If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand;
My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne;
And, all this day, an unaccustom’d spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
_Romeo and Juliet._
Christian Melville is seated alone by her fireside, engaged in her usual
occupations, and full of her wonted thoughts; but her present anxiety
about Mary has taught her to linger less in the past, and to look
oftener forward to the future than she has been accustomed to do
heretofore, since sorrow made that once bright prospect a blank to her.
Nay, Christian, in her happier hours, has grown a dreamer of dreams, and
all her architectural fancies terminate in the one grand object, the
happiness of Mary. She sees the imminent danger she runs of having to
relinquish her one remaining treasure, and that into the keeping of one
she distrusts so much as Forsyth. Christian cannot tell how it is that
she has such an unaccountable, unconquerable aversion to him. True, his
name is the same as that of Halbert’s tempter; and association is the
root, doubtless, of all her prejudice--as prejudice everybody calls
it--and Christian tries, as she has tried a hundred times, to overcome
her repugnance, and to recollect the good traits of character that have
been told her of him, and to school her mind into willingness to receive
him as Mary’s choice; and she breathes, from the depths of her heart,
the fervent petition for guidance and deliverance so often repeated for
her innocent Mary--her child, her sister--and then her thoughts speed
away, and Halbert rises up before her mental vision. What can be his
fate? Long and wearily does she ponder, and bitter fancies often make
her groan in spirit as one burdened. Is he still a living man?--still to
be hoped and prayed for; or, is Halbert now beyond all human hope and
intercession? Her heart grows sick and faint as she thinks of the
possibility of this; but she almost instantly rejects it; and again her
soul rises to her Lord in earnest ejaculations. Oh! but for this power
of prayer, but for this well-ascertained certainty, that there is One
who hears the prayers of his people, how should Christian Melville have
lived throughout these three long anxious years; how should she have
endured the unbroken monotony of every uneventful day, with such a load
upon her mind, and such fancies coming and going in her heart; how
possibly subdued the longings of her anxious love through all this time
of waiting and suspense? But her prayer has never ceased; like the smoke
of the ancient sacrifice, it has ascended continually through the
distant heaven: the voice of her supplications and intercedings have
risen up without ceasing; and surely the Hearer of prayer will not shut
his ears to these.
There is some commotion going on below, the sound of which comes up to
Christian in a confused murmur, in which she can only distinguish old
Ailie’s voice. At first she takes no notice of it; then she begins to
wonder what it can be, so strange are such sounds in this quiet and
methodical house, though still she does not rise to inquire what it is.
Christian is engrossed too much with her own thoughts; and as the sounds
grow more indistinct, she bends her head again, and permits herself to
be carried away once more in the current of her musings. But the step of
old Ailie is coming up the stairs much more rapidly than that old
footstep was wont to come; and as Christian looks up again in
astonishment, Ailie rushes into the room, spins round it for a moment
with uplifted hands, sobbing and laughing mingled, in joyful confusion,
and then dropping on the floor, breathless and exhausted with her
extraordinary pirouetting, throws her apron over her head, and weeps and
laughs, and utters broken ejaculations till Christian, hastening across
the room in great alarm to interrogate her, afraid that the old woman’s
brain is affected,
“What is the matter, Ailie?” Christian asks. “Tell me, what is the
matter?”
“Oh, Miss Christian!” and poor Ailie’s wail of sobbing mixed with broken
laughter sounded almost unearthly in Christian’s ear. “Oh, Miss
Christian! said I not, that the bairn of sae monie prayers suld not be
lost at last?”
“Ailie! Ailie! what do you mean? Have you heard anything of Halbert?”
and Christian trembled like a leaf, and could scarce speak her question
for emotion. “Ailie! I entreat you to speak to--to answer me.”
And Christian wrung her hands in an agony of hope and fear, unwitting
what to think or make of all this almost hysterical emotion of the old
faithful servant, or of her enigmatical words. “Look up, dear Christian;
look up!” Ailie needs not answer. Who is this that stands on the
threshold of this well-remembered room, with a flush of joy on his
cheek, and a shade of shame and fearfulness just tempering the glow of
happiness in his eyes?
“Halbert!”
“Christian!”
The brother and sister so fearfully and so long separated, and during
these years unwitting of each other’s existence even, are thus restored
to each other once more.
A long story has Halbert to tell, when Christian has recovered from her
first dream of confused joy, a three year long story, beginning with
that fearful night, the source of all his sorrows and his sufferings.
Christian’s heart is bent down in silent shuddering horror as he tells
her of how he fell; how he was seduced, as by the craftiness of an
Ahithophel, into doubt, into scoffing, into avowed unbelief, and finally
led by his seducer--who all the previous time had seemed pure and
spotless as an angel of light--into the haunts of his profligate
associates, so vicious, so degrading, that the blush mantles on
Halbert’s cheek at the bare remembrance of that one night. He tells her
how among them he was led to acknowledge the change which Forsyth had
wrought upon his opinions, and how he had been welcomed as one delivered
from the bondage of priestly dreams and delusions; how he was taken with
them when they left Forsyth’s house--the host himself the prime leader
and chief of all--and saw scenes of evil which he shuddered still to
think of; and how in the terrible revulsion of his feelings which
followed his first knowledge of the habits of these men, whose no-creed
he had adopted, and whose principles he had openly confessed the night
before, sudden and awful conviction laid hold upon him--conviction of
the nature of sin; of his sin in chief--and an apprehension of the
hopelessness of pardon being extended to him; and how, turning reckless
in his despair, he had resolved to flee to some place where he was
unknown, uncaring what became of himself. He told her then of his long
agony, of his fearful struggle with despair, which engrossed his soul,
and how at last he was prompted by an inward influence to the use of the
means of grace once more; and how, when at length he dared to open his
Bible again, a text of comfort and of hopefulness looked him in the
face; that he had said to himself, over and over again, “It is
impossible!” till hope had died in his heart: but here this true word
contradicted at once the terrible utterance of his self-abandonment.
“All things,” it was written, “are possible with God;” and Halbert told
her, how the first tears that had moistened his eyes since his great
fall sprang up in them that very day. He told her of the scene so fair,
where this mighty utterance of the Almighty went to his soul, and where
he found peace; in the words of the gifted American--
“Oh, I could not choose but go
Into the woodlands hoar.
“Into the blithe and breathing air,
Into the solemn wood,
Solemn and silent everywhere!
Nature with folded arms seem’d there,
Kneeling at her evening prayer!
Like one in prayer I stood.
“Before me rose an avenue
Of tall and sombrous pines;
Abroad their fanlike branches grew,
And where the sunshine darted through,
Spread a vapour soft and blue.
In long and sloping lines.
“And falling on my weary brain,
Like a fast falling shower,
The dreams of youth came back again;
Low lispings of the summer rain,
Dropping on the ripen’d grain,
As once upon the flower.”
He told her of his happy progress, from that first dawning of hope to
the full joy of steadfast faith. He ran over the history of the past
year, in which from day to day he had looked forward to this meeting;
and he told with what joy he had slowly added coin to coin, until he had
saved a sufficient sum to carry him home. Then, when he had finished,
the sister and brother mingled their thanksgivings and happiness
together, and Christian’s heart swelled full and overbrimming: she could
have seated herself upon the floor, like Ailie, and poured out her joy
as artlessly. But it is Halbert’s turn now to ask questions. When will
little Mary be home? how long she stays. Halbert wearies to see his
little sister, but he is bidden remember that she is not little now,
and Christian sighs, and the dark cloud, that she fears is hanging over
Mary’s fate, throws somewhat of its premonitory gloom upon her heart and
face. Halbert, unnoticing this, is going about the room, almost like a
boy, looking lovingly at its well-remembered corners, and at the chairs
and tables, at the books, and last his eye falls on a card lying in a
little basket, and he starts as if he had encountered a serpent, and his
eye flashes as he suddenly cries out, almost sternly, as he lifts it and
reads the name.
“Christian, what is this--what means this? Mr. Walter Forsyth a visitor
of yours; it cannot be. Tell me, Christian, what does it mean?”
“It is Mr. Forsyth’s card,” said Christian gravely; “an acquaintance, I
am afraid I must say a _friend_ of ours. Indeed, Halbert, now that you
are home with us again, this is my only grief. I fear we shall have to
give our little Mary into his keeping, and he is not worthy of her.”
Halbert is calmed by his long trial, but his natural impetuosity is not
entirely overcome, and he starts up in sudden excitement and disorder.
“Walter Forsyth the husband of my sister Mary! Walter Forsyth, the
infidel, the profligate; better, Christian, better a thousand times,
that we should lay her head in the grave, great trial as that would be,
and much agony as it would cause us all, than permit her to unite
herself with such a reptile.”
“Halbert,” said Christian, “the name misleads you; this cannot be the
man--the Forsyth who wrought you so much unhappiness and harm, and has
caused us all such great grief and sorrow; he must be much older, and
altogether a different person. This one is not even a scoffer, at least
so far as I have seen.”
“Christian,” cried Halbert vehemently, “I feel assured it is the same.
Do not tell me what he pretends to be, if he has any end to serve he can
be anything, and put on the seeming of an angel of light even. I tell
you, Christian, that I am sure, quite sure, that it _is_ he. I met him
as I came here, and I shuddered as I saw him, and even felt myself
shrinking back lest his clothes should touch me; but little did I
suspect that he was about to bring more grief upon us. Does Mary, do you
think, care for him?”
Christian could not but tell him her fears; but she said also that Mary
had always avoided speaking to her on the subject. What could they do?
What should be done to save Mary? Halbert, in his impatience, would have
gone to seek her out at once, and have pointed out to her the character
of her lover; but Christian only mournfully shook her head, such a plan
was most likely to do harm and not good.
“You must be calm, Halbert,” she said, “this impetuosity will be
injurious--we must save Mary by gentler means, she is far too like
yourself to be told in this outspoken manner--the shock would kill her.”
But old Ailie is stealing the door of the room open timidly, to break in
on the first hour of Christian’s joy, and when she entered she did it
with a look of sober cheerfulness, widely different from her late joyful
frenzy.
“Miss Mary came in a while since,” she said, “and ran straight up to her
own room, without speaking, or waiting till I telled her of Mr.
Halbert’s home coming, and she looked pale and ill like; would you not
go up, Miss Christian, and see?”
The Melvilles are Ailie’s own children, and she has a mother’s care of
them in all their troubles, bodily or mental. So at her bidding
Christian rose and went softly to Mary’s room: the door was closed, but
she opened it gently, and standing hidden by the curtains of Mary’s
bed, was witness to the wild burst of passionate sorrow and disappointed
affection in which Mary’s breaking heart gushed forth, when she found
herself once more alone. Herself unseen, Christian saw the scalding
tears welling out from her gentle sister’s dim and swollen eyes, she saw
the convulsive motions of her lithe and graceful figure, as she rocked
herself to and fro, as if to ease or still the burning grief within: and
she heard her broken murmurs.
“Had he but died before I knew this, I would have mourned for him all my
life, even as Christian mourns, but now--but now!--such as he is”--and
her burst of sobbing checked the voice of her sorrow. A moment after she
started up and dashed the tears from her eyes, with some vehemence.
“Should I not rather thank God that I have been saved from uniting
myself with a godless man--with my poor brother’s seducer?” and she sank
on her knees by the bedside. Poor Mary’s grief was too great for silent
supplications, and Christian stood entranced, as that prayer, broken by
many a gush of weeping, rose through the stillness of the quiet room.
She had never, she thought, heard such eloquence before of supplicating
sorrow, had never seen the omnipotence of truth and faith till then;
gradually they seemed to subdue and overcome the wildness of that first
grief, gradually attuned that sweet young sobbing, struggling voice, to
sweetest resignation, and ere Christian echoed the solemn “Amen,” Mary
had given thanks for her deliverance, though still natural tears, not to
be repressed, broke in on her thanksgiving, and silent weeping followed
her ended prayer. But when she bent her head upon her hands again,
Christian’s kind arm was around her, Christian’s tears were mingled with
her own, Christian’s lips were pressed to her wet cheek in tender
sympathy, and the voice of Christian, like a comforter, whispered,
“I know all, Mary, I know all; may God strengthen you, my dear
sister--you have done nobly, and as you should have done; may God bless
you, dearest Mary.”
And Mary’s head, as in her old childish sorrows, nestles on Christian’s
bosom, and Mary’s heart is relieved of half its heavy and bitter load.
Poor Mary! the days of childhood have indeed come back again, and, as
the violence of the struggle wears away, she weeps herself to sleep, for
sorrow has worn out the strength of her delicate frame, already
exhausted by the varied and contending emotions of the day, and now the
tears slide slowly from beneath her closed eyelids even in her sleep.
But Halbert is at the door anxiously begging for admittance, and
Christian leads him in to look at little Mary’s sleep. It was a child’s
face, the last time he looked upon it, a happy girlish face, where mirth
and quick intelligence rivalled each other in bringing out its
expressive power; he sees it now, a woman’s, worn with the first and
sorest struggle that its loving nature could sustain, and a kind of
reverence mingled with his warm affection as he bent over his sleeping
sister; _he_ had yielded to temptations, oh, how much weaker, since his
heart was not enlisted on the tempter’s side; _he_ had made shipwreck of
his faith and of his peace, for years, fascinated by attractions a
thousand times less potent than those which this girl, her slight figure
still trembling with her late emotions, still weeping in her sleep, had
withstood and overcome; and Halbert bent his head, humility mingling
with his rejoicing. Had he only been as steadfast as Mary, how much
sorrow and suffering would they all have been saved.
They have left the room awhile with quiet footsteps, and there is much
gladness in those two hearts, though trembling still mingles with their
joy; for, if Christian fears the effect of this terrible shock on Mary’s
health, at least she is delivered; there is great happiness in that
certainty, she has found out Forsyth’s true character, though it passes
all their guessing and conjectures to tell how.
And now Halbert is asking about his father, and James and Robert, and
expressing his fears as to how they will receive him, the truant son.
His brothers will be rejoiced; but Christian shakes her head half
doubtful, half smiling, when Halbert, “and my father”--she cannot say,
but an hour or two more will bring that to the proof.
“Do you know, Christian, I feel myself like one of the broken men of the
old ballads, and I am in doubt, in perplexity, and fear, about this
meeting.”
“If you are broken, if your ship has been cast ashore, we will get it
mended again,” said Christian, with more of humour and lightheartedness
than she had either felt or used for many a day. “But no more of that,
Halbert, just now. Tell me, will you go to see James to-night?”
“No, I can’t; it would be unseemly besides.”
Halbert will not leave his sister the first night of his return, and
Christian feels relieved; after a pause, he continues:
“How do you like Elizabeth now, Christian; are James and she happy
together?”
“I have no doubt they are,” said Christian, evasively; “why should they
not be?”
“But you don’t like her.”
“I never said so, Halbert.”
“Well, that’s true enough; but I inferred it.”
“Nay, you must make no inferences. Elizabeth can be very pleasant and
lovable; if she is not always so, it is but because she does not choose
to exercise her powers of pleasing.”
“So she can be lovable when she likes. But it was she, was it not, that
introduced Mary to Forsyth?” said Halbert, his brow darkening.
“You must forgive her that, Halbert; she was not aware of his character
when she received him as her cousin’s friend,” and Christian looked
distressed and uneasy, and continued; “and Halbert, you must not cherish
a vindictive feeling even against Forsyth, bad as he is, and great as is
the mischief he did you; promise me that, Halbert, promise me, now.”
“Well, I do promise you; I could not, if I would; and I now pity him
much more than hate him.”
They sat together conversing, till the shadows began to lengthen, when
Christian, compelled by domestic cares and preparations for the evening,
left her new found brother for a time.
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