“And Jamie? He could go wi’ me.”
“Faith took Jamie wi’ her.”
Then he went away, and Margot and Christine stood helplessly beside the suffering man. It grew dark, and no one came, and Christine felt as if she was in some dreadful dream, and could not awaken herself. They expected Norman about seven, but something detained him, and it was after nine when Faith and Jamie were heard on the hill. They were 226 laughing and talking noisily, and Christine ran to meet, and to silence them. The sick man was growing rapidly worse, and there was no sign of the Domine and the doctor. Indeed it was near midnight when they arrived, and by this time Ruleson was unconscious.
Those who know anything of pneumonia will understand the hard, cruel fight that a man in the perfect health and strength of James Ruleson made for his life. Every step of the disease was contested, and it was only when his wonderful resistance gave out, and his strength failed him, that the doctor and the Domine lost hope. At length, one sunny afternoon, the Domine drew up the window shade, and let the light fall on the still, white face for a minute. Christine was at his side, and he turned to her, and said, “I am going back to the manse for the Blessed Cup of Remembrance. Get the table and bread ready, and tell your mother it is the last time! She must try and eat it with him.”
Christine looked at him with her soul in her eyes. She understood all he meant and she merely bowed her head and turned to the dying man. He lay as still as a cradled child. The struggle was over. He had given it up. It was peace at last. Where was James Ruleson at that hour? The Domine had said, “Do not disturb him. We know not what now is passing in his soul. Let him learn in peace whatever God wishes him to learn, in this pause between one life and another.”
Margot was on her bed in another room. Christine knelt down at her side, and said gently, “Mither, the great, wonderful hour has come. The Domine has gane for The Cup. With your ain dear hands you will spread the cloth, and cut the bread, for your last eating wi’ him. And, Mither, you won’t cry out, and weep, as those do who have nae hope o’ meeting again. You will mak’ yoursel’ do as the daughters o’ God do, who call Him ‘Feyther’! You’ll be strong in the Lord, Mither, and bid Feyther ‘good-by,’ like those who are sure they will meet to part no more.”
And Margot whispered, “I was brought low, and He helped me.”
A few hours later, in this simple cottage bedroom, the miracle of Love’s last supper in the upper chamber at Jerusalem, was remembered. With her own hands Margot covered a little table at her husband’s bedside with her finest and whitest linen. She cut the bread into the significant morsels, and when the Domine came, he placed them solemnly on the silver plate of the consecrated service, and poured wine into the holy vessel of The Communion. All was then ready, and they sat down to wait for that lightening which so often comes when the struggle is over and the end near.
They waited long. Ruleson’s deep sleep lasted for hours, and the Domine began to hope it might be that life-giving sleep which often introduces the apparently dying to a new lease of life.