Chapter 21

There came into Hugh's mind the thought that this deep thirst for peace might somehow yet be satisfied. How could he otherwise conceive of it, how could he dream so clearly of it, if it were not actually there? He thought that there must be a region where the pulse of time should cease to beat, where there should be no restless looking backwards and forwards, but where the spirit should brood in an unending joy; but now, the world thrust one forward, impatient, unsatisfied; even as he gazed, the shadows had shifted and lengthened, and the thought of the world, that called him back to care and anxiety, began to overshadow him. Was it a phantom that mocked him? or was it not rather a type, an allegory of something unchanged and unchangeable, that waited for him beyond? And then, in that still afternoon, there came to him a sense that occasionally visited him, and that seemed, when it came, the truest and best thing in the world, the vision of an unseen Friend, to Whom he was infinitely dear, closer to Him even than to himself, Who surrounded and enveloped him with care and concern and love; Who brought him tenderly into the fair green places of the earth, such as he had visited to-day, whispered him the secret of it all, and only did not reveal it in its fulness, because the time for him to know it was not yet, and because the very delay arose from some depth of unimaginable love. In such a mood as this, Hugh felt that he could wait in utter confidence; that he could drink in with glad eyes and ears the beautiful and delicate things that were shown to him, the rich, luxuriant foliage, the dim sun-warmed stream, the silent trees, the old towers. There seemed to him nothing that he could not bear, nothing that he could not gladly do, when so tender a hand was leading him. He knew indeed that he would again be impatient, restless, wilful; but for the moment it was as though he had tasted of some mysterious sacrament; that the wine of some holy cup had been put to his lips; that he knew that he was not alone, but in the very heart of a wise and patient God.

XXXVIII

The Lakes--On the Fell--Peace

It was in the later weeks of a hot, still midsummer that Hugh escaped from Cambridge to the Lakes. He did not realise, until he found himself driving in the cool of the evening beside Windermere, how parched and dry his very mind had become in the long heats of the sun-dried flats. Sometimes the road wound down to the very edge of the water, lapping deliciously among the stones; sometimes it skirted the pleasaunces of a cool sheltered villa which lay embowered in trees, blinking contentedly across the lake. The sight of the great green hills with their skirts clothed with wood, with trees straggling upwards along the water-courses, the miniature crags escaping from oak-coppices, the black heads of bleak mountains, filled him with an exquisite and speechless delight.

It was sunset before he reached his destination, which was a large house of rough stone, much festooned with creepers, which crowned a little height at the base of the fells, in the centre of a wild wood. The house was that of a very old man, hard on his ninetieth year, a relative of Hugh's, and an old friend of his family. There was a short cut to the house among the woods, and Hugh left the carriage to go round by the drive, while he himself walked up. The path was a little track among copses, roofed over by interlacing boughs, and giving an abundance of pretty glimpses to right and left of the unvisited places of the wood; old brown boulders covered with moss, with ash-suckers shooting out among the stones, little streams rippling downwards, small green lawns fringed with low trees. The western valley was full of a rich golden light, and the wooded ridges rose quietly one after another, with the dark solemn forms of mountains on the horizon. A few dappled clouds, fringed with fire, floated high in the green sky. It all seemed to him to be screening some sacred and mysterious pageant, which was, as it were, being celebrated out in the west, where the orange sunset lay dying. He thought of the lonely valleys among the hills, slowly filling with twilight gloom, the high ridges from which one could discern the sun sinking in glory over the far-spread flashing sea with its misty rim. The house loomed up suddenly over the thickets, with a light or two burning in the windows which pierced the thick wall.

Within, all was as it had been for many a year; it was a house in which everything seemed to stand still, the day passing smoothly in a simple and pleasant routine. He received a very kindly and gentle welcome from his host, and was pleased to find that the party was of the quietest--an old friend or two, a widowed daughter of the house, one or two youthful cousins. Hugh slipped into his place in the household as if he had never been absent; he established his books in a corner of the dark library full of old volumes. It was always a pleasure to him to see his host, a courtly, silent old man, with snow-white hair and beard, who sate smiling, eating so little that Hugh wondered how he sustained life, reading for an hour or two, walking a little about the garden, sitting long in contented meditation, never seeming to be weary or melancholy. Hugh remembered that, some years before, he had wondered that any one could live so, neither looking backwards nor forwards, with no designs or cares or purposes, simply taking each day as it came with a perfect tranquillity, not overshadowed by the thought of how few years of life were left him. But now he seemed to understand it better; it was just the soft close of a kindly and innocent life, dying like a tree or a flower. The old man liked to have Hugh as the companion of his morning ramble, showed him many curious plants and flowers, and spoke often of the reminiscences of his departed youth with no shadow of desire or regret. At first the grateful coolness of the place revived Hugh; but the soft, moist climate brought with it a fatigue of its own, an indolent dejection, which made him averse to work and even to bodily activity. He took, however, one or two lonely walks among the mountains. In his listless mood, he was vexed and disquieted by the contrast between the utter peace and beauty of the hills, which seemed to uplift themselves, half in majesty and half in appeal, into the still sky, as though they had struggled out of the world, and yet desired a further blessing,--the contrast between their meek and rugged patience, and the noisy, dusty crowd of shameless and indifferent tourists, that circulated among the green valleys, like a poisonous fluid in the veins of the wholesome mountains. They brought a kind of blight upon the place; and yet they were harmless, inquisitive people, tempted thither, most of them by fashion, a few perhaps by a feeble love of beauty, and only desirous to bring their own standard of comforts with them. The world seemed out of joint; the radical ugliness and baseness of man an insult to the purity and sweetness of nature.

Hugh walked back, in a close and heavy afternoon, across the fell, with these thoughts struggling together in his heart. The valley was breathlessly still, and the flies buzzed round him as he disturbed them from the bracken. The whole world looked so sweet and noble, that it was impossible not to think that it was moulded and designed by a Will of unutterable graciousness and beauty. From the top, beside a little crag full of clinging trees, that held on tenaciously to the crevices and ledges, with so perfect an accommodation to their precarious situation, Hugh surveyed the wide valleys, and saw the smoke ascend from hamlets and houses, the lake as still as a mirror, while the shadows lengthened on the hills, which seemed indeed to change their very shapes by delicate gradations. It looked perfectly peaceful and serene. Yet in how many houses were there unquiet and suffering hearts, waiting in vain for respite or release! The pain of the world pressed heavily upon Hugh; it seemed that if he could have breathed out his life there upon the hill-top among the fern, to mingle with the incense of the evening, that would be best; and yet even while he thought it, there seemed to contend with his sadness an immense desire for joy, for life; how many beautiful things there were to see, to hear, to feel, to say; to be loved, to be needed--how Hugh craved for that! While he sate, there alighted on his knee, with much deliberation, a dry, varnished-looking, orange-banded fly, which might have almost been turned out of a manufactory a moment before. It sent out a thin and musical buzzing, as it cleaned its brown, large-eyed head industriously with its long legs. It seemed to wish to sit with Hugh; and again and again, after a short flight, it returned to the same place. What was the meaning of this tiny, definite life, with its short space of sun and shade, made with so curious and elaborate an art, so whimsically adorned and glorified? Here again he was touched close by the impenetrable mystery of things. But presently the cheerful and complacent creature flew off on some secret errand, and Hugh was left alone again.

He descended swiftly into the valley; the road was full of dust. The vehicles, full of chattering, smoking, vacuous persons were speeding home. The hands of many were full of poor fading flowers, torn from lawn and ledge to please a momentary whim. Yet beside the road slid the clear stream over its shingle, passing from brisk cascades into dark and silent pools, fringed with rich water-plants, the trees bowing over the water. How swiftly one passed from disgust and ugliness into unimagined peace! It was all going forwards, all changing, all tending to some unknown goal.

Hugh found his host sitting on the terrace, under a leafy sycamore, a perfect picture of holy age and serenity. He listened to the recital of Hugh's little adventures with a smile, and said that he had often walked over the fell in the old days, but did not suppose he would ever see it again. "I am just waiting for my release," he said, with a little nod of his head; "every time that I sit here, I think it may very likely be the last." Hugh longed to ask him the secret of this contented and passionless peace, but he knew there could be no answer; it was the kindly gift of God.

The sunset died away among the blue hill-ranges, and a soft breeze began to stir among the leaves of the sycamore overhead. A nightjar sent out its liquid, reiterated note from the heather, and a star climbed above the edge of the dark hill. Here was peace enough, if he could but reach it and seize it. Yet it softly eluded his grasp, and seemed only to mock him as unattainable. Should he ever grasp it? There was no answer possible; yet a message seemed to come wistfully and timidly, flying like a night-bird out of the wild woodland, as though it would have settled near him; but it left him with the same inextinguishable hunger of the heart, that seemed to be increased rather than fed by the fragrant incense of the garden, the sight of the cool, glimmering paths, the pale rock rising from the turf, the silent pool.

XXXIX

A Friend--The Gate of Life

Hugh was staying in the country with his mother. It was a bright morning in the late summer, and he had just walked out on to the little gravel-sweep before the house, which commanded a view of a pleasant wooded valley with a stream running through; it was one of those fresh days, with a light breeze rustling in the trees, when it seemed good to be alive; rain had fallen in the night, and had washed the dust of a long drought off the trees; some soft aerial pigment seemed mingled with the air, lending a rich lustre to everything; the small woods on the hillside opposite had a mellow colour, and the pastures between were of radiant and transparent freshness; the little gusts whirled over the woodland, turning the under sides of the leaves up, and brightening the whole with a dash of lighter green.

Just at this moment a telegram was put into Hugh's hand, announcing the sudden death of an elderly lady, who had been a good friend to him for over twenty years. Death seemed to be everywhere about him, and the bright scene suddenly assumed an almost heartless aspect of mirth; but he put the thought from him, and strove rather to feel that life and death rejoiced together.

Later in the day he heard more particulars. His friend was a wealthy woman who had lived a very quiet life for many years in a pleasant country-house. She had often spoken to Hugh of her fear of a long and tedious illness, wearing alike to both the sufferer and those in attendance, when the mind may become fretful, fearful, and impatient in the last scene, just when one most desires that the latest memories of one's life may be cheerful, brave, and serene. Her prayer had been very tenderly answered; she had been ailing of late; but she had been sitting talking in her drawing-room the day before, to a quiet family group, when she had been seized with a sudden faintness, and had died gently, in a few minutes, smiling palely, and probably not even knowing that she was in any sort of danger.

Hugh spent the day mostly in solitude, and retraced in tender thought the stages of their long friendship. His friend had been a woman of strong and marked individuality, who had loved life, and had made many loyal friends. She was intensely, almost morbidly, aware of the suffering of the world, especially of animals; and Hugh remembered how she had once told him that a shooting-party in the neighbouring squire's woods had generally meant for her a sleepless night, at the thought of wounded birds and beasts suffering and bleeding the long hours through, couched in the fern, faint with pain, and wondering patiently what hard thing had befallen them. She had been a woman of strong preferences and prejudices, marked likes and dislikes; intensely critical of others, even of those she loved best. Her talk was lively, epigrammatic, and pungent; she was the daughter of a famous Whig house, and had the strong aristocratical prejudices, coupled with a theoretical belief in popular equality, so often found in old Whig families. But this superiority betrayed itself not in any obvious arrogance or disdain, but in a high and distinguished personal courtesy, that penetrated, as if by a subtle aroma, all that she said or did. Though careless of personal appearance, with no grace of beauty, and wearing habitually the oldest clothes, she was yet indisputably the first person in any society in which she found herself. She was intensely reserved about herself, her family, her possessions, and her past; but Hugh had an inkling that there had been some deep disappointment in the background, which had turned a passionately affectionate nature into a fastidious and critical temperament. She had a wonderful contralto voice, and a real genius for music; she could rarely be persuaded to touch an instrument; but occasionally, with a small and familiar party, she would sing a few old songs with a passion and a depth of melancholy feeling that produced an almost physical thrill in her audience. She was of an indolent temperament, read little, never worked, had few philanthropic or social instincts; she was always ready to talk, but was equally content to spend long afternoons sitting alone before a fire, just shielding her eyes from the blaze, meditating with an intentness that seemed as though she were revolving over and over again some particular memory, some old and sad problem for which she could find no solution. Hugh used to think that she blamed herself for something irreparable.

But her gift of humour, of incisive penetration, of serious enthusiasm, made it always refreshing to be with her; and Hugh found himself reflecting that though it had been in many ways so inarticulate and inactive a life, it yet seemed, by virtue of a certain vivid quality, a certain subdued fire, a life of imperishable worth. She had been both generous and severe in her judgments; but there had never been anything tame, or mild, or weak about her. She had always known her own mind; she yielded freely to impulse without ever expressing regret or repentance. Small as her circle had been, Hugh yet felt that she had somehow affected the world; and yet he could indicate nothing that she had accomplished, except for the fact that she had been a kind of bracing influence in the lives of all who had come near her.

Her last message to him had been an intensely sympathetic letter of outspoken encouragement. She had heard that a severe judgment had been passed upon Hugh's writings by a common friend. She knew that this had been repeated to Hugh, and judged rightly that it had hurt and wounded him. Her letter was to the effect that the judgment was entirely baseless, and that he was to pursue the line he had taken up without any attempt to deviate from it. It went to Hugh's heart that he had made little effort of late, owing to circumstances and pressure of work, to see her; but he knew that she was aware of his affection, and he had never doubted hers. He felt, too, that if there had been anything to forgive, any shadow of dissatisfaction, it was forgiven in that moment. Her death seemed somehow to Hugh to be the strongest proof he had ever received of the permanent identity of the soul; it was impossible to think of her as not there; equally impossible was it to think of her as wrapt in sleep, or even transformed to a heavenly meekness; he could think of her, with perhaps an added brightness of demeanour, at the knowledge of how easy a thing after all had been the passage she had feared, with the dark eyes that he knew so well, like wells of fire in the pale face, smiling almost disdainfully at the thought that others should grieve for her; she was one whom it was impossible ever to compassionate, and Hugh could not compassionate her now. She would have had no sort of tolerance for any melancholy or brooding grief; she would desire to be tenderly remembered, but she would have been utterly impatient of the thought that any grief for her should weaken or darken the outlook of her friends upon the world. Hugh resolved, with a great flood of strong love for his friend, that he would grieve for her as she would have had him grieve, as though they were but separated for a little.

She had left, he learnt, the most decisive direction that no one should be summoned to her funeral: that was so like her brave, sensible nature; she desired the grief for her to be wholesome and temperate grief, with no lingering over the sad accidents of mortality. Hugh felt the strong bond of friendship, that had existed between them, grow and blossom into a vigorous and enduring love. She seemed close beside him all that day, approving his efforts after a joyful tranquillity. He could almost see her, if he sank for a moment into a tearful sorrow, casting upward that impatient look he knew so well, if any instance of human weakness were related in her presence.

And thus the death of his old friend seemed, as the day drew on, to have brought a strange brightness into his life, by making the dark less terrible, the unknown more familiar. She was there, with the same brave courtesy, the same wholesome scorn, the same humorous decisiveness; and though the thought of the gap came like an ache into his mind, again and again, he resolved that he would not yield to ineffectual sadness; but that he would be worthy of the friendship which she had given him, not easily, he remembered, but after long testing and weighing his character; and that he would be faithful--he prayed that he might be that--to so pure and generous a gift.

XL

A Funeral Pomp--The Daily Manna--The Lapsing Moment

In Hugh's temperament, sensitive and eager as it was, there was a strong tendency to live in the future and in the past rather than in the present. In the past, he realised, he could live without dismay and without languor, because the mind has so extraordinary a power of sifting its memories, of throwing away and disregarding all that is sordid, ugly, and base, and retaining only the finest gold. But there was a danger in dwelling too much upon the future, because the anxious mind, fertile in imagination, was so apt to weave for itself pictures of discouragement and failure, sad dilemmas, dreary dishonours, calamities, shadows, woes. How often had the thought of what might be in store clouded the pure sunshine of some bright day of summer; how often had the thought of isolation, of loss, of bereavement, hung like a cloud between himself and his intercourse even with those whom he most feared to lose! He thought sometimes of that sad and yet bracing sentiment, uttered by one whose life had been filled with every delight that wealth, guided by cultivated taste, could purchase. "My life," said this wearied man, "has been clouded by troubles, most of which never happened." But even apart from the sorrows which he knew might or might not befall him, there was one darkest shadow, the shadow of death, the cessation of beloved energies, of delightful prospects, of the sweet interchange of friendship, of the bright and brave things of life. Could one, he asked himself, ever come to regard death as a natural, a beautiful thing, a delicious resting from life, an appointed goal? It was the one thing certain and inevitable, the last terror, the final silence, which it seemed nothing could break.

The thought came to him with a deep insistence on a day when a funeral of a great personage, called away without a single warning, was celebrated in the chapel of his own college. There was a great gathering of friends and residents. The long procession, blackrobed and bareheaded, with the chilly winter sun shining down on the court, wound slowly through the college buildings, with many halts, and at last entered the great chapel, the organ playing softly a melody of pathetic grief, in which the sad revolt of human hearts that had loved life, and the warm, kind world, made itself heard. They passed to their places, and then very slowly and heavily, the sad and helpless burden, the coffin, veiled and palled, freighted with the rich scents of the dying flowers that lay in stainless purity upon it, was borne to its place. The life of their brother had been a very useful, happy, and innocent life, full of quiet energies, of simple activities, of refined pleasures. There seemed no need for its suspension. The very suddenness of the summons had been a beautiful and kindly thing, attended by no fears and little suffering--but kindly, only upon the supposition that it was necessary. The holy service proceeded, the voice of old human sorrow, of tender hope, of ardent faith, thrilling through the mournful words. It was well, no doubt, as acquiescence was inevitable, to acquiesce as patiently, even as eagerly as possible. But there were two alternatives; either the beloved life had gone out utterly, as an expiring flame; if so, was it not well to know it, so that one might frame one's life upon that sad knowledge? yet the heart could not bear to think it; and then faith seemed to step in, dimly smiling, finger on lip, and pointing upwards. If that smile, that pointing hand, meant anything, why could there not be sent some hint of certainty, that the sweet, fragrant life that was over, so knit up with love and friendship and regard, had a further, a serener future awaiting it? The question was, did such a scene as was then enacted hold any real and vital message of hope for the soul; or was it a thing to turn the back upon, to forget, to banish, as merely casting a shadow upon the joyful energies of life?