CONFESSION OF SIN.
Mr. Crathie was slowly recovering, but still very weak. He did not, after
having turned the corner, get well so fast as his medical minister judged
he ought, and the reason was plain to Lizzy, dimly perceptible to his
wife: he was ill at ease. A man may have more mind and more conscience,
and more discomfort in both or either, than his neighbors give him credit
for. They may be in the right about him up to a certain point in his
history, but then a crisis, by them unperceived, perhaps to them
inappreciable, arrived, after which the man to all eternity could never be
the same as they had known him. Such a change must appear improbable, and
save on the theory of a higher operative power is improbable because
impossible. But a man who has not created himself can never secure himself
against the inroad of the glorious terror of that Goodness which was able
to utter him into being, with all its possible wrongs and repentances. The
fact that a man has never, up to any point yet, been aware of aught beyond
himself cannot shut Him out who is beyond him, when at last He means to
enter. Not even the soul-benumbing visits of his clerical minister could
repress the swell of the slow-mounting dayspring in the soul of the hard,
commonplace, business-worshiping man, Hector Crathie. The hireling would
talk to him kindly enough--of his illness or of events of the day,
especially those of the town and neighborhood, and encourage him with
reiterated expression of the hope that ere many days they would enjoy a
tumbler together as of old; but as to wrong done, apology to make,
forgiveness to be sought or consolation to be found, the dumb dog had not
uttered a bark.
The sources of the factor's restless discomfort were now two--the first,
that he had lifted his hand to women; the second, the old ground of his
quarrel with Malcolm brought up by Lizzy.
All his life, since ever he had had business, Mr. Crathie had prided
himself on his honesty, and was therefore in one of the most dangerous
moral positions a man could occupy--ruinous even to the honesty itself.
Asleep in the mud, he dreamed himself awake on a pedestal. At best, such a
man is but perched on a needlepoint when he thinketh he standeth. Of him
who prided himself on his honor I should expect that one day, in the long
run it might be, he would do some vile thing. Not, probably, within the
small circle of illumination around his wretched rushlight; but in the
great region beyond it, of what to him is a moral darkness or twilight
vague, he may be or may become capable of doing a deed that will stink in
the nostrils of the universe; and in his own when he knows it as it is.
The honesty in which a man can pride himself must be a small one, for mere
honesty will never think of itself at all. The limited honesty of the
factor clave to the interests of his employers, and let the rights he
encountered take care of themselves. Those he dealt with were to him
rather as enemies than friends--not enemies to be prayed for, but to be
spoiled. Malcolm's doctrine of honesty in horse-dealing was to him
ludicrously new. His notion of honesty in that kind was to cheat the buyer
for his master if he could, proud to write in his book a large sum against
the name of the animal. He would have scorned in his very soul the idea of
making a farthing by it himself through any business quirk whatever, but
he would not have been the least ashamed if, having sold Kelpie, he had
heard--let me say after a week of possession--that she had dashed out her
purchaser's brains. He would have been a little shocked, a little sorry
perhaps, but nowise ashamed. "By this time," he would have said, "the man
ought to have been up to her, and either taken care of himself or _sold
her again_"--to dash out another man's brains instead!
That the bastard Malcolm, or the ignorant and indeed fallen fisher-girl
Lizzy, should judge differently, nowise troubled him: what could they know
about the rights and wrongs of business? The fact which Lizzy sought to
bring to bear upon him, that our Lord would not have done such a thing,
was to him no argument at all. He said to himself, with the superior smile
of arrogated common sense, that "no mere man since the fall" could be
expected to do like Him; that He was divine, and had not to fight for a
living; that He set us an example that we might see what sinners we were;
that religion was one thing, and a very proper thing, but business was
another, and a very proper thing also--with customs, and indeed laws, of
its own far more determinate, at least definite, than those of religion;
and that to mingle the one with the other was not merely absurd--it was
irreverent and wrong, and certainly never intended in the Bible, which
must surely be common sense. It was _the Bible_ always with him--never
_the will of Christ_. But although he could dispose of the question thus
satisfactorily, yet, as he lay ill, supine, without any distracting
occupation, the thing haunted him. Now, in his father's cottage had lain,
much dabbled in of the children, a certain boardless copy of the
_Pilgrim's Progress_, round in the face and hollow in the back, in which,
amongst other pictures, was one of the Wicket-gate. This scripture of his
childhood, given by inspiration of God, threw out, in one of his troubled
and feverish nights, a dream-bud in the brain of the man. He saw the face
of Jesus looking on him over the top of the Wicket-gate, at which he had
been for some time knocking in vain, while the cruel dog barked loud from
the enemy's yard. But that face, when at last it came, was full of
sorrowful displeasure. And in his heart he knew that it was because of a
certain transaction in horse-dealing wherein he had hitherto lauded his
own cunning--adroitness, he considered it--and success. One word only he
heard from the lips of the Man, "Worker of iniquity!" and woke with a
great start. From that moment truths _began_ to be facts to him. The
beginning of the change was indeed very small, but every beginning is
small, and every beginning is a creation. Monad, molecule, protoplasm,
whatever word may be attached to it when it becomes appreciable by
men--being then, however, many stages, I believe, upon its
journey--beginning is an irrepressible fact; and, however far from good or
humble even after many days, the man here began to grow good and humble.
His dull, unimaginative nature, a perfect lumber-room of the world and its
rusting affairs, had received a gift in a dream--a truth from the lips of
the Lord, remodeled in the brain and heart of the tinker of Elstow, and
sent forth in his wondrous parable to be pictured and printed, and lie in
old Hector Crathie's cottage, that it might enter and lie in young Hector
Crathie's brain until he grew old and had done wrong enough to heed it,
when it rose upon him in a dream, and had its way. Henceforth the claims
of his neighbor began to reveal themselves, and his mind to breed
conscientious doubts and scruples, with which, struggle as he might
against it, a certain respect for Malcolm would keep coming and
mingling--a feeling which grew with its returns, until, by slow changes,
he began at length to regard him as the minister of God's vengeance for
his punishment, and perhaps salvation--who could tell?
Lizzy's nightly ministrations had not been resumed, but she often called,
and was a good deal with him; for Mrs. Crathie had learned to like the
humble, helpful girl still better when she found she had taken no offence
at being deprived of her post of honor by his bed-side. One day, when
Malcolm was seated, mending a net, among the thin grass and great red
daisies of the links by the bank of the burn where it crossed the sands
from the Lossie grounds to the sea, Lizzy came up to him and said, "The
factor wad like to see ye, Ma'colm, as sune 's ye can gang till 'im."
She waited no reply. Malcolm rose and went.
At the factor's the door was opened by Mrs. Crathie herself, who, looking
mysterious, led him to the dining-room, where she plunged at once into
business, doing her best to keep down all manifestation of the profound
resentment she cherished against him. Her manner was confidential, almost
coaxing. "Ye see, Ma'colm," she said, as if pursuing instead of commencing
a conversation, "he's some sore about the _fraicass_ between him an' you.
Jest make your apoalogies till 'im, an' tell 'im you had a drop too much,
and you're soary for misbehavin' yerself to wann sae much your shuperrior.
Tell 'im that, Ma'colm, an' there's a half-croon to ye."
She wished much to speak English, and I have tried to represent the thing
she did speak, which was neither honest Scotch nor anything like English.
Alas! the good, pithy, old Anglo-Saxon dialect is fast perishing, and a
jargon of corrupt English taking its place!
"But, mem," said Malcolm, taking no notice either of the coin or the words
that accompanied the offer of it, "I canna lee: I wasna in drink, an' I'm
no sorry."
"Hoot!" returned Mrs. Crathie, blurting out her Scotch fast enough now, "I
s' warran' ye can lee weel eneuch whan ye hae occasion. Tak yer siller an'
du as I tell ye."
"Wad ye hae me damned, mem?"
Mrs. Crathie gave a cry and held up her hands. She was too well accustomed
to imprecations from the lips of her husband for any but an affected
horror, but, regarding the honest word as a bad one, she assumed an air of
injury. "Wad ye daur to sweir afore a leddy?" she exclaimed, shaking her
uplifted hands in pretence of ghasted astonishment.
"If Mr. Crathie wishes to see me, ma'am," rejoined Malcolm, taking up the
shield of English, "I am ready. If not, please allow me to go."
The same moment the bell whose rope was at the head of the factor's bed
rang violently, and Mrs. Crathie's importance collapsed. "Come this w'y,"
she said, and turning led him up the stair to the room where her husband
lay.
Entering, Malcolm stood astonished at the change he saw upon the strong
man of rubicund countenance, and his heart filled with compassion. The
factor was sitting up in bed, looking very white and worn and troubled.
Even his nose had grown thin and white. He held out his hand to him, and
said to his wife, "Tak the door to ye, Mistress Crathie," indicating which
side he wished it closed from.
"Ye was some sair upo' me, Ma'colm," he went on, grasping the youth's
hand.
"I doobt I was _ower_ sair," said Malcolm, who could hardly speak for a
lump in his throat.
"Weel, I deserved it. But eh, Ma'colm! I canna believe it was me: it bude
to be the drink."
"It _was_ the drink," rejoined Malcolm; "an' eh, sir, afore ye rise frae
that bed sweir to the great God 'at ye'll never drink nae mair drams, nor
onything 'ayont ae tum'ler at a sittin'."
"I sweir 't, I sweir 't, Ma'colm!" cried the factor.
"It's easy to sweir 't noo, sir, but whan ye're up again it'll be hard to
keep yer aith.--O Lord!" spoke the youth, breaking out into almost
involuntary prayer, "help this man to haud troth wi' Thee!--An' noo,
Maister Crathie," he resumed, "I'm yer servan', ready to du onything I
can. Forgi'e me, sir, for layin' on ower sair."
"I forgi'e ye wi' a' my hert," returned the factor, inly delighted to have
something to forgive.
"I thank ye frae mine," answered Malcolm, and again they shook hands.
"But eh, Ma'colm, my man!" he added, "hoo will I ever shaw my face again?"
"Fine that!" returned Malcolm, eagerly. "Fowk's terrible guid-natur'd whan
ye alloo 'at ye're 'i the wrang. I do believe 'at whan a man confesses
till 's neebor an' says he's sorry, he thinks mair o' 'im nor afore he did
it. Ye see we a' ken we hae dune wrang, but we haena' a' confessed. An'
it's a queer thing, but a man 'll think it gran' o' 's neebor to confess,
when a' the time there's something he winna repent o' himsel', for fear o'
the _shame_ o' haein to confess 't. To me, the shame lies in _no_
confessin' efter ye ken ye're wrang. Ye'll see, sir, the fisher-fowk 'll
min' what ye say to them a heap better noo."
"Div ye railly think it, Ma'colm?" sighed the factor with a flush.
"I div that, sir. Only whan ye grow better, gien ye'll alloo me to say't,
sir, ye maunna lat Sawtan temp' ye to think 'at this same repentin' was
but a wakeness o' the flesh, an' no an enlichtenment o' the speerit."
"I s' tie mysel' up till 't," cried the factor eagerly. "Gang an' tell
them i' my name 'at I tak back ilka scart o' a nottice I ever gae ane o'
them to quit, only we maun hae nae mair stan'in' o' honest fowk 'at comes
to bigg herbors till them. Div ye think it wad be weel ta'en gien ye tuik
a poun'-nott the piece to the twa women?"
"I wadna du that, sir, gien I was you," answered Malcolm. "For yer ain
sake, I wadna to Mistress Mair, for naething wad gar her tak it: it wad
only affront her; an' for Nancy Tacket's sake, I wadna to her, for as her
name so's her natur: she wad not only tak it, but she wad lat ye play the
same as aften's ye likit for less siller. Ye'll hae mony a chance o'
makin' 't up to them baith, ten times ower, afore you an' them pairt,
sir."
"I maun lea' the cuintry, Ma'colm."
"'Deed, sir, ye'll du naething o' the kin'. The fishers themsel's wad rise
no to lat ye, as they did wi' Blew Peter! As sune's ye're able to be aboot
again, ye'll see plain eneuch 'at there's no occasion for onything like
that, sir. Portlossie wadna ken 'tsel' wantin' ye. Jist gie me a
commission to say to the twa honest women 'at ye're sorry for what ye did,
an' that's a' 'at need be said atween you an' them, or their men aither."
The result showed that Malcolm was right, for the very next day, instead
of looking for gifts from him, the two injured women came to the factor's
door--first Annie Mair with the offering of a few fresh eggs, scarce at
the season, and after her Nancy Tacket with a great lobster.