As I was fastening my horse Mr. Hardcap came up. We entered the gate together.

"This is a hard experience for Mr. Gear," said I to Mr. Hardcap.

"The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether,"

replied Mr. Hardcap, severely.

I could feel Jennie tremble on my arm, but I made no response to Mr.

Hardcap.

Mr. Gear opened the door for us himself before we had time to knock.

He was perfectly calm and self-possessed. Jennie said afterward she should not have guessed, to have seen him elsewhere, that he had even heard of Willie's death. But I noticed that he uttered no greeting. He motioned us into the sitting-room without a word.

Here, on a sofa, lay, like a white statue, the form of the dear boy.

By the side of the sofa sat the mother, her eyes red and swollen with much weeping. But the fierceness of sorrow had pa.s.sed; and now she was almost as quiet as the boy whose sleep she seemed to watch; she was quite as pale.

She rose to meet us as we entered, and offered me her hand. Jennie put her arm around the poor mother's waist and kissed her tenderly.

But still nothing was said.

Mr. Hardcap was the first to break the silence. "This is a solemn judgment," said he.

Mr. Gear made no reply.

"I hope, my friend," continued Mr. Hardcap, "that you will heed the lesson G.o.d is a teachin' of you, and see how fearful a thing it is to have an unbeliev'n heart. G.o.d will not suffer us to rest in our sin of unbelief. If we lay up our treasures on earth where moth and rust doth corrupt, we must expect they will take to themselves wings and fly away."

Mr. Hardcap's horrible mutilation of Scripture had always impressed me in a singular manner. But I think its ludicrous side never so affected me before. What is it in me that makes me always appreciate most keenly the ludicrous in seasons of the greatest solemnity and distress? The absurdity of his misapplication of the sacred text mingled horribly with a sense of the insupportable anguish I knew he was causing. And yet I knew not how to interfere.

"I hope he was prepared," said Mr. Hardcap.

"I hope so," said Mr. Gear quietly.

"He was such a n.o.ble fellow," said Jennie to the weeping mother. She said it softly, but Mr. Hardcap's ears caught the expression.

"n.o.bility, ma'am," said he, "isn't a savin' grace. It's a nateral virtoo. The question is, did he have the savin' grace of faith and repentance?"

"I believe," said Mrs. Gear, earnestly, "that Willie was a Christian, if ever there was one, Mr. Hardcap."

"He hadn't made no profession of religion you know, ma'am," said Mr.

Hardcap. "And the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked."

Mr. Hardcap is very fond of quoting that text. I wonder if he ever applies it to himself.

"It seems kind o' strange now that he should be taken away so sudden like," continued Mr. Hardcap, "without any warnin'. And you know what the Scripture tells us. 'The wages of sin is death.'"

Mr. Gear could keep silence no longer. "I wish then," said he hoa.r.s.ely, "G.o.d would pay me my wages, and let me go."

"Oh! Thomas," said his wife appealingly. Then she went up to Mr.

Hardcap, and laid her hand gently on his arm. "Mr. Hardcap," said she, "it was very good of you to call on us in our sorrow. And I am sure that you want to comfort us, and do us good. But I don't believe my husband will get any good just now from what you have to say. We are stunned by the blow that came so suddenly, and must have a little time to recover from it. Would you feel offended if I asked you to go away and call again some other time?"

"The word must be spoken in season and out of season," said Mr.

Hardcap doggedly. Nevertheless he turned to leave. He offered his hand to Mr. Gear, who was leaning with his head upon his hand against the mantel-piece, and possibly did not notice the proffered salutation. At all events he never moved. Mr. Hardcap looked at him a moment, opened his mouth as if to speak, but apparently reconsidered his purpose, for he closed it again without speaking, and so left the room. Mrs. Gear went with him to the door, where I heard her ask him to pray for her and for her husband, and where I heard him answer something about a sin unto death that could not be prayed for. Jennie followed Mrs. Gear softly out; and so Mr. Gear and I were left alone.

Alone with the dead.

"That's your Christian consolation," said Mr. Gear bitterly.

"Is that just to your wife?" I answered him quietly.

"No! It is not just to my wife," he replied. "I would give all I possess to have her faith. She is almost heart-broken,--and yet-yet-I who ought to sustain her would be crazed with grief if I had not her to lean upon. And she-she leans on I know not what. Oh! if I did but know."

"She leans on Him who not in vain Experienced every human pain," I answered softly.

"He was such a n.o.ble boy," continued Mr. Gear speaking half to himself, and half to me. "He was so pure, so truthful, so chivalrous, so considerate of his mother's happiness and of mine.

And he was beginning to teach me, teach me that I did not know all.

I was afraid of my own philosophy for him. I wanted him to have his mother's faith, though I never told him so. I never perplexed him with my own doubtings. I solved what I could of his, I was coming to believe little by little that there was a clearer, better light than that I walked in. I was hoping that he might find it and walk in it.

I even dreamed, sometimes, to myself, that he would yet learn how to show it to me. And now he is gone, and the glimmer of light is gone, and the last hope for me is gone with him."

"He is gone," I said softly, "to walk in that clearer, better light, and beckons you to follow."

Mr. Gear made no answer, hardly seemed to note the interruption.

"And this is the bitterness of the blow to me," he continued, still speaking half to me, half to himself. "I thought I believed in immortality. I thought I believed in G.o.d. These two beliefs at least were left me. And now nothing is left. My wife says 'he is not dead but sleepeth.' But I cannot see it. To me he is gone, for ever gone.

If on the other side of that veil which hides him from me, that mystic something which we call his spirit still lingers, I do not see it. I had a dream of that better land once and called it faith.

But this cruel blow has wakened me, and the dream has pa.s.sed in the very hour when I need it most. And nothing is left me; not even that poor vision."

"Not even G.o.d?" said I softly.

"Not even G.o.d," he answered with terrible deliberation. "For a bad G.o.d is worse than no G.o.d at all. And how can I believe that G.o.d is good? He looks down on our happy home. He looks on our dear boy, its life and joy. He knows how our life is wrapped up in him. He sees how little by little Willie is leading me up into a higher, happier, holier life. And then He strikes him down, and leaves my wife heart-broken, and me in darkness, bereft by one blow of my child and of my faith."

Then he pointed to the dead boy who lay on the lounge before us.

"How can I reconcile this with the love of G.o.d?" he cried. "How can you, Mr. Laicus?"

All bitterness was gone now. He looked me earnestly in the eye, and asked eagerly, as one who longed for a solution, and yet was in despair of finding it.

"I cannot," I answered, "and dare not try. If I had only life's book to read, Mr. Gear, I should not believe in a G.o.d of love. I should turn Persian, and believe in two G.o.ds, one of love and good-will, one of hate and malice."

He looked at me in questioning surprise.

"Love, Mr. Gear, is its own demonstration. I know that G.o.d loves me."

"How?" said he.

"How?" said I. "Do you remember when we first met, Mr. Gear, that you told me your G.o.d was everywhere, in every brook, and mountain, and flower, and leaf, and storm, and ray of sunshine."

He nodded his head reflectively, as one recalling a half forgotten conversation.

"My G.o.d is in the hearts of those that seek Him," said I. "And in my heart I carry an a.s.surance of His love that life cannot disturb. I know His love as the babe knows its mother's love, lying upon her breast. It knows her love though it neither understands her nature nor her ways."

He shook his head sadly.