Scenes of Clerical Life: Chapter 28

Chapter 28

It soon came--the blessed day of deliverance, the sad day of bereavement;
and in the second week of March they carried him to the grave. He was
buried as he had desired: there was no hearse, no mourning-coach; his
coffin was borne by twelve of his humbler hearers, who relieved each
other by turns. But he was followed by a long procession of mourning
friends, women as well as men.

Slowly, amid deep silence, the dark stream passed along Orchard Street,
where eighteen months before the Evangelical curate had been saluted with
hooting and hisses. Mr. Jerome and Mr. Landor were the eldest
pall-bearers; and behind the coffin, led by Mr. Tryan's cousin, walked
Janet, in quiet submissive sorrow. She could not feel that he was quite
gone from her; the unseen world lay so very near her--it held all that
had ever stirred the depths of anguish and joy within her.

It was a cloudy morning, and had been raining when they left Holly Mount;
but as they walked, the sun broke out, and the clouds were rolling off in
large masses when they entered the churchyard, and Mr. Walsh's voice was
heard saying, 'I am the Resurrection and the Life'. The faces were not
hard at this funeral; the burial-service was not a hollow form. Every
heart there was filled with the memory of a man who, through a
self-sacrificing life and in a painful death, had been sustained by the
faith which fills that form with breath and substance.

When Janet left the grave, she did not return to Holly Mount; she went to
her home in Orchard Street, where her mother was waiting to receive her.
She said quite calmly, 'Let us walk round the garden, mother.' And they
walked round in silence, with their hands clasped together, looking at
the golden crocuses bright in the spring sunshine. Janet felt a deep
stillness within. She thirsted for no pleasure; she craved no worldly
good. She saw the years to come stretch before her like an autumn
afternoon, filled with resigned memory. Life to her could never more have
any eagerness; it was a solemn service of gratitude and patient effort.
She walked in the presence of unseen witnesses--of the Divine love that
had rescued her, of the human love that waited for its eternal repose
until it had seen her endure to the end.

Janet is living still. Her black hair is grey, and her step is no longer
buoyant; but the sweetness of her smile remains, the love is not gone
from her eyes; and strangers sometimes ask, Who is that noble-looking
elderly woman, that walks about holding a little boy by the hand? The
little boy is the son of Janet's adopted daughter, and Janet in her old
age has children about her knees, and loving young arms round her neck.

There is a simple gravestone in Milby Churchyard, telling that in this
spot lie the remains of Edgar Tryan, for two years officiating curate at
the Paddiford Chapel-of-Ease, in this parish. It is a meagre memorial,
and tells you simply that the man who lies there took upon him,
faithfully or unfaithfully, the office of guide and instructor to his
fellowmen.

But there is another memorial of Edgar Tryan, which bears a fuller
record: it is Janet Dempster, rescued from self-despair, strengthened
with divine hopes, and now looking back on years of purity and helpful
labour. The man who has left such a memorial behind him, must have been
one whose heart beat with true compassion, and whose lips were moved by
fervent faith.

THE END

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