It was now the hour of twilight, and not a sound was heard save the low murmuring of the wind as it swept through the dark recesses, and swayed the tangled branches of the mighty forest-trees. In one of the two small rooms into which the cottage was divided, an aged Indian and his squaw were seated beside a rude couch, where lay the form of a dying woman. Her delicate complexion and light hair betrayed her English origin, and she was still young, and had once been beautiful, though her face bore the traces of a wo more heavy than the weight of years. Yet peace was there, and the smile of calm resignation which rested upon her features, told that not in vain had been the sorrow which had bowed her to the grave. At the foot of the couch stood a missionary—one of those holy men whose lives of toil and suffering were passed in the vain endeavor to counteract the effects of the vices introduced among the Indians by their foreign oppressors.
The chieftain lifted his head from his breast and said, in a low tone, “She is passing away. The fair flower we would have cherished upon our hearts is withered.”
At these words the dying woman opened her eyes, and a smile broke over her pale face as she said, “Mourn not for me, kind father; and thou, tender mother, weep no more. Ye would not keep a bird from its native sky, that its song might cheer you. Even like a bird my spirit would spread its wings that it may fly away and be at rest.”
The Indian mother raised her eyes wildly and wrung her hands as she gazed on her adopted child. Then swaying her body to and fro, she murmured in the half singing half wailing tones of an Indian lament, “Will not our hut be very desolate, my bird, when thy song is hushed; and who will bring us light like the light of thy starry eyes? Shall we not miss thy voice at eventide when we kneel to the God thou hast taught us to worship? Leave us not—leave us not, for our life goes with thee to the grave!”
The missionary raised his hands to heaven, and a lofty faith spoke in his voice, as he said, “Mourn ye not, nor weep. The exile departeth for her native land, the wanderer for her father’s house. A light is fading from your path, but another star shall soon be added to the Redeemer’s crown. The flower ye would have cherished hath drooped amid these alien skies, but it shall bloom in fresher beauty in the Paradise above.”
As he finished speaking, the dying lady placed in his hands a manuscript, bidding him read it when she was dead; and then, with one farewell look of love on the kind faces that surrounded her, she closed her eyes wearily, and crossing her small white hands upon her breast, she composed herself as if to sleep. There was a long silence, broken only by the low wailing of the Indian woman, as she murmured in an under tone, “The way is long, the way is dark; oh, bird of the bright eye, thou soarest out of sight! who shall tell us the path to the spirit-land when thy singing voice is hushed? Wo for us! wo, wo—for the way is dark!” Gradually these low moans seemed to reach the ear that was fast closing to earthly sounds. The lips of the dying moved, as if in a vain effort to speak, and at length, in faint tones, she whispered, “They shall be gathered out of every kindred and tribe and nation, and there shall be one fold and one Shepherd. I know—I know that my Redeemer liveth.” A brilliant smile lighted her whole face with an expression of triumph, as she uttered these words of hope, and even in speaking them, the spirit fled.
That evening the missionary opened the manuscript. It read as follows:
“You have been kind to me, and have respected the sacred silence of the sorrow which has worn out my life. There are moments when every heart yearns for sympathy, and the long closed fountains of the soul flow again. Such a mood is on me now, and therefore I open to you this long-sealed heart.
“Of my childhood I will say little, save that it passed like a fairy revel. Heiress of unbounded wealth, and last of a long-descended and honorable family, I was loved with a lavish and doating fondness, until a sudden and terrible disease, that cut down my parents in the pride and glory of their days, left me an orphan. From that grief, which, for a time, was so violent as to threaten the destruction of life and reason, I never fully recovered. Even when change of scene, the progress of time, and the natural elasticity of youth had so far changed me, that I appeared to have forgotten my sorrow, there lay ever upon my heart the shadow of the tomb. After a time I was sent to reside with my aunt, at the north of England. She was waiting in the castle gate to receive me when I arrived there, and beside her rode her only son—my Cousin Gerald.
“How slight a thing may seal the whole future of our lives. We greet with a careless word and a momentary glance those whose fate is to color our own forever, and then pass on unthinking that henceforth our destiny is fixed. And yet the first time I saw him his image was stamped on my heart. Sorrow, change, wrong, despair have passed over it—but that image is there still. As I write, the curtain of the past seems drawn back, and again I greet thee, Gerald Bellamont. Again I meet the gaze of those flashing eyes—I hear the low, rich music of thy voice, and I feel the floods of deep, unquenchable love, rising in my soul for thee—thou loved so vainly.