“Directly he heard of what had happened, he sent my mother a note, to say how sorry he was; and that as he was sure she would be glad to part with the horse that had occasioned such a terrible calamity, and he heard my father valued it at a hundred guineas, he inclosed a cheque for that amount, and would take it off her hands.”
“Excellent!” said I. “So opportune! so kindly thought of! And this is the man whom so many think churlish!”
“Ah, he’s anything but that,” said Harry; “and quite the gentleman. Of course mamma—my mother, I mean—was glad to get rid of the brute, and would have been so for half the money. How strange it seems! Only three days ago, my father was patting and praising that animal, and calling him ‘Hotspur,’ little thinking he should so soon be laid low! What an awful thing sudden death is, Mrs. Cheerlove!—here one minute, and the next in the presence of God!”
“Are we not in His presence now, Harry? We cannot see Him, but He sees and hears us. If a person is well prepared, a sudden death is, in my opinion, a great mercy.”
“Oh, how can you think so!”
“Well, I do. The shock is very great, doubtless, to the survivors; but the sufferer is mercifully spared a great deal of painful discipline: and if he be but about his Master’s work, ‘Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, shall find so doing.’”
“My father was about his Master’s work, Mrs. Cheerlove.”
“Certainly he was. He was visiting the sick and needy, in the exercise of his profession. It could never have been without self-denial that he turned out of his bed into the dark, cold night, on such an errand, whether to rich or poor.”