Thomas Wingfold, Curate Part 52

"I wish it was over," he said once.

"So do I," returned the curate. "But be of good courage, I think nothing will be given you to bear that you will not be able to bear."

"I can bear a great deal more than I have had yet. I don't think I shall ever complain. That would be to take myself out of his hands, and I have no hope anywhere else.--Are you any surer about him, sir, than you used to be?"

"At least I hope in him far more," answered Wingfold.

"Is that enough?"

"No. I want more."

"I wish I could come back and tell you that I am alive and all is true."

"I would rather have the natural way of it, and get the good of not knowing first."

"But if I could tell you I had found G.o.d, then that would make you sure."

Wingfold could not help a smile:--as if any a.s.surance from such a simple soul could reach the questions that tossed his troubled spirit!

"I think I shall find all I want in Jesus Christ," he said.

"But you can't see him, you know."

"Perhaps I can do better. And at all events I can wait," said the curate. "Even if he would let me, I would not see him one moment before he thought it best. I would not be out of a doubt or difficulty an hour sooner than he would take me."

Leopold gazed at him and said no more.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MEADOW.

As the disease advanced, his desire for fresh air and freedom grew to a great longing. One hot day, whose ardours, too strong for the leaves whose springs had begun to dry up, were burning them "yellow and black and pale and hectic red," the fancy seized him to get out of the garden with its clipt box-trees and cypresses, into the meadow beyond. There a red cow was switching her tail as she gathered her milk from the world, and looking as if all were well. He liked the look of the cow, and the open meadow, and wanted to share it with her, he said. Helen, with the anxiety of a careful nurse, feared it might hurt him.

"What DOES it matter?" he returned. "Is life so sweet that every moment more of it is a precious boon? After I'm gone a few days, you won't know a week from an hour of me. What a weight it will be off you! I envy you all the relief of it. It will be to you just what it would be to me to get into that meadow."

Helen made haste to let him have his will. They prepared a sort of litter, and the curate and the coachman carried him. Hearing what they were about, Mrs. Ramshorn hurried into the garden to protest, but protested in vain, and joined the little procession, walking with Helen, like a second mourner, after the bier. They crossed the lawn, and through a double row of small cypresses went winding down to the underground pa.s.sage, as if to the tomb itself. They had not thought of opening the door first, and the place was dark and sepulchral. Helen hastened to set it wide.

"Lay me down for a moment," said Leopold. "--Here I lie in my tomb! How soft and brown the light is! I should not mind lying here, half-asleep, half-awake, for centuries, if only I had the hope of a right good waking at last."

A flood of fair light flashed in sweet torrent into the place--and there, framed in the doorway, but far across the green field, stood the red cow, switching her tail.

"And here comes my resurrection!" cried Leopold. "I have not had long to wait for it--have I?"

He smiled a pained content as he spoke, and they bore him out into the sun and air. They set him down in the middle of the field in a low chair--not far from a small clump of trees, through which the footpath led to the stile whereon the curate was seated when he first saw the Polwarths. Mrs. Ramshorn found the fancy of the sick man pleasant for the hale, and sent for her knitting. Helen sat down empty-handed on the wool at her brother's feet, and Wingfold, taking a book from his pocket, withdrew to the trees.

He had not read long, sitting within sight and call of the group, when Helen came to him.

"He seems inclined to go to sleep," she said. "Perhaps if you would read something, it would send him off."

"I will with pleasure," he said, and returning with her, sat down on the gra.s.s.

"May I read you a few verses I came upon the other day, Leopold?" he asked.

"Please do," answered the invalid, rather sleepily.

I will not pledge myself that the verses belonged to the book Wingfold held before him, but here they are. He read them slowly, and as evenly and softly and rhythmically as he could.

They come to thee, the halt, the maimed, the blind, The devil-torn, the sick, the sore; Thy heart their well of life they find, Thine ear their open door.

Ah! who can tell the joy in Palestine-- What smiles and tears of rescued throngs!

Their lees of life were turned to wine, Their prayers to shouts and songs!

The story dear our wise men fable call, Give paltry facts the mighty range; To me it seems just what should fall, And nothing very strange.

But were I deaf and lame and blind and sore, I scarce would care for cure to ask; Another prayer should haunt thy door-- Set thee a harder task.

If thou art Christ, see here this heart of mine, Torn, empty, moaning, and unblest!

Had ever heart more need of thine, If thine indeed hath rest?

Thy word, thy hand right soon did scare the bane That in their bodies death did breed: If thou canst cure my deeper pain, Then thou art Lord indeed.

Leopold smiled sleepily as Wingfold read, and ere the reading was over, slept.

"What can the little object want here?" said Mrs. Ramshorn.

Wingfold looked up, and seeing who it was approaching them, said,

"Oh! that is Mr. Polwarth, who keeps the park gate."

"n.o.body can well mistake him," returned Mrs. Ramshorn. "Everybody knows the creature."

"Few people know him really," said Wingfold.

"I HAVE heard that he is an oddity in mind as well as in body," said Mrs. Ramshorn.

"He is a friend of mine," rejoined the curate. "I will go and meet him.

He wants to know how Leopold is."

"Pray keep your seat, Mr. Wingfold. I don't in the least mind him," said Mrs. Ramshorn. "Any FRIEND of yours, as you are kind enough to call him, will be welcome. Clergymen come to know--indeed it is their duty to be acquainted with all sorts of people. The late dean of Halystone would stop and speak to a pauper."