Nobody Part 77

"I can," said Mrs. Barclay here, putting in her word at this not very civil speech. And she went on--

'The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee.'"

"Well, of course," said Mrs. Lenox. "That is true."

"Is it cheerful?" said Mrs. Barclay. "But that is not the last.--

'So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, which moves To that mysterious realm, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.'"

"There!" Mrs. Lenox exclaimed. "What would you have, better than that?"

Lois looked at her, and said nothing. The look irritated husband and wife, in different ways; her to impatience, him to curiosity.

"Have you got anything better, Miss Lothrop?" he asked.

"You can judge. Compare that with a dying Christian's address to his soul--

'Deathless principle, arise; Soar, thou native of the skies.

Pearl of price, by Jesus bought, To his glorious likeness wrought, Go, to shine before the throne; Deck the mediatorial crown; Go, his triumphs to adorn; Made for G.o.d, to G.o.d return.'

I won't give you the whole of it--

'Is thy earthly house distressed?

Willing to retain her guest?

'Tis not thou, but she, must die; Fly, celestial tenant, fly.'

Burst thy shackles, drop thy clay, Sweetly breathe thyself away: Singing, to thy crown remove, Swift of wing, and fired with love.'

'Shudder not to pa.s.s the stream; Venture all thy care on him; Him whose dying love and power Stilled its tossing, hushed its roar.

Safe is the expanded wave, Gentle as a summer's eve; Not one object of his care Ever suffered shipwreck there.'"

"That ain't no hymn in the book, is it?" inquired the ox driver.

"Haw!--go 'long. That ain't in the book, is it, Lois?"

"Not in the one we use in church, Mr. Sears."

"I wisht it was!--like it fust-rate. Never heerd it afore in my life."

"There's as good as that _in_ the church book," remarked Mrs. Armadale.

"Yes," said Lois; "I like Wesley's hymn even better--

'Come, let us join our friends above That have obtained the prize; And on the eagle wings of love To joys celestial rise.

'One army of the living G.o.d, To his command we bow; Part of his host have crossed the flood And part are crossing now.

'His militant embodied host, With wishful looks we stand, And long to see that happy coast, And reach the heavenly land.

'E'en now, by faith, we join our hands With those that went before; And greet the blood-besprinkled bands On the eternal sh.o.r.e.'"

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

LONG CLAMS.

There was a soft ring in Lois's voice; it might be an echo of the trumpets and cymbals of which she had been speaking. Yet not done for effect; it was unconscious, and delicate as indescribable, for which reason it had the greater power. The party remained silent for a few minutes, all of them; during which a killdeer on the fence uttered his little shout of gratulation; and the wild, salt smell coming from the Sound and the not distant ocean, joined with the silence and Lois's hymn, gave a peculiar impression of solitude and desolation to at least one of the party. The cart entered an enclosure, and halted before a small building at the edge of the sh.o.r.e, just above high-water mark.

There were several such buildings scattered along the sh.o.r.e at intervals, some enclosed, some not. The whole breadth of the Sound lay in view, blinking under the summer sun; yet the air was far fresher here than it had been in the village. The tide was half out; a wide stretch of wet sand, with little pools in the hollows, intervened between the rocks and the water; the rocks being no magnificent b.u.t.tresses of the land, but large and small boulders strewn along the sh.o.r.e edge, hung with seaweed draperies; and where there were not rocks there was a growth of rushes on a mud bottom. The party were helped out of the cart one by one, and the strangers surveyed the prospect.

"'Afar in the desert,' this is, I declare," said the gentleman.

"Might as well be," echoed his wife. "Whatever do you come here for?"

she said, turning to Lois; "and what do you do when you are here?"

"Get some clams and have supper."

"_Clams!_"--with an inimitable accent. "Where do you get clams?"

"Down yonder--at the edge of the rushes."

"Who gets them? and how do you get them?"

"I guess I shall get them to-day. O, we do it with a hoe."