Johnny Ludlow

"I am glad it"s going to be done, though. Are not you?"

"It won"t make much difference to me, I expect. I shall not be here."

"Not here!"

"I don"t think so."

His chin rested on his hands above the gate. His eyes were gazing out straight before him; looking--as I said before--for something they did not see.

"Do you think you shall be too ill to come next half, Whitney?"

"Yes, I do."

"Are you feeling worse?" I asked after a minute or two, taken up with staring at the sky.

"That"s what they are always asking me indoors?" he remarked. "It"s just this, Johnny; I don"t feel worse from day to day; I could not say any one morning that I feel a shade worse than I did the previous one: but when I look back a few weeks or months; say, for example, to the beginning of the half, or at Easter, and remember how very well I was then, compared with what I am now, I know that I must be a great deal worse. I could not do now what I did then. Why! I quite believe I might have gone in for Hare-and-Hounds then, if I had chosen. Fancy my trying it now!"

"But you don"t have any pain."

"None. I"m only weak and tired; always feeling to want to lie down and rest. Every bit of strength and energy has gone out of me, Johnny."

"You"ll get well," I said hastily.

"I"m sure I don"t know."

"Don"t you want to?" It was his cool answer made me ask it.

"Why, of course I do."

"Well then?"

"I"ll tell you, Johnny Ludlow; there is a feeling within me, and I can"t say why it"s there or whence it comes, that"s always saying to me I shall _not_ get well. At least, whenever I think about it. It seems just as though it were telling me that instead of getting well it will be--be just the opposite."

"What a dreadful thing to have, Whitney! It must be like a fellow going about with a skeleton!"

"Not at all dreadful. It never frightens me, or worries me. Just as the rest of you look forward naturally to coming back here, and living out your lives to be men, and all that, so I seem _not_ to look to it. The feeling has nothing bad at all about it. If it had, I dare say it would not be there."

I stood on the small gate and took a swing. It pained me to hear him say this.

"I suppose you mean, Whitney, that you may be going to die?"

"That"s about it, Johnny. I don"t know it; I may get well, after all."

"But you don"t think you will?"

"No, I don"t. Little Hearn first; I next. Another ought to follow, to make the third."

"You speak as easily as if it were only going out to tea, Whitney!"

"Well, I feel easy. I do, indeed."

"Most of us would be daunted, at any rate."

"Exactly. Because you are not going to die. Johnny Ludlow, I am getting to _think_ a great deal; to have a sort of insight that I never had before; and I see how very wisely and kindly all things are ordered."

If he had gone in for a bout of tumbling like the mountebanks, I could not have been as much surprised as to hear him say this. It was more in Mrs. Frost"s line than in ours. It laid hold on me at once; and from that moment, I believed that John Whitney would die.

"Look here, Whitney. It is evident by what you say about failing strength, that you must be getting worse. Why don"t you tell them at home, and go there and be nursed?"

"I don"t want to be nursed. I am not ill enough for it. I"m better as I am: here, amongst you fellows. As to telling them--time enough for that.

And what is there to tell? They see for themselves I am not as strong as I was: there"s nothing else to tell."

"There"s this feeling that you say lies upon you."

"What, and alarm them for nothing? I dare say. There _would_ be a hullabaloo. I should be rattled home in the old family coach, and Carden would be sent for, post haste, Hastings also, and--well, you are a m.u.f.f, Johnny. I"ve told you this because I like you, and because I thought you would understand me; which is more than the other fellows would. Mind you keep counsel."

"Well, you ought to be at home."

"I am better here, while I am as I am. The holidays will be upon us soon. I expect I shall not come back afterwards."

Now, if you ask me till next week, I could not give a better account of the earlier part of John Whitney"s illness than this. He was ill; and yet no one could find out why he should be ill, or what was the matter with him. Just about this time, Featherstone took up the notion that it was "liver," and dosed him for it. For one thing, he said Whitney must ride out daily, good hard riding. So a horse would be brought over from the Hall by the old groom, and they would go out together. During the Whitsun week, when Sir John was away from Parliament, he came also and rode with him. But no matter whether they went slow or fast, Whitney would come back ready to die from the exertion. Upon that, Featherstone changed his opinion, and said riding must be given up.

By the time the Midsummer holidays came, any one might see the change in Whitney. It struck Mrs. Frost particularly when he went in to say good-bye to her.

"For the last time, I think," he said in a low tone, but with a smiling countenance, as she stood holding his hand.

Mrs. Frost knew what he meant, and her face, always so pale, and delicate, went red.

"I trust not," she answered. "But--G.o.d knows what is best."

"Oh yes, and we do not. Farewell, dear Mrs. Frost. Thank you truly for all your care and kindness."

The tears stood in her eyes. _She_ was to be the next one to go from us, after John Whitney.

Wolfe Barrington stood at the door as he pa.s.sed. "Good luck to you, Whitney," said he, carelessly. "I"d throw all those nerves of yours over, if I were you, before I came back again."

Whitney turned back and held out his hand. "Thank you, Barrington," he replied in his kind, truthful voice; "you wish me well, I know. Good luck to _you_, in all ways; and I mean it with my whole heart. As to nerves, I do not think I possess any, though some of you have been pleased to joke about it."

They shook hands, these two, little thinking that, in one sense, the life of both would soon be blighted. In a short time, only a few weeks, Wolfe was to be brought nearer to immediate death than even John Whitney.

Not until he was at home and had settled down among them, did his people notice the great change in him. Lady Whitney, flurried and anxious, sent for Sir John from London. Mr. Carden was summoned, and old Featherstone met him often in consultation. Dr. Hastings came once or twice, but he was an invalid himself then; and Mr. Carden, as every one knew, was equal to anything. Still--it was a positive fact--there was no palpable disease to grapple with in John, only weakness and wasting away. No cough, no damaged lungs. "If only it were gout or dropsy, one would know what to do," grumbled Featherstone; but Mr. Carden kept his own counsel.

They decided that John should go to the seaside for change.

"As if it could do me any good!" he remonstrated. "_Change_ won"t make any difference to me. And I"d a great deal rather stay quietly at home."

"Why do you say it will not do you good?" cried Lady Whitney, who happened to hear him.

"Because, mother, I feel nearly sure that it will not."