Chapter 2

a rudely fashioned key from his pocket, passed over to the bed, and lifting the foot-valance, drew out a large and strong oaken chest; then glancing hurriedly around the room to be sure that no one was present, he applied the key to the lock. It did not quite fit, but, after carefully filing and applying it for some time, the bolt turned in its socket, and the chest stood open before him. In rummaging the till, he at length discovered the object of his search, a purse of silver coin, the accumulated gains of months, and placed there by his mother only a few days previous. This was not her usual depository for money, but, in the present instance, it had been laid aside until the absent minister of the village should return, into whose hands she was accustomed to deliver her spare funds for safe keeping. Laying the purse by his side, he locked the chest, and having arranged every thing as nearly as possible as he found it, retired through an opposite door into his chamber.

"Twenty dollars and a shilling, I think they said," muttered he to himself. "A good round sum for one evening's work. I wonder if I hadn't better take mother's fashion, and praise Heaven for it?"

Having entered his chamber, he sat down to count his newly-acquired treasure, and finding the amount as large as he expected, carefully deposited it, with the exception of a few dollars, in a leathern belt around his person. Then assuming his shot-pouch, and flinging his rifle to his shoulder, he stooped down, and taking a small bundle, wrapped in a silk handkerchief, from his trunk, retired from the house, slamming the door violently after him, and walked rapidly on, until he reached the summit of an eminence near the old moss-grown mill, which was the last place from which he could see the home he was leaving, perhaps forever. Here he stopped for a few moments, leaned his rifle and bundle against a large, long-limbed, butter-nut, and sat down upon a decaying log at its foot, to gaze, for the last time, upon the old mansion which had been his home from earliest remembrance.

It has been said that there are times when the stoniest hearts are softened; when the sternest natures are made mild, and when the most abandoned are like little children. That moment had now come for David White. It was strange, passing strange. He had committed crime upon crime, yet scarcely felt a moment's remorse; for years he had acted toward his mother as if his whole soul were naught but selfishness; but when he came to leave that mother, that old homestead, and all the bright and beautiful objects around it, a softness breathed over his iron-nature, and the fount of tears sent up its gushing libations. I have often thought that such feelings must be akin to those mysterious, indefinable, and gloomy forebodings--those dim and indescribable fears and shrinkings within self, that sometimes come over our spirits like a creeping, icy thrill--in the midst of a giddy round of pleasure, or, as we stand by the grave's brink to see our friends entombed, and yet which no earthly or human cause is able to explain.

He was beholding everything for the last time, and he looked around him as the dying man upon his nearest friends, when he feels the cold hand of death pressed heavily upon his brow, and the silver chords of his spirit's harp gathering to their utmost tension, and snapping, one by one, like reeds before the blast. There was the home which had sheltered him in his helplessness, glowing in a shower of soft moonlight, and seeming more beautiful than he ever saw it before. There the only true love this wide world of cold and bitter heartlessness can know, beamed on his infant eyes; and there he had spent the only happy moments in all his boyhood existence. In that little room he had first learned to pray, and there, first forgotten the duty. There his mother had watched over him night after night, when he had a burning fever, and the grave had half-opened its terrible portals for his entrance. And now he was going to abandon that mother who had loved and cherished him so fondly--leave her all alone, a joyless, childless widow, and for what cause? He choked down the emotion that rose to his mind, and turned hurriedly in another direction. Not more than twenty paces from him, a stream went dancing and bubbling across the road like a track of liquid silver--the stream that was fed by the cool spring at home; and he remembered how he had gazed in transport, many years agone, at the bright-hued insects floating in the meek, golden-colored sunshine, now sinking their velvet feet into the moist sand upon the water's brink, and sipping tiny draughts; or, resting upon the edges of the blue and crimson flowers that looked up like gems from the verdant grass, opening and shutting their unruffled fans, woven of gold and sunlight. He turned away from the scene sick at heart, but still another object presented itself to view, awakening old memories. A little farther on yonder in the green meadow, through which murmured the mill-stream, and by the drooping-willow whose long branches rippled in the current, was a deep place, in the midst of which loomed up a dark-gray rock, like a lone sentinel to the rapid waters, and the scene made his heart bound again. There he had angled for trout for many a summer, and looked down delighted into the music-breathing waters, watching the silver and mottled fishes as they went trooping swiftly past, like guests to a fairy wedding. The tears gushed into his eyes as old recollections came thronging to his mind, and he faltered in his determination. He turned, and took one step toward home, but vicious impulses triumphed, and the rainbow that had begun to arch his heart faded in darkness. He disappeared down the slope toward the old bridge, and David White was ruined forever.

Meanwhile Widow White had almost reached her destination. A few steps farther on rose a little white-washed cottage, with sloping roof, and two large china-trees embowering it in front. As she arrived at the small trellis-work gate, a light met her eye, faintly twinkling through the dark foliage of an intervening bough, and reflecting a ruddy glare upon the side-walk that lay entombed in shadow. She opened the gate, followed the narrow foot-path leading to the front door, and found herself in a dark entry, with a few rays of light shimmering through the key-hole of a door immediately before her. As she put her hand to the latch, a stifled sob broke upon her ear, and noiselessly opening the door, she glided into the apartment. It was indeed the chamber of death. On a little table by the fire-place, amidst a number of glasses and vials, burned a solitary candle over a long and lengthening wick, shedding a dim radiance throughout the room. By the side of an old-fashioned bedstead, hung with snow-white valance, knelt the old gray-headed minister, and his low voice, broken and thrillingly solemn, went up in earnest prayer for a departing soul. Upon the bed itself, propped up with pillows, lay the invalid. Three days ago the flush of health had mantled her cheek, and brightened in her eye, and now, how ghastly and changed she was! The sunken and mist-covered eye; the pallid cheek; the hueless lips, and painful breath, too truly testified that the dark angel Azrael was watching by the couch-side. At the head of the bed sat the daughter, a little girl apparently five years of age, with her head bent upon her knees, and her hands clasped beneath her face, weeping bitterly. The supplicating accents of the gray-haired minister ceased, and he arose from his kneeling posture, his eyes streaming with tears, and clasping in both of his the thin white hand that rested upon the snowy counterpane, leaned gently over, and placed his lips close to the ear of the dying woman.

"My dear Mrs. Williams," said he kindly, "we all feel that you are rapidly sinking; do you die happy? Do you feel that there is a Jesus in heaven, through whose mediation you will be saved?"

There was a rustling of the bed-clothes, a faint murmur, and the sufferer languidly turned her eyes upon the speaker. A dimness was in those sunken orbs; a clamminess upon her wan brow, and her breast heaved wildly beneath the linen that lay in snowy waves across it. But she did not appear to have heard the inquiry of the minister.

"The Widow White--has she not come yet? It is getting late--quite late," feebly spoke the sufferer.

Until then Widow White had stood unnoticed in the dark shadow, unwilling to interrupt; but, hearing this inquiry, she glided to the bedside.

"Yes, Mrs. Williams, I have come," and she laid her hand upon the dewy brow of her she had named, and tenderly smoothed back the long hair that lay loosely upon it.

A gleam of satisfaction shot across the wan countenance of the sufferer as these words fell upon her ear. A light, almost preternatural, stole to her eyes, until they sparkled as the diamond, and she lifted her head upon her hand, and strove to speak. But the effort was too great for her debilitated condition--a weakness came over her, and she sunk back exhausted to her pillow. Ere long, however, she recovered sufficient strength to speak, and turning toward Widow White, clasped her hand affectionately.

"I feel that my life is fast ebbing away," she began in a subdued and thrilling voice. "A few short hours will pass by, and this body will be a soulless mass. But I do not fear to die; for me, death has no terror, nor the grave a victory. I am standing upon its very brink, and look down into its blackness without an emotion save that of pleasure. This is a vain and heartless world! I have found it so, again and again, and the grave is the only place where I can find rest from its temptations and persecutions, and I feel glad that the time is almost here, when rest, both for body and soul, will be attained. But there is one thing that troubles me. My husband slumbers beneath the heavy sod in the village grave-yard; I am standing upon the very brink of eternity; I have no relatives living on this side of the Atlantic, and when I am gone, what is to become of my poor friendless, motherless child? I know there is One above who has promised to take care of the orphan, but still, it would give me a pleasure to know, that when my mouldering body reposes in 'that bourne whence no traveler returns,' that the light of a pleasant home would shed its radiance on her girlish years. I fear to trust her to the world. I fear its buffetings--I fear its bitterness--I fear its selfishness!--I have keenly felt them all, and they bowed my strength of spirit almost to the dust!--they sullied my purity of purpose, and my love of God! Three years ago I took up my abode in this community. Life was in its spring-time of joyousness. Pleasure opened her thousand portals, and nature breathed in beauty. Then a stern blight came upon it all! The gloom of death shadowed my dwelling, and soon the cold and rigid form of my beloved partner was carried out, and laid in the narrow bier where the 'dust returns to dust as it was.' The feeling of desolation entered my heart; I sorrowed in tears, and life almost became a weariness. Then you, Widow White, came to me in my distress, like a ministering angel; advised me, prayed with me, and led me on, until a light broke in upon my soul, and a new life spread out its million paths to happiness. From that moment I loved you as my own mother in heaven. And now I have a request to make--the request of a dying woman--will you grant it?" and she grasped the arm of the listener with a wild eagerness, and looked into her eyes, as if she saw down into the very soul, and read her every thought.

"Mrs. Williams," began Widow White in reply, in a tone of voice thrillingly solemn, her eyes dimmed with tears, and her whole frame trembling with emotion, "Mrs. Williams, you know how endeared you are to me--that I love you as if you were my own daughter, and that if I could comply with any thing that would give you pleasure in a dying moment, I would most willingly do so."

"Thank God!--thank God!" exclaimed she fervently, clasping her hands as if in prayer. "I have prayed for this, again and again, and now it has come to pass--when the grave closes over my mouldering remains, my child will have a home and a mother still! Widow White, cherish her as your own. Educate her for heaven, and if we mortals, after death, are sent as ministering angels to the living, then will I be your guardian spirit. Our kind minister, into whose hands I have committed them, will inform you of my little worldly concerns after I am gone, for my strength is fast failing me, and I feel that I have little time left for words. Mary, dear, come to my bedside. A little nearer for I am quite weak and exhausted. I am dying, Mary. I am going far away--away to heaven. In a short time, my body will be cold and motionless, and then I cannot hear you, or speak to you any more. Then you will have no mother; she will be dead. In a few days I will be laid in the cold and dark ground, and you will never see me again in this world. When I am dead, this lady will be your mother. She will take care of you, and be kind to you, just as I am; and you must obey her, and try not to be naughty. If bad feelings come into your mind, think of your dead mother, and how she talked to you and advised you when she was dying. If you do what is right, God will love you, and bless you, and take care of you, and when death comes, you will go to live with Jesus, where there is nothing but happiness; but if you are wicked, God will hate you, and when you die, you will go down to hell, where all the bad people dwell, and where there is nothing but misery and anguish. Now kiss me, for I am too weak to talk to you any longer," and the dying woman drew the child to herself, and imprinted a lingering, burning kiss upon her forehead.

She sunk back exhausted to the pillow, and her breath came in painful gasps from her parted lips, while her hands moved about spasmodically on the white counterpane--the excitement of the last hour had been too much for her weakened condition. She lay thus for several moments, and then suddenly started from her recumbent position, and sat upright in the bed. A glorious lustre broke through the mist that whelmed her eyes, and a faint color sprung to her pallid cheek. She clasped her daughter in her arms with an hysterical sob; looked wildly into her face; pressed a burning, quivering kiss upon her forehead, and then her lips gave forth fragments of speech, broken, but beautiful. But this did not last long; a weakness came over her almost preternatural strength; she loosened the embrace that circled her child; the color fled her cheek, the brightness her eye; the death-rattle rung out shrilly upon the air, and she fell back motionless to the bed. They looked upon her countenance--a single glance was sufficient--it was cold, calm, passionless--the seal of the grave was upon it.

* * * * *

The gloom of death had shadowed that cottage for two days, and now it was desolate indeed. The stealthy tread of those who came to gaze upon the dead and prepare its burial, no longer broke the solemn hush that brooded over the dwelling. The departed was in truth the departed--they had borne her over the threshold of her home, and laid her remains in the narrow house where all must one day repose--a plain head-board alone marking the grave in which slumbered what was once Eliza Williams. Like others, she had died sincerely mourned by many--like others, futurity would leave no memorial to tell that she had ever existed. Decay, and rude hands, and careless feet, after the lapse of years, would mar her last resting-place, as many in the grave-yard had already been marred, but the form below could never know nor feel the injury--she slept, and would sleep, as sleep the dead, until the trump of Gabriel awakens and clothes the dry bones in the habiliments of another world.

And now they were alone--the mother and her adopted daughter, making preparations for a final departure from that desolate old homestead. The ashes lay cold upon the hearth-stone, and a gloomy loneliness reigned throughout the whole building, flinging a pall over the feelings of Widow White. A chill crept over her as the large gray cat came purring to her side, and rubbed his soft coat against her ankle; and tears sprung to her eyes when she saw the countenance of the little child wearing such a sad and mournful expression, and she vowed in her heart that no blight should come over her youthful prospects, if it were in her power to prevent it.

Ere long, the necessary preparations were completed, and the two bade a final adieu to the lonely dwelling, and passed slowly along the road toward the mansion of Widow White.