"Come hither, my son," said the virtuous Nestor in faltering accents, "and embrace your friend for the last time in this world. My eyes will soon be closed for ever, and I must return to the earth from whence I came. Complain not that I go before you to the regions of bliss, for I have enjoyed a long succession of happy years. My career is finished, and I die without a murmur. It is our ignorance only of what may be our state hereafter, that makes men afraid of death; but everlasting happiness is promised to us, and death puts us in possession of it. Though you will in me lose a mortal friend, yet I leave you One in heaven who is eternal, and who never will forsake you, so long as you pursue the paths of virtue. As soon as I shall be no more, dig my grave close by the poplar which grows on the borders of the river, where it waters my last plantation. That spot afforded me infinite delight while I was living, and there I wish my body to repose. This is the last favour I have to ask of you. Farewell for ever, my virtuous companion.—The earth seems to fly from me—my time is come—once more, farewell.—Grieve not for the loss of me, but respect my memory.—Keep constantly in your view the example which it has pleased heaven to permit me to set you, and you will be happy, because you will be virtuous."
Having finished these words, the good Nestor closed his eyes, and expired without a struggle; he passed away like a cloud floating in the ambient air, which insensibly disperses and dissipates itself in a sky of azure. How peaceful and tranquil are the last moments of the virtuous man! The youth looked stedfastly on that venerable front, which appeared graceful even in death. He embraced him, and could not help sighing. "O my dear father," said he, "you are no more! You leave me in this solitude, without any one to partake of it with me. Who will, in future, be the comfort of my existence? and to whom am I to tell my tales of past woe?"
His heart was sensibly affected, and the tears flowed down his cheeks; but he recollected the last words of his friend Nestor, and endeavoured to moderate his grief. He took the body on his shoulders, and carried it to the place where Nestor had desired it might be buried. Being come to the borders of the river, he gently laid down the body of his deceased friend, and then dug the grave.
While he was thus sadly employed in his last work for Nestor, he thought all nature, and whatever breathed throughout the region round him, united their tears for his virtuous benefactor. After he had deposited the body in the grave, it was some time before he could prevail on himself to cover it with the earth. He felt his heart very powerfully affected; he stood almost motionless, and the tears stole insensibly down his cheeks.
"Happy Nestor," said he, "you can neither see nor condemn my weakness. If you could, you would forgive me, and pity me. You were my father, philosopher, and friend; you taught me to love you, and now I have lost you. Let me indulge my tears in this melancholy moment, as the only tribute I can pay to your virtues."
He then proceeded to fill up the grave; but every shovelful of earth was accompanied with a sigh. When he had covered part of his face, he stopped suddenly. "Farewell, my dear friend," said the generous and pious youth, "a little more earth, and then you will be lost from my sight for ever! It is the decree of Heaven, it must be so, and it is my duty to submit. But though you will soon be for ever lost from my sight, your memory will never be erased from my mind, till my mortal clay, like yours, shall be incapable of knowing what passes in this world. May my end be like yours, peaceful, composed, and tranquil."
After a few minutes pause, he proceeded in his business, filled up the grave, and covered it with the most verdant turf he could find. He then planted round it the woodbine and jessamine, and inclosed the whole with a fence of blushing roses.
His business being now completed, he turned to the transparent stream, and thus uttered his devotions, to which no mortal could be witness, and his plaintive accents were heard only by the wafting gentle zephyrs.
"Thou great and omnipotent Being, who, in your gracious bounty to me, unworthy wretch as I am, have been pleased to take me from the regions of Folly, and place me here in those of Innocence and Virtue, where I have learned to forget the former dreadful misfortunes of my life, grant me, O gracious Heaven! thy protection, and endow me with the same virtues that reverend sage possessed, to whose memory I have just paid the last duties. Left as I am without either guide or companion, his sacred ashes shall supply the place of them. Sooner shall this stream cease to flow, and the sun withdraw its benign influence from these happy regions, than I to wander from the paths into which my departed friend has conducted me."
Though Nestor's death left the virtuous youth without friend or companion, yet he in some measure consoled himself for that loss by daily visiting his grave, and cautiously watching the growth of that funeral plantation. He suffered not a weed to grow near it, and kept every thing about it in the highest state of perfection. Every morning and evening the birds assembled in the surrounding bushes, and warbled forth their notes over the departed sage.