CHAPTER XXXVII.
Solitude and silence, and bitter thought are great tamers of the humanheart. "As ye sow, so shall ye reap," says the Apostle, and JohnAyliffe was now forced to put in the sickle. Death was before hiseyes, looming large and dark and terrible, like the rock of adamant inthe fairy tale, against which the bark of the adventurous mariner wassure to be dashed. Death for the first time presented itself to hismind in all its grim reality. Previously it had seemed with him athing hardly worth considering--inevitable--appointed to all men--toevery 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 contemplatedit merely as death--as the extinction of being--as the goal of acareer--as the end of a chase where one might lie down and rest, andforget the labor and the clamor and the trouble of the course. He hadnever in thought looked beyond the boundary--he had hardly askedhimself 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 hadnever 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 theguide. Follow me there. Whither I lead thou knowest not, nor seestwhat shall befall thee. The earth-worm and the mole fret but theearthly garment of the man; the flesh, and the bones, and the beautygo down to dust, and ashes, and corruption. The man comes with me to aland undeclared--to a presence infinitely awful--to judgment and tofate; for on this side of the dark portal through which I am theguide, there is no such thing as fate. It lies beyond the grave, andthither thou must come without delay."
He had heard of immortality, but he had never thought of it. He hadbeen told of another world, but he had never rightly believed in it.The thought of a just judge, and of an eternal doom, had beenpresented to him in many shapes, but he had never received it; and hehad lived and acted, and thought and felt, as if there were neithereternity, nor judgment, nor punishment. But in that dread hour thedeep-rooted, inexplicable conviction of a God and immortality,implanted in the hearts of all men, and only crushed down in thebreasts 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 allbitter. If there were another life, a judgment, an eternity of weal orwoe, what was to be his fate? How should he meet the terrors of thejudgment-seat--he who had never prayed from boyhood--he who throughlife had never sought God--he who had done in every act something thatconscience reproved, and that religion forbade?
Every moment as he lay there and thought, the terrors of the vastunbounded future grew greater and more awful. The contemplation almostdrove him to frenzy, and he actually made an effort to rise from hisbed, but fell back again with a deep groan. The sound caught the earof 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 cannotbear this--it is very terrible--I am dying, Mrs. Best, I am dying."
Mrs. Best shook her head with a melancholy look; but whether fromblunted feelings, from the hard and painful life which they endured,or from a sense that there is to be compensation somewhere, and thatany change must be for the better, or cannot be much worse than thelife of this earth, or from want of active imagination, the poorer andless educated classes I have generally remarked view death and all itsaccessories with less of awe, if not of dread, than those who havebeen surrounded by luxuries, and perhaps have used every effort tokeep the contemplation of the last dread scene afar, till it isactually forced upon their notice. Her words were homely, and thoughintended to comfort did not give much consolation to the dying man.
"Ah well, sir, it is very sad," she said, "to die so young; thoughevery one must die sooner or later, and it makes but little differencewhether 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 athing. I recollect my poor eldest son who is gone, when he lay dyingjust like you in that very bed, and I was taking on sadly, he said tome, 'Mother don't cry so. It's just as well for me to go now when I'venot done much mischief or suffered much sorrow.' He was as good ayoung man as ever lived; and so Mr. Dixwell said; for the parson usedto come and see him every day, and that was a great comfort andconsolation to the poor boy."
"Was it?" said John Ayliffe, thoughtfully. "How long did he know hewas dying?"
"Not much above a week, sir," said Mrs. Best; "for till Mr. Dixwelltold him, he always thought he would get better. We knew it a longtime however, for he had been in a decline a year, and his father hadbeen laying by money for the funeral three months before he died. Sowhen 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 wayof talking. But Mr. Dixwell had been to see him long before. He knewthat he was dying, and he wouldn't tell him as long as there was anyhope; for he said it was not necessary--that he had never seen any onebetter prepared to meet his Maker than poor Robert, and that it was nouse to disturb him about the matter till it came very near."
"Ah, Dixwell is a wise man and a good man," said John Ayliffe. "Ishould very much like to see him."
"I can run for him in a minute sir," said Dame Best, but John Ayliffereplied, 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 haddescended from the up-stairs room, finished his breakfast in order togive the surgeon time to fulfil his errand, and then putting on histhree-cornered hat had walked out to ascertain at what house Mr. Shorthad stopped. The first place at which he inquired was the farm-houseat which the good surgeon had stabled his horse on the precedingnight. Entering by the kitchen door, he found the good woman of theplace bustling about amongst pots and pans and maidservants, and otherutensils, and though she received him with much reverence, she did notfor 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 Ithought somebody might be ill."
"Very kind, your reverence--mind yen don't spill it.--No, it warn'there. It's some young man down at Jenny Best's, who's baddish, Ifancy, for the Doctor stabled his horse here last night."
"I am glad to hear none of you are ill," said Mr. Dixwell, and biddingher good morning, he walked away straight to the cottage where JohnAyliffe lay. There was no one in the outer room, and the goodclergyman, privileged by his cloth, walked straight on into the roombeyond, and stood by the bedside of the dying man before any one wasaware of his presence.
Mr. Dixwell was not so much surprised to see there on that bed ofdeath the face of him he called Sir John Hastings, as might besupposed. The character which the surgeon had given of his patient,the mysterious absence of the young man from the Hall, and the verycircumstance of his unwillingness to have his name and the place wherehe was lying known, had all lent a suspicion of the truth. JohnAyliffe's eyes were shut at the moment he entered, and he seemeddozing, though in truth sleep was far away. But the little movement ofMr. Dixwell towards his bedside, and of Mrs. Best giving place for theclergyman to sit down, caused him to open his eyes, and his firstexclamation was, "Ah, Dixwell! so that damned fellow Short hasbetrayed me, and told when I ordered him not."
"Swear not at all," said Mr. Dixwell. "Short has not betrayed you, SirJohn. I came here by accident, merely hearing there was a young manlying ill here, but without knowing actually that it was you, althoughyour absence from home has caused considerable uneasiness. I am verysorry 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. Iknow you will keep your word if you say so, and Jenny Best too--won'tyou, Jenny?--but I doubt that fellow Short."
"You need not doubt him, Sir John,"
said the clergyman; "for he isvery discreet. As for me, I will promise, and will keep my word; for Isee not what good it could be to reveal it to any body if you dislikeit. You will be more tenderly nursed here, I am sure, than you wouldbe by unprincipled, dissolute servants, and since your poor mother'sdeath--"
John Ayliffe groaned heavily, and the clergyman stopped. The nextmoment, however, the young man said, "Then you do promise, do you?"
"I do," replied Mr. Dixwell. "I will not at all reveal the factswithout your consent."
"Well, then, sit down, and let us be alone together for a bit," saidJohn Ayliffe, and Mrs. Best quietly quitted the room and shut thedoor.
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 ofsickness and see the last spark of life go out, that John Ayliffe wasa dying man--that he might live hours, nay days; but that theirrevocable summons had been given, that he was within the shadow ofthe arch, and must pass through!
"I am afraid you are, Sir John," he replied, "but I trust that Godwill still afford you time to make preparation for the great changeabout to take place, and by his grace I will help you to the utmost inmy power."
John Ayliffe was silent, and closed his eyes again. Nor was he thefirst to speak; for after having waited for several minutes, Mr.Dixwell resumed, saying in a grave but kindly tone, "I am afraid, SirJohn, you have not hitherto given much thought to the subject which isnow so sadly fixed upon you. We must make haste, my good sir; we mustnot lose a moment."
"Then do you think I am going to die so soon?" asked the young manwith a look of horror; for it cost him a hard and terrible struggle tobring his mind to grasp the thought of death being inevitable and nighat hand. He could hardly conceive it--he could hardly believe it--thathe who had so lately been full of life and health, who had beenscheming schemes, and laying out plans, and had looked upon futurityas a certain possession--that, he was to die in a few short hours; butwhenever 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 howlong God may spare you; but one thing is certain, Sir John, that yearswith you have now dwindled down into days, and that days may verylikely be shortened to hours. But had you still years to live, Ishould say the same thing, that no time is to be lost; too much hasbeen lost already."
John Ayliffe did not comprehend him in the least. He could not graspthe idea as yet of a whole life being made a preparation for death,and looked vacantly in the clergyman's face, utterly confounded at thethought.
Mr. Dixwell had a very difficult task before him--one of the mostdifficult he had ever undertaken; for he had not only to arouse theconscience, but to awaken the intellect to things importing all to thesoul's salvation, which had never been either felt or believed, orcomprehended before. At first too, there was the natural repugnanceand resistance of a wilful, selfish, over-indulged heart to receivepainful or terrible truths, and even when the obstacle was overcome,the young man's utter ignorance of religion and want of moral feelingproved another almost insurmountable. He found that the only access toJohn Ayliffe's heart was by the road of terror, and without scruple hepainted in stern and fearful colors the awful state of the impenitentspirit called suddenly into the presence of its God. With an unpityinghand he stripped away all self-delusions from the young man's mind andlaid his condition before him, and his future state in all their darkand terrible reality.
This is not intended for what is called a religious book, andtherefore I must pass over the arguments he used, and the course heproceeded in. Suffice it that he labored earnestly for two hours toawaken something like repentance in the bosom of John Ayliffe, and hesucceeded in the end better than the beginning had promised. Whenthoroughly convinced of the moral danger of his situation, JohnAyliffe began to listen more eagerly, to reply more humbly, and toseek earnestly for some consolation beyond the earth. His depressionand despair, as terrible truths became known to him were just inproportion to his careless boldness and audacity while he had remainedin wilful ignorance, and as soon as Mr. Dixwell saw that all theclinging to earthly expectations was gone--that every frail support ofmortal thoughts was taken away, he began to give him gleams of hopefrom another world, and had the satisfaction of finding that thedoubts and terrors which remained arose from the consciousness of hisown sins and crimes, the heavy load of which he felt for the firsttime. He told him that repentance was never too late--he showed himthat Christ himself had stamped that great truth with a mark thatcould not be mistaken in his pardon of the dying thief upon the cross,and while he exhorted him to examine himself strictly, and to makesure that what he felt was real repentance, and not the mere fear ofdeath which so many mistake for it in their last hours, he assured himthat 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 resolvedto leave the young man to himself for a few hours that he mightmeditate and try the great question he had propounded with his ownheart. He called in Mistress Best, however, and told her that ifduring his absence Sir John wished her to read to him, it would be agreat kindness to read certain passages of Scripture which he pointedout in the house Bible. The good woman very willingly undertook thetask, and shortly after the clergyman was gone John Ayliffe applied tohear the words of that book against which he had previously shut hisears. He found comfort and consolation and guidance therein; for Mr.Dixwell, who, on the one subject which had been the study of his lifewas wise as well as learned, had selected judiciously such passages astend to inspire hope without diminishing penitence.
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