Page:Poet Lore, volume 4, 1892.djvu/348

 fought the first skirmish with the advance-guard. But the fight lasted only a few minutes. A few shotguns sounded. The hostile army advanced again, and its vanguard took possession of the fields adjoining the burying-ground. One man appeared in the churchyard,—the foremost sentinel.

The young mother sees him to-day as vividly as she saw him on that fatal day; she sees how he deserts his post at the bush of lilacs, how he comes nearer, how he enters the cabin.

Oh, no, no! She cannot think further what the dim eye of the dying father had seen.

Punishment instantly followed the accursed deed.

And once more she sees that blond-haired young man standing by the lilac bush and the gaping grave. A little farther off stand several soldiers with their rifles aimed, and an officer who had witnessed his act.

She sees him standing boldly facing death. He tries to speak, but at the same moment the guns are discharged. She did not see what followed: the dreadful man had fallen into the open grave.

When she had recovered from her swoon, she had found only the cold body of her old father, the graveyard lonely as ever, and a fresh grave under the bush of lilacs.

And now it seems to her as though again she saw that fearful man standing at the ill-fated bush of lilacs; yet his face no longer wears an expression of stubborn defiance, but an indescribable expression of silent yet eloquent entreaty for mercy and forgiveness.

“Forgiveness! Forgive you!” slipped from the closed lips of the unhappy mother. “No, no; I cannot! Not even for the salvation of my soul—not for the—”

She did not finish. The child stirred suddenly in the cradle, and a prolonged sigh escaped from its throbbing bosom. Quick as an arrow, the mother springs to the cradle and anxiously looks into the sweet face of her little child.— How wonderful! Even this tiny tender face, formerly ever full of