Part 27

"My son, my laddie,"--it was his father's broken voice,--"let us tak' the feast thegither. I'm a puir prodigal masel'--but the door is open wide, an' we'll baith come hame to God."

"I'll tak' it frae ma mither's hands," said Robin.

I handed the elements to her, ordained from all eternity to minister to the son she bore; with trembling hands she dispensed them to him, high priestess unto God, her dying eyes distilling the very love which shed its fragrance when the all but dying Saviour first brake the holy bread.

When we were through, Elsie's voice was heard saying to herself "Unto Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood," which was followed by a long silence.

"Wull ye no' pronounce the benediction?" Donald said at last, for he was by nature an ecclesiastic.

"Did you not hear it?" I replied.

The silence deepened, the breathing grew heavier, and we two stood together looking down upon her face. Robin's was by his mother's. Suddenly her eyes opened wide, fastening themselves upon her son.

"I'll sune win hame," she murmured gladly, "an' I want ye to say yir bit prayer to me, Robin, afore I gang, the way ye did when ye were a bairnie. Kneel doon, Robin, an' say it to me, an' we'll baith say it to God, for I'm weary tae. 'Noo I lay me,' ye ken."

The strong man bowed beside his mother's bed, and the great anthem began, the sobbing bass of the broken heart mingling with the feeble dying voice--

"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray Thee Lord my soul to keep; If I should die before I wake, I pray Thee Lord my soul to take."

Suddenly she pointed with uplifted hand: "Oh, faither, I see oor Elsie's face--an' the token's in her haun', an' it's a' bricht wi' gowden licht. She's biddin' us a' hame--me, an' faither, an' Robin----" and she passed into the homeland bearing the prodigal's name with her up to God.

I gently closed her eyes. Donald stood long beside the bed; then, taking his son into his arms, he said--

"Yir mither's bye the gate."

XIX

A MAIDEN'S LOVE

What self-contradicting things we are! The very joys we crave bring sorrow when they come; for they crowd out some only lesser joy, which, rejected, turns to bitterness and takes its long revenge. It is one of the blessed laws of life that no heart, however hospitable, can entertain more than one sorrow at one time, how many so ever be waiting at the door. Each must wait its turn.

But alas! Joy has its corresponding law; every heart's pleasure is an alternative, and if much we would enjoy, much also we must renounce. Joy usually comes as twins, and the great perplexity is to discern which the first-born is, that our homage may not return unto us void.

Of many of our deepest longings may it not be said that their fulfillment would be our keenest disappointment? For instance, the wife of our family physician is forever lamenting that no spouse in all New Jedboro sees as little of her husband as does she, forever longing that he might be released to the enjoyment of his own fireside. Yet should a fickle or convalescent public suddenly so release him, our doctor's wife would be of all women most miserable.

Even as I write, I am disturbed by a lad of twenty who starts to-day on his long journey to Athabasca and the waiting prairies of our great Canadian West.

Full of pathetic joy is his youthful face; but his mother is bowed beside the bed whereon she gave him birth--her cup, she thinks, would be full to overflowing if her first-born son were suddenly to dispack his box and take up the old nestling life again. The sun would have turned back to its undimmed meridian, she weens; and yet she knows full well that this very longing, were it gratified, would poison her overflowing cup and tarnish her mother's pride. If she were asked to choose between these two, womanlike, she would elect to have them both--but God forbids.

The youth's father says: "Let the lad go forth"--and God is a Father, though He takes counsel of a mother-heart.

All this reflective vein flows from this poor heart of mine, the truth whereof that heart hath sorrowfully proved.

For my daughter Margaret holds within it a place of solitary tenderness, more exclusively her own as the years go by. And I too was forced to the great alternative, the same which hath wrung uncounted parents' hearts before I saw the light, the same as will rend thousands more when that poor light has filtered through darkness into Day.

What father is there who can contemplate without dismay the prospect of his only daughter surrendered to another's care, though that other press the cruel claim of a mate's more passionate love? Where is the father that does not long to shelter his child's sweet innocence forever within the pavilion of his heart's loving tenderness? And yet, where is the father who would be free from torture, were he assured that his soul's yearning would be satisfied, and that no high claim of unrelated love would ever rival or dispute his own?

It was my own fault that Margaret's attachment to Angus Strachan came to me as a bolt from the blue. I had never dreamed of it--I was so sure of everybody loving Margaret that I never thought of anybody loving her. Of course it was easily seen that their friendship was mutually cherished; but friendship, although a mother's hope, is a father's reassurance. Margaret's mother had more than once spoken of their friendship in that portentous tone which all women hope to assume before they die; and her words exuded the far-off fragrance of orange blossoms. She began with the assurance that the friendship between Angus and our Margaret had no particular meaning--to which I agreed. A little later on she ventured the remark that she did not think Angus cared for Margaret except as a friend--to which also I cheerfully agreed. Later still, she resorted to the interrogative, and asked me if I thought Margaret would ever marry, to which I answered: "I hope so, but she shall not with my consent."

"I was married when I was Margaret's age," added my wife. (What woman is there who does not love to say the same?) "Margaret will soon be twenty."

"Yes, my dear, but few women have the chance that came to you and no man ever had provocation like to mine." This was followed by a passage at arms, during which, of course, the fair debater's lips were sealed.

By degrees my wife's attack upon the subject grew bolder and more frontal.