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Page 16
Mr. MacGentle seemed to find a dreamy enjoyment in working this vein
of reminiscence. He sat back in his low arm-chair, his unsubstantial
face turned meditatively towards the Magdalen, his hands brought
together to support his delicate chin. Helwyse, apprehending that the
vein might at last bring the dreamer down to the present day,
encouraged him to follow it.
"It must have been a disappointment to the Doctor that his prot�g�
took up the Christian religion, instead of following the faith and
observances of his Egyptian ancestors, for the last five thousand
years!"
"Why, perhaps it was, Thor, perhaps it was," murmured Mr. MacGentle.
"But Manetho never entered the pulpit, you know; it would not have
been to his interest to do so; besides that, I believe he is really
devoted to Glyphic, believing that it was he who saved him from the
crocodile. People are all the time making such absurd mistakes.
Manetho is a man who would be unalterable either in gratitude or
enmity, although his external manner is so mild. And as to his taking
orders, why, as long as he wore an Egyptian robe, and said his prayers
in an Egyptian temple, it would be all the same to Glyphic what
religion the man professed!"
"Doctor Glyphic is still alive, then?"
The old man looked at the young one with an air half apprehensive,
half perplexed, as if scenting the far approach of some undefined
difficulty. He passed his white hand over his forehead. "Everything
seems out of joint-to-day, Helwyse. Nothing looks or seems natural,
except you! What is the matter with me?--what is the matter with me?"
Helwyse sat with both hands twisted in his mighty beard, and one
booted leg thrown over the other. He was full of sympathy at the
spectacle of poor Amos MacGentle, blindly groping after the phantom of
a flower whose bloom and fragrance had vanished so terribly long ago;
and yet, for some reason or other he could hardly forbear a smile.
When anything is utterly out of place, it is no more pathetic than
absurd; moreover, young men are always secretly inclined to laugh at
old ones!
"Why should not Glyphic be alive?" resumed Mr. MacGentle. "Why not he,
as well as you or I? Aren't we all about of an age?"
Helwyse drew his chair close to his companion's, and took his hand, as
if it had been a young girl's. "My dear friend," said he, "you said
you felt tired this morning, but you forget how far you've travelled
since we last met. Doctor Glyphic, if he be living now, must be more
than sixty years old. Your dream of old age was such as many have
dreamed before, and not awakened from in this world!"
"Let me think!--let me think!" said the old man; and, Helwyse drawing
back, there ensued a silence, varied only by a long and tremulous sigh
from his companion; whether of relief or dejection, the visitor could
not decide. But when Mr. MacGentle spoke, it was with more assurance.
Either from mortification at his illusion, or more probably from
imperfect perception of it, he made no reference to what had passed.
Old age possesses a kind of composure, arising from dulled
sensibilities, which the most self-possessed youth can never rival.
"We heard, through the London branch of our house, that Thor Helwyse
died some two years ago."
"He was drowned in the Baltic Sea. I am his son Balder."
"He was my friend," observed the old man, simply; but the tone he used
was a magnet to attract the son's heart. "You look very much like him,
only his eyes were blue, and yours, as I now see, are dark; but you
might be mistaken for him."
"I sometimes have been," rejoined Balder, with a half-smile.
"And you are his son! You are most welcome!" said Mr. MacGentle, with
old-fashioned courtesy.
"Forgive me if I have--if anything has occurred to annoy you. I am a
very old man, Mr. Balder; so old that sometimes I believe I forget how
old I am! And Thor is dead,--drowned,--you say?"
"The Baltic, you know, has been the grave of many of our forefathers;
I think my father was glad to follow them. I never saw him in better
spirits than during that gale. We were bound to England from Denmark."
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