“I can’t see why he should not get well,” said the Squire.
“I’m sure I can’t. Carden ought to be able to bring him round.”
“So he ought,” assented the Squire. “It would be quite a feather in his cap, after all these months of illness. As to the boys, you may be troubled with ’em, and welcome, Sir John, if you care to be.”
And so, we went to Whitney Hall that year, instead of home.
John had the best rooms, the two that opened into one another. Sometimes he would be on the bed in one, sometimes on the sofa in the other. Then he would walk about on some one’s arm; or sit in the easy-chair at the west window, the setting sun full on his wasted face. Barrington had called him a shadow: you should have seen him now. John had talked to Barrington of angels: he was just like an angel in the house himself. And—will you believe it?—they had not given up hope of his getting well again. I wondered the doctors did not tell Lady Whitney the plain truth, and have done with it: but to tell more professional truth than they can help, is what doctors rarely put themselves out of the way to do.
And still—the shadow of the coming death lay on the house. In the hushed voices and soft tread of the servants, in the subdued countenances of Sir John and Lady Whitney, and in the serious spirit that prevailed, the shadow might be seen. It is good to be in such a house as this: for the lessons learnt may take fast hold of the heart. It was good to hear John Whitney talk: and I never quite made out whether he was telling of dreams or realities.
Tod was out of his element: as much so as a fish is out of water. He had plenty of sympathy with John, would have made him well at any sacrifice to himself: but he could not do with the hushed house, in which all things seemed to give way to that shadow of the coming presence. Tod, in his way, was religious enough; more so than some fellows are; but dying beds he did not understand, and would a great deal rather have been shooting partridges than be near one. He and Bill Whitney—who was just as uncomfortable as Tod—used to get off anywhere whenever they could. They did not forget John. They would bring him all kinds of things; flowers, fruit, blackberries as big as Willis’s thimble, and the finest nuts off the trees; but they did not care to sit long with him.
John was awake one afternoon, and I was sitting beside him. He sat in his easy-chair at the window—as he liked to do at this hour when the evening was drawing on. The intensely serene look that for some time now had taken possession of his face, I had never seen surpassed in boy or man.
“How quiet the house is, Johnny!” he said, touching my hand. “Where are they all?”