It was May again; a soft, sunny day, with spring showers falling, or gathering in glistening clouds in the blue sky. The bells chimed for morning service, as the people came up to church from the old-fashioned streets. They greeted one another as they met in the churchyard, whispering that it had been a very bad week for poor Mr. Chantrey. Every one knew how uncontrollable his wife had been for some time past, except a few strangers, who still drove in from a distance. The congregation, some curiously, some wistfully, gazed earnestly at him, as with a worn and weary face, and with bowed-down head already streaked with gray, he took his place in the reading-desk. Ann Holland wiped away her tears stealthily, lest he should see she was weeping, and guess the reason. In the rectory pew the young, fair-haired boy sat alone, as he had often done of late; for his mother was to unfit to appear in church.
Mr. Chantrey read the service in a clear, steady voice, but with a tone of trouble in it which only a very dull ear could have missed. When he ascended his pulpit, and looked down with sad and sunken eyes upon his people, every face was lifted up to him attentively, as he gave out the text, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Mrs. Bolton moved uneasily in her pew, for she knew he was going to preach a disagreeable sermon. It was not as eloquent as many of his old ones; but it had a hundredfold more power. His hearers had often been pleased and touched before; now they were stirred, and made uncomfortable. Their responsibilities, as each one the keeper of his brother's soul, were solemnly laid before them. The listless, contented indifference to the sins and sorrows of their fellow-men was rudely shaken. Their satisfaction in their own safety was attacked. As clearly as words could put it, they were told that not one of them could go to heaven alone; that there was no solitary path of salvation for any foot to tread. As long as any fell because of temptation, they were bound, as far as in them lay, to remove every kind of temptation. If each one was not careful to be his brother's keeper, then the voice of their brother's blood would cry unto God against them. There was scarcely a person present who could listen to their rector's sermon with feelings of self-satisfaction.
He left his pulpit at the close of it, troubled and exhausted. His little son followed him into the vestry to wait until the congregation, that loved to linger a little about the porch, should have dispersed. But hardly had he entered, than, looking out, as it was his wont to do, upon the grave of his other child, he saw a figure stretched across it, asleep. Could it possibly be his wife? Large drops of rain were beginning to fall upon her upturned face, but they did not rouse her from her heavy slumber; nor did the noise of many feet passing by along the churchyard path. It was a moment of unutterable shame and agony to him. His people saw her; they had heard of his trouble before, but now they saw it; and they were lingering to look at her. He must go out in the midst of them all, and they must see him take his miserable wife home.
Those who were there that day will never forget the sight. His people made way for him, as he passed among them, still in the gown he had worn while preaching, with a rigid and wan face, and eyes that seemed blind to every object except the unhappy woman he could not save. His little boy was pressing close behind him, but he bade him go back into the church, and wait until he came for him. Then he knelt down beside his wife in the falling rain, and lifted her gently, calling her by her name, "Sophy! Sophy!" But her heavy head fell back again upon the grave, and he was not strong enough to raise her from it. He burst into tears, a passion of tears; such as men only weep in hours of extreme anguish of mind. Slowly his people melted away, helpless to do anything for him; except two or three of his most familiar friends, who stayed to assist him in taking the wretched wife back to her home.
Ann Holland lingered unseen in the porch until all were out of sight. The child she loved so fondly was standing with the great door ajar, holding it with his small hand, and peeping out now and then. She called to him when all were gone, and he came out of the church gladly, yet with an air of concern on his round, rosy face.
"My mother is ill, very ill," he said, putting his hand into hers. "I saw her lying on baby's grave. Couldn't anything be done for her to make her well? Isn't there any doctor clever enough to cure her?"
"I don't know, dear," answered Ann Holland.
"My father never lets me go to see her when she's worst," he went on, "only Sarah goes into her room, and him. She talks and laughs often, and yet my father says she is ill. When I am a man I shall be a doctor, and learn how to make her well. But it will be a long time before I am clever enough for that, I'm afraid. My father says she's too ill for anybody to come to see us; isn't it a pity?"
"Yes, my dear," she answered.
"She can never hear me say my hymns now," he said; "and when she's not so ill that my father won't let me see her, she sits crying, crying ever so; and if I want to play with her, or read to her, she can't bear it, she says. I should think there ought to be somebody to cure her, if we could only find out. My father scarcely ever laughs now, because she's so ill; and when he plays with me he only looks sad, and he speaks in a quiet voice as if it would make her worse. Do try, Miss Holland, and ask everybody that comes to your house if they don't know of some very, very clever doctor for my mother."
"I will try," she said. "I'll do all I can. But you may run home now, Master Charlie, See! There's your father coming back for you."
"I know I sha'n't see my mother again to-day," he answered; "good-by, and remember, please."
She watched him running across the little meadow to his father; and then she turned away, and walked slowly through the street homeward. Little knots of the towns-people lingered still about the doorways, discussing their rector's troubles. Though most of them greeted her, anxious to hear her opinion as one who was considered on friendly terms with the rector's family, she evaded their questionings, and passed on to the solitude of her own dwelling. It had been solitary now for some days, for her brother had disappeared early in the week; having stripped the house of money, and set off on one of his vagrant tramps, of which she knew nothing except that he always returned penniless, and generally with the good clothes she provided for him exchanged for worthless rags. How many years it was that her life had been embittered by his drunkenness she could hardly reckon, so many had they been. These strange absences of his had at first been a severe trial to her; but of late years they had been a holiday time of rest, except for the continual anxiety she felt on his behalf. Her quaint and quiet kitchen, as she unlocked the door and entered it, seemed a haven of refuge, where she could indulge in the tears she had kept under control till now. The love she felt for Mr. Chantrey was so deep and true, that any sorrow of his must have grieved her. But she knew so well what this sorrow was! She knew through what long years it might last; and how hopeless it might grow before the end came. Looking back upon her own blighted life, she could foresee for him only a weary, miserable, ever-deepening wretchedness. The Sunday afternoon passed by slowly, and the evening came, The soft sunshine and spring showers of the morning were gone; and a sullen sweep of rain, driven by the east wind, was beating through the streets. A neighbor looked in to say she had seen the curate from the next parish pass through the town toward the church; and she thought Mr. Chantrey would very likely not be there. But Ann Holland had already decided not to go. At any moment she might hear her brother's shambling step draw near the door, and his fingers fumbling at the latch. She could not bear the neighbors to see him when he came off one of his vagabond tramps, dirty and ragged as he usually was. She must stay at home again for him; again, as she had done hundreds of times, mourning pitifully over him, and ready to receive him patiently, impenitent as he was. She went up stairs to make his bed quite ready for him; and to put out of his way everything that could by any chance hurt him, if he should stumble and fall in his drunken weakness. When she returned to the kitchen, she lighted a candle, and opened the old family Bible, with its large type, which seemed to her a more sacred book than the little one she used daily. But she could not read; the words passed vaguely and without meaning beneath her eyes. Her mind was full of the thought of her unhappy brother, and Mr. Chantrey's miserable wife.
It was past her usual hour of going to bed before she made up the kitchen fire to be in readiness, lest her brother should knock her up at any hour during the night. At the last moment she opened the street-door, and stood listening for a little while, as she always did when he was not at home. The rain was still sweeping through the street, which was as silent as if the town had been deserted. The gas-lights in the lamps flickered with the wind, and lit up the pools and channels of water running down the pavements.
But just as she turned to go in, her quick ear caught the sound of distant footsteps, growing louder as they came in her direction. It was the tramp of several feet, marching slowly like those of persons bearing a heavy burden. She waited to see who and what it could be so late this Sunday night; and soon, under the flickering lamps, she caught sight of several men, carrying among them a hurdle, with a shapeless heap upon it. A sudden, vague panic seized her, and she hastily retreated inside her house, shutting and barring the door. She said to herself she did not wish to see what they were carrying past. But were they going past? She heard them still, tramping slowly on toward her house; would they pass by with their burden? She put down the light, for her hand trembled too much to hold it; and she stood listening, her ears quickened for every sound, and her white face turned toward the closed and fastened door.
A knock came upon it, which almost caused her to shriek aloud. Yet it was a quiet rap, and a neighbor's voice answered as she asked tremulously who was there. She hastened to open the door, so welcome was the sound of the well-known voice; but there, opposite to her, in the driving rain, rested the hurdle, with the confused mass lying huddled together upon it. The men who bore it were silent, standing with their faces turned toward her; all of them strangers, except the one neighbor, who was on her threshold.
"They found him lying out in the fields near the Woodhouse farm," said her neighbor, in a loud whisper; "he'd strayed there, we reckon."
"Is he dead?" she asked, mechanically.
"Not dead, bless your heart! no!" was the answer; "we'll carry him in. There now! Don't take on. There's a special providence over folks like him; they never come to much harm, you know. Show us where to lay him."
Ann Holland made way for the men to pass her, as they carried their burden into the quiet, pleasant kitchen. She followed with the light, and looked down upon him; her brother, who had played with her, and learned the same lessons, when they were innocent little children together. His gray hair was matted, and his bloated face smeared with dust and damp. He was barefooted and bareheaded. But as she gazed down upon him, and listened to his heavy struggle for breath, she cried in a tone of terror. "He is dying."
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