第6章

They were all clothed in white, and the form of their garments was strange to him; it was like some old picture.They passed him, group after group, talking quietly together or singing; not moving in haste, but with a certain air of eagerness and joy as if they were glad to be on their way to an appointed place.They did not stay to speak to him, but they looked at him often and spoke to one another as they looked; and now and then one of them would smile and beckon him a friendly greeting, so that he felt they would like him to be with them.

There was quite an interval between the groups; and he followed each of them with his eyes after it had passed, blanching the long ribbon of the road for a little transient space, rising and receding across the wide, billowy upland, among the rounded hillocks of aerial green and gold and lilac, until it came to the high horizon, and stood outlined for a moment, a tiny cloud of whiteness against the tender blue, before it vanished over the hill.

For a long time he sat there watching and wondering.It was a very different world from that in which his mansion on the Avenue was built; and it looked strange to him, but most real--as real as anything he had ever seen.Presently he felt a strong desire to know what country it was and where the people were going.

He had a faint premonition of what it must be, but he wished to be sure.

So he rose from the stone where he was sitting, and came down through the short grass and the lavender flowers, toward a passing group of people.

One of them turned to meet him, and held out his hand.It was an old man, under whose white beard and brows John Weightman thought he saw a suggestion of the face of the village doctor who had cared for him years ago, when he was a boy in the country.

"Welcome," said the old man."Will you come with us?""Where are you going?""To the heavenly city, to see our mansions there.""And who are these with you?""Strangers to me, until a little while ago; I know them better now.

But you I have known for a long time, John Weightman.Don't you remember your old doctor?""Yes," he cried--"yes; your voice has not changed at all.

I'm glad indeed to see you, Doctor McLean, especially now.

All this seems very strange to me, almost oppressive.

I wonder if--but may I go with you, do you suppose?""Surely," answered the doctor, with his familiar smile; "it will do you good.And you also must have a mansion in the city waiting for you--a fine one, too--are you not looking forward to it?""Yes," replied the other, hesitating a moment; "yes--I believe it must be so, although I had not expected to see it so soon.

But I will go with you, and we can talk by the way."The two men quickly caught up with the other people, and all went forward together along the road.The doctor had little to tell of his experience, for it had been a plain, hard life, uneventfully spent for others, and the story of the village was very simple.John Weightman's adventures and triumphs would have made a far richer, more imposing history,full of contacts with the great events and personages of the time.

But somehow or other he did not care to speak much about it, walking on that wide heavenly moorland, under that tranquil, sunless arch of blue, in that free air of perfect peace, where the light was diffused without a shadow, as if the spirit of life in all things were luminous.

There was only one person besides the doctor in that little company whom John Weightman had known before--an old bookkeeper who had spent his life over a desk, carefully keeping accounts--a rusty, dull little man, patient and narrow, whose wife had been in the insane asylum for twenty years and whose only child was a crippled daughter, for whose comfort and happiness he had toiled and sacrificed himself without stint.

It was a surprise to find him here, as care-free and joyful as the rest.

The lives of others in the company were revealed in brief glimpses as they talked together--a mother, early widowed, who had kept her little flock of children together and labored through hard and heavy years to bring them up in purity and knowledge--a Sister of Charity who had devoted herself to the nursing of poor folk who were being eaten to death by cancer--a schoolmaster whose heart and life had been poured into his quiet work of training boys for a clean and thoughtful manhood--a medical missionary who had given up a brilliant career in science to take the charge of a hospital indarkest Africa--a beautiful woman with silver hair who had resigned her dreams of love and marriage to care for an invalid father, and after his death had made her life a long, steady search for ways of doing kindnesses to others--a poet who had walked among the crowded tenements of the great city, bringing cheer and comfort not only by his songs, but by his wise and patient works of practical aid--a paralyzed woman who had lain for thirty years upon her bed, helpless but not hopeless, succeeding by a miracle of courage in her single aim, never to complain, but always to impart a bit of joy and peace toevery one who came near her.All these, and other persons like them, people of little consideration in the world, but now seemingly all full of great contentment and an inward gladness that made their steps light, were in the company that passed along the road, talking together of things past and things to come, and singing now and then with clear voices from which the veil of age and sorrow was lifted.

John Weightman joined in some of the songs--which were familiar to him from their use in the church--at first with a touch of hesitation, and then more confidently.For as they went on his sense of strangeness and fear at his new experience diminished, and his thoughts began to take on their habitual assurance and complacency.Were not these people going to the Celestial City? And was not he in his right place among them? He had always looked forward to this journey.

If they were sure, each one, of finding a mansion there, could not he be far more sure? His life had been more fruitful than theirs.