The Old Homestead Part 31

The pauper captain neither heeded the pleading cry of Mary Fuller, or the more touching look of the orphan--and to all the humane arguments of Crofts he turned a deaf ear. At length Crofts found a means of persuasion more potent than tears or words. He took from his pocket four twists of coa.r.s.e tobacco, which the captain received with a grin.

Hiding the treasure under his seat, he cast a sharp glance over the pile of coffins to a.s.sure himself that the transfer had not been observed by the men in the bow.

"Holloa, there, stop crying and jump in if you want to go!" cried the man, addressing the children; "make room in the bow, will you--we have got to leave these children at the nurseries as we come back."

Crofts lifted the little girls into the boat, sat them gently down in the shadow of Mrs. Chester's coffin, and went back to the hospital.

"Give way, all hands!" cried the captain, seizing the helm. "Pull a strong oar, boys, or the tide will turn agin us!"

Half a dozen oars splashed into the water as this command was given.

The boat moved slowly from the wharf, and wheeling through a narrow inlet, shot heavily out with its freight of death, into the East River.

Oh, what a change was there, from the dull and murky gloom of Bellevue! Down upon the broad expanse of waters came the morning sunshine. Rosy and golden it fell upon the waves, as they tossed and rolled and dimpled to the soft spring breeze. Here a current of liquid gold went eddying in and out, like the trail of a comet; there, lay the smooth, calm surface, rosy with the young light, or blackened by the shadow of an overhanging bank. Behind them lay New York city, Brooklyn, and Williamsburg, the tall masts and steeples rising through a sea of hazy gold, and belted with the silvery flash of the river.

The banks, on either side, were clothed with soft, vivid green, broken with dog-wood trees in full flower, and maples in the first sweet crimson of their foliage. The fragrance from these banks swept down upon the water and trembled through the air.

All this seemed like the very atmosphere of paradise to those little girls, after their dreary sojourn in the pestilential gloom of Bellevue. They could not realize that the mother, the benefactress, whose smile had been so sweet only a few days before, was really and truly gone. She was there close by; their little hands could touch her coffin; the scent of flowers stealing through its c.h.i.n.ks, constantly reminded them of the mournful truth; but, with everything so bright and lovely around, they could not believe in the reality. The motion of the boat--the melodious dip of the oars in the water--these things were new and strange. There was nothing like death in it all save the heap of coffins, and from them they shrank shuddering and appalled.

As the boat crept by Hurl Gate, a fearful change came over them. The glorious beauty of nature conflicting with the gloom of death; the frightful jokes of the crew; the boiling waters, leaping up only a few yards off, in long glittering flashes, like banners of silver, torn and weltering in the breeze; the sky bending over them deeply blue, and flooded with pleasant sunshine; the ribald criticisms of those coa.r.s.e men, and the death-heap under which the sluggish boat toiled through the waters--all these sharp contrasts were enough to have unsettled the nerves of strong manhood. To those children, worn out and heartbroken, it brought strange and fearful excitement. Their hands were interlinked; a thrill of keen magnetic sympathy shot through their frames. They looked at the bright water leaping and flashing so near. A wild temptation came over them, to spring from the shadow of that death-heap into the sparkling flood. This thrilling desire a.s.sailed them both at once--their hands clung closer--their eyes, a moment before so heavy and sad, gleamed with intense meaning.

They crept close to the side of the boat.

"We are alone--we are all alone in the wide, wide world," said Isabel, in a low voice that thrilled through and through the heart that listened.

Isabel leaned over the boat; she was gazing wistfully into the water.

"One spring, Mary, and we both have a home."

The child stood up, her foot was on the edge of the boat, her face was turned toward Hurl Gate.

Mary Fuller started, as if from a wild dream, and flung her arms around the half frenzied child, standing there upon the threshold of a great crime.

"Isabel, oh, Isabel! can we leave _her_ here, all alone?"

The child turned her head, her foot was slowly withdrawn, and her eyes sank to her mother's coffin. She fell into Mary's arms, and burst into a wild pa.s.sion of tears. Filled with the same terrible feelings, Mary Fuller could scarcely restrain the wild sobs that broke to her lips.

She clung close to Isabel, and, cowering down in the boat, afraid to trust themselves with another sight of the rushing waters that had so tempted them, the little creatures remained motionless till they reached Randall's Island.

All this pa.s.sed before the stolid crew, and they did not know it, but joked and jeered each other in the midst of death, as if their horrid duties had been a pastime. These men were so used to the King of Terrors, that his aspect had ceased to disturb them.

They landed on Randall's Island, a lovely spot at all seasons, but now teaming with luxuriant beauty. The apple orchards were all in blossom.

The cherry and pear trees, white as if a snow-storm had drifted over them. The oak groves were robed with delicate foliage, and a carpet of young gra.s.s lay everywhere around. Again the contrast between nature and that death-freight was more than painful.

Two or three men came down to the landing with wheelbarrows, and the boat was disenc.u.mbered of its gloomy load. The little girls sat down upon the sh.o.r.e, watching each load as it was trundled away. At length, the men brought the coffin in which their hearts rested, and laid it across a hand barrow. They arose silently, and followed it hand and hand.

They turned into an orchard; the blossoming apple boughs drooped over the coffin as it pa.s.sed under them. A host of birds made the fragrant air tremble with their songs. The single wheel of the hand-barrow crushed hundreds of wild flowers down in the tender gra.s.s. Once more it seemed like a dream to those young hearts. Surely, surely it could not be her grave they were approaching through all this labyrinth of blossoms!

All at once they came into an open s.p.a.ce. The world of flowers was left behind. Thickets and broken hillocks were on the right and left.

A sweep of green sward fell gently down to the water; here the turf was torn up and mangled, and long deep ridges of fresh soil swept downward toward the sh.o.r.e. Some were heaped high with fresh mould and around them all the young gra.s.s lay trampled and dead. There was one deep trench open half the way down, into which a man leaped, while the others handed down the coffins ranged on either side the trench. With their hands clinging together, the children crept close to the brink of the abyss and looked down. One low cry and, in pale silence, they recoiled back to the coffin and sunk down by it, like twin flowers broken at the stem.

An old man rose up from the trench, casting down his spade and dashing the soil from his hands, rejoicing that his task was over for that day; but his eyes fell upon the mournful group we have described.

"What, another yet!" he muttered, with sullen discontent, as he moved forward. The little girls heard his approach and crept closer to the coffin.

"Not there! oh, do not put her there!" cried Isabel, lifting her ashen face to the man.

The pauper-s.e.xton shook his head.

"This is always the way," he muttered, "when the friends are allowed to come here, we are sure of trouble!"

"Is there no other place? oh, do not put her with all them!"

So pleaded Mary, rising to her feet, and taking hold of the old man's garments.

"In all this island is there no room where one person can be buried alone?"

"If you have a dollar to pay for the trouble--yes," answered the old man, softened by her distress.

"A dollar!"

The child turned away in utter despondency. Where on the wide earth was she to find a dollar? Isabel looked at her with mournful solicitude. A dollar! she would have given her young life for that little sum of money; but, alas! even her life would not procure so much.

The old man stood gazing upon those little pale faces, the one so beautiful, the other vivid and wild with intense feeling. His heart was touched, and going back to the trench he took up his spade.

"Come and point out the place where you would like to have her buried, and I will do the work for nothing," he said; "as likely as not my little grandchildren will some day be crying over me for want of a dollar."

The old man seemed like an angel to those little girls. They could not speak from fullness of grat.i.tude, but followed the grave digger back towards the orchard. Here the earth was broken, and rendered uneven by some fifty or sixty hillocks; some marked by a single pine board, others without even this frail memorial by which the death-couch might be traced.

On the outskirts of this humble burial-place they found a fragment of rock, half buried in the rich turf, and overrun with wild flowers, mingled with fresh young moss. An apple-tree sheltered this spot, and a honeysuckle-vine had taken root in a cleft of the rock, around which its young tendrils lay, covered with budding foliage.

The little girls pointed out this spot, and the old man kindly sent them away, before he sunk his spade in the turf.

When his task was done he came toward them, wiping the drops from his forehead. The s.e.xton was poor, but out of the feeble strength left to his old age, he had given something to alleviate distress greater than his own. A consciousness of this made his voice peculiarly gentle, as he called a man from the trench to aid in the humble funeral of Jane Chester.

Again that coffin was borne beneath the sweeping boughs of the orchard, and lowered into its solitary grave, amid the sweet breath of their restless blossoms. The two children followed it with meek and tearful grat.i.tude. The horrors of the tomb seemed nothing to them now, that the beloved form was secure of a quiet resting-place. The dread of seeing her cast into that trench had swallowed up all minor feelings. It seemed like leaving her there in a holy sleep, when the old man led them from the grave. They knew that it was a sleep from which their grief could never arouse her, but still they went away, greatly comforted.

The last boat was ready to put off when these children reached the sh.o.r.e. They sat down close together, without much apparent emotion.

Their energies were completely prostrated; they had lost, almost, the power to suffer or to weep.

"We were ordered to leave you at the nurseries. Do you wish to go there?" inquired the captain.

Isabel looked at him vacantly, and Mary answered,

"We do not know."

"Would you not rather go back to the city, or to Bellevue?" persisted the man, determined to force them into conversation; but still the child answered,

"We do not know."

This mild and pa.s.sive sorrow was more touching than their worst agony had been. They seemed like two wounded birds bleeding to death without a struggle.