III. SOUL-LAND.
Autumn and Winter—By the Fireside—Where little Bell
is going—Nanny sings about Cloe—Bell reads a Poem—
The flight of an Angel—The Funeral—The good
Parson—The two Grave-stones.
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I saw our little Gertrude die:
She left off breathing, and no more
I smoothed the pillow beneath her head,
She was more beautiful than before,
Like violets faded were her eyes;
By this we knew that she was dead!
Through the open window looked the skies
Into the chamber where she lay,
And the wind was like the sound of wings,
As if Angels came to bear her away.
The Golden Legend.
It was autumn. The wind, with its chilly fingers,
picked off the sere leaves, and made mounds of
them in the garden walks. The boom of the sea
was heavier, and the pale moon fell oftener on
stormy waves than in the summer months. Change
and decay had come over the face of Earth even
as they come over the features of one dead. In
woods and hollow places vines lay rotting, and
venturesome buds that dared to bloom on the hem
of winter; and the winds made wail over the
graves of last year's flowers.
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Then Winter came—Winter, with its beard of
snow—Winter, with its frosty breath and icy fingers,
turning everything to pearl. The wind whistled
odd tunes down the chimney; the plum-tree brushed
against the house, and the hail played a merry
tattoo on the window-glass. How the logs blazed
in the sitting room!
Bell did not leave her room now.
Her fairy foot-steps were never heard tripping,
nor her voice vibrating through the entry in some
sweet song. She scarcely ever looked out at the
window—all was dreary there; besides, she fancied
that the wind “looked at her.” It was in her armchair
by the antique fire-place that she was most
comfortable. She never wearied of watching the
pictured tiles; and one, representing the infant
Christ in the manger, was her favorite. There she
sat from sunny morn until shadowy twilight, with
her delicate hands crossed on her lap, while Mortimer
read to her. Sometimes she would fix her
large, thoughtful eyes on the fantastic grouping of
the embers at her feet, and then she did not hear
him reading.
She was wandering in Soul-land.
Heaven's gates are open when the world's are
shut. The gates of this world were closing on Bell,
and her feet were hesitating at the threshold of
Heaven, waiting only for the mystic word to enter!
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Very beautiful Bell was. Her perfect soul could
not hide itself in the pale, spiritual face. It was
visible in her thought and in her eyes. There was
a world of tender meaning in her smile. The
Angel of Patience had folded her in its wings, and
she was meek, holy. As Mortimer sat by her before
the evening lamps were lighted, and watched
the curious pictures which the flickering drift-wood
painted on the walls, he knew that she could not
last till the violets came again. She spoke so gently
of death, the bridge which spans the darkness between
us and Heaven—so softened its dark, dreadful
outlines, that it seemed as beautiful as a path
of flowers to the boy and Nanny.
“Death,” said Bell one day, “is a folding of the
hands to sleep. How quiet is death! There is no
more yearning, no more waiting in the grave. It
comes to me pleasantly, the thought that I shall
lie under the daisies, God's daisies! and the robins
will sing over me in the trees. Everything is so
holy in the churchyard—the moss on the walls, the
willows, and the long grass that moves in the
wind!”
Poor Nanny tried to hum one of her old ditties
about Cloe and her lover; then suddenly she found
something interesting at the window. But it would
not do. The tears would come, and she knelt down
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by Bell's side, and Bell's little hand fell like a strip
of white moonlight on Nanny's hair.
“We shall miss you, darling!” sobbed Mortimer.
“At first, won't you?” and Bell smiled, and who
knows what sights she saw in the illumined fire-place?
Were they pictures of Heaven, little Bell?
“What shall I read to you, pet?” asked Mortimer
one morning. She had been prattling for an
hour in her wise, child-like way, and was more
than usually bright.
“You shall not read to me at all,” replied Bell,
chirpingly, “but sit at my feet, and I will read to
you.”
She took a slip of paper from her work-basket,
and her voice ran along the sweetest lines that the
sweetest poet ever wrote. They are from Alfred
Tennyson's “May Queen.”
“I did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat,
There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet;
But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine,
And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign.
All in the wild March morning I heard the angels call;
It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all;
The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll,
And in the wild March morning I heard them call my soul.
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For lying broad awake I thought of you and Effie dear;
I saw you sitting in the house, and I no longer here;
With all my strength I prayed for both, and so I felt resigned,
And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind.
I thought that it was fancy, and I listened in my bed,
And then did something speak to me—I know not what was said;
For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind,
And up the valley came again the music on the wind.
But you were sleeping; and I said, `It's not for them: its mine,'
And if it comes three times, I thought, I take it for a sign;
And once again it came, and close beside the window-bars,
Then seemed to go right up to Heaven, and die among the stars.
So now I think my time is near—I trust it is. I know
The blessed music went that way my soul will have to go;
And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to-day,
But, Effie, you must comfort her when I am past away;
And say to Robin a kind word, and tell him not to fret—
There's many worthier than I would make him happy yet;—
If I had lived—I cannot tell—I might have been his wife;
But all these things have ceased to be, with my desire of life.
Oh look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow;
He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know;
And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine—
Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine.
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O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done,
The voice that now is speaking may be beyond the sun—
To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast—
And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest!”
When Bell had finished reading, she took Mortimer's
hand in her own.
“I shall not die until the violet comes—the beautiful
violet, with its clouded bell!”
March melted into April—the month of tears!
Then came blossoming May, and still Bell lingered,
like a strain of music so sweet that the echoes will
not let it die.
One morning in June, the sun with noiseless feet
came creeping into the room—and Bell was dying.
Mortimer was telling her of some sea-side walk,
when the unseen angel came between them. Bell's
voice went from her, her heart grew chilly, and
she knew that it was death. The boy did not
notice the change; but when her hand lay cold in
his, he looked up with fear. He saw her beautiful
eyes looking heavenward, and those smiles which
wreathe the lips of the young after death—the sunset
of smiles.
“Bell! Bell! Bell!”
But she did not hear him.
The viewless spirits of flowers came through the
open window into the quiet room; and the winds,
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which made the curtains tremble, gently lifted the
tresses of the sleeping angel. Then the chiming
of village bells came and went in pulses of soft
sound. How musical they were that morning!
How the robins showered their silvery notes, like
rain-drops among the leaves! There was holy life
in everything — the lilac-scented atmosphere, the
brooks, the grass, and the flowers that lay budding
on the bosom of delicious June! And thus it was,
in the exquisite spring-time, that the hand of death
led little Bell into Soul-land.
One afternoon, the blinds were turned down:
not a ray of light stole through them, only the
spicy air. There was something solemn stalking
in the entries, and all through the house. It seemed
as if there was a corpse in every room.
The way the chairs were placed, the darkened
parlor, the faded flowers on the mantel-piece, and
the brooding silence said it — said that Bell was
dead!
Yes! In the little parlor she lay, in her white
shroud. Bell? No; it was not Bell. It was only
the beautiful robe which her spirit in its flight
had cast aside!
There was a moving of feet to and fro.
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Gradually, the room became full of forms. The village
parson stood among them. His hair had the white
touch of age, and his heart knew the chastening
hand of God. “Exceeding peace” was written on
his meek face. He lifted up his soul on the arms
of prayer. He spoke of the dead, whose life had
been as pure as a new snow. He spoke cheerfull
and tenderly, and sometimes smiled, for his
“Faith was large in Time,
And that which shapes it to some perfect end.”
He had drank at the fountain of God's word;
his soul had been refreshed, and his were not the
lips to preach the doctrine of an endless wail. He
knew that there are many mansions in our Father's
house; and he said that Bell was happier there
than here. He glanced back upon her infant days,
and ran along the various threads of her life, to
the moment death disentangled them from the world.
“This little one in her shroud,” he said, “is an eloquent
sermon. She passed through the dark valley
without fear; and sits, like Mary, at the feet of
our Saviour.” Of this life, he said: “It is but an
imperfect prelude to the next.” Of death: “It is
only a brief sleep: some sunny morning we shall
wake up with the child Bell, and find ourselves in
Heaven!”
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The coffin was closed, and the train passed through
the gravelled walk.
Then came that dull, heavy sound of earth falling
on the coffin-lid, which makes one's heart throb.
Did you ever hear it?
When Bell had been a year in Heaven, a plain
head-stone was placed over Nanny. She lingered
only a little while after her darling. She folded
her arms and fell asleep one summer twilight, and
never again opened her kind old eyes on this world.
Age had weakened her frame, and the parting of
soul and body was only the severing of a fragile
cord.
Mortimer did not remain long in the old house; its
light and pleasantness had passed away. The little
stock of money which his father had left previous
to his last voyage, was exhausted; he could earn
nothing in the village. His early dream of the
great city came over him again. He yearned for
its ceaseless excitement, its grandeur — he never
thought of its misery, its sin and pollution. Through
the length of one July night he lay awake in bed,
while his eyes were like kaleidescopes, taking a
thousand arabesque forms and fancies. Toward
morning he fell asleep, having built some fall-down
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castles in the air. The next day he took a last,
lingering look at the old rooms; a last ramble on
the sea-shore; he sat an hour under the braided
branches of the cherry trees, gave a parting look
at the white caps of the sea, and turned his eyes
to the city in the dim distance—the great city-ocean,
with no one to point out to him its sunken
reefs, its quicksands, and maelstroms.
Next to Bell's grave he placed a simple tablet
to the memory of his father.
“This sod does not enfold him,” said Mortimer
to himself; “but it will be pleasant for me to think,
when I am far away, that their names are near
together.”
So he left them in the quiet churchyard at Ivyton—
left them sleeping among the thick musk-roses,
in the warm sunshine; and the same berylline moss
was creeping over the two mounds. One headstone
said “Little Bell,” and the other:
SACRED
TO THE MEMORY
OF
OUR FATHER,
LOST AT SEA,
18 —.
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Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 1836-1907 [1857], Daisy's necklace: and what came of it (A literary episode). (Derby & Jackson, New York) [word count] [eaf446T].
