"And still it was telling the praises of the Friend—yes, after a lifetime of struggle and suffering. Nor do I think that, save for taking rest in sleep, the voice had ever been silent on that theme.
"So though none knew me, I passed straight through the little company to the deathbed of the man who spoke. He was the Little Fair Man no longer. But his scant white hair lay soft as silk on the pillow. His face was pale as ivory, his cheeks fallen in, only his eyes glowed like live coals deep-sunken in his head.
"'So, friend—you have come to see an old man die,' he said, when his eyes lighted on me; 'what, a bairn of mine, sayst thou—not after the flesh but after the spirit. Aye, I do mind that day at Kells. A gale from the Lord blew about us that day. So you are Harry of the Rude Hand, and you have fallen into sin. Ah, you must not come to me—you must to the Master! You had better have gone to your closet, and worn the whinstone a little with the knees of your breeks. And yet I ken not. None hath been a greater sinner or known greater mercy than Samuel Rutherfurd. I am summoned by the Star Chamber—I go to the chamber of Stars. I will see the King. I will carry Him your message, Harry. Fear not, the young man you smote will recover. He will yet bless you for laying a hand on him, even as this day you acknowledge the unworthy servant who on the green sward of Kells called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.
"'Sir, fare you well. Go home to your wife, nothing doubting. This night shall close the door. At five of the morning I will fasten my anchor within the veil.'
"And even as he said so it was. He passed away, and, as for me, secure that he would carry my message to the Alone Forgiver of Sins I returned home to find the youth recovered and penitent. He afterwards became a noted professor and field preacher, and died sealing his testimony with his blood on the victorious field of Loudon Hill.
"This is the testimony of me, Harry Wedderburn, sometime called Strength-o'-Airm, who now in the valley of peace and a restored Israel wait the consummation of all things. Being very lonely, I write these things out to pass the time till I, too, cast mine anchor within the veil. And I cheer myself with thinking that two shall meet me there, one on either side of the gate—Rachel, my heart's dear partner, and the Little Fair Man, who will take by either hand and lead into the presence of the Friend, poor unworthy Harry Wedderburn, sometime bond-slave of sin, but now servant most unprofitable of the Lord."
(Note by Mr. John Wedderburn.—"My father departed this life on the morning after finishing this paper, sleeping quietly away about five of the clock.")
MY FATHER'S LOVE STORY
When I am putting together family stories, new and old, I may as well tell my father's. Sometimes we of a younger day thought him stiff, silent, out of sympathy with our interests and amusements; but the saving salt of humour that was in him made this only seeming. In reality tolerance and kindliest understanding beaconed from under the covert of his bushy grey eyebrows.
There was the savour of an infinite discernment in the slow "Aye?" with which he was wont to receive any doubtful statement. My mother said ever ten words for his one, and it was his wont to listen to her gravely and unsmilingly, as if giving the subject the profoundest attention, while all the time his thoughts were far away—a fact well understood and much resented by his wife.