Bear a lily in thy hand;
Gates of brass cannot withstand
One touch of that magic wand.
Bear through sorrow, wrong and ruth,
In thy heart the dew of youth,
On thy lips the smile of truth.--LONGFELLOW.
The day wore away, and now the evening darkened fast, and old Ailie’s
beaming face, illuminated by the lights she carries, interrupts brother
and sister, again seated in the cheerful fire-light, which, ere the
candles are set upon the table, has filled the room with such a pleasant
flickering half-gloom, half-radiance. And there, too, is Mr. Melville’s
knock, which never varies, at the door. Halbert knows it as well as
Christian, and grows pale and involuntarily glides into a corner--as he
had done of old when he had transgressed--but Christian has met her
father at the door, and whispered that there is a stranger newly arrived
in the room. It fortunately so happens to-night that Mr. Melville has
come home more complacent and willing to be pleased than he has done for
many a day. Some speculation suggested by James, and agreed to with
sundry prudent demurring by the heads of the house, has turned out most
successfully, and Mr. Melville has taken the credit of James’s foresight
and energy all to himself, and is marvellously pleased therewith. “A
stranger, aye, Christian, and who is this stranger?” he says most
graciously, as he divests himself of his outer wrappings; but Christian
has no voice to answer just then, and so he pushes open the half-shut
door, and looks curiously about the room; his son stands before him,
his eyes cast down, his cheeks flushed, his heart beating.
“Halbert!”
The human part of Mr. Melville’s nature melts for the moment, the
surprise is pleasurable; but he soon grows stern again.
“Where have you been, sir? what have you been doing? and why have you
never written to your sister?”
Halbert’s trial has taught him meekness, and his answers are in words
which turn away wrath, and his father turns round to seek his easy-chair
on the most sheltered and cosiest side of the glowing fire.
“Humph!” he says; “well, since you are home, I suppose it’s no use
making any more enquiries now, but what do you intend to do?”
Halbert looks astonished; it is a question he is not prepared to answer;
he feels that he ought not and cannot ask his father to enable him to
carry out the plan he has been dreaming of for the past twelve months,
and he is silent.
“There is plenty of time for answering that, father,” said Christian
briskly; “we can consult about that afterwards, when we have all
recovered ourselves a little from this surprise which Halbert has given
us; and here comes Robert.”
Robert came merrily into the room as Christian spoke, and not alone, he
had a companion with him whom he brought forward to introduce to
Christian, when his eye caught his brother. What! are we going to have
old Ailie’s extravagances over again. Poor Robert’s laugh is hysterical
as he tumbles over half a dozen chairs, and lays hold of Halbert, and
his shout electrifies the whole household, wakening poor sleeping Mary
in her lonely chamber. “Halbert! Halbert”--Robert is a fine fellow for
all his thoughtlessness, and is almost weeping over his recovered
brother, and Halbert’s newly acquired composure has forsaken him again,
and he sobs and grasps Robert’s hands, and thanks God in his heart. This
is truly a prodigal’s welcome, which Halbert feels he deserves not.
Robert’s companion hangs back bashfully, unwilling to break in upon,
lest he mar this scene of heartfelt family joy, which a good brother
like himself fully appreciates; but Christian’s kind and watchful eye is
upon him, and has marked him, and she comes forward to relieve him from
the awkward position in which he is placed, Marked him! yes, but what a
startled agitated look it is with which she regards him, and seems to
peruse every lineament of his countenance with eager earnestness. What
can it be that comes thus in the way of Christian’s considerate
courtesy, and makes her retire again and gaze and wonder? What a
resemblance! and Christian’s heart beats quick. But Robert has at
length recollected himself, and now brings the young man forward and
introduces him as his friend Charles Hamilton. Christian returns his
greeting, but starts again and exchanges a hurried glance with Halbert,
who also looks wonderingly on the stranger. Christian soon leaves the
room, she has Mary to seek after, and attend to; but as she passes
Halbert’s chair, she bends over it and whispers in his ear, and her
voice trembles the while,--
“Is not the resemblance most striking--and the name?”
“It is most extraordinary,” answered Halbert aloud, gazing again on the
mild ingenuous face of the stranger. Christian glided away.
“What is most extraordinary, Halbert?” asked Robert, with a slight
impatience in his tone.
“Oh, nothing; at least only Mr. Hamilton’s great resemblance to an old
friend of ours long since dead.”
The young man looked towards him and smiled. Can that picture still be
hanging in its old place in Christian’s room?
Our poor Mary has slept long and calmly, and when Robert’s shout awoke
her, she started up in astonishment. She was lying in the dark room
alone, with silence round about her, and her pillow was wet with tears.
Mary raised herself in her bed, and throwing back the disordered hair
which hung about her face tried to collect her bewildered thoughts. The
memory of her grief has left her for the moment, and she is wondering
what the sound could be that came indistinctly to her ears; it sounded,
she fancied, very like “Halbert.” Who could be speaking of him, and as
she repeats his name the full knowledge of what has passed, all the
momentous events and misery of this day come upon her like a dream. Poor
Mary! a heavy sigh breaks from her parted lips, and she presses her
hand over her painful eyes. She does not see the approaching light which
steals into the little room; she does not hear the light footstep of its
gentle bearer, but she feels the kind pressure of Christian’s arm, and
most readily and thankfully rests her head on Christian’s supporting
shoulder.
“I have news to tell you,” whispers Christian, “which you will be glad
of and smile at, though you are sighing now. You remember Halbert,
Mary?”
Remember him! but Mary’s only answer is a sigh. Halbert’s name has
terrible associations for her to-night; she has remembered him and his
fortunes so well and clearly this day.
“Mary, Halbert has come home, will you rouse yourself to see him?”
“Come home, Halbert come home!” and the poor girl lifted up her head.
“Forgive me, Christian, forgive me, but I have done very wrong, and I
am very, very unhappy;” and the tears flowed on Christian’s neck again
more freely than before.
“You have done nobly, dear Mary--only rouse yourself, shake off this
grief; you have done well, and God will give you strength. Let me bathe
your temples--you will soon be better now,” said Christian, parting the
long dishevelled hair, and wiping away the still streaming tears. “That
man is not worthy one tear from you, Mary: be thankful rather, dearest,
for your deliverance from his cunning and his wiles.”
A deep blush flitted over Mary’s tear-stained face, as she raised
herself and began with Christian’s tender assistance to remove the
traces of her grief. Christian wondered as she saw her begin to move
about the little room again; there was a still composure gathering about
her gentle features, which the elder sister, accustomed to think of Mary
as still little more than a child, could only marvel at in silence. Her
eyes were almost stern in their calmness, and her voice was firmer than
Christian could have believed possible as she turned to speak.
“Yes, Christian, I am thankful--thankful beyond anything I can say; but
do not ask me about anything just now,” she continued, hurriedly, as
Christian looked up to her as if about to speak. “I will tell you all
afterwards, but not to-night--not to-night, dear Christian.”
“Would you not like to see Halbert, Mary?” said Christian, taking the
cold hands of her sister in her own. “Do you care or wish to see Halbert
now, Mary?”
“Yes, yes,” was the answer, and Mary’s eye assumed a kinder and more
natural glow. “I forgot, tell him to come here Christian, I would rather
see him, I cannot meet him down stairs.”
Halbert was speedily summoned, and when his step paused at the door,
Mary ran forward to meet him with pleasure in her eyes. True, Halbert’s
tone of affectionate sympathy brought the remembrance of that scene of
the morning, and with it the tears to Mary’s eyes; but Christian
rejoiced to see how gently they fell, and hoped that the sorest and
bitterest part of the struggle was past; and so it was, for Mary went
down with untrembling step and entered the room where her father,
brother, and the stranger sat with a sweet and settled calmness, which
allayed all Christian’s fears.
It seemed now that however strange the stranger was to Christian, he was
no stranger to Mary Melville. Mr. Charles Hamilton was in truth well
known to Mary--yea, that Robert looked arch and intelligent, and his
young friend blushed as he rose to greet her on her entrance. This
acquaintanceship was soon explained, Mary had met him several times at
Mrs. James’s parties, and the casual mention which Robert and Mary had
made of him among the host of Elizabeth’s visitors had not been
sufficiently marked to attract the attention of Christian, engrossed as
she was then with such great anxiety regarding poor Mary’s unfortunate
attachment.
Charles Hamilton’s qualities of head and heart were much too _large_ for
Mrs. James Melville, and, accordingly, though she received him as a
guest, and was even glad to do so, from his social position and
prospects--she regarded him with much the same feeling which prompted
her attacks on Christian, and having noticed what poor Mary was too much
occupied to notice, the bashful attention with which the young man
hovered about her fair sister-in-law, Mrs. James had decided upon
entirely crushing his hopes by exhibiting to him this evening, at her
party, the crowning triumph of her friend Forsyth. Poor Mrs. James! how
completely she had over-reached and outwitted herself. That evening
found her accomplished friend the rejected--rejected with scorn and
loathing, too--of simple Mary Melville, in no humour for contributing to
the amusement of her guests, and Charles Hamilton in a far fairer way of
success than even he himself had ever dreamt of, for Christian’s eyes
are bent on him from time to time, and there is wonder blended with
kindness in her frequent glances on his face, and her pleasant voice has
an unconscious tone of affection in it as she speaks to him, as though
she were addressing a younger brother. But the time has come when they
must prepare for Mrs. James’s party; Christian will not go, Mary will
not go, how could she? Halbert will not go, and the young stranger’s
face grows suddenly clouded, and he moves uneasily on his chair, and at
last rises reluctantly. Mr. Melville and Robert must go for a time at
least, to excuse the others that remain at home, and tell James of
Halbert’s return, and Charles Hamilton in vain hunts through every
recess of his inventive powers to find some reason that will excuse him
for sitting down again. But all fail, he can find nothing to offer as an
excuse; he is intruding on the family this night, sacred as it is--the
evening of the wanderer’s return--and when he may suppose they all so
much desire to be alone; and so he must take his leave, however loth and
reluctant so to do. But while so perplexed and disappointed Christian
takes him aside, Christian bids him sit down and speak to her a moment
when Robert and his father have gone away, and he does so gladly. Mary
wonders what Christian can have to say to him, a stranger to her till
the last hour, and looks over, with interest every moment increasing,
towards the corner where they are seated side by side, and so does
Halbert too; but there is no astonishment in his face, though there is
compassionate affection beaming from his eyes. Their conversation seems
to be most interesting to both, and the look of sad recollection on
Christian’s gentle face seems to have been communicated to the more
animated features of her companion, and at length he suddenly starts and
clasps her hand.
“Christian Melville!” he exclaims, “Oh that my mother were here!”
The tears stand in Christian’s eyes--some chord of old recollection has
been touched more powerfully than usual, and Christian’s cheeks are wet,
and her eyes cast down for a moment. Mary can only gaze in astonishment,
and before she recovers herself Christian has led the young man forward
to them, and then she hurries from the room, while Halbert extends his
hand to him cordially. What is the meaning of this? both the young men
join in explanations, but Charles Hamilton’s voice is broken, half with
the recollection of his dead brother, and half with the pleasure of
discovering such a tie already existing with Mary’s family. Yes,
Charles’s brother was the original of that saint-like portrait which
hangs within reach of the glories of sunset on the wall of Christian’s
room. The grave where Christian had buried her youthful hopes was the
grave of William Hamilton, and that one name made the young man kindred
to them all; and when Christian after a time came down stairs again, she
found him seated between Halbert and Mary as though he had been familiar
with that fireside circle all his days, and was indeed a brother.
It was a happy night that to the group in this bright room, a night of
great cheerfulness and pleasant communion, just heightened by the
saddening tinge which memory gave it, and Mary, our sweet Mary, marvels
at herself, and is half disappointed that there is so little of romance
in the fading of her sorrow; but marvel as she likes, the unwitting
smile plays on her lips again, and you could scarce believe that those
clear eyes have shed so many tears to-day. She feels easier and happier
even, now the weight of concealment, which disturbed and distressed her
in Christian’s presence of late, is removed from the spirit; and she is
the same open, single-minded, ingenuous girl as heretofore; the secret
consciousness that it was not right to yield to Forsyth’s fascinating
powers is gone now, and Mary Melville is herself once more, aye, more
herself than she has been for months past, notwithstanding the bitter
suffering of that very day. God has graciously tempered the fierceness
of his wind to the tender and trembling lamb, and Christian’s confidence
is restored, and she feels sure that time will make Mary’s heart as
light as ever, and efface from her memory the image of that evil man,
and blot out the traces of this day’s agony; and a smile flits over
Christian’s cheerful face as she fancies the substitution of another
image in the precious entablature of Mary’s heart. Who can tell but
Charles Hamilton may gain a right to the name of brother, which she
already hesitates not to accord, better than his present claim, precious
to her mind as it is.
Mrs. James Melville’s party is sadly shorn of its lustre this year, when
we compare it with its last predecessor, only a short twelvemonth since;
and already, in spite of all the attractions of gossip, music, and
flirtation, her guests are beginning to yawn and look weary. Mrs. James
was never so annoyed in her life, all seems this night to have gone
wrong. Her very husband had deserted her--she had seen him fly down
stairs three steps at a time, and skim away through the cold street
towards his father’s house. Mrs. James was enraged to be left alone at
such a time for any Halbert of them all.
“A nice fuss was made about him, as much nonsense when he went away as
if there wasn’t another in the whole country, and now when he thought
fit and had come home----”
Mrs. James could not finish the sentence, for spite and vexation
overmastered her. Forsyth was not there, her chief attraction; Mary was
not there, and even Christian’s absence, little as she liked her, was
another source of annoyance; and this flying off of James was the
finishing stroke. We hardly think, however, that even Mrs. James would
not have melted had she seen her husband in the middle of yon cheerful
group, with his beaming joyous face, shaking Halbert’s hands over and
over again, to the imminent danger of bone and joint. We really think
she could not but have helped him.
There was a voice of thanksgiving in Mr. Melville’s house that night, of
thanksgiving which told in its earnest acknowledgment of many mercies;
thanksgiving whose voice was broken by the sobbings of one and
accompanied by the happy tears of all, for Halbert led their devotions,
and when his earnest tones rose up among them there was not a dry cheek
in the kneeling family, not James, though it might be thought his heart
was alienated from the overflowing affection of home, by the remembrance
of his own; not Charles Hamilton, permitted, nay requested, to stay, for
who so well as Halbert could give thanks for that double deliverance.
There are dreams to-night hovering with drowsy wing about the dwelling,
dreams which alight on Charles Hamilton’s young head as he hastens
home, his heart full of the last scene of the evening, and his voice
repeating--
“In dwellings of the righteous
Is heard the melody
Of joy and health: the Lord’s right hand
Doth ever valiantly;”--
dreams which enter Halbert Melville’s long shut chamber, welcoming its
old dreamer back again--dreams which float about Christian’s
resting-place--above the fair head laid on Christian’s shoulder, calm as
in the happy days of childhood; sweet, hopeful, cheering dreams, that
open up long vistas of indistinct and dazzling brightness, all the
brighter for their glad uncertainty before their eyes, and fill the
hearts which tremble in their joy with a sweet assurance that calms
their fears into peace. Even Ailie dreamed, and her visions were of a
gay complexion, fitting the nature of her doings through this eventful
day, and had various anticipations of bridal finery floating through
them. Nay, the very wind which whistled past Mr. Melville’s roof-tree
had a language of its own, and admirable gleesome chuckle, which said
plain as words could speak that happy as this night had been beneath it,
there would be merrier, happier doings here next new year’s day.
[Illustration: text decoration]
CHRISTIAN MELVILLE.
EPOCH V.
Sweet is the sunshine lacing with its light,
The parting storm-cloud after day of sadness;
That ere the even darkens into night
O’erflows the world with glory and with gladness;
But sweeter is the flood of pleasantness,
That breaks at noonday through the clouds of morning,
While yet the long glad hours have power to bless,
And the earth brightens ’neath its warm adorning
Of scattered sunbeams. So their fate excels
In blessedness, upon whose noonday story
The heavenly sunshine of God’s favour dwells,
While yet their tongues are strong to speak His glory;
And blessed they, O Lord! who, saved and free,
Stretch out compassionate hands to draw men near to thee!
[Illustration: text decoration]
CHAPTER I.
They thicken on our path,
These silent witness years;
A solemn tenantry, that still land hath
Wherein were spent our bygone smiles and tears;
Graven on their secret tablets silently,
Stand deed, and thought, and word,
Beyond the touch of change or soft decay,
’Stablished perpetually before the Lord!
* * * * *
Season of labour, time of hope and fear,
Kind to our households let thy varyings be;
With thee we give a sigh to the Old year,
And do rejoice us in the New with thee.--Y.S.P.
Ten years have passed away, and again it is a fireside scene that we
have to depict, and a fireside conversation we have to chronicle. The
room we now stand in is large and pleasant, and bright with the radiance
of merry faces--faces of every age and size, but all marvellously alike
in features, as in happiness, from the grave seniors down to the
crowing baby, through all the gradations of stature and sobriety that
crowd around that well-spread table. The assembly is too large, and the
children too near each other in age to allow you to think them all
members of one household; and two fathers half checked, half encouraged
the merry crowd, and two mothers took sweet counsel together, praising
each other’s little ones, and exchanging domestic experiences with each
other. We must try and find in these merry faces the traits of those we
have known before. Let us see whom we have before us. A man of goodly
presence is the elder; grave, it seems, habitually, but with a smile
that is like a sunbeam, and which has an electrical effect in the
saddest house it beams in; and many, many houses of sorrow does it see,
and many mourners are cheered by the words of hope and comfort that flow
from these sympathising lips; for you will see, if you look at his
apparel, and mark his manner, that he holds a high vocation, no less
than a labourer about that glorious vine which has the Eternal Father
for its husbandman; a labourer, one who, like the bee, seeks honey from
every flower, and from his pulpit, and standing by beds of suffering,
and in the dark, close, and fœtid haunts of sin, seeks to have souls for
his hire as the labour of his life and the joy of his existence. No mere
Sabbath day worker in his pulpit, but one that never tires, that is
always ready, and almost always with his harness on his back; like a
good knight of the olden time, prompt to succour the distressed. The
lady too, who sits beside him, has about her a gentle dignity that is
akin to his; but with her blooming cheek and bright eye we can boast no
old acquaintance, though when she lays her white hand on his arm and
calls him “Halbert,” we are half ashamed to say so much of Halbert
Melville’s wife.
But on the other side of the fire sits a younger lady, with a calm air
of matronly self-possession, which almost sets our memory at defiance;
it is true that her face looks so youthful in its eloquent
expressiveness that, but for that copy of it that shines at her knee,
through the fair straggling locks of a little merry girl, you might
fancy her still the Mary of ten years ago; but in the silent depths of
her dark eyes sits such serene and assured happiness, at once so calm,
and deep, and full, as makes one sure this cannot be the disconsolate
inhabitant of yon dim chamber, weeping in her sleep in the first agony
of womanly woe. Yet so it is, and lightly have these ten swift
years--long, oh, how long and dreary to many--flown over her, effacing
so entirely everything but the remembrance of those passages in her
history from her mind, that when she looks back now upon that troubled
time, she half smiles, half blushes for her old self, and reckons of her
brief but agonising trial, as sick men recall to their memories the
terrible dreams of some delirious fever fit. For Mary Melville has found
entire and perfect kindred in the heart of one whom then she little
recked of and cared not for, and she wonders now how she, ever the
object of Charles Hamilton’s warm and full affection, could have
overlooked his nobler qualities, and preferred instead Forsyth’s
deceptive and hollow brilliancy, and the glitter of well-displayed
accomplishments, which threw the blushing youth into the shade. And the
blushing youth of our last chapter blushes no longer when he speaks to
Mary, nor has his bashfulness been seen, Halbert says, for nine long
years and more; never since one bright autumn evening, when Mary and he
surprised Christian in her solitude by the whispered communication of
an important agreement come to between them, and which was carried into
effect, ratified and sealed, on the following new year’s day,
fulfilling, in the most joyous manner, old Ailie’s dream. At this
transaction Halbert’s presence was indispensable, albeit he was again,
after Christian’s kind persuasions and James’s spirited remonstrances
had shamed their father into liberality, finishing the long forsaken
studies so disastrously interrupted of old, with a vigour and ardour
that was unquenchable. True, he did not come to James’s wedding when it
took place; but Christian, and Mary, and Charles Hamilton were each and
all immovable in their demands; they could not do without Halbert, and
so he was present at the ceremony, exciting Charles’s wrathful
contradiction, and Christian and Mary’s curiosity, by hinting merrily of
another Mary, whose presence would throw the bride of to-day into the
shade, though no one at that blithe bridal looked on Mary Melville with
more affectionate admiration than her brother Halbert. And lo! when the
time of Halbert’s study and probations was over, and Providence had so
ordered that the place of his ministry should be the same as that of his
birth, and the dwelling-place still of his nearest and dearest kindred,
then came about another bridal, and the name of Mary Melville was
resuscitated, though Mrs. Charles Hamilton’s proud husband would never
allow that the old bearer of the name was equalled by the new.
But there is no rivalship between the sisters--sisters in affection as
much as in name--and the children, whose fair heads have sprung up like
flowers beside and about them, are like one family in their cordial
intercourse. But where is Christian? Our enquiry is echoed by
half-a-dozen merry voices. “Where can Aunt Christian be?” There will be
no need to ask the question a moment hence, if indeed we can discern our
old friend through the pyramid of children that are clustering about
her; the little girl that stood by Mary’s knee has left for Aunt
Christian, and now stands on a chair beside her, with her round arms
about her neck, and her rosy face beaming on her shoulders; the sturdy
boy who leant on Halbert’s chair has left that place of honour for Aunt
Christian, and he stands proudly at her right hand as prime minister,
helping at the distribution of the great basketful of new year’s
dainties--for this is again the first night of another year--which she
has brought to gladden these youthful hearts. The whole host of her
nephews and nieces, absorbed a moment since in their various amusements,
have left them all for Aunt Christian, and are gathered about her, one
clinging round her waist and one hanging at either arm, greatly
impeding the action of her gift-dispensing hand. Sure enough here is
Christian, how blithe! how happy! Time has dealt gently with her, and
though he has drawn a thread of silver through the rich dark abundance
of her plainly braided hair, there is not one in this room that would
not start up in indignant surprise, if you said that Christian was
either looking or growing old.
“Nay, nay,” said Halbert, not long ago, when some indifferent friend of
the family suggested this, “Christian will never grow old. When years
come upon her, she will glide away like a streamlet into a river, but
she will not fade. Christian’s spirit will always be young.”
And so it is; her soft clear voice stills all that little childish
hubbub in a moment. The very baby stays its scream of joy, as if it too
would listen to Aunt Christian, and little Mary on her shoulder, and
strong Halbert at her right hand, and every separate individual of
their respective hosts of brothers and sisters would dare in
single-handed valour any full-grown Goliath that would presume to
interrupt the expression of Aunt Christian’s pleasure, pleasant as it
always is. It is a great day this, with these two united families. A day
of childish jubilee to the younger members, and of joyful commemoration
to the older, for Halbert looks back with glistening eyes, and rejoices
in the union of ten years ago, a beginning of happy, laborious years to
him; and Mary remembers her early trial, and thanks God most earnestly
for deliverance, and participates with her husband in the happier
recollections of their marriage day; and the other Mary, with generous
affection, sympathises with each and all; and Christian? Christian’s
heart, open at all times to generous impulses, seems to have its sluices
of overpouring and constant love thrown wide open for the free passage
of its swelling tides, each new year’s night, and if you heard her
fervent thanksgiving when she kneels before God alone, you would think
that flood of blessings had been all poured out upon her, not that its
fulness had flowed upon her friends, but that she herself was the
individual recipient of every separate gift. For Christian identifies
herself with those dear ones so entirely, that she looks upon their
happiness as a peculiar blessing bestowed upon herself. Christian has,
however, now seated herself in the empty chair waiting for
her--jealously kept for her, indeed--at the brightest corner of the
cheerful fireside, and taking a little namesake of her own, a grave,
serious, thoughtful child, who has begun to lisp wisdom already with her
infant tongue, upon her knee, she joins in the conversation which her
entrance, and still more her equitable distribution of the basket of
good things had interrupted.
“Father,” questioned Halbert Melville, second bearer of the name, “do
you keep new year’s day because _it is_ new year’s day?”
“Why do you ask, Halbert?” said his mother, smiling, as she drew the boy
towards her.
“Because, Mamma, nobody else cares about it here; and I’ve heard Aunt
Christian say how foolish it was for people to keep their birthdays, as
if they were glad that time was going away from them, people that don’t
use their time well either,” moralised Halbert, looking earnestly in his
mother’s face, “and isn’t new year’s day just the same as a birthday
and--” the boy hesitated and seemed unwilling or unable to say more.
“And what, Halbert,” said Christian, as the boy paused and looked down,
“and what--what was it you were going to say?”
“I don’t know, Aunt Christian,” hesitated Halbert, “I don’t know
whether it’s right or not, but shouldn’t we be rather sorry when the new
year comes, than glad that the old year has ended?”
“And why sorry, Halbert?” said his father, who had hitherto been
listening in silence, “why do you think we should be sorry?”
“Because, father,” said Halbert, quickly, raising his eyes, “because you
said in your sermon last Sabbath, that when once a year was gone, if we
had not spent it well, it was entirely lost for ever, for we could never
bring a minute back again.”
“And therefore you think we should be sorry, do you, Halbert?” rejoined
his father.
“Yes, father,” was the answer, and again young Halbert’s face was cast
down, “for you say often that nobody spends their time well, or as right
as they should do.”
The elder Halbert did not answer, but he took little Christian, who had
been gazing with her large eloquent eyes at every one that spoke in
turn, and had attended diligently and earnestly to the unusual
conversation, upon her aunt’s knees. “Well, little one, do you think we
should be sorry when the new year comes?”
“I think we should be both sorry and glad, papa,” was the prompt answer.
“Well, Christian, Halbert has told us why we should be sorry; now do you
tell us what it is we should be glad for.”
There was a murmur among a little knot at a corner of the table, and a
half-suppressed laugh before Christian had time to answer her father’s
question.
“Who is that? what is it that makes you so merry?” said Halbert, smiling
and shaking his head at the merry urchins, who were congregated in a
group.
“It’s only our Halbert, uncle, it’s only our Halbert,” whispered little
Mary Hamilton, deprecatingly.
“Well, Mary, we are impartial to-night, so we must hear what our Halbert
has to say; come here, sir.”
And Halbert Hamilton, the wildest little rogue that ever kept nursery in
an uproar, or overcame nurse’s patience, or conquered her heart by his
feats of merry mischief, half hid himself below the table in pretended
fear and dismay at his uncle’s summons, and did not stir.
“Come, Halbert,” said Mary, his mother, as Charles drew his incorrigible
son into the middle of the little circle, “what did you say over there?”
Halbert the third looked down and blushed, and then laughed outright.
“He only said we should be glad when the new year comes, because we have
plenty of _fun_,” interposed Mary Melville, her wild cousin’s constant
defender and apologist.
“Quite right, my boy,” said the elder Halbert, laying his hand kindly on
the boy’s head, “the coming of plenty of fun is a very good and proper
thing to be glad for; but sit you down now, and let us hear what little
Christian has to say.” And Halbert sat down at his uncle’s feet to
listen.
“Well now, Christian, what should we be glad for? Is it because there is
plenty of fun, as Halbert says?”
“No, papa,” said the little, grave girl, seriously, shaking her head
solemnly, “no, it is not that. I think it’s because we have another to
be good and do right in. Isn’t that it, Aunt Christian?”
And the little girl looked over to her aunt inquiringly, to see if her
childish conclusion was a correct one.
“Just so, my dear,” was Aunt Christian’s answer, as Halbert patted the
child’s soft cheek, and then permitted her to make her way over to her
accustomed seat.
The children were gathered now about their parents’ knees, and even wild
Halbert Hamilton was silent and attentive. “Yes, children,” said the
kind father and uncle, as he looked round upon them, “yes, children,
there is a better reason for being glad than even having plenty of fun.
There is a new year to be good in, as little Christian says, a new year
to live and learn in. It is true that, perhaps, you may not see its end;
but, nevertheless, it is the beginning of a new year with many
opportunities, both of doing and receiving good, and therefore we should
be glad, and we _should_ ask God to make us His faithful servants,
loving Him and keeping His commandments all through this year, and if
God does that you may be sure this will be a very happy new year to us
all. Well, Halbert,” he continued, turning to his son, who was back
again by Aunt Christian’s side, “has little Christian satisfied you?”
Halbert’s face and conscience were both quite cleared; it was right to
be glad on a new year’s day, and he got a promise that that night he
should hear some of the many things which had happened on former new
years’ days, and had made that day a special anniversary in the family;
and besides, the relation of these things was to be committed to Aunt
Christian, therefore Halbert was quite satisfied. And then the seniors
closed round the fireside, and all the children--with the exception of
Halbert Melville and Mary Hamilton, the eldest of the two families, who
hang by Aunt Christian still--sought more active amusement in the
farther corners of the room, and recollections of those bygone years
became the long lingered on subject with Halbert, Charles, Christian,
and the two Marys; and they looked back with half-wondering gaze upon
the past, as men look through the wondrous glass of science on the
clear outline of some far distant shore, of which the human dwellers,
the fears and hopes, the loves and sorrows, which people the farther
sides of the blue slopes that yet linger in their view, have all faded
from their retiring vision.
But then comes a distant shout from the lobby into which some of the
children have strayed in their play, of “Uncle James! Uncle James!” and
here he is. Older, of course, yet looking much as he looked in the old
times; though we must whisper that the bridegroom whom we saw some
fourteen or fifteen years ago at the commencement of this story, has
now, at its conclusion, become a portly gentleman; in good sooth, most
unsentimentally _stout_, and with a look of comfort and competence about
him, which speaks in tones most audibly, of worldly success and
prosperity. A good man, too, and a pleasant, he is, with the milk of
human kindness abounding in his heart; as such Mr. James Melville is
universally considered and honoured, though with scarcely so large a
heart as his brother the minister, nor so well mated. It is true, Mrs.
James, since she found out who her friend of ten years ago was; and
Mary’s reasons for rejecting what seemed so good a match, and the
failure, the utter failure of her party on that new year’s night in
consequence; has grown wonderfully careful, and begins to discover that
there are pleasanter things in life, than the collecting together a
dozen or two of people to be entertained or wearied according to their
respective inclinations, and her fireside has grown a much more cheerful
one always, though for a few nights in the year less brilliant than
heretofore; and her husband’s quotations of “Christian” have grown less
disagreeable to her ears, though still she sometimes resents the
superiority which everybody accords to her. James is always welcomed in
his brother Halbert’s house, and never more warmly than on New Year’s
night; for Elizabeth does not accompany him on these annual occasions;
and even that loving circle feel relieved by her absence at such a time,
for the conversation generally runs upon certain remembrances which she
would not like to hear; and which none of them would like to mention in
her presence. So James sits down and joins them for awhile in their
recalling of the past; and little Halbert Melville gazes at his father
in open-mouthed astonishment, as he hears him speak of being the cause
of unhappiness and sorrow to Aunt Christian and Aunt Mary, and to Uncles
James and Robert, and his grave old grandfather who died two years ago.
His father--and Halbert would have defied anybody but that father’s
self. Yes! even Aunt Christian, if she had said such words as
these--his father cause unhappiness and sorrow to anybody!--his father,
whom old Ailie, still a hale and vigorous old woman, and chief of
Christian’s household, and prima donna in Mary Melville’s nursery, had
told him was always as kind and good to everybody all through his life
as he was now! Halbert could not believe it possible. And little Mary
Hamilton’s eyes waxed larger and larger, in amazement, as Aunt Christian
spoke of her mother--her mother whom she had never seen without a smile
on her face, being at that infinitely remote period before any of them
were born, most unhappy herself; yes, very unhappy! Mary would have
denied it aloud, but that she had too much faith in Aunt Christian’s
infallibility, to doubt for an instant even her word. This night was a
night of wonders to these two listening children.
But the time passed on, and Uncle James--while yet the other little ones
were engaged in a merry game, chasing each other throughout all the
house, from the glowing kitchen, clean and bright, up to the nursery
where old Ailie presided in full state and glory--must go. Elizabeth was
unwell; and he felt it was not seemly to be from home, loth and
reluctant as he was to leave that fireside and its loving circle. So
Uncle James prepared to go home; and down rushed again the whole merry
band, deserted Ailie, even in the midst of one of her old-world stories,
to bid him good-night; and thus environed by the little host with shouts
as loud as had welcomed his arrival, Uncle James went away home.
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CHAPTER II.
Men rail upon the Change!
* * * * *
But think they as they speak?
Thou softener of earth’s pain,
Oh Change! sweet gift of the Infinite to the weak,
We hail alike thy sunshine and thy rain;
Awe dwells supreme in yon eternal light,
Horror in misery’s doom;
But frail humanity dares breathe, when bright
Thy tremulous radiance mingles with the gloom.--Y.S.P.
Uncle James has just gone, and the group of elders in the parlour are
just drawing their chairs closer together to fill up the gap which his
departure has made, when they hear a hasty knock at the door; a hasty,
imperative summons, as if from urgent need that would not be denied
access, and a dripping messenger stands on the threshold--for the cold
rain of winter falls heavily without--begging that Mr. Melville would
go with him to see a dying man, a stranger who has taken up his
residence for the last few weeks at a small inn in the neighbourhood,
and was now, apparently, on the very brink of death, and in a dreadful
state of mind. The calls of the sick and dying were as God’s special
commands to Halbert; and he rose at once to accompany the messenger,
though the faces of his wife and sisters twain, darkened with care as he
did so. It was very hard that he should be called away from them on this
especial night; and when he firmly declared he would go, Mary whispered
to Charles to go with him, and to bring him soon back. The two brothers
went away through the storm, and the sisters drew closer to each other
round the fire, as the gentlemen left them; then Mrs. Melville told the
others how anxious she always was when her husband was called out in
this way; how he might be exposed to infection in his visiting of the
sick so assiduously as he did; and how, for his health’s sake, she could
almost wish he were less faithful and steady in the discharge of these
his duties: and Mary looked at her in alarm as she spoke, and turned
pale, and half upbraided herself for having unnecessarily exposed
Charles, though a more generous feeling speedily suppressed her
momentary selfishness. But Christian was by, and when was selfishness of
thought, or an unbelieving fear harboured in Christian’s gentle
presence?
“Mary! Mary!” she exclaimed, as she turned from one to the other, “are
you afraid to trust them in the hands of your Father? They are but doing
what is their duty, and He will shield His own from all evil. Would you
have your husband, Mary Melville, like these ministers whose whole work
is their sermons--alas! there are many such--and who never try, whether
visiting the sick and dying, or the vicious and criminal, would not
advance their Master’s cause as well--would you that, rather than
Halbert’s going forth as he has done to-night?”
“No, no; but it is terrible for me to think that he is exposed to all
kinds of contagion; that he must go to fevers, and plagues, and diseases
that I cannot name nor number, and run continually such fearful risks,”
said Mary, energetically.
“Our Father who is in Heaven, will protect him,” said Christian,
solemnly. “I have heard of a minister in London, who never for years
ever thinks of seeing after his own people in their own homes; it is too
much labour, forsooth, he is only their preacher, not their pastor; and
though he sends--Reverend Doctor that he is--his deacons and such like
to visit; it’s seldom that himself ever goes to a poor sick bed, and as
to his trying to reclaim the vicious, there is not on his individual
part the least attempt or effort. Now, Mary, would you have Halbert such
a man as that?”
“I would rather see him lying under the direfullest contagion. I would
rather that he was stricken by the Lord’s own hand, than that it should
be said of Halbert Melville that he flinched in the least degree from
the work which the Lord has laid upon him,” returned Mary, proudly
elevating her matronly form to its full height, with a dignity that
gladdened Christian’s heart.
“Yet that man in London will be well spoken of,” said Mary Hamilton,
“and our Halbert unknown. No matter: the time will come when Halbert
will be acknowledged openly; and now, Christian, I feel assured and
pleased that Charles went out with Halbert.”
“And you may, when they went on such an errand,” said Christian;
“but”--and she continued briskly, as if to dispel the little gloom which
had fallen upon them, and resuming the conversation, which had been
broken off on the departure of the gentlemen--“but Robert writes me,
that he is very comfortably settled, and likes his new residence well.”
“I am sorry,” said Mrs. Melville, after a pause, during which her
agitation had gradually subsided, “I am sorry that I saw so little of
Robert. He and I are almost strangers to each other.”
“Not strangers, Mary, while so nearly connected,” said Christian,
kindly. “Moreover, Robert gives me several very intelligible hints about
a young lady in your uncle’s family to whom you introduced him.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Melville, “no doubt he means my cousin Helen.
Oh, I am very glad of that. Your brothers are too good, Christian, to be
thrown away on cold-hearted, calculating people, who only look at money
and money’s worth----” and as the words fell from her lips, she stopped
and blushed, and hesitated, for Mrs. James flashed upon her mind, and
the comparison seemed invidious.
“You are quite right, Mary,” said the other Mary, smiling; “and if
Robert be as fortunate as Halbert has been, we shall be a happy family
indeed.”
Did Christian’s brow grow dark with selfish sorrow, as she listened to
these mutual congratulations? Nay, that had been a strange mood of
Christian’s mind in which self was uppermost, or indeed near the surface
at all; and her whole soul rejoiced within her in sympathetic gladness.
Nor, though they were happy in the full realisation of their early
expectations, did she hold herself less blessed; for Christian bore
about with her, in her heart of hearts, the holy memory of the dead,
and in her hours of stillest solitude felt not herself alone. An angel
voice breathed about her in whispering tenderness when she turned over
the hallowed leaves of yon old Bible; and when the glorious light of
sunset fell on her treasured picture, it seemed, in her glistening eyes,
to light it up with smiles and gladness; and the time is gliding on
gently and silently, day upon day falling like leaves in autumn, till
the gates of yon far celestial city, gleaming through the mists of
imperfect mortal vision, shall open to her humble footsteps, and the
beloved of old welcome her to that everlasting reunion; and therefore
can Christian rejoice, as well on her own account, as in ready sympathy
with the joyful spirits round about her.
But the present evening wore gradually away, and the children became
heavy, weary, and sleepy, and the youngest of all fairly fell asleep;
and Mrs. Melville looked at her watch anxiously, and Mary said she
could not wait for Charles, but must go home; but here again Christian
interposed. The little Melvilles and Hamiltons had slept under the same
roof before now, and being too far gone in weariness to have joined in
their domestic worship, even had the elders been ready to engage in it,
were taken off by twos and threes indiscriminately to their respective
chambers; and the three sisters are left alone once more, maintaining,
by fits and starts, a conversation that showed how their thoughts
wandered; and, in this dreary interval of waiting for the home-coming of
Halbert and Charles, listening to the doleful dropping of the slow rain
without, until the long-continued suspense became intolerably painful.
At length footsteps paused at the door; there was a knock, and some one
entered, and each drew a long breath as if suddenly relieved, though
Mrs. Melville started again, and became deadly pale, when Charles
Hamilton entered the room alone. He seemed much agitated and distressed.
“Where is Halbert?” Mrs. Melville exclaimed; and her cry was echoed by
the others at the fireside. “Has anything happened to Halbert?”
“Nothing--nothing: Halbert is quite well,” said Charles, sitting down
and wiping the perspiration from his forehead, while Halbert’s wife
clasped her hands in thankfulness. “He will be here soon; but I come
from a most distressing scene--a deathbed--and that the deathbed of one
who has spent his life as an infidel.”
“A stranger, Charles?” asked Mary.
“A stranger, and yet no stranger to us,” was Charles’s answer; and he
pressed his hands on his eyes, as though to shut out the remembrance of
what he had so lately witnessed. As he spoke, the servants entered the
room for the usual evening worship, under the impression that the master
had returned; and Charles Hamilton took Halbert’s place; and wife, and
Christian, and the other Mary, marvelled when Charles’s voice arose in
prayer, at the earnest fervent tone of supplication with which he
pleaded for that dying stranger, that the sins of his bygone life might
not be remembered against him; and that the blood of atonement, shed for
the vilest, might cleanse and purify that polluted soul, even in the
departing hour; and to these listeners there seemed a something in
Charles’s prayer, as if the dying man and the sins of his fast fading
life were thoroughly familiar to him and them.
* * * * *
A dreary journey it was for Halbert and Charles Hamilton as they left
the warm social hearth and threaded the narrow streets in silence,
following the sick man’s messenger. It was a boisterous night, whose
windy gusts whirled the heavy clouds along in quick succession,
scattering them across the dark bosom of the sky, and anon embattling
them in ponderous masses that lowered in apparent wrath over the gloomy
world below. A strange contrast to the blithe house they had left was
the clamour and rudeness of the obscure inn they entered now, and an
unwonted visitor was a clergyman there; but up the narrow staircase were
they led, and pausing for an instant on the landing-place, they listened
for a moment to the deep groans and wild exclamations of impatient
agony, as the sufferer tossed about on his uneasy bed.
“Ay, sir,” said a servant, who came out of the room with a scared and
terrified expression upon her face, in answer to Halbert’s inquiry; “ay,
sir, he’s very bad; but the worst of it is not in his body, neither!”
and she shook her head mysteriously; “for sure he’s been a bad man, and
he’s a deal on his mind.”
She held open the door as she said so, and the visitors entered. The
scanty hangings of his bed hid them from the miserable man who lay
writhing and struggling there, and the brothers started in utter
amazement as they looked upon the wasted and dying occupant of that poor
room; the brilliant, the fashionable, the rich, the talented
Forsyth--where were all these vain distinctions now?--lay before them,
labouring in the last great conflict; poor, deserted, forlorn, and
helpless, without a friend, without a hope, with scarce sufficient
wealth to buy the cold civility of the terrified nurse who tended him
with mercenary carelessness; pressing fast into the wide gloom of
eternity, without one feeble ray of life or hope to guide him on that
fearful passage, or assuage the burning misery of his soul ere it set
out. Halbert Melville, deceived by that poor sufferer of old, bent down
his face on his clasped hands, speechless, as the well-known name
trembled on his companion’s tongue,--
“Forsyth!”
“Who calls me?” said the dying man, raising himself fearfully on his
skeleton arm, and gazing with his fiery sunken eyes through the small
apartment. “Who spoke to me? Hence!” he exclaimed, wildly sitting up
erect and strong in delirious fury. “Hence, ye vile spirits! Do I not
come to your place of misery? Why will ye torment me before my time?”
His trembling attendant tried to calm him: “A minister,” she said, “had
come to see him.” He said: “_He_ allow a minister to come and speak with
him?”
A wild laugh was the response. “To speak with _me_, me that am already
in torment! Well, let him come,” he said, sinking back with a
half-idiotic smile, “let him come”---- and he muttered the conclusion of
the sentence to himself.
“Will you come forward, sir?” said the nurse, respectfully addressing
Halbert. “He is composed now.”
Trembling with agitation, Halbert drew nearer the bedside, but when
those burning eyes, wandering hither and thither about the room, rested
on him, a maniac scream rang through the narrow walls, and the gaunt
form sat erect again for a moment, with its long arms lifted above its
head, and then fell back in a faint, and Halbert Melville hung over his
ancient deceiver as anxiously as though he had been, or deserved in all
respects to be, his best beloved; and when the miserable man awoke to
consciousness again, the first object his eye fell upon, was Halbert
kneeling by his bedside, chafing in his own the cold damp hand of
Forsyth, with kindest pity pictured on his face. Had Halbert disdained
him, had he shunned or reproached him, poor Forsyth, in the delirious
strength of his disease, would have given him back scorn for scorn,
reproach for reproach. But, lo! the face of this man, whom he had
wounded so bitterly, was beaming on him now in compassion’s gentlest
guise; and the fierce despairing spirit melted like a child’s, and the
dying sinner wept.
“Keep back, Charles!” whispered Halbert, as he rose from the bedside;
“the sight of you might awaken darker feelings, and he seems subdued and
softened now. There may yet be hope.”
Hope!--the echo of that blessed word has surely reached the quick ear of
the sufferer; and it draws from him a painful moan and bitter repetition
as he turns his weary form on his couch again: “Hope! who speaks of hope
to me?”
“I do,” said Halbert Melville, mildly looking upon the ghastly face
whose eyes of supernatural brightness were again fixed upon him. “I do,
Forsyth; I, who have sinned as deeply, and in some degree after the same
fashion as you. I am commissioned to speak of hope to all--of hope,
even on the brink of the grave--of hope to the chief of sinners. Yes, I
am sent to speak of hope,” he continued, growing more and more fervent,
while the sick man’s fascinated attention and glowing eyes followed each
word he uttered and each motion of his lifted hand. “Yes, of hope a
thousand times higher in its faintest aspirations than the loftiest
ambition of the world.”
“Ay, Melville,” he murmured, feebly overcome by his weakness and
emotion. “Ay, but not for me, not for one like me. Why do you come here
to mock me?” he added fiercely, after a momentary pause; “why do you
come here to insult me with your offers of hope? I am beyond its reach.
Let me alone; there is no hope, no help for me!” and again his voice
sunk into feebleness, as he murmured over and over these despairing
words, like, Charles Hamilton said afterwards, the prolonged wail of a
lost soul.
“Listen to me, Forsyth,” said Halbert, seating himself by the bedside,
and bending over the sufferer. “Listen to me! You remember how _I_
denied my God and glorified in the denial when last I saw you. You
remember how _I_ renounced my faith and hope,” and Halbert, pale with
sudden recollection, wiped the cold perspiration from his forehead. “You
know, likewise, how I left my home in despair--such despair as you
experience now. Listen to me, Forsyth, while I tell you how I regained
hope.”
Forsyth groaned and hid his face in his hands, for Halbert had touched a
chord in his heart, and a flood of memories rushed back to daunt and
confound him, if that were possible, still more and more; and then, for
there seemed something in Halbert’s face that fascinated his burning
eyes, he turned round again to listen, while Halbert began the fearful
story of his own despair--terrible to hear of--terrible to tell; but,
oh! how much more terrible to remember, as what oneself has passed
through. With increasing earnestness as he went on, the poor sufferer
gazed and listened, and at every pause a low moan, wrung from his very
soul, attested the fearful faithfulness of the portraiture, true in its
minutest points. It was a sore task for Halbert Melville to live over
again, even in remembrance, those awful years, and exhibit the bygone
fever of his life for the healing of that wounded soul; but bravely did
he do it, sparing not the pain of his own shrinking recollection, but
unfolding bit by bit the agonies of his then hopelessness, so fearfully
reproduced before him now in this trembling spirit, till Charles,
sitting unseen in a corner of the small apartment, felt a thrill of awe
creep over him, as he listened and trembled in very sympathy; but when
Halbert’s voice, full of saddest solemnity, began to soften as he spoke
of hope, of that hope that came upon his seared heart like the sweet
drops of April rain, reviving what was desolate, of hope whose every
smile was full of truthfulness, and certainty, firmer than the
foundations of the earth, more enduring than the blue sky or the starry
worlds above, built upon the divine righteousness of Him who died for
sinners;--the heart of the despairing man grew sick within him, as
though the momentary gleam which irradiated his hollow eye was too
precious, too joyful, to abide with him in his misery--and, lo! the
hardened, obdurate, and unbelieving spirit was struck with the rod of
One mightier than Moses, and hiding his pale face on his tear-wet
pillow, the penitent man was ready to sob with the Prophet, “Oh! that
mine head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears!”
A solemn stillness fell upon that sick-room when Halbert’s eloquent tale
was told; a stillness that thrilled them as though it betokened the
presence of a visitor more powerful than they. The solitary light by the
bedside fell upon the recumbent figure, with its thin arms stretched
upon the pillow, and its white and ghastly face hidden thereon--full
upon the clasped hands of God’s generous servant, wrestling in silent
supplication for that poor helpless one. It was a solemn moment, and who
may prophesy the issue, the end of all this? A little period passed
away, and the fever of the sick man’s despair was assuaged, and
weariness stole over his weak frame, with which his fiery rage of mind
had hitherto done battle; and gentle sleep, such as had never refreshed
his feeble body since he lay down on this bed, closed those poor eyelids
now. Pleasant to look upon was that wasted face, in comparison with
what it was when Halbert Melville saw its haggard features first of all
this night. God grant a blessed awakening.
Softly Halbert stole across the room, and bade Charles go; as soon as he
could leave Forsyth he promised that he would return home, but it might
be long ere he could do that, and he called the nurse, who was waiting
without the door, to see how her patient slept. She looked at him in
amazement. Nor was the wonder less of the doctor, who came almost
immediately after--he could not have deemed such a thing possible, and
if it continued long, it yet might save his life, spent and wasted as he
was; but he must still be kept in perfect quietness. Halbert took his
station at the bedside as the doctor and nurse left the room, and
shading Forsyth’s face with the thin curtain, he leant back, and gave
himself up for a time to the strange whirl of excited feeling which
followed. The memories so long buried, so suddenly and powerfully
awakened; the image of this man, as he once was, and what he was now.
Compassion, interest, hope, all circled about that slumbering figure,
till Halbert’s anxiety found vent in its accustomed channel, prayer. The
night wore slowly on, hour after hour pealed from neighbouring clocks
till the chill grey dawn of morn crept into the sick-room, making the
solitary watcher shiver with its breath of piercing cold; and not until
the morning was advanced, till smoke floated over every roof, and the
bustle of daily life had begun once more, did the poor slumberer awake.
Wonderingly, as he opened his eyes, did he gaze on Halbert: wonderingly
and wistfully, as the events of the past night came up before him in
confused recollections, and he perceived that Halbert, who bent over him
with enquiries, had watched by his side all night. Forsyth shaded his
eyes with his thin hand, and murmured a half weeping acknowledgment of
thankfulness, “This from you, Melville, this from you!”
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CHAPTER III.
Hope the befriending,
Does what she can, for she points evermore up to heaven, and faithful
Plunges her anchor’s peak in the depths of the grave, and beneath it
Paints a more beautiful world * * * *
* * * Then praise we our Father in Heaven,
Him, who has given us more; for to us has Hope been illumined;
Groping no longer in night; she is Faith, she is living assurance;
Faith is enlighten’d hope; she is light, is the eye of affection;
Dreams of the longing interprets, and carves their visions in marble;
Faith is the sun of life; and her countenance shines like the Prophet’s,
For she has look’d upon God.--EVANGELINE.
There were anxious enquiries mingling with the glad welcome which
Halbert Melville received as he entered his own house on that clear cold
winter’s morning,--for the evening’s rain had passed away, and frost
had set in once more--enquiries that showed the interest which both his
own Mary and Christian--for Christian’s society, though she did not
allow it to be monopolised by either, was claimed in part by both the
Marys, and her time divided between them--felt in the unhappy sufferer.
“Does Mary know, Christian?” was one of Halbert’s first questions.
“Yes,” was the answer, “and much was she shocked and grieved, of course;
as was Charles also, but we were all rejoiced to hear from him that a
happy influence seemed at work before he left you. Has it gone on? Can
he see any light yet, Halbert?”
“I dare not answer you, Christian,” said her brother gravely. “I know
too well the nature of Forsyth’s feelings to expect that he should
speedily have entire rest; but God has different ways of working with
different individuals, and I have reason to give Him thanks for my own
terrible experience, as I believe my account of it was the means of
softening the heart of yon poor despairing man.”
“How wonderful, Halbert,” said Christian, laying her hand on his
shoulder; “how wonderful are the ways and workings of Providence. Who
could have imagined that you were to be the instrument, as I trust and
pray you may be, of turning your old tempter from the evil of his ways,
and leading him into the way of salvation!”
A month of the new year glided rapidly away, when one mild Sabbath
morning, a thin pale man, prematurely aged, entered Halbert Melville’s
church. The exertion of walking seemed very great and painful to him,
and he tottered, even though leaning on his staff, as he passed along to
a seat. A sickly hue was still upon his wasted features, and the hair
that shaded his high forehead was white, apparently more from sorrow
than from years. When he had seated himself, he cast around him a humble
wistful glance, as though he felt himself alone and begged for sympathy;
and people of kindly nature who took their places near him, felt
themselves powerfully drawn to the lonely stranger who looked so pale,
and weak, and humble, and wondered who he was; and many of them who
watched him with involuntary interest, noticed the quick flush that
passed over his face as Mary Hamilton entered, and how he gazed upon the
other Mary, and lingered with glistening eyes on every little one of the
two smiling families, as though their childish grace rejoiced his heart;
but the observers wondered still more when their minister had entered
the pulpit to see the big round tears which fell silently upon the
stranger’s open Bible, and the expression of almost womanly tenderness
that shone in every line of his upturned face. Mr. Melville, they said
afterwards, was like a man inspired that day--so clear, so full, so
powerful was his sermon. His text was in one of Isaiah’s sublime
prophecies. “Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth,
for I am God, and besides me there is none else.” And as he drew with
rapid pencil the glorious character of the divine speaker, in all the
majesty of the original Godhead, and also of his Mediatorial glory, his
hearers felt that he that day spoke like one inspired. Vividly he
described them lost in natural darkness, groping about the walls of
their prison-house, labouring to grasp the meteor light which flitted
hither and thither about each earthly boundary, hopeless and helpless,
when this voice rang through the gloom, “Look unto me and be ye saved.”
Vividly he pictured the entering light, which to the saved followed
these words of mercy, steady, unfailing, and eternal, that sprung from
point to point of these desolate spirit cells, illuminating the walls
with heavenly radiance, and making them prisons no longer, but changing
them into temples dedicate to the worship of the highest. “My brethren,”
said the eloquent preacher, bending down in his earnestness, as though
he would speak to each individual ere he concluded. “There are those
among you who know the blessedness of being thus plucked from the
everlasting burnings--there are among you those who have worn out years
in a fiery struggle before they found rest;” and the voice of the
preacher trembled; “and there are those whose anguish has been
compressed into a little round of days; but I know also that there are
some here who can echo the words of one who knew in his own dread
experience the agony of despair:
“‘I was a stricken deer that left the herd
Long since, with many an arrow deep infixed
My panting sides were charged;’
and I rejoice to know that here there are those who can continue in the
same words--
“‘There ’twas I met One who had himself
Been hit by the archers, in his hands he bore
And in his pierced side, their cruel wounds;
With gentle force soliciting the darts,
He drew them out, and heal’d, and bade me live.’
and, oh, my brethren, did you but know the fearful suffering, the
hopeless anguish that follows a course of lost opportunities and
despised mercies, you would not need that I should bid you flee! escape
for your lives, tarry not in the cell, the plain fair and well watered,
and like the garden of the Lord though it seem; escape to the mountain
lest ye be consumed. ‘Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the
earth, for I am God, and besides me there is none else.’”
The face of the lonely stranger is hidden, but those who sit near him
are turning round in wonder at the echoing sob which bore witness to the
effect of these thrilling words upon his mind; but when the minister
had closed his book, and the people united their voices in praise before
the service ended, the weak low accents of that humble man were heard
mingling among them, for he had found _hope_, even such hope and peace
as the preacher of this day had proclaimed in yonder dim sick-chamber to
its dying occupant; and this lowly man was he, raised as by a miracle at
once from the gates of hell, and from the brink of the grave. With
gentle sympathy did Halbert Melville, his work of mercy over, press the
hand of that grateful man; with kindly anticipation of his unexpressed
wish did he bring the children one by one before him, and they wondered
in their happy youthfulness as the hand of that slender stooping figure
trembled on each graceful head; and when the two little Marys hand in
hand came smiling up Forsyth did not ask their names. He discovered too
clearly the resemblance shining in the daughter, and scarce less
distant in the niece of Mary Melville of old, and he murmured blessings
upon them. He feared to hear the name which brought so many painful
recollections in its sweet and pleasant sound.
But when a little time had passed away, Forsyth learned to love the very
shadow of Mary Melville’s eldest born, and cherished her as she sprang
up in graceful girlhood, as though she had been the child of his own old
age, the daughter of his heart. The solitary stranger was soon better
known to the hearers of the Rev. Halbert Melville, for he lingered about
the place as though its very stones were dear to him. Forsyth had made
no friends in his long season of sinful wealth and prosperity--gay
acquaintances he had had in plenty who joined his guiltiness, and called
themselves friends, until the new course of folly and excess on which he
entered with headlong avidity after Mary Melville rejected him, had
dissipated his substance and made him poor, and then the forlorn
sufferer in his obscure apartment found out the true value of these his
heartless companions’ friendship. But now, a new man among friends on
whose unworldly sincerity he could rely without a shadow of a doubt, his
very worldly prospects brightened, and gathering the remnants of his
broken fortunes, he began now to use the remainder of God’s once
abundant gifts with a holy prudence, that made his small substance more
valuable a thousand fold, than the larger income that had been so
lavishly expended in the long years of his guilt and darkness; a changed
man was he in every particular, the talent which made him foremost in
the ranks of infidelity was laid upon God’s altar now, a consecrated
thing, and men who knew him first after his great changes, marvelled at
his strange humility, so unlike the world in its simple lowliness. When
he was told of the sinful and erring he bent his head and blamed them
not, for the remembrance of his own sins filled him with gentlest
charity, and when deed of mercy was to be done, that needed earnest
exertion and zealous heart, the mild and gentle Forsyth was ever
foremost delighting in the labour.
The threads of our tale have nearly run out; and we have but, as
knitters say, to take them up ere we finish. Our Halbert Melville is
famed and honoured; a wise and earnest minister, faithful and fervent in
his pulpit, unwearying in daily labour. His gentle Mary becomes the
sweet dignity of her matronhood well, rejoicing in the happy
guardianship of these fair children. Nor is the other Mary less blessed:
the liberal heavens have rained down gifts upon them all; seed-time and
harvest, summer and winter, have passed over their heads; but death and
sorrow, making sad visits to many homes around them, and leaving havoc
and desolation in their train, have never in their stern companionship
come across these peaceful thresholds. Now we must draw the veil, lest
we should feel the hot breath of sickness in these happy households, or
see the approaching shadow of grief darkening their pleasant doorways.
Our friend James grows rich apace; and were you to see his portly figure
and shining face “on Change,” where merchants most do congregate, you
would be at no loss to understand why his opinion is now so weighty and
influential. Messrs. Rutherford and Melville left a goodly beginning for
their more enterprising successor; and James is now a most prosperous,
because a most enterprising man. Robert, too, though at a distance in
another city, the resident partner of his brother’s great house, speeds
well in his vocation; and wedding one of his gentle sister-in-law’s
kindred, has made up our tale. The Melvilles are truly, as Mary said, a
happy family.
But how shall we say farewell to our companion of so many days and
various vicissitudes--our generous single-minded Christian Melville;
fain would we linger over every incident of thy remaining story. Fain
look upon thee once more, dear Christian, in the sacred quietness of
thine own chamber, recalling the holy memories of the past. Fain go with
thee through thy round of duties, rejoicing in the love which meets thy
gracious presence everywhere. Fain would we add to our brief history
another tale, recording how the stubborn resolutions of a second Halbert
would yield to no persuasions less gentle than thine; and how the
guileless hearts of the twain Marys unfolded their most secret thinkings
in sweetest confidence to only thee; how thou wert cherished, and
honoured, and beloved, dear Christian; how willingly would we tell, how
glad look forward through the dim future, to prophesy thee years of
happiness as bright and unclouded as this, and testify to the truth of
that old saying of Halbert’s, “that Christian would never grow old.” But
now we must bid thee farewell, knowing how “thy soul, like a quiet
palmer, travellest unto the land of heaven;” and believing well that,
Christian, whatever may happen to thee in thy forward journey, however
it may savour now, be it fresh trials or increased joys, will work
nothing but final good and pleasantness to thy subdued and heavenly
spirit--has not our Father said that all things shall work together for
good to them that love God as thou dost?--bringing but a more abundant
entrance at thy latter days into the high inheritance in thy Father’s
Kingdom, which waits for the ending of thy pilgrimage, dear Christian
Melville.
THE END.
BILLING, PRINTER, GUILDFORD, SURREY.