THE DAWN
Then in the darkness came a voice that said,
"As thy heart bleedeth so My heart hath bled;
As I have need of thee
Thou needest me."
--FREDERICK GEORGE SCOTT.
All evening John McIntyre had been sitting alone in the doorway. He
was to resume work in the mill to-morrow, and as it was his last night
at home, he had half expected his boy to spend it with him. But Tim
had not come, and as he sat waiting, John McIntyre had picked up the
Bible. It was the first time he had opened it of his own accord, and
he had intended merely to glance into it to pass the time. But he had
read on and on, till now the light had faded from the evening skies,
and the bare phantom trees of the Drowned Lands had vanished in the
night. The whip-poor-will that all evening had been mourning on the
hillside, and the loon that had called across the water, were hushed.
The faint stars looked down on the silent blackness of the woods and
the gray mists of the water beyond. But in those mists the lonely man
at the doorway could discern a picture--a scene the Book had just now
revealed to him. It was a weary group of Galilean fishermen
approaching the shore, after a night of fruitless toil, while on the
sands, shrouded in mists, stood One waiting for them in the dawn. One
man in the little boat, straining his eyes to discern that mysterious
Figure, suddenly felt his heart awake. He uttered in a thrilling
whisper, "_It is the Lord_!" And without waiting for a word of reply,
Peter, the disciple, who had so lately denied that One with curses,
flung himself headlong into the sea and swam straight to Him.
John McIntyre's heart swelled. Well he understood the feeling that
prompted Peter's act, for there was in his own homesick soul a longing
to do the same, to plunge through the sea of loss and disappointment
and go back to his denied Master. For this man's long night of storm
and stress and fruitless toil was almost over, too. All unknown to
himself, he had been slowly nearing the shore. The companionship and
artless devotion of the boy--his enemy's child, but his now by all the
rights of love--the kindness of the village folk in spite of rebuffs,
the young doctor's care, and, above all, the tender message of the Book
he had been constrained to read, had combined to guide him to the
harbor. Yes, he was nearing the shore, and though he had not yet been
able to discern Him through the night mists, there stood One waiting
for him just behind the dawn.
Long into the night he sat, filled with a feeling of expectancy. He
was half-consciously waiting for something, he knew not what.
Supposing that same One had been watching for him to return, all this
weary time of sorrow and rebellion? The thought made his breath come
quicker. Could it be possible? Could it be that the same Man who
stood that morning on the shore of Galilee was waiting for even
him--waiting with no rebuke for the curses and the denial, but only
with outstretched, crucified hands, and the tender question He had put
to that other faithless disciple, "Lovest thou me?"
A tear slipped down John McIntyre's hollow cheek, the first tear he had
shed since he and Mary had laid their last baby in its little grave.
It fell upon his toil-hardened hand unnoticed, for a resolution was
forming in his heart. He arose, stumbled hurriedly indoors, and lit
his lamp. He must look once more into that Book. He must find out at
once if this wonderful thing could be true, if life and happiness might
still be his. With trembling hands he took up the Bible, as though it
held for him a sentence of life or death, and turned over the leaves in
a groping way. His movements were like those of a man in darkness,
fumbling for a door that he hopes will lead him out into light and
freedom. He stopped and gazed at the open page with a great wonder in
his eyes. Perhaps he had been searching haphazard, or perhaps, under
Divine guidance, his fingers, so long familiar with those pages, had
gone unerringly to that marvelous story of the Fatherhood of God. For
this was the message:
"_And while he was yet a great way off his Father saw him and had
compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him._"
The Book dropped to the floor; John McIntyre sank to his knees beside
it, his gray head bowed to the ground. He uttered an inarticulate cry.
It was like the sound a babe utters when first it sees its mother's
face after a day's absence--a cry that contains both the anguish of
their separation and the joy of their reunion. He could form no
coherent prayer, but the supreme thought of his homing soul burst from
him: "My Father!" he sobbed, "my Father! I've been away! I've been
away!" How long he knelt thus he had no idea. But in that meeting
with his lost Master he lived through a supreme joy that far
outmeasured all the bitterness of the past. He was aroused by the
sound of footsteps near his door. Two figures were coming slowly up
the pathway. Half dazed, John McIntyre arose and went forward with the
lamp. As the light fell upon the two men he uttered an exclamation of
concern. Dr. Allen, pale and exhausted, and splashed with mud, was
standing there, supporting a staggering, half-drowned man.
"I found an old friend caught in the swamp," faltered the young man
weakly. "May I bring him in for a minute, Mr. McIntyre?"
"Yes! yes! Come in! come in!" cried John McIntyre, setting down the
lamp and hurrying forward with a chair. "I'll fix up the bed----" He
stopped suddenly and gazed stupidly at the stranger. His eyes dilated,
his face became overspread with the awe and wonder of some discovery
too great to be grasped. The chair fell from his hands with a crash.
He uttered a single word, and in it there was a world of unbelieving
joy and fear.
"Martin!" he whispered.
The stranger raised his drooping head. He stared in turn at the
stooped shoulders, the drawn face, and the white hair of John McIntyre,
and his strength seemed suddenly to return. He pushed Gilbert aside as
if he had been a child, and caught the man's shoulders in a mighty
grip. He held him away from him for a moment, and then broke into a
great sob:
"John! My God! old John! Have I found you?"
With a face of deep wonder, Gilbert slipped softly outside, closing the
door behind him. And as he looked toward the place where he had so
lately had a desperate struggle with death, he saw that the night mists
were slowly vanishing. The whole dark earth was awakening in one grand
bird-chorus, for the dawn was breaking over the Drowned Lands.