CHAPTER XVIII.

THE DEATH CHAMBER.

“Death is the crown of life: Were death denied, poor man would live in vain. Death wounds to cure; we fall: we rise; we reign; Spring from our fetters; fasten to the skies; When blooming Eden freshens on our sight This king of terrors is the prince of peace.” YOUNG.

Autumn had deadened into winter. The brilliant foliage of the autumn woods had been hurtled off and whirled away in the winter wind. The trees were bare, their branches like black ink tracings against a background of white. The river was frozen over, the creek was frozen over, the bay near the shore was crusted with ice. The ground was covered with snow—the sky was misty-white with clouds. In very pale colors was the winter landscape drawn—in very pale colors, like the white, wan face, and the blue-grey hair of a very old man. The pale cloud-mottled grey sky above; the pale green frozen bay and river, and the snowy ground with its black ink tracery of bare trees and forests, and its dark red square old Hall on the promontory. The white snow-clouds thickened in the air as the night fell on the 18th of December. The wind arose, and a driving snow-storm came on. And through the gathering darkness on the heath shone one beacon—a light in an upper chamber window of the hall. And towards it, through the driving storm, toiled one traveller,—a fat old gentleman on a fat old horse. It was Dr. Otterback on his way to the sick bed of Mr. Withers. The bishop had been on a tour of confirmation through his diocese, and was at that time sojourning over a Sabbath at Churchill’s Point. In a quarter of an hour more he was at the Hall, he was in the sick room. This was the scene. It was a large room, carpeted with a thick carpet that gave no sound to the footfall. The windows were curtained with dark heavy curtains, lined, that let no noise through them from without. A dim lamp sat on the hearth, and cast up high monstrous shadows to the ceiling, that loomed black through the dimmer darkness like shadows through the night, and swayed to and fro, and up and down, in the flare of the lamp. Without was softly heard the smothered sough of the wind and snow, like the sob of lost spirits wailing to enter. At the furthest end of the room from the windows, stood a tall, square, canopied bedstead, with the heavy curtains looped back to the head-posts. Upon it lies a dying man, and around him are gathered his family. Draw near, though it is a sight of anguish to see the death of a life that has been much error, and _all_ bitterness. Draw near. His sallow face in its wreath of uncut black hair and whiskers, is drawn in strong relief against the pile of snow-white pillows that support his head. His sallow hands are laid out at length upon the dark coverlid. His eyes, small and black in the death intensity, now burn in the countenance of the bishop, who stands at the foot of the bed, repeating at intervals, in answer to that anguished gaze, such texts of Scripture as promise redemption by faith. On his right hand, within the shadow of the curtain, sits Sophie, very pale and still, her hands clasped with awe. On his left hand stands Raymond, leaning his elbow on the head-board and bowing his face upon his open hand, while the heave and fall of his chest silently betray the son’s sorrow for the father. By the side of Raymond, and with her fingers clasped in his hand, which he presses from time to time as a surge of emotion agitates him, stands Hagar; but her crimson cheek and glittering eye display more excitement than awe, in the death scene she witnesses.

“You love him, Hagar!” at last very low whispered the dying man. Hagar’s cheek paled, while her fingers quivered slightly in the hand of Raymond. “Love him—_gently_, Hagar,” then he said, and turned his eyes on Sophie, while his sallow hand crept by the fingers towards her. She saw and raised the hand, rubbed it, pressed it between her own, but it grew colder in her clasp.

“Good-bye, my guardian angel,” he said very softly, and turned his troubled eye again upon the bishop. Sophie saw that troubled glance, and silently prayed that the perturbed spirit might pass in peace. At last at a motion from the bishop all sank upon their knees. But Sophie, while she knelt, could not withdraw her gaze from the eyes that still hopeless sought comfort in _her_ eyes. The prayers for the dying were commenced, and as they progressed Sophie loved to see the anguish of expression soften away from his face—his brow grew calm, his eye steady, and she felt that at last his soul had found peace in believing. It was in a smile his eyes faded away from hers—in a smile that his spirit passed away, as sometimes after a stormy day the sun glances out beneath a bank of clouds, and smiling a good night, sinks. When they arose from their knees, the clay was vacant. The bishop closed the empty eyes, and then by a motion marshalled the family all from the room. Raymond at once sought his own chamber. The bishop followed Sophie into the parlor. Hagar went out into the dining-room to assist Mrs. Buncombe, who was now at the Hall, taking charge of its housekeeping just at this crisis. The tea-table was being set in great style under her direction—this was in honor of the bishop’s presence in the house. Hagar at once lent her a cheerful assistance. She began powdering some delicate tarts with loaf sugar. Thus life and death, luxury and decay, the table and the coffin, the most awful event of a lifetime, the most trivial occurrences of the moment, jostle each other, nor may either be entirely crowded off the stage of existence. Mrs. Buncombe looked very grave, and at last she said half reprovingly to Hagar,

“You seem very cheerful, Hagar, while your uncle lies in the agonies of death!”

“I should not be cheerful if he were in the agonies of death—he is released, and there was no agony. I could not have believed that a spirit could have been withdrawn from the body with so little pain to either!”

“And so he is gone!” said Emily, in a tone of pity. “So he is gone. Well, ‘after life’s fitful fever he sleeps well!’ peace be with him!”

“Yes, peace be with him. May his cradle be soft—may his nurses be tender—may his parents be gentle and wise, and may his present life—the life just commenced—be happier than his past pilgrimage, the life just closed!”

She had spoken earnestly.

“Why, what in the name of heaven are you talking of, Hagar?” asked Emily, in astonishment.

“Of the man just dead, and the babe just born!”

“I believe you are crazy, Hagar!—at least any one who did not know you as well as I know you, would believe so. What do you mean by such language?”

She had finished setting the table, and had now sat down by the fire. Hagar was standing by her, leaning with her back against the side of the mantel-piece.

“This is what I mean: there is no death, but only change. I do not see death. I cannot find death anywhere in the world. I see change, but no destruction—no, not even loss of identity. See how one principle—any principle in chemistry, for instance, will pass through a thousand media, assuming a thousand forms, but not losing itself, not changing its own individuality. Yes, one principle will pass through the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, and pass again circulating for ever without losing itself. And so with our spirit, as it struggles up through hardest, seemingly deadest forms of existence, to its human form; and from the lowest human nature up to the highest; from the savage to the civilized man; and from a common-place civilized man, up to a Howard or a Fenelon; and from a Howard, perhaps, to an angel, but always with more or less speed—_up! up!_—never falling, never losing, never retrograding, relapsing. Thus, a soul that has passed through the schooling of civilization, never, never in its transmigrations, relapses into the body of a savage. I stood by and watched the passing away of uncle’s spirit, and wondered to see Christians looking so sad, as though it were annihilation and not a journey; as though they did not see that God was wise enough, and good enough, and potent enough to take care of the soul He had brought thus far in its course. I stood by, thinking that around some other bed some other people were gathered, awaiting the arrival of a newborn infant, and that when the wail of sorrow arose in this room for the dead, the voice of rejoicing would be heard in that room for the newborn! And I watched in eagerness, in excitement, but not in sorrow, not in regret. Could _I_ regret that his spirit was withdrawn from its present racked and ruined home? No, I am glad!” she said, with dancing eyes.

“And you really believe that, Hagar? I mean your theory of transmigration?”

“Believe—believe,” said she, musing; “no, it does not amount to belief, and yet it is _more_. It is not a belief, a creed; it is a feeling, an impression, and a very strong conviction. To me, spiritual intuitions are more convincing than rational deductions. Heart convictions stronger than brain convictions.”

“Alas! Hagar, the neglect of your infancy will never, _never_ be made up to you. Poor girl, your mind strays off into the wildest vagaries. Hagar, you should read your Bible more.”

“I do read my Bible,” said Hagar, “but no _commentaries_ on it; the Bible itself is my commentary on nature; it interprets myself and the universe to me.”

“You find nothing like what you fancy in the Bible.”

“I find nothing that contradicts it there.”

“I must get Mr. Buncombe to talk to you, Hagar.”

Hagar smiled derisively.

“Yes, I _will_, and I can talk to you myself; ‘There is an appointed time for man to die, and _after death the judgment_;’ mind, it does not say, after death a transmigration.”

“No,” said Hagar, “it says, ‘after death—_the judgment_’—that very judgment may remand the soul back to earth for another probation!”

“You horrify me, you positively do horrify me, Hagar!”

“You horrify _me_, when you tell me that for the sins, or errors, or _mistakes_ even, of some sixteen or sixty years, my soul must wail in perdition, through the countless ages of eternity—no, no!—no, no! My Father!” said the wild girl, kindling into enthusiasm, “Thou never did’st create a soul to let it drop into the abyss—_lost_! It may take a long time to teach—a long time to redeem that soul—to perfect that soul—many times may it be remanded back to the clay—many weary pilgrimages may it make on earth, but the work will never be abandoned; the work will be accomplished. Christ did not live, and teach, and suffer, and die in vain—His lesson will be learned at last.”

“My poor Hagar,” said Emily, fervently, “may you yet learn _His_ lesson! He who came to light up that darkness of the grave which the eye of man could not penetrate—to substitute for the thousand wild fancies, such as yours, of Heathenism, the holy Truth of God—He, whom you so rashly invoke, has said—do you not remember it, Hagar?—

“‘And he shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.

“‘Then shall the King say unto them on the right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

“‘Then shall He also say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

“‘_And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal!_’

“Ah, my poor, dear Hagar, how little these wild fancies of yours will bestead you in the trials and temptations of life. Oh! what an untrimmed vine you are, Hagar! May the pruning knife of God’s providence gently, very gently, remove all this bad over-growth.”

Hagar’s fierce eyes flashed defiance at her monitress; but just then a vision of Raymond, in his lonely grief—of Raymond, the only heart-stricken mourner for the dead, passed before her mind’s eye; the fierceness softened in her eyes, and she glided from the room. Just at that moment tea was brought in, and Mr. Buncombe and Dr. Otterback summoned to the table, and with Emily, gathered around it.

Hagar glided like a spirit up the long staircase. The storm had passed, and the moon was shining through the windows. She passed into an upper room. A dark figure intercepted at the window the rays of the moon. A dark figure sitting alone, with head dropped upon the arms that, folded, rested on the window-sill. Very softly she approached, and stood by him in silence. He felt her approach, however, and turning around, passed his arm around her waist, and, drawing her up to his side, murmured—

“My own dear Hagar, you have come to me at last; you are here at last; why did you not come before?”

“Because _then_, Raymond, I was in no condition to give you comfort in the mood _you_ then were; my mind was excited, enthusiastic. I could not feel this passing away as anything but a relief—a glory—could not think of it as anything to mourn for, but rather to rejoice at. Why, Raymond, death has been called a ‘leap in the dark,’ but to me it seems a bound in the light!”

“Ah, but Hagar,—the flesh—the flesh—I loved my father so much; I loved him for all his sorrows, and because he found favor in no other heart. I suffered so much at the banishment endured for his sake, and now I come home only to light him down to the grave.”

“Raymond, when you left here, some years ago, you left your cast off raiment in your chamber, and they packed it down in a trunk. When you stepped aboard the boat that carried you to the packet, I, impatient child! threw myself down, and screamed in anguish, at parting from my brother, or stretching out my arms beseechingly, called you to come back. Now, Raymond, according to your creed, I had better have gone and cast myself across your trunk—the grave of your cast off dress, and howled for Raymond, _coffined within_.”

Raymond again answered her, for his was not after all that deep, _deep_ grief which plunges its victim into silence.

“I loved that soul-raiment—I loved that thin and wrinkled hand, that lately deprecated harsh judgment while it caressed me—I loved that tortured face, traversed as it was by its thousand seams of thought or suffering, and that slow pausing step. I loved it all—but _you_, Hagar, a woman—a girl, a young girl, and yet you have so little _tenderness_—the falcon, not the dove!”

Hagar, at once spirited and delicate, did not repel this charge, nor did her mind fly back to the many nights of sleeplessness she had passed in the sick chamber of his father while Raymond slumbered soundly in his bed; nor did she know that though she had felt very _tenderly_ she had acted _kindly_, while the son who really loved his father so tenderly loved _himself_ as well, and took his rest.

“Have I hurt you, Hagar?” at last he said gently.

“No, I do not know that you have.”

“_Have_ I hurt you, Hagar?” he said, now sadly.

“No, no; I am not sensitive—not very tender of myself any more than of others. No, you do not understand me—that I feel _life_ so much more than death—so much _life_ everywhere. Why, Raymond, my feeling about _my own death_ is that of escape, flight, revel in liberty and light. I stand upon the banks of our river sometimes, and feel like gathering myself up for a leap across the flood; yet there I stand, fast fettered by flesh. I stand some mornings at early dawn at my chamber window, and, gazing rapturously at the morning star, my spirit uneasily flaps its wings for a flight! Yet there I stand fast tied to the body; so wild and strong is the spirit, and so heavy and fast its chains.”

Yes, she spoke truly—so wild, and strong, and fierce was the spirit, whose fire was to be quenched in tears of blood dropped slowly from the heart.

Sophie now came in, and observing Hagar, said,

“Ah! it is right for you to be here, my love; we have a common sorrow, and I feel that _I_ should not have gone apart;” and she sat down with them.

The funeral of John Huss Withers took place on the fifth day from his death. Dr. Otterbuck remained to officiate. Mr. Buncombe of course succeeded him in the rectorship of the parish of the Crucifixion. It was during this visit of the bishop that the Parish Church, enlarged and repaired, was re-christened and dedicated under the name of the Ascension. This was done through the suggestion of Mr. Buncombe and the vestry. A year passed away.