"He"s a very fortunate man," said the painter.
"Well, I guess you"re right," Mrs. Durgin acquiesced, as much to Jeff"s advantage as she could. "You know I was always afraid he would make a fool of himself, but I guess he"s kept his eyes pretty well open all the while. Well!" She closed the subject with this exclamation. "Him and Cynthy"s been at me about Jackson," she added, abruptly. "They"ve cooked it up between "em that he"s out of health or run down or something."
Her manner referred the matter to Westover, and he said: "He isn"t looking so well this summer. He ought to go away somewhere."
"That"s what they thought," said Mrs. Durgin, smiling in her pleasure at having their opinion confirmed by the old and valued friend of the family.
"Whereabouts do you think he"d best go?"
"Oh, I don"t know. Italy--or Egypt--"
"I guess, if you could get Jackson to go away at all, it would be to some of them old Bible countries," said Mrs. Durgin. "We"ve got to have a fight to get him off, make the best of it, and I"ve thought it over since the children spoke about it, and I couldn"t seem to see Jackson willin" to go out to Californy or Colorady, to either of his brothers.
But I guess he would go to Egypt. That a good climate for the--his complaint?"
She entered eagerly into the question, and Westover promised to write to a Boston doctor, whom he knew very well, and report Jackson"s case to him, and get his views of Egypt.
"Tell him how it is," said Mrs. Durgin, "and the tussle we shall have to have anyway to make Jackson believe he"d ought to have a rest. He"ll go to Egypt if he"ll go anywheres, because his mind keeps runnin" on Bible questions, and it "ll interest him to go out there; and we can make him believe it"s just to bang around for the winter. He"s terrible hopeful."
Now that she began to speak, all her long-repressed anxiety poured itself out, and she hitched her chair nearer to Westover and wistfully clutched his sleeve. "That"s the worst of Jackson. You can"t make him believe anything"s the matter. Sometimes I can"t bear to hear him go on about himself as if he was a well young man. He expects that medium"s stuff is goin" to cure him!"
"People sick in that way are always hopeful," said Westover.
"Oh, don"t I know it! Ha"n"t I seen my children and my husband--Oh, do ask that doctor to answer as quick as he can!"
XXVI.
Westover had a difficulty in congratulating Jeff which he could scarcely define to himself, but which was like that obscure resentment we feel toward people whom we think unequal to their good fortune. He was ashamed of his grudge, whatever it was, and this may have made him overdo his expressions of pleasure. He was sensible of a false cordiality in them, and he checked himself in a flow of forced sentiment to say, more honestly: "I wish you"d speak to Cynthia for me. You know how much I think of her, and how much I want to see her happy. You ought to be a very good fellow, Jeff!"
"I"ll tell her that; she"ll like that," said Jeff. "She thinks the world of you."
"Does she? Well!"
"And I guess she"ll be glad you sent word. She"s been wondering what you would say; she"s always so afraid of you."
"Is she? You"re not afraid of me, are you? But perhaps you don"t think so much of me."
"I guess Cynthia and I think alike on that point," said Jeff, without abating Westover"s discomfort.
There was a stress of sharp cold that year about the 20th of August.
Then the weather turned warm again, and held fine till the beginning of October, within a week of the time when Jackson was to sail. It had not been so hard to make him consent when he knew where the doctor wished him to go, and he had willingly profited by Westover"s suggestions about getting to Egypt. His interest in the matter, which he tried to hide at first under a mask of decorous indifference, mounted with the fire of Whitwell"s enthusiasm, and they held nightly councils together, studying his course on the map, and consulting planchette upon the points at variance that rose between them, while Jombateeste sat with his chair tilted against the wall, and pulled steadily at his pipe, which mixed its strong fumes with the smell of the kerosene-lamp and the perennial odor of potatoes in the cellar under the low room where the companions forgathered.
Toward the end of September Westover spent the night before he went back to town with them. After a season with planchette, their host pushed himself back with his knees from the table till his chair reared upon its hind legs, and shoved his hat up from his forehead in token of philosophical mood.
"I tell you, Jackson," he said, "you"d ought to get hold o" some them occult devils out there, and squeeze their science out of "em. Any Buddhists in Egypt, Mr. Westover?"
"I don"t think there are," said Westover. "Unless Jackson should come across some wandering Hindu. Or he might push on, and come home by the way of India."
"Do it, Jackson!" his friend conjured him. "May cost you something more, but it "ll be worth the money. If it"s true, what some them Blavetsky fellers claim, you can visit us here in your astral body--git in with "em the right way. I should like to have you try it. What"s the reason India wouldn"t be as good for him as Egypt, anyway?" Whitwell demanded of Westover.
"I suppose the climate"s rather too moist; the heat would be rather trying to him there."
"That so?"
"And he"s taken his ticket for Alexandria," Westover pursued.
"Well, I guess that"s so." Whitwell tilted his backward sloping hat to one side, so as to scratch the northeast corner of his bead thoughtfully.
"But as far as that is concerned," said Westover, "and the doctrine of immortality generally is concerned, Jackson will have his hands full if he studies the Egyptian monuments."
"What they got to do with it?"
"Everything. Egypt is the home of the belief in a future life; it was carried from Egypt to Greece. He might come home by way of Athens."
"Why, man!" cried Whitwell. "Do you mean to say that them old Hebrew saints, Joseph"s brethren, that went down into Egypt after corn, didn"t know about immortality, and them Egyptian devils did?"
"There"s very little proof in the Old Testament that the Israelites knew of it."
Whitwell looked at Jackson. "That the idee you got?"
"I guess he"s right," said Jackson. "There"s something a little about it in Job, and something in the Psalms: but not a great deal."
"And we got it from them Egyptian d----"
"I don"t say that," Westover interposed. "But they had it before we had.
As we imagine it, we got it though Christianity."
Jombateeste, who had taken his pipe out of his mouth in a controversial manner, put it back again.
Westover added, "But there"s no question but the Egyptians believed in the life hereafter, and in future rewards and punishments for the deeds done in the body, thousands of years before our era."
"Well, I"m dumned," said Whitwell.
Jombateeste took his pipe out again. "Hit show they got good sense. They know--they feel it in their bone--what goin" "appen--when you dead. Me, I guess they got some prophet find it hout for them; then they goin"
take the credit."
"I guess that"s something so, Jombateeste," said Whitwell. "It don"t stand to reason that folks without any alphabet, as you may say, and only a lot of pictures for words, like Injuns, could figure out the immortality of the soul. They got the idee by inspiration somehow. Why, here! It"s like this. Them Pharaohs must have always been clawin" out for the Hebrews before they got a hold of Joseph, and when they found out the true doctrine, they hushed up where they got it, and their priests went on teachin" it as if it was their own."
"That"s w"at I say. Got it from the "Ebrew."
"Well, it don"t matter a great deal where they got it, so they got it,"
said Jackson, as he rose.
"I believe I"ll go with you," said Westover.
"All there is about it," said the sick man, solemnly, with a frail effort to straighten himself, to which his sunken chest would not respond, "is this: no man ever did figure that out for himself. A man sees folks die, and as far as his senses go, they don"t live again. But somehow he knows they do; and his knowledge comes from somewhere else; it"s inspired--"