_HOW ELSIE WON The GATE_
The forest's glory is departed when its giant trees lie low. And, stroke
by stroke, my St. Cuthbert's Kirk was thus bereft of its outstanding
glories. For great men are like great trees, the shelter of all others
and the path-finders towards the sky.
My sun is westering now, and the oft-repeated crash as these mighty
stalwarts fall keeps my heart in almost abiding sadness. For the second
growth gives no promise of a stock which shall be worthy successors to
these noble pioneers, the conquering gladiators of Canada's shadowy
forests, the real makers of her great and portentous national life. And
yet, strange to say, I never knew their real greatness while I lived
among them, sharing in the varied chase, but only when they came to die.
This was especially true of those who boasted far-back highland blood,
for their depths of tenderness and heights of faith and scope of
spiritual vision were sternly hidden till the helplessness of death
betrayed them. Then was the key to their secret life surrendered; then
might all men see the face at the pane. But not till then; for every
stolid feature, every stifled word or glance of tenderness, every
muffled note of religious self-revealment, swelled their life's noble
perjury. To their own hurt they swore, changing not. But at their real
best he saw them who saw them die.
In that ingenuous hour they spoke once more their mother tongue of love
and faith with an accuracy which told of lifelong rehearsal within their
secret hearts. When the golden bowl was broken, its holy contents,
flowing free, poured forth the long-imprisoned fragrance.
How many a day, cold and gray, flowers at sunset into rich redemptive
beauty, cheerless avenue leading to its grand Cathedral West! Thus have
I seen these Scottish lives, stern and cold and rayless, break into
flame at evening, in whose light I caught the glory of the very gates of
the City of God.
It was the winter of the strike, whose story I have already told, that
Elsie M'Phatter heard the Voice which calls but once. Long and gentle
had been the slope towards the river, and I held Elsie's hand every step
of the way, myself striving to hold that other Hand which is truly
visible only in the darkness; but the last stage of the journey came
swift and suddenly. About two in the morning I was awakened by the loud
alarm of my door-bell.
The minister knows well that at such an hour his bell is rung only by
eternal winds, and the alarm is an almost certain message that the
rapids are near and that he is wanted at the helm. On Atlantic liners I
have never heard the ominous note that calls the captain from his cabin
to the bridge without thinking of my midnight bell, and that deeper
darkness, and that more awful channel.
It was the doctor's boy who thus summoned me, bidding me hurry to
Elsie's bedside, for the tide was ebbing fast, he said. I was soon on my
way through the frosty night, silently imploring the unseen Pilot that
He would safe into the haven guide. To His great wisdom and His
sheltering love I committed all the case, making oath beneath the silent
stars that I had myself no other hope than this with which I hurried to
yonder dying one. For a man's own heart must swear by the living Lord,
or else he will find no path through the dread wilderness of death for
the unreturning feet.
When the outskirts of the town were but well behind me, I saw in the
distance a solitary light which I knew at once to be the death-chamber
lamp; at sight whereof my heart has never outgrown a strange leap of
trembling fear, like a scout when he catches the first warning gleam of
the enemy's campfire. Yonder, I said to myself, is the battle-field of
a soul, struggling with its last great foe; yonder the central crisis
of all time and all eternity; yonder the heaving breast, the eager,
onward look, the unravelling of mystery, the launching of a soul upon
eternal seas.
No life is ever commonplace when that lamp burns beside it, and no
wealth, or genius, or greatness can palliate its relentless gleam.
There, continued I, stands the dread unseen Antagonist, asking no chair,
demanding no courtesy, craving no welcome, resenting no frowning and
averted face; calmly does he brook the terror and the hatred excited by
his uninvited advent, serene in the confidence that his is the central
figure, that the last word is his, though all pretend to ignore his
presence. Like a sullen creditor he stands, careless that every man's
hand is against him, relentlessly following his prey, willing that all
others should wait his time and theirs, intent only that this night
shall have its own.
And yet, I thought, what a false picture is this that my coward heart
hath drawn! There is Another in that room, I cried half loud, Another
there before me, whose swift feet have outrun my poor trudging through
the snow. For He is there who lit that feeble lamp itself, and it burns
only by His will. Death-lamp though it be, it is still a broken light of
Him, witness, in its own dark way, to the All-kindling Hand. The Lover
of the soul is yonder, and will share His dear-bought victory with my
poor dying one.
Whereat I pressed on eagerly, for I love to witness a reprieve, such as
many a time it hath been mine to see when the Greater Antagonist
prevails.
The death damp was on Elsie's brow when I knelt beside her bed, but her
eyes were kindled from afar, and a great Presence filled the room.
Donald was bowed beside her, his wife's wasted hand clasped passionately
in his own.
I knelt over the dying woman and softly repeated the swelling anthem
which no lips can sing aright till the great Vision quickens them:
"These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed
their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
Elsie's voice blended with the great words, and turning her lustrous
eyes full on my face, she murmured--
"It's a' bricht and blythesome whaur I'm walkin' noo--there's no valley
here nor nae glen ava, but the way is fu' o' licht and beauty."
Her eyes sought her husband's face: "Oh, Donal'! To think we canna walk
this way thegither! We've clomb the hill thegither, Donal', mony a time
sair an' weary, but oor hairts were stoot when the brae was stae; but
noo I've reached the bonnie bit ayont the brae, an' ye're a' 'at's
wantin', Donal', to mak' it fair beautiful! But ye'll no' be lang ahint
me, wull ye, Donal'?--an' the Maister 'll come back to guide ye, gin I'm
gone bye the gate. An' we'll aye walk thegither in the yonner-land."
Donald's face was dry, but drawn in its agony. Its ache passed on into
my soul. He bent over her like some bowing oak, and the rustle of love's
foliage was fairly audible to the inward ear, though the oak itself
seemed hard and gnarled as ever. He whispered something, like a mighty
organ lilting low and sweet some mother's lullaby, and no tutor except
Great Death could have taught Donald that gentle language. For I caught
the word "darling," and again "oor Saviour," and once "the hameland,"
and it was like a lark's gentlest note issuing from a mighty mountain's
cleft.
O Death, how unjustly thou hast been maligned! Men have painted thee as
cruel, monstrous, hateful, the enemy of love, the despoiler of the home,
the spirit of harshness, the destroyer of all poesy and romance. And yet
thou hast done more to fill life with softness and with gentle beauty
than all the powers of life and light whose antagonist thou hast been
called. Thou hast heaped coals of fire on thy traducers' heads. For hast
thou not made the heaviest foot fall lightly with love's considerate
tread? Hast thou not made the rough, coarse palm into a sanctuary and
pavilion wherein the dying hand may shelter? Hast thou not taught the
loud and boisterous voice the new song of tenderness and pity,
whispering like a dove? Within thy school the rude and harsh have
learned the nurse's gentle art, and the world's swaggering warriors
serve as acolytes before thy shadowy altar. The peasant's cottage owes
to thee its transformation to cathedral splendour, the censers gently
swinging when thou sayest the soul's great mass, at even, or at
midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning. Thou hast classed
together the hovel and the palace, glowing with equal solemn grandeur,
so that no man can tell the one from the other when the crape upon the
door betokens that thou tarriest there. Thou hast promoted sodden sleep
to be the most awful metaphor of time. Thou hast stripped wealth and
grandeur, leaving them but a shroud, and hast clothed obscurity and
poverty with their eternally suggestive robe; thou hast affirmed, and
thou preserved, that grim average of life which greatness refuses, which
littleness fears, to realize. Romance and Poetry and Fancy are thy
wards, making as thou dost the most holden eyes to overleap time's poor
horizon, following departed treasure with wistful and unresigning love,
as birds follow their ravaged nests, crying as they go. Oh, sombre
chantress! Thou hast filled the world with song, plaintive and piteous
though it be.
"What is it, mother?" I heard Donald whisper; and the answer evidently
came back to him from the dying lips. For he turned to me, his face full
of tragedy: "She's talkin' aboot Robin," he said hoarsely; "but ye dinna
ken. Robin was oor laddie--an' he's oor laddie yet, though we've had nae
word o' him for mony a year. Him an' me pairted in wrath, an' he went
oot intil the dark nicht. I was ower prood tae ca' him back, but his
mither followed him to the moor, cryin' after him--an' she cam' back
alane."
Donald stopped suddenly, for the mother's struggling voice was heard:
"Come hame, Robin, for it's cauld an' dark, an' ye've been ower lang
awa; but there's a place at the ingle for ye yet, my bairn. I've aye
keepit it for ye, an' I keepit the fire burnin' ever sin' ye left us. I
wadna let it oot. An' ilka nicht I pit the lamp i' the window, for I aye
thocht, 'He'll mebbe come the nicht.'"
"She's wanderin'," Donald said to me, awe mingling with his voice.
"She's found the wanderer," I said; and we both moved nearer, each
signalling the other to be still.
Elsie's gaze passed us by, outgoing far into the darkness.
"Na, na, Robin; yir faither'll no' be angry. I ken fine a' ye say is
true, but he's yir faither for a' that. An' he loves ye maist as weel as
me; but oh, my bonnie, there's nane loves ye like yir mither! His
hairt's fair broken for ye, Robin. I'll tell ye something, but ye maunna
tell yir faither. I heard him pray for ye all alane by himsel'. He
prayed to God to bring ye back--he ca'd ye Robin richt to God. An' I
never heard yir faither greet afore or syne. The Buik, tae, it wad open
o' itsel' at the prodigal, an' it was his daein', an' he didna think I
kent; but I kent it fine, an' I thankit the Heavenly Faither mony a
time."
She stopped, exhausted, her soul flickering in her voice. Donald moved,
his great form coming athwart her eager, kindling eyes. She stirred, her
vision evidently hindered, and Donald stepped quickly from before her,
gazing with passionate intentness, his eyes shaded by his hand like one
who peers into a lane of light.
"As one whom his mother comforteth, so will--" I began.
"Hush!" said Donald sternly, "she's wi' him yet. Hark ye!"