"You are not afraid, Archie?" I said at length—the old question that springs, not to the dying, but to the living lips.
"Afeart!" said Archie, "what wad I be afeart for?"
"You are not afraid to meet your Lord?" I answered, inwardly reproaching myself for the words.
"Afeart!" repeated the dying man, "afeart to meet ma Lord. Why should I be feart to meet a Man that died for me?"
I inwardly blessed him for the great reply and engaged its unanswerable argument for my next Sabbath's sermon. No man dieth unto himself.
"Wull ye dae something for me?" said Archie, suddenly. "Wull ye write to a man I kent lang syne?"
"Certainly," said I. "Who is the man, Archie?"
"I'll tell ye, gin ma hairt hauds guid a meenit. It's Andra Mathieson—an' he lives in San Francisco. Him an' me gaed to the schule thegither in the Auld Country, an' I hadna seen him for nigh fifty year till last Can'lemas a twalmonth, when I gaed to San Francisco for ma health. He's awfu' rich. He lives in a graun hoose an' he has a coachman wi' yin o' thae coats wi' buttons. But I gaed to see him an' I needna hae been sae feart, for he minded on me, an' he wadna hear o' me bidin' at the taivern, an' he took me to his graun hoose, an' he was ower guid to a plain cratur like me.
"Weel, ae mornin', we was sittin', haein' oor crack aboot the auld days, an' the schule, an' the sheep we herded thegither on the Ettrick hills. But oor crack aye harkit back to the kirk an' the minister an' the catechism, an' a' thae deeper things o' auld lang syne. He said as hoo he had gane far bye thae things, livin' amang the stour o' a' his siller—but he remarkit that he aften thocht o' the auld ways, an' the auld tunes, an' the minister wi' his goon an' bands; an' he said he was fair starvin' for a psalm—or a paraphrase. They dinna sing them in Ameriky. An' I lilted yin till him—we was lookin' far oot at the Gowden Gate, an' it lookit like the crystal water ma een'll sune see."
Archie stopped, though apparently but little exhausted. His eyes seemed flooded with tender memories of that momentous hour on the far distant Pacific Coast.