"'Her daughter, however, married one of those very Connaught Irish—what she called "the boy O'Flinn," and she would have nothing to do with her afterwards; and she lay in wait for "the boy O'Flinn," and threw a stone at him, which hit him in the chest so badly that he was in bed for a week afterwards. When I heard of this, I went to see her and said, "Well, Betty, you're Irish, and I'm Irish, and I think we just ought to set a good example and show how well Irishwomen can behave." But she soon cut short my little sermon by saying, "They've been telling tales o' me, have they? and it's not off you they keep their tongues neither: they say you're a Roman!" I did not want to hear any more, and was going out of the cottage, when she called after me in a fury, "I know what you've been staying so long in Edinburgh for; you just stay here to fast and to pray, and then you go there to faast and drink tay."'"
"Sept. 10.—I wish for my dearest mother every hour in this sanctuary of peace and loving-kindness, with the sweet presence of Mrs. Dalzel. What she is and says it is quite impossible to give an idea of; but she is truly what Milton describes—
"Insphered
In regions mild of calm and air serene,
Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot
Which men call earth."
"Her constant communion with heaven makes all the world to her only a gallery of heavenly pictures, creating a succession of heavenly thoughts, and she has so sweet and gentle a manner of giving these thoughts to others, that all, even those least in unison with her, are equally impressed by them. Most striking of all is her large-heartedness and admiration of all the good people who disagree with her. Her daughter-in-law has quite given up everything else in her devotion to her: it is really Ruth and Naomi over again.
"This afternoon we drove to Tantallon and on to Seacliffe, a most beautiful place on the coast, where Mrs. Dalzel lived formerly. A delightful little walk under a ruined manor-house and through a wood of old buckthorn trees led down to the sea, and a most grand view of Tantallon rising on its red rocks. We walked afterwards to 'Canty Bay,' so called because the Covenanters sang Psalms there when they were being embarked for the Bass.
"'How curious it would be,' Mrs. Dalzel has been saying, 'if all the lines on people's faces had writing on them to say what brought them there. What strange tales they would tell!'
"'Oh, what it is to be at peace! at perfect peace with God! in perfect reliance on one's Saviour! I often think it is like a person who has packed up for a journey. When all his work is finished and all his boxes are packed, he can sit down in the last hour before his departure and rest in peace, for all his preparations are made. So in the last hours of life one may rest in peace, if the work of preparation is already done.'
"'I used to count the future by years: now I only do it by months; perhaps I can only do it by weeks.'
"'My eldest brother lived in a great world. He was very handsome and much admired. As aide-de-camp to Sir Ralph Abercromby, George IV. made him his friend, and many people paid court to him. At last one day he came to my dear mother, who was still living in her great age, and who had found her Saviour some years before, and said to her, "Mother, I feel that my health is failing and that this world is rapidly slipping away from me, and I have no certain hope for the next: what would you advise me to do?" And my mother said to him, "My dear son, I can only advise you to do what I have done myself, take your Bible and read it with prayer upon your knees, and God will send you light." And my brother did so, and God granted him the perfect peace that passeth understanding. He lived many years after that, but his health had failed, and his Bible was his constant companion. When I went to see him, he used to lay his hand on the Book and say, "This is my comforter." A few years before he died, a malady affected one of his legs which obliged him to have the limb amputated. When the operation was about to commence, the doctor who was standing by felt his pulse, and did not find it varied in the least. "General Macmurdo," he said, "you are a hero."—"No," said my brother solemnly, "but I hope I am a Christian." And the doctor said he felt the power of Christianity from that day.'
"'From the shore of another world all my past life seems like a dream.'[351]