Nathan Hebron is Betty Grier's husband; or, rather, I should say, Betty
Grier is Nathan Hebron's wife. This may possibly be considered a
distinction without a difference; but when you have been introduced into
the inner courts of these two worthies' acquaintance, you will somehow
feel that the latter assertion is the more correct and appropriate.
Nathan is a tall, loosely built man, with a fresh, healthy complexion,
mild blue eyes, and a slightly hanging under-lip. For some considerable
time he has been employed on what is locally known as 'the Duke's wark,'
but in what particular capacity I cannot very well say. When first I
knew him he was one of Archie Maxwell's employes in the nursery, and
when our garden required professional attention it was always Nathan who
was sent to do the necessary digging and titivating.
Three or maybe four times a year he spent a few days at a stretch among
our vegetables and fruit-trees; and I remember with what eager interest
I used to anticipate his visits, for, though he was a man of few words,
and from a story-telling standpoint had little to commend him to a boy,
he carried a quiet, companionable atmosphere with him, and, as a more
dominating recommendation, he was the possessor of one of the sharpest
and most formidable-looking 'gullies' I had ever seen.
How I envied him at pruning-time, when, with his easy, indifferent gait,
he moved about among our rose-bushes with his keen hooked blade, and
with one deft cut lopped off twigs and branches as if they were
potato-suckers. Sometimes at my request he would lay his long gleaming
weapon in the palm of my little hand, but he usually retained possession
of it by a slight finger-and-thumb grip; and I always heaved a sigh of
satisfaction, not unmixed with relief, when he lifted it, closed the
blade with a click, and returned it to his sleeved-vest pocket.
When Nathan was thus employed in our garden he always had dinner with
Betty in the kitchen. Betty's forte in the culinary department was
broth-making, and my mother used to say, with a smile, that when Nathan
was her guest Betty always put her best foot foremost. Betty, with a
blushing cheek, mildly repudiated the charge; and once, when in my
presence my mother told Nathan of this, he blushed too, and to hide his
confusion bent his head and tightened the trousers-straps under his
knees.
Broth, with boiled beef and potatoes to follow, as a rule constituted
Betty's menu on these occasions, and there was always a 'word' between
them when the beef was served, as Nathan insisted on retaining his
soup-plate from which to eat it, and to this Betty strenuously objected.
She declared 'it wasna the thing;' but he retorted that 'that was
possible, but it was aye ae plate less to wash, and he liked the broth
brae wi' the barley piles in it, as it moistened the tatties.'
Immediately after his repast he retired to the stick-house; and there,
seated on the chopping-log, he smoked his pipe in silence and meditation
till the Auld Kirk clock chimed the hour of one.
Betty was no vocalist; but on those days when Nathan worked in our
garden she indulged much in what, out of gallantry towards her, I may
call sweet sounds. She had only one song--it is her sole musical
possession still--and during the years I spent far from the friends and
scenes of my boyhood, as often as I heard the familiar strains of 'The
Farmer's Boy,' Betty's timmer rendering came homely-like to my ear, and
I saw a print-gowned, pensive-faced young woman subjecting newly washed
delf to a vigorous rubbing, and watching through the kitchen window a
big eident gardener turning over with gleaming spade the rich loamy
garden soil.
My mind harks back on these little scraps of memory as I sit here in my
bedroom listening to Betty's ceaseless prattle and Nathan's monosyllabic
responses. He is the same gaunt, silent Nathan, only much grayer, and
his short beard, fringe-like, now covers a chin which once was
clean-shaven and ruddy. He still wears leather straps on his workaday
trousers; and, though I haven't seen it, I am confident the keen-bladed
gully is somewhere about the recesses of his ample pockets. And he is
Betty's 'man,' and Betty is his busy, careful wife, and as such they sit
together in that kitchen taking their meals off that self-same table,
and looking out on that same garden which long ago was the scene of his
periodical labours.
Sometimes of a morning I waken about five o'clock, and even thus early I
hear Betty downstairs making preparations for Nathan's breakfast. I know
full well from the different sounds how she is employed; and, in
rotation, I note the 'ripein' oot' of the previous evening's fire, the
filling of the kettle from the kitchen tap, the opening and closing of
the corner cupboard door, and the clatter of cups, plates, and cutlery.
Then the merry song of the boiling kettle, the clink of the frying-pan
on the crooks, the sizzling of frying ham, the splutter of gravy-steeped
eggs, and the drawing forward of white, well-scrubbed kitchen chairs.
I know, too, when Nathan has finished his meal, as he always puts his
empty cup and saucer with a 'clank' into his bread-plate, gives a hard
throat 'hoast,' backs his chair away from the table, and says 'Imphm!
juist so!' very contentedly and cheerily. Soon the appetising aroma of
fried ham and eggs, which has been all the time in my nostrils, gives
place to the more pungent smell of strong brown twist smoked through a
clean clay pipe. This, however, is merely a whiff in passing, because
Nathan 'stands not upon the order of his going,' and in clean-smelling
corduroys and a cloud of fragrant pipe-reek he goes out into the early
morning sunshine, closing the door with a lingering, hesitating turn of
the handle, which, though gentle, seems loud and grating in the hush of
the dawning day.
How I wish I could walk with him these beautiful fresh sunny mornings
along the Carronbrig road! I follow him, alas! in imagination only; and
as he leaves the empty echoing street and passes under the leafy canopy
of the Cundy Wood I feel the pure caller air on my brow, I listen to the
hum of the bees in the limes, the sportive chatter of the sparrows in
the bushes, the rich, full-throated melody of the blackbird and mavis
from the wooded recesses of the Gillfoot--each feathered minstrel piping
his own song in his own way, and all in unison singing their paeans of
praise in their leafy, sun-kissed bowers. Gossamer-webs, silvered with
countless pearls of dew, stretch their glistening threads from leaf to
leaf, and cover the shady side of the hawthorn hedgerows as with a
gray-meshed silken veil. From rank, dewy grass humble blue-bells raise
their heads, and nod good-morning to white and blue-red stately
foxgloves standing sentinel o'er scarred red-earth banks and tangled
bramble thickets. Lowing cows, knee-deep in meadow grass and buttercups,
with swishing tails and pawing forelegs, impatiently await the opening
gate. And over all, on field and wood and hill and dale, lie the
glorious rays of God's own sunshine, diffusing warmth and gladness, and
filling nature anew with pulsing life.
The road lies broad and white before me, and I see Nathan's tall, gaunt
figure passing Longmire Mains, and I know the smell of the sweet
American gean is in his nostrils, and his gardener's eye is on the
fronded hart's-tongue ferns which here and there peep from the crevices
of the lichen-covered dike; by Meadow Bank, where the purple bloom still
crowns the spiked leaf branch of the rhododendron; on between the
hollies and silver birches at Dabton; through the sleepy village of
Carronbrig, where he is joined by moleskin-clad fellow-workers.
Staff in hand and pipe in mouth, at that regulation pace which is well
known as 'the Duke's step,' each wends his way through the green turf
holm, across the Nith by the stepping-stones, under the shadow of the
ruin-crowned Tibbers mound. As they near the scene of their daily darg,
tobacco 'dottles' are paper-padded and made secure, pipes are deposited
in sleeved-vest pockets, and where the white iron wicket clicks and
admits them to the low-lying stretch of fairy garden plots and
multi-coloured perfumed bowers I take my leave of them. God grant I may
soon be able to see with the living eye, and feel with the nature-loving
heart, the beauties and joys which now in imagination only are mine!
By degrees, and at rare intervals, Betty has relieved her mind to me
regarding Nathan. When I say 'relieved her mind,' I do not imply that
there is anything in Nathan's conduct or any remissness in his mode of
living which burdens Betty's thoughts. Far from it. Nathan is the best
of husbands--appreciative, kind, steady, and considerate. His wages--to
the uttermost farthing--are regularly given up to Betty's safe keeping.
All his spare hours are devoted to the large garden, whose produce from
January till December makes Betty's daily dinner of the bienest. Her
slightest wish is a command which he obeys with cheerfulness and
alacrity, and the quiet and composure of his presence is, I know, her
secret pride and mainstay. Yet she seems to be ever apologising for his
being about, and in speaking of him to me she invariably refers to him
as 'Nathan, puir falla,' with just the slightest suggestion of
commiseration in her tone.
I wonder why this should be, and it is beginning to dawn upon me that
Betty somehow imagines--wrongly, needless to say--that I look upon him
as an intruder, something foreign to the element of our home-life of
long ago; and, stranger still, I am conscious of that feeling in Nathan
also. Though I have been resident here for over two weeks, and though he
has cried upstairs to me every evening, he has only been twice in my
room; and on both occasions he stood awkwardly at the door, holding on
by the handle, and answering my questions with his head turned toward
the landing. During the past week I have managed to limp my way
downstairs, and on passing through the kitchen have stayed my steps to
ca' the crack with him. But 'Yes, sir,' 'No, sir,' 'Ay, ay; imphm!' have
so far been the sum-total of his contribution to the conversation. Some
day, however, I know Nathan will thaw; some day soon they will both know
the high esteem in which I hold him. In due season he will rid himself
of his backwardness and shyness, and I shall be glad, for his honest
blue eye and his pleasing serenity appeal to me, and I feel I want a
friend like Nathan Hebron.
To-night, after she had cleared away the remains of my homely supper,
Betty sat down with her knitting at my little attic window. I have two
pots of flowering musk and a lovely pelargonium in full bloom on my
sill, and under pretence of procuring Nathan's advice as to their
culture and well-being I inquired of Betty if she would ask him to come
upstairs.
'Most certainly, Maister Weelum,' said she, with a pleasant nod; and she
went out, returning a minute later with Nathan in her wake. I know he
had been sitting in his easy-chair smoking in silence, with his
stem-bonnet on and his shirt-sleeves rolled up, inactive, yet alert and
ready to fulfil any of Betty's little behests; but at Betty's summons he
had hastily donned a coat, and his head was bare.
After leisurely examining my plants and drawling out a few disjointed
directions, he turned to go downstairs; but I motioned him to a seat,
and, rather reluctantly, I thought, he sat down. I urged him to join me
in a smoke, and offered him a fill of my Edinburgh mixture; but he
declined my pouch; and, taking out a deerskin spleuchan, he nipped a
full inch of brown twist, teased it, rolled it in the palm of his rough,
horny hand, and meditatively filled the bowl of his clay cutty.
Betty noticed my little act of civility; but she plied her needles in
silence till Nathan had struck a light and begun smoking.
'Ay, Maister Weelum,' she said, as Nathan fitted the glowing bowl of his
pipe with a perforated metal cover, 'thae fancy ready-cut tobaccos are
no' much in the line o' oor Nathan, puir falla.'
'Is that so? Well, every man to his own taste; but, Betty, excuse my
asking so personal a question, why do you always refer to your goodman
here as "Nathan, puir falla"?'
Nathan looked surprisedly from me to Betty, and, after fumbling with his
match-box, struck another light when there was no necessity to do so;
while Betty laid her knitting on the table and thoughtfully pressed it
out lengthwise with the palm of her open hand.
'When ye mention it, noo, I daur say I div say "puir falla,"' she
answered; 'but, though I say that, I dinna mean it in ony temporal
sense, Maister Weelum. So far as this world is concerned, I've got the
very best man that ever lived; but'----and she looked at Nathan as if in
doubt how to proceed.
Nathan blew pipe-reek most vigorously; then he turned round to me with a
faint smile on his sober face, and he actually winked. 'She's--she's
sterted again, Maister Weelum,' he said with a side-nod toward Betty.
'Started what, Nathan?'
'Oh, the auld subject--imphm!'
'Ay,'--chimed in Betty, now sure of her opening, 'it's an auld subject,
but it's ever a new yin, a' the same. "'Tis old, yet ever new," as the
hymn-book has it. Ay, an' that _is_ true. As I said before, Maister
Weelum, I've nae concern regairdin' Nathan's welfare in this world.
We're promised only bread an' water, an' look hoo often he gets tea an'
chops, an' on what we ha'e saved there's every chance o' that diet bein'
continued as lang as he has teeth to chew wi'. But what o' the next
world? As Tammas Fraser aince said when he was takin' the Book, "Ah,
that's where the rub comes in!"' and she shook her head dolefully, as
much as to say, 'Nathan, you're a gone corbie!'
I looked from husband to wife in blank astonishment, not knowing what to
say. I had always looked upon Betty as a deeply religious woman, a true
disciple of the Great Master, but partaking more of the loving John than
the assertive Peter; and, often as I had heard her say a word in season,
I could not remember having listened to her expressing so pointedly her
fears and convictions.
She interpreted my thoughts aright; and after Nathan had, without
necessity, sparked another match, and almost succeeded in turning toward
us the full length and breadth of his long tankard back, she resumed.
'Your mother was a guid woman, Maister Weelum, an' I ken that often,
often, you were the burden o' her prayers. I never talked much on this
subject to you, kennin' that you were her ain particular chairge, an'
that her prayers, withoot my interference, wad be answered. But it's
different in the case o' Nathan here. He belangs to me, an' me to him.
My calling an' election 's sure, an' I juist canna bide the thocht o' us
bein' separated at the lang hinner-en'. It's no' that he 's a bad
man--far from it. Or it 's no' that he 's careless. I gi'e him credit
for bein' concerned in his ain wey; but he juist saunters on through
life, trustin' that things will somewey work oot a' richt, an' lettin'
the want, if there 's ony, come in at the wab's end. Ay, an' for a man
like him, that 's sae fond o' flo'ers an' dogs an' ither folks' weans,
it simply passes my comprehension hoo it is that he 's sae indifferent
to the greatest o' a' love an' the things that so closely concern his
immortal soul's salvation. Nae wonder I say, "Nathan, puir falla."'
Notwithstanding the gravity of the charge she had laid at Nathan's door,
I felt relieved to know that my surmises regarding the cause of his
attitude toward me were unfounded; and, with a note of encouragement in
my voice, I hinted to Betty that, after all, it was possible she was
unnecessarily worrying herself, as with two advocates like her and my
mother it would surely be well with both Nathan and me.
'Ah, Maister Weelum,' she said impressively, 'I ken fine that the
prayers o' the just availeth much; but aye bear in mind--Nathan, are ye
listenin'?--Ay--weel, bear in mind that every herrin' maun hing by its
ain heid. Mind that, the twae o' ye noo.'
This direct personal appeal rather discomposed me, and I didn't know
what to say. As for Nathan, he rose slowly from his chair, and, turning
round, he solemnly winked to me again. That wink somehow sealed a
compact between us. It placed us on a common platform, and established a
feeling of camaraderie which it would be hard for me to define.
'Ay, Betty,' he said, as he raised himself to his full height, 'you're a
wonderfu' woman--a wonderfu' woman!' and he yawned audibly; 'an' when it
comes to gab wark on sic a subject as ye 've ta'en in haun', John Clerk
the colporteur canna haud a cannel to ye. When ye stert on me like this
I aye gi'e ye plenty o' rope, an' I never gi'e it a tug; but ye 've
gi'en me a gey tatterin' afore Maister Weelum here, an' I wad just like
to put in my yelp noo.'
Betty gave him a surprised look, and I nodded and smiled encouragingly
toward him.
'I don't misdoot,' he continued, after he had loosened his cravat at his
throat, 'that there 's some truth in a few o' your remarks; but, dod,
lass, dinna forget that I'm tryin' my best.'
'In what wey, Nathan?' she promptly asked.
'Weel, let me consider noo. Ay, I don't think I ha'e missed a day at the
kirk since we were mairret. That's ae thing, onywey. Then we tak' the
Beuk regularly; an' forby that, Betty,' he said impressively, 'I was
five times at the prayer-meetin's wi' ye last year, and'----
'Prayer-meetin's!' said Betty; 'prayer-meetin's!' and she raised her
voice. 'Nathan Hebron, I'm astonished ye ha'e the audacity to mention
prayer-meetin's to me!'
'Hoo that, Betty?' he gravely asked.
'Hoo that? As if ye didna ken! My word, but that 's yin an' a half!--Do
you know this Maister Weelum; I had to stop takin' him to to the
prayer-meetin's, for he aye fell asleep. The last yin I took him to was
at Mrs Kennedy's. Not only did he sleep, but he snored wi' his heid
lyin' back an' his face to the ceilin'; an' when he waukened, it was in
the middle o' a silent prayer, an' he glimmered an' blinked at the
gaslicht, an' said he, wi' his een half-shut, "Betty, that 's rank
wastery burnin' the gas when we 're in oor sleepin' bed." Ashamed? I was
black affronted, Maister Weelum, an' among sae mony earnest folk, too.'
Goodness knows, I hold no brief for Nathan, but I ventured to say on his
behalf that, as he had been working in the open all day, and the room
was quiet and warm, he was, in a way, to be excused if he unconsciously
dovered.
'Ay, that's a' very weel; but I notice he never dovers, as ye ca' it, at
an Oddfellows' soiree.'
Nathan had quietly slipped downstairs before she reached the end of her
story, and in his absence she became confidential and communicative.
'I somewey think he means weel, but the road to hell is paved wi' guid
intentions. He's maybe the best specimen of the natural man that I ken
o'; but wae's me, that's no' sufficient. The seeds o' carelessness were
sown lang before I kenned him; an' tho' I maun alloo he has improved in
my haun', I see wee bit touches noo an' than o' the he'rt at enmity
which sometimes mak' me despair. For instance, the ither Sabbath-day nae
faurer gane, he sat doon efter his denner wi' a book, an' he looked
neither to left nor richt, but read on and on. "Nathan," says I, "what's
the book you're sae intent on?" "Oh, Betty," says he glibly, weel
kennin' that I didna gi'e in wi' orra readin' on the Lord's Day, "I've
faun in wi' a splendid book the day. It's ca'ed Baxter's--eh--_Saunts'
Everlastin' Rest_, an' it's the kind o' readin' I like." "Ay," says I,
weel pleased wi' the soond o' the title, "read on at that, Nathan.
Baxter's fu' o' rich refreshin' truths. Read slow noo, Nathan, an' tak'
it a' in." Weel, he never put it oot o' his haun till bedtime, except
when he was at his tea, an' then he slipped it into his coat-pocket; an'
the next day, when he was away at his wark, I cam' on it stappit doon
behin' the cushion o' his easy-chair; an' what think ye it was, Maister
Weelum? Guess noo what it was.'
'Baxter's _Saints' Everlasting Rest_, of course,' I said.
'Weel,' said Betty, 'that was printed on the loose covers that had aince
been the boards o' the holy volume o' that name; but the paper-covered
book that was inside was _The Experiences o' an Edinburgh Detective_, by
James MacGovan; an' d'ye ken this, Maister Weelum, I juist sat doon in
the middle o' my wark an' grat my he'rt-fill.'
Poor, dear Betty, she wept anew at the remembrance of Nathan's lapse,
then rolled her knitting into her apron, and went downstairs into the
kitchen. Ten minutes later, when I was having my last pipe for the
night, I heard her voice raised in the Beuk, and she was reading, with a
point and emphasis which I am sure Nathan could not misunderstand, the
story from the Acts of Ananias and his wife Sapphira.