Silent Struggles Part 2

After a little, Barbara Stafford drew a deep, tremulous breath, that was long in coming, for the holy depths of her heart could not be broken up at once. She arose to a sitting posture, and lifted the head of the young man to her lap.

That moment Samuel Parris came up followed by the three sailors his courage had rescued.

"Ah, me!" said the old man, clasping his hands sorrowfully over the body. "The youth has gone to his last account; there is no life here."

The woman looked quickly around; a spasm of pain contracted her features when she saw the ocean, the dripping sailors, and that singular old man, stricken with sorrow, and moaning over the cold form in her arms. She was still of earth; this conviction left her gazing wistfully in the old man's face; she was trying to comprehend the connection of his words. At last, understanding them, she dropped her eyes sorrowfully downward again.

"He is gone of a verity," said Parris, dropping the hand of the youth from his fingers, which had been tremulously searching for the beat of a pulse. "He has gone, and those that have seen him shall see him no more."

Again Barbara Stafford lifted a gaze full of mournful intensity upon the old man's face.

"Dead," she echoed, in a voice that thrilled even that rough atmosphere with pathetic sweetness. "Dead! what, does he belong to that sh.o.r.e and I to this? Oh, would to G.o.d I had died also!"

Her head bent slowly downward as she spoke. With her two hands she began smoothing the wet hair back from that pale forehead. Then, as if overcome with unaccountable tenderness, she bent down her mouth and kissed it slowly, lingeringly, as the first sigh of returning life had left her bosom.

Up to that moment the young man had lain frozen lifeless, without a beat of the pulse or a flutter of the breath. As that woman's lips touched his forehead, a shudder ran visibly through what seemed marble a moment before, and a low cry broke from his lips. Life had come back to him with a pang either of pain or pleasure; no one could tell which.

"Behold," said Samuel Parris with enthusiasm, "truly our Lord has worked a miracle in behalf of this youth; for of a verity there was no life in him when his hand rested in mine a moment since."

Barbara Stafford had withdrawn her lips from his forehead; but, as his quivering eyelids opened, the look of strange tenderness with which she bent over him penetrated to every fibre of his heart. The same holy expression that had crept over her features a little time before, came to his also, bringing warmth and color, almost a smile with it.

"At last!" he murmured, like one just aroused from a dream, "at last you have come."

The words were uttered in a low murmur, but Barbara Stafford gathered them into her heart unshared by the men about her; they heard a faint moan, which spoke of returning life, nothing more.

By this time the whole group began to feel the cold insupportably. The old man, without cloak or coat, shook in all his limbs, while the sailors could hardly stand, so fierce had been their struggle with the waves.

"Tell me," said Samuel Parris, addressing one of the sailors, "to whom were you conveying this lady?--for such I take her to be."

"We do not know," answered the man; "she gave us a guinea a-piece to set her upon one of the wharves yonder before sunset; that is all we can tell you of the matter."

"Lady," said Parris, addressing Barbara directly, "we must find speedy shelter or this new-born life will go out again."

The lady lifted her face; it was cramped and so cold that a violet tinge shadowed the mouth and lay underneath the eyes.

"Yes, he is very cold," she said, gathering her wet mantle over the youth; "have you nothing else?"

"Arouse yourself, lady," said the old man after a moment's perplexed thought; "to remain here would be death to us all. It is impossible for you or this youth to reach the town to-night. Around this curve of the hill is a farm-house, where you can have rest. It is but a brief walk."

"Let us go before this ice touches his heart!" she said, earnestly. "I can walk; carry him among you. Which way lies the house?"

Her teeth chattered as she spoke; but even this chill gave way to her resolution.

Two of the sailors lifted the young man between them, and moved slowly forward, following the lady, who leaned on the minister's arm. After the first few steps the youth planted his feet more firmly on the earth, and, though staggering from exhaustion, insisted on supporting the lady, walking on one side while she kept the arm of the minister on the other.

At last a farm-house of stone, low-roofed and sheltered in a hollow of the hills, presented itself. Samuel Parris knocked upon the door with his knuckles two or three times, when a voice bade him "come in." He pulled a thong which lifted a wooden latch inside, and entered a low room in which a woman sat alone spinning on one of those small flax-wheels with which our mothers in the olden time used to fill up the leisure hours obtained from the general housework.

She was a spare, not to say gaunt woman, a little on the sunny side of mid age; not exactly austere of countenance, but with a certain gravity which was in that epoch considered an outward sign of experimental religion.

The woman arose in evident surprise when her strange guests entered.

Pushing back the spinning-wheel with her foot, she stood bolt upright, waiting to know what had brought them under her roof. Mr. Parris stepped forward, and told his story in a few terse words, during which the good wife was unbanding her wheel and removing the checked ap.r.o.n which had protected her dress while at work.

"Walk in and make yourself to home, ma'am," said the housewife, opening the door of an inner room and revealing a fire-place filled with pine branches which looked drearily cold that heavy day. "The hired man is out, but if one of these sailor men will bring in some wood from the yard, I'll get some pitch pine knots and have a fire in no time."

Without more ceremony, the woman went to work, and in less than half an hour Barbara Stafford was in a warm bed, with a bowl of herb tea smoking on a little round table by her pillow, while her young preserver lay in a smaller room equally well provided for.

For Samuel Parris and the sailors the good wife insisted on providing a comfortable supper; and gave up her own bed to the minister, while she found room for the unfortunate seamen in a loft of the house. In order to accomplish this, she was sadly put about for blue and white yarn coverlets with which to restore them to warmth, but stripped every bed in the house, and, when that resource was exhausted, brought out all her linsey-woolsey skirts and ap.r.o.ns as a subst.i.tute.

Early in the morning Norman Lovel was aroused from a deep slumber by the hand of Samuel Parris laid gently on his shoulder. The youth started up, shook back his hair which the dampness had left crisp and curling over his forehead, and cast an astonished look around, which ended in a long, half-angry gaze at his visitor.

"Oh!" he said, sweeping a hand once or twice across his eyes, then turning his face toward the old man, with a smile.

"This is no dream, I suppose--though you are here with the roar of waters too--a minute since I was fighting them like a tiger; but this is a feather bed, and you stand upon a good oak floor. Is it not so?"

"Yes, thanks to the Holy of holies, we are safe!"

"But that ship--the boat--the lady--tell me what is real and what was dreaming."

"We have had a strange meeting, my young friend, and have struggled together in behalf of human life, peradventure with success."

The youth again swept a hand over his face. "Yes, yes. I remember a ship in the distance--a boat full of people rocking in the foam--a madman jumping overboard--I--you in the waves. Tell me, old man, was this real?"

"Truly it was."

"And the lady--this house--the woman at her spinning-wheel, who brought herb tea to my bed. That lady--me, good friend, for I remember all--how fares the lady?"

"She is safe--thanks to a merciful Providence--and sleeping profoundly in the next room, at least such was the report of Goody Brown, in the kitchen yonder, ten minutes ago. She must not be disturbed. I had not broken in upon your sleep, either, but the sun is up, and perchance there is some one in town who may be grieved at your absence. You must have friends, and I would cheerfully bear them tidings of your safety."

"Friends!" cried the youth, starting up. "Indeed, there is one who will have wept her eyes out by this time. I pray you, sir, hand me such garments as the storm has left. We must start together for the town."

"Willingly," answered the minister, bringing the desired garments in from the kitchen fire. "But put on your garments in haste, for the morning wears; meanwhile I will speak a word with our host."

Half an hour after, the minister and his young friend quitted the farm-house, leaving the woman they had saved in the deep slumber of exhaustion.

CHAPTER III.

THE MINISTER.

Norman Lovel and the old minister walked on toward the town in company.

The earth was still wet and heavy after the storm, and a sullen moan came up from the depths of the far-off ocean, which filled the bright morning as with a wail of sorrow.

But the old man was strong, and the youth full of that elasticity which springs more from the soul than the body. If either of them felt any evil effect from the storm, the vigorous speed at which they walked bore no evidence of it.

For some time they moved on in silence. The minister seemed lost in a reverie; the youth was thinking, with strange interest, on the lady he had left behind.

They came down upon the sh.o.r.e where the accident of the previous night had happened. A fragment of the boat lay where it had ploughed in upon the sand, burying itself so firmly that the waves had failed to draw it back again, and so had lost their plaything.