All were talking of the earthquake. A great part of the English had fled in a panic terror, like sheep that had no shepherd—hunted by their own fears, and betrayed by their imagined faith. The steadiest church-goer fled like the infidel he reviled. The fool said in his heart, “There is no God,” and fled. The Christian said with his mouth, “Verily there is a God that ruleth in the earth!” and fled—far as he could from the place which, as he fancied, had shown signs of a special presence of the father of Jesus Christ.
After the Porsons were in the house, there came two or three small shocks. Every time, out with a cry rushed the inhabitants into the streets; every time, out into the garden of the hotel swarmed such as were left in it of Germans and English. But our little couple, who had that day seen so much more of its terrors than any one else in the place, and whose chamber was at the top of the house where the swaying was worst, were too much absorbed in watching and tending their lovely boy to heed the earthquake. Perhaps their hearts whispered, “Can that which has given us such a gift be unfriendly?”
“If his father and mother,” said Mrs. Porson, as they stood regarding him, “are permitted to see their child, they shall see how we love him, and be willing he should love us!”
As they went up the stairs with him, the boy woke. When he looked and saw a face that was not his mother’s, a cloud swept across the heaven of his eyes. He closed them again, and did not speak. The first of the shocks came as they were putting him to bed: he turned very white and looked up fixedly, as if waiting another fall from above, but sat motionless on his new mother’s lap. The instant the vibration and rocking ceased, he drank from the cup of milk she offered him, as quietly as if but a distant thunder had rolled away. When she put him in the bed, he looked at her with such an indescribable expression of bewildered loss, that she burst into tears. The child did not cry. He had not cried since they took him. The woman’s heart was like to break for him, but she managed to say,
“God has taken her, my darling. He is keeping her for you, and I am going to keep you for her;” and with that she kissed him.
The same moment came the second shock.
Need wakes prophecy: the need of the child made of the parson a prophet.
“It is God that does the shaking,” he said. “It’s all right. Nobody will be the worse—not much, at least!”
“Not at all,” rejoined the boy, and turned his face away.
From the lips of such a tiny child, the words seemed almost awful.