When the Leslies set up house, eighteen years before, Margaret received
them on their return from their ten days' wedding tour in the Lake
District, and she was careful to ask in the evening whether Mr. John
would like prayers before or after breakfast next morning. She
also produced a book of family prayers, which she had purchased in
anticipation of the sole difficulty which is understood to prevent the
majority of male householders from having worship in their homes, and
asked her young master and mistress to accept it from her. So it came
to pass that owing to Margaret there were always morning prayers at the
Leslies'; and in observance of a custom begun when there were just the
three in the little house of Islington, fighting the battle of life
together, the chapter was read round, each person taking one verse in
turn. To-night Leslie divided his time between short snatches of sleep,
when he dreamt of funerals in which Margaret departed sitting beside the
driver of the hearse, while a mourning coach followed with her luggage
on the roof, and long periods of wakefulness when he regarded next
morning's prayers with dismay. Was there a special prayer for a servant
leaving her household after eighteen--no, thirty-four years' faithful
duty; and if there was not, could he weave in a couple of sentences
among the petitions? At half-past six he was certain that he could not,
and was ashamed at the thought that with that well worn prayer-book
of Margaret's before him he would allow her to depart without a
benediction, when he was visited quite suddenly, he declares, with the
most brilliant inspiration of his life. He leaped from bed and lit the
gas in hot haste, as poets are said to do when the missing word to rhyme
with Timbuctoo flashes upon the mind.
“Florence, please tell me something”; and Mrs. Leslie saw her husband
standing by her bed in poorly concealed excitement. “Where are those
words that were sung at the sacred concert: 'Intreat me not to leave
thee'? I want to know at once; never mind why. Ruth? Thanks so much,” and
the noise he made in his bath was audible through the wall, and was that
of a man in hot haste.
When Mrs. Leslie came down, her husband had a marker in the Bible
projecting six inches, and was checking certain calculations on a sheet
of paper with much care.
“Morning, Jack--slept well--not very? That's right, I mean I'm very
sorry, must have been the pudding. Not there, for any sake; sit here,
and, let me see--Florence, where are you wandering to? Take this chair.
Six, seven, eight... seventeen, yes, that's Margaret. Now ring the
bell.” And Mrs. Leslie could only look at Leslie in silence, while Jack
felt that the firmament was being shaken that day, and one catastrophe
more did not matter.
“We shall read,” said the head of the household in a shaky voice,
“from--eh--the--eh--Book of Ruth, the first chapter and the sixth
verse”; and as soon as his wife saw the passage she understood, and so
did Margaret.
Round the circle went the verses--Leslie very nervous lest he should
have miscalculated--till Jack read:
“'And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from
following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou
lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my
God.'”
Then it came to Margaret, and she began bravely, but soon weakened:
“Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried... the Lord do
so to me, and more also, if ought but death... part...”
“Let us pray,” said Leslie; and it is his fixed belief that, having lost
the place, he read the prayer for the close of the year and making an
attempt to right himself landed in a thanksgiving for the gift of a
new-born child; but nobody is certain and nobody cared.
“I ought to go,” said Margaret, standing very white by the sideboard
after the other servants had left the room, “and it would be better for
you all, whom I love, that I should go; but... I cannot, I can...”
“Dear old Magsibus,” and Jack had her round the waist before she could
say “not” again, or even explain, as she did afterwards, how good a
woman the housemaid was, and how much she would miss her; and as Mrs.
Leslie thought of the days they had been together, the saving the lad
from death and many another deed of loyal, ungrudging service, she
did that which was contrary to every rule of household discipline. But
Leslie could not have seen his wife kiss Margaret, for his back was
turned, and he was studying the snow-covered garden with rapt attention.