St. Elmo Part 55

The pastor cut down the rank gra.s.s and fringy ferns, the flaunting weeds and coreopsis that threatened to choke his more delicate flowers, and, stooping, tied up the crimson pinks, and wound the tendrils of the blue-veined clematis around its slender trellis, and straightened the white petunias and the orange-tinted crocaes, which the last heavy shower had beaten to the ground.

The small, gray vault was overrun with ivy, whose dark, polished leaves threatened to encroach on a plain slab of pure marble that stood very near it; and as the minister pruned away the wreaths, his eyes rested on the black letters in the centre of the slab: "Murray Hammond. Aged 21."

Elsewhere the suns.h.i.+ne streamed warm and bright over the graves, but here the rays were intercepted by the church, and its cool shadow rested over vault and slab and flowers.

The old man was weary from stooping so long, and now he took off his hat and pa.s.sed his hand over his forehead, and sighed as he leaned against the door of the vault, where fine, fairy-fingered mosses were weaving their green arabesque immortelles.

In a mournfully measured, yet tranquil tone, he said aloud:

"Ah! truly throughout all the years of my life I have never heard the promise of perfect love, without seeing aloft amongst the stars, fingers as of a man's hand, writing the sacred legend: 'Ashes to ashes! dust to dust!'"

Age was bending his body toward the earth with which it was soon to mingle; the ripe and perfect wheat nodded lower and lower day by day, as the Angel of the Sickle delayed; but his n.o.ble face wore that blessed and marvellous calm, that unearthly peace which generally comes some hours after death, when all traces of temporal pa.s.sions and woes are lost in eternity's repose.

A low, wailing symphony throbbed through the church, where the organist was practising; and then out of the windows, and far away on the evening air, rolled the solemn waves of that matchlessly mournful Requiem which, under prophetic shadows, Mozart began on earth and finished, perhaps in heaven, on one of those golden harps whose apocalyptic ringing smote St. John's eager ears among the lonely rocks of Aegean-girdled Patmos. The sun had paused as if to listen on the wooded crest of a distant hill, but as the Requiem ended and the organ sobbed itself to rest, he gathered up his burning rays and disappeared; and the spotted b.u.t.terflies, like "winged tulips," flitted silently away, and the evening breeze bowed the large yellow primroses, and fluttered the phlox; the red nasturtiums that climbed up at the foot of the slab shuddered and shook their blood-colored banners over the polished marble. A holy hush fell upon all things save a towering poplar that leaned against the church, and rustled its leaves ceaselessly, and s.h.i.+vered and turned white, as tradition avers it has done since that day, when Christ staggered along the Via Dolorosa bearing his cross, carved out of poplar wood.

Leaning with his hands folded on the handle of the weeding hoe, his gray beard sweeping over his bosom, his bare, silvered head bowed, and his mild, peaceful blue eyes resting on his son's tomb, Mr.

Hammond stood listening to the music; and when the strains ceased, his thoughts travelled onward and upward till they crossed the sea of crystal before the Throne, and in imagination he heard the song of the four and twenty elders.

From this brief reverie some slight sound aroused him, and lifting his eyes, he saw a man clad in white linen garments, wearing oxalis cl.u.s.ters in his coat, standing on the opposite side of the monumental slab.

"St. Elmo! my poor, suffering wanderer! Oh, St. Elmo! come to me once more before I die!"

The old man's voice was husky, and his arms trembled as he stretched them across the grave that intervened.

Mr. Murray looked into the tender, tearful, pleading countenance, and the sorrow that seized his own, making his features writhe, beggars language. He instinctively put out his arms, then drew them back, and hid his face in his hands; saying in low, broken, almost inaudible tones:

"I am too unworthy. Dripping with the blood of your children, I dare not touch you."

The pastor tottered around the tomb, and stood at Mr. Murray's side, and the next moment the old man's arms were clasped around the tall form, and his white hair fell on his pupil's shoulder.

"G.o.d be praised! After twenty years' separation I hold you once more to the heart that, even in its hours of deepest sorrow, has never ceased to love you! St. Elmo!--"

He wept aloud, and strained the prodigal convulsively to his breast.

After a moment Mr. Murray's lips moved, twitched; and with a groan that shook his powerful frame from head to foot, he asked:

"Will you ever, ever forgive me?"

"G.o.d is my witness that I freely and fully forgave you many, many years ago! The dearest hope of my lonely life has been that I might tell you so, and make you realize how ceaselessly my prayers and my love have followed you in all your dreary wanderings. Oh! I thank G.o.d that, at last! at last you have come to me, my dear, dear boy!

My poor, proud prodigal!"

A magnificent jubilate swelled triumphantly through church and churchyard, as if the organist up in the gallery knew what was happening at Murray Hammond's grave; and when the thrilling music died away St. Elmo broke from the encircling arms, and knelt with his face shrouded in his hands and pressed against the marble that covered his victim.

After a little while the pastor sat down on the edge of the slab, and laid his shrunken fingers softly and caressingly upon the bowed head.

"Do not dwell upon a past that is fraught only with bitterness to you, and from which you can draw no balm. Throw your painful memories behind you, and turn resolutely to a future which may be rendered n.o.ble and useful and holy. There is truth, precious truth in George Herbert's words:

'For all may have, If they dare choose, a glorious life or grave!'

and the years to come may, by the grace of G.o.d, more than cancel those that have gone by."

"What have I to hope for--in time of eternity? Oh! none but Almighty G.o.d can ever know the dreary blackness and wretchedness of my despairing soul! the keen sleepless pain of my remorse! my utter loathing of my accursed, distorted nature!" "And His pitying eyes see all, and Christ stretches out his hands to lift you up to Himself, and His own words of loving sympathy and pardon are spoken again to you: 'Come unto Me, all ye weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' Throw all your galling load of memories down at the foot of the cross, and 'the peace that pa.s.seth all understanding' shall enter your sorrowing soul, and abide there for ever. St. Elmo, only prayer could have sustained and soothed me since we parted that bright summer morning twenty long, long years ago. Prayer took away the sting and sanctified my sorrows for the good of my soul; and, my dear, dear boy, it will extract the poison and the bitterness from yours. That G.o.d answers prayer and comforts the afflicted among men, I am a living attestation. It is by His grace only that 'I am what I am'; erring and unworthy I humbly own, but patient at least, and fully resigned to His will. The only remaining cause of disquiet pa.s.sed away just now, when I saw that you had come back to me. St. Elmo, do you ever pray for yourself?"

"For some weeks I have been trying to pray, but my words seem a mockery; they do not rise, they fall back hissing upon my heart. I have injured and insulted you; I have cursed you and yours, have robbed you of your peace of mind, have murdered your children--"

"Hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+ we will not disinter the dead. My peace of mind you have to-day given back to me; and the hope of your salvation is dearer to me than the remembered faces of my darlings, sleeping here beside us. Oh, St. Elmo, I have prayed for you as I never prayed even for my own Murray; and I know, I feel that all my wrestling before the Throne of Grace has not been in vain. Sometimes my faith grew faint, and as the years dragged on and I saw no melting of your haughty, bitter spirit, I almost lost hope; but I did not, thank G.o.d, I did not! I held on to the precious promise, and prayed more frequently, and, blessed be his holy name! at last, just before I go hence, the answer comes. As I see you kneeling here at my Murray's grave, I know now that your soul is s.n.a.t.c.hed 'as a brand from the burning!' Oh! bless my merciful G.o.d, that in that day when we stand for final judgment, and your precious soul is required at my son's hands, the joyful cry of the recording angel shall be, 'Saved!

saved! for ever and ever, through the blood of the Lamb!'"

Overwhelmed with emotion, the pastor dropped his white head on his bosom; and once more silence fell over the darkening cemetery.

One by one the birds hushed their twitter and went to rest, and only the soft cooing of the pigeons floated down now and then from the lofty belfry.

On the eastern horizon a thin, fleecy scarf of clouds was silvered by the rising moon, the west was a huge shrine of beryl whereon burned ruby flakes of vapor, watched by a solitary vestal star; and the sapphire arch overhead was beautiful and mellow as any that ever vaulted above the sculptured marbles of Pisan Campo Santo.

Mr. Murray rose and stood with his head uncovered and his eyes fixed on the n.o.bbing nasturtiums that glowed like blood-spots.

"Mr. Hammond, your magnanimity unmans me; and if your words be true, I feel in your presence like a leper and should lay my lips in the dust, crying, 'Unclean! unclean!' For all that I have inflicted on you, I have neither apology nor defence to offer; and I could much better have borne curses from you than words of sympathy and affection. You amaze me, for I hate and scorn myself so thoroughly, that I marvel at the interest you still indulge for me; I can not understand how you can endure the sight of my features, the sound of my voice. Oh! if I could atone! If I could give Annie back to your arms, there is no suffering, no torture that I would not gladly embrace! No penance of body or soul from which I would shrink!"

"My dear boy, (for such you still seem to me, notwithstanding the lapse of time,) let my little darling rest with her G.o.d. She went down early to her long home, and though I missed her sweet laugh, and her soft, tender hands about my face, and have felt a chill silence in my house, where music once was, she has been spared much suffering and many trials; and I would not recall her if I could, for after a few more days I shall gather her back to my bosom in that eternal land where the blighting dew of death never falls; where

'Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.'

Atone? Ah, St. Elmo! you can atone. Save your soul, redeem your life, and I shall die blessing your name. Look at me in my loneliness and infirmity. I am childless; you took my idols from me, long, long ago; you left my heart desolate; and now I have a right to turn to you, to stretch out my feeble, empty arms, and say, Come, be my child, fill my son's place, let me lean upon you in my old age, as I once fondly dreamed I should lean on my own Murray! St.

Elmo, will you come? Will you give me your heart, my son! my son!"

He put out his trembling hands, and a yearning tenderness shone in his eyes as he raised them to the tall, stern man before him.

Mr. Murray bent eagerly forward, and looked wonderingly at him.

"Do you, can you mean it? It appears so impossible, and I have been so long sceptical of all n.o.bility in my race. Will you indeed shelter Murray's murderer in your generous, loving heart?"

"I call my G.o.d to witness, that it has been my dearest hope for dreary years that I might win your heart back before I die."

"It is but a wreck, a hideous ruin, black with sins; but such as I am, my future, my all, I lay at your feet! If there is any efficacy in bitter repentance and remorse; if there is any mercy left in my Maker's hands; if there be saving power in human will, I will atone!

I will atone!"

The strong man trembled like a wave-lashed reed, as he sank on one knee at the minister's feet, and buried his face in his arms; and spreading his palms over the drooped head, Mr. Hammond gently and solemnly blessed him.

For some time both were silent, and then Mr. Murray stretched out one arm over the slab, and said brokenly:

"Kneeling here at Murray's tomb, a strange, incomprehensible feeling creeps into my heart. The fierce, burning hate I have borne him seems to have pa.s.sed away; and something, ah! something, mournfully like the old yearning toward him, comes back, as I look at his name.

Oh, idol of my youth! hurled down and crushed by my own savage hands! For the first time since I destroyed him, since I saw his handsome face whitening in death, I think of him kindly. For the first time since that night, I feel that--that--I can forgive him.

Murray! Murray! you wronged me! you wrecked me! but oh! if I could give you back the life I took in my madness! how joyfully would I forgive you all my injuries! His blood dyes my hands, my heart, my soul!"

"The blood of Jesus will wash out those stains. The law was fully satisfied when He hung on Calvary; there, ample atonement was made for just such sins as yours, and you have only to claim and plead his sufferings to secure your salvation. St. Elmo, bury your past here, in Murray's grave, and give all your thoughts to the future.

Half of your life has ebbed out, and yet your life-work remains undone, untouched. You have no time to spend in looking over your unimproved years."

"'Bury my past!' Impossible, even for one hour. I tell you I am chained to it, as the Aloides were chained to the pillars of Tartarus! and the croaking fiend that will not let me sleep in memory! Memory of sins that--that avenge your wrongs, old man! that goad me sometimes to the very verge of suicide! Do you know, ha! how could you possibly know? Shall I tell you that only one thought has often stood between me and self-destruction? It was not the fear of death, no, no, no! It was not even the dread of facing an outraged G.o.d! but it was the horrible fear of meeting Murray! Not all eternity was wide enough to hold us both! The hate I bore him made me shrink from a deed which I felt would instantly set us face to face once more in the land of souls. Ah! a change has come over me; now if I could see his face, I might learn to forget that look it wore when last I gazed upon it. Time bears healing for some natures; to mine it has brought only poison. It is useless to bid me forget.

Memory is earth's retribution for man's sins. I have bought at a terrible price my conviction of the melancholy truth, that he who touches the weapons of Nemesis effectually slaughters his own peace of mind, and challenges her maledictions, from which there is no escape. In my insanity I said, 'Vengeance is mine! I will repay!'