CALM AND STORM.
But of the two, Catherine had herself to go first. Again and again was
I sent for to say farewell to Mrs Tomkins, and again and again I
returned home leaying her asleep, and for the time better. But on a
Saturday evening, as I sat by my vestry-fire, pondering on many things,
and trying to make myself feel that they were as God saw them and not
as they appeared to me, young Tom came to me with the news that his
sister seemed much worse, and his father would be much obliged if I
would go and see her. I sent Tom on before, because I wished to follow
alone.
It was a brilliant starry night; no moon, no clouds, no wind, nothing
but stars. They seemed to lean down towards the earth, as I have seen
them since in more southern regions. It was, indeed, a glorious night.
That is, I knew it was; I did not feel that it was. For the death which
I went to be near, came, with a strange sense of separation, between me
and the nature around me. I felt as if nature knew nothing, felt
nothing, meant nothing, did not belong to humanity at all; for here was
death, and there shone the stars. I was wrong, as I knew afterwards.
I had had very little knowledge of the external shows of death. Strange
as it may appear, I had never yet seen a fellow-creature pass beyond
the call of his fellow-mortals. I had not even seen my father die. And
the thought was oppressive to me. “To think,” I said to myself, as I
walked over the bridge to the village-street—“to think that the one
moment the person is here, and the next—who shall say WHERE? for we
know nothing of the region beyond the grave! Not even our risen Lord
thought fit to bring back from Hades any news for the human family
standing straining their eyes after their brothers and sisters that
have vanished in the dark. Surely it is well, all well, although we
know nothing, save that our Lord has been there, knows all about it,
and does not choose to tell us. Welcome ignorarance then! the ignorance
in which he chooses to leave us. I would rather not know, if He gave me
my choice, but preferred that I should not know.” And so the oppression
passed from me, and I was free.
But little as I knew of the signs of the approach of death, I was
certain, the moment I saw Catherine, that the veil that hid the “silent
land” had begun to lift slowly between her and it. And for a moment I
almost envied her that she was so soon to see and know that after which
our blindness and ignorance were wondering and hungering. She could
hardly speak. She looked more patient than calm. There was no light in
the room but that of the fire, which flickered flashing and fading, now
lighting up the troubled eye, and now letting a shadow of the coming
repose fall gently over it. Thomas sat by the fire with the child on
his knee, both looking fixedly into the glow. Gerard’s natural mood was
so quiet and earnest, that the solemnity about him did not oppress him.
He looked as if he were present at some religious observance of which
he felt more than he understood, and his childish peace was in no wise
inharmonious with the awful silence of the coming change. He was no
more disquieted at the presence of death than the stars were.
And this was the end of the lovely girl—to leave the fair world still
young, because a selfish man had seen that she was fair! No time can
change the relation of cause and effect. The poison that operates ever
so slowly is yet poison, and yet slays. And that man was now murdering
her, with weapon long-reaching from out of the past. But no, thank God!
this was not the end of her. Though there is woe for that man by whom
the offence cometh, yet there is provision for the offence. There is
One who bringeth light out of darkness, joy out of sorrow, humility out
of wrong. Back to the Father’s house we go with the sorrows and sins
which, instead of inheriting the earth, we gathered and heaped upon our
weary shoulders, and a different Elder Brother from that angry one who
would not receive the poor swine-humbled prodigal, takes the burden
from our shoulders, and leads us into the presence of the Good.
She put out her hand feebly, let it lie in mine, looked as if she
wanted me to sit down by her bedside, and when I did so, closed her
eyes. She said nothing. Her father was too much troubled to meet me
without showing the signs of his distress, and his was a nature that
ever sought concealment for its emotion; therefore he sat still. But
Gerard crept down from his knee, came to me, clambered up on mine, and
laid his little hand upon his mother’s, which I was holding. She opened
her eyes, looked at the child, shut them again, and tears came out from
between the closed lids.
“Has Gerard ever been baptized?” I asked her.
Her lips indicated a NO.
“Then I will be his godfather. And that will be a pledge to you that I
will never lose sight of him.”
She pressed my hand, and the tears came faster.
Believing with all my heart that the dying should remember their dying
Lord, and that the “Do this in remembrance of me” can never be better
obeyed than when the partaker is about to pass, supported by the God of
his faith, through the same darkness which lay before our Lord when He
uttered the words and appointed the symbol, we kneeled, Thomas and I,
and young Tom, who had by this time joined us with his sister Mary,
around the bed, and partook with the dying woman of the signs of that
death, wherein our Lord gave Himself entirely to us, to live by His
death, and to the Father of us all in holiest sacrifice as the
high-priest of us His people, leading us to the altar of a like
self-abnegation. Upon what that bread and that wine mean, the sacrifice
of our Lord, the whole world of humanity hangs. It is the redemption of
men.
After she had received the holy sacrament, she lay still as before. I
heard her murmur once, “Lord, I do not deserve it. But I do love Thee.”
And about two hours after, she quietly breathed her last. We all
kneeled, and I thanked the Father of us aloud that He had taken her to
Himself. Gerard had been fast asleep on his aunt’s lap, and she had put
him to bed a little before. Surely he slept a deeper sleep than his
mother’s; for had she not awaked even as she fell asleep?
When I came out once more, I knew better what the stars meant. They
looked to me now as if they knew all about death, and therefore could
not be sad to the eyes of men; as if that unsympathetic look they wore
came from this, that they were made like the happy truth, and not like
our fears.
But soon the solemn feeling of repose, the sense that the world and all
its cares would thus pass into nothing, vanished in its turn. For a
moment I had been, as it were, walking on the shore of the Eternal,
where the tide of time had left me in its retreat. Far away across the
level sands I heard it moaning, but I stood on the firm ground of
truth, and heeded it not. In a few moments more it was raving around
me; it had carried me away from my rest, and I was filled with the
noise of its cares.
For when I returned home, my sister told me that Old Rogers had called,
and seemed concerned not to find me at home. He would have gone to find
me, my sister said, had I been anywhere but by a deathbed. He would not
leave any message, however, saying he would call in the morning.
I thought it better to go to his house. The stars were still shining as
brightly as before, but a strong foreboding of trouble filled my mind,
and once more the stars were far away, and lifted me no nearer to “Him
who made the seven stars and Orion.” When I examined myself, I could
give no reason for my sudden fearfulness, save this: that as I went to
Catherine’s house, I had passed Jane Rogers on her way to her father’s,
and having just greeted her, had gone on; but, as it now came back upon
me, she had looked at me strangely—that is, with some significance in
her face which conveyed nothing to me; and now her father had been to
seek me: it must have something to do with Miss Oldcastle.
But when I came to the cottage, it was dark and still, and I could not
bring myself to rouse the weary man from his bed. Indeed it was past
eleven, as I found to my surprise on looking at my watch. So I turned
and lingered by the old mill, and fell a pondering on the profusion of
strength that rushed past the wheel away to the great sea, doing
nothing. “Nature,” I thought, “does not demand that power should always
be force. Power itself must repose. He that believeth shall—not make
haste, says the Bible. But it needs strength to be still. Is my faith
not strong enough to be still?” I looked up to the heavens once more,
and the quietness of the stars seemed to reproach me. “We are safe up
here,” they seemed to say: “we shine, fearless and confident, for the
God who gave the primrose its rough leaves to hide it from the blast of
uneven spring, hangs us in the awful hollows of space. We cannot fall
out of His safety. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold! Who hath
created these things—that bringeth out their host by number! He calleth
them all by names. By the greatness of His might, for that He is strong
in power, not one faileth. Why sayest thou, O Jacob! and speakest, O
Israel! my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over
from my God?”
The night was very still; there was, I thought, no one awake within
miles of me. The stars seemed to shine into me the divine reproach of
those glorious words. “O my God!” I cried, and fell on my knees by the
mill-door.
What I tried to say more I will not say here. I MAY say that I cried to
God. What I said to Him ought not, cannot be repeated to another.
When I opened my eyes I saw the door of the mill was open too, and
there in the door, his white head glimmering, stood Old Rogers, with a
look on his face as if he had just come down from the mount. I started
to my feet, with that strange feeling of something like shame that
seizes one at the very thought of other eyes than those of the Father.
The old man came forward, and bowed his head with an unconscious
expression of humble dignity, but would have passed me without speech,
leaving the mill-door open behind him. I could not bear to part with
him thus.
“Won’t you speak to me, Rogers?” I said.
He turned at once with evident pleasure.
“I beg your pardon, sir. I was ashamed of having intruded on you, and I
thought you would rather be left alone. I thought—I thought—-”
hesitated the old man, “that you might like to go into the mill, for
the night’s cold out o’ doors.”
“Thank you, Rogers. I won’t now. I thought you had been in bed. How do
you come to be out so late?”
“You see, sir, when I’m in any trouble, it’s no use to go to bed. I
can’t sleep. I only keep the old ’oman wakin’. And the key o’ the mill
allus hangin’ at the back o’ my door, and knowin’ it to be a good place
to—to—shut the door in, I came out as soon as she was asleep; but I
little thought to see you, sir.”
“I came to find you, not thinking how the time went. Catherine Weir is
gone home.”
“I am right glad to hear it, poor woman. And perhaps something will
come out now that will help us.”
“I do not quite understand you,” I said, with hesitation.
But Rogers made no reply.
“I am sorry to hear you are in trouble to-night. Can I help you?” I
resumed.
“If you can help yourself, sir, you can help me. But I have no right to
say so. Only, if a pair of old eyes be not blind, a man may pray to God
about anything he sees. I was prayin’ hard about you in there, sir,
while you was on your knees o’ the other side o’ the door.”
I could partly guess what the old man meant, and I could not ask him
for further explanation.
“What did you want to see me about?” I inquired.
He hesitated for a moment.
“I daresay it was very foolish of me, sir. But I just wanted to tell
you that—our Jane was down here from the Hall this arternoon——”
“I passed her on the bridge. Is she quite well?”
“Yes, yes, sir. You know that’s not the point.”
The old man’s tone seemed to reprove me for vain words, and I held my
peace.
“The captain’s there again.”
An icy spear seemed to pass through my heart. I could make no reply.
The same moment a cold wind blew on me from the open door of the mill.
Although Lear was of course right when he said,
“The tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else
Save what beats there,”
yet it is also true, that sometimes, in the midst of its greatest pain,
the mind takes marvellous notice of the smallest things that happen
around it. This involves a law of which illustrations could be
plentifully adduced from Shakespeare himself, namely, that the
intellectual part of the mind can go on working with strange
independence of the emotional.
From the door of the mill, as from a sepulchral tavern, blew a cold
wind like the very breath of death upon me, just when that pang shot,
in absolute pain, through my heart. For a wind had arisen from behind
the mill, and we were in its shelter save where a window behind and the
door beside me allowed free passage to the first of the coming storm.
I believed I turned away from the old man without a word. He made no
attempt to detain me. Whether he went back into his closet, the old
mill, sacred in the eyes of the Father who honours His children, even
as the church wherein many prayers went up to Him, or turned homewards
to his cottage and his sleeping wife, I cannot tell. The first I
remember after that cold wind is, that I was fighting with that wind,
gathered even to a storm, upon the common where I had dealt so severely
with her who had this very night gone into that region into which, as
into a waveless sea, all the rivers of life rush and are silent. Is it
the sea of death? No. The sea of life—a life too keen, too refined, for
our senses to know it, and therefore we call it death—because we cannot
lay hold upon it.
I will not dwell upon my thoughts as I wandered about over that waste.
The wind had risen to a storm charged with fierce showers of stinging
hail, which gave a look of gray wrath to the invisible wind as it swept
slanting by, and then danced and scudded along the levels. The next
point in that night of pain is when I found myself standing at the iron
gate of Oldcastle Hall. I had left the common, passed my own house and
the church, crossed the river, walked through the village, and was
restored to self-consciousness—that is, I knew that I was there—only
when first I stood in the shelter of one of those great pillars and the
monster on its top. Finding the gate open, for they were not precise
about having it fastened, I pushed it and entered. The wind was roaring
in the trees as I think I have never heard it roar since; for the hail
clashed upon the bare branches and twigs, and mingled an unearthly hiss
with the roar. In the midst of it the house stood like a tomb, dark,
silent, without one dim light to show that sleep and not death ruled
within. I could have fancied that there were no windows in it, that it
stood, like an eyeless skull, in that gaunt forest of skeleton trees,
empty and desolate, beaten by the ungenial hail, the dead rain of the
country of death. I passed round to the other side, stepping gently
lest some ear might be awake—as if any ear, even that of Judy’s white
wolf, could have heard the loudest step in such a storm. I heard the
hailstones crush between my feet and the soft grass of the lawn, but I
dared not stop to look up at the back of the house. I went on to the
staircase in the rock, and by its rude steps, dangerous in the flapping
of such storm-wings as swept about it that night, descended to the
little grove below, around the deep-walled pool. Here the wind did not
reach me. It roared overhead, but, save an occasional sigh, as if of
sympathy with their suffering brethren abroad in the woild, the hermits
of this cell stood upright and still around the sleeping water. But my
heart was a well in which a storm boiled and raged; and all that
“pother o’er my head” was peace itself compared to what I felt. I sat
down on the seat at the foot of a tree, where I had first seen Miss
Oldcastle reading. And then I looked up to the house. Yes, there was a
light there! It must be in her window. She then could not rest any more
than I. Sleep was driven from her eyes because she must wed the man she
would not; while sleep was driven from mine because I could not marry
the woman I would. Was that it? No. My heart acquitted me, in part at
least, of thinking only of my own sorrow in the presence of her greater
distress. Gladly would I have given her up for ever, without a hope, to
redeem her from such a bondage. “But it would be to marry another some
day,” suggested the tormentor within. And then the storm, which had a
little abated, broke out afresh in my soul. But before I rose from her
seat I was ready even for that—at least I thought so—if only I might
deliver her from the all but destruction that seemed to be impending
over her. The same moment in which my mind seemed to have arrived at
the possibility of such a resolution, I rose almost involuntarily, and
glancing once more at the dull light in her window—for I did not doubt
that it was her window, though it was much too dark to discern, the
shape of the house—almost felt my way to the stair, and climbed again
into the storm.
But I was quieter now, and able to go home. It must have been nearly
morning, though at this season of the year the morning is undefined,
when I reached my own house. My sister had gone to bed, for I could
always let myself in; nor, indeed, did any one in Marshmailows think
the locking of the door at night an imperative duty.
When I fell asleep, I was again in the old quarry, staring into the
deep well. I thought Mrs Oldcastle was murdering her daughter in the
house above, while I was spell-bound to the spot, where, if I stood
long enough, I should see her body float into the well from the
subterranean passage, the opening of which was just below where I
stood. I was thus confusing and reconstructing the two dreadful stories
of the place—that told me by old Weir, about the circumstances of his
birth; and that told me by Dr Duncan, about Mrs Oldcastle’s treatment
of her elder daughter. But as a white hand and arm appeared in the
water below me, sorrow and pity more than horror broke the bonds of
sleep, and I awoke to less trouble than that of my dreams, only because
that which I feared had not yet come.