But that sermon was not to be delivered. Mr. North woke very early,
before it was light, and could not find sleep again. In the gray of
the morning, when the little day was creeping among the houses of
Glendour, he heard steps in the street and then a whisper of voices at
his gate. He threw his wrapper around him and went down quietly to
open the door.
A group of men were there, with trouble in their faces. They told him
of an accident on the river. A sleigh crossing the ice during the
night had lost the track. The horses had broken into an air-hole and
dragged the sleigh with them. The man went under the ice with the
current, and came out a little while ago in the big spring-hole by the
point. They had pulled the body ashore. They did not know for sure who
it was--a stranger--but they thought--perhaps----
The minister listened silently, shivering once or twice, and passing
his hand over his brow as if to brush away something. When their
voices paused and ceased, he said slowly, "Thank you for coming to me.
I must go with you, and then I can tell." As he went upstairs softly
and put on his clothes, he repeated these words to himself two or
three times mechanically--"yes, then I can tell." But as he went with
the men he said nothing, walking like one in a dream.
On the bank of the river, amid the broken ice and trampled yellow
snow, the men had put a couple of planks together and laid the body of
the stranger upon them turning up the broad collar of his fur coat to
hide his face. One of the men now turned the collar down, and
Nathaniel North looked into the wide-open eyes of the dead.
A horrible tremor shook him from head to foot. He lifted his hands, as
if he must cry aloud in anguish. Then suddenly his face and figure
seemed to congeal and stiffen with some awful inward coldness--the
frost of the last circle of the Inferno--it spread upon him till he
stood like a soul imprisoned in ice.
"Yes," he said, "this is my brother Abel. Will you carry him to my
house? We must bury him."
During the confusion and distress of the following days that frozen
rigidity never broke nor melted. Mr. North gave no directions for the
funeral, took no part in it, but stood beside the grave in dreadful
immobility. He did not mourn. He did not lament. He listened to his
friends' consolation as if it were spoken in an unknown tongue.
Nothing helped him, nothing hurt, because nothing touched him. He did
no work, opened no book, spoke no word if he could avoid it. He moved
about his house like a stranger, a captive, shrinking from his
children so that they grew afraid to come close to him. They were
bewildered and harrowed with pity. They did not know what to do. It
seemed as if it were their father and not their uncle who had died.
Every attempt to penetrate the ice of his anguish failed. He gave no
sign of why or how he suffered. Most of the time he spent alone in his
book-room, sitting with his hands in his lap, staring at the
unspeakable thought that paralysed him, the thought that was entangled
with the very roots of his creed and that glared at him with monstrous
and malignant face above the very altar of his religion--the thought
of his last prayer--the effectual prayer, the fervent prayer, the
damnable prayer that branded his soul with the mark of Cain, his
brother's murderer.
The physician grew alarmed. He feared the minister would lose his
reason in a helpless melancholia. The children were heart-broken. All
their efforts to comfort and distract their father fell down hopeless
from the mask of ice, behind which they saw him like a spirit in
prison. Daniel and Ruth were ready to give up in despair. But Esther
still clung to the hope that she could do something to rescue him.
One night, when the others had gone to bed, she crept down to the
sombre study. Her father did not turn his head as she entered. She
crossed the room and knelt down by the ink-stained table, laying her
hands on his knee. He put them gently away and motioned her to rise.
"Do not do that," he said in a dull voice.
She stood before him, wringing her hands, the tears streaming down her
face, but her voice was sweet and steady.
"Father," she said, "you must tell me what it is that is killing you.
Don't you know it is killing us too? Is it right for you to do that? I
know it is something more than uncle's death that hurts you. It is sad
to lose a brother, but there is something deeper in your heart. Tell
me what it is. I have the right to know. I ask you for mother's
sake."
He lifted his head and looked at her. His eyelids quivered. His secret
dragged downward in his breast like an iron hand clutching his
throat-strings. His voice was stifled. But no matter what it cost him,
to her, the first child of his love, his darling, he must speak at
last.
"You have the right to know, Esther," he said, with a painful effort.
"I will tell you what is in my soul. I killed my brother Abel. The
night of his death, I knelt at that table and prayed that he might be
prevented from coming to this house. My only thought, my only wish was
that he must be kept away. That was all I asked for. God killed him
because I asked it. His blood is on my soul."
He leaned back in his chair exhausted, and shut his eyes.
The girl stood dazed for a moment, struck dumb by the grotesque horror
of what she had heard. Then the light of Heaven-sent faith flashed
through her and the courage of human love warmed her. She sprang to
her father, sobbing, almost laughing in the joy of triumph. She flung
herself across his knees and put her arms around him.
[Illustration: She flung herself across his knees and put her arms
around him.]
"Father, did you teach us that God is our Father, our real Father?"
The man did not answer, but the girl went bravely on:
"Father, if I asked you to kill Ruth, would you do it?"
The man stirred a little, but he did not open his eyes nor answer, and
the girl went bravely on:
"Father, is it fair to God to believe that He would do something that
you would be ashamed of? Isn't He better than you are?"
The man opened his eyes. The light of his old faith kindled in them.
He answered firmly:
"He is infinite, absolute, and unchangeable. His Word is sure. We dare
not question Him. There is the promise--the effectual fervent prayer
of a righteous man availeth much."
The girl did not look up. She clung to him more closely and buried her
face on his breast.
"Yes, father dear, but if what you asked in your prayer was wrong,
were you a righteous man? Could your prayer have any power?"
It was her last stroke--she trembled as she made it. There was a dead
silence in the room. She heard the slow clock ticking on the mantel,
the wind whistling in the chimney. Then her father's breast was
shaken, his head fell upon her shoulder, his tears rained upon her
neck.
"Thank God," he cried, "I was a sinner--it was not a prayer--God be
merciful to me a sinner!"