what's this? can it be me? No! and yet it's awfu' like, but, no! no!
Father, that's no' me! this is me." And she took both his hands and
kissed him, and in this way convinced him that she was his own daughter.
And who was this dead woman that was Mysie's double? The question was
never answered. She went to a pauper's grave unclaimed by anyone.
And how had Mysie chanced to arrive just at the critical moment? This
was explained by the brother. On returning to the hotel, Donald had
seen the advertisement, and had surmised where his father had gone.
Hurrying up the North Bridge, he saw his sister, whom he had been
picturing as a corpse lying at the police office, coming to meet him
in her usual dress and manner. For an instant he felt like one in a
dream. Could it really be she? His next thought was that she had been
in some way brought back to life, and was hurrying down to relieve
their fears; and when he heard that she had never been in the police
office, he told her about the advertisement, and the two together made
all haste to see their father.
Mysie stood for some time gazing at the dead face, and feeling for that
poor young creature, who was so like her, a sort of kinship. And as
she gazed, she read herself a severe lesson. What was her own trouble,
she thought, contrasted with the terrible fate that had befallen this
unknown one? A small trouble indeed! To be cast off by a man who had
proved himself unworthy of her! Not a trouble at all, but a blessed
relief! And as these thoughts passed through her mind, her spirit rose
with a sudden impulse and threw off the incubus of melancholy that had
so long weighed it down; and she came away, leaving, as it were, her
dead self behind her. And when, after staying for a month with her
cousin, till the sensation caused by "the wonderful case of mistaken
identity" subsided, she returned home and resumed her duties, she had
recovered her health and good spirits. Taking her place in the shop,
she devoted herself to the helping of her parents and the serving of
their customers. And when any of the more inveterate gossips referred
to her late painful experiences, she would stop them short with a
good-natured smile, and the remark--"that's an auld sang noo, and it's
no' worth the mindin'." Everybody was delighted to see that she was her
old self again.
"Why," said old Mrs Raeburn, the doctor's mother, "the toon wasna like
itsel withoot ye."
One day the Rev. Mr Patullo, with his wife and son, called in, to
welcome her on her return. "You see," said the minister, "I could not
want you, Mysie. You are my best specimen of a cheerful practical
Christian. You are as good as a sermon."
"My certie," said Mrs Patullo, "far more interesting than the most of
sermons."
"Though rather _floury_," added Tom, pointing to her hands.
But the best proof that Mysie's good-natured equanimity was restored,
was her treatment of her faithless lover, Bob Dallas. His scandalous
treatment of her had brought him into disgrace. Many of his friends
had cut his acquaintance. Even his betrothed, Bessie Gayley, ashamed
of herself and ashamed of him, had refused in the end to marry him. He
was now completely humiliated, and when he met Mysie in the street soon
after her return, he could not look her in the face. But Mysie was too
good-natured and sensible to keep up any ill-feeling towards this weak
creature. So, the next time that she saw him she said, "Good morning";
and by and by she got into the habit of stopping to have a chat with
him. At the same time, she took care to keep his familiarity within
proper bounds. When, encouraged by her frankness and deluded by his own
conceit, he imagined that she was still in love with him, and actually
had the infatuation to refer to past times, she caught him up at once.
"Mr Dallas! remember we are friends, nothing more. And as a friend let
me give you this advice: Don't think of marrying in this country. One
wife would not be enough for you. Go out to the Salt Lake City, and
there, as soon as you are tired of one spouse, you will be able to take
another. Or perhaps, you as well as myself are doomed to remain single.
I am too ugly to be married; you are too good-looking. It would be
selfish in anyone to monopolise a man who gives so much pleasure to all
the girls in the place."
At the end of many years, Bob Dallas and Mysie Gow were respectively an
old bachelor and an old maid.
Bob winced keenly under the marring finger of Time, and, by means of
wig, paint, powder, and a jaunty manner, tried to hide its ravages and
to make the people believe that he was still young. He did not convince
the people; but it is said that, sometimes at least, he managed to
convince himself. On one occasion, while talking about his infant
nephew, he said, "he's a fine little fellow," and running his fingers
through his luxuriant artificial locks, he added, "with a head of hair
as thick and as black as my own." Consequently he was seen at every
gay gathering, bearing himself like an Adonis, and paying assiduous
attention to the young ladies; and when they, fooling him to the top of
his bent, gathered round him and bandied compliments with him, he put
on a youthful air and silently congratulated himself that he was still
"Bob Dallas, the Invincible."
"An auld donnert eediot," said the indignant Mrs Chatteris, the
town-clerk's widow, "deckin' himsel up like an antic for the lasses to
giggle at."
"You're too hard upon him," said her son Joe. "He's more useful than
that. He's an old battered figurehead, used by the girls as a butt for
practising their arrows on."
Mysie, on the other hand, received the first touches of age in the most
cheerful spirit, and wore her grey hair like a becoming ornament, and
made her wrinkles shine with good humour; and, as her years grew fewer,
she tried more and more to fill them, with grateful feelings towards
her Maker and kind words and deeds towards her fellow-creatures.
GOD'S OWN SCHOLAR.
Many years ago a new class of preachers started suddenly up in the
country. They were called the sensational school, and were not unlike
a certain section of the clergy in the present day. Their motto seemed
to be: "Catch the public, by dignified means if you can, but by all
means catch the public." Their rules for doing this were these: "Choose
as the subject of your sermon some prevalent vice; denounce it in
the plainest and strongest language; threaten those who practise it,
or even encourage it, with all the misery of this world and all the
eternal woes of the next; draw your illustrations hot from ordinary
life; if they are vulgar or grotesque, and excite a titter, never mind;
one great end is gained if by any means they arouse the interest of the
audience."
The most promising member of this school was the Rev. Jeremiah
MacGuffog, the new parish minister at Sandyriggs. He took the most
solemn view of his office. He was placed there, he felt, as an
ambassador of the Most High to denounce the iniquities that were
lifting their heads on every side. It was no time for smooth words.
Like the martyred prophets and reformers of old, he must boldly face
the transgressors, tell them of their sins in the most direct language,
and warn them of the terrible doom that awaits them.
While he was a student in Glasgow, he had often heard that the most
productive root of immorality in the rural districts was the Bothy
System. Everyone seemed to condemn it, and not one word had been said
in its defence. It was clearly his duty, therefore, to strike it down
without delay. Accordingly, one Sunday not long after his settlement,
he wound up his afternoon sermon with a most merciless attack upon the
farmers.
"The farmers," he said, "are a most respectable class of men, and I am
deeply grieved to be compelled to say anything to wound their feelings;
but I am here to tell them that they are responsible for what I call
_the running sore_, which is draining the life-blood of morality and
religion in the rural districts. I refer to the Bothy System. You,
my brethren, are really treating your fellow-men like your cattle.
You lodge them in a dirty and uncomfortable outhouse, and leave them
there to corrupt each other. Did I say that you treated them _like_
your cattle? I should have said _worse_ than your cattle. For you do
not prepare food for them, you do not tie them up, you do not lock
them in and prevent them from roaming abroad at night and falling into
mischief. I am sorry that I am obliged to use strong language, but in
the faithful discharge of my duty I am called upon to say that these
bothies are nurseries of the infernal pit, and that you who keep them
up are, though you may not know it, really serving the devil."
It would be impossible to describe the volcano of feeling which this
onslaught roused within the souls of the farming population. They could
scarcely keep their seats till the service was over; then, when they
went out of church and took their way homewards in the grey winter
dusk, the turmoil within them was almost too strong for expression;
and for a time they could only vent it in such explosive epithets,
as "nurseries o' the infernal pit!" "servants o' the deevil!"
"ill-tongued cratur!" "empty-headed puppy!" "set him up!" "my certie!"
But by the time they reached the foot of the Long Dykes, where the road
divided into three, a group of them, both men and women, stood still to
compare notes.
"Sic a desecration o' the poopit!" said Mrs Dowie of Seggie Den;
"instead o' preachin' the gospel, misca'in honest folk."
"Eh, woman!" exclaimed Mrs Caw of Blawearie, "ye may say that. Him to
turn up his nose at bothies, that was brocht up, they tell me, in a
one-roomed hoose in the wynds o' Glesky. My word, it doesna set a soo
to wear a saddle."
"Low-born smaik," said Mrs Proud of the Hill, "to scandaleese his
betters!"
"I dinna ken," said Tam Bluff of Cuddiesknowes, "what they teach them
at college, but it's evidently no' mainners."
"Settin' servants against their maisters," said Stables, the horse
doctor, a Tory of the old school.
"What could ye expect," asked Ure, the innkeeper at Blawearie Yetts,
"from a teetotaller? Did ye hear hoo he blackguarded onybody that had
onything to dae wi' makin' or sellin' an honest drap o' drink. Haith!
it's my opinion that when the Maister comes to the warld a second
time, they'll steek in His face the door o' His ain kirk, because He
ance turned water into wine."
Then Manson of the Hole, who had been standing by, red with rage,
now began to splutter forth his resentment. He was a cantankerous
old bachelor, greedy, miserly, and wealthy. If any bothy in the
neighbourhood deserved to be tabooed, it was his. That was the reason
for his feeling the most aggrieved. "By the Lord Hairy," he said, "I'll
astonish the dirty cratur. I'll hae a ring in his nose before he's a
week aulder. I'll ceet him before the Presbytery, and if that wunna
dae, before the Synod and the General Assembly; and if I canna get
Justice there, I'll gang to the Law. Don't ye think I'm richt, Gilbert
Strang?"
The man who was thus addressed, and who now came up, was evidently
somewhat inferior in station to the rest of the group. In fact, at
first sight he looked shabby. His hat was weather-stained, his clothes
were threadbare and even darned in some places, and his boots were
rough and clumsy. But his well-developed figure, his clean-cut and
healthy features, and his big blue eyes, gave him, in spite of his
mean apparel, a look of superiority. Nay, the neat patches on his coat
seemed, in some odd way, to be badges of respectability. He was the
son of a small laird; but his father had recently died, a heartbroken
bankrupt; the property had been sold; he had been left the sole support
of his widowed mother, and had been obliged to hire himself out as an
ordinary ploughman; and it was understood that he was now pinching
himself to save money, in order, if possible, to redeem the little
family inheritance.
Gilbert Strang, in fact, was one of those hardy human plants that can
grow and flourish mentally and morally in any soil. He had been but a
few years under the village teacher. The school in which he had learnt
most was the world, where the lessons are undoubtedly very difficult,
but, if once mastered, are most salutary. In the few books which he
had, in the weekly sermons to which he listened, in the ever-varying
shows of earth and sky, and in the rustic gatherings and merrymakings,
he got abundant food both for mind and heart. Then, during the long
quiet days when he was guiding the plough in the meadow, he found a
favourite opportunity for thinking over what he had seen and read, and
for forming his notions of men and things. In this way, he had made
up his mind on most of the subjects that crop up in rural life, and
was able to express his views, not only in the broad vernacular, but
also, when occasion called, in good English. Altogether, he was a fair
specimen of a man of Nature's own training, or what pious people used
to call "one of God Almighty's own scholars."
"Don't you think I wad be richt, Gilbert Strang, to ceet him before the
Presbytery, and if I canna get redress there to try the Law?"
"Ye wad be just playin' into his haunds, Mr Manson."
"In what way, Gilbert?"
"Ye wad mak him staund oot before the public as a martyr, and that's
what a' thae kind want to be. What I would advise wad be, to gie him
rope."
"What dae ye mean, Gilbert?"
"He kens the bothies only by hearsay; and he has spoken a lot o'
nonsense aboot them. Let him alane. He'll gang deeper and deeper
into the mess. Then he'll find himsel in a habble and be obleeged to
apologeese."
"Apologeese!" cried Manson, "catch a minister apologeese! Dod man!
they're never wrang. At the time o' the Reformation, they jist shifted
the doctrine o' infallibility from the Pope's shouthers on to their
ain; and now, instead o' ane, we hae thousands o' Popes."
"That may be," replied Strang, "only ca' canny. Look before ye loup.
Mind the proverb, 'Haste maks waste.'"
"Dod that's true," replied Manson. "But eh man! I wad gie a gude roond
sum to see the gabbie body obleeged to tak back and swallow a' the
nonsense he's been talkin'."
"Weel!" said Gilbert, "ye'll soon see it."
Two days after this conversation on the road, winter weather had
come, in all its severity. It was seven o'clock at night. Outside the
farm-house of Pitlour, the cold round moon looked down upon snow-clad
roofs and stacks, icicles hanging from the eaves, the pump in the
barnyard sheathed in straw, and the ploughs hard bound in the meadow
by the frost. But inside in the bothy, which was attached to the
house, all was bright and warm. A fire made of wood and coals blazed
in the chimney; an old-fashioned oil lamp called a cruisie, hung from
the mantelpiece; and the combined light of these two fell upon three
well-fed, well-conditioned, rustic faces. On one side of the chimney
was Gilbert Strang, deeply interested in the weekly newspaper; on the
other side was his fellow-ploughman, Sandy Downie, laboriously scraping
out of his fiddle the tune of "Auld Lang Syne"; and in front of the
blaze was Jim Lochty, the cattle boy, with a copy of Burns in his
hand, crooning over the words of a familiar song. In the background,
two bedsteads made of rough wood, but with white pillows and sheets,
looked snug and comfortable. The occupants were interrupted by a knock
at the door, and who should walk in but the Rev. Jeremiah MacGuffog. He
apologised for what might be called "a surprise visit." But he said he
held the opinion that the minister was the friend of everyone in the
parish, and that he should be able to drop in upon his parishioners
unceremoniously at any time, and take them as he found them. Strang
said that they were glad to see him, and asked him to take a seat.
Sitting down and scanning the place carefully, the minister said: "You
heard from my sermon on Sabbath that I am deeply interested in the
bothy question; and I want to be thoroughly acquainted with it."
Strang smiled and said to himself: "Jeddart Justice. He condemned and
executed us on Sunday, and now he is going to try us."
"I must confess," said the minister, "that I am surprised to see your
place look so tidy and comfortable. You heard, I suppose, that I was
coming."
"No," said Strang. "The good wife, Mrs Wedderspoon, looks upon this as
part of her own house, and is just as particular about it as she is
about the rooms where her two sons sleep. No place could be cleaner or
more comfortable."
"But your food?" asked the minister. "Is it not rather coarse?"
"Well, sir!" replied Strang, "it would be coarse to the like of you.
But for hard working, healthy, country folk, out in the open air,
could anything be better than well-boiled porridge and sweet milk for
breakfast and supper, and kail and meat and potatoes for dinner? And
looking at us, you would say that our food agrees with us."
"Then," said the minister, after a thoughtful pause, "I am sorry to see
that you have no means of improving your mind. You seem to have no
books."
"Oh yes," said Strang, opening the door of a cupboard, "we have a few.
Look! here are Brown's 'Dictionary of the Bible,' 'Shakespeare,' some
of Sir Walter Scott's works; and Jim has 'Burns' in his hand. Anyone
who masters all these is better educated than most people."
"I'm surprised," remarked the minister gravely, "that you read 'Burns.'
He has some very objectionable passages."
"He's a mixture of good and bad," replied Strang, "just like every
other author. If we read no author that is not absolutely pure, we
shall read none at all. He's a poor creature that can't pick out the
good and throw away the bad."
"I suppose," remarked the minister, "that there is a good deal of
whisky consumed here sometimes?"
"For months," said Strang, "we never taste it."
"When you see," said the minister, "so many of your fellow-creatures
abuse it, why not set them a good example and abstain from it
altogether?"
"Well, sir," replied Strang, "I've thought of that, and I have also
thought that if I were to abstain from everything that is abused, I
would soon, like the Irishman's horse, come to the last straw and die
of starvation."
"Of course," said the minister, "you have none of the salutary
influences of a home?"
"Oh yes, sir," answered Strang, "we go down to the kitchen every
night, and have a crack and snuff with the goodman, a gossip with the
goodwife, and a game at 'catch the ten' with the sons, and finish up
with family worship. To all intents and purposes we are members of the
family."
"I am told," said the minister, "that there is a good deal of loose
talk in bothies, and that one bad man often corrupts the whole lot."
"I fear, sir," replied Strang, "that that's the fault, not of bothies,
but of human nature itself. In almost every company objectionable
persons will be found. They are to be met with in the most select
society, and even, I am told, in the rooms of divinity students. You'll
correct me if I am wrong. There was Mr Joram's son of Kilbaigie, a
divinity student, rusticated last year for being tipsy and uproarious
at a gathering in his own lodgings."
Then after a little, Mr MacGuffog said--"this bothy of yours seems to
be an exception. Is it not?"
"No," said Strang, "all in this neighbourhood are very much alike."
"Then I'm afraid," said the minister, looking very uncomfortable, "I've
done the farmers injustice."
"Indeed you have, sir," replied Strang earnestly, "and they feel it
very keenly. The country folk are talking of leaving your church in a
body. 'Nurseries of hell' and 'servants of the devil' are uncommonly
strong terms."
"But such terms," said the minister, "if I am rightly informed, must
apply to the system as it exists elsewhere."
"Not so far as I am aware," said Strang. "Besides, your remarks
referred to this neighbourhood."
Then after a long pause the minister said in a tone of great
embarrassment, "What am I to do?"
"Well, sir," replied Strang, "I think you know better than I do. But
what seems to me the only straight-forward plan is this: if you have
been wrong, confess it frankly. If you have done injustice to the
people, apologise."
"Well," said the minister, "I shall first visit the other bothies in
the parish, and I shall be guided by what I see there." Then after a
pause he said--"But how do you account for the great outcry that has
been raised against bothies?"
"Partly in this way, sir," said Strang. "There are some ministers (you
will excuse me for saying it) that are like our sporting lairds. They
must have the excitement of the chase. If they start a heresy case,
that's their highest game and gives them their best sport. But not
always lighting upon that, they have no difficulty in finding what they
consider some social evil. Then they give the view halloo, and are
after it in full cry through thick and thin."
"Ah!" said the minister, rising, "you are hard upon us poor clergy; but
there may be a little truth in what you say. Good night." And away he
went.
Next Sunday morning there was a great gathering of country folk at the
church. They were discussing the rumour, that the minister was going to
apologise. Some believed it, while others thought that it was too good
to be true. Among the latter was old Manson.
"Apologeese," he sneered, "no, no. A black coat never surrenders. When
he has been steekit in by the bethal, he can say what he likes, and no'
ane daur utter a cheep. Na, na, the poopit has been ower lang the seat
o' an oracle. It's no' gaun to become the stule o' repentance."
But old Manson was wrong. Towards the end of the sermon, which was on
the text, "Bear ye one another's burdens," the minister came to a dead
pause. There was a terrible stillness all over the church. Every ear
was on the alert to catch what was coming, and nervous people held down
their heads. Then the minister, looking ghastly pale, and speaking with
slow deliberation, said:
"Brethren, my great desire is to find out what your burdens are, and
to help you to bear them; but last Sabbath I must admit that I failed.
I had always heard that the Bothy System was one of the curses of
this country; and I had never heard a word said in its defence. Very
naturally, in calling upon the people of this neighbourhood to put away
the evil thing from among them, I used very strong language. Brethren,
I have since discovered that, as far as this parish is concerned, I was
wrong; and I now apologise to the farming people in particular and
the congregation in general. May this be a warning to us all--to you
as well as me--not to be too hasty in forming judgments regarding our
fellow-creatures."
Here was an event altogether unprecedented! No one had ever heard of
a minister confessing from the pulpit that he had made a mistake. It
was the result of the purest Christian candour; but had it proceeded
from policy it would have been a master-stroke. With one sentence the
minister turned the hearts of the people from the fiercest indignation
right round to an enthusiastic love. The women-folk especially were
loud in his praises.
"Oh!" they exclaimed, "wasn't it like a real Christian to own that
he was wrang; and didn't he look rale bonny when he was daein' it?"
And they all agreed that it was Gilbert Strang, who by his wonderful
cleverness had opened the minister's eyes, and made him see that it was
his duty to confess.
On the Monday afterwards, Gilbert was ploughing the Five-Acre Lea. To
one fond of rustic associations it was a pleasant picture; the pair
of horses sleek and well-fed, bending their heads over their strong
chests, lifting their legs leisurely and together, and pulling the
plough slowly through the stiff loam; the knife-like coulter evenly
cutting a narrow strip of the green turf; the shining share turning it
over and forming another long ridge of fresh earth; the man holding
steadily the plough-tails and looking contented and happy; and over
all, the sombre sky of a winter afternoon gradually darkening towards
the dusk. As he was turning the plough at the headrig, he heard himself
hailed in a cheery voice. He looked round, and there was Manson of the
Hole, with his face in a broad grin of delight.