St. Winifred's; or, The World of School
Page 20
CHAPTER TWENTY.
FAREWELL.
"Be the day weary or be the day long At last it ringeth to even-song."
There was a very serious look on the faces of all the boys as theythronged into chapel the next morning for the confirmation service. Itwas a beautiful sight to see the subdued yet noble air, full at once ofhumility and hope, wherewith many of the youthful candidates passedalong the aisle, and knelt before the altar, and with clasped hands andbowed heads awaited the touch of the hands that blessed. As those youngsoldiers of Christ knelt meekly in their places, resolving with pure andearnest hearts to fight manfully in His service, and praying withchild-like faith for the aid of which they felt their need, it wasindeed a spectacle to recall the ideal of virtuous and Christianboyhood, and to force upon the minds of many the contrast it presentedwith the other too familiar spectacle of a boyhood coarse, defiant,brutal, ignorant yet conceited, young in years but old in disobedience,in insolence, in sin.
When the good bishop, in the course of his address, alluded to Daubeny'sdeath, there was throughout the chapel instantly that silence that canbe felt--that deep, unbroken hush of expectation and emotion whichalways produces so indescribable an effect.
"There was one," he said, "who should have been confirmed to-day, who isnot here. He has passed away from us; he will never be present at anearthly confirmation; he is `confirmed in heaven--confirmed by God.' Ihear, and I rejoice to hear, that for that confirmation he was indeedprepared, and that he looked forward to it with some of his latestthoughts. I hear that he was pre-eminent among you for the piety, thepurity, the amiability of his life and character, and his very death wascaused by the intense earnestness of his desire to use aright thetalents which God had entrusted to him. O! such a death of one so youngyet so fit to die is far happier than the longest and most prosperous ofsinful lives. Be sobered but not saddened by it. It is a proof ofGod's merciful and tender love that this one of your schoolfellows wastaken in the clear and quiet dawn of a noble and holy life, and not someother in the scarlet blossom of precocious and deadly sin. Be notsaddened therefore at the loss, but sobered by the warning. The fair,sweet, purple flower of youth falls and fades, my young brethren, underthe sweeping scythe of death, no less surely than the withered grass ofage. O! be ready--be ready with the girded loins and the lighted lamp--to obey the summons of your God. Who knows for which of us next, or howsoon, the bell of death may toll? Be ye therefore ready, for you knownot at what day or at what hour the voice may call to you!"
The loss of a well-known companion whom all respected and many loved--the crowding memories of school-life--the still small voice of everyconscience, gave strange meaning and force to the bishop's simple words.As they listened, many wept in silence, while down the cheeks ofWalter, of Power, and of Henderson, the tears fell like summer rain.
In the evening Walter was seated thoughtfully by the fire in Power'sstudy, while Power was writing at the table, stopping occasionally towipe his glistening eyes.
"He was my earliest friend here," he said to Walter, almostapologetically, as he hastily brushed off the drop which had fallen andblurred the paper before him. "But I know it is selfish to be sorry,"he added, as he pushed the paper towards Walter.
"May I read this, Power?" asked Walter.
"Yes, if you like," and he drew his chair by his, while Walter read inPower's small clear handwriting--
A Farewell.
Never more! Like a dream when one awaketh Vanishing away; Like a billow when it breaketh Scattered into spray; Like a meteor's paling ray, Such is man, do all he can;-- Nothing that is fair can stay. Sorrow staineth, man complaineth.
Sin remaineth ever more; Like a wake upon the shore Soundeth ever from the chorus Of the spirits gone before us, "Ye shall meet us, ye shall greet us In the sweet homes of earth, in the places of our birth, Never more again, never more!" So they sing, and sweetly dying Faints the message of their voices, Dying like the distant murmur, when a mighty host rejoices, But the echoes are replying with a melancholy sighing Never more again! never more!
Far-away Far far-away are the homes wherein they dwell, We have lost them, and it cost them Many a tear, and many a fear When God forbade their stay; But their sorrow, on the morrow Ceased in the dawning of a lighter, brighter day; And _our_ bliss shall be certain, when death's awful curtain. Drawn from the darkness of mortal life away, To happy souls revealeth what it darkly now concealeth, Yielding to the glory of heaven's eternal ray. Far far-away are the homes wherein they dwell, But we know that they are blest, and ever more at rest, And we utter from our hearts, "It is well."
"May I keep them, Power?" he asked, looking up.
"Do, Walter, as a remembrance of to-day."
"And may I make one change, which the bishop's sermon suggested?"
"By all means," said Power; and Walter, taking a pencil, added after theline "Nothing that is fair can stay," these words, which Powerafterwards copied, writing at the top, "In memoriam, J.D."
"Nothing that is fair can stay But while Death's sharp scythe is sweeping, We remember 'mid our weeping, That a Father-hand is keeping Every vernal bloom that falleth underneath its chilly sway. And though earthly flowers may perish There are buds His hand will cherish And the things unseen Eternal--these can never pass away; Where the angels shout Hosanna, Where the ground is dewed with manna, These remain and these await us in the homes of heaven for ay!"
The lines are in Walter's desk; and he values them all the more for thetears which have fallen on them, and blurred the neatness of the fineclear handwriting.
On the following Tuesday our boys saw the dead body of their friend.The face of poor Daubeny looked singularly beautiful with the placidlines of death, as all innocent faces do. It was the first time theyhad seen a corpse; and as Walter touched the cold cheek, and placed aspray of evergreen in the rigid hand, he was almost overpowered with anawful sense of the sad sweet mystery of death.
"It is God who has taken him to Himself," said Mrs Daubeny, as shewatched their emotion. "I shall not be parted from him long. He hasleft you each a remembrance of himself, dear boys, and you will valuethem, I know, for my poor child's sake, and for his widowed mother'sthanks to those who loved him."
For each of them he had chosen, before he died, one of his most prizedpossessions. To Power he left his desk; to Henderson, his microscope;to Kenrick, a little gold pencil-case; and to Walter, a treasure whichhe deeply valued, a richly-bound Bible, in which he had left manymemorials of the manner in which his days were spent; and in which hehad marked many of the rules which were the standard of his life, andthe words of hope which sustained his gentle and noble mind.
The next day he was buried; only the boys in his own house, and thosewho had known him best, followed him to the grave. They were standingin two lines along the court, and the plumed hearse stood at the cottagedoor. Just at that moment the rest of the boys began to flock out ofthe school, for lessons were over. Each as he came out caught sight ofthe hearse, the plumes waving and whispering in the sea-wind, and thedouble line of mourners; and each, on seeing it, stood where he was, inperfect silence. Their numbers increased each moment, till boys andmasters alike were there; and all by the same sudden impulse stoppedwhere they were standing when first they saw the hearse, and stood stillwithout a word. The scene was the more strangely impressive because itwas accidental and spontaneous. Meanwhile, the coffin was carrieddownstairs, and placed in the hearse, which moved off slowly across thecourt between the line of bareheaded and motionless mourners. It wasthus that Daubeny left Saint Winifred's, and passed under the Normanarch; and till he had passed through, the boys stood fixed to theirplaces, like a group of statues in the usually noisy court. He wasburied in the churchyard under the tower of the grand old church. Itwas a lovely spot; the torrent murmured near it; the shadows of thegreat mountains fell upon it; and as you stood there in the sacredsilence of that memory-haunted field, you
heard far-off the solemnmonotone of the everlasting sea. There they laid him, and the stream oflife, checked for a moment, flashed on again with turbulent andsparkling waves. Ah me!--yet why should we sigh at the mercifulprovision, which causes that the very best of us, when we die, leavesbut a slight and transient ripple on the waters, which a moment afterflow on as smoothly as before?
Mrs Daubeny left Saint Winifred's that evening; her carriage lookedstrange with her son's boxes and other possessions piled up in it. Whowould ever use that cricket-bat or those skates again? Power and Waltershook hands with her at the door as she was about to start; and just atthe last moment, Henderson came running up with something, which he puton the carriage seat without a word. It was a bird-cage, containing alittle favourite canary, which he and Daubeny had often fed.