Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-05-22

ping grass and little pools of water in
the road. To Rachel, skulking like a
criminal in the shadow, it looked like
the beautiful ladder on which of old
! angels ascended and decended out of
heaven. Her heart climbed up its shin
! ing height with sudden, daring, wifely
| sense of right to turn the whole world
out, and minister to Azraels meanest
wants. She felt shut out-down there
in the storm and dark-like soul In
hell.
A soul in hell-or so to RachePs ex-
! cited and unnatural fancy it seemed just
| then-flitted past her down the street,
while she stood crouching there beside
| the Slated fence. The light of the gol-
den ladder. which climbed. to AZrael's
room struck full upon its face. Rachel
knew tie face and shrank-she went to
school with the poor girl once. She was
a gentle, pretty girl. When her baby
was born the people that she lived with
! turned her off. She had worked in a
shop since that, and lived a decent life
enough, some said, but no one spoke to
her, and the baby died Rachel had
sometimes wondered, IN a shocked, dim
way, what life was like to her.
Now, as the vision of her fitted by,
thrOb of awful envy fitted in RachePs
pure young heart. This woman had
dared to sin for loves sake. While
She
She fled with her head hanging, her
hands before her face as if she had
been a guilty woman; fed from the
shining ladder, where the angels would
not walk; home into a dark, still room,
where she dropped upon her knees.
1t is said that when the early autumn
chills came on, upon a MINDLESS, moon
litnight, soon after the village clock had
struck three, Rachel Fross walked her
mother, sleeping by her side, with an
exceeding great and bitter cry,
Mother" she exclaimed, "AZrael Is
dead !"
Something in that cry chilled all the
placid, proper Bradford blood of Pa
tience FrOss. She sprang trembling up
The room was lighted with mellow
light, like the opening of flowers IN the
sun the shadow of a partly leat1ess
tree fell in and lay motionless on the
bed. Rachel was standing in the mid
die of the room, in her white night dress
with the moonlight on her full and sol
emn.
s.You are dreaming, Rachel" said her
mother.
Mrs. Fross. quite herself again, rose
in the stately Bradford way, and drew
her daughter back to bed.
ssMr. Craven was better this morning
than he has been for a week. You have
been dreaming. Go to sleep, my dear,
and think no more about il. 1t annoys
me. Why, Rachel. Why, Rachel
Rachel sat just where her mother had
placed her, straight and stiff in bed.
Her eyes looked straight before her! one
hand fell over the beds edge.
but, mother" said she, ''Azrael is
dead He has just died.
She spoke very quietly, then, and then
Law quietly back upon the pillow.
The words had scarcely left her lips
before a slow. cold horror, like a word,
like a cry. like a struggle, like nothing
the two women had ever heard in all
their lives before, filled the earth and
sky.
church.
When it had tolled twenty-nlne times
Rachel turned hen face wearilY 10 the
wall. Azrael Craven was twenty-nine
years old.
'.But it may be some one else. :" cried
her mother, snatching at a hope. Rachel
smiled and said it was no one else. Az
rael was dead.
Il told you, mother, that Azrael was
dead.
In the morning a bit of Grape hung
| from AZrael Graven's sick-room window,
which stood wide open TO the piercing
wind.
About noon little crumpled paper
came to Rachel, with two penciled words
upon it. in the young ministers stiff
hand. very family put together: .'Dear
| Rachel. That was all. He had tried
to write, they said. but wandered. He
| had spoken once or twice after the moon
rose in the night, and in a restless way
| looked round him. ''Tell Rachel;
and again ssTell Rachel. But they
could not tell Rachel, for he said no
more.
Rachel went to the funeral. She
walked in the procession among ''the
neighbors" The mourners in their
grapes, crisp grief, looked far off and
small to her. She wore blue ribbon
and her old plaid shawl.
Some one lingering in the road as the
people scattered, attracted her dull at
tention. 1t was the girl whom she saw
fitting bv her in the rain when she was
hiding by the fence to watch the light
in Azraers room, The girl turned upon
her. as she passed, an awed and puzzled
look. 1t changed after an instant's
thought, into an expression such as one
sees in the eyes of dumb animal whose
compassion is powerfully and ineffectu-
ally moved.
Rachel Fross did not die. All, no /;
not for twenty years. OF her life or
of her death one fact only has been, be-
yond this, recorded. 1t is said that in
her last hours she called the watcher to
her bedside, with a singularly pleasant
smile, and gently said, q have had such
a pleasant dream. / thought Mr.. Craven
and | were married, and that | climbed
a golden ladder to take care of him be-
fore he died.