‘Oh, whisht!’ said Ailie, with a wild, sudden flush of colour flaming over her face. ‘Whatever the Lord’s will may be, I am His handmaid to do it. But, eh! how I’m punished now! I wouldna let your Margaret be. I would bid her back to earth when she was at Heaven’s door—no thinking what was waiting for myself. Though I’m no murmuring against the Lord.’
And then there was a moment of silence, on the one side full of eager revolt and determination to oppose; on the other of that stunned submission which comes after a great blow.
‘Oh, no—no! it cannot be,’ cried Isabel, clasping in her arms the girl for whom, up to this moment, she had felt so little sympathy. ‘I will never believe it is God’s meaning. If you did not love him you would hate him. How could you help it? It cannot be—it must not be!’
‘Whisht—whisht!’ said Ailie, with a faint momentary smile, ‘you’re ay so earnest. Oh, if ye would come with us, Isabel, for her sake, and put yourself on the Lord’s side. Whisht!—What’s God’s doing can never harm His servants. I’m no rebelling now, that’s a’ past. The worst is I canna see my work, nor what remains for me in this world,’ she added, with a piteous gentleness, ‘for the spirit of prophecy is ta’en from me as would be fit, when I’m under another, and no free in my ain power. Or, maybe, it’s my een that are blinded,’ she said, putting her hand up to them with a close pressure, as if they ached. But it was not because they ached. It was because they were full to overflowing with a stinging salt moisture. She would not yield to that common mode of relief. ‘Why should I greet when the Lord’s will is manifest?’ she said, all at once. ‘It would more suit me to greet if I knew not what that was.’
‘But it cannot be God’s will and you so sore—sore against it,’ cried eager Isabel, ‘in your heart.’
‘I’m no such a rebel,’ cried Ailie, with a start. ‘Oh, I’m no so ill as you think—me that am set to be a sign to His people. Now it’s all past,’ she added, raising herself up. ‘And, Isabel, though you dinna understand, you’ve been real good to me, and I’ll never forget it. Oh, will ye no come and open your heart now to the Lord, as long as the day of visitation lasts? I canna bide to think that Margret’s sister should be on the world’s side, and no on the Lord’s.’
‘I never was on the world’s side,’ said Isabel, with something of her natural impatience, rising, as Ailie did so, to her feet.
‘He that is not with us is against us,’ said the young prophetess. ‘O Isabel! Dinna trust in the good that’s just nature. The day is near past—the night is at hand. And you thinking of love, and pleasure, and the delights of this life, and no of that awfu’ day.’
‘Delights!’ said Isabel, holding up the heavy crape on her dress to the intent eye which remarked no such homely particulars; and then she turned hastily and went away—partly irritated, partly weary. She had forgotten her own burden to minister to the other. And she had need of consolation and encouragement herself, not of weariness and excitement. She turned, as was her hasty way, and left the visionary creature standing behind her on the hill. Ailie stood and gazed after the rapid, retreating figure, not offended as in a different region of society she might have been. This parting sans façon was not extraordinary among the homely country folk. She stood and looked after her with a wistful interest, stronger than any human sentiment which perhaps had ever before crossed her mind. A girl free to live her natural life, free to make her natural choice, bound by no mysterious rules, prepared to no awful office as God’s ambassador to man—
There was a meeting the same night. Ailie shut herself up for all the afternoon of this memorable day. She went into the little room, at the window of which, in the middle of the night, Mr. John’s extraordinary proposal had been first made to her, and placed her open Bible on her bed, and knelt down before it. There she remained, fasting, in one long trance of prayer and reverie, while the short autumn day came to an end, and the twilight closed round her. Had her fate been to go to the stake on the morrow, her preparation for it would have been triumphant in comparison. But the stake could not have been a more supreme proof of her devotion to the service of God than was this act of submission to what she believed His will. She accepted the bitter cup from God’s hand, and made no further struggle against her fate.