Part 8

While you are looking at the books the shepherd's wife is looking at you. From the moment you crossed the threshold she has been thinking of that bookshelf, and hoping you would take notice thereof, but not for the world would she have mentioned it by word or sign. We had our own code of manners in the Glen, and one of our cardinal sins was “blowing,” by which we meant boasting; and while a man though perhaps not a woman, could be forgiven for “tasting,” there was no mercy shown to the person who allowed himself to brag. When, for instance, old David Ross's son became a professor, his father and mother simply allowed the glorious fact to ooze out through Domsie, who certainly had no scruple in making the most of it, and neither the father nor mother ever said Professor in public, although we believe they called their son nothing else between themselves; but the Glen made up for their reticence by decorating every second sentence about him with the word. All the same, Mistress McPherson is watching us keenly, and she would be utterly disappointed if we had overlooked the shelf; and now, in answer to our inquiry, she will take us into the kitchen and place us by the fireside, that we may hear the story of her scholar son, which, indeed, is the one romance in the history of this humble family.

One morning John left the cottage to go to school, a shepherd's boy, and likely, as it appeared, to herd sheep and live in the Glen all the days of his life as his father had done before him. In the evening the schoolmaster, who is the judge of letters in the Glen, with the minister as a court of confirmation, came up and told the father and mother that in the purposes of the Eternal their son was evidently destined to be a scholar, and that upon them lay the duty of seeing that John made his calling and election sure. Had tidings come to those two people, whose wage in money would not amount to ten shillings a week, that they were heirs to a fortune, it would not have brought such pleasure to their souls as the good hope that their lowly stock would once at least in a generation produce the white flower of a scholar's life. The whole family, father and mother, with their grown-up sons and daughters in service, will now unite in one labour--to save and to sacrifice, that by hook or crook their brother may reach a university, and be sustained in his study there till he has reached its reward. Four years from that evening, had you been standing under the great arch by which students enter the quadrangle of Edinburgh University, you had seen the shepherd's son pass in, plainly dressed and shy in manner, but strong of body and brave in soul, and charged with all the knowledge that his schoolmaster and his minister could impart by patient, ungrudging labour. The lad before him is a noble's son, and the one following is a merchant's, and so sons of the rich and of the poor, of the high and of the low, they go together, into the one Republic on the face of the earth, the Republic of Letters, where money does not count, nor rank, nor influence, nor intrigue, but where every man stands equal and the best man wins.

Another four years and John has obtained his degree, a double first, and he writes to the cottage on the side of the hill that the two old people must come up to see him crowned. For six weeks before the day his mother has just one consuming anxiety, and that is what she should wear on the occasion, and it is only after fifteen long deliberations with her gossips in the Glen that the great affair is settled, while the father's mind is wholly taken up on Sundays with the effort to look as if he were not the father of a graduate.

When the shepherd and his wife enter the gates of the University, they are not to be thought of as two illiterate peasants who cannot distinguish between a University and a dry-goods store. Although they had never themselves expected to see so high a place, and had only cherished it as a secret hope that perhaps one of their boys might attain so far, they have learned by the tradition of their nation, and by the speech of Domsie in the kirk-yard on Sabbath, to enter into the greatness of a university. It is to them the home of the highest knowledge, and a sacred place to which reverend people might well go up as a pious Moslem to Mecca or a Jew to Jerusalem. As they cross the quadrangle, the shepherd touches his wife, and points to an elderly gentleman in the distance. They follow him with respectful attention as he shambles along, half a dozen books under his arm, his shabby cloak held by a single button, a hat as old as Jamie Soutar's resting on the back of his head.

“Keep's a', Jeems,” whispers Janet respectfully “Div ye really think that he's a professor?”

“We canna be sure, woman; he micht juist be a scholar, but I am judgin' that he's a professor--he hes a' the appearance.”

And the two old people stand still in the bit till he disappears, and then they go on their way much lifted. Outside religion there is no word in Scots speech so sacred as “professor.” It means a semi-heavenly body charged with Latin and Greek philosophy and mathematics. It was something to see such a man, and to be in his company was living in an atmosphere where you might catch the infection of his learning. When a glensman, to whom Domsie had spoken of professors with bated breath for more than a generation, learned that in southern parts the title was assumed by hairdressers and ventriloquists, and that they were not sent to gaol for profanity, then Drumtochty discovered another argument for its favourite doctrine of original sin.

As the two go down the half-lit passage to the hall of graduation, they are met by a majestic figure--a young man in evening dress, and over it the gown of an M.A., with its white silk hood, and on his head the Master's cap.

“Are you coming, may I ask,” said he, with quite a nice English accent, to the graduation ceremony, “and can I be of any service?”

“We are, sir; and as we are strangers frae the country, we would be muckle obleeged if ye could shew us the door. We dinna want to go where the gentry are sittin', but if ye would juist tak' us where we could see, we'd be content and terrible pleased. There's a... friend to get his degree to-day, and my man and me would like to see him.”

“Mither,” said the figure, “and ye dinna ken yir ain son,” for he had taken them in well, and played his little trick with much success. They had never seen him in evening dress, nor in his Master's robe, and the light was as darkness; besides, he had dropped the accent of the Glen. The father and the son laughed together joyfully at Janet, but she declared that she had known him all the time, and put it to them if a mother could be mistaken about her son. But she didn't know him all the same, and as long as she lived it was a pleasant jest between them when he came north to visit them, and she met him at the garden gate. “Well, mither,” he would say, “div ye ken yir son the day?”

Janet was well pleased that one should tease her in after times about this ploy of John's, for it always gave her an opportunity of describing how handsome he looked in his black and white silk, and of stating that she. Mistress McPherson, wife of James McPherson, shepherd at Camashach, considered the dress of a Master of Arts the handsomest that a man could wear.

John took his father and mother into the hall, and placed them in the seats reserved for the friends of graduates, and while a man has various moments of pure joy in his life, there is none sweeter than when he brings his mother to see him crowned at the close of his university career. For in this matter he owes everything to two people--the schoolmaster who taught him and the mother who inspired him.

“Now, mither, you watch that door yonder, for through it the procession will come; and when ye see the men wi' the white silk hoods, ye'll ken that I'm there, and ye'll surely no mistake me again.”

He was so provoking, and he looked so handsome with the flush of the day upon his cheek, that, as he stooped over her, she was about to give him a little shove and tell him not to give “any more impi-dence to his auld mither,” when she remembered where she was sitting, and the grand folk round her, and so she only answered with a demure nod of intelligence.

She brought out her glasses, and the shepherd polished them carefully for her because her hands were trembling, and for that matter he had almost to put them on her nose, so shaken was she on this great day; and then she watched the door, as if there was nothing else in all the hall except that door. It seemed to her twelve hours before it opened and the procession streamed through with many a famous man and many a coloured garment. Janet had no eyes for the Chancellor in his purple and gold, nor for the robes of red and the hoods of lemon silk bordered with white fur, for there was nothing beautiful in her eyes that day except black gowns with white silk upon them. When at last the Masters of Arts appeared, she told me afterwards many and many a time in the Glen that they were a body of very respectable-looking young men, but that among them all there was only one outstanding and handsome man, and that, by a curious accident which mothers only can explain, happened to be her son. She followed him as he came down the passage, and was a little disappointed that he was now carrying his trencher in his hand instead of wearing it-on his head, and she saw him take his seat, and could hardly forgive some great lady in front of her, whose bonnet, coming in the line of vision, prevented her catching anything except a little bit of John's shoulder with the white silk upon it. A little later, and she watched him rise and go forward and kneel before the Chancellor, and then there was said over him Latin words so magical that after they were spoken a student was changed from a common man into a Master of Arts. We used to say in our jesting that the Latin could not be translated, it was so mysterious and awful, but the shepherd's wife and John's mother was an accomplished Latin scholar that day, and she heard the Chancellor say, as distinctly as ever man spoke--

“John McPherson, you are the tallest, strongest, handsomest, ablest, kindest-hearted son whom this University ever made Master of Arts.” That was a free translation, but it was true in spirit, and the letter killeth.

Standing behind the Chancellor, and looking down upon the hall, I saw the faces of the shepherd and his wife, and I knew that they would never taste such perfect joy again till they entered through the gates into the city, and then I longed to be lifted above all circumstances, and to have the power of the fairy world, where you do what you please. For I should have gone down into the hall, and held a special and unheard-of graduation ceremony, conferring a degree of a new kind altogether upon that shepherd and his wife, because without their unworldly ideals, and their hard sacrifices, and their holy prayers, John McPherson had never knelt there that day in his white silk glory, Master of Arts with the highest honours.

XIV.--“DINNA FORGET SPURGEON”

IS varied charge was given to the good man on the morning of market day as he brought the mare out from the stable, as he harnessed her into the dogcart, as he packed the butter basket below the seat, as he wrestled into his top coat, worn for ceremony's sake, and as he made the start--line upon line and precept upon precept as he was able to receive it; but the conclusion of the matter and its crown was ever the same, “Dinna forget Spurgeon.”

“There's twal pund o' butter for the grocer, the best ever left this dairy, and he maun gie a shillin,' or it's the laist Andra Davie'ill get frae me; but begin by askin' fourteenpence, else it's eleven ye'll bring back. He's a lad, is Andra, an' terrible grippy.

“For ony sake tak' care o' the eggs, and mind they're no turnips ye're handlin'--it's a fair temptin' o' Providence to see the basket in yir hands--ninepence a dozen, mind, and tell him they're new laid an' no frae Ireland; there's a handfu' o' flowers for the wife, and a bit o' honey for their sick laddie, but say naethin' o' that till the bargain's made.

“The tea and sugar a've markit on a bit paper, for it's nae use bringin' a bag o' grass-seed, as ye did fower weeks ago; an' there's ae thing mair I micht mention, for ony sake dinna pit the paraffin oil in the same basket wi' the loaf sugar; they may fit fine, as ye said, but otherwise they're no gude neeburs. And, John, dinna forget Spurgeon.”

Again and again during the day, and in the midst of many practical operations, the good wife predicted to her handmaidens what would happen, and told them, as she had done weekly, that she had no hope.

“It's maist awfu' hoo the maister'ill gae wanderin' and dodderin' thro' the market a' day, pricing cattle he's no gaein' tae buy, an' arguin' aboot the rent o' farms he's no gaein' to tak', an' never gie a thocht tae the errands till the laist meenut.

“He may bring hame some oil,” she would continue, gloomily, as if that were the one necessity of life to which a male person might be expected to give attention; “but ye needna expect ony tea next week”--as if there was not a week's stock in the house--“and ye may tak' ma word for it there'ill be nae Spurgeon's sermon for Sabbath.”

As the provident woman had written every requirement--except the oil, which was obtained at the ironmonger's, and the Spurgeon, which was sold at the draper's--on a sheet of paper, and pinned it on the topmost cabbage leaf which covered the butter, the risk was not great; but that week the discriminating prophecy of the good man's capabilities seemed to be justified, for the oil was there, but Spurgeon could not be found. It was not in the bottom of the dogcart, nor below the cushion, nor attached to a piece of saddlery, nor even in the good man's trouser-pocket--all familiar resting-places--and when it was at last extricated from the inner pocket of his top coat--a garment with which he had no intimate acquaintance--he received no credit, for it was pointed out with force that to have purchased the sermon and then to have mislaid it, was worse than forgetting it altogether.

“The Salvation of Manasseh,” read the good wife; “it would have been a fine like business to have missed that; a'll warrant this 'ill be ane o' his sappiest, but they're a' gude”: and then Manasseh was put in a prominent and honourable place, behind the basket of wax flowers in the best parlour till Sabbath.

It was the good custom in that kindly home to ask the “lads” from the bothie into the kitchen on the Sabbath evening, who came in their best clothes and in much confusion, sitting on the edge of chairs and refusing to speak on any consideration. They made an admirable meal, however, and were understood to express gratitude by an attempt at “gude nicht,” while the foreman stated often with the weight of his authority that they were both “extraordinar' lifted” by the tea and “awfu' ta'en up” with the sermon. For after tea the “maister” came “but,” and having seen that every person had a Bible, he gave out a Psalm, which was sung usually either to Coleshill or Martyrdom--the musical taste of the household being limited and conservative to a degree. The good man then read the chapter mentioned on the face of the sermon, and remarked by way of friendly introduction:

“Noo we'ill see what Mr. Spurgeon has to say the nicht.”

Perhaps the glamour of the past is on me, perhaps a lad was but a poor judge, but it seemed to me good reading--slow, well pronounced, reverent, charged with tenderness and pathos. No one slept or moved, and the firelight falling on the serious faces of the stalwart men, and the shining of the lamp on the good grey heads, as the gospel came, sentence by sentence, to every heart, is a sacred memory, and I count that Mr. Spurgeon would have been mightily pleased to have been in such meetings of homely folk.

It was harvest-time, however, when Manasseh was read, and there being extra men with us, our little gathering was held in the loft, where they store the com which is to be threshed in the mill. It was full of wheat in heavy, rich, ripe, golden sheaves, save a wide space in front of the machinery, and the congregation seated themselves in a semi-circle on the sheaves. The door through which the com is forked into the loft was open and, with a skylight in the low dusty roof, gave us, that fine August evening, all the light we needed. Through that wide window we could look out on some stacks already safely built, and on fields, stretching for miles, of grain cut and ready for the gathering and, beyond, to woods and sloping hills towards which the sun was westering fast. That evening, I remember, we sang

“I to the hills will lift mine eyes.”

and sang it to French, and it was laid on me as an honour to read “Manasseh.” Whether the sermon is called by this name I do not know, and whether it be one of the greatest of Mr. Spurgeon's I do not know, nor have I a copy of it; but it was mighty unto salvation in that loft, and I make no doubt that good grain was garnered unto eternity. There is a passage in it when, after the mercy of God has rested on this chief sinner, an angel flies through the length and breadth of Heaven, crying, “Manasseh is saved, Manasseh is saved.” Up to that point the lad read, and further he did not read. You know, because you have been told, how insensible and careless is a schoolboy, how destitute of all sentiment and emotion... and therefore I do not ask you to believe me. You know how dull and stupid is a plowman, because you have been told... and therefore I do not ask you to believe me.

It was the light which got into the lad's eyes, and the dust which choked his voice, and it must have been for the same reasons that a plowman passed the back of his hand across his eyes.

“Ye'ill be tired noo,” said the good man; “let me feenish the sermon,” but the sermon is not yet finished, and never shall be, for it has been unto life everlasting.

Who of all preachers you can mention of our day could have held such companies save Spurgeon? What is to take their place, when the last of those well-known sermons disappears from village shops and cottage shelves? Is there any other gospel which will ever be so understanded of the people, or so move human hearts as that which Spurgeon preached in the best words of our own tongue? The good man and his wife have entered into rest long ago, and of all that company I know not one now; but I see them as I write, against that setting of gold, and I hear the angel's voice, “Manasseh is saved,” and for that evening and others very sacred to my heart I cannot forget Spurgeon.

XV.--THEIR FULL RIGHTS

THE departure of a minister of the Scots Kirk from his congregation is, of course, a subject of regret if he has the heart of the people, but this regret is tempered by the satisfaction of knowing that there will be an election. While a free-born Scot is careful to exercise his political suffrage, he takes an even keener interest in his ecclesiastical vote, and the whole congregation now constitutes itself into a constituency. Every preacher is a candidate, and everything about him is criticised, from his appearance--in one district they would not have a red-headed man; and his dress--in another district they objected to grey trousers, up to his voice and to his doctrine; but, of course, the keenest criticism bears upon his doctrine, which is searched as with a microscope. As a rule there is no desire to close the poll early, for a year's vacancy is a year's enjoyment to the congregation giving endless opportunity for argument and debate for strategy and party management. One congregation had been ruled so firmly by the retiring pastor, who was a little man and therefore full of authority, that they hardly dared to call their souls their own.

If any one ventured to disagree with this ecclesiastical Napoleon he was ordered to the door and told to betake himself to some church where freedom of action was allowed. This magnificent autocracy might have emptied another church, but it secured a Scots kirk, because to tell a Scot to go is to make, him stay. As a matter of course, no person did leave, for that would have been giving in, and the consequence was that the whole congregation was knit together by the iron bonds of rebellion.

When Napoleon retired the congregation smacked its lips, for now at least every one had found his voice and could go his own way. There never was such a vacancy known in the district. They heard thirty candidates and rejected them all: they held a meeting every week, which lasted till midnight, and there were six motions proposed, and no one dreamed of agreement. It was like the emancipation of the slaves, and the whole of Scotch cantankerousness came to a height. Every obscure law was hunted up in order to be used against the other side, and every well-known law they endeavoured to break. Not because they did not know the law, but because they wanted to find out whether the presiding minister knew it. This poor man had the duty of conducting the meetings of the congregation, and was utterly unfitted for the position by his exceeding goodness. He was a pious and soft-hearted man, who used to address them as “dear brethren,” and appealed to them on the grounds of harmony and charity. “You will wish to be at one,” he used to say, when they all really wished to be at sixes and sevens, or, “I am sure,” he would say, “you didn't mean to oppose our dear brother who has just spoken,” when that had been the speaker's intention for twenty-four hours. One party was led by a tall, raw-boned Scot, with a voice like a handsaw, who opposed everything, and the other was really managed by the wife of one of the elders, who could be heard giving directions _sotto voce_ how to meet the handsaw. They finally drew the wretched acting moderator to distraction, so that his head, which was never so good as his heart, gave way, and he required six months' rest in a hydropathic.

The Presbytery then sent down a minister of another kind, fairly equipped in law and with no bowels of mercy; a civil, courteous, determined, fighting man, and there was a royal evening. This minister explained that they had held many meetings, most of which were unnecessary, and that they had proposed fifty motions, all of which he believed were illegal. It was his own conviction he freely stated that they knew perfectly well that they had been wrong, and that they had simply been amusing themselves, and he concluded by intimating that they had met for business on this occasion, that a minister must be elected before departing, and it was his business to see that he was elected unanimously. He stood facing the congregation, who were now in a high state of delight, feeling that there was going to be a real battle, and that there would be some glory in contending with an able-bodied man, who would not speak about charity, and say “dear brethren”--words which always excite a secret feeling of disgust in a Scot. The minister stood up opposite the congregation, tall, square and alert. “Will you pay attention and I'll lay down the law; if any one breaks the law he must sit down at once, and if he does not, I shall not allow him to vote. You can propose any candidate who is legally qualified, and I will allow one man to propose him and another to second him, and I will give each five minutes in which to speak to the excellence of his candidate, and the moment any person refers to another candidate he must stop. When the candidates have been proposed we shall take the vote, and we shall go on voting until we settle upon the candidate who has the majority, and we will do all this in an hour, and then we will sing a Psalm and go home.”