"The honest man, howe'er so poor,
Is king of men for a' that."
John Beaton's father had been John Beaton also, and so had _his_ father
before him. The first John had farmed a three-cornered nook of land,
which had found a place among the grey stones scattered closely over a
certain part of the high coast that looks down upon one of the narrow
bays setting in from the North Sea.
He must have been a strong man, this John, for on this bit of land he
lived and laboured for sixty years and more, and on it he brought up,
and then sent out, to make a place for themselves, in their own, or in
other land's, five strong sons and four fair daughters. And he had so
brought them up that never, as long as he lived, did he, or any one
else, hear aught of son or daughter to cause him to bow his good grey
head before the face of man.
One son, neither the eldest nor the youngest, stayed near home. First
he had broken stones on one of the great highways which they were
stretching through Scotland about that time. Then he learned to cut and
dress the grey granite of his native hills, and then to build it into
houses, under another man's eye, and at another man's bidding. After a
time he took his turn, first as overseer, and then as master-builder,
and succeeded, and men began to speak of him as a rising man, and one
well-to-do in the world. All this was before he had got beyond middle
life.
Then he married a woman "much above him," it was said, but that was a
mistake. For though Marion Sinclair came of a good stock, and had all
her life lived in a home well placed and well plenished, among folk who
might have thought themselves, and whom others might have thought to be
John Beaton's superiors, yet no man or woman of them all had a right to
look down on John Beaton. He stood firm on his own feet, in a place
which his own hand had won. No step had he ever taken which he had
needed to go back upon, nor had he ever had cause to cast down his eyes
before the face of man because of any doubtful deed done, or false word
spoken.
And Marion Sinclair, no longer in her first youth, might well go a proud
and happy bride to the home of a man wise and strong, far-seeing,
honest, and successful--one who loved her dearly, as a man of middle age
may love, who in his youth has told himself that he had neither will nor
time for such sweet folly.
With all his strong and sterling qualities he was regarded by the world
in general, as, perhaps, a little hard and self-opinioned. But he was
never hard to her, or to the one son who was born to them. He exacted
what was his due from the rest of the world, but he was always soft and
yielding to them in all things. He was proud of his success and of his
good name in the countryside, and he offended some of those who came
into contact with him by letting his pride in all this be too plainly
seen. But he was prouder far of his wife, and his happy home, and of
his young son, with whom, to his thought, no prince in all the land
could compare.
And so it went well with him, till one day the end came suddenly. A
broken bank, a dishonoured name, scathe and scorn to some--to him among
the rest--who was, God knows, neither in deed nor in thought guilty of
the sin which had brought ruin upon thousands.
He made a gallant stand for his good name and his well-earned fortune,
and for his fellow-sufferers; but he was an old man by this time, and he
died of it.
Mrs Beaton had never all her life been a strong woman, and had never
needed to think and act for herself in trying circumstances. She had
not the skill to plan nor the strength to execute, and it was too late
to begin now. But she could endure, and she did so, with long patience;
and though her face grew thin and white, she gave no sign of anger, or
discontent, or of breaking down under her troubles, as all her little
world had believed she would surely do.
Amid the din and dulness of the great town in which they first took
refuge for a while, she made a home for her son, and waited patiently to
see what his young strength might do for them both, and never, by word
or look, made his struggle for standing room in the crowd harder for
him, or his daily disappointment worse to bear.
He fought his way to standing room at last--standing room at a high desk
in a dark office, at work which he had still to learn, and which, though
he loathed it, he might have learned to do in time if it had not
"floored him" first.
"Mother," he cried one night in despair, "let us get away from this
place--anywhere, where there is room to breathe. I will work with my
hands as my father did before me. There are still surely stones to
break somewhere up there in the north. We'll get fresh air at least."
So, without a word of doubt or of expostulation, she made haste to get
ready, while they had yet the means of going, and they went north
together, where they found, indeed, fresh air, and for a time they found
nothing else. But fresh air was something to rejoice in, since it
brought back the colour to the lad's cheeks and lightened the heart of
the mother, and they kept up one another's courage as well as might be.
A chance to earn their bread, that was all John wanted, and it came at
last; but it was dry bread only for a while.
"What can you do? And what are you willing to do?" said a man who was
the overseer of other men, and whom John had seen several times at the
place where his work was done. John answered:
"I am willing to do anything. And I think I could break stones."
"I think I see you!" said the man with a shrug.
"I only wish I had a chance to show you. I think I might even chip awa'
at cutting them, to as good purpose as some of those lads yonder."
"Here, Sandy," said the overseer. "Gie this lad your hammer, and let
him try his hand, for the fun o' the thing."
The man laughed, but John Beaton was in earnest. In a minute his coat
was off, and he set to work with a will. He needed a hint or two, and
he got them, with a little banter thrown in. The lad stuck to his work,
and could, as his friend said, "do no' that ill." He had perhaps
inherited the power to do the work, since he could do it, he thought,
and he asked leave to come again in the morning.
"Ye hae earned your shilling," said the overseer, when it was time to
go, and he held one out to John. He hardly expected the lad to take it,
but he took it gladly, and looked at it, the man thought, in a curious
way.
"Is it the first shilling ye ever earned?" said he.
"The very first! May I come back to-morrow?"
"O, ay! gin ye like; but I should think that this is hardly the kind o'
work ye're best fitted for."
"One must take what one can get," said John.
That was the beginning. He went again, and as hands happened to be
scarce at the time, he was kept on, and his wages were raised as his
skill and his strength increased. By and by he was offered permanent
work on a mill that was to be built in a country place at some distance.
It would take months to build, and he would be sure of work for that
time; so he took his mother with him, and what household stuff they had
left, and lived in a tiny room in a cottage for a while.
Not very far from the new mill was Nethermuir, a quiet place, out of the
way, where they might live, they said to one another, unknown and
forgotten. And here, after many thoughts about it, they resolved to
make themselves a home.
At the end of the street on which stood the missionary kirk and manse,
was a small house which had once been of the better sort, but which had
been vacant for some time, and had fallen into disrepair. The thatch
was rotten and the roof had partly fallen in, but the foundation was
firm, and the walls were thick and strong. This house John leased for
seven years, at a very small rent, and by his own strength, and skill,
and will, with some help from his fellow-workmen, he made of it such a
house as was not unworthy of being a home for his mother; and in it,
while her son went here and there as his work called him, she lived
content.
Terrible as the blow was which took from them husband and father and
home, it might have been worse in the end had John Beaton died a rich
man. So said some of the lookers-on, who long before that time had
declared that his son, having all his life long got more of his own will
than was good for him, was in a fair way to become a "spoiled laddie" at
last.
Some said it who envied the lad, and others said it who loved him well,
and it is possible that they were not far wrong in the belief. John the
younger was a "bonny lad," tall and strong, sweet-tempered and
light-hearted, a favourite with all. But he was open to temptation like
the rest of his kind, even more so than many, and not all of those who
gathered round him in his prosperous days were of the sort likely to
influence him for good. He went through the first years at the
university without getting much good from it, it was said. He had
disappointed his father greatly, as well as his teachers; but though he
had been foolish and idle, he had not disgraced himself by anything
beyond idleness and folly. Whether he would have gone through the
course without doing worse, might be questioned.
The chance was not given him. His father died, and instead of
inheriting what would have been called wealth among those who were his
friends, he found himself penniless, having his own bread, and possibly
his mother's also, to win. And seeing there was good stuff in the lad,
his mother's helplessness and desolation might be the saving of him,
said one of his mother's humble friends.
They had friends--yes, many of them--but some of them had suffered loss
as they themselves had suffered, and had no power to help except with
kind words. Others who had the power to help had not the will, or only
the will to help in their own way. Others added to their offers advice
that could not be followed, or they hurt the sore hearts of the lad and
his mother with words which implied censure on the dead, because he had
not foreseen and provided against the coming of evil days. And so,
seeing no help among "kenned folk," the two went out, "not knowing
whither they went."
They had gone away bravely enough, and even through the dark days which
came first, it cannot be said that they quite lost heart or hope. As
long as his mother was content, John told himself, he did not care what
fell to him to do or to endure; and as long as John was well, and within
reach of hand or voice, it was well with the mother. It was not till
the first months were over that John's heart seemed to fail. When the
mill was finished, instead of going with the men to other work in
another direction, he remained in Nethermuir, hoping to find something
to do in the neighbourhood, so that he might be near his mother. He
found enough to do for a time in making the little house a comfortable
and even beautiful home for her. Then he prepared the neglected bit of
ground around it for a garden and took pleasure in doing it. It was
work which he liked, and which he knew how to do, but it put nothing
into the family purse, which was getting low, and something must be done
to replenish it.
He worked for a few weeks in harvest in the narrow fields of Peter
Gilchrist, and to good purpose, though the work was new to him; and he
made friends with Peter himself, which was something. But the harvest
wore over and winter was coming on, and then he wrote to Jamie Dunn, his
first friend, saying he was now ready and willing to go wherever he
should be sent.
But in his heart he knew that for the only work which was left to him to
do, he was neither ready nor willing, nor for the kind of life which he
saw stretching a long, weary way before him.
He could do as his father had done before him, he told his mother
cheerfully, and who had done better than he? But to himself he owned
that this was to be doubted. He could never do as his father had done;
he was not the man his father had been, or he could never have played
the fool, wasting his time and losing his opportunities, as he had done.
He had been spoiled with softness, with idle days, and the pleasant
things of life, which he could not forget, and which, like a weakling,
he was in his secret heart longing for still. And even his father had
not won what men called success, and a firm footing among his fellows,
till the best part of his life was over.
But his father had been content through all his days as they came, and
with his day's work and his day's wages. And his father had known his
own strength and could bide his time. As for his son, John told himself
that he was neither strong nor wise. He knew, or he feared at this
time, that only the thought of his mother and her need of him kept him
from despair.
He called it despair, poor lad, not knowing what he said. The depths of
despair came to him with the thought of enlisting as a common soldier,
to go away and live his life with as little exercise of his own will as
the musket he carried, and to death and a nameless grave. Or it meant
to sail away before the mast, a slave to some tyrant who held the power
of life and death, because he held the power of the lash. And it might
have come to one or other of these possibilities with him, if it had not
been for his mother and her need of him.
For the dead level of the life which he saw stretching out before him
seemed even worse to him than that--the life of ceaseless,
ill-remunerated labour, the companionship of men grown dull through a
changeless routine of toilsome days, or debased through ignorance or
self-indulgence, a life and a companionship with which he might at last
grow content, being no stronger or wiser than other men.
These were dark days for the young man. At last he took his mother's
gently spoken words of counsel to heart, and opened the box in which she
had secretly packed his college-books, and where they had lain hidden
all this time. But the sight of them, and the associations they called
up, made him heartsick and ashamed, and it was only by the exercise of
strong self-restraint that he made himself pretend to take some interest
in them for his mother's sake. After this he fell into the way of
taking long walks in all directions, and did a turn of work here and
there as he could get it, and generally came home hungry, and tired, and
ready for his bed, so that no reading could be expected of him.
But the days were growing short, and the dark hours many and long, and
the mother's heart "grew wae" for her son many a time. By and by
something happened.
It was a good thing for the minister's Davie that John Beaton was within
sound of the voices of the lad's terrified companions the day that he
fell into "Burney's Pot," and it was a good thing also for John. The
little lad was nearly gone when he was pulled out of the water, and
having no knowledge of his home or name, since his young companions had
taken to their heels as soon as they saw Davie safe, John took him home
to his mother, and together they did what could be done for his help.
This was the beginning. Davie was allowed to fall asleep in Mrs
Beaton's bed, and in the gloaming John carried him home wrapped in a
blanket, and then he saw the minister and his wife and Marjorie. It was
the beginning for John of more than can well be told.
His manner of life from that time was changed. Not that he went often
to the manse at first, though the door was always open to him, and a
welcome awaiting him. But the life he saw there, the words he heard,
and the spirit that showed in all that was done, or said, or planned, in
great things and in small, came like a new revelation to him; and the
more he saw and thought of it all, the less he thought about his own
loss and his changed life and his unhopeful prospects.
He had more days of leisure that winter than well pleased him, but not
one of them was spent in wandering aimlessly about the dreary hills. He
had company, most days, wherever he went. If he had not Robin or Jack,
there was always Davie, who seemed to think he had a special claim upon
him. Davie had not yet been promoted to a seat in the parish school,
but was beginning to think himself, at eight, too big a boy for Mistress
Jamieson's rule, since he could say the Catechism from end to end,
proofs and petitions and all. With Davie trotting along at his side,
John had little chance for brooding. Besides, he had taken to his books
again, and meant to employ his leisure and make up for lost time if such
a thing might be. It was not likely that he would have much use for
Latin or Logic in the life that lay before him, he told himself; but he
might as well make the most of the idle days, and keep his mind from
stagnation.
And he had less of leisure after a while. It was about this time that
he began to try his hand at the making of "headstones" for the kirkyard.
Chance put such work in his way, and being ready of hand and quick of
eye, and having long patience and much need of a job, he set to work
with a will. He did not succeed in pleasing himself, but he pleased his
employer, which answered the purpose; and he did more at the work, at
odd times, when he could get nothing else to do.
The life which he saw lived in the manse did something for him, and the
Word as it was held forth in the little kirk did more; but that came
long afterward. The minister was the busiest of men, either among his
books or among his people, or in his garden or his land; but he was
never too busy for a cheery word to John, or for help or counsel to any
one who needed them. And the same might be said of the minister's wife.
She was active and had enough to do at home, but she was glad to help
those who needed help anywhere. She had good sense and good judgment,
and was ready with sweet words or sharp words, as the case presented
seemed to demand. She was firm where firmness seemed to be required,
but had long patience and unfailing gentleness in her dealings with the
weak and even with the wilful; and as the days passed, John took heed of
her words and ways with ever-growing interest.
She had not an easy life, but she had usually firm health and she had a
cheerful nature, and the peace of God was in her heart. So she "stood
in her lot" strong and unafraid, whatever might befall.
She was a loving mother to her sons, but her rule was firm as well as
gentle. There was no need in that house to appeal to the father's
stronger will where obedience was not promptly given. It was a serious
matter indeed that needed an appeal to their father. To the lads their
mother's word was law. Not that the law was not forgotten sometimes, or
even wilfully broken in times of strong temptation. But confession of
sins, though not always prompt, was, in course of time, quite certain.
She had their confidence entirely. It was an unhappy boy, indeed, who
carried about, for even a few days, a sinful or sorrowful secret hidden
from his mother.
In among these lads John came as another brother, and Mrs Hume was kind
and gracious in her intercourse with him. She was faithful also, and
told him of faults and failings which his own mother never acknowledged,
and helped him to correct them, as, even had she seen them, his own
mother might have hesitated to do. It was, indeed, a good day for John
when the door of the manse was opened to him.
And then there was Marjorie, poor little soul, who was nearly nine, and
who looked like six, a fair, weak little creature, who could only walk a
step or two at a time, and who was yet as eager to know, and to do, and
to be in the midst of things as the strongest of them all. "Another
brother," she called their new friend, who had more sense and patience
than Robin or Jack, and who could carry her so easily and strongly
without being tired. It was a happy day for Marjorie when John came in
to see her. It was better than a new book, she thought, to hear him
talk.
"And a new book is so soon done with," said Marjorie, who did not see
very many new books, and who had usually learned them by heart before
she had had them many days. But John had always something to tell her.
He told her about new places and new people, and he had seen the sea,
and had sailed on it. He had been in London and had seen the king and
the queen, "like the travelled cat," as Robin said. And there was no
end to the stories he could tell her that she had never heard before.
She was never tired of listening to him, and hailed his coming with
delight, and long before he had come to feel quite at ease with the
mother, John had learned to love dearly the eager, gentle little
creature, from whose eyes the joy at his coming chased the look of pain
and weariness.
As for the friendship which grew more slowly, but quite as surely,
between John and the elder boys of the manse, it cannot be said whether
he or they benefited most by it. To Robin and Jack, John seemed a far
wiser and stronger man than he knew himself to be--a man of wider
experience, higher aims, and firmer purpose. And their belief in him,
their silent yet evident admiration of all his words and ways, their
perfect trust in his discretion and sympathy, did as much for him as for
them, and helped him to strive for the attainment of all the good gifts
which they believed him to possess.
He helped them in many ways. He helped them at their work and kept them
back from taking part in many a "ploy," which, though only foolish, and
not so very wrong, were still both foolish and wrong to them, because in
engaging in them they would waste their time, and--being the minister's
sons--set a bad example to the rest of the lads, and, worst of all, vex
their father and their mother. And they could bear to be restrained by
him, because, in the carrying out of all harmless fun, they profited by
many a hint from John, and sometimes even by his help. But they all
agreed that the less said about this matter among the neighbours the
better for all concerned.
John had been in Nethermuir several months before he saw the inside of
the little kirk. He knew little about the folk who worshipped there,
except that they were said to be "a queer kin' o' folk, who set
themselves up as better than their neebors, and wiser than a' their
teachers." Differing, as they seemed to do, both in preaching and in
practice, from the kirk of the nation, they were doubtless wrong,
thought John. But whatever they were, they were folk in whom he took no
interest, and with whom he had nothing at all to do. So when he had
gone to the kirk at all, he had gone to the parish kirk to please his
mother, who was not always able to go so far herself. Sometimes he had
permitted himself to go even farther than the kirk, coming back when the
service was half over to sit for a while on a fallen headstone, as
Allison did afterward when her turn came.
On fine days his mother went with him, and then it was different. He
sat with the rest and listened to what the minister had to say, with no
inclination to find fault. Indeed there was no fault to be found from
John's point of view or from the minister's. It cannot be averred that
in what was said there was either "food or physic for the soul of man."
But not knowing himself to be in especial need of either the one or the
other, John missed nothing to which he had been accustomed all his days
to listen in the kirk.
"We had a good discourse," his mother would say, as they went slowly
home together, and John always assented. "Yes, mother, we had a good
discourse."
So John went most days to please his mother. But there came a day of
rain, and sleet, and bitter east wind, when, if her conscience would
have permitted, Mrs Beaton would have refrained from making her usual
suggestion about the propriety of honouring the Sabbath-day by going to
the kirk. As for John, he was no more afraid of the rain, and the
sleet, and the east wind than he was afraid of the summer sunshine; but
when he proposed to go to hear Mr Hume, the sound of the sleet and the
rain on the windows silenced any objection she might have had to his
going "once in a way, the day being wild and wintry," and she even added
a hope that he might "hear something to do him good."
This was at the very beginning of his acquaintance with the minister and
his family. If he had waited for a while, till the charm of their
friendliness and genuine kindness had wrought, till the time came when
he had seen with his own eyes, and heard with his own ears that which
proved his new friend to be different in some ways from the most of
those to whom he had all his life looked up as leaders and teachers, yet
not unworthy also to teach and to lead, John might have been better
prepared to get the good which his mother hoped for him. And yet he
might not. At any rate, it was to that dark day in the little kirk
that, in the years which came afterward, he looked back as the beginning
of "good" to him.
"A dismal hole," he called it, as he went in among the first and sat
down in a corner. It was scarcely barer or more dingy and dim than the
rest of the kirks in country places were in those days; but it was very
small, and it had windows only on one side. On that dark day it was
dismal, and it could not have been beautiful at any time. The chill of
the sleet and the wild east wind had got into it, and John wondered at
the folk who should choose, of their own free will, to pass two hours,
or even three, in the damp and gloom and dreariness. "There will be few
here to-day," thought he.
But they came one after another, and by twos and threes, and there was
the stamping of wet shoes, and the shaking out of wet plaids, and many a
sneeze, and many a "hoast" (cough). And still more came, some of them
with familiar faces from the neighbouring streets, and some from beyond
the hills, miles away. Peter Gilchrist was there, of course, and
Saunners Crombie, and an old woman or two, who would better have kept
the house, John thought, on such a day. And by and by the kirk was well
filled. John would have liked to see the minister's seat. It was close
to the door, and so was the one in which he sat; but a little porch,
which protected the door, came between. He heard the clatter of the
boys' feet as they came in, and once he heard their mother's "quietly,
boys," gently but firmly uttered, and by that time the minister was in
the pulpit, and the service began.
It was just to be like other services in other kirks, John thought at
first. There was a psalm read, and a remark was made on a verse here
and there, and then they sang. He had a certain enjoyment in the
singing, because he had never heard anything like it before. The sleet
or something else had kept the usual precentor at home, and Saunners
Crombie filled the office for the time. He had the singing mostly to
himself for the first verse, because no one knew what tune he meant to
sing, and some of those who joined, trying to do their best, "went out
of it a'thegither," as Saunners said angrily afterward. The second
verse went better. The minister's boys took it up and their mother, and
were joined by "the discordant crowd," as John called them while he
listened; and though he might have done good service on the occasion, he
never opened his lips.
Then came the "long prayer," in which John certainly did not join. But
he listened, and after a little he wondered. It was "like all the
prayers," he said to himself at first--confession, petition,
thanksgiving. Yet it was a little different. The words came with a
certain power. It was as if he who prayed saw the face of Him whom he
addressed, a living Person whom he knew and had proved, and not an awful
unknown Being hidden in light unapproachable, or in dimness or darkness.
He was speaking to One whose promise had been given, and many times
made good unto those who trusted Him. And to him who was asking,
evidently the promise was sure, the Word unchangeable.
"All good things! Why, a man who believed that need be afraid of
nothing," said John to himself.
Then a chapter from the New Testament was read. It was the one in
Corinthians about charity, from every verse of which a sermon might be
preached, the minister said; but he only lingered a minute on the verse
which speaks of the charity "which thinketh no evil," and by the little
stir that went through the congregation, John thought that perhaps a
word on that subject might be specially needed.
Then came the sermon, and John listened intently. But he did not like
it. He told his mother, when he went home, that he had heard the folk
saying about the kirk door that they had had a grand sermon. "And they
should ken," said John with a shrug.
"The text? Oh! it was a fine text: `Christ the power of God, and the
wisdom of God unto salvation.' It was like no sermon I ever heard
before," said John, "and I am not sure that I ever wish to hear another
of the same kind."
John did not go to the manse that week, and he had no intention of going
to the kirk on Sunday, but when Sunday came he changed his mind and was
there with the rest. He sat in his corner and listened, and wondered,
and grew angry by turns.
"Is not my Word like as a fire? saith the Lord, and like a hammer that
breaketh the rock in pieces?"
That was the text and that was the way in which the Word came to John
Beaton, and he would have none of it--for a time.
To his mother, who went to the kirk with him after a while, it came in
another way. It was not new to her. It was just what she had been
hearing all her life, she said, only the minister made it clearer and
plainer than ever it had been made to her before. Or it might be that
her heart was more open to receive the Word than it used to be in former
days, when both heart and hands were full of the good things of this
life, which, she said, had contented her to the forgetting of the
Giver's greater gifts.
She had never been a woman of many words, and even to her son she rarely
spoke of these things. But as time went on she grew sweeter and gentler
day by day, he thought. He left her with less anxiety when he went
away, and he found her always when he came home peaceful and content.
For the peace of God was with her.