When they returned, Linda was sitting up
Against the pillow of the bed; her hands
Folded upon her breast; her open eyes
Tearless and glazed, as if celestial scenes,
Clear to the inner, nulled the outer vision.
The man drew near, touched her upon the brow,
And said, "My name is Henry Meredith."
She started, and, as on an April sky
A cloud is riven, and through the sudden cleft
The sunshine darts, even so were Linda's eyes
Flooded with conscious lustre, and she woke.
It was a neatly furnished cottage room
In which she lay, and nodding eglantine,
With its sweet-scented foliage and rath roses,
Rustled and shimmered at the open window.
"How long have I been lying here?" asked Linda.
"Almost two days," said Meredith.—"Indeed!
I read, sir, what you'd ask me, in your looks;
And to the question on your mind I answer,
If all is ready, let the funeral be
This afternoon. Ay, in the village ground
Let their remains be laid. The services
May be as is convenient." "Of what faith
Were they?"—"The faith of Christ."—"But that is vague.
The faith of Christ? Mean you the faith in Christ?
Faith in the power and need of his atonement?"
"All that I mean is, that they held the faith
Which was the faith of Christ, as manifest
In his own words, unwrenched by others' words.
So to no sect did they attach themselves;
But from all sects drew all the truth they could
In charity; believing that when Christ
Said of the pure in heart, 'They shall see God,'
He meant it; spoke no fragment of a truth;
Deferred no saying, qualifying that;
Set no word-trap for unsuspecting souls;
Spoke no oracular, ambiguous phrase,
Intending merely the vicarious pure;
Reserved no strange or mystical condition
To breed fine points of doctrine, or confound
The simple-minded and the slow of faith.
Heart-purity and singleness and love,
Fertile in loving acts, sole proof of these,
Summed up for them, my father and my mother,
All nobleness, all duty, all salvation,
And all religion."
With a heavy sigh
Meredith turned away. "I'll not discuss
Things of such moment now," said he. "One rock,
One only rock, amid the clashing waves
Of human error, have I found,—the rock
On which Christ built his Church. Heaven show you it!"
"Heaven show me truth! let it be on the rock,
Or in the sand. You'll say Amen to that?"
"I say Amen to what the Church approves,
For I myself am weak and fallible,
Depraved by nature, reprobate and doomed,
And ransomed only by the atoning blood
Of a Redeemer more divine than human.
But controversy is not timely now:
The papers, jewels, money, and what clothes
Could properly be taken, you will find
In a small trunk of which this is the key.
At three o'clock the carriage will be ready."
Linda put forth her hand; he gravely took it,
And holding it in both of his the while,
Said: "Should you lack a friend, remember me.
I was a witness to your father's death.
Your mother must have died without a pang.
He, by a strenuous will, kept death at bay
A minute, and his dying cry was Linda!
Hardly can he have felt his sufferings,
Such the intentness of his thought for you!"
The fount of tears was happily struck at last,
And Linda wept profusely. Meredith
Quitted the room; but the old woman sat
Beside the bed, her thin and shrunken fingers
Hiding themselves in Linda's locks of gold,
Or with a soothing motion parting them
From a brow fine and white as alabaster.
At length, like a retreating thunder-storm,
The sobs grew faint and fainter, and then ceased.
After a pause, said Linda to the lady,
"Is he your grandson?"—"Ay, my only one;
A noble youth, heir to a splendid fortune;
A scholar, too, and such a gentleman!
Young; ay, not twenty-four! What a career,
Would he but choose! Society is his,
To cull from as he would. He throws by all,
To be a poor tame priest, and take confessions
Of petty scandals and delinquencies
From a few Irish hussies and old women!"
"We all," said Linda, "hear the voice of duty
In different ways, and many not at all.
Honor to him who heeds the sacred claim
At any cost of life's amenities
And tenderest ties! We see the sacrifice;—
We cannot reckon up the nobleness
It called for, and must call for to the end."
[V.]
LINDA.
The news of the great railroad accident
And of the sudden death of Percival,
Coming so soon upon intelligence
Of his rare fortune in the legacy
From Kenrick, occupied the public mind
For a full day at least, and then was whelmed
In other marvels rushing thick upon it.
The mother and the daughter, who still bore
The name of Percival, came back from Paris
At once, on getting the unlooked-for news.
When Linda, after three weeks had elapsed,
Re-entered, with a swelling heart, the house
To her so full of sacred memories,
She was accosted by an officer
Who told her he had put his seal on all
The papers, plate, and jewelry belonging
To the late Albert Percival,—and asked
If in her keeping were a watch and ring,
Also some money, found upon his person:
If so, would she please give them up, and he,
Who had authority to take them, would
Sign a receipt for all such property,
And then the rightful heir could easily
Dispose of it, as might seem best to her.