One of the walls of the cottage was reared on the edge of the rock, so
that it seemed a continuation of it, and to rise up from the deep
waters of the lake. The boys were thus able often to fish with a long
line out of the window. A winding stair led to a look-out on the roof,
from which the whole island, called “The Green Island of the Lake,”
could be seen. It was about a mile or more in circumference, and was
dotted all over with the cottages of the other foresters and king’s
huntsmen, each surrounded with clumps of trees, through which the
curling smoke from the chimneys might be seen ascending. There were
everywhere beautifully kept gardens, with fruits, and flowers, and
beehives; and fields, too, with their crops. On the green knolls and
in the little valleys might be seen cows and sheep; while flocks of
goats browsed among ivy-covered rocks.
In the middle of the island was a little shallow lake, beside which
the otter had his house among the rocks; and there the eagle also
lived. All the children in the island were the best of friends, and
they played together, and sailed their boats on the little lake, and
every day met in the house of one of the foresters to learn their
lessons; and on Sunday, as they were very far away from any church,
old Darkeye used to read good books to them, and worship with them,
and did all he could to make them good and happy. They often met at
such times in the open air, beneath a large tree which sheltered them
from the sun.
There was also in the island a house where, by the king’s orders, all
poor travellers could find refuge and refreshment. And it was a great
pleasure to the boys and girls to visit them; and if they were sick
and confined to bed, to read to them, and attend to their wants. If
the stranger had any children, the young islanders always shared their
sports with them. And nothing pleased these stranger children more
than to get leave to sail a boat, or to have the loan of a
fishing-rod, or to hear the boys call Oscar――for that was the name of
the otter――out of his den, and play with Tor the eagle; or to see them
feed Oscar with some of the fish they had caught, and Tor with a bit
of meat. The dogs were so friendly, too, that they never touched
Oscar, but would swim about in the same pool with him. And so all were
happy in the Green Island; because Darkeye had taught them what a
wicked thing selfishness was, and that the only way to be happy was by
thinking about others as well as themselves, and by loving one
another. He also used to say: “Now, when you work, work like men, and
when you play, play like boys: be hearty at both.” And so while there
was no idleness, there was abundance of recreation.
Another evil was never permitted in the island, and that was
disobedience to parents, or want of respect to the old. But, indeed,
punishment for these offences was seldom or never needed. The young
learned to _like_ to do what was right, and were too brave and manly
to give pain and trouble to others.
I should have mentioned, also, that they had a little band of
musicians. One beat the drum, a few played the fife, and others some
simple instrument; while almost all could sing tolerably well in
parts. Thus, many a traveller would pause and listen with delight as
he heard on a summer’s evening the chorus song from many voices, or
the music from the band coming from the island. “Young people,”
Darkeye used to say, “have much wealth and happiness given them, if
they only used their gifts.”
But I am forgetting Eric and Wolf. They were both, you may be sure,
ready for their dinner, and there was laid for them on a table, cream,
cakes, and fresh trout, and such other good things as the kind woman
could get ready.
But now the thread began to move, as if it wished Eric to move also.
Before rising to depart, he told Wolf how Darkeye, for his sake, would
be so glad to take care of him, until he got his father’s permission
to bring him into the castle; that he would learn to be a huntsman,
and be taught what was good, and to know about the voice that spoke in
his heart, and that all the boys in the island would make him their
friend if he did what was right.
“Ralph will come here!” said Wolf, hanging his head.
“I wish the rascal did,” said Darkeye, “for he would never go back.
But he cannot enter my fort, and knows me and my huntsmen too well
ever to try it. I have had more than one brush with the villain, and
we hope soon to drive him and his brood from their bloody nest. Wolf,
you are welcome and safe, for Eric’s sake!” Then turning to Eric, he
said, “I shall teach him, and make a man of him, my young prince,
depend upon it. And now, before we part, I have to ask a favour,”
continued Darkeye. “You know our custom near evening? If the thread
permits, remain and be one of us.”
“I remember it,” said Eric, “and will remain and be one of you, and
let poor Wolf also be one.”
And so they entered the cottage, and all sat down round an open window
which looked out upon the beautiful lake dotted with wooded islands,
and surrounded by the noble forest, above which rose the giant peaks
and precipices. The water was calm as glass, and reflected every
brilliant colour from rock and tree, and, most of all, from the golden
clouds, which already began to gather in the west. Darkeye read from
the Blessed Book of one who had left his father’s house, and went to a
far country, where he would fain have satisfied his hunger from the
husks which the swine did eat, but who at last returned home after
having suffered from his disobedience. When he closed the Book, all
stood up and sang these words with sweet and happy voices:――
“Father! from Thy throne above,
Bless our lowly home below!
Jesus, Shepherd! in Thy love,
Save Thy flock from every foe.
“Thine we are! for Thou hast made us;
Thine, for we’re redeemed by Thee;
Thine, for Thou hast ever led us,
Thine, we evermore shall be!
“May we love Thee, may we fear Thee,
May Thy will, not ours, be done;
Never leave us till we’re near Thee
In Thy Home, where all are one!”
Then they knelt down, and Darkeye spoke to God in the name of them
all, thanking Him for His goodness, and telling Him their wants. When
they rose from their knees, the gold thread shone brilliantly, and,
like a beam of light, passed out at the door in the direction of the
ferry. During the singing of the verses, Wolf seemed for the first
time quite overcome. He bent his head, and covered his face with his
hands. He then said, in a low voice, when the short service was over,
and as if speaking to himself, while all were silent listening to him,
“I had a dream. Long, long ago. A carriage――a lady. She was on her
knees crying. She had hold of me. Ralph was there and the robbers. I
forget the rest.” He rose and looked out of the window, gazing
vacantly.
“What can he mean?” asked Eric aside to Darkeye, who was looking
tenderly on Wolf.
“Ah! who knows, poor boy! Singing always touches the heart of these
wanderers. Perhaps――yes――it may be,” he said, so that Eric alone could
hear him, “that he has been taken when a child by Ralph from some rich
traveller, and perhaps his mother was killed! He may have been the
child of good people. Was that his mother who prayed for him? If so,
her prayers are now answered, for her boy will be delivered――poor
Wolf!――Wolf, my boy,” said Darkeye, “come and bid farewell to your
friend.”
Wolf started as from a dream, and came to Eric.
“Farewell, my kind Wolf, and I hope some day to see you in my father’s
house.” The swineherd spoke not a word, but wiped his eyes with the
back of his rough hand. “Cheer up, Wolf, for you will be good and
happy here.”
“Wolf is happy already, and he will take care of the pigs, or do
anything for you all.” He then held out his stick to Eric, and said,
“Take it; it is all Wolf has: Ralph has the gold coin.”
“Thank you, good Wolf; but you will require it, and I need nothing to
remember you.”
“Don’t be angry, Eric, for what I did in the forest when we met. My
heart is sorry.”
“We did not know one another then, Wolf, and I shall never forget that
to you I owe my escape.”
“Wolf loves you, and every one here.”
“I am sure you do, Wolf, and I love you. God bless you, Wolf, I must
go; farewell!”
And so they parted. But all gathered round Eric, and accompanied him
to the boat, blessing the little prince, and wishing him a peaceful
and happy journey. Eric thanked them with many smiles and tender
words. Darkeye alone went with him into the boat, wondering greatly at
the thread, and most of all at the prince, who shone with a beauty
that seemed not of this world. The prince landed, but Darkeye knew for
many reasons that he could not accompany him in his journey, which he
must take alone. Eric landed on the shore, embraced Darkeye, and
waving his hand to all on the island, he soon was lost to their sight
in the great forest.
A winding pathway, over the ridge of hills, led down to a broad and
rapid but smooth river, and on its banks was a royal boat, beautiful
to look upon. The thread led into the boat, and though no one was
there, Eric entered, and sat on a velvet cushion on which the golden
thread laid itself down. No sooner had he gone on board of the boat,
than――as if his little foot, when it touched her, had sent her from
the shore――she slowly moved into the centre of the channel, and was
carried downwards by the current. On she swept on the bosom of that
clear stream, between shores adorned with all that could delight the
eye――rocks and trees and flowers, with here and there waterfalls,
white as snow, from mountain rivulets which poured themselves into the
great river. The woods were full of song, and birds with splendid
plumage gleamed and flashed amidst the foliage like rainbow hues
amidst the clouds.
Eric knew not whither he was being carried, but his heart was sunshine
and peace. On and on he swept with the winding stream, until at last
darting under a dark archway of brick, and then emerging into light,
the boat grounded on a shore of pure white sand, while the thread rose
and led him to the land.
No sooner had he stepped on shore and ascended the green bank, than he
found himself at the end of a long, broad avenue of splendid old
trees, whose tops met in a green arch overhead. The far-off end of the
avenue was closed by a great stair of pure white marble steps which
ascended to a magnificent castle. Wall rose above wall, and tower over
tower. He saw grand flights of stairs, leading from one stately
terrace to another, with marble statues, clear gushing fountains, and
flower gardens, and every kind of lovely tree. It was his father’s
castle at last! He ran on with breathless anxiety and joy. He soon
reached it. A large gate was before him, that seemed to be covered
with glittering gold. The thread led directly to it. As he reached the
door, he saw the thread tied to a golden knocker, shaped like the old
cross in the forest. Inscribed over the door were the words, “He that
persevereth to the end shall be saved.” And on the knocker, “Knock,
and it shall be opened.” He seized the knocker, and the moment it
fell, the thread broke and vanished. A crash of music was heard
inside. The door opened, and there stood Eric’s father, surrounded by
his brothers and sisters; and the beautiful lady was there too, and
many, many more to welcome Eric. His father clasped him to his heart,
and said, “My son was lost, but is found!”
While all crowded around Eric with his weary feet and torn dress, kept
together by his golden band, a chorus was heard singing,――
“Home where the weary rest,
Home where the good are blest,
Home of the soul;
Glorious the race when run,
Glorious the prize when won,
Glorious the goal!”
Then there rose a swell of many young voices singing,――
“Oh, be joyful, be joyful, let every voice sing!
Welcome, brothers, our brother, the son of the king;
His wanderings are past, to his father he’s come;
Little Eric, our darling, we welcome thee home!
Oh, blessed is the true one who follows the road,
Holding fast to his GOLD THREAD OF DUTY TO GOD,
Who, when tempted, is firm, who in danger is brave,
Who, forgetting himself, will a lost brother save.
Then be joyful, be joyful, for Eric is come;
Little Eric, our darling, we welcome thee home!”
And then the sun set, and the earth was dark, but the palace of the
king shone like an aurora in the wintry sky.
“WEE DAVIE.”
“WEE DAVIE.”
CHAPTER I.
“And a little child shall lead them.”
“Wee Davie” was the only child of William Thorburn, blacksmith. The
child had reached the age in which he could venture, with prudence and
reflection, on a journey from one chair to another, his wits kept
alive by maternal warnings of “Tak’ care, Davie; mind the fire,
Davie.” And when his journey was ended in safety, and he looked over
his shoulder with a cry of joy to his mother, he was rewarded, in
addition to the rewards of his own brave and adventurous spirit, by
such a smile as equalled only his own, and by the well-merited
approval of “Weel done, Davie!”
Davie was the most powerful and influential member of the household.
Neither the British fleet, nor the French army, nor the Armstrong gun,
nor the British Constitution had the power of doing what Davie did.
They might as well have tried to make a primrose grow or a lark sing!
He was, for example, a wonderful stimulus to labour. His father, the
smith, had been rather disposed to idleness before his son’s arrival.
He did not take to his work on cold mornings as he might have done,
and was apt to neglect many opportunities which offered themselves of
bettering his condition; and Jeanie was easily put off by some
plausible objection when she urged her husband to make an additional
honest penny to keep the house. But “the bairn” became a new motive to
exertion; and the thought of leaving him and Jeanie more comfortable,
in case sickness laid the smith aside, or death took him away, became
like a new sinew to his powerful arm, as he wielded the hammer, and
made it ring the music of hearty work on the sounding anvil. The
meaning of benefit-clubs, sick-societies, and penny-banks was fully
explained by “wee Davie.”
Davie also exercised a remarkable influence on his father’s political
views and social habits. The smith had been fond of debates on
political questions, and no more sonorous growl of discontent than his
could be heard against the powers that be, the injustice done to the
masses, and the misery which was occasioned by class legislation. He
had also made up his mind not to be happy or contented, but only to
endure life as a necessity laid upon him, until the required reforms
in Church and State, at home and abroad, had been attained.
[Illustration: “Isn’t he a bonnie bit bairn?”
_See page 100._]
But his wife, without uttering a syllable on matters which she did not
pretend even to understand, and by a series of acts _out_ of
Parliament, by reforms in household arrangements, by introducing good
_bills_ to her own House of Commons, and by a charter, whose points
were chiefly very commonplace ones, such as a comfortable meal, a tidy
home, a clean fireside, a polished grate, above all, a cheerful
countenance and womanly love――these _radical_ changes had made her
husband wonderfully fond of his own house. He was, under this
teaching, getting every day too contented for a patriot, and too happy
for a man in such an ill-governed world. His old companions could not
at last coax him out at night. He was lost as a member of one of the
most philosophical clubs in the neighbourhood. His old pluck, they
said, was gone. The wife, it was alleged by the patriotic bachelors,
had “cowed” him, and driven all the spirit out of him. But “wee Davie”
completed this revolution.
One failing of William’s had hitherto resisted Jeanie’s silent
influence. The smith had formed the habit, before he was married, of
meeting a few companions, “just in a friendly way,” on pay-nights at a
public-house. It was true that he was never “what might be called a
drunkard,” “never lost a day’s work,” “never was the worse of liquor,”
etc. But, nevertheless, when he entered the snuggery in Peter Wilson’s
whisky shop, with the blazing fire and comfortable atmosphere; and
when, with half a dozen talkative and, to him, pleasant fellows and
old companions, he sat round the fire, and the glass circulated, and
the gossip of the week was discussed, and racy stories were told, and
one or two songs sung, linked together by memories of old merry
meetings; and current jokes were repeated, with humour, of the
tyrannical influence which some would presume to exercise on “innocent
social enjoyment”――then would the smith’s brawny chest expand, and his
face beam, and his feelings become malleable, and his sixpences begin
to melt, and flow out in generous sympathy into Peter Wilson’s fozy
hand, and there counted beneath his sodden eyes. And so it was that
the smith’s wages were always _minus_ Peter’s gains.
His wife had her fears――her horrid anticipations――but did not like to
“even” her husband to anything so dreadful as what she in her heart
dreaded. She took her own way, however, to win him to the house and to
good, and gently insinuated wishes rather than expressed them. The
smith, no doubt, was only “merry,” and never was ill-tempered or
unkind; “yet at times――” “and then, what if――” Yes, Jeanie, you are
right! The demon sneaks into the house by degrees, and at first may be
dispelled, and the door shut upon him; but let him only once take
possession, then he will keep it, and shut the door against everything
pure, and lovely, and of good report, and bar it against thee and “wee
Davie,” ay, and against better than thee and than all else, and fill
the house with sin and shame, with misery and despair! But “wee
Davie,” with his arm of might, drove the demon out.
It happened thus. One evening when the smith returned home so that
“you would know _it_ on him,” his child toddled to him, and, lifting
him up, he made him stand before him on his knee. The child began to
play with the locks of the Samson, and to pat him on the cheek, and to
repeat with glee the name of “dad-a.” The smith gazed at him intently,
and with a peculiar look of love, mingled with sadness.
“Isn’t he a bonnie bit bairn?” asked Jeanie, as she looked over her
husband’s shoulder at the child, nodding and smiling to him.
The smith spoke not a word, but gazed still upon his boy, while some
sudden emotion was strongly working in his countenance. “It’s done!”
he at last said, as he put his child down.
“What’s wrang? what’s wrang?” exclaimed his wife, as she stood before
him, and put her hands round his shoulders, bending down until her
face was close to his.
“Everything is wrang, Jeanie!”
“Willie, what is’t? are ye no’ weel?――tell me what’s wrang wi’
you?――oh, tell me!” she exclaimed in evident alarm.
“It’s a’ richt noo!” he said, rising up, and seizing his child, lifted
him up to his breast, and kissed him. He then folded him in his arms,
clasped him to his heart, and looking up in silence, said, “Davie has
done it, along wi’ you, Jeanie. Thank God, I am a free man!”
His wife felt awed, she knew not how.
“Sit doon,” he said, as he took out his handkerchief and wiped away a
tear from his eye, “and I’ll tell you a’ aboot it.”
Jeanie sat on a stool at his feet, with Davie on her knee.
Her husband seized his child’s little hand with one of his own, and
with the other took his wife’s. “I havena been what ye may ca’ a
drunkard,” he said, “but I hae been often as I shouldna hae been, and
as, wi’ God’s help, I never, never will be again!”
“Oh!” exclaimed Jeanie.
“Let me speak,” said William. “To think, Jeanie”――here he struggled as
if something was choking him――“to think that for whisky I might beggar
you and wee Davie; tak’ the claes aff your back; drive ye to the
workhouse; break your heart; and ruin my bonnie bairn, that loves me
sae weel, in saul and body, for time and for eternity! God forgie me!
I canna stand the thocht o’t, let alane the reality!” and the strong
man rose, and little accustomed as he was to show his feelings, he
kissed his wife and child. “It’s done, it’s done!” he said; “dinna
greet, Jeanie. Thank God for you and Davie, my best blessings.”
“Except Himsel’!” said Jeanie, as she hung on her husband’s neck.
“Amen!” said the smith; “and noo, woman, nae mair aboot it; it’s done.
Gie wee Davie a piece, and get the supper ready.”
“Wee Davie” was also a great promoter of social intercourse, an
unconscious link between man and man, and a great practical
“unionist.” He healed breaches, reconciled differences, and was a
peace-maker between kinsfolk and neighbours. For example: Jeanie’s
parents were rather opposed to her marriage with the smith; some said
because they belonged to the rural aristocracy of country farmers.
They regretted, therefore, the day――though their regret was expressed
only to old friends――when the lame condition of some of the horses had
brought Thorburn into communion with their stable, and ultimately with
their house. Thorburn was admitted to be a sensible, well-to-do man;
but then he was, at best, but a smith, and Jeanie was good-looking,
and “by ordinary,” with expectations of some “tocher,” and as her
mother remarked, “though I say it, that shouldna say it,” etc., and
so, with this introduction, she would proceed to enlarge on Jeanie’s
excellences, commenting on the poor smith rather with pauses of
silence, and expressions of hope “that she might be mistaken,” all of
which, from their very mystery, were more depreciatory than any direct
charges. But when “wee Davie” was born, the old couple deemed it
proper and due to themselves――not to speak of the respect due to their
daughter, whom they sincerely loved――to come and visit her. Her mother
had been with her, indeed, at an earlier period; and the house was so
clean, and Thorburn so intelligent, and the child pronounced to be so
like old David Armstrong, Jeanie’s father, especially about the
forehead, that the two families, as the smith remarked, were evidently
being welded, so that a few more gentle hammerings would make them
one.
“Wee Davie,” as he grew up, became the fire of love which heated the
hearts of good metal so as to enable favourable circumstances to give
the necessary finishing stroke which would permanently unite them.
These circumstances were constantly occurring until, at last,
Armstrong called on every market-day to see his daughter and grandson,
and he played with the boy (who was his only grandson), and took him
on his knee, and put a “sweetie” into his mouth, and evidently felt as
if he himself was reproduced and lived in the boy. This led to closer
intercourse, until David Armstrong admitted that William Thorburn was
one of the most sensible men he knew, and that he would not only back
him against any of his acquaintances for a knowledge of a good horse,
but for wonderful information as to the state of the country
generally, especially of the landed interest and the high rent of
land. Mrs. Armstrong finally admitted that Jeanie was not so far
mistaken in her choice of a husband. The good woman always assumed
that the sagacity of the family was derived from her side of the
house. But whatever doubts still lingered in their minds as to the
marriage, these were all dissipated by one look of “wee Davie.” “I’m
just real proud aboot that braw bairn o’ Jeanie’s,” she used to say to
her husband. She added one day, with a chuckling laugh and smile,
“D’ye no’ think yersel’, gudeman, that wee Davie has a look o’ auld
Davie?”
“Maybe, maybe,” replied auld Davie; “but I aye think he’s our ain
bairn we lost thirty years syne.”
“That has been in my ain mind,” said his wife; “but I never liked to
say it. But he’s no’ the waur o’ being like baith.”
Again: There lived in the same common passage, and opposite to William
Thorburn’s door, an old soldier, a pensioner. He was a bachelor, and
by no means disposed to hold much intercourse with his neighbours. The
noise of the children was obnoxious to him. He maintained that “an
hour’s drill every day would alone make them tolerable. Obedience to
authority; right about, march! That’s the thing,” the Corporal would
say to some father of a numerous family in the “close,” as he
flourished his stick with a smile rather than a growl. Jeanie
pronounced him to be “a selfish body.” Thorburn had more than once
tried to cultivate acquaintance with him, as they were constantly
brought into outward contact. But the Corporal was a Tory, and more
than suspected the smith of holding “Radical” sentiments. To defend
things as they were was a point of honour with the pensioner――a
religion. Any dislike to the Government seemed a slight upon the army,
and therefore upon himself. Thorburn at last avoided him, and
pronounced him proud and ignorant. But one day “wee Davie” found his
way into his house, and putting his hands on his knees as he smoked
his pipe at the fireside, looked up to his face. The old soldier was
arrested by the beauty of the child, and took him on his knee. To his
surprise, Davie did not scream; and when his mother soon followed in
search of her boy, and made many apologies for his “impudence,” as she
called it, the Corporal maintained that he was a jewel, a perfect
gentleman, and dubbed him “the Captain.”
Next day, tapping at Thorburn’s door, the Corporal gracefully
presented a toy in the shape of a small sword and drum for his young
hero. That night he smoked his pipe at the smith’s fireside, and told
such stories of his battles as fired the smith’s enthusiasm, called
forth his praises, and, what was more substantial, a most comfortable
tea by Jeanie, which clinched their friendly intercourse. He and “the
Captain” became constant associates, and many a loud laugh might be
heard from the Corporal’s room as he played with the boy, and educated
his genius. “He makes me young again, does the Captain!” remarked the
Corporal to his mother.
Mrs. Fergusson, another neighbour, was also drawn into the same net by
“wee Davie.” She was a fussy, gossiping woman, noisy and disagreeable.
She found Jeanie uncongenial, who “kept herself to herself,” instead
of giving away some of her good self to her neighbour, and thus taking
some of her neighbour’s bad self out of her. But her youngest child
became seriously ill, and Jeanie thought, “If Davie was ill I would
like a neighbour to speir for him,” and so she went upstairs to visit
Mrs. Fergusson, and begged pardon, but “wished to know how Mary was?”
and Mrs. Fergusson was bowed down with sorrow, and thanked her, and
bid her “to come ben.” And Jeanie did so, and spoke kindly to the
child, and told her, moreover, what pleasure it would give her to
nurse her baby occasionally; and she invited the younger children to
come down to her house and play with “wee Davie,” and thus keep the
sick one quiet; and she helped also to cook some nutritive drinks, and
got nice milk from her father for the sick one, and often excused
herself for apparent meddling by saying, “When one has a bairn o’
their ain, they canna but feel for other folk’s bairns.”
Mrs. Fergusson’s heart became subdued, softened, and friendly, and she
said, “We took it as extraordinar’ kind in Mrs. Thorburn to do as she
has done. It is a blessing to have sic a neighbour.”
But it was “wee Davie” did it.
The street in which the smith lived was as uninteresting as any could
be. A description of its outs and ins would have made a “social
science” meeting shudder. Beauty or even neatness it had not. Every
“close” or “entry” in it looked like a sepulchre. The back courts were
a huddled confusion of outhouses; strings of linens drying; stray dogs
searching for food; pigeons similarly employed with more apparent
success and satisfaction; and cats creeping about; with crowds of
children, laughing, shouting, and muddy to the eyes, acting with
intense glee the great dramas of life, marriages, battles, deaths, and
burials, with castle-building and extensive farming and commercial
operations. But everywhere smoke, mud, wet, and an utterly
uncomfortable look. And so long as we in Scotland have a western ocean
to afford an unlimited supply of water, and western mountains to
condense it as it passes in the blue air over their summits, and
western winds to waft it to our cities, and so long as it will pour
down, and be welcomed by smoke above and earth below――then
consequently so long we shall find it difficult to be “neat and tidy
about the doors,” or to transport the cleanliness of England into our
streets and lanes. But, in spite of all this, how many cheerful homes,
with bright fires and nice furniture, and rows of books, and
intelligent, sober, happy men and women, with healthy, nice children,
are everywhere to be found in those very streets, that seem to the eye
of those who have never penetrated farther than their outside, to be
“dreadful-looking places;” and who imagine that all their inhabitants
must be like pigs in pigstyes, steeped in wretchedness and whisky; and
infer that every ignorant and filthy and drunken Irish brawler and
labourer is a fair type of the whole of our artisans.
There is, I begin to suspect, a vast deal of exaggerated nonsense
written about the working classes. Be that as it may, I feel pretty
certain of this, that there is no country on earth in which the
skilled and well-conducted artisan can get so much for his money,
socially, physically, intellectually, and morally, as in our own
Britain, and none in which there are to be found so many artisans who
take advantage of these benefits. But for the ignorant and
ill-disposed, the idle and the drunken, there is no country where
their degradation is more rapid, and their ruin more sure. The former
can easily rise above the mud, and breathe a free and happy
atmosphere; but if he falls into it, it is likely he will be sooner
smothered and buried than anywhere else on earth.
A happier home could hardly be found than William Thorburn’s, smith,
as he sat, after coming home from his work, at the fireside, reading
his newspaper, or some book of weightier literature, Jeanie sewing
opposite to him, and, as it often happened, both absorbed occasionally
in the rays of that bright light, “wee Davie,” which filled their
dwelling, and the whole world, to their eyes; or listened to the grand
concert of his happy voice, which mingled with their busy work and
silent thoughts, giving harmony to all. How much was done for his
sake! He was the most sensible, efficient, and thoroughly
philosophical missionary of social science in all its departments who
could enter that house.
CHAPTER II.
My heart is sore as I write it, that “wee Davie” got ill. He began to
refuse his food, and nothing would please him; then to get peevish and
cross, so that he would hardly go to his father, except to kiss him
with tearful cheeks, and then stretch out his hands with a cry for his
mother. His mother nursed him on her knee, and rocked him, and walked
with him, and sang to him her own household lullabies; and put him to
bed, and lifted him up, and laid him down, and “fought” with him day
and night, caring for neither food nor sleep, but only for her child’s
ease and comfort. What lessons of self-sacrificing love was she thus
unconsciously taught by her little sufferer! The physician was at last
called in, who pronounced it “a bad case――a _very_ serious case.” I
forget the specific nature of the illness. The idea of danger to Davie
had never entered the minds of his parents. The day on which William
realized it, he was, as his fellow-workmen expressed it, “clean
stupid.” They saw him make mistakes he had never made before, and knew
it could not be from drink, but could not guess the cause. “I maun
gang hame!” was his only explanation, when, at three o’clock, he put
on his coat and stalked out of the smithy, like one utterly
indifferent as to what the consequences might be to ploughs or
harrows, wheels or horse-shoes. Yet taking an old fellow-workman
aside, he whispered to him, “For auld friendship sake, Tam, tak’
charge this day o’ my wark.”
“What ails Willie?” was the only question put by him and others, to
which no reply could be given.
It was on the afternoon of next day that “the minister” called. It
must here be confessed that William was a rare attender of any church.
The fact was, he had been hitherto rather sceptical in his tendencies;
not that his doubts had ever assumed a systematic form, or had ever
been expressed in any determined or dogmatic manner. But he had read
Tom Paine, associated the political rights of man with rebellion
against all old authorities, all of whom seemed to him to have denied
them, and he had imbibed the idea at the old “philosophical” club,
that ministers, especially those of the Established Church, were the
enemies of all progress, had no sympathy with the working classes,
were slaves to the aristocracy, preached as a mere profession and only
for their pay, and had, moreover, a large share of hypocrisy and
humbug in them. The visit of Dr. M’Gavin was, therefore, very
unexpected.
When the Doctor entered the house, after a courteous request to be
allowed to do so, as it was always his principle that the poorest man
was entitled to the same respect as the man of rank or riches, he
said, “I have just heard from some of your neighbours, whom I have
been visiting, that your child is seriously unwell, and I thought you
would excuse me intruding upon you to inquire for him.”
William made him welcome and begged him to be seated. The call was
specially acceptable to Jeanie. Old David, I should have mentioned,
was an “elder” in a most worthy dissenting congregation, and his
strong religious convictions and church views formed in his mind a
chief objection to the marriage of his daughter with a man “who was
not,” as he said, “even a member of any kirk.” Jeanie had often wished
her husband to be more decided in what she felt herself to be a duty
and a privilege. The visit of the Doctor, whose character was well
known and much esteemed, was therefore peculiarly welcome to her. In a
little while the Doctor was standing beside the little bed of the
sufferer, who was asleep, and gently touching “wee Davie’s” hand, he
said, in a quiet voice, to the smith, “My brother, I sincerely feel
for you! I am myself a father, and have suffered losses in my family.”
At the word _losses_, William winced, and moved from his place as if
he felt uneasy.
The Doctor quickly perceived it, and said, “I do not, of course, mean
to express so rash and unkind an opinion as that you are to lose this
very beautiful and interesting boy, but only to show you how I am
enabled, from experience, to understand your anxiety, and to
sympathize with you and your wife.” And noiselessly walking to the
arm-chair near the fire, he there sat down, while William and Jeanie
sat near him. After hearing with patience and attention the account
from Jeanie of the beginning and progress of the child’s disease, he
said, “Whatever happens, it is a comfort to know that God our Father
is acquainted with all that you suffer, all you fear, and all you
wish; and that Jesus Christ, our Brother, has a fellow-feeling with us
in all our infirmities and trials.”
“The Deity must know all,” said William, with a softened voice; “He is
infinitely great and incomprehensible.”
“Yes,” replied the Doctor; “and so great, that He can attend to our
smallest concerns; yet not so incomprehensible but that a father’s
heart can truly feel after Him, so as at least to find Him through His
Son. Ah! my brother,” continued the Doctor, “what a comfort and
strength the thought is to all men, and ought to be to you working
men, and to you parents, especially with your dear child in sickness,
that He who marks a sparrow fall, smitten by winter’s cold, and who
feeds the wild beasts, is acquainted with us, with our most secret
affairs, so that even, as it were, the hairs of our heads are
numbered; that He who is the Father, Almighty Maker of the heavens and
the earth, knows the things which we need; that He has in us,
individually, an interest which is incomprehensible, only because His
love to us is so in its depth; that He considers each of us, and
weighs all His dealings towards us with a carefulness as great as if
we alone existed in His universe; so that, as a father pitieth his
children, He pitieth us, knowing our frames, and _remembering_ we are
dust.”
William bent his head and was silent, while Jeanie listened with her
whole soul.
“It is not easy, minister,” said William, breaking silence, “for
hard-wrought and tried men to believe that.”
“Nor for any man,” replied the Doctor. “I find it very difficult to
believe it myself as a real thing, yet I know it to be true; and,” he
continued, with a low and affectionate voice, “perhaps we never could
have known it and believed it at all, unless God had taught it to us
by the life of His own Son, who came to reveal Him. But as I see _Him_
taking up little children into His loving arms, when others would keep
them away who did not understand what perfect love was, and as I see
in such doings how love cannot but come down and meet the wants of its
smallest and weakest object, oh! it is then I learn in what consists
the real greatness of God, ‘whose name is Love.’” The Doctor paused
for a moment, and then went on: “Because, my brother, I see in this
love of Christ more than the love of a good man merely; I see revealed
in it the loving tenderness towards us and ours of that God whom no
eye hath seen or can see, but whom the eye of the spirit can perceive;
for, as Jesus said, ‘He who seeth _Me_, seeth the Father.’”
“I believe a’ ye say, Doctor,” said Jeanie meekly. “_I_ wadna like to
keep my bairn frae Him; but, oh! sir, I hope――I hope He wull lift him
up, and do to us now as He did to many distressed ones while on
earth!”
“I hope,” said the Doctor, “God will spare your boy; but you must ask
Him sincerely so to do, and you must trust Him, and commit your child
into His hands without fear, and acquiesce in His doing towards you
and your boy as He pleases.”
“That is hard!” remarked William.
“Hard?” mildly replied the Doctor. “What would you choose else, had
you the power of doing so, rather than of acquiescing in the will of
God? Would you trust your own heart, for instance, more than the heart
of God? or would you rather have your child’s fate decided by any
other on earth than by yourself?”
“No, for I know how I love the boy.”
“But God loves him much more than you do; for he belongs to God, and
was made by Him and for Him.”
“Excuse me, Doctor, but yet I canna thole the thocht o’ parting wi’
him!” said Jeanie.
“May God spare him to you, my friends!” replied the minister, “if it
be for your good and his. But,” he added, “there are worse things than
death.”
This remark, made in almost an under voice, was followed by silence
for a few moments. The Doctor’s eyes were cast down as if in
meditation or prayer.
“Death is hard enough!” said the smith.
“But hard chiefly as a sign of something worse,” continued the
minister. “Pardon me for asking you such questions as these:――What if
your child grew up an enemy to you? What if he never returned your
love? What if he never would trust you? What if he never would speak
to you? What if he always disobeyed you? Would this not bring down
your gray hairs with sorrow to the grave?”
“Eh! sir,” said Jeanie, “that _would_ be waur than death!”
“But excuse me, Doctor, for just remarking,” interrupted William,
“that I never knew any child with a good parent who would so act. I
really don’t think it possible that our ain wee Davie, even with our
poor bringing up, would ever come to _that_. It would be so
unnatural.”
“God knows, Thorburn,” said the Doctor. “There are many unnatural
things in this world. Listen to me kindly; for I sincerely thank you
for having allowed one who is a stranger to speak so frankly to you,
and for having heard me with such considerate patience.”
“Oh, gang on, gang on, Doctor; I like to hear you,” said Jeanie.
“Certainly, sir,” added the smith.
“Well, then,” said the Doctor, “I have no wish to appear even to find
fault with you at such a time. I feel more disposed to weep with you
in your sorrow than to search your heart or life for sin. But I feel
at such solemn times as these, solemn to you and to your wife, that
the voice of a Father is speaking to you in the rod, and it ought to
be heard; and that His hand is ministering discipline in time, and you
ought to give Him reverence, and be in subjection to the Father of our
spirits that you may live; and therefore, in order to impart to you
more strength and comfort in the end, let me beseech of you, after I
am gone, to consider candidly whether you have not perhaps been acting
towards _your_ Father in heaven in the very way in which did your
child grow up and act towards you would be reckoned as worse than
death. Therefore honestly ask yourselves whether there has been from
you love to God your Father in return for His love to you. Has there
been cordial friendship or the reverse? Confidence or distrust?
Disobedience or rebellion? Communion in frank, believing, and
affectionate prayer, or silence? I do not ask you to reply to me; but
I wish you and myself, as loving fathers of our children, to ask
whether we have felt and acted towards the best and most loving of
fathers as we wish our children to feel and act towards ourselves.”
The Doctor paused for a moment. Jeanie shook her head slowly, and the
smith stared with her at the fire. “My friends, we have all sinned,
and this is our sin of sins, that we have _not known nor loved our
Father_, but have been forgetful of Him, strange, shy to Him; yes, we
have been cold, heartless, prodigal, disobedient children.” Another
short pause, and the Doctor then spoke on in the same quiet and loving
voice――“But whatever we are or have been, let us hope in God, or we
perish. Every sinner is doomed, but no man is doomed to be a sinner.
God is our Father still; and just as you both have nourished and
cherished your dear boy, and have been loving when he knew it not, nor
could understand that great love in your hearts which, sure am I, will
never grow cold but in the grave, so has it been with God to us His
children. Open your hearts to His love, as you would open your eyes to
the light which has been ever shining. Believe it as the grand
reality, as you would have your boy open his heart to and believe in
your love when he awakens from his sleep. Your love, as I have said,
is deep, real to your boy, irrespective of his knowledge or return of
it. But what is this to the love of God? ‘_Herein_ is love, not that
we loved God, but that He loved us, and gave His Son to be a
propitiation for our sins.’ Let us, my friends, never rest till we are
enabled in some degree to see and to appreciate this, and to say, ‘We
have known and believed the love which God has to us.’”
“Dr. M’Gavin,” said William, “you have spoken to me as no man ever did
before, and you will believe me, I am sure, when I say that I respect
you and myself too much to flatter you. But there is surely a meaning
in my love to that boy which I never saw before. It begins to glimmer
on me.”
“Thank God if it does! But I do not speak to you――and this you must
give me credit for――as if it were my profession only; I speak to you
as a man, a father, and a brother, wishing you to share the good which
God has given to me and gives to you. So I tell you again, and would
repeat it and repeat it, that if we would only have to God that simple
confidence, hearty love, frank, cheerful communion, peace and joy,
which we wish our children to have towards us, we would experience a
true regeneration. And what was the whole life of Jesus Christ save a
life of this blessed, confiding, obedient, childlike sonship? Oh, that
we would learn of Him, and grow up in likeness to Him! But this
ignorance of God is worse than death. For if knowledge be life,
spiritual ignorance is death. My good friends, I have been led to give
you a regular sermon!” said the Doctor, smiling; “but I really cannot
help it. To use common everyday language, I think our treatment of God
has been shameful, unjust, and disgraceful on the part of men with
reason, conscience, and heart. I do not express myself half so
strongly as I feel. I am ashamed and disgusted with myself, and all
the members of the human family, for what we feel, and feel _not_, to
such a Father. If it were not for what the one Elder Brother was and
did, the whole family would have been disgraced and ruined most
righteously!”
“Doctor,” said William, with a trembling voice, “thank ye, thank ye,
from my heart. I confess I have been very careless in going to the
church, but――”
“We may talk of that again, if you allow me to return to-morrow. Yet,”
continued the Doctor, pointing to the child, “God in His mercy never
leaves Himself without a witness. Look at your child, and listen to
your own heart, and remember all I have said, and you will perhaps
discover that though you tried it you could not fly from the Word of
the Lord. A father’s voice by a child has been preaching to you. Yes,
Thorburn, when in love God gave you that child, He sent an eloquent
and holy missionary to your house to preach the gospel of what our
Father is, and what we as children ought to be. Only listen to that
sermon, and you will soon be prepared to listen to others.”
The Doctor rose to depart. Before doing so, he asked permission to
pray, which was cheerfully granted. Wishing to strengthen the faith of
those sufferers in prayer, he first said, “If God _cannot_ hear and
answer prayer, He is not supreme; if He _will_ not, He is not our
Father. But blessed be His name, His own Son, who knew Him perfectly,
who Himself prayed, and was heard in that He prayed, has enabled our
parental hearts, from our love to our own children, to feel the beauty
and truth of this His own argument, ‘Ask, and it shall be given you;
seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for
every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to
him that knocketh, it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you,
whom, if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a
fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to
give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father
which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him!’” And then
the Doctor poured forth a simple, loving, and most sympathizing
prayer, in which he made himself one with his fellow-worshippers, and
expressed to a common Father the anguish of the hearts around him.
When it ended, he went to the bed, and looked at the sleeping child,
touched its white hand, and said, “God bless your little one! May this
sleep be for health!”
“It’s the first sleep,” said Jeanie, “he has had for a lang time. It
may be a turn in his complaint.”
Without waiting to force the parents to give him an immediate reply to
what he had taught them, the Doctor shook them warmly by the hand, and
gazed on them with a world of interest in his eyes, asking them only
kindly to consider what he had said. The silence which ensued for a
few minutes after his absence, as William and Jeanie returned from the
door and stood beside the bed, was broken by the smith observing, “I
am glad that man came to our house, Jeanie. Yon was indeed preaching
that a man can understand and canna forget. It was wee Davie did it.”
“That’s true,” said Jeanie; “thank God for’t!” And after gazing on the
sleeping child, she added, “Is he no’ bonnie? I dinna wunner that sic
a bairn should bring gude to the house.”
That night William had thoughts in his heart which burned with a
redder glow than the coals upon the smithy fire! I am much mistaken if
he did not begin to feel that God had sent him a home missionary in
“wee Davie.”
CHAPTER III.
It was a beautiful morning in spring, with blue sky, living air,
springing grass, and singing bird; but William Thorburn had not left
his house that morning, and the door was shut.
Mrs. Fergusson trod the wooden stair that led to the flat above his
with slow and cautious step; and as she met her boy running down
whistling, she said, “What d’ye mean, Jamie, wi’ that noise? Do ye no’
ken wee Davie is dead? Ye should hae mair feeling, laddie!”
The Corporal, whose door was half open, crept out, and in an
under-breath beckoned Mrs. Fergusson to speak to him. “Do you know how
they are?” he asked in a low voice.
“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “I sat up wi’ Mrs. Thorburn half
the night, and left Davie sleeping, and never thocht it would come to
this. My heart is sair for them. But since it happened the door has
been barred, and no one has been in. I somehow dinna like to intrude,
for, nae doot, they will be in an awfu’ way aboot that bairn.”
“I don’t wonder――I don’t wonder!” remarked the Corporal meditatively;
“I did not believe I could feel as I do. I don’t understand it. Here
am I, who have seen men killed by my side. I have seen a single shot
cut down half our company.”
“Is it possible?”
“It is certain,” said the Corporal; “and I have charged at
Pampeluna――it was there I was wounded――over dead and dying comrades,
yet, will you believe me? I never shed a tear――never; but there was
something in that Captain――I mean the boy”――and the Corporal took out
his snuff-box, and snuffed vehemently. “And what a brave fellow his
father is! I never thought I could love a Radical; but he was not what
you call a Radical; he was――I don’t know what else, but he is a man,
an out-and-out man, every inch of him; I’ll say that for him――a man is
William Thorburn! Have you not seen his wife?”
“No, poor body! It was six o’clock when she ran up to me, no’
distracted either, but awfu’ quiet like, and wakened me up, and just
said, ‘He is awa’;’ and then afore I could speak she ran doon the
stair, and steekit the door; and she has such a keen speerit, I dinna
like to gang to bother her. My heart is sair for her.”
They both were silent, as if listening for some sound in William
Thorburn’s house, but all was still as the grave.
The first who entered it was old David Armstrong and his wife. They
found Jeanie busy about her house, and William sitting on a chair,
staring into the fire, dressed with more than usual care. The curtains
of the bed were up. It was covered with a pure white sheet, and
something lay upon it which they knew.
Jeanie came forward, and took the hand of father and mother, without a
tear on her face, and said quietly, “Come ben,” as she gave her father
a chair beside her husband, and led her mother into an inner room,
closing the door. What was spoken there between them I know not.
William rose to receive old David, and said, “It was a fine spring
day.” David gave a warm squeeze to his hand, and sat down. He rose and
went to the bed. William followed him, and took the cloth off the
boy’s face in silence. They both gazed on it. The face was unchanged,
as in sleep. The flaxen curls seemed to have been carefully arranged,
for they escaped from under the white cap, and clustered like golden
wreaths around the silvery forehead and cheeks. William covered up the
face, and both returned to their seats by the fireside.
“I never lost ane since my ain wee Davie dee’d, and yours, Willie, was
dear to me as my ain,” exclaimed the old man, and then broke down, and
sobbed like a child.
William never moved, though his great chest seemed to heave; but he
seized the poker and began to arrange the fire, and then was still as
before. By-and-by, the door of the inner room opened, and Jeanie and
her mother appeared, both of them composed and serene. The same scene
was repeated as they passed the bed. Mrs. Armstrong seated herself
beside her husband, and Jeanie placed a large Bible on the table, and,
pointing to it, said, “Father,” and then drew her chair near the
smith.
[Illustration: William never moved, though his great chest seemed to
heave.]
David Armstrong put on his spectacles, opened the Bible, and selecting
a portion of Scripture, reverently said, “Let us read the Word of
God.” The house was quiet. No business on that day intruded itself
upon their minds. It was difficult for any of them to speak, but they
were ready to hear. The passages which old David selected for reading
were 2 Samuel xii. 15-23, Matthew ix. 18-26, and John xi. 1-44. Having
closed the book, he said, with a trembling but solemn voice, “God, who
doeth all things according to the counsel of His own will, has been
pleased to send us a heavy affliction. ‘The Lord giveth, and the Lord
taketh away!’ May He enable us to say at all times, ‘Blessed be the
name of the Lord.’ For whether He gives or takes away, He is always
the same in love and mercy. If He takes away, it is but to give
something better, for He afflicts us to make us partakers of His
holiness. Our wee one is not dead; he only sleepeth.” Here David
paused, but recovering himself, said, “Yes, his body sleepeth in Jesus
till the resurrection morning. He himself is with Christ. He is alive,
in his Father’s bosom. Oh, it is strange to think o’t, and hard to
believe! but, blessed be God! it’s true, that――that――Jesus Christ, who
sees us, sees him, and sees us thegither, ay, enoo!――” continued David
thoughtfully, like one pondering on a new truth; “this very minute we
are all in His sight! Oh, it’s grand and comforting; our wee Davie is
in the arms of Jesus Christ!” A solemn silence ensued. “The bonnie
bairn will never return to us, but we shall go to him, and some o’ us
ere lang, I hope. Let us pray.” And they all knelt down, and a true
prayer, from a true heart, was spoken, from suffering parents, to Him
“of whom _the whole family_ in heaven and earth is named.”
To David’s surprise and great satisfaction, he heard William utter
Amen to his prayer, which included honest confession of sin;
expressions of thankfulness for mercies, enumerating very many
mercies, among others, the great gift of their child, thus taken away,
with thanks for all he had been, and for all he then was; with
trustful petitions for grace to help them in their time of need.
That afternoon Dr. M’Gavin called, and manifested quiet, unobtrusive,
but most touching sympathy. His very silence was eloquent affection.
“I’m proud to meet wi’ you, sir,” said old Armstrong, after the Doctor
had been seated for a while. “Although I’m no’ o’ your kirk, yet we’re
baith o’ ae Kirk for a’ that.”
“With one Father, one Brother, one Spirit, one life, one love, one
hope!” replied the Doctor.
“True, sir, true, sir, our differences are nothing to our agreements,
Doctor.”
“Our non-essential differences arise out of our essential union, Mr.
Armstrong. If we differ honestly and conscientiously as brethren, I
hope it is because we differ only in judgment as to how to please our
Father, and our Eldest Brother. Our hearts are one in our wish to do
Their will. For none of us liveth, or dieth even, to himself.”
“Ay, ay, Doctor. So it is, so it is! as the auld saying has’t, ‘The
best men are but men at the best.’ We maun carry ane another’s
burdens; and ignorance, or even bigotry, is the heaviest ony man can
carry for his neebour. Thank God, brighter and better times are
coming! We here see through a glass darkly; but then face to face. We
know only in pairt; then shall we know even as we are known. We must
be faithful to our given light, and serve Him, and not man.”
“There are differences among living men,” replied the Doctor, “but
none among the dead. We shall only agree perfectly when we know and
love as saints, without error and without sin.”
“I mind,” said David, warming with the conversation, and the pleasure
of getting his better heart out――“I mind two neighbours of mine, and
ye’ll mind them too, gudewife? that was Johnnie Morton and auld Andrew
Gebbie. The tane was a keen Burgher, and the tother an Antiburgher.
Baith lived in the same house, though at different ends, and it was
the bargain that each should keep his ain side o’ the house aye weel
thatched. But they happened to dispute so desperate about the
principles o’ their kirks, that at last they quarrelled, and didna
speak. So ae day after this, as they were on the roof thatching, each
on his ain side, they reached the tap, and sae looking ower, face met
face. What could they do? They couldna flee. So at last Andrew took
aff his Kilmarnock cap, and, scratching his head, said, ‘Johnnie, you
and me, I think, have been very foolish to dispute as we hae done as
to Christ’s will aboot our kirks, till we hae forgot His will aboot
ourselves; and so we hae fought sae keen for what we ca’ the truth
that it has ended in brither fechting against brither. Whatever’s
wrang, this canna be richt, if we dinna love. Noo, it strikes me that
maybe it’s wi’ the Kirk as wi’ this hoose: ye’re working on ae side
and me on the other, but if we only do our wark weel, we wull meet at
the tap at last. Gie’s your han’!’ And so they shook han’s, and were
the best o’ freens ever after.”
“Thank you, Mr. Armstrong, for the story,” said the Doctor. Then
looking to the bed, he remarked, “Oh, if we were only simple, true,
and loving, like little children, would we not, like that dear one,
enter the kingdom of heaven, and know and love all who were in it, or
on their way to it?”
“I’m glad I have met you, Doctor,” resumed the old elder. “It does
ane’s heart good to meet a brother who has been a stranger. But if it
hadna been for his death noo, we might never have met. Isna that
queer? God’s ways are no’ our ways.”
“God brings life out of death,” replied the Doctor, “and in many ways
does He ordain praise from babes and sucklings, whether living or
dead.” Was not “wee Davie” a home missionary to the dissenting elder
and Established Church minister? “And now,” continued the Doctor,
“with your permission, good friends, I will read a short psalm and
offer up a short prayer before I go.”
They thanked him, and he read the 23rd Psalm. His only remark was, as
he closed the Bible, “The Good Shepherd has been pleased to take this
dear lamb into His fold, never more to leave it.”
“And may the lamb be the means of making the auld sheep to follow!”
added the elder.
When the prayer was over, Jeanie, who had hardly spoken a word, said,
without looking at the Doctor, “Oh, sir, God didna hear our prayer for
my bairn!”
“Dinna speak that way, Jeanie woman!” said old David softly, yet
firmly.
“I canna help it, father; I maun get oot my thochts that are burning
at my heart. The minister maun forgie me,” replied Jeanie.
“Surely, Mrs. Thorburn,” said the Doctor; “and it would be a great
satisfaction to me if I could, from what God has taught me from His
Word, and from my experience of sorrow, be able to solve any
difficulty, or help you to acquiesce in God’s dealings with you; not
because you _must,_ but because you _ought_ to submit; not because God
has _power_, and therefore does as He pleases, but because He is Love,
and therefore pleases always to do what is right.”
“But, oh, He didna hear our prayer; that’s my battle! We were maybe
wrang in asking what was against His wull.”
“Not in the way, perhaps, in which you expected, Mrs. Thorburn; yet
every true prayer is verily heard and answered by Him. But He is too
good, too wise, too loving, to give us always literally what we ask;
if so, He would often be very cruel, and _that_ He can never be. You
would not give your child a serpent, if in his assurance he asked one,
mistaking it for a fish; nor would you give him a stone for bread?”
The Doctor paused.
“When Nathan, the Lord’s prophet, telt King David that his child must
die,” said Armstrong, “yet David even then prayed to the Lord to spare
his life, and I dinna doot that his Father in heaven was pleased wi’
his freedom and faith.”
“Right,” continued the Doctor, “for I am sure we cannot trust Him too
much, or open our human hearts to Him too freely; let us always
remember, too, that when God refuses what we ask, He gives us
something better――yea, far more than we can ask or think. He gave your
dear child for a time; and if He has taken him away, can you, for
example, tell the evil, the misery, which may have been prevented? How
many parents would give worlds that their children had died in
infancy! And you could not wish for more than your child’s good, and
so God has thus far literally heard that prayer. He has done so by
taking your child to Himself. Your precious jewel is not lost, but is
in God’s treasury, where no thief can break through and steal; _that_
is surely something.”
“Oh yes, sir, it is!” said Jeanie; “but yet it’s an awfu’ blank! Ilka
thing in the world seems different.”
“I’m jist thinking, Jeanie,” said Mrs. Armstrong, “that it’s a comfort
ye ever pit yer een on Davie, for there’s puir Mrs. Blair――John
Blair’s blin’ wife, ye ken――when she lost her callant, May was a year,
she cam’ to me in an awfu’ way aboot it, and what vexed her sae muckle
was, that she never had seen his wee face, and that she could only
touch and han’le him, and hear him greet.”
“Puir body,” remarked Jeanie, “it was a sair misfortun’ for ony mither
that――an’ yet――But I’ll no’ think aboot it; ilk ane has their ain
burden to carry. Noo, minister, let me speir at you, sir: Will I never
see my bairn again? and if I see him, will I no’ ken him?”
“You might as well ask whether you could see and know your child if he
had gone to a foreign country instead of to heaven,” replied the
Doctor. “Alas! if we did not know our beloved friends in heaven, earth
in some respects would be dearer to our hearts! But then, ignorance is
not possible in such a place of light and love.”
“It wadna be rational to think so,” remarked William, speaking for the
first time, though he had been listening with great interest to the
Doctor.
“But,” continued Jeanie, with quiet earnestness, “will our bairn aye
be a bairn, Doctor? Oh, I hope so!”
“Dinna try, Jeanie dear,” said David, “to be wise aboon what is
written.”
The Doctor smiled, and asked, “If your child had lived, think you
would you have rejoiced had he always continued to be a child and
never grown or advanced? and are you a loss or a gain to your father
and mother, because you have grown in mind and knowledge since you
were an infant?”
“I never thocht o’ that,” said Jeanie thoughtfully.
“Be assured,” continued the Doctor, “there will be no such abortions
there as infants in intellect and sense for ever. All will be perfect
and complete, according to the plan of God, who made us for fellowship
with Himself and all His blissful family. Your darling has gone to a
noble school, and will be taught and trained there for immortality by
Him who was Himself a child, and who knows a mother’s love and a
mother’s sorrow; and you too, parents, if you believe in Christ, and
hold fast your confidence in Him, and become to Him as little
children, will be made fit to enter the same society; and thus you and
your boy, though never, perhaps, forgetting your old relationship on
earth, will be fit companions for one another for ever and ever.
Depend upon it, you will both know and love each other there better
than you ever could have done here.”
“My wee pet!” murmured Jeanie, as the tears began to flow from a
softened, because happier, heart.
William hid his face in his hands. After a while, he broke silence and
said, “These thoughts of heaven are new to me. But common sense tells
me they maun be true. Heaven does not seem to me noo to be the same
strange place it used to be. My loss is not so complete as I once
thought it was. Neither we nor our bairn have lived in vain.”
“Surely not,” said the Doctor――
“‘Better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all!’
You have contributed one citizen to the heavenly Jerusalem; one member
to the family above; one happy spirit to add his voice to the anthem
before the throne of God!”
“Lord, help our unbelief!” said Mr. Armstrong; “for the mair I think
o’ the things which I believe, the mair they seem to me owre gude news
to be true!”
“The disciples, when they first saw Christ after His resurrection,”
said the Doctor, “did not believe from very joy.”
“We think owre muckle o’ our ain folk, Doctor, and owre little o’ Him.
But it’s a comfort that He’s kent and loved as He ought to be by them.
I thank Him, alang wi’ them that’s awa’, for all He is and gies to
them noo.”
“And for all He is and does, and will ever be and do, to every man who
trusts Him,” added the Doctor; “our friends would be grieved, if grief
were possible to them now, did they think our memory of them made us
forget Him, or that our love to them made us love Him less. Surely, if
they know what we are doing, they would rejoice if they also knew
that, along with themselves, we too rejoiced in their God and our God.
What child in heaven but would be glad to know that its parents joined
with it in the prayer of ‘_Our_ Father’?”
“If wee Davie could preach to us, I dare say, sir, that micht be his
text.”
“Though dead, he yet speaks,” replied the Doctor.
Yes, the boy was yet a home missionary, drawing the hearts of that
household to God.
The Doctor rose to depart. “By-the-bye,” he said, “let me repeat a
verse or two to you, Thorburn, from a poem which I am sure you will
like. It expresses the thoughts of a parent about his dead girl, and
which have already in part been poorly expressed by me when your wife
asked me if she would know her boy:――
‘She is not dead――the child of our affection,
But gone unto that school
Where she no longer needs our poor protection,
And Christ Himself doth rule.
‘In that great cloister’s stillness and seclusion,
By guardian angels led,
Safe from temptation, safe from sin’s pollution,
She lives, whom we call dead.
‘Not as a child shall we again behold her;
For when with raptures wild
In our embraces we again enfold her,
She will not be a child;
‘But a fair maiden, in her Father’s mansion,
Clothed with celestial grace,
And beautiful with all the soul’s expansion
Shall we behold her face.’”
“Thank ye, sir, thank ye,” said Thorburn; “and ye’ll no’ be offended
if I ax ye to gie me a grip o’ yer han’.” And the smith laid hold of
the Doctor’s proffered hand, so small and white, with his own hand, so
large and powerful――“God reward ye, sir, for we canna! And noo,
Doctor,” the smith continued, “I maun oot wi’t! Since ye hae been so
kind as gie us that fine bit o’ English poetry, I canna help gieing
you a bit o’ Scotch, for Scotch poetry has been a favourite reading o’
mine, and there’s a verse that has been dirling a’ day in my heart.
This is it:――
‘It’s dowie at the hint o’ hairst,
At the wa’-gang o’ the swallow,
When the winds blaw cauld,
And the burns run bauld,
And the wuds are hanging yellow;
But oh! it’s dowier far to see
The wa’-gang o’ ane the heart gangs wi’,
The dead set o’ a shining e’e,
That closes the weary warld on thee!’
Fareweel, sir! I’ll expect ye the morn at two, if convenient,” the
smith whispered to the Doctor as he opened the door to him.
“I’ll be sure to come,” he replied. “Thank you for those verses; and
think for your good about all I have said.”
That evening, there was a comfortable tea prepared by Jeanie for her
friends, and the Corporal was one of the party. Had a stranger dropped
in upon them, he would not have supposed that there was sorrow in the
house. There is a merciful reaction to strong feeling. The highest
waves, when they dash against the rock, flow farthest back, and
scatter themselves in their rebound into sparkling foam and airy
bubbles. The Corporal told some of his old stories of weariness and
famine, of wounds and sufferings, and marches over the fields of Spain
from victory to victory. Old Armstrong could match these only by
Covenanter tales from _The Scots Worthies_, of battles long ago, but
was astonished to find the Corporal a staunch Episcopalian, who had no
sympathy with “rebels.” Yet so kind and courteous was the pensioner,
that the elder confessed that he was “a real fine body, withoot a
grain o’ bigotry.” William, too, had his talk on “the times,” and his
favourite topic of reform; while Jeanie and her mother spoke of the
farm, and of old friends among the cows, with many bygone
reminiscences of persons and things. And thus the weight of their
hearts was lightened, and made stronger, along with higher and better
thoughts, to carry their burden; but ever and anon there came one
little presence before them, causing a sinking of the heart.
No sooner had their friends left the house for the night than the
smith did what he never did before. He opened the Bible, and said to
Jeanie, “I will read a chapter aloud before we retire to rest.”
Jeanie clapped her husband fondly on the shoulder, and in silence sat
down beside him while he read again some of the same passages which
they had already heard. Few houses had that night more quiet and
peaceful sleepers than that house, under whose roof, beneath the
shining stars of God, those parents and their child reposed.
The little black coffin was brought to the smith’s the night before
the funeral. When the house was quiet, Davie was laid in it gently by
his father. Jeanie stood by and assumed the duty of arranging with
care the white garments in which her boy was dressed, wrapping them
round him, and adjusting the head as if to sleep in her own bosom. She
brushed once more the golden ringlets, and put the little hands in
their right place, and opened out the frills in the cap, and removed
every particle of sawdust which soiled the shroud. When all was
finished, though she seemed anxious to prolong the work, the lid was
put on the coffin, but so as to leave the face uncovered. Both were as
silent as their child. But ere they retired to rest for the night,
they instinctively went to take another look. As they gazed in
silence, side by side, the smith felt his hand gently seized by his
wife. She played at first nervously with the fingers, until, finding
her own hand held by her husband, she looked into his face with an
unutterable expression, and meeting his eyes so full of unobtrusive
sorrow, she leant her head on his shoulder and said, “Willie, this is
my last look o’ him on this side the grave. But, Willie dear, you and
me maun see him again, and, mind ye, no’ to part――na, I canna thole
that! We ken whaur _he_ is, and we maun gang till him. Noo, promise
me! vow alang wi’ me here, that, as we love him and ane another, we’ll
attend mair to what’s gude than we hae dune, that――oh, Willie! forgie
me, for it’s no’ my pairt to speak, but I canna help it th’ noo, and
just, my bonnie man, just agree wi’ me――that we’ll gie our hearts noo
and for ever to our ain Saviour, and the Saviour o’ our wee Davie!”
These words were uttered without ever lifting her head from her
husband’s shoulder, and in low, broken accents, half choked with an
inward struggle, but without a tear. She was encouraged to say
this――for she had a timid awe for her husband――by the pressure ever
and anon returned to hers from his hand.
The smith spoke not, but bent his head over his wife, who felt his
tears falling on her neck, as he whispered, “Amen, Jeanie! so help me,
God!”
A silence ensued, during which Jeanie got, as she said, “a gude
greet,” for the first time, which took a weight off her heart. She
then quietly kissed her child and turned away.
Thorburn took the hand of his boy and said, “Fareweel, Davie, and when
you and me meet again, we’ll baith, I tak’ it, be a bit different frae
what we are this nicht!” He then put the lid on mechanically, turned
one or two of the screws, and then sat down at the fireside to chat
about the arrangements of the funeral as on a matter of business.
After that, for the first time, William asked his wife to kneel down,
and he would pray before they retired to rest. Poor fellow! he was
sincere as ever man was, and never after till the day of his death did
he omit this “exercise,” which once on a day was universal in every
family whose head was a member of the church, and I have known it
continued by the widow when her head was taken away. But on this the
first night when the smith tried to utter aloud the thoughts of his
heart, he could only say, “Our Father――!” There he stopped. Something
seemed to seize him, and to stop his utterance. Did he only know how
much was in these words, he possibly might have said more. As it was,
the thoughts of the father on earth so mingled, he knew not how, with
those of the Father in heaven, that he could not speak. But he
continued on his knees, and spoke there to God as he had never spoken
before. Jeanie did the same.
After a while they both rose, and Jeanie said, “Thank ye, Willie. It’s
a beautifu’ beginning, and it wull, I’m sure, hae a braw ending.”
“It’s cauld iron, Jeanie woman,” said the smith, “but it wull melt and
come a’ richt.”
The day of the funeral was a day of beauty and sunshine. A few
fellow-tradesmen and neighbours assembled in the house, dressed in
their Sunday’s best, though it was visible in one or two that the best
was the worse of the wear. The last thing a Scotch workman will part
with, even to keep his family in food, is his Sunday clothes; and the
last duty he will fail to perform, is following the body of a
neighbour or acquaintance to the grave. All were dressed with crape on
their hats, and had weepers on their coats――the Corporal wore,
besides, a medal on his. The smith, according to custom, sat near the
door, and shook each man by the hand as he pointed to a seat. Not a
word, of course, was spoken.
When all who were expected had assembled, the Doctor, who occupied a
chair near the table on which the Bible lay, opened the Book, and
after reading a portion of it without any comment, he prayed with a
fervour and suitableness which touched every heart. This is our only
Scotch burial service. The little coffin was then brought out, and was
easily carried. The Corporal was the first to step forward, and
saluting the smith by putting his hand to his hat, soldier fashion, he
begged to have the honour of assisting. Slowly the small procession
advanced towards the churchyard, about half a mile off; and angels
beheld that wondrous sight, a child’s funeral――wondrous as a symbol of
sin and of redemption; of the insignificance of a human being as a
mere creature, and of his magnificence as belonging to Christ Jesus.
As they reached the grave, the birds were singing, and a flood of
light steeped in glory a neighbouring range of hill; while overhead,
the sky had only one small, snow-white cloud reposing in peace on its
azure blue.
When the sexton had finished the grave, and smoothed it with his
spade William quietly seized it, saying, “Gie me the shool, John, and
I’ll gie him the last clap mysel’,” and he went over again the green
turf carefully with gentle beats, and removed with his hand the small
stones and gravel which roughened its surface. Those who stood very
near, had they been narrowly watching him, which they had too much
feeling to do, might have observed the smith give a peculiar, tender
pressure and clap on the grave with his hand, as on a child’s breast,
ere he returned the spade, and with a careless air said, “Here, John,
thank ye; it’s a’ richt noo.” Then lifting up his hat, and looking
round, added, “Thank ye, freens, for your trouble in coming.” And so
they left “wee Davie” more precious and more enduring than the
everlasting hills!
* * * * *
Several years after this, Dr. M’Gavin, then a very old man, as he sat
at his study fire, was conversing with a young preacher, who seemed to
think that nothing could be accomplished of much value for the
advancement of Christ’s kingdom, unless by some great “effort,” or
“movement,” or “large committee,” which would carry everything at once
by a _coup de main_. The Doctor quietly remarked, “My young friend,
when you have lived as long in the ministry as I have done, you will
learn how true it is, that ‘God fulfils Himself in many ways,’ He is
in the still, small voice, and often, too, when He is neither in the
earthquake nor in the hurricane. One of the most valuable elders I
ever had――and whose admirable wife and daughters and well-doing,
prosperous sons are still members of my church, and much attached
friends――told me on his dying bed that, under God, he owed his chief
good to the death of his first child, the circumstance which
accidentally made me acquainted with him. On the last evening of his
life, when enumerating the many things which had been blessed for his
good, he said to me, ‘But under God it was my wee Davie that did it
a’!’”
Transcriber Note:
Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like
this_. Dialect, obsolete and alternative spellings were left
unchanged. No changes were made to misplaced punctuation.