Old Isaac's head sunk down, while some tears involuntarily dropped on his knee; and to conceal his emotion, he remained silent, save that he uttered a few stifled groans. Natural affection and duty were at strife within him, and for a time neither of them would yield. His daughter perceived the struggle, and contented herself with watching its effects.
"Where is my cloak, daughter Matilda?" said he, at length, without raising his head.
"It is hanging on one of the wooden knags in the garret, sir," said she.
"Ay. Then you may let it hang on the knag where it is all day. It is a weary world this! and we are all guilty creatures! I fear I cannot converse and pray with the ruthless seducer of both my children."
"Your resolution is prudent, sir. All efforts to regain such a one are vain. He is not only a reprobate, and an outcast from his Maker, but a determined and avowed enemy to his laws and government."
"You do not know what you say, daughter," said old Isaac, starting to his feet, and looking her sternly in the face. "If I again hear you presume to prejudge any accountable and immortal being in such a manner, I shall be more afraid of your own state than of his. While life remains, we are in a land where repentance is to be had and hoped for, and I will not hear the mercy of God arraigned. Bring me my cloak and my staff instantly, without another word. When I think of the country beyond the grave, and of the eternal fate that awaits this hapless prodigal, all my injuries vanish, and my trust in the Lord is strengthened anew. I shall at least pray with him, and for him; if he will not hear me, my Father who is in heaven may hear me, and haply He will open the victim's eyes to the hope that is set before him; for the hearts of all the children of men are in his hands, and as the rivers of water He turneth them whithersoever He pleaseth."
So old Isaac got his staff in his hand that had the head turned round like the horn of a cow, and also his cloak round his shoulders, not the tartan one with its gaudy spangles, but the grey marled one lined with green flannel. Well might old Isaac be partial to that cloak, for it was made for him by a beloved daughter who had been removed from him and from her family at the age of twenty-three. She was the mother of his two darlings, Isaac and Euphemia, mentioned before; and the feelings with which he put on the mantle that day can only be conceived by those who have learned to count all things but loss save Jesus Christ, and him crucified; and how few are the number who attain this sublime and sacred height!
"The blessing of him that is ready to perish shall light on the head of my father," said Matilda, as she followed with her eye the bent figure of the old man hasting with tottering steps over the moor, on the road that led to Shepherd Gawin's; and when he vanished from her view on the height, she wiped her eyes, drew the window screen, and applied herself to her work.
Isaac lost sight of his own home, and came in view of Shepherd Gawin's at the same instant; but he only gave a slight glance back to his own, for the concern that lay before him dwelt on his heart. It was a concern of life and death, not only of a temporal, but of a spiritual and eternal nature; and where the mortal concerns are centred, on that place, or towards that place, will the natural eye be turned. Isaac looked only at the dwelling before him: All wore a solemn stillness about the place that had so often resounded with rustic mirth; the cock crowed not at the door as was his wont, nor strutted on the top of his old dunghill, that had been accumulating there for ages, and had the appearance of a small green mountain; but he sat on the kail-yard dike, at the head of his mates, with his feathers ruffled, and every now and then his one eye turned up to the sky, as if watching some appearance there of which he stood in dread. The blithesome collies came not down the green to bark and frolic half in kindness and half in jealousy; they lay coiled up on the shelf of the hay-stack, and as the stranger approached, lifted up their heads and viewed him with a sullen and sleepy eye, then, uttering a low and stifled growl, muffled their heads again between their hind feet, and shrouded their social natures in the very depth of sullenness.
"This is either the abode of death, or deep mourning, or perhaps both," said old Isaac to himself, as he approached the house; "and all the domestic animals are affected by it, and join in the general dismay. If this young man has departed with the eyes of his understanding blinded, I have not been in the way of my duty. It is a hard case that a blemished lamb should be cast out of the flock, and no endeavour made by the shepherd to heal or recall it; that the poor stray thing should be left to perish, and lost to its Master's fold. It behoveth not a faithful shepherd to suffer this; and yet—Isaac, thou art the man! May the Lord pardon his servant in this thing!"