The first thing that Featherston did was to open Van Rheyn’s things at the throat, spread a coat on the ground and put his head flat down upon it. But oh, there could be no mistake. He was dying: nearly gone. Dr. Frost knelt down, the better to get at him, and said something that we did not catch.
“Thank you, sir,” answered Van Rheyn, panting again and speaking with pain, but smiling faintly his grateful smile. “Do not be sorrowful. I shall see my mother. Sir—if you please—I wish to give my cross to Johnny Ludlow.”
Dr. Frost only nodded in answer. His heart must have been full.
“Johnny Ludlow has been always good for me,” he went on. “He will guard it to my memory: a keepsake. My mother would give it to him—she has seen that Johnny has stood by me ever since that first day.”
Monsieur Fontaine spoke to him in French, and Van Rheyn answered in the same language. While giving a fond message for his father, his voice grew feeble, his face more blue, and the lids slowly closed over his eyes. Dr. Frost said something about removing him to the house, but Featherston shook his head. “Presently, presently.”
“Adieu, sir,” said Van Rheyn faintly to Dr. Frost, and partly opening his eyes again, “Adieu, Monsieur Fontaine. Adieu, all. Johnny, say my very best adieux to the boys; tell them it has been very pleasant lately; say they have been very good comrades; and say that I shall see them all again when they come to heaven. Will you hold my hand?”
Taking his left hand in mine—the other had the gold cross in it—I sat on beside him. The dusk was increasing, so that we could no longer very well see his features in the dark coppice. My tears were dropping fast and thick, just as his tears had dropped that evening when I found him sitting at the foot of his bed.
Well, it was over directly. He gave one long deep sigh, and then another after an interval, and all was over. It seemed like a dream then in the acting; it seems, looking back, like a dream now.
He had died from the running at Hare and Hounds. The violent exercise had been too much for the heart. We heard later that the French family doctor had suspected the heart was not quite sound; and that was the reason of Monsieur Rheyn’s written restrictions on the score of violent exercise. But, as Dr. Frost angrily observed, why did the father not distinctly warn him against that special danger: how was it to be suspected in a lad of hearty and healthy appearance? Monsieur Van Rheyn came over, and took what remained of Charles back to Rouen, to be laid beside his late wife. It was a great blow to him to lose his only son. And all the property went away from the Van Rheyn family to Mrs. Scott in India.
The school went into a state that night, when we got in from the coppice, and I gave them Van Rheyn’s message. They knew something was up with him, but never suspected it could be death.