THROUGH THE WATERS.
LETTIE settled down into her new home, slowly learning to love those
around her, and gradually becoming accustomed to the strange restraints
as to manner, behaviour, and speech, which at first were most irksome,
after her past life of freedom in such matters. The little neglected
mind was opening now to the enjoyment of beauty and happiness, where at
first all had seemed a blank. Leveson Therlock knew by this time how
much more ignorant and neglected they would have found her, but for the
simple efforts of old Job Kippis during many months.
The next few weeks were busy ones, for Mrs. Therlock had all sorts
of plans for helping the Forsyths, and Lettie's greatest delight was
in seeing those plans carried out. Hor's long-standing wish to go to
sea was at last to be fulfilled, and when the boy, in a fervour of
excitement on hearing the good news, rushed off to Job Kippis, he
listened patiently to the old man's grave rebuke.
"Will ye say now, boy, that God don't care for ye,—aye, though ye don't
deserve He should? Kind to the unthankful and evil He be, but take care
ye don't tempt Him too far, or maybe He'll see fit to withdraw His
mercies from you."
The Forsyths were no longer to live on in their miserable home. Two
or three airy rooms were found for them in an airy street, at a short
distance, and were simply furnished by Mrs. Therlock, who undertook
also to pay a portion of the rent. Through Leveson's efforts, regular
work was procured for John Forsyth, and the next move was, by dint of
much exertion and great correspondence, to place the half-witted boy,
Roger, in an idiot asylum.
Things began, as Esther said, to "look up" with them once more. She was
able again to take a pleasure in neatness and respectability, and her
careworn look gave place to health and cheerfulness. The measure dealt
out to little Lettie in her friendless days was amply repaid—"good
measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over."
There were plans also for Job Kippis and Ailie. Mrs. Therlock was going
soon with her two little girls to live in her country house, and a tiny
lodge close to the garden gate would just do for Job. Ailie should go
to the village school, and learn to read and write and work, and when
at home should take her share in opening the gate, and should be her
grandfather's little housekeeper. For a while it seemed as if the plan
might come to pass, and how eagerly the three children discussed it in
all its bearings need scarcely be told.
Job did not seem to count upon it much himself, however. He had rallied
slightly from his weakness, but never enough to be moved from the old
garret. He liked to hear the little ones talking of their country home,
and would listen to their anticipations, but he did not join in them
for himself.
"No, deary, I thinks not," he would say, when Ailie wanted him to look
forward as they were doing. "We'll wait an' see, but somehow I've a
thought that 'tain't that sort o' country I'll be going to."
And gradually the truth broke upon them all, that it was even so. Job
Kippis, the brave old soldier, who had battled so cheerily through his
long troubled life, was going to another and farther Land.
They did not think the change so near as it was. But one rough February
evening, a message came to Leveson Therlock, home on a brief visit,—a
message sent by Ailie.
"Grandfather was worse."
Nothing but those three words, implying the need of Leveson's
presence,—and he went.
Job lay there quietly, in his narrow garret, with brown hands clasped
across his chest, as often of late, and a look of wondrous rest upon
his furrowed brow, while Ailie crouched, trembling, beside the bed. He
glanced up cheerily as Leveson came in.
"It's a stormy night," he said. "I scarce thought I'd see you, sir, but
Ailie she said you was at home, an' she knowed you'd wish we should
send."
"Ailie was right," said Leveson. "It must have been a storm indeed that
could have kept me back if you needed me. How are you to-night?"
He looked downwards, smiling still, with a little motion of his hand
towards the floor. "Waters of Jordan washin' all round me, sir, but I
ain't out o' my depth yet."
"And you will not be," said Leveson, "so long as you lean on your
Guide. Don't look at the water like Peter, but look to His Face."
"I'll see it soon,—as plain as I see yours," said Job.
"Would you like me to pray with you?"
"Sure an' I would, sir, if 'tain't troublin' you,—not as that's
likely," he added. "I'm not feared. But if 'tis all the same to you,
sir, I'd rather have the prayers I knows, an' not the Visitation of the
Sick, nor no new one. My head's a bit weak, an' I'll follow the old
words easiest."
So the old-grand sweet words, offered up by tens of thousands before
him through hundreds of years past, now sounded reverently in Leveson's
deep voice. They seemed to fill the little garret with an atmosphere of
peace, and to bring a ray of measureless trust upon Job's face, as he
lay again with his clasped hands.
"Aye, that be it," he said at the close in an undertone. "Strayed an'
wanderin',—leavin' undone things I ought to ha' done, an' doin' things
I ought to ha' left undone,—a poor miserable offender first to last.
But He 've forgiven me,—blessed be His Name."
Then Job was quiet awhile,—as if asleep. Presently looking up, he said,
"He 've been a good Master,—a good Master,—lovin' right to the end."
"And how in the day of trouble, and failure, and almost starvation?"
asked Leveson. "Had He forsaken you then? Did your faith stand out
then?"
"Sure an' if it didn't, 'twas I that failed, an' not He. Trust
Him!—Aye, don't I? Little Ailie—"
She came closer, sobbing, and he put his hand over hers.
"Don't ye ever forget that. Trust Him whatever He do to ye—whatever.
Don't ye ever question an' doubt. His dealings with ye are all love,
an' faithfulness, an' tenderness, from beginning to end. Maybe He'll
let ye wander alone, and be half-starved again as He's done afore. It's
all love, I tell ye. Just cling to Him, an' He'll be with ye through
all. He'll never leave ye. He's never left me,—an' never will."
Once more there came an interval of silence, as Job lay with that same
smile upon his face, and no fear at his heart, no words of doubt upon
his lips. He knew his Master. Through long years he had proved His
love. And now that the last trial of life had come, he was troubled by
no dread.
"Aye, I'll die here," he said, speaking when they thought him past
speech. "Up in the old garret. Didn't think somehow all along that I'd
be let go to the country. I'd learn to love this world then maybe, an'
that 'ud be a pity, wouldn't it? I don't love it now, nor want nothin'
more."
Nothing more on earth. He had nothing more,—except peace at the last.
Slowly, as night crept by, he grew weaker. Jordan's waters were around
him, playing over him, dashing about him, rising higher and higher as
he went deeper into the flood. But he never sank, never wavered, never
struggled. Passing calmly through their midst, with his Master by his
side, he forded all the waves, and never lost his footing. And as the
first gray tint of dawn was shining in the east, over the house-tops
across the way, Job reached the Other Side.
He was only a poor old tailor, living up in a garret, in London's
dreariest quarter! But from the midst of squalor and misery, rags and
dirt, sounds of contention and anger, voices of sorrow and pain,—he
passed to glory and joy unending, to be a king and a priest for ever
before the throne of God.
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