In The Night Watch

In the Night Watch
By Melody Grubb (19)

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The night was late.  Stars shown dimly in a pitch black sky, and not a light shown in any of the dark houses outlined against it—all, except one.

On the outskirts of the neighborhood a small cottage sat in a deep valley, alone.  There was not a neighbor for at least a mile; therefore, adding to the fact that it was situated in a valley out of sight, the flickering light in one of the windows did not disturb any other of the slumbering houses.
  It is through this window that this short tale begins.  An old candelabra stood in the sill shedding feeble light on a low bed.  Two figures sat beside it, one tall, one a little shorter, the heads of both bent toward a small figure lying still upon it.  Troubled breathing tried to keep the small body’s chest heaving feebly.  The eyes were closed, and it seemed to be sleeping, but it was not a peaceful sleep.
  “Is there any chance?” came in weak, helpless tones from the shorter of the two by the bed.  Her face,--for indeed it was she and her mother that watched the boy upon the bed—was as engraved out of stone as she looked at the inert body lying before her.
  Her mother did not attempt a reply for some moments.  At last, laying a coarse but loving hand on the little chest, she said in a broken voice:
“I pray God there is.”
“I will take him, mother,” the girl said entreatingly, turning for a moment to her mother’s likewise immovable eyes.
“We must not,” she replied, calmly but with a noticeable strain in her voice, “and—you mustn’t go alone.”
“But I must, mother!” cried the other, laying a small hand on her mother’s shoulder.  She started to add something more, but thought the better of it and instead murmured once more, “I must.”
But what she would have said, her mother already knew.  With a glance toward the invalid she turned to the earnest, terrified face of her daughter.
“Yes,” she assented quietly, betraying no sense of fear in her tone of voice.
“There is no other way.  I cannot go; father may need my help, and his leg will not allow him to take him himself.  Be careful!” she cried in a sharp whisper as the girl started to take the boy up, that made the latter look up, frightened at the outburst, and entreat her not to worry as she took the silent child into her affectionate arms.

A small light bobbed in the darkness like a lantern in a wavering ship.  It followed the rough path up out of the valley and through the neighborhood.  The girl held tight her burden, though her breathing came hard and she stopped to rest more than once.  A certain house, wrapped up in gloom with a white iron gate surrounding it, was her destination; as she neared it she walked faster, her eyes filled with tears of anguish and her hand repeatedly feeling the chest of her burden.
  The door, as she reached it at last, was dark and looming, but, gathering her strength and courage, she lifted a white hand and dropped the knocker with all her feeble strength three times.
For a few minutes she waited, and knocked again; this time she heard a shuffling within and mumbled words of impatience, and the door was unbolted and opened.  A tall, heavy-set woman looked down with annoyance at the girl.
“Please,” spoke the girl, her voice speaking volumes of fatigue, “he—he needs help.”
She lifted very laboriously the burden for the woman’s viewing, but it did not seem to ruffle the woman’s emotions.  After a contemptuous silence she said at last,
“Don’t ye know it’s near midnight?  Besides, ‘e’s dead asleep in there,”—jerking a plump thumb behind her,--“and I ‘adn’t got up to situate my pillow ye wouldn’t ‘ave been heard.”
At the mention of that eternal sleep the girl’s face grew paler than it had been recently.  At the end of the woman’s speech she looked down at the face of the invalid she held in her arms, which was as pale as death, and back at the woman’s.  Her eyes spoke her horror.
“He must help!” she said at last, her voice drowned in tears of anguish.
In this cry of distress the woman finally relented.  She flung open the door, her former ill-temper slowly giving way under sympathy for the girl and her load.  She took the child from his sister’s arms and laid him on the sofa.  He was a boy of seven or eight, lean and small for his age, his little chest heaving slower and slower.  He did not open his eyes.  The girl sat down beside him, gluing her eyes on him while her hostess shuffled out of the room to wake her husband.
  As she waited the girl,--whose name was Marissa—tried to calm herself.  She could not be more than fourteen, but her young face was haggard from want of sleep and proper food.  Her clothing was almost rags, and her bare feet had acquired an extra layer of dirt from the journey.  Nevertheless the eyes were of a striking blue, and the mouth, set in a firm determination, was a beauty to behold.  In this moment of anxiety, however, it trembled with fear and worry.  The eyes melted likewise with the anxiety, however hard she tried to tell herself not to fret. 
“The doctor will make him better,” she told herself, but fear and anguish dwelt tin her heart and made it ache persistently.

A ruffling to the left of her and the sofa made her jump from the seat.  In the half-light she could see the rather bulky form of the doctor, while behind him his wife held a candle, which she brought out.  The doctor approached the invalid, followed by the candle, and by its light examined the boy, checking his pulse and feeling his chest, from which he had torn the shirt.  The girl looked on with obvious trembling.
“Don’t hurt him!” she cried once, trembling with fear, as the proceedings of the doctor frightened her.
“Get her out o’ here!” commanded the doctor, and setting the candle down, the woman led the girl, not unkindly, out of the room. 
“Ye’ll do good to stay ‘ere for a while,” she told her, setting her in a chair in the kitchen.  Then she hurried out again.
  The girl, hardly daring the protest, sat still and trembled.  She clasped her hands, then covered her face with them, and wept.
“Oh!  Don’t let him die!  Oh, don’t!”  She wailed, rocking to and fro in the chair. 
But it was not long before a calm, born of suffering, came over her.  Though she still feared, she suddenly sat still and inert, her eyes wide with fright and red rimmed with tears.
  Something inside her spoke, something still and small, and it admonished her not to fear.  Her trembling began to stop, and she listened with fascination and wonder.
“Marissa,” It said, ever so softly, “I am here.  Do not fear.  He is Mine.”
The words were simple, but profound.  Marissa’s fear vanished.  She recalled not two years ago when, kneeling beside her bed with her mother beside her, she had prayed a prayer—a prayer of salvation, asking the Lord to enter into her heart and live there.  The wise advice of her mother, spoken in soft, steady accents, came back to her.
“Whenever you are afeard, doubtful, or worried,” she said, “call upon Him who lives in your heart.  He will quell the fear and give you ultimate peace.”
Suddenly she felt no fright or anxiety; she remembered the Lord Who had entered her heart, and Whom she had not heeded or asked for help, because she had chosen to fear.  Oh, never again would she ignore Him!  She could have called on Him, and been at peace long ago, knowing He had her brother in His supreme care.  Now that she had peace, she wished she had remembered her mother’s words earlier.  But He had allowed it to happen, and now—oh, what comfort!  What assurance!  She knew all would be well; though with a slightly quaking heart, she resigned her brother to Him without further hesitation.

This episode lasted for about ten minutes; when the wife returned after about an hour, she beheld a silent, resigned figure on the chair, her hands clasped in her lap and her head lain on the back of the chair, asleep.  In the figure the woman sensed the peace and the consolation: she stood there, not willing to interrupt the quietude, much less the lass’s snatch of belated sleep.  Her eyes actually filled with tears, for she knew where that peace had come from, and she regretted being rude at the front door.
  A hand was ever so kindly laid on the small shoulder, and after a gentle shaking the girl awoke.  Without a word the woman led her into the outer room, where now the doctor sat beside the sofa with a cup of tea, and as she entered he beckoned her forward. 
  The little boy lay still, but the little chest moved up and down in regular breathing, and the eyes were shut in peaceful rest.
The doctor spoke quietly.
“He has pasted through the fever well.  You brought him here just in the nick o’ time.  You were very brave to bring him here all alone.”
“But I was afeared and worried,” replied the girl truthfully, “I could not be so brave.  But now I am.  Jesus said He would take care of him, and He has.”
“Aye, he has,” replied the doctor, a suspicion of reverence revealed through his rough voice.  Something in the girl’s now trusting blue eyes entranced him, and he was silent after the few words of assent.

As dawn lit the valley the next morn, the sun’s kindly rays shown down upon the girl as she skipped along the path.  Gone were the haggard features, at least mostly, and the once laden and weary legs flew in obvious glee over the obstacles of the night.
  At last she stood in the doorway, and beheld her mother engaged in silent devotions.  The sight excited her, but, slowing her pace, she neared the kneeling figure at the bed on which the invalid had lain the night before, the morning light shining through the window onto her hair.
She looked up as the girl laid a hand on her shoulder, and she spoke first.
“Your father grieved last night, but he, steady soul, is resigned.” The tears in her eyes prevented her from seeing clearly the radiant face of her daughter.  The Bible before her was opened to a certain passage in Psalm 62, and as she turned from the girl she murmured the words:

“Trust in Him at all times: ye people, pour out your heart before Him.  God is a refuge for us...”

The girl could not hold it in any longer.  With sudden rapture she took hold of the motherly shoulders and cried in excitement:
“He is well!  God has answered our prayer, mother; we all trusted Him, and He saved him.  He is well, do you hear?  I was afeared, but He reminded me of the words you spoke to me after I was saved.  He helped me to trust in Him, and now he is well!”
  The exclamation summoned her father, limping, into the room; one glance at the glowing face of his daughter, and the joyful, yet calm countenance of his wife, told him all.
  It was a happy morn for the family: for the daughter had found peace, and all experienced the utmost joy—the joy of the presence of God and His mercy.

The End