repeated Shenac. And again it came into her mind that Hamish was changed, and held in his heart a treasure which she did not share; and still the words of the psalm came back:—
“Because of life the fountain pure
Remains alone with thee;
And in that purest light of thine
We clearly light shall see.”
Did Hamish see that light? She looked away from her brother’s fair face to the congregation about them. Did these people see it? did old Donald and Elspat Smith see it? did big Maggie Cairns, at whose simplicity and queerness all the young people used to laugh, see it? Yes, even on her plain, common face a strange, bright look seemed to rest, as she turned it to the minister. There were other faces too with that same gleam of brightness on them—old weather-beaten faces, some of them careworn women’s faces, and the faces of young girls and boys, one here and another there, scattered through the earnest, listening crowd.
By a strong effort Shenac turned her attention to the minister’s words. They were earnest words, surely, but wherein did they differ from the words of other men? They seemed to her just like the truths she had heard before—more fitly spoken, perhaps, than when they fell from the lips of good old Mr Farquharson, but just the same.
“For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
This was the text. It was quite familiar to her; and so were the truths drawn from it, she thought. What could be the cause of the interest that she saw in the faces of those eager hundreds? Did they see something hidden from her? did they hear in those words something to which her ears were deaf? Her eyes wandered from one familiar face to another, coming back to her brother’s always with the same wonder; and she murmured again and again,—
“From rivers of thy pleasures thou
Wilt drink to them provide.”
“He that drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.”
“That is for Hamish, I’m sure of that. I wonder how it all happened to him? I’ll ask him.”
But she did not. The bright look was on his face when the sermon ended, and while the psalm was sung. It was there when the great congregation slowly dispersed, and all the way as they walked home with the neighbours. It was there all day, and all the week; and it never left him. Even when pain and sickness set their mark on his face, through all their sorrowful tokens the bright look of peace shone still; and Shenac watched and wondered, but she did not speak of it yet.