Part 22 (1/2)

And David's face shadowed, and he did not lift up his hand; also, if the whisper in his heart had been audible, John Priestly would have heard him say, ”What is the use of prayer? The Lord has cast me off.”

But John did not try the strength of his patient further at that time. He sat by his side, and laid his hand upon David's hand, and began to repeat in a slow, a.s.suring voice the One Hundred and Third Psalm. Its familiar words went into David's ears like music, and he fell sweetly asleep to its promises. For, though men in their weakness and haste are apt to say, ”The Lord hath forgotten to be gracious,” they who have but once felt his love, though dimly and far off, cannot choose but trust in it, even to the grave.

And souls fraternize in their common exile. John Priestly loved the young man whom he had saved, and David felt his love. As he came fully back to life the past came clearly back to memory. He remembered Nanna as those who love white jasmine remember it when its starry flowers are gone--with a sweet, aching longing for their beauty and perfume. He remembered those terrible days when physical pain had been acute in every limb and every nerve, when he had fainted with agony, but never complained. He remembered his lonely journey to the grave's mouth, and the dim human phantoms who had stood, as it were, afar off, and helped and cheered him as best they could. And he understood that he had really been born again: a new lease of life had been granted him, and he had come back to earth, as so many wish to come back, with all his old loves and experiences to help him in the future.

If only G.o.d would love him! If only G.o.d would give him ever so small a portion of his favor! If he would only let him live humbly before him, with such comfort of home and friends as a poor fisherman might have! He wondered, as he lay still, what he or his fathers had done that he should be so sorely punished. Perhaps he had shown too great partiality to his father's memory in the matter of Bele Trenby. Well, then, he must bear the consequences; for even at this hour he could not make up his mind to blame his father more than his father had blamed himself.

And as he lay watching the waving of the green trees, and inhaling the scent of the lilies and violets from the garden below him, he began to think of Shetland with a great longing. The bare, brown, treeless land called him with a hundred voices, and thoughts of Nanna came like a small bird winging the still, blue air. For sorrow can endear a place as well as joy; and the little hut on the bare moor, in which he could see Nanna working at her braiding or her knitting, was the spot on all the earth that drew his soul with an irresistible desire.

Oh, how he wanted to see Nanna! Oh, how he wanted to see her! Just to hold her hand, and kiss her face, and sit by her side for an hour or two! He did not wish either her conscience or his own less tender, but he thought that now, perhaps, they might be cousins and friends, and so comfort and help each other in the daily trials of their hard, lonely lives.

One day, when he was much stronger, as he sat by the open window thinking of these things, John Priestly came to read to him. John had a faculty of choosing the sweetest and most comfortable portions of the Book in his hand. This selection was not without purpose. He had learned from David's delirious complainings the intense piety of the youth, and the spiritual despair which had intensified his sufferings. And he hoped G.o.d, through him, would say a word of comfort to the sorrowful heart. So he chose, with the sweet determination of love, the most glorious and the most abounding words of the divine Father.

David listened with a reserved acceptance. It was in a measure a new Scripture to him. It appeared partial. When John read, with a kind of triumph, that the Lord ”is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that _any_ should perish, but that _all_ should come to repentance,”

David made a slight movement of dissent; and John asked:

”Is not that a n.o.ble love? Thee believes in it, David?”

”No.”

The word was softly but positively uttered.

”What then, David?”

”'Some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death; and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished.'” And David quoted these words from the Confession of Faith with such confidence and despair that John trembled at them.

”David! David!” he cried. ”Jesus Christ came to seek and to save the lost.”

”It is impossible for the lost to be saved,” answered David, with a somber confidence; ”only the elect, predestined to salvation.”

”And the rest of mankind, David? what of them?”

”G.o.d has been pleased to ordain them to wrath, that his justice may be satisfied and glorified.”

”David, who made thee such a G.o.d as this? Where did thee learn about him? How can thee love him?”

”It is in the Confession of Faith. And, oh, John Priestly, I do love him! Yes, I love him, though he has hid his face from me and, I fear, cast me off forever.”

”Dear heart,” said John, ”thee is wronging thy best Friend.”

”If I could think so! Oh, if I could think so!”

”Well, then, as we are inquiring after G.o.d, and nothing less, is it not fair to take him at his own word?”

David looked inquiringly at John, but made no answer.

”I mean, will it not be more just to believe what G.o.d says of himself than to believe what men,--priests,--long ago dead, have said about him?”

”I think that.”