FAREWELL
At the turn of winter John Prout went down to Dawlish, and did not
come back. He sent a gloomy letter to Brendon, and explained that
their master desired him to remain.
"He's come down to a shadow of himself," wrote John, "and the doctor
told me yesterday, when I asked him how things were going with Mr.
Hilary, that he'd taken a bad turn of late, and might not weather
another year. He coughs something cruel; but he's wonderful cheerful
since he comed to believe the old things. A clergyman often sits
along with him by the hour and does him good seemingly. I be a large
comfort to him, I do think, so I can't leave him no more, unless he
takes a turn for the good. He wants to see you all again, and if he
doesn't come back, you and Sarah Jane and Tabitha will have to come
and see him, for he's set upon that. Never a man faced death braver.
Now he thinks like he does, he'll be glad to go, I do believe. But
he hasn't lost touch of Ruddyford, as you'll see by the rest of my
letter."
There followed a string of directions from Woodrow to Brendon. Some
Daniel approved, some he disapproved; but all were very carefully
executed. He read Prout's letter to the farm, and wide sorrow and
concern greeted it. The women mourned and openly wept together;
Daniel went for days silent and abstracted. He spoke to none but his
wife. Then Agg and Peter Lethbridge, reduced to considerable doubt
concerning their own future, ventured to question Brendon. They
explained their uncertainties and he set them at rest.
"What will happen when Mr. Woodrow goes is already determined," he
said. "I can't tell you what it is till the time comes; but this
I'll say: I can promise you both to bide here on your present money
as long as you please me."
At Dawlish, Prout waited upon his fading master, nursed him like a
woman, and added to his comfort in every way possible. To please
John, Woodrow sent for a consulting physician from Exeter; but the
man could give no hope.
Now Hilary had ceased to ride, though he let Prout drive him when the
days were fair. Together they went in a little pony-carriage round
about the fir-fledged hills of Haldon; and it was given to Hilary
once more to see the first glory of spring larches, once more to look
into the eyes of the violet and note the little sorrel shake forth
her fleeting loveliness. Great peace of mind had now descended upon
him, and with reduced activities an interest in the lesser things of
nature awakened, and he loved to pluck the flowers, as a child plucks
them, yet with the understanding of a man. The smell of the spring
earth was good to him. He feared not at all to sink therein and
return to Nature the dust that she had lent him. In his heart there
reigned sure consciousness that this was not the end; that a higher,
fuller life opened beyond the earthly portals; that the prelude and
not the play was done when the clod fell and a man's coffin-lid
vanished for ever.
To Prout he imparted these opinions, and John, who doubted not of
eternity, rejoiced to see the strength and peace that henceforth
marked his master's mind.
"How you could bear with me, John! Often, looking back, I marvel at
the patience of you and of Brendon. You had all that I lacked; yet
you listened to my trash and never did you rise and denounce me for a
fool!"
"Not likely. Whatever you was, you wasn't that."
"I did things then, and thought them not wrong that I know now were
wicked."
"Thank God for it that you know, master."
"But is it too late, John?"
"Never too late. Never too late."
"I must leave mercy to my wronged Maker. 'Tis well to be a
free-thinker in a way--just as 'tis well for a country bred man to go
to cities. You don't know what the country really means till you've
been mewed up in the town; and you don't know what faith means till
you've tried to live without it. So I feel. No freedom of thought
will think right into wrong, John Prout."
"God's above all."
"Once I thought, with a wise man who lived before Christ came, that
what we men call life is only a poor shadow dragging a corpse, like a
prisoner drags his chain. Now I know better. Now the things that
seemed good suffer an eclipse, and the things that seemed beautiful
stand out in their naked, ugly truth. They were all a mirage--all
shadows in a desert of sand. I thought that they quenched thirst and
satisfied hunger. That was part of the great blindness, John. Now I
know that the sun-dance and glare and dazzle was all a wicked sham.
I wove them for myself; I blinded myself; I deluded myself. If I
could tell you how base I'd been--what things I did, believing them
to be reasonable and not wrong. The folly--the madness! I said to
myself, 'Nature does neither right nor wrong; it is only the foolish
man who calls her cruel or kind. She rises above these human ideas.
And so will I.' Yes, I thought to copy Nature and follow the thing
she prompted. I dinned into my own ears that what I did was far
above right or wrong. I said to myself, 'Let the fools who like
words call their actions "good" or "evil." Do you, for your part,
look to it that your actions are "reasonable," and so content your
conscience that demands only reason.' What a light has burned in on
all that preposterous nonsense since! Crimes--crimes I have
committed in the name of nature and reason. O God, Prout, when I
think---- And now I know that it will take a forgiving Saviour to
save me. Well may Christ have taught us that God is a merciful God!
I should go mad if I did not grasp that unutterable truth, John. To
His mercy I trust myself--and not only myself."
He prattled on of the dogmas he had now accepted, and behind every
thought and pious hope John Prout saw Sarah Jane. Often the sick man
spoke directly of her; more often, when declaring his new convictions
he used no names; but Prout--from his inner knowledge--perceived
which way his master's mind was tending. He gathered that Hilary
hoped Sarah Jane would presently come to see with her husband's eyes
and abandon a certain large enthusiasm for her own kind in favour of
a narrower trust and confidence in the tenets of Christianity alone.
Once or twice Prout believed that the other was actually going to
confess his action of the past; but Hilary never did so. He told his
old servant that the farm had been left to Brendon, but he gave no
reason for the step. He was, however, quick enough to be astonished
at John's lack of surprise.
"Did he tell you? Did you know it, that you take it so calmly?" he
asked.
"To be frank, I did know it," answered John. "Don't blame her. You
understand women better'n me; and you'll guess how hard 'twas for her
to keep it in. 'Twas a night five year ago and more, when chance
throwed us together at Lydford, and she helped me home against a
storm. By the same token a rainbow showed over against the moon. Of
course I never spoke of it again; more did she."
"You don't blame me?"
"Who be I to blame you? No man on earth have ever had a better
master than what you have been to me."
"And no man ever loved a man better than you have loved me, John.
Well I know it."
So oftentimes they talked, and when Hilary was unequal to speech he
made Prout read to him and rehearse those things that he best liked
to hear repeated.
Sometimes, however, the sick man cared for no company other than his
thoughts; and then he would bid John depart, and for hours together
brood upon the past and survey his vanished deeds in the light of
present belief. A fading memory served to dim their details, and
what was left faith much distorted. He remembered the glow and glory
of the first kiss, and loathed that damnable contact as the beginning
of the master-sin of his days; he beheld himself imparadised in those
lovely arms; and he shuddered and saw all hell watching with hungry
eyes.
Woodrow knew that he would not return to Ruddyford. He had planned
to die there; but now he was indifferent, and already pictured his
own mound under the shadow of the old church at Dawlish. He was
desirous, however, to take leave of his few friends, and invited
Prout to plan their visits in such a way that they should not know
these meetings must be the last.
Miss Prout first came and spent three days. With her she brought
little dishes made with her own hands; and while she remained at
Dawlish she spent most of her time in the kitchen, to the concern of
the landlady, who resented Tabitha. Hilary cared not much for
Prout's sister, and bade her good-bye indifferently. She returned
home with a black story of his decline, and foretold that he must
soon pass. Next Daniel went down, but the time was full of work, and
he stayed a very short while. To speak became increasingly difficult
for Woodrow; yet he liked to listen to Daniel, and came to him in
some respects as a learner. He invited Brendon to preach to him, and
the earnestness and conviction of the big man impressed him. Old
instincts awoke to the challenge at these dogmatic utterances, but
the sufferer smothered them. He believed them no more than a mere
mechanical process of the brain--a reflex action persisting after the
death of the habit of thought that was responsible for it. He made
himself believe all that Brendon did. And, last of all, he believed
in hell, because Christ did.
Hilary was frank with Daniel, and did not hide his approaching end.
"I shall hope to see you once more," he said. "And that will be the
last time. I should much wish you to be with me when I die, if that
is not a selfish wish. Would you mind?"
"No. I want to be with you then. Do you like the minister here? Is
he the right man for you?"
"I value him very much. A gentle, hopeful man."
"Be sure I'll come."
"And I must see Sarah Jane too. Don't tell her that it will be the
last time, because that would be a great grief to her, for she's fond
of me, I know."
"Yes, she is."
"Let her come next week for a day or two, if you can spare her. But
I'll not tell her that it's the last 'good-bye.' All the same, I'm
afraid she'll guess it for herself."
"Try to do her good--same as you have me," said Brendon. "You won't
speak many more words on human ears now. Let 'em be as the Lord
wills. He'll put it into your heart what to say to her. A better,
nobler woman than my wife never lived. Fearless and brave and
high-minded--I never saw the like of her and never shall. But all
the same, from the first--from our courting--there was always
something I couldn't understand. Her point of view--not all pure
godliness; yet I'd not dare to say she was ungodly in anything. But
a sort of high habit of mind that wouldn't bend to the yoke. Always
hated and still hates to call herself a miserable sinner afore the
footstool of Grace. Yet humble, and gentle, and true to my heart and
my hopes here and hereafter, as the moss is true to the stone."
"No man was ever worthy of her, Daniel."
"I know it. Tell her the meek are blessed and inherit the earth."
"And blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. I've
never known but one woman that I could think of as able to look at
God, Daniel, and that's your wife. Don't ask me to dare to teach
her--'tis for her to teach me; and teach you too. Why should she be
fearful? She can't be. Perfect love casteth out fear. That's her
lesson to us."
Brendon considered doubtfully.
"You may be right," he said. "All the same----"
And when the future owner of Ruddyford returned home, his wife made
ready. She knew full well without words that this was her last visit
to Hilary Woodrow; and she braced her mind for the ordeal and all
that it must mean. She had long since ceased to fear that he would
speak, and when Sarah Jane and Hilary met for the last time it was
not necessary for him to inform her that their secret perished with
themselves.
"Leave it to be told in the next world, if it is right that it should
be told," he said to her. "Sometimes I think it may be a part of my
purgation and proper punishment, in some place of learning and
cleansing, that I may yet have to confess this terrible sin before my
fellow spirits--even to the spirit of Daniel himself, when his turn
comes. That seems justice, Sarah Jane, as man pictures justice in
his feeble ignorance. But at any rate I'm convinced, so far as this
life goes, that the proper course is silence. We've no right to
wreck lives by imparting our knowledge to them, if that knowledge can
only bring ceaseless suffering along with it. I've confessed my sin
to God a thousand times. But I know that both punishment and
absolution belong to the world to come, not to this."
"Like a schoolboy called up afore his master--to learn the best or
worst," she said.
"Even like that. Nothing's settled down here; nothing is finished
down here. Everything has to wait till the light touches it."
"And even good and evil ban't understood down here. Maybe you'll
find in that light you won't cut such a poor figure after all. Ban't
your many great, good, generous deeds and kindly thoughts to count?
Ban't your last years to count? Be it a small thing that you've
fought your way to your God through all that thicket of books?"
"Not a small thing for myself, certainly. All the difference between
heaven and hell, Sarah Jane."
"Oh, don't let that last word come on your lips, for God's sake," she
begged. "I do hate it, like I hate a snake. Sometimes, for all I'm
so glad that you are happy and have got God, I can find it in me to
wish you was the same as you used to be without Him. You was a deal
braver, when you laughed at hell, than you be now. And I'll laugh at
hell for ever and ever--laugh at it still, even if I was to find
myself in it."
"Think of me as I am, Sarah Jane, and believe what I say now. Don't
remember me as I was, or call back the vile things I uttered then.
Do you remember that once I said God was only the shadow of man's
self reflected against the background of his own self-consciousness?
I thought that a very fine idea when I made it up. Now I know 'twas
the Devil that prompted it."
"I reckoned nobody believed in God and hell both--except my own dear
Daniel. And now he's got you to think the same. But I hoped 'twould
be t'other way round, and you'd make him flout it."
"Christ believed in it."
"An' quenched it for ever, didn't He? So some seem to think, anyhow.
Mr. Matherson be shaky about it, I'm sure, for Dan's very unsettled
with the Luke Gospellers along of that very thing. He's going to
leave 'em. 'Tis a great grief to him to go, but he says that Mr.
Matherson's in danger, and that much larning have made him mad here
and there. Did you ever hear tell of the Salvation Army?"
"Yes. It's a new thing, but it's growing fast, and my clergyman
believes that in time to come it may be a great power for good in the
world."
"Dan's very much took by it; but Mr. Matherson be doubtful. My
husband's like to join 'em, I believe. He says they work on Bible
bed-rock, and seem to him to follow closer on the actual words of the
Lord than any of the regulars."
"If 'tis a good thing, God will surely bless it, Sarah Jane."
"'Tis all one to me, so long as Daniel is content."
They made pretence that this was not the last meeting, and that Sarah
Jane should come down again in the summer and bring her child. But
death was written on the man's face now, and she knew how soon the
end must come. The religious atmosphere, with which he surrounded
himself, stifled her worse than the physical odours of a sick
chamber. When the clergyman came, she was glad to rush away for a
time and walk by the sea.
Hilary rarely rose before noon; but on the day that she was to return
home he partially dressed and went into a sitting-room. It faced
south, and the train, which was to take her away, would pass along in
sight of it.
Their actual parting was brief. Prout left them alone and waited
outside.
"Good-bye--you--you--the best and bravest of living things that I
have ever seen," he said.
"Good-bye, dear Hilary. We shall meet again--somewhere."
"I know it--thank my God I know it."
She went close to him and looked into his haggard face. Then she
kissed him.
"I'll wave my handkercher as the train passes."
"And I'll wave mine, Sarah Jane."
Presently, when the train steamed along between Hilary Woodrow and
the sea, though Prout waved from the window and Woodrow stood behind
him and strained to catch his last glimpse of her, they only marked
her hand held out, and the dance of her handkerchief fluttering. She
saw nothing, for the blue of her April eyes was dimmed and drowned.