Bog-Myrtle and Peat Part 52

V

JOHN

_Shall we, then, make our harvest of the sea And garner memories, which we surely deem May light these hearts of ours on darksome days, When loneliness hath power, and no kind beam Lightens about our feet the perilous ways?

For of Eternity This present hour is all we call our own, And Memory's edge is dull'd, even as it brings The sunny swathes of unforgotten springs, And sweeps them to our feet like gra.s.s long mown_.

Fergus Morrison was in his old town for a few days. He was staying with the aunt who had brought him up, schooled him, marshalled him to the Burgher Kirk like a decent Renfrewshire callant, and finally had sent him off to Glasgow to get colleged. Colleged he was in due course, and had long been placed in an influential church in the city. On the afternoon of the Sat.u.r.day he was dreamily soliloquising after the plain midday meal to which his aunt adhered.

Old things had been pa.s.sing before him during these last days, and the coming of the smart church-officer for the psalms and hymns for the morrow awoke in the Reverend Fergus Morrison a desire to know about "John," the wonderful beadle of old times, to whose enlarged duties his late spruce visitor had succeeded. He smiled fitfully as he brooded over old things and old times; and when his aunt came in from washing up the dinner dishes, he asked concerning "John." He was surprised to find that, though frail, bent double with rheumatism, and nearly blind, he was still alive; and living, too, as of yore, in the same old cottage with its gable-end to the street. The Glasgow minister took his staff and went out to visit him. As he pa.s.sed down the street he noted every change with a start, marvelling chiefly at the lowness of the houses and the shrunken dimensions of the Town Hall, once to him the n.o.blest building on earth.

When he got to John's cottage the bairns were playing at ball against the end of it, just as they had done thirty years ago. One little urchin was making a squeaking noise with a wet finger on the window-pane, inside which were displayed a few crossed pipes and fly-blown sweatmeats. As the city minister stood looking about him, a bent yet awe-inspiring form came hirpling to the door, leaning heavily on a staff. Making out by the noise the whereabouts of the small boy, the old man turned suddenly to him with a great roar like a bull, before the blast of which the boy disappeared, blown away as chaff is blown before the tempest. The minister's first impulse was likewise to turn and flee.

Thirty added years had not changed the old instinct, for when John roared at any of the town boys, conscious innocence did not keep any of them still. They ran first, and inquired from a distance whom he was after. For John's justice was not evenhanded. His voice was ever for open war, and everything that wore tattered trousers and a bonnet was his natural enemy.

So the minister nearly turned and ran, as many a time he had done in the years that were past. However, instead he went indoors with the old man, and, having recalled himself to John's clear ecclesiastical memory, the interview proceeded somewhat as follows, the calm flow of the minister's accustomed speech gradually kindling as he went, into the rush of the old Doric of his boyhood.

"Ay, John, I'm glad you remember me; but I have better cause to remember you, for you once nearly knocked out my brains with a rake when I was crawling through the manse beech-hedge to get at the minister's rasps.

Oh, yes, you did, John! You hated small boys, you know. And specially, John, you hated me. Nor can I help thinking that, after all, taking a conjunct and dispa.s.sionate view of your circ.u.mstances, as we say in the Presbytery, your warmth of feeling was entirely unwarranted. 'Thae loons--they're the plague o' my life!' you were wont to remark, after you had vainly engaged in the pleasure of the chase, having surprised us in some specially outrageous ploy.

"Once only, John, did you bring your stout ash 'rung' into close proximity to the squirming body that now sits by your fireside. You have forgotten it, I doubt not, John, among the hosts of other similar applications. But the circ.u.mstance dwells longer in the mind of your junior, by reason of the fact that for many days he took an interest in the place where he sat down. He even thought of writing to the parochial authorities to ask why they did not cushion the benches of the parish school.

"You have no manner of doot, you say, John, that I was richly deserving of it? There you are right, and in the expression I trace some of the old John who used to keep us so strictly in our places. You're still in the old house, I rejoice to see, John, and you are likely to be. What!

the laird has given it to you for your life, and ten pound a year? And the minister gives you free firing, and with the bit you've laid by you'll juik the puirhoose yet? Why, man, that's good hearing! You are a rich man in these bad times! Na, na, John, us Halmyre lads wad never see you gang there, had your 'rung' been twice as heavy.

"Do ye mind o' that day ye telled the maister on us? There was Joe Craig, that was lost somewhere in the China seas; Sandy Young, that's something in Glasgow; Tam Simpson, that died in the horrors o' drink; and me--and ye got us a' a big licking. It was a frosty morning, and ye waylaid the maister on his way to the school, and the tawse were nippier than ordinar' that mornin'. No, John, it wasna me that was the ringleader. It was Joe Craig, for ye had clooted his lugs the night before for knockin' on your window wi' a pane o' gla.s.s, and then letting it jingle in a thousand pieces on the causeway. Ye chased him doon the street and through the lang vennel, and got him in Payne's field. Ye brocht him back by the cuff o' the neck, an' got a polisman to come to see the damage. An' when ye got to the window there wasna a hole in't, nor a bit o' gless to be seen, for Sandy Young had sooped it a' up when ye were awa' after Joe Craig.

"Then the polisman said, 'If I war you, John, I wadna gang sae muckle to the Cross Keys--yer heid's no as strong as it was, an' the minister's sure to hear o't!' This was mair than mortal could stan', so ye telled the polisman yer opinion o' him and his forebears, and attended to Joe Craig's lugs, baith at the same time.

"Ye dinna mind, do ye, John, what we did that nicht? No? Weel, then, we fetched ye the water that ye were aye compleenin' that ye had naebody to carry for ye. Twa cans fu' we carried--an' we proppit them baith against your door wi' a bit brick ahint them. Ay, just that very door there.

Then we gied a great 'rammer' on the panels, an' ye cam' geyan fast to catch us. But as ye opened the door, baith the cans fell into the hoose, an' ye could hae catched bairdies an' young puddocks on the hearthstane. Weel, ye got me in the coachbuilder's entry, an' I've no'

forgotten the bit circ.u.mstance, gin ye have.

"Ill-wull? Na, John, the verra best of guid-wull, for ye made better boys o' us for the verra fear o' yer stick. As ye say, the ministers are no' what they used to be when you and me were sae pack. A minister was a graun' man then, wi' a presence, an' a necktie that took a guid half-yard o' seeventeen-hunner linen. I'm a minister mysel', ye ken, John, but I'm weel aware I'm an unco declension. Ye wad like to hear me preach? Noo, that's rale kind o' ye, John. But ye'll be snuggest at your ain fireside, an' I'll come in, an' we'll e'en hae a draw o' the pipe atween sermons. Na, I dinna wunner that ye canna thole to think on the new kirk-officer, mairchin' in afore the minister, an 's gouns an' a'

sic capers. They wadna hae gotten you to do the like.

"Ye mind, John, hoo ye heartened me up when I was feared to speak for the first time in the auld pulpit? 'Keep yer heid up,' ye said, 'an'

speak to the gallery. Never heed the folk on the floor. Dinna be feared; in a time or twa ye'll be nae mair nervish than mysel'. Weel do I mind when I first took up the buiks, I could hardly open the door for shakin', but noo I'm naewise discomposed wi' the hale service.'

"Ay, it is queer to come back to the auld place efter sae mony year in Glesca. You've never been in Glesca, John? No; I'll uphaud that there's no' yer match amang a' the beadles o' that toun--no' in yer best days, when ye handed up yer snuff-box to Maister M'Sneesh o' Balmawhapple in the collectin' ladle, when ye saw that he was sore pitten til't for a snuff. Or when ye said to Jamieson o' Penpoint, wee crowl o' a body--

"'I hae pitten in the fitstool an' drappit the bookboard, to gie ye every advantage. So see an' mak' the best o't.'

"Ay, John, ye war a man! Ye never said that last, ye say, John? They lee'd on ye, did they? Weel, I dootna that there was mony a thing pitten doon to ye that was behadden to the makkar. But they never could mak' ye onything but oor ain kindly, thrawn, obstinate auld John, wi' a hand like a bacon ham and a heart like a bairn's. Guid-day to ye, John.

There's something on the mantelpiece to pit in the tea-caddy. I'll look in the morn, an' we'll hae oor smoke."

VI

EUROCLYDON OF THE RED HEAD

_There's a leaf in the book of the damask rose That glows with a tender red; From the bud, through the bloom, to the dust it goes, Into rose dust fragrant and dead_.

_And this word is inscribed on the petals fine Of that velvety purple page-- "Be true to thy youth while yet it is thine Ere it sink in the mist of age_,

"_Ere the bursting bud be grown To a rose nigh overblown, And the wind of the autumn eves Comes blowing and scattering all The damask drift of the dead rose leaves Under the orchard wall_.

"_Like late-blown roses the joy-days flit, And soon will the east winds blow; So the love years now must be lived and writ In red on a page of snow_.

"_And here the rune of the rose I rede, 'Tis the heart of the rose and me-- O youth, O maid, in your hour of need, Be true to the sacred three-- Be true to the love that is love indeed, To thyself, and thy G.o.d, these three!_

"_Ere the bursting bud is grown To a rose nigh overblown, And the wind of the autumn eves Comes blowing and scattering all The damask drift of the dead rose leaves Under the orchard wall_."

Euroclydon of the Red Head was the other name of the Reverend Sylva.n.u.s Septimus Cobb during his student days--nothing more piratical than that.

Sylva.n.u.s obtained the most valuable part of his training in the Canadian backwoods. During his student days he combined the theory of theology with the practice of "logging," in proportions which were mutually beneficial, and which greatly aided his success as a minister on his return to the old country. Sylva.n.u.s Cobb studied in Edinburgh, lodging with his brother in the story next the sky at the corner of Simon Square, supported by red herrings, oatmeal, and the reminiscence that Carlyle had done the same within eyeshot of his front window fifty years before.

"And look at him now!" said Sylva.n.u.s Cobb pertinently.

Sylva.n.u.s had attained the cognomen of Euroclydon of the Red Head in that breezy collegiate republic whose only order is the Prussian "For Merit."

He was always in a hurry, and his red head, with its fiery, untamed shock of bristle, usually shot into the cla.s.s-room a yard or so before his broad shoulders. At least, this was the general impression produced.

Also, he always brought with him a draught of caller air, like one coming into a close and fire-warmed room out of the still and frost-bound night.

But Edinburgh, its bare "lands" and barren cla.s.s-rooms, in time waxed wearisome to Sylva.n.u.s. He grew to loathe the drone of the cla.s.ses, the snuffy prelections of professors long settled on the lees of their intellects, who still moused about among the dusty speculations which had done duty for thought when their lectures were new, thirty years ago. "A West Indian n.i.g.g.e.r," said Sylva.n.u.s quaintly, "ain't in it with a genuine lazy Scotch professor. Wish I had him out to lumber with me on the Ottawa! He'd have to hump himself or git! I'd learn him to keep hag-hagging at trees that had been dead stumps for half a century!"

At this time of life we generally spent a part of each evening in going round to inform our next neighbours that we had just discovered the solution of the problem of the universe. True, we had been round at the same friend's the week before with two equally infallible discoveries.

Most unfortunately, however, on Sunday we had gone to hear the Great Grim Man of St. Christopher's preach in his own church, and he had pitilessly knocked the bottom out of both of these. Sometimes our friends called with their own latest solutions; and then there was such a pother of discussion, and so great a noise, that the old lady beneath foolishly knocked up a telephonic message to stop--foolishly, for that was business much more in our line than in hers. With one mind we thundered back a responsive request to that respectable householder to go to Jericho for her health, an it liked her. Our landlady, being long-suffering and humorously appreciative of the follies of academic youth (O rare paragon of landladies!), wondered meekly why she was sent to Coventry by every one of her neighbours on the stair during the winter months; and why during the summer they asked her to tea and inquired with unaffected interest if she was quite sure that that part of the town agreed with her health, and if she thought of stopping over this Whitsunday term.

When Sylva.n.u.s Cobb came up our stairs it was as though a bag of coals on the back of an intoxicated carter had tumbled against our door.

"That's yon red-headed lunatic, I'll be bound; open the door to him yersel'!" cried the landlady, remembering one occasion when Euroclydon had entered with such fervour as almost to pancake her bodily between wall and door.

Sylva.n.u.s came in as usual with a militant rush, which caused us to lift the kitchen poker so as to be ready to poke the fire or for any other emergency.

"I'll stop no more in this hole!" shouted Euroclydon of the Red Head, "smothered with easter haar on the streets and auld wife's blethers inby. I'm off to Canada to drive the axe on the banks of the Ottawa. And ye can bide here till your brains turn to mud--and they'll not have far to turn either!"

"Go home to your bed, Euroclydon--you'll feel better in the morning!" we advised with a calmness born of having been through this experience as many as ten times before. But, as it chanced, Sylva.n.u.s was in earnest this time, and we heard of him next in Canada, logging during the week and preaching on Sundays, both with equal acceptance.

One night Sylva.n.u.s had a "tough" in his audience--an ill-bred ruffian who scoffed when he gave out his text, called "Three cheers for Ingersoll!" when he was half through with his discourse, and interjected imitations of the fife and big drum at the end of each paragraph. It may be said on his behalf that he had just come to camp, had never seen Sylva.n.u.s bring down a six-foot pine, and knew not that he was named Euroclydon--or why.

The ruddy crest of the speaker gradually bristled till it stood on end like the comb of Chanticleer. He paused and looked loweringly at the interrupter under his s.h.a.ggy brows, pulling his under lip into his mouth in a moment of grim resolve.

"I'll attend to you at the close of this divine service!" said Euroclydon.