 | The snow-image |  |
THE WIVES OF THE DEAD.
The following story, the simple and domestic incidents
of which may be deemed scarcely worth relating, after
such a lapse of time, awakened some degree of interest,
a hundred years ago, in a principal seaport of the Bay
Province. The rainy twilight of an autumn day, — a
parlor on the second floor of a small house, plainly
furnished, as beseemed the middling circumstances of its
inhabitants, yet decorated with little curiosities from
beyond the sea, and a few delicate specimens of Indian
manufacture, — these are the only particulars to be
premised in regard to scene and season. Two young
and comely women sat together by the fireside, nursing
their mutual and peculiar sorrows. They were the
recent brides of two brothers, a sailor and a landsman,
and two successive days had brought tidings of the death
of each, by the chances of Canadian warfare, and the
tempestuous Atlantic. The universal sympathy excited
by this bereavement drew numerous condoling guests
to the habitation of the widowed sisters. Several, among
whom was the minister, had remained till the verge of
evening; when, one by one, whispering many comfortable
passages of Scripture, that were answered by more
abundant tears, they took their leave, and departed to
their own happier homes. The mourners, though not
insensible to the kindness of their friends, had yearned
to be left alone. United, as they had been, by the
that of the dead, each felt as if whatever consolation her
grief admitted were to be found in the bosom of the
other. They joined their hearts, and wept together
silently. But after an hour of such indulgence, one of
the sisters, all of whose emotions were influenced by her
mild, quiet, yet not feeble character, began to recollect
the precepts of resignation and endurance which piety
had taught her, when she did not think to need them.
Her misfortune, besides, as earliest known, should earliest
cease to interfere with her regular course of duties;
accordingly, having placed the table before the fire,
and arranged a frugal meal, she took the hand of her
companion.
“Come, dearest sister; you have eaten not a morsel
to-day,” she said. “Arise, I pray you, and let us ask a
blessing on that which is provided for us.”
Her sister-in-law was of a lively and irritable temperament,
and the first pangs of her sorrow had been expressed
by shrieks and passionate lamentation. She now
shrunk from Mary's words, like a wounded sufferer from
a hand that revives the throb.
“There is no blessing left for me, neither will I ask
it!” cried Margaret, with a fresh burst of tears. “Would
it were His will that I might never taste food more!”
Yet she trembled at these rebellious expressions,
almost as soon as they were uttered, and, by degrees,
Mary succeeded in bringing her sister's mind nearer to
the situation of her own. Time went on, and their usual
hour of repose arrived. The brothers and their brides,
entering the married state with no more than the slender
means which then sanctioned such a step, had confederated
the parlor, and claiming exclusive privileges in two
sleeping rooms contiguous to it. Thither the widowed
ones retired, after heaping ashes upon the dying embers
of their fire, and placing a lighted lamp upon the hearth.
The doors of both chambers were left open, so that a part
of the interior of each, and the beds with their unclosed
curtains, were reciprocally visible. Sleep did not steal
upon the sisters at one and the same time. Mary
experienced the effect often consequent upon grief quietly
borne, and soon sunk into temporary forgetfulness,
while Margaret became more disturbed and feverish, in
proportion as the night advanced with its deepest and
stillest hours. She lay listening to the drops of rain,
that came down in monotonous succession, unswayed by
a breath of wind; and a nervous impulse continually
caused her to lift her head from the pillow, and gaze into
Mary's chamber and the intermediate apartment. The
cold light of the lamp threw the shadows of the furniture
up against the wall, stamping them immovably there,
except when they were shaken by a sudden flicker of
the flame. Two vacant arm-chairs were in their old
positions on opposite sides of the hearth, where the
brothers had been wont to sit in young and laughing
dignity, as heads of families; two humbler seats were
near them, the true thrones of that little empire, where
Mary and herself had exercised in love a power that love
had won. The cheerful radiance of the fire had shone
upon the happy circle, and the dead glimmer of the lamp
might have befitted their reünion now. While Margaret
groaned in bitterness, she heard a knock at the street-door.
“How would my heart have leapt at that sound but
yesterday!” thought she, remembering the anxiety with
which she had long awaited tidings from her husband.
“I care not for it now; let them begone, for I will not
arise.”
But even while a sort of childish fretfulness made her
thus resolve, she was breathing hurriedly, and straining
her ears to catch a repetition of the summons. It is
difficult to be convinced of the death of one whom we
have deemed another self. The knocking was now
renewed in slow and regular strokes, apparently given
with the soft end of a doubled first, and was accompanied
by words, faintly heard through several thicknesses of
wall. Margaret looked to her sister's chamber, and
beheld her still lying in the depths of sleep. She arose,
placed her foot upon the floor, and slightly arrayed
herself, trembling between fear and eagerness as she
did so.
“Heaven help me!” sighed she. “I have nothing
left to fear, and methinks I am ten times more a coward
than ever.”
Seizing the lamp from the hearth, she hastened to the
window that overlooked the street-door. It was a lattice,
turning upon hinges; and having thrown it back, she
stretched her head a little way into the moist atmosphere.
A lantern was reddening the front of the house,
and melting its light in the neighboring puddles, while a
deluge of darkness overwhelmed every other object. As
the window grated on its hinges, a man in a broad-brimmed
hat and blanket-coat stepped from under the
shelter of the projecting story, and looked upward to
knew him as a friendly innkeeper of the town.
“What would you have, Goodman Parker?” cried the
widow.
“Lack-a-day, is it you, Mistress Margaret?” replied
the innkeeper. “I was afraid it might be your sister
Mary; for I hate to see a young woman in trouble, when
I have n't a word of comfort to whisper her.”
“For Heaven's sake, what news do you bring?”
screamed Margaret.
“Why, there has been an express through the town
within this half-hour,” said Goodman Parker, “travelling
from the eastern jurisdiction with letters from the governor
and council. He tarried at my house to refresh
himself with a drop and a morsel, and I asked him what
tidings on the frontiers. He tells me we had the better
in the skirmish you wot of, and that thirteen men
reported slain are well and sound, and your husband
among them. Besides, he is appointed of the escort to
bring the captivated Frenchers and Indians home to the
province jail. I judged you would n't mind being broke of
your rest, and so I stepped over to tell you. Good-night.”
So saying, the honest man departed; and his lantern
gleamed along the street, bringing to view indistinct
shapes of things, and the fragments of a world, like order
glimmering through chaos, or memory roaming over the
past. But Margaret staid not to watch these picturesque
effects. Joy flashed into her heart, and lighted it up at
once; and breathless, and with winged steps, she flew to
the bedside of her sister. She paused, however, at the
door of the chamber, while a thought of pain broke in
upon her.
“Poor Mary!” said she to herself. “Shall I waken
her, to feel her sorrow sharpened by my happiness? No;
I will keep it within my own bosom till the morrow.”
She approached the bed, to discover if Mary's sleep
were peaceful. Her face was turned partly inward to
the pillow, and had been hidden there to weep; but a
look of motionless contentment was now visible upon it,
as if her heart, like a deep lake, had grown calm because
its dead had sunk down so far within. Happy is it, and
strange, that the lighter sorrows are those from which
dreams are chiefly fabricated. Margaret shrunk from
disturbing her sister-in-law, and felt as if her own better
fortune had rendered her involuntarily unfaithful, and
as if altered and diminished affection must be the consequence
of the disclosure she had to make. With a
sudden step, she turned away. But joy could not long
be repressed, even by circumstances that would have
excited heavy grief at another moment. Her mind was
thronged with delightful thoughts, till sleep stole on, and
transformed them to visions, more delightful and more
wild, like the breath of winter (but what a cold comparison!)
working fantastic tracery upon a window.
When the night was far advanced, Mary awoke with
a sudden start. A vivid dream had latterly involved her
in its unreal life, of which, however, she could only
remember that it had been broken in upon at the most
interesting point. For a little time, slumber hung about
her like a morning mist, hindering her from perceiving
the distinct outline of her situation. She listened with
imperfect consciousness to two or three volleys of a rapid
and eager knocking; and first she deemed the noise a
matter of course, like the breath she drew; next, it
lastly, she became aware that it was a summons necessary
to be obeyed. At the same moment, the pang of
recollection darted into her mind; the pall of sleep was
thrown back from the face of grief; the dim light of the
chamber, and the objects therein revealed, had retained
all her suspended ideas, and restored them as soon as
she unclosed her eyes. Again there was a quick peal
upon the street-door. Fearing that her sister would also
be disturbed, Mary wrapped herself in a cloak and hood,
took the lamp from the hearth, and hastened to the window.
By some accident, it had been left unhasped, and
yielded easily to her hand.
“Who 's there?” asked Mary, trembling as she looked
forth.
The storm was over, and the moon was up; it shone
upon broken clouds above, and below upon houses black
with moisture, and upon little lakes of the fallen rain,
curling into silver beneath the quick enchantment of a
breeze. A young man in a sailor's dress, wet as if he
had come out of the depths of the sea, stood alone under
the window. Mary recognized him as one whose livelihood
was gained by short voyages along the coast; nor
did she forget that, previous to her marriage, he had
been an unsuccessful wooer of her own.
“What do you seek here, Stephen?” said she.
“Cheer up, Mary, for I seek to comfort you,” answered
the rejected lover. “You must know I got home not
ten minutes ago, and the first thing my good mother told
me was the news about your husband. So, without saying
a word to the old woman, I clapped on my hat, and
speaking to you, Mary, for the sake of old times.”
“Stephen, I thought better of you!” exclaimed the
widow, with gushing tears, and preparing to close the
lattice; for she was no whit inclined to imitate the first
wife of Zadig.
“But stop, and hear my story out,” cried the young
sailor. “I tell you we spoke a brig yesterday afternoon,
bound in from Old England. And who do you think I
saw standing on deck, well and hearty, only a bit thinner
than he was five months ago?”
Mary leaned from the window, but could not speak.
“Why, it was your husband himself,” continued the
generous seaman. “He and three others saved themselves
on a spar, when the Blessing turned bottom
upwards. The brig will beat into the bay by daylight,
with this wind, and you 'll see him here to-morrow.
There 's the comfort I bring you, Mary, and so goodnight.”
He hurried away, while Mary watched him with a
doubt of waking reality, that seemed stronger or weaker
as he alternately entered the shade of the houses, or
emerged into the broad streaks of moonlight. Gradually,
however, a blessed flood of conviction swelled into
her heart, in strength enough to overwhelm her, had its
increase been more abrupt. Her first impulse was to
rouse her sister-in-law, and communicate the new-born
gladness. She opened the chamber-door, which had
been closed in the course of the night, though not latched,
advanced to the bedside, and was about to lay her hand
upon the slumberer's shoulder. But then she remembered
that Margaret would awake to thoughts of death
with her own felicity. She suffered the rays of the lamp
to fall upon the unconscious form of the bereaved one.
Margaret lay in unquiet sleep, and the drapery was displaced
around her; her young cheek was rosy-tinted,
and her lips half opened in a vivid smile; an expression
of joy, debarred its passage by her sealed eyelids, struggled
forth like incense from the whole countenance.
“My poor sister! you will waken too soon from that
happy dream,” thought Mary.
Before retiring, she set down the lamp, and endeavored
to arrange the bed-clothes so that the chill air might
not do harm to the feverish slumberer. But her hand
trembled against Margaret's neck, a tear also fell upon
her cheek, and she suddenly awoke.
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