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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of St. Cuthbert's, by Robert E. Knowles
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: St. Cuthbert's
+
+Author: Robert E. Knowles
+
+Release Date: July 6, 2007 [EBook #22008]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ST. CUTHBERT'S ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Lybarger and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  _ST. CUTHBERT'S_
+
+  _A NOVEL_
+
+  _ROBERT E. KNOWLES_
+
+   [Illustration]
+
+  _New York Chicago Toronto_
+  _FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY_
+  _London and Edinburgh_
+
+
+
+
+  Copyright, 1905, by
+  FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
+
+  First Edition, September, 1905.
+  Second Edition, October, 1905.
+  Third Edition, October 15, 1905.
+  Fourth Edition, November 1905.
+  Fifth Edition, December 1905.
+  Sixth Edition, April, 1906.
+
+  New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
+  Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue
+  Toronto: 27 Richmond Street, W.
+  London: 21 Paternoster Square
+  Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
+
+
+
+
+_To The Canadian Pilgrim Fathers_
+
+
+
+
+
+_CONTENTS_
+
+
+     I THE TURN OF THE TIDE                 9
+
+    II A MAN WITH A SECRET                 20
+
+   III OUR MUTUAL TRIAL                    26
+
+    IV OUR MUTUAL VERDICT                  34
+
+     V MY KIRK SESSION                     42
+
+    VI THE FIRST PARISH ROUND              50
+
+   VII "THE CHILD OF THE REGIMENT"         58
+
+  VIII "A NEW FOOT ON THE FLOOR"           64
+
+    IX "ANGELS UNAWARES"                   73
+
+     X MY PIOUS PROFLIGATE                 78
+
+    XI PLUCKING A FIERY BRAND              88
+
+   XII "BY THAT SAME TOKEN"                98
+
+  XIII WITH THE WORKMEN                   106
+
+   XIV WITH THE EMPLOYERS                 119
+
+    XV A BOLD PROPOSAL                    128
+
+   XVI GEORDIE'S OOT-TURN                 141
+
+  XVII "NOO, THE IN-TURN"                 154
+
+ XVIII HOW ELSIE WON THE GATE             159
+
+   XIX A MAIDEN'S LOVE                    175
+
+    XX A FATHER'S CRUCIFIXION             187
+
+   XXI THE OLD PRECENTOR'S NEW SONG       199
+
+  XXII "THE MILLS OF THE GODS"            215
+
+ XXIII A MAIDEN PRIESTESS                 229
+
+  XXIV THE SWEET SUNNY SOUTH              241
+
+   XXV ST. CUTHBERT'S SECOND CALL         258
+
+  XXVI LOVE'S SINGING SACRIFICE           276
+
+ XXVII THE HIDDEN CRUCIFIX                290
+
+XXVIII THE HEATHERY HILLS                 300
+
+  XXIX "AND ALL BUT HE DEPARTED"          311
+
+   XXX LOVE'S VICTORY OVER SIN            323
+
+  XXXI LOVE'S TRIUMPH OVER ALL            330
+
+
+
+
+_ST. CUTHBERT'S_
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+_The TURN of The TIDE_
+
+
+"If you don't get the call you needn't come back here," said my wife to
+me as I stood upon the door-sill, bag in hand, and my hard-bought ticket
+in my pocket.
+
+"Well, dear one, I would be sure of it if they could only see the
+perquisite that goes along with me."
+
+"You must be more serious, Tom, if you expect great calls; but come
+inside a minute till I say good-bye. When you brought me first to Canada
+we had half a dozen good-byes to every one farewell. Good-bye again, and
+if they don't call you they will deserve what they lose."
+
+Thus spoke my wife, and thus was I despatched on the mission that was
+big with moment.
+
+It was a wondrous hour that brought to us the invitation which I was now
+proceeding to accept. Not that we were unhappy because our salary was
+small; we had not lived by bread alone, and our souls were well
+content. But my wife had delirious visions, which she affirmed were sane
+and reasonable, of her husband's coming yet into his own, and indulged
+every now and then in savage and delicious little declarations of the
+great misfit, which misfit was in my being the minister of a little
+church which afforded a little salary and provoked a little fame.
+
+Her other days had been spent in luxury and amid the refinement and the
+pleasures which money only can provide. And when, our wedding day
+drawing near apace, I sent her my budget letter, bitterly revealing
+impecunious facts at which I had before but darkly hinted, and warning
+her of all the sacrifice which lay beyond, she replied with vehement
+repudiation of any fears, and in that hour made me rich.
+
+"Cheese and kisses," wrote she, "are considered good fare in my South
+land for all who have other resources in their hearts." And I mentally
+averred that half of that would be enough for me.
+
+And so we went ahead--oh, progressive step! And we were never poor
+again.
+
+But there came a more heroic hour. It was hard, so hard to do, but the
+pressure rendered concealment quite impossible, for the note I had
+endorsed was handed in for suit. So I told her one twilight hour that
+our already limited income must be shared with an unromantic creditor.
+There was a little tightening of the lips, then of the arms, then of
+those mutual heart cords entangled in their eternal root.
+
+We were boarding then, three rooms in a family hotel, and when I
+returned next day at evening I found everything--books, furniture,
+piano--all moved to a room upon the topmost story. I was directed
+thither by the smiling landlord, more enlightened than I, and I entered
+with furtive misgivings in my soul and with visions of that spacious
+Southern home before my rueful eyes.
+
+But she was there, radiant and triumphant, still flushed with exercise
+of hand and heart, viewing proudly her proof of a new axiom that two or
+more bodies may occupy the same space at the selfsame time.
+
+"I am so glad you didn't come before," she said. "I wanted to be all
+settled before you saw it. This is just as good as we had before, and
+only half the price. Isn't it cozy? And everything just fits. And we are
+away from all the noise. And look at that lovely view. And now we can
+pay off that horrid note. Aren't you glad?"
+
+"But, Emmeline, my heart breaks to see you caged like this. It is noble
+of you, just like you, but I cannot forgive myself that I have brought
+you to this," said I, my voice trembling with pain and joy.
+
+"Why, dear one, how can you speak like that? We have everything here,
+and each other too, and we shall be caged together."
+
+I kissed that girlish face again and blessed the gift of heaven,
+murmuring only, in tones that could not be heard, "He setteth the
+solitary in families," and as we went down together I wondered if that
+sudden elevation had not brought us nearer heaven than we had been
+below.
+
+It was largely owing to this lion-hearted courage that I now found
+myself swiftly borne towards the vacant pulpit which yawned in stately
+expectation of its weekly candidate.
+
+The invitation "to conduct divine services in St. Cuthbert's, whose
+pulpit is now vacant," had come unsought from the kirk session of that
+distant temple.
+
+St. Cuthbert's was the stately cathedral of all adjoining
+Presbyterianism. It was the pride and crown of a town which stood in
+prosperous contentment upon the verge of cityhood. Its history was great
+and honourable; its traditions warlike and evangelical; its people
+intelligent and intense. Its vast area was famed for its throng of acute
+and reflective hearers, almost every man of whom was a sermon taster,
+while its officers were the acknowledged possessors of letters patent to
+the true ecclesiastical nobility. In my student days, medals and
+scholarships were never quoted among the trophies of our divinity men if
+it could be justly said of any one that he had preached twice before the
+hard heads of St. Cuthbert's. This triumph was recited with the same
+reverent air as when men used to say, "He preached before the Queen."
+
+Some hundreds of miles must be traversed before I reached the place, but
+only some four-and-twenty hours before I reached the time, of my trial
+sermons. Therefore did I convert my car into a study and my unsteady
+knee into a desk, giving myself to the rehearsal of those discourses by
+which I was to stand or fall. Every weak hand thereof I laboured to
+strengthen, and every feeble knee I endeavoured to confirm. And what
+motley hours were those I spent on that fast-flying train! All my
+reflections tended to devotion, but yet my errand was throbbing with
+ambition.
+
+Whereupon I fell into a strange and not unprofitable reverie, painfully
+striving to separate my thoughts, the sheep from the goats, and to
+reconcile them the one to the other. I knew well enough the human frame
+to be persuaded that ambition could not altogether be cast out from the
+spirit of a man, which led me to reflect upon its possible place and
+purpose if controlled by a master hand beyond the hand of time. I
+strove to discover my inmost motive, far behind all other aims, and
+consoled myself with the hope that God might make it the dominant and
+sovereign one, to which all others might be unconscious ministers, even
+as all other lesser ones obey the driving wheel.
+
+I somehow felt that the vision of that radiant face at home, for whom
+ambition sprung like a fountain, was in no wise inconsistent with the
+holiest work which awaited me on the morrow.
+
+At thought of her, my ambition, earth-born though it was, seemed to be
+robed in white and to be unashamedly ministering unto God. And I was
+fain to believe at last that this very hope of a larger place was from
+Himself, and that He was the shepherd of the sheep and of the goats
+alike. Whereupon I fell upon my sermons afresh with a clearer
+conscience, which means a stronger mind, and swiftly prayed, even while
+I worked, that the Lord of the harvest would winnow my tumultuous
+thoughts, garnering the wheat unto Himself and burning the tares with
+unquenchable fire.
+
+Onward rushed the hours, and onward rolled the train in its desperate
+struggle with them, till the setting sun, victorious over both, reminded
+me that I would be in New Jedboro before the dusk deepened into dark.
+Then restored I my sermon notes, reburnished and repaired, to the
+trusty keeping of my well-worn valise, settling myself for one of those
+delicious baths of thought to be truly enjoyed only on the farther side
+of toil.
+
+I had but well begun to compose my mind and to forecast the probable
+experiences of the morrow, when a rich Scotch voice broke in upon me
+with the unmistakable inquiry, "And where micht ye be gaein?"
+
+I responded with the name of New Jedboro, assuming the air of a man who
+was bent only upon a welcome visit to long-separated friends. But I had
+reckoned without my host. My interrogator was a Scot, with the Scot's
+incurable curiosity, always to be estimated by the indifference of his
+air. If his face be eloquent of profound unconcern, then may you know
+that a fever of inquisitiveness is burning at his heart.
+
+My questioner seemed to scarcely listen for my answer, yet a tutored eye
+could tell that he was camping on my trail.
+
+His next interrogation was launched with courteous composure: "Ye'll no'
+be the man wha's expeckit in St. Cuthbert's ower the Sabbath?"
+
+I now saw that this was no diluted Scotsman. Bred on Canadian soil, he
+was yet original and pure. He had struck the native Scottish note, the
+ecclesiastical. Like all his countrymen, he had a native taste for a
+minister. His instincts were towards the Kirk, and for all things akin
+to Psalm or Presbytery he intuitively took the scent. I have maintained
+to this day that he sniffed my sermons from afar, undeceived by the
+worldly flavour of my rusty bag.
+
+I collected myself heroically, and replied that I was looking forward to
+the discharge of the high duty to which he had referred. Upon this
+admission he moved nearer, as a great lawyer stalks his quarry in the
+witness box. He eyed me solemnly for a moment, with the look of one
+taking aim, and then said slowly--
+
+"I'm no' an elder in that kirk."
+
+"Are you not?" said I, with as generous an intonation of surprise as
+conscience would permit.
+
+"I'm no' an elder," he repeated. "But I gang till it," he added.
+
+Then followed a pause, which I dared to break with the remark, "I am
+told it is a spacious edifice."
+
+He merely glanced at me, as if to say that all irrelevant conversation
+was out of place, and then continued--
+
+"And I'm no' the precentor; I'm no' the man, ye ken, that lifts the
+tune."
+
+I nodded sympathetically, trying to convey my sense of the mistake the
+congregation had made in its choice of both elders and precentor.
+
+"Ye wud say, to luik at me, that I'm no' an office-seeker, an' ye're
+richt. But I haud an office for a' that."
+
+This time I smiled as if light had come to me, and as one who has been
+reassured in his belief in an overruling Providence.
+
+"What office do you hold?" said I.
+
+"Ye wudna guess in a twalmonth. I'm no' the treasurer, as ye're
+thinkin'--I'm the beadle."
+
+I uttered a brief eulogy upon the honour and responsibility of that
+position, pointing out that the beadle had a dignity all his own, as
+well as the elders and other officers of the kirk.
+
+He endorsed my views with swift complacent nods.
+
+"That's what I aye think o' when I see the elders on the Sabbath
+mornin'," said he; "forbye, there's severals o' _them_, but wha ever
+heard tell o' mair than ae beadle? And what's mair, I had raither be a
+door-keeper in the Lord's hoose than dwall in tents o' sin. Them's
+Dauvit's words, and they aye come to me when I compare mysel' wi' the
+elders."
+
+I hurriedly commended his reference to the Scriptures, at the same time
+avoiding any share in his rather significant classification, remarking
+on the other hand that elders had their place, and that authority was
+indispensable in all churches, and the very essence of the Presbyterian
+system.
+
+He interrupted me, fearing he had been misunderstood.
+
+"Mind ye," he declared fervently, "I'm no' settin' mysel' up even wi'
+the minister. I regard him as mair important than me--far mair
+important," he affirmed, with reckless humility, "but the elders, they
+are juist common fowk like mysel'. An' at times they are mair than
+common. Me an' the minister bear a deal frae the elders. He aye bids me
+to bear wi' them, an' I aye bid him no' to mind. I tell him whiles that
+we'd meet an' we'd greet whaur the elders cease frae troublin'--them's
+the poet's words."
+
+We were now some two miles or so from the town and the church wherein he
+exercised his gifts and magnified his office; and my rugged friend,
+dismissing the elders for the time, reverted to the inquiry he had seen
+fit previously to ignore.
+
+"Ye were askin' me aboot the kirk."
+
+"Yes," said I in a chastened voice, "I asked you if it was not very
+large."
+
+"Thae was no' yir exact words, but I ken yir meanin'. It's a gran' kirk,
+St. Cuthbert's, an' ye'll need to speak oot--no' to yell, ye ken, for
+I'm nigh deefened wi' the roarin' o' the candidates sin' oor kirk was
+preached vacant by the Presbytery. Dinna be ower lang; and be sure to
+read a' the psalm afore ye sit doon, and hae the sough o' Sinai in yir
+discoorse, specially at the mornin' diet; an' aye back up the Scriptures
+wi' the catechism, an' hae a word or twa aboot the Covenanters, them as
+sealed their testimony wi' their bluid, ye ken. Ye'll tak' ma advice as
+kindly; it's mair than likely we'll never meet again gin the morrow's
+gone."
+
+I thanked him for his counsel and reached for my bag, at the signal of
+escaping steam.
+
+The car door had just closed behind me when I felt a hand upon my arm
+and heard a now familiar voice--
+
+"An' dinna pray ower muckle for yir ain devoted folk at hame; an' dinna
+ask the King an' Head o' the Kirk to fetch till us a wise under-shepherd
+o' the flock."
+
+With a word of additional acknowledgment I stepped on to the station
+platform, but my parley with a burly cabman was interrupted by the same
+voice whispering in my ear--
+
+"Ye micht mind the elders in yir prayer; gin they were led mair into the
+licht it wad dae nae harm to onybody."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+_A MAN With a SECRET_
+
+
+There was no one about the station to welcome me and none to direct, but
+there were many to stare and wonder.
+
+The moderator of the vacant kirk had provided me with the address of the
+house to which he said I should repair. I was in no wise mortified by
+this apparent lack of hospitality, for the aforesaid moderator had
+reminded me in his postscript that the folk of St. Cuthbert's were
+notoriously Scotch, untrained to any degree of devotion at the
+beginning, but famous for the fervour of their loyalty at the close of
+their ministers' careers.
+
+Whether or not I should have any career at all amongst them was the
+subject of my thoughts as I wended my way to "Inglewood," for such was
+the melodious title of the house which was to be my home during my
+sojourn in New Jedboro.
+
+Beautiful for situation it proved to be, nestling among its sentinels of
+oak, upon the highest hill of seven which garrisoned the town. The signs
+of wealth and good taste were everywhere about, and my probationer's
+heart was beating fast when I pulled the polished silver knob whose
+patrician splendour had survived the invasion of all electrical
+upstarts.
+
+I heard the answering bell far within, breaking again and again into its
+startled cry, and my soul answered it with peals of such humiliation as
+is known only to the man whose heart affords a home to that ill-matched
+pair, the discomfiture of the candidate and the pride of the
+Presbyterian.
+
+The door was opened by the master of the house, Michael Blake, a man of
+forty-five or so, the wealthy senior of New Jedboro's greatest
+manufacturing firm.
+
+I suppose he looked first at me, but my first sensation was of his keen
+eye swiftly falling on the shabby travelling-bag in my left hand, my
+right kept disengaged for any friendly overture which might await me.
+
+Oh, the shame and the anguish of those swift glances towards one's
+travelling-bag! Can no kind genius devise a scheme for their temporary
+concealment such as the modern book agent has brought to its perfection,
+full armed beneath the treacherous shelter of his cloak?
+
+I broke the silence: "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Blake?"
+
+"Yes, that is my name," responded a rich, soulful voice, resonant with
+the finest Scottish flavour, "and what can I do for you, sir?"
+
+Presuming that it would be hardly delicate for me to state the
+particular duty I was expecting him to discharge, I betook myself to the
+association of ideas, and replied--
+
+"I am to preach in St. Cuthbert's to-morrow," hoping that this might
+suggest to him the information he had sought.
+
+Swift and beautiful was the transformation. The soul of hospitality
+leaped from his face, stern and secretive though it was. His eye, which
+had seemed to hold my blushing bag at bay, turned now upon me with all
+the music of a great welcome in its glance. He looked at me with that
+frank abruptness which true cordiality creates, and when he took my hand
+in his my heart leaped to the warm shelter of its grasp.
+
+"I have been looking for you; you are welcome here," he said, in the
+quietest of tones. He drew me gently within the massive door, and in
+that moment I knew that I was in the custody of love.
+
+A grandfather's clock, proud and stately in its sense of venerable
+faithfulness, was gravely ticking off the moments with hospitality in
+its tone. A pleasant-faced lassie showed me to my room, reminding me
+that the evening meal awaited my descent.
+
+My host justified my every impression. While we disposed of the plain
+but appetizing fare, whose crown was the speckled trout which his skill
+had lured from home, he submitted me to the kindliest of
+cross-examinations concerning my past, my scholarship, my evangelical
+positions, my household, and much else that nestled among them all.
+Throughout, I felt the charm and the power of his gentleness, and under
+its secret influence I yielded up what many another would have sought in
+vain. Some natures there are which search you as the sun lays bare the
+flowers, making for itself a pathway to their inmost heart, every petal
+opening before its siege of love.
+
+But reciprocity there was none. His lips seemed to stand like inexorable
+sentinels before his heart, in league with its great secret, the
+guardians of a past which no man had heard revealed. One or two
+tentative attempts to discover his antecedents were foiled by his
+charming taciturnity.
+
+"I came from the old country many years ago," was the only information
+he vouchsafed me.
+
+The evening was spent in conversation which never flamed but never
+flagged. My increasing opportunity for observation served but to confirm
+my conviction that I was confronted with a man who had one great and
+separate secret hidden within the impenetrable recesses of a contrite
+heart. He said little about St. Cuthbert's or the morrow, his most
+significant observation being to the effect that the serious-minded of
+the kirk were looking forward to my appearance with hopeful interest.
+
+After he had bidden me good-night, he again sought me in my chamber,
+interrupting the devotions which I was striving to conduct in oblivion
+of to-morrow and in the sombre light of the Judgment Day.
+
+"Will you do me a kindness in the kirk to-morrow?" he said, with almost
+pathetic eagerness.
+
+I responded fervently that nothing could be a greater kindness to myself
+than the sense of one bestowed on him.
+
+"Very well, then, will you give us the Fifty-first Psalm to sing at the
+morning service--it always seems to me that it is the soul's staple
+food; and let us begin with the fifth verse--
+
+    "'Behold, Thou in the inward parts
+        With truth delighted art.'
+
+It falls like water on the thirsty heart. And perhaps, if your previous
+selection will permit, you would give us in the evening the paraphrase--
+
+    "'Come let us to the Lord our God
+        With contrite hearts return.'
+
+My mother first taught me that," he added, with the first quiver of the
+lip I yet had seen, "and I have learned it anew from God."
+
+He then swiftly departed, little knowing that he had given me that night
+a pillow for both head and heart. I fell asleep, his great quotations
+and his earnest words flowing about my soul even as the ocean laves the
+shore.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+_OUR MUTUAL TRIAL_
+
+
+The Sabbath morning broke serene and fair. Thus also awoke my spirit,
+still invigorated by its contact with one I felt to be an honest and
+God-fearing man, whose ardour I knew was chastened by a long-waged
+conflict of the soul.
+
+Our morning worship was led by Mr. Blake himself, who besought the
+Divine blessing upon the labours of him who was "for this day 'our
+servant for Jesus' sake.'"
+
+We walked to the church together, mingling with the silent and reverent
+multitude pressing towards a common shrine.
+
+As he left me at the vestry door, he said earnestly--
+
+"Forget that you are a candidate of St. Cuthbert's, and remember that
+you are a minister of God."
+
+The beadle recognized me with a confidential nod, inspected the pulpit
+robe which I had donned, and taking up the "Books," he led the way to
+the pulpit steps with an air which might have provoked the envy of the
+most solemn mace-bearer who ever served his king.
+
+He opened the door, and then there appeared to my wondering view a sea
+of expectant faces, vast beyond my utmost dream. They were steeped in
+silence, a silence so intense that it left the impress on my mind of an
+ocean, majestic in its heaving grandeur; for the stiller you find the
+sea of human faces the more reasonably may you dread the trough of human
+waves.
+
+The wonder of the reverent and the sneer of the scornful have alike been
+prompted by the preaching of a candidate. Something strange and
+incongruous seems to pertain to the performance of a man whose
+acknowledged purpose is the dual one of winning alike the souls and the
+smiles of men. He seeks, as all preachers are supposed to do, the uplift
+of his hearers' souls, while his very appearance is a pledge of his
+desire to so commend himself as to be their favourite and their choice.
+Much hath been written, and more hath been said, of the humiliation to
+which he must submit who occupies a vacant pulpit as the applicant for a
+vacant kirk.
+
+But, whatever ground there be for these reflections, I felt the force of
+none of them that radiant Sabbath morning in St. Cuthbert's. My
+Calvinism, which is regarded by those who know it not as dragonlike and
+altogether drastic, proved now my comfort and my stay, and within its
+vast pavilion I seemed to hide as in the covert of the Eternal. For
+there surged through heart and brain the stately thought that such
+experimental dealings between a minister and a people might be
+sublimated before reverent eyes, hallowed as a holy venture, and
+destined to play its part in the economy of God.
+
+His claim seemed loftier far than any obligation between my heart and
+man, and so uplifted was I by the sense of a commission which even
+candidature could neither invalidate nor deform, that all sense of
+servility, all cringing thought of livelihood, all fear of faltering and
+all faltering of fear, seemed to flee away even as the blasphemy of
+darkness retreats before the sanctities of the morn. In very truth I
+forgot that I was a candidate of St. Cuthbert's and seemed but to
+remember that I was a minister of God.
+
+Whether my sermon was good or ill I could not then have told; but I
+could well have told that a victorious secret is to him who strives
+after earnestness of heart, unvexed by the clamour of his own rebellious
+and ambitious soul.
+
+The congregation was vast and reverent as befitted the purpose of the
+hour; the most careless eye could mark the strong and reflective cast of
+those Scottish faces, whose native adamant was but little softened by
+their sojourn beneath Canadian skies. Reverence seemed to clothe these
+worshippers like a garment. They were as men who believed in God,
+whereby are men most fearsome and yet most glorious to look upon. It was
+the fearsomeness of such a face, garrisoned in God, which had beat back
+the haughty gaze of Mary when she met the eye of Knox, burning with a
+fire which no torch of time had kindled.
+
+And when they sang their opening hymn, they seemed to stride upwards as
+mountaineers, for they lifted up their eyes as men who would cast them
+down again only before God Himself. From word to word they climbed, and
+from line to line, as though each word or line were some abutting crag
+of the very hill of God. Besides, the psalm they sung was this--
+
+    "I to the hills will lift mine eyes
+       From whence doth come mine aid."
+
+Their intensity steadied my very soul. They seemed to look at me as if
+to say, "We are in earnest if you are; our kirk is vacant but our hearts
+are full," and the pulpit in which I stood, and in which many a hapless
+man had stood before, was hallowed by its solemn garrison of waiting
+souls, and redeemed of all taint of treason towards its sacred trust.
+
+When I called them unto prayer, they answered as the forest answers
+when the wind brings it word from heaven, save some venerable few who
+rose erect (as was their fathers' way), standing like sentinel oaks amid
+lesser trees, they also bending with an obeisance prompted from within.
+It seemed not hard to lead these earnest hearts in prayer--they seemed
+the rather to lead my soul as by a more familiar path; or, to state the
+truth more utterly, their devoutness seemed to bear me on, as the deep
+ocean bears itself and its every burden towards the shore.
+
+This intensity of worship pervaded its every act. They joined in the
+reading of the Word as those who must both hear and see it for
+themselves, their books opening and closing in unison with the larger
+one which decked their pulpit like a crown.
+
+Even when the collection was taken up they maintained their loftiness of
+poise. It had been often told me that Scotch folk contribute to an
+offering with the same heroism wherewith their ancestors opened their
+unshrinking veins, doling forth their money, like their blood, with a
+martyr's air. But although I remarked that some Scottish eyes followed
+their departing coins with glances of parental tenderness, there was yet
+a solemn stateliness about the operation which greatly won me, even
+those who dedicated the homeliest copper doing it unabashedly, as if to
+the Lord, and not unto men.
+
+We closed with the penitential psalm which Mr. Blake had asked, and its
+great words seemed charged with the strong reality of men who believed
+in sin with the same old-fashioned earnestness as marked their faith in
+God, the two answering the one to the other as deep calleth unto deep,
+eternally harmonious as they are.
+
+The congregation swayed slowly down the aisle, Scottishly cold and
+still, like the processional of the ice in the spring-time. They
+reminded me of noble bergs drifting through the Straits of Belle Isle.
+It was a Presbyterian flood, and every man a floe. But I suspected
+mightily that they were nevertheless the product of the spring, and
+somehow felt that they dwelt near the confines of the summer. The fire
+which warmed their hearts had touched my own, and in that very moment
+wherein they turned their backs upon me, I pursued them with
+surrendering tenderness, and coveted for my own the rugged faithfulness
+which hath now enriched these many golden years.
+
+One or two turned to glance at me, but when their gaze met mine they
+despatched their eyes on some impartial quest, as if caressing their
+noble church or looking for some lingering friend.
+
+The precentor, whose place was in a kind of songster's pulpit just below
+me, was wreathed in the complacent air of a man who has discharged a
+lofty duty and has done it well. He had borne himself throughout as the
+real master of the entire service, and as one who had ruled from an
+untitled throne. He cast me one or two swift glances, such as would
+become an engineer who had brought his train or a pilot who had brought
+his ship to the desired haven. I returned his overture with a look of
+humble gratitude, and he thereupon relaxed as one well content with what
+was his hard-earned due, but nothing more. I have well learned since
+then that by so much as one values one's peace, by that much must one
+reverence the precentor.
+
+When I regained the vestry I found it peopled with six or seven elders
+(a great and sweltering population), but no word of favour or approval
+escaped a single Scottish lip. Their hour had not yet come; but I knew
+it not, and was proportionately cast down by what seemed to me a silent
+rhetoric of scorn. But it was the will of heaven to somewhat set aside
+what I unknowingly estimated to be the verdict of indifference. The
+beadle, as one with whom I had had a past, beckoned me without,
+whispering that a "wumman body," a stranger, desired to speak with me in
+an adjoining room.
+
+Her story was short and sad; her request, the sobbing entreaty of a
+broken heart that I would pray for her darling and her prodigal, her
+first-born, wandering in that farthest of all countries which lies
+beyond the confines of a mother's ken. I answered her with a glance
+which owned the kinship of her tears, and pledged it with a hand which,
+thank God, has ever found its warmest welcome in the hand of woe. Then I
+went back to the vestry unafraid. "For what," thought I, "can these
+elders do either for me or against me, if I am really a priest unto God
+for one mother's son? This woman has evidently forgotten that I am a
+candidate of St. Cuthbert's, and has remembered only that I am a
+minister of God."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+_OUR MUTUAL VERDICT_
+
+
+The evening service was like unto that of the morning, the only
+difference being that I saw this sturdy folk, mountain-like, in the
+light of the setting, instead of the rising sun. But still no word or
+hint revealed to me the favour or disfavour with which my efforts had
+been received by the people of St. Cuthbert's, save only that one man
+ventured to remark that I had brought him in mind of Thomas Chalmers.
+
+I hurriedly exclaimed, "Is that so?" in a tone which all too plainly
+implored him to go on.
+
+"Yes," said he. "When ye blawed yir nose, if ma een had been shut, I cud
+hae swore it was Chammers," whereupon the last state of me was worse
+than the first.
+
+But I was a little comforted in overhearing one Scot say to another as
+they passed me on their homeward way, "He's no' to be expeckit to preach
+like yon man frae Hawick," to which the other replied, and I caught his
+closing words, "But there was a bit at the end that wasna bad."
+
+This was but a thin gruel to satisfy one's wondering soul, but it was
+shortly thickened by the beadle. He was waiting for us at Mr. Blake's,
+wishing instruction about some task that fell within his duties, but he
+managed to have a word with me--
+
+"I canna tell what waits ye, but, gin ye'd like to see through the
+manse, I'll tak' ye through the morn."
+
+I thanked him, declining, but secretly blessed him and inwardly
+rejoiced.
+
+At worship that night my gentle host read the story of the prodigal, and
+when we knelt to pray he repeated twice, "I will arise and go unto my
+Father," and in the pause I felt that the wave of some besetting memory
+was beating on the shore; more and more was it borne in upon me that
+this man had a past, shared only by himself and God and some one else
+unknown.
+
+The morning witnessed my departure from New Jedboro, and from the window
+of the train I watched its fast-retreating hills, so often trodden by me
+since with the swinging stride of joy, or clambered with the heavy step
+of care.
+
+There is neither time nor space to set down in detail all that followed.
+Let it suffice to say that while they were musing the fire burned, and
+the good folk of St. Cuthbert's slowly and solemnly resolved to call me
+to their ancient church.
+
+They were scandalized by a report, which spread with pestilential ease,
+that I had known my wife but three short weeks when I asked her to walk
+the long walk with me. This and other rumours provoked them to despatch
+a sage and ponderous officer to the distant scene of my labours, that he
+might investigate them on the spot. He came, he saw, he was conquered.
+My wife lassoed him at a throw. He went home in fetters, his eloquence
+alone unloosed. Long before the night on which they should meet to call,
+he had brandished his opinion as to the wisdom of my delirious haste.
+
+"But did he mak' his choice so redeek'lus sudden?" he was asked.
+
+"I dinna ken," he answered tropically, "and I dinna care. If he bided
+three weeks, he bided ower lang. I kent that fine when ance I saw her.
+Noo, I pit it till ye, gin ye were crossin' a desert place, an' ye saw
+the Rose o' Sharon afore ye, wad ye no' pluck it gin ye micht, and pluck
+it quick? I pit it till ye." And they answered him not a word, for there
+is no debater like the heart.
+
+I was told in after days that my historic friend the beadle canvassed
+for me night and day, laying mighty stress upon the fact that he knew me
+well, since he had travelled with me, assuring every ear that I was
+"uncommon ceevil," and proudly laying bare the independent scorn with
+which I had met his proposition to inspect the manse.
+
+"But we micht get him yet," he concluded, "gin we gang richt aboot it."
+
+These testimonials, together with his plaintive appeal to be relieved of
+the responsibility which the absence of a fixed minister threw upon
+himself, went far to confirm the wavering.
+
+Nor shall I linger to trace the workings of that ponderous machinery
+whereby I was at last installed as the minister of St. Cuthbert's
+Church. Even the great assemblage which gathered to welcome us, with its
+infinite introductions, its features social, devotional, and
+deputational, its addresses civic and ecclesiastical, must be dismissed
+with a word.
+
+It reminded me of nothing so much as of the launching of a ship, and
+beneath all its tumult of artillery there thrummed the deep undertone of
+joy. For St. Cuthbert's, contrary to its historic way, had parted with
+its last minister, a man of great ability, amid the smoke of battle, and
+he had gone forth as Napoleon went, with a martial record which the
+corroding years even yet have scarcely tarnished. Fierce had been the
+fight, the factions grimly equal, and beclouded with a sublime confusion
+as to which side had been led by heaven and which by Belial. On this
+point, even now, they do not exactly see eye to eye.
+
+And this deep joy, whose untiring hum (joy's native voice) had entwined
+itself with every exercise of our exultant gathering was born of the
+assurance of returning harmony and the welcome calm which follows the
+departing storm. The gentle vines of peace were beginning to clothe
+their scarred and disfigured Zion.
+
+St. Cuthbert's hailed that night as the hour of its convalescence. In
+consequence, every speech, even those from dry and desiccated lips, was
+coloured with the melody of hope. Even hoary jokes and ancestral
+stories, kept for tea-meetings as hard tack is kept for the army and
+navy, were disinfected by the kindly flavour which brooded like an April
+cloud.
+
+And now it is my purpose to set down as best I may some of the features
+of my life, and a few of my most vivid observations among these
+remarkable folk.
+
+The greater number of them had been born in bonnie Scotland, and all of
+them, even those who had never seen their ancestral home, spoke and
+lived and thought as though they had just come from the heathery hills.
+They were sprung from the loins of heroes, the stalwart pioneers from
+Roxburghshire and Ayrshire and Dumfries, and many another noble spot
+whose noblest sons had gone forth to earth's remotest bound, flaming
+with love of liberty and God. Seventy years before they had settled
+about New Jedboro, thinking of the well-loved Scottish town whose name
+it bore.
+
+Soon the echoing forest bowed before their gleaming axes, and they made
+the wilderness to blossom like the rose. Comfort, and even wealth, came
+to them at the imperious beck of industry. Stern and earnest, reckoning
+frivolity a sin, finding their pleasure in a growing capacity for
+self-denial and a growing scorn of needless luxury, they cherished in
+their blood the iron which had been bequeathed by noble sires.
+
+Hand in hand with God like sons of Knox, they built the school and the
+church with the first-fruits of their toil, disporting themselves again
+in their unforgotten psalms, worshipping after the dear-bought manner of
+their fathers, not a few of whom had paid the price of blood, nor deemed
+it sacrifice.
+
+Like draws to like, they say. With St. Cuthbert's this had certainly
+been the case; for every minister who had served them heretofore had
+been both born and educated in their motherland.
+
+Three had they had. The first was the Reverend John Grant, Doctor of
+Divinity, from Greenock; the second, the Reverend James Kay, from
+Aberdeen; the third, my immediate predecessor, the Reverend Henry
+Alexander from Glasgow.
+
+Like a mountain peak towered the memory of their first minister, a man
+of gigantic power, scholarly and profound, grimly genial, carrying with
+him everywhere the air of the Eternal. He was as eloquent almost as
+human lips can be, magnetic to the point of tyranny, and grandly
+independent of everything and every one but God. His fame covered Canada
+like a flood. American colleges sought the honour of their laurel on his
+brow, and from one of the best he accepted his Doctor's hood. City
+congregations coveted him with pious envy, but he hearkened to few and
+coquetted with none. He had assumed the cure of St. Cuthbert's when it
+was almost entirely (as it was still considerably) a country
+congregation, revelling in solitude and souls, both of which were nearer
+here to Nature's heart than amid the sweltering throng. Here he
+cherished his mighty heart and gave eternal bent to hearts only less
+mighty than his own.
+
+    "Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
+     Nor e'er had changed nor wished to change his place."
+
+Throughout my ministry in St. Cuthbert's the mention of his name was the
+signal for a cloud of witnesses. Forty years had elapsed since the
+countryside followed him to his grave, shrouded in gown and bands, a
+regalia more than royal to their loving eyes. But they had guarded his
+memory with the vigilance which belongs only to the broken heart, and
+the traditions of his greatness were fresh among them still.
+
+"I likit the ither twa fine," said a shrewd sermon taster to me soon
+after my arrival, "but their sermons didna plough the soul like the
+Doctor's; we hae na had the fallow grun' turned up sin' he dee'd."
+
+And so said, or thought, they all.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+_My KIRK SESSION_
+
+
+He would need a brave and facile pen who would venture to portray the
+kirk session of St. Cuthbert's Church. For any kirk session is far from
+commonplace, let alone the session of such a church as mine. Kirk
+sessions are the bloom of Scottish character in particular and the crown
+and glory of mankind in general. Piety, sobriety, severity, these are
+the three outstanding graces which they illustrate supremely; but
+interlocked with these are many other gifts and virtues in varying
+degrees of culture.
+
+In St. Cuthbert's, the pride of eldership was chiefly vested in their
+wives and daughters.
+
+"Ye mauna be ower uplifted aboot yir faither's office," was the
+oft-repeated admonition of the elder's wife to the elder's children, and
+the children were not slow to remark that her words were one part rebuke
+and ten parts pride. For to mothers and bairns alike he appeared as one
+of God's kings and priests when he walked down the aisle with the
+vessels of the Lord.
+
+Many of these men were poor, grandly and pathetically poor, but none
+was poor enough to appear at the sacramental board without his "blacks,"
+radiant with the lustre of open love and sacred sacrifice. This I
+afterwards learned was their wives' doing, and marvellous in my eyes. Ah
+me! How many a decently apparelled husband, how many a white-robed
+child, has come forth out of great tribulation not their own. Indeed,
+uncounted multitudes there are who shall walk in white before the throne
+of God, whose robes the secret sacrifice of loving hearts hath whitened
+as no fuller of earth can whiten them.
+
+My first meeting with the kirk session of St. Cuthbert's was an
+epoch-marking incident. Twenty-eight there were who sat about the
+session-room, every man but one an importation from Caledonia's rugged
+hills. Roxburgh's covenanting heroes, Wigtonshire's triumphant martyrs,
+Dumfriesshire and her Cameronians, with their great namesake's lion
+heart; Ayrshire, with her bloody memories of moor and moss-hags, of
+quarry and conventicle, of Laud and liberty--all these had filtered
+through and reappeared in these silent and stalwart men.
+
+Of these eight-and-twenty faces at least one score had the cast of
+marble and the stamp of eternity upon them. I felt like a hillock
+nestling at the feet of lofty peaks, for I do make my oath that when you
+are begirt by men in whose veins there flows the blood of martyrs, who
+have been slowly nurtured upon such stately doctrines as are their daily
+food, who actually believe in God as a living participator in the
+affairs of time, whose mental pabulum has been Thomas Boston and Samuel
+Rutherford and Philip Doddridge, and who have used these worthies but as
+helps to climb that unpinnacled hill of the Eternal Word--when you get
+such men as these, multiplied a hundredfold by the stern consciousness
+of a religious trust, if you are not then among the Rockies of flesh and
+blood, I am as one who sees men like walking trees, ignorant of the true
+altitudes of human life.
+
+But I was yet to learn, and to learn by heart (the great medium of all
+real character), that many a fragrant flower may bloom in secret clefts
+of rock-bound hills, frowning and forbidding though they be. For God
+loves to surprise us, especially in happy ways; and His is a sanguine
+sun.
+
+It should now be stated that I began my ministry in St. Cuthbert's with
+the handicap of an Irish ancestry. How then was I to wear the hodden
+gray? Or how was I to commingle myself with that historic tide which I
+well knew the Scottish heart regarded as fed more than any other from
+the river that makes glad the city of God?
+
+My every vein was already full to overflowing with Irish blood. My
+father was from Ballymena and my mother was from Cork, a solution which
+no chemistry could cure. I was inclined by nature and confirmed by
+practice towards a reasonable pride in my ancestral land. But odds were
+against me. Even the mistress of my manse, whose judgment was wont to
+take counsel of her kindly heart, even she remonstrated when she first
+discovered my nativity, and has never since been altogether thankful,
+though she strives hard to be resigned.
+
+"Why do you always flaunt your Irish origin?" she reasoned once. "If it
+is good stock, be modest about it; and if it is not, the less said the
+better."
+
+Then she remarked that she was no doubt prejudiced, for she had once
+witnessed the noble procession in New York on St. Patrick's Day; and she
+added that they all seemed to have mouths like the Mammoth Cave of
+Kentucky and complexions like an asphalt pavement under repairs. My
+wife's power of detecting analogies was uncommonly acute.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the session had been duly constituted, the minutes of the last
+meeting were read by the session clerk. It is probably quite within the
+mark to say that all ecclesiastical officialdom can produce no other
+dignitary with the same stern grandeur as pertains to the clerk of a
+Scottish session. I have witnessed archbishops in their robes and with
+their mitres, and have marvelled at the gravity with which they clothed
+the most ponderous frivolities, at their stately genuflections, at the
+swift shedding and donning of their bewildering millineries. I have seen
+General Booth resplendent in his flaming clericals. I have even looked
+on the bespangled Dowie, dazzling and bedazzled--but none of these has
+the majesty of poise, the aroma of responsibility, or the inexorable air
+of authority which mark the true-bred session clerk.
+
+The minutes having been read and hermetically sealed, I addressed the
+elders briefly, referring to my great duties and my poor abilities,
+after which I invited them to a general deliberation, and begged them to
+acquaint me with the mind and temper of the congregation, asking such
+advice as might be useful in entering upon my labours.
+
+"We bid ye welcome, moderator," began the senior elder, by name Sandy
+Grant, "an' we'll do what in us lies to haud up yir hands; ye're no' oor
+servant, but oor minister, and we're a' ready to do yir biddin', gin
+it's the will o' God. Ye're sittin' in a michty seat, moderator. It was
+frae that chair that oor first minister spak' till us in far ither
+days."
+
+At this reference to the golden age, I saw a wave of tenderness break
+over the faces of the older men.
+
+"Ay, I mind weel the nicht Doctor Grant sat amang us for the first time,
+as ye're sittin' noo."
+
+This time it was Ronald M'Gregor who had spoken, the love-light on whose
+face even sixty winters could not disguise.
+
+"We'll never look upon his like again. Ye've mebbe watched the storm,
+sir, when it beat upon the shore. His style o' delivery was like the
+ragin' o' the waves. Ye see that buik, moderator, yir haun's restin' on
+the tap o't. Weel, he dune for sax o' them the while he was oor
+minister. We bocht the strongest bound o' them, but he banged them to
+tatters amazin' fast. A page at a skite. Times it was like the driftin'
+o' the leaves in the fall. He was graun' on the terrors o' the law. We
+haena been what's to say clean uplifted wi' the michty truth o' the
+punishment o' the lost sin' his mooth was closed in death," and Ronald
+sighed the sigh of the hungry heart.
+
+"Div ye no' mind the Doctor on the decrees, the simmer o' the
+cholera--div ye no' mind yon, Ronald?" said Thomas Laidlaw, swept into
+the seething tide of reminiscence; but here the session clerk rose to a
+point of order.
+
+"The members o' this court will address the moderator," he said sternly.
+"Moreover, we are here for business, not for history. We might well
+think shame of ourselves, glorifying the old when we should be
+welcoming the new. We're no' to be aye dwellin' amang the tombs" (this
+with a rise in feeling and a drop in language). "Besides, Doctor Grant
+was no' a common man, and it's no becomin' to be comparin' common men
+along wi' the likes o' him."
+
+So this, thought I, is the Scottish mode of paying compliments. I had
+always heard that their little tributes were more medicinal than
+confectionery.
+
+Then followed a painful calm, for Scottish calms are stormy things.
+
+It was Michael Blake who first resumed.
+
+"Let us forget the things which are behind," he said, "if we only can,"
+and there was a wealth of agony in his words, "and let us press forth
+unto those things which are before. We greet you, moderator, as the
+messenger of peace, for we are all but sinful men and unworthy of the
+trust we hold. I hope you will preach to us the grace of God, for we
+have learned ourselves the terrors of the law."
+
+"I move that we adjourn," interjected Ronald M'Gregor, alarmed for the
+retirement of Sinai, and fearful of a too early spring.
+
+"I second that," said a rugged patriarch, hitherto silent.
+
+"But I hope the moderator 'll permit me to express the hope that he'll
+no' shorten up the services, and that he'll gie the young fowk mair o'
+the catechism than we hae been gettin', and mak' the sacraments mair
+searchin' to the soul," said Saunders M'Tavish.
+
+"Ye're oot o' order," interrupted the clerk; "there's a motion to
+adjourn afore the Chair."
+
+"But I maun tak' ma staun," exclaimed Saunders.
+
+"Ye mauna," retorted the clerk, "ye maun tak' yir seat," and Saunders
+dropped where he stood, while his fellow-elders looked into each other's
+faces as if to say that this thing might have befallen any one of them.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+_The FIRST PARISH ROUND_
+
+
+I soon began, of course, the visitation of my flock. Although my title
+to youth was at that time undisputed, and although the unreflective
+would have labelled me "new school," the importance of faithful visiting
+was ever before my mind.
+
+The curate's place (unhappiest of men) had more than once been offered
+me at the hands of portly ministers, prepared to deny themselves all the
+visiting, they to take all the preaching and nearly all the salary,
+while their untitled slave was to deny himself the high joy of the
+pulpit, to starve on the salary's dregs, and to indulge himself royally
+in a very carnival of unceasing visitation. These overtures I had had
+little hesitation in declining, for observation had taught me that the
+slave's place soon makes the slave's spirit, unless that slavery be an
+indenture unto God, which is but the sterner name for liberty.
+
+Moreover, curates (especially Presbyterian, which implieth the greater
+perversion) seemed to lack the breath of the uplands which the pulpit
+breathes, and too often degenerate into society favourites, whose
+flapping tails of black may be seen as these curates ring at fashionable
+doors, where "five-o'clocks" within await the kid-gloved ministers of
+men who are supposed to be the stewards of eternal life. I had once
+overheard an enamelled queen of fashion declare, with much emotion, that
+their curate was indispensable to a high-class "at home," and even
+panegyrize his graceful transportation of cups of tea, however full.
+
+Whereupon I forever swore that I would frizzle upon no such heathen
+altar; I vowed to be either a minister or a butler--one thing or the
+other--but never a Right Reverend Butler, which is a monster and a
+tongue-cheeked comedy to both God and man.
+
+As the minister of a vast congregation like St. Cuthbert's, I might on
+the other hand have requested an assistant who should relieve me of the
+visiting, leaving me only the duties of the pulpit, oceanic enough for
+any man. Indeed, one of the stalwarts had suggested this to me, averring
+that I needed more time for my sermons, whereat I looked at him sharply;
+but his face was placid as a sea of milk, which is the way of Scotsmen
+when they mean to score. But this dual ministry was ever the object of
+my disfavour, for he preaches best who visits best, and the weekly
+garner makes the richest grist for the Sunday mill. True and tender
+visiting is the sermon's fuse, and what God hath put together no man
+can safely put asunder.
+
+One of my first visits was to the farmhouse of Donald M'Phatter, a
+belated member of the fold, for he and his wife Elsie had not beshadowed
+St. Cuthbert's door for many a year. This parochial policy had been
+suggested to me by the beadle:
+
+"Ye maun luik to the driftwood first--pit oot the laggin' log frae the
+shore, ye ken," he said to me, following this up with an exhaustive
+narrative of the raftsman's life which had once been his.
+
+I found Donald dour but deferential, full-armed against every appeal for
+his reform.
+
+"I willna gang," he exclaimed, "till ony kirk that pits oot the token[1]
+at the sacrament, and taks up wi' they bit cairds they're usin' the noo.
+Cairds at the sacrament! it's fair insultin' to the Almichty."
+
+[Footnote 1: A small piece of metal with the words "This do in
+remembrance of Me," given in Scottish churches, before the Sacrament of
+The Supper, to those entitled to participate.]
+
+I parried the blow as best I could, and was on the verge of winning in
+the argument when he suddenly took another tack.
+
+"Forbye, I hae dune ma duty. Didna I gang steady when the Doctor was oor
+meenister? Ilka Sabbath day I gaed an' hearkened till the graun' sermons
+twa oors at a time, an' God grippit me thae days, an' He hasna loosened
+His haud o' me yet. Ance saved, aye saved. That's ma doctrine. Wha can
+slip awa frae grace, forbye it be thae Methody buddies an' ither
+Armenian fowk, an' there was na ane o' them in the parish in the
+doctor's day. The fields was fine an' fu' o' wheat thae days, but
+there's muckle mustard noo, I tell ye that."
+
+"But you will surely admit, Mr. M'Phatter, that the nourishment of years
+ago will not suffice for to-day. Yesterday's dinner will not forestall
+the necessity of the day that follows," I urged, inwardly ashamed of the
+threadbare argument.
+
+He saw its threadbareness too, for he retorted--
+
+"That's a verra auld argyment; in fac', it's clean stale, if it's no'
+rotten. Doctor Grant wud hae sniffit at it. And what's mair, it's no' an
+argyment ava', for I hae mony a dinner o' the sermons that I gathered in
+thae far back days. I aye eat and sup off that when ye an' yir fowk's
+fummlin' wi' yir cairds at the kirk. Bide a meenit."
+
+He hurried into an adjoining room, and soon returned with a sheaf of
+rusty notes, clearing his throat awhile with the sound of a trumpeter
+calling to the fray.
+
+"I wasna ane o' the sleepin' kind; I aye paid attention in the hoose o'
+God. I only sleepit ance an' I cudna help it, for oor Jeanie was born
+that mornin'--an' that was a work o' needcessity. An' what's mair, I
+aye took notes o' the discoorse, an' I hae them yet.
+
+"They's ma dinners noo, tae use yir word, minister--they's ma dinners,
+an' they hunger nae mair wha tak's them--saxteen or seventeen coorses,
+ilka ane o' them; nane o' yir bit lunches wi' napkins an' flowers and
+finger bowls like ye hae the noo, no' worth the bit grace ye say ower
+them--they's nane o' yir teas, tastin' an' sniffin', wi' sweeties an'
+sic like--they's meat, sir, strong meat for strong men, an' the bane's
+in the baith o' them like."
+
+He stopped, as a cannon stops after it has fired, the aroma of battle
+still pouring from its lips.
+
+"What are these papers in your hand?" I asked, not for information, but
+for breath. (You have seen a caged canary leap from its perch to its
+swing, and back again, when sorely pressed.) He speedily closed that
+door.
+
+"They, sir? Div ye no' ken what's they? They's Doctor Grant's heids and
+pertikklers. Doctor Grant's heids and pertikklers, I'm tellin' ye. A' o'
+them but ane is the heids an' pertikklers o' sermons that made St.
+Cuthbert's ring like the wood on an August nicht when the thunder roams
+it. That ither ane he preach't in a graun city kirk wha soucht to get
+him, and they cudna--an' it was croodit like the barn mou' when
+harvest's dune, an' I was there masel', an' he kent me--an' I'm the man
+that held his cane in ma haun the time he preach't, I'm tellin' ye." And
+Donald's withered face was now aglow with such a tenderness as only
+bygone years can loan to age; his eyes were ashine with tears, each one
+the home of sheeted days that had come back from the dead, and his
+parted lips were drinking deep of the mystic tides of memory.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A rich mosaic was the visitation of this sterling race. The lovely
+valleys and the picturesque hills of their ancestral sires I have often
+roamed since then, but never have I seen the Scottish character in its
+homely beauty as it appeared to me in their happy Canadian life among
+the cozy farmhouses of this fruitful countryside. The traditions of
+their native land were tenderly cherished by them all, and many were the
+stories they related of the old days in Scotland and of the day whereon
+they looked their last upon the unforgotten heather.
+
+One of my first visits was to Mrs. Gavin Toshack, whom I found in a
+reminiscent mood.
+
+"Ay," she said, "we're a' Scotch aboot thae pairts; an' God keep us sae.
+There's been scarce a fly in the ointment, forbye Sandy Trother's wife,
+who gied him, an' gied us a', a heap o' tribble; but she was Irish, ye
+ken. An' oor ministers hae a' been frae Scotland; but we had ane for
+mebbe twa month or mair--nae oor ain minister, but only a kin' o'
+evangelist buddy. He was an Irish buddy tae, but there were severals
+converted. That was nae Irish wark whatever, but the grace o' God. We
+were na lang oot frae the auld country when he cam'; I mind fine. It was
+in the year '37. We sailed frae Annan Water Foot in July, an' eight
+weeks or mair it took us afore we landit in Quebec. Then by canal and
+wagon till we reach't New Jedboro; 'twas a sair, weary ride. But the
+breath o' freedom an' o' promise was in the air--an' we hae oor ain hame
+noo an' twa hunner acres o' the finest land in a' the country. An' we're
+independent noo, wi' eneuch for a bite an' a sup till we hunger nae mair
+nor thirst ony mair. An' oor bairnies is a' daein' fine: Jamie's a
+doctor i' Chicago; an' oor Jeanie's mairrit on Allan Sutherland, him as
+will be the new Reeve o' the coonty; an' Chairlie has a ranch i' Alberta
+like the Duke o' Roxburgh's estate; an' Willie'll hae oor ain land here,
+when we sleep aneath it.
+
+"I aften sit an' think we micht hae been aye herdin' sheep on the
+Dumfries hills, wi' scarce eneuch to eat, wi' this man 'my Laird' an'
+yon man 'yir Grace' an' oor ain bairns little mair nor slaves. The duke
+we knelt doon afore in Scotland aften paid mair for a racin' filly nor
+we paid for a' this bonnie land we ca' oor ain the day. Canada's nae
+sae guid for earls an' lairds, but it's graun' for puir honest fowk. An'
+what's mair," continued Mrs. Gavin, "we didna hae the preachin' i' the
+auld country we hae in Canada--leastwise, no' as graun' as we used to
+hae i' the time o' Doctor Grant. Div ye ken, sir, the grandest thing I
+ever heard come oot o' his mooth? No? Weel, it was this. He aye preach't
+fearfu' lang, as ye've nae doot heard, an' at times the men fowk wad
+weary an' gang oot, some to tak' a reek wi' their pipes an' mair to gang
+ower the way an' hae a drap juist to liven the concludin' heids o' the
+discoorse (for they aye steppit back); but the Doctor didna seem to
+understaun'. Weel, ae day some o' them was stampin' doon the aisle, an'
+the Doctor, he juist stoppit an' sat doon, an' then he says, 'Ma freens,
+we'll bide a wee till the chaff blaws awa'.' Losh, hoo they drappit
+whaur they stood! There was nae mair gaun oot that day, I tell ye, nor
+mony a day. But mind ye, 'twas fearsome the time atween when he sat doon
+in the pulpit an' when he speakit oot like I telt ye; it was clean
+fearsome."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+"_The CHILD of The REGIMENT_"
+
+
+My labours in St. Cuthbert's had covered but a few fleeting years (oh,
+relentless ticking of the clock! at once the harbinger and the echo of
+eternity), when there came into our lives life's greatest earthly joy.
+Serene and peaceful our lives had been, every hour garlanded with love
+and every year festooned by the Hand Unseen.
+
+Trials and difficulties there had been indeed, but they were as billows
+which carried in their secret bosom the greeting of the harbour and the
+shore. Even the roots of sorrow had been moistened by the far-off wells
+of joy. To many a guest of God, disguised in the habiliments of gloom,
+we had turned a frowning face and had bidden such begone. But such
+guests heeded not, pressing relentlessly in upon our trembling hearth,
+when lo! the passing days revealed their mission; we saw the face hidden
+beneath the sombre hood, and prayed the new-discovered guest to abide
+with us unto the end. For God loveth the masquerade, and doth use it
+everywhere.
+
+The way to hell appeareth glorious oftentimes, but the pathway unto life
+is robed in shadows and its sign-post is the cross--which things are a
+masquerade and to be witnessed every day; for in one single day all
+God's great drama is rehearsed in miniature.
+
+Our manse was a pleasant place, and its site had been selected by some
+one with the nursery-heart. Spacious and genial was the old homely
+house, with its impartial square. Rooms there were, and halls, waiting
+to echo back some voice uncoarsened by the clang of time and uncorroded
+by the salt of tears. Rich terraces flowed in velvet waves down to the
+waiting river, murmuring its trysting joy; a full-robed choir of oak and
+elm and maple kept their eternal places in a grander loft than man could
+build them, while pine and spruce and cedar, disrobing never, but
+snatching their bridal garments from the winter storm, swelled the
+sylvan harmony.
+
+Here came the crocuses and the snowdrops, trembling like the waifs of
+winter, and hither came the violet and the dandelion to reassure these
+daring pioneers; later on, the pansy and the rose utterly convinced them
+that they had not lost their way, but had been guided by the pilgrims'
+Friend.
+
+But no child's voice had waked these sombre echoes, no child's gentle
+feet had pressed this velvet sward; no radiant shadow such as childhood
+alone can cast had flitted here and there beneath these lonely trees,
+nor had these flowers felt their life's great and only thrill in the
+touch of a baby's dimpled hand. But that golden door at last swung
+gently open. That hour of ecstasy and anguish brought us life's crown
+and joy, and the hills of time, erstwhile green and beautiful, were now
+radiant with a light kindled from afar.
+
+St. Cuthbert's rejoiced exceedingly when our little Margaret was given
+unto us, but we knew it not at first, for Scotch joy is a deep and
+silent thing, a fermentation at the centre rather than an effervescence
+at the surface. For our Margaret was as one born out of due time, the
+first child whose infant cry had awakened the echoes of their ancient
+manse, though seventy long years had flown since their first minister
+had come among them. Thus she became the child of the regiment and they
+silently exulted. Jubilant, one hour after this new star had swung into
+the firmament, I hoisted the Union Jack to the topmost notch of our
+towering flag-pole, and never has it flaunted its triumph more
+jubilantly since.
+
+The beadle reported to me afterwards that the other churches were
+mightily jealous of our late autumn bloom, and one of their devotees, an
+Episcopalian, had asked him sneeringly--
+
+"What's that flag doing there?"
+
+"It's blawin' i' the wind," retorted my diplomatic beadle.
+
+"It's nothing to be so joyful over," urged the Episcopalian brother.
+
+"It's mair nor ever happened in yon kirk o' yours; an' it's mair nor
+could happen to the Pope o' Rome, wha's a true freen o' yours, I'm
+jalousin'," snorted my beadle back triumphantly; for William was
+uncharitable, and despaired of all ritualists, the iron of covenanting
+protest running hot within his blood.
+
+Nor were these the only swords that flashed above our Margaret's cradle;
+for a Methodist mother in Israel, hopeful of a sympathetic response from
+Elsie M'Phatter (the non-churchgoing one), ventured the comment that
+similar events in her own brilliant maternal record had provoked no
+unseemly joy; to which Elsie responded tartly--
+
+"I ken that fine, and it's very nat'ral, for ye've had mair nor maist;
+but gin ye hadna had ane for a maitter o' seventy year or mair, like us,
+wad ye no' hae been clean daft aboot it?" and the field thereafter was
+Elsie's own.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sabbath morning after Margaret's dawn St. Cuthbert's was full to
+overflowing, as seemed to be every heart, especially every aged heart,
+finding its morning anew in the life of a little child. For the morning
+and the evening are wondrously alike. In summer especially, the
+sun-bathed mountains, the pendant dewdrop, the melodious silences--all
+these belong so much to both alike that I find it hard to distinguish
+the matins and the vespers of God's cathedral days.
+
+My voice trembled just a little as I gave out the psalm--
+
+    "Such pity as a father hath
+       Unto his children dear,"
+
+but we sang it to the tune of "Dunfermline," and soon I was borne out to
+sea upon its far-flung billows; for of a truth these old Scottish tunes
+have the swing of eternity in them, and seem to grandly overlap the
+bourne of time and space. And when we prayed the only liturgy which
+Presbyterians will own, I could not forbear to say "Our Father" twice,
+and lo! a strange thing happened unto me. For a great light seemed to
+shine upon the words, and that little helpless life at home within the
+manse, and its thrice-blessed cry, and its yearning look of wonder, and
+its hand whose only prowess was to lie in some stronger hand of
+love--all these became a commentary, illustrating God, and in their
+cordial light I beheld Him as mother, or professor, or minister had
+never shown Him to me before, bending over the souls of men, otherwise
+orphaned evermore. That vision has tarried with me ever since, and my
+people have been the better of it; for he alone can caress his people's
+souls who has felt the caress of His father's love. God's tenderness is
+the great contagion for the healing of life's long disease.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+"_A NEW FOOT on The FLOOR_"
+
+
+When our daughter (are there any two other words so well-wed as these?
+What music their union makes!) was only about ten years old, her mother,
+which is my wife writ large and heavenly, and I were taking tea at
+Inglewood, which my long-suffering readers will remember as the home
+which first welcomed me to New Jedboro and the residence of Mr. Michael
+Blake. When our meal was over, Mr. Blake and I were enjoying a quiet
+game of billiards, which was a game I loved. But I may have more to say
+about this later on, for so had some of my pious people, though I am
+inclined to think that they objected not so much because they thought
+the game was wrong as because they feared I was enjoying it. For, to
+some truly good Scotch folk the measure of enjoyableness is the measure
+of sin, and a thing needeth no greater fault than to be guilty of
+deliciousness. But the converse of this they also hold as true, namely,
+that what maketh miserable is of God, and to be wretched is to be pious
+at the heart. For which reason, I have observed oftentimes, they deem
+that to be a truly well-spent Sabbath day which had banished all
+possible happiness from their children's lives, bringing them to its
+close limp and cramped and sore, but catechism-full and with a good mark
+in the book of life for every weary hour.
+
+Was it Johnson who ventured the opinion that the Puritans put
+bear-baiting under the ban, not because it was painful to the bears but
+because it was pleasant to the people? Whether it was or no, I shall not
+discuss it. Neither shall I discuss the ethics of billiards, unless it
+be to say this much, that if there be games in heaven, I do not doubt it
+will have an honoured place, for it is an ivory game and truthful,
+abhorring vagrant luck and scoring only by eternal laws which Euclid
+made his own. And I make no doubt that many a hand hath plied the
+billiard cue which long ere this hath touched with its finger-tips the
+ivory gates and golden.
+
+But to return. We were in the very midst of our game, of which I
+remember very little, often and often though I have tried to recall
+every feature of that eventful night. But I do recall that we spoke
+about our Margaret, and there was a deep strain of wistful envy in Mr.
+Blake's voice. I remember well his saying that God's richest earthly
+gift was that of wife and child and hearth.
+
+"Though I speak," he added almost bitterly, "as I might speak of distant
+stars, for I have no one of the three," and his lips closed tightly
+while he drove his ball with a savage hand.
+
+"You have not wife or child," I said, "but no man who has been sheltered
+by your friendship can agree with you about your hearth. It has warmed
+my heart too many times when that heart was cold."
+
+"There is no hearth where there is neither wife nor child," he answered
+almost passionately. "Hearths are not built with hands. Do you not know,
+sir, that if a man would have a fireside he must begin to kindle it when
+youth is still throbbing in his heart? From boyhood up he is preparing
+it, or else he is quenching it in darkness. Do you know, sir, if I were
+a preacher I would burn that into young men's hearts till they would
+feel that heaven or hell were all bound up with how they reverence or
+despise their future fireside. I would tell them that no man can lay his
+hearth in ashes in the hot days of youth, and then build it up again in
+the rainy days of age.
+
+"I would tell every wastrel, and every man who is rehearsing hell with
+his youthful follies, that he cannot eat his cake and have it. For
+hearth and wife and child are not for him. I would tell him that he
+cannot breed a cancer in his heart while he is young and cure it with
+some pious perfume brewed by the hand of age. I would tell them that
+till my lips blistered, and then they should hear of the grace of God
+till those same lips were rosy with its healing."
+
+Amazed, I stood and gazed at him, for there was a fearful fascination in
+his face. The face of a saint it was, with that warlike peace which only
+a battling and victorious life can give, but it had for the time the
+half-hunted look of one who trembles at the sound of footsteps he had
+hoped were forever still, of one whose soul was overstormed by surging
+waves of memory. There is sometimes a dread ghastliness in the thought
+that out of the abundance of a man's heart his mouth is speaking, though
+he declares it not. It is like the procession of a naked soul; or, to
+change the figure, it is like beholding a man unearth some very corpse
+he had long sought to hide.
+
+It was his turn to play--ah me! the grim variety of life--and his ball
+failed but narrowly of a delicate ambition.
+
+"If I could but have it back and play it over," I heard him rather sigh
+than say, whereat I bethought myself of the high allegory of a game.
+
+Musing still, I stood apart, gazing as one gazes at a fire, which in
+very truth I was.
+
+"It is your shot, sir," he said, in a voice as passionless as when I
+first heard it years before.
+
+My ball had but left my cue when the door opened and a servant said--
+
+"There's a young man doon the stair, sir, and he says he wants to speak
+wi' the minister."
+
+I descended, hearing as I went a rattling fusilade of ivory, which I
+knew was the echo of a soul's thunder-storm.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How often do we meet new faces, little recking their relation to coming
+years! Yet many an unfading light and many an incurable eclipse has come
+with a transient meeting such as this! How many a woman of Samaria goes
+to draw water from the well, and sees--the Lord! For I met only a boy,
+or better, a laddie--boyhood-breathing word!--about sixteen years of
+age, openly poor but pathetically decent. His clothes were coarse and
+cheap and even darned, bearing here and there the signatures of poverty
+and motherhood.
+
+I advanced and took his hand; for that is an easy masonry, and its
+exercise need never be regretted even if it never be repeated. My wife
+once spent a plaintive day because she had wasted a hand-shake upon a
+caller whom she took to be an applicant for matrimony, whose emoluments
+were hers, but who turned out to be an agent for Smith's Dictionary of
+the Bible, whose emoluments were his own. Nevertheless I have always
+held that no true hand-shake is unrecorded in the book of life.
+
+"And what can I do for you, my lad?" I said.
+
+"I dinna ken, sir," he answered, in a voice that suggested a sea voyage,
+for it was redolent of what lies only beyond the sea.
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"Angus Strachan, sir, and I come frae Ettrick, and I hae my lines frae
+the minister o' the Free Kirk."
+
+"And when did you land, Mr. Strachan?"
+
+"Ca' me Angus, sir, if ye please. Naebody has ca'd me by that name sin'
+my mither pairted wi' me at the stage coach road, and she was fair
+chokit wi' cryin', and when I cudna see her mair for the bush aboon the
+burn, I could aye hear her bleatin' like a lamb--an' it was the
+gloamin'. An' I can fair hear her yet. Will ye no' ca' me Angus?"
+
+Accursed be the heart which has no opening door for the immigrant's
+weary feet, and thrice accursed be the heart which remembers
+strangerhood against some mother's homeless boy. Such malediction, thank
+God, my soul has never won, for if there be one sight which more than
+another fills me with hopeful pity, it is the spectacle of some peasant
+lad making the great venture of an untried shore, pressing in to those
+who were also foreigners one far-back cheerless day, and asking if this
+Western land may harbour still another exile from the poverty he seeks
+to flee. Especially is this true of Scottish laddies; for upon their
+faces seems to be written: "I ask for but a chance such as thou hadst
+thyself," which was the plea of Tom Carlyle when he first knocked at
+London's mighty door.
+
+So I drew nearer to him, and my heart flowed through my voice as I said
+again--
+
+"When did you land, Angus lad? and tell me all about yourself. I have
+heard that mother's cry before." For I was thinking of my own mother's
+parting blessing, save that hers was wondrously exultant as becometh one
+who calls back from the unseen Chariot of God.
+
+"I landed yesterday at Montreal, and I cam' ower on the _Lake Ontario_.
+And I hae but little to tell, and it wunna tak' me lang. Ma mither
+weaves in Ettrick, and I herded sheep upon the hills sin' I was able.
+But I was aye hame at nicht, and she aye keepit a licht in the window
+when the nicht was dark and her shadow fell upon it, for she aye cam'
+oot to meet me when she heard me lilt the sang. And she lilted tae, and
+we baith sang it thegither till we met, and then we gaed ben thegither
+and gaed na mair oot till the mirk was by."
+
+I detected the serious and lofty figure in his words, and the vision of
+Scotland's lowly altars and thatched cathedrals rose before me. No man
+could mistake the ritual of which that strain was bred.
+
+"And why came you here, Angus?"
+
+"I cam' here," he answered, "to better masel'. I heard tell o' Canada
+sin' I was a bairn, and they a' spak' it fair for a land whaur an honest
+man micht mak' an honest leevin'--and mair tae," he added, true to the
+Scotch afterthought of an extra.
+
+"And what line do you propose to follow? What work do you intend to do?"
+
+"Ilka line that's straight, an' ony wark that willna soil the soul even
+gin it may soil the hands," he answered quickly.
+
+My soul went out to the lad, for I saw that his heart's roots were deep
+in the best heart-soil the world hath known, and that the Atlantic's
+billows had not quenched the light of his mother's cottage fire.
+
+"Your father is dead, is he, Angus?" was the next step in my examination
+for discovery, as the lawyers say.
+
+"No, he's no' deid, he's alive," replied the lad, with the exactitude
+which marks his race; "but I dinna care to speak aboot him."
+
+"Very well, very well, boy," I rejoined hastily; "spends his time and
+his money and your mother's money, when he can get it, at the Red Cow,
+or the Cock and Hens, a drunken wastrel and cruel too; for I have been
+enough in Scotland to know that such hens lay deadly eggs and such red
+cows' milk is red with blood." All this latter part, of course, I said
+to myself, but no word of it to the lad before me, for no honest youth
+can bear any lips to miscall his father save his own.
+
+"You will come to the manse with us and stay the night; it is too late
+to seek other lodging now."
+
+"Thank ye kindly, sir, but I hae a wee pickle siller in my pocket," he
+replied, with modest independence. I verily believe that in heaven all
+Scotsmen (and even Scotch Freemasons) will be found wi' a wee pickle
+siller in their pockets when they receive that great degree.
+
+But I insisted, and I won; for he who wages the campaign of hospitality
+hath God for his ally, and no heart can finally resist that siege.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+"_ANGELS UNAWARES_"
+
+
+I presented him to my wife and to my host, whose cordiality was worthy
+of his wealth and his success. Perhaps he was thinking of an hour like
+unto this when, so many long years before, he too had reached New
+Jedboro by night, friendless and poor, also craving work, beginning that
+steady climb which had brought him to the dizzy heights of wealth and
+influence.
+
+For memories of poverty, like poor relations, should not be thrust out
+at wealth's back gate, but should have a choice room in the mansion at
+whose door the sated heart will often knock, seeking rest.
+
+My wife has frequently told me that she liked Angus from the start
+because he seemed so robed in health and draped in a kind of pathetic
+modesty, with eyes whose colour she was certain would not fade. How
+women do love the metaphors of millinery! How better than the sage of
+Chelsea they understand the philosophy of clothes! But she also added
+that she was charmed by the way he spoke his mother's name, for in his
+tone she caught the flavour of a quick caress; and woman is more facile
+far than man in her translation of these Hebraic breathings. Besides
+all this, he held the gate open as she passed through into our manse
+estate; she still remarks that this was a little thing, but contends
+that he did it in a great way.
+
+We showed the tired stranger to his room. Distinguished guests we have
+had beneath the roof of St. Cuthbert's manse. We once had Major Pond,
+the great cicerone of great lecturers; he had brought Ian Maclaren to
+our town, who in turn brought the spring to all of us, beguiling
+moisture even from long-sullen clouds.
+
+He had stayed with Mr. Blake, which was but fair, for these are wealth's
+real prerogatives; but the genial Major stayed with us. We were greatly
+charmed, for he charmed us till two o'clock in the morning; and my wife,
+fearful that she might stampede him to his bed, rose at intervals and
+hid her face in the geranium window when she had to yawn. But it was the
+clock and not the Major that provoked these mild convulsions. He
+rehearsed to us his glorious achievements with his "stars." Some few
+plaints he had, wherein he "wept o'er his wounds," but almost all his
+tales were "tales of valour done." He told the number of his "stars,"
+vividly described how he held them in his right hand, pointed out to us
+how one "star" differeth from another "star" in glory, and went to bed
+at last with the air of a man who had gilded the Pleiades, brushed up
+Castor and Pollux, and house-cleaned the heavens generally.
+
+Stanley, Farrar, Beecher, and a score of others filtered through him as
+he sat by our humble fire, turning his telescope this way and that as a
+sportsman turns his gun, while the very clock ticked slow to listen. My
+wife became quite confused, probably sun-struck, for she has since
+affirmed that the Major claimed to have been present at the birth of
+every one of these famous men on whom he early resolved to confer
+immortality. My recollection of his night's autobiography is rather that
+of a lane of dazzling light, in which there stood now one and now
+another giant, but all alike clinging to the Major's hand.
+
+But this does not exhaust our list of the famous men whose ponderous
+heads have pressed the pillow whereon the exiled Angus now laid his own
+to rest. For we once had the Moderator. The Moderator of what? some
+unsophisticated gentile will wish to know. Of the General Assembly, of
+course, for that is the Westminster Assembly of Divines in recurring
+resurrection, and it hath its unadjourning court in heaven, as the
+ambushed correspondent of the Hebrews doth inform us. Which proves, my
+precentor tells me, that the New Jerusalem is a Presbyterian city and
+singeth nothing but the psalms.
+
+The Moderator, as I have already said, abode with us over night, and we
+almost begrudged the sleeping hours, for, if you will waste sleep upon a
+Moderator, let it be when he is preaching and not when he is filling
+your house with dignity and smoke. For the Moderator loved his pipe, and
+so did I, and together we revelled in those clouds before which all
+other clouds retreat. What a great leveller is that democrat, tobacco.
+For while we smoked we were both moderators, and even an Assembly clerk
+could not have told which was which. Twice, too, the Moderator filled
+from my pouch, with no air of patronage, and I shall never forget it of
+him. When he went to his bed, still redolent of Virginia, he asked me
+for a little soda water, very little, he said emphatically. I brought it
+to him, and passing by his door a moment later, I heard a low gurgling
+sound like that of an infant brook, then silence, then an honest
+smack--soon after there emerged a festive flavour, a healing aroma,
+sweetly distilling. As I went back to our room, I said to my wife, "What
+a fine spirit a Moderator can shed through a house," in which opinion
+she agreed, though she knew not what I said. I was all but asleep when
+she aroused me with--
+
+"Tom, why is a Moderator called a Moderator?"
+
+"Because he takes it moderately, dear," I answered, being only in the
+twilight of intelligence.
+
+"Takes what, Tom?" she asked.
+
+"His honours, sweetheart--go to sleep."
+
+But although we have had great guests like these, I do not know that I
+was ever more glad with the thought of a sleeping stranger than with the
+knowledge that this homeless lad was beneath our roof that night. For he
+who homes the honest poor has borrowed the guests of God, and a mother's
+wandering son is His peculiar care.
+
+I knew that the great Executor of all praying mothers leaves them not
+long indebted to any man; He Himself shall speak with their creditors in
+the gate.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+_My PIOUS PROFLIGATE_
+
+
+My wandering but faithful pen, whose every child, though homely, is its
+legitimate own, must now forsake Angus and his fortunes for a season. It
+shall again return to him, _if it be spared_. For the good folk of St.
+Cuthbert's have taught me to insert this phrase at every seasonable
+opening--indeed, they deem it fitting for every season, and the very
+first marriage in New Jedboro at which I officiated afforded a vivid
+proof of this.
+
+The young couple were just emerging from the heavenly operation, still
+somewhat under the celestial chloroform, when Ronald M'Gregor admonished
+them. His admonition was after a fashion almost ministerial, for Ronald
+had once culled himself from out the common herd as meant for a
+minister, and had abandoned his pursuit only when he found that he had
+every qualification except the gifts.
+
+"Ye maun bear in mind," he said, "that ye're nae mair twa, but ae flesh;
+an' ye'll bide wi' ane anither till deith shall ye pairt--that is, gin
+ye're spared."
+
+Meantime, this friendly pen must record this news of Angus, that the
+very morning he left St. Cuthbert's manse he entered upon his
+apprentice term in the great iron manufactory of which Mr. Blake was the
+head and the propelling power; for behind every engine is the ingenuity,
+not of many men, but of one.
+
+And leaving him there to ply his fortune and to confront that unseen
+antagonist against whom every ambitious man plays move and move about, I
+betake myself again to the records of St. Cuthbert's.
+
+Yet I find it hard to dismiss the lad, for his is a besetting face, and
+besides, it stubbornly appears above the main current of all the story I
+have yet to tell.
+
+My fortunes with these strange Scotch folk must be recorded, and chief
+among my handiwork I think of Geordie Lorimer. For he was a typical
+Scot, and supremely so in this, that he could be both very religious and
+very bad. Of which the remarkable thing lies here, that he was both of
+these at one and the self-same time.
+
+Now, although I am an Irishman, and boast the most romantic blood of
+time, yet must I frankly admit that few countrymen of mine have such
+facility. Many of them there are who could be religious, and more who
+could be bad, with spontaneous ease, but few there be who know how to be
+both at once. But Geordie did. He was a profligate, but a pious
+profligate; a terror he was, but he was a holy terror. Mind you well, I
+do not mean to impugn Geordie's sincerity in the last appeal; not for
+one moment, for I believe implicitly that Geordie, in the very heart of
+him, meant to do well. Indeed, I will go further, and say that in his
+very soul he wished to be closer to God; for he could not well help that
+wish--it was his inseparable heritage from a saintly father, long a
+beloved elder in St. Cuthbert's, whose sacred suit of "blacks" Geordie
+had inherited, himself wearing them to the sacrament till the session
+denied him his token, and shut him out, blacks and all. The memory of
+his mother's life was still fragrant to hundreds, fresh and dewy in
+love's unwithering morn; upon the tide of prayer had Geordie's infant
+life been launched, and its gentle waves, faint but palpable, still
+sought to lave his soul.
+
+How many a Northern island-life, bleak and wild, is redeemed from utter
+destruction by that great gulfstream, the prayers of a mother who was in
+league with God! Thus it came about that Geordie Lorimer's life was a
+muddy stream, still tinged with the crystal waters of its hill-born
+spring. He had made the ghastly find, that when he would do good, evil
+was present with him; to will was present with him, but how to perform
+that which was good he found not. For Geordie had, alas! a stronger
+thirst than that for righteousness. He was given to "tasting," a
+homeopathic word which Scotsmen use to indicate a trough. I soon heard
+of him as incorrigibly religious but incorrigibly dry.
+
+Geordie was the best-known character in New Jedboro, as well known as
+the town pump, the one famed for its outgiving, the other for its
+intaking powers, but both alike for liquid prowess. His principal
+occupation was in his wife's name, being a boarding-house whose inmates
+were secretly and shamefully proud of Geordie's unique superiority in
+his own particular line, for he could outdrink the countryside.
+
+The very Saturday which preceded my Sunday as a candidate of St.
+Cuthbert's (they afterwards told me) Geordie was in the kindly grip of
+the town constable, who was bearing him towards the jail, his victim
+loudly proclaiming to the world that the guardian of the law had
+arrested him only when he, Geordie, had refused to treat for the
+eleventh time.
+
+"He tret the ainst, an' I tret ten times or mair," Geordie was
+vehemently affirming to a sympathetic street. Turning a corner, they met
+no less a personage than Sandy Weir, the session clerk.
+
+"Sandy, dinna let him tak' me to the lock-up. There's to be a new
+minister i' the kirk," he cried, "an' I maun gang to hear him preach the
+morn. Sandy, wull ye no' bid him no' to tak' me to the lock-up?"
+
+But Sandy was a man under authority, having elders under him, and he
+refrained, knowing the boundaries of his power.
+
+Passing along a quiet street some years after this, I beheld the
+unreforming Geordie in a savage fight with a kindred spirit, who drew
+his inspiration from the same source as his antagonist; for many a cork
+they had released together. The two men fought like tigers, abandoning
+themselves the more cheerfully to the combat they both knew would end in
+a renewal of brotherhood and beer. This thought lent a sanguine
+enthusiasm to their every effort, for each felt it a point of honour to
+make the engagement worthy of the "treaty" (a fitting word) that awaited
+them at the Travellers' Rest.
+
+Above the din of battle I heard a voice emerging from Geordie's head,
+which head emerged from his opponent's oxter--
+
+"Dinna mark me, Jock, dinna mark me; for we're gaun to hae the bairn
+baptized i' the kirk the morn," and I knew not which to admire more,
+Geordie's moral versatility, or the beautiful comity of war.
+
+Geordie did appear in the kirk with the bairn the next morning,
+unmarked, except by unusual solemnity. He did not take the vows, of
+course--these were assumed by his long-suffering and devoted wife; but
+Geordie felt he should be there as collateral security.
+
+I coveted Geordie's soul, and longed to add his regeneration to the new
+Acts of the Apostles. No opportunity to speak with him was ever allowed
+to slip, and one came to me whose details I must recount. There had been
+an election for the town council, which had, half in joke and half in
+jealousy, returned Geordie as the councillor of his ward; for our
+glorious manhood suffrage, as some one has pointed out, makes Judas
+Iscariot as influential at the polls as the Apostle Paul.
+
+Returning, the night of the election, from a sickbed visit, I overtook
+the jubilant Geordie, full of emotion and other things. His locomotion
+was irregular and spasmodic, his course original, picturesque, and
+variable. Geordie was having it out with the law of gravitation.
+
+He was as a ship returning from Jamaica, a precious cargo of spirits in
+its hold, and labouring heavily in the trough of the sea. I essayed to
+take his arm, intending to be his wheelsman home, but it was like trying
+to board a vessel in a storm; for Geordie had at least a hundred routes
+which he must traverse with impartial feet. After I had somewhat managed
+to adopt his swing, I sought to deal faithfully with him, though it was
+like preaching from the plunging deck of a ship at sea, while the breath
+of my swaying auditor suggested that the aforesaid cargo had sprung a
+leak.
+
+He was raising a double paean to voice a twofold joy: the first, the joy
+of triumph in the recent contest; the second, the historic and
+imperishable joy that he was a Scotsman born.
+
+"Yon whelp I skelpit the day was naething but an Irishman," he cried
+loftily. "I canna get Robbie Burns' graun' words oot o' my heid: 'The
+Scotsmen staun' an' Irish fa'--let him on wi' me,'" and on this wave of
+martial spirit Geordie took another plunge at right angles from our
+previous course, bearing me after him like a skiff tied to a schooner
+amid stormy seas.
+
+After we had put about and regained our bearings, I nimbly took
+advantage of this patriotic opening, having ever a quick mind for the
+transition of ideas.
+
+"Yes, Geordie, many good things are Scotch, and many Scotch things are
+good. Some misguided persons think even that Scotch liquor is good. Now,
+George----" But I got no further. This time Geordie swung around before
+me, like a boat that trusts its moorings--
+
+"Ye're richt, minister; wha wad hae thocht ye kent the difference? But
+ye're richt--a' whusky is guid, but some's mair guid nor ithers, an'
+Scotch is mair guid nor ony ithers. Those feckless Irish fowk aye tak'
+the speerits o' oor native land gin they hae the siller, which isna
+likely. An' I dinna blame them muckle."
+
+I now saw that there was no opening along this line, favourable at first
+sight as it had appeared. The attack must be plain and straight.
+
+"Geordie," I began, "this is a pitiable situation for a minister to be
+in, and you know, George----"
+
+"That's a' richt, minister--dinna fash yersel'. I'll no' mention it to a
+soul. Mony's the time I hae been fou masel', 'peetiably seetivated,' as
+ye ca' it, bein' mair learned nor me; to be honest wi' ye, I'm juist a
+wee bit 'peetiably seetivated' this vera nicht. But I'll tak' ye hame
+for a' that, an nane'll hear tell o't frae Geordie Lorimer."
+
+Then he plunged again, propelled by the sense of a new responsibility,
+and for a minute we two performed, unaided and alone, the several
+different parts of an eight-hand reel.
+
+Nevertheless, I relinquished not my hold, for I was truly attached to
+the fellow, and in due time we made a mile, though I know the cyclometer
+would have recorded ten. More hopeful, I was steaming on, a clerical
+tugboat, when of a sudden Geordie stopped, pointing with his right leg
+high in air, trusting me and his left to perform the relief duty thus
+demanded.
+
+"Yon's ma coo, ma Ayrshire coo," he exclaimed, pointing with his initial
+leg to the white-faced cow which lay among its kindred, its jaw gently
+swinging.
+
+"The beast disna ken," I heard him mutter; then he suddenly bolted,
+breaking his tether, and before I could recover him he had shambled on
+to the road with the gait of a delirious camel, and kicking his innocent
+property from behind, cried out--
+
+"Get oot o' that. Sic like a thing, to be lyin' wi' the common herd.
+Mind ye, ye're no' an or'nary man's coo--ye're a cooncillor's coo." Then
+he retraced his labyrinthian steps in a corresponding swath.
+
+As we drew near his humble gate (how often Geordie had made that last
+port with pain), he muttered to himself reflectively--
+
+"I gied him hell," referring doubtless to the vanquished candidate.
+
+Whereat I took him to task right sternly, giving him sharply to
+understand that such language was an insult to his minister and friend.
+
+In reply, he fell upon me, literally and figuratively, with tones of
+reproachful tenderness.
+
+"Minister," he said, "I own ye as a faithfu' guide." ("You'd better,"
+said I to myself, for I was weary.) "I own ye as a faithfu' guide, an' I
+wudna gie ye pain. For we've had oor ain times thegither. I micht maist
+say as 'at 'We twa hae paiddled i' the burn,' only it wudna be becomin'.
+But aboot that word--I've heard ye say yirsel' frae the pulpit as how
+hell is a maist awfu' feelin' i' the breist. Verra well, dinna ye think
+as hoo yon Irish whelp I skelpit the day 'll hae a waesome feelin' i'
+his breist? That's a' the meanin' I desired till convey. It's nae wrang
+when it's expoun'it. Guid-nicht till ye, minister."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+_PLUCKING A FIERY BRAND_
+
+
+But there are others of whom I have better things to record, and indeed
+better things shall yet be set down by me concerning Geordie Lorimer
+before these short and simple annals shall have ended. For there is
+nothing so joysome to record as the brightening story of a soul coming
+to its real birth from the travail of its sin and struggle. For
+perchance time itself is God's great midwife, and man's writhing agony
+is to the end that he may soon be born.
+
+The serious will doubtless wish to learn what befell me in my effort to
+beguile the rugged Donald M'Phatter and his wife, who had quit the kirk
+when the kirk quit the tokens, back to the worship of the sanctuary. It
+is many years since they returned to St. Cuthbert's hallowed shrine, and
+they now sing the uncreated song.
+
+For they have joined that choir invisible whose voices, trained by God,
+blend in perfect unison, but not in time; for they reckon not by days
+and years where they have gone to dwell.
+
+It may be set down as certain that I would never have won them back to
+church had it not been that I abandoned argument and adopted friendship.
+
+For argument, to my mind, satisfies a people's souls as well as a bill
+of fare will suffice a hungry man; but the heart's food is a different
+matter. Argument may be botany, but friendship is a flower; and one
+little violet is better than one big volume, or a thousand of them, as
+far as that goes. This is perhaps the same thing as to say that a living
+dog is better than a dead lion, for most big books are sepulchres--but I
+think that my figure hath a sweeter flavour than the other.
+
+And when I deliver the Yale lectures to young ministers, I shall tell
+them that there is a blessed guile, a holy cozenage of the heart whereby
+they may win their people's souls by stealth. And if a parson hath some
+obdurate parishioner or some gnarled and snarling elder, let him attack
+him as a thief in the night, and turn its darkness into day.
+
+I had to build my friendship with Donald brick by brick, and oftentimes
+it swayed before his blasts. A hundred times I could have been justly
+angry and forever done with him. But I knew a man, a very near relation,
+with whom God might oftener have done the same, and had not; besides, I
+remembered that adroit petition in the Lord's Prayer, which is the
+plummet of the soul's sincerity--and I had read of One who reviled not
+again.
+
+"In days far by," he charged, "oor faithers said wi' pride as hoo the
+ministers o' God were dyin' for the truth; but in thae modern days, a'
+men say as hoo they're dyin' for their steepin'" (stipend).
+
+Now this was hard to bear, for I had declined larger stipends than I
+accepted from St. Cuthbert's, and some would say that this was a right
+and proper time to stand upon my dignity. But what is so dignified as
+the Cross, planted in the very centre of shame's garden? I had long
+before determined that no man can stand on dignity, for it must be
+dignity that stands upon the man, and by no act or word of his, be it
+remarked, but by the high act of God. For those men who stand on dignity
+are top-heavy things, pigmies upon stilts, triangles upside down.
+
+Therefore I was patient with Donald, and guarded our infant friendship
+as a lost hunter shields his last remaining match. I said little to him
+about church, and much about the Highlands. For Donald was a belated
+Highlander, his parents having lapsed to the lowlands, where birth took
+him at a disadvantage; but he was ever struggling to recover Inverness.
+
+"I was a hielandman afore I was born and a lowlandman after. I kind o'
+flawed doon like, ye ken," he said.
+
+I nodded acquiescence, for it is a favourite theory of mine that a man
+is born of his grandparents just as much as of his father and his
+mother; they are equally responsible, I hold, but have the advantage of
+an earlier retreat.
+
+It was Donald's great delight to recount the fighting stories of his
+highland ancestors. In all that bloody reel he joined again with joy.
+The slightest reference to it, and Donald was off--over the hills and
+far away, his guid blue bonnet on his head, his burly knees as bare as
+the bayonet his fathers bore, and the wild skirl of the bagpipes in his
+heart. Those pagan-Christian days, those shameful splendours of feud and
+raid and massacre, those mutual pleasantries of human pig-sticking,
+those civilized savageries and chivalric demonries--all these were
+Donald's sanguinary food.
+
+"Mind ye," he would say, "half the time they didna ken what they were
+fechtin' aboot. But they focht a' the better for that--the graun' human
+principle was there; they kent that fine, an' that was a' they needit
+for to ken. Forbye, they foucht when the chief bade them fecht. When he
+gied the word, hieland foot was never slow and hieland bluid was never
+laggin'. Man, what a graun' chief Bonyparte wad hae made, gin the
+M'Phatters had ta'en him up!"
+
+"Dinna be aye speakin' aboot yir M'Phatters," interrupted his gentle
+wife, now somewhat aroused, for her maiden name was Elsie Campbell, and
+she had her own share of highland memories. "They were guid eneuch
+fechters in their way, nae doot, but it wasna the Campbell way. Yir
+M'Phatter feet that ye're haverin' aboot was never slow when the
+Campbells was comin', I'll grant ye that--the Campbells did them, ye ken
+that fine, Donald."
+
+"Hoots, wumman, ye dinna ken what yir sayin'. Div ye no' mind the battle
+o' the bluidy shirt, an'----"
+
+"Haud yir wheesht--I canna bide to hear aboot thae bluidy shirts an'
+things. It's a fair scunner', and the minister hearin' ye to the
+bargain," Elsie shut him off triumphantly in propriety's great name.
+
+The first real olive branch of friendship which Donald extended to me
+was under cover of the bagpipes. I knew he was relenting when he first
+asked me if I would like to hear him play. I forged a pious lie,
+declaring it would give me the greatest pleasure. Surely that sin has
+been atoned for; I have suffered for it as no tongue can tell. The world
+needeth a new Dante, to write a new _Inferno_, with the bagpipes thrown
+in. Then will that sombre picture of future suffering be complete. I
+make no reckless charge against those aforesaid instruments of music,
+facetiously so called. The bagpipes are a good thing in their place, but
+their place is with Dante and his _Inferno_.
+
+They have survived only as bulldogs survive, from perverted sentiment,
+and mal-educated taste. For the Scotsman is the most sentimental among
+men, stubbornly and maliciously and relentlessly sentimental. The
+bagpipes are a legacy from the grim testament of war, and the savage
+breath of other days belches through them yet. Ah me! with what secret
+pride I hear again far other music wafted from my native Emerald Isle!
+Nor can I well conceal my joy that the emblem of Ireland, despised and
+rejected though she be, is the sweetest-tongued of all music-making
+things in this vale of tears. For her, no lion, tempest-crowned, for her
+no prowling bear, for her no screaming eagle--but the harp, mellifluous
+and tender. And although its liquid strain hath for centuries been
+touched by sorrow, yet there hath been music in its voice for all the
+happier listening world, and the day draweth near, please God, when its
+unfleeting joy shall descend and rest on her own fields and meadows,
+making glad the hearts within her humble cottages, whose only wealth is
+love.
+
+But Donald's fervent passion for this warlike weapon of his fathers was
+unrestrained by thoughts of other lands. Had any man suggested that
+Irish music was superior, he would doubtless have bidden him begone and
+dwell with other lyres. Such suggestion I did not dare to make. On the
+contrary, I smiled as he fondled his windy octopus, which he did with
+mysterious tenderness. Then he adjusted the creature to his lips, while
+I calmly braced myself for the gathering storm.
+
+I had not long to wait. He paced dramatically back and forward for a
+minute in a preliminary sort of way, like one who pushes his shallop
+from the shore, gently pressing the huge belly of the thing with his
+elbow as if to prompt it for the ensuing fray. The thing emitted one or
+two sample sounds, not odious particularly, but infantile and grimly
+prophetic, like the initial squeaks of some windful babe awaking from
+its sleep. Then the thing seemed to feel its strength, to recognize its
+dark enfranchisement, and broke into such a blasphemy of sound as hath
+not been heard since the angels alighted where they fell.
+
+I have heard the deep roar of the ocean, and have listened to the
+screech of the typhoon through befiddled sails; I have shuddered at the
+savage yell of the hyena, and have grown cold, even in the tropics,
+before the tooting of the wounded elephant; I have heard the eagle rend
+the firmament and the midnight fog-horn ring the changes on
+eternity--join them all together, and they will be still but as a
+village choir compared to the infinite and full-orbed bray of the
+highland bagpipes.
+
+After the first shock of sky-quake had subsided, Donald turned and
+looked at me with a rapt and heavenly smile, the thing emitting sundry
+noises all the while, like fragments from a crash of sound,
+comparatively mild, as a stream which has just run Niagara.
+
+I stood, dripping with noise, fearful lest the tide might rush in again,
+and looking about for my hat, if haply it might have been cast up upon
+the beach.
+
+"Wasna that a graun' ane?" said the machinator. "It's nae often ye'll
+hear the like o' that in Canada. There's jist ae man beside masel' can
+gie ye that this side o' Inverness--and he's broke i' the win'."
+
+"Thank God!" I ejaculated fervently, not knowing what I said.
+
+But Donald misunderstood me and I had nothing to fear.
+
+"Ye're richt there," he cried exultantly; "it's what I ca' a sacred
+preevilege to hear the like o' that, maist as sacred as a psalm. Ma
+faither used to play that verra tune at funerals i' the hielands, and
+the words they aye sang till't was these:--
+
+    "'Take comfort, Christians, when your friends
+        In Jesus fall asleep,'
+
+an' it used to fair owercome the mourners. If ye were gaun by a hoose
+i' the hieland glens, and heard thae words and that tune, ye cud mak'
+sure there was a deid corpse i' the hoose."
+
+"I don't wonder," was my response; but he perceived nothing in the words
+except reverent assent.
+
+"Ay," went on Donald, "it's a graun' means o' rest to the weary heart.
+It's fair past everything for puttin' the bairns to sleep. Mony's the
+time I hae lulled them wi' that same tune when their mither cud dae
+naethin' wi' them. I dinna mind as I ever heard a bairn cry when I was
+gien them that tune."
+
+"I quite believe that," I replied, burning to ask him if they ever cried
+again. But I refrained, and began my retreat towards the door.
+
+"Bide a wee; I maun gie ye 'The MacGregor's Lament.'"
+
+But I was obstinate, having enough occasion for my own.
+
+"Hoots, man, dinna gang--it's early yet."
+
+"But I really feel that I must go. I would sooner hear it some other
+time." At my own funeral, I meant. "Besides, Mr. M'Phatter, the bagpipes
+always influence me strangely. They give me such a feeling of the other
+world as kind of unfits me for my work."
+
+Whereupon Donald let me go. As I fled along the lane I watched him
+holding the thing still in his hand, and I feared even yet lest it
+might slip its leash.
+
+But I have been thankful ever since that Donald did not ask me which
+other world I meant.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+"_By That SAME TOKEN_"
+
+
+This was the first step towards the return of the M'Phatter family to
+St. Cuthbert's Church. I waited patiently, stepped carefully, and
+endured cheerfully every hardship, from the bagpipes down; but all the
+time I had before my mind that triumphant day when Donald and his
+household would once more walk down the kirk's spacious aisle, like the
+ransomed of the Lord who return and come to Zion with songs and
+everlasting joy upon their heads.
+
+One glorious summer evening I broached the matter to them both. It was
+the pensive hour of twilight, and Donald had been telling me with
+thrilling eloquence of a service he had once attended in St. Peter's
+Church, Dundee, when the saintly M'Cheyne had cast the spell of eternity
+about him. When he had got as nearly through as he ever got with his
+favourite themes, I asked him to listen to me for a little, and not to
+interrupt. He promised, and I talked on to them for an hour or more, the
+twilight deepening into darkness, and the sweet incense of nature's
+evening mass arising about us where we sat.
+
+It was the hour and the season that lent themselves to memory, and I
+armed myself with all the unforgotten years as I bore down upon their
+hearts. The duty, the privilege, the joy of mingling with the great
+congregation in united voice and heart to bless the Creator's name, all
+this I urged with passionate entreaty.
+
+"Oh, Donald," I cried at last, forgetting his seventy years and the
+title those years deserved, "come back, come back, man, to the fountain
+at which you drank with joy long years ago! Oh, Donald, it is springing
+yet, and its living waters are for you. Years have not quenched their
+holy stream, nor changed the loving heart of Him who feeds them. Donald
+man, your pride is playing havoc with your soul. Are not the days
+shortening in upon you? You saw the darkness fall since we sat down
+together, and the night has come, and it is always night in the grave.
+Man, hurry home before the gloaming betrays you to the dark.
+
+"Do you not hear yonder clock ticking in the hall that same old song of
+death, the same it sang, the night your father's father was born in the
+glen, the same it wailed the night he died? It is none other than the
+voice of God telling you that the night cometh fast. Oh, Donald, was it
+not your mother who first taught you the way to that holy spring, even
+as she taught your boyish feet the path to yonder babbling burn which
+even now is lilting to the night? Donald man, be a little child again,
+and come back before you die."
+
+Then there was a silence deep as death, and we heard the crickets sing
+and the drowsy tinkling on the distant hill. I spoke not another word,
+for when a great Scotch soul is in revolution, I would as soon have
+offered to assist at the creation as seek then to interfere. But I heard
+his wife Elsie sobbing gently and I felt a tear on Donald's cheek. My
+heart caught its distilling fragrance, like a bluebell on some
+mountainside, and I knew that the seasons were exchanging in Donald's
+soul, winter retreating before the avenging spring.
+
+Suddenly he arose and swiftly spoke--
+
+"I'll gang back on Sabbath mornin'; I'll tak' ma mither's psalm-buik,
+and I'll gang."
+
+He strode quickly towards the house; as he passed me the rising moon
+shone upon his face, and it looked like that of a soul which has the
+judgment day behind and eternal mother-love before.
+
+Elsie walked with me to the gate, and her face put the now radiant night
+to shame. Her long eclipse had ended. It was then she told me the secret
+of the token and her husband's love for it.
+
+"Ye mauna think ower hard on Donald; I promised to tell naebody, but ye
+willna let him ken. It wasna the token in itsel', but it was oor Elsie
+mair. Elsie was oor little lassie that's gone to bide wi' God.
+
+"Weel, when she was a bit bairn, she aye gaed wi' us to the sacrament,
+and she was awfu' ta'en up wi' the token. She wad spell oot the bit
+writin' on't, and she thocht there was naethin' sae bonnie as the
+picture o' the goblet on the ither side o't. And she wad thrust her wee
+bit haun' intil Donald's wes'coat pocket, where he aye keepit the token,
+an' she wad tak' it oot an' luik at it, an' no' ask for sweeties or gang
+to sleep or greet, like ither bairns. And when she was deein', she askit
+for it, and she dee'd wi' it in her haun'. An' that verra nicht, when
+Donald an' me was sittin' fon'lin' her gowden curls an' biddin' ane
+anither no' to greet--for ae broken hairt can comfort anither broken
+hairt--he slippit the token frae oot her puir cauld wee haun', an' he
+read the writin' that's on't oot lood: 'This do in remembrance of Me,'
+an' he says, 'I'll dae it in remembrance o' them baith, mither--o'
+Christ an' oor Elsie--an' when I show forth the Lord's death till He
+come, I'll aye think o' them baith, an' think o' them baith thegither in
+the yonderland--Christ an' oor Elsie--an' me an' you tae, mither, a'
+thegither in the Faither's hoose.' An' a' the time o' the funeral he
+hauded the token ticht, an' he keepit aye sayin' till himsel', 'Christ
+an' oor Elsie--an' us a'.'
+
+"Next Sabbath was the sacrament, an' Donald gaed alane, for I cudna gang
+wi' him, and that was the day they tell't the fowk hoo communion cairds
+was better, an' hoo they wudna use the tokens ony mair. Then Donald
+grippit the seat, an' he rose an' gaed oot o' the kirk, an' cam hame,
+an' gaed till his room, an' I didna see his face till the gloamin'. Oh,
+minister, dinna think owre hard aboot him. That's why he never gaed mair
+to the kirk, for he loved oor Elsie sair."
+
+I pressed her hand in parting, but I spoke no word, for I was thinking
+passionately of those golden curls, and that little hand in which the
+token lay tightly clasped; but it was our Margaret's face that was white
+upon the pillow. Love is a great interpreter.
+
+The next Sabbath morning saw Donald and Elsie in the courts of Zion, and
+great peace was upon their brows. When I ascended the pulpit stairs,
+they were already in their ancestral pew, now the property of Hector
+Campbell, who had abandoned it with joy, only asking that he be given
+one in the gallery from which he might see Donald's face.
+
+We opened our service with the Scottish psalm--
+
+    "How lovely is Thy dwelling-place,
+       Oh, Lord of hosts, to me,"
+
+and a strange thing befell us then. Donald was singing huskily,
+struggling with a storm which had its centre in his heart, all the more
+violent because it was a summer storm and fed from the inmost tropics of
+his soul. But it was the part Elsie took in that great psalm which is
+still the wonder of all who were there that day, though her voice hath
+long been silent in the grave. She had, years before, been reckoned the
+sweetest singer of all who helped to swell St. Cuthbert's praise. Her
+voice had been trained by none but God, yet its power and richness were
+unequalled. But her last song had been by the bedside of her dying
+child, and those who heard her say there was not a faltering note.
+
+And now her voice was released again, and her unchained soul, aflame
+with its long-silent love for the courts of Zion, found in that voice
+its highway up to God. No psalm-book, no note of music made by hand, no
+human thought repressed her or trammelled her exultant wing. Uncaged,
+she sang as the lark sings when native meadows bid its exile cease.
+
+From the first note, clear and radiant, as on a golden staircase her
+voice went upward with its loving sacrifice. All eyes were turned upon
+her, all other voices hushed in wonder, while even the wondering
+precentor abdicated to join the vassal throng. But she knew it
+not--knew nothing, indeed, but that she was again in the unforgotten
+house of God, and pouring out her soul to the soul's great Comforter.
+And she sat down with the others when the psalm was done, but wist not
+that her face shone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The kirk session was convened in my room after the great service ceased,
+and the glow of joy was on every face. This joy they carefully
+concealed, as was their way, but I felt its heat even when I could not
+see its gleam. One or two spoke briefly, and their parted lips disclosed
+their deep rejoicing, but only for a moment, as you have caught the bed
+of flame behind the furnace's swiftly closing door. I told them, in a
+word, of Donald and his Elsie and his token.
+
+They were stern men, and ruled the kirk with sternness; they had dealt
+faithfully with more than one who sought to restore the reign of the
+token against the expressed ruling of the session. They nipped contumacy
+in the bud.
+
+But it was moved by Ronald M'Gregor, and seconded by Saunders M'Dermott,
+and unanimously carried, "That the clerk be instructed to inform Donald
+M'Phatter, and his wife Elsie M'Phatter, that it is the will of the
+kirk session of St. Cuthbert's that they be in no wise admitted to the
+sacrament except on presentation of tokens regularly stamped and bearing
+the date of 1845."
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+_WITH The WORKMEN_
+
+
+I think we first realized the worth of Angus Strachan the year of the
+great strike among the mechanics of New Jedboro. That was a terrible
+year, and the memory of it is dark and clammy yet. For our whole town,
+and almost every man's bread and butter, rose and fell with the industry
+or the idleness of our great iron manufactories. To my mind, the cause
+of the trouble was twofold: first, that the proprietors were very rich;
+and second, that the agitators were very scoundrels. For we had as happy
+a class of working men in New Jedboro, take them on the whole, as the
+God of work looked down upon. They were in receipt of fair and
+considerable wages, their shops were clean and well ventilated, and
+their hours reasonably short, especially if compared to those poor
+creatures whom greed and selfishness keep behind the counters till
+twelve o'clock on a Saturday night. And I have noticed that those who
+howl the loudest about long hours are those who postpone their shopping
+till ten or eleven of these same Saturday nights.
+
+For the most part, they owned their own homes and the plots of ground
+they gardened, and I do contend that the watering-can and the spade and
+the pruning knife are a means of grace. Very many of them made twelve
+shillings a day, which is three dollars in our good Canadian money, and
+some of the highest paid made twice as much. And there was work for them
+every working day and every working hour of the day.
+
+The peace was broken when two sleek and well-dressed agitators came to
+town, agents for the Central Organization, whose mild and pleasant duty
+it was to tell free-born working-men when they were to work and when to
+starve.
+
+These gentlemen soon precipitated a general strike, in which they took a
+highly sympathetic part, reviving the flagging courage of half-starving
+wives and children, exhorting them to endure unto the end; and be it
+said to their lasting credit, these aforesaid gentlemen toiled
+faithfully to spread their new evangel, desisting only three times a
+day, when they repaired to their six-course meals at the Imperial Hotel.
+
+They pointed out, between meals, to the hungry men how well-pleasing was
+their hunger in the sight of heaven, for it would help some
+fellow-workmen three thousand miles away, and possibly be of benefit to
+some few who had not yet been born. Hunger, they pointed out with lofty
+ardour, might not be comfortable in every case, but it was glorious,
+and in the line of immortal fame. All of this was somewhat marred by
+their occasional gulping and hiccoughing, for six-course dinners are not
+friendly to ethereal oratory. When one of them got through, the other,
+having finished the picking of his teeth, would take the stand and
+divulge anew to these underfed immortals the secrets of the Book of
+Life.
+
+Then their poor dupes would cheer with a desperate attempt at courage,
+but it was to me like the bleating of sheep that are led to the
+slaughter. Wearily they sought their once happy homes, to find empty
+larders and broken-hearted wives, their wondering children crying for
+the necessities they had never lacked before, their clothes in tatters,
+and the roses departed from their cheeks.
+
+Many a sick wife and ailing child did I visit then, pining for the
+little delicacies their breadwinner could not afford to buy--all of this
+at the behest of two bespangled gentlemen, who even then were writing to
+their distant wives, enclosing substantial checks, and descanting
+eloquently upon the sumptuous fare at the aforesaid Imperial Hotel.
+
+Two sights there are in this panoramic world which greatly madden me,
+and they are twins.
+
+The first is the spectacle of a pot-bellied landlord, his wife and
+family sated with every luxury, as he smilingly takes across the
+bar--have you ever seen a snake swallow its prey, an equally slimy
+sight?--the five-cent piece of some poor fellow whose child hath neither
+toy nor bread, and whose broken wife, struggling in God's name to shield
+her children from indecency and want, will tremblingly explore his
+pocketbook at midnight, only to find every farthing of his wages gone.
+For the aforesaid smiling landlord hath poured it into the satin lap of
+the equally smiling wife at the Travellers' Rest.
+
+And the other sight is the spectacle of a complacent gentleman, organ
+for the Trades and Labour Union, who alighteth from his Pullman car to
+ply his incendiary trade, living in the lap of luxury, while weeping
+wives stroke the famished faces of their hungry bairns and dumbly plead
+with God that this cruel strike may soon be over.
+
+It was at such a time as this that Angus first impressed us with his
+real power. We had seen much of him in the years that had passed since
+he spent his first New Jedboro night beneath our roof. Often and often
+he would spend the evening with us, chatting on pleasant topics or
+teaching our Margaret the high things of chess, at which he was
+well-nigh a master. But I little dreamed then what fateful moves there
+may be even in a game of chess, what mating and checkmating and sundry
+other operations may be sublimely mingled in that so interesting
+struggle.
+
+We heard with pleasure that Angus was making rare progress in his chosen
+trade, and even now, although early in his twenties, he was head
+draughtsman in all that great establishment. Night schools, with wide
+and constant reading, had made his English almost as good as new, and
+the shabby lad of six or seven years ago was now a citizen amongst us of
+repute and promise.
+
+But that is no rare occurrence in this new world of ours, where men have
+better chances than the rigid ways of the old land will afford. For old
+Scotland means that her mountains shall remain mountains, and her
+valleys she purposes shall be valleys evermore; and I make little doubt
+that Mr. Carnegie would have been ranked with the valleys till they
+received his dust had he never sought the wider spaces of our Western
+World. From which Western World both their hills and valleys have
+received his dust in rich abundance.
+
+Passing a crowded hall one night when this industrial storm was at its
+height, I heard a voice which seemed familiar addressing the excited
+men, and surely there hath never before or since been heard a speech of
+greater sense and soundness.
+
+"Are we working men fools enough," he was asking as I entered, "to be
+led by the nose at the will of these strangers who want us to strike in
+the interests of Chicago or St. Louis or San Francisco? Charity begins
+at home, and our first duty is to look after our own. If we are going to
+have dictators in this matter, let us choose them from honest workers
+among ourselves, and not from high-salaried importations such as these.
+Look at their hands the next time you get a chance, and tell me why they
+are so smooth and white. None of your diamond-ringed fraternity for me,"
+cried Angus with growing passion.
+
+At this point Jack Slater interrupted. Jack was famed for his hearty
+resistance to every industrious instinct, resolutely denying himself the
+much-lauded sweets of toil. He was the leading Socialist of the town,
+hating every man who was an actual toiler with his hands, always
+excepting the well-fed agitators, whom he worshipped with ignorant
+devotion.
+
+"I just want fer to ask Mr. Strachan one question. What right has them
+fellows what owns the foundries to be makin' ropes of money while the
+likes of us only gets our two dollars a day? Let us have equality,
+that's what I say. Give me equality or give me death. God made one man
+as good as another, and it's the devil as tries to make them different.
+Let's divide up, that's what I say, and don't have them fellows sportin'
+round in their carriages and goin' to Europe, while the rest of us is
+sweatin' through the dog days in the shops."
+
+Loud murmurs of approval broke from a hundred sullen lips, and Bob
+Taylor, encouraged by Jack's success, jumped to his feet and shouted--
+
+"I hopes as how all the fellers 'll stand firm and bring the bosses up
+with the short turn. We kin do it, for we're the lads as makes their
+money for them. What them kerridge fellows needs is a bash or two in the
+jaw from the horny hand of toil. I goes in fer rotten-eggin' all the
+scabs as agrees to work lower nor the wage we set, and if that won't do,
+I goes in fer duckin' 'em; and if duckin' won't do, I goes in fer fixin'
+'em so's they won't work nowheres. If this is a free country, let's have
+our share of the kerridges--I believe in equality the same as Jack."
+
+These views were received with renewed expressions of approval, for to
+most of the excited men they seem quite unanswerable.
+
+"That's the ticket; make 'em walk the plank. We're just as good as
+them," I heard some burly mechanic mutter.
+
+The eager audience turned towards Angus, awaiting his reply, if haply
+reply could be provided. It has been my lot to hear many strong
+addresses, but I esteem this answering speech of Angus's among the
+strongest utterances I have heard.
+
+"Mr. Slater wishes," he began, "to know by what right our employers make
+more money than we do. In answer, let me ask him by what right Bill
+Montgomery, the foreman in the moulding shop, gets more money every
+pay-day than Tom Coxford, who is one of his men. I suppose he will admit
+it is because Bill has more ability and more experience than Tom; he
+will also admit that the difference in their wages is a just difference,
+and indeed I have never heard any one find fault with it. Well, carry
+out that principle, and some one who has more skill than Montgomery will
+get more money than he gets. Then there will be some one above him
+again, and so on till you get to the head of the firm. If differing
+wages are just at all--and every one admits they are--then how can you
+deny their legitimate profits to the men whose industry and business
+ability have established the concern and guided it along to what it is
+to-day?
+
+"Mr. Slater says that men are all equal. I don't agree with him. It is
+clear that God means some men to be rich and others to be less rich. If
+a man quarrels with the inequality among men, his quarrel is with God.
+God makes some men richer than others to begin with. When we see the
+highest riches, like those of brains and strength, unequally divided, we
+need not wonder to see the lesser riches somewhat unevenly distributed.
+God gives one man, or a woman like Jenny Lind, a voice that means a
+thousand dollars a night as often as they want to sing, and He gives
+another man a voice like an alarm-clock or a buzz-saw. He gives one man
+a mind that seems always to be full, and another man a mind, let him do
+his best, that is always as empty as a last year's nest. Surely I have
+more ground for envying the man who is born with more brains than I than
+the man who is born with more wealth than I. And yet God alone is
+responsible for the first-named inequality. We hear too much rubbish
+about this theory of all men being equal born.
+
+"As for Bob Taylor's hint that we should employ violence to prevent men
+working for what wage they please, I have only this to say, that nobody
+but a lazy dog like him would suggest such a policy.
+
+"We all know that when the whistle blows in the morning, Bob always
+tries how much of it he can hear before he goes in; and when it blows at
+night, he tries how much of it he can hear after he gets out. Bob is
+always slow at the end where he ought to be quick, and quick at the end
+where all honest men try at least to be decently slow; and then he talks
+to us about ducking some poor fellow who wants to make an honest living
+for his wife and children. I will say this much, too, that if the time
+ever comes when a free-born man cannot sell his labour in the market
+for what price he likes, then I will turn my back upon the old flag and
+leave its soil forever.
+
+"Now, I am going to ask Mr. Slater a question or two about this dividing
+up business.
+
+"Do you think, Mr. Slater, if a man has a million dollars, that he ought
+to divide up with the man who has very little, if that man happens to be
+working for him?"
+
+"Most sartintly," replied Jack.
+
+"Very well, if a man has ten thousand dollars, should he divide up with
+a poorer man who works for him?"
+
+"Sure," answered Jack promptly.
+
+"Well, suppose a man has a house and a little garden, and he has a man
+hired to help dig it or repair it, should he divide up with this poorer
+workman who has neither house nor garden?"
+
+Jack hesitated, his brows knit in thought; then he answered slowly--
+
+"Naw, I don't just think so."
+
+"Why not?" said Angus.
+
+"Well, 'twouldn't be fair; besides, I happen to have a little house and
+garden of my own."
+
+Then all that crowd of men exploded in a burst of derisive laughter
+which set the seal of triumph on Angus's argument.
+
+After the uproar had subsided, an intrepid Scotsman, only a few months
+in New Jedboro, volunteered to address the meeting.
+
+"I canna jist answer the argyments o' Mr. Strachan, but I maun pit
+forrit my idea that oor wives and bairns haena the luxuries o' them as
+owns the works. I canna but mind that Robbie Burns said, 'A man's a man
+for a' that,' an' I thocht the present a fittin' occasion to mind ye o'
+the words, bein' as we're met the nicht to speak oot against slavery o'
+ilka kind."
+
+"No man who knows me," replied Angus, "will say that I will either yield
+to slavery or assist it in any form. But the man who calls himself a
+slave because his employer has more money than he, is no friend to
+honest labour. We would all like wealth, but wealth is neither happiness
+nor liberty. After all, the men whom we envy have not so much more than
+we; they can only lie on one pillow at a time, can only eat one mouthful
+at a time, can only smoke one cigar at a time, and as for the kind of
+couch a man sits down upon, it matters little so that he has earned his
+rest by honest toil.
+
+"My Scottish friend hardly realizes what he says. I know he has a wife
+and a sweet little lassie. There is Mr. Blake, the richest of our
+manufacturers, and he has neither the one nor the other. Now I ask my
+compatriot, would he trade his lot for that of Mr. Blake with all his
+money? He answers no. Then who is the richer man--Mr. Blake, or our
+fellow-workman from auld Scotland?
+
+"Speaking of Scotland, let me say this one word. I lived there till I
+was a well-grown lad, as did scores of you, and I defy you to contradict
+me when I say that we are a hundred times better off here than we were
+among the sheep or behind the ploughs in the old land, neither of which
+we could hardly ever hope to call our own. Were we not there accounted
+almost as sheep for the slaughter? How much better were we than the kine
+we tended? Were not we even driven from the land we rented at a cruel
+price, that some haughty lord might make a deer-run of the place? What
+were we there but grovelling vassals, and what hope had we ever to be
+independent, or to own even a house in which to die?
+
+"I do not need to tell you of the difference here, of how the most of us
+have our own little homes, and count our friends among the best people
+in New Jedboro; and three-fourths of the aldermen in our council, and
+the trustees of our schools, and the elders of our kirks, are from the
+ranks of honest labour.
+
+"Let us thank God we have escaped from the class tyranny and the peasant
+bondage of the land beyond the seas."
+
+A new and different light was now upon the rapt faces of the men--and
+the end of it all was that they turned the diamond-ringed gentlemen from
+their doors.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+_WITH The EMPLOYERS_
+
+
+Nor was this the last of Angus's eloquence. A few days later the
+manufacturers, being met in conclave at Mr. Blake's office, sent for the
+young Scotsman and personally thanked him for his good offices in
+settling the strike. Both sorts were there--the kind and the unkind, the
+gentleman and the churl--but all alike united in grateful praise for the
+mediation which Angus had accomplished. Many unctuous things were said,
+but when one tyrant arose to speak his gratitude, Angus's face bore a
+look which boded ill.
+
+"We're glad," said Mr. M'Dougall, swelling with vulgar pompousness, "to
+see that you recognize the rights of property and the claims of vested
+interests. And we trust," he added, "that Labour has learned a lesson it
+will not soon forget." Then he sat down with the majesty of a balloon
+descending.
+
+"I am glad, sir," replied Angus, "to have been of service in quelling a
+movement led by selfish and grasping strangers, but I may at the same
+time say that it would be well for Mr. M'Dougall and his kind to pay
+more heed himself to the rights of property. For skill and industry and
+faithfulness are property just as much as Mr. M'Dougall's vested
+interests. And he may as well be warned that Labour will not forever
+tolerate the selfishness and the pride with which he treats his hands."
+
+"I move," interrupted Mr. Thoburn, himself a gifted tyrant, "that this
+meeting do now adjourn."
+
+"This meeting will do nothing of the sort." This time it was Mr. Blake
+who spoke, and there was iron in his voice. "None of us thought Mr.
+Strachan spoke too long when he was dealing with the agitators from
+Chicago, and let us hear him out, unless we are bigger cowards than the
+men who work for us."
+
+The meeting endorsed these sentiments, and Angus resumed--
+
+"I speak in the interests of Capital," he said, "when I declare that the
+fault is not all on the side of the working man. Many of our employers
+are kind and sympathetic men, but others of them are not. I envy no man
+among you the wealth he has gathered, but the selfishness of some of our
+manufacturers is maddening to the working man.
+
+"Some of you know nothing of our trials and our difficulties, and, what
+is worse, you do not want to know. You pass by the men who are making
+you rich as though they were the dogs of the street. You sit next pew to
+them in the kirk, and yet treat them like the dirt beneath your feet. It
+is doubtless your conviction that you have discharged your whole duty to
+us when you pay our wages every fortnight. I tell you," he cried
+passionately, "that is the great fallacy which is yet to prove the
+undoing of the employers of labour.
+
+"You forget we are men, as well as you, and have higher claims upon you
+than your pay sheet acknowledges. If our employer dies, we follow him in
+a body to his grave. If one of us dies, you drive past his hearse with
+your haughty carriages, or bolt down a side street to avoid the
+association.
+
+"Tom Lamplough, who has worked for Mr. Thoburn twenty years, buried his
+only child last Thursday, and his employer spent the afternoon speeding
+his thoroughbred on the race-track beside the cemetery. At the very
+moment when Tom was groping about the open grave, struggling with his
+broken heart and following his daughter with streaming eyes, Mr. Thoburn
+was bawling out that his filly had done it in two and a quarter--and the
+clods were falling on the coffin all the while."
+
+At this juncture Thoburn arose, his face the very colour of the corpse
+he had disdained.
+
+"Will no man throttle this fanatic?" he hoarsely craved. "Must we be
+insulted thus by a mere working man?"
+
+"I insult no man," retorted his accuser, "when I tell him but the truth.
+It was you who insulted the dead, and outraged her desolate father
+because he was but your servant. Is what I say the truth?"
+
+"I decline to answer that," said Thoburn.
+
+"You will not decline to answer before the throne of God. For you and
+Tom will meet yonder. Good God, man, did you ever think of that? Did it
+ever occur to you that you and Tom will take your last ride in the same
+conveyance, and have the same upholstery in the tomb? And somebody
+else's filly will be making its mile in less time than yours when the
+clods are falling on your coffin."
+
+I have often marvelled at this strange power of rhetoric in an untutored
+man; but it only confirmed what I am more and more inclined to
+believe--that emotion and intellect are twins, and that the soul is
+oratory's native home.
+
+There was a pause, but it was brief. For there flew to the rescue of his
+beleaguered brother Mr. Hiram Orme, the millionaire proprietor of the
+great Acme works. Vulgar and proud, he lived a life of ostentatious
+luxury.
+
+No thought of the poor or the suffering ever disturbed the shallow tenor
+of his enamelled existence Secure in the fortress of wealth, which is a
+lie! he cared nothing for such wounded soldiers as had helped to build
+it, or for their widows or their orphans. With all sail set, he careened
+on his inconsiderate way, and the vessels whose side he sought were
+never those bearing the signals of distress.
+
+Mr. Hiram Orme had a high contempt for all working men, and a keen
+suspicion of every attitude which smacked of liberty. The working man,
+like the negro, was happier far in a state of semi-slavery--such was the
+honest view of the honest man.
+
+And now he was upon his feet, glaring with wrath, profoundly complacent
+in the assurance of superior wealth, and prepared to demolish both Angus
+and the King's English at a blow.
+
+"Them's nice words," he broke forth, "for a working man to be using to
+the man what he's dependent on for to get his bread and butter. And I
+want for to tell this man Strachan that beggars can't be choosers. A
+pretty preachment he's givin' us about coffins and them like things.
+There's one thing certain, and that is, me and the rest of my brother
+manufacturers will have a sight finer coffins than him and his sort will
+have." The manufacturers shuddered, like men sitting in some deadly
+draught.
+
+"We've had jist about enough sass from our young friend, I think; he's
+nothin' but a hewer of wood and a drawer of water for us anyhow.
+Doesn't the Bible tell servants like him for to be obedient to their
+masters?"
+
+Then Angus's Scotch blood leaped, protesting, to his face, and his soul
+tore open his burning lips as the tide bursts a dam built by children's
+hands.
+
+"I eat honest bread, earned by honest toil," he hotly cried, "and that
+is more than Mr. Orme can say. I would beg from door to door before I
+would munch, as he does, the crusts that are stained with blood. We all
+know how he has ground his working girls to the earth, how he has
+refused to ventilate his factories, and even to heat them decently in
+the winter time. We all know how he has spurned the poor and the needy
+with his foot, and how he has crawled upon his belly before the rich and
+great. I will tell you something about Mr. Orme. It does not apply to
+all of you. Some of you, thank God! have remembered that your working
+men were human beings like yourselves--you have helped and befriended
+the sick and the poor, you have pensioned the closing years of faithful
+men. You have called yourselves to ask for our sick and dying, and we
+have blessed you for it. What poor burdened hearts want is the warm
+heart touch from your own hands or lips, but Mr. Orme has given neither
+the one nor the other.
+
+"Mr. Orme, do you remember Dick Draper, who was your boss carder, and
+who lives in a little house behind your mansion? Do you remember that he
+worked for you ten or fifteen years, and that you discharged him because
+he would not leave the Union?"
+
+"Yes, I remember him. Why?" answered Orme huskily.
+
+"I will tell you why. A few months after you discharged him, partly
+because his health failed and partly because you blackballed him at all
+other shops, he was still out of work, his money all gone, his pantry
+bare, and his youngest boy dying of a slow disease of the spine. Some of
+us went to you and asked you to help us raise enough to send him to
+Montreal for treatment that might save his life. You showed us the door,
+and told us to tell him he could make his money like you made yours. You
+said if the boy died it would be one mouth less for Dick to feed, and
+told us there was a grand old maxim about every man for himself and the
+devil have the hindermost. As we were going down your splendid avenue,
+you shouted that Dick's spine was stiff enough when he joined the Union.
+Then you asked us if spines were hereditary. Then you laughed and your
+barns and your grand driving sheds echoed back its cruel mockery."
+
+Orme arose and started towards the door.
+
+"Mr. Chairman, I protest," he began.
+
+"Sit doon," thundered Angus, lapsing into his native tongue, "sit doon
+till I tell ye a'. The nicht Dick's boy was deein', we went to ye and
+begged ye to stop yir music and yir dancin'. For ye had some graun' fowk
+at yir pairty, an' the flowers for it cost ye mair nor wad hae sent the
+laddie to Montreal. An' the noise fashed an' fretted the deein' bairn.
+But ye bade us begone, an' said ye'd invite us to yir pairty when ye
+wanted us--an' the puir laddie dee'd in his faither's airms to the cruel
+music o' yir fiddles an' yir reels, an' his faither sat wi' him a' the
+nicht, croonin' wi' sorrow, an' yir graun' guests' laughter breakin' on
+him like a blizzard frae the north."
+
+"Is the sermon nearly done?" said Mr. Orme, with a sneer. "You missed
+your calling; you're a preacher." The hot tears were in Angus' eyes and
+he seemed to have forgotten that Orme was present, the taunt lost upon
+him.
+
+"I will say no more," turning now to the others, "and I have perhaps
+spoken over warmly. But I have uttered no word other than the truth. And
+I will only make my last appeal, which I know will have some weight,
+with most of you, at least. The remedy for all this threatening trouble
+lies in mutual sympathy, for I doubt not you have your own difficulties,
+even as we have ours. I am glad to have helped to allay this recent
+trouble, and my best service shall never be denied you in the future.
+But I pray you to consider the words of a man who wishes you nothing
+else but good. Pardon what of violence and ponder what of reason has
+been mixed with what I said. Capital has its labour, and labour has its
+capital--and we are all toilers together."
+
+He bowed to the employers and withdrew, but the seed his hand had cast
+was fallen, some no doubt on rocky ground, but some also on good and
+honest soil.
+
+And Angus had won a victory; but his greatest triumph was unseen, for he
+had ruled his own spirit, which high authority assures us is greater
+than the taking of a city.
+
+Not inconsiderable, too, were the outward pledges of his victory. For,
+as we said, the sleek agitators had been dismissed, the mills and
+factories were running again, and the industrial tides of life in New
+Jedboro gradually subsided into their old channels.
+
+And now those unseen forces that are ever silently working to upset old
+standards and to displace old ways, broke out in a new form, this time
+threatening the very centre of one of St. Cuthbert's most established
+customs.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+_A BOLD PROPOSAL_
+
+
+The old precentor's box beneath the pulpit was still St. Cuthbert's only
+choir loft. Many years back, the iconoclasts among them had managed to
+gather a few of the most songful ones together in a front pew, demurely
+sitting as part of the congregation, but concentrated for purposes of
+leadership. This proved, however, more than St. Cuthbert's could abide,
+and its mal-odour of "High Church" alarmed the Scottish Presbyterians.
+Going down the aisle, Saunders M'Tavish voiced the general alarm in
+sententious tones--
+
+"The thin end o' the wedge," he warningly exclaimed, "and it's no' a far
+cry noo to the candles an' the incense. They'll be bringin' ower the
+pope next," and the kirk session, convening the next night, soon stopped
+that leakage in their ancestral dyke.
+
+Since then the precentor's box had preserved its lonely splendour.
+Within it, in the far-back thunderous days of their great Boanerges, the
+precentor stood to lead the swelling psalm as it rose from the seated
+multitude--for they stood to pray, but sat to sing. From the
+fast-gathering mists that now threaten those receding years, surviving
+ones still rescue images of the precentor's ruffled locks, swept by the
+pentecostal swirl--so seemed it to his worshippers--of Dr. Grant's
+Geneva gown. And in this same box Sabbath after Sabbath appeared the
+stalwart form of Archie M'Cormack, modern in nothing but his years.
+
+His was a conservatism of the intense and passionate sort; not the
+choice of his judgment, but the deepest element of his life. He no more
+chose old ways, old paths, or the spirit of earlier times, than the
+trout chooses water or the Polar bear its native snows. He was born not
+among them, but of them, and remained till death their incarnate
+descendant. No mere Scotch kirkman was Archie, but a prehistoric
+Calvinist, a Presbyterian by the act of God and an elder from all
+eternity. Even his youthful thoughts and imaginations adjusted
+themselves to the scope of the Westminster Confession, abhorring any
+horizon unillumined by the gray light which flowed in mathematical
+exactitude from a hypothetical heart in the Shorter Catechism.
+
+Although, strangely enough, Archie could never master the catechism. A
+random question was his doom. Catechise him straight through, and his
+response was swift and accurate. No thrust availed against him, a
+knight invincible in his well-pieced coat of mail, a very dragon of
+orthodoxy from whose lips there issued clouds of Calvinism, till the
+minister himself was often well-nigh obscured thereby. But once dip
+Archie into the middle of its mighty bosom to search an answer there,
+and he would never reappear, or, if he haply might, it would be with
+sorry fragments of divers answers in his hands, incongruous to
+absurdity. Is not the same true of babbling guides in old cathedrals?
+
+"What is sin?" the minister once suddenly asked Archie in the course of
+catechetical visitation, the district being assembled at one central
+house. Archie's answer, being a mosaic, is still quoted by those who
+heard it, terror-stricken where they sat.
+
+"Sin," replied the wide-gleaning man, "is an act of God's free grace,
+infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in its full purpose of and endeavour
+after new obedience."
+
+This terrible and miscellaneous eruption was the more lamentable from
+the fact that his poor wife heard this blare of discordant dogmas with
+unbelieving ears, while even little Kirsty gasped, exclaiming above her
+breath, "Ye're sair muddled, faither."
+
+Archie looked vacantly from wife to daughter, like one who has let
+something drop. Then gazing despondently at the minister's struggling
+face, he said, "I'm feart that's no' jist richt in a' its parteeklars."
+The epilogue was worse than the tragedy. A grim Presbyterian smile went
+round, more vocal than the echoing laughter of less silent sects, and it
+smote on Archie's ears like the scorners' bray. Forward went the
+catechism, a penitential gloom succeeding the sinful indulgence. The
+Scottish sun dips suddenly.
+
+Sober enough now are the faces from which all merriment has fled,
+forgetting the precentor's discomfiture, and looking only to their own
+deliverance from the guns now turned against themselves. But Archie did
+not forget--into a secret Scottish place he had retreated, his hot,
+burning heart forging some weapon of revenge. It was ready in due time.
+An hour after, just before the armistice which the benediction alone
+made sure, he turned upon the honest rustics with a look of belated
+triumph in his face, and slew them with the retort which long travail
+had brought forth.
+
+"A'm no' sae gleg on the subject o' sin as some fowk I ken."
+
+The minister, by aid of special grace, said nothing. Archie, although he
+held solemnly on his way through the benediction, as became a precentor,
+yet chuckled exultantly all the homeward road. At evening worship he
+selected the Twenty-seventh Psalm and sang the second verse with
+rejoicing unction--
+
+    "Whereas mine enemies and foes,
+       Most wicked persons all,
+    To eat my flesh against me rose,
+       They stumbled and did fall,"
+
+and the honest rustics, as they sought the cover of their homes with
+emancipated feet, pronounced one to the other that most Scotch of all
+Scottish verdicts, half of eulogy and half of condemnation: "He's a lad,
+is Airchie. Ay, Airchie's a lad to be sure."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What sleuth-hounds women are in matters of the heart! How quickly they
+take the scent of any path, virgin though it be, if that path hath been
+touched by the very feet of love, tracing its devious course with
+passionate inerrancy.
+
+I thought the news trifling, when I told my wife that Angus and our
+Margaret had appeared before St. Cuthbert's session to present a certain
+prayer. My mind was taken up exclusively with the request they
+proffered. But Margaret's mother was unconcerned with their plea. Of the
+pleaders she thought alone. Divers questions she flung forth at me,
+furtive all, their author in ambush all the while.
+
+"Did they seem interested in each other?" was the burden of them all;
+for, though she avoided plainness of speech, I could yet detect her
+hidden fear.
+
+But I must turn from this and tell of the enterprise in whose interest
+Margaret and Angus bearded the lions of St. Cuthbert's in their den.
+They represented the Young People's Guild, and presented the startling
+request that the old kirk should henceforth employ an organ to aid the
+service of praise on the Sabbath day. And they further asked for the
+introduction of the hymns. This implied a revolution, for St.
+Cuthbert's, up to this time, had resolutely resisted all attempts to
+hallow such profanities.
+
+For the youthful pair of revolutionists I felt a decided sympathy, such
+as pervades every generous heart when it beholds the dauntless approach
+of David towards Goliath. Such citadels of orthodoxy, such Gibraltars of
+conservatism as Archie was, were almost all the elders of St.
+Cuthbert's. And against them all united did Angus and Margaret dare to
+turn their poor artillery of persuasion.
+
+The session received them cordially, having all goodwill towards them
+personally, hating the sin but loving the sinners, to employ a good old
+theological phrase. Angus began, adroitly enough, with a eulogy of the
+psalms and paraphrases, defining them as the mountain peaks of song in
+all ages and in every tongue.
+
+"In far-distant Scotland my mother is singing them to-night," he said,
+"and I catch the glow and the sweetness of the heather when the kirk
+rings with their high refrain ilka Sabbath day. But we feel that the
+hymns, even if they be inferior, will add richness and variety to the
+service of our beloved kirk."
+
+As for the organ, he contended that it was only a means towards an end,
+man-made though it was; for these stern men were rigid in their
+distinction between things made with hands and things inspired.
+
+Angus quoted Scripture on behalf of the organ plea, recalling David's
+use of instrumental music and quoting the Ninety-second Psalm--
+
+    "Upon a ten-stringed instrument
+       And on the psaltery,
+     Upon the harp with solemn sound
+       And grave, sweet melody."
+
+I then called upon Margaret, and my heart misgave me as I spoke her
+name, for she was full of pathetic hopefulness, and seemed to think that
+Angus's argument had settled things beyond appeal. But I knew better
+than she what spray could do with frowning rocks. The elders, too,
+smiled tenderly upon her, for they were chivalrous in their solemn way,
+and besides, she was what you might call the church's first-born child,
+the story of which I have already told. But theirs was a kind of
+executioners' smile, for they were iron-blooded men, who felt that they
+had heard but now the trumpeting of the enemy at the gate.
+
+Margaret timidly expressed the view that she need, and would, add
+nothing more, "for," she concluded, "Mr. Strachan has covered the ground
+completely." This phrase "covered the ground" I do not believe she had
+ever used before, but every true child of the manse and the kirk is born
+its legitimate heir. "The previous question" is another matter, and can
+be acquired only through laborious years. It takes even a moderator all
+his time to explain it; before most Presbyteries quite master it, death
+moves it--and then they understand.
+
+Poor Margaret seemed to think that Angus had made out a case which no
+elder could successfully assail. She knew not that there are some
+matters which Scotch elders consider it impious even to discuss, holding
+in scorn the flaccid axiom that there are two sides to every question.
+
+The youthful petitioners withdrew, and the session indulged itself in a
+long silence, their usual mode of signifying that important business was
+before them.
+
+The first to speak was Ronald M'Gregor: "We'll no' be needin' a motion,"
+he said, by way of indicating that there could be no two opinions on
+the matter in hand.
+
+"We'll hae to move that the peteetion be rejeckit," said Elder M'Tavish,
+nodding his head to signify his agreement with Ronald's main contention.
+
+"The puir bodies mean richt," he added, being distinguished for
+Christian charity.
+
+The motion was as good as agreed to, silent consent appearing upon every
+face, when Michael Blake arose.
+
+"I move in amendment, that the young people's request be referred to a
+committee, with a view to its favourable consideration."
+
+"I second that," said Sandy Grant, the session clerk, "not thereby
+committin' masel' to its spirit, but to bring it afore the court in
+regular order."
+
+"What for div we need anither motion?" said Thomas Laidlaw, evidently
+perplexed. "There's nane o' us gaun to gie in to thae man-made
+hymes--an' their kist o' whustles wad be fair redeek'lus."
+
+"Let us hear what they have to say in its behalf," said Mr. Blake.
+"Every honest man should be open to conviction."
+
+"We're a' honest men," replied Thomas, "an' we're a' open to conviction,
+but I houp nane o' us'll be weak eneuch to be convickit. Oor faithers
+wadna hae been convickit."
+
+"It'll dae nae harm to hear the argyments," said Andrew Hogg, the silent
+member of the session.
+
+At this juncture, fearing what Saunders M'Tavish had long ago called the
+thin edge o' the wedge, Archie M'Cormack, the precentor, came forward in
+hot alarm, championing the hosts of orthodoxy.
+
+"The session'll mebbe listen to me, for I've been yir precentor these
+mony years. We'll hae nae mair o' thae havers. Wha wants their hymes?
+Naebody excep' a wheen o' gigglin' birkies. Gie them the hymes, an'
+we'll hear Martyrdom nae mair, an' Coleshill an' Duke Street'll be by.
+For what did oor faithers dee if it wasna for the psalms o' Dauvit? An'
+they dee'd to the tunes I've named to ye."
+
+"But Mr. M'Cormack will admit," said Mr. Blake, "that many of God's
+people worship to profit with the hymns. There is the Episcopal church
+across the way. Last Sabbath I am told their soprano sang 'Lead, kindly
+Light,' and it was well received."
+
+"Wha receivit it?" thundered Archie. "Tell me that, sir. Wha receivit
+it? Was it Almichty God, or was it the itchin' lugs o' deein' men, aye
+hearkenin' to thae skirlin' birkies wi' their men-made hymes?"
+
+"Mr. M'Cormack is severe," replied Michael Blake serenely, "but I think
+he is unnecessarily alarmed; we must keep our service up to date. As the
+session knows, I have always been in favour, for instance, of the
+modern fashion of special services at Christmas, Eastertide, and kindred
+seasons. And at such times we ought to have a little special music."
+
+"Up to date!" retorted Archie scornfully; "it's a sair date an' a deein'
+ane. It'll dee the nicht, an' there'll be a new ane the morn, an' wha
+ever heard tell o' an Easter Sabbath in the Kirk o' Scotland? It'll dae
+weel eneuch for thae dissentin' bodies, wi' their prayer-books, but what
+hae we, wi' the psalm-buik, an' a regular ministry, an' a regular kirk,
+to dae wi' siclike follies? Ilka Sabbath day is Easter day, I'm tellin'
+ye. Is oor Lord no' aye risin' frae the dead? Gin a soul braks intil new
+life, or a deein' man pillows his weary heid on Him, or the heavy-herted
+staun' up in His michty strength, ye hae yir Easter Sabbath; an' that's
+ilka Sabbath, I'm sayin'. Nane o' yir enawmelled bit toys for
+Presbyterian fowk."
+
+"I do not want to interfere with the good old Presbyterian ways,"
+responded Mr. Blake; for the elders seemed to have committed the entire
+debate to those two representatives of the old school and the new. "But
+it seems to me the whole Christian religion is a religion of change," he
+continued; "the new path, the new and living way, the new covenant, the
+new name, the new song--and the new heart," he concluded fervently.
+Then a moment later he added, "Thank God for that!" and the elders
+looked at him in astonishment, for his face bore again that look of
+anguish and remorse to which I have referred before, the oft-recurring
+evidence of some bitter secret, deep hidden in his heart.
+
+"We understaun' fine," the session clerk appended. "Mr. Blake is only
+contending that there are two sides to every question."
+
+"Twa sides!" shouted the precentor, now on his feet again, "there's mair
+nor twa. There's three sides to ilka question: there's yir ain side, an'
+there's my side, an' there's God's side," he added almost fiercely; "an'
+when I ken God's side, there's nae ither side ava."
+
+The debate was not continued long, and closed with the compromise that
+Mr. Blake's motion should prevail, the whole matter to be referred to a
+committee composed of Mr. Blake, the precentor, the moderator, and the
+clerk, no report to be made to the kirk session unless the committee was
+unanimous in its finding. This committee was instructed to meet and
+confer with the representatives of the Young People's Guild.
+
+While this resolution was being recorded, Archie was still indulging in
+smothered protests, the dying voice of the thunder-storm; and as the
+session dispersed he was heard to say, "Committee or no committee, as
+lang as I'm in the kirk they'll sing the psalms o' Dauvit--an' the tunes
+o' Dauvit tae."
+
+The next evening I informed Angus of the session's action, and told him
+the names of the committee. When I mentioned that of Mr. Blake, his eyes
+flashed fire, and in bitter tones he said, "I will meet no committee of
+which that man is one. I hate him, sir. I would as lief confer with the
+devil as with him."
+
+This staggered me. I knew no cause for an outburst so passionate, nor
+any provocation for a resentment so savage and so evidently real. My
+attempt to question him concerning either met with an abrupt but final
+refusal. Concerning these things I said nothing to Margaret or her
+mother, but kept them all and pondered them in my heart.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+_GEORDIE'S OOT-TURN_
+
+
+It was Geordie Lorimer who first taught me to curl. This I still reckon
+a great kindness, for I have gone from strength to strength till I am
+now upon the verge of tankard skiphood. Besides, Geordie's besetting sin
+still clinging close, I had hoped in this social way the more readily to
+win his friendship, with a view to his deliverance.
+
+Some of the old elders looked askance at my frivolity, for Sanderson's
+"Mountain Dew" flowed freely at every bonspiel, and it was generally
+understood that all bigoted teetotalism was justly suspended till the
+ice vanished in the spring. These aforesaid elders had no sympathy with
+men who tasted standing up, or who took their "Mountain Dew" unwarmed.
+
+They would gravely quote the scriptural admonition that all things
+should be done decently and in order, adding the exposition, logically
+deduced, that the more important the transaction, the more imperative
+that order and decency should be observed. For which reason they took
+their whisky hot, and hallowed by the gentler name of "toddy." At
+eventide they took it, within the sacred precincts of their own
+firesides, and immediately after family worship. Many a time and oft the
+very lips which fervently sang the psalm--
+
+    "Like Hermon's dew, the dew that doth,"
+
+were the same that sampled Sanderson's with solemn satisfaction.
+
+The session clerk once presented to the court a letter from a worthy but
+wandering temperance orator, craving permission to give his celebrated
+"dog talk" in St. Cuthbert's on a Sabbath afternoon.
+
+"I move that the kirk be no' granted," said Archie M'Cormack. "He'll be
+revilin' the ways o' men far abune him. Ma faither aye took a drappy
+ilka nicht, haudin' his bonnet in his haun' the while. He wad drink the
+health o' Her Majesty ('God bless her,' he aye said), and mebbe ane to
+the auld kirk in bonnie Scotland, an' mebbe ane to the laddies wha used
+to rin wi' him aboot the braes, an' mebbe then he wad hae jist ane mair
+to Her Majesty, for ma faither was aye uncommon loyal at the hinner end.
+But atween him an' ma mither he aye kent fine when to stop.
+
+"An' a' oor faithers tasted afore they gaed to bed, an' they a' dee'd
+wi' their faces to the licht; an' I wadna gie ane o' them for a wheen o'
+yir temperance haverers wi' their dog talks on the Sabbath day."
+
+"I second that," said Ronald M'Gregor. "The injudeecious use o'
+speerits, or o' ony ither needcessity, is no' to be commendit, but the
+Sabbath he's askin' 'll be the sacrament, and that's no day for dog
+talkin', I'm thinkin'"--and the motion carried unanimously.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"How's the ice to-day?" I asked Thomas Laidlaw, one winter's afternoon.
+
+"Fair graun'," replied the solemn Thomas. "Ye'll never throw a stane on
+better till ye draw by yir last gaird; 'twad dae fine for the New
+Jerusalem."
+
+"You don't think there'll be curling there, Thomas?" I said.
+
+"I dinna ken," he answered, "but I'm no' despairin'. They aye speak o't
+as a land where everlasting spring abides; but I hae ma doots. There'll
+be times when the ice'll hold, I'm thinkin'. Yon crystal river's no' for
+naethin'."
+
+Geordie Lorimer was my skip that day, and soon the armoured floor was
+echoing to the "roarin' game," the largest, noblest, brotherliest game
+known to mortal men. The laird and the cottar were there, the homely
+shepherd and the village snab who cobbled his shoes, the banker and the
+carter, the manufacturer and the mechanic--all on that oft-quoted
+platform which is built alone of curlers' ice.
+
+"Lay me a pat-lid richt here, man. Soop her up--soop, soop, man. Get her
+by the gaird. Let her be. I'm wrang, bring her ben the hoose.
+Stop--stop, I'm tellin' ye. Noo, soop, soop her in, man."
+
+"Noo, minister, be up this time," cries Geordie. "Soop, soop her up.
+That's a graun' yin, minister. Shake ye yir ain haun'. Gin yir sermons
+were deleevered like yir stanes, there wadna be an empty seat i' the
+kirk. Lat her dee, she's ower fiery. That'll dae fine for a gaird, an'
+Tam'll be fashed to get roun' ye."
+
+Thus roared the game along, and at its close Geordie and I were putting
+our stones away together, flushed with victory. The occasion seemed
+favourable for the moral influence which it was my constant aim to
+exercise.
+
+"By the way, Geordie," I began, "I have not seen you in the kirk of
+late."
+
+"What's that?" said Geordie, his invariable challenge, securing time to
+adjust himself for the encounter.
+
+"I have missed you nearly all winter from the church on the Sabbath
+day," I replied, leaving no room for further uncertainty.
+
+Geordie capitulated slowly: "I'll grant ye I've no' been by-ord'nar
+regglar," he admitted, "but I hae a guid excuse. I haena been ower weel.
+Ma knee's been sair. To tell ye the truth, minister, half the time
+'twas a' I could dae to get doon to curl."
+
+I sighed heavily and said no more, for Geordie was hopelessly sincere in
+his idea of first things first.
+
+The very next night I was sitting quietly in my study, talking to
+Margaret and Angus, though I was beginning to suspect already that they
+had come to endure my absence with heroic fortitude.
+
+About eleven o'clock the door-bell rang, and I answered it myself. It
+was Geordie's distracted wife. Leading her to the drawing-room, I asked
+her mission, though her pale and care-rung face left little room for
+doubt.
+
+"Wad ye think it bold o' me, sir, gin I was to ask you to find Geordie
+an' fetch him hame? He's off sin' yestere'en."
+
+"Why, it was only yesterday evening I saw him on the ice."
+
+"Ay, sir, but he winned the game, an' that's aye a loss for Geordie; he
+aye tak's himsel' to the tavern when he wins. Oh, sir, ma hairt's fair
+broken; it's a twalmonth this verra nicht sin' oor wee Jessie dee'd, an'
+I was aye lippenin' to that to bring him till himsel'; but he seems waur
+nor ever--he seeks to droon his sorrow wi' the drink."
+
+I had often marvelled at this; for Geordie's last word to his little
+daughter had been a promise to meet her in the land o' the leal. But it
+is not chains alone that make a slave.
+
+After a little further conversation, I sent the poor woman home,
+assuring her that I would do the best I could for Geordie. Which promise
+I proceeded to fulfill. Two or three of his well-known resorts had been
+visited with fruitless quest, when I repaired to the Maple Leaf, a
+notoriously sunken hole, which thus blasphemed the name of the fairest
+emblem of the nations. I observed a few sorry wastrels leaning in
+maudlin helplessness upon the bar as I pressed in, still cleaving to
+their trough--but Geordie was not among them. I was about to withdraw,
+when I heard a familiar voice, above the noise of a phonograph, from one
+of the rooms just above the bar. It was Geordie's.
+
+"Gie us 'Nearer, my God, to Thee,'" I heard him cry, with drunken
+unction. "Gin ye haena ane o' the psalms o' Dauvit i' yir kist o' tunes,
+mak' the creetur play 'Nearer, my God, to Thee.'"
+
+Here was Geordie's evil genius in evidence again, his profligacy and his
+piety hand in hand. Ascending the stairs, I reached the door just in
+time to see the landlord, manipulator of the musical machine, forcing
+Geordie to the door, one hand gripping his throat, the other buffeting
+the helpless wretch in the face. Two or three of his unspeakable
+kindred were applauding him.
+
+"Get out of here, you beast," he muttered savagely, "and let decent folk
+enjoy themselves. You'll not get no music nor no whisky either, hangin'
+round an honest man's house without a penny in your pocket--get out, you
+brute." And he struck him full in the face again.
+
+It were wrong to say that I forgot I was a minister; I think I recalled
+that very thing, and it gave more power to my arm, for I knew the
+poverty amid which Geordie's poor wife strove to keep their home
+together; and the pitiful bareness of wee Jessie's death-chamber flashed
+before me. This well-nourished vampire had sucked the life-blood from
+them all, and remembering this, I rushed into the unequal conflict and
+smote the vampire between his greedy eyes with such fervour that he fell
+where he stood. In a moment he was on his feet again, but my ministry
+with him was not complete, and I seized him where he had gripped his own
+victim, by the throat.
+
+"Let me be. Remember you're a minister," he gasped.
+
+"God forbid I should forget," I thundered back, for my blood was hot. I
+remembered just then that wee Jessie had been dependent on charity for
+the little delicacies that go with death; "and if God helps me you
+won't forget it either," with which addition I hurled him down the
+stairs, his final arrival signalled back by the sulphurous aroma of
+bruised and battered maledictions.
+
+It may be incidentally inserted here that this unclerical encounter of
+mine was afterwards referred to at a meeting of St. Cuthbert's session.
+One of the elders, never very friendly to me, preferred the charge of
+conduct unbecoming a minister. Only two of his colleagues noticed the
+indictment, and they both were elders of the old Scotch school.
+
+"Oor minister's fine at the castin' doon o' the strongholds o' Satan,"
+said the one; "it minds me o' what the beasts got i' the temple."
+
+"It's mebbe no' Solomon's exact words, but it's gey like them: 'A time
+to pit on the goon an' a time to tak' aff the coat'--an' it's the yae
+kin' o' proheebeetion that's ony guid forbye," said the other.
+
+The groaning landlord was soon removed by the loving hands of his wife
+and the hostler; and as I convoyed Geordie out past their family
+sitting-room, tenderly so called, the phonograph breathed out the last
+expiring strains of "Wull ye no' come back again?" which the aforesaid
+landlord had selected in preference to Geordie's pious choice.
+
+Measures for the sufferer's relief had been swift; the air was already
+rich with the fumes of high wines, the versatile healer of internal
+griefs and external wounds alike.
+
+When Geordie and I were well upon the street a new difficulty presented
+itself.
+
+"It's a sair shock, an' it'll kill the wife," I heard him muttering
+beneath his breath.
+
+This gave me some little hope, for I detected in it the beauty of
+penitence.
+
+"Your wife will forgive you, Geordie," I began; "and if this will only
+teach----"
+
+But he stopped me; his face showed that he had been sorely
+misunderstood.
+
+"Forgie me--forgie me! It's no' me she'll hae till forgie. Are ye no'
+the minister o' St. Cuthbert's? Ah, ye canna deny that. I ken that fine.
+I kent ye as sune as ye cam' slippin' ben the taivern. It'll fair kill
+the wife."
+
+"What are you talking about?" I said testily.
+
+"To think I wad live to see my ain minister slippin' by intil a taivern
+at sic a time o' nicht," he groaned despondingly.
+
+Then he turned upon me, his voice full of sad reproof: "I'm no' what I
+micht be masel', but I dinna mak' no profession; but to think I'd catch
+my ain minister hangin' roon' a taivern at this time o' nicht. It'll
+kill the wife. She thocht the warld o' ye."
+
+What the man was driving at was slowly borne in upon me.
+
+"But you do not understand, Geordie," I began.
+
+He stopped me again: "Dinna mak' it waur wi' yir explanations. I
+un'erstaun' fine. I un'erstaun' noo why they ca' ye a feenished
+preacher--ye're damn weel feenished for me an' Betsy. An' gin I tell hoo
+I fun' ye oot (which I'm no' sayin' I'll dae), ilka sate i' the kirk
+will be empty the comin' Sabbath day. Ye're a wolf in sheep's claes, an'
+I'm sair at hairt the nicht."
+
+I saw the uselessness of any attempt to enlighten him, for he was
+evidently sincere in his illusion, and the spirit of real grief could be
+detected, mingling with another which poisoned the air at every breath.
+Whereupon I left him to himself as we walked along, Geordie swaying
+gently, overcome by the experiences of the departed hour.
+
+"It maun hae a fearfu' haud o' ye when ye cam' oot at sic an oor," he
+said at length, half to himself. "But it clean spiled a graun' nicht for
+me to see ye slippin' ben. It was a graun' nicht up till that. I canna
+jist mind if it was a funeral or a weddin'--but it was fair graun'. We
+drinkit the health o' ane anither till there wasna ache or pain amangst
+us, but this spiles it a' for me. An' it'll kill the wife."
+
+"You will see it differently," I could not help but say; "you know well
+how I have tried to help you and tried to comfort your poor wife."
+
+"That's what I aye thocht till noo," he responded plaintively. "I was
+sayin' that same thing this verra nicht to ane o' my freens at the
+taivern afore ye cam'. It was auld Tam Rutherford, wha's gaun to be
+mairrit again, and him mair nor auchty years o' age. I warnt him against
+it, an' I telt him his ither wumman was deid but sax months. But Tam
+said as hoo a buddy at his age canna afford to wait ower lang, an' I
+didna ken what answer to gie to that."
+
+Then Geordie stopped, evidently resuming the quest for an appropriate
+reply; for Scotch wit is usually posthumous, their responses serial and
+their arguments continued in their next.
+
+I was naturally curious as to what part I could have had in this
+discussion, and since Geordie seemed to have forgotten the original
+subject, I asked, "What has that to do with my trying to help or comfort
+anybody?"
+
+"Ou ay," he resumed. "Tam was sayin' as hoo he'd no' hae yirsel' to
+mairry them, for he said ye're ower affectionate wi' the brides. But I
+stuck up for you. I telt him yir sympathies was braid, but ye didna pick
+oot the lassies for it a'. I was at Wullie Lee's the nicht Wullie dee'd;
+an' I was fair scunnert at the elders. There was twa o' them, an' they
+prayed turn aboot.
+
+"When Wullie slippit awa, at midnight his twa dochters, Kirsty an' Ann,
+took on redeek'lus, an' the auld wumman was waur. But the twa elders sat
+an oor, comfortin' the twa lassies, ane to ilka ane, an' baith o' them
+no' bad to luik at. They comfortit them muckle the same as I comfortit
+Betsy when we did oor coortin', but the puir auld buddy was left her
+lane wi' naebody to comfort her ava. I did it masel' a wee while. That's
+what I telt Tam, an' I pinted oot the difference atween you an' the
+elders. I said as hoo ye wad hae pickit oot the auld buddy first---- But
+to think ma ain een saw ye comin' ben the taivern ayont twal o'clock at
+nicht."
+
+With such varied discourse did Geordie beguile our homeward way, which
+at last brought us to his dwelling-place.
+
+"I want ye to promise me ae thing afore we pairt," said Geordie. "It's
+for yir ain guid I'm askin' it."
+
+"What is it?" I asked curiously.
+
+"I want ye to sign the pledge," he responded, with a tearful voice, "for
+it maun hae a sair hand o' ye or ye wadna be prowlin' aboot a taivern at
+sic a time o' nicht."
+
+"I will talk to you some other time about that."
+
+"Weel, weel, jist as ye wull--it'll dae again--but man, hoo'll ye
+square it wi' the wife when ye gang hame to the manse the nicht? We'll
+baith hae oor ain times, I'm dootin'. Here's a sweetie for ye; it's a
+peppermint lozenge, an' it's a graun' help. Guid-nicht."
+
+I had taken but forty steps or so when a solicitous voice called out,
+"Lie wi' yir back to the wife--an' sip the sweetie--an' breathe in to
+yersel'."
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+"_NOO, The IN-TURN_"
+
+
+The Apostles' Creed should be revised. One great article of faith it
+lacks. "I believe in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins,
+the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting"--thus peal its
+bells of gold. But where is the faithful and observant minister who
+would not add, "I believe in the change of the leopard's spots and of
+the Ethiopian's skin"? Nowadays, we speak of conversion with pity and
+amusement, but it is the greatest word the Christian Church can boast,
+and the Scripture miracles were long ago entombed had they not lived
+again in their legitimate descendants.
+
+We are prone to think that men believe in modern miracles because of
+those of long ago--but the reverse is true: the modern miracles are the
+attestation of those early wonders; and I myself believe the Galilean
+records because of His credentials in this Western World and in this
+present day.
+
+The very morning after the eventful night described above, I was busy at
+my desk, travailing in birth with my sermon for the next Sabbath
+morning. Strangely enough, it was from the words, "Why should it be
+thought a thing incredible?" which is at heart no interrogative at all,
+but the eternal affirmative of all religion, the basis of all faith, the
+inevitable corollary of God.
+
+I was casting about for a fitting illustration, fumbling in imagery's
+twilight chamber and ransacking the halls of history, when lo! God sent
+one knocking at the door. I responded to the knock myself, and Geordie
+Lorimer stood before me. His face seemed strangely chastened, and the
+voice which craved a private interview filled me somehow with subtle
+hope and joy. For the voice is the soul's great index; and this of
+Geordie's spoke of a soul's secret convalescence. The breath of spring
+exuded from his words.
+
+I locked my study door as we passed in together; for a Protestant
+confessional is a holy place, excelling far the Catholic, even as a
+love-letter excels a bill of lading.
+
+"What is it, Geordie?" I asked, with tender eagerness.
+
+"I dinna ken exactly, but I think it's life," he answered with new-born
+passion, "and eternal life at that. I canna tell it an' I canna thole it
+till I do tell it. I maunna mak' ower free wi' God; but it's my soul,
+minister, it's my soul, an' I'm a new creature. I'm new in the sicht o'
+God an' He's new in mine--an' I prayed this mornin', a thing I haena
+dune for mair than twenty years--an' the auld burn was sweet an' clear,
+like when my laddie's lips sippit there lang syne--I daurna speak His
+name ower often, but God is gey guid to the sinfu' an' the weary."
+
+"None but they can know how good," was my response.
+
+My remark seemed to pass unnoticed, for Geordie had more to say.
+
+"Hark ye, an' I'll tell ye hoo God cam' to me. 'Twas near the dawn this
+verra mornin' I had a dream, an' wee Jessie cam' to me. An' that was
+God, nae ither ane but God. 'Oot o' the mooth o' babes,' is that no' i'
+the Buik? For wee Jessie stood beside the bed, an' I luikit at her an' I
+said, 'My little dochter.' 'Twas a' I could say, an' she pit her saft
+haun' on my heid sae gentle, an' sae blessed cool, for my heid was
+burnin' hot. She luikit lang, an' her een was fu' o' love: 'Faither,'
+she said, 'did ye no' promise yir lassie to meet her in the Faither's
+hoose? Oh, faither, I've come to mind ye o' yir promise an' to set yir
+puir feet upon the path ance mair. God loves ye, faither; I hae it frae
+Himsel'; an' there's mony a ane wi' Him noo in white wha wandered
+farther bye nor you. An' God 'll try, gin ye'll try yirsel', an' yir wee
+Jessie 'll no' be far frae ye. Wull ye no' come, faither? for yir ain
+lassie, an' mither, an' God, a' want ye.'
+
+"I luikit lang intil her angel face, but I was feart to speak, for I
+wasna worthy. The road was bricht eneuch, but I wasna fit to gang.
+
+"'I ken what yir thinkin' o', faither. I ken yir enemy--an' God kens.
+It's the drink. But it'll pass yir lips nae mair. I'll kiss them,
+faither, an' they'll burn wi' the awfu' thirst nae mair.'
+
+"An' she stoopit doon an' kissed my burnin' lips; an' I waukit up, an'
+the fever was a' past an' by. I tell't Betsy, an' she grat wi' joy.
+'It's i' the Buik,' she said.
+
+"'What's i' the Buik?' I speirt.
+
+"'A little child shall lead them,' Betsy said."
+
+I talked a little while with Geordie as one talks with a shipwrecked
+sailor who has gained the shore. He asked me to pray.
+
+"Mak' it easy," he said, "I'm no' far ben the Mystery yet. I'm but a
+bairn; but my lips are pure, an' the fever's by."
+
+We knelt together, and I prayed: "O Friend of sinners, help us both, for
+we are both sinners. Keep us, blessed Lord, and let his little daughter
+be near us both to help us on the way. We will both try our best, and
+Thou wilt too. Amen."
+
+My half-written sermon never has been finished. I was constrained to
+take another text, and the next Sabbath morn I saw Betsy Lorimer bow her
+head in reverent adoration when I gave it out--
+
+"Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister?"
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+_HOW ELSIE WON The GATE_
+
+
+The forest's glory is departed when its giant trees lie low. And, stroke
+by stroke, my St. Cuthbert's Kirk was thus bereft of its outstanding
+glories. For great men are like great trees, the shelter of all others
+and the path-finders towards the sky.
+
+My sun is westering now, and the oft-repeated crash as these mighty
+stalwarts fall keeps my heart in almost abiding sadness. For the second
+growth gives no promise of a stock which shall be worthy successors to
+these noble pioneers, the conquering gladiators of Canada's shadowy
+forests, the real makers of her great and portentous national life. And
+yet, strange to say, I never knew their real greatness while I lived
+among them, sharing in the varied chase, but only when they came to die.
+
+This was especially true of those who boasted far-back highland blood,
+for their depths of tenderness and heights of faith and scope of
+spiritual vision were sternly hidden till the helplessness of death
+betrayed them. Then was the key to their secret life surrendered; then
+might all men see the face at the pane. But not till then; for every
+stolid feature, every stifled word or glance of tenderness, every
+muffled note of religious self-revealment, swelled their life's noble
+perjury. To their own hurt they swore, changing not. But at their real
+best he saw them who saw them die.
+
+In that ingenuous hour they spoke once more their mother tongue of love
+and faith with an accuracy which told of lifelong rehearsal within their
+secret hearts. When the golden bowl was broken, its holy contents,
+flowing free, poured forth the long-imprisoned fragrance.
+
+How many a day, cold and gray, flowers at sunset into rich redemptive
+beauty, cheerless avenue leading to its grand Cathedral West! Thus have
+I seen these Scottish lives, stern and cold and rayless, break into
+flame at evening, in whose light I caught the glory of the very gates of
+the City of God.
+
+It was the winter of the strike, whose story I have already told, that
+Elsie M'Phatter heard the Voice which calls but once. Long and gentle
+had been the slope towards the river, and I held Elsie's hand every step
+of the way, myself striving to hold that other Hand which is truly
+visible only in the darkness; but the last stage of the journey came
+swift and suddenly. About two in the morning I was awakened by the loud
+alarm of my door-bell.
+
+The minister knows well that at such an hour his bell is rung only by
+eternal winds, and the alarm is an almost certain message that the
+rapids are near and that he is wanted at the helm. On Atlantic liners I
+have never heard the ominous note that calls the captain from his cabin
+to the bridge without thinking of my midnight bell, and that deeper
+darkness, and that more awful channel.
+
+It was the doctor's boy who thus summoned me, bidding me hurry to
+Elsie's bedside, for the tide was ebbing fast, he said. I was soon on my
+way through the frosty night, silently imploring the unseen Pilot that
+He would safe into the haven guide. To His great wisdom and His
+sheltering love I committed all the case, making oath beneath the silent
+stars that I had myself no other hope than this with which I hurried to
+yonder dying one. For a man's own heart must swear by the living Lord,
+or else he will find no path through the dread wilderness of death for
+the unreturning feet.
+
+When the outskirts of the town were but well behind me, I saw in the
+distance a solitary light which I knew at once to be the death-chamber
+lamp; at sight whereof my heart has never outgrown a strange leap of
+trembling fear, like a scout when he catches the first warning gleam of
+the enemy's campfire. Yonder, I said to myself, is the battle-field of
+a soul, struggling with its last great foe; yonder the central crisis
+of all time and all eternity; yonder the heaving breast, the eager,
+onward look, the unravelling of mystery, the launching of a soul upon
+eternal seas.
+
+No life is ever commonplace when that lamp burns beside it, and no
+wealth, or genius, or greatness can palliate its relentless gleam.
+There, continued I, stands the dread unseen Antagonist, asking no chair,
+demanding no courtesy, craving no welcome, resenting no frowning and
+averted face; calmly does he brook the terror and the hatred excited by
+his uninvited advent, serene in the confidence that his is the central
+figure, that the last word is his, though all pretend to ignore his
+presence. Like a sullen creditor he stands, careless that every man's
+hand is against him, relentlessly following his prey, willing that all
+others should wait his time and theirs, intent only that this night
+shall have its own.
+
+And yet, I thought, what a false picture is this that my coward heart
+hath drawn! There is Another in that room, I cried half loud, Another
+there before me, whose swift feet have outrun my poor trudging through
+the snow. For He is there who lit that feeble lamp itself, and it burns
+only by His will. Death-lamp though it be, it is still a broken light of
+Him, witness, in its own dark way, to the All-kindling Hand. The Lover
+of the soul is yonder, and will share His dear-bought victory with my
+poor dying one.
+
+Whereat I pressed on eagerly, for I love to witness a reprieve, such as
+many a time it hath been mine to see when the Greater Antagonist
+prevails.
+
+The death damp was on Elsie's brow when I knelt beside her bed, but her
+eyes were kindled from afar, and a great Presence filled the room.
+Donald was bowed beside her, his wife's wasted hand clasped passionately
+in his own.
+
+I knelt over the dying woman and softly repeated the swelling anthem
+which no lips can sing aright till the great Vision quickens them:
+"These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed
+their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
+
+Elsie's voice blended with the great words, and turning her lustrous
+eyes full on my face, she murmured--
+
+"It's a' bricht and blythesome whaur I'm walkin' noo--there's no valley
+here nor nae glen ava, but the way is fu' o' licht and beauty."
+
+Her eyes sought her husband's face: "Oh, Donal'! To think we canna walk
+this way thegither! We've clomb the hill thegither, Donal', mony a time
+sair an' weary, but oor hairts were stoot when the brae was stae; but
+noo I've reached the bonnie bit ayont the brae, an' ye're a' 'at's
+wantin', Donal', to mak' it fair beautiful! But ye'll no' be lang ahint
+me, wull ye, Donal'?--an' the Maister 'll come back to guide ye, gin I'm
+gone bye the gate. An' we'll aye walk thegither in the yonner-land."
+
+Donald's face was dry, but drawn in its agony. Its ache passed on into
+my soul. He bent over her like some bowing oak, and the rustle of love's
+foliage was fairly audible to the inward ear, though the oak itself
+seemed hard and gnarled as ever. He whispered something, like a mighty
+organ lilting low and sweet some mother's lullaby, and no tutor except
+Great Death could have taught Donald that gentle language. For I caught
+the word "darling," and again "oor Saviour," and once "the hameland,"
+and it was like a lark's gentlest note issuing from a mighty mountain's
+cleft.
+
+O Death, how unjustly thou hast been maligned! Men have painted thee as
+cruel, monstrous, hateful, the enemy of love, the despoiler of the home,
+the spirit of harshness, the destroyer of all poesy and romance. And yet
+thou hast done more to fill life with softness and with gentle beauty
+than all the powers of life and light whose antagonist thou hast been
+called. Thou hast heaped coals of fire on thy traducers' heads. For hast
+thou not made the heaviest foot fall lightly with love's considerate
+tread? Hast thou not made the rough, coarse palm into a sanctuary and
+pavilion wherein the dying hand may shelter? Hast thou not taught the
+loud and boisterous voice the new song of tenderness and pity,
+whispering like a dove? Within thy school the rude and harsh have
+learned the nurse's gentle art, and the world's swaggering warriors
+serve as acolytes before thy shadowy altar. The peasant's cottage owes
+to thee its transformation to cathedral splendour, the censers gently
+swinging when thou sayest the soul's great mass, at even, or at
+midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning. Thou hast classed
+together the hovel and the palace, glowing with equal solemn grandeur,
+so that no man can tell the one from the other when the crape upon the
+door betokens that thou tarriest there. Thou hast promoted sodden sleep
+to be the most awful metaphor of time. Thou hast stripped wealth and
+grandeur, leaving them but a shroud, and hast clothed obscurity and
+poverty with their eternally suggestive robe; thou hast affirmed, and
+thou preserved, that grim average of life which greatness refuses, which
+littleness fears, to realize. Romance and Poetry and Fancy are thy
+wards, making as thou dost the most holden eyes to overleap time's poor
+horizon, following departed treasure with wistful and unresigning love,
+as birds follow their ravaged nests, crying as they go. Oh, sombre
+chantress! Thou hast filled the world with song, plaintive and piteous
+though it be.
+
+"What is it, mother?" I heard Donald whisper; and the answer evidently
+came back to him from the dying lips. For he turned to me, his face full
+of tragedy: "She's talkin' aboot Robin," he said hoarsely; "but ye dinna
+ken. Robin was oor laddie--an' he's oor laddie yet, though we've had nae
+word o' him for mony a year. Him an' me pairted in wrath, an' he went
+oot intil the dark nicht. I was ower prood tae ca' him back, but his
+mither followed him to the moor, cryin' after him--an' she cam' back
+alane."
+
+Donald stopped suddenly, for the mother's struggling voice was heard:
+"Come hame, Robin, for it's cauld an' dark, an' ye've been ower lang
+awa; but there's a place at the ingle for ye yet, my bairn. I've aye
+keepit it for ye, an' I keepit the fire burnin' ever sin' ye left us. I
+wadna let it oot. An' ilka nicht I pit the lamp i' the window, for I aye
+thocht, 'He'll mebbe come the nicht.'"
+
+"She's wanderin'," Donald said to me, awe mingling with his voice.
+
+"She's found the wanderer," I said; and we both moved nearer, each
+signalling the other to be still.
+
+Elsie's gaze passed us by, outgoing far into the darkness.
+
+"Na, na, Robin; yir faither'll no' be angry. I ken fine a' ye say is
+true, but he's yir faither for a' that. An' he loves ye maist as weel as
+me; but oh, my bonnie, there's nane loves ye like yir mither! His
+hairt's fair broken for ye, Robin. I'll tell ye something, but ye maunna
+tell yir faither. I heard him pray for ye all alane by himsel'. He
+prayed to God to bring ye back--he ca'd ye Robin richt to God. An' I
+never heard yir faither greet afore or syne. The Buik, tae, it wad open
+o' itsel' at the prodigal, an' it was his daein', an' he didna think I
+kent; but I kent it fine, an' I thankit the Heavenly Faither mony a
+time."
+
+She stopped, exhausted, her soul flickering in her voice. Donald moved,
+his great form coming athwart her eager, kindling eyes. She stirred, her
+vision evidently hindered, and Donald stepped quickly from before her,
+gazing with passionate intentness, his eyes shaded by his hand like one
+who peers into a lane of light.
+
+"As one whom his mother comforteth, so will--" I began.
+
+"Hush!" said Donald sternly, "she's wi' him yet. Hark ye!"
+
+Her strength seemed now returning, for she went on--
+
+"Ay, Robin, I'm tellin' ye the truth. Yir faither's thocht o' ye is the
+thocht he had when ye were a bit bairn in his airms."
+
+The anguished father flung himself upon his knees beside the bed, his
+hand gently stroking his wife's withered cheek.
+
+"Tell him that again, mither; tell him my thocht o' him was aye the same
+as yir ain, when I thocht o' him atween God an' me. Tell him me an' you
+baith thocht the same. Bid him hame, Elsie. Oh, mither, I've been the
+wanderer masel', an' I'm weary."
+
+My heart melted in me at this, for the eternal fatherly was sobbing
+through his voice.
+
+The familiar tones seemed to call Elsie back from her delirium, for she
+suddenly looked upon us as if we had not been there before.
+
+"Oh, faither, Robin's comin' hame the nicht. Is the lamp kindled in the
+window? We've baith been wae these mony years, but the mirk'll be past
+an' by when oor laddie's safe hame wi' us again."
+
+A strange sense of the nearness of the supernatural took possession of
+me, for Elsie's voice was not the voice of fevered fancy; the fast
+ebbing tide of life seemed to flow back again, her strength visibly
+increased, as if she must remain till her Robin had been welcomed home.
+
+In spite of reason, I fell to listening eagerly, wondering if this were
+indeed the act of God. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with
+us that the Rebuilder of Bethany's desolated house should still ply His
+ancient industry?
+
+"Raise me up a little, faither, for I maun watch the gate."
+
+Donald lifted his dying wife with caressing easiness.
+
+"That'll dae; ay, we've baith been wae these mony years, but the mirk is
+bye.
+
+    "'Long hath the night of sorrow reigned,
+        The dawn shall bring us light.'
+
+The morn is wi' us, Donal', an' Robin's at the gate."
+
+Far past the flickering lamp she gazed, and her eyes' light rose and
+fell in unison with approaching steps.
+
+"He's bye the gate," she cried; and joy held death at bay, for the words
+chimed like cathedral bells.
+
+Fearsome to behold was the awestruck face which Donald turned to mine,
+and full of questioning dread, I doubt not, were the eyes that met his
+own. Was this the doing of the Lord, or was it but the handiwork of
+death, that wizard oculist, so often lending mystic vision to pilgrims
+setting under darkness out to sea?
+
+Leaving death and Elsie to their unequal conflict, we started with one
+impulse to the window; but Donald was there before me, his eyes shaded
+by his hands, burning through the dark a pathway to the gate.
+
+"God be mercifu'," he muttered, and then turned swiftly towards the
+stairs, for a hand was fumbling at the latch. I waited trembling, and I
+heard no word; but the aroma of a soul's second spring stole sweet and
+unafraid into the chamber of death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I met them at the door as Donald said, "Yir mither's deein'," and there
+broke from the rugged man beside him a low moaning sound, like to many
+waters when some opposing thing hath at length been overswept. It was
+quickly checked, and the silence of love and anguish took its place.
+
+I drew Donald gently back and closed the door upon them twain, the
+waiting mother and the wandering son, for there was never bridal hour
+like to this.
+
+"My mither, oh, my mither!" I heard him say; and Elsie spoke no word,
+but the long ache was ended and the great wound was well.
+
+'Twas but a moment again when a trembling voice called, "Faither, she's
+wantin' ye."
+
+We entered the love-lit room, and Elsie beckoned him swiftly to her
+side.
+
+"I maun be gaun sune," she whispered, and then followed some words too
+low for my ears to catch.
+
+Donald turned to me: "She wants to hae the sacrament dispensit till us
+a'," and his face was full of dubious entreaty, for the kirk session of
+St. Cuthbert's was sternly set against private administration.
+
+The session and its rules were in that moment to me but as the dust.
+Beyond their poor custody was a holy hour such as this. The little table
+was quickly spread, the snow-white bread and the wine pressed by a
+mother's priestly hands. I was about to proceed with the holy ordinance
+when Elsie stopped me.
+
+"Bide a meenit. Donal', get ye the token, the ane wee Elsie loved. My
+hairt tells me she's no' far awa the noo. She'll e'en show forth the
+Lord's deith alang wi' us. The Maister o' the feast is here, and why wad
+He no' bring oor Elsie wi' Him? Wha kens but I'll gang hame wi' them
+baith?"
+
+Her husband, obedient to the seer's voice, passed quickly to an
+adjoining room, and in an instant reappeared, bearing the well-worn
+token in his hands, the same his dying child had fondly held; and I
+heard again the low refrain which grief had taught him years ago:
+"Christ an' oor Elsie--an' her mither." This last was new, learned in
+sorrow's latest hour.
+
+He handed it to his wife, who took it, turning her wan face to mine.
+
+"There's only ane, but it'll dae us a'--let Robin haud it. Tak' it,
+laddie; it's warm frae yir sister's haun'."
+
+The wanderer's reverent hand received it, and holy memories, long
+banished, flowed back into the heart that had not been their home since
+the golden days of boyhood. Of his mother and his sister were they all,
+and they laved that heart till it was almost clean, for they were in
+disguise but memories of God, foreshadowing the Greater Incarnation.
+
+"Noo we're ready, an' we're a' here. Raise the psalm, faither, the
+sacrament ane," she said faintly--"tak' St. Paul's," and Donald's
+quavering voice essayed--
+
+    "I'll of salvation take the cup,
+       On God's name will I call;
+     I'll pay my vows now to the Lord
+       Before His people all.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Dear in God's sight is His saints' death,
+       Thy servant, Lord"--
+
+but the faltering voice refused.
+
+I broke the bread and poured the wine, handing the sacred emblems first
+to the dying one, so soon to take them new in the kingdom of God. Then
+Donald partook, and buried his face in his hands. To Robin next I
+proffered the holy symbols, but he drew back, stretching forth his hands
+towards the bed.
+
+"I daurna--I've wandered ower far," he said. "I hear the russlin' o' the
+husks."
+
+"Dinna fear, Robin," whispered his mother's lips. "We're a' but bairns
+comin' back to oor Faither's hoose; God loves ye mair than either yir
+faither or me,--I'm near the kingdom, an' I ken."
+
+"My son, my laddie,"--it was his father's broken voice,--"let us tak'
+the feast thegither. I'm a puir prodigal masel'--but the door is open
+wide, an' we'll baith come hame to God."
+
+"I'll tak' it frae ma mither's hands," said Robin.
+
+I handed the elements to her, ordained from all eternity to minister to
+the son she bore; with trembling hands she dispensed them to him, high
+priestess unto God, her dying eyes distilling the very love which shed
+its fragrance when the all but dying Saviour first brake the holy bread.
+
+When we were through, Elsie's voice was heard saying to herself "Unto
+Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood," which
+was followed by a long silence.
+
+"Wull ye no' pronounce the benediction?" Donald said at last, for he was
+by nature an ecclesiastic.
+
+"Did you not hear it?" I replied.
+
+The silence deepened, the breathing grew heavier, and we two stood
+together looking down upon her face. Robin's was by his mother's.
+Suddenly her eyes opened wide, fastening themselves upon her son.
+
+"I'll sune win hame," she murmured gladly, "an' I want ye to say yir bit
+prayer to me, Robin, afore I gang, the way ye did when ye were a
+bairnie. Kneel doon, Robin, an' say it to me, an' we'll baith say it to
+God, for I'm weary tae. 'Noo I lay me,' ye ken."
+
+The strong man bowed beside his mother's bed, and the great anthem
+began, the sobbing bass of the broken heart mingling with the feeble
+dying voice--
+
+    "Now I lay me down to sleep,
+     I pray Thee Lord my soul to keep;
+     If I should die before I wake,
+     I pray Thee Lord my soul to take."
+
+Suddenly she pointed with uplifted hand: "Oh, faither, I see oor Elsie's
+face--an' the token's in her haun', an' it's a' bricht wi' gowden licht.
+She's biddin' us a' hame--me, an' faither, an' Robin----" and she passed
+into the homeland bearing the prodigal's name with her up to God.
+
+I gently closed her eyes. Donald stood long beside the bed; then, taking
+his son into his arms, he said--
+
+"Yir mither's bye the gate."
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+_A MAIDEN'S LOVE_
+
+
+What self-contradicting things we are! The very joys we crave bring
+sorrow when they come; for they crowd out some only lesser joy, which,
+rejected, turns to bitterness and takes its long revenge. It is one of
+the blessed laws of life that no heart, however hospitable, can
+entertain more than one sorrow at one time, how many so ever be waiting
+at the door. Each must wait its turn.
+
+But alas! Joy has its corresponding law; every heart's pleasure is an
+alternative, and if much we would enjoy, much also we must renounce. Joy
+usually comes as twins, and the great perplexity is to discern which the
+first-born is, that our homage may not return unto us void.
+
+Of many of our deepest longings may it not be said that their
+fulfillment would be our keenest disappointment? For instance, the wife
+of our family physician is forever lamenting that no spouse in all New
+Jedboro sees as little of her husband as does she, forever longing that
+he might be released to the enjoyment of his own fireside. Yet should a
+fickle or convalescent public suddenly so release him, our doctor's
+wife would be of all women most miserable.
+
+Even as I write, I am disturbed by a lad of twenty who starts to-day on
+his long journey to Athabasca and the waiting prairies of our great
+Canadian West.
+
+Full of pathetic joy is his youthful face; but his mother is bowed
+beside the bed whereon she gave him birth--her cup, she thinks, would be
+full to overflowing if her first-born son were suddenly to dispack his
+box and take up the old nestling life again. The sun would have turned
+back to its undimmed meridian, she weens; and yet she knows full well
+that this very longing, were it gratified, would poison her overflowing
+cup and tarnish her mother's pride. If she were asked to choose between
+these two, womanlike, she would elect to have them both--but God
+forbids.
+
+The youth's father says: "Let the lad go forth"--and God is a Father,
+though He takes counsel of a mother-heart.
+
+All this reflective vein flows from this poor heart of mine, the truth
+whereof that heart hath sorrowfully proved.
+
+For my daughter Margaret holds within it a place of solitary tenderness,
+more exclusively her own as the years go by. And I too was forced to the
+great alternative, the same which hath wrung uncounted parents' hearts
+before I saw the light, the same as will rend thousands more when that
+poor light has filtered through darkness into Day.
+
+What father is there who can contemplate without dismay the prospect of
+his only daughter surrendered to another's care, though that other press
+the cruel claim of a mate's more passionate love? Where is the father
+that does not long to shelter his child's sweet innocence forever within
+the pavilion of his heart's loving tenderness? And yet, where is the
+father who would be free from torture, were he assured that his soul's
+yearning would be satisfied, and that no high claim of unrelated love
+would ever rival or dispute his own?
+
+It was my own fault that Margaret's attachment to Angus Strachan came to
+me as a bolt from the blue. I had never dreamed of it--I was so sure of
+everybody loving Margaret that I never thought of anybody loving her. Of
+course it was easily seen that their friendship was mutually cherished;
+but friendship, although a mother's hope, is a father's reassurance.
+Margaret's mother had more than once spoken of their friendship in that
+portentous tone which all women hope to assume before they die; and her
+words exuded the far-off fragrance of orange blossoms. She began with
+the assurance that the friendship between Angus and our Margaret had no
+particular meaning--to which I agreed. A little later on she ventured
+the remark that she did not think Angus cared for Margaret except as a
+friend--to which also I cheerfully agreed. Later still, she resorted to
+the interrogative, and asked me if I thought Margaret would ever marry,
+to which I answered: "I hope so, but she shall not with my consent."
+
+"I was married when I was Margaret's age," added my wife. (What woman is
+there who does not love to say the same?) "Margaret will soon be
+twenty."
+
+"Yes, my dear, but few women have the chance that came to you and no man
+ever had provocation like to mine." This was followed by a passage at
+arms, during which, of course, the fair debater's lips were sealed.
+
+By degrees my wife's attack upon the subject grew bolder and more
+frontal.
+
+"Do you think Margaret cares anything for Angus?" she asked, the hour
+being that post-retiring one sacred in every age to conjugal conference.
+
+"I don't think so--certainly not; why should she? We have a triangular
+family altogether--two to each of us, and why should she want any more?
+She has you and me, just as I have you and her, and you have her and
+me."
+
+"But that is foolish; you don't understand."
+
+"I don't want to understand," I answered drowsily. "Margaret's only a
+child--and I want to go to sleep; if I don't sleep over my sermon
+to-night, the people will to-morrow." For it was Saturday night.
+
+But "the child" was not asleep. The love affairs of other hearts are by
+others easily borne, even though those others be the next nearest and
+dearest of all. But how different with the maiden's heart that loves,
+and tremblingly hopes that it loves not in vain! Then doth the pillow
+burn with holy passion, and considerate sleep, like an indulgent nurse,
+turns her steps aside, fearing to break in upon the soul's solemn
+revelry. Even when she ventures nigh, gently withdrawing the still
+unwearied heart from its virgin joy, do the half open lips still sip
+from the new found cisterns of sweet and tender bliss.
+
+O holy love! Who shall separate the joy thou bringest from the heart
+that opens wide to welcome it, even as the flower bares its bosom to the
+sun?
+
+Darkness and tears and sorrow may follow fast; fears and misgivings and
+dread discoveries may come close upon thy train; broken-heartedness and
+bleak perpetual maidenhood may be thine only relics; or, flowering with
+the years, the thorns of grief and poverty and widowhood may grow where
+youthful fancy looked for radiant flowers; the heart which echoed with
+thy bridal song may yet peal forth the Rachel cry--but thou belongest
+to the heart forever, and none of these can dispossess the soul of its
+unforgotten transport. Nor fire, nor flood, nor fraud can prevail
+against thee! Thy treasures moth and rust doth not corrupt nor thieves
+break through and steal!
+
+As a burning building lends its heat to all beside it, so was my own
+soul kindled, half with rapture and half with anger, by the story of
+Margaret's passion. Father's and daughter's hearts were never pressed
+closer to each other than were mine and my only child's.
+
+It was the succeeding Sunday night that Margaret, in her father's arms,
+breathed out the tender tale; I was enjoying my evening smoke (a
+post-sermonic anodyne), but long before Margaret had finished, my cigar
+was in ashes and my heart in flame.
+
+"Father," she began, her face hidden on my shoulder, "I am either very
+happy or very wretched, and I cannot decide which till I know which you
+will be."
+
+"The old problem, daughter, is it not?" I answered. "Still longing to
+enter a hospital? And you want to wheedle your old father into giving
+you up?" for Margaret, like every other modern girl, had been craving
+entrance to that noble calling. The high-born and the love-lorn, those
+weary of life, or of love, or both, find a refuge there.
+
+"No, father, I was not thinking of that at all. I don't want to be a
+nurse any more."
+
+"What is it then? You have never had any secrets from your father and
+you will not have any now, will you, dear one?"
+
+"Oh, father, I will tell you all I can--but I cannot tell you all."
+
+I started in my chair, for the child note was absent from her words, and
+the passion of womanhood was in its stead. Awesome to a father's heart
+is that moment wherein a daughter's voice unconsciously asserts the
+suffrage of her soul.
+
+"Go on, my daughter--tell me what you may," I said, for I knew now that
+the realm was one wherein parental authority was of no avail.
+
+Only silence followed; her lips spoke no word, but the heaving bosom had
+a rhetoric all its own and told me that a new life, begotten not of
+mine, was throbbing there. An alien life it seemed to me, a soul's
+expansion beyond the province of my own, an infinitude which denied the
+sway of even a father's love. At length she spoke:
+
+"Oh, father, I will tell you all--that is, all I can. But I am so
+lonely. You cannot follow me, father. I have gone away in--with
+another--in where you cannot go."
+
+"What mean you, Margaret? In where? Where can I not come?" I asked,
+perplexed.
+
+"Father, let me tell you. I am speaking in a figure, I know--but it is
+the only way--and you will understand. Love is a far country, and
+prodigals take their journey there--but they seek it two by two. Oh,
+father, another one and I went off together to that far, far land and
+those who go leave father and mother far behind. But there is no hunger
+and no famine there."
+
+Rich the endowment love bestows! While we had all thought Margaret
+anything but dull, yet this new speech of metaphor and music fell upon
+my ears as a great surprise. That live coal from off God's altar had
+touched her lips when first another's burning lips of love anointed them
+with flame. When this new sun arises, the humblest of God's meadow
+creatures know that the soul has wings and spread them in that holy
+light.
+
+Closer to my breast I pressed the heart whose tumult, as it struggled
+with its muffled witnesses, started the same passionate riot in my own.
+
+"There are many voices in your heart, daughter mine; let them speak
+every one and tell me all their story. Where is it that your father
+cannot come?"
+
+"Father," she answered, with sweet calmness but with averted face, "I
+never loved you more than now. But love's joy is in its loneliness, its
+sweet bridal loneliness. It was a long weary way that another one and
+I--you know his name, and I cannot speak it yet--walked together, but
+not alone together; for others walked besides us--and friendship is a
+cruel thing. But oh, father dear, one day--no, it was in the gloaming,
+we saw an avenue far beyond; and we both knew it was for us and for us
+alone. I saw it first, but I did not let Angus know. But he saw it in a
+moment and he started quickly on. Then my feet fell back, though my
+heart pressed on with his. But Angus would not let me stop. He hurried
+me on; and it was sweet to be overborne, for love makes a man so strong
+and a woman so weak.
+
+"When we came close up to where you enter in, I saw that the way within
+was sweet, and shadowy, so shadowy, but I saw that it was long, so long.
+And I turned away, though my heart never turned. But Angus's eyes never
+moved from the avenue, and he whispered that it was meant for us
+two--just for us two--and for none on earth beside; he said no one could
+go in alone, because it would vanish if they did--and he held me
+close--and we went in together--and we shall come out no more forever.
+That is where you cannot come, father--nor mother, nor dearest friend
+can. You could not if you would, for it is God who keeps the gate."
+
+Her trembling voice was still, but throbbing heart and swelling bosom
+still poured forth their passionate utterance.
+
+Soon her lips opened again, yielding before the inner tide.
+
+"And father," her hot cheek pressed to mine foretold the ardent story,
+"it was at evening, as I said, and Angus and I had wandered far--farther
+than we thought. We were resting on a grassy knoll. Angus had been
+speaking of his mother, and he said that the beauty of nature always
+made his heart ache. Surely, father, there is nothing so lonesome as
+beauty when the heart's lonesome! Angus and I were still a long
+time--till it was growing dusk; and then at last he said, 'How lonely
+all this is if no one loves you!' And I started at his tone, and when my
+eyes met his I went down before them, for they caressed me so. Father
+dear, I need not tell you all. I could not if I would--no girl could. I
+know, I remember, oh, I remember what he said, and no one else knows but
+me, and my soul trusted him and he took me into the sheltering place
+where nobody but God could see my soul's surrender."
+
+"My daughter, my little daughter," was all I said.
+
+"Wait, father," her face now was hidden deep and she was whispering into
+my very heart, "there is another thing I want to tell you--no, two
+things, for they were both together.
+
+"Father, he kissed me--on the lips--and I did not believe it; for just a
+moment before we had been listening to the crickets and looking at the
+sun. But he kissed me on the lips and my whole soul surged hot, and my
+eyes were closed--for I felt him coming and I could not speak or move.
+
+"And I don't know why, but I thought of the sacrament and the holy wine,
+and everything was holy--not like music, but like a bell, a great
+cathedral bell with its unstained voice. And father (I shall feel purer
+when I tell you this), father, that very moment I felt a strange new
+life in my breast and the old girlish life was gone--and there came
+before my closed eyes a vision of another just like Angus, white and
+soft and helpless--and I heard its cry--and my heart melted in me with
+the great compassion. And I knew that what I called love was really
+life, just life. And I felt no shame at all, but a great pride that it
+was all so holy--for it is holy, father, and no one prompted it but God.
+Father, do you love me?"
+
+I bent to kiss the glowing lips, but I remembered, and kissed her brow
+instead, beautiful and pure before my misty eyes. She drew herself
+gently from my arms and in a moment the sweet presence had departed. But
+the fragrance of love and innocence was left behind and my faltering
+answer came at last, though she heard it not:
+
+"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God."
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+_A FATHER'S CRUCIFIXION_
+
+
+It is from joy alone that real sorrow can be brewed. Were joy to perish
+from the earth human lips would soon forget the bitter taste of anguish.
+The only intolerable clouds are those which follow swift upon some rosy
+morn, frowning its every sunbeam into darkness, pursuing its fugitive
+smiles as the hound pursues the deer. The soul's great sickness is in
+joy's relapse.
+
+Into the tide of our daughter's virgin gladness her mother and I were
+soon gladly swept. Love and joy are incendiary things and we soon
+succumbed to the sweet contagion. Apart altogether from our daughter's
+choice, he might well have been our own; for Angus Strachan was strong
+of body and vigorous of mind, and pure of soul. He had made swift
+strides in his chosen calling, and was now a partner in one of the
+manufacturing firms which were New Jedboro's pride. At the door of
+industry he had knocked with patient hand, and wealth had answered to
+that knock herself. He was a man of influence, ever increasing, in New
+Jedboro. In St. Cuthbert's, he was held in high esteem by all, and the
+next election, we knew, would call him to the elder's honoured place.
+Prepossessing in appearance, manly in bearing, musical in speech,
+fragrant in character, Angus might well wake the echoes of even our
+Margaret's noble heart.
+
+Wherefore there was joy in St. Cuthbert's manse, and in its three
+devoted hearts, beating high with a common hope. Our morning sun shone
+radiantly.
+
+But the eclipse came suddenly. It was again the Sabbath evening, and
+Margaret again was nestling close, her face bearing more and more the
+beauty which love's tuition gives.
+
+"Father," she suddenly began, "I want to ask you something."
+
+"What is it, child?" I said.
+
+"You know that verse in the Bible that says:--'Who did sin, this man or
+his parents?' You know the verse. Well father, who did sin? Was it the
+man, or was it his parents?"
+
+"What a strange question, child! What on earth has that to do with you?"
+
+"Never mind, father--let us stick to the text," she answered. "You are a
+minister and I want you to stick to the text. Tell me who did sin?"
+
+"Well, if the man's blindness was because of sin, since he was born
+blind and since he couldn't sin before he was born, I suppose it must
+have been his parents," I answered slowly. "What difference does it
+make to you?" For I was curious to know.
+
+"And don't you think," she went on unheedingly, "that it was cruel for
+anybody to hold that poor man responsible for his parents' sin?"
+
+"I suppose so, but why are you catechizing me like this, burrowing among
+old questions of two thousand years ago?"
+
+"Oh, father, there are no old questions," and there was a strange cry in
+her voice, "because there are no old lives. They are all new every
+day--they all live again, father. Sin is new and sorrow is new--and the
+Cross is new, father--so new and so cruel," she cried, the tears now
+flowing fast, "and that question isn't old--it is asked every day. And
+it is asked of me--and I have to answer it, and answer it as you have
+done, and as the compassionate Saviour would have done," she concluded,
+her voice trembling with its passion.
+
+"What on earth do you mean, Margaret? Sin, sorrow, the Cross, what have
+these to do with you?" I asked eagerly.
+
+"It was only last night that Angus told me. Poor fellow, his face was
+white when he came and his look was full of agony. Of course I asked him
+to tell me what was the matter. We were in the library, for I always
+took him there because it has a fireplace, and we both love to watch
+the fire. I had laid the wood myself last night before Angus came, and
+there was never task so dear--it was the gloaming when I laid it, but I
+knew it would soon be bright.
+
+"But about his answer to my question. Surely no maiden yet had so
+strange an answer. For, without a word, he went to the desk and took the
+Bible in his hands. When he had found the place he stood before me and
+read me this:
+
+"'Then cometh Jesus with them unto the place called Gethsemane.... My
+soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death.... My Father if this cup may not
+pass away from Me except I drink it, Thy will be done.'
+
+"His voice was strange to me, and I was trembling for I didn't know what
+he meant. But I knew it was my Judgment Day.
+
+"'Angus,' I said faintly, 'what do you mean? What has that to do with
+us? That is a story of two thousand years ago.'
+
+"'Margaret,' he answered, 'the story of Gethsemane is never old. Its
+willows cast the same shadows yet as those into which our Saviour crept.
+And that cup is never empty, though human lips are ever draining it to
+its dregs. It is close to my lips to-night--and to your sweet lips too,
+my darling--and we must drink it together.'
+
+"'Together, Angus,' I said, 'thank God for that.' The word was sweet.
+Oh, father, head-winds are precious unto love if only love's hands
+together hold the sail.
+
+"After a long silence Angus spoke again and my poor heart had to listen.
+
+"'Margaret,' he began, 'no man ever renounced what I renounce to-night,
+for no man ever loved as I love you, though I reckon many a man would
+swear the same, knowing not his perjury--for none can know my love. And
+joy, and pride, and home--and all with which our pure thought had
+enriched our home--all these must I surrender now. I must give up
+everything but love--and that is mine forever. Oh, Margaret, I won you,
+did I not? I, a poor Scottish laddie, a herd among the heather. I came
+to Canada lang syne, and by and by I won you, did I not, Margaret?
+
+"'But I must give you up--and I will tell you why.
+
+"'It was not hard for me to find that story of Gethsemane. When I was
+but a laddie among the Scottish hills my mother's Bible aye opened at
+that very place; and laddie though I was, I noticed it, for the page was
+marked and worn and soiled with tears.
+
+"'I asked my mother many a time why the Book aye opened there and what
+soiled and marked it so. She told me not for long, saying only that it
+was marked and soiled before her laddie had been born.
+
+"'But the night before I sailed from Annan Foot, she put her arms about
+me and she told me of the anguish of her soul and all about the
+tear-stained place--for she told me of her own Gethsemane and of the
+bitter cup, and said that her laddie's lips could pass it by no more
+than hers.
+
+"'And ever since that night ma ain buik aye opens at Gethsemane. Oh,
+Margaret, you understand, do you not?' he cried, 'I am not worthy of you
+and of your love.
+
+"'The far-off strain of sin starting from another heart than mine
+(another than my mother's, by the living God) has stained my name. Mine
+is an unhallowed name. Mine is a shadowed birth. Mine is the perpetual
+Gethsemane and mine the unemptied cup!
+
+"'Forgive me, Margaret, for the wrong I did you. I should never have
+spoken love to you at all, or if I did, I should have told you of the
+blight upon it; but the sky and the trees and the hill were clothed that
+night in the beauty that wrapt my soul and I thought that God had
+forgotten and had shrived me in the same sacred light. But He does not
+forget. That light itself cannot drive the shadow from Gethsemane and
+the cup has never since been absent from my lips.'
+
+"Angus stopped--and God watched over me; for He pitied me.
+
+"I thought of you and mother first, but God still kept my will in His. I
+wanted God to lead me and I asked Him to help me--and I waited.
+
+"'Angus,' I said at last, 'your mother loved him, did she not?'
+
+"'Loved!' he answered, 'her pure heart knew no other passion. My own is
+but an echo. Behold! I was shapen in love.'
+
+"'Then,' said I, 'let her that is without love cast the first stone at
+her. If any sinning woman love, she has an advocate with the Father. Oh,
+Angus! Come to me!' I cried, for I was fainting."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Her story was finished now and my daughter added not a word. But she
+arose and stood before me, her eyes searching my pallid face for a
+verdict, if haply it might be like her own. I noticed the woman's
+tactics in her move, for woman's genius makes its home within her soul;
+she had left my arms that I might, if I would, hold them out to her
+again and take her back forever. But the arms have their hinges in the
+heart and mine was tight locked like a vise.
+
+"Margaret," I said at last, and my voice was like the voice of age, "you
+do not mean that you suffered this man's caresses after he told you what
+you have just told me?"
+
+Sorrow looked from Margaret's eyes.
+
+"Suffered!" she replied, "suffered! I have learned what suffering is,
+God knows, but He knows it was not there I learned it. 'This man.' Oh,
+father, I love him--am I all alone?"
+
+How strong is the weakness of love! There is no panoply like that which
+love provides, and she who bears it has the whole armour of God.
+
+"Margaret," I pleaded, "you surely will not ruin your life and break
+your mother's heart and mine by any madness such as this."
+
+"'Ruin my life,' father! what ruin can there be to the life that loves
+and is loved? I have no life at all apart from him. It seems so simple.
+I can't take back my heart!"
+
+"Perhaps so, my daughter," I replied, "perhaps so. I know your love is
+no fickle thing. But Margaret, you do not propose to link your life with
+his, shadowed as you yourself declare it to have been from his birth?"
+
+"Father, it is already linked. It was not I who linked our lives, nor
+was it he; nor was it both together--it was God. Surely He wouldn't have
+let me love and trust, if it was wrong. I want you to help me; I am all
+alone."
+
+"But you do not mean," I cried with growing warmth, "that I, the
+minister of St. Cuthbert's Kirk, New Jedboro, am to be called upon to
+take into my family and to acknowledge as my son, a man who cannot speak
+his father's name, who cannot," for I was maddening fast, "speak it even
+to himself, forsooth, because he knows not what it is?"
+
+"Oh, father, do not press me so; I love you--and I love him too,
+and----"
+
+"But about our family?" I asked hotly.
+
+"I forgot about families," she sobbed. "Oh, father, teach this poor
+heart of mine to love no more and I will obey your every wish--but it is
+hard for love to serve two masters."
+
+My heart was wrung by her plaintive voice; but love dwells hard by
+cruelty, and my self-control was going fast. Let those defend me who
+have known my agony.
+
+"You know, I suppose, the result that will issue from your madness? You
+know what it will mean to your future relations here?" I asked hoarsely,
+explaining my threat by a glance about the room.
+
+"Don't call it madness, father," she replied, pleadingly. "There is no
+madness in love. I cannot help it, father. Why should I? Surely Angus is
+the same as he was when first I loved him. I haven't learned anything
+new about the soul of him, father."
+
+"But his origin?" I interrupted.
+
+"But he is good, father,--and kind--and true--and he loves me."
+
+It was but a moment till I was past the bounds of reason.
+Disappointment, pride, shame, anger--all these had their cruel way with
+me. I am covered with confusion as with a garment while I try to record
+what followed, though I could not tell it all, even if I would. There is
+no cruelty like the cruelty of love. For the anguished soul pours out
+the vials of its remorse and self-reproach upon the well loved head, and
+fury waxes with its shame.
+
+"I want none of your preaching," and my voice was coarse with anger;
+"you are a willful and disobedient child and you may as well learn first
+as last who is the master of this house. Do you hear?"
+
+"Yes, I hear,--and my heart is broken. You want me to go away and not to
+see me any more. And I don't know where to go."
+
+She was kneeling now and the tears were dropping hot upon my hand, which
+she had taken in both of hers. "Oh, father, when birdlings leave the
+nest, surely God wants them to go, because He gives them wings. Father,
+dear, oh, do not push me out in this cruel way. I want to keep you and
+Angus both--and mother. Am I really wrong?
+
+"Father, you are a preacher of the Everlasting Gospel, and doesn't that
+say we were all born wrong and need to be born again? You said only last
+Sunday that if we're once on the Rock, God forgets all about the pit and
+the miry clay. And you said God makes the past new--all new, and that
+all the redeemed ones are just the same in His sight--all good, and with
+the past away behind them. I thought it was beautiful, because I thought
+about Angus--and it seemed just like the Saviour's way."
+
+My heart was wrung with a great desire to take the bended form unto
+myself. I half moved forward to kiss the lips of this kneeling priestess
+unto love. But as I did so the memory of other lips that had been
+pressed to them rolled in upon me and swept away the better impulse. I
+faltered into compromise.
+
+"Margaret, you are still my daughter and I am touched by what you say.
+Let us find common ground. Promise me that you will suspend judgment in
+this matter for a year, your promise meantime to be revoked and at the
+end of that time, we will take it up afresh. This will give time for
+sober judgment."
+
+But her blanched face turned to mine, and the white lips spoke again.
+"Oh, spare me, father, for I cannot--you know I cannot--oh, father, pity
+me!"
+
+My soul flamed with ungovernable anger. I did pity her and this it was
+that stirred my cruelty. For my soul relapsed to barbarous coarseness
+and I said: "Then choose between us--you can have your ----," and I
+called him an awful word, the foulest of all words, whose very sound
+speaks the shame it means to tell, the curse of humanity hissed in its
+nauseous syllables.
+
+And more--but how can I write it down! I did not strike her--but I
+thrust her from me; I laid my coward hand upon her shoulder--not in
+violence nor heavily, but eternal menace was in it. For I pushed her
+from me, crying brutally: "Quote me another Scripture. Have you not
+chosen the better part? There is the door which his shadow first
+accursed--you see the door?" and I hurled the poisoned word at her
+again.
+
+She looked at me but once--as one, suddenly awakening, looks at her
+assassin. Then she went out, a lover as white as snow.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+_The OLD PRECENTOR'S NEW SONG_
+
+
+As a stream emerges from its forest tunnel, eluding the embrace of
+tangled shadows, swiftly gliding from sombre swamps and hurrying towards
+the sunlit plain, its phantom weeds of widowhood exchanged for its
+bridal robe of light; so doth this tale of mine glide forth from the
+sable shadows which garrison the chapter it has left behind.
+
+No man loves to linger by his scaffold, though it be cheated of its last
+adornment, and though no eye behold its grinning outline but its own.
+For there are shadowy scaffolds, and invisible executioners, sitting at
+our own boards and eating of our own bread, discernible only in a glass.
+Our own Sheriffs and Executioners are we all.
+
+Swift in the wake of sorrow came the unromantic form of toil. Thank God!
+Work is sorrow's cure, its hands like the hands of an enemy, but its
+voice the voice of an Eternal friend. For duty is God's midwife, sent to
+deliver the soul that travails in its anguish.
+
+It was but the day after Margaret had passed from out my door, girding
+it as she went with crape, invisible to other eyes, that I was called to
+Archie McCormack's house. The day was bright and clear, but I knew it
+not--for in this doth sorrow make us like to God, that then the darkness
+and the light are both alike.
+
+For some months past, my old precentor had been failing fast. The doctor
+said it was his heart, but none of us believed it; for his heart had
+grown larger, stronger, happier with every passing year. Its outer life
+might perish if it would, but its inner life was renewed day by day.
+Indeed, his soul's second harvest seemed to take the form of
+cheerfulness, the scantiest crop of all in the stern seasons of his
+earlier life. Even merriment sought to bloom before the frost should
+come.
+
+The very day before Margaret and I began our life's Lenten season, I had
+been to see him, little thinking that my next visit was to be the last.
+My own heart was full of that joy whose overflow Margaret had entrusted
+to its care--which is a great gift to a minister, this gift of gladness,
+seeking as he does to irrigate the thirsty plains of life about him.
+
+"How is my precentor to-day?" I asked as I sat down at the blazing
+hearth. He was lying on the couch, the fourth gradation--the field, the
+veranda, the room, the couch, the bed, the grave--thus the promotion
+runs!
+
+"I'm by or'nar glad to see ye," he replied, evasively. "The auld freens
+are the best."
+
+"That's good, Archie, the old friends are glad to hear it. They hear it
+seldom from Scottish lips, however hopefully they suspect it."
+
+"We're nae muckle given to compliments--I'll grant ye that. But whiles
+we think; an' whiles we speak--an' whiles we wunna. But I'm no backward
+in tellin' a man gin I care for him. Noo, I was sayin' to the wife this
+verra day that yon man ye brocht frae Montreal last simmer was like
+eneuch a graun preacher--I'm no disputin' that, mind ye. But I was
+sayin' to the wife as hoo I likit yirsel' fully mair nor him."
+
+I smiled with pleasure, for the process was an interesting one. Bouquets
+look strange in these rough Scottish hands--but their fragrance is the
+sweeter for all that.
+
+"I understand, Archie. You do not often pay a compliment, but I know its
+sincerity when it comes and I appreciate it all the same."
+
+He had not finished, for he felt he had gone too far.
+
+"Aye, that's what I was sayin' to the wife. I likit yirsel' fully better
+nor him--it's different ye see; I'm gettin' kind o' used to ye, ye
+ken!"
+
+This made his tribute morally complete. Oh, thou Scotchman! Thou canst
+not withhold a tincture of lemon from the sweetest cup!
+
+"But how is my precentor to-day?" I renewed, fearful of additional
+repairs to his eulogy.
+
+"Weel, I'm no' complainin'--an' I'm no' boastin'; but there's mony a yin
+waur. I'm no' sufferin' pain to speak o'. I can sleep at nicht, an' I
+tak my parritch, an' I hae ma faculties--an' I'm in God's hauns," he
+said, the climax coming with unconscious power.
+
+"There's no better bulletin than that," I responded. "I see you still
+take your smoke, Archie," I added cheerfully, nodding towards an ancient
+trusty pipe which enjoyed its brief respite on a chair, long his
+familiar friend, and noticeably breathing out its loyalty where it lay.
+
+"Ou, aye, I dinna lack for ony o' the needcessities o' life, thank God,"
+he replied gratefully, and with utter seriousness.
+
+"What a blessing that you are free from pain," I hurriedly remarked; for
+the mouth, like a capricious steed, is more easily controlled when it is
+in motion.
+
+"Aye, that's a great blessin'. I've been uncommon free frae pain. A
+fortnight syne, I had a verra worritsome feelin' in ma innerts--a kind
+o' colic, I'm jalousin'. Sandy Grant said as how whusky wi' a little
+sulphur was gey guid. I tell 't him I never had nowt to dae wi' sulphur
+i' ma life, an' I wudna begin to bother wi't noo;" and Archie lifted his
+eyebrows, adjusted his night-cap, and turned upon me a very solemn
+smile.
+
+He doubtless saw by my face that I approved his caution, for I secretly
+believed that he was right. Thus confirmed, he lay meditating for a
+time, but it was soon made evident that his thoughts had not wandered
+far from the matter in hand.
+
+"Aye, sulphur's nae improvement to whusky," he slowly averred at length,
+"forbye, I was richt. I was richt frae a medeecinal standpoint, ye ken.
+The verra next day ma doctor ordered me to tak a little whusky for the
+pain I tell't ye o'. An' I did; I took it afore he tell't me."
+
+"And it did you good, Archie?" I asked indulgently.
+
+"Guid?" replied Archie, in a tone of much reproach. Then he said no
+more, scorning to demonstrate an axiom. But he was not through with the
+subject. The moral had still to be pointed.
+
+"Is't no won'erfu', minister, the law o' compensation that oor Creator
+gies us, to reach a' through oor lives?
+
+"Pain has its ither side, ye ken. An' when we say as hoo it's an ill
+wind that blaws naebody guid, we're acknowledgin' the love o' the
+Almichty. Ilka cloud has aye its siller linin'. Noo, for instance, it
+was a fearfu' pain I took--but the ither that I took to cure it--it was
+Scotch," and Archie drew a gentle sigh, half of piety and half of
+reminiscence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When next I turned my steps towards Archie's door, though only two short
+days had fled, all life had changed to me and darkness hung about me
+like a pall. Upon which change I was bitterly reflecting when I was
+interrupted by a message that Archie was taken somewhat worse and not
+expected to live longer than through the night. And I could not but be
+glad of this summons from my own life's tragedy, that I might share
+another's. It is God's blessed way. The balm for secret sorrow is in the
+bosom of another burden, unselfishly assumed; and the Cyrenian of every
+age hath this for his hire, that, while he bends beneath another's
+cross, he is disburdened of his own.
+
+I found my old precentor weak, and failing fast, but "verra composed,"
+as we say in New Jedboro.
+
+He welcomed me with a gentle smile.
+
+"Ye'll pray wi' me," he said gravely, "but it'll no' be the closin'
+prayer. I'm wearin' awa fast, but I'll no' leave ye till the morn, I'm
+dootin'. Pit up a bit prayer noo--but there's ae thing--dinna mind the
+Maister o' His promise to come again an' receive me till Himsel'--no'
+that it isna a gowden word; but I want it keepit till the last an' it's
+the last word I want to hear. Speak it to me when I hear the surge.
+That'll gie Him time eneuch, for He'll no' be far awa. An' I want to
+hear it aboon the billows. Noo pit up yir prayer."
+
+Short and simple were our petitions; for the prayer of little children
+is best for those who are about to enter into the kingdom of God.
+
+After we had finished, my eyes, unknown to him, were long fixed on
+Archie's face. For a strange interest centres about those whose loins
+are girded for long journeys; and I have never outgrown the boyish awe
+with which I witnessed the loosening of the ropes that held aerial
+travellers to the earth. I have seen some scores of persons die,
+
+    "By many a death-bed I have been
+     And many a sinner's parting seen,"
+
+but the awful tragedy is ever new and familiarity breeds increasing
+reverence. Death is a hero to his valet.
+
+"You are not afraid, Archie?" I said at length--the old question that
+springs, not to the dying, but to the living lips.
+
+"Afeart!" said Archie, "what wad I be afeart for?"
+
+"You are not afraid to meet your Lord?" I answered, inwardly reproaching
+myself for the words.
+
+"Afeart!" repeated the dying man, "afeart to meet ma Lord. Why should I
+be feart to meet a Man that died for me?"
+
+I inwardly blessed him for the great reply and engaged its unanswerable
+argument for my next Sabbath's sermon. No man dieth unto himself.
+
+"Wull ye dae something for me?" said Archie, suddenly. "Wull ye write to
+a man I kent lang syne?"
+
+"Certainly," said I. "Who is the man, Archie?"
+
+"I'll tell ye, gin ma hairt hauds guid a meenit. It's Andra
+Mathieson--an' he lives in San Francisco. Him an' me gaed to the schule
+thegither in the Auld Country, an' I hadna seen him for nigh fifty year
+till last Can'lemas a twalmonth, when I gaed to San Francisco for ma
+health. He's awfu' rich. He lives in a graun hoose an' he has a coachman
+wi' yin o' thae coats wi' buttons. But I gaed to see him an' I needna
+hae been sae feart, for he minded on me, an' he wadna hear o' me bidin'
+at the taivern, an' he took me to his graun hoose, an' he was ower guid
+to a plain cratur like me.
+
+"Weel, ae mornin', we was sittin', haein' oor crack aboot the auld days,
+an' the schule, an' the sheep we herded thegither on the Ettrick hills.
+But oor crack aye harkit back to the kirk an' the minister an' the
+catechism, an' a' thae deeper things o' auld lang syne. He said as hoo
+he had gane far bye thae things, livin' amang the stour o' a' his
+siller--but he remarkit that he aften thocht o' the auld ways, an' the
+auld tunes, an' the minister wi' his goon an' bands; an' he said he was
+fair starvin' for a psalm--or a paraphrase. They dinna sing them in
+Ameriky. An' I lilted yin till him--we was lookin' far oot at the Gowden
+Gate, an' it lookit like the crystal water ma een'll sune see."
+
+Archie stopped, though apparently but little exhausted. His eyes seemed
+flooded with tender memories of that momentous hour on the far distant
+Pacific Coast.
+
+"What psalm did you sing him?" I ventured, presently.
+
+"It was a paraphrase," he answered, the smile still upon his face. "It
+was the twenty-sixth:
+
+    "'Ho ye that thirst approach the spring
+        Where living waters flow,'
+
+an' Andra grat like a bairn:
+
+"'I haena heard it sin I ran barefit aboot the hills,' he said, an' he
+wad hae me sing the lines ower again:
+
+    "'How long to streams of false delight
+        Will ye in crowds repair?'
+
+an' I'm no' worthy, I ken, but I pit up a bit prayer wi' him--ye mauna
+think I'm boastin', sir, but I brocht him to Christ, an' when I think
+on't noo, it's lichtsome, an' I'm minded o' that simmer sun on the
+Gowden Gate. Ye'll write to him an' tell him we'll sing a psalm
+thegither yet."
+
+My promise given and Andrew Mathieson's address taken, Archie lay silent
+for a little time. Swift glances at myself, swiftly withdrawn, denoted
+his desire to say something more. It came at length and with
+unmistakable directness.
+
+"I'm dootin' I've been wrang; mebbe I was 'righteous over-much.'"
+
+"What is it, Archie?" I said soothingly. "Some sin? Or some mistake in
+the days that are gone?"
+
+"I'm no' sayin' it was the yin or the ither," replied the old precentor,
+a familiar frosty flavour in his voice, "an' if it was, I'll no' confess
+it to ony yin but God--but I'm misdootin' I was ower hard on the hymes."
+
+"What hymns, Archie?" I asked, seeking only to make easier his
+acknowledgment of error, ever difficult to Scottish lips. For, if the
+truth were told, Scotchmen secretly divide sins into three classes,
+those of omission, of commission, and of admission.
+
+"Ye ken fine," he made reply, "div ye no' mind hoo Margaret an' Angus
+Strachan compeared afore the Kirk Session wi' their prayer for man-made
+hymes i' the kirk?"
+
+"Yes, Archie, I remember--the Session denied their request."
+
+Ah me, I thought, how much has befallen Margaret and Margaret's father
+since that night!
+
+"Ay, I ken that; an' I'm no' regrettin'--but I'm dootin' I was ower hard
+on the hymes. My speerit was aye ower fiery for an elder. But King
+Dauvit himsel' was mair fearsome than me wi' blasphemers--no' to ca'
+Margaret yin; but I'm mindin' that the Maister aye took anither way, a
+better yin, I'm dootin'. An' I'm feart I was mair like Dauvit, for a'
+I'd raither be like the Maister."
+
+"You have the right of it, Archie; He showed us the more excellent way."
+
+"Forbye," Archie went on, pursuing his line of thought, "I've my
+misgivin's aboot wha wrote thae hymes. It wasna the deevil, an' it wasna
+Watts, an' it wasna yon great Methody body; they set them doon, nae
+doot--but wha started them? I'm sair dootin' they had their rise amang
+the hills, the same whaur Dauvit saw the glory o' God."
+
+"Above the hills of time," I added softly.
+
+"An' what's mair, it kind o' came to me that a hyme micht be a prayer,
+ye ken. Noo, your prayer in the kirk is no' inspired. That is, no' like
+Dauvit's psalms--but it's upliftin' for a' that. An' I'm thinkin' that
+mebbe it's nae waur to lilt a prayer than to speak yin, an' mebbe the
+great Methody was prayin' when he said:
+
+    "'Let me to Thy bosom fly,'
+
+an' I'm dootin' we micht dae waur than jine wi' him."
+
+"There is no more fitting prayer for such an hour as this," I responded,
+thinking it meet to incline his thoughts towards the encircling glow
+with which the last great morning was already illumining his face.
+
+But Archie still pursued his line of thought. No such great concession
+as this was to be left undefined; this codicil to his whole life's will
+and testament must be explained.
+
+"I ken the hymes never had what I micht ca' a fair chance wi' me. My
+faither cudna thole them, an' he cudna bide ony ither body to thole
+them. He aye said the heather wasna dry yet wi' the Covenanters' bluid.
+Ma ain girlie, wee Kirsty,--she likit them fine, but I forbade her. This
+was the way it cam aboot--div ye mind the year o' the Exposeetion in
+Paris? Weel, me an' Kirsty's mither took a jaunt an' gaed till't. We was
+ower three weeks amang thae foreign fowk, wi' nae parritch an' nae
+psalm. We gaed frae Paris to the auld hame in Ettrick, an' 'twas like
+gae'n to Abraham's bosom frae the ither place. Weel, the first Sabbath
+day, we gaed to the auld Scotch kirk, and we were starvin' for the
+bread o' life.
+
+"Naethin' had we had but the bit sweeties o' the English kirk near by,
+wi' their confections--an' ance we gaed to the Catholic, but it was a
+holiday. Weel, as I was sayin', we gaed to the Ettrick kirk an' the
+minister came into the pulpit wi' his goon an' bands--fair graun it was.
+
+"'Let us worship God,' he said, an' 'twas like the click o' the gate at
+hame. Then he gied oot a psalm:
+
+    "'So they from strength unwearied go
+        Still forward unto strength.'
+
+"The precentor was naethin' graun. I have heard better in St.
+Cuthbert's. He was oot mebbe a quarter o' a beat in his time, but the
+auld words had their power; 'twas like as if I heard my mither's voice
+again, an' I cudna sing for greetin', but my hairt aye keepit time, an'
+I resolved then no' to let Kirsty sing the hymes ony mair--but I'm
+misdootin' I've been wrang."
+
+Backward rolled the night and onward rolled the day as we kept our vigil
+by the dying bed. Ever solemn hour, rehearsal of a darker yet to be! For
+that same mystery shall wrap every watcher's heart, and others then
+shall stand by the fallen sentinels.
+
+Archie slumbered and waked by turns. We were just beginning to feel the
+approach of the magnetic dawn when he awoke from an hour's sleep.
+
+"The nicht's near gane," he said, "an' I'll sleep nae mair; for I aye
+likit to greet the mornin' licht."
+
+We gathered closer, the old childish instinct which drove us to the
+wharf's very edge when the sails were being hoisted and the anchor
+weighed.
+
+He beckoned me closer and I bent to catch his words.
+
+"Ye micht gie thae thochts o' mine to the Session gin the maitter comes
+up again--aboot the hymes, ye ken, aboot hoo they micht be made intil a
+prayer."
+
+I silently gave the promise.
+
+"An' mair--I dinna forbid ye to sing a bit hyme at the funeral. Let
+Wullie Allison lift the tune, for he aye keeps the time. Yon Methody's
+hyme wad dae:
+
+    "'Hide me, oh, my Saviour hide
+        Till the storm of life is past,'
+
+for the wind'll be doon then, I'm hopin'.
+
+"The fowk'll think it strange, for they a' ken my convictions, sae ye'd
+better close wi' a paraphrase:
+
+    "'Then will He own His servant's name
+        Before His father's face.'
+
+That wad dae fine, for it's a' o' grace thegither."
+
+Archie lay silent for a time, breathing heavily, the tumult of the last
+great conflict blending every moment with the peace of the last great
+surrender. An instant later, the dying face seemed lightened, like one
+who descries the lights of home.
+
+"I canna juist mind the words; is it the outgoin' o' the mornin' He
+makes to rejoice?"
+
+"And the evening," I said quickly, "the evening too, Archie."
+
+"Aye," he answered peacefully, "I thocht He wadna forget the gloamin'.
+Aye, mair the evenin' than the mornin', I'm thinkin'."
+
+His face was radiant now, for the morning light had passed us watchers
+by, its glory resting on the face that loved to greet it.
+
+"Haud ma haun, guid-wife," his voice upborne by the buoyancy of death.
+"I'm slippin' fast into the licht. I see what they ca' the gates o'
+deith. The licht has found them oot. They've been sair maligned, I'm
+thinkin'. The pulpit has misca'd them, but the believer's deein' lips
+can ca' them fair. They're the gates o' deith, nae doot, but the Maister
+hauds the keys."
+
+We stood as close to the old precentor as we might, but we were in the
+shadow still. For death seldom shares his surprises with the alien and
+is selfish with his secret luxuries.
+
+"Hark ye!" the dying man suddenly cried. "Div ye no' hear the sang? It's
+graun ayont the thocht o' man. They're a' in white, an' it's 'Martyrdom'
+is the tune. Wha's leadin' them? I see Him fine; it's Him wha made the
+sang itsel'. It's Him wha's leadin' them. Div ye no' ken what they're
+singin'? It's the new sang, the sang o' Moses an' the Lamb. An' hark ye!
+it's the same as the psalm my mither taught me. I canna tell the yin
+frae the ither."
+
+And the old precentor hurried on to join the choir invisible.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+"_The MILLS of The GODS_"
+
+
+Margaret was home again. She had been gone from us two immeasurable
+days. It was Mr. Blake who rang the bell, for it was his house had
+sheltered her when my cruel anger drove her from my own. Need and sorrow
+never turned to him in vain.
+
+When the door was opened, Margaret stood before it alone. Her mother it
+was who opened unto her, for this is woman's oldest and holiest
+avocation, door-keeper unto wandering feet. In all His delicate missions
+woman is God's deputy.
+
+Through all my narrative of this sad affair I have said but little of
+Margaret's mother, but I know my readers have discerned her presence
+amid it all, as one discerns a brooding mountain through the mist. The
+great background of every tragedy is a woman's stately sorrow.
+
+I had been visiting the sick, far more for my sake than for theirs, and
+was not home when Margaret returned. But a nameless fragrance greeted me
+at the door, and in my study I found Margaret in her mother's arms. The
+latter quietly withdrew and the compact between father and daughter was
+soon complete. It was of mutual surrender, wherein is mutual peace.
+Margaret's only word was that she could not give her father up--nor
+Angus--that I must say nothing more about her love and that we must
+wait--together. Which was all sweet enough to me, for she was mine
+again, and our manse light had been rekindled.
+
+For the rest, I was willing to wait, on which after all hangs the
+reality of all joy or sorrow. Every grief hath that opportunity of cure;
+every joy that peril of vicissitude. Till time hath ceased from her
+travail, no man can tell her offspring's sex, whether it be rugged care,
+or sweet and tender joy.
+
+Meantime, Margaret nestled again within the old tender place and we both
+struggled to nourish our phantom joy. Counterfeit though we both
+discerned it, yet it passed unchallenged between us and at least kept
+our souls' commerce from decay. Counterfeit I have called it, for the
+tenure of another's love was upon her; and her stay with us was like
+that of a sailor lad who is for a time ashore, waiting for the tardy
+tide.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The ordination Sabbath was aglow with holy light. God surely loves
+Presbyterian high days, for they are nearly always beautiful. St.
+Cuthbert's was filled long before eleven with a reverent and expectant
+congregation. Five new elders had been elected, three of them their
+father's successors, for this was a common custom in New Jedboro, and
+apostolic succession in disguise was in high favour amongst us. Another
+was a man of seventy or more, for every ordination must recognize the
+stalwarts whose days of activity were past but whose time for honour was
+at hand. The remaining elder-elect was Angus Strachan. His choice by the
+congregation had been unanimous and cordial. His examination by the
+Session had resulted in hearty confirmation. Our manse tragedy was
+unknown to any of the elders except Mr. Blake, who preserved complete
+silence throughout the interview. The ordeal was painful beyond words to
+me--but it was over, and Angus sat in the front pew with the other four,
+awaiting ordination to their sacred office.
+
+We had sung the psalm which from time immemorial Presbyterian ministers
+have announced on all ecclesiastical occasions, the hundred and second
+psalm, the second version, from the thirteenth verse, reading over
+again, as their habit is, the first two lines:
+
+    "Thou shalt arise and mercy yet
+     Thou to Mount Zion shalt extend;"
+
+the venerable Dr. Inglis of Moffat had preached the sermon from the
+text:--"Feed the flock of God which is among you," and the elders elect
+took their places before the pulpit.
+
+I addressed them in what I considered fitting terms, recalling the great
+traditions of the church they were called to serve and the noble labours
+of the godly men whose mantles had now fallen upon themselves. I
+referred to our precious legacy, bequeathed to us from the hands of
+Covenanters, and a reverent hush throughout the whole congregation
+applauded the names of Renwick and Peden and Cameron, as they fell from
+my lips.
+
+Then all the elders took their places beside me, for the act of
+ordination was about to be performed. This consisted of prayer and the
+laying on of hands--not of the minister's hands alone, for we in St.
+Cuthbert's adhered to the ancient Scottish mode of ordination by the
+laying on of the hands of the entire Session.
+
+The candidates kneeled before us, Angus on my right, having changed his
+place for some unapparent reason, soon to be abundantly revealed. The
+hands first outstretched towards his bended head were those of Mr.
+Blake. Whereupon an awful thing befell us; for the solemn stillness of
+the kirk was broken by the ringing of a voice aflame with
+passion:--"Take back your hand--touch not a hair of my head. Go cleanse
+your hand. Go purify your heart--they are both polluted. Whited
+sepulchre, give up your dead--let the rotting memories walk forth. Go
+wash another's blood from your guilty soul before you dare to serve at
+God's altar!"
+
+The trembling object of this outburst shrank back from before it. The
+kneeling candidates bowed lower. I myself stood as one in a fearful
+dream, while the horror-stricken people half rose within their pews,
+bending forward as they gazed at the sacrilegious scene.
+
+Angus turned and looked unflinchingly into their faces. I feared he was
+about to speak again and I raised my hand to signify forbiddal--but he
+saw it not, and my inward protest yielded to his fiery purpose.
+
+"Aye, you may well look," he cried to the awestruck worshippers. "God
+knows I had not meant to do this thing or to speak these words. I came
+here with the honest purpose to assume the vows that should forever bind
+me to His service. My heart was honest before God; but when I felt the
+approach of those guilty hands it was beyond my power to endure their
+touch. Nor should I feel shame for what I have done. You remember the
+scourge of knotted cords and the holy temple. Is it wrong that I too
+should now seek to drive forth this unworthy man? He stands unmasked
+before you. You know not who he is! He is my father and we share our
+shame together! Another shares it with her God where the Ettrick water
+hears her prayer. And this is the man whose hands would convey the grace
+of God!"
+
+He stopped; and the blanched faces before him gave back a voice, half
+cry, half sob, anguish rending every heart. They were a proud folk in
+St. Cuthbert's; besides no man of all the elders was so dear to them as
+Mr. Blake, his piety and philanthropy so long tried and proved. Although
+we know it not, there is no asset held more dear than the solvency of a
+man in whom we vest the precious savings of our confidence.
+
+Every eye and heart seemed turned towards the man so fiercely accused,
+silently entreating him to relieve the cruel tension.
+
+None doubted that his swift denial would confirm the confidence of our
+loyal hearts. But the silence drew itself out, moment after moment, each
+bequeathing its legacy of pain to its successor. Mr. Blake's eyes were
+raptly fixed on his accuser--his traducer, as we secretly defined him.
+Their light was not the glow of wrath, nor of resentment, but of a
+strange wistful curiosity, mixed with eager yearning. Fear and love
+seemed to look out together.
+
+In the pause that followed, Angus swiftly handed to me a small picture,
+encased after an ancient fashion.
+
+"Look at that, sir," he said, "that will tell its tale--that is my
+father's face."
+
+I looked with eager intentness, and it required but a glance to show
+that the pictured face before me, and the pallid face beside me, were
+the same. The picture was evidently taken long years before, and the
+stamp of youth and hope and ardent faith was upon the face. Locks raven
+black, and an unwrinkled brow, had been exchanged for those that bore
+the scar of time and care; but no careful eye could fail to see that the
+youthful face of the picture and the ashen face of the elder were one
+and the same.
+
+But,--more striking and fatal far--the photograph's evidence was not
+required. No man who saw, as I saw, the faces of Michael Blake and Angus
+Strachan side by side need wait for other evidence. Often had I seen
+them thus before--but never in the nakedness of passion.
+
+Passion has the artist's magic hand and her master sketch is ever of her
+home. As Titian's immortal hills were but the reproduction of his
+far-off dwelling-place, genius plighting its troth to childhood, so doth
+passion illumine first the environs of her long time home, how humble so
+ever it may be. Passion paints the eternal childlike that is in us all.
+The face is the window through which the vista of a soul's inner life
+is flashed by her mystic hand, and in that moment the window glows with
+the unfeigned light of childhood, its simple radiance still unquenched,
+though long draped by artificial years.
+
+Thus transfigured were the faces of Angus Strachan and Michael
+Blake--the one with mingled love and fear, the other with unmingled
+scorn. With that swift intensity of passion came the reversal to their
+common type, and the great betrayal was complete. The blood they shared
+together, speaking a kindred language, had turned King's evidence at
+last, and its unanswerable testimony leaped from face and eye.
+
+For God hath His silent witnesses, like John the Baptist, by us shut up
+in prison and by us beheaded--but He calleth them to the witness-stand
+as pleaseth Him; and they live forever in dreadful gospels of love and
+doom, the latter sharing the power of the former's endless life. Their
+voice is heard above Herodias' strains of revelry and even sceptred
+Sadducees tremble at the sound.
+
+Vast is life's mighty forest, but the wronger and the wronged meet
+somewhere amid its shadowy glades. Surely life's wooded maze might
+afford a hiding place to those who fly from armed memories--but God's
+rangers tread its every glen with stealthy step and the foliage of every
+thicket gleams with the armour of His detective host. A chance meeting,
+a foundling acquaintance, a stray newspaper, an undestroyed letter, a
+resurgent memory, a neglected photograph, or, as here, a tell-tale tide
+of blood--all these have accepted God's retainer and bear the invisible
+badge that denotes His world-spread Force. All life's apparent discord
+is harmony itself when He determines the departments and allots to every
+thing, and to every man, his work!
+
+"You speak of Ettrick! What know you of Ettrick? What is her name that
+lives there?" I heard Mr. Blake ask in a faltering whisper, unheard by
+the rigid worshippers.
+
+"She bears no name save that which you defiled--it shall not be spoken
+here, though I honour it with my deepest heart--but look on this," and
+Angus held out before him what he had drawn from his bosom as he spoke.
+
+Michael Blake's gaze was fixed upon it, no word or sound coming from his
+lips. His eyes clung to it with tranquil eagerness, unconscious of all
+about, still clinging when Angus withdrew it, wrapped it in the paper
+which had enclosed it, and restored it to its hiding-place.
+
+I know not why, but I held out my hand to him eagerly:
+
+"Let me see it, Angus; my own mother is with God."
+
+He hesitated but a moment, then drew it forth and handed it to me.
+
+"All the world may see it," he said quietly, "it is my mother--you may
+read the letter if you will."
+
+The portrait was of a woman still rich with girlhood's charm. Of about
+nineteen years, I should say, tall and graceful and sweet of
+countenance, with a great wealth of hair, with eyes that no flame but
+love's could have kindled, her lips, even in a picture, instinct with
+pure passion, and her whole being evidently fragrant and luscious as
+Scottish girlhood alone can be. For the sweetest flowers are nourished
+at the breast of the most rugged hills.
+
+I was still reading the story of love and innocence and hope, all of
+which were written in the lovely face before me, when Angus said very
+gently:
+
+"Read the letter, sir."
+
+The writing on the paper which enclosed the picture had escaped my
+notice. It was a letter from Angus' mother, sent with the
+daguerreotypes. Its closing words ran thus:
+
+     "I send ye this picture o' masel' and the ane o' the man I loved
+     sae weel. No ither picture have I had taken, nor ither shall there
+     be. It was taken for yir faither before the gloamin' settled doon
+     on you and me, ma laddie. It was taken for him, as was every breath
+     I drew, for I loved him wi' every ane.
+
+     "Ye maunna think ower hard o' him, laddie, for yir mother canna
+     drive him forth, so ye maun bide thegither in this broken hairt o'
+     mine. And laddie, I am askin' God to keep me pure, for my love will
+     hae its bloom some day far ayont us, like the bonny heather when
+     the winter's bye. And I want to be worthy when it comes. I'm sair
+     soiled, I ken, but love can weave its robe o' white for the very
+     hairt it stained. And I maun be true till the gloamin's gone. So
+     think o' yir mother as aye true to yir faither, and it'll mebbe
+     help yir sorrow to ken there's aye this bond between yir faither
+     and her wha bore ye. And Angus, dinna let him ken, gin ye should
+     ever meet. Yir mother's bearin' her sorrow all alane in Ettrick and
+     her laddie'll bear it ayont the ocean. We're a' in God's guid
+     hands. Your loving mother,
+
+     JANET STRACHAN."
+
+I returned the well worn letter to the unhappy hand from which I had
+received it. He tenderly wrapped it about his mother's picture and
+thrust the parcel back beside the loyal heart which shared, as it was
+bidden, the great sorrow and disgrace.
+
+I then cast about in my mind for the next step which should be taken.
+Ordination I knew there could now be none. The pestilence of anger and
+shame and sin was upon us all. Dark horror sat upon the faces of the
+waiting congregation, their eyes still fixed on these two actors of this
+so sudden tragedy. It may have been that the proof of kinship, as
+demonstrated by these confronting faces, was finding its way into their
+hearts. These faces were still fastened the one upon the other, the
+younger with glowing scorn, the older with mingled love and tenderness,
+blended with infinite self-reproach.
+
+I could see no course open to me except the dismissal of the
+congregation, and so announced my purpose.
+
+"The Kirk Session is adjourned sine die," I said, for this is an ancient
+phrase and the proper forms must be observed. Even when our dearest lies
+in her coffin, there are certain phrases which announce in cold and
+heartless print that the heart's life-blood is flowing from its wound,
+and, however sacred that silent form, the undertaker's hands must have
+their will with it.
+
+"Moderator." It was Thomas Laidlaw's voice. "Moderator, we hae heard but
+ae side. There's aye twa sides. Will ye no' let the accused speak for
+himsel'? Fair play is bonny play."
+
+A moment's thought was enough to assure me as to what was right.
+
+"By all means," I answered, sadly enough, for I had but little hope that
+any defense could be offered. "Mr. Blake may certainly speak if he
+wishes--it is but fair. Have you anything to say, Mr. Blake?"
+
+As I turned towards the older man the younger withdrew his eyes from the
+face on which they had so long been fixed, and slowly rising, Angus
+walked down the aisle towards the door, conscious that he himself had
+proclaimed his bitter shame; but his mother's name seemed written on his
+forehead, redeemed by the sacrifice of his own. He had gone but a
+quarter of the way or so, when a trembling voice was heard.
+
+"Angus, wait," it said; the voice was faint and tremulous like a
+birdling's note--but Angus heard it and stood still. He turned towards
+the pew whence it came, and a face met his own, a woman's face, blanched
+and pale, except for two burning spots upon her cheeks where the heart
+had unfurled its banners. It was a woman's voice, I say, and the eyes
+that looked out from it sought his own with a great caress of loyalty
+and love. The glowing eyes, and the parted lips, and the quick flowing
+breath, all spoke the bridal passion; for the bride's glory is in
+surrender, the bodily sacrifice but the pledge of her blended and
+surrendered life, lost in another's mastering love.
+
+"Angus, wait," she murmured again, her dainty gloved hand upon the
+book-board as she essayed to rise. Her mother sought to restrain her,
+but her touch was powerless; for the outgoing tide was at its full.
+
+"He shall not walk down that aisle alone," she faltered to her mother,
+the words unheard by others. "We shall go down together."
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+_A MAIDEN PRIESTESS_
+
+
+Perhaps her mother's woman-heart realized in that moment that the one
+path irresistible to a woman's love is the path of sacrifice. In any
+case she ceased from her protest and the gentle form arose; moving out
+to where he stood, she slipped her dear hand into Angus's, and together
+they walked slowly down the aisle of the crowded church. No sideward
+glance they cast nor backward did Margaret ever look. Sweet courage was
+shining from her face, even joy, as they passed out together--the long
+stride of the stalwart man and the gentle step of the dainty maiden, but
+ever hand in hand, hidden from the strife of tongues, in love's pavilion
+hidden.
+
+They had wandered, knowing not where or whither, some distance from the
+church, when Angus stopped, and fixing his reverent look on Margaret's
+strangely happy face, he said:
+
+"You don't know what you have done; you have tarnished your name--oh,
+Margaret, why did you do it? From henceforth you will share the shame
+that belongs to me."
+
+Margaret's face was upturned to his own.
+
+"Is not the sunshine sweet, Angus? And so pure! Surely God loves us
+well!"
+
+"It shines upon no man so sad as I," he replied bitterly.
+
+"Angus! After what I did--and the church so full!"
+
+"Nor so happy--and so proud!" concluded Angus. "Where shall we go?"
+
+"Anywhere," answered Margaret; "we shall walk the long walk together."
+
+"No, dear one, not together, that cannot be--but not apart," said Angus,
+his voice trembling.
+
+"Do you know, Angus," said Margaret after a pause, "I had often read
+about how engagements should be announced. And no one, almost no one
+knew that you loved me. And after that first time when you told me you
+loved me--and before you told me that other--I so often used to lie
+awake and think about how ours should be announced. For I think that is
+the sweetest thing in a girl's life, the announcement I mean--no I don't
+mean that--the sweetest thing is what has to be told. And now it is all
+told--and just to think it was done in a church and before all those
+people. And now they all know--and I am so glad! No girl ever had it
+done like this before."
+
+"Glad?" said Angus.
+
+"Yes, glad--and proud--aren't you?"
+
+But there was no response, save the old, old silent eloquence of love,
+when lip speaks to lip its tender tale, scorning the aid of words.
+
+"Let us go this way," said Margaret at length.
+
+"Where does it lead to?"
+
+"You shall see," she answered; "come away"--and together, still hand in
+hand, they walked on.
+
+"Let us rest here, Angus." He threw himself on the grass at her feet.
+
+"Do you not know the place?" she said.
+
+"No," said Angus, "were we ever here before?"
+
+"Oh, Angus, how could you forget? Look again."
+
+He looked again and sacred twilight memories began to pour back upon
+him.
+
+"That was in the gloaming, Angus, you remember. And the darkness has
+often brooded over it since then--but it is all past now and it never
+was so bright before."
+
+"The darkness will come again," said Angus.
+
+"But it will never be able to forget the light--and it will wait----
+There is never any real brightness till the waiting's past."
+
+The Sabbath stillness was about them and its peace was in their hearts.
+They scarce knew why, and the world would have said that Shadow was
+their portion; but, then and ever, true peace passeth all
+understanding.
+
+"Kneel down, Angus, kneel here beside me," she suddenly exclaimed.
+
+"Kneel, Margaret! Why shall I kneel?"
+
+"Never mind why--you shall see. Kneel down, Angus."
+
+He knelt, wondering still; she removed his hat with her now ungloved
+hands and threw it on the grass.
+
+"Darling, I love you," she said, "and I know you are good and true. And
+I was so proud this morning when you were to be ordained to God's holy
+service--and it must not be broken off like this. Oh, Angus, when I saw
+your face this morning, I feared so that your whole soul would turn to
+bitterness and give itself up to hatred of that man. But it must not
+be."
+
+"Margaret, stop! Surely you must know----"
+
+"Be still, Angus--it must not be. All this anguish must break in
+blessing. Sorrow such as yours will be either a curse or a blessing--and
+it must not be a curse. God's love can turn it into blessing--and so can
+mine. We shall take up our cross together and shall see it blossom yet.
+Oh, Angus, if I can forgive him, you can, for you are dearer to me than
+to anybody else." Her hands were now upon his head:--"Angus Strachan, I
+ordain you to suffer and to wait. I ordain you to God's service in the
+name of love and sorrow and God--and they're all the same name--and I
+love you so--and you are an elder now. Oh, dear Lord, take care of our
+love and make us true--and patient. And bless our sorrow and make it
+sweet and keep us near the Man of Sorrows. Amen."
+
+The white dimpled hands rested long upon the auburn locks of the still
+bended head, and her compassion flowed through them to the more than
+orphaned heart. It was the same head, she thought, and the same heart,
+as had once been blessed by a mother's anguished hand, doomed, as that
+mother knew, to the world's unreasoning scorn.
+
+Her own peace seemed to pass into his troubled soul; the anointed head
+bowed lower and the yoke was laid upon him, never to be withdrawn. But
+its bitterness was gone, purged from it by those white dimpled hands,
+and the fragrance of a soul's sweeter life was there instead. For there
+had come to him that great moment when secret rebellion turns to secret
+prayer, craving blessing from the very hand that had smitten him with
+lameness; and Angus was making his ordination vows to God.
+
+Upon that grassy knoll, under heaven's tender sky, with unmoving lips
+and broken heart he made the great surrender. Patience he promised God;
+and in return he begged the forgiving heart, the strength to bear his
+lifelong load, and the aid which might enable him to attain that miracle
+of grace when he yet should pray for the man whose sin had foreclothed
+his life in shame.
+
+"Let us go back," said Margaret, at length, for the sun was westering.
+
+"Yes, we will go back," said he, for in the gentle words he heard the
+bugle call; "we will go back." But first he kissed the ordaining hands,
+anointed as they had been to cast out evil from the heart and to bind up
+its brokenness.
+
+Homeward they turned their steps, and the noises of the uncaring world
+soon fell upon their ears, but their hearts were holden of another song,
+and they heard them not.
+
+Backward they bent their way to the world and its cruel pity--but ever
+hand in hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the reader already knows, Margaret and Angus went forth from St.
+Cuthbert's Church just as Michael Blake was invited to speak in his own
+defense and to answer, if he might, the dread charge of his accuser.
+
+"Have you anything to say, Mr. Blake?" were the words I had just uttered
+when Margaret and her lover left the church, with all the sequel which
+hath been just recorded.
+
+In answer, he watched the retreating forms till they had departed, then
+buried his face in his hands. He sat thus so long that I concluded he
+had no heart to speak, and again arose, my hand outstretched to give the
+blessing, if blessing there might be in such an hour. The congregation
+arose to receive the proffered benediction, but before my lips had
+opened, a faint hand plucked my gown.
+
+"I will speak, sir," and pale and trembling the unhappy man rose and
+stood beside me. I resumed my seat and the people dumbly did the same,
+gazing towards their elder with eyes that pleaded for the assurance of
+his innocence. Twice or thrice he strove for utterance before the words
+would come. At length he spoke.
+
+"Moderator and brethren," he began, "if such as I may call you brethren.
+I am a sinful man. My hour has come. God's clock has struck, and it is
+the stroke of doom for my unworthy soul. Not that I despair of final
+mercy, for mine is a scarlet sin, and for such there is a special
+promise. But God's rod hath fallen upon me. The Almighty hath scourged
+me through my own son; for he who has just gone forth is none other than
+mine own child. My heart went out to him since first I saw his face,
+though I knew not till to-day that he is my flesh and blood. The
+picture you saw him hold out before me is none other than the picture of
+his mother's face.
+
+"I speak it not for my defense--but I thought his mother was dead. I was
+told from the old country that she was gone, and more than one letter
+was returned to me with the statement that she could not be found. It
+was my heart's purpose to make a worthy home for her here in Canada, and
+to bring her out to it and to atone if I might for the cruel wrong. The
+first is long since done, but the second was beyond my power--at least
+so I was led to think.
+
+"And now, Moderator, I place in your hands the resignation of the office
+on which I have brought such deep disgrace. It was my pride to be an
+elder in St. Cuthbert's, for it was here I first tasted of the Saviour's
+forgiving grace; it was here I first learned the luxury of penitence,
+and here was born my heart's deep purpose to retrieve the past--it was
+my pride, I say to be an elder here, but it is now my shame."
+
+He was about to stop when Saunders McTavish interrupted:
+
+"Moderator, there'll be no need to proceed by libel, for the accused
+party has confessed his guilt. But he hasna said anything to the Court
+about his soul, about his soul and his sin, and his relation to his God.
+At least, not all he might like to say and we might like to hear. Mebbe
+he'll have had repentance unto life?"
+
+I waited. Mr. Blake's response came with humble brokenness.
+
+"Please God I have," he said, "and, unworthy though I be, I have a great
+word for my fellow men this day--a word the unfallen angels could not
+speak. Oh, my brethren, believe me, I have not been leading a double
+life. I took the eldership at your hands, I know, saying nothing of the
+dark blot that soiled the past. My humble hope was that in service I
+might seek to redeem my life and I remembered One who said to a guilty
+soul like mine:--'Feed My sheep.' Penitence, and not remorse, I thought,
+was well pleasing unto God.
+
+"And you will bear me witness that I have tried to warn all, especially
+the young men, against the first approach of sin. I fell long years ago
+because I cherished sinful images in my heart till even love went down
+before them. Since then, God is my witness, I have made it my lifework
+to drive them forth and to make every thought captive to the Redeeming
+Christ. My lifework has not been in my foundry, nor in my town, nor in
+my church--but in my heart, this guilty heart of mine. I have striven to
+drive out evil thoughts--out, in the blessed name of Jesus. For long, I
+could not recall my sin without sinning anew. But I had a hope of final
+victory, and having this, I purified myself even as He is pure.
+
+"It was my daily prayer that God would make me useful, poor and all but
+sunken wreck as I was, that he would yet make me a danger signal to the
+young about me--which I am this day. For a wrecked ship does not tell of
+danger--it swears to the peril that itself has known. And to every young
+man before me I swear to two things this hour. The first is that your
+sin will find you out. Be sure of this. All our phrases about lanes that
+have no turning and the mills of the gods and justice that smites with
+iron hand, and chickens that come home to roost--all these are only
+names for God's unsleeping vigilance, all varied statements of the
+relentlessness of sin.
+
+"The other truth to which I swear is this, that dark and bitter memories
+of evil may be a blessing to the soul, if we but count that sin our
+deadly enemy and rest not till we take vengeance of it. It may yet be
+God's messenger to us, if we lead humble chastened lives, seeking to
+redeem the past and watching unto prayer. There is no discipline so
+bitter and so blessed as the discipline of an almost ruined soul. For
+old sins do not decay and die; they must be nailed upon the cross. It is
+an awful truth that he who was once filthy is filthy still, but it is
+still more true, thank God, that there is One whose blood cleanseth
+from all sin."
+
+He stopped suddenly, and in a moment he was gone. Down that same aisle
+by which his child had passed, he swiftly walked, his head bowed, his
+face quivering in pain like one who was being scourged out of the
+temple. For there are corded whips, knotted by unseen hands.
+
+After the door had closed behind him the Session Clerk arose:
+
+"I move, Moderator," he said, "that Mr. Blake's resignation be laid on
+the table."
+
+Before his motion was seconded Roger Lockie, one of the stalwarts, stood
+in the middle of the congregation.
+
+"It's no becomin' in me to interfere," he began, "but we're a' assembled
+here as a worshippin' people, an' I move that the Kirk Session be
+requested no' to accept the resignation. Oor brother fell, nae doot, but
+it was lang syne, and he has walked worthy o' the Lord unto a' pleasin'
+since, an' borne a guid witness to his Maister. We a' ken fine what the
+great King an' Heid o' the Kirk wad dae wi' his resignation. Wi' my way
+o' thinkin', a sinfu' man wha has been saved by grace is juist the ane
+to commend the Maister's love. I move the Session be asked to keep him
+as oor elder."
+
+"I second that," said William Watson, a man of fifty years. "He brocht
+me to Christ and that's ae soul he saved. He broke the alabaster box
+upon his Saviour's head this day and we a' felt the fragrance o't. If
+God Himsel' canna despise the contrite hairt, nae mair can we."
+
+I was about to put the motion when the senior elder arose:--"I hae but a
+word," he said, "an' it's nae word o' mine. The spirit o' the cross is
+wi' us and I will read a bit frae the Buik:--'If a man be overtaken in a
+fault ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of
+meekness, considering thyself lest thou also be tempted.'"
+
+"Are you ready for the question?" I asked.
+
+"Aye, we're a' fine an' ready noo," said one of the worshippers.
+
+The vote was taken and there was no dissenting voice. Michael Blake's
+long penance had done its work on earth and its eternal outcome was in
+other hands than ours.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+_The SWEET SUNNY SOUTH_
+
+
+I was strongly inclined to accept the call. Not that I liked changes,
+for heart vines bleed freely when uptorn, and friendship's stocks cannot
+be bought on margin. But my heart was heavy, and St. Cuthbert's had been
+sorely wounded. Therefore, when the South Carolina church opened
+correspondence with me regarding their vacant pulpit, I lent an
+attentive ear.
+
+All who have known sorrow in their work know how sweet sounds the voice,
+even the siren voice, which calls to distant scenes of toil. The world's
+weary heart will some day learn that no far-leading path, no journey by
+land or sea can separate us from the sorrow we seek to flee; because no
+path hath been discovered, no route devised, which shall lead us forth
+from our own hearts, where sorrow hath her lair.
+
+Nevertheless, I was strongly minded to go forth from the work which had
+become my very life. It is nature's favourite paradox that what we love
+the most, the most hath power to give us pain. Could we withhold our
+love, no hand could wound us sorely, for it takes a friend to make an
+enemy worth the name. And since I loved St. Cuthbert's with that love
+which only sacrifice can know, I was oppressed with a corresponding fear
+that her frown would quench whatever glimmer of gladness still flickered
+in my heart. For I had almost forgotten that ever I was glad. And is it
+to be wondered at?
+
+My daughter's love was fixed upon a man whom I deemed impossible, though
+by no fault of his. She had renounced all purpose of their immediate
+union in deference to her father's protest, but her love was fixed upon
+him still, and her father felt like one who was beating back the spring.
+Her mother was torn with the torment of an armed neutrality. Further, my
+beautiful church had been scarred by the explosive riot of that
+ordination day, stricken with a soul's lightning; and the whole tragedy
+of our home life had been laid bare to every eye.
+
+Margaret, and her love, and her lover, and her lover's genealogy, and
+her father's forbiddal of their marriage, all these were daily herbs to
+those who loved us, daily bread to native gossip-mongers, and daily
+luxury to all who wished us ill. My attitude towards Margaret's lover,
+and whether that attitude was right or wrong, was the especial subject
+of debate and all New Jedboro abandoned itself to a carnival of
+judgment. Even the most pious and indulgent could not forego the solemn
+luxury, and those who denied themselves all of scandal's toothsome
+tidbits could not renounce this great repast.
+
+I entertained no actual misgivings as to St. Cuthbert's permanent
+loyalty to me; but our self-consciousness had become raw and sore, our
+manse had turned suddenly to a house of glass, and the whole situation
+was so fraught with embarrassment that no mere man since the fall could
+have been free from an instinctive longing to escape.
+
+St. Andrew's, Charleston, an ancient church of that ancient city, had
+offered me its pulpit. The Southerners have a taste for British blood,
+and they stand alone as connoisseurs of that commodity. Wherefore, the
+St. Andrew's folk had cast about for a British minister, preferring the
+second growth, hopeful that its advantage of American shade might have
+made its excellence complete.
+
+Their committee ranged all Canada, finally dismounting beneath the
+stately steeple of St. Cuthbert's, their lasso loosed for action. Or, to
+change the metaphor, they informed their church at home that their eyes
+were fastened on their game at last; for the duty of such a committee is
+to tree their bird, then hold him transfixed by various well-known
+sounds till the congregation shall bring him down by well directed aim,
+bag him, and bear him off.
+
+The Charleston Committee was composed of four, who attended St.
+Cuthbert's both morning and evening, when they came one Sabbath day to
+spy out the land.
+
+The proprietor of the Imperial Hotel, himself an extinct Presbyterian,
+told me afterwards that they arrived late at night, begged to be excused
+from registering and went immediately to their rooms. But he knew in the
+morning that they were not to the manner born--for they asked for
+"oatmeal" for breakfast, which is called porridge by all who boast even
+a tincture of that blood it hath so long enriched.
+
+Then they ate it with outward signs of enjoyment, which also flies in
+the face of all Scottish principle. Besides all this, they gave the maid
+a quarter, which was the most conclusive evidence of all.
+
+They walked to St. Cuthbert's in four different detachments and sat in
+separate sections of the church. But they were not unnoticed; every
+Scotch section marked its man, for in New Jedboro strangers were events.
+I myself remarked three of them; devout they seemed and yet vigilant--as
+was natural, for they had come to both watch and pray.
+
+The psalms were too much for them; they seemed to enter heartily into
+the other portions of the service--but the psalms in metre are a great
+Shibboleth. My beadle, who always sat where he could command the
+congregation, has often assured me that when a psalm was announced he
+could soon tell the sheep from the goats.
+
+The service passed without special incident; for, although I suspected
+their errand, all thought of it vanished when I came to preach. God's
+jealous care will hold to undivided loyalty the heart that seeks to
+serve Him.
+
+Monday morning brought the deputation to close range. They interviewed
+me in my study, and the house was redolent of Southern courtesy and
+grace. Their accent had a foreign tang but their hearts' tone was that
+of universal love. This latter word is not too strong to use, for the
+Southerner has a rare genius for laying claim to your very heart by the
+surrender of his own. Affection blooms fast in the Southern soul, but
+our Northern bud needs time. Especially tardy is its ripening in
+Scottish hearts, but the fruit is to Eternity.
+
+The conversation was one of great interest and pleasure to myself, and
+while I could give no definite promise I made no secret of the
+attractiveness of their proposal.
+
+"You will be so good as to present our regards to the mistress of the
+manse," said one of them, as they rose to go.
+
+"Thank you, it will give me great pleasure," I responded; "my wife is a
+Southerner. Her father, who is not living now, fought at Gettysburg. My
+wife's standing instruction is to say that he was not killed in battle,
+for that was many years ago, and she has the Southern instinct for
+youth."
+
+"And the Southern talent for it too, I reckon," the courtly
+gentleman replied. "We are mighty glad to hear that she belongs to
+us. Surely we will have a friend at Court. Let her be considered our
+plenipotentiary-extraordinary. Does her heart still turn towards her
+Southern home?"
+
+"I am sure it does," I made reply, "but it has been long garrisoned
+within these rock-bound walls, and I know she has come to love them. I
+have often heard her say that there is no trellis for Southern vines
+like these mountainous hearts, true and faithful as the eternal hills
+themselves."
+
+"I don't wonder at it," another of the deputation interposed. "From what
+I have seen and learned of these folk, I think they are our nearest kin.
+The Scotch and the Southern nature are alike, the same intensity of
+feeling, but with them it glows and burns, while with us it flames and
+sparkles."
+
+"The same stream," suggested the first, "but ours breaks easier into
+flood."
+
+"Well, I hope the flood will bear her back to her native shore," said
+the youngest member of the committee, who was a colonel, having been
+born during the Civil War.
+
+We all laughed pleasantly at our racial distinctions and the gentlemen
+withdrew.
+
+"We will not tell you good-bye, for we hope to see you soon again," was
+the last word I heard, the Southern idiom and the Southern cordiality
+both in evidence.
+
+Definite action on the part of the Charleston church soon followed the
+return of their representatives. And I knew not what to do.
+
+In the hope of relieving my perplexity, I accepted an invitation to
+spend a Sabbath with the St. Andrew's people and occupy their proffered
+pulpit.
+
+My heart had sore misgivings when I said good-bye to Issie Hogg; her
+years were but thirteen; and every year had bound her closer and closer
+to my heart till I knew she was more dear to me than any other child
+save one. The sands of life were nearly run and I feared greatly lest
+they might be spent before I should return.
+
+New Jedboro was winter-wrapped when I left it, and, taking steamer from
+New York, I disembarked at Charleston into almost intoxicating
+sweetness. Their dear South land was aflame with early summer, and my
+idea of Paradise was revised. How could these Southern hearts be
+otherwise than warm and fragrant! All the land about seemed like
+nature's temple breathing forth its silent anthem and celebrating its
+perpetual mass.
+
+Yet all its vernal beauty seemed but as a portal to the inner shrine,
+the sanctuary of Southern hospitality. Which hospitality is a separate
+brand and hath no rival this side the Gates of Pearl. Let all who would
+feel the surprise of heaven's welcome forego the luxury of a visit to a
+Southern home; for they have stolen that celestial fire to kindle their
+waiting hearths.
+
+I was committed to the care of one of the families of St. Andrew's whose
+household numbered five; and every heart had many doors all open wide.
+That is, open wide till you had entered, for then they seemed tight
+closed, locked with a golden key. Ancient pride seemed to be their
+family possession, never flaunted, but suppressed rather--and you knew
+it only because your own heart acknowledged that this must be its
+rightful dwelling place.
+
+I noted again the pleasing custom of Southern ladies, who shake hands on
+introduction, and forever after. The candid graciousness that marks the
+act is in happy contrast to the self-conscious agitation of the
+underbred and the torpid panic of their stifled bow.
+
+My host and hostess were persons of rare interest. Some of England's
+best blood was in their veins; it had come to them by way of Virginia,
+in their eyes the last medium of refinement. The final touch of
+sanguinary indigo is given only at Virginia's hands, the Virginian
+aristocracy being a blessed union of the English chivalric and the
+American intrinsic, the heraldic of the old world blended with the
+romantic of the new--which might make the Duke of Devonshire proud to
+receive reordination at their hands.
+
+English aristocracy ambles on in an inevitable path, high banked by
+centuries--but the Virginian hath leaped the hurdle of the ocean and
+still retained its coronet; which proves that it was fashioned in
+eternity after the express pattern of their patrician heads.
+
+As I describe the lofty source of this gracious Southern household, I
+bethink myself that to this day I cannot tell how I came to know that
+theirs was an ancient family. No reference to it from their own lips can
+I recall; certainly no boast, except the tranquil boast of proud
+serenity and noble bearing, and the noblesse oblige of loving hearts.
+
+Grave courtesy and sweet simplicity and mirthful dignity seemed to be
+the heirlooms which they shared as common heritors; and, chiefest of
+credentials, when they stood in the library amid the shades of ancestors
+preserved in oils, I felt no sense of humour in the situation.
+
+This is a great tribute; for the plebeian may boast his ancestors but he
+dare not paint them; and many a pioneer aristocrat hath compassed his
+undoing because he thus tried to put new wine into old bottles. Wishing
+to found a family, he proceeds to find one, and both are covered with
+shame as with a garment.
+
+Many of our new world nobility, finding in sudden wealth the necessity
+for sudden pedigree, have resurrected their ancestors and tried in vain
+to touch them into gentleness, committing to an artist the secret task
+of God. Even those who have made fortune in oils, consistently restoring
+their innocent forefathers by the same, have only advertised their
+weakness with their wares.
+
+It is true that the Vardell family coat-of-arms was not concealed--but
+it was not brandished or expounded. In quiet but vigilant emblazonry, it
+seemed to stand apart, like some far back member of the family in whose
+pride it shared.
+
+Which reminded me, by contrast, of a call I had once made upon a certain
+Northern family, conspicuously rich and conspicuously new. While waiting
+in the drawing-room, I observed four different crests, or coats-of-arms,
+framed and hanging in a separate place, smirking to one another in token
+of their youthful fortune; for the lines had fallen unto them in
+pleasant places.
+
+Soon the mistress of the mansion swept into the room, her locomotion
+accompanied by a wealthy sound, silk skirts calling unto silk skirts as
+deep calleth unto deep. A little pleasant conversation ensued, which,
+among other things informed me that the Turkish rug beneath me had cost
+six hundred dollars; whereupon I anxiously lifted my unworthy feet, my
+emotion rising with them. After both had subsided, I sought to stir the
+sacred pool of memory, pointing reverently to one of the aforesaid
+emblems of heraldry.
+
+"That is your family coat-of-arms, Mrs. Brown, is it not?" I asked,
+throwing wide the door for the return of the noble dead.
+
+"Yes," she answered proudly, "that is my one, and that one there is Mr.
+Brown's, and those other two are the children's; the yellow one is
+Victoria's and the red one is Louisa Alexandra's. Mr. Brown bought them
+in New York, and we thought when we were getting them we might just as
+well get one apiece for the children too."
+
+How rich and reckless, I reflected, is the spendthrift generosity of our
+new world rich!
+
+I could not but recall how those mean old English families make one such
+emblem do for centuries, and the children have to be content with its
+rusty symbols. But this lavish enterprise cheered me by its refreshing
+contrast; for every one was new, and each child had one for its very
+own.
+
+There is no need to dwell on the succeeding Sabbath. St. Andrew's church
+bore everywhere the evidences of wealth and refinement. Large and
+sympathetic congregations were before me, evidently hospitable to the
+truth; for Huguenot and Scotch-Irish blood does not lose its ruling
+passion, and South Carolina has its generous portion of them both.
+
+I sorely missed the psalms, without which, to those who have acquired
+the stern relish, a service lacks its greatest tonic. But my poor
+efforts seemed well received and the flood of Southern fervour burst
+forth later on, as we sat around the Vardells' dinner table.
+
+I was being initiated into the mystic sweets of "syllabub," a Southern
+concoction of which my sober Scotch folks had never heard. Whoso takes
+it may not look upon the wine when it is red, for its glow is muffled by
+various other moral things; but the wine, waiting patiently at the
+bottom, cometh at last unto its own; and the glow which was absent from
+the cup may be soon detected upon the face of him who took it, beguiled
+by the innocent foliage amidst which the historic serpent lurks.
+
+Webster defines it as a dish of cream, flavoured with wine, and beaten
+to a froth. But Webster was from Massachusetts and his advantages were
+few. The cultured Southerner, more versed in luxury than language,
+knoweth well that it is a dish of wine, flavoured with cream, and not
+beaten at all since the foundation of the world.
+
+Southerners incline to eulogy; and syllabubs insist upon it. Wherefore,
+after the third syllabub had run the same course that its fathers had
+run, Miss Sadie turned to me and said:
+
+"That was a perfectly lovely sermon you preached to us this morning."
+
+"You are very frank," quoth I, for I was unaccustomed to compliments,
+one every six or seven years, and an extra thrown in at death, being the
+limit of Scotch enthusiasm.
+
+"Well," replied Miss Sadie, "I hope I am. I think it is sweet and lovely
+to tell people if you like them. What's the use of waiting till they're
+dead, before you say nice things about your friends? If folks love me,
+or think me nice, I want them to tell me so while I'm alive."
+
+"I love you and I think you are sweet and beautiful," said I, obedient.
+
+Then came a dainty Southern cry--not the bold squeal of other girls, nor
+the loud honking of those who mourn for girlhood gone--but the
+woman-note which only the Southern girl commands in its perfection.
+
+"Father! Do you hear what that preacher said to me just now?" she cried
+archly. "Isn't it perfectly dreadful for him to say things like that to
+a simple maiden like me? You awful man!"
+
+"Our guest is only flesh and blood, Sadie," answered the courtly father
+when his laughing ceased, "so I presume, like the rest of us, he thinks
+you lovely. As for his telling you so, he was only carrying out your own
+instructions."
+
+"I don't see how you could have done anything else," laughed Mrs.
+Vardell. "You shut him up to it, you know, Sadie. After your precept, to
+have said nothing nice would have meant that there was nothing nice to
+say."
+
+"But seriously," resumed Miss Sadie, turning again to me, "that was
+really a lovely sermon this morning. It is beautiful to be able to help
+a whole congregation like that."
+
+"Yes," chimed in Miss Vardell, Sadie's sweet senior, "it was perfectly
+fascinating. I shall never forget it as long as I live."
+
+"I really think you will have to let us speak our mind," added their
+mother. "Your Geneva gown was so becoming; I do so wish our Southern
+ministers would adopt it. And the sermon was perfect. I especially
+admired the way it seemed to grow out of the text; they seemed to grow
+together like a vine twining around a tree."
+
+I endured this tender pelting with the best grace I could command,
+though this was the first time I had ever been the centre of such a
+hosannah thunder-storm. The tribute to the kinship of text and sermon,
+however, was really very pleasing to me. Just at this juncture, when a
+new batch of compliments was about to be produced, smoking hot, an aged
+aunt, the prisoner of years, ventured an enquiry.
+
+"I wish I could have been there--but I am far past that," she said.
+"What was the text, Sadie?"
+
+Sadie flew into the chamber of her memory to catch it before it should
+escape. But the sudden invasion had evidently alarmed it, for it had
+gone. She silently pursued it into space, but returned empty-handed.
+
+"That's strange," she faltered; "it was a lovely text," she added, by
+way of consolation. "But it's gone; I was so taken up with the sermon
+that I must have failed to remember the text," she concluded, false to
+her first love, but faithful to her guest.
+
+"Well, Josie," said the still unenlightened aunt, "I will have to look
+to you. You will tell me what it was."
+
+Josie joined in the chase, but their prey had had a noble start and was
+now far beyond them.
+
+"It was in the New Testament, I think," said Josie, pleased with this
+pledge of accuracy, and satisfied that she had outrun her sister--"and
+it was tolerably long." This was said with the air of one who had almost
+identified it and might justly leave the rest to the imagination. "I
+reckon I could find it if I had a Bible," she added hopefully.
+
+No Bible was produced, for that would have been taking an unfair
+advantage of the fugitive; but the eulogists began their mental search
+in unison, quoting various fragments of my morning prayer at family
+worship, which they carefully retained as witnesses. After they had
+ransacked every mental corridor in vain they acknowledged the
+fruitlessness of the quest, and I myself told their aged relative the
+text.
+
+"Of course," they cried together, each repeating portions of it again
+and again in the spirit of atonement.
+
+"I suppose," said Mrs. Vardell, "that the mind undergoes a kind of
+relaxation after a delicious tension such as we experienced to-day."
+
+I marvelled greatly at this relentless sweetness.
+
+"I knew it was in the New Testament," said Josie triumphantly--and we
+silently accorded her the praise that was her due.
+
+But I inwardly bethought myself of those silent granite lips in the
+frozen North, unthawed by tender speeches, yet each one the reservoir of
+my texts and sermons, as unforgotten as they were unsung.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+_ST. CUTHBERT'S SECOND CALL_
+
+
+My reluctant farewells had been said, my gracious entertainers had grown
+dim upon the wharf; and the Atlantic was greeting our ship with
+boisterous welcome. For the Atlantic is far travelled and loves to
+surprise those Southern shores with the waves of Northern waters.
+
+One by one the passengers retired from the deck, some with slow dignity,
+some with solemn haste, and some with volcanic candour.
+
+I remained, sharing the scant survival of the fit, and fell into a
+reflective mood, for I love to think to music, none so grand as the
+accompaniment of ocean. That mighty throat is attuned to the human; its
+cry of deep mysterious passion, its note of conflict, is the epitome of
+the universal voice. It accorded well with the mood that possessed me,
+for that mood was gray.
+
+The prevailing thought was this--that I was going back to winter. Grim
+relapse this, I mused, to go forth from bud and bloom and bird, to
+pendant icicle and drifted snow. For the blood soon warms beneath
+Southern skies, and a man soon recognizes that a garden was the
+ancestral home of him and of all mankind. Even the Eskimo can be traced
+to Eden.
+
+Yes, I was going back to winter in very truth, without and within; for
+there is a sharper winter than any whose story the thermometer records.
+The winter of my discontent, and of another's blighted heart, and of
+still another's darkened life, awaited me beyond these turbid waters! My
+way was dark, and my path obscure before me. Chart and compass were
+blurred and numb. To remain in New Jedboro, and to remove to Charleston,
+seemed equally distasteful.
+
+I had given the Southern church no assurance of my purpose, because
+purpose I had none. Yet the stern necessity of choice was upon me, this
+most sombre enfranchisement of manhood, that we are compelled to choose,
+willing or unwilling. Saint and sinner, believer and infidel, are alike
+under this compulsion in matters moral--and in all matters. We speak of
+the stern pressure which demands that men shall make a living; but its
+dread feature is herein, that our living is a succession of pregnant
+choices on which our deepest livelihood depends--and these choices melt
+into destiny, involving the infinite itself.
+
+My people, I ruminated, could help me to a decision if they only would.
+But I knew how non-committal they would be; for they, and all their
+kind, are inclined to assume no responsibility of another's soul, and to
+surrender no fragment of their own.
+
+New York was reached at last, the waves still tossing heavily. When I
+alighted from the train at New Jedboro, the breath of winter greeted me.
+
+One of my parishioners, an Aberdonian born, was on the lookout. He shook
+hands, but said nothing of welcome home. Yet his hand was warm, and its
+grip had a voice that told me more than even sweet Southern lips could
+say. For its voice was bass--which is God's.
+
+"Issie's wantin' ye," he said calmly. "She's far gone an' she's been
+askin' for ye."
+
+The dawn as yet had hardly come, and seating myself upon the box, I told
+the cabman to drive quickly to Issie's home. As we passed through the
+still unstirring town, he said:
+
+"He'll be sittin' up with him," pointing to a dimly-lighted window.
+
+"Who'll be sitting up?" I said.
+
+"Oh, I forgot. You won't have heard. That is Mr. Strachan's room. At
+least I think that is the name. I only came here myself to work ten days
+ago. A poor homeless woman landed here last week from Ireland. One of
+those immigration agent devils over there took her last penny and sent
+her over to Canada, to starve for all he cared. She showed smallpox
+after she landed here and her little lad was with her. He took it too.
+Well, she died--but before she died she told her story. The old story,
+you know--had bad luck, you see, and the fellow skipped out and left
+her. The woman gets the worst of it every time, don't she?"
+
+"She died!" I exclaimed. "And the little one? Where is the boy you spoke
+of?"
+
+"That's him; that's what the light's burnin' for. Angus Strachan, so
+they say, paid all the funeral expenses, and they wanted to send the kid
+away somewheres--some hospital for them catchin' diseases. But Strachan
+acted queer about it. He wouldn't let them touch it. And he took it to
+his own room and said he would take care of it himself."
+
+"And did they let him?" I asked.
+
+"Let him. I just guess they did. They couldn't help it. You see he'd
+been in, monkeyin' round the smallpox already--so they had to. And he
+wrapped the kid up in a blanket and took it to his room. They say his
+light's never been out at night since."
+
+"He has not taken the disease himself, has he?" I enquired.
+
+"Oh, no; leastwise, I never heard tell of it. But them was queer actions
+for a young fellow, wasn't they? No accountin' for tastes, as the
+fellow said! Can you understand it yourself, sir?"
+
+"I think I can," was my reply; "let us hurry on," and in a few minutes
+we were at Issie's house.
+
+Little Issie had long since snuggled down in her own separate place in
+my heart; she was indeed a favourite with all who knew her--but I saw as
+I stepped into the room that God loved her best of all. The white thin
+hands were tightly held, one in her father's, the other in her mother's,
+as though they would detain her; but the angels heeded not and went on
+with the preparations for her flight. These were almost complete when I
+arrived; Issie alone knew that they were of God's providing, for the
+face she turned to me was full of childish sweetness, and her smile was
+touched with other light.
+
+"I'm glad you're home," she whispered, as I bent low beside her. "Please
+don't go away again"--and as I kissed her she was gone.
+
+Her curls were gold, still gold, though she was gone. As we stood
+weeping beside the precious dust the sun arose, still arose, though she
+was gone. And his first errand was to the broken heart. Swift to the
+window flew his first-flung rays, like eager couriers who hear the cry
+of need. And entering in, unbidden, they set God's brighter seal of love
+upon the golden tresses. Up and down among the glowing strands, they
+wandered, smiling at God's gain, smiling still, though she was gone.
+Unafraid, they caressed the unconscious locks, anointing them for their
+burial.
+
+When I went out, the winter seemed past and gone; I knew then what made
+these snowbound hearts so warm.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Margaret has a new sorrow," said my wife, soon after my arrival home.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"A young woman and her child from Ireland--"
+
+"Yes," I interrupted, "I heard about it; the driver told me. Does
+Margaret seem to fret herself about it?"
+
+"I don't know," answered her mother, "but I am afraid it has made it all
+the harder for us: I mean that I fear that she is more devoted to him
+now than ever. She read me a letter Angus wrote her just before he shut
+himself up with the child."
+
+"What did it say?" I asked, with eagerness.
+
+"I don't remember very clearly: but he said that this woman who died of
+smallpox, the child's mother, you know, had opened all her heart to him
+before she died. And he says there never was a gentler or purer-hearted
+woman--the old story, of love, and trust, and anguish. Then he said he
+promised her to care for her boy; and he said something about his
+ordination vows, said he would try to be true to them, and that this
+would help him to banish revenge and hatred from his heart."
+
+"His ordination vows?" I exclaimed, "what do you suppose he means?
+Surely he is not trifling with all that unhappy occurrence?"
+
+"I don't think so. There was no trifling tone about his letter. I asked
+Margaret about that very thing, but she wouldn't tell me, only she said
+there was no elder in St. Cuthbert's more ordained to God's service than
+Angus is."
+
+"Did she say anything about their love affairs?" said I, after a man's
+poor bungling fashion.
+
+"Not a word--but she wouldn't let me see the letter," this with a little
+womanly sigh: for women, like children, have griefs that appear trifling
+to grown men, but are very real to them.
+
+After a pause my wife ventured: "Don't you think that perhaps we are
+just a little unrelenting about Margaret and Angus?"
+
+"What?" I said.
+
+"Oh, I don't mean that she should marry him, of course, but it does seem
+hard, father--and it really wasn't his fault--and perhaps we will regret
+it some day."
+
+"But, my dear, you know it is impossible--think of the humiliation of
+it, the shame of it, I might say."
+
+"Yes, I know," she answered, "but I do admire Angus more and more. He
+seems to be trying to staunch his sorrow, only he does it by love and
+service. Everybody is talking about how useful and unselfish he is, in
+the church, and among the poor--and everywhere."
+
+"I know it," admitted I, "I know it, and there is no reason why we
+should not always be friends--but the other is an entirely different
+matter. It cannot be."
+
+"Well," went on my wife, "I do not think I want to stay here; I don't
+suppose the people understand everything, but I feel sure many of them
+think we are dealing harshly with Margaret. And yet they would nearly
+all do the same. What kind of a manse have they in Charleston?" she
+concluded eagerly--for a woman's gift of transition is marvellous.
+
+Whereupon I told her all about my Southern experiences and impressions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was no tumult in St. Cuthbert's. A man who knows nothing of the
+under-currents in the heart's great ocean would have said that my people
+were serenely indifferent as to whether I should stay in New Jedboro or
+go to Charleston. There was no open attempt to influence the outcome,
+for they believed in the sovereignty of God and would not interfere--at
+least not till that very sovereignty so constrained them. Of course,
+they held prayer to be a legitimate interference. This is a great
+mystery, but it is cherished by the soul as persistently as it is
+challenged by the reason. Mysterious though this union must ever be, the
+Scottish spirit takes full advantage of it, and enjoys its fruit, let
+the root be hidden as it may.
+
+"Ye'll be givin' us yir decision some o' these days," was about as far
+as the most emotional would go, some even adding: "Charleston's a graun
+city, nae doot, an' I'm hopin' ye'll like it fine if you leave us,"
+which last proved to me that such an one secretly prayed for my
+remaining. The true Scotchman is like the Hebrew language--to be
+understood, he must be read backwards.
+
+"It's a graun chance ye're gettin', to be called to sic a kirk as that,"
+said Wattie Gardner one day. "I'm fearin' ye'll rue it if ye bide wi' us
+here."
+
+This was far from the language of ardent wooing; yet I noticed that this
+same Wattie sought to reform his ways, that they might tend to the
+increase of my comfort. He had been an incorrigible sleeper in the kirk,
+surrendering to sweet repose with the announcement of the text, and
+emerging therefrom only to join the closing paraphrase with
+unembarrassed unction. For no man was more ready with a verdict on the
+sermon than was Wattie, as he walked down the aisle; he never failed to
+demand the "heads and particulars" from his family at the dinner table,
+resenting all imputation of somnolence for himself.
+
+His defense was plausible, since he never slept exposed; but always with
+his head bowed upon the book-board, esteemed by the uncharitable as the
+attitude of slumber, but explained by Wattie as the posture of
+undistracted thought and pious meditation.
+
+Shortly after my call to Charleston, however, Wattie abandoned this
+pious and reflective posture, sitting bolt upright, beating back his
+tendency to thoughtful retirement with the aid of cloves and
+peppermints. I knew the meaning of this reform, for I knew Wattie's love
+for me, clandestine though it was; he and I had watched death together
+once--and after the wave had overswept us, the ground beneath our feet
+was firm as rock forever.
+
+By and by St. Cuthbert's began to move. It was known that I purposed
+announcing my decision on the approaching Sabbath day, and I was
+informed that one or two deputations wished to wait upon me at the
+manse. The first was from the women of the church, who had had a meeting
+of their own.
+
+To my amazement the spokeswoman was Mrs. Goodall. Now it must be told
+that this same Mrs. Goodall, in all sincerity of conscience, had
+violently withstood my advent to the pastorate of St. Cuthbert's years
+before. The ground of her opposition was that I plied the festive pipe.
+
+Never was there nobler Christian womanhood than hers, never a more
+devoted life, never a more loving heart. But no man's character could be
+fragrant, so she thought, if it ripened amid the rich aroma of tobacco;
+and good old Virginia leaf was to her the poison-ivy of mankind. That
+life was indeed beclouded which found shelter in the genial clouds of
+the aforesaid leaf. But with all this heroic hostility to our little
+weaknesses, there dwelt a sweet strain of innocence in which we had come
+to glory.
+
+"Ye needn't tell me," said the good Mrs. Goodall once to a sympathetic
+circle, "that they dinna play poker at the taivern--an' in the daytime
+too--for I passed by this verra day, an' they were pokin' away, wi'
+their coats off, wi' lang sticks in their hands, pokin' at the wee white
+balls," and her listeners needed no other proof.
+
+The dear old saint made her plea for those she represented, and it
+greatly pleased me, for I loved her well; and I remembered the scores
+and hundreds who had felt the power of her godly life. Besides, it
+confirmed me in this assurance, that, after all is said and done, if a
+man is honestly trying to do his Master's work, even those most sternly
+set against the pipe will care but little whether or not he seeks the
+comfort it undoubtedly affords. Which very thing had been proved by my
+great predecessor, Dr. Grant, half a century agone.
+
+The second, and larger, deputation was composed of ten or more,
+appointed to represent the kirk session and the Board. Of this latter
+body, the principal spokesman was its chairman, William Collin, an
+excerpt from Selkirkshire and one of my chiefest friends. He was long,
+very long, almost six feet three, with copious hair that never sank to
+rest, and habitually adorned with a cravat that had caught the same
+aspiring spirit. This was a rider perpetually attached.
+
+One suit of clothes after another, as the years passed by, bore witness
+to the loyalty of his heart; for he would not abandon the pre-historic
+tailor who was a sort of heirloom in the Collin family. In consequence,
+the rise and fall of William's coat, in its caudal parts, as he walked
+down the aisle with the plate on the Sabbath day, had become part of St.
+Cuthbert's ritual--and we all thought it beautiful. He was one of the
+two, referred to in the opening of our story, who had been sent to spy
+out the land, and to report upon the propriety of my conjugal
+enterprise. The fluent panegyric in which his report was made is already
+recorded and need not be here repeated.
+
+William had a talent for friendship beyond that of any man I ever knew,
+and this talent flowered into genius only after the clock struck
+midnight. Never yet was there friend who would stay with you to the last
+like William Collin, his shortcomings few, his long-stayings many and
+delicious.
+
+For never yet was friend so welcome, never speech more sane and
+stimulating; never farewell so sweetly innocent when the clock struck
+two. May the God of friendship bless thee, William Collin, for all that
+thy friendship hath been to me! And if these lines outlive thee, let
+them bear witness to that joy which is not denied to the humblest man,
+who hath but a fireplace and a friend and a pipe--and four feet on the
+fender, while the storm howls without. For, with alternate zeal, we cast
+the blocks upon the blaze--and its flame never faltered till thou wert
+gone.
+
+William, as chairman, was the first to speak. He presented St.
+Cuthbert's case with dignity and force, beginning with the tidings that
+the Board wished me henceforth to take two months' holidays instead of
+one. This started in my mind a swift reflection upon the native
+perversity of the Scotch. To prove that they cannot do without you, they
+banish you altogether for an extra month, but William Collin gave the
+thing a more graceful turn:
+
+"We love you weel eneuch to do without you--but no' for lang," he said.
+
+Then he concluded, as was his inviolate custom, with a reference to
+Burns, in whom he had sat down and risen up for forty years:
+
+"I canna better close what I hae to say," he assured me, "than by the
+use o' the plowboy's words, slightly changed for the occasion:
+
+    "'Better lo'ed ye canna be
+        Will ye no' abide at hame?'"
+
+With this he reached behind him (this too, a time-honoured custom),
+seized the aforesaid caudal parts of his coat, removed them from the
+path of descending danger, and lowered his stalwart form with easy
+dignity, his kindly eyes aglow with friendship's light.
+
+David Carrick was the next to speak. Cautious and severe, his chief aim
+was to express the hope that I was sincere in my indecision.
+
+"We had a sair shock wi' a former minister long years ago," he said, "he
+had a call, like yirsel', but he aye kept puttin' us off, tellin' us he
+was aye seekin' licht frae above; but Sandy Rutherford saw an or'nary
+licht in the manse ae nicht after twal o'clock. He peekit in the window,
+an' he saw the minister wi' his coat off, packin' up the things. The twa
+lichts kind o' muddled him, ye ken."
+
+His colleagues may have thought David unnecessarily severe. In any case
+several of them began signalling to Geordie Bickell to take the floor.
+Geordie responded with much modesty and misgiving, for he was the
+saintliest man amongst us; and his own estimate of himself was in direct
+antagonism to our own.
+
+"We willna urge ye, sir," he said, with a winsome smile, "but I'm sure
+the maist of us hae been pleadin' hard afore a higher court than this.
+A' I want to tell ye is this--there hasna been wound or bruise upon yir
+relation to yir people. An' there's but ae hairt amongst us, an' we're
+giein' ye anither call this day--an' we're hopin' it's the will o' God."
+
+The interview was almost closed, when a voice was heard from the back of
+the room, a very eager voice, and charged with the import of its
+message:
+
+"It's mebbe no' worth mentionin'," said Archie Blackwood, a fiery Scot
+whose father had fought at Balaclava, "but it's gey important for a'
+that. Gin ye should gang to Charleston ye'll hae to sing sma' on their
+Fourth o' July, for that's their screechin' time, they tell me; an' ye
+wudna hae a psalm frae year's end to year's end to wet yir burnin'
+lips--an' ye wadna ken when it was the Twenty-fourth o' May. They tell
+me they haena kept the Twenty-fourth o' May in Ameriky since 1776."
+Archie knew his duty better than his dates.
+
+I assured him of the importance of his warnings, and acknowledged the
+various deprivations he had foretold.
+
+"Juist ae word afore we pairt," suddenly interjected a humble little
+elder who had never been known to speak before. "It's in my conscience,
+an' I want to pit it oot. We a' ken fine we haena been ower regular at
+the prayer meetin'; but we'll try to dae better in the time to come.
+It's death-bed repentance, I ken, but it's better than nane."
+
+One by one the delegates shook hands with me and withdrew, after I had
+promised them as early a pronouncement as my still unsettled mind could
+hope to give. After they had gone, I sat long by myself, pondering all
+that had been said, looking for light indeed, but striving to quench all
+other beams than those whose radiance was from above.
+
+While thus employed, a feeble footfall was heard upon the steps, and a
+gentle knocking called me to the door. It was no other than little
+Issie's grandfather who stood before me.
+
+"Come in, come in," I said cordially, for he was dear to me, and we had
+the bond of a common sorrow. "Have you forgotten something?"
+
+"No," he answered, "but I hae minded something. I didna speak when a'
+the ithers spoke; but I want to tell ye something by yirsel'. I think ye
+ought to ken. It has to dae wi' yir decision.
+
+"Ye mind wee Issie? Well, the mornin' ye came back frae Charleston, she
+was lyin' white an' still on the pillow. She hadna spoke a' through the
+nicht, an' we a' thocht she wad speak nae mair--but at six o'clock yir
+train blew afore it came into the station. An' wee Issie stirred on the
+pillow. Her lips moved an' I pit doon my ear.
+
+"'He'll be on that train,' she whispered low. 'Wha'll be on the train?'
+I askit her. 'The minister,' was a' she said.
+
+"I was alane wi' her, an' I said: 'Mebbe so, Issie.' Then she spoke nae
+mair for a little, but soon she said: 'God'll bring him back to open the
+gate for me before I go. Grandfather,' she said, 'he first told me of
+the gate and he said I would find it beautiful when I got close--and so
+it is--but I want him to push it farther open, for I am so weak and
+tired. I'm sure God will bring him home in time.'"
+
+My eyes were wet, and I could only take the old man's hand in mine, the
+silent token that the greatest argument of all had been kept until the
+last.
+
+"There's mair of us," he said, as the sobs shook his feeble frame,
+"there's mair of us wha's comin' near the gate. I'm no' far frae it
+mysel'. An' I want ye to wait my turn; I want ye to bide wi' us till ye
+see me through the gate. A stranger wadna be the same. I maun be gaun."
+
+It is long now since Issie's grandfather followed her through the gate.
+He too found it beautiful; for I walked with him till even I could see
+its glory. It swung wide open, for he was welcome home; and I caught a
+glimpse of the splendour just beyond. I heard, too, rapturous snatches
+of the song they sing in that better land. It may have been fancy, yet I
+am sure I heard the old precentor's voice, and Issie's holy strain was
+clearer still; but it was the new song, and these two blended wondrous
+well.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+_LOVE'S SINGING SACRIFICE_
+
+
+Death is kinder than we think. None other knew the way by which the
+little foundling's mother had gone forth. But death knew it well, having
+often passed over it before; and the orphan's cry was more than he could
+bear. So he took him in his kindly arms and bore him on to his mother,
+smiling at the cruel names by which he was accustomed to be called.
+
+It is death's way to take the jewel only, for the road is long; and who
+will may have the casket. Wherefore the affrighted undertaker bore the
+latter by night to its resting-place, for he knew that path and had
+often trodden it before. But he was not a deep sea pilot, like the
+other.
+
+Angus was left alone. A faithful man, himself a smallpox graduate, was
+his only companion. Strict care was kept before the door of the now
+deserted house, for panic hath its home in the heart of that dread
+disease, though not so dreadful as we think.
+
+Some of the misguided folk of New Jedboro fumigated themselves at every
+mention of Angus' name, sleeping meantime side by side with some
+consumptive form, knowing not that death slept between them. But the
+great science of life is, and hath ever been, the recognition of life's
+real enemies.
+
+Angus was alone--and fallen. The foundling's plague was upon him, and
+there was none to care for him but the faithful servant, smallpox-proof
+as he happily knew himself to be.
+
+The very night of the poor waif's hasty burial, a note was handed in at
+our kitchen door. It was from the health officer of New Jedboro:
+
+"Can you find a nurse for Mr. Strachan?" it ran. "He has no one with him
+but Foster, who has had the disease, and I need not tell you the
+necessity for a woman's care. I have tried the hospital, but no nurse
+will volunteer. Whoever goes, of course, will be under quarantine, as
+the guard has orders to let no one enter or leave the house. Perhaps you
+may know of some poor woman, or some kind of woman, who will undertake
+the duty. If you do, I have ordered the guard to let her into the house
+on presentation of this note."
+
+My wife and I were sitting in the study when the letter was handed to
+me. "I will run down to Mrs. Barrie's," I said, after long thinking.
+"She is not so much of a nurse, but she is less of a coward; and I know
+she has taken care of diphtheria."
+
+"I will walk down with you," said my wife; "perhaps a woman's influence
+won't be amiss on such an errand."
+
+We were soon ready and went out into the winter night.
+
+"Isn't that too bad?" I suddenly exclaimed, as we were turning into Mrs.
+Barrie's house. "I have forgotten that letter--and the health officer
+says that whoever goes must have it. Shall we go back for it?"
+
+"Not at all, she would have retired before we get back. And in any case
+she would not go till the morning, and you can give it to her before
+that," said my long tried adviser.
+
+"Very well, let us go in."
+
+We had left Margaret at home. She was often absent from our study fire,
+not in peevishness, or gloom, for they were foreign to her nature; but
+still she bore evidence of her great renunciation.
+
+As I have said, she was much alone, deeming it, I doubt not, due to her
+lover that she should share his solitude, even if separately borne. She
+sought to fill up that which was behind of the sufferings of the man she
+loved. This I make no doubt was her secret delight; for only a woman
+knows the process of that joy which is exhaled when sorrow and love flow
+mingled down.
+
+Margaret had not been beside our study fire that winter night. But on
+our departure she came down from her half widowed room to sit beside
+it. It was the same hearth she had kindled in other days "in expectation
+of a guest." As she entered the room, her eye fell upon the note which I
+had left lying in my chair. A glance at it revealed to her Angus' name.
+It was soon perused and it needed to be read but once. Swift action
+followed, for there is no such thinker as the heart; and if women were
+on the Bench to-morrow, "Judgment reserved" would vanish from our
+judicial records.
+
+Margaret's decision was taken before she laid the letter down, and a
+flush of eager joy glowed on her face. In a moment she was back in her
+room, quickly moving here and there, gathering this and that together,
+bending over a small travelling-bag that lay upon the bed. Her ruling
+thought was one of gladness, even joy--and the traveller's joy at that.
+Who does not know the sudden thrill of rapture when there comes to us a
+sudden summons to a long and unexpected journey?
+
+And Margaret was starting on a long journey, how long, only God could
+tell. She thought of this as she glanced about the pretty room that had
+shared her secret thoughts since childhood, that had seen the awaking of
+her love, and had oftentimes kept with her the vigil of unsleeping joy.
+More than once the poor little room had feared it was soon to be
+outgrown, and left far behind; but still at night Margaret would return
+to its pure protection, and still it knew the fragrance of a virgin's
+trembling love.
+
+She was almost through the door when she turned once again and bade it a
+long farewell, the same as a maiden on her bridal morn. For she too was
+on her way to an altar; and the vows for sickness or health, for life or
+death, seemed to be upon her now.
+
+She had got as far as the garden gate when she stopped suddenly.
+
+"I have forgotten the letter," she said to herself. Laying her
+travelling-bag upon the ground, she ran swiftly back, but the door had
+locked behind her, and her latch-key was in her room.
+
+"What shall I do? What shall I do?" she cried to herself. "I cannot get
+in without the letter, and they will soon be back."
+
+She flew along the veranda to a window and pressed it upward. It
+yielded, and her joy flowed like a river. Up she flung it, far up, and
+with a bound the active form was upon the sill and disappeared into the
+room. The letter lay where she had left it, and in a moment the precious
+passport was in its hiding-place. A moment later, the gate swung shut
+behind her. Her bosom throbbed with a new courage as it felt the touch
+of the letter that was entrusted to its keeping; for this was her
+warrant, her pledge of passage on that long journey towards which she
+pressed so eagerly. Oh, woman! who countest pestilence thy friend when
+it is in league with love!
+
+On she pressed, on through the frosty night. The snow made music beneath
+her hurrying feet, the bridge by which she crossed the river cracked and
+echoed with the frost, and the Northern lights flashed the signals of
+their heavenly masonry--for what knew they of plague and love and
+sorrow, and of the story of this poor tracing-board of time?
+
+But Margaret never thought of this, for she, too, had her own secret
+symbols, and her heart its own mighty language, voiced, like the
+other's, in alternate floods of light and gloom.
+
+She never paused till she was challenged by the guard before the
+plague-struck house. Then she laid down her travelling-bag, for it had
+grown heavy; but her eyes never turned from the dim light that shone
+from the window. Love and danger were there, and the fascination of both
+was upon her.
+
+"Where might you be goin', miss?" said the guard. His voice was thick,
+and his breath bore a perfume which proved he had been hospitably
+entreated by some sympathetic friend. Doubtless it was the good
+Samaritan's wine that had failed of its destination.
+
+"I am going into that house, if you please," replied Margaret. "I am
+going to take care of Mr. Strachan. The health officer has asked for a
+nurse."
+
+"Oh, no, my lady," said the guard, "no pretty face like yours is going
+to be marked by the smallpox." His chivalry was of the moist kind, and
+his emotion made him hiccough several times.
+
+Margaret winced: "I am entitled to go in," she said boldly, "and I will
+thank you to let me pass," with which she picked up her valise.
+
+"Not by no means," the guard rejoined. "I've got orders not to let no
+one in without a letter from the officer."
+
+"I have the letter," said Margaret, for in her excitement she had
+forgotten it. She produced it and handed it to the man. He walked over
+to a gas lamp across the street. Feeling the need of exercise, he
+proceeded thereto by several different routes. Having reached it, he was
+seized with a great fear lest the iron post should fall, and lent
+himself to its support. Then he read the letter over aloud; three or
+four times he read it, punctuating it throughout with the aforesaid
+tokens of emotion. He returned to where she stood, selecting several new
+paths with fine originality.
+
+"I guess that's all right, an' you're the party," he remarked, "but it
+ain't signed."
+
+"What do you mean?" said Margaret in alarm. "It certainly bears the
+health officer's name. I saw it myself."
+
+"Oh, yes, that's all right, but that ain't enough--business is business,
+you see," he added, with maudlin solemnity. "You've got to sign it
+yourself, kind of receipt the bill, you see."
+
+He fumbled in his pocket for a pencil, produced the rump thereof, spread
+the letter upon his knee, and began writing on the back of it. It was
+like an internal surgical operation, for his tongue protruded as he
+wrote, marking his progress by a series of serpentine writhings that
+suggested inward pain.
+
+"There, that'll do," he said, when he emerged. "You sign that."
+
+Margaret took the paper and tried to read what he had written. But,
+unfamiliar with hieroglyphics, his handiwork was lost upon her.
+
+"I cannot read it," she said presently; "the light is very bad."
+
+"That's so--besides it's too infernal cold to read--I'm awful cold. I
+wisht that cove in there'd get a move on him, an' get better. He's got a
+snap. Some one sent him a bottle of milk to-day, too," he concluded,
+with a solemn wink, the tongue again appearing on the scene to bear
+internal witness--"but I forgot--I'll read them words to you myself,"
+which he proceeded to do, swaying gently, for the spirit of rhetoric
+was within him.
+
+"This is it," he began, "'I'm the party what's meant to nurse the man
+what's got the smallpox, an' I got in because I wanted to'--that's all
+right, ain't it? Now you sign that, an' if you die, that'll protect me
+after you're dead. And I'll sign it too, and if I die, it'll protect you
+after I'm dead, see? And if we both die, it'll protect the officer after
+we're both dead, see? And if he dies, then we'll all be protected,
+because we'll all be dead, see? You keep the paper, and I'll keep the
+pencil, and we'll both keep our job, see? Gee whittaker! Ain't it cold!
+I wisht they'd send some more milk."
+
+Impatient for a release, Margaret signed the document. After its author
+had made another picturesque pilgrimage to the gas lamp and back again,
+the signature was fervently commended, with signs of increasing emotion;
+he returned the letter to her--and she passed on into the house at which
+none but love or death would have asked for bed and board.
+
+There are a thousand streams that flow from Calvary. But the deepest of
+these is joy. Wherefore as Margaret walked into the darkened house, her
+heart thrilled with a sudden rapture it had never known before. For he
+was there--and she would be beside him in a moment--and they would be
+together--and none could break in upon them, for grim death himself
+would guard the door. He was helpless too, dependent on weak arms that
+love would gird with might--and this makes a woman's happiness complete;
+when love and service wed, joy is their first-born child.
+
+She was now standing at the door of his room, her eyes fixed upon the
+face of the man she loved, radiant with victory.
+
+He had heard her footfall from the threshold, and his heart clutched
+each one as it fell. Yes, it was she, and the music of her rustling
+garments had the sweet sound of rain--for his was the thirsty heart. It
+was surely she, and not another,--and the whole meaning of life seemed
+clear to him. He knew not how or why, but he had been alone so long, and
+his hungry heart had wondered, and life seemed such a wounded thing.
+
+But now he actually saw those silken strands, gently waving from her
+haste, and the parted lips that poured forth her soul's deep loyalty,
+and the dear form of ardent love--a maiden's form. All these came upon
+him like the dawn, and the citadel of life's frowning mystery was
+stormed at last. How voluptuous, after all, in its holiest sense, is
+God's purpose for the pure in heart!
+
+She stood, her eyes now suffused with tears, but smiling still; the
+panic in her father's house, the comment of cruel tongues, the fight
+with death, the pestilence that walks in darkness--these were all
+forgotten in the transport of her soul. She had chosen her Gethsemane
+long ago, and this was its harvest time.
+
+Angus' eyes drank deeply from the spring.
+
+"Margaret," he said at last, "how beautiful God is!"--and Margaret
+understood.
+
+She advanced towards the bed, her hands outstretched--he sought to bid
+her back.
+
+"Margaret, you know not what you do; your life----" But it was in vain.
+
+"My life is my love," she cried with defiant passion. "Oh, Angus, how
+beautiful God is!" and, stooping down, she overpowered him, spurning
+death while love should claim its own.
+
+As she stood above him again, her lips were moist with love's anointing
+and she knew that nothing could prevail against them now. Hers the
+promised power that could take up serpents, and drink deadly things, and
+be unharmed. Hers the commission to lay hands on the sick that they
+might recover. Her sombre foes seemed many; shame clouded the name she
+fain would bear, opposition frowned from the faces of those who bore
+her, and now plague had joined the conspiracy--but in all these things
+she was more than conqueror.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The winter had retreated before the conquering spring, and the
+vanquished pestilence had also fled when they came forth again, these
+prisoners of love. Nearly four long luscious weeks had flown, and their
+souls' bridal time was past. They had baffled death together; and they
+came forth, each with the great experience--each with the unstained
+heart.
+
+Angus bore a scar, only one, as the legacy of pestilence--but it could
+be clearly seen, and it was on his brow.
+
+"My life seems doomed to these single scars," he had said, not bitterly,
+during one of the sweet convalescent days.
+
+"But not through any fault of yours, dear one," Margaret had answered.
+"I have the same wounds, mark for mark, but they are in my heart," and
+she kissed his brow, ordained to another burden.
+
+"Where shall we go?" said Margaret. He had heard the words before, and
+rich memories came back. The freedom of the world was theirs; for they
+had been absolved from the stigma of disease, and the sentinel had
+ceased from his labours.
+
+"I must go home now," she continued, "for it will soon be dark."
+
+"I had forgotten about darkness," said Angus. "Come with me. I want to
+do something for my mother's sake."
+
+"'Your mother's sake!'" she repeated, "did your mother ever know the
+poor woman who died of the disease? or her little child? Did you care
+for them for her sake?"
+
+"I cared for them for her sake," Angus answered, "but my mother never
+knew her; they lived in different countries--but their sorrows were
+related. Let us turn here."
+
+They turned off into a quiet street, and presently entered the old
+stone-cutter's shop. Angus spoke to him apart for a time; finally the
+old man said:
+
+"Perhaps you'd better write it down."
+
+"Very well, I will," replied Angus.
+
+The old stone-cutter adjusted his glasses: "Nothin' on the big stone
+about her age?"
+
+"No, nothing," answered Angus.
+
+"Nor nothin' about her folks?"
+
+"No, nothing," said Angus again.
+
+"And nothin' on the little stone only this?"
+
+"Nothing more," said the other.
+
+"All right, sir, I understand then. The big stone is just to have 'Luke.
+7:47: For she loved much,' and the little one: 'My brother.' All right,
+I'll set 'em up to-morrow, only I kind o' thought it didn't give a
+terrible lot of information. But I suppose you know the meanin' of it."
+
+"Yes, I know," said the man with the mark upon his brow.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+_The HIDDEN CRUCIFIX_
+
+
+We had only one incurable sorrow in St. Cuthbert's manse. That of course
+had to do with Margaret and her love--for whoso would heal sorrow must
+find a cure for love. We could not find it in our hearts to give her up
+to a union so wounding to our pride as her marriage to Angus would have
+been. The righteous will have cried out long ago against this unseemly
+spirit on the part of a gospel minister. But my only care is to set down
+things, myself among them, as they really were.
+
+Besides, it is easy to prescribe sacrifices for another, or even for
+one's self, provided always that they be made before the necessity
+arises. All parents are models in their treatment of each other's
+offspring, rivalling, in this regard, even those proverbial patterns who
+never took the initial step to parentage.
+
+Our relations with Margaret were happy enough, marked by love and
+tenderness as of yore. We were deliberately cheerful, and at times even
+resolutely gay. But our house had its skeleton closet, and each of us
+kept a key. Apart from this, all our home was bright. Other wounds had
+healed. Margaret was home again, and she had been kept from the
+scourge's awful breath. I had accepted St. Cuthbert's second call, and I
+felt as though my pastorate had begun anew; for young and old gathered
+about me, and the chariot wheels rolled gladly.
+
+Yet one dear and long honoured face was absent; and one seat in St.
+Cuthbert's, long occupied by a familiar form, was vacant now. For
+Michael Blake had gone.
+
+Silently, without telling us why or where, he had departed, although the
+heart of all New Jedboro seemed warm to him, and although St. Cuthbert's
+had given him its pledge of continued confidence. But he had steadfastly
+refused to resume the duties of his office.
+
+This was almost a sorer wound to us than the other; for we somehow could
+not but construe it as the collapse of shame. He shirks the discipline
+of God, we said, or thought; and some even voiced the darksome fear that
+he had cast off the restraints of his office, done with religion when he
+could no longer wear its mask. He would be a saint, said some, or
+nothing. The role of the publican has no charm for him, said others,
+because he never really knew its luxuries. And some were secretly angry
+that he had escaped, as they chose to term it, for they loved to see the
+scarlet letter on another's breast.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was one of the first genial days of early spring, and an ocean
+steamer was swiftly making for the Mersey. The green fields of the
+initial isle had been declared the greenest of God's green earth, and
+they received the panegyric with national complacency, knowing not that
+they had three thousand miles of grassless ocean to thank for it every
+bit. The fragrance of the land was sweet to the weary voyagers, and the
+most taciturn was disposed to unwonted mirth. The Captain,
+question-driven, had taken wing and soared aloft, looking down in safety
+from the bridge.
+
+But neither mirth nor gladness was upon the face of one traveller,
+though no face was turned more intently towards the shore. Sadness of
+heart and seriousness of purpose were there instead, not unmixed with
+light; for memory and hope, these old-world combatants, had joined
+battle in his soul.
+
+His gaze was fixed on the still distant land, and varying emotions
+played upon his face. This very shore enclosed all whose memory filled
+his life with shame and sorrow--within it, therefore, by God's
+unchanging law, must be found their relief and cure. For the serpent's
+bite, the healing is the serpent still, but lifted high.
+
+This man, so silent and self-contained, had been the centre of much
+curious wonder among his fellow passengers. Much apart he had been,
+unmingled with the ship's social life, despite all allurement. The
+children called him blessed, for he had entered with their own relish
+into all their games, and when these palled, he had brought forth things
+new and old out of the treasure of his mind. The aged and ailing were
+his almost worshippers, for he had made their wants his daily care.
+
+"I am sorry to part, Mr. Blake, although we have seen so little of you
+on the voyage. One has to be quite young, or quite sick, or quite old,
+to see much of you aboard ship."
+
+"You have neither of the last two qualifications," answered the man
+addressed, with a pleasant smile.
+
+The voice which had broken in upon his reverie was that of a lady past
+middle life, richly and fashionably dressed; for you never know the real
+plumage of fair travellers till they are about to leave you. She was
+beautifully enamelled, powdered, massaged, and otherwise put in the best
+possible repair. Sparkling diamonds adorned her hands. A gold cross hung
+upon her bosom.
+
+"Nor the first one either, I fear," she rejoined; "however, I am trying
+to keep as young as I can. I do wish we were at Liverpool. There is to
+be a bridge party at one of my friends this afternoon and a military
+ball to-night, and I had counted on getting in for both. I accepted from
+New York! I am not thinking so much about the ball, but I shall die if I
+miss the bridge."
+
+"Indeed," replied her companion, glancing at the cross.
+
+"Yes, it will be too cruel. I have picked up some awfully good points on
+bridge--got them in New York. I got them from my friend's clergyman, the
+Rev. Dyson Bartlett, rector of the Holy Archangels. He is a lovely man.
+You'd never think to hear him preach that there was so much in him. Do
+you know of him?"
+
+"No," answered Mr. Blake, "I don't think I ever heard of him before."
+
+"Probably not; he lives a very quiet life--very restful sort of nature,
+he has; he never gets up till eleven; but of course he is always up very
+late at night. Can't burn the candle at both ends, can you? Clergymen
+are only human, and must get their rest. But on Sunday mornings he gets
+up at half-past six for early mass, and of course he plays on Saturday
+nights too, so sometimes he must get very little sleep. Clergymen don't
+have such an easy life after all. Are you an Episcopalian, Mr. Blake?"
+
+"No, I don't belong to that church."
+
+"Isn't that too bad? But I don't know why I should say that. I think
+lots of people go to heaven who belong to other churches. But then, of
+course, I am very broad in my views. I can't bear narrow people--I just
+can't stand narrow people; and besides, I met a lovely man once in
+Tarrytown, and he was a Presbyterian. I hope I will meet him in heaven."
+
+"I hope you will," said Mr. Blake.
+
+"Yes," she resumed, "that is what I liked about Mr. Bartlett--he was so
+broad in his views. I remember I asked him once if he thought dissenters
+would go to heaven, and I shall never forget how beautifully he spoke.
+We were having a little game at the time--only a dollar stake--and it
+was his turn to play. But when I asked him that about the dissenters, he
+laid down his cards on the table, and his hands unconsciously took hold
+of the cross he always carried on his coat, and he said: 'God is very
+merciful, Mrs. Drake'--then he dropped the cross, and took up the cards
+again, and gave a little sigh before he played, and there was a
+beautiful smile on his face--a kind of sad, sweet smile."
+
+"Did you attend his church when in New York?" said her listener, not
+knowing what else to say.
+
+"Yes, sometimes, but you wouldn't think he had such deep thoughts, just
+from hearing him preach. He was very deep. One night we were all
+discussing whether it was a sin to play for stakes. It was after the
+game was over, and Mr. Bartlett had won the whole thing. He put the
+money away quietly in his pocket--he gives it to the poor people in the
+Holy Archangels, he said, for some of the Holy Archangels are quite
+poor--he put it quietly in his pocket, and he took hold of his cross,
+and he was silent for a little while. Then he said: 'Stakes are
+everywhere in life--faith itself stakes the soul,' and that sad, sweet,
+smile came back again. Wasn't that deep?"
+
+"Yes, very deep," answered Mr. Blake, thinking of the pocket.
+
+"Another time, I remember, he said it had often occurred to him that it
+was the great Creator who had caused bridge to be discovered; he said
+God gave us bridge so that good Christians could give up playing poker.
+Wasn't that deep?"
+
+Mr. Blake ventured some reply such as courtesy and conscience could
+agree upon. "I really never gave the matter much thought," he concluded.
+
+"Oh, dear! There we are at half speed again! I know I'll be too late.
+Yes, even some of his sermons were very deep. He had a beautiful poetic
+mind; and he gave everything such a lovely turn. I shall never forget
+his last sermon. It was beautiful; he was preaching on the text: 'Wash
+me whiter than snow'--the church was so hot, but you could just see the
+snow. And his divisions were beautiful. I can tell them yet. His first
+point was that we should all be pure and white like the snow. Then the
+second one, he said, grew out of the first, that if we were pure and
+clean like the snow, we would not be impure or unclean. And the last
+point was a very solemn one. He said that if we were not pure and white
+like the snow, by and by we would go down where there was no more snow.
+That was a beautiful thought, wasn't it? I thought it was such a lovely
+ending."
+
+"I never heard a sermon just like that," remarked Mr. Blake, his mind
+reverting to St. Cuthbert's.
+
+"Neither did I," went on the worshipper, "and I told him so the next
+night when we met at Mrs. Bronson's for a little farewell game. He took
+hold of his cross again and he said: 'We must deal faithfully, Mrs.
+Drake'--and he was just starting to deal as he spoke. But he never
+smiled, except that sad, sweet smile that he always wore--except when he
+lost. And he told us that after that service he found the curate
+weeping in the vestry. But the curate fairly worships Mr. Bartlett. It
+was Mr. Bartlett who first taught him bridge, I think. Do you play
+bridge, Mr. Blake?"
+
+"No, I never learned the game."
+
+"Oh, I forgot; you're a Presbyterian, you said. It's pretty much a
+church game, I fancy. Excuse my rudeness, but why don't you wear a
+cross, Mr. Blake?"
+
+"What?" said Mr. Blake abruptly, "why don't I what?"
+
+"Isn't that dreadful? The engines are scarcely moving; I know we won't
+get in till five, and the bridge begins at three. There is nothing but
+disappointments in this world. Oh, yes, why don't you wear a cross? Not
+so much for the ornament, of course. I got this one at Tiffany's and it
+cost me ten pounds. But, as Mr. Bartlett said, the cross stands for
+sacrifice, so I don't begrudge it. I think, in this world of sin and
+sorrow every one should wear a cross. We're going a little faster now,
+don't you think?"
+
+"Yes, madam, I think we are--and I do wear a cross--if you have not
+forgotten your question."
+
+"Oh, you do. I am so glad. Where? I suppose you've changed your clothes.
+But I never noticed it before."
+
+"No, I don't think you have seen it."
+
+"Oh, I see, lots of men carry them under their vests. But I think we
+should let the world see it. Do you carry yours next your heart?"
+
+"No, madam, deeper still," said Mr. Blake.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+_The HEATHERY HILLS_
+
+
+The anchor had been cast, and the good ship, panting, lay at rest. The
+bugle note had followed the departing tender with wistful strains of
+"Auld Lang Syne," and the emancipated passengers were pouring out upon
+old England's hospitable soil. The happy crowd, catching already the
+contagion of English jollity, swayed about the landing stage, then
+flowed in separate streams into the Customs pen; for this is the first
+tug of the tether, just when all who have escaped the sea think they are
+safe at last. Out through the fingers of the stern inspectors flowed the
+crowd in still thinner streams, till all this community of the deep is
+scattered to the winds.
+
+Swift-hurrying, they go their separate ways, and the happy little bubble
+has burst and vanished, as its successors, now forming on the bosom of
+the deep, will burst and vanish too. What friendships, what ardent
+loves, what molten vows, ocean born, have begun to languish on the wharf
+at Liverpool, like sunfish separated from their native wave!
+
+Michael Blake hailed a hansom and drove to the North-Western. As he
+passed through the turbid streets, dense loneliness settled about him
+like a fog. This was old England, this the land which exiles across the
+sea in their fondness call the "old country."
+
+But he could not free himself from the thought that, when he left it,
+youth's sun was burning bright; and now more than the early afternoon
+was gone.
+
+"The evening too will pass, as the afternoon has passed," he said to
+himself, "only more quickly." And he glanced at the descending sun,
+God's metaphor of warning, the recurring epitome of life. His lips moved
+to speak a text, the native instinct strong therefor. They had meant to
+say "the night cometh"; but some one interfered and he said to himself:
+"The night is far spent--the day is at hand," for, after all, the
+setting sun has morning in its heart.
+
+He dismissed the cab, and entering the hotel, made some enquiry about
+the trains for the North. He could not start North before midnight. The
+evening was fine, and he walked out. St. George's Hall arrested him with
+its elaborate grandeur. What beauty, what chastity, what becoming signs
+of civic wealth! When he came to its massive steps he cast his eyes upon
+them, and behold, they were dripping with poverty! The victims of want
+in mid-career were there, and drooping age, unequally yoked with
+poverty, and frowzy women with ribald face; and chief among them all,
+little children, some blear-eyed, some pallid with want, some with the
+legacy of sores--for they had been shapen in iniquity.
+
+But all alike--and herein was the anguish of it--all alike were bent on
+play, and persisted pitifully in the cruel farce. The little bare feet
+pattered up and down the steps--but the steps were stone.
+
+Michael Blake thought of his adopted home across the sea and its green
+fields and tree-graced meadows. Then he thought of the far Western
+plains, vast beyond human fancy, waiting and calling for the tired feet
+of all who spend weary lives in the old land, playing on stone steps,
+while wealth and grandeur smile above them. In a few minutes he turned
+away, for the folk of his country are not accustomed to the sight of
+hungry children; and a woman under drink is something that many of their
+eldest have never seen at all.
+
+The sound of martial music, and the voice of cheering thousands, fell
+upon his ear. He moved towards it. Soon the surging procession broke
+upon him. "Who are these?" he asked, "these fellows in Khaki?" They had
+their rifles in their hands, and some were slightly lame, and some had
+the signs of wounds--and all had the rich stain of battle on them. "Art
+thou only a stranger?" he is asked in turn, "and knowest not the things
+that are come to pass? These are they who have come out of Paardeburg,
+homeward bound by way of the ancestral home, and the tide of British
+love and gratitude wafts them on their course."
+
+He is soon caught in the swelling throng, his own head bare, his own
+voice blending in the Imperial hosannah. He catches a familiar face
+among the soldiers; he hears the strain of the "Maple Leaf" mingling
+with the mighty bass of the Mother Anthem. He beholds the Union Jack,
+enriched with the Canadian emblem. Gazing on the battered few, he sees
+the survivors of the battle, and he knows that the unreturning feet rest
+in the soil they have won to freedom; Canadian lads were these who have
+insisted with dying lips that Britains never shall be slaves. His
+adopted land has given of its choicest blood to swell the sacred tide
+that for centuries hath laved the shores of liberty.
+
+All this surges in upon him, and the savage joy of empire fills his
+heart. His loneliness has fled, and he feels that beyond the ocean he is
+at home, the old home, with its ever open gate for its far-flung
+children. The mighty roar becomes the gentle whisper of Britain's lips,
+bidding him draw closer to the imperial fireside and warm himself at
+its imperishable flame.
+
+He follows them for a time, then turns and slowly wends his way back to
+the hotel. As he walks on, the shouting and the tumult die, the banners
+gleam no more, and he is left alone with the empire of his heart, and
+with other worlds to conquer. We need no swift-flying transport to bear
+us to life's greatest battle-fields.
+
+A little waif, a boy of ten, pinched and ragged, was gazing in a window
+as Mr. Blake passed along. A question from the man, a quick and pathetic
+answer from the boy--and they went in together. Then the man came out
+alone, and the fervent joy of an hour ago was gone, but a deeper
+gladness had taken the room it left behind. It is still there--a
+life-tenant--for its lease cannot be broken till memory dies.
+
+When he re-entered the hotel, the clerk recognized him and said:
+
+"Your train goes in an hour, sir. You are going up to Scotland, I think
+you said."
+
+Scotland! The word inflamed him; and he hurried to his room to prepare
+for departure.
+
+The guard's sharp whistle sounded, and the train, with British
+promptness, flew out of the Lime Street station, one heart at least
+strangely thrilled, one face steadfastly set towards Scotland's waiting
+hills.
+
+He was alone in the compartment, and the long night seemed only like a
+watch thereof. He was alone, yet not alone--for Memory sat beside him,
+and Conscience, and Hope. No, he was not alone; for there wrestled a Man
+with him till the breaking of the day. And still the train flew on, as
+though it knew; on it flew, as though the unseen Wrestler himself had
+his hand upon the engine's throat.
+
+The sun was rising when he left the train. The train flew on, uncaring,
+for trains know not that they are carriers unto destiny.
+
+Michael Blake looked long at the rising sun--it was the same. Then his
+eyes caressed the surrounding hills, playfellows of bygone years--they
+had not changed. The flowers still were there, the grass had never
+withered; the heather, too, in unfading purity.
+
+And the trees, the old mighty elms, these were still the same--the
+foliage of a larger life they had, but the selfsame branches held out
+their kindly hands as in the long ago. Still upturned were their
+reverent heads, still seeking God--and the baptism of the morning was
+upon them, attested by the morning light.
+
+He turned towards one of the familiar hills and began the old boyhood
+climb.
+
+Midway, he came to a spring, and a great thirst clutched his heart. It
+was life's long, quenchless thirst, crying out again for the children's
+portion. His face is close to its crystal water, his lips burning with
+desire. Another's face moves upward to greet his own--but it is not the
+same--and memory swiftly paints another till he actually sees it, the
+ardent face of youth. And beside it is a maiden's face--for they had
+often stooped together--a maiden's face, laughing for very love. But
+they vanish and he sees again his own, worn and wrinkle-signed--and
+alone.
+
+Yet the spring still is there, unwrinkled and unworn, and his fevered
+lips drink deeply. How sweet, how delicious, and how wondrous cool! It
+is still the same as when rosy lips of love sipped from its surface long
+ago. He rises and turns from the hallowed spot; but the flood-gates of
+memory are unloosed, and his heart melts within him. The tears are
+flowing fast and the old luxury, because the old innocence, of
+childhood, seems to bathe his broken heart.
+
+"Oh, God," he cries aloud, "hast Thou no fountain for the soul, no
+living springs farther up the hill?" and as he cried, he glanced again
+into the limpid spring. And lo! that gentle face was there again, love's
+laughter still upon its lips, and a great hope looking out from grave
+and tender eyes.
+
+Then farther up the hill he climbed, the quick step of boyhood coming
+back--and soon he stood upon its brow. He threw himself upon the grass
+and cast his eyes over all the unforgotten valley. It was slumbering
+still, for the sun is over early in Scottish latitudes, and he quickly
+searched the hillside that confronted him. Behind a sheltering bush he
+lay, peering far beyond.
+
+All the valley is forgotten now--for, across the ravine beneath him, he
+sees a cottage. The same, the very same it is, save that the thatch has
+been renewed! A humble shepherd's cottage, only a but and a ben, built
+long ago by thrifty hands--but he first learned to worship there.
+
+Yet is it still the same? He knows not--but he knows the risk of passing
+years. Unchanged the cottage stands, and the same gate hangs half open
+as in the far back yesterday. Yet it is the spirit alone that giveth
+life, and of this he may not know. He looks at his watch--it is near six
+o'clock, and he had seen a man walk sleepily to the byre from a distant
+house. He waits and watches, while a strange fever burns his heart,
+unknown to youthful passion. His lips are parched, though the water from
+the spring is scarce dry upon them yet.
+
+Still gazing, he sees no sign of life about the house. He thinks, yet
+knows not why, of Mary and the empty tomb. Hope is sinking fast, when of
+a sudden a timid wreath of smoke flows slowly from the chimney, and
+Michael Blake's hand reaches swiftly towards his heart. "Be still, be
+still," he murmurs, "who knows that it is for thee?" but his eyes follow
+it greedily, for it is to him a soul-signal from afar, God's altar
+smoke, and he knows now that the house is not a sepulchre.
+
+"Now I shall go and knock," he said to himself; but a new thought
+possessed him, and he bowed again behind the slender furze, his eyes
+still fixed upon the house.
+
+They were but minutes that he waited, but they came disguised as
+hours--for God can compel us to rehearse eternity. He must have felt it
+coming, for his eyes have forsaken all else, and are fixed upon the
+cottage door. Yes, it moved, it surely moved; and the strong man's eyes
+are numb. They rally and renew the vigil. Yes, it moves, wider
+still--and the flutter of a dress is seen. His heart leaps wildly, and
+his eyes fly at the face that follows. It is too far to see clearly--but
+he soon must know!
+
+A comely form emerges from the door, and the face looks up at the
+morning sun. The woman walks out and on, lithe grace in every movement.
+Then the valley swims before him--for it is, it is, the woman he had
+loved. He knows the dainty step, the erect carriage, the shapely frame.
+Nearer still she comes, skirting the base of the hill he had climbed,
+still often looking towards the sun, pausing now and then to pluck a
+flower by the way. Where can she be going?
+
+No bonnet binds her waving hair, and now he can catch the light of the
+morning sun upon it. Streaks of gray, here and there, can be seen, but
+they are few; the breeze rallies the loose-flowing strands and they make
+merry and are glad together. He can see the pure bosom, lightly robed,
+that swells with buoyant life. She is nearer to him now, and the face
+swims in upon him across the chasm of long silent years, the same pure
+face, still bright with tender love. She is now beside the spring--for
+thither was she bent--and the overflowing pail is laid down beside her.
+
+She too glances into the bosom of the water and he wonders if memory
+guides the wistful gaze. Does she too see another face preserved against
+the years in the pure keeping of the spring? He knows not--but he
+thinks, yes, he is sure he saw the movement of the lips, and her face is
+again upturned--but its thought is far beyond the sun. He uncovers his
+head and joins the holy quest.
+
+She has returned to the cottage and the door is closed; but Michael
+Blake has never moved. Now he steps out from behind his shelter and
+starts towards the house. Then he stops, turns back and begins to
+descend the hill by the same course as had led him up. Yet once more he
+turns and gazes long at the dwelling-place, starts towards it, stops
+again.
+
+"Not now," he said to himself, "I cannot--it is too light."
+
+And he walked back to the hamlet; he was waiting for the tender dark.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+"_AND ALL BUT HE DEPARTED_"
+
+
+The little inn seemed to have no guests except the traveller from beyond
+the sea. But no such tavern is ever long deserted, for the Scotch
+nature, while it may be dry, is ever loyal. Michael Blake had read but a
+line or two of the _Edinburgh Scotsman_, ten days of age, when a man
+walked solemnly in and sat down beside him. His face, his breath, and
+especially his nose, bore eloquent testimony to the aforesaid loyalty of
+his nature. He bade Mr. Blake a cheerful good-morning, glancing at the
+same time towards the counter beneath which the liquid necessities were
+stored.
+
+"It's a fine mornin'," he began.
+
+"A beautiful day," assented Mr. Blake.
+
+"Ye'll no' live aboot these pairts?" inquired the other.
+
+"No, I live far from here."
+
+"Ye'll mebbe be frae Ameriky?" ventured his interrogator, closing in
+upon him.
+
+"Yes, I live in Canada," was the response.
+
+"Canady," said the man. "We're gey prood o' Canady the noo. I ken't a
+man once wha went to Canady. I had a drink wi' him afore he went," he
+continued, his eye lighting with the dewy memory, "ye'll likely ken him?
+Oliver was his name, Wattie Oliver, a bow-leggit wee body."
+
+"I cannot say I ever met with him," replied Mr. Blake. "Canada is larger
+than you think over here."
+
+"Mebbe so," said the friendly stranger, "mair nor likely he's deid noo;
+one o' thae red Indians micht hae killed him, like eneuch."
+
+"Yes, or perhaps a bear," Mr. Blake replied gravely.
+
+There was a pause. A bell was ringing, its notes floating in clear and
+sweet upon them.
+
+"What bell is that?" inquired Mr. Blake.
+
+"That's oor bell i' the parish kirk; there's no ither ane."
+
+"What is it ringing for? To-day is Thursday," asked Mr. Blake.
+
+"Aye," responded the other, "this is the fast day. Sabbath's the
+sacrament, ye ken, and they're maist awfu' strict aboot the fast day.
+They wadna work that day, nae mair than on the Sabbath. They willna even
+whustle. Ae mornin' I met Davie Drewry, an' 'twas the fast day. Noo, of
+course, it was juist an or'nary day in Dr. Cameron's parish across the
+burn--the burn divides the twa, ye ken. Weel, Davie was a lad for
+whustlin'--he cudna leeve withoot whustlin'--but he was gey religious
+too. Weel, I met Davie that mornin', walkin' awfu' fast, maist
+rinnin'--an' his face was red.
+
+"'Whaur micht ye be gaun, Davie?' says I, 'naebody ailin'?'
+
+"'Na, na,' says Davie, 'but it's the fast day, an' I canna stand it ony
+longer. I'm gaun ower the burn to hae a whustle.' Wasna that fair
+redeek'lus!"
+
+"Quite ingenious," answered Mr. Blake. "You go to that church, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Na, I dinna. I quit it when they brocht the kist o' whustles intill't.
+I wadna stand it. There's nae real Presbyterians there, forbye me an'
+Jock Campbell--an' I'm sair feart aboot Jock. I doot he's weakenin'.
+They tell me he speaks to the minister on the street, an' if that's
+true, there's no' muckle o' the auld religion aboot Jock, I'm fearin'."
+
+"Do you not speak to the minister?"
+
+"Na, I dinna. There's naething o' the hypocrite aboot me, I'm tellin'
+ye. I settled the minister fine the last word I spoke to him. He came to
+see me; an' he thocht he could wheedle me aboot the organ i' the hoose
+o' God.
+
+"'Div ye no' ken,' he says to me, 'aboot Dauvit, the sweet singer o'
+Israel--how he played a' kinds o' instruments i' the Lord's hoose?' He
+thocht he had me. But I gied him as guid as he brocht. What think ye I
+answered him?"
+
+"I really have no idea," said Mr. Blake. "What was it?"
+
+"'Div ye think,' says I, lookin' fair at him, 'div ye think I tak Dauvit
+for a paittern?'--and it did for him. 'I'll hae to be gaein',' says he,
+'I hae a funeral.' 'Aye,' says I, 'ye'd better hae a funeral'--an' we
+haena spoken to ane anither since."
+
+"That's a pity," said Mr. Blake, "it seems too bad that the soul's
+interests should suffer because of a matter of that kind. Of course," he
+continued, "I don't say that a man may not be religious because he
+doesn't go to church. Men may scorn the bridge and still get across the
+river, but they would have got along better by the bridge."
+
+"I dinna ken aboot the brig," said the other, "that isna to the
+point,"--for he was not of a metaphorical turn of mind--"but I've nae
+doot aboot bein' religious. A man in my walk o' life, in my business, ye
+ken, canna weel help bein' religious. He's the same as the Apostle
+Paul."
+
+"What?" said Mr. Blake, "are you a tent-maker?"
+
+"Na, na, certainly not; there's nane o' them nowadays. A man in my
+callin' doesna _do_ the same as Paul, but he can _say_ the same, ye see.
+I can say wi' Paul: 'Death to me is great gain'--I'm an undertaker, ye
+ken."
+
+"An undertaker," exclaimed his listener, unconsciously pushing back his
+chair, shocked at the gruesome humour. Besides, the man was looking at
+him with something like a professional eye, as if making an estimate of
+time, and space.
+
+"Aye," responded he of the apostolic claim, "I'm an undertaker--but
+times is dull. I was an undertaker ten year in Lockerby, but I left
+there lang syne. I had ae fine customer, the bailie; he had eleven o' a
+family. But I lost his trade. The bailie was sick--an' my laddie, wee
+Sandy, was aye plaguin' me for a sled. I tell't him I'd get him ane when
+I had mair siller. Weel, wee Sandy was aye rinnin' ower to the hoose an'
+askin' aboot the bailie. 'Twas nat'ral eneuch; the laddie meant nae
+harm, but he wanted his sled afore the snaw was gone. Ony way, they tuk
+offense."
+
+"Did he get his sled?" asked Mr. Blake mechanically, staring at the man.
+
+"Na, poor wee Sandy never got his sled. I had juist ae ither customer ye
+micht ca' guid. He was deein' o' consumption, an' I took guid care o'
+Sandy's sympathy. There was no askin' aboot him, mind ye. But there was
+a mean man i' the business, wha was never meant to be an undertaker. His
+name was Creighton, Tom Creighton, an' what dae ye think Tom did, to get
+his trade?"
+
+"I don't know," said Mr. Blake, rising to depart.
+
+"Weel, I'll tell ye. Twa days afore he died, Tom Creighton tuk him oot
+for a drive--he was awfu' fair to his face an' he got around him; tell't
+him at the gate that he hoped to gie him anither drive later on. Of
+course, he got his trade--he had to gie him his trade after that. But I
+wadna stoop to sic like tricks for nae man's trade. So I left Lockerby
+an' came here--I'm the only yin here."
+
+Mr. Blake was glad to escape his garrulous acquaintance, and had heard
+enough of his sombre annals. He walked out, and wandered far--o'er moor
+and fen, o'er hill and valley, by many an unforgotten path, he
+wandered--past his boyhood's school, where he heard again the laughing
+shout that seemed scarcely to have died away from lips now silent long.
+
+He loitered again by the babbling stream which had been the
+fishing-ground of boyhood, and lay once more on mossy beds, and bathed
+his face in the same friendly tide. He gazed far up into the leafy trees
+and saw the very nooks where boyhood's form had rested; again he saw the
+sun gleam on the happy heads of those who gambolled far beneath.
+
+He drank his fill of the long yesterday, thirsty still. No familiar
+face, no voice of long ago, had he seen or heard; and he tasted that
+unreasoning pain which comes to the man who knows, and is wounded by
+the truth, that his native heath is reconciled to his exile, careless
+of his loneliness, indifferent to bid it cease.
+
+When he returned to the hospitable inn, he was as one seeking rest, and
+finding none. He sat, reflective, while memory bathed the soul of love
+with tears. Presently the sound of voices floated out from an adjoining
+room. He listened eagerly, for one was evidently the voice of a returned
+wanderer like himself. The other was that of a man who had never
+wandered from his native spot. The home-keeper's tongue had still its
+mother-Scotch, but his companion had been cured.
+
+"I know I shouldn't do it, Gavin," he heard the latter say, "I'm really
+a teetotaler in Australia. Used to take a drop or two before I
+emigrated; but I'm an elder now, and I haven't tasted for years. However
+this is a special occasion."
+
+Mr. Blake moved his chair to where he could catch a glimpse of the men.
+They were advanced in years, both about sixty-five, and their heads were
+gray. Their dress betokened plainness of nature, though that of the
+Australian might indicate prosperity. Both would seem uncultured, except
+in heart.
+
+"A speecial occasion!" cried the one addressed as Gavin, "a speecial
+occasion! I should say it is--verra speecial! It's twa an' forty years
+sin we claspit ane anither's hand--man, Andra, friendship's sweet, an'
+God's guid! It wad be fair sinfu' no' ta tak a drop at sic a time as
+this. The minister himsel' wad taste, gin an auld schulemate came back
+after forty year. Sae wad the Apostle Paul--the stomach's sake was
+naethin' compared wi' this. What'll ye hae, Andra?"
+
+"Let this be mine, Gavin," answered Andrew, reaching for his pocketbook.
+When it appeared, it was fat and full, and Gavin stole a wistful glance;
+for, in Scotland, colonial pocketbooks are proverbially plump. "What
+shall it be?" he added.
+
+"Whatever ye say, Andra," answered Gavin. He glanced again at the
+disappearing purse and heaved a little sigh. Patriotism is not good for
+pocketbooks, thought Gavin.
+
+"Well," said his old schoolmate, holding a sovereign between his thumb
+and finger as fondly as though he had lived in Scotland all his life;
+"well," said he, "I say champagne--here, waiter!"
+
+But Gavin interrupted: "Na, na, Andra, dinna get champagne. I took it
+ance when the young Duke came o' age, an' I cudna hae tell't I had
+onything, half an hour later. I dinna care for ony o' thae _aeryated_
+waters. Forbye, it's awfu' dear, an' we can hae far mair o' the ither,"
+he concluded, smiling tenderly at Andrew.
+
+"The other" was produced; and it justified the trust reposed in it. Well
+it knew its duty, and well it played its part; for it burnished memory
+bright, stirred emotion from its hiding place, and even led tears out by
+long deserted paths.
+
+The lonely man in the outer room watched, and envied, and secretly
+absolved his brother elder--the latter was giving abundant proof of his
+freedom from all narrow bigotry. Like himself, his old prowess had come
+back. He was confidential now:
+
+"She wouldn't have me, Gavin. I told her I was rich, and that I loved
+her ever since I left. But she wouldn't listen to me. Then I told her I
+owned ten thousand sheep, and that I dreamed about her every night. But
+it never moved her. I told her I had twenty thousand pounds in the bank,
+and her picture next my heart besides--but she wouldn't. She said she
+was promised to another. Did you ever hear of Janet Strachan caring for
+any one else?"
+
+"Na," said Gavin, absently, "she'll no' hae nocht to dae wi' onybody in
+the way o' love--hae anither, Andra. Dinna droon the miller. Wad we no'
+hae been fules to tak champagne? It wad hae been a' dune by noo."
+
+Then Gavin stood erect, motioning to Andrew to do the same. Andrew rose;
+one on each side of the little table they stood, a glass in the left
+hand of each, for they were about to enact one of Scotland's great
+scenes. Far scattered are her sons, but they have the homing heart, and
+unforgetting cronies wait to welcome them.
+
+Gavin's hand is outstretched and Andrew's goes forth to meet it. They
+clasp, the same hands as fought and played together in the golden
+boyhood days.
+
+"Andra," said Gavin, "I'll repeat to you the twa best lines o' rhyme i'
+the language: An' div ye ken hoo true they are?
+
+    "'We twa hae paidl't i' the burn
+        Frae mornin' sun till dine'
+
+--mind ye that, we twa hae paidl't i' the burn--an' it's flowin' yet,
+an' God's gey guid--here's to ye, Andra," and the men drank together,
+the elder and the unordained, but the past was sacred to them both--and
+childhood's tears came back to make that past complete.
+
+About an hour later, Andrew and Gavin passed out through the adjoining
+room. They came upon Mr. Blake, whereupon they immediately sat down,
+neither being in the mood for walking far. Both greeted him with warmth,
+and invited him to try for himself the process which they had undergone
+in the adjoining room. Mr. Blake gratefully declined.
+
+"Ye'll have travelled far?" said Gavin, avoiding the direct
+interrogative.
+
+"A long way, indeed," said Mr. Blake.
+
+"Come from America, stranger?" said Andrew.
+
+"Yes, from Canada."
+
+"Shake, I'm a fellow colonial--I'm from Australia--delightful this, to
+come back to the old homestead and meet a brother you never saw before."
+
+"Maist wonderfu', is't no'?" interjected Gavin--then the
+responsibilities of a host began to weigh upon him, and he urged Mr.
+Blake to reconsider his decision about the process; but Mr. Blake was
+firm.
+
+"I ken't fine there was somebody frae Ameriky i' these pairts," said
+Gavin. "Brownie Telfer tell't me there was a saxpence i' the plate last
+Sabbath day. It'll be yir ain?"
+
+"No, I'm afraid I cannot claim it," said Mr. Blake. "I only landed
+yesterday."
+
+"Ye'll be rinnin' aboot at a graun rate," said Gavin, trying a new vein;
+"came ower a sicht seein', did ye?"
+
+"No," said Mr. Blake, "not particularly."
+
+"Took a little run over on business, I suppose?" amended the Australian.
+
+"Yes," assented Mr. Blake.
+
+"You said you were born in Scotland; have you any old friends still
+about? Kind of lonely business if you haven't," continued Andrew.
+
+"I really cannot say I have," said Mr. Blake, moving towards the door.
+"I'm a fish out of its accustomed waters, even in its old
+hunting-ground, if you will excuse mixed metaphors. Good-evening to you
+both; I'm glad to have met with you."
+
+"Good-evening to you," cried the men.
+
+The Canadian was gone, but the two old cronies sat smoking; and the
+twilight, that great gleaner of the past, crept about them, bringing
+tender memories that mistrusted the garish day. In the very midst of
+them, Gavin said:
+
+"What did the cratur mean when he spoke aboot 'mixed metaphors'? I never
+heard tell o' them before."
+
+"I'm not very sure," answered Andrew, cautiously; "he must have meant
+something."
+
+"'Mixed metaphors,'" mused Gavin, "an' the body wadna tak onythin';
+it'll be somethin' they tak in Ameriky--I'll ask Ronnie."
+
+Now Ronnie was the bartender!
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+_LOVE'S VICTORY OVER SIN_
+
+
+The curtain of the night had fallen--and human souls were on their
+trial; for human life is then behind the scenes, and the candour of its
+purity or shame comes with the shelter of the falling night. In their
+noblest acts, and in their basest deeds, men are aided by the impartial
+dark. Both alike she screens, though with fickle folds, retreating when
+she hears the first footfall of the dawn; then is every man's work made
+manifest of what sort it is--and the great judgment day shall be but
+relentless light.
+
+The landscape no longer glimmered on the sight when Michael Blake set
+out from the little inn, his heart burning with fear. And hope heaped
+fuel on the flame, for fear would die if it were not for hope. He walked
+on beneath the stately elms, their far-spread branches whispering as he
+passed, for they knew well his step, and wondered that it hurried so. He
+paused at the spring and drank again, but his thirst was still
+unquenched.
+
+He looked about him at the holy night; and surging shame flooded neck
+and face with crimson. For it had been thus and there, amid the
+sanctities of the night, and by their trysting-place, that the soul's
+great wound was made, the blood oozing ever since, oozing still. Memory,
+ermine-robed, half enchantress and half avenger, turned her face full on
+his as he sat by the spring; but he turned his own away and started on,
+ever on.
+
+"Oh, my God! Give me a chance," he cried, "give me a chance," and the
+darkness answered not, but the whispering trees seemed to have the
+woman-voice.
+
+He sees the light now; it is the harbour light, and Michael Blake
+presses swiftly on, his heart upbraiding the laggard feet.
+
+He stands now before the door, but that same heart, strangely wavering,
+refuses to go in. The hour has struck for Michael Blake, the hour for
+which his soul has waited long; but strange forces seek to hold him
+back. The chiefest of these is fear; he feels he is hurrying his
+judgment day, and when God would punish men, thinks he, He endows them
+with deep and burning love--for otherwise He cannot speak to them in the
+eternal tongue. The trembling man turns as if to go back.
+
+"It is too light," he murmured, "still too light," for the memory of
+another night has arisen upon him with judgment in its wings.
+
+As he moves noiselessly from the door-step, he pauses by the window. It
+is partly open, for the night is mild. A woman's figure moves before it,
+so close that he could almost touch--and his arms go out unbidden, God's
+retrievers, though they knew it not. He controls himself, and steps back
+a pace, for she has passed to the other side of the room. Beside an old
+chest of drawers she kneels, and his heart burns with eager passion as
+he beholds the beauty of her face. Time, and sorrow, and God, have
+worked together. Unto them all she hath submitted, and they have held to
+their holy task till the beauty of peace rewards their secret toil.
+
+She is lifting something from the drawer and the light falls upon it.
+Another, and still another, she takes up in her gentle hands, smiling
+down on them the while--they are a child's outgrown possessions, bits of
+clothing some, and some, broken toys, such as mothers take into their
+immortal keeping when children have spurned them from their own.
+
+And what is that, shining bright, held longer than the others, still
+smiling down upon it, her bosom heaving more heavily than before? He
+knows, he knows--it is a little brooch, so little, but of gold, given
+her long ago in the first glad sacrifice of love. She kisses it, and the
+tears fall fast upon it, the lovely face suffused. It is tenderly
+restored to its hiding-place, and the graceful form is full-bowed now.
+
+He can see the white clasped hands, and the movement of the pure lips he
+also sees. The words he cannot catch--for God is close, and the voice is
+low. But the fragrance of prayer steals out to him, and the Interpreter,
+once called the Man of Sorrows, tells him for whom she prays. "Make me
+worthy, oh, God," he cries, his heart melted within him. Again he turns
+to the door, and this time he falters not, but knocks. In a moment it is
+opened.
+
+"Guid evenin' sir," said the woman's voice. "I canna see ye for the
+dark; is it some one I ken?" for wayfarers often sought guidance at her
+door.
+
+"No, I fear you do not know me," the man responded, "and I crave your
+pardon for thus disturbing you. I have travelled far."
+
+"Will ye come in? Or is there something I can do?"
+
+"No, thank you," said the man; "I have travelled far and am thirsty. I
+seek but a draught of water, and I shall go on my way."
+
+"I'll sune gie ye that," replied the woman's cheery voice, "but what's
+here is mebbe raither warm. Bide ye here till I rin doon to the spring."
+
+The sweet face gleamed in the candle-light as she turned within, picking
+up a light plaid shawl, so strong is habit, which she threw across her
+shoulders. The tall gracious form was gone a moment, one darksome
+moment, returning instantly, a pitcher in her hand. Down the steps she
+tripped, and out into the night, her white gown mingling with the
+darkness.
+
+Michael Blake stealthily followed her, his heart in wild tumult again.
+Her pace was swift and he found it difficult to keep the path. But again
+he saw the flutter of white before him, and he knew that it was Janet,
+none other, the same whom he had held so close in other days. He ran a
+little, panting as he ran, his thirst a torment now--for the chase was
+of the soul. He is not far from her.
+
+"Janet," he cried.
+
+She stopped and stood still, as a deer stops when it hears the hunter's
+voice.
+
+He was closer now, and again he cried: "Janet, oh, Janet, wait for me."
+
+Her pitcher was thrown upon the sward and she came back a little way,
+eye and heart and bosom calling to each other through the storm.
+
+"Wha's callin' me?" she cried, her voice bleating like a lamb's.
+
+"Oh, Janet, you know who's calling you--I have called you long," and
+holy passion burned in the voice that spoke, leaped from the face that
+came closer, still closer, to her own.
+
+The white figure swayed in the darkness. Then the night glowed about her
+like the noon, and the strong arms held her close, and time and sorrow
+and God all gave her up ungrudgingly to the bliss they had planned
+together; for in secret had they bedecked her as a bride adorned for her
+husband.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was long after, how long may not be told, for God would let no angel
+mark the time; but the dark still was brooding, and the trees whispering
+still, when he said: "To-morrow, Janet--all the years have made us
+ready--yet not to-morrow, for it is to-day--to-day, please God."
+
+She came closer, closer to him still, for hers had been an unsheltered
+life, and the warmth was strangely sweet.
+
+"Let us go to the spring, dear heart. Let us be children again."
+Together they went on, these pilgrims of the night. While they were
+going the day began to break. "The night is far spent," he heard her
+whisper joyously.
+
+They knelt together, nor thought it strange--for the youthful heart of
+love was theirs again; and they drank from the unsleeping spring,
+smiling back at them as their lips kissed its face together. The same
+spring, the same lips--but purer both!
+
+And as they stooped, two faces from the bosom of the water rose again to
+meet them. Each of the lovers saw but one, for each saw the other's
+face. And lo! each was the face of happy youth, the light of love
+within its eyes, unchanged by years, except for a graver innocence. But
+each saw the face that had looked up and smiled in the years so long
+gone by.
+
+The scientist and the philosopher and the deeply-learned in nature's
+laws will read of this with generous disdain; but they forget that this
+spring had its charter right from God, and was fed from other fountains
+farther up the hill. Besides, optics is God's own science--and this was
+the morning light.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+_LOVE'S TRIUMPH OVER ALL_
+
+
+All things were in readiness, and the people of St. Cuthbert's were
+awaiting the Sabbath day with eager souls. For it was the Sabbath of the
+sacrament, dispensed but twice a year, according to the custom of their
+fathers. I myself looked forward to this communion with a kindling
+heart, for I knew its healing grace; and this was the first dispensation
+since the shadow of that ordination day had fallen on our church's life.
+
+The morning came, radiant in its robe of early spring, and we knew that
+a great multitude would throng St. Cuthbert's. For the aged and long
+imprisoned, denied the regular services of the kirk, would yet venture
+forth to show the Lord's death once again, some to drink that cup no
+more till they should drink it new in their Father's kingdom.
+
+Down the aisle would they come, leaning heavily upon the staff--but they
+knew their accustomed places, the places which were so soon to know them
+no more forever; when the service was over, they would retrace their
+steps to the door of the now deserted church, and backward turning,
+would cast one longing, lingering look behind, then set their peaceful
+faces towards their home, the long rough journey near its end at last.
+
+The elders, including the four recently added to their number, met as
+usual, for preparatory prayer. More than ordinary tenderness seemed to
+mark their petitions, for their hearts were with the absent; and the
+senior elder thrilled us when he prayed for "him whom we had hoped to
+begin his ministry this day, and for Thy servant who was wont in the
+days that are past to serve with us before Thine altar."
+
+As I walked into the pulpit, I caught a glimpse of Margaret's face, and
+never have I seen sweeter peace than rested upon it. Her eyes reposed on
+the snowy cloth that hid the emblems of a greater sacrifice, and she
+knew, as few could know, the deep sacramental joy.
+
+But hardly had my heart warmed at sight of her before sorrow chilled its
+ardour; for right opposite Margaret's pew was that of Michael Blake--and
+its emptiness smote my heart with pain. Not there, nor in his rightful
+place among the elders, was my old-time friend. Where, I could not help
+but wonder, where to-day is the unhappy man who has cast his ministry
+behind him? And bitter memories of varied verdicts flitted before me as
+I went up the pulpit steps.
+
+We had begun the psalm, and were in the midst of the line--never can I
+forget it:
+
+    "As far as east is distant from
+     The west, so far hath he"
+
+when I noticed the volume of song become gradually less, and a nameless
+sense of discomfort possessed me.
+
+I looked up, and could scarce restrain a cry.
+
+For I saw the face of Michael Blake--and he was walking down the
+aisle---- And that other, who is that? For beside him is a woman's
+comely form, her sweet face lowly bent as though it would be hidden, the
+light of purity mingling with the conscious flame.
+
+Upon Mr. Blake's face is the humble chastened look of one whom God has
+touched--in the hollow of his thigh, mayhap--and the limp may be seen of
+all men to the last. But pride is there too, the solemn pride of one who
+has wrestled and prevailed, to go henceforth forever halting, but
+forever heavenward.
+
+Down the aisle, the same aisle by which he had departed from us, they
+walked together, while wondering faces drank in the meaning of it all,
+joy breaking forth upon them like the sun when darkening clouds have
+gone.
+
+He leads her to his old-time pew, and she takes the place that is
+henceforth to be her own. The singing has stopped, save those silent
+strains with which God is well pleased, the same as angels echo round
+the throne.
+
+It was hard for me to proceed with the service, for I knew that God
+Himself had spoken. The sacred bush was in flame before us as in the
+olden time, and the place whereon we stood was holy ground. The portion
+I had chosen for the reading was from 1 Corinthians, the apostle's great
+eulogy on love; and my voice faltered as I read some of its wondrous
+words.
+
+Before I had finished it, my resolve was taken. I came down from the
+pulpit and stood before it, the elders all about me.
+
+"Let us have our unbroken number," I began; "the kirk session is
+constituted, and I call upon such as have been chosen to serve within
+it, to come forward and assume the holy office. After this, the
+sacrament of forgiving love will be dispensed."
+
+I paused--and no one of all the multitude seemed to breathe. But a
+moment passed, and then a sound broke the stillness. It was the sound of
+moving feet, and the elder-elect arose and came slowly forward, his head
+bowed as he came.
+
+"Kneel down, Angus," I said, softly. He kneeled, and I had almost begun,
+my hands outstretched above his head. He raised his face to mine,
+lowered to meet it. A moment told me what he wished to say.
+
+"Stand up," I whispered.
+
+When he had risen, I said aloud: "Angus Strachan, ordained already, I
+give you the right hand of fellowship into the eldership of St.
+Cuthbert's church. The Lord bless thee and keep thee; the Lord make His
+face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift the
+light of His countenance upon thee and give thee peace."
+
+Again I raised my voice as I faced the worshippers.
+
+"I extend yet another invitation in my Master's name. I call upon any
+who may be among us, once serving in the eldership of this church, to
+come forward and aid us to dispense the pledges of forgiving love to
+other sinful men."
+
+I waited, but there was no response. One sat with bowed head, his hand
+held in the gentle keeping of another's. The moments passed, but still
+silence reigned.
+
+"Come awa', man,"--it was Ronald McGregor's trembling voice from among
+the elders--"come awa'; it's the wounded hand that beckons ye--we're a'
+here o' the Saviour's grace alane."
+
+Michael Blake moved slightly, but his head was lower bowed.
+
+"Gang forrit, Michael, gang forrit to the table He's been gey guid to
+us baith--an' oor Angus wants ye," whispered the woman beside him.
+
+Then he came; and, as he walked to the table, the meaning of God's
+pardoning love seemed borne in upon us as it had never been before.
+
+He had hardly taken his seat beside us when we heard a faint rustling
+sound, some one moving. I turned my head, and saw Margaret, her face
+lovely through its tears, slip into the empty place and take in her own
+the hand that had been just released. Burning hot it was, but she held
+it tight--and Janet took her into her heart forever.
+
+Then the sacred emblems were poured and broken by our sinful hands,
+redeemed by love alone. The elders bore them forth to the waiting souls,
+and when Angus came to his mother's place, great grace was upon us all.
+He had bent one moment, before she took the chalice in her trembling
+hand. One word was spoken, only one, and what it was no one heard--nor
+Margaret, nor any one but God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Because of more abounding grace, and because of that alone, I cherish
+the trembling hope that I shall yet hear the new and holy song in the
+blessed homeland yonder. Yonder, I say, for on clear days I have seen
+the dim outline of the hills beyond the river; and sometimes in the
+night I have caught the glow of an unsetting sun. Only for a moment, it
+is true--but it was enough. My sight is failing, they tell me, and the
+light is not so clear as in the early afternoon, but these yonder things
+are seen the clearest in the failing light, and by eyes that are past
+their best.
+
+Wherefore, as I set out to say, I think I shall be welcomed thither by
+the pilgrims' friend, and hear that song of the redeemed.
+
+But not till then can I expect to ever hear again such melody as poured
+from our hearts that morning in St. Cuthbert's. As for myself, I could
+scarcely sing; I was so torn 'twixt joy and sorrow. Sorrow for what? For
+all my stubborn wilfullness, that had stood so long between loving
+hearts--but I did it for the best; and God will forgive me, who knows a
+father's tender love.
+
+Therefore my lips were almost dumb, but my heart joined in the swelling
+praise that rolled about St. Cuthbert's like a flood. And I heard one
+voice clear and sweet among all the rest; it came from the pew where sat
+our Margaret, but it was not Margaret's voice:
+
+    "Long hath the night of sorrow reigned
+     The dawn shall bring us light--"
+
+Thus reads our noble paraphrase--and thus reads the providence of God.
+This it was we sang that day; and this all broken hearts shall one day
+sing, when life's long twilight breaks.
+
+After the congregation had dispersed, I saw Margaret lead her mother to
+the pew. It was beautiful, my wife's gentle grace to the timid stranger,
+for Margaret received of her mother whatever of that gift she hath--and
+I have always said her mother's is the rarer of the two. I heard her bid
+her new-found friend to the manse, and I echoed the mandate to the man
+beside me, his head still bowed in prayer.
+
+The elders retired in a body to the vestry, there to be dismissed by the
+benediction, which I pronounced upon them, the triune blessing of the
+triune God. Usually, they lingered for a little subdued conversation,
+but this day they went out with unwonted speed, each grasping the hands
+of the old elder and the new, and each without a word.
+
+In a moment I saw their purpose, and went out along with them, leaving
+those twain together, the father and the son. We heard no word; but we
+knew the best robe, and the ring, and the shoes, were there, and that
+God would dispense them in sacramental love.
+
+It was not long till they came out again, life's fragrance about them as
+they came. I had lingered in the church.
+
+"Just wait a minute," I said as they came in, "I left my notes in the
+vestry and I will be back immediately."
+
+I had hardly reached the room when a light footfall was heard behind me.
+It was my daughter.
+
+"Margaret! Is this you? I thought you had gone home. Where is your
+mother?" Lovely was her face and beautiful the light of joy upon it.
+
+She did not seem to hear, but came straight on, and in a moment her arms
+were about my neck, and the brave heart told all its story in tears of
+utter gladness.
+
+"Daughter mine," I whispered, "you will forgive"--but the gentle hand
+stopped the words.
+
+"Where is your mother?" I asked again.
+
+"Gone to the manse--they went together," and the sun shone through the
+rain--"I waited for you."
+
+"Wait a moment," I said, "stay here a moment,"--for I knew the ways of
+love.
+
+I hurried without, and in the church I found the two men lingering for
+me.
+
+"Mr. Blake, we will walk down to the manse together--Margaret is waiting
+for you in my room, Angus."
+
+No maiden's fluttering form betrays the soul of love as doth a strong
+man's face. Ah me! as I looked on Angus's in that moment, I knew to whom
+my child belonged the most. But the broken emblems of Another's lay
+before me, and I made the lesser sacrifice with joy.
+
+I watched his eager step, nor did he seek to control its pace. Swiftly
+he walked, and I could not forbear to follow with my eyes till he stood
+before the door.
+
+A moment he paused, I know not why--then he slowly entered and the door
+was shut.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+_Decorated_                                               _Cloth, $1.50_
+
+_Doctor Luke of The Labrador_
+
+BY NORMAN DUNCAN
+
+     "Mr. Duncan is deserving of much praise for this, his first
+     novel.... In his descriptive passages Mr. Duncan is sincere to the
+     smallest detail. His characters are painted in with bold, wide
+     strokes.... Unlike most first novels, 'Doctor Luke' waxes stronger
+     as it progresses."--_N. Y. Evening Post._
+
+_James MacArthur, of Harper's Weekly, says_: "I am delighted with
+'Doctor Luke.' So fine and noble a work deserves great success."
+
+     "A masterpiece of sentiment and humorous characterization. Nothing
+     more individual, and in its own way more powerful, has been done in
+     American fiction.... The story is a work of art."--_The
+     Congregationalist._
+
+_Joseph B. Gilder, of The Critic, says_: "I look to see it take its
+place promptly among the best selling books of the season."
+
+     "It fulfills its promise of being one of the best stories of the
+     season. Mr. Duncan evidently is destined to make a name for himself
+     among the foremost novelists of his day.... Doctor Luke is a
+     magnetic character, and the love story in which he plays his part
+     is a sweet and pleasant idyl.... The triumph of the book is its
+     character delineation."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
+
+_Miss Bacon, Literary Editor of The Booklover's Library, says_: "Of all
+the stories I have read this Autumn there is none that I would rather
+own."
+
+     "Norman Duncan's novel is a great enterprise, and will probably
+     prove to be the greatest book yet produced by a native of
+     Canada."--_Toronto Globe._
+
+
+
+
+_8vo, Cloth_                                          _Price, $1.75 net_
+
+_Denizens of the Deep_
+
+_By_ FRANK T. BULLEN
+
+
+There is a new world of life and intelligence opened to our knowledge in
+Mr. Bullen's stories of the inhabitants of the sea. He finds the same
+fascinating interest in the lives of the dwellers in the deep as
+Thompson Seton found in the lives of the hunted ashore, and with the
+keenness and vigor which characterized his famous book "The Cruise of
+The Cachalot" he has made a book which, being based upon personal
+observation, buttressed by scientific facts and decorated by
+imagination, is a storehouse of information--an ideal romance of deep
+sea folk and, as _The Saturday Times-Review_ has said, worth a dozen
+novels.
+
+[Illustration: DENIZENS OF THE DEEP. FRANK T. BULLEN.]
+
+Not the least attractive feature of an unusually attractive volume is
+the series of illustrations by Livingston Bull and others.
+
+
+
+
+_By_ MARGARET SANGSTER                              _Cloth, each, $1.50_
+
+
+_Janet Ward_
+
+_Eleanor Lee_
+
+
+Without exaggeration and with perfectly consistent naturalness Mrs.
+Sangster has produced two pieces of realism of a most healthy sort,
+demonstrating conclusively that novels may be at once clean and
+wholesome yet most thoroughly alive and natural. As with all her work,
+Mrs. Sangster exhibits her splendid skill and excellent taste, and
+succeeds in winning and holding her readers in these two books which
+treat of the life of today.
+
+     "If ever there was an author whose personality shone through her
+     work, Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster is that author. Mrs. Sangster has
+     written a novel with a moral purpose. That was to be expected, but
+     it was also to be expected that the story would be free from
+     hysteria and intolerance, filled with gentle humor, sane common
+     sense and warm human sympathy, and saturated with cheerful
+     optimism. The book fulfills the expectation."--_The Lamp._
+
+[Illustration: JANET WARD BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.]
+
+
+
+
+_Essays_                                                       _Fiction_
+
+_By_ JAMES M. LUDLOW
+
+INCENTIVES FOR LIFE. Personal and Public. 12mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25
+net.
+
+     "Dr. Ludlow shows versatility and rare culture in this book of
+     essays. From the first page one is impressed with the beautifully
+     clear style, the brilliant thought which flashes through every
+     sentence, and the marvelous storehouse of illustration from which
+     the author draws. The vital importance of will power in the
+     formation of character, and the incentives which lie back of it as
+     motives to action, are set forth with vigor and power."--_Christian
+     Observer._
+
+
+DEBORAH. A Tale of the Times of Judas Maccabaeus. By the author of "The
+Captain of the Janizaries." 12mo, cloth, illustrated, $1.50
+
+     "Deborah is a genuine Jewess, noble, brilliant, loving and
+     lovely."--_Congregationalist._
+
+     "Nothing in the class of fiction to which 'Deborah' belongs, the
+     class of which 'Ben Hur' and 'Captain of the Janizaries' are
+     familiar examples, exceeds the early chapters of this story in
+     vividness and rapidity of action. The book as a whole has vigor and
+     color."--_The Outlook._
+
+[Illustration: DEBORAH. JAMES M. LUDLOW.]
+
+
+
+
+_Tales of the West_                               _Virile, true, tender_
+
+_By_ RALPH CONNOR
+
+
+THE SKY PILOT; A Tale of the Foothills.
+
+     12mo, cloth, illustrated Price, $1.25
+
+     "Ralph Connor's 'Black Rock' was good, but 'The Sky Pilot' is
+     better. The matter which he gives us is real life; virile, true,
+     tender, humorous, pathetic, spiritual, wholesome. His style, fresh,
+     crisp and terse, accords with the Western life, which he
+     understands. Henceforth the foothills of the Canadian Rockies will
+     probably be associated in many a mind with the name of 'Ralph
+     Connor.'"--_The Outlook._
+
+
+THE MAN FROM GLENGARRY; A Tale of the Ottawa.
+
+     12mo, cloth Price, $             1.50
+
+     "As straight as a pine, as sweet as a balsam, as sound as a white
+     oak."--_The Interview._
+
+
+GLENGARRY SCHOOL DAYS; A Tale of the Indian Lands.
+
+     12mo, cloth Price,              $1.25
+
+     In pathos it reaches the high level of "The Sky Pilot." In
+     atmosphere it is "The Man from Glengarry." In action it rivals
+     "Black Rock."
+
+
+BLACK ROCK; A Tale of the Selkirks.
+
+     12mo, cloth Price,              $1.25
+     12mo, cloth, cheaper edition      .25
+
+     "'Ralph Connor' is some man's nom de plume. The world would insist
+     on knowing whose. He has gone into the Northwest Canadian mountains
+     and painted for us a picture of life in the mining camps of
+     surpassing merit. With perfect wholesomeness, with exquisite
+     delicacy, with entire fidelity, with truest pathos, with freshest
+     humor, he has delineated character, has analyzed motives and
+     emotions, and has portrayed life. Some of his characters deserve
+     immortality, so faithfully are they created."--_St. Louis
+     Globe-Democrat._
+
+     The world _has_ known and today Ralph Connor has been accorded the
+     signal honor of seeing his books, by virtue of their sterling
+     worth, attain a sale of over one and one-half million copies.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes and Corrections:
+
+  line  255  victorious   [was "victorous"]
+  line  646  unabashedly  [was "unbashedly"]
+  line 2035  hieland      [was "heiland"]
+  line 3841  bye          [as printed]
+  line 3991  bye          [as printed]
+  line 5166  step         [as printed]
+  line 5429  fragrance    [was "fragance"]
+  line 7089  Britains     [as printed]
+  line 7302  Thursday,    [was "Thursday."]
+  line 7314  ailin'?'     [was ailin'?]
+  line 8103  illustrated  [was "illuserated"]
+
+Inconsistent hyphenations of pre-historic/prehistoric, self-same/selfsame,
+and to-day/today have been retained as printed. (All instances of "today"
+with no hyphen were in the advertisements.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of St. Cuthbert's, by Robert E. Knowles
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ST. CUTHBERT'S ***
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