“Ay,” Lord Cairnforth said to himself, when she had gone away, and he was left alone in that helpless solitude which, being the inevitable necessity, had grown into the familiar habit of his life, “ay, it is all right.  No harm could come—­there would be nothing neglected—­even were I to die to-morrow.”

That “dying to-morrow,” which might happen to any one of us, how few really recognize it and prepare for it!  Not in the ordinary religious sense of “preparation for death”—­often a most irreligious thing —­a frantic attempt of sinning and terror-stricken humanity to strike a balance-sheet with heaven, just leaving a sufficient portion on the credit side—­but preparation in the ordinary worldly meaning—­ keeping one’s affairs straight and clear, that no one may be perplexed therewith afterward; forgiving and asking forgiveness of offenses; removing evil done, and delaying not for a day any good that it is possible to do.

It was a strange thing; but, as after his death it was discovered, the true secret of the wonderful calmness and sweetness which, year by year, deepened more and more in Lord Cairnforth’s character, ripening it to a perfectness in which those who only saw the outside of his could hardly believe, consisted in this ever-abiding thought—­that he might die to-morrow.  Existence was to him such a mere twilight, dim, imperfect, and sad, that he never rested in it, but lived every day, as it were, in prospect of the eternal dawn.

Chapter 9

This summer, which, as it glided away, Lord Cairnforth often declared to be the happiest of his life, ended by bringing him the first heavy affliction—­external affliction—­which his life had ever known.

Suddenly, in the midst of the late-earned rest of a very toilsome career, died Mr. Menteith, the earl’s long-faithful friend, who had been almost as good to him as a father.  He felt it sorely; the more so, because, though his own frail life seemed always under the imminent shadow of death, death had never touched him before as regarded other people.  He had lived, as we all unconsciously do, till the great enemy smites us, feeling as if, whatever might be the case with himself, those whom he loved could never die.  This grief was something quite new to him, and it struck him hard.

The tidings came on a gloomy day in late October, the season when Cairnforth is least beautiful; for the thick woods about it make the always damp atmosphere heavy with “the moist, rich smell of the rotting leaves,” and the roads lying deep in mud, and the low shore hung with constant mists, give a general impression of dreariness.  The far-away hills vanish entirely for days together, and the loch itself takes a leaden hue, as if it never could be blue again.  You can hardly believe that the sun will ever again shine out upon it; the white waves rise, the mountains reappear, and the whole scene grows clear and lovely, as life does sometimes if we have only patience to endure through the weary winter until spring.