Anon, a spring sunset came on. The lurid disc of the sun wheeled slowly down to the western horizon. Pile on pile of clouds, heaped up in gorgeous magnificence, varying from red to purple, and from purple to gold, gathered fantastically in the sky—now like a molten ocean with uplifting rocks, and then like toppling steeps whose summits reached the stars. Gradually the day went down behind the everlasting hills, and the brilliant hues insensibly died away through all the variations of the many-tinted rainbow, until only a faint golden mellowness suffused the western sky, slowly fading into a deep azure as it approached the zenith. At length twilight, twin sister to the cold, gray dawn, shrouded the heavens in misty dimness. Universal silence seemed to pervade the whole face of nature. The voice of the feathered songsters was hushed in the grove, and the breeze, which all day long had refreshed the deep woods with its joyous ministrations, lulled into stillness, as if its kind office were now completed. Then the brighter stars came out, one by one, and assumed their sapphire thrones in the vaulted cerulean, and the round, bright front of the full moon floated over the eastern mountains, whose dark umbrage glowed with the silver glories of the thronging night—the night whose morrow had but its dawn for David White, the condemned felon. Ten long, weary months had come and passed away with their pomp and mutation, finding and leaving him within a prison's walls; and now, the lapse of a few short, rapid hours would behold a tenement in ruins, and a soul set free. Another day-break, and he would know the untried and unimaginable realities of a shoreless eternity, from whose everlasting portals men have so often shrunk back appalled. Oh, what a bewildering rush of thoughts crowded upon his mind. He stood by the prison-window, through whose iron bars came trooping the silent moonbeams, lighting up his countenance, ghastly and contracted with anguish, then flashing along the darkness, rested upon the floor in mellow radiance. At the farthermost verge of the western horizon, just where the gray outlines of the mountains stood forth like shadows against the deep blue of the sky, huge masses of clouds piled themselves up into strange and fantastic forms, indistinct and dark, from whose bright centre, ever and anon, leaped the fierce lightning, like the tongues of a thousand adders forked in flame, and boomed the loud thunder as the din of a far-off battle. While he gazed, old memories thronged from the past; the fount of tears sent up its gushing libations, and he buried his face in his hands, and strove to pray. Oh, how sorrow, and suffering, and solitude, and the certainty of a near death bow the strong spirit! It may have become darkened by fierce and unruly passions; grown callous and crime-stained amidst the roll of years, and almost destitute of a single virtuous impulse, yet, for a time, under such circumstances, a softness will gather about the heart; a thousand little harps, untuned before, quiver with a rich gush of melody, and the angel in our nature spring up and assert its influence. But no one, in whom the mind has not been crushed or debilitated by the decay of the body, has stood upon time's furthest brink in perfect consciousness, as David White did at that moment, without thinking with an aching intenseness on the dread hour when life must end; and as he leaned his head against the iron bars of the narrow lattice, the balmy breeze laying its cool hands upon his feverish brow, and the soft moonlight playing upon his wan features like the kiss of a tender bride, his soul was wrought with a stern agony, and his frame with a shudder—for dark thoughts and sad images of death and eternity came thronging—for no Jesus was there to light the breathless darkness of the grave—no Hope stood by to point exultant to a sinless heaven!—for him, futurity was a dark and impenetrable gulf, without a wanderer or a voice.
Suddenly he started. An overpowering, yet unutterable awe crept over him—a fearful but undefined sensation—a presentiment that something terrible was about to happen. He strove to shake it off, but could not—like an icy thrill it ran, slow and curdling, through his veins. A low rustling, as of silken drapery, struck upon his ear. He turned to know the cause, and leaned eagerly forward. A shriek, wild and agonizing, burst from his pallid lips; his hair stood upright, and his arms fell nerveless to his side—his blood ebbed back upon the heart, returned with tenfold violence throughout his system, seemed to thicken, and then stagnate; his pulses bounded, staggered and ceased; cold moisture bathed his wan forehead, and his whole frame appeared stiffening with the death-chill. A few feet distant, by a window the very counterpart of the one near which he stood, loomed forth a shape—a substance, yet it cast no shadow—the moonlight shone through it, resting on the floor like slightly tarnished silver. He looked on speechless and motionless; his whole soul concentrated into an intense and aching gaze. At first, it floated before his fixed and dilating vision, indistinct and mist-like; but, as he gazed, it assumed the outline of a human form—then the features of Mary White, the foster-sister whom he had murdered. The apparition grew still plainer. The ghastly countenance; the fallen lip; the sightless eye, dull and open with a vacant stare; the deep, solemn, mysterious repose which ever accompanies the aspect of death; the deep wound near the heart, from which gushed life's crimson torrent, falling at her feet without a sound—each—all, for one short, passing, fearful, agonizing moment, trembled into terrible distinctness. Then she lifted an arm reeking with blood, and pointing through the window at a new-made gibbet and its dangling rope, smiled a faint and sickly smile, and vanished as a dying spark. The trance passed from his spirit, and nature recommenced her operations like the clanking of a vast machinery. Yet his eye, as if it could not recover from its vision of terror, remained glaring upon the spot where the spectre had been; and it was not until several minutes had elapsed that the sharp agony which had contracted his features died away. He sprung forward with a wild cry, but the echo alone replied. No voice but his own awoke the awful stillness, pulseless it reigned around him. The stars glittered as brightly, the moon shone as gloriously, and, as he held his breath, the faint and confused murmur of the distant water-fall, and the caroling of the night-wind in the gnarled old forest, almost seeming to be a part of the silence, came up through the window to his ear as distinctly and steadily as ever—every thing belied the scene he had just witnessed. Was it a dream? He grasped his arm until it pained him—he was awake—there was no change—all appeared as it had been. He attempted to shake the iron bars of the lattice—they were firm in their sockets. He groped his way to the other side of the room, passed his hands along the walls—nothing but darkness was there. He stood where first he had stood when he beheld the apparition—the unearthly visitant was there no longer. He bent forward, and strained an aching gaze—in vain; nothing underwent a change. Then he felt that he had seen the dead—the murdered. His mind recoiled upon itself, and the very marrow in his bones crept at the thought. He flung himself upon his pallet, and for the hundredth time strove to sleep. Black despair had eaten down into his very heart's core, and remorse, like an old vulture, gnawed at his vitals; yet for a few brief, agonizing moments he slept, but only as the fiends of hell might be supposed to sleep. A dream, a series of change and torture, bewildering and terrible, came, like a blight, over his spirit.
Now he felt the cold hand of death upon his brow, and his whole body seemed to be encompassed in a mass of ice. His blood waxed thick in its courses; his heart staggered, fluttered, gave one agonizing throb, and for a moment ceased to pulsate; cold dews gathered on his brow, and a stinging sensation pervaded his whole system; his eyelids trembled, and the balls rolled, gave out a dying lustre, glazed, grew fixed and sightless in their sockets—then came the last convulsive and impotent contest with the King of Terrors—the groan, the gasping breath, the half-uttered words upon the quivering lip—the death-rattle, the soulless face, and the pulseless silence. He recovered. Above him was a sky of livid flame, upon whose high zenith dread darkness sat enthroned. Around him spread a shoreless ocean of molten fire. No wave agitated its placid bosom—no sound—no wind breathed over its fearful stillness. A lone rock, cold, barren, and dismal, yet like an oasis in a desert, lifted its gray summit from the sluggish surface. Upon this he stood, rigid and motionless, like a marble statue on its pedestal; and, ever and ever, around and above him, rushed to and fro shadowy forms, upon whose countenances was engraven unutterable anguish. Suddenly, over the vast and dreary profound, went the low, deep, muffled tolling of a bell, bursting on the red air like the knell of hope, peace, and mercy, lost forever to another soul. As it ceased, the boundless sea of ebbless and unextinguishable flame, that glowed with a lurid but intolerable light at his feet, began to uplift in one mighty and unbroken mass. Slowly—slowly it rose up—up—up, until the liquid fire was frothing, and the sky and ocean seemed to blend—then flowed back, returned, and closed hissing around him. A groan, deep, intense, and fearful, bubbled up in a gush of blood, and echoed in the distance like fiendish laughter. Higher and higher rose the living flames. They were about to close over him—his head sunk upon his bosom, and a voice—the voice of her whom he had murdered, shrieked in his ear—"The Ocean of Remorse!"
"A change came o'er the spirit of his dream."
He stood upon the narrow verge of an awful precipice. Night, black, rayless night, enshrouded the yawning gulf below, save that, ever and anon, hideous and fleshless forms—skeletons wrought in lurid and undying flame—strode to and fro within the thick panoply of gloom; while, at intervals, howls of despair came up from its midst, like howls from the lips of the damned in hell. With a thrill of horror, he turned hurriedly from the scene, and cast his despairing eyes heavenward. In the centre of a massive cloud, burning with the brilliancy of a summer sunset, appeared a vast city, with domes and palaces of pearl and ruby, and whose gates were gates of burnished gold. As he gazed, they were flung open on silent hinges, and a host, clothed in spotless white, entered their portals, welcomed with swelling anthems and seraphic songs. Then the toppling precipice began to reel and stagger beneath his feet—a fierce bright flame burst from amidst the night below, more brilliant than the sun's intensest ray. It drank up the darkness, and filled the gulf with liquid fire. It flashed through his eye-balls like a glance of lightning. He felt his foothold totter on the eve of its awful rush of destruction, and turned to flee, but started aside with a wild cry. The same voice was in his ear, and it shrieked in exulting tones—"The Murderer's Doom!"
But where was the mother during these fearful and agonizing moments! Had she forgotten the son that once nestled on her bosom? Had she forsaken the child she bore, now that the dark hour of adversity had come? Ah! no. It is not a mother's nature to forget or to forsake! Though crime and infamy enshroud his name; though base heartlessness and vile ingratitude shut-to the portals of his soul; though he fling off the hoarded wealth of her affections as the oak the clinging ivy when the storm comes, yet the mother will love—must love—it is the thirst of her immortal nature. No, no! Widow White had not forgotten, neither had she forsaken her son. Villain as he was, and stained with the blood of her foster-child, her heart warmed toward him—the mother was the mother still! Though absent, her mind was racked with agony—stern agony. For hours had she paced up and down her dim-lit chamber, her hands folded across her breast, and her eyes fixed upon the floor—thought and feeling were busy. To the casual observer her features exhibited scarcely an evidence of internal emotion; but the arched lip, bloodless with pressure, and the swollen veins upon her high forehead betokened how severe was the struggle going on within. There are some persons who can stand by the bedside of a dying relative, and, with an almost unruffled countenance, behold him stiffened in the cold arms of death—who can look upon the corpse for the last time, follow it to the grave, and see it laid beneath the heavy sod with so little apparent concern, that the beholder considers him heartless; but draw aside the curtain which separates the inner from the outer being, and the features of the spirit are seen to be distorted with anguish. To this class of individuals belonged Widow White. Oh, how she felt as she trod to and fro within that dim-lit room! Her son—her only son, in the endearing playfulness of whose infantile smiles she had so often exulted; upon whose boyish accents she had so frequently hung with transport, and for whom she had pictured out such a bright and glorious future, was a condemned felon, and the morrow would open its great eye upon him for the last time. The lapse of another day!—and that son, so cherished, and so fondly loved, would fill a murderer's grave, and she would look upon his face no more. She knew that it was appointed for all to "pass through the dark valley of the shadow of death," but what a horrible, detestable, and ignominious death was his! Could it be true? Was he—her son, in the prime of manhood and enjoyment—the life-blood coursing freely and strongly throughout his system—unshattered by disease—to die—to be a sport for the winds—to hang—ay—ay—to hang!—to be cut down—to be thrust into the coffin, blackened, distorted, and hideous, the rope still around his neck—to be laid in the ground with infamy around his name—to rot—to be a banquet for the worms? Horror of horrors! She would not believe it! Surely it was a dream!
Thus that agony-fraught night lapsed away, and the morning, which, from the birth of creation, has never failed, dawned once more—dawned as it ever dawns, bright, glorious, and magnificent, bearing the impress of a mighty God. That morning witnessed a terrible—a horrible scene. Another human being took his exit from the transitory splendors of this decaying world, and entered upon the untried and unimaginable realities of a futurity, whose secrets none can ever know until the silver chord is loosened, and the golden bowl is broken. Upon what state of existence David White entered when eternity closed its everlasting portals, and the enfranchised spirit went up to the Eternal Judge, it is not for me to say. God is just, and whatever was apportioned, it was good and right. Let it suffice to know, that, be his doom what it may, it is irrevocable—sealed forever.
From that eventful day, Widow White became thinner and paler, and the expression of her countenance was that of a strong heart in ruins, and with its energies prostrated. Three weeks went by, and she, too, was gone. They carried her out from the desolate homestead, and laid her cold remains beneath the grassy sod, where neither the war of the elements, nor of human passions could ever disturb her more. Since then many years have lapsed away into the dim and shadowy past, and now, a sunken grave alone marks the last resting-place of Widow White—the victim of a broken heart, and of her own injudicious education of a son in his infancy and boyhood.