CHAPTER XIII
Over the wide valley the April sun was falling, warmly genial, releasing from the moist earth a thousand fragrances. Under the glorious light the valley lay in dim, neutral colours, except where the masses of pine trees lay dark green and the patches of snow showed white in the hollows between the pines and far up on the grey, rocky sides of the higher mountains. Through the valley the river rolled blue grey, draining from the hills by millions of trickling rivulets the melting snow. As yet the deeper masses of snow and the glaciers lying far up between the loftier peaks had not begun to pour down in spouting waterfalls to swell the great river below. Everywhere were the voices of spring, hymning the age-long miracle of freedom from the long tyranny of winter.
It was a Sunday morning, and from every direction the people were to be seen gathering for service in the little Union Church which the united efforts of the valley people had erected for the use of all who might care to gather for worship. Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, all had equal rights in the church, and each body its day for service. Today was the Presbyterian day, and this day a high day, for it was “Sacrament Sunday.” About the door a group of neighbours stood, exchanging the friendly gossip of the valley and subjecting to kindly if pungent criticism each newcomer approaching the church.
“Here’s Sawny Cammell in his ‘lum’ hat,” exclaimed Willy Mackie, whom Sandy Campbell would describe as “yon wee Paisley buddie,” a little Scot with a sharp tongue but kindly heart.
“’Is plug ’at is for to celebrate the ’oly Communion. (H)it’s ’is Sacrament ’at,” giggled Sam Hatch, a wizened-up Cockney.
“’Ere, you cut that (h)out,” said his friend, Billy Bickford, a plump, jolly-faced Englishman whose highly coloured and bulbous nose carried its own history. “I don’t ’old wi’ Sandy in ’is religion, but it’s ’isen and let ’im practise it as ’e jolly well wants to, that’s me.”
“’Old ’ard, ole top—’oo’s a-talkin’ agin Sandy’s religion or (h)any man’s religion. I’m referring to ’is ’at, wich I might saigh I wish I ’ad the like of it. I (h)ain’t no ’eathen, I (h)ain’t.”
“All right, Sammy, all right. I’m not persoomin’ to suggest (h)any such thing, but I’m sensitive about Sandy’s religion and (h)anything belongin’ to it. Wot about ’is minister? Wot about ’im, eh? That’s wot I (h)asks, wot about ’im?” Billy’s eyes were ablaze.
Behind Billy’s sensitiveness lay a story known to every one in the valley. A story of a long, long fight against odds between Billy and his bottle, in which the minister played a somewhat effective part. And another story, a sad one to Billy and to Billy’s mild little wife, a story of a diphtheria epidemic in the valley, of three children down with it one after another, with the mother in bed with a fourth newly born, of long watches shared by two desperate men, of which the minister was one and Billy the other, and of two graves in the churchyard near by. From the day those graves were closed Billy was “sensitive” upon any matter touching Donald Fraser however remotely.
“’Is minister? ’Is minister?” cried Hatch, quite familiar with Billy’s story. “Look ’ee ’ere, Billy, don’t you go for to make me saigh wot I didn’t saigh. Wot’s ’is minister got to do with ’is ’at? Tell me that. An’ don’t you——” The little man’s indignation made him incoherent.
“‘’Is Sacrament ’at,’ says you,” replied Bickford, attempting a dignified judicial calm. “’Is Sacrament ’at ’as to do wi’ ’is Sacrament, and ’is Sacrament wi’ ’is Church, and ’is Church wi’ ’is minister.”
“Lor’-a-mercy, ’ear ’im! Why stop at ’is minister. Why not go on to ’is minister’s yeller dog?” fumed Hatch, highly incensed at being placed in an attitude of criticism toward Sandy’s minister. “’Oo’s a-talkin’ about ’is minister, I (h)ask?”
“I (h)accept y’re apology, Sammy,” replied Billy, with gracious condescension, “and we will consider the subject closed. Good morning, Mr. Campbell. It is a rare fine Sunday morning for the Sacrament.” He went forward with hand outstretched in welcome, leaving his friend Hatch choking with unexpressed indignation.
“Good morning, Mr. Bickford,” replied Sandy, an undersized Highlander dressed in his “blacks” and, as has been indicated, with a “plug” hat on his head, whose ancient style and well-worn nap proclaimed its long and honourable service. “It is indeed a glorious morning for the Sacrament, to such as are worthy to enjoy it.” The Highlander’s eyes were deep blue in colour and set deep in his head, under shaggy eyebrows. They were the eyes of a mystic, far looking, tender, yet with fire lurking in their depths. “Aye, for such as are worthy to partake,” he echoed with a sigh, as he passed to a place beside his friend, big John Carr, a handsome, slow-moving South Country Scot, where he stood lost in introspection.
“I guess Sandy has the pip this morning,” said a tall young fellow, Tom Powers, with a clean-cut, clean-shaven brown face and humorous brown eyes.
“I doot he’ll be better aifter the service. He has an unco’ low opeenion o’himsel’,” said John Carr in an aside to Powers. “But he’s nae sae bad, is Sandy.”
“Oh, Sandy’s all right. He’s got his Sunday clothes on, and they depress him a bit. And no wonder. They do every fellow. Hello, here’s the Colonel and his democrat. Got a new coat of paint, eh? Sure sign of spring.”
Down the road the Colonel could be seen driving a spanking team of bay roadsters in a light two-seated democrat, shoulders back, elbows squared, whip-aflourish, altogether making a very handsome appearance. At a smart pace he swung his bays into the churchyard and drew up at the alighting platform, throwing his foam-flecked steeds upon their haunches.
“Look at that now!” exclaimed Tom Powers, sotto voce. “What’s the matter with the British Army?”
As he spoke the young fellow stepped forward and gave his hand to the Colonel’s wife to assist her from the platform, then lifted Peg down from the wagon, swinging her clear over the platform to the grass.
“Good morning, Mrs. Pelham. Mighty fine outfit, Colonel. You do the valley proud.”
“Ah, how are you, Powers? What? Not too bad a match, eh?” He tchicked to the bays, holding them on a firm rein. Well they knew what was expected of them. On their hind legs they stood poised a moment or two, then in a series of dainty prancing steps they were off toward the shed. It was a part of the Colonel’s regular Sunday morning display.
Following close upon the Pelhams came Gaspard and Paul. A murmur ran round the waiting group. Not for nearly four years had Gaspard been seen at church, not since the tragedy of his wife’s death which had shocked the whole valley. His presence today was the result of the efforts of his minister, Donald Fraser, formerly a great friend of his late wife, backed up by the persuasions of Paul who had refused for the past six months to go to church without his father. This was Paul’s birthday and as a treat for the boy he had finally consented to come. But there was more than his regard for his minister and his love for his son in his consenting to come. The past year had been one of stern discipline to Gaspard. Ill health, loneliness, the stress of poverty, the sense of ill desert had overwhelmed him in a flood of misery. Then came Donald Fraser back into his life, from which he had been vehemently driven out, refusing to abandon him. Every third week as the day of the Presbyterian service came round the buckboard and the yellow buckskin broncho drove up to the Pine Croft stables.
“You need not glower at me, Gaspard,” he had said the day of his first appearance. “I am coming to visit you, for your sake because you need me and for your boy’s sake who wants me. No! I’ll not put my horse in. My duty does not make it necessary that I should force myself upon your hospitality.”
But Gaspard had only sworn at him and replied, “Don’t be a bally ass, Fraser. I’m not taking much stock in your religion, but I don’t forget my—my family’s friends. Louis, put the minister’s horse up.”
From that day Fraser felt himself entitled to turn into the Pine Croft drive when in the neighbourhood. And many an hour, happy and otherwise, did he spend with Gaspard, fighting out the metaphysics of the Calvinistic system in which he was a master, and with Paul over his music, for the minister was music mad. Nor did he fail to “deal faithfully” with Gaspard, to the good of the rancher’s soul. One result of Fraser’s visitations and “faithful dealing” was the loosening of Sleeman’s grip upon Gaspard’s life. It took but a very few visits to lay bare to the minister’s eye the tragedy of degeneration in Gaspard to whom in other and happier days Sleeman had been altogether detestable.
“Go and see the man. He is lonely and sick and devil ridden,” he commanded the men of the valley, and they obeyed him. Under the humanising influence of genial friendliness Gaspard gradually came nearer to being himself again.
So it came that here he was once more at church, to the great satisfaction of the whole body of his acquaintances of other days, but chiefly of his son, to whom this Sunday morning, this radiant birthday morning of his, was like a gift sent straight from the blue heaven above. On every side Gaspard was welcomed with more effusion than was common among the men of the valley. And the reason for this was that Donald Fraser had been setting before them in no uncertain manner their hypocrisy and Pharisaic self-righteousness in shunning a man who was a sinner differing from them only in this, that his sin happened to be known.
Paul waited only to witness his father’s welcome, then slipped in to his old place at the piano, which served as an organ, to which Billy Bickford conducted him in semi-official state, for Billy was a church warden for the Anglican part of the congregation. In a moment or two, through the open windows there streamed out a rippling flow of joyous music. As the gay song of spring came rippling through the windows Sandy Campbell started forward with a word of indignant protest.
“Haud ye fast a bit, man,” said John Carr, laying a big detaining hand upon the Highlander’s arm. “The laddie is just tuning a wee.”
“Tuning? And iss that what you will be calling yon? I tell ye, John, I love the laddie and his music, but iss yon thing a suitable music for the house o’ God on the Lord’s day?”
“Haud on a wee, Sandy man!” adjured his friend. “Gie the laddie time tae draw his breath.”
“What’s that reel, Sandy?” inquired Tom Powers, cocking a critical ear toward the window. “Sounds a little like ’Tullochgorum’ to me. But I ain’t Scotch, though my mother was.”
Sandy squirmed in the clutch of John Carr’s big hand, under the gibe.
“No, that must be Lord Macdonald’s—di-del-di, di-del-um,” hummed Powers, tapping an ungodly foot in time with the music.
“John Carr, take your hand from my arm. This iss no less than desecration, high desecration, I am telling you. The laddie has gone mad,” cried Sandy, greatly distressed and struggling to free himself from Carr’s calm grip.
“Listen to what he’s playin’ the noo,” said Carr quietly. As he spoke the rippling dance of the spring music had given place to the simple strains of an old-fashioned “bairns’ hymn.” As the three men stood listening, each became aware of the subtle changes in the faces of the others, but they knew not how upon their own faces were registered emotions which they would have hid from all the world.
The lines of stern disapproval in Sandy’s face softened into those of tender reminiscence. John Carr’s placid face became gravely sad, as his eyes wandered to a far corner of the churchyard. While Tom Powers turned abruptly toward the church door, whither Sandy had led the way. Over and over again the bairns’ hymn stole like a far-away echo over the congregation in major and minor keys, then glided into the more stately and solemn cadences of the great Psalms and hymns of the Church Universal.
One by one the people about the door passed quietly into their places in the beautiful little church, and there sat listening till the minister appeared. It was one of the great hours in Paul’s life, restored to him again after months of absence from church. As the minister bowed his head in silent prayer the piano began, in tones tremulously sweet, the minor strains of that most poignantly penitential air of all Scottish psalmody, Old Coleshill, a fitting prelude to the ritual, tender, solemn, moving, of the ancient Scottish Communion Service.
The sermon was less profoundly theological than usual. The theme, as ever on a Sacrament Sunday, was one of the great doctrines of the Cross, “Forgiveness, Its Ground and Its Fruits.” And while the preacher revelled in the unfolding of the mysteries the congregation, according to their mental and spiritual predilections and training, followed with keen appreciation or with patient endurance till the close.
To the superficial and non-understanding observer the Scot “enjoys” his religion sadly. His doctrinal furnishing is too profoundly logical and his moral sense too acutely developed to permit him any illusions as to his standing before his own conscience and before the bar of Eternal Righteousness, and while in other departments of life his native consciousness of merit in comparison with that of inferior races renders him impervious to the criticism of other people—for how can they be expected to know?—and alleviates to a large extent even his own self-condemnation at times, when it comes to “matters of the soul” he passes into a region where he stands alone with his God in an ecstasy of self-abasement which may in moments of supreme exaltation be merged into an experience of solemn and holy joy. But these moments are never spoken of. They become part of his religious experience, never to be revealed.
By the gleam in Sandy Campbell’s deep blue eyes the expert might have been able to gather that Sandy was on the way to ecstasy. Gaspard, though not of Sandy’s mystic type, had in him enough of his Highland blood strain to respond to the Celtic fervour of Donald Fraser proclaiming the mystery of the vicarious passion of the Cross. Today the usual commercialised aspect of the great doctrine was overwhelmed in the appeal of the Divine compassion to wayward and wandering children. The minister was more human, less academic, in his treatment of his great theme than was his wont. Paul, seated at the piano, was apparently quite undisturbed by the profundities of the minister’s discourse. To him the refinements and elaborations of theological propositions were so much waste of words. Sin, judgment, repentance, forgiveness, were simple and easily understood ideas. They had entered into his daily experience in his earlier days with his mother. With God it was just the same thing. Why fuss about what was so abundantly plain that any child might take it in? Today he was watching his father’s face and Sandy Campbell’s. He was interested in their interest and enjoying their enjoyment. His face reflected their moods and emotions. The minister’s eye was caught and held by the boy’s face, and all unconsciously his sermon took tone and colour from what he found there.
The communion hymn was followed by an abbreviated—for time pressed—but none the less soul-searching address, known in old-time Presbyterian parlance as the “Fencing of the Table.” This part of the communion “Exercises,” however necessary in communities only nominally religious and in times when “coming forward” had come to be regarded as a purely formal duty associated with the attaining of “years of discretion” rather than with any particular religious experience, the minister during his years in the valley had come to touch somewhat lightly. Among the people of the valley there was little need of a “fence” to warn back the rashly self-complacent from “unworthily communing.” Yet custom dies hard in matters religious, and in consequence the “Fencing of the Table” could not be neglected. Encouraged by the invitation to the holy ordinance given with a warmth and breadth of appeal to “all who desired to remember with grateful and penitent heart the Lord Who had given His life for them,” Paul, without much previous thought and moved chiefly by the desire quite unusual at such a moment to share in the solemn service with his father, who apparently had suddenly resolved to renew his relation to his faith and to his Church today, had slipped from the piano seat to his father’s side. During the “fencing” process, Paul’s mind, borne afar upon the spiritual tides released by the whole service and its environment and quite oblivious to the argument and appeal in the words of the address, was suddenly and violently arrested by a phrase, “You must forgive him who has wronged you, else you dare not partake.” As the idea was elaborated and enforced with all the fervent passion of the minister’s Highland soul the boy’s whole mental horizon became blocked with one terrible and forbidding object, the face of Asa Sleeman. The sin of the unforgiving soul daring to enter into communion with the forgiving Lord was pressed with relentless logic upon the boy’s conscience. An overwhelming horror fell upon him. Forgive him who had uttered the foul lie about his father? The thing was simply a moral impossibility. The whole moral order of his Universe would in that case come tumbling in ruins about him. The thing called for judgment, not forgiveness—judgment and condign punishment. Wrong things and wrong people must be punished, else what was hell for? Yet, “forgive him who has wronged you,” the minister was saying, “else you cannot be forgiven.” Clearly there was no hope for him. His whole theory of forgiveness and restoration was rudely shattered. Asa and his father might possibly escape hell after all. It was a disturbing thought. At any rate, the communion was not for him. He glanced hastily at his father.
“I am going out a bit,” he whispered.
“Are you ill?” inquired his father, startled at the pallor in his face.
“No, I’m all right,” he replied, and rising quietly he passed out and through the open door of the church.
The “Fencing of the Table” was concluded in as thorough a manner as the conscience of the minister demanded. The solemn moment when the elders were to go forward for “the administration of the elements” had arrived. From his place near the front of the church John Carr had risen, expecting his fellow Elder, Sandy Campbell, to join him in his impressive march to the “Table.” Sandy, however, was nowhere to be seen. The situation was extremely awkward.
“Is Mr. Campbell not present?” inquired the minister, scanning the congregation.
“’E’s retired from the church, sir,” replied Churchwarden Bickford, respectfully rising from his seat, “but if I might (h)assist—” he added with a hesitating glance at John Carr.
“Thank you, Mr. Bickford, if you would be so kind—” began Mr. Fraser. “Ah! here is Mr. Campbell,” he added, greatly relieved. A church warden might possess in full measure the qualifications necessary for his exalted office, but as a substitute for an Elder in the administering of the Sacrament he left something to be desired.
Quietly and with impressive deliberation Sandy made his way to the “Table” while under cover of the ceremonial of “preparing the elements” Paul slipped quietly into his place beside his father.
“And whaur did ye flit tae, Sandy?” inquired John Carr as they two were “daunderin’” homewards after the service. “Man, it was a terrible embarrassment tae hae yon Bickford buddie offer to officiate.”
“It wass the lad. He wass driven out from the ‘Table,’ but by what spirit I wass unable to judge till I had inquired.” For some distance Sandy walked on in silence and his friend knew him well enough to await his word. “He was under deep conviction and sore vexed, but he was brought out into a large place.” Still John Carr walked on in silence. These matters were to be handled with delicacy and reserve.
“Yess! the word wass given me,” said Sandy softly. “Oh, yess! even to me. ‘Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings.’”
“He is a wise laddie in spite o’ quirks,” ventured his friend.
“‘Quirks’?” inquired Sandy with some severity. “‘Quirks’ did you say? And what might you be calling ‘quirks’?’ The lad is a rare lad with a gift of discernment beyond his years. I went out in my pride of heart to minister counsel to him. I found that it was for myself that he had the word of the Lord. And a searching word it wass. Oh, yess! yess!”
“Hoots! Sandy, he wad na presume to instruct an Elder.” John Carr was plainly shocked at the possibility.
“Instruct? What are you saying? The lad had no thought of me whateffer. I found him away back beyond the church, wailing like a bairn that had lost its mother, because, mark you! he was unfit to join with the people of God in remembering the Lord. John Carr, I will confess to you as I did to the Lord Himself that I was stricken to the heart for my pride and self-sufficiency as I heard him crying after his God. Truly, the Lord was gracious to me, a hard-hearted sinner, in that moment. For on my knees I made confession of my sin before God—till the lad himself gave me the word.”
“And what word was that, Sandy?” ventured John Carr, for Sandy had fallen into silence.
“It wass the Lord’s word to my soul, John, and I will not be repeating it. But it brought the light whateffer.”
“The laddie came forward I observed.”
“Oh, yess, yess, he came forward. It was given to me to remove some slight misconceptions from the lad’s mind as to the Divine economy in the matter of mercy and judgment, and he came forward. It was irregular, I grant you, but who was I, John Carr, to forbid him the ‘Table’ of the Lord?” Halting in his walk, Sandy flung the challenge at his friend’s head and waited for reply.
“Tut! tut! Sandy, I’m no saying ye did onything but right tae bring in the lad,” protested Carr.
“Indeed and indeed, he was the one who brought me in. ‘A little child shall lead them.’ John, John, it iss myself that iss in sore need of leading. And that have I learned this day.”
And no further enlightenment on the matter would Sandy offer that day.
But it would have helped John Carr to a better understanding of what had really transpired at the back of the church that day had he overheard Paul’s words to his father as they rode home from the church.
“Say, Daddy, I never knew Sandy Campbell—Mr. Campbell, I mean, was like that.”
“Like what, Paul?”
“Well, he’s funny, you know, but he is awful, awfully nice. He understands a fellow so quick—and—you know, Daddy, he made me think of—I mean he talked to me—— Daddy, Tom Powers makes fun of him but I think he’s just splendid.”
“How do you mean?” asked his father.
The boy was silent for some moments and then said shyly, “I don’t know exactly. Oh, he is just splendid, Daddy!” he exclaimed with a rush of enthusiasm. “He talked to me just like mother used to.”
“Did he, boy?” said his father, with a sudden choke in his voice. “Then he must indeed be splendid.”