THE SINNER.
No man can order his life, for it comes flowing over him from behind.
But if it lay before us, and we could watch its current approaching
from a long distance, what could we do with it before it had reached
the now? In like wise a man thinks foolishly who imagines he could
have done this and that with his own character and development, if
he had but known this and that in time. Were he as good as he thinks
himself wise he could but at best have produced a fine cameo in very
low relief: with a work in the round, which he is meant to be, he could
have done nothing. The one secret of life and development, is not to
devise and plan, but to fall in with the forces at work--to do every
moment’s duty aright--that being the part in the process allotted to
us; and let come--not what will, for there is no such thing--but what
the eternal Thought wills for each of us, has intended in each of us
from the first. If men would but believe that they are in process
of creation, and consent to be made--let the maker handle them as
the potter his clay, yielding themselves in respondent motion and
submissive hopeful action with the turning of his wheel, they would ere
long find themselves able to welcome every pressure of that hand upon
them, even when it was felt in pain, and sometimes not only to believe
but to recognize the divine end in view, the bringing of a son into
glory; whereas, behaving like children who struggle and scream while
their mother washes and dresses them, they find they have to be washed
and dressed, notwithstanding, and with the more discomfort: they may
even have to find themselves set half naked and but half dried in a
corner, to come to their right minds, and ask to be finished.
At this time neither Gibbie nor Donal strove against his creation--what
the wise of this world call their fate. In truth Gibbie never did; and
for Donal, the process was at present in a stage much too agreeable
to rouse any inclination to resist. He enjoyed his new phase of life
immensely. If he did not distinguish himself as a scholar, it was not
because he neglected his work, but because he was at the same time
doing that by which alone the water could ever rise in the well he
was digging: he was himself growing. Far too eager after knowledge to
indulge in emulation, he gained no prizes: what had he to do with how
much or how little those around him could eat as compared with himself?
No work noble or lastingly good can come of emulation any more than of
greed: I think the motives are spiritually the same. To excite it is
worthy only of the commonplace vulgar schoolmaster, whose ambition is
to show what fine scholars he can turn out, that he may get the more
pupils. Emulation is the devil-shadow of aspiration. The set of the
current in the schools is at present towards a boundless swamp, but the
wise among the scholars see it, and wisdom is the tortoise which shall
win the race. In the mean time how many, with the legs and the brain
of the hare, will think they are gaining it, while they are losing
things whose loss will make any prize unprized! The result of Donal’s
work appeared but very partially in his examinations, which were honest
and honourable to him; it was hidden in his thoughts, his aspirations,
his growth, and his verse--all which may be seen should I one day tell
Donal’s story. For Gibbie, the minister had not been long teaching
him, before he began to desire to make a scholar of him. Partly from
being compelled to spend some labour upon it, the boy was gradually
developing an unusual facility in expression. His teacher, compact of
conventionalities, would have modelled the result upon some writer
imagined by him a master of style; but the hurtful folly never got
any hold of Gibbie: all he ever cared about was to say what he meant,
and avoid saying something else; to know when he had not said what he
meant, and to set the words right. It resulted that, when people did
not understand what he meant, the cause generally lay with them not
with him; and that, if they sometimes smiled over his mode, it was
because it lay closer to nature than theirs: they would have found it a
hard task to improve it.
What the fault with his organs of speech was, I cannot tell. His
guardian lost no time in having them examined by a surgeon in high
repute, a professor of the university, but Dr. Skinner’s opinion put
an end to question and hope together. Gibbie was not in the least
disappointed. He had got on very well as yet without speech. It was
not like sight or hearing. The only voice he could not hear was his
own, and that was just the one he had neither occasion nor desire to
hear. As to his friends, those who had known him the longest minded
his dumbness the least. But the moment the defect was understood
to be irreparable, Mrs. Sclater very wisely proceeded to learn the
finger-speech; and as she learned it, she taught it to Gibbie.
As to his manners, which had been and continued to be her chief care,
a certain disappointment followed her first rapid success: she never
could get them to take on the case-hardening needful for what she
counted the final polish. They always retained a certain simplicity
which she called childishness. It came in fact of childlikeness,
but the lady was not child enough to distinguish the difference--as
great as that between the back and the front of a head. As, then,
the minister found him incapable of _forming_ a style, though time
soon proved him capable of _producing_ one, so the minister’s wife
found him as incapable of putting on company manners of any sort, as
most people are incapable of putting them off--without being rude. It
was disappointing to Mrs. Sclater, but Gibbie was just as content to
appear what he was, as he was unwilling to remain what he was. Being
dumb, she would say to herself he would pass in any society; but if
he had had his speech, she never could have succeeded in making him a
thorough gentleman: he would have always been saying the right thing
in the wrong place. By the wrong place she meant the place where alone
the thing could have any pertinence. In after years, however, Gibbie’s
manners were, whether pronounced such or not, almost universally _felt_
to be charming. But Gibbie knew nothing of his manners any more than of
the style in which he wrote.
One night on their way home from an evening party, the minister and his
wife had a small difference, probably about something of as little real
consequence to them as the knowledge of it is to us, but by the time
they reached home, they had got to the very summit of politeness with
each other. Gibbie was in the drawing-room, as it happened, waiting
their return. At the first sound of their voices, he knew, before a
syllable reached him, that something was wrong. When they entered, they
were too much engrossed in difference to heed his presence, and went on
disputing--with the utmost external propriety of words and demeanour,
but with both injury and a sense of injury in every tone. Had they
looked at Gibbie, I cannot think they would have been silenced; but
while neither of them dared turn eyes the way of him, neither had
moral strength sufficient to check the words that rose to the lips. A
discreet, socially wise boy would have left the room, but how could
Gibbie abandon his friends to the fiery darts of the wicked one! He
ran to the side-table before mentioned. With a vague presentiment of
what was coming, Mrs. Sclater, feeling rather than seeing him move
across the room like a shadow, sat in dread expectation; and presently
her fear arrived, in the shape of a large New Testament, and a face of
loving sadness, and keen discomfort, such as she had never before seen
Gibbie wear. He held out the book to her, pointing with a finger to
the words--she could not refuse to let her eyes fall upon them--“Have
salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.” What Gibbie made
of the salt, I do not know; and whether he understood it or not was of
little consequence, seeing he had it; but the rest of the sentence he
understood so well that he would fain have the writhing yoke-fellows
think of it.
The lady’s cheeks had been red before, but now they were redder. She
rose, cast an angry look at the dumb prophet, a look which seemed to
say “How dare you suggest such a thing?” and left the room.
“What have you got there?” asked the minister, turning sharply upon
him. Gibbie showed him the passage.
“What have _you_ got to do with it?” he retorted, throwing the book on
the table. “Go to bed.”
“A detestable prig!” you say, reader?--That is just what Mr. and Mrs.
Sclater thought him that night, but they never quarrelled again before
him. In truth, they were not given to quarrelling. Many couples who
love each other more, quarrel more, and with less politeness. For
Gibbie, he went to bed--puzzled, and afraid there must be a beam in his
eye.
The very first time Donal and he could manage it, they set out together
to find Mistress Croale. Donal thought he had nothing to do but walk
straight from Mistress Murkison’s door to hers, but, to his own
annoyance, and the disappointment of both, he soon found he had not a
notion left as to how the place lay, except that it was by the river.
So, as it was already rather late, they put off their visit to another
time, and took a walk instead.
But Mistress Croale, haunted by old memories, most of them far from
pleasant, grew more and more desirous of looking upon the object of
perhaps the least disagreeable amongst them: she summoned resolution at
last, went to the market a little better dressed than usual, and when
business there was over, and she had shut up her little box of a shop,
walked to Daur-street to the minister’s house.
“He’s aften eneuch crossed my door,” she said to herself, speaking of
Mr. Sclater; “an’ though, weel I wat, the sicht o’ ’im never bodit me
onything but ill, I never loot him ken he was less nor walcome; an’
gien bein’ a minister gies the freedom o’ puir fowk’s hooses, it oucht
in the niffer (_exchange_) to gie them the freedom o’ his.”
Therewith encouraging herself, she walked up the steps and rang the
bell. It was a cold, frosty winter evening and as she stood waiting for
the door to be opened, much the poor woman longed for her own fireside
and a dram. Her period of expectation was drawn out not a little
through the fact that the servant whose duty it was to answer the bell
was just then waiting at table: because of a public engagement, the
minister had to dine earlier than usual. They were in the middle of
their soup--cockie-leekie, nice and hot, when the maid informed her
master that a woman was at the door, wanting to see Sir Gilbert.
Gibbie looked up, put down his spoon, and was rising to go, when the
minister, laying his hand on his arm, pressed him gently back to his
chair, and Gibbie yielded, waiting.
“What sort of a woman?” he asked the girl.
“A decent-lookin’ workin’-like body,” she answered. “I couldna see her
verra weel, it’s sae foggy the nicht aboot the door.”
“Tell her we’re at dinner; she may call again in an hour. Or if she
likes to leave a message--Stay: tell her to come again to-morrow
morning.--I wonder who she is,” he added, turning, he thought, to
Gibbie.
But Gibbie was gone. He had passed behind his chair, and all he saw
of him was his back as he followed the girl from the room. In his
eagerness he left the door open, and they saw him dart to the visitor,
shake hands with her in evident delight, and begin pulling her towards
the room.
Now Mistress Croale, though nowise inclined to quail before the
minister, would not willingly have intruded herself upon him,
especially while he sat at dinner with his rather formidable lady;
but she fancied, for she stood where she could not see into the
dining-room, that Gibbie was taking her where they might have a quiet
_news_ together, and, occupied with her bonnet or some other source
of feminine disquiet, remained thus mistaken until she stood on the
threshold, when, looking up, she started, stopped, made an _obedience_
to the minister, and another to the minister’s lady, and stood
doubtful, if not a little abashed.
“Not here! my good woman,” said Mr. Sclater, rising. “--Oh, it’s you,
Mistress Croale!--I will speak to you in the hall.”
Mrs. Croale’s face flushed, and she drew back a step. But Gibbie still
held her, and with a look to Mr. Sclater that should have sent straight
to his heart the fact that she was dear to his soul, kept drawing her
into the room; he wanted her to take his chair at the table. It passed
swiftly through her mind that one who had been so intimate both with
Sir George and Sir Gibbie in the old time, and had given the latter his
tea every Sunday night for so long, might surely, even in such changed
circumstances, be allowed to enter the same room with him, however
grand it might be; and involuntarily almost she yielded half a doubtful
step, while Mr. Sclater, afraid of offending Sir Gilbert, hesitated
on the advance to prevent her. How friendly the warm air felt! how
consoling the crimson walls with the soft flicker of the great fire
upon them! how delicious the odour of the cockie-leekie! She could give
up whisky a good deal more easily, she thought, if she had the comforts
of a minister to fall back upon! And this was the same minister who had
once told her that her soul was as precious to him as that of any other
in his parish--and then driven her from respectable Jink Lane to the
disreputable Daurfoot! It all passed through her mind in a flash, while
yet Gibbie pulled and she resisted.
“Gilbert, come here,” called Mrs. Sclater.
He went to her side, obedient and trusting as a child.
“Really, Gilbert, you must not,” she said, rather loud for a whisper.
“It won’t do to turn things upside down this way. If you are to be a
gentleman, and an inmate of _my_ house, you must behave like other
people. I _cannot_ have a woman like that sitting at _my_ table.--Do
you know what sort of a person she is?” Gibbie’s face shone up. He
raised his hands. He was already able to talk a little.
“Is she a sinner?” he asked on his fingers.
Mrs. Sclater nodded.
Gibbie wheeled round, and sprang back to the hall, whither the minister
had, coming down upon her, bows on, like a sea-shouldering whale, in
a manner ejected Mistress Croale, and where he was now talking to her
with an air of confidential condescension, willing to wipe out any
feeling of injury she might perhaps be inclined to cherish at not being
made more welcome: to his consternation, Gibbie threw his arms round
her neck, and gave her a great hug.
“Sir Gilbert!” he exclaimed, very angry, and the more angry that he
knew he was in the right, “leave Mistress Croale alone, and go back to
your dinner immediately.--Jane, open the door.”
Jane opened the door, Gibbie let her go, and Mrs. Croale went. But on
the threshold she turned.
“Weel, sir,” she said, with more severity than pique, and a certain sad
injury not unmingled with dignity, “ye hae stappit ower my door-sill
mony’s the time, an’ that wi’ sairer words i’ yer moo’ nor I ever
mintit at peyin’ ye back; an’ I never said to ye gang. Sae first ye
turnt me oot o’ my ain hoose, an’ noo ye turn me oot o’ yours; an’
what’s left ye to turn me oot o’ but the hoose o’ the Lord? An’, ’deed,
sir, ye need never won’er gien the likes o’ me disna care aboot gangin’
to hear a _preacht_ gospel: we wad fain see a practeesed ane! Gien ye
had said to me noo the nicht, ‘Come awa ben, Mistress Croale, an’ tak
a plet o’ cockie-leekie wi’ ’s; it’s a caul’ nicht;’ it’s mysel’ wad
hae been sae upliftit wi’ yer kin’ness, ’at I wad hae gane hame an’
ta’en--I dinna ken--aiblins a read at my Bible, an’ been to be seen at
the kirk upo’ Sunday I wad--o’ that ye may be sure; for it’s a heap
easier to gang to the kirk nor to read the buik yer lane, whaur ye
canna help thinkin’ upo’ what it says to ye. But noo, as ’tis, I’m awa
hame to the whusky boatle, an’ the sin o’ ’t, gien there be ony in sic
a nicht o’ caul’ an’ fog, ’ill jist lie at your door.”
“You shall have a plate of soup, and welcome, Mistress Croale!” said
the minister, in a rather stagey tone of hospitality “--Jane, take
Mistress Croale to the kitchen with you, and--”
“The deil’s tail i’ yer soup!--’At I sud say ’t!” cried Mistress
Croale, drawing herself up suddenly, with a snort of anger: “whan turnt
I beggar? I wad fain be informt! Was ’t yer soup or yer grace I soucht
till, sir? The Lord be atween you an’ me! There’s first ’at ’ll be
last, an’ last ’at ’ll be first. But the tane’s no me, an’ the tither’s
no you, sir.”
With that she turned and walked down the steps, holding her head high.
“Really, Sir Gilbert,” said the minister, going back into the
dining-room--but no Gibbie was there!--nobody but his wife, sitting
in solitary discomposure at the head of her dinner-table. The same
instant, he heard a clatter of feet down the steps, and turned quickly
into the hall again, where Jane was in the act of shutting the door.
“Sir Gilbert’s run oot efter the wuman, sir!” she said.
“Hoots!” grunted the minister, greatly displeased, and went back to his
wife.
“Take Sir Gilbert’s plate away,” said Mrs. Sclater to the servant.
“That’s his New Testament again!” she went on, when the girl had left
the room.
“My dear! my dear! take care,” said her husband. He had not much notion
of obedience to God, but he had some idea of respect to religion. He
was just an idolater of a Christian shade.
“Really, Mr. Sclater,” his wife continued, “I had no idea what I was
undertaking. But you gave me no choice. The creature is incorrigible.
But of course he must prefer the society of women like that. They are
the sort he was accustomed to when he received his first impressions,
and how could it be otherwise? You knew how he had been brought up, and
what you had to expect!”
“Brought up!” cried the minister, and caused his spoonful of
cockie-leekie to rush into his mouth with the noise of the German
_schlürfen_, then burst into a loud laugh. “You should have seen him
about the streets!--with his trowsers--”
“_Mister_ Sclater! Then you ought to have known better!” said his wife,
and laying down her spoon, sat back into the embrace of her chair.
But in reality she was not the least sorry he had undertaken the
charge. She could not help loving the boy, and her words were merely
the foam of vexation, mingled with not a little jealousy, that he had
left her, and his nice hot dinner, to go with the woman. Had she been a
fine lady like herself, I doubt if she would have liked it much better;
but she specially recoiled from coming into rivalry with one in whose
house a horrible murder had been committed, and who had been before the
magistrates in consequence.
Nothing further was said until the second course was on the table. Then
the lady spoke again:
“You really must, Mr. Sclater, teach him the absurdity of attempting
to fit every point of his behaviour to--to--words which were of course
quite suitable to the time when they were spoken, but which it is
impossible to take literally now-a-days--as impossible as to go about
the streets with a great horn on your head and a veil hanging across
it.--Why!”--Here she laughed--a laugh the less lady-like that, although
it was both low and musical, it was scornful, and a little shaken
by doubt.--“You saw him throw his arms round the horrid creature’s
neck!--Well, he had just asked me if she was a sinner. I made no doubt
she was. Off with the word goes my gentleman to embrace her!”
Here they laughed together.
Dinner over, they went to a missionary meeting, where the one stood and
made a speech and the other sat and listened, while Gibbie was having
tea with Mistress Croale.
From that day Gibbie’s mind was much exercised as to what he could
do for Mistress Croale, and now first he began to wish he had his
money. As fast as he learned the finger-alphabet he had taught it to
Donal, and, as already they had a good many symbols in use between
them, so many indeed that Donal would often instead of speaking make
use of signs, they had now the means of intercourse almost as free as
if they had had between them two tongues instead of one. It was easy
therefore for Gibbie to impart to Donal his anxiety concerning her, and
his strong desire to help her, and doing so, he lamented in a gentle
way his present inability. This communication Donal judged it wise to
impart in his turn to Mistress Croale.
“Ye see, mem,” he said in conclusion, “he’s some w’y or anither gotten
’t intil ’s heid ’at ye’re jist a wheen ower free wi’ the boatle. I
kenna. Ye’ll be the best jeedge o’ that yersel’!”
Mistress Croale was silent for a whole minute by the clock. From the
moment when Gibbie forsook his dinner and his grand new friends to go
with her, the woman’s heart had begun to grow to the boy, and her old
memories fed the new crop of affection.
“Weel,” she replied at length, with no little honesty, “--I mayna
be sae ill ’s he thinks me, for he had aye his puir father afore ’s
e’en; but the bairn’s richt i’ the main, an’ we maun luik till ’t, an’
see what can be dune; for eh! I wad be laith to disappint the bonnie
laad!--Maister Grant, gien ever there wis a Christi-an sowl upo’ the
face o’ this wickit warl’, that Christi-an sowl’s wee Sir Gibbie!--an’
wha cud hae thoucht it! But it’s the Lord’s doin’, an’ mervellous in
oor eyes!--Ow! ye needna luik like that; I ken my Bible no that ill!”
she added, catching a glimmer of surprise on Donal’s countenance.
“But for that Maister Scletter--dod! I wadna be sair upon ’im--but
gien he be fit to caw a nail here an’ a nail there, an fix a sklet
or twa, creepin’ upo’ the riggin’ o’ the kirk, I’m weel sure he’s
nae wise maister-builder fit to lay ony fundation.--Ay! I tellt ye I
kent my beuk no that ill!” she added with some triumph; then resumed:
“What the waur wad he or she or Sir Gibbie hae been though they _hed_
inveetit me, as I _was_ there, to sit me doon, an’ tak’ a plet o’ their
cockie-leekie wi’ them? There was ane ’at thoucht them ’at was far
waur nor me, guid eneuch company for him; an’ maybe I may sit doon wi’
him efter a’, wi’ the help o’ my bonnie wee Sir Gibbie.--I canna help
ca’in him _wee_ Sir Gibbie--a’ the toon ca’d ’im that, though haith!
he’ll be a big man or he behaud. An’ for ’s teetle, I was aye ane to
gie honour whaur honour was due, an’ never ance, weel as I kenned him,
did I ca’ his honest father, for gien ever there was an honest man, yon
was him!--never did I ca’ him onything but Sir George, naither mair
nor less, an’ that though he vroucht the hardest at the cobblin’ a’
the ook, an’ upo’ Setterdays was pleased to hae a guid wash i’ my ain
bedroom, an’ pit on a clean sark o’ my deid man’s--rist his sowl!--no
’at I’m a papist, Maister Grant, an’ aye kent better nor think it was
ony eese prayin’ for them ’at’s gane; for wha is there to pey ony heed
to sic haithenish prayers as that wad be? Na! we maun pray for the
livin’ ’at it may dee some guid till, an’ no for them ’at it’s a’ ower
wi’--the Lord hae mercy upo’ them!”
My readers may suspect, one for one reason, another for another,
that she had already, before Donal came that evening, been holding
communion with the idol in the three-cornered temple of her cupboard;
and I confess that it was so. But it is equally true that before the
next year was gone, she was a shade better--and that not without
considerable struggle, and more failures than successes.
Upon one occasion--let those who analyze the workings of the human
mind as they would the entrails of an eight-day clock, explain the
phenomenon I am about to relate, or decline to believe it, as they
choose--she became suddenly aware that she was getting perilously near
the brink of actual drunkenness.
“I’ll tak but this ae moo’fu’ mair,” she said to herself; “it’s but a
moo’fu’, an’ it’s the last i’ the boatle, an’ it wad be a peety naebody
to get the guid o’ ’t.”
She poured it out. It was nearly half a glass. She took it in one
large mouthful. But while she held it in her mouth to make the most of
it, even while it was between her teeth, something smote her with the
sudden sense that this very moment was the crisis of her fate, that now
the axe was laid to the root of her tree. She dropped on her knees--not
to pray like poor Sir George--but to spout the mouthful of whisky into
the fire. In roaring flame it rushed up the chimney. She started back.
“Eh!” she cried; “guid God! sic a deevil ’s I maun be, to cairry the
like o’ that i’ my inside!--Lord! I’m a perfec’ byke o’ deevils! My
name, it maun be Legion. What _is_ to become o’ my puir sowl!”
It was a week before she drank another drop--and then she took her
devils with circumspection, and the firm resolve to let no more of them
enter into her than she could manage to keep in order.
Mr. and Mrs. Sclater got over their annoyance as well as they could,
and agreed that in this case no notice should be taken of Gibbie’s
conduct.