close chamber of her mind after she had left him far. And it was not her
shadow she had seen, but the shadow, rather, of a great peace that rested
concentred upon him as he bowed over his last, his mind fixed indeed upon
his work, but far more occupied with the affairs of quite another region.
Mind and soul were each so absorbed in its accustomed labour that never did
either interfere with that of the other. His shoemaking lost nothing when
he was deepest sunk in some one or other of the words of his Lord, which he
sought eagerly to understand--nay, I imagine his shoemaking gained thereby.
In his leisure hours, not a great, he was yet an intense reader; but it was
nothing in any book that now occupied him; it was the live good news, the
man Jesus Christ himself. In thought, in love, in imagination, that man
dwelt in him, was alive in him, and made him alive. This moment He was with
him, had come to visit him--yet was never far from him--was present always
with an individuality that never quenched but was continually developing
his own. For the soutar absolutely believed in the Lord of Life, was
always trying to do the things he said, and to keep his words abiding in
him. Therefore was he what the parson called a mystic, and was the most
practical man in the neighbourhood; therefore did he make the best shoes,
because the Word of the Lord abode in him.

The door opened, and the minister came into the kitchen. The soutar always
worked in the kitchen, to be near his daughter, whose presence never
interrupted either his work or his thought, or even his prayers--which
often seemed as involuntary as a vital automatic impulse.

"It's a grand day!" said the minister. "It aye seems to me that just on
such a day will the Lord come, nobody expecting him, and the folk all
following their various callings--as when the flood came and astonished
them."