Barriers Burned Away | Page 3

the two little ones--what will you do?" and the
man covered his head with the blanket and wept aloud. His poor wife,
borne down by the torrent of his sorrow, was on her knees at his
bedside, with her face buried in her hands, weeping also.
But suddenly he started up. His sobs ceased. His tears ceased to flow,
while his eyes grew hard and fierce, and his hands clenched.
"But he was coming," he said. "He may get lost in the storm this bitter
winter night."

He grasped his wife roughly by the arm. She was astonished at his
sudden strength, and raised a tearful, startled face to his. It was well she
could not see its terrible expression in the dusk; but she shuddered as
he hissed in her ear, "If this should happen--if my miserable death is the
cause of his death--if my accursed destiny involves him, your staff and
hope, in so horrible a fate, what have I to do but curse God and die?"
It seemed to the poor woman that her heart would burst with the agony
of that moment. As the storm had increased, a terrible dread had chilled
her very soul. Every louder blast than usual had caused her an internal
shiver, while for her husband's sake she had controlled herself
outwardly. Like a shipwrecked man who is clinging to a rock, that he
fears the tide will submerge, she had watched the snow rise from one
rail to another along the fence. When darkness set in it was half-way up
to the top rail, and she knew it was drifting. The thought of her ruddy,
active, joyous-hearted boy, whose affection and hopefulness had been
the broad track of sunlight on her hard path--the thought of his lying
white and still beneath one of these great banks, just where she could
never know till spring rains and suns revealed to an indifferent stranger
his sleeping-place--now nearly overwhelmed her also, and even her
faith wavered on the brink of the dark gulf of despair into which her
husband was sinking. Left to herself, she might have sunk for a time,
though her sincere belief in God's goodness and love would have
triumphed. But her womanly, unselfish nature, her long habit of
sustaining and comforting her husband, came to her aid. Breathing a
quick prayer to Heaven, which was scarcely more than a gasp and a
glance upward, she asked, hardly knowing what she said, "And what if
he is not lost? What if God restores him safe and well?"
She shuddered after she had thus spoken, for she saw that her husband's
belief in the hostility of God had reached almost the point of insanity. If
this test failed, would he not, in spite of all she could say or do, curse
God and die, as he had said? But she had been guided in her words
more than she knew. He that careth for the fall of the sparrow had not
forgotten His children in their sore extremity.
The man in answer to her question relaxed his hold upon her arm, and

with a long breath fell back on his pillow.
"Ah!" said he, "if I could only see him again safe and well, if I could
only leave you with him as your protector and support, I believe I could
forgive all the past and be reconciled even to my hard lot."
"God gives you opportunity so to do, my father, for here I am safe and
sound."
The soft snow had muffled the son's footsteps, and his approach had
been unnoted. Entering at the back door, and passing through the
kitchen, he had surprised his parents in the painful scene above
described. As he saw his mother's form in dim outline kneeling at the
bed, her face buried in its covering--as he heard his father's significant
words--the quick-witted youth realized the situation. While he loved his
father dearly, and honored him for his many good traits, he was also
conscious of his faults, especially this most serious one now
threatening such fatal consequences--that of charging to God the
failures and disappointments resulting from defects in his own
character. It seemed as if a merciful Providence was about to use this
awful dread of accident to the son--a calamity that rose far above and
overshadowed all the past--as the means of winning back the alienated
heart of this weak and erring man.
The effect of the sudden presence in the sick-room was most marked.
The poor mother, who had shown such self-control and patient
endurance before, now gave way utterly, and clung for a few moments
to her son's neck with hysterical energy, then in strong reaction fainted
away. The strain upon her worn and overtaxed system had been too
severe.
At first