Hollowmell Part 7

"Yes, for you," said Minnie with a quiet confidence in her tone that carried with it a visible influence. "For every one who believes. Jesus came to call, not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He is calling you now. Won't you answer?"

"I can't, I can't. How can I who have never spoken his name except to profane it!"

"But G.o.d will forgive all that for His Son's sake. Don't you know that Jesus died that G.o.d might be able to forgive us all our sins?"

"I know nothing but that I am a sinner, and the wages of sin is death,"

she moaned in a voice that was momentarily getting weaker.

"But the gift of G.o.d is eternal life," added Minnie turning to the place in her Testament which she had brought. "See, those are the words that follow, you can read them for yourself."

She took the book and spelt out the words by the light of the candle which Minnie held up for her.

"You see," continued she, "the one is what you have earned what you must get if you persist in standing on your own merits--the other is a gift.

We get wages as we deserve them, but a gift has nothing to do with deserving. G.o.d gives us eternal life, not because we are worthy, but because Christ, our Saviour, has asked it for us--has earned it for us.

It is _His_ wages--the price of _His_ work. All we have got to do is to take it and trust Him for the rest."

There was nothing wonderful in the words Minnie used, they were at times a little disconnected, but they came straight from her heart with such evident conviction of their truth that they struck her hearers with a force that astonished them.

"Trust Him for the rest," repeated the dying woman. "Trust Him for the rest. Yes I will. You trust Him, I see that, and why should not I? I don't understand it quite yet, but He has said it, and I _will_ believe it."

After that she lay still for a long time, neither moving nor speaking, and scarcely seeming to breathe.

"Mabel," whispered Minnie, "I think we may leave her now. She seems at peace. I'll run in to Molly Gray's, and ask her to stay here with her during the night. Molly lives all alone since her father died, so it won't disturb any one."

"No need," said a voice behind her in a gruff whisper that startled her, "I'll stay with her myself."

She turned round and found herself face to face with the woman's husband, who had returned from the pit, and entering without their knowledge, had been a silent spectator of the scene.

"Pat!" cried the dying woman joyfully, as she heard his voice, "Oh, Pat, I am so glad you've come back in time to see me die in peace. You see I _can_ die in peace, and you need not mind the money you promised to save for ma.s.ses. I won't need any, for I am going straight to my Saviour.

He's waiting for me in Heaven, and He's here beside me now, and He'll be with me all the way. Oh, miss, pray for my husband and my children that they may come to know such joy as this!"

Minnie knelt down beside the bed, and involuntarily they all followed her example--the great, strong Irishman kneeling at the head beside his wife, her thin, white hands clasped in his rough brown ones. For some minutes the silence remained unbroken, and then Minnie's clear, sweet voice rose in earnest, supplicating tones for this family so soon to be bereaved.

Her prayer was short and simple, but it went straight to the hearts of her few listeners, touching and softening them with its heart-felt pathos, so that when they rose there were tears on every cheek, and even that of Charlie was not dry.

Directly after the visitors prepared to depart, Minnie promising to come down as early as possible the next morning. As they pa.s.sed out, after a few more parting words with the newly-born Christian, whom they were not likely to see again alive, Patrick Malone laid his hand on Minnie's arm to stay her, saying, "Won't you leave that with her?" pointing to the Testament.

"Gladly," replied Minnie, as she put it into his hand, then hurriedly taking it again she found and turned down the page at the fourteenth chapter of St. John, and directed him to read that to her.

"I will," he said, "and I'll give you the book to-morrow when--" but his emotion choked him and he could not proceed.

"Never mind," said Minnie, "Keep it for my sake and hers."

He thanked and blessed her again and again, and declared he would never part with it till the last day of his life, though the priest burned him for it, and then Minnie ran out to find Charlie and Mabel waiting for her in the rain.

They did not speak at all, till they reached the Kimberly's home, when Charlie said he would see Mabel home, and explain the cause of her absence to her friends, and Minnie bade her friend good-night with a very tired but happy face. Charlie came up the steps to open the door to her with his latch-key, and as she went in he stopped suddenly and kissed her on the forehead and then was gone.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Minnie did not sleep till she heard him come in softly and go into his room, and even after that she lay for hours thinking of all she had seen that night and rejoicing with the angels over the sinner who had during its early watches returned to her Saviour's arms.

Mabel, too, lay long awake that night, but her thoughts were very different from Minnie's. She was pondering over the spectacle of a soul entering into that peace from which she felt herself by some mysterious means shut out.

CHAPTER VI.

A DISPUTE SETTLED.

Next morning Minnie was down at Hollowmell before any one in that region was stirring. She had carried down with her a basket filled with provisions, feeling sure that under the sorrowful circ.u.mstances it would be required. She found, as she had expected, that Mrs. Malone was dead.

She died at about four o'clock in the morning, her husband informed Minnie, and her last words had been the words he had been reading to her from the fourteenth chapter of John, "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

He was sitting beside the remains of his wife with the book in his hand, as if he had never moved since the moment of her death, when Minnie entered.

He had really loved his wife with all the fervour of his pa.s.sionate Irish nature, and the remembrance that but for his intemperance, and his cruelty to her, when under the influence of drink, she might have still been alive and happy, had overcome him to such an extent that he had fallen into a half unconscious state, and did not seem to be able to realise anything except that she would speak to him no more.

Minnie could not wait then, so she ran into another cottage a little way further on, the door of which was already open, and finding the object of her search (Molly Gray) engaged in the preparation of her own breakfast, she told her of the calamity which had befallen the Malones, and begged her to go in and help them.

Molly only waited to refill her kettle that she might find it ready for any emergency, and carrying her own tea with her in a can wherewith to refresh the worn-out watcher, she at once repaired to the bereaved home.

Greatly relieved to be able to leave them under efficient care, Minnie hastened home, having first seen the grief-stricken husband swallow some tea, and a few mouthsful of bread, but she had no appet.i.te for her own breakfast, though she made a pretence of eating to escape comment, and rose to prepare for church without having tasted a morsel.

None knew of her last night's visit except her father and Charlie, and as her father did not mention it and Charlie had not yet appeared, she was not annoyed with the questions and expressions of wonder which she had hardly hoped to elude. Mabel was not at church, neither was she at school next day, an excuse being sent for her absence, stating that she was confined to the house with a slight attack of influenza. Minnie's excitement of Sat.u.r.day night, thus augmented by anxiety on her friend's behalf, now began to tell upon her, so much, indeed, that before the work of the school was over, every one observed its effect in her heightened colour, and the unnatural brightness of her eyes round which dark circles had formed. They all attributed it to Mabel's illness and did not think it necessary to enquire into the cause of her apparent feverishness, so that she got away from school also without being embarra.s.sed by troublesome explanations.

She went straight from school to Mabel's, running all the way in her anxious haste. The fresh wind and the exertion of running had a beneficial effect upon her, both physically and mentally, for by the time she arrived at Mr. Chartres' door, the feverish flush was replaced by a healthy glow, and the strange, indefinable feeling of restlessness which had all day possessed her, seemed to have been swept away by the breath of the wind.

Mabel was still in bed, her aunt informed Minnie, though in her opinion, she was considerably better, and requested her to go up herself to Mabel's bedroom.

Minnie needed no second invitation, but immediately flew upstairs, and opening the door softly, peeped in before she entered. She was lying with her eyes closed, but the opening of the door, quietly though it was done, caused her to unclose them again just as Minnie looked in. She looked very pale and exhausted, but brightened up wonderfully under the influence of Minnie's cheerfulness, and was altogether so much better by the time for her departure, that she felt persuaded she would be able to attend school again on the morrow.

"That notion about influenza, you know," she remarked confidentially to Minnie, "was nothing more than a delusion on aunt's part. I have really no more influenza than she as herself, but she must have some reason for my being ill, and there would be no use contradicting her, unless I could supply a reason myself, which I can't. I thought it just as well to let it be influenza as anything else."

Minnie agreed that perhaps it was, and conjuring her to "shake herself up" and be out to-morrow, departed.

That night, after tea she was sitting in the parlour with her two brothers, Archie and Seymour, the one of whom, Seymour, was older than she, and the other, Archie, a year younger.

"I say, Min," began Archie, "aren't you going to tell us what the row was on Sat.u.r.day night? What mysterious traffic is going on between you and Charlie? I was teasing him to tell me yesterday, but he was as silent as the Sphinx."

"And what if I intend to be as silent as that famous monument also?"

Asked Minnie.

"O, come now!" Replied he, in a coaxing tone, "you couldn't, you know, you're just dying to tell, as much as I am to hear what before-unheard of circ.u.mstance induced him to turn out on a Sat.u.r.day night, and a wet and stormy one too."

"Am I?" She asked, looking at him with a provokingly doubtful expression, but feeling rather nervous all the time. "Then I must congratulate you on being a great deal better acquainted with my state of mind than I am myself. I don't know how it is, but for my own part, I confess that I cannot find any indication of such a condition as you describe."

Here Seymour looked up.