|
|
|
Prev
| Next
| Contents
THE PORCH OF HADES.
When Arctura woke from her unnatural sleep, she lay a while without
thought, then began to localize herself. The last place she recalled
was the inn where they had tea: she must have been there taken ill,
she thought, and was now in a room of the same. It was quite dark:
they might have left a light by her! She lay comfortably enough, but
had a suspicion that the place was not over clean, and was glad to
find herself not undrest. She turned on her side: something pulled
her by the wrist. She must have a bracelet on, and it was entangled
in the coverlet! She tried to unclasp it, but could not: which of
her bracelets could it be? There was something attached to it!--a
chain--a thick chain! How odd! What could it mean? She lay quiet,
slowly waking to fuller consciousness.--Was there not a strange air,
a dull odour in the room? Undefined as it was, she had smelt it
before, and not long since!--It was the smell of the lost
chapel!--But that was at home in the castle! she had left it two
days before! Was she going out of her mind?
The dew of agony burst from her forehead. She would have started up,
but was pulled hard by the wrist! She cried on God.--Yes, she was
lying on the very spot where that heap of woman-dust had lain! she
was manacled with the same ring from which that woman's arm had
wasted--the decay of centuries her slow redeemer! Her being recoiled
so wildly from the horror, that for a moment she seemed on the edge
of madness. But madness is not the sole refuge from terror! Where
the door of the spirit has once been opened wide to God, there is
he, the present help in time of trouble! With him in the house, it
is not only that we need fear nothing, but that is there which in
its own being and nature casts out fear. God and fear cannot be
together. It is a God far off that causes fear. "In thy presence is
fulness of joy." Such a sense of absolute helplessness overwhelmed
Arctura that she felt awake in her an endless claim upon the
protection of her original, the source of her being. And what sooner
would any father have of his children than action on such claim! God
is always calling us as his children, and when we call him as our
father, then, and not till then, does he begin to be satisfied. And
with that there fell upon Arctura a kind of sleep, which yet was not
sleep; it was a repose such as perhaps is the sleep of a spirit.
Again the external began to intrude. She pictured to herself what
the darkness was hiding. Her feelings when first she came down into
the place returned on her memory. The tide of terror began again to
rise. It rose and rose, and threatened to become monstrous. She
reasoned with herself: had she not been brought in safety through
its first and most dangerous inroad?--but reason could not outface
terror. It was fear, the most terrible of all terrors, that she
feared. Then again woke her faith: if the night hideth not from him,
neither does the darkness of fear!
It began to thunder, first with a low distant muttering roll, then
with a loud and near bellowing. Was it God coming to her? Some are
strangely terrified at thunder; Arctura had the child's feeling that
it was God that thundered: it comforted her as with the assurance
that God was near. As she lay and heard the great organ of the
heavens, its voice seemed to grow articulate; God was calling to
her, and saying, "Here I am, my child! be not afraid!"
Then she began to reason with herself that the worst that could
happen to her was to lie there till she died of hunger, and that
could not be so very bad! And therewith across the muttering thunder
came a wail of the ghost-music. She started: had she not heard it a
hundred times before, as she lay there in the dark alone? Was she
only now for the first time waking up to it--she, the lady they had
shut up there to die--where she had lain for ages, with every now
and then that sound of the angels singing, far above her in the blue
sky?
She was beginning to wander. She reasoned with herself, and
dismissed the fancy; but it came and came again, mingled with real
memories, mostly of the roof, and Donal.
By and by she fell asleep, and woke in a terror which seemed to have
been growing in her sleep. She sat up, and stared into the dark.
>From where stood the altar, seemed to rise and approach her a form
of deeper darkness. She heard nothing, saw nothing, but something
was there. It came nearer. It was but a fancy; she knew it; but the
fancy assumed to be: the moment she gave way, and acknowledged it,
that moment it would have the reality it had been waiting for, and
clasp her in its skeleton-arms! She cried aloud, but it only came
nearer; it was about to seize her!
A sudden, divine change!--her fear was gone, and in its place a
sense of absolute safety: there was nothing in all the universe to
be afraid of! It was a night of June, with roses, roses everywhere!
Glory be to the Father! But how was it? Had he sent her mother to
think her full of roses? Why her mother? God himself is the heart of
every rose that ever bloomed! She would have sung aloud for joy, but
no voice came; she could not utter a sound. What a thing this would
be to tell Donal Grant! This poor woman cried, and God heard her,
and saved her out of all her distresses! The father had come to his
child! The cry had gone from her heart into his!
If she died there, would Donal come one day and find her? No! No!
She would speak to him in a dream, and beg him not to go near the
place! She would not have him see her lie like that he and she
standing together had there looked upon!
With that came Donal's voice, floated and rolled in music and
thunder. It came from far away; she did not know whether she fancied
or really heard it. She would have responded with a great cry, but
her voice vanished in her throat. Her joy was such that she
remembered nothing more.
Prev
| Next
| Contents
|
|
|