There was a heavy fall of snow on the very day that he rode from Bristol to Glastonbury; and when he alighted at the small hostel where he was to leave his hired horse, all was dull, still and silent. He had passed through empty streets, and he came to an empty yard, where it was long before a lame hostler, with a sack over his shoulder, and a pair of wooden shoes on his feet, came out to take his hack. It was long, again, before he could procure any one to guide him to Priest Hill Cottage;—at last an urchin with a blue face, and his hands in his breeches pockets, was driven out, by a scolding landlady, to show Cuthbert on his way. The north-east wind blew keenly, and drove the snow into his face and neck as he followed the awkward and floundering steps of the stupid and unwilling boy: the distance seemed long; and when they stopped before the wicket of the small cottage, it had a most poor and desolate appearance.
Cuthbert paid and dismissed his guide; and now he was alone on the threshold of that father, whose bosom he had pierced through with many sorrows; he was soon to meet the mother on whose breasts himself and Martin had both hanged in the innocent days of infancy. He had one secret in his bosom, which it would be his duty to keep from those parents—that they might not be grieved above measure in their declining years. He was only come for their pardon and their blessing before he died; but he could not open the wicket and go in. In silent agony he raised his eyes to the God of heaven, to implore strength for that solemn meeting. Then came the tempter, and showed him Martin in boyhood, with sunny curls, and an arm about his neck, running with him down the green slope of the garden to the arbour where their father and mother sat—and then a change came—and he saw the pale corpse, and the bright hair dabbled with blood—and frowning faces looked out on him from the black and laden sky. He felt chill as death and very giddy, and then came a merciful swoon.
What hands were these chafing him as he awoke to consciousness, lying on warm blankets before a fire?—his mother’s. What man was this upon his knees, with earnest and moist eyes, that was giving him a cordial with a gentle care?—it was his father: the wanderer was at home again. Words may not tell his happiness; earth has no language to express it: there, near the throne of mercy, to which his grateful heart throbbed up its thanksgiving, there it was intelligible; there good angels heard it, and struck their golden harps to hymns of joy.
There was not in broad England a fireside more sweetly blessed with the spirit of peace and love than that by which old Noble and his wife and their child Cuthbert sat now for many weeks in quiet company. Not a single look of upbraiding even from old Peter shaded one hour of Cuthbert’s life, from the moment when he was brought in from the wicket in the arms of his father and of that faithful old servant. Though quaint, and rough in manner, the man was true and tender at heart. It was enough for him that Master Cuthbert was come home again; and when he saw his hollow cheeks, and listened to his churchyard cough, all the same feelings which he had once had for him during a dangerous sickness of his childhood returned, and he was as gentle and kind in all he had to do for him as a nurse; but this was little,—for a mother was ever at his side: by her hands his pillow was smoothed, by her his back was propped, and his chair placed nearer to the fire; while his father sought to share in all these services, and read to him, and prayed with him, and communed with him through long and precious hours about their common faith, their common hope, and that future and abiding world, where they should dwell as pardoned and perfected spirits, in sinless felicity, and in the pure service of praise and love for ever.
They all sat together one afternoon, about the close of May, when it was so warm that even the invalid had his chair moved out of doors for half an hour, and sat well wrapped up, to look at the flowers and the bee-hive. Cuthbert was silent, but a tear stole down his cheek; and turning suddenly to his father, he asked, “Did you see any thing?”
“Nothing,” replied Noble, calmly.
“It was a vision then; the mere creature of my own brain: but it was very beautiful. I thought I saw our dear departed Martin.”
“That is not surprising, Cuthbert, we have talked together so much about him lately, and you think of him, I know, a great deal; I myself often in my fancy see the dear boy, and probably shall continue to do so as long as I live.”
“Yes, that is the natural way to account for it; but yet I have never before pictured him to my mind as I saw him just now. He stood in shining raiment, by the bank of a river that seemed to flow between us, and beckoned me to come over; and behind him I saw a field of light, and far off, a city that was bright as alabaster.
“Father, I have one last request to make—I do not think that I shall be much longer with you—read me the fourteenth chapter of St. John now: there my hope as a Christian was first clearly revealed to me; there I first cast anchor. O that I had never put out into the stormy sea of controversy! But it is all well—it is all over now. By the Divine alchemy good hath been drawn out of evil.