After a moment of pause, it came.
"My poor patient is very ill; his life will burn out, if the fever is not stayed;" and as the frenzied laugh reached us, Dr. Percival forgot my presence; he passed his hand slowly across his brow, as if to retouch memory, and then taking down a volume, he began to read. I waited long. At last he closed the book suddenly, said to himself, "I'll try it," and in half a moment my father's white hairs were separated from me by the impassable barrier of the sick-room.
I waited; he did not come. The chairs were not the only articles that had lost the commodity of order in my absence. I went to the table upon which were kept the papers, etc., that lingered there a little while, and then were thought no longer of. Idly I turned them over. What a chaos on a small scale! all the elements of literature were represented. I listened for coming footsteps; none came. "I may as well arrange this table," I thought, "as wait for the morrow;" and I made a beginning by sweeping the chaos at once upon the carpet. Then slowly I began picking them up, one by one, and appointing them stations. My task was nearly done, when, in turning over some magazines, I came upon a pile of papers that had been laid between the leaves of one, and ere I was aware of their presence, they slid down and scattered. I remember having felt a little surprise that my father should have left them there, but I hastened to gather them together. The last one of the number, I noticed, was torn; it had a foreign look. "Father has some new correspondent," I thought, as I looked at the number of mail-marks upon it. "He doesn't think much of it, though, or it would have received better treatment;" and I took a second look at it. A something in the feel of the paper seemed familiar. "It is good for nothing," I said aloud, and I tossed it toward the grate, put the pile of papers where I had found them, surveyed my work with satisfaction, and stood thinking whether or not I should wait to see my father again—it was more than an hour since he went up—to say good-night to me. "I will wait a half-hour; if he doesn't come then, I'll go," I said to the housekeeper, who came to see that all was right for the night, and to remind me that Redleaf had not proved very advantageous to my complexion, and to recommend early hours as a restorative.
In accordance with my promise, I drew a chair forward, placed my feet upon the fender, and began to study the dying embers that were slowly falling through the grate-bars. One, larger than usual, burned its way down. It lighted up, for an instant, the bit of paper, that had not fallen into the coals. Strange fancy it was that led me to imagine that I saw a capital A, followed immediately by that unknown quantity represented by x. I made an effort to gain it, scorched my face, and burned my fingers; for I touched the grate, in rescuing that which I had cast into the place of burning.
"This bit of paper, found in New York, had once been integral with that I had found within the church-yard tower in Redleaf," some inner voice assured me. "Yes, it is a part of it," I said, for I distinctly remembered the fragment whose possession I had so rejoiced over. Some one had written a letter to Miss Axtell; the envelope was torn,—one part there, another here. The letter itself I had found in the gloom of the passage-way; for it Miss Axtell had gone out to search, ill, and in the night; what must its contents have been, to have been worthy of such effort?—and for the time I quite forgot to connect this man, ill in my father's house, with the Herbert whose far-out-at-sea voice I had heard winding up at me through the very death-darkness of the tower. Suddenly the consciousness scintillated in my soul, and wonderful it was; but the picture of my dream came in with it, and I said again, "I am ready for the work which is given me to do," and I waited for its coming till I grew very weary, holding this fragment of envelope fast, as a ship clings to its anchor in mild seas. I ventured to knock at the entrance of my own room. All was silent within. I tried the second time. There came no answer. I dared not venture on the conquering third.
* * * * *
AT SYRACUSE.
All day my mule with patient tread
Had moved along the plain,
Now o'er the lava's ashen bed,
Now through the sprouting grain,
Across the torrent's rocky lair,
Beneath the aloe-hedge,
Where yellow broom makes sweet the air,
And waves the purple sedge.
Lone were the hills, save where supine
The dozing goatherd lay,
Or, at a rude and broken shrine,
The peasant knelt to pray;
Or where athwart the distant blue
Thin saffron clouds ascend,
As Carbonari, hid from view,
Their smouldering embers tend.
Luxuriant vale or sterile reach,
A mountain temple-crowned
Or inland curve of glistening beach,
The changeful scene surround;
While scarlet poppies burning near,
And citrons' emerald gleam,
Make barren intervals appear
Dim lapses of a dream.