"What have you lost, Miss Axtell? Is it anything that I could find for
you?" and I laid my hand upon hers, as the only method of drawing away
her eyes from their terrible immutation of expression.
"You? No, I should think not; how could you? you only found a piece of
it."
"What is this?" I asked; and I held up the letter: the superscription
was visible only to herself.
What a change came over her! Soft, dewy tears melted in those burning
eyes, and sent a mist of sweet effluence over her face. Mr. Axtell was
still supporting her; she did not touch the letter I held; she reached
out both of her hands, bent a little toward me,--for she was much taller
than I am,--took my cold, shivering face in those two burning hands, and
touched my forehead with her lips.
"God has made you well," she said; "thank Him."
She did not ask for the letter. I put it whence I had taken it. She
evidently trusted me with it.
"Abraham, I'm sick," she said; and she laid her head upon his shoulder,
passively as an infant might have done.
Her strength was gone; she could no longer support herself, and the day
was breaking. Mr. Axtell, strong, vigorous, full-souled man as I knew
him to be, looked at me, and his look said, "What am I to do with her?"
I answered it by throwing off the shawl and putting it upon the floor
where we were standing, and saying,--
"Let her rest here, until I come."
I took the still burning lamp and went down,--down through the entrance
into the deep, walled passage-way, on, step after step, through this
black tunnel, built, when, I knew not, or by whom; but I was brave now.
_I had won the trust of a soul_: it was light unto my feet. I reached
the twelve stone steps leading into the church. I ran lightly up them,
and, stooping, crept into this still house of God. Silence held the
place. The next reign would be that of worship. Is it thus in the
church-yard, after the silence of Death,--the long waiting, listening
for the slowly gathering voice of praise, that, one fair day in time,
time, shall transfuse the reverent souls, until the voice of the dew God
sends down shall be heard dropping on the grassy sod, and welcomed as
the prelude to the archangel's grand semibreve that will usher in the
sublime Psalm of Everlasting Life?
Wait on, souls! it is good to wait the voice of the Lord God Almighty,
who holdeth the earth in the hollow of His hand,--His hand, that we may
feel for, when the way is dark, whose living fibres thrill both heart
and soul. Yes, God's hand is never away from earth. I reached out anew
for it in that dismal pathway through which I had come, and it guided me
into this quiet, peaceful place, full of morning rays.
I did not stop to think all this; I felt it; for feeling is swifter than
thought. Thought is the tree; feeling, the blossom thereof. I closed the
panelling behind me, leaving the church as it had been on the day when,
I saw the little hungry mouse treading sacred places. I went down the
aisle; and as I passed by the hempen rope in the vestibule that so often
had set the bell a-ringing, a longing came to do it now, to tell the
village-people, by voice of sacred bell, that there was a new-born
worship come down from Heaven. But I did not. I hurried on, and went
out, locking the door after me. The March morning was cold. I missed the
shawl I had left. My hair was as much astir as Aaron's had been one
morning, not long before, and I truly believe there was as much of
theology in it. No one was abroad. People sleep late on Sunday mornings.
The east was blossoming into a magnificent sunflower.
Looking at myself, as I began my walk, I laughed aloud. I was still
carrying a lighted lamp,--for the wind, like the village-people, slept
at sunrise. I comforted myself by thinking of a predecessor somewhat
famous for a like deed, and bent upon a like errand. The man that I
searched for I should surely find, and honest, too; for it was Aaron.
The parsonage was cruelly inhospitable. No door was left unfastened. I
knocked at a window opening on the veranda. I gave the signal-knock that
Sophie and I had listened and opened to, unhesitatingly, for many years.
It needed nothing more. Instantly I heard Sophie say,--"That's Anna's
knock"; and immediately thereafter the curtain was put aside, and
Sophie's precious face and azure eyes peeped out. She looked in
amazement to see me thus, and in one moment more had let me in.
"Wake Aaron," I said, without giving her time to question me.
"He is awake. What has happened? Is Miss Axtell dying?" she questioned.
"No," I said; "but I want to speak to Aaron, directly. I'm going to my
room one moment."
I went up. The tower-key was hanging where I had left it. I took it
down, and made myself respectable by covering up my breezy hair with a
hood, with the further precaution of a cloak. I had not long to wait for
Aaron's coming; but it was long enough to remind me to carry some
restorative with me. Aaron came.
"Miss Axtell is very ill," I said; "she is quite wild, and left the
house in the night. She's up in the church-yard tower. Will you help her
brother take her home, as soon as you possibly can?"
"How strange!" were his only words; and as I went the garden way, Aaron
started to arouse his horse from morning sleep.
"No one need to know the church entrance," I thought; and as I went in,
I tried to close down the heavy stone, which fitted in so well, that it
seemed, like all the others, built to stay.
I could not stir it. Perhaps Aaron would not look, when he came in; but
doubting his special blindness, I asked Mr. Axtell to put it back. He
seemed to comprehend my meaning. I took his place beside Miss Axtell.
She was no longer wilful or determined. Her strength was gone. Her head
drooped upon my shoulder, and when I held a spoon, filled with the
restorative that I had brought, to her lips, they opened, and she took
that which I gave, mechanically. Her eyelids were down. I looked at the
fair, beautiful face that lay so near to my eyes. It was full of the
softest pencillings; little golden sinuosities of light were woven all
over it; and the blue lines along which emotion flies were wonderfully
arrowy and sky-like in their wanderings, for they left no trace to tell
whence they came or whither led. I heard the heavy, ponderous weight let
fall. It was the same sound as that which I heard on that memorable
night. Miss Axtell shivered a little; or was it but the effect of the
concussion?
The brother came up; he looked down, kindly at me, lovingly at his
sister.
"Shall I relieve you?" he asked.