“The rough weather is nothing to me,” said Meredith; “I must work while it is day—the night cometh in which no man can work.”
“The night has come,” said Colin, doing the best he could to smile; “the human night, in which men do not attempt to work. Don’t you think you should obey the natural ordinances as well as the spiritual? To-morrow we will meet, better qualified to discuss the question.”
“To-morrow we may meet in eternity,” said the dying man.
“Amen; the question will be clear then, and we shall have no need to discuss it,” said Colin. This time he managed better to smile. “But, wherever we meet to-morrow, good-bye for to-night—good-bye. You know what the word means,” he said. He smiled to himself even at the thoughts suggested to him by his own words. He too was pale, and had no great appearance of strength. If he himself felt the current of life flowing back into his veins, the world and even his friends were scarcely of his opinion. He looked but a little way farther off from the solemn verge than his new acquaintance did, as he stood at the door of the little cabin, his face lit up with the vague, sweet, brightening of a smile, which was not called forth by anything external, but came out of the musings and memories of his own heart. Such a smile could not be counterfeit. When he had turned towards the narrow stair which led to the deck, he felt a touch upon his arm, like the touch of a bird, it was so light and momentary. “Come again,” said a voice in his ear, “come again.” He knew it was the sister who spoke; but the voice did not sound in Colin’s ears as the voice of a woman to a man. It was impersonal, disembodied, independent of all common restrictions. She had merged her identity altogether in that of her brother. All the light, all the warmth, all the human influence she had, she was pouring into him, like a lantern, bright only for the bearer, turning a dark side to the world.
Colin’s head throbbed and felt giddy when he emerged into the open air above, into the cold moonlight, to which the heaving of the sea gave a look of disturbance and agitation which almost reached the length of pain. There was nothing akin in that passionless light to the tumult of the great chafing ocean, the element most like humanity. True, it was not real storm, but only the long pantings of the vast bosom, after one of those anger-fits to which the giant is prone; but a fanciful spectator could not but link all kinds of imaginations to the night, and Colin was pre-eminently a fanciful spectator. It looked like the man storming, the woman watching with looks of powerless anguish; or like the world heaving and struggling, and some angel of heaven grieving and looking on. Colin lingered on the deck, though it was cold, and rest was needful. What could there be in the future existence more dark, more hopeless than the terrible enigmas which built up their dead walls around a man in this world, and passed interpretation. Even the darkest hell of poetic invention comprehended itself and knew why it was; but this life, who comprehended, who could explain?
The thought was very different from those with which Arthur Meredith resigned himself reluctantly to rest. He could not consent to sleep till he had written a page or two of the book which he meant to leave as a legacy to the world, and which was to be called “A Voice from the Grave.” This poor young fellow had forgotten that God Himself was likely to take some pains about the world which had cost so much. After the “unspeakable gift” once for all, it appeared to young Meredith that the rest of the work was left on his shoulders, and on the shoulders of such as he; and, accordingly he wore his dying strength out, addressing everybody in season and out of season, and working at “A Voice from the Grave.” A strange voice it was—saying little that was consolatory; yet, in its way, true, as everything is true in a certain limited sense which comes from the heart. The name of the Redeemer was named a great many times therein, but the spirit of it was as if no Redeemer had ever come. A world, dark, confused, and full of judgments and punishments—a world in which men would not believe though one rose from the grave—was the world into which he looked, and for which he was working. His sister Alice, watching by his side, noting with keen anxiety every time the pen slipped from his fingers, every time it went vaguely over the paper in starts which told he had gone half to sleep over his work, sat with her intelligence unawakened, and her whole being slumbering, thinking of nothing but him. After all, Colin was not so fanciful when in his heart it occurred to him to connect these two with the appearance of the moon and the sea. They had opened the book of their life to him fortuitously, without any explanations, and he did not know what to make of it. When he descended to his own cabin and found Lauderdale fast asleep, the young man could not but give a little time to the consideration of this new scene which had opened in his life. It was natural to Colin’s age and temperament to expect that something would come of such a strange, accidental meeting; and so he lay and pondered it, looking out at the troubled moonlight on the water, till that disturbed guardian of the night had left her big troublesome charge to himself. The ship ploughed along its lonely road with tolerable composure and quietness, for the first time since it set out, and permitted to some of its weary passengers unwonted comfort and repose; but, as for Colin, a sense of having set out upon a new voyage came into his mind, he could not tell why.
CHAPTER XXVII.
“I’m no saying if I’m well or ill,” said Lauderdale; “I’m saying it’s grand for you to leave your friends in a suffering condition, and go off and make up to other folk. It’s well to be off with the old love—for my own part, however,” said Colin’s Mentor, “I’m no for having a great deal to do with women. They’re awfu’ doubtful creatures, you may take my word for it; some seem about as good as the angels—no that I have any personal acquaintance with the angels, but it’s aye an intelligible metaphor—some just as far on the other side. Besides, it’s a poor thing for a man to fritter away what little capability of a true feeling there may be in him. I’ve no fancy for the kind of friendships that are carried on after the manner of flirtations. For my part, I’m a believer in love,” said the philosopher, with a sudden fervour of reproof which brought an unusual amount of colour to his face.
“You are absurd all the same,” said Colin, laughing; “here is no question either of love, or flirtation, or even of friendship. I know what you mean,” he added with a slightly heightened colour; “you think that, having once imagined I admired Miss Frankland, I ought to have continued in the same mind all my life. You don’t appreciate my good sense, Lauderdale; but, at all events, the young lady has nothing to do with my interest here.”
“I was saying nothing about Miss Frankland,” said Lauderdale; “I was making a confession of faith on my own part, which has naething to do with you that I can see. As for the young leddy, as you say, if it doesna begin with her, it’s a’ the more likely to end with her, according to my experience. To be sure, there’s no great amount of time; but a boat like this is provocative of intimacy. You’re aye in the second cabin, which is a kind of safeguard; but, as for your good sense—”