How first this came about, I do not believe the old man
himself knew. But he must have had some feeling of a call to the
work; for he had not been a month in Portlossie, before he had
installed himself in several families as the genius of their lamps,
and he gradually extended the relation until it comprehended almost
all the houses in the village.
It was strange and touching to see the sightless man thus busy about
light for others. A marvellous symbol of faith he was--not only
believing in sight, but in the mysterious, and to him altogether
unintelligible means by which others saw! In thus lending his aid
to a faculty in which he had no share, he himself followed the trail
of the garments of Light, stooping ever and anon to lift and bear
her skirts. He haunted the steps of the unknown Power, and flitted
about the walls of her temple as we mortals haunt the borders of
the immortal land, knowing nothing of what lies behind the unseen
veil, yet believing in an unrevealed grandeur. Or shall we say he
stood like the forsaken merman, who, having no soul to be saved,
yet lingered and listened outside the prayer echoing church? Only
old Duncan had got farther: though he saw not a glimmer of the
glory, he yet asserted his part and lot in it, by the aiding of his
fellows to that of which he lacked the very conception himself. He
was a doorkeeper in the house, yea, by faith the blind man became
even a priest in the temple of Light.
Even when his grandchild was the merest baby, he would never allow
the gloaming to deepen into night without kindling for his behoof
the brightest and cleanest of train oil lamps.
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