Chapter LIX: Found

For a few moments they all stood paralyzed and speechless on the edge of the ravine, gazing down at the death-like form. Dorothy and Philip clasped one another's hands with a grasp as if their own death was near. Then the dogs broke noisily on the dread silence, and as the clamor rang through the air, there came a shout from the cave; and Martin made his way through the drifted snow, and stood in the entrance, looking up to them with rough gestures of delight.

A sharp cry of terror broke from Philip's lips, and springing down into the ravine he cleared away the snow that covered the prostrate form. Martin was beside him in an instant, and with swift, savage instinct, he bent down, and laid his head on his father's breast, to hear if the heart within was beating still. His head had never rested there before, and now it lay there motionless, listening for the feeblest throb that spoke of life. No one moved or spoke. How long the suspense lasted, who could tell? But at length Martin raised himself, and looked up into Philip's face.

"My brother, our father is dead!" he said.

And now Philip flung himself down upon his father's breast. How often he had lain there! How many thousands of times had these outstretched arms carried him to and fro, and these lips spoken to him the fondest and proudest words a father could utter! He cried, "Father! father!" in a tone of passionate entreaty, which made the hearts ache of all who heard him. But no man there dare tell him that there was any hope.

There was, however, no time to spare. If the coming storm broke out again in its former fury the position of all of them would be perilous. Martin beckoned them to follow him into the cave, where old Andrew lay, well protected by dry fern and ling heaped about him, and with Martin's thick overcoat laid over him. He was too feeble to walk home across the moors, and a double burden had to be borne by them.

It was a slow and sorrowful progress homeward under the gloomy sky, and across the trackless snow. Philip and Martin had to take their part in carrying the rude litter on which their father lay, and Dorothy, speechless with grief and anxiety for Margaret, walked beside it. Margaret watched the mournful procession as it crept slowly toward her across the silent uplands. Never before had she been so vividly conscious of the presence of God. "In him we live, and move, and have our being," she said in her inmost soul, with a gladness as sharp as pain, as these slowly moving forms of those she loved most drew nearer. One was being carried home; and by a subtle, sympathetic instinct which had stirred within her all night, she knew who it must be. Sidney, her husband, dearer than all save God, was being brought home to her, dead.

She met Philip at the door of her room, his young features drawn and set with anguish, and she laid her hand in his, and looked up into his eyes, with a tender tranquillity on her white face.

"Do not tell me," she said, "only show me where they have laid him."

They went hand in hand silently across the old hall to the library door; then Margaret paused, and pushed Philip gently on one side, with such a smile as the angel of death might have upon his benignant face.

"I must go in alone," she said, "and let no one come near me. But I know that God is good."

Philip and Dorothy watched within sight of the door through which she had disappeared and Martin stretched himself on the floor at their feet. Deeper than their own grief was their sorrow for the mortal anguish of Margaret. For what would life be to either of them if the other was taken away? They did not speak; but they looked into each other's face, and felt that their love was made greater and more sacred by this calamity. Martin's sad eyes were fastened upon them, as they sat together, leaning toward one another, as if words between them were not needed.

"My brother," he said, breaking the silence at last, "I wish I was dead instead of my father. Why did he go out into the storm?"

"He went to find you, Martin," answered Dorothy.

"To find me!" he cried, "to find me!"

A gleam of gladness came across his heavy face, and into his deep-set eyes; and he raised himself from the ground to pace up and down the floor, murmuring, "To find me," again and again to himself. Once he approached the closed door of the library, and knelt before it, crossing himself devoutly, and whispering a prayer, such as he was wont to say at the foot of the Calvary. After a while he returned to the hearth, where Philip and Dorothy had been anxiously watching him.

"My father went out into the storm to find me," he said with glistening eyes. "I shall know him now when I see him again in Paradise."

How long they waited they never knew; but at last from the soundless room Margaret came out, white as death, but with a radiant look upon her face such as they had never seen before. Dorothy and Philip stood up in awed silence but Martin fell down on his knees as she drew near to them. She laid her hands upon his shoulders and, bending over him, laid her lips upon his wrinkled forehead.

It was the seal of such a pardon as few women are called upon to give. This man had cost her all that she most prized on earth. He was the living memorial of her husband's sin. He would thrust her firstborn son out of his birthright. As long as she lived he would be to her the symbol of all earthly anguish, and love, and bitterness. But her heart was melted with inexpressible pity for him, a pity which his dark mind could never understand. Nothing but this mute and solemn caress could tell him that she pitied and loved him.

Dorothy understood it more fully than the others did, and, throwing her arms around Margaret, she burst into a passion of tears.