“I remember poor Mr. Mackenzie when he first come up to Culebra,” she said. “Such a quiet, mannerly gentleman. And to think he die so sudden!”
“In the midst of life we are in death!” retorted Miss Proudleigh aggressively.
“I not stayin’ here one day longer than I can help it,” said Mr. Proudleigh earnestly. “I never did want much to come to Colon at any time; but me children wishin’ to see if them could make a good living over here, I say to meself, ‘I mustn’t desert them. Don’t care what happen to me, it is me juty to go wid dem.’ So I come here, but I not goin’ to stop any longer, because it must be a very funny country where a hill-side broke down without nothing do it, and kill me son-in-law. Ef I are to die, I want to die in me bed in Jamaica.”
“Parents must devote themselves to their children,” said one of Susan’s neighbours.
“That is what I ’ave always done,” said Mr. Proudleigh with dignity. “But if Susan take my advice, she will go back wid me to Jamaica as soon as she bury her husban’. I can’t teck any more risk in Panama.”
“The Lord is strong to save, wherever His people are,” remarked Miss Proudleigh rebukingly. Her laundry was proving very profitable, and she needed no further evidence to assure her of the omnipresent care of Providence.
Just then the young woman who had already angered Miss Proudleigh, feeling that she was being eclipsed, went up to Susan, and, throwing her arms about the widow’s neck, exclaimed, “My heart bleed for you,” and audibly wept. But Miss Proudleigh was mistress of ceremonies, and Susan herself was now subject to her aunt’s authority. That a stranger, an insolent stranger, should have dared to set the example of tears in the midst of a conversation, was more than Miss Proudleigh could stand. Extraneous sympathy must not be allowed to pass the bounds set by decorum and established practice. Happily Miss Proudleigh knew that she was equal to any emergency. Whipping out of her pocket a hymn-book which she had thoughtfully brought with her from Colon, in a shrill and belligerent treble she began to sing “Peace, Perfect Peace.” The hymn sounded like a declaration of war without quarter, and the sobbing young lady recognized it as such and struggled by means of louder sobs to maintain the position she had won. But Miss Proudleigh had great allies. For most of the guests, tired of talking or sitting still, joined in the hymn, singing with genuine feeling.
Rising and falling in measured cadence, the sound floated far away, and men and women in other houses listened, thinking perhaps of the days when they too had watched beside the corpse of some one dear to them. Perhaps their memory was touched, and they thought of a grave somewhere on a mountain-side, under the shade of rustling trees, in some far-off West Indian island which they called home.
The singing ceased; then another hymn, even more pathetic than the first, was started: All took it up, singing softly:
“Days and moments quickly flying