After this there was a little pause, which fell into the perfect stillness of the night outside, and held the little dim-lighted chamber in the midst of all the darkness, like the picture of a shadowy “interior,” with two motionless figures, the living and the dying, painted upon the great gloom of night. Meredith, who, notwithstanding the superior intensity of his own thoughts, had been moved by Lauderdale’s—and who, used as he was to think himself dying, yet perhaps heard himself thus unconsciously reckoned among the dead with a momentary thrill—was the first to speak.
“In all this I find you too vague,” said the patient. “You speak about Heaven as if you were uncertain only of its aspect; you have no anxiety about the way to get there. My friend, you are very good to me—you are excellent, so far as this world goes; I know you are. But, oh, Lauderdale, think! Our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Before you speculate about Heaven, ask yourself are you sure to get there?”
“Ay,” said Lauderdale, vaguely, “it’s maybe a wee like the question of the Sadducees—I’m no saying; and it’s awfu’, the dead blank of wisdom and knowledge that’s put forth for a response—no any information to you; nothing but a quenching of your flippant questions and impudent pretensions. No marrying nor giving in marriage there, and the curious fools baffled, but nae light thrown upon the darkness! I’ll have to wait like other folk for my answer; but, if it’s according to your new nature and faculties—which surely it must be—you’ll not forget to give us a thought at times? If you feel a wee lonely at the first—I’m no profane, callant; you’re but a man when a’s done, or rather a laddie, and you’ll surely miss your friends—dinna forget how long and how often we’ll think of you.”
“Shall you?” said the dying man. “I have given you nothing but trouble ever since I knew you, and it is more than I deserve. But there is One who is worthy of all your thoughts. When you think of me, O love Him, my dear friend, and so there will be a bond between us still.”
“Ay,” said Lauderdale once more. It was a word he used when his voice could not be trusted, and his heart was full. “Ay,” he repeated, after a long pause, “I’ll no neglect that grand bond. It’s a bargain between you and me no to be broken. If ye were free for such an act, it would be awfu’ friendly to bring me word how things are”—he continued, in a low tone, “though it’s folly to ask, for if it had been possible it would have been done before now.”
“It is God who must teach and not me,” said the dying man. “He has other instruments—and you must seek Him for yourself, and let Him reveal His will to you. If you are faithful to God’s service, He will relieve you of your doubts,” said Arthur, who did not understand his friend’s mind, but even at that solemn moment looked at him with a perplexed mixture of disapproval and compassion. And thus the silence fell again like a curtain over the room, and once more it became a picture faintly painted on the darkness, faintly relieved and lighted up by touches of growing light, till at length the morning came in full and fair, finding out as with a sudden surprise the ghostly face on the pillow, with its great eyes closed in disturbed sleep, and by the bedside another face scarcely less motionless, the face of the man who was no unbeliever, but whose heart longed to know and see what others were content, in vague generalities to tell of, and say they believed.
This was one of the conversations held in the dead of night in Meredith’s room. Next evening it was Colin, reluctantly permitted by his faithful guardian to share this labour, who took the watcher’s place; and then the two young men, who were so near of an age, but whose prospects were so strangely different, talked to each other after a different fashion. Both at the beginning of their career, and with incalculable futures before them, it was natural they should discuss the objects and purposes of life, upon which Meredith, who thought himself matured by the approach of death, had, as he imagined, so much advantage over his friend, who was not going to die.
“I remember once thinking as you do,” said the dying man. “The world looked so beautiful! No man ever loved its vanities and its pomp more than I. I shudder sometimes to think what would have become of me if God had left me to myself—but He was more merciful. I see things in their true light now.”
“You will have a great advantage over us,” said Colin, trying to smile; “for you will always know the nature of our occupations, while yours will be a mystery to us. But we can be friends all the same. As for me, I shall not have many pomps and vanities to distract me; a poor man’s son, and a Scotch minister does not fall in the way of such temptations.”
“There are temptations to worldliness in every sphere,” said Meredith. “You once spoke eagerly about going to Oxford, and taking honours. My dear friend, trust a dying man. There are no honours worth thinking of but the crown and the palm, which Christ bestows on them that love Him.”