Preston fumed; but I managed to stop his mouth; and then I
left him, to attend to other people. But when all was done,
and the ward was quiet, I stood at the foot of the dying man's
bed, thinking, what could I do more for him? His face looked
weary and anxious; his eye rested, I saw, on me, but without
comfort in it. What could I say, that I had not said? or how
could I reach him? Then, I do not know how the thought struck
me, but I knew what to do.
"My dear," said Miss Yates, touching my shoulder, "hadn't you
better give up for to-night? You are a young hand; you ain't
seasoned to it yet; you'll give out if you don't look sharp.
Suppose you quit for to- night."
"O no!" I said hastily - "Oh no, I cannot. I cannot."
"Well, sit down, any way, before you can't stand. It is just
as cheap sittin' as standin'."
I sat down; she passed on her way; the place was quiet; only
there were uneasy breaths that came and went near me. Then I
opened my mouth and sang "There is a fountain filled with blood,
"Drawn from Immanuel's veins;
"And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
"Lose all their guilty stains."
"The dying thief rejoiced to see
"That fountain in his day;
"And there may I, as vile as he,
"Wash all my sins away."
I sang it to a sweet simple air, in which the last lines are
repeated and repeated and drawn out in all their sweetness.
The ward was as still as death. I never felt such joy that I
could sing; for I knew the words went to the furthest corner
and distinctly, though I was not raising my voice beyond a
very soft pitch. The stillness lasted after I stopped; then
some one near spoke out "Oh, go on!"
And I thought the silence asked me. But what to sing? that was
the difficulty. It had need be something so very simple in the
wording, so very comprehensive in the sense; something to tell
the truth, and to tell it quick, and the whole truth; what
should it be? Hymns came up to me, loved and sweet, but too
partial in their application, or presupposing too much
knowledge of religious things. My mind wandered; and then of a
sudden floated to me the refrain that I had heard and learned
when a child, long ago, from the lips of Mr. Dinwiddie, in the
little chapel at Melbourne; and with all the tenderness of the
old time and the new it sprung from my heart and lips now "In evil long I took delight,
"Unawed by shame or fear;
"Till a new object struck my sight,
"And stopped my wild career."