Sidney’s spirit had burst the bars of the prison house and won back to the places of innocent delight, from which each day bears us further away.
Ere he reached the door the grey-haired workman was at his side; there were tears in his eyes—a holy awe upon his countenance, as of one who had witnessed an apotheosis. He wrung Sidney’s hand—and Sidney gazed upon him with infinite impersonal loving-kindness—with such a regard one might dream the Deity regarded his creatures.
The workman strove to speak, but the words died in his throat.
“I am so pleased to see you,” said Sidney gently. “You have been long away.”
“Yes,” said the man, “yes—and I must journey on again.”
“Then,” said Sidney, “I wish you pleasant ways, calm seas and safe haven.”
He clasped both the workman’s hands in his.
So they parted for ever. The one to tread the hard road down to “the perishing white bones of a poor man’s grave.”
The other to stray along the golden vistas of ecstatic dreams—till they merged in the dream of death.
And as the workman turned away the congregation came forth and gathered about Sidney; each one in passing the door had turned to give a look of contempt at Vashti where she sat, still and unmoved in her place, and each marvelled at her quietude, but when all the congregation drew from out the church, and yet Vashti did not come, the mothers in Israel went back and found her still sitting there—for she was paralyzed in every limb, though an alert intelligence shone in her great eyes.
They gathered about her, and she confronted them still and silent as another Sphinx with her secret unrevealed. The curse of perpetual inaction had fallen upon her impetuous will; her superb body was shackled by stronger gyves than human ingenuity could devise.
Ah, Vashti! When only a few hours since you had coolly reckoned with the issues of life and death—saying arrogantly “at such and such a time will I lay down the burden of life—and knock unbidden upon death’s portal and present myself an unlooked-for guest before his throne.”
The poorest of us is wont to say “life at least is mine.” How we delude ourselves! We are but infants, priding ourselves upon holding the ends of the reins, whilst Destiny shapes our course—when we would linger in pleasant places we are hurried forward, and when we would flee we are held in some bleak country barren of delight.