“No, no,” said the collier, winking impressively at me, while Nan was helping herself to a potato, “but might be made safer, as I says, might be made safer; another shaft let down, and wentilation made more fresh. But there! praise the Lord, ’tis all to be done, and that in no time; why, that mine will be so safe in a month or two, that little Nan might go and play there, if she so minded.”
As the big man spoke, looking lovingly at his tiny daughter, and the daughter replied, with anxious, knitted brows, “You know, father, as I don’t play,” he looked the younger of the two.
“No more you does, Twenty,” he replied, “but even Twenty can put away her fears and sing us a song when she hears a bit of good news.”
“Shall I sing a hymn? father.”
“Well, yes, my lass, I does feel like praisin’—there, you begin, and I’ll foller up.”
Little Nan laid down her knife and fork, fixed her dark eyes straight before her, clasped her hands, and began—
“We shall meet beyond the river,
By and by,
And the darkness shall be over,
By and by.
With the toilsome journey done,
And the glorious battle won,
We shall shine forth as the sun,
By and by.”
She paused, looked at her father, who joined her in the next verse—
“We shall strike the harps of glory,
By and by.
We shall sing redemption’s story.
By and by.
And the strains for evermore
Shall resound in sweetness o’er
Yonder everlasting shore,
By and by.
“We shall see and be like Jesus
By and by.
Who a crown of life shall give us,
By and by.
All the blest ones who have gone
To the land of life and song,
We with gladness shall rejoin
By and by!”
I have given the words, but I cannot describe the fervent looks that accompanied them, nor catch any echo here, of the sweet voice of the child, or the deep and earnest tones of the man. The strong spiritual life in both their natures came leaping to the surface, the man forgot the stranger by his hearth, he saw his God; the child, too, forgot her fears and her anxieties, and as she sang she became really young.