University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.
THE HISTORY TOLD BY THE DYING WOMAN.
PART IV.

“Ann,” said a low voice within the curtains
of the bed, “Has he come?”

But there was no answer to the question.
For no living being was within sound of the
dying mother's voice.

“Bring Harry to me, Ann. Bring him at
once. I must see him once more before I leave
you all.”

Again the voice of Alice was unanswered.

But soon, from the door leading into the
next room, there comes with stealthy tread, a
young woman whose slender form, is enveloped
in a black dress. Her face, pale at all times,
is now furrowed with the traces of burning
tears. In her arms she carries the Boy, with
clear blue eyes, and sunny golden hair.

And the little fellow, unconscious of evil or
death, struggles in her arms, and laughs gaily
as he looks up into her pale, haggard face.

“I will go to pa's room,” he exclaims in infantile
tones, as he endeavours to release himself
from her embrace. “He is home. I
know he is. There now — don't you tell a
story, you naughty Ann.”

“Hush! Child! Your mother — your poor,
mother is very, very sick” — whispers Ann
as she surveys his laughing face with a sigh.

“Ann, are you there?” exclaims a low
voice.

Ann slowly draws the curtains, and the light
streams dimly in upon the dying mother and
her babe. The face of the mother, half buried
in the silken pillow, is colorless, save a tint of
red on her cheek. Her eyes, large and bright,
and impassioned with a mother's love, are
turned toward the young woman, who stands
beside her bed. One hand, white as marble,

is laid upon the coverlet; the other rests upon
her babe, whose tiny face, smiles in the light,
from the opposite side of the bed.

“Ma! Ma! Let me see my little siss,”
cries the Boy, clapping his hands, and making
an effort to spring from the arms of Ann, upon
the bed.

A tear stole down the cheek of the young
Mother.

“Hold him near to me Ann. There,” she
pressed a kiss upon the lips of her boy —
“Go to bed, now, that's a good Harry. In
the morning you shall see me — shall he not,
Ann?”

With a faint smile she uttered these words,
as her white hand wondered through the golden
locks of her boy.

Ann could not restrain a burst of tears. For
when morning comes, this young mother will
be dead. The first sunbeam that steals through
the window pane, will only light her white
lips and glassy eyes.

“When I am dead — you remember, Ann
— your promise?”

“I will — I will,” said the young woman
amid her sobs, “I will take care of Harry and
be a mother to your new-born babe.”

“What is `dead?”' asked the boy, turning
his large eyes from face to face.

“You talked with old Doctor Gatherwood,
when he was here to-day?” whispered Alice
— “He told you that I could not last till morning!”

The young woman could not answer. This
preternatural calmness of the dying mother,
affected her with an agony too deep for words.

“Don't cry, cousin,” whispered Alice — “I
shall soon be with Arthur.” And she lifted
her eyes, with an expression of rapture, which
you never see, save on a face, which has been
touched by the holy hand of Death.

Ann could no longer gaze upon the scene.
She hurried from the room, bearing the boy in
her arms. As she crossed the threshold, he
looked over her shoulder, and clapped his
hands, and said with a tone that we in vain
endeavour to depict —

“Morrow, Ma! Morrow I will see you!”

The next moment the young mother was
alone once more, with her sleeping babe.

She spoke her thoughts in words, as she
gazed vacantly upon the dim light.

“Arthur and I were orphans, when we
married. His relations live far, far away, and
mine cannot reach the city until I am dead.
Then it storms so, that our friends in the city,
cannot come in time to bid me farewell. Ann
is a good friend. She will be a mother to my
children. That takes the bitterest sting away.
Arthur! Arthur I will not be long —”

Once more Ann entered the room, and on
tip-toe approached the bedside. In a low voice,
she told the dying one, that a number of friends
— the friends of the husband and of herself —
had just arrived, and were impatient to see
her for the last time.

“Let them come up. Yet stay — has he
arrived?”

“He! Of whom do you speak!”

“When old Dr. Gatherwood was here this
afternoon, I besought him to send me a Minister.
You know, that neither Arthur nor myself
were members of any church. Had I
my life to live over again, I would more faithfully
attend to the service of God. Has he
come — speak — I would not die, without a
prayer?”

These words, spoken with great effort,
caused a singular change in the listener's countenance.
She stood with her back to the light,
and therefore the dying one could not see the
shadow which came suddenly over her brow.

“A Minister!” she exclaimed — “Did you
name the Minister of a particular Church?”

“No — I did not. Has no one arrived?”

“There is a Minister down stairs, but — ”

“Why do you hesitate?” and Alice raised
her eyes with an imploring look — “Tell him
to come — do not refuse me, cousin.”

As she spoke a third voice, interrupted the
conversation:

“There is no time to be lost — ” the voice
was deep and sepulchral — “Sister I would be
alone, for a little while, with this departing
sinner.”

As though every accent of that voice, was
the poisoned sting of a loathsome reptile, Ann
turned pale, shuddered, and with a quick
movement confronted the speaker.

“Lemuel Gardiner!” she ejaculated, raising
her hands.

Near the light, with hands clasped on his
breast, he stood, his huge white cravat, contrasted
with his dark attire, throwing his

marked features, into strong relief. His eyes
half closed and sunken in their sockets, his
wide mouth with deep red lips, his prominent
nose, and massive lower jaw, gave altogether a
decided expression to his face.

“It is I, sister,” he answered meekly.

“You, and here!” the young woman confronted
him with a flashing eye.

“It is, I,” his voice sank into a whisper,
and his eyes were dropped meekly to the floor:
“Lemuel Gardiner, once a Roman priest, in
the gall and bitterness of anti-Christ, but now
a Minister of a truly Evangelical Church. Do
you upbraid me, sister, with the sins of my
early life? Do you refuse me the privilege of
a moment's conversation with the departing
soul?”

He spoke very low, but his sunken eyes,
suddenly flamed up, with a light that conveyed
a deeper meaning, than all his measured words.

Ann trembled from head to foot.

“Pray! Converse! But I will — I must remain
in this room —”

“Must you?” Lemuel slowly raised his
finger while a smile agitated his warm red lips.
“Remember! Think again. Indeed, will
you?”

Ann without another word left the room.

Lemuel surveyed the chamber of death,
with a calm and complacent look, and then approached
the bed, on which the dying woman
rested, her decaying life soothed by a half repose,
between sleep and wakefulness.

“Sister, you are departing,” he said, as he
bent over the couch: “Shall I pray with
you?”

She unclosed her eyes with a vague yet
lustrous stare.

“I am the Minister,” Lemuel whispered.

“Thanks,” she murmured, lifting her hand
from the silken coverlet: “Pray for me, pray
that I may soon join Arthur up yonder, pray
for the children that I am about to leave alone
in this drear world.”

Lemuel knelt by the bed. He prayed.

Was it a prayer full of Love, upon whose
every accent, the dying soul might take wing,
and ascend in peace to God?

No. It was a prayer of wrath. It spoke
of a life spent in sin, of an offended God, of
an eternity of torture.

Up in the bed started the dying Alice, her
eyes flashing with terror, her breast swelling
fearfully, beneath the silken coverlet.

“Hold! Hold!” she cried, spreading forth
that hand, whose nails were already blue with
the chill of death.

But Lemuel prayed on. Low, but deep and
sonorous his voice swelled through the silence
of the death room. Tears streamed down his
cheeks: he clasped his hands: he seemed to
feel horror-stricken at the very doom, which
he was compelled by his duty to denounce
upon the dying sinner.

Sinner? Remember, Alice was by the revelation
of Ann Clarke, an innocent woman.
Remember, by that revelation, Alice was unconscious
of the treachery of young Reuben
Gatherwood.

And yet she was a sinner. A sinner lost to
hope and mercy, with nothing in prospect beyond
the grave, but an eternity of torture.
Lemuel said so in his terrible prayer; Lemuel
with sepulchral voice, and streaming eyes, and
hands knit together, uttered words like these,
to the ear of the dying Alice.

At last, starting up in the bed, her eyes
lighted with the fires of a preternatural horror,
Alice cried in a voice that was interrupted by
gasps —

“O, Sir, what shall I do to escape all this?
Tell me — I must not be parted from Arthur,
in another world. Speak! Speak!”

She sank back upon the pillow, panting,
trembling, her pale cheek flushed with unnatural
color.

At once Lemuel rose. In the pocket of his
dark coat, descended his large hand. He drew
forth a portable ink-stand, which contained a
newly-mended pen, and a small phial of ink.

“Sister, do you think you could sign your
name?”

She turned her eyes to his face, with a
look of vague wonder.

“Sign your name to a piece of paper, which
will give a small portion of your wealth, to
the sick and suffering, who are without shelter
and without bread?”

He spread forth the parchment upon the
coverlet. He placed the pen in that death-chilled
hand. It was a curious parchment,
covered with writing — writing in all kinds of
text and script — and adorned with one or

more seals attached to ribbons of a bright
azure.

“Sign, Sister, and all shall go well with you
up yonder.”

Placing one hand, behind her neck — among
those curls of sunny gold which escaped from
her cap — he raised her gently from the pillow,
and pointed to the parchment, as he whispered
in her ear:

`It is for the poor. It is for the suffering.
You cannot take your wealth with you.
Sign!”

A faint smile played around the lips of Alice.
She gazed upon the parchment, with a large,
a very bright, but altogether vacant eye. The
light tinted with faint warm colour, her golden
hair: she looked like death but still very fair
and beautiful.

The pen moved in her hand. Lemuel still
lifting her from the pillow, kindly guided the
pen, as it moved along the parchment. Alice
Bayne — that name was written in a cramped,
but very bold and legible hand.

“Alice Bayne!” murmured the young
Mother, gazing vacantly at her own — and her
last signature.

Gently, Lemuel suffered her to fall back
upon the pillow. Quietly and suddenly he
signed his own name opposite the name of
Alice.

“Brother Jacob, you can come in!” he said
aloud.

The door opened, and a short, portly man,
dressed in dark attire, with small features in
a very large and fleshy face, stepped over the
threshold and approached the bed.

“You acknowledge this to be your hand
and seal, act and deed?” said Lemuel, as he
turned to Alice.

Alice smiled. It was a vague and wandering
smile, that imparted a sad loveliness to her
face.

“Yes,” she exclaimed — “my hand, my
own hand. Then you know I shall see
Arthur!”

“You hear her, Brother Jacob,” said Lemuel
to his friend. “Sign your name, Brother
Jacob. Here, Brother Jacob! do you observe
what a pleasant frame of mind she is in just
now?”

Brother Jacob (otherwise Jacob Something,
Esq., Attorney at Law, and Communicant of
Rev. Lemuel Gardiner's Church,) bent over
the bed, and signed his name, beneath the name
of the Preacher, in a round and clerkly hand.

At this crisis the door opened, and Ann
Clarke, once more entered the room. She
started as if stricken by a pistol shot, when she
beheld the details of this scene — the form of
Lemuel and Jacob in the foreground, with their
gaze fixed upon the parchment, which lay upon
the coverlet; while in the dim background,
appeared the sad, happy face, of the death-stricken
Mother.

“What do you here, with pen and parchment?”
she cried suddenly, as with a single
step she reached the Preacher's side: “Lemuel,
there is some mystery here —”

“Only a bequest to my Church, Sister,”
answered Lemuel, with a kindly smile.

“That is all: a bequest to our Church,”
echoed the short and portly lawyer, as he
folded the parchment and handed it to the
Minister.

Ann surveyed each face with a deep and
anxious look:

“Lemuel, beware! There is a limit to endurance!”
she whispered.

“Ann, be careful! There is a limit to sience,”
he answered.

And his look, flashing from beneath his
compressed brow, gave a singular significance
to his words.

Ann sank back, as though some inexplicable
witchcraft had at once chilled her blood, and
deprived her of the power of utterance. The
light swam before her eyes. She extended
her hand, and grasped the curtains of the bed,
and it was a moment before her entire consciousness
returned.

She looked round, in search of the Preacher
and his friend. They had disappeared.

But over the threshold, one by one, came
the friends of the dying woman. Grave
matrons and aged men, young wives and girls
in the blush of virgin loveliness, all swarmed
into the room, anxious to take a last look at
Alice Bayne.

Alice greeted them all with an extended
hand, and a cheerful smile. For every one
she had some kindly word. And yet, as she
spoke to them, she said at the end of every
farewell — “I shall soon see Arthur.” Her
eyes were bright, O, all too bright for this dull

world of clay. Her voice was touched with
angelic rapture. “Soon I shall see Arthur?”
she never ceased to speak the words, amid
those whispered farewells.

The friends had gone: it was midnight:
Alice was sleeping with her babe, beneath the
pressure of her extended hand.

Ann, with her head buried in the coverlet,
was praying and weeping by the bed of death.

Midnight passed, and morning drew nigh.
She was sinking slowly—slowly, gently into
death — talking all the while of Arthur, of her
children, of heaven.

“Take care of Harry!” she said, as morning
was dawning through the window curtains.
“And, do you hear, cousin? I want my baby
called after you? Ann — Annie — you remember?”

Ann did not raise her face, but reached forth
her hand and clasped the hand of the departing
Mother. That hand was cold as ice.

“O, can you believe it?” said Alice, after a
pause, “that the words which he spoke to me
last night are true —”

Ann raised her face, and saw the countenance
of the dying woman, tinted by the first
rays of the dawn.

“What words?” she whispered, bending
over the bed.

“About a lost Soul, and a God who was
angry, and torture after death,” said Alice, in
a very low voice. “You can't tell how it
frightened me —”

A shudder pervaded the frame of the young
woman.

“Ah! Coward! Blasphemer!” she muttered,
“Hast thou been tampering with the
last hour of the dying one?”

“Do you think the good Lord will shut me
out of Heaven? I am only a poor weak
woman, that have loved my children better
than life. Do you think HE will be very angry
with me? Speak, Ann, speak — I am going
— will it be dark, dark with me, up yonder?”

It is a fearful thing to witness the departure
of a troubled soul. It is a beautiful sight —
the holiest sight in all the world — to witness
the going forth of a Soul, that goes up to God,
as to a kind father. Last night, before her interview
with Lemuel, Alice saw in the Deity,
only a parent who was calling her home.
Now — on the verge of eternity — she shrank
back, troubled and afraid. The grave which
had been all light, was now all darkness.

You may imagine the emotions which filled
the bosom of Ann Clarke, as she became conscious
of this truth.

She took the hands of Alice within her
own. She gazed long and fixedly into her
glassy eyes.

“Alice!” she whispered, “Alice! Look up
yonder! It is the Lord who now awaits you
and calls you to your home!”

Was there power in the words, or in the
faith of the speaker? It lies beyond us to answer;
but the face of the dying woman
brightened with a calm rapture, and she raised
her eyes heavenward, with a look that may
have been only a reflection from the light of a
Better World.

“I see! I see!” she cried, in a voice of
unutterable gladness, and gently pressed her
hands together.

The next instant she was dead. Her gaze
fixed and glassy. She breathed no more. The
young woman closed her eyes, and smoothed
her golden hair along her marble cheek, all the
while repeating in a low voice these words:

“Depart, Christian soul! out of this world,
in the Name of God the Father Almighty who
created thee: in the Name of Jesus Christ,
Son of the living God, who suffered for thee;
in the Name of the Holy Ghost, who sanctified
thee; in the name of the Angels, Archangels,
Thrones, and Dominations, Cherubim, and
Seraphim; in the Name of the Patriarchs and
Prophets, of the Holy Apostles and Evangelists,
of the Holy Martyrs and Confessors, of
the Holy Monks and Hermits, of the Holy
Virgins and of all the Saints of God; let thy
place be this day in Peace, and thy abode
in Holy Sion: Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.”

The first sunbeam came. It shone upon the
dead mother and upon her babe, which slumbered
in the arms of the young woman, who
sate upon the bed.

A glad shout burst upon the air of the death
room. The door opened with a crash, and a
little boy, with cheeks flushed with color, and
golden hair floating on his broad shoulders,
came plunging into the room.

“Ma, it's morning!” he cried as he sprang
toward the bed.

The Mother is buried: the yellow earth of
her grave, is seen distinctly amid the churchyard,
white with snow.

Alone in the mansion of Oakleaf, sits the
young woman with the new-born babe upon
her knee, and the boy by her side. There is
warm light upon the tiny face of the babe,
warm light upon the golden curls of Harry,
warm and rosy light upon the haggard visage
of the young woman, their protectress.

What shall be the Fortune of these children?

Wait, and we will see. After the Mother
has been buried many days, her Uncle — her
nearest and most beloved relative — arrives
from the West, and hastens to Oakleaf. The
death of Arthur is proved: and he sees the
grave of his niece.

This niece Alice Bayne, was worth, in her
own right, something like Ten Thousand
Dollars. Her husband possessed near Fifteen
Thousand Dollars. This property was in stock,
in lands, in houses and in gold.

Did Alice make a will? This question of
course is answered. No. Then, reasons the
Uncle, the property descends to the children,
to Harry the boy, and Annie the new-born
babe. Of course the Uncle is correct. He is
about to take out letters of Administration, as
Executor of the deceased, When —

Ah! That is the very point of the matter!
When there came to Oakleaf the Rev. Lemuel
Gardiner (or the Minister whose real designation
we conceal under this fictitious name) and
with the reverend Convert from Rome, came
Jacob Something Esq., Attorney at Law.

`The dear blessed young lady before her
death, deeply affected with the perilous condition
of the Heathen World, left all her own
property to the Universal South Sea Island
Missionary Association.'

This was one half of the Rev. Lemuel's
story. It may be as well to state that Lemuel
was the President, actual President if not
nominal, of the “U. S. S. I. M. A.”

`Then she by her will appointed the Rev.
Lemuel Gardiner and Jacob Something, Esq.,
Executors and Administrators of the estate.
She also appointed these gentlemen guardians
of her children, and trustees of her estate, until
these children become respectively nineteen
and twenty-one years of age.'

This was the other half of the Rev. Lemuel's
story.

These events, you will bear in mind, occured
in the course of the year 1826.

You may fancy the surprise of the Uncle
when he heard the story. As for Ann Clarke,
she said nothing: the eye of Lemuel was upon
her, but she remembered well the prayers
which Lemuel uttered by the couch of the
dying Alice.

The Uncle thought deeply? Should he go
to law? Go to law with the U. S. S. I. M.
A., and fling himself into the face of the
Church over which Lemuel was Pastor? The
will was before him, properly written, signed
by the dead woman, and legally witnessed.
What could the Uncle do.

He went out West again, and never saw
Harry or Annie from the hour when he left
Oakleaf until the day of his death.

As for the Rev. Lemuel behold him installed
as the Master at the Oakleaf Mansion. He is
the Guardian of the Children; the Trustee of
the Estate. For Jacob Something, Esq., is
only a blank. And Ann Clark, protectress of
the children, is notified that her presence at
Oakleaf is no longer needed.

A month after the death of Alice, Ann is
coolly dismissed from Oakleaf by the Rev.
Lemuel Gardiner.

Two months afterwards, both children, Harry
and Annie, are stolen from Oakleaf by some
person or persons unknown.

The Rev. Lemuel fills the papers with
advertisements; he seeks for the children in
every quarter; and after the lapse of a few
more months, disappears suddenly himself.
The papers, speak at length of his mysterious
disappearance, and universal sympathy prevails,
which is materially modified, when it is
discovered, that before leaving, the Rev. Lemuel
had sold lands and houses without number,
and realized some Twenty Thousand Dollars
in gold and silver.

Meanwhile what has become of the children?

And did Dr. Reuben Gatherwood die of the
wounds inflicted by his unknown assailant?
No. He suffered much, but he lived. His
practice grew, his fees multiplied, his fame
was echoed through all the Medical Schools.
But not more than a year after the death of

Alice, he also suddenly disappeared, and like
the Rev. Lemuel Gardiner, was never again
seen nor heard of in Philadelphia.

But the children, and Ann Clarke — what
has become of them? Let us listen to the
poor wretch who is dying in the third story of
Bonus Court. Still clutching the wrist of the
Priest, she whispers the last words of her
Confession — that Confession on which we
have based the Narrative of the preceding
chapters.