It was a little after midnight, in the last week of February, in the year 1797.
Three or four tallow candles, lighted fairly well that part of a large-sized room, in which stood a huge, old-fashioned four-poster bed, on which old William Grierson lay dying.
He looked a man of seventy-five at least. The scant hair of his head was like silver. His long, hatchet-like face was almost waxen in appearance, and remarkably free from wrinkles, and in the grey eyes shone some of the old fire. But it was evident as he lay there that not only his hours but his minutes were numbered. Between the midnight and the dawn seems to be the time chosen by the Messenger of Death to bring the last imperative, unavoidable summons, especially to the old whose footsteps have lingered in the ways of life. It is, perhaps, kindly meant, for it is the time when the rational forces are weakest, and when the chief desire—faint at best—is for repose.
By the bedside of the dying man were seated two persons. One was a youth with one foot across the threshold of manhood. He was well-built, active, good-looking, but his weak mouth suggested want of resolution, and the edges of his eyelashes, which concealed his dreamy eyes, were suspiciously bright, as if tears had just visited them. He was the only son—the only child—of the dying man, and was here now, he knew, to receive his father’s last advice—his last blessing. The other was a man of fifty or thereabouts. He had a rugged, serious face, and by his dress and appearance would at once be taken for what he was—a Dissenting minister. He was seated towards the end of the bed. The young man sat beside the pillow.
“I feel my last moments are come, Robby,” he said faintly, “and I would like to give you my blessing before I go.”
Suppressing a sob, for the lad dearly loved his father, and was even more dearly loved by him, because ‘he was the child of his old age,’ Robby knelt down beside the bed, and the dying father extended his thin, wasted hand, that was almost transparent, and laid it fondly on the head of the boy. The clergyman had also knelt down, and with his hands raised in supplication to heaven, he prayed silently in sympathy with the old man who was so soon to pass away from this fleeting world.
It was a scene and a moment to move less responsive hearts than that of young Robbie Grierson. He felt himself like one under some sacred spell, and at the touch of his father’s hand his innermost and deepest feelings were stirred.
“I am going home, Robbie,” he said. “I am going home where I hope to meet the mother that bore ye and that ye never saw, and who gave her life for ye, and before I go I want ye to promise me something, laddie. I want ye to promise me something—will ye do it, Robbie? Will ye promise it?”
Robbie bent his forehead until it touched the coverlet of the bed.
“I will promise, father.”