Michael Macbride
"His day of life is closing--the long night
Of dreamless rest a dusky shadow throws,
Between the dying and the things of earth,
Enfolding in a chill oblivious pall
The last sad struggles of a broken heart.
Yes! ere the rising of to-morrow's sun,
The bitter grief that brought him to this pass
Will be forgotten in the sleep of death."
S.M.
We left Kingston at three o'clock, P.M., in the "Passport," for
Toronto. From her commander, Captain Towhy, a fine British heart of
oak, we received the kindest attention; his intelligent conversation,
and interesting descriptions of the many lands he had visited during a
long acquaintance with the sea, greatly lightening the tedium of the
voyage.
When once fairly afloat on the broad blue inland sea of Ontario, you
soon lose sight of the shores, and could imagine yourself sailing on
a calm day on the wide ocean. There is something, however, wanting to
complete the deception,--the invigorating freshness--the peculiar smell
of the salt water, that is so exhilarating, and which produces a
sensation of freedom and power that is never experienced on these
fresh-water lakes. They want the depth, the fulness, the grandeur of
the ocean, though the wide expanse of water and sky are, in all other
respects, the same.
The boat seldom touches at any place before she reaches Cobourg, which
is generally at night. We stopped a short time at the wharf to put
passengers and freight on shore, and to receive fresh passengers and
freight in return. The sight of this town, which I had not seen for many
years, recalled forcibly to my mind a melancholy scene in which I
chanced to be an actor. I will relate it here.
When we first arrived in Canada, in 1832, we remained for three weeks at
an hotel in this town, though, at that period, it was a place of much
less importance than it is at present, deserving little more than the
name of a pretty rising village, pleasantly situated on the shores of
Lake Ontario. The rapid improvement of the country has converted Cobourg
into a thriving, populous town, and it has trebled its population
during the lapse of twenty years. A residence in a house of public
entertainment, to those who have been accustomed to the quiet and
retirement of a country life, is always unpleasant, and to strangers as
we were, in a foreign land, it was doubly repugnant to our feelings. In
spite of all my wise resolutions not to give way to despondency, but to
battle bravely against the change in my circumstances, I found myself
daily yielding up my whole heart and soul to that worst of all maladies,
home-sickness.
It was during these hours of loneliness and dejection, while my husband
was absent examining farms in the neighbourhoods that I had the good
fortune to form an quaintance with Mrs. C---, a Canadian lady, who
boarded with her husband in the same hotel. My new friend was a young
woman agreeable in person, and perfectly unaffected in her manners,
which were remarkably frank and kind. Hers was the first friendly face
I had seen in the colony, and it will ever be remembered by me with
affection and respect.
One afternoon while alone in my chamber, getting my baby, a little girl
of six months old, to sleep, and thinking many sad thoughts, and
shedding some bitter tears for the loss of the dear country and friends
I had left for ever, a slight tap at the door roused me from my painful
reveries, and Mrs. C--- entered the room. Like most of the Canadian
women, my friend was small of stature, slight and delicately formed, and
dressed with the smartness and neatness so characteristic of the females
of this continent, who, if they lack some of the accomplishments of
English women, far surpass them in their taste in dress, their choice of
colours, and the graceful and becoming manner in which they wear their
clothes. If my young friend had a weakness, it was on this point; but as
her husband was engaged in a lucrative mercantile business, and they had
no family, it was certainly excusable. At this moment her pretty neat
little figure was a welcome and interesting object to the home-sick
emigrant.
"What! always in tears," said she, carefully closing the door. "What
pleasure it would give me to see you more cheerful! This constant
repining will never do."
"The sight of you has made me feel better already," said I, wiping my
eyes, and trying to force a smile. "M--- is away on a farm-hunting
expedition, and I have been alone all day. Can you wonder, then, that
I am so depressed? Memory is my worst companion; for by constantly
recalling scenes of past happiness, she renders me discontented with the
present, and hopeless of the future, and it will require all your kind
sympathy to reconcile me to Canada."
"You will like it better by and by; a new country always improves upon
acquaintance."
"Ah, never! Did I only consult my own feelings, I would be off by the
next steam-boat for England; but then my husband, my child, our scanty
means. Yes! yes! I must submit, but I find it a hard task."
"We have all our trials, Mrs. M---; and, to tell you the truth, I do not
feel in the best spirits myself this afternoon. I came to ask you what I
am certain you will consider a strange question."
This was said in a tone so unusually serious, that I looked up from the
cradle in surprise, which her solemn aspect, and pale, tearful face, did
not tend to diminish. Before I could ask the cause of her dejection, she
added quickly--
"Dare you read a chapter from the Bible to a dying man?"
"Dare I? Yes, certainly! Who is ill? Who is dying?"
"It's a sad story," she continued, wiping the tears from her kind
eyes. "I will tell you, however, what I know of it, just to satisfy you
as to the propriety of my request. There is a poor young man in this
house who is very sick--dying, I believe, of consumption. He came here
about three weeks ago, without food, without money, and in a dreadfully
emaciated state. He took our good landlord, Mr. S---, on one side,
and told him how he was situated, and begged that he would give him
something to eat and a night's lodging, promising that if ever he was
restored to health, he would repay the debt in work. You know what a
kind, humane man, Mr. S--- is, although," she added, with a sly smile,
"_he is a Yankee_, and so am I by right of parentage, though not of birth.
Mr. S--- saw at a glance that the suppliant was an object of real
charity, and instantly complied with his request. Without asking further
particulars, he gave him a good bed, sent him up a bowl of hot soup, and
bade him not distress himself about the future, but try and get a good
night's rest. The next day, the young man was too ill to leave his
chamber. Mr. S--- sent for old Dr. Morton, who, after examining the
lad, informed his employer that he was in the last stage of consumption,
and had not many days to live, and it would be advisable for Mr. S--- to
have him removed to the hospital (a pitiful shed erected for emigrants
who may chance to arrive ill with the cholera). Mr. S--- not only
refused to send the young man away, but has nursed him with the greatest
care, his wife and daughters taking it by turns to sit up nightly with
the poor patient."
My friend said nothing about her own attendance on the invalid, which,
I afterwards learned from Mrs. S--- had been unremitting.
"And what account does the lad give of himself?" said I.
"All that we know about him is, that his name is Macbride, [Michael
Macbride was not the real name of this poor young man, but is one
substituted by the author.] and that he is nephew to Mr. C---, of
Peterboro', an Irishman by birth, and a Catholic by religion. Some
violent altercation took place between him and his uncle a short time
ago, which induced Michael to leave his house, and look out for a
situation for himself. Hearing that his parents had arrived in this
country, and were on their way to Peterboro', he came down as far as
Cobourg in the hope of meeting them, when his steps were arrested by
poverty and sickness on this threshold.
"By a singular coincidence, his mother came to the hotel yesterday
evening to inquire the way to Peterboro', and Mr. S--- found out, from
her conversation, that she was the mother of the poor lad, and he
instantly conducted her to the bedside of her son. I was sitting with
him when the interview between him and his mother took place, and
I assure you that it was almost too much for my nerves--his joy and
gratitude were so great at once more beholding his parent, while the
grief and distraction of the poor woman, on seeing him in a dying
state, was agonising; and she gave vent to her feelings in uttering the
most hearty curses against the country, and the persons who by their
unkindness had been the cause of his sickness. The young man seemed
shocked at the unfeminine conduct of his mother, and begged me to
excuse the rude manner in which she answered me; 'for,' says he, 'she
is ignorant and beside herself, and does not know what she is saying
or doing.'
"Instead of expressing the least gratitude to Mr. S--- for the attention
bestowed on her son, by some strange perversion of intellect she seems
to regard him and us as his especial enemies. Last night she ordered us
from his room, and declared that her 'precious _bhoy_ was not going to die
like a _hathen_, surrounded by a parcel of heretics;' and she sent off a
man on horseback for the priest and for his uncle--the very man from
whose house he fled, and whom she accuses of being the cause of her
son's death. Michael anticipates the arrival of Mr. C--- with feelings
bordering on despair, and prays that God may end his sufferings before
he reaches Cobourg.
"Last night Mrs. Macbride sat up with Michael herself, and would not
allow us to do the least thing for him. This morning her fierce temper
seems to have subsided, until her son awoke from a broken and feverish
sleep, and declared that he would not die a Roman Catholic, and
earnestly requested Mr. S--- to send for a Protestant clergyman. This
gave rise to a violent scene between Mrs. Macbride and her son, which
ended in Mr. S--- sending for Mr. B---, the clergyman of our village,
who, unfortunately, had left this morning for Toronto, and is not
expected home for several days. Michael eagerly asked if there was any
person present who would read to him from the Protestant Bible. This
excited in the mother such a fit of passion, that none of us dared
attempt the task. I then thought of you, that, as a perfect stranger,
she might receive you in a less hostile manner. If you are not afraid to
encounter the fierce old woman, do make the attempt for the sake of the
dying creature, who languishes to hear the words of life. I will watch
the baby while you are gone."
"She is asleep, and needs no watching. I will go as you seem so anxious
about it," and I took my pocket Bible from the table. "But you must go
with me, for I do not know my way in this strange house."
Carefully closing the door upon the sleeping child, I followed the
light steps of Mrs. C--- along the passage, until we reached the head
of the main staircase, then, turning to the right, we entered the large
public ballroom. In the first chamber of many that opened into this
spacious apartment we found the object that we sought.
Stretched upon a low bed, with a feather fan in his hand, to keep off
the flies that hovered in tormenting clusters round his head, lay the
dying Michael Macbride.
The face of the young man was wasted by disease and mental anxiety; and
if the features were not positively handsome, they were well and
harmoniously defined, and a look of intelligence and sensibility
pervaded his countenance, which greatly interested me in his behalf.
His face was deathly pale, as pale as marble, and his large sunken
eyes shone with unnatural brilliancy, their long dark lashes adding an
expression of intense melancholy to the patient endurance of suffering
that marked his fine countenance. His nose was shrunk and drawn in about
the nostrils, his feverish lips apart, in order to admit a free passage
for the labouring breath, their bright red glow affording a painful
contrast to the ghastly glitter of the brilliant white teeth within. The
thick black curls that clustered round his high forehead were moist with
perspiration, and the same cold unwholesome dew trickled in large drops
down his hollow temples. It was impossible to mistake these signs of
approaching dissolution--it was evident to all present that death was
not far distant.
An indescribable awe crept over me. He looked so tranquil, so sublimed
by suffering, that I felt my self unworthy to be his teacher.
"Michael," I said, taking the long thin white hand that lay so
listlessly on the coverlid, "I am sorry to see you so ill."
He looked at me attentively for a few minutes.--"Do not say sorry,
Ma'am; rather say glad. I am glad to get away from this bad world--young
as I am--I am so weary of it."
He sighed deeply, and tears filled his eyes.
"I heard that you wished some one to read to you."
"Yes, the Bible!" he cried, trying to raise himself in the bed, while
his eager eyes were turned to me with an earnest, imploring expression.
"I have it here. Are you able to read it for yourself?"
"I can read--but my eyes are so dim. The shadows of death float between
me and the world; I can no longer see objects distinctly. But oh, Madam,
if my soul were light, I should not heed this blindness. But all is dark
here," laying his hand on his breast,--"dark as the grave."
I opened the sacred book, but my own tears for a moment obscured the
page. While I was revolving in my own mind what would be the best to
read to him, the book was rudely wrenched from my hand by a tall, gaunt
woman, who just then entered the room.
"Och! what do you mane by disturbing him in his dying moments wid yer
thrash? It is not the likes o' you that shall throuble his sowl! The
praste will come and administher consolation to him in his last
exthremity."
Michael shook his head, and turned his face sorrowfully to the wall.
"Oh, mother," he murmured, "is that the way you treat the lady?"
"Lady, or no lady, and I mane no disrispict; it is not for the like o'
her to take this on hersel'. If she will be rading, let her rade this,"
and she tried to force a book of devotional prayers into my hand.
Michael raised himself, and with an impatient gesture exclaimed--
"Not that--not that! It speaks no comfort to me. I will not listen to
it. Mother, mother! do not stand between me and my God. I know that
you love me--that what you do is done for the best; but the voice of
conscience will be heard above your voice. I hunger and thirst to
hear the word as it stands in the Bible, and I cannot die in peace
unsatisfied. For the love of Christ, Ma'am, read a few words of comfort
to a dying sinner!"
Here the mother again interposed.
"My good woman," I said gently putting her back, "you hear your son's
earnest request. If you really love him, you will offer no opposition
to his wishes. It is not a question of creeds that is here to be
determined, as to which is the best--yours or mine. I trust that all the
faithful followers of Christ, however named, hold the same faith, and
will be saved by the same means. I shall make no comment on what I read
to your son. The Bible is its own interpreter. The Spirit of God, by
whom it was dictated, will make it clear to his comprehension. Michael,
shall I commence now?"
"Yes," he replied, "with the blessing of God!"
After putting up a short prayer I commenced reading, and continued to do
so until night, taking care to select those portions of Scripture most
applicable to his case. Never did human creature listen with more
earnestness to the words of truth. Often he repeated whole texts after
me, clasping his hands together in a sort of ecstasy, while tears
streamed from his eyes. The old woman glared upon me from a far corner,
and muttered over her beads, as if they were a spell to secure her
against some diabolical art. When I could no longer see to read, Michael
took my hand, and said with great earnestness--
"May God bless you, Madam! You have made me very happy. It is all clear
to me now. In Christ alone I shall obtain mercy and forgiveness for my
sins. It is his righteousness, and not any good works of my own, that
will save me. Death no longer appears so dreadful to me. I can now die
in peace."
"You believe that God will pardon you, Michael, for Christ's sake; but
have you forgiven all your enemies?"
I said this in order to try his sincerity, for I had heard that he
entertained hard thoughts against his uncle.
He covered his face with his thin, wasted hands, and did not answer for
some minutes; at length he looked up with a calm smile upon his lips,
and said--
"Yes, I have forgiven all--even _him_!--"
Oh, how much was contained in the stress laid so strongly and sadly
upon that little word _Him!_ How I longed to hear the story of his wrongs
from his own lips! but he was too weak and exhausted for me to urge such
a request. Just then Dr. Morton came in, and after standing for some
minutes at the bed-side, regarding his patient with fixed attention, he
felt his pulse, spoke a few kind words, gave some trifling order to his
mother and Mrs. C---, and left the room. Struck by the solemnity of his
manner, I followed him into the outer apartment.
"Excuse the liberty I am taking Dr. Morton; but I feel deeply interested
in your patient. Is he better or worse?"
"He is dying. I did not wish to disturb him in his last moments. I can
be of no further use to him. Poor lad, it's a pity! he is really a fine
young fellow."
I had judged from Michael's appearance that he had not long to live, but
I felt inexpressibly shocked to find his end so near. On returning to
the sick room, Michael eagerly asked what the doctor thought of him?
I did not answer--I could not.
"I see," he said, "that I must die. I will prepare myself for it. If I
live until the morning, will you, Madam, come and read to me again?"
I promised him that I would--or during the night, if he wished it.
"I feel very sleepy," he said. "I have not slept for many nights, but
for a few minutes at a time. Thank God, I am entirely free from pain: it
is very good of Him to grant me this respite."
His mother and I adjusted his pillows, and in a few seconds he was
slumbering as peacefully as a little child.
The feelings of the poor woman seemed softened towards me, and for the
first time since I entered the room she shed tears. I asked the age of
her son? She told me that he was two-and-twenty. She wrung my hand hard
as I left the room, and thanked me for my kindness to her poor _bhoy_.
It was late that night when my husband returned from the country, and we
sat for several hours talking over our affairs, and discussing the soil
and situation of the various farms he had visited during the day. It was
past twelve when we retired to rest, but my sleep was soon disturbed
by some one coughing violently, and my thoughts instantly reverted to
Michael Macbride, as the hoarse sepulchral sounds echoed through the
large empty room beyond which he slept. The coughing continued for some
minutes, and I was so much overcome by fatigue and the excitement of the
evening that I fell asleep, and did not awake until six o'clock the
following morning.
Anxious to hear how the poor invalid had passed the night, I dressed
myself and hurried to his chamber.
On entering the ball-room I found the doors and windows all open, as
well as the one that led to the sick man's chamber. My foot was arrested
on the threshold--for death was there. Yes! that fit of coughing had
terminated his life--Michael had expired without a struggle in the arms
of his mother.
The gay broad beams of the sun were not admitted into that silent room.
The window was open, but the green blinds were carefully closed,
admitting a free circulation of air, and just light enough to render the
objects within distinctly visible. The body was laid out upon the bed
enveloped in a white sheet; the head and hands alone were bare. All
traces of sorrow and disease had passed away from the majestic face,
that, interesting in life, now looked beautiful and holy in death--and
happy, for the seal of heaven seemed visibly impressed upon the pure
pale brow. He was at peace, and though tears of human sympathy for a
moment dimmed my sight, I could not regret that it was so.
While I still stood in the door-way, Mrs. Macbride, whom I had not
observed until then, rose from her knees beside the bed. She seemed
hardly in her right mind, and began talking and muttering to herself.
"Och hone! he is dead--my fine bhoy is dead--widout a praste to pray wid
him, or bless him in the last hour--wid none of his frinds and relations
to lamint iver him, or wake him, but his poor heartbroken mother--Och
hone! och hone! that I should ever live to see this day. Get up, my fine
bhoy--get up wid ye! Why do you lie there?--owlder folk nor you
are abroad in the sunshine.--Get up, and show them how supple you are!"
Then laying her cheek down to the cold cheek of the dead, she exclaimed,
amid broken sobs and groans--
"Oh, spake to me--spake to me, Mike--my own Mike--'tis the mother that
axes ye."
There was a deep pause, when the bereaved parent again broke forth--
"Mike, Mike--why did your uncle rare you like a jintleman to bring you
to this. Och hone! och hone!--oh, never did I think to see your head lie
so low.--My bhoy! my bhoy!--why did you die?--Why did You lave your
frinds, and your money, and your good clothes, and your poor owld
mother?"
Convulsive sobs again choked her utterance. She flung herself upon the
neck of the corpse, and bathed the face and hands of him, who had once
been her own, with burning tears.
I now came forward, and offered a few words of consolation. Vain--all in
vain. The ear of sorrow is deaf to all save its own agonised moans.
Grief is as natural to the human mind as joy, and in their own appointed
hour both will have their way.
The grief of this unhappy Irish mother, like the down-pouring of a
thunder shower, could not be restrained. But her tears soon flowed in
less violent gushes--exhaustion rendered her more calm. She sat upon the
bed, and looked cautiously round--"Hist!--did not you hear a voice? It
was him who spake--yes--it was his own swate voice. I knew he was not
dead. See, he moves!" This was the fond vain delusion of maternal love.
She took his cold hand, and clasped it to her heart.
"Och hone!--he is gone, and left me for ever and ever. Oh, that my cruel
brother was here--that I might point to my murthered child, and curse
him to his face!"
"Is Mr. C--- your brother?" said I, taking this opportunity to divert
her grief into another channel.
"Yes--yes--he is my brother, bad cess to him! and uncle to the bhoy.
Listen to me, and I will tell you some of my mind. It will ease my
sorrow, for my poor heart is breaking entirely, and he is there,"
pointing to the corpse, "and he knows that what I am afther telling you
is thrue.
"I came of poor but dacent parints. There was but the two of us, Pat
C--- and I. My father rinted a good farm, and he sint Pat to school, and
gave him the eddication of a jintleman. Our landlord took a liking for
the bhoy, and gave him the manes to emigrate to Canady. This vexed my
father intirely, for he had no one barring myself to help him on the
farm. Well, by and by, I joined myself to one whom my father did not
approve--a bhoy he had hired to work wid him in the fields--an' he wrote
to my brother (for my mother had been dead ever since I was a wee thing)
to ax him in what manner he had best punish my disobedience; and he jist
advises him to turn us off the place. I suffered, wid my husband, the
extremes of poverty: we had seven childer, but they all died of the
faver, and hard times, save Mike and the two weeny ones. In the midst of
our disthress, it plased the Lord to remove my father, widout softenin'
his heart towards me. But he left my Mike three hunder pounds; to be his
whin he came to a right age; and he appointed my brother Pat guardian to
the bhoy.
"My brother returned to Ireland when he got the news of my father's
death, in order to get his share of the property, for my father left him
the same as he did my son. He took away my bhoy wid him to Canady, in
order to make a landed jintleman of him. Och hone! I thought my heart
would broken thin, whin he took away my swate bhoy; but I was to live to
see a darker day yet."
Here a long burst of passionate weeping interrupted her story.
"Many long years came an' wint, and we niver got the scrape of a pen
from my brother to tell us of the bhoy at all at all. He might jist
as well have been dead, for aught we knew to the conthrary; but we
consowled oursilves wid the thought, that he would niver go about to
harm his own flesh and blood.
"At last a letther came, written in Mike's own hand; and a beautiful
hand it was that same,--the good God bless him for the throuble he took
in makin' it so nate an' aisy for us poor folk to rade. It was full of
love and respict to his poor parents, an' he longin' to see them in
'Meriky; but he said he had written by stealth, for he was very unhappy
intirely,--that his uncle thrated him hardly, becaze he would not be a
praste,--an' wanted to lave him, to work for himsel'; an' he refused to
buy him a farm wid the money his grandfather left him, which he was
bound by the will to do, as Mike was now of age, an' his own masther.
"Whin we got the word from the lad, we gathered our little all together,
an' took passage for Canady, first writin' to Mike whin we should start,
an' the name of the vessel; an' that we should wait at Cobourg until
sich time as he came to fetch us himsel' to his uncle's place.
"But oh, Ma'am, our throubles had only begun. My poor husband and my
youngest bhoy died of the cholera comin' out; an' I saw their prechious
bodies cast into the salt, salt saa. Still the hope of seeing Mike
consowled me for all my disthress. Poor Pat an' I were worn out entirely
whin we got to Kingston, an' I left the child wid a frind, an' came on
alone,--I was so eager to see Mike, an' tell him all my throubles;
an' there he lies, och hone! my heart, my poor heart, it will break
entirely."
"And what caused your son's separation from his uncle?" said I.
The woman shook her head. "The thratement he got from him was too bad.
But shure he would not disthress me by saying aught agin my mother's
son. Did he not break his heart, and turn him dying an' pinniless on the
wide world? An' could he have done worse had he stuck a knife into his
heart?"
"Ah!" she continued, with bitterness, "it was the gowld, the dhirty
gowld, that kilt my poor bhoy. His uncle knew that if Mike were dead, it
would come to Pat as the ne'est in degree, an' he could keep it all to
himsel' for the ne'est ten years."
This statement appeared only too probable. Still there was a mystery
about the whole affair that required a solution, and it was several
years before I accidentally learned the sequel of this sad history.
In the meanwhile the messenger, despatched by the kind Mr. S--- to
Peterboro' to inform Michael's uncle of the dying state of his nephew,
returned without that worthy, and with this unfeeling message--that
Michael Macbride had left him without any just cause, and should receive
no consolation from him in his last moments.
Mr. S--- did not inform the poor bereaved widow of her brother's cruel
message; but finding that she was unable to defray the expenses
attendant on her son's funeral, like a true Samaritan, he supplied them
out of his own pocket, and followed the remains of the unhappy stranger
that Providence had cast upon his charity to the grave. In accordance
with Michael's last request, he was buried in the cemetry of the English
church.
Six years after these events took place, Mr. W--- called upon me at our
place in Douro, and among other things told me of the death of Michael's
uncle, Mr. C---. Many things were mentioned by Mr. W---, who happened
to know him, to his disadvantage. "But of all his evil acts," he said,
"the worst thing I knew of him was his conduct to his nephew."
"How was that?" said I, as the death-bed of Michael Macbride rose
distinctly before me.
"It was a bad business. My housekeeper lived with the old man at the
time, and from her I heard all about it. It seems that he had been left
guardian to this boy, whom he brought out with him some years ago to
this country, together with a little girl about two years younger, who
was the child of a daughter of his mother by a former marriage, so that
the children were half-cousins to each other. Elizabeth was a modest,
clever little creature, and grew up a very pretty girl. Michael was
strikingly handsome, had a fine talent for music, and in person and
manners was far above his condition. There was some property, to the
amount of several hundred pounds, coming to the lad when he reached the
age of twenty-one. This legacy had been left him by his grandfather, and
Mr. C--- was to invest it in land for the boy's use. This, for reasons
best known to himself, he neglected to do, and brought the lad up to the
service of the altar, and continually urged him to become a priest.
This did not at all accord with Michael's views and wishes, and he
obstinately refused to study for the holy office, and told his uncle
that he meant to become a farmer as soon as he obtained his majority.
"Living constantly in the same house, and possessing a congeniality of
tastes and pursuits, a strong affection had grown up between Michael and
his cousin, which circumstance proved the ostensible reason given by
Mr. C--- for his ill conduct to the young people, as by the laws of his
church they were too near of kin to marry. Finding that their attachment
was too strong to be wrenched asunder by threats, and that they had
actually formed a design to leave him, and embrace the Protestant faith,
he confined the girl to her chamber, without allowing her a fire during
a very severe winter. Her constitution, naturally weak, sunk under these
trials, and she died early in the spring of 1832, without being allowed
the melancholy satisfaction of seeing her lover before she closed her
brief life.
"Her death decided Michael's fate. Rendered desperate by grief, he
reproached his bigoted uncle as the author of his misery, and demanded
of him a settlement of his property, as it was his intention to quit his
roof for ever. Mr. C--- laughed at his reproaches, and treated his
threats with scorn, and finally cast him friendless upon the world.
"The poor fellow played very well upon the flute, and possessed an
excellent tenor voice; and, by the means of these accomplishments, he
contrived for a few weeks to obtain a precarious living.
"Broken-hearted and alone in the world, he soon fell a victim to
hereditary disease of the lungs, and died, I have been told, at an
hotel in Cobourg; and was buried at the expense of Mr. S---, the
tavern-keeper, out of charity."
"The latter part of your statement I know to be correct; and the whole
of it forcibly corroborates the account given to me by the poor lad's
mother. I was at Michael's deathbed; and if his life was replete with
sorrow and injustice, his last hours were peaceful and happy."
I could now fully comprehend the meaning of the sad stress laid upon the
one word which had struck me so forcibly at the time, when I asked
him if he had forgiven _all_ his enemies, and he replied, after that
lengthened pause, "Yes; I have forgiven them all--even _him!_"
It did, indeed, require some exertion of Christian forbearance to
forgive such injuries.
Song.
"There's hope for those who sleep
In the cold and silent grave,
For those who smile, for those who weep,
For the freeman and the slave!
"There's hope on the battle plain,
'Mid the shock of charging foes;
On the dark and troubled main,
When the gale in thunder blows.
"He who dispenses hope to all,
Withholds it not from thee;
He breaks the woe-worn captive's thrall,
And sets the prisoner free!"