Scottish sketches Part 22

"That will do, my woman." Then he turned to David, and putting one bottle on the table said, "There is your foe! Face your enemy, sir!

Sit down before him morning, noon, and night. Dare him to master you!

Put this bottle on the table in your ain room; carry this in your hand to your office, and stand it before your eyes upon your desk. If you want a foe to face and to conquer, a foe that you can see and touch, here is one mighty enough to stir the bravest soul. And, if you turn your back on him you are a coward; a mean, poor-hearted coward, sir.

And there ne'er was a coward yet, o' the Callendar blood, nor o' the Campbell line! Your Captain is nane less than the Son o' G.o.d. Hear what he says to you! 'To him that overcometh! To him that overcometh!'

O Davie, you ken the rest!" and the old man was so lifted out of and above himself, that his face shone and his keen gray eyes scintillated with a light that no market-place ever saw in them.

David caught the holy enthusiasm; he seized the idea like a visible hand of G.o.d for his help. The black bottle became to him the materialization of all his crime and misery. It was a foe he could see, and touch, and defy. It seemed to mock him, to tempt him, to beg him just to open the cork, if only to test the strength of his resolutions.

Thank G.o.d he never did it. He faced his enemy the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. He kept him in sight through the temptations of a business day. He faced him most steadily in the solitude of his own room. There, indeed, his most dangerous struggles took place, and one night John heard him after two hours of restless hurried walking up and down, throw open his window, and dash the bottle upon the pavement beneath it. That was the last of his hard struggles; the bottle which replaced the one flung beyond his reach stands to-day where it has stood for nearly a quarter of a century, and David feels now no more inclination to open it than if it contained strychnine.

This is no fancy story. It is a fact. It is the true history of a soul's struggle, and I write it--G.o.d knows I do--in the strong hope that some brave fellow, who is mastered by a foe that steals upon him in the guise of good fellows.h.i.+p, or pleasure, or hospitality, may locate his enemy, and then face and conquer him in the name of Him who delivers his people from their sins. I do not say that all natures could do this. Some may find safety and final victory in flight, or in hiding from their foe; but I believe that the majority of souls would rise to a warfare in which the enemy was confronting them to face and fight, and would conquer.

I have little more to say of David Callendar. It was the story of his fall and his redemption I intended to write. But we cannot separate our spiritual and mortal life; they are the warp and woof which we weave together for eternity. Therefore David's struggle, though a palpable one in some respects, was, after all, an intensely spiritual one; for it was in the constant recognition of Christ as the Captain of his salvation, and in the constant use of such spiritual aids as his Bible and his minister gave him, that he was enabled to fight a good fight and to come off more than conqueror in a contest wherein so many strive and fail.

David's reformation had also a very sensible influence on his business prosperity. He has won back again now all, and far more than all, he lost, and in all good and great works for the welfare of humanity David Callendar is a willing worker and a n.o.ble giver. The new firm of John and David Callendar acquired a world-wide reputation. It is still John and David Callendar, for when the dear old deacon died he left his interest in it to David's eldest son, a pious, steady young fellow for whom n.o.body ever mixed a first gla.s.s. But G.o.d was very kind to John in allowing him to see the full harvest of his tender love, his patience, and his unselfishness. Out of his large fortune he left a n.o.ble endowment for a church and college in his native town, making only two requests concerning its management: first, that no whiskey should ever go within the college walls: second, that all the children in the town might have a holiday on the anniversary of his death; "for," said he, "I have aye loved children, and I would fain connect the happiness of childhood with the peace o' the dead."

Dr. Morrison lived long enough to a.s.sist in filling in the grave of his old friend and helper, but attained unto the beginning of peace and glory soon afterwards. And I have often pictured to myself the meeting of those two upon the hills of G.o.d. The minister antic.i.p.ated it, though upon his dying bed his great soul forgot all individualities, and thought only of the church universal, and his last glowing words were, "For Jerusalem that is above is free, which is the mother of us all."

Robert Leslie has done well in America, and no man is a more warm and earnest advocate of "the faith once delivered to the saints." I read a little speech of his some time ago at the dedication of a church, and it greatly pleased me.

"Many things," he said, "have doubtless been improved in this age, for man's works are progressive and require improvement; but who," he asked, "can improve the suns.h.i.+ne and the flowers, the wheat and the corn? And who will give us anything worthy to take the place of the religion of our fathers and mothers? And what teachers have come comparable to Christ, to David, Isaiah, and Paul?"

Jenny only died a year ago. She brought up David's children admirably, and saw, to her great delight, the marriage of Flora and young Captain Callendar. For it had long been her wish to go back to Argyles.h.i.+re "among her ain folk and die among the mountains," and this marriage satisfied all her longings. One evening they found her sitting in her open door with her face turned towards the cloud-cleaving hills. Her knitting had fallen upon her lap, her earthly work was done for ever, and she had put on the garments of the eternal Sabbath. But there was a wonderful smile on her simple, kindly face. Soul and body had parted with a smile. Oh, how happy are those whom the Master finds waiting for him, and who, when he calls, pa.s.s gently away!

"Up to the golden citadel they fare, And as they go their limbs grow full of might; And One awaits them at the topmost stair, One whom they had not seen, but knew at sight."

Andrew Cargill's Confession.

ANDREW CARGILL'S CONFESSION.

CHAPTER I.

Between Sinverness and Creffel lies the valley of Glenmora.

Sca Fells and Soutra Fells guard it on each hand, and the long, treacherous sweep of Solway Frith is its outlet. It is a region of hills and moors, inhabited by a people of singular gravity and simplicity of character, a pastoral people, who in its solemn high places have learned how to interpret the voices of winds and watersand to devoutly love their G.o.d.

Most of them are of the purest Saxon origin; but here and there one meets the ma.s.sive features and the blue bonnet of the Lowland Scots, descendants of those stern Covenanters who from the coasts of Galloway and Dumfries sought refuge in the strength of these lonely hills. They are easily distinguished, and are very proud of their descent from this race whom

"G.o.d anointed with his odorous oil To wrestle, not to reign."

Thirty years ago their leader and elder was Andrew Cargill, a man of the same lineage as that famous Donald Cargill who was the Boanerges of the Covenant, and who suffered martyrdom for his faith at the town of Queensferry. Andrew never forgot this fact, and the stern, just, uncompromising spirit of the old Protester still lived in him. He was a man well-to-do in the world, and his comfortable stone house was one of the best known in the vale of Glenmora.

People who live amid grand scenery are not generally sensitive to it, but Andrew was. The adoring spirit in which he stood one autumn evening at his own door was a very common mood with him. He looked over the moors carpeted with golden brown, and the hills covered with sheep and cattle, at the towering crags, more like clouds at sunset than things of solid land, at the children among the heather picking bilberries, at the deep, clear, purple mist that filled the valley, not hindering the view, but giving everything a strangely solemn aspect, and his face relaxed into something very like a smile as he said, "It is the wark o' my Father's hand, and praised be his name."

He stood at his own open door looking at these things, and inside his wife Mysie was laying the supper-board with haver bread and cheese and milk. A bright fire blazed on the wide hearth, and half a dozen sheep-dogs spread out their white b.r.e.a.s.t.s to the heat. Great settles of carved oak, bedded deep with fleeces of long wool, were on the sides of the fireplace, and from every wall racks of spotless deal, filled with crockery and pewter, reflected the s.h.i.+fting blaze.

Suddenly he stepped out and looked anxiously towards the horizon on all sides. "Mysie, woman," said he, "there is a storm coming up from old Solway; I maun e'en gae and fauld the ewes wi' their young lammies. Come awa', Keeper and Sandy."

The dogs selected rose at once and followed Andrew with right good-will. Mysie watched them a moment; but the great clouds of mist rolling down from the mountains soon hid the stalwart figure in its bonnet and plaid from view, and gave to the dogs' fitful barks a distant, m.u.f.fled sound. So she went in and sat down upon the settle, folding her hands listlessly on her lap, and letting the smile fall from her face as a mask might fall. Oh, what a sad face it was then!

She sat thus in a very trance of sorrow until the tears dropped heavily and slowly down, and her lips began to move in broken supplications. Evidently these brought her the comfort she sought, for erelong she rose, saying softly to herself, "The lost bit o' siller was found, and the strayed sheep was come up wi', and the prodigal won hame again, and dootless, dootless, my ain dear lad will no be lost sight o'."

By this time the storm had broken, but Mysie was not uneasy. Andrew knew the hills like his own ingle, and she could tell to within five minutes how long it would take him to go to the fauld and back. But when it was ten minutes past his time Mysie stood anxiously in the open door and listened. Her ears, trained to almost supernatural quickness, soon detected above the winds and rain a sound of footsteps. She called a wise old sheep-dog and bid him listen. The creature held his head a moment to the ground, looked at her affirmatively, and at her command went to seek his master.

In a few moments she heard Andrew's peculiar "hallo!" and the joyful barking of the dog, and knew that all was right. Yet she could not go in; she felt that something unusual had happened, and stood waiting for whatever was coming. It was a poor, little, half-drowned baby.

Andrew took it from under his plaid, and laid it in her arms, saying,

"I maun go now and look after the mither. I'll need to yoke the cart for her; she's past walking, and I'm sair feared she's past living; but you'll save the bit bairn, Mysie, nae doot; for G.o.d disna smite aften wi' baith hands."

"Where is she, Andrew?"

"'Mang the Druids' stanes, Mysie, and that's an ill place for a Christian woman to die. G.o.d forbid it!" he muttered, as he lit a lantern and went rapidly to the stable; "an evil place! under the vera altar-stane o' Satan. G.o.d stay the parting soul till it can hear a word o' his great mercy!"

With such a motive to prompt him, Andrew was not long in reaching the ruins of the old Druidical temple. Under a raised flat stone, which made a kind of shelter, a woman was lying. She was now insensible, and Andrew lifted her carefully into the cart. Perhaps it was some satisfaction to him that she did not actually die within such unhallowed precincts; but the poor creature herself was beyond such care. When she had seen her child in Mysie's arms, and comprehended Mysie's a.s.surance that she would care for it, all anxiety slipped away from her. Andrew strove hard to make her understand the awful situation in which she was; but the girl lay smiling, with upturned eyes, as if she was glad to be relieved of the burden of living.

"You hae done your duty, gudeman," at length said Mysie, "and now you may leave the puir bit la.s.sie to me; I'll dootless find a word o'

comfort to say to her."

"But I'm feared, I am awfu' feared, woman, that she is but a prodigal and an--"

"Hush, gudeman! There is mercy for the prodigal daughter as weel as for the prodigal son;" and at these words Andrew went out with a dark, stern face, while she turned with a new and stronger tenderness to the dying woman.

"G.o.d is love," she whispered; "if you hae done aught wrang, there's the open grave o' Jesus, dearie; just bury your wrang-doing there."

She was answered with a happy smile. "And your little lad is my lad fra this hour, dearie!" The dying lips parted, and Mysie knew they had spoken a blessing for her.

Nothing was found upon the woman that could identify her, nothing except a cruel letter, which evidently came from the girl's father; but even in this there was neither date nor locality named. It had no term of endearment to commence with, and was signed simply, "John Dunbar." Two things were, however, proven by it: that the woman's given name was Bessie, and that by her marriage she had cut herself off from her home and her father's affection.

So she was laid by stranger hands within that doorless house in the which G.o.d sometimes mercifully puts his weary ones to sleep. Mysie took the child to her heart at once, and Andrew was not long able to resist the little lad's beauty and winning ways. The neighbors began to call him "wee Andrew;" and the old man grew to love his namesake with a strangely tender affection.

Sometimes there was indeed a bitter feeling in Mysie's heart, as she saw how gentle he was with this child and remembered how stern and strict he had been with their own lad. She did not understand that the one was in reality the result of the other, the acknowledgement of his fault, and the touching effort to atone, in some way, for it.

One night, when wee Andrew was about seven years old, this wrong struck her in a manner peculiarly painful. Andrew had made a most extraordinary journey, even as far as Penrith. A large manufactory had been begun there, and a sudden demand for his long staple of white wool had sprung up. Moreover, he had had a prosperous journey, and brought back with him two books for the boy, aesop's Fables and Robinson Crusoe.

When Mysie saw them, her heart swelled beyond control. She remembered a day when her own son Davie had begged for these very books and been refused with hard rebukes. She remembered the old man's bitter words and the child's bitter tears; but she did not reflect that the present concession was the result of the former refusal, nor yet that the books were much easier got and the money more plentiful than thirty years previous. When wee Andrew ran away with his treasures to the Druids' stones, Mysie went into the s.h.i.+ppen, and did her milking to some very sad thoughts.

She was poisoning her heart with her own tears. When she returned to the "houseplace" and saw the child bending with rapt, earnest face over the books, she could not avoid murmuring that the son of a strange woman should be sitting happy in Cargill spence, and her own dear lad a banished wanderer. She had come to a point when rebellion would be easy for her. Andrew saw a look on her face that amazed and troubled him: and yet when she sat so hopelessly down before the fire, and without fear or apology

"Let the tears downfa',"

he had no heart to reprove her. Nay, he asked with a very unusual concern, "What's the matter, Mysie, woman?"

"I want to see Davie, and die, gudeman!"