WORSE AND WORSE WITH HARRY THORSBY.
One very hot, still July morning, before these just recorded
occurrences, and nearly a year before Millicent Heritage’s eventful
journey to London, Betty Trapps, who had been gathering peas in
the garden, ran into the house with her checked apron flung over
her head, and going puff! puff! this way and that, as if to blow
something away. When asked what was the matter, she said, “It’s a
harnet, as keen as mustard. It fled at me, and fled at me, like a big
dumbledore.”
“Yes,” said George, “there is a nest of them in a hole in the
barn-wall; we must suffocate them with brimstone-fumes at night.
They are very destructive to fruit, and dangerous to the horses.”
“Suffocate a devil with brimstone!” said Betty. “That’s a good un.
This harnet is for all the world like th’ owd enemy. He comes at you,
and at you, as if he’d eat you.”
Whilst George was quietly smiling at Betty’s idea, there was a loud
ringing of a poker and fire-shovel, and he saw Sam Davis, one of the
labourers, crossing the garden beds, and looking up at the trees, as
in search of something.
“There!” said Betty, “now the bees are swarming: this hot morning
fetches them all out.”
George, Ann, Mrs. Woodburn, and Betty, as well as the other maids,
all hurried out to witness the interesting process of charming the
bees down. Loud rung Sam Davis’s music on the fire-shovel, and
presently they saw a brown cluster of bees, as large as a man’s hat,
and longer, hanging from the bough of an apple-tree.
The country people have various ways of accounting for the effect of
this clangour on a fire-shovel in causing a swarm of bees to settle.
Some think they like it, and so stop to hear it; others, that the
young queen-bee, scared by the noise, settles on the first object
she sees. Certain it is that the effect is general, and very marked.
Others think this clangour must be made to claim your swarm, for if
it settles on another man’s property without such loud claim, and
close following, you cannot assert your right to them. Be that as it
may, our friends of Woodburn Grange saw their swarm hanging before
them. There was a quick running for a sheet and an empty hive. The
inside of the hive was rubbed with a mixture of beer and crushed
black-currant leaves, or balm, and Sam Davis quietly approached
them, put down two bricks on the sheet, cut off carefully the bough
on which the swarm hung; deposited it on the sheet between the
two bricks; and then set the hive over it. The skill with which
this was done, without irritating the bees, showed that Davis was
an experienced hand at this operation. The bees seemed to settle
themselves pretty tranquilly in their new home, but Mrs. Woodburn
observed that a number of them continued to fly about the end of the
bough whence the part covered with the swarm had been cut off. “Yes,”
said Davis, “they will come and try to find it, and worship the place
where the queen alighted several days yet.”
“Ay,” said Betty, who had generally some religious fancy to attach
to every curious occurrence, “that’s just the way with many in their
religion. They go and worship blindly for a few days; but it’s only
for a few, and then it’s all over with them.”
George Woodburn often thought of Betty’s quaint remarks long after
others had forgotten them, for he found something in them; and in
the course of the following spring, after Thorsby’s conversion, he
thought of these two occasions. “The harnet fled at me, and fled at
me,” said Betty, “like the owd enemy.” “This is just as he seems to
have done at Thorsby!” said George to himself. And then the bees
worshipping the bough where the queen-bee sat, for a few days,
and only for a few, as Betty said. How completely that applied to
Thorsby! His career of pulpit eloquence and repentant zeal had been
as brief as it had been dazzling. It was like the taking fire of
dry furze on a common. It was an all-consuming flame for a brief
period, and was gone, leaving a bare and blackened waste. Letty had
watched with a sad terror the decrease and disappearance of this
impetuous blaze of the soul. For a time there was a transition state
in Thorsby, which, to a spectator only concerned to observe the
singularities of character, would have been an interesting study. In
a morning he would be up as early as three o’clock, would go down
into the kitchen, where there was always a raking-coal burning, break
it up, and commence reading the Bible aloud, and with a somewhat
singing tone, accompanied by an occasional shake of the head, as
from some very impressive thought, and often with gushing showers of
tears. Before the servants came down, he would return to his bed, and
to a sound sleep, which would continue till ten o’clock, or later.
Letty, now accustomed to this habit, got a cup of coffee herself on
going down, and then waited patiently for her husband’s appearance.
He would come down sad and thoughtful, as it seemed, breakfast with
few words, and away to his warehouse. At noon he would return all
life and gaiety, and in the evening go off to his club. Yes, he was
again an associate of his old associates!—the sow had returned to
its wallowing in the mire! Yet this did not prevent him being up the
following morning, and reading aloud in his Bible with tears and
tones of pious feeling.
Such an incongruous condition could not last. The different elements
of his strange character were in conflict. The religious sentiment
was maintaining its last efforts against the levity and love of
pleasure in that unstable heart. For awhile Thorsby was the wonder
once more of his townsmen, but this time it was the wonder and the
scorn. Sad was the heart and the life of poor Letty; sad was the mood
of mind in the once happy Woodburn Grange. Thorsby had lost all power
over his own actions, yet he had not lost all feeling. Many were the
paroxysms of remorse and tears which his wife had to witness, at
first with some faint hopes, at last only with anguish and despair.
Thorsby avoided being seen in the streets as much as possible, stole
by back ways to his warehouse, and at night renewed the orgies of
his dissolute club.
George Woodburn spoke out his mind to the unfortunate man most
indignantly, most sternly; and seeing that it had no effect, he
entreated Letty to leave him, and return to Woodburn Grange. Mr.
Woodburn, who had many things now to harass him, drove over in the
day, while Thorsby was at the warehouse, and insisted that Letty
should return with him, and leave the wretched man to his inevitable
course. But Letty, worn and jaded as she now seemed by her constant
wretchedness, refused positively to leave her husband. “No,” she
said, “to the last moment I will stay by him, and try every means to
save him.”
Mrs. Heritage, who had once effected so happy a result in him, again
ventured a visit to him. It was twelve o’clock in the day. The
remains of breakfast still stood on the table; and Thorsby, in his
morning-gown and slippers, was lying on the sofa, and reading a
novel. The bloated, sickly, demoralised aspect of the man struck Mrs.
Heritage with painful astonishment. He did not rise to receive her,
but with a scowling, savage sort of look begged to know to what he
owed the honour of this visit.
“It is from a tender concern for thee, Henry Thorsby, and thy dear
wife, that I have wished to come.”
“You can bestow your tender care on my wife, then,” said Thorsby:
“she is in the house.”
“But, first,” said Mrs. Heritage, in her soft and gentle voice, “I
would like to speak a word or two to thee. I would ask thee if thou
knowest whither thou art going now? What must be the awful ultimatum
of thy present unhappy course?”
“Yes, madam, I know very well where I am going—to hell, madam, to
hell!”
“And canst thou reconcile thyself to such a thought—to the loss of
thy precious soul—to the affliction thou must bring on thy wife, thy
mother, thy child, and all that love thee?”
“Let all that alone, Mrs. Heritage,” said Thorsby. “Don’t torture me
with talk of my wife, my mother, or my child. I know all that as well
as you do; but if a man is born to be damned, not all the preachers
or preacheresses on earth can save him.”
Mrs. Heritage sat for a moment stupified by the defiant wickedness
before her; but, recovering herself, said, “No, all the powers on
earth cannot save thee; but these are not all the powers—God can save
thee.”
“But I know, madam,” said Thorsby, fiercely, “that He won’t save me.
My day of grace is over. I know myself better than you do, with all
your spirit-moving—better than that old fogie, David Qualm,—and yet
he came pretty near the truth, when he said, ‘Unstable as water, thou
shalt not excel.’ Madam, even you cannot make an empty sack stand
upright; and this sack you are talking to is empty, empty—empty of
all grace as the Devil himself. And so, good morning!”
With that, Thorsby rose up, flung down his book, and stalked out of
the room. Never in all her experience had the good Friend beheld such
a case of hardened bedevilment; never had her strong, clear mind felt
its power so baffled.
That day Letty received a note from her husband, saying that
important business at the warehouse in London required his immediate
presence, and that he was gone by the coach: he might be some weeks
away. Letty sat for some time as thunderstruck. Suddenly she sprang
up, and ran upstairs. His travelling portmanteaus were there; she
could discover no linen nor clothes taken away. His dressing-case
stood as usual on his table. What could it mean? Had he gone off
in disgust at the visit of Mrs. Heritage? Surely that could not
have caused him to go off without any change of clothes. A frightful
idea came over her—had he gone to drown or destroy himself? She had
seen him exhibit, more than once, symptoms of _delirium tremens_.
She flung on a shawl, seized her bonnet, and away to the warehouse.
Thomas Barnsdale said he certainly was gone by coach. What the
important business could be was quite unknown to him: he had heard of
nothing pressing, and he thought he should have done had there been
such.
“But what will he do without clothes? I must send after him a supply.”
“He must have taken clothes, ma’am,” said Thomas Barnsdale. “He took
a large new portmanteau with him, for the porter carried it to the
coach.”
Letty was more and more confounded. Then this flight was
preconcerted! She left the warehouse without a word, and returned
home with a heart loaded to its last power of endurance with misery.
What should she do? Go after him? No. Seek counsel from her parents,
and brother, and sister? No. She shrunk from communicating and
diffusing her distress. She sat down and wrote to him at the London
warehouse a letter which must have touched a harder heart than
Thorsby’s. Return of post brought a letter full of expressions of
love and regret, that he was obliged to go away so suddenly, but
bidding her be of good cheer, and make herself happy till his return.
That letter did not much lighten Letty’s trouble. The late conduct
and habits of Thorsby, and this going away evidently on a concerted
plan, were things not to be got over. Very, very sad was that once
so gay heart. But Letty determined not to give up all hope lightly.
She wrote again to her husband, and received again a cheerful, loving
reply. She resolved to set herself to look after the business
with Thomas Barnsdale, and by attendance at the counting-house, to
dissipate the thoughts which haunted her solitude. Thomas Barnsdale
seemed pleased at her thinking of business, and explained matters
concerning which he wanted advice, but which Mr. Thorsby of late did
not give. Letty caught up the main ideas of the business rapidly, and
Barnsdale said it would be the salvation of the concern if she gave
her attention to it. Most of the day she spent at the counting-house,
and the nurse and little Leonard came to her every now and then. The
correspondence betwixt her and her husband went on with a fair and
even loving tone.
But one day Thomas Barnsdale received her in the counting-house
with a very distressed air, closed the door after her, and having
carefully locked it, produced a letter, saying that he was compelled
to break to her very unhappy news.
“What!” exclaimed Letty, springing from her chair, “is Henry dead?
Oh, tell me quickly—what is it?”
“No, madam,” said Barnsdale; “but I lament to say, he is dead to
shame and honour.”
Letty seized the letter and read. It was one in confidence from the
agent at the London warehouse, a respectable and trustworthy man, to
say, that Mr. Thorsby was actually living in Bond-street with a young
woman whom he had brought up from Castleborough with him. Letty let
fall the letter, and sank into the chair. Long she sat as in a swoon,
yet her eyes were open and gazing on the opposite wall. Barnsdale was
alarmed and was about to run for help, but suddenly Letty seized him
by the arm, and heaving a deep, deep sigh, said, woefully,—“This is
beyond all!—beyond all! How have I deserved this?”
“Dear madam,” said Mr. Barnsdale, “this is intolerable—it is not to
be endured. Though I lose my office, I will instantly to London. I
will drag that woman from his house. I will compel this unhappy man
to return home.”
“No! no! Mr. Barnsdale, that must not be,” said Letty, drawing her
hand across her brow as if bewildered. “I am so dizzy!—but that must
not be. Stay you here. You cannot leave this post. I will go myself.”
“You go, madam! No, you cannot—must not.”
“Yes, I _will_ go myself. O God, what a misery! But run, Mr.
Barnsdale, secure the whole inside of the three o’clock coach, if
possible. I will be ready.”
Barnsdale looked aghast, perplexed to absolute despair; but Letty
hastened away, and sent off the carriage post-haste for her brother
George. She then set to work, ordered the nurse to be ready with
the child for an instant journey to London; put up a few things
for herself, and awaited her brother. In less than two hours he
was there, and the awful disclosure made. George was furious. Like
Barnsdale, he was for going off at once and inflicting summary
vengeance on the traitor. “What a viper! what a devil!” he exclaimed;
“but he shall repent this foul, this diabolical wrong. Oh, my poor,
dear Letty!” and he embraced his sister with passionate tears.
But Letty succeeded in showing him that it was better for her to go.
She would take the child—that would move him if anything would—and
George should accompany her to support her when it was necessary.
George set off in haste for a change of linen and overcoat, and
at three o’clock the sad party were seated in the London coach.
Barnsdale had luckily secured the whole inside, so that, the nurse
travelling occasionally outside well wrapped up, George and Letty
could talk freely on their melancholy topic, and the child could lie
during the night on the front seat as snug as in his cradle.
We must not describe that sad, long, and for the most part silent
journey. About ten in the morning the coach drove into the court
of that old-fashioned, but then greatly frequented inn, the
Swan-with-Two-Necks, in Lad-lane. There they descended, washed,
redressed, and made such a breakfast as people in their state of mind
could. George sent out into Wood-street to inquire if Mr. Thorsby was
yet at the warehouse, and received for reply that he was not expected
till twelve o’clock. A coach was at once ordered, and the whole party
entered it and drove to Bond-street. It was stopped within fifty
yards of the house sought, and George and Letty descended and walked
on, followed by the nurse and child, which looked as bright as a
child of six months can after a night’s journey, through which it
had slept like a top, and in a world whose trouble does not concern
it. Arrived at the door, Letty seemed as though she would sink, but
George encouraged her to hold up and go through it in reliance on
God. The door was opened by a servant, who asked their names, and
said she would inquire if Mr. Thorsby were in. But Letty did not give
her the opportunity of bringing a “No;” she took the child in her
arms, and followed on the servant’s heels.
“You had better wait here, ma’am,” said the servant.
“Go on!” said Letty, authoritatively.
The girl looked astonished, but obeyed. Ascending the first flight of
stairs, she opened a door into a large and handsomely furnished room,
and said, “A lady, sir!”
Letty stepped in, and stood with the child on her arm. There sat the
delinquent husband, in his morning-gown and slippers, reading the
newspaper, and on the opposite side of the breakfast-table sat a very
handsome young woman, of by no means unamiable appearance. The sight
of Letty, however, produced a wondrous change. Thorsby started to his
feet, and stood as rooted to the ground. His look was that rather
of a ghost than of a living man. Pale as death, he trembled from
head to foot like an aspen leaf. His female friend stood, a monument
of terror, shame, and confusion. It was evident that she knew Mrs.
Thorsby perfectly. But Letty, with a calmness with which heaven
itself must have endowed her, advanced to Thorsby, and said, holding
up the child towards him, “My dear Henry, I am not come to reproach
you, but to reclaim you. Let this young woman retire, I would speak
to you alone.”
Thorsby made a hasty movement with his hand, and the young woman as
hastily retired, evidently glad to escape.
“My dear Henry,” said Letty, pale as marble, yet bearing up with
wonderful firmness, “this little child wants its father; your loving
and ever-faithful wife wants her husband; your poor, afflicted, and
now very sick mother, wants her son. There, take your child, embrace
it, love it, and come home with us.”
Thorsby gasped, as for breath. He would have spoken, but he could
not. He seized the child convulsively, and, bursting into a passion
of sobs and tears, covered it with kisses. He sat down, and, bending
over it, wept excessively. Letty softly fell on her knees at his
feet, laid her hand on his, looked up to him with streaming eyes, and
there was a long silence. As the storm of Thorsby’s emotion somewhat
subsided, Letty said, “And now, dear Henry, let us go. Let that
unhappy girl return to her friends, or be provided for; let her not
be cast forth to utter ruin. And for us, let us return to our own
home, to a new life, and to constant prayers for unfailing strength
to do our duty. Come, come! let us away at once.”
“No, Letty, no!” exclaimed Thorsby, with a haggard look; “I can never
return. I am a disgraced man. I can never show my face in our own
town again. Go! be as happy as you can! I will give you everything;
but return—for me—never!”
“And yet you _must_ return, dear Henry. I cannot let you go to
perdition. I have vowed to take you for better for worse, and I will
stand by you to the _very_ worst. Think not of temporary shame—think
of your own precious, eternal soul! Think of your child, your mother.
Think of me, if you yet—if you ever loved me!”
“Loved you!” Thorsby stamped on the ground. “Letty Woodburn, I never
loved but you! That name has been my life, my inspiration, my shield,
but at last it failed me. Satan was too strong in me. Never, never,
can I again pollute you by my presence. I am a God-abandoned man! He
has lifted me up only to cast me down beyond redemption. Nothing,
nothing, can restore me.”
“Remember the prodigal son,” said Letty. “Remember the all,
all-forgiving Father. Oh, return, return! and all may yet be well. If
you will not return, think! what good shall my life do me? What shall
be the sad, awful career of this dear babe without a father—with only
the sad, sad story of one! Come, oh, come home. George is here; he
will show you how all will forgive and forget.”
“George!” exclaimed Thorsby, and seeming inspired with sudden
madness; “George! let him not come in—I cannot bear it. If he
comes”—he snatched a pistol from a side-table—“if he comes here, I
will put this bullet through my brain.”
Letty stood terror-stricken. She saw that all hope of inducing him to
face his old connections was hopeless.
“Put that down,” said Letty, sternly; “you terrify me. George will
not come unasked; and if you will not return to Castleborough, I
will come and live in London.”
“You!” said Thorsby. “You, who love the country so, whose heart has
so many ties there!”
“I can do it willingly,” said Letty. “I can be very happy with you
and dear little Leonard anywhere. My greatest ties are here.”
“It cannot be,” said Thorsby, assuming an awful look. “Angels of
light and devils cannot dwell together. I say, once for all, go, and
leave me to my fate, or I will end it on this spot.”
Letty started back with the child in her arms, which clung affrighted
to her bosom, and with a wild and long-fixed look, said, “Then
farewell! but oh, no, not for ever! not for ever!” and with that she
opened the door, gave one other last look at the unhappy man as he
stood ghastly and motionless—a look of misery beyond all words—then
disappeared. George saw her coming, still and tearless, clasping the
child to her heart, and he knew that her loving attempt had failed.
He supported her tenderly to the cab, and drove back to the inn.
“Let us get home, dear George,” she said, as they entered the inn; “I
would not die here,” and she shuddered.
“Die!” said George. “No, dearest, you shall not die. You will not die
for the faithlessness of a bad man; you must live for us and for your
child. But we will away home at once.”
He laid his unhappy sister on the sofa, and rang for wine. “Take
some refreshment, dear Letty, and we will be off at once.” Letty
took a glass of wine mechanically, and closing her eyes, looked
like a beautiful corpse. George ordered a post-chaise, and so they
posted all the way down. Letty lay through the journey as in a sort
of trance, with a passive marble look, but still conscious, and
answering in a whisper to her brother’s anxious questions. This state
continued after they reached home.
“It is a blessing of God,” said the physicians who were called in;
“the enormous strain of the mind has exhausted her animal powers—and
it is well: a different action, and the brain must have felt the
shock, and could not have borne it. Let her remain so. If she can
take nourishment, well; but for some time let her rest. Let us hope
that no violent reaction will take place, when we shall have to fear
delirium, and, perhaps, actual insanity.”
The news of these events—of the heroic endeavours of Letty to reclaim
her husband, and of her present critical state—brought her mother and
sister instantly to her side. Under their tender care the judicious
system of the physicians was carefully carried out; and in a few
days’ time tears were seen stealing beneath the eyelashes of Letty;
her mother gently kissed her, and she raised her arms and clasped
them round her neck. Without opening her eyes, she was conscious of
the presence of Ann, and put out her hand to clasp her, and then she
lay and wept long and silently. Her dear, watching relations soon
found that she was perfectly conscious of all that had passed; but a
wondrous calm had come over her, and she said to her mother and Ann,
“Do not be anxious about me. I shall soon be better. I must live as
one of God’s children, to bear His rod, and to seek to save the lost.
Promise me never to blame him in my presence. Join with me in prayer
daily, nightly, incessant prayer, for his recovery. That is the
business of my life now. If I succeed in the end it will be worth all
the earth can send of sorrow and suffering.”
In a few weeks Letty was about again. A pale, thin, serious, but
energetic-looking woman. Could that be the once laughing, blithe,
singing Letty? It was the same bright, pure spirit, saddened but
ennobled by the ordeal of trial and distress, and by a life’s aim
the noblest and most sacred that ever lifted a womanly soul into the
regions of a wisdom beyond her years. She soon returned her attention
to business. Closely veiled, she walked silently through the quietest
streets from her house to the warehouse; but the marked respect, the
lifted hats of the gentlemen, the regardful and sympathising looks
of ladies, and the deep curtseys of humbler women, as she passed,
showed what a sensation the narrative of her doings and sufferings
had created in the place. Thomas Barnsdale, by his silent, respectful
attention, showed the same effect on him. One of the first papers
that he put into her hand, was a deed of gift, regularly drawn by
a legal hand, and duly executed by Thorsby, making over to her and
their son the whole of the property and trade in Castleborough.
He had reserved only to himself the business in London, which,
as a commission business, received the goods manufactured at
Castleborough, and exported them on a percentage. This deeply
affected Letty. It showed that amid all the weakness and impulsive
folly of her husband, there were great redeeming qualities in him,
and she was more than ever resolved to hope for his final recovery,
and to devote her life to that object. Her father, tremendously
incensed against him, told her to leave the business to Barnsdale,
and the house to Thorsby’s mother, and come back to Woodburn Grange,
where the tenderest love awaited her. But Letty held to her wiser
course. Old Mrs. Thorsby, already in ill health, was completely
broken down by these last unhappy events, and could not last long.
Letty would not leave her, but attended her with every loving care.
To make the business more secure, she gave Thomas Barnsdale a
certain share in it, of which he was equally deserving, from his
faithfulness and unwearied attention to its interests.
Not many weeks, however, passed without another blow from the evil
fate which now seemed to be pursuing Thorsby and his family. Letty
received a letter from her husband, informing her that his agent
in New York had absconded with 5000_l._ of his money, and left the
goods in the warehouse there very much exposed. He was that moment
departing for Liverpool to embark for America. When he might return
was uncertain; but if God could hear the prayer of such a wretch,
he prayed for all His blessings on her and their dear child. Letty,
struck as with a sudden wound, hastened to the counting-house to
inform Mr. Barnsdale of this startling news. She found that he
already was in possession of it.
“What is the extent of the hazard?” she asked. “Will it ruin us?”
“Oh no;” said Mr. Barnsdale. “If the money is not recovered—as very
likely it may not: that continent is vast; it is very much like
hunting a needle in a truss of hay, hunting a rogue in it—then there
are 5000_l._ gone. The stock, I see, in the New York store is, or
should be, about 5000_l._ more in value: 10,000_l._”
“That is a great deal,” said Letty.
“Yes; a great deal too much to lose,” replied Barnsdale; “but we can
bear a good deal more than that. It may hamper our money accounts
a little; but I am happy to say that Mr. Heritage has sent me word
that he is prepared to assist us at a pinch to a large amount. That,
madam, we owe to his high esteem of you.” He might have added, and to
his own confidence-inspiring character. “And,” added Mr. Barnsdale,
“do not let this event distress you. In my opinion it may prove the
very reverse of what it seems. Mr. Thorsby has wonderful energies in
his nature, strangely linked, it must be said, with sad weaknesses;
but let him once be roused in some important cause, and the latent
forces will be sure to come out. See what a wonderful eloquence he
displayed, before unknown to everybody—unknown to himself. I am sure
he will pursue this unblushing rogue to the very extremities of the
earth. He has all the spirit of the hunter in him, and nothing in the
world could be so beneficial to him as such an excitement and chase.”
“Pray God it may be so,” said Letty.
“Amen and Amen,” said Barnsdale, with much devotion.
The very next day, Mrs. Heritage, to her extreme surprise, received
a letter, dated Liverpool, from Thorsby. In this he made a late but
earnest apology for his former rude return to her well-intentioned
admonitions, and now begged, as a parting favour, a few lines from
her as “a comfort to him on the deep waters.”
Mrs. Heritage sat for a short time in silence, and then wrote this
reply:—
“FRIEND HENRY THORSBY,
“I think I may address thee as friend when our dear Redeemer so
addressed his betrayer, Judas Iscariot. Thou askest me for comfort on
the deep waters; but what comfort can there be to an alien from God?
What peace can there be to the wicked? Yes! I will pray for thee! as
thou desirest. I will pray earnestly that God will send thee troubles
upon troubles. That he will toss thee with tempests on the ocean,
and chase thee with misfortunes on land. I will pray that thou mayst
suffer wrong, and robbery, and deceit, and betrayal. That thou mayst
drink to the dregs of that cup of injury, and shame, and sorrow, that
thou hast been so lavishly pouring out for others who should have
been dear to thee as thy own soul. I forget—thy own soul is not dear
to thee; more and sadder pity. I will pray for heart-soreness, and
weariness of soul, for perils in cities and in deserts upon thee. For
shattered prospects, ruined hopes, ruin of goods and good name, and
for pursuit of measures and cruelties unto the verge of death. Mayst
thou be solitary and forsaken, as thou hast left others of whom thou
wert not worthy; may sickness overtake thee where there is none to
tend or soothe. May the blackness and the shadow of death overtake
thy soul and overwhelm thee with the terrors of hell. May its
torments seize on thy vitals and consume all that is within thee of
vile, and base, and unholy. And when the tempest and the earthquake
have done their mission on thee, mayst thou be favoured to hear the
still, small voice, which comes only to the ear opened by a pardoning
God. All these woes I wish thee, not from anger or a spirit of
unworthy vengeance, but from that love which is over all, and yearns
after all that lives. Knowest thou not that the hard ground must
first be torn up and rent in pieces by the plough and harrows of the
husbandman before it can receive the seed of a new harvest? May the
hard ground of thy heart, Henry Thorsby, be thus ploughed up and
harrowed in sunder, for so only do I believe that it can be reduced
to that soft and plastic state in which the seed of divine grace can
once more grow. And that it may be so will be the daily prayer, the
earnest wrestlings of the soul of one who would rejoice over thy
recall to the paths of virtue and of heaven, as over a dearly beloved
son. Thy friend in the truth, and the love which is indestructible
and unfathomable,
“REBECCA HERITAGE.”
Thorsby received and read this letter in a profound silence: in
silence he arose, thrust it into his pocket, and walked solemnly
on board. The winds are bearing him away on a long and arduous
pilgrimage. Let us leave him awhile to the unseen but ever-present
hand which pursues with the scourge, but forgets not the balm.