Saw ye ae flour in a fair garden,Where the lilac blossom blooms cheerily;"Fairest and rarest ever was seen,"Sing the merle and laverock merrily.
Watered o' dew i' the earliest morn,Lilac blossom blooms cheerily;Bield aboot wi' a sweet hawthorn,Where the merle and lark sing merrily.
Wha shall pu' this flour o' the flours?Lilac blossom blooms cheerily;Wha hae for aye to grace their booers,Where the merle and lark sing merrily?
This is the note that came for me this morning. It was the herd of Hanging Shaws that brought it. He had been down at the smiddy getting the horses shod; and Mr. Marchbanks, the minister, handed it to him himself as he was passing the manse on his way home. The herd said that it was "bound to be something pressing, or the minister wadna hae been so soon oot o' his bed." So he waited till I had opened it to hear what it was about, for the wife of Hanging Shaws would be sure to be asking. I read it to him, but he did not seem to be much the wiser. Here is the letter, written in an ill, crabbed hand-of-write, like all ministers' writings:—
"Nether Dullarg.
"DEAR MR. M'QUHIRR,—I made strict inquiry subsequent to my return from your hospitable dwelling last evening regarding the slight accident which happened to my son, Archibald, whilst I was engaged in suitable converse with your like-minded partner. I am of opinion that there is no necessity for proceeding to extreme measures in the case of your son, Alexander—as in my first natural indignation, I urged somewhat strongly upon your good wife. It may not ultimately be for the worse, that the lads were allowed to settle their own differences without the intervention of their parents. I may say, in conclusion, that the application of a portion of uncooked beef to the protuberance has considerably reduced the swelling upon my son's nose during the night. I intend (D.V.) to resume the visitation of my congregation on Thursday next, unaccompanied either by my own son or yours.—Believe me, dear sir, to remain your most obedient servant,
July 3rd.
Now, Mr. Marchbanks is not my own minister, but there is not a better respected man in the countryside, nor one whom I would less allow any one belonging to me to make light of. So it behoved me to make inquiry. Of the letter itself I could make neither head nor tail; but two things were clear—that that loon of a boy, my son Alec, was in it, and also that his mother was "accessory after the fact," as the Kirkcudbright lawyers say. In the latter case it was necessary to act with circumspection. In the other case I should probably have acted instantly with a suitable hazel rod.
I went into the house. "Where's Alec?" I asked, maybe a kenning sharper than ordinary.
"What may ye be wantin' wi' Alec?" said my wife, with a sting in her accent which showed that she was deep in the ploy, whatever it had been. It now came to my mind that I had not seen Alec since the day before, when I sent him out to play with the minister's son, till Maister Marchbanks had peace to give us his crack before I went out to the hill sheep.
So I mentioned to Mrs. M'Quhirr that I had a letter from the minister about the boy. "Let us hear it," says she. So I read the letter word for word.
"What does he mean by a' that screed?" she asked. "It's like a bit o' a sermon."
Now, my wife takes the general good out of a sermon, but she does not always trouble to translate pulpit language into plain talk.
"He means that there's six o' yin an' half a dizzen o' the ither," I explained, to smooth her down.
"Na, they're no' that," said Mrs. M'Quhirr; "my laddie may be steerin', I'm no' denyin'; but he's no' to be named in the same day as that misleered hound, the minister's loon!"
It was evidently more than ever necessary to proceed with circumspection.
"At any rate, let us hear what the laddie has to say for himsel'. Where is he?" I said.
"He's in the barn," said his mother shortly.
To the barn I went. It is an old building with two doors, one very large, of which the upper half opens inwards; and the other gives a cheery look into the orchard when the sugar-plums are ripening. One end was empty, waiting for the harvest, now just changing into yellow, and the other had been filled with meadow hay only the week before.
"Alec!" I cried, as I came to the door.
There was an answer like the squeaking of a rat among the hay, and I thought, "Bless me, the boy's smothered!" But then again I minded that in his times of distress, after a fight or when he had been in some ploy for which he dared not face his father, Alec had made himself a cave among the hay or corn in the end of the barn. Like all Lowland barns, ours has got a row of three-cornered unglazed windows, called "wickets." Through one of these I have more than once seen Alec vanish when hard pressed by his mother, and have been amused even under the sober face of parental discipline. For, once through, no one could follow the boy. There was no one about the farm slender enough to scramble after. I had not the smallest doubt that the scapegrace was now lying snugly in his hole, impregnable behind the great hay-mow, provisioned with a few farls of cake from his mother, and with his well-belovedRobinson Crusoefor sole companion of the solitary hours.
I went round to the opening and peered in, but could see nothing."Alec," says I, "come oot this moment!"
"Nae lickin', then, faither?" says a voice out of the wicket.
"No, if ye come oot an' tell the truth like a man."
So I took him ben to the "room" to be more solemn-like, and bade him tell the whole story from the start. This he did fairly on the whole, I am bound to confess, with sundry questions and reminders here and there from his mother and me.
"Weel, mither, the way o' it was this. We had only a half-day yesterday at the schule," he began, "for the maister was gaun to a funeral; an' when I cam' oot at denner-time I saw Airchie Marchbanks, an' he said that his faither was gaun up the lochside veesitin', that he was gaun, too, an' if I likit I could hing on ahint. So I hid my buiks aneath a stane—"
"Ye destructionfu' vagabond, I'll get yer faither to gie ye a guid—"
"But, mither, it was a big braid stane. They're better there than cadgin' them hame an' maybe lossin' them. An' my faither promised that there was to be nae lickin' if I telt the truth."
"Weel, never mind the buiks," said I, for this had nothing to do with the minister's letter. "Gae on wi' your story."
"The minister startit aboot twa o'clock wi' the auld meer in the shafts, Airchie on the front seat aside his faither, an' me sittin' on the step ahint."
"Did the minister ken ye war there?" asked his mother.
"Nae fears!" said Alexander M'Quhirr the younger, unabashed. It is a constant wonder to his mother whom he takes after. But it is no great wonder to me. It had been indeed a greater wonderment to me that Alec should so readily promise to accompany the minister; for whenever either a policeman or a minister is seen within miles of Drumquhat, my lad takes the shortest cut for the fastnesses of Drumquhat Bank, there to lie like one of his hunted forebears of the persecution, till the clear buttons or the black coat have been carefully watched off the premises.
"The first place where the minister gaed," continued my son, "was the clauchan o' Milnthird. He was gaun to see Leezie Scott, her that has been ill sae lang. He gaed in there an' bade a gey while, wi' Airchie haudin' ae side o' the horse's heid an' me the ither—no' that auld Jess wad hae run away if ye had tied a kettle to her tail—"
"Be mair circumspect in yer talk," said his mother; "mind it's a minister's horse!"
"Weel, onyway, I could see through the wundy, an' the lassie was haudin' the minister's haun', an' him speakin' an' lookin' up at somebody that I didna see, but maybe the lassie did, for she lay back in her bed awfu' thankfu'-like. But her mither never thankit the minister ava', juist turned her back an' grat into her peenie. Mr. Marchbanks cam' oot; but I saw nae mair, for I had to turn an' rin, or he wad hae seen me, an' maybe askit me to hae a ride!"
"An' what for wad ye no' be prood to ride wi' the godly man?" asked my wife.
"He micht ask me my quaistions, an' though I've been lickit thirteen times for Effectual Callin', I canna get mair nor half through wi't. ['Yer faither's wi' ye there, laddie,' said I, under my breath.] Gin Mr. Marchbanks wad aye look like what he did when he cam oot o' Leezie Scott's, I wadna rin for the heather when he comes. Then he had a bit crack in twa-three o' the hooses wi' the auld wives that wasna at the wark, though he has nae mair members in the clauchan, them bein' a' Auld Kirkers. But Mr. Marchbanks didna mind that, but ca'ed on them a', an' pat up a prayer standin' wi' his staff in his hand and wi' his hair owre his shoother."
"Hoo div ye ken?" I asked, curious to know how the boy had sketched the minister so exactly.
"I juist keekit ben, for I likit to see't."
"The assurance o' the loon!" cried his mither, but not ill-pleased. (O these mothers!)
"Then we cam' to the auld mill, an' the minister gaed in to see blin' Maggie Affleck, an' when he cam' oot I'm sure as daith that he left something that jingled on the kitchen table. On the doorstep he says, wi' a bricht face on him, 'Marget, it's me that needs to thank you, for I get a lesson frae ye every time that I come here.' Though hoo blind Mag Affleck can learn a minister wi' lang white hair, is mair nor me or Airchie Marchbanks could mak' oot. Sae we gaed on, an' the minister gied every ragged bairn that was on the road that day a ride, till the auld machine was as thrang as it could stick, like a merry-go-roon' at the fair. Only, he made them a' get oot at the hills an' walk up, as he did himsel'. 'Deed, he walkit near a' the road, an' pu'ed the auld meer efter him insteed o' her drawin' him. 'I wish my faither wad lend me the whup!' Airchie said, an' he tried to thig it awa' frae his faither. But the minister was mair gleg than ye wad think, and Airchie got the whup, but it was roon the legs, an' it garred him loup and squeal!"
My wife nodded grim approval.
"When we got to Drumquhat," continued Alec, "it was gey far on in the efternune, an' the minister an' my mither lowsed the powny an' stabled it afore gaun ben. Then me an' Airchie were sent oot to play, as my mither kens. We got on fine a while, till Airchie broke my peerie an' pooched the string. Then he staned the cats that cam' rinnin' to beg for milk an' cheese—cats that never war clodded afore. He wadna be said 'no' to, though I threepit I wad tell his faither. Then at the hinner-en' he got into my big blue coach, and wadna get oot. I didna mind that muckle, for I hadna been in 't mysel' for six months. But he made faces at me through the hole in the back, an' that I couldna pit up wi'—nae boy could. For it was my ain coach, minister's son or no' minister's son. Weel, I had the cross-bow and arrow that Geordie Grier made me—the yin that shoots the lumps o' hard wud. So I let fire at Airchie, just when he was makin' an awfu' face, and the billet took him fair atween the een. Into the hoose he ran to his faither,ba-haain' wi' a' his micht; an' oot cam' the minister, as angry as ye like, wi' my mither ahint him like to greet."
'"Deed, I was that!" said Mrs. M'Quhirr.
"'What for did ye hit my son's nose wi' a billet of wood through the hole in your blue coach?' the minister asked me.
"'Because your son's nose wasatthe hole in my blue coach!' says I, as plain as if he hadna been a minister, I was that mad. For it was my coach, an' a bonny-like thing gin a boy couldna shoot at a hole in his ain blue coach! Noo, faither, mind there was to be nae lickin' gin I telt ye the truth!"
There was no licking—which, if you know my wife, you will find no difficulty in believing.
White as early roses, girt by daffodillies,Gleam the feet of maidens moving rhythmically,Roses of the mountains, flowers of the valley,Hill rose and plain rose and white vale lilies.
Dewy in the meadow lands, clover blossoms mellowLift their heads of red and white to the bride's adorning;Sweetly in the sky-realms all the summer morning,Joyeth the skylark and calleth his fellow.
In the well-known precincts, lo the wilding treasureGlows for marriage merriment in my sweetheart's gardens,Welcoming her joy-day, tenderest of wardens—Heart's pride and love's life and all eyes' pleasure.
Bride among the bridesmaids, lily clad in whiteness,She cometh to the twining none may twain in sunder;While to marriage merriment wakes the organ's thunder,And the Lord doth give us all His heavenly brightness.
Then like early roses, girt by daffodillies,Goes the troop of maidens, moving rhythmically,Roses of the mountains, flowers of the valley,Hill rose and plain rose and white vale lilies.
There is no doubt that any committee on ministerial inefficiency would have made short work of the Reverend Ebenezer Skinner, minister of the Townend Kirk in Cairn Edward—that is, if it had been able to distinguish the work he did from the work that he got the credit for. Some people have the gift, fortunate or otherwise, of obtaining credit for the work of others, and transferring to the shoulders of their neighbours the responsibility of their blunders.
Yet, on the whole, the Townend minister had not been fairly dealt with, for, if ever man was the product of environment, that man was the minister of the "Laigh" or Townend Kirk. Now, Ebenezer Skinner was a model subject for a latter-day biography, for he was born of poor but honest parents, who resolved that their little Ebenezer should one day "wag his head in a pulpit," if it cost them all that they possessed.
The early days of the future minister were therefore passed in the acquisition of the Latin rudiments, a task which he performed to the satisfaction of the dominie who taught him. He became letter-perfect in repetition of all the rules, and pridefully glib in reeling off the examples given in the text. He was the joy of the memory-lesson hour, and the master's satisfaction was only damped when this prodigy of accurate knowledge applied himself to the transference of a few lines of English into a dead language. The result was not inspiring, but by perseverance Ebenezer came even to this task without the premonition of more egregious failure than was the custom among pupils of country schools in his day.
Ebenezer went up to Edinburgh one windy October morning, and for the first time in his life saw a university and a tramcar. The latter astonished him very much; but in the afternoon he showed four new comers the way to the secretary's office in the big cavern to the left of the entrance of the former, wide-throated like the portal of Hades.
He took a lodging in Simon Square, because some one told him that Carlyle had lodged there when he came up to college. Ebenezer was a lad of ambition. His first session was as bare of interest and soul as a barn without the roof. He alternated like a pendulum between Simon Square and the Greek and Latin class-rooms. He even took the noted Professor Lauchland seriously, whereupon the latter promptly made a Greek pun upon his name, by which he was called in the class whenever the students could remember it. There was great work done in that class-room—in the manufacture of paper darts. Ebenezer took no part in such frivolities, but laboured at the acquisition of such Greek as a future student of theology would most require. And he succeeded so well that, on leaving, the Professor complimented him in the following terms, which were thought at the time to be handsome: "Ye don't know much Greek, but ye know more than most of your kind—that is, ye can find a Greek word in the dictionary." It was evident from this that Ebenezer was a favourite pupil, but some said that it was because Lauchland was pleased with the pun he made on the name Skinner. There are always envious persons about to explain away success.
Socially, Ebenezer confined himself to the winding stairs of the University, and the bleak South-side streets and closes, through which blew wafts of perfume that were not of Arcady. Once he went out to supper, but suffered so much from being asked to carve a chicken that he resolved never to go again. He talked chiefly to the youth next to him on Bench Seventeen, who had come from another rural village, and who lived in a garret exactly like his own in Nicolson Square.
Sometimes the two of them walked through the streets to the General Post Office and back again on Saturday nights to post their letters home, and talked all the while of their landladies and of the number of marks each had got on Friday in the Latin version. Thus they improved their minds and received the benefits of a college education.
At the end of the session Ebenezer went back directly to his village on the very day the classes closed and he could get no more for his money; where, on the strength of a year at the college, he posed as the learned man of the neighbourhood. He did not study much at home but what he did was done with abundant pomp and circumstance. His mother used to take in awed visitors to the "room," cautioning them that they must not disturb any of Ebenezer's "Greek and Laitin" books, lest in this way the career of her darling might be instantly blighted. Privately she used to go in by herself and pore over the unknown wonders of Ebenezer's Greek prose versions, with an admiration which the class-assistant in Edinburgh had never been able to feel for them.
Such was the career of Ebenezer Skinner for four years. He oscillated between the dinginess and dulness of the capital as he knew it, and the well-accustomed rurality of his home. For him the historic associations of Edinburgh were as good as naught. He and Sandy Kerr (Bench Seventeen) heard the bugles blaring at ten o'clock from the Castle on windy Saturday nights, as they walked up the Bridges, and never stirred a pulse! They never went into Holyrood, because some one told Ebenezer that there was a shilling to pay. He did not know what a quiet place it was to walk and read in on wet Saturdays, when there is nothing whatever to pay. He read no books, confining himself to his class-books and the local paper, which his mother laboriously addressed and sent to him weekly. Occasionally he began to read a volume which one of his more literary companions had acquired on the recommendation of one of the professors, but he rarely got beyond the first twenty pages.
Yet there never was a more conscientious fellow than Ebenezer Skinner, Student in Divinity. He studied all that he was told to study. He read every book that by the regulations he was compelled to read. But he read nothing besides. He found that he could not hold his own in the give-and-take of his fellow-students' conversation. Therefore more and more he withdrew himself from them, crystallising into his narrow early conventions. His college learning acted like an unventilated mackintosh, keeping all the unwholesome, morbid personality within, and shutting out the free ozone and healthy buffeting of the outer world. Many college-bred men enter life with their minds carefully mackintoshed. Generally they go into the Church.
But he found his way through his course somehow. It was of him that Kelland, kindliest and most liberal of professors, said when the co-examiner hinted darkly of "spinning": "Poor fellow! We'll let him through. He's done his best." Then, after a pause, and in the most dulcet accents of a valetudinarian cherub, "It's true, his best is not very good!"
But Ebenezer escaped from the logic class-room as a roof escapes from a summer shower, and gladly found himself on the more proper soil of the philosophy of morals. Here he did indeed learn something, for the professor's system was exactly suited to such as he. In consequence, his notebooks were a marvel. But he did not shine so brightly in the oral examinations, for he feared, with reason, the laughter of his fellows. In English literature he took down all the dates. But he did not attend the class on Fridays for fear he should be asked to read, so he never heard Masson declaim,
"Ah, freedom is a noble thing!"
which some of his contemporaries consider the most valuable part of their university training.
After Ebenezer Skinner went to the Divinity Hall, he brought the same excellent qualities of perseverance to bear upon the work there. When the memorable census was taken of a certain exegetical class, requesting that each student should truthfully, and upon his solemn oath, make record of his occupation at the moment when the paper reached him, he alone, an academic Abdiel,
"Among the faithless, faithful only he,"
was able truthfully to report—Name, "Ebenezer Skinner";Occupation at this Moment, "Trying to attend to the lecture." His wicked companions—who had returned themselves variously as "Reading theScotsman," "Writing a love-letter," "Watching a fight between a spider and a bluebottle, spider weakening"—saw at once that the future of a man who did not know any better than to listen to a discourse on Hermeneutics was entirely hopeless. So henceforth they spoke of him openly and currently as "Poor Skinner!"
Yet when the long-looked-for end of the divinity course came, and the graduating class burst asunder, scattering seed over the land like an over-ripe carpel in the September sun, Ebenezer Skinner was one of the first to take root. He preached in a "vacancy" by chance, supplying for a man who had been taken suddenly ill. He read a discourse which he had written on the strictest academical lines for his college professor, and in the composition of which he had been considerably assisted by a volume of Mr. Spurgeon's sermons which he had brought home from Thin's wondrous shop on the Bridges, where many theological works await the crack of doom. The congregation to which he preached was in the stage of recoil from the roaring demagogy of a late minister, and all too promptly elected this modest young man.
But when the young man moved from Simon Square into the Townend manse, and began to preach twice a Sunday to the clear-headed business men and the sore-hearted women of many cares who filled the kirk, his ignorance of all but these theological books, as well as an innocence of the motives and difficulties of men and women (which would have been childlike had it not been childish), predoomed him to failure. His ignorance of modern literature was so appalling that the youngest member of his Bible-class smiled when he mentioned Tennyson. These and other qualities went far to make the Reverend Ebenezer Skinner the ministerial "inefficient" that he undoubtedly was.
But in time he became vaguely conscious that there was something wrong, yet for the life of him he could not think what it was. He knew that he had done every task that was ever set him. He had trodden faithfully the appointed path. He was not without some ability. And yet, though he did his best, he was sadly aware that he was not successful. Being a modest fellow, he hoped to improve, and went the right way about it. He knew that somehow it must be his own fault. He did not count himself a "Product," and he never blamed the Mill.
[Reported by Saunders M'Quhirr of Drumquhat.]
SKINNER—HALDANE.—On the 25th instant, at the Manse of Kirkmichael, bythe Rev. Alexander Haldane, father of the bride, the Rev. EbenezerSkinner, minister of Townend Church, Cairn Edward, to ElizabethCatherine Haldane.—Scotsman, June 27th.
This was the beginning of it, as some foresaw that it would be. I cut it out of theScotsmanto keep, and my wife has pasted it at the top of my paper. But none of us knew it for certain, though there was Robbie Scott, John Scott's son, that is herd at the Drochills in the head-end of the parish of Kirkmichael—he wrote home to his father in a letter that I saw myself: "I hear you're to get our minister's dochter down by you; she may be trusted to keep you brisk about Cairn Edward."
But we thought that this was just the lad's nonsense, for he was aye at it. However, we had news of that before she had been a month in the place. Mr. Skinner used to preach on the Sabbaths leaning over the pulpit with his nose kittlin' the paper, and near the whole of the congregation watching the green leaves of the trees waving at the windows. But, certes, after he brought the mistress home he just preached once in that fashion. The very next Sabbath morning he stood straight up in the pulpit and pulled at his cuffs as if he was peeling for a "fecht"—and so he was. He spoke that day as he had never spoken since he came to the kirk. And all the while, as my wife said, "The mistress sat as quate as a wee broon moose in the minister's seat by the side wall. She never took her een aff him, an' ye never saw sic a change on ony man."
"She'll do!" said I to my wife as we came out. We were biding for a day or so with my cousin, that is the grocer in Cairn Edward, as I telled you once before. The Sabbath morning following there was no precentor in the desk, and the folk were all sitting wondering what was coming next, for everybody kenned that "Cracky" Carlisle, the post, had given up his precentorship because the list of tunes had come down from the manse to him on the Wednesday, instead of his being allowed to choose what he liked out of the dozen or so that he could sing. "Cracky" Carlisle got his name by upholding the theory that a crack in the high notes sets off a voice wonderfully. He had a fine one himself.
"I'll no' sing what ony woman bids me," said the post, putting the saddle on the right horse at once.
"But hoo do ye ken it was her?" he was asked that night in Dally's smiddy, when the Laigh End folk gathered in to have their crack.
"Ken?" said Cracky; "brawly do I ken that he wad never hae had the presumption himsel'. Na, he kenned better!"
"It was a verra speerited thing to do, at ony rate, to gie up your precentorship," said Fergusson, whose wife kept the wash-house on the Isle, and who lived on his wife's makings.
"Verra," said the post drily, "seein' that I haena a wife to keep me!"
There was a vacancy on the seat next the door, which the shoemaker filled. But, with all this talk, there was a considerable expectation that the minister would go himself to Cracky at the last moment and beseech him to sing for them. The minister, however, did not arrive, and so Cracky did not go to church at all that day.
Within the Laigh Kirk there was a silence as the Reverend Ebenezer Skinner, without a tremor in his voice, gave out that they would sing to the praise of God the second Paraphrase to the tune "St. Paul's." The congregation stood up—a new invention of the last minister's, over which also Cracky had nearly resigned, because it took away from his dignity as precentor and having therefore the sole right to stand during the service of song. The desk was still empty. The minister gave one quick look to the manse seat, and there arose from the dusky corner by the wall such a volume of sweet and solemn sound that the first two lines were sung out before a soul had thought of joining. But as the voice from the manse seat took a new start into the mighty swing of "St. Paul's," one by one the voices which had been singing that best-loved of Scottish tunes at home in "taking the Buik," joined in, till by the end of the verse the very walls were tingling with the joyful noise. There was something ran through the Laigh Kirk that day to which it had long been strange. "It's the gate o' heeven," said old Peter Thomson, the millwright, who had voted for Ebenezer Skinner for minister, and had regretted it ever since. He was glad of his vote now that the minister had got married.
Then followed the prayer, which seemed new also; and Ebenezer Skinner's prayers had for some time been well known to the congregation of the Laigh Kirk. The worst of all prayer-mills is the threadbare liturgy which a lazy or an unspiritual man cobbles up for himself. But there seemed a new spirit in Ebenezer's utterances, and there was a thankful feeling in the kirk of the Townend that day. As they "skailed," some of the young folk went as far as to say that they hoped that desk would never be filled. But this expression of opinion was discouraged, for it was felt to border on irreverence.
Cracky Carlisle was accidentally at his door when Gib Dally passed on his way home. Cracky had an unspoken question in his eye; but Gib did not respond, for the singing had drawn a kind of spell over him too. So Cracky had to speak plain out before Gib would answer.
"Wha sang the day?" he asked anxiously, hoping that there had been some sore mishap, and that the minister, or even Mrs. Skinner herself, might come humbly chapping at his door to fleech with him to return. And he hardened himself even in the moment of imagination.
"We a' sang," said Gib cruelly.
"But wha led?" said the ex-precentor.
"Oh, we had no great miss of you, Cracky," said Gib, who remembered the airs that the post had many a time given himself, and did not incline to let him off easily in the day of his humiliation. "It was the minister's wife that led."
The post lifted his hands, palm outwards, with a gesture of despair.
"Ay, I was jalousing it wad be her," said he sadly, as he turned into his house. He felt that his occupation and craft were gone, and first and last that the new mistress of the manse was the rock on which he had split.
Mrs. Ebenezer Skinner soon made the acquaintance of the Cairn Edward folk. She was a quick and dainty little person.
"Man, Gib, but she's a feat bit craitur!" said the shoemaker, watching her with satisfaction from the smiddy door, and rubbing his grimy hands on his apron as if he had been suddenly called upon to shake hands with her.
"Your son was nane so far wrang," he said to John Scott, the herd, who came in at that moment with a coulter to sharpen.
"Na," said John; "oor Rob's heid is screwed the richt way on his shoothers!"
Now, in her rambles the minister's wife met one and another of the young folk of the congregation, and she invited them in half-dozens at a time to come up to the manse for a cup of tea. Then there was singing in the evening, till by some unkenned wile on her part fifteen or sixteen of the better singers got into the habit of dropping in at the manse two nights a week for purposes unknown.
At last, on a day that is yet remembered in the Laigh Kirk, the congregation arrived to find that the manse seat and the two before it had been raised six inches, and that they were filled with sedate-looking young people who had so well kept the secret that not even their parents knew what was coming. But at the first hymn the reason was very obvious. The singing was grand.
"It'll be what they call a 'koyer,' nae doot!" said the shoemaker, who tolerated it solely because he admired the minister's wife and she had shaken hands with him when he was in his working things.
Cracky Carlisle went in to look at the new platform pulpit, and it is said that he wept when he saw that the old precentor's desk had departed and all the glory of it. But nobody knows for certain, for the minister's wife met him just as he was going out of the door, and she had a long talk with him. At first Cracky said that he must go home, for he had to be at his work. But, being a minister's daughter, Mrs. Skinner saw by his "blacks" that he was taking a day off for a funeral, and promptly marched him to the manse to tea. Cracky gives out the books in the choir now, and sings bass, again well pleased with himself. The Reverend Ebenezer Skinner is an active and successful minister, and was recently presented with a gown and bands, and his wife with a silver tea-set by the congregation. He has just been elected Clerk of Presbytery, for it was thought that his wife would keep the Records as she used to do in the Presbytery of Kirkmichael, of which her father was Clerk, to the great advantage of the Kirk of Scotland in these parts.
[My wife, Mary M'Quhirr, wishes me to add to all whom it may concern,"Go thou and do likewise."]
Shall we, then, make our harvest of the seaAnd garner memories, which we surely deemMay light these hearts of ours on darksome days,When loneliness hath power, and no kind beamLightens about our feet the perilous ways?For of EternityThis present hour is all we call our own,And Memory's edge is dull'd, even as it bringsThe sunny swathes of unforgotten springs,And sweeps them to our feet like grass long mown.
Fergus Morrison was in his old town for a few days. He was staying with the aunt who had brought him up, schooled him, marshalled him to the Burgher Kirk like a decent Renfrewshire callant, and finally had sent him off to Glasgow to get colleged. Colleged he was in due course, and had long been placed in an influential church in the city. On the afternoon of the Saturday he was dreamily soliloquising after the plain midday meal to which his aunt adhered.
Old things had been passing before him during these last days, and the coming of the smart church-officer for the psalms and hymns for the morrow awoke in the Reverend Fergus Morrison a desire to know about "John," the wonderful beadle of old times, to whose enlarged duties his late spruce visitor had succeeded. He smiled fitfully as he brooded over old things and old times; and when his aunt came in from washing up the dinner dishes, he asked concerning "John." He was surprised to find that, though frail, bent double with rheumatism, and nearly blind, he was still alive; and living, too, as of yore, in the same old cottage with its gable-end to the street. The Glasgow minister took his staff and went out to visit him. As he passed down the street he noted every change with a start, marvelling chiefly at the lowness of the houses and the shrunken dimensions of the Town Hall, once to him the noblest building on earth.
When he got to John's cottage the bairns were playing at ball against the end of it, just as they had done thirty years ago. One little urchin was making a squeaking noise with a wet finger on the window-pane, inside which were displayed a few crossed pipes and fly-blown sweatmeats. As the city minister stood looking about him, a bent yet awe-inspiring form came hirpling to the door, leaning heavily on a staff. Making out by the noise the whereabouts of the small boy, the old man turned suddenly to him with a great roar like a bull, before the blast of which the boy disappeared, blown away as chaff is blown before the tempest. The minister's first impulse was likewise to turn and flee. Thirty added years had not changed the old instinct, for when John roared at any of the town boys, conscious innocence did not keep any of them still. They ran first, and inquired from a distance whom he was after. For John's justice was not evenhanded. His voice was ever for open war, and everything that wore tattered trousers and a bonnet was his natural enemy.
So the minister nearly turned and ran, as many a time he had done in the years that were past. However, instead he went indoors with the old man, and, having recalled himself to John's clear ecclesiastical memory, the interview proceeded somewhat as follows, the calm flow of the minister's accustomed speech gradually kindling as he went, into the rush of the old Doric of his boyhood.
"Ay, John, I'm glad you remember me; but I have better cause to remember you, for you once nearly knocked out my brains with a rake when I was crawling through the manse beech-hedge to get at the minister's rasps. Oh, yes, you did, John! You hated small boys, you know. And specially, John, you hated me. Nor can I help thinking that, after all, taking a conjunct and dispassionate view of your circumstances, as we say in the Presbytery, your warmth of feeling was entirely unwarranted. 'Thae loons—they're the plague o' my life!' you were wont to remark, after you had vainly engaged in the pleasure of the chase, having surprised us in some specially outrageous ploy.
"Once only, John, did you bring your stout ash 'rung' into close proximity to the squirming body that now sits by your fireside. You have forgotten it, I doubt not, John, among the hosts of other similar applications. But the circumstance dwells longer in the mind of your junior, by reason of the fact that for many days he took an interest in the place where he sat down. He even thought of writing to the parochial authorities to ask why they did not cushion the benches of the parish school.
"You have no manner of doot, you say, John, that I was richly deserving of it? There you are right, and in the expression I trace some of the old John who used to keep us so strictly in our places. You're still in the old house, I rejoice to see, John, and you are likely to be. What! the laird has given it to you for your life, and ten pound a year? And the minister gives you free firing, and with the bit you've laid by you'll juik the puirhoose yet? Why, man, that's good hearing! You are a rich man in these bad times! Na, na, John, us Halmyre lads wad never see you gang there, had your 'rung' been twice as heavy.
"Do ye mind o' that day ye telled the maister on us? There was Joe Craig, that was lost somewhere in the China seas; Sandy Young, that's something in Glasgow; Tam Simpson, that died in the horrors o' drink; and me—and ye got us a' a big licking. It was a frosty morning, and ye waylaid the maister on his way to the school, and the tawse were nippier than ordinar' that mornin'. No, John, it wasna me that was the ringleader. It was Joe Craig, for ye had clooted his lugs the night before for knockin' on your window wi' a pane o' glass, and then letting it jingle in a thousand pieces on the causeway. Ye chased him doon the street and through the lang vennel, and got him in Payne's field. Ye brocht him back by the cuff o' the neck, an' got a polisman to come to see the damage. An' when ye got to the window there wasna a hole in't, nor a bit o' gless to be seen, for Sandy Young had sooped it a' up when ye were awa' after Joe Craig.
"Then the polisman said, 'If I war you, John, I wadna gang sae muckle to the Cross Keys—yer heid's no as strong as it was, an' the minister's sure to hear o't!' This was mair than mortal could stan', so ye telled the polisman yer opinion o' him and his forebears, and attended to Joe Craig's lugs, baith at the same time.
"Ye dinna mind, do ye, John, what we did that nicht? No? Weel, then, we fetched ye the water that ye were aye compleenin' that ye had naebody to carry for ye. Twa cans fu' we carried—an' we proppit them baith against your door wi' a bit brick ahint them. Ay, just that very door there. Then we gied a great 'rammer' on the panels, an' ye cam' geyan fast to catch us. But as ye opened the door, baith the cans fell into the hoose, an' ye could hae catched bairdies an' young puddocks on the hearthstane. Weel, ye got me in the coachbuilder's entry, an' I've no' forgotten the bit circumstance, gin ye have.
"Ill-wull? Na, John, the verra best of guid-wull, for ye made better boys o' us for the verra fear o' yer stick. As ye say, the ministers are no' what they used to be when you and me were sae pack. A minister was a graun' man then, wi' a presence, an' a necktie that took a guid half-yard o' seeventeen-hunner linen. I'm a minister mysel', ye ken, John, but I'm weel aware I'm an unco declension. Ye wad like to hear me preach? Noo, that's rale kind o' ye, John. But ye'll be snuggest at your ain fireside, an' I'll come in, an' we'll e'en hae a draw o' the pipe atween sermons. Na, I dinna wunner that ye canna thole to think on the new kirk-officer, mairchin' in afore the minister, an 's gouns an' a' sic capers. They wadna hae gotten you to do the like.
"Ye mind, John, hoo ye heartened me up when I was feared to speak for the first time in the auld pulpit? 'Keep yer heid up,' ye said, 'an' speak to the gallery. Never heed the folk on the floor. Dinna be feared; in a time or twa ye'll be nae mair nervish than mysel'. Weel do I mind when I first took up the buiks, I could hardly open the door for shakin', but noo I'm naewise discomposed wi' the hale service.'
"Ay, it is queer to come back to the auld place efter sae mony year in Glesca. You've never been in Glesca, John? No; I'll uphaud that there's no' yer match amang a' the beadles o' that toun—no' in yer best days, when ye handed up yer snuff-box to Maister M'Sneesh o' Balmawhapple in the collectin' ladle, when ye saw that he was sore pitten til't for a snuff. Or when ye said to Jamieson o' Penpoint, wee crowl o' a body—
"'I hae pitten in the fitstool an' drappit the bookboard, to gie ye every advantage. So see an' mak' the best o't.'
"Ay, John, ye war a man! Ye never said that last, ye say, John? They lee'd on ye, did they? Weel, I dootna that there was mony a thing pitten doon to ye that was behadden to the makkar. But they never could mak' ye onything but oor ain kindly, thrawn, obstinate auld John, wi' a hand like a bacon ham and a heart like a bairn's. Guid-day to ye, John. There's something on the mantelpiece to pit in the tea-caddy. I'll look in the morn, an' we'll hae oor smoke."
There's a leaf in the book of the damask roseThat glows with a tender red;From the bud, through the bloom, to the dust it goes,Into rose dust fragrant and dead.
And this word is inscribed on the petals fineOf that velvety purple page—"Be true to thy youth while yet it is thineEre it sink in the mist of age,
"Ere the bursting bud be grownTo a rose nigh overblown,And the wind of the autumn evesComes blowing and scattering allThe damask drift of the dead rose leavesUnder the orchard wall.
"Like late-blown roses the joy-days flit,And soon will the east winds blow;So the love years now must be lived and writIn red on a page of snow.
"And here the rune of the rose I rede,'Tis the heart of the rose and me—O youth, O maid, in your hour of need,Be true to the sacred three—Be true to the love that is love indeed,To thyself, and thy God, these three!
"Ere the bursting bud is grownTo a rose nigh overblown,And the wind of the autumn evesComes blowing and scattering allThe damask drift of the dead rose leavesUnder the orchard wall."
Euroclydon of the Red Head was the other name of the Reverend Sylvanus Septimus Cobb during his student days—nothing more piratical than that. Sylvanus obtained the most valuable part of his training in the Canadian backwoods. During his student days he combined the theory of theology with the practice of "logging," in proportions which were mutually beneficial, and which greatly aided his success as a minister on his return to the old country. Sylvanus Cobb studied in Edinburgh, lodging with his brother in the story next the sky at the corner of Simon Square, supported by red herrings, oatmeal, and the reminiscence that Carlyle had done the same within eyeshot of his front window fifty years before.
"And look at him now!" said Sylvanus Cobb pertinently.
Sylvanus had attained the cognomen of Euroclydon of the Red Head in that breezy collegiate republic whose only order is the Prussian "For Merit." He was always in a hurry, and his red head, with its fiery, untamed shock of bristle, usually shot into the class-room a yard or so before his broad shoulders. At least, this was the general impression produced. Also, he always brought with him a draught of caller air, like one coming into a close and fire-warmed room out of the still and frost-bound night.
But Edinburgh, its bare "lands" and barren class-rooms, in time waxed wearisome to Sylvanus. He grew to loathe the drone of the classes, the snuffy prelections of professors long settled on the lees of their intellects, who still moused about among the dusty speculations which had done duty for thought when their lectures were new, thirty years ago. "A West Indian nigger," said Sylvanus quaintly, "ain't in it with a genuine lazy Scotch professor. Wish I had him out to lumber with me on the Ottawa! He'd have to hump himself or git! I'd learn him to keep hag-hagging at trees that had been dead stumps for half a century!"
At this time of life we generally spent a part of each evening in going round to inform our next neighbours that we had just discovered the solution of the problem of the universe. True, we had been round at the same friend's the week before with two equally infallible discoveries. Most unfortunately, however, on Sunday we had gone to hear the Great Grim Man of St. Christopher's preach in his own church, and he had pitilessly knocked the bottom out of both of these. Sometimes our friends called with their own latest solutions; and then there was such a pother of discussion, and so great a noise, that the old lady beneath foolishly knocked up a telephonic message to stop—foolishly, for that was business much more in our line than in hers. With one mind we thundered back a responsive request to that respectable householder to go to Jericho for her health, an it liked her. Our landlady, being long-suffering and humorously appreciative of the follies of academic youth (O rare paragon of landladies!), wondered meekly why she was sent to Coventry by every one of her neighbours on the stair during the winter months; and why during the summer they asked her to tea and inquired with unaffected interest if she was quite sure that that part of the town agreed with her health, and if she thought of stopping over this Whitsunday term.
When Sylvanus Cobb came up our stairs it was as though a bag of coals on the back of an intoxicated carter had tumbled against our door.
"That's yon red-headed lunatic, I'll be bound; open the door to him yersel'!" cried the landlady, remembering one occasion when Euroclydon had entered with such fervour as almost to pancake her bodily between wall and door.
Sylvanus came in as usual with a militant rush, which caused us to lift the kitchen poker so as to be ready to poke the fire or for any other emergency.
"I'll stop no more in this hole!" shouted Euroclydon of the Red Head, "smothered with easter haar on the streets and auld wife's blethers inby. I'm off to Canada to drive the axe on the banks of the Ottawa. And ye can bide here till your brains turn to mud—and they'll not have far to turn either!"
"Go home to your bed, Euroclydon—you'll feel better in the morning!" we advised with a calmness born of having been through this experience as many as ten times before. But, as it chanced, Sylvanus was in earnest this time, and we heard of him next in Canada, logging during the week and preaching on Sundays, both with equal acceptance.
One night Sylvanus had a "tough" in his audience—an ill-bred ruffian who scoffed when he gave out his text, called "Three cheers for Ingersoll!" when he was half through with his discourse, and interjected imitations of the fife and big drum at the end of each paragraph. It may be said on his behalf that he had just come to camp, had never seen Sylvanus bring down a six-foot pine, and knew not that he was named Euroclydon—or why.
The ruddy crest of the speaker gradually bristled till it stood on end like the comb of Chanticleer. He paused and looked loweringly at the interrupter under his shaggy brows, pulling his under lip into his mouth in a moment of grim resolve.
"I'll attend to you at the close of this divine service!" saidEuroclydon.
And he did, while his latest convert held his coat.
"An almighty convincing exhorter!" said Abram Sugg from Maine, when Sylvanus had put the Ingersollian to bed in his own bunk, and was feeding him on potted turkey.
On the hillsides, with their roots deep in the crevices of the rocks, grew the pines. One by one they fell all through that winter. The strokes of the men's axes rang clear in the frosty air as chisel rings on steel. Whenever Sylvanus Cobb came out of the door of the warm log-hut where the men slept, the cold air met him like a wall. He walked light-headed in the moistureless chill of the rare sub-Arctic air. He heard the thunder of the logs down thechute. The crash of a falling giant far away made him turn his head. It was a life to lead, and he rubbed his hands as he thought of Edinburgh class-rooms.
Soon he became boss of the gang, and could contract for men of his own. There was larger life in the land of resin and pine-logs. No tune in all broad Scotland was so merry as the whirr of the sawmill, when the little flashing ribbon of light runs before the swift-cutting edge of the saw. It made Sylvanus remember the pale sunshine his feet used to make on the tan-coloured sands of North Berwick, when he walked two summers before with May Chisholm, when it was low-water at the spring-tides. But most of all he loved the mills, where he saw huge logs lifted out of the water, slid along the runners, and made to fall apart in clean-cut fragrant planks in a few seconds of time.
"That tree took some hundreds of years to grow, but the buzz-saw turns her into plain deal-boards before you can wink. All flesh is grass," soliloquised the logger preacher.
A winter in a lumber camp is a time when a man can put in loads ofthinking. Dried fish and boiled tea do not atrophy a man's brain.Loggers do not say much except on Sundays, when they wash their shirts.Even then it was Sylvanus who did most of the talking.
Sometimes during the week a comrade would trudge alongside of him as he went out in the uncomfortable morning.
"That was the frozen truth you gave us on Sunday, I guess!" said one who answered placably to the name of Bob Ridley—or, indeed, to any other name if he thought it was meant for him. "I've swore off, parson, and I wrote that afternoon to my old mother."
Such were the preacher's triumphs.
Thus Sylvanus Cobb learned his lesson in the College of the Silences, to the accompaniment of the hard clang of the logs roaring down the mountain-side, or the sweeter and more continuous ring of his men's axes. At night he walked about a long time, silent under the thick-spangled roofing of stars. For in that land the black midnight sky is not thin-sprinkled with glistening pointlets as at home, but wears a very cloth of gold. The frost shrewdly nipped his ears, and he heard the musical sound of the water running somewhere under the ice. A poor hare ran to his feet, pursued by a fox which drew off at sight of him, showing an ugly flash of white teeth.
But all the while, among his quietness of thought, and even in the hours when he went indoors to read to the men as they sat on their rugs with their feet to the fire, he thought oftenest of the walks on the North Berwick sands, and of the important fact that May Chisholm had to stop three times to push a rebellious wisp of ringlets under her hat-brim. Strange are the workings of the heart of a man, and there is generally a woman somewhere who pulls the strings.
Euroclydon laid his axe-handle on the leaves of his Hebrew Bible to keep them from turning in the brisk airs which the late Canadian spring brought into the long log-hut, loosening the moss in its crevices. The scent of seaweed on a far-away beach came to him, and a longing to go back possessed him. He queried within himself if it were possible that he could ever settle down to the common quiet of a Scottish parish, and decided that, under certain conditions, the quiet might be far from commonplace. So he threw his bundle over his shoulder, when the camp broke up in the beginning of May, and took the first steamer home.
His first visit was to North Berwick, and there on the sands between the East Terrace and the island promontory which looks towards the Bass, where the salt water lies in the pools and the sea-pinks grow between them, he found May Chisholm walking with a young man. Sylvanus Cobb looked the young man over. He had a pretty moustache but a weak mouth.
"I can best that fellow, if I have a red head!" said Sylvanus, with some of the old Euroclydon fervour.
And he did. Whether it was the red head, of which each individual hair stood up automatically, the clear blue eyes, which were the first thing and sometimes the only thing that most women saw in his face, or the shoulders squared with the axe, that did it, May Chisholm only knows. You can ask her, if you like. But most likely it was his plain, determined way of asking for what he wanted—an excellent thing with women. But, any way, it is a fact that, before eighteen months had gone by, Sylvanus Cobb was settled in the western midlands of Scotland, with the wife whose tangles of hair were only a trifle less distracting than they used to be between the East Cliff and Tantallon. And this is a true tale.
Out of the clinging valley mists I strayInto the summer midnight clear and still,And which the brighter is no man may say—Whether the gold beyond the western hill
Where late the sun went down, or the faint tingeOf lucent green, like sea wave's inner curveJust ere it breaks, that gleams behind the fringeOf eastern coast. So which doth most preserve
My wistful soul in hope and steadfastnessI know not—all that golden-memoried pastSo sudden wonderful, when new life ran
First in my veins; or that clear hope, no lessOrient within me, for whose sake I castAll meaner ends into these ground mists wan.
"We've gotten a new kind o' minister the noo at Cairn Edward," said my cousin, Andrew M'Quhirr, to me last Monday. I was down at the Mart, and had done some little business on the Hill. My cousin is a draper in the High Street. He could be a draper nowhere else in Cairn Edward, indeed; for nobody buys anything but in the High Street.
"Look, Saunders, there he is, gaun up the far side o' the causeway."
I looked out and saw a long-legged man in grey clothes going very fast, but no minister. I said to my cousin that the minister had surely gone into the "Blue Bell," which was not well becoming in a minister.
"Man, Saunders, where's yer een?—you that pretends to read Tammas Carlyle. D' ye think that the black coat mak's a minister? I micht hae a minister in the window gin it did!" said he, glancing at the disjaskit-looking wood figure he had bought at a sale of bankrupt stock in Glasgow, with "THIS STYLE OF SUIT, £2, 10s." printed on the breast of it. The lay figure was a new thing in Cairn Edward, and hardly counted to be in keeping with the respect for the second commandment which a deacon in the Kirk of the Martyrs ought to cultivate. The laddies used to send greenhorns into the shop for a "penny peep o' Deacon M'Quhirr's idol!" But I always maintained that, whatever command the image might break, it certainly did not break the second; for it was like nothing in the heavens above nor in the earth beneath, nor (so far as I kenned) in the waters under the earth. But my cousin said—
"Maybes no'; but it cost me three pound, and in my shop it'll stand till it has payed itsel'!" Which gives it a long lifetime in the little shop-window in the High Street.
This was my first sight of Angus Stark, the new minister of Martyrs'Kirk in Cairn Edward.
"He carries things wi' a high hand," said Andrew M'Quhirr, my cousin.
"That's the man ye need at the Martyrs' Kirk," said I; "ye've been spoiled owre lang wi' unstable Reubens that could in nowise excel."
"Weel, we're fixed noo, rarely. I may say that I mentioned his wearin' knickerbockers to him when he first cam', thinkin' that as a young man he micht no' ken the prejudices o' the pairish."
"And what said he, Andrew?" I asked. "Was he pitten aboot?"
"Wha? Him! Na, no' a hair. He juist said, in his heartsome, joky way, 'I'm no' in the habit o' consulting my congregation how I shall dress myself; but if you, Mr. M'Quhirr, will supply me with a black broadcloth suit free of charge, I'll see aboot wearin' it!' says he. So I said nae mair.
"But did you hear what Jess Loan, the scaffie's wife, said to him when he gaed in to bapteeze her bairn when he wasna in his blacks? She hummered a while, an' then she says, 'Maister Stark, I ken ye're an ordeened man, for I was there whan a' the ministers pat their han's on yer heid, an' you hunkerin' on the cushion—but I hae my feelin's!"
"'Your feelings, Mrs. Loan?' says the minister, thinking it was some interestin' case o' personal experience he was to hear.
"'Ay,' says Jess; 'if it was only as muckle as a white tie I wadna mind, but even a scaffie's wean wad be the better o' that muckle!'
"So Maister Stark said never a word, but he gaed his ways hame, pat on his blacks, brocht his goun an' bands aneath his airm, and there never was sic a christenin' in Cairn Edward as Jess Loan's bairn gat!"
"How does he draw wi' his fowk, Andra?" I asked, for the "Martyrs" were far from being used to work of this kind.
"Oh, verra weel," said the draper; "but he stoppit Tammas Affleck and John Peartree frae prayin' twenty meenits a-piece at the prayer-meetin'. 'The publican's prayer didna last twa ticks o' the clock, an' you're not likely to better that even in twenty meenits!' says he. It was thocht that they wad leave, but weel do they ken that nae ither kirk wad elect them elders, an' they're baith fell fond o' airin' their waistcoats at the plate.
"Some o' them was sore against him ridin' on a bicycle, till John Peartree's grandson coupit oot o' the cart on the day o' the Sabbath-schule trip, an' the minister had the doctor up in seventeen minutes by the clock. There was a great cry in the pairish because he rade doon on 't to assist Maister Forbes at the Pits wi' his communion ae Sabbath nicht. But, says the minister, when some o' the Session took it on them to tairge him for it, 'Gin I had driven, eyther man or beast wad hae lost their Sabbath rest. I tired nocht but my own legs,' says he. 'It helps me to get to the hoose of God, just like your Sunday boots. Come barefit to the kirk, and I'll consider the maitter again.'"
"That minister preaches the feck o' his best sermonsooto' the pulpit," said I, as I bade Andrew good-day and went back into the High Street, from which the folk were beginning to scatter. The farmers were yoking their gigs and mounting into them in varying degrees and angles of sobriety. So I took my way to the King's Arms, and got my beast into the shafts. Half a mile up the Dullarg road, who should I fall in with but "Drucken" Bourtree, the quarryman. He was walking as steady as the Cairn Edward policeman when the inspector is in the town. I took him up.
"Bourtree," says I, "I am prood to see ye."
"'Deed, Drumquhat, an' I'm prood to see mysel'. For thirty year I was drunk every Monday nicht, and that often atweenwhiles that it fair bate me to tell when ae spree feenished and the next began! But it's three month since I've seen the thick end o' a tumbler. It's fac' as death!"
"And what began a' this, Bourtree?" said I.
"Juist a fecht wi' M'Kelvie, the sweep, that ca's himsel' apugilist!"
"A fecht made ye a sober man, Bourtree!—hoo in the creation was that?"
"It was this way, Drumquhat. M'Kelvie, a rank Tipperairy Micky, wi' a nose on him like a danger-signal"—here Bourtree glanced down at his own, which had hardly yet had time to bleach—"me an' M'Kelvie had been drinkin' verra britherly in the Blue Bell till M'Kelvie got fechtin' drunk, an' misca'ed me for a hungry Gallowa' Scot, an' nae doot I gaed into the particulars o' his ain birth an' yeddication. In twa or three minutes we had oor coats aff and were fechtin' wi' the bluid rinnin' on to the verra street.
"The fowk made a ring, but nane dared bid us to stop. Some cried, 'Fetch the polis!' But little we cared for that, for we kenned brawly that the polisman had gane awa' to Whunnyliggate to summon auld John Grey for pasturing his coo on the roadside, as soon as ever he heard that M'Kelvie an' me war drinkin' in the toon. Oh, he's a fine polisman! He's aye great for peace. Weel, I was thinkin' that the next time I got in my left, it wad settle M'Kelvie. An' what M'Kelvie was thinkin' I do not ken, for M'Kelvie is nocht but an Irishman. But oot o' the grund there raise a great muckle man in grey claes, and took fechtin' M'Kelvie an' me by the cuff o' the neck, and dauded oor heids thegither till we saw a guano-bagfu' o' stars.
"'Noo, wull ye shake hands or come to the lock-up?' says he.
"We thocht he maun be the chief o' a' the chief constables, an' we didna want to gang to nae lock-ups, so we just shook haun's freendly-like. Then he sent a' them that was lookin' on awa' wi' a flee in their lugs.
"'Forty men,' says he, 'an' feared to stop twa men fechtin'—cowards or brutes, eyther o' the twa!' says he.
"There was a bailie amang them he spoke to, so we thocht he was bound to be a prince o' the bluid, at the least. This is what I thocht, but I canna tell what M'Kelvie thocht, for he was but an Irishman. So it does not matter what M'Kelvie thocht.
"But the big man in grey says, 'Noo, lads, I've done ye a good turn. You come and hear me preach the morn in the kirk at the fit o' the hill.' 'A minister!' cried M'Kelvie an' me. A wastril whalp could hae dung us owre with its tail. We war that surprised like."
So that is the way "Drucken" Bourtree became a God-fearing quarryman. And as for M'Kelvie, he got three months for assaulting and battering the policeman that very night; but then, M'Kelvie was only an Irishman!