But his
mother,--O marvellous, inscrutable mystery of mother-love!--his mother
knelt by the open window, near which hung her boy, and prayed aloud,
that he might hear, for the wrung body and passing soul. Great God! that
such things were possible, and thy heavens fell not! Through the sound
of falling blows, reviling oaths, and hideous blasphemy, through the
crackling of burning fagots and lifting flames, there went out no cry
for mercy, no shriek of pain, no wail of despair. But when the torture
was almost ended, and nature had yielded to this work of fiends, the
dying face was turned towards his mother,--the eyes, dim with the veil
that falls between time and eternity, seeking her eyes with their latest
glance,--the voice, not weak, but clear and thrilling even in death,
cried for her ear, "Be of good cheer, mother! they may kill the body,
but they cannot touch the soul!" and even with the words the great soul
walked with God.
* * * * *
After a while the mob melted out of the street to seek new scenes of
ravage and death; not, however, till they had marked the house, as those
within learned, for the purpose of returning, if it should so please
them, at some future time.
When they were all gone, and the way was clear, these two--the mother
that bore him, the elegant patrician who instinctively shrank from all
unpleasant and painful things--took down the poor charred body, and
carrying it carefully and tenderly into the house of a trembling
neighbor, who yet opened her doors and bade them in, composed it
decently for its final rest.
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