Part 25

I knelt over the dying woman and softly repeated the swelling anthem which no lips can sing aright till the great Vision quickens them: "These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

Elsie's voice blended with the great words, and turning her lustrous eyes full on my face, she murmured--

"It's a' bricht and blythesome whaur I'm walkin' noo--there's no valley here nor nae glen ava, but the way is fu' o' licht and beauty."

Her eyes sought her husband's face: "Oh, Donal'! To think we canna walk this way thegither! We've clomb the hill thegither, Donal', mony a time sair an' weary, but oor hairts were stoot when the brae was stae; but noo I've reached the bonnie bit ayont the brae, an' ye're a' 'at's wantin', Donal', to mak' it fair beautiful! But ye'll no' be lang ahint me, wull ye, Donal'?--an' the Maister 'll come back to guide ye, gin I'm gone bye the gate. An' we'll aye walk thegither in the yonner-land."

Donald's face was dry, but drawn in its agony. Its ache passed on into my soul. He bent over her like some bowing oak, and the rustle of love's foliage was fairly audible to the inward ear, though the oak itself seemed hard and gnarled as ever. He whispered something, like a mighty organ lilting low and sweet some mother's lullaby, and no tutor except Great Death could have taught Donald that gentle language. For I caught the word "darling," and again "oor Saviour," and once "the hameland," and it was like a lark's gentlest note issuing from a mighty mountain's cleft.

O Death, how unjustly thou hast been maligned! Men have painted thee as cruel, monstrous, hateful, the enemy of love, the despoiler of the home, the spirit of harshness, the destroyer of all poesy and romance. And yet thou hast done more to fill life with softness and with gentle beauty than all the powers of life and light whose antagonist thou hast been called. Thou hast heaped coals of fire on thy traducers' heads. For hast thou not made the heaviest foot fall lightly with love's considerate tread? Hast thou not made the rough, coarse palm into a sanctuary and pavilion wherein the dying hand may shelter? Hast thou not taught the loud and boisterous voice the new song of tenderness and pity, whispering like a dove? Within thy school the rude and harsh have learned the nurse's gentle art, and the world's swaggering warriors serve as acolytes before thy shadowy altar. The peasant's cottage owes to thee its transformation to cathedral splendour, the censers gently swinging when thou sayest the soul's great mass, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning. Thou hast classed together the hovel and the palace, glowing with equal solemn grandeur, so that no man can tell the one from the other when the crape upon the door betokens that thou tarriest there. Thou hast promoted sodden sleep to be the most awful metaphor of time. Thou hast stripped wealth and grandeur, leaving them but a shroud, and hast clothed obscurity and poverty with their eternally suggestive robe; thou hast affirmed, and thou preserved, that grim average of life which greatness refuses, which littleness fears, to realize. Romance and Poetry and Fancy are thy wards, making as thou dost the most holden eyes to overleap time's poor horizon, following departed treasure with wistful and unresigning love, as birds follow their ravaged nests, crying as they go. Oh, sombre chantress! Thou hast filled the world with song, plaintive and piteous though it be.

"What is it, mother?" I heard Donald whisper; and the answer evidently came back to him from the dying lips. For he turned to me, his face full of tragedy: "She's talkin' aboot Robin," he said hoarsely; "but ye dinna ken. Robin was oor laddie--an' he's oor laddie yet, though we've had nae word o' him for mony a year. Him an' me pairted in wrath, an' he went oot intil the dark nicht. I was ower prood tae ca' him back, but his mither followed him to the moor, cryin' after him--an' she cam' back alane."

Donald stopped suddenly, for the mother's struggling voice was heard: "Come hame, Robin, for it's cauld an' dark, an' ye've been ower lang awa; but there's a place at the ingle for ye yet, my bairn. I've aye keepit it for ye, an' I keepit the fire burnin' ever sin' ye left us. I wadna let it oot. An' ilka nicht I pit the lamp i' the window, for I aye thocht, 'He'll mebbe come the nicht.'"

"She's wanderin'," Donald said to me, awe mingling with his voice.

"She's found the wanderer," I said; and we both moved nearer, each signalling the other to be still.

Elsie's gaze passed us by, outgoing far into the darkness.

"Na, na, Robin; yir faither'll no' be angry. I ken fine a' ye say is true, but he's yir faither for a' that. An' he loves ye maist as weel as me; but oh, my bonnie, there's nane loves ye like yir mither! His hairt's fair broken for ye, Robin. I'll tell ye something, but ye maunna tell yir faither. I heard him pray for ye all alane by himsel'. He prayed to God to bring ye back--he ca'd ye Robin richt to God. An' I never heard yir faither greet afore or syne. The Buik, tae, it wad open o' itsel' at the prodigal, an' it was his daein', an' he didna think I kent; but I kent it fine, an' I thankit the Heavenly Faither mony a time."

She stopped, exhausted, her soul flickering in her voice. Donald moved, his great form coming athwart her eager, kindling eyes. She stirred, her vision evidently hindered, and Donald stepped quickly from before her, gazing with passionate intentness, his eyes shaded by his hand like one who peers into a lane of light.

"As one whom his mother comforteth, so will--" I began.

"Hush!" said Donald sternly, "she's wi' him yet. Hark ye!"

Her strength seemed now returning, for she went on--

"Ay, Robin, I'm tellin' ye the truth. Yir faither's thocht o' ye is the thocht he had when ye were a bit bairn in his airms."

The anguished father flung himself upon his knees beside the bed, his hand gently stroking his wife's withered cheek.

"Tell him that again, mither; tell him my thocht o' him was aye the same as yir ain, when I thocht o' him atween God an' me. Tell him me an' you baith thocht the same. Bid him hame, Elsie. Oh, mither, I've been the wanderer masel', an' I'm weary."

My heart melted in me at this, for the eternal fatherly was sobbing through his voice.

The familiar tones seemed to call Elsie back from her delirium, for she suddenly looked upon us as if we had not been there before.

"Oh, faither, Robin's comin' hame the nicht. Is the lamp kindled in the window? We've baith been wae these mony years, but the mirk'll be past an' by when oor laddie's safe hame wi' us again."

A strange sense of the nearness of the supernatural took possession of me, for Elsie's voice was not the voice of fevered fancy; the fast ebbing tide of life seemed to flow back again, her strength visibly increased, as if she must remain till her Robin had been welcomed home.

In spite of reason, I fell to listening eagerly, wondering if this were indeed the act of God. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with us that the Rebuilder of Bethany's desolated house should still ply His ancient industry?

"Raise me up a little, faither, for I maun watch the gate."

Donald lifted his dying wife with caressing easiness.

"That'll dae; ay, we've baith been wae these mony years, but the mirk is bye.

"'Long hath the night of sorrow reigned, The dawn shall bring us light.'