"Please, sir, he can't get up."
"Will he let me come in and see him, do you think?"
"Please, sir," repeated Ailie under her breath.
Leveson entered the room, and took a seat on the old rickety chair near the bed. Josie stood close beside him, and Lettie slipped away to Hor, while Job remarked—
"You be mighty welcome, sir."
"Mrs. Forsyth tells me you have not been well of late, Mr. Kippis."
Job shook his head. "Seems to me some'at of a breakin' up, sir. I'm an old man, as you may say,—can look right back to the wars, an' went through Battle o' Waterloo, an' I've had a harder life than some. Not as I've nought to complain of."
"And now there comes a little warning, a little failing, to remind you that the last call may not be far distant," said Leveson.
"Aye, sir. I'm noways loath to go."
"Those are solemn words for all of us, 'Prepare to meet thy God.' To meet Him eye to eye, and face to face. But I trust you know something of that which can lighten even the valley of death," said Leveson, reading the source of that "noways loath" in the calm upraised eyes. "If you have learnt the secret of the Lord's love and fear—"