One evening Uncle Simeon was sitting at the dining-room table reading the Word, while Aunt Martha was discoursing to me on God's Plan of Salvation, exhorting me to repentance while it was not yet too late. "Ah, how great is the likelihood of hell for every one of us! For you, my child, it is woefully great. You, who have been brought up in the glory of the Light, who have communed from your earliest days with the Saints—"
"The Saints, my dear?" sniffed Uncle Simeon, "one would hardly say the Saints. To be sure there are many true and earnest believers like your dear mother and dear Miss Vickary amongst them; yet the Open Brethren are for the most part but weak vessels. Only we of the Inner Flock are truly entitled to be called the Brethren, the Saints. But proceed, my dear."
"Well, my dear, though your uncle is of course right, none will deny that you have had more light shed upon your path than many poor little children. Think of the little black children out in Africa and India, think even of the little ones in England who have Methodist or Churchgoing or Romanish fathers and mothers. Unless you are saved, what will you do if the Lord takes you suddenly? Are you ready to face Him? Are you ready to die? There are many, you know, whom the Lord calls away very, very suddenly. Today they are, tomorrow they are not. One moment healthy and strong, the next white and stark. The Lord takes them in an instant—"
"Like Uncle Simeon's brother," I broke in. "Didn't the Lord take him very suddenly?"
I managed to keep my voice steady and to watch him while pretending I was not. He tried to pretend he was not watching me. Whether I betrayed my excitement I do not know. He was certainly uneasy.
"Yes, my child, the Lord took him in a moment. It was never known of what disease he went." She spoke in her usual lifeless way. She suspected nothing.
"Perhaps his heart?" I said learnedly. It was a favourite ailment of Miss Salvation Clinker's; 'er 'eart. "Or perhaps he had eaten something that was not good for him, too much laver or some mussels or periwinkles, maybe?" Here again my dietetic insight was based on Miss Salvation's lore. I was killing time while I summoned up courage for the crucial word—"or—or—took something that poisoned him?"
The word was out and it had gone home. He did not scold me as he ordinarily would have done for talking so much. I saw him looking sickly and frightened by the glare of the lamp by which he was pretending to read. Then he got up hurriedly and left the room.
I began to rack my brains for some more ordinary remarks to cover my retreat. Aunt Martha saved me the trouble. "Poison," she said, "nonsense, most likely heart failure."