The Measure of a Man

"This is the River that follows
Wherever we go,
No sand so dry and thirsty,
But these strange waters flow.

"Many waters go softly dreaming
On to the sea,
But the river of Death flows softest
To Thee and me.

"And the Lord's voice on the waters
Lingereth sweet,
He that is washed needest only
To wash his feet."

CHAPTER XIII

THE LOVE THAT NEVER FAILS

Go in peace, soul beautiful and blest!

Yet high above the limits of our seeing,
And folded far within the inmost heart,
And deep below the deeps of conscious being,
Thy splendor shineth! There O God! Thou art.

When John reached London it was in the gray misty dawning. The streets were nearly deserted, and an air of melancholy hung over the long rows of low dwellings. At Harlow House he saw at once that every window was shrouded, and he turned heartsick with the fear that he was too late. A porter, whose eyes were red with weeping, admitted him, and there was an intolerable smell of drugs, the odor of which he recollected all the days of his future life.

"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 removed
A 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."