I HAD BEEN very ill. I knew that. Strange whisperings had from time to time penetrated to my brain that were not intended for me to hear, and I knew from them that those in waiting upon me had given up all hope of my recovery.
At first I had rebelled, bitterly, clamorously. Still, as I appeared to lie, speechless, helpless, life was at fever-heat in my brain, and my soul was rising up in fierce rebellion. In the full tide of youth and health to be singled out from the multitude to... die! There was surely injustice, cruel injustice, in it. “Threescore and ten years,” I quoted, and I had but lived twenty-five. Never yet had I been denied anything that life could give, and now the common blessing of life itself was to be taken from me at a stroke.
I knew, I did not deny that I knew, that Death had never been a respecter of ages; but “All men think all men mortal but themselves”: and that it should be I against whom the decree had gone forth — it was incredible.
That phase had passed; my fruitless wrath had spent itself; a few salt tears had gathered, and lain in the hollow cups of my eyes, and those that watched had looked more sadly than before upon me.
“Hush! she is dying!” I heard them say, as the first cock crew.
So the “Supreme Moment” was at hand; and, strangely enough, I was now beyond caring for it. Probably I was too weak to care.
“It must be very near,” I thought, as I saw my good pastor kneel by my bedside, a look of intense earnestness contracting his features.
“She must not die. She shall not die. There is much for her to do on earth yet.”
What did he mean? Was it work that I had left undone, and was he going to wrestle for my soul from out the very grip of death, as had done Luther, centuries ago, for his friend?
Ah! I was weary... too weary to think more. Through dimming sight I could just see the hospital nurse, a kindly dark-eyed woman, who seemed all eyes and -cap and spotless linen, move round me as in a dream. Was she praying now too? And my cousin, whom they had brought four hundred miles, because I had no nearer relative, was she too sinking on her knees?... I was growing faint... fainter... the air was stifling!... I was struggling... panting... striving... Free!... drawing, it seemed to me, a long, long breath.
Where was I?
Half-way through the room, half-way to the roof, turning with amazed eyes to look on the scene upon which I had just closed my eyes.
There was the kneeling pastor, with folded upraised hands and supplicating speech; there the nurse, with bent head but professional watchfulness; my little fair-haired cousin, her head buried on her hands; strangest of all, there lay a figure outstretched under a snowy counterpane, that it was impossible to help recognising as myself. For one moment I saw distinctly the white, drawn face, sharpening in the death-agony, the closed eyes, the cup - like hollows filled with the cruel tears I had shed, the white hand on the counter-pane.... A moment and all was dark. I knew no more.
Had I been asleep, or was I awake now?
I was in the open air, a great sense of space, of breath, of life about me.
Behind me lay a valley stretching into the dim distance, encompassed with white mist. Shadows of human beings were faintly discernible in its midst, moving to and fro, and a very distant hum of voices penetrated the air. Here and there I could see figures emerging from its white cloud; sometimes in little bands of three and four — sometimes alone. Was that the earth that lay so close to an encircling world?...
Yes, and it lay behind me now.
What was beyond? I looked up with eager inquiry.
Before me rose in a long incline the green slope of a hillside that, through shaded ways, led to a level overshadowed by an amphitheatre of hills — hills whose peaks rose like great white crystals, roseate, golden-tipped, losing themselves in colour.
With bated breath and a strange thrill of expectancy, I asked myself, if perchance my feet had wandered to the threshold of Paradise; if these golden heights were where saints and angels congregated — where they “summered high in bliss upon the hills of God.”
Nor did I fear that I had been deceived, when down the turf-clad path there moved towards me one, half-goddess, half-woman.
Where had I seen or heard of beauty such as hers before? Surely in some dream. Ah! I knew.... How often had I repeated with untiring delight —
“Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem
No wrought flowers did adorn;...
Her hair, that lay along her back,
Was yellow, like ripe corn.”
There, in all the glory of the poet’s picturing, she stood: a Blessed Damozel; and her soft slow steps were surely bringing her to me.
She was close to me. I was looking up into the blue depths of her eyes.
Yes:
“They were deeper than the depths
Of water stilled at even.”
But they were filled with a soft sadness that brought a shapeless fear to mingle with my wonder.
Was she sad for me, this Blessed Damozel? Her whole mien was one of gracious pity.... Was it for me?...
A faint feeling began to gather at my heart. The “hills of God” seemed very far away.