Expands his wings, and mounts into the sky;
Passes the sun, and gains his Father’s house;
And drinks with angels from the fount of bliss.”
Pollok.
FOR several years after the stirring events previously narrated, Nestleton Magna had largely reverted to the even tenor of its way. Not that it could ever again be as it was in the olden time. The erection of the chapel proved a very permanent and abiding source of good. The society continued to increase in numbers; Kasper Grove was always the very antipodes of Midden Harbour; the Sunday-school had grown in numbers and in efficiency, until it occupied a position of the highest value and importance, and all the younger generation of Nestletonians were happily subjected to the godly influences there at work.
Waverdale Hall was a centre of blessing, a fountain whose continuous outflow refreshed and purified the region through which it coursed in wise beneficence and Christly love. Still, there was an absence of startling or exciting events, and the quiet peacefulness which generally characterises rural districts brooded over the village undisturbed. At the Hall there was a growing family of attractive little squirelings and more attractive little ladies. Master Ainsley Olliver Fuller, the eldest son and heir of my favourite friends, Philip and Lucy, had two brothers, to wit, Philip Blyth and Theophilus, one little sister, who could be called nothing else than Lucy, and another sister, who was called Beatrice, after the old squire’s first and only love, long since gone to heaven.
Old Adam Olliver was even more rich in grandchildren, for around the tables alike of Jake and Pete and Hannah, the olive-branches increased at a surprising rate. Very happily and peacefully did the old man’s last years ebb away. Judith was the first to receive the call from that solemn messenger who brings his summons to every door. As she lived, so she died; her departure was more a translation than a death. She had not been well for some days, and one evening, while loving Hannah was in the act of stroking her silver hair and speaking words of cheer, she said, “Call your father.” When the old man appeared, she said, with a radiant smile, “Adam, I’m going home. Jesus calls. I’m going on before, a little while, and the way is very light. A little while, dear, true, good husband, and we shall meet again.” And so she slid quietly out of her clay tabernacle, and “took the nearest way to her Father’s house.”
Old Adam did not long survive her. He had grown very feeble; age and a life of hard labour had bent his frame, and for the last few months of his life he had to be guided across the floor. Mary was a gentle, loving, and unwearying nurse, and fifty times a day did he ask God’s blessing on her for her kindly care. A bed had been set up for him on the ground floor, as he was incapable of mounting the stairs, and because he liked to have her near him, while she attended to her household duties. But though the outward man was perishing, was becoming a small, thin, filmy prison-house indeed, the inward man was being renewed, beautified, and ripened day by day.
“Mary,” he would say, when he had sat still and silent for a long time, and she had asked him how he felt, “Mary, ah’ve been i’ good cumpany. Judy’s been wi’ ma’ i’ spirit, an’ ah’ve seen aingels wi’ breet an’ wavin’ wings, an’ Jesus is allus wi’ ma’. He says, ‘Ah’ll cum ageean an’ receeave tha’ te myself,’ an’ ah says, ’Eaven seea, Lord Jesus, cum quickly.’ Ah sall be gannin’ sum neet, an’ when t’ sun’s settin’ wi’ you, it’ll be risin’ wi’ me, an’ it’ll be mornin’ an’ nivver a neet nae mair.”