"Are you going? It is not late; not ten o'clock yet."
"A medical man, who may be called up at any moment, must make sure of his 'beauty sleep,'"
"I will walk with you, and smoke my last cigar." So they went out, and up to Heale's. Tom went in: but he observed that his companion, after standing awhile in the street irresolutely, went on up the hill, and, as far as he could see, turned up the lane to Vavasour's.
"A mystery here," thought he, as he put matters to rights in the surgery ere going upstairs. "A mystery which I may as well fathom. It may be of use to poor Tom, as most other mysteries are. That is, though, if I can do it honourably; for the man is a gallant gentleman. I like him, and I am inclined to trust him. Whatsoever his secret is, I don't think that it is one which he need be ashamed of. Still, 'there's a deal of human natur' in man,' and there may be in him:—and what matter if there is?"
Half an hour afterwards the Major returned, took the candle from Grace, who was sitting up for him, and went upstairs with a gentle "good night," but without looking at her.
He sat down at the open window, and looked out leaning on the sill.
"Well, I was too late: I daresay there was some purpose in it. When shall I learn to believe that God takes better care of His own than I can do? I was faithless and impatient to-night. I am afraid I betrayed myself before that man. He looks like one, certainly, who could be trusted with a secret: yet I had rather that he had not mine. It is my own fault, like everything else! Foolish old fellow that you are, fretting and fussing to the end! Is not that scene a message from above, saying, 'Be still, and know that I am God'?"
And the Major looked out upon the summer sea, lit by a million globes of living fire, and then upon the waves which broke in flame upon the beach, and then up to the spangled stars above.
"What do I know of these, with all my knowing? Not even a twentieth part of those medusae, or one in each thousand of those sparks among the foam. Perhaps I need not know. And yet why was the thirst awakened in me, save to be satisfied at last? Perhaps to become more intense, with every fresh delicious draught of knowledge…. Death, beautiful, wise, kind death; when will you come and tell me what I want to know? I courted you once and many a time, brave old Death, only to give rest to the weary. That was a coward's wish, and so you would not come. I ran you close in Afghanistan, old Death, and at Sobraon too, I was not far behind you; and I thought I had you safe among that jungle grass at Aliwal; but you slipped through my hand—I was not worthy of you. And now I will not hunt you any more, old Death: do you bide your time, and I mine; though who knows if I may not meet you here? Only when you come give me not rest, but work. Give work to the idle, freedom to the chained, sight to the blind!—Tell me a little about finer things than zoophytes—perhaps about the zoophytes as well—and you shall still be brave old Death, my good camp-comrade now for many a year."
Was Major Campbell mad? That depends upon the way in which the reader may choose to define the adjective.