CHAPTER XXI
When the Sun Went Down
Such a sunset!
Down at the foot of the grass hill there was a flame-coloured sky,with purple, soft clouds massed in banks high up where the dyingglory met the paling blue. The belt of trees had grown black, andstretched sombre, motionless arms against the orange background.All the wind had died, and the air hung hot and still, freightedwith the strange silence of the bush.
And at the top of the hill, just within the doorway of the littlebrown hut, her wide eyes on the wonderful heavens, Judy lay dying.She was very quiet now, though she had been talking--talking ofall sorts of things. She told them she had no pain at all.
"Only I shall die when they move me," she said.
Meg was sitting in a little heap on the floor beside her. She hadnever moved her eyes from the face on the pillow of mackintoshes, shehad never opened her white lips to say one word.
Outside the bullocks stood motionless against the sky--Judy saidthey looked like stuffed ones having their portrait taken. Shesmiled the least little bit, but Meg said, "Don't," and writhed.
Two of the men had gone on superfluous errands for help; the othersstood some distance away, talking in subdued voices.
There was nothing for them to do. The brown man had been talking--arare thing for him.
He had soothed the General off to sleep, and laid him in the bunkwith the blue blanket tucked around him. And he had made a billyof hot strong tea, and asked the children, with tears in his eyes,to drink some, but none of them would.
Baby had fallen to sleep on the floor, her arms clasped tightlyaround Judy's lace-up boot.
Bunty was standing, with a stunned look on his white face, behindthe stretcher. His eyes were on his sister's hair, but he didnot dare to let there wander to her face, for fear of what he shouldsee there. Nellie was moving all the time--now to the fence to strainher eyes down the road, where the evening shadows lay heavily, nowto fling herself face downward behind the hut and say, "Make herbetter, God! God, make her better, make her better! Oh! CAN'T Youmake her better?"
Greyer grew the shadows round the little but, the bullocks' outlineshad faded, and only an indistinct mass of soft black loomed acrossthe light. Behind the trees the fire was going out, here and therewere yellow, vivid streaks yet, but the flaming sun-edge, had dippedbeyond the world, and the purple, delicate veil was dropping down.
A curlew's note broke the silence, wild, mournful, unearthly. Megshivered, and sat up straight. Judy's brow, grew damp, her eyesdilated, her lips trembled.
"Meg!" she said, in a whisper that cut the air. "Oh, Meg, I'mfrightened! MEG, I'm so frightened!"
"God!" said Meg's heart.
"Meg, say something. Meg, help me! Look at the dark, Meg. MEG,I can't die! Oh, why don't they be quick?"
Nellie flew to the fence again; then to say, "Make her better,God--oh, please, God!"
"Meg, I can't think of anything to say. Can't you say something,Meg? Aren't there any prayers about the dying in the Prayer Book?--Iforget. Say something, Meg!"
Meg's lips moved, but her tongue uttered no word.
"Meg, I'm so frightened! I can't think of anything but `For whatwe are about to receive,' and that's grace, isn't it? And there'snothing in Our Father that would do either. Meg, I wish we'd goneto Sunday-school and learnt things. Look at the dark, Meg! Oh, Meg,hold my hands!"
"Heaven won't--be--dark," Meg's lips said. Even when speech came,it was only a halting, stereotyped phrase that fell from them.
"If it's all gold and diamonds, I don't want to go!" The child wascrying now. "Oh, Meg, I want to be alive! How'd you like to die,Meg, when you're only thirteen? Think how lonely I'll be withoutyou all. Oh, Meg! Oh, Pip, Pip! Oh, Baby! Nell!"
The tears streamed down her cheeks; her chest rose and fell.
"Oh, say something, Meg!--hymns!--anything!"
Half the book of "Hymns Ancient and Modern" danced across Meg's brain.Which one could she think of that would bring quiet into thosefeverish eyes that were fastened on her face with such a frightening,imploring look?
Then she opened her lips:
"Come unto Me, ye weary, And I will give you rest, Oh, bl--
"I'm not weary, I don't WANT to rest," Judy said, in a fretful tone.
Again Meg tried:
"My God, my Father, while I stray Far from my home on life's rough way, Oh, teach me from my heart to say Thy will be done!"
"That's for old people," said the little tired voice. "He won't expectME to say it."
Then Meg remembered the most beautiful hymn in the world, and saidthe first and last verses without a break in her voice:
"Abide with me, fast falls the eventide, The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide. When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!
Hold Thou Thy Cross before my closing eyes, Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies. Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me!
"Oh! and Judy, dear, we are forgetting; there's Mother, Judy, dear--youwon't be lonely! Can't you remember Mother's eyes, little Judy?"
Judy grew quiet, and still more quiet. She shut her eyes so shecould not see the gathering shadows. Meg's arms were round her,Meg's cheek was on her brow, Nell was holding her hands, Baby herfeet, Bunty's lips were on her hair. Like that they went with herright to the Great Valley, where there are no lights even for stumbling,childish feet.
The shadows were cold, and smote upon their hearts; they couldfeel the wind from the strange waters on their brows; but onlyshe who was about to cross heard the low lapping of the waves.
Just as her feet touched the water there was a figure in the doorway.
"Judy!" said a wild voice; and Pip brushed them aside and felldown beside her.
"Judy, Judy, JUDY!"
The light flickered back in her eyes. She kissed him with pale lipsonce, twice; she gave him both her hands, and her last smile.
Then the wind blew over them all, and, with a little shudder, sheslipped away.
CHAPTER XXII
And Last
"She seemed a thing that could not feel The touch of earthly years."
"No motion has she now--no force; She neither hears nor sees; Rolled round in earth's diurnal course, With rocks and stones and trees."
They went home again, the six of them, and Esther, who, all herdays, "would go the softlier, sadlier" because of the price thathad been paid for the life of her little sweet son. The very airof Yarrahappini seemed to crush them and hang heavy on their souls.
So when the Captain, who had hurried up to see the last of his poorlittle girl, asked if they would like to go home, they all said"Yes."
There was a green space of ground on a hill-top behind the cottage,and a clump of wattle trees, dark-green now, but gold-crownedand gracious in the spring.
This is where they left little Judy. All around it Mr. Hassal hadwhite tall palings put; the short grave was in the shady corner ofit.
The place looked like a tiny churchyard in a children's countrywhere there had only been one death.
Or a green fair field, with one little garden bed.
Meg was glad the little mound looked to the east; the suns diedbehind it--the orange and yellow and purple suns she could notbear to watch ever again while she lived.
But away in the east they rose tenderly always, and the light creptup across the sky to the hill-top in delicate pinks and tremblingblues and brightening greys, but never fiery, yellow streaks, thatmade the eyes ache with hot tears.
There was a moon making it white and beautiful when they saidgood-bye to it on the last day.
They plucked a blade or two of grass each from the fresh turfs,and turned away. Nobody cried; the white stillness of the far moon,the pale, hanging stars, the faint wind stirring the wattles; heldback their tears till t
hey had closed the little gate behind themand left her alone on the quiet hill-top. Then they went-backto Misrule, each to pickup the thread of life and go on with theweaving that, thank God, must be done, or hearts would breakevery day.
Meg had grown older; she would never be quite so young again asshe had been before that red sunset sank into her soul.
There was a deeper light in her eyes; such tears as she had weptclear the sight till life becomes a thing more distinct andfar-reaching.
Nellie and she went to church the first Sunday after their return.Aldith was a few pews away, light-souled as ever, dressed in gayattire, flashing smiling, coquettish glances across to the Courtneys'pew, and the Grahams sitting just behind.
How far away Meg had grown from her! It seemed years since shehad been engrossed with the latest mode in hat trimming, the dipof "umbrella" skirts, and the best method of making the handswhite. Years since she had tried a trembling 'prentice hand atflirtations. Years, almost, since she had given the little blueribbon at Yarrahappini, that was doing more good than shedreamed of.
Alan looked at her from his pew--the little figure in its sorrowfulblack, the shining hair hanging in a plait no longer frizzed at theend, the chastened droop of the young lips, the wistful sadnessof the blue eyes. He could hardly realize it was the littlescatterbrain girl who had written that letter, and stolen awaythrough the darkness to meet his graceless young brother.
He clasped her hand when church was over; his grey eyes, with thequick moisture in them, made up for the clumsy stumbling words ofsympathy he tried to speak.
"Let us be friends always, Miss Meg," he said, as they parted atthe Misrule gate.
"Yes, let us," said Meg.
And the firm, frank friendship became a beautiful thing in both theirlives, strengthening Meg and making the boy gentler.
Pip became his laughing, high-spirited self again, as even the mostloving boy will, thanks to the merciful making of young hearts; buthe used to get sudden fits of depression at times, and disappear allat once, in the midst of a game of cricket or football, or fromthe table when the noise was at its highest.
Bunty presented to the world just as grimy a face as of old, andhands even more grubby, for he had taken a mechanical turn of late,and spent his spare moments in manufacturing printing machines--socalled--and fearful and wonderful engines, out of an old stove andsome pots and rusty frying-pans rescued from the rubbish heap.
But he did not tell quite so many stories in these days; that deepsunset had stolen even into his young heart, and whenever he feltinclined to say "I never, 'twasn't me, 'twasn't my fault," a tangleof dark curls rose before him, just as they had lain that night whenhe had not dared to move his eyes away from them.
Baby's legs engrossed her very much at present, for she had justbeen promoted from socks to stockings, and all who remember theoccasion in their own lives will realize the importance of it to her.
Nell seemed to grow prettier every day. Pip had his hands full withtrying to keep her from growing conceited; if brotherly rubs andsnubs availed anything, she ought to have been as lowly minded asif she had had red hair and a nose of heavenward bent.
Esther said she wished she could buy a few extra years, a sternbrow, and dignity in large quantities from some place or other--theremight be some chance, then, of Misrule resuming its baptismaland unexciting name of The River House.
But, oddly enough, no one echoed the wish.
The Captain never smoked at the end of the side veranda now:the ill-kept lawn made him see always a little figure in a pinkfrock and battered hat mowing the grass in a blaze of sunlight.Judy's death made his six living children dearer to his heart,though he showed his affection very little more.
The General grew chubbier and more adorable every day he lived.It is no exaggeration to say that they all worshipped him nowin his little kingly babyhood, for the dear life had been twicegiven, and the second time it was Judy's gift, and pricelesstherefore.
My pen has been moving heavily, slowly, for these last twochapters; it refuses to run lightly, freely again just yet,so I will lay it aside, or I shall sadden you.
Some day, if you would care to hear it, I should like to tellyou of my young Australians again, slipping a little spaceof years.
Until then, farewell and adieu.
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