They go to sea so early, and young things
will be young things, Lord. Spare them but one night more--and yet He
did not spare my two--they had no time to repent, and have no time for
ever, evermore!"
And she stands looking out over the sea; but she has lost sight of
everything, save her own sad imaginations. Her eyes open wider and
wider, as if before some unseen horror; the eyebrows contract upwards;
the cheeks sharpen; the mouth parts; the lips draw back, showing
the white teeth, as if in intensest agony. Thus she stands long,
motionless, awe-frozen, save when a shudder runs through every limb,
with such a countenance as that "fair terror" of which Shelley sang--
"Its horror and its beauty are divine;
Upon its lips and eyelids seem to lie
Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine,
Fiery and lucid, struggling underneath,
The agonies of anguish and of death."
Her mother comes out from the cottage door behind, and lays her hand
upon the girl's shoulder. The spell is broken; and hiding her face in
her hands, Grace bursts into violent weeping.
"What are you doing, my poor child, here in the cold night air?"
"My two, mother, my two!" said she; "and all the poor souls at sea
to-night!"
"You mustn't think of it. Haven't I told you not to think of it? One
would lose one's wits if one did too often."
"If it is all true, mother, what else is there worth thinking of in
heaven or earth?"
And Grace goes in with a dull, heavy look of utter exhaustion, bodily
and mental, and quietly sets the things for supper, and goes about her
cottage work as one who bears a heavy chain, but has borne it too long
to let it hinder the daily drudgery of life.
Pages:
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98