University of Virginia Library

41. CHAPTER XLI.

Moses came down from the chamber of Mara in a tempest
of contending emotions. He had all that constitutional
horror of death and the spiritual world, which is an attribute
of some particularly strong and well-endowed physical natures,
and he had all that instinctive resistance of the will
which such natures offer to anything which strikes athwart
their cherished hopes and plans.

To be wrenched suddenly from the sphere of an earthly
life and made to confront the unclosed doors of a spiritual
world on the behalf of the one dearest to him, was to him a
dreary horror uncheered by one filial belief in God. He
felt, furthermore, that blind animal irritation which assails
one under a sudden blow, whether of the body or of the soul,
— an anguish of resistance, — a vague blind anger.

Mr. Sewell was sitting in the kitchen, — he had called to
see Mara, and waited for the close of the interview above.
He rose and offered his hand to Moses, — who took it in
gloomy silence, without a smile or word.

“`My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord,'”
said Mr. Sewell.

“I cannot bear that sort of thing,” said Moses abruptly,
and almost fiercely. “I beg your pardon, sir, but it irritates
me.”

“Do you not believe that afflictions are sent for our improvement?”
said Mr. Sewell.

“No! how can I! What improvement will there be to
me in taking from me the angel who guided me to all good,
and kept me from all evil; the one pure motive and holy influence
of my life? If you call this the chastening of a loving
father, I must say it looks more to me like the caprice
of an evil spirit.”

“Had you ever thanked the God of your life for this gift,
or felt your dependence on him to keep it? Have you not
blindly idolized the creature and forgotten Him who gave
it?” said Mr. Sewell.

Moses was silent a moment.

“I cannot believe there is a God,” he said. “Since this
fear came on me I have prayed, — yes, and humbled myself;
for I know I have not always been what I ought. I promised
if he would grant me this one thing, I would seek him
in future; but it did no good, — it 's of no use to pray. I
would have been good in this way, if she might be spared,
and I cannot in any other.”

“My son, our Lord and Master will have no such conditions
from us,” said Mr. Sewell. “We must submit unconditionally.
She has done it, and her peace is as firm as the
everlasting hills. God's will is a great current that flows
in spite of us; if we go with it, it carries us to endless
rest, — if we resist, we only wear our lives out in useless
struggles.”

Moses stood a moment in silence, and then, turning away
without a word, hurried from the house. He strode along the
high rocky bluff, through tangled junipers and pine thickets,
till he came above the rocky cove which had been his
favorite retreat on so many occasions. He swung himself
down over the cliffs into the grotto, where, shut in by the
high tide, he felt himself alone. There he had read Mr.

Sewell's letter, and dreamed vain dreams of wealth and
worldly success, now all to him so void. He felt to-day,
as he sat there and watched the ships go by, how utterly
nothing all the wealth in the world was, in the loss of that
one heart. Unconsciously, even to himself, sorrow was doing
her ennobling ministry within him, melting off in her
fierce fires trivial ambitions and low desires, and making
him feel the sole worth and value of love. That which in
other days had seemed only as one good thing among many
now seemed the only thing in life. And he who has learned
the paramount value of love has taken one step from an
earthly to a spiritual existence.

But as he lay there on the pebbly shore, hour after hour
glided by, his whole past life lived itself over to his eye;
he saw a thousand actions, he heard a thousand words,
whose beauty and significance never came to him till now.
And alas! he saw so many when, on his part, the responsive
word that should have been spoken, and the deed that
should have been done, was forever wanting. He had all his
life carried within him a vague consciousness that he had not
been to Mara what he should have been, but he had hoped
to make amends for all in that future which lay before him,
— that future now, alas! dissolving and fading away like the
white cloud-islands which the wind was drifting from the
sky. A voice seemed saying in his ears, “Ye know that
when he would have inherited a blessing he was rejected;
for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it
carefully with tears.” Something that he had never felt
before struck him as appalling in the awful fixedness of
all past deeds and words, — the unkind words once said,
which no tears could unsay, — the kind ones suppressed, to
which no agony of wishfulness could give a past reality.

There were particular times in their past history that he remembered
so vividly, when he saw her so clearly, — doing
some little thing for him, and shyly watching for the word
of acknowledgment, which he did not give. Some wilful
wayward demon withheld him at the moment, and the light
on the little wishful face slowly faded. True, all had been a
thousand times forgiven and forgotten between them, but it
is the ministry of these great vital hours of sorrow to
teach us that nothing in the soul's history ever dies or is
forgotten, and when the beloved one lies stricken and ready
to pass away, comes the judgment-day of love, and all the
dead moments of the past arise and live again.

He lay there musing and dreaming till the sun grew low
in the afternoon sky, and the tide that isolated the little
grotto had gone far out into the ocean, leaving long low reefs
of sunken rocks, all matted and tangled with the yellow
hair of the sea-weed, with little crystal pools of salt water
between. He heard the sound of approaching footsteps,
and Captain Kittridge came slowly picking his way round
among the shingle and pebbles.

“Wal' now, I thought I 'd find ye here!” he said. “I
kind o' thought I wanted to see ye, — ye see.”

Moses looked up half moody, half astonished, while the
Captain seated himself upon a fragment of rock and began
brushing the knees of his trousers industriously, until soon
the tears rained down from his eyes upon his dry withered
hands.

“Wal' now ye see, I can't help it, darned if I can;
knowed her ever since she 's that high. She 's done me
good, she has. Mis' Kittridge has been pretty faithful.
I 've had folks here and there talk to me consid'able, but
Lord bless you, I never had nothin' go to my heart like

this 'ere — Why to look on her there couldn't nobody
doubt but what there was somethin' in religion. You never
knew half what she did for you, Moses Pennel, you did n't
know that the night you was off down to the long cove with
Skipper Atkinson, that 'ere blessed child was a-follerin' you,
but she was, and she come to me next day to get me to do
somethin' for you. That was how your grand'ther and I
got ye off to sea so quick, and she such a little thing then;
that ar child was the savin' of ye, Moses Pennel.” Moses
hid his head in his hands with a sort of groan.

“Wal', wal',” said the Captain, “I don't wonder now ye
feel so, — I don't see how ye can stan' it no ways — only
by thinkin' o' where she 's goin' to — Them ar bells in
the Celestial City must all be a-ringin' for her, — there 'll
be joy that side o' the river I reckon when she gets acrost.
If she 'd jest leave me a hem o' her garment to get in by, I 'd
be glad; but she was one o' the sort that was jest made to
go to heaven. She only stopped a few days in our world,
like the robins when they 's goin' South; but there 'll be a
good many fust and last that 'll get into the kingdom for
love of her. She never said much to me, but she kind o'
drew me. Ef ever I should get in there, it 'll be she led
me. But come, now, Moses, ye ought n't fur to be a-settin'
here catchin' cold — jest come round to our house and
let Sally gin you a warm cup o' tea — do come, now.”

“Thank you, Captain,” said Moses, “but I will go home;
I must see her again to-night.”

“Wal', don't let her see you grieve too much, ye know;
we must be a little sort o' manly, ye know, 'cause her body 's
weak, if her heart is strong.”

Now Moses was in a mood of dry, proud, fierce, self-consuming
sorrow, least likely to open his heart or seek sympathy

from any one; and no friend or acquaintance would
probably have dared to intrude on his grief. But there are
moods of the mind which cannot be touched or handled by
one on an equal level with us that yield at once to the
sympathy of something below. A dog who comes with his
great honest, sorrowful face and lays his mute paw of inquiry
on your knee, will sometimes open floodgates of softer feeling,
that have remained closed to every human touch; —
the dumb simplicity and ignorance of his sympathy makes
it irresistible. In like manner the downright grief of the
good-natured old Captain, and the child-like ignorance with
which he ventured upon a ministry of consolation from which
a more cultivated person would have shrunk away, were irresistibly
touching. Moses grasped the dry, withered hand
and said, “Thank you, thank you, Captain Kittridge; you 're
a true friend.”

“Wal', I be, that 's a fact, Moses — Lord bless me, I a'n't
no great — I a'n't nobody — I 'm jest an old last-year's mullein-stalk
in the Lord's vineyard — but that 'ere blessed little
thing allers had a good word for me. She gave me a
hymn-book and marked some hymns in it, and read 'em to
me herself, and her voice was jest as sweet as the sea of a
warm evening. Them hymns come to me kind o' powerful
when I 'm at my work planin' and sawin'. Mis' Kittridge,
she allers talks to me as ef I was a terrible sinner; and I
suppose I be, but this 'ere blessed child, she 's so kind o' good
and innocent, she thinks I 'm good; kind o' takes it for
granted I 'm one o' the Lord's people, ye know. It kind o'
makes me want to be, ye know.”

The Captain here produced from his coat-pocket a much
worn hymn-book, and showed Moses where leaves were
folded down. “Now here 's this 'ere,” he said; “you get

her to say it to you,” he added, pointing to the well-known
sacred idyl which has refreshed so many hearts: —

“Now that ar beats everything,” said the Captain,
“and we must kind o' think of it for her, 'cause she 's
goin' to see all that, and ef it 's our loss it 's her gain, ye
know.”

“I know,” said Moses; “our grief is selfish.”

“Jest so. Wal', we 're selfish critters, we be,” said the
Captain; “but arter all 't a'n't as ef we was heathen and
did n't know where they was a-goin' to. We jest ought to
be a-lookin' about and tryin' to foller 'em, ye know.”

“Yes, yes, I do know,” said Moses; “it 's easy to say, but
hard to do.”

“But law, man, she prays for you; — she did years and
years ago, when you was a boy and she a girl. You know
it tells in the Revelations how the angels has golden vials
full of odors which are the prayers of saints. I tell ye,
Moses, you ought to get into heaven, if no one else does. I
expect you are pretty well known among the angels by this
time. I tell ye what 't is, Moses, fellers think it a mighty
pretty thing to be a-steppin' high, and a-sayin' they don't
believe the Bible, and all that ar, so long as the world goes
well. This 'ere old Bible — why it 's jest like yer mother,
— ye rove and ramble, and cut up round the world without

her a spell, and mebbe think the old woman a'n't so fashionable
as some; but when sickness and sorrow comes, why,
there a'n't nothin' else to go back to. Is there, now?”

Moses did not answer, but he shook the hand of the Captain
and turned away.