SUNSET CLOUDS.
A BEAM of setting sunlight came slanting through the lattice-window of
Nannie's tiny bedroom, and fell athwart her palliasse. She was lying
there as she had taken to doing lately, not undressed, but just resting
patiently, with one little thin hand folded over the other, and her
wistful eyes travelling to and fro over the bare walls and cobwebbed
ceiling. The gleam of red light brought a sudden look of pleasure into
her face.
"O it's pretty. Father, ain't it pretty?"
"Eh, Nan? Did yer call?" asked Amos, shuffling in hurriedly, in his
uncouth fashion.
"Ain't that a pretty bit of sunlight, father?"
Amos looked hard without discovering any particular beauty, but
said,—"Sure, yes, 'tis,"—in uncertain tones, wishing to humour her.
"Don't it seem long since Madge went down into the town?" said Nannie
with a sigh, as a tinge of deeper crimson crept into the red.
"Fortnight to-day," said Amos.
"And the pretty young lady is just as ill as ever," said Nannie
sorrowfully.
"Well, I don't know as she ain't better this afternoon, but Tyrrell he
telled me this mornin' that the doctors said if the fever didn't turn
soon, as how she'd die."
"Madge said I was to pray, didn't she?" said Nannie, putting the same
question which she had put twenty times before in the last fortnight.
Amos nodded. He could feel no possible doubt now that he had delivered
Madge Hardwicke's message faithfully.
"But maybe it 'ud be better for her, if she wasn't to get well," said
Nannie thoughtfully.
Amos did not feel himself called upon to hazard an opinion in the
matter. He waited a moment, and then, finding that she did not speak
again, went back to his bench. Nannie rose, and followed him out slowly.
"Eh, Nan,—so here yer are," said Amos, looking up. "Seems yer pickin'
up again."
Nannie smiled thought she did not acquiesce in words. "Will you have me
read to you, father?"
Amos could not refuse. She had fallen into the habit of reading a
chapter aloud to him, morning and evening, and though he never troubled
himself to listen particularly, he rather liked the sound of her voice.
It gave him a lulled sensation which was akin to repose, and therefore
agreeable.
So the little brown Testament came out, and Nannie read on for a while,
in her soft monotonous tones.
Amos worked steadily, and heard in a certain fashion, without paying
any close attention. When there came a pause, he looked up, and said,—
"Yer a clever Nan to read so pretty,—that's what yer be."
"Father, ain't the words beautiful?" said Nannie wistfully.
"Sure, yes," said Amos rather uneasily, for he had not the remotest
idea what they had been about.
"O father, I wish you cared," said Nannie sadly. "It don't seem to be
nothing to you. And I'd sooner have you love God, than anything else in
all the world."
The red gleams of sunlight faded away, as the sun dipped down behind
the horizon-line of the clear blue water,—not behind West Point at this
time of the year. The dark headland shone like burnished armour in the
yellow glow, till the evening shade crept over its brightness, and left
it gray and cold again. But the clouds were torn about in fantastic
shapes of wildest beauty; and every pyramid, peak, and mountain, up in
that watery land, was tinged or deeply dyed with crimson and purple
and gold. The very air seemed filled with a rich pervading red, and
Nannie's little white cheeks looked almost healthy for once, as she sat
there, with her eyes fixed on the wondrous view before her.
"Father," she said suddenly,—"don't you think it'll be like that when
He comes?"
"Eh?" said Amos, looking down at Nannie.
"He'll come in the clouds of heaven, you know," said Nannie softly.
"The Lord Jesus, father. He'll come riding in the clouds, with
thousands and thousands all in shining white coming after Him. O
father, I'd like so to hear the trumpet, and to see Him,—if only I just
knowed you'd be caught up with me to meet Him."
"Caught up?" said Ackman. She was talking a foreign language to poor
old Amos.
"Up in the air," said Nannie, her face shining as if it had caught a
reflection of the western sky. "All that's loved Him, you know, father.
He'll call up first them that's died, out of their graves, and then
all of us that's alive—we'll go up, up, through the air to meet Him.
And He'll make us beautiful like He is,—all in one moment. And oh,
father,—think how He'll smile!"
"Don't know," said Amos slowly, looking subdued. "Seems to me He
wouldn't do aught but frown on me, Nan, for nigh a-murderin' of you."
"O father! But He's died for you too, and He loves you," said little
Nannie confidently. "And He'll put His Spirit into your heart, if you
ask Him, and then you'll be quite different."
"Need be, sure enough," said Amos. "Why, Nan, I'd be awful feared to
see all you're a-telling me of." Something in the child's earnest face
and manner brought it home to the old man's heart, as it had never come
home before. His bony hands shook nervously, and his deep-set eyes
peered up at the clouds, as if he almost expected there and then to see
an avenging angel's sword flash forth through the radiant air.
"Maybe now, father, 'cause you don't know the Lord Jesus," said Nannie
gently. "I'd a deal of fear once too. I used to think dying in a bed
all quiet wouldn't be half so bad. It seemed to me as if the great
trumpet 'ud sound so awful—and then the bright light, and the ground
shaking, and Him coming in such glory, with the clouds and the angels,
and all the white shining and dazzling,—I was ever so feared to think
of it all."
"When you was naughty?" demanded Amos, with a glance towards his own
troubled conscience.
"Why—yes, father; and pretty near always that was too. It used to
seem to me as if I was so small and poor, that maybe among such a
lot as He'd have to catch up into glory, I'd just be forgotten and
left behind. But I know a deal better now. The Lord Jesus forget!
Why, father," and Nannie smiled a bright, almost amused smile,—"why,
father, 'twas the strangest thought ever anybody had, to think He could
'forget,' after dying for me."
Amos looked at her in wonder. How came this little child to know so
much, when he, an old man of many long and weary years, knew so little?
"And then I'll have the mark in my forehead, Madge says, for the angels
to know me," Nannie went on. "Maybe they'd know without, that the Lord
Jesus loved me, but that 'll make it all as sure as can be. And then,
you know, father, I don't see how I'll be able to be frightened, 'cause
it won't be a strange dreadful Judge coming, like He'll be to some
people, but only just my own Lord Jesus, that's loved me such a while.
I couldn't be frightened to see Him, could I? And Parson says He smiles
so on the little children. But,—oh, father, I'd be so happy if I didn't
be afraid He wouldn't be able to smile on you, 'cause you won't come to
Him now."
And Nannie put her head down on her father's knee, and burst into
tears. Old Amos was strangely moved. He could not bear to see Nannie's
distress, and he shrank in terror from the thought of what might come
upon himself. How could he, poor miserable old man, stained darkly
through and through with the unwashed sins of over three-score years,
dare to meet the Face of Kingly glory, for which little Nannie so
eagerly waited?
"I don't know nothin', Nan, but I'll do what you tells me," he said
brokenly. "Maybe your Lord Jesus wouldn't mind if I was to ask Him to
put me right somehow; only I don't know how, Nan. I be an awful wicked
old fellow, Nan."
"We'll come right in, and ask Him now, father," said Nannie, rising up
and pulling at his sleeve.
[Illustration: "Father!" A cold touch came upon his hand in the dark.
Amos started back violently in his fear.]
Amos was fain to follow her, though with a half-bewildered look. He was
too stiff himself to kneel, but he let little Nannie kneel beside him,
and plead in her simple earnest language, that "God would have mercy
on poor father, and send His Holy Spirit into father's heart, and wash
away all his sins in Jesus Christ's blood." And then Nannie looked up
and whispered, "Just say after me, father,—'For Jesus Christ's sake,
Amen;' 'cause that 'll mean you really wants it ever so."
"For Jesus Christ's sake, Amen," repeated Amos slowly, like one
stumbling out a few syllables in an unknown tongue. "Sure enough, an' I
do want it too. But I say, I don't feel different yet, like you said I
would be."
"Ah, but it'll come," said Nannie gently. "We'll go on asking till it
does."
Then Nannie kissed him, as she had often done of late, and went away to
her own room.
Amos crept after her in a little while, hardly knowing why, and found
her lying there in the twilight, with her hands folded together, and
her eyes looking up to the rough rafters overhead.
"What are yer a-seeing, Nan?" he asked half fearfully. Something in her
face gave him a strange feeling of uneasiness, for which he could not
account to himself.
"I'm only thinkin', father, how I'd like to hear the angels' song
to-night," said Nannie, smiling.
"Wish yer wouldn't talk like that," said Amos, fidgeting.
"Why, father,—they're singin' about you!" said Nannie.
Amos gave a startled look up and around, as if he expected to catch
an echo of the wondrous chorus. But the fretting of a bough against
the cottage-roof was the only sound which came to his ears; and rather
relieved, though disappointed, he said, "Yer a-dreaming, Nan; I don't
hear nothin'."
"They're singing," said Nannie quietly; "'cause the Bible says so,
father. Leastways, it says there's joy among the angels, you know,
soon's ever anybody turns to God."
Amos did not know anything about it, but he only asked, rather
fearfully, "Do you hear them, Nan?"
"No, father; not yet awhile," said Nannie. "Maybe I will soon."
And then she shut her eyes, and went peacefully off to sleep.
But Amos stood looking at her for some minutes, thinking how changed
she had grown of late. He wished Madge Hardwicke would come home, and
tell him whether she needed anything doing to her. She seemed to have
faded into such a white frail shadow of a child these last few days.
She never complained of pain, and only lay about because she was "so
tired." But somehow, Amos could not overcome the impression that all
was not quite right with her.
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