"_By That SAME TOKEN_"
This was the first step towards the return of the M'Phatter family to
St. Cuthbert's Church. I waited patiently, stepped carefully, and
endured cheerfully every hardship, from the bagpipes down; but all the
time I had before my mind that triumphant day when Donald and his
household would once more walk down the kirk's spacious aisle, like the
ransomed of the Lord who return and come to Zion with songs and
everlasting joy upon their heads.
One glorious summer evening I broached the matter to them both. It was
the pensive hour of twilight, and Donald had been telling me with
thrilling eloquence of a service he had once attended in St. Peter's
Church, Dundee, when the saintly M'Cheyne had cast the spell of eternity
about him. When he had got as nearly through as he ever got with his
favourite themes, I asked him to listen to me for a little, and not to
interrupt. He promised, and I talked on to them for an hour or more, the
twilight deepening into darkness, and the sweet incense of nature's
evening mass arising about us where we sat.
It was the hour and the season that lent themselves to memory, and I
armed myself with all the unforgotten years as I bore down upon their
hearts. The duty, the privilege, the joy of mingling with the great
congregation in united voice and heart to bless the Creator's name, all
this I urged with passionate entreaty.
"Oh, Donald," I cried at last, forgetting his seventy years and the
title those years deserved, "come back, come back, man, to the fountain
at which you drank with joy long years ago! Oh, Donald, it is springing
yet, and its living waters are for you. Years have not quenched their
holy stream, nor changed the loving heart of Him who feeds them. Donald
man, your pride is playing havoc with your soul. Are not the days
shortening in upon you? You saw the darkness fall since we sat down
together, and the night has come, and it is always night in the grave.
Man, hurry home before the gloaming betrays you to the dark.
"Do you not hear yonder clock ticking in the hall that same old song of
death, the same it sang, the night your father's father was born in the
glen, the same it wailed the night he died? It is none other than the
voice of God telling you that the night cometh fast. Oh, Donald, was it
not your mother who first taught you the way to that holy spring, even
as she taught your boyish feet the path to yonder babbling burn which
even now is lilting to the night? Donald man, be a little child again,
and come back before you die."
Then there was a silence deep as death, and we heard the crickets sing
and the drowsy tinkling on the distant hill. I spoke not another word,
for when a great Scotch soul is in revolution, I would as soon have
offered to assist at the creation as seek then to interfere. But I heard
his wife Elsie sobbing gently and I felt a tear on Donald's cheek. My
heart caught its distilling fragrance, like a bluebell on some
mountainside, and I knew that the seasons were exchanging in Donald's
soul, winter retreating before the avenging spring.