SUNLIGHT.
Ministering friends--Watching--Past all tears--Taken home--The dark
valley.
The summer sunlight lay thick about the room where Mrs Campbell was
dying. There was a square of deep blue sky, edged by the window frame,
glistening before her eyes--eyes that now were lighted up with the
fervour of a holy death--eyes that glowed in sweet anticipation of that
pure light which shines forever on the hills of heaven.
The silence of the room was only broken now and then by the few
soothing words the doctor's wife would say or read. Mrs Valentine sat
on the farther side of the bed, her eyes red with weeping; and, from
time to time, tried to get some nourishment into the poor weak lips,
though she knew well the while that all these tender ministerings were
in vain. It was a lonely death for the dying one, even though she had
these two good friends with her. He who had loved, and loved her
still, so well, could not be there to hear her last words on earth.
She must lay her head in other arms than his, and give up her soul to
God, without a farewell word from him, without one prayer together
uttered, that God would hasten the time of their meeting in that land
where partings are unknown. No! She must die without the presence of
her nearest, dearest one on earth, while he was beating out upon the
great waters of the ocean.
In the morning after Harry had started for school, Mrs Campbell, in a
violent fit of coughing, had broken a blood-vessel. In her present
state this meant speedy and certain death. And Dr Bromley, when he
returned home, after having seen her, had told his wife that Mrs
Campbell could not last more than two or three hours. So, sending at
once to the Grammar-School to request Doctor Palmer to allow Harry to
go home immediately, the tender-hearted Mrs Bromley started for the
farm.
And there she sat reading and speaking words of comfort to the dying
wife, watching and fearing each moment would be the last. She was Mrs
Campbell's only friend save Mrs Valentine. It is true the vicar had
been to visit her several times, but under such painful circumstances
the absence of one so near and dear as her husband made her almost
inconsolable. Her parents had both been dead some years, and she was
their only child. And as it often happens, while so many people have
relations in numbers almost too abundant, she had none. Her only great
friends were in Malta, friends whom she had known in the dear old days,
when all seemed so bright and hopeful before her. It was therefore but
natural that she should cling to the doctor's good wife; and thus their
friendship, born as it was of a time of sorrow and suffering, was one
of pure and holy comfort to them both.
And the morning crept on, with words of heaven softly uttered by the
living, and drunk in with eager ears by the dying; and outside the
birds sang, and the green trees whispered, stretching out their tiny
leaf-hands to the caressant breezes, and all was summery there
without,--all was sunshine and gladness. And through the heedless
village ran Harry, heart-broken and afraid, and entered, from the
brightness, his mother's peaceful room of death. He was past all
crying now. The tears seemed dried up in one great burning spot within
his brain. He stood quietly by the bed, longing to hear that
well-known voice, but not daring to speak; she lay so still he scarcely
knew whether she were alive or really dead.
"Here is Harry, dear Mrs Campbell," said the doctor's wife; "he has
come from school. Don't you know him? Here he is."
She turned her large grey eyes upon her boy for some time without
recognising him. Then, at last, opening her arms, said:
"Harry, darling, is that you? I'm going away now--going to heaven.
You'll always be a good boy, won't you?"
"Mamma, mamma, you _do_ believe I'm innocent, don't you?" said Harry.
He could not let her die without hearing once more from own lips her
trustful confidence in him.
"Yes, darling boy, I know you have spoken the truth. Kiss me now," she
whispered, her voice growing weaker. "Good-bye, darling Harry; God
bless you! Good-bye, dear Mrs Bromley. Good-bye, Mrs Valentine. God
will reward you!" And then her voice was hardly audible as she
murmured to herself, "Buried at Wilton, and Alan will come and see my
grave. Alan, darling Alan, God is taking me home." And then as a
heavenly light shone through her eyes, her voice regained its strength.
"Into thy hand, O Lord I commend my spirit!" and so she died.
Harry's face was pressed close to hers, and his burning tears now fell
thick upon the lifeless cheek.
"Oh! mamma, mamma," he sobbed, "what shall I do? what shall I do?"
And, sinking on the floor, he wept as though his heart would break.
Mrs Bromley and the farmer's wife were too much wrapt in their own
grief to stir to comfort him. So the three wept there together, in the
quiet little farm beside old Wilton church; while she, for whom they
wept, now henceforth knew no more sorrow, no more pain, nor any tears;
and still outside the birds sang on unwitting, and, from without, the
summer brightness mocked the darkness that was within--the darkness of
the valley of the shadow of death.