But I had meant that it should be so different this time! I had gone out
as a missionary; and deeper than ever in my consciousness, I must feel
the want and woe of the returning prodigal; the same old story, the
ever-recurring failure. It seemed as though all the wonder and impatience
might well go out of my despair.
Then as I lent myself more and more to the contemplation of that home
picture, how restful and happy it grew! but poor old Wallencamp--for we
were nearing the little settlement now, and the sun was fast
westering--poor, squalid, solitary, beautiful Wallencamp, as I looked
down upon it from the brow of Stony Hill, thrilled me with a troubled
sense of some diviner, some half-comprehended glory.
The crimson glow had not quite faded in the sky when I took my last walk
across the fields to where the new grave had been made on the hillside.
This is the new burying-ground of the Wallencampers; the old one lies
a mile farther up the river, near the Indian encampment. Here I saw more
than one simple slab, bearing the name of Cradlebow. Here little Bess
lies, too. The hill, meet for such sublime repose, looks ever calmly on
the humble, straggling homes of the Wallencampers below, and sees the
lonely river winding near, and hears, by night and day, the monody of
deeper waters.
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