Except in love, or the attachments of kindred, or other very long and
habitual affection, we really have no tenderness. But there was
something of the woman moulded into the great, stalwart frame of
Hollingsworth; nor was he ashamed of it, as men often are of what is
best in them, nor seemed ever to know that there was such a soft place
in his heart. I knew it well, however, at that time, although
afterwards it came nigh to be forgotten. Methought there could not be
two such men alive as Hollingsworth. There never was any blaze of a
fireside that warmed and cheered me, in the down-sinkings and
shiverings of my spirit, so effectually as did the light out of those
eyes, which lay so deep and dark under his shaggy brows.
Happy the man that has such a friend beside him when he comes to die!
and unless a friend like Hollingsworth be at hand,--as most probably
there will not,--he had better make up his mind to die alone. How many
men, I wonder, does one meet with in a lifetime, whom he would choose
for his deathbed companions! At the crisis of my fever I besought
Hollingsworth to let nobody else enter the room, but continually to
make me sensible of his own presence by a grasp of the hand, a word, a
prayer, if he thought good to utter it; and that then he should be the
witness how courageously I would encounter the worst.
It still impresses me as almost a matter of regret that I did not die then, when
I had tolerably made up my mind to it; for Hollingsworth would have
gone with me to the hither verge of life, and have sent his friendly
and hopeful accents far over on the other side, while I should be
treading the unknown path. Now, were I to send for him, he would
hardly come to my bedside, nor should I depart the easier for his
presence.
"You are not going to die, this time," said he, gravely smiling. "You
know nothing about sickness, and think your case a great deal more
desperate than it is."
"Death should take me while I am in the mood," replied I, with a little
of my customary levity.
"Have you nothing to do in life," asked Hollingsworth, "that you fancy
yourself so ready to leave it?"
"Nothing," answered I; "nothing that I know of, unless to make pretty
verses, and play a part, with Zenobia and the rest of the amateurs, in
our pastoral. It seems but an unsubstantial sort of business, as
viewed through a mist of fever. But, dear Hollingsworth, your own
vocation is evidently to be a priest, and to spend your days and nights
in helping your fellow creatures to draw peaceful dying breaths."