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Macpherson's Gully: A Tale of New Zealand Life

Chapter VII

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Chapter VII.

It was Christmas Eve, and merrily rang the Christchurch bells. A holiday air pervaded the town. The main thoroughfares were crowded with people, and the pleasant sounds of cheerful talk and merry laughter were heard on every side. Here and there, the shop windows were besieged by smiling groups rendering the homage of spontaneous admiration to the fanciful decorations, and all bent, apparently, on making some appropriate purchases wherewith to celebrate the season. As is usual on such occasions, the children were vociferously to the fore. For them mainly, the purse-strings of the seniors were relaxed; for them the busy shopkeepers displayed their most attractive wares; and to them, with their bright eyes beaming, and their little hands laden with presents, it seemed as if the millenium had come. And how the unrestrained glee of the youngsters spread like a genial infection to the oldsters! Sober gray-beards and elderly matrons, their feelings warmed and softened by the humanizing influence, thought mayhap of the olden time in the distant home-land,—now seen but dimly through the mist of years—when for them too the mysteries of the toy shops constituted a fairy wonderland; when the strange puzzlement of a Jack-in-the-box, the martial blare of a sixpenny trumpet, and the ineffable delight of chocolate creams, were all-absorbing attractions.

Voices whose ordinary tones were hard and raucous became mellowed to a husky softness Faces whose wont it was to exhibit a staid and solemn gravity became subject to innumerable puckerings and twitchings, as if the little bundles of nerves and muscles which form the controlling gear of facial expression, had somehow got out of order and were pulling and tugging at cross-purposes; until after repeated attempts, having succeeded in hauling the reluctant features into the required posture, they kept them fixed at a “broad grin” as being the best result obtainable under the circumstances.

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Hearts were surreptitiously stealing out of their unguarded hiding places on to unaccustomed sleeves, as if under the gracious influence of the time they were wishful to be out yet half ashamed to be seen. People seemed to have tacitly agreed to temporarily put aside the hard asperities of life; to proclaim an armistice in the daily warfare of existence, and descend for a time to the simplicity and kindliness of childhood. Would that such influences were more permanent!

* * * * *

Away from the joyous crowd—away from the din and the stir of the streets, in one of the quiet suburbs of the city, stands the little two-roomed cottage tenanted by Mrs. Spencer. Here, indeed, we see no signs of mirth, no indication of seasonable festivities; for the humble tenement is the house of mourning, and pale-faced Grief holds her court within its walls. It is ever so. Our gayest scenes have aye a background of sorrow; the world's gladdest symphonies are constantly marred by the dolorous notes of woe.

The bright, sanguine expression that used to form the peculiar charm of Jeanie's face has, ever since Ethel's death, given place to a settled melancholy. And now redoubled sorrow sits at the mother's heart; for death has a second time entered her dwelling, and the form of her other child—her blithesome, wee Bobbie—lies there stretched on the bed waiting for the coffin that is to come on the morrow. But yesternight he was alive, and though the doctor gravely shook his head, she had fondly hoped the sickness would pass. And then, when all hope was dispelled, and she could no longer strive against the conviction that his life was forfeit to the fell disease, she had earnestly prayed that God would spare him until his father came home, that Alick might kiss his darling before he died. Faithful through the watches of the night she had kept her post by the bedside, lovingly attending to the sufferer, and not daring to take rest for herself lest while she slept the end should come.

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“Mother,” he asked, in the hoarse whisper by which alone he could now express his wants, “has father come home yet?”

“No, dear, but he'll soon be here, before Christmas, I hope—and you know it is almost Christmas now, and he'll bring such a nice lot of presents for Bobbie.”

“Will he bring me a tricycle, mother? You know he promined to get me one”—referring with childish tenacity of memory to a promise he had extracted from his father to procure him one of the toy tricycles just then in vogue.

“Yes, darling, only Bobbie must not tire himself talking, but must try to sleep so that he may get well soon and be able to run and meet father when he comes.”

Towards morning, starting up from his fitful slumbers, “Oh, mother,” he said, “I'm so glad that father has come—but where has he gone? I don't see him now.”

“Bobbie was only dreaming; father hasn't come yet, dear.”

“O yes he has, and he stood just where you are, mother, and he kissed me, and he lifted Ethel in his arms and she kissed me too. An' oh, mother, I'm—so—glad!” Then he closed his eyes, and a sweet angelic smile flickered over his wan features, while his mother, her tears dropping on the pillow, watched him with yearning solicitude. Soon the crisis came; a short struggle as if in pain, a faint gasp, a little choking sob, a sudden stretching of the limbs, then—absolute rest. In the dread stillness that followed, Jeanie, her heart riven within her, realised that she was childless.

And now as she sits by her cheerless hearth, a few sympathising neighbours around her, she exhibits none of the usual parade of woe; but rather that sad tranquillity of mien which speaks of sorrow repressed; no less real, and infinitely more touching, than the wildest abandonment of grief. Knowing the keenness of her anguish, her neighbours say but little. They instinctively feel the page 51 uselessness of mere words, so mutely express by their silent presence their sympathy with the bereaved mother. The deepest sorrow ever loves the deepest silence. It is wholly inarticulate Human language can never adequately express it. And even as it is incommunicable from within, so is it impenetrable from without. The heart, indeed, knows its own bitterness, but round it is a great void through which even the most consolatory utterances are powerless to pass. In the first onset of intense grief, the tenderest phrases have a hollow, meaningless sound, and can carry no comfort to the stricken spirit. Not until the healing influences of time have dulled the pain, and rounded the raw edges of the wound, can words portray the feelings, or, however, kindly meant, be of any service to assuage the pangs of the afflicted heart. The grand old seer of the ancient days saw deep down into human nature when he penned the words—“So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him, for they saw that his grief was very great.”

In the evening the clergyman called. He was a valued friend of the family, and the solace he sought to convey to this distressed member of his flock was rendered in no perfunctory spirit. On their arrival in the Colony, Alick and Jeanie had placed themselves under his pastoral care, and he having come to know them intimately, held them in that high respect which sterling character, however humbly circumstanced, everywhere receives from the wise and good. Observing Jeanie's wan appearance, he wisely insisted on her partaking of some refreshment; and in a few kindly remarks addressed to all in the room, urged the necessity that lies upon us all at all times to take due care of our health, not only that we may be the better able to sustain affliction, but that we may thereby maintain ourselves in a fit condition worthily to perform whatever duties lie to our hand.

Having in the morning charged himself with the necessary preparations respecting the funeral, he now page 52 intimated that these were complete. He further mentioned, with the hope of in some measure diverting Jeanie's thoughts from the contemplation of her bereavement, that he had that day seen the manager of the boot-factory in which Mr. Spencer had been engaged, and he had assured him that on Alick's arrival home—an event that was now daily expected—there was a certainty of his obtaining employment. Jeanie, in a tremulous voice, essayed to thank him for his kindly interest on their behalf; but, breaking off—“Ah, me,” she said, “Alick'll be a sad, sad man when he comes home and finds his darlings gone! He was so fond of them, and they loved him so!” Here her rising sobs prevented further utterance; and the minister himself, deeply affected, lifted up his voice in prayer. Using much of the impressive Scriptural diction which when the heart is in a fit state to receive it, is more than all other forms of speech fitted to convey balm to the wounded spirit, he prayed that God would sustain his suffering servant under the heavy burden which in His inscrutable wisdom He had been pleased to lay upon her; that for both parents, the mother now present, and the absent father, as yet unaware of the death of his boy, this sore trial might be made to work out a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

The company had just resumed their seats on the conclusion of the prayer, when there was the sound of footsteps outside, followed immediately by a sharp knock at the door. It was the postman with a bulky registered letter for Mrs. Spencer. Seeing by the post-mark that the letter was from the “Coast” she nervously opened the envelope and spread its contents on the table. There was, to her astonishment, a parcel of bank-notes, but strange to say, no other enclosure! She examined the envelope again, but no; it was quite empty. Then she vainly searched among the notes; it was evident that no letter had been sent. But stay; what is this? A small piece of paper, apparently a clipping from some newspaper. This she mechanically lifted and glanced over, and as she read a quiver passed page 53 over her countenance—“Merciful God!” she moaned, and fell helpless on the floor! Tenderly they carried her into the other room, and while some of the women employed such simple remedies as they knew in order to restore her to consciousness, the clergyman, fearing that in her exhausted condition the swoon might be followed by serious consequences, despatched a messenger for his own medical attendant. She had partially recovered when the doctor arrived, and he having administered an opiate, reassured the minds of those present by stating his opinion that she only required rest, and that after a sound sleep she would probably be all right.

Desirous of finding a clue to the cause of the severe shock which the poor woman had obviously received, the clergyman now lifted from the floor the piece of paper which had fallen from her nerveless fingers, and perused it with the deepest concern. It was a cutting from a Hokitika paper, and contained the following paragraph which he now read aloud to the company:—“Found Drowned.—We regret to have to record another case of drowning in the Teremakau. Two days ago a party of prospectors fossicking along the South bank of the river came upon the remains of a man lying on a shingle-spit close to the water's edge. The body, which was much swollen and disfigured having evidently been in the water for some days, appeared to be that of a digger in the prime of life. Close by, and still attached to the corpse by means of a leather strap, lay a small swag which on being searched was found to contain some letters, from which it appears that the deceased was named Alexander Spencer, and that he was a married man belonging to Christchurch. There was also found a sum of money—£27 in bank-notes—which will, of course, be forwarded to the widow. From the fact that there was still retained in the grasp of the dead man a length of broken sapling, it is surmised that the deceased had been accompanied by one or more mates, and that the party must have perished in an attempt to cross the river during the late fresh.”

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All in the room were deeply affected by the sad tidings. “God pity the poor soul in her sore distress,” said one of the women, her voice broken by emotion; and the words found an echo in every heart.

Next morning the doctor again visited his patient. He found that as far as physical strength was concerned she had made satisfactory progress, but alas! her mental condition was beyond the reach of medicine. Her mind enfeebled by rapidly accumulating misfortune, had been unable to withstand the shock of the last and severest blow of all—the sudden announcement of her husband's death. The vacant eye, the wandering, far-away expression, the lack of all intelligent appreciation of her surroundings, made it abnndantly [sic: abundantly] plain that the lamp of reason was utterly extinguished!

She was possessed of a singular delusion, traceable doubtless to the long buffetings of fortune to which she had been subjected. She imagined that she owed a great deal of money; that the landlord was suing for his rent; the butcher and baker, with a host of other creditors, clamouring for a settlement of their accounts. Weighing her heavily down was this great load of debt which she was quite unable to pay, and in satisfaction of which the wrathful creditors had taken her husband and children and sold them into slavery! Still there was hope; one little ray of light seemed to penetrate the gloom. She would work hard; she would earn money; she would pay everybody; and though it might take years to accomplish it, she would yet redeem her loved ones from bondage.

Then a spasm of doubt would seize her. Would her creditors be content simply with the payment of their bills? Might they not also demand interest? Pathetically she would question those about her as to the likelihood of this contingency; and when they, falling in with her humour, would assure her that only the amount of their accounts would be asked for, that some of her creditors might even be good enough to forego a portion of their page 55 just demands, her fears would vanish, and she would hopefully assert her ability ultimately to pay all that she owed. Then folding her apron carefully across her knee, and plying her fingers nimbly as if in the act of sewing, she would pursue her fruitless task with such assiduity, such earnestness, such pitiful hurry, as if time was pressing and there was so much to be done, that oftentimes the unbidden tears would start in the eyes of the beholders.

But let us hasten over the painful scene. Suffice it to say, that shortly after kindly hands had laid wee Bobbie in the cemetery; poor Jeanie, widowed, childless, and now hopelessly insane, was conveyed to *Sunnyside, there to wear out the remainder of her days in merciful oblivion of the past.

Reve Wardon.

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* An asylum for the insane.