Fareweel, sir! I’ll expect ye the morn at two, if convenient,” the smith whispered to the Doctor as he opened the door to him.
“I’ll be sure to come,” he replied. “Thank you for those verses; and think for your good about all I have said.”
That evening, there was a comfortable tea prepared by Jeanie for her friends, and the Corporal was one of the party. Had a stranger dropped in upon them, he would not have supposed that there was sorrow in the house. There is a merciful reaction to strong feeling. The highest waves, when they dash against the rock, flow farthest back, and scatter themselves in their rebound into sparkling foam and airy bubbles. The Corporal told some of his old stories of weariness and famine, of wounds and sufferings, and marches over the fields of Spain from victory to victory. Old Armstrong could match these only by Covenanter tales from The Scots Worthies, of battles long ago, but was astonished to find the Corporal a staunch Episcopalian, who had no sympathy with “rebels.” Yet so kind and courteous was the pensioner, that the elder confessed that he was “a real fine body, withoot a grain o’ bigotry.” William, too, had his talk on “the times,” and his favourite topic of reform; while Jeanie and her mother spoke of the farm, and of old friends among the cows, with many bygone reminiscences of persons and things. And thus the weight of their hearts was lightened, and made stronger, along with higher and better thoughts, to carry their burden; but ever and anon there came one little presence before them, causing a sinking of the heart.
No sooner had their friends left the house for the night than the smith did what he never did before. He opened the Bible, and said to Jeanie, “I will read a chapter aloud before we retire to rest.”
Jeanie clapped her husband fondly on the shoulder, and in silence sat down beside him while he read again some of the same passages which they had already heard. Few houses had that night more quiet and peaceful sleepers than that house, under whose roof, beneath the shining stars of God, those parents and their child reposed.
The little black coffin was brought to the smith’s the night before the funeral. When the house was quiet, Davie was laid in it gently by his father. Jeanie stood by and assumed the duty of arranging with care the white garments in which her boy was dressed, wrapping them round him, and adjusting the head as if to sleep in her own bosom. She brushed once more the golden ringlets, and put the little hands in their right place, and opened out the frills in the cap, and removed every particle of sawdust which soiled the shroud. When all was finished, though she seemed anxious to prolong the work, the lid was put on the coffin, but so as to leave the face uncovered. Both were as silent as their child. But ere they retired to rest for the night, they instinctively went to take another look. As they gazed in silence, side by side, the smith felt his hand gently seized by his wife. She played at first nervously with the fingers, until, finding her own hand held by her husband, she looked into his face with an unutterable expression, and meeting his eyes so full of unobtrusive sorrow, she leant her head on his shoulder and said, “Willie, this is my last look o’ him on this side the grave. But, Willie dear, you and me maun see him again, and, mind ye, no’ to part—na, I canna thole that! We ken whaur he is, and we maun gang till him. Noo, promise me! vow alang wi’ me here, that, as we love him and ane another, we’ll attend mair to what’s gude than we hae dune, that—oh, Willie! forgie me, for it’s no’ my pairt to speak, but I canna help it th’ noo, and just, my bonnie man, just agree wi’ me—that we’ll gie our hearts noo and for ever to our ain Saviour, and the Saviour o’ our wee Davie!”
These words were uttered without ever lifting her head from her husband’s shoulder, and in low, broken accents, half choked with an inward struggle, but without a tear. She was encouraged to say this—for she had a timid awe for her husband—by the pressure ever and anon returned to hers from his hand.
The smith spoke not, but bent his head over his wife, who felt his tears falling on her neck, as he whispered, “Amen, Jeanie! so help me, God!”
A silence ensued, during which Jeanie got, as she said, “a gude greet,” for the first time, which took a weight off her heart. She then quietly kissed her child and turned away.
Thorburn took the hand of his boy and said, “Fareweel, Davie, and when you and me meet again, we’ll baith, I tak’ it, be a bit different frae what we are this nicht!” He then put the lid on mechanically, turned one or two of the screws, and then sat down at the fireside to chat about the arrangements of the funeral as on a matter of business.