a cold brisk air, with suspicion of a frost. it was a day or two previous to the one told of in the last two chapters, when mr. butterby was paying visits. being convenient to record that renowned officer's doings first, we yielded him the precedence, and in consequence have to go back a little.
the brightness of the afternoon was passing. in his writing-room, leaning back in a large easy-chair before the fire, sat hamish channing. some papers lay on the table, work of various kinds; but, looking at hamish, it almost seemed as though he had done with work for ever. a face less beautiful than hamish channing's would have appeared painfully thin: his, spite of its wasted aspect, had yet a wonderful charm. the remark was once made that hamish channing's was a face that would be beautiful always; beautiful to the end; beautiful in dying. see it now. the perfect contour of the features is shown the plainer in their attenuation; the skin seems transparent, the cheeks are delicately flushed, the eyes are very blue and bright. if the countenance had looked etherealized earlier in the history, and any cavilled at the word, they would scarcely have cavilled at it now. but in the strangely spiritual expression, speaking, one knew not how, of heaven there was an ever-present sadness, as if trouble had been hard at work with him; as if all that was of the earth, earthy, had been crucified away.
nobody seemed certain of it yet--that he was dying. he bore up bravely; working still a little at home; but not going to the office; that was beyond him. the doctors had not said there was no hope: his wife, though she might inwardly feel how it was, would not speak it. he sat at the head of his table yet; he was careful of his appearance as of yore. his smile was genial still; his loving words were cheerful, sometimes gay; his sweet kindliness to all around was more marked. oh, it was not in the face only that the look of heaven appeared: if ever a spark of the divine spirit of love and light had been vouchsafed to man's soul, it surely had been to that of hamish channing.
he wore a coat of black velvet, a vest of the same, across which his gold chain passed, with its drooping seal. the ring, formerly mr. channing's, no longer made believe to fit the little finger; it was worn on the second. his hair, carefully brushed as ever, looked like threads of dark gold in the sunlight. certainly it could not be said that hamish gave in to his illness. whatever his complaint might be, the medical men did not call it by any name; there was a little cough, a strange want of tone and strength a quick, continual, almost perceptible wasting. whether hamish had cherished visions of recovery for himself could not be known; most earnestly he had hoped for it. if only for the sake of his wife and child, he desired to live: and existence itself, even in the midst of a great and crushing disappointment, is hard to resign. but the truth, long dawning on his mind, had shown itself to him fully at last, as it does in similar cases to most of us; whether hamish's weakness had taken a stride and brought conviction of its formidable nature, or whether it might be that he was temporarily feeling worse, a sadness, as of death itself, lay upon him this afternoon.
it had been a short life--as men count lives; he had not yet numbered two and thirty years. but for the awful disappointment that was drying its fibres away, he might say that it had been a supremely happy one. perhaps no man, with the sweet and sunny temperament of hamish channing, possessing the same christian principles, could be otherwise than happy. he did not remember ever to have done ill wilfully to mortal man, in thought, word, or deed. it had been done to him: but he forgave it. nevertheless, a sense of injustice, a bitter pang of disappointment, of hopeless failure as to this world, lay on his heart, when he recalled what the past few months brought him. leaning there on his chair, his sad eyes tracing figures in the fire, he was recalling things one by one. his never-ceasing, ever-hopeful work, and the bright dreams of future fame that had made its sunshine. he remembered, as though it were today, the evening that first review met his eye--when he had been entertaining his brother-in-law, the reverend william yorke, and others--and the shock it gave him. think of it when he would even now, it brought him a sensation of sick faintness. older men have become paralyzed from a similar shock. the first review had been so closely followed by others, equally unjust, equally cruel, that they all seemed as one blow. after that there appeared to be a sort of pause in his life, when time and events stood still, when he moved as one in a dream of misery, when all things around him were as dead, and he along with them. the brain (as it seemed) never stopped beating, or the bosom's pain working; or the sense of humiliation to quit him. and then, as the days went on, bodily weakness supervened; and--there he was, dying. dying! going surely to his god and saviour; he felt that; but leaving his dear ones, wife and child, to the frowns of a hard world; alone, without suitable provision. and the book--the good, scholarly, attractive book, upon which he had bestowed the best of his bright genius, that he had written as to heaven--was lying unread. wasted!
"papa, shall i put on her blue frock or her green? she is going out for a walk."
this interruption came from miss nelly, who sat on the hearthrug, dressing her doll. there was no reply, and nelly looked up: she wore a blue frock herself; its sleeves and the white pinafore tied together with blue ribbon. her pretty little feet in their shoes and socks were stretched out, and her curls fell in a golden shower.
"shall baby wear her blue frock or her green, papa? papa, then! which is prettiest?"
hamish, aroused, looked down on the child with a smile. "the blue, i think; and then baby-doll will be like nelly."
but mrs. channing, sewing at the window, turned her head. something in her husband's face or in his weary tone struck her.
"do you feel worse, hamish?"
"no, love. not particularly."
sadder yet, the voice; a kind of hopeless, weary sadness, depressing to hear. ellen quitted her seat, and came to him. "what is it?" she whispered.
"not much, dear. the future has cleared itself; that's all."
"the future?"
"i cannot struggle any longer, ellen. i have preached faith and patience to others, but they seem to have deserted me. i--i almost think the very strife itself is helping on the end."
sharp though the pang was, that pierced her breast, she would not show it. miss nelly chattered below, asking questions of her doll, and making believe to answer.
"the----end, hamish!"
he took her hand and looked straight in her face as she stood by him. "have you not seen it, ellen?"
with a heart and bosom that alike quivered,--with a standing still of all her pulses,--with a catching-up of breath, as a sob, mrs. churning was conscious of a stab of pain. oh yes--yes--she had seen it; and the persuading herself that she had not, had been but a sickly, miserable pretence at cheating.
"but for leaving you and the little one, ellen, there would be no strife," he whispered, letting his forehead rest for a moment on her arm. "it is a long while now that my dreams--i had almost said my visions--have been of that world to which we are all journeying, which every one of us must enter sooner or later. there will be no pain, or trouble, or weariness there. only the other night, as i lay between sleep and wake, i seemed to have passed its portals into a soft, bright, soothing light, a haven of joyous peace and rest."
"and if dolly's good, and does not spoil her new blue frock, she shall go out for a walk," was heard from the hearthrug. hamish put his elbow on the arm of the chair, and covered his face with his slender fingers.
"but when i think of my wife and child--and i am always thinking of them, ellen,--when i realize the bitter truth that i must leave them, why then at times it seems as if my heart must break with its intense pain. ellen, my darling, i would not, even yet, have spoken, but that i know you must have been waiting for it."
"i could have borne any trouble better than this," she answered, pressing her hands together.
"it will be softened to you, i am sure, ellen. i am ever praying that it may."
"but----"
visitors in the drawing-room: mrs. bede greatorex and miss joliffe. a servant came to announce them. she had said that her mistress was at home, and ellen had to go up. hamish, with his remaining strength, lifted miss nelly on his knee, doll and all.
"hush, papa, please! baby is fatigued with making her toilette. she wants to go to sleep."
"what would nelly say if papa told her he also wanted to go to sleep?"
miss nelly lay back in papa's arms while she considered the question, the doll hushed in hers. ah me, it is ever thus! we clasp and love our children: they love others, who are more to them than we are.
"why? are you tired, papa?"
"a little weary, dear."
"then go to sleep. doll shall be quiet."
"the sleep's not coming just yet, nelly. and--when it does come--papa may not awake from it."
"not ever, ever, ever?" asked nelly, opening her blue eyes in wonder, but not taking in at all the true sense of the question.
"not ever--here."
"the princess went into a sleep in my tale-book, and lay on the bed with roses in her hair, and never awoke, never, never, till the good old fairy came and touched her," said miss nelly.
there ensued a pause. hamish channing's lip quivered a little; but no one, save himself, could have guessed how every fibre of his heart was aching.
"nelly," he resumed, his voice and manner alike gravely earnest, his eyes reading hers, "i want to give you a charge. should papa have to go on a long journey, you would be all that mamma has left. take you care, my child, to be ever dutiful to her; to be obedient to her slightest wish, and to love her with a double love."
"a long, long, long journey?" demanded miss nelly.
"very long."
"and when would you come back again to this house?"
"not ever."
"where would it be to, papa?"
"heaven," he softly whispered.
nelly rose up in his arms, the blue eyes more wondering than before.
"but that would be to die!"
"and if it were?"
down fell the doll unheeded. the child's fears were aroused. she threw her little arms about his neck.
"oh papa, papa, don't die! don't die!"
"but if i must, ellen?"
only once in her whole life could she remember that he had called her by her true name, and that was when her grandpa died. she began to tremble.
"who would take care of me, papa?"
"god."
she hid her face upon his velvet waistcoat, strangely still.
"he would guide, and guard, and love you ever, ellen. loving him you would be his dear child always, and he would bring you in time to me. look up, my dear one."
"must you go the journey?"
"i fear so."
"oh, papa!--and don't you care--don't you care for mamma and me, that you must leave us?"
"care!"
he could say no more; the word seemed to put the finishing stroke to his breaking heart. sobs broke from his lips; tears, such as man rarely sheds, streamed down on the little nestling head. a cry of anguish, patient and imploring, that the parting might be soothed to them all, went up aloft to his father in heaven.
after dusk came on, when the visitors were got rid of,--for clare joliffe had stayed an unconscionable time, talking over old interests at helstonleigh--mrs. channing found her husband asleep in his chair. closing the door softly on him, she sat down by the dining-room fire, and the long pent-up tears burst forth. hamish channing's wife was a brave woman but there are griefs that go well-nigh, when they fall, to shatter the bravest of us. miss nelly, captured ever so long ago by nurse, was at tea in the nursery.
roland yorke surprised mrs. channing in her sorrow. roland never came into the house with a clatter now (at least when he thought of its master's sick state), but with as softly decorous a step as his boots could be controlled to. down he sat in silence, on the opposite side of the hearth, and saw the reflection of mrs. channing's tears in the firelight.
"is he worse?" asked roland, when he had stared a little.
"no," she answered, scarcely making a pretence to conceal her grief. "i fear there will not be very much 'worse' in it at all, roland: a little more weakness perhaps, and that will be all. i am afraid the end is very near. i fancy he thinks so."
roland grew hot and cold; a dart took him under his waistcoat.
"let's understand, mrs. channing. don't play with a fellow. do you mean that hamish is--going--to die?"
"yes, i am sure there is no more hope."
"my goodness!"--and roland rubbed his hot and woe-stricken face. "why he was better yesterday. he was laughing and talking like anything."
"not really better. it is as i say, roland."
"if ever i saw such a miserable world as this!" exclaimed roland: who, though indulging at times some private despondency upon the case, had perhaps not realized its utter hopelessness until now, when the words put it unmistakably before him. "i never thought--at least, much--but what he'd get well again: the fine, good, handsome man. i'd like to know why he couldn't, and what has killed him."
"the reviews have done it," said ellen, in a low tone.
roland groaned. a suspicion, that they must have had something to do with the decay, had been upon himself. hamish had never been quite the same after they appeared: his spirit had seemed to fade away in a subdued sadness, and subsequently his health followed it.
"the cruel reviews broke his heart," resumed mrs. channing. "i am certain of it, roland. a less sensitive man would not have felt it vitally; a man, physically stronger, could not have suffered in health. but he is sensitive amidst the most sensitive; and he never, with all his bright face and fine form, was physically strong. and so--he could not bear the blow, and it has killed him."
roland sat pulling at his whiskers in desperate gloom. mrs. channing shaded her eyes with her hand.
"if i could but pitch into the reviewers!" he cried. "were i rich, i'd offer a thousand pounds' reward to anybody who would bring me their names. hang the lot! and if you were not by, mrs. channing, it's a worse word than that i'd say."
she shook her head. "pitching into the reviewers, roland, would not give him back his life. the publisher thinks that one man wrote them all: or got them written. some one who must have had a grudge against hamish. it does seem like it."
roland's picture might have been taken as an emblem of despair. suddenly the face brightened a little, the sanguine temperament resumed its sway.
"don't you lose heart, mrs. channing. i'll tell you something that happened to me at port natal. uncommon hard-up, i was, and lying in a place with a strong fever upon me. i thought i was dying; i did indeed. i was dreaming of helstonleigh and all the old people there; i seemed to see arthur and hamish, and hamish smiled at me in his bright way, and said, 'cheer up, it will be all right, old friend.' upon that, somebody was standing by the bed--which was nothing but a sack of sand that you roll off unpleasantly--laying hold of my pulse and looking down at me. i mean really, you know. a chap in the room said it was a doctor; perhaps it was; but he got me nothing but some herb-tea to drink. 'take courage,' says he to me, 'it's half the battle!' i got well in time, and so may hamish. you take courage, mrs. channing."
she smiled a little. "my taking courage would not help my husband, roland."
"well--no; perhaps it mightn't," acknowledged roland, resuming his gloom. "where is he?"
she pointed to the other room. "asleep before the fire."
roland softly opened the door and looked in. the firelight played on hamish channing's wasted features; and his dreams seemed to be of a pleasant nature, for a smile sat on the delicate lips: lips that had always shown so plainly the man's remarkable refinement. nevertheless, sleeping and dreaming peacefully, there was something in the face that spoke of coming death. and roland could have burst into sobs as he stood there.
going back again, and closing the door quietly, roland found the company augmented in the person of his brother gerald. for some time past gerald yorke had heard from one and another of hamish channing's increased illness, which made no impression upon him, except a slightly favourable one; for, if hamish were incapacitated from writing, it would be a rival removed from gerald's path. this afternoon he was told that hamish was thought to be past recovery; in fact, dying. that did arouse him a little; the faint spark of conscience gerald yorke possessed took a twinge, and he thought as he was near the house he'd give a call in.
"you are quite a stranger," mrs. channing was saying, meeting gerald with a cordial hand and a grasp of welcome. "what has kept you away?"
"aw--been busy of late; and--aw--worried," answered gerald, according a distant nod to roland. "what's this i hear about hamish?--that he is dying!"
"well, i don't think you need blurt out that strong word to mrs. channing, gerald," interposed hot roland. "dying, indeed! do you call it manners? i don't."
"i beg mrs. channing's pardon," gerald was beginning, half cynically; but ellen's voice rose to interrupt.
"it makes no difference, roland," she kindly said. "it is the truth, you know; and i am not blind to it.
"what's the matter with him?" asked gerald.
the matter with him? ellen channing told the brief story in a few words. the cruel reviews had broken his heart. gerald listened, and felt himself turned into a white heat inside and out.
"the reviews!" he exclaimed. "i don't understand yon, mrs. channing."
"of course you read them, gerald, and must know their bitter, shameful injustice," she explained. "they were such that might have struck a blow even to a strong man: they struck a fatal one to hamish. he had staked his whole heart and hope upon the book; he devoted to it the great and good abilities with which god had gifted him; he made it worthy of all praise; and false men rose up and blasted it. a strong word you may deem that, gerald, for me to use; but it is a true one. they rose up, and--in envy, as i believe--set themselves to write and work out a deliberate lie: they got it sent forth to the world in effectual channels, and killed the book. perhaps they did not intend also to kill the writer."
gerald's white face looked whiter than usual. his eyes, in their hard stare, were very ugly.
"still i can't understand," he said. "the critiques were, of course rather severe: but how can critiques kill a man?"
"and if you, being a reviewer yourself, gerald, could only get to find out who the false-hearted hound was,--for it's thought to have been one fellow who penned the lot--you'd oblige me," put in roland. "i'd repay him, as i've seen it done at port natal. his howling would be something fine."
"you do not yet entirely understand, i see, gerald," sadly answered ellen, paying no attention to roland's interruption, while gerald turned his shoulder upon him. "in one sense the reviews did not kill. they did not, for instance, strike hamish dead at once, or break his heart with a stroke. in fact, you may think the expression, a broken heart, but a figure of speech, and in a degree of course it is so. but there are some natures, and his is one, which are so sensitively organized that a cruel blow shatters them. had hamish been stronger he might have borne it, have got over it in time; but he had been working beyond his strength; and i think also his strangely eager hope in regard to the book must have helped to wear out his frame. it was his first work, you know. when the blow came he had not strength to rally from it; mind and body were alike stricken down, and so the weakness set in and laid hold of him."
"what are these natures good for?" fiercely demanded gerald, in a tone as if he were resenting some personal injury.
"only for heaven, as it seems to me," she gently answered.
gerald rubbed his face; he could not get any colour into it, and there ensued a pause. presently ellen spoke again.
"i remember, when i was quite a girl, reading of a somewhat similar case in one of bulwer lytton's novels. a young artist painted a great picture--great to him--and insisted on being concealed in the room while a master came to judge of it. the judgment was adverse; not, perhaps, particularly harsh and cruel in itself, only sounding so to the painter; and it killed him. not at the moment, gerald; i don't mean that; he lived to become ill, and he went to italy for his health, his heart gradually breaking. he never spoke of what the blow had been to him, or that it had crushed out his hope and life, but died hiding it. hamish has never spoken."
"what i want to know is, where's the use of people being like this?" pursued gerald. "what are they made for?"
"scarcely for earth," she answered. "the too-exquisitely-refined gold is not meant for the world's coinage."
"i'd rather be a bit of brittle china, than made so that i couldn't stand a review," said gerald. "it's to be hoped there's not many such people."
"only one in tens of thousands, gerald."
"does it--trouble him?" asked gerald, hesitatingly.
"the advance of death?--yes, in a degree. not for the death, gerald: but the quitting me and nelly."
"i'm not yet what hamish and arthur are, safe to be heard up there when they ask for a thing," again interrupted roland, jerking his head upwards: "but i do pray that from the day that bad base man hears of hamish channing's death, he'll be haunted by his ghost for ever. my goodness! i'd not like to have murder on my conscience. it's as bad as the fellow who killed mr. ollivera."
gerald yorke rose. ellen asked him to wait and see hamish, but he answered, in what seemed a desperate hurry, that he had an engagement.
"you might like to take a peep at him, gerald," spoke roland. "his face looks as peaceful as if it were sainted."
gerald's answer was to turn tail and go off. roland, who had some copying on hand that was being waited for, stayed to shake hands with mrs. channing.
"look here," he whispered to her. "don't you let him worry his mind about you and nelly: in the way of money, you know. i shall be sure to get into something good soon; vincent will see to that; and i'll take care of both of you. goodbye."
poor, penniless, good-hearted roland! he would have "taken care" of all the world.
with a run he caught up gerald, who was striding along rapidly. oblivious of all save the present distress, even of gerald's past coldness, roland attempted to take his arm, and got repulsed for his pains.
"my way does not lie the same as yours, i think," was gerald's haughty remark. roland would not resent it.
"i say, ger, is it not enough to make one sad? it wouldn't have mattered much had it been you or me to be taken: but hamish channing! we can't afford to lose such a one as him."
"thank you," said gerald. "speak for yourself."
"and with hamish the bread and cheese dies. she has but little money. perhaps she'll not feel the want of it, though. i'd work my arms off for that darling little nelly and for her too, for hamish's sake."
"i don't believe he is dying at all," said gerald. "reviews kill him, indeed! it's altogether preposterous. women talk wretched nonsense in this world."
without so much as a parting goodnight, gerald struck across the street and disappeared. by the time he arrived at chambers, his mind had fully persuaded itself that there was nothing serious the matter with hamish channing; and he felt that he could like to shake winny (who had been his informant) for alarming him.
his servant brought him a letter as he entered, and gerald tore it open. it proved to be from sir vincent yorke, inviting gerald down to sunny mead on the morrow for a couple of days' shooting.
"hurrah!" shouted gerald. "vin's coming round, is he! i'll go, and get out of him a hundred or so, to bring back with me to town. that's good. hurrah!"
