“Day dawned--within a curtained room,
Filled to faintness with perfume,
A lady lay at point of doom.
Morn broke--an infant saw the light,
But for the lady, fair and bright,
She slumbered in undreaming night.”
Life and death had passed each other on the threshold! Lucy Ford’s
tears were the baptism of Mary’s motherless babe. The poor weary heart,
whose pulse had beat so unevenly above it, had ceased its flutterings.
It was nothing new to see Mary lie with marble face, folded hands, and
softly-fringed, closed eyes. But, _sometimes_, the thin hand had been
kindly outstretched toward Lucy; _sometimes_, the glossy head had raised
itself, and leaned tenderly on the maternal bosom; _sometimes_, the blue
eye had lingered lovingly on her wrinkled face. Small comfort, God
knows--and yet it was much to poor Lucy. She looked at the little
gasping, helpless thing before her--a tenant already for her rifled
heart--a new claimant for her love and care. Oh, how could she else but
welcome it? With soft folds she wrapped its fragile limbs, with
motherly care she soothed it on her sunken breast, and with a prayer to
God, as she pressed her lips to Mary’s brow, she promised Death to be
faithful to the trust of Life.
* * * * *
Days and nights--weeks, months and years came and went, blanching the
prisoner’s lip and cheek, but failing to subdue a love which yet had not
saved him from incurring a doom so terrible. Had Mary forgotten him?
for, since that dreadful, happy day, when he clasped her in his cell, he
had heard nothing save the damning sneer of the villain Scraggs. Perhaps
she was dead--and his bloodless lip quivered at the thought.
Nay--worse--perhaps they might have married her, in her despair, to
another. Percy tossed on his narrow cot in agony.
He even welcomed the day-light, which recalled him to his task. Oh,
those long, long nights, when locked in his cell, remorse kept him
silent company! or worse, the dreary, idle Sunday, when taken out once
to chapel, then remanded back to his dark cell, he lay thinking of the
pleasant Sabbaths he had passed with Mary, in the little parlor, on the
sofa by her side. He could see her now, in the pretty blue dress she
wore to please him; the ring he had given her, sparkling on her white
hand--her glossy hair, worn the very way _he_ liked to see it, the book
opened at the passage _he_ liked best, the little flower pressed between
its leaves, because _he_ gave it. Then the little arbor in the
garden--where they used to sit the pleasant Sabbath evenings--the song
Mary sang him there--with her head upon his breast. Oh, happiness--oh,
misery!
Percy knew it was summer, for as he passed through the prison-yard he
saw that the green blades of grass were struggling up between the
flag-stones, and now and then, he heard the chirp of a passing bird. The
sky, too, was softly blue, and the breeze had been where clover and
daisies had bloomed, and rifled their sweetness.
Percy looked down on his shrunken limbs, clad in his felon garb--then
on his toil-worn hands. He passed them slowly over his shaven crown.
Merciful Heaven! he--Percy Lee--Mary’s lover! Fool--thrice-accursed
fool; life--liberty--happiness--love--all laid at the feet of the
tempting fiend--for this! No tears relieved the fierce fire, which
seemed consuming his heart and brain. How long could he bear this? Was
his cell to be his grave? Once, seized with a sudden illness, he had
been taken to the prison hospital, where the doctor tried pleasant
little experiments on the subjects who came under his notice. Around him
were poor wretches, groaning under every phase of bodily and mental
discomfort. Now roused out of some Heaven-sent slumber, when it suited
the doctor to show them to visitors; or to descant upon the commencement
and probable duration of their disease, coupled with accounts of
patients who had died in those beds, and whom he _could_ have cured
under different circumstances.
It was here that Percy shed the only tears which had moistened his
eyes since his incarceration. A party of visitors were passing through
the wards, listening to the doctor’s egotistical details, and peeping
into the different cots. A sweet little girl had strayed away from the
rest of her party, and was making her tour of childish observation
alone. Her eye fell upon Percy. She stood for a moment, gazing at him
with the intensest pity written on her sweet face. Then gliding up to
his side, she drooped her bright curls over his pillow, and placing a
flower between his fingers, she whispered, “I’ll pray to God to make you
well and let you go home.”
“Mary! come here,” said a shrill female voice, recalling the child;
“don’t you know that is a horrid bad man! he might kill you.”
“No, he is not,” said the little creature, confidently, with a piteous
glance of her soft, blue eyes at Percy; “no, he is not.”
“What makes you think so?” asked one of the party.
“I don’t know,” replied the child; “something tells me so--here;” and
she laid her hand on her breast.
“Won’t you please let him go home?” asked she of the doctor.
“_Home._”
As the sweet pleader passed out, the room seemed to grow suddenly
dark, and Percy turned his face to his pillow, and wept aloud.
Heavenly childhood! that the world should ever chill thy Christ-like
heart. That scorn should uproot pity. That suspicion should stifle love.
That selfishness should dry up thy tears, and avarice lock thine open
palm, with its vice-like grasp! Oh, weep not ye who straighten childhood
for the grave; over whose household idols the green grass waves;
heaven’s bright rain showers and spring flowers bloom. Let the bird
soar, while his song is sweetest, before one stain soil his plumage, or
with maimed wing he flutter helplessly. Let him soar. The cloud which
hides him from thy straining eye, doth it not hide him from the archer?