Читать книгу Medoline Selwyn's Work - Mrs. J. J. Colter - Страница 10

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The next morning I went in search of Mrs. Flaxman. I found her busy superintending, along with the housekeeper, some extensive pickling and preserving operations. I hesitated at first in making my request; I wanted her to accompany me to the funeral.

"I promised Mrs. Blake to go to her daughter's funeral to-day, and I should so much like to have you go with me," I said.

"If you would like my company, your liking shall be gratified, my dear."

"But you looked tired, and it is such a hot day."

"I shall want folk to come and get me safely planted away some day, and we can take the carriage. Thomas will be glad to go; at least he always wants to attend funerals. Such persons usually are fond of the mild excitement attendant on such gatherings."

I went in search of Thomas, who was with coachman and gardener, having a lad to assist him in both occupations. He assured me that work was very pressing, and it would be at considerable personal sacrifice if he went. The stable boy, a red-haired, keen-faced youth standing by, gave a quizzical look, which I interpreted as meaning that Thomas wished to conceal the fact that he was very glad indeed to go to Mrs. Daniel Blake's funeral. At the appointed hour I found myself in a carriage drawn by a pair of horses fully as handsome, but much more sedate than Faery. "Why, this is positively luxurious," I exclaimed, leaning back in the very comfortable carriage. Mrs. Flaxman smiled serenely.

"My dear, it is a luxury you may every day enjoy. I am not inclined for carriage exercise—a walk has greater charm for me save when I am tired."

"If you had walked all your life—only enjoying a carriage at brief intervals during the holidays, you would enjoy this drive, I am sure."

"Your life is not a very long affair, my child. At your age, no doubt, I thought as you now do. I believe God intended that youth and age should see this world through different eyes."

Mrs. Flaxman, I was finding, had a way of setting me thinking about serious things, and yet the thoughts were mainly pleasant ones. She was different from any one I ever knew. I found her presence so restful. I had the impression that some time in her life she had encountered storms, but the mastery had been gained; and now she had drifted into a peaceful harbor. Looking back now over longer stretches of years and experiences than I then had, I can recall a few other persons who impressed me in a similar fashion. But they were rare and beautiful exceptions to the scores, and even hundreds of average human folk whom I have known.

After we had driven some distance, Thomas turned to inquire if we were going to the grave.

"It is a shady drive good part of the way; trees on one side and the water's edge bordering the other. Perhaps we might as well go."

"They'd take it very kind of you, ma'am, I am sure," Thomas responded, although her remarks were addressed to me. Evidently he was very willing to exercise the horses, notwithstanding his press of work.

We sat in the carriage at the door of Daniel's cottage. The house seemed full, and quite a crowd were standing outside.

"They have shown the poor thing a good deal of respect," Mrs. Flaxman whispered to me as she glanced at the numerous assemblage.

Suddenly, on the hush that seemed to enfold everything, there broke weird, discordant singing—women's voices sounding high and piercing, the men's deeper and more melodious. The hymn they sang was long, and the air very plaintive, bringing tears to my eyes, and causing the strange, oppressed feeling of the preceding day to return. When the singing ceased I noticed the men removing their hats, and a moment after a stentorian voice speaking loudly. I glanced around amazed, but Mrs. Flaxman noticing my surprise, whispered, "It is prayer."

If the singing made me nervous the prayer intensified the feeling. In the hot, midsummer air, so still the leaves scarce rippled on the trees, I could, after a few seconds, distinguish every word the man uttered. Accustomed to the decorous prayer of the German pastors our teachers had taken us to hear, this impetuous prayer to the Deity awed me. He talked with the invisible Jehovah as if they two were long tried friends, between whom there was such perfect trust; whatever the man asked the God would bestow. First there was intercession, pleading for forgiveness for past offences, and for restraining grace for future needs. Afterward he spoke of Death, the common inheritance of each of us, and the pain his entrance had caused in this home, and then followed thanksgiving that through Christ we could conquer even Death himself. I shall never forget the triumphant ring in that man's voice as he passed on to the joy of those who, trampling on Death, have passed safely within the light of God.

"If one of the old masters had heard that man's prayer to-day, he would have set it to some grand music. It reminds me of a Te Deum or oratoria," I said to Mrs. Flaxman, when the benediction was pronounced. The tears were in her eyes, but her face was shining as if some inner light were irradiating it.

"Did you ever hear so impetuous a prayer?" I asked.

She answered my question by asking another:

"Did you not like it?"

"I think it frightened me. The clergyman seemed to be talking to some one right beside him."

"Is not all prayer that—talking, pleading with a God nigh at hand?"

I did not reply. My eyes were fastened on the crowd now issuing from the cottage door; the coffin, carried by men, came first, the people pressing hurriedly after—among them one whom I instinctively felt to be the clergyman—a thick-set man with hair turning white, and a most noble, benignant face. As the procession formed he took his place at the head; Daniel and his mother climbing into a wagon directly behind the hearse; the former looked utterly broken down, as if the light of his eyes had verily been quenched.

The procession then moved slowly along, and in a short time we turned out of the Mill Road, and into a beautiful shady street along the water's edge. I watched the sunlight on the shimmering waters, and far across, where one of the wooded headlands looked down into the sea, the green trees made such a picture on the water that, in watching this perfect bit of landscape, I found myself forgetting the solemn occasion, and the sorrowing heart of the solitary mourner, while I planned to come there the very next day with my sketch book, and secure this gem to send to my favorite teacher as a specimen of my new surroundings. And then fancy got painting her own pictures as to what my work in this new life with its greatly altered meaning should be, and before we had reached the grave's edge I had mapped out my ongoings for a long stretch of the future, and that in such eager, worldly fashion that I almost forgot that at the end of all this bright-hued future there lay for me, as well as for Daniel Blake's wife, an open grave. My busy thoughts were recalled by hearing the penetrating voice of the preacher saying "dust to dust, ashes to ashes," with the remainder of the beautiful formula used by many of the churches in planting the human germ. A glance around revealed Daniel Blake leaning in the very abandonment of grief on a tombstone at the grave's side, and looking down into the coffin that was rapidly disappearing under the shovelfuls of clay. A keen sense of my own heartlessness in feeling so happy within touch of such woe came over me, while a vague wonder seized me, if some other careless-hearted creatures might not be planning their joys some day in presence of my breaking heart.