CHAPTER III

THE BIBLE TORN.

Within this awful volume lies The mystery of mysteries; And better he had ne'er been born Who reads to doubt or reads to scorn.--SCOTT.

We must pass over a few years. Hubert had overcome the effects of the climate, and the many dangers to which he had been exposed, helped, as they ever will, the heart, uninfluenced by religion, to make him more reckless and daring. Away from his sight, at the bottom of his chest, undisturbed, lay his Bible; beside it, too, lay his sister's desk, and the writing materials his mother had carefully packed for him: he seldom thought of the fond ones who had given him those things; but far away in England they ever thought of him, and watched and wept for a letter.

Hubert's regiment had seen a great deal of service, and it had not been his lot to escape the dangers of war. On one occasion he had been overcome and taken prisoner by some natives, and was only saved from being put to death in a cruel manner by an unexpected attack being made upon these Hindoos by a neighbouring chief, to repulse which they left Hubert and two of his companions in the care of some women, from whom they were rescued by a company of his regiment who had come out to search for him. In a few hours the attempt to save Hubert would have been in vain, for the Hindoos, hating the English, seldom allowed much time to elapse between the capture and the sacrifice. Many a narrow escape besides this, and many a wound--some slight and some severe--dotted the pathway of Hubert's life; and the seventh year of his residence in India was drawing to a close. The hot season had been unusually oppressive; nearly every disease which flesh is heir to had made fearful ravages amongst the soldiers, and Hubert was a second time struck down with fever. Mercy once again interposed, and, like the barren fig-tree, he was spared, that another opportunity might be given him to bear fruit. One morning, when he was getting better, the hospital nurse came to him with a letter in her hand, and asked if he thought it was for him; he took it from her, and for a few moments did not answer her: his heart smote him; but though his illness had slightly subdued him, he was old in sin, and had learnt how to overcome all feelings of tenderness; so, striving to check the thoughts that were forcing their way, he began to examine the postmarks and various written notices upon the outside of the letter; he soon found how far it had travelled in search of him, and now it was by a mere chance that he had received it.

"Why was this letter not sent after me?" inquired Hubert.

"Be thankful, sir, that you have received it now," said the nurse. "It has travelled after you a great way; but your regiment has been so much on the move that I am not surprised at its being delayed. I have seen it on the letter-rack more than eight months, and several others with it, and you would not have had it now if I had not remembered you."

"Why, where did you see me before?"

"I nursed poor Captain White in the hospital at Jansi, and I knew you by your coming so often to see him."

"I did not remember you."

"No, sir, perhaps not; but I did you, though it was only this morning that I remembered anything about the letter, and that is how it is they often get delayed: they are given to people very often, to send on, who know nothing at all about them, and so they get put on one side, and sometimes forgotten altogether. I suppose that was sent here because someone knew that when you were stationed here a year ago, you were in hospital with jaundice, and here it has been ever since."

"It is high time things were altered, then," replied Hubert, "if this is how the letters are treated."

"Yes, sir, it is," said the nurse; "but you don't seem very anxious to read your letter, now you have it."

Hubert said no more. Anxious indeed he was to know what that letter contained, but fearful to open it; the battle, everything indeed in warfare he could face with boldness, but before that silent, soiled, fairy-like packet in his hand his whole nature quailed. Had he been alone, perhaps he would not have opened it at all; but the eye of another was upon him, and perhaps it was to save betrayal that he broke the seal. It was from his father; there was nothing reproachful in it, but a great deal of news about the family and their affectionate remembrance of him; a long account of letters written, and their fears that they had not reached him; then an earnest pleading that if he received that he would write to them immediately, for their anxiety and disappointment were very great.

Hubert read his letter several times; it was not the first he had received, though perhaps it was the first that he really felt anxious to answer; but he was too much out of health to reply to it then. It was frequently a silent companion to him during the remainder of his stay in the hospital, though when he grew better and returned again to his old companions, somehow his father's letter was forgotten.

Hubert's illness had no effect upon him for good; it was sent, no doubt in mercy, to check, at least for a time, the career he was running; but health had returned, and so had he to his evil habits. Not one thought did he ever willingly give to his parents, or the good precepts they had tried to teach him; but when at times a few lines of a hymn, or a few words of an early learnt prayer, would, in spite of all his efforts, come across his mind, he had become so bold in sin that he cursed the intruding memory of his purer days.

How little that young soldier thought of the merciful providence that was watching over him! And it was doubtless in answer to his parents' prayers that the little snatches of his early lessons were allowed to intrude so repeatedly upon him, to bring him back, if possible, to a better life. Take courage, mothers, even though the seed now sown seems to perish as it falls; and continue to store up in the little mind passages of holy writ, the simple prayer, and the childish hymn; long, long may the soil remain barren, but a distant storm-cloud may shed its torrents there, and then the fruit of thy labours may return like the autumn grain, and ye shall reap, if ye faint not.

Hubert had grown very handsome, military fortune had smiled upon him, and he had risen to be first lieutenant of his regiment Good abilities, and great intelligence, with his merry, cheerful disposition, had won him many favours; but those qualities were at the same time the snares in his path: they were misapplied and misdirected, and too often were the cause of his deepest errors.

One night, about nine years after Hubert had left England, he sat alone in his room, with a heavier heart than he had ever before endured. His sword lay upon the floor, part of his soldier's dress was thrown carelessly upon a chair, a glass jug of water and a bottle were upon the table, a loose grey cloak was wrapped around him, and his arm was in a sling; he had been in battle that day, and severely cut upon the shoulder; the doctor had attended to him and bound up the wound, and Hubert, sick and dispirited, lounged in his easy chair in gloomy silence. The doctor had tried to persuade him to go to bed, and Hubert had promised to do so; but as soon as he was gone, the servant man was dismissed from the room, and Hubert began to think. They must have been terrible thoughts that could have produced such a look of despair; they were not, however, about his wounded shoulder, nor the dangers he had that day encountered; neither were they of his parents, to whom, in a few months, the news of the battle would probably find its way. It was altogether another matter which troubled him.

A companion, a fellow officer--the little lad who seated himself upon the coil of rope and wept such tears as the vessel left England--had grown up to manhood with Hubert, and had that morning gone out with him to battle; they were full of spirit when they went, and for some time fought nearly side by side; but there came unexpectedly a terrible volley of shot from a portion of the enemy that lay concealed behind some dense brushwood. Hubert's ranks were thinned, and, as he turned round to rally and command his men, he missed his friend. It was a critical moment; every energy and thought was required for the fight; so that a glance behind, and a fleeting pang lest he had fallen, were all that circumstances allowed, and Hubert rushed on.

The battle was won, the soldiers were returning, and Hubert was wounded; he had made inquiry for his friend, but could hear nothing. As they wound their way along, however, by the hill-side where the volley had been fired, his heart beat quickly, for his own wound had made him feel weak, and he could scarcely speak, when he saw two soldiers bending over something lying on the grass. All his fears were realized as he slowly came up to the scene; for there, stretched upon the ground, lay his companion, dead. Oh! how the sight overcame him. If man is capable of loving man, it was exemplified in Hubert; for his heart had deeply entwined itself round his hapless comrade, and his first impulse was to kneel beside him, and with his unwounded arm press him to his bosom as he wept over his pallid brow. No thought, however, of the mercy which had kept him from a similar fate came into his mind; no prayer of thankfulness went up from his heart; but sorrowful and ill, he left his friend, and leaning between the two soldiers, he at last, after great difficulty, reached his quarters. After Hubert had been attended to by the doctor, a second thought took the place of the first pure one; and, as he sat alone, instead of pouring out his heart in deep gratitude to his Almighty Preserver, he became irritated and angry, and amongst the many thoughts that crowded upon him he remembered that his poor dead companion was deeply in his debt. Much of their time had been spent together at the gaming-table, and only a few evenings before, Hubert had lent his companion all the money he had by him, including his last month's pay; since then, Hubert had gambled, and been unsuccessful, and had become involved for a considerable amount, which he had promised to pay in a week; but his companion, who owed him sufficient to pay the debt, was killed, and the difficulty into which he was suddenly plunged drove him almost to despair.

"What shall I do?" he said, as he passionately struck the table; and then, in the height of his frenzy, he said many bitter, cruel things about his poor guilty companion who lay dead upon his bed in the adjoining room.

"Oh, what shall I do?" he said again; and for some minutes he sat still, gazing with a vacant stare upon the floor; then, as if moved by a sudden impulse, he slowly rose from his chair, and, going into his bed-room, he knelt down by his chest, intending to get some writing paper, that he might reckon up all he owed, and see how far his own resources would help him. Perhaps he was too absorbed to think of what he was doing, for he took out a small parcel, and then, after replacing the things in his chest, he went and sat down by the table. For some minutes he sat with his face covered with his hands, as though he were in deep thought; then he muttered something, and, snatching up the parcel, he broke the string that tied it; one sharp pull drew the paper away, when out upon the table fell his Bible. "Fool, to bring that!" he said, and then he dashed it to the other end of the room. In striking the Bible it came open, and as it came in contact with the corner of a chair two of its leaves were torn out. There was a slight momentary regret in Hubert's heart, when he found what he had done: he hated the book, and could not bear it in his sight; and though he would have been glad to have been rid of it, he never thought, nor perhaps ever intended destroying it in that way, and he stepped across the room to gather it all up. Much of his passion subsided as he sat down and tried to replace the torn leaves. The days, however, had long since passed when he was accustomed to read his Bible; he was now not only unfamiliar with that sacred book, but all that he once knew appeared to have gone from his memory; and though he turned over and over again one portion after another, to find the part in Ezekiel from which the pages had been torn, it was of no use, he could not replace them; so, with a nervous hand, he thrust them into his pocket, and took the torn Bible back to his chest.

This little incident, though it produced no reflection, subdued for a time the excitement under which he was labouring; and though he disregarded the unseen hand that was dealing so mysteriously with him, the first outburst of bad feeling respecting the difficulty into which he had fallen by the death of his gambling companion was over, and, leaving his room, he walked with gentle step to the one in which his dead comrade lay. The years of folly and sin which Hubert had passed had not quite dried up all the fountains of his heart; one of them, at least, was flowing afresh as he closed the door and went up to the remains of his dead friend. He raised the sheet which had been spread over the corpse, and breathed the words, "Oh, poor Harris!" as he gazed upon the once joyous face; then, sitting down beside him, he laid his hand upon the cold forehead and wept as he had not done since his childhood. He had seen death in many forms, and this was not the first time he had lost a companion; but neither tear nor sigh had followed the death of any one before: but for poor Harris, how he wept! Hubert had loved him well. Death, which before had no effect upon him, overwhelmed him now, and it was not until his own wounded arm grew very painful, from the effects of touching the cold dead, that he rose to go away. Harris was to be buried early on the morrow, and Hubert felt such a strange bitterness at parting that he could scarcely go; but at last, bending over him, he pressed one long, fervent kiss upon the silent lips and turned away.

In passing along near the door, his eye caught what he thought to be a piece of folded paper lying near the clothes of his friend; he picked it up, and, upon opening it, found it to be a note from poor Harris--a few lines written by him in pencil, as he lay dying upon the field of battle; and there was not much upon the paper, but there was enough. Poor Harris, in that brief note, begged the finder to convey the sad story of his death to his mother, and tell her how bitterly he repented having so long forgotten her; that he begged her to forgive him, and earnestly implored the Lord Jesus to have mercy upon him; then came the words--evidently written by a trembling hand--"Comrade, turn and repent; not a moment may be given to you; tell Hubert Goodwin I am dead: he must meet me again."

Hubert had never felt before what he did as he read that note--written as the life-blood wasted, and he the subject of it; how he trembled, bold, daring soldier that he was! it was the voice from the dead; and at first he felt cold--so cold: his teeth chattered, and then a sudden heat rushed over him, and the perspiration trickled down his face; his bosom swelled, his breath grew short; at length, a long, deep groan burst from his overcharged heart, and he went to his own room. Long, very long, silent and alone, Hubert sat in his dreary chamber; there were but few sounds without, and nothing but sighs and groans broke the stillness within; the words on that blood-spotted note touched him deeply, struck many a note of discord in his heart, tore into shreds the cloak of sin and guilt he had worn so long, and exposed to him the part he had taken in dragging his companion, once a pure, noble-hearted, susceptible boy, down deep into the villanies of his own dissipated life. And he was to meet him again--where?

The teaching of his childhood had not been in vain; the bread cast upon the waters had not all perished; conscience whispered the truth, and Hubert knew where he should meet Harris. The soldier's head bowed; he felt he could not, he dare not, meet the soul he had ruined; the thought of the terrible record against him broke down his spirit. "Great God!" as he glanced upward, was all he uttered, in his despair, and his head drooped again in deep anguish upon his bosom.