"Let us rest here," said St. John, as we reached the first
stragglers of a battalion of rocks, guarding a sort of pass, beyond
which the beck rushed down a waterfall; and where, still a little
farther, the mountain shook off turf and flower, had only heath for
raiment and crag for gem--where it exaggerated the wild to the
savage, and exchanged the fresh for the frowning--where it guarded
the forlorn hope of solitude, and a last refuge for silence.
I took a seat: St. John stood near me. He looked up the pass and
down the hollow; his glance wandered away with the stream, and
returned to traverse the unclouded heaven which coloured it: he
removed his hat, let the breeze stir his hair and kiss his brow. He
seemed in communion with the genius of the haunt: with his eye he
bade farewell to something.
"And I shall see it again," he said aloud, "in dreams when I sleep
by the Ganges: and again in a more remote hour--when another
slumber overcomes me--on the shore of a darker stream!"
Strange words of a strange love! An austere patriot's passion for
his fatherland! He sat down; for half-an-hour we never spoke;
neither he to me nor I to him: that interval past, he recommenced "Jane, I go in six weeks; I have taken my berth in an East Indiaman
which sails on the 20th of June."
"God will protect you; for you have undertaken His work," I
answered.
"Yes," said he, "there is my glory and joy. I am the servant of an
infallible Master. I am not going out under human guidance, subject
to the defective laws and erring control of my feeble fellow-worms:
my king, my lawgiver, my captain, is the All-perfect. It seems
strange to me that all round me do not burn to enlist under the same
banner,--to join in the same enterprise."
"All have not your powers, and it would be folly for the feeble to
wish to march with the strong."
"I do not speak to the feeble, or think of them: I address only
such as are worthy of the work, and competent to accomplish it."
"Those are few in number, and difficult to discover."
"You say truly; but when found, it is right to stir them up--to urge
and exhort them to the effort--to show them what their gifts are,
and why they were given--to speak Heaven's message in their ear,--to
offer them, direct from God, a place in the ranks of His chosen."