Daisy In The Field

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."