Some one touched her on the shoulder and she looked round, and behind her was a great company of the dear children from the better country, whom the Father had sent, and not her—lest he should grieve for those he had left behind—to come for the child and show him the way. She paused for a moment, scarcely willing to give him up: but then her companion touched her and pointed to the other side. Ah, that was different! The mother lay by the side of the bed, her face turned only to the little white body which her child had dropped from him as he came out of his sickness—her eyes wild with misery, without tears; her feverish mouth open, but no cry in it. The sword of the angel had gone through and through her. She did not even writhe upon it, but lay motionless, cut down, dumb with anguish. The father had turned round again and leant his head upon the wall. All was over! All over! The love and the hope of a dozen lovely years, the little sweet companion, the daily joy, the future trust—all—over—as if a child had never been born. Then there rose in the stillness a great and exceeding bitter cry, ‘God!’ that was all, pealing up to heaven, to the Father, whom they could not see in their anguish, accusing Him, reproaching Him who had done it. Was He their enemy that He had done it? No man was ever so wicked, ever so cruel, but he would have spared them their boy—taken everything and spared them their boy; but God, God! The little Pilgrim stood by and wept. She could do nothing but weep, weep, her heart aching with the pity and the anguish. How were they to be told that it was not God, but the Father—that God was only His common name, His name in law, and that He was the Father. This was all she could think of; she had not a word to say. And the boy had shaken his little bright soul out of the sickness and the weakness with such a look of delight! He knew in a moment? but they—oh when, when would they know?
Presently she sat outside in the soft breathing airs and little morning breezes, and dried her aching eyes. And the Sage who was her companion soothed her with kind words. ‘I said you would feel the thorns as you passed,’ he said. ‘We cannot be free of them, we who are of mankind.’
‘But oh,’ she cried amid her tears, ‘why—why? The air of the earth is in my eyes, I cannot see. Oh what pain it is, what misery! Was it because they loved him too much, and that he drew their hearts away?’
The Sage only shook his head at her, smiling. ‘Can one love too much?’ he said.
‘O brother, it is very hard to live and to see another—— I am confused in my mind,’ said the little Pilgrim, putting her hand to her eyes. ‘The tears of those that weep have got into my soul. To live and see another die—that was what I was saying; but the child lives like you and me. Tell me, for I am confused in my mind.’
‘Listen!’ said the Sage; and when she listened she heard the sound of the children going back with a great murmur and ringing of pleasant voices like silver bells in the air, and among them the voice of the child asking a thousand questions, calling them by their names. The two pilgrims listened and laughed to each other for love at the sound of the children. ‘Is it for the little brother that you are troubled?’ the Sage said in her ear.
Then she was ashamed, and turned from the joyful sounds that were ascending ever higher and higher, to the little house that stood below with all its windows closed upon the light. It was wrapped in darkness though the sun was shining, the windows closed as if they never would open more, and the people within turning their faces to the wall, covering their eyes that they might not see the light of day. ‘O miserable day!’ they were saying, ‘O dark hour!—O life that will never smile again!’ She sat between earth and heaven, her eyes smiling, but her mouth beginning to quiver once more. ‘Is it to raise their thoughts and their hearts?’ she said.
‘Little sister,’ said he, ‘when the Father speaks to you, it is not for me nor for another that He speaks. And what He says to you is——’
‘Ah,’ said the little Pilgrim with joy, ‘it is for myself, myself alone! As if I were a great angel; as if I were a saint. It drops into my heart like the dew. It is what I need, not for you though I love you, but for me only. It is my secret between me and Him.’
Her companion bowed his head. ‘It is so. And thus has He spoken to the little child. But what He said or why He said it, is not for you or me to know. It is His secret; it is between the little one and his Father. Who can interfere between these two? Many and many are there born on earth whose work and whose life are ordained elsewhere; for there is no way of entrance into the race of man which is the nature of the Lord, but by the gates of birth: and the work which the Father has to do is so great and manifold that there are multitudes who do but pass through those gates to ascend to their work elsewhere. But the Father alone knows whom He has chosen. It is between the child and Him. It is their secret; it is as you have said.’