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The placid inhabitants of the parish of Welland, including warblingwaggoners, lone shepherds, ploughmen, the blacksmith, the carpenter, thegardener at the Great House, the steward and agent, the parson, clerk,and so on, were hourly expecting the announcement of St. Cleeve's death.The sexton had been going to see his brother-in-law, nine miles distant,but promptly postponed the visit for a few days, that there might be theregular professional hand present to toll the bell in a note of duefulness and solemnity; an attempt by a deputy, on a previous occasion ofhis absence, having degenerated into a miserable stammering clang thatwas a disgrace to the parish.
But Swithin St. Cleeve did not decease, a fact of which, indeed, thehabituated reader will have been well aware ever since the rain came downupon the young man in the ninth chapter, and led to his alarming illness.Though, for that matter, so many maimed histories are hourly enactingthemselves in this dun-coloured world as to lend almost a priority ofinterest to narratives concerning those
'Who lay great bases for eternity Which prove more short than waste or ruining.'
How it arose that he did not die was in this wise; and his exampleaffords another instance of that reflex rule of the vassal soul over thesovereign body, which, operating so wonderfully in elastic natures, andmore or less in all, originally gave rise to the legend that supremacylay on the other side.
The evening of the day after the tender, despairing, farewell kiss ofLady Constantine, when he was a little less weak than during her visit,he lay with his face to the window. He lay alone, quiet and resigned. Hehad been thinking, sometimes of her and other friends, but chiefly of hislost discovery. Although nearly unconscious at the time, he had yet beenaware of that kiss, as the delicate flush which followed it upon hischeek would have told; but he had attached little importance to it asbetween woman and man. Had he been dying of love instead of wet weather,perhaps the impulsive act of that handsome lady would have been seized onas a proof that his love was returned. As it was her kiss seemed but theevidence of a naturally demonstrative kindliness, felt towards himchiefly because he was believed to be leaving her for ever.
The reds of sunset passed, and dusk drew on. Old Hannah came upstairs topull down the blinds and as she advanced to the window he said to her, ina faint voice, 'Well, Hannah, what news to-day?'
'Oh, nothing, sir,' Hannah replied, looking out of the window with sadapathy, 'only that there's a comet, they say.'
'A WHAT?' said the dying astronomer, starting up on his elbow.
'A comet--that's all, Master Swithin,' repeated Hannah, in a lower voice,fearing she had done harm in some way.
'Well, tell me, tell me!' cried Swithin. 'Is it Gambart's? Is itCharles the Fifth's, or Halley's, or Faye's, or whose?'
'Hush!' said she, thinking St. Cleeve slightly delirious again. ''TisGod A'mighty's, of course. I haven't seed en myself, but they say he'sgetting bigger every night, and that he'll be the biggest one known forfifty years when he's full growed. There, you must not talk any morenow, or I'll go away.'
Here was an amazing event, little noise as it had made in the happening.Of all phenomena that he had longed to witness during his shortastronomical career, those appertaining to comets had excited him most.That the magnificent comet of 1811 would not return again for thirtycenturies had been quite a permanent regret with him. And now, when thebottomless abyss of death seemed yawning beneath his feet, one of thesemuch-desired apparitions, as large, apparently, as any of its tribe, hadchosen to show itself.
'O, if I could but live to see that comet through my equatorial!' hecried.
Compared with comets, variable stars, which he had hitherto made hisstudy, were, from their remoteness, uninteresting. They were to theformer as the celebrities of Ujiji or Unyamwesi to the celebrities of hisown country. Members of the solar system, these dazzling and perplexingrangers, the fascination of all astronomers, rendered themselves stillmore fascinating by the sinister suspicion attaching to them of beingpossibly the ultimate destroyers of the human race. In his physicalprostration St. Cleeve wept bitterly at not being hale and strong enoughto welcome with proper honour the present specimen of these desirablevisitors.
The strenuous wish to live and behold the new phenomenon, supplanting theutter weariness of existence that he had heretofore experienced, gave hima new vitality. The crisis passed; there was a turn for the better; andafter that he rapidly mended. The comet had in all probability saved hislife. The limitless and complex wonders of the sky resumed their oldpower over his imagination the possibilities of that unfathomable blueocean were endless. Finer feats than ever he would perform were to beachieved in its investigation. What Lady Constantine had said, that forone discovery made ten awaited making, was strikingly verified by thesudden appearance of this splendid marvel.
The windows of St. Cleeve's bedroom faced the west, and nothing wouldsatisfy him but that his bed should be so pulled round as to give him aview of the low sky, in which the as yet minute tadpole of fire wasrecognizable. The mere sight of it seemed to lend him sufficientresolution to complete his own cure forthwith. His only fear now waslest, from some unexpected cause or other, the comet would vanish beforehe could get to the observatory on Rings-Hill Speer.
In his fervour to begin observing he directed that an old telescope,which he had used in his first celestial attempts, should be tied at oneend to the bed-post, and at the other fixed near his eye as he reclined.Equipped only with this rough improvisation he began to take notes. LadyConstantine was forgotten, till one day, suddenly, wondering if she knewof the important phenomenon, he revolved in his mind whether as a fellow-student and sincere friend of his she ought not to be sent for, andinstructed in the use of the equatorial.
But though the image of Lady Constantine, in spite of her kindness andunmistakably warm heart, had been obscured in his mind by the heavenlybody, she had not so readily forgotten him. Too shy to repeat her visitafter so nearly betraying her secret, she yet, every day, by the mostingenious and subtle means that could be devised by a woman who fearedfor herself, but could not refrain from tampering with danger,ascertained the state of her young friend's health. On hearing of theturn in his condition she rejoiced on his account, and became yet moredespondent on her own. If he had died she might have mused on him as herdear departed saint without much sin: but his return to life was adelight that bewildered and dismayed.
One evening a little later on he was sitting at his bedroom window asusual, waiting for a sufficient decline of light to reveal the comet'sform, when he beheld, crossing the field contiguous to the house, afigure which he knew to be hers. He thought she must be coming to seehim on the great comet question, to discuss which with so delightful andkind a comrade was an expectation full of pleasure. Hence he keenlyobserved her approach, till something happened that surprised him.
When, at the descent of the hill, she had reached the stile that admittedto Mrs. Martin's garden, Lady Constantine stood quite still for a minuteor more, her gaze bent on the ground. Instead of coming on to the houseshe went heavily and slowly back, almost as if in pain; and then atlength, quickening her pace, she was soon out of sight. She appeared inthe path no more that day.