Winter Evening Tales

“God’s work is soon done.”

It is a weary day when the youth first discovers that after all he will only become a man; and this discovery came with a depressing weight one morning to David, after he had been counting bank notes for three hours.  It was noon, but the gas was lit, and in the heavy air a dozen men sat silent as statues, adding up figures and making entries.  He thought of the college courts, and the college green, of the crowded halls, and the symposia, where both mind and body had equal refection.  There had been days when he had a part in these things, and when to “strive with things impossible,” or “to pluck honor from the pale-faced moon,” had not been unreasonable or rash; but now it almost seemed as if Mr. Buckle’s dreary gospel was a reality, and men were machines, and life was an affair to be tabulated in averages.

He had just had a letter from Willie Caird, too, and it had irritated him.  The wounds of a friend may be faithful, but they are not always welcome.  David determined to drop the correspondence.  Willie was going one way and he another.  They might never see each other again; and—­

          If they should meet one day,
          If both should not forget
    They could clasp hands the accustomed way.

For by simply going with the current in which in great measure, subject yet to early influences, he found himself, David Lockerby had drifted in one twelve months far enough away from the traditions and feelings of his home and native land.  Not that he had broken loose into any flagrant sin, or in any manner cast a shadow on the perfect respectability of his name.  The set in which Alexander Gordon and his nephew lived sanctioned nothing of the kind.  They belonged to the best society, and were of those well-dressed, well-behaved people whom Canon Kingsley described as “the sitters in pews.”

In their very proper company David had gone to ball and party, to opera and theatre.  On wet Sundays they sat together in St. George’s Church; on fine Sundays they had sailed quietly down the Thames, and eaten their dinner at Richmond.  Now, sin is sin beyond all controversy, but there were none of David’s companions to whom these things were sins in the same degree as they were to David.

To none of them had the holy Sabbath ever been the day it had been to him; to none of them was it so richly freighted with memories of wonderful sermons and solemn sacraments that were foretastes of heaven.  Coming with a party of gentlemanly fellows slowly rowing up the Thames and humming some passionate recitative from an opera, he alone could recall the charmful stillness of a Scotch Sabbath, the worshiping crowds, and the evening psalm ascending from so many thousand hearthstones: 

    O God of Bethel, by whose hand
      Thy people still are led.

He alone, as the oars kept time to “aria” or “chorus,” heard above the witching melody the solemn minor of “St. Mary’s,” or the tearful tenderness of “Communion.”

To most of his companions opera and theatre had come as a matter of course, as a part of their daily life and education.  David had been obliged to stifle conscience, to disobey his father’s counsels and his mother’s pleadings, before he could enjoy them.  He had had, in fact, to cultivate a taste for the sin before the sin was pleasant to him; and he frankly told himself that night, in thinking it all over, that it was harder work getting to hell than to heaven.

But then in another year he would become a partner, marry Mary, and begin a new life.  Suddenly it struck him with a new force that he had not heard from Mary for nearly three weeks.  A fear seized him that while he had been dancing and making merry Mary had been ill and suffering.  He was amazed at his own heartlessness, for surely nothing but sickness would have made Mary forget him.

The next morning as he went to the bank he posted a long letter to her, full of affection and contrition and rose-colored pictures of their future life.  He had risen an hour earlier to write it, and he did not fail to notice what a healthy natural pleasure even this small effort of self-denial gave him.  He determined that he would that very night write long letters to his mother and Janet, and even to his father.  “There was a good deal he wanted to say to him about money matters, and his marriage, and fore-talk always saved after-talk, besides it would keep the influence of the old and better life around him to be in closer communion with it.”

Thus thinking, he opened the door of his uncle’s private room, and said cheerily, “Good morning, uncle.”

“Good morning, Davie.  Your father is here.”

Then Andrew Lockerby came forward, and his son met him with outstretched hands and paling cheeks.  “What is it, father?  Mother?  Mary?  Is she dead?”

“’Deed, no, my lad.  There’s naething wrang but will turn to right.  Mary Moir was married three days syne, and I thocht you wad rather hear the news from are that loved you.  That’s a’, Davie; and indeed it’s a loss that’s a great gain.”

“Who did she marry?”

“Just a bit wizened body frae the East Indies, a’most as yellow as his gold, an’ as auld as her father.  But the Deacon is greatly set up wi’ the match—­or the settlements—­and Mary comes o’ a gripping kind.  There’s her brother Gavin, he’d sell the ears aff his head, an’ they werena fastened on.”

Then David went away with his father, and after half-an-hour’s talk on the subject together it was never mentioned more between them.  But it was a blow that killed effectually all David’s eager yearnings for a loftier and purer life.  And it not only did this, but it also caused to spring up into active existence a passion which was to rule him absolutely—­a passion for gold.  Love had failed him, friendship had proved an annoyance, company, music, feasting, amusements of all kinds were a weariness now to think of.  There seemed nothing better for him than to become a rich man.

“I’ll buy so many acres of old Scotland and call them by the Lockerby’s name; and I’ll have nobles and great men come bowing and becking to David Lockerby as they do to Alexander Gordon.  Love is refused, and wisdom is scorned, but everybody is glad to take money; then money is best of all things.”

Thus David reasoned, and his father said nothing against his arguments.  Indeed, they had never understood one another so well.  David, for the first time, asked all about the lands of Ellenmount, and pledged himself, if he lived and prospered, to fulfill his father’s hope.  Indeed, Andrew was altogether so pleased with his son that he told his brother-in-law that the £20,000 would be forthcoming as soon as ever he choose to advance David in the firm.

“I was only waiting, Lockerby, till Davie got through wi’ his playtime.  The lad’s myself o’er again, an’ I ken weel he’ll ne’er be contented until he settles cannily doon to his interest tables.”

So before Andrew Lockerby went back to Glasgow David was one of the firm of Gordon & Co., sat in the directors’ room, and began to feel some of the pleasant power of having money to lend.  After this he was rarely seen among men of his own age—­women he never mingled with.  He removed to his uncle’s stately house in Baker street, and assimilated his life very much to that of the older money maker.  Occasionally he took a run northward to Glasgow, or a month’s vacation on the Continent, but nearly all such journeys were associated with some profitable loan or investment.  People began to speak of him as a most admirable young man, and indeed in some respects he merited the praise.  No son ever more affectionately honored his father and mother, and Janet had been made an independent woman by his grateful consideration.

He was so admirable that he ceased to interest people, and every time he visited Glasgow fewer and fewer of his old acquaintances came to see him.  A little more than ten years after his admission to the firm of Gordon & Co. he came home at the new year, and presented his father with the title-deeds of Ellenmount and Netherby.  The next day old Andrew was welcomed on the City Exchange as “Lockerby of Ellenmount, gentleman.”  “I hae lived lang enough to hae seen this day,” he said, with happy tears; and David felt a joy in his father’s joy that he did not know again for many years.  For while a man works for another there is an ennobling element in his labor, but when he works simply for himself he has become the greatest of all slaves.  This slavery David now willingly assumed; the accumulation of money became his business, his pleasure, the sum of his daily life.

Ten years later both his uncle and father were dead, and both had left David every shilling they possessed.  Then he went on working more eagerly than ever, turning his tens of thousands into hundreds of thousands and adding acre to acre, and farm to farm, until Lockerby was the richest estate in Annandale.  When he was forty-five years of age fortune seemed to have given him every good gift except wife and children, and his mother, who had nothing else to fret about, worried Janet continually on this subject.

“Wife an’ bairns, indeed!” said Janet; “vera uncertain comforts, ma’am, an’ vera certain cares.  Our Master Davie likes aye to be sure o’ his bargains.”

“Weel, Janet, it’s a great cross to me—­an’ him sae honored, an’ guid an’ rich, wi’ no a shilling ill-saved to shame him.”

“Tut, tut, ma’am!  The river doesna’ swell wi’ clean water.  Naebody’s charged him wi’ wrangdoing—­that’s enough.  There’s nae need to set him up for a saint.”

“An’ you wanted him to be a minister, Janet.”

“I was that blind—­ance.”

“We are blind creatures, Janet.”

“Wi’ excepts, ma’am; but they’ll ne’er be found amang mithers.”

This conversation took place one lovely Sabbath evening, and just at the same time David was standing thoughtfully on Princes street, Edinburgh, wondering to which church he had better turn his steps.  For a sudden crisis in the affairs of a bank in that city had brought him hurriedly to Scotland, and he was not only a prudent man who considered public opinion, but was also in a mood to conciliate that opinion so long as the outward conditions were favorable.  Whatever he might do in London, in Scotland he always went to morning and evening service.

He was also one of those self-dependent men who dislike to ask questions or advice from anyone.  Though a comparative stranger he would not have allowed himself to think that anyone could direct him better than he could choose for himself.  He looked up and down the street, and finally followed a company which increased continually until they entered an old church in the Canongate.

Its plain wooden pews and old-fashioned elevated pulpit rather pleased than offended David, and the air of antiquity about the place consecrated it in his eyes.  Men like whatever reminds them of their purest and best days, and David had been once in the old Relief Church on the Doo Hill in Glasgow—­just such a large, bare, solemn-looking house of worship.  The still, earnest men and women, the droning of the precentor, the antiquated singing pleased and soothed him.  He did not notice much the thin little fair man who conducted the services; for he was holding a session with his own soul.

A peculiar movement among the congregation announced that the sermon was beginning, and David, looking up, saw that the officiating minister had been changed.  This man was swarthy and tall, and looked like some old Jewish prophet, as he lifted his rapt face and cried, like one crying in the wilderness, “Friends!  I have a question to ask you to-night:  ’What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’”

For twenty-three years David had silenced that voice, but it had found him out again—­it was Willie Caird’s.  At first interested and curious, David soon became profoundly moved as Willie, in clear, solemn, thrilling sentences, reasoned of life and death and judgment to come.  Not that he followed his arguments, or was more than dimly conscious of the moving eloquence that stirred the crowd as a mighty wind stirs the trees in the forest:  for that dreadful question smote, and smote, and smote upon his heart as if determined to have an answer.

What shall it profit?  What shall it profit?  What shall it profit?  David was quick enough at counting material loss and profit, but here was a question beyond his computation.  He went silently out of the church, and wandered away by Holyrood Palace and St. Anthony’s Chapel to the pathless, lonely beauty of Salisbury Crags.  There was no answer in nature for him.  The stars were silent above, the earth silent beneath.  Weariness brought him no rest; if he slept, he woke with the start of a hunted soul, and found him asking that same dreadful question.  When he looked in the mirror his own face queried of him, “What profit?” and he was compelled to make a decided effort to prevent his tongue uttering the ever present thought.

But at noon he would meet the defaulting bank committee, “and doubtless his lawful business would take its proper share of his thought!” He told himself that it was the voice and face of his old friend that had affected him so vividly, and that if he went and chatted over old times with Willie, he would get rid of the disagreeable influence.

The influence, however, went with him into the creditors’ committee room.  The embarrassed officials had dreaded greatly the interview.  No one hoped for more than bare justice from David Lockerby.  “Clemency, help, sympathy!  You’ll get blood out o’ a stane first, gentlemen,” said the old cashier, with a dour, hopeless face.

And yet that morning David Lockerby amazed no one so much as himself.  He went to the meeting quite determined to have his own—­only his own—­but something asked him, “What shall it profit?” and he gave up his lawful increase and even offered help.  He went determined to speak his mind very plainly about mismanagement and the folly of having losses; and something asked him, “What shall it profit?” and he gave such sympathy with his help that the money came with a blessing in its hand.

The feeling of satisfaction was so new to him that it embarrassed and almost made him ashamed.  He slipped ungraciously away from the thanks that ought to have been pleasant, and found himself, almost unconsciously, looking up Willie’s name in the clerical directory, “Dr. William Caird, 22 Moray place.”  David knew enough of Edinburgh to know that Moray place contained the handsomest residences in the city, and therefore he was not astonished at the richness and splendor of Willie’s library; but he was astonished to see him surrounded by five beautiful boys and girls, and evidently as much interested in their lessons and sports as if he was one of them.

“Ech!  Davie man! but I’m glad to see you!” That was all of Willie’s greeting, but his eyes filled, and as the friends held each other’s hands Davie came very near touching for a moment a David Lockerby no one had seen for many long years.  But he said nothing during his visit of Willie’s sermon, nor indeed in several subsequent ones.  Scotsmen are reticent on all matters, and especially reticent about spiritual experience; and though Davie lingered in Edinburgh a week, he was neither able to speak to Willie about his soul, nor yet in all their conversations get rid of that haunting, uncomfortable influence Willie had raised.

But as they stood before the Queen’s Hotel at midnight bidding each other an affectionate farewell, David suddenly turned Willie round and opened up his whole heart to him.  And as he talked he found himself able to define what had been only hitherto a vague, restless sense of want.

“I am the poorest rich man and the most miserable failure, Willie Caird, that ever you asked yon fearsome question of—­and I know it.  I have achieved millions, and I am a conscious bankrupt to my own soul.  I have wasted my youth, neglected my talents and opportunities, and whatever the world may call me I am a wretched breakdown.  I have made money—­plenty of it—­and it does not pay me.  What am I to do?”

“You ken, Davie, my dear, dear lad, what advice the Lord Jesus gave to the rich man—­’distribute unto the poor—­and come, follow me!’”

Then up and down Princes street, and away under the shadow of the Castle Hill, Willie and David walked and talked, till the first sunbeams touched St. Leonard’s Crags.  If it was a long walk a grand work was laid out in it.

“You shall be more blessed than your namesake,” said Willie, “for though David gathered the gold, and the wood, and the stone, Solomon builded therewith.  Now, an’ it please God, you shall do your ain work, and see the topstone brought on with rejoicing.”

Then at David’s command, workmen gathered in companies, and some of the worst “vennels” in old Glasgow were torn down; and the sunshine flooded “wynds” it had scarcely touched for centuries, and a noble building arose that was to be a home for children that had no home.  And the farms of Ellenmount fed them, and the fleeces of Lockerby clothed them, and into every young hand was put a trade that would win it honest bread.

In a short time even this undertaking began to be too small for David’s energies and resources, and he joined hands with Willie in many other good works, and gave not only freely of his gold, but also of his time and labor.  The old eloquence that stirred his classmates in St. Andrew’s Hall, “till they would have followed him to the equator” began to stir the cautious Glasgow traders to the bottom of their hearts, and their pocketbooks; and men who didn’t want to help in a crusade against drunkenness, or in a crusade for the spread of the Gospel, stopped away from Glasgow City Hall when David Lockerby filled the chair at a public meeting and started a subscription list with £1000 down on the table.

But there were two old ladies that never stopped away, though one of them always declared “Master Davie had fleeched her last bawbee out o’ her pouch;” and the other generally had her little whimper about Davie “waring his substance upon ither folks’ bairns.”

“There’s bonnie Bessie Lament, Janet; an’ he would marry her we might live to see his ain sons and daughters in the old house.”

“‘Deed, then, ma’am, our Davie has gotten him a name better than that o’ sons an’ dochters; and though I am sair disappointed in him—­”

“You shouldn’t say that, Janet; he made a gran’ speech the day.”

“A speech isna’ a sermon, ma’am; though I’ll ne’er belittle a speech wi’ a £1000 argument.”

“And there was Deacon Moir, Janet, who didna approve o’ the scheme, and who would therefore gie nothing at a’.”

“The Deacon is sae godly that God doesna get a chance to improve his condition, ma’am.  But for a’ o’ Deacon Moir’s disapproval I’se count on the good work going on.”

“’Deed yes, Janet, and though our Davie should ne’er marry at a’—­”

“There’ll be generations o’ lads an’ lasses, ma’am, that will rise up in auld Scotland an’ go up an’ down through a’ the warld a’ ca’ David Lockerby ‘blessed.’”