Bear a lily in thy hand;Gates of brass cannot withstandOne touch of that magic wand.Bear through sorrow, wrong and ruth,In thy heart the dew of youth,On thy lips the smile of truth.—Longfellow.
Bear a lily in thy hand;Gates of brass cannot withstandOne touch of that magic wand.Bear through sorrow, wrong and ruth,In thy heart the dew of youth,On thy lips the smile of truth.—Longfellow.
Bear a lily in thy hand;Gates of brass cannot withstandOne touch of that magic wand.
Bear through sorrow, wrong and ruth,In thy heart the dew of youth,On thy lips the smile of truth.—Longfellow.
THE day wore away, and now the evening darkened fast, and old Ailie’s beaming face, illuminated by the lights she carries, interrupts brother and sister, again seated in the cheerful fire-light, which, ere the candles are set upon the table, has filled the room with such a pleasant flickering half-gloom, half-radiance. And there, too, is Mr. Melville’s knock, which never varies, at the door. Halbert knows it as well asChristian, and grows pale and involuntarily glides into a corner—as he had done of old when he had transgressed—but Christian has met her father at the door, and whispered that there is a stranger newly arrived in the room. It fortunately so happens to-night that Mr. Melville has come home more complacent and willing to be pleased than he has done for many a day. Some speculation suggested by James, and agreed to with sundry prudent demurring by the heads of the house, has turned out most successfully, and Mr. Melville has taken the credit of James’s foresight and energy all to himself, and is marvellously pleased therewith. “A stranger, aye, Christian, and who is this stranger?” he says most graciously, as he divests himself of his outer wrappings; but Christian has no voice to answer just then, and so he pushes open the half-shut door, and looks curiously about the room; his son stands before him, hiseyes cast down, his cheeks flushed, his heart beating.
“Halbert!”
The human part of Mr. Melville’s nature melts for the moment, the surprise is pleasurable; but he soon grows stern again.
“Where have you been, sir? what have you been doing? and why have you never written to your sister?”
Halbert’s trial has taught him meekness, and his answers are in words which turn away wrath, and his father turns round to seek his easy-chair on the most sheltered and cosiest side of the glowing fire.
“Humph!” he says; “well, since you are home, I suppose it’s no use making any more enquiries now, but what do you intend to do?”
Halbert looks astonished; it is a question he is not prepared to answer; he feels that he ought not and cannot ask his father to enable him to carry out the plan he has been dreaming of for the past twelve months, and he is silent.
“There is plenty of time for answering that, father,” said Christian briskly; “we can consult about that afterwards, when we have all recovered ourselves a little from this surprise which Halbert has given us; and here comes Robert.”
Robert came merrily into the room as Christian spoke, and not alone, he had a companion with him whom he brought forward to introduce to Christian, when his eye caught his brother. What! are we going to have old Ailie’s extravagances over again. Poor Robert’s laugh is hysterical as he tumbles over half a dozen chairs, and lays hold of Halbert, and his shout electrifies the whole household, wakening poor sleeping Mary in her lonely chamber. “Halbert! Halbert”—Robert is a fine fellow for all his thoughtlessness, and is almost weeping over his recovered brother,and Halbert’s newly acquired composure has forsaken him again, and he sobs and grasps Robert’s hands, and thanks God in his heart. This is truly a prodigal’s welcome, which Halbert feels he deserves not.
Robert’s companion hangs back bashfully, unwilling to break in upon, lest he mar this scene of heartfelt family joy, which a good brother like himself fully appreciates; but Christian’s kind and watchful eye is upon him, and has marked him, and she comes forward to relieve him from the awkward position in which he is placed, Marked him! yes, but what a startled agitated look it is with which she regards him, and seems to peruse every lineament of his countenance with eager earnestness. What can it be that comes thus in the way of Christian’s considerate courtesy, and makes her retire again and gaze and wonder? What a resemblance! and Christian’s heart beats quick. But Robert has at lengthrecollected himself, and now brings the young man forward and introduces him as his friend Charles Hamilton. Christian returns his greeting, but starts again and exchanges a hurried glance with Halbert, who also looks wonderingly on the stranger. Christian soon leaves the room, she has Mary to seek after, and attend to; but as she passes Halbert’s chair, she bends over it and whispers in his ear, and her voice trembles the while,—
“Is not the resemblance most striking—and the name?”
“It is most extraordinary,” answered Halbert aloud, gazing again on the mild ingenuous face of the stranger. Christian glided away.
“What is most extraordinary, Halbert?” asked Robert, with a slight impatience in his tone.
“Oh, nothing; at least only Mr. Hamilton’s great resemblance to an old friend of ours long since dead.”
The young man looked towards him and smiled. Can that picture still be hanging in its old place in Christian’s room?
Our poor Mary has slept long and calmly, and when Robert’s shout awoke her, she started up in astonishment. She was lying in the dark room alone, with silence round about her, and her pillow was wet with tears. Mary raised herself in her bed, and throwing back the disordered hair which hung about her face tried to collect her bewildered thoughts. The memory of her grief has left her for the moment, and she is wondering what the sound could be that came indistinctly to her ears; it sounded, she fancied, very like “Halbert.” Who could be speaking of him, and as she repeats his name the full knowledge of what has passed, all the momentous events and misery of this day come upon her like a dream. Poor Mary! a heavy sigh breaks from her parted lips, and she presses herhand over her painful eyes. She does not see the approaching light which steals into the little room; she does not hear the light footstep of its gentle bearer, but she feels the kind pressure of Christian’s arm, and most readily and thankfully rests her head on Christian’s supporting shoulder.
“I have news to tell you,” whispers Christian, “which you will be glad of and smile at, though you are sighing now. You remember Halbert, Mary?”
Remember him! but Mary’s only answer is a sigh. Halbert’s name has terrible associations for her to-night; she has remembered him and his fortunes so well and clearly this day.
“Mary, Halbert has come home, will you rouse yourself to see him?”
“Come home, Halbert come home!” and the poor girl lifted up her head. “Forgive me, Christian, forgive me, but I have donevery wrong, and I am very, very unhappy;” and the tears flowed on Christian’s neck again more freely than before.
“You have done nobly, dear Mary—only rouse yourself, shake off this grief; you have done well, and God will give you strength. Let me bathe your temples—you will soon be better now,” said Christian, parting the long dishevelled hair, and wiping away the still streaming tears. “That man is not worthy one tear from you, Mary: be thankful rather, dearest, for your deliverance from his cunning and his wiles.”
A deep blush flitted over Mary’s tear-stained face, as she raised herself and began with Christian’s tender assistance to remove the traces of her grief. Christian wondered as she saw her begin to move about the little room again; there was a still composure gathering about her gentle features, which the elder sister, accustomed to think of Mary as stilllittle more than a child, could only marvel at in silence. Her eyes were almost stern in their calmness, and her voice was firmer than Christian could have believed possible as she turned to speak.
“Yes, Christian, I am thankful—thankful beyond anything I can say; but do not ask me about anything just now,” she continued, hurriedly, as Christian looked up to her as if about to speak. “I will tell you all afterwards, but not to-night—not to-night, dear Christian.”
“Would you not like to see Halbert, Mary?” said Christian, taking the cold hands of her sister in her own. “Do you care or wish to see Halbert now, Mary?”
“Yes, yes,” was the answer, and Mary’s eye assumed a kinder and more natural glow. “I forgot, tell him to come here Christian, I would rather see him, I cannot meet him down stairs.”
Halbert was speedily summoned, and when his step paused at the door, Mary ran forward to meet him with pleasure in her eyes. True, Halbert’s tone of affectionate sympathy brought the remembrance of that scene of the morning, and with it the tears to Mary’s eyes; but Christian rejoiced to see how gently they fell, and hoped that the sorest and bitterest part of the struggle was past; and so it was, for Mary went down with untrembling step and entered the room where her father, brother, and the stranger sat with a sweet and settled calmness, which allayed all Christian’s fears.
It seemed now that however strange the stranger was to Christian, he was no stranger to Mary Melville. Mr. Charles Hamilton was in truth well known to Mary—yea, that Robert looked arch and intelligent, and his young friend blushed as he rose to greet her on her entrance. This acquaintanceship was soon explained, Mary had met him severaltimes at Mrs. James’s parties, and the casual mention which Robert and Mary had made of him among the host of Elizabeth’s visitors had not been sufficiently marked to attract the attention of Christian, engrossed as she was then with such great anxiety regarding poor Mary’s unfortunate attachment.
Charles Hamilton’s qualities of head and heart were much toolargefor Mrs. James Melville, and, accordingly, though she received him as a guest, and was even glad to do so, from his social position and prospects—she regarded him with much the same feeling which prompted her attacks on Christian, and having noticed what poor Mary was too much occupied to notice, the bashful attention with which the young man hovered about her fair sister-in-law, Mrs. James had decided upon entirely crushing his hopes by exhibiting to him this evening, at her party, the crowning triumph of her friend Forsyth. Poor Mrs.James! how completely she had over-reached and outwitted herself. That evening found her accomplished friend the rejected—rejected with scorn and loathing, too—of simple Mary Melville, in no humour for contributing to the amusement of her guests, and Charles Hamilton in a far fairer way of success than even he himself had ever dreamt of, for Christian’s eyes are bent on him from time to time, and there is wonder blended with kindness in her frequent glances on his face, and her pleasant voice has an unconscious tone of affection in it as she speaks to him, as though she were addressing a younger brother. But the time has come when they must prepare for Mrs. James’s party; Christian will not go, Mary will not go, how could she? Halbert will not go, and the young stranger’s face grows suddenly clouded, and he moves uneasily on his chair, and at last rises reluctantly. Mr. Melville and Robert must gofor a time at least, to excuse the others that remain at home, and tell James of Halbert’s return, and Charles Hamilton in vain hunts through every recess of his inventive powers to find some reason that will excuse him for sitting down again. But all fail, he can find nothing to offer as an excuse; he is intruding on the family this night, sacred as it is—the evening of the wanderer’s return—and when he may suppose they all so much desire to be alone; and so he must take his leave, however loth and reluctant so to do. But while so perplexed and disappointed Christian takes him aside, Christian bids him sit down and speak to her a moment when Robert and his father have gone away, and he does so gladly. Mary wonders what Christian can have to say to him, a stranger to her till the last hour, and looks over, with interest every moment increasing, towards the corner where they are seated side by side, and so does Halbert too;but there is no astonishment in his face, though there is compassionate affection beaming from his eyes. Their conversation seems to be most interesting to both, and the look of sad recollection on Christian’s gentle face seems to have been communicated to the more animated features of her companion, and at length he suddenly starts and clasps her hand.
“Christian Melville!” he exclaims, “Oh that my mother were here!”
The tears stand in Christian’s eyes—some chord of old recollection has been touched more powerfully than usual, and Christian’s cheeks are wet, and her eyes cast down for a moment. Mary can only gaze in astonishment, and before she recovers herself Christian has led the young man forward to them, and then she hurries from the room, while Halbert extends his hand to him cordially. What is the meaning of this? both the young menjoin in explanations, but Charles Hamilton’s voice is broken, half with the recollection of his dead brother, and half with the pleasure of discovering such a tie already existing with Mary’s family. Yes, Charles’s brother was the original of that saint-like portrait which hangs within reach of the glories of sunset on the wall of Christian’s room. The grave where Christian had buried her youthful hopes was the grave of William Hamilton, and that one name made the young man kindred to them all; and when Christian after a time came down stairs again, she found him seated between Halbert and Mary as though he had been familiar with that fireside circle all his days, and was indeed a brother.
It was a happy night that to the group in this bright room, a night of great cheerfulness and pleasant communion, just heightened by the saddening tinge which memory gave it, and Mary, our sweet Mary, marvels at herself,and is half disappointed that there is so little of romance in the fading of her sorrow; but marvel as she likes, the unwitting smile plays on her lips again, and you could scarce believe that those clear eyes have shed so many tears to-day. She feels easier and happier even, now the weight of concealment, which disturbed and distressed her in Christian’s presence of late, is removed from the spirit; and she is the same open, single-minded, ingenuous girl as heretofore; the secret consciousness that it was not right to yield to Forsyth’s fascinating powers is gone now, and Mary Melville is herself once more, aye, more herself than she has been for months past, notwithstanding the bitter suffering of that very day. God has graciously tempered the fierceness of his wind to the tender and trembling lamb, and Christian’s confidence is restored, and she feels sure that time will make Mary’s heart as light as ever, andefface from her memory the image of that evil man, and blot out the traces of this day’s agony; and a smile flits over Christian’s cheerful face as she fancies the substitution of another image in the precious entablature of Mary’s heart. Who can tell but Charles Hamilton may gain a right to the name of brother, which she already hesitates not to accord, better than his present claim, precious to her mind as it is.
Mrs. James Melville’s party is sadly shorn of its lustre this year, when we compare it with its last predecessor, only a short twelvemonth since; and already, in spite of all the attractions of gossip, music, and flirtation, her guests are beginning to yawn and look weary. Mrs. James was never so annoyed in her life, all seems this night to have gone wrong. Her very husband had deserted her—she had seen him fly down stairs three steps at a time, and skim away through the cold street towards hisfather’s house. Mrs. James was enraged to be left alone at such a time for any Halbert of them all.
“A nice fuss was made about him, as much nonsense when he went away as if there wasn’t another in the whole country, and now when he thought fit and had come home——”
Mrs. James could not finish the sentence, for spite and vexation overmastered her. Forsyth was not there, her chief attraction; Mary was not there, and even Christian’s absence, little as she liked her, was another source of annoyance; and this flying off of James was the finishing stroke. We hardly think, however, that even Mrs. James would not have melted had she seen her husband in the middle of yon cheerful group, with his beaming joyous face, shaking Halbert’s hands over and over again, to the imminent danger of bone and joint.We really think she could not but have helped him.
There was a voice of thanksgiving in Mr. Melville’s house that night, of thanksgiving which told in its earnest acknowledgment of many mercies; thanksgiving whose voice was broken by the sobbings of one and accompanied by the happy tears of all, for Halbert led their devotions, and when his earnest tones rose up among them there was not a dry cheek in the kneeling family, not James, though it might be thought his heart was alienated from the overflowing affection of home, by the remembrance of his own; not Charles Hamilton, permitted, nay requested, to stay, for who so well as Halbert could give thanks for that double deliverance.
There are dreams to-night hovering with drowsy wing about the dwelling, dreams which alight on Charles Hamilton’s younghead as he hastens home, his heart full of the last scene of the evening, and his voice repeating—
“In dwellings of the righteousIs heard the melodyOf joy and health: the Lord’s right handDoth ever valiantly;”—
“In dwellings of the righteousIs heard the melodyOf joy and health: the Lord’s right handDoth ever valiantly;”—
“In dwellings of the righteousIs heard the melodyOf joy and health: the Lord’s right handDoth ever valiantly;”—
dreams which enter Halbert Melville’s long shut chamber, welcoming its old dreamer back again—dreams which float about Christian’s resting-place—above the fair head laid on Christian’s shoulder, calm as in the happy days of childhood; sweet, hopeful, cheering dreams, that open up long vistas of indistinct and dazzling brightness, all the brighter for their glad uncertainty before their eyes, and fill the hearts which tremble in their joy with a sweet assurance that calms their fears into peace. Even Ailie dreamed, and her visions were of a gay complexion, fitting the nature of her doings through this eventful day, and had various anticipations of bridal fineryfloating through them. Nay, the very wind which whistled past Mr. Melville’s roof-tree had a language of its own, and admirable gleesome chuckle, which said plain as words could speak that happy as this night had been beneath it, there would be merrier, happier doings here next new year’s day.
Sweet is the sunshine lacing with its light,The parting storm-cloud after day of sadness;That ere the even darkens into nightO’erflows the world with glory and with gladness;But sweeter is the flood of pleasantness,That breaks at noonday through the clouds of morning,While yet the long glad hours have power to bless,And the earth brightens ’neath its warm adorningOf scattered sunbeams. So their fate excelsIn blessedness, upon whose noonday storyThe heavenly sunshine of God’s favour dwells,While yet their tongues are strong to speak His glory;And blessed they, O Lord! who, saved and free,Stretch out compassionate hands to draw men near to thee!
Sweet is the sunshine lacing with its light,The parting storm-cloud after day of sadness;That ere the even darkens into nightO’erflows the world with glory and with gladness;But sweeter is the flood of pleasantness,That breaks at noonday through the clouds of morning,While yet the long glad hours have power to bless,And the earth brightens ’neath its warm adorningOf scattered sunbeams. So their fate excelsIn blessedness, upon whose noonday storyThe heavenly sunshine of God’s favour dwells,While yet their tongues are strong to speak His glory;And blessed they, O Lord! who, saved and free,Stretch out compassionate hands to draw men near to thee!
Sweet is the sunshine lacing with its light,The parting storm-cloud after day of sadness;That ere the even darkens into nightO’erflows the world with glory and with gladness;But sweeter is the flood of pleasantness,That breaks at noonday through the clouds of morning,While yet the long glad hours have power to bless,And the earth brightens ’neath its warm adorningOf scattered sunbeams. So their fate excelsIn blessedness, upon whose noonday storyThe heavenly sunshine of God’s favour dwells,While yet their tongues are strong to speak His glory;And blessed they, O Lord! who, saved and free,Stretch out compassionate hands to draw men near to thee!
They thicken on our path,These silent witness years;A solemn tenantry, that still land hathWherein were spent our bygone smiles and tears;Graven on their secret tablets silently,Stand deed, and thought, and word,Beyond the touch of change or soft decay,’Stablished perpetually before the Lord!* * * * *Season of labour, time of hope and fear,Kind to our households let thy varyings be;With thee we give a sigh to the Old year,And do rejoice us in the New with thee.—Y.S.P.
They thicken on our path,These silent witness years;A solemn tenantry, that still land hathWherein were spent our bygone smiles and tears;Graven on their secret tablets silently,Stand deed, and thought, and word,Beyond the touch of change or soft decay,’Stablished perpetually before the Lord!* * * * *Season of labour, time of hope and fear,Kind to our households let thy varyings be;With thee we give a sigh to the Old year,And do rejoice us in the New with thee.—Y.S.P.
They thicken on our path,These silent witness years;A solemn tenantry, that still land hathWherein were spent our bygone smiles and tears;Graven on their secret tablets silently,Stand deed, and thought, and word,Beyond the touch of change or soft decay,’Stablished perpetually before the Lord!* * * * *Season of labour, time of hope and fear,Kind to our households let thy varyings be;With thee we give a sigh to the Old year,And do rejoice us in the New with thee.—Y.S.P.
TEN years have passed away, and again it is a fireside scene that we have to depict, and a fireside conversation we have to chronicle. The room we now stand in is large and pleasant, and bright with the radiance of merry faces—faces of every age and size, but all marvellously alike in features,as in happiness, from the grave seniors down to the crowing baby, through all the gradations of stature and sobriety that crowd around that well-spread table. The assembly is too large, and the children too near each other in age to allow you to think them all members of one household; and two fathers half checked, half encouraged the merry crowd, and two mothers took sweet counsel together, praising each other’s little ones, and exchanging domestic experiences with each other. We must try and find in these merry faces the traits of those we have known before. Let us see whom we have before us. A man of goodly presence is the elder; grave, it seems, habitually, but with a smile that is like a sunbeam, and which has an electrical effect in the saddest house it beams in; and many, many houses of sorrow does it see, and many mourners are cheered by the words of hope and comfort that flow from these sympathisinglips; for you will see, if you look at his apparel, and mark his manner, that he holds a high vocation, no less than a labourer about that glorious vine which has the Eternal Father for its husbandman; a labourer, one who, like the bee, seeks honey from every flower, and from his pulpit, and standing by beds of suffering, and in the dark, close, and fœtid haunts of sin, seeks to have souls for his hire as the labour of his life and the joy of his existence. No mere Sabbath day worker in his pulpit, but one that never tires, that is always ready, and almost always with his harness on his back; like a good knight of the olden time, prompt to succour the distressed. The lady too, who sits beside him, has about her a gentle dignity that is akin to his; but with her blooming cheek and bright eye we can boast no old acquaintance, though when she lays her white hand on his arm and calls him “Halbert,” we are halfashamed to say so much of Halbert Melville’s wife.
But on the other side of the fire sits a younger lady, with a calm air of matronly self-possession, which almost sets our memory at defiance; it is true that her face looks so youthful in its eloquent expressiveness that, but for that copy of it that shines at her knee, through the fair straggling locks of a little merry girl, you might fancy her still the Mary of ten years ago; but in the silent depths of her dark eyes sits such serene and assured happiness, at once so calm, and deep, and full, as makes one sure this cannot be the disconsolate inhabitant of yon dim chamber, weeping in her sleep in the first agony of womanly woe. Yet so it is, and lightly have these ten swift years—long, oh, how long and dreary to many—flown over her, effacing so entirely everything but the remembrance of those passages in her historyfrom her mind, that when she looks back now upon that troubled time, she half smiles, half blushes for her old self, and reckons of her brief but agonising trial, as sick men recall to their memories the terrible dreams of some delirious fever fit. For Mary Melville has found entire and perfect kindred in the heart of one whom then she little recked of and cared not for, and she wonders now how she, ever the object of Charles Hamilton’s warm and full affection, could have overlooked his nobler qualities, and preferred instead Forsyth’s deceptive and hollow brilliancy, and the glitter of well-displayed accomplishments, which threw the blushing youth into the shade. And the blushing youth of our last chapter blushes no longer when he speaks to Mary, nor has his bashfulness been seen, Halbert says, for nine long years and more; never since one bright autumn evening, when Mary and he surprised Christian in her solitude by the whispered communication of an important agreement come to between them, and which was carried into effect, ratified and sealed, on the following new year’s day, fulfilling, in the most joyous manner, old Ailie’s dream. At this transaction Halbert’s presence was indispensable, albeit he was again, after Christian’s kind persuasions and James’s spirited remonstrances had shamed their father into liberality, finishing the long forsaken studies so disastrously interrupted of old, with a vigour and ardour that was unquenchable. True, he did not come to James’s wedding when it took place; but Christian, and Mary, and Charles Hamilton were each and all immovable in their demands; they could not do without Halbert, and so he was present at the ceremony, exciting Charles’s wrathful contradiction, and Christian and Mary’s curiosity, by hinting merrily of another Mary, whose presencewould throw the bride of to-day into the shade, though no one at that blithe bridal looked on Mary Melville with more affectionate admiration than her brother Halbert. And lo! when the time of Halbert’s study and probations was over, and Providence had so ordered that the place of his ministry should be the same as that of his birth, and the dwelling-place still of his nearest and dearest kindred, then came about another bridal, and the name of Mary Melville was resuscitated, though Mrs. Charles Hamilton’s proud husband would never allow that the old bearer of the name was equalled by the new.
But there is no rivalship between the sisters—sisters in affection as much as in name—and the children, whose fair heads have sprung up like flowers beside and about them, are like one family in their cordial intercourse. But where is Christian? Our enquiry is echoed by half-a-dozen merry voices. “Where canAunt Christian be?” There will be no need to ask the question a moment hence, if indeed we can discern our old friend through the pyramid of children that are clustering about her; the little girl that stood by Mary’s knee has left for Aunt Christian, and now stands on a chair beside her, with her round arms about her neck, and her rosy face beaming on her shoulders; the sturdy boy who leant on Halbert’s chair has left that place of honour for Aunt Christian, and he stands proudly at her right hand as prime minister, helping at the distribution of the great basketful of new year’s dainties—for this is again the first night of another year—which she has brought to gladden these youthful hearts. The whole host of her nephews and nieces, absorbed a moment since in their various amusements, have left them all for Aunt Christian, and are gathered about her, one clinging round her waist and one hanging at either arm, greatlyimpeding the action of her gift-dispensing hand. Sure enough here is Christian, how blithe! how happy! Time has dealt gently with her, and though he has drawn a thread of silver through the rich dark abundance of her plainly braided hair, there is not one in this room that would not start up in indignant surprise, if you said that Christian was either looking or growing old.
“Nay, nay,” said Halbert, not long ago, when some indifferent friend of the family suggested this, “Christian will never grow old. When years come upon her, she will glide away like a streamlet into a river, but she will not fade. Christian’s spirit will always be young.”
And so it is; her soft clear voice stills all that little childish hubbub in a moment. The very baby stays its scream of joy, as if it too would listen to Aunt Christian, and little Mary on her shoulder, and strong Halbert at her righthand, and every separate individual of their respective hosts of brothers and sisters would dare in single-handed valour any full-grown Goliath that would presume to interrupt the expression of Aunt Christian’s pleasure, pleasant as it always is. It is a great day this, with these two united families. A day of childish jubilee to the younger members, and of joyful commemoration to the older, for Halbert looks back with glistening eyes, and rejoices in the union of ten years ago, a beginning of happy, laborious years to him; and Mary remembers her early trial, and thanks God most earnestly for deliverance, and participates with her husband in the happier recollections of their marriage day; and the other Mary, with generous affection, sympathises with each and all; and Christian? Christian’s heart, open at all times to generous impulses, seems to have its sluices of overpouring and constant love thrown wide open for the freepassage of its swelling tides, each new year’s night, and if you heard her fervent thanksgiving when she kneels before God alone, you would think that flood of blessings had been all poured out upon her, not that its fulness had flowed upon her friends, but that she herself was the individual recipient of every separate gift. For Christian identifies herself with those dear ones so entirely, that she looks upon their happiness as a peculiar blessing bestowed upon herself. Christian has, however, now seated herself in the empty chair waiting for her—jealously kept for her, indeed—at the brightest corner of the cheerful fireside, and taking a little namesake of her own, a grave, serious, thoughtful child, who has begun to lisp wisdom already with her infant tongue, upon her knee, she joins in the conversation which her entrance, and still more her equitable distribution of the basket of good things had interrupted.
“Father,” questioned Halbert Melville, second bearer of the name, “do you keep new year’s day becauseit isnew year’s day?”
“Why do you ask, Halbert?” said his mother, smiling, as she drew the boy towards her.
“Because, Mamma, nobody else cares about it here; and I’ve heard Aunt Christian say how foolish it was for people to keep their birthdays, as if they were glad that time was going away from them, people that don’t use their time well either,” moralised Halbert, looking earnestly in his mother’s face, “and isn’t new year’s day just the same as a birthday and—” the boy hesitated and seemed unwilling or unable to say more.
“And what, Halbert,” said Christian, as the boy paused and looked down, “and what—what was it you were going to say?”
“I don’t know, Aunt Christian,” hesitatedHalbert, “I don’t know whether it’s right or not, but shouldn’t we be rather sorry when the new year comes, than glad that the old year has ended?”
“And why sorry, Halbert?” said his father, who had hitherto been listening in silence, “why do you think we should be sorry?”
“Because, father,” said Halbert, quickly, raising his eyes, “because you said in your sermon last Sabbath, that when once a year was gone, if we had not spent it well, it was entirely lost for ever, for we could never bring a minute back again.”
“And therefore you think we should be sorry, do you, Halbert?” rejoined his father.
“Yes, father,” was the answer, and again young Halbert’s face was cast down, “for you say often that nobody spends their time well, or as right as they should do.”
The elder Halbert did not answer, but hetook little Christian, who had been gazing with her large eloquent eyes at every one that spoke in turn, and had attended diligently and earnestly to the unusual conversation, upon her aunt’s knees. “Well, little one, do you think we should be sorry when the new year comes?”
“I think we should be both sorry and glad, papa,” was the prompt answer.
“Well, Christian, Halbert has told us why we should be sorry; now do you tell us what it is we should be glad for.”
There was a murmur among a little knot at a corner of the table, and a half-suppressed laugh before Christian had time to answer her father’s question.
“Who is that? what is it that makes you so merry?” said Halbert, smiling and shaking his head at the merry urchins, who were congregated in a group.
“It’s only our Halbert, uncle, it’s only ourHalbert,” whispered little Mary Hamilton, deprecatingly.
“Well, Mary, we are impartial to-night, so we must hear what our Halbert has to say; come here, sir.”
And Halbert Hamilton, the wildest little rogue that ever kept nursery in an uproar, or overcame nurse’s patience, or conquered her heart by his feats of merry mischief, half hid himself below the table in pretended fear and dismay at his uncle’s summons, and did not stir.
“Come, Halbert,” said Mary, his mother, as Charles drew his incorrigible son into the middle of the little circle, “what did you say over there?”
Halbert the third looked down and blushed, and then laughed outright.
“He only said we should be glad when the new year comes, because we have plenty offun,” interposed Mary Melville, her wild cousin’s constant defender and apologist.
“Quite right, my boy,” said the elder Halbert, laying his hand kindly on the boy’s head, “the coming of plenty of fun is a very good and proper thing to be glad for; but sit you down now, and let us hear what little Christian has to say.” And Halbert sat down at his uncle’s feet to listen.
“Well now, Christian, what should we be glad for? Is it because there is plenty of fun, as Halbert says?”
“No, papa,” said the little, grave girl, seriously, shaking her head solemnly, “no, it is not that. I think it’s because we have another to be good and do right in. Isn’t that it, Aunt Christian?”
And the little girl looked over to her aunt inquiringly, to see if her childish conclusion was a correct one.
“Just so, my dear,” was Aunt Christian’s answer, as Halbert patted the child’s softcheek, and then permitted her to make her way over to her accustomed seat.
The children were gathered now about their parents’ knees, and even wild Halbert Hamilton was silent and attentive. “Yes, children,” said the kind father and uncle, as he looked round upon them, “yes, children, there is a better reason for being glad than even having plenty of fun. There is a new year to be good in, as little Christian says, a new year to live and learn in. It is true that, perhaps, you may not see its end; but, nevertheless, it is the beginning of a new year with many opportunities, both of doing and receiving good, and therefore we should be glad, and weshouldask God to make us His faithful servants, loving Him and keeping His commandments all through this year, and if God does that you may be sure this will be a very happy new year to us all. Well, Halbert,” he continued, turning to his son, who was back again byAunt Christian’s side, “has little Christian satisfied you?”
Halbert’s face and conscience were both quite cleared; it was right to be glad on a new year’s day, and he got a promise that that night he should hear some of the many things which had happened on former new years’ days, and had made that day a special anniversary in the family; and besides, the relation of these things was to be committed to Aunt Christian, therefore Halbert was quite satisfied. And then the seniors closed round the fireside, and all the children—with the exception of Halbert Melville and Mary Hamilton, the eldest of the two families, who hang by Aunt Christian still—sought more active amusement in the farther corners of the room, and recollections of those bygone years became the long lingered on subject with Halbert, Charles, Christian, and the two Marys; and they looked back with half-wondering gaze upon the past,as men look through the wondrous glass of science on the clear outline of some far distant shore, of which the human dwellers, the fears and hopes, the loves and sorrows, which people the farther sides of the blue slopes that yet linger in their view, have all faded from their retiring vision.
But then comes a distant shout from the lobby into which some of the children have strayed in their play, of “Uncle James! Uncle James!” and here he is. Older, of course, yet looking much as he looked in the old times; though we must whisper that the bridegroom whom we saw some fourteen or fifteen years ago at the commencement of this story, has now, at its conclusion, become a portly gentleman; in good sooth, most unsentimentallystout, and with a look of comfort and competence about him, which speaks in tones most audibly, of worldly success and prosperity. A good man, too, and a pleasant,he is, with the milk of human kindness abounding in his heart; as such Mr. James Melville is universally considered and honoured, though with scarcely so large a heart as his brother the minister, nor so well mated. It is true, Mrs. James, since she found out who her friend of ten years ago was; and Mary’s reasons for rejecting what seemed so good a match, and the failure, the utter failure of her party on that new year’s night in consequence; has grown wonderfully careful, and begins to discover that there are pleasanter things in life, than the collecting together a dozen or two of people to be entertained or wearied according to their respective inclinations, and her fireside has grown a much more cheerful one always, though for a few nights in the year less brilliant than heretofore; and her husband’s quotations of “Christian” have grown less disagreeable to her ears, though still she sometimes resents the superioritywhich everybody accords to her. James is always welcomed in his brother Halbert’s house, and never more warmly than on New Year’s night; for Elizabeth does not accompany him on these annual occasions; and even that loving circle feel relieved by her absence at such a time, for the conversation generally runs upon certain remembrances which she would not like to hear; and which none of them would like to mention in her presence. So James sits down and joins them for awhile in their recalling of the past; and little Halbert Melville gazes at his father in open-mouthed astonishment, as he hears him speak of being the cause of unhappiness and sorrow to Aunt Christian and Aunt Mary, and to Uncles James and Robert, and his grave old grandfather who died two years ago. His father—and Halbert would have defied anybody but that father’s self. Yes! even Aunt Christian, if she had said such words as these—his father cause unhappiness and sorrow to anybody!—his father, whom old Ailie, still a hale and vigorous old woman, and chief of Christian’s household, and prima donna in Mary Melville’s nursery, had told him was always as kind and good to everybody all through his life as he was now! Halbert could not believe it possible. And little Mary Hamilton’s eyes waxed larger and larger, in amazement, as Aunt Christian spoke of her mother—her mother whom she had never seen without a smile on her face, being at that infinitely remote period before any of them were born, most unhappy herself; yes, very unhappy! Mary would have denied it aloud, but that she had too much faith in Aunt Christian’s infallibility, to doubt for an instant even her word. This night was a night of wonders to these two listening children.
But the time passed on, and Uncle James—while yet the other little ones were engaged ina merry game, chasing each other throughout all the house, from the glowing kitchen, clean and bright, up to the nursery where old Ailie presided in full state and glory—must go. Elizabeth was unwell; and he felt it was not seemly to be from home, loth and reluctant as he was to leave that fireside and its loving circle. So Uncle James prepared to go home; and down rushed again the whole merry band, deserted Ailie, even in the midst of one of her old-world stories, to bid him good-night; and thus environed by the little host with shouts as loud as had welcomed his arrival, Uncle James went away home.
Men rail upon the Change!* * * * *But think they as they speak?Thou softener of earth’s pain,Oh Change! sweet gift of the Infinite to the weak,We hail alike thy sunshine and thy rain;Awe dwells supreme in yon eternal light,Horror in misery’s doom;But frail humanity dares breathe, when brightThy tremulous radiance mingles with the gloom.—Y.S.P.
Men rail upon the Change!* * * * *But think they as they speak?Thou softener of earth’s pain,Oh Change! sweet gift of the Infinite to the weak,We hail alike thy sunshine and thy rain;Awe dwells supreme in yon eternal light,Horror in misery’s doom;But frail humanity dares breathe, when brightThy tremulous radiance mingles with the gloom.—Y.S.P.
Men rail upon the Change!* * * * *But think they as they speak?Thou softener of earth’s pain,Oh Change! sweet gift of the Infinite to the weak,We hail alike thy sunshine and thy rain;Awe dwells supreme in yon eternal light,Horror in misery’s doom;But frail humanity dares breathe, when brightThy tremulous radiance mingles with the gloom.—Y.S.P.
UNCLE JAMES has just gone, and the group of elders in the parlour are just drawing their chairs closer together to fill up the gap which his departure has made, when they hear a hasty knock at the door; a hasty, imperative summons, as if from urgent need that would not be denied access, and a dripping messenger stands on the threshold—for the cold rain of winterfalls heavily without—begging that Mr. Melville would go with him to see a dying man, a stranger who has taken up his residence for the last few weeks at a small inn in the neighbourhood, and was now, apparently, on the very brink of death, and in a dreadful state of mind. The calls of the sick and dying were as God’s special commands to Halbert; and he rose at once to accompany the messenger, though the faces of his wife and sisters twain, darkened with care as he did so. It was very hard that he should be called away from them on this especial night; and when he firmly declared he would go, Mary whispered to Charles to go with him, and to bring him soon back. The two brothers went away through the storm, and the sisters drew closer to each other round the fire, as the gentlemen left them; then Mrs. Melville told the others how anxious she always was when her husband was called out in this way;how he might be exposed to infection in his visiting of the sick so assiduously as he did; and how, for his health’s sake, she could almost wish he were less faithful and steady in the discharge of these his duties: and Mary looked at her in alarm as she spoke, and turned pale, and half upbraided herself for having unnecessarily exposed Charles, though a more generous feeling speedily suppressed her momentary selfishness. But Christian was by, and when was selfishness of thought, or an unbelieving fear harboured in Christian’s gentle presence?
“Mary! Mary!” she exclaimed, as she turned from one to the other, “are you afraid to trust them in the hands of your Father? They are but doing what is their duty, and He will shield His own from all evil. Would you have your husband, Mary Melville, like these ministers whose whole work is their sermons—alas! there are manysuch—and who never try, whether visiting the sick and dying, or the vicious and criminal, would not advance their Master’s cause as well—would you that, rather than Halbert’s going forth as he has done to-night?”
“No, no; but it is terrible for me to think that he is exposed to all kinds of contagion; that he must go to fevers, and plagues, and diseases that I cannot name nor number, and run continually such fearful risks,” said Mary, energetically.
“Our Father who is in Heaven, will protect him,” said Christian, solemnly. “I have heard of a minister in London, who never for years ever thinks of seeing after his own people in their own homes; it is too much labour, forsooth, he is only their preacher, not their pastor; and though he sends—Reverend Doctor that he is—his deacons and such like to visit; it’s seldom that himself ever goes to a poor sick bed, and as to his trying to reclaim the vicious, there is not on his individual part the least attempt or effort. Now, Mary, would you have Halbert such a man as that?”
“I would rather see him lying under the direfullest contagion. I would rather that he was stricken by the Lord’s own hand, than that it should be said of Halbert Melville that he flinched in the least degree from the work which the Lord has laid upon him,” returned Mary, proudly elevating her matronly form to its full height, with a dignity that gladdened Christian’s heart.
“Yet that man in London will be well spoken of,” said Mary Hamilton, “and our Halbert unknown. No matter: the time will come when Halbert will be acknowledged openly; and now, Christian, I feel assured and pleased that Charles went out with Halbert.”
“And you may, when they went on such anerrand,” said Christian; “but”—and she continued briskly, as if to dispel the little gloom which had fallen upon them, and resuming the conversation, which had been broken off on the departure of the gentlemen—“but Robert writes me, that he is very comfortably settled, and likes his new residence well.”
“I am sorry,” said Mrs. Melville, after a pause, during which her agitation had gradually subsided, “I am sorry that I saw so little of Robert. He and I are almost strangers to each other.”
“Not strangers, Mary, while so nearly connected,” said Christian, kindly. “Moreover, Robert gives me several very intelligible hints about a young lady in your uncle’s family to whom you introduced him.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Melville, “no doubt he means my cousin Helen. Oh, I am very glad of that. Your brothers are too good, Christian, to be thrown away oncold-hearted, calculating people, who only look at money and money’s worth——” and as the words fell from her lips, she stopped and blushed, and hesitated, for Mrs. James flashed upon her mind, and the comparison seemed invidious.
“You are quite right, Mary,” said the other Mary, smiling; “and if Robert be as fortunate as Halbert has been, we shall be a happy family indeed.”
Did Christian’s brow grow dark with selfish sorrow, as she listened to these mutual congratulations? Nay, that had been a strange mood of Christian’s mind in which self was uppermost, or indeed near the surface at all; and her whole soul rejoiced within her in sympathetic gladness. Nor, though they were happy in the full realisation of their early expectations, did she hold herself less blessed; for Christian bore about with her, in her heart of hearts, the holy memory of the dead, andin her hours of stillest solitude felt not herself alone. An angel voice breathed about her in whispering tenderness when she turned over the hallowed leaves of yon old Bible; and when the glorious light of sunset fell on her treasured picture, it seemed, in her glistening eyes, to light it up with smiles and gladness; and the time is gliding on gently and silently, day upon day falling like leaves in autumn, till the gates of yon far celestial city, gleaming through the mists of imperfect mortal vision, shall open to her humble footsteps, and the beloved of old welcome her to that everlasting reunion; and therefore can Christian rejoice, as well on her own account, as in ready sympathy with the joyful spirits round about her.
But the present evening wore gradually away, and the children became heavy, weary, and sleepy, and the youngest of all fairly fell asleep; and Mrs. Melville looked at her watchanxiously, and Mary said she could not wait for Charles, but must go home; but here again Christian interposed. The little Melvilles and Hamiltons had slept under the same roof before now, and being too far gone in weariness to have joined in their domestic worship, even had the elders been ready to engage in it, were taken off by twos and threes indiscriminately to their respective chambers; and the three sisters are left alone once more, maintaining, by fits and starts, a conversation that showed how their thoughts wandered; and, in this dreary interval of waiting for the home-coming of Halbert and Charles, listening to the doleful dropping of the slow rain without, until the long-continued suspense became intolerably painful. At length footsteps paused at the door; there was a knock, and some one entered, and each drew a long breath as if suddenly relieved, though Mrs. Melville started again, and became deadly pale, whenCharles Hamilton entered the room alone. He seemed much agitated and distressed.
“Where is Halbert?” Mrs. Melville exclaimed; and her cry was echoed by the others at the fireside. “Has anything happened to Halbert?”
“Nothing—nothing: Halbert is quite well,” said Charles, sitting down and wiping the perspiration from his forehead, while Halbert’s wife clasped her hands in thankfulness. “He will be here soon; but I come from a most distressing scene—a deathbed—and that the deathbed of one who has spent his life as an infidel.”
“A stranger, Charles?” asked Mary.
“A stranger, and yet no stranger to us,” was Charles’s answer; and he pressed his hands on his eyes, as though to shut out the remembrance of what he had so lately witnessed. As he spoke, the servants entered the room for the usual evening worship, under the impression that the master had returned; andCharles Hamilton took Halbert’s place; and wife, and Christian, and the other Mary, marvelled when Charles’s voice arose in prayer, at the earnest fervent tone of supplication with which he pleaded for that dying stranger, that the sins of his bygone life might not be remembered against him; and that the blood of atonement, shed for the vilest, might cleanse and purify that polluted soul, even in the departing hour; and to these listeners there seemed a something in Charles’s prayer, as if the dying man and the sins of his fast fading life were thoroughly familiar to him and them.
A dreary journey it was for Halbert and Charles Hamilton as they left the warm social hearth and threaded the narrow streets in silence, following the sick man’s messenger. It was a boisterous night, whose windy gusts whirled the heavy clouds along in quick succession, scattering them across the dark bosomof the sky, and anon embattling them in ponderous masses that lowered in apparent wrath over the gloomy world below. A strange contrast to the blithe house they had left was the clamour and rudeness of the obscure inn they entered now, and an unwonted visitor was a clergyman there; but up the narrow staircase were they led, and pausing for an instant on the landing-place, they listened for a moment to the deep groans and wild exclamations of impatient agony, as the sufferer tossed about on his uneasy bed.
“Ay, sir,” said a servant, who came out of the room with a scared and terrified expression upon her face, in answer to Halbert’s inquiry; “ay, sir, he’s very bad; but the worst of it is not in his body, neither!” and she shook her head mysteriously; “for sure he’s been a bad man, and he’s a deal on his mind.”
She held open the door as she said so, and the visitors entered. The scanty hangings ofhis bed hid them from the miserable man who lay writhing and struggling there, and the brothers started in utter amazement as they looked upon the wasted and dying occupant of that poor room; the brilliant, the fashionable, the rich, the talented Forsyth—where were all these vain distinctions now?—lay before them, labouring in the last great conflict; poor, deserted, forlorn, and helpless, without a friend, without a hope, with scarce sufficient wealth to buy the cold civility of the terrified nurse who tended him with mercenary carelessness; pressing fast into the wide gloom of eternity, without one feeble ray of life or hope to guide him on that fearful passage, or assuage the burning misery of his soul ere it set out. Halbert Melville, deceived by that poor sufferer of old, bent down his face on his clasped hands, speechless, as the well-known name trembled on his companion’s tongue,—
“Forsyth!”
“Who calls me?” said the dying man, raising himself fearfully on his skeleton arm, and gazing with his fiery sunken eyes through the small apartment. “Who spoke to me? Hence!” he exclaimed, wildly sitting up erect and strong in delirious fury. “Hence, ye vile spirits! Do I not come to your place of misery? Why will ye torment me before my time?”
His trembling attendant tried to calm him: “A minister,” she said, “had come to see him.” He said: “Heallow a minister to come and speak with him?”
A wild laugh was the response. “To speak withme, me that am already in torment! Well, let him come,” he said, sinking back with a half-idiotic smile, “let him come”—— and he muttered the conclusion of the sentence to himself.
“Will you come forward, sir?” said the nurse, respectfully addressing Halbert. “He is composed now.”
Trembling with agitation, Halbert drew nearer the bedside, but when those burning eyes, wandering hither and thither about the room, rested on him, a maniac scream rang through the narrow walls, and the gaunt form sat erect again for a moment, with its long arms lifted above its head, and then fell back in a faint, and Halbert Melville hung over his ancient deceiver as anxiously as though he had been, or deserved in all respects to be, his best beloved; and when the miserable man awoke to consciousness again, the first object his eye fell upon, was Halbert kneeling by his bedside, chafing in his own the cold damp hand of Forsyth, with kindest pity pictured on his face. Had Halbert disdained him, had he shunned or reproached him, poor Forsyth, in the delirious strength of his disease, would have given him back scorn for scorn, reproach for reproach. But, lo! the face of this man, whom he had wounded sobitterly, was beaming on him now in compassion’s gentlest guise; and the fierce despairing spirit melted like a child’s, and the dying sinner wept.
“Keep back, Charles!” whispered Halbert, as he rose from the bedside; “the sight of you might awaken darker feelings, and he seems subdued and softened now. There may yet be hope.”
Hope!—the echo of that blessed word has surely reached the quick ear of the sufferer; and it draws from him a painful moan and bitter repetition as he turns his weary form on his couch again: “Hope! who speaks of hope to me?”
“I do,” said Halbert Melville, mildly looking upon the ghastly face whose eyes of supernatural brightness were again fixed upon him. “I do, Forsyth; I, who have sinned as deeply, and in some degree after the same fashion as you. I am commissioned to speak of hope toall—of hope, even on the brink of the grave—of hope to the chief of sinners. Yes, I am sent to speak of hope,” he continued, growing more and more fervent, while the sick man’s fascinated attention and glowing eyes followed each word he uttered and each motion of his lifted hand. “Yes, of hope a thousand times higher in its faintest aspirations than the loftiest ambition of the world.”
“Ay, Melville,” he murmured, feebly overcome by his weakness and emotion. “Ay, but not for me, not for one like me. Why do you come here to mock me?” he added fiercely, after a momentary pause; “why do you come here to insult me with your offers of hope? I am beyond its reach. Let me alone; there is no hope, no help for me!” and again his voice sunk into feebleness, as he murmured over and over these despairing words, like, Charles Hamiltonsaid afterwards, the prolonged wail of a lost soul.
“Listen to me, Forsyth,” said Halbert, seating himself by the bedside, and bending over the sufferer. “Listen to me! You remember howIdenied my God and glorified in the denial when last I saw you. You remember howIrenounced my faith and hope,” and Halbert, pale with sudden recollection, wiped the cold perspiration from his forehead. “You know, likewise, how I left my home in despair—such despair as you experience now. Listen to me, Forsyth, while I tell you how I regained hope.”
Forsyth groaned and hid his face in his hands, for Halbert had touched a chord in his heart, and a flood of memories rushed back to daunt and confound him, if that were possible, still more and more; and then, for there seemed something in Halbert’s face that fascinated his burning eyes, he turned roundagain to listen, while Halbert began the fearful story of his own despair—terrible to hear of—terrible to tell; but, oh! how much more terrible to remember, as what oneself has passed through. With increasing earnestness as he went on, the poor sufferer gazed and listened, and at every pause a low moan, wrung from his very soul, attested the fearful faithfulness of the portraiture, true in its minutest points. It was a sore task for Halbert Melville to live over again, even in remembrance, those awful years, and exhibit the bygone fever of his life for the healing of that wounded soul; but bravely did he do it, sparing not the pain of his own shrinking recollection, but unfolding bit by bit the agonies of his then hopelessness, so fearfully reproduced before him now in this trembling spirit, till Charles, sitting unseen in a corner of the small apartment, felt a thrill of awe creep over him, as he listened and trembledin very sympathy; but when Halbert’s voice, full of saddest solemnity, began to soften as he spoke of hope, of that hope that came upon his seared heart like the sweet drops of April rain, reviving what was desolate, of hope whose every smile was full of truthfulness, and certainty, firmer than the foundations of the earth, more enduring than the blue sky or the starry worlds above, built upon the divine righteousness of Him who died for sinners;—the heart of the despairing man grew sick within him, as though the momentary gleam which irradiated his hollow eye was too precious, too joyful, to abide with him in his misery—and, lo! the hardened, obdurate, and unbelieving spirit was struck with the rod of One mightier than Moses, and hiding his pale face on his tear-wet pillow, the penitent man was ready to sob with the Prophet, “Oh! that mine head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears!”
A solemn stillness fell upon that sick-room when Halbert’s eloquent tale was told; a stillness that thrilled them as though it betokened the presence of a visitor more powerful than they. The solitary light by the bedside fell upon the recumbent figure, with its thin arms stretched upon the pillow, and its white and ghastly face hidden thereon—full upon the clasped hands of God’s generous servant, wrestling in silent supplication for that poor helpless one. It was a solemn moment, and who may prophesy the issue, the end of all this? A little period passed away, and the fever of the sick man’s despair was assuaged, and weariness stole over his weak frame, with which his fiery rage of mind had hitherto done battle; and gentle sleep, such as had never refreshed his feeble body since he lay down on this bed, closed those poor eyelids now. Pleasant to look upon was that wasted face, in comparisonwith what it was when Halbert Melville saw its haggard features first of all this night. God grant a blessed awakening.
Softly Halbert stole across the room, and bade Charles go; as soon as he could leave Forsyth he promised that he would return home, but it might be long ere he could do that, and he called the nurse, who was waiting without the door, to see how her patient slept. She looked at him in amazement. Nor was the wonder less of the doctor, who came almost immediately after—he could not have deemed such a thing possible, and if it continued long, it yet might save his life, spent and wasted as he was; but he must still be kept in perfect quietness. Halbert took his station at the bedside as the doctor and nurse left the room, and shading Forsyth’s face with the thin curtain, he leant back, and gave himself up for a time to the strange whirl of excited feeling which followed. The memories so long buried, so suddenly and powerfully awakened; the image of this man, as he once was, and what he was now. Compassion, interest, hope, all circled about that slumbering figure, till Halbert’s anxiety found vent in its accustomed channel, prayer. The night wore slowly on, hour after hour pealed from neighbouring clocks till the chill grey dawn of morn crept into the sick-room, making the solitary watcher shiver with its breath of piercing cold; and not until the morning was advanced, till smoke floated over every roof, and the bustle of daily life had begun once more, did the poor slumberer awake. Wonderingly, as he opened his eyes, did he gaze on Halbert: wonderingly and wistfully, as the events of the past night came up before him in confused recollections, and he perceived that Halbert, who bent over him with enquiries, had watched by his side all night.Forsyth shaded his eyes with his thin hand, and murmured a half weeping acknowledgment of thankfulness, “This from you, Melville, this from you!”