Merkland: or, Self Sacrifice

CHAPTER XXVII

WEARILY, mocking sick hearts with their floods of brightness, the summer days stole on. The house of Schole gaunt and melancholy, stood shrined in the full glory of that sunshine. The dark figures within wandered about in restless pain, like ghosts uncongenial to the light, or gazed forth with vacant eyes upon the rejoicing country, and dazzling sea. In the sick chamber lay that restless, suffering man, wending unconsciously nearer and nearer the valley of the shadow of death.

The doctor from the little town had visited him repeatedly. – Nearly a fortnight after the wreck, he had a final conversation with Christian. Anne was watching eagerly in Patrick Lillie’s study. Christian accompanied the doctor to the door, and answered his subdued and sorrowful farewell; then she entered the study. Anne looked up anxiously in her face.

“The time has come,” said Christian, solemnly, “there is no hope of his life. He has but a little way to go, and yet he knows not the only entrance. God succor us – what can we do alone? Come with me – now there is no longer any obstacle or hindrance – come with me.”

Anne followed her silently. The room in which Patrick lay was high, and had also windows looking on the water – that broad placid, noble Firth, the sole companion of the watcher.

Wan and wasted, with only the hectic spot burning on his cheek to distinguish it from the pillow on which it uneasily rested, lay the dying man. Cold, wasting, death-like perspiration lay heavily upon his brow; his long, white hand and emaciated arm were stretched upon the coverlet with a power of nervous motion in them, which contrasted strangely with their color and form of death.

On a small table beside him lay a paper closely written. Near at hand were writing materials. His eyes were fixed upon the manuscript – he did not seem to notice the entrance of Christian and Anne. He was speaking in broken sentences, with incoherent intervals between.

“Sevenfold – sevenfold. Thou God of mighty justice! Thou Lord of holy revenge! What can a sinful man do more? Not an old man, O, Lord! not a little child; seven lives in their prime – seven full of health, and strength, and hopefulness – seven saved for one lost. Lord of mercy, wilt Thou accept them! what can I more?”

“Patrick,” said Christian Lillie, “if the whole world had lain perishing at your feet, what more than urgent need was it to save them all; the seven will not atone for the one. If ye have no other atonement to offer, then the blood is still crying upon God for vengeance.”

“Christian,” exclaimed the dying man, “what can I do? – what shall I do? They tell me I am near the hour of judgment; will you thrust away my last plea? – will ye deny me my last hope? Did He not accept the publican who restored fourfold? Behold my offering, O, Lord, and be merciful – be merciful! I have toiled through all this terrible life – labored, and groaned, and fainted for the uplifting of Thy countenance – and shall I go away in darkness, and wilt Thou show me no more light at all for ever? Lord! Lord!”

The thin, worn arms were lifted in passionate appeal – the long white fingers clasped – the wasted face convulsed with despairing earnestness. Christian Lillie knelt by her brother’s bedside.

“Mercy and light, Patrick – mercy and light! our Father in heaven does not give them for a hire. Take them out of a gracious hand that has paid a bitter price for the gifts – take them, Patrick. Take them from Him who has made the sole sacrifice that can stand in the sight of God. Blood for blood.”

“Blood for blood!” said Patrick Lillie, with a wild shudder. “Blood for blood! has it come to this end? Christian, I have been laboring to make amends – I have labored in vain: let me pay the price now at last – there may be peace then. Let me away – let me away – I will pay the price – a life for a life!”

He was struggling to rise – his emaciated features shining wildly with his desperate purpose. Christian’s arms were stretched over him, subduing the frenzy.

“Patrick,” she said, solemnly, “in a little while the Lord will recall the life He has sent so fearful a shadow on. A day or two – maybe only an hour or two – and in this ghastly noon of ours, which is more terrible than the darkest midnight, the sun of your life must go down. The Lord is taking the price with his own hand. Patrick, let me but know that you are grounded on the one rock – that ye can see the one sacrifice.”

The unhappy sufferer sank back exhausted.

“ ‘Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.’ Christian, it is a just sentence – take me away – I see it – I see it – it is what no mercy can wipe out – no grace forgive – it must be atoned for. Ye hear me, Christian! the price must be paid. If ye would have hope in my death, take me away.”

“It is a just sentence,” said Christian Lillie, firmly. “Just in the sight of God and man – I say not that there needs no public atonement; but ye cannot pay it now – and I say that for your life, your higher life, Patrick, an atonement has been made. Do you forget Him that died at Jerusalem? they ranked him with murderers – was He one? He was accursed for the shedders of blood. Throw but your sin upon Him – rest but your soul upon Him, and I will have hope in your death – ay! such hope as will cover all the by-gone darkness with a mist of radiance; only let me know that you are safe in His shadow – strong in His faith, and I am content.”

“I have slain a man to my bruising, and a young man to my hurt,” murmured the dying man, “and I should – God forgive me that I have shrunk and trembled from this fearful penalty – I should pay back blood for blood in the sight of man. Christian, hear me: I acknowledge Him, my Saviour – my Lord – my King. I acknowledge His work – only not for this – for this I must render justice in the sight of men. Let me go – I have trembled for it all these dreadful years – I have hid me from the very sunshine for its fear – I have doomed them – God bless them! God, out of his gracious heaven, send down the blessings of the covenant upon them! whom I shall never look upon in this world again – to exile and shame for me. Christian, let me go – I see it all now – my eyes are opened. Let me pay the price – then there may be peace; whoso sheddeth man’s blood – Christian, let me go!”

“Patrick,” said Christian Lillie, “you have told me when your mind was clear that this deed was not wilful, nor springing from a heart of evil against him that is gone. Tell me again. Patrick! – do you mind how he fled into the sacred city in the ancient Israel, who had shed blood unawares, and there was safe? Can you see? is there no shadow before your eyes? Can you tell me? Patrick, you shed this blood unawares.”

A wild gleam shot over the sick man’s death-like face. His lips moved – he shut them convulsively as though to keep down some thrill of agony.

“I cannot tell – I cannot tell. God help me – there is nothing clear; that I did it – that I took away the divine mysterious life which all the universe could not give back again – Christian, Christian, it will make me mad – the remembrance of it has gone near to make me mad a thousand times. Oh, that my life had been taken instead! oh, that he had slain me, and not I him!”

Christian knelt by his bedside holding his hand – he became calmer.

“Lord, show it to me – show me the past – show me what is to come. I was angry with my brother in my heart – I cannot see – I cannot tell, if the fiend was within me then. Christian, have they not suffered a death for me? – have I not slain them in cold blood with my fear and cowardice! I will do them justice – I will bear my own sin. Let me go.”

He sat up in his bed, his excitement giving nervous strength to his wasted frame; as he rose he saw Anne for the first time – she stood awed and wondering by the door.

The unhappy man threw himself back upon his pillow, covering his face.

“Send her away. Do you want to kill me – do you want to betray me, Christian? Send her away.”

Christian Lillie made a motion with her hand, and Anne withdrew. Most strange, and sad, and terrible was this scene; this unhappy sufferer enduring in those agonies so intense a retribution – eager to do justice on his death-bed, and yet shrinking from the sight of her who might bring that justice speedily upon him – her, the sister of the injured Norman, who would not have inflicted another pang upon the man for whom her generous brother had sacrificed his all.

She did not see Christian again that day: during all its long, weary, sunny hours, Christian remained constantly by that sick-bed – through the shorter watches of the balmy and tranquil night her vigil continued; those melancholy wistful eyes never closed in slumber; that gaunt, attenuated frame sought neither rest nor nourishment; the agony of eighteen years had come to a climax; the heroic work of all her desolate lifetime was drawing to an end.

Anne did not leave the house till late that evening; she could hear the sound of voices in the sick chamber, and Christian’s slow step sometimes traversing it, when she went away. In the morning she returned early. Christian was in her own room, as Anne could hear, while she sat in the apartment below – sometimes kneeling – sometimes pacing it slow and heavily as was her wont, and sometimes with the agitated quick step, which she had heard before during the short time in which she witnessed Christian Lillie’s supplications. Her patient was for the time asleep. She was there, not resting nor seeking rest, absorbed in the unutterable earnestness of her pleadings, wrestling with God for a blessing.

The day glided on, so slow – so wearily, with but the drowsy ripples of the sea, the steady, cold, immovable beating of that strange pulse of Time, whose sound fatigues the anxious ear so miserably, and the irregular, agitated throbs of her own heart, to fill its languid lingering hours, that Anne sickened when she looked abroad upon its cloudless radiance. Then those books of Patrick Lillie’s fascinated while they irked and pained her – the pensive, contemplative tone – the microscopic, inward-looking eye – the atmosphere of monastic quietude and meditative death! She was in no mood for studying character, yet she felt how strangely constituted the spirit must have been which found its daily ailment in these.

Had he done that deed and yet was he not guilty? Did he stand in the position of the manslayer, for whom God’s stern law of olden vengeance, in one of those exquisite shadings of mercy, which mark the unchanging unity of our Gospel Lord and Saviour – ordained through ancient Palestine, the sacred cities of refuge? Had he shed this blood unawares? and whence then came the terrible mist which had gathered in his memory about the deed? Was it possible that he could be uncertain of himself? – that he could have forgotten those momentous circumstances? or had his long-diseased brooding over them made imagination and fact stand in his remembrance side by side?

At last, the weary day declined. Christian Lillie came to her at sunset, and with few words, bade her follow to the sick room again. Anne obeyed.

It was very near now, that awful peace of Death. The emaciated face was sharp and fixed – the stamp was upon his forehead. A little time now, and all earthly agony would be over for him.

But there was a tranquil shadow on his face, and the large caverns of Christian’s eyes were full of dew, which did not fall, but yet had risen to refresh the burning lids which had kept watch so long. The manuscript was upon the table still – the thin arm lay quietly on the coverlet. A slight shudder passed across his frame as Anne entered; an involuntary thrill of that coward fear which had overwhelmed his nature. Then he turned his eyes upon her with a steadfast, melancholy, lingering look, failing sometimes for a moment as the slow blood crept coldly to his heart in another pang of terror; but renewed again – a sorrowful look of lingering, clinging tenderness, as though he saw in her face the shadow of another – the generous glance of one dearly beloved long ago, who had given up name, and wealth, and honor for his sake.

“Christian,” he said, “Christian, it comes. I feel that I am entering the dark valley. What I have to do, let me do quickly. – Raise me up.”

She lifted him in her arms – in her strong devotion she might have borne a threefold weight – the dying man was like an infant in her hands.

He took the pen she offered him into his unsteady fingers, and began, in feeble characters, to trace his name at the bottom of the manuscript. While he did so, he murmured broken words.

“I am guilty – I am guilty! I only. Lord, Thou knowest who hast saved me! Only his tenderness, like Thine – only his gracious heart, Thy true follower, has screened me, a miserable sinner, from the doom of the slayer! It is I only – my Lord, Thou knowest it is I!”

He had signed his name. Christian laid him back tenderly upon the pillow. With a firm hand she placed her own signature at the side of the document, and then gave the pen to Anne. The sister of the man who had done the deed, and the sister of him who had suffered for it – it was meet their names should stand together. Anne added hers. She could form some idea, of what this paper was. She signed it as a witness.

The words of the dying man ran on – a feeble, murmuring stream.

“Christian! he is alive – he is safe! No evil has come upon them! Tell me again – tell me again! They do not curse me – they forgive the miserable man who has made them exiles? It is over now, Christian. All your anguish – all your vigils: their disgrace and banishment – it is over now. God knows, who has visited me with His mercy and His light, why this desolation has fallen upon you all for my sin. I have been a coward. Christian, Christian! when they are home in their joyous household – when they have forgotten all their grief and dishonor, when they are tranquil and at rest – they will never name my name; my memory will be a thing of shame and fear: they will shrink from me in my grave.”

The thin hands met in silent appeal. There was a wistful, deprecating glance thrown upon Anne and Christian.

“Patrick,” said Christian, “can we ever shrink from you, who have been willing, for your sake, to endure the hardest calamity that could be thrown upon man? Can they forget your name, who have lost their own for your sake, and never murmured? Patrick! look upon his sister. She has come to us in our sorest trouble; she has clung to us with her tenderest service, as if we had blessed him, and not blighted. Take your comfort from her. As for me, my labor is over. I will live to see Marion. I must, if it be the Lord’s will – but for forgetfulness, or shame, or shrinking, ye never thought of me!”

Anne stood by the bedside. The eyes of the dying man, so intensely blue, and strangely clear, were shining wistfully upon her. She could not find words to speak to him.

“Mind them of me,” said Patrick Lillie, faintly. “Tell them, that if they have suffered pain for me, they never can know what agony, bitterer than death, I have endured within this desolate house. Bid them mind me as I was, in yon bright, far away time, that I have been dwelling in again this day. Tell them, the Lord has given me back my hope, that He gave me first in my youth. Tell them, I am in His hand, who never loses the feeblest of His flock. Tell them – ”

He was exhausted – the breath came in painful grasps.

“Do not fear,” said Anne, gently. “We will remember you in all tenderness, with sorrow and with reverence. I will answer for Norman.”

“For Norman!” said the dying man. “All blessings on the name that I have not dared to say for years! The blessing of my God upon him, who has been separated from his brethren. Norman! Marion! They have suffered in exile and in grief for me. Tell them, that with my last breath, I bade God bless them – God bless them! They have done as my Lord did – they have suffered for the guilty – and He will acknowledge His own.”