CHAPTER XXV.

THROUGH THE WATERS.

LETTIE settled down into her new home, slowly learning to love those around her, and gradually becoming accustomed to the strange restraints as to manner, behaviour, and speech, which at first were most irksome, after her past life of freedom in such matters. The little neglected mind was opening now to the enjoyment of beauty and happiness, where at first all had seemed a blank. Leveson Therlock knew by this time how much more ignorant and neglected they would have found her, but for the simple efforts of old Job Kippis during many months.

The next few weeks were busy ones, for Mrs. Therlock had all sorts of plans for helping the Forsyths, and Lettie's greatest delight was in seeing those plans carried out. Hor's long-standing wish to go to sea was at last to be fulfilled, and when the boy, in a fervour of excitement on hearing the good news, rushed off to Job Kippis, he listened patiently to the old man's grave rebuke.

"Will ye say now, boy, that God don't care for ye,—aye, though ye don't deserve He should? Kind to the unthankful and evil He be, but take care ye don't tempt Him too far, or maybe He'll see fit to withdraw His mercies from you."

The Forsyths were no longer to live on in their miserable home. Two or three airy rooms were found for them in an airy street, at a short distance, and were simply furnished by Mrs. Therlock, who undertook also to pay a portion of the rent. Through Leveson's efforts, regular work was procured for John Forsyth, and the next move was, by dint of much exertion and great correspondence, to place the half-witted boy, Roger, in an idiot asylum.

Things began, as Esther said, to "look up" with them once more. She was able again to take a pleasure in neatness and respectability, and her careworn look gave place to health and cheerfulness. The measure dealt out to little Lettie in her friendless days was amply repaid—"good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over."

There were plans also for Job Kippis and Ailie. Mrs. Therlock was going soon with her two little girls to live in her country house, and a tiny lodge close to the garden gate would just do for Job. Ailie should go to the village school, and learn to read and write and work, and when at home should take her share in opening the gate, and should be her grandfather's little housekeeper. For a while it seemed as if the plan might come to pass, and how eagerly the three children discussed it in all its bearings need scarcely be told.

Job did not seem to count upon it much himself, however. He had rallied slightly from his weakness, but never enough to be moved from the old garret. He liked to hear the little ones talking of their country home, and would listen to their anticipations, but he did not join in them for himself.

"No, deary, I thinks not," he would say, when Ailie wanted him to look forward as they were doing. "We'll wait an' see, but somehow I've a thought that 'tain't that sort o' country I'll be going to."

And gradually the truth broke upon them all, that it was even so. Job Kippis, the brave old soldier, who had battled so cheerily through his long troubled life, was going to another and farther Land.

They did not think the change so near as it was. But one rough February evening, a message came to Leveson Therlock, home on a brief visit,—a message sent by Ailie.

"Grandfather was worse."

Nothing but those three words, implying the need of Leveson's presence,—and he went.

Job lay there quietly, in his narrow garret, with brown hands clasped across his chest, as often of late, and a look of wondrous rest upon his furrowed brow, while Ailie crouched, trembling, beside the bed. He glanced up cheerily as Leveson came in.

"It's a stormy night," he said. "I scarce thought I'd see you, sir, but Ailie she said you was at home, an' she knowed you'd wish we should send."

"Ailie was right," said Leveson. "It must have been a storm indeed that could have kept me back if you needed me. How are you to-night?"

He looked downwards, smiling still, with a little motion of his hand towards the floor. "Waters of Jordan washin' all round me, sir, but I ain't out o' my depth yet."

"And you will not be," said Leveson, "so long as you lean on your Guide. Don't look at the water like Peter, but look to His Face."

"I'll see it soon,—as plain as I see yours," said Job.

"Would you like me to pray with you?"

"Sure an' I would, sir, if 'tain't troublin' you,—not as that's likely," he added. "I'm not feared. But if 'tis all the same to you, sir, I'd rather have the prayers I knows, an' not the Visitation of the Sick, nor no new one. My head's a bit weak, an' I'll follow the old words easiest."

So the old-grand sweet words, offered up by tens of thousands before him through hundreds of years past, now sounded reverently in Leveson's deep voice. They seemed to fill the little garret with an atmosphere of peace, and to bring a ray of measureless trust upon Job's face, as he lay again with his clasped hands.

"Aye, that be it," he said at the close in an undertone. "Strayed an' wanderin',—leavin' undone things I ought to ha' done, an' doin' things I ought to ha' left undone,—a poor miserable offender first to last. But He 've forgiven me,—blessed be His Name."

Then Job was quiet awhile,—as if asleep. Presently looking up, he said, "He 've been a good Master,—a good Master,—lovin' right to the end."

"And how in the day of trouble, and failure, and almost starvation?" asked Leveson. "Had He forsaken you then? Did your faith stand out then?"

"Sure an' if it didn't, 'twas I that failed, an' not He. Trust Him!—Aye, don't I? Little Ailie—"

She came closer, sobbing, and he put his hand over hers.

"Don't ye ever forget that. Trust Him whatever He do to ye—whatever. Don't ye ever question an' doubt. His dealings with ye are all love, an' faithfulness, an' tenderness, from beginning to end. Maybe He'll let ye wander alone, and be half-starved again as He's done afore. It's all love, I tell ye. Just cling to Him, an' He'll be with ye through all. He'll never leave ye. He's never left me,—an' never will."

Once more there came an interval of silence, as Job lay with that same smile upon his face, and no fear at his heart, no words of doubt upon his lips. He knew his Master. Through long years he had proved His love. And now that the last trial of life had come, he was troubled by no dread.

"Aye, I'll die here," he said, speaking when they thought him past speech. "Up in the old garret. Didn't think somehow all along that I'd be let go to the country. I'd learn to love this world then maybe, an' that 'ud be a pity, wouldn't it? I don't love it now, nor want nothin' more."

Nothing more on earth. He had nothing more,—except peace at the last. Slowly, as night crept by, he grew weaker. Jordan's waters were around him, playing over him, dashing about him, rising higher and higher as he went deeper into the flood. But he never sank, never wavered, never struggled. Passing calmly through their midst, with his Master by his side, he forded all the waves, and never lost his footing. And as the first gray tint of dawn was shining in the east, over the house-tops across the way, Job reached the Other Side.

He was only a poor old tailor, living up in a garret, in London's dreariest quarter! But from the midst of squalor and misery, rags and dirt, sounds of contention and anger, voices of sorrow and pain,—he passed to glory and joy unending, to be a king and a priest for ever before the throne of God.

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