SICK UNTO DEATH.
It was a wet, cheerless day in the end of March. The rain fell without
ceasing, and the air was bitterly cold. There was not a sign of
spring in field or hedgerow; and here and there, in the furrows and
in sheltered spots where the wind could not penetrate, the snow still
lingered.
Alec Lindsay was seated in the battered old coach, being conveyed to
the Castle Farm. He had determined to see if his native air would
restore him to health. For he could no longer persuade himself that
there was little or nothing the matter with him. He felt weaker every
day. The preparations for leaving London and the long journey had
tired him excessively; and now his one desire was for rest.
As the lumbering vehicle approached the well-remembered corner, he saw
the dog-cart waiting. His father was driving it; and the old man was
startled when he saw his son’s face, and still more when he took his
hand.
‘You are far from well, Alec,’ said the laird.
‘I am tired. I shall be better to-morrow,’ said he, getting into the
dog-cart.
‘I think we had better stop at Dr. Henderson’s, and ask him to come
over and see you to-morrow.’
‘Oh dear me, no,’ said Alec, in an irritated tone. ‘I only want a good
night’s rest.’
But on the following morning he did not come down to breakfast. He had
caught a cold on the journey, and he complained of a pain in his side.
Dr. Henderson was sent for, and when he saw his patient he looked very
grave.
‘Inflammation of the lungs,’ he said to Mr. Lindsay, when he went
downstairs.
‘But there is no danger, is there?’ asked the old laird, with alarm in
his eyes.
‘I would not like to say there’s no danger,’ said the doctor
cautiously. ‘He’s young, and I hope he’ll win through; but he seems
very listless and careless about himself. That’s a bad sign.’
‘You’ll do all that can be done, I’m sure, doctor; but if you think
further advice desirable, you’ll not spare expense.’
‘A’ the doctors in Europe could do no more than I’m doing,’ said the
doctor testily. ‘I’ll come round the morn. He may be easier then, but I
doubt no. We must have patience.’
Margaret nursed her brother with great skill and tenderness. She was
born to be a nurse; and her habitual self-repression made it easy for
her to conceal the anxiety she was feeling.
It was impossible for her to be always in the sick-room, and Alec liked
best to be left alone. It was the room that had always been his own.
Here he had read and worked to prepare himself for College. At that
old-fashioned window he had often sat, dreaming dreams which would
never come true. How fair the world had seemed to him but a few short
years before! How delightful the battle when he would match himself
against his fellows, against men born with greater advantages than
his own, and in which he would come off victorious, winning not only
wealth but honourable renown! And he had succeeded in nothing. It was
only by an accident, he told himself, that he was not now sitting in a
convict’s cell, or lying on a pallet in some prison infirmary. That
he had escaped; but he had learned, or thought he had learned, that
the prizes he had set his heart on were not worth winning. The whole
world did not seem to him to hold anything worthy of the devotion of a
lifetime. All this passed through his mind continually, in spite of the
pain, but in a confused way, as if he had thought it all out and had
wearied of it long ago.
On the third day the doctor looked very grave, and said he would come
again in the evening.
‘You think my son is worse, then?’ said Mr. Lindsay.
The doctor paused for a moment.
‘We must hope for the best,’ he said at last.
A chill struck to the father’s heart. Was it possible that this boy, of
whom in secret he had been so proud, the only hope of his house, was
to die? Inwardly he trembled, but outwardly he was as composed as ever.
‘Do you think,’ he said slowly, ‘that he ought to be told?’
‘I think you might ask him if there is any friend he would like to
see,’ said the doctor. ‘That will make him understand.’
When the doctor left him, the laird sat down in a kind of stupor. He
could not believe it. Was he, an old man, not far from the grave, to
live, while death seized his strong, bright-eyed boy? He shivered; and
as he sat there alone he realized that the bereavement would be worse
to him than it need have been. He had shown the lad but little of a
father’s tenderness, little even of the tenderness which he actually
felt. Alec had never confided in him, and he had resented the want
of confidence. But he had never tried to see things from the boy’s
standpoint; he had never made allowances for him, never yielded to
him, never tried to sympathize with his plans. He had wished his son to
be as himself. That could not be; and he had never acquiesced in the
decree of nature which had given the young man other standards, other
ideas, other aims, than his own. And now the end was come.
He could not bring himself as yet to go upstairs and tell his son the
truth. But Alec had already learned it.
‘Maggie,’ he said suddenly. ‘Does the doctor think I will get better?’
Margaret stepped back so that her brother could not see her face, and
steadied her voice before she answered:
‘He hopes you will. You have a splendid constitution, he says.’
‘But there is a chance that I may not?’
Margaret could not speak. She would have broken down, and she was
determined not to do that. On her brother’s face was a look of
satisfaction, as of one who heard that a long-expected haven was
in sight. Then that expression passed away, and was succeeded by a
wandering, troubled gaze.
‘I would like to see Duncan Cameron,’ Alec whispered. ‘Do you think my
father would send for him?’
‘I am sure he would, dear; I will go and ask him now,’ said Margaret,
as she kissed her brother and softly left the room.
Mr. Lindsay was not well pleased to hear of Alec’s wish.
‘It is a stranger he wishes to be with him at the last,’ he said to
himself bitterly.
But he set off himself to walk the five miles which lay between the
farm and the nearest telegraph office.
That evening Duncan Cameron was at the farm. Little was said between
the two; but Alec seemed to find comfort in his friend’s presence. In
a short time Mr. Lindsay beckoned Cameron out of the room.
‘You are a doctor,’ said the old man, in a hard, constrained voice.
‘What do you think? Is he likely to recover?’
‘I cannot say,’ said Cameron. ‘He is very ill, and very weak. If he
were a patient of my own, or a stranger----’
‘Yes?’
‘I should fear that he would not live through the night.’
The old man turned away without a word, went to his own room, and threw
himself on his knees at the side of his bed. He could not pray. But
under his breath he whispered:
‘Oh, my son, would God I could die for thee! Oh, Alec, my son, my son!’
And the tears ran unbidden down his withered, weather-beaten cheeks.
Meantime Cameron had gone back to the sick-room, and there he sat down
to watch by his friend, while Margaret rested.
‘Cameron,’ said Alec, speaking slowly and with pain, ‘when I am gone
they may put on my tombstone, “Born a man, died a failure.”’
‘Hold your tongue, man.’
‘I have been a failure in everything I ever tried,’ whispered Alec. ‘I
wonder why I was born--it seems to have been such a useless existence.’
‘_You_ say that, and you believe in a God!’ exclaimed Cameron. ‘If you
don’t, you may talk about useless existences, and so forth. But if you
believe in a God, you must believe that there is a reason, and a good
reason, for everything, whether you see it or not. If there is a God,
and God determined to make you, it was better that you should live.
And if you failed, it is better that you should fail, because if God
had wished you to succeed, He might easily have brought that about, I
suppose?’
‘Yes, it must be so. There is comfort in that.’
‘Of course there is. There is more than comfort in it. There is
everything in it. And yet men go on saying they believe in God, and
grumbling at every stone they strike their foot against.’
A long pause followed.
Alec was hardly able to speak, but a faint smile crossed his face.
‘You are always the same, Cameron.’
‘And if you talk any more I will leave the house this instant. If you
have any peace in your mind, keep it, and thank God. But don’t say
another syllable, unless you want to kill yourself.’
All through that night Cameron and Margaret watched by turns.
About four in the morning Cameron touched the bell which stood at the
side of the bed; and in a few seconds Margaret was in the room. Alec
was sitting upright, supported by his friend’s arms and breast, while
he laboured and gasped for breath.
‘Call his father,’ whispered Cameron.
Margaret longed to fly to her brother’s side; but she did as she was
told, and soon the old man obeyed the summons.
‘It cannot last much longer,’ whispered Cameron to Margaret, as she
stood sobbing at his side.
The three stood there and waited helplessly while the life and death
struggle went on. At last the breathing became more regular, and Alec
was able to look at the faces of those around him.
‘I think you had better go now; it only excites him to see so many of
us here,’ said Cameron, still speaking in a whisper. ‘I will call you
again if he should get worse, but I don’t think it will be necessary.
I think he will do now.’
Cameron was right. Alec had youth and a magnificent constitution on his
side; and from that night he grew gradually better.
* * * * *
The sun was shining bright and strong through the little square windows
of the parlour, when the invalid came down for the first time after his
illness. It was May; the rain was over and gone, and the time of the
singing of birds had come. Alec’s heart sang with them, he hardly knew
why. It was partly the reaction of a young and vigorous system after
the illness and the mental depression through which he had passed; but
he had undergone another change of which he said nothing. He no longer
looked on the world as an arena in which success meant all that was
worth living for, and failure irretrievable disaster.
During his convalescence there had been some talk of the future, and it
had been settled that in order to get rid of the weakness in his lungs
Alec should spend one or two years in a dry, warm climate. Cameron had
recommended a voyage to Australia; and finally it was settled that the
invalid should wait at the Castle Farm till he was quite fit to travel,
and then sail for Melbourne. If he found that the climate suited him,
he was to settle down for a year or more, and learn sheep-farming.
In view of so long a parting, he was in no hurry to leave home; and for
the first time since his boyhood he enjoyed staying at the farm.
‘Alec,’ said his father to him one day, not long before the time fixed
for his departure, ‘did I ever tell you that I had heard from your
cousin Semple?’
‘No!’ exclaimed Alec in great astonishment. ‘When? Where is he? What
is he doing?’
‘It was during your illness, so of course I did not mention it to you.
He was in Spain--in hiding. He was miserably poor; in fact, he wrote
begging me to send him money, if it were only a few shillings.’
‘Have you his letter?’
‘I burned it.’
‘And did you----’
‘Send him money? No, indeed! Was it likely? His punishment is nothing
comparatively. But it is written, “Vengeance is Mine.”’
There was an air of decided satisfaction in the old man’s manner as he
quoted the text.
‘Do you remember the address?’ asked Alec, after a pause.
‘No,’ said Mr. Lindsay shortly.
‘It is very strange to hear of his being in poverty,’ said Alec, ‘when
he is entitled to so much wealth. I heard before I left London that
the trustees of the Free Kirk could not hope to succeed in getting the
half-million from a court of law.’
‘So it has been decided; but Semple is afraid to come forward and claim
the money. He fears he may be prosecuted, and, for anything he knows,
sent to penal servitude.’
‘Perhaps he does not even know that in spite of the trick he played he
is entitled to half the residue of the estate.’
‘I dare say he does not.’
‘I wonder what he is doing now.’
‘He won’t starve,’ said Mr. Lindsay calmly. ‘He will manage to exist
somehow till he thinks the worst danger is past, and then we shall hear
of his trying to get hold of the money.’
‘Did you think I did right in renouncing my share of it?’ said Alec,
after a pause.
‘You did not consult me at the time,’ said the old man stiffly; ‘and
there is little use in speaking of it now.’
‘You see, my uncle never intended for one moment that I should get two
hundred and fifty thousand pounds of his money. I felt that I could not
honestly take it.’
‘No doubt. Have you fixed whether you will go by the _Queen of the
South_ or the _Glenstrae_?’
From which Alec understood that his father would have agreed with Laura
Mowbray in thinking that he was not morally bound to carry out his
uncle’s wishes.
‘Conscience must be obeyed, no doubt,’ said the old man, suddenly
returning to the subject. ‘But in important matters it is well to
take time for due deliberation, and to consult those whose opinion is
entitled to respect.’
‘I am afraid, sir, I could hardly have expected a Free Kirk minister to
advise me to retain the money,’ said Alec maliciously. ‘If I had had
recourse to an Established Church pastor, he might perhaps have seen
the matter in a different light.’
Then, seeing that his father looked nettled, Alec hastily began to
speak of something else.
It was the middle of summer before the time of parting came. The
_Glenstrae_ (the ship which had been chosen) sailed from the Clyde; and
Alec’s father and sister, as well as his friend Cameron, went down to
Greenock where the vessel was lying, to see him on board.
The separation was painful, but it was, after all, so different from
that other parting which a few weeks before had seemed so near at hand!
The last hand-shakes were exchanged; and Alec’s friends stepped on
board the tug which was to convey them back to the shore. He saw them
land; he saw his father’s tall, bent form, with Margaret at his side,
standing motionless at the edge of the quay. He watched them until
it was no longer possible to see the signals they made, till their
forms were lost in the distance. A few minutes afterwards he begged a
fellow-passenger for the loan of a field-glass which was lying beside
him, that he might have a nearer look at the land he was leaving. And
happening to turn the glass upon the wharf, he saw that Margaret and
his father were standing there still.