Chapter XX: Sunset Clouds

A BEAM of setting sunlight came slanting through the lattice-window of Nannie's tiny bedroom, and fell athwart her palliasse. She was lying there as she had taken to doing lately, not undressed, but just resting patiently, with one little thin hand folded over the other, and her wistful eyes travelling to and fro over the bare walls and cobwebbed ceiling. The gleam of red light brought a sudden look of pleasure into her face.

"O it's pretty. Father, ain't it pretty?"

"Eh, Nan? Did yer call?" asked Amos, shuffling in hurriedly, in his uncouth fashion.

"Ain't that a pretty bit of sunlight, father?"

Amos looked hard without discovering any particular beauty, but said,—"Sure, yes, 'tis,"—in uncertain tones, wishing to humour her.

"Don't it seem long since Madge went down into the town?" said Nannie with a sigh, as a tinge of deeper crimson crept into the red.

"Fortnight to-day," said Amos.

"And the pretty young lady is just as ill as ever," said Nannie sorrowfully.

"Well, I don't know as she ain't better this afternoon, but Tyrrell he telled me this mornin' that the doctors said if the fever didn't turn soon, as how she'd die."

"Madge said I was to pray, didn't she?" said Nannie, putting the same question which she had put twenty times before in the last fortnight.

Amos nodded. He could feel no possible doubt now that he had delivered Madge Hardwicke's message faithfully.

"But maybe it 'ud be better for her, if she wasn't to get well," said Nannie thoughtfully.

Amos did not feel himself called upon to hazard an opinion in the matter. He waited a moment, and then, finding that she did not speak again, went back to his bench. Nannie rose, and followed him out slowly.

"Eh, Nan,—so here yer are," said Amos, looking up. "Seems yer pickin' up again."

Nannie smiled thought she did not acquiesce in words. "Will you have me read to you, father?"

Amos could not refuse. She had fallen into the habit of reading a chapter aloud to him, morning and evening, and though he never troubled himself to listen particularly, he rather liked the sound of her voice. It gave him a lulled sensation which was akin to repose, and therefore agreeable.

So the little brown Testament came out, and Nannie read on for a while, in her soft monotonous tones.

Amos worked steadily, and heard in a certain fashion, without paying any close attention. When there came a pause, he looked up, and said,—

"Yer a clever Nan to read so pretty,—that's what yer be."

"Father, ain't the words beautiful?" said Nannie wistfully.

"Sure, yes," said Amos rather uneasily, for he had not the remotest idea what they had been about.

"O father, I wish you cared," said Nannie sadly. "It don't seem to be nothing to you. And I'd sooner have you love God, than anything else in all the world."

The red gleams of sunlight faded away, as the sun dipped down behind the horizon-line of the clear blue water,—not behind West Point at this time of the year. The dark headland shone like burnished armour in the yellow glow, till the evening shade crept over its brightness, and left it gray and cold again. But the clouds were torn about in fantastic shapes of wildest beauty; and every pyramid, peak, and mountain, up in that watery land, was tinged or deeply dyed with crimson and purple and gold. The very air seemed filled with a rich pervading red, and Nannie's little white cheeks looked almost healthy for once, as she sat there, with her eyes fixed on the wondrous view before her.

"Father," she said suddenly,—"don't you think it'll be like that when He comes?"

"Eh?" said Amos, looking down at Nannie.

"He'll come in the clouds of heaven, you know," said Nannie softly. "The Lord Jesus, father. He'll come riding in the clouds, with thousands and thousands all in shining white coming after Him. O father, I'd like so to hear the trumpet, and to see Him,—if only I just knowed you'd be caught up with me to meet Him."

"Caught up?" said Ackman. She was talking a foreign language to poor old Amos.

"Up in the air," said Nannie, her face shining as if it had caught a reflection of the western sky. "All that's loved Him, you know, father. He'll call up first them that's died, out of their graves, and then all of us that's alive—we'll go up, up, through the air to meet Him. And He'll make us beautiful like He is,—all in one moment. And oh, father,—think how He'll smile!"

"Don't know," said Amos slowly, looking subdued. "Seems to me He wouldn't do aught but frown on me, Nan, for nigh a-murderin' of you."

"O father! But He's died for you too, and He loves you," said little Nannie confidently. "And He'll put His Spirit into your heart, if you ask Him, and then you'll be quite different."

"Need be, sure enough," said Amos. "Why, Nan, I'd be awful feared to see all you're a-telling me of." Something in the child's earnest face and manner brought it home to the old man's heart, as it had never come home before. His bony hands shook nervously, and his deep-set eyes peered up at the clouds, as if he almost expected there and then to see an avenging angel's sword flash forth through the radiant air.

"Maybe now, father, 'cause you don't know the Lord Jesus," said Nannie gently. "I'd a deal of fear once too. I used to think dying in a bed all quiet wouldn't be half so bad. It seemed to me as if the great trumpet 'ud sound so awful—and then the bright light, and the ground shaking, and Him coming in such glory, with the clouds and the angels, and all the white shining and dazzling,—I was ever so feared to think of it all."

"When you was naughty?" demanded Amos, with a glance towards his own troubled conscience.

"Why—yes, father; and pretty near always that was too. It used to seem to me as if I was so small and poor, that maybe among such a lot as He'd have to catch up into glory, I'd just be forgotten and left behind. But I know a deal better now. The Lord Jesus forget! Why, father," and Nannie smiled a bright, almost amused smile,—"why, father, 'twas the strangest thought ever anybody had, to think He could 'forget,' after dying for me."

Amos looked at her in wonder. How came this little child to know so much, when he, an old man of many long and weary years, knew so little?

"And then I'll have the mark in my forehead, Madge says, for the angels to know me," Nannie went on. "Maybe they'd know without, that the Lord Jesus loved me, but that 'll make it all as sure as can be. And then, you know, father, I don't see how I'll be able to be frightened, 'cause it won't be a strange dreadful Judge coming, like He'll be to some people, but only just my own Lord Jesus, that's loved me such a while. I couldn't be frightened to see Him, could I? And Parson says He smiles so on the little children. But,—oh, father, I'd be so happy if I didn't be afraid He wouldn't be able to smile on you, 'cause you won't come to Him now."

And Nannie put her head down on her father's knee, and burst into tears. Old Amos was strangely moved. He could not bear to see Nannie's distress, and he shrank in terror from the thought of what might come upon himself. How could he, poor miserable old man, stained darkly through and through with the unwashed sins of over three-score years, dare to meet the Face of Kingly glory, for which little Nannie so eagerly waited?

"I don't know nothin', Nan, but I'll do what you tells me," he said brokenly. "Maybe your Lord Jesus wouldn't mind if I was to ask Him to put me right somehow; only I don't know how, Nan. I be an awful wicked old fellow, Nan."

"We'll come right in, and ask Him now, father," said Nannie, rising up and pulling at his sleeve.

Amos was fain to follow her, though with a half-bewildered look. He was too stiff himself to kneel, but he let little Nannie kneel beside him, and plead in her simple earnest language, that "God would have mercy on poor father, and send His Holy Spirit into father's heart, and wash away all his sins in Jesus Christ's blood." And then Nannie looked up and whispered, "Just say after me, father,—'For Jesus Christ's sake, Amen;' 'cause that 'll mean you really wants it ever so."

"For Jesus Christ's sake, Amen," repeated Amos slowly, like one stumbling out a few syllables in an unknown tongue. "Sure enough, an' I do want it too. But I say, I don't feel different yet, like you said I would be."

"Ah, but it'll come," said Nannie gently. "We'll go on asking till it does."

Then Nannie kissed him, as she had often done of late, and went away to her own room.

Amos crept after her in a little while, hardly knowing why, and found her lying there in the twilight, with her hands folded together, and her eyes looking up to the rough rafters overhead.

"What are yer a-seeing, Nan?" he asked half fearfully. Something in her face gave him a strange feeling of uneasiness, for which he could not account to himself.

"I'm only thinkin', father, how I'd like to hear the angels' song to-night," said Nannie, smiling.

"Wish yer wouldn't talk like that," said Amos, fidgeting.

"Why, father,—they're singin' about you!" said Nannie.

Amos gave a startled look up and around, as if he expected to catch an echo of the wondrous chorus. But the fretting of a bough against the cottage-roof was the only sound which came to his ears; and rather relieved, though disappointed, he said, "Yer a-dreaming, Nan; I don't hear nothin'."

"They're singing," said Nannie quietly; "'cause the Bible says so, father. Leastways, it says there's joy among the angels, you know, soon's ever anybody turns to God."

Amos did not know anything about it, but he only asked, rather fearfully, "Do you hear them, Nan?"

"No, father; not yet awhile," said Nannie. "Maybe I will soon."

And then she shut her eyes, and went peacefully off to sleep.

But Amos stood looking at her for some minutes, thinking how changed she had grown of late. He wished Madge Hardwicke would come home, and tell him whether she needed anything doing to her. She seemed to have faded into such a white frail shadow of a child these last few days. She never complained of pain, and only lay about because she was "so tired." But somehow, Amos could not overcome the impression that all was not quite right with her.