CHAPTER XXVII.
In another week letters have passed, references been asked and given;Esther proved unimpeachably respectable; the amount of her salaryagreed upon; the day of her journey into ----shire fixed, and allpreliminaries settled previous to her undertaking the agreeable, free,and independent office of companion to John Blessington, Esq., ofBlessington Court, in the county of ----, aged eighty-nine, and toHarriet Blessington his wife, aged eighty.
Miss Craven has but one good-bye to say, and on the afternoon of theday before her departure she stands in the churchyard ready to say it.It is only to a grave. Huge cloud headlands, great leaden capes andpromontories, mournful and heavy with unwept snow-tears, heap and pilethemselves up behind the dim mirk hills; it snowed last night, but thesnow has nearly all melted; only enough remains to make the old dirtychurch-tower, from which great patches of whitewash have fallen, lookdirtier than ever. Upon the broken headstones, all awry and askew withage and negligence, the lichens flourish dankly. Wet nettles and fadedbents overlie, overcross each cold hillock. No one cares to weed in thegarden of the dead. Each hillock is the last chapter in some forgottenhistory.
Oh! why must all stories that are told truly end amongst the worms? Whymust death be always at the _end_ of life? Oh! if we could but get itover, like some cruelest operation, in the middle or early part of ourlittle day; so that we might have some half a life, some quarter ortwentieth part even of one, to live merrily in, to breathe and laughand be gay in, without, in our cheerfullest moments, experiencing thechilly fear of feeling the black-cloaked skeleton-headed phantom layhis bony finger on us, saying, "Thou art mine!"
Upon the grey flat tombstone near the church-gate the great grave yewhas been dropping her scarlet berries, one by one--berries that shine,like little lights, amid the night of her changeless foliage: therethey lie like a forgotten rosary, that some holy man, having prayedamongst the unpraying dead, going, has left behind him. Evening isclosing in fast; the air is raw and chill; no one that can avoid it isoutside a house's sheltering walls: there is no one to disturb Esther'smeeting with her brother. What cares she for the cold, or for the sixfeet of miry earth that part them. She flings herself upon the soddenmound; stretching herself all along upon it, as the prophet stretchedhimself on the young dead child--hand to hand, heart to heart, mouth tomouth. She lays her lips upon the soaked soil, and whispers moaningly,"Good-bye, Jack--good-bye! Oh! why won't they let you answer me? Whyhave they buried you so deep that you cannot hear me?"
Lord God! of what stuff can Mary and Martha have been made, to haveoverlived the awful ecstasy of seeing their dead come forth in warmsupple life out of the four-days-holding grave! Their hearts must havebeen made of tougher fibre than ours, or, in the agony of that terriblerapture, soul and body must have sundered suddenly, and they fallendown into the arms of that tomb whence their brother had just issued inhis ghastly cerements, in dazed, astonished gladness!
As Esther lifts her streaming eyes, they fall upon the inscription onthe cross at the grave-head:
"Here lieth the Body of JOHN CRAVEN, Who departed this Life Sept. 24th, 186-. Aged 21 years."
"_Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner!_"
She casts her arms about the base of the holy symbol; she presses herpanting breast against the stone. "Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner!"she cries too; and surely the live sinner needs mercy as much as thedead one? And as she so lies prostrate, with her forehead leant againstthe white damp marble, a hideous doubt flashes into her heart--sitsthere, like a little bitter serpent, gnawing it: "What if there be _no_Lord! What if I am praying and weeping to and calling upon nothing!
"...................Let me not go mad! Sweet Heaven, forgive weak thoughts! If there should be No God, no heaven, no earth in the void world-- The wide, grave, lampless, deep, unpeopled world."
They tell us--don't they?--in our childhood, that wickedness makespeople unhappy: I think the converse is full as often true--thatunhappiness makes people wicked.
A little icy wind creeps coldly amongst the strong nettles and weaksapless bents, blowing them all one way--creeps, too, through Esther'smourning weeds, and makes a numbness about her shivering breast. For amoment an angry defiant despair masters her.
"What if this great distant being, who, without any foregone sin ofours, has laid upon us the punishment of _life_--in the hollow of whosehand we lie!--what if He be laughing at us all this while! What if thesight of our writhings, of our unlovely tears and grotesque agonies, beto Him, in His high prosperity, a pleasant diversion!"
So thinking, against her will she involuntarily clasps closer thecross in her straining arms--involuntarily moans a second time, "Lord,have mercy upon me, a sinner!" No--no! it cannot be so! it is one ofthose things that are too horrible to be believed! There is no justice_here!_ none! but it exists _somewhere!_ How else could we ever haveconceived the idea of it? It is, then, in some other world: we shallfind it on the other side of these drenched, nettly charnels--on theother side of corruption's disgrace and abasement:
"...........................If this be all, And other life await us not, for one I say, 'tis a poor cheat, a stupid bungle, A wretched failure! I, for one, protest Against it--and I hurl it back with scorn!"
Despair never stays long with any one, unless it is specially invited.Struck with sudden horror at the daring blasphemy of her thoughts,wretched Esther, with clasped hands and a flood of penitential tears,sinks upon her trembling knees. God grant that the thoughts thatcome to us, we know not whence, that stab us in the dark, that wewelcome not, neither cherish at all--yea, rather, drive them awayrudely, hatingly--may not be counted to us for crimes in His greatDay of Reckoning, any more than the sudden-smiting disease that makesthe strong man flag in his noonday is counted to him! With a suddenrevulsion of feeling, with a paroxysm of devotion, powerfuller than theformer one of doubt had been, the desolate child, prone on the grave ofher one treasure, lifts quivering lips and emptied arms to Him who
"...................For mankynde's sake Justed in Jerusalem, a joye to us all!"--
to Him of whom
"..........They who loved Him said 'He wept,' None ever said 'He smiled!'"
Perhaps the good Lord, who was sorry for Mary and Martha, may be sorryfor her too. Perhaps, after all, her boy is well rid of troublesomebreath--well rid of his cares, and his farm, and his useless lovingsister! Perhaps she is falsely fond to desire him again--to be sofamished for one sight more of his grey laughing eyes, of his smoothstripling face! Beyond her sight, he may be in the fruition ofextremest good--in the sweet shade, beneath pleasant-fruited trees,beside great cool rivers. Would she tear him back again thence to toilin the broiling sun, because, so toiling, he would be in her sight?
"If love were kind, why should we doubtThat holy death were kinder?"
The night falls fast; she can scarcely any longer distinguish theclear, new black letters on the cross. Lights are twinkling from thevillage alehouse; the forge shines like a great dull-red jewel in thesurrounding grey; laughing voices of boisterous men are wafted unseemlyamongst the graves. Shuddering at the sound, she raises herself upquickly; then, stooping again, kisses yet once more the wet red earththat is now closest neighbour to her brother, and sobbing "Good-bye, myboy, good-bye!--God bless you, Jack!" gathers her dusky cloak about herslight shivering figure, and passes away through the darkness.