CHAPTER LIX.
FOUND.
For a few moments they all stood paralyzed and speechless on the edge of the ravine, gazing down at the death-like form. Dorothy and Philip clasped one another's hands with a grasp as if their own death was near. Then the dogs broke noisily on the dread silence, and as the clamor rang through the air, there came a shout from the cave; and Martin made his way through the drifted snow, and stood in the entrance, looking up to them with rough gestures of delight.
A sharp cry of terror broke from Philip's lips, and springing down into the ravine he cleared away the snow that covered the prostrate form. Martin was beside him in an instant, and with swift, savage instinct, he bent down, and laid his head on his father's breast, to hear if the heart within was beating still. His head had never rested there before, and now it lay there motionless, listening for the feeblest throb that spoke of life. No one moved or spoke. How long the suspense lasted, who could tell? But at length Martin raised himself, and looked up into Philip's face.
"My brother, our father is dead!" he said.
And now Philip flung himself down upon his father's breast. How often he had lain there! How many thousands of times had these outstretched arms carried him to and fro, and these lips spoken to him the fondest and proudest words a father could utter! He cried, "Father! father!" in a tone of passionate entreaty, which made the hearts ache of all who heard him. But no man there dare tell him that there was any hope.
There was, however, no time to spare. If the coming storm broke out again in its former fury the position of all of them would be perilous. Martin beckoned them to follow him into the cave, where old Andrew lay, well protected by dry fern and ling heaped about him, and with Martin's thick overcoat laid over him. He was too feeble to walk home across the moors, and a double burden had to be borne by them.
It was a slow and sorrowful progress homeward under the gloomy sky, and across the trackless snow. Philip and Martin had to take their part in carrying the rude litter on which their father lay, and Dorothy, speechless with grief and anxiety for Margaret, walked beside it. Margaret watched the mournful procession as it crept slowly toward her across the silent uplands. Never before had she been so vividly conscious of the presence of God. "In him we live, and move, and have our being," she said in her inmost soul, with a gladness as sharp as pain, as these slowly moving forms of those she loved most drew nearer. One was being carried home; and by a subtle, sympathetic instinct which had stirred within her all night, she knew who it must be. Sidney, her husband, dearer than all save God, was being brought home to her, dead.
She met Philip at the door of her room, his young features drawn and set with anguish, and she laid her hand in his, and looked up into his eyes, with a tender tranquillity on her white face.
"Do not tell me," she said, "only show me where they have laid him."
They went hand in hand silently across the old hall to the library door; then Margaret paused, and pushed Philip gently on one side, with such a smile as the angel of death might have upon his benignant face.
"I must go in alone," she said, "and let no one come near me. But I know that God is good."
Philip and Dorothy watched within sight of the door through which she had disappeared and Martin stretched himself on the floor at their feet. Deeper than their own grief was their sorrow for the mortal anguish of Margaret. For what would life be to either of them if the other was taken away? They did not speak; but they looked into each other's face, and felt that their love was made greater and more sacred by this calamity. Martin's sad eyes were fastened upon them, as they sat together, leaning toward one another, as if words between them were not needed.
"My brother," he said, breaking the silence at last, "I wish I was dead instead of my father. Why did he go out into the storm?"
"He went to find you, Martin," answered Dorothy.
"To find me!" he cried, "to find me!"
A gleam of gladness came across his heavy face, and into his deep-set eyes; and he raised himself from the ground to pace up and down the floor, murmuring, "To find me," again and again to himself. Once he approached the closed door of the library, and knelt before it, crossing himself devoutly, and whispering a prayer, such as he was wont to say at the foot of the Calvary. After a while he returned to the hearth, where Philip and Dorothy had been anxiously watching him.
"My father went out into the storm to find me," he said with glistening eyes. "I shall know him now when I see him again in Paradise."
How long they waited they never knew; but at last from the soundless room Margaret came out, white as death, but with a radiant look upon her face such as they had never seen before. Dorothy and Philip stood up in awed silence but Martin fell down on his knees as she drew near to them. She laid her hands upon his shoulders and, bending over him, laid her lips upon his wrinkled forehead.
It was the seal of such a pardon as few women are called upon to give. This man had cost her all that she most prized on earth. He was the living memorial of her husband's sin. He would thrust her firstborn son out of his birthright. As long as she lived he would be to her the symbol of all earthly anguish, and love, and bitterness. But her heart was melted with inexpressible pity for him, a pity which his dark mind could never understand. Nothing but this mute and solemn caress could tell him that she pitied and loved him.
Dorothy understood it more fully than the others did, and, throwing her arms around Margaret, she burst into a passion of tears.
CHAPTER LX.
MARTIN'S FATE.
Andrew Goldsmith was ailing for a few days, and kept his bed until after the funeral solemnities were over. Sidney was taken home to Apley, to be buried where Margaret would some day lie beside him. Martin went down there for the first time to appear as one of the chief mourners at his father's grave; but he returned immediately to Brackenburn, which was now his own.
Andrew Goldsmith entered into his heart's desire. Sophy's son, his own grandson, was now the squire of Brackenburn, the possessor of the estates entailed by Sir John Martin. He would take his place as a wealthy landowner, a man of position and influence. The old saddler, who had been so long dominated by a fixed idea, could hardly give a thought to the tragic fate of his son-in-law, Sophy's husband, who had deserted her, and left her to die among strangers. Once or twice Mary overheard him saying to himself, "He died alone, like my Sophy, with nobody near him as loved him." But he seldom spoke of Sidney.
"I must see they don't wrong Martin," he said, full of suspicion even of Margaret and his own sister Rachel; "there's a many ways rich folks can wrong poor ones. I must see to it myself."
But his disappointment was great when he found that all Sidney's accumulated wealth was left to Philip, Martin and Hugh, his other sons, being amply provided for in other ways. Philip's portion was still the largest. Andrew's chagrin and consternation were boundless, and he could never believe that his grandson had not been defrauded. The idea fastened on his mind, and made him a miserable man.
Martin contributed largely to his misery. He was now unquestionably an English landowner, but he could not, or would not, live otherwise than as an Austrian peasant. It was at first planned that Philip should buy an estate near Brackenburn, and take Martin under his brotherly protection and influence. But the vast complications of his father's business involved too many interests for him to withdraw from it for some years. He could not sacrifice the interests of hundreds of families to his own desire for a private life, or even to the claims of brotherhood. He felt himself called to step into his father's place, and for some time to be the head of the many branches into which his father's business had spread.
So Martin was left reluctantly to his fate. Before long a priest from the Ampezzo Valley, a man whom he knew, came to take charge of him and his affairs. Martin was glad to have anybody who could talk to him in his own dialect; and this man, to whom he looked up in awe and reverence, was so kindly to him, and knew how to direct him so well, that he soon yielded to him the unquestioning obedience of an ignorant peasant to his priest. There was no more intercourse than before between Andrew and his grandson; but the former, with all his narrow and strong prejudices, was compelled to witness the introduction of foreign ways and Popish idolatry, as he called it, into Martin's household. This was not what he had looked forward to when his heart had beaten high with pride when his grandson took possession of his estates.
Now and then Philip went to see his half-brother, when he could spare a day or two, and Margaret every year spent a few weeks at Brackenburn. But Martin only once visited Apley, the restraints of a home so civilized and cultured being intolerably irksome to him. He was not unhappy, but he had none of the higher joys of life. There was one point on which no man could influence him. He would never marry. Ignorant and savage as he must always remain, there was an austere purity of soul in him which made it impossible for him to marry without love.
The conviction that, after all, Philip or Philip's son would succeed to the estates was a secret trouble to Laura for the rest of her life. If she could but have known that Philip would be the most wealthy of Sidney's three sons! But she had formed no idea of the immense accumulation of Sidney's private property, which would have all been Phyllis's if she had not broken off that match. Phyllis shared her chagrin in some measure, but it was tempered with the anticipations of a youthful beauty. There were other men besides Philip, she said, though he was a great miss. And she had loved him, she added, with more sadness in her tone than her mother had ever heard. They both took more interest in the details of Philip and Dorothy's marriage than Margaret herself did.
Margaret took up her old life in her old home, where most of all Sidney's presence was most real to her. It was her conviction that he was present, a thin though impenetrable veil alone lying between them. In this path of consolation and peace she walked by faith, a more satisfying thing than walking by sight. She knew that if he had not gone forth to seek the son whom he did not love, there would have dwelt in her heart of hearts a lurking condemnation of him, which would have been exceedingly bitter; whereas now there was there a thankful sense of the full atonement he had made for deserting his child in his infancy. She could well wait until she spoke face to face with Sidney again. Day by day she was strengthened with strength in her soul.
THE END.