Winter Evening Tales Part 2

"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 pa.s.sion which was to rule him absolutely--a pa.s.sion for gold. Love had failed him, friends.h.i.+p had proved an annoyance, company, music, feasting, amus.e.m.e.nts 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 n.o.bles 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 a.s.similated 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 a.s.sociated 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 t.i.tle-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 enn.o.bling element in his labor, but when he works simply for himself he has become the greatest of all slaves. This slavery David now willingly a.s.sumed; the acc.u.mulation 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 s.h.i.+lling 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 s.h.i.+lling 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 wors.h.i.+p. 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 embarra.s.sed 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 cas.h.i.+er, 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 embarra.s.sed 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 G.o.d, 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 suns.h.i.+ne flooded "wynds" it had scarcely touched for centuries, and a n.o.ble 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 cla.s.smates 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 G.o.dly that G.o.d 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' la.s.ses, ma'am, that will rise up in auld Scotland an' go up an' down through a' the warld a' ca' David Lockerby 'blessed.'"