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Otago Witness, Issue 2326, 29 September 1898, Page 41

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Chapter XII. Labour Ended. ARK slept -well. His face bore the look of a little extra fafogue, and yet he | looked, too, as a man who hna yts-tct into his inheritance. There was a blue bruise upon his temple. The doctor said that death had been instantaneous, caused )y falKne he,f><l iomnor-.t on ihe ro> ks. He had said to Grace once, when she told j liro the stoiv of ttio iu,.n who fell down within sight of his goal, that the man had seen happy. " There is such a thing as spiritual possession," he had assured her. And t had'been Mark's. "It is the gradual letiing go, the slow sense of failure, that is leulli. he had affirmed. And that had been spared him. While Laurence mourned him, his youth ! 3ut short, his wasted energies, the doctor ; silenced him with the words : ' " The lad was dying. He never would aave gained hi? professorship. He would have learned that as soon as he set to work igain. He may have lived to an old age in idleness ; but, dear me ! you know what he svas — it would have been intolerable. Could le have chosen he would have chosen this." L-HU'e, •••* w mid h<i\e </<von -ill he possessed — even Grace — if Mark could have risen up and asked for her. For Grace sat at his side smilingly. "He did come back," she said, softly stroking his hair. "He does love me." It was the only thing she realised sitting by his side, and she reiterated it again and igain, looking up into the face of Laurence with a look no one could name. "He did :ome back. He does love me." It was so worth the telling, this news of hers, that she told it at intervals all day — a iismal day of rain. Laurence" walked about distractedly, staring through the curtainless windows, nob seeing the blurred glass or the shower of leaves brought down with every gust of wind. The Indian summer of the last few weeks had come to a sudden termination with the rain, but it was not the weather that gave Laurence that icy chill. He turned agajn from the Avindow and looked at his E?irl wife talking to her dead lover. She had forgotten everything of yesterday except that Mark had returned. What would happen when she remembered? The afternoon drew on towards evening, but she made no sign of grief. " He is as cold," she said, laying her cheek beside Mark's, " as though he never would be warm again, but I am glad that he sleeps. He hated to be awake. And he was so lonely once he could not sleep. He told me so." She turned to her uncle, who was looking down ajb her with critical, if dim, eyes. He polished up his glasses and walked hurriedly to where Laurence stood, and put his hand on the minister's shoulder. " He will never be lonely again, not ever," she continued, with a smile of confidence at Lauren' e, "" f -r I Khali not lea^.o him. lie wants me. He said it." It was great grand news to her — glad news. She was proud to tell it. The pleasure of it shone in her eyes. " I am very proud for him," she went on, " for he has Avon his professorship. He was years away, but he did return. He came because of me." Then she hummed softly to herself, and presently began to tell Mark a story. The two men bent forward to listen. At first they could not catch her words. Then she raised her voice a'little. " I was a vexy little girl when I read it, and have forgotten it m part, but it was abou L I he lord of i brickfield f.o whom » poor woman once went and begged leave to gather the brick ends, so that she might build herself a house of that which the oxaster builders

refused. And the owner of the brickfield gave his consent. So, with much patience and labour, the woman gathered the cast-off ends, and bit by bit, little piece by little ! piece, she cemented them together until her < house was built, and built so well that when ' she was old she dwelt there, and the storms • of winter could not beat upon her. I also i had meant to build a house like that. But ] you have come back !" Laurence wrung the doctor's hand. "In the name of God," he said, " get her away 1" The doctor without a word dropped something into a phial, and approached his niece holding it towards her. (She looked up with brilliant eyes. " For Mark?" she said as she took the phial. " For you, my pet." She drank it without a word, and returned the phial. Presently she sighed wearily, and lay her head upon her lover's breast. For a little time they slept together ; then the doctor, who had stood watching with quick-falling tears, stooped down and, tenderly lifting the sleeping girl, carried her away. They left Aroha beside Grace's bed to watch while hurried preparations were made for Mark's burial. In the silent chamber Aroha listened, and knew all that went on. She heard hushed voices and the shuffling of men's feet, and then a soft tapping. With her head between her hands and her eyes fixed upon the fair sleeping face she strained her ears, and knew intuitively that there Avas to be a midnight burial. After a long time — ages it seemed to Aroha — there came on the night quiet the solemn slow tolling of a bell ; then the soft shuffle of feet again. budtieniy virtue op^neu ncr eyes and sat up in bed. " Mark ! " she cried out in a loud voice — "they are taking him away!" Then she fell into Aroha's arms, unconscious again. Aroha bent lower over the white face on the pillow. Presently Grace began to move her lips, and then to speak in the voice of one who talks in her sleep. " The rain," she said, " is pouring down in torrents ; it blinds one. Take care ! here's the path. They are lifting the conin now on to the cart. (The bell tolled.) Cover it well with the pall. We have no plumed hearse for you, Mark. But, see ! the people bring fkwers. Late as it is, and sodden with rain Ritiii^'.ue i li" people in iti" ll < in. I'll ere is a crowd at the gate. Many strong men have come down from the hills, and women are here, bitterly weeping. And the Salvation Army are waiting to sing. (Again the bell tolled.) Hold up the lanterns. SJowly we move, for the path is ill-suited to liurry. Laurence and uncle are walking behind, and l/;r>n> m It ■ '-. • -i" io ** • ■ v caibn the path is. The horsemen and footmen are following behind. There is a roar of the surf on the beach and the falling of rain. Ah! must Aye sing?" She sang: "i Art tlicvu v.'eo,i>, a.it i'-.cu i^i.gxuci, Ait tliou sore diut,ri>d3'vd? Corno to me, saiJh Ore; Mid, cmning, Be at rest." " How deep and true ring the voices. Listen ! they rise above the patter of the rain, the crunching of the wheels and the feet of the horses. Hold the lanterns higher! We are at the summit of the hilJ, but the sea is all blotted out with rain. From base to summit of the hill the people are spread, singing as they come : If them still hold closely to Him, What hath He at last? Sorrow vanquished, labour ended. How the pale faces of the women gladden! Hold high the lanterns that I may see. It is a song for workers; and listen how the voices of the men echo among the hills. This is the place." She stopped, and Aroha, who had followed her step by step, panted in anxiety lest she might not tell the end of the scene. In the silence she heard again the tolling of the bell. " Leave the cart there," went on Grace presently, " but bring in the flowers. Bow your heads low under the dripping trees. Hark! Laurence — bareheaded in all this rain — is speaking :' Man that was born of a woman. . . . cut down like the grass ' All ! why does he ween? And why do all the people weep? Mark wcnild not shed n +ri- . r'nmn lvm^, Laurence. ... It will be lovely here < > «-ii-> • r.rnner time. sitl t! i .o wliaru is jii^c below." She spoke no more, and Aroha waited imT»n(if>nt!>- tor th° cvrrn-i t ot the pakehas, ior the bell had ceased tolling. When Grace awakened they looked on her trtmblingly, for she had forgotten the dead. She met the anxious watching eyes' with smiles ; their thoughts and hers were far asundert They had yearned to console her, and yet with great dread, but the sadness of their looks had no meaning for her. She was happy as a child again, and sang her songs and prattled her stories with merry tongue. Laurence was seer and saint to her again, but he dwelt in a far-away world. One day she noticed her wedding ring; her look was one of puzzled surpiise. She knit hir brow^.and glanced from Laurence to her uncle. '■ " How very extraordinary," she said. [ Laurence tried to smile, i "I put it on one day when you did not notice," he said, his smile almost ending in a sob. She looked with a friendly look, and with a taint blu&h handed it back to him. There was no comfort to Laurence's grief. If she wakened to remembrance, what would that waking mean? She wandered over hill and field, this girl he had made his wife, singing her songs, while he tried to cope with the desolating tragedy of her marriage day — to live as though it had not been. She came one day by accident upon Mark's newly-made grave. "Whose is it?" she asked of Aroha. "A stranger pakeha's," answered Aroha, turning away her head. Then Grace gathered late autumn blossoms and sweet herbs, and s'tt down on the grass an 1 wove a wreath for Mark, while Aroha, ■wntched with mournful ever, and then she brwed herself, and after (he fa.sliiun of her people chanted of the pakeha's deeds, while Grace listened, her fingers busy with the wreath that was for Mark. But, although Arolia told the story of his love and his" death, Grace did not remember. " Soft blow the winds over hia grave," sang Aroha softly, "the fresh winds sweet from the sea-— telling their secret, their secret of sorrow and gladness. What thinkest thoui; That lie will hearken from afar off to

the telling? When the late corn was ripe y when the corn was ripe and garnered, he lay. down — he lay down, but not in sorrow ; for" she had lifted up her face and looked upon hhn, nor of her love to hhn said, 'I repented me.' By the day shall the sun shine upon his grave, and by night shall the wind whi&per its secret from the sea. In gladness shall its song come from the shore con-; cerning him, that it has set him free." " Happy stranger !" said Grace, stooping to leave the wreath upon her lover's grave, and then, with a lingering backward look, their tsngi ended, she turned away. Before they left Akaroa Grace expressed a wish to see the whare. " I have broken it to pieces," said Aroha. "With my tomahawk I have broken down the gods. There is nothing to see except a bare little cave." The day they went was a bright frosty c ! ay, and the coach was full inside and out with those who could not bear to saj r farewell. : The gouty gentleman was among them. He had long been dear to the heart of Laurence because of his complaint. Grace did not remember him, and he was introduced to her as a stranger. On the box seat, beside Driver Bill, she told them stories as they went, but when the gouty gentleman should have laughed he turned away his head. When they arrived where the parting '.vis tr> be, there was a group of horsemen and toys who had walked all night, waiting to see them off. The minister stooped more than usual as he shook hands. "I leave the sick and the aged to your i\"re," he said to the young men, and some of the women fell upon their knees in great distress and prayed that God would luiag him back again in gladness. They mre a, simple folk, and he was a simple man, but they found it hard to spare him. " Your father keep you in quietude," was nis prayer for them. Grace went among them brightly. She was a happy girl going away for a long holiday, and as the doctor followed her he was very busy with his spectacles, and found himself too husky to deliver the address he bad prepared. But Aroha did not speak, and not once as far as the steam launch was in sight did anyone among those who stood upon the shore see her turn her head — not even when the men, at the suggestion of Driver Bill, gave her a hearty cheer — "Aroha, daughter of chiefs, long livo Aroha!" " And deuced fine fellows those chiefs must lu.ve been if she takes after them," said the gt.uty gentleman. Then, as nobody spoke, he looked again nt Arona's avorted head. The Maori girl was to eat the bread of the pakehas, and she would not look back. In a little while she vculd leave behind her for ever the land of mountains- and deep still lakes, of bright,, swift streams 'and tlwndering waterfalls, "of froesls and rocky shores where majestic seas beat against the cliff. All the poetry and romance of her people, their loves and hates,. be.-»fc in her breast, and also their daring and endurance ; for, with gaze fixed on the faco of wahine, she turned to a strange land and an untried way. Though she dared not look at; the fast-receding scene, she was repeating, tho words the pakeha priest had read so long, ago : " Entreat me not to leave thee, nor fiom following after thee; whither thou goest will I go ; thy people shan be my people, and thy God my God." For the white people had shown her how to endure ; not only how to achieve, but how to let go. "Take your seats," growled Driver BUT^ cracking his whip impatiently. " And yotf boys who walked squeeze in, if you can. * He did not speak again for a long time ; so the gouty gentleman said : " The .minister has promised to write if there is any news." Driver Bill nodded, and swore at the horses ; then the gouty gentleman swore at Driver Bill for jolting the coach.