Solitude and silence, and bitter thought are great tamers of the human
heart. "As ye sow, so shall ye reap," says the Apostle, and John
Ayliffe was now forced to put in the sickle. Death was before his
eyes, looming large and dark and terrible, like the rock of adamant in
the fairy tale, against which the bark of the adventurous mariner was
sure to be dashed. Death for the first time presented itself to his
mind in all its grim reality. Previously it had seemed with him a
thing hardly worth considering--inevitable--appointed to all men--to
every thing that lives and breathes--no more to man than to the sheep,
or the ox, or any other of the beasts that perish. He had contemplated
it merely as death--as the extinction of being--as the goal of a
career--as the end of a chase where one might lie down and rest, and
forget the labor and the clamor and the trouble of the course. He had
never in thought looked beyond the boundary--he had hardly asked
himself if there was aught beyond. He had satisfied himself by saying,
as so many men do, "Every man must die some time or another," and had
never asked his own heart, "What is it to die?"
But now death presented itself under a new aspect; cold and stern,
relentless and mysterious, saying in a low solemn tone, "I am the
guide. Follow me there. Whither I lead thou knowest not, nor seest
what shall befall thee. The earth-worm and the mole fret but the
earthly garment of the man; the flesh, and the bones, and the beauty
go down to dust, and ashes, and corruption. The man comes with me to a
land undeclared--to a presence infinitely awful--to judgment and to
fate; for on this side of the dark portal through which I am the
guide, there is no such thing as fate. It lies beyond the grave, and
thither thou must come without delay."
He had heard of immortality, but he had never thought of it. He had
been told of another world, but he had never rightly believed in it.
The thought of a just judge, and of an eternal doom, had been
presented to him in many shapes, but he had never received it; and he
had lived and acted, and thought and felt, as if there were neither
eternity, nor judgment, nor punishment. But in that dread hour the
deep-rooted, inexplicable conviction of a God and immortality,
implanted in the hearts of all men, and only crushed down in the
breasts of any by the dust of vanity and the lumber of the world,
rose up and bore its fruits according to the soil. They were all
bitter. If there were another life, a judgment, an eternity of weal or
woe, what was to be his fate? How should he meet the terrors of the
judgment-seat--he who had never prayed from boyhood--he who through
life had never sought God--he who had done in every act something that
conscience reproved, and that religion forbade?
Every moment as he lay there and thought, the terrors of the vast
unbounded future grew greater and more awful. The contemplation almost
drove him to frenzy, and he actually made an effort to rise from his
bed, but fell back again with a deep groan. The sound caught the ear
of good Jenny Best, and running in she asked if he wanted any thing.
"Stay with me, stay with me," said the unhappy young man, "I cannot
bear this--it is very terrible--I am dying, Mrs. Best, I am dying."
Mrs. Best shook her head with a melancholy look; but whether from
blunted feelings, from the hard and painful life which they endured,
or from a sense that there is to be compensation somewhere, and that
any change must be for the better, or cannot be much worse than the
life of this earth, or from want of active imagination, the poorer and
less educated classes I have generally remarked view death and all its
accessories with less of awe, if not of dread, than those who have
been surrounded by luxuries, and perhaps have used every effort to
keep the contemplation of the last dread scene afar, till it is
actually forced upon their notice. Her words were homely, and though
intended to comfort did not give much consolation to the dying man.
"Ah well, sir, it is very sad," she said, "to die so young; though
every one must die sooner or later, and it makes but little difference
whether it be now or then. Life is not so long to look back at, sir,
as to look forward to, and when one dies young one is spared many a
thing. I recollect my poor eldest son who is gone, when he lay dying
just like you in that very bed, and I was taking on sadly, he said to
me, 'Mother don't cry so. It's just as well for me to go now when I've
not done much mischief or suffered much sorrow.' He was as good a
young man as ever lived; and so Mr. Dixwell said; for the parson used
to come and see him every day, and that was a great comfort and
consolation to the poor boy."
"Was it?" said John Ayliffe, thoughtfully. "How long did he know he
was dying?"
"Not much above a week, sir," said Mrs. Best; "for till Mr. Dixwell
told him, he always thought he would get better. We knew it a long
time however, for he had been in a decline a year, and his father had
been laying by money for the funeral three months before he died. So
when it was all over we put him by quite comfortable."
"Put him by!" said John Ayliffe.
"Yes, sir, we buried him, I mean," answered Mrs. Best. "That's our way
of talking. But Mr. Dixwell had been to see him long before. He knew
that he was dying, and he wouldn't tell him as long as there was any
hope; for he said it was not necessary--that he had never seen any one
better prepared to meet his Maker than poor Robert, and that it was no
use to disturb him about the matter till it came very near."
"Ah, Dixwell is a wise man and a good man," said John Ayliffe. "I
should very much like to see him."
"I can run for him in a minute sir," said Dame Best, but John Ayliffe
replied, in a faint voice, "No, no, don't, don't on any account."
In the mean while, the very person of whom they were speaking had
descended from the up-stairs room, finished his breakfast in order to
give the surgeon time to fulfil his errand, and then putting on his
three-cornered hat had walked out to ascertain at what house Mr. Short
had stopped. The first place at which he inquired was the farm-house
at which the good surgeon had stabled his horse on the preceding
night. Entering by the kitchen door, he found the good woman of the
place bustling about amongst pots and pans and maidservants, and other
utensils, and though she received him with much reverence, she did not
for a moment cease her work.
"Well, Dame," he said, "I hope you're all well here."
"Quite well, your reverence----Betty, empty that pail."
"Why, I've seen Mr. Short come down here," said the parson, "and I
thought somebody might be ill."
"Very kind, your reverence--mind yen don't spill it.--No, it warn't
here. It's some young man down at Jenny Best's, who's baddish, I
fancy, for the Doctor stabled his horse here last night."
"I am glad to hear none of you are ill," said Mr. Dixwell, and bidding
her good morning, he walked away straight to the cottage where John
Ayliffe lay. There was no one in the outer room, and the good
clergyman, privileged by his cloth, walked straight on into the room
beyond, and stood by the bedside of the dying man before any one was
aware of his presence.
Mr. Dixwell was not so much surprised to see there on that bed of
death the face of him he called Sir John Hastings, as might be
supposed. The character which the surgeon had given of his patient,
the mysterious absence of the young man from the Hall, and the very
circumstance of his unwillingness to have his name and the place where
he was lying known, had all lent a suspicion of the truth. John
Ayliffe's eyes were shut at the moment he entered, and he seemed
dozing, though in truth sleep was far away. But the little movement of
Mr. Dixwell towards his bedside, and of Mrs. Best giving place for the
clergyman to sit down, caused him to open his eyes, and his first
exclamation was, "Ah, Dixwell! so that damned fellow Short has
betrayed me, and told when I ordered him not."
"Swear not at all," said Mr. Dixwell. "Short has not betrayed you, Sir
John. I came here by accident, merely hearing there was a young man
lying ill here, but without knowing actually that it was you, although
your absence from home has caused considerable uneasiness. I am very
sorry to see you in such a state. How did all this happen?"
"I will not tell you, nor answer a single word," replied John Ayliffe,
"unless you promise not to say a word of my being here to any one. I
know you will keep your word if you say so, and Jenny Best too--won't
you, Jenny?--but I doubt that fellow Short."
"You need not doubt him, Sir John," said the clergyman; "for he is
very discreet. As for me, I will promise, and will keep my word; for I
see not what good it could be to reveal it to any body if you dislike
it. You will be more tenderly nursed here, I am sure, than you would
be by unprincipled, dissolute servants, and since your poor mother's
death--"
John Ayliffe groaned heavily, and the clergyman stopped. The next
moment, however, the young man said, "Then you do promise, do you?"
"I do," replied Mr. Dixwell. "I will not at all reveal the facts
without your consent."
"Well, then, sit down, and let us be alone together for a bit," said
John Ayliffe, and Mrs. Best quietly quitted the room and shut the
door.
John Ayliffe turned his languid eyes anxiously upon the clergyman,
saying, "I think I am dying, Mr. Dixwell."
He would fain have had a contradiction or even a ray of earthly hope;
but he got none; for it was evident to the eyes of Mr. Dixwell,
accustomed as he had been for many years to attend by the bed of
sickness and see the last spark of life go out, that John Ayliffe was
a dying man--that he might live hours, nay days; but that the
irrevocable summons had been given, that he was within the shadow of
the arch, and must pass through!
"I am afraid you are, Sir John," he replied, "but I trust that God
will still afford you time to make preparation for the great change
about to take place, and by his grace I will help you to the utmost in
my power."
John Ayliffe was silent, and closed his eyes again. Nor was he the
first to speak; for after having waited for several minutes, Mr.
Dixwell resumed, saying in a grave but kindly tone, "I am afraid, Sir
John, you have not hitherto given much thought to the subject which is
now so sadly fixed upon you. We must make haste, my good sir; we must
not lose a moment."
"Then do you think I am going to die so soon?" asked the young man
with a look of horror; for it cost him a hard and terrible struggle to
bring his mind to grasp the thought of death being inevitable and nigh
at hand. He could hardly conceive it--he could hardly believe it--that
he who had so lately been full of life and health, who had been
scheming schemes, and laying out plans, and had looked upon futurity
as a certain possession--that, he was to die in a few short hours; but
whenever the wilful heart would have rebelled against the sentence,
and struggle to resist it, sensations which he had never felt before,
told him in a voice not to be mistaken, "It must be so!"
"No one can tell," replied Mr. Dixwell, "how soon it may be, or how
long God may spare you; but one thing is certain, Sir John, that years
with you have now dwindled down into days, and that days may very
likely be shortened to hours. But had you still years to live, I
should say the same thing, that no time is to be lost; too much has
been lost already."
John Ayliffe did not comprehend him in the least. He could not grasp
the idea as yet of a whole life being made a preparation for death,
and looked vacantly in the clergyman's face, utterly confounded at the
thought.
Mr. Dixwell had a very difficult task before him--one of the most
difficult he had ever undertaken; for he had not only to arouse the
conscience, but to awaken the intellect to things importing all to the
soul's salvation, which had never been either felt or believed, or
comprehended before. At first too, there was the natural repugnance
and resistance of a wilful, selfish, over-indulged heart to receive
painful or terrible truths, and even when the obstacle was overcome,
the young man's utter ignorance of religion and want of moral feeling
proved another almost insurmountable. He found that the only access to
John Ayliffe's heart was by the road of terror, and without scruple he
painted in stern and fearful colors the awful state of the impenitent
spirit called suddenly into the presence of its God. With an unpitying
hand he stripped away all self-delusions from the young man's mind and
laid his condition before him, and his future state in all their dark
and terrible reality.
This is not intended for what is called a religious book, and
therefore I must pass over the arguments he used, and the course he
proceeded in. Suffice it that he labored earnestly for two hours to
awaken something like repentance in the bosom of John Ayliffe, and he
succeeded in the end better than the beginning had promised. When
thoroughly convinced of the moral danger of his situation, John
Ayliffe began to listen more eagerly, to reply more humbly, and to
seek earnestly for some consolation beyond the earth. His depression
and despair, as terrible truths became known to him were just in
proportion to his careless boldness and audacity while he had remained
in wilful ignorance, and as soon as Mr. Dixwell saw that all the
clinging to earthly expectations was gone--that every frail support of
mortal thoughts was taken away, he began to give him gleams of hope
from another world, and had the satisfaction of finding that the
doubts and terrors which remained arose from the consciousness of his
own sins and crimes, the heavy load of which he felt for the first
time. He told him that repentance was never too late--he showed him
that Christ himself had stamped that great truth with a mark that
could not be mistaken in his pardon of the dying thief upon the cross,
and while he exhorted him to examine himself strictly, and to make
sure that what he felt was real repentance, and not the mere fear of
death which so many mistake for it in their last hours, he assured him
that if he could feel certain of that fact, and trust in his Saviour,
he might comfort himself and rest in good hope. That done, he resolved
to leave the young man to himself for a few hours that he might
meditate and try the great question he had propounded with his own
heart. He called in Mistress Best, however, and told her that if
during his absence Sir John wished her to read to him, it would be a
great kindness to read certain passages of Scripture which he pointed
out in the house Bible. The good woman very willingly undertook the
task, and shortly after the clergyman was gone John Ayliffe applied to
hear the words of that book against which he had previously shut his
ears. He found comfort and consolation and guidance therein; for Mr.
Dixwell, who, on the one subject which had been the study of his life
was wise as well as learned, had selected judiciously such passages as
tend to inspire hope without diminishing penitence.