One glorious summer evening I broached the matter to them both. It was the pensive hour of twilight, and Donald had been telling me with thrilling eloquence of a service he had once attended in St. Peter's Church, Dundee, when the saintly M'Cheyne had cast the spell of eternity about him. When he had got as nearly through as he ever got with his favourite themes, I asked him to listen to me for a little, and not to interrupt. He promised, and I talked on to them for an hour or more, the twilight deepening into darkness, and the sweet incense of nature's evening mass arising about us where we sat.
It was the hour and the season that lent themselves to memory, and I armed myself with all the unforgotten years as I bore down upon their hearts. The duty, the privilege, the joy of mingling with the great congregation in united voice and heart to bless the Creator's name, all this I urged with passionate entreaty.
"Oh, Donald," I cried at last, forgetting his seventy years and the title those years deserved, "come back, come back, man, to the fountain at which you drank with joy long years ago! Oh, Donald, it is springing yet, and its living waters are for you. Years have not quenched their holy stream, nor changed the loving heart of Him who feeds them. Donald man, your pride is playing havoc with your soul. Are not the days shortening in upon you? You saw the darkness fall since we sat down together, and the night has come, and it is always night in the grave. Man, hurry home before the gloaming betrays you to the dark.
"Do you not hear yonder clock ticking in the hall that same old song of death, the same it sang, the night your father's father was born in the glen, the same it wailed the night he died? It is none other than the voice of God telling you that the night cometh fast. Oh, Donald, was it not your mother who first taught you the way to that holy spring, even as she taught your boyish feet the path to yonder babbling burn which even now is lilting to the night? Donald man, be a little child again, and come back before you die."
Then there was a silence deep as death, and we heard the crickets sing and the drowsy tinkling on the distant hill. I spoke not another word, for when a great Scotch soul is in revolution, I would as soon have offered to assist at the creation as seek then to interfere. But I heard his wife Elsie sobbing gently and I felt a tear on Donald's cheek. My heart caught its distilling fragrance, like a bluebell on some mountainside, and I knew that the seasons were exchanging in Donald's soul, winter retreating before the avenging spring.
Suddenly he arose and swiftly spoke—
"I'll gang back on Sabbath mornin'; I'll tak' ma mither's psalm-buik, and I'll gang."
He strode quickly towards the house; as he passed me the rising moon shone upon his face, and it looked like that of a soul which has the judgment day behind and eternal mother-love before.
Elsie walked with me to the gate, and her face put the now radiant night to shame. Her long eclipse had ended. It was then she told me the secret of the token and her husband's love for it.
"Ye mauna think ower hard on Donald; I promised to tell naebody, but ye willna let him ken. It wasna the token in itsel', but it was oor Elsie mair. Elsie was oor little lassie that's gone to bide wi' God.
