Various / 2008-09-25 00:00:00
The
children crowded round their mother's knee to repeat their simple
prayers, and retired, cold and hungry, to bed. It was near midnight
ere her task was finished; and then she stole softly into her chamber,
having first looked upon and blessed her treasures. Her sleep was of
that restless heavy kind which yields no refreshment. Once she was
awakened by hearing her husband shut the cottage-door; again she slept,
but started from a horrid dream--or was it indeed reality! and had her
husband and her son Abel quitted the dwelling together? She sprang from
her bed, and felt on the pallet--Gerald was there; again she felt--she
called--she passed into the next room--"Abel, Abel, my child! as you
value your mother's blessing speak!" There was no reply. A dizzy
sickness almost overpowered her senses. Was her husband's horrid
threat indeed fulfilled? and had he so soon taken their child as his
participator in unequivocal sin? She opened the door, and looked out
upon the night; it was cold and misty, and her sight could not penetrate
the gloom. The chill fog rested upon her face like the damps of the
grave. She attempted to call again upon her son, but her powers of
utterance were palsied--her tongue quivered--her lips separated yet
there came forth no voice, no sound to break the silence of oppressed
nature.
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