Amidst all that lacerated my heart or tormented my thoughts that eventful day, I felt at least one joyous emotion when, on entering our little drawing-room, I found my uncle seated there.
The Captain had placed before him on the table a large Bible, borrowed from the landlady. He never travelled, to be sure, without his own Bible; but the print of that was small, and the Captain’s eyes began to fail him at night. So this was a Bible with large type, and a candle was placed on either side of it; and the Captain leaned his elbows on the table, and both his hands were tightly clasped upon his forehead,—tightly, as if to shut out the tempter, and force his whole soul upon the page.
He sat the image of iron courage; in every line of that rigid form there was resolution: “I will not listen to my heart; I will read the Book, and learn to suffer as becomes a Christian man.”
There was such a pathos in the stern sufferer’s attitude that it spoke those words as plainly as if his lips had said them. Old soldier, thou hast done a soldier’s part in many a bloody field; but if I could make visible to the world thy brave soldier’s soul, I would paint thee as I saw thee then!—Out on this tyro’s hand!
At the movement I made, the Captain looked up, and the strife he had gone through was written upon his face.
“It has done me good,” said he simply, and he closed the book.
I drew my chair near to him and hung my arm over his shoulder.
“No cheering news, then?” asked I in a whisper.
Roland shook his head, and gently laid his finger on his lips.
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