Part 18 (1/2)
”What good would eighty years of 'offers' do, if there was no election to eternal life?”
”Nanna, your father was a child of G.o.d, and you have loved him from your youth upward.”
”Can that help Vala?”
”Even so. He keeps his mercy for children's children, to the third and fourth generation of them that fear him. Vala was in the direct succession of faith.”
”You know what her father and his folk have been?”
”Yes, I know.”
”Oh, why did my father let me marry the man? He should rather have tied me hands and feet, and cast me into the depths of the sea. He should have said to me, 'Nanna, you may have a bairn, and it may be a child of sin, and thus foreordained to h.e.l.l-fire.' Do you think then I would have wed Nicol Sinclair?”
”Ay, I think you would.”
”Do you believe that I was born for that end?”
”I think you had set your heart on Nicol at all risks.”
”At that time Nicol was in good favor with all folk.”
”You have told me that your father liked him not, and that he said many things to you against a marriage with him; so, then, if your heart had not been fully set on its own way, his 'no' would have been sufficient. If we heed not fathers and mothers and teachers, we should not heed, Nanna, no, not if one came from the dead to warn us.”
”That is an awful truth, David.”
”And one must speak truth to heal a wounded soul. If there be a canker in the body, you know well the doctor must not spare the sharp knife. But I would not put away hope for Vala--no, indeed!”
”Why, David? Oh, why?”
”Has she not kindred in His presence? Will He not remember His promise to them? Will they forget to remind Him of it? I think not so hardly of the dead.”
”David, I will tell you the last awful truth. I never could get the poor little one baptized,--things ay went so against it,--and she died without being signed and sealed to His mercy; that is the dreadful part of her death. I was ashamed--I was afraid to tell you before. O David, if you had stayed by Vala instead of going to that man, you might perhaps have won her this saving grace; but it was not to be.”
David almost fainted with the shock of this intelligence. He understood now the anguish which was driving Nanna into the grave; and he had no comfort to offer her, for Nanna seemed to make out a terribly clear case of rejection and of foreordained refusal.
”I was feared to ask Nicol to stand with the child when it ought to have been presented in the kirk,” she said.
”But your father?” asked David.
”I was feared to ask my father to stand in Nicol's place, lest it should make Nicol harder to me than he was. And,” she continued, weeping bitterly as she spoke, ”I thought not of Vala dying, and hoped that in the future there might be a way opened. If father had lived he would have seen to the child's right, but he was taken just when he was moving in the matter; and then Nicol grew harder and harder, and as for the kirk, he would not go there at all, and I had no kin left to take his place. Then the child was hurt, and I was long ill, and Nicol went away, and my friends grew cold, fearing lest I might want a little help, and even the minister was shy and far off. So I came out here with my sorrow, and waited and watched for some friend or some opportunity. 'To-morrow, perhaps to-morrow,'
I said; but it was not to be.”
”Nanna, you should have told me this before. I would have made the promises for Vala; I would have done so gladly. Surely you should have spoken to me.”
”Every day I thought about it, and then I was feared for what would happen when Nicol found it out. And do you not think that Matilda Sabiston would have sent him word that I had set you to do his duty? She would have twitted him about it until he would have raged like a roaring lion, and blackened my good name, and yours also, and most likely made it a cause for the knife he was ever so ready to use. And then, David, there are folks--kirk folks, and plenty of them--who would have said, 'There must be something wrong to set Nicol Sinclair to blood-spilling.' And Matilda Sabiston would have spoken out plainly and said, 'There is something wrong'--and this and that, and more to it.”
”And well, then?”
”Well, then, being Matilda, no one would have thought of contradicting her; for she gives much money to the kirk and the societies, and has left all she has to free slaves. No; there was nothing to be done but to thole and be quiet.”
”There might be some excuse for being quiet when Vala was not in danger, but when her life was going, why did you not send for the minister?”
”This is what happened; for, David, G.o.d's will must be done. No one came here but the doctor. On the second day he said, 'She is not very sick.' At his next visit he said, 'She will die.' Then I told him the child was not baptized, and prayed him to go for the minister. And he said he would certainly do so. But he was called here and there, and he forgot that day; and the next morning very early he went to the manse, and the minister had gone away; and the great storm kept him away for three days; so when he got back the message had been overlaid by many others.”