THE HOME-COMING.
SUCH a long tedious journey it had been, as the train sped ever wearily
onwards, hour after hour, from the further north to the further
south of England. But the gray dawn was brightening now, and sleepy
passengers were rousing themselves to sit upright, and to mark how
nearly they had approached the end. And Mona Clyde, waking suddenly
from a quiet night's rest amid noisy surroundings, lifted her bright
child-like face—singularly child-like, for her nineteen summers—from
the blue-cushioned arm, and cried—
"O mother! Are we almost there?"
"Almost there, Mona," her mother said.
"And you are tired, while I have had such a long lazy sleep," said
Mona, kissing her mother's hand, for they had a compartment to
themselves. "Are you not mother, dear?"
"A little tired, but I shall soon rest now, Mona."
Was she thinking of the last time she had come this road, with her
infant Mona in her arms, and her husband by her side, so many long
years before? Mona fancied so, and waited quietly, holding down her
own gay delight at the prospect of all that lay before her. Dear kind
uncle Chetwynd, whom she knew so well, and uncle Chetwynd's pretty
house which lay so far in the background of her memory that she had no
recollection of it, and beautiful Alyn which had been her mother's home
in childhood, and the glorious blue sea which she had never yet seen,
and all the attendant pleasures of a six weeks' happy change.
"O mother, isn't it nice to be almost there?" she said at length. "How
soon shall we see Alyn?"
"When we are through the tunnel, Mona. It is pretty here, but this is
nothing to the view which bursts upon us there. A sunny mid-day is
the time to have it in perfection. I remember so well how, as a child
going home from school, I used to love the feeling of getting nearer
and nearer, seeing one land-mark after another, passing into the dark
tunnel, and then coming out into a blaze of sunshine and beauty, to
find myself in one moment 'at home.' For Alyn itself was home, and once
out of the tunnel, you are in Alyn."
"Mother, you often told me about that, when I was a little girl."
"As a picture," Mrs. Clyde said, smiling, while Mona's bright face had
grown serious. "My favourite thought, darling; it is so like the last
Home-going. So often there seems to be darkness at the close of life,
with those who love the Master, but I think it is only that the glory
coming after may shine the brighter. But for the dark tunnel first,
Alyn could never burst upon us with half such a wonderful glow of
beauty."
"O mother, I do so long to see it," cried Mona eagerly. "Is that the
tunnel coming now?"
How little knew Mona that the shrill whistle which she welcomed so
joyfully, was the death-knell of many around her!
One moment's rush of increased noise, and then darkness. And in that
moment, it was strange how her mother's face was photographed for
ever upon Mona's memory. She did not consciously mark it at the time.
Afterwards, it came back to her, in all its calm sweetness. She was
thinking of nothing but counting the seconds, and awaiting the view
which lay beyond.
One moment more! And then—
Ah, "then!"
It was only a little mistake or accident. Something had been forgotten,
or somebody was careless. Only just such a slight mistake as one
may make a hundred times a day, letting it pass unmarked, and never
dreaming the terrible consequences with which a little matter may be
fraught. There had been a break-down of some heavy luggage-vans, and
there was just a little too long delay in removing them, or word had
been telegraphed just a little too late, or the express had arrived
just a little too early. Nothing worse. But then—
Down there in the darkness underground, they could not see the loaded
trucks in the way. On and on with undiminished speed rushed the train,
so near at last to its journey's end. Only a moment more—and then a
crash so fearful that the very earth above and below trembled with the
fierce concussion, and the mighty engine was twisted and crushed like
a bit of tin in a man's hand, and carriages were heaped up one upon
another, or flung to right and left in masses of shattered fragments,
as a child might scatter a pile of bricks. And the fierce hiss of the
boiling water that rushed from the engine, and the crashing turmoil
of the collision, mingling with the wild tumult of groans and shrieks
which followed, echoed back and forth from the low vaulted roof,
till it seemed as if the din of sound must go on for ever and ever
ceaselessly.
But in that moment of direst anguish and fear, there were some who
went quietly Home. Quietly, all in an instant, breaking out from the
darkness underground to the glory far above. The anguish and fear were
not for them, but for those who remained behind. The Master calls
sometimes in sunshine and sometimes in storm, to those whom He will
have to be with Him where He is; but so long as it "is" the voice of
the Master and not of the Judge which calls, what matter how they go?
Whether lingeringly in sunshine, or suddenly in storm, it signifies
little, so that once they are safely landed.
And some were landed all in a moment that day, who had looked for a
longer voyage. Just as the disciples on the lake had a toilsome way
before them, till the Master stepped on board, and then,—"suddenly they
were at the land whither they went."
Suddenly, all in a moment. Perhaps if the choice had been given them,
they might have found it hard to decide whether they would go, or
whether they would stay. But once there, they would doubt no more.
None ever yet looked upon the unveiled Face of the King in glory, and
turned back to wish for the shadows of earth again. So for those of
the dead who died in Christ that day, it was a peaceful Home-going—all
the brighter and sweeter maybe, from the contrast of the darkness and
anguish behind, out of which the Master had gently withdrawn them.
This was the scene upon which Madge Hardwicke and her companion
entered. The first mad terror and excitement of the accident had
subsided, yet it was a strangely weird picture which lay before them,
as they left the early daylight behind, and went deep into the tunnel's
blackness. The tumult of shrieks had died gradually away into gentler
moans, and in many cases into silence, broken here and there by a
pitiful call for help. Some of the dead and dying had been already
extricated, and busy hands were still hard at work among the heaped up
masses of débris, which concealed yet many a crushed and mangled form.
There was little leisure for attendance on those only wounded, and they
waited for the most part in patient endurance, lying or sitting upon
the damp ground.
Some of the shattered fragments of woodwork had been piled together,
and two or three small fires burnt brightly, sending up wreaths of
smoke into the darkness, and casting a red glow upon the scene of
confusion around. Lanterns were borne backwards and forwards here
and there, and long ill-proportioned shadows of men, sometimes hazy
and large, sometimes clear and small, went passing along the dark
moist walls. And mingling with the busy sound of pick-axe and of
crowbar, came the sound of men's voices in sharp direction or subdued
consultation, and the groans of the injured, and the frightened sobbing
of little children, clinging to their no less terrified mothers and
nurses.
Mr. Chetwynd's face turned towards Madge Hardwicke for an instant, but
her quiet eyes met his steadfastly, and her lips were only trembling a
little with unspoken words of prayer.
"You can stand it?" he said, in a half-questioning tone. "I don't want
to have you on my hands, in a screaming and fainting condition, Madge."
For all the man's self-command and would-be carelessness, she knew the
deadly fear which lay at his heart.
"Sir, I never did either in my life," she answered.
"Did you ever see a scene like 'this' in your life?" he asked, with a
sudden change of manner. "Madge, it is awful."
"I think nothing can be darker to me than that which I have borne
already, sir."
And borne on that very morning—only ten years before. But that was
past, and this was present, and Mr. Chetwynd had no thought to give to
aught save what lay before him.
They went on threading their way over the masses of ruin scattered far
and wide. There were other helpers, and two more surgeons already on
the scene. But there were not too many for the work, and Mr. Chetwynd
was at everybody's beck and call. He refused no one, and gave attention
to each in turn who claimed his aid, though all the time his set lips
and anxious eyes told Madge Hardwicke the subject of his thoughts. She
made many inquiries for him about his expected relatives, but could
learn nothing. Those who were busy had no leisure to talk, and those
who were not busy seemed, in the majority of cases, to have lost, for
the time being, all memory and self-possession.
Throughout Mr. Chetwynd's doings, he kept Madge persistently near his
side, when she would have wished to go about and help more actively.
She had learnt obedience, whatever else her lessons might have been,
and made no protest. And, in truth, there was work enough for her to do
on any spot where she might take her stand.
"Sir, they're taking off some of the well folk, and them that's not so
badly hurt, to Alyn," Madge remarked at length, speaking unaddressed
for the first time. "They've told me to tell you. Will this lady go?"
Mr. Chetwynd looked up from the case in hand, finished what he was
doing, and stood erect once more.
"Ay, the sooner the better. Madge—no news of 'them?'"
"I can hear none, sir."
He sighed heavily, and then, with a hasty movement, walked a few paces
away.
"Look here, Madge."
A poor mother was sitting, pale and still, upon the ground, with one
arm hanging helplessly, and the other clasping a wee white-faced baby.
She gazed up in mute appeal at the doctor. But when Mr. Chetwynd would
have lifted the little one from her grasp, she held it more tightly,
and uttered a sharp cry of anguish.
"No use yet," he said, in a low tone, to Madge. "She will not believe
the child is dead. Better so, perhaps, for a while. See there too."
Another scene of the same description: a poor young wife kneeling in
silent misery beside a prostrate figure, with an older lady weeping
bitterly on the other side.
"Is he dead, too?" Madge asked, from her full heart.
"Not far from it. Ha, there is Mr. Prior."
She did not recognise the name. A man of middle age and slender build
came up and paused beside the little group, bearing a lantern in his
hand. There were a few low-toned words, and then he knelt quietly down,
and sounds of prayer for the departing soul came softly across to where
Madge stood. What a scene for an artist that group would have made,
in the red flickering light, with the gloomy tunnel-walls lowering
overhead, and the calm reverent face of the man of prayer contrasting
with the subdued grief of the weeping women, and the ashen features of
the dying man.
But Madge saw all with a deeper sense than that of an artist merely
watching for "effects," and would fain have knelt down likewise to join
in the petitions, but for the companion by her side.
"That's your style, Madge," he said briefly. "Much good may it do the
poor fellow."
"Ay, may it, sir, indeed," responded Madge softly.
"Mr. Prior is setting to work early. Well,—'tis his vocation."
"Mr. Prior?" Madge repeated.
"The new Rector. He only arrived on Monday. Stay, there is a man
calling me."
He came back with a hasty step.
"It may be nothing—I don't know,—but it sounds like—. Come and see,
Madge."
Following, as he hurried away, she came with him to a sheltered corner.
And there, behind a broken carriage, hidden away in the darkness,—lying
quietly where they had first been flung by the rude shock of the
collision,—there they were. Mother and daughter together, not only side
by side, but clasped firmly in one another's arms, as if, in the single
instant of conscious danger, the instinct of each had been to shelter
the other.
Travelling in the same carriage, bound for the same home, flung out
by the same rough shock, lying on the same damp spot of earth. But
one was there, and one was "not" there. One was living, and one was
dead. One was left to wander in earth's shade, and one had reached the
everlasting light.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]