The dead chamber was profusely lighted, according to the custom of the country, and the bed, with every other piece of furniture which it contained, was hung with white. The bereaved brother had shut himself up in his room, where he might be heard at times as if struggling with inexpressible anguish in the agony of prayer; and only two elderly women, one of them the nurse of Mary, watched beside the corpse. With an unsteady step and pallid countenance, on the lineaments of which a quiescent but settled despair was frightfully impressed, Dallas entered the apartment and stood fronting the bed. The nurse greeted him in a few brief words, expressive of their mutual loss; but he saw her not—heard her not. He saw only the long white shroud with its fearfully significant outline—heard only the beatings of his own heart. The eyes of the good old woman filled with tears as she gazed on him, and, slowly rising, she uncovered the face of the dead. He bent forward; there was the open and beautiful forehead, and there the exquisite features, thin and wasted ’tis true, but lovely as ever. A faint smile still lingered on the lip; it was a smile that called upon thoughts and feelings the most solemn and holy, and whispered of the joys of immortality from amid the calm and awful sublimity of death. “Ah, my bairn!” said the woman, “weel and lang did she loe you, and meikle did she grieve for you and pray for you, when ye went o’er to the prelates. But her griefs are a’ ended now. Ken ye, Dallas, that for years an’ years she loed ye wi’ mair than a sister’s luve, an’ that if she didna just meet wi’ your hopes, it was only because she kent o’er weel she was to die young?” Dallas struck his open palm against his forehead; a convulsive emotion shook his frame; and, bursting into tears, he flung himself out of the room.
The funeral passed over; and the brother of Mary quitted the parish a homeless and solitary man, with a grieving heart but an unbroken spirit. He had to mourn both for the dead and the estranged; and found that the low insults and cruel suspicions of the persecutor dogged him wherever he went. But his state was one of comfort compared with that of his hapless friend. Grief, terror, and remorse, lorded it over the unfortunate chaplain by turns, and what was at first but mere inquietude had become anguish. He was sitting a few weeks after the interment in the eastern turret, his eyes fixed vacantly on the fire, which was dying on the hearth at his feet, when Sir John abruptly entered, and drew in his seat beside him.
“Your fire, nephew,” he said, as he trimmed it, “very much resembles yourself. There is no lack of the right material, but it wants just a little stirring, and is useless for want of it. It is no time, Dallas, to be loitering away life when a bright prospect of honourable ambition and extensive usefulness is opening full before you. Wot you not that our neighbour the bishop, now a worn-out old man, has been confined to his room for the last week? And should my cousin of Tarbat and myself agree in recommending a successor, as we unquestionably shall, where think you lies the influence powerful enough to thwart us? But a diocese so important, nephew, can be the prize of no indolent dreamer.”
“Uncle,” said Dallas, in a tone of deep melancholy, “do you believe that those who have been once awakened to the truth may yet fall away and perish?”
“Why perplex yourself with such questions?” replied his uncle. “We are creatures intended for both this world and the next; each demands that certain duties be performed; and of all men, woe to him of a musing and speculative turn, who, though not devoid of a sense of duty, fails in the requirements of the present state. His thoughts become fiends to torment him. But up, nephew, and act, and you will find that all will be well.”
“Act! How?—to what purpose?—how read you the text—‘It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, if they fall away, to renew them to repentance?’ I have fallen—fallen for ever.”
“Dallas,” said Sir John, “what wild thought has now possessed you?—You are but one of many thousands;—I know not a more hopeful clergyman of your standing connected with the Church.”
“Wretched, wretched Church, if it be so! But what are her ministers? Trees twice dead, plucked up by the roots—wandering stars, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. Yes, I am as hopeful as most of her ministers. Mary Anderson told me what was coming; and, hypocrite that I am! I believed her, and yet denied that I did. I saw her last night;—she was beautiful as ever—but ah! there was no love, no pity in her eye—and the wide, wide gulf was between us.”
“Dearest nephew, why talk so wildly?” exclaimed Sir John.
“Uncle, you have ever been kind to me,” replied Dallas; “but you have ruined—no, wretched creature! ’twas I, myself, who have ruined my soul; and there is neither love nor gratitude in the place to which I am going. O leave me to myself! my thoughts become more fearful when I embody them in words;—leave me to myself! and, uncle, while there is yet space, seek after that repentance which is denied to me. Avoid the unpardonable sin.”