His wife let the hand fall, and covering her face with her handkerchief, burst into a flood of tears. A severer spasm than any before shook the Assistant's frame; a more copious gush of blood poured from the wound; and in the effort to speak the name of the girl, the spirit passed to its account.
"Strange," said pure-minded Mr. Eliot, "that he should utter the name of the serving-maid."
A look of intelligence passed between the Governor and the physician, but neither spoke.
"He is silent," said the divine; "he is stiller, and feels less pain."
"He will never feel pain again in this world," said the doctor, approaching the bed, at a little distance from which he had been sitting, and gazing on the corpse.
Dame Spikeman screamed, and was borne, fainting, from the apartment in the arms of Eveline and Prudence, who hastened in at the sound.
"Behold," said Mr. Eliot, who, after the manner of clergymen, was anxious to "improve the solemn occasion," "another warning addressed to us all, to be ready, for we know not neither the day nor the hour. How suddenly hath our friend been forever removed from the scene of his labors and his hopes. 'As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more; he shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.' But, though the spirit be gone, its memory remains behind. Out of the good and the evil it hath done, shall be erected its monument on earth. O, let us hope that the former, sprinkled and cleansed by the blood that maketh all things pure, may be accepted, and the latter forgiven, for His sake who shed it. For He who made us knoweth whereof we are made; He remembereth that we are dust; He seeth not as man seeth. Only He knows all the secrets of the weak, trembling heart, its temptations, its trials, its struggles, its sorrows, its triumphs, its despairs. Our friend was a captain in Israel. He hath fallen with his armor on, and girded for the battle. He loved the suffering Church. Be that a remembrance to rise like a sweet-smelling incense before the congregation; and if Thou, whose pure eyes cannot behold iniquity, wilt not be extreme to mark what is done amiss, neither may we, the work of thy hands, dare to assume Thy prerogative; but as the sons of sinning Noah, with averted eyes, covered the nakedness of their father with their garments, so will we hide in forgetfulness each short-coming and each transgression."
As the good man, with a swelling heart and sad eyes, in which glittered the sacred drops of human feeling, uttered these words, he looked like a pitying angel from whose lips reproach could not fall, and whose blessed office was only to instruct and to forgive.
The death of one as important as the Assistant Spikeman could not but be sensibly felt in so small a community. He had been a man whose daring nature would not allow him to be at rest, and who was never contented, except in the exercise of all his faculties. Hence he had been not only active and scheming in private life, but also busy and bold in public, driven forward, as it were, by a sort of inborn necessity. Though not deeply regretted, he yet was missed. Those whom his adventurous spirit employed in the fisheries, and the just-commencing fur trade, missed him; his brethren of the congregation, wherein his voice, to the edification of his hearers, had often been lifted up in the "gift of prophecying," missed him; and his coadjutors in the government, to whom in more than one instance his keen natural sagacity had been a guide, and his zeal a stimulus and support, missed him; but it was only for a short time. How often has it been remarked, that few things are as capable of making us feel our insignificance, as the shortness of time in which we are forgotten. Active, prominent, influential as he had been, Spikeman was soon remembered only as yesterday is remembered. There were no loves twining around his memory, reaching beyond the grave, and bringing him back to earth; no tender recollections of benefits conferred, which the heart cherishes as an inestimable treasure. There was naught for the mind to dwell upon, save his public duties, which he, had indeed discharged respectably, but no more. Another Assistant could fill his place as well; another exercise the gift of prophecying to the use of edifying; and other merchants succeed to, his trade. Verily is the life of man as the track of an arrow in the air; as smoke lost in the clouds; as a flake of snow that falls upon the water; as a childish grief, or aught else that is most transient.
But the death of the wicked is a benefit to earth. A gloomy shadow hath passed away; the blight of its presence will fall no more on the innocent. The purpose for which he was sent into this world, that from its joys and its sorrows he might become a nobler being, seems to have been defeated. But I know not. Pass, then, dark spirit; my eyes seek not to follow thy track.