Chapter XVI.

The rattling of the key in the lock as the jailer shut them up for the night came like a death-knell on poor Nellie's ear. So long as Ormiston and Roger had been there beside her, she had, quite unconsciously to herself, entertained a sort of hope that something (she knew not what) might yet be devised for the solace of her mother; and now that they were gone indeed, she felt as people feel when the physician takes his leave of his dying patient, thus tacitly confessing that all hope is over. The lamp, which, in obedience to a word from Ormiston, the jailer had brought in trimmed and lighted for the night, revealed the cell to her in all its bleak reality, and as she glanced from the straw pallet, which at Netterville they would have hesitated to place beneath a beggar, to the pitcher of cold water, which was the only refreshment provided for the dying woman, Nellie felt anew such a sense of her mother's misery and of her own inability to procure her comfort, that, unable to utter a single syllable, she sat for a few moments by her side weeping hopelessly and helplessly as a child. {744} Mrs. Netterville heard her sobbing, and, after waiting a few minutes in hopes the paroxysm would subside, said gently:

"Nellie--my little one--weep not so bitterly, I entreat you; you know not how it pains me."

"How can I help it, mother?" sobbed the girl, unable to conceal the thought uppermost in her own mind. "_You_ suffer, and the lowest scullion in the kitchen of Netterville would have deemed herself ill-used in such poverty as this!"

"Is that all, my child?" said her mother, with a faint smile. "Nay, dear Nellie, you may believe me, that, to a soul which feels itself within an hour of eternity, it is of little moment whether straw or satin support the body it is leaving. Eternity! yes, eternity!" she murmured to herself "Alas! alas! how little do we realize in the short days of time the awful significance of that word, for ever!

"Mother, you are not afraid!" burst from Nellie's lips, a new and hitherto unthought-of anxiety rushing to her mind.

"Afraid!" Mrs. Netterville echoed the expression with a smile. "No, my daughter, by the grace of God and goodness of Our Lady I am not afraid. Nevertheless eternity, with its ministering angel Death, are awful things to look on, Nellie, and if I could smile at aught which makes you weep, it would be to think that such a silly grievance as a straw pallet could add to their awfulness in your eyes."

"Not to their awfulness, mother," Nellie sobbed, "but to their sorrow; it is such a pain to see you comfortless."

"And has no one else been comfortless in death?" Mrs. Netterville whispered almost reproachfully. "Only consider, Nellie, this straw bed which you lament so bitterly is a very couch of down compared to His, when he laid him down upon the hard wood of the cross to die."

"Mother, forgive me; I never thought of that," said Nellie humbly. "I only thought of your discomfort."

"Think of nothing now, dear Nellie, but this one word of Scripture, 'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord;' and hope and pray that it may be so with me to-night. Now, dry your eyes and listen, for I have much to say, and but little time left wherein to say it. Dry your eyes, for I cannot bear to see you weeping thus. Your tears have almost the power to make me repine at death."

The last hint was sufficient. Nellie resolutely checked her tears, and laid her head down on her mother's pillow, in order that the latter might speak to her with less danger of fatigue.

Then, in a few earnest, touching words, Mrs. Netterville set before her daughter the duties of her new state of life, and gave advice, which, precious as it would have been at any time, was doubly precious then, coming as it did from the lips of a dying mother; after which, true to an idea ever uppermost in the Irish mind, and which she had too thoroughly adopted her husband's country not to feel as keenly upon almost as he could have done himself, she adverted to her own place of burial.

"It cannot be at Netterville, I know," she said. "I may not sleep, as I had ever hoped, by the side of my brave husband! But in your new western home, dear Nellie--in your new western home, where the churches, I believe, are yet undesecrated--there, if it be possible, I would gladly take my rest--there, where you can come sometimes to pray for your poor mother, and where, when my husband's father follows me, as no doubt he must full soon, he can be laid quietly to sleep beside me."

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She paused, and Nellie muttered something, she hardly knew what, which she hoped would sound like an assent in her mother's ears. Not for worlds would she have saddened her at such a moment by allowing her to discover that Roger, like themselves, had been robbed of his inheritance, and that, instead of that quiet western home of which she spoke so confidently, her wedded life with him must be spent of necessity in a foreign land.

Whatever she did or did not say, her mother evidently fancied it was a promise in conformity with her wishes, and went on in that low, rambling way peculiar to the dying:

"It was not thus--not thus that I had thought to visit that wild land. I dreamed of a resting-place and a welcome--a meeting of mingled joy and sadness--and then a homely life, and at its close a peaceful ending. But it is better as it is--much better. Our next meeting will be all of joy--joy in that eternal home where God gathers together his beloved ones, and bids them smile in the sunshine of his presence. Yes, yes! it is better as it is!"

"As God wills. He knows best--he knows," and then Nellie stopped, powerless to complete the sentence.

"Remember me to my father, Nellie, "Mrs. Netterville continued faintly--"for father I may truly call him who has been in very deed a parent to me ever since I was wedded to his son. And poor Hamish also--let him not think himself forgotten, and tell him especially of the gratitude I feel for this great consolation procured me by his faithful service--my Nellie's heart to rest on in dying--my Nellie's hands to close my eyes in death."

The last words were barely audible, and after they were uttered Mrs. Netterville lay for a long time so mute and still that, fancying she was asleep, Nellie hardly dared to move, or even almost to breathe, lest she should disturb her. At last she felt her mother's hand steal gently in search of hers.

"Your hand, dear Nellie," she whispered softly. "Nay, do not speak, my daughter, but take my hand in yours, that I may feel, when I cannot see, the comfort of your presence."

Nellie took her mother's hand in hers. It was as cold as ice, and she gently tried to chafe it. But the movement disturbed the dying woman.

"It prevents me thinking, Nellie," she whispered faintly, "and my thoughts are very sweet."

The words sent a gush of tenderness and joy to Nellie's heart, telling her, as they did, that her mother's was at peace. But the physical condition of that poor mother still weighed heavily on her soul, and taking the mantle from her own shoulders, she laid it on the bed, hoping thus gradually and imperceptibly to restore warmth to the failing system. Mrs. Netterville perceived what she had done, and, true to that forgetfulness of self which had been the chief characteristic of her life, she would not have it so. "Nay, nay, child," she murmured as well as she could, for she was by this time well-nigh speechless, "put it on again, for you need it, and I do not. This death-chill is not pain."

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She tried to push it from her as she spoke, and became so uneasy that Nellie, in order to calm her, was forced to resume the garment. Satisfied on this point, her mother closed her eyes like a weary child, and fell into a dozing slumber. It was the stupor preceding death, but Nellie, never suspecting this, felt thankful that her mother's hacking cough had ceased, and that her breathing had become less painful. For more than an hour she sat thus, her mother's hand in hers--praying, watching, weeping--weeping silent, soundless tears--not sobbing, lest it should disturb the sleeper.

The night passed onward in its course, but day was yet far off when the lamp began to waver. Sometimes it flickered and sputtered as if just going to be extinguished, and then again it would flare up suddenly, casting strange shadows through the gloomy space, and deepening the pallor on the sleeper's brow, until it almost seemed as if she were dead already. Lower still, and lower, after each of these fresh spurts, it sank, while Nellie watched it nervously; but just as she fancied that it had actually died out, it flashed up high and bright again, full upon her mother's face. Nellie turned eagerly to gaze once more upon those dear features. Even as she did so, a rush of darkness seemed to fill the cell--darkness that could be almost felt--and a pang seized upon the poor girl's heart, for she knew at once by intuition that the lamp was now gone indeed, and that she had looked for the last time on the face of her living mother.

The sudden change from light to darkness seemed somehow to disturb the invalid. She opened her eyes wearily, and something like a shudder passed over her; but when she felt her daughter's hand still clasping hers, a heavenly smile (pity that Nellie could not see it then--she saw its shadow on the dead face next day, however) settled on her features, and she whispered:

"You here still, dear child? Thank God--thank God for that!"

"Mother, what would you?" Nellie asked, amid her tears.

"It is coming, Nellie; be not frightened, dearest. It is coming like a gentle sleep. Pray for me, dear one; pray loud, that I may hear you."

What prayer could Nellie say at such a moment? An orphan already by the loss of her father, she was about to be doubly orphaned in her mother's death, and her thoughts turned naturally and spontaneously toward that other Parent whose home is heaven, and who, Father as he is to each of us, has pledged himself to be so in a yet more especial and individual manner to the fatherless of his earthly kingdom.

The words of the "Our Father" seemed to rise unbidden to her lips.

"Our Father who art in heaven."

"Who art in heaven," her mother repeated after her; and then came a pause of sweet, and solemn meditation.

"Thy kingdom come," Nellie once more found voice to say. Mrs. Netterville had ever kept the desire of that kingdom in her heart of hearts. Surely he was now calling her to enjoy it in eternity! So Nellie thought, and the thought gave her strength and courage to go on.

"Thy will be done!"--that _will_ which was calling her last parent from her side. Nellie sobbed aloud as she uttered the words, but Mrs. Netterville took them up, and, in a voice of ineffable love and sweetness, kept repeating over and over again, as if she never could weary of the sentiment.

"Thy will be done; _thy_ will--_thy_ will--thy will, ever merciful and to be adored--thy will, my God, my Father, and my Redeemer--thy will, not mine, be done!"

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Nellie listened until she almost felt as if she herself were standing with her mother on the threshold of eternity. A sweet and awful calmness settled on her soul. She knew intuitively that her mother was in the very act of dying, but she no longer felt fear or sorrow. It was as if the Judge of the living and the dead, not stern and exacting, but tender and approving, was descending in person to that bed of death to speak the sentence of his faithful servant. It was as if saints and angels were crowding after him, bowed down, indeed, beneath his awful presence, but yet glad and jubilant over the crowning of a sister spirit, and bringing the songs and sweetness of heaven itself on the rustling of their snowy wings. And in the midst of such thoughts as these, Nellie still could hear her mother's voice repeating, "Thy will, my God, not mine, be done."

Fainter still and fainter grew that voice, as the soul which spoke by it receded toward eternity; then all at once it died away, and Nellie felt that the last word had been said in heaven.

It was very dark now, and very cold--the cold that precedes the dawn--cold in Nellie's heart within, and cold in the outside world around her. She shivered, and was scarcely conscious that she did so. Was her mother really dead? She knew it, and yet could scarce believe it. For a little while she knelt there still, waiting and holding in her breath in the vague, faint hope that once more, if it were even for the last time, once more that sweet, plaintive voice might greet her longing ear. But it never came again. At last, by a great effort, she put forth her trembling hand and touched her mother's face. It was already growing cold, with that strange, hard coldness which makes the face of the dead like a marble mask to the living hands that touch it. She shuddered; nevertheless, with an instinctive feeling of what was right and proper by the dead, she did not withdraw it until she had pressed it gently on the eyelids, and so closed them without almost an effort.

That done, she knelt down once more, and, hiding her face in the scanty bedclothes, tried to pray.

......

Day began to dawn at last, and a few sad rays forced their way into that gloomy cell; but Nellie never saw them. Sounds began to come in from the newly-awakened city, but Nellie never heard them. The prison itself shook off its slumbers, and there was a slamming of distant doors and an occasional hurried step along the passages; and still she took no heed. She knew, in a vague, careless way, that at one time or another some one would be sent to her assistance, and that was all she thought or cared about it. In the mean time she prayed, or tried to pray; but when at last they did come, they found her stretched upon the floor, as cold almost and quite as unconscious as her dead mother.