Preston fumed; but I managed to stop his mouth; and then I left him, to attend to other people. But when all was done, and the ward was quiet, I stood at the foot of the dying man's bed, thinking, what could I do more for him? His face looked weary and anxious; his eye rested, I saw, on me, but without comfort in it. What could I say, that I had not said? or how could I reach him? Then, I do not know how the thought struck me, but I knew what to do.
"My dear," said Miss Yates, touching my shoulder, "hadn't you better give up for to-night? You are a young hand; you ain't seasoned to it yet; you'll give out if you don't look sharp. Suppose you quit for to- night."
"O no!" I said hastily - "Oh no, I cannot. I cannot."
"Well, sit down, any way, before you can't stand. It is just as cheap sittin' as standin'."
I sat down; she passed on her way; the place was quiet; only there were uneasy breaths that came and went near me. Then I opened my mouth and sang -
"There is a fountain filled with blood,
"Drawn from Immanuel's veins;
"And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
"Lose all their guilty stains."
"The dying thief rejoiced to see
"That fountain in his day;
"And there may I, as vile as he,
"Wash all my sins away."
I sang it to a sweet simple air, in which the last lines are repeated and repeated and drawn out in all their sweetness. The ward was as still as death. I never felt such joy that I could sing; for I knew the words went to the furthest corner and distinctly, though I was not raising my voice beyond a very soft pitch. The stillness lasted after I stopped; then some one near spoke out -
"Oh, go on!"
And I thought the silence asked me. But what to sing? that was the difficulty. It had need be something so very simple in the wording, so very comprehensive in the sense; something to tell the truth, and to tell it quick, and the whole truth; what should it be? Hymns came up to me, loved and sweet, but too partial in their application, or presupposing too much knowledge of religious things. My mind wandered; and then of a sudden floated to me the refrain that I had heard and learned when a child, long ago, from the lips of Mr. Dinwiddie, in the little chapel at Melbourne; and with all the tenderness of the old time and the new it sprung from my heart and lips now -