“Are the people poor?” he asked.
“Yes, very poor,” said she.
Then Tiny stepped forward when the clergyman had done speaking, and raised a Hymn for the Dead, and a prayer to the Father of the fatherless.
When he had made an end, he stepped back again, and took the hand of Grace, and walked away with her in the deep silence, for everybody in the churchyard was weeping. But as they went through the gate the silence was broken, and Tiny heard the clergyman saying, “Weep no longer, children; my house shall be your home, my wife shall be your mother. Come, let us go back to our home.”
And Grace and Tiny went their way. On, and on, and on, through the narrow filthy street, out into the open country,—through a desert, and a forest; and it seemed as if poor Tiny would sing his very life away. For wherever those appeared who seemed to need the voice of human pity, or brotherly love, or any act of charity, the voice and Hand of Tiny were upraised. And every hour, whichever way he went, he found THE WORLD HAD NEED OF HIM!
They had no better guide than that with which they set out on their search for the BEAUTIFUL GATE. But Tiny’s heart was opened, and it led him wherever there was misery, and want, and sin, and grief; and flowers grew up in the path he trod, and sparkling springs burst forth in desert places.
And then as to his blindness.
Fast he held by the hand of the beggar girl as they went on their way together, but the film was withdrawing from his eye-balls. When he turned them up towards the heaven, if they could not yet discern that, they could get a glimpse of the earth! So he said within himself, “Surely we are in the right way; we shall yet come to the Beautiful Gate, and I shall have my sight again. Then will I hasten to my father’s house, and when all is forgiven me, I will say to my mother, Receive this child I bring thee for a daughter, for she has been my guide through a weary way; and I know that my mother will love my little sister Grace.”
“And what then?” asked a voice in Tiny’s soul, “What then wilt thou do?”
“Labour till I die!” exclaimed Tiny aloud, with flashing eyes.