart, "here in this lonely cottage, here by this bed
of sickness, and here also in this trembling, fearing, yet trusting
spirit. In every life-beat throbbing in my veins, Thy awful steps I
hear. Yet Thou canst not come, Thou canst not go, for Thou art ever
near, unseen, yet felt, an all pervading, glorious presence."
Had any one seen Helen, seated by that solitary hearth, with her hands
clasped over those holy pages, her mild, devotional eyes raised to
Heaven, the light quivering in a halo round her brow, they might have
imagined her a young Saint, or a young Sister of Charity, ministering to
the sufferings of that world whose pleasures she had abjured.
A low knock was heard at the door. It must be the young doctor, for who
else would call at such an hour? Yet Helen hesitated and trembled,
holding her breath to listen, thinking it possible it was but the
pressure of the wind, or some rat tramping within the walls. But when
the knock was repeated, with a little more emphasis, she took the lamp,
entered the narrow passage, closing the door softly after her, removed
the massy bar, certain of beholding the countenance which was the
sunlight of her soul. What was her astonishment and terror, on seeing
instead the never-to-be-forgotten face and form of Bryant Clinton. Had
she seen one of those awful figures which Miss Thusa used to describe,
she would scarcely have been more appalled than by the unexpected sight
of this transcendently handsome young man.
"Is terror the only emotion I can inspire--after so long an absence,
too?" he asked, seizing her hand in both his, and riveting upon her his
wonderfully expressive, dark blue eyes. "Forgive me if I have alarmed
you, but forbidden your father's house, and knowing your presence here,
I have dared to come hither that I might see you one moment before I
leave these regions, perhaps forever."
"Impossible, Mr. Clinton," cried Helen, recovering, in some measure,
from her consternation, though her color came and went like the beacon's
revolving flame. "I cannot see you at this unseasonable hour. There is a
sick, a very sick person in the nest room with whom I am watching. I
cannot ask you to come in. Besides," she added, with a dignity that
enchanted the bold intruder, "if I cannot see you in my father's house,
it is not proper that I see you at all." She drew back quickly, uttering
a hasty "Good-night," and was about to close the door, when Clinton
glided in, shutting the door after him.
"You must hear me, Helen," said he, in that sweet, low voice, peculiar
to himself. "Had it not been for you I should never have returned. I
told you once that I loved you, but if I loved you then I must adore you
now. You are ten thousand times more lovely. Helen, you do not know how
charming, how beautiful you are. You do not know the enthusiastic
devotion, the deathless passion you have inspired."
"I cannot conceive of such depths of falsehood," exclaimed Helen, her
timid eyes kindling with indignation; "all this have you said to Mittie,
and far more, and she, mistaken girl, believes you true."
"I deceived myself, alas!" cried he, in a tone of bitter sorrow. "I
thought I loved her, for I had not yet seen and known her gentler,
lovelier sister. Forgive me, Helen--love is not the growth of our will.
'Tis a flower that springs spontaneously in the human heart, of
celestial fragrance, and destined to immortal bloom."
"If I thought you really loved me," said Helen, in a softened tone,
shrinking from the fascination of his glance, and the sorcery of his
voice, "I should feel great and exceeding sorrow--for it would be in
vain. But the love that I have imagined is of a very different nature.
Slowly kindled, it burns with steady and unceasing glory, unchanging as
the sun, and eternal as the soul."
Helen paused with a burning flush, fearful that she had revealed the one
secret of her heart so lately revealed to herself, and Clinton resumed
his passionate declarations.
"If you will not go," said she, all her terror returning at the
vehemence of his suit, "if you will not go," looking wildly at the door
that separated her from the sick room, "I will leave you here. You dare
not follow me. The destroying angel guards this threshold."
In her excitement she knew not what she uttered. The words came unbidden
from her lips. She laid her hand on the latch, but Clinton caught hold
of it ere she had time to lift it.
"You shall not leave me, by heaven, you shall not, till you have
answered one question. Is it for the cold, calculating Arthur Hazleton
you reject such love as mine?"
Instead of uttering an indignant denial to this sudden and vehement
interrogation, Helen trembled and turned pale. Her natural timidity and
sensitiveness returned with overpowering influence; and added to these,
a keen sense of shame at being accused of an unsolicited attachment, a
charge she could not with truth repel, humbled and oppressed her.
"A murderous guilt shows not itself more soon
Than love that would seem hid."
So thought Helen, while shrinking from the glance that gleamed upon her,
like blue steel flashing in the sunbeams. Yes! Arthur Hazleton _was_
cold compared to Clinton. He loved her even as he did Alice, with a
calm, brotherly affection, and that was all. He had never praised her
beauty or attractions--never offered the slightest incense to her vanity
or pride. Sometimes he had uttered indirect expressions, which had made
her bosom throb wildly with hope, but humility soon chastened the
emotion which delicacy taught her to conceal. Cold indeed sounded the
warmest phrase he had ever addressed her, "God bless you, dear, good,
brave Helen," to Clinton's romantic and impassioned language, though,
when it fell from his lips, it passed with such melting warmth into her
heart. Swift as a swallow's flight these thoughts darted through Helen's
mind, and gave an indecision and embarrassment to her manner, which
emboldened Clinton with hopes of success. All at once her countenance
changed. The strangeness of her situation, the lateness of the hour, the
impropriety of receiving such a visitor in that little dark, narrow
passage--the dread of Arthur's coming in, and finding her alone with her
dreaded though splendid companion--the fear that Miss Thusa might waken
and require her assistance--the vision of her father's displeasure and
Mittie's jealous wrath--all swept in a stormy gust before her, driving
away every consideration but one--the desire for escape, and the
determination to effect it. The apprehension of awaking Miss Thusa, by
rushing into her room, died in the grasp of a greater terror.
"Let me go," she exclaimed, wrenching her hand from his tightening hold.
"Let me go. You madden me."
In her haste to open the door the latch rattled, and the door swung to
with a violence that called forth a groan from the awakening sleeper.
Turning the wooden button that fastened it on the inside, she sunk down
into the first seat in her reach, and a dark shadow, flecked with sparks
of fire, floated before her eyes. Chill and dizzy, she thought she was
going to faint, when her name, pronounced distinctly by Miss Thusa,
recalled her bewildered senses. She rose, and it seemed as if the bed
came to her, for she was not conscious of walking to it, but she found
herself bending over the patient and looking steadfastly into her
clouded eyes.
"Helen, my dear," said she, "I feel a great deal better. I must have
slept a long time. Have I not? Give me a little water. There, now sit
down close by my bed and listen. If that knife cuts my breath again, I
shall have to give up talking. Just raise my head a little, and hand me
my spectacles off the big Bible. I can't talk without them. But how dim
the glasses are. Wipe them for me, child. There's dust settled on
them."
Helen took the glasses and wiped them with her soft linen handkerchief,
but she sighed as she did so, well knowing that it was the eyes that
were growing dim instead of the crystal that covered them.
"A little better--a little better," said the spinster, looking wistfully
towards the candle. "Now, Helen, my dear, just step into the other room
and bring here my wheel. It is heavy, but not beyond your strength. I
always bring it in here at night, but I can't do it now. I was taken
sick so sudden, I forgot it. It's my stay-by and stand-by--you know."
Helen looked so startled and wild, that Miss Thusa imagined her struck
with superstitious terror at the thought of going alone into another
room.
"I'm sorry to see you've not outgrown your weaknesses," said she. "It's
my fault, I'm afraid, but I hope the Lord will forgive me for it."
Helen was not afraid of the lonely room, so near and so lately occupied,
but she was afraid of encountering Clinton, who might be lingering by
the open door. But Miss Thusa's request, sick and helpless as she was,
had the authority of a command, and she rose to obey her. She barred the
outer door without catching the gleam of Clinton's dark, shining hair,
and having brought the wheel, with panting breath, for it was indeed
very heavy, sat down with a feeling of security and relief, since the
enemy was now shut out by double barriers. One window was partly raised
to admit the air to Miss Thusa's oppressed lungs, but they were both
fastened above.
"You had better not exert yourself, Miss Thusa," said Helen, after
giving her the medicine which the doctor had prescribed. "You are not
strong enough to talk much now."
"I shall never be stronger, my child. My day is almost spent, and the
night cometh, wherein no man can work. I always thought I should have a
sudden call, and when I was struck with that sharp pain, I knew my
Master was knocking at the door. The Lord be praised, I don't want to
bar him out. I'm ready and willing to go, willing to close my long and
lonely life. I have had few to love, and few to care for me, but, thank
God, the one I love best of all does not forsake me in my last hour.
Helen, darling, God bless you--God bless you, my blessed child."
The voice of the aged spinster faltered, and tear after tear trickled
like wintry rain down her furrowed cheeks. All the affections of a
naturally warm and generous heart lingered round the young girl, who was
still to her the little child whom she had cradled in her arms, and
hushed into the stillness of awe by her ghostly legends. Helen,
inexpressibly affected, leaned her head on Miss Thusa's pillow, and wept
and sobbed audibly. She did not know, till this moment, how strong and
deep-rooted was her attachment for this singular and isolated being.
There was an individuality, a grandeur in her character, to which
Helen's timid, upward-looking spirit paid spontaneous homage. The wild
sweep of her imagination, always kept within the limits of the purest
morality, her stern sense of justice, tempered by sympathy and
compassion, and the tenderness and sensibility that so often softened
her harsh and severe lineaments, commanded her respect and admiration.
Even her person, which was generally deemed ungainly and unattractive,
was invested with majesty and a certain grace in Helen's partial eyes.
She was old--but hers was the sublimity of age without its infirmity,
the hoariness of winter without its chillness. It seemed impossible to
associate with her the idea of dissolution. Yet there she lay, helpless
as an infant, with no more strength to resist the Almighty's will, than
a feather to hurl back the force of the whirlwind.
"You see that wheel, Helen," said she, recovering her usual calmness--"I
told you that I should bequeath it, as a legacy, to you. Don't despise
the homely gift. You see those brass bands, with grooves in them--just
screw them to the right as hard as you can--a little harder."
Helen screwed and twisted till her slender wrists ached, when the brass
suddenly parted, and a number of gold pieces rolled upon the floor.
"Pick them up, and put them back," said Miss Thusa, "and screw it up
again--all the joints will open in that way. The wood is hollowed out
and filled with gold, which I bequeath to you. My will is in there, too,
made by the lawyers where I found the money. You remember when that
advertisement was put in the papers, and I went on that journey, part
of the way with you. Well, I must tell you the shortest way, though it's
a long story. It was written by a lady, on her death-bed, a widow lady,
who had no children, and a large property of her own. You don't remember
my brother, but your father does. He was a hater of the world, and
almost made me one. Well, it seemed he had a cause for his misanthropy
which I never knew of, for when he was a young man he went away from
home, and we didn't hear from him for years. When he came back, he was
sad and sickly, and wanted to get into some little quiet place, where
nobody would molest him. Then it was we came to this little cabin, where
he died, in this very room, and this very bed, too."
Miss Thusa paused, and the room and the bed seemed all at once clothed
with supernatural solemnity, by the sad consecration of death. Death had
been there--death was waiting there.
"Oh! Miss Thusa, you are faint and weary. Do stop and rest, I pray you,"
cried Helen, bathing her forehead with camphor, and holding a glass of
water to her lips.
But the unnatural strength which opium gives, sustained her, and she
continued her narrative.
"This lady, when young, had loved and been betrothed to my brother, and
then forsook him for a wealthier man. It was that which ruined him, and
I never knew it. He had one of those still natures, where the waters of
sorrow lie deep as a well. They never overflow. She told me that she
never had had one happy moment from the time she married, and that her
conscience gnawed her for her broken faith. Her husband died, and left
her a rich widow, without a child to leave her property to. After a
while she fell sick of a long and lingering disease, for which there is
no cure. Then she thought if she could leave her money to my brother, or
he being dead, to some of his kin, she could die with more comfort. So,
she put the advertisement in the paper, which you all saw. I didn't want
the money, and wanted to come away without it, but she sent for a
lawyer, and had it all fastened upon me by deeds and writings, whether I
was willing or not. She didn't live but a few days after I got there.
The lawyer was very kind, and assisted me in my plans, though he
thought them very odd. There is no need of wasting my breath in telling
how I had the money changed into gold, and the wheel fixed in the way
you see it, after a fashion of my own. I would not have touched one cent
of it, had it not been for you, and next to you, that poor boy, Louis. I
didn't want any one to know it, and be dinning in my ears about money
from morning to night. I had no use for it myself, for habits don't
change when the winter of life is begun. There is no use for it in the
dark grave to which I am hastening. There is no use for it near the
great white throne of God, where I shall shortly stand. When I am dead
and gone, Helen, take that wheel home, and give it a place wherever you
are, for old Miss Thusa's sake. I really think--I'm a strange, foolish
old woman--but I really think I should like to have its likeness painted
on my coffin lid. A kind of coat-of-arms, you know, child."
Miss Thusa did not relate all this without pausing many times for
breath, and when she concluded she closed her eyes, exhausted by the
effort she had made. In a short time she again slept, and Helen sat
pondering in mute amazement over the disclosure made by one whom she had
imagined so very indigent. The gold weighed heavy on her mind. It did
not seem real, so strangely acquired, so mysteriously concealed. It
reminded her of the tales of the genii, more than of the actualities of
every day life. She prayed that Miss Thusa might live and take care of
it herself for long years to come.
Several times during the recital, she thought she heard a sound at the
window, but when she turned her head to ascertain the cause, she saw
nothing but the curtain slightly fluttering in the wind that crept in at
the opening, with a soft, sighing sound.
It was the first time she had ever watched with the sick, and she found
it a very solemn thing. Yet with all the solemnity and gloom brooding
over her, she felt inexpressible gratitude that she was not haunted by
the spectral illusions of her childhood. Reason was no longer the
vassal, but the monarch of imagination, and though the latter often
proved a restless and wayward subject, it acknowledged the former as
its legitimate sovereign.
Miss Thusa, lying so rigid and immovable on her back, with her hands
crossed on her breast, a white linen handkerchief folded over her head
and fastened under the chin, looked so resembling death, that it was
difficult to think of her as a living, breathing thing. Helen gazed upon
her with indescribable awe, sometimes believing it was nothing but
soulless clay before her, but even then she gazed without horror. Her
exceeding terror of death was gone, without her being conscious of its
departure. It was like the closing of a dark abyss--there was _terra
firma_, where an awful chasm had been. There was more terror to her in
the vitality burning in her own heart, than in that poor, enfeebled
form. How strong were its pulsations! how loud they sounded in the
midnight stillness!--louder than the death-watch that ticked by the
hearth. To escape from the beatings of "this muffled drum" of life, she
went to the window, and partly drawing aside the curtain, breathed on a
pane of glass, so that the gauzy web the frost had woven might melt away
and admit the vertical rays of the midnight moon. How beautiful, how
resplendent was the scene that was spread out before her! She had not
thought before of looking abroad, and it was the first time the solemn
glories of the noon of night had unfolded to her view. In the morning a
drizzling rain had fallen, which had frozen as it fell on the branches
of the leafless trees, and now on every little twig hung pendant
diamonds, glittering in the moonbeams. The ground was partially covered
with snow, but where it lay bare, it was powdered with diamond dust. A
silvery net-work was drawn over the windows, save one clear spot, which
her melting breath had made. She looked up to the moon, shining so high,
so lone on the pale azure of a wintry heaven, and felt an impulse to
kneel down and worship it, as the loveliest, holiest image of the
Creator's goodness and love. How tranquil, how serene, how soft, yet
glorious it shone forth from the still depths of ether! What a divine
melancholy it diffused over the sleeping earth! Helen felt as she often
did when looking up into the eyes of Arthur Hazleton. So tranquil, so
serene, yet so glorious were their beams to her, and so silently and
holily did they sink into the soul.
In the morning the young doctor found his patient in the same feeble,
slumberous state. There was no apparent change either for better or
worse, and he thought it probable she might linger days and even weeks,
gradually sinking, till she slept the last great sleep.
"You look weary and languid, Helen," said he, anxiously regarding the
young watcher, "I hope nothing disturbed your lonely vigils. I
endeavored to return, that I might relieve you, in some measure, of your
fatiguing duty, but was detained the whole night."
Helen thought of the terror she had suffered from Clinton's intrusion,
but she did not like to speak of it. Perhaps he had already left the
neighborhood, and it seemed ungenerous and useless to betray him.
"I certainly had no ghostly visitors," said she, "and what is more, I
did not fear them. All unreal phantasies fled before that sad reality,"
looking on the wan features of Miss Thusa.
"I see you have profited by the discipline of the last twelve hours,"
cried Arthur, "and it was most severe, for one of your temperament and
early habits. I have heard it said," he added, thoughtfully, "that those
who follow my profession, become callous and indifferent to human
suffering--that their nerves are steeled, and their hearts
indurated--but I do not find it the case with me; I never approach the
bedside of the sick and the dying without deep and solemn emotion. I
feel nearer the grave, nearer to Heaven and God."
"No--I am sure it cannot be said of you," said Helen, earnestly, "you
are always kind and sympathizing--quick to relieve, and slow to inflict
pain."
"Ah, Helen, you forget how cruel I was in forcing you back, where the
deadly viper had been coiled; in making you take that dark, solitary
walk in search of the sleeping Alice; and even last night I might have
spared you your lonely night watch, if I would. Had I told you that you
were too inexperienced and inefficient to be a good nurse, you would
have believed me and yielded your place, or at least shared it with
another. Do you still think me kind?"
"Most kind, even when most exacting," she replied. Whenever her feelings
were excited, her deep feelings of joy as well as sorrow, Helen's eyes
always glistened. This peculiarity gave a soft, pensive expression to
her countenance that was indescribably winning, and made her smile from
the effect of contrast enchantingly sweet.
The glistening eye and the enchanting smile that followed these words,
or rather accompanied them, were not altogether lost on Arthur.
Mrs. Gleason came to relieve Helen from the care of nursing, and
insisted upon her immediate return home. Helen obeyed with reluctance,
claiming the privilege of resuming her watch again at night. She wanted
to be with Miss Thusa in her last moments. She had a sublime curiosity
to witness the last strife of body and soul, the separation of the
visible and the invisible; but when night came on, exhausted nature
sought renovation in the deepest slumbers that had ever wrapped her.
Arthur, perceiving some change in his patient, resolved to remain with
her himself, having hired a woman to act as subordinate nurse during
Miss Thusa's sickness. She occupied the kitchen as bed-room--an
apartment running directly back of the sick chamber.
Miss Thusa's strength was slowly, gently wasting. Disease had struck her
at first like a sharp poignard, but life flowed away from the wound
without much after suffering. The greater part of the time she lay in a
comatose state, from which it was difficult to rouse her.
Arthur sat by the fire, with a book in his hand, which at times seemed
deeply to interest him, and at others, he dropped it in his lap, and
gazing intently into the glowing coals, appeared absorbed in the
mysteries of thought.
About midnight, when reverie had deepened into slumber, he was startled
by a low knock at the door. He had not fastened it as elaborately as
Helen had done, and quickly and noiselessly opening it, he demanded who
was there. It was a young boy, bearing him a note from the family he had
visited the preceding night. His patient was attacked with some very
alarming symptoms, and begged his immediate attendance. Having wakened
the woman and commissioned her to watch during his absence, Arthur
departed, surprised at the unexpected summons, as he had seen the
patient at twilight, who then appeared in a fair way of recovery. His
surprise was still greater, when arriving at the house he found that no
summons had been sent for him, no note written, but the whole household
were wrapped in peaceful slumbers. The note, which he carried in his
pocket, was pronounced a forgery, and must have been written with some
dark and evil design. But what could it be? Who could wish to draw him
away from that poor, lone cottage, that poor sick, dying woman? It was
strange, inexplicable.
Mr. Mason, the gentleman in whose name the note had been written, and
who fortunately happened to be the sheriff of the county, insisted upon
accompanying him back to the cottage, and aiding him to discover its
mysterious purpose. It might be a silly plot of some silly boy, but that
did not seem at all probable, as Arthur was so universally respected and
beloved--and such was the dignity and affability of his character, that
no one would think of playing upon him a foolish and insulting trick.
The distance was not great, and they walked with rapid footsteps over
the crisp and frozen ground. Around the cabin, the snow formed a thick
carpet, which, lying in shade, had not been glazed, like the general
surface of the landscape. Their steps did not resound on this white
covering, and instead of crossing the stile in front of the cabin, they
vaulted over the fence and approached the door by a side path. The
moment Arthur laid his hand upon the latch he knew some one had entered
the house during his absence, for he had closed the door, and now it was
ajar. With one bound he cleared the passage, and Mr. Mason, who was a
tall and strong man, was not left much in the rear. The inner door was
not latched, and opened at the touch. The current of air which rushed in
with their sudden entrance rolled into the chimney, and the fire flashed
up and roared, illuminating every object within. Near the centre of the
room stood a man, wrapped in a dark cloak that completely concealed his
figure, a dark mask covering his face, and a fur cap pulled deep over
his forehead. He stood by the side of Miss Thusa's wheel, which
presented the appearance of a ruin, with its brazen bands wrenched
asunder, and its fragments strewed upon the floor. He was evidently
arrested in the act of destruction, for one hand grasped the distaff,
the other clinched something which he sought to conceal in the folds of
his cloak.
Miss Thusa, partly raised on her elbow, which shook and trembled from
the weight it supported, was gazing with impotent despair on her
dismembered wheel. A dim fire quivered in her sunken eyes, and her
sharpened and prominent features were made still more ghastly by the
opaque frame-work of white linen that surrounded them. She was uttering
faint and broken ejaculations.
"Monster--robber!--my treasure! Take the gold--take it, but spare my
wheel! Poor Helen! I gave it to her! Poor child! It's she you are
robbing, not me! Oh, my God! my heart-strings are breaking! My wheel,
that I loved like a human being! Lord, Lord, have mercy upon me!"
These piteous exclamations met the ear of Arthur as he entered the room,
and roused all the latent wrath of his nature. He forgot every thing but
the dark, masked figure which, gathering up its cloak, sprang towards
the door, with the intention of escaping, but an iron grasp held it
back. Seldom, indeed, were the strong but subdued passions of Arthur
Hazleton suffered to master him, but now they had the ascendency. He
never thought of calling on Mr. Mason to assist him quietly in securing
the robber, as he might have done, but yielding to an irresistible
impulse of vengeance, he grappled fiercely with the mask, who writhed
and struggled in his unclinching hold. Something fell rattling on the
floor, and continued to rattle as the strife went on. Mr. Mason, knowing
that by virtue of his authority he could arrest the offender at once,
looked on with that strange pleasure which men feel in witnessing scenes
of conflict. He was astonished at the transformation of the young
doctor. He had always seen him so calm and gentle in the chamber of
sickness, so peaceful in his intercourse with his fellow-men, that he
did not know the lamb could be thus changed into the lion.
Arthur had now effected his object, in unmasking and uncloaking his
antagonist, and he found himself face to face with--Bryant Clinton. The
young men stood gazing at each other for a few moments in perfect
silence. They were both of an ashy paleness, and their eyes glittered
under the shadow of their darkened brows. But Clinton could not long
sustain that steadfast, victor glance. His own wavered and fell, and the
blood swept over his face in a reddening wave.
"Let me go," said he, in a low, husky voice, "I am in your power; but be
magnanimous and release me. I throw myself on your generosity, not your
justice."
Arthur's sternly upbraiding eye softened into an expression of the
deepest sorrow, not unmingled with contempt, on beholding the
degradation of this splendidly endowed young man. He reminded him of a
fallen angel, with his glorious plumage all soiled and polluted with the
mire and corruption of earth. He never had had faith in his integrity;
be believed him to be the tempter of Louis, the deceiver of Mittie,
reckless and unprincipled where pleasure was concerned, but he did not
believe him capable of such a daring transgression. Had he been alone,
he would have released him, for his magnanimity and generosity would
have triumphed over his sense of justice, but legal authority was
present, and to that he was forced to submit.
"_I_ arrest you, sir, in virtue of my authority as sheriff of the
county," exclaimed Mr. Mason; "empty your pockets of the gold you have
purloined from this woman, and then follow me. Quick, or I'll give you
rough aid."
The pomp and aristocracy of Clinton's appearance and manners had made
him unpopular in the neighborhood, and it is not strange that a man whom
he had never condescended to notice should triumph in his disgrace. He
looked on with vindictive pleasure while Clinton, after a useless
resistance, produced the gold he had secreted, but Arthur turned away
his head in shame. He could not bear to witness the depth of his
degradation. His cheek burned with painful blushes, as the gold clinked
on the table, ringing forth the tale of Clinton's guilt.
"Now, sir, come along," cried the stern voice of the sheriff. "Doctor, I
leave the care of this to you."
While he was speaking, he drew a pair of hand-cuffs from his pocket,
which he had slipped in before leaving home, thinking they might come in
use.
"You shall not degrade me thus!" exclaimed Clinton, haughtily, writhing
in his grasp; "you shall never put those vile things on me!"
"Softly, softly, young gentleman," cried the sheriff, "I shall hurt your
fair wrists if you don't stand still. There, that will do. Come along.
No halting."
Arthur gave one glance towards the retreating form of Clinton, as he
passed through the door, with his haughty head now drooping on his
breast, wearing the iron badge of crime, and groaned in spirit, that so
fair a temple should not be occupied by a nobler indwelling guest. So
rapidly had the scene passed, so still and lone seemed the apartment,
for Miss Thusa had sunk back on her pillow mute and exhausted, that he
was tempted to believe that it was nothing but a dream. But the wheel
lay in fragments at his feet, the gold lay in shining heaps upon the
table, and a dark mask grinned from the floor. That gold, too!--how
dream-like its existence! Was Miss Thusa a female Midas or Aladdin? Was
the dull brass lamp burning on the table, the gift of the genii? Was the
old gray cabin a witch's magic home?
Rousing himself with a strong effort, he examined the condition of his
patient, and was grieved to find how greatly this shock had accelerated
the work of disease. Her pulse was faint and flickering, her skin cold
and clammy, but after swallowing a cordial, and inhaling the strong odor
of hartshorn, a reaction took place, and she revived astonishingly; but
when she spoke, her mind evidently wandered, sometimes into the shadows
of the past, sometimes into the light of the future.
"What shall I do with this?" asked Arthur, pointing to the gold, anxious
to bring her thoughts to some central point; "and these, too?" stooping
down and picking up a fragment of the wheel.
"Screw it up again--screw it up," she replied, quickly, "and put the
gold back in it. 'Tis Helen's--all little Helen's. Don't let them rob
her after I'm dead."
Rejoicing to hear her speak so rationally, though wondering if what she
said of Helen was not the imagining of a disordered brain, he began to
examine the pieces of the wheel, and found that with the exertion of a
little skill he could put them together again, and that it was only some
slender parts of the machine which were broken. He placed the money in
its hollow receptacles, united the brazen rings, and smoothed the
tangled flax that twined the distaff. Ever and anon Miss Thusa turned
her fading glance towards him, and murmured,
"It is good. It is good!"
For more than an hour she lay perfectly still, when suddenly moving, she
exclaimed,
"Put away the curtain--it's too dark."
Arthur drew aside the curtain from the window nearest the bed, and the
pale, cold moonlight came in, in white, shining bars, and striped the
dark counterpane. One fell across Miss Thusa's face, and illuminated it
with a strange and ghastly lustre.
"Has the moon gone down?" she asked. "I thought it stayed till morning
in the sky. But my glasses are getting wondrous dim. I must have a new
pair, doctor. How slow the wheel turns round; the band keeps slipping
off, and the crank goes creaking, creaking, for want of oil. Little
Helen, take your feet off the treadle, and don't sit so close, darling.
I can't breathe."
She panted a few moments, catching her breath with difficulty, then
tossing her arms above the bed-cover, said, in a fainter voice,
"The great wheel of eternity keeps rolling on, and we are all bound upon
it. How grandly it moves, and all the time the flax on the distaff is
smoking. God says in the Bible He will not quench it, but blow it to a
flame. You've read the Bible, havn't you, doctor? It is a powerful book.
It tells about Moses and the Lamb. I'll tell you a story, Helen, about a
Lamb that was slain. I've told you a great many, but never one like
this. Come nearer, for I can't speak very loud. Take care, the thread is
sliding off the spool. Cut it, doctor, cut it; it's winding round my
heart so tight! Oh, my God! it snaps in two!"
These were the last words the aged spinster ever uttered. The
main-spring of life was broken. When the cold, gray light of morning had
extinguished the pallid splendor of the moon, and one by one the objects
in the little room came forth from the dimness of shade, which a single
lamp had not power to disperse, a great change was visible. The dark
covering of the bed was removed, the bed itself was gone--but through a
snowy white sheet that was spread over the frame, the outline of a tall
form was visible. All was silent as the grave. A woman sat by the
hearth, with a grave and solemn countenance--so grave and so solemn she
seemed a fixture in that still apartment. The wheel stood still by the
bed-frame, the spectacles lay still on the Bible, and a dark, gray dress
hung in still, dreary folds against the wall.
After a while the woman rose, and walking on tiptoe, holding her breath
as she walked, pulled the sheet a little further one side. Foolish
woman! had she stepped with the thunderer's tread, she could not have
disturbed the cold sleeper, covered with that snowy sheet.
Two or three hours after, the door opened and the young doctor entered
with a young girl clinging to his arm. She was weeping, and as soon as
she caught a glimpse of the white sheet she burst into loud sobs.
"We will relieve you of your watch a short time," said Arthur; and the
woman left the room. He led Helen to the bedside, and turning back the
sheet, exposed the venerable features composed into everlasting repose.
Helen did not recoil or tremble as she gazed. She even hushed her sobs,
as if fearing to ruffle the inexpressible placidity of that dreamless
rest. Every trace of harshness was removed from the countenance, and a
serene melancholy reigned in its stead. A smile far more gentle than she
ever wore in life, lingered on the wan and frozen lips.
"How benign she looks," ejaculated Helen, "how happy! I could gaze
forever on that peaceful, silent face--and yet I once thought death so
terrible."
"Life is far more fearful, Helen. Life, with all its feverish unrest,
its sinful strife, its storms of passion and its waves of sorrow. Oh,
had you beheld the scene which I last night witnessed in this very
room--a scene in which life revelled in wildest power, you would tremble
at the thought of possessing a vitality capable of such unholy
excitement--you would envy the quietude of that unbreathing bosom."
"And yet," said Helen, "I have often heard you speak of life as an
inestimable, a glorious gift, as so rich a blessing that the single
heart had not room to contain the gratitude due."
"And so it is, Helen, if rightly used. I am wrong to give it so dark a
coloring--ungrateful, because my own experience is bright beyond the
common lot--unwise, for I should not sadden your views by anticipation.
Yes, if life is fearful from its responsibilities, it _is_ glorious in
its hopes and rich in its joys. Its mysteries only increase its
grandeur, and prove its divine origin."
Thus Arthur continued to talk to Helen, sustaining and elevating her
thoughts, till she forgot that she came in sorrow and tears.
There was another, who came, when he thought none was near, to pay the
last tribute of sorrow over the remains of Miss Thusa, and that was
Louis. He thought of his last interview with her, and her last words
reverberated in his ear in the silence of that lonely room--"In the name
of your mother in Heaven, go and sin no more."
Louis sunk upon his knees by that cold and voiceless form, and vowed, in
the strength of the Lord, to obey her parting injunction. He could never
now repay the debt he owed, but he could do more--he could be just to
himself and the memory of her who had opened her lips wisely to reprove,
and her hand kindly to relieve.
Peace be to thee, ancient sibyl, lonely dweller of the old gray cottage.
No more shall thy busy fingers twist with curious skill the flaxen
fibres that wreath thy distaff--no more shall the hum of thy wheel
mingle in chorus with the buzzing of the fly and the chirping of the
cricket. But as thou didst say in thy dying hour, "the great wheel of
eternity keeps rolling on," and thou art borne along with it, no longer
a solitary, weary pilgrim, without an arm to sustain or kindred heart to
cheer, but we humbly trust, one of that innumerable, glorious company,
who, clothed in white robes and bearing branching palms, sing the great
praise-song that never shall end, "Allelulia--the Lord God omnipotent
reigneth."