The Stickit Minister's Wooing/Beadle and Martyr
BEADLE AND MARTYR
I sometimes give it as a reason for a certain lack of uniformity in church attendance, that I cannot away with the new-fangled organs, hymns, and chaunts one meets with there. I love them not, in comparison, that is, with the old psalm tunes. They do not make the heart beat quicker and more proudly, like Kilmarnock and Coleshill, Duke Street and Old 124th.
Nance, however, is so far left to herself as to say that this is only an excuse, and that my real reason is the pleasure I have in thinking that all the people must perforce listen to a sermon, while I can put my feet upon another chair and read anything I like. This, however, is rank insult, such as only wives long wedded dare to indulge in. Besides, it shows, by its imputation of motives, to what lengths a sordid and ill-regulated imagination will go.
Moreover, I have never grown accustomed to the hours of town churches, and I consider, both from a medical and from a spiritual point of view, that afternoon services in town churches are directly responsible for the spread of indigestion, as well as of a spirit of religious infidelity throughout our beloved land.
(Nance is properly scandalised at this last remark, and says that she hopes people will understand that I only believe about half of what I put down on paper when I get a pen in my hand. She complains that she is often asked to explain some of my positions at afternoon teas. I say it serves her right for attending such gatherings of irresponsible gossip, tempered with boiled tannin. It is easy to have the last word with Nance—here.)
But after all the chief thing that I miss when I go to church is just Willie McNair.
The sermon is nowadays both shorter and better. The singing is good of its kind, and I can always read a psalm or a paraphrase if the hymn prove too long, or, as is often the case, rather washy in sentiment. The children's address is really designed for children, and the prayers do not exceed five minutes in length. But—I look in vain for Willie McNair.
Alas! Willie lies out yonder on the green knowe, his wife Betty by his side, and four feet of good black mould over his coffin-lid.
Willie was just our beadle, and he had a story. When I am setting down so many old things, if I forget thee, Willie McNair, may my right hand forget his cunning.
Ah, Willie, though you never were a "church-officer," though you never heard the Word, it is you, you alone that I miss. I just cannot think of the kirk without you. Grizzled, gnarled, bow-shouldered of week-days, what a dignity of port, what a solemnising awe, what a processional tread was thine on Sabbaths! We had only one service in the Kirk on the Hill in my youth. But, speaking in the vulgar tongue, that one was a "starcher."
It included the "prefacing" of a psalm, often extending over quite as long a period of time as an ordinary modern sermon, a "lecture," which as a rule (if "himsel'" was in fettle) lasted about three quarters of an hour. Then after that the sermon proper was begun without loss of time.
Now I cannot say, speaking "from the heart to the heart" (a favourite expression of Willie's), that I regret the loss of all this. I was but a boy, and the torment of having to sit still for from two hours and a half to three hours on a hard seat, close-packed and well-watched to keep me out of mischief, has made even matrimony seem light and easy. How mere Episcopalians and other untrained persons get through the sorrows and disappointments incident to human life I do not know.
It was not till the opening of the Sabbath-school by Mr. Osbourne, however, that I came to know Willie well. Hitherto he had been as inaccessible and awe-striking as the minister's neckcloth. And of that I have a story to tell. I think what made me a sort of advanced thinker in these early days, was once being sent by my father to the lodgings of the minister who was to "supply" on a certain Sabbath morning. The manse must have been shut for repairs and "himsel'" on his holidays. At any rate, the minister was stopping with Miss Bella McBriar in the little white house below the Calmstone Brig. Miss Bella showed me in with my missive, and there, on the morning of the Holy Day, before a common unsanctified glass tacked to a wall, with a lathery razor in his hand, in profane shirt-sleeves, stood the minister, shaving himself! His neckcloth, that was to appear and shine so glorious above the cushions of the pulpit, hung limp and ignominious over the back of a chair. A clay pipe lay across the ends of it.
This was the beginning of the mischief, and if I ever take to a criminal career, here was the first and primal cause.
Shortly after I went to Sabbath-school, and having been well trained by my father in controversial divinity, and drilled by my mother in the Catechism, I found myself in a fair way of distinguishing myself; but for all that, I cannot truly say that I ever got over the neckcloth on the back of Miss McBriar's chair. When I aired my free-thinking opinions before my father, and he shut me off by an appeal to authority, I kept silence and hugged myself.
"That may be a good enough argument," I said to myself, "but—I have seen a minister's neckcloth hung over the back of a chair, and shaving-soap on his chafts on Sabbath morning. How can you believe in revealed religion after that?"
But I had so much of solid common-sense, even in these my salad days, that I refrained from saying these things to my father. Indeed, I would not dare to say them now, even if I believed them.
Willie McNair regarded the Sabbath-school much as I did. To both of us it was simply an imposition.
Willie thought so for two reasons—first and generally, because it was an innovation; and secondly, because he had to clean up the kirk after it. I agreed with him, because I was compelled to attend—the farm cart being delayed a whole hour in order that I might have the privilege of religious instruction by the senior licensed grocer of the little town. This gentleman had only one way of imparting knowledge. That was with the brass-edged binding of his pocket Bible. Even at that time I preferred the limp Oxford morocco. And so would you, if something so unsympathetic as brass corners were applied to the sides of your head two or three times every Sunday afternoon.
After several years of this experience, I passed into Henry Marchbank's class and was happy. But that is quite another chapter, and has nothing to do with Willie McNair.
Now, Sabbath-school was over about three o'clock, and our conveyance did not start till four. That is the way I became attached to Willie. I used to stay and help him to clean the kirk. This is the way he did it.
First, he unfrocked himself of his broadcloth dignity by hanging his coat upon a nail in the vestry. Then he put on an apron which covered him from gray chin-beard to the cracks in the uppers of his shining shoes. Into the breast of this envelope he thrust a duster large enough for a sheet. It was, in fact, a section of a departed pulpit swathing.
Then, muttering quite scriptural maledictions, and couching them in language entirely Biblical, Willie proceeded to visit the pews occupied by each class, restoring the "buiks" he had previously piled at the head of each seat to their proper places on the book-board in front, and scrutinising the woodwork for inscriptions in lead-pencil. Then he swept the crumbs and apple-cores carefully off the floor and delivered judgment at large.
"I dinna ken what Maister Osbourne was thinkin' on to begin sic a Popish whigmaleery as this Sabbath-schule! A disgrace an' a mockin' in the hoose o' God! What kens the like o' Sammle Borthwick aboot the divine decrees? When I, mysel', that has heard them treated on for forty year under a' the Elect Ministers o' the Land, can do no more than barely understand them to this day! And a wheen silly lasses, wi' gum-floo'ers in their bonnets to listen to bairns hummerin' ower 'Man's Chief End'! It's eneuch to gar decent Doctor Syminton turn in his grave! 'Man's Chief End'—faith—it's wumman's chief end that they're thinkin' on, the madams; they think I dinna see them shakin' their gum-floo'ers and glancing their e'en in the direction o' the onmarriet teacher bodies"
"And such are all they that put their trust in them!" concluded Willie, somewhat irrelevantly.
"Laddie, come doon out o' the pulpit. I canna lippen (trust) ony body to dust that, bena mysel'! Gang and pick up the conversation lozengers aff the floor o' the Young Weemen's Bible Cless!"
Printed words can give small indication of the intense bitterness and mordant satire of Willie's speech as he uttered these last words.
Yet Willie was far from being a hater of womenkind. Indeed, the end of all his moralising was ever the same.
"There's my ain guid wife—was there ever a woman like her? Snod as a new preen, yet nocht gaudy, naething ken-speckle. If only the young weemen nooadays were like Betty, they wad hae nae need o' gum-floo'ers an' ither abominations. Na, nor yet Bible clesses! Faith, set them up! It wad better become them to sit them doon wi' their Bibles in their laps and the grace o' God in their hearts, an' tak' a lesson to themsel's oot o' Paaal!"
Here Willie dusted the pulpit cushions, vigorously shaking them as a terrier does a rat, and then carefully brushing them all in one direction, in order that, as he said, "the fell may a' lie the yae way."
Willie was no eye servant. No spider took hold with her hands and was in the Palace of Willie's King. Dust had no habitation there, and if a man did not clean his boots on the mat before entering, Willie went to him personally and told him his probable chances of a happy hereafter. These were but few and evil.
Then having got the "shine" to fall as he wanted it, and the dark purple velvet overhang, pride of his heart, to sit to a nicety, Willie lifted up the heavy tassels, and at the same time resumed the thread of his discourse, standing there in the pulpit with the very port of a minister, and in his speech a point and pith that was all his own.
"Aye, Paul," (he always pronounced it Paaal)—"aye, Paaal, it's a peety ye never marriet and left nae faim'ly that we ken o'. For we hae sair need o' ye in thae days. But ye kenned better than to taigle yersel' wi' silly lasses. It was you that bade the young weemen to be keepers at hame—nae Bible clesses for Paaal—na, na!
"And you mind Peter—oh, Peter was juist as soond on gum-floo'ers an' weemen's falderals as Paaal, 'Whose adorning, let it not be the outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and wearing of gold, and putting on of apparel, but the ornament of a meek and quiet speerit'"
He stopped in the height of his discourse and waggled his hand down at me.
"Here, boy!" he cried, "what did ye do wi' thae conversation lozengers?"
I indicated that I had them still in my pocket, for I had meant to solace the long road home with the cleaner of them.
"Let me see them!"
Somewhat unwillingly I handed them up to Willie as he stood in the pulpit, a different Willie, an accusing Willie, Nathan the Prophet with a large cloth-brush under his arm.
"When this you see, remember me!"
He read the printed words through his glasses deliberately.
"Aye," he sneered, "that wad be Mag Kinstrey. I saw Rob Cuthbert smirkin' ower at her when the minister was lookin' up yon reference to Melchisadek. Aye, Meg, I'll remember ye—I'll no forgot ye. And if ye mend not your ways"
Willie did not conclude the sentence, but instead, he shook his head in the direction of the door of the Session house. He picked out another.
"The rose is red—the violet's blue,
But fairer far, my love, are you!"
Willie opened the door of the pulpit.
"Preserve me, what am I doin'? It's fair profanation to be readin' sic balderdash in a place like this. Laddie, hear ye this, whatever ye hae to say to a lass, gang ye and say it to hersel', by yoursel'. For valenteens are a vain thing, and conversation lozengers a mock and an abomination."
Willie threatened me a moment with uplifted finger, and then added his stereotyped conclusion: "And so are all such as put their trust in them!"
And through life I have acted strictly on Willie's advice, and I am bound to admit that I have found it good.
About this period, also, I began to take tea, not infrequently, with Willie, and occasionally, but not often, I saw his wife, the incomparable Betty, whose praises Willie was never tired of singing. I am forced to say that, after these harangues, Betty disappointed me. She sat dumb and appeared singularly stupid, and this to a lad accustomed to a housewife like my mother, with her woman's wit keen as a razor, and a speech pointed to needle fineness, appeared more than strange.
But Willie's affection was certainly both lovely and lovable. He was a gnarled gray old man with a grim mouth, but for Betty he ran like a young lover, and served her with meat and drink, as it had been on bended knee. His smile was ready whenever she looked at him, and he watched her with anxious eyes, dwelling on her every word and movement with a curious perturbation. If she happened not to be in when he came to the door, he would fall to trembling like a leaf, and the bleached look on his face was sad to see.
Willie McNair dwelt in a rickety old house at the bottom of the kirk hill, separated from the other village dwellings by the breadth of a field. There was a garden behind it, and a heathery common behind that, with whins growing to the very dyke of Willie's kail-yard.
The first time that Betty was not in the house when we went home, it was to the hill behind that Willie ran first. Under a broom bush he found her, after a long search, and lifting her up in his arms he carried her to the house.
"Poor Betty," he cried over his shoulder as he went before me down the walk; "she shouldna gang oot on sic a warm day. The sun has been ower muckle for her. See, boy, rin doon to the Tinkler's well for some caller water. The can's at the gable end."
When I returned Betty was quietly in bed; and Willie had made the tea with ordinary water. He was somewhat more composed, but I could see his hand shake when he tried to pour out the first cup. He "skailed" it all over the cloth, and then was angered with himself for what he called his "trimlin' auld banes."
But I never knew or suspected Willie's secret till that awful Sabbath day, when the cross that he had borne so long hidden from the eyes of men, was suddenly lifted high in air.
Then all at once Willie towered like a giant, and the bowed shoulders seemed to support a grey head about which had become visible an apparent aureole.
It was the day of High Communion, and the solemn services were drawing to a yet more solemn close. The elements had been dispensed and the elders were back again in their places. Mr. Osbourne had Dr. Landsborough of Portmarnock assisting him that day—a tall man with a gracious manner, and the only man who could give an after-communion address without his words being resented as an intrusion.
"It is always difficult," he said, "to disturb the peculiarly sacred pause which succeeds the act of communion by any words of man"
He had got no farther when he stopped, and the congregation regarded him with the strained attention which a beautiful voice always compels. The beadle was sitting in all the reasonable pride of his dignity in the first pew to the right of the Session. When Dr. Landsborough stopped, the congregation followed the direction of his eyes.
The door at the back of the kirk was seen to be open and a woman stood there, dishevelled, wild-eyed, a black bottle in her shaking hand, a red shawl about her head.
It was Betty McNair.
"Willie!" she cried aloud in the awful silence, "Willie, come forth—you that lockit me in the back kitchin, an' thocht to stop me frae the saicrament—I hae deceived ye, Willie McNair, clever man as ye think yersel'!"
I was in the corner pew opposite Willie (being, of course, a non-communicant at that date), so that I could see his face. At the first sound of that voice his countenance worked as if it would change its shape, but in a moment I saw him grip the book-board and stand up. Then he went quietly down the aisle to where his wife stood, gabbling wild and wicked words, and laughing till it turned the blood cold to hear her in that sacred place, and upon that solemn occasion.
Firmly, but very gently, Willie took the woman by the arm, and led her out. She went like a lamb. He closed the door behind him, and after a quaking and dreadful pause, Dr. Landsborough took up the interrupted burden of his discourse.
I was a great lad of twelve or thirteen at the time and unused to tears for many years. But I know that I wept all the time till the service was ended, thinking of Willie and wondering where he was and what he would be doing.
That same night I heard my father telling my mother about what came next.
The Session were in their little square room after the service, counting the tokens. The minister was sitting in his chair waiting to dismiss them with the benediction, when a rap came to the door. My father opened it, being nearest, and there without stood Willie McNair.
"I wish to speak with the Session," he said, firmly.
"Come in—come your ways in, William," said the minister, kindly, and the elders resumed their seats, not knowing what was to happen.
"Moderator and ruling elders of this congregation," said Willie, who had not served tables so long without knowing the respect due to his spiritual superiors, "I have come before you in the day of my shame to demit the office I have held so long among you. Gentlemen, I do not complain, I own I am well punished. These twenty years I have lived for my pride. I have lied to each one of you—to the minister, to you the elders, and to the hale congregation, making a roose of my wife, and sticking at nothing to hide the shame of my house.
"Sirs, for these lying words, it behoves that ye deal strictly with me, and I will submit willingly. But believe me, sirs, it was through a godly jealousy that I did it, that the Kirk of the New Testament might not be made ashamed through me and mine. But for a' that I have done wrong, grievous wrong. I aye kenned in my heart that it would come—though, God helping me, I never thocht that it would be like this!
"But noo I maun gang awa'," here he broke into dialect, "for I could never bear to see anither man carry up the Buiks and open the door for you, sir, to enter in. Forty years has William McNair been a hewer of wood and a drawer of water in this tabernacle. Let there be pity in your hearts for him this day. He hath borne himself with pride, and for that the Lord hath brought him very low. And, oh! sirs, pray for her—flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone, come to what ye saw this day! Tell me that He will forgie—be sure to tell me that He will forgie Betty—for what she has dune this day!"
The minister reassured him in affectionate words, and the whole Session tried to get Willie to withdraw his decision. But in vain. The old man was firm.
"No," he said, "Betty is noo my chairge. The husband of a drunkard is not a fit person to serve tables in the clean and halesome sanctuary. I will never leave Betty till the day she dees!"
*******
And neither he did. It was not long. Willie nursed his wife with unremitting tenderness, breaking himself down as he did so. I did not see him again till the day of Betty's funeral. I went with my father, feeling very important, as it was the first function I had been at in my new character of a man.
When they were filling in the grave, Willie stood at the head with his hat in his hand, and his gray locks waving in the moderate wind. His lips were tremulous, but I do not think there were tears in his eyes.
I went up to try to say something that might comfort him. I knew no better then. But I think he did not wish me to speak about Betty, for with a strange uncertain kind of smile he lifted up his eyes till they rested upon the golden fields of ripening corn all about the little kirkyard.
"I think it will be an early harvest," he said, in a commonplace tone.
Then all suddenly he broke into a kind of eager sobbing cry—a heart-prayer of ultimate agony.
"Oh, my God! my God! send that it be an early harvest to puir Willie McNair."
*******
And it was, for before a sheaf of that heartsome yellow corn was gathered into barn, they laid Willie beside the woman he had watched so long, and sheltered so faithfully behind the barriers of his love.