HE had demanded that afternoon to be told the truth, and the doctor,
himself a young Scot, had told him plainly that he could not recover,
and then he had asked, as one man speaking to another, both being brave
and honest men, when he would die, and the doctor thought early next
morning.
“Aboot daybreak,” said the Scot, with much satisfaction, as if, on
the whole, he were content to die, and much pleased it would be at the
rising of the sun. He was a characteristic type of his nation, rugged
in face and dry of manner, an old man, who had drifted somehow to this
English city and was living there alone, and now he was about to die
alone, without friends and in a strange land. The nurse was very kind to
him, and her heart went out to the quiet, self-contained man. She asked
him whether he would like to see a clergyman, and explained that the
chaplain of the infirmary was a good man.
“A've nae doubt he is,” said the Scot, “and that his meenistrations
would be verra acceptable to English fouk, but a've never had ony
dealin's wi' Episcopalians. He micht want to read a prayer, and I
couldna abide that, and mebbe I couldna follow the texts in his English
tongue.”
The nurse still lingered by his bed. He looked up to her and assured
her he was in no need of consolation. “Saxty year ago my mither made me
learn the wale (choice portions) o' the Bible, and they're cornin' up
ane by ane to my memory, but I thank ye kindly.”
As the nurse went back and forward on her duties she heard her patient
saying at intervals to himself, “I know whom I have believed.”
“I am persuaded that neither life nor death.” Once again she heard him,
“Although the mountains depart and the hills be removed,” but the rest
she did not catch.
During the afternoon a lady came into the ward whose service to the Lord
was the visitation of the sick, a woman after the type of Barnabas
and Mary of Bethany. When she heard of the old man's illness and his
loneliness, whom no friend came to see or comfort, she went to his
bedside. “You are very ill,” she said, “my friend.”
“A'm deein',” he replied, with the exactness of his nation, which
somewhat fails to understand the use of graceful circumlocution and
gentle phrases.
“Is there anything I can do for you? Would you wish me to sing a few
verses of a hymn? Some sick people feel much comforted and soothed by
singing; you would like, I think, to hear 'Rock of Ages,'” and she sat
down by his bedside and opened her book, while a patient beyond, who had
caught what she said, raised his head to enjoy the singing.
“Ye're verra kind, mem, and a'm muckle obleeged to ye, but a'm a Scot
and ye're English, and ye dinna understand. A' my days have I been
protestin' against the use o' human hymns in the praise o' God; a've
left three kirks on that account, and raised my testimony in public
places, and noo would ye send me into eternity wi' the sough of a hymn
in my ears?”
For a moment the visitor had no reply, for in the course of all her
experiences, during which she had come across many kinds of men and
women, she had never yet chanced upon this kind of Scot. The patients in
the infirmary were not distinguished by their religious scruples, and if
they had scruples of such a kind they turned on large and full-blooded
distinctions between Protestant and Catholic, and never entered into
subtleties of doctrine.
“You'll excuse me, mem, for a'm no ungratefu',” he continued, “and I
would like to meet yir wishes when ye've been so kind to me. The doctor
says I canna live long, and it's possible that my strength may sune give
way, but a'll tell ye what a'm willin' to do.”
The visitor waited anxiously to know what service he was going to render
her and what comfort she might offer to him, but both were beyond her
guessing.
“Sae lang as a've got strength and my reason continues clear, a'm
prepared to argue with you concerning the lawfulness of using onything
except the Psalms of David in the praise of God either in public or in
private.”
Dear old Scot, the heir of many a covenanting tradition and the worthy
son of covenanting martyrs, it was a strange subject of discussion for
a man's last hour, but the man who could be true to the jots and tittles
of his faith in pain of body and in face of death was the stuff out
of which heroes and saints are made. He belonged to a nation who might
sometimes be narrow and over-concerned with scruples, but which knew
that a stand must be taken somewhere, and where it took a stand was
prepared to die.
The visitor was a wise as well as gracious woman, and grasped the heart
of the situation. “No, no,” she said, “we will not speak about the
things wherein we differ, and I did not know the feeling of the Scots
about the singing of the hymns. But I can understand how you love the
Psalms and how dear to you is your metrical version. Do you know I have
been in the Highlands of Scotland and have heard the Psalms sung, and
the tears came into my eyes at the sound of the grave, sweet melody, for
it was the music of a strong and pious people.”
As she spoke the hard old Scot's face began to soften, and one hand
which was lying outside the bedclothes repeated the time of a Scots
Psalm tune. He was again in the country church of his boyhood, and
saw his father and mother going into the table seats, and heard them
singing:
“O thou, my soul, bless God the Lord,
And all that in me is
Be stirred up His holy name
To magnify and bless.”
“More than that, I know some of your psalm tunes, and I have the words
in my hymn book; perhaps I have one of the Psalms which you would like
to hear.”
“Div ye think that ye could sing the Twenty-third Psalm--
'The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want'?
for I would count it verra comfortin'.”
“Yes,” she said, “I can, and it will please me very much to sing it, for
I think I love that psalm more than any hymn.”
“It never runs dry,” murmured the Scot.
So she sang it from beginning to end in a low, sweet voice, slowly and
reverently, as she had heard it sung in Scotland. He joined in no word,
but ever he kept time with his hand and with his heart, while his eyes
looked into the things which were far away.
After she ceased he repeated to himself the last two lines:
“And in God's house for evermore
My dwelling place shall be.”
“Thank ye, thank ye,” he said, after a little pause, and then both
were silent for a few minutes, because she saw that he was in his own
country, and did not wish to bring him back by her foreign accent.
“Mem, ye've dune me the greatest kindness ony Christian could do for
anither as he stands on the banks of the Jordan.”
For a minute he was silent again, and then he said: “A'm gaein' to tell
ye somethin', and I think ye'll understand. My wife and me wes married
thirty-five years, and ilka nicht of oor married life we sang a psalm
afore we gaed to rest. She took the air and I took the bass, and we sang
the Psalms through frae beginning to end twal times. She was taken frae
me ten year ago, and the nicht afore she dee'd we sang the Twenty-third
Psalm. A've never sung the psalm since, and I didna join wi' ye when ye
sang it, for a'm waitin' to sing it wi' her new in oor Father's hoose
the momin's momin', where there'll be nae nicht nor partin' evermore.”
And this is how one Englishwoman found out that the Scot is at once the
dourest and the tenderest of men.