THE MINISTER’S DEFEAT.
The minister’s wrath, when he found he had been followed home by
Gibbie who yet would not enter the house, instantly rose in redoubled
strength. He was ashamed to report the affair to Mrs. Sclater just as
it had passed. He was but a married old bachelor, and fancied he must
keep up his dignity in the eyes of his wife, not having yet learned
that, if a man be true, his friends and lovers will see to his dignity.
So his anger went on smouldering all night long, and all through his
sleep, without a touch of cool assuagement, and in the morning he
rose with his temper very feverish. During breakfast he was gloomy,
but would confess to no inward annoyance. What added to his unrest
was, that, although he felt insulted, he did not know what precisely
the nature of the insult was. Even in his wrath he could scarcely set
down Gibbie’s following of him to a glorying mockery of his defeat.
Doubtless, for a man accustomed to deal with affairs, to rule over a
parish--for one who generally had his way in the kirk-session, and to
whom his wife showed becoming respect, it was scarcely fitting that
the rude behaviour of an ignorant country dummy should affect him so
much: he ought to have been above such injury. But the lad whom he so
regarded, had first with his mere looks lowered him in his own eyes,
then showed himself beyond the reach of his reproof by calmly refusing
to obey him, and then became unintelligible by following him like a
creature over whom surveillance was needful! The more he thought of
this last, the more inexplicable it seemed to become, except on the
notion of deliberate insult. And the worst was, that henceforth he
could expect to have no power at all over the boy! If it was like this
already, how would it be in the time to come? If, on the other hand, he
were to re-establish his authority at the cost of making the boy hate
him, then, the moment he was of age, his behaviour would be that of a
liberated enemy: he would go straight to the dogs, and his money with
him!--The man of influence and scheme did well to be annoyed.
Gibbie made his appearance at ten o’clock, and went straight to the
study, where at that hour the minister was always waiting him. He
entered with his own smile, bending his head in morning salutation. The
minister said “Good morning,” but gruffly, and without raising his eyes
from the last publication of the Spalding Club. Gibbie seated himself
in his usual place, arranged his book and slate, and was ready to
commence--when the minister, having now summoned resolution, lifted his
head, fixed his eyes on him, and said sternly--
“Sir Gilbert, what was your meaning in following me, after refusing to
accompany me?”
Gibbie’s face flushed. Mr. Sclater believed he saw him for the first
time ashamed of himself; his hope rose; his courage grew; he augured
victory and a re-established throne: he gathered himself up in dignity,
prepared to overwhelm him. But Gibbie showed no hesitation; he took his
slate instantly, found his pencil, wrote, and handed the slate to the
minister. There stood these words:
“I thought you was drunnk.”
Mr. Sclater started to his feet, the hand which held the offending
document uplifted, his eyes flaming, his checks white with passion,
and with the flat of the slate came down a great blow on the top of
Gibbie’s head. Happily the latter was the harder of the two, and the
former broke, flying mostly out of the frame. It took Gibbie terribly
by surprise. Half-stunned, he started to his feet, and for one moment
the wild beast which was in him, as it is in everybody, rushed to the
front of its cage. It would have gone ill then with the minister, had
not as sudden a change followed; the very same instant, it was as if an
invisible veil, woven of gracious air and odour and dew, had descended
upon him; the flame of his wrath went out, quenched utterly; a smile
of benignest compassion overspread his countenance; in his offender
he saw only a brother. But Mr. Sclater saw no brother before him, for
when Gibbie rose he drew back to better his position, and so doing
made it an awkard one indeed. For it happened occasionally that, the
study being a warm room, Mrs. Sclater, on a winter evening, sat there
with her husband, whence it came that on the floor squatted a low
foot-stool, subject to not unfrequent clerical imprecation: when he
stepped back, he trod on the edge of it, stumbled, and fell. Gibbie
darted forward. A part of the minister’s body rested upon the stool,
and its elevation, made the first movement necessary to rising rather
difficult, so that he could not at once get off his back.
What followed was the strangest act for a Scotch boy, but it must be
kept in mind how limited were his means of expression. He jumped over
the prostrate minister, who the next moment seeing his face bent over
him from behind, and seized, like the gamekeeper, with suspicion born
of his violence, raised his hands to defend himself, and made a blow
at him. Gibbie avoided it, laid hold of his arms inside each elbow,
clamped them to the floor, kissed him on forehead and cheek, and began
to help him up like a child.
Having regained his legs, the minister stood for a moment, confused and
half-blinded. The first thing he saw was a drop of blood stealing down
Gibbie’s forehead. He was shocked at what he had done. In truth he had
been frightfully provoked, but it was not for a clergyman so to avenge
an insult, and as mere chastisement it was brutal. What would Mrs.
Sclater say to it? The rascal was sure to make his complaint to her!
And there too was his friend, the herd-lad, in the drawing-room with
her!
“Go and wash your face,” he said, “and come back again directly.”
Gibbie put his hand to his face, and feeling something wet, looked, and
burst into a merry laugh.
“I am sorry I have hurt you,” said the minister, not a little relieved
at the sound; “but how dared you write such a--such an insolence? A
clergyman never gets drunk.”
Gibbie picked up the frame which the minister had dropped in his fall:
a piece of the slate was still sticking in one side, and he wrote upon
it:
_I will kno better the next time. I thout it was alwais whisky that
made peeple like that. I begg your pardon, sir._
He handed him the fragment, ran to his own room, returned presently,
looking all right, and when Mr. Sclater would have attended to his
wound, would not let him even look at it, laughing at the idea. Still
further relieved to find there was nothing to attract observation to
the injury, and yet more ashamed of himself, the minister made haste to
the refuge of their work; but it did not require the gleam of the paper
substituted for the slate, to keep him that morning in remembrance of
what he had done; indeed it hovered about him long after the gray of
the new slate had passed into a dark blue.
From that time, after luncheon, which followed immediately upon
lessons, Gibbie went and came as he pleased. Mrs. Sclater begged he
would never be out after ten o’clock without having let them know that
he meant to stay all night with his friend: not once did he neglect
this request, and they soon came to have perfect confidence not only in
any individual promise he might make, but in his general punctuality.
Mrs. Sclater never came to know anything of his wounded head, and it
gave the minister a sharp sting of compunction, as well as increased
his sense of moral inferiority, when he saw that for a fortnight or
so he never took his favourite place at her feet, evidently that she
should not look down on his head.
The same evening they had friends to dinner. Already Gibbie was so
far civilized, as they called it, that he might have sat at any
dining-table without attracting the least attention, but that evening
he attracted a great deal. For he could scarcely eat his own dinner for
watching the needs of those at the table with him, ready to spring from
his chair and supply the least lack. This behaviour naturally harassed
the hostess, and at last, upon one of those occasions, the servants
happening to be out of the room, she called him to her side, and said,
“You were quite right to do that now, Gilbert, but please never do such
a thing when the servants are in the room. It confuses them, and makes
us all uncomfortable.”
Gibbie heard with obedient ear, but took the words as containing
express permission to wait upon the company in the absence of other
ministration. When therefore the servants finally disappeared, as was
the custom there in small households, immediately after placing the
dessert, Gibbie got up, and, much to the amusement of the guests,
waited on them as quite a matter of course. But they would have
wondered could they have looked into the heart of the boy, and beheld
the spirit in which the thing was done, the soil in which was hid
the root of the service; for to him the whole thing was sacred as an
altar-rite to the priest who ministers. Round and round the table,
deft and noiseless, he went, altogether aware of the pleasure of the
thing, not at all of its oddity--which, however, had he understood it
perfectly, he would not in the least have minded.
All this may, both in Gibbie and the narrative, seem trifling, but
I more than doubt whether, until our small services are sweet with
divine affection, our great ones, if such we are capable of, will ever
have the true Christian flavour about them. And then such eagerness to
pounce upon every smallest opportunity of doing the will of the Master,
could not fail to further proficiency in the service throughout.
Presently the ladies rose, and when they had left the room, the host
asked Gibbie to ring the bell. He obeyed with alacrity, and a servant
appeared. She placed the utensils for making and drinking toddy, after
Scotch custom, upon the table. A shadow fell upon the soul of Gibbie:
for the first time since he ran from the city, he saw the well-known
appointments of midnight orgy, associated in his mind with all the
horrors from which he had fled. The memory of old nights in the street,
as he watched for his father, and then helped him home; of his father’s
last prayer, drinking and imploring; of his white, motionless face the
next morning; of the row at Lucky Croale’s, and poor black Sambo’s
gaping throat--all these terrible things came back upon him, as he
stood staring at the tumblers and the wine glasses and the steaming
kettle.
“What is the girl thinking of!” exclaimed the minister, who had been
talking to his next neighbour, when he heard the door close behind the
servant. “She has actually forgotten the whisky!--Sir Gilbert,” he went
on, with a glance at the boy, “as you are so good, will you oblige me
by bringing the bottle from the sideboard?”
Gibbie started at the sound of his name, but did not move from the
place. After a moment, the minister, who had resumed the conversation,
thinking he had not heard him, looked up. There, between the foot of
the table and the sideboard, stood Gibbie as if fixed to the floor
gazing out of his blue eyes at the minister--those eyes filmy with
gathering tears, the smile utterly faded from his countenance.--Would
the Master have drunk out of that bottle? he was thinking with
himself. Imagining some chance remark had hurt the boy’s pride, and
not altogether sorry--it gave hope of the gentleman he wanted to make
him--Mr. Sclater spoke again:
“It’s just behind you, Sir Gilbert--the whisky bottle--that purple one
with the silver top.”
Gibbie never moved, but his eyes began to run over. A fearful
remembrance of the blow he had given him on the head rushed back on Mr.
Sclater: could it be the consequence of that? Was the boy paralyzed? He
was on the point of hurrying to him, but restrained himself, and rising
with deliberation, approached the sideboard. A nearer sight of the
boy’s face reassured him.
“I beg your pardon, Sir Gilbert,” he said; “I thought you would not
mind waiting on us as well as on the ladies. It is your own fault, you
know.--There,” he added, pointing to the table; “take your place, and
have a little toddy. It won’t hurt you.”
The eyes of all the guests were by this time fixed on Gibbie. What
could be the matter with the curious creature? they wondered. His
gentle merriment and quiet delight in waiting upon them, had given a
pleasant concussion to the spirits of the party, which had at first
threatened to be rather a stiff and dull one; and there now was the
boy all at once looking as if he had received a blow, or some cutting
insult which he did not know how to resent!
Between the agony of refusing to serve, and the impossibility of
putting his hand to unclean ministration, Gibbie had stood as if
spell-bound. He would have thought little of such horrors in Lucky
Croale’s houff, but the sight of the things here terrified him. He felt
as a Corinthian Christian must, catching a sight of one of the elders
of the church feasting in a temple. But the last words of the minister
broke the painful charm. He burst into tears, and darting from the
room, not a little to his guardian’s relief, hurried to his own.
The guests stared bewildered.
“He’ll be gone to the ladies,” said their host. “He’s an odd creature.
Mrs. Sclater understands him better than I do. He’s more at home with
her.”
Therewith he proceeded to tell them his history, and whence the
interest he had in him, not bringing down his narrative beyond the
afternoon of the preceding day.
The next morning, Mrs. Sclater had a talk with him concerning his whim
of waiting at table, telling him he must not do so again; it was not
the custom for gentlemen to do the things that servants were paid to
do; it was not fair to the servants, and so on--happening to end with
an utterance of mild wonder at his fancy for such a peculiarity. This
exclamation Gibbie took for a question, or at least the expression of a
desire to understand the reason of the thing. He went to a side-table,
and having stood there a moment or two, returned with a New Testament,
in which he pointed out the words, “But I am among you as he that
serveth.” Giving her just time to read them, he took the book again,
and in addition presented the words, “The disciple is not above his
master, but every one that is perfect shall be as his master.”
Mrs. Sclater was as much _put out_ as if he had been guilty of another
and worse indiscretion. The idea of anybody ordering his common doings,
not to say his oddities, by principles drawn from a source far too
sacred to be practically regarded, was too preposterous to have ever
become even a notion to her. Henceforth, however, it was a mote to
trouble her mind’s eye, a mote she did not get rid of until it began to
turn to a glimmer of light. I need hardly add that Gibbie waited at her
dinner-table no more.