CHAPTER THE LAST.
In the decline of years, when the sixtieth birthday is near at handand one looks not to live much longer, and the future hath no freshjoy to bring with it (but only infirmities of age and pain), itis profitable and pleasant to look back upon the past, to observethe guidance of the Unseen Hand, to repent one's sins, and to liveover again those seasons, whether of sorrow or of joy, which we nowperceive to have been Providentially ordered.
This have I done, both in reading the history of our lives asrelated by my Mistress, and in writing this latter part. To theformer have I added nothing, nor have I subtracted anythingtherefrom, because I would not suffer the sweet and candid soul ofher whom I have always loved to be tarnished by any words of mine,breaking in upon her own, as jarring notes in some lovely harmony.It is strictly laid upon me to deliver her words just as she hathwritten them down.
Now, after the death of Benjamin, I took it upon myself, being hiscousin, in the absence of his father, to examine the papers which hehad left. Among them I found abundance of songs, chiefly in praiseof wine and women, with tavern bills. Also, there were notes oflegal cases, very voluminous, and I found notes of payment made tovarious persons engaged in inquiring after his wife, in those townsof the West Country where her father's name would procure friendsfor her. But there was no will; Benjamin had died (never lookingfor so early an end) without making any will. Therefore the estateof Bradford Orcas, with the old house, became the property of theRector, Benjamin's father. And he, being moved to make reparationfor his son's sin, and out of the great love which he bore to Alice,conveyed the whole to Robin on the day of his marriage. Thus theconfiscated estate returned to the ancient family who had alwaysheld it, and promise to hold it still, so long as the good old stockshall last.
* * * * *
It is thirty years ago and more. King William III. is dead; QueenAnne is dead; King George (who cannot, they say, speak English, butis a stout Protestant) sits upon our throne; the Nonconformists arefree, save that they cannot enter the Universities, and are subjectto other disabilities, which will, doubtless, be removed in thecourse of years. But English people, I think, love power beyond allearthly things; and so long as the Church is in a majority theChurchmen will exercise their power and will not part with it. Tous of Bradford Orcas it matters little. We worship at the parishchurch. Every Sunday I contemplate, as I did fifty years ago, themonument of Filipa kneeling apart, and of her husband and his secondwife kneeling together. There is a new tablet in the chancel put upto the memory of Sir Christopher, and another to that of Dr. ComfortEykin. Their bodies lie somewhere among the mounds on the north sideof Ilminster Church.
Forty years ago, as you have seen, there stood three boys in thegarden of the Manor House discoursing on their future. One wishednever to go anywhere, but to remain always a country gentleman,like his grandfather; one would be a great lawyer, a Judge, eventhe Lord Chancellor; the third would be a great Physician. Lo!the end of all! The first, but after divers miseries, perils, andwanderings, hath attained to his desire; the second lies buriedin the churchyard of St. Andrew's, Holborn, forgotten long sinceby his companions (who, indeed, are now with him in the pit), andremembered only among his own kin for the great wickedness whichhe wrought before the Lord. And, as for the third and last, noillustrious physician is he; but one who lives obscure (but content)in a remote village (in the very cottage where his Mistress wasborn), with books and music, and the society of the sweetest womanwho ever graced this earth for his solace. She was always gracious:she was gracious in her childhood; gracious as a maiden; moregracious still is she in these latter days when her hair is grey,and her daughters stand about her, tall and comely.
Now, had I administered that powder--that sovereign remedy, the_Pulvis Jesuiticus_--what would have been her lot?
* * * * *
'Humphrey,' said Robin, 'a penny for thy thoughts.'
'Robin, I was thinking--it is not a new thing, but twenty years oldand more--that Cousin Benjamin never did anything in his life souseful as to die.'
'Ay, poor Benjamin! That he had at the end the grace to ask ourforgiveness and to repent hath in it something of a miracle.We have long forgiven him. But consider, Cousin. We were savedfrom the fight; we were saved from the sea; we were saved fromslavery; we were enabled to strike the last blow for the Protestantreligion--what were all these blessings worth if Benjamin stilllived? To think, Humphrey, that Alice would never have been my wifeand never a mother; and all these children would have remainedunborn! I say that, though we may not desire the death of a sinner,we were not human if we rejoiced not at the death of our poorcousin.'
Yes; that is the thought which will not suffer me to repent. Asingle pinch of the _Pulvis Jesuiticus_, and he might have beenliving unto this very day: then would Alice have lost the crowningblessing of a woman's life.
Yet--I was, it is true, a physician--whose duty it is to save life,always to save life, even the life of the wretched criminal who isafterwards to die upon the gallows.
Yet, again, if he had been saved! As I write these lines I seemy Mistress walking down the village street. She looks over mygarden-gate; she lifts the latchet and enters, smiling gravely andtenderly. A sober happiness sits upon her brow. The terror of herfirst marriage has long been forgotten.
* * * * *
Why, as I watch her tranquil life, busy with her household andher children, full of the piety which asks not (as her father waswont to ask) how and where the mercy of Heaven is limited, and if,indeed, it will embrace all she loves; as I mark the tender loveof husband and of children, which lies around her like a garmentand prevents all her doings, there comes back to me continuallya bed-room in which a man lies dying. Again in memory, againin _intention_, I throw upon the fire that handful of _PulvisJesuiticus_ which should have driven away his fever and restored himto health again. A great and strong man he was, who might have livedtill eighty years: where then would have been that love? where thosechildren? where that tranquil heart and that contented mind? '_IWILL NOT SAVE HIS LIFE._' I say again in my mind: '_I WILL NOT SAVEHIM; HE SHALL DIE._'
* * * * *
'Humphrey,' my Mistress says, 'leave thy books awhile and walk withme: the winter sun is warm upon the hills. Come, it is the day whenBenjamin died--repentant--what better could we wish? What greaterblessing could have been bestowed upon him and upon us than a truerepentance and to die? Oh! dear Brother, dear Humphrey, let uswalk and talk of these blessings which have been showered upon myundeserving head.
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