“My heart is dashed with cares and fears,
My song comes fluttering and is gone;
Oh! High above this home of tears.
Eternal Joy sing on!”
How would it feel for the hyssop on the wall to turn cedar, I wonder? Just about as Janet and Christina felt that morning, eating their simple breakfast with glad hearts. Poor as the viands were, they had the flavour of joy and thankfulness, and of a wondrous salvation. “It is the Lord’s doing!” This was the key to which the two women set all their hopes and rejoicing, and yet even into its noble melody there stole at last a little of the fret of earth. For suddenly Janet had a fear—not of God, but of man—and she said anxiously to her daughter:—
“You should have brought the box home with you, Christina. O my lass, if some other body should have seen what you have seen, then we will be fairly ruined twice over.”
“No, no. Mother! I would not have touched the box for all there is in it. Andrew must go for it himself. He might never believe it was where I saw it, if he did not go for it. You know well he suspicioned both Jamie and me; and indeed, Mother dear, you yourself thought worse of Jamie than you should have done.”
“Let that be now, Christina. God has righted all. We will have no casts up. If I thought of any one wrongly, I am sorry for it, and I could not say more than that even to my Maker. If ill news was waiting for Andrew, it would have shaken him off his pillow ere this.”
“Let him sleep. His soul took his body a weary walk this morning. He is sore needing sleep, no doubt.”
“He will have to wake up now, and go about his business. It is high time.”
“You should mind, Mother, what a tempest he has come through; all the waves and billows of sorrow have gone over him.”
“He is a good man, and ought to be the better of the tempest. His ship may have been sorely beaten and tossed, but his anchor was fast all through the storm. It is time he lifted anchor now, and faced the brunt and the buffet again. An idle man, if he is not a sick man, is on a lee shore, let him put out to sea, why, lassie! A storm is better than a shipwreck.”
“To be sure, Mother. Here the dear lad comes!” and with that Andrew sauntered slowly into the kitchen. There was no light on his face, no hope or purpose in his movements. He sat down at the table, and drew his cup of tea towards him with an air of indifference, almost of despair. It wounded Janet. She put her hand on his hand, and compelled him to look into her face. As he did so, his eyes opened wide; speculation, wonder, something like hope came into them. The very silence of the two women—a silence full of meaning—arrested his soul. He looked from one to the other, and saw the same inscrutable joy answering his gaze.