Whitney," said he, carelessly. "I'd throw all those nerves of yours
over, if I were you, before I came back again."
Whitney turned back and held out his hand. "Thank you, Barrington," he
replied in his kind, truthful voice; "you wish me well, I know. Good
luck to _you_, in all ways; and I mean it with my whole heart. As to
nerves, I do not think I possess any, though some of you have been
pleased to joke about it."
They shook hands, these two, little thinking that, in one sense, the
life of both would soon be blighted. In a short time, only a few weeks,
Wolfe was to be brought nearer to immediate death than even John
Whitney.
Not until he was at home and had settled down among them, did his people
notice the great change in him. Lady Whitney, flurried and anxious, sent
for Sir John from London. Mr. Carden was summoned, and old Featherstone
met him often in consultation. Dr. Hastings came once or twice, but he
was an invalid himself then; and Mr. Carden, as every one knew, was
equal to anything. Still--it was a positive fact--there was no palpable
disease to grapple with in John, only weakness and wasting away. No
cough, no damaged lungs. "If only it were gout or dropsy, one would know
what to do," grumbled Featherstone; but Mr. Carden kept his own counsel.
They decided that John should go to the seaside for change.
"As if it could do me any good!" he remonstrated. "_Change_ won't make
any difference to me. And I'd a great deal rather stay quietly at home."
"Why do you say it will not do you good?" cried Lady Whitney, who
happened to hear him.
"Because, mother, I feel nearly sure that it will not."
"Oh dear!" cried she, flurried out of her senses, "John's going to turn
rebellious now."
"No, I am not," said John, smiling at her. "I mean to go without any
rebellion at all."
"There's my best lad," said she fondly. "Change of scene is all
pleasure, John. It's not like going through a course of pills and
powders."
Well, they all went to the seaside, and at the end of five weeks they
all came back again. John had to be assisted out of the carriage, from
fatigue. There could be no mistake now.
After that, it was just a gradual decay. The sinking was so
imperceptible that he seemed to be always at a stand-still, and some
days he was as well as any one need be. His folk did not give up hope of
him: no one does in such cases. John was cheerful, and often merry.
"It can't be consumption," Sir John would say. "We've nothing of the
kind in our family; neither on his mother's side nor on mine. A younger
sister of hers died of a sort of decline: but what can that have to do
with John?"
Why, clearly nothing. As every one agreed.
In one of Mr. Carden's visits, Sir John tackled him as he was going
away, asking what it was. The two were shut up together talking for a
quarter-of-an-hour, Mr. Carden's horses--he generally came over in his
carriage--growing rampant the while. Sir John did not seem much wiser
when the sitting was over. He only shuffled his spectacles about on his
old red nose--as he used to do when perplexed. Talking of noses: you
never saw two so much alike as his and the Squire's, particularly when
they went into a temper.
Not very long after they were back from the seaside, and directly after
school met, the accident occurred to Barrington. You have heard of it
before: and it has nothing to do with the present paper. John Whitney
took it to heart.
"He is not fit to die," Bill heard him say. "He is not fit to die."
One morning John walked over to see him, resting on stiles and gates
between whiles. It was not very far; but he was good for very little
now. Barrington was lying flat on his bed, Mrs. Hearn waiting on him.
Wolfe was not tamed then.
"It's going to be a race between us, I suppose, Whitney," said he. "You
look like a shadow."
"A race?" replied Whitney, not taking him.
"In that black-plumed slow coach that carries dead men to their graves,
and leaves them there. A race which of us two will have the honour of
starting first. What a nice prospect! I always hated clayey soil. Fancy
lying in it for ever and a day!"
"Fancy, rather, being borne on angels' wings, and living with God in
heaven for ever and ever!" cried Whitney earnestly. "Oh Barrington,
fancy _that_."
"You'd do for a parson," retorted Barrington.
The interview was not satisfactory: Whitney so solemnly earnest, Wolfe
so mockingly sarcastic: but they parted good friends. It was the last
time they ever saw each other in life.
And thus a few more weeks went on.
Now old Frost had one most barbarous custom. And that was, letting the
boys take the few days of Michaelmas holiday, or not, as the parents
pleased. Naturally, very few did please. I and Tod used to go home: but
that was no rule for the rest. We did not go home this year. A day or
two before the time, Sir John Whitney rode over to Dyke Manor.
"You had better let the two boys come to us for Michaelmas," he said to
the Squire. "John wants to see them, and they'll cheer us up. It's
anything but a lively house, I can tell you, Todhetley, with the poor
lad lying as he is."
"I can't see why he should not get well," said the Squire.
"I'm sure I can't. Carden ought to be able to bring him round."
"So he ought," assented the Squire. "It would be quite a feather in
his cap, after all these months of illness. As to the boys, you may be
troubled with 'em, and welcome, Sir John, if you care to be."
And so, we went to Whitney Hall that year, instead of home.
* * * * *
John had the best rooms, the two that opened into one another. Sometimes
he would be on the bed in one, sometimes on the sofa in the other. Then
he would walk about on some one's arm; or sit in the easy-chair at the
west window, the setting sun full on his wasted face. Barrington had
called him a shadow: you should have seen him now. John had talked to
Barrington of angels: he was just like an angel in the house himself.
And--will you believe it?--they had not given up hope of his getting
well again. I wondered the doctors did not tell Lady Whitney the plain
truth, and have done with it: but to tell more professional truth than
they can help, is what doctors rarely put themselves out of the way to
do.
And still--the shadow of the coming death lay on the house. In
the hushed voices and soft tread of the servants, in the subdued
countenances of Sir John and Lady Whitney, and in the serious spirit
that prevailed, the shadow might be seen. It is good to be in such a
house as this: for the lessons learnt may take fast hold of the heart.
It was good to hear John Whitney talk: and I never quite made out
whether he was telling of dreams or realities.
Tod was out of his element: as much so as a fish is out of water. He had
plenty of sympathy with John, would have made him well at any sacrifice
to himself: but he could not do with the hushed house, in which all
things seemed to give way to that shadow of the coming presence. Tod, in
his way, was religious enough; more so than some fellows are; but dying
beds he did not understand, and would a great deal rather have been
shooting partridges than be near one. He and Bill Whitney--who was just
as uncomfortable as Tod--used to get off anywhere whenever they could.
They did not forget John. They would bring him all kinds of things;
flowers, fruit, blackberries as big as Willis's thimble, and the finest
nuts off the trees; but they did not care to sit long with him.
John was awake one afternoon, and I was sitting beside him. He sat in
his easy-chair at the window--as he liked to do at this hour when the
evening was drawing on. The intensely serene look that for some time now
had taken possession of his face, I had never seen surpassed in boy or
man.
"How quiet the house is, Johnny!" he said, touching my hand. "Where are
they all?"
"Helen and Anna went out to ask after Mrs. Frost and Barrington. And the
boys--but I think you know it--have gone with Sir John to Evesham. You
wouldn't call the house quiet, John, if you could hear the row going on
in the nursery."
He smiled a little. "Charley's a dreadful Turk: none of us elder ones
were ever half as bad. Where's the mother?"
"Half-an-hour ago she was shut up with some visitors in the
drawing-room. It's those Miss Clutterbucks, John: they always stay
long enough to hold a county meeting."
"Is Mrs. Frost worse--that the girls have gone to ask after her?" he
resumed.
"I think so. Harry said Dr. Frost shook his head about her, when they
saw him this morning."
"She'll never be strong," remarked John. "And perhaps the bother of the
school is too much for her."
"Hall takes a good deal of that, you know."
"But Hall cannot take the responsibility; the true care of the school.
That must lie on Mrs. Frost."
What a beautiful sky it was! The sun was nearing the horizon; small
clouds, gold and red and purple, lay in the west, line above line. John
Whitney sat gazing in silence. There was nothing he liked so much as
looking at these beautiful sunsets.
"Go and play for me, will you, Johnny?"
The piano was at the far end of the room in the shade. My playing is
really nothing. It was nothing to speak of then, it is nothing to speak
of now: but it is soft and soothing; and some people like it. John could
play a little himself, but it was too much exertion for him now. They
had tried to teach Bill. He was kept hammering at it for half a year,
and then the music master told Sir John that he'd rather teach a post.
So Bill was released.
"The same thing that you played the evening before last, Johnny. Play
that."
"But I can't. It was only some rubbish out of my own head, made up as I
went along."
"Make up some more then, old fellow."
I had hardly sat down, when Lady Whitney came in, stirred the fire--if
they kept up much, he felt the room too warm--and took one of the
elbow-chairs in front of it.
"Go on, my dear," she said. "It is very pleasant to hear you."
But it was not so pleasant to play before her--not that, as I believed,
her ears could distinguish the difference between an Irish Jig and the
Dead March in Saul--and I soon left off. The playing or the fire had
sent Lady Whitney into a doze. I crossed the room and sat down by John.
He was still looking at the sunset, which had not much changed. The hues
were deeper, and streaks of gold shot upwards in the sky. Toward the
north there was a broad horizon of green, fading into gold, and pale
blue. Never was anything more beautiful. John's eyes fixed on it.
"If it is so beautiful here, Johnny, what will it be _there_?" he
breathed, scarcely above a whisper. "It makes one long to go."
Sometimes, when he said these things, I hardly knew how to answer, and
would let his words die off into silence.
"The picture of heaven is getting realized in my mind, Johnny--though I
know how poor an idea of it it must needs be. A wide, illimitable space;
the great white throne, and the saints in their white robes falling down
before it, and the harpists singing to their harps."
"You must think of it often."
"Very often. The other night in bed, when I was between sleep and
waking, I seemed to see the end--to go through it. I suppose it was one
part thought, and three parts dream. I was dead, Johnny: I had already
my white robe on, and angels were carrying me up to heaven. The crystal
river was flowing along, beautiful flowers on its banks, and the Tree of
Life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. I seemed to see
it all, Johnny. Such flowers! such hues; brighter than any jewels ever
seen. These colours are lovely"--pointing to the sky--"but they are tame
compared with those I saw. Myriads of happy people were flitting about
in white, redeemed as I was; the atmosphere shone with a soft light, the
most delicious music floated in it. Oh, Johnny, think of this world with
its troubles and disappointments and pains; and then think of that other
one!"
The sunset was fading. The pale colours of the north were blending
together like the changing hues of the opal.
"There are two things I have more than loved here," he went on. "Colours
and music. Not the clashing of many instruments, or the mere mechanical
playing, however classically correct, of one who has acquired his art by
hard labour: but the soft, sweet, dreamy touch that stirs the heart.
Such as yours, Johnny. Stop, old fellow. I know what you would say. That
your playing is no playing at all, compared with that of a skilled hand;
that the generality of people would wonder what there is in it: but for
myself, I could listen to you from night till morning."
It was very foolish of him to say this; but I liked to hear it.
"It is the sort of music, as I have always fancied, that we shall hear
in heaven. It was the sort I seemed to hear the other night in my dream;
soft, low, full of melody. That _sort_, you know, Johnny; not the same.
_That_ was this earth's sweetest music etherealized."
Hearing him talk like this, the idea struck me that it might be better
for us all generally if we turned our thoughts more on heaven and on the
life we may find there. It would not make us do our duty any the less
earnestly in this world.
"Then take colours," he went on. "No one knows the intense delight I
have felt in them. On high days and holidays, my mother wears that big
diamond ring of hers--you know it well, Johnny. Often and often have I
stolen it from her finger, to let the light flash upon it, and lost
myself for half-an-hour--ay, and more--gazing entranced on its changing
hues. I love to see the rays in the drops of the chandeliers; I love to
watch the ever-varying shades on a wide expanse of sea. Now these two
things that I have so enjoyed here, bright colours and music, we have
the promise of finding in heaven."
"Ay. The Bible tells us so."
"And I saw the harpers harping with their harps," he repeated to
himself--and then fell into silence. "Johnny, look at the opal in the
sky now."
It was very soft and beautiful.
"And there's the evening star."
I turned my head. Yes, there it was, and it trembled in the sky like a
point of liquid silver.
"Sometimes I think I shall see the Holy City before I die," he
continued. "See its picture as in a mirror--the New Jerusalem. Oh,
Johnny, I should have to shade my eyes. Not a beautiful colour or shade
but will be there; and her light like unto a jasper stone, clear as
crystal. When I was a little boy--four, perhaps--papa brought me home a
kaleidoscope from London. It was really a good one, and its bits of
glass were unusually brilliant. Johnny, if I lived to be an old man, I
could never describe the intense joy those colours gave me--any more
than I can describe the joy I seemed to feel the other night in that
dream of heaven."
He was saying all this in a tender tone of reverence that thrilled
through one.
"I remember another thing about colours. The year that papa was pricked
for High Sheriff, mamma went over with him to Worcester for the March
Assize-time, and she took me. I was seven, I think. On the Sunday
morning we went with the crowd to service in the cathedral. It was all
very grand and imposing to my young mind. The crashing organ, the long
procession of white-robed clergy and college boys, the two majestic
beings in scarlet gowns, their trains held up by gentlemen, and the wigs
that frightened me! I had been told I was going to college to see the
judge. In my astonished mind I don't think I knew which was judge and
which was organ. Papa was in attendance on the judges; the only one who
seemed to be in plain clothes in the procession. An impression remained
on me that he had a white wand in his hand; but I suppose I was wrong.
Attending papa, walked his black-robed chaplain who was to preach;
looking like a crow amongst gay-plumaged birds. And, lining the way all
along the body of the cathedral from the north entrance to the gates of
the choir, were papa's livery men with their glittering javelins. You've
seen it all, Johnny, and know what the show is to a child such as I was.
But now, will you believe that it was all as _nothing_ to me, compared
with the sight of the many-coloured, beautiful east window?[4] I sat in
full view of it. We had gone in rather late, and so were only part of
the throng. Mamma with me in her hand--I remember I wore purple velvet,
Johnny--was stepping into the choir after the judges and clergy had
taken their places, when one of the black-gowned beadsmen would have
rudely shut the gates upon her. Upon that, a verger pushed out his
silver mace to stop him. 'Hist,' says he, 'it's the High Sheriff's
lady--my Lady Whitney;' and the beadsman bowed and let us pass. We were
put into the pew under the sub-dean's stall. It was Winnington-Ingram, I
think, who was sub-dean then, but I am not sure. Whoever it was did not
sit in the sub-dean's stall, but in the next to it, for he had given
that up, as was customary, to one of the judges. With the great wig
flowing down right upon my head, as it seemed, and the sub-dean's
trencher sticking over the cushion close to it, I was in a state of
bewilderment; and they were some way through the Litany--the cathedral
service at Worcester began with the Litany then, you remember, as they
had early morning prayers--before I ventured to look up at all. As I did
so, the colours of the distant east window flashed upon my dazzled
sight. Not dazzled with the light, Johnny, though it was a sunny day,
but with the charm of the colours. What it was to me in that moment I
could never describe. That window has been abused enough by people who
call themselves connoisseurs in art; but I know that to me it seemed as
the very incarnation of celestial beauty. What with the organ, and the
chanting, and the show that had gone before, and now this sight to
illuminate it, I seemed to be in Paradise. I sat entranced; unable to
take my fascinated eyes from the window: the pew faces it, you know; and
were I to live for ever, I can never forget that day, or what it was to
me. This will show you what colours have been to me here, Johnny. What,
then, will they be to me in heaven?"
[4] The old East window: not the new one.
"How well you remember things!"
"I always did--things that make an impression on me," he answered. "A
quiet, thoughtful child does so. You were thoughtful yourself."
True. Or I don't suppose I could have written these papers. The light in
the sky faded out as we sat in silence. John recurred to his dream.
"I thought I saw the Saviour," he whispered. "I did indeed. Over the
crystal river, and beyond the white figures and the harps, was a great
light. There stood in it One different from the rest. He had a grand,
noble countenance, exquisite in sweetness, and it was turned upon me
with a loving smile of welcome. Johnny, I _know_ it was Jesus. Oh, it
will be good to be there!"
No doubt of it. Very good for him.
"The strange thing was, that I felt no fear. None. Just as securely as I
seemed to lie in the arms of the angels, so did I seem secure in the
happiness awaiting me. A great many of us fear death, Johnny; I see now
that all fear will cease with this world, to those who die in Christ."
A sudden burst of subdued sobbing broke the stillness of the room and
startled us beyond everything. Lady Whitney had wakened up and was
listening.
"Oh, John, my darling boy, don't talk so!" she said, coming forward
and laying her cheek upon his shoulder. "We can't spare you; we can't
indeed."
His eyes were full of tears: so were mine. He took his mother's hand and
stroked it.
"But it must be, mother dear?" he gently whispered. "God will temper the
loss to you all."
"Any of them but you, John! You were ever my best and dearest son."
"It's all for the best, mother: it must be. The others are not ready to
go."
"And don't you _care_ to leave us?" she said, breaking down again.
"I did care; very much; but lately I seem to have looked only to the
time when we shall meet again. Mother, I do not think now I would live
if the chance were offered me."
"Well, it's the first time I ever heard of young people wanting to die!"
cried Lady Whitney.
"Mother, I think we must be very close on death _before_ we want it," he
gently answered. "Don't you see the mercy?--that when this world is
passing from us, we are led insensibly to long for the next?"
She sat down in the chair that I had got up from, and drew it closer to
him. A more simple-minded woman than Lady Whitney never lived. She
sobbed gently. He kept her hand between his.
"It will be a great blow to me; I know that; and to your father. He
feels it now more than he shows, John. You have been so good and
obedient, you see; never naughty and giving us trouble like the rest."
There was another silence. His quiet voice broke it.
"Mother, dear, the thought has crossed me lately, that it must be good
to have one, whom we love very much, taken on to heaven. It must make it
seem more like our final home; it must, I think, make us more desirous
of getting there. 'John's gone on to it,' you and papa will be thinking;
'we shall see him again when the end comes.' And it will cause you to
look for the end, instead of turning away from it, as too many do. Don't
grieve, mother! Had it been God's will, I should have lived. But it was
not; and He is taking me to a better home. A little sooner, a little
later; it cannot make much difference which, if we are only ready for it
when it comes."
The distant church bells, which always rang on a Friday night, broke
upon the air. John asked to have the window opened. I threw it up, and
we sat listening. The remembrance of that hour is upon me now, just as
vividly as he remembered the moment when he first saw the old east
window in the cathedral. The melody of the bells; the sweet scent of the
mignonette in the garden; the fading sky: I close my eyes and realize it
all.
The girls returned, bringing word that Mrs. Frost was very ill, but not
much more so than usual. Directly afterwards we heard Sir John come
home.
"They are afraid Barrington's worse," observed Helen; "and of course it
is worrying Mrs. Frost. Mr. Carden has not been there to-day either,
though he was expected: they hope he will be over the first thing in the
morning."
In they trooped, Sir John and the boys; all eagerly talking of the
pleasant afternoon they had had, and what they had seen and done at
Evesham. But the room, as they said later, seemed to have a strange hush
upon it, and John's face an altered look: and the eager voices died away
again.
John was the one to read the chapter that night. He asked to do so; and
chose the twenty-first of Revelation. His voice was low, but quite
distinct and clear. Without pausing at the end, he went on to the next
chapter, which concludes the Bible.
"Only think what it will be, Johnny!" he said to me later, following up
our previous conversation. "All manner of precious stones! all sorts of
glorious colours! Better even" (with a smile) "than the great east
window."
I don't know whether it surprised me, or not, to find the house in
commotion when I woke the next morning, and to hear that John Whitney
was dying. A remarkable change had certainly taken place in him. He lay
in bed; not insensible, but almost speechless.
Breakfast was scarcely over when Mr. Carden's carriage drove in. He had
been with Barrington, having started from Worcester at day-dawn. John
knew him, and took his hand and smiled.
"What's to be done for him?" questioned Sir John, pointing to his son.
Mr. Carden gave one meaning look at Sir John, and that was all. Nothing
more of any kind could be done for John Whitney.
"Good-bye, Mr. Carden; good-bye," said John, as the surgeon was leaving.
"You have been very kind."
"Good-bye, my boy."
"It is so sudden; so soon, you know, Carden," cried poor Sir John, as
they walked downstairs together. "You ought to have warned me that it
was coming."
"I did not know it would be quite so soon as this," was Mr. Carden's
answer--and I heard him say it.
John had visitors that day, and saw them. Some of the fellows from
Frost's, who came over when they heard how it was; Dr. Frost himself;
and the clergyman. At dusk, when he had been lying quietly for some
time, except for the restlessness that often ushers in death, he opened
his eyes and began speaking in a whisper. Lady Whitney, thinking he
wanted something, bent down her ear. But he was only repeating a verse
from the Bible.
"And there shall be no night there: and they need no candle, neither
light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall
reign for ever and ever."
Bill, who had his head on the bolster on the other side, broke into a
hushed sob. It did not disturb the dying. They were John's last words.