SIR GEORGE.
The sun was hot for an hour or two in the middle of the day, but
even then in the shadow dwelt a cold breath--of the winter, or of
death--of something that humanity felt unfriendly. To Gibbie,
however, bare-legged, bare-footed, almost bare-bodied as he was, sun
or shadow made small difference, except as one of the musical
intervals of life that make the melody of existence. His bare feet
knew the difference on the flags, and his heart recognized
unconsciously the secret as it were of a meaning and a symbol, in
the change from the one to the other, but he was almost as happy in
the dull as in the bright day. Hardy through hardship, he knew
nothing better than a constant good-humoured sparring with nature
and circumstance for the privilege of being, enjoyed what came to
him thoroughly, never mourned over what he had not, and, like the
animals, was at peace. For the bliss of the animals lies in this,
that, on their lower level, they shadow the bliss of those--few at
any moment on the earth--who do not “look before and after, and pine
for what is not,” but live in the holy carelessness of the eternal
_now_. Gibbie by no means belonged to the higher order, was as yet,
indeed, not much better than a very blessed little animal.
To him the city was all a show. He knew many of the people--some of
them who thought no small things of themselves--better than they
would have chosen he or any one else should know them. He knew all
the peripatetic vendors, most of the bakers, most of the small
grocers and tradespeople. Animal as he was, he was laying in a
great stock for the time when he would be something more, for the
time of reflection, whenever that might come. Chiefly, his
experience was a wonderful provision for the future perception of
character; for now he knew to a nicety how any one of his large
acquaintance would behave to him in circumstances within the scope
of that experience. If any such little vagabond rises in the scale
of creation, he carries with him from the street an amount of
material serving to the knowledge of human nature, human need, human
aims, human relations in the business of life, such as hardly
another can possess. Even the poet, greatly wise in virtue of his
sympathy, will scarcely understand a given human condition so well
as the man whose vital tentacles have been in contact with it for
years.
When Gibbie was not looking in at a shop-window, or turning on one
heel to take in all at a sweep, he was oftenest seen trotting.
Seldom he walked. A gentle trot was one of his natural modes of
being. And though this day he had been on the trot all the sunshine
through, nevertheless, when the sun was going down there was wee
Gibbie upon the trot in the chilling and darkening streets. He had
not had much to eat. He had been very near having a penny loaf.
Half a cookie, which a stormy child had thrown away to ease his
temper, had done further and perhaps better service in easing
Gibbie’s hunger. The green-grocer woman at the entrance of the
court where his father lived, a good way down the same street in
which he had found the lost earring, had given him a small yellow
turnip--to Gibbie nearly as welcome as an apple. A fishwife from
Finstone with a _creel_ on her back, had given him all his hands could
hold of the sea-weed called _dulse_, presumably not from its
sweetness, although it is good eating. She had added to the gift a
small crab, but that he had carried to the seashore and set free,
because it was alive. These, the half-cookie, the turnip, and the
dulse, with the smell of the baker’s bread, was all he had had. It
had been rather one of his meagre days. But it is wonderful upon
how little those rare natures capable of making the most of things
will live and thrive. There is a great deal more to be got out of
things than is generally got out of them, whether the thing be a
chapter of the Bible or a yellow turnip, and the marvel is that
those who use the most material should so often be those that show
the least result in strength or character. A superstitious
priest-ridden Catholic may, in the kingdom of heaven, be high beyond
sight of one who counts himself the broadest of English churchmen.
Truly Gibbie got no fat out of his food, but he got what was far
better. What he carried--I can hardly say under or in, but along
with those rags of his, was all muscle--small, but hard and
healthy, and knotting up like whipcord. There are all degrees of
health in poverty as well as in riches, and Gibbie’s health was
splendid. His senses also were marvellously acute. I have already
hinted at his gift for finding things. His eyes were sharp, quick,
and roving, and then they went near the ground--he was such a little
fellow. His success, however, not all these considerations could
well account for, and he was regarded as born with a special luck in
finding. I doubt if sufficient weight was given to the fact that,
even when he was not so turning his mind, it strayed in that
direction, whence, if any object cast its reflected rays on his
retina, those rays never failed to reach his mind also. On one
occasion he picked up the pocket-book a gentleman had just dropped,
and, in mingled fun and delight, was trying to put it in its owner’s
pocket unseen, when he collared him, and, had it not been for the
testimony of a young woman who, coming behind, had seen the whole,
would have handed him over to the police. After all, he remained in
doubt, the thing seemed so incredible. He did give him a penny,
however, which Gibbie at once spent upon a loaf.
It was not from any notions of honesty--he knew nothing about
it--that he always did what he could to restore the things he found;
the habit came from quite another cause. When he had no clue to the
owner, he carried the thing found to his father, who generally let
it lie a while, and at length, if it was of nature convertible,
turned it into drink.
While Gibbie thus lived in the streets like a town-sparrow--as like a
human bird without storehouse or barn as boy could well be--the
human father of him would all day be sitting in a certain dark
court, as hard at work as an aching head and a bloodless system
would afford. The said court was off the narrowest part of a long,
poverty-stricken street, bearing a name of evil omen, for it was
called the Widdiehill--the place of the gallows. It was entered by
a low archway in the middle of an old house, around which yet clung
a musty fame of departed grandeur and ancient note. In the court,
against a wing of the same house, rose an outside stair, leading to
the first floor; under the stair was a rickety wooden shed; and in
the shed sat the father of Gibbie, and cobbled boots and shoes as
long as, at this time of the year, the light lasted. Up that stair,
and two more inside the house, he went to his lodging, for he slept
in the garret. But when or how he got to bed, George Galbraith
never knew, for then, invariably, he was drunk. In the morning,
however, he always found himself in it--generally with an aching
head, and always with a mingled disgust at and desire for drink.
During the day, alas! the disgust departed, while the desire
remained, and strengthened with the approach of evening. All day he
worked with might and main, such might and main as he had--worked as
if for his life, and all to procure the means of death. No one ever
sought to _treat_ him, and from no one would he accept drink. He was
a man of such inborn honesty, that the usurping demon of a vile
thirst had not even yet, at the age of forty, been able to cast it
out. The last little glory-cloud of his origin was trailing behind
him--but yet it trailed. Doubtless it needs but time to make of a
drunkard a thief, but not yet, even when longing was at the highest,
would he have stolen a forgotten glass of whisky; and still, often
in spite of sickness and aches innumerable, George laboured that he
might have wherewith to make himself drunk honestly. Strange
honesty! Wee Gibbie was his only child, but about him or his
well-being he gave himself almost as little trouble as Gibbie caused
him! Not that he was hard-hearted; if he had seen the child in
want, he would, at the drunkest, have shared his whisky with him; if
he had fancied him cold, he would have put his last garment upon
him; but to his whisky-dimmed eyes the child scarcely seemed to want
anything, and the thought never entered his mind that, while Gibbie
always looked smiling and contented, his father did so little to
make him so. He had at the same time a very low opinion of himself
and his deservings, and justly, for his consciousness had dwindled
into little more than a live thirst. He did not do well for
himself, neither did men praise him; and he shamefully neglected his
child; but in one respect, and that a most important one, he did
well by his neighbours: he gave the best of work, and made the
lowest of charges. In no other way was he for much good. And yet I
would rather be that drunken cobbler than many a “fair professor,”
as Bunyan calls him. A grasping merchant ranks infinitely lower
than _such_ a drunken cobbler. Thank God, the Son of Man is the
judge, and to him will we plead the cause of such--yea, and of worse
than they--for He will do right. It may be well for drunkards that
they are social outcasts, but is there no intercession to be made
for them--no excuse to be pleaded? Alas! the poor wretches would
storm the kingdom of peace by the inspiration of the enemy. Let us
try to understand George Galbraith. His very existence the sense of
a sunless, dreary, cold-winded desert, he was evermore confronted,
in all his resolves after betterment, by the knowledge that with the
first eager mouthful of the strange element, a rosy dawn would begin
to flush the sky, a mist of green to cover the arid waste, a wind of
song to ripple the air, and at length the misery of the day would
vanish utterly, and the night throb with dreams. For George was by
nature no common man. At heart he was a poet--weak enough, but
capable of endless delight. The time had been when now and then he
read a good book and dreamed noble dreams. Even yet the stuff of
which such dreams are made, fluttered in particoloured rags about
his life; and colour is colour even on a scarecrow.
He had had a good mother, and his father was a man of some
character, both intellectually and socially. Now and then, it is
too true, he had terrible bouts of drinking; but all the time
between he was perfectly sober. He had given his son more than a
fair education; and George, for his part, had trotted through the
curriculum of Elphinstone College not altogether without
distinction. But beyond this his father had entirely neglected his
future, not even revealing to him the fact--of which, indeed, he was
himself but dimly aware--that from wilful oversight on his part and
design on that of others, his property had all but entirely slipped
from his possession.
While his father was yet alive, George married the daughter of a
small laird in a neighbouring county--a woman of some education, and
great natural refinement. He took her home to the ancient family
house in the city--the same in which he now occupied a garret, and
under whose outer stair he now cobbled shoes. There, during his
father’s life, they lived in peace and tolerable comfort, though in
a poor enough way. It was all, even then, that the wife could do to
make both ends meet; nor would her relations, whom she had
grievously offended by her marriage, afford her the smallest
assistance. Even then, too, her husband was on the slippery
incline; but as long as she lived, she managed to keep him within the
bounds of what is called respectability. She died, however, soon
after Gibbie was born; and then George began to lose himself
altogether. The next year his father died, and creditors appeared
who claimed everything. Mortgaged land and houses, with all upon
and in them, were sold, and George left without a penny or any means
of winning a livelihood, while already he had lost the reputation
that might have introduced him to employment. For heavy work he was
altogether unfit; and had it not been for a bottle companion--a
merry, hard-drinking shoemaker--he would have died of starvation or
sunk into beggary.
This man taught him his trade, and George was glad enough to work at
it, both to deaden the stings of conscience and memory, and to
procure the means of deadening them still further. But even here
was something in the way of improvement, for hitherto he had applied
himself to nothing, his being one of those dreamful natures capable
of busy exertion for a time, but ready to collapse into disgust with
every kind of effort.
How Gibbie had got thus far alive was a puzzle not a creature could
have solved. It must have been by charity and ministration of more
than one humble woman, but no one now claimed any particular
interest in him--except Mrs. Croale, and hers was not very tender.
It was a sad sight to some eyes to see him roving the streets, but
an infinitely sadder sight was his father, even when bent over his
work, with his hands and arms and knees going as if for very
salvation. What thoughts might then be visiting his poor worn-out
brain I cannot tell; but he looked the pale picture of misery.
Doing his best to restore to service the nearly shapeless boots of
carter or beggar, he was himself fast losing the very idea of his
making, consumed heart and soul with a hellish thirst. For the
thirst of the drunkard is even more of the soul than of the body.
When the poor fellow sat with his drinking companions in Mistress
Croale’s parlour, seldom a flash broke from the reverie in which he
seemed sunk, to show in what region of fancy his spirit wandered, or
to lighten the dulness that would not unfrequently invade that
forecourt of hell. For even the damned must at times become aware
of what they are, and then surely a terrible though momentary hush
must fall upon the forsaken region. Yet those drinking companions
would have missed George Galbraith, silent as he was, and but poorly
responsive to the wit and humour of the rest; for he was always
courteous, always ready to share what he had, never looking beyond
the present tumbler--altogether a genial, kindly, honest nature.
Sometimes, when two or three of them happened to meet elsewhere,
they would fall to wondering why the silent man sought their
company, seeing he both contributed so little to the hilarity of the
evening, and seemed to derive so little enjoyment from it. But I
believe their company was necessary as well as the drink to enable
him to elude his conscience and feast with his imagination. Was it
that he knew they also fought misery by investments in her
bonds--that they also were of those who by Beelzebub would cast out
Beelzebub--therefore felt at home, and with his own?