“I know little about this country,” he said, almost with sullenness; “but I know still less about the other. It’s easy for you, callants, to speak. I’m real willing to make experiment of it, if that were possible,” he continued, softening; “but there’s no an ignorant soul hereabouts that is more ignorant than me.”
“Let us read together--let us consider it together,” said Meredith; “it is all set down very plain, you know. He that runneth may read. In all the world there is nothing so important. My friend, you took pains to understand about Italy--”
“And a bonnie business I made of it,” said Lauderdale; “deluded by the very bairns; set right by one that’s little more than a bairn, that little sister of yours; and now letting myself be drawn into discussions! I’m twenty years, or near it, older than you are,” he went on, “and I’ve walked with them that have gone away _yonder_, as far as flesh and blood would let me. I’m no misdoubting anything that’s written, callant, if that will satisfy you. It’s a’ an awfu’ darkness, with visions of white angels here and there; but the angels dinna belong to me. Whisht--whisht--I’m no profane; I’m wanting more--more than what’s written; and, as I cannot get that, I must even wait till I see for myself.--Here’s a grand spot for looking at your Campagna now,” he said, breaking abruptly off; but poor Meredith, who had so little time to spare, and whose words had to be in season and out of season, could not consent to follow, as a man without so great a mission might have done, the leading of his companion’s thoughts.
“The Campagna is very interesting,” he said, “but it is nothing to the safety of your soul. Oh, my dear friend!--and here is Campbell, too, who is not far from the kingdom of heaven. Promise me that you will come with me,” said the dying man. “I shall not be able to stay long with you. Promise me that you will come and join me _there_!” He put out his thin arm, and raised it towards the sky, which kept smiling in its sunny calm, and took no note of these outbursts of human passion. “I will wait for you at the golden gates,” the invalid went on, fixing his hollow eyes first on one and then on another. “You will be my joy and crown of rejoicing! You cannot refuse the prayer of a dying man.”