"With your permission, missus," returns Harry, touching her on the
arm, and pointing through the grated window into the gloomy yard.
"Years since-before I passed through a tribulation worse than
death-when we were going to be sold in the market, I called my
brothers and sisters of the plantation together, and in that yard
invoked heaven to be merciful to its fallen. I was sold on that day;
but heaven has been merciful to me; heaven has guided me through
many weary pilgrimages, and brought me here to-night; and its
protecting hand will yet restore me my wife and little ones. Let us
pray to-night; let us be grateful to Him who seeth the fallen in his
tribulation, but prepareth a place for him in a better world. Let us
pray and hope," he continued: and they knelt at the side of the
humble cot on which lay the departed, while he devoutly and
fervently invoked the Giver of all Good to forgive the oppressor, to
guide the oppressed, to make man feel there is a world beyond this,
to strengthen the resolution of that fair one who is thus sorely
afflicted, to give the old man who weeps at the feet of the departed
new hope for the world to come,--and to receive that warm spirit
which has just left the cold body into his realms of bliss.
What of roughness there was in his manner is softened by simplicity
and truthfulness. The roughest lips may breathe the purest prayer.
At the conclusion, Franconia and Daddy leave for Mrs. Rosebrook's
villa, while Harry, remaining to watch over the remains, draws his
chair to the stand, and reads by the murky light.
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