Part 44

This was far from the language of ardent wooing; yet I noticed that this same Wattie sought to reform his ways, that they might tend to the increase of my comfort. He had been an incorrigible sleeper in the kirk, surrendering to sweet repose with the announcement of the text, and emerging therefrom only to join the closing paraphrase with unembarrassed unction. For no man was more ready with a verdict on the sermon than was Wattie, as he walked down the aisle; he never failed to demand the "heads and particulars" from his family at the dinner table, resenting all imputation of somnolence for himself.

His defense was plausible, since he never slept exposed; but always with his head bowed upon the book-board, esteemed by the uncharitable as the attitude of slumber, but explained by Wattie as the posture of undistracted thought and pious meditation.

Shortly after my call to Charleston, however, Wattie abandoned this pious and reflective posture, sitting bolt upright, beating back his tendency to thoughtful retirement with the aid of cloves and peppermints. I knew the meaning of this reform, for I knew Wattie's love for me, clandestine though it was; he and I had watched death together once--and after the wave had overswept us, the ground beneath our feet was firm as rock forever.

By and by St. Cuthbert's began to move. It was known that I purposed announcing my decision on the approaching Sabbath day, and I was informed that one or two deputations wished to wait upon me at the manse. The first was from the women of the church, who had had a meeting of their own.

To my amazement the spokeswoman was Mrs. Goodall. Now it must be told that this same Mrs. Goodall, in all sincerity of conscience, had violently withstood my advent to the pastorate of St. Cuthbert's years before. The ground of her opposition was that I plied the festive pipe.

Never was there nobler Christian womanhood than hers, never a more devoted life, never a more loving heart. But no man's character could be fragrant, so she thought, if it ripened amid the rich aroma of tobacco; and good old Virginia leaf was to her the poison-ivy of mankind. That life was indeed beclouded which found shelter in the genial clouds of the aforesaid leaf. But with all this heroic hostility to our little weaknesses, there dwelt a sweet strain of innocence in which we had come to glory.

"Ye needn't tell me," said the good Mrs. Goodall once to a sympathetic circle, "that they dinna play poker at the taivern--an' in the daytime too--for I passed by this verra day, an' they were pokin' away, wi' their coats off, wi' lang sticks in their hands, pokin' at the wee white balls," and her listeners needed no other proof.

The dear old saint made her plea for those she represented, and it greatly pleased me, for I loved her well; and I remembered the scores and hundreds who had felt the power of her godly life. Besides, it confirmed me in this assurance, that, after all is said and done, if a man is honestly trying to do his Master's work, even those most sternly set against the pipe will care but little whether or not he seeks the comfort it undoubtedly affords. Which very thing had been proved by my great predecessor, Dr. Grant, half a century agone.

The second, and larger, deputation was composed of ten or more, appointed to represent the kirk session and the Board. Of this latter body, the principal spokesman was its chairman, William Collin, an excerpt from Selkirkshire and one of my chiefest friends. He was long, very long, almost six feet three, with copious hair that never sank to rest, and habitually adorned with a cravat that had caught the same aspiring spirit. This was a rider perpetually attached.

One suit of clothes after another, as the years passed by, bore witness to the loyalty of his heart; for he would not abandon the pre-historic tailor who was a sort of heirloom in the Collin family. In consequence, the rise and fall of William's coat, in its caudal parts, as he walked down the aisle with the plate on the Sabbath day, had become part of St. Cuthbert's ritual--and we all thought it beautiful. He was one of the two, referred to in the opening of our story, who had been sent to spy out the land, and to report upon the propriety of my conjugal enterprise. The fluent panegyric in which his report was made is already recorded and need not be here repeated.

William had a talent for friendship beyond that of any man I ever knew, and this talent flowered into genius only after the clock struck midnight. Never yet was there friend who would stay with you to the last like William Collin, his shortcomings few, his long-stayings many and delicious.

For never yet was friend so welcome, never speech more sane and stimulating; never farewell so sweetly innocent when the clock struck two. May the God of friendship bless thee, William Collin, for all that thy friendship hath been to me! And if these lines outlive thee, let them bear witness to that joy which is not denied to the humblest man, who hath but a fireplace and a friend and a pipe--and four feet on the fender, while the storm howls without. For, with alternate zeal, we cast the blocks upon the blaze--and its flame never faltered till thou wert gone.

William, as chairman, was the first to speak. He presented St. Cuthbert's case with dignity and force, beginning with the tidings that the Board wished me henceforth to take two months' holidays instead of one. This started in my mind a swift reflection upon the native perversity of the Scotch. To prove that they cannot do without you, they banish you altogether for an extra month, but William Collin gave the thing a more graceful turn:

"We love you weel eneuch to do without you--but no' for lang," he said.

Then he concluded, as was his inviolate custom, with a reference to Burns, in whom he had sat down and risen up for forty years:

"I canna better close what I hae to say," he assured me, "than by the use o' the plowboy's words, slightly changed for the occasion:

"'Better lo'ed ye canna be Will ye no' abide at hame?'"

With this he reached behind him (this too, a time-honoured custom), seized the aforesaid caudal parts of his coat, removed them from the path of descending danger, and lowered his stalwart form with easy dignity, his kindly eyes aglow with friendship's light.

David Carrick was the next to speak. Cautious and severe, his chief aim was to express the hope that I was sincere in my indecision.

"We had a sair shock wi' a former minister long years ago," he said, "he had a call, like yirsel', but he aye kept puttin' us off, tellin' us he was aye seekin' licht frae above; but Sandy Rutherford saw an or'nary licht in the manse ae nicht after twal o'clock. He peekit in the window, an' he saw the minister wi' his coat off, packin' up the things. The twa lichts kind o' muddled him, ye ken."

His colleagues may have thought David unnecessarily severe. In any case several of them began signalling to Geordie Bickell to take the floor. Geordie responded with much modesty and misgiving, for he was the saintliest man amongst us; and his own estimate of himself was in direct antagonism to our own.

"We willna urge ye, sir," he said, with a winsome smile, "but I'm sure the maist of us hae been pleadin' hard afore a higher court than this. A' I want to tell ye is this--there hasna been wound or bruise upon yir relation to yir people. An' there's but ae hairt amongst us, an' we're giein' ye anither call this day--an' we're hopin' it's the will o' God."

The interview was almost closed, when a voice was heard from the back of the room, a very eager voice, and charged with the import of its message:

"It's mebbe no' worth mentionin'," said Archie Blackwood, a fiery Scot whose father had fought at Balaclava, "but it's gey important for a' that. Gin ye should gang to Charleston ye'll hae to sing sma' on their Fourth o' July, for that's their screechin' time, they tell me; an' ye wudna hae a psalm frae year's end to year's end to wet yir burnin' lips--an' ye wadna ken when it was the Twenty-fourth o' May. They tell me they haena kept the Twenty-fourth o' May in Ameriky since 1776." Archie knew his duty better than his dates.

I assured him of the importance of his warnings, and acknowledged the various deprivations he had foretold.

"Juist ae word afore we pairt," suddenly interjected a humble little elder who had never been known to speak before. "It's in my conscience, an' I want to pit it oot. We a' ken fine we haena been ower regular at the prayer meetin'; but we'll try to dae better in the time to come. It's death-bed repentance, I ken, but it's better than nane."

One by one the delegates shook hands with me and withdrew, after I had promised them as early a pronouncement as my still unsettled mind could hope to give. After they had gone, I sat long by myself, pondering all that had been said, looking for light indeed, but striving to quench all other beams than those whose radiance was from above.

While thus employed, a feeble footfall was heard upon the steps, and a gentle knocking called me to the door. It was no other than little Issie's grandfather who stood before me.