The steamer sailed promptly on the Thursday subsequent to Mrs.
Lindsay's departure from the parsonage, but she had been absent ten
days, detained by the illness of a friend in Boston.
Impatiently her return was anticipated by every member of the
household, and when a telegram announced that she might be expected
on the following morning, general rejoicing succeeded the gloom which
had hung chill and lowering over the diminished family circle. Under
Hannah's faithful, cautious treatment Regina had sufficiently
recovered from the effects of the sprain to walk once more without
much pain, though she still limped perceptibly; but a nameless,
formless foreboding of some impending evil--some baleful
influence--some grievous calamity hovering near--rendered her
particularly anxious for Mrs. Lindsay's comforting presence.
The condition of the church, which was undergoing a complete
renovation, as well as repairing of the steeple, prevented the usual
services, and this compulsory rest and leisure seemed singularly
opportune for Mr. Hargrove, who had been quite indisposed and feeble
for some days. The physician ascribed his condition to the lassitude
induced by the excessive heat, and Regina attributed his pale weary
aspect and evident prostration to grief for the loss of his nephew
and adopted son; but Hannah looked deeper, shook her grizzled head,
and "wished Miss Elise would come home."
The pastor's eyes which had long resented the exaggerated taxation
imposed upon them by years of study, had recently rebelled outright,
and he spoke of the necessity of visiting New York to consult an
eminent oculist, who, Mrs. Lindsay wrote, had gone to Canada, but
would return in September, when he hoped to examine and undertake the
treatment of her brother's eyes.
During Thursday morning the minister lay upon his library sofa, while
Regina read aloud for several hours, but in the afternoon, receiving
a summons to attend a sick man belonging to his church, he persisted
in walking to a distant part of the town, to discharge what he
considered a clerical obligation.
In vain Regina protested, assuring him that the heat and fatigue
would completely prostrate him. He only smiled, patted her head, and
said cheerfully as he put on his hat:
"Is the little girl wiser than her guardian? And has she not yet
learned that a pastor's duty knows neither heat nor cold, neither
fatigue nor bodily weaknesses?"
"I am so glad Mrs. Lindsay will come to-morrow. She can keep you at
home, and make you take care of yourself."
Holding his sleeve, she followed him to the front door, and detained
him a moment, to fasten in the button-hole of his coat a tuberose and
sprig of heliotrope, his favourite flowers.
"Thank you, my dear. You have learned all of Elise's pretty petting
tricks, and some day you will be, I hope, just such a noble,
tender-hearted woman. While I am gone, look after the young guineas;
I have not seen them since yesterday. I shall not stay very long."
He walked away, and she went out among the various pets in the
poultry yard.
It was late in August, but the afternoon was unusually close and
warm, and argosies of frail creamy clouds with saffron shadows seemed
becalmed in the still upper air, which was of that peculiar blue that
betokens turbid ether, and hints at showers.
About sunset Regina rolled the large easy chair out on the verandah
at the west of the library, and, placing a table in front of it,
busied herself in arranging the pastor's evening meal. It consisted
of white home-made lightbread, a pineapple of golden butter, deftly
shaped and printed by her own slender hands, a glass bowl filled
with honey from the home hives--honey that resembled melted amber in
cells of snow, a tiny pyramid of baked apples, and a goblet of iced
milk.
Upon a spotless square of damask daintily fringed she placed the
supper, and in the centre a crystal vase filled with beautiful Cloth
of Gold and Prince Albert roses, among which royal crimson and white
carnations held up their stately heads and exhaled marvellous
fragrance. Upon the snowy napkin beside the solitary plate, she left
a Grand Duke jasmine lying on the heart of a rose-geranium leaf.
"Has he come?" asked Hannah, throwing wide the Venetian blinds.
"Not yet; but he must be here very soon."
"Well, I am going to milk. Dapple has been lowing these ten minutes
to let me know I am behind time. I waited to see if a cup of tea
would be wanted, but it is getting late. If he should ask for it, the
kettle is boiling, and I guess you can make it in a minute. I have
lighted the lamp and turned it down low."
She went toward the cattle-shed, swinging her copper milk-pail, which
was burnished to a degree of ruddy glory beautiful to contemplate,
and which, alas! is rarely seen in this age of new fashions and
new-fashioned utensils.
"Come, Hero, let us go and meet the master."
But Regina had not left the verandah before Mr. Hargrove came slowly
towards the easy chair, walking wearily, she thought, as if spent
with fatigue.
"How tired you are! Give me your hat and cane."
"Yes, dear--very tired. I had something like vertigo, accompanied by
severe palpitation as I came home, and was obliged to sit on the
roadside till it passed."
"Let me send for Dr. Melville."
"You silly soft-souled young pigeon! These attacks are not dangerous,
merely annoying while they last."
"Perhaps a cup of tea will strengthen you?"
"Thank you, dear; but I believe I prefer some cool water."
She brought a tumbler of iced water, and a stool which she placed
beneath his feet.
"How delicious! worth all the tea in China; all the wine in Spain."
He handed back the empty glass, and sank down in his comfortable
chair.
"How did you find Mr. Needham?"
"Much worse than when I saw him last. He had another hemorrhage
to-day, and is evidently sinking. I should not so surprised if I were
recalled before to-morrow, for his poor wife is almost frantic and
wished me to remain all night; but I knew you were lonely here."
The exertion of speaking wearied him, and he laid his head back, and
closed his eyes.
"Won't you eat your supper? It will help you; and your milk is
already iced."
"I will try after a while, when I have rested a little. My child, you
are very good to anticipate my wants. I noticed all you have done for
me, and the flowers are lovely; so deliciously sweet too."
He opened his eyes, took the Grand Duke, smelled it, smiled and
stroked her hand which rested on the arm of his chair.
Scarlet plumes and dashes of cirrus cloud that glowed like
sacrificial fires upon the altar of the west, paled, flickered, died
out in ashen grey; and a moon more gold than silver hung in
shimmering splendour among the cloud ships, lending a dazzling fringe
to their edges, and making quaint arabesque patterns of gilt
embroidery on the verandah floor, where the soft light fell through
interlacing vines of woodbine and honeysuckle. With the night came
silence, broken only by the subdued plaint of the pigeons in the
neighbouring yard, and the cooing or a pair of pet ring-doves that
slept in the honeysuckle, and were kept awake by the moonshine which
invaded their nest, and tempted them to gossip. After awhile a
whipporwill which haunted the churchyard elms drew gradually nearer,
finally settling upon a deodar cedar in the flower garden, whence it
poured forth its lonely _miserere_ wail.
Mr. Hargrove sat so still, that Regina hoped he had fallen asleep,
but very soon he said:
"My dear, you need not fan me."
"I hoped you were sleeping, and that a nap would refresh you."
He took her hand, pressed it gently, and said with the grave
tenderness peculiar to him:
"What a thoughtful good little nurse you are! Almost as watchful and
patient as Elise. Have you had your supper?"
"All that I want, some bread and milk. Hero and I ate our supper
before you came. Shall I bring your slippers?"
"Thank you, I believe not. Before long I will go to sleep. Regina,
open the organ, and play something soft and holy, with the Tremulant.
Sing me that dear old 'Protect us through the coming eight,' which my
Douglass loves so well."
"I wish I could, but you know, sir, it is a quartette; and beside, I
should never get through my part: it reminds me so painfully of the
last time we all sang it."
"Well then, my little girl, something else. 'Oh that I had wings like
a dove!' To-night I am almost like a weary child, and only need a
lullaby to hush me to sleep. Go, dear, and sing me to rest."
Reluctantly she obeyed, brightened the library lamp, and sat down
before the cabinet organ which had been brought over to the parsonage
for safe keeping while the church was being repaired. As she
pulled out the stops, Hannah touched her.
"Has he finished his supper? Can I move the dishes and table?"
"Not yet. He is too tired just now to eat."
"Then I will wait here. To tell you the truth, I have a queer feeling
that scares me, makes my flesh creep. While I was straining the milk
just now, a screech-owl flew on the top of the dairy, and its awful
death-warning almost froze the blood in my veins. How I do wish Miss
Elise was here! I hope it is not a sign of a railroad accident to
her, or that the vessel is lost that carried her boy!"
"Hush, you superstitious old Hannah! I often hear that screech-owl,
and it is only hunting for mice. Mrs. Lindsay will come to-morrow."
Her fingers wandered over the keys, and in a sweet, pure, and
remarkably clear voice she sang "Oh that I had wings." With great
earnestness and pathos she rendered the final "to be at rest,"
lingering long on the "Amen."
Then she began one of Mozart's symphonies, and from it glided away
into favourite selections from Rossini's "Moïse."
Once afloat upon the mighty tide of sacred music she drifted on and
on, now into a requiem, now a "Gloria," and at last the grand
triumphant strains of the pastor's favourite "Jubilate" rolled
through the silent house, out upon the calm lustrous summer night.
Of the flight of time she had taken no cognizance, and as she closed
the organ and rose she heard the clock striking nine, and saw that
Hannah was nodding in a corner of the sofa.
Surprised at the lateness of the hour, she stepped out on the
verandah, and approached the arm chair.
The moon had sunk so low that its light had been diminished, but the
reflection from the library lamp prevented total darkness. Mr.
Hargrove had not moved from the posture in which she left him, and
she said very softly:
"Are you asleep?"
He made no answer, and, unwilling to arouse him, she sat down on the
step to wait until he finished his nap.
As the moon went down a light breeze sprang from some blue depths of
the far west, and began to skim the frail foamy clouds that drifted
imperceptibly across the star-lit sky; and to the crystal fingers of
the dew the numerous flowers in the garden below yielded a generous
tribute of perfume that blended into a wave of varied aromas, and
rolled to and fro in the cool night air. Calm, sweet and holy, the
night seemed a very benison, dispensing peace.
Watching the white fire of constellations burning in the vault above
her, Regina wondered whether it were a fair night far out at sea, if
the same glittering stellar clusters swung above the deck of the
noble vessel that had been for many days upon the ocean, or if the
storm fiend held cyclone carnival upon the distant Atlantic.
Her thoughts wandered toward the future, that _terra incognita_ which
Mr. Lindsay's vague words--"There are trials ahead of you"--had
peopled with dread yet intangible phantoms, whose spectral shadows
solemnly presageful, hovered over even the present. Why was her own
history a sealed volume--her father a mystery--her mother a wanderer
in foreign lands?
From this most unprofitable train of reflection she was gradually
recalled by the restless singular behaviour of her dog. He had been
lying near the table, with his head on his paws, but rose, whined,
came close to his mistress and caught her sleeve between his
teeth--his usual mode of attracting her attention.
"What is it, Hero? Are you hungry?"
He barked, ran to the easy chair, rubbed his nose against the
pastor's hand, came back whining to Regina, and finally returning to
the chair, sat down, bent his head to the pastor's feet and uttered a
prolonged and dismal howl.
An undefinable horror made the girl spring toward the chair.
The sleeper had not moved, and stooping over she put her hand on his
forehead. The cold damp touch terrified her, and with a cry of
"Hannah! Oh, Hannah!" she darted into the library, and seized the
lamp. By its light held close to the quiet figure, she saw that the
eyes were closed as in slumber, and the lips half parted, as though
in dreaming he had smiled; but the features were rigid, the hands
stiff and cold, and she could feel no flutter in the wrists or
temples.
"Oh, my God! he is dead!" screamed Hannah, wringing her hands, and
uttering a succession of shrieks, while like a statue of despair the
girl stood staring almost vacantly at the white placid face of the
dead. At last, shuddering from head to foot, she exclaimed:
"Run for Dr. Melville! Run, Hannah! you can go faster now than I
could."
"What is the use? He is dead! stone dead!"
"Perhaps not--he may revive. Oh, Hannah! why don't you go?"
"Leave you alone in the house--with a corpse?"
"Run--run! Tell the doctor to hurry. He may do something."
As the old servant disappeared, Regina fell on her knees, and seizing
the right hand, carried it to her lips; then began to chafe it
violently between her own trembling palms.
"O Lord, spare him a little while! Spare him till his sister comes?"
She rushed into the library, procured some brandy which was kept in
the medicine chest, and with the aid of a spoon tried to force some
down his throat, but the muscles refused to relax, and, pouring the
brandy on her handkerchief, she rubbed his face and the hand she had
already chafed. In the left he tightly held the jasmine, as when he
spoke to her last, and she shrank from touching those fingers.
Finding no change in the fixed white face she took off his shoes and
rubbed his feet with mustard, but no effect encouraged her, and
finally she sat, praying silently, holding the feet tenderly against
her heart.
How long lasted that lonely vigil with the dead, she never knew. Hope
deserted her, and by degrees she realized the awful truth that the
arrival of the physician so impatiently expected would bring no
succour. How bitterly she upbraided herself for leaving him a moment,
even though in obedience to his wishes. Perhaps he had called and the
organ had drowned his voice.
Had he died while she sang, and was his spirit already with God when
she repeated the words "Far away in the regions of the blest"? When
she came on tiptoe, and asked, "Are you asleep?" was he indeed verily
"Asleep in Jesus"? While she waited, fearful of disturbing his
slumber, was his released and rejoicing soul nearing the pearly
battlements of the City of Rest, lead by God's most pitying and
tender angel, loving yet silent Death?
When will humanity reject and disown the hideous, ruthless monster
its own disordered fancy fashioned, and accept instead the beautiful
Oriental Azrael, the most ancient "Help of God," who is sent in
infinite mercy to guide the weary soul into the blessed realm of
Peace?
"O Land! O Land!
For all the broken-hearted,
The mildest herald by our fate allotted--
Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand,
To lead us with a gentle hand
Into the Land of the great departed,--
Into the Silent Land."
When the solemn silence that hung like a pall over the parsonage was
broken by the hurried tread of many feet and the confused sound of
strange voices, Regina seemed to be aroused from some horrible
lethargy, and gazed despairingly at the doctor.
"It is too late. You can't do anything for him now," she said,
clinging to his feet, as an attempt was made to lift them from her
lap.
"He must have been dead several hours," answered Dr. Melville.
"None but God and the angels know when he died. I thought he had gone
to sleep; and so indeed he had."
Hannah had spread the alarm, while searching for the doctor, and very
soon Mr. Hargrove's personal friends and some of the members of the
congregation thronged the library, into which the body of the
minister had been removed.
An hour afterward Dr. Melville, having searched for the girl all over
the house, found her crouched on the steps leading down to the flower
garden. She sat with her arm around Hero's neck, and her head bowed
against him. Seating himself beside her, the physician said:
"Poor child, this is an awful ordeal for you, and in Dr. Hargrove's
death you have lost a friend whom the whole world cannot replace. He
was the noblest man, the purest Christian, I ever knew, and if the
church has a hundred pastors in future, none will ever equal him. He
married me, he baptized my children, and when I buried my wife, his
voice brought me the most comfort, the----"
His tone faltered, and a brief silence ensued.
"Regina, I wish you would tell me as nearly as you can how he seemed
to-day, and how it all happened. I could get nothing satisfactory put
of old Hannah."
She described the occurrences of the morning, his debility and entire
lack of appetite, and the long walk in the afternoon, followed by the
attack of vertigo and palpitation, to which he alluded after his
return. When she concluded her recital of the last terrible scene in
the melancholy drama, Dr. Melville sighed, and said:
"It has ended just as I feared, and predicted. His heart has been
affected for some time, and not a month ago I urged him to give up
his pulpit work for a while at least, and try rest and change of air.
But he answered that he considered his work imperative, and when he
died it would be with the harness on. He would not permit me to
allude to the subject in the presence of his family, because he told
me he did not wish to alarm his sister, who is so devoted to him, or
render the parting with his nephew more painful, by adding
apprehensions concerning his health. I fear his grief at the loss of
Douglass has hastened the end."
"When Mrs. Lindsay comes to-morrow it will kill her," groaned Regina,
whose soul seemed to grow sick, as she thought of the devoted fond
sister, and the anguish that awaited her already bruised and aching
heart.
"No, sorrow does not kill people, else the race would become
extinct."
"It has killed Mr. Hargrove."
"Not sorrow, but the disease, which sorrow may have aggravated."
"Mrs. Lindsay would not go to India with her son, because she said
she could not leave her brother whose sight was failing, and who
needed her most. Now she has lost both. Oh, I wish I could run away
to-morrow, somewhere, anywhere, out of sight of her misery!"
"Some one must meet her at the train, and prepare her for the sad
news. My dear child, you would be the best person for that melancholy
task."
"I? Never! I would cut off my tongue before it should stab her heart
with such awful news! Are people ever prepared for trouble like
this?"
"Well, somebody must do it; but, like you, I am not brave enough to
meet her with the tidings. When it is necessary, I can amputate
limbs, and do a great many apparently cruel things, but when it
conies to breaking such bad news as this I am a nervous coward. Mr.
Campbell is a kind, tenderhearted friend of the family, and I will
request him to take a carriage and meet her to-morrow. Poor thing!
what a welcome home!"
Soon after he left her she heard the whistle of the night express,
which arrived simultaneously with the departure of the outward train
bound south, and she knew that it was eleven o'clock.
Hannah was in the kitchen talking with Esau the sexton, and when
several gentlemen who offered to remain until morning came out on the
verandah, leaving the blinds of the library windows wide open, Regina
rose and stole away to escape their observation.
Although walking swiftly she caught sight of the table in the middle
of the room and of a mass of white drapery, on which the lamp-light
fell with ghostly lustre. Twelve hours before she had sat there,
reading to the faithful kind friend whose affectionate gaze rested
all the while upon her; now stiff and icy he was sleeping his last
sleep in the same spot, and his soul? Safely resting, after the
feverish toil and strife of Time, amid the palms of Eternal Peace.
Not the peace of Nirwana; neither the absolute absorption of one
school of philosophy, nor the total extinction inculcated by a yet
grosser system. Not the vague insensate peace of Pantheism, but the
spiritual rest of a heaven of reunion and of recognition promised by
Jesus Christ our Lord, who, conquering death in that lonely rock-hewn
Judæan tomb, won immortal identity for human souls. Not the
succession of progressive changes that constitute the hereafter of--
"This age that blots out life with question-marks,
This nineteenth century with its knife and glass
That make thought physical, and thrust far off
The heaven, so neighbourly with man of old,
To voids sparse-sown with alienated stars."
Among the multitudinous philosophic, psychologic, biologic systems
that have waxed and waned, dazzled and deluded, from the first
utterances of Gotama, to the very latest of the advanced
Evolutionists, is there any other than the Christian solution of the
triple-headed riddle--Whence? Wherefore? Whither?--that will deliver
us from the devouring Sphinx Despair, or yield us even shadowy
consolation when the pinions of gentle yet inexorable death poise
over our household darling, and we stand beside the cold silent clay,
which natural affection and life-long companionship render so
inexpressibly precious?
When we lower the coffin of our beloved is there soothing comfort in
the satisfactory reflection that perhaps at some distant epoch, by
the harmonious operation of "Natural Selection" and by virtue of the
"Conservation of Force," the "Survival of the fittest" will certainly
ensure the "Differentiation" the "Evolution" of our buried treasure
into some new, strange, superior type of creature, to us for ever
unknown and utterly unrecognizable? Tormented by aspirations which
neither time nor space, force nor matter, will realize or satisfy,
consumed by spiritual hunger fiercer than Ugolino's, we are invited
to seize upon the Barmecide's banquet of "The Law which formulates
organic development as a transformation of the homogeneous into the
heterogeneous;" and that "this universal transformation is a change
from indefinite homogeneity to definite heterogeneity; and that only
when the increasing multiformity is joined with increasing
definiteness, does it constitute Evolution, as distinguished from
other changes that are like it, in respect of increasing
heterogeneity."
Does this wise and simple pabulum cure spiritual starvation?
"God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And the
Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."
Nay--thunders Science--put away such childish superstition, smite
such traditionary idols; man was first made after the similitude of a
marine ascidian, and once swam as a tadpole in primeval seas.
In all the wide universe of modern speculation there remains no
unexplored nook or cranny, where an immortal human soul can find
refuge or haven. Having hunted it down, trampled and buried it as one
of the little "inspired legendary" foxes that nibble and bruise the
promising sprouts of the Science Vineyard, what are we requested to
accept in lieu of the doctrine of spiritual immortality? "Natural
Evolution."
One who has long been regarded as an esoteric in the Eleusis of
Science, and who ranks as a crowned head among its hierophants,
frankly tells us: "What are the core and essence of this hypothesis
Natural Evolution? Strip it naked, and you stand face to face with
the notion that not alone the more ignoble forms of animalcular or
animal life, not alone the nobler forma of the horse and lion, not
alone the exquisite and wonderful mechanism of the human body, but
that the human mind itself--emotion, intellect, will, and all their
phenomena--were once latent in a fiery cloud. Many who hold it would
probably assent to the position that at the present moment all our
philosophy, all our poetry, all our science, all our art--Plato,
Shakespeare, Newton, and Raphael--are potential in the fires of the
sun."... A different pedigree from that offered us by Moses and the
Prophets, Christ and the Apostles; but does it light up the
Hereafter?
We are instructed that our instincts and consciousness dwell in the
"sensory ganglia," that "an idea is a contradiction, a motion, a
configuration of the intermediate organ of sense," that "memory is
the organic registration of their effects of impressions," and that
the "cerebrum" is the seat of ideas, the home of thought and reason.
But when "grey-matter" that composes this thinking mechanism becomes
diseased, and the cold touch of death stills the action of fibre and
vesicle, what light can our teachers pour upon the future of that
coagulated substance where once reigned hope, ambition, love, or
hate? Those grey granules that were memory, become oblivion.
Certainly physiology has grown to giant stature since the days of St.
Paul, but does it bring to weeping mourners any more comfort than the
doctrine he taught the Corinthians?
Does the steel Law Mill of Progressive Development grind us either
tonic or balm for the fatal hours of sorest human trial? We have
learned that "the heart of man is constructed upon the recognized
rules of hydraulics, and with its great tubes is furnished with
common mechanical contrivances, valves."
But when the valvular action is at rest under the stern finger of
death, can all the marvellous appliances of this intensely and
wonderfully mechanical age force one ruddy drop through those great
tubes, or coax one solitary throb, where God has said "Be still"?
To the stricken mother, bowed over the waxen image of her darling, is
there any system, theory, or creed that promises aught of the Great
Beyond comparable to the Christian's sublime hope that the pet lamb
is safely and tenderly folded by the Shepherd Jesus?
To the aching heart and lonely soul of sorrowing Regina these vexing
riddles that sit open-mouthed at our religious and scientific
cross-roads, brought no additional gloom; for with the pure holy
faith of unquestioning childhood she seemed to see beside the rigid
form of her pastor and friend the angel who on sea-girt Patmos bade
St. John write, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, from
henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their
labours; and their works do follow them."
Anxious to avoid those who sat within keeping sad watch, the unhappy
girl went around to the front entrance, and sank down on the lowest
step, burying her face in her hands.
The library was merely a continuation of the hall that ran east and
west through the centre of the house, and though comparatively remote
from the front door was immediately opposite, and from the sight of
that room Regina shrank instinctively.
Too much shocked and stunned to weep, she became so absorbed by
thoughts of to-morrow's mournful mission, that she failed to notice
the roll of wheels along the street, or the quick rattle of the
gate-latch. The sound of rapid footsteps and the rustle of drapery on
the pebbled walk, finally arrested her attention, and rising she
would have moved aside, but a hand seized her arm.
"What is the matter? How is my brother?"
"Oh, Mrs. Lindsay!"
"Something must have happened. I had such a presentiment of trouble
at home that I could not wait till to-morrow. I came on the night
express. Why is the house all lighted up? Is Peyton ill?"
Trembling from head to foot, she waited an instant, but Regina only
crouched and groaned, and Mrs. Lindsay sprang up the steps. As she
reached the door, the light in the library revealed the shrouded
table,--the rigid figure resting thereon,--and a piercing wail broke
the silence of death.
"Merciful God!--not my Peyton?"
Thrusting her fingers into her ears, Regina fled down the walk out of
the yard, anywhere to escape the sound and sight of that
broken-hearted woman, whose cry was indeed _de profundis_.
"Console if you will, I can bear it; 'Tis a well-meant alms of
breath; But not all the preaching since Adam Has made Death other
than Death."