Hitherto I had
been borne up by the thought that my ill deed had saved her future, but
now, when I learned that I had been too late, and that my poor love was
smirched with that man’s sin, I fled away with the sense of my useless
guilt upon me more heavily than I could bear. Ah! sir, you that have
not done such a sin don’t know what it is to carry it with you. You may
think that custom makes it easy to you, but it is not so. It grows and
grows with every hour, till it becomes intolerable, and with it
growing, too, the feeling that you must for ever stand outside Heaven. You don’t know what that means, and I pray God that you never may. Ordinary men, to whom all things are possible, don’t often, if ever,
think of Heaven. It is a name, and nothing more, and they are content
to wait and let things be, but to those who are doomed to be shut out
for ever you cannot think what it means, you cannot guess or measure
the terrible endless longing to see the gates opened, and to be able to
join the white figures within. “And this brings me to my dream. It seemed that the portal was before
me, with great gates of massive steel with bars of the thickness of a
mast, rising to the very clouds, and so close that between them was
just a glimpse of a crystal grotto, on whose shining walls were figured
many white-clad forms with faces radiant with joy. When I stood before
the gate my heart and my soul were so full of rapture and longing that
I forgot. And there stood at the gate two mighty angels with sweeping
wings, and, oh! so stern of countenance. They held each in one hand a
flaming sword, and in the other the latchet, which moved to and fro at
their lightest touch. Nearer were figures all draped in black, with
heads covered so that only the eyes were seen, and they handed to each
who came white garments such as the angels wear. A low murmur came that
told that all should put on their own robes, and without soil, or the
angels would not pass them in, but would smite them down with the
flaming swords. I was eager to don my own garment, and hurriedly threw
it over me and stepped swiftly to the gate; but it moved not, and the
angels, loosing the latchet, pointed to my dress, I looked down, and
was aghast, for the whole robe was smeared with blood. My hands were
red; they glittered with the blood that dripped from them as on that
day by the river bank. And then the angels raised their flaming swords
to smite me down, and the horror was complete—I awoke. Again, and
again, and again, that awful dream comes to me. I never learn from the
experience, I never remember, but at the beginning the hope is ever
there to make the end more appalling; and I know that the dream does
not come out of the common darkness where the dreams abide, but that it
is sent from God as a punishment! Never, never shall I be able to pass
the gate, for the soil on the angel garments must ever come from these
bloody hands!”

I listened as in a spell as Jacob Settle spoke. There was something so
far away in the tone of his voice—something so dreamy and mystic in the
eyes that looked as if through me at some spirit beyond—something so
lofty in his very diction and in such marked contrast to his workworn
clothes and his poor surroundings that I wondered if the whole thing
were not a dream. We were both silent for a long time. I kept looking at the man before
me in growing wonderment. Now that his confession had been made, his
soul, which had been crushed to the very earth, seemed to leap back
again to uprightness with some resilient force. I suppose I ought to
have been horrified with his story, but, strange to say, I was not. It
certainly is not pleasant to be made the recipient of the confidence of
a murderer, but this poor fellow seemed to have had, not only so much
provocation, but so much self-denying purpose in his deed of blood that
I did not feel called upon to pass judgment upon him. My purpose was to
comfort, so I spoke out with what calmness I could, for my heart was
beating fast and heavily:

“You need not despair, Jacob Settle. God is very good, and His mercy is
great. Live on and work on in the hope that some day you may feel that
you have atoned for the past.” Here I paused, for I could see that
deep, natural sleep this time, was creeping upon him. “Go to sleep,” I
said; “I shall watch with you here and we shall have no more evil
dreams tonight.”

He made an effort to pull himself together, and answered:

“I don’t know how to thank you for your goodness to me this night, but
I think you had best leave me now. I’ll try and sleep this out; I feel
a weight off my mind since I have told you all. If there’s anything of
the man left in me, I must try and fight out life alone.”

“I’ll go tonight, as you wish it,” I said; “but take my advice, and do
not live in such a solitary way. Go among men and women; live among
them. Share their joys and sorrows, and it will help you to forget. This solitude will make you melancholy mad.”

“I will!” he answered, half unconsciously, for sleep was overmastering
him. I turned to go, and he looked after me. When I had touched the latch I
dropped it, and, coming back to the bed, held out my hand. He grasped
it with both his as he rose to a sitting posture, and I said my
goodnight, trying to cheer him:

“Heart, man, heart! There is work in the world for you to do, Jacob
Settle. You can wear those white robes yet and pass through that gate
of steel!”

Then I left him. A week after I found his cottage deserted, and on asking at the works
was told that he had “gone north”, no one exactly knew whither. Two years afterwards, I was staying for a few days with my friend Dr.
Munro in Glasgow. He was a busy man, and could not spare much time for
going about with me, so I spent my days in excursions to the Trossachs
and Loch Katrine and down the Clyde. On the second last evening of my
stay I came back somewhat later than I had arranged, but found that my
host was late too. The maid told me that he had been sent for to the
hospital—a case of accident at the gas-works, and the dinner was
postponed an hour; so telling her I would stroll down to find her
master and walk back with him, I went out. At the hospital I found him
washing his hands preparatory to starting for home. Casually, I asked
him what his case was. “Oh, the usual thing! A rotten rope and men’s lives of no account. Two
men were working in a gasometer, when the rope that held their
scaffolding broke. It must have occurred just before the dinner hour,
for no one noticed their absence till the men had returned. There was
about seven feet of water in the gasometer, so they had a hard fight
for it, poor fellows. However, one of them was alive, just alive, but
we have had a hard job to pull him through. It seems that he owes his
life to his mate, for I have never heard of greater heroism.