Scottish Sketches by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (trending books to read .txt) 📖

of how the withdrawal of so large a sum would affect them.

Then he took out Helen's last message, and sat down humbly with it where Tallisker had told him to sit. Suddenly Helen's last words came back to him, "Oh! the unspeakable riches!" What of? The cross of Christ--the redemption from eternal death--the promise of eternal life! Sin is like a nightmare; when we stir under it, we awake. Crawford sat thinking until his heart burned and softened, and great tears rolled slowly down his cheeks and dropped upon the paper in his hands. Then he thought of the richness of his own life--Colin and Hope, and the already beloved child Alexander--of his happy home, of the prosperity of his enterprises, of his loyal and loving friend Tallisker. What a contrast to the Life he had been told to remember! that pathetic Life that had not where to lay its head, that mysterious agony in Gethsemane, that sublime death on Calvary, and he cried out, "O Christ! O Saviour of my soul! all that I have is too little!"

When Tallisker came in the evening, Hope noticed a strange solemnity about the man. He, too, had been in the presence of God all day. He had been praying for his friend. But as soon as he saw Crawford he knew how the struggle had ended. Quietly they grasped each other's hand, and the evening meal was taken by Colin's side in pleasant cheerfulness. After it, when all were still, the laird spoke:

"Colin and Hope, I hae something I ought to tell you. When your sister Helen died she asked me to gie her share o' the estate to the poor children of our Father. I had intended giving Helen L100,000. It is a big sum, and I hae been in a sair strait about it. What say you, Colin?"

"My dear father, I say there is only one way out of that strait. The money must be given as Helen wished it. Helen was a noble girl. It was just like her."

"Ah, Colin, if you could only tell what a burden this bit o' paper has been to me! I left the great weight at the foot o' the cross this morning." As he spoke the paper dropped from his fingers and fell upon the table. Colin lifted it reverently and kissed it. "Father," he said, "may I keep it now? The day will come when the Crawfords will think with more pride of it than of any parchment they possess."

Then there was an appeal to Tallisker about its disposal. "Laird," he answered, "such a sum must be handled wi' great care. It is not enough to gie money, it must be gien wisely." But he promised to take on himself the labor of inquiry into different charities, and the consideration of what places and objects needed help most. "But, Crawford," he said, "if you hae any special desire, I think it should be regarded."

Then Crawford said he had indeed one. When he was himself young he had desired greatly to enter the ministry, but his father had laid upon him a duty to the family and estate which he had accepted instead.

"Now, dominie," he said, "canna I keep aye a young man in my place?"

"It is a worthy thought, Crawford."

So the first portion of Helen's bequest went to Aberdeen University. This endowment has sent out in Crawford's place many a noble young man into the harvest-field of the world, and who shall say for how many centuries it will keep his name green in earth and heaven! The distribution of the rest does not concern our story. It may safely be left in Dominie Tallisker's hands.

Of course, in some measure it altered Crawford's plans. The new house was abandoned and a wing built to the Keep for Colin's special use. In this portion the young man indulged freely his poetic, artistic tastes. And the laird got to like it. He used to tread softly as soon as his feet entered the large shaded rooms, full of skilful lights and white gleaming statues. He got to enjoy the hot, scented atmosphere and rare blossoms of the conservatory, and it became a daily delight to him to sit an hour in Colin's studio and watch the progress of some favorite picture.

But above all his life was made rich by his grandson. Nature, as she often does, reproduced in the second generation what she had totally omitted in the first. The boy was his grandfather over again. They agreed upon every point. It was the laird who taught Alexander to spear a salmon, and throw a trout-line, and stalk a deer. They had constant confidences about tackle and guns and snares. They were all day together on the hills. The works pleased the boy better than his father's studio. He trotted away with his grandfather gladly to them. The fires and molten metal, the wheels and hammers and tumult, were all enchantments to him. He never feared to leap into a collier's basket and swing down the deep, black shaft. He had also an appreciative love of money; he knew just how many sixpences he owned, and though he could give if asked to do so, he always wanted the dominie to give him a good reason for giving. The child gave him back again his youth, and a fuller and nobler one than he himself had known.

And God was very gracious to him, and lengthened out this second youth to a green old age. These men of old Gaul had iron constitutions; they did not begin to think themselves old men until they had turned fourscore. It was thirty years after Helen's death when Tallisker one night sent this word to his life-long friend,

"I hae been called, Crawford; come and see me once more."

They all went together to the manse. The dominie was in his ninety-first year, and he was going home. No one could call it dying. He had no pain. He was going to his last sleep

"As sweetly as a child,
Whom neither thought disturbs nor care encumbers,
Tired with long play, at close of summer's day
Lies down and slumbers."

"Good-by, Crawford--for a little while. We'll hae nae tears. I hae lived joyfully before my God these ninety years; I am going out o' the sunshine into the sunshine. Crawford, through that sair strait o' yours you hae set a grand, wide-open door for a weight o' happiness. I am glad ye didna wait. A good will is a good thing, but a good life is far better. It is a grand thing to sow your ain good seed. Nae ither hand could hae done it sae well and sae wisely. Far and wide there are lads and lasses growing up to call you blessed. This is a thought to mak death easy, Crawford. Good-night, dears."

And then "God's finger touched him and he slept."

Crawford lived but a few weeks longer. After the dominie's death he simply sat waiting. His darling Alexander came home specially to brighten these last hours, and in his company he showed almost to the last hour the true Crawford spirit.

"Alexander," he would say, "you'll ding for your ain side and the Crawfords always, but you'll be a good man; there is nae happiness else, dear. Never rest, my lad, till ye sit where your fathers sat in the House o' Peers. Stand by the State and the Kirk, and fear God, Alexander. The lease o' the Cowden Knowes is near out; don't renew it. Grip tight what ye hae got, but pay every debt as if God wrote the bill. Remember the poor, dear lad. Charity gies itsel' rich. Riches mak to themselves wings, but charity clips the wings. The love o' God, dear, the love o' God--that is the best o' all."

Yes, he had a sair struggle with his lower nature to the very last, but he was constantly strengthened by the conviction of a "Power closer to him than breathing, nearer than hands or feet." Nine weeks after the dominie's death they found him sitting in his chair, fallen on that sleep whose waking is eternal day. His death was like Tallisker's--a perfectly natural one. He had been reading. The Bible lay open at that grand peroration of St. Paul's on faith, in the twelfth of Hebrews. The "great cloud of witnesses," "the sin which doth so easily beset us," "Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith"--these were probably his last earthly thoughts, and with them he passed into


"That perfect presence of His face
Which we, for want of words, call heaven."




JAMES BLACKIE'S REVENGE.

CHAPTER I.

Few people who have travelled will deny that of all cities Glasgow is apparently the least romantic. Steeped in wet, white mist, or wrapped in yellow fog vapor, all gray stone and gray sky, dirty streets, and sloppy people, it presents none of the features of a show town. Yet it has great merits; it is enterprising, persevering, intensely national, and practically religious; and people who do not mind being damp have every chance to make a good living there. Even the sombre appearance of the dark gray granite of which it is built is not unsuitable to the sterling character of its people; for though this stone may be dull and ugly, there is a natural nobility about it, and it never can be mean.

I have said that, as a city, Glasgow is practically religious, and certainly this was the case something less than half a century ago. The number of its churches was not more remarkable than the piety and learning of its clergy; and the "skailing" of their congregations on a Sabbath afternoon was one of the most impressive sights, of its kind, in the world.

My true little story opens with the skailing of the Ramshorn Kirk, a very favorite place of worship with the well-to-do burghers of the east end of the city, and it was a peculiarly douce, decent, solemn-looking crowd that slowly and reverently passed out of its gates into the absolutely silent streets. For no vehicles of any kind disturbed the Sabbath stillness, and not until the people had gone some distance from the house of God did they begin to think their own thoughts, and with a certain grave reserve put them into words.

Among the groups who proceeded still farther east, towards the pleasant houses facing the "Green," one alone was remarkable enough to have elicited special notice from an observing stranger. It consisted of an old man and a young girl, evidently his daughter. Both were strikingly handsome, and the girl was much better dressed than the majority of women who took the same road. Long before they reached the Green they were joined by a younger man, whom the elder at once addressed in a reproving voice.

"Ye didna pay as much attention to the sermon as it behooved ye to do, James Blackie; and what for did ye speak to Robert Laird a'most within 'the Gates'?"

"I only asked if he had heard of the 'Bonnie Bess;' she is overdue five days, and eight good men in her, not to speak of the cargo."

"It's no cannie to be aye asking questions. Sit still and the news will come to ye: forbye, I'm no sure if yon was a lawfu' question; the Sabbath sun hasna set yet."

James Blackie mechanically turned to the west, and then slowly let his glance fall on