For a while he lingered near the house, restlessly, forlornly, but by
and by he went down to the rocks, where he stood looking out over the
sea.
Piled up on the horizon, like a vast range of purple-black hills,
heavy masses of cloud drifted, scarce perceptibly, from east to west
of the pale slate-blue sky; and where these rugged heaps were broken
the heavens sank away in limitless wells of pure pale light, each edged
with a border of bright grass-green. All the light of the day seemed
gathered there――like a reflection from a world beyond――and Graham, as
he stood at gaze before it, began to wonder if he should ever come any
nearer to it than he was just there and then. In the _Phaedo_ he had
found many arguments for the immortality of the soul, but more lately
he had realised, in his own life, the only one perhaps that actually
counted――and this no argument at all; but merely a very simple human
desire, a desire to look again upon the face of his friend, the face of
him who was buried in the grave.
He stooped down and leaned over the slowly-heaving water, watching it
rise and sink back, and rise again and sink――over the dark, cold water
that seemed nearly black against the rocks――lower still, and lower,
till his hair almost brushed the surface.
‘O water whispering
Still through the dark into mine ears,――
As with mine eyes, is it not now with his?――
Mine eyes that add to thy cold spring,
Wan water, wandering water weltering,
This hidden tide of tears.’
Presently he went on a little farther, clambering back over the
rocks, and taking a rough path which brought him eventually to the
church. The place was quite deserted, as it almost always was, and he
pushed open the gate. He walked over the soft grass till he came to
Brocklehurst’s grave, where he knelt down. The murmur of the sea rose
from below――monotonous, very peaceful. Ah, were they not happiest who
slept here with that dim music drawing them farther and farther from
the world? An infinite melancholy drew its sombre wings about the boy’s
forehead――a melancholy not wholly sprung from his recent sorrow, but a
kind of broader pity for all the suffering bound up with life:――pity,
above all, for the young boy who lay now under the heavy earth, yet
who had once been so bright and active upon it. He found it curiously
hard to think of him as dead, out of existence. Was he not still, even
in that dim shadowy world whither he had passed, conscious, sentient?
Could he not still feel some faint emotion, some faint stirring of
hushed joy or sorrow? Was not his heart still beating softly under
the grass? He stretched himself upon the grave, lying full length,
motionless. Face to face they lay, only a little earth between them;
and far below he seemed to hear a breath drawn almost silently, to hear
the slow, sad stream of a boy’s tears falling, falling evermore. In the
stillness he could hear his own heart beat――beat with the life that
was flowing away from him in a wide, clear flame, the flame of a lamp
burning swiftly up into the night.
The sun had set when he turned to go home. But as he passed the church
door he noticed that it stood ajar, and went in. A bucket of water and
a broom were in the porch, left there evidently for some purpose; but
the church itself was empty.
He sat down for a while in one of the pews; then he knelt, leaning his
face between his hands. A strong desire to pray had come over him. But
pray to whom? Was this then, at last, to be the hour of the unknown
God?... And a few words floated into his mind, came to him again and
again, like a memory of some old tune, or line of poetry: ‘Little
children, love one another....’ It seemed as if some one were stooping
down over him, it seemed as if some one had kissed him, kissed him
softly, had laid a gentle hand upon his head.
And a feeling of ineffable peace began to creep into his heart.
Could it possibly be, then, that he was really nearer to the unseen
world than others were? Now, surely, in some inexplicable way he had
been drawn very very close――closer than ever before. He had a sense
that something was about to happen, and that it would be something
great, momentous, supreme. It was as if he were upon the eve of some
stupendous discovery; and he waited――waited till the signal should be
given him――some sign which, unlike any others he had hitherto received,
would come, this time, he knew, from without.
A profound stillness had fallen upon the church, like the closing in of
heavy waters. The murmur of the sea had stopped.
Then across the hush there came a low sigh――a whisper as of the
brushing together of innumerable leaves――a whisper which grew deeper
and deeper, till at last it seemed the music of some wonderful summer,
and Graham raised his head. Surely the light had grown marvellously
clear and soft. A scent of many flowers was in the air; a murmur of a
fountain.
And as he knelt, motionless, the walls of the church sank away from
before him, and there――standing there in that radiance of perfect
light――ah, there, at last, was Harold!
He stood in his garden, and he was more beautiful than Graham had
ever yet beheld him ... he stretched out his hands ... he smiled....
His feet were pale on the dark rich grass with its powder of crocuses.
Above his head the branches of the trees almost met, forming a
delicate roof, a roof of green leaves, a green trellis very finely
woven, through which the light, mingled with a falling music of little
feathered throats, floated down soft and cool. All around him was that
wonderful liquid light, and the music of water, listless, plashing,
as it dropped into some dim, cool, green-lipped basin of stone. And
over everything there hung a calm so deep, and pure, and holy, that
all Graham’s sorrow seemed to melt away before it into one impassioned
sense of gratitude, and love, and peace.
‘Oh, I am coming――I am coming,’ he sobbed, rising to his feet, and
taking a step forward, quickly, blindly. For a moment he stood there,
swaying with a curious movement from side to side; then he gave a
little moan and fell forward heavily on his face.