“We will put it all out of our thoughts for to-day, love,” said Mr Inglis, in his painful whisper, when they were left alone. “At least we will not speak of it to one another. We must not distrust His loving care of us, dear, even now.”
They did not speak of it to one another, but each apart spoke of it to Him who hears no sorrowful cry of his children unmoved. He did not lift the cloud that gloomed so darkly over them. He did not by a sudden light from Heaven show them a way by which they were to be led out of the darkness, but in it He made them to feel His presence. “Fear not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy God!” and lo! “the darkness was light about them!”
So when the boys came home the father’s face said plainly what both heart and lip could also say, “It is all right.” And the mother’s said it, too, with a difference.
Of course, all that the doctors had said was not told to the children. Indeed the father and mother did not speak much about it to each other for a good many days. Mr Inglis rested, and in a few days called himself nearly well again, and but for the doctor’s absolute prohibition, would have betaken himself to his parish work as usual. It was not easy for him to submit to inactivity, for many reasons that need not be told, and when the first Sabbath of enforced silence came round, it found him in sore trouble, knowing, indeed, where to betake himself, but feeling the refuge very far away.
That night he first spoke to David of the danger that threatened him. They were sitting together in the twilight. The mother and the rest were down-stairs at the usual Sunday reading and singing, which the father had not felt quite able to bear, and now and then the sound of their voices came up to break the stillness that had fallen on these two. David had been reading, but the light had failed him, and he sat very quiet, thinking that his father had fallen asleep. But he had not.
“Davie,” said he, at last, “what do you think is the very hardest duty that a soldier may be called to do?”
David was silent a minute, partly from surprise at the question, and partly because he had been thinking of all that his father had been suffering on that sorrowful silent day, and he was not quite sure whether he could find a voice to say anything. For at morning worship, the father had quite broken down, and the children had been awed and startled by the sight of his sudden tears. All day long David had thought about it, and sitting there beside him his heart had filled full of love and reverent sympathy, which he never could have spoken, even if it had come into his mind to try. But when his father asked him that question, he answered, after a little pause:
“Not the fighting, papa, and not the marching. I think perhaps the very hardest thing would be to stand aside and wait, while the battle is going on.”
“Ay, lad! you are right there,” said his father, with a sigh. “Though why you should look on it in that way, I do not quite see.”
“I was thinking of you, papa,” said David, very softly; and in a little he added: “This has been a very sad day to you, papa.”