CONFESSION OF SIN.
Mr Crathie was slowly recovering, but still very weak. He did not,
after having turned the corner, get well so fast as his medical
minister judged he ought, and the reason was plain to Lizzy, dimly
perceptible to his wife: he was ill at ease. A man may have more mind
and more conscience, and more discomfort in both or either, than his
neighbours give him credit for. They may be in the right about him
up to a certain point in his history, but then a crisis, by them
unperceived, perhaps to them inappreciable, arrived, after which the
man to all eternity could never be the same as they had known him.
Such a change must appear improbable, and save on the theory of a
higher operative power, is improbable because impossible. But a man who
has not created himself can never secure himself against the inroad
of the glorious terror of that Goodness which was able to utter him
into being, with all its possible wrongs and repentances. The fact
that a man has never, up to any point yet, been aware of aught beyond
himself, cannot shut him out who is beyond him, when at last he means
to enter. Not even the soul-benumbing visits of his clerical minister
could repress the swell of the slow-mounting dayspring in the soul
of the hard, commonplace, business-worshipping man, Hector Crathie.
The hireling would talk to him kindly enough--of his illness, or of
events of the day, especially those of the town and neighbourhood, and
encourage him with reiterated expression of the hope that ere many days
they would enjoy a tumbler together as of old, but as to wrong done,
apology to make, forgiveness to be sought, or consolation to be found,
the dumb dog had not uttered a bark.
The sources of the factor’s restless discomfort were now two; the
first, that he had lifted his hand to women; the second, the old ground
of his quarrel with Malcolm, brought up by Lizzy.
All his life, since ever he had had business, Mr Crathie had prided
himself on his honesty, and was therefore in one of the most dangerous
moral positions a man could occupy--ruinous even to the honesty itself.
Asleep in the mud, he dreamed himself awake on a pedestal. At best such
a man is but perched on a needle point when he thinketh he standeth. Of
him who prided himself on his honour I should expect that one day, in
the long run it might be, he would do some vile thing. Not, probably,
within the small circle of illumination around his wretched rushlight,
but in the great region beyond it, of what to him is a moral darkness,
or twilight vague, he may be or may become capable of doing a deed
that will stink in the nostrils of the universe--and in his own when
he knows it as it is. The honesty in which a man can pride himself
must be a small one, for more honesty will ever reveal more defect,
while perfect honesty will never think of itself at all. The limited
honesty of the factor clave to the interests of his employers, and let
the rights he encountered take care of themselves. Those he dealt with
were to him rather as enemies than friends, not enemies to be prayed
for, but to be spoiled. Malcolm’s doctrine of honesty in horse-dealing
was to him ludicrously new. His notion of honesty in that kind was to
cheat the buyer for his master if he could, proud to write in his book
a large sum against the name of the animal. He would have scorned in
his very soul the idea of making a farthing by it himself through any
business quirk whatever, but he would not have been the least ashamed
if, having sold Kelpie, he had heard--let me say, after a week of
possession--that she had dashed out her purchaser’s brains. He would
have been a little shocked, a little sorry perhaps, but nowise ashamed.
“By this time,” he would have said, “the man ought to have been up to
her, and either taken care of himself--or _sold her again_,”--to dash
out another man’s brains instead!
That the bastard Malcolm, or the ignorant and indeed fallen fisher-girl
Lizzy, should judge differently, nowise troubled him: what could they
know about the rights and wrongs of business? The fact which Lizzy
sought to bring to bear upon him, that our Lord would not have done
such a thing, was to him no argument at all. He said to himself with
the superior smile of arrogated common-sense, that “no mere man since
the fall” could be expected to do like him; that he was divine, and had
not to fight for a living; that he set us an example that we might see
what sinners we were; that religion was one thing, and a very proper
thing, but business was another, and a very proper thing also--with
customs and indeed laws of its own far more determinate, at least
definite, than those of religion, and that to mingle the one with the
other was not merely absurd--it was irreverent and wrong, and certainly
never intended in the Bible, which must surely be common sense. It was
_the Bible_ always with him,--never _the will of Christ_. But although
he could dispose of the question thus satisfactorily, yet, as he lay
ill, supine, without any distracting occupation, the thing haunted him.
Now in his father’s cottage had lain, much dabbled in of the children,
a certain boardless copy of the Pilgrim’s Progress, round in the face
and hollow in the back, in which, amongst other pictures was one of
the Wicket-gate. This scripture of his childhood, given by inspiration
of God, threw out, in one of his troubled and feverish nights, a
dream-bud in the brain of the man. He saw the face of Jesus looking
on him over the top of the Wicket-gate, at which he had been for some
time knocking in vain, while the cruel dog barked loud from the enemy’s
yard. But that face, when at last it came, was full of sorrowful
displeasure. And in his heart he knew that it was because of a certain
transaction in horse-dealing, wherein he had hitherto lauded his own
cunning--adroitness, he considered it--and success. One word only he
heard from the lips of the Man --“Worker of iniquity,”--and woke with
a great start. From that moment truths _began_ to be facts to him. The
beginning of the change was indeed very small, but every beginning is
small, and every beginning is a creation. Monad, molecule, protoplasm,
whatever word may be attached to it when it becomes appreciable by
men, being then, however many stages, I believe, upon its journey,
_beginning_ is an irrepressible fact; and however far from good or
humble even after many days, the man here began to grow good and
humble. His dull unimaginative nature, a perfect lumber-room of the
world and its rusting affairs, had received a gift in a dream--a truth
from the lips of the Lord, remodelled in the brain and heart of the
tinker of Elstow, and sent forth in his wondrous parable to be pictured
and printed, and lie in old Hector Crathie’s cottage, that it might
enter and lie in young Hector Crathie’s brain until he grew old and had
done wrong enough to heed it, when it rose upon him in a dream, and
had its way. Henceforth the claims of his neighbour began to reveal
themselves, and his mind to breed conscientious doubts and scruples,
with which, struggle as he might against it, a certain respect for
Malcolm would keep coming and mingling--a feeling which grew with its
returns, until, by slow changes, he began at length to regard him as
the minister of God’s vengeance--for his punishment,--and perhaps
salvation-- who could tell?
Lizzy’s nightly ministrations had not been resumed, but she often
called, and was a good deal with him; for Mrs Crathie had learned to
like the humble, helpful girl still better when she found she had taken
no offence at being deprived of her post of honour by his bedside.
One day, when Malcolm was seated, mending a net, among the thin grass
and great red daisies of the links by the bank of the burn, where it
crossed the sands from the Lossie grounds to the sea, Lizzy came up to
him and said,
“The factor wad like to see ye, Ma’colm, as sune ’s ye can gang till
’im.”
She waited no reply. Malcolm rose and went.
At the factor’s, the door was opened by Mrs Crathie herself, who,
looking mysterious, led him to the dining-room, where she plunged at
once into business, doing her best to keep down all manifestation of
the profound resentment she cherished against him. Her manner was
confidential, almost coaxing.
“Ye see, Ma’colm,” she said, as if pursuing instead of commencing a
conversation, “he’s some sore about the little _fraicass_ between him
’an you. Jist make your apoalogies till ’im and tell ’im you had a drop
too much, and you’re soary for misbehavin’ yersel’ to wann sae much
your shuperrior. Tell him that, Ma’colm, an’ there’s a half-croon to
ye.”
She wished much to speak English, and I have tried to represent the
thing she did speak, which was neither honest Scotch nor anything
like English. Alas! the good, pithy, old Anglo-saxon dialect is fast
perishing, and a jargon of corrupt English taking its place.
“But, mem,” said Malcolm, taking no notice either of the coin or the
words that accompanied the offer of it, “I canna lee. I wasna in drink,
an’ I’m no sorry.”
“Hoot!” returned Mrs Crathie, blurting out her Scotch fast enough now,
“I s’ warran’ ye can lee weel eneuch whan ye ha’e occasion. Tak yer
siller, an’ du as I tell ye.”
“Wad ye ha’e me damned, mem?”
Mrs Crathie gave a cry and held up her hands. She was too well
accustomed to imprecations from the lips of her husband for any but
an affected horror, but, regarding the honest word as a bad one, she
assumed an air of injury.
“Wad ye daur to sweir afore a leddy,” she exclaimed, shaking her
uplifted hands in pretence of ghasted astonishment.
“If Mr Crathie wishes to see me, ma’am,” rejoined Malcolm, taking up
the shield of English, “I am ready. If not, please allow me to go.”
The same moment the bell whose rope was at the head of the factor’s
bed, rang violently, and Mrs Crathie’s importance collapsed.
“Come this w’y,” she said, and turning, led him up the stair to the
room where her husband lay.
Entering, Malcolm stood astonished at the change he saw upon the strong
man of rubicund countenance, and his heart filled with compassion.
The factor was sitting up in bed, looking very white and worn and
troubled. Even his nose had grown thin and white. He held out his hand
to him, and said to his wife, “Tak the door to ye, Mistress Crathie,”
indicating which side he wished it closed from.
“Ye was some sair upo’ me, Ma’colm,” he went on, grasping the youth’s
hand.
“I doobt I was _ower_ sair,” said Malcolm, who could hardly speak for a
lump in his throat.
“Weel, I deserved it. But eh, Ma’colm! I canna believe it was me: it
bude to be the drink.”
“It _was_ the drink,” rejoined Malcolm; “an’ eh sir! afore ye rise frae
that bed, sweir to the great God ’at ye’ll never drink nae mair drams,
nor onything ’ayont ae tum’ler at a sittin’.”
“I sweir ’t; I sweir ’t, Ma’colm!” cried the factor.
“It’s easy to sweir ’t noo, sir, but whan ye’re up again it’ll be hard
to keep yer aith.--O Lord!” spoke the youth, breaking out into almost
involuntary prayer, “help this man to haud troth wi’ thee.--An’ noo,
Maister Crathie,” he resumed, “I’m yer servan’, ready to do onything I
can. Forgi’e me, sir, for layin’ on ower sair.”
“I forgi’e ye wi’ a’ my hert,” returned the factor, inly delighted to
have something to forgive.
“I thank ye frae mine,” answered Malcolm, and again they shook hands.
“But eh, Ma’colm, my man!” said the factor, “hoo will I ever shaw my
face again?”
“Fine that!” returned Malcolm, eagerly. “Fowk’s terrible guid-natur’d
whan ye alloo ’at ye’re i’ the wrang. I do believe ’at whan a man
confesses till ’s neebour, an’ says he’s sorry, he thinks mair o’ ’im
nor afore he did it. Ye see we a’ ken we ha’e dune wrang, but we ha’ena
a’ confessed. An’ it’s a queer thing, but a man’ll think it gran’ o’ ’s
neebour to confess, whan a’ the time there’s something he winna repent
o’ himsel’ for fear o’ the _shame_ o’ ha’ein’ to confess ’t. To me,
the shame lies in _no_ confessin’ efter ye ken ye’re wrang. Ye’ll see,
sir--the fisher-fowk’ll min’ what ye say to them a heap better noo.”
“Div ye railly think it, Ma’colm?” sighed the factor with a flush.
“I div that, sir. Only whan ye grow better, gien ye’ll alloo me to
say ’t, sir, ye maunna lat Sawtan temp’ ye to think ’at this same
repentin’ was but a wakeness o’ the flesh, an’ no an enlichtenment o’
the speerit.”
“I s’ tie mysel’ up till ’t,” cried the factor, eagerly. “Gang an’ tell
them i’ my name, ’at I tak back ilka scart o’ a nottice I ever ga’e
ane o’ them to quit, only we maun ha’e nae mair stane’in’ o’ honest
fowk ’at comes to bigg herbours till them.--Div ye think it wad be weel
ta’en gien ye tuik a poun’-nott the piece to the twa women?”
“I wadna du that, sir, gien I was you,” answered Malcolm. “For yer ain
sake, I wadna to Mistress Mair, for naething wad gar her tak it--it
wad only affront her; an’ for Nancy Tacket’s sake, I wadna to her, for
as her name, so’s her natur’: she wad not only tak it, but she wad lat
ye play the same as aften ’s ye likit for less siller. Ye’ll ha’e mony
a chance o’ makin’ ’t up to them baith, ten times ower, afore you an’
them pairt, sir.”
“I maun lea’ the cuintry, Ma’colm.”
“’Deed, sir, ye’ll du naething o’ the kin’. The fishers themsels wad
rise, no to lat ye, as they did wi’ Blew Peter! As sune ’s ye’re able
to be aboot again, ye’ll see plain eneuch ’at there’s no occasion for
onything like that, sir. Portlossie wadna ken ’tsel’ wantin’ ye. Jist
gie me a commission to say to the twa honest women ’at ye’re sorry for
what ye did, an’ that’s a’ ’at need be said ’atween you an them, or
their men aither.”
The result showed that Malcolm was right; for, the very next day,
instead of looking for gifts from him, the two injured women came to
the factor’s door, first Annie Mair, with the offering of a few fresh
eggs, scarce at the season, and after her Nancy Tacket, with a great
lobster.