Part 14

“Angels of heaven! are ye listening, are ye present? Yes, her steps are compassed round with holy guardians; her strength is more than mortal. Am I then helped in this my only trouble? this the last weakness of my shrinking nature? Have my prayers been heard, and have I been cared for as a timid child, by him who sitteth on the mercy seat? The tyrant told you truly, Katharine; for he, half hypocrite, half hero, is brave as his own sword:--yes--brave men may shrink from the rude shames done on their lifeless bodies. Remember, noble woman, that this last great charity doth take away the only bitterness that made my cup to taste of terror. Now my heart is light, and leaps within me, as if I felt its pinions struggling to be free. To-morrow is as a bridal-day to me.”

During this speech Katharine was so much overcome that big tears rolled down her marble cheeks, and she sought relief in prayer. Her eyes were raised to heaven in silence, and for a few brief minutes not a word was spoken by either; for Francis kneeled beside her, and his heart was lifted up in devout and still communion with hers. Being calmed and strengthened by this exercise of faith, Katharine was again able to address him.

“Your hours are now precious, Francis; let me not dare to waste one golden moment of them: whatever may be your last desires and wishes, tell me, that they may be religiously observed.”

“They are not many: these papers, which one broken hour of the night will give me time enough to seal, I would have conveyed by a safe hand to New England; and perhaps one line from you might comfort my father’s heart. These few books I would also have sent to him. This, Katharine, is my Psalter: take it; and till we meet in a better world use no other. Now hear me; and, for both our sakes, observe my last directions strictly. To-morrow morning, from the hour of eight to nine, keep closely to thy chamber, and shut thy door, and do not look abroad; but make this Psalter thy companion, and read therein the choicest words of praise and thanksgiving. Yes, praise and thanksgiving:--remember this. If that I am a pardoned sinner, and that I am pardoned a humble voice within me whispers, and visionary hands do point to him the blessed of the Father, who hung on the accursed tree, and died that we might live. If it be so, then to-morrow I shall cross Jordan at the narrowest point, and see that heavenly Canaan where happy spirits dwell: there we shall meet again. Hark! there be footsteps. One last embrace:--farewell.”

The door was unlocked, and a minister of a countenance most kind and holy did softly enter. He paused, irresolute at the sight of Katharine, and would have withdrawn till their interview might end.

“Nay, my reverend and dear friend, come in, I prithee:--this is the lady of whom I spoke to you: my only relative in England. She hath come to do me the last charitable offices of earthly love. You are prepared, I see, to comfort and refresh me. My cousin will keep this feast with us.”

At these words the good man entered, bearing a salver and a cup, over which a white napkin was decently spread; and when the door had again been closed, and the clank of the keys at the gaoler’s girdle had died away in the long passages, and the world and the world’s sounds were all shut out, that dull and grated prison became a temple,--and they three in a mournful humility did make their meek confession, and in faith, hope, and charity, did feast upon a Saviour’s love.

CHAP. XXI.

Dear beauteous death, the jewel of the just, Shining nowhere but in the dark: What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust, Could man outlook that mark! VAUGHAN.

The good old vicar of Cheddar, and the aged partner of his trials and his consolations, survived the melancholy war which brought so much public misery on the nation, and so much private affliction on themselves, for many years. They continued to dwell in the same small cottage, in which, after the ejectment of Noble, they found their first refuge, unknowing and unknown. Their means were slender, but their wants were few; and they were rich in the graces of divine contentment.

As with advancing years the strength necessary for manual labour declined, there came such little improvement of circumstances as enabled the worthy man to dispense with such exertion; and the toil of Peter was lightened by the assistance of a younger labourer. Noble himself walked regularly every Sunday of his life to attend divine service at a small village church distant from his cottage about a mile and a half; and old Peter and he sat together in the back seats under the gallery. His wife being feeble on her limbs, and dim of sight, remained at home; and it was Noble’s pleasure to bring back to her the text of the sermon and the matter of the discourse.

This church was served by a Puritan divine, who held a benefice five miles on the other side of it, and rode over to the hamlet for one full service in the afternoon. The lord of the manor was a nobleman who had been distinguished during the war; and who, after the close of hostilities in Ireland and the establishment of the protectorate, had retired to this mansion and estate, where he led a very secluded life, seldom stirring beyond his park wall. But he was a pious and charitable man, well spoken of by his servants, and by the poor of the village as a Christian master and a considerate landlord.

There was something very fine and very affecting in the consideration, that an aged minister, ejected for conscience-sake, should sit every Sabbath as a humble and loving Christian listener, under the ministry of one young enough to be his son, and to find in him a helper of his joy.

The young man knew not whom it was his privilege thus to strengthen and comfort; for there was a meekness and a shy reserve about Noble, and an enjoined silence to Peter, which repressed and baffled curiosity. They just knew so much as that one was a deprived clergyman; but whether he had been turned out for scandal, or what his story might be, none cared to discover more particularly;--he was an accustomed sight.

It so chanced that, one Sunday, when the congregation was assembled at the usual hour the young minister was not forthcoming. All persons had taken their seats. The lord of the manor was in his pew; and, after a long pause, the singing was begun, in the expectation that perhaps he would yet arrive time enough to conduct the worship; but the psalm was concluded, and he did not appear.

There was an evident disappointment on the countenances of all the people; and the grave nobleman, after leaning over his pew, and summoning the clerk, decided to sit down again, and linger yet a little time. Another psalm was given out and sung through,--still no minister arrived.

At last, moved by a constraining principle of love to the great and Divine shepherd of all Christian flocks, and by a pure love to the souls of the people, Noble came forward with lowliness and composure, and told the clerk quietly that, being himself an ordained minister, he did not feel it right to let the people go empty away, without offering in such manner as he could to feed them; and that if there was no objection he was ready to go up into the pulpit. To this arrangement there was an immediate assent from the nobleman, to whom the clerk referred it; and old Noble, for the first time since the day when he was driven from Cheddar with blows and insults, found himself in the place and office of an ambassador for Christ.

He was manifestly supported in this moment by the spirit of power, love, and of a sound mind. His prayer was serious, simple, and plain as the utterance of a child. Out of the abundance of his heart he offered up his petitions with reverent fervency and confiding love. The chapter which he selected for reading was the fourth chapter of the first Epistle of John; and, taking the tenth verse of this chapter for his text, he declared fully and freely that blessed message of pardon, reconciliation, and peace, which it is the most precious privilege of the Christian minister to deliver, and to deliver which is a duty of sacred and perpetual obligation. Mercy and grace fell softly from his lips, and distilled like the gentle dew upon the hearts of all his hearers.

The poorest and least instructed could understand every thing he said; the most learned and advanced among them found a master in Israel, walking with a secure footing on the very summits of the mount of God. Unseen by Noble, the young minister entered, when he was in the middle of his discourse, and stood with rapt, devout, and breathless attention to its close. The rugged old warlike nobleman had early risen, and leaned over his pew with eyes fixed upon the preacher, and half the congregation were in the like posture of attention. Of all this Noble was utterly unconscious: his own gaze was perfectly abstracted; he saw nothing, he thought of nothing but the Divine love. He magnified it; he set it forth in the chaste radiance and the heavenly light of Scripture language and Scripture imagery. He commended it to the hearts of all around him, by speaking of it experimentally, gratefully. He showed what the world and society would be if subjected to its influence: drew the mournful contrast daily presented to the eye; and, towards the close, he drew aside, as it were, the curtains of the skies, and displayed the world of light, and the redeemed of the Lord walking, as angels, in an air of glory. When he had concluded, he kneeled down to pray: his few first words, though not quite so loud as his sermon, which had been preached in very subdued and quiet tones, were distinctly audible; but, then, they became faint and unintelligible, his grey head bowed down upon his pale hands, and both rested without motion upon the dark cushion of the pulpit.

The young minister was the first to perceive his condition, and the first to run to his succour. With the aid of Peter, he brought him down and out into the summer air, and laid him on the grass, and loosened his vest; but the body itself was no longer any thing but a put-off garment:--the spirit was far off, breathing already the air of that Eden which is above.

The young minister accompanied Peter back to the cottage with the precious remains, and, leaving them at a few yards’ distance, entered first, and broke the loss to his aged partner. She felt it deeply: but as all the circumstances attending it were truly and tenderly related, the grief of the woman yielded to the faith of the Christian; and, while tears rolled down her withered cheeks, she was enabled to bless and praise her God.

From that day, to the hour of her death, that youthful minister took her to his own home, and was to her as a son.

The very same day which witnessed the sudden and solemn removal of the good old vicar of Cheddar brought a summons to his base and hypocritical successor in that vicarage. As the crafty and bitter bigot was crossing his yard with a more hasty step than usual, his foot tripped against the edge of the BROKEN FONT, which he had put in the ground near his ash-heap, to hold water for his fowls. He fell to the ground with such violence as to produce a compound fracture of his thigh; and, after the lingering torments of a very long confinement, died in the greatest agony of body, and in hopeless terror of mind.

While this unhappy wretch lay upon his bed, in the first week after his accident, the body of Noble was brought to Cheddar for interment by the young Puritan divine, of whom we have spoken in the foregoing part of the chapter. The whole village poured forth to meet the body: the large hearted young minister performed the funeral service; and, indifferent to what the rigid party might say or think, he read over the grave of the departed vicar that solemn and sweet office for the burial of the dead which was, in those days, a forbidden charity to men who had suffered cheerfully the loss of all things rather than give up the sacred ritual of their church, or take the covenant which the faction in authority would have tyrannically imposed upon their conscience. The dropping of a leaf might have been heard in the green churchyard as that service was read; and a crowd stood listening with bare heads and serious eyes. When the last rite was done, and the earth was filled into the grave, fresh and verdant sods, which had been most carefully cut in a neighbouring paddock, were placed over it orderly and firm, and these again were so thickly strewn over with the choicest summer flowers as to be almost concealed by the profusion, while a fragrant and grateful incense, more pleasant than “precious ointment poured out,” filled all the place with a sweet promise, that the name of the righteous should live.

THE END.

LONDON: Printed by A. SPOTTISWOODE, New-Street-Square.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Broken Font, Vol. 2 (of 2), by Moyle Sherer