St. Cuthbert's Part 7

He was raising a double paean to voice a twofold joy: the first, the joy of triumph in the recent contest; the second, the historic and imperishable joy that he was a Scotsman born.

"Yon whelp I skelpit the day was naething but an Irishman," he cried loftily. "I canna get Robbie Burns' graun' words oot o' my heid: 'The Scotsmen staun' an' Irish fa'--let him on wi' me,'" and on this wave of martial spirit Geordie took another plunge at right angles from our previous course, bearing me after him like a skiff tied to a schooner amid stormy seas.

After we had put about and regained our bearings, I nimbly took advantage of this patriotic opening, having ever a quick mind for the transition of ideas.

"Yes, Geordie, many good things are Scotch, and many Scotch things are good. Some misguided persons think even that Scotch liquor is good. Now, George----" But I got no further. This time Geordie swung around before me, like a boat that trusts its moorings--

"Ye're richt, minister; wha wad hae thocht ye kent the difference? But ye're richt--a' whusky is guid, but some's mair guid nor ithers, an'

Scotch is mair guid nor ony ithers. Those f.e.c.kless Irish fowk aye tak'

the speerits o' oor native land gin they hae the siller, which isna likely. An' I dinna blame them muckle."

I now saw that there was no opening along this line, favourable at first sight as it had appeared. The attack must be plain and straight.

"Geordie," I began, "this is a pitiable situation for a minister to be in, and you know, George----"

"That's a' richt, minister--dinna fash yersel'. I'll no' mention it to a soul. Mony's the time I hae been fou masel', 'peetiably seetivated,' as ye ca' it, bein' mair learned nor me; to be honest wi' ye, I'm juist a wee bit 'peetiably seetivated' this vera nicht. But I'll tak' ye hame for a' that, an nane'll hear tell o't frae Geordie Lorimer."

Then he plunged again, propelled by the sense of a new responsibility, and for a minute we two performed, unaided and alone, the several different parts of an eight-hand reel.

Nevertheless, I relinquished not my hold, for I was truly attached to the fellow, and in due time we made a mile, though I know the cyclometer would have recorded ten. More hopeful, I was steaming on, a clerical tugboat, when of a sudden Geordie stopped, pointing with his right leg high in air, trusting me and his left to perform the relief duty thus demanded.

"Yon's ma coo, ma Ayrshire coo," he exclaimed, pointing with his initial leg to the white-faced cow which lay among its kindred, its jaw gently swinging.

"The beast disna ken," I heard him mutter; then he suddenly bolted, breaking his tether, and before I could recover him he had shambled on to the road with the gait of a delirious camel, and kicking his innocent property from behind, cried out--

"Get oot o' that. Sic like a thing, to be lyin' wi' the common herd.

Mind ye, ye're no' an or'nary man's coo--ye're a c.o.o.ncillor's coo." Then he retraced his labyrinthian steps in a corresponding swath.

As we drew near his humble gate (how often Geordie had made that last port with pain), he muttered to himself reflectively--

"I gied him h.e.l.l," referring doubtless to the vanquished candidate.

Whereat I took him to task right sternly, giving him sharply to understand that such language was an insult to his minister and friend.

In reply, he fell upon me, literally and figuratively, with tones of reproachful tenderness.

"Minister," he said, "I own ye as a faithfu' guide." ("You'd better,"

said I to myself, for I was weary.) "I own ye as a faithfu' guide, an' I wudna gie ye pain. For we've had oor ain times thegither. I micht maist say as 'at 'We twa hae paiddled i' the burn,' only it wudna be becomin'.

But aboot that word--I've heard ye say yirsel' frae the pulpit as how h.e.l.l is a maist awfu' feelin' i' the breist. Verra well, dinna ye think as hoo yon Irish whelp I skelpit the day 'll hae a waesome feelin' i'

his breist? That's a' the meanin' I desired till convey. It's nae wrang when it's expoun'it. Guid-nicht till ye, minister."

XI

_PLUCKING A FIERY BRAND_

But there are others of whom I have better things to record, and indeed better things shall yet be set down by me concerning Geordie Lorimer before these short and simple annals shall have ended. For there is nothing so joysome to record as the brightening story of a soul coming to its real birth from the travail of its sin and struggle. For perchance time itself is G.o.d's great midwife, and man's writhing agony is to the end that he may soon be born.

The serious will doubtless wish to learn what befell me in my effort to beguile the rugged Donald M'Phatter and his wife, who had quit the kirk when the kirk quit the tokens, back to the worship of the sanctuary. It is many years since they returned to St. Cuthbert's hallowed shrine, and they now sing the uncreated song.

For they have joined that choir invisible whose voices, trained by G.o.d, blend in perfect unison, but not in time; for they reckon not by days and years where they have gone to dwell.

It may be set down as certain that I would never have won them back to church had it not been that I abandoned argument and adopted friendship.

For argument, to my mind, satisfies a people's souls as well as a bill of fare will suffice a hungry man; but the heart's food is a different matter. Argument may be botany, but friendship is a flower; and one little violet is better than one big volume, or a thousand of them, as far as that goes. This is perhaps the same thing as to say that a living dog is better than a dead lion, for most big books are sepulchres--but I think that my figure hath a sweeter flavour than the other.

And when I deliver the Yale lectures to young ministers, I shall tell them that there is a blessed guile, a holy cozenage of the heart whereby they may win their people's souls by stealth. And if a parson hath some obdurate parishioner or some gnarled and snarling elder, let him attack him as a thief in the night, and turn its darkness into day.

I had to build my friendship with Donald brick by brick, and oftentimes it swayed before his blasts. A hundred times I could have been justly angry and forever done with him. But I knew a man, a very near relation, with whom G.o.d might oftener have done the same, and had not; besides, I remembered that adroit pet.i.tion in the Lord's Prayer, which is the plummet of the soul's sincerity--and I had read of One who reviled not again.

"In days far by," he charged, "oor faithers said wi' pride as hoo the ministers o' G.o.d were dyin' for the truth; but in thae modern days, a'

men say as hoo they're dyin' for their steepin'" (stipend).

Now this was hard to bear, for I had declined larger stipends than I accepted from St. Cuthbert's, and some would say that this was a right and proper time to stand upon my dignity. But what is so dignified as the Cross, planted in the very centre of shame's garden? I had long before determined that no man can stand on dignity, for it must be dignity that stands upon the man, and by no act or word of his, be it remarked, but by the high act of G.o.d. For those men who stand on dignity are top-heavy things, pigmies upon stilts, triangles upside down.

Therefore I was patient with Donald, and guarded our infant friendship as a lost hunter shields his last remaining match. I said little to him about church, and much about the Highlands. For Donald was a belated Highlander, his parents having lapsed to the lowlands, where birth took him at a disadvantage; but he was ever struggling to recover Inverness.

"I was a hielandman afore I was born and a lowlandman after. I kind o'

flawed doon like, ye ken," he said.

I nodded acquiescence, for it is a favourite theory of mine that a man is born of his grandparents just as much as of his father and his mother; they are equally responsible, I hold, but have the advantage of an earlier retreat.

It was Donald's great delight to recount the fighting stories of his highland ancestors. In all that b.l.o.o.d.y reel he joined again with joy.

The slightest reference to it, and Donald was off--over the hills and far away, his guid blue bonnet on his head, his burly knees as bare as the bayonet his fathers bore, and the wild skirl of the bagpipes in his heart. Those pagan-Christian days, those shameful splendours of feud and raid and ma.s.sacre, those mutual pleasantries of human pig-sticking, those civilized savageries and chivalric demonries--all these were Donald's sanguinary food.

"Mind ye," he would say, "half the time they didna ken what they were fechtin' aboot. But they focht a' the better for that--the graun' human principle was there; they kent that fine, an' that was a' they needit for to ken. Forbye, they foucht when the chief bade them fecht. When he gied the word, hieland foot was never slow and hieland bluid was never laggin'. Man, what a graun' chief Bonyparte wad hae made, gin the M'Phatters had ta'en him up!"

"Dinna be aye speakin' aboot yir M'Phatters," interrupted his gentle wife, now somewhat aroused, for her maiden name was Elsie Campbell, and she had her own share of highland memories. "They were guid eneuch fechters in their way, nae doot, but it wasna the Campbell way. Yir M'Phatter feet that ye're haverin' aboot was never slow when the Campbells was comin', I'll grant ye that--the Campbells did them, ye ken that fine, Donald."

"Hoots, wumman, ye dinna ken what yir sayin'. Div ye no' mind the battle o' the bluidy shirt, an'----"

"Haud yir wheesht--I canna bide to hear aboot thae bluidy shirts an'

things. It's a fair scunner', and the minister hearin' ye to the bargain," Elsie shut him off triumphantly in propriety's great name.

The first real olive branch of friendship which Donald extended to me was under cover of the bagpipes. I knew he was relenting when he first asked me if I would like to hear him play. I forged a pious lie, declaring it would give me the greatest pleasure. Surely that sin has been atoned for; I have suffered for it as no tongue can tell. The world needeth a new Dante, to write a new _Inferno_, with the bagpipes thrown in. Then will that sombre picture of future suffering be complete. I make no reckless charge against those aforesaid instruments of music, facetiously so called. The bagpipes are a good thing in their place, but their place is with Dante and his _Inferno_.

They have survived only as bulldogs survive, from perverted sentiment, and mal-educated taste. For the Scotsman is the most sentimental among men, stubbornly and maliciously and relentlessly sentimental. The bagpipes are a legacy from the grim testament of war, and the savage breath of other days belches through them yet. Ah me! with what secret pride I hear again far other music wafted from my native Emerald Isle!

Nor can I well conceal my joy that the emblem of Ireland, despised and rejected though she be, is the sweetest-tongued of all music-making things in this vale of tears. For her, no lion, tempest-crowned, for her no prowling bear, for her no screaming eagle--but the harp, mellifluous and tender. And although its liquid strain hath for centuries been touched by sorrow, yet there hath been music in its voice for all the happier listening world, and the day draweth near, please G.o.d, when its unfleeting joy shall descend and rest on her own fields and meadows, making glad the hearts within her humble cottages, whose only wealth is love.

But Donald's fervent pa.s.sion for this warlike weapon of his fathers was unrestrained by thoughts of other lands. Had any man suggested that Irish music was superior, he would doubtless have bidden him begone and dwell with other lyres. Such suggestion I did not dare to make. On the contrary, I smiled as he fondled his windy octopus, which he did with mysterious tenderness. Then he adjusted the creature to his lips, while I calmly braced myself for the gathering storm.

I had not long to wait. He paced dramatically back and forward for a minute in a preliminary sort of way, like one who pushes his shallop from the sh.o.r.e, gently pressing the huge belly of the thing with his elbow as if to prompt it for the ensuing fray. The thing emitted one or two sample sounds, not odious particularly, but infantile and grimly prophetic, like the initial squeaks of some windful babe awaking from its sleep. Then the thing seemed to feel its strength, to recognize its dark enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, and broke into such a blasphemy of sound as hath not been heard since the angels alighted where they fell.

I have heard the deep roar of the ocean, and have listened to the screech of the typhoon through befiddled sails; I have shuddered at the savage yell of the hyena, and have grown cold, even in the tropics, before the tooting of the wounded elephant; I have heard the eagle rend the firmament and the midnight fog-horn ring the changes on eternity--join them all together, and they will be still but as a village choir compared to the infinite and full-orbed bray of the highland bagpipes.