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“How is it,” I asked, “that she is feeding her on old James Joss’s land?”
“Oh! they’re very good to Elsie, you see. Nobody cares much about her grandmother; but Elsie’s not her grandmother, and although the cow belongs to the old woman, yet for Elsie’s sake, this one here and that one there gives her a bite for it—that’s a day’s feed generally. If you look at the cow, you’ll see she’s not like one that feeds by the roadsides. She’s as plump as needful, and has a good udderful of milk besides.”
“I’ll run down and tell her she may bring the cow into this field to-morrow,” I said, rising.
“I would if it weremine” said Turkey, in a marked tone, which I understood.
“Oh! I see, Turkey,” I said. “You mean I ought to ask my father.”
“Yes, to be sure, I do mean that,” answered Turkey.
“Then it’s as good as done,” I returned. “I will ask him to-night.”
“She’s a good girl, Elsie,” was all Turkey’s reply.
How it happened I cannot now remember, but I know that, after all, I did not ask my father, and Granny Gregson’s cow had no bite either off the glebe or the farm. And Turkey’s reflections concerning the mother he had to take care of having been interrupted, the end to which they were moving remained for the present unuttered.
I soon grew quite strong again, and had neither plea nor desire for exemption from school labours. My father also had begun to take me in hand as well as my brother Tom; and what with arithmetic and Latin together, not to mention geography and history, I had quite enough to do, and quite as much also as was good for me.
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During this summer, I made the acquaintance at school of a boy called Peter Mason. Peter was a clever boy, from whose merry eye a sparkle was always ready to break. He seldom knew his lesson well, but, whenkept infor not knowing it, had always learned it before any of the rest had got more than half through. Amongst those of his own standing he was the acknowledged leader in the playground, and was besides often invited to take a share in the amusements of the older boys, by whom he was petted because of his cleverness and obliging disposition. Beyond school hours, he spent his time in all manner of pranks. In the hot summer weather he would bathe twenty times a day, and was as much at home in the water as any dabchick. And that was how I came to be more with him than was good for me.
There was a small river not far from my father’s house, which at a certain point was dammed back by a weir of large stones to turn part of it aside into a mill-race. The mill stood a little way down, under a steep bank. It was almost surrounded with trees, willows by the water’s edge, and birches and larches up the bank. Above the dam was a fine spot for bathing, for you could get any depth you liked—from two feet to five or six; and here it was that most of the boys of the village bathed, and I with them. I cannot recall the memory of those summer days without a gush of delight gurgling over my heart, just as the water used to gurgle over the stones of the dam. It was a quiet place, particularly on the side to which my father’s farm went down, where it was sheltered by the same little wood which farther on surrounded the mill. The field which bordered the river was kept in natural grass, thick and short and fine, for here on the bank it grew well, although such grass was not at all common in that part of the country: upon other parts of the same farm, the grass was sown every year along with the corn. Oh the summer days, with the hot sun drawing the odours from the feathery larches and the white-stemmed birches, when, getting out of the water, I would lie in the warm soft grass, where now and then the tenderest little breeze would creep over my skin, until the sun baking me more than was pleasant, I would rouse myself with an effort, and running down to the fringe of rushes that bordered the full-brimmed river, plunge again headlong into the quiet brown water, and dabble and swim till I was once more weary! For innocent animal delight, I know of nothing to match those days—so warm, yet so pure-aired—so clean, so glad. I often think how God must love his little children to have invented for them such delights! For, of course, if he did not love the children and delight in their pleasure, he would not have invented the two and brought them together. Yes, my child, I know what you would say,—“How many there are who have no such pleasures!” I grant it sorrowfully; but you must remember that God has not done with them yet; and, besides, that there are more pleasures in the world than you or I know anything about. And if we had itallpleasure, I know I should not care so much about what is better, and I would rather be made good than have any other pleasure in the world; and so would you, though perhaps you do not know it yet.
One day, a good many of us were at the water together. I was somebody amongst them in my own estimation because I bathed off my father’s ground, while they were all on a piece of bank on the other side which was regarded as common to the village. Suddenly upon the latter spot, when they were all undressed, and some already in the water, appeared a man who had lately rented the property of which that was part, accompanied by a dog, with a flesh-coloured nose and a villainous look—a mongrel in which the bull predominated. He ordered everyone off his premises. Invaded with terror, all, except a big boy who trusted that the dog would be more frightened at his naked figure than he was at the dog, plunged into the river, and swam or waded from the inhospitable shore. Once in the embrace of the stream, some of them thoughtlessly turned and mocked the enemy, forgetting how much they were still in his power. Indignant at the tyrant, I stood up in the “limpid wave”, and assured the aquatic company of a welcome to the opposite bank. So far all was very well. But their clothes! They, alas! were upon the bank they had left!
The spirit of a host was upon me, for now I regarded them all as my guests.
“You come ashore when you like,” I said; “I will see what can be done about your clothes.”
I knew that just below the dam lay a little boat built by the miller’s sons. It was clumsy enough, but in my eyes a marvel of engineering art. On the opposite side stood the big boy braving the low-bred cur which barked and growled at him with its ugly head stretched out like a serpent’s; while his owner, who was probably not so unkind as we thought him, stood enjoying the fun of it all. Reckoning upon the big boy’s assistance, I scrambled out of the water, and sped, like Achilles of the swift foot, for the boat. I jumped in and seized the oars, intending to row across, and get the big boy to throw the clothes of the party into the boat. But I had never handled an oar in my life, and in the middle passage—how it happened I cannot tell—I found myself floundering in the water.
Now, although you might expect that the water being dammed back just here, it would be shallow below the dam, it was just the opposite. Had the bottom been hard, it would have been shallow; but as the bottom was soft and muddy, the rush of the water over the dam in the winter-floods had here made a great hollow. There was besides another weir a very little way below which again dammed the water back; so that the depth was greater here than in almost any other part within the ken of the village boys. Indeed there were horrors afloat concerning its depth. I was but a poor swimmer, for swimming is a natural gift, and is not equally distributed to all. I might have done better, however, but for those stories of the awful gulf beneath me. I was struggling and floundering, half-blind, and quite deaf, with a sense of the water constantly getting up and stopping me, whatever I wanted to do, when I felt myself laid hold of by the leg, dragged under water, and a moment after landed safe on the bank. Almost the same moment I heard a plunge, and getting up, staggering and bewildered, saw, as through the haze of a dream, a boy swimming after the boat, which had gone down with the slow current. I saw him overtake it, scramble into it in midstream, and handle the oars as to the manner born. When he had brought it back to the spot where I stood, I knew that Peter Mason was my deliverer. Quite recovered by this time from my slight attack of drowning, I got again into the boat, and leaving the oars to Peter, was rowed across and landed. There was no further difficulty. The man, alarmed, I suppose, at the danger I had run, recalled his dog; we bundled in the clothes; Peter rowed them across; Rory, the big boy, took the water after the boat, and I plunged in again above the dam. For the whole of that summer and part of the following winter, Peter was my hero, to the forgetting even of my friend Turkey. I took every opportunity of joining him in his games, partly from gratitude, partly from admiration, but more than either from the simple human attraction of the boy. It was some time before he led me into any real mischief, but it came at last.
It came in the following winter.
My father had now begun to teach me as well as Tom, but I confess I did not then value the privilege. I had got much too fond of the society of Peter Mason, and all the time I could command I spent with him. Always full of questionable frolic, the spirit of mischief gathered in him as the dark nights drew on. The sun, and the wind, and the green fields, and the flowing waters of summer kept him within bounds; but when the ice and the snow came, when the sky was grey with one cloud, when the wind was full of needle-points of frost and the ground was hard as a stone, when the evenings were dark, and the sun at noon shone low down and far away in the south, then the demon of mischief awoke in the bosom of Peter Mason, and, this winter, I am ashamed to say, drew me also into the net.
Nothing very bad was the result before the incident I am about to relate. There must have been, however, a gradual declension towards it, although the pain which followed upon this has almost obliterated the recollection of preceding follies. Nobody does anything bad all at once. Wickedness needs an apprenticeship as well as more difficult trades.
It was in January, not long after the shortest day, the sun setting about half-past three o’clock. At three school was over, and just as we were coming out, Peter whispered to me, with one of his merriest twinkles in his eyes:
“Come across after dark, Ranald, and we’ll have some fun.”
I promised, and we arranged when and where to meet. It was Friday, and I had no Latin to prepare for Saturday, therefore my father did not want me. I remember feeling very jolly as I went home to dinner, and made the sun set ten times at least, by running up and down the earthen wall which parted the fields from the road; for as often as I ran up I saw him again over the shoulder of the hill, behind which he was going down. When I had had my dinner, I was so impatient to join Peter Mason that I could not rest, and from very idleness began to tease wee Davie. A great deal of that nasty teasing, so common among boys, comes of idleness. Poor Davie began to cry at last, and I, getting more and more wicked, went on teasing him, until at length he burst into a howl of wrath and misery, whereupon the Kelpie, who had some tenderness for him, burst into the room, and boxed my ears soundly. I was in a fury of rage and revenge, and had I been near anything I could have caught up, something serious would have been the result. In spite of my resistance, she pushed me out of the room and locked the door. I would have complained to my father, but I was perfectly aware that, althoughshehad no right to strike me, I had deserved chastisement for my behaviour to my brother. I was still boiling with anger when I set off for the village to join Mason. I mention all this to show that I was in a bad state of mind, and thus prepared for the wickedness which followed. I repeat, a boy never disgraces himself all at once. He does not tumble from the top to the bottom of the cellar stair. He goes down the steps himself till he comes to the broken one, and then he goes to the bottom with a rush. It will also serve to show that the enmity between Mrs. Mitchell and me had in nowise abated, and that however excusable she might be in the case just mentioned, she remained an evil element in the household.
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When I reached the village, I found very few people about. The night was very cold, for there was a black frost. There had been a thaw the day before which had carried away the most of the snow, but in the corners lay remnants of dirty heaps which had been swept up there. I was waiting near one of these, which happened to be at the spot where Peter had arranged to meet me, when from a little shop near a girl came out and walked quickly down the street. I yielded to the temptation arising in a mind which had grown a darkness with slimy things crawling in it. I kicked a hole in the frozen crust of the heap, scraped out a handful of dirty snow, kneaded it into a snowball, and sent it after the girl. It struck her on the back of the head. She gave a cry and ran away, with her hand to her forehead. Brute that I was, I actually laughed. I think I must have been nearer the devil then than I have been since. At least I hope so. For you see it was not with me as with worse-trained boys. I knew quite well that I was doing wrong, and refused to think about it. I felt bad inside. Peter might have done the same thing without being half as wicked as I was. He did not feel the wickedness of that kind of thing as I did. He would have laughed over it merrily. But the vile dregs of my wrath with the Kelpie were fermenting in my bosom, and the horrid pleasure I found in annoying an innocent girl because the wicked Kelpie had made me angry, could never have been expressed in a merry laugh like Mason’s. The fact is, I was more displeased with myself than with anybody else, though I did not allow it, and would not take the trouble to repent and do the right thing. If I had even said to wee Davie that I was sorry, I do not think I should have done the other wicked things that followed; for this was not all by any means. In a little while Peter joined me. He laughed, of course, when I told him how the girl had run like a frighted hare, but that was poor fun in his eyes.
“Look here, Ranald,” he said, holding out something like a piece of wood.
“What is it, Peter?” I asked.
“It’s the stalk of a cabbage,” he answered. “I’ve scooped out the inside and filled it with tow. We’ll set fire to one end, and blow the smoke through the keyhole.”
“Whose keyhole, Peter?”
“An old witch’s that I know of. She’ll be in such a rage! It’ll be fun to hear her cursing and swearing. We’d serve the same to every house in the row, but that would be more than we could get off with. Come along. Here’s a rope to tie her door with first.”
I followed him, not without inward misgivings, which I kept down as well as I could. I argued with myself, “Iam not doing it; I am only going with Peter: what business is that of anybody’s so long as I don’t touch the thing myself?” Only a few minutes more, and I was helping Peter to tie the rope to the latch-handle of a poor little cottage, saying now to myself, “This doesn’t matter. This won’t do her any harm. This isn’t smoke. And after all, smoke won’t hurt the nasty old thing. It’ll only make her angry. It may do her cough good: I dare say she’s got a cough.” I knew all I was saying was false, and yet I acted on it. Was not that as wicked as wickedness could be? One moment more, and Peter was blowing through the hollow cabbage stalk in at the keyhole with all his might. Catching a breath of the stifling smoke himself, however, he began to cough violently, and passed the wicked instrument to me. I put my mouth to it, and blew with all my might. I believe now that there was some far more objectionable stuff mingled with the tow. In a few moments we heard the old woman begin to cough. Peter, who was peeping in at the window, whispered—
“She’s rising. Now we’ll catch it, Ranald!”
Coughing as she came, I heard her with shuffling steps approach the door, thinking to open it for air. When she failed in opening it, and found besides where the smoke was coming from, she broke into a torrent of fierce and vengeful reproaches, mingled with epithets by no means flattering. She did not curse and swear as Peter had led me to expect, although her language was certainly far enough from refined; but therein I, being, in a great measure, the guilty cause, was more to blame than she. I laughed because I would not be unworthy of my companion, who was genuinely amused; but I was, in reality, shocked at the tempest I had raised. I stopped blowing, aghast at what I had done; but Peter caught the tube from my hand and recommenced the assault with fresh vigour, whispering through the keyhole, every now and then between the blasts, provoking, irritating, even insulting remarks on the old woman’s personal appearance and supposed ways of living. This threw her into paroxysms of rage and of coughing, both increasing in violence; and the war of words grew, she tugging at the door as she screamed, he answering merrily, and with pretended sympathy for her sufferings, until I lost all remaining delicacy in the humour of the wicked game, and laughed loud and heartily.
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Of a sudden the scolding and coughing ceased. A strange sound and again silence followed. Then came a shrill, suppressed scream; and we heard the voice of a girl, crying:
“Grannie! grannie! What’s the matter with you? Can’t you speak to me, grannie? They’ve smothered my grannie!”
Sobs and moans were all we heard now. Peter had taken fright at last, and was busy undoing the rope. Suddenly he flung the door wide and fled, leaving me exposed to the full gaze of the girl. To my horror it was Elsie Duff! She was just approaching the door, her eyes streaming with tears, and her sweet face white with agony. I stood unable to move or speak. She turned away without a word, and began again to busy herself with the old woman, who lay on the ground not two yards from the door. I heard a heavy step approaching. Guilt awoke fear and restored my powers of motion. I fled at full speed, not to find Mason, but to leave everything behind me.
When I reached the manse, it stood alone in the starry blue night. Somehow I could not help thinking of the time when I came home after waking up in the barn. That, too, was a time of misery, but, oh! how different from this! Then I had only been cruelly treated myself; now I had actually committed cruelty. Then I sought my father’s bosom as the one refuge; now I dreaded the very sight of my father, for I could not look him in the face. He was my father, but I was not his son. A hurried glance at my late life revealed that I had been behaving very badly, growing worse and worse. I became more and more miserable as I stood, but what to do I could not tell. The cold at length drove me into the house. I generally sat with my father in his study of a winter night now, but I dared not go near it. I crept to the nursery, where I found a bright fire burning, and Allister reading by the blaze, while Davie lay in bed at the other side of the room. I sat down and warmed myself, but the warmth could not reach the lump of ice at my heart. I sat and stared at the fire. Allister was too much occupied with his book to take any heed of me. All at once I felt a pair of little arms about my neck, and Davie was trying to climb upon my knees. Instead of being comforted, however, I spoke very crossly, and sent him back to his bed whimpering. You see I was only miserable; I was not repentant. I was eating the husks with the swine, and did not relish them; but I had not said, “I will arise and go to my father”.
How I got through the rest of that evening I hardly know. I tried to read, but could not. I was rather fond of arithmetic; so I got my slate and tried to work a sum; but in a few moments I was sick of it. At family prayers I never lifted my head to look at my father, and when they were over, and I had said good night to him, I felt that I was sneaking out of the room. But I had some small sense of protection and safety when once in bed beside little Davie, who was sound asleep, and looked as innocent as little Samuel when the voice of God was going to call him. I put my arm round him, hugged him close to me, and began to cry, and the crying brought me sleep.
It was a very long time now since I had dreamt my old childish dream; but this night it returned. The old sunny-faced sun looked down upon me very solemnly. There was no smile on his big mouth, no twinkle about the corners of his little eyes. He looked at Mrs. Moon as much as to say, “What is to be done? The boy has been going the wrong way: must we disown him?” The moon neither shook her head nor moved her lips, but turned as on a pivot, and stood with her back to her husband, looking very miserable. Not one of the star-children moved from its place. They shone sickly and small. In a little while they faded out; then the moon paled and paled until she too vanished without ever turning her face to her husband; and last the sun himself began to change, only instead of paling he drew in all his beams, and shrunk smaller and smaller, until no bigger than a candle-flame. Then I found that I was staring at a candle on the table; and that Tom was kneeling by the side of the other bed, saying his prayers.
When I woke in the morning, I tried to persuade myself that I had made a great deal too much of the whole business; that if not a dignified thing to do, it was at worst but a boy’s trick; only I would have no more to say to Peter Mason, who had betrayed me at the last moment without even the temptation of any benefit to himself. I went to school as usual. It was the day for the Shorter Catechism. None failed but Peter and me; and we two were kept in alone, and left in the schoolroom together. I seated myself as far from him as I could. In half an hour he had learned his task, while I had not mastered the half of mine. Thereupon he proceeded, regardless of my entreaties, to prevent me learning it. I begged, and prayed, and appealed to his pity, but he would pull the book away from me, gabble bits of ballads in my ear as I was struggling withEffectual Calling, tip up the form on which I was seated, and, in short, annoy me in twenty different ways. At last I began to cry, for Mason was a bigger and stronger boy than I, and I could not help myself against him. Lifting my head after the first vexation was over, I thought I saw a shadow pass from the window. Although I could not positively say I saw it, I had a conviction it was Turkey, and my heart began to turn again towards him. Emboldened by the fancied proximity, I attempted my lesson once more, but that moment Peter was down upon me like a spider. At last, however, growing suddenly weary of the sport, he desisted, and said:
“Ran, you can stay if you like. I’ve learned my catechism, and I don’t see why I should waithistime.”
As he spoke he drew a picklock from his pocket—his father was an ironmonger—deliberately opened the schoolroom door, slipped out, and locked it behind him. Then he came to one of the windows, and began making faces at me. But vengeance was nigher than he knew. A deeper shadow darkened my page, and when I looked up, there was Turkey towering over Mason, with his hand on his collar, and his whip lifted. The whip did not look formidable. Mason received the threat as a joke, and laughed in Turkey’s face. Perceiving, however, that Turkey looked dangerous, with a sudden wriggle, at which he was an adept, he broke free, and, trusting to his tried speed of foot, turned his head and made a grimace as he took to his heels. Before, however, he could widen the space between them sufficiently, Turkey’s whip came down upon him. With a howl of pain Peter doubled himself up, and Turkey fell upon him, and, heedless of his yells and cries, pommelled him severely. Although they were now at some distance, too great for the distinguishing of words, I could hear that Turkey mingled admonition with punishment. A little longer, and Peter crept past the window, a miserable mass of collapsed and unstrung impudence, his face bleared with crying, and his knuckles dug into his eyes. And this was the boy I had chosen for my leader! He had been false to me, I said to myself; and the noble Turkey, seeing his behaviour through the window, had watched to give him his deserts. My heart was full of gratitude.
Once more Turkey drew near the window. What was my dismay and indignation to hear him utter the following words:
“If you weren’t your father’s son, Ranald, and my own old friend, I would serve you just the same.”
Wrath and pride arose in me at the idea of Turkey, who used to call himself my horse, behaving to me after this fashion; and, my evil ways having half made a sneak of me, I cried out:
“I’ll tell my father, Turkey.”
“I only wish you would, and then I should be no tell-tale if he asked me why, and I told him all about it. You young blackguard! You’re no gentleman! To sneak about the streets and hit girls with snowballs! I scorn you!”
“You must have been watching, then, Turkey, and you had no business to do that,” I said, plunging at any defence.
“I was not watching you. But if I had been, it would have been just as right as watching Hawkie. You ill-behaved creature! You’re a true minister’s son.”
“It’s a mean thing to do, Turkey,” I persisted, seeking to stir up my own anger and blow up my self-approval.
“I tell you I did not do it. I met Elsie Duff crying in the street because you had hit her with a dirty snowball. And then to go and smoke her and her poor grannie, till the old woman fell down in a faint or a fit, I don’t know which! You deserve a good pommelling yourself, I can tell you, Ranald. I’m ashamed of you.”
He turned to go away.
“Turkey, Turkey,” I cried, “isn’t the old woman better?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to see,” he answered.
“Come back and tell me, Turkey,” I shouted, as he disappeared from the field of my vision.
“Indeed I won’t. I don’t choose to keep company with such as you. But if ever I hear of you touching them again, you shall have more of me than you’ll like, and you may tell your father so when you please.”
I had indeed sunk low when Turkey, who had been such a friend, would have nothing to say to me more. In a few minutes the master returned, and finding me crying, was touched with compassion. He sent me home at once, which was well for me, as I could not have repeated a single question. He thought Peter had crept through one of the panes that opened for ventilation, and did not interrogate me about his disappearance.
The whole of the rest of that day was miserable enough. I even hazarded one attempt at making friends with Mrs. Mitchell, but she repelled me so rudely that I did not try again. I could not bear the company of either Allister or Davie. I would have gone and told Kirsty, but I said to myself that Turkey must have already prejudiced her against me. I went to bed the moment prayers were over, and slept a troubled sleep. I dreamed that Turkey had gone and told my father, and that he had turned me out of the house.
I woke early on the Sunday morning, and a most dreary morning it was. I could not lie in bed, and, although no one was up yet, rose and dressed myself. The house was as waste as a sepulchre. I opened the front door and went out. The world itself was no better. The day had hardly begun to dawn. The dark dead frost held it in chains of iron. The sky was dull and leaden, and cindery flakes of snow were thinly falling. Everywhere life looked utterly dreary and hopeless. What was there worth living for? I went out on the road, and the ice in the ruts crackled under my feet like the bones of dead things. I wandered away from the house, and the keen wind cut me to the bone, for I had not put on plaid or cloak. I turned into a field, and stumbled along over its uneven surface, swollen into hard frozen lumps, so that it was like walking upon stones. The summer was gone and the winter was here, and my heart was colder and more miserable than any winter in the world. I found myself at length at the hillock where Turkey and I had lain on that lovely afternoon the year before. The stream below was dumb with frost. The wind blew wearily but sharply across the bare field. There was no Elsie Duff, with head drooping over her knitting, seated in the summer grass on the other side of a singing brook. Her head was aching on her pillow because I had struck her with that vile lump; and instead of the odour of white clover she was breathing the dregs of the hateful smoke with which I had filled the cottage. I sat down, cold as it was, on the frozen hillock, and buried my face in my hands. Then my dream returned upon me. This was how I sat in my dream when my father had turned me out-of-doors. Oh how dreadful it would be! I should just have to lie down and die.
I could not sit long for the cold. Mechanically I rose and paced about. But I grew so wretched in body that it made me forget for a while the trouble of my mind, and I wandered home again. The house was just stirring. I crept to the nursery, undressed, and lay down beside little Davie, who cried out in his sleep when my cold feet touched him. But I did not sleep again, although I lay till all the rest had gone to the parlour. I found them seated round a blazing fire waiting for my father. He came in soon after, and we had our breakfast, and Davie gave his crumbs as usual to the robins and sparrows which came hopping on the window-sill. I fancied my father’s eyes were often turned in my direction, but I could not lift mine to make sure. I had never before known what misery was.
Only Tom and I went to church that day: it was so cold. My father preached from the text, “Be sure your sin shall find you out”. I thought with myself that he had found out my sin, and was preparing to punish me for it, and I was filled with terror as well as dismay. I could scarcely keep my seat, so wretched was I. But when after many instances in which punishment had come upon evil-doers when they least expected it, and in spite of every precaution to fortify themselves against it, he proceeded to say that a man’s sin might find him out long before the punishment of it overtook him, and drew a picture of the misery of the wicked man who fled when none pursued him, and trembled at the rustling of a leaf, then I was certain that he knew what I had done, or had seen through my face into my conscience. When at last we went home, I kept waiting the whole of the day for the storm to break, expecting every moment to be called to his study. I did not enjoy a mouthful of my food, for I felt his eyes upon me, and they tortured me. I was like a shy creature of the woods whose hole had been stopped up: I had no place of refuge—nowhere to hide my head; and I felt so naked!
My very soul was naked. After tea I slunk away to the nursery, and sat staring into the fire. Mrs. Mitchell came in several times and scolded me for sitting there, instead of with Tom and the rest in the parlour, but I was too miserable even to answer her. At length she brought Davie, and put him to bed; and a few minutes after, I heard my father coming down the stair with Allister, who was chatting away to him. I wondered how he could. My father came in with the big Bible under his arm, as was his custom on Sunday nights, drew a chair to the table, rang for candles, and with Allister by his side and me seated opposite to him, began to find a place from which to read to us. To my yet stronger conviction, he began and read through without a word of remark the parable of the Prodigal Son. When he came to the father’s delight at having him back, the robe, and the shoes, and the ring, I could not repress my tears. “If I could only go back,” I thought, “and set it all right! but then I’ve never gone away.” It was a foolish thought, instantly followed by a longing impulse to tell my father all about it. How could it be that I had not thought of this before? I had been waiting all this time for my sin to find me out; why should I not frustrate my sin, and find my father first?
As soon as he had done reading, and before he had opened his mouth to make any remark, I crept round the table to his side, and whispered in his ear,—
“Papa, I want to speak to you.”
“Very well, Ranald,” he said, more solemnly, I thought, than usual; “come up to the study.”
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He rose and led the way, and I followed. A whimper of disappointment came from Davie’s bed. My father went and kissed him, and said he would soon be back, whereupon Davie nestled down satisfied.
When we reached the study, he closed the door, sat down by the fire, and drew me towards him.
I burst out crying, and could not speak for sobs. He encouraged me most kindly. He said—
“Have you been doing anything wrong, my boy?”
“Yes, papa, very wrong,” I sobbed. “I’m disgusted with myself.”
“I am glad to hear it, my dear,” he returned. “There is some hope of you, then.”
“Oh! I don’t know that,” I rejoined. “Even Turkey despises me.”
“That’s very serious,” said my father. “He’s a fine fellow, Turkey. I should not like him to despise me. But tell me all about it.”
It was with great difficulty I could begin, but with the help of questioning me, my father at length understood the whole matter. He paused for a while plunged in thought; then rose, saying,—
“It’s a serious affair, my dear boy; but now you have told me, I shall be able to help you.”
“But you knew about it before, didn’t you, papa? Surely you did!”
“Not a word of it, Ranald. You fancied so because your sin had found you out. I must go and see how the poor woman is. I don’t want to reproach you at all, now you are sorry, but I should like you just to think that you have been helping to make that poor old woman wicked. She is naturally of a sour disposition, and you have made it sourer still, and no doubt made her hate everybody more than she was already inclined to do. You have been working against God in this parish.”
I burst into fresh tears. It was too dreadful.
“WhatamI to do?” I cried.
“Of course you must beg Mrs. Gregson’s pardon, and tell her that you are both sorry and ashamed.”
“Yes, yes, papa. Do let me go with you.”
“It’s too late to find her up, I’m afraid; but we can just go and see. We’ve done a wrong, a very grievous wrong, my boy, and I cannot rest till I at least know the consequences of it.”
He put on his long greatcoat and muffler in haste, and having seen that I too was properly wrapped up, he opened the door and stepped out. But remembering the promise he had made to Davie, he turned and went down to the nursery to speak to him again, while I awaited him on the doorsteps. It would have been quite dark but for the stars, and there was no snow to give back any of their shine. The earth swallowed all their rays, and was no brighter for it. But oh, what a change to me from the frightful morning! When my father returned, I put my hand in his almost as fearlessly as Allister or wee Davie might have done, and away we walked together.
“Papa,” I said, “why did you saywehave done a wrong? You did not do it.”
“My dear boy, persons who are so near each other as we are, must not only bear the consequences together of any wrong done by one of them, but must, in a sense, bear each other’s iniquities even. If I sin, you must suffer; if you sin, you being my own boy, I must suffer. But this is not all: it lies upon both of us to do what we can to get rid of the wrong done; and thus we have to bear each other’s sin. I am accountable to make amends as far as I can; and also to do what I can to get you to be sorry and make amends as far as you can.”
“But, papa, isn’t that hard?” I asked.
“Do you think I should like to leave you to get out of your sin as you best could, or sink deeper and deeper into it? Should I grudge anything to take the weight of the sin, or the wrong to others, off you? Do you think I should want not to be troubled about it? Or if I were to do anything wrong, would you think it very hard that you had to help me to be good, and set things right? Even if people looked down upon you because of me, would you say it was hard? Would you not rather say, ‘I’m glad to bear anything for my father: I’ll share with him’?”
“Yes, indeed, papa. I would rather share with you than not, whatever it was.”
“Then you see, my boy, how kind God is in tying us up in one bundle that way. It is a grand and beautiful thing that the fathers should suffer for the children, and the children for the fathers. Come along. We must step out, or I fear we shall not be able to make our apology to-night. When we’ve got over this, Ranald, we must be a good deal more careful what company we keep.”
“Oh, papa,” I answered, “if Turkey would only forgive me!”
“There’s no fear. Turkey is sure to forgive you when you’ve done what you can to make amends. He’s a fine fellow, Turkey. I have a high opinion of Turkey—as you call him.”
“If he would, papa, I should not wish for any other company than his.”
“A boy wants various kinds of companions, Ranald, but I fear you have been neglecting Turkey. You owe him much.”
“Yes, indeed I do, papa,” I answered; “and I have been neglecting him. If I had kept with Turkey, I should never have got into such a dreadful scrape as this.”
“That is too light a word to use for it, my boy. Don’t call a wickedness a scrape; for a wickedness it certainly was, though I am only too willing to believe you had no adequate idea at the timehowwicked it was.”
“I won’t again, papa. But I am so relieved already.”
“Perhaps poor old Mrs. Gregson is not relieved, though. You ought not to forget her.”
Thus talking, we hurried on until we arrived at the cottage. A dim light was visible through the window. My father knocked, and Elsie Duff opened the door.
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When we entered, there sat the old woman on the farther side of the hearth, rocking herself to and fro. I hardly dared look up. Elsie’s face was composed and sweet. She gave me a shy tremulous smile, which went to my heart and humbled me dreadfully. My father took the stool on which Elsie had been sitting. When he had lowered himself upon it, his face was nearly on a level with that of the old woman, who took no notice of him, but kept rocking herself to and fro and moaning. He laid his hand on hers, which, old and withered and not very clean, lay on her knee.
“How do you find yourself to-night, Mrs. Gregson?” he asked.
“I’m an ill-used woman,” she replied with a groan, behaving as if it was my father who had maltreated her, and whose duty it was to make an apology for it.
“I am aware of what you mean, Mrs. Gregson. That is what brought me to inquire after you. I hope you are not seriously the worse for it.”
“I’m an ill-used woman,” she repeated. “Every man’s hand’s against me.”
“Well, I hardly think that,” said my father in a cheerful tone. “Myhand’s not against you now.”
“If you bring up your sons, Mr. Bannerman, to mock at the poor, and find their amusement in driving the aged and infirm to death’s door, you can’t say your hand’s not against a poor lone woman like me.”
“But I don’t bring up my sons to do so. If I did I shouldn’t be here now. I am willing to bear my part of the blame, Mrs. Gregson, but to say I bring my sons up to that kind of wickedness, is to lay on me more than my share, a good deal.—Come here, Ranald.”
I obeyed with bowed head and shame-stricken heart, for I saw what wrong I had done my father, and that although few would be so unjust to him as this old woman, many would yet blame the best man in the world for the wrongs of his children. When I stood by my father’s side, the old woman just lifted her head once to cast on me a scowling look, and then went on again rocking herself.
“Now, my boy,” said my father, “tell Mrs. Gregson why you have come here to-night.”
I had to use a dreadful effort to make myself speak. It was like resisting a dumb spirit and forcing the words from my lips. But I did not hesitate a moment. In fact, I dared not hesitate, for I felt that hesitation would be defeat.
“I came, papa——” I began.
“No no, my man,” said my father; “you must speak to Mrs. Gregson, not to me.”
Thereupon I had to make a fresh effort. When at this day I see a child who will not say the words required of him, I feel again just as I felt then, and think how difficult it is for him to do what he is told; but oh, how I wish he would do it, that he might be a conqueror I for I know that if he will not make the effort, it will grow more and more difficult for him to make any effort. I cannot be too thankful that I was able to overcome now.
“I came, Mrs. Gregson,” I faltered, “to tell you that I am very sorry I behaved so ill to you.”
“Yes, indeed,” she returned. “How would you like anyone to come and serve you so in your grand house? But a poor lone widow woman like me is nothing to be thought of. Oh no! not at all.”
“I am ashamed of myself,” I said, almost forcing my confession upon her.
“So you ought to be all the days of your life. You deserve to be drummed out of the town for a minister’s son that you are! Hoo!”
“I’ll never do it again, Mrs. Gregson.”
“You’d better not, or you shall hear of it, if there’s a sheriff in the county. To insult honest people after that fashion!”
I drew back, more than ever conscious of the wrong I had done in rousing such unforgiving fierceness in the heart of a woman. My father spoke now.
“Shall I tell you, Mrs. Gregson, what made the boy sorry, and made him willing to come and tell you all about it?”
“Oh, I’ve got friends after all. The young prodigal!”
“You are coming pretty near it, Mrs. Gregson,” said my father; “but you haven’t touched it quite. It was a friend of yours that spoke to my boy and made him very unhappy about what he had done, telling him over and over again what a shame it was, and how wicked of him. Do you know what friend it was?”
“Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don’t. I can guess.”
“I fear you don’t guess quite correctly. It was the best friend you ever had or ever will have. It was God himself talking in my poor boy’s heart. He would not heed what he said all day, but in the evening we were reading how the prodigal son went back to his father, and how the father forgave him; and he couldn’t stand it any longer, and came and told me all about it.”
“It wasn’t you he had to go to. It wasn’t you he smoked to death—was it now? It was easy enough to go to you.”
“Not so easy perhaps. But he has come to you now.”
“Come when you made him!”
“I didn’t make him. He came gladly. He saw it was all he could do to make up for the wrong he had done.”
“A poor amends!” I heard her grumble; but my father took no notice.
“And you know, Mrs. Gregson,” he went on, “when the prodigal son did go back to his father, his father forgave him at once.”
“Easy enough! He was his father, and fathers always side with their sons.”
I saw my father thinking for a moment.
“Yes; that is true,” he said. “And what he does himself, he always wants his sons and daughters to do. So he tells us that if we don’t forgive one another, he will not forgive us. And as we all want to be forgiven, we had better mind what we’re told. If you don’t forgive this boy, who has done you a great wrong, but is sorry for it, God will not forgive you—and that’s a serious affair.”
“He’s never begged my pardon yet,” said the old woman, whose dignity required the utter humiliation of the offender.
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Gregson,” I said. “I shall never be rude to you again.”
“Very well,” she answered, a little mollified at last.
“Keep your promise, and we’ll say no more about it. It’s for your father’s sake, mind, that I forgive you.”
I saw a smile trembling about my father’s lips, but he suppressed it, saying,
“Won’t you shake hands with him, Mrs. Gregson?”
She held out a poor shrivelled hand, which I took very gladly; but it felt so strange in mine that I was frightened at it: it was like something half dead. But at the same moment, from behind me another hand, a rough little hand, but warm and firm and all alive, slipped into my left hand. I knew it was Elsie Duff’s, and the thought of how I had behaved to her rushed in upon me with a cold misery of shame. I would have knelt at her feet, but I could not speak my sorrow before witnesses. Therefore I kept hold of her hand and led her by it to the other end of the cottage, for there was a friendly gloom, the only light in the place coming from the glow—not flame—of a fire of peat and bark. She came readily, whispering before I had time to open my mouth—
I’m sorry grannie’s so hard to make it up.”
“I deserve it,” I said. “Elsie, I’m a brute. I could knock my head on the wall. Please forgive me.”
“It’s not me,” she answered. “You didn’t hurt me. I didn’t mind it.”
“Oh, Elsie! I struck you with that horrid snowball.”
“It was only on the back of my neck. It didn’t hurt me much. It only frightened me.”
“I didn’t know it was you. If I had known, I am sure I shouldn’t have done it. But it was wicked and contemptible anyhow, to any girl.”
I broke down again, half from shame, half from the happiness of having cast my sin from me by confessing it. Elsie held my hand now.
“Never mind; never mind,” she said; “you won’t do it again.”
“I would rather be hanged,” I sobbed.
That moment a pair of strong hands caught hold of mine, and the next I found myself being hoisted on somebody’s back, by a succession of heaves and pitches, which did not cease until I was firmly seated. Then a voice said—
“I’m his horse again, Elsie, and I’ll carry him home this very night.”
Elsie gave a pleased little laugh; and Turkey bore me to the fireside, where my father was talking away in a low tone to the old woman. I believe he had now turned the tables upon her, and was trying to convince her of her unkind and grumbling ways. But he did not let us hear a word of the reproof.
“Eh! Turkey, my lad! is that you? I didn’t know you were there,” he said.
I had never before heard my father address him as Turkey.
“What are you doing with that great boy upon your back?” he continued.
“I’m going to carry him home, sir.”
“Nonsense! He can walk well enough.”
Half ashamed, I began to struggle to get down, but Turkey held me tight.
“But you see, sir,” said Turkey, “we’re friends now.He’sdone what he could, andIwant to do what I can.”
“Very well,” returned my father, rising; “come along; it’s time we were going.”
When he bade her good night, the old woman actually rose and held out her hand to both of us.
“Good night, Grannie,” said Turkey. “Good night, Elsie.” And away we went.
Never conqueror on his triumphal entry was happier than I, as through the starry night I rode home on Turkey’s back. The very stars seemed rejoicing over my head. When I think of it now, the words always come with it, “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth,” and I cannot but believe they rejoiced then, for if ever I repented in my life I repented then. When at length I was down in bed beside Davie, it seemed as if there could be nobody in the world so blessed as I was: I had been forgiven. When I woke in the morning, I was as it were new born into a new world. Before getting up I had a rare game with Davie, whose shrieks of laughter at length brought Mrs. Mitchell with angry face; but I found myself kindly disposed even towards her. The weather was much the same; but its dreariness had vanished. There was a glowing spot in my heart which drove out the cold, and glorified the black frost that bound the earth. When I went out before breakfast, and saw the red face of the sun looking through the mist like a bright copper kettle, he seemed to know all about it, and to be friends with me as he had never been before; and I was quite as well satisfied as if the sun of my dream had given me a friendly nod of forgiveness.