The Measure of a Man

"She is still alive, sir—but very ill."

John could not answer, but his look was so urgent and so miserable the man divined the hurry of heart and spirit that he was possessed by and without another word led him to the room where the child lay dying. The struggle was nearly over and John was spared the awful hours of slow strangulation which had already done their work. She was not insensible. She held tight the hand of her mother, kneeling by her side, and gazed at John with eyes wearing a new, deep look as if a veil had been rent and she with open face saw things sweet and wonderful. Her pale, mute mouth smiled faintly and she tried to stretch out her arms to him. There she lay, a smitten child, fallen after a bewildering struggle with a merciless foe. John with a breaking heart lifted her in his arms and carried her gently to-and-fro. The change and motion relieved her a little and what words of comfort and love he said in that last communion only God knows. But though he held her close in his strong arms, she found a way to pass from him to God. Quivering all over like a wounded bird, she gave John her last smile, and was not, for God took her. The bud had opened to set free the rose—the breathing miracle into silence passed. Weeping passionately, his tears washed her face. He was in an agony of piteous feeling in which there was quite unconsciously a strain of resentment.

"She is gone!" he cried, and the two physicians present bowed their heads. Then Jane rose and took the body from the distracted father's arms. She was white and worn out with suffering and watching, but she would allow no one to make the child's last toilet but herself. For this ceremony she needed no lace or satin, no gilt or mock jewelry. She washed the little form free of all earth's stain, combed loose the bright brown hair, matted with the sweat of suffering, and dressed her for the last—the last time, in one of the pretty white linen nightgowns she had made for her darling but a few weeks previously.

Oh, who dare inquire what passed in Jane's soul during that hour? The God who wrote the child's name in His book before she was born, He only knew. Of all that suffered in Martha's loss, Jane suffered incredibly more than any other. She fell prostrate on the floor at the feet of the Merciful Father when this duty was done—prostrate and speechless. Prayer was beyond her power. She was dumb. God had done it and she deserved it. She heard nothing John said to her. All that long, long day she sat by her dead child, until in the darkening twilight some men came into the room on tiptoe. They had a small white coffin in their care, and placed it on a table near the bed. Then Jane stood up and if an unhappy soul had risen from the grave, it could not have shocked them more. She stood erect and looked at them. Her tall form, in its crushed white gown, her deathly white face, her black eyes gleaming with the lurid light of despair, her pale quivering lips, her air of hopeless grief, shocked even these men, used to the daily sight of real or pretended mourners. With a motion of her hand she prevented them coming closer to the dead child, and then by an imperative utterance of the word, "Go," sent them from the room. With her own hand she laid Martha in her last bed and disposed its one garment about the rigid little limbs. She neither spoke nor wept for Ah! in her sad soul she knew that never day or night or man or God could bring her child back to her. And she remembered that once she had said in an evil moment that this dear, dead child was "one too many." Would God ever forgive her?

By a late train that night they left for Hatton Hall, reaching the village about the time for the mill to open. No bell summoned its hands to cheerful work. They were standing at various points, and when the small white coffin went up the hill, they silently followed, softly singing. At the great gates the weeping grandmother received them.

For one day the living and the dead dwelt together in hushed and sorrowful mourning, nor did a word of comfort come to any soul. The weight of that grief which hung like lead upon the rooms, the stairs, the galleries where her step had lately been so light, was also on every heart; and although we ought to be diviner for our dead, the strength of this condition was not as yet realized. John had shut himself in his room, and the grandmother went about her household duties silently weeping and trying to put down the angry thoughts which would arise whenever she remembered how stubbornly her daughter-in-law had refused to leave Martha with her, and make her trip to London alone. She knew it was "well with the child," but Oh the bitter strength of regrets that strain and sicken,

Yearning for love that the veil of Death endears.

Jane sat silent, tearless, almost motionless beside her dead daughter. Now and then John came and tried to comfort the wretched woman, but in her deepest grief, there was a tender motherly strain which he had not thought of and knew not how to answer. "Her little feet! Her little feet, John! I never let them wander alone or stray even in Hatton streets without a helper and guide. O John, what hand will lead them upward and back to God? Those little feet!"

"Her angel would be with her and she would know the way through the constellations. Together they would pass swift as thought from earth to heaven. Martha loved God. They who love God will find their way back to Him, dear Jane."

The next day there was no factory bell. Nearly the whole village was massed in Hatton churchyard, and towards sunset the crowd made a little lane for the small white coffin to the open grave waiting for it. None of the women of the family were present. They had made their parting in the familiar room that seemed, even at that distracting hour, full of Martha's dear presence. But Jane, sitting afterwards at its open window, heard the soft singing of those who went to the grave mouth with the child, and when a little later John and Harry returned together, she knew that all had been.

She did not go to meet them, but John came to her. "Let me help you, dear one," he said tenderly. "One is here who will give you comfort."

"None can comfort me. Who is here?"

"The new curate. He said words at the graveside I shall never forget. He filled them with such glory that I could not help taking comfort."

"O John, what did he say?"

"After the service was over, and the people dispersing, he stood talking to Harry and myself, and then he walked up the hill with us. I asked him for your sake."

"I will come down in half an hour, John."

"Then I will come and help you."

And in half an hour this craver after some hope and comfort went down, and then John renewed the conversation which was on the apparent cruelty of children being born to live a short time and then leave Earth by the inscrutable gate of Death.

"It seems to be so needless, so useless," said Jane.

"Not so," the curate answered. "Let me repeat two verses of an ancient Syrian hymn, written A.D. 90, and you will learn what the earliest Fathers of the Church thought of the death of little children.

"The Just One saw that iniquity increased on earth,And that sin had dominion over all men,And He sent His Messengers, and removedA multitude of fair little ones,And called them to the pavilion of happiness."Like lilies taken from the wilderness,Children are planted in Paradise;And like pearls in diadems,Children are inserted in the Kingdom;And without ceasing, shall hymn forth his praise."

"Will you give me a copy of those verses?" asked Jane with great emotion.

"I will. You see a little clearer now?"

"Yes."

"And the glory and the safety for the child? Do you understand?"

"I think I do."

"Then give thanks and not tears because the King desired your child, for this message came forth from Him in whom we live and move and have our being: 'Come up hither, and dwell in the House of the Lord forever. The days of thy life have been sufficient. The bands of suffering are loosed. Thy Redeemer hath brought thee a release.' So she went forth unto her Maker. She attained unto the beginning of Peace. She departed to the habitations of just men made perfect, to the communion of saints, to the life everlasting."

In such conversation the evening passed and all present were somewhat comforted, yet it was only alleviation; for comfort to be lasting, must be in a great measure self-evolved, must spring from our own convictions, our own assurance and sense of absolute love and justice.

However, every sorrow has its horizon and none are illimitable. The factory bell rang clearly the next morning, and the powerful call of duty made John answer it. God had given, and God had taken his only child, but the children of hundreds of families looked to the factory for their daily bread. Yea, and he did not forget the contract with God and his father which bound him to the poor and needy and which any neglect of business might imperil. He lifted his work willingly and cheerfully, for work is the oldest gospel God gave to man. It is good tidings that never fail. It is the surest earthly balm for every grief and whatever John Hatton was in his home life and in his secret hours, he was diligent in business, serving God with a fervent, cheerful spirit. In the mill he never named his loss but once, and that was on the morning of his return to business. Greenwood then made some remark about the dead child, and John answered,

"I am very lonely, Greenwood. This world seems empty without her. Why was she taken away from it?"

"Perhaps she was wanted in some other world, sir."

John lifted a startled face to the speaker, and the man added with an air of happy triumph, as he walked away,

"A far better world, sir."

For a moment John rested his head on his hand, then he lifted his face and with level brows fronted the grief he must learn to bear.

Jane's sorrow was a far more severe and constant one. Martha had been part of all her employments. She could do nothing and go nowhere, but the act and the place were steeped in memories of the child. All her work, all her way, all her thoughts, began and ended with Martha. She fell into a dangerous condition of self-immolation. She complained that no one cared for her, that her suffering was uniquely great, and that she alone was the only soul who remembered the dead and loved them.

Mrs. Stephen came from her retreat in Hatton Hall one day in order to combat this illusion.

"Three mothers living in Hatton village hev buried children this week, Jane," she said. "Two of them went back to the mill this morning."

"I think it was very wicked of them."

"They hed to go back. They had living children to work for. When the living cling to you, then you must put the dead aside for the living. God cares for the dead and they hev all they want in His care. If you feel that you must fret youself useless to either living or dead, try the living. They'll mostly give you every reason for fretting."

"John has quite forgotten poor little Martha."

"He's done nothing of that sort, but I think thou hes forgotten John, poor fellow! I'm sorry for John, I am that!"

"You have no cause to say such things, mother, and I will not listen to them. John has become wrapped up in that dreadful mill, and when he comes home at night, he will not talk of Martha."

"I am glad he won't and thou ought to be glad too. How can any man work his brains all day in noise and worry and confusion and then come home and fret his heart out all night about a child that is in Heavenly keeping and a wife that doesn't know what is good either for herself or anybody else. Listen to me! I am going to give thee a grain of solid truthful sense. The best man in the world will cease giving sympathy when he sees that it does no good and that he must give it over and over every day. I wonder John gave it as long as he did! I do that. If I was thee, I would try to forget myself a bit. I would let the sunshine into these beautiful rooms. If thou doesn't, the moths will eat up thy fine carpets and cushions, and thou will become one of those chronic, disagreeable invalids that nobody on earth—and I wouldn't wonder if nobody in heaven either—cares a button for."

Jane defended herself with an equal sincerity, and a good many truths were made clear to her that had only hitherto been like a restless movement of her consciousness. In fact the Lady of Hatton Hall left her daughter-in-law penetrated with a new sense of her position. Nor was this sense at all lightened or brightened by her parting remarks.

"I am thy true friend, Jane, that is something better than thy mother-in-law. I want to see thee and John happy, and I assure thee it will be easy now to take one step thou must never take if thou wants another happy hour. John is Yorkshire, flesh and bone, heart and soul, and thou ought to know that Yorkshiremen take no back steps. If John's love wanes, though it be ever so little, it has waned for thee to the end of thy life. Thou can never win it back. Never! So, I advise thee to mind thy ways, and thy words."

"Thank you, mother. I know you speak to me out of a sincere heart."

"To be sure I do. And out of a kind heart also. Why-a! When John said to me, 'Mother, I love Jane Harlow,' I answered, 'Thou art right to love her. She is a fit and proper wife for thee,' and I made up my mind to love thee, too—faults included."

"Then love me now, mother. John minds your lightest word. Tell him to be patient with me."

"I will—but thou must do thy best to even things. Thou must be more interested in John. Martha is with God. If she hed lived, thou would varry soon be sending her off to some unlovelike, polite boarding-school, and a few years later thou would make a grand feast, and deck her in satin and lace and jewels and give her as a sacrifice to some man thou knew little about—just as the old pagans used to dress up the young heifers with flowers and ribbons before they offered them in blood and flame to Jupiter or the like of him. Martha was God's child and He took her, and I must say, thou gave her up to Him in a varry grudging way."

"Mother, I am going to do better. Forgive me."

"Nay, my dear lass, seek thou God's forgiveness and all the rest will come easy. It is against Him, and Him only, thou hast sinned; but He is long-suffering, plenteous in mercy, and ready to forgive." And then these two women, who had scarcely spoken for years, kissed each other and were true friends ever after. So good are the faithful words of those who dare to speak the truth in love and wisdom.

As it generally happens, however, things were all unfavorable to Jane's resolve. John had been impeded all day by inefficient or careless services; even Greenwood had misunderstood an order and made an impossible appointment which had only been canceled with offense and inconvenience. The whole day indeed had worked itself away to cross purpose, and John came home weary with the aching brows that annoyance and worry touch with a peculiar depressing neuralgia. It need not be described; there are very few who are not familiar with its exhausting, melancholy dejection.

John did his best to meet his wife's more cheerful mood, but the strongest men are often very poor bearers of physical pain. Jane would have suffered—and did often suffer—the same distress with far less complaint. Women, too, soon learn to alleviate such a cruel sensation, but John had a strong natural repugnance for drugs and liniments, and it was only when he was weary of Jane's entreaties that he submitted to a merciful medication which ended in a restorative sleep.

This incident did not discourage Jane in her new resolve. She told herself at once that the first steps on a good or wise road were sure to be both difficult and painful; and in the morning John's cheerful, grateful words and his brave sunny face repaid her fully for the oblivion to which she had consigned her own trials and the subjection she had enforced upon her own personality.

This was the new battle-ground on which she now stood, and at first John hardly comprehended the hard, self-denying conflict she was waging. One day he was peculiarly struck with an act of self-denial which also involved for Jane a slight humiliation, that he could not but wonder at her submission. He looked at her in astonishment and he did not know whether he admired her self-control and generosity or not. The circumstance puzzled and troubled him. That afternoon he had to go to Yoden to see his brother, and he came home by way of Hatton Hall.

As he anticipated, he found his mother pleasantly enjoying her cup of afternoon tea, and she rose with a cry of love to welcome him.

"I was thinking of thee, John, and then I heard thy footsteps. I hev the best pot of tea in Yorkshire at my right hand; I'm sure thou wilt hev a cup."

"To be sure I will. It is one of the things I came for, and I want to talk to you half an hour."

"Say all that is in thy heart, and there's nothing helps talk, like a cup of good tea. Whatever does thou want to talk to me about?"

"I want to talk to you about Jane."

"Well then, be careful what thou says. No man's mother is a fair counselor about his wife. They will both say more than they ought to say, especially if she isn't present to explain; and when they don't fully understand, how can they advise?"

"You could not be unjust to anyone, mother?"

"Well, then?"

"She is so much better than she has ever been since the child went away."

"She is doing her best. Thou must help her with all thy heart and soul."

"All her love for me seems to have come back."

"It never left thee for a moment."

"But for weeks and months she has not seemed to care for anything but her memory of Martha."

"That is the way men's big unsuspecting feet go blundering and crushing through a woman's heart. In the first place, she was overwhelmed with grief at Martha's sudden death and at her own apparent instrumentality in it."

"I loved Martha as well, perhaps better, than Jane."

"Not thou! Thou never felt one thrill of a mother's love. Jane would have died twice over to save her child. Thou said with all the bitterness of death in thy soul, 'God's will be done.'"

"We will let that pass. Why has her grief been so long-continued?"

"Thou hed to put thine aside. A thousand voices called on thee for daily bread. Thou did not dare to indulge thy private sorrow at the risk of neglecting the work God had given thee to do. Jane had nothing to interest her. Her house was so well arranged it hardly needed oversight. The charities that had occupied her heart and her hands were ended and closed. In every room in your house, in every avenue of your garden and park Martha had left her image. Many hours every day you were in a total change of scene and saw a constant variety of men and women. Jane told me that she saw Martha in every room. She saw and heard her running up and down stairs. She saw her at her side, she saw her sleeping and dreaming. Poor mother! Poor sorrowful Jane! It would be hard to be kind enough and patient enough with her."

"Do you think she will always be in this sad condition?"

"Whatever can thou mean? God has appointed Time to console all loss and all grief. Martha will go further and further away as the days wear on and Jane will forget—we all do—we all hev to forget."

"Some die of grief."

"Not they. They may induce some disease, to which they are disposed by inordinate and sinful sorrow—and die of that—no one dies of grief, or grief would be our most common cause of death. I think Jane will come out of the Valley of the Shadow a finer and better woman—she was always of a very superior kind."

"Mother, you allude to something that troubles me. I have seen Jane bear and do things lately that a year ago she would have indignantly refused to tolerate. Is not this a decadence in her superior nature?"

"Thou art speaking too fine for my understanding. If thou means by 'decadence' that Jane is growing worse instead of better, then thou art far wrong—and if it were that way, I would not wonder if some of the blame—maybe the main part of it—isn't thy fault. Men don't understand women. How can they?"

"Why not?"

"Well, if the Bible is correct, women were made after men. They were the Almighty's improvement on his first effort. There's very few men that I know—or have ever known—that have yet learned to model themselves after the improvement. It's easier for them to manifest the old Adam, and so they go on living and dying and living and dying and remain only men and never learn to understand a woman."

John laughed and asked, "Have you ever known an improved man, mother?"

"Now and then, John, I have come across one. There was your father, for instance, he knew a woman's heart as well as he knew a loom or a sample of cotton, and there's your brother Harry who is just as willing and helpful as his wife Lucy, and I shall not be far wrong, if I say the best improvement I have seen on the original Adam is a man called John Hatton. He is nearly good enough for any woman."

Again John laughed as he answered, "Well, dear mother, this is as far as we need to go. Tell me in plain Yorkshire what you mean by it."

"I mean, John, that in your heart you are hardly judging Jane fairly. I notice in you, as well as in the general run of husbands, that if they hev to suffer at all, they tell themselves that it is their wife's fault, and they manage to believe it. It's queer but then it's a man's way."

"You think I should be kinder to Jane?"

"Thou art kind enough in a way. A mother might nurse her baby as often as it needed nursing, but if she never petted it and kissed it, never gave it smiles and little hugs and simple foolish baby talk, it would be a badly nursed and a very much robbed child. Do you understand?"

"You think I ought to give Jane more petting?"

Mrs. Hatton smiled and nodded. "She calls it sympathy, John, but that is what she means. Hev a little patience, my dear lad. Listen! There is a grand wife and a grand mother in Jane Hatton. If you do not develop them, I, your mother, will say, 'somehow it is John's fault.'"

Now life will always be to a large extent what we make it. Jane was trying with all her power to make her life lovable and fair, and the beginning of all good is action, for in this warfare they who would win must struggle. Hitherto, since Martha's death, she had found in nascent, indolent self-pity the choicest of luxuries. Now she had abandoned this position and with courage and resolve was devoting herself to her husband and her house. Unfortunately, there were circumstances in John's special business cares that gave an appearance of Duncan Grey's wooing to all her efforts—when the lassie grew kind, Duncan grew cool. It was truly only an appearance, but Jane was not familiar with changes in Love's atmosphere. John's steadfast character had given her always fair weather.

In reality the long strain of business cares and domestic sorrow had begun to tell even upon John's perfect health and nervous system. Facing absolute ruin in the war years and surrounded by pitiable famine and death, he had kept his cheerful temper, his smiling face, his resolute, confident spirit. Now, he was singularly prosperous. The mill was busy nearly night and day, all his plans and hopes had been perfected; yet he was often either silent or irritable. Jane seldom saw him smile and never heard him sing and she feared that he often shirked her company.

One hot morning at the end of August she had a shock. He had taken his breakfast before she came down and he had left her no note of greeting or explanation. She ran to a window that overlooked the main avenue and she could see him walking slowly towards the principal entrance. Her first instinct was to follow him—to send the house man to delay him—to bring him back by some or any means. Once she could and would have done so, but she did not feel it wise or possible then. What had happened? She went slowly back to her breakfast, but there was a little ball in her throat—she could not swallow—the grief and fear in her heart was surging upward and choking her.

All that her mother-in-law had said came back to her memory. Had John taken that one step away? Would he never take it back to her? She was overwhelmed with a climbing sorrow that would not down. Yet she asked with assumed indifference,

"Was the Master well this morning?"