The Man Had Gone Under And Did Not Rise; With A Good
Deal Of Trouble He Was Raised Up And Drawn With Ropes To The Top Of
The Bank.
I gazed on him lying motionless, to all appearances stone dead - the
huge, ox-like man I had seen
Less than an hour ago, when he had
excited our wonder at his great size and strength, and now still in
death - dead as old Caesar under the ground with the grass growing over
him! Meanwhile the men who had hauled him out were busy with him,
turning him over and rubbing his body, and after about twelve or
fifteen minutes there was a gasp and signs of returning life, and by
and by he opened his eyes. The dead man was alive again; yet the shock
to me was just as great and the effect as lasting as if he had been
truly dead.
Another instance which will bring me down to the end of my sixth year
and the conclusion of this sad chapter. At this time we had a girl in
the house, whose sweet face is one of a little group of half a dozen
which I remember most vividly. She was a niece of our shepherd's wife,
an Argentine woman married to an Englishman, and came to us to look
after the smaller children. She was nineteen years old, a pale, slim,
pretty girl, with large dark eyes and abundant black hair. Margarita
had the sweetest smile imaginable, the softest voice and gentlest
manner, and was so much loved by everybody in the house that she was
like one of the family. Unhappily she was consumptive, and after a few
months had to be sent back to her aunt. Their little place was only
half a mile or so from the house, and every day my mother visited her,
doing all that was possible with such skill and remedies as she
possessed to give her ease, and providing her with delicacies. The
girl did not want a priest to visit her and prepare her for death; she
worshipped her mistress, and wished to be of the same faith, and in
the end she died a pervert or convert, according to this or that
person's point of view.
The day after her death we children were taken to see our beloved
Margarita for the last time; but when we arrived at the door, and the
others following my mother went in, I alone hung back. They came out
and tried to persuade me to enter, even to pull me in, and described
her appearance to excite my curiosity. She was lying all in white,
with her black hair combed out and loose, on her white bed, with our
flowers on her breast and at her sides, and looked very, very
beautiful. It was all in vain. To look on Margarita dead was more than
I could bear. I was told that only her body of clay was dead - the
beautiful body we had come to say good bye to; that her soul - she
herself, our loved Margarita - was alive and happy, far, far happier
than any person could ever be on this earth; that when her end was
near she had smiled very sweetly, and assured them that all fear of
death had left her - that God was taking her to Himself.
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