Mrs. Gray glanced at him with something of wonder in her face, and extending out her hand, took up the knitting work as if to end the conference.
“And can you still refuse!” exclaimed the old man.
“It would not be proper,” replied Mrs. Gray, quietly unscrewing the top of her silver knitting case, “besides, Phebe is not well enough to ride so far even if she desired it, and the fever may be contagious.”
“If I could talk with the young lady I am sure she would desire it,” said the old man, almost humbly, for his heart grew heavy at the thought of returning to the death bed of his son with his errand unaccomplished. “Leave it to her good feelings, madam, and if they plead against me I will depart and trouble you no more.”
Neither the pleading voice, nor the agony of over-wrought feelings with which the unhappy father spoke, reached the heart of Mrs. Gray. While the old man stood before her, trembling beneath the burden of his grief, she placed her needle in its sheath, twisted the worsted over her finger, and went through the intricacies of a seam stitch before even her eyes were lifted toward him.
“You must recollect, Mr. Mosier,” she said, “Phebe is not at present engaged to your son, and even if she were, I do not think it would be exactly correct for her to visit him. I am sorry for the young gentleman, very; I will see that our new minister mentions his case in prayer next Sabbath; we all feel for him—but he would not be advised. Indeed—”
Here Mrs. Gray dropped a stitch, and paused while it was looped up again. When she raised her eyes, the face of her auditor was stern, and as calm as her own. The tears had dropped from his cheek, his hands were both grasping the head of his cane, and if that pharisaical woman could have shrunk from any thing, the solemn and reproving eyes which dwelt on her face would have kindled the most generous blood of her heart into blushes of shame. But it is hard to wring the die of shame from a self-righteous heart. Mrs. Gray believed herself to be acting in a most Christian-like spirit, in still retaining the heartless civility of her manner toward the poor old man whom her own cruelty had bereaved. Her heart was entombed in the self-conceit of its own sanctity, like dust in the marble of a sarcophagus.
“Woman,” said the old man, and this time his voice was firm, and thrillingly solemn; “you have no heart. You are a mother, and should know how much worse than death it is to see the child whom you have loved and cherished, and woven in your very heart-strings, perishing before your eyes. Oh, how proud we were of that boy! how his poor mother loved him! what a day it was when she and I walked up the broad aisle of that old meeting-house yonder, and saw him standing in the pulpit—a minister of the gospel. We had prayed for that sight—toiled and slaved for it—and were so happy—so very happy. He is on his death bed now. Woman, you have sent him there—you, who were a mother, thought nothing of smiting a sister woman through the heart—you, a professor of religion, can do murder more subtle and cruel than that which cleaves a man through the brain, and look calm and speak softly, nay, smilingly refuse the last dying request of your victim. Woman, I will not curse you—that right rests with the high God of Heaven, who looketh down upon the murder you have done, not as man looketh, not as the law looketh—before him, shall you be arraigned, and that cold heart shall be made to shudder at the depth of its own crime—he will be thine accuser—he, thy victim, who was so gentle, so sweet tempered, that thoughts of revenge never entered his heart. In a few short hours he will stand in the broad light of Heaven, sent there untimely; and even as Abel bear witness against his brother, he shall bear witness against thee! The Almighty may not place his mark upon thy brow—the law may not brand thee—but one who can wring the life from a human being by silent and moral cruelty, is not less a murderer than the man who smites his brother to the heart with a poniard!”
Mrs. Gray was at length moved—for the solemn and stern energy of that pale old man might have startled the dead from their graves—the knitting dropped from her hands, her eyes darkled with terror, and her face turned white as a corpse beneath the snowy lace and the black and false hair that shaded it. She would have spoken, but the pallid lips trembled without uttering a sound, while the hands which rested in her lap began to shiver, as she strove to lift them and motion him away.
The old man left her where she sat, and went into the hall; but his feelings had been too cruelly outraged, and there his strength gave way; he sunk helplessly to a settee, and covering his face with his hands, wept like a child.