THE WATCHMAKER.
It was a lovely day. There would be plenty of cold and rough
weather yet, but the winter was over and gone, and even to that
late region of the north, the time of the singing of birds was
come. The air was soft, with streaks of cold in it. The fields lay
about all wet, but there was the sun above them, whose business it
was to dry them. There were no leaves yet on the few trees and
hedges, but preparations had long been made, and the sap was now
rising in their many stems, like the mercury in all the
thermometers. Up also rose the larks, joy fluttering their wings,
and quivering their throats. They always know when the time to
praise God is come, for it is when they begin to feel happy: more
cannot be expected of them. And are they not therein already on the
level of most of us Christians who in this mood and that praise
God? And indeed are not the birds and the rest of the creatures
Christians in the same way as the vast mass of those that call
themselves such? Do they not belong to the creation groaning after
a redemption they do not know? Men and women groan in misery from
not being yet the sons and daughters of God, who regard nothing
else as redemption, but the getting of their own way, which the
devil only would care to give them.
As they went, the laird told Cosmo what was taking him to the
village, and the boy walked by his father’s side as in a fairy
tale; for had they not with them a strange thing that might prove
the talismanic opener of many doors to treasure-caves?
They went straight to the shop, if shop it could be called, of
Jeames Merson, the watchmaker of the village. There all its little
ornamental business was done--a silver spoon might be engraved, a
new pin put to a brooch, a wedding ring of sterling gold purchased,
or a pair of earings of lovely glass, representing amethyst or
topaz. There a second-hand watch might be had, with choice amongst
a score, taken in exchange from ploughmen or craftsmen. Jeames was
poor, for there was not much trade in his line, and so was never
able to have much of a stock; but he was an excellent
watchmaker--none better in the great city--so at least his
town-folk believed, and in a village it soon appears whether a
watchmaker has got it in him.
He was a thin, pale man, with a mixed look of rabbit and ferret, a
high narrow forehead, and keen gray eyes. His work-shop and
show-room was the kitchen, partly for the sake of his wife’s
company, partly because there was the largest window the cottage
could boast. In this window was hung almost his whole stock, and a
table before it was covered with his work and tools. He was
stooping over it, his lens in his eye, busy with a watch, of which
several portions lay beside him protected from the dust by footless
wine-glasses, when the laird and Cosmo entered. He put down pinion
and file, pushed back his chair, and rose to receive them.
“A fine mornin’, Jeames!” said the laird. “I houp ye’re weel, and
duin’ weel.”
“Muckle the same as usual, laird, an’ I thank ye,” answered Jeames,
with a large smile. “I’m no jist upo’ the ro’d to be what they ca’
a millionaire, an’ I’m no jist upon the perris--something atween
the twa, I’m thinkin’.”
“I doobt there’s mair o’ ane’s in like condition, Jeames,”
responded the laird, “or we wad na be comin’ to tax yer skeel at
this present.”
“Use yer freedom, laird; I’m yer heumble servan’. It wadna be a
watch for the yoong laird? I kenna--”
He stopped, and cast an anxious eye towards the window.
“Na, na,” interrupted the laird, sorry to have raised even so much
of a vain hope in the mind of the man, “I’m as far frae a watch as
ye are frae the bank. But I hae here i’ my pooch a bit silly
playock, ’at’s been i’ the hoose this mony a lang; an’ jist this
last nicht it was pitten intil my heid there micht be some guid
intl the chattel, seein’ i’ the tradition o’ the faimily it’s aye
been hauden for siller. For my ain pairt I hae my doobts; but gien
onybody here aboot can tell the trowth on ’t, yersel’ maun be the
man; an’ sae I hae brought it, to ken what ye wad say til ’t.”
“I’ll du my best to lowse yer doobt, laird,” returned Jeames.
“Lat ’s hae a luik at the article.”
The laird took the horse from his pocket, and handed it to him.
Jeames regarded it for some time with interest, and examined it
with care.
“It’s a bonny bit o’ carved work,” he said; “--a bairnly kin’ o’ a
thing for shape--mair like a timmer horsie; but whan ye come to the
ornamentation o’ the same, it’s o’ anither character frae the roon’
spots o’ reid paint--an’ sae’s the sma’ rubies an’ stanes intil ’t.
This has taen a heap o’ time, an’ painsfu’ labour--a deal mair nor
some o’ ’s wad think it worth, I doobt! It’s the w’y o’ the
haithens wi’ their graven eemages, but what for a horsie like this,
I dinna ken. Hooever, that’s naither here nor there: ye didna come
to me to speir hoo or what for it was made; it’s what is ’t made o’
’s the question. It’s some yallow-like for siller; an’ it’s unco
black, which is mair like it--but that may be wi’ dirt.--An’ dirt
I’m thinkin’ it maun be, barkit intil the gravin’,” he went on,
taking a tool and running the point of it along one of the fine
lines. “Troth ohn testit, I wadna like to say what it was. But it’s
an unco weicht!--I doobt--na, I mair nor doobt it canna be siller.”
So saying he carried it to his table, put it down, and went to a
corner-cupboard. Thence he brought a small stoppered phial. He gave
it a little shake, and took out the stopper. It was followed by a
dense white fume. With the stopper he touched the horse underneath,
and looked closely at the spot. He then replaced the stopper and
the bottle, and stood by the cupboard, gazing at nothing for a
moment. Then turning to the laird, he said, with a peculiar look
and a hesitating expression:
“Na, laird, it’s no siller. Aquafortis winna bite upo’ ’t. I wad mix
’t wi’ muriatic, an’ try that, but I hae nane handy, an’ forby it
wad tak time to tell. Ken ye whaur it cam frae?--Ae thing I’m sure
o’--it’s no siller!”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” rejoined the laird, with a faint smile and
a little sigh.--“Well, we’re no worse off than we were, Cosmo!--But
poor Grizzie! she’ll be dreadfully disappointed.--Gie me the bit
horsie, Jeames; we’ll e’en tak’ him hame again. It’s no his fau’t,
puir thing, ’at he’s no better nor he was made!”
“Wad ye no tell me whaur the bit thing cam frae, or is supposit to
hae come frae, sir? H’ard ye it ever said, for enstance, ’at the
auld captain they tell o’ had broucht it?”
“That’s what I hae h’ard said,” answered the laird.
“Weel, sir,” returned Jeames, “gien ye had nae objection, I wad
fain mak’ oot what the thing _is_ made o’.”
“It matters little,” said the laird, “seein’ we ken what it’s
_no_ made o’; but tak’ yer wull o’ ’t, Jeames.”
“Sit ye doon than, laird, gien ye hae naething mair pressin’, an’
see what I mak’ o’ ’t,” said the watchmaker, setting him a chair.
“Wullin’ly,” replied the laird, “--but I dinna like takin’ up yer
time.”
“Ow, my time’s no sae dooms precious! I can aye win throu’ wi’ my
work ohn swatten,” said Jeames, with a smile in which mingled a
half comical sadness. “An’ it wad set me to waur ’t (_puzzle me to
spend it_) better to my ain min’ nor servin’ yersel’, i’ the
sma’est, sir.”
The laird thanked him, and sat down. Cosmo placed himself on a
stool beside him.
“I hae naething upo’ han’ the day,” Jeames Merson went on, “but a
watch o’ Jeames Gracie’s, up at the Know--ane o’ yer ain fowk,
laird. He tells me it was your gran’father, sir, gied it til his
gran’father. It’s a queer auld-fashiont kin’ o’ a thing--some
complicat; an’ whiles it’s ’maist ower muckle for me. Ye see auld
age is aboot the warst disease horses an’ watches can be ta’en wi’:
there’s sae little left to come an’ gang upo’!”
While the homely assayer thus spoke, he was making his
preparations.
“What for no men as weel ’s horses an’ watches?” suggested the
laird.
“I wadna meddle wi’ men. I lea’ them to the doctors an’ the
ministers,” replied Jeames, with another wide, silent laugh.
By this time he had got a pair of scales carefully adjusted, a
small tin vessel in one of them, and balancing weights in the
other. Then he went to the rack over the dresser, and mildly
lamenting his wife’s absence and his own inability to lay his hand
on the precise vessels he wanted, brought thence a dish and a
basin. The dish he placed on the table with the basin in it and
filled the latter with water to the very brim. He then took the
horse, placed it gently in the basin, which was large enough to
receive it entirely, and set basin and horse aside. Taking then
the dish into which the water had overflowed, he poured its
contents into the tin vessel in the one scale, and added weights to
the opposite until they balanced each other, upon which he made a
note with a piece of chalk on the table. Next, he removed
everything from the scales, took the horse, wiped it in his apron,
and weighed it carefully. That done, he sat down, and leaning back
in his chair, seemed to his visitors to be making a calculation,
only the conjecture did not quite fit the strange, inscrutable
expression of his countenance. The laird began to think he must be
one of those who delight to plaster knowledge with mystery.
“Weel, laird,” said Jeames at length, “the weicht o’ what ye hae
laid upo’ me, maks me doobtfu’ whaur nae doobt sud be. But I’m b’un’ to
say, ootside the risk o’ some mistak, o’ the gr’un’s o’
which I can ken naething, for else I wadna hae made it, ’at this bit
horsie o’ yours, by a’ ’at my knowledge or skeel, which is naither
o’ them muckle, can tell me--this bit horsie--an’ gien it binna as
I say, I can_not_ see what for it sudna be sae--only, ye see, laird,
whan we think we ken a’ thing, there’s a heap ahint oor _a’ thing_; an’
feow ken better, at least feow hae a richt to ken better, nor I du
mysel’, what a puir cratur is man, an hoo liable to mak mistaks,
e’en whan he’s duin’ his best to be i’ the richt; an for oucht ’at
I ken, there may hae been grit discoveries made, ohn ever come to
my hearin’, ’at upsets a’ thing I ever was gien to tak, an’ haud by
for true; an’ yet I daurna withhaud the conclusion I’m driven til,
for maybe whiles the hert o’ man may gang the wrang gait by bein’
ower wise in its ain conceit o’ expeckin’ ower little, jist as
weel ’s in expeckin’ ower muckle, an’ sae I’m b’un’ to tell ye,
laird, ’at yer expectations frae this knot o’ metal,--for metal we
maun alloo it to be, whatever else it be or bena--yer expectations,
I say, are a’ thegither wrang, for it’s no more siller nor my wife’s
kitchie-poker.”
“Weel, man!” said the laird, with a laugh that had in it just a
touch of scorn, “gien the thing be sae plain, what gars ye gang
that gait aboot the buss to say ’t? Du ye tak me and Cosmo here for
bairns ’at wad fa’ a greetin’ gien ye tellt them their ba-lamb
wasna a leevin’ ane--naething but a fussock o’ cotton-’oo’, rowed
roon’ a bit stick? We’re naither o’ ’s complimentit.--Come, Cosmo.
--I’m nane the less obleeged to ye, Jeames,” he added as he rose,
“though I cud weel wuss yer opingon had been sic as wad hae
pitten ’t i’ my pooer to offer ye a fee for ’t.”
“The less said aboot that the better, laird,” replied Jeames with
imperturbability, and his large, silent smile; “the trowth’s the
trowth, whether it’s paid for or no. But afore ye gang it’s but
fair to tell ye--only I wadna like to be hauden ower strickly
accoontable for the opingon, seein’ its no my profession, as they
ca’ ’t, but I hae dune my best, an gien I be i’ the wrang, I
naither hae nor had ony ill design intil ’t.--”
“Bless my soul!” cried the laird, with more impatience than Cosmo
had ever seen him show, “is the man mad, or does he take me for a
fool?”
“There’s some things, laird,” resumed Jeames, “that hae to be
approcht oontil, wi’ circumspection an’ a proaper regaird to the
impression they may mak. Noo, disclaimin’ ony desire to luik like
an ill-bred scoon’rel, whilk I wad raither luik to onybody nor to
yersel’, laird, I ventur to jaloose ’at maybe the maitter o’ a feow
poun’s micht be o’ some consequence to ye,--”
“Ilka fule i’ the country kens that ’at kens Glenwarlock,”
interrupted the laird, and turned hastily. “Come, Cosmo.”
Cosmo went to open the door, troubled to see his father annoyed
with the unintelligibility of the man.
“Weel, gien ye _wull_ gang,” said Jeames, “I maun jist tak my life i’
my han’, an’--”
“Hoot, man! tak yer tongue i’ yer teeth; it’ll be mair to the
purpose,” cried the laird laughing, for he had got over his ill
humour already. “My life i’ my han’, quo’ he!--Man, I haena carriet
a dirk this mony a day! I laid it aff wi’ the kilt.”
“Weel, it micht be the better ’at ye hadna, gien ye binna gaein
hame afore nicht, for I saw some cairds o’ the ro’d the day.--Ance
mair, gien ye wad but hearken til ane ’at confesses he oucht to
ken, even sud he be i’ the wrang, I tell ye that horsie is _not_
siller--na, nor naething like it.”
“Plague take the man!--what is it, then?” cried the laird.
“What for didna ye speir that at me afore?” rejoined Jeames. “It
wad hae gien me leeberty to tell ye--to the best o’ my abeelity
that is. Whan I’m no cocksure--an’ its ower muckle a thing to be
cocksure aboot--I wadna volunteer onything. I wadna say naething
till I was adjured like an evil speerit.”
“Weel,” quoth the laird, entering now into the humour of the thing,
“herewith I adjure thee, thou contrairy and inarticulate speerit,
that thou tell me whereof and of what substance this same toy-horse
is composed, manufactured, or made up.”
“Toy here, toy there!” returned Jeames; “sae far as ony
cawpabeelity o’ mine, or ony puir skeel I hae, will alloo o’
testimony--though min’ ye, laird, I winna tak the consequences o’
bein’ i’ the wrang--though I wad raither tak them, an’ ower again,
nor be i’ the wrang,--”
The laird turned and went out, followed by Cosmo. He began to think
the man must have lost his reason. But when the watchmaker saw them
walking steadily along the street in the direction of home, he
darted out of the door and ran after them.
“Gien ye _wad_ gang, laird,” he said, in an injured tone, “ye mecht
hae jist latten me en’ the sentence I had begun!”
“There’s nae en’ to ony o’ yer sentences, man!” said the laird;
“that’s the only thing i’ them ’at was forgotten, ’cep’ it was the
sense.”
“Weel, guid day to ye laird!” returned Jeames. “Only,” he added,
drawing a step nearer, and speaking in a subdued confidential
voice, “dinna lat yer harsie rin awa’ upo’ the ro’d hame, for I
sweir til ye, gien there be only trowth i’ the laws o’ natur, he’s
no siller, nor onything like it--”
“Hoots!” said the laird, and turning away, walked off with great
strides.
“But,” the watchmaker continued, almost running to keep up with
him, and speaking in a low, harsh, hurried voice, as if thrusting
the words into his ears, “naither mair nor less nor solid
gowd--pure gowd, no a grain o’ alloy!”
That said, he turned, went back at the same speed, shot himself
into his cottage, and closed the door.
The father and son stopped, and looked at each other for a moment.
Then the laird walked slowly on. After a minute or two, Cosmo
glanced up in his face, but his father did not return the glance,
and the boy saw that he was talking to another. By and by he heard
him murmur to himself, “The gifts of God are without repentance.”
Not a word passed between them as they went home, though all the
time it seemed to both father and son that they were holding
closest converse. The moment they reached the castle, the laird
went to his room--to the closet where his few books lay, and got
out a volume of an old cyclopædia, where he read all he could find
about gold. Thence descending to the kitchen, he rummaged out a
rusty old pair of scales, and with their help arrived at the
conclusion that the horse weighed about three pounds avoirdupois:
it might be worth about a hundred and fifty pounds. Ready money,
this was a treasure in the eyes of one whose hand had seldom indeed
closed upon more than ten pounds at once. Here was large provision
for the four years of his boy’s college life! Nor was the margin it
would leave for his creditors by any means too small for
consideration! It is true the golden horse, hoofs, and skin, and
hair of jewels, could do but little towards the carting away of the
barrow of debt that crushed Glenwarlock; but not the less was it a
heavenly messenger of good will to the laird. There are who are so
pitiful over the poor man, that, finding they cannot lift him
beyond the reach of the providence which intends there shall always
be the poor on the earth, will do for him nothing at all.
“Where is the use?” they say. They treat their money like their
children, and would not send it into a sad house. If they had
themselves no joys but their permanent ones, where would the hearts
of them be? Can such have a notion of the relief, the glad rebound
of the heart of the poor man, the in-burst of light, the
re-creation of the world, when help, however temporary, reaches
him? A man like the laird of Glenwarlock, capable of a large
outlook, one that reaches beyond the wide-spread skirts of his
poverty, sees in it an arc of the mighty rainbow that circles the
world, a well in the desert he is crossing to the pastures of red
kine and woolly sheep. It is to him a foretaste of the final
deliverance. While the rich giver is saying, “Poor fellow, he will
be just as bad next month again!” the poor fellow is breathing the
airs of paradise, reaping more joy of life in half a day than his
benefactor in half a year, for help is a quick seed and of rapid
growth, and bourgeons in a moment into the infinite æons.
Everything in this world is but temporary: why should temporary
help be undervalued? Would you not pull out a drowning bather
because he will bathe again to-morrow? The only question is--_does
it help_? Jonah might grumble at the withering of his gourd, but if
it had not grown at all, would he ever have preached to Nineveh? It
set the laird on a Pisgah-rock, whence he gazed into the promised
land.
The rich, so far as money-needs are concerned, live under a
cloudless sky of summer--dreary rather, and shallow, it seems to me,
however lovely its blue light; when for the poor man a breach is
made through a vaporous firmament, he sees deeper into the blue
because of the framing clouds--sees up to worlds invisible in the
broad glare. I know not how the born-rich, still less those who
have given themselves with success to the making of money, can
learn that God is the all in all of men, for this world’s needs as
well as for the eternal needs. I know they may learn it, for the
Lord has said that God can even teach the rich, and I have known of
them who seemed to know it as well as any poor man; but speaking
generally, the rich have not the same opportunity of knowing
God--nor the same conscious need of him--that the poor man has. And
when, after a few years, all, so far as things to have and to hold
are concerned, are alike poor, and all, as far as any need of them
is concerned, are alike rich, the advantage will all be on the side
of such as, neither having nor needing, do not desire them. In the
meantime, the rich man who, without pitying his friend that he is
not rich also, cheerfully helps him over a stone where he cannot
carry him up the hill of his difficulty, rejoicing to do for him
what God allows, is like God himself, the great lover of his
children, who gives a man infinitely, though he will not take from
him his suffering until strength is perfected in his weakness.
The laird called Cosmo, and they went out together for a walk in
the fields, where they might commune in quiet. There they talked
over the calculation the laird had made of the probable worth of
the horse; and the father, unlike most prudent men, did not think
it necessary to warn his son against too sure an expectation, and
so prepare him for the consequence of a possible mistake; he did
not imagine that disappointment, like the small-pox, requires the
vaccination of apprehension--that a man, lest he should be more
miserable afterwards, must make himself miserable now. In matters
of hope as well as fear, he judged the morrow must look after
itself; believed the God who to-day is alive in to-morrow, looks
after our affairs there where we cannot be. I am far from sure that
the best preparation for a disappointment is not the hope that
precedes it.
Friends, let us hold by our hopes. All colours are shreds of the
rainbow. There is a rainbow of the cataract, of the paddle-wheel,
of the falling wave: none of them is the rainbow, yet they are all
of it; and if they vanish, so does the first, the arch-rainbow, the
bow set in the cloud, while that which set it there, and will set
it again, vanishes never. All things here pass; yet say not they
are but hopes. It is because they are not the thing hoped for that
they are precious--the very opals of the soul. By our hopes are we
saved. There is many a thing we could do better without than the
hope of it, for our hopes ever point beyond the thing hoped for.
The bow is the damask flower on the woven tear-drops of the world;
hope is the shimmer on the dingy warp of trouble shot with the
golden woof of God’s intent. Nothing almost sees miracles but
misery.
Cosmo never forgot that walk in the fields with his father. When
the money was long gone after the melted horse, that hour spent
chiefly amongst the great _horse-gowans_ that adorned the thin soil
of one of the few fields yet in some poor sense their own, remained
with him--to be his for ever--a portion of the inheritance of the
meek. The joy had brought their hearts yet closer to each other, for
one of the lovelinesses of true love is that it may and must
always be more. In a gravelly hollow, around which rose hillocks,
heaped by far off tides in times afar, they knelt together on the
thin grass, among the ox-eyes, and gave God thanks for the golden
horse on which Cosmo was to ride to the temple of knowledge.
After, they sat a long time talking over the strange thing. All
these years had the lump of gold been lying in the house, ready for
their great need! For what was lands, or family, or ancient name,
to the learning that opens doors, the hand-maiden of the
understanding, which is the servant of wisdom, who reads in the
heart of him who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and the
fountains of water and the conscience of man! Then they began to
imagine together how the thing had come to pass. It could hardly be
that the old captain did not know what a thing he gave! Doubtless
he had intended sometime, perhaps in the knowledge of approaching
death, to say something concerning it, and in the meantime,
probably, with cunning for its better safety, had treated it as a
thing of value, but of value comparatively slight! How had it come
into existence, they next asked each other. Either it had belonged
to some wealthy prince, they concluded, or the old captain had got
it made for himself, as a convenient shape in which to carry with
him, if not ready money, yet available wealth. Cosmo suggested that
possibly, for better concealment, it had been silvered; and the
laird afterwards learned from the jeweller to whom he sold it, that
such was indeed the case. I may mention also that its worth
exceeded the laird’s calculation, chiefly because of the tiny
jewels with which it was studded.
Cosmo repeated to his father the rime he had learned from dreaming
Grannie, and told him how he heard it that time he lay a night in
her house, and what Grannie herself said about it, and now the
laird smiled, and now he looked grave; but neither of them saw how
to connect the rime with the horse of gold. For one thing, great as
was the wealth it brought them, the old captain could hardly have
expected it to embolden any one to the degree of arrogance
specified. What man would call the king his brother on the strength
of a hundred and fifty pounds?
When Grizzie learned the result of her advice, she said “Praise be
thankit!” and turned away. The next moment Cosmo heard her
murmuring to herself,
“Whan the coo loups ower the mune,
The reid gowd rains intil men’s shune.”