North and South
Page 264'I'm afraid we've done too much,' said Mr. Bell. 'You're
suffering now from having lived so long in that Milton air.
'I am tired,' said Mr. Hale. 'But it is not Milton air. I'm
fifty-five years of age, and that little fact of itself accounts
for any loss of strength.' 'Nonsense! I'm upwards of sixty, and feel no loss of strength,
either bodily or mental. Don't let me hear you talking so.
Fifty-five! why, you're quite a young man.' Mr. Hale shook his head. 'These last few years!' said he. But
after a minute's pause, he raised himself from his half recumbent
position, in one of Mr. Bell's luxurious easy-chairs, and said
with a kind of trembling earnestness: 'Bell! you're not to think, that if I could have foreseen all
that would come of my change of opinion, and my resignation of my
living--no! not even if I could have known how she would have
suffered,--that I would undo it--the act of open acknowledgment
that I no longer held the same faith as the church in which I was
a priest. As I think now, even if I could have foreseen that
cruellest martyrdom of suffering, through the sufferings of one
of openly leaving the church went. I might have done differently,
and acted more wisely, in all that I subsequently did for my
family. But I don't think God endued me with over-much wisdom or
strength,' he added, falling hack into his old position.
Mr. Bell blew his nose ostentatiously before answering. Then he
said: 'He gave you strength to do what your conscience told you was
right; and I don't see that we need any higher or holier strength
than that; or wisdom either. I know I have not that much; and yet
men set me down in their fool's books as a wise man; an
independent character; strong-minded, and all that cant. The
veriest idiot who obeys his own simple law of right, if it be but
in wiping his shoes on a door-mat, is wiser and stronger than I.
But what gulls men are!' There was a pause. Mr. Hale spoke first, in continuation of his
thought: 'About Margaret.' 'Well! about Margaret. What then?' 'If I die----' 'Nonsense!' 'What will become of her--I often think? I suppose the Lennoxes
will ask her to live with them. I try to think they will. Her
love the absent.' 'A very common fault. What sort of people are the Lennoxes?' 'He, handsome, fluent, and agreeable. Edith, a sweet little
spoiled beauty. Margaret loves her with all her heart, and Edith
with as much of her heart as she can spare.' 'Now, Hale; you know that girl of yours has got pretty nearly all
my heart. I told you that before. Of course, as your daughter, as
my god-daughter, I took great interest in her before I saw her
the last time. But this visit that I paid to you at Milton made
me her slave. I went, a willing old victim, following the car of
the conqueror. For, indeed, she looks as grand and serene as one
who has struggled, and may be struggling, and yet has the victory
secure in sight. Yes, in spite of all her present anxieties, that
was the look on her face. And so, all I have is at her service,
if she needs it; and will be hers, whether she will or no, when I
die. Moreover, I myself, will be her preux chevalier, sixty and
gouty though I be. Seriously, old friend, your daughter shall be
my principal charge in life, and all the help that either my wit
choose her out as a subject for fretting. Something, I know of
old, you must have to worry yourself about, or you wouldn't be
happy. But you're going to outlive me by many a long year. You
spare, thin men are always tempting and always cheating Death!
It's the stout, florid fellows like me, that always go off
first.' If Mr. Bell had had a prophetic eye he might have seen the torch
all but inverted, and the angel with the grave and composed face
standing very nigh, beckoning to his friend. That night Mr. Hale
laid his head down on the pillow on which it never more should
stir with life. The servant who entered his room in the morning,
received no answer to his speech; drew near the bed, and saw the
calm, beautiful face lying white and cold under the ineffaceable
seal of death. The attitude was exquisitely easy; there had been
no pain--no struggle. The action of the heart must have ceased as
he lay down.