Alas! love, irreparably wronged, possesses these eternal memories; and the soul, forced to weep for opportunities gone forever, has these inconsolable refinements of tenderness. “One hour–one hour only!” was the cry of David’s soul. And the answer was, “No, never! She has carried away her sorrow. You may, indeed, meet her where all tears are dried and forgotten; but while she did weep you were not there; you had left her alone, and your hour to comfort her has gone forever.”
After a short silence the minister went to his desk, and brought from it David’s purse, and he laid it, with the will that had been written, before him. “It is useless now,” he said. “Nanna has need of nothing you can give her.”
“Did it do any good, minister?”
“Yes, a great deal. When Nanna was no longer able to come to the kirk, I went to see her. She was miserably sick and poor, and it made my heart ache to watch her thin, trembling fingers trying to knit. I took her work gently out of her hands, and said, ‘You are not able to hold the needles, Nanna, and you have no need to try to do so. There is provision made for all your wants.’ And she flared up like whin-bushes set on fire, and said she had asked neither kirk nor town for help, and that she trusted in God to deliver her from this life before she had to starve or take a beggar’s portion.”
“O minister, if God had not comforted me concerning her, you would break my heart. What did you say to the dear woman?”
“I said, ‘It is neither kirk nor town nor almsgivers that have provided for your necessity, Nanna; it is your cousin David Borson.’ And when she heard your name she began to cry, ’O David! David!’ And after I had let her weep awhile I said, ‘You will let your cousin do for you at this hour, Nanna?’ And she answered, ‘Oh, yes; I will take any favor from David. It was like him to think of me. Oh, that he would come back!’ So I sent her every week ten shillings until she died, and then I saw that she was decently laid beside her mother and her little child; and I paid all expenses from the money you left. There is a reckoning of them in the papers. Count it, with the money.”
“I will not count after you, minister.”
“Well, David, God has counted between us. It is all right to the last bawbee. Now tell where you have been, and what you have seen and suffered; for it is written on your face that you have seen many hard days.”
Then David told all about his wanderings and his shipwreck, and the mercy of God to him through his servant John Priestly. But when he tried to speak of the new revelation of the gospel that had come to him, he found his lips closed. The fire that had burned on them the night before, when he spoke under the midnight sky to the old fisherman and the fisherwives, was dead and cold, and he could not kindle it; so he said to himself, “It is not yet the hour.” And he went out of the manse without telling one of all the glorious things he had resolved to tell. Neither was he troubled by the omission. He could wait God’s time. God, who has made the heart, can always touch the heart, but he felt that just then his words would irritate rather than move; besides, it was not necessary for him to speak unless he got the message. He could not constrain another soul, but there was One who led by invisible cords.
As they stood a moment at the manse door the minister said, “Your aunt Sabiston has gone the way of all flesh.”