An Orkney Maid by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (classic book list TXT) 📖

And these words fell like heavenly dew on every heart. There was no comfort and honour greater than this to offer even a mother's heart. A happy sigh greeted the blessed verses, and there was no occasion to speak. There was no word that could be added to it.

Then Ian had a happy thought for before a spell-breaking word could be said, he stepped softly to the piano and the next moment the room was ringing with some noble lines from the "Men of Harlech" set to notes equally stirring:


"Men of Harlech, young or hoary,
Would you win a name in story,
Strike for home, for life, for glory,
Freedom, God and Right!

"Onward! 'Tis our country needs us,
He is bravest, he who leads us,
Honour's self now proudly leads us,
Freedom! God and Right!
Loose the folds asunder!
Flag we conquer under!
Death is glory now."


The words were splendidly sung and the room was filled with patriotic fervour. Then the Bishop gave Ragnor and Thora a comforting look, as he asked, "Who wrote that song, Ian?"

"Ah, sir, it was never written! It sprang from the heart of some old Druid priest as he was urging on the Welsh to drive the Romans from their country. It is two verses from 'The Song of the Men of Harlech.'"

"In olden times, Ian, the bards went to the battlefield with the soldiers. We ought to send our singers to the trenches. Ian, go and sing to the men of England and of France 'The Song of the Men of Harlech.' Your song will be stronger than your sword."

"I will sing it to my sword, sir. It will make it sharper." Then Rahal said, "You are a brave boy, Ian," and Thora lifted her lovely face and kissed him.

Every heart was uplifted, and the atmosphere of the room was sensitive with that exalted feeling which finds no relief in speech. Humanity soon reacts against such tension. There was a slight movement, every one breathed heavily, like people awakening from sleep, and the Bishop said in a slow, soft voice:

"I was thinking of Boris. After all, the dear lad may return to us. Surgeons are very clever now, they can almost work miracles."

"Boris will not return," said Rahal.

"How can you know that, Rahal?"

"He told me so."

"Have you seen him?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"On the afternoon of the eleventh of this month."

"How?"

"Well, Bishop, I was making the cap I am wearing and I was selecting from some white roses on my lap the ones I thought best. Suddenly Boris stood at my side."

"You saw him?"

"Yes, Bishop. I saw him plainly, though I do not remember lifting my head."

"How did he look?"

"Like one who had just won a victory. He was much taller and grander in appearance. Oh, he looked like one who had realized God's promise that we should be satisfied. A kind of radiance was around him and the air of a conquering soldier. And he was my boy still! He called me 'Mother,' he sent such a wonderful message to his father." And at the last word, Ragnor uttered just such a sharp, short gasp as might have come from the rift of a broken heart.

"Did you ask him any question, Rahal?"

"I could not speak, but my soul longed to know what he was doing and the longing was immediately answered. 'I am doing the will of the Lord of Hosts,' he said. 'I was needed here.' Then I felt his kiss on my cheek, and I lifted my head and looked at the clock. It had struck three just as I was conscious of the presence of Boris. It was only two minutes past three, but I seemed to have lived hours in that two minutes."

"Do you think, Bishop, that God loves a soldier? He may employ them and yet not love them?"

Then the Bishop straightened himself and lifted his head, and his face glowed and his eyes shone as he answered, "I will give you one example, it could be multiplied indefinitely. Paul of Tarsus, a pale, beardless young man, dressed as a Roman soldier, is bringing prisoners to Damascus. Christ meets him on the road and Paul knows instantly that he has met the Captain of his soul. Hence forward, he is beloved and honoured and employed for Christ, and at the end of life he is joyful because he has fought a good fight and knows that his reward is waiting for him.

"God has given us the names of many soldiers beloved of Him--Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, David, etc. What care he took of them! What a friend in all extremities he was to them! All men who fight for their Faith, Home and Country, for Freedom, Justice and Liberty, are God's armed servants. They do His will on the battlefield, as priests do it at the altar. So then,


"In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,
Be not like dumb driven cattle,
Be a hero in the strife!"


"We were speaking of the bards going to the battlefield with the soldiers, and as I was quoting that verse of Longfellow's a few lines from the old bard we call Ossian came into my mind."

"Tell us, then," said Thora, "wilt thou not say the words to us, our dear Bishop?"

"I will do that gladly:

"Father of Heroes, high dweller of eddying winds,
Where the dark, red thunder marks the troubled cloud,
Open Thou thy stormy hall!
Let the bards of old be near.
Father of heroes! the people bend before thee.
Thou turnest the battle in the field of the brave,
Thy terrors pour the blasts of death,
Thy tempests are before thy face,
But thy dwelling is calm above the clouds,
The fields of thy rest are pleasant."

"When I was a young man," he continued, "I used to read Ossian a good deal. I liked its vast, shadowy images, its visionary incompleteness, just because we have not yet invented the precise words to describe the indescribable."

So they talked, until the frugal Orcadian supper of oatmeal and milk, and bread and cheese, appeared. Then the night closed and sealed what the day had done, and there was no more speculation about Ian's future. The idea of a military life as a school for the youth had sprung up strong and rapidly, and he was now waiting, almost impatiently, for it to be translated into action.

A few restful, pleasant days followed. Ragnor was preparing to leave his business for a week, the Bishop was settling some parish difficulties, and Ian and Thora were permitted to spend their time as they desired. They paid one farewell visit to their future home and found an old woman who had nursed Thora in charge of the place.

"Thou wilt find everything just so, when you two come home together, my baby," she said. "Not a pin will be out of its place, not a speck of dust on anything. Eva will always be ready, and please God you may call her far sooner than you think for."

The Sabbath, the last Sabbath of the old year, was to be their last day together, and the Bishop desired Ian to make it memorable with song. Ian was delighted to do so and together they chose for his two solos, "O for the Wings of a Dove," and the heavenly octaves of "He Hath Ascended Up on High and Led Captivity Captive." The old cathedral's great spaces were crowded, the Bishop was grandly in the spirit, and he easily led his people to that solemn line where life verges on death and death touches Immortality. It was Christ the beginning, and the end; Christ the victim on the cross, and Christ the God of the Ascension! And he sent every one home with the promise of Immortality in their souls and the light of it on their faces. His theme had touched largely on the Christ of the Resurrection, and the mystery and beauty of this Christ was made familiar to them in a way they had not before considered.

Ragnor was afraid it had perhaps been brought too close to their own conception of a soul, who was seen on earth after the death of the body. "You told the events of Christ's forty days on earth after His crucifixion so simply, Bishop," he said, "and yet with much of the air that our people tell a ghost story."

"Well then, dear Conall, I was telling them the most sacred ghost story of the world, and yet it is the most literal reality in history. If it were only a dream, it would be the most dynamic event in human destiny."

"You see, Bishop, there is so much in your way of preaching. It has that kind of good comradeship which I think was so remarkable in Christ. His style was not the ten commandments' style--thou shalt and thou shalt not--but that reasoning, brotherly way of 'What man is there among you that would not do the kind and right thing?' You used it this very morning when you cried out, 'If our dear England needed your help to save her Liberty and Life, what man is there among you that would not rise up like lions to save her?' And the men could hardly sit still. It was so real, so brotherly, so unlike preaching."

"Conall, nothing is so wonderful and beautiful in Christ's life as its almost incredible approachableness."

This sermon had been preached on the Sabbath morning and it spiritualized the whole day. Ian's singing also had proved a wonderful service, for when the young men of that day became old men, they could be heard leading their crews in the melodious, longing strains of 'O for the Wings of a Dove,' as they sat casting their lines into the restless water.

In the evening a cold, northwesterly wind sprang up and Thora and Ian retreated to the parlour, where a good fire had been built; but the Bishop and Ragnor and Rahal drew closer round the hearth in the living room and talked, and were silent, as their hearts moved them. Rahal had little to say. She was thinking of Ian and of the new life he was going to, and of the long, lonely days that might be the fate of Thora. "The woeful laddie!" she whispered, "he has had but small chances of any kind. What can a lad do for himself and no mother able to help him!"

The Bishop heard or divined her last words and he said, "Be content, Rahal. Not one, but many lives we hold, and our hail to every new work we begin is our farewell to the old work. Ian is going to give a Future to his Past."

"I fear, Bishop----"

"Fear is from the earthward side, Rahal. Above the clouds of Fear, there is the certain knowledge of Heaven. Fear is nothing, Faith is everything!"


CHAPTER X


THE ONE REMAINS, THE MANY CHANGE AND PASS

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