ME. SERCOMBE.
The next morning, soon after sunrise, the laird began to cut his
barley. Ian would gladly have helped, but Alister had a notion that
such labour was not fit for him.
"I had a comical interview this morning," said the chief, entering
the kitchen at dinner-time. "I was out before my people, and was
standing by the burn-side near the foot-bridge, when I heard
somebody shouting, and looked up. There was a big English fellow
in gray on the top of the ridge, with his gun on his shoulder,
hollo-ing. I knew he was English by his hollo-ing. It was plain it
was to me, but not choosing to be at his beck and call, I took no
heed. 'Hullo, you there! wake up!' he cried. 'What should I wake up
for?' I returned. 'To carry my bag. You don't seem to have anything
to do! I'll give you five shillings.'"
"You see to what you expose yourself by your unconventionalities,
Alister!" said his brother, with mock gravity.
"It was not the fellow we carried home the other night, Ian; it was
one twice his size. It would take all I have to carry HIM as far!"
"The other must have pointed you out to him!"
"It was much too dark for him to know me again!"
"You forget the hall-lamp!" said Ian.
"Ah, yes, to be sure! I had forgotten!" answered Alister. "To tell
the truth, I thought, when I took his shilling, he would never know
me from Nebuchadnezzar: that is the one thing I am ashamed of in the
affair--I did in the dark what perhaps I should not have done in the
daylight!--I don't mean I would not have carried him and his bag
too! I refer only to the shilling! Now, of course, I will hold my
face to it; but I thought it better to be short with a fellow like
that."
"Well?"
"'You'll want prepayment, no doubt!' he went on, putting his hand in
his pocket. Those Sasunnach fellows think every highlandman keen as
a hawk after their dirty money!"
"They have but too good reason in some parts!" said the mother. "It
is not so bad here yet, but there is a great difference in that
respect. The old breed is fast disappearing. What with the
difficulty of living by the hardest work, and the occasional chance
of earning a shilling easily, many have turned both idle and
greedy."
"That's for you and your shilling, Alister!" said Ian.
"I confess," returned Alister, "if I had foreseen what an idea of
the gentlemen of the country I might give, I should have hesitated.
But I haven't begun to be ashamed yet!"
"Ashamed, Alister!" cried Ian. "What does it matter what a fellow
like that thinks of you?"
"And mistress Conal has her shilling!" said the mother.
"If the thing was right," pursued Ian, "no harm can come of it; if
it was not right, no end of harm may come. Are you sure it was good
for mistress Conal to have that shilling, Alister? What if it be
drawing away her heart from him who is watching his old child in her
turf-hut? What if the devil be grinning at her from, that shilling?"
"Ian! if God had not meant her to have the shilling, he would not
have let Alister earn it."
"Certainly God can take care of her from a shilling!" said Ian, with
one of his strangely sweet smiles. "I was only trying Alister,
mother."
"I confess I did not like the thought of it at first," resumed Mrs.
Macruadh; "but it was mere pride; for when I thought of your father,
I knew he would have been pleased with Alister."
"Then, mother, I am glad; and I don't care what Ian, or any
Sasunnach under the sun, may think of me."
"But you haven't told us," said Ian, "how the thing ended."
"I said to the fellow," resumed Alister, "that I had my shearing to
do, and hadn't the time to go with him. 'Is this your season for
sheep-shearing?' said he.'We call cutting the corn shearing,' I
answered, 'because in these parts we use the reaping hook.' 'That is
a great waste of labour!' he returned. I did not tell him that some
of our land would smash his machines like toys. 'How?' I asked. 'It
costs so much more,' he said. 'But it feeds so many more!' I
replied. 'Oh yes, of course, if you don't want the farmer to make a
living!' 'I manage to make a living,' I said. 'Then you are the
farmer?' 'So it would appear.' 'I beg your pardon; I thought--'
'You thought I was an idle fellow, glad of an easy job to keep the
life in me!' 'You were deuced glad of a job the other night, they
tell me!' 'So I was. I wanted a shilling for a poor woman, and
hadn't one to give her without going home a mile and a half for it!'
By this time he had come down, and I had gone a few steps to meet
him; I did not want to seem unfriendly. 'Upon my word, it was very
good of you! The old lady ought to be grateful!' he said. 'So ought
we all,' I answered, '--I to your friend for the shilling, and he to
me for taking his bag. He did me one good turn for my poor woman,
and I did him another for his poor leg!' 'So you're quits!' said he.
'Not at all,' I answered; 'on the contrary, we are under mutual
obligation.' 'I don't see the difference!--Hillo, there's a hare!'
And up went his gun to his shoulder. 'None of that!' I cried, and
knocked up the barrel. 'What do you mean?' he roared, looking
furious. 'Get out of the way, or I'll shoot you.' 'Murder as well as
poaching!' I said. 'Poaching!' he shouted. 'That rabbit is mine,' I
answered; 'I will not have it killed.' 'Cool!--on Mr. Palmer's
land!' said he. 'The land is mine, and I am my own gamekeeper!' I
rejoined. 'You look like it!' he said. 'You go after your
birds!--not in this direction though,' I answered, and turned and
left him."
"You were rough with him!" said Ian.
"I did lose my temper rather."
"It was a mistake on his part."
"I expected to hear him fire," Alister continued, "for there was the
rabbit he took for a hare lurching slowly away! I'm glad he didn't:
I always feel bad after a row!--Can a conscience ever get too
fastidious, Ian?"
"The only way to find that out is always to obey it."
"So long as it agrees with the Bible, Ian!" interposed the mother.
"The Bible is a big book, mother, and the things in it are of many
sorts," returned Ian. "The Lord did not go with every thing in it."
"Ian! Ian! I am shocked to hear you!"
"It is the truth, mother."
"What WOULD your father say!"
"'He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of
me.'"
Ian rose from the table, knelt by his mother, and laid his head on
her shoulder.
She was silent, pained by his words, and put her arm round him as if
to shelter him from the evil one. Homage to will and word of the
Master, apart from the acceptance of certain doctrines concerning
him, was in her eyes not merely defective but dangerous. To love the
Lord with the love of truest obedience; to believe him the son of
God and the saver of men with absolute acceptance of the heart, was
far from enough! it was but sentimental affection!
A certain young preacher in Scotland some years ago, accused by an
old lady of preaching works, took refuge in the Lord's sermon on the
mount: "Ow ay!" answered the partisan, "but he was a varra yoong mon
whan he preacht that sermon!"
Alister rose and went: there was to him something specially sacred
in the communion of his mother and brother. Heartily he held with
Ian, but shrank from any difference with his mother. For her sake he
received Sunday after Sunday in silence what was to him a bushel of
dust with here and there a bit of mouldy bread in it; but the mother
did not imagine any great coincidence of opinion between her and
Alister any more than between her and Ian. She had not the faintest
notion how much genuine faith both of them had, or how it surpassed
her own in vitality.
But while Ian seemed to his brother, who knew him best, hardly
touched with earthly stain, Alister, notwithstanding his large and
dominant humanity, was still in the troublous condition of one
trying to do right against a powerful fermentation of pride. He held
noblest principles; but the sediment of generations was too easily
stirred up to cloud them. He was not quite honest in his attitude
towards some of his ancestors, judging them far more leniently than
he would have judged others. He loved his neighbour, but his
neighbour was mostly of his own family or his own clan. He MIGHT
have been unjust for the sake of his own--a small fault in the eyes
of the world, but a great fault indeed in a nature like his, capable
of being so much beyond it. For, while the faults of a good man
cannot be such evil things as the faults of a bad man, they are more
blameworthy, and greater faults than the same would be in a bad man:
we must not confuse the guilt of the person with the abstract evil
of the thing.
Ian was one of those blessed few who doubt in virtue of a larger
faith. While its roots were seeking a deeper soil, it could not show
so fast a growth above ground, He doubted most about the things he
loved best, while he devoted the energies of a mind whose keenness
almost masked its power, to discover possible ways of believing
them. To the wise his doubts would have been his best credentials;
they were worth tenfold the faith of most. It was truth, and higher
truth, he was always seeking. The sadness which coloured his deepest
individuality, only one thing could ever remove--the conscious
presence of the Eternal. This is true of all sadness, but Ian knew
it.
He overtook Alister on his way to the barley-field.
"I have been trying to find out wherein lay the falseness of the
position in which you found yourself this morning," he said. "There
could be nothing wrong in doing a small thing for its reward any
more than a great one; where I think you went wrong was in ASSUMING
your social position afterwards: you should have waited for its
being accorded you. There was no occasion to be offended with the
man. You ought to have seen how you must look to him, and given him
time. I don't perceive why you should be so gracious to old mistress
Conal, and so hard upon him. Certainly you would not speak as he did
to any man, but he has been brought up differently; he is not such a
gentleman as you cannot help being. In a word, you ought to have
treated him as an inferior, and been more polite to him."