Craik A Life for a Life, Volume 3 (of 3)

1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-3-95864-917-0
Verlag: OTB eBook publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 468 Seiten

Reihe: Classics To Go

Excerpt: “I am not, the least in the world which I would fain have explained, only mere friends can never understand the ins and outs of a family. If I offered to assist her in the house, how Penelope would stare Or even in her schools and parish--but that I cannot do. Teaching is to me perfectly intolerable. The moment I have to face two dozen pairs of round eyes, every particle of sense takes flight, and I become the veriest of cowards, ready to sink through the floor. The same, too, in district visiting. What business have I, because I happen to be the clergyman's daughter, to go lifting the latch, and poking about poor people's houses, obliging them to drop me curtseys, and receive civilly my tracts and advice--which they neither read nor follow, and might be none the better for it if they did.”

Autoren/Hrsg.

Craik, Dinah Maria Mulock

Leseproben

CHAPTER II. HIS STORY.
This is the last, probably, of those “letters never sent,” which may reach you one day; when or how, we know not. All that is, is best. You say you think it advisable that there should be an accurate written record of all that passed between your family and myself on the final day of parting, in order that no further conduct of mine may be misconstrued or misjudged. Be it so. My good name is worth preserving; for it must never be any disgrace to you that Max Urquhart loved you. Since this record is to be minute and literal, perhaps it will be better I should give it impersonally, as a statement rather than a letter. On February 9th, 1857, I went to Rockmount, to see Theodora Johnston, for the first time after she was aware that I had, long ago, taken the life of her half-brother, Henry Johnston, not intentionally, but in a fit of drunken rage. I came, simply to look at her dear face once more, and to ask her in what way her father would best bear the shock of this confession of mine, before I took the second step of surrendering myself to justice, or of making atonement in any other way that Mr. Johnston might choose. To him and his family my life was owed, and I left them to dispose of it or of me in any manner they thought best. With these intentions, I went to Theodora. I knew her well. I felt sure she would pity me, that she would not refuse me her forgiveness, before our eternal separation; that though the blood upon my hands was half her own, she would not judge me the less justly, or mercifully, or Christianly. As to a Christian woman, I came to her—as I had come once before, in a question of conscience; also, as to the woman who had been my friend, with all the rights and honours of that name, before she became to me anything more and dearer. And I was thankful that the lesser tie had been included in the greater, so that both need not be entirely swept away and disannulled. I found not only my friend, upon whom, above all others, I could depend, but my own, my love, the woman above all women who was mine; who, loving me before this blow fell, clung to me still, and believing that God Himself had joined us together suffered nothing to put us asunder. How she made me comprehend this I shall not relate, as it concerns ourselves alone. When at last I knelt by her and kissed her blessed hands—my saint! and yet all woman, and all my own—I felt that my sin was covered, that the All-merciful had had mercy upon me. That while, all these years, I had followed miserably my own method of atonement, denying myself all life’s joys, and cloaking myself with every possible ray of righteousness I could find, He had suddenly led me by another way, sending this child’s love, first to comfort and then, to smite me, that, being utterly bruised, broken, and humbled, I might be made whole. Now, for the first time, I felt like a man to whom there is a possibility of being made whole. Her father might hunt me to death, the law might lay hold on me, the fair reputation under which I had shielded myself might be torn and scattered to the winds; but for all that I was safe, I was myself, the true Max Urquhart, a grievous sinner; yet no longer unforgiven or hopeless. “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” That line struck home. Oh, that I could strike it home to every miserable heart as it went to mine. Oh! that I could carry into the utmost corners of the earth the message, the gospel which Dallas believed in, the only one which has power enough for the redemption of this sorrowful world—the gospel of the forgiveness and remission of sins. While she talked to me—this my saint, Theodora—Dallas himself might have spoken, apostle-like, through her lips. She said, when I listened in wonder to the clearness of some of her arguments, that she hardly knew how they had come into her mind, they seemed to come of themselves; but they were there, and she was sure they were true. She was sure, she added, reverently, that if the Christ of Nazareth were to pass by Rockmount door this day, the only word He would say unto me, after all I had done, would be:—“Thy sins are forgiven thee—rise up and walk.” And I did so. I went out of the house an altered man. My burthen of years had been lifted off me for ever and ever. I understood something of what is meant by being “born again.” I could dimly guess at what they must have felt-who sat at the Divine feet, clothed and in their right mind, or who, across the sunny plains of Galilee, leaped, and walked, and ran, praising God. I crossed the moorland, walking erect, with eyes fixed on the blue sky, my heart tender and young as a child’s. I even stopped, child-like, to pluck a stray primrose under a tree in a lane, which had peeped out, as if it wished to investigate how soon spring would come. It seemed to me so pretty—I might never have seen a primrose since I was a boy. Let me relate the entire truth—she wishes it. Strange as it may appear, though hour by hour brought nearer the time when I had fixed to be at Rockmount, to confess unto a father that I had been the slayer of his only son—still that day was not an unhappy day. I spent it chiefly out of doors on the moorlands, near a way-side public-house, where I had lodged some nights, drinking in large draughts of the beauty of this external world, and feeling even outer life sweet, though nothing to that renewed life which I now should never lose again. Never—even if I had to go next day to prison and trial, and stand before the world a convicted homicide. Nay, I believe I could have mounted the scaffold amidst those gaping thousands that were once my terror, and die peacefully in spite of them, feeling no longer either guilty or afraid. So much for myself, which will explain a good deal that followed in the interview which I have now to relate. Theodora had wished to save me by herself, explaining all to her father; but I would not allow this, and at length she yielded. However, things fell out differently from both our intentions: he learned it first from his daughter Penelope. The moment I entered his study I was certain Mr. Johnston knew. Let no sinner, however healed, deceive himself that his wound will never smart again. He is not instantly made a new man of, whole and sound: he must grow gradually, even through many a returning pang, into health and cure. If anyone thinks I could stand in the presence of that old man without an anguish sharp as death, which made me for the moment wish I had never been born, he is mistaken. But alleviations came. The first was to see the old man sitting there alive and well, though evidently fully aware of the truth, and having been so for some time, for his countenance was composed, his tea was placed beside him on the table, and there was an open Bible before him, in which he had been reading. His voice, too, had nothing unnatural or alarming in it, as, without looking at me, he bade the maid-servant “give Doctor Urquhart a chair and say, if anyone interrupted, that we were particularly engaged.” So the door was shut upon us, leaving us face to face. But it was not long before he raised his eyes to him. It is enough, once in a lifetime, to have borne such a look. “Mr. Johnston,”—but he shut his ears. “Do not speak,” he said; “what you have come to tell me I know already. My daughter told me this morning. And I have been trying ever since to find out what my church says to the shedder of blood; what she would teach a father to say to the murderer of his child. My Harry, my only son! And you murdered him!” Let the words which followed be sacred. If in some degree they were unjust, and overstepped the truth, let me not dare to murmur. I believe the curses he heaped upon me in his own words and those of the Holy Book, will not come, for its other and diviner words, which his daughter taught me, stand as a shield between me and him. I repeated them to myself in my silence, and so I was able to endure. When he paused and commanded me to speak, I answered only a few words, namely, that I was here to offer my life for his son’s life; that he might do with me what he would. “Which means, that I should give you up to justice, have you tried, condemned, executed. You, Doctor Urquhart, whom the world thinks so well of. I might live to see you hanged.” His eyes glared, his whole frame was convulsed. I entreated him to calm himself, for his own health’s sake, and the sake of his children. “Yes, I will. Old as I am, this shall not kill me. I will live to exact retribution. My boy, my poor murdered Harry—murdered—murdered.” He kept repeating and dwelling on the word, till at length I said:— “If you know the whole truth, you must be aware that I had no intention to murder him.” “What, you extenuate? You wish to escape? But you shall not. I will have you arrested now, in this very house.” “Be it so, then.” And I sat down. So, the end had come. Life, and all its hopes, all its work, were over for me. I saw, as in a second of time, everything that was coming—the trial, the conviction, the newspaper clatter over my name, my ill deeds exaggerated, my good deeds pointed at with the finger of scorn, which perhaps was the keenest agony of all—save one. “Theodora!” Whether I uttered her name, or only thought it, I cannot tell. However, it brought her. I felt she was in the room, though she stood by her sister’s side, and did not approach me. Again, I repeat, let no man say that sin does not bring...