How long this state of things might have remained is uncertain, but that spring Minister Brown was taken ill. He had preached in that same pulpit thirty years, and had grown old in it. It was a melancholy service which the deacon read after announcing the state of their pastor to the congregation, for it was the first time in many years that Minister Brown had been absent from his people. It seemed all that solemn day as if the angel of death were mournfully brooding over the old meeting-house, and when the closing prayer was made, sobs deep and audible were heard in the congregation.
Another Sabbath came and our minister grew worse. After the solemn service was over, the deacon arose to appoint watchers for the suffering man. It is a solemn and beautiful practice, that of “appointing watchers” for the sick in our Connecticut churches. When the village is collected together in one vast family, it is both an affecting and pleasant sight to witness the young and kind-hearted rise, with blooming cheeks and modest looks, to offer themselves as nurses for the sick. Among the first who arose that Sabbath was Malina Gray, and her eyes were full of tears. The deacon was looking very sad when he cast his eyes over the congregation to mark who would rise. When he saw Malina standing there in her simple dress, and her beautiful face shaded by her last year’s bonnet, a moisture glistened in his eyes also, and he smiled kindly as her name was pronounced.
Malina went home with a full heart. When she thought of the minister ill and suffering, it smote her that she could ever have felt enmity toward him. He was a widower and childless, so all that week she lingered by his bed, prepared his medicines, smoothed the pillows beneath his fevered temples, and many a time, when no one was near, would the warm-hearted but wayward creature kneel down, cover his hand with tears, and beseech him to forget the harsh, rude language which she had used that night at her mother’s.
Our minister was trembling on the verge of another world, and he felt perhaps that Malina also had something to forgive, and at such times he would lay his thin hand on her hair, murmur thanks for all her kindness, would beg her to forget the past, and then he would dwell on the time when she would meet him in Heaven, and all this with a gentle sweetness that made poor Malina’s heart ache the more that she could ever have pained so good a man.
Still our minister grew worse, and the next Sabbath a student of divinity from New Haven, who had just taken orders, stood in his pulpit. It was a sorrowful day that—and as the clear solemn tones of the young divine filled the old meeting-house, their youthfulness and their sweet ringing melody made us feel like strangers in our house of worship. He was a handsome man, slight and pale, with hair sweeping aside from his white forehead like the wing of a raven, and those large sad eyes which take their color from the soul, and are changeable from the feelings that live there—one of those men who interest you almost painfully, you cannot understand why. He was indeed a man to awaken the heart to strange sympathies; but we felt without understanding this on the day when he first preached to us, for our hearts were heavy with thoughts of the dear old minister who lay almost within hearing on his death-bed, and we yearned to see his calm face and gray hairs in the place of this strange young man.
Mr. Mosier—for that was the name of our new minister—did not return to New Haven for many weeks, and all that time he spent by the sick-bed of our pastor. Malina Gray seldom left her post, and Phebe, the meek and gentle Phebe, was often there to comfort and assist. Flowers, the beautiful children of the soil, sometimes spring up brightest and sweetest on a grave; so human affection often takes deepest root beneath troubled shadows. Religion must have some strange and comprehensive power, which fills the soul with affection for all things; for those who love our heavenly Father most, cherish that love as a brave tree, around which a thousand earthly ties are lifted like green and clinging vines toward the blue skies. I have said Malina never left her station by the sick-bed; her cheek grew pale with watching, her bright eye dim, but yet she was always there, subdued to the meekness of a lamb by the dark and solemn shadows of death that fell everywhere around her. And he was her fellow watcher, and the strange fascination of his voice, the spell of those large eyes, tranquil, almost sad, and forever changing, settled upon the young girl’s heart, and it was the voice of a pure and high-souled Christian in prayer which first taught the gay and careless girl how well she could love. And she did love, happily, blindly; every impulse of her heart was full of gushing tenderness, and that soft repose which thrills the soul it sleeps in, blended while it made her happy. She was changed even in countenance; the glad healthy smile which had been the playmate of her lips from infancy, now half fled to her eyes. The color was not so deep upon her cheek, but it came and went like shadows on a flower, and her whole face looked calm and yet brighter, as if sunshine were striking up from the heart of a rose instead of falling upon its leaves. Her voice became more low and calm, but a richer tone was given to it, and the tread of her little feet became more noiseless as she glided around that sick chamber. Alas, alas, poor Malina Gray, the fountains of her young heart were troubled, never to rest again; the destiny of her womanhood was upon her.
One Sabbath morning the congregation came to our old meeting-house in a body, two and two; the young, the middle aged, and the old filing solemnly from the parsonage door along the road, and over the sward which sloped greenly down from our place of worship. Our minister came also, but he lay upon a bier, a velvet pall swept over him, and four pale men carried him through the door which we had seen him enter so often. They placed him in the broad aisle which his feet had trod for twenty years, and eyes that had scarcely known moisture for that duration of time were wet as they fell upon the coffin. Pale young faces looked down upon him from the galleries, old men veiled their foreheads with hands that had so often grasped his, and women sobbed aloud in the fullness of their grief. Prayer and solemn music, with the deep tones of the young student, swept over that bier, and swelled through the old building amid all these manifestations of sorrow. When the bier was lifted again, with slow and solemn footsteps the congregation followed their pastor for the last time, and to his grave.
There was a grave in our burial ground sunken almost level with the earth, covered with tall grass and marked by old and moss covered stones. It was the grave of our minister’s wife; she had died in her youth, he never married again, and so they brought the old man, true even to her ashes, and laid him by her side. The shadow of his grave fell upon hers, as if it were still his duty to cherish, and the dew that fell upon the rich grass which had sprung up from her ashes, slept within that shadow longer each morning than in any other place.
When Malina Gray left the funeral procession she went to the parsonage house. The ashes lay cold upon its hearth-stone, and a chill, desolate silence reigned through the building, for the old woman who had been housekeeper had not yet returned, and no living thing was there save a pet robin that stood mute upon his perch, and a large gray cat which walked slowly from room to room as if wondering at the silence that reigned there. A chill crept over Malina as the cat came with a soft purr and rubbed his coat against her ankle. She looked at the robin, there was no food to his cage, and his dejected manner probably arose from hunger. The back door opened upon an orchard, and a line of cherry-trees, red with fruit, ranged along the stone wall. The minister had always kept his orchard and the grass around the back door steps neat and green, but this year a growth of plantain leaves had started up amid the grass, and docks grew rife around the well curb, a few paces from the stepping stones. During his illness Malina had scarcely noticed these things, but now that the minister was dead and she had no hopes nor fears regarding him, they struck upon her heart with painful force. She went to the nearest tree, gathered some ripe cherries for the bird, and carried them into the house. The poor creature was half famished, and coming down from his perch, pecked at the ruby fruit with an eagerness that made the young girl smile through her tears.
“Poor fellow, he wants drink,” she murmured softly, and laying the cherries that filled her hand on a table, she took a glass and went out to get some water. How much more effective than a thousand lectures were the silence and the familiar objects that surrounded Malina. It seemed as if she had learned to think and feel for the first time in that desolated place. As she grasped the well-pole with her small hand and saw the deep round bucket rise up from the water, with the bright drops dashing over the moss-covered brim, she began to weep afresh, and her hands trembled so that she could hardly balance it on the curb. How many times had she seen the minister come from that door, rest that same bucket on the well-curb, and slant it down to meet her lips, when she was a little girl and had come with her mates from the close school-room, at “play-time,” to drink at the minister’s well. How often had he filled her apron with cherries, and allowed her to pick up the golden apples from that orchard; now she could almost see his new grave through the trees—and she had dared to speak unkindly, rudely to him. Malina was athirst and she remembered the grateful coolness of the water, but with all these memories swarming to her heart she could not touch her lips to that moss-rimmed bucket; the waters dripping over it seemed too pure for one who could speak as she had spoken to the dead. That which Mrs. Gray had struggled and waited for a whole year was accomplished in a few moments by less stern influences than human upbraiding. Never was a girl more penitent than Malina amid the silence of that funereal dwelling. The heart which can reproach itself needs no other accuser, and that which cannot, will remain hardened to the reproaches, however just, which come from another.