"Io! revixit,Sicuti dixit,Pius illæsus,Funere Jesus!"
"Io! revixit,Sicuti dixit,Pius illæsus,Funere Jesus!"
Then, looking on the motionless form stretched in the shroud beside her, the echo of her own words came back to her,—
"The Lord is risen indeed, and liveth for evermore. Dearer than His empty grave to Him is every sufferer such as this. His Sepulchre is empty; suffering men and women are His shrine, where we may meet Himself."
And retracing her steps to her castle, beside it she built a hospice for the sick and the forsaken, from which she suffered none, Greek or Latin, Jew or Gentile, to be repelled—the only claim she admitted being need of succour.
And in thus ministering to His poor, she found indeed, in the depths of her own heart, that He was risen, living for evermore, and present every hour.
Through His Sepulchre, the grave of her beloved and her own had become to her but as an encampment for the night beside the Great Captain's, on the Battle-field.
In His life she learned that they also lived; and in living unto Him, once more she found she was living with them.
IIn a city whose history dates from the ages of silvery bells and stately buildings, there stood, and stands now for aught I know, a cathedral, rich in all the endless fancies of Gothic art. Inside, it was solemn with shade, and gorgeous with light which came in through the elaborate tracery of the stained windows, many-coloured, and broken as the sunbeams through a tropical forest. Outside, fretted pinnacles and carved bell-towers sprang upward, grand yet fairy-like, as if stone towers rose as easily and naturally towards heaven as oaks and pines. But the chief glory of this cathedral was its bells. They were the pride of the city, and the great attraction to strangers. Their history formed an important part of the civic chronicles.
In a city whose history dates from the ages of silvery bells and stately buildings, there stood, and stands now for aught I know, a cathedral, rich in all the endless fancies of Gothic art. Inside, it was solemn with shade, and gorgeous with light which came in through the elaborate tracery of the stained windows, many-coloured, and broken as the sunbeams through a tropical forest. Outside, fretted pinnacles and carved bell-towers sprang upward, grand yet fairy-like, as if stone towers rose as easily and naturally towards heaven as oaks and pines. But the chief glory of this cathedral was its bells. They were the pride of the city, and the great attraction to strangers. Their history formed an important part of the civic chronicles.
A lady of a royal house had given them as a thank-offering for her lord's safe return from the Crusades. All her silver-plate and ornaments, with spoils of Saracens from the recovered Holy Land, had been poured into the mould when they were made, so that from their birth all tender and sacred memories had been fused into their very essence, and their first tones echoed far-off times and lands. A bishop who afterwards suffered martyrdom in the hands of African Moslems had blessed them. Their first peal had sounded in honour of agreat victory. They had summoned the people through ages of conflict to defend their liberties. They had blended their life with the life of every home,—in family joys and family sorrows, at wedding, christening, and funeral. They had made Sundays and holidays glad with their joyous voices. And last, but not least, by aid of an elaborate mechanism of hammers, ropes, and pulleys, they had for centuries celebrated the departure of every hour with a chorale, and every half-hour with a strain like the versicle of a chant, and every quarter of an hour with a little sprinkle of sweet sound.
Imagine, then, the dismay of the citizens, when, one Monday morning, eight o'clock came, and no sound issued from the cathedral; half-past eight, silence; nine, not a note of warning! Their wonder was increased when the usual peal rung out, clear and full as ever, for the morning service, and by mid-day the whole city was in a commotion. It was plain something must be wrong with the machinery of the chimes.
Immediately the most skilful mechanics of the town, clock-makers, and bell-founders, with the men of science, and the whole corporation, in a state-procession, mounted the clock-tower. "We will soon set it right," they said to the agitated crowd as they entered the belfry-door. The ropes of the machinery were tested,—all were sound; not a flaw in the hammers; not a clog in the wheels; not a crack in the silvery metal. Microscopes were employed, conjectures were hazarded, experiments of all kinds were tried, but not a ray of light was thrown on the perplexity. The clever hands, and the wise heads, and the will of the authorities were all baffled; and the procession reappeared to the assembled multitudes with very crestfallen looks.
That afternoon little work was done in the workshops, few lessons were learned in the schools, all the routine of household habits was interrupted; and when it grew dark the Great Square was filled with people who were afraid to separate andgo to bed without the sanction of the cathedral chimes. Many foreboded some terrible disaster to the city, and some thought the end of the world was come!
But when it was dark a sound very weird and strange, yet with a music like the old familiar tones, came from the church-tower, as it rose dim and grand against the starry sky. It was a voice, not human, yet with a strange likeness to a human voice, silvery as a stream, thrilling as a battle-trumpet, familiar to each listener as his own,—like the blended voices of a spirit and a bell.
"We have borne it too long," said the bell-voice. "We were set here on high for other purposes than men have put us to. Is not this a cathedral, a sanctuary, and a shrine, sacred with the dust of martyrs, and dedicated to the service of Heaven? Were not we christened like immortals? Were not we consecrated like priests? The touch of holy hands is on us, and shall we be debased to secular uses? Set apart like sacred ministers in a sacred dwelling, shall we be required to mingle in the common circumstances of your daily life? Raised on high to be near the heavens we serve, shall our saintly voices serve to tell you when to eat and sleep? We have borne it too long. We will still serve Heaven, and summon you on Sundays and Holydays. We will call you to the solemn services of the Church. We will, if necessary, sound a triumphant peal on days of national thanksgiving, in remembrance of the Victory which first awoke us into music. We will even condescend to ring at your weddings—because marriage is a sacrament—and at your baptisms. We will toll solemnly when your spirits pass from earth, and when your bodies are laid in the churchyard we have seen slowly raised with the dust of your dying generations. But henceforth expect us not to do work which your commonest house-clocks can do as well. Let your eight-day clocks—your gilded time-pieces—call you to work and eat, and rest. We are sacred things, set solemnlyapart from all secular uses. Our business is with Eternity, and the Church, and Heaven. Call on us no more to commune with the things of the world, and earth, and time. We are your cathedral bells, but we will be your household clock-chimes no longer."
Then the voice died away on the night air. For a few minutes there was silence, but soon it was broken by sobs and lamentations, and all the people lifted up their voice as one man, and wept.
The house-father said, "Shall we never more hear your voices calling us to morning and evening prayer? Whenever you told us it was the hour, the mother came from her work, and the children from their play, and together we knelt a united family, and committed each other to God."
And the mother said, "Your voices are blended with every happy household time. Sweet bells! will you mingle with our family joys no more? In the morning you wakened us to begin another busy day, and the sun's beams and your voices came together to call us to serve God in our lowly calling; and both, we thought, came to us from Heaven; and both, we thought, were meek and lowly, and ready to minister to us in our daily lives, because both were sent from Him who came among us once, not to be ministered unto, but to minister; and both, we thought, had caught something of the light of the eyes which wept at Bethany, and of the tones of the voice which spoke at Cana and at Nain. At mid-day you told me it was time to send the dinner to my husband and my elder sons. At six your voice was welcome to us all, because we knew the father's step would soon be on the threshold. At eight you reminded me it was time to lay the little ones to rest, and many a time have you brought happy and holy thoughts to me in those psalms you sang to me whilst I hushed my babes to sleep; and all my every-day life seemed to be more linked with sacred things, and to become, as it were, a part of theservice of God, because it moved to the music of your voices. And again at night your tones were welcome, as in the morning, when they told us the day's work was over, and, wearied, we lay down to peaceful rest; for through the night we knew your sacred voices would sound to Heaven above our sleeping city, like the voices of the angels, who rest not day nor night, saying, Holy, holy, holy. Sweet bells! will you never chime for us again?"
And the children said, in their clear, sweet, ringing voices, "Dear chimes! do not cease to play to us. You wake us to the happy day, you set us free from school, and send us home laughing and dancing for joy; you call our fathers home to us, at night you sing us to sleep, and your voices are blended with our mothers' in our happy dreams. Sweet chimes! you sang so many years to our fathers and mothers; and our grandfathers remember you when they were little children like us. Dear chimes! sing to us still."
And from the sick-chamber which looked into the cathedral square, where the windows were darkened all day, and sand was strewn before the door, that the din of the passing wheels might jar less roughly on the aching head within, came a low and plaintive voice:—"Sweet bells! your commonest tones are sacred to me. You are my church music,—the only church music I can ever hear. When I hear you chime the hour on Sundays and on the festivals, I feel myself among the multitude within your sacred walls; and your voice seems to bear their songs of praise to me, and I am no more alone, but one of the worshippers. But at night it is I prize you most. All through the hours of darkness, so often sleepless to me, your voice is the voice of a friend, familiar as my mother's, yet solemn as the chants of the choir. It helps me to measure off the hours of pain, and say, 'Thank God, an hour less of night, and an hour nearer morning.' And how often, when my suffering is great, you have come with the old psalm-tune, and everytone has brought its word to me, and spoken to me as if direct from God, and filled my heart with trust and peace! Your least sprinkles of sweet sound are precious to me. I fancy they are like the waters of time falling musically from stone to stone on their way to the great sea. I feel they are as the echoes of the footsteps of Him who is drawing nearer and nearer to me; and they draw my heart nearer to Him. Sweet bells! your commonest tones are sacred; for what is the World but that which becomes the Church when it learns how God has loved it, and turns from self to Him? and what is Earth but the floor of Heaven, which heavenly feet once trod? and what is Time but the little fragment of Eternity in which we live on earth? Sweet bells! make not my sleepless night lonely and silent, but sing to me, sing to us all, as of old. Make all our life sacred by linking every fragment of our life to God."
But still no responsive sound came from the cathedral tower, and the people waited on in the silence and the darkness. At last a young priest, an Augustinian friar, ventured a bold suggestion:—"Are not the devils proud, and the angels lowly? Did the angel think it beneath him to say to Elijah, 'Arise, and eat'? Did Gabriel hesitate to descend from the presence of God to bear to an aged priest the tidings of the birth of a child? Did that other angel deem it secular to say to Peter the apostle, 'Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals, and cast thy garment about thee,' before he led him over the stony streets through the cold night air? And should our cathedral bells scorn to bid us 'rise and eat,' or to chime at our births, or to summon us to 'gird and clothe' ourselves for every day's work? Brethren, proud thoughts, and scorn of daily service, and voices which call our every-day life common and unclean, are not from Heaven. The bells are possessed by a proud and evil spirit. Let us exorcise them."
The suggestion at first startled the people as daring, andirreverent to the church bells, but in their despair they at length agreed to try it. A solemn procession of priests and holy men and women mounted the cathedral tower, and, in ancient formulas, with prayer and incense, and the music of holy hymns, they exorcised the fiend.
Then at once a tide of pent-up music flowed from the liberated bells! They conscientiously rang out all at once every hour and half-hour they had omitted, and then meekly and steadily resumed their wonted chimes, and continued them ever afterwards, like voices of happy and lowly angels calling men to wake and pray, to "rise and eat," to pray and rest; cheering the workman to his daily labour, and welcoming him from it; chanting to the mother as she lulled her babe; and in the sick-chamber soothing the lonely hours with melodious sound, and waking in the lonely heart sweet echoes of the psalms of praise.
Here the Legend ended. I heard, however, afterwards that the young priest, the Augustinian friar, lived to spread Glad Tidings through the city, but that he was at last burned in the cathedral square for preaching to men what he had said about the church bells. Yet in the flames, it was said, he looked up to the cathedral tower, and sang the words of a psalm of praise the old bells were chiming, till his voice was silenced in death. And ever since the chimes have taken up his message, and chant to those who will listen, hour by hour.
"Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."
TThe Temple was in ruins, and the Priestess sat, a captive in chains, among its broken and scattered fragments. It had been a temple of the most ancient form, open to the sky, beautiful beyond any temple upon earth, beautiful and sacred; and some remnants of its beauty hung about it still—fragments of exquisite carvings and broken shafts of graceful columns. But everything was shattered and out of place: the window tracery shivered in a thousand fragments and strewn on the ground, columns prostrate, sacred vessels lying rusted among the weeds, the pure spring which had gushed from beneath the altar choked up and dry, and instruments of sacred music mute and broken on the ground.
The Temple was in ruins, and the Priestess sat, a captive in chains, among its broken and scattered fragments. It had been a temple of the most ancient form, open to the sky, beautiful beyond any temple upon earth, beautiful and sacred; and some remnants of its beauty hung about it still—fragments of exquisite carvings and broken shafts of graceful columns. But everything was shattered and out of place: the window tracery shivered in a thousand fragments and strewn on the ground, columns prostrate, sacred vessels lying rusted among the weeds, the pure spring which had gushed from beneath the altar choked up and dry, and instruments of sacred music mute and broken on the ground.
On the walls in some places were the traces of violence, but it was remarkable that they seemed to have been assaulted only from within. Indeed, the temple had been a fortress, so impregnably situated and built that except from within not one stone could ever have been displaced.
This was, in fact, the saddest part of its history. The temple had been desecrated before it had been ruined, and in its ruin it was a temple still, but, alas! no longer sacred to Him in whose honour it had been reared. Many senseless or loathsome idol-images were carved on the walls, strangely contrasting, in their shapelessness or deformity, with the symmetry ofevery fragment of the original structure. On the broken altar in the centre stood an image of the Priestess herself. This was the earliest idol which had entered there, and with the entrance of this the ruin had begun. The Enemy who had, with subtle flatteries, introduced this idol had ever since had access to the temple, and step by step the Priestess had sunk beneath his power. He had led her into wild orgies, in which she herself had defaced the delicate tracery and torn down the walls; and when she awoke from the frenzy and wept, as sometimes she would, he silenced her tears with blows or with mocking threats of the vengeance of Him to whom the temple had been consecrated. Sometimes, however, she woke to a moment's full consciousness of the desolation around her, and then she would wail and lament until he seemed to fear some unseen Friend would hear; and at such seasons he grew more gentle, and renewed the old persuasions and flatteries by which he had misled her at first. He would even encourage her at times, when all other methods failed, to try and collect the scattered stones, and repair the breaches in the shattered walls, and restring the broken harp; for he knew well her puny efforts must fail, and that no hands but those of the Builder could ever restore the ruin she had wrought. So, after a few faint endeavours, she, as he expected, would give up in despair, and sit cowering hopelessly on the ground, afraid of him, afraid of Him whose priestess she was, afraid of her own voice.
In such bitter hours he would again grow bold, and mock her with the memory of the past, until the spirit of indignant resistance seemed roused within her, when, once more softening his tone, he would point her with flattering words to her own image on the broken altar. He would show her the beauty still lingering in its marred and weather-worn features, and help her to decorate it with gay colours and tinsel ornaments, placing in her hands the golden censer, with the sweet incense which had been made in happier days for far other uses; andshe would wave the fragrant compound before the idol image of herself. But with the pure spices which made it sweet, the Enemy had mixed a narcotic poison, and as she languidly swung the censer to and fro, her brain would become intoxicated with the voluptuous sweetness, until in a dream of vain delight, she would fall asleep, and forget all her miseries; and ever, as she slept, he would rivet faster the chain which, unperceived by her, was being bound around her, every year making her range of action narrower and her movements less free.
Wild beasts, also, made their lair in the desolate temple-chambers, prowling in and out where formerly meek and heavenly beings had ministered, and making the shattered walls echo with their loud howls and sullen roarings, where once had sounded strains of pure and joyous music.
Thus day by day the ruin spread, and the desolation and desecration became more complete.
But it happened one spring that two little singing-birds came back from the sunny clime where they had wintered, and began building their nest above the ancient altar. There was something in the spring-time which often brought tears to the eyes of the fallen Priestess, she scarcely knew why. The world seemed then like one happy temple full of thankful songs; and as, day by day, the sun repaired the ruins of winter, and the choral services of the woods took a fuller tone, on her heart there fell the mournful sense of the ruins around her, which no spring-tide could restore. Yet something of a softer feeling, a melancholy which breathed of hope, stole over her, as she watched those two happy birds building their nest, and warbling as they worked.
At last the nest was finished, the happy mother-bird sat on her eggs, and the pair had much leisure for confidential conversation.
"How desolate this place is," said the mother-bird.
"And it was once so beautiful," replied her mate.
"Why is it not rebuilt?" she asked.
"None can rebuild but the Hand that built," was the mysterious reply.
"But would not the Architect come if asked? He is so good. Was it not He who taught us to build our nest; and I am sure nothing can be better done than that."
"That is the difficulty," was the reply. "The Priestess does not know He is so good, and is afraid to utter His name. If she only called Him, He would come."
"Is He near enough?"
"He is always near."
"Are you sure?" said the mother-bird. "What can we do to help her?"
"I do not know," replied the mate, "except it is to sing His praise. Perhaps she may listen, and understand one day how good He is."
So all the spring the little happy creatures chirped and sang, until the nestlings were fledged, and the whole family flew away.
But their songs had penetrated deep into the Priestess' heart. And one night, when the Enemy was absent, and the wild beasts prowling far away, she threw herself on the earth before her desecrated altar, and lamented and wept. But for the first time her lamentations, instead of solitary, hopeless wailings, echoing back from the ruined walls, became a broken cry for help.
"Thou, if Thou art indeed so good—if Thou art indeed near, come and help me," she sobbed; "repair my ruins, and save me."
And for the first time, as she wept and implored, she felt the weight of her fetters binding hand and foot; and, clasping her chained hands, she cried more earnestly, "Come and set me free!"
And before the day dawned a voice came softly through the silence—
"I will come."
But with the morning light how bitter was the sight which burst on her aching eyes! All, indeed, had been as desolate long before; but she had never seen it as she saw it now:—Noisome beasts, which prowled fearlessly around her; skulls and ghastly skeletons of their murdered prey strewn about; on the ground the broken, rusted harp; on her hands the heavy chain; and, worse than all, the door she had opened to the Enemy ever open, and inviting his approach!
Too surely he came. He mocked her hope until it appeared baseless as a dream; and nothing seemed real but the ruin to which he scornfully directed her gaze, and the chain which now, for the first time without concealment, he held up triumphantly, dragging her by it to every corner of the polluted and ruined temple, to show her how complete and hopeless the ruin was. Then drawing the links tighter than before, so that they galled and wounded her wrists, he led her to the image of herself, which he had adorned, and painted, and so often flattered. He dragged off the tinsel ornaments, and effaced the delusive colouring, and left her, at last, face to face with the defaced and broken idol, saying,—
"This is the worship you yourself have chosen. Pursue it still. There is no other for you."
She could not bear to gaze on it; and as he went she fell prostrate on the altar steps, and hid her face on the stones. Yet still, though with but a feeble hope, she sobbed out—
"If Thou art good—if Thou canst help me, come—oh, come, and set me free!"
Weariness at last brought sleep; and in her dreams she saw a lovely vision of the temple as it once had been. White columns gleamed, sweet and solemn music sounded, and she herself ministered in white robes at the altar, before a Radiant Form, on which she could scarcely for a moment gaze.
The awaking from this dream to the desolation around herwas more terrible than all she had felt before. It must have bereft her of reason, but for the echo of three cheering words which seemed to have awakened her—"I will come."
The next day, with the light of that radiant vision on her heart, she dragged her fettered limbs to the altar, and strove with her feeble and trembling hands to tear that marred image from the shrine. But in vain. It was too firmly embedded there; and she could only turn her face from it, and weep, and cry for help. And before the next morning's dawn help came. In the night a heavenly visitant descended; and with human words, in a language she had not spoken for years, but every word of which melted her heart like the accents of her mother-tongue, He touched her chains, and they fell off; He spoke, and the wild beasts fled, howling; He touched her broken harp, and it was restrung and tuned; He touched the dry and choked-up channel of the sacred spring, and it welled forth pure and fresh from beneath the altar; He touched the idol on the shrine, and it fell, and in its stead shone that wondrous Radiance which she had seen in her dream; then He poured on her head the fragrant oil of consecration, and clothed her in a white vestal priestly garment, and placed the restrung harp in her hand, and rose again to heaven.
At first her joy knew no measure. She gazed on the sacred shrine, and in the glory above it at times she perceived the lineaments of the form of Him who had done all this for her. She touched her harp, and the sweet strings responded as if they knew her hand; she sang holy songs in that old, long-forgotten, yet familiar tongue, so heavenly and happy that the wild beasts would not venture near, and the morning birds were silent to listen. She bathed in the newly-opened fountain and drank of it; and as she drank, her strength and her youth came back.
For a time her joy was without cloud or measure; but as the daylight returned, the desolation of the ruined temple strucksadly on her heart. It was, indeed, a sacred place once more, and she its consecrated Priestess; but was this ruin never to be repaired?
She began to cleanse the sacred vessels and to sweep the earth of all the refuse and dry bones which had been gathered there; and then, with her renewed strength, she set herself to collect the broken fragments of the columns, and tried to piece together the shattered tracery and the delicate carvings of flower and foliage. But it was in vain. She could indeed bring the shattered fragments together, and see what they had been, but she could not join them, or replace one prostrate shaft or capital; and as she sat down mournfully before her shrine, tears dimmed her eyes, so that she could scarcely see the Radiance there, and, falling on her harp-strings, would have rusted them and marred their sweetness; whilst in the silence a voice, too long and bitterly familiar, was heard at the door. Turning round, she perceived the form of the Enemy there, whilst behind him glared fierce and hungry eyes; and in her terror the harp almost fell from her hands.
But she threw herself on her knees before the altar, pressed the harp convulsively to her heart, and cried, "Will these ruins never be repaired, these doors never closed against my enemy and Thine?" The pressure of her trembling fingers drew forth some plaintive strains, like the wind on Æolian strings; but low and plaintive as they were, the Enemy disappeared, and the wild beasts fled howling from them. Then she began to perceive the power of her harp, and drew from it a song of joy and triumph; and as she still gazed on the radiant shrine a veil seemed to be withdrawn from it; and she perceived that it was a window, so that the light streamed through it, not from it. Wondering she gazed, until, penetrating further and further through the light, she saw in the depths of heaven a Temple like her own, only perfect, glorious beyond comparison,and full—full of worshippers robed and singing like herself, and full of that wondrous radiance which streamed from the heavenly form she had seen. She laid her harp upon the shrine, and to her surprise the strings began to quiver of their own accord! An electric current united them to the harps in the heavenly temple, and they vibrated in exquisite harmonies the echo of the harmonies above.
And with the heavenly strains came a voice divine and human, mighty as the sound of many waters, yet soft and near as a whisper in her ear:—
"Here all ruins are repaired: the Enemy cannot enter here, but here thou shalt dwell for ever."
And softly floated down these other words:—
"For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
WWe have lived a long time here together," said the ponderous Alarm-bell to the little brisk bell in the clock-tower of the Orphan-house, "and a useful life yours has been! I have watched carefully, and never once during these hundred years that we have stood side by side have you failed to tell the hours and half-hours by day and night. I have plenty of leisure for thought; but it would be beyond my powers to calculate how often your voice has been heard in the service of man. I observe, too, how much attention is paid you by all, and with how much well-deserved respect you are regarded. Nothing is done in house or field without your sanction. At your early call this little busy hive begins to stir in the morning. At your mid-day invitation the boys gather from the fields where they have been working, and the girls from the laundries and work-rooms, to the noonday meal. At your evening summons the doors are closed at night, and not a sound is heard afterwards in house or field until your steady voice wakens our little world again. Yours is, indeed, a useful, honoured life; but as for me, who can tell what I was made for? Since I was placed here first, a hundred years ago, lifted up with enormous trouble and labour, and safely roofed in my belfry, not a creature has heard my voice, or been the better for my existence. I might as well have been lying still a lump of unsmelted ore in the depths ofthe mines. I feel so stiff and rusty, that I sometimes question if they could move me if they tried. For you, daily, hourly usefulness! for me, a hundred years of silence! And who can say how many more? I do not complain; but our destinies are very different. It must be wonderfully happy to be so useful, and to be looked on by every one with such attention and regard. Of course, I could not expect to be as serviceable as you—I, with my cumbrous, ponderous mass of heavy metal, and you, hung so lightly, so graceful in your shape, so brisk in all your movements, so cheery and pleasant in your voice. But I should like to be of some use once in my life, even if it were only to know for what purpose I was made, and set on high."
We have lived a long time here together," said the ponderous Alarm-bell to the little brisk bell in the clock-tower of the Orphan-house, "and a useful life yours has been! I have watched carefully, and never once during these hundred years that we have stood side by side have you failed to tell the hours and half-hours by day and night. I have plenty of leisure for thought; but it would be beyond my powers to calculate how often your voice has been heard in the service of man. I observe, too, how much attention is paid you by all, and with how much well-deserved respect you are regarded. Nothing is done in house or field without your sanction. At your early call this little busy hive begins to stir in the morning. At your mid-day invitation the boys gather from the fields where they have been working, and the girls from the laundries and work-rooms, to the noonday meal. At your evening summons the doors are closed at night, and not a sound is heard afterwards in house or field until your steady voice wakens our little world again. Yours is, indeed, a useful, honoured life; but as for me, who can tell what I was made for? Since I was placed here first, a hundred years ago, lifted up with enormous trouble and labour, and safely roofed in my belfry, not a creature has heard my voice, or been the better for my existence. I might as well have been lying still a lump of unsmelted ore in the depths ofthe mines. I feel so stiff and rusty, that I sometimes question if they could move me if they tried. For you, daily, hourly usefulness! for me, a hundred years of silence! And who can say how many more? I do not complain; but our destinies are very different. It must be wonderfully happy to be so useful, and to be looked on by every one with such attention and regard. Of course, I could not expect to be as serviceable as you—I, with my cumbrous, ponderous mass of heavy metal, and you, hung so lightly, so graceful in your shape, so brisk in all your movements, so cheery and pleasant in your voice. But I should like to be of some use once in my life, even if it were only to know for what purpose I was made, and set on high."
"Wait!" said the Clock-bell; "there must be some work for you. It would have taken a hundred such as I am to make one like you. Think of the trouble there must have been in getting a mould large enough for you,—of the labour it was to raise you so high. You must be set there for some end, although we do not yet know what. Wait!" said the Clock-bell cheerily, and struck nine.
Then there was a sound from within the house, as of many childish voices singing an evening hymn. A few minutes after, all was still, and ten o'clock echoed over the silent fields to the sleeping city near at hand.
But that night there was an unusual stir in the Orphan-house. Feet were heard rushing hither and thither; and from every window poured forth the cry, "Fire! fire!—the Orphan-house is on fire!" And, through the darkness, lurid smoke began to rise from an outhouse attached to the main building. Then came another cry:—"The Alarm-bell!—ring the Alarm-bell!" And feet were heard on the steps of the belfry-tower; and hands began pulling vigorously at the ropes, and in a moment, for the first time, the deep tones of the long-silent bell pealed heavily on the midnight air. They awoke the city. In a short time fire-engines were on the way. Streams of waterplayed on the flames, and quenched them; and the children and the Orphan-house were saved.
The next morning all was silent again, as if nothing had happened; the outhouse lay in ashes, but the Orphan-house was uninjured. At eight the Clock-bell called the children to their morning prayer; whilst the Alarm-bell had relapsed into silence, perhaps for another century.
But the Clock-bell said, "You have done in an hour the service of a century. Had it not been for you, I should never have struck another hour."
And the grateful children often looked up as they passed beneath, and said, "Had it not been for our good Alarm-bell we might all have perished!"
So the Alarm-bell learned what it was made for, and was content to wait another hundred years, or more, before its voice was heard again.
TThey lived at the foot of the Pine Mountains, in the island of the King's Garden, the mother, with her little son and daughter. The boy's name was Hope, and the little girl's, May. The children loved each other dearly, and were never separated. They never had any quarrels, because Hope was the leader in all their expeditions and plays; and May firmly believed that everything which Hope planned and did, was better planned and better done than it would have been by any one else in the world—by which May meant the island. Hope, on his side, had always a tender consideration for little May in his schemes, such as kings should have for their subjects. May would never have dreamed of originating any scheme herself, or of questioning any which Hope planned. If you had taken away May from Hope, you would have taken away his kingdom, his army, his right hand; if you had taken away Hope from May, you would have robbed her of her leader, her king, her head, her sun. Bereaved of May, I think Hope would have been driven from his desolate home into the wide world; bereaved of Hope, I am sure May would never have left her home, but sat silent there until she pined away. But together, life was one holiday to them; work was a keener kind of play, and every day was too narrow for the happy occupations of which each hour was brimful. Their cottage was at the foot of the mountains, onthe sea-shore. Indeed, every house and cottage in the island stood on the sea-shore, because the island was so long and narrow, that, from the top of the mountain-range which divided it, you could see the sea on both sides. If in any place the coast widened, little creeks ran in among the hills, and made the sea accessible from all points. The island consisted entirely of this one mountain-range; the higher peaks sometimes tipped with snow, with a strip of coast at their feet, sometimes narrowing to a little shingly beach, sometimes expanding to a fertile plain, where beautiful cities with fairy bell-towers and marble palaces gleamed like ivory carvings amidst the palms and thick green leaves.
They lived at the foot of the Pine Mountains, in the island of the King's Garden, the mother, with her little son and daughter. The boy's name was Hope, and the little girl's, May. The children loved each other dearly, and were never separated. They never had any quarrels, because Hope was the leader in all their expeditions and plays; and May firmly believed that everything which Hope planned and did, was better planned and better done than it would have been by any one else in the world—by which May meant the island. Hope, on his side, had always a tender consideration for little May in his schemes, such as kings should have for their subjects. May would never have dreamed of originating any scheme herself, or of questioning any which Hope planned. If you had taken away May from Hope, you would have taken away his kingdom, his army, his right hand; if you had taken away Hope from May, you would have robbed her of her leader, her king, her head, her sun. Bereaved of May, I think Hope would have been driven from his desolate home into the wide world; bereaved of Hope, I am sure May would never have left her home, but sat silent there until she pined away. But together, life was one holiday to them; work was a keener kind of play, and every day was too narrow for the happy occupations of which each hour was brimful. Their cottage was at the foot of the mountains, onthe sea-shore. Indeed, every house and cottage in the island stood on the sea-shore, because the island was so long and narrow, that, from the top of the mountain-range which divided it, you could see the sea on both sides. If in any place the coast widened, little creeks ran in among the hills, and made the sea accessible from all points. The island consisted entirely of this one mountain-range; the higher peaks sometimes tipped with snow, with a strip of coast at their feet, sometimes narrowing to a little shingly beach, sometimes expanding to a fertile plain, where beautiful cities with fairy bell-towers and marble palaces gleamed like ivory carvings amidst the palms and thick green leaves.
But Hope and May knew nothing of the island beyond the little bay they lived in, and no one they had ever seen or heard of had scaled the mountain-range and looked on the other side; no one, either in the scattered fishermen's huts around them, or in the white town which perched like a sea-bird on the crags on the opposite side of the bay. Indeed, it was only from their mother's words that the children knew that their country was an island; and ever since they had heard this, the great subject of Hope's dreams, and the great object of his schemes, had been to scale the mountains and look on the other side. But this was quite a secret between Hope and May; the happy secret which formed the endless interest of their long talks and rambles, but which they could not speak of to their mother, because she was so tenderly timid about them, and because it was to be the great surprise which one day was to enchant her, when Hope was a man. He was to scale the mountains, penetrate to the wondrous land on the other side, and bring thence untold treasures and tales of marvels to May and his mother.
The children thought Hope would very soon be old enough to go; and they had a little cave in the rocks close to the sea where they treasured up dried fruits, and bits of iron to maketools of with which to chop away the tangled branches in the forests, and cut steps in the glaciers which Hope was to traverse. The lower hills the children knew well; and the ravine which wound up far among the hills they had nearly fixed on as the commencement of the journey.
So the days passed on with the children, rich in purposes and bright with happy work. For they were helpful to their mother. From their mountain expeditions they brought her fire-wood, and forest-honey, and eggs of wild-fowl, and various sweet wild-berries, and wholesome roots. They always noticed that their mother encouraged these mountain expeditions, and seemed much happier when they took that direction than when they kept by the sea.
Once Hope had said to her—
"Mother, how beautiful our country is! and I think it is so happy always to be in sight of the sea. How dull those lands must be you tell us of, which are so large that many people have to live out of hearing of the waves! I could not bear to live there; it must seem so narrow and close to be shut in on the land, with nothing beyond. But here we can never get out of sight of the sea. May and I always find, wherever we roam among the hills, we never lose the sea. When we wander far back from the shore, the beautiful blue waters seem to follow us as if they loved us; and in the inmost recesses of the mountains we always see beneath us some glimpse of bright water in the creeks which run up among the hills, or the rivers which come down to meet them. The sea seems to love every corner of our country, mother, and penetrate everywhere."
A cold shudder passed over the mother's frame, and tears gathered in her eyes.
"The sea is indeed everywhere, my children," she murmured; and then, with a burst of irresistible emotion, she clasped them to her heart, and added bitterly, "Happy the country which that sea cannot approach!"
May and Hope wondered greatly at her words; but there was something in her manner which awed them into silence. For some time after that, they often speculated together as to what her words could mean, and a vague terror seemed to murmur in the ripple of the waves. But gradually the impression wore off in the happy forgetfulness of childhood, and their old schemes were resumed with the same zest as before.
One evening, however, as they were busied with their treasures in the cave, the tide surprised them; and when they set out to return home they found the rocky point which separated them from their cottage surrounded with deep water. The sides of the cliff in the little cove where their cave lay were sheer precipices of smooth rock, too steep to climb, so that the children had to wait some hours before they could creep round the point. Eagerly they watched the declining sun and the retreating tide, until when the waves became only ankle-deep they bounded through them, and in a few minutes were at the cottage door. It was not yet dark, and the children were dancing into the cottage full of spirits at their adventure, when they were startled at the appearance of their mother. She was leaning, stony and motionless, with fixed eyes and clasped hands, against the door-post, and for a moment the sight of her darlings did not seem to rouse her. Then springing up with a cry of joy, she strained them to her heart, covered them with kisses, laughed a wild laugh, broken with convulsive sobs, and at last fell fainting on the floor.
The children knelt beside her, and gradually she revived, and fell into a sleep. But every now and then she started as if with some terrible dream, and murmured in her sleep, "The ship—the Black Ship: not now, not yet: take me, not them; or take us all—take us all!"
The terrified children could not sleep; and all the next day they clung close to their mother, and scarcely spoke a word.In the evening, however, she rallied, and tried to speak cheerfully, and account for her alarm.
"You were late, darlings, and I knew you were by the sea—the terrible sea."
But the children could not be comforted. They felt the weight of some vague apprehension; they could not be tempted to leave their mother; they crept noiselessly about, watching her movements, until at last one night they whispered together, and resolved to take courage and ask their mother what made her dread the sea; and then they consulted long as to the best way of introducing the forbidden subject.
The next evening, as they sat together by the fireside, Hope began, and forgetting all the speeches they had prepared, fixed his large eyes on his mother's and said abruptly, "Mother, what is there terrible in the sea?"
She paused a moment, her face grew deadly pale, and her lips trembled.
"Children, why should you wish to know? You will learn too soon, without my telling you."
"O mother, tell us," said May. "We can bear anything from you. Do not let any one else tell us."
A sudden thought seemed to flash across her, and she said, "Children, you are right."
Then folding one arm around Hope as he stood by her, and taking May on her knee, she said, "It is not the sea I dread; it is the Black Ship. That is the terrible secret; and it is, indeed, better you should learn it from my lips than learn it by losing me, and no one be left to tell you how. My children," she continued, making a great effort to speak calmly, "this is the one sorrow of our country. From time to time a Black Ship, without sails or oars, glides silently to our shores, and anchors there. A dark, Veiled Figure lands from it, and seizes any one of our people whom it chooses, without violence, without a sound, but with irresistible power, and quietly leadsthe victim away to the Ship, which immediately glides away again from our coasts as swiftly and noiselessly as it came; but no one ever sees those who are thus borne away any more."
"Whence does the Ship come, mother?" asked Hope, after a long silence, "and whither does it go?"
"No one knows, my child. That is the terrible thing about it. There is no sound nor voice. The agonized cries of those who are thus bereaved avail not to bring one word of reply from those lips, or to raise one fold of that dark veil. If we only knew, we could bear it."
"Have you ever seen it, mother?" asked Hope, determined bravely to plunge to the bottom of the terrible mystery, while May could only cling round her mother's neck and cry.
"I have seen it twice," she replied, speaking low and rapidly. "We did not always live here. Your father was rich, and a man of rank, and, loving us most dearly, he resolved to do all in his power to keep the terrible Form away. For this end he built that castle you have often seen above the white tower. It is far above the sea; the rocks are perpendicular; it is built of solid stone; the doors were of oak, studded with iron; the windows barred with iron. No one was ever to be permitted to cross the moat without being strictly scrutinized. The gates were always to be closed. When it was finished he made a feast; and after it, when the guests had left, and every bolt was drawn, we stood at the window of the room where you slept, and looked down triumphantly on the sea. A little sister of yours was sleeping in my arms. Suddenly, close beneath us, in the bay at our feet, we saw moored the Black Ship! Our eyes seemed fascinated to it, and we could not speak. We saw the Veiled Figure descend the side, and slowly scale the precipice beneath us, as if it had been a road made for it to tread. It walked over the water of the castle moat, which did not seem to wet its feet. There was no plunge or splash in the waves, no sound of footsteps on the rock; yet,in a moment, it stood on the balcony outside our window, and we could not stir. It passed through the iron bars. It laid its hand on my sleeping babe. Your father's strong arm was around us both, but before we could utter a cry, our darling had glided like a shadow from our embrace. The bright face of our baby was hidden from us under the folds of that impenetrable veil. We watched the terrible Form noiselessly descend the steep, re-enter the Ship, and not until the Black Ship was already gliding swiftly out of sight could we overcome the terrible fascination. Then my cries of agony awoke the household,—boats were manned in pursuit; but in vain, in vain—we felt it was in vain. We never saw the babe again." She spoke with the languor of a sorrow which had been overwhelmed by greater sorrows still.
"But our father?" asked Hope.
"He left the castle the next day," she answered. "We never returned to it. He said the strong walls only mocked our helplessness; and since then the castle has been empty. Birds build their nests in our chambers, wild beasts make their lair in our gardens, the iron bars rust on the open doors; and if the Veiled Figure enter again, it will find no prey."
"But where did you go?"
"We came here. Your father said he would dare the foe, and, since no fortification could keep it out, meet it on its own ground. So he built this cottage close to the sea, and here we have lived ever since. I was content to remain here because I thought we might avoid seeing any one, and keep the terrible secret from you.
"And here," she continued with the calmness of despair, "one morning we saw the Black Ship moored, and your father went to meet it. I wept and clung to him, to keep him back, but he said, 'It shall speak to me.'
"The Dark Form came up, a black shadow across the sunnybeach. Your father encountered it boldly, and said, 'Where is my child?'
"There was no sound in reply. For a moment there seemed to be a struggle. I rushed towards them, but the terrible touch was on your father's hand. There seemed no violence, no chain was on his arm—only that paralyzing touch. He went from me silent and helpless as the babe.
"'Whither, whither?' I cried; 'only tell me where!'
"He looked back once, but he spoke to me no more. I rushed madly into the sea, but the Ship was gone in a minute; and your voices, your baby voices, called me back, and I came."
"Is there no help, mother?" said Hope at last. "Has no one ever tried? If I were but a man! Oh, surely some help could be found?"
"So thousands have thought, tried, and asked in vain. Fleets have scoured the seas, but none ever came on the Black Ship's track."
Hope was silenced, and the little family sat up together that night. They did not dare to separate, even to their beds; yet before long the children were asleep.
Sleep revived the brother and sister; and by the evening Hope's ardent heart had found another point to rest on.
"Mother," he said, "if we could only find out whence the Black Ship comes, we might be comforted. Perhaps it comes from a happy place. Can no one even guess?"
"There are some who profess to know something of it," she replied; "but your father never believed them."
"Who are they?" asked Hope.
"The amulet-makers. There is a band of men in the White Town who profess to know something of the country from which the Black Ship comes, and who sends it. But they talk very mysteriously, in learned words; and I do not understand them. Your father said it was all a deception; because some of them profess to make amulets or charms which keep theVeiled Form away; and your little sister had one round her neck when she was taken from us. You have each one, but I cannot trust it; and I never could find out that the amulet-makers had anything but guesses as to where the Ship came from; and your father said we could guess as well as they. There is one thing," she added with a faint smile, "which gives me more comfort than anything they ever said. When our baby was taken away from my arms—when she felt that terrible touch—she did not seem to be at all afraid. She looked up in my face, and then at the Veiled Form, and stretched out her baby arms from me to it and smiled. At first, I hated to think of that. It seemed as if some cruel charm was on her to win even her heart from me; but often in the night, in my dreams, that smile has come back to me, like a promise; and I have awaked, comforted—I hardly know why."
"Perhaps they are in a happy place, mother," said little May.
And Hope said, "Mother, I am going to question the amulet-makers in the White Town." And his mother suffered him to go.
In two days, Hope came back. But his step was spiritless and slow, and his face very sad.
"Mother," he said, "I think my father was right. I am afraid no one knows anything about the country from which the Black Ship comes. At first the amulet-makers promised to tell me a great deal. Some of them told me they believed it was a great king, an enemy of our race, who sent the Ship; but that if we kept certain rules, and put on a certain dress they would sell us, or give them certain treasures to throw into the sea when the Ship appeared, they would watch for us, and make the powers beyond the sea favourable to us. But when I came to the question—how they knew this to be true, or if they had ever had any message from beyond the sea, or seenany one who came thence, they grew silent, and sometimes angry, and told me I was a presumptuous child. There was one old man, however, who was kind to me; and he came and spoke to me alone, and said, 'My child, be happy to-day!—to be good is to be happy. What is beyond to-day, or beyond the sea, no one knows, or ever can know. Go back to your mother, and live as before.' So I came," concluded Hope. "But it can never, never be with us again as before we knew."
From that time the boy seemed to cease to be a child, or to take interest in any childish schemes. He was gentle and tender as his father would have been to his mother and to May, and seemed to take it on himself to watch over and protect them. He never left them out of sight; until, one day, as they came, in their ramble in search of shell-fish, on their old cave, and looked once more at their little stores, so joyously hoarded there, May suddenly exclaimed, "What if they should know on the other side of the mountains!"
The thought flashed on Hope like a breath of new life; and from that day his old schemes were resumed, but with an intensity and a purpose which could not be quenched. He would scale the mountains, to see if any tidings from beyond the sea had reached the land across the mountains!
His mother's consent was gained; and in a few days, spent in eager preparations, Hope was to start.
But before those days were ended, one evening a white-haired old man knocked at the cottage door. He was nearly exhausted with travel, his clothes were torn, and his feet bleeding.
They led him to the fire, bathed his feet, and set food before him. But before he would touch anything, the old man said,—
"I have tidings for you—glad tidings."
"Do you come from across the mountains?" exclaimed Hope, starting to his feet.
The old man bowed in assent.
"I come from across the mountains, and I bring you glad tidings from beyond the sea."
"Glad tidings!" they all exclaimed.
"Glad tidings, if you will obey them," he replied;—"if not, the saddest you ever heard. It is not an enemy who sends the Black Ship, but a Friend."
Not a question, scarcely a breath interrupted him and he continued, in brief, broken sentences,—
"It is our King. Our island belongs to Him. He gave it to us. But, long ago, our people rebelled against Him. They were seduced by a wicked prince, His deadly enemy, and, alas! ours. They sent the King a defiance; they defaced His statues, which were a type of all beauty; they broke His laws, which are the unfolding of all goodness. He sent ambassadors to reclaim them; He, who could have crushed the revolt, and destroyed our nation with one of His armies in a day, descended from His dignity, and stooped to entreat our deluded people to return to their allegiance. But they treated His condescension as weakness. They defied His ambassadors, and maltreated them, and drove them from the island. He had warned them against the usurper, and told them the consequences of revolting; and too surely they have been fulfilled. The Black Ship is the penalty inflicted by our offended Monarch; but those who return to His allegiance need not dread it."
"Some, then, have submitted to the King?" asked Hope.
"Every ambassador He sent has persuaded some to recognize the King."
"Why not all?" asked Hope. "If the King is good, and is our King, and will receive us, why not all return?"
"The usurper seduces them still," replied the old man. "Many hate the King's good laws; many take pride in what they call their independence; most will not listen, or will not believe. They mock the King's messengers, and declare thatthey are impostors, that their messages are a delusion; and some even persist in declaring that there is no King, and no country beyond the sea."
"But the Black Ship is not a delusion!" said Hope; "it must come from some land. What proof have these ambassadors given? Have they ever been in the land beyond the sea?"
"They gave many proofs; but I bring you better news than this. A few years since, the King's Son came Himself. Many of us have seen and spoken with Him. He stayed many days. He spoke words of such power, and in tones of such tenderness, as none who heard can ever forget. We could trace in His features the lineaments of the statues we had defaced. Some of the worst rebels among us were melted to repentance, and fell at His feet, and besought His pardon. I was one. He gave us not only His pardon, but His friendship. But His enemies prevailed. Especially the amulet-makers organized a conspiracy against Him; they feared for their trade, and secretly prepared to drive Him from the island. He had come alone, for He came not to compel, but to win. And He came for another purpose, which, until He was gone, we could not comprehend. The conspirators triumphed. One day they came in force and seized Him. Alas! a base panic seized us who loved Him, and we fled. They bound Him with thongs, they treated Him with the most barbarous cruelty and the basest indignity, and drove Him to the sea. We thought a fleet and an army would have appeared to avenge His insulted majesty and proclaim Him King with power, or bear Him in pomp away; but to our surprise and dismay nothing came for Him but the Black Ship, and the Dark Form bore Him from us, as if He had been a rebel like one of us. He had told us something of the probability of this before it happened, but we could not comprehend what He meant. Never were days of such sorrow as those which passed over us after His being takenfrom us. His enemies were in full triumph; they mocked our Prince's claims, they insulted us, they threatened us; but all they could say or do was nothing in comparison with the anguish in our hearts. For what could we think? He whom we had loved and trusted was gone, borne off in triumph by the very foe He came to deliver us from. We hid ourselves in caves and lonely places by the sea, and recalled to one another His precious words, and gazed out over the sea with a vague yearning, which was scarcely hope, and yet kept us lingering on the shore.
"On the third morning, in the gray light of early dawn, one of us saw Him on the shore; one who had owed Him everything, and loved Him most devotedly. She called us to come. One by one we gathered round Him. Some of us could scarcely believe our senses for joy. But it was Himself; the solid certainty of that unutterable joy grew stronger. And then He told us wonders: how He suffered all this for us; had borne this indignity and captivity in obedience to His Father's will, to set us free; had gone in the Black Ship itself to the heart of the Enemy's country, and alone trodden those terrible regions of lawless wickedness to which he seeks to drag his deluded victims, and alone vanquished him there. He stayed with us some days, and talked with us familiarly, as of old; but how glorious His commonest words were, how overpowering His forgiving looks, how inspiring His firm and tender tones, I can never tell. He could not remain with us then. He said we must be His messengers, and win back His rebels to allegiance; we must learn to be brave, to speak and suffer for Him, and to act as men; and He promised to come again one day with fleets and armies, and all the pomp of His Father's kingdom. But, meantime, He said the Black Ship should never more be a terror to any of us who loved Him; for He Himself would come in it each time. He would be veiled, so that none could see Him but the one He came for: but surely as theBlack Ship came, instead of the Dark Form, He would come Himself for every one of us, and bear us home to His Father's house to abide with Him, and with Him hereafter to return."
There was a breathless silence, broken only by the mother's sobs.
She clasped her hands, and murmured,—
"Then it was He! It was surely He Himself who came and took my babe. No wonder my darling smiled, and was willing to go."
The mother and the children that very evening received from the stranger the medal which was worn by all those who returned to their allegiance. It was a Black Ship, surrounded with rays of glory, and behind it the towers of a city.
Never were a happier company than the four who gathered round the cottage table that evening. They were too happy, and had too much to ask, to sleep; and far into the night the questions and answers continued, every reply of the old man's only revealing some fresh endearing excellence in the King and the King's Son, until they longed for the Black Ship to come and fetch them home.
"If only," said little May, "it would fetch us all at once!"
"That the King will do when He comes with His armies in the day of His triumph. Till then, my child, this is the one only sorrow connected with the Black Ship, for those who love the King. We go one by one, and blessed as it is for the one who goes, it must be sad sometimes for those who are left."
"Why do not those who go to Him ask Him to come quickly?" asked Hope.
"They do," replied the old man. "'Come quickly' is the entreaty of all who love Him here and beyond the sea; but His time is best. And, meantime, have we forgotten the multitudes who are still deceived by the usurper, to whom the Black Ship is still a horrible end of all things, and the Veiled Form the King of Terrors?"
Hope rose and stood before the old man.
"Mother," he said, "it is for this we must live. Think of the desolate hearts in the homes around us. Think of the thousands who know not our blessed secret in the White Town."
The old man rose and laid his hand on Hope's head.
"My King!" he said, "when wilt Thou come for me? Is not my work done? Will not this youthful voice speak for Thee here as my quivering tones no longer can? Wilt Thou not come? I have many dear ones with Thee; but when Thou wilt is best."
Then he persuaded them all to lie down to rest, and he himself composed himself quietly to sleep.
But in the night a wondrous light filled the room; a wondrous light and fragrance. The mother woke, and the children, and they saw the old man standing, gazing towards the door, which was open. There stood a Veiled Form, dark to the mother's eyes as the dreaded form she knew too well; yet its presence filled the room with the light as of a rosy dawn, and the fragrance as of spring flowers. The old man's hair was silvery, and his form tottering as ever; but in his face there was the beauty of youth, and in his eyes the rapture of joy.
"Farewell, my friends," he said; "your day of joy will come like this of mine.—Thou art come for me at last; Thou Thyself! I see Thy face, I hear Thy voice: I come; it is Thou."
A hand was laid tenderly on his hand, and they walked away together into the night. But as the mother and children looked after him from the door, they saw the Black Ship; only at its prow was a star; and as it passed away, the mother, and Hope, and May thought it left a track of light upon the sea.
The three had henceforth enough to live and suffer for. To the lonely fishermen's huts went May and her mother, into the White Town went Hope; and everywhere they bore their tidings of joy. They had much to suffer, and many mocked; andagainst them also the amulet-makers combined, and would not listen. But some did listen, and believe, and love; and to such, as to the mother, and Hope, and May, the Black Ship, instead of a phantom of terror, became a messenger of surpassing joy.