yer father, gin he be alive, that I hae sib to me. My will's i' the
bottom drawer upo' the left han' i' my writin' table i' the leebrary:--I
hae left ye ilka plack 'at I possess. Only there's ae thing that I want
ye to do. First o' a', ye maun gang on as yer doin' in London for
ten year mair. Gin deein' men hae ony o' that foresicht that's been
attreebuted to them in a' ages, it's borne in upo' me that ye wull see
yer father again. At a' events, ye'll be helpin' some ill-faured sowls
to a clean face and a bonny. But gin ye dinna fa' in wi' yer father
within ten year, ye maun behaud a wee, an' jist pack up yer box, an'
gang awa' ower the sea to Calcutta, an' du what I hae tellt ye to do
i' that wull. I bind ye by nae promise, Robert, an' I winna hae nane.
Things micht happen to put ye in a terrible difficulty wi' a promise.
I'm only tellin' ye what I wad like. Especially gin ye hae fund yer
father, ye maun gang by yer ain jeedgment aboot it, for there 'll be a
hantle to do wi' him efter ye hae gotten a grup o' 'im. An' noo, I maun
lie still, an' maybe sleep again, for I hae spoken ower muckle.'

Hoping that he would sleep and wake yet again, Robert sat still. After
an hour, he looked, and saw that, although hitherto much oppressed,
he was now breathing like a child. There was no sign save of past
suffering: his countenance was peaceful as if he had already entered
into his rest. Robert withdrew, and again seated himself. And the great
universe became to him as a bird brooding over the breaking shell of the
dying man.

On either hand we behold a birth, of which, as of the moon, we see but
half. We are outside the one, waiting for a life from the unknown; we
are inside the other, watching the departure of a spirit from the womb
of the world into the unknown. To the region whither he goes, the man
enters newly born. We forget that it is a birth, and call it a death.
The body he leaves behind is but the placenta by which he drew his
nourishment from his mother Earth. And as the child-bed is watched on
earth with anxious expectancy, so the couch of the dying, as we call
them, may be surrounded by the birth-watchers of the other world,
waiting like anxious servants to open the door to which this world is
but the wind-blown porch.

Extremes meet. As a man draws nigh to his second birth, his heart looks
back to his childhood. When Dr. Anderson knew that he was dying, he
retired into the simulacrum of his father's benn end.