Merkland: or, Self Sacrifice

“Do not fear,” said Anne, gently. “We will remember you in all tenderness, with sorrow and with reverence. I will answer for Norman.”

“For Norman!” said the dying man. “All blessings on the name that I have not dared to say for years! The blessing of my God upon him, who has been separated from his brethren. Norman! Marion! They have suffered in exile and in grief for me. Tell them, that with my last breath, I bade God bless them – God bless them! They have done as my Lord did – they have suffered for the guilty – and He will acknowledge His own.”

There was a pause. His breath came painfully. The hectic on his cheek flushed deeper. Christian made a gesture with her hand to Anne, dismissing her. He saw it.

“Stay,” he said, “stay – my work is not yet done. Christian, hear me; when I have said this, I will take my journey in peace. My eyes are clear now. I dare look back to that terrible time. I did it unawares. The blood on my hand was not wilfully shed; ye hear me, ye trust me, Christian! I had that deadly weapon in my hand; my mind was far away as it often was. I was thinking of the two, and of their bright lot; my eye caught something dark among the trees. I thought it was a bird. Christian, it was the head of Arthur Aytoun, the man that I was hating in my heart! I came home; my soul was blinded within me. I was as innocent of wish to harm him as was the water at my feet; but yet in my inmost heart long before, I had been angry with my brother! My soul was blind; now I see, for the Lord has visited me with His mercy. You know all now. I have sinned; but I did this unawares, and into His city of refuge, my Lord has received my soul.”

The shadows were gathering – darker, closer – the face becoming deadly white. His breath came with less painful effort, but the end was at hand. He made a sign which Christian knew. She lifted a Bible, and began to read. Anne stood behind in silent awe, as the low voice rose through that dim room, whose occupant stood upon the eternal brink so near an unseen world. “There is, therefore, now no condemnation.” Wondrous words! spanning all this chaos of human sin and feebleness with their heavenward bridge of strong security.

Christian read on calmly, solemnly while the slow life ebbed wave by wave. She had reached the end.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For – ”

She was stayed by the outstretching of that worn and wasted hand. A strange shrill voice, unnaturally clear, took up the words:

“I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus my Lord.”

Christian sprang forward to support him. He needed no support. In the might of that one certain thing, of which he was at last persuaded, the spirit of Patrick Lillie had ascended into his Saviour’s heaven.

A pale, feeble, worn-out garment, over which no longer the fluctuating fever of a wavering mind should sweep and burn – a fair, cold face, whose gentle features could answer no longer to the thousand changes of that delicate and tremulous soul, Christian laid back upon the pillow – no longer restless, or ill at ease, or fearful, but sleeping peaceful sleep – tranquil and calm at last!

And she stood by his bedside who had borne, through all these dreadful years, the strong tenacious life of deadly agony for him. As pale as his, was the thin, worn face bending over him; for a moment she listened with that intensest pain of watching, which seems to make the listener blind, and concentrates all the senses in that one – listening for the faint fall of his breath. It was in vain: those pale lips, until the great day of resurrection, should draw breath again – never more.

“I thank God,” said Christian Lillie, in the solemn calm of that death-chamber; “I thank God, Patrick, my brother, that you are safe, and at rest. Safe after perils greater than time could wear out. At rest after the hourly warfare and deadly travail of a lifetime – I thank God. My Father! – my Father! I thank Thee, who rejectest no petition, that Thou hast heard my cry!”

Her hands were clasped. Anne feared they were becoming rigid in the attitude of supplication so common to them. She laid her hand upon Christian’s arm.

“Ay, I will not linger,” said Christian, “but look at him – look at him at peace, and blessed at last. Do you see my tears? I have not shed one since yon June morning, but now I can weep. I will not linger; but can you not feel the blessedness of seeing his salvation – his rest in the fair haven – his solemn peace at last? I thank God, Patrick – I thank God!”

“You are worn out,” said Anne, gently; “come now and take rest – leave the further cares of this sad time to me.”

The tears were falling from her eyes like large soft rain-drops; there was a quivering, woeful smile about her lip.

“Ay, ay, I will go; I have one work yet for his sake, and theirs. At peace in the pure heaven of our Lord and Saviour – at rest. In hope and certainty that nothing can shake again, look how he has begun his tranquil waiting for the second coming. He is with his Lord, and I – yes, I will go and rest. Here I take up again the human hope that has been dead within me for eighteen lingering years; it died by him, and by him it is alive again. I will go and take rest for my labor. I trust him to your hands; I have never trusted him before in the care of any mortal. Now, I must rest for Norman’s sake, and you will watch for Patrick’s; I trust him to you.”

And so, at last Anne was able to lead her to her own chamber. The tension of mind and frame had been so long and stern, that now, when it was relaxed, Anne trembled for the issue; but Christian had borne all the vicissitudes of mental agony too long to sink now when there still remained labor to do “for his sake, and theirs.” She suffered Anne’s attendance with a strange child-like gentleness, as of one whose own long task is over; and while she lay down upon her bed, continued to speak of that blessed rest and peacefulness with a tremulous quivering smile, and wandering of thought which brought the tears fast from Anne’s eyes. – Deeply pitiful and moving was this pathetic garment of her grief.

At last, sleep was mercifully sent, such sleep as God gives to His beloved – calm, serene, and child-like – the sad smile trembling upon her lip – the mild tears stealing from under her closed eyelids, and her soul the while carried back to times of past tranquillity – the peace and gentle joyousness of the old cottage home.

From Christian’s bedside, Anne proceeded to a sadder work; a work too painful and repugnant for anything but callous habit, or deep tenderness. She called up the old serving-woman, and together they rendered the last offices to the dead.

The solemn, calm, majestic, awful dead, in whose still presence, were he in life the meanest, the princeliest soul of earth must stoop and bow. Strange doom which, with its sad mysterious ending, can make the meanest lifetime a sublime, unequalled thing! Strange death which, in its ghostly silence, can thrust so lightly the vain speculations of man aside, and make our mortal flesh shrink and tremble from the thrilling power of unseen life, that moves behind the curtain of its gloom. What man shall stand in its presence, and dare to say that this is the end? What man shall look upon its majesty, and tell us that is the mere death at which he thrills and shivers? It is not so – mightier, more terrible and great – it is the supernatural glow of an unseen life beyond that thus appals us.

The moonbeams glided over the Firth in spiritual stillness. – The necessary offices were done, and Anne and Marget sat down in a small adjoining room to watch. The old woman began to nod in her chair; this was to her but an ordinary death, and death to those who are accustomed to assist at its dread ceremonials, loses its awe and solemnity. Anne opened the window as the sun rose, and bathed her pale face in the delicious air of the morning. Under her sadness and awe a solemn joy was trembling. – Her work was accomplished – now for the exile’s home-coming – for household rest and companionship – for communion with the near and dear kindred over whom her heart had yearned so long.

The country was beginning to awake: the early morning labor of those rural people had commenced. She could see smoke rising from the indistinct dim towns on the Fife coast. – She awoke her companion, and then went softly into Christian’s room.

But Christian was gone; her Bible lay open upon the table, where she had sought its comfort when she rose. Her plain black silk cloak and bonnet had been taken away. Anne began to be alarmed; where could she be?

In the chamber of death she was not. Anne fancied she could perceive some trace of her having entered the room, but they had watched in the adjoining apartment, and Anne knew that she had been wakeful. She hurried down stairs and searched the rooms below: Christian was not to be found.

Looking through the low window of the study, she saw Jacky standing at the gate, and hastened to admit her. The girl was shivering with intense anxiety, and alarm – she had been standing there for more than an hour. On the previous night, she had haunted the precincts of Schole in fear and trembling for her mistress, and had been abruptly dismissed by Marget, with a fretful explanation that “Maister Patrick was in the deadthraw” – since then she had been watching at the window of Miss Crankie’s parlor. Now, she was awe-stricken, speaking below her breath, and letting fall now and then silent, solitary, large tears. She had never been in the shadow of death before, and her imaginative spirit bowed before its majesty.

“Jacky,” said Anne, “he is dead.”

Jacky did not answer – she only glanced a timid, wistful, upward look out of those keen, dark eyes of hers, dilated and softened with her sympathy.

“You will come in and stay with me, Jacky,” said Anne. “I must remain here for some days – you are not afraid?”

Afraid! no. Jacky was stricken with awe and sad reverence, but not with fear.

“I do not well know what to do, Jacky,” said Anne, thoughtfully. “Miss Lillie seems to have wandered out: I cannot find her.”

“If ye please, Miss Anne, I saw her.”

“Where, Jacky?”

“I was standing at the window looking out – it was just at the sun-rising – and I saw the gate of Schole opened canny, and Miss Lillie came out. She was just as she aye is, only there was a big veil over her face, and she took the Aberford road; and she didna walk slow as she does at common times, but was travelling ower the sands as fast as a spirit – as if it was a great errand she was on; naebody could have walkit yon way that hadna something urging them, and I thought then that Mr. Patrick was dead.”

Anne did not observe Jacky’s reflections and inferences – she was too much occupied in speculations as to Christian’s errand.

“If ye please, Miss Anne, would ye no go up to your ain room and lie down? I’ll stay and keep a’thing quiet.”

“I must see Miss Crankie,” said Anne. “The air will revive me, Jacky, and I could not rest. In the meantime, you must stay at Schole, and see that no one disturbs the stillness that belongs to this solemn vicinity. We should have reverenced him living – we must reverence him more sadly dead.”

Jacky was overcome – her eyes were flooded – she needed to make no promise. Anne’s charge to her was given in consequence of some grumbling threat of Marget’s to “get in some o’ the neighbors – no to be our lane wi’ the corp.” Anne was determined that there should be no unseemly visits, or vulgar investigation of the remains of one who had shrunk from all contact with the world so jealously.

“If ye please, Miss Anne – ”

Anne had put on her bonnet, and stood at the gate on her way out.

“What is it, Jacky?”

Jacky hung her head in shy awkwardness.

“It was just naething, Miss Anne.”

Anne comprehended what the “just naething” was, and, understanding the singular interest and delicate sympathy of this elfin attendant of hers, knew also how perfectly she was to be trusted.

“Jacky,” she said, “what I tell you, you will never tell again, I know: this gentleman who died last night was nearly connected with us – if Marget asks you any questions, you can tell her that; and my work is accomplished here – accomplished in sorrow and in hope. By-and-by my brother of whom you have heard, will come home I trust, in peace and honor, to his own house and lands. – The work we came here for is done.”

Jacky was tremulously proud, but she had yet another question.

“And if ye please, Miss Anne – little Miss Lilie?”

A radiant light came into Anne’s eye. It was the first time she had dared to speak of the near relationships with which she now hoped to be surrounded.

“Lilie is my niece – my brother’s child – I believe and hope so, Jacky.”