St. George and St. Michael

by George MacDonald

  CHAPTER LV.

  R. I. P.

  As the sad, shining company of the marquis went from the gates, runningat full speed to overtake the rear ere it should have passed through,came Caspar, and mounting a horse led for him, rode near Dorothy.

  As they left the brick gate, a horseman joined the procession fromoutside. Pale and worn, with bent head and sad face, sir RowlandScudamore fell into the ranks amongst his friends of the garrison, andwith them rode in silence.

  Many a look did Dorothy cast around her as she rode, but only once, onthe crest of a grassy hill that rose abrupt from the highway a few milesfrom Raglan, did she catch sight of Richard mounted on Lady. All herlife after, as often as trouble came, that figure rose against the skyof her inner world, and was to her a type of the sleepless watch of theuniverse.

  Soon, from flank and rear, in this direction and that, each to somehaven or home, servants and soldiers began to drop away. Before theyreached the forest of Dean, the cortege had greatly dwindled, for manybelonged to villages, small towns, and farms on the way, and theirorders had been to go home and wait better times. When he reachedLondon, except the chief officers of his household, one of his ownpages, and some of his daughters' gentlewomen and menials, the marquishad few attendants left beyond Caspar and Shafto.

  It was a long and weary journey for him, occupying a whole week. Oneevening he was so tired and unwell that they were forced to put up withwhat quarters they could find in a very poor little town. Early in themorning, however, they were up and away. When they had gone some tenmiles--lord Charles was riding beside the coach and chatting with hissisters--a remark was made not complimentary to their accommodation ofthe previous night.

  'True,' said lord Charles; 'it was a very scurvy inn, but we must notforget that the reckoning was cheap.'

  While he spoke, one of the household had approached the marquis, who saton the other side of the carriage, and said something in a low voice.

  'Say'st thou so!' returned his lordship. '--Hear'st thou, my lordCharles? Thou talkest of a cheap reckoning! I never paid so dear for alodging in my life. Here is master Wharton hath just told me that theyhave left a thousand pound under a bench in the chamber we broke ourfast in. Truly they are overpaid for what we had!'

  'We have sent back after it, my lord,' said Mr. Wharton.

  'You will never see the money again,' said lord Charles.

  'Oh, peace!' said the marquis. 'If they will not be known of the money,you shall see it in a brave inn in a short time.'

  Nothing more was said on the matter, and the marquis seemed to haveforgotten it. Late at night, at their next halting-place, the messengerrejoined them, having met a drawer, mounted on a sorry horse, ridingafter them with the bag, but little prospect of overtaking them beforethey reached London.

  'I thought our hostess seemed an honest woman!' said lady Anne.

  'It is a poor town, indeed, lord Charles, but you see it is an honestone nevertheless!' said Dr. Bayly.

  'It may be the town never saw so much money before,' said the marquis,'and knew not what to make of it.'

  'Your lordship is severe,' said the doctor.

  'Only with my tongue, good doctor, only with my tongue,' said themarquis, laughing.

  When they reached London, lord Worcester found himself, to his surprise,in custody of the Black Rod, who, as now for some three years WorcesterHouse in the Strand had been used for a state-paper office, conductedhim to a house in Covent Garden, where he lodged him in tolerablecomfort and mild imprisonment. Parliament was still jealous of Glamorganand his Irish doings--as indeed well they might be.

  But his confinement was by no means so great a trial to him as hisindignant friends supposed; for, long willing to depart, he had atlength grown a little tired of life, feeling more and more theoppression of growing years, of gout varied with asthma, and, worst ofall to the once active man, of his still increasing corpulence, whichlast indeed, by his own confession, he found it hard to endure withpatience. The journey had been too much for him, and he began to leadthe life of an invalid.

  There being no sufficient accommodation in the house for his family,they were forced to content themselves with lodging as near him as theycould, and in these circumstances Dorothy, notwithstanding ladyGlamorgan's entreaties, would have returned home. But the marquis wasvery unwilling she should leave him, and for his sake she concluded toremain.

  'I am not long for this world, Dorothy,' he said. 'Stay with me and seethe last of the old man. The wind of death has got inside my tent, andwill soon blow it out of sight.'

  Lady Glamorgan's intention from the first had been to go to Ireland toher husband as soon as she could get leave. This however she did notobtain until the first of October--five weeks after her arrival inLondon. She would gladly have carried Dorothy with her, but she wouldnot leave the marquis, who was now failing visibly. As her ladyship'spass included thirty of her servants, Dorothy felt at ease about herpersonal comforts, and her husband would soon supply all else.

  The ladies Elizabeth and Mary were in the same house with their father;lady Anne and lord Charles were in the house of a relative at no greatdistance, and visited him every day. Sir Toby Mathews also, and Dr.Bayly, had found shelter in the neighbourhood, so that his lordshipnever lacked company. But he was going to have other company soon.

  Gently he sank towards the grave, and as he sank his soul seemed toretire farther within, vanishing on the way to the deeper life. Theythought he lost interest in life: it was but that the brightness drewhim from the glimmer. Every now and then, however, he would come forthfrom his inner chamber, and standing in his open door look out upon hisfriends, and tell them what he had seen.

  The winter drew on. But first November came, with its 'saint Martin'ssummer, halcyon days' and the old man revived a little. He stood onemorning and looked from his window on the garden behind the house, allglittering with molten hoar-frost. A few leaves, golden with death, hunghere and there on a naked bough. A kind of sigh was in the air. The verylight had in it as much of resignation as hope. He had forgotten thatDorothy was in the room.

  There was Celtic blood in the marquis, and at times his thoughts tookshapes that hardly belonged to the Teuton.

  'Cometh my youth hither again?' he murmured. 'As a stranger he comethwhom yet I know so well! Or is it but the face of my old age lightedwith a parting smile? Either way, change cometh, and change will begood. Domine, in manus tuas.'

  He turned and saw Dorothy.

  'Child!' he exclaimed, 'good sooth, I had forgotten thee. Yet I spake notreason. Dorothy, I hold not with them who say that from dust we cameand to dust we return. Neither my blessed countess, whom thou knewestnot, nor my darling Molly, whom thou knewest so well, were born of thedust. From some better where they came--for, say, can dust beget love?Whither they have gone I follow, in the hope that their prayers havesmoothed for me the way. Lord, lay not my sins to my charge. Mary,mother, hear my wife who prayeth for me. Hear my little Molly: she wasever dainty and good.'

  Again he had forgotten Dorothy, and was with his dead.

  But St. Martin's summer is only the lightening of the year that comesbefore its death; and November, although it brought not then such evilfogs as it now afflicts London withal, yet brought with it Novemberweather--one of God's hounds, with which he hunts us out of the hollowsof our own moods, and teaches us to sit on the arch of the cellar. Butthough the marquis fought hard and kept it out of his mind, it got intohis troubled body. The gout left his feet; he coughed distressingly,breathed with difficulty, and at length betook himself to bed.

  For some time his interest in politics, save in so much as affected theking's person, had been gradually ceasing.

  'I trust I have done my part,' he said once to the two clergymen, asthey sat by his bedside. 'Yet I know not. I fear me I clove too fast tomy money. Yet would I have parted with all, even to my shirt, to make mylord the king a good catholic. But it may be, sir Toby, we make more ofsuch matters down here than they do in the
high countries; and in thatcase, good doctor, ye are to blame who broke away from your mother, evenwere she not perfect.'

  He crossed himself and murmured a prayer, in fear lest he had beenguilty of laxity of judgment. But neither clergyman said a word.

  'But tell me, gentlemen, ye who understand sacred things,' he resumed,'can a man be far out of the way so long as, with full heart and nowithholding, he saith, Fiat voluntas tua--and that after no privateinterpretation, but Sicut in caelo?'

  'That, my lord, I also strive to say with all my heart,' said Dr. Bayly.

  'Mayhap, doctor,' returned the marquis, 'when thou art as old as I, andhast learned to see how good it is, how all-good, thou wilt be able tosay it without any striving. There was a time in my life when I too hadto strive, for the thought that he was a hard master would come, andcome again. But now that I have learned a little more of what he meanethwith me, what he would have of me and do for me, how he would make mepure of sin, clean from the very bottom of my heart to the crest of mysoul, from spur to plume a stainless knight, verily I am no more contentto SUBMIT to his will: I cry in the night time, "Thy will be done: Lord,let it be done, I entreat thee;" and in the daytime I cry, "Thy kingdomcome: Lord, let it come, I pray thee."'

  He lay silent. The clergymen left the room, and lord Charles came in,and sat down by his bedside. The marquis looked at him, and said kindly,

  'Ah, son Charles! art thou there?'

  'I came to tell you, my lord, the rumour goeth that the king hathconsented to establish the presbyterian heresy in the land,' said lordCharles.

  'Believe it not, my lord. A man ought not to believe ill of another solong as there is space enough for a doubt to perch. Yet, alas! whatshall be hoped of him who will yield nothing to prayers, and everythingto compulsion? Had his majesty been a true prince, he had ere now sethis foot on the neck of his enemies, or else ascended to heaven ablessed martyr. "Protestant," say'st thou? In good sooth, I force not.What is he now but a football for the sectaries to kick to and fro! ButI shall pray for him whither I go, if indeed the prayers of such as Imay be heard in that country. God be with his majesty. I can do no more.There are other realms than England, and I go to another king. Yet willI pray for England, for she is dear to my heart. God grant the evil timemay pass, and Englishmen yet again grow humble and obedient!'

  He closed his eyes, and his face grew so still that, notwithstanding thelabour of his breathing, he would have seemed asleep, but that his lipsmoved a little now and then, giving a flutter of shape to the eternalprayer within him.

  Again he opened his eyes, and saw sir Toby, who had re-entered silent asa ghost, and said, feebly holding out his hand, 'I am dying, sir Toby:where will this swollen hulk of mine be hid?'

  'That, my lord,' returned sir Toby, 'hath been already spoken of inparliament, and it hath been wrung from them, heretics and fanatics asthey are, that your lordship's mortal remains shall lie in Windsorcastle, by the side of earl William, the first of the earls ofWorcester.'

  'God bless us all!' cried the marquis, almost merrily, for he waspleased, and with the pleasure the old humour came back for a moment:'they will give me a better castle when I am dead than they took from mewhen I was alive!'

  'Yet is it a small matter to him who inherits such a house as awaitethmy lord--domum non manufactam, in caelis aeternam,' said sir Toby.

  'I thank thee, sir Toby, for recalling me. Truly for a moment I wasuplifted somewhat. That I should still play the fool, and the old fool,in the very face of Death! But, thank God, at thy word the world hathagain dwindled, and my heavenly house drawn the nearer. Domine, nuncdimittis. Let me, so soon as you judge fit, sir Toby, have theconsolations of the dying.'

  When the last rites, wherein the church yields all hold save that ofprayer, had been administered, and his daughters with Dorothy and lordCharles stood around his bed.

  'Now have I taken my staff to be gone,' he said cheerfully, 'like apeasant who hath visited his friends, and will now return, and they willsee him as far upon the road as they may. I tremble a little, but Ibethink me of him that made me and died for me, and now calleth me, andmy heart revives within me.'

  Then he seemed to fall half asleep, and his soul went wandering indreams that were not all of sleep--just as it had been with little Mollywhen her end drew near.

  'How sweet is the grass for me to lie in, and for thee to eat! Eat, eat,old Ploughman.'

  It was a favourite horse of which he dreamed--one which in old days hehad named after Piers Ploughman, the Vision concerning whom,notwithstanding its severity on catholic abuses, he had at one time readmuch.

  After a pause he went on--

  'Alack, they have shot off his head! What shall I do without myPloughman--my body groweth so large and heavy!--Hark, I hear Molly!"Spout, horse," she crieth. See, it is his life-blood he spouteth! OLord, what shall I do, for I am heavy, and my body keepeth down my soul.Hark! Who calleth me? It is Molly! No, no! it is the Master. Lord, Icannot rise and come to thee. Here have I lain for ages, and my spiritgroaneth. Reach forth thy hand, Lord, and raise me. Thanks, Lord,thanks!'

  And with the word he was neither old man nor marquis any more.

  The parliament, with wondrous liberality, voted five hundred pounds forhis funeral, and Dr. Bayly tells us that he laid him in his grave withhis own hands. But let us trust rather that Anne and Molly received himinto their arms, and soon made him forget all about castles and chapelsand dukedoms and ungrateful princes, in the everlasting youth of theheavenly kingdom, whose life is the presence of the Father, whose air tobreathe is love, and whose corn and wine are truth and graciousness.

  There surely, and nowhere else as surely, can the prayer be for a manfulfilled: Requiescat in Pace.