THE BROTHERHOOD OF DEATH
Far from the madding crowd of London, beyond sound of all the shouting
and the tumult, they laid to rest, “each in his narrow cell,” Father
Francis and Billy of Mayfair. The priest, after lingering for two days,
had died in Charing Cross Hospital from heart failure, resulting from
the injuries he had sustained in the memorable meeting in Trafalgar
Square. For the moment, and to all seeming, the Bottle had triumphed
over the Bible; but the preacher of the higher truth, being dead, yet
spoke to the hearts of thousands, and many journeyed down from London
to attend his funeral.
It was the Duke, his father, who, hearing of Billy’s boyish impulse
to avenge the murderous attack on his favourite son, decided that the
London waif, who had paid for his temerity with his life, should not
sleep his last sleep in a pauper’s grave. In life these two had been
separated by an enormous social gulf. Rank and culture belonged to the
son of the ducal house. In his veins flowed the blood of royalty--the
blood of a lecherous monarch of the House of Stuart. But Billy?--Well,
what mattered now? Death, the great leveller, had made such questions
quite superfluous. Duke’s son and ragged outcast of the streets, they
had entered into the same rest, and in death they were not divided.
On Ranmore, one of the loveliest of the Surrey hills, they ended
together the little journey of their mortal lives. The sun shone
brightly on the churchyard; far overhead great billowy clouds, slow and
majestic, sailed across the illimitable blue. The snow had vanished
from the rolling hills. It might have been a day in early spring.
“I am the resurrection and the life, said the Lord: he that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and
believeth in me shall never die.... We brought nothing into this world,
and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave and the Lord
hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord.”
When they came to the graveside, aristocrat and pauper came with the
same promise of life and immortality. As each had borne the image of
the earthy, so each should bear the image of the heavenly. The boast of
heraldry availed nothing. The pomp of power was as an idle tale. This
was “the inevitable hour” for one and all!
The old duke, white-haired and tremulous, lifted his tired eyes to the
far-off sky when they committed to the earth the body of his much-loved
son. The old man was trying to grasp the “sure and certain hope!” He
could not weep, as others wept, for “these our brothers.”
But two stalwart men, standing close at hand, could not keep back their
tears. There was a great lump in the bull throat of P. C. Dormer that
nearly choked him when he looked on the last home of the child in the
tragedy of whose life he had played a cruel and much-repented part. The
strong, rough man had found a place for sorrow and remorse, and it was
sanctified with tears.
And Joe the stableman, he, too, passed his huge red hand across his
smarting eyes, sorrowing much that he would see his little friend no
more.
“Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live and is full
of misery. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower; he fleeth as it
were a shadow and never continueth in one stay.”
Yet, there remaineth a rest....
“I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, From henceforth
blessed are the dead that die in the Lord: even so, saith the Spirit;
for they rest from their labours.”
In little groups, or one by one, the mourners went away; Aldwyth and
Herrick together, passing down the church path--and onward down the
path of life. The tottering duke, leaning on his eldest son, went home
to his great, dull mansion; P. C. Dormer returned to night duty in the
London streets; Joe the stableman went back to his horses in the mews.
All, all the living left the lonely dead. Thus, one day, will you and I
be left, alone in our long last sleep.
The glow of the sun would wane; darkness would shroud the graves; the
pale beams of the moon would rest there, and, in turn, the steely light
of winter stars; the strong spring breeze would bend the grass, and the
daisies would cluster there; the song of happy birds would come and
go; the tender bud of hope, and the red ripeness of the autumn leaf;
daybreak and sunset over the hills; summer and winter, seed-time and
harvest,--till that great day of ripened grain, when the angels will be
the reapers, and the harvest the end of the world.