Boarding schools -- Fiction; Family life -- New England -- Fiction; New England -- Fiction; Schools -- Fiction
serve as a reminder of a battle not wholly lost, since he had saved his
soul though innocence was gone? Then he would dare go home, perhaps,
confess, and find fresh strength in the pity and consolation of those
who never gave him up.
Good and evil fought for Dan that night as did the angel and the devil
for Sintram, and it was hard to tell whether lawless nature or loving
heart would conquer. Remorse and resentment, shame and sorrow, pride and
passion, made a battle-field of that narrow cell, and the poor fellow
felt as if he had fiercer enemies to fight now than any he had met in
all his wanderings. A little thing turned the scale, as it so often does
in these mysterious hearts of ours, and a touch of sympathy helped Dan
decide the course which would bless or ban his life.
In the dark hour before the dawn, as he lay wakeful on his bed, a ray
of light shone through the bars, the bolts turned softly, and a man came
in. It was the good chaplain, led by the same instinct that brings a
mother to her sick child's pillow; for long experience as nurse of souls
had taught him to see the signs of hope in the hard faces about him,
and to know when the moment came for a helpful word and the cordial
of sincere prayer that brings such comfort and healing to tried and
troubled hearts. He had been to Dan before at unexpected hours, but
always found him sullen, indifferent, or rebellious, and had gone away
to patiently bide his time. Now it had come; a look of relief was in the
prisoner's face as the light shone on it, and the sound of a human
voice was strangely comfortable after listening to the whispers of
the passions, doubts, and fears which had haunted the cell for hours,
dismaying Dan by their power, and showing him how much he needed help to
fight the good fight, since he had no armour of his own.
'Kent, poor Mason has gone. He left a message for you, and I felt
impelled to come and give it now, because I think you were touched by
what we heard today, and in need of the help Mason tried to give you,'
said the chaplain, taking the one seat and fixing his kind eyes on the
grim figure in the bed.
'Thank you, sir, I'd like to hear it,' was all Dan's answer; but he
forgot himself in pity for the poor fellow dead in prison, with no last
look at wife or child.
He went suddenly, but remembered you, and begged me to say these words:
“Tell him not to do it, but to hold on, do his best, and when his time
is out go right to Mary, and she'll make him welcome for my sake. He's
got no friends in these parts and will feel lonesome, but a woman's
always safe and comfortable when a fellow's down on his luck. Give him
my love and good-bye for he was kind to me, and God will bless him for
it.” Then he died quietly, and tomorrow will go home with God's pardon,
since man's came too late.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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