He had the best medical advice; but it was easy to see, from the looks of his doctors, that they entertained but slight hopes of his recovery. His sufferings were great, yet he invariably bore them with unshaken fortitude. There was one thing remarkable connected with his illness; notwithstanding its severity, it never confined him to his bed. He was wont to sit in his little parlour, in his easy chair, dressed in a faded regimental coat, his dog at his feet, who would occasionally lift his head from the hearth-rug on which he lay, and look his master wistfully in the face. And thus my father spent the greater part of his time, sometimes in prayer, sometimes in meditation, and sometimes in reading the Scriptures. I frequently sat with him, though, as I entertained a great awe for my father, I used to feel rather ill at ease, when, as sometimes happened, I found myself alone with him.
“I wish to ask you a few questions,” said he to me, one day, after my mother had left the room.
“I will answer anything you may please to ask me, my dear father.”
“I have been occupied as usual, attending at the office at the appointed hours.”
“Not always; I have been lately reading Armenian . . .”
“The language of a people whose country is a region on the other side of Asia Minor.”
“Upon which, as the Bible informs us, the ark rested.”
“It is the language of the people of those regions.”
“And I have been reading the Bible in their language.”
“Or rather, I should say, in the ancient language of these people; from which I am told the modern Armenian differs considerably.”
“So I have been reading the Bible in ancient Armenian.”
“I found it a highly difficult language.”
“Differing widely from the languages in general with which I am acquainted.”
“Exhibiting, however, some features in common with them.”
“And sometimes agreeing remarkably in words with a certain strange wild speech with which I became acquainted—”
“No, father, not Irish—with which I became acquainted by the greatest chance in the world.”
“But of which I need say nothing further at present, and which I should not have mentioned but for that fact.”
“With an alphabet of thirty-nine letters, but it is harsh and guttural.”
“Like the language of most mountainous people—the Armenians call it Haik.”