To eyes “that have kept watch o’er man’s mortality” there is always an interest in that sight: one going out is so like another: the slow lessening, the final disappearance have an interest that never fails. And the minister can scarcely be said to have been thinking. He was watching, as he had watched at many a death-bed, the slow extinction, the going away. Whether it is a sun or a life that is setting, that last ineffable moment of disappearance cannot but convey a thrill to the heart.
This was how he was seated, meditating in the profoundest tranquillity when, all at once, the door flew open, and a young figure full of agitation, in all the force of life and passion, a creature all alive to the very finger points, to the hem of her skirts, to the crown of her wind-blown hair, burst in breathless, an emblem of disturbance, of conflict, in short, of existence in contrast with the calm of contemplation.
She stood for a moment before him, but only as if under protest, pausing perforce for breath, “Uncle John,” she cried, panting, “come, come with me! I want to tell you, I want to ask you--you must help me--to stop something. But, oh, I can’t wait to explain; come with me, come with me! and I’ll tell you on the way----”
“What is it, Effie?” He got up hastily; but though her influence was strong, it was not strong enough to prevent him from asking an explanation before he obeyed it.
She caught at his arm in her impatience, “Oh, Uncle John, come--come away! I’ll tell you on the road--oh, come away--there is not a moment, not a moment! to lose----”
“Is anybody ill?” he said. She continued to hold his arm, not as a means of support, but by way of pushing him on, which she did, scarcely leaving him a moment to get his hat. Her impetuosity reminded him so much of many a childish raid made into his house that, notwithstanding his alarm, he smiled.
“Oh, no, there is nobody ill, it is much, much worse than that, Uncle John. Oh, don’t smile as if you thought I was joking! It’s just desperation. There is a letter that Mrs. Ogilvie has written, and I must, I must--get it back from the post, or I will die. Oh, come! come! before it is too late.”
He turned in spite of Effie’s urgency at the manse door. It stood high, and the cheerful lights were beginning to shine in the village windows below, among which the shop and post-office was conspicuous with its two bright paraffin lamps.