Chapter 22
Mr. Halliburton ate the oranges, and appeared as if he could have eaten as many more. Then he leaned his head back on the pillow which was placed over his chair, and presently fell asleep.
"Be very still, dear children," whispered Jane.
They looked round, saw why they were to be still, and hushed their busy voices. William pulled a stool to his mother's feet, and took his seat on it, holding her hand between his.
"Papa will soon be well again now," he softly said. "Don't you think so, mamma?"
"Indeed I hope he will," she answered.
"But don't you _think_ it?" he persisted; and Jane detected an anxiety in his tone. Could there have been a shadow of fear upon the boy's own heart? "He said mamma, whilst you were at church, that in another month he should be strong again."
"Not quite so soon as that, I fear, William. He has been so much reduced, you know. Later: if he goes on as well as he appears to be going on now."
Jane set the children to that renowned game. "Cross questions and crooked answers." You may have had the pleasure of playing it: if so, you will remember that it consists chiefly of whispering. It is difficult to keep children quiet long together.
"Where am I?" cried a sudden voice, startling the children in the midst of their silent whispers.
It came from Mr. Halliburton. He had slept about half an hour, and was now looking round in bewilderment, his head starting away from the pillow. "Where am I?" he repeated.
"You have been asleep, papa," cried Frank.
"Asleep! Oh, yes! I remember. You are all here, and it is Christmas Day. I have been dreaming."
"What about, papa?"
Mr. Halliburton let his head fall back on the pillow again. He fixed his eyes on vacancy, and there ensued a silence. The children looked at him.
"Singular things are dreams," he presently exclaimed. "I thought I was on a broad, wide road--an immense road, and it was crowded with people.
We were all going one way, stumbling and tripping along----"
"What made you stumble, papa?" interrupted Janey, whose busy tongue was ever ready to talk.
"The road was full of impediments," continued Mr. Halliburton, in a dreamy tone, as if his mental vision were buried in the scene and he was relating what had actually occurred. "Stones, and hillocks, and brambles, and pools of shallow water, and long gra.s.s that got entangled round our feet: nothing but difficulties and hindrances. At the end, in the horizon, as far as the eye could reach--very, very far away indeed--a hundred times as far away as the Malvern Hills appear to be from us--there shone a brilliant light. So brilliant! You have never seen anything like it in life, for the naked eye could not bear such light. And yet we seemed to look at it, and our sight was not dazzled!"
"Perhaps it was fireworks?" interrupted Gar. Mr. Halliburton went on without heeding him.
"We were all pressing on to get to the light, though the distant journey seemed as if it could never end. So long as we kept our eyes fixed on the light, we could see how we walked, and we pa.s.sed over the rough places without fear. Not without difficulty. But still we did pa.s.s them, and advanced. But the moment we took our eyes from the light, then we were stopped; some fell; some wandered aside, and would not try to go forward; some were torn
The children had become interested and were listening with hushed lips.
"Why did they not all let it guide them?" breathlessly asked William.
"Nothing can be more easy than to keep our eyes on a light that does not dazzle. What did you do, papa?"
"It seemed that the light would only s.h.i.+ne on one step at a time,"
continued Mr. Halliburton, not in answer to William, but evidently absorbed in his own thoughts. "We could not see further than the one step, but that was sufficient; for the moment we had taken it, then the light shone upon another. And so we pa.s.sed on, progressing to the end, the light seeming brighter and brighter as we drew near to it."
"Did you get to it, papa?"
"I am trying to recollect, William. I seemed to be quite close to it. I suppose I awoke then."
Mr. Halliburton paused, still in thought: but he said no more. Presently he turned to his wife. "Is it nearly tea-time, Jane? I cannot think what makes me so thirsty."
"We can have tea now, if you like," she replied. "I will go and see about it."
She left the room, and Janey ran after her. In the kitchen, making a great show and parade of being at work amidst plates and dishes, was a damsel of fifteen, her hair curiously twisted about her head, and her round, green eyes wide open. It was Betsy.
"That was good pudding," cried she, turning her face to Mrs.
Halliburton. "Better than mother's."
She alluded to a slice which had been given her. Jane smiled. "We want tea, Betsy."
"Have it in directly, mum," was Miss Betsy's acquiescent response.
Scarcely were the words spoken, when a commotion was heard in the sitting-room. The door was flung open, and the boys called out, the tone of their voices one of utter alarm. Jane, the child, and the maid, made but one step to the room. All Jane's fears had flown to "fire."
Fire had been almost less startling. Mr. Halliburton was lying back on the pillow with a ghastly face, his mouth, and s.h.i.+rt-front stained with blood. He could not speak, but he asked a.s.sistance with his imploring eyes. In coughing he had broken a blood-vessel.
Jane did not faint; did not scream. Her whole heart turned sick, and she felt that the end had come. Janey sank down on the floor with a faint cry, and hid her face on the sofa. One glimpse was sufficient for Betsy.
The moment she had taken it, she subsided into a succession of shrieks; flew out of the house and burst into that of Mr. Lynn. There she terrified the sober family by announcing that Mr. Halliburton was lying with his throat cut.
Mr. Lynn and Patience hurried in, ordering Anna to remain where she was.
They saw what was the matter, and placed him in a better position: Patience helping Mrs. Halliburton to sponge his face.
"Shall I get the doctor for thee, friend?" asked the Quaker of Jane. "I shall bring him quicker, maybe, than one of thy lads would."
"Oh! yes, yes!"
"I warned thee not to be sanguine," whispered Patience, when Mr. Lynn had gone. "I feared it might be only the deceitfulness of the ending."
The ending! what a confirmation of Jane's own fears! She turned her eyes despairingly on Patience.
Mr. Halliburton opened his trembling lips, as though he would have spoken. Patience stopped him.
"Thee must not talk, friend. If thee hast need of anything, can thee not make a sign?"
He gave them to understand that he wanted water. This was given to him, and he appeared to be more composed.
"There is nothing else that I can do just now," observed Patience. "I will go back and take thy little girl with me. See her, hiding there!"
Patience did so. Betsy cowered over the fire in the kitchen, and the three boys and their mother stood round the dying man.
"Children!" he gasped.
"Oh, Edgar! do not speak!" interrupted Jane.
He smiled as he looked at her, very much as though he knew that it did not matter whether he spoke or remained silent. "I am at the journey's end, Jane; close to the light. Children," he panted at slow intervals, "when I told you my dream, I little thought it was only a type of the present reality. I think it was sent to me that I might tell it you, for I now see its meaning. You are travelling on to that light, as I thought I was--as I have been. You will have the same stumbling-blocks to walk over; none are exempt from them; trials, and temptations, and sorrows, and drawbacks. But the light is there, ever s.h.i.+ning to guide you, for it is Heaven. Will you always look up to it?"
He gathered their hands together, and held them between his. The boys, awe-struck, bewildered with terror and grief, could only gaze in silence and listen.