As Mrs Greendale spoke, Penelope rose from her kneeling posture, and turning round, then first saw that Lord Spoonbill was in the room. His lordship intreated Mrs Greendale to compose herself, and then turning again towards the sick man’s chair, he held out his hand to Penelope, who resigned to his lordship the hand the dying man, which she had been holding. Lord Spoonbill took the offered hand, and kneeling on one knee pressed the hand to his lips, and looked with searching earnestness to the face of the patient, as if endeavouring to rouse him into consciousness and recollection. The eyes were fixed and motionless, and their brightness was passing away. After a few moments there appeared a convulsive movement of the lips, and there seemed to be a gleam of consciousness in the eye, and the hand which Lord Spoonbill had been holding was lifted up and placed on his lordship’s head, from whence it fell in a moment, and the breathing, after one long sigh, died away and was heard no more. At the instant of the change, Mrs Greendale uttered a piercing shriek, and fell senseless to the floor. Penelope, as if unconscious of the distress of her aunt and the presence of Lord Spoonbill, knelt gently down, and lifting up her hands and her eyes, murmured a prayer, which relieved for a moment her bursting heart; for tears came copiously to her aid, and her presence of mind was soon restored, and she assisted the domestics in removing Mrs Greendale into another apartment.
Lord Spoonbill then took his leave, and as he quitted the house of mourning he felt as he had never felt before. He had seen life in many of its varieties, but death had been to his eye and thoughts a stranger. He had now witnessed such a scene as he never had before. His mind was deeply and powerfully moved. But yesterday, and he had seen Dr Greendale in the fullness of strength and the vigour of health, and life was bright about him, and he was in its enjoyments and sympathies. One day, one little day, produced an awful change. The music of the tongue was mute, the benevolence of the look had fled, the animation of the intellect had vanished, and the beatings of the kind heart had ceased. Then did the young lord call to mind many kind expressions which the good man had used towards him. He thought of the day when he went at the desire of the Earl his father, rather than by any prompting of his own inclination, to call at the rectory and take leave of the doctor, previously to setting out on his journey to Cambridge, when he first entered the University. He recollected that on that occasion he had been received in the doctor’s study, and the good man carefully laid aside his books, and drew his chair round and conversed with him most cheerfully and most wisely; and he remembered how very tenderly he hinted at the possibility of juvenile follies, and how like a friend and companion he endeavoured to guard his mind against the fascinations of vice. He remembered also the fervent prayer which the good man uttered at parting, and the words seemed to live again, and he heard afresh the pious rector pray, “May God bless you, my dear young friend, and keep you from the evil that is in the world, and make you an ornament to that station which you are destined to fill.” Then came to his mind the sad neglect of all the kind precepts which the holy man had given him, and he felt that as yet the pastor’s prayer had not been answered by the event. Now, had these feelings been followed by that sobriety and steadiness of thought which should be the natural fruit of such emotions, it had been well for him; but unfortunately he had so much satisfaction in these emotions, and looked upon them as being virtue, and not merely the means of virtue, so that they failed to produce any lasting effect upon his mind, or to cause any change in his conduct. He was proud of his remorse and pleased with his regrets, and so the virtue which had its birth in a tear, evaporated when that tear was dry.
Before Lord Spoonbill had left the rectory many minutes, he met the medical gentleman on his way to the house. He stopped the physician and told him that all was over.
With due solemnity, and professional solemnity is very solemn indeed, the medical attendant of the Earl of Smatterton shook his head and replied—
“Indeed! Aye, I thought I should find it so, from the account which the messenger gave me. However, my lord, as I am thus far, I may as well just look in. There is a possibility, perhaps, that even yet the use of the lancet may not be too late.”
Lord Spoonbill did not oppose the physician’s wish, though he had no expectation of any benefit to be derived from it. He therefore returned and waited the report. The man of medicine soon rejoined his lordship, and pronounced the patient beyond the reach of professional skill.
“The spirit, my lord, has left the body,” continued he, “according to the vulgar expression.”
No man could more heartily enjoy the reprobation of vulgar phraseology than could Lord Spoonbill, generally speaking; but at this moment he was not disposed to be critical, and he answered the medical man rather pettishly. He was not for his own part able so quickly to make the transition from the grave to the gay as persons more accustomed to such scenes. It is also not very uncommon for the imperfectly virtuous to be exceedingly morose when under the impression of serious or religious feelings. The physician was very much surprised at the manner in which his lordship received the above-quoted speech; for it is a great absurdity in these enlightened days to imagine that there is any such thing as a soul. If there had been any such thing, the medical gentlemen, who have very minutely dissected the human body, certainly must have found it. But as they have not seen it, clearly it has no existence, and that which we take for the soul is only a sort of a kind of a something that is not a soul, but is only a word of four letters. Many of the Newmarket students indeed had discovered this fact before the dissectors had revealed it.
When the medical philosopher observed that Lord Spoonbill did not express any approbation of the phraseology whereby a doubt of the existence of a soul was intimated, he did not consider that the disapprobation might be more from feeling than from opinion, and therefore he proceeded to the discussion of the subject in a regular and systematic method. His lordship was, however, not at all disposed to listen to his arguments, and the two walked side by side in silence to the castle.
When the Earl saw his medical oracle, he directed his inquiries first to him—