CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
"DEATH."
O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done, The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond the sun-- For ever and for ever with those just souls and true-- And what is life, that we should moan? Why make we such ado?
What! Min dead--my darling whom I had hurried home to see once more,the whisper of whose calling I had heard across the expanse of vastAtlantic in eager entreaty; and whose tender, clinging affection I hadlooked forward to, as the earnest of all my toils and struggles, mylonging hopes, my halting doubts, my groans, my tears!
It could not be.
I would not believe it. God could not be so cruel as man; and what manwould do such a heartless deed?
It was false. Could I not hear her merry, rippling laughter, as shecame forth heart-joyous to greet me; see the dear, soul-lit, grey eyesbeaming with happiness and love; feel her perfumed violet breath as sheraised her darling little rosebud of a mouth to mine--as I had fancied,and pictured it all, over and over again, a thousand times and more?
Hark! was not that her glad voice speaking now in silvery accents--"O,Frank!" nothing more; but, a world of welcome in the simple syllables?
Dead!
How could she be dead, when I was waiting to hear from her truth-telling, loving lips what she had written to tell me already--that shetrusted me again, as she had trusted me in those old, old days that hadpassed by never to return; and, loved me still in spite of all?
Dead! It was a lie. They wanted to deceive me. They were joking withme!
Min, my darling, dead? It could not be. It was impossible!
Did they take me for a fool?
I could laugh at the idea.--What did they mean by it?
Min, dead!--God in heaven--how _could_ they torture me so!
But, it was true.
I cannot bear to speak of it all now, it unmans me. It makes me, agreat strong man, appear as a little sobbing child!
I do not know what went on for days after I realised what had happenedto me. I was mad, I believe; for they said I had lost my senses.
And even now, sometimes, I feel as if I were not myself, when I recallthe past with all its empty dreams--in which I almost attained toparadise--that were ruthlessly swept away in one fell swoop by the agonyof hell I suffered on being conscious of my loss.
No, I am not myself. There is something missing in me--something thatcompleted my identity; and, without which, I am not even a perfect atomon the ocean of time--as I will be nothing in, the labyrinth ofeternity!--For,--
"The waves of a mighty sorrow Have whelmed the pearl of my life; And there cometh for me no morrow, To solace this desolate strife!"
When I was able to bear the narration, I was told all.
Min had caught a violent cold only a week before the Christmas-eve onwhich she expected me; and, in spite of all that science and love coulddo, she died before the dawn of the new year. She had looked forward toseeing me to the last, hoping against hope. She knew, she had said,that I would keep my word and come when she sent for me. But, whenChristmas-eve arrived without my coming, she did not seem disappointed.She then said that God had willed it otherwise:--something must havearisen to prevent my arrival:--we would meet again in the GreatHereafter:--she would leave a message for me, to reconcile me to ourbrief separation, ere we met once more.
And, with that thought of me in her great loving heart, with thatblessed reliance in her Saviour's promise, and with a smile of ecstaticbliss on her lips, she "fell asleep"--without my seeing her, O my God!
Perhaps, on recollecting many of the incidents of my story, and callingto mind the tone and manner in which I have described them, you may havethought me then merry and light-hearted, where now I am moody andsombre?
True; but, life is made up of grave and gay.
It is hackneyed to say that "the clown that grins before the audience,who laugh with and at the merryandrew and his antics, is frequentlyweeping behind his mask;" yet, it is often the case.
Life is hysterical and spasmodic.
Many of us, believed by surface-studying people to be the gayest of thegay, have in reality a dull, rending pain gnawing us inwardly thewhile--like as the fox was gnawing the Spartan boy's entrails; and, likehim again, we are too proud--for what is courage but pride?--to speak ofour suffering. We do not "wear our hearts" on our sleeve "for daws topeck at!"
The "consolation of religion," you suggest?
Bah! How can I be consoled, when I have been bereft of all that madeexistence dear, receiving nothing in return--nothing but doubt anduncertainty, and a despair unspeakable?
Could comfort accrue to me, when I wandered back along the pathway ofmemory, catching sunny glimpses of the rosy future which my imaginationhad marked out, and then comparing these with the dreary outlook thatnow was mine?
When I think of what might have been and now can never happen, I rave!
I should count my loss a "gain," you say?
I cannot, I cannot!
Saint Paul might have so truly exemplified the position of earthlymisery as opposed to heavenly reward; but, _I_ am powerless to give thededuction a personal application.
You tell me to look above, and have faith in the hope of rejoining her?
She is there, I know--that is, if there be a just God, a heaven, andangels in paradise; but, how can I, sinner as I am and as I have been,dream of climbing up to such a height?
It is an impossibility. I dare not hope for mercy and forgiveness.Why, the very angels would scout me; and she, who was always glad of myapproach, would now draw aside the hem of her raiment lest I shouldtouch it and defile her!
Do you know, that, the acutest pang that thrills through my heart,arises from the consciousness, that, while she was here, I was unworthyof her--as I would be doubly so were I now able to take the wings of themorning and reach the uttermost parts of heaven where she dwells.
Learn, O brothers! loving, like myself, hopelessly, unsuccessfully:--learn by me, by my blighted life, my lost present, my vanished hopes ofheaven, that, the worst possible use to which you can put the divineimage in which you are clothed, is "to go to the devil" for a woman'ssake! Should she be deserving of your affection, as in most cases shewill probably be--ten times more than you are of hers--this is one ofthe most inferior proofs that you can give of it; while, should she beunworthy of it, as may happen, you are a dolt for your pains--to put themotive of action at no higher level.
And O sister women, daughters of England, fair to look upon, tender-hearted, ministering! think, that although no man that ever lived, butone, is perfectly worthy of a pure woman's love, many an erring brothermay be recalled from his down-treading steps to hell, to higher, noblerduties by your influence; as many a soul is damned, both here andhereafter through your default!
Bear with me yet a little longer. I shall soon be done. It is a reliefto me thus to unbosom myself. Like Aenone--"while I speak of it, alittle while, my heart may wander from its deeper woe."
Min taught me to pray; and I _have_ prayed; but, the most fervent spiritthat ever breathed out its conscience to its Maker could never hope toundo the past.
"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" It wasall very well for him who had faced Azrael, and looked upon himself as adying man, to speak thus!
Beautiful as is the sentiment contained in the words, are they _true_?
I know that a brave man, one who does not credit an eternity and has notthe slightest thought on the subject of future salvation or futurepunishment, can, when quitting the only world of his knowledge, lookupon his approaching end with a courage and an apathetic calm whichresemble the smiling fortitude wherewith the ancient gladiators utteredtheir parting salutations to Nero--when, in expectation, they waited forthe fatal thumb to be turned down, in token of their doom.
I can well believe that an earnest Christian, likewise, regards hisinstant dissolution, with equanimity and, even joy--throughcontempl
ation of the everlasting happiness in which he devoutly trusts.
Still, how do both, the irreligious man and the hopeful believer, bearthe loss of those dear to them--they themselves being left behind,forsaken, to grieve over their vacant chairs, their despoiled folds?--Has not Death his sting for them; the grave, its awful triumph?--
I do not always speak like this, however; nor are my thoughts everbitter and despairing.
"Fret not thyself," says the Psalmist, "lest thou be moved to do evil;"and, I try not to fret when I remember the message my darling left forme with Miss Pimpernell--who watched by her dying bed and told me whatshe had said, in her very own dear, dear words. It is then that I hauntthe old scenes with which her presence will ever be associated in mymind; and, weave over again the warp and woof of vanished days.
The trim market gardens dwindling down in the distance, thickly planted,as of yore; the winding country lanes intersecting, which twist and turnin every direction of the compass, and yet find their way down to thesilent river that hurries by their outlets; the old stone, buildings,about whose origin we used to perplex ourselves--all remind me of herand happiness!
The very scent of the hedgerows, a pot-pourri of honeysuckles and roses,and of red, pink and white hawthorn, brings back to me her sayings whenwe walked and talked together there--long, long ago, it seems, althoughit was but yesterday.
And, in the Prebend's Walk memory is more and more busy still, as I pacealong its weary length solitary, alone--for, even my poor old dog haddied during my absence; and what were those idle, fair-weatheracquaintances, whom the world calls "friends," to me in my grief! I ambetter without their company: it makes my mind unhealthy.--
So, I walk, alone with my heart and its grief!
The stately lime-trees bend as I pass them by; and, seem to sigh for herwho is gone, never to return. The ruined fosse, stagnant and moss-covered, speaks of ruin and desolation. The crumbling walls that onceencircled the Prebend's residence, also reveal the slowly-sure power ofthe destroyer's hand, more and more apparent each year that rolls overthem.
But, the church, Norman--turretted and oaken-chancelled, is fullest ofthese bitter-sweet memories of my darling.
All its old-fashioned surroundings appear in keeping with my feelings:--the carved galleries, the quaint, up-standing pulpit with its massivesounding board, the monumental tablets on the walls, the open-rafteredroof; and, when, sitting in the high box-pew, where I first saw her, theorgan gives forth its tremulous swell--before some piercingly pitchednote from the _vox humana_ stop, cries out like a soul in agony likemine--I can almost believe I see her again sitting opposite me, hersweet madonna face bent down over her Bible, or upturned in adoration,as I then noticed it!
I feel that her unseen presence is near me, watching me from the spiritworld above; or else, hovering by me, to guide my errant footsteps onthe pathway to heaven and lead my thoughts, through the recollection ofher faith and purity, and love, to things on high.
Would that I felt her presence always:--would that my thoughts, myactions, my life, were such as she would have had them!
It was after I had gone to the old church for the first time--it wasweeks before I could have the resolution to go--that Miss Pimpernellgave me my darling's message; touching with a tender touch on her lastmoments here.
She told me she had never seen or heard of so peaceful an end as hers--such fervent faith, such earnest reliance on her Saviour. She seemed tohave a presentiment from the first, of her death; and, when she was toldthere was no hope of her recovery, she only grieved for those she leftbehind; and for me and my disappointment, my old friend said, chief ofall.--
"I know he will be sorry,"--she said at the last.--"But, tell him that Iloved him and trusted him to the end. Tell him good-bye for me, and tobe good--not for my sake only, but, for God's!"
These were the last words she uttered.
She died, Miss Pimpernell said, with a soft sigh of contentment and asmile of seraphic happiness on her face; and, the face of the deadgirl--she added sobbing--looked like the face of an angel in its purityand innocence, and with the stamp of heaven on its lifeless clay.
She is buried in the churchyard where she and I so often mused and spokeof those who had gone before--little thinking that _she_ would be sosoon taken, and _I_, left desolate to mourn her loss.
Her grave is a perfect little garden.
Loving eyes watch it, loving hands tend it. A little, green, velvet-turfed mound is in the midst, planted round with all the flowers thatshe loved--snowdrops and violets in the early part of the year, rosesand lilies in summer, little daisies always--for she used to say sheliked them because others generally despised them.
I go there twice a day, morning and night. Her mother knows of myvisits; but, we never meet, even there! She does not interfere with me;and _I_ have buried the feud of the past in Min's grave. _There_ myheart finds only room for love and grief, ebbing and flowing in unison;coupled with a hope, which becomes more and more assured, now that Ihave received her message, that we shall yet meet again in that promisedland where there is no death and no parting, only a sweet forgetfulnessof the ills of life, and a remembrance of all its joy--the happy land ofwhich my dream foretold in the early days of our love.
When I breathe the bloom of the flowers that rise from my darling'sresting-place in the early summer time, I almost experience peace! Hersainted presence _must_ be watching over me, I am convinced; and, mysoul expands with a desire and a resolve, so to guard my life, that Imay hereafter obtain "the crown incorruptible" that now, I know, she'swearing!
This is in summer.
But, in winter--winter which is connected by a thousand close and closerassociations with her, I cannot so be content!--
It was at Christmas tide that I first spoke to her:--Christmas when weparted. On Christmas-eve we were to have met again:--it was Christmaswhen she died--
--In winter?--
_Ay de mi_!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
"DESOLATION."
As when a soul laments, which hath been blest, Desiring what is mingled with past years, In yearnings that can never be exprest By sighs, or groans or tears; Because all words, tho' cull'd with choicest art, Failing to give the bitter of the sweet, Wither beneath the palate, and the heart Faints, faded by its heat!
The Christmas bells, they are ringing; but ringing no gladness to me!Ringing, and ringing, and ringing; a death-peal, which fain would Iflee.
The feathery flakes are falling from the dull-grey, pall-like sky;falling, and falling, and falling; and, slowly they gather and lie.
The snowy-white mantle it covers, the churchyard and meadow and lea, asnow by her grave I am kneeling;--yet, nothing but darkness _I_ see!
The little red robin is carving a cross on her grave with his feet; ashe hops from the head-stone and carols, his requiem low and sweet.
All nature is hushed, and the stillness, of earth and of air and sky,though pierced by the song of the robin, but whispers a long "good-bye!"
Good-bye to my darling! 'Tis ended; gone are the hopes of my life--OGod! that our fates were blended, and finished this desolate strife!
THE END.
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