THE KING'S MESSENGER.
TIRED as he was, the old clerk determined to carry the good news to
Matthew Reardon as he went home.
"Poor fellow!" thought he. "Who knows but what it may cheer him up a
bit."
Having never been there before, it took him some time to find the home,
together with that particular portion of it in which the Reardons lived.
"If it's Matthew Reardon you want," exclaimed a young girl, who was
standing at the foot of the stairs, wrapped in a thin coloured shawl,
which scarcely concealed her ragged dress, "he's just gone out, and his
wife with him. I wonder you didn't hear him cough. A regular churchyard
cough it is, and no mistake."
"I am sorry that he should have been obliged to go out in the cold,"
said Marshall.
"For the matter of that," replied the girl, "poor people can't afford
to be particular. It's kill or cure with them!"
"And suppose it should prove to be the former—what then?" asked
Marshall.
"Why, they must die, to be sure;" and the girl laughed lightly.
"And after that?" persisted the old man.
"I don't know," was the reply. "It won't bear thinking about."
"The Bible tells us," continued Marshall, "that he who believeth on the
Son hath everlasting life, and that he who believeth not the Son, shall
not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him."
"The wrath of God!" repeated his companion, shivering as she spoke. "It
is a hard saying!"
"But then the remedy is so easy. You will find them both together in
the Bible—
"'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.'"
"You are not a parson—are you?" asked the girl after a pause.
"No," said he, smiling as he spoke, "I am only a poor man. But I have
a kind and loving Master and, somehow, I can't help talking of Him
wherever I go."
"Does he live near here? If I may make so bold as to ask?" demanded his
companion.
"He is always near to those who seek Him."
"And his name?"
"The Lord Jesus Christ," replied the old clerk, reverently uncovering
his grey head as he spoke.
"Was it your Master who sent you here to-night?" asked the girl.
"I do believe it was, now that you remind me of it, my poor child,
unbeknown as it were, and I thinking all the time that I was going
on my own errands. It is a way the dear Lord often has of answering
prayer. Truly His ways are not our ways nor His thoughts our thoughts."
His companion looked as if she neither understood or heeded his last
words.
"No man can serve two masters!" said she. "It's in the book you told
me of just now. I used to read it years ago when I was a child;—but I
have forgotten it, for the most part, since then,—and I don't want to
remember!"
She passed the corner of her thin shawl over her eyes as she spoke, and
ran hastily up the wide staircase before Marshall could utter a word in
reply, pausing a moment at the first landing to point out the room in
which the Reardons lived.
"You may hear the children singing," said she, "if you like to listen.
I often do as I go past at night. They are locked in now. They are a
proud set—those Reardons—but it's my belief that they want a friend,
bad enough, poor things!"
She passed on quickly as she spoke, and disappeared in the darkness
beyond, while the old clerk, after lingering a moment to listen to
the children singing their little hymns, retraced his steps somewhat
wearily, and prepared to return home.
No one who saw Peter Marshall that night with his hat bent down over
his eyes, and his coat collar turned up to keep out the cold, walking
with slow and feeble steps, hesitating when he came to a crossing, and
praying, doubtless, like Polly and Bessie, before he attempted to go
over, and pushed, and jostled by the busy crowd, would have taken him
to be the messenger of a great King.
The old clerk never thought to notice as he stood outside, on the cold
landing, listening to Polly and Bessie, singing their simple hymns,
that their young voices were low and tremulous. The poor children,
although they knew that the door was safely locked, so that nothing
could get in to hurt them, did not like to be left alone. They were
afraid, and then, as children have a habit of doing at such times, they
began to sing, somewhat faintly at first, until the sound of their own
voices, or, it may be, the sweet words of the hymn, gave them courage,
and they never left off until they had sung all they knew.
Bessie was the first to break the silence that followed. "Isn't it time
father and mother came home?" asked she.
"I should think it was," replied Polly. "They are sure not to be longer
than they can help, on account of father's cough. You are not tired,
are you, Bessie?"
"No," answered the child; "but I wish they'd come. I don't like being
left alone—I don't mind it so much since teacher told us about the Good
Shepherd and the hired shepherd."
"Hireling," suggested her sister.
"It's all the same," continued Bessie.
"Don't you recollect what she said about the hireling shepherd who saw
the wolf coming, and ran away? And about Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who
laid down His life for the sheep—and about you and me, Polly, being His
little lambs? I don't believe that He will let the wolf get in and hurt
us."
"Perhaps it has gone away," said Polly.
"No; I heard it last night when the wind was blowing so hard. Teacher
said that it always came out at night, or on dark cloudy days. I should
not wonder," added she, in a whisper, "but what it is prowling about on
the stairs at this moment."
"Somehow," said Polly, after a pause, during which the frightened
children had drawn closer to each other, "I often think that it can't
be a real wolf."
"You heard what father said about it," replied Bessie.
"But then he smiled, and so did mother."
"Mother did not want us to get frightened," said Bessie. "That was why
she asked father not to say anything more about it."
Polly looked puzzled, and proposed that they should go on singing, but
Bessie declared she could not sing any more that night, and suggested
that they should kneel down instead, and ask the Good Shepherd to be
pleased to take care of them and their parents, and to keep the wolf
from the door.