Scottish sketches Part 20

David had drunk enough to excite all the hereditary fight in his nature, and not enough to dull the anger and remorse he felt for having drunk anything at all. The dreary, damp atmosphere and the cold, sloppy turf of Glasgow Green might have brought them back to the ordinary cares and troubles of every-day life, but it did not. This grim oasis in the very centre of the hardest and bitterest existences was now deserted. The dull, heavy swash of the dirty Clyde and the distant hum of the sorrowful voices of humanity in the adjacent streets hardly touched the sharp, cutting accents of the two quarrelling men. No human ears heard them, and no human eyes saw the uplifted hands and the sway and fall of Robert Leslie upon the s.m.u.tty and half melted snow, except David's.

Yes; David saw him fall, and heard with a strange terror the peculiar thud and the long moan that followed it. It sobered him at once and completely. The shock was frightful. He stood for a moment looking at the upturned face, and then with a fearful horror he stooped and touched it. There was no response to either entreaties or movement, and David was sure after five minutes' efforts there never would be.

Then his children, his uncle, his own life, pressed upon him like a surging crowd. His rapid mind took in the situation at once. There was no proof. n.o.body had seen them leave together. Robert had certainly left the company an hour before it scattered; none of them could know that he was waiting in that inner room. With a rapid step he took his way through Kent street into a region where he was quite unknown, and by a circuitous route reached the foot of Great George street.

He arrived at home about eight o'clock. John had had his dinner, and the younger children had gone to bed. Little John sat opposite him on the hearthrug, but the old man and the child were both lost in thought. David's face at once terrified his uncle.

"Johnnie," he said, with a weary pathos in his voice, "your father wants to see me alane. You had best say 'Gude-night,' my wee man."

The child kissed his uncle, and after a glance into his father's face went quietly out. His little heart had divined that he "must not disturb papa." David's eyes followed him with an almost overmastering grief and love, but when John said sternly, "Now, David Callendar, what is it this time?" he answered with a sullen despair,

"It is the last trouble I can bring you. I have killed Robert Leslie!"

The old man uttered a cry of horror, and stood looking at his nephew as if he doubted his sanity.

"I am not going to excuse mysel', sir. Robert said some aggravating things, and he struck me first; but that is neither here nor there. I struck him and he fell. I think he hit his head in falling; but it was dark and stormy, I could not see. I don't excuse mysel' at all. I am as wicked and lost as a man can be. Just help me awa, Uncle John, and I will trouble you no more for ever."

"Where hae you left Robert?"

"Where he fell, about 300 yards above Rutherglen Bridge."

"You are a maist unmerciful man! I ne'er liked Robert, but had he been my bitterest enemy I would hae got him help if there was a chance for life, and if not, I would hae sought a shelter for his corpse."

Then he walked to the parlor door, locked it, and put the key in his pocket.

"As for helping you awa, sir, I'll ne'er do it, ne'er; you hae sinned, and you'll pay the penalty, as a man should do."

"Uncle, have mercy on me."

"Justice has a voice as weel as mercy. O waly, waly!" cried the wretched old man, going back to the pathetic Gaelic of his childhood, "O waly, waly! to think o' the sin and the shame o' it. Plenty o'

Callendars hae died before their time, but it has been wi' their faces to their foes and their claymores in their hands. O Davie, Davie! my lad, my lad! My Davie!"

His agony shook him as a great wind shakes the tree-tops, and David stood watching him in a misery still keener and more hopeless. For a few moments neither spoke. Then John rose wearily and said,

"I'll go with you, David, to the proper place. Justice must be done--yes, yes, it is just and right."

Then he lifted up his eyes, and clasping his hands, cried out,

"But, O my heavenly Father, be merciful, be merciful, for love is the fulfilling of the law. Come, David, we hae delayed o'er long."

"Where are you going, uncle?"

"You ken where weel enough."

"Dear uncle, be merciful. At least let us go see Dr. Morrison first.

Whatever he says I will do."

"I'll do that; I'll be glad to do that; maybe he'll find me a road out o' this sair, sair strait. G.o.d help us all, for vain is the help o'

man."

CHAPTER VII.

When they entered Dr. Morrison's house the doctor entered with them.

He was wet through, and his swarthy face was in a glow of excitement.

A stranger was with him, and this stranger he hastily took into a room behind the parlor, and then he came back to his visitors.

"Well, John, what is the matter?"

"Murder. Murder is the matter, doctor," and with a strange, quiet precision he went over David's confession, for David had quite broken down and was sobbing with all the abandon of a little child. During the recital the minister's face was wonderful in its changes of expression, but at the last a kind of adoring hopefulness was the most decided.

"John," he said, "what were you going to do wi' that sorrowfu' lad?"

"I was going to gie him up to justice, minister, as it was right and just to do; but first we must see about--about the body."

"That has, without doot, been already cared for. On the warst o'

nights there are plenty o' folk pa.s.sing o'er Glasgow Green after the tea-hour. It is David we must care for now. Why should we gie him up to the law? Not but what 'the law is good, if a man use it lawfully.'

But see how the lad is weeping. Dinna mak yoursel' hard to a broken heart, deacon. G.o.d himsel' has promised to listen to it. You must go back hame and leave him wi' me. And, John," he said, with an air of triumph, as they stood at the door together, with the snow blowing in their uplifted faces, "John, my dear old brother John, go hame and bless G.o.d; for, I tell you, this thing shall turn out to be a great salvation."

So John went home, praying as he went, and conscious of a strange hopefulness in the midst of his grief. The minister turned back to the sobbing criminal, and touching him gently, said,

"Davie, my son, come wi' me."

David rose hopelessly and followed him. They went into the room where they had seen the minister take the stranger who had entered the house with them. The stranger was still there, and as they entered he came gently and on tiptoe to meet them.

"Dr. Fleming," said the minister, "this is David Callendar, your patient's late partner in business; he wishes to be the poor man's nurse, and indeed, sir, I ken no one fitter for the duty."

So Dr. Fleming took David's hand, and then in a low voice gave him directions for the night's watch, though David, in the sudden hope and relief that had come to him, could scarcely comprehend them. Then the physician went, and the minister and David sat by the bedside alone.

Robert lay in the very similitude and presence of death, unconscious both of his sufferings and his friends. Congestion of the brain had set in, and life was only revealed by the faintest pulsations, and by the appliances for relief which medical skill thought it worth while to make.

"'And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death,'" said the doctor solemnly. "David, there is your work."

"G.o.d knows how patiently and willingly I'll do it, minister. Poor Robert, I never meant to harm him."

"Now listen to me, and wonder at G.o.d's merciful ways. Auld Deacon Galbraith, who lives just beyond Rutherglen Bridge, sent me word this afternoon that he had gotten a summons from his Lord, and he would like to see my face ance mair before he went awa for ever. He has been my right hand in the kirk, and I loved him weel. Sae I went to bid him a short Gude-by--for we'll meet again in a few years at the maist--and I found him sae glad and solemnly happy within sight o' the heavenly sh.o.r.e, that I tarried wi' him a few hours, and we ate and drank his last sacrament together. He dropped my hand wi' a smile at half-past six o'clock, and after comforting his wife and children a bit I turned my face hameward. But I was in that mood that I didna care to sit i' a crowded omnibus, and I wanted to be moving wi' my thoughts. The falling snow and the deserted Green seemed good to me, and I walked on thinking o'er again the deacon's last utterances, for they were wise and good even beyond the man's nature. That is how I came across Robert Leslie. I thought he was dead, but I carried him in my arms to the House o' the Humane Society, which, you ken, isna one hundred yards from where Robert fell. The officer there said he wasna dead, sae I brought him here and went for the physician you spoke to. Now, Davie, it is needless for me to say mair. You ken what I expect o'

you. You'll get no whiskey in this house, not a drop o' it. If the sick man needs anything o' that kind, I shall gie it wi' my ain hand; and you wont leave this house, David, until I see whether Robert is to live or die. You must gie me your word o' honor for that."

"Minister, pray what is my word worth?"

"Everything it promises, David Callendar. I would trust your word afore I'd trust a couple o' constables, for a' that's come and gane."

"Thank you, thank you, doctor! You shall not trust, and be deceived. I solemnly promise you to do my best for Robert, and not to leave your house until I have your permission."

The next morning Dr. Morrison was at John Callendar's before he sat down to breakfast. He had the morning paper with him, and he pointed out a paragraph which ran thus: "Robert Leslie, of the late firm of Callendar & Leslie, was found by the Rev. Dr. Morrison in an unconscious condition on the Green last night about seven o'clock. It is supposed the young gentleman slipped and fell, and in the fall struck his head, as congestion of the brain has taken place. He lies at Dr. Morrison's house, and is being carefully nursed by his late partner, though there is but little hope of his recovery."

"Minister, it wasna you surely wha concocted this lie?"

"n.o.body has told a lie, John. Don't be overrighteous, man; there is an unreasonableness o' virtue that savors o' pride. I really thought Robert had had an accident, until you told me the truth o' the matter.