Part 26 (1/2)
”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 G.o.d 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 n.o.blest 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 appet.i.te, 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 Dougla.s.s 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 s.e.xton, 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 ma.s.s of white drapery, on which the lamp-light fell with ghostly l.u.s.tre. 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 Judaean tomb, won immortal ident.i.ty for human souls. Not the succession of progressive changes that const.i.tute the hereafter of--