"Yes, yes," muttered father, in the room beyond, spitting on his hands, as if he were going to take hold of the truth by the handle,—"it's best to clean up a thing with the first spot, and not wait for it to get all rusty with crime."
"And he!" said Dan,—"and he,—that man,—Gabriel!"
"Between the saddle and the ground
If mercy's asked, mercy's found,"
said I.
"Are you there yet, Georgie?" he cried, turning to me. "Here! I'll go myself!" But he only stumbled and fell on the bed again.
"In all the terror and the tempest of these long hours,—for there's been a fearful storm, though you haven't felt it," said mother,—"in all that, Mr. Gabriel can't have slept. But at first it must have been that great dread appalled him, and he may have been beset with sorrow. He'd brought her to this. But at last, for he's no coward, he has looked death in the face and not flinched; and the danger, and the grandeur there is in despair, have lifted his spirit to great heights,—heights found now in an hour, but which in a whole life long he never would have gained,—heights from which he has seen the light of God's face and been transfigured in it,—heights where the soul dilates to a stature it can never lose. Oh, Dan, there's a moment, a moment when the dross strikes off, and the impurities, and the grain sets, and there comes out the great white diamond. For by grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God,—of Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning. Oh, I will believe that Mr. Gabriel hadn't any need to grope as we do, but that suddenly he saw the Heavenly Arm and clung to it, and the grasp closed round him, and death and hell can have no power over him now. Dan, poor boy, is it better to lie in the earth with the ore than to be forged in the furnace and beaten to a blade fit for the hands of archangels?"
And mother stopped, trembling like a leaf.
I'd been wiping and screwing the glass, and I'd waited a breath, for mother always talked so like a preacher; but when she'd finished, after a second or two Dan looked up, and said, as if he'd just come in—
"Aunt Rhody! how come you out of bed?"
And then mother, she got upon the bed, and she took Dan's head on her breast and fell to stroking his brows, laying her cool palms on his temples and on his eyelids, as once I'd have given my ears to do,—and I slipped out of the room.