He wore a coat of black velvet, a vest of the same, across which his gold chain passed, with its drooping seal. The ring, formerly Mr. Channing's, no longer made believe to fit the little finger; it was worn on the second. His hair, carefully brushed as ever, looked like threads of dark gold in the sunlight. Certainly it could not be said that Hamish gave in to his illness. Whatever his complaint might be, the medical men did not call it by any name; there was a little cough, a strange want of tone and strength a quick, continual, almost perceptible wasting. Whether Hamish had cherished visions of recovery for himself could not be known; most earnestly he had hoped for it. If only for the sake of his wife and child, he desired to live: and existence itself, even in the midst of a great and crushing disappointment, is hard to resign. But the truth, long dawning on his mind, had shown itself to him fully at last, as it does in similar cases to most of us; whether Hamish's weakness had taken a stride and brought conviction of its formidable nature, or whether it might be that he was temporarily feeling worse, a sadness, as of death itself, lay upon him this afternoon.
It had been a short life--as men count lives; he had not yet numbered two and thirty years. But for the awful disappointment that was drying its fibres away, he might say that it had been a supremely happy one. Perhaps no man, with the sweet and sunny temperament of Hamish Channing, possessing the same Christian principles, could be otherwise than happy. He did not remember ever to have done ill wilfully to mortal man, in thought, word, or deed. It had been done to him: but he forgave it. Nevertheless, a sense of injustice, a bitter pang of disappointment, of hopeless failure as to this world, lay on his heart, when he recalled what the past few months brought him. Leaning there on his chair, his sad eyes tracing figures in the fire, he was recalling things one by one. His never-ceasing, ever-hopeful work, and the bright dreams of future fame that had made its sunshine. He remembered, as though it were today, the evening that first review met his eye--when he had been entertaining his brother-in-law, the Reverend William Yorke, and others--and the shock it gave him. Think of it when he would even now, it brought him a sensation of sick faintness. Older men have become paralyzed from a similar shock. The first review had been so closely followed by others, equally unjust, equally cruel, that they all seemed as one blow. After that there appeared to be a sort of pause in his life, when time and events stood still, when he moved as one in a dream of misery, when all things around him were as dead, and he along with them. The brain (as it seemed) never stopped beating, or the bosom's pain working; or the sense of humiliation to quit him. And then, as the days went on, bodily weakness supervened; and--there he was, dying. Dying! going surely to his God and Saviour; he felt that; but leaving his dear ones, wife and child, to the frowns of a hard world; alone, without suitable provision. And the book--the good, scholarly, attractive book, upon which he had bestowed the best of his bright genius, that he had written as to Heaven--was lying unread. Wasted!
"Papa, shall I put on her blue frock or her green? She is going out for a walk."
This interruption came from Miss Nelly, who sat on the hearthrug, dressing her doll. There was no reply, and Nelly looked up: she wore a blue frock herself; its sleeves and the white pinafore tied together with blue ribbon. Her pretty little feet in their shoes and socks were stretched out, and her curls fell in a golden shower.
"Shall baby wear her blue frock or her green, papa? Papa, then! Which is prettiest?"
Hamish, aroused, looked down on the child with a smile. "The blue, I think; and then baby-doll will be like Nelly."
But Mrs. Channing, sewing at the window, turned her head. Something in her husband's face or in his weary tone struck her.
"Do you feel worse, Hamish?"
"No, love. Not particularly."
Sadder yet, the voice; a kind of hopeless, weary sadness, depressing to hear. Ellen quitted her seat, and came to him. "What is it?" she whispered.