Say and Seal, Volume I

Faith came to the side of the bed. Little her quiet face shewed how she was trembling. In her soft sweet way she asked the sick woman how she did. And Mrs. Custers turned her head a little, and gazed up into the blooming face with strange, eager, feverish eyes—eyes that thirsted, but with no bodily thirst. Then she closed them again and turned her face away, but said nothing.

"Have you been sick long?" asked Faith.

She did not answer, then; though as if the tones of Faith's voice were making their way, there came presently a slight quiver of the face, and a bright drop or two that the closed eyelids could not quite keep back. But she was at that point of time where the fear of man has lost its power,—where the doctor loses his supremacy and visiters their interest: where men and things are pushed like shadows into the background, and the mind can see no object save "the great white throne." This was what the silence expressed,—it was not dislike, nor churlishness; but those surface questions failed to reach her where she stood. The next gentle and tender "What is the matter?"—was so spoken that it found her even there. Her eyes came back to Faith's face with the sort of look they had given before. And then she spoke.

"Where would you be going if you were lying where I be?"

Faith heeded not the doctor then, nor anything else in the world. She waited an instant; she had drawn herself up on hearing the question; then leaning forward again she said slowly, tenderly,

"I should be going—to be happy with my divine Redeemer. Are not you?"

"What makes you think you would?"

"Because I have his word for it," said Faith. "He says that whoever believes in him shall not perish, and that every one that loves him shall be with him where he is;—I believe in him and love him with my whole heart; and I know he is true. He will not cast me away." Slowly, clearly, the words were spoken; so that they might every one enter and be received by the ears that heard.

The woman looked at her,—scanned her, examined her,—looked down towards the foot of the bed at the doctor—then back at Faith.

"Do you believe all that?" she said.

"I know it!"—said Faith, with a tiny bit of joy-speaking smile.

Again that intent look.

"Well he don't," she said with a motion towards the doctor. "Which of ye am I to believe?"

"Don't believe either of us!" said Faith quickly, her look rather brightening than otherwise, though the play of her lips took a complicate character.—"Believe God! Don't you know his words?"

"I s'pose I do—some of 'em. I can't believe anything with him down there lookin' at me!" she said impetuously. "He said he didn't believe—and I keep thinkin' of that."

"Will you believe him, rather than God?—rather than the Lord Jesus, who came and gave his very life for us, to bring us to heaven. Do you think he would tell us anything but truth after that? His words are, 'He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.'"

"Well I'm most dead—" said the woman in a sort of cold, hopeless tone.

"Let Jesus make you live!" said Faith, in a voice as warm and loving.

"The doctor said he couldn't," she answered in the same tone as before. "He believes that, anyhow."

Faith answered,

"'My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.'"

That same little quiver passed over the face, but it changed into an irrepressible shudder.

"Sit down here on the bed," she said, looking up at Faith, "and put your face so I can't see his'n—and then you may talk."

And with that fair head for a screen, as if it really warded off some evil influence, Mrs. Custers lay and listened quietly for a while; but then her hands were clasped over her face, and she broke into a low sobbing fit—as if mind and body were pouring out their griefs together. Not loud, not hysterical; but weary, subdued, overpowering; until the utter exhaustion brought sleep.

Faith got off the bed then,—looked at her, looked at the doctor,—and then by an irrepressible feeling, sunk on her knees. Leave her, go out of the house with him, she could not, until she had put the cause of them all into the hand she knew her friend and wished theirs. A few moments' motionless hiding of her face, during which, as indeed during the whole conversation, Dr. Harrison was nearly motionless too, and used his eyes silently; and Faith rose from her knees. She gave another look at the poor weary face that lay there, and then led the way out of the house. The doctor followed her, having perhaps got more than enough of the result of his ride. But as he was unfastening his horses, or rather after he had done it and was waiting to hand her in, Faith addressed him.

"Dr. Harrison, on whose errand do you go telling that woman that God's word is not true?"

She spoke gently, yet as the doctor faced her he saw that her soft eye could be steady as an eagle's. He did not answer.

"Not for God's service," she went on answering herself,—"nor for yours. See to it!"

She turned and let him put her into the carriage and they set off again. But the drive homewards promised to be as silent as the drive out had been. The doctor was grave after another fashion now, with a further-down gravity, and scarce looked at anything but his horses; except when a glance or a hand came to see if Faith was well wrapped up from the wind, or to make her so. And either action was done not with his accustomed grace merely, but with even a more delicate tender care of her than ordinary. Faith was in little danger of cold for some time. Grief and loving sorrow were stirred and stirring too deeply for thought or feeling of anything else; only that beneath and with them her heart was singing, singing, in notes that seemed to reach her from the very harps of heaven,—

"I thank Thee, uncreated Sun,
That thy bright beams on me have shined!"

As they went on, however, and mile after mile was passed over again, and the afternoon waned, the wind clouds seemed thicker and the wind more keen; Faith felt it and began to think of home The horses felt it too, and perhaps also thought of home, for they travelled well.

"What are you meditating, Miss Derrick?" the doctor said at length, almost the first word he had spoken.

"I was thinking, just at that minute, sir, of the use of beauty in the world."

"The use of beauty!" said the doctor, looking at her; he would have been astonished, if the uppermost feeling had not been of relief. "What is its use? To make the world civilized and habitable, isn't it?"

"No—" said Faith,—"I should think it was meant to make us good. Look at the horses, Dr. Harrison!"

The carriage had turned an angle of the road, which brought the wind pretty strongly in their faces. The horses seemed to take it as doubtful fun, or else to be inclined to make too much fun of it. They were all alive with spirit, rather excited than allayed by their miles of quick travelling. The doctor tried to quiet them by rein and voice both.

"They get a little too much oats for the work they do," said he. "I must take them out oftener. Take care of this wind, Miss Derrick; I haven't a hand to help you. What's that?—"

'That' was a bunch of weeds thrown into the road just before the horses' heads, from over the fence; and was just enough to give them the start which they were ready for. They set off instantly at full run. The road was good and clear; the carriage was light; the wind was inspiriting, the oats suggestive of mischief. The doctor's boasted rein and hand with all the aid of steel bits, were powerless to stop them. In vain he coaxed and called to them; their speed increased every minute; they had made up their minds to be frightened, and plunged along accordingly. The doctor spoke once or twice to Faith, encouraging or advising her; she did not speak nor stir.

They were just hearing the brow of a hill, when an unlucky boy in the road, thinking to stay their progress, stepped before them and waved his hat over his head. Faith heard an execration from the doctor, then his shout to her, "Don't stir, Miss Derrick!"—and then she hardly knew anything else. The horses plunged madly down the hill, leaped carriage and all across a fence at the bottom of it, where the road turned, overthrew themselves and landed the doctor and Faith on different sides of the carriage, in a meadow.

The doctor picked himself up again, entirely unhurt, and going round to Faith lifted her head from the ground. But she was stunned by the fall, and for a few minutes remained senseless.

In these circumstances, no house being near, the doctor naturally shouted to a cap or hat which he saw passing along the road. Which cap also it happened belonged to Sam Stoutenburgh, who was on an errand into the country for his father.

If ever Dr. Harrison was unceremoniously put aside, it was then. Sam had come rather leisurely at first—then with a sort of flying bound which cleared the fence like a thistle down, he bore down upon the doctor, and taking up Faith as easily as if she had been a kitten, absolutely ran with her to a spring which welled up through the long meadow grass a few yards off. There the doctor found him applying the cold water with both gentleness and skill, for Sam Stoutenburgh had a mother, and her fingers had been so employed about his own head many a time.

"You're a handy fellow!" said the doctor with a mixture of expressions, as he joined his efforts to Sam's.—"That will do it!"—

For Faith opened her eyes. The first word was "Mother!"—then she sat up and looked round, and then covered her face.

"Are you hurt?" said Dr. Harrison after an instant.

"No sir, I think not—I believe not."

"Can you stand up?"

With the help of his hand she could do it easily. She stood silent, supported by him, looking on the prostrate horses and shattered curricle; then turned her grave eyes on the doctor.

"Don't stand too long, Miss Faith!" said Sam earnestly, with trembling lips too, for the manhood in him had not got very far. "Are you sure you're not hurt?"

"Sam!" said Faith giving her hand to him.—"I didn't know it was you who was helping me."