"Bram! my Bram! my brother! There is one comfort for me,--if I knew that
he still lived; if one hope thou could give me!"
"What hope there is, I will go and see. Before they are back from kirk,
I will be back; and, if there is good news, I will be glad for thee."
Not half an hour was Bram away; and yet, to the miserable girl, how
grief and fear lengthened out the moments! She tried to prepare herself
for the worst; she tried to strengthen her soul even for the message of
death. But very rarely is any grief as bad as our own terror of it. When
Bram came back, it was with a word of hope on his lips.
"I have seen," he said, "who dost thou think?--the Jew Cohen. He of all
men, he has sat by Captain Hyde's side all night; and he has dressed the
wound the English surgeon declared 'beyond mortal skill.' And he said to
me, 'Three times, in the Persian desert, I have cured wounds still
worse, and the Holy One hath given me the power of healing; and, if He
wills, the young man shall recover.' That is what he said, Katherine."
"Forever I will love the Jew. Though he fail, I will love him. So kind
he is, even to those who have not spoken well, nor done well, to him."
"So kind, also, was the son of David to all of us. Now, then, go wash
thy face, and take comfort and courage."
"Bram, leave me not."
"There is Neil. We have been companions; and his father and his mother
are old, and need me."
"Also, I need thee. All the time they will make me to feel how wicked is
Katherine Van Heemskirk!"
At this moment the family returned from the morning service, and Bram
rather defiantly drew his sister to his side. Joris was not with them.
He had stopped at the "King's Arms" to ask if Captain Hyde was still
alive; for, in spite of everything, the young man's heroic cheerfulness
in the agony of the preceding night had deeply touched Joris. No one
spoke to Katherine; even her mother was annoyed and humiliated at the
social ordeal through which they had just passed, and she thought it
only reasonable that the erring girl should be made to share the trial.
Batavius, however, had much curiosity; and his first thought on seeing
Bram at home was, "Neil is of course dead, and Bram is of no further
use;" and, in the tone of one personally injured by such a fatality, he
ejaculated,-"So it is the end, then. On the sabbath day Neil has gone. If it should
be the sabbath day in the other world,--which is likely,--it will be the
worse for Neil."