The Man of the Desert

by Grace Livingston Hill

Hazel found herself wondering why it made so very much difference whether these poor ignorant creatures knew all this or not, and yet she saw from the face of the man before her that it did matter, infinitely. To him it mattered more than anything else. A passing wish that she were an Indian to thus hold his interest flashed through her mind, but he was speaking yet of his work, and his rapt look filled her with awe. She was overwhelmed with the greatness and the fineness of the man before her. Sitting there in the fitful firelight, with its ruddy glow upon his face, his hat off and the moon laying a silver crown upon his head, he seemed half angel, half god. She had never before been so filled with the joy of beholding another soul. She had no room for thoughts of anything else.

Then suddenly he remembered that it was late.

"I have kept you awake far too long," he said penitently, looking at her with a smile that seemed all tenderness. "We ought to get on our way as soon as it is light, and I have made you listen to me when you ought to have been sleeping. But I always like to have a word with my Father before retiring. Shall we have our worship together?"

Hazel, overcome by wonder and embarrassment, assented and lay still in her sheltered spot watching him as he drew a small leather book from his breast pocket and opened to the place marked by a tiny silken cord. Then stirring up the fire to brightness he began to read and the majestic words of the ninety-first psalm came to her unaccustomed ears as a charmed page.

"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty."

"He shall cover thee with His feathers and under His wings shalt thou trust." The words were uttered with a ringing tone of trust. The listener knew little of birds and their ways, but the phrasing reminded her of the way she had been sheltered from the storm a little while before and her heart thrilled anew with the thought of it.

"Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night!"

Ah! Terror by night! She knew what that meant. That awful night of darkness, steep riding, howling beasts and black oblivion! She shuddered involuntarily at the remembrance. Not afraid! What confidence the voice had as it rang on, and all at once she knew that this night was free from terror for her because of the man whose confidence was in the Unseen.

"He shall give His angels charge over thee," and looking at him she half expected to see flitting wings in the moonlit background. How strong and true the face! How tender the lines about the mouth! What a glow of inner quietness and power in the eyes as he raised them now and again to her face across the firelight! What a thing it would be to have a friend like that always to guard one! Her eyes glowed softly at the thought and once again there flashed across her mind the contrast between this man and the one from whom she had fled in horror the day before.

The reading ended, he replaced the little marker, and dropping upon one knee on the desert with his face lifted to the sky and all the radiance of the moon flooding over him he spoke to God as a man speaks with his friend, face to face.