CHAPTER LXXV.

THE PORCH OF HADES.

When Arctura woke from her unnatural sleep, she lay a while without

thought, then began to _localize_ herself. The last place she recalled

was the inn where they had tea: she must have been there taken ill, she

thought, and was now in a room of the same. It was quite dark: they

might have left a light by her! She lay comfortably enough, but had a

suspicion that the place was not over clean, and was glad to find

herself not undrest. She turned on her side: something pulled her by

the wrist. She must have a bracelet on, and it was entangled in the

coverlet! She tried to unclasp it, but could not: which of her

bracelets could it be? There was something attached to it!--a chain--a

thick chain! How odd! What could it mean? She lay quiet, slowly waking

to fuller consciousness.--Was there not a strange air, a dull odour in

the room? Undefined as it was, she had smelt it before, and not long

since!--It was the smell of the lost chapel!--But that was at home in

the castle! she had left it two days before! Was she going out of her

mind?

The dew of agony burst from her forehead. She would have started up, but

was pulled hard by the wrist! She cried on God.--Yes, she was lying on

the very spot where that heap of woman-dust had lain! she was manacled

with the same ring from which that woman’s arm had wasted--the decay of

centuries her slow redeemer! Her being recoiled so wildly from the

horror, that for a moment she seemed on the edge of madness. But madness

is not the sole refuge from terror! Where the door of the spirit has

once been opened wide to God, there is he, the _present_ help in time of

trouble! With him in the house, it is not only that we need fear

nothing, but _that_ is there which in its own being and nature casts out

fear. God and fear cannot be together. It is a God far off that causes

fear. “In thy presence is fulness of joy.” Such a sense of absolute

helplessness overwhelmed Arctura that she felt awake in her an endless

claim upon the protection of her original, the source of her being. And

what sooner would any father have of his children than action on such

claim! God is always calling us as his children, and when we call him as

our father, then, and not till then, does he begin to be satisfied. And

with that there fell upon Arctura a kind of sleep, which yet was not

sleep; it was a repose such as perhaps is the sleep of a spirit.

Again the external began to intrude. She pictured to herself what the

darkness was hiding. Her feelings when first she came down into the

place returned on her memory. The tide of terror began again to rise. It

rose and rose, and threatened to become monstrous. She reasoned with

herself: had she not been brought in safety through its first and most

dangerous inroad?--but reason could not outface terror. It was fear, the

most terrible of all terrors, that she feared. Then again woke her

faith: if the night hideth not from him, neither does the darkness of

fear!

It began to thunder, first with a low distant muttering roll, then with

a loud and near bellowing. Was it God coming to her? Some are strangely

terrified at thunder; Arctura had the child’s feeling that it was God

that thundered: it comforted her as with the assurance that God was

near. As she lay and heard the great organ of the heavens, its voice

seemed to grow articulate; God was calling to her, and saying, “Here I

am, my child! be not afraid!”

Then she began to reason with herself that the worst that could happen

to her was to lie there till she died of hunger, and that could not be

so very bad! And therewith across the muttering thunder came a wail of

the ghost-music. She started: had she not heard it a hundred times

before, as she lay there in the dark alone? Was she only now for the

first time waking up to it--she, the lady they had shut up there to

die--where she had lain for ages, with every now and then that sound of

the angels singing, far above her in the blue sky?

She was beginning to wander. She reasoned with herself, and dismissed

the fancy; but it came and came again, mingled with real memories,

mostly of the roof, and Donal.

By and by she fell asleep, and woke in a terror which seemed to have

been growing in her sleep. She sat up, and stared into the dark. From

where stood the altar, seemed to rise and approach her a form of deeper

darkness. She heard nothing, saw nothing, but something was there. It

came nearer. It was but a fancy; she knew it; but the fancy assumed to

be: the moment she gave way, and acknowledged it, that moment it would

have the reality it had been waiting for, and clasp her in its

skeleton-arms! She cried aloud, but it only came nearer; it was about

to seize her!

A sudden, divine change!--her fear was gone, and in its place a sense

of absolute safety: there was nothing in all the universe to be afraid

of! It was a night of June, with roses, roses everywhere! Glory be to

the Father! But how was it? Had he sent her mother to think her full of

roses? Why her mother? God himself is the heart of every rose that ever

bloomed! She would have sung aloud for joy, but no voice came; she

could not utter a sound. What a thing this would be to tell Donal

Grant! This poor woman cried, and God heard her, and saved her out of

all her distresses! The father had come to his child! The cry had gone

from her heart into his!

If she died there, would Donal come one day and find her? No! No! She

would speak to him in a dream, and beg him not to go near the place!

She would not have him see her lie like that he and she standing

together had there looked upon!

With that came Donal’s voice, floated and rolled in music and thunder.

It came from far away; she did not know whether she fancied or really

heard it. She would have responded with a great cry, but her voice

vanished in her throat. Her joy was such that she remembered nothing

more.