* * * * *Carnation slept in a little garret room with a gable window. She had chosen it, because she liked to look down on John Charles' fields and on the low place in the hedge where he always stood waiting for her.The waning moon had risen late, and Carnation undressed without a candle. Having said her prayers, she stole into bed. But sleep would not come, and, her heart being right sore within her, the tears forced up her eyelids instead, as it is woman's safety that they should.She lay and sobbed her heart out because John was going away. But through the tears that wet her pillow certain words she had been singing in the choir on Sunday forced themselves:—"Weeping may endure for a night,But joy cometh in the morning."Nevertheless, Carnation must have sobbed herself to sleep, for it was nigh the dawn when she was awakened by something that flicked her lattice at regular intervals. It could not be a bird. It was too sharp and regular for that.Could it be——?Impossible!He had never come before at such a time! If it were indeed he, there must be some terrible news to tell.Carnation rose hastily, and threw a loose cloak about her shoulders. Then she went and opened the little French lattice with the criss-cross diamond panes. The dawn was coming slowly up out of the east, and the gray fields were turning rosy beneath her.A dark figure filled up the low place in the hedge."Carnation, I had something to tell you!""Is it bad news? I cannot bear it, if it is.""No, the best of news! I am not going at Whitsunday to Australia. My mother told me last night that she is to be married at the New Year. He is a rich man—Harry Foster's father. She is going to live at Carnsalloch.""Well?" said Carnation, doubtfully, not seeing all that this sudden change meant to them both."Why, then, dearest," the voice of John Charles Morrison shook with emotion, "we can be married as soon as we like after that. The farm and everything on it is ours—yours and mine!"Carnation's brain reeled, and she found herself without a word to say. Only the sound of the happy singing ran in her head:"Joy cometh in the morning—joy cometh in the morning!""Why don't you speak, Carnation? Are you not glad?"The voice down at the gap was anxious now."I am too far away from you to say anything, but I am glad, very glad, dear John!""You will be ready by Whitsunday?""I shall be ready by Whitsunday!"There was a pause. The light came clearer in the east. John Charles could see the girl's fresh complexion thrown up by the dark cloak, an edging of lace, white and dainty, just showing beneath."Carnation, I wish I could kiss you!" he said."Will this do instead?" she answered him, smiling through the wetness of her eyes.And she lifted up the old worn class medal she had carried so long on its blue ribbon, and kissed it openly.And that had perforce to "do" John Charles—at least, for that time of asking.JAIMSIEAs I drove home the other day I saw that old lazybones Jacob Irving seated in the sun with a whole covey of boys round him. He had his pocket-knife in his hand, and was busy mending a "gird." The "gird," or wooden hoop, belonged to Will Bodden, and its precedence in medical treatment had been secured by Will's fists. There was quite a little hospital ward behind, of toys all awaiting diagnosis in strict order of primacy.Here was Dick Dobie with a new blade to put into his shilling knife. A shilling knife, Jacob assured him, is not fitted for cutting down fishing rods. It is however, excellent as a saw when used on smaller timber. Next came Peter Cheesemonger, who was in waiting with a model schooner, the rising of which had met with an accident. And there hurrying down from the cottage on the Brae, was one of the younger Allan lasses with her mother's "wag-at-the-wa'" clock. The pendulum had wagged to such purpose that it had swung itself out of its right mind.After I had left behind me this vision of old Jacob Irving seated on the wall of the boys' playground at the village school, I fell into a muse upon the narrowness of the line which in our Scottish parishes, divides the "Do-Everythings" from the "Do-Nothings."I could give myself the more completely to this train of thought that I had finished my rounds for the day, and had now nothing to do except to look forward to seeing Nance, and to the excellent dinner for which the shrewd airs of the moorland were providing internal accommodation of quite a superior character.The conditions of Scottish life are generally so strenuous, and the compulsions of "He that will not work, neither shall he eat" so absolute that we cannot afford more than one local Do-Nothing in a village or rural community. Equally certainly, however, one is necessary. The business of the commonwealth could not be carried on without him. Besides, he is needed to point the indispensable moral."There's that guid-for-naething Jacob Irvin' sittin' wi' a' the misleared boys o' the neighbourhood aboot him!" I can hear a douce goodwife say to her gossip. "Guid peety his puir wife and bairns! Guidman, lay ye doon that paper an awa' to your wark, or ye'll sune be nae better—wi' your Gledstane and your speeches and your smokin'! Think shame o' yersel', guidman."As the community grows larger, however, there is less and less room for the amiable Do-Nothing. He is, indeed, only seen to perfection in a village or rural parish. In Cairn Edward, for instance which thinks itself quite a town, he does not attain the general esteem and almost affectionate reprobation which, in my native Whinnyliggate, follow Jacob Irving about like his shadow.In a town like Cairn Edward a local Do-Nothing is apt to attach himself to a livery stable, and there to acquire a fine coppery nose and a permanent "dither" about the knees. He is spoken of curtly and even disrespectfully as "that waister Jock Bell." In cities he becomes a mere matter for the police, and the facetious reporter chronicles his two-hundredth appearance before the magistrate.But in Whinnyliggate, in Dullarg, in Crosspatrick, and in the surrounding parishes, the conditions for the growth of the Do-Nothing approach as near perfection as anything merely mundane can be expected to do. Jacob Irving is hardly a typical specimen, for he has a trade. The genuine Do-Nothing should have none. It is true that Jacob's children might reply, like the boy when asked if his father were a Christian, "Yes, but he does not work at it much!"Jacob is a shoe-maker—or rather shoe-mender. For I have never yet been able to trace an entire pair of Jacob's foot-gear on any human extremities. It does not fit his humour to be so utilitarian. He has, however, made an excellent toy pair for the feet of little Jessie Lockhart's doll, with soles, heels, uppers, tongues, and lacing gear all complete. He spent, to my personal knowledge, an entire morning in showing her (on the front step of her father's manse) how to take them off and put them on again. And in the future he will never meet Jessie on the King's highway without stopping and gravely asking her if any repairs are yet requisite. When such are necessary they will, without doubt, receive his best attention.I had not, however, made a study of Jacob Irving for any considerable period without exploding the vulgar opinion that the parish Do-Nothing is an idle or a lazy man. Nay, to repeat my initial paradox, the Do-Nothing is the only genuine Do-Everything.When on a recent occasion I gave Jacob, in return for the pleasure of his conversation, a "lift" in my doctor's gig, he talked to me very confidentially of his "rounds." At first I imagined in my ignorance that, like the tailors of the parishes round about, he went from farm to farm prosecuting his calling and cobbling the shoes of half the countryside. I was buttressed in this opinion by his expressed pity or contempt for wearers of "clogs.""Here's anither puir body wi' a pair o' clogs on his feet," Jacob would say; "and to think that for verra little mair than the craitur paid for them, I wad fit him wi' as soond a pair o' leather-soled shoon as were ever ta'en frae amang tanners' bark!"I had also seen him start out with a thin-bladed cobbler's knife and the statutory piece of "roset" or resin wrapped in a palm's-breadth of soft leather. But, alas, all was a vain show. The knife was to be used in delicate surgical work upon the deceased at a pig-killing, and the resin was for splicing fishing-rods.After a while I began by severe study to get to the bottom of a Do-Nothing's philosophy. To do the appointed task for the performance of which duty calls, man waits, and money will be paid, that is work to be avoided by every means—by procrastination, by fallacious promise, by prevarication, and (sad to have to say it) by the plainest of plain lying.Whatever brings in money in the exercise of a trade, whatever must be finished within a given time, that needs the co-operation of others or prolonged and consecutive effort on his own part, is merely anathema to the Do-Nothing.On the other hand, no house in the parish is too distant for him to attend at the "settin' o' the yaird" (the delving must, however, be done previously). On such occasions the Do-Nothing revels in long wooden pins with string wrapped mysteriously about them. He can turn you out the neatest shaped bed of "onions" and "syboes," the straightest rows of cabbages, and potato drills so level that the whole household feels that it must walk the straight path in order not to shame them. The wayfaring man though a fool, looks over the dyke, and says: "Thae dreels are Jacob's—there's nane like them in the countryside!"This at least is Jacob's way of it.But though all this is by the way of introduction to the particular Do-Nothing I have in my eye, it is not of Jacob that I am going to write. Jacob is indeed an enticing subject, and from the point of view of his wife, might be treated very racily. But, though I afterwards made Margate Irving's acquaintance (and may one day put her opinions on record), I have other and higher game in my mind.This is none other than the Reverend James Tacksman, B.A., licentiate of the Original Marrow Kirk of Scotland. In fact, a clerical Do-Nothing of the highest class.Now, to begin with, I will aver that there is no scorn in all this. "Jaimsie" is more to me than many worthy religious publicists, beneficed, parished, churched, stipended, and sustentationed to the eyes. He was not a very great man. He was in no sense a successful man, but—he was "Jaimsie."I admit that my zeal is that of the pervert. It was not always thus with me when "Jaimsie" was alive, and perhaps my enthusiasm is so full-bodied from a sense that it is impossible for the gentle probationer to come and quarter himself upon Nance and myself for (say) a period of three months in the winter season, a thing he was quite capable of doing when in the flesh.In the days before I was converted to higher views of human nature as represented in the person of "Jaimsie," I was even as the vulgar with regard to him. I admit it. I even openly scoffed, and retailed to many the story of Jamie and my father, Saunders McQuhirr of Drumquhat, with which I shall conclude. I used to tell it rather well at college, the men said. At least they laughed sufficiently. But now I shall not try to add, alter, amend, or extenuate, as is the story-teller's wont with his favourites. For in sackcloth and ashes I have repented me, and am at present engaged in making my honourable amend to "Jaimsie."For almost as long as I can remember the Reverend James Tacksman, B.A., was in the habit of coming to my father's house, and the news that he was in view on the "far brae-face" used to put my mother into such a temper that "dauded" heads and cuffed ears were the order of the day. The larger fry of us cleared out promptly to the barn and stack-yard till the first burst of the storm was over. Even my father, accustomed as he was to carry all matters ecclesiastical with a high hand, found it convenient to have some harness to clean in the stable, or the lynch-pin of a cart to replace in the little joiner's shop where he passed so much of his time."I'll no hae the craitur aboot the hoose," my mother would cry; "I telled ye sae the last time he was here—sax weeks in harvest it was—and then had maist to be shown the door. (Haud oot o' my road, weans! Can ye no keep frae rinnin' amang my feet like sae mony collie whaulps? Tak' ye that!) Hear ye this, guidman, if ye willna speak to the man, by my faith I wull. Mary McQuhirr is no gaun to hae the bread ta'en oot o' the mooths o' her innocent bairns——(Where in the name o' fortune, Alec, are ye gaun wi' that soda bannock? Pit it doon this meenit, or I'll tak' the tings to ye!). Na, nor I will be run aff my feet to pleesure ony sic useless, guid-for-naething seefer as Jaimsie Tacksman!"At this moment a faint rapping made itself audible at the front door, never opened except on the highest state occasions, as when the minister called, and at funerals.My mother (I can see her now) gave a hasty "tidy" to her gray hair and adjusted her white-frilled "mutch" about her still winsome brow."And hoo are ye the day, Maister Tacksman, an' it's a lang, lang season since we've had the pleasure o' a veesit frae you!"Could that indeed be my mother's voice, so lately upraised in denunciation over a stricken and cowering world? I could not understand it then, and to tell the truth I don't quite yet. I have, however, asked her to explain, and this is what she says:"Weel, ye see, Alec, it was this way" (she is pleased when I require any points for my "scribin'," though publicly she scoffs at them and declares it will ruin my practice if the thing becomes known), "ye see I had it in my mind to the last minute to deny the craitur. But when I gaed to open the door, there stood Jaimsie wi' his wee bit shakin' hand oot an' his threadbare coatie hingin' laich aboot his peetifu' spindle shanks, and his weel-brushit hat, an' the white neck-claith that wanted doin' up. And I kenned that naebody could laundry it as weel as me. My fingers juist fair yeukit (itched) to be at the starchin' o't. And faith, maybes there was something aboot the craitur too—he was sae cruppen in upon himsel', sae wee-bookit, sae waesome and yet kindly aboot the e'en, that I juist couldna say him nay."That is my mother's report of her feelings in the matter. She does not add that the ten minutes or quarter of an hour in which she had been able to give the fullest and most public expression to her feelings had allowed most of the steam of indignation to blow itself off. My father, who was a good judge, gave me, early in my married life, some excellent advice on this very point, which I subjoin for the edification of the general public."Never bottle a woman up, Alec," he said, meditatively. "What Vesuvius and Etna and thae ither volcanoes are to this worl', the legeetimate exercise o' her tongue is to a woman. It's a naitural function, Alec. Ye may bridle the ass or the mule, but—gie the tongue o' a woman (as it were) plenty o' elbow-room! Gang oot o' the hoose—like Moses to the backside o' the wilderness gin ye like, and when ye come in she will be as quaite as pussy; and if ever ye hae to contradick your mairried wife, Alec, let it be in deeds, no in words. Gang your road gin ye hae made up your mind, immovable like the sun, the mune, and the stars o' heeven in their courses—but, as ye value peace dinna be aye crying' 'Aye,' when your wife cries 'No'!"Which things may be wisdom. But to the tale of our Jaimsie.Sometimes, moreover, even the natural man in my kindly and long-suffering father uprose against the preacher. Jaimsie knew when he was comfortable, and no mere hint of any delicate sort would make him curtail his visit by one day. I can remember him creeping about the farm of Drumquhat all that summer, a book in his hand, contemplating the works of God as witnessed chiefly in the growth of the "grosarts." (We always blamed him—quite unjustly, I believe—for eating the "silver-gray" gooseberries on the sly.) Now he would stand half an hour and gaze up among the branches of an elm, where a cushat was tirelesslycoorooringto his mate. Anon you would see him apparently deeply engaged in counting the sugar-plums in the orchard. After a little he would be found seated on the red shaft of a cart in the stackyard, jotting down in a shabby notebook ideas for the illustrations of sermons never to be written; or if written, doomed never to be preached. His hat was always curled up at the back and pulled down at the front, and till my mother made down an old pair of my father's Sunday trousers for him (and put them beside his bed while he slept), you could see in a good light the reflection of your hand on the knees of his "blacks." It is scarcely necessary to say that Jaimsie never referred to the transposition, nor, indeed, in all probability, so much as discovered it.Jaimsie was used to conduct family worship morning and evening in the house of his sojourn, as a kind of quit-rent for his meal of meat and his prophet's chamber. To the ordinary reading of the Word he was wont to subjoin an "exposeetion" of some disputed or prophetical passage. The whole exercises never took less than an hour, if Jaimsie were left to the freedom of his own will—which, as may be inferred, was extremely awkward in a busy season when the corn was dry in the stock or when the scythes flashed rhythmically like level silver flames among the lush meadow grass.Finally, therefore, a compromise had to be effected. My father took the morning diet of worship, but Jaimsie had his will of us in the evening. I can see them yet—those weariful sederunts, when even my father wrestled with sleep like Samson with the Philistines, while my mother periodically nodded forward with a lurch, and, recovering herself with a start, the next moment looked round haughtily to see which of us was misbehaving. Meanwhile the kitchen was all dark, save where before Jaimsie the great Bible lay open between two candles, and on the hearth the last peat of the evening glowed red.Many is the fine game of draughts I have had with my brother Rob and Christie Wilson our herd lad, by putting the "dam-brod" behind the chimney jamb where my father and mother could not see it, and moving the pieces by the light of the red peat ash. I am ashamed to think on it now, but then it seemed the only thing to do which would keep us from sleep.And meantime Jaimsie prosed on, his gentle sing-song working its wicked work on mother like a lullaby, and my father sending his nails into the palms of his hands that he might not be shamed before us all.I remember particularly how Jaimsie addressed us for a whole week on his favourite text in he Psalms, "The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan—an high hill, as the hill of Bashan."And in the pauses of crowning our men and scuffling for the next place at the draught board, we could catch strange words and phrases which come to me yet with a curious wistful thrilling of the heart. Such are "White as snow on Salmon"—"That mount Sinai in Arabia"—"Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain upon you, nor fields of offering."And as a concluding of the whole matter we sang this verse out of Francis Roos's psalter:"Ye mountains great, wherefore was itThat ye did skip like rams?And wherefore was it, little hills,That ye did leap like lambs?"It was all double-Dutch to me then, but now I can see that Jaimsie must have been marshalling the mountains of Scripture to bear solemn witness against an evil and exceedingly somnolent generation.Once when my mother snored audibly Jaimsie looked up, but at that very moment she awoke, and with great and remarkable presence of mind promptly cuffed Rob, who in his turn knocked the draught-board endways, just as I had his last man cornered, to our everlasting disgrace.My mother asked us next day pointedly where we thought we were going to, and if we were of opinion that there would be any dam-brods in hell. I offered no remarks, but Rob—who was always an impudent boy—got on the other side of the dyke from my mother and answered that there would be no snorers there either.From an early age he was a lad of singularly sound judgments, my brother Rob. He stayed out in the barn till after my mother was asleep that night.At last, however, even my father grew tired of Jaimsie. He stayed full three months on this occasion. Autumnal harvest fields were bared of stooks, the frost began to glisten on the stiff turnip shaws, the wreathed nets were put up for the wintering sheep, and still the indefatigable Jaimsie stayed on.I remember yet the particular morning when, at long and last, Jaimsie left us. All night almost there had been in the house the noise as of a burn running over hollow stones, with short solid interruptions like the sound of a distant mallet stricken on wood. It came from my father's and mother's room. I knew well what it meant. The sound like running water was my mother trying to persuade my father to something against his will, and the far-away mallet thuds were his mono-syllabic replies.This time it was my mother who won.After the harvest bustle was over, Jaimsie had resumed his practice of taking worship in the mornings, but any of us who had urgent work on hand could obtain, by proper representation, a dispensing ordinance. These were much sought after, especially when Jaimsie started to tackle the Book of Daniel "in his ordinary," as he phrased it.But this Monday morning, to the general surprise, my father sat down in the chair of state himself and reached the Bible from the shelf."I will take family worship this morning, Mr. Tacksman," he said, with great sobriety.Then we knew that something extraordinary was coming, and I was glad I had not "threeped" to my mother that I had seen some of the Nether Neuk sheep in our High Park—which would have been quite true, for I had put them there myself on purpose the night before.It was during the prayer that the blow fell. My father had a peculiarly distinct and solemn way with him in supplication; and now the words fell distinct as hammer strokes on our ear.He prayed for the Church of God in all covenanted lands; for all Christian peoples of every creed (here Jaimsie, faithful Abdiel, always said "Humph"); for the heathen without God and without hope; for the family now present and for those of the family afar off. Then, as was his custom, he approached the stranger (who was no stranger) within our gates."And do Thou, Lord, this day vouchsafe journeying mercies to Thy servant who is about to leave us. Grant him favourable weather for his departure, good speed on his way, and a safe return to his own country!"A kind of gasping sigh went all about the kitchen. I knew that my mother had her eye on my father to keep him to his pledged word of the night season. So I dared not look round.But we all ached to know how Jaimsie would take it, and we all joined fervently in the supplication which promised us a couple of hours more added to our day.Then came the Amen, and all rose to their feet. Jaimsie seemed a little dazed, but took the matter like a scholar and a gentleman.He held out his hand to my father with his usual benevolent smile."I did not know that I had mentioned it," he said, "but I was thinking of leaving you to-day."And that was all he said, but forthwith went upstairs to pack his shabby little black bag.My father stood a while as if shamed; then, when we heard Jaimsie's feet trotting overhead, he turned somewhat grimly to my mother. On his face was an expression as if he had just taken physic."Well," he said, "you will be easier in your mind now, Mary." This he said, well knowing that the rat of remorse was already getting his incisors to work upon his wife's conscience. She stamped her foot."Saunders McQuhirr," she said in suppressed tones, "to be a Christian man, ye are the maist aggrevatin'——"But at that moment my father went out through the door, saying no further word.My mother shooed us all out of the house like intrusive chickens, and I do not know for certain what she did next. But Rob, looking through the blind of the little room where she kept her house-money, saw her fumbling with her purse. And when at last Jaimsie, having addressed his bag to be sent with the Carsphairn carrier into Ayrshire (where dwelt the friends next on his visiting list), came out with his staff in one hand, he was dabbing his eyes with a clean handkerchief.Then, after that, all that I remember is the pathetic figure of the little probationer lifting up a hand in silent blessing upon the house which had sheltered him so long; and so taking his lonely way over the hillside towards the northern coach road.When my father came in from the sheep at mid-day, he waited till grace was over, and then, looking directly at my mother, he said: "Weel, Mary, how mony o' your pound notes did he carry away in his briest-pocket this time?"I shall never forget the return and counter retort which followed. My mother was vexed—one of the few times that I can remember seeing her truly angered with her husband."I would give you one advice, Saunders McQuhirr," she said, "and that is, from this forth, to be mindful of your own business.""I will tak' that advice, Mary," he answered slowly; "but my heart is still sore within me this day because I took the last advice you gied me!"* * * * *And it was destined to be yet sorer for that same cause. Jaimsie never was within our doors again. He abode in Ayrshire and the Upper Ward all that winter and spring, and it was not till the following back-end, and in reply to a letter and direct invitation from my conscience-stricken father, that he announced that, all being well and the Lord gracious, he would be with us the following Friday.But on the Thursday night a great snow storm came on, and the drift continued long unabated. We all said that Jaimsie would doubtless be safely housed, and we did not look for him to arrive upon the day of his promise. However, by Monday, when the coach was again running, my mother began to be anxious, and all the younger of us went forth to try and get news of him. We heard that he had left Carsphairn late on the Thursday forenoon, meaning to stop overnight at the shepherd's shieling at the southern end of Loch Dee. But equally certainly he had never reached it.It was not till Tuesday morning early that Jaimsie was found under a rock near the very summit of the Dungeon hill, his plaid about him and his frozen hand clasping his pocket Bible. It was open, and his favourite text was thrice underscored."The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan; an high hill, as the hill of Bashan."Well, there is no doubt that the little forlorn "servant of God" has indeed gotten some new light shed upon the text, since the dark hour when he sat down to rest his weary limbs upon the snow-clad summit of the Dungeon of Buchan.BEADLE AND MARTYRI sometimes give it as a reason for a certain lack of uniformity in church attendance, that I cannot away with the new-fangled organs, hymns, and chaunts one meets with there. I love them not, in comparison, that is, with the old psalm tunes. They do not make the heart beat quicker and more proudly, like Kilmarnock and Coleshill, Duke Street and Old 124th.Nance, however, is so far left to herself as to say that this is only an excuse, and that my real reason is the pleasure I have in thinking that all the people must perforce listen to a sermon, while I can put my feet upon another chair and read anything I like. This, however, is rank insult, such as only wives long wedded dare to indulge in. Besides, it shows, by its imputation of motives, to what lengths a sordid and ill-regulated imagination will go.Moreover, I have never grown accustomed to the hours of town churches, and I consider, both from a medical and from a spiritual point of view, that afternoon services in town churches are directly responsible for the spread of indigestion, as well as of a spirit of religious infidelity throughout our beloved land.(Nance is properly scandalised at this last remark, and says that she hopes people will understand that I only believe about half of what I put down on paper when I get a pen in my hand. She complains that she is often asked to explain some of my positions at afternoon teas. I say it serves her right for attending such gatherings of irresponsible gossip, tempered with boiled tannin. It is easy to have the last word with Nance—here.)But after all the chief thing that I miss when I go to church is just Willie McNair.The sermon is nowadays both shorter and better. The singing is good of its kind, and I can always read a psalm or a paraphrase if the hymn prove too long, or, as is often the case, rather washy in sentiment. The children's address is really designed for children, and the prayers do not exceed five minutes in length. But—I look in vain for Willie McNair.Alas! Willie lies out yonder on the green knowe, his wife Betty by his side, and four feet of good black mould over his coffin-lid.Willie was just our beadle, and he had a story. When I am setting down so many old things, if I forget thee, Willie McNair, may my right hand forget his cunning.Ah, Willie, though you never were a "church-officer," though you never heard the Word, it is you, you alone that I miss. I just cannot think of the kirk without you. Grizzled, gnarled, bow-shouldered of week-days, what a dignity of port, what a solemnising awe, what a processional tread was thine on Sabbaths! We had only one service in the Kirk on the Hill in my youth. But, speaking in the vulgar tongue, that one was a "starcher."It included the "prefacing" of a psalm, often extending over quite as long a period of time as an ordinary modern sermon, a "lecture," which as a rule (if "himsel'" was in fettle) lasted about three quarters of an hour. Then after that the sermon proper was begun without loss of time.Now I cannot say, speaking "from the heart to the heart" (a favourite expression of Willie's), that I regret the loss of all this. I was but a boy, and the torment of having to sit still for from two hours and a half to three hours on a hard seat, close-packed and well-watched to keep me out of mischief, has made even matrimony seem light and easy. How mere Episcopalians and other untrained persons get through the sorrows and disappointments incident to human life I do not know.It was not till the opening of the Sabbath-school by Mr. Osbourne, however, that I came to know Willie well. Hitherto he had been as inaccessible and awestriking as the minister's neckcloth. And of that I have a story to tell. I think what made me a sort of advanced thinker in these early days, was once being sent by my father to the lodgings of the minister who was to "supply" on a certain Sabbath morning. The manse must have been shut for repairs and "himsel'" on his holidays. At any rate, the minister was stopping with Miss Bella McBriar in the little white house below the Calmstone Brig. Miss Bella showed me in with my missive, and there, on the morning of the Holy Day, before a common unsanctified glass tacked to a wall, with a lathery razor in his hand, in profane shirt-sleeves, stood the minister, shaving himself! His neckcloth, that was to appear and shine so glorious above the cushions of the pulpit, hung limp and ignominious over the back of a chair. A clay pipe lay across the ends of it.This was the beginning of the mischief, and if I ever take to a criminal career, here was the first and primal cause.Shortly after I went to Sabbath-school, and having been well trained by my father in controversial divinity, and drilled by my mother in the Catechism, I found myself in a fair way of distinguishing myself; but for all that, I cannot truly say that I ever got over the neckcloth on the back of Miss McBriar's chair. When I aired my free-thinking opinions before my father, and he shut me off by an appeal to authority, I kept silence and hugged myself."That may be a good enough argument," I said to myself, "but—I have seen a minister's neckcloth hung over the back of a chair, and shaving-soap on his chafts on Sabbath morning. How can you believe in revealed religion after that?"But I had so much of solid common-sense, even in these my salad days, that I refrained from saying these things to my father. Indeed, I would not dare to say them now, even if I believed them, Willie McNair regarded the Sabbath-school much as I did. To both of us it was simply an imposition.Willie thought so for two reasons—first and generally, because it was an innovation; and secondly, because he had to clean up the kirk after it. I agreed with him, because I was compelled to attend—the farm cert being delayed a whole hour in order that I might have the privilege of religious instruction by the senior licensed grocer of the little town. This gentleman had only one way of imparting knowledge. That was with the brass-edged binding of his pocket Bible. Even at that time I preferred the limp Oxford morocco. And so would you, if something so unsympathetic as brass corners were applied to the sides of your head two or three times every Sunday afternoon.After several years of this experience, I passed into Henry Marchbank's class and was happy. But that is quite another chapter, and has nothing to do with Willie McNair.Now, Sabbath-school was over about three o'clock, and our conveyance did not start till four. That is the way I became attached to Willie. I used to stay and help him to clean the kirk. This is the way he did it.First, he unfrocked himself of his broadcloth dignity by hanging his coat upon a nail in the vestry. Then he put on an apron which covered him from gray chin-beard to the cracks in the uppers of his shining shoes. Into the breast of this envelope he thrust a duster large enough for a sheet. It was, in fact, a section of a departed pulpit swathing.Then, muttering quite scriptural maledictions, and couching them in language entirely Biblical, Willie proceeded to visit the pews occupied by each class, restoring the "buiks" he had previously piled at the head of each seat to their proper places on the book-board in front, and scrutinising the woodwork for inscriptions in lead-pencil. Then he swept the crumbs and apple-cores carefully off the floor and delivered judgment at large."I dinna ken what Maister Osbourne was thinkin' on to begin sic a Popish whigmaleery as this Sabbath-schule! A disgrace an' a mockin' in the hoose o' God! What kens the like o' Sammle Borthwick aboot the divine decrees? When I, mysel', that has heard them treated on for forty year under a' the Elect Ministers o' the Land, can do no more than barely understand them to this day! And a wheen silly lasses, wi' gum-floo'ers in their bonnets to listen to bairns hummerin' ower 'Man's Chief End'! It's eneuch to gar decent Doctor Syminton turn in his grave! 'Man's Chief End'—faith—it's wumman's chief end that they're thinkin' on, the madams; they think I dinna see them shakin' their gum-floo'ers and glancing their e'en in the direction o' the onmarriet teacher bodies——""And such are all they that put their trust in them!" concluded Willie, somewhat irrelevantly."Laddie, come doon out o' the pulpit. I canna lippen (trust) ony body to dust that, bena mysel'! Gang and pick up the conversation lozengers aff the floor o' the Young Weemen's Bible Cless!"Printed words can give small indication of the intense bitterness and mordant satire of Willie's speech as he uttered these last words.Yet Willie was far from being a hater of women kind. Indeed, the end of all his moralising was ever the same."There's my ain guid wife—was there ever a woman like her? Snod as a new preen, yet nocht gaudy, naething ken-speckle. If only the young weemen nooadays were like Betty, they wad hae nae need o' gum-floo'ers an' ither abominations. Na, nor yet Bible clesses! Faith, set them up! It wad better become them to sit them doon wi' their Bibles in their laps and the grace o' God in their hearts, an' tak' a lesson to themsel's oot o' Paaal!"Here Willie dusted the pulpit cushions, vigorously shaking them as a terrier does a rat, and then carefully brushing them all in one direction, in order that, as he said, "the fell may a' lie the yae way."Willie was no eye servant. No spider took hold with her hands and was in the Palace of Willie's King. Dust had no habitation there, and if a man did not clean his boots on the mat before entering, Willie went to him personally and told him his probable chances of a happy hereafter. These were but few and evil.Then having got the "shine" to fall as he wanted it, and the dark purple velvet overhang, pride of his heart, to sit to a nicety, Willie lifted up the heavy tassels, and at the same time resumed the thread of his discourse, standing there in the pulpit with the very port of a minister, and in his speech a point and pith that was all his own."Aye, Paul," (he always pronounced itPaaal)—"aye, Paaal, it's a peety ye never marriet and left nae faim'ly that we ken o'. For we hae sair need o' ye in thae days. But ye kenned better than to taigle yersel' wi' silly lasses. It was you that bade the young weemen to be keepers at hame—nae Bible clesses for Paaal—na, na!"And you mind Peter—oh, Peter was juist as soond on gum-floo'ers an' weemen's falderals as Paaal, 'Whose adorning, let it not be the outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and wearing of gold, and putting on of apparel, but the ornament of a meek and quiet speerit——'"He stopped in the height of his discourse and waggled his hand down at me."Here, boy!" he cried, "what did ye do wi' thae conversation lozengers?"I indicated that I had them still in my pocket, for I had meant to solace the long road home with the cleaner of them."Let me see them!"Somewhat unwillingly I handed them up to Willie as he stood in the pulpit, a different Willie, an accusing Willie, Nathan the Prophet with a large cloth-brush under his arm."When this you see, remember me!"He read the printed words through his glasses deliberately."Aye," he sneered, "that wad be Mag Kinstrey. I saw Rob Cuthbert smirkin' ower at her when the minister was lookin' up yon reference to Melchisadek. Aye, Meg, I'll remember ye—I'll no forgot ye. And if ye mend not your ways——"Willie did not conclude the sentence, but instead, he shook his head in the direction of the door of the Session house.He picked out another."The rose is red—the violet's blue,But fairer far, my love, are you!"Willie opened the door of the pulpit."Preserve me, what am I doin'? It's fair profanation to be readin' sic balderdash in a place like this. Laddie, hear ye this, whatever ye hae to say to a lass, gang ye and say it to hersel', by yoursel'. For valenteens are a vain thing, and conversation lozengers a mock and an abomination."Willie threatened me a moment with uplifted finger, and then added his stereotyped conclusion: "And so are all such as put their trust in them!"And through life I have acted strictly on Willie's advice, and I am bound to admit that I have found it good.About this period, also, I began to take tea, not infrequently, with Willie, and occasionally, but not often, I saw his wife, the incomparable Betty, whose praises Willie was never tired of singing. I am forced to say that, after these harangues, Betty disappointed me. She sat dumb and appeared singularly stupid, and this to a lad accustomed to a housewife like my mother, with her woman's wit keen as a razor, and a speech pointed to needle fineness, appeared more than strange.But Willie's affection was certainly both lovely and lovable. He was a gnarled grey old man with a grim mouth, but for Betty he ran like a young lover, and served her with meat and drink, as it had been on bended knee. His smile was ready whenever she looked at him, and he watched her with anxious eyes, dwelling on her every word and movement with a curious perturbation. If she happened not to be in when he came to the door, he would fall to trembling like a leaf, and the bleached look on his face was sad to see.Willie McNair dwelt in a rickety old house at the bottom of the kirk hill, separated from the other village dwellings by the breadth of a field. There was a garden behind it, and a heathery common behind that, with whins growing to the very dyke of Willie's kail yard.The first time that Betty was not in the house when we went home, it was to the hill behind that Willie ran first. Under a broom bush he found her, after a long search, and lifting her up in his arms he carried her to the house."Poor Betty," he cried over his shoulder as he went before me down the walk; "she shouldna gang oot on sic a warm day. The sun has been ower muckle for her. See, boy, rin doon to the Tinkler's well for some caller water. The can's at the gable end."When I returned Betty was quietly in bed; and Willie had made the tea with ordinary water. He was somewhat more composed, but I could see his hand shake when he tried to pour out the first cup. He "skailed" it all over the cloth, and then was angered with himself for what he called his "trimlin' auld banes."But I never knew or suspected Willie's secret till that awful Sabbath day, when the cross that he had borne so long hidden from the eyes of men, was suddenly lifted high in air.Then all at once Willie towered like a giant, and the bowed shoulders seemed to support a grey head about which had become visible an apparent aureole.It was the day of High Communion, and the solemn services were drawing to a yet more solemn close. The elements had been dispensed and the elders were back again in their places. Mr. Osbourne had Dr. Landsborough of Portmarnock assisting him that day—a tall man with a gracious manner, and the only man who could give an after-communion address without his words being resented as an intrusion."It is always difficult," he said, "to disturb the peculiarly sacred pause which succeeds the act of communion by any words of man——"He had got no farther when he stopped, and the congregation regarded him with the strained attention which a beautiful voice always compels. The beadle was sitting in all the reasonable pride of his dignity in the first pew to the right of the Session. When Dr. Landsborough stopped, the congregation followed the direction of his eyes.The door at the back of the kirk was seen to be open and a woman stood there, dishevelled, wild-eyed, a black bottle in her shaking hand, a red shawl about her head.It was Betty McNair."Willie!" she cried aloud in the awful silence, "Willie, come forth—you that lockit me in the back kitchin, an' thocht to stop me frae the saicrament—I hae deceived ye, Willie McNair, clever man as ye think yersel'!"I was in the corner pew opposite Willie (being, of course, a non-communicant at that date), so that I could see his face. At the first sound of that voice his countenance worked as if it would change its shape, but in a moment I saw him grip the book-board and stand up. Then he went quietly down the aisle to where his wife stood, gabbling wild and wicked words, and laughing till it turned the blood cold to hear her in that sacred place, and upon that solemn occasion.Firmly, but very gently, Willie took the woman by the arm, and led her out. She went like a lamb. He closed the door behind him, and after a quaking and dreadful pause, Dr. Landsborough took up the interrupted burden of his discourse.I was a great lad of twelve or thirteen at the time and unused to tears for many years. But I know that I wept all the time till the service was ended, thinking of Willie and wondering where he was and what he would be doing.That same night I heard my father telling my mother about what came next.The Session were in their little square room after the service, counting the tokens. The minister was sitting in his chair waiting to dismiss them with the benediction, when a rap came to the door. My father opened it, being nearest, and there without stood Willie McNair."I wish to speak with the Session," he said, firmly."Come in—come your ways in, William," said the minister, kindly, and the elders resumed their seats, not knowing what was to happen."Moderator and ruling elders of this congregation," said Willie, who had not served tables so long without knowing the respect due to his spiritual superiors, "I have come before you in the day of my shame to demit the office I have held so long among you. Gentlemen, I do not complain, I own I am well punished. These twenty years I have lived for my pride. I have lied to each one of you—to the minister, to you the elders, and to the hale congregation, making a roose of my wife, and sticking at nothing to hide the shame of my house."Sirs, for these lying words, it behoves that ye deal strictly with me, and I will submit willingly. But believe me, sirs, it was through a godly jealousy that I did it, that the Kirk of the New Testament might not be made ashamed through me and mine. But for a' that I have done wrong, grievous wrong. I aye kenned in my heart that it would come—though, God helping me, I never thocht that it would be like this!"But noo I maun gang awa'," here he broke into dialect, "for I could never bear to see anither man carry up the Buiks and open the door for you, sir, to enter in. Forty years has William McNair been a hewer of wood and a drawer of water in this tabernacle. Let there be pity in your hearts for him this day. He hath borne himself with pride, and for that the Lord hath brought him very low. And, oh! sirs, pray for her—flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone, come to what ye saw this day! Tell me that He will forgie—be sure to tell me that He will forgie Betty—for what she has dune this day!"The minister reassured him in affectionate words, and the whole Session tried to get Willie to withdraw his decision. But in vain. The old man was firm."No," he said, "Betty is noo my chairge. The husband of a drunkard is not a fit person to serve tables in the clean and halesome sanctuary. I will never leave Betty till the day she dees!"
* * * * *
Carnation slept in a little garret room with a gable window. She had chosen it, because she liked to look down on John Charles' fields and on the low place in the hedge where he always stood waiting for her.
The waning moon had risen late, and Carnation undressed without a candle. Having said her prayers, she stole into bed. But sleep would not come, and, her heart being right sore within her, the tears forced up her eyelids instead, as it is woman's safety that they should.
She lay and sobbed her heart out because John was going away. But through the tears that wet her pillow certain words she had been singing in the choir on Sunday forced themselves:—
"Weeping may endure for a night,But joy cometh in the morning."
"Weeping may endure for a night,But joy cometh in the morning."
"Weeping may endure for a night,
But joy cometh in the morning."
Nevertheless, Carnation must have sobbed herself to sleep, for it was nigh the dawn when she was awakened by something that flicked her lattice at regular intervals. It could not be a bird. It was too sharp and regular for that.
Could it be——?
Impossible!
He had never come before at such a time! If it were indeed he, there must be some terrible news to tell.
Carnation rose hastily, and threw a loose cloak about her shoulders. Then she went and opened the little French lattice with the criss-cross diamond panes. The dawn was coming slowly up out of the east, and the gray fields were turning rosy beneath her.
A dark figure filled up the low place in the hedge.
"Carnation, I had something to tell you!"
"Is it bad news? I cannot bear it, if it is."
"No, the best of news! I am not going at Whitsunday to Australia. My mother told me last night that she is to be married at the New Year. He is a rich man—Harry Foster's father. She is going to live at Carnsalloch."
"Well?" said Carnation, doubtfully, not seeing all that this sudden change meant to them both.
"Why, then, dearest," the voice of John Charles Morrison shook with emotion, "we can be married as soon as we like after that. The farm and everything on it is ours—yours and mine!"
Carnation's brain reeled, and she found herself without a word to say. Only the sound of the happy singing ran in her head:
"Joy cometh in the morning—joy cometh in the morning!"
"Why don't you speak, Carnation? Are you not glad?"
The voice down at the gap was anxious now.
"I am too far away from you to say anything, but I am glad, very glad, dear John!"
"You will be ready by Whitsunday?"
"I shall be ready by Whitsunday!"
There was a pause. The light came clearer in the east. John Charles could see the girl's fresh complexion thrown up by the dark cloak, an edging of lace, white and dainty, just showing beneath.
"Carnation, I wish I could kiss you!" he said.
"Will this do instead?" she answered him, smiling through the wetness of her eyes.
And she lifted up the old worn class medal she had carried so long on its blue ribbon, and kissed it openly.
And that had perforce to "do" John Charles—at least, for that time of asking.
JAIMSIE
As I drove home the other day I saw that old lazybones Jacob Irving seated in the sun with a whole covey of boys round him. He had his pocket-knife in his hand, and was busy mending a "gird." The "gird," or wooden hoop, belonged to Will Bodden, and its precedence in medical treatment had been secured by Will's fists. There was quite a little hospital ward behind, of toys all awaiting diagnosis in strict order of primacy.
Here was Dick Dobie with a new blade to put into his shilling knife. A shilling knife, Jacob assured him, is not fitted for cutting down fishing rods. It is however, excellent as a saw when used on smaller timber. Next came Peter Cheesemonger, who was in waiting with a model schooner, the rising of which had met with an accident. And there hurrying down from the cottage on the Brae, was one of the younger Allan lasses with her mother's "wag-at-the-wa'" clock. The pendulum had wagged to such purpose that it had swung itself out of its right mind.
After I had left behind me this vision of old Jacob Irving seated on the wall of the boys' playground at the village school, I fell into a muse upon the narrowness of the line which in our Scottish parishes, divides the "Do-Everythings" from the "Do-Nothings."
I could give myself the more completely to this train of thought that I had finished my rounds for the day, and had now nothing to do except to look forward to seeing Nance, and to the excellent dinner for which the shrewd airs of the moorland were providing internal accommodation of quite a superior character.
The conditions of Scottish life are generally so strenuous, and the compulsions of "He that will not work, neither shall he eat" so absolute that we cannot afford more than one local Do-Nothing in a village or rural community. Equally certainly, however, one is necessary. The business of the commonwealth could not be carried on without him. Besides, he is needed to point the indispensable moral.
"There's that guid-for-naething Jacob Irvin' sittin' wi' a' the misleared boys o' the neighbourhood aboot him!" I can hear a douce goodwife say to her gossip. "Guid peety his puir wife and bairns! Guidman, lay ye doon that paper an awa' to your wark, or ye'll sune be nae better—wi' your Gledstane and your speeches and your smokin'! Think shame o' yersel', guidman."
As the community grows larger, however, there is less and less room for the amiable Do-Nothing. He is, indeed, only seen to perfection in a village or rural parish. In Cairn Edward, for instance which thinks itself quite a town, he does not attain the general esteem and almost affectionate reprobation which, in my native Whinnyliggate, follow Jacob Irving about like his shadow.
In a town like Cairn Edward a local Do-Nothing is apt to attach himself to a livery stable, and there to acquire a fine coppery nose and a permanent "dither" about the knees. He is spoken of curtly and even disrespectfully as "that waister Jock Bell." In cities he becomes a mere matter for the police, and the facetious reporter chronicles his two-hundredth appearance before the magistrate.
But in Whinnyliggate, in Dullarg, in Crosspatrick, and in the surrounding parishes, the conditions for the growth of the Do-Nothing approach as near perfection as anything merely mundane can be expected to do. Jacob Irving is hardly a typical specimen, for he has a trade. The genuine Do-Nothing should have none. It is true that Jacob's children might reply, like the boy when asked if his father were a Christian, "Yes, but he does not work at it much!"
Jacob is a shoe-maker—or rather shoe-mender. For I have never yet been able to trace an entire pair of Jacob's foot-gear on any human extremities. It does not fit his humour to be so utilitarian. He has, however, made an excellent toy pair for the feet of little Jessie Lockhart's doll, with soles, heels, uppers, tongues, and lacing gear all complete. He spent, to my personal knowledge, an entire morning in showing her (on the front step of her father's manse) how to take them off and put them on again. And in the future he will never meet Jessie on the King's highway without stopping and gravely asking her if any repairs are yet requisite. When such are necessary they will, without doubt, receive his best attention.
I had not, however, made a study of Jacob Irving for any considerable period without exploding the vulgar opinion that the parish Do-Nothing is an idle or a lazy man. Nay, to repeat my initial paradox, the Do-Nothing is the only genuine Do-Everything.
When on a recent occasion I gave Jacob, in return for the pleasure of his conversation, a "lift" in my doctor's gig, he talked to me very confidentially of his "rounds." At first I imagined in my ignorance that, like the tailors of the parishes round about, he went from farm to farm prosecuting his calling and cobbling the shoes of half the countryside. I was buttressed in this opinion by his expressed pity or contempt for wearers of "clogs."
"Here's anither puir body wi' a pair o' clogs on his feet," Jacob would say; "and to think that for verra little mair than the craitur paid for them, I wad fit him wi' as soond a pair o' leather-soled shoon as were ever ta'en frae amang tanners' bark!"
I had also seen him start out with a thin-bladed cobbler's knife and the statutory piece of "roset" or resin wrapped in a palm's-breadth of soft leather. But, alas, all was a vain show. The knife was to be used in delicate surgical work upon the deceased at a pig-killing, and the resin was for splicing fishing-rods.
After a while I began by severe study to get to the bottom of a Do-Nothing's philosophy. To do the appointed task for the performance of which duty calls, man waits, and money will be paid, that is work to be avoided by every means—by procrastination, by fallacious promise, by prevarication, and (sad to have to say it) by the plainest of plain lying.
Whatever brings in money in the exercise of a trade, whatever must be finished within a given time, that needs the co-operation of others or prolonged and consecutive effort on his own part, is merely anathema to the Do-Nothing.
On the other hand, no house in the parish is too distant for him to attend at the "settin' o' the yaird" (the delving must, however, be done previously). On such occasions the Do-Nothing revels in long wooden pins with string wrapped mysteriously about them. He can turn you out the neatest shaped bed of "onions" and "syboes," the straightest rows of cabbages, and potato drills so level that the whole household feels that it must walk the straight path in order not to shame them. The wayfaring man though a fool, looks over the dyke, and says: "Thae dreels are Jacob's—there's nane like them in the countryside!"
This at least is Jacob's way of it.
But though all this is by the way of introduction to the particular Do-Nothing I have in my eye, it is not of Jacob that I am going to write. Jacob is indeed an enticing subject, and from the point of view of his wife, might be treated very racily. But, though I afterwards made Margate Irving's acquaintance (and may one day put her opinions on record), I have other and higher game in my mind.
This is none other than the Reverend James Tacksman, B.A., licentiate of the Original Marrow Kirk of Scotland. In fact, a clerical Do-Nothing of the highest class.
Now, to begin with, I will aver that there is no scorn in all this. "Jaimsie" is more to me than many worthy religious publicists, beneficed, parished, churched, stipended, and sustentationed to the eyes. He was not a very great man. He was in no sense a successful man, but—he was "Jaimsie."
I admit that my zeal is that of the pervert. It was not always thus with me when "Jaimsie" was alive, and perhaps my enthusiasm is so full-bodied from a sense that it is impossible for the gentle probationer to come and quarter himself upon Nance and myself for (say) a period of three months in the winter season, a thing he was quite capable of doing when in the flesh.
In the days before I was converted to higher views of human nature as represented in the person of "Jaimsie," I was even as the vulgar with regard to him. I admit it. I even openly scoffed, and retailed to many the story of Jamie and my father, Saunders McQuhirr of Drumquhat, with which I shall conclude. I used to tell it rather well at college, the men said. At least they laughed sufficiently. But now I shall not try to add, alter, amend, or extenuate, as is the story-teller's wont with his favourites. For in sackcloth and ashes I have repented me, and am at present engaged in making my honourable amend to "Jaimsie."
For almost as long as I can remember the Reverend James Tacksman, B.A., was in the habit of coming to my father's house, and the news that he was in view on the "far brae-face" used to put my mother into such a temper that "dauded" heads and cuffed ears were the order of the day. The larger fry of us cleared out promptly to the barn and stack-yard till the first burst of the storm was over. Even my father, accustomed as he was to carry all matters ecclesiastical with a high hand, found it convenient to have some harness to clean in the stable, or the lynch-pin of a cart to replace in the little joiner's shop where he passed so much of his time.
"I'll no hae the craitur aboot the hoose," my mother would cry; "I telled ye sae the last time he was here—sax weeks in harvest it was—and then had maist to be shown the door. (Haud oot o' my road, weans! Can ye no keep frae rinnin' amang my feet like sae mony collie whaulps? Tak' ye that!) Hear ye this, guidman, if ye willna speak to the man, by my faith I wull. Mary McQuhirr is no gaun to hae the bread ta'en oot o' the mooths o' her innocent bairns——(Where in the name o' fortune, Alec, are ye gaun wi' that soda bannock? Pit it doon this meenit, or I'll tak' the tings to ye!). Na, nor I will be run aff my feet to pleesure ony sic useless, guid-for-naething seefer as Jaimsie Tacksman!"
At this moment a faint rapping made itself audible at the front door, never opened except on the highest state occasions, as when the minister called, and at funerals.
My mother (I can see her now) gave a hasty "tidy" to her gray hair and adjusted her white-frilled "mutch" about her still winsome brow.
"And hoo are ye the day, Maister Tacksman, an' it's a lang, lang season since we've had the pleasure o' a veesit frae you!"
Could that indeed be my mother's voice, so lately upraised in denunciation over a stricken and cowering world? I could not understand it then, and to tell the truth I don't quite yet. I have, however, asked her to explain, and this is what she says:
"Weel, ye see, Alec, it was this way" (she is pleased when I require any points for my "scribin'," though publicly she scoffs at them and declares it will ruin my practice if the thing becomes known), "ye see I had it in my mind to the last minute to deny the craitur. But when I gaed to open the door, there stood Jaimsie wi' his wee bit shakin' hand oot an' his threadbare coatie hingin' laich aboot his peetifu' spindle shanks, and his weel-brushit hat, an' the white neck-claith that wanted doin' up. And I kenned that naebody could laundry it as weel as me. My fingers juist fair yeukit (itched) to be at the starchin' o't. And faith, maybes there was something aboot the craitur too—he was sae cruppen in upon himsel', sae wee-bookit, sae waesome and yet kindly aboot the e'en, that I juist couldna say him nay."
That is my mother's report of her feelings in the matter. She does not add that the ten minutes or quarter of an hour in which she had been able to give the fullest and most public expression to her feelings had allowed most of the steam of indignation to blow itself off. My father, who was a good judge, gave me, early in my married life, some excellent advice on this very point, which I subjoin for the edification of the general public.
"Never bottle a woman up, Alec," he said, meditatively. "What Vesuvius and Etna and thae ither volcanoes are to this worl', the legeetimate exercise o' her tongue is to a woman. It's a naitural function, Alec. Ye may bridle the ass or the mule, but—gie the tongue o' a woman (as it were) plenty o' elbow-room! Gang oot o' the hoose—like Moses to the backside o' the wilderness gin ye like, and when ye come in she will be as quaite as pussy; and if ever ye hae to contradick your mairried wife, Alec, let it be in deeds, no in words. Gang your road gin ye hae made up your mind, immovable like the sun, the mune, and the stars o' heeven in their courses—but, as ye value peace dinna be aye crying' 'Aye,' when your wife cries 'No'!"
Which things may be wisdom. But to the tale of our Jaimsie.
Sometimes, moreover, even the natural man in my kindly and long-suffering father uprose against the preacher. Jaimsie knew when he was comfortable, and no mere hint of any delicate sort would make him curtail his visit by one day. I can remember him creeping about the farm of Drumquhat all that summer, a book in his hand, contemplating the works of God as witnessed chiefly in the growth of the "grosarts." (We always blamed him—quite unjustly, I believe—for eating the "silver-gray" gooseberries on the sly.) Now he would stand half an hour and gaze up among the branches of an elm, where a cushat was tirelesslycoorooringto his mate. Anon you would see him apparently deeply engaged in counting the sugar-plums in the orchard. After a little he would be found seated on the red shaft of a cart in the stackyard, jotting down in a shabby notebook ideas for the illustrations of sermons never to be written; or if written, doomed never to be preached. His hat was always curled up at the back and pulled down at the front, and till my mother made down an old pair of my father's Sunday trousers for him (and put them beside his bed while he slept), you could see in a good light the reflection of your hand on the knees of his "blacks." It is scarcely necessary to say that Jaimsie never referred to the transposition, nor, indeed, in all probability, so much as discovered it.
Jaimsie was used to conduct family worship morning and evening in the house of his sojourn, as a kind of quit-rent for his meal of meat and his prophet's chamber. To the ordinary reading of the Word he was wont to subjoin an "exposeetion" of some disputed or prophetical passage. The whole exercises never took less than an hour, if Jaimsie were left to the freedom of his own will—which, as may be inferred, was extremely awkward in a busy season when the corn was dry in the stock or when the scythes flashed rhythmically like level silver flames among the lush meadow grass.
Finally, therefore, a compromise had to be effected. My father took the morning diet of worship, but Jaimsie had his will of us in the evening. I can see them yet—those weariful sederunts, when even my father wrestled with sleep like Samson with the Philistines, while my mother periodically nodded forward with a lurch, and, recovering herself with a start, the next moment looked round haughtily to see which of us was misbehaving. Meanwhile the kitchen was all dark, save where before Jaimsie the great Bible lay open between two candles, and on the hearth the last peat of the evening glowed red.
Many is the fine game of draughts I have had with my brother Rob and Christie Wilson our herd lad, by putting the "dam-brod" behind the chimney jamb where my father and mother could not see it, and moving the pieces by the light of the red peat ash. I am ashamed to think on it now, but then it seemed the only thing to do which would keep us from sleep.
And meantime Jaimsie prosed on, his gentle sing-song working its wicked work on mother like a lullaby, and my father sending his nails into the palms of his hands that he might not be shamed before us all.
I remember particularly how Jaimsie addressed us for a whole week on his favourite text in he Psalms, "The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan—an high hill, as the hill of Bashan."
And in the pauses of crowning our men and scuffling for the next place at the draught board, we could catch strange words and phrases which come to me yet with a curious wistful thrilling of the heart. Such are "White as snow on Salmon"—"That mount Sinai in Arabia"—"Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain upon you, nor fields of offering."
And as a concluding of the whole matter we sang this verse out of Francis Roos's psalter:
"Ye mountains great, wherefore was itThat ye did skip like rams?And wherefore was it, little hills,That ye did leap like lambs?"
"Ye mountains great, wherefore was itThat ye did skip like rams?And wherefore was it, little hills,That ye did leap like lambs?"
"Ye mountains great, wherefore was it
That ye did skip like rams?
That ye did skip like rams?
And wherefore was it, little hills,
That ye did leap like lambs?"
That ye did leap like lambs?"
It was all double-Dutch to me then, but now I can see that Jaimsie must have been marshalling the mountains of Scripture to bear solemn witness against an evil and exceedingly somnolent generation.
Once when my mother snored audibly Jaimsie looked up, but at that very moment she awoke, and with great and remarkable presence of mind promptly cuffed Rob, who in his turn knocked the draught-board endways, just as I had his last man cornered, to our everlasting disgrace.
My mother asked us next day pointedly where we thought we were going to, and if we were of opinion that there would be any dam-brods in hell. I offered no remarks, but Rob—who was always an impudent boy—got on the other side of the dyke from my mother and answered that there would be no snorers there either.
From an early age he was a lad of singularly sound judgments, my brother Rob. He stayed out in the barn till after my mother was asleep that night.
At last, however, even my father grew tired of Jaimsie. He stayed full three months on this occasion. Autumnal harvest fields were bared of stooks, the frost began to glisten on the stiff turnip shaws, the wreathed nets were put up for the wintering sheep, and still the indefatigable Jaimsie stayed on.
I remember yet the particular morning when, at long and last, Jaimsie left us. All night almost there had been in the house the noise as of a burn running over hollow stones, with short solid interruptions like the sound of a distant mallet stricken on wood. It came from my father's and mother's room. I knew well what it meant. The sound like running water was my mother trying to persuade my father to something against his will, and the far-away mallet thuds were his mono-syllabic replies.
This time it was my mother who won.
After the harvest bustle was over, Jaimsie had resumed his practice of taking worship in the mornings, but any of us who had urgent work on hand could obtain, by proper representation, a dispensing ordinance. These were much sought after, especially when Jaimsie started to tackle the Book of Daniel "in his ordinary," as he phrased it.
But this Monday morning, to the general surprise, my father sat down in the chair of state himself and reached the Bible from the shelf.
"I will take family worship this morning, Mr. Tacksman," he said, with great sobriety.
Then we knew that something extraordinary was coming, and I was glad I had not "threeped" to my mother that I had seen some of the Nether Neuk sheep in our High Park—which would have been quite true, for I had put them there myself on purpose the night before.
It was during the prayer that the blow fell. My father had a peculiarly distinct and solemn way with him in supplication; and now the words fell distinct as hammer strokes on our ear.
He prayed for the Church of God in all covenanted lands; for all Christian peoples of every creed (here Jaimsie, faithful Abdiel, always said "Humph"); for the heathen without God and without hope; for the family now present and for those of the family afar off. Then, as was his custom, he approached the stranger (who was no stranger) within our gates.
"And do Thou, Lord, this day vouchsafe journeying mercies to Thy servant who is about to leave us. Grant him favourable weather for his departure, good speed on his way, and a safe return to his own country!"
A kind of gasping sigh went all about the kitchen. I knew that my mother had her eye on my father to keep him to his pledged word of the night season. So I dared not look round.
But we all ached to know how Jaimsie would take it, and we all joined fervently in the supplication which promised us a couple of hours more added to our day.
Then came the Amen, and all rose to their feet. Jaimsie seemed a little dazed, but took the matter like a scholar and a gentleman.
He held out his hand to my father with his usual benevolent smile.
"I did not know that I had mentioned it," he said, "but I was thinking of leaving you to-day."
And that was all he said, but forthwith went upstairs to pack his shabby little black bag.
My father stood a while as if shamed; then, when we heard Jaimsie's feet trotting overhead, he turned somewhat grimly to my mother. On his face was an expression as if he had just taken physic.
"Well," he said, "you will be easier in your mind now, Mary." This he said, well knowing that the rat of remorse was already getting his incisors to work upon his wife's conscience. She stamped her foot.
"Saunders McQuhirr," she said in suppressed tones, "to be a Christian man, ye are the maist aggrevatin'——"
But at that moment my father went out through the door, saying no further word.
My mother shooed us all out of the house like intrusive chickens, and I do not know for certain what she did next. But Rob, looking through the blind of the little room where she kept her house-money, saw her fumbling with her purse. And when at last Jaimsie, having addressed his bag to be sent with the Carsphairn carrier into Ayrshire (where dwelt the friends next on his visiting list), came out with his staff in one hand, he was dabbing his eyes with a clean handkerchief.
Then, after that, all that I remember is the pathetic figure of the little probationer lifting up a hand in silent blessing upon the house which had sheltered him so long; and so taking his lonely way over the hillside towards the northern coach road.
When my father came in from the sheep at mid-day, he waited till grace was over, and then, looking directly at my mother, he said: "Weel, Mary, how mony o' your pound notes did he carry away in his briest-pocket this time?"
I shall never forget the return and counter retort which followed. My mother was vexed—one of the few times that I can remember seeing her truly angered with her husband.
"I would give you one advice, Saunders McQuhirr," she said, "and that is, from this forth, to be mindful of your own business."
"I will tak' that advice, Mary," he answered slowly; "but my heart is still sore within me this day because I took the last advice you gied me!"
* * * * *
And it was destined to be yet sorer for that same cause. Jaimsie never was within our doors again. He abode in Ayrshire and the Upper Ward all that winter and spring, and it was not till the following back-end, and in reply to a letter and direct invitation from my conscience-stricken father, that he announced that, all being well and the Lord gracious, he would be with us the following Friday.
But on the Thursday night a great snow storm came on, and the drift continued long unabated. We all said that Jaimsie would doubtless be safely housed, and we did not look for him to arrive upon the day of his promise. However, by Monday, when the coach was again running, my mother began to be anxious, and all the younger of us went forth to try and get news of him. We heard that he had left Carsphairn late on the Thursday forenoon, meaning to stop overnight at the shepherd's shieling at the southern end of Loch Dee. But equally certainly he had never reached it.
It was not till Tuesday morning early that Jaimsie was found under a rock near the very summit of the Dungeon hill, his plaid about him and his frozen hand clasping his pocket Bible. It was open, and his favourite text was thrice underscored.
"The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan; an high hill, as the hill of Bashan."
Well, there is no doubt that the little forlorn "servant of God" has indeed gotten some new light shed upon the text, since the dark hour when he sat down to rest his weary limbs upon the snow-clad summit of the Dungeon of Buchan.
BEADLE AND MARTYR
I sometimes give it as a reason for a certain lack of uniformity in church attendance, that I cannot away with the new-fangled organs, hymns, and chaunts one meets with there. I love them not, in comparison, that is, with the old psalm tunes. They do not make the heart beat quicker and more proudly, like Kilmarnock and Coleshill, Duke Street and Old 124th.
Nance, however, is so far left to herself as to say that this is only an excuse, and that my real reason is the pleasure I have in thinking that all the people must perforce listen to a sermon, while I can put my feet upon another chair and read anything I like. This, however, is rank insult, such as only wives long wedded dare to indulge in. Besides, it shows, by its imputation of motives, to what lengths a sordid and ill-regulated imagination will go.
Moreover, I have never grown accustomed to the hours of town churches, and I consider, both from a medical and from a spiritual point of view, that afternoon services in town churches are directly responsible for the spread of indigestion, as well as of a spirit of religious infidelity throughout our beloved land.
(Nance is properly scandalised at this last remark, and says that she hopes people will understand that I only believe about half of what I put down on paper when I get a pen in my hand. She complains that she is often asked to explain some of my positions at afternoon teas. I say it serves her right for attending such gatherings of irresponsible gossip, tempered with boiled tannin. It is easy to have the last word with Nance—here.)
But after all the chief thing that I miss when I go to church is just Willie McNair.
The sermon is nowadays both shorter and better. The singing is good of its kind, and I can always read a psalm or a paraphrase if the hymn prove too long, or, as is often the case, rather washy in sentiment. The children's address is really designed for children, and the prayers do not exceed five minutes in length. But—I look in vain for Willie McNair.
Alas! Willie lies out yonder on the green knowe, his wife Betty by his side, and four feet of good black mould over his coffin-lid.
Willie was just our beadle, and he had a story. When I am setting down so many old things, if I forget thee, Willie McNair, may my right hand forget his cunning.
Ah, Willie, though you never were a "church-officer," though you never heard the Word, it is you, you alone that I miss. I just cannot think of the kirk without you. Grizzled, gnarled, bow-shouldered of week-days, what a dignity of port, what a solemnising awe, what a processional tread was thine on Sabbaths! We had only one service in the Kirk on the Hill in my youth. But, speaking in the vulgar tongue, that one was a "starcher."
It included the "prefacing" of a psalm, often extending over quite as long a period of time as an ordinary modern sermon, a "lecture," which as a rule (if "himsel'" was in fettle) lasted about three quarters of an hour. Then after that the sermon proper was begun without loss of time.
Now I cannot say, speaking "from the heart to the heart" (a favourite expression of Willie's), that I regret the loss of all this. I was but a boy, and the torment of having to sit still for from two hours and a half to three hours on a hard seat, close-packed and well-watched to keep me out of mischief, has made even matrimony seem light and easy. How mere Episcopalians and other untrained persons get through the sorrows and disappointments incident to human life I do not know.
It was not till the opening of the Sabbath-school by Mr. Osbourne, however, that I came to know Willie well. Hitherto he had been as inaccessible and awestriking as the minister's neckcloth. And of that I have a story to tell. I think what made me a sort of advanced thinker in these early days, was once being sent by my father to the lodgings of the minister who was to "supply" on a certain Sabbath morning. The manse must have been shut for repairs and "himsel'" on his holidays. At any rate, the minister was stopping with Miss Bella McBriar in the little white house below the Calmstone Brig. Miss Bella showed me in with my missive, and there, on the morning of the Holy Day, before a common unsanctified glass tacked to a wall, with a lathery razor in his hand, in profane shirt-sleeves, stood the minister, shaving himself! His neckcloth, that was to appear and shine so glorious above the cushions of the pulpit, hung limp and ignominious over the back of a chair. A clay pipe lay across the ends of it.
This was the beginning of the mischief, and if I ever take to a criminal career, here was the first and primal cause.
Shortly after I went to Sabbath-school, and having been well trained by my father in controversial divinity, and drilled by my mother in the Catechism, I found myself in a fair way of distinguishing myself; but for all that, I cannot truly say that I ever got over the neckcloth on the back of Miss McBriar's chair. When I aired my free-thinking opinions before my father, and he shut me off by an appeal to authority, I kept silence and hugged myself.
"That may be a good enough argument," I said to myself, "but—I have seen a minister's neckcloth hung over the back of a chair, and shaving-soap on his chafts on Sabbath morning. How can you believe in revealed religion after that?"
But I had so much of solid common-sense, even in these my salad days, that I refrained from saying these things to my father. Indeed, I would not dare to say them now, even if I believed them, Willie McNair regarded the Sabbath-school much as I did. To both of us it was simply an imposition.
Willie thought so for two reasons—first and generally, because it was an innovation; and secondly, because he had to clean up the kirk after it. I agreed with him, because I was compelled to attend—the farm cert being delayed a whole hour in order that I might have the privilege of religious instruction by the senior licensed grocer of the little town. This gentleman had only one way of imparting knowledge. That was with the brass-edged binding of his pocket Bible. Even at that time I preferred the limp Oxford morocco. And so would you, if something so unsympathetic as brass corners were applied to the sides of your head two or three times every Sunday afternoon.
After several years of this experience, I passed into Henry Marchbank's class and was happy. But that is quite another chapter, and has nothing to do with Willie McNair.
Now, Sabbath-school was over about three o'clock, and our conveyance did not start till four. That is the way I became attached to Willie. I used to stay and help him to clean the kirk. This is the way he did it.
First, he unfrocked himself of his broadcloth dignity by hanging his coat upon a nail in the vestry. Then he put on an apron which covered him from gray chin-beard to the cracks in the uppers of his shining shoes. Into the breast of this envelope he thrust a duster large enough for a sheet. It was, in fact, a section of a departed pulpit swathing.
Then, muttering quite scriptural maledictions, and couching them in language entirely Biblical, Willie proceeded to visit the pews occupied by each class, restoring the "buiks" he had previously piled at the head of each seat to their proper places on the book-board in front, and scrutinising the woodwork for inscriptions in lead-pencil. Then he swept the crumbs and apple-cores carefully off the floor and delivered judgment at large.
"I dinna ken what Maister Osbourne was thinkin' on to begin sic a Popish whigmaleery as this Sabbath-schule! A disgrace an' a mockin' in the hoose o' God! What kens the like o' Sammle Borthwick aboot the divine decrees? When I, mysel', that has heard them treated on for forty year under a' the Elect Ministers o' the Land, can do no more than barely understand them to this day! And a wheen silly lasses, wi' gum-floo'ers in their bonnets to listen to bairns hummerin' ower 'Man's Chief End'! It's eneuch to gar decent Doctor Syminton turn in his grave! 'Man's Chief End'—faith—it's wumman's chief end that they're thinkin' on, the madams; they think I dinna see them shakin' their gum-floo'ers and glancing their e'en in the direction o' the onmarriet teacher bodies——"
"And such are all they that put their trust in them!" concluded Willie, somewhat irrelevantly.
"Laddie, come doon out o' the pulpit. I canna lippen (trust) ony body to dust that, bena mysel'! Gang and pick up the conversation lozengers aff the floor o' the Young Weemen's Bible Cless!"
Printed words can give small indication of the intense bitterness and mordant satire of Willie's speech as he uttered these last words.
Yet Willie was far from being a hater of women kind. Indeed, the end of all his moralising was ever the same.
"There's my ain guid wife—was there ever a woman like her? Snod as a new preen, yet nocht gaudy, naething ken-speckle. If only the young weemen nooadays were like Betty, they wad hae nae need o' gum-floo'ers an' ither abominations. Na, nor yet Bible clesses! Faith, set them up! It wad better become them to sit them doon wi' their Bibles in their laps and the grace o' God in their hearts, an' tak' a lesson to themsel's oot o' Paaal!"
Here Willie dusted the pulpit cushions, vigorously shaking them as a terrier does a rat, and then carefully brushing them all in one direction, in order that, as he said, "the fell may a' lie the yae way."
Willie was no eye servant. No spider took hold with her hands and was in the Palace of Willie's King. Dust had no habitation there, and if a man did not clean his boots on the mat before entering, Willie went to him personally and told him his probable chances of a happy hereafter. These were but few and evil.
Then having got the "shine" to fall as he wanted it, and the dark purple velvet overhang, pride of his heart, to sit to a nicety, Willie lifted up the heavy tassels, and at the same time resumed the thread of his discourse, standing there in the pulpit with the very port of a minister, and in his speech a point and pith that was all his own.
"Aye, Paul," (he always pronounced itPaaal)—"aye, Paaal, it's a peety ye never marriet and left nae faim'ly that we ken o'. For we hae sair need o' ye in thae days. But ye kenned better than to taigle yersel' wi' silly lasses. It was you that bade the young weemen to be keepers at hame—nae Bible clesses for Paaal—na, na!
"And you mind Peter—oh, Peter was juist as soond on gum-floo'ers an' weemen's falderals as Paaal, 'Whose adorning, let it not be the outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and wearing of gold, and putting on of apparel, but the ornament of a meek and quiet speerit——'"
He stopped in the height of his discourse and waggled his hand down at me.
"Here, boy!" he cried, "what did ye do wi' thae conversation lozengers?"
I indicated that I had them still in my pocket, for I had meant to solace the long road home with the cleaner of them.
"Let me see them!"
Somewhat unwillingly I handed them up to Willie as he stood in the pulpit, a different Willie, an accusing Willie, Nathan the Prophet with a large cloth-brush under his arm.
"When this you see, remember me!"
"When this you see, remember me!"
"When this you see, remember me!"
He read the printed words through his glasses deliberately.
"Aye," he sneered, "that wad be Mag Kinstrey. I saw Rob Cuthbert smirkin' ower at her when the minister was lookin' up yon reference to Melchisadek. Aye, Meg, I'll remember ye—I'll no forgot ye. And if ye mend not your ways——"
Willie did not conclude the sentence, but instead, he shook his head in the direction of the door of the Session house.
He picked out another.
"The rose is red—the violet's blue,But fairer far, my love, are you!"
"The rose is red—the violet's blue,But fairer far, my love, are you!"
"The rose is red—the violet's blue,
But fairer far, my love, are you!"
Willie opened the door of the pulpit.
"Preserve me, what am I doin'? It's fair profanation to be readin' sic balderdash in a place like this. Laddie, hear ye this, whatever ye hae to say to a lass, gang ye and say it to hersel', by yoursel'. For valenteens are a vain thing, and conversation lozengers a mock and an abomination."
Willie threatened me a moment with uplifted finger, and then added his stereotyped conclusion: "And so are all such as put their trust in them!"
And through life I have acted strictly on Willie's advice, and I am bound to admit that I have found it good.
About this period, also, I began to take tea, not infrequently, with Willie, and occasionally, but not often, I saw his wife, the incomparable Betty, whose praises Willie was never tired of singing. I am forced to say that, after these harangues, Betty disappointed me. She sat dumb and appeared singularly stupid, and this to a lad accustomed to a housewife like my mother, with her woman's wit keen as a razor, and a speech pointed to needle fineness, appeared more than strange.
But Willie's affection was certainly both lovely and lovable. He was a gnarled grey old man with a grim mouth, but for Betty he ran like a young lover, and served her with meat and drink, as it had been on bended knee. His smile was ready whenever she looked at him, and he watched her with anxious eyes, dwelling on her every word and movement with a curious perturbation. If she happened not to be in when he came to the door, he would fall to trembling like a leaf, and the bleached look on his face was sad to see.
Willie McNair dwelt in a rickety old house at the bottom of the kirk hill, separated from the other village dwellings by the breadth of a field. There was a garden behind it, and a heathery common behind that, with whins growing to the very dyke of Willie's kail yard.
The first time that Betty was not in the house when we went home, it was to the hill behind that Willie ran first. Under a broom bush he found her, after a long search, and lifting her up in his arms he carried her to the house.
"Poor Betty," he cried over his shoulder as he went before me down the walk; "she shouldna gang oot on sic a warm day. The sun has been ower muckle for her. See, boy, rin doon to the Tinkler's well for some caller water. The can's at the gable end."
When I returned Betty was quietly in bed; and Willie had made the tea with ordinary water. He was somewhat more composed, but I could see his hand shake when he tried to pour out the first cup. He "skailed" it all over the cloth, and then was angered with himself for what he called his "trimlin' auld banes."
But I never knew or suspected Willie's secret till that awful Sabbath day, when the cross that he had borne so long hidden from the eyes of men, was suddenly lifted high in air.
Then all at once Willie towered like a giant, and the bowed shoulders seemed to support a grey head about which had become visible an apparent aureole.
It was the day of High Communion, and the solemn services were drawing to a yet more solemn close. The elements had been dispensed and the elders were back again in their places. Mr. Osbourne had Dr. Landsborough of Portmarnock assisting him that day—a tall man with a gracious manner, and the only man who could give an after-communion address without his words being resented as an intrusion.
"It is always difficult," he said, "to disturb the peculiarly sacred pause which succeeds the act of communion by any words of man——"
He had got no farther when he stopped, and the congregation regarded him with the strained attention which a beautiful voice always compels. The beadle was sitting in all the reasonable pride of his dignity in the first pew to the right of the Session. When Dr. Landsborough stopped, the congregation followed the direction of his eyes.
The door at the back of the kirk was seen to be open and a woman stood there, dishevelled, wild-eyed, a black bottle in her shaking hand, a red shawl about her head.
It was Betty McNair.
"Willie!" she cried aloud in the awful silence, "Willie, come forth—you that lockit me in the back kitchin, an' thocht to stop me frae the saicrament—I hae deceived ye, Willie McNair, clever man as ye think yersel'!"
I was in the corner pew opposite Willie (being, of course, a non-communicant at that date), so that I could see his face. At the first sound of that voice his countenance worked as if it would change its shape, but in a moment I saw him grip the book-board and stand up. Then he went quietly down the aisle to where his wife stood, gabbling wild and wicked words, and laughing till it turned the blood cold to hear her in that sacred place, and upon that solemn occasion.
Firmly, but very gently, Willie took the woman by the arm, and led her out. She went like a lamb. He closed the door behind him, and after a quaking and dreadful pause, Dr. Landsborough took up the interrupted burden of his discourse.
I was a great lad of twelve or thirteen at the time and unused to tears for many years. But I know that I wept all the time till the service was ended, thinking of Willie and wondering where he was and what he would be doing.
That same night I heard my father telling my mother about what came next.
The Session were in their little square room after the service, counting the tokens. The minister was sitting in his chair waiting to dismiss them with the benediction, when a rap came to the door. My father opened it, being nearest, and there without stood Willie McNair.
"I wish to speak with the Session," he said, firmly.
"Come in—come your ways in, William," said the minister, kindly, and the elders resumed their seats, not knowing what was to happen.
"Moderator and ruling elders of this congregation," said Willie, who had not served tables so long without knowing the respect due to his spiritual superiors, "I have come before you in the day of my shame to demit the office I have held so long among you. Gentlemen, I do not complain, I own I am well punished. These twenty years I have lived for my pride. I have lied to each one of you—to the minister, to you the elders, and to the hale congregation, making a roose of my wife, and sticking at nothing to hide the shame of my house.
"Sirs, for these lying words, it behoves that ye deal strictly with me, and I will submit willingly. But believe me, sirs, it was through a godly jealousy that I did it, that the Kirk of the New Testament might not be made ashamed through me and mine. But for a' that I have done wrong, grievous wrong. I aye kenned in my heart that it would come—though, God helping me, I never thocht that it would be like this!
"But noo I maun gang awa'," here he broke into dialect, "for I could never bear to see anither man carry up the Buiks and open the door for you, sir, to enter in. Forty years has William McNair been a hewer of wood and a drawer of water in this tabernacle. Let there be pity in your hearts for him this day. He hath borne himself with pride, and for that the Lord hath brought him very low. And, oh! sirs, pray for her—flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone, come to what ye saw this day! Tell me that He will forgie—be sure to tell me that He will forgie Betty—for what she has dune this day!"
The minister reassured him in affectionate words, and the whole Session tried to get Willie to withdraw his decision. But in vain. The old man was firm.
"No," he said, "Betty is noo my chairge. The husband of a drunkard is not a fit person to serve tables in the clean and halesome sanctuary. I will never leave Betty till the day she dees!"