The Merry Men, and Other Tales and Fables

  CHAPTER III. DEATH

  Year after year went away into nothing, with great explosions andoutcries in the cities on the plain: red revolt springing up and beingsuppressed in blood, battle swaying hither and thither, patientastronomers in observatory towers picking out and christening new stars,plays being performed in lighted theatres, people being carried intohospital on stretchers, and all the usual turmoil and agitation of men'slives in crowded centres. Up in Will's valley only the winds and seasonsmade an epoch; the fish hung in the swift stream, the birds circledoverhead, the pine-tops rustled underneath the stars, the tall hillsstood over all; and Will went to and fro, minding his wayside inn, untilthe snow began to thicken on his head. His heart was young and vigorous;and if his pulses kept a sober time, they still beat strong and steady inhis wrists. He carried a ruddy stain on either cheek, like a ripe apple;he stooped a little, but his step was still firm; and his sinewy handswere reached out to all men with a friendly pressure. His face wascovered with those wrinkles which are got in open air, and which rightlylooked at, are no more than a sort of permanent sunburning; such wrinklesheighten the stupidity of stupid faces; but to a person like Will, withhis clear eyes and smiling mouth, only give another charm by testifyingto a simple and easy life. His talk was full of wise sayings. He had ataste for other people; and other people had a taste for him. When thevalley was full of tourists in the season, there were merry nights inWill's arbour; and his views, which seemed whimsical to his neighbours,were often enough admired by learned people out of towns and colleges.Indeed, he had a very noble old age, and grew daily better known; so thathis fame was heard of in the cities of the plain; and young men who hadbeen summer travellers spoke together in _cafes_ of Will o' the Mill andhis rough philosophy. Many and many an invitation, you may be sure, hehad; but nothing could tempt him from his upland valley. He would shakehis head and smile over his tobacco-pipe with a deal of meaning. 'Youcome too late,' he would answer. 'I am a dead man now: I have lived anddied already. Fifty years ago you would have brought my heart into mymouth; and now you do not even tempt me. But that is the object of longliving, that man should cease to care about life.' And again: 'There isonly one difference between a long life and a good dinner: that, in thedinner, the sweets come last.' Or once more: 'When I was a boy, I was abit puzzled, and hardly knew whether it was myself or the world that wascurious and worth looking into. Now, I know it is myself, and stick tothat.'

  He never showed any symptom of frailty, but kept stalwart and firm to thelast; but they say he grew less talkative towards the end, and wouldlisten to other people by the hour in an amused and sympathetic silence.Only, when he did speak, it was more to the point and more charged withold experience. He drank a bottle of wine gladly; above all, at sunseton the hill-top or quite late at night under the stars in the arbour. Thesight of something attractive and unatttainable seasoned his enjoyment,he would say; and he professed he had lived long enough to admire acandle all the more when he could compare it with a planet.

  One night, in his seventy-second year, he awoke in bed in such uneasinessof body and mind that he arose and dressed himself and went out tomeditate in the arbour. It was pitch dark, without a star; the river wasswollen, and the wet woods and meadows loaded the air with perfume. Ithad thundered during the day, and it promised more thunder for themorrow. A murky, stifling night for a man of seventy-two! Whether itwas the weather or the wakefulness, or some little touch of fever in hisold limbs, Will's mind was besieged by tumultuous and crying memories.His boyhood, the night with the fat young man, the death of his adoptedparents, the summer days with Marjory, and many of those smallcircumstances, which seem nothing to another, and are yet the very gistof a man's own life to himself--things seen, words heard, looksmisconstrued--arose from their forgotten corners and usurped hisattention. The dead themselves were with him, not merely taking part inthis thin show of memory that defiled before his brain, but revisitinghis bodily senses as they do in profound and vivid dreams. The fat youngman leaned his elbows on the table opposite; Marjory came and went withan apronful of flowers between the garden and the arbour; he could hearthe old parson knocking out his pipe or blowing his resonant nose. Thetide of his consciousness ebbed and flowed: he was sometimes half-asleepand drowned in his recollections of the past; and sometimes he was broadawake, wondering at himself. But about the middle of the night he wasstartled by the voice of the dead miller calling to him out of the houseas he used to do on the arrival of custom. The hallucination was soperfect that Will sprang from his seat and stood listening for thesummons to be repeated; and as he listened he became conscious of anothernoise besides the brawling of the river and the ringing in his feverishears. It was like the stir of horses and the creaking of harness, asthough a carriage with an impatient team had been brought up upon theroad before the courtyard gate. At such an hour, upon this rough anddangerous pass, the supposition was no better than absurd; and Willdismissed it from his mind, and resumed his seat upon the arbour chair;and sleep closed over him again like running water. He was once againawakened by the dead miller's call, thinner and more spectral thanbefore; and once again he heard the noise of an equipage upon the road.And so thrice and four times, the same dream, or the same fancy,presented itself to his senses: until at length, smiling to himself aswhen one humours a nervous child, he proceeded towards the gate to sethis uncertainty at rest.

  From the arbour to the gate was no great distance, and yet it took Willsome time; it seemed as if the dead thickened around him in the court,and crossed his path at every step. For, first, he was suddenlysurprised by an overpowering sweetness of heliotropes; it was as if hisgarden had been planted with this flower from end to end, and the hot,damp night had drawn forth all their perfumes in a breath. Now theheliotrope had been Marjory's favourite flower, and since her death notone of them had ever been planted in Will's ground.

  'I must be going crazy,' he thought. 'Poor Marjory and her heliotropes!'

  And with that he raised his eyes towards the window that had once beenhers. If he had been bewildered before, he was now almost terrified; forthere was a light in the room; the window was an orange oblong as ofyore; and the corner of the blind was lifted and let fall as on the nightwhen he stood and shouted to the stars in his perplexity. The illusiononly endured an instant; but it left him somewhat unmanned, rubbing hiseyes and staring at the outline of the house and the black night behindit. While he thus stood, and it seemed as if he must have stood therequite a long time, there came a renewal of the noises on the road: and heturned in time to meet a stranger, who was advancing to meet him acrossthe court. There was something like the outline of a great carriagediscernible on the road behind the stranger, and, above that, a few blackpine-tops, like so many plumes.

  'Master Will?' asked the new-comer, in brief military fashion.

  'That same, sir,' answered Will. 'Can I do anything to serve you?'

  'I have heard you much spoken of, Master Will,' returned the other; 'muchspoken of, and well. And though I have both hands full of business, Iwish to drink a bottle of wine with you in your arbour. Before I go, Ishall introduce myself.'

  Will led the way to the trellis, and got a lamp lighted and a bottleuncorked. He was not altogether unused to such complimentary interviews,and hoped little enough from this one, being schooled by manydisappointments. A sort of cloud had settled on his wits and preventedhim from remembering the strangeness of the hour. He moved like a personin his sleep; and it seemed as if the lamp caught fire and the bottlecame uncorked with the facility of thought. Still, he had some curiosityabout the appearance of his visitor, and tried in vain to turn the lightinto his face; either he handled the lamp clumsily, or there was adimness over his eyes; but he could make out little more than a shadow attable with him. He stared and stared at this shadow, as he wiped out theglasses, and began to feel cold and strange about the heart. The silenceweighed upon him, for he could hear nothing now, not even the river, butthe
drumming of his own arteries in his ears.

  'Here's to you,' said the stranger, roughly.

  'Here is my service, sir,' replied Will, sipping his wine, which somehowtasted oddly.

  'I understand you are a very positive fellow,' pursued the stranger.

  Will made answer with a smile of some satisfaction and a little nod.

  'So am I,' continued the other; 'and it is the delight of my heart totramp on people's corns. I will have nobody positive but myself; notone. I have crossed the whims, in my time, of kings and generals andgreat artists. And what would you say,' he went on, 'if I had come uphere on purpose to cross yours?'

  Will had it on his tongue to make a sharp rejoinder; but the politenessof an old innkeeper prevailed; and he held his peace and made answer witha civil gesture of the hand.

  'I have,' said the stranger. 'And if I did not hold you in a particularesteem, I should make no words about the matter. It appears you prideyourself on staying where you are. You mean to stick by your inn. Now Imean you shall come for a turn with me in my barouche; and before thisbottle's empty, so you shall.'

  'That would be an odd thing, to be sure,' replied Will, with a chuckle.'Why, sir, I have grown here like an old oak-tree; the Devil himselfcould hardly root me up: and for all I perceive you are a veryentertaining old gentleman, I would wager you another bottle you loseyour pains with me.'

  The dimness of Will's eyesight had been increasing all this while; but hewas somehow conscious of a sharp and chilling scrutiny which irritatedand yet overmastered him.

  'You need not think,' he broke out suddenly, in an explosive, febrilemanner that startled and alarmed himself, 'that I am a stay-at-home,because I fear anything under God. God knows I am tired enough of itall; and when the time comes for a longer journey than ever you dream of,I reckon I shall find myself prepared.'

  The stranger emptied his glass and pushed it away from him. He lookeddown for a little, and then, leaning over the table, tapped Will threetimes upon the forearm with a single finger. 'The time has come!' hesaid solemnly.

  An ugly thrill spread from the spot he touched. The tones of his voicewere dull and startling, and echoed strangely in Will's heart.

  'I beg your pardon,' he said, with some discomposure. 'What do youmean?'

  'Look at me, and you will find your eyesight swim. Raise your hand; itis dead-heavy. This is your last bottle of wine, Master Will, and yourlast night upon the earth.'

  'You are a doctor?' quavered Will.

  'The best that ever was,' replied the other; 'for I cure both mind andbody with the same prescription. I take away all pain and I forgive allsins; and where my patients have gone wrong in life, I smooth out allcomplications and set them free again upon their feet.'

  'I have no need of you,' said Will.

  'A time comes for all men, Master Will,' replied the doctor, 'when thehelm is taken out of their hands. For you, because you were prudent andquiet, it has been long of coming, and you have had long to disciplineyourself for its reception. You have seen what is to be seen about yourmill; you have sat close all your days like a hare in its form; but nowthat is at an end; and,' added the doctor, getting on his feet, 'you mustarise and come with me.'

  'You are a strange physician,' said Will, looking steadfastly upon hisguest.

  'I am a natural law,' he replied, 'and people call me Death.'

  'Why did you not tell me so at first?' cried Will. 'I have been waitingfor you these many years. Give me your hand, and welcome.'

  'Lean upon my arm,' said the stranger, 'for already your strength abates.Lean on me as heavily as you need; for though I am old, I am very strong.It is but three steps to my carriage, and there all your trouble ends.Why, Will,' he added, 'I have been yearning for you as if you were my ownson; and of all the men that ever I came for in my long days, I have comefor you most gladly. I am caustic, and sometimes offend people at firstsight; but I am a good friend at heart to such as you.'

  'Since Marjory was taken,' returned Will, 'I declare before God you werethe only friend I had to look for.' So the pair went arm-in-arm acrossthe courtyard.

  One of the servants awoke about this time and heard the noise of horsespawing before he dropped asleep again; all down the valley that nightthere was a rushing as of a smooth and steady wind descending towards theplain; and when the world rose next morning, sure enough Will o' the Millhad gone at last upon his travels.