The autumn came, and with it a few days' pause in the lad's studies.
The vicar had resolved to take his son, before the winter, on an
excursion among the mountains; to shew him the hills and dales, and
give him a deeper insight into a world that already had seemed so fair,
even upon the meagre plains around their village.
When the boy first heard of it; "Marlene must go with us," he said.
They attempted to dissuade him, but he refused to go without her. "What
if she cannot see?" he said; "The mountain-air is strengthening, and
she has been so pale and weak, and she falls into anxious fancies when
I am away."
They did his bidding therefore; the young girl was lifted into the
carriage beside Clement and his parents, and one short day's journey
brought them to the foot of the mountain-chain. Here commenced their
wanderings on foot. Patiently the boy conducted his little friend, now
more reserved than ever. He often felt a wish to climb some solitary
peak that promised a fresh expanse of view, but he led her wherever she
wished to go, and would not give up the charge, often as his parents
would have relieved him of it.
Only when they had reached a height, or were resting in some shady
spot, would he leave the young girl's side; seeking his own path among
the most perilous rocks, he would go collecting stones or plants not to
be found below. Then when he returned to the resting party, he had
always something to bring Marlene--some berries, a sweet-scented
flower, or some soft bird's-nest blown from the trees by the wind.
She would accept them with gentle thanks; she appeared to be more
contented than at home, and she really was so, for all day long she
breathed the same air with him. But, her foolish jealousies went with
her. She felt angry at the mountains, whose autumn glory, as she
believed, endeared the world still more to him, and estranged him more
from her.
At last the vicar's wife was struck by her strange ways. She would
occasionally consult her husband about the child, who was as dear to
both as if she had been their own. Her obstinate dejection was
attributed by both to the disappointment of her hopes of sight; and yet
the young girl felt no pain in losing that which had only been promised
to her, or depicted to her fancy--it was all in the loss of what she
had already known; of what had been her own.
On the second evening of their journey they halted at a solitary inn,
celebrated from its situation close to a waterfall. Their wanderings
had been long, and the women were very weary. As soon as they reached
the house, the vicar took in his wife before going on farther to the
cleft, from whence they already heard the roaring of the water. Marlene
was quite exhausted, yet she would persist in following Clement, who
felt no want of rest. They climbed the remaining steps, and louder and
nearer sounded the tumult of the waters. Midway up the narrow path
Marlene's remaining strength gave way. "Let me sit down here," she
said, "while you go on, and fetch me when you have looked long enough."
He offered to lead her home before going farther, but she was already
seated, so he left her and went on, following the sound; touched at
once, and charmed with the solitude and majesty of the spot.
Seated upon a stone, the young girl began to long for his return. "He
will never come!" she thought. A chill crept over her, and the dull
distant thunder of the falls gave her a shudder.
"Why does he not come?" she said; "he will have forgotten me in his
delight, as he always does. If I could only find the way back to the
house that I might get warm again!" And so she sat and listened to
every distant sound. Now she thought she heard him calling to her;
trembling, she rose--what was she to do? Involuntarily she tried a
step, but her foot slipped, and she staggered and fell. Fortunately the
stones on the path were all overgrown with moss. Still the fall
terrified her, and losing all self-command, she screamed for help; but
her voice was unable to reach across the chasm to Clement, who was
standing on the edge, in the very midst of the uproar, and the house
was too far off. A sharp pain cut to her heart, as she lay among the
stones, helpless and deserted. Tears of desperation started to her
eyes, as she rose with difficulty. What she most dearly loved seemed
hateful to her now--her heart was too fall of bitterness even to feel
that an all-seeing God was nigh. Thus Clement found her; when for her
sake he had torn himself with an effort from the spell of so
magnificent a scene.
"I am coming!" he called to her from a distance. "It is lucky that you
did not come with us--the place was so narrow, one false step would
have been enough to kill you. The water falls so far, deep down, and
roars and rushes, and rises again in clouds of spray, it makes one
giddy. Only feel how it has powdered me. But how is this? You are cold
as ice, and your lips are trembling. Come, it was very wrong of me to
leave you sitting out so late in the cold! God forbid that it should
make you ill!"
She suffered herself to be led back in perverse silence. The vicar's
wife was much alarmed at seeing the child's sweet countenance so
distorted and disturbed. They prepared some warm drink for her in
haste, and made her go to bed without being able to learn more than
that she felt unwell.
And in truth she did feel ill--so ill that she wished to die. Life
that had already proved itself so adverse, had also become odious to
her. She lay there, giving full vent to her impious rancorous
thoughts, wilfully destroying the last links that bound her to her
fellow-creatures. "I will go up there to-morrow;" she said to herself,
in her dark brooding. "He himself shall take me to the spot where one
false step may kill me. My death will not kill him. Why should he have
to bear my burden longer?--he has only borne it out of pity."
This guilty thought wound close and closer round her heart. What had
become of her natural disposition, so tender and transparent, during
those last few months of inward struggle? She even dwelt without
remorse on the consequences of her crime. "They will get used to it, as
they have got used to my being blind; he will not always have the
picture of my misery before his eyes, to spoil his pleasure in this
beautiful world of his!" This last reflexion invariably came to
strengthen her resolves, when a doubt would arise to combat them.
The vicar and his wife were in the adjoining room, separated from hers
by a thin partition. Clement still lingered out of doors, under the
trees; he could not part from the stars and mountains, or shut out the
distant music of the waters.
"It distresses me to see how Marlene pines and falls away," said his
mother. "If the slightest causes agitate her so, she will be soon worn
out. If you would only talk to her, and tell her not to make herself so
miserable about a misfortune that cannot be repaired."
"I am afraid it would be useless;" returned the vicar. "If her
education, her father's and mother's tenderness, and her daily
intercourse with ourselves, have not spoken to her heart, no human
words can do so. If she had learned to submit herself to the will of
God, she would bear a dispensation that has left her so much to be
thankful for, with gratitude, and not with murmurings."
"He has taken much away from her!"
"He has, but not all--not for ever, at least. Now she seems to have
lost the faculty of loving; of holding all things as nothing, compared
to the love of God and of His creatures. And this faculty only returns
to us when we return to God. As she now is, she does not wish to return
to Him--her grievances and her discontent are still too dear to her;
but the tone of her mind is too healthy to harbour these sad companions
long. Sometime, when her heart is feeling most forlorn, God will take
possession of it again, and love and charity will resume their former
places, and then there will be light within her, even though it be dark
before her eyes."
"God grant it! yet the thought of her future life distresses me."
"She is safe if she does nothing to lose herself. And even if all those
who now love and cherish her should be taken from her, charity never
dies. And if she take heed to the guiding of the Lord, and the ways it
pleaseth Him to lead her, she may yet learn to bless the blindness,
that from her infancy has separated her from the shadow, and given her
the reality and truth."
Clement interrupted their discourse. "You cannot think how lovely it is
to-night!" he cried from the threshold where he stood. "I would gladly
give one eye if I could give it to Marlene, that she might see the
splendour of the stars. I hope the noise of the waterfall may not
prevent her sleeping. I can never forgive myself for having left her to
sit out there in the cold."
"Dear boy, speak lower," said his mother; "she is asleep close by. The
best thing you can do, I think, would be to go to sleep yourself." And
the boy whispered his good-night.
When his mother went to Marlene's room, she found her quiet and
apparently asleep--that troubled look had given place to an expression
of peace and gentleness.
The tempest was overpast, and had destroyed no vital part. Even remorse
and shame were slightly felt. So absolute was the victory of that
joyful peace that had been preached in the room beside her. Slowly, and
by side-paths, does the principle of evil steal over us, and assume its
sway--good asserts its victory at once.