The bitterness of
her mortification; the bitterness of having summoned witnesses, and
such witnesses, to behold it; the bitterness of knowing that the
strong-minded women and the red-nosed daughters towered triumphant in
this hour of their anticipated overthrow; was too much to be borne. Miss
Pecksniff had fainted away in earnest.
What sounds are these that fall so grandly on the ear! What darkening
room is this!
And that mild figure seated at an organ, who is he! Ah Tom, dear Tom,
old friend!
Thy head is prematurely grey, though Time has passed thee and our old
association, Tom. But, in those sounds with which it is thy wont to bear
the twilight company, the music of thy heart speaks out--the story of
thy life relates itself.
Thy life is tranquil, calm, and happy, Tom. In the soft strain which
ever and again comes stealing back upon the ear, the memory of thine
old love may find a voice perhaps; but it is a pleasant, softened,
whispering memory, like that in which we sometimes hold the dead, and
does not pain or grieve thee, God be thanked.
Touch the notes lightly, Tom, as lightly as thou wilt, but never will
thine hand fall half so lightly on that Instrument as on the head of
thine old tyrant brought down very, very low; and never will it make as
hollow a response to any touch of thine, as he does always.
For a drunken, begging, squalid, letter-writing man, called Pecksniff,
with a shrewish daughter, haunts thee, Tom; and when he makes appeals to
thee for cash, reminds thee that he built thy fortunes better than his
own; and when he spends it, entertains the alehouse company with tales
of thine ingratitude and his munificence towards thee once upon a time;
and then he shows his elbows worn in holes, and puts his soleless
shoes up on a bench, and begs his auditors look there, while thou art
comfortably housed and clothed. All known to thee, and yet all borne
with, Tom!
So, with a smile upon thy face, thou passest gently to another
measure--to a quicker and more joyful one--and little feet are used to
dance about thee at the sound, and bright young eyes to glance up
into thine. And there is one slight creature, Tom--her child; not
Ruth's--whom thine eyes follow in the romp and dance; who, wondering
sometimes to see thee look so thoughtful, runs to climb up on thy knee,
and put her cheek to thine; who loves thee, Tom, above the rest, if that
can be; and falling sick once, chose thee for her nurse, and never knew
impatience, Tom, when thou wert by her side.
Thou glidest, now, into a graver air; an air devoted to old friends and
bygone times; and in thy lingering touch upon the keys, and the rich
swelling of the mellow harmony, they rise before thee. The spirit of
that old man dead, who delighted to anticipate thy wants, and never
ceased to honour thee, is there, among the rest; repeating, with a face
composed and calm, the words he said to thee upon his bed, and blessing
thee!
And coming from a garden, Tom, bestrewn with flowers by children's
hands, thy sister, little Ruth, as light of foot and heart as in old
days, sits down beside thee. From the Present, and the Past, with which
she is so tenderly entwined in all thy thoughts, thy strain soars onward
to the Future. As it resounds within thee and without, the noble music,
rolling round ye both, shuts out the grosser prospect of an earthly
parting, and uplifts ye both to Heaven!
The End.
