It was reached at last. No violent steep, but a gentle and gracious slope led to the cold waters that had no bitterness for him. Shining already in the glory of the celestial city, his eyes rested upon the dear form that had stood by his side through all these years, and with waning strength he cried, "Stay! Keep as you are! You have been ever an angel to me: I will draw you." And, summoning his forces, he sketched his last portrait of the fond and faithful wife. Then, comforting her with the shortness of their separation, assuring her that he should always be about her to take care of her, he set his face steadfastly towards the Beautiful Gate. So joyful was his passage, so triumphant his march, that the very sight was to them that could behold it as if heaven itself were come down to meet him. Even the sorrowing wife could but listen enraptured to the sweet songs he chanted to his Maker's praise; but, "They are not mine, my beloved!" he tenderly cried; "No! they are not mine!" The strain he heard was of a higher mood; and continually sounding as he went, with melodious noise, in notes on high, he entered in through the gates into the City.
THE FIRST VISIT TO WASHINGTON.
One chill morning in the autumn of 1826, in the town of Keene, New Hampshire, lights might have been seen at an unusually early hour in the windows of a yellow one-story-and-a-half house, that stood—and still stands, perhaps—on the corner of the main street and the Swanzey road.
There was living in that house a blind widow, the mother of a large family of children, now mostly scattered; and the occasion of the unseasonable lights was the departure from home of a son yet left to her, upon a long and uncertain adventure.
He was a young man, eighteen years old, just out of college. Graduating at Dartmouth, he had brought away from that institution something better than book-learning,—a deep religious experience, which was to be his support through trials now quickly to come, and through a subsequent prosperity more dangerous to the soul than trials. He had been bred a farmer's boy. He was poor, and had his living to get. And he was now going out into the world, he scarcely knew whither, to see what prizes were to be won. In person he was tall, slender, slightly bent; shy and diffident in his manners; in his appearance a little green and awkward. He had an impediment in his speech also. His name—it is an odd one, but you may perhaps have heard it—was Salmon.
He had been up long before day, making preparations for the journey. His mother was up also, busily assisting him, though blind,—her intelligent hands placing together the linen that was to remind him affectingly of her, when unpacked in a distant city.
A singular hush was upon the little household, though all were so active. The sisters moved about noiselessly by candle-light, their pale cheeks and constrained lips betraying the repressed emotion. The early breakfast was eaten in silence,—anxious eyes looking up now and then at the clock. It was only when the hour for the starting of the stage struck that all seemed suddenly to remember that there were a thousand things to be said; and so the last moments were crowded with last words.
"Your blessing, mother!" said Salmon, (for we shall call the youth by the youth's name,) bending before her with his heart chokingly full.