Oh, what would not that mother have given then for one of the lights which gleamed from the windows of the stately mansion where Eddie Hastings was watched by careful attendants. But it could not be, and when at last the silvery moon-beams came struggling through the open window and fell upon the white brow of the little boy they did not rouse him, for a far more glorious light had dawned upon his immortal vision—even the light of the Everlasting.
In her tasteful boudoir sat Lina Hastings, and at her side, on a silken lounge, lay Eddie, calmly sleeping. The crisis was past—she knew he would live, and her cup of happiness was full. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by the sound of a tolling bell. ’Twas the same which, but for God’s mercy, would at that moment, perhaps, have tolled for her boy, and Lina involuntarily shuddered as she listened to the strokes, which, at first, were far between. Then they came faster, and as Lina counted five, she said aloud, ‘’Twas a child but two years older than Eddie.’
Later in the day it came to her that the bereaved one was her early friend, whom now she seldom met. Once Lina would have flown to Mabel’s side, and poured into her ear words of comfort, but her heart had grown hard and selfish, and so she only said, ‘Poor Mabel, she never was as fortunate as I’—and her eyes glanced proudly around the elegantly-furnished room, falling at last upon Eddie, whom she clasped to her bosom passionately, but without thought of Him who had decreed that not then should she be written childless.
The humble funeral was over. The soft, green turf had been broken, and the bright June flowers had fallen beneath the old sexton’s spade as he dug the little grave where Willie Parkham was laid to rest. In the drunkard’s home there was again darkness and a silence which would never be broken by the prattle of the childish voice. Sobered, repentant, and heartbroken, the wretched father laid his head in the lap of his faithful wife, beseeching of her to pray that the vow that morning breathed by Willie’s coffin and renewed by Willie’s grave might be kept unbroken. And she did pray, poor Mabel. With her arms around the neck of the weeping man, she asked that this, her great bereavement, might be sanctified to the salvation of her erring husband.
‘I will do all things well,’ again seemed whispered in her ear, and Mabel felt assured that Willie had not died in vain. ’Twas hard at first for Robert Parkham to break the chains which bound him, but the remembrance of Willie’s touching message—‘Tell pa good-bye, good-bye forever,’ would rush to his mind whenever he essayed to take the poisonous bowl, and thus was he saved, and when the first day of a new year was ushered in, he stood with Mabel at the altar, and on his upturned brow received the baptismal waters, while the man of God broke to him the bread of life. Much that night they missed their child, and Mabel’s tears fell like rain upon the soft, chestnut curls she had severed from his head, but as she looked upon her husband, now strong again in his resorted manhood, she murmured—‘It was for this that Willie died, and I would not that it should be otherwise.’
Fifteen years have passed away since the day when Lina Hastings breathed that almost impious prayer—‘Send upon me any evil but this,’ and upon the deep blue waters of the Pacific a noble vessel lay becalmed. Fiercely the rays of a tropical sun poured down upon her hardy crew, but they heeded it not. With anxious, frightened faces and subdued step, they trod the deck, speaking in whispers of some dreaded event. There had been mutiny on board that man-of-war—a deep-laid plot to murder the commanding officers, and now, at the sunsetting, the instigators, four in number, were to pay the penalty of their crime. Three of them were old and hardened in sin, but the fourth, the fiercest spirit of all ’twas said, was young and beautiful to look upon. In the brown curls of his waving hair there were no threads of silver, and on his brow there were no lines save those of reckless dissipation, while his beardless cheeks was round and smooth as that of a girl. Accustomed from his earliest childhood to rule, he could not brook restraint, and when it was put upon him, he had rebelled against it, stirring up strife, and leading on his comrades, who, used as they were to vice, marvelled that one so young should be so deeply depraved.