Mabel felt assured that Willie had not died in vain. ’Twas hard at first
for Robert Parkham to break the chains which bound him, but the
remembrance of Willie’s touching message—‘Tell pa good-bye, good-bye
forever,’ would rush to his mind whenever he essayed to take the
poisonous bowl, and thus was he saved, and when the first day of a new
year was ushered in, he stood with Mabel at the altar, and on his
upturned brow received the baptismal waters, while the man of God broke
to him the bread of life. Much that night they missed their child, and
Mabel’s tears fell like rain upon the soft, chestnut curls she had
severed from his head, but as she looked upon her husband, now strong
again in his resorted manhood, she murmured—‘It was for this that Willie
died, and I would not that it should be otherwise.’
* * * * *
Fifteen years have passed away since the day when Lina Hastings breathed
that almost impious prayer—‘Send upon me any evil but this,’ and upon
the deep blue waters of the Pacific a noble vessel lay becalmed.
Fiercely the rays of a tropical sun poured down upon her hardy crew, but
they heeded it not. With anxious, frightened faces and subdued step,
they trod the deck, speaking in whispers of some dreaded event. There
had been mutiny on board that man-of-war—a deep-laid plot to murder the
commanding officers, and now, at the sunsetting, the instigators, four
in number, were to pay the penalty of their crime. Three of them were
old and hardened in sin, but the fourth, the fiercest spirit of all
’twas said, was young and beautiful to look upon. In the brown curls of
his waving hair there were no threads of silver, and on his brow there
were no lines save those of reckless dissipation, while his beardless
cheeks was round and smooth as that of a girl. Accustomed from his
earliest childhood to rule, he could not brook restraint, and when it
was put upon him, he had rebelled against it, stirring up strife, and
leading on his comrades, who, used as they were to vice, marvelled that
one so young should be so deeply depraved.
* * * * *
The sun was set. Darkness was upon the mighty deep, and the waves moved
by the breeze which had sprung up, seemed to chant a mournful dirge for
the boy who, far below, lay sleeping in a dishonored grave, if grave it
can be called, where
“The purple mullet and gold fish rove,
Where the sea flower spreads its leaves of blue
Which never are wet with the falling dew,
But in bright and changeful beauty shine
Far down in the depths of the glassy brine.”
Over the surging billow and away to the northward, other robins are
singing in the old maple-tree than those which sang there years ago,
when death seemed brooding o’er the place. Again the summer shadows fall
aslant the bright green lawn, and the soft breeze laden with the perfume
of a thousand flowers, kiss the faded brow of Lina Hastings, but they
bring no gladness to her aching heart, for her thoughts are afar on the
deep with the wayward boy who, spurning alike her words of love and
censure, has gone from her ‘to return no more forever,’ he said, for she
felt in her bitter anger. For three years the tall grass has grown over
the grave of her husband, who to the last was unloved, and now she is
alone in her splendid home, watching at the dawn of day and watching at
the hour of eve for the return of her son.
Alas, alas, fond mother, Mabel Parkham in her hour of trial, never felt
a throb of such bitter agony as that which wrung your heartstrings when
first you heard the dreadful story of your disgrace. There were days and
weeks of wild frenzy, during which she would shriek ‘Would to Heaven he
had died that night when he was young and innocent,’ and then she grew
calm, sinking into a state of imbecility from which naught had power to
rouse her.
A year or two more, and they made for her a grave by the side of her
husband, and the hearts which in life were so divided, now rest quietly
together, while on the costly marble above them there is inscribed the
name of their son, who sleeps alone and unwept in the far-off Southern
Seas.
THE END.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Added table of Contents.
2. Diamonds P. 103, changed “a year and a half went by ere I him
again. Then he came among us our minister” to “a year and a half
went by ere I saw him again. Then he came among us as our minister.”
3. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
4. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.