When Roberta went, she seemed to take the sunshine with her. The summer of All Saints, and the melancholy of its long fine weather was over, and there was the touch of winter in the frosty nights and mornings, but for five weeks Christine heeded nothing but her new novel. For the time being, it fully absorbed her; and for the next few weeks she made great progress. Then one morning Norman came to see her. “Christine,” he said. “I am in great trouble. Jessy is vera ill with scarlet fever, and I am anxious about the children.”
“Bring them all here, Norman.”
“They’ll mebbe hinder you i’ your writing.”
“But what is my writing worth, when the children are in danger? Go and bring them here at once. Get Judith to come with them. With her help I can manage. I will come in the afternoon, and sit with Jessy awhile.”
“No, you willna be permitted. The doctors say there are o’er many cases. They hae ordered the school closed, and they are marking every house in which there is sickness.”
This epidemic prostrated the village until the middle of January, taking a death toll from the little community, of nearly eighty, mostly women and children. But this loss was connected with wonderful acts of kindness, and self-denial. The men left their boats and nursed each other’s children, the women who were well went from house to house, caring tenderly even for those they supposed themselves 353 to be unfriends with. If the fever triumphed over its victims, love triumphed over the fever. In the Valley of the Shadow of Death, they had forgotten everything but that they were fellow-sufferers. Christine’s house had been a home for children without a home, and she had spent a great part of her time in preparing strengthening and appetizing food for those who needed it more than any other thing. No one, now, had a word wrong to say of Christine Ruleson. She had been a helping and comforting angel in their trouble, and if there had been a woman or child more suffering and destitute than all the rest, Christine had always taken her to her home. For in such times of sorrow, God reveals Himself to the heart, not to the reason. Oh, how far it is, from knowing God, to loving Him!
Well, then, Sorrow may endure for a night, but Joy cometh in the morning. And the mornings grew to be spring mornings, full of that sunshine that goes not only to the heart of man, but to the roots of every green thing. The silence of the receding hills was broken by streams glancing and dancing down the glens. The “incalculable laughter of the sea” was full of good promise, for those who had been sick, and for those who had perforce been long idle. The roar of angry billows was hushed, and it came up to the land, hard-edged with stiff, tinkling waves, and the convalescents rested on the shingles beside them, taking life with every breath, and enjoying that perfect rest that shingle knows 354 how to give, because it takes the shape of the sleeper, whether he be young or old, or short or long.
The days were of soft, delicate radiance, the nights full of stars. The moon in all her stages was clear as silver, the dawns came streaming up from the throbbing breast of the ocean. The springtime songs were bubbling in the birds’ throats, they sang as if they never would grow old, and the honey bees were busy among the cherry blooms, delirious with delight.
Who speaks of sadness in such days?