"It is but too true, my dear Philip," said the old clergyman; "your brother is lost to us. But recollect yourself, my son. It is weak to give way in this manner. I announced your misfortune somewhat suddenly, it is true, trusting that your philosophy was stronger than it is—your Christian fortitude. Remember, all these dispensations are from the hand of the most merciful God. He who gives the sunshine, shall he not bring the clouds? Doubt not that all is merciful; and suffer not the manifestations of His will to find you unprepared or unsubmissive."
"I have been very weak," said the young man, "but it was so sudden! Heaven! how full of health and strength he looked when he went away! He was the picture of life—almost of immortality. I was but as a reed beside him—a weak, feeble reed, beside a sapling oak."
"'One shall be taken, and the other left,'" said the sweet voice of the young girl; and the eyes both of the youth and the old clergyman turned suddenly upon her.
Philip Hastings raised himself upon his arm, and seemed to meditate for a moment or two. His thoughts were confused and indistinct. He knew not well where he was. The impression of what had happened was vague and indefinite. As eyes which have been seared by the lightning, his mind, which had lost the too vivid impression, now perceived everything in mist and confusion.
"I have been very weak," he said, "too weak. It is strange. I thought myself firmer. What is the use of thought and example, if the mind remains thus feeble? But I am better now. I will never yield thus again;" and flinging himself off the sofa on which they had laid him, he stood for a moment on his feet, gazing round upon the old clergyman and that beautiful young girl, and two or three servants who had been called to minister to him.
We all know—at least, all who have dealt with the fiery things of life—all who have felt and suffered, and struggled and conquered, and yielded and grieved, and triumphed in the end—we all know how short-lived are the first conquests of mind over body, and how much strength and experience it requires to make the victory complete. To render the soul the despot, the tyranny must be habitual.
Philip Hastings rose, as I have said, and gazed around him. He struggled against the shock which his mere animal nature had received, shattered as it had been by long and intense study, and neglect of all that contributes to corporeal power. But everything grew hazy to his eyes again. He felt his limbs weak and powerless; even his mind feeble, and his thoughts confused. Before he knew what was coming, he sunk fainting on the sofa again, and when he woke from the dull sort of trance into which he had fallen, there were other faces around him; he was stretched quietly in bed in a strange room, a physician and a beautiful lady of mature years were standing by his bedside, and he felt the oppressive lassitude of fever in every nerve and in every limb.
But we must turn to good Doctor Paulding. He went back to his rectory discontented with himself, leaving the lad in the care of Lady Annabella Marshal and her family. The ordinary—as the man who carried the letters was frequently called in those days—was to depart in an hour, and he knew that Sir John Hastings expected his only remaining son in London to attend the body of his brother down to the family burying place. It was impossible that the lad could go, and the old clergyman had to sit down and write an account of what had occurred.
There was nothing upon earth, or beyond the earth, which would have induced him to tell a lie. True, his mind might be subject to such self-deceptions as the mind of all other men. He might be induced to find excuses to his own conscience for anything he did that was wrong—for any mistake or error in judgment; for, willfully, he never did what was wrong; and it was only by the results that he knew it. But yet he was eagerly, painfully upon his guard against himself. He knew the weakness of human nature—he had dealt with it often, and observed it shrewdly, and applied the lesson with bitter severity to his own heart, detecting its shrinking from candor, its hankering after self-defense, its misty prejudices, its turnings and windings to escape conviction; and he dealt with it as hardly as he would have done with a spoiled child.
Calmly and deliberately he sat down to write to Sir John Hastings a full account of what had occurred, taking more blame to himself than was really his due. I have called it a full account, though it occupied but one page of paper, for the good doctor was anything but profuse of words; and there are some men who can say much in small space. He blamed himself greatly, anticipating reproach; but the thing which he feared the most to communicate was the fact that the lad was left ill at the house of Colonel Marshal, and at the house of a man so very much disliked by Sir John Hastings.