A Noble Life Part 28

"'And on the wings of mighty winds Go flying all abroad,'

"As the psalm has it. It would be glorious--glorious! Suddenly to find one's self strong, active--c.u.mbered with no burden of a body-- to be all spirit, and spirit only."

As the earl spoke, his whole face, withered and worn as it was, lighted up and glowed, Helen thought, almost like what one could imagine a disembodied soul.

She answered nothing, for she could find nothing to say. Her quiet, simple faith was almost frightened at the pa.s.sionate intensity of his, and the nearness with which he seemed to realize the unseen world.

"I wonder," he said again--"I sometimes sit for hours wondering-- what the other life is like--the life of which we know nothing, yet which may be so near to us all. I often find myself planning about it in a wild, vague way, what I am to do in it--what G.o.d will permit me to do--and to be. Surely something more than He ever permitted here."

"I believe that," said Helen. And after her habit of bringing all things to the one test and the one teaching, she reminded him of the parable of the talents: "I think," she added, "that you will be one of those whom, in requital for having made the most of all his gifts here, He will make 'ruler over ten cities' at least, if he is a just G.o.d."

"He is a just G.o.d. In my worst trials I have never doubted that,"

replied Lord Cairnforth, solemnly. And then he repeated those words of St. Paul, to which many an agonized doubter has clung, as being the last refuge of sorrow--the only key to mysteries which sometime shake the firmest faith--"'For now we see through a gla.s.s darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.'"

When Helen rose to retire, which was not till midnight--for the earl seemed unwilling to let her go, saying it was so long since they had had a quiet talk together--he asked her earnestly if she were content about her son.

"Perfectly content. Not merely content, but happy--happier than I once thought it possible to be in this world. And it is you who have done it all--you who have made my boy what he is. But he will reward you--I know he will. Henceforward he will be as much your son as mine."

"I hope so. And now good-night, my dear."

"Good-night--G.o.d bless you."

Mrs. Bruce knelt down beside the chair, and touched with her lips the poor, useless hands.

"Helen," said the earl as she rose, "kiss me--just once--as I remember your doing when I was a boy--a poor, lonely, miserable boy."

She kissed him very tenderly, then went away and left him sitting there in his little chair, opposite the fire, alone in the large, splendid, empty room.

Helen Bruce could not sleep that night. Either the day's excitement had been too much for her, or she was disturbed by the wild winds that went shrieking round the Castle, reminding her over and over again of what the earl had just said concerning them. There came into her mind an uneasy feeling about her father, whom for so many years she had never left a night alone; but it was useless regretting this now. At last, toward morning, the storm gradually lulled. She rose, and looked out of her window on the loch, which glittered in moonlight like a sea of gla.s.s. It reminded her, with an involuntary fancy, of the sea "clear as gla.s.s, like unto crystal," spoken of in the fourth chapter of the Apocalypse as being "before the Throne." She stood looking at it for a minute or so, then went back to her bed and slept peacefully till daylight.

She was dressing herself, full of quiet and happy thoughts, admiring the rosy winter sunrise, and planning all she meant to do that day, when she was startled by Mrs. Campbell, who came suddenly into the room with a face as white and rigid as marble.

"He's awa'," she said, or rather whispered.

"Who's is away?" shrieked Helen, thinking at once of her father.

"Whisht!" said the old nurse, catching hold of Mrs. Bruce as she was rushing from the room, and speaking beneath her breath; "wisht! My lord's deid; but we'll no greet; I canna greet. He's gane awa' hame."

No, it was not the old man who was called. Mr. Cardross lived several years after then--lived to be nearly ninety. It was the far younger life--young, and yet how old in suffering!--which had thus suddenly and unexpectedly come to an end.

The earl was found dead in his bed, in his customary att.i.tude of repose, just as Malcolm always placed him, and left him till the morning. His eyes were wide open, so that he could not have died in his sleep. But how, at what hour, or in what manner he had died--whether the summons had been slow or sudden, whether he had tried to call a.s.sistance and failed, or whether, calling no one and troubling no one, his fearless soul had pa.s.sed, and chosen to pa.s.s thus solitary unto its G.o.d, none ever knew or ever could know, and it was all the same now.

He died as he had lived, quite alone. But it did not seem to have been a painful death, for the expression of his features was peaceful, and they had already settled down into that mysteriously beautiful death-smile which is never seen on any human face but once.

Helen stood and looked down upon it--the dear familiar face, now, in the grandeur of death, suddenly grown strange. She thought of what hey had been talking about last night concerning the world to come. Now he knew it all. She did not "greet;" she could not. In spite of its outward incompleteness, it had been a n.o.ble life--an almost perfect life; and now it was ended. He had had his desire; his poor helpless body c.u.mbered him no more--he was "away."

It was a bright winter morning the day the Earl of Cairnforth was buried --clear hard frost, and a little snow--not much--snow never lies long on the sh.o.r.es of Loch Beg. There was no stately funeral, for it was found that he had left express orders to the contrary; but four of his own people, Malcolm Campbell and three more, took on their shoulders the small coffin, scarcely heavier than a child's, and bore it tenderly from Cairnforth Castle to Cainforth kirk-yard. After it came a long, long train of silent mourners, as is customary in Scotch funerals. Such a procession had not been witnessed for centuries in all this country-side. Ere they left the Castle the funeral prayer was offered up by Mr. Cardross, the last time the good old minister's voice was ever heard publicly in his own parish, and at the head of the coffin walked, as chief mourner, Cardross Bruce-Montgomerie, the earl's adopted son.

And so, laid beside his father and mother, they left him to his rest.

According to his own wish, his grave bears this inscription, carved upon a plain upright stone, which--also by his particular request-- stands facing the Manse windows:

Charles Edward Stuart Montgomerie,

THE LAST EARL OF CAIRNFORTH,

Died----

Aged 43 Years.

"Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven."