One Sunday morning Mr Cupples was returning from church with Alec.
"Ye likit the sermon the day, Mr Cupples."
"What gars ye think that?"
"I saw ye takin' notes a' the time."
"Gleg-eed mole!" said Mr Cupples. "Luik at the notes as ye ca' them."
"Eh! it's a sang!" exclaimed Alec with delight.
"What cud gar ye think I likit sic havers? The crater was preachin'
till's ain shaidow. And he pat me into sic an unchristian temper o'
dislike to him and a' the concern, that I ran to my city o' refuge. I
never gang to the kirk wi'oot it--I mean my pocket-buik. And I tried to
gie birth till a sang, the quhilk, like Jove, I conceived i' my heid
last nicht."
"Lat me luik at it," said Alec, eagerly.
"Na, ye wadna mak' either rhyme or rizzon o' 't as it stan's. I'll read
it to ye."
"Come and sit doon, than, on the ither side o' the dyke."
A dyke in Scotland is an earthen fence--to my prejudiced mind, the
ideal of fences; because, for one thing, it never keeps anybody out.
And not to speak of the wild bees' bykes in them, with their
inexpressible honey, like that of Mount Hymettus--to the recollection
of the man, at least--they are covered with grass, and wild flowers
grow all about them, through which the wind harps and carps over your
head, filling your sense with the odours of a little modest yellow
tufty flower, for which I never heard a name in Scotland: the English
call it Ladies' Bedstraw.
They got over the dyke into the field and sat down.
"Ye see it's no lickit eneuch yet," said Mr Cupples, and began.
"O lassie, ayont the hill!
Come ower the tap o' the hill;
Or roun' the neuk o' the hill;
For I want ye sair the night.
I'm needin' ye sair the nicht,
For I'm tired and sick o' mysel'.
A body's sel' 's the sairest weicht.
O lassie, come ower the hill.
Gin a body cud be a thocht o' grace,
And no a sel' ava!
I'm sick o' my heid and my han's and my face,
And my thouchts and mysel' and a'.
I'm sick o' the warl' and a';
The licht gangs by wi' a hiss;
For throu' my een the sunbeams fa',
But my weary hert they miss.
O lassie, ayont the hill!
Come ower the tap o' the hill,
Or roun' the neuk o' the hill,
For I want ye sair the nicht.
For gin ance I saw yer bonnie heid,
And the sunlicht o' yer hair,
The ghaist o' mysel' wad fa' doon deid,
And I'd be mysel' nae mair.
I wad be mysel' nae mair,
Filled o' the sole remeid,
Slain by the arrows o' licht frae yer hair,
Killed by yer body and heid.
O lassie, ayont the hill! &c.
But gin ye lo'ed me, ever so sma'
For the sake o' my bonny dame,
Whan I cam' to life, as she gaed awa',
I could bide my body and name.
I micht bide mysel', the weary same,
Aye settin' up its heid,
Till I turn frae the claes that cover my frame,
As gin they war roun' the deid.
O lassie, ayont the hill! &c.
But gin ye lo'ed me as I lo'e you,
I wad ring my ain deid knell;
My sel' wad vanish, shot through and through
By the shine o' your sunny sel'.
By the shine o' your sunny sel',
By the licht aneath your broo,
I wad dee to mysel', and ring my bell,
And only live in you.
O lassie, ayont the hill!
Come ower the tap o' the hill,
Or roun' the neuk o' the hill,
For I want ye sair the night.
I'm needin' ye sair the nicht,
For I'm tired and sick o' mysel;
A body's sel' 's the sairest weicht!
O lassie, come ower the hill."
"Isna it raither metapheesical, Mr Cupples?" asked Alec.
"Ay is't. But fowk's metapheesical. True, they dinna aye ken't. I wad
to God I cud get that sel' o' mine safe aneath the yird, for it jist
torments the life oot o' me wi' its ugly face. Hit and me jist stan's
an' girns at ane anither."
"It'll tak a heap o' Christianity to lay _that_ ghaist, Mr Cupples.
That I ken weel. The lassie wadna be able to do't for ye. It's ower
muckle to expec' o' her or ony mortal woman. For the sowl's a temple
biggit for the Holy Ghost, and no woman can fill't, war she the Virgin
Mary ower again. And till the Holy Ghost comes intil's ain hoose, the
ghaist that ye speak o' winna gang oot."
A huge form towered above the dyke behind them.
"Ye had no richt to hearken, Thomas Crann," said Mr Cupples.
"I beg your pardon," returned Thomas; "I never thoucht o' that. The
soun' was sae bonnie, I jist stud and hearkened. I beg your
pardon.--But that's no the richt thing for the Sawbath day."
"But ye're haein' a walk yersel', it seems, Thomas."
"Ay; but I'm gaun ower the hills to my school. An' I maunna bide to
claver wi' ye, for I hae a guid twa hoors' traivel afore me."
"Come hame wi' us, and hae a mou'fu' o' denner afore ye gang, Thomas,"
said Alec.
"Na, I thank ye. It does the sowl gude to fast a wee ae day in saiven.
I had a piece, though, afore I cam' awa'. What am I braggin' o'! Gude
day to ye."
"That's an honest man, Alec," said Cupples.
"He is," returned Alec. "But he never will do as other people do."
"Perhaps that's the source of his honesty--that he walks by an inward
light," said Cupples thoughtfully.
The year wore on. Alec grew confident. They returned together to their
old quarters. Alec passed his examinations triumphantly, and continued
his studies with greater vigour than before. Especially he walked the
hospitals with much attention and interest, ever warned by Cupples to
beware lest he should come to regard a man as a physical machine, and
so grow a mere doctoring machine himself.
Mr Fraser declined seeing him. The old man was in a pitiable condition,
and indeed never lectured again.
Alec no more frequented his old dismal haunt by the seashore. The cry
of the drowning girl would not have come to him as it would to the more
finely nervous constitution of Mr Cupples; but the cry of a sea-gull,
or the wash of the waves, or even the wind across the tops of the
sand-hills, would have been enough to make him see in every crest which
the wind tore white in the gloamin, the forlorn figure of the girl he
loved vanishing from his eyes.
The more heartily he worked the more did the evil as well as the
painful portions of his history recede into the background of his
memory, growing more and more like the traces left by a bad, turbid,
and sorrowful dream.
Is it true that _all_ our experiences will one day revive in entire
clearness of outline and full brilliancy of colour, passing before the
horror-struck soul to the denial of time, and the assertion of
ever-present eternity? If so, then God be with us, for we shall need
him.
Annie Anderson's great-aunt took to her bed directly after her
husband's funeral.
Finding there was much to do about the place, Annie felt no delicacy as
to remaining. She worked harder than ever she had worked before,
blistered her hands, and browned her fair face and neck altogether
autumnally. Her aunt and she together shore (reaped) the little field
of oats; got the sheaves home and made a rick of them; dug up the
potatoes, and covered them in a pit with a blanket of earth; looked
after the one cow and calf which gathered the grass along the road and
river sides; fed the pigs and the poultry, and even went with a
neighbour and his cart to the moss, to howk (dig) their winter-store of
peats. But this they found too hard for them, and were forced to give
up. Their neighbours, however, provided their fuel, as they had often
done in part for old John Peterson.
Before the winter came there was little left to be done; and Annie saw
by her aunt's looks that she wanted to get rid of her. Margaret
Anderson had a chronic, consuming sense of poverty, and therefore
worshipped with her whole soul the monkey Lars of saving and vigilance.
Hence Annie, as soon as Alec was gone, went, with the simplicity
belonging to her childlike nature, to see Mrs Forbes, and returned to
Clippenstrae only to bid them good-bye.
The bodily repose and mental activity of the winter formed a strong
contrast with her last experiences. But the rainy, foggy, frosty, snowy
months passed away much as they had done before, fostering, amongst
other hidden growths, that of Mrs Forbes' love for her semi-protegee,
whom, like Castor and Pollux, she took half the year to heaven, and
sent the other half to Tartarus. One notable event, however, of
considerable importance in its results to the people of Howglen, took
place this winter amongst the missionars of Glamerton.