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_ When the Judge opened his eyes for the last time in this world, they fell
first upon the face of his old friend, Colonel Carvel. Twice he tried to
speak his name, and twice he failed. The third time he said it faintly.
"Comyn!"
"Yes, Silas."
"Comyn, what are you doing here?
"I reckon I came to see you, Silas," answered the Colonel.
"To see me die," said the Judge, grimly.
Colonel Carvel's face twitched, and the silence in that little room
seemed to throb.
"Comyn," said the Judge again, "I heard that you had gone South to fight
against your country. I see you here. Can it be that you have at last
returned in your allegiances to the flag for which your forefathers
died?"
Poor Colonel Carvel
"I am still of the same mind, Silas," he said.
The Judge turned his face away, his thin lips moving as in prayer. But
they knew that he was not praying, "Silas," said Mr. Carvel, "we were
friends for twenty years. Let us be friends again, before--"
"Before I die," the Judge interrupted, "I am ready to die. Yes, I am
ready. I have had a hard life, Comyn, and few friends. It was my fault.
I--I did not know how to make them. Yet no man ever valued those few
more than! But," he cried, the stern fire unquenched to the last,
"I would that God had spared me to see this Rebellion stamped out. For
it will be stamped out." To those watching, his eyes seemed fixed on a
distant point, and the light of prophecy was in them. "I would that God
had spared me to see this Union supreme once more. Yes, it will be
supreme. A high destiny is reserved for this nation--! I think the
highest of all on this earth." Amid profound silence he leaned back on
the pillows from which he had risen, his breath coming fast. None dared
look at the neighbor beside them.
It was Stephen's mother who spoke. "Would you not like to see a
clergyman, Judge?" she asked.
The look on his face softened as he turned to her.
"No, madam," he answered; "you are clergyman enough for me. You are near
enough to God--there is no one in this room who is not worthy to stand in
the presence of death. Yet I wish that a clergyman were here, that he
might listen to one thing I have to say. When I was a boy I worked my
way down the river to New York, to see the city. I met a bishop there.
He said to me, 'Sit down, my son, I want to talk to you. I know your
father in Albany. You are Senator Whipple's son.' I said to him, 'No,
sir, I am not Senator Whipple's son. I am no relation of his.' If the
bishop had wished to talk to me after that, Mrs. Brice, he might have
made my life a little easier--a little sweeter. I know that they are
not all like that. But it was by just such things that I was
embittered when I was a boy." He stopped, and when he spoke again, it
was more slowly, more gently, than any of them had heard him speak in all
his life before. "I wish that some of the blessings which I am leaving
now had come to me then--when I was a boy. I might have done my little
share in making the world a brighter place to live in, as all of you have
done. Yes, as all of you are now doing for me. I am leaving the world
with a better opinion of it than I ever held in life. God hid the sun
from me when I was a little child. Margaret Brice," he said, "if I had
had such a mother as you, I would have been softened then. I thank God
that He sent you when He did."
The widow bowed her head, and a tear fell upon his pillow.
"I have done nothing," she murmured, "nothing,"
"So shall they answer at the last whom He has chosen," said the Judge.
"I was sick, and ye visited me. He has promised to remember those who do
that. Hold up your head, my daughter. God has been good to you. He has
given you a son whom all men may look in the face, of whom you need never
be ashamed. Stephen," said the Judge, "come here."
Stephen made his way to the bedside, but because of the moisture in his
eyes he saw but dimly the gaunt face. And yet he shrank back in awe at
the change in it. So must all of the martyrs have looked when the fire
of the faggots licked their feet. So must John Bunyan have stared
through his prison bars at the sky.
"Stephen," he said, "you have been faithful in a few things. So shall
you be made ruler over many things. The little I have I leave to you,
and the chief of this is an untarnished name. I know that you will be
true to it because I have tried your strength. Listen carefully to what
I have to say, for I have thought over it long. In the days gone by our
fathers worked for the good of the people, and they had no thought of
gain. A time is coming when we shall need that blood and that bone in
this Republic. Wealth not yet dreamed of will flow out of this land, and
the waters of it will rot all save the pure, and corrupt all save the
incorruptible. Half-tried men wilt go down before that flood. You and
those like you will remember how your fathers governed,--strongly,
sternly, justly. It was so that they governed themselves.
"Be vigilant. Serve your city, serve your state, but above all serve your
country."
He paused to catch his breath, which was coming painfully now, and
reached out his bony hand to seek Stephen's. "I was harsh with you at
first, my son," he went on. "I wished to try you. And when I had tried
you I wished your mind to open, to keep pace with the growth of this
nation. I sent you to see Abraham Lincoln that you might be born again--
in the West. You were born again. I saw it when you came back--I saw
it in your face. O God," he cried, with sudden eloquence. "I would that
his hands--Abraham Lincoln's hands--might be laid upon all who complain
and cavil and criticise, and think of the little things in life: I would
that his spirit might possess their spirit!"
He stopped again. They marvelled and were awed, for never in all his
days had such speech broken from this man. "Good-by, Stephen," he said,
when they thought he was not to speak again. "Hold the image of Abraham
Lincoln in front of you. Never forget him. You--you are a man after his
own heart--and--and mine."
The last word was scarcely audible. They started for ward, for his eyes
were closed. But presently he stirred again, and opened them.
"Brinsmade," he said, "Brinsmade, take care of my orphan girls. Send
Shadrach here."
The negro came forth, shuffling and sobbing, from the doorway.
"You ain't gwine away, Marse Judge?"
"Yes, Shadrach, good-by. You have served me well, I have left you
provided for."
Shadrach kissed the hand of whose secret charity he knew so much. Then
the Judge withdrew it, and motioned to him to rise. He called his oldest
friend by name. And Colonel Carvel came from the corner where he had
been listening, with his face drawn.
"Good-by, Comyn. You were my friend when there was none other. You were
true to me when the hand of every man was against me. You--you have
risked your life to come to me here, May God spare it for Virginia."
At the sound of her name, the girl started. She came and bent over him.
And when she kissed him on the forehead, he trembled.
"Uncle Silas!" she faltered.
Weakly he reached up and put his hands on her shoulders. He whispered in
her ear. The tears came and lay wet upon her lashes as she undid the
button at his throat.
There, on a piece of cotton twine, hung a little key, She took it off,
but still his hands held her.
"I have saved it for you, my dear," he said. "God bless you--" why did
his eyes seek Stephen's?--"and make your life happy. Virginia--will you
play my hymn--once more--once more?"
They lifted the night lamp from the piano, and the medicine. It was
Stephen who stripped it of the black cloth it had worn, who stood by
Virginia ready to lift the lid when she had turned the lock. The girl's
exaltation gave a trembling touch divine to the well-remembered chords,
and those who heard were lifted, lifted far above and beyond the power of
earthly spell.
"Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom
Lead Thou me on
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead Thou me on.
Keep Thou my feet! I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me."
A sigh shook Silas Whipple's wasted frame, and he died.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Silence--goad to indiscretion _
Read next: BOOK III: Volume 8: Chapter XII. The Last Card
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