Flowery as Sicilian meads was the parsonage garden on that quiet
afternoon late in May, when Mr. Hammond closed the honeysuckle-crowned
gate, crossed the street, and walked slowly into the church-yard, down
the sacred streets of the silent city of the dead, and entered the
enclosure where slept his white-robed household band.
The air was thick with perfume, as if some strong, daring south wind
had blown wide the mystic doors of Astarte's huge laboratory, and
overturned the myriad alembics, and deluged the world with her fragrant
and subtle distillations.
Honey-burdened bees hummed their hymns to labor, as they swung to and
fro; and numbers of Psyche-symbols, golden butterflies, floated
dreamily in and around and over the tombs, now and then poising on
velvet wings, as if waiting, listening for the clarion voice of
Gabriel, to rouse and reanimate the slumbering bodies beneath the
gleaming slabs. Canary-colored orioles flitted in and out of the
trailing willows, a redbird perched on the brow of a sculptured angel
guarding a child's grave, and poured his sad, sweet, monotonous notes
on the spicy air; two purple pigeons, with rainbow necklaces, cooed and
fluttered up and down from the church belfry, and close under the
projecting roof of the granite vault, a pair of meek brown wrens were
building their nest and twittering softly one to another.
The pastor cut down the rank grass and fringy ferns, the flaunting
weeds and coreopsis that threatened to choke his more delicate flowers,
and, stooping, tied up the crimson pinks, and wound the tendrils of the
blue-veined clematis around its slender trellis, and straightened the
white petunias and the orange-tinted crocaes, which the last heavy
shower had beaten to the ground.
The small, gray vault was overrun with ivy, whose dark, polished leaves
threatened to encroach on a plain slab of pure marble that stood very
near it; and as the minister pruned away the wreaths, his eyes rested
on the black letters in the centre of the slab: "Murray Hammond. Aged
21."
Elsewhere the sunshine streamed warm and bright over the graves, but
here the rays were intercepted by the church, and its cool shadow
rested over vault and slab and flowers.
The old man was weary from stooping so long, and now he took off his
hat and passed his hand over his forehead, and sighed as he leaned
against the door of the vault, where fine, fairy-fingered mosses were
weaving their green arabesque immortelles.
In a mournfully measured, yet tranquil tone, he said aloud:
"Ah! truly throughout all the years of my life I have never heard the
promise of perfect love, without seeing aloft amongst the stars,
fingers as of a man's hand, writing the sacred legend: 'Ashes to ashes!
dust to dust!'"
Age was bending his body toward the earth with which it was soon to
mingle; the ripe and perfect wheat nodded lower and lower day by day,
as the Angel of the Sickle delayed; but his noble face wore that
blessed and marvellous calm, that unearthly peace which generally comes
some hours after death, when all traces of temporal passions and woes
are lost in eternity's repose.
A low, wailing symphony throbbed through the church, where the organist
was practising; and then out of the windows, and far away on the
evening air, rolled the solemn waves of that matchlessly mournful
Requiem which, under prophetic shadows, Mozart began on earth and
finished, perhaps in heaven, on one of those golden harps whose
apocalyptic ringing smote St. John's eager ears among the lonely rocks
of Aegean-girdled Patmos. The sun had paused as if to listen on the
wooded crest of a distant hill, but as the Requiem ended and the organ
sobbed itself to rest, he gathered up his burning rays and disappeared;
and the spotted butterflies, like "winged tulips," flitted silently
away, and the evening breeze bowed the large yellow primroses, and
fluttered the phlox; the red nasturtiums that climbed up at the foot of
the slab shuddered and shook their blood-colored banners over the
polished marble. A holy hush fell upon all things save a towering
poplar that leaned against the church, and rustled its leaves
ceaselessly, and shivered and turned white, as tradition avers it has
done since that day, when Christ staggered along the Via Dolorosa
bearing his cross, carved out of poplar wood.
Leaning with his hands folded on the handle of the weeding hoe, his
gray beard sweeping over his bosom, his bare, silvered head bowed, and
his mild, peaceful blue eyes resting on his son's tomb, Mr. Hammond
stood listening to the music; and when the strains ceased, his thoughts
travelled onward and upward till they crossed the sea of crystal before
the Throne, and in imagination he heard the song of the four and twenty
elders.
From this brief reverie some slight sound aroused him, and lifting his
eyes, he saw a man clad in white linen garments, wearing oxalis
clusters in his coat, standing on the opposite side of the monumental
slab.
"St. Elmo! my poor, suffering wanderer! Oh, St. Elmo! come to me once
more before I die!"
The old man's voice was husky, and his arms trembled as he stretched
them across the grave that intervened.
Mr. Murray looked into the tender, tearful, pleading countenance, and
the sorrow that seized his own, making his features writhe, beggars
language. He instinctively put out his arms, then drew them back, and
hid his face in his hands; saying in low, broken, almost inaudible
tones:
"I am too unworthy. Dripping with the blood of your children, I dare
not touch you."
The pastor tottered around the tomb, and stood at Mr. Murray's side,
and the next moment the old man's arms were clasped around the tall
form, and his white hair fell on his pupil's shoulder.
"God be praised! After twenty years' separation I hold you once more to
the heart that, even in its hours of deepest sorrow, has never ceased
to love you! St. Elmo!--"
He wept aloud, and strained the prodigal convulsively to his breast.
After a moment Mr. Murray's lips moved, twitched; and with a groan that
shook his powerful frame from head to foot, he asked:
"Will you ever, ever forgive me?"
"God is my witness that I freely and fully forgave you many, many years
ago! The dearest hope of my lonely life has been that I might tell you
so, and make you realize how ceaselessly my prayers and my love have
followed you in all your dreary wanderings. Oh! I thank God that, at
last! at last you have come to me, my dear, dear boy! My poor, proud
prodigal!"
A magnificent jubilate swelled triumphantly through church and
churchyard, as if the organist up in the gallery knew what was
happening at Murray Hammond's grave; and when the thrilling music died
away St. Elmo broke from the encircling arms, and knelt with his face
shrouded in his hands and pressed against the marble that covered his
victim.
After a little while the pastor sat down on the edge of the slab, and
laid his shrunken fingers softly and caressingly upon the bowed head.
"Do not dwell upon a past that is fraught only with bitterness to you,
and from which you can draw no balm. Throw your painful memories behind
you, and turn resolutely to a future which may be rendered noble and
useful and holy. There is truth, precious truth in George Herbert's
words:
'For all may have, If they dare choose, a glorious life or grave!'
and the years to come may, by the grace of God, more than cancel those
that have gone by."
"What have I to hope for--in time of eternity? Oh! none but Almighty
God can ever know the dreary blackness and wretchedness of my
despairing soul! the keen sleepless pain of my remorse! my utter
loathing of my accursed, distorted nature!" "And His pitying eyes see
all, and Christ stretches out his hands to lift you up to Himself, and
His own words of loving sympathy and pardon are spoken again to you:
'Come unto Me, all ye weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'
Throw all your galling load of memories down at the foot of the cross,
and 'the peace that passeth all understanding' shall enter your
sorrowing soul, and abide there for ever. St. Elmo, only prayer could
have sustained and soothed me since we parted that bright summer
morning twenty long, long years ago. Prayer took away the sting and
sanctified my sorrows for the good of my soul; and, my dear, dear boy,
it will extract the poison and the bitterness from yours. That God
answers prayer and comforts the afflicted among men, I am a living
attestation. It is by His grace only that 'I am what I am'; erring and
unworthy I humbly own, but patient at least, and fully resigned to His
will. The only remaining cause of disquiet passed away just now, when I
saw that you had come back to me. St. Elmo, do you ever pray for
yourself?"
"For some weeks I have been trying to pray, but my words seem a
mockery; they do not rise, they fall back hissing upon my heart. I have
injured and insulted you; I have cursed you and yours, have robbed you
of your peace of mind, have murdered your children--"
"Hush! hush! we will not disinter the dead. My peace of mind you have
to-day given back to me; and the hope of your salvation is dearer to me
than the remembered faces of my darlings, sleeping here beside us. Oh,
St. Elmo, I have prayed for you as I never prayed even for my own
Murray; and I know, I feel that all my wrestling before the Throne of
Grace has not been in vain. Sometimes my faith grew faint, and as the
years dragged on and I saw no melting of your haughty, bitter spirit, I
almost lost hope; but I did not, thank God, I did not! I held on to the
precious promise, and prayed more frequently, and, blessed be his holy
name! at last, just before I go hence, the answer comes. As I see you
kneeling here at my Murray's grave, I know now that your soul is
snatched 'as a brand from the burning!' Oh! bless my merciful God, that
in that day when we stand for final judgment, and your precious soul is
required at my son's hands, the joyful cry of the recording angel shall
be, 'Saved! saved! for ever and ever, through the blood of the Lamb!'"
Overwhelmed with emotion, the pastor dropped his white head on his
bosom; and once more silence fell over the darkening cemetery.
One by one the birds hushed their twitter and went to rest, and only
the soft cooing of the pigeons floated down now and then from the lofty
belfry.
On the eastern horizon a thin, fleecy scarf of clouds was silvered by
the rising moon, the west was a huge shrine of beryl whereon burned
ruby flakes of vapor, watched by a solitary vestal star; and the
sapphire arch overhead was beautiful and mellow as any that ever
vaulted above the sculptured marbles of Pisan Campo Santo.
Mr. Murray rose and stood with his head uncovered and his eyes fixed on
the nobbing nasturtiums that glowed like blood-spots.
"Mr. Hammond, your magnanimity unmans me; and if your words be true, I
feel in your presence like a leper and should lay my lips in the dust,
crying, 'Unclean! unclean!' For all that I have inflicted on you, I
have neither apology nor defence to offer; and I could much better have
borne curses from you than words of sympathy and affection. You amaze
me, for I hate and scorn myself so thoroughly, that I marvel at the
interest you still indulge for me; I can not understand how you can
endure the sight of my features, the sound of my voice. Oh! if I could
atone! If I could give Annie back to your arms, there is no suffering,
no torture that I would not gladly embrace! No penance of body or soul
from which I would shrink!"
"My dear boy, (for such you still seem to me, notwithstanding the lapse
of time,) let my little darling rest with her God. She went down early
to her long home, and though I missed her sweet laugh, and her soft,
tender hands about my face, and have felt a chill silence in my house,
where music once was, she has been spared much suffering and many
trials; and I would not recall her if I could, for after a few more
days I shall gather her back to my bosom in that eternal land where the
blighting dew of death never falls; where
'Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.'
Atone? Ah, St. Elmo! you can atone. Save your soul, redeem your life,
and I shall die blessing your name. Look at me in my loneliness and
infirmity. I am childless; you took my idols from me, long, long ago;
you left my heart desolate; and now I have a right to turn to you, to
stretch out my feeble, empty arms, and say, Come, be my child, fill my
son's place, let me lean upon you in my old age, as I once fondly
dreamed I should lean on my own Murray! St. Elmo, will you come? Will
you give me your heart, my son! my son!"
He put out his trembling hands, and a yearning tenderness shone in his
eyes as he raised them to the tall, stern man before him.
Mr. Murray bent eagerly forward, and looked wonderingly at him.
"Do you, can you mean it? It appears so impossible, and I have been so
long sceptical of all nobility in my race. Will you indeed shelter
Murray's murderer in your generous, loving heart?"
"I call my God to witness, that it has been my dearest hope for dreary
years that I might win your heart back before I die."
"It is but a wreck, a hideous ruin, black with sins; but such as I am,
my future, my all, I lay at your feet! If there is any efficacy in
bitter repentance and remorse; if there is any mercy left in my Maker's
hands; if there be saving power in human will, I will atone! I will
atone!"
The strong man trembled like a wave-lashed reed, as he sank on one knee
at the minister's feet, and buried his face in his arms; and spreading
his palms over the drooped head, Mr. Hammond gently and solemnly
blessed him.
For some time both were silent, and then Mr. Murray stretched out one
arm over the slab, and said brokenly:
"Kneeling here at Murray's tomb, a strange, incomprehensible feeling
creeps into my heart. The fierce, burning hate I have borne him seems
to have passed away; and something, ah! something, mournfully like the
old yearning toward him, comes back, as I look at his name. Oh, idol of
my youth! hurled down and crushed by my own savage hands! For the first
time since I destroyed him, since I saw his handsome face whitening in
death, I think of him kindly. For the first time since that night, I
feel that--that--I can forgive him. Murray! Murray! you wronged me! you
wrecked me! but oh! if I could give you back the life I took in my
madness! how joyfully would I forgive you all my injuries! His blood
dyes my hands, my heart, my soul!"
"The blood of Jesus will wash out those stains. The law was fully
satisfied when He hung on Calvary; there, ample atonement was made for
just such sins as yours, and you have only to claim and plead his
sufferings to secure your salvation. St. Elmo, bury your past here, in
Murray's grave, and give all your thoughts to the future. Half of your
life has ebbed out, and yet your life-work remains undone, untouched.
You have no time to spend in looking over your unimproved years."
"'Bury my past!' Impossible, even for one hour. I tell you I am chained
to it, as the Aloides were chained to the pillars of Tartarus! and the
croaking fiend that will not let me sleep in memory! Memory of sins
that--that avenge your wrongs, old man! that goad me sometimes to the
very verge of suicide! Do you know, ha! how could you possibly know?
Shall I tell you that only one thought has often stood between me and
self-destruction? It was not the fear of death, no, no, no! It was not
even the dread of facing an outraged God! but it was the horrible fear
of meeting Murray! Not all eternity was wide enough to hold us both!
The hate I bore him made me shrink from a deed which I felt would
instantly set us face to face once more in the land of souls. Ah! a
change has come over me; now if I could see his face, I might learn to
forget that look it wore when last I gazed upon it. Time bears healing
for some natures; to mine it has brought only poison. It is useless to
bid me forget. Memory is earth's retribution for man's sins. I have
bought at a terrible price my conviction of the melancholy truth, that
he who touches the weapons of Nemesis effectually slaughters his own
peace of mind, and challenges her maledictions, from which there is no
escape. In my insanity I said, 'Vengeance is mine! I will repay!' and
in the hour when I daringly grasped the prerogative of God, His curse
smote me! Mr. Hammond, friend of my happy youth, guide of my innocent
boyhood! if you could know all the depths of my abasement, you would
pity me indeed! My miserable heart is like the crater of some extinct
volcano: the flames of sin have burned out, and left it rugged, rent,
blackened. I do not think that--"
"St. Elmo, do not upbraid yourself so bitterly--"
"Sir, your words are kind and noble and full of Christian charity; they
are well meant, and I thank you; but they cannot comfort me. My
desolation, my utter wretchedness isolate me from the sympathy of my
race, whom I have despised and trampled so relentlessly. Yesterday I
read a passage which depicts so accurately my dreary isolation, that I
have been unable to expel it; I find it creeping even now to my lips:
"'O misery and mourning! I have felt--Yes, I have felt like some
deserted world That God hath done with, and had cast aside To rock and
stagger through the gulfs of space, He never looking on it any more;
Unfilled, no use, no pleasure, not desired, Nor lighted on by angels in
their flight From heaven to happier planets; and the race That once
hath dwelt on it withdrawn or dead. Could such a world have hope that
some blest day God would remember her, and fashion her Anew?'"
"Yes, my dear St. Elmo, so surely as God reigns above us, He will
refashion it, and make the light of His pardoning love and the
refreshing dew of his grace fall upon it! And the waste places shall
bloom as Sharon, and the purpling vineyards shame Engedi, and the
lilies of peace shall lift up their stately heads, and the 'voice of
the turtle shall be heard in the land!' Have faith, grapple yourself by
prayer to the feet of God, and he will gird, and lift up, and guide
you."
Mr. Murray shook his head mournfully, and the moonlight shining on his
face showed it colorless, haggard, hopeless.
The pastor rose, put on his hat, and took St. Elmo's arm.
"Come home with me. This spot is fraught with painful associations that
open afresh all your wounds."
They walked on together until they reached the parsonage gate, and as
the minister raised the latch, his companion gently disengaged the arm
clasped to the old man's side.
"Not to-night. After a few days I will try to come."
"St. Elmo, to-morrow is Sunday, and--"
He paused, and did not speak the request that looked out from his eyes.
It cost Mr. Murray a severe struggle, and he did not answer
immediately. When he spoke his voice was unsteady.
"Yes, I know what you wish. Once I swore I would tear the church down,
scatter its dust to the winds, leave not a stone to mark the site! But
I will come and hear you preach for the first time since that sunny
Sabbath, twenty years dead, when your text was, 'Cast thy bread upon
the waters; for thou shalt find it after many days.' Sodden, and
bitter, and worthless from the long tossing in the great deep of sin,
it drifts back at last to your feet; and instead of stooping tenderly
to gather up the useless fragments, I wonder that you do not spurn the
stranded ruin from you. Yes, I will come."
"Thank God! Oh! what a weight you have lifted from my heart! St. Elmo,
my son!"
There was a long, lingering clasp of hands, and the pastor went into
his home with tears of joy on his furrowed face, while his smiling lips
whispered to his grateful soul:
"In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand;
for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or
whether they both shall be alike good."
Mr. Murray watched the stooping form until it disappeared, and then
went slowly back to the silent burying ground, and sat down on the
steps of the church.
Hour after hour passed and still he sat there, almost as motionless as
one of the monuments, while his eyes dwelt as if spellbound, on the
dark, dull stain where Annie Hammond had rested, in days long, long
past; and Remorse, more powerful than Erictho, evoked from the charnel
house the sweet girlish features and fairy figure of the early dead.
His pale face was propped on his hand, and there in the silent watches
of the moon-lighted midnight, he held communion with God and his own
darkened spirit.
"What hast thou wrought for Right and Truth, For God and man, From the
golden hours of bright-eyed youth, To life's mid-span?"
His almost Satanic pride was laid low as the dead in their mouldering
shrouds, and all the giant strength of his perverted nature was
gathered up and hurled in a new direction. The Dead Sea Past moaned and
swelled, and bitter waves surged and broke over his heart, but he
silently buffeted them; and the moon rode in mid-heaven when he rose,
went around the church, and knelt and prayed, with his forehead pressed
to the marble that covered Murray Hammond's last resting-place.
"Oh! that the mist which veileth my To Come Would so dissolve and yield
unto mine eyes A worthy path! I'd count not wearisome Long toil nor
enterprise, But strain to reach it; ay, with wrestlings stout Is there
such a path already made to fit The measure of my foot? It shall atone
For much, if I at length may light on it And know it for mine own."