A NEW EXPERIENCE.
For the next six weeks Alec Lindsay’s life was one unvarying round of
lectures, and preparation for lectures. For recreation he had football
on the College Green, long walks on Saturday afternoons, and long
debates with his friend Cameron. The debates, however, were not very
frequent, for the Highlander was working twelve hours a day.
‘I mean to get a first-class in surgery,’ he said to Alec one Saturday
night, as the two sat over their pipes in Alec’s sitting-room; ‘and
then perhaps the Professor will ask me to be an assistant. If he does,
my fortune is made, for I know my work.’
‘Ay, that’s the great thing,’ said Alec absently. ‘Don’t you ever go to
church, Cameron?’ he added abruptly.
‘As seldom as I can,’ said the other, with a side look at his
companion; ‘but don’t take me for a guide.’
‘I can’t help it,’ replied the lad, still gazing into the fire; ‘we all
take our neighbours for guides, whether we acknowledge it or not.’
‘More or less, no doubt.’
‘Don’t you think one _ought_ to go to church?’
‘How can I tell? Every man for himself, my lad.’
‘That won’t do,’ answered Alec, rousing himself and facing his friend;
‘right’s right, and wrong’s wrong; what is right for one man must be
right for every man--under the same circumstances, I mean.’
‘Will you just tell me,’ said Cameron, half defiantly, ‘what good going
to church can do me? I know the psalms almost by heart, and I know the
chapters the minister reads almost as well. As for the prayers, half
of them aren’t prayers at all, and the other half I could say as weel
at hame, if I had a mind. And the sermons!--man, Alec, ye canna say ye
think they can do good to any living creature.’
‘Some of them, perhaps.’
‘When I find a minister that doesna tell us the same thing over, and
over, and over again, and use fifty words to say what might be said in
five, to spin out the time, I’ll reconsider the p’int,’ said Cameron.
‘But you believe there’s a God,’ said Alec.
‘That’s a lang stap furret,’ said the other.
‘But do you?’
‘Well, I do, and I dinna. I don’t believe in the Free Kirk God. It’s
hard to think this warl could mak’ itsel’: but I hae my doots.’
‘Then you’re an Agnostic?’
‘What if I am? Are ye scunnered?’[1]
‘No--and yet----’
‘Or what if I should tell you I have chosen some other religion? Why
should I be a Presbyterian? Because I was born in Scotland. That’s the
only reason I’ve been able to think of, and it doesn’t seem to me to be
up to much.’
Alec was secretly shocked, though he thought it more manly not to show
it.
‘I believe in the Bible,’ he said at last.
‘That doesna help you much,’ said Cameron, with some contempt.
‘Baptists, Independents, Episcopalians, the very Papists themsel’s, and
thae half-heathen Russians, wad tell ye that they believe in the Bible.
Ye micht as weel tell a judge, when he ca’ed on you for an argument,
that ye believe in an Act o’ Parliament.’
‘Hae ye an aitlas?’ he continued after a pause. ‘Here’s one.’
He turned to a ‘Mercator’s projection’ at the beginning of the volume,
and scratched the spot which represented Scotland with his pencil. He
then slightly shaded England, the United States, and Holland, and put
in a few dots in Germany and Switzerland.
‘There!’ he said, as he pushed the map across the table; ‘that’s your
Presbyterian notion o’ Christendom. There’s a glimmerin’ in England and
the States, but only in bonny Scotland does the true licht shine full
and fair. As for Germany, Holland, an’ Switzerland, they’re unco dry,
no tae say deid branches. The rest o’ mankind--total darkness!’
‘But you might have said the same thing of Christianity itself at one
time, and of every religion in the world, for that matter,’ protested
Alec.
‘Nae doot,’ retorted Cameron, ‘but that was at the beginning. This is
Christianity, according to the gospel o’ John Knox and Company after
nineteen centuries! A poor show for nineteen hunder’ years--a mighty
poor show!’
He got up as he spoke, and knocking the ashes out of his pipe,
prepared to move to his own quarters.
‘Let’s change the subject,’ said Alec. ‘Here’s a letter I got this
morning, and I don’t know how to answer it.’
‘What’s this?’ said the older man, taking the thick sheet of paper
between the tips of his fingers. ‘“Mr. James Lindsay presents his
compliments to Mr. Alexander Lindsay, and requests the pleasure of
his company at dinner on Tuesday the 27th inst., at half-past six.
Blythswood Square, December, 187-.” Is this old James Lindsay o’
Drumleck?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you a connection of his?’
‘Grand-nephew.’
‘And why can’t you answer the note?’
‘I don’t want to go. I haven’t been brought up to this sort of thing,
and I don’t care to go out of my way to make myself ridiculous in a
rich man’s house. Besides, I don’t want to go to the expense of a suit
of dress clothes. And then, my uncle and I were not particularly
smitten with each other when I saw him last.’
‘Don’t be a fool, Alec,’ said Cameron quietly. ‘You can’t afford to
throw away the friendship of a man worth twenty thousand a year.’
‘That phrase always reminds me,’ remarked Alec, ‘of what one of the
Erskines--I don’t remember which of them it was--once said, when some
one said in his company that so-and-so had died worth three hundred
thousand pounds--“Did he indeed, sir? And a very pretty sum, too, to
begin the next world with.”’
Cameron smiled grimly.
‘You’ll have to go, Alec,’ he repeated; ‘and you needn’t be afraid of
appearing ridiculous. Do as you see others do, and keep a lown sail;
better seem blate than impident.’
‘My father would be in a fine way if he heard that my uncle had invited
me, and that I had refused the invitation,’ said Lindsay.
‘And quite right too,’ rejoined Cameron. ‘Besides, Alec, the old man
is your father’s uncle, and you ought to show him some respect.’
‘That wasn’t the reason you put in the forefront,’ said Alec slyly.
For reply Cameron, who had reached the door, picked up a Greek grammar,
flung it at his friend’s head as he muttered something in Gaelic, and
banging the door behind him, ascended to his own domicile.
Exactly at the appointed hour Alec presented himself at his
grand-uncle’s house in Blythswood Square. The square had once been
fashionable, and was still something more than respectable, because
the houses were too large to be inhabited by people of moderate means;
but the situation was dull and gloomy to the last degree. Within,
however, there was a very different scene. Entrance-hall, staircase,
drawing-room, were all as brilliant as gas-jets could make them. The
walls, even of the passages, were lined with pictures, good, bad, and
indifferent. Every landing, every corner, held a statue, or at least a
statuette, or a bust upon a pedestal.
When Alec was ushered into the drawing-room, he could hardly see for
the blaze of light; he could hardly move for little tables laden with
china, ormolu, and bronzes. Fortunately, Sir Peter and Lady Colquhoun
were entering the reception-room just as Alec reached it, so that he
made his entrance in their wake, and, as it were, under their lee.
The room was already pretty well filled, and more guests were
continually arriving. On the hearth-rug stood a little old man, with a
mean, inexpressive face, scanty hair which was still gray, thin gray
whiskers, small eyes, and a fussy consequential air. When he spoke, it
was in a high-pitched, rasping voice; and he invariably gave one the
impression that he was insisting upon being noticed and attended to.
This was Mr. Lindsay of Drumleck. He stared at Alec for an instant,
then gave him his hand in silence, and, without addressing a word to
him, continued his conversation with the Lord Provost’s wife. Alec’s
face flushed. His first impulse was to walk out of the room, and out
of the house; but on second thoughts he saw that that course would not
even be dignified. He retreated to a corner, and set himself to watch
the company.
For the most part they sat nearly silent--fat baillies and their
well-nourished wives--hard-featured damsels of thirty or forty summers,
in high-necked dresses and Brussels lace collars--one or two stout
ministers--such was the assembly. Alec was astonished. He had expected,
somehow, that he should meet people of a different type.
‘Take one or two dozen people from behind the shop-counters in
Argyle Street,’ he said to himself (with boyish contempt for the
disappointing), ‘or even a few Muirburn ploughmen and weavers, give
them plenty of money, and in three weeks they would be quite as fine
ladies and gentlemen as any I see here.’
As the thought passed through the boy’s mind, the door was thrown
open, and the names of ‘Professor Taylor and Miss Mowbray’ were
announced. A tall, lean man, with long hair and crumpled old-fashioned
garments, entered, and beside him walked a young lady with her eyes on
the ground.
She was dressed in a cream-coloured costume, with just a fleck of
colour here and there. She was indeed remarkably pretty, and possessed
a soft, childlike grace which was more captivating than beauty alone
would have been. She had a small, well-rounded figure--a little more
and it would have been plump--abundant dark-brown hair, and a soft,
peach-like complexion. Her eyelashes were unusually long; and when,
reaching her host, she half-timidly raised her eyes to his, Alec (who
was sitting in the background) felt a little thrill of pleasure at the
mere sight of their dark loveliness.
She was the first lady, the first young lady, at least, whom he had
seen, and he looked at her as if she were a being to be worshipped.
But Laura Mowbray was indeed pretty enough to have turned the head of a
more experienced person than the laird’s son.
Professor Taylor and his niece moved to one side; her dress almost
brushed against Alec. She glanced at him for an instant; without
intending it he dropped his eyes, and the girl looked in another
direction with a little inward smile.
In three or four minutes dinner was announced, and Laura fell to the
care of James Semple (the cousin who had taken Alec’s place at the
oil-works), who had just come in. There were more men than women in the
party, and Alec and one or two of the less wealthy guests were left to
find their way into the dining-room by themselves at the end of the
procession. Fortune, however, favoured Alec. When he took his seat, he
found that he was sitting between a pale, inoffensive-looking youth
and--Laura Mowbray.
He literally did not dare to look at her, much less to address her; he
was not sure, indeed, whether the rules of society allowed him to do
so in the absence of an introduction. In a little time, however, his
shyness wore off; he watched his opportunity; but before he found one,
his neighbour remarked in her soft English accent, and in the sweetest
of tones:
‘What dreadful fogs you have in Glasgow!’
Alec made some reply, and the ice once broken, he made rapid progress.
‘Everybody I meet seems to be related to somebody else, or connected
with some one I have met before,’ said Miss Mowbray. ‘You have all
so many relations in this part of the country, and you seem never to
forget any of them. In London it is different. People seldom know their
next-door neighbours; and it is just a chance whether they keep up
cousinships, and so on, or not.’
‘Really? I think that is very unnatural.’
‘Oh! _so_ unnatural! Life in London is so dreadfully conventional and
superficial. Don’t you think so?’
‘I dare say; but I have never been in London.’
‘Have you, Mr. Semple?’ she asked of the gentleman on her left.
‘No, I haven’t,’ he answered shortly.
He did not approve of Miss Mowbray paying any attention to Alec,
regarding her as for the time being his property. On this Laura left
off talking to Alec, and devoted herself to the amusement of Mr. Semple.
Soon, however, she took advantage of his attention being claimed by the
lady on his left, to turn again with a smile to Alec.
‘Mr. Semple tells me you are at College. My uncle is a professor there,
but he has hardly any students, because history is not a compulsory
subject in the examinations. How do you like being at College?’
Alec was grateful for her interest in him, and gave her his impressions
of College life. Then she turned once more to her legitimate
entertainer, who was by that time at liberty.
Alec had already had far more intercourse with his lovely neighbour
than he had dared to hope for; but the dinner was a long one; and as
Mr. Semple’s left-hand neighbour happened to be a maiden aunt with
money, she was able to compel his attention once more before the close
of the meal.
‘You live in a beautiful part of the country, I believe,’ Miss Mowbray
remarked to Alec.
‘I don’t know; I like it, of course; but I don’t know that it is finer
than any country with wood and a river.’
‘Oh, you _have_ a river? I am so passionately fond of river scenery.’
‘Yes, and we have a castle,’ replied Alec; and before the ladies rose
he had described not only the castle, but the moorland and the romantic
dell which was his sister’s favourite retreat, to his much-interested
neighbour.
When at length the ladies followed Miss Lindsay--a distant relation who
superintended Mr. Lindsay’s establishment--out of the room, Alec felt
as if the evening had suddenly come to an end.
Semple, who had vouchsafed him rather a cool nod in the evening, tried
in vain to make him talk.
‘How do you like College?’
‘Pretty well.’
‘Dreadful underbred set. Why don’t you go to Oxford?’
Alec made no reply.
‘Or Edinburgh--they are a much better class of men at Edinburgh, I’m
told.’
And Mr. Semple turned away to join a conversation about ‘warrants,’
and ‘premiums,’ and ‘vendor’s shares,’ ‘corners,’ ‘contangos,’ and
‘quotations,’ which to Alec was simply unintelligible.
At the other end of the table a conversation of another character
was in progress--one hardly less interesting to those who took part
in it, and hardly more interesting to an outsider. It seemed that a
wealthy congregation of United Presbyterians had built themselves an
organ at considerable expense, without obtaining the sanction of their
co-religionists; and an edict had gone forth that the organ must be
silent on Sundays, but might be used for the delectation of those who
attended the prayer-meeting on Wednesday evenings.
‘I look upon it as the thin end of the wedge,’ said the Reverend Hector
MacTavish, D.D., striking his fist on his knee. ‘You begin with hymns,
many of them wish-washy trash, some of them positively unscriptural.
Then you must have a choir for the tunes, as if the old-fashioned long
metre and common metre were not good enough; then comes an organ; then
the Lord’s Prayer is used as a part of the ritual--mark you, as a part
of the ritual--I have no objection to the Lord’s Prayer when it is not
used on formal, stated occasions. After that, you have a liturgy.’
‘No, no, Doctor; you are going too fast,’ murmured one of the audience.
‘And I maintain that with a liturgy there is an end to the
distinctively Presbyterian form of worship.’
‘But where would you draw the line?’ inquired a mild, sallow-faced
young man who had imbibed his theological opinions at Heidelberg, and
was in consequence suspected of latitudinarianism, if not of actual
heresy.
‘Where our fathers drew it, at the Psalms of Tavid!’ thundered Mr.
MacTavish, striking his unoffending knee once more.
‘Then I fear you render Union impossible,’ said the young minister.
‘And what if I do, sir?’ said Dr. MacTavish loftily; ‘in my opinion
we Free Churchmen are ferry well as we are, and need no new lights to
illuminate us.’
The young man received the covert sneer at his German training and his
liberal ideas with a smile; and Alec listened no longer, but relapsed
into dreamland. The dispute, however, continued long after most of the
men had returned to the drawing-room, and Alec rose from his chair
while an animated discussion was in progress on the point whether
the use of an organ was favourable to spiritual worship or tended to
sensuousness, and whether the fact that the New Testament was silent on
the subject, condemned the organ and its followers by anticipation.
When Alec entered the drawing-room, Miss Mowbray was singing. He
retreated to a corner and stood as one spell-bound. He watched for an
opportunity of speaking to her again, but there was none; however,
on passing him on her way to the door on her uncle’s arm, she gave
him a little bow and smile, which he regarded as another proof of her
sweetness of disposition.
The theologians had not finished their disputations, and were
continuing them in a corner of the drawing-room, when Alec took his
departure.
He walked back to his poor and empty room with his head among the
stars. She had talked with him, smiled upon him, treated him as an
equal. He would find out where she lived, and contrive to meet her
again. How lovely she was, how sweet, how pure, how good! The wide
earth, Alec Lindsay was firmly convinced, contained no mortal fit
for one moment to be compared with the girl whose soft brown eyes
and gentle, almost appealing, looks still made his heart beat as he
remembered them.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Disgusted.