“There's his bed,” he exclaimed; “there's our boy's bed—but where is he himself? gone, gone forever! There's his clothes, our darlin' son's clothes; look at them. Oh God! oh God! my heart will break outright. Oh Connor, our boy, our boy, are you gone from us forever! We must sit down to our breakfast in the mornin', to our dinner, an' to our supper at night, but our noble boy's face we'll never see—his voice we'll never hear.”
“Ah, Fardorougha, it's thrue, it's thrue!” replied the wife; “but remember he's not in the grave, not in the clay of the churchyard; we haven't seen him carried there, and laid down undher the heart—breakin' sound of the dead—bell; we haven't hard the cowld noise of the clay fallin' in upon his coffin. Oh no, no—thanks, everlastin' thanks to God, that has spared our boy's life! How often have you an' I hard people say over the corpses of their children, 'Oh, if he was only alive I didn't care in what part of the world it was, or if I was never to see his face again, only that he was livin'!' An' wouldn't they, Fardorougha dear, give the world's wealth to—have their wishes? Oh they would, they would—an' thanks forever be to the Almighty! our boy is livin' and may yit be happy. Fardorougha, let us not fly into the face of God, who has in His mercy spared our son.”
“I'll sleep in his bed,” replied the husband; “on the very spot he lay on I'll he.”
This was, indeed, trenching, and selfishly trenching upon the last mournful privilege of the mother's heart. Her sleeping here was one of those secret but melancholy enjoyments, which the love of a mother or of a wife will often steal, like a miser's theft, from the very hoard of their own sorrows. In fact, she was not prepared for this, and when he spoke she looked at him for some time in silent amazement.
“Oh, no, Fardorougha dear,the mother, the mother, that her breast was so often his pillow, has the best right, now that he's gone, to lay her head where his lay. Oh, for Heaven's sake, lave that poor pleasure to me, Fardorougha!”
“No, Honor, you can bear up undher grief better than I can. I must sleep where my boy slept.”
“Fardorougha, I could go upon my knees! to you, an' I will, avourneen, if you'll grant me this.”
“I can't, I can't,” he replied, distractedly; “I could sleep nowhere else. I love everything belongin' to him. I can't, Honor, I can't, I can't.”
“Fardorougha, my heart—his mother's heart is fixed upon it, an' was. Oh lave this to me, acushla, lave this to me—it's all I axe!”
“I couldn't, I couldn't—my heart is breakin'—it'll be sweet to me—I'll think I'll be nearer him,” and as he uttered these words the tears flowed copiously down his cheeks.