When Peverell reached his own house, his man Francis met him with a
strangely mysterious look and manner.
"Here is one within," said he, "that will not, by any dint of persuasion,
go; though I have been two good hours trying my skill to that end."
"Who is it?" inquired Peverell.
"That, neither, can I discover," quoth Francis. "She knocked at the
door--it might be something after eleven, perhaps near upon twelve--and
when I opened it, she whips into the hall without saying a word, walks
into every room in the house--I following her, as a beadle follows a rogue,
till he sees him beyond the parish bounds--and at last takes possession of
your low chair, and, without so much as 'by your leave,' begins to wring
her hands, and cry 'Lord! Lord!'--What do you want, good woman?" said I.
But I might as well have addressed myself to the walls, for 'Lord! Lord!'
was all her moan."
Peverell hastened into the room, and there he saw poor Madge--her face
buried in her hands, rocking to and fro, weeping most piteously, and as
Francis had described, ever and anon calling upon the Lord, but in a tone
of such utter wretchedness, that it pierced his very heart.
He spoke to her. She started up at the sound of his voice, looked at him,
and then mournfully exclaimed, while she pointed to the ground--"They have
buried her!"
"Then be comforted," said Peverell, in a kind and soothing voice; "your
hardest trial is past."
"What a churl he was!" continued Madge, not heeding the words of Peverell;
"I only asked him to keep the grave open till to-morrow, and he denied me!
Only till to-morrow--for then, said I, the cold earth can cover us both.
But he denied me! So I fell upon my knees, beside my Marian's grave, and
prayed that he might never lose a child, to know that blessedness of
sorrow which lies in the thought of soon sleeping with those we have loved
and lost! It was very wrong in me, I know, to wish to call down such
affliction on him--but he denied me--and I had to hear the rattling dust
fall upon her coffin--ay, and to see that dark, deep grave filled up; as
if a mother might not have her own child!"
"Poor afflicted creature!" exclaimed Peverell, in a half whisper to
himself.
"Yes!" said Madge, drying her tears with her hands. "Yes! I have walked
with grief, for my companion in this world, through many a sad and weary
hour. But I shook hands with her, and we parted, at the grave of Marian.
I buried all my troubles there. What is the hour?"
"Hard upon two," replied Peverell.
"Then I must be busy," replied Madge, in a wild, hurried manner, and
smiling at Peverell, with a look of much importance, as if what she had
to do were some profound secret. "You'll not betray me, if I tell you?"
she continued, taking his hand--"Feel!" and she placed it on her heart.
"One, two; one, two; one, two--and so it goes on; it cannot beat beyond
two! Oh, God! in what pain it is before it breaks!"
She now returned to the chair from which she had risen, at the sound of
Peverell's voice. He approached nearer; and (with a view rather to draw
her gently from her own thoughts, than from any desire that she should
leave his house,) he asked her "if she would go home?"
"Yes," she replied; "bear with me yet a little while, and I'll go. It is
near the time I promised Marian, when last I kissed her wintry cheek, as
she lay shrouded in her coffin; and I may not fail. Lord! Lord! what a
troubled and worthless world this seems to me now! A week ago, and the sun,
and the moon, and the stars, and the green earth, and all that was upon it,
were dear to mine eyes; and I should have wept to look my last at them!
But now, I behold nothing it contains, save my Marian's grave! You will
see _me_ laid in it, for pity's sake--won't you?"
"Ay," said Peverell, "but that will be when I am gray, and thinking of my
own: so, cheer up. He that shall toll the bell for thee, now sleeps in his
cradle, I'll warrant."
She beckoned Peverell to her, and taking his hand, she again placed it on
her heart. A sad, melancholy smile played for a moment across her pale
wrinkled face, and her glazed eyes kindled into a fleeting expressing of
frightful gladness, as she feebly exclaimed, "Do you feel? One!--one!--one!
--and hardly that--I breathe only from here," she continued, pointing to
her throat. "Feel!--feel!--one!--one!--another!--how I gasp--see!--see--"
She ceased to speak; the hand which retained Peverell's relaxed its
hold--her head dropped--one long-drawn sigh was heaved--and poor Madge
resigned a being touched with sympathies and feelings not often found
in natures of nobler quality, in the world's catalogue of nobility. If,
among the thousand doors which death holds open for mortal man to pass
through, ere he puts on immortality, there be one, the rarest of them
all, for broken hearts, this hapless creature found it. A self accusing
spirit bowed her to the earth, with the sharpest of all griefs--a
mother's anguish for an only child--lost to her, as gamesters lose
fortunes--thrown away by her own hand.
* * * * *