A Whim, and Its Consequences: Collection of British Authors Vol. CXIVJames, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
General
A Whim, and Its Consequences: Collection of British Authors Vol. CXIV
James, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
Fiction
"Oh, he runs," said Sir William Winslow, whose face was flushed, and
his brow knit. "But he shall hear more of my mind before he goes. He
said before them all that he would never consent to be dependent on
one who was a tyrant in everything--to my servants--even to my dogs.
Was that not an insult?--I will make him eat those words as soon as
the funeral is over, or he shall learn that I can and will exercise
the power my father left me to the uttermost. It was the wisest thing
he ever did to enable me to tame this proud spirit. Oh, I will bring
it down!--Sons of the same father and mother! On my life, if it were
not for the likeness, I should think he was a changeling. But he is
like--very like; and like my mother, too. It is from her that he takes
that obstinate spirit which he thinks so fine, and calls resolution."
As he thus thought, his eyes fell upon the coffin; and he felt a
little ashamed. There is a still, calm power in the presence of the
dead which rebukes wrath; and Sir William Winslow looked down upon the
pall, and thought of what was beneath with feelings that he did not
like to indulge, but could not altogether conquer. He was spared a
struggle with them, however; for a minute had hardly passed after
Chandos had left him, when a servant came in, and advanced to whisper
a word in his master's ear.
"Well, I am ready," replied Sir William, "quite ready. Where are all
the carriages? I do not see them."
"They have been taken into the back court," said the man.
"Well, then, I am quite ready," repeated the baronet, and retired, but
not by the door which led to the room where the guests were assembled.
Half an hour passed in the gloomy preparations for the funeral march.
The callous assistants of the undertaker went about their task with
the usual studied gravity of aspect, and, at heart, the cold
indifference of habit to all the fearful realities which lay hid under
the pageantry which their own hands had prepared out of plumes and
tinsel, and velvet and silk. Then came the display of hearse and mutes
and plume-bearers, and the long line of carriages following with the
mourners, who were only in the mercenary point better than the hired
mourners of more ancient days. And the people of the village came out
to stare at the fine sight; and amongst the young, some vague
indefinite notion of there being something solemn and awful under all
that decoration might prevail; but with the great multitude it was but
a stage-procession.
None thought of what it is to lay the flesh of man amongst the worms,
when the spirit has winged its flight away where no man knoweth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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