Was It Right to Forgive? Part 34

"Then I went to the Salvation Army. Such gifts as G.o.d had given me, I gave back to Him. And I have been very happy ever since."

"What made you come here to my wife?"

"I had wronged her. Against her my sin was great and particular. I came to her, and I told her what I have told you. She wept with me.

She forgave me freely. She made me tea with her own hands; she did more than that--she ate and drank with me. It was as if Christ again put His hand upon the leper, or went to be guest in the house of a man that was a sinner. I shall never forget her goodness. I wanted you to know----"

"What?"

"That there is mercy for sin--that there is joy and gladness in repenting--that G.o.d is 'the lover of souls.'"

"It is a strange thing to hear you talk in this way to me."

"I talk to you now because I shall not accuse you at the Day of Judgment. I have been forgiven, and I have forgiven you. But, oh! if you remain unforgiven, will you accuse me then?"

"No; I only am to blame."

"Now I will go. It is not likely we shall meet again until the Day of Judgment. At that Day, I shall be glad that I have spoken; and I hope that you will be glad that you have listened."

Harry tried to answer, but he knew not what to say. His soul was in a chaos of emotion. There seemed to be no words to interpret it; and before he could find words, the woman was gone, and the door was shut, and he was quite alone.

He did not wish to see Yanna just then; and she, being a wise wife, probably divined this feeling, for she did not intrude herself or her opinions on the event at that time. She knew what Hannah Young would say to him, and she understood that such words need neither commentary nor explanation. She was rather satisfied than otherwise, when she heard Harry go out; and as she had promised to dine with Miss Alida, she went there alone--there being already an understanding that Harry should come for her at eleven o'clock.

So their next meeting was in a company who were discussing Browning with an extraordinary animation. Miss Alida stopped in the middle of her declaration "that she would rather have her teeth drawn than be compelled to read _Sordello_," to smile a welcome; and Yanna's look of pleasure drew him to her side; where he stood leaning on her chair and watching Professor Snowdon, who was holding a book open at the likeness of the poet.

"What a brave countenance!" he cried. "How honest, and thoughtful, and kindly! And what a pleasant shrewdness in the eyes! It is a perfect English face."

"Oh, indeed!" said a scholarly man who stood by Miss Alida; "if Browning had an English body, his soul was that of some thirteenth-century Italian painter. Does he not say of himself:

'Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it--"Italy."'

Now it is a prejudice with me, that if an Englishman is to open his heart to us, we ought to find _England_ written there. Shakespeare, who is at home with all people, is never so mighty and so lovable as when depicting the sweet-natured English ladies who became his 'Imogenes,' 'Perditas,' and 'Helenas,' or dallying with his own country wild-flowers, or in any way exalting England's life and loveliness, majesty and power."

"And pray, sir," asked the Professor, "who but a man with an English heart could have written that home-yearning song:

'Oh to be in England Now that April's there; And whoever wakes in England, Sees, some morning unaware, That the lowest boughs, and the brush-wood sheaf Round the elm tree bole, are in tiny leaf; While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough, In England--now!'"

"There is somewhere a still finer home-thought," said Harry. "I remember learning it when I was at college;" and as Adriana looked backward and smiled, and the Professor nodded approval, and Miss Alida said, "Let us have the lines, Harry," he repeated them without much self-consciousness, and with a great deal of spirit:

"'n.o.bly, n.o.bly Cape St. Vincent to the westward died away; Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay; Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay; In the dimmest north-east distance, dawned Gibraltar grand and grey; "Here and there did England help me,--how can I help England?"--say, Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to G.o.d to praise and pray, While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.'"

There was a hearty response to Harry's effort, and then Miss Alida's favorite minister--who had been silent during the whole discussion, much to her disappointment--spoke.

"A poet's nature," he said, "needs that high reverence which is to the spirit what iron is to the blood; it needs, most of all, the revelation of Christianity, because of its peculiar temptations, doubts, fears, yearnings, and obstinate questionings. Mr. Browning has this reverence, and accepts this revelation. He is not half-ashamed, as are some poets, to mention G.o.d and Christ; and he never takes the name of either in vain. He does not set up a kind of pantheistic wors.h.i.+p. No one has ever told us, as Browning has in his poem of 'Christmas Eve and Easter Day,' how hard it is to be a Christian. Do you remember its tremendous dream of the Judgment Day:

'When through the black dome of the firmament, Sudden there went, Like horror and astonishment, A fierce vindictive scribble of red Quick flame across; as if one said (The angry Scribe of Judgment), There, Burn it!'

And who can read the pleading of the youth who has chosen the world, and not recognize the amiable young man of to-day, unable to put the cup of pleasure utterly away, but resolving to let

'the dear remnant pa.s.s One day--some drops of earthly good Untasted.'

Do you want to know the end of this choice? Browning has told us in words no young man should be ignorant of."

"Go on, Doctor," said the Professor. "It will do us all good."

"G.o.d reserves many great sinners for the most awful of all punishments--impunity. We can despise the other life, until we are refused it. This youth got the world he desired. A Voice tells him it is--

'Flung thee freely as one rose Out of a summer's opulence, Over the Eden barrier whence Thou art excluded. Knock in vain!'

He is made welcome to so rate earth, and never to know

'What royalties in store Lay one step past the entrance door.'

So he tries the world, tries all its ways, its intellect, and art; and at last, when everything else fails, he tries love. Surely love will not offend; and he looks upward to _The Form_ at his side for approval. But its face is as the face of the headsman, who shoulders the axe to make an end. Love? Asking for love, when He so loved the world as to give His only beloved Son to die for love. Then lost and bewildered, and weary to death, the youth cowers deprecatingly, and prays that at least he may not know all is lost; that he may go on, and on, still hoping 'one eve to reach the better land.'" And the minister's eyes were full of tears, and his voice was full of despair, and there was a moment's intense silence. Harry broke it. "Surely, sir," he said, "the poet did not leave the youth in such hopeless distress?"

"He knew his G.o.d better," was the answer. "I will tell you in the youth's own words what happened:

'Then did _The Form_ expand, expand-- I knew Him thro' the dread disguise, As the whole G.o.d within his eyes Embraced me!'"

"If you are not tired of Browning," said the Professor, in a singularly soft voice for him, "I will give you from him a picture of the world in the highest mood it has ever known, or perhaps ever will know--under the Cross. It is only the 'Epitaph in the Catacombs':

'I was born sickly, poor, and mean, A slave; no misery could screen The holders of the pearl of price From Caesar's envy; therefore twice I fought with beasts, and three times saw My children suffer by his law; At last my own release was earned; I was some time in being burned, But at the close a hand came through The fire above my head; and drew My soul to Christ; whom now I see.

Sergius, a brother, writes for me, This testimony on the wall: For me, I have forgot it all.'

Could any picture be more perfect? Christ has made of the poor sick slave a hero; and he speaks dispa.s.sionately from the other side. At last his release was earned. He was some time in being burned. Sergius writes--it is not he--he has forgot it all. These words light up an infinite picture, and surely the poet, who with one light stroke can smite such a statute from the rock, is a Master crowned, and worthy of our love."

Every face was illuminated, every soul expanded, and the Professor, burning with his own enthusiasm, laid down the book. Then Miss Alida, smiling, but yet with tears in her large gray eyes, turned to a pretty young woman who had a roll of music in her lap. "Mrs.

Dunreath," she said, "we cannot bear any more of Mr. Browning's strong wine; give us one of your songs of Old Ireland--some that you found in Munster, among the good lay monks and brothers. And the lady lifted her mandolin, and touched a few strings to her strange musical recitative:

"A plenteous place is Ireland for hospitable cheer; Where the wholesome fruit is bursting from the yellow barley ear.

There is honey in the trees, where her misty vales expand; And her forest paths in summer are by falling waters fanned; There is dew at high noontide there, and springs in the yellow sand On the fair hills of holy Ireland!

"Large and profitable are the stacks upon the ground; The b.u.t.ter and the cream do wondrously abound; The cresses on the water, and the sorrels are at hand; And the cuckoo's calling daily his note of music bland: And the bold thrush sings so bravely his song in the forest grand.

On the fair hills of holy Ireland!"

The song made a charming let-down from the loftier tension; and some one said that it was just the sweet lament for the good time past, suitable for a race which like the Irish "had seen better days."

"But," said Miss Alida, "you would never find an old Dutch or Norse song so dest.i.tute of hope or self-reliance. Their spirit is one that does not look back to the dead and gone; or even forward for some expected Helper. They sing the present, and the best possible present.

That is the n.o.blest kind of song, and there will be hope for Ireland when she sings no longer about the _having been_, but determines _to be_."

However, in spite of all diversions, Browning had the evening; for no one could escape from his influence. And all the way home Harry spoke of Miss Alida's minister, and of the poem he had quoted from. He was longing to say, "How strangely the experience of the youth in the poem fitted into Hannah Young's fear that Christ would go away and not forgive her, until the moment of pardon revealed Him through the dread disguise a G.o.d of mercy and forgiveness!" He wished also to speak for himself, but it was very difficult to do. In the first place, Adriana was tremblingly afraid of explanations. She pa.s.sed from one person to another, and one subject to another with so much haste and interest that it was finally clear to Harry she did not wish him to allude to the great event of the day.

But his heart was full of love and sorrow, and as he walked by her side from the carriage to the drawing-room he came to a decision.

Adriana stood a moment before the fire, and there Harry unclasped her cloak, drew her head towards him, and kissed her fondly.

"Yanna!" he whispered, "Yanna, truest and best of wives! I love you, and I love only you! I have wandered often, but never have I been happy away from you. Forgive me once more. The things I have heard to-day I shall never forget. Never will I be less worthy of your love than I am at this hour; never again!"

And she put her arms around his neck and kissed him. No earthly words were loving enough and happy enough, but something exquisite and certain pa.s.sed from eye to eye, and from heart to heart--some a.s.surance in that language of love whose sweet symbols happiness uses so well. And Adriana knew that her true affection and n.o.ble patience had conquered; and that the slow, calm years would flow on henceforth in glad content, bringing them in their season all things good.