Ewbert felt all the more impelled to his own first visit by the fame of
these failures, but he was not hastened in it. He thought best to wait
for some sign or leading from Hilbrook; but when none came, except the
apparent attention with which Hilbrook listened to his preaching, and
the sympathy which he believed he detected at times in the old eyes
blinking upon him through his sermons, he felt urged to the visit which
he had vainly delayed.
Hilbrook's reception was wary and non-committal, but it was by no means
so grudging as Ewbert had been led to expect. After some ceremonious
moments in the cold parlor Hilbrook asked him into the warm kitchen,
where apparently he passed most of his own time. There was something
cooking in a pot on the stove, and a small room opened out of the
kitchen, with a bed in it, which looked as if it were going to be made,
as Ewbert handsomely maintained. There was an old dog stretched on the
hearth behind the stove, who whimpered with rheumatic apprehension when
his master went to put the lamp on the mantel above him.
In describing the incident to his wife Ewbert stopped at this point, and
then passed on to say that after they got to talking Hilbrook seemed
more and more gratified, and even glad, to see him.
"Everybody's glad to see _you_, Clarence," she broke out, with tender
pride. "But why do you say, 'After we got to talking'? Didn't you go to
talking at once?"
"Well, no," he answered, with a vague smile; "we did a good deal of
listening at first, both of us. I didn't know just where to begin, after
I got through my excuses for coming, and Mr. Hilbrook didn't offer any
opening. Don't you think he's a very handsome old man?"
"He has a pretty head, and his close-cut white hair gives it a neat
effect, like a nice child's. He has a refined face; such a straight nose
and a delicate chin. Yes, he is certainly good-looking. But what"--
"Oh, nothing. Only, all at once I realized that he had a sensitive
nature. I don't know why I shouldn't have realized it before. I had
somehow taken it for granted that he was a self-conscious hermit, who
lived in a squalid seclusion because he liked being wondered at. But he
did not seem to be anything of the kind. I don't know whether he's a
good cook, for he didn't ask me to eat anything; but I don't think he's
a bad housekeeper."
"With his bed unmade at eight o'clock in the evening!"
"He may have got up late," said Ewbert. "The house seemed very orderly,
otherwise; and what is really the use of making up a bed till you need
it!"
Mrs. Ewbert passed the point, and asked, "What did you talk about when
you got started?"
"I found he was a reader, or had been. There was a case of good books in
the parlor, and I began by talking with him about them."
"Well, what did he say about them?"
"That he wasn't interested in them. He had been once, but he was not
now."
"I can understand that," said Mrs. Ewbert philosophically. "Books _are_
crowded out after your life fills up with other interests."
"Yes."
"Yes, what?" Mrs. Ewbert followed him up.
"So far as I could make out, Mr. Hilbrook's life hadn't filled up with
other interests. He did not care for the events of the day, as far as I
tried him on them, and he did not care for the past. I tempted him with
autobiography; but he seemed quite indifferent to his own history,
though he was not reticent about it. I proposed the history of his
cousin in the boyish days which he said they had spent together; but he
seemed no more interested in his cousin than in himself. Then I tried
his dog and his pathetic sufferings, and I said something about the pity
of the poor old fellow's last days being so miserable. That seemed to
strike a gleam of interest from him, and he asked me if I thought
animals might live again. And I found--I don't know just how to put it
so as to give you the right sense of his psychological attitude."
"No matter! Put it any way, and I will take care of the right sense. Go
on!" said Mrs. Ewbert.
"I found that his question led up to the question whether men lived
again, and to a confession that he didn't or couldn't believe they did."
"Well, upon my word!" Mrs. Ewbert exclaimed. "I don't see what business
he has coming to church, then. Doesn't he understand that the idea of
immortality is the very essence of Rixonitism! I think it was personally
insulting to _you_, Clarence. What did you say?"
"I didn't take a very high hand with him. You know I don't embody the
idea of immortality, and the church is no bad place even for
unbelievers. The fact is, it struck me as profoundly pathetic. He wasn't
arrogant about it, as people sometimes are,--they seem proud of not
believing; but he was sufficiently ignorant in his premises. He said he
had seen too many dead people. You know he was in the civil war."
"No!"
"Yes,--through it all. It came out on my asking him if he were going to
the Decoration Day services. He said that the sight of the first great
battlefield deprived him of the power of believing in a life hereafter.
He was not very explanatory, but as I understood it the overwhelming
presence of death had extinguished his faith in immortality; the dead
riders were just like their dead horses"--
"Shocking!" Mrs. Ewbert broke in.
"He said something went out of him." Ewbert waited a moment before
adding: "It was very affecting, though Hilbrook himself was as apathetic
about it as he was about everything else. He was not interested in not
believing, even, but I could see that it had taken the heart out of life
for him. If our life here does not mean life elsewhere, the interest of
it must end with our activities. When it comes to old age, as it has
with poor Hilbrook, it has no meaning at all, unless it has the hope of
more life in it. I felt his forlornness, and I strongly wished to help
him. I stayed a long time talking; I tried to interest him in the fact
that he was not interested, and"--
"Well, what?"
"If I didn't fatigue Hilbrook, I came away feeling perfectly exhausted
myself. Were you uneasy at my being out so late?"