IN the old porch at Bellville, of which you have read so much, sat Charles Taylor. An invalid-chair had been placed there, and he lay back on its pillows in the beams of the afternoon sun of the late autumn; a warm sunny day it had been. He was feeling wonderously well; almost, but for his ever present weakness, quite well; his fatigue of the previous day, that of Martha’s wedding, had left no permanent effects upon him, and had he not known thoroughly his own hopeless state he might have fancied this afternoon that he was approaching convalescence. Not in his looks, pale, wan, ghastly were they, the shadow of the grim implacable visitor, that was so soon to come, was already on them; but the face in its calm, stillness told of ineffable peace. The brunt of the storm had passed. The white walls of the Taylor mansion glittered brightly in the distance, the dark blue sky was seen through the branches of the trees, growing bare and more bare against the coming winter. The warm rays of the sun fell on Charles Taylor. In his hand he held a book from which others than Charles Taylor have derived consolation and courage. “God is love.” He was reading at that moment of the great love of God towards those who strive as he had done to live for him. He looked up, repeating the sentence, “He loves them in death and will love them through the never ending ages to come.” Just then his eyes fell on the figure of George, their old servant man, who was advancing towards the mansion. Charles closed his book and held out his hand. “You are not going to leave us yet, Mr. Taylor.” “I know not how soon it may be George, very long it cannot be; sit down.” He stood yet, however, looking at him, disregarding the bench to which he had pointed, stood with a saddened expression and compressed lips. George’s eye was an experienced one, and it may be that he saw the picture which had taken up its abode in his face.
“You be going to see my old master and mistress sir,” he said dashing some rebellious moisture from his eyes. “Mr. Charles do you remember it, my poor mistress sat here in this porch the very day she died.” “I remember it well, George. I am dying quietly, thank God, as my mother died.” “And what a blessing it is when folks can die quietly with their conscience, and all about ’em at peace,” ejaculated George. “I am on the threshold of a better world, George,” was his quiet answer, “one where sorrow cannot enter.” George sat for some little time on the bench talking to him, they had gone back in thought to old times, to the illness and death of his mother, to the long gone scenes of the past, whether of pleasure or pain—a past which for us all seems to bear a charm when recalled to the memory which it had never borne; at length George arose to depart, declining to remain longer; Charles was in his armchair seated by the fire as Mary entered the room, his face would have been utterly colorless save for the bluish tinge which had settled there a tinge distinguishable even in the red blaze. “Have you come back alone,” asked Charles, turning towards her. “George Taylor accompanied me as far as the head of the street. Have you had your medicine, Charles?” “Yes.” Mary drew a chair near to him, and sat down, glancing almost stealthily at him; when this ominous look appears on the human face we do not like to look into it too boldly lest its owner, so soon to be called away, may read the fiat in our own dread countenance, she need not have feared its effects, had he done so, on Charles Taylor. “How are you feeling to night?” somewhat abruptly asked Mary. “Never better of late days; it seems as if ease both of mind and body has come to me.” Mary turned her eyes from the fire that the tears rising in them might not be seen to glisten, and exclaimed: “What a misfortune.” “A misfortune to be taken to my rest, to the good God who has so loved and kept me here. A few minutes before you came in I fell into a doze and I dreamt I saw Jesus Christ standing by the window waiting for me, he had his hand stretched out to me with a smile, so vivid had been the impression that when I awoke, I thought it was a reality. Death a misfortune! no, Mary, not for me.” Mary rang the bell for lights to be brought in, Charles, his elbow resting on the arm of his chair, bent his head upon his hand and became lost in the imagination of glories that might so soon open to him, bright forms were flitting around a throne of wondrous beauty, golden harps in their hands, and in one of them, her harp idle, her radiant face turned as if watching for one who might be coming, he seemed to recognize Janey. A misfortune for the good to die! No.
George Taylor, a cousin to this family, was seated at his desk in the office when his attention was called by a rap at the door. George opened the door, and the old servant came in. “It is all over, sir,” he said; his manner strangely still, his voice unnaturally calm and low, as is sometimes the case where emotion is striven to be suppressed. Miss Mary bade me come to you with the tidings. George’s bearing was suspiciously quiet, too. “It is very sudden,” he presently rejoined. “Very sudden, sir, and yet my mistress did not seem unprepared for it, he took his tea with her, and was so cheerful over it that I began to hope he had taken a fresh turn, my mistress called me in to give directions about a little matter she wanted done to-morrow, and while she was speaking to me, Miss Matilda cried out. We turned round and saw her leaning over my master, he had slipped back in his chair powerless, and I hastened to raise and support him. Death was in his face, there was no mistaking it, but he was quite conscious, quite sensible and smiled at us. ‘I must say farewell to you,’ he said, and Miss Matilda burst into a fit of sobs, but my mistress kneeled down quietly before him and took his hands in hers and said, ‘Charles, is the moment come?’ ‘Yes, it is come;’ he answered, and tried to look round at Miss Matilda, who stood a little behind his chair. ‘Don’t grieve,’ he said, ‘I am going on first,’ but she only sobbed the more. ‘Good by, my dear ones,’ he continued, ‘I shall wait for you all as I know I am being waited for.’ ‘Fear?’ he went on, for Miss Matilda sobbed out something that sounded like the word. ‘Fear, when I am going to God, when I saw Jesus—Jesus—’” George fairly broke down with a great burst of grief, and the tears were silently rolling over the old man’s cheeks. “It was the last word he spoke, ‘Jesus,’ his voice ceased, his hands fell, and the eyelids dropped, there was no struggle, nothing but a long gentle breath, and he died with the smile upon his lips.” Cousin George leaned his head on the side of the window to subdue his emotion, to gather the outward calmness that man likes not to have ruffled before the world; he listened to the strokes of the passing bell ringing out so sharply in the still night air, and every separate stroke was laden with its weight of pain.
You might have taken it for Sunday in Bellville, except that Sundays in ordinary do not look so gloomy; the stores were closed, a drizzling rain came down, and the heavy bell was booming out at solemn intervals; it was tolling for the funeral of Charles Taylor. Morning and night from eight to nine had it so tolled since his death, he had gone to his long home, to his last resting-place, and Bellville mourned for him as for a brother. Life wears different aspects for us and its cares and its joys are unequally allotted, at least they appear so to be. One glances up heavily from careworn burdens, and sees others without care basking in the sunshine, but I often wonder whether those who seem so gay whose path seems to be cast on the broad sunshiny road of pleasure whether they have not a skeleton in their closet; nothing but gayety, nothing but lightness, nothing to all appearances, but freedom from care. Is it really so, perhaps with some, a very few. Is it well for those few? Oh, if we could but see the truth when the burden upon us is heavy and pressing. Fellow sufferers, if we could but read that burden aright, we should see how good it is, and bless the hand that sends it. But we never can; we are but mortal; born with a mortal’s keen susceptibility to care and pain, we preach to others that these things are sent for their good, we say so to ourselves when not actually suffering, but when the fiery trial is upon us then we groan out in our sore anguish that it is greater than we can bear. The village clock struck eleven and the old sexton opened the doors of the church, and the inhabitants of this beautiful village assembled to see the funeral as it came slowly winding along the street to the sound of the solemn bell; they might have attended him to the grave following unobtrusively, but that was known to be the wish of the family that such demonstration should not be made. “Bury me in the plainest manner possible” had been his directions when the end was drawing near. The hearse and carriages are standing at the mansion; fine horses, with splendid trappings, in modern carriages, have come from the various parts of the country near and distant to show their owners’ homage to that good man who had earned their deepest respect through life; slowly the procession reached the church, and the hearse and carriages stopped at it; some of the carriages filed off, and the drivers turned their horses’ heads to face the church, and waited still and quiet while the hearse was emptied. The Reverend Mr. Davis stood at the altar, book in hand, reciting the commencement of the service for the burial of the dead, “I am the resurrection and the life,” with measured steps slowly following went those who bore the coffin; their heads covered with a black pall, the sisters and their cousin George came next, with their old servants following, thus they entered the church, he remained at the altar, but not reading from it, the church was nearly filled by ones and twos; they had come in, and when all was quiet, he read the history of the life of the deceased in a solemn manner, there was not a dry eye in the audience; the sermon having been finished, they repaired to the grave, the pastor taking his place at the head, and read the service as the coffin was lowered, the mourners stood next to him, and the other friends were clustered around, their heads bent, the drizzling rain beat down upon their bare heads, the doctor came up, unable to attend earlier, he came now at the last moment, just as George Taylor had come years ago to the funeral of Janey Brewster. Did the pastor of Bellville, standing there with his pale face, his sonorous voice echoing over the graves, recall those back funerals, when he over whom the service was now being read had stood as chief mourner? No doubt he did. Did George recall it? The pastor glanced at him once, and saw that he had a difficulty in suppressing his emotion. “I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me, write from henceforth blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, even so saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labors.” So profound was the silence, that every word as it fell solemnly from the lips of the minister might be heard in all parts of the churchyard; if ever that verse could apply to frail humanity, with its unceasing struggle after holiness, and its unceasing failure here, it most surely apply to him over whom it was being spoken. Bend forward, as so many of those spectators are doing, and read the inscription on the plate, Charles Taylor, aged 40 years. Only forty years, a period at which some men think they are beginning life, it seemed to be an untimely death, and it would have been, after all his pain and sorrow, but that he had entered upon a better life.
They left him in the vaulted grave, his coffin near his mother’s, who lay beside his father; the spectators began to draw unobtrusively away, silently and solemnly. In the general crowd and bustle, for everybody was on the move, George turned to the pastor and shook hands with him. “It was a peaceful ending.” George was gazing down dreamily as he spoke the last words; the pastor looked at him. “A peaceful ending! yes; it could not be otherwise with him.” “No, no,” murmured George; “Not otherwise with him.” “May God in his mercy send us all as happy a one when our time shall come.” As the words left the pastor’s lips the loud and heavy bell boomed out again, giving notice to the town that the last rites were over, that life had closed forever on Charles Taylor.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.