As she thus thought, a slight motion on the bed where Claude de l'Estang was laid made her turn her eyes thither. The old man had awoke from his short slumber, and his eyes, still bright and intelligent, notwithstanding the approach of death and the exhaustion of his shattered frame, were turned towards her with an earnest and a melancholy expression.
"I hope you feel refreshed," said Clémence, bending over him. "You have had some sleep; and I trust it has done you good."
"Do not deceive yourself, my dear child," replied the old man. "No sleep can do me good, but that deep powerful one which is soon coming. I wait but God's will, Clémence, and I trust that he will soon give the spirit liberty. It will be in mercy, Clémence, that he sends death; for were life to be prolonged, think what it would be to this torn and mangled frame. Neither hand nor foot can I move, nor were it possible to give back strength to my limbs or ease to my body. Every hour that I remain, I look upon but as a trial of patience and of faith, and I will not murmur: no, Clémence, not even in thought, against His almighty will, who bids me drag on the weary minutes longer. But yet, when the last of those minutes has come, oh! how gladly shall I feel the summons that others dread and fly from! I would fain, my child," he said, "I would fain hear: and from your lips: some of that blessed word which the misguided persecutors of our church deny unmutilated to the blind followers of their faith, though every word therein speaks hope, and consolation, and counsel, and direction to the heart of man."
"Alas! good father," replied Clémence, "the Bible which I always carry with me, was left behind when I came to see you in prison, and I know not where to find one here."
"The people in this, or the neighbouring cottage, have one," said the pastor. "They are good honest souls, whom I have often visited in former days."
As the good woman of the cottage had gone out, almost immediately after the arrival of the party, to procure some herbs, which she declared would soothe the pastor greatly, Clémence proceeded to the other cottage, where she found an old man with a Bible in his hand, busily reading a portion thereof to a little boy who stood near. He looked up, and gave her the book as soon as she told him the purpose for which she came, and then, following into the cottage where the pastor lay, he and the boy stood by, and listened attentively while she read such chapters as Claude de l'Estang expressed a wish to hear. Those chapters were not, in general, such as might have been supposed. They were not those which hold out the glorious promises of everlasting life to men who suffer for their faith in this state of being. They were not such as pourtray to us, in its real and spiritual character, that other world, to which the footsteps of all are tending. It seemed as if, of such things, the mind of the pastor was so fully convinced, so intimately and perfectly sure, that they were as parts of his own being. But the passages that he selected were those in which our Redeemer lays down all the bright, perfect, and unchangeable precepts for the rule and governance of man's own conduct, which form the only code of law and philosophy that can indeed be called divine. And in that last hour it seemed the greatest hope and consolation which the dying man could receive, to ponder upon those proofs of divine love and wisdom which nothing but the Spirit of God himself could have dictated.
Thus passed the whole of the day. From time to time Clémence paused, and the pastor spoke a few words to those who surrounded him: words of humble comment on what was read, or pious exhortation. At other times, when his fair companion was tired, the attendant Maria would take the book and read. No noises, no visit from without, disturbed the calm. It seemed as if their persecutors were at fault; and though from time to time one of the different members of those shepherd families passed in or out, no other persons were seen moving upon the face of the landes; no sounds were heard but their own low voices throughout the short light of a November day. To one fresh from the buzz of cities, and the busy activity of man, the contrast of the stillness and the solitude was strange; but doubly strange and exceeding solemn were they to the mind of her who came, fresh from the perturbed and fevered visions of the preceding night, and saw that day lapse away like a long and quiet sleep.
Towards the dusk of the evening, however, her attendant laid her hand upon her arm as she was still reading, saying, "There is a change coming;" and Clémence paused and gazed down upon the old man's countenance. It looked very grey; but whether from the shadows of the evening, or from the loss of whatever hue of living health remained, she could hardly tell. But the difference was not so great in the colour as in the expression. The look of pain and suffering which, notwithstanding all his efforts to bear his fate with tranquillity, had still marked that fine expressive countenance, was gone, and a calm and tranquil aspect had succeeded, although the features were extremely sharpened, the eye sunk, and the temples hollow. It was the look of a body and a spirit at peace; and, for a moment, as the eyes were turned up towards the sky, Clémence imagined that the spirit was gone: but the next moment he looked round towards her, as if inquiring why she stopped.
"How are you, Sir?" she said. "You seem more at ease."
"I am quite at ease, Clémence," replied the old man. "All pain has left me. I am somewhat cold, but that is natural; and for the last half hour the remains of yesterday's agony have been wearing away, as I have seen snow upon a hill's side melt in the April sunshine. It is strange, and scarcely to be believed, that death should be so pleasant; for this is death, my child, and I go away from this world of care and pain with a foretaste of the mercies of the next. It is very slow, but still it is coming, Clémence, and bringing healing on its wings. Death, the messenger of God's will, to one that trusts in his mercy, is indeed the harbinger of that peace of God which passes all understanding."