CHAPTER XXXIX
THOMAS COMES BACK FROM THE DEAD
Now on the morrow of my visit to Marina, the Captain Diaz came to see meand told me that a friend of his was in command of a carak which was dueto sail from the port of Vera Cruz for Cadiz within ten days, andthat this friend was willing to give me a passage if I wished to leaveMexico. I thought for a while and said that I would go, and that verynight, having bid farewell to the Captain Diaz, whom may God prosper,for he was a good man among many bad ones, I set out from the city forthe last time in the company of some merchants. A week's journey tookus safely down the mountains to Vera Cruz, a hot unhealthy town with anindifferent anchorage, much exposed to the fierce northerly winds. HereI presented my letters of recommendation to the commander of the carak,who gave me passage without question, I laying in a stock of food forthe journey.
Three nights later we set sail with a fair wind, and on the followingmorning at daybreak all that was left in sight of the land of Anahuacwas the snowy crest of the volcan Orizaba. Presently that vanished intothe clouds, and thus did I bid farewell to the far country where so manythings had happened to me, and which according to my reckoning I hadfirst sighted on this very day eighteen years before.
Of my journey to Spain I have nothing of note to tell. It was moreprosperous than such voyages often are, and within ten weeks of the dateof our lifting anchor at Vera Cruz, we let it drop in the harbour ofCadiz. Here I sojourned but two days, for as it chanced there was anEnglish ship in the harbour trading to London, and in her I took apassage, though I was obliged to sell the smallest of the emeralds fromthe necklace to find the means to do so, the money that Marina gave mebeing spent. This emerald sold for a great sum, however, with part ofwhich I purchased clothing suitable to a person of rank, taking the restof the gold with me. I grieved to part with the stone indeed, though itwas but a pendant to the pendant of the collar, but necessity knows nolaw. The pendant stone itself, a fine gem though flawed, I gave in afteryears to her gracious majesty Queen Elizabeth.
On board the English ship they thought me a Spanish adventurer who hadmade moneys in the Indies, and I did not undeceive them, since I wouldbe left to my own company for a while that I might prepare my mind toreturn to ways of thought and life that it had long forgotten. ThereforeI sat apart like some proud don, saying little but listening much, andlearning all I could of what had chanced in England since I left it sometwenty years before.
At length our voyage came to an end, and on a certain twelfth of June Ifound myself in the mighty city of London that I had never yet visited,and kneeling down in the chamber of my inn, I thanked God that afterenduring so many dangers and hardships, it had pleased Him to preserveme to set foot again on English soil. Indeed to this hour I count itnothing short of marvellous that this frail body of a man should surviveall the sorrows and risks of death by sickness, hunger, battle, murder,drowning, wild beasts, and the cruelty of men, to which mine had beenexposed for many years.
In London I bought a good horse, through the kind offices of the host ofmy inn, and on the morrow at daybreak I set out upon the Ipswich road.That very morning my last adventure befell me, for as I jogged alongmusing of the beauty of the English landscape and drinking in the sweetair of June, a cowardly thief fired a pistol at me from behind a hedge,purposing to plunder me if I fell. The bullet passed through my hat,grazing the skull, but before I could do anything the rascal fled,seeing that he had missed his mark, and I went on my journey, thinkingto myself that it would indeed have been strange, if after passing suchgreat dangers in safety, I had died at last by the hand of a miserablefoot-pad within five miles of London town.
I rode hard all that day and the next, and my horse being stout andswift, by half-past seven o'clock of the evening I pulled up upon thelittle hill whence I had looked my last on Bungay, when I rode thencefor Yarmouth with my father. Below me lay the red roofs of the town;there to the right were the oaks of Ditchingham and the beautiful towerof St. Mary's Church, yonder the stream of Waveney wandered, and beforeme stretched the meadow lands, purple and golden with marsh weeds inbloom. All was as it had been, I could see no change at all, the onlychange was in myself. I dismounted, and going to a pool of water nearthe roadway I looked at the reflection of my own face. I was changedindeed, scarcely should I have known it for that of the lad who hadridden up this hill some twenty years ago. Now, alas! the eyes weresunken and very sorrowful, the features were sharp, and there was moregrey than black in the beard and hair. I should scarcely have known itmyself, would any others know it, I wondered? Would there be any to knowit indeed? In twenty years many die and others pass out of sight; shouldI find a friend at all among the living? Since I read the letters whichCaptain Bell of the 'Adventuress' had brought me before I sailed forHispaniola, I had heard no tidings from my home, and what tidingsawaited me now? Above all what of Lily, was she dead or married or gone?
Mounting my horse I pushed on again at a canter, taking the road pastWaingford Mills through the fords and Pirnhow town, leaving Bungay uponmy left. In ten minutes I was at the gate of the bridle path that runsfrom the Norwich road for half a mile or more beneath the steep andwooded bank under the shelter of which stands the Lodge at Ditchingham.By the gate a man loitered in the last rays of the sun. I looked athim and knew him; it was Billy Minns, that same fool who had loosed deGarcia when I left him bound that I might run to meet my sweetheart.He was an old man now and his white hair hung about his withered face,moreover he was unclean and dressed in rags, but I could have fallen onhis neck and embraced him, so rejoiced was I to look once more on onewhom I had known in youth.
Seeing me come he hobbled on his stick to the gate to open it for me,whining a prayer for alms.
'Does Mr. Wingfield live here?' I said, pointing up the path, and mybreath came quick as I asked.
'Mr. Wingfield, sir, Mr. Wingfield, which of them?' he answered. 'Theold gentleman he's been dead nigh upon twenty years. I helped to dighis grave in the chancel of yonder church I did, we laid him by hiswife--her that was murdered. Then there's Mr. Geoffrey.'
'What of him?' I asked.
'He's dead, too, twelve year gone or more; he drank hisself to deadhe did. And Mr. Thomas, he's dead, drowned over seas they say, manya winter back; they're all dead, all dead! Ah! he was a rare one, Mr.Thomas was; I mind me well how when I let the furriner go--' and herambled off into the tale of how he had set de Garcia on his horse afterI had beaten him, nor could I bring him back from it.
Casting him a piece of money, I set spurs to my weary horse and canteredup the bridle path, leaving the Mill House on my left, and as I went,the beat of his hoofs seemed to echo the old man's words, 'All dead, alldead!' Doubtless Lily was dead also, or if she was not dead, when thetidings came that I had been drowned at sea, she would have married.Being so fair and sweet she would surely not have lacked for suitors,nor could it be believed that she had worn her life away mourning overthe lost love of her youth.
Now the Lodge was before me; it had changed no whit except that the ivyand creepers on its front had grown higher, to the roof indeed, andI could see that people lived in the house, for it was well kept, andsmoke hung above the chimneys. The gate was locked, and there were noserving men about, for night fell fast, and all had ceased from theirlabour. Leaving the house on the right I passed round it to the stablesthat are at the back near the hillside garden, but here the gate waslocked also, and I dismounted not knowing what to do. Indeed I was sounmanned with fear and doubt that for a while I seemed bewildered, andleaving the horse to crop the grass where he stood, I wandered to thefoot of the church path and gazed up the hill as though I waited for thecoming of one whom I should meet.
'What if they were all dead, what if SHE were dead and gone?' I buriedmy face in my hands and prayed to the Almighty who had protected methrough so many years, to spare me this last bitterness. I was crushedwith sorrow, and I felt that I could bear no more. If Lily were lost tome also, then I thought that it would be best that I should die,
sincethere was nothing left for which I cared to live.
Thus I prayed for some while, trembling like a leaf, and when I lookedup again, ere I turned to seek tidings from those that dwelt in thehouse, whoever they might be, the twilight had fallen completely, andlo! nightingales sang both far and near. I listened to their song, andas I listened, some troubled memory came back to me that at first Icould not grasp. Then suddenly there rose up in my mind a vision of thesplendid chamber in Montezuma's palace in Tenoctitlan, and of myselfsleeping on a golden bed, and dreaming on that bed. I knew it now, I wasthe god Tezcat, and on the morrow I must be sacrificed, and I slept inmisery, and as I slept I dreamed. I dreamed that I stood where I stoodthis night, that the scent of the English flowers was in my nostrils asit was this night, and that the sweet song of the nightingales rang inmy ears as at this present hour. I dreamed that as I mused and listenedthe moon came up over the green ash and oaks, and lo! there she shone. Idreamed that I heard a sound of singing on the hill--
But now I awoke from this vision of the past and of a long lost dream,for as I stood the sweet voice of a woman began to sing yonder on thebrow of the slope; I was not mad, I heard it clearly, and the sound grewever nearer as the singer drew down the steep hillside. It was so nearnow that I could catch the very words of that sad song which to this dayI remember.
Now I could see the woman's shape in the moonlight; it was tall andstately and clad in a white robe. Presently she lifted her head to watchthe flitter of a bat and the moonlight lit upon her face. It was theface of Lily Bozard, my lost love, beautiful as of yore, though grownolder and stamped with the seal of some great sorrow. I saw, and sodeeply was I stirred at the sight, that had it not been for the lowpaling to which I clung, I must have fallen to the earth, and a deepgroan broke from my lips.
She heard the groan and ceased her song, then catching sight of thefigure of a man, she stopped and turned as though to fly. I stood quitestill, and wonder overcoming her fear, she drew nearer and spoke in thesweet low voice that I remembered well, saying, 'Who wanders here solate? Is it you, John?'
Now when I heard her speak thus a new fear took me. Doubtless she wasmarried and 'John' was her husband. I had found her but to lose her morecompletely. Of a sudden it came into my mind that I would not discovermyself till I knew the truth. I advanced a pace, but not so far as topass from the shadow of the shrubs which grow here, and taking my standin such a fashion that the moonlight did not strike upon my face, Ibowed low in the courtly Spanish fashion, and disguising my voice spokeas a Spaniard might in broken English which I will spare to write down.
'Madam,' I said, 'have I the honour to speak to one who in bygone yearswas named the Senora Lily Bozard?'
'That was my name,' she answered. 'What is your errand with me, sir?'
Now I trembled afresh, but spoke on boldly.
'Before I answer, Madam, forgive me if I ask another question. Is thisstill your name?'
'It is still my name, I am no married woman,' she answered, and for amoment the sky seemed to reel above me and the ground to heave beneathmy feet like the lava crust of Xaca. But as yet I did not reveal myself,for I wished to learn if she still loved my memory.
'Senora,' I said, 'I am a Spaniard who served in the Indian wars ofCortes, of which perhaps you have heard.'
She bowed her head and I went on. 'In those wars I met a man who wasnamed Teule, but who had another name in former days, so he told me onhis deathbed some two years ago.'
'What name?' she asked in a low voice.
'Thomas Wingfield.'
Now Lily moaned aloud, and in her turn caught at the pales to saveherself from falling.
'I deemed him dead these eighteen years,' she gasped; 'drowned in theIndian seas where his vessel foundered.'
'I have heard say that he was shipwrecked in those seas, senora, but heescaped death and fell among the Indians, who made a god of him and gavehim the daughter of their king in marriage,' and I paused.
She shivered, then said in a hard voice, 'Continue, sir; I listen toyou.'
'My friend Teule took the part of the Indians in the wars, as beingthe husband of one of their princesses he must do in honour, and foughtbravely for them for many years. At length the town that he defended wascaptured, his one remaining child was murdered, his wife the princessslew herself for sorrow, and he himself was taken into captivity, wherehe languished and died.'
'A sad tale, sir,' she said with a little laugh--a mournful laugh thatwas half choked by tears.
'A very sad tale, senora, but one which is not finished. While he laydying, my friend told me that in his early life he had plighted trothwith a certain English maid, named--'
'I know the name--continue.'
'He told me that though he had been wedded, and loved his wife theprincess, who was a very royal woman, that many times had risked herlife for his, ay, even to lying at his side upon the stone of sacrificeand of her own free will, yet the memory of this maiden to whom he wasonce betrothed had companioned him through life and was strong upon himnow at its close. Therefore he prayed me for our friendship's sake toseek her out when I returned to Europe, should she still live, and togive her a message from him, and to make a prayer to her on his behalf.'
'What message and what prayer?' Lily whispered.
'This: that he loved her at the end of his life as he had loved herat its beginning; that he humbly prayed her forgiveness because he hadbroken the troth which they two swore beneath the beech at Ditchingham.'
'Sir,' she cried, 'what do you know of that?'
'Only what my friend told me, senora.'
'Your friendship must have been close and your memory must be good,' shemurmured.
'Which he had done,' I went on, 'under strange circumstances, so strangeindeed that he dared to hope that his broken troth might be renewed insome better world than this. His last prayer was that she should say tome, his messenger, that she forgave him and still loved him, as to hisdeath he loved her.'
'And how can such forgiveness or such an avowal advantage a dead man?'Lily asked, watching me keenly through the shadows. 'Have the dead theneyes to see and ears to hear?'
'How can I know, senora? I do but execute my mission.'
'And how can I know that you are a true messenger. It chanced that Ihad sure tidings of the drowning of Thomas Wingfield many years ago, andthis tale of Indians and princesses is wondrous strange, more like thosethat happen in romances than in this plain world. Have you no token ofyour good faith, sir?'
'I have such a token, senora, but the light is too faint for you to seeit.'
'Then follow me to the house, there we will get light. Stay,' and oncemore going to the stable gate, she called 'John.'
An old man answered her, and I knew the voice for that of one of myfather's serving men. To him she spoke in low tones, then led the way bythe garden path to the front door of the house, which she opened witha key from her girdle, motioning to me to pass in before her. I did so,and thinking little of such matters at the moment, turned by habit intothe doorway of the sitting-room which I knew so well, lifting my feetto avoid stumbling on its step, and passing into the room found my waythrough the gloom to the wide fireplace where I took my stand. Lilywatched me enter, then following me, she lit a taper at the fire whichsmouldered on the hearth, and placed it upon the table in the window insuch fashion that though I was now obliged to take off my hat, my facewas still in shadow.
'Now, sir, your token if it pleases you.'
Then I drew the posy ring from my finger and gave it to her, and she satdown by the table and examined it in the light of the candle, and asshe sat thus, I saw how beautiful she was still, and how little time hadtouched her, except for the sadness of her face, though now she had seeneight-and-thirty winters. I saw also that though she kept control of herfeatures as she looked upon the ring, her breast heaved quickly and herhand shook.
'The token is a true one,' she said at length. 'I know the ring, thoughit is somewhat worn since last I saw it, it w
as my mother's; and manyyears ago I gave it as a love gage to a youth to whom I promised myselfin marriage. Doubtless all your tale is true also, sir, and I thank youfor your courtesy in bringing it so far. It is a sad tale, a very sadtale. And now, sir, as I may not ask you to stay in this house where Ilive alone, and there is no inn near, I propose to send serving men toconduct you to my brother's dwelling that is something more than a mileaway, if indeed,' she added slowly, 'you do not already know the path!There you will find entertainment, and there the sister of your deadcompanion, Mary Bozard, will be glad to learn the story of his strangeadventures from your lips.'
I bowed my head and answered, 'First, senora, I would pray your answerto my friend's dying prayer and message.'
'It is childish to send answers to the dead.'
'Still I pray for them as I was charged to do.'
'How reads the writing within this ring, sir?'
'Heart to heart, Though far apart,'
I said glibly, and next instant I could have bitten out my tongue.
'Ah! you know that also, but doubtless you have carried the ring formany months and learned the writing. Well, sir, though we were farapart, and though perchance I cherished the memory of him who wore thisring, and for his sake remained unwed, it seems that his heart went astraying--to the breast indeed of some savage woman whom he married, andwho bore him children. That being so, my answer to the prayer of yourdead friend is that I forgive him indeed, but I must needs take backthe vows which I swore to him for this life and for ever, since he hasbroken them, and as best I may, strive to cast out the love I bore himsince he rejected and dishonoured it,' and standing up Lily made asthough she tore at her breast and threw something from her, and at thesame time she let fall the ring upon the floor.
I heard and my heart stood still. So this was the end of it. Well, shehad the right of me, though now I began to wish that I had beenless honest, for sometimes women can forgive a lie sooner than suchfrankness. I said nothing, my tongue was tied, but a great misery andweariness entered into me. Stooping down I found the ring, and replacingit on my finger, I turned to seek the door with a last glance at thewoman who refused me. Halfway thither I paused for one second, wonderingif I should do well to declare myself, then bethought me that if shewould not abate her anger toward me dead, her pity for me living wouldbe small. Nay, I was dead to her, and dead I would remain.
Now I was at the door and my foot was on its step, when suddenly avoice, Lily's voice, sounded in my ears and it was sweet and kind.
'Thomas,' said the voice, 'Thomas, before you go, will you not takecount of the gold and goods and land that you placed in my keeping?'
Now I turned amazed, and lo! Lily came towards me slowly and withoutstretched arms.
'Oh! foolish man,' she whispered low, 'did you think to deceive awoman's heart thus clumsily? You who talked of the beech in the Hallgarden, you who found your way so well to this dark chamber, and spokethe writing in the ring with the very voice of one who has been dead solong. Listen: I forgive that friend of yours his broken troth, for hewas honest in the telling of his fault and it is hard for man to livealone so many years, and in strange countries come strange adventures;moreover, I will say it, I still love him as it seems that he loves me,though in truth I grow somewhat old for love, who have lingered longwaiting to find it beyond my grave.'
Thus Lily spoke, sobbing as she spoke, then my arms closed round herand she said no more. And yet as our lips met I thought of Otomie,remembering her words, and remembering also that she had died by her ownhand on this very day a year ago.
Let us pray that the dead have no vision of the living!
CHAPTER XL
AMEN
And now there is little left for me to tell and my tale draws toits end, for which I am thankful, for I am very old and writing is aweariness to me, so great a weariness indeed that many a time during thepast winter I have been near to abandoning the task.
For a while Lily and I sat almost silent in this same room where I writeto-day, for our great joy and many another emotion that was mixed withit, clogged our tongues. Then as though moved by one impulse, we kneltdown and offered our humble thanks to heaven that had preserved us bothto this strange meeting. Scarcely had we risen from our knees whenthere was a stir without the house, and presently a buxom dame entered,followed by a gallant gentleman, a lad, and a maiden. These were mysister Mary, her husband Wilfred Bozard, Lily's brother, and their twosurviving children, Roger and Joan. When she guessed that it was I comehome again and no other, Lily had sent them tidings by the servant manJohn, that one was with her whom she believed they would be glad to see,and they had hurried hither, not knowing whom they should find. Nor werethey much the wiser at first, for I was much changed and the light inthe room shone dim, but stood perplexed, wondering who this strangermight be.
'Mary,' I said at length, 'Mary, do you not remember me, my sister?'
Then she cried aloud, and throwing herself into my arms, she wept therea while, as would any of us were our beloved dead suddenly to appearbefore our eyes, alive and well, and her husband clasped me by the handand swore heartily in his amazement, as is the fashion of some men whenthey are moved. But the children stood staring blankly till I called thegirl to me, who now was much what her mother had been when we parted,and kissing her, told her that I was that uncle of whom perhaps she hadheard as dead many years ago.
Then my horse, that all this while had been forgotten, having beencaught and stabled, we went to supper and it was a strange meal to me,and after meat I asked for tidings. Now I learned that the fortune whichmy old master Fonseca had left to me came home in safety, and that ithad prospered exceedingly under Lily's care, for she had spent but verylittle of it for her maintenance, looking on it always as a trust ratherthan as her own. When my death seemed certain my sister Mary had enteredon her share of my possessions, however, and with it had purchasedsome outlying lands in Earsham and Hedenham, and the wood and manor ofTyndale Hall in Ditchingham and Broome. These lands I made haste to sayshe might keep as a gift from me, since it seemed that I had greaterriches than I could need without them, and this saying of mine pleasedher husband Wilfred Bozard not a little, seeing that it is hard for aman to give up what he has held for many years.
Then I heard the rest of the story; of my father's sudden death, of howthe coming of the gold had saved Lily from being forced into marriagewith my brother Geoffrey, who afterwards had taken to evil courses whichended in his decease at the age of thirty-one; of the end of SquireBozard, Lily's father and my old enemy, from an apoplexy which tookhim in a sudden fit of anger. After this it seemed, her brother beingmarried to my sister Mary, Lily had moved down to the Lodge, having paidoff the charges that my brother Geoffrey had heaped upon his heritage,and bought out my sister's rights to it. And here at the Lodge she hadlived ever since, a sad and lonely woman, and yet not altogether anunhappy one, for she gave much of her time to good works. Indeed shetold me that had it not been for the wide lands and moneys whichshe must manage as my heiress, she would have betaken herself to asisterhood, there to wear her life away in peace, since I being lost toher, and indeed dead, as she was assured,--for the news of the wreckof the carak found its way to Ditchingham,--she no longer thought ofmarriage, though more than one gentleman of condition had sought herhand. This, with some minor matters, such as the birth and death ofchildren, and the story of the great storm and flood that smote Bungay,and indeed the length of the vale of Waveney in those days, was all thetale that they had to tell who had grown from youth to middle age inquiet. For of the crowning and end of kings and of matters politic, suchas the downfall of the power of the Pope of Rome and the sacking of thereligious houses which was still in progress, I make no mention here.
But now they called for mine, and I began it at the beginning, and itwas strange to see their faces as they listened. All night long, tillthe thrushes sang down the nightingales, and the dawn shone in theeast, I sat at Lily's side telling them my story, and then it w
as notfinished. So we slept in the chambers that had been made ready for us,and on the morrow I took it up again, showing them the sword that hadbelonged to Bernal Diaz, the great necklace of emeralds which Guatemochad given to me, and certain scars and wounds in witness of its truth.Never did I see folk so much amazed, and when I came to speak of thelast sacrifice of the women of the Otomie, and of the horrid end of deGarcia who died fighting with his own shadow, or rather with the shadowsof his own wickedness, they cried aloud with fear, as they wept when Itold of the deaths of Isabella de Siguenza and of Guatemoc, and of theloss of my sons.
But I did not tell all the story to this company, for some of it was forLily's ear alone, and to her I spoke of my dealings with Otomie as aman might speak with a man, for I felt that if I kept anything back nowthere would never be complete faith between us. Therefore I set outall my doubts and troublings, nor did I hide that I had learned to loveOtomie, and that her beauty and sweetness had drawn me from the firstmoment when I saw her in the court of Montezuma, or that which hadpassed between us on the stone of sacrifice.
When I had done Lily thanked me for my honesty and said it seemed thatin such matters men differed from women, seeing that SHE had never feltthe need to be delivered from the temptation of strange loves. Still wewere as God and Nature had made us, and therefore had little right toreproach each other, or even to set that down as virtue which wasbut lack of leaning. Moreover, this Otomie, her sin of heathenismnotwithstanding, had been a great-hearted woman and one who might welldazzle the wandering eyes of man, daring more for her love's sake thanever she, Lily, could have dared; and to end with, it was clear that atlast I must choose between wedding her and a speedy death, and havingsworn so great an oath to her I should have been perjured indeed ifI had left her when my dangers were gone by. Therefore she, Lily, wasminded to let all this matter rest, nor should she be jealous if I stillthought of this dead wife of mine with tenderness.
Thus she spoke most sweetly, looking at me the while with her clearand earnest eyes, that I ever fancied must be such as adorn the shiningfaces of angels. Ay, and those same eyes of hers were filled with tearswhen I told her my bitter grief over the death of my firstborn and of myother bereavements. For it was not till some years afterwards, when shehad abandoned further hope of children, that Lily grew jealous of thosedead sons of mine and of my ever present love for them.
Now the tidings of my return and of my strange adventures among thenations of the Indies were noised abroad far and wide, and people camefrom miles round, ay, even from Norwich and Yarmouth, to see me and Iwas pressed to tell my tale till I grew weary of it. Also a service ofthanksgiving for my safe deliverance from many dangers by land and seawas held in the church of St. Mary's here in Ditchingham, which servicewas no longer celebrated after the rites of the Romish faith, for whileI had sojourned afar, the saints were fallen like the Aztec gods; theyoke of Rome had been broken from off the neck of England, and thoughall do not think with me, I for one rejoiced at it heartily who had seenenough of priestcraft and its cruelties.
When that ceremony was over and all people had gone to their homes, Icame back again to the empty church from the Hall, where I abode a whileas the guest of my sister and her husband, till Lily and I were wed.
And there in the quiet light of the June evening I knelt in the chancelupon the rushes that strewed the grave of my father and my mother, andsent my spirit up towards them in the place of their eternal rest, andto the God who guards them. A great calm came upon me as I knelt thus,and I felt how mad had been that oath of mine that as a lad I had swornto be avenged upon de Garcia, and I saw how as a tree from a seed, allmy sorrows had grown from it. But even then I could not do other thanhate de Garcia, no, nor can I to this hour, and after all it was naturalthat I should desire vengeance on the murderer of my mother though thewreaking of it had best been left in another Hand.
Without the little chancel door I met Lily, who was lingering thereknowing me to be within, and we spoke together.
'Lily,' I said, 'I would ask you something. After all that has been,will you still take me for your husband, unworthy as I am?'
'I promised so to do many a year ago, Thomas,' she answered, speakingvery low, and blushing like the wild rose that bloomed upon a gravebeside her, 'and I have never changed my mind. Indeed for many years Ihave looked upon you as my husband, though I thought you dead.'
'Perhaps it is more than I deserve,' I said. 'But if it is to be, saywhen it shall be, for youth has left us and we have little time tolose.'
'When you will, Thomas,' she answered, placing her hand in mine.
Within a week from that evening we were wed.
And now my tale is done. God who gave me so sad and troublous a youthand early manhood, has blessed me beyond measure in my middle age andeld. All these events of which I have written at such length were donewith many a day ago: the hornbeam sapling that I set beneath thesewindows in the year when we were married is now a goodly tree of shadeand still I live to look on it. Here in the happy valley of the Waveney,save for my bitter memories and that longing for the dead which no timecan so much as dull, year after year has rolled over my silvering hairsin perfect health and peace and rest, and year by year have I rejoicedmore deeply in the true love of a wife such as few have known. Forit would seem as though the heart-ache and despair of youth had butsweetened that most noble nature till it grew well nigh divine. But onesorrow came to us, the death of our infant child--for it was fated thatI should die childless--and in that sorrow, as I have told, Lily shewedthat she was still a woman. For the rest no shadow lay between us. Handin hand we passed down the hill of life, till at length in the fulnessof her days my wife was taken from me. One Christmas night she lay downto sleep at my side, in the morning she was dead. I grieved indeed andbitterly, but the sorrow was not as the sorrows of my youth had been,since age and use dull the edge of mortal griefs and I knew and knowthat we are no long space apart. Very soon I shall join Lily where sheis, and I do not fear that journey. For the dread of death has left meat length, as it departs from all who live long enough and strive torepent them of their sins, and I am well content to leave my safety atthe Gates and my heavenly comfort in the Almighty Hand that saved mefrom the stone of sacrifice and has guided me through so many perilsupon this troubled earth.
And now to God my Father, Who holds me, Thomas Wingfield, and all Ihave loved and love in His holy keeping, be thanks and glory and praise!Amen.
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