Now whether it was from an impulse of honesty towards her, or of justification of himself, I cannot tell, but he instantly returned:

"Do you know that his money is stolen?"

"If he stole it," she replied, "he will never steal again."

"He will never get another chance. He cannot get a situation now."

"I will work for both. It will only be me instead of him, and that's no difference; he belongs to me as much as I do to him. If he had only kept nothing from me, nothing of this would have happened.--Do come, Corney, while I am able to walk; I feel as if I were going to die."

"And this is the woman I was such a savage to last night!" said Mr.

Raymount to himself.

"Forgive me, Amy!" he cried, stretching out his arms to her. "I have behaved like a brute! To strike my son's wife! I deserve to be hanged for it! I shall never forgive myself! But you must forgive me for Christ's sake."

Long ere he had ended Amy was in his arms, clinging to him--he holding her fast to his bosom.

The strong man was now the weaker; the father and not the daughter wept.

She drew back her head.

"Come, Corney," she cried; "come directly! Out of your bed and down on your knees to your own blessed father, and confess your sins. Tell him you're sorry for them, and you'll never do them again."

Corney obeyed: in some strange, lovely way she had got the mistressship of his conscience as well as his heart. He got out of bed at once, went straight down on his knees as she told him, and though he did not speak, was presently weeping like a child. It was a strange group in the gray of the new morning--ah, indeed, a new morning for them!--the girl in the arms of the elderly man, and the youth kneeling at their feet, both men weeping and the girl radiant.

Gerald Raymount closed the door on his son and his son's wife, and hastened to his own to tell her all.

"Then surely will the forgiveness of G.o.d and his father take away Corney's disgrace!" said the mother.

The arrival of this state of things was much favoured by the severe illness into which Amy fell immediately the strain was off her. She was brought almost to death's door. Corney in his turn became nurse, and improved not a little from his own anxiety, her sweetness, and the sympathy of every one, his father included, with both of them. But such was her const.i.tution that when she began to recover she recovered rapidly, and was soon ready for the share lovingly allotted her in the duties of the house.

CHAPTER LIX.

THE MESSAGE.

But the precious little Mark did not get better; and it soon became very clear to the major that, although months might elapse ere he left them, go he must before long. It was the sole cloud that now hung over the family. But the parting drew nigh so softly and with so little increase of suffering, also with such a changeless continuance of sweet, loving ways, and mild but genuine enjoyment of existence, that of those who would most feel the loss of him, he only was thoroughly aware that death was at the door. The rest said the summer would certainly restore him; but the major expected him to die in the first of the warm weather. The child himself believed he was going soon. His patience, resting upon entire satisfaction with what G.o.d pleased, was wonderful.

"Isn't it nice, majie," he said more than once, in differing forms, "that I have nothing to do with anything--that there is no preparation, no examination wanted for dying? It's all done for you! You have just to be lifted and taken--and that's so nice! I don't know what it will feel like, but when G.o.d is with you, you don't mind anything."

Another time he said,

"I was trying, while you were resting, majie, to tell Saffy a dream I had; and when I had told her she said, 'But it's all nonsense, you know, Mark! It's only a dream!'--What do you think, majie?"

"Was it a dream, Mark?" asked the major.

"Yes, it was a dream, but do you think a dream is nothing at all? I think, if it is a good dream, it must be G.o.d's. For you know every good as well as every perfect gift is from the father of lights! He made the thing that dreams and the things that set it dreaming; so he must be the master of the dreams--at least when he pleases--and surely always of those who mind him!--The father of lights!" he repeated; "what a beautiful name! The father of all the bright things in the world!

Hester's eyes, and your teeth, majie! and all the shines of the fire on the things in the room! and the sun and the far-away stars that I shall know more about by and by! and all the glad things that come and go in my mind, as I lie here and you are sitting quiet in your chair, majie!--and sometimes at night, oh, so many! when you think I am sleeping! Oh, I will love him, and be afraid of nothing! I know he is in it all, and the dark is only the box he keeps his bright things in!

"Oh, he is such a good father of lights! Do you know, majie, I used to think he came and talked to me in the window-seat when I was a child!

What if he really did, and I should be going to be made sure that he did--up there, I mean, you know--I don't know where, but it's where Jesus went when he went back to his papa! Oh, how happy Jesus must have been when he got back to his papa!"

Here he began to cough, and could not talk more; but the major did not blame himself that he had not found the heart to stop him, though he knew it was not what is called _good_ for him: the child when moved to talk must be happier talking, and what if he died a few minutes sooner for it!--was born again rather! thought the major to himself--and almost added, "I would that my time were come!" For the child's and the soldier's souls had got nearer to each other, than were yet any two souls in that house in absolute love.

A great silent change, not the less a development, had been and was pa.s.sing in the major. Mark not only was an influence on him altogether new, but had stirred up and brought alive in him a thousand influences besides, not merely of things. .h.i.therto dormant in him, but of memories never consciously, operant--words of his mother; a certain Sunday-evening with her; her last blessing on his careless head; the verse of a well-known hymn she repeated as she was dying; old sc.r.a.ps of things she had taught him; dying little Mark gave life to these and many other things. The major had never been properly a child, but now lived his childness over again with Mark in a better fashion.

"I have had such a curious, such a beautiful dream, majie!" he said, waking in the middle of one night. The major was sitting up with him: he was never left alone now.

"What was it, Markie?" asked the major.

"I should like Corney to hear it," returned Mark.

"I will call him, and you can then tell it us together."

"Oh, I don't think it would do to wake Corney up! He would not like that! He must hear it sometime--but it must be at the right time, else he would laugh at it, and I could not bear that. You know Corney always laughs, without thinking first whether the thing was made for laughing at!"

By this time Corney had been to see Mark often. He always spoke kindly to him now, but always as a little goose, and Mark, the least a.s.suming of mortals, being always in earnest, did not like the things he wanted "to go in at Corney's ears to be blown away by Corney's nose!" For Corney had a foolish way of laughing through his nose, and it sounded so scornful, that the poor child would not expose to it what he loved.

Hence he was not often ready to speak freely to Corney--or to another when he was within hearing distance.

"But I'll tell you what, majie," he went on "--I'll tell _you_ the dream, and then, if I should go away without having told him, you must tell it to Corney. He won't laugh then--at least I don't think he will.

Do you promise to tell it to him, majie?"

"I will," answered the major, drawing himself up with a mental military salute, and ready to obey to the letter whatever Mark should require of him.

Without another word the child began.

"I was somewhere," he said, "--I don't know where, and it don't matter where, for Jesus was there too. And Jesus gave a little laugh, such a beautiful little laugh, when he saw me! And he said, 'Ah, little one, now you see me! I have been getting your eyes open as fast as I could all the time! We're in our father's house together now! But, Markie, where's your brother Corney?' And I answered and said, 'Jesus, I'm very sorry, but I don't know. I know very well that I'm my brother's keeper, but I can't tell where he is.' Then Jesus smiled again, and said, 'Never mind, then. I didn't ask you because I didn't know myself. But we must have Corney here--only we can't get him till he sets himself to be good!

You must tell Corney, only not just yet, that I want him. Tell him that he and I have got one father, and I couldn't bear to have him out in the cold, with all the horrid creatures that won't be good! Tell him I love him so that I will be very sharp with him if he don't make haste and come home. Our father is _so_ good, and it is dreadful to me that Corney won't mind him! He is _so_ patient with him, Markie!' 'I know that, Jesus,' I said; 'I know that he could easily take him to pieces again because he don't go well, but he would much rather make him go right'--I suppose I was thinking of mamma's beautiful gold watch, with the wreath of different-coloured gold round the face of it: that wouldn't go right, and papa wanted to change it, but mamma liked the old one best. And I don't know what came next.--Now what am I to do, majie?

You see I couldn't bear to have that dream laughed at. Yet I must tell it to Corney because there is a message in it for him!"

Whether the boy plainly believed that the Lord had been with him, and had given him a message to his brother, the major dared not inquire.

"Let the boy think what he thinks!" he said to himself. "I dare not look as if I doubted." Therefore he did not speak, but looked at the child with his soul in his eyes.

"I do not think," Mark went on, "that he wanted me to tell Corney the minute I woke: he knows how sore it would make me to have him laugh at what _he_ said! I think when the time comes he will let me know it is come. But if I found I was dying, you know, I would try and tell him, whether he laughed or not, rather than go without having done it. But if Corney knew I was going, I don't think he would laugh."

"I don't think he would," returned the major. "Corney is a better boy--a little--I do think, than he used to be. You will be able to speak to him by and by, I fancy."

A feeling had grown upon the household as if there were in the house a strange lovely spot whence was direct communication with heaven--a little piece cut out of the new paradise and set glowing in the heart of the old house of Yrndale--the room where Mark lay shining in his bed, a Christ-child, if ever child might bear the name. As often as the door opened loving eyes would seek first the spot where the sweet face, the treasure of the house, lay, reflecting already the light of the sunless kingdom.

That same afternoon, as the major, his custom always of an afternoon, dozed in his chair, the boy suddenly called out in a clear voice,

"Oh, majie, there was one bit of my dream I did not tell you! I've just remembered it now for the first time!--After what I told you,--do you remember?--"

"I do indeed," answered the major.

"--After that, Jesus looked at me for one minute--no, not a minute, for a minute--on mamma's watch at least--is much longer, but say perhaps for three seconds of a minute, and then said just one word,--'Our father, Markie!' and I could not see him any more. But it did not seem to matter the least tiny bit. There was a stone near me, and I sat down upon it, feeling as if I could sit there without moving to all eternity, so happy was I, and it was because Jesus's father was touching me everywhere; my head felt as if he were counting the hairs of it. And he was not only close to me, but far and far and farther away, and all between. Near and far there was the father! I neither saw nor felt nor heard him, and yet I saw and heard and felt him so near that I could neither see nor hear nor feel him. I am talking very like nonsense, majie, but I can't do it better. It was G.o.d, G.o.d everywhere, and there was no nowhere anywhere, but all was G.o.d, G.o.d, G.o.d; and my heart was nothing, knew nothing but him; and I felt I could sit there for ever, because I was right in the very middle of G.o.d's heart. That was what made everything look so all right that I was anxious about nothing and n.o.body."

Here he paused a little.