procuring an interview with Mrs. Gannon at her place of nursing, I did
not succeed in obtaining the least clew to the fate of this
mysteriously lost letter. Neither of the women mentioned had seen it,
nor was it really believed by them to have been on the table when they
arranged the room after my Ada's peaceful death. Yet even to this they
could not swear, nor would the landlady admit but that it might still
have been lying there when they came to carry Ada away, though she
would say that it could not have been anywhere in view the next day,
for she had thoroughly cleaned and tidied up the room herself, and as
in doing this she had been obliged to shift every article off the table
on to the bed and back again, she must not only have seen, but handled
the letter twice; and this she was morally certain she did not do.
I was therefore in as great perplexity as ever, and was seriously
meditating a visit to Dr. Farnham, when I bethought me of making one
final experiment before resorting to this last and not altogether
welcome alternative.
This was to examine every thing which had been on the table, in the
hope of discovering in some out-of-the-way receptacle the missing
letter for which I had such need. To be sure it was an effort that
promised little, there having been but few articles on the table
capable of concealing even such a small object as this I was in search
of; but when one is at their wits' ends, they do not stop to discuss
probabilities, or even to weigh in too nice a scale the prospect of
success.
Recalling, therefore, just what had been on the table, I went to the
trunk in which these articles were packed, and laid them out one by one
on the floor. They were as follows: A work-basket of Ada's; a box of
writing-paper; a copy of _Harper's Magazine_; an atlas; and two volumes
of poetry, one belonging to Ada and one to me.
A single glance into the work-basket was sufficient, also into the box
of stationery. But the atlas was well shaken, and the magazine
carefully looked through, before I decided it was not in them. As for
the two books of poetry, I disdained them so completely, I was about to
toss them back unopened, when there came upon me a disposition to be
thorough, and I looked at them both, only to find snugly ensconced in
my own little copy of Mrs. Browning the long-sought and despaired-of
letter, with its tell-tale green envelope unbroken, and its contents,
in so far as I could see, unviolated and undisturbed.
XVII.
DAVID BARROWS.
"I have lived long enough."
--MACBETH.
Before I proceeded to open this letter, I reasoned some time with
myself. The will by which I had come into possession of Ada's effects
was, as I knew, informal and possibly illegal. But it was the
expression of her wishes, and there had been no one to dispute them or
question my right to the inheritance she had so innocently bequeathed
me. At the same time I felt a hesitation about opening this letter, as
I had about using her money; and it was not till I remembered the trust
she had reposed in me, and the promise I had given her to support Mr.
Barrows' good name before the world, that I summoned up sufficient
determination to break its seal. My duty once clear to me, however, I
no longer hesitated. This is the result:
_September_ 23d.--_Evening_.
My Beloved Ada:--Could I by any means mitigate the blow which I am
forced to deal you, believe me it should be done. But no words can
prepare you for the terrible fact I am about to reveal, and I think
from what I know of you, and of your delicate but strong soul, that in
a matter of life and death like this the most direct language is what
you would choose me to employ.
Know then, dearest of all women, that a duty I dare not fly from
condemns me to death; that the love we have cherished, the hopes in
which we have indulged, can have no fulfilment in this world, but must
be yielded as a sacrifice to the inexorable claim of conscience and
that ideal of right which has been mine since I took upon myself the
lofty vocation of a Christian minister.
You, my people, my own self even, have thought me an honest man. God
knows I meant to be, even to the point of requiring nothing from others
I was not willing to give myself. But our best friends do not know us;
we do not know ourselves. When the hour of trial came, and a sudden
call was made upon my faith and honor, I failed to sustain myself,
failed ignominiously, showing myself to be no stronger than the weakest
of my flock--ay, than the child that flies before a shadow because it
is black, and he does not or will not see that it is his father's form
that casts it.
Such lapses on the part of men professing to lead others demand heavy
penalties. I feared to lose my life, therefore my life must go. Nothing
short of this would reinstate me in my own eyes, or give to my
repentance that stern and absolute quality which the nature of my sin
imperatively demands.
That I must involve you in my sorrow and destruction is the bitterest
drop in my cup. But dainty and flower-like as you are, you have a great
nature, and would not hold me back from an act necessary to the welfare
and honor of my eternal soul. I see you rather urging me on, giving me
your last kiss, and smiling upon me with your own inspiring smile. So
sure am I of this, that I can bear not to see you again; bear to walk
for the last time by your house, leaving only my blessing in the air.
For it is a part of my doom that I may not see you; since, were I to
find myself in your presence, I could scarcely forbear telling you
whither I was going, and that no man must know till all has been
accomplished.
I go, then, without other farewell than these poor words can give you.
Be strong, and bear my loss as many a noble woman before you has borne
the wreck of all her hopes. When I am found--as some day I shall
be--tell my people I died in the Christian faith, and for the simple
reason that my honor as a man and a minister demanded it. If they love
me they will take my word for it; but if questions should arise, and a
fuller knowledge of my fate and the reasons which led me to such an act
should in your judgment seem to be required, then go to my desk, and,
in a secret drawer let into the back, you will find a detailed
confession which will answer every inquiry and set straight any false
or unworthy suspicions that may arise.
But heed these words and mark them well: Till such a need should arise,
the manuscript is to be kept inviolate even from you; and no matter
what the seeming need, or by what love or anxiety you may be driven,
touch not that desk nor drawer till ten days have elapsed, or I shall
think you love my body more than me, and the enjoyment of temporal
comfort to the eternal weight of glory which is laid up for those who
hold out steadfast to the end.
And now, my dear, my dear, with all the affection of my poor, weak,
erring heart, I hold out arms of love towards you. Farewell for a short
space. When we meet again may it be on equal terms once more, the heavy
sin blotted out, the grievous wrong expiated.
Till then, God bless you.
DAVID.
Do not wonder at my revealing nothing of this in our late interviews.
You were so happy, I dared not drop a shadow one day sooner than was
necessary into your young life. Besides, my struggle was dark and
secret, and could brook no eye upon it save that of the eternal God.
XVIII.
A LAST REQUEST.
'T is she
That tempers him to this extremity.
--Richard III.
The night had fallen. I was in a strange and awe-struck mood. The
manuscript, which after some difficulty I had succeeded in finding, lay
before, me unopened. A feeling as of an invisible presence was in the
air. I hesitated to turn the page, written, as I already felt, with the
life-blood of the man in whose mysterious doom the happiness of my own
life had become entangled.
Waiting for courage, I glanced mechanically about the room. How
strangely I had been led in this affair! How from the first I seemed to
have been picked out and appointed for the solving of this mystery,
till now I sat in the very room, at the very desk, in front of the very
words, of its victim. I thought of Dwight Pollard struggling with his
fate, and unconscious that in a few minutes the secret of Mr. Barrows'
death would be known; of Rhoda Colwell, confident of her revenge and
blind to the fact that I held in my hand what might possibly blunt her
sharpest weapon, and make her most vindictive effort useless. Then each
and every consideration of a purely personal nature vanished, and I
thought only of the grand and tortured soul of him upon whose solemn
and awesome history I was about to enter. Was it, as his letter seemed
to imply, a martyr's story? I looked at the engraving of Cranmer, which
had been a puzzle to me a few days before, and understanding it now,
gathered fortitude by what it seemed to suggest, and hastily unrolled
the manuscript.
This is what I read:
"_He that would save his life shall lose it._"
In order that the following tale of sin and its expiation may be
understood, I must give a few words to the motives and hopes under
which I entered the ministry.
I am a believer in the sacred character of my profession, and the
absolute and unqualified devotion of those embracing it to the aims and
purposes of the Christian religion. Though converted, as it is called,
in my sixteenth year, I cannot remember the time my pulse did not beat
with appreciation for those noble souls who had sacrificed every joy
and comfort of this temporal life for the sake of their faith and the
glory of God. I delighted in Fox's "Book of Martyrs," and while I
shuddered over its pages in a horror I did not wholly understand, I
read them again and again, till there was not a saint whose life I did
not know by heart, with just the death he died and the pangs he
experienced. Such a mania did this become with me at one time, that I
grew visibly ill, and had to have the book taken away from me and more
cheerful reading substituted in its stead.
Feeling thus strongly in childhood, when half, if not all, my interest
sprang from the fascination which horrors have upon the impressible
mind, what were my emotions and longings when the real meaning of the
Christian life was revealed to me, and I saw in this steadfastness of
the spirit unto death the triumph of the immortal soul over the
weaknesses of the flesh and the terrors of a purely transitory
suffering!
That the days for such display of firmness in the fiery furnace were
over was almost a matter of regret to me in the first flush of my
enthusiasm for the cause I had espoused. I wished so profoundly to show
my love, and found all modern ways so tame in comparison to those which
demanded the yielding up of one's very blood and life. Poor fool! did I
never think that those who are the bravest in imagination fail often
the most lamentably when brought face to face with the doom they have
invoked.
I have never been a robust man, and consequently have never entered
much into those sports and exercises incident to youth and early
manhood that show a man of what stuff he is made. I have lived in my
books till I came to S----, since which I have tried to live in the
joys and sorrows of my fellow-beings.
The great rule of Christian living has seemed to me imperative. Love
your neighbor as yourself, or, as I have always interpreted it, more
than yourself. For a man, then, to sacrifice that neighbor to save
himself from physical or mental distress, has always seemed to me not
only the height of cowardice, but a direct denial of those truths upon
which are founded the Christian's ultimate hope. As a man myself, I
despise with my whole heart such weaklings; as a Christian minister I
denounce them. Nothing can excuse a soul for wavering in its duty
because that duty is hard. It is the hard things we should take delight
in facing; otherwise we are babes and not men, and our faith a matter
of expediency, and not that stern and immovable belief in God and His
purposes which can alone please Deity and bring us into that immediate
communion with His spirit which it should be the end and aim of every
human soul to enjoy.
Such are my principles. Let us see how I have illustrated them in the
events of the last six weeks.
On the sixteenth of August, five weeks ago to-day, I was called to the
bedside of Samuel Pollard. He had been long sinking with an incurable
disease, and now the end was at hand and my Christian offices required.
I was in the full tide of sermon-writing when the summons came, and I
hesitated at first whether to follow the messenger at once or wait till
the daylight had quite disappeared, and with it my desire to place on
paper the thoughts that were inspiring me with more than ordinary
fervor.
But a question to my own heart decided me. Not my sermon, but the
secret disinclination I always felt to enter this special family, was
what in reality held me back; and this was a reason which, as you will
have seen from the words I have already written, I could not
countenance. I accordingly signified to the messenger that I would be
with Mr. Pollard in a few moments, and putting away my papers, prepared
to leave the room.
There, is a saying in the Bible to the effect that no man liveth to
himself, nor dieth to himself. If in the course of this narrative I
seem to show little consideration for the secrets of others, let this
be at once my explanation and excuse: That only in the cause of truth
do I speak at all; and that in holding up before you the follies and
wrong-doings of persons you know, I subject them to no heavier penalty
than that which I have incurred through my own sin. I shall therefore
neither gloss over nor suppress any fact bearing upon a full
explanation of my fate; and when I say I hesitated to go to Mr. Pollard
because of my inherent dislike to enter his house, I will proceed to
give as my reason for this dislike, my unconquerable distrust of his
wife, who, if a fine-looking and capable woman, is certainly one to be
feared by every candid and truth-loving nature.
But, as I said before, I did not yield to the impulse I had within me
to stay; and, merely stopping to cast a parting glance about my
room--why, I do not know, for I could have had no premonition of the
fact that I was bidding good-by to the old life of hope and peace
forever--I hastened after the messenger whom I had sent on before me to
Mr. Pollard's home.
Small occurrences sometimes make great impressions on the mind. As I
was turning the corner at Halsey Street, the idiot boy Colwell came
rushing by, and almost fell into my arms. I started back, shuddering,
as if some calamity had befallen me. An invincible repugnance to any
thing deformed or half-witted has always been one of my weaknesses, and
for him to have touched me--I hate myself as I write it, but I cannot
think of it now without a chill in my veins and an almost unbearable
feeling of physical contamination. Yet as I would be as just to myself
as I hope to be to others, I did not let this incident pass, without a
struggle to conquer my lower nature. Standing still, I called the boy
back, and deliberately, and with a reverential thought of the Christ, I
laid my hand on his arm, and, stooping, kissed him. It cost me much,
but I could never have passed that corner without doing it; nor were I
to live years on this earth, instead of a few short days, should I ever
let another week go by without forcing my body into some such contact
with what nature has afflicted and man contemned.
The pallor which I therefore undoubtedly showed upon entering Mr.
Pollard's room was owing to the memory of this incident rather than to
any effect which the sight of the dying man had upon me. But before I
had been many minutes in the room, I found my pulse thrilling with new
excitement and my manhood roused to repel a fresh influence more
dangerous, if less repulsive, than the last.
Let me see if I can make it plain to you. Mr. Pollard, whom we have all
known as an excellent but somewhat weak man, lay with his face turned
towards the room, and his gaze fixed with what I felt to be more than
the common anxiety of the dying upon mine. At his side sat his wife,
cold, formidable, alert, her hand on his hand, her eye on his eye, and
all her icy and implacable will set, as I could plainly see, between
him and any comfort or encouragement I might endeavor to impart. She
even allowed her large and commanding figure to usurp the place usually
accorded me on such occasions, and when, after a futile effort or so on
my part to break down the barrier of restraint that such a presence
necessarily imposed, I arose from my seat at the foot of the bed, and,
approaching closer, would have leaned over her husband, she put out her
other hand and imperatively waved me aside, remarking:
"The doctor says he must have air."
There are some persons whose looks and words are strangely controlling.
Mrs. Pollard is one of these, and I naturally drew back. But a glance
at Mr. Pollard's face made me question if I was doing right in this.
Such disappointment, such despair even, I had seldom seen expressed in
a look; and convinced that he had something of real purport to say to
me, I turned towards his wife, and resolutely remarked:
"The dying frequently have communications to make to which only their
pastor's ear is welcome. Will you excuse me, then, if I request a
moment's solitude with Mr. Pollard, that I may find out if his soul is
at rest before I raise my prayers in its behalf?"
But, before I had finished, I saw that any such appeal would be
unavailing. If her immovable expression had not given me this
assurance, the hopeless closing of his weak and fading eyes would have
sufficiently betrayed the fact.
"I cannot leave Mr. Pollard," were the words with which she tempered
her refusal. "If he has any communication to make, let him make it in
my presence. I am his wife." And her hand pressed more firmly upon his,
and her eyes, which had not stirred from his face even when I addressed
her, assumed a dark, if not threatening look, which gradually forced
his to open and meet them.
I felt that something must be done.
"Mr. Pollard," said I, "is there any thing you wish to impart to me
before you die? If so, speak up freely and with confidence, for I am
here to do a friend and a pastor's duty by you, even to the point of
fulfilling any request you may have to make, so it be only actuated by
right feeling and judgment." And determinedly ignoring her quick move
of astonishment, I pressed forward and bent above him, striving with
what I felt to be a purely righteous motive, to attract his glance from
hers, which was slowly withering him away as if it were a basilisk's.
And I succeeded. After an effort that brought the sweat out on his
brow, he turned his look on mine, and, gathering strength from my
expression, probably, gave me one eager and appealing glance, and
thrust his left hand under his pillow.
His wife, who saw every thing, leaned forward with an uneasy gesture.
"What have you there?" she asked.
But he had already drawn forth a little book and placed it in my hand.
"Only my old prayer-book," he faltered. "I felt as if I should like Mr.
Barrows to have it."
She gave him an incredulous stare, and allowed her glance to follow the
book. I immediately put it in my pocket.
"I shall take a great deal of pleasure in possessing it," I remarked.
"Read it," he murmured; "read it carefully." And a tone of relief was
in his voice that seemed to alarm her greatly; for she half rose to her
feet and made a gesture to some one I did not see, after which she bent
again towards the dying man and whispered in his ear.
But, though her manner had all its wonted force, and her words,
whatever they were, were lacking in neither earnestness nor purpose, he
did not seem to be affected by them. For the first time in his life,
perhaps, he rose superior to that insidious influence, and, nerved by
the near approach of death, kept his gaze fixed on mine, and finally
stammered:
"Will you do some thing else for me?"
"I will," I began, and might have said more, but he turned from me and
with sudden energy addressed his wife.
"Margaret," said he, "bring me my desk."
Had a thunderbolt fallen at her feet, she could not have looked more
astonished. I myself was somewhat surprised; I had never heard that
tone from him before.
"My desk!" he cried again; "I want it here."
At this repetition of his request, uttered this time with all the
vehemence of despair. Mrs. Pollard moved, though she did not rise. At
the same moment a quick, soft step was heard, and through the gloom of
the now rapidly darkening chamber I saw their younger son draw near and
take his stand at the foot of the bed.
"I have but a few minutes," murmured the sick man. "Will you refuse to
make them comfortable, Margaret?"
"No, no," she answered hastily, guided as I could not but see by an
almost imperceptible movement of her son's hand; and rising with a
great show of compliance, she proceeded to the other end of the room. I
at once took her place by the side of his pillow.
"Is there no word of comfort I can give you?" said I, anxious for the
soul thus tortured by earthly anxieties on the very brink of the grave.
But his mind, filled with one thought, refused to entertain any other.
"Pray God that my strength hold out," he whispered. "I have an act of
reparation to make." Then, as his son made a move as if to advance, he
caught my hand in his, and drew my ear down to his mouth. "The book,"
he gasped; "keep it safely--they may try to take it away--don't--"
But here his son intervened with some word of warning; and Mrs.
Pollard, hurriedly approaching, laid the desk on the bed in such a way
that I was compelled to draw back.
But this did not seem to awaken in him any special distress. From the
instant his eyes fell upon the desk, a feverish strength seemed to
seize him, and looking up at me with something of his old brightness of
look and manner, he asked to have it opened and its contents taken out.
Naturally embarrassed at such a request, I turned to Mrs. Pollard.
"It seems a strange thing for me to do," I began; but a lightning
glance had already passed between her and her son, and with the cold
and haughty dignity for which she is remarkable, she calmly stopped me
with a quiet wave of her hand.
"The whims of the dying must be respected," she remarked, and reseated
herself in her old place at his side.
I at once proceeded to empty the desk. It contained mainly letters, and
one legal-looking document, which I took to be his will. As I lifted
this out, I saw mother and son both cast him a quick glance, as if they
expected some move on his part. But though his hands trembled somewhat,
he made no special sign of wishing to see or touch it, and at once I
detected on their faces a look of surprise that soon took on the
character of dismay, as with the lifting of the last paper from the
desk he violently exclaimed:
"Now break in the bottom and take out the paper you will find there. It
is my last will and testament, and by every sacred right you hold in
this world, I charge you to carry it to Mr. Nicholls, and see that no
man nor woman touches it till you give it into his hands."
"His will!" echoed Mrs. Pollard, astonished.
"He don't know what he says. This is his will," she was probably going
to assert, for her hand was pointing to the legal-looking document I
have before mentioned; but a gesture from her son made her stop before
the last word was uttered. "He must be wandering in his mind," she
declared. "We know of no will hidden away in his desk. Ah!"
The last exclamation was called forth by the sudden slipping into view
of a folded paper from between the crevices of the desk. I had found
the secret spring. The next instant the bottom fell out, and the paper
slipped to the floor. I was quick to recover it. Had I not been, Mrs.
Pollard would have had it in her grasp. As it was, our hands met, not
without a shock, I fear, on either side. A gasp of intense suspense
came from the bed.
"Keep it," the dying eyes seemed to say; and if mine spoke as plainly
as his did, they answered with full as much meaning and force:
"I will."
Guy Pollard and his mother looked at each other, then at the pocket
into which I had already thrust the paper. The dying man followed their
glances, and with a final exertion of strength, raised himself on his
elbow.