Part 55 (1/2)
The pastor cut down the rank gra.s.s and fringy ferns, the flaunting weeds and coreopsis that threatened to choke his more delicate flowers, and, stooping, tied up the crimson pinks, and wound the tendrils of the blue-veined clematis around its slender trellis, and straightened the white petunias and the orange-tinted crocaes, which the last heavy shower had beaten to the ground.
The small, gray vault was overrun with ivy, whose dark, polished leaves threatened to encroach on a plain slab of pure marble that stood very near it; and as the minister pruned away the wreaths, his eyes rested on the black letters in the centre of the slab: ”Murray Hammond. Aged 21.”
Elsewhere the suns.h.i.+ne streamed warm and bright over the graves, but here the rays were intercepted by the church, and its cool shadow rested over vault and slab and flowers.
The old man was weary from stooping so long, and now he took off his hat and pa.s.sed his hand over his forehead, and sighed as he leaned against the door of the vault, where fine, fairy-fingered mosses were weaving their green arabesque immortelles.
In a mournfully measured, yet tranquil tone, he said aloud:
”Ah! truly throughout all the years of my life I have never heard the promise of perfect love, without seeing aloft amongst the stars, fingers as of a man's hand, writing the sacred legend: 'Ashes to ashes! dust to dust!'”
Age was bending his body toward the earth with which it was soon to mingle; the ripe and perfect wheat nodded lower and lower day by day, as the Angel of the Sickle delayed; but his n.o.ble face wore that blessed and marvellous calm, that unearthly peace which generally comes some hours after death, when all traces of temporal pa.s.sions and woes are lost in eternity's repose.
A low, wailing symphony throbbed through the church, where the organist was practising; and then out of the windows, and far away on the evening air, rolled the solemn waves of that matchlessly mournful Requiem which, under prophetic shadows, Mozart began on earth and finished, perhaps in heaven, on one of those golden harps whose apocalyptic ringing smote St. John's eager ears among the lonely rocks of Aegean-girdled Patmos. The sun had paused as if to listen on the wooded crest of a distant hill, but as the Requiem ended and the organ sobbed itself to rest, he gathered up his burning rays and disappeared; and the spotted b.u.t.terflies, like ”winged tulips,” flitted silently away, and the evening breeze bowed the large yellow primroses, and fluttered the phlox; the red nasturtiums that climbed up at the foot of the slab shuddered and shook their blood-colored banners over the polished marble. A holy hush fell upon all things save a towering poplar that leaned against the church, and rustled its leaves ceaselessly, and s.h.i.+vered and turned white, as tradition avers it has done since that day, when Christ staggered along the Via Dolorosa bearing his cross, carved out of poplar wood.
Leaning with his hands folded on the handle of the weeding hoe, his gray beard sweeping over his bosom, his bare, silvered head bowed, and his mild, peaceful blue eyes resting on his son's tomb, Mr.
Hammond stood listening to the music; and when the strains ceased, his thoughts travelled onward and upward till they crossed the sea of crystal before the Throne, and in imagination he heard the song of the four and twenty elders.
From this brief reverie some slight sound aroused him, and lifting his eyes, he saw a man clad in white linen garments, wearing oxalis cl.u.s.ters in his coat, standing on the opposite side of the monumental slab.
”St. Elmo! my poor, suffering wanderer! Oh, St. Elmo! come to me once more before I die!”
The old man's voice was husky, and his arms trembled as he stretched them across the grave that intervened.
Mr. Murray looked into the tender, tearful, pleading countenance, and the sorrow that seized his own, making his features writhe, beggars language. He instinctively put out his arms, then drew them back, and hid his face in his hands; saying in low, broken, almost inaudible tones:
”I am too unworthy. Dripping with the blood of your children, I dare not touch you.”
The pastor tottered around the tomb, and stood at Mr. Murray's side, and the next moment the old man's arms were clasped around the tall form, and his white hair fell on his pupil's shoulder.
”G.o.d be praised! After twenty years' separation I hold you once more to the heart that, even in its hours of deepest sorrow, has never ceased to love you! St. Elmo!--”
He wept aloud, and strained the prodigal convulsively to his breast.
After a moment Mr. Murray's lips moved, twitched; and with a groan that shook his powerful frame from head to foot, he asked:
”Will you ever, ever forgive me?”
”G.o.d is my witness that I freely and fully forgave you many, many years ago! The dearest hope of my lonely life has been that I might tell you so, and make you realize how ceaselessly my prayers and my love have followed you in all your dreary wanderings. Oh! I thank G.o.d that, at last! at last you have come to me, my dear, dear boy!
My poor, proud prodigal!”
A magnificent jubilate swelled triumphantly through church and churchyard, as if the organist up in the gallery knew what was happening at Murray Hammond's grave; and when the thrilling music died away St. Elmo broke from the encircling arms, and knelt with his face shrouded in his hands and pressed against the marble that covered his victim.
After a little while the pastor sat down on the edge of the slab, and laid his shrunken fingers softly and caressingly upon the bowed head.
”Do not dwell upon a past that is fraught only with bitterness to you, and from which you can draw no balm. Throw your painful memories behind you, and turn resolutely to a future which may be rendered n.o.ble and useful and holy. There is truth, precious truth in George Herbert's words:
'For all may have, If they dare choose, a glorious life or grave!'
and the years to come may, by the grace of G.o.d, more than cancel those that have gone by.”
”What have I to hope for--in time of eternity? Oh! none but Almighty G.o.d can ever know the dreary blackness and wretchedness of my despairing soul! the keen sleepless pain of my remorse! my utter loathing of my accursed, distorted nature!” ”And His pitying eyes see all, and Christ stretches out his hands to lift you up to Himself, and His own words of loving sympathy and pardon are spoken again to you: 'Come unto Me, all ye weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' Throw all your galling load of memories down at the foot of the cross, and 'the peace that pa.s.seth all understanding' shall enter your sorrowing soul, and abide there for ever. St. Elmo, only prayer could have sustained and soothed me since we parted that bright summer morning twenty long, long years ago. Prayer took away the sting and sanctified my sorrows for the good of my soul; and, my dear, dear boy, it will extract the poison and the bitterness from yours. That G.o.d answers prayer and comforts the afflicted among men, I am a living attestation. It is by His grace only that 'I am what I am'; erring and unworthy I humbly own, but patient at least, and fully resigned to His will. The only remaining cause of disquiet pa.s.sed away just now, when I saw that you had come back to me. St. Elmo, do you ever pray for yourself?”