iving still to claim kindred with
the dead! It was over, and I stole from the room, cautiously and silently
as I entered. Once, and only once, I turned to gaze at the melancholy
group. There lay the corpse, stiff and unconscious; there sat the son, in
an unconsciousness yet more terrible, since it could not last. There, pale
and tearless, stood the wife of him, who, in his dying hour, cursed her
child and his. How little she dreamed of such a scene when her meek lips
first replied to his vows of affection! How little she dreamed of such a
scene when she first led that father to the cradle of his sleeping boy!
when they bent together with smiles of affection, to watch his quiet
slumber, and catch the gentle breathing of his parted lips! I had scarcely
reached the landing-place before the wretched woman's hand was laid
lightly on my arm to arrest my progress. Her noiseless step had followed
me without my being aware of it. 'How soon will your work be done?' said
she, in a suffocated voice. 'To-morrow I could be here again,' answered I.
'To-morrow! and what am I to do, if my boy wakes before that time?' and
her voice became louder and hoarse with fear. 'He will go mad, I am sure
he will; his brain will not hold against these horrors. Oh! that God would
hear me!--that God would hear me! and let that slumber sit on his senses
till the sight of the father that cursed him is no longer present to us!
Heaven be merciful to me!' and with the last words she clasped her hands
convulsively, and gazed upwards. I had known opiates administered to
sufferers whose grief for their bereavement almost amounted to madness. I
mentioned this hesitatingly to the widow, and she eagerly caught at it.
'Yes! that would do,' exclaimed she; 'that would do, if I could but get
him past that horrible moment! But stay; I dare not leave him alone as he
is, even for a little while:--what will become of me!' I offered to
procure the medicine for her, and soon returned with it. I gave it into
her hands, and her vehement expressions of thankfulness wrung my heart. I
had attempted to move the pity of the apothecary at whose shop I obtained
the drug, by an account of the scene I had witnessed, in order to induce
him to pay a visit to the house of mourning; but in vain. To him, who had
_not_ witnessed it, it was nothing but a tale of every-day distress. All
that long night I worked at the merchant's coffin, and the dim grey light
of the wintry morning found me sti