“Papa wants you, Margery dear,” he said; and he carried me quickly down the passages in the dim light of the early summer dawn.
Two or three officers, amongst whom I recognized Major Buller, fell back, as we came in, from the bed to which Mr. Abercrombie carried me. My father turned his face eagerly towards me, but I shrank away. That one night of suffering and collapse had changed him so that I did not know him again. At last I was persuaded to go to him, and by his voice and manner recognized him as his feeble fingers played tenderly with mine. And when he said, “Kiss me, Margery dear,” I crept up and kissed his forehead, and started to feel it so cold and damp.
“Be a good girl, Margery dear,” he whispered; “be very good to Mamma.” There was a short silence. Then he said, “Is the sun rising yet, Buller?”
“Just rising, old fellow. Does the light bother you?”
“No, thank you; I can’t see it. The fact is, I can’t see you now. I suppose it’s nearly over. God’s will be done. You’ve got the papers, Buller? Arkwright will be kind about it, I’m sure. You’ll break it to my wife as well as you can?”
After another pause he said, “It’s time you fellows went to bed and got some sleep.”
But no one moved, and there was another silence, which my father broke by saying, “Buller, where are you? It’s quite dark now. Would you say the Lord’s Prayer for me, old fellow? Margery dear, put your hands with poor Papa’s.”
“I’ve not said my prayers yet,” said I; “and you know I ought to say my prayers, for I’ve been dressed a long time.”
The Major knelt simply by the bed. The other men, standing, bent their heads, and Mr. Abercrombie, kneeling, buried his face on the end of the bed and sobbed aloud.
Major Buller said the Lord’s Prayer. I, believing it to be my duty, said it also, and my father said it with us to the clause “For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory,” when his voice failed, and I, thinking he had forgotten (for I sometimes forgot in the middle of my most familiar prayers and hymns), helped him—“Papa dear! for ever and ever.”