Читать книгу Rubble and Roseleaves and Things of That Kind - Frank William Boreham - Страница 14

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I had intended calling several other witnesses; but I must be content with one. Alec Fraser was a little old Scotsman, who lived about seven miles out from Mosgiel. I heard one day that he was very ill, and I drove over to see him. His daughter answered the door, showed me in, and placed a chair for me beside the bed. I noticed, on the other side of the bed, another chair. It stood directly facing the pillow, as if its occupant had been in earnest conversation with the patient.

'Ah, Alec,' I exclaimed, on greeting him, 'so I'm not your first visitor!'

He looked up surprised, and, in explanation, I glanced at the tell-tale position of the chair.

'Oh,' he said, with a smile, 'I'll tell ye aboot the chair by-and-by; but how are the wife and the weans and the kirk?'

I found that he was far too ill, however, to be wearied by general conversation. I read to him the Shepherd's Psalm; I led him to the Throne of Grace; and then I rose to go.

'Aboot the chair,' he said, as I took his hand, 'it's like this. Years ago I found I couldna pray. I fell asleep on my knees, and, even if I kept awake, my thochts were aye flittin'. One day, when I was sair worried aboot it, I spoke to Mr. Clair Mackenzie, the meenister at Broad Point. We hadna a meenister o' oor ain at Mosgiel then. He was a guid auld man, was Mr. Mackenzie. And he telt me not to fash ma heed aboot kneeling down. "Jest sit ye down," he said, "and pit a chair agen ye for the Lord, and talk to Him just as though He sat beside ye!" An' I've been doin' it ever since. So now ye know what the chair's doin', standing the way it is!'

I pressed his hand and left him. A week later his daughter drove up to the manse. I knew everything, or almost everything, as soon as I saw her face.

'Father died in the night,' she sobbed. 'I had no idea that death was so near, and I had just gone to lie down for an hour or two. He seemed to be sleeping so comfortably. And, when I went back, he was gone! He didn't seem to have moved since I saw him last, except that his hand was out on the chair. Do you understand?'

I understood.