[THE PRIVILEGE]
THE PRIVILEGE
To-day I can think about only one thing. It is in vain I have tried to busy myself with my sermon for next Sunday. Last week, for another reason, I had recourse to an old sermon; but I dislike to make a practice of so doing, even though I strongly suspect that none of our little Salmon River congregation would know the difference. We are a very simple people, in this out-of-the-way Cape Breton parish, called mostly to be fishers, like Our Lord's apostles, and recking not a whit of the finer points of doctrine. Nevertheless, it is an hireling shepherd who is faithless only because the flock do not ask to be fed with the appointed manna; and I shall broach the sermon again, once I have set down the thing that is so heavy on my heart.
For all I can think of just now is that Renny and Suse, out there on Halibut Head, four miles away, are alone; alone for the first time in well-nigh thirty years. The last of the brood has taken wing.
Yet it came to me this morning, as I watched Renny on the wharf saying good-by to the boy, and bidding him wrap the tippet snug about his neck in case the wind would be raw—it came to me that there is a triumph about the nest when it is empty that it could never have earlier. I saw the look of it in Renny's face—not defeat, but exultation.