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John Halifax, Gentleman

D >> Dinah Maria Mulock (Mrs. Craik) >> John Halifax, Gentleman




This last word, and the manner of his saying it, I can hear if I
listen in silence, clear as if yet I heard its sound. This last
sight--of them sitting under the ash-tree, the sun making still
whiter Ursula's white shawl, brightening the marriage ring on her
bare hand, and throwing, instead of silver, some of their boyish gold
colour into the edges of John's curls--this picture I see with my
shut eyes, vivid as yesterday.

I sat for some time in my room--then John came to fetch me for our
customary walk along his favourite "terrace" on the Flat. He rarely
liked to miss it--he said the day hardly seemed complete or perfect
unless one had seen the sun set. Thus, almost every evening, we used
to spend an hour or more, pacing up and down, or sitting in that
little hollow under the brow of the Flat, where, as from the topmost
seat of a natural amphitheatre, one could see Rose Cottage and the
old well-head where the cattle drank; our own green garden-gate, the
dark mass of the beech-wood, and far away beyond that Nunneley Hill,
where the sun went down.

There, having walked somewhat less time than usual, for the evening
was warm and it had been a fatiguing day, John and I sat down
together. We talked a little, ramblingly--chiefly of Longfield--how
I was to have my old room again--and how a new nursery was to be
planned for the grandchildren.

"We can't get out of the way of children, I see clearly," he said,
laughing. "We shall have Longfield just as full as ever it was, all
summer time. But in winter we'll be quiet, and sit by the chimney-
corner, and plunge into my dusty desert of books--eh, Phineas? You
shall help me to make notes for those lectures I have intended giving
at Norton Bury, these ten years past. And we'll rub up our old
Latin, and dip into modern poetry--great rubbish, I fear! Nobody
like our old friend Will of Avon, or even your namesake, worthy
Phineas Fletcher."

I reminded him of the "Shepherd's life and fate," which he always
liked so much, and used to say was his ideal of peaceful happiness.

"Well, and I think so still. 'Keep true to the dreams of thy youth,'
saith the old German; I have not been false to mine. I have had a
happy life, thank God; ay, and what few men can say, it has been the
very sort of happiness I myself would have chosen. I think most
lives, if, while faithfully doing our little best, day by day, we
were content to leave their thread in wiser hands than ours, would
thus weave themselves out; until, looked back upon as a whole, they
would seem as bright a web as mine."

He sat, talking thus, resting his chin on his hands--his eyes, calm
and sweet, looking out westward--where the sun was about an hour from
the horizon.

"Do you remember how we used to lie on the grass in your father's
garden, and how we never could catch the sunset except in fragments
between the abbey trees! I wonder if they keep the yew hedge clipped
as round as ever."

I told him Edwin had said to-day that some strange tenants were going
to make an inn of the old house, and turn the lawn into a bowling-
green.

"What a shame! I wish I could prevent it. And yet, perhaps not," he
added, after a silence. "Ought we not rather to recognise and submit
to the universal law of change? How each in his place is fulfilling
his day, and passing away, just as that sun is passing. Only we know
not whither he passes; while whither we go we know, and the Way we
know--the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever."

Almost before he had done speaking--(God grant that in the Kingdom I
may hear that voice, not a tone altered--I would not wish it altered
even there)--a whole troop of our young people came out of Mrs. Tod's
cottage, and nodded to us from below.

There was Mrs. Edwin, standing talking to the good old soul, who
admired her baby-boy very much, but wouldn't allow there could be any
children like Mrs. Halifax's children.

There was Edwin, deep in converse with his brother Guy, while beside
them--prettier and younger-looking than ever--Grace Oldtower was
making a posy for little Louise.

Further down the slope, walking slowly, side by side, evidently
seeing nobody but one another, were another couple.

"I think, sometimes, John, that those two, William and Maud, will be
the happiest of all the children."

He smiled, looked after them for a minute, and then laid himself
quietly down on his back along the slope, his eyes still directed
towards the sunset. When, brightening as it descended, the sun shone
level upon the place where we were sitting, I saw John pull his broad
straw hat over his face, and compose himself, with both hands clasped
upon his breast, in the attitude of sleep.

I knew he was very tired, so I spoke no more, but threw my cloak over
him. He looked up, thanked me silently, with his old familiar smile.
One day--one day I shall know him by that smile! I sat half an hour
or more watching the sun, which sank steadily, slowly, round, and
red, without a single cloud. Beautiful, as I had never before seen
it; so clear, that one could note the very instant its disc touched
the horizon's grey.

Maud and Mr. Ravenel were coming up the slope. I beckoned them to
come softly, not to disturb the father. They and I sat in silence,
facing the west. The sun journeyed down to his setting--lower--
lower; there was a crescent, a line, a dim sparkle of light; then--he
was gone. And still we sat--grave, but not sad--looking into the
brightness he had left behind; believing, yea, knowing, we should see
his glorious face again to-morrow.

"How cold it has grown," said Maud. "I think we ought to wake my
father."

She went up to him, laid her hand upon his, that were folded together
over the cloak--drew back startled--alarmed.

"Father!"

I put the child aside. It was I who moved the hat from John's face--
THE face--for John himself was far, far away. Gone from us unto Him
whose faithful servant he was. While he was sleeping thus the Master
had called him.

His two sons carried him down the slope. They laid him in the upper
room in Mrs. Tod's cottage. Then I went home to tell his wife.

* * *

She was at last composed, as we thought, lying on her bed, death-like
almost, but calm. It was ten o'clock at night. I left her with all
her children watching round her.

I went out, up to Rose Cottage, to sit an hour by myself alone,
looking at him whom I should not see again for--as he had said--"a
little while."

"A little while--a little while." I comforted myself with those
words. I fancied I could almost hear John saying them, standing near
me, with his hand on my shoulder. John himself, quite distinct from
that which lay so still before me; beautiful as nothing but death can
be, younger much than he had looked this very morning--younger by
twenty years.

Farewell, John! Farewell, my more than brother! It is but for a
little while.

As I sat, thinking how peacefully the hands lay, clasped together
still, how sweet was the expression of the close mouth, and what a
strange shadowy likeness the whole face bore to Muriel's little face,
which I had seen resting in the same deep rest on the same pillow;
some one touched me. It was Mrs. Halifax.

How she came I do not know; nor how she had managed to steal out from
among her children. Nor how she, who had not walked for weeks, had
found her way up hither, in the dark, all alone. Nor what strength,
almost more than mortal, helped her to stand there, as she did stand,
upright and calm--gazing--gazing as I had done.

"It is very like him; don't you think so, Phineas?" The voice low
and soft, unbroken by any sob. "He once told me, in case of--this,
he would rather I did not come and look at him; but I can, you see."

I gave her my place, and she sat down by the bed. It might have been
ten minutes or more that she and I remained thus, without exchanging
a word.

"I think I hear some one at the door. Brother, will you call in the
children?"

Guy, altogether overcome, knelt down beside his mother, and besought
her to let him take her home.

"Presently--presently, my son. You are very good to me; but--your
father. Children, come in and look at your father."

They all gathered round her--weeping; but she spoke without single
tear.

"I was a girl, younger than any of you, when first I met your father.
Next month we shall have been married thirty-three years. Thirty-
three years."

Her eyes grew dreamy, as if fancy had led her back all that space of
time; her fingers moved to and fro, mechanically, over her wedding-
ring.

"Children, we were so happy, you cannot tell. He was so good; he
loved me so. Better than that, he made me good; that was why I loved
him. Oh, what his love was to me from the first! strength, hope,
peace; comfort and help in trouble, sweetness in prosperity. How my
life became happy and complete--how I grew worthier to myself because
he had taken me for his own! And what HE was--Children, no one but
me ever knew all his goodness, no one but himself ever knew how
dearly I loved your father. We were more precious each to each than
anything on earth; except His service, who gave us to one another."

Her voice dropped all but inaudible; but she roused herself, and made
it once more clear and firm, the mother's natural voice.

"Guy, Edwin, all of you, must never forget your father. You must do
as he wishes, and live as he lived--in all ways. You must love him,
and love one another. Children, you will never do anything that need
make you ashamed to meet your father."

As they hung round her she kissed them all--her three sons and her
daughter, one by one; then, her mind being perhaps led astray by the
room we were in, looked feebly round for one more child--remembered--
smiled--

"How glad her father will be to have her again--his own little
Muriel."

"Mother! mother darling! come home," whispered Guy, almost in a sob.

His mother stooped over him, gave him one kiss more--him her
favourite of all her children--and repeated the old phrase:

"Presently, presently! Now go away, all of you; I want to be left
for a little, alone with my husband."

As we went out, I saw her turn toward the bed--"John, John!" The
same tone, almost the same words, with which she had crept up to him
years before, the day they were betrothed. Just a low, low murmur,
like a tired child creeping to fond protecting arms. "John, John!"

We closed the door. We all sat on the stairs outside; it might have
been for minutes, it might have been for hours. Within or without--
no one spoke--nothing stirred.

At last Guy softly went in.

She was still in the same place by the bed-side, but half lying on
the bed, as I had seen her turn when I was shutting the door. Her
arm was round her husband's neck; her face, pressed inwards to the
pillow, was nestled close to his hair. They might have been asleep--
both of them.

One of her children called her, but she neither answered nor stirred.

Guy lifted her up, very tenderly; his mother, who had no stay left
but him--his mother--a widow--

No, thank God! she was not a widow now.

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