“I do not know. I only know that he is miserable because he has not turned to the Sun.”
“What will you say to him, father?”
“I cannot tell, my boy. It depends on what I find him thinking. Of all things, my boy, keep your face to the Sun. You can’t shine of yourself, you can’t be good of yourself, but God has made you able to turn to the Sun whence all goodness and all shining comes. God’s children may be very naughty, but they must be able to turn towards him. The Father of Lights is the Father of every weakest little baby of a good thought in us, as well as of the highest devotion of martyrdom. If you turn your face to the Sun, my boy, your soul will, when you come to die, feel like an autumn, with the golden fruits of the earth hanging in rich clusters ready to be gathered—not like a winter. You may feel ever so worn, but you will not feel withered. You will die in peace, hoping for the spring—and such a spring!”
Thus talking, in the course of two hours or so we arrived at the dwelling of the old laird.
CHAPTER XXXII
The Peat-Stack
How dreary the old house looked as we approached it through the gathering darkness! All the light appeared to come from the snow which rested wherever it could lie—on roofs and window ledges and turrets. Even on the windward walls, every little roughness sustained its own frozen patch, so that their grey was spotted all over with whiteness. Not a glimmer shone from the windows.
“Nobody lives there, father,” I said,—“surely?”