The Crisis — Complete

by Winston Churchill

  CHAPTER XI. LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT

  When the Judge opened his eyes for the last time in this world, theyfell first upon the face of his old friend, Colonel Carvel. Twice hetried to speak his name, and twice he failed. The third time he said itfaintly.

  "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 roomseemed to throb.

  "Comyn," said the Judge again, "I heard that you had gone South to fightagainst your country. I see you here. Can it be that you have at lastreturned in your allegiances to the flag for which your forefathersdied?"

  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. Butthey knew that he was not praying, "Silas," said Mr. Carvel, "we werefriends for twenty years. Let us be friends again, before--"

  "Before I die," the Judge interrupted, "I am ready to die. Yes, I amready. 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 fewmore than! But," he cried, the stern fire unquenched to the last, "Iwould that God had spared me to see this Rebellion stamped out. Forit will be stamped out." To those watching, his eyes seemed fixed on adistant point, and the light of prophecy was in them. "I would thatGod had spared me to see this Union supreme once more. Yes, it willbe supreme. A high destiny is reserved for this nation--! I think thehighest of all on this earth." Amid profound silence he leaned back onthe pillows from which he had risen, his breath coming fast. None daredlook at the neighbor beside them.

  It was Stephen's mother who spoke. "Would you not like to see aclergyman, 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 nearenough to God--there is no one in this room who is not worthy to standin the presence of death. Yet I wish that a clergyman were here, thathe might listen to one thing I have to say. When I was a boy I worked myway 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 yourfather 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 thebishop had wished to talk to me after that, Mrs. Brice, he might havemade my life a little easier--a little sweeter. I know that they are notall like that. But it was by just such things that I was embittered whenI 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 lifebefore. "I wish that some of the blessings which I am leaving now hadcome to me then--when I was a boy. I might have done my little share inmaking 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 abetter opinion of it than I ever held in life. God hid the sun from mewhen I was a little child. Margaret Brice," he said, "if I had had sucha mother as you, I would have been softened then. I thank God that Hesent 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 dothat. Hold up your head, my daughter. God has been good to you. He hasgiven you a son whom all men may look in the face, of whom you neednever be ashamed. Stephen," said the Judge, "come here."

  Stephen made his way to the bedside, but because of the moisture in hiseyes he saw but dimly the gaunt face. And yet he shrank back in awe atthe change in it. So must all of the martyrs have looked when thefire of the faggots licked their feet. So must John Bunyan have staredthrough his prison bars at the sky.

  "Stephen," he said, "you have been faithful in a few things. So shallyou 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 betrue to it because I have tried your strength. Listen carefully to whatI have to say, for I have thought over it long. In the days gone by ourfathers worked for the good of the people, and they had no thought ofgain. A time is coming when we shall need that blood and that bone inthis Republic. Wealth not yet dreamed of will flow out of this land, andthe waters of it will rot all save the pure, and corrupt all save theincorruptible. Half-tried men wilt go down before that flood. You andthose 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 serveyour country."

  He paused to catch his breath, which was coming painfully now, andreached out his bony hand to seek Stephen's. "I was harsh with you atfirst, my son," he went on. "I wished to try you. And when I had triedyou I wished your mind to open, to keep pace with the growth of thisnation. I sent you to see Abraham Lincoln that you might be bornagain--in the West. You were born again. I saw it when you came back--Isaw it in your face. O God," he cried, with sudden eloquence. "I wouldthat his hands--Abraham Lincoln's hands--might be laid upon all whocomplain and cavil and criticise, and think of the little things inlife: I would that his spirit might possess their spirit!"

  He stopped again. They marvelled and were awed, for never in all hisdays 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 AbrahamLincoln in front of you. Never forget him. You--you are a man after hisown heart--and--and mine."

  The last word was scarcely audible. They started for ward, for his eyeswere closed. But presently he stirred again, and opened them.

  "Brinsmade," he said, "Brinsmade, take care of my orphan girls. SendShadrach 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 youprovided for."

  Shadrach kissed the hand of whose secret charity he knew so much. Thenthe Judge withdrew it, and motioned to him to rise. He called his oldestfriend by name. And Colonel Carvel came from the corner where he hadbeen listening, with his face drawn.

  "Good-by, Comyn. You were my friend when there was none other. You weretrue to me when the hand of every man was against me. You--you haverisked 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 whisperedin her ear. The tears came and lay wet upon her lashes as she undid thebutton 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 didhis eyes seek Stephen's?--"and make your life happy. Virginia--will youplay my hymn--once more--once more?"

  They lifted the night lamp from the piano, and the medicine. It wasStephen who stripped it of the black cloth it had worn, who stood byVirginia ready to lift the lid when she had turned the lock. The girl'sexaltation gave a trembling touch divine to the well-remembered chords,and those who heard were lifted, lifted far above and beyond the powerof 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.

  Volume 8.