“One whom we can not see; one who knows the constellations, and has come to take him to his God.”
Just at sunset a flash of strange light transfigured for a moment the pallor of his face; he opened wide his blue eyes, and standing erect, bowed his head in an untranslatable wonder 307 and joy. It was the moment of release, and the weary body fell backward, deserted and dead, into the minister’s arms.
During the few months previous to his death, Tulloch had been much in every one’s heart and on every one’s tongue. There had not been a gathering of any kind in which his name had not been the prominent one; in some way or other, he had come into many lives. His death made a general mourning, especially among the fishers, to whom he had ever been a wise and trustworthy friend. He had chosen his grave in a small islet half a mile distant from Lerwick—a lonely spot where the living never went, save to bury the dead.
The day of burial was a clear one, with a salt, fresh wind from the south-west. Six fishermen made a bier of their oars, and laid the coffin upon it. Then the multitude followed, singing as they went, until the pier was reached. Boat after boat was filled, and the strange procession kept a little behind the one bearing the coffin and the minister. The snow lay white and unbroken on the island, and, as it was only a few acres in extent, the sea murmured unceasingly around all its shores.
The spot was under a great rock carved by storms into cloud-like castles and bastions. Eagles watched them with icy gray eyes from its summit, and the slow cormorant, and the sad sea-gulls. Overhead a great flock of wild swans were taking their majestic flight to the solitary lakes of Iceland, uttering all the time an inspiring cry, the very essence of eager expectation and of joyful encouragement. Dr. Balloch stood, with bared head and uplifted eyes, watching them, while they laid the mortal part of his old friend in “that narrow house, whose mark is one gray stone.” Then looking around on the white earth, and the black sea, and the roughly-clad, sad-faced fishers, he said, almost triumphantly—
“The message came forth from him in whom we live, and move, and have our being:
“Who is nearer to us than breathing, and closer than hands or feet.
“Come up hither and dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
“The days of thy sorrow have been sufficient; henceforward there is laid up for thee the reward of exceeding joy.