Chapter XIV.

Eve of the Funeral. Does it sound like a dirge? To-night it does. To-night, when the soul has had time to think; time to study and understand. A dirge, sad, solemn, mournful: but a dirge grand and pefect in its harmony, God like in its melody. Eve of the funeral; eve like this. So calm, so peaceful, so full of kindly thought. It had approached with such deep humility, such heartfelt sorrow for succumbing to its hasty temper. It had stood before us with drooping wings and down-cast eyes. It had looked so beautiful with those diamond dew drops sparkling on its misty lashes. O, that eve was so penitent, and so eager to make amends, that we could not help forgiving it, and loving it, and caressing it, and kissing it, and forgetting all about its passionate exhibition two nights before. Spoilt eve, spoilt child, let your conduct be ever so bad, ever so hurtful to your lovers, when you sue for pardon with such queenly grace, we cannot help embracing you, and straining you to our hearts. Eve of the funeral: Sweet, mournful, far away dirge. But the Eve of the funeral, on the eve of the funeral, was void of all sweetness, void of all dirge like harmony. Shroud, gloom, vague, something missed, something lost. Something, something, something. Ah! those who have had a funeral eve in their homes, know what that something sensation is. Darkness gathered round the house, and crept into the room where the dead man lay; crept in and clothed the silent form; crept in and kissed the pale, pale lips. page 151Darkness for once was charitable. For once it had compassion on its victims, and interfered with the light's rude glare. The bereaved, aye, bereaved indeed, bereft of prop and stay, bereft of head and heart, bereft of father; the bereaved clung together, dreading they knew not what. Bed time came, but no one rose to go. Bed time passed, and still they clung together. The mother in the midst of her orphaned family. Pray for them, ye, who have hearts, pray. But no! ye have need of your own prayers. Pray for yourselves. God is listening to his Son's prayer for them. "Be now their prop and stay; their head and heart, my father." But the early hours of morning dawned, the morn without the light, and the weary mourners slept; slept where they were, the little ones in their mother's arms, the mother in her chair. Did Nellie sleep? No. How could she when "Father was lying alone in that cold, cold room." Gliding past the unconscious sleepers she quietly entered the chamber of death. A dim light burned in the room, and its pale blue rays lit up the covered motionless form. Nellie approached the bed, but did not attempt to uncover the face. Why should she? When above the white sheet she saw the living, the moving, the breathing. Of course, it was only fancy: but it was a real fancy of the past. She saw her father beckon her to his bedside, as he did the night after that terrible conflict, and heard him tell of his happy careless boyhood—his early years which had hitherto been surrounded by stolid silence. Heard him relate anecdotes of his life in that dear Scottish home on the banks of the Clyde; of his school fellows, and of the pranks they used to play on the grey-haired old master. He told of his father and mother, and his voice grew husky, and two silent tears stole down his rugged cheeks as he said, "They died." Tears of the aged. Hoard them. They are pearls of the soul. "I page 152was not always a dutiful son, and I gave my good old dad many a sore heart," he murmured. Who are dutiful, children? And who has never given a parent a sore heart? Then he told of the breaking up of their home—their beautiful home on the banks of the Clyde." Told how hard stern men entered, and seizing with ruthless hands the sacred heirlooms of past generations, sold them for paltry gold. Seized and sold, while he, the last of a long proud line, stood by powerless. Under the restraint, which his hitherto unchecked spirits had been placed, the young blood of his fiery-tempered race, surged, and lashed, and rose to a white heat. Redress! redress! Money! money! Drawing out, with the promptings of another, the plan of his future life, he embarked for the colonies with the fixed determination of returning to Scotland and redeeming his lost inheritance; taking with him nothing but his dearly loved and zealously guarded name. Full, full of mistakes are the life plans of us all. Even when Christ lays the foundation, and supplies the material for building, there are holes in the walls which admit damp negligence draught. But, when the whole plan is drawn out, without even consulting the "Great Architect," who can doubt what a number of rents and fissures are found in those self-erected, seldom completed temples. Yet God does not reject every self-planned life. Many he allows to be completed; he even helps to build by inserting a word of advise, or by sending new masons. Favouritism! say you to accept one, and reject another. Oh, no. The plans that are accepted are those which have been drawn by amateurs, who, at the time of their drawing, were not acquainted with, had never been introduced to, the "Great Architect."

As Walter Main stood on that outward-bound ship, and watched the fast-receding shores of his beloved homeland, page 153he did not know his "farewell" was in reality "good-bye." His cousin, the only one among his relatives who cared for the homeless, orphan boy, stood on the pier and returned his farewell wave. "Cousin May was always good to me," he had said; "if I get over this illness I would like to go home and hunt up the clan. Perhaps I could do something to show my gratitude." At this point Nellie, seeing her father's agitation, and fearing the result, had begged him to be quiet—"He could tell her more to-morrow." Inwardly she had resolved to carry out her father's wish regarding these distant relatives. "It seems almost impossible," she mused, as she stood there in that dim, shadowy light; "thirty years. They may all be dead. There might never have been a 'they.'" Ah, Nellie, you have forgotten that clause in one of God's statutes: "Who knows what a day may bring forth." Be not too rash in your promises. Remember Jephthah and his daughter. The end of that story was never told. Ere he entered the state of semi-delirium, from which he awoke only in time to give that last wistful look, Mr. Main, taking her hand in his, had enjoined her, by her own young life, to think of his, and to pardon all he had done amiss. "Yet always bear in mind, lass, the whole object of my life was the welfare of my children." Then as he tossed his feverish head on the pillows, and his poor, tired mind stood for a few minutes on the brink of the sea of unconsciousness, he murmured, "Ah, well! God judges the object, and not the manner of the working."

All this Nellie saw as she gazed down at that still, white sheet. It was no dead form she beheld, no voiceless mould. It was the living, talking, life-planning being. She turned away without a sigh, and taking a rug, a rug having the form of a mighty tiger, with gaping jaws and curling tail, she spread it over the couch and lay down to rest, as page 154she had done so often during that anxious time of watching. No sleep came to the weary eyes. None was wanted. Sleep! What is sleep to the stricken? A numbness, the awakening from which is more painful than is the weary awake. But the day was before them—day so full of stir, so empty of hope and consolation. "Good-bye, father!" whispered Nellie as she softly opened the door and stepped out into the crisp morning air; "I shall go and do what you would have asked me had you been able to speak; Then I shall return." So she went, and so she did, and nothing within or without was left undone. "One last look—only one—before they hide you for ever from me." And as each one passed out, and each one went their way, either to moralize or to weep, and as the room was once more still and empty, Nellie quietly slipped in and locked the door behind her. The long, narrow black coffin lay across a table in the centre of the room. Written on the lid in raised gold letters were the two lines—

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the Cross I cling.

Flowers, white flowers, beautiful flowers formed a fit carpet for the feet of Jesus' bride. Far fitter cortege than the sombre black wooden shroud and the plumed hearse. And could any one accuse the flowers of irreverence? They were grave, silent, beautiful. Then why not make art more like nature? Why not have white garments, bridal cortege for Christ's betrothed? It is the living of the dead who mourn, who should wear the widows weeds; not the dead itself.

Nellie drew aside the lid, and gazed down upon the dear, dead face. It lay so calm and peaceful among its soft white purity, its foster land's jewels. The deep lines of care had almost disappeared. The mouth, though firm and set, had lost that stern expression. There was no page 155bitterness, no haughty repulsion, no hungering pain. All was gentle, and noble, and boyish; for as he lay there he looked like the wild, wilful "white-haired boy" of forty years before—"Grannie's white-haired boy." The hot New Zealand sun had not dulled the golden sheen of those fair wavy locks. Among the gold no streaks of silver could be seen—no tracings of the pitiless hand of care. A small piece, so small that father would never miss it, found its way into Nellie's brooch (Iwand's parting gift), to be treasured as the dearest earthly jewel; and eventually casket and contents became the tombstones of two buried loves. Oh angels, weep! Weep for that weary one! Weep and wring your hands for the living, motionless form beside the dead! Angels tears are the soul's medicine, which the Great Physician prescribes for soothing sorrow's agony. Angels tears are needed, for human tears there are none—none to relieve the overwrought heart. The white hand of the girl—white and cold as the face it touched—stroked the marble brow, stroked the marble cheek, lingered on the pallid lips; then back it wandered to the golden crown, and down to the loose white shroud and scented flowers, to the folded, restful hands. "Dear hands," she murmured, "hands of the undaunted, are your toils over? Are you never more to rest in your kindly way upon your children's head, while your owner whispers 'Daddy's girl!' And I, who valued not thy caress, am I to be for ever haunted by thy dreary shadow—shadow of what thou wert?" A great wave of loneliness swept over her heart. She felt as if the oak of her life had been cut down, and she the miserable parasite, was left clinging to a few withered branches. "Oh father, father," she moaned, clasping her hands together in the dull agony of her loss. "Oh father, father! you were always so kind, so unselfish, so good to me when I did not deserve so to be treated. I cannot, I page 156will not believe that now, when I am beginning to feel a little nearer Heaven, a little like your grateful daughter, I will not believe you have gone and left me—left me to stand and face this cruel, hypocritical world alone." She caressed those hands, she murmured loving words to them, she whispered thoughts and expressions of endearment; she told them she would always remember what they had done for her, what they were doing for her in the world to come, and what they would do for her if they were still on the earth. Told them she would never, never forget—never cease to love.

One last long look. One fervent kiss; kiss that would linger about that father, even in Heaven, kiss that would be returned while that daughter slept; kiss that would be pressed upon the weary earthling during the dark unconscious hours of night. "Good bye, my own own father, my loved and lost, my loved and united by and by. Something tells me it will not be long before we meet again. Open the golden gate, my father. I shall not enter, if you are not among the first to welcome me into Heaven. The first to lead me to our Master." She closed the lid, but opened it for another yearning look, another passionate kiss. "How can I tear myself away, knowing this is the last—the last." "O father, father," she wailed, "Farewell, farewell. The last, the last."

What was that? Did the dead move? No. But the watching angel brushed between the gazer and the gazed, and for an instant that lifeless face was lit up with a look of tender pathetic reproof. "Rebuke from my father? Nay, from God. Rebuke. But I cannot feel it, I am dead, dead." She covered the face. She re-arranged the flowers. She put John's wreath of native ferns and clematis; John's wreath which he had brought that afternoon; faithful old John, who had ridden many page 157miles, and gone to a great deal of trouble, that he might be in time to be of service at his old master's funeral; she put John's wreath at the head of all. She turned and left. Left without a tear.

The minister arrived. The clock struck the hour; and in that same room where, not many months before the sealing of a happy union took place, was read the burial service, and prayed the dead man's prayer. O, vain are the prayers for the dead, they say. They hear not the words that are spoken. But Christ looks down from his seat on high, and heeds the soughing of the heart broken. If they hear not the mournful wail. And the prayers for the dead are vain. Am I dead that I cannot lay. My hand on the sorrowing one. Are any of my readers wondering how I could have the hard heartedness to describe so sad and sacred a scene as a father's deathbed? I too am wondering at my own callousness, but for "Father's sake," I must crush down the pain these thoughts arouse. There are many who thought my father cold and sceptic. They have seen him, in the height of passion, strike down the first obstacle in his way, and they have passed the verdict "cruel." He has seldom been seen in church among his righteous brethren; consequently he was little better than a heathen. Wise world. O, I envy the world's wisdom, especially the "Christian World's." The charitable christian's wisdom I mean. Sit upon your judgment seats my brethren. There are lives around. Judge ye one another. What care we for your verdict. Our judge is the judge of the heart. Out judge is God. Take care you are not surprised when you reach Heaven to see those hedges and highway inhabitants occupying your reserved seats at the marriage supper. Even at Heaven's gate there is a way which leads to Hell. Father! who but your own have seen the penitent page 158tear for the hasty word, the earnest resolve to refrain from the hasty blow. Christ knew how impossible it was for man, in his own weakness, to conquer failings. Think you it was but a fancy which brought the Saviour to mankind? And ye who judge, do ye repent for your misdeeds? Your charitableness belie your affirmative. Polish up your natures. Drape their rugged parts in the beautiful folds of self-control and hypocritical sweetness. Crown yourselves with the words "We are saved." Rule and judge to your hearts content. We, the Gentile of the chosen, the publican of the Pharisee; laugh at you. We scorn you; and while we smite our breast before our master, we spurn you from us. And, as for death, is death so terrible? So awful that the wicked approach it with dread, and the righteous embrace it? Again, I could laugh. Laugh loud and scornfully. O death, sweet death, no wonder thou, like love, like marriage, no wonder thou hast become a by word for every gabbling tongue, when thy sacred meaning is given into the keeping of such dolts. Death! Pshaw! It is life, this weary selfish, struggling life that is so dreadful. (If, indeed, there is anything beside sin dreadful to mortal.)

Think not that I am guiltless of judgment's charge. I too have fallen. But I have paid dearly for my fall. How dearly, none but God and myself know. So dearly that I pray night and day to be kept off that false self-exalted seat. O daughters, children, love your parents. O parents love your children. Love them, love them, love them, until your love becomes the ruling passion of your lives: exceeded only by your love for God. Many friends you may have, many relatives, many humbugging flatterers; but home and home ties are the most sacred things on earth, the most blessed things above.

It went, that solemn funeral train. Went, bearing its peaceful burden. Did the spirit of that dead witness the page 159funeral procession? Was it exalted over the pompous burial? Disgusted at the useless ceremony? Indifferent? Ah, no! we venture to say. In its kindly way it smiled; it felt grateful, truly grateful, of the affectionate remembrance of those companions of its earthly sojourn, for the respect paid to its memory. It would feel as its loved ones felt, that it would like to wring the hand of each one of that long dark line, in gratitude, for not forgetting the times spent together, the lessons taught, and the life lived. Nellie stood at the garden gate, and watched the solemn, sad procession, watched it as it wended its way down the long dusty road watched it turn the corner; watched the last figure disappear.

"Gone." Lifting her hands above her head, as if to ward off a falling weight, Nellie closed her eyes, and tried to hide her thoughts from the fierce glaring light She turned, and would have fled to her room, but the dark figure and face of a Maori stood in her path. Her hands fell to her side. Here was another ordeal to be gone through. She was too weary to think where she had seen the face before, too utterly hopeless to speak.

The stranger addressed her, and his mellow voice, his broken English, and old-fashioned gallantry for a time won away her heart's dull grief.

"Missie Main," he began, "You know me? Me save you long time my mates. You know! him take you hoss. Him battu you him stick." A ray of light shot across the deaden brain. This was the man who had saved her from that cruel blow on that memorable evening long ago. She tried to thank him, but the words stuck in her throat. She could only stand and gaze into the dark homely face. How kind it seemed, how full of sympathy. Even squatter Gould would have looked mean and insignificant beside that earnest uncultured Maori. In his simple way he told page 160his story. Told of the Dead's treatment to the Living. Told of a long ago, when country roads and country traffic were as dangerous as dangerous could be; when doctors were scarce, and medicine and medical treatment scarcer; when homesteads were few and far between: told of an accident which nearly cost him his life; told of her father's kind treatment to the neglected sufferer; and how he owed his life to Mr. Main. Nellie's heart had joy, actual joy, when she heard this; and she felt that it was the result of such deeds which had given her father strength to bear his own great sufferings. Little else was told, save that the man was sorry, very very sorry; that he knew her when she was a little child; that he was going to her father's funeral. Then he went; and Nellie was once more alone. Once more that awful weight seemed to hang suspended over her head. Once more she threw up her hands to keep it off. Once more the fire, that fearful red fire, scorched her brain. She even felt the crackling of the fuel. But she did not wish to fly to her room now. That wish was gone. She wished to open her forehead, and see what was the matter. As slowly as the funeral procession, so slowly Nellie made her way indoors, and took up the broken fragments of their former life, battling against that terrible weight the while. Took them up; yet still without a tear. And beside that open grave beyond the town, the followers paused, and laid down their silent burden. They clustered around; many weeping, few speaking; all hushed and reverent; they clustered around and looked their last upon the lowered coffin with its crown of flowers. The requiem died away. The mourners left. The cemetery was quiet. Two figures stood and watched the fast filling grave. Two figures, one dark, the other tanned, both beautiful by reason of their love. "Faithful John" and "Nellie and Beauty's friend."