A Knight of the Nineteenth Century Part 54

"I wish he was ready for mamma, Amy, and me now, and then we could all be together. It's so lonely without papa. Oh! I'm so tired," she added after a few moments, and a little later her head dropped against Haldane's breast, and she was asleep.

"Mr. Haldane," said Amy in a low, agitated voice, "have you embodied your faith in that story to Bertha?"

"Yes, Miss Amy."

"Why do you think"--and she hesitated. "How do you know," she began again, "that any such Being as Jesus exists and comes to any one's help?"

"Granting that the story I have told you is true, how did his disciples know that he came to their help? Did not the hushed winds prove it? Did not the quieted waters prove it? Did not his presence with them a.s.sure them of it? By equal proof I know that he can and will come to the aid of those who look to him for aid. I have pa.s.sed through darker nights and wilder storms than ever lowered over the Sea of Galilee, and I know by simple, practical, happy experience that Jesus Christ, through his all-pervading Spirit, has come to me in my utter extremity again and again, and that I have the same as felt his rescuing hand. Not that my trials and temptations have been greater than those of many others, but I have been weaker than others, and I have often been conscious of his sustaining power when otherwise I would have sunk beneath my burden.

This is not a theory, Miss Amy, nor the infatuation of a few ignorant people. It is the downright experience of mult.i.tudes in every walk of life, and, on merely scientific grounds, is worth as much as any other experience. This story of Jesus gains the sympathy of little Bertha; it also commands the reverent belief of the most gifted and cultivated minds in the world."

"Oh, that I could believe all this; but there is so much mystery, so much that is dark." Then she glanced at her mother, who had turned away her face and seemed to be sleeping, and she asked: "If Christ is so strong to help and save, why is he not strong to prevent evil? Why is there a cry of agony going up from this stricken city? Why must father die who was everything to us? Why must mother suffer so? Why am I so shadowed by an awful fear? Life means so much to me. I love it," she continued in low yet pa.s.sionate tones. "I love the song of birds, the breath of flowers, the sunlight, and every beautiful thing. I love sensation. I am not one who finds a tame and tranquil pleasure in the things I like or in the friends I love. My joys thrill every nerve and fibre of my being. I cling to them, I cannot give them up. A few days ago life was as full of rich promise to me as our tropical spring. It is still, though I will never cease to feel the pain of this great sorrow, and yet this horrible pit of death, corruption, and nothingness yawns at my very feet. Mr. Haldane," she said in a still lower and more shuddering tone, "I have a terrible presentiment that I shall perish with this loathsome disease. I may seem to you, who are so quiet and brave, very weak and cowardly; but I shrink from death with a dread which you cannot understand and which no language can express. It is repugnant to every instinct of my being, and I can think of it only with unutterable loathing. If I were old and feeble, if I had tasted all the joys of life, I might submit, but not now, not now. I feel with father that it is fiendish cruelty to give one such an intense love of life and then wrench it away; and, pa.s.sionately as I love life, there is one far more dear. There is that in your nature which has so won my confidence that I can reveal to you my whole heart. Mr. Haldane, I love one who is like you, manly and n.o.ble, and dearly as I prize life, I think I could give it away in slow torture for his sake, if required. How often my heart has thrilled to see his eyes kindle with his foolish admiration, the infatuation of love which makes its object beautiful at least to the lover. And now to think that he does not know what I suffer and fear, to think that I may never see him again, to think that when he returns I may be a hideous ma.s.s of corruption that he cannot even approach. Out upon the phrases 'beneficent nature,' and 'natural law.' Laws which permit such things are must unnatural, and to endow one with such a love of life, such boundless capabilities of enjoying life, and then at the supreme moment when the loss will be most bitterly felt to s.n.a.t.c.h it away, looks to me more like the work of devilish ingenuity than of a 'beneficent nature.' I feel with father, it is fiendish cruelty."

Haldane bowed his head among Bertha's curls to hide the tears that would come at this desperate cry of distress; but Amy's eyes were hard and dry, and had the agonized look which might have been their expression had she been enduring physical torture.

"Miss Amy," he said brokenly after a moment, "you forget that your father said, 'If this life is all, it is fiendishly cruel to tear us from that which we have learned to love so dearly,' and I agree with him. But this life is not all; the belief that human life ends at death is revolting to reason, conscience, and every sense of justice. If this were true the basest villain could escape all the consequences of his evil in a moment, and you who are so innocent, so exquisite in your spiritual organization, so brave and n.o.ble that you can face this awful fear in your devotion to those you love--you by ceasing to breathe merely would sink to precisely the same level and be no different from the lifeless clay of the villain. Such monstrous injustice is impossible; it outrages every instinct of justice, every particle of reason that I have.

"Miss Amy, don't you see that you are like the disciples in the boat out in the midst of the sea? The night is dark above you, the storm is wild around you, the waves are dashing over you, the little boat is frail, and there are such cold, dark depths beneath it. But we can't help these things. We can't explain the awful mystery of evil and suffering; sooner or later every human life becomes enveloped in darkness, storm, and danger. That wave-tossed boat in the midst of the sea is an emblem of the commonest human experience. On the wide sea of life, numberless little barks are at this moment at the point of foundering. Few are so richly freighted as yours, but the same unknown depths are beneath each.

But, Miss Amy, I pray you remember the whole of this suggestive Bible story. Those imperilled disciples were watched by a loving, powerful friend. He came to their aid, making the very waves that threatened to engulf the pathway of his rescuing love. He saved those old-time friends. They are living to-day, they will live forever. I can't explain the dark and terrible things of which this world is full, I cannot explain the awful mystery of evil in any of its forms. I know the pestilence is all around us; I know it seems to threaten your precious, beautiful life. I recognize the fact, as I also remember the fact of the darkness and storm around the little boat. But I also know with absolute certainty that there is one who can come to your rescue, whose province it is to give life, deathless life, life more rich and full of thrilling happiness than you have ever dreamed of, even with your vivid imagination."

"How, how can you know this? What _proof_ can you give me?" she asked; and no poor creature, whose life was indeed at stake, ever bent forward more eagerly to catch the sentence of life or death, than did Amy Poland the coming answer.

"I know it," he replied more calmly, "on the strongest possible grounds of evidence--my own experience, the experience of Mrs. Arnot, who is sincerity itself, and the experience of mult.i.tudes of others. Believers in Jesus Christ have been verifying his promises in every age, and in every possible emergency and condition of life, and if their testimony is refused, human consciousness is no longer a basis of knowledge. No one ever had a better friend than Mrs. Arnot has been to me; she has been the means of saving me from disgrace, shame, and everything that was base, and I love her with a grat.i.tude that is beyond words, and yet I am not so conscious of her practical help and friendship as that of the Divine Man who has been my patient unwavering friend in my long, hard struggle."

Under his words, the hard, dry despair of Amy had given way to gentler feelings, which found expression in low, piteous sobbing.

"Oh, when will he come to me?" she asked, "for I cannot doubt after such words."

"When you most need him, Miss Amy. It is your privilege to ask his comforting and sustaining presence now; but he will come when he sees that you most need him."

"If ever poor creatures needed such a friend as you have described, we need him now," faltered Mrs. Poland, turning her face toward them and then they knew that she had heard all.

Amy sprang to her embrace, exclaiming, "Mother, is it possible that we can find such a friend in our extremity?"

"Amy, I am bewildered, I am overwhelmed."

Haldane carried little Bertha to her crib and covered her with an afghan. Then coming to the lady's side he took her hand and said gently, and yet with that quiet firmness which does much to produce conviction: "Mrs. Poland, before leaving your husband to his quiet sleep we read words which Jesus Christ once spoke to a despairing, grief-stricken woman. Take them now as if spoken to you. 'Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.' As your husband said to you, you will all surely meet again."

Then he lifted her hand to his lips in a caress that was full of sympathy and respect, and silently left the room.

CHAPTER LII

A MAN VERSUS A CONNOISSEUR

Amy's sad presentiment was almost verified. She was very ill, and for hours of painful uncertainty Haldane watched over her and administered the remedies which Dr. Orton left; and indeed the doctor himself was never absent very long, for his heart was bound up in the girl. At last, after a wavering poise, the scale turned in favor of life, and she began to slowly revive.

Poor Mrs. Poland was so weak that she could not raise her head or hand, but, with her wistful, pathetic eyes, followed every motion, for she insisted on having Amy in the same room with herself. Aunt Saba, the old negress, to whom Mr. Poland had given her freedom, continued a faithful a.s.sistant. Bound to her mistress by the stronger chain of grat.i.tude and affection, she served with fidelity in every way possible to her; and she and her husband were so old and humble that death seemingly had forgotten them.

Before Amy was stricken down with the fever the look of unutterable dread and anxiety that was so painful to witness pa.s.sed away, and gave place to an expression of quiet serenity.

"I need no further argument," she had said to Haldane; "Christ has come across the waves of my trouble. I am as sure of it as I am sure that you came to my aid. I do not know whether mother or Bertha or I will survive, but I believe that G.o.d's love is as great as his power, and that in some way and at some time all will come out for the best. I have written to my friend abroad and to Auntie Arnot all about it, and now I am simply waiting. O, Mr. Haldane, I am so happy to tell you," she had added, "that I think mother is accepting the same faith, slowly and in accordance with her nature, but surely nevertheless. I am like father, quick and intense in my feelings. I feel that which is false or that which is true, rather than reason it out as mother does."

Aunt Saba and her husband managed to take care of Bertha and keep her mind occupied; but before Amy's convalescence had proceeded very far the little girl was suddenly prostrated by a most violent attack of the disease, and she withered before the hot fever like a fragile flower in a simoom. Haldane went hastily for Dr. Orton, but he gave scarcely a hope from the first.

During the night following the day on which she had been stricken down a strange event occurred. [Footnote: It is stated on high medical authority that "all patients suffer more during thunder-showers," and an instance is given of a physician who was suffering from this fever, and who was killed as instantly, by vivid flash and loud report, as if he had been struck by the lightning.] The sultry heat had been followed by a tropical thunder-storm, which had gathered in the darkness, and often gave to the midnight a momentary and brighter glare than that of the previous noon. The child would start as the flashes grew more intense, for they seemed to distress her very much.

As Haldane was lifting her to give her a drink he said:

"Perhaps Bertie will see papa very soon."

Hearing the word "papa," the child forgot her pain for a moment and smiled. At that instant there was a blinding flash of lightning, and the appalling thunder-peal followed without any interval.

Both Mrs. Poland and Amy gave a faint and involuntary cry of alarm, but Haldane's eyes were fixed on the little smiling face that he held so near to his own. The smile did not fade. The old, perplexed expression of pain did not come back, and after a moment he said quietly and very gently:

"Bertie is with her father;" and he lifted her up and carried her to her mother, and then to Amy, that they might see the beautiful and smiling expression of the child's face.

But their eyes were so blinded by tears that they could scarcely see the face from which all trace of suffering had been banished almost as truly as from the innocent spirit.

Having laid her back in the crib, and arranged the little form as if sleeping, he carried the crib, with Aunt Saba's help, to the room where Mr. Poland had died. Then he told the old negress to return and remain with her mistress, and that he would watch over the body till morning.

That quiet watch by the pure little child, with a trace of heaven's own beauty on her face, was to Haldane like the watch of the shepherds on the hillside near Bethlehem. At times, in the deep hush that followed the storm, he was almost sure that he heard, faint and far away, angelic minstrelsy and song.

Haldane's unusually healthful and vigorous const.i.tution had thus far resisted the infection, but after returning from the sad duty of laying little Bertha's remains by those of her father, he felt the peculiar languor which is so often the precursor of the chill and subsequent fever. Although he had scarcely hoped to escape an attack, he had never before realized how disastrous it would be to the very ones he had come to serve. Who was there to take care of him? Mrs. Poland was almost helpless from nervous prostration. Amy required absolute quiet to prevent the more fatal relapse, which is almost certain to follow exertion made too early in convalescence. He knew that if he were in the house she would make the attempt to do something for him, and he also knew it would be at the risk of her life. Old Aunt Saba was worn out in her attendance on Bertha, Amy, and Mrs. Poland. Her husband, and a stranger who had been at last secured to a.s.sist him, were required in the household duties.

He took his decision promptly, for he felt that he had but brief time in which to act. Going to Mrs. Poland's room, he said to her and Amy:

"I am glad to find you both so brave and doing as well as you are on this sad, sad day. I do not think you will take the disease, Mrs.

Poland; and you, Miss Amy, only need perfect quiet in order to get well.

Please remember, as a great favor to me, how vitally important is the tranquillity of mind and body that I am ever preaching to you, and don't do that which fatigues you in the slightest degree, till conscious of your old strength. And now I am going away for a little while. This is a time when every man should be at his post of duty. I am needed elsewhere, for I know of a case that requires immediate attention.

Please do not remonstrate," he said, as they began to urge that he should take some rest; "my mission here has ended for the present and my duty is elsewhere. We won't say good-by, for I shall not be far away;"

and although he was almost faint from weakness, his bearing was so decided and strong, and he appeared so bent on departure, that they felt that it would hardly be in good taste to say anything more.

"We are almost beginning to feel that Mr. Haldane belongs to us," said Amy to her mother afterward, "and forget that he may be prompted by as strong a sense of duty to others."

As Haldane was leaving the house Dr. Orton drove to the door. Before he could alight the young man climbed into his buggy with almost desperate haste.

"Drive toward the city," he said so decisively that the doctor obeyed.

"What's the matter, Haldane? Speak, man; you look sick."

"Take me to the city hospital. I am sick."

"I shall take you right back to Mrs. Poland's," said the doctor, pulling up.

Haldane laid his hands on the reins, and then explained his fears and the motive for his action.