either wait helplessly and in trembling expectancy,or take cousel of pride,and stubbornly and sullenly meet the future,or else appeal to Ida's Friend.It seems mean business to do the last now in my extremity,but I well know that Ida would counsel it,and by reaching her Friend I may at some time in the future reach her again.I know well how my mother--were I dying--would urge me to look to him,whom she in loyal faith worships daily,and thus I may see her once more.The Bible teaches how many in their extremity looked to Christ and he helped them.But then they had not known about him,and coldly and almost contemptuously neglected him for years as I have.Oh,what has my reason,of which I have been so proud,done for me,save blast my earthly life with folly,and permitted the neglect of all preparation for an eternal life.If ever a self-confident man was taught how utterly incapable he was of meeting events and questions that might occur within a few brief days,I am he,and yet,vain fool that I was!I was practically acting as if I could meet all that would happen to all eternity in a cool,well-bred,masterful way.Poor untrained,untaught Ida Mayhew said she had 'found a Friend pledged to take care of her,'and he has taken care of her.He has made her life true,noble,heroic,beneficent.I was content to take care of myself,and this is the result.God might well turn away in disgust from any prayer of mine now,but may I be accursed if I do not become a Christian man,if by any means I now escape death!"But in his intense longing to see again those he loved so well,and tell them that he had not basely broken his pledges and fled like a coward from duty,he did pray with all the agonized earnestness of a soul clinging to the one hope that intervened between itself and utter despair,but the moon moved on serenely and sank among the trees on the western bank of the ravine.The night darkened again and the stars came out more clearly with their cold distant glitter.Nature's breathless hush and expectancy continued,and there was no sound without and no answer within the heart of the despairing man.At last,in weakness and discouragement,he moaned:
"Well,thank God,brave Ida Mayhew put an honorable purpose in my heart before I died,and I meant to have carried it out.There's no use of praying,for it seems as if I were no more than one of these millions of leaves over my head when it falls from its place.
Nature is pitiless and God is as cold towards me as I was once to one who turned her appealing eyes to me for a little kindness and sympathy.O God!if I must die,let it be soon,for my pain and thirst are becoming intolerable."The dawn was now brightening the east.Nature as if tired of waiting--like some professed friends--for one who was long in dying,ceased its breathless hush.A fresh breeze rustled the motionless leaves,birds withdrew their heads from under their wings,and began the twittering preliminary to their morning songs;and two squirrels,springing from their nest in a hollow tree,like children from a cottage door,scrambled down and over Van Berg's prostrate form in their wild sport,but he was too weak,too far gone in dull,heavy apathy to heed them.
At last he thought he was dying,and he became unconscious.
He learned that it was only a swoon from the fact that he revived again,and was dimly conscious of sounds near him.It seemed to him that he was half asleep,and that he could not wake up sufficiently to distinguish whether the sounds were heard in a dream or in reality.
But he soon became sure that some one was crying and moaning not far away,and he naturally associated such evidences of distress with what he had seen last in Mr.Eltinge's garden.He therefore called feebly:
"Ida--Ida Mayhew."
"Merciful God!"exclaimed a voice,"who is that?"His heart beat so fast he could not answer at once,but he heard a light,swift step;the shrubbery and low branches of the trees were swept aside,and Jennie Burton's blue eyes,full of tears but dilated with wonder and fear,looked upon him.
"O,Jennie Burton,good angel of God!he has sent you to me,"cried the rescued man,who with a glad thrill of joy felt that life was coming back in the line of honor and duty.
"Harold Van Berg!what are you doing here?"she asked in wild amazement.
"I was dying till you came and brought me hope and life,as you have to so many others.""Thank God,thank God,"she panted,and she rushed at the rock that had held him in such terrible durance.
He struggled up and tried to pull her hands away.
"Don't do that,Jennie,"he said,"you are not quite an angel yet,and cannot 'roll the stone away.'""O God!"she exclaimed,with a sharp cry of agony,"in some such way and place HE may have died,"and she sank to the ground,moaning and wringing her hands as if overwhelmed with agony at the thought.
Van Berg reached out and took her hand,forgetting for a moment his own desperate need,as he said:"Dear Jennie,don't grieve so terribly.""God forgive me,that I could forget you!"she said,starting up.
"I must not lose a second in bringing you help."But he clung feebly to her hand."Wait,Jennie,till you are more calm.My life depends on you now.The hotel is a long way off,and if you start in your present mood you will never reach it yourself,and I had better die a thousand times than cause harm to you."She put her hand on her side and her convulsive sobbing soon ceased.
After a moment or two she said quietly:"You can trust me now,Mr.Van Berg;I won't fail you.""Do you think you could bring me a little water before you go?"he asked.
"Yes,there's a spring near;I know this place well,"and it seemed to him that she flitted back and forth like a ray of light,bringing all the water she could carry in a large leaf.
"Oh,"he said,with a long deep breath,"did ever a sweeter draught pass mortal lips,and from your hands,too,Jennie Burton.May Idie as I would have died here if I do not devote my life to making you happy!""I accept that pledge,"she said,with a wan smile that on her pale,tear-stained face was inexpressibly touching."It makes me bold enough to ask one more promise.""It's made already,so help me God!"he replied fervently.
A faint,far-away gleam of something like mirth came into her deep blue eyes as she said,"I've bound you now,and you can have no choice.Your pledge is this--that you will make me happy in my own way.Now,not another word,not another motion;keep every particle of life and strength till I come again with assistance,"and she brought him water twice again,silencing him by an imperious gesture when he attempted to speak,and then she disappeared.
"That was an odd pledge that she beguiled me into,"he murmured.
"I fear that in the wiles of her unselfish heart she has caught me in some kind of a trap."But after a little time he relapsed again into a condition of partial unconsciousness.