Chapter XXXVII

CHAPTER XXXVII

The Reaper Whose Name Is Death

"Matthew--Matthew--what is the matter? Matthew, are you sick?"

It was Marilla who spoke, alarm in every jerky word. Anne
came through the hall, her hands full of white narcissus,--it
was long before Anne could love the sight or odor of white
narcissus again,--in time to hear her and to see Matthew
standing in the porch doorway, a folded paper in his hand,
and his face strangely drawn and gray. Anne dropped her flowers
and sprang across the kitchen to him at the same moment as
Marilla. They were both too late; before they could reach him
Matthew had fallen across the threshold.

"He's fainted," gasped Marilla. "Anne, run for Martin--
quick, quick! He's at the barn."

Martin, the hired man, who had just driven home from
the post office, started at once for the doctor, calling at
Orchard Slope on his way to send Mr. and Mrs. Barry over.
Mrs. Lynde, who was there on an errand, came too. They
found Anne and Marilla distractedly trying to restore
Matthew to consciousness.

Mrs. Lynde pushed them gently aside, tried his pulse,
and then laid her ear over his heart. She looked at their
anxious faces sorrowfully and the tears came into her eyes.

"Oh, Marilla," she said gravely. "I don't think--we can do
anything for him."

"Mrs. Lynde, you don't think--you can't think Matthew is-- is--"
Anne could not say the dreadful word; she turned sick and pallid.

"Child, yes, I'm afraid of it. Look at his face. When you've
seen that look as often as I have you'll know what it means."

Anne looked at the still face and there beheld the seal of
the Great Presence.

When the doctor came he said that death had been instantaneous
and probably painless, caused in all likelihood by some sudden shock.
The secret of the shock was discovered to be in the paper Matthew
had held and which Martin had brought from the office that morning.
It contained an account of the failure of the Abbey Bank.

The news spread quickly through Avonlea, and all day
friends and neighbors thronged Green Gables and came
and went on errands of kindness for the dead and living.
For the first time shy, quiet Matthew Cuthbert was a
person of central importance; the white majesty of death
had fallen on him and set him apart as one crowned.

When the calm night came softly down over Green Gables
the old house was hushed and tranquil. In the parlor lay
Matthew Cuthbert in his coffin, his long gray hair framing
his placid face on which there was a little kindly smile
as if he but slept, dreaming pleasant dreams. There were
flowers about him--sweet old-fashioned flowers which his mother
had planted in the homestead garden in