“God took thee in his arms, a lamb untasked, untried
He fought the fight for thee, He won the victory ; —
And thou art sanctified.”
As day after day passed quietly on, the Duncan began to hope, though with trembling, that they were destined to escape the sufferings which surrounded them on every side. But they were to enjoy no such happy immunity; the fiery trial had its work to do for them as for others, and they must needs pass through it. At first, however, it did not assume the form they most dreaded, but one to which they were already in some degree inured.
One morning Jamie returned from his master’s shop at an unusual hour; coming in with his blue bonnet pulled over his face, and his whole demeanor showing that something was amiss.
Janet, who was giving Archie and Effie their “morning pieces,” turned round, and uttered an exclamation of surprise.
“Maister dee’d this morn at the fourth hour, — God’s quid will be done!” said Jamie, uncovering his head.
“Wae’s me!” cried Janet, dropping her arms by her side. “There’s Our bread gave again.”
Little Effie began to cry; and Archie, who would not of course condescend to any such demonstration, certainly looked mournful enough. Both well knew what it was to want for bread.
“We’re no waur than mony ither puir folk,” said Jamie. “And we maun just thole it as we may, and thank the quid Lord wha hae keepit us frae the sickness.”
“It’s no true that we’re like the lave,” said Archie.’ “Ither puir folk ‘ill beg for bread and get it,-but the Duncans never beg;” and the boy held up his head proudly.
Nor did he say more than the truth. The Duncans had their faults; but they were brave and honest, as well as strongly attached to each other. The noble struggle made by James and Janet to keep the family together after their father’s death, had developed and strengthened these qualities. They had learned to endure privation cheerfully, to practice self-denial for each other’s sakes; and when things were at the worst, not to lose courage, but to look hopefully for better days.
It was now the time to put all these lessons into practice. Not poverty alone, but starvation, seemed before them. Most of the resources to which the poor betake themselves in the day of need were cut off by the state of the city. Provisions were at famine price, so that “mony people died with great scant and want of victuallis.” Employment could not be had; nor was it even easy to barter their clothes and furniture for food, on account of the terror of infection which everywhere prevailed. And yet they would not beg. Those who survived to tell the tale in happier times, found it difficult to understand how they lived on from day to day. As Jamie said, “they tholed it as they might.” Each spared the other, and Jamie, as far as possible, spared them all He was naturally somewhat of a despot, and his circumstances had fostered this tendency. His despotism now assumed the form of an obstinate determination to bear the worst of every privation himself; nor could Janet ever prevail on him to allow their scanty provisions to be divided on the good old principle of “share and share alike.” He always said he was a man, and “the lassies and the bairns maun be thocht on first.”
He was much less irritable and impatient than he had been when without employment on a former occasion. This was partly perhaps because Archie tried him less. The boy had a new interest now; and although not deeply impressed by what he heard, he still preferred a preaching at the East Port to a stolen game of play in the streets, or a visit to the quays.
The same influence told, and in a greater degree, upon every other member of the family. No sudden change took place in either Jamie or Janet; but both kept the words they heard, and pondered them in their hearts. What was more important, both prayed earnestly in secret; Jamie asking for light that he might find the Truth, while the burden of his sister’s cry was ever this, “O Lord, I beseech thee, pardon mine iniquity, for it is great.”
It was well for Mary Wigton that in this evil day her heart stayed itself upon the Lord. It caused her bitter grief to feel that she added daily to the privations of her kind and generous friends. Much did she ponder, and often did she pray that she might be shown some way out of the difficulty. But what was she to do I She could not, in the present state of things, hope to obtain any employment; especially as she had not, except the Duncans, a single friend in the city. Once or twice she thought of applying to Wilson; but she felt she could scarcely hope that a man who had treated her father with so much injustice would prove a friend to her in the time of need. Perhaps the idea would not even have occurred to her, were it not that she had frequently seen him amongst the crowd at the East Port, where he seemed not only an attentive, but sometimes a deeply affected listener. Still it did not appear to her that any good was likely to result from an application to him.
One morning she succeeded, to her great satisfaction in disposing of some little article of personal decoration, a relic of more prosperous times. Having purchased a loaf of bread, she brought it to the Duncans with a pleasant anticipation of Archie and Effie’s delight. But she had no sooner opened the door of their room than she drew back in surprise and alarm. Jamie stood at the window, shading his face with his hand. He did not notice her, but Archie, who was beside him, turned quickly round, and she saw that his eyes were red with weeping. Janet was in another part of the room, bending over Effie’s little bed. Before Mary could find breath to ask what was amiss, Archie touched his brother’s arm, and said softly, “It’s Mary.”
The young man started, and looked towards her, his face pale and quivering with emotion. In another moment he took her hand, led her from the room, and gently closed the door.
“Mary, lass,” he said, “we’re stricken very sain the bairn Effie, our youngest. Wae’s me! I didna think o’ fearing for her.”
Is it not often thus I Is not the keen arrow sure to smite us through some “joint in the harness,” at some point where we never thought of strengthening ourselves?
“Is she vera ill?” asked Mary.
Jamie shook his head. “I canna thole to part with her,” he said presently. “She was the wee bairn o’ the house, the bit plaything wi’ us a’. We fought through the hard times thegither, and kept her frae scaith and sorrow as we could. An’ noo — just in ane day, wi’ this cruel sickness — oh, Mary, it’s owre hard!”
“Oh, Jamie, dinna say that. It’s the Lord sends it. It’s his ain hand — ’ His ain gentill visitation that man cannot eke or paire,’ as guid Maister Wishart says.”
“It’s the Lord sends it?” repeated Jamie, and he raised his head and gazed upwards as one who earnestly looks for something he cannot see. “Does the Lord care aboitt us ava’?” At another time he would not have said thisobut in that moment of agony the gnawing doubt hidden far down in his heart rose to the surface, and forced’self into words.
“Is it the blessed Lord Jesus wha dee’d for us? Jamie, lad, he cares for us mair than we care for our ainsels.
He kens a’ about ye, and how loath ye are to part wi’ the bairn; and maybe — ” Here her own voice faltered, but after a moment she resumed, “I maun gang in to Janet.”
“Na, na! Dinna gae in — whaur’s the use?”
“Oh, Jamie, ye wadna say that! Is it to bid me awa’, and ye all in sic’ trouble?”
Jamie considered a moment, then opened the door. “Be it sae,” he said. “For guid or ill we maun bide thegither.”
Mary entered the sick room; and with that quiet self-possession which in a sick room is such a treasure, she spoke to Janet, and took counsel with her as to what they should do.
A physician seemed unattainable; but many panaceas, under the names of plague water, plague pills, plague elixir, and so forth, were popularly believed in, and might be purchased at a trifling expense. Most people maintained the sovereign efficacy of someone or other of these, nor was Janet any exception to the rule. She was very anxious to procure her favorite remedy; and the remainder of the sum obtained by Mary for her silver brooch was appropriated to this purpose. Archie was dispatched to the shop, and it is needless to say he did not linger upon this errand. But when he returned his little playfellow no longer recognized him. Her mind, like a shattered mirror, reflected only confused and broken fragments of the experience of her young life. She talked of merry games with Archie, of walks along the heathery slopes of the Law, of easy household tasks performed under Janet’s direction. But there ran through all, like a silver thread through some dark pattern, words of childlike trust in “the guid Lord Jesus, the blessed Savior.” Now and then it was a text of Scripture, or some simple saying out of one of the sermons she had heard, but oftener still the words were those of prayer.
At length there was a gleam of returning consciousness. Seeing her favorite brother beside her, she asked him to take her in his arms. Jamie did so, with a calm face but a heavy heart, for by this time they all “perceived that the Lord had called the child.”
“Effie, dear, do ye ken ye’re vera ill?” he asked.
The child’s blue eyes sought his wistfully, perhaps wonderingly. At last she said softly, “Yes.”
“Are ye no fear’t, darling?”
“What for? The Lord Jesus ‘ill take care o’ me.”
“What gars ye think that, bairnie?
“The minister tald me at the gate. The Lord Jesus loves me. But I’m unco tired, Jamie.”
The blue eyes closed wearily, the little head rested heavily upon Jamie’s shoulder; and it was not long before the tired child slept — that deep and quiet sleep from which they do not awake until the heavens be no more. Many who remained might have envied her that tranquil rest. “Short and narrow her life’s walk” had been; but long enough, since in its brief span she had found Christ, or rather, had been found of Him.
Type of a vast multitude whom in all ages the Good Shepherd has carried in his bosom; so keeping them in his love and tenderness, that their feet do not touch the waters of the dark river, nor their eyes even behold the conflict and the anguish through which others have to pass. Theirs is the crown almost without the cross. Thrice happy they! Yet happier still are those who have come out of great tribulation, because more closely conformed to the image of the Captain of their salvation, and more highly privileged to work and to suffer for Him.