The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1920-12-09
CHAPTER XIV.

MI. SlUIl0y Uleu UelWScn I'LL &C anu
four o'clock Christmas morning. He
passed so easily that Jed, sleeping
in the lounge-chair beside him, did
not know that death had gone through
the chamber until an hour after the
event. Jed awakened me. In the case
of such an expected happening as this,
the perceptions start slowly. The
fact that the benignity which so i'm
perceptibly had dominated the house
had ceased to exist took hours to as
sert itself.
Jed was composed when he aroused
me. Later, when the sun came up to
make radiant all the white witchery
the storm left, his sense of loss began
to assert itself, and acute as was the
grief in the house, none was deeper
seated or more profound than that of
the rascally old servant.
Mrs. Sidney accepted the event with
serenity which / discovered after
ward was born of long-fixed resolu-
ton. For years her life had been a
denial of her moral instincts-happy,
in spite of that, because of her great
devotion to the wonderful man she
loved. The chapters which he domi-
mated in her book were ended. With
tenderness she laid them aside.
Isobe1 did not permit herself in
diligence in any weakness. What had
happened was written in the contract
of life. In later full knowledge of
Isobel, I never ceased to admire the
wonderful acceptivity with which she
met her trials. Nothing came to her
with catastrophe shock. She had
reality within her vision, and she per-
ceived.
For myself I saw the end of a mode
of life which, even when unhappy,
had been ecstatically so. My reason
for being in Hartley house lay dead
in bed.
I should look back, knew, many
times, as a struggling practitioner,
possibly in poorer districts of the city,
possibly in a small town, to the
strange but beautiful time when I was
at Hartley. This experience would be
only an episode, remaining as the
memory of a time when my life halted
for a wonderful moment, satisfying,
rich and joyful, and-haying had this
moment-went on in the drab fashion
ordained for it. An occasional kindly
letter from Mrs. Sidney, or possibly
from IsoDei, might quicken the mem
ory. but / aud this period would fade
from their lives as it never could from
mine. I should be packing a pill
case on late and improbable rounds
in that soul-oestroying routine with
its ceaseless invasion of the intimate
personal economics of uninteresting
people, abnormally egoistic in the pain
of small or large disorder-the
cherries life of small physician,
serving his useful purpose, have no
doubt, but how little serving his own
We got through Christmas day in
dazed fashion. The necessary offices
for the dead compelled E routine
which relieved the tension, although
they contributed dulled terror to the
day-those terrible, exacting practical
details with which some one in the
bereaved family must occupy himself.
Mortuary details are jocose to the pes
simist. I know no more comic figure
than an undertaken, no more gigantic
shaft Of human egotism than tomb
stone.
Mr.. Sidney, we found, had left brief
but explicit directions for his burial.
This. in the case of man with life
so veil conceived, was strange, but
his wishes, as we found hem, were
simple and startling. He was to be
buried by the river, close to the pool
which had been invested with the add
ed charm of ghost-story. His grave
was to be marked by an unostenta-
tious stone. The inscription was to
be as he directed in a note in sealed
enclosure to be opened at the time
Mrs. Sidney thought appropriate.
1t might be, he had written, that
Mrs. Sidney would not want the stone
erected during her life. Her wishes
were to be consulted. When the grave
was marked, if it ever was, the in
scription was to be as he directed.
Mrs. Sidney, acquainted with the
terms Of this extraordinary mortuary
note, said that it was her wish to have
the sealed envelope opened Immediate
lxy ond tic instructions carried 0uf