52
THE STORY
to be with her then in her dread hour, to turn it into one of peace, even of triumph, through Him, through His agony in His last hour? With what clearness she now understood the intention and uses of that death, that whole blessed life ; how her tears ran, and yet how great was her comfort! Verily, if such things could once in awhile be said in our pulpits, (and out of them, when lay members meet to talk over matters, ) as Effie Brown heard, at intervals, that morning, through that day, and that night, until the beautiful dawn of the next-day morning, from the lips almost done with earth. I think those who heard could not fail to understand that there is something in this Christ, this cross, this agony and crying out, that they as yet understand but dimly, and that it certainly behooves them to look into.
At intervals, I said ; for the physician was sent for, and came-a humane man, who had his brows knit with anger toward the world, so filled with wrongs and dangers for such as Maggie ; but at the same time had on his features the light of a heavenly compassion for his patient. In a few rugged sentences, wrung out of him by Maggie's request, and by his own burning sympathies, he let Mrs. Brown see the whole matter.
"A sudden sickness, with fever and threatened delirium;" this was all Mrs. Brown told Maggie's family in her hurried morning dispatch. It was about all the physician told them when they came; all they were ever to know; for this was Mrs. Brown's command to physician and nurse.
The mother, the father, (his heart broken) came on the next train; Anna, and one whom the dying one little expected, Herbert, came later.
Herbert knew the world better than our poor, truthful, innocent Maggie did ; and he had besides, quick, refined intuitions, which were nearly equal to the gift of prophecy. He was, therefore, uneasy about Maggie, even before the last, so greatly changed letter, and the long silence afterward; and it was this that started him off on the long, tedious journey.
He reached home on the day before; and each particular he heard there went to build up his alarm.
In the rooms, at aunt Hester's, his misery and dread stifled him. He could endure what he saw, and especially what he dreaded , only by going out often, and letting the keen north wind strike with hard blows his forehead, his breast.
One time, on returning, at the side door he saw talking with the nurse, a gentleman with a face like a dead man's for pallor, and with such anguish depicted in it as it had never before entered into his heart to conceive. He saw Mr. Brown come over from his own house, take the gentleman's hand and held it clasped in silence; saw Mrs. Brown appearing from within to join them.
Convinced from these particulars, that, whatever the circumstances of the case were, they were known to the Browns, he, upon their entrance, wormed a little out of them; and for an hour was like one gone mad; could not see the poor one ; did not , until, going out to find Mr. Butler at his hotel, the latter showing him his face of misery, assuaged Herbert's rage and pain by something like this, out of Mrs. Browning's "Drama of Exile:"
"Were ye wronged by me, Hated, and tempted, and undone by me Still what's your hurt to mine of doing hurt, Of hating, tempting, and so ruining? This sword's hilt is the sharpest, and cuts through The hand that wields it;"
then they wept together, like two brothers, in each other's arms; and Herbert was trying with his might to comfort the other.
And now could he hasten with swift feet to see his darling ; could kiss her again, again and again, calling her by all the dearest names he could find in his heart, that was overflowing with them ; could tell her that he felt all this love for her—a love, he told her, compared with which the old affection was as a feather, because he knew how she had suffered . He had seen him, (speaking it softly at her ear) and he had told him all.
Upon this profounder became her gratitude and peace. Only- only one moment she was shaken, in giving Herbert the last message for him.
She died as her birthday was dawning; and Herbert, remembering what she had said of the day in one of her letters to him, brought flowers, when they had "laid her out," to crown her with them; and a simple evergreen-wreath, such as he had so many times seen her twining, to hang on the wall above her.
The parents and Anna went up next day; Herbert remained to go up with "the body."
Another, a haggard man, muffled high, went up on the night-train , left the cars at the upper station; and when the villages were asleep, went down the country road, and to the house where, through the curtains, a light shone dimly, and lay there with his heart and forehead to the snow, so prostrate was his spirit, so goaded. Tearing him limb from limb would have been as nothing to it, he said within himself, lying there, cursing the day on which he was born.
