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Page 36
His mother had really heard him call, and now came and put him back to
bed again. And so ended the second of the Three Christmas Trees.
* * * * *
It was enough to have killed him, all his friends said; but it did not.
He lived to be a man, and--what is rarer--to keep the faith, the
simplicity, the tender-heartedness, the vivid fancy of his childhood.
He lived to see many Christmas trees "at home," in that old country
where the robins are redbreasts, and sing in winter. There a heart as
good and gentle as his own became one with his; and once he brought his
young wife across the sea to visit the place where he was born. They
stood near the little white house, and he told her the story of the
Christmas trees.
"This was when I was a child," he added.
"But that you are still," said she; and she plucked a bit of the
fir-tree and kissed it, and carried it away.
He lived to tell the story to his children, and even to his
grandchildren; but he never was able to decide which of the two was
the more beautiful--the Christmas Tree of his dream, or the Spruce Fir
as it stood in the loveliness of that winter night.
This is told, not that it has anything to do with any of the Three
Christmas Trees, but to show that the story is a happy one, as is right
and proper; that the hero lived, and married, and had children, and was
as prosperous as good people, in books, should always be.
Of course he died at last. The best and happiest of men must die; and
it is only because some stories stop short in their history, that every
hero is not duly buried before we lay down the book.
When death came for our hero he was an old man. The beloved wife, some
of his children, and many of his friends had died before him, and of
those whom he had loved there were fewer to leave than to rejoin. He
had had a short illness, with little pain, and was now lying on his
deathbed in one of the big towns in the North of England. His youngest
son, a clergy-man, was with him, and one or two others of his children,
and by the fire sat the doctor.
The doctor had been sitting by the patient, but now that he could do no
more for him he had moved to the fire; and they had taken the ghastly,
half-emptied medicine bottles from the table by the bedside, and had
spread it with a fair linen cloth, and had set out the silver vessels
of the Supper of the Lord. The old man had been "wandering" somewhat
during the day. He had talked much of going home to the old country,
and with the wide range of dying thoughts he had seemed to mingle
memories of childhood with his hopes of Paradise. At intervals he was
clear and collected--one of those moments had been chosen for his last
sacrament--and he had fallen asleep with the blessing in his ears.
He slept so long and so peacefully that the son almost began to hope
that there might be a change, and looked towards the doctor, who still
sat by the fire with his right leg crossed over his left. The doctor's
eyes were also on the bed, but at that moment he drew out his watch and
looked at it with an air of professional conviction, which said, "It's
only a question of time." Then he crossed his left leg over his right,
and turned to the fire again. Before the right leg should be tired, all
would be over. The son saw it as clearly as if it had been spoken, and
he too turned away and sighed.
As they sat, the bells of a church in the town began to chime for
midnight service, for it was Christmas Eve, but they did not wake the
dying man. He slept on and on.
The doctor dozed. The son read in the Prayer Book on the table, and one
of his sisters read with him. Another, from grief and weariness, slept
with her head upon his shoulder. Except for a warm glow from the fire,
the room was dark. Suddenly the old man sat up in bed, and, in a strong
voice, cried with inexpressible enthusiasm,
"_How beautiful!_"
The son held back his sisters, and asked quietly,
"_What_, my dear Father?"
"The Christmas Tree!" he said in a low, eager voice. "Draw back the
curtains."
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