our feet rustled softly as we trod, and the air was laden with the perfume of wild flowers, and the sweet songs of birds. The busy whirr of a threshing-machine mingled with the notes from time to time, and then a distant shout from the already-wearied reapers brought to my mind the days of childhood, when, a “boy among boys,” I chased butterflies in the fields, while my pretty sister (what a strange old creature she was now) gleaned for the children of the poor. We at last came to the brow of a hill, and looking down into the valley, bathed in brightest sunlight, I saw a few white cottages dotted here and there. Phil informed me that “Ellen lived in one of these,” pointing out the identical one with his finger.
“What’s the matter with Ellen?” I asked.
“Dunno, sir,” in a tone which, if it failed to imply he didn’t care, at least proved he was not disposed to be communicative. I wondered what the mystery could be, but thinking whatever it was it would soon be solved, walked on in silence. We at last arrived at a cottage very small and very low, literally covered with honeysuckle. A bird in a wicker cage hung outside the door. Possessed with a contrary demon to mine, it sang loud and incessantly—its little mouth open like a yawning sepulchre, feathers ruffled, and body positively distorted with its unearthly efforts. Hearing footsteps, the old woman appeared and beckoned me inside. I entered, stooping low as I did so. A small room, a very small room, but everything scrupulously neat and clean. A little girl, apparently about three years old, was seated on the floor telling her doll, in an under-tone, “not to make a noise, because mother was ill.” A working-man’s hat and coat hung in one corner, with a cheap photograph of their owner (I don’t know why I felt certain it was his) suspended over them. The shutters of the latticed windows were half closed, producing a quiet subdued light. I walked towards the bed, and softly drew the curtain. The small face, half hidden in the pillow, seemed very young and girlish, the eyes closed, the breath short and hurried. The bird was literally shrieking—I signed to the woman, and she covered the cage. All was quiet. I lifted the pale hand from the coverlid and felt for the pulse—gone.
“How long has she been so?” I asked.
“Since daylight, sir.”
“Ah! she can’t last long.”
The professional phrase escaped involuntarily. I started as I uttered it, and dropped the hand. The movement roused her. The heavy eyelids unclosed: I drew back.
“Is Jack here, mother?”
“No, darling!”
“Ah! I forgot.”
A moment’s pause. Then, in a quick, hurried tone, as if the thought were first impressed upon her mind,
“Mother, am I dying?”
A sob was the only answer. Another pause, longer than the first: then the arm was placed under the pillow for a moment, and drawn forth again.
“Give this to Jack when you see him.”
She tried to move her hand along the bed, and pass its hidden contents to the woman weeping by her side; but ere she could do so, the will that directed it grew weaker still, and left it idle where it lay. I unclosed the almost rigid fingers, and gave to the woman the objects they had clasped—a wedding ring, and a lock of fair hair tied with a blue ribbon.
“Ellen, Ellen! would you like to see your child?”
“Not now!—Poor Jack!—How dark it is, mother!”
I knew by that that it was very near; but the woman, in her ignorance, walked across the room, and opened both the shutters and the window. The bold staring sunlight came rushing, streaming in.
“Mother—mother!”
A deadly change came over the countenance. “I’m here, Ellen. Child—darling—speak!”
Another pause, very, very long, never to be broken by the form lying before us, pale and still. A distant shout of harvest home came strangely on the solemn silence. Ah! truly harvest home! Another drooping soul for the universal harvest! Another wearied heart for the world’s great reaper—Death!
I turned hurriedly away. The child had fallen asleep with the doll by her side, still murmuring in her dreams that “they must keep quiet”—a little rosy face, but strangely like the dead one on the bed. I reclosed the window-shutters, thinking of the light she had found—that great eternal light that will one day dawn on all—covered the pale dead face, and left the woman weeping and in prayer.
CHAPTER II.
My wife says “women are not curious.” This conclusion is not the result of calm, logical reasoning, but proceeds rather from a spirit of firmness, not to say obstinacy, inherent in the sex; which said spirit induces them, not only invariably to deny the possession by themselves of certain questionable characteristics, but also occasionally, on the lex talionis principle, to express their decided belief, that so far from these same peculiar qualities pertaining exclusively to them, they are, in fact, the distinguishing characteristics of the opposite sex. In obedience to this thoroughly womanly principle, my wife says, women are not curious—men are curious—and I the most curious of men.
Without arguing this point, I certainly must confess that I experienced a large amount of the failing in question, after witnessing the scene described in the last chapter; and it was with no small satisfaction, at the prospect of having my curiosity gratified, that I set off the next morning for the old woman’s cottage. She was standing at the door, evidently expecting me.
“Oh, sir, is it you? do walk in!”
I entered, glancing as I did so at the bed where the dead girl was still lying. The woman saw the look, and began weeping bitterly.
“Oh, sir, my poor child!”
I spoke soothingly and calmly.
“Oh, sir, it’s not only losing her! it’s not only losing her! it’s the way—the way!”