Chapter XXIV: Fresh Fields and Pastures New

"Wer nicht fortgeht, geht zurücke,
Unsere schnellen Augenblicke
Geh'n vor sich, nicht hinter sich,
Das ist mein, was ich besitze,
Diese Stunde, die ich nütze,
Die ich hoff', ist die für mich?"

"And Jonathan said to David, Go in peace, forasmuch as we have sworn both of us in the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord be between thee and me, and between my seed and thy seed for ever. And he arose and departed."

And now we have to bridge over an interval of years. As years pass on, we do not see their flight; it is only when we look back that we perceive that they have gone; and with them come all sorts of changes, and we scarcely notice them until we think of what there was before--we adapt ourselves so imperceptibly to circumstances.

Ten years! ten years have gone since we stood in that room and saw Duke brought in upon his bed; ten years since that memorable Christmas Eve, since he first was laid upon his back. He is now a man, and a handsome one indeed. He has a magnificent moustache--you do not know how great a change that makes in one--black as the raven's wing, of which, all his friends make fun, and of which not a few are envious. There is the old fire in his eyes which was there of old. After all, he is not so very changed; those who knew him then would know him now. But he is still upon his back; he never once has stood upon his feet since that night spent down the shaft of Wheal Galore. But he declares that he is none the worse for that. He never thinks of it at all; he reckons it of no account at all; and if that is not, _literatim et verbatim_, quite the truth, if at times he does think how different things would all have been if--if it were not for "if"--he lets no sign of such unfruitful thought be seen; to all practical intents and purposes he is content with what the Lord has given him.

But there are things in which he is much more changed than in his appearance--inward those changes are. It would be impossible for such a lad as he to be thrown for ever upon a bed of sickness and not by that visitation--because of it--be changed for better or for worse. With him it has all been for the better; that hasty temper, that quick, fiery disposition, which made him always act and never think at all, or at most. when thought was no longer of any service, fled all in a night. Duke's thoughtfulness is now proverbial. There is so little that can be done for him despite his wealth and the glory of his name; he is shut out from so many of the pursuits and pleasures, hopes, and fears, and ambitions of ordinary mortals, that, as he himself declares, if he did not think of and for others, he would not think at all. Generosity always was his characteristic; it is now almost the chief business of his life to learn the way in which he can be generous with most effect, in which his generosity can do most good.

In another way he has also changed. To say the least of it, in those old days he never was fond of books, and he certainly was not studious; now he is in every sense of the word a scholar. So soon as it was certain that his injuries were permanent, and that he was never to be as other boys again, a tutor, a man of great attainments both of the heart and of the head, was engaged at his own especial request. Under his direction the lad became--to quote his own humorous declaration--a "prodigy" of learning. He beat Ria, out-distanced Nelly, and left Winnie in the rear. Scholastically he told his sisters that he held them in completest scorn; they could not hold a farthing dip to him.

"No," said Nelly, on the occasion when he made the elegant observation about the farthing dip, "I am afraid we cannot; you are the eighth wonder of the world; boys always are. There would be several wonders of the world if you believed them all."

"I'm not a boy," declared Duke, who being at that time nearly nineteen, was fully persuaded that he had left his boyhood for ever in the rear. "I wish, Miss Eleanor, that you would understand that clearly. Shall I never be able to teach you how to treat me with proper respect?"

"I am afraid not, I am so very dull. You clever people ought to think of us with pity, especially when you are so sure that you are clever." At this, as she sat at his side, Duke, who was able to do so much, stretched out his hand and boxed her ears.

But Duke was not only a student of the works of others, he was himself a writer, in a humble way of course; but he hoped for greater things in time. He began, as probably every writer did begin since writing first was known, with poems. They were fair--that is to say, as Nelly said, considering who it was had written them--but nothing marvellous. He himself was obliged to own that they were nothing marvellous; his tutor left him in no sort of doubt of that. It was probable, to put it tenderly--"always put things tenderly," said Nelly, and Duke was furious--that his was not the poet's gift. Rhyme is rhyme and blank verse may be very blank,--poetry is quite another thing; and so he turned to humble prose. In that he fared much better; in fact, he soon began to get for himself quite a small name. Marmaduke Tregowan began to be known in the world of letters, and Duke became, as Nelly said, humbler than ever--he always was so humble; and Duke was furious again.

The girls were curiously little altered with the passage of the years. Winnie was long since married, and had her home in the far North, but still came often to the West. Nelly was just the same quiet, gentle damsel, with a tongue which, in her quiet way, she could use with good effect upon occasion; and it was said--but what was said of Nelly we must leave awhile. Ria was a bonny, blythesome lass, happy and full of life as the day was long, a trifle more sedate than she had been of yore--it would have been terrible had it been otherwise--but still full of fun and gaiety, in a sense the light and life of that quiet home.

As for the mother, her head was silvered; winter had come and laid upon her head locks white almost as driven snow, but her form was not yet bowed. She still was stately as a queen. "The queen--my mother!" Duke was wont to say of her in jest; and indeed she was a queen--a queen of love. Hers was the empire of their hearts, and fairer empire never yet was governed by a queen. No inroads of time could work havoc with the mother. Aged she might be, and disciplined by many sorrows, but she would always be the same.

"The best of mothers, the youngest and handsomest of them all!" as Duke declared; and the mother, who was at his side, laid her hand upon his raven locks and smiled. "You are! How dare you laugh at me? Have I not told you again and again that you will always be the youngest and handsomest woman in all the world to me? and is not my word as the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be changed? Mother, mother darling!" and his voice was softer on a sudden. "Was ever mother to a son what you have been to me? Thou best of mothers! what might I not have been had it not been for you? Kiss me, mother. My taste is very curious, for there are still no kisses in the world which are half so sweet to me as yours!" And she stooped and kissed him.

"Ah! Duke, Duke! if I have not been spoiled, it certainly has been no fault of yours. You have flattered me, you have praised me to my face, you have tried to make me think that there never was one half so wonderful as I. What should I have been if I had implicitly accepted all that you have said?"

"I have not flattered you; it is a libel. Mother, I am surprised at you--to try to take away my character. Is this the return for all that I have done for you? Alas! alas! how bitterly I was deceived! Moreover, one thing is very clear--you have never flattered me; that is a crime which you were never guilty of. You never congratulated yourself on the unapproachable son which you have got. You never pointed out, in my hearing, my numerous graces. You never complimented me on my overwhelming--I will not say genius; I will at least, whatever others are, be humble--but you never complimented me upon my overwhelming talents."

"Humility," the mother said, and there was a twinkle in her eye, "is so divine a virtue, that I was unwilling to disturb any of it which you might have."

"I don't know," said Nelly, who had entered just before, "but I think that if Duke were to put out the humility he has at compound interest and let it accumulate for many years, there might be something to show for it in course of time."

And those who once were boys together had taken to themselves maturer years and were now young men. Penharden had passed through the university, and had gained considerable notoriety, if nothing else, at the Union Debating Club. Time had somewhat mellowed him, and experience had induced him to lop off some of the excrescences which he was wont to consider were the chief ornaments of his style; but he still was flowery in speech. His ambition was for parliamentary fame, and he was already looking for a borough which would be sufficiently judicious to estimate at their proper value his splendid gifts. Trevena had not distinguished himself in any way. He had declined to go to the university, for obvious reasons some declared, preferring to travel abroad, for there was now every prospect of his settling down as a not particularly intellectual country gentleman of a school which is now commonly allowed to be old-fashioned. Nor had Eva set the Thames on fire; he had, alas! been requested to remove himself from the shadow of the university walls. He was too fond of getting into scrapes, even for the not particularly strict disciplinarians who reign at _Alma Mater_; and since then he had done nothing to make himself remarkable. Mason, who always had a taste for soldiering, passed into the army, and Anderson kept him company. At the time at which we write both are bound for foreign shores.

Chandos Effingham was still a character. Those who knew him little regarded him with horror. A more uncomfortable guest to have in a mixed assembly, composed principally of strangers, it would have been impossible to find. He bred confusion on every hand. Blessed with a tongue which was seldom or never at rest, and which never could by any possibility constrain itself to ordinary civility, no wonder nervous people kept aloof from him, and well-bred folk shuddered at the sight of him. But those who knew him intimately declared that at bottom there was no better fellow in the world; that his bark was everything--he never bit; that a tenderer heart for any one in need or suffering of any kind was never known; that more than half of his by no means splendid fortune went in unassuming charity to others; that on occasion he was gentle as a lamb, strong as a lion, and brave as--brave as any one by any possibility could be; and, strangest part of all, there was one person who to his face treated him with scantiest civility, who was as rude to him as he could be to others, and yet who, when his back was turned, would never allow a single word to be spoken to his discredit, and who was wont to wax both hot and furious in his defence; and that one was none other than Marion Tregowan. Who shall explain the reason why?

As for Lionel Pollyon, we come to him the last, for with him we shall conclude. His name will be the last to appear upon our pages. In spite of all his worldliness and shrewdness, he had elected to put the world aside, to follow in his father's footsteps, to do battle for the Master's crown. His was to be the mission-field; he was not to stay at home. He was just as practical as ever--we fear at times almost as curious in his choice of English; no vain dreamer, but with a definite end in view, which he meant, given strength by God, to gain.

Duke's dearest friend in all the world, he would be sorely missed; they were inseparable. He had indeed become to him as Damon was to Pythias, as Jonathan to David; and now they were to part. The world is full of partings, and though at first sight it does not so appear, it is well it should be so; yet, well or ill, to part with one we love is always hard, and this was hard to them. Hard, too, to another--to Nelly; for long ago these two had understood each other, and she was to be a parson's wife.

"And a decent wife she'll make," Duke had said, when first the news was told to him. Nelly stood blushing by, and Lionel as well. "A very decent wife, upon the whole." There was a bright light in his eyes. In truth it was to his thinking the best news he could have heard, but he would not leaven his speech with anything like sentiment. "But, Lionel, you are assuming a grave, a very grave responsibility. You are undertaking a task in which even I have failed; and where I have failed, how shall it fare with you? Teach her to respect you, sir. Imbue her with a due sense of propriety. Alas! with all my efforts, she has never yet respected me!"

And he groaned audibly, though happy tears were in his eyes; and in confidence he told them afterwards that their union would be the consummation of his dearest hopes.

But now Lionel was to go; he was to be away a year, and when he came again, and there was something like order in his distant home, the marriage was to be. And since last scenes are necessary to properly conclude a tale, our last scene shall be in Duke Tregowan's room, on the morning before he started on his voyage.

Summer, and the season is in its prime, everywhere is there the glory of that happy time, everywhere is there beauty in the world. In all the sky is radiance, for the sun is near its time of setting. Duke's window is wide open; a gentle breeze comes through, breathing breath of summer, but so still it is, that if you are attentive, you can hear the plashing of the waves against the North Cliffs. The sound is like the refrain of some far-off chorus, the echo of some summer song.

They are gathered round the open window, Duke upon his couch, Nelly and Lionel close together at his head, the mother at the back, and Ria lounging idly with an open book upon her lap and one arm upon the sill. Her eyes are looking out across the land, and the sun shines through, and since the chamber has a western aspect, it frames them all in glory. And they are silent for a time, for it is the evening hour, when all the world is still.

Duke speaks at last.

"In little more than three weeks you will be at your journey's end. You must not forget this evening, Lionel; it is a good omen. You see the sun wishes you a glorious farewell."

"I shall not forget it. Do you think I shall? I need no omen, good or bad, to keep it in my memory. I have other memorials more powerful than such a foolishness as that." His hand was lying close to Nelly's. He pressed it, and in return she pressed his back again.

Again silence. There are occasions, nor few nor far between, when silence is more eloquent than speech. You may not have known them yet, but you will in time. There are seasons when the heart is much too full for utterance in words, when, indeed, in a righteous sense words mask the feelings of our hearts. Periods there are which seem to us too sacred for the interchange of speech.

Again it is Duke who breaks the silence.

"Ten years ago! ten years ago! O Lionel! when we were boys together!" and he sighs, scarcely knowing why. "It seems but yesterday."

"And is that so strange? Is it indeed so long ago? Are you such old men now?" It is the mother speaks, and smiles the while.

"Old in wisdom perhaps, if not in years." This demurely from Nelly.

"Would that indeed we were! We should long since have shown a difference in you. We should at least have taught you good behaviour."

"I often think it must be grand to be a man." This from Ria, who still looked out across the land. "To think of all the things which you can do--the grand and noble deeds which are the destiny of man. To think that you can go far, far beyond the sun, braving death and danger, while we must stop at home and pray. How much the noblest thing in all the world is a noble man!"

This was a new mood in Ria, who was not much given to poetic musings.

"There are great things to be done by those who stop at home and pray," answered Lionel, with a touch of his old manner. "There's the romance of the practical as well as the romance of the ideal, and the practical's a good deal the better of the two. Don't you believe any nonsense about braving death and danger, and going far, far beyond the sun. There's just as much good to be done close by as at a distance, and the less fuss you make about the good you do do, the more like real good it'll be. I'm not very hot on the romantic theory."

"But you are going across the sea, you are braving death and danger to do good," persisted Ria.

"Yes, I am, because it must be done by somebody. There are all sorts of work to do, and I have chosen that sort for which it seems to me I am most fitted. But don't you suppose it is in any way a feather in my cap. All good work is equally good before the Lord."

"Yes," said the mother, "there is no doubt of that; all good work is equally good before the Lord. The only thing is to be sure the work is good."

"And when you are sure, do it," said Lionel.

And again there was silence, broken by Duke repeating in his clear ringing tones those lines of Johann Gottfried Herder, "Lied des Leben's," of which here a free translation is given. Spoken while the setting sun was still in all its glory, they seemed in strange harmony with the spirit of the time:--

"Let us strew life's path with roses,
For its glory soon will wane!
Roses! for the days are merging
Into winter's misty tide.
Roses! for they bloom and blossom
Round about on every side.
On each spray there blossom roses,
On each noble deed of youth.
Happy he who, till its waning,
E'er hath lived a life of truth.
Days! oh, be ye like a garland,
Crowning locks of snowy white,
Blooming with new brightness round them,
Like a youthful vision bright.
E'en the dark-hued flow'rs refresh us
With repose of matchless price,
And refreshing breezes waft us
Kindly into Paradise."

And again was silence. And the shadows longer grew, and the sun sank low, and evening came apace.

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