Stooping more heavily forwards, he sat with his hands together, and his eyes bent on the ground. He could almost have broken forth with little Ailie's cry, "Oh, I don't want to go to the work'us—I don't want to go!" But there was no one to hear him, and he only drooped in silence beneath the dread of what he saw ahead.
So respectable and independent as he had been all his life, to come to this in his old age! It was a sore trial. Yet Job thought he could have borne it, but for the cloud of distrust which had gathered over him. Was it all in love? Had his Master indeed marked the deed done to please Him? Would the "cup of cold water" given to Ailie meet with a reward?
"Not as I did it for a reward," muttered Job; "but I did think He'd ha' helped me to get along. An' He hasn't. Ever since, I've been just goin' down an' down, an' now the money's all used. There's nothin' left."
Mechanically he drew his Bible towards him, and with trembling hands turned over a page or two.
But his eyes were dim, and his heart was heavy. The words of life that he read seemed to drop like lead, one by one, as if they had no hope, no meaning in them. He shut the volume at length with a groan.
"It's all over, an' I can't do nothin' more. I did think He wouldn't ha' forsaken me in my old age. But sure my Lord knows best."
Those last words came to him unbidden, following upon the others by mere force of habit. He had so often said them before from a full and joyful heart. Job said them now without design; but somehow they returned upon himself with singular force. "Sure He knows best. Why, don't He now? Don't He always know best? Wouldn't He show me His Face an' His glory this minute, if 'twas good for me?"
It was a little opening in the cloud, resulting from the mechanical utterance of those few words, "My Lord knows best." Job felt certain that it must be so. Down in his heart he knew it. But still the cloud did not vanish.
He took up his Bible again, and turned slowly to the story of his namesake in the early ages of the world,—of another Job bowed down beneath God's chastening hand. He had often pondered in his simple fashion over Job's conflicting faith in God, and confidence in self; over his mingled strength and weakness; over his friends' harsh yet perhaps not altogether untrue judgments passed upon him; and over God's gracious teaching and condescension at the close.
He did not read on steadily now, but turned from one page to another, gathering a verse here and there.