"What a darling the boy has grown!" said Arctura when Donal overtook
her.
"Yes," answered Donal; "one would think such a child might run
straight into the kingdom of heaven; but I suppose he must have his
temptations and trials first: out of the storm alone comes the true
peace."
"Will peace come out of all storms?"
"I trust so. Every pain and every fear, every doubt is a cry after
God. What mother refuses to go to her child because he is only
crying--not calling her by name!"
"Oh, if I could but believe so about God! For if it be all right
with God--I mean if God be such a God as to be loved with the heart
and soul of loving, then all is well. Is it not, Mr. Grant?"
"Indeed it is!--And you are not far from the kingdom of heaven," he
was on the point of saying, but did not--because she was in it
already, only unable yet to verify the things around her, like the
man who had but half-way received his sight.
When they reached the top, he took them past his door, and higher up
the stair to the next, opening on the bartizan. Here he said lady
Arctura must come with him first, and Davie must wait till he came
back for him. When he had them both safe on the roof, he told Davie
to keep close to his cousin or himself all the time. He showed them
first his stores of fuel--his ammunition, he said, for fighting the
winter. Next he pointed out where he stood when first he heard the
music the night before, and set down his bucket to follow it; and
where he found the bucket, blown thither by the wind, when he came
back to feel for it in the dark.
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