THERE are four places where a man may lecture, exclusive of the open air, which is reserved for political demonstrations and religious meetings, and I arrange the four in order of demerit. The worst is, beyond question, a church, because ecclesiastical architects have no regard for acoustics, and a lecturer is apt to crack his voice yelling into the corners of churches.
People come to a church, also, in a chastened mood, and sit as if they were listening to a sermon, so that the unhappy lecturer receives little encouragement of applause or laughter, and, if he happens to be himself a clergyman, is hindered from doing anything to enliven the audience. Besides, the minister of the church will feel it his duty to introduce the leading members of his congregation after the lecture, and a reception of this kind in the vestry is the last straw on a weary lecturer's back. He cannot, however, refuse because he is a fellow professional, and knows that his discourtesy may be set to the debit of the minister. Next in badness is a public hall, because it is so bare and cheerless, and on account of its size is difficult to fill with an audience, and still more difficult with the voice. Drill halls, especially, are heart-breaking places, because they are constructed for the voices of commanding officers shouting “right wheel,” “march,” “fire,” and such like martial exhortations.
There is also another objection to halls from the lecturer's standpoint, and that is the accessibility of the platform. Usually there are two sets of steps, which the audience consider have been constructed in order that they may come on the platform in a body and shake hands with the lecturer. If a lecturer be a human being, he is always glad to see two or three of his fellow-creatures, especially if they say something encouraging, but just because he is a human being and has spoken for an hour and a half, he is apt to lose heart when he sees half of his large audience, say seven hundred people, processing in his direction.
It is on such an occasion that he is full of gratitude to a manager who will come in with his travelling coat and march the lecturer out at the back door, as a man in haste to catch his train or on any other pretence.
A lecturer may count himself fortunate, and need have no anxiety about circumstances, who speaks from the stage of a theatre, because he will have his whole audience within convenient compass, and focussed upon him, and although he comes down to a whisper he will still be heard. When you lecture at a theatre you are known as the “star,” and as you cross the dark and mysterious under-world behind the stage you hear some one crying: “This way to the star's room,” which generally turns out to be the room of the leading actress, where you may spend a quarter of an hour in seeing yourself in the innumerable mirrors, and examining the long array of toilet instruments on the table.
Theatrical people are most sympathetic and good-natured, and although they may not have the faintest idea who you are or what you are going to do, they always wish you well, and congratulate you if there is a good house. Their own house may not have been good last night, but they are glad if yours is good to-day.
The crowning advantage of a theatre to a nervous and hard-wrought lecturer is its seclusion. You get in and out by the stage door, and there is not one person in a hundred of your audience could find that door, and if he did he would not get admittance. From the floor to the stage there is no way, and when you pass behind the curtain you are beyond reach even of an interviewer.
When I become an impresario I shall never allow my “star” to be seen, except on the platform, and after he has done his work I will remove him swiftly in a closed conveyance. In this way I shall lay him under a debt of gratitude, and keep him in good humour, and get out of him a third more work. As I have no idea of entering on this business at present, I offer the hint to all impresarios everywhere, with my respectful compliments.
If a lecturer could always choose—which practically he never can do at all—he would prefer to lecture to a club of men and women in their club-room, or in the large drawing-room of a private house. He will then address a limited number of bright people who are at their best; he can talk as at a dinner-table and make his point easily; he can venture on an aside, or stop to tell an anecdote, and after an hour or so he will be as little fatigued as when he began. When the lecture is over he mixes with his audience and in a minute is a private individual. This is the very refinement and luxury of lecturing, which a lecturer enjoys only on rare occasions.
Local arrangements differ very much, and some of them are rather trying to a lecturer. There are places where a regular procession is formed and marches to the platform, headed by a local dignitary, and made up of clergymen, magistrates, little millionaires, and public characters of all kinds and degrees. In midst thereof the lecturer marches like a criminal being taken to the scaffold.
Once I discovered in the ante-room a magnificent embroidered robe, and the insane idea took possession of my mind that it was intended for the lecturer. Had it been put upon me there would have been no lecture, for I should have been smothered with its greatness and its grandeur. I was still regarding it with horror and perspiring freely when the chief magistrate of the city came in, and it was put on his shoulders by two liveried servants, who then decorated us all, from the chief magistrate down to myself, with flowers. The servants marched first into the hall, the great man followed, and I crept, following behind his majestic figure (which was received with frantic howls of applause), and this was the grandest entry I ever made upon the lecture platform.
In some places there is a chairman—I shall have something to say about chairmen—and votes of thanks, first to the lecturer, then to the chairman and to other people who have had some connexion or other with the matter, till a third of the time is taken up by local talk and the lecturer is put to confusion.
For votes of thanks I have personally an intense dislike, because the movers refer to one in terms which might suitably apply to William Shakespeare (one enthusiastic admirer preferred me to Shakespeare, because, although he classed us together as occupying a solitary position, I had the advantage of being more sentimental). As a lecturer on Scots subjects I have a horror of other speakers, because they feel it necessary to tell Scots stories without knowing the dialect, and generally without knowing the story.
Certain places are very business-like in their arrangements, and the smartest in this respect is, curious to say, not in America, but in England. You are brought to the place of operation five minutes before the hour, and at two minutes to eight placed upon the platform. When the hand of the clock points to eight you begin to speak, and when the hand stands at nine you close. If you are one minute late in beginning, the audience grows restless, and if you are five minutes late in closing, they leave. There are no preliminaries and no after-talk, and you do your best with one of the most intelligent audiences any lecturer could address in sixty minutes.
The most risky audience in my experience is afforded by the free lectures given in an English city, which is made up by men who have dropped in from the streets because the hall is open and because something is going on. If they are interested they will listen eagerly and reward the lecturer with enthusiastic applause, besides giving an irrelevant cheer occasionally for Old Ireland or Lord Roberts. If the audience is not interested they leave in solid blocks of fifty, without any regard to the lecturer's feelings, or the disturbance of their neighbours.
The most sympathetic and encouraging audience a man can have are the students of an American ladies' college, because if he is nervous, as an Englishman is bound to be before three hundred bright American young women, they will catch his first point, and they will smile upon him and show that they believe there is something in him if he could only get it out, and create such a kindly atmosphere that he will rise to his height and do his best.
This was how the students of a delightful college not very far from Philadelphia treated myself when I was almost ready to sink through the floor from sheer terror of facing so many young women, being a sisterless and daughterless man, and I wish to thank one young lady who sat in the front and smiled encouragement upon me until I lifted up my head and took heart.
I have never utterly collapsed, and have never fled from the platform, but I was reduced to confusion and incoherence of speech when I opened a clubhouse for a company of women students at a certain American University, and my whole audience suddenly flopped down upon the floor as I began my little speech. As the floor had a beautiful carpet and there were no chairs, the young ladies no doubt did well for themselves, but as I looked down upon that fair flower-garden all my thoughts vanished, and I do not think that I uttered a grammatical sentence.
American young women do not know that an Englishman is the most bashful creature on the face of the earth, and that he would rather face an audience of two thousand men from the streets than address twenty young women, every one as sharp as a needle and as pretty as a flower.
My experience of chairmen is wide and varied, and I have lectured under the Presidency of some very distinguished and able men, but on the whole I would rather be without a chairman. There was one who introduced me in a single sentence of five minutes' length, in which he stated that as he would treasure every word I said more than pure gold he did not wish to curtail my time by a single minute. He then fell fast asleep, and I had the honour of wakening him at the close of the lecture. Had he slept anywhere else I should not have had the smallest objection, but his restful attitude in the high estate of the chair had an unedifying and discomposing effect on the audience.
On the whole, I preferred that chairman to another who introduced me to the extent of twenty-five minutes, and occupied the time in commending to the exasperated audience the claims of a foundling asylum with which he had some charitable connexion. This time it was the lecturer who fell asleep and had to be wakened when the audience drove the chairman to his seat.
A lecturer is also much refreshed amid his labour by the assurance of the chairman that he has simply lived upon his books for years, and has been looking forward to this evening for the last three months with high expectation, when after these flattering remarks he does not know your name, and can only put it before the audience after a hurried consultation with the secretary of the lecture course.
My memory returns also with delight to a chairman who insisted that one object had brought them together, and that I was no stranger in that town because the whole audience before him were my friends, and then having called me Doctor Maclaren and Ian Watson, besides having hinted more than once at Mr. Barrie, introduced me to an uproarious audience as Mr. Ian John Maclaren Watson.
It is, of course, my gain, and the loss of two more distinguished fellow-countrymen, that I should be hopelessly associated in the minds of many people with Mr. Crockett and Mr. Barrie. But when one speaker declared that I would be remembered by grateful posterity as the Stickit Minister, I was inclined to protest, for whatever have been my defects as a preacher, I still have succeeded in obtaining a church; and when another speaker explained he had gone three times to see my “Little Minister,” I felt obliged to deny myself the authorship of that delightful play.
Allusions on the part of the audience, when they shook hands with me afterwards, I allowed to paas because there was not time to put things right; merely smiling at the mention of “A Window in Thrums,” and looking modest at the adjectives heaped upon “The Raiders.” My cynical humour was greatly tickled with the chairman, who had been very cordial with me in private, and who was understood by the public to have been closely identified with my visit to his city, when he not only escaped from the stage after he had introduced me, but also immediately left the theatre and cheerfully betook himself to his office without hearing one word of the lecture. Perhaps he had discovered from some casual remark of mine that I was not Mr. Barrie, and was at a loss to make out who I could be.
With mayors and other public functionaries who have to speak six times a day on six different subjects, and who get a little confused as to which meeting they are attending, I have the utmost sympathy, and never have been discomposed by any reference to the management of hospitals or the fallacy of bimetallism, even though the references were very indifferently connected with the lecturer and his subjects.
The labour of shaking hands afterwards with a considerable proportion of your audience is not only lightened by their kindness, but also much cheered by their conversation. After a few evenings in the United States I arrived at the rooted conviction that the majority of the American people belonged to the Scots race, and that America was the real Scotland. It was not only that native-born Scots came forward to welcome a fellow-countryman with an accent which was beyond all dispute and could be heard six yards off, and with allusions to Auchterarder which warmed your heart, but that every person seemed to be connected with Scotland.
One belonged to a family which had emigrated from Scotland in the seventeenth century, and was anxious to know whether I could give him any information on the family tree. Another had married a Scots wife, and believed he owed his prosperity to her; a third was an admirer of Sir Walter Scott, and looked forward to visiting Scotland as the ambition of his life. And one lady, full of despair as she heard the Scots claims of the people around her, came and confessed frankly: “I am not Scots, and I have no relative a Scot, and none of our family married a Scot, but my sister has a Scots nurse: will that do?” I assured her it would, and that I was glad at last to meet a genuine American, because I had come to see the American people.
I have a vivid recollection of one place where a clan had turned out to receive me, and I was escorted to the platform by a band of plaided warriors, who, headed by a piper, marched me in and ranged themselves round me on the platform. When the lecture was over, one clansman met me in the anteroom, and I hardly recognized him; he was about three inches taller and six inches bigger round the chest than before the lecture, and was as a man intoxicated, though not with strong drink.
“Mr. Maclaren,” he said to me, “eh, but we are a michty people,” and he slapped his chest vigorously. I hinted that we had one or two faults to modify our perfection, but he was not in a mood for such consideration. “No worth mentioning,” he said, and departed in glory. The national prayer of our people is understood to be: “Lord, give us a good conceit of ourselves,” and this prayer in my compatriot's case had been wonderfully fulfilled.
Audiences vary very much in excellence, and it is difficult to understand the reason, because you may have the most delightful and the most difficult from the same class of people. Audiences are like horses—some of them so hard in the mouth and spiritless that they almost pull your arm out of the socket, and others so bright and high-spirited that you hardly feel the reins in your hands, and driving—that is to say, speaking—is a delight.
The ideal audience is not one which accompanies you from beginning to end with applause and laughter, but one that takes every point and enjoys it with intelligent reserve, so that your illustrations may be condensed into allusions, and a word conveys your humour. One of my pleasures as a lecturer was to test every audience by a certain passage which divided the sheep from the goats, and I think my enjoyment was even greater when they were all goats.
It came into a reading from the Briar-Bush where the word “intoxication” occurs. My custom was to stop and apologise for the appearance of such a word in my book, and to explain that the word is not known in Scots speech. There are, I used to say, two reasons why a Scotsman does not employ the word. The first is that he is imperfectly acquainted with the painful circumstances to which this word is supposed to allude, and the second that a Scotsman considers that no one with a limited human intellect can know enough about the conditions of his fellow-creatures to make such a statement.
When an audience took in the situation at once, then one could rest for a moment, since they required that time to appreciate the rigid temperance and conscientious literary accuracy of the Scotch people. When they took the statement in perfect seriousness, and one or two solemn reformers nodded their heads in high approval, then I wanted to go behind the curtain and shake hands with myself. More than once it was with difficulty I could continue in face of this unbroken seriousness, and once I broke down utterly, although I hope the audience only supposed I was laughing at some poor humour of my own.
The cause of my collapse was not the faces of the audience, but the conduct of a brother Scot, whose head went down below the seat as he learned the two reasons why the word intoxicated is not used in Scotland. When he emerged from the depths he cast a glance of delight in my direction as to one who was true in all circumstances of his nation, and then he was composing himself to listen with fresh confidence to a lecturer who had given such pledges of patriotism, when he caught sight of the faces of the audience.
As it dawned upon him that the audience had taken the statement literally, he was again obliged to go into retirement. Twice he made a brave effort to regain possession of himself, but as often the sight of the audience shook him to his foundation. At last he rose and left the theatre, but at the door he lingered to take one look at the unconscious audience, and then shaking his head in my direction with patriotic joy, he departed from the building, and I was obliged to imagine an execution in order to continue my lecture.
The lecturer's nerves ought to be made of wire, for he never knows what may happen. There is one town in the United States where the express trains run down the main street, and you lecture there to an accompaniment of engine bells and the blowing-off of steam. When the music rises too high for the human voice, the lecturer in that town ought to abandon the contest and offer between the whistles a few remarks on the legislative power of American railways. These remarks will be vastly enjoyed by the audience.
Behind the platform of one large hall is the lift of the next building, which is used at regular intervals of a minute, and you have your sentences punctuated by the whoop of the unseen lift till at last you can calculate the time and know that you have spoken ninety whoops, and it is nearly time to stop.
One night I was arrested by the sound of steady snoring which could be heard over the larger part of the theatre, but although every one was in search for the offender, he could not be found. At last the sound was traced to the stage, and, as there was no one on the stage except myself, to be behind the curtain. One of the servants of the theatre had laid himself down there in order to enjoy the lecture, and that had proved of such a solid character that he had fallen into a fit of meditation, from which he was very rudely awakened.
One evening in a Canadian town a fox terrier came in, and owing to some difference of opinion with a gentleman in the stalls, expressed himself in public. As there was to be a dog story in the lecture, I thought it well to explain that the terrier had been engaged to take part, but had broken in too soon. For a while the dog behaved with much propriety, and then there was a second outbreak.
Six gentlemen combined to get that dog out of the theatre, but not without difficulty and danger. The terrier retired fighting.
The platform does many good things for a lecturer; for one thing, it strengthens his voice; it brings him into contact with large bodies of his fellow-men, and it inspires him with humanity. Upon the platform he learns to command himself; to take disappointments like a man; and, above all, he gains a new conviction of the kindness and goodwill of large bodies of people whom he has never seen before and may never see again, and of whom he will ever think with a grateful heart.
IN the days of long ago I used to live in the summer-time upon a farm in one of the rich plains of Scotland, where the soil was deep and we could grow everything, from the fragrant red clover to the strong, upstanding wheat. One reason why our farm bore such abundant crops was its situation; for it lay, in the shape of the letter V, between two rivers which met upon our ground. One of the rivers was broad and shallow, and its clear water ran over gravel, brawling and fretting when it came upon a large stone, and making here and there a pleasant little fall. This river in the winter-time could rise high and run with a strong current, and there were days and sometimes weeks when we could not send our men and horses across its ford. We never hated this river, because, although it could be angry and proud when the snow was melting on the distant hill or a big thunder-cloud burst in the glens above us, it was never treacherous and sullen; it had no unexpected depths into which a man and horse might fall, but was open as the day, and its water was as bright. Wherefore I have kindly thoughts of that stream, and when the sun is hot in the city, and there is no unused air to breathe, I wish I were again upon its banks and could see it gleaming underneath the bushes as it sings its way past my feet.
The other river was narrow, and ran in silence between its banks; or rather it did not run, but trailed itself along like a serpent, deep, black, and smooth. There was no end to its wicked cunning, for it pretended to be only three feet deep and it was twelve, and sometimes it hollowed out to itself a hole where a twenty-foot line would not touch the bottom. One of its worst tricks was to undermine the bank so that the green turf on which you stood became a trap, and, yielding beneath your feet, unless you were very dexterous, shot you into the river. Then unless you could swim, the river would drown you in its black water as if with fiendish delight.
Over this river, also, we required to have a ford; but in this case it was not natural, for the bottom of this river was far below the surface of the water, and it was soft, deep clay. Across the river, therefore, the ford had to be built up with stones; and it was made in the shape of a horseshoe, so that any one crossing must follow a rough half-circle from bank to bank, and he had to keep to the line of the ford, for below it the water poured into a depth of thirty feet. When the river was low one could easily trace the ford, and there was no excuse for getting into danger; but if the river had been fed by the upland rains, then every sign of the ford was lost, and a man had to be very careful how he picked his horse's way. And all the time the wicked water would be bringing its weight to bear on him, in the hope of carrying him and his horse and everything else that was with him over the edge.
This river we loathed, and at the thought of its wickedness and its tragedies—for twice I nearly lost my life in it—I still shudder, here in my study.
One afternoon I went down to the ford in order to warn a plowman that he must not cross. That morning he had taken a load of grain to the railway-, station, and now he was coming back with the empty cart and two horses. During the day there had been rain upon the mountains, and the river was swollen so that every sign of the ford was lost.
I stood high up upon the bank, and when he came down the road on the other side I shouted across the river—which was rising every minute—that he must not on any account attempt it, but must turn back and go round by the bridge. Of course he ought to have obeyed this order, and I am not going to say that he was wise in what he did; but safety would mean a détour of ten miles, and he knew not fear. It was from his breed that our Highland regiment got their recruits and more than one of our men had gone into the “Black Watch.”
“I'll risk it,” he cried from the other side; and he made his preparations for the daring enterprise, while I, on my side, could say and do nothing more. All that remained for me was to watch, and, if it were possible, in case of things coming to the worst, to give such help as I could from the bank.
It was a heavy two-wheeled cart he had, with one horse in the shafts and another before, tandem-wise, and this kind of team could not be driven from the cart. The driver must walk, holding the reins of the tandem horse in his right hand, and, if necessary, guiding the horse in the shafts with his left; and so they entered the stream.
After the horses had gone a few yards into the water they wished to stop; for they had an instinct of danger, all the more because they were not free, but were strapped and chained, so that it would be almost impossible for them to save their lives by swimming. Jock chided and encouraged them, calling them by name, and they went in without any more hesitation; for horses are full of faith, and trust their driver absolutely if they know his voice and love him. Each of our men had a pair of horses under his charge; and so close was the tie between the men and their horses that the pair would come to their driver in the field when he called them by name, and would allow another plowman to handle them only under protest.
Very carefully did Jock guide his team round the farther bend of the horseshoe, but when they reached the middle of the stream the water reached his waist and was lapping round his chest. Of course he could not have stood had it not been that he was on the upper side, and had the support of the shaft, to which he clung, still holding the reins of the foremost horse and the bridle of the other.
“Take care, Jock! for any sake, take care, man!” I yelled from my bank. It was poor advice, but one had to say something as he looked on the man and the horses, more than half covered by the stream, so lonely and helpless. “You are at the turn now”; for we knew that the bend of the shoe was at the middle of the stream.
“It's a' richt,” came back the brave, honest voice. “We'll win through”; and now Jock turned the leader's head up-stream, and the cart began to move round on the nearer turn of the horseshoe. Yes, they would win through, for surely the worst was past, and I jumped upon the bank for very joy, but ever watched the slightest movement, while every inch seemed a mile and every moment an hour.
Alas! there was no end to the deceit and wickedness of that river; for, owing to some slight bend at a little distance higher up on the opposite bank, the current ran with its main strength, not in the middle of the channel, but toward the place where I was standing, and into a black deep just at my feet. It beat upon the cart, and as I looked I could see the cart begin to yield, and to be carried sidewise off the track of the ford. I shouted—I know not what now; I think the plowman's name—but Jock already had felt himself going with the cart as it turned round. He called upon his horses: “Pull up, Star! Steady, lass!”—this to the mare in his hand.
The intelligent creatures answered to his voice and made a valiant effort, Star plunging forward, and the mare—a wise old beast—straining herself to recover the cart. For an instant the cart's further wheel was pulled on to the track, and I saw the cart once more level in the water; and again I shouted, calling both man and horses by their names. Then the river, afraid that she was to be spoiled of her prey, put out all her strength. The cart yields and sinks on the lower side and begins to turn over. It is off the ford now, and will pull the horses after it, and all that can be done is for Jock to let go the horses, who are now struggling in desperation, and to save his own life. He could swim, and was a powerful man, forty inches and more round the chest, and a fellow, if you please, to toss the hammer on a summer evening.
“For God's sake, let go the horses, Jock, and make for the bank!” And I went to the edge where he was likely to come, and lying down upon my chest, I twisted one arm round a sturdy bush, and was ready with the other hand to catch Jock if he should be fighting his way through the current and come within reach of shore.
By this time the horse in the shaft was fighting on the edge of the abyss, and only the top of one side-board of the cart could be seen, and the upper shaft, which was standing straight out of the water. Star was screaming with terror—and a horse's scream is a fearful sound—for if only he could be free of the two chains that fastened him to the shaft, he, a powerful young horse, would soon reach safety where the road came out from the ford through the banks, up the slope, to dry land. And Jock, forgetful of himself, was determined to give Star his chance for life—Star, whom he had broken in as a colt, and taught to take an oatmeal cake out of his pocket, of whom he boasted in the markets, and for whom he had bought little brass ornaments to wear on his forehead and chest. The mare was beyond redemption, and must perish with the cart; she was old, and had done her work. But Star must not be drowned. Already he has loosened the near chain and on one side Star is free, and now, in the midst of that wild hurly-burly of plunging horses, Jock, holding on to the projecting shaft with one hand, is reaching with the other underneath the neck of the mare, to free the other chain from the farther shaft.
He succeeded, as I took it, at the very last moment; for Star, now on the brink, made a desperate effort, and, shaking himself free of all entanglement, swam into the quieter water, just above where I had hoped to meet his driver.
In another minute Star was standing on the road, shaking in every limb, and hanging his head between his fore legs, with all the strength and bravery taken out of him.
Before he reached the bank, the cart and the mare, and poor Jock with them, had been swept over the edge of the unseen ford into the deep water below. Had Jock been free of the cart and horse he might have made some fight for his life, even in that caldron; but, from the marks upon his body, we judged that he had been struck, just when he loosed the chain, by the iron hoofs of the mare in her agony, and had been rendered unconscious.
Within a second, horse and cart and man had disappeared, and the cruel river had triumphed and was satisfied.
Three days afterward we rescued his body from her grasp; and when we carried it up to the bothy where he and his mates had lived together, the roughest of them felt that this man had been a hero.
No doubt he ought not to have dared so much; but having dared, he did not flinch. His duty was that of every driver—to stick to the last by his horses—and he did it to the uttermost.
He was a rough man, Jock, who never read anything except the stories in the weekly newspaper which used to circulate in the bothies. There were times when Jock took a glass too much on a fair-day at Muirtown, and then he was inclined to fight. His language, also, was not suited for polite society, and his temper was not always under perfect control.
Let me say it plainly: Jock was nothing but a Scots plowman, and all he did that day was to save the life, not of a child or of a man, but of a cart-horse worth about £50. It was, however, his bit of duty as Jock understood it; all he had to give was his life, and he gave it without hesitation and without fear.
NEXT to the election of a minister nothing stirred the parish of Thomgreen like an election of elders, and it may be truthfully said that the people were far more concerned about the men whom they appointed to this sacred office than about the man whom they sent to represent them in Parliament. The people had also a keen sense of the kind of man who was fit to be an elder, and there was many a farmer whom they would have cheerfully elected to any board, and in whose hands they would have trusted any amount of money, but whom they would never have dreamt of making an elder. Persons who were by no means careful about their own life, and one would not have supposed had any great concern about the character of the officers of the Christian Church, had yet a fixed idea, and a very sound one, about the qualifications for an elder; and if one of themselves had been proposed would have regarded the idea as an insult, not to them but to the Church. “Me an elder,” he would have said; “for ony sake be quiet; there maun be nae jokin' on sich subjects. When you and me are made elders the kirk had better be closed.” For the word elder was synonymous in Thorngreen, and, indeed, in every right-thinking parish, not only with morality and integrity, but with gravity and spirituality.
No parish could expect to have many men who filled the conditions, and Thorngreen had a standing grievance that one man who was evidently an elder by arrangement of providence would not accept the office. Andrew Harris, of Rochally, as he was commonly called, after the name of his farm, was of ancient Thorngreen blood, since his forbears had worked land in the parish for many generations, and he himself had succeeded his father, who was also an elder for thirty years. There was no sounder farmer than Rochally, and what he had done by draining, limeing, and skilful seeding was known unto all men; no straighter man in a bargain, for the character of a young horse from Rochally was better than a written document; no friendlier man in the kirkyard on a Sunday or at Muirtown markets, and no more regular and attentive hearer in kirk. Beyond all that, the parish knew, although it never said such things, that Rochally was a religious man, who not only had worship in his house, with his men servants and his women servants present, but also worshipped God in all Christian living from year to year. He was also a man of substance, and if that could be got with other things, the parish preferred it in an elder, and he gave liberally to the Free Kirk, of which, indeed, he was the mainstay. If he was not married, and was never likely now to marry, it could not be helped, but there was nothing else wanting to make him the perfect model of an elder.
As regularly as there was a meeting for the election of elders, which happened about every five years, the name of Mr. Andrew Harris, farmer of Rochally, was proposed and seconded, and about to be placed on the nomination form, when Rochally himself rose, and quietly but very firmly requested that his name be dropped, “for reasons which are sufficient to my own conscience.” And although three ministers in succession, and a generation of elders, had pleaded privately with Rochally, and had used every kind of argument, they could not move him from his position. His nomination was felt on each occasion to be a debt due to his character and to the spiritual judgment of the congregation; but the people had long ago despaired of his consent. Had they consulted his wishes they would never have mentioned his name; but, at any rate, he made a point of attending, and at once withdrawing. They were obstinate, and he was obstinate, and the event had become a custom at the election of elders in the Free Kirk.
No one could even guess why Rochally refused office, and every one in the Free Kirk was a little sore that the best and most respected member on their roll should sit in his back seat Sunday after Sunday, and attend every week meeting, and give the largest subscriptions, and also gamer the utmost respect from without, and yet not be an elder. It was also felt that if his name could only be printed on the nomination paper and placed before the people, and the people unanimously elected him, as they would do, then it would be hard for him to refuse, and if he did refuse he would have to do what he had not done yet—give his reasons. If they could only hold the meeting without his being present, or if, by any innocent ruse, he could be kept from the meeting, then half the battle would be won; and that is how it came to pass that the minister and elders of Thomgreen Free Kirk stole a march upon Rochally. They had been thinking for some time of adding to the eldership, for Essendy, the father of the Session, had “won awa'” at eighty-seven, and Wester Mains could only sit on sunny days in the garden; and while they were turning the matter over in their minds—for nothing was done hurriedly in Thomgreen—it spread abroad that Rochally was going away for the unprecedented period of four weeks, partly to visit a sister's son who had risen to high position in England, and partly to try some baths for the mild rheumatism which was his only illness. It seemed a providential arrangement, and one which they must use wisely, and if anything could have been read on the severe countenances of Thomgreen, Rochally might have guessed that some conspiracy was afoot when he bade his brethren good-bye after Kirk one Sabbath.
As soon as it was known that he had fairly departed, and as it was perfectly certain there could be no communication with him from his home except a weekly report of the briefest and most prosaic kind by the foreman, the Session (that is, the Court of Elders) was called together, and on two successive Sundays the people were summoned to a meeting for the nomination of elders. It was held on the Monday following the second Sunday, and was attended by almost the whole congregation. Six names were proposed for three vacancies, but, of course, the climax of the proceedings was the nomination of Mr. Andrew Harris, farmer at Rochally, and the insertion of his name on the paper of nomination. The nomination papers were given out on the following Sunday, and on the fourth and last Sunday of Rochally's absence were returned into the hands of the Session. Before he came home the Session had met, and as every single communicant, without exception, had voted for Mr. Andrew Harris, farmer at Rochally, the Session declared him elected, and when he sat in his pew on the following Sunday he heard the edict for the ordination of three elders on that day fortnight, and the first name was his own.
It was creditable to the good manners of the people that though they held their breath at the critical moment, none of them looked even sideways to the pew where Rochally sat alone; but the minister's eye fell on him from the pulpit, and as he noticed Rochally start and flush, and grow pale, while a look of pain came over his face, the minister became anxious, and began to regret their well-intentioned plot. And when, according to the custom of the kirk, he announced that the aforesaid persons would be ordained this day fortnight, unless “some valid objection to their life and doctrine be stated to the Kirk Session at a meeting to be held for that purpose before the service on Wednesday evening,” and when, even at that distance, he could see Rochally's hand tighten upon the door of his pew and his head fall forward upon his breast for an instant, as if he were in pain, he almost wished that they had not meddled with the secret affairs of a man's life. The minister was not surprised when Rochally did not call at the manse on Monday or Tuesday to say that he could not accept the election, although that was within his power, and he was not surprised, although much grieved, when he saw Rochally standing in the shadow of the trees not far from the vestry where the Kirk Session met. Although he had not the faintest idea of the reason, he was now afraid of what was going to happen, and the elders, as they came in one by one, having passed Rochally, who stood apart among the trees, and gave no sign of recognition, were uneasy, and had a sense of calamity. They knew nothing either, and were not able even to imagine anything; but they also, having seen Rochally and caught a faint glimpse of his face, would fain have burned the nomination papers, and cancelled the whole election.
The court was opened with prayer, in which the minister was very earnest that they should be all guided by the Spirit of God and know His will. And then the minutes were read, wherein the names of those elected were mentioned, after which the minister declared the time had arrived for receiving objections to the life and doctrine of the aforesaid persons, and the beadle, being summoned from the dark kirk where he had been sitting, was commanded to do his duty. Thereupon, having opened the outer door of the vestry, as being a public place, he looked into the darkness, and called upon any persons who could make valid objection to the life or doctrine of Andrew Harris, farmer at Rochally, that he should not be ordained an elder, to come forward and declare the same. Many a time had the beadle made this challenge, and never before had it been answered, but now, out from the darkness, came Rochally himself, and entered the vestry. For a moment he was dazzled by the light of the lamp, though it was never very bright, and as he stood before the Session he passed his hand over his face. Then he stepped forward to the table, and, leaning heavily on it with one hand, Rochally unveiled his secret.
“Moderator and Elders of the Kirk, I stand here in answer to your commandment, and in obedience to my own conscience, to give you strong reasons why Andrew Harris should never be ordained an elder in Christ's Kirk, and why he is not worthy even to take the sacrament.
“I ken well that my brethren have often wondered why I wouldna allow my name to be mentioned for the eldership, and I have often feared that they judged me as one who despised the call of the kirk, and wouldna put his hand to the plough. If they did so, they were wrang, for God knows how I have honoured and loved the Church, and He knows how glad and proud a man I would have been to carry the vessels of the Lord. But I dauma, I dauma.
“It micht have been better if I had told the reason years ago, and saved mysel' and the brethren much trouble; but it is hard for the Scots heart to open itsel', and a man is jealous of his secret.' Maybe I sinned in not confessing to the kirk in this place as I did elsewhere, and as I confessed to my God. Gin it be so, I have suffered, and now the Lord's hand is heavy upon me.
“Lang years ago,” and the strong man trembled, but no elder so much as lifted his eyes, “I lived for a year, although none here will mind of it, in another parish, where my father had a farm, and there, when I was a young man, though no one here knows of it, being careless in my walk and conversation, and resisting the Grace of God, I fell, and sinned against the law of Moses and of Christ.
“What the sin was it matters not now; but it was a great sin, such as nothing but the blude o' Christ can cleanse away, and the guilt of it was heavy upon my soul. God was merciful unto me, and His Spirit moved me to that repentance which needeth not to be repented of. Sic reparation as I could make I made, and them that were injured I satisfied; but I have never been satisfied. They're all dead now that had to do with it, long before they died they had forgotten it; but I have never forgotten it, and the long years have never wiped it from my memory.
“There's ae man I envy every day, and mair the nicht than ever; no the man who is rich and powerful, na, na, it is the man whose life is clean and white fra his boyhood until this hour, who can turn over the pages and let every man look on. One chapter o' my life I read alone every day, and it canna be blotted out from before my eyes. Their hands maun be dean which bear the vessels of the Lord, and my hands arena clean; wherefore I take objection, being a true witness against the life of Andrew Harris, and declare he is not fit to be an elder of the kirk.”
While Rochally was still standing, the minister knelt down, and the elders with him; but Rochally stood, and the minister began to pray. First of all, he confessed the sins of their youth and of later years till every man's soul lay bare before his own eyes and the eyes of God, then he carried them all, their lives and their sins, unto the Cross of Calvary, and magnified before God the sacrifice for sin and the dying love of the Saviour, and then he lifted up their souls in supplication unto God upon His Throne, and besought the Judge of all, for Christ's sake, to cast their transgressions behind His back and into the depths of the sea; and, finally, he besought God to grant unto them all the assurance of His mercy and the peace which passeth all understanding to possess their hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. But he made no mention of Rochally or Rochally's sin, so that one would have supposed it was the minister and the elders, and not Andrew Harris, who were at the Bar.
When they rose from their knees more than one elder was weeping, and every man's face was white and serious, and still Rochally stood as if he desired to go, but was not able till the minister gave the decision of the court. The Spirit of the Holy Ministry, which is the most awful office upon earth, and the most solemn, descended in special measure upon the minister, a man still young and inexperienced, but who was now coming out from the holy place of the Most High.
“Andrew Harris, I ask you, in the name of the Kirk whom the Lord loved and washed from her sins in His own blood, lovest thou the Lord Jesus Christ?” Then the minister and the elders faded from before Rochally's eyes, and the faithful, honest man who had sinned so long ago, and wept so bitterly, stood face to face with the Master.
“Lord,” said he, for the first time lifting up his head, “Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee.”
It was after midnight when the minister wrote out the minute of that meeting, and it states that an objection was taken to the life of Andrew Harris; but the Session ruled that it was not relevant, in which ruling the objector acquiesced, and the Session therefore appointed that Andrew Harris, farmer at Rochally, be ordained on the day appointed to the office of elder in the Free Kirk of Thomgreen.