Once more there came an interval of silence, as Job lay with that same smile upon his face, and no fear at his heart, no words of doubt upon his lips. He knew his Master. Through long years he had proved His love. And now that the last trial of life had come, he was troubled by no dread.
"Aye, I'll die here," he said, speaking when they thought him past speech. "Up in the old garret. Didn't think somehow all along that I'd be let go to the country. I'd learn to love this world then maybe, an' that 'ud be a pity, wouldn't it? I don't love it now, nor want nothin' more."
Nothing more on earth. He had nothing more,—except peace at the last. Slowly, as night crept by, he grew weaker. Jordan's waters were around him, playing over him, dashing about him, rising higher and higher as he went deeper into the flood. But he never sank, never wavered, never struggled. Passing calmly through their midst, with his Master by his side, he forded all the waves, and never lost his footing. And as the first gray tint of dawn was shining in the east, over the house-tops across the way, Job reached the Other Side.
He was only a poor old tailor, living up in a garret, in London's dreariest quarter! But from the midst of squalor and misery, rags and dirt, sounds of contention and anger, voices of sorrow and pain,—he passed to glory and joy unending, to be a king and a priest for ever before the throne of God.
[CHAPTER XXVI.]
THE LAST OF THE OLD GARRET.
AND as the light of dawn came into the garret, which for so many months had formed Job's home,—came resting in dull shades of gray upon the wall, and upon the face that lay so calm in death, and upon the outlines of the old warrior's face, still to be seen over the fireplace,—as the light increased, Leveson rose to leave. He would take little Ailie, twice-orphaned child, home with him. Where else could she go?
But the door creaked slowly open, and a woman stood there,—a haggard faded woman, walking with difficulty, dressed in rags, footsore and poverty-stricken.
"They telled me I'd find her here," she said. "They telled me I'd find Ailie."