Alone on a Wide Wide Sea, Vol. 3 (of 3)

by William Clark Russell

‘Your head is cool,’ said she, ‘and your heart’s action regular. Evidently you have overwalked yourself to-day. You had better go to bed and get a good night’s rest. But first take this little glass of brandy and water. There is no better remedy for a nervous headache than brandy, such a liqueur brandy as this.’

I kissed and bade her good night and went to my bedroom. The grey day had been followed by a clear dusk. There was a high, bright moon. It poured a silver haze upon the farther land, and the nearer land it whitened as with sifted snow, giving a silver edge to every leaf and branch, and painting the shapes of the trees and bushes in indigo at their feet. I stood at the open window for a minute or two, believing that the cool of the night would ease the pain in my head; but the air was chilly, it was the month of October, and, closing the window, I undressed.

I extinguished the candle and got into bed leaving the window blind up. The moon shot a slanting beam through the window, and the light flooded the white cross which had belonged to Alice Lee and her Bible that rested as she had left it at the foot of the white cross. The haze of this beam of moonlight was in the room, and I could see every object with a certain distinctness. The eye will naturally seek the brightest object, and my sight rested upon the cross that sparkled in the moonlight as though it had been dipped in phosphorus. The cold, soft pillow, and the restful posture of my head had somewhat eased the pain. My mind grew collected, and whilst my eyes rested upon the cross my memory gave me back the form and face of Alice Lee.

I thought of her as I had first seen her, when her sweet, lovely but wasted face was angelic with the sympathy with which she viewed me. I recalled her as I beheld her when she lay dying, when the light of heaven was in the smile she gave me, when the peace of God was in her eyes as she gazed at her mother ere she turned her face to the ship’s side. I recalled her natural, girlish fear of the great ocean as a grave; I saw her as she lay in her white shroud; I looked at the moonlit cross and thought how that same moon which was illumining the symbol of her faith and the sure rock of her hopes was shining over her ocean grave——

My eyes closed and I slumbered. And in my sleep I dreamt this dream.

I dreamt that I stood at the open window of a room whose furniture was perfectly familiar to me. Without seeming to look I yet saw all things; the pictures, the case of books, the ornaments on the mantelpiece; and everything was familiar to me. Before me stretched a garden sloping some considerable distance down. Beyond this garden were green pastures, at the foot of which ran a river, and on the opposite hillside rows of houses appeared to hang in clusters. The hour was drawing on into the evening and the sun was sinking, and through the long shadows which lay in the valley the river ran in gold.

While I gazed I beheld walking in the garden that sloped from the window at which I stood, two figures; their backs were upon me, they walked hand in hand, but though their steps gathered the ground their figures did not appear to recede. On a sudden they halted, the man turned and looked at me intently; it was my husband! I knew him, I stretched out my arms to him, I cried aloud to him to come and take me to his heart; but whether any sound escaped me in my sleep I do not know. He continued to gaze fixedly at me, then putting his hand upon the shoulder of his companion he pointed towards me. She, too, then turned and looked, and I knew her to be my twin sister Mary. Again I stretched forth my arms—I desperately struggled to approach them, but my feet seemed nailed to the floor. The vision of my husband and my sister, the familiar room in which I stood, the scene of gardens and orchard and river and clustering houses dissolved, and I know that I wept in my sleep and that I passionately prayed for the vision to return that I might behold it all again.

But now came a change which hushed with awe and new emotions the heart—cries and the spirit—yearnings of my slumber. I beheld a strange light. It grew in brightness, and in the midst of it I witnessed the marble cross of Alice Lee, resplendent as though wrought of the brilliant moonlight which had been resting upon it when my eyes closed in sleep. This cross flamed upon the vision of my slumber for a while, and there was nothing more to be seen; then it faded and I beheld the figure of Alice Lee where the cross had been. She was robed in white. With her right arm she carried an infant, and with her left hand she held a little boy. Oh, that vision was like a glorious painting, ineffably bright and beautiful and vivid. The face of Alice Lee was no longer wasted; it was not such a face as would come from the grave to visit the bedside of a slumberer; it was a face fresh from heaven, and with the radiance of heaven upon it, and her whole figure was clothed with celestial light and the glory of heaven shone in the beauty of her countenance.

I shrieked!—for the children she held, the one on her arm, the other by the hand, were mine! Again I stretched forth my hands and my two little ones smiled upon me. Then instantly all was blackness and I awoke.

The room was in darkness. The moon had sailed to the other side of the house, and the shadow of the night lay heavy upon the unblinded window. My heart beat as though I was in a raging fever, and I could not understand the reason of that maddening pulse, nor of the dreadful consternation that was upon me, nor why when I put my hand to my brow I should find it streaming with perspiration, nor why I should have awakened trembling from head to foot; because it is true that often the most vivid, the most terrific dream will not recur to the memory for some time after the dreamer has awakened.