CHAPTER XXXV.
THE MIDNIGHT FUNERAL.
Ernestine had been watching our approach from a window. It was some time before she recovered from the stupefaction into which the appearance of the body of Gabrielle, and the relation of our terrible narrative (which then wanted the unity that after inquiries have enabled me to give it), had plunged her. As yet one of the principal actors had not come forward; thus, the cause of Gabrielle's death was involved in a mystery, alike perplexing and impenetrable.
"All is over now," said Ernestine; "all is over now! My father—my father—let me reach my father's side, and then die too!"
Grief affected her by alternate fits of bitterness and calmness. At one time she was somewhat composed in her woe; at others, she flung herself upon her knees beside the bed on which the body lay (the same bed whereon her sister's slayer so nearly assassinated herself), and fondly kissed her again and again, playing with the masses of golden-coloured hair, that streamed over the pillow, with the pretty but pallid fingers that still yielded to her touch—arranging, and re-arranging her dress, uttering the while many a piteous endearing epithet, with many of those pious and beautiful exclamations of hope and woe, which the prayers of her Catholic preceptor had taught her.
"It is my own Gabrielle come back to me, after all! God has sent her to me, that once more I might take a sister's fond farewell of her. But God has been very cruel to me! Oh! what do I say? No, no—he has taken you to himself—you are now among the angels in heaven, sister; you were too good for this bad world! You are happy, and I must not grudge you to Him, who will one day require me too."
"She will know how kind you are to her," said Phadrig Mhor, who, being a Catholic, had earnestly begged leave to say his prayers at the foot of the bed, where he knelt down, and behind his bonnet was making very wry faces to conceal his sorrow, for grief easily affects the hearts of the brave and honest; "she will indeed, lady, for the dead know all that passes here."
There is something sacred in grief. We all withdrew, and at her own request left Ernestine along with the body for a time.
With a delicacy of sentiment that charmed me, she would not allow either the hostess of the inn, or any other woman, to assist her in arranging the remains of the poor child (for in many things Gabrielle was but a child) for the grave. She knew whose hands Gabrielle would have preferred to perform this sad and solemn, this last duty of affection; and thus unaided, she lifted and laid her in the coffin, tying her consecrated medals round her neck, laying a chaplet of white roses on her brow, and a crucifix upon her breast; she concluded, by repeatedly reading aloud, with a broken voice, those prayers which the church, in whose tenets she had been reared, directed shall be said for the dead.
These little offices, the pleasing dictates of mingled affection and religion, soothed and occupied her mind; and I could not help thinking how much the ideas inculcated by the ancient faith (whether derived from paganrie or not), were calculated to rob the grim tyrant of his terrors, rather, than like our Scottish customs, to invest him with others more appalling.
I beheld her with admiration, and her faith and fervour stirred a thousand deep and pious thoughts within me. The memory of those two days at Hesinge is full of pain; for we spent one day more, Ian delaying his march, in consequence of this melancholy catastrophe, over which I mean to hurry as briefly as possible.