Chapter 15

We went out together; and there seemed to have fallen a sense of gravity over all whom we met. My companions did not speak to me as we walked out, but stood aside to see me pass, and even looked at me, I thought, with an air half of reverence, half of a sort of natural compassion, as one might watch a dear friend go to be tried for his life.

We came out of the door, and found, it seemed to me, an unusual stillness everywhere. The wind, which often blew high on the bare moor, had dropped. We took a path, which I had never seen, which struck off over the hills. We walked for a long time, almost in silence. But I could not bear the strange curiosity which was straining at my heart, and I said presently to Amroth:

"Give me some idea what I am to see or to endure. Is it some judgment which I am to face, or am I to suffer pain? I would rather know the best and the worst of it."

"It is everything," said Amroth; "you are to see God. All is comprised in that."

His words fell with a shocking distinctness in the calm air, and I felt my heart and limbs fail me, and a dizziness came over my mind. Hardly knowing what I did or said, I came to a stop.

"But I did not know that it was possible," I said. "I thought that God was everywhere--within us, about us, beyond us? How can that be?"

"Yes," said Amroth, "God is indeed everywhere, and no place contains Him; neither can any of us see or comprehend Him. I cannot explain it; but there is a centre, so to speak, near to which the unclean and the evil cannot come, where the fire of His thought burns the hottest.... Oh," he said, "neither word nor thought is of any use here; you will see what you will see!"

Perhaps the hardest thing I had to bear in all my wanderings was the sight of Amroth's own fear. It was unmistakable. His spirit seemed prepared for it, perfectly courageous and sincere as it was; but there was a shuddering awe upon him, for all that, which infected me with an extremity of terror. Was it that he thought me unequal to the experience? I could not tell. But we walked as men dragging themselves into some fiery and dreadful martyrdom.

Again I could not bear it, and I cried out suddenly:

"But, Amroth, He is Love; and we can enter without fear into the presence of Love!"

"Have you not yet guessed," said Amroth sternly, "how terrible Love can be? It is the most terrible thing in the world, because it is the strongest. If Death is dreadful, what must that be which is stronger than Death? Come, let us be silent, for we are near the place, and this is no time for words;" and then he added with a look of the deepest compassion and tenderness, "I wish I could speak differently, brother, at this hour; but I am myself afraid."

And at that we gave up all speech, and only our thoughts sprang together and intertwined, like two children that clasp each other close in a burning house, when the smoke comes volleying from the door.

We were coming now to what looked like a ridge of rocks ahead of us; and I saw here a wonderful thing, a great light of incredible pureness and whiteness, which struck upwards from the farther side. This began to light up our own pale faces, and to throw our backs into a dark shadow, even though the radiance of the heavenly day was all about us. And at last we came to the place.

It was the edge of a precipice so vast, so stupendous, that no word can even dimly describe its depth; it was all illuminated with incredible clearness by the light which struck upwards from below. It was absolutely sheer, great pale cliffs of white stone running downwards into the depth. To left and right the precipice ran, with an irregular outline, so that one could see the cliff-fronts gleam how many millions of leagues below! There seemed no end to it. But at a certain point far down in the abyss the light seemed stronger and purer. I was at first so amazed by the sight that I gazed in silence. Then a dreadful dizziness came over me, and I felt Amroth's hand put round me to sustain me. Then in a faint whisper, that was almost inaudible, Amroth, pointing with his finger downwards, said:

"Watch that place where the light seems clearest."

I did so. Suddenly there came, as from the face of the cliff, a thing like a cloudy jet of golden steam. It passed out into the clear air, shaping itself in strange and intricate curves; then it grew darker in colour, hung for an instant like a cloud of smoke, and then faded into the sky.

"What is that?" I said, surprised out of my terror.

"I may tell you that," said Amroth, "that you may know what you see. There is no time here; and you have seen a universe made, and live its life, and die. You have seen the worlds created. That cloud of whirling suns, each with its planets, has taken shape before your eyes; life has arisen there, has developed; men like ourselves have lived, have wrestled with evil, have formed states, have died and vanished. That is all but a single thought of God."

Another came, and then another of the golden jets, each fading into darkness and dispersing.

"And now," said Amroth, "the moment has come. You are to make the last sacrifice of the soul. Do not shrink back, fear nothing. Leap into the abyss!"

The thought fell upon me with an infinity and an incredulity of horror that I cannot express in words. I covered my eyes with my hands.

"Oh, I cannot, I cannot," I said; "anything but this! God be merciful; let me go rather to some infinite place of torment where at least I may feel myself alive. Do not ask this of me!"

Amroth made no answer, and I saw that he was regarding me fixedly, himself pale to the lips; but with a touch of anger and even of contempt, mixed with a world of compassion and love. There was something in this look which seemed to entreat me mutely for my own sake and his own to act. I do not know what the impulse was that came to me--self-contempt, trust, curiosity, the yearning of love. I closed my eyes, I took a faltering step, and stumbled, huddling and aghast, over the edge. The air flew up past me with a sort of shriek; I opened my eyes once, and saw the white cliffs speeding past. Then an unconsciousness came over me and I knew no more.

XXXIII

I came to myself very gradually and dimly, with no recollection at first of what had happened. I was lying on my back on some soft grassy place, with the air blowing cool over me. I thought I saw Amroth bending over me with a look of extraordinary happiness, and felt his arm about me; but again I became unconscious, yet all the time with a blissfulness of repose and joy, far beyond what I had experienced at my first waking on the sunlit sea. Again life dawned upon me. I was there, I was myself. What had happened to me? I could not tell. So I lay for a long time half dreaming and half swooning; till at last life seemed to come back suddenly to me, and I sat up. Amroth was holding me in his arms close to the spot from which I had sprung.

"Have I been dreaming?" I said. "Was it here? and when? I cannot remember. It seems impossible, but was I told to jump down? What has happened to me? I am confused."

"You will know presently," said Amroth, in a tone from which all the fear seemed to have vanished. "It is all over, and I am thankful. Do not try to recollect; it will come back to you presently. Just rest now; you have been through strange things."

Suddenly a thought began to shape itself in my mind, a thought of perfect and irresistible joy.

"Yes," I said, "I remember now. We were afraid, both of us, and you told me to leap down. But what was it that I saw, and what was it that was told me? I cannot recall it. Oh," I said at last, "I know now; it comes back to me. I fell, in hideous cowardice and misery. The wind blew shrill. I saw the cliffs stream past; then I was unconscious, I think. I seem to have died; but part of me was not dead. My flight was stayed, and I floated out somewhere. I was joined to something that was like both fire and water in one. I was seen and known and understood and loved, perfectly and unutterably and for ever. But there was pain, somewhere, Amroth! How was that? I am sure there was pain."

"Of course, dear child," said Amroth, "there was pain, because there was everything."

"But," I said, "I cannot understand yet; why was that terrible leap demanded of me? And why did I confront it with such abject cowardice and dismay? Surely one need not go stumbling and cowed into the presence of God?"

"There is no other way," said Amroth; "you do not understand how terrible perfect love is. It is because it is perfect that it is terrible. Our own imperfect love has some weakness in it. It is mixed with pleasure, and then it is not a sacrifice; one gives as much of oneself as one chooses; one is known just so far as one wishes to be known. But here with God there must be no concealment--though even there a man can withhold his heart from God--God never uses compulsion; and the will can prevail even against Him. But the reason of the leap that must be taken is this: it is the last surrender, and it cannot be made on our terms and conditions; it must be absolute. And what I feared for you was not anything that would happen if you did commit yourself to God, but what would happen if you did not; for, of course, you could have resisted, and then you would have had to begin again."

I was silent for a little, and then I said: "I remember now more clearly, but did I really see Him? It seems so absolutely simple. Nothing happened. I just became one with the heart and life of the world; I came home at last. Yet how am I here? How is it I was not merged in light and life?"

"Ah," said Amroth, "it is the new birth. You can never be the same again. But you are not yet lost in Him. The time for that is not yet. It is a mystery; but as yet God works outward, radiates energy and force and love; the time will come when all will draw inward again, and be merged in Him. But the world is as yet in its dawning. The rising sun scatters light and heat, and the hot and silent noon is yet to come; then the shadows move eastward, and after that comes the waning sunset and the evening light, and last of all the huge and starlit peace of the night."

"But," I said, "if this is really so, if I have been gathered close to God's heart, why is it that instead of feeling stronger, I only feel weak and unstrung? I have indeed an inner sense of peace and happiness, but I have no will or purpose of my own that I can discern."

"That," said Amroth, "is because you have given up all. The sense of strength is part of our weakness. Our plans, our schemes, our ambitions, all the things that make us enjoy and hope and arrange, are but signs of our incompleteness. Your will is still as molten metal, it has borne the fierce heat of inner love; and this has taken all that is hard and stubborn and complacent out of you--for a time. But when you return to the life of the body, as you will return, there will be this great difference in you. You will have to toil and suffer, and even sin. But there will be one thing that you will not do: you will never be complacent or self-righteous, you will not judge others hardly. You will be able to forgive and to make allowances; you will concern yourself with loving others, not with trying to improve them up to your own standard. You will wish them to be different, but you will not condemn them for being different; and hereafter the lives you live on earth will be of the humblest. You will have none of the temptations of authority, or influence, or ambition again--all that will be far behind you. You will live among the poor, you will do the most menial and commonplace drudgery, you will have none of the delights of life. You will be despised and contemned for being ugly and humble and serviceable and meek. You will be one of those who will be thought to have no spirit to rise, no power of making men serve your turn. You will miss what are called your chances, you will be a failure; but you will be trusted and loved by children and simple people; they will depend upon you, and you will make the atmosphere in which you live one of peace and joy. You will have selfish employers, tyrannical masters, thankless children perhaps, for whom you will slave lovingly. They will slight you and even despise you, but their hearts will turn to you again and again, and yours will be the face that they will remember when they come to die, as that of the one person who loved them truly and unquestioningly. That will be your destiny; one of utter obscurity and nothingness upon earth. Yet each time, when you return hither, your work will be higher and holier, and nearer to the heart of God. And now I have said enough; for you have seen God, as I too saw Him long ago; and our hope is henceforward the same."

"Yes," I said to Amroth, "I am content. I had thought that I should be exalted and elated by my privileges; but I have no thought or dream of that. I only desire to go where I am sent, to do what is desired of me. I have laid my burden down."

XXXIV

Presently Amroth rose, and said that we must be going onward.

"And now," he said, "I have a further thing to tell you, and that is that I have very soon to leave you. To bring you hither was the last of my appointed tasks, and my work is now done. It is strange to remember how I bore you in my arms out of life, like a little sleeping child, and how much we have been together."

"Do not leave me now," I said to Amroth. "There seems so much that I have to ask you. And if your work with me is done, where are you now going?"

"Where am I going, brother?" said Amroth. "Back to life again, and immediately. And there is one thing more that is permitted, and that is that you should be with me to the last. Strange that I should have attended you here, to the very crown and sum of life, and that you should now attend me where I am going! But so it is."

"And what do you feel about it?" I said.

"Oh," said Amroth, "I do not like it, of course. To be so free and active here, and to be bound again in the body, in the close, suffering, ill-savoured house of life! But I have much to gain by it. I have a sharpness of temper and a peremptoriness--of which indeed," he said, smiling, "you have had experience. I am fond of doing things in my own way, inconsiderate of others, and impatient if they do not go right. I am hard, and perhaps even vulgar. But now I am going like a board to the carpenter, to have some of my roughness planed out of me, and I hope to do better."

"Well," I said, "I am too full of wonder and hope just now to be alarmed for you. I could even wish I were myself departing. But I have a desire to see Cynthia again."

"Yes," said Amroth, "and you will see her; but you will not be long after me, brother; comfort yourself with that!"

We walked a little farther across the moorland, talking softly at intervals, till suddenly I discerned a solitary figure which was approaching us swiftly.

"Ah," said Amroth, "my time has indeed come. I am summoned."

He waved his hand to the man, who came up quickly and even breathlessly, and handed Amroth a sealed paper. Amroth tore it open, read it smilingly, gave a nod to the officer, saying "Many thanks." The officer saluted him; he was a brisk young man, with a fresh air; and he then, without a word, turned from us and went over the moorland.

"Come," said Amroth, "let us descend. You can do this for yourself now; you do not need my help." He took my hand, and a mist enveloped us. Suddenly the mist broke up and streamed away. I looked round me in curiosity.

We were standing in a very mean street of brick-built houses, with slated roofs; over the roofs we could see a spire, and the chimneys of mills, spouting smoke. The houses had tiny smoke-dried gardens in front of them. At the end of the street was an ugly, ill-tended field, on which much rubbish lay. There were some dirty children playing about, and a few women, with shawls over their heads, were standing together watching a house opposite. The window of an upper room was open, and out of it came cries and moans.

"It's going very badly with her," said one of the women, "poor soul; but the doctor will be here soon. She was about this morning too. I had a word with her, and she was feeling very bad. I said she ought to be in bed, but she said she had her work to do first."

The women glanced at the window with a hushed sort of sympathy. A young woman, evidently soon to become a mother, looked pale and apprehensive.

"Will she get through?" she said timidly.

"Oh, don't you fear, Sarah," said one of the women, kindly enough. "She will be all right. Bless you, I've been through it five times myself, and I am none the worse. And when it's over she'll be as comfortable as never was. It seems worth it then."

A man suddenly turned the corner of the street; he was dressed in a shabby overcoat with a bowler hat, and he carried a bag in his hand. He came past us. He looked a busy, overtried man, but he had a good-humoured air. He nodded pleasantly to the women. One said:

"You are wanted badly in there, doctor."

"Yes," he said cheerfully, "I am making all the haste I can. Where's John?"

"Oh, he's at work," said the woman. "He didn't expect it to-day. But he's better out of the way: he 'd be no good; he'd only be interfering and grumbling; but I'll come across with you, and when it's over, I'll just run down and tell him."

"That's right," said the doctor, "come along--the nurse will be round in a minute; and I can make things easy meantime."

Strange to say, it had hardly dawned upon me what was happening. I turned to Amroth, who stood there smiling, but a little pale, his arm in mine; fresh and upright, with his slim and graceful limbs, his bright curled hair, a strange contrast to the slatternly women and the heavily-built doctor.

"So this," he said, "is where I am to spend a few years; my new father is a hardworking man, I believe, perhaps a little given to drink but kind enough; and I daresay some of these children are my brothers and sisters. A score of years or more to spend here, no doubt! Well, it might be worse. You will think of me while you can, and if you have the time, you may pay me a visit, though I don't suppose I shall recognise you."

"It seems rather dreadful to me," said I, "I must confess! Who would have thought that I should have forgotten my visions so soon? Amroth, dear, I can't bear this--that you should suffer such a change."

"Sentiment again, brother," said Amroth. "To me it is curious and interesting, even exciting. Well, good-bye; my time is just up, I think."

The doctor had gone into the house, and the cries died away. A moment after a woman in the dress of a nurse came quickly along the street, knocked, opened the door, and went in. I could see into the room, a poorly furnished one. A girl sat nursing a baby by the fire, and looked very much frightened. A little boy played in the corner. A woman was bustling about, making some preparations for a meal.

"Let me do you the honours of my new establishment," said Amroth with a smile. "No, dear man, don't go with me any farther. We will part here, and when we meet again we shall have some new stories to tell. Bless you." He took his hand from my arm, caught up my hand, kissed it, said, "There, that is for you," and disappeared smiling into the house.

A moment later there came the cry of a new-born child from the window above. The doctor came out and went down the street; one of the women joined him and walked with him. A few minutes later she returned with a young and sturdy workman, looking rather anxious.

"It's all right," I heard her say, "it's a fine boy, and Annie is doing well--she'll be about again soon enough."

They disappeared into the house, and I turned away.

XXXV

It is difficult to describe the strange emotions with which the departure of Amroth filled me. I think that, when I first entered the heavenly country, the strongest feeling I experienced was the sense of security--the thought that the earthly life was over and done with, and that there remained the rest and tranquillity of heaven. What I cannot even now understand is this. I am dimly aware that I have lived a great series of lives, in each of which I have had to exist blindly, not knowing that my life was not bounded and terminated by death, and only darkly guessing and hoping, in passionate glimpses, that there might be a permanent life of the soul behind the life of the body. And yet, at first, on entering the heavenly country, I did not remember having entered it before; it was not familiar to me, nor did I at first recall in memory that I had been there before. The earthly life seems to obliterate for a time even the heavenly memory. But the departure of Amroth swept away once and for all the sense of security. One felt of the earthly life, indeed, as a busy man may think of a troublesome visit he has to pay, which breaks across the normal current of his life, while he anticipates with pleasure his return to the usual activities of home across the interval of social distraction, which he does not exactly desire, but yet is glad that it should intervene, if only for the heightened sense of delight with which he will resume his real life. I had been happy in heaven, though with periods of discontent and moments of dismay. But I no longer desired a dreamful ease; I only wished passionately to be employed. And now I saw that I must resign all expectation of that. As so often happens, both on earth and in heaven, I had found something of which I was not in search, while the work which I had estimated so highly, and prepared myself so ardently for, had never been given to me to do at all.

But for the moment I had but one single thought. I was to see Cynthia again, and I might then expect my own summons to return to life. What surprised me, on looking back at my present sojourn, was the extreme apparent fortuitousness of it. It had not been seemingly organised or laid out on any plan; and yet it had shown me this, that my own intentions and desires counted for nothing. I had meant to work, and I had been mostly idle; I had intended to study psychology, and I had found love. How much wiser and deeper it had all been than anything which I had designed!

Even now I was uncertain how to find Cynthia. But recollecting that Amroth had warned me that I had gained new powers which I might exercise, I set myself to use them. I concentrated myself upon the thought of Cynthia; and in a moment, just as the hand of a man in a dark room, feeling for some familiar object, encounters and closes upon the thing he is seeking, I seemed to touch and embrace the thought of Cynthia. I directed myself thither. The breeze fanned my hair, and as I opened my eyes I saw that I was in an unfamiliar place--not the forest where I had left Cynthia, but in a terraced garden, under a great hill, wooded to the peak. Stone steps ran up through the terraces, the topmost of which was crowned by a long irregular building, very quaintly designed. I went up the steps, and, looking about me, caught sight of two figures seated on a wooden seat at a little distance from me, overlooking the valley. One of these was Cynthia. The other was a young and beautiful woman; the two were talking earnestly together. Suddenly Cynthia turned and saw me, and rising quickly, came to me and caught me in her arms.

"I was sure you were somewhere near me, dearest," she said; "I dreamed of you last night, and you have been in my thoughts all day."

My darling was in some way altered. She looked older, wiser, and calmer, but she was in my eyes even more beautiful. The other girl, who had looked at us in surprise for a moment, rose too and came shyly forwards. Cynthia caught her hand, and presented her to me, adding, "And now you must leave us alone for a little, if you will forgive me for asking it, for we have much to ask and to say."