THE VISION IN THE CHURCHYARD.
Some twelve months before the occurrence of the events recorded in the
preceding chapters, a Jew, bearing the name of Aaron Cohen, had come
to reside in the ancient town of Gosport. He was accompanied by his
wife, Rachel. They had no family, and their home was a home of love.
They were comparatively young, Aaron being twenty-eight and Rachel
twenty-three, and they had been married five years. Hitherto they had
lived in London, and the cause of their taking up their residence in
Gosport was that Aaron had conceived the idea that he could establish
himself there in a good way of business. One child had blessed their
union, whom they called Benjamin. There was great rejoicing at his
birth, and it would have been difficult to calculate how many
macaroons and almond and butter cakes, and cups of chocolate and
glasses of anise-seed, were sacrificed upon the altar of hospitality
in the happy father's house for several days after the birth of his
firstborn. "Aaron Cohen does it in style," said the neighbours; and as
both he and Rachel were held in genuine respect by all who knew them,
the encomium was not mere empty praise. Seldom even in the locality in
which the Cohens then resided--the East End of London, where charity
and hospitality are proverbial--had such feasting been seen at the
celebration of a circumcision. "If he lived in Bayswater," said the
company, "he couldn't have treated us better." And when the father
lifted up his voice and said, "Blessed art Thou, the Eternal, our God,
King of the universe, who hath sanctified us with His commandments,
and commanded us to introduce our sons into the covenant of our father
Abraham," there was more than usual sincerity in the response, "Even
as this child has now entered this covenant, so may he be initiated
into the covenant of the law, of marriage, and of good works." Perhaps
among those assembled there were some who could not have translated
into English the Hebrews' prayers they read so glibly; but this
reproach did not apply to Aaron, who was an erudite as well as an
orthodox Jew, and understood every word he uttered. On this memorable
day the feasting, commenced in the morning, was continued during the
whole day. "I wish you joy, Cohen, I wish you joy;" this was the
formula, a hundred and a hundred times repeated to the proud father,
who really believed that a prince had been born among Israel; while
the pale-faced mother, pressing her infant tenderly to her breast, and
who in her maidenhood had never looked so beautiful as now, received
in her bedroom the congratulations of her intimate female friends. The
poorest people in the neighbourhood were welcomed; and if the seed of
good wishes could have blossomed into flower, a rose-strewn path of
life lay before the child. "He shall be the son of my right hand,"
said Aaron Cohen; and Rachel, as she kissed her child's mouth and
tasted its sweet breath, believed that Heaven had descended upon
earth, and that no mother had ever been blessed as she was blessed.
This precious treasure was the crowning of their love, and they laid
schemes for baby's youth and manhood before the child was out of long
clothes--schemes destined not to be realised. For sixteen months
Benjamin filled the hearts of his parents with ineffable joy, and then
the Angel of Death entered their house and bore the young soul away.
How they mourned for the dear one who was nevermore on earth to
rejoice them with his beautiful ways need not here be related; all
parents who have lost their firstborn will realise the bitterness of
their grief. But not for long was this grief bitter. In the wise and
reverent interpretation of Aaron Cohen, their loss became a source of
consolation to them. "Let us not rebel," he said to his wife, "against
the inevitable and Divine will. Give praise unto the Lord, who has
ordained that we shall have a child in heaven waiting to receive us."
Fraught with tenderness and wisdom were his words, and his counsel
instilled comfort into Rachel's heart. Benjamin was waiting for them,
and would meet them at the gates. Beautiful was the thought, radiant
the hope it raised, never, never to fade, nay, to grow brighter even
to her dying hour. Their little child, dead and in his grave, brought
them nearer to God. Heaven and earth were linked by the spirit of
their beloved, who had gone before them: thus was sorrow sweetened and
happiness chastened by faith. Sitting on their low stools during the
days of mourning, they spoke, when they were alone, of the peace and
joy of the eternal life, and thereby were drawn spiritually closer to
each other. The lesson they learned in the darkened room was more
precious than jewels and gold; it is a lesson which comes to all, high
and low alike, and rich indeed are they who learn it aright. For some
time thereafter, when the mother opened the drawer in which her most
precious possessions were kept, and kissed the little shoes her child
had worn, she would murmur amid her tears,--
"My darling is waiting for me, my darling is waiting for me!"
God send to all sorrowing mothers a comfort so sweet!
Aaron Cohen had selected a curious spot in Gosport for his habitation.
The windows of the house he had taken overlooked the quaint, peaceful
churchyard of the market town. So small and pretty was this
resting-place for the dead, that one might almost have imagined it to
be a burial ground for children's broken toys. The headless wooden
soldiers, the battered dolls, the maimed contents of cheap Noah's
arks, the thousand and one treasures of childhood might have been
interred there, glad to be at rest after the ruthless mutilations they
had undergone. For really, in the dawning white light of a frosty
morning, when every object for miles around sharply outlined itself in
the clear air and seemed to have lost its rotund proportions, it was
hard to realise that, in this tiny churchyard, men and women, whose
breasts once throbbed with the passions and sorrows of life, were
crumbling to that dust to which we must all return. No, no; it could
be nothing but the last home of plain and painted shepherds, and
bald-headed pets, and lambs devoid of fleece, and mayhap--a higher
flight which we all hope to take when the time comes for us to claim
our birthright of the grave--of a dead bullfinch or canary, carried
thither on its back, with its legs sticking heavenwards, and buried
with grown-up solemnity, and very often with all the genuineness of
grief for a mortal bereavement. Have you not attended such a funeral,
and has not your overcharged heart caused you to sob in your dreams as
you lay in your cot close to mamma's bed?
But these fantastic fancies will not serve. It was a real human
churchyard, and Rachel Cohen knew it to be so as she stood looking out
upon it from the window of her bedroom on the first floor. It was from
no feeling of unhappiness that her sight became dimmed as she gazed
upon the tombstones. Shadows of children rose before her, the
pattering of whose little feet was once the sweetest music that ever
fell on parents' ears, the touch of whose little hands carried with it
an influence as powerful as a heart-stirring prayer; children with
golden curls, children with laughing eyes, children with wistful
faces; but there was one, ah! there was one that shone as a star amid
the shadows, and that rose up, up, till it was lost in the solemn
clouds, sending therefrom a Divine message down to the mother's heart,
"Mamma, mamma, I am waiting for thee!"
Quiet as was everything around her, Rachel heard the words; in the
midst of the darkness a heavenly light was shining on her.
She wiped the tears from her eyes, and stole down to the room in which
her husband was sitting.