Hamish was indeed changed. Unrealised at first by himself, the most wonderful change that can come between the cradle and the grave had happened to him. He had found a secret spring of peace, hidden as yet from his sister’s eyes. He had obtained a staff to lean on, which made his weakness stronger than her strength; and this had come to him through the master. There was a bond between the friends, stronger, sweeter, and more enduring than even that which united the twin brother and sister—the Bond of Brotherhood in Christ. On Norman Stewart had been conferred the highest of all honours; to him had been given the chief of all happiness. Through his voice the voice of Jesus had spoken peace to a troubled soul. To him it had been given so to hold forth the word of life that to a soul sitting in darkness a great light sprang up.
I cannot tell you how it came about, except that the heart of the master being full of love to Christ, it could not but overflow in loving words from his lips. Attracted first to Hamish by the patience and gentleness with which he suffered, he could not do otherwise than seek to lead him to the Great Healer; and his touch was life. Then all the shadows that had darkened the past and the future to the lame boy fled away. Gradually all the untoward circumstances of his life seemed to adjust themselves anew. His lameness, his suffering, his helplessness were no longer parts of a mystery, darkening all the future to him, but parts of a plan through which something better than a name and a place in the world might be obtained. Little by little he came to know himself to be one of God’s favoured ones; and then he would not have turned his hand to win the lot that all his life had seemed the most desirable to him. Before his friend he saw such a life—a life of labour for the highest of all ends. Before himself he saw a life of suffering, a narrow sphere of action, helplessness, dependence; but he no longer murmured. He was coming to know, through the new life given him, how that “to do God’s will is sweet, and to bear God’s will is sweet—the one as sweet as the other, to those to whom he reveals himself;” and to have learned this is to rejoice for evermore.
The master’s term of office came to an end, and the friends were to part. It was June by this time; and when he had bidden all the rest goodbye, Mr Stewart lingered still with Hamish at the gate. Hamish had said something about meeting again, and the master answered,—
“Yes, surely we shall meet again—if not here, yonder;” and he pointed upward. “We shall be true friends there, Hamish, bhodach; be sure of that.”
Tears that were not all sorrowful stood on the cheeks of Hamish, and he laid his face down on the master’s shoulder without speaking.
“Much may lie between us and that time,” continued the master—“much to do, and, it may be, much to suffer; but it is sure to come.”
“For me, too,” murmured Hamish. “They also serve who only wait.”
“Yes,” said the master; “they who wait are blessed.”
“And I shall thank God all my life that he sent you here to me,” said Hamish.
“And I too,” said the master. “It seemed to me an untoward chance indeed that turned me aside from the path I had chosen and sent me here, and the good Father has put my doubts and fears to shame, in that he has given me you, and, through you, others, to be stars in my crown of rejoicing against that day. God bless you! Farewell.”