Part 14 (2/2)

”Nae wonder,” she said, laughing, ”look at my face!” It was dark and withered and wrinkled, though her eyes were as bright and merry as ever and full of changing lights.

One day she went to pay a visit to Mrs. Scott, the lady of the manse at Bonkle, in Lanarks.h.i.+re. They had written to one another for years, but had never met. There were young people there, and all were greatly excited, for the black boy was also expected. Everything that love could think of was done for the comfort of the guest. At last the cab appeared at the bend of the road, and all hurried to the gate. Down jumped Dan smiling, sure of his welcome. Then was helped out a frail and delicate lady, who looked round shyly and brightly answered all the greetings. She walked slowly up the garden path, gazing at the green lawns and the flower-beds and the borders of shady trees, and drinking in the goodness of it all.

”All this,” she said, ”and for me!”

She was so weak and ill that she was glad to sink into a cus.h.i.+ony chair placed for her in the sunniest corner of the sunny room. The young girls followed her in. Stretching out her hands towards them, she cried:

”Oh! how many of you la.s.sies am I to get?”

And, glad to tell, she did get one, Miss Young, who went out to Calabar and became to her like a daughter, and was afterwards picked out by the Church as the one best fitted to carry on the work that lay closest to her heart after she herself was done with it all.

It was times like these that made Ma young again. She just wandered quietly about in the woods and meadows, or went and listened to the music practices in the church. She was delighted with the singing, and before leaving thanked the precentor for the pleasure she had got, and he gave her his tuning-fork, which he valued, and she kept it as one of her treasures to the end.

Coming out one night after the service, she looked up to the starry sky, and said, ”These stars are s.h.i.+ning upon my bairns--I wonder how they are”; and once, when ”_Peace, perfect peace? with loved ones far away!_”

was sung, she said: ”I was thinking all the time of my children out there.”

She missed them more and more as the months went on. One afternoon, when she was sitting down to tea in a house in Perths.h.i.+re, she begged to be allowed to hold a red-cheeked baby-boy on her knee. ”It is more homely,”

she said, ”and I have been so used to them all these years.”

Then she made up her mind. ”I cannot stay longer, I am growing anxious about my children. I am sure they need me.” Her friends tried to keep her, but no, she must go. They bade her farewell at one or two large meetings, where her figure, little and fragile, and worn by long toil in the African sun, brought tears to many eyes. The meetings were very solemn ones. As she spoke of the needs of Africa, one who listened said: ”It is not Mary Slessor who is speaking, but G.o.d.”

One night before she sailed she was found crying quietly in bed, not because she had no friends, for she had many, but because all her own loved ones were dead, and she was homeless and lonesome. She just wanted her mother to take her into her arms, pat her cheek, and murmur, as she had done long ago, ”Good-bye, la.s.sie, and G.o.d be with you.”

Dan did not wish to leave all the delights of his life in Scotland, and although he had mechanical toys and books and sweets to cheer him, he sobbed himself to sleep in the train.

So Ma looked her last upon the dear red and grey roofs and green hills of Scotland, for she never saw them again.

She went to Use, which now became her home. It was a lonely place amongst trees, near the great new highway. A wonderful road that was.

Bordered by giant cotton trees and palms, it ran up and down, over the hills, without touching a village or town. These were all cleverly hidden away in the forest, for the people had not got over their terror of the slave-hunters. Except on market-days the road was very silent, and you met no children on it, for they were afraid of being seized and made slaves. Leopards and wild cats roamed over it at night.

At one part a number of rough concrete steps led to the top of the steep bank, from which a narrow path wound up the hillside and ended in a clearing in the bush. Here stood Ma's queer patchwork mud-house, just a shapeless huddle of odd rooms, with a closed-in verandah, the whole covered with sheets of trade-iron, tin from mission-boxes, and lead from tea-chests. It was hard to find the door, the steps of which were of unhewn stones.

She began to work harder than ever. What a wonder she was! She did all the tiresome Court business, sometimes sitting eight hours patiently listening to the evidence; she held palavers with chiefs; she went long journeys on foot into the wilderness, going where no white man went. On Sundays she visited and preached at ten or twelve villages, and between times she was toiling about the house, making and mending, nailing up roofs, sawing boards, cutting bush, mudding walls, laying cement. Was it surprising that her hands were rough and hard, and often sore and bleeding?

She was seldom well, and always tired, so tired that at night she was not able to take off her clothes, and lay down with them on until she slept a little and was rested, and then she rose and undressed. At times she was on the point of fainting from pain, and only got relief from sleeping-draughts. It was true of her what one of the missionaries said: ”G.o.d does most of His work here by bodies half-dead, but alive in Christ.”

She had now, however, hosts of friends, all willing to look after her.

Nearly every one, officials, missionaries, traders, and natives, were kind to her. Sir Walter Egerton, the British Governor, and Lady Egerton would send her cases of milk for the children, and the officials pressed upon her the use of their steamers and motor-cars and messengers and workmen. At Ikotobong was Miss Peac.o.c.k, that girl with the great thoughtful eyes who had listened so eagerly to Ma when she had addressed the cla.s.s in Falkirk years before. She became one of the many white daughters who hovered about her in the last years and ministered to her.

Two missionary homes were open to her in Calabar, those of Mr. and Mrs.

Wilkie and Mr. and Mrs. Macgregor, and there she was always made comfortable and happy.

Once Government officials found her so ill that they lifted her into the motor-car and took her down to the Mission House at Itu. Something rare and precious was there, a bonnie white child, the daughter of the doctor missionary. During the first few days when Ma was fighting for her life, little Mamie often went to her side and just stood and stroked her hand for a while, and then stole quietly away.

When the turn for the better came, she charmed Ma back to health by her winning ways. For hours they swung together in the hammock on the verandah, and laughed and talked and read, their two heads bent over the pages of _Chatterbox_ and _The Adviser_, and over the _Hippopotamus Book_ and _Puddleduck_, and other entrancing stories. Some times they got so absorbed in these that time was forgotten, and ”Oh, bother!” they said when the sound of the gong called them to meals. Ma was still a little child at heart.

After she returned to Use a new church was opened at Itu, and as she was not able to go down she wrote this letter to Mamie:

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