Old John Jamieson
As I returned to the house I met my father.
“Well, Ranald, what are you about?” he said, in his usual gentle tone.
“Nothing in particular, father,” I answered.
“Well, I’m going to see an old man--John Jamieson--I don’t think you
know him: he has not been able to come to church for a long time. They
tell me he is dying. Would you like to go with me?”
“Yes, father. But won’t you take Missy?”
“Not if you will walk with me. It’s only about three miles.”
“Very well, father. I should like to go with you.”
My father talked about various things on the way. I remember in
particular some remarks he made about reading Virgil, for I had just
begun the Æneid. For one thing, he told me I must scan every line
until I could make it sound like poetry, else I should neither enjoy
it properly, nor be fair to the author. Then he repeated some lines
from Milton, saying them first just as if they were prose, and after
that the same lines as they ought to be sounded, making me mark the
difference. Next he did the same with a few of the opening lines of
Virgil’s great poem, and made me feel the difference there.
“The sound is the shape of it, you know, Ranald,” he said, “for a poem
is all for the ear and not for the eye. The eye sees only the sense of
it; the ear sees the shape of it. To judge poetry without heeding the
sound of it, is nearly as bad as to judge a rose by smelling it with
your eyes shut. The sound, besides being a beautiful thing in itself,
has a sense in it which helps the other out. A psalm tune, if it’s the
right one, helps you to see how beautiful the psalm is. Every poem
carries its own tune in its own heart, and to read it aloud is the
only way to bring out its tune.”
I liked Virgil ever so much better after this, and always tried to get
at the tune of it, and of every other poem I read.
“The right way of anything,” said my father, “may be called the tune of
it. We have to find out the tune of our own lives. Some people don’t
seem ever to find it out, and so their lives are a broken and
uncomfortable thing to them--full of ups and downs and disappointments,
and never going as it was meant to go.”
“But what is the right tune of a body’s life, father?”
“The will of God, my boy.”
“But how is a person to know that, father?”
“By trying to do what he knows of it already. Everybody has a
different kind of tune in his life, and no one can find out another’s
tune for him, though he _may_ help him to find it for himself.”
“But aren’t we to read the Bible, father?”
“Yes, if it’s in order to obey it. To read the Bible thinking to
please God by the mere reading of it, is to think like a heathen.”
“And aren’t we to say our prayers, father?”
“We are to ask God for what we want. If we don’t want a thing, we are
only acting like pagans to speak as if we did, and call it prayer, and
think we are pleasing him.”
I was silent. My father resumed.
“I fancy the old man we are going to see found out the tune of _his_
life long ago.”
“Is he a very wise man then, father?”
“That depends on what you mean by _wise_. _I_ should call him a wise
man, for to find out that tune is the truest wisdom. But he’s not a
learned man at all. I doubt if he ever read a book but the Bible,
except perhaps the Pilgrim’s Progress. I believe he has always been
very fond of that. _You_ like that--don’t you, Ranald?”
“I’ve read it a good many times, father. But I was a little tired of
it before I got through it last time.”
“But you did read it through--did you--the last time, I mean?”
“Oh yes, father. I never like to leave the loose end of a thing
hanging about.”
“That’s right, my boy; that’s right. Well, I think you’d better not
open the book again for a long time--say twenty years at least. It’s a
great deal too good a book to let yourself get tired of. By that time
I trust you will be able to understand it a great deal better than you
can at present.”
I felt a little sorry that I was not to look at the Pilgrim’s Progress
for twenty years; but I am very glad of it now.
“We must not spoil good books by reading them too much,” my father
added. “It is often better to think about them than to read them; and
it is best never to do either when we are tired of them. We should get
tired of the sunlight itself, beautiful as it is, if God did not send
it away every night. We’re not even fit to have moonlight always. The
moon is buried in the darkness every month. And because we can bear
nothing for any length of time together, we are sent to sleep every
night, that we may begin fresh again in the morning.”
“I see, father, I see,” I answered.
We talked on until we came in sight of John Jamieson’s cottage.
What a poor little place it was to look at--built of clay, which had
hardened in the sun till it was just one brick! But it was a better
place to live in than it looked, for no wind could come through the
walls, although there was plenty of wind about. Three little windows
looked eastward to the rising sun, and one to the south: it had no
more. It stood on the side of a heathy hill, which rose up steep
behind it, and bending round sheltered it from the north. A low wall
of loose stones enclosed a small garden, reclaimed from the hill,
where grew some greens and cabbages and potatoes, with a flower here
and there between. In summer it was pleasant enough, for the warm sun
makes any place pleasant. But in winter it must have been a cold
dreary place indeed. There was no other house within sight of it. A
little brook went cantering down the hill close to the end of the
cottage, singing merrily.
“It is a long way to the sea, but by its very nature the water will
find it at last,” said my father, pointing to the stream as we crossed
it by the single stone that was its bridge.
He had to bend his head low to enter the cottage. An old woman, the
sick man’s wife, rose from the side of the chimney to greet us. My
father asked how John was.
“Wearing away,” was her answer. “But he’ll be glad to see you.”
We turned in the direction in which her eyes guided us. The first
thing I saw was a small withered-looking head, and the next a
withered-looking hand, large and bony. The old man lay in a bed closed
in with boards, so that very little light fell upon him; but his hair
glistened silvery through the gloom. My father drew a chair beside
him. John looked up, and seeing who it was, feebly held out his
hand. My father took it and stroked it, and said:
“Well, John, my man, you’ve had a hard life of it.”
“No harder than I could bear,” said John.
“It’s a grand thing to be able to say that,” said my father.
“Oh sir! for that matter, I would go through it all again, if it was
_his_ will, and willingly. I have no will but his, sir.”
“Well, John, I wish we could all say the same. When a man comes to
that, the Lord lets him have what he wants. What do you want now,
John?”
“To depart and be with the Lord. It wouldn’t be true, sir, to say that
I wasn’t weary. It seems to me, if it’s the Lord’s will, I’ve had
enough of this life. Even if death be a long sleep, as some people
say, till the judgment, I think I would rather sleep, for I’m very
weary. Only there’s the old woman there! I don’t like leaving her.”
“But you can trust God for her too, can’t you?”
“It would be a poor thing if I couldn’t, sir.”
“Were you ever hungry, John--dreadfully hungry, I mean?”
“Never longer than I could bear,” he answered. “When you think it’s
the will of God, hunger doesn’t get much hold of you, sir.”
“You must excuse me, John, for asking so many questions. You know God
better than I do, and I want my young man here to know how strong the
will of God makes a man, old or young. He needn’t care about anything
else, need he?”
“There’s nothing else to care about, sir. If only the will of God be
done, everything’s all right, you know. I do believe, sir, God cares
more for me than my old woman herself does, and she’s been as good a
wife to me as ever was. Young gentleman, you know who says that God
numbers the very hairs of our heads? There’s not many of mine left to
number,” he added with a faint smile, “but there’s plenty of
yours. You mind the will of God, and he’ll look after you. That’s the
way he divides the business of life.”
I saw now that my father’s talk as we came, had been with a view to
prepare me for what John Jamieson would say. I cannot pretend,
however, to have understood the old man at the time, but his words
have often come back to me since, and helped me through trials pretty
severe, although, like the old man, I have never found any of them too
hard to bear.
“Have you no child to come and help your wife to wait upon you?” my
father asked.
“I have had ten, sir, but only three are left alive. There’ll be
plenty to welcome me home when I go. One of the three’s in Canada, and
can’t come. Another’s in Australia, and he can’t come. But Maggie’s
not far off, and she’s got leave from her mistress to come for a
week--only we don’t want her to come till I’m nearer my end. I should
like her to see the last of her old father, for I shall be young again
by the next time she sees me, please God, sir. He’s all in all--isn’t
he, sir?”
“True, John. If we have God, we have all things; for all things are
his and we are his. But we mustn’t weary you too much. Thank you for
your good advice.”
“I beg your pardon, sir; I had no intention of speaking like that. I
never could give advice in all my life. I always found it was as much
as I could do to take the good advice that was given to me. I should
like to be prayed for in the church next Sunday, sir, if you please.”
“But can’t you pray for yourself, John?”
“Yes, sir; but I would like to have some spiritual gift because my
friends asked it for me. Let them pray for more faith for me. I want
more and more of that. The more you have, the more you want. Don’t
you, sir? And I mightn’t ask enough for myself, now I’m so old and so
tired. I sleep a great deal, sir.”
“Then don’t you think God will take care to give you enough, even if
you shouldn’t ask for enough?” said my father.
“No doubt of that. But you see I am able to think of it now, and so I
must put things in a train for the time when I shan’t be able to think
of it.”
Something like this was what John said; and although I could not
understand it then, my father spoke to me several times about it
afterwards, and I came to see how the old man wanted to provide
against the evil time by starting prayers heavenward beforehand, as it
were.
My father prayed by his bedside, pulled a parcel or two from his
pocket for his wife, and then we walked home together in silence. My
father was not the man to heap words upon words and so smother the
thought that lay in them. He had taken me for the sake of the lesson I
might receive, and he left it to strike root in my mind, which he
judged more likely if it remained undisturbed.