Mildred Arkell Volume Iii Part 28

Mr. St. John was waiting for her below, on the landing, near the drawing-room door. "You must pardon the family for not receiving you, Georgina. Mrs. Arkell mentioned it to me this morning; but they are overwhelmed with grief. It has been so unexpected, you see. Lucy is the worst. Mrs. Arkell"--he compelled his voice to a lower whisper--"has an idea that she will not be long behind him."

The burial day of Henry Arkell arrived. The dean had commanded a holiday from study, and that the king's scholars should attend the funeral. Just before the hour appointed for it, half-past eleven, some of them took up their station in the cloisters, in silent order, waiting to join the procession when it should come, a bow of black c.r.a.pe being attached to the left shoulder of their surplices. Sixteen of the king's scholars had gone down to the house, as they were appointed to do. Mrs. Beauclerc, her daughter, and the families of the prebendaries were already in the cathedral; with some other spectators, who had got in under the pretext of attending morning prayers, and who, when the prayers were over, had refused to quit their seats again: of course the s.e.xtons could not decently turn them out. Half a dozen ladies took up their station in the organ-loft, to the inward wrath of the organist, who, however, had to submit to the invasion with suavity, for one of them was the dean's daughter. It was the best viewing place, commanding full sight of the cathedral body and the nave on one side, and of the choir on the other.

The bell tolled at intervals, sending its deep, gloomy boom over the town; and the spectators patiently waited. At length the first slow and solemn note of the organ was sounded, and Georgina Beauclerc shrank into a corner, contriving to see, and yet not be seen.

From the small door, never used but upon the rare occasion of a funeral, at the extremity of the long body of the cathedral, the procession advanced at last. It was headed by the choristers, two and two, the lay clerks, and the masters of the college school. The dean and one of the canons walked next before the coffin, which was borne by eight of the king's scholars, and the pall by eight more. Four mourners followed the coffin--Peter Arkell, his cousin William, Travice, and Mr. St. John; and the long line was brought up by the remainder of the king's scholars. So slow was their advance, as to be almost imperceptible to the spectators, the choir singing:

"I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

"I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see G.o.d; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another."

The last time those words were sung in that cathedral, but some three weeks past, it was by him over whom they were now being sung; the thought flashed upon many a mind. At length the choir was reached, and the coffin placed on the trestles; Georgina Beauclerc's eyes--she had now come round to the front of the organ--being blinded with tears as she looked down upon it. Mr. St. John glanced up, from his place by the coffin, and saw her. Both the psalms were sung, and the dean himself read the lessons; and it may as well be here remarked, that at afternoon service the dean desired that Luther's hymn should be sung in place of the usual anthem; some a.s.sociation with the last evening Henry had spent at his house no doubt inducing it.

The procession took its way back to the cloisters, to the grave, Mr.

Wilberforce officiating. The spectators followed in the wake. As the coffin was lowered to its final resting-place--earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust--the boys bowed their heads upon their clasped hands, and some of them sobbed audibly; they felt all the worth of Henry Arkell now that he was gone. The grave was made close to the cloister entrance to the cathedral, in the spot where had stood Mr. St. John and Georgina Beauclerc; where had once stood Georgina and Henry Arkell, the day that wretched Lewis had wished him buried there. An awful sort of feeling was upon Lewis now, as he remembered it. A few minutes, and it was over. The dean turned into the chapter-house, the mourners moved away, and the old bedesmen, in their black gowns, began to shovel in the earth upon the coffin. Mr. Wilberforce, before moving, put up his finger to Aultane, and the latter advanced.

"You choristers are not to go back to the vestry now, but to come into the hall in your surplices."

Aultane wondered at the order, but communicated it to those under him.

When they entered the college hall, they found the king's scholars ranged in a semicircle, and they fell in with them according to their respective places in the school. The boys' white surplices and the bows of c.r.a.pe presenting a curious contrast.

"What are we stuck out like this for?" whispered one to the other. "For show? What does Wilberforce want? He's sitting still, as if he waited for somebody."

"Be blest if I know," said Lewis junior, whose teeth were chattering.

"Unless it is to wind up with a funeral lecture."

However, they soon did know. The dean entered the hall, wearing his surplice, and carrying his official four-cornered cap. Mr. Wilberforce rose to bow the dean into his own seat, but the dean preferred to stand.

He looked steadily at the circle before he spoke; sternly, some of them thought; and they did not feel altogether at ease.

"Boys!" began the dean. And there he stopped; and the boys lifted their heads to listen to what might be coming.

"Boys, our doings in this world bear a bias generally to good or to evil, and they bring their consequences with them. Well-doing brings contentment and inward satisfaction; but ill-doing as certainly brings its day of retribution. The present day must be one of retribution to some of you, unless you are so hardened in wickedness as to be callous to conscience. How have----"

The dean was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. St. John and Travice Arkell. They took off their hats; and their streaming hatbands swept the ground, as they advanced and stood by the dean.

"Boys," he resumed, "how have you treated Henry Arkell? I do not speak to all; I speak to some. Lewis senior, does your conscience p.r.i.c.k you for having fastened him in St. James's Church, in the dark and lonely night? Aultane junior, does yours sting you for your insubordination to him on a.s.size Sunday, when you exposed yourself so disgracefully to two of the judges of the land, and for your malicious accusation of him to Miss Beauclerc, followed by your pitiful complaint to me? Prattleton, have you, as senior of the school, winked at the cabal against him?"

The three boys hung their heads and their red ears: to judge by their looks, their consciences were p.r.i.c.king them very sharply.

"Lewis junior," resumed the dean, in a sudden manner, "of what does your conscience accuse you?"

Lewis junior turned sick, and his hair stood on end. He could not have replied, had it been to save him from hanging.

"Do you know that you are the cause of Henry Arkell's death?" continued the dean, in a low but distinct accent, which penetrated the room. "And that you might, in justice, be taken up as a murderer?"

Lewis junior burst into a dismal howl, and fell down on his knees and face, burying his forehead on the ground, and sticking up his surpliced back; something after the manner of an ostrich.

"It was the fall in the choir on a.s.size Sunday that killed Henry Arkell," said the dean, looking round the hall; "that is, he has died from the effects of the fall. You gentlemen are aware of it, I believe?"

"Certainly they are, Mr. Dean," said the head master, wondering on his own account, and answering the dean because the "gentlemen" did not.

"He was thrown down," resumed the dean; "wilfully thrown down. And that is the one who did it," pointing with his finger at Lewis junior.

Two or three of the boys had been cognisant of the fact, as might be seen from their scarlet faces; the rest wore a look of timid curiosity; while Mr. Wilberforce's amazed spectacles wandered from the dean's finger to the prostrate and howling Lewis.

"Yes," said the dean, answering the various looks, "the author of Henry Arkell's death is Lewis junior. You had better get up, sir."

Lewis junior remained where he was, shaking his back as if it had been a feather-bed, and emitting the most extraordinary groans.

"Get up," cried the dean, sternly.

There was no disobeying the tone, and Lewis raised himself. A pretty object he looked, for the dye from his new black gloves had been washed on to his face.

"He told me he forgave me the day before he died; he said he had never told any one, and never would," howled Lewis. "I didn't mean to hurt him."

"He never did tell," replied the dean: "he _bore_ his injuries, bore them without retaliation. Is there another boy in the school who would do that?"

"No, that there is not," put in Mr. Wilberforce.

"When you locked him in the church, Lewis senior, did he inform against you? When you came to me with your cruel accusation, Aultane, did he revenge himself by telling me of a far worse misdemeanour, which you had been guilty of? Did he ever inform against any who injured him? No; insults, annoyances, he bore all in silence, because he would not bring trouble and punishment upon you. He was a n.o.ble boy," warmly continued the dean: "and, what's more, he was a Christian one."

"He said he would not tell of me," choked Lewis junior, "and now he has gone and done it. O-o-o-o-o-o-h!"

"He never told," quietly repeated the dean. "During the last afternoon of his life, it came to my knowledge, subsequent to an interview I had had with him, that Lewis junior had wilfully thrown him down, and I went back to Arkell and taxed him with its being the fact. He could not deny it, but the whole burden of his admission was, 'Oh, sir, forgive him! do not punish him! I am dying, and I pray you to forgive him for my sake!

Forgive them all!' Do you think you deserve such clemency?" asked the dean, in an altered tone.

Lewis only howled the louder.

"On his part, I offer you all his full and free forgiveness: Lewis junior, do you hear? his full and free forgiveness. And I believe you have also that of his parents." The dean looked at Travice Arkell, and waited for him to speak.

"A few hours only before Henry died, it came to Mr. Peter Arkell's knowledge----"

"I informed him," interrupted the dean.

"Yes," resumed Travice. "The dean informed Mr. Arkell that Henry's fall had not been accidental. But--as he had prayed the dean, so he prayed his father, to forgive the culprit. Lewis junior, I am here on the part of Mr. Arkell to offer his forgiveness to you."

"I wish I could as easily accord mine," said the dean. "No punishment will be inflicted on you, Lewis junior: not because no punishment, that I or Mr. Wilberforce could command, is adequate to the crime, but that his dying request, for your pardon, shall be complied with. If you have any conscience at all, his fate will lie upon it for the remainder of your life, and you will bear its remembrance about with you."

Lewis bent down his head on the shoulder nearest to him, and his howls changed into sobs.

"One word more, boys," said the dean. "I have observed that not one in the whole school--at least such is my belief--would be capable of acting as Henry Arkell did, in returning good for evil. The ruling principle of his life, and he strove to carry it out in little things as in great, was to do as he would be done by. Now what could have made him so different from you?"

The dean obtained no reply.

"I will tell you. _He loved and feared G.o.d._ He lived always as though G.o.d were near him, watching over his words and his actions; he took G.o.d for his guide, and strove to do His will: and now G.o.d has taken him to his reward. Do you know that his death was a remarkably peaceful one?

Yes, I think you have heard so. Holy living, boys, makes holy dying; and it made his dying holy and peaceful. Allow me to ask, if you, who are selfish and wicked and malignant, could meet death so calmly?"

"Arkell's mother is often so ill, sir, that she doesn't know she'll live from one day to another," a senior ventured to remark in the general desperation. "Of course that makes her learn to try not to fear death, and she taught him not to."