Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,
And now was quiet and now astir,
until God’s hand beckoned her into His school of affliction. Now in the House not made with Hands she understands the meaning of it all.
The next week was a particularly hard one to Christine. In the long seclusion of her mother’s illness, and in the fascination which study now had for her, the primitive burial rites of Culraine were an almost unbearable trial. Every woman who had ever known Margot came to bid her a last earthly farewell. Some cried, some volubly praised her, some were sadly silent, but all were alike startled by the mighty change that affliction and death had made in the once powerful, handsome, tremendously vitalized woman, who had ruled them all by the sheer force of her powerful will and her wonderful vitality. Pale and cold, her raven hair white as snow, her large strong hands, shrunk to skin and bone, clasped on her breast, and at rest forever—they could hardly believe that this image of absolute helplessness was all that was left of Margot Ruleson.
For three days the house was always full, and Christine was troubled and questioned on every hand. But for three days long a little brown bird sat on a holly tree by her window, and sang something that comforted her. And the sweet, strong song was for her alone. Nobody else noticed it. She wondered if they even saw the little messenger. On the afternoon of the third day, the Domine, standing at the head of the coffin, spoke to the 290 men and women who filled the house. His eyes were dim with tears, but his voice had the strong, resonant ring of a Faith that knew it was well with the dead that die in the Lord. It was mainly to the living he spoke, asking them solemnly, “What does the Lord require of you? Only this service—that you do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.”
Then Margot’s sons, Norman and Eneas, lifted the light coffin. The Domine walked in front of it, and all the men present followed them to the open grave, in the old kirk yard. In Scotland women do not go to the grave. Christine locked herself in her room, and the women mourners gradually returned to their homes.
That night she was quite alone, and she could give free outlet to her love, and grief, and hope. She felt her mother in every room. She could not believe she had gone far away. At times, walking about the desolate house, she called her mother with passionate weeping again, in the soft low voice that she had used when soothing her pain and weariness. At length even her superb vitality gave way, and she fell upon her bed in a comforting, restorative sleep.
Morning found her ready and able to face the new life. She rose with the dawn, ate her breakfast, and then lifted the hardest duty before her. This was to brush and carefully fold away Margot’s last simple clothing. Margot herself had 291 cared for her one silk dress, her bits of lace, and the beads and rings and combs of the days of her health and vanity. Christine had seen her face wet with tears as she locked them in the trunk, and had kissed those tears away with promises of renewed life. But there was no one with her to kiss away the tears she shed over the simple gowns of Margot’s last hard days. As she was doing this loving duty, she thought of the angels folding up neatly the simple linen garments in which Christ had been buried. With such thoughts in her heart, oh how lovingly she stroked the plain cotton gowns, and the one black merino skirt, that had made up Margot’s last wardrobe. Her tears dropped over them, and she turned the key with a little cry so heart-broken that no doubt her angel wept with her.