was unwell. It seemed to be nothing serious, he said, and of course he
promised to let me know if she should become worse. But I made up my
mind that I would go in any case during that week and see if sickness
had softened her at all. Alfred told me, too, that another brother
of his, Patrick, on whom, let it be remembered”--and he held up an
admonitory hand--“I had never set eyes, was coming up to them on the
next day from London for a week’s holiday. He promised he would bring
him to see me later on in the week.
“There was a fall of snow that afternoon, not very deep, and another
next day, and I thought I would put off my walk across the hills until
it melted, unless I heard that Sarah was worse.
“It was on the Wednesday evening about six o’clock that I was sent for.
“I was sitting in my study on the ground floor with the curtains
drawn when I heard the garden gate open and close, and I ran out into
the hall just as the knock came at the back door. I knew that it was
unlikely that any one should come at that hour and in such weather
except for a sick call, and I opened the door almost before the
knocking had ended.
“The candle was blown out by the draught, but I knew Alfred’s voice at
once.
“‘She is worse, Father,’ he said; ‘for God’s sake come at once. I think
she wishes for the sacraments. I am going on for the doctor.’
“I knew by his voice that it was serious, though I could not see his
face; I could only see his figure against the snow outside, and before
I could say more than that I would come at once he was gone again,
and I heard the garden door open and shut. He was gone down to the
doctor’s house, I knew, a mile further down the valley.
“I shut the hall door without bolting it and went to the kitchen and
told my housekeeper to grease my boots well and set them in my room
with my cloak and hat and muffler and my lantern. I told her I had had
a sick call and did not know when I should be back; she had better put
the pot on the fire, and I would help myself when I came home.
“Then I ran into the church through the sacristy to fetch the holy oils
and the Blessed Sacrament.
“When I came back I noticed that one of the strings of the purse that
held the pyx was frayed, and I set it down on the table to knot it
properly. Then again I heard the garden gate open and shut.”
The priest lifted his eyes and looked round again; there was something
odd in his look.
“Gentlemen, we are getting near the point of the story. I will ask you
to listen very carefully and to give me your conclusions afterward. I
am relating to you only events as they happened historically. I give
you my word as to their truth.”
There was a murmur of assent.
“Well, then,” he went on, “at first I supposed it was Alfred come back
again for some reason. I put down the string and went to the door
without a light. As I reached the threshold there came a knocking.
“I turned the handle and a gust of wind burst in as it had done five
minutes before. There was a figure standing there, muffled up as the
other had been.
“‘What is it?’ I said. ‘I am just coming. Is it you, Alfred?’
“‘No, Father,’ said a voice--the man was on the steps a yard from
me--‘I came to say that Sarah is better and does not wish for the
sacraments.’
“Of course I was startled at that.
“‘Why, who are you?’ I said. ‘Are you Patrick?’
“‘Yes, Father,’ said the man; ‘I am Patrick.’
“I cannot describe his voice, but it was not extraordinary in any way;
it was a little muffled; I supposed he had a comforter over his mouth.
I could not see his face at all. I could not even see if he was stout
or thin, the wind blew about his cloak so much.
“As I hesitated the door from the kitchen behind me was flung open, and
I heard a very much frightened voice calling:
“‘Who’s that, Father?’ said Hannah.
“I turned round.
“‘It is Patrick Oldroyd,’ I said; ‘he is come from his sister.’
“I could see the woman standing in the light from the kitchen door; she
had her hands out before her as if she were frightened at something.
“‘Go out of the draught,’ I said.
“She went back at that, but she did not close the door, and I knew she
was listening to every word.
“‘Come in, Patrick,’ I said, turning round again.
“I could see he had moved down a step, and was standing on the gravel
now.
“He came up again then, and I stood aside to let him go past me into my
study. But he stopped at the door. Still I could not see his face; it
was dark in the hall, you remember.
“‘No, Father,’ he said; ‘I cannot wait. I must go after Alfred.’
“I put out my hand toward him, but he slipped past me quickly and was
out again on the gravel before I could speak.
“‘Nonsense!’ I said. ‘She will be none the worse for a doctor, and if
you will wait a minute I will come with you.’
“‘You are not wanted,’ he said rather offensively, I thought. ‘I tell
you she is better, Father; she will not see you.’
“I was a little angry at that. I was not accustomed to be spoken to in
that way.
“‘That is very well,’ I said; ‘but I shall come for all that, and if
you do not wish to walk with me I shall walk alone.’
“He was turning to go, but he faced me again then.
“‘Do not come, Father,’ he said; ‘come to-morrow. I tell you she will
not see you. You know what Sarah is.’
“‘I know very well,’ I said; ‘she is out of grace, and I know what will
be the end of her if I do not come. I tell you I am coming, Patrick
Oldroyd. So you can do as you please.’
“I shut the door and went back into my room, and as I went the garden
gate opened and shut once more.
“My hands trembled a little as I began to knot the string of the pyx; I
supposed then that I had been more angered than I had known”--the old
priest looked round again swiftly and dropped his eyes--“but I do not
now think that it was only anger. However, you shall hear.”
He had moved himself by now to the very edge of his chair, where he sat
crouched up with his hands together. The listeners were all very quiet.
“I had hardly begun to knot the string before Hannah came in. She
bobbed at the door when she saw what I was holding, and then came
forward. I could see that she was very much upset by something.
“‘Father,’ she said, ‘for the love of God do not go with that man.’
“‘I am ashamed of you, Hannah,’ I told her. ‘What do you mean?’
“‘Father,’ she said, ‘I am afraid. I do not like that man. There is
something the matter.’
“I rose, laid the pyx down, and went to my boots without saying
anything.
“‘Father,’ she said again, ‘for the love of God do not go. I tell you I
was frightened when I heard his knock.’
“Still I said nothing, but put on my boots and went to the table where
the pyx lay and the case of oils.
“She came right up to me, and I could see that she was as white as
death as she stared at me.
“I finished putting on my cloak, wrapped the comforter round my neck,
put on my hat and took up the lantern.
“‘Father,’ she said again.
“I looked her full in the face then as she knelt down.
“‘Hannah,’ I said, ‘I am going. Patrick has gone after his brother.’
“‘It is not Patrick,’ she cried after me; ‘I tell you, Father----’
“Then I shut the door and left her kneeling there.
* * * * *
“It was very dark when I got down the steps, and I hadn’t gone a yard
along the path before I stepped over my knee into a drift of snow. It
had banked up against a gooseberry bush. Well, I saw that I must go
carefully, so I stepped back on to the middle of the path, and held my
lantern low.
“I could see the marks of the two men plain enough; it was a path that
I had made broad on purpose so that I could walk up and down to say my
office without thinking much of where I stepped.
“There was one track on this side and one on that.
“Have you ever noticed, gentlemen, that a man in snow will nearly
always go back over his own traces in preference to any one else’s?
Well, that is so, and it was so in this case.
“When I got to the garden gate I saw that Alfred had turned off to the
right on his way to the doctor; his marks were quite plain in the light
of the lantern, going down the hill. But I was astonished to see that
the other man had not gone after him as he said he would, for there was
only one pair of footmarks going down the hill, and the other track was
plain enough, coming and going. The man must have gone straight home, I
thought.
“Now----”
“One moment, Father Martin,” said Monsignor, leaning forward; “draw the
two lines of tracks here.”
He put a pencil and paper into the priest’s hands.
Father Martin scribbled for a moment or two and then held up the paper
so that we could all see it.
As he explained I understood. He had drawn a square for the house, a
line for the garden wall, and through the gap ran four lines, marked
with arrows. Two ran to the house and two back as far as the gate;
at this point one curved sharply round to the right and one straight
across the paper beside that which marked the coming.
“I noticed all this,” said the old priest emphatically, “because I
determined to follow along the double track so far as Sarah Oldroyd’s
house, and I kept the light turned on to it. I did not wish to slip
into a snowdrift.
“Now, I was very much puzzled. I had been thinking it over, of course,
ever since the man had gone, and I could not understand it. I must
confess that my housekeeper’s words had not made it clearer. I knew
she did not know Patrick; he had never been home since she had come to
me. I was surprised, too, at his behavior, for I knew from his brother
that he was a good Catholic; and--well, you understand, gentlemen, it
was very puzzling. But Hannah was Irish, and I knew they had strange
fancies sometimes.
“Then there was something else, which I had better mention before I go
any further. Although I had not been frightened when the man came, yet
when Hannah had said that she was frightened I knew what she meant. It
had seemed to me natural that she should be frightened. I can say no
more than that.”
He threw out his hands deprecatingly, and then folded them again
sedately on his hunched knees.
“Well, I set out across the moor, following carefully in the double
track of--of the man who called himself Patrick. I could see Alfred’s
single track a yard to my right; sometimes the tracks crossed.
“I had no time to look about me much, but I saw now and again the
slopes to the north, and once when I turned I saw the lights of the
village behind me, perhaps a quarter of a mile away. Then I went on
again, and I wondered as I went.
“I will tell you one thing that crossed my mind, gentlemen. I did
wonder whether Hannah had not been right, and if this was Patrick
after all. I thought it possible--though I must say I thought it very
unlikely--that it might be some enemy of Sarah’s, some one she had
offended, an infidel, perhaps, but who wished her to die without the
sacraments that she wanted. I thought that, but I never dreamed of--of
what I thought afterward and think now.”
He looked round again, clasped his hands more tightly and went on.
“It was very rough going, and as I climbed up at last on to the little
shoulder of hill that was the horizon from my house, I stopped to get
my breath, and turned round again to look behind me.
“I could see my house lights at the end of the village, and the church
beside it, and I wondered that I could see the lights so plainly. Then
I understood that Hannah must be in my study, and that she had drawn
the blind up to watch my lantern going across the snow.
“I am ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that that cheered me a little; I
do not quite know why, but I must confess that I was uncomfortable.
I know that I should not have been, carrying what I did, and on such
an errand, but I was uneasy. It seemed very lonely out there, and the
white sheets of snow made it worse. I do not think that I should have
minded the dark so much. There was not much wind and everything was
very quiet. I could just hear the stream running down in the valley
behind me. The clouds had gone, and there was a clear night of stars
overhead.”
The old priest stopped; his lips worked a little as I had seen them
before two or three times during his story. Then he sighed, looked at
us and went on.
“Now, gentlemen, I entreat you to believe me. This is what happened
next. You remember that this point at which I stopped to take breath
was the horizon from my house. Notice that.
“Well, I turned round and lowered my lantern again to look at the
tracks, and a yard in front of me they ceased. They ceased!”
He paused again, and there was not a sound from the circle.
“They ceased, gentlemen; I swear it to you, and I cannot describe what
I felt. At first I thought it was a mistake; that he had leaped a yard
or two; that the snow was frozen. It was not so.
“There a yard to the right were Alfred’s tracks, perfectly distinct,
with the toes pointing the way from which I had come. There was no
confusion, no hard or broken ground; there was just the soft surface
of the snow, the trampled path of--of the man’s footsteps and mine and
Alfred’s a yard or two away.”
The old man did not look like a mouse now; his eyes were large and
bright, his mouth severe, and his hands hung in the air in a petrified
gesture.
“If he had leaped,” he said, “he did not alight again.”
* * * * *
He passed his hand over his mouth once or twice.
“Well, gentlemen, I confess that I hesitated. I looked back at the
lights and then on again at the slopes in front, and then I was ashamed
of myself. I did not hesitate long, for any place was better than that.
I went on; I dared not run, for I think I should have gone mad if I had
lost self-control; but I walked, and not too fast, either; I put my
hand on the pyx as it lay on my breast, but I dared not turn my head to
right or left. I just stared at Alfred’s tracks in front of me and trod
in them.
“Well, gentlemen, I did run the last hundred yards; the door of the
Oldroyds’ cottage was open, and they were looking out for me, and I
gave Sarah the last sacraments, and heard her confession. She died
before morning.
“And I have one confession to make myself--I did not go home that
night. They were very courteous to me when I told them the story, and
made out that they did not wish me to leave their sister; so the doctor
and Alfred walked back over the moor together to tell Hannah I should
not be back, and that all was well with me.
“There, gentlemen.”
“And Patrick?” said a voice.
“Patrick, of course, had not been out that night.”
IX
_Mr. Bosanquet’s Tale_
I think that it was on the second Sunday evening that Father Brent
brought in his guest. There was a function of some kind at S.
Silvestro--I forget the occasion; a Cardinal had given Benediction, and
a reception was to follow. At any rate, there were only three of us at
home, the German, Father Brent, and myself.
Of course, we talked of our symposium, and the guest, a middle-aged
layman, seemed to listen with interest, but he did not say very much.
He was a brown-bearded man; he ate slowly and deliberately, and I
must confess that I was not particularly impressed with him. Neither
did Father Brent try to draw him out. I noticed that he looked at
him questioningly once or twice, but he did not actually express his
thought till after a little speech from Father Stein.
“But it is a little tiresome to me,” said the German, “this talk of
footsteps and voices and visions. If that world in which we believe is
spiritual, as we know it is, how is it that it presents itself to us
under material images? These things are but appearances, but what is
the reality?”
Father Brent turned to his friend.
“Well,” he said, “what now?”
Mr. Bosanquet smiled and became grave again over his pastry.
“You will repeat it then?” persisted the priest.
The Englishman looked up for an instant, and I met his grave eyes.
“If these gentlemen really wish it,” he said briefly.
Father Brent sighed with satisfaction.
“That is excellent,” he said.
Then he explained.
Mr. Bosanquet had a story, it seemed, but had entirely refused
to relate it to a mixed company. He had had a certain experience
once which had changed his life, and it was not an experience to
be described at random. There was no ghost in it; it was wholly
unsensational, but it had, Father Brent thought, a peculiar interest
of its own. He had persuaded his friend to sup with us, knowing
that we should be but few, and hoping that the atmosphere might be
found favorable. This was the gist of what he was saying, but he was
interrupted by the entrance of Beppo with the coffee.
“Shall we have coffee upstairs?” he said.
Then we rose and went upstairs.
* * * * *
It was a few minutes before we settled down, and Mr. Bosanquet seemed
in no hurry to begin. But a silence fell presently, and finally the
young priest leaned forward.
“Now, Bosanquet,” he said.
Mr. Bosanquet set his cup down, crossed his legs, and began. He spoke
in a very quiet, unemotional voice.
“My friend has told you that this experience of mine is unsensational.
In a manner of speaking he is right. It is unsensational, since it
deals with nothing other than that which we must all go through sooner
or later; but I think it has a certain interest from the fact that it
is an experience of which, except under very peculiar circumstances,
none of us will ever be able to give an account. It concerns the act of
dying....”
He paused for a moment.
“Yes; the act of dying,” he repeated; “for I firmly believe that
that is precisely what I did. I passed the point at which death is
dogmatically declared by the doctors to have taken place. I underwent,
that is, what is called ‘legal death,’ but I did not, of course, reach
that further state called ‘somatic death.’”
Father Brent voiced my question.
“Please explain,” he said.
“Oh, well, the body, as we know, consists of cells; but there is a
certain unity, usually identified with the vital principle, which
merges these into one entity, so that if one member suffer, all the
members suffer with it. Legal death is when this vital principle leaves
the body. The lungs cease to act; the heart is motionless. But when
this has taken place there yet remains a further stage. The cells, for
a certain period, have a kind of life of their own. There is no vital
union between them; the nerve system is suspended; and somatic death,
marked by the _rigor mortis_, the stiffening of the cells, indicates
the moment when the cells, too, even individually, cease to live. But
the man is dead, doctors tell us, sometimes many hours before _rigor
mortis_ sets in. In fact, in the case of some of the saints, _rigor
mortis_ appears never to have set in at all; their limbs, we are told,
retain softness and elasticity. There is no corruption, at least in the
ordinary ‘sense.’”
Father Brent grunted and nodded.
“In my case,” pursued the Englishman, “I was declared dead, and, as I
learned afterward, remained in that state about half an hour. It was
after my body had been washed and the face bound up that I returned to
life.”
I sat up in my chair at that. At least he was explicit enough. He
glanced at me.
“I can show you my death certificate if you care to come to my hotel
to-morrow,” he said. “I obtained it from the doctor--cancelled,
however, you understand.
“Well, this is what took place.
“The cause of death was exhaustion, following upon angina pectoris,
with other complications. I will spare you the details and begin at
once at the point at which I was declared to be dying. Up to that point
I had suffered extraordinary agony, tempered by morphia. I did not know
that such pain was possible.... At the moments of the spasms, before
each injection took effect, it seemed to me that I did not suffer pain
so much as become pain. There was no room for anything else but pain.
Then there came the beginning of the dulness of it; it retired and
stood off from me. I was still conscious of it, as of a storm passing
away, till all sank into a kind of peace. Then, after a long while as
it seemed, the dulness lifted, and I came up again to the surface,
becoming aware of the world, though of course this bore a certain
aspect of unreality, owing to the effects of the drug....
“Well, I said I would leave all that out....
“The last time I came up I knew I was dying. It was all quite
different. Things no longer bore that close relation to me that they
had had before. I opened my eyes just enough to let me see my hands
lying out on the counterpane, and the hillock of my feet, and even the
lower part of the brass supports at the end of my bed; but I could not
raise my eyelids higher, and almost immediately I closed them again.
“The sense of touch, too, was changed.... Once or twice when I have
been falling asleep in my chair I have noticed the same phenomenon.
I could not tell by feeling, unless I moved them, whether my fingers
rested on the counterpane or not. I did move them, with that curious
clawing motion that dying people use, simply in order to realize my
relations with material surroundings. That, of course, as I know now,
is the reason of those motions. It is not an involuntary contraction
of the muscles; it is the will trying to get back into touch with the
world.
“But the sense of hearing, oddly enough, was almost preternaturally
acute. Others undergoing anæsthetics have told me the same. It is
the last sense to leave them and the first to return. I could hear
a continual minute series of sounds, not at all painfully loud, but
absolutely distinct. There was my sister’s breathing, irregular and
uneven, beside me. I knew by it that she was trying not to break down.
I could hear four timepieces ticking--her watch and the doctor’s and
that of the traveling-clock over the fire and the Dutch clock in the
hall below. Then there were the country sounds in the distance and the
breeze in the creepers outside my window.
“With regard to taste and smell, they were there, a kind of sour
sweetness, if I may say so; but they did not interest me; they were
below my level, if I may express it like that....
“Well, I said just now that I knew I was dying. It was as if through
all my being there was a steady, smooth retirement from the world. I
was perfectly able to reflect--in fact, I reflected as I have never
been able to before or since. Do you know the sensation of coming down
from town and sitting out in the darkness after dinner in the garden?
The silence, after the clatter and glare of London, makes it possible,
seems to let the mind free. One is both alert and reflective--both at
once. It was rather like that, only far more pronounced. And in that
freedom from the pressure of matter I realized perfectly what was
happening.
“Now, I must tell you at once that I was not at all frightened. My
religion seemed to stand off from me with the rest of the world. I had
been up to that time what may be called a ‘conventional believer.’ I
had never doubted exactly, for I always realized that it was absurd for
me to criticise what was so obviously the highest standard of morality
and faith--I mean Christianity. But neither was I particularly
interested. I had lived like other people. I attended church, I
repeated my prayers, and I had conventional views of heaven, with which
was mixed up a good deal of agnosticism. In a word, I think I may say
that I had hope, but not faith, that is, as you Catholics seem to have
it.”
This was the first hint I had had that Mr. Bosanquet was not a
Catholic, and I glanced up at Father Brent. He, too, glanced at me in a
half-warning, half-suggestive look. I understood.
“I was not frightened, then,” continued the other tranquilly. “My
religion, as I see now, was altogether bound up with the world. Even
my thoughts went no further than images. I conceived of heaven as in
a picture, of Our Lord as a superhuman Man, of death as of a swift
passage through the air.... We are all bound, of course, by our
limitations to do that; but I had not realized the inadequacy of such
images. I conceived of eternity and spiritual existence in terms of
time and space, and I had not really even as much faith as that of
the agnostic who recognizes that these are inadequate, and therefore
foolishly believes that the reality is unknowable--as in one sense
indeed it is.”
Once more the German priest murmured, and I saw now why this man had
been encouraged to tell his story.
“Well, then,” he continued, “when the world retired from me with the
approach of death, my religion retired naturally with it (that seems
to me so obvious now!), and I was left, moving swiftly _inward_, if I
may express it so, toward a state of which I was completely ignorant.
I was dying as I suppose animals die. I never lost self-consciousness
for a moment. As a rule, of course, one realizes self-consciousness, as
philosophers tell us, by self-differentiation from what is not self.
The baby learns it gradually by touching and looking. The dying lose
it by ceasing to touch and see, or, rather, they lose that mode of
realizing, and enter into themselves instead....