Across the Stream

by E. F. Benson

"I will come again, dear Archie," it said. "It is easiest at night."

* * * * *

The lines of shadow and light that undulated before his eyes grew thinner and more transparent, and he could see the drawn-back window-curtains and the black square of the night through them. The bright point at which he had been looking withdrew on to the surface of his cigarette-case, and slowly the whole room emerged into its normal appearance. Archie became suddenly conscious of a profound physical fatigue, and, leaving all thought and reflection till to-morrow, put out his light and stepped into bed. But instead of the empty desolation that had made a wilderness round him, waters of healing had broken out in his soul, and the desert blossomed…

Archie slept that night the clean out-door sleep which he had been used to at Silorno, and woke next morning, not with the crapulous drowsiness that now usually accompanied his wakings, but with the alert refreshment that slumber in the open air gave him. He sprang into full possession of his faculties and complete memory of what he had experienced the night before. He was quite aware that any scientific interpreter (science being best defined as the habit of denying what passes the limits of materialistic explanation) would have said that, tired with the effort to write, he had fallen asleep over his table and dreamed. But he knew better than that: the experience with its audible and visible phenomena, was not a dream, nor did it ever so faintly resemble one. A dream at best was a fantastic unreality; what he had experienced at his writing-table last night was based upon the firm foundations of reality itself. It was no hash-up of his own conscious or subconscious reflections, no extract distilled from his own mind. It came from without and entered into him, and, unlike most of the communications that purported to reach the minds of sensitives from the world that lay beyond the perception of their normal senses, there was guidance and help in it. Often, if not invariably, these messages from beyond were trivial and nugatory; it was a just criticism to say that the senders of them did not appear possessed of much worth the trouble of sending. But Martin's visit had not been concerned with trifles like that: he had sympathized, as a brother might, with Archie's trouble; he had explained, so that Archie could not longer doubt, the manner of the warning he had received before but not understood; he had spoken of Archie as being wrapped, according to his own sensations, in impenetrable darkness, though, to one who looked from beyond, he was ever moving towards the ineffable radiance. It was the same discarnate intelligence that, when he was a child, had conveyed to him the knowledge of that cache under the pine-tree, which was unknown to any living being (as men count living) and that could not have been conveyed to him through any telepathic channel except one that had its source and spring not in this world. And now, from the same source, had come this message from one who saw through the gross darkness of Archie's emptiness and bitter heart, and had promised to be with him again. Archie had no doubt whatever, as he got up with an alertness that had not been his for weeks, of the genuineness of the communication. It linked on with Martin's previous visits, and the glimpses he had received of the materialized form of his visitor confirmed exactly the recognition, years before, of the photograph he had found in the cache which Martin had told him of. And the Power in whose hands were all things had compassionated his trouble and had allowed, in pity for his need, the gateless barrier to be again unbarred, and a spirit, individual and recognized, to pass to and fro between him and the realms of the light invisible.

It was just when his soul despaired that this happened; when he felt himself denuded of all that he had loved, empty, and cast out from life itself. Just in that hour had Martin been permitted to come back to him…

He found his mother and Jessie at breakfast when he went down; his father, as usual, had not appeared, and again, as last night when he came out of the dining-room after a prolonged sitting, he felt kindly and affectionate. But this was not from the sottish satisfaction of wine: the light came from that subtle window in his soul, from which once more the shutters had been thrown back. The moment Jessie saw him she felt the quality of that change; he was like the Archie of Silorno again.

"Good morning, mother darling," he said, kissing her. "Good morning, Jessie. How bright and early we all are! And has everybody slept as serenely as I?"

"You didn't sleep very long, Archie, did you?" asked the girl, whose room was next his. "I heard you hammering at something after I had gone to bed, and I awoke once and heard you talking to somebody."

Archie, at the side-table helping himself to sausage, paused a moment.
He made up his mind that for the present, anyhow, he preferred that
Jessie should not know about the return of Martin. Perhaps he would tell
her quietly when alone…

"Hammering?" he said. "Yes, there was a despatch-case, and I couldn't find the key. So I whacked it open. About talking—yes, I was writing last night, and I believe I read it aloud to myself before I went to bed. I never know what a thing is like unless I read it aloud."