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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 ~> 
 
 t
 
 NORTH COUNTRY FOLK 
 
 By the A UTHOR OF " OLRIG GRAXGE," " HILDA" 
 
 " kildrostan;' >s^v.
 
 PUBLISHED BV 
 
 JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. 
 London, .... Hamilton, Adams and Co. 
 Cambrids^c, . . . Macniillan and Bowes, 
 Edinburgh, . . . Douglas and Foulis. 
 
 MDCCCLXXXVIII.
 
 NORTH COUNTRY FOLK 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER C. SMITH 
 
 JAMES MACLEHOSE & SONS 
 
 PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 1888 
 
 A II rights 7-eserved
 
 Originally published in April 1883. 
 Uniform Edition, 1888.
 
 ?R 
 
 n- 
 
 insrribjli 
 
 "Eo me Jri£nl>, 
 
 Professor John <Stunrt glAckit, 
 
 g£ar to sU his Coantrgmrn, 
 
 ^nb most Drai 
 lo those tDho knoto him best. 

 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 WEE CURLY POIV, I 
 
 DR. LINKLETTEK'S SCHOLAR, 34 
 
 DICK DALGLEISH 53 
 
 LOST AND WON, 69 
 
 THE MAD EARL, 81 
 
 PROVOST C HIV AS, I06 
 
 MORGANA, 125 
 
 MRS. COVENTRY, 136 
 
 MOTHER AND STEP-MOTHER X43 
 
 BAILIE BUTTERS AND YOUNG DINUOODIE, . . I47 
 
 DEACON DORAT'S STORY, 159 
 
 THE POETASTER, 169 
 
 PARISH PASTORS, 176 
 
 DR. BOYACK, 178 
 
 DEAN DUFFUS, 183 
 
 THE REV. RICHARD RULE, I90
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 AMORY HILL, ^9^ 
 
 MISS BELLA JAPP, 2IO 
 
 THE VILLAGE PHILOSOPHER, 217 
 
 ALTNACRAIG, 220 
 
 COBAIRDY, 225 
 
 DONALD rOSHACH, 23 1 
 
 lONA, 239 
 
 THE CRY OF THE MAIDEN SHAREHOLDERS, . . 243 
 
 A CRY FROM THE MERSE, . . . . ' . ■ ■ 246 
 
 A REMONSTRANCE FROM THE MERSE, ... 249 
 
 IN MEMORIAM— DR. JOHN BROWN, 252
 
 tt Curl J) f oto. 
 
 Off with you, wee Curly Pow; off, little kitten, to 
 
 bed; 
 You'll not leave a beard on my chin, and you'll not 
 
 leave a hair on my head. 
 If you kiss me and touzle me so; there; already it's 
 
 bald on the crown, 
 And once it was thatched like a hay stack, the 
 
 furziest head in the town. 
 Will I kiss you in bed to-night? Of course, I will, 
 
 when you're asleep ; 
 And you'll know it because you will dream of angels 
 
 that stand and weep 
 O'er chatterboxes that won't go to bed when they 
 4^ ought to go.
 
 2 WEE CURLY POIV. 
 
 And all these angels have beards that are three days 
 
 old or so — 
 You do not believe that angels ever have beards ; 
 
 tliey fly 
 With beautiful wings, and their hair is like sunbeams 
 
 up in the sky ? 
 Oh. you're a learned wee maidie ; but yet it may well 
 
 be true 
 That I do not know about angels so well, my 
 
 darling, as you. 
 There ; off with you now ; that's the last, the very 
 
 last kiss you shall get, 
 And mind you, I will not be cheated, you're twenty 
 
 at least, in my debt. 
 
 Draw your chair nearer the fire, friend ; tliere is a 
 storm in the air : 
 
 Hark! how the sea is moaning: God help the fisher- 
 folk there 
 
 Out in their crazy old boats, for we shall have wind 
 and snow 
 
 Driving from the north-east soon, if aught of the 
 weather I know. 
 
 But the bickering log is pleasant, with the collie 
 coiled on the rug.
 
 WEE CURLY FOIV. 3 
 
 And the kettle there on the hob to brew us a 
 
 steammg mug. 
 What ! no more brewing to-night ? you would rather 
 
 be still and brood? 
 So be it ; and well ; I can guess what has started your 
 
 thinking mood. 
 
 You are wondering who that child is, and what she 
 
 can be to me, 
 A dull old bachelor here in the farm-house down 
 
 by the sea? 
 A niece, a cousin perhaps? you had no ill thoughts 
 
 in your head : 
 If you had, you would only have thought what 
 
 scores of people have said. 
 Nay, no apology ; none is needed : I've learnt to 
 
 bear 
 Harder suspicion than yours, sir, and never to turn 
 
 a hair. 
 I've nothing to be ashamed of; if all the truth were 
 
 known, 
 It may even go to my credit, when God and I reckon 
 
 alone ; 
 Only that, good folk tell me, is hardly an orthodox 
 
 thought : —
 
 4 WEE CURLY FOW. 
 
 Not that I care, in the least, sir, whether it be so 
 
 or not ; 
 People here are afraid to utter a word out of 
 
 joint, 
 But for me, I am far and away beyond our minister's 
 
 point : 
 Trouble has taught me, like Job, that sometimes 
 
 the veriest lies 
 Get them a hiding beneath the well-ordered words 
 
 of the wise ; 
 And wee Curly Pow is my darling, wee Curly Pow 
 
 is my bliss! 
 God gave me her in my sorrow, as one seals love 
 
 with a kiss. 
 
 Oh, my Lizzie ! my Lizzie ! yet Lizzie never was 
 
 mine. 
 Except as the thing that we love is ours by a right 
 
 divine, 
 Except as the beauty of nature is his who has eyes 
 
 to see, 
 Though not an acre he owns, nor so much as a bush 
 
 or a tree ; 
 And so my Lizzie is mine by the love which for her I 
 
 bore,
 
 JVEE CURLY POW. 5 
 
 Yea, a possession which nothing can rob me of 
 evermore. 
 
 Perhaps I should tell you the story : it is an old 
 
 one now, 
 And it calls up things that are best left sleeping, I 
 
 think ; for they grow 
 Into hard thoughts when you stir them, mudding 
 
 your life again, 
 Just when it seems to be settling, and clearing off 
 
 sorrow and pain. 
 No matter ; you have a right to know what it all 
 
 may mean, 
 For you are my friend, and a friend should see 
 
 what there is to be seen : 
 One should have no dark closets locked in his heart 
 
 to hide 
 Aught from the wife of his bosom, or from the friend 
 
 he has tried. 
 
 It is some ten years now since Lizzie — Pet's mother, 
 
 you know — 
 Came- to be servant at Blavick — that's the next farm 
 
 as you go 
 Land-ward, maybe a mile hence ; perched on a bit 
 
 of a hill
 
 6 WEE CURLY FOW. 
 
 Down which brattles the brook that drives the wheel 
 
 of our mill ; 
 ^^"orst farmed land hereabout, all scarred like a pock- 
 pitted face 
 Grey and unwholesome to look at; poor soil it is at 
 
 the best, 
 But starved too, for money is scarce there, and work 
 
 not so pleasant as rest. 
 Anyhow Lizzie came there, at Lammas some ten 
 
 years past, 
 As bonny a lass as you'd see, sir, and clever and 
 
 merry and chaste ; 
 At kirk or at market you could not meet such 
 
 another, nor find 
 At kirn or wedding to dance with a partner so to 
 
 your mind, 
 Always so tidy and neat, and always as blithe as a 
 
 bird. 
 With a ready laugh for your joke, and as ready a 
 
 word for your word. 
 
 Blavick's wife was a slut — or she had been, for now 
 
 she was dead, 
 And Lizzie, you see, had come to keep house for 
 
 him in her stead — 
 Sluttish women are mostly fat, of a rosy tint.
 
 PVEE CURLY FOW. 7 
 
 But she was a black-a-viced person, bony and hard 
 
 as flint : 
 Yet such a house as she kept, sir ! pigs and hens 
 
 and dogs 
 Littered the floors along with the milk pails, peats, 
 
 and logs ; 
 Hard to pick your way through, for the place was 
 
 dark with smoke, 
 And that had been hard to breathe, but mostly a 
 
 window was broke. 
 Oh the dust on the settle! oh the soot on the wall! 
 And oh the dirt in the dairy, that was the worst 
 
 of all ! 
 I wondered how she could live in it, not at all 
 
 that she died ; 
 But for long years she had lost all a woman's 
 
 natural pride. 
 Blavick himself was always lounging about the place, 
 A hulking lump of a man, with a huge expanse of 
 
 face : 
 And if talk could have done it, all would soon have 
 
 come right. 
 How he did talk, to be sure, all through the day 
 
 and the night ! 
 Maundering on about limes and guanos, rotation of 
 
 crops,
 
 8 WEE CURLY FOW. 
 
 Soils and subsoils, and ploughs, and the makers of 
 them and their shops, 
 
 And all the new-fangled ways ! but none of the old- 
 fashioned work 
 
 Ever he put his hands to : there was not a rake or 
 a fork, 
 
 Plough or harrow that was not broken and out of 
 repair 
 
 Just when they needed it most, and waste was 
 everywhere. 
 
 But Lizzie began at once to make everything nice 
 
 and clean, 
 To put everything in the house in its place where 
 
 it should have been ; 
 Pity the pig that ventured to grunt inside of her 
 
 door ! 
 Pity the hen that entered where it used to cackle 
 
 before ! 
 The kitchen was like a parlour, none of them dared 
 
 to tread 
 With mucky shoes on her earth-floor; for she had 
 
 a tongue in her head. 
 Women need to be able to scourge a fool with 
 
 speech ;
 
 WEE CURLY FOIV. g 
 
 That is their only weapon to punish him or to 
 
 teach ; 
 And it was worth while hearing her hit them off, 
 
 one by one, 
 Every phrase just a picture, lit up with a touch of 
 
 fun, 
 Making them all, shame-faced, to do her bidding at 
 
 once, 
 Till, at the last, she needed no more than a hasty 
 
 glance. 
 
 Blavick used to be hateful; but now it grew pleasant 
 
 to me. 
 At first, I hardly knew why, but just that I liked 
 
 to see 
 The change that Lizzie had wrought ; for that I 
 
 would sit for hours 
 And hear old Blavick's chatter, as if it were sweet 
 
 as the flowers. 
 Many a time when I went out just to look over a 
 
 field. 
 And see how the corn was ripening, or guess at the 
 
 turnip yield ; 
 Many a time when I came away from the thronging 
 
 fair,
 
 lo WEE CURLY POW. 
 
 Pleading I must go home for the task that I had to 
 
 do there ; 
 Many a time when I left for the kirk on the Sab- 
 bath day, 
 It was not the kirk I went to, for Blavick was in 
 
 my way : 
 Somehow or other, something was always drawing 
 
 me there, 
 As the tide runs after the moon — and oh but my 
 
 moon was fair ! 
 Then I knew that I loved her — loved her with all 
 
 my heart, 
 As only a strong man can whose love is his strongest 
 
 part. 
 She was only a servant maiden, but oh she was my 
 
 queen : 
 She was only a cottar's daughter, and I was the 
 
 farmer of Plein ; 
 My fathers had been here, sir, for five generations 
 
 back, 
 And never a lease ran out but the laird would 
 
 renew the tack. 
 For they had money to farm with, and they could 
 
 farm with skill, 
 And never a lease ran out, but the land looked 
 
 richer still.
 
 WEE CURLY POW. ii 
 
 Yet she seemed high above me— ever so high above ! 
 It never came into my head that I honoured her 
 
 with my love ; 
 Nay, but she was my moon, my chaste and beautiful 
 
 moon, 
 And I but the panting tide that followed her syne 
 
 and soon ; 
 She was so bright, quick-witted, and I so dull and 
 
 slow. 
 She high up in the heaven, and I on the earth 
 
 below. 
 Folk said that I might do better; I thought, if she'd 
 
 condescend 
 To smile on me, I would follow her on to the 
 
 wide world's end. 
 
 But there was one at Blavick — and he too the worst 
 of the lot, 
 
 Partly a horse-couping black-leg, partly, moreover, 
 a sot ; 
 
 Fain to look like a jockey, wearing a jaunty hat; 
 
 Some folk called him good-looking, — I am not a judge 
 of that — 
 
 But in his eye was a hot moist leer, and he had a chin 
 
 That dropt inside of his necktie, and a hard and tight- 
 drawn skin.
 
 12 WEE CURLY POW. 
 
 Other folk called him clever, but I should say only 
 
 smart — 
 I call a man smart when his head does not feel 
 
 the want of a heart, 
 And works best when it has laid the conscience high 
 
 on the shelf, 
 Regarding not God or man, and caring for none 
 
 but himself. 
 
 What is it women can see in men assured and 
 
 bold. 
 That they give their warm true hearts to hearts that 
 
 are false and cold? 
 That they give their pure hearts up to men that 
 
 are foul with sin, 
 Nor shrink from the outward taint, nor dread what 
 
 is hidden within ? 
 I never could comprehend how such things come 
 
 to be, 
 And now it is more than ever a mystery grown 
 
 to me. 
 That Blavick's son was a scamp, sir, as all the 
 
 country knew : 
 You could read it plain in his face, he neither was 
 
 manly nor true ;
 
 WEE CURLY FOW. 
 
 13 
 
 He ought to have been ashamed to speak to an 
 
 honest maid, 
 And she too ought to have known the weapon with 
 
 which she played, 
 Ought to have known the fellow would lead her a 
 
 devil's dance. 
 But now there was no getting speech of her ; hardly 
 
 I met her once ; 
 Always you saw them together ; he went with her 
 
 to the kirk, 
 Chatted with her at the milking, sat with her in the 
 
 mirk ; 
 In harvest she was his bandster ; she raked for him 
 
 at the hay ; 
 And wherever you happened to meet her, he never 
 
 was far away. 
 Ay! and he made her tryste him beside the "Danc- 
 ing cairn," 
 Although she had heard the story of Bessie Lusk 
 
 and her bairn ; 
 But she said it was all a lie; the sheriff had let him go. 
 And Bessie had fallen asleep, and died in the 
 
 drifting snow, 
 And even the minister found no fault that he could 
 
 blame. 
 And it was wicked to rob a man of his honest name.
 
 14 
 
 WEE CURLY POW. 
 
 All this I saw going on, and yet like a fool, one day — 
 Every man plays the fool, I suppose, sir, once in 
 
 a way — 
 Finding her by herself, I asked her to be my wife ; 
 And when she had said me nay, ere I turned to my 
 
 lonely life. 
 Partly because I loved her, and partly because I 
 
 feared 
 What might happen, if things went on as they now 
 
 appeared, 
 I warned her of him, as none but a fool would 
 
 have thought to do. 
 Of course, she blazed up fiercely : there was not a 
 
 word of it true ; 
 'Twas gossip of wicked people, and some folk's 
 
 meaner spite ; 
 And she would believe in him now, though I proved 
 
 it clear as the light ; 
 And she would hold to him now, and sink with him 
 
 or swim. — 
 I felt there was something grand in her womanly 
 
 faith in him, 
 Felt too that I had been little — at least, that I must 
 
 look small, 
 Though I said no more than the truth, and had 
 
 not said nearly it all;
 
 WEE CURLY FOIV. 
 
 15 
 
 But then I should just have taken mine answer, and 
 
 gone my way. — 
 A weary way now it was, sir, of lifeless work all day. 
 And brooding by night o'er the fire, and eating my 
 
 heart like a fool, 
 Till things grew over my mind, like the weeds in a 
 
 standing pool, 
 And I scarce knew what I was doing, or heeded a 
 
 word that was said. 
 Going to kirk and market, and never once turning 
 
 my head, 
 Doing my job of business, doing my bit of prayer, 
 With a changeless thought in my heart, and a 
 
 changeless aching there. 
 People, I daresay, wondered why I sat brooding 
 
 alone ; 
 What did it matter to me? I let them go wondering 
 
 on. 
 I hated the clash of the market, the glee of the 
 
 curling rink. 
 And the rough jokes of the smithy, the ale-house 
 
 too and its drink ; 
 Yea, and I hated my life so brightened once by her 
 
 smile. 
 So haloed and hallowed to me by the dream of her 
 
 love for a while,
 
 1 6 WEE CURLY FOW. 
 
 For now it had all gone dark, and I did not seem 
 to mind 
 
 What the clouds might be gathering, or what might 
 be in the wind. 
 
 Maybe, sir, you have known, now, a feeling some- 
 thing like that. 
 
 When there's nothing ycu fear or wish for, it is all 
 so stale and flat. 
 
 Tasteless and dry as a rush-pith you chew, and you 
 don't know why — 
 
 It's a bad v/ay to be found in if the devil should 
 hap' to come by. 
 
 So the spring passed with the tender green of the 
 
 sticky leaves. 
 The songs of the mating birds, and the swallows' 
 
 nest in the eaves ; 
 So too the glory of summer with the smell of clover 
 
 and bean, 
 The hawthorn white in the hedge, and the daisies 
 
 white on the green ; 
 And autumn also went with its wealth of well-stooked 
 
 corn, 
 And the kine that low for the milk-pail duly at 
 
 even and morn.
 
 WEE CURLY row. 17 
 
 Nature passed through her changes, but I was still 
 
 the same : 
 I fished ne'er the pool for the trout, and I fired not 
 
 a shot at the game : 
 People were wedded and buried, but I was not 
 
 there to see, 
 At harvest-homes the lasses might none of them 
 
 dance with me. 
 There was nothing I heeded, except to put cash in 
 
 the bank — 
 Not that I cared for that either, at least not much ; 
 
 but I thank 
 Heaven that I grew not a miserly churl as I might 
 
 have done. 
 But for my wee Curly Pow, and her laugh like the 
 
 blink of the sun. 
 
 But there ; I am going too fast, there was not a 
 
 Curly Pow yet ; 
 But I never can think of those days without thinking 
 
 too of my pet, 
 And what she has saved me from, and how I am 
 
 in her debt : 
 Perhaps she was given me for this, to keep me from 
 
 being a churl,
 
 1 8 IVEE CURLY FOW. 
 
 For my heart was set on the gold, until it was set 
 
 on the girl. 
 Well ; one evening that winter — it had been snowing 
 
 all day, 
 And now with the dry small drift the wind was 
 
 making rough play, 
 Rolling it low o'er the earth, and tossing it high in the air, 
 And whirling it over the cliffs to toss up the white 
 
 foam there. 
 Not a night to be out in ; but I thought I must go 
 
 and look 
 After a hirsel of sheep that were pasturing down by 
 
 the brook 
 In the hollow there where the rocks have opened 
 
 to let it through ; 
 There the pasture is good, sir, and the pools for 
 
 trouting too. 
 So ; I had seen to the sheep, and was fighting my 
 
 way again 
 Home through the blinding drift that smote with 
 
 a stinging pain, 
 When something flitted close by me, and moaned 
 
 as it made for the shore 
 Just where the rocks stand up, two hundred feet and 
 
 more, 
 Out of the wild wan water, with only a narrow ledge,
 
 WEE CURLY FOJF. 1 9 
 
 Here and there, where the sea gulls build, and their 
 
 nestlings fledge. 
 Even in quiet weather it is perilous walking there, 
 At night, for the cracks and fissures you come upon 
 
 unaware. 
 Where the waves rush in so madly, tossing the white 
 
 foam high : 
 But on a night like this one who was not wishing to die 
 Would have kept far from the wind-swept cliffs, 
 
 and the drifting snow. 
 And the loud roar of the waves that w^ere plunging 
 
 down below. 
 
 What was it smote my heart that the form which 
 
 dimly fell 
 White on my eyes through the snow was the girl 
 
 I had loved so well? 
 Why was I sure that I heard her moan, though the 
 
 raving wind 
 Shrieked till my ears were as deaf as my eyes with 
 
 the drift were blind? 
 Heaven only knows, for I had no reason to think 
 
 that she 
 Was out of the house that night, or near to the 
 
 rocks or me : 
 Yet I was certain of it, as if it had been revealed
 
 20 WEE CURLY POW. 
 
 Clear by the word of the Lord, and with miracle 
 
 signed and sealed. 
 So in a moment I rushed off after the fading form 
 Into the pathless night that was dark with the 
 
 blinding stonn; 
 And not five yards from the chff I passed her with 
 
 labouring breath, 
 And stood in front of her there, stood between her 
 
 and death. 
 Pallid she was as a ghost, with a' wild gleam in 
 
 her eye, 
 Gleam of the madness that drove her out that 
 
 evening to die : 
 Ah, poor soul ! so lately rich in a full-blooded life. 
 And merry as bird in the summer, or bee when the 
 
 clover IS rife, 
 Glowing and singing, and laughing all through the 
 
 work of the day. 
 Ah ! what anguish had broken a spirit so blithe 
 
 and gay? 
 What cruel wrong had dethroned a reason so sharp 
 
 and clear 
 That had not a moping doubt, and felt not a 
 
 shadowy fear ? 
 " What did I mean ? Let her pass. And what 
 
 right had I to ask
 
 WEE CURLY FOW. 2 1 
 
 Whither she went or why? And, forsooth, it was 
 
 not my task 
 To be her keeper," she said. It was not a time 
 
 for speech : 
 Vain in the tumult of feeling to order your words 
 
 and preach : 
 So then I tore off my plaid, and swathed her in 
 
 it, ere she knew. 
 And lifted her up in my arms, and strode through 
 
 the tempest that blew 
 Wilder, fiercer than ever ; and after struggling a while. 
 She lay as one dead on my bosom for most part 
 
 there of a mile. 
 Ah ! was it only thus I should bring my love to my 
 
 JTome? 
 Only thus to my bosom now was she ever to come? 
 No gay bridal for us, no Kirk's blessing or bells ? 
 But a dead weight on my arm, and something of 
 
 sorrow that tells. 
 How I got home, I wot not : but I strode on, 
 
 slow or swift. 
 With a great black fear on my heart as I fought 
 
 with the wind and drift. 
 
 My mother was living then ; and when I laid 
 down my load
 
 22 WEE CURLY FOW. 
 
 There on the sof;x beside her, saying that Woman 
 
 and God 
 Must see to the rest of this gear; she gave me a 
 
 sudden glance, 
 With plainly a question in it, and something of 
 
 doubt, perchance, 
 As if she would say, There's something wrong here ; 
 
 can it be you 
 Has wrought this evil, my son? God help me if 
 
 that be true." 
 Then, " Look you, mother," I said, " there has been 
 
 villainv here, 
 Double-damned villainy, sure, and the truth of it 
 
 yet shall appear. 
 Ay ! if I pluck his heart out to get at the secret 
 
 within ; — 
 Oh ! I would have given my life to save her from 
 
 sorrow and sin. 
 But something has to be done, or after all she will die. 
 Is she living? I thought that I heard a shivering sigh. 
 She was making straight for the sea, when I found 
 
 her close to the brink 
 Of the Kittywake Rock. — Ah ! that was a moan 
 
 of life, I think ; 
 Can I do anything, mother ? If he were here now ! 
 
 Well,
 
 WEE CURLY POIV. 
 
 23 
 
 It would only be doing God's work to hurl the 
 
 villain to Hell." 
 Then she : " Leave God Himself to do His own 
 
 work, my son ; 
 Vengeance is His, and surely, if slowly, His judg- 
 ments are done : 
 Do not the thing that you ought not, for so our 
 
 worst sorrows are wrought, 
 And sorrow, I fear me, will come yet from doing 
 
 this thing that ye ought. 
 But happen what may, ye did right: only now you 
 
 must saddle and ride ; 
 This will need Doctor's skill. 'Tis a wild night, 
 
 lad," she cried. 
 "And you are down-hearted and cold; and yet it is 
 
 better for you 
 Than sitting, helpless, at home, to have something 
 
 set you to do. 
 So let not your horse's hoofs tarry, but mind the 
 
 bridge and the shore, 
 And speed him as fast as you may, or death will 
 
 be here before." 
 
 Four miles' ride to the village, but the wind was 
 then on my back ;
 
 24 WEE CURLY POW. 
 
 Four miles home with a gale in our faces that did 
 
 not slack 
 Once for a moment ; a while to saddle the Doctor's 
 
 brute, 
 And get him into his shoes as he growled at a 
 
 gouty foot : 
 Yet we were back in the hour ; ay, that was the 
 
 staunchest mare 
 Ever stood in my stable, or ate from the manger there. 
 But we were not in time — Wee Curly Pow came 
 
 that night, 
 Came from the sin and the shame to me as an 
 
 angel of light. — 
 Strange that out of such evil such a blessing should rise. 
 That from the very heart-breaking came the heart- 
 healing likewise. 
 But Lizzie was taken from me ; she never looked on 
 
 her child. 
 The troubled unhappy soul sped forth in the tempest 
 
 wild. 
 Seeking to hide her with God, where hiding is found 
 
 alone ; 
 And oh so still as she lay now, trouble and tempest 
 
 gone ! 
 
 Mother looked sadly at me, and gravely the Doctor too
 
 WEE CURLY POIV. 25 
 
 Hinted that tongues would be clacking or ever the 
 
 day was through, 
 That the farmers of Plein had been always men of 
 
 an honoured name 
 Which never till now had been smirched with a 
 
 shadow of guilt or blame. 
 What was there now to smirch it ? Drily he smiled 
 
 at that, 
 Turned up his eyebrows, and said that day would 
 
 tell me what : 
 Meanwhile my heart within me was wroth at the 
 
 villain's deed ; 
 Meanwhile my heart was breaking to have failed her 
 
 now in her need ; 
 For I had loved her truly, and now I was left alone ; 
 And oh so still as she lay there, trouble and tempest 
 
 gone ! 
 
 Not long had I to wait for what their foreboding 
 
 feared ; 
 One day quietly passed — the lull ere the storm 
 
 appeared; 
 ^ut on the next, like fire among burning ricks, it ran; 
 It was told by every woman, believed by every man, 
 How I had played the deceiver, how I had brought 
 
 disgrace
 
 26 ^VEE CURLY POIV. 
 
 On the good name that was honoured o'er every 
 
 name in the place ; 
 How Blavick's son had been Winded, and all his 
 
 people beguiled ; 
 And how in her shame she had fled to the father of 
 
 her child ; 
 And they say that he carried her home a mile 
 
 through the drifting snow ; 
 And who could have ever believed that Plein would 
 
 have acted so ? 
 I laughed as the tale Avas told, but I tried to be 
 
 still and mute, 
 For the grief was more than the wrath, so the 
 
 story had time to root. 
 And you cannot fight with a rumour which nobody 
 
 stands to quite. 
 For that is like hitting at shadows and beating the 
 
 air at night. 
 
 Then it was that I found a blessing in Curly Pow : 
 She was all of my love that remained, all of Lizzie 
 
 that I had now. 
 Every day she would lie for hours and hours on my 
 
 knee : 
 I was but an uncouth nurse, but she learnt to trust 
 
 in me ; 
 
 \
 
 WEE CURLY pom: 27 
 
 And I got to love her somehow, and it would have 
 
 broken my heart 
 Had anything happened on earth to make me and 
 
 the baby part. 
 They might think what thoughts they pleased, they 
 
 might say of me what they list, 
 When she crowed up into my face, and learned to 
 
 look up and be kissed. 
 It was all of my love that remained, it was all of 
 
 my Lizzie I had, 
 And Lizzie had been my all. But, of course, they 
 
 said everything bad. 
 
 Of course, they said everything bad. The minister 
 
 once came in. 
 And vowed at my own fireside if I did not confess 
 
 the sin 
 He must cut me off from the Church ; he was 
 
 sorry, but v/hat could he do ? 
 Some one, I said, must confess, for that sin has 
 
 been done is true — • 
 Sin of the shamefulest kind, and covered with 
 
 perjuring lies, 
 Sin that came nigh to murder' no art can ever 
 
 disguise.
 
 28 WEE CURLY FOW. 
 
 Sin malignant that shifted its guilt on the innocent too, 
 Sin that took up ill reports, and spread the false 
 
 word for the true, 
 Verily sin all round. But for me I have nought to 
 
 confess, 
 Save that in pity I saved a life in its great distress. 
 But maybe the Priest and Levite blamed the 
 
 Samaritan's sin 
 For binding the traveller's wounds, and bringing 
 
 him home to his inn ; 
 He saved an enemy's life, and it cost him money 
 
 to do it ; 
 It was not a prudent act, for only the Lord God 
 
 knew it. 
 Who then did it? he asked. Enquire at your 
 
 Elder's son. 
 The horse-couping scoundrel, — it's not the first of 
 
 these jobs he has done; 
 You've had him through hands before. Yes ! he 
 
 swears he is not to blame ? 
 But when you had last to deal with him, did he 
 
 not swear the same ? 
 Yet he was guilty, you know, and was held to 
 
 have doubly sinned. 
 And sat on the stool of repentance, and stared at 
 
 the girls and grinned.
 
 WEE CURLY POW. 
 
 29 
 
 What do you think, sir? It strikes me that did 
 
 not do him any good ; 
 And who is the better because her babe is unchris- 
 
 tened ? or would 
 Be worse if it were baptised? It is nothing, of 
 
 course, to me ; 
 But if it is right that the babe who has sinned no 
 
 sin should be 
 Brought to the water of God, then why should this 
 
 little one bide 
 Like one who inherits a shame, while her father has 
 
 none to hide ? 
 See, I will hold her up before all the folk if you will, 
 I'll take all the vows on myself which I'll faithfully 
 
 strive to fulfil. 
 Will toil for her, pray for her, teach her to walk 
 
 in the way undefiled ; 
 Though there's not one drop of the Plein blood 
 
 flows in the veins of the child. 
 I cannot lie even to get you to bless the babe that 
 
 I love; 
 It is not my child ; but it's God's ; and its name too 
 
 is written above. 
 
 He was mightily scandalised, and flung right out of 
 the house :
 
 30 IVEE CURLY POW. 
 
 But I did not heed him; I knelt there down by 
 
 my wee httle mouse — • 
 ,She was not my Curly Pow yet, for she had not a 
 
 hair on her head, 
 But she always got some pretty name as I took 
 
 her upstairs to her bed, 
 As Mousie, or Birdie, or Daisie, or anything dainty 
 
 or sweet. 
 Or the Star or the Song of my life, or my Lamb 
 
 with its tender bleat — ■ 
 So I knelt, and prayed to the Father to help me 
 
 to train her for Him, 
 Since worse than orphan she was, and T felt that 
 
 my eyes grew dim. 
 While I sought for the better baptism that she 
 
 might be pure and good, 
 As no Kirk water could make her. And then in 
 
 a happier mood 
 We crowed and played there together, until it was 
 
 time for bed ; 
 Where I lay and dreamt of my Lizzie, who lay with 
 
 the silent dead. 
 
 Well ; yes, the house now was lonely; but that I did 
 not much mind :
 
 IVEE CURLY FOIV. 
 
 31 
 
 People must go their own way; and for me I was 
 
 never inclined 
 To mix with the folk round about here, who 
 
 mostly have nothing to say 
 Save about cattle and crops and the prices on 
 
 market day. 
 Not to pleasure the like of them should my ways 
 
 be changed : 
 So they might do as they listed ; and most of them 
 
 were estranged. 
 But I always had wee Curly Pow to help me to 
 
 carry it through, 
 And life is as happy to-day as on ever a day that 
 
 I knew. 
 Ay ! neighbours leave us alone, and the Kirk has 
 
 cast us away, 
 And every day of the week is as still as the 
 
 Sabbath day : 
 Worse thing they had not to do ; it was all the 
 
 length they could go. 
 Baby don't mind, but at first I felt it a terrible 
 
 blow 
 To be shut from the table of God, to be held as 
 
 an outcast man. 
 To be looked at askance like a branded sinner and 
 
 publican.
 
 32 
 
 WEE CURLY FOW. 
 
 I went still to Church for a time, and sat on the 
 
 square Plein pew, 
 And heard the old Psalms, and the prayers, and 
 
 bits of the sermon too. 
 Meanwhile I wept like a child, as I thought of the 
 
 happier days 
 When father and mother and all of us loved the 
 
 old Kirk and its ways. 
 But ere long I stayed here at home; for I found 
 
 more of God in the child. 
 As I looked on her sweet pure face no shadow of 
 
 sin had defiled ; 
 My Sundays were better with her than there where 
 
 my neighbours gloomed, 
 As the minister preached at me sometimes, and I 
 
 sat and fretted and fumed. 
 I don't say it's right, sir ; but God seems nearer 
 
 me here now than there, 
 My thoughts are sweeter and better with wee 
 
 Curly Pow in her chair. 
 As we read in the old Book together, and kneel 
 
 for a brief word of prayer. 
 
 What came of the horse-couping blackguard? I 
 never cared much to know :
 
 WEE CURLY FOW. 
 
 33 
 
 For I found it was best for myself just to let the 
 
 thought of him go 
 Out of my mind altogether ; it was a dead fly, do 
 
 you see ? 
 Spoiling the ointment of course — working no good, 
 
 sir, in me. 
 He left the place by and by, with the constable 
 
 hard on his track, 
 Making it certain enough he would not be in haste 
 
 to come back : 
 Then there were rumours about him ; he had been 
 
 killed, they said. 
 In the Bull's Run affair, and found in the field 'mong 
 
 the dead; 
 But others averred he was caught horse-stealing, 
 
 and lynched on a tree. 
 Bah ! he is out of the way, sir, and that is the 
 
 best thing for me : 
 There was nothing I dreaded so much as to meet 
 
 him some evening alone 
 Where I met poor Lizzie that night. Ay, it's well 
 
 that the fellow is gone.
 
 34 
 
 DR. LINKLETTER'S SCHOLAR. 
 
 ^r. ^iuWctter'0 <Srkolar. 
 
 I was his master; and from me 
 He learnt at a sitting his ABC: 
 And step by step I led him through 
 
 Grammar and History, Latin and Greek, 
 And the science of Form and Number too. 
 
 And Rhetoric that he might fitly speak 
 As only the well-trained orator can, 
 For speech is the noblest gift of man ; 
 But speech that is not by the laws and books 
 Is but as the cawing of jays and rooks, 
 Or the meaningless babble of running brooks : 
 And from the first it was plain to me 
 What his role in the world must be.
 
 DR. LINKLETTER'S SCHOLAR. 
 
 35 
 
 It was my mind that was stamped on his, 
 
 When his was soft as the melted wax; 
 Yet it was not wax, but gold ; and it is 
 
 Strong too and sharp, as the woodman's axe. 
 To hew him a way through the tangled bush. 
 And also to smite his foe at a push — 
 Just the mind that is sure to win 
 Whatever the tussle it may be in. 
 For in this world they only tell 
 Who learn to hit out straight and well. 
 Therefore I follow his proud success. 
 
 Day by day, as he rises higher, 
 Read what he says in the public Press, 
 
 And note what the critics all admire ; 
 And this bit and that which the whole world praises 
 For its lofty thought, or its happy phrases, 
 Or its insight clear, or the counsel wise 
 That in its large suggestion lies — 
 I could not have said it so well as he, 
 But I know there is something in it of me ; 
 I could not have worked out so perfect a thought, 
 But I gave him at first the true key-note ; 
 For I was his master, and from me 
 He learnt, as I told you, his ABC. 
 
 Ah ! sir, only to think that you
 
 36 
 
 DR. LINKLETTEKS SCHOLAR. 
 
 Had not the fitting words at command 
 To utter the thought that you felt was true; 
 
 And what it may grow in a master's hand ! 
 At times, I can hardly detect the seed, 
 
 When it blossoms out in the perfect flower. 
 For it had been only a trifling weed 
 
 If left to ripen by sun and shower 
 In the poor soil of a mind like mine : 
 Yet the germ of it all was there, I know, 
 Though only he could have made it grow 
 Into a glory so divine. 
 Wonderful, sir, that genius should 
 Transform your thought, like its natural food, 
 x\nd breathe into it a life so rich 
 
 The author of it shall hardly find 
 What of it now is his, and which 
 
 First smote the spark from the glowing mind 
 
 A chit of a thing when he came to me ; 
 
 No shears had ever yet come over his head, 
 And his mother could hardly bear to see 
 
 The golden curls which at last were shed, 
 That he might be like the rest of the boys 
 
 Who jeered at him, till she polled his hair. — 
 She kept it among her treasured joys. 
 
 Wrapt up in her marriage lines with care.
 
 DR. LINKLETTERS SCHOLAR. 37 
 
 And I felt with her, as I must confess : 
 
 He was so beautiful before, 
 So touched with a sweet and tender grace ; 
 And now we had made him commonplace, 
 
 Like the louts that were playing about the door. 
 A little ago he seemed just a child, 
 Thoughtful yet bidable, gentle and mild, 
 My little Nazarite, five years old. 
 With his great black eyes, and his hair unpolled ; 
 And I felt he would be my Samson yet. 
 
 Not for his brute strength and clumsy sport. 
 But for a fine and arrowy wit 
 
 Quick to reason, and keen to retort. 
 And for a memory that forgot 
 Of all you might teach him never a jot. 
 Already I saw what he was to be, 
 
 When he shook the curls of his golden hair, 
 And now as the small face looked at me, 
 
 I thought, ah ! what if his strength was there ? 
 And I felt my eyes like her's grow dim, 
 He was so changed when we gazed at him. 
 That was a foolish thought, but love 
 
 Makes all of us foolish now and then. 
 And he who thinks he is far above 
 
 Such things is the foolish est among men ; 
 Fond may be foolish, yet love is wise ,
 
 -8 DK. LINKLETTER'S SCHOLAR. 
 
 They call it blind, but the seeing eyes 
 See best by the light in the heart that lies. 
 
 Oh but our work went merrily now, 
 
 Blithe as the birds that sing on the bough, 
 
 For all the lore of the ancient times 
 
 Came with as natural ease to him 
 As song to the thrush on the stately limes 
 
 Piping aloud in the evening dim. 
 It was not work, it was liker play, 
 Teaching my pupil day by day ; 
 Yet sometimes it was dreadful too, 
 
 He kept such a resolute grip of all 
 
 The gods and heroes mythical, 
 I'hey were all so real to him and true, 
 And all their loves and hates he knew. 
 Better than what went on around 
 Among the boys on the playing ground ; 
 And in his innocence he would talk 
 Of Jove and Leda in our walk. 
 And of the foam-born beautiful One, 
 And the myths of the all-embracing Sun. 
 But all is pure to the pure in heart. 
 And chaste as the marble of highest Art. 
 
 Ah ! sir, you cannot know what it is,
 
 DR. LINKLETTER'S SCHOLAR. . 39 
 
 How it wears the patience down to the bone 
 To toil through a summer day like this, 
 
 Sharpening fools on the grinding stone, 
 While stoHd or sullen they grow by fits. 
 And nothing will put an edge on their wits; 
 We have to be pedants and too precise. 
 Or nothing would flourish but sloth and vice. 
 But oh the joy ! when you chance to find 
 One who can answer to all your mind, 
 Who hungers for learning, as hawk for its prey. 
 And never forgets a word you say — 
 A bright young soul to be trained with skill, 
 Ready to take what shape you will. 
 Believing, loving, intent to know. 
 And clear as a mirror the truth to show. 
 But not like a mirror to let it go. 
 That was a gladness he gave to me 
 From the day that I taught him his ABC. 
 
 Only once had I ever seen 
 
 Such another, who so combined 
 Memory, fancy, and reason keen ; 
 And he from the first had always been 
 
 Sickly in body, though strong in mind. 
 Ah the sorrow I had for him. 
 
 As he wasted slow with an inward fire,
 
 40 
 
 DR. LINKLETTER'S SCHOLAR. 
 
 And his eye grew brighter, as mine grew dim 
 
 With the dying of hope in a deep desire ! 
 A beautiful spirit ! and when he parted 
 
 From the shrunken form, and the aching pain, 
 I said, as I sat down broken-hearted, 
 
 That I never should love, as I had, again. 
 Spending my life on him day by day, 
 Only to steal his life away. 
 For I ought to have noted the hectic streak, 
 When first it flushed on his pallid cheek. 
 And I — I had only worked him still 
 Because he worked with so ready a will, 
 And his mother, I kept the truth from her — 
 And what, if I had been his murderer? 
 
 "•J 
 
 Yet here was another like the first, 
 
 But brighter still ; and now if he 
 Were also to die, I should be accursed 
 
 Of all proud mothers that heard of me. 
 
 Therefore I said, it shall not be ; 
 We will not always be poring on books, 
 We will not study with sickly looks ; 
 We will go up to the breezy hills. 
 
 And scent the smell of the old pinewood ; 
 Or down where the sea-spray flies, and fills 
 
 The air with a breath that is also good.
 
 DR. LINKLETTER'S SCHOLAR. 41 
 
 It is stupid indeed to be spending hours 
 
 Only seeking for vulgar health ; 
 But then we can gather the lore of flowers, 
 
 And drink in the wonder of nature's wealth, 
 And fight off Death with the weeds and shells, 
 And the strong, rich life in the sea that dwells. 
 So rarely a day then came and went, 
 
 But we heard the plash of the rushing wave ; 
 And often a day on the hills was spent, 
 
 Where the mountain ash or the pine trees brave 
 The mist and the cloud and the storm-wind's shock. 
 With roots clawed fast to the grey-brown rock. 
 I watched if a fire ever burned in his eye, 
 
 I watched if a flush ever dyed his cheek ; 
 Not his mother herself would have watched as I ; 
 
 Yet I only watched him ; I did not speak ; 
 For thinking of health may bring disease, 
 And I did but talk of the hills and trees. 
 And the bright sea-pools, and the running brooks. 
 And the dainty gulls, and the cawing rooks. 
 And how they were better than musty books. 
 That was not true ; but you have to hide 
 Your thoughts from the eager ones at your side. 
 
 So passed the school-years, gathering in 
 Harvest of wisdom from the wise.
 
 42 DR. LINKLETTEK'S SCHOLAR. 
 
 Harvest of pictures for the eyes, 
 Harvest of song for the heart within — 
 Harvest richer than all before, 
 
 For it was not books that we read alone, 
 
 But God's handwriting on earth and stone 
 Penned by Him in the days of yore, 
 Though it's only now we begin to spell 
 The sacred writing, and read it well. 
 Oh so glad were those years to me ! 
 
 Oh so fruitful of freshest thought ! 
 
 Watching the gull or the guillemot, 
 Or searching the rock-pools by the sea. 
 Or learning from the nest-building swallows. 
 
 Or noting the woodman and his craft. 
 
 As he felled the pine trees, and bound the raft, 
 Or poled it down through the rushing shallows I 
 At first, I grudged the hours it took. 
 At first, I sighed for the half-read book. 
 And carried its thoughts about with me. 
 Until I found that we could not see 
 The world without for the world within. 
 Nor gather the health we were there to win. 
 So the books and the maps were laid aside 
 That we might look forth open-eyed, 
 As Homer did, on the world wide. 
 And good are the pictures still, I find, 
 Then hung in the chambers of the mind.
 
 DR. L INKLE ITER'S SCHOLAR. 43 
 
 What a career was his at college ! 
 
 Never the like of it seen before, 
 Since Crichton, Admirable for knowledge, 
 
 Startled the schools with his wondrous lore. 
 Not Faust was a defter spirit than he 
 In Letters and Arts and Philosophy ; 
 Medals, scholarships, honours poured 
 Down on his head with one accord, 
 And yet the small head was not turned, 
 But only for yet more learning burned. 
 People would glance at the Honours' list, 
 
 And say, " Is there nothing he cannot do ? " 
 For ne'er at the head of it was he missed ; 
 
 His name was the first that came in vie^\■ 
 In Classics and Logic and Rhetoric too, 
 Which are the things that the wise of old. 
 More than all others, received to hold. 
 Yet some folk, envious, hinted that such 
 Prodigies rarely came to much. 
 I knew better. I worked with him 
 Night after night, till the lamp grew dim, 
 Night after night, till the day would break : 
 
 For I said, He will carry to many lands 
 My name like Ascham's, and for his sake 
 I too of fame shall yet partake ; 
 
 For I am the clock-work, he the hands.
 
 44 
 
 DR. LINKLETTEK'S SCHOLAR. 
 
 Oh, I was proud of him ; who but he ? 
 For was he not also a part of me? 
 Of course, he was more than I ; yet so 
 What I too might have been, he would show. 
 And when at length he was capped, the town 
 
 Gathered to see him, and shout his praises, 
 As, smothered in prize-books, he sat down, 
 
 And blushed at the PrinciiDal's eloquent phrases ; 
 But his mother and I were hid in a nook, 
 And mingled our silent tears, and shook. 
 
 Ah ! is there anything leaves no sorrow — 
 
 The mark of the human — on its way, 
 When the hope that brightened the looked-for morrow 
 
 Drifts past at length into yesterday? 
 Well, well ! it is idle to moralize, 
 Wasting breath upon empty sighs ; 
 And we have ourselves, no doubt, to blame. 
 
 When bubbles burst we have fondly blown ; 
 And if you have properly played the game, 
 
 Shall you grieve that one of the tricks is gone, 
 Which you hoped to win with the cards you had ? 
 Or vow that your partner's play was bad ? 
 I was foolish and vain, sir; for I thought 
 
 I was filling his mind like an empty bottle. 
 When we read Justinian now, and wrought
 
 DR. LINKLErrER'S SCHOLAR. 45 
 
 At the politics, too, of Aristotle. 
 But he was not a vessel that I could fill ; 
 He was a man with his own strong will, 
 And I was wrong when I took it ill. 
 
 Why is it people smile at me 
 
 In a pitying, patronizing way ? — 
 
 They've always done it, even when they 
 Were learning with my eyes to see 
 The beauty of classic verse or prose : — 
 
 They tried to hide it, but yet I saw. 
 What can it be ? I am not like those 
 
 Beautiful youths, I know, who draw 
 All hearts to them by their witching look : 
 
 In a drawing-room now I lose my head, 
 Till I get in a corner, and find a book, 
 
 And lose myself in its thoughts instead. 
 It is true, I am awkward in company, 
 And blush if a lady but speaks to me, 
 And never do find the right word to say. 
 And my legs or arms are in my way. 
 And I've no small talk, nor a spark of wit. 
 And my laugh is not mirthful — can that be it? 
 Well, well; I am nothing, and ne'er shall be. 
 Unless my pupils interpret me ; 
 Just like a language few will take
 
 46 ^R' LINKLETTER'S SCHOLAR. 
 
 The pains to learn, though it hide a store 
 Of precious wisdom and curious lore, 
 And those who learn it a name will make. 
 But I hoped that he would esteem it more. 
 
 Yet his mother herself would sometimes say, 
 
 He has no heart ; he is only brain ; 
 There is nothing he loves in a perfect way, 
 
 There is none that he would not grieve and pain 
 To gain his end. And I also felt, 
 
 Though he had no passion of youthful vice, 
 
 But was ever as pure and cold as ice, 
 Yet was it ice that nought could melt ; 
 And he never was young like other boys, 
 Nor made them his friends, nor loved their joys. 
 He was fain to argue and to dispute. 
 
 Even when he saw that he was wrong ; 
 It was idle his arguments to refute, 
 
 For when he was beaten by reasons strong, 
 He would ride away on a jest or two. 
 In the triumph of laughter mocking you. 
 At the lowly in heart too he would sneer, 
 
 And the simple in heart he held for fools, 
 And there were times when he made me fear 
 
 He cared for us only as his tools. 
 Yet maybe we led him, ourselves, to think
 
 DR. LINKLETTER'S SCHOLAR. 
 
 47 
 
 That only for him did we keep our lamps trim, 
 That all our wells were for him to drink, 
 
 And all existed only for him. 
 And oh, what a mind he had ! what power I 
 What subtlest insight to detect 
 The hidden analogies few suspect ! 
 As the wild bee travels from flower to flower, 
 And brings quick life to the barren seed, 
 So would he bring from far afield 
 What made the commonest things to yield 
 Undreamt of meaning, and life indeed. 
 
 'O' 
 
 So it came at last that, in gown and wig, 
 
 I heard him plead in a fitting cause. 
 How the words rolled from him round and big ! 
 
 Not Tully himself more versed in the laws 
 Of Rhetoric, how to turn and wind 
 
 Round judge or jury, and win their ear, 
 Then flash a metaphor into their mind, 
 
 Or a stroke of wit that they smile to hear, 
 And, when he has got them well in hand. 
 Close with a peroration grand — 
 Or touching, if that is the vein most fit ; 
 
 But, with our British mind, I know 
 Hard reasoning and a harder hit 
 
 Will often farther than pathos go.
 
 48 DK- LINKLETTEK'S SCHOLAR. 
 
 Or pictures of clients in stricken woe. 
 He hit the nail on the head, I saw : 
 Not once did he miss a point of Law, 
 Or fail the heart of the case to seize, 
 Or to persuade and rouse and please : 
 Nothing was showy or juvenile, 
 
 Nothing merely for ornament ; 
 Every word was in perfect style. 
 
 Every plea to the marrow went, 
 
 Clenched with a telling precedent. — 
 Oh, what a gift is that, to stand 
 
 Before the majesty of the Law, 
 And hold your argument clear in hand, 
 
 And state the matter without a flaw ! 
 I had studied the case myself at night. 
 And seen it, I reckoned, as clear as light : 
 But I felt, as I heard him pleading now. 
 The cold sweat beading upon my brow. 
 And there was a ringing in my brain, 
 And all was dark, till he made it plain. 
 I could not have spoken a word for awe 
 Of the ermined majesty of the Law. 
 
 Now when he finished, the Judge looked down, 
 
 And complimented his able friend : 
 The Bar had done, he was free to own,
 
 DR. LINKLETTEK'S SCHOLAR. 49 
 
 All that the Bar could to defend 
 A weighty cause in a weighty way, 
 And to fulfil the hope which they, 
 And all who knew of his honours won 
 
 In other fields, had formed of him. 
 So the grave Judge. When he had done, 
 
 My head went round, and my eyes grew dim, 
 And something I said — I know not well 
 What it was, — but a silence fell 
 On all the court; and I seemed to see 
 A little boy at his ABC, 
 Sitting thoughtfully at my knee. 
 
 Of course, it was wrong in me to go 
 
 In the hour of his triumph thus, and show 
 
 My thread-bare coat, and my withered face 
 
 At such a time, and in such a place ; 
 
 Though it's true my coat was thin and bare 
 
 That he might be garmented fitly there. 
 
 But it cut me, at first, to the quick, when he 
 
 Turned with a freezing look from me — 
 
 Maybe, I had said something wild; 
 
 My head was dazed when I thought of the child 
 
 And what he had grown with the help of me, 
 
 And what in the future he yet might be : — 
 
 Still it was wrong, and I see it now, 
 
 D
 
 5° 
 
 DR. LINKLETTER'S SCHOLAR. 
 
 So to intrude with empty and vain 
 Thoughts of myself; and I ought to bow 
 To the fit rebuke, though it gave me pain 
 As I crept away home in the dripping rain. 
 Of course, he loves me, I surely know it. 
 But that was not the right time to show it; 
 And nobody likes, in the hour of his pride, 
 To have shabby old friends creeping up to his side. 
 
 What a brain he has for clearness and power ! 
 
 What a grasp of principles and details ! 
 What would take you a year, he will seize in an hour; 
 
 And then his courage too never fails. 
 He may be Lord High Chancellor yet, 
 
 But he will write as a scholar no less ; 
 (To think that a part of me may be set 
 
 To give law from the woolsack, or teach from 
 the press !) 
 None of your idle poems, or flash 
 Essays, biographies, tales, or trash. 
 But solid works for the thoughtful few, 
 Writ with a golden pen and true. 
 I know it is in him. I put it there, 
 And he will bring it out clear and fair, 
 When legal briefs, and affairs of state 
 
 Slacken enough to give him leisure. — 
 But that must be soon, for I may not wait
 
 DR. LINKLETTER'S SCHOLAR. 
 
 51 
 
 Many more days for the Psalmist's date, 
 
 When years are a burden, and not a pleasure. 
 Hard, hard he works for the fame he seeks 
 Through the busy term, and the holiday weeks ; 
 Yet he never is weary, never complains, 
 Knows nothing of sickness, or aching pains. 
 Or a wish for rest, or bile-clogged brains. 
 That is the fruit of our happy days 
 By the windy shores, and the wooded braes. 
 Wonderful, wonderful ! such a man ! 
 
 If he would only, now and then, 
 
 Drop me a hasty scrap of his pen. 
 When he has leisure to write, and can ! 
 It's hardly reasonable. I know, 
 In me to be looking for that, although 
 I spent the wealth of my life on him, 
 
 And all the knowledge of studious years, 
 And filled his cup as it were to the brim 
 
 With the lore that now in his life appears. 
 But what of that, sir? And what had I 
 
 Been but a grave to bury it in. 
 Were it not for the scholar I trained to fly 
 With the bravest of them that mount up high 
 
 Riches and honours and fame to win ? 
 And he has won them, and shall win yet 
 The ermined robe, and the coronet. 
 And a noble name, and mine shall be
 
 52 
 
 DR, LINKLETTER'S SCHOLAR. 
 
 Blended with his, too, in history. 
 
 And I've thought, now and then, in that coming day, 
 
 When they talk of us, they will maybe say 
 
 I was the Moses that saw the Lord, 
 
 He but the Aaron that gave the word. 
 
 But that is when I am vain and proud, 
 
 And sit by the fire, and think aloud, 
 
 Wondering why he only writes 
 
 A scrap to say that he has no time ; 
 
 And I'm ready to think that is nearly a crime. 
 
 As I brood and fret through the long dull nights. 
 
 But I ought to be grateful, indeed, that he 
 
 Finds even a moment to think of me. 
 
 With his hands so full, and his mind so strained, 
 
 And the splendid place by his genius gained ; 
 
 For they say he is not more in request 
 
 At the Courts of Law than in stately Halls, 
 Where his wit has made him a welcome guest, 
 
 And Beauty swims through its routs and balls. 
 Ay, ay ! and still I am sitting alone 
 Among the old books by the old hearth-stone. 
 But I do not grudge him; I only hope, 
 When his cup is full, he will spill me a drop, 
 For my work is done, and my days are dim, 
 And my heart grows thirsty to hear from him, 
 As the shadows of the Eternal fold 
 Around my head that is grey and old.
 
 DICK DALGLEISH. 53 
 
 Bwk ^alglctsh. 
 
 Just a mechanic with big, broad head, — 
 
 Carpenter, maybe, or engineer, — 
 Deft with a skilled hand at winning his bread, 
 
 Scornful of varnish and show and veneer ; 
 Rough-handed, plain-spoken, strong in his youth, 
 
 Loyal to all of his order and craft ; 
 Loudly maintaining the fact and the truth, 
 
 At all pretences as loudly he laughed ; 
 Laughed at quill-drivers, and white-fingered dandies 
 
 Measuring ribbons with yard-stick and tape ; 
 Laughed more at frowsy men doctoring brandies, 
 
 And calling their drugs the pure fruit of the grape : 
 He slept through the night, and he toiled all the day, 
 And nothing he drunk but the brook by the way.
 
 54 
 
 DICK DALGLEISH. 
 
 Out on a holiday, wholesomely dressed, 
 
 Clean-washed, clean-shirted, his wife by his side, 
 With a small baby she clasped to her breast, 
 
 And chirped to, and watched with a motherly 
 pride. 
 Proud of her baby, and proud of her Man, 
 
 All her young face was like sunshine to see ; 
 No sickly vapours had she, nor a wan 
 
 Fine-lady look, but was healthful as he. 
 How she looked up to him! Who was so clever? 
 
 Who was so good as her Dick ? It is true, 
 He was blunt-spoken, but then he would never 
 
 Harm a poor worm or a fly, if he knew ; 
 And he read everything — science, and plays. 
 And poems, and all that the newspaper says. 
 
 Out on a holiday, sailing down 
 
 The broad clear river that bore away 
 Thronging crowds from the broiling town 
 
 To the birch-clad hill or the sandy bay ; 
 Shrewdly he glanced at either shore 
 
 Lined with the half-finished skeleton ships. 
 Spoke of their rigging abaft and afore, 
 
 And what they might do at their trial trips ; 
 Plainly knew all about this one's gearing, 
 
 The other one's engines, paddles, or screw.
 
 DICK DALGLEISII. 
 
 55 
 
 And the new methods of working and steenng, 
 
 What coal they needed, and what coal could do ; 
 And shrewdly projected a wonderful dream, 
 Into the future, of iron and steam. 
 
 I scarce know why, but I rather took 
 
 To the manly bearing of him, and the fond 
 Young pride which his wife shewed in every look. 
 
 Than to all the rest, as their ways I conned : 
 They were mostly broad-cloth citizen folks, 
 
 Each with his newspaper where he read 
 The markets first, and the price of stocks, 
 
 And what at the bankrupt sittings was said : 
 They carried their business with them always, 
 
 While their wives were towny and overdressed, 
 Talked of their city life, and its small ways, 
 
 And dinners and weddings and fashion and taste. 
 So I took my seat, with a frank good day, 
 By the big mechanic in homespun grey. 
 
 I was fain to speak of his craft and trade, 
 But he went rather at first for books : 
 
 Did I not think that Darwin made 
 A case for the worms as against the rooks ? 
 
 What had the birds done for earth like these 
 Dumb, silent ploughers who made the soil
 
 56 DICK DALGLEISH. 
 
 For rooks to nestle on its high trees, 
 And man to live by his sweat and toil? 
 
 That was a man, sir, with hardly a rival 
 
 For his power to see, and his grasp of thought ; 
 
 And as for his doctrine of fit survival. 
 That's the new gospel this age has got; 
 
 And we must be rid of the drones in the hive, 
 
 That the real workers may live and thrive. 
 
 They're nearly all drones now on board here to-day ; 
 
 Our lads went off with an earlier boat ; 
 But wife, sir, and baby must have their own way. 
 
 And she likes the gentle folks when she's afloat. 
 It is so, you know, Kate; you're fain now to hear 
 
 The sweet-spoken damsels come praising your child : 
 And if we went down, you would rather appear 
 
 With respectable folk, pretty-mannered and mild, 
 Than stand at the judgment with Dick, Tom, and 
 Harry 
 
 Not more than half-sobered with gulps of the 
 sea — 
 Oh, how can I say so, when you chose to marry 
 
 Such a blunt working chap, such a rough tyke as me ? 
 That's true; yet you cannot deny it was you 
 Brought me here with this soft-handed, soft-headed 
 crew.
 
 DICK DALGLEISH. 
 
 57 
 
 Would you wish me, old girl, now, to be just like 
 these, 
 With broad cloth and white linen worn every day. 
 And to saunter through 'Change for an hour at my 
 ease. 
 And call that my work, though it looks so like 
 play ? 
 Their brow never sweats with the work they have 
 done. 
 Unless at some queer job that looks rather ill. 
 And then it is but for the risk that they run, 
 
 When they shuffle the cards for a trial of skill. 
 Now, I come home at evening, Kate, dirty and 
 weary. 
 But my conscience is clean, and my head, too, 
 is clear ; 
 I don't sit, and drink wine, and make the house 
 dreary. 
 As some of them do half the days of the year ; 
 I take on no stains from my work or my play, 
 Which a pail of fresh water will not wash away. 
 
 They buy and they sell for the rise or fall. 
 When neither a rise nor a fall should be, 
 
 Filching a profit still, great or small, 
 
 For the doing of nothing that I can see.
 
 58 DICK DALGLEISH. 
 
 There's a little chap sitting yonder — look ! 
 
 He's bulling and bearing all the day long ; 
 And they're fain to glance at his jotting book, 
 
 For they say that his guesses are seldom \vrong ; 
 I call him the big flea blood-sucking commerce, 
 
 And these are the little fleas blood-sucking him ; 
 And they live upon us, all our winters and summers — 
 
 Swarms of them, sir — in the handsomest trim, 
 They make their game, and the stakes are laid, 
 And they rake in the gold which the workers made. 
 
 Yet what have they done for the world by their 
 strokes 
 
 Of betting and hedging? I want to know that. 
 And who is the happier hearing their jokes ? 
 
 And whose life is helped by the jobs they are at? 
 With their sharp arithmetic they fashion a blade 
 
 That cuts a big slice of our profit away ; 
 And yet they've done nothing for it except trade 
 
 On the folly of some, for which all have to pay ! 
 I used to read Carlyle, and laughed at his " gig-men," 
 
 And I still like the old fellow's rough tongue a bit ; 
 But he never yet said how the "clothes-men" and 
 " wig-men " 
 
 Must make way at last for the men who are fit.
 
 DICK DALGLEISH. 
 
 59 
 
 That's Darwin's discovery; and how can you doubt 
 These chaps, Hke the Dodo, are bound to die out? 
 
 When you spoke to me first, you were wishing to 
 know 
 About us, the working men ; what our thoughts 
 are; 
 And whereto our strikes and our unions grow ; 
 
 And how near the end is, or, maybe, how far. — 
 Ah, folks are grown curious about us, who once 
 Sniffed the grease of our moleskins, and hurried 
 them past. 
 You're not of that sort, I allow ; and perchance 
 
 We are crustier, now that our day's come at last, 
 Than we should be. That comes of the way we've 
 been living; 
 Men trample on man, and they make him a brute ; 
 Though of course we ought all to be taking and giving, 
 And keep our good humour and manhood to boot. 
 But those who have tasted of slight and neglect, 
 When folk grow too civil, are apt to suspect, 
 
 I don't say it's right. But at one time I made 
 What was plainly to me a new thing in our line; 
 
 A saving of labour to quicken the trade. 
 
 And bring in more wealth than the gold in a mine.
 
 6o DICK DALGLEISH. 
 
 Well, I spoke to the head of our firm; but he turned, 
 With a big oath, and bade me go work at my 
 tools ; 
 He had heard such tales once till his fingers were 
 burned, 
 And he found that your workmen-inventors were 
 fools, 
 pjut afterwards, learning more truly about it. 
 
 Oh, he spoke me so bland, and would fain see 
 the thing ; 
 So I brought forth my model — as proud, do not 
 doubt it, 
 As Kate of her baby there, — and with a swing 
 Of the big hammer, I dashed it in bits, 
 Saying, What could come out of a working man's wits ? 
 
 I had toiled at it, sir, every night for a year, 
 
 So hopeful and happy in seeing my thought 
 Turned now into iron, and coming out clear. 
 
 At last, through a plain inspiration I got. — 
 For why should not God inspire minds to invent 
 
 As well as to preach, and be praised for His gift ? 
 Sir, it came like a flash and a thrill that were sent 
 
 In a moment of failure, when I was adrift; 
 As "the still small voice," which the prophet must 
 hearken,
 
 DICK DALGLEISH. 6i 
 
 Because it was God's, so the thing came to me, 
 Like the gladness of light when that failure did 
 darken 
 
 Around me, and I was as broken as he : 
 And what is the joy of their gold, and their gain, 
 To the gladness I had when I saw it all plain ? 
 
 You think it was childish to waste the ripe fruit 
 
 Of my labour and tliought. Not a whit; it's all here 
 As clear in my head as that day, and to boot 
 
 Some riper thought still that may some time appear. 
 But I told you this only to show how, in vain, 
 
 Folk think all at once they can heal the huge rent 
 In our social order where one's heart and brain 
 
 Find seldom the right place for which they were 
 meant. — 
 But why don't I patent the thing I invented ? — 
 
 Oh, and rise in the world, as they say, and grow 
 rich, 
 And have a grand house finely papered and painted, 
 
 And mount me a-horseback to land in a ditch. 
 And dress my good Kate in her sealskin and silk, 
 And quaff my champagne as it were bottled milk ? 
 
 Well, I once knew a man with a head-piece to 
 think,
 
 62 DICK DALGLEISH. 
 
 And hands that could work out the thought of 
 his head — 
 It is true that he had a bad weakness for drink, 
 And would whimper about it, and Avish he were 
 dead ; — 
 But he took to that line, and had everything fine, 
 A house in a big square, with lamps at the door. 
 And carriages, horses, and flunkies, and wine, 
 
 And heaven knows what that he had not before. 
 But the ladies were shy of his wife ; and the 
 flunkies — 
 The lazy fat rogues, I'd have sweated them well — 
 At the back of his chair stood, and grinned there 
 like monkeys. 
 And down in the kitchen they laughed at his bell: 
 And he had not a moment of comfort or peace, 
 Till a crash stript him bare as a sheep of its fleece. 
 
 No, I'll not take that way, sir ; I don't care to rise 
 Above my own class — we are happier so. 
 
 The Son of the Carpenter now, He was wise 
 In the old town of Nazareth long, long ago. 
 
 We are not very pious, we workmen, I fear, 
 
 Don't go much to church, but we read about Him ; 
 
 And the things that we read are not quite what 
 we hear
 
 DICK DALGLEISH. dx 
 
 The minister blow off like froth from the brim 
 Of a pot of small beer. Nay, I don't blame the 
 preacher ; 
 
 It's just what we want that we find in our books ; 
 As the sun is a painter to some, and a bleacher 
 
 To others ; it is as the eye is that looks ; 
 You open the door to which you have the key, 
 And I find the message that God meant for me. 
 
 But the Carpenter, now, did not care to be great, 
 
 And to ape what the fine Lords of Herod might do, 
 Nor yet be called Rabbi, and sit in the gate 
 
 As a Judge, or a Parliament man to the Jew. 
 The fox had his hole, and the bird of the air 
 
 Had its nest ; but He had not a roof o'er His 
 head. 
 And heeded not purple and sumptuous fare. 
 
 And borrowed a grave when He lay with the dead. 
 And this is the gospel I read in the story — 
 
 Though I don't say it mayn't have another to 
 you — 
 The Lord did not seek His own honour and glory, 
 
 But stood by His craftsmen and fishers all through 
 He held to His class that their ills he might cure 
 And lift up the head of the needy and poor.
 
 64 DICK DALGLEISH. 
 
 Well, that is our gospel too, that is our Ark, 
 
 Not to rise from our class, but to raise the class 
 higher^ 
 Not to take to the nice ways of lawyer or clerk. 
 Not to turn from the hammer, the file, and the 
 fire ; 
 But to stand by our order, and stick to our tools, 
 And still win our bread by the sweat of our brow, 
 And to organise labour by Christian-like rules, 
 Not that some, but that all may be better than 
 now. 
 May have homes of more comfort, and lives with 
 more leisure 
 To read, and to think, and to well understand. 
 And to get, like us here now, some holiday pleasure ; 
 
 For they do the work that enriches the land. 
 No ! I don't care to rise for myself, till I see 
 The rest get a chance, too, of rising with me. 
 
 You're a Christian, sir? So am I, in a way, 
 
 Though some of our fellows, and good fellows 
 too, 
 Have no other gospel or God, as they say, 
 
 Than Man, and what man's brain and fingers 
 may do.
 
 DICK DALGLEISH. 65 
 
 I don't go with them, but I reckon my trade 
 
 May be my church too, if the right heart is there, 
 A-heaHng tlie wounds which the selfish have made, 
 
 And helping the helpless their burden to bear. 
 He is parson and priest, though his apron be leather, 
 
 And he tuck up his shirt sleeves to do his job 
 well, 
 Whose heart is most loving to sister nnd brother. 
 
 Most ready to go where the sorrowful dwell, 
 And to shew to the erring the right way of truth, 
 And bring them again to the faith of their youth. 
 
 Now, the faith of my youth was that Christ would 
 redeem 
 The life of the poor from its sorrow and sin, 
 Would wake up the world from its wealth-loving 
 dream 
 To seek the true riches of manhood within, 
 \\\ wisdom and worth, and the peace which they 
 bring. 
 That's the word which I heard from my old 
 mother's lips ; 
 But now it's another guess-song that they sing, 
 
 And the light of her heaven has all suffered eclipse. 
 Oh, we boast that the poor man may rise in the 
 world, 
 
 £
 
 66 DICK DALGLEISH. 
 
 And we point to his sons who are lords in the 
 state, 
 A-driving in carriages, scented and curled, 
 
 Or making their bow to the gold-stick-in-wait. 
 And where shall you find, now, a sight so grand. 
 Except in this truth-loving, Christ-serving land ? 
 
 Well, well ! what rare tricks we do play, to be sure, 
 
 With our conjuring cards, and our thimbles and 
 peas ! 
 To think that a God could come here, and endure 
 
 A cross to make lordlings and ladies like these, 
 And to leave all the rest of His brothers to pine! 
 
 There's your thimble, and Christ in't; but presto ! 
 begone ! 
 Lo ! the devil is there, where the glory divine 
 
 A short while ago sat in sorrow alone ! 
 O blessed the poor — if they only get money; 
 
 And blessed the meek — if they stand to their rights ; 
 And all who are selfish shall have milk and honey. 
 
 For they are the salt of the world and its lights ! 
 Ay ! that's the new gospel, I call it, of Gold ; 
 But we working men will hold fast to the old. 
 
 Yes, I know we're divided, as other folk are,
 
 DICK DALGLEISH. 67 
 
 And what is yet worse, we are cursed with that 
 drink ; 
 And many are selfish, and some of us mar 
 
 A good cause with bad ways, and some do not 
 think ; 
 And we've bhuidered, 'tis true, and been wrong now 
 and then, 
 And done what we should not — as who has not 
 done? 
 But we'll learn by our failures ; we're only poor men, 
 Kept like children till lately, now trying to run ; 
 And sometimes, of course, we get tript up and 
 - tumble ; 
 But still on our clouds, lo ! the rainbow is set. 
 And a light springeth up in the hearts of the humble, 
 Will grow to more fulness, and gladden us yet^ 
 But there ! I've been preaching until I have got 
 A drop in my heart that is bitter and hot. 
 
 That's the way with all preaching ; it don't make 
 one sweet. 
 Where's Kate and the baby? They'll put me all 
 right. 
 Oh, the ladies are praising its hands and its feet. 
 And its mouth and its nose, and its precious 
 eyesight !
 
 68 
 
 DICK DALGLEISH. 
 
 Well, well ! do you see, sir, that narrow green glen, 
 
 With the strip of dark alders that show where 
 the stream 
 Flows on in its loneliness far from men, 
 
 And ripples, and murmurs like one in a dream ? 
 I speak like a fool, for of course you can't hear it, 
 
 Though I hear it singing away to itself, 
 Or sobbing at times like a sore troubled spirit. 
 
 Or laughing perhaps as it slides down a shelf; 
 I was born there, sir; and we're going to try 
 A week with old mother — Kate and baby and I.
 
 LOST AND WON. 69 
 
 ^ost itnii cMon. 
 
 BROKEN. 
 
 She trusted him with her whole true heart, 
 
 She trusted him as we trust in heaven, 
 Whatever they said, she took his part, 
 
 And loved with the love to the noblest given. 
 Oh, so deep as the water flows ! 
 Oh, so pure as the lily grows ! 
 But Love it is deeper and purer than they ; 
 Well-a-day ! 
 
 For him she left her father's Hall, 
 
 And the happy life she had prized of old. 
 
 And with a light heart turned from all 
 
 Who once had loved her, and now looked cold= 
 Oh, so deep, &c.
 
 7° 
 
 LOST AND WON. 
 
 And by his side she shared his lot, 
 
 And gazed on his face with a tender pride; 
 
 Poor they were, yet she murmured not, 
 But with a smile would her troubles hide. 
 Oh, so deep, &c. 
 
 Ah ! had she died when her Love was young ! 
 
 For she trusted him, and he was not true : 
 O that she had died ere her heart was wrung ! 
 
 For there came a day when this thing she knew. 
 Oh, so deep, &c. 
 
 There came a day when a beam of light 
 Searched his soul, and at length revealed 
 
 Heart to heart, and she saw him right, 
 And all the lie he had long concealed. 
 Oh, so deep, &c. 
 
 She read him clear as a printed book, 
 And never a word to him she said ; 
 
 But shot at him only a sorrowful look, 
 As her heart sank in her, cold and dead. 
 Oh, so deep, «S:c. 
 
 ]5roken in faith and heart and mind, 
 Yet no one knew it but only he,
 
 LOST AND IVON. 71 
 
 For she was true to her womankind, 
 And no one felt it, but only she. 
 Oh, so deep, &c. 
 
 She turned her from all joy and mirth, 
 
 In wifely patience silent, pale, 
 And cared no more for a thing on earth, 
 But that dead love of her life to wail. 
 Oh, so deep as the river flows ! 
 Oh, so pure as the lily grows ! 
 But Love it is deeper and purer than they 
 Well-a-day ! 
 
 PARTED. 
 
 Out of his life she passed, 
 
 The one gold-thread that was there ; 
 
 Out of his life at last 
 
 She dropt with her burden of care — 
 How had she ever come there ? 
 
 He was not worthy of love 
 
 Such as she gave to him ; 
 And yet, like the heaven above. 
 
 She clasped with her light the dim 
 World that was dear to him.
 
 72 
 
 LOST AND WON. 
 
 How could she so cast away 
 The love that was born of God, 
 
 The wealth in her heart that lay 
 On a man who only trod 
 
 Mean ways that were far from God ? 
 
 His sorry heart she had taken 
 For a nature noble and true, 
 
 And slow was her trust to be shaken, 
 Though colder ever he grew. 
 The closer to him she drew. 
 
 And into his life she brought 
 Some touches of tender grace. 
 
 Some gleams of a nobler thought 
 Redeeming its commonplace- 
 Had he known his day of grace ! 
 
 She had been to him like a song,— 
 And the song it was silent now — 
 
 Or a stream that prattles along 
 Where the life-roots feebly grow — 
 And what was to come of him now ?
 
 LOST AND WON. 
 
 For he was selfish and cold, 
 For he was earthly and hard, 
 
 For in the guerdon of gold 
 Only he sought his reward — 
 Poor soul, so earthly and hard 
 
 73 
 
 How could she give him her love, 
 
 And he so unworthy of it ? 
 What were the great gods above 
 
 Thinking of there where they sit. 
 
 When they sent her to fold him in it? 
 
 Ah ! the gods know what they do, 
 Whether giving or taking away; 
 
 They waste no life that is true, 
 They lose no game that they play. 
 And cast no blessing away. 
 
 For as she lay there in death, 
 Po ! for the first time he saw 
 
 All her meek love and her faith. 
 And there came sorrow and awe 
 As its great beauty he saw.
 
 74 
 
 LOST AND WON. 
 
 Yea, there came sorrow and awe, 
 
 As the gods entered his life, 
 And the great word of the Law 
 
 Cut to his heart like a knife, 
 Seeing the shame of his life. 
 
 And he lay low on the earth, 
 
 When from his side she had passed, 
 
 Loathing all gladness and mirth, 
 Loathing himself now at last, 
 
 When from his life she had passed ; 
 
 Stricken in heart, as he thought 
 Of the waste of her love and trust, 
 
 Of the grace that to him she had brought, 
 Of the glory he laid in the dust, 
 
 When he slighted her love and her trust. 
 
 STRICKEN. 
 
 Ah me ! he said, I do not mourn my loss ; 
 
 I was not meet for such good company; 
 Thou all these years didst bear a silent cross, 
 
 And it is right thou shouldst no longer be, 
 Comrade to me.
 
 LOST AND WON. 75 
 
 I judge not others ; few so bad as I : 
 
 Enough to know my own poor little heart, — 
 
 As here in self-abasement now I lie, 
 
 And feel that it is best for thee thou art 
 From me apart. 
 
 O love ! my love ! and yet I wonder how 
 I dare to call thee love, who was not true ; 
 
 Yet I did love thee, and I know it now 
 Too late, too late, Avhen I can only rue 
 My way with you. 
 
 I was not always worldly, hard, and cold, 
 I can remember yet a better day 
 
 Wlien love was dearer to my heart than gold 
 My God, how could I cast it so away? 
 Woe worth the day ! 
 
 Ah me ! where now the visions of my youth, 
 The nobleness, the glory of its dreams, 
 
 Its purpose high, its eager search for truth, 
 Its hatred of the thing that only seems. 
 And falsely gleams ?
 
 76 LOST AND WON. 
 
 Where the fond hope of holy love and pure, 
 That, in a cultured home, afar from strife, 
 
 With patient service of the meek and poor, 
 Reckoned to make a great and perfect life 
 ^^^ith a sweet wife ? 
 
 Was it all an illusion — but a cloud. 
 Sun-painted in the morning, far away, 
 
 And filled with lark-songs, by-and-by to shroud 
 With mist and drizzle all the dismal day. 
 And mud-strewn way ? 
 
 Nay, but it might have been, it might have been ; 
 
 'Twas I that failed, not nature that deceives ; 
 Had I been faithful I had surely seen 
 
 The better hopes, for which my spirit grieves, 
 Gathered in sheaves- 
 
 They are not false, those golden dreams of youth; 
 
 But we are false to them, and fall away 
 From their high purpose, following the smooth 
 
 World-lies that win us empty praise and pay, 
 And lead astray.
 
 LOST AND WON. 77 
 
 They might have been, ah me ! they might have 
 been ; 
 And oh the sorrow to look back, and know 
 They are not, and our life is poor and mean, 
 Achieving only loss and empty show, 
 And shame and woe. 
 
 They might have been ? A woful word is this ; 
 
 I might have been a nobler truer man, 
 I might have laid up memories of bliss, — 
 
 She would have helped, but sunless now and wan 
 Is life's brief span. 
 
 And looking back, I see the morning glory 
 Grown dim, and fading 'mid the earthly smoke, 
 
 My fond dreams telling now a sorry story 
 
 Of thoughts ill-marshalled, and the battle broke 
 Without a stroke. 
 
 O heart, that was so rich in noblest wealth 
 Of love and joy— to think I slighted thee 
 
 O broken heart, erewhile so full of health. 
 How in thy grief my bitter shame I sec 
 God, pity me !
 
 78 LOST AND WON. 
 
 HUMBLED. 
 
 Why should I care to live another life, 
 
 When this is done ? 
 I have not made so much of this first spool 
 That I should crave for other lint or wool 
 
 To be ill-spun : 
 O heart, my heart, have you not made enough 
 
 Of this poor stuff? 
 
 Would I go on for ever, fain to weave 
 
 More of this gear — 
 More tangled thrums, more broken ends of thought, 
 More snarled hasps, another hapless knot 
 
 Of sorrow and fear? 
 An everlasting web of life like this, 
 
 Would that be bliss? 
 
 God help me I If I'm only just to do 
 
 As heretofore. 
 Better into a ([uiet grave to creep. 
 And lay me down in peace, and go to sleep 
 
 For evermore : 
 Or better even right-off to be sent 
 
 For punishment.
 
 LOST AND WON. 
 
 79 
 
 Yes ! I could find some comfort in the thought 
 
 Of being scourged, 
 Were there but hope that this defiUng sin 
 Which mars my hfe, and taints my heart within 
 
 Could so be purged, 
 And I might live, in virtue of the rod, 
 
 The life in God. 
 
 It is a coward heart that shrinks from pain, 
 
 But not from wrong ; 
 Could I but hope to reach a purer air, 
 God, I would say, lay on, and do not spare; 
 
 Smite hard and strong: 
 There are no pains that mortal men inherit 
 
 Worse than I merit. 
 
 I had a grace that should have made me great ; 
 
 I had a love 
 AVhich should have made me loving, and I thrust 
 The gift from me, and clave unto the dust, 
 
 Till from a])ove 
 God stretched His hand, and took again to heaven 
 
 What He had given. 
 
 But oh, if in another truer world 
 We yet might meet,
 
 8o LOST AND WON. 
 
 As in the days that seem so long ago, 
 And I this wretched heart of mine might throw- 
 Down at her feet, 
 And say I wronged you, and I was not true 
 To God or you ! 
 
 Yes ! I could live for such a day as that 
 
 With patient hope : 
 Would heaven but grant me opportunity 
 Of clear repentance which her eye could see, 
 
 Then let me drop 
 Any where, out of sight, to live no more 
 
 As heretofore.
 
 THE MAD EARL. 81 
 
 ^ke Jttab ©ad. 
 
 And that is our Earl — poor fellow! I should not 
 
 have known him a bit, 
 Had we met on a street : how he's changed to be 
 
 sure ! he had never much wit, 
 But at least he was handsome, and now he is bloated 
 
 and brown as a toad, 
 And his brains gone to slush, like the snow when 
 
 a thaw comes down on the road. 
 
 It is years now since I have seen him, except in 
 
 the woods far away- 
 Pacing alone where the close trees shut out the 
 
 light of the day, 
 Shunning all speech of man, and still more a 
 
 woman to face; — 
 Ay, ay ! the weird is upon him that has to be 
 
 dree'd by his race.
 
 82 THE MAD EARL. 
 
 These grand old families now, there's a story about 
 
 them all — 
 A ghost-room, a tragedy somewhere, a writing upon 
 
 the wall ; 
 Of course they are shy to speak of it, but on a 
 
 winter night 
 It's the talk of the cottage fireside in the dusk of 
 
 the dim rush light. 
 
 They tell of the Statesman Earl — 'twas he made 
 
 the house so great — 
 A shrewd-witted Parliament man, and Councillor 
 
 high of State — 
 How shifty and clever he was with the turn o' the 
 
 tide to swim. 
 And how when a Bisset or Cheyne died, their lands 
 
 fell somehow to him. 
 
 Folk called him the great lord Spider : yet the 
 small lairds still drew near. 
 
 And buzzed about him like flies, for he was the 
 big man here ; 
 
 And play ran high in those days ; you might gamble 
 a good estate 
 
 Between the wine and the dawn ; and his lord- 
 ship's luck was great.
 
 THE MAD EARL. Zt^ 
 
 That's how the curse came on them — that ne'er 
 
 from his house should depart 
 A lord who was out of his wits, or a lady who had 
 
 not a heart, 
 For three generations coming ; at least, so the old 
 
 wives said, 
 But maybe the woes of the house gave rise to the 
 
 weird they read. 
 
 Everything must have a reason ; every fire once 
 
 had a spark ; 
 And what like the judgment of heaven for clearing 
 
 up things that are dark ? 
 None of his neighbours throve, and none of his 
 
 race had their wits : — 
 Easy to patch up a tale coming pat to your hand 
 
 so in bits. 
 
 Anyhow, certain it is that the Statesman earl had 
 
 a son, 
 A gallant and gay young soldier, beloved of every 
 
 one. 
 Till one day his charger stumbled, and they picked 
 
 him up for dead — 
 Better he had been, for henceforth he never was 
 
 right in the head.
 
 84 THE MAD EARL. 
 
 Then followed this one's father ; he slobbered a deal 
 
 at his meat — 
 His tongue was too big for his mouth — and he 
 
 shambled too with his feet ; 
 But he knew the right side of a penny, and looked 
 
 to his farms and woods : 
 Only nobody saw him at last, and they say he had 
 
 wild-beast moods. 
 
 But this Earl Ughtred, he looked right as a man 
 
 could be : 
 I knew him well as a boy, for he took a rare 
 
 fancy for me. 
 Chose me to go with him fishing, as well he might, 
 
 for I knew 
 More about trouting and fly-hooks than idle keepers 
 
 could do. 
 
 I was bred, you see, from a child on the bank of 
 
 his choicest brook, 
 And fished it with crooked pins, when I knew ne'er 
 
 a word of my book. 
 And my father too could busk you the daintiest 
 
 deadliest flies ; 
 And the young lord saw that I knew the pools 
 
 where the fish would rise.
 
 THE MAD EARL. 
 
 8S 
 
 And many a talk we had as we tramped o'er the 
 
 hills and the heather, 
 Or dropped the spoil in the creel, or lunched 
 
 on the banks together ; 
 And what would he not do for me, when he came 
 
 to man's estate? 
 For still he would go off a-fishing, and I must still 
 
 be his mate. 
 
 A fine, frank lad, sir, he was; and he would have 
 
 done all that he said ; 
 It was not his blame that he did not; but he never 
 
 was strong in the head; 
 He had not a turn for books; and he used to have 
 
 dreamy moods; 
 But his heart was sound at the core, as the 
 
 healthiest oak in the woods. 
 
 It's true, he turned wildish awhile — as all of his 
 
 race have done — 
 He was handsome and wealthy and young, and 
 
 guidance wise he had none ; 
 I sometimes wonder myself, could I carry a cup so 
 
 full. 
 And not spill a drop by the way, but keep my 
 
 head steady and cool?
 
 86 THE MAD EARL. 
 
 By this time his father was dead, but he never had 
 
 been of much good; 
 Vice was engrained in him, only he did it as cheap 
 
 as he could ; 
 What little mind e'er he had — it never was much 
 
 to be sure — ■ 
 Had been given to hoarding and hiding the pennies 
 
 he screwed from the poor. 
 
 So Ughtred would not be like him, would rather 
 
 be lavish than mean, 
 And scatter his gold like the best where the nobles 
 
 of England were seen; 
 Alike open-hearted and handed, had he only the 
 
 brains to know 
 Among all the ways that were miry where was the 
 
 safe one to go. 
 
 Wild, then, he was for a season — forsooth, he must 
 
 bet and race. 
 Though he scarce knew a horse from a cow, sir, 
 
 unless she had horns to her face ; 
 So the blacklegs got at him early, and sold him 
 
 the weediest screws 
 Which he backed, of course, at their bidding, till 
 
 he fell in the hands of the Jews.
 
 THE MAD EARL. 87 
 
 Then he got frightened, poor fellow, and something 
 
 or other he did — 
 I never could make out what — to men of his order 
 
 forbid ; 
 They did not say it was wicked, but spoke of it as 
 
 of a shame, 
 And the great folks pitied his mother, and shook 
 
 their heads at his name. 
 
 That don't go for much with me ; for I've lived on 
 
 their skirts all my days, 
 And I know that their honour allows them to walk 
 
 in the doubtful est ways, 
 And I know that their honour forbids what con 
 
 science does not refuse— 
 And he never was strong in the head, sir, and he 
 
 was in the hands of the Jews. 
 
 But it touched his mother ; who was among us like 
 
 a sov'reign law; 
 Her pride was something the people whispered 
 
 about with awe; 
 And now to be pitied ! — that made her more haughty 
 
 than ever before. 
 And she held up her head the higher, and hardened 
 
 her heart the more.
 
 S8 THE MAD EARL. 
 
 Then, his sister, the Lady Ion— she just came of 
 
 age that year — 
 A splendid creature to look at, but also a woman 
 
 to fear. 
 Features clear-cut as in marble, an eye that was 
 
 bright and cold, 
 And a perfect seat on the saddle — a rider as cool 
 
 as bold : — 
 
 I am his lordship's servant, and it is not for me 
 
 to speak, 
 But the Book it says that the strong should be 
 
 helpful still to the weak ; 
 And if all the tales be true that came from the 
 
 big house then. 
 Better for him had he faced the wrath and the 
 
 scorn of men. 
 
 'Twas hard for her, I allow, to have that shadow 
 
 of shame 
 Cast on her morning sunshine, stigma on her 
 
 proud name ; 
 But he was the head of the house, though ever so 
 
 weak in his mind. 
 And they were strong and cruel, who should have 
 
 been strong and kind.
 
 THE MAD EARL. 89 
 
 There was a girl that he fancied, sweet as a rose 
 
 in June, 
 All other girls in the county were only as stars to 
 
 her moon. 
 All other girls in the county were but as weeds 
 
 by the rose 
 That in the bloom of its beauty in some stateliest 
 
 garden grows. 
 
 Her fathers were barons here, when the great Earl's 
 house was small 
 
 As the stable where their horses stood champing 
 each in his stall ; 
 
 It is not for me to say how, if certainly ever I 
 knew. 
 
 But slowly their acres had dwindled as his lord- 
 ship's acres grew. 
 
 But my lady and Lady Ion, they would not hear of 
 
 the match; 
 They mocked at her as a cottar whose door was 
 
 shut on a latch, 
 For there was nothing to steal there, but only a 
 
 wax-doll face 
 Blooming on bread and milk, and just fit for a 
 
 milkmaid's place.
 
 90 THE MAD EARL 
 
 Ah ! pride, Sir, is hard as flint, and the sparks struck 
 
 from it are hot, 
 Here and there flying unguided, to burn where 
 
 httle you wot ; 
 They hurt not her in the least, but see what they've 
 
 made now of him. 
 Moping and mooning about here wherever the light 
 
 is dim. 
 
 Then came the Colonist girl — that's she who's her 
 
 ladyship now — ■ 
 That she had her wits about her was writ on her 
 
 sharp little brow ; 
 Pretty and clever enough, with a glittering hard blue 
 
 eye,— 
 Ay ! she would see to herself if her face was not 
 
 wholly a lie. 
 
 Colonial manners are frank; she would talk to any 
 
 she met — 
 Cadger or molecatcher — free, as she walked through 
 
 the dry and the wet. 
 And oh but she won folk's hearts, for she neither 
 
 was haughty nor shy; 
 But I liked not the cold blue glitter of steel that 
 
 I saw in her eye.
 
 THE MAD EARL. 
 
 91 
 
 She thawed the Dowager's frost — like a breath of the 
 
 coming spring, 
 And toned her speech till it seemed like the songs 
 
 that the spring-birds sing ; 
 What could she see in her now to sweeten her 
 
 manner so, 
 And make so much of a girl who was hardly a 
 
 lad)^, you know ? 
 
 Colonial girls are free. Sir, and Colonial manners 
 
 are frank, 
 Bnt then Colonial money is good as the gold in 
 
 Bank ; 
 And she had dollars in millions to patch the rents 
 
 he had made 
 Racing and betting, and learning the way that the 
 
 Hebrews trade. 
 
 The Dowager, then, looked sweet, and the Lady Ion 
 
 was bland. 
 As they led her over the Castle, and showed her 
 
 the goodly land, 
 And they praised Earl Ughtred to her, and the 
 
 race from which he grew — 
 They were not clever perhaps, but their hearts were 
 
 good and true.
 
 g2 THE MAD EARL. 
 
 Meanwhile he mooned about : but would sometimes 
 
 go fishing with me, 
 And then he was like himself, and would laugh 
 
 with a boyish glee, 
 To hear the birr of the reel, or to land his fish on 
 
 the bank — 
 Till he turned him homeward, and then his face 
 
 looked weary and blank. 
 
 Well ; one day she came up to me with the daintiest 
 
 rod and reel, 
 A casting-line twined round her hat, and hung by 
 
 her side was a creel. 
 Boots of porpoise leather, and petticoats not too 
 
 long. 
 In trim for a day of sport, and humming an angler's 
 
 song. 
 
 " I want you to take me with you, and show me 
 
 all how you do ; 
 There's nothing our Earl now cares for, except an 
 
 outing with you ; 
 Of course, I am fishing for him, and they too are 
 
 fishing for me. 
 All the big house are in love with my money, save 
 
 only he.
 
 THE MAD EARL. 93 
 
 I'm frank with you — that is my way; but really I 
 
 like you, though 
 You neither like me nor trust me, as well by your 
 
 looks I know; 
 And now you are wondering why I am set on this 
 
 weak-witted earl : — 
 As if strong-witted peers would look at a mere 
 
 Colonial girl. 
 
 Now, I've told you the truth, will you help me? 
 
 These women will drive him mad ; 
 Their nagging and sneering and mocking have 
 
 broken what spirit he had. 
 Folk talk of the fourth generation, that it would 
 
 bring back their wit — 
 I'm not superstitious, mind ye — but what if there's 
 
 something in it ? 
 
 Most of the old stock here are needing fresh blood 
 
 in their veins, 
 And I'm sane enough to set up a score of their 
 
 weak scatter-brains ; 
 What say you? — might I not risk it just on the 
 
 chance that they 
 Might get a new start in life to go on in a rational 
 
 way?
 
 94 THE MAD EARL. 
 
 You smile — it's a dubious smile, I've noticed it often 
 
 on you — 
 Oh you do not trust me, I know, yet you might, if 
 
 you only knew ; 
 No matter ; you'll take me with you ? I'll not spoil 
 
 sport if I can, 
 I just want a lesson from you how to manage a 
 
 moody young man." 
 
 So we went off on our fishing, but our sport was 
 
 little that day; 
 He was not once at his ease, and I saw that he 
 
 wished her away; 
 Nor did she manage him wisely, she had not the 
 
 delicate touch, 
 As she chattered and laughed on briskly, to know 
 
 when it was too much. 
 
 Yet she meant well, I am certain ; meant landing 
 her fish, if she could, 
 
 But yet to make life to him brighter, and banish 
 his gloomy mood ; 
 
 And she bit her thin lip at the failure, when he 
 went off in a dream ; 
 
 That was the last time that ever he threw a gut- 
 line on the stream.
 
 THE MAD EARL. 
 
 95 
 
 How it came round then, I know not; they wanted 
 
 to wipe off the debt, 
 And she with her miUions of dollars would buy her 
 
 an old coronet ; 
 They settled it somehow among them, and got him 
 
 to church one day, 
 Where he stood like a man in a trance, but he 
 
 said what he had to say. 
 
 The young folk travelled abroad for a time, as their 
 
 way is, you know ; 
 And the Dowager followed with Ion too, after a 
 
 month or so, 
 We heard of them sometimes in Paris, and then in 
 
 Rome for a while. 
 And by and by on the Rhine river, then off for a 
 
 trip to the Nile. 
 
 At last, they came home, and were followed by 
 
 visitors, Princes and Dukes, 
 And priests with the subtlest smiles, and the sleekest 
 
 of sidelong looks. 
 Black-bearded foreign nobles and their beardless 
 
 foreign priests, 
 And oh but there were rare doings with hunts and 
 
 balls and feasts.
 
 96 THE MAD EARL. 
 
 You see, if there was not an heir — as there did 
 
 not seem Hke to be — 
 Our young lady, she would be countess; and now 
 
 there was money to free 
 Every acre of debt, and to leave the Australian 
 
 girl 
 Enough to maintain the state of the widow of Fing- 
 
 land's Earl. 
 
 That was a merry time then; they rode to the hunt 
 
 by day, 
 And kept up the ball till morning, or shufifled the 
 
 cards for play. 
 All but the Earl, and he went moping and mooning 
 
 about, 
 x\lone in his dusky chamber, or alone in the woods 
 
 without. 
 
 The young wife did as the rest, she rode to the 
 
 meet, at least. 
 Saw them throw off, and then came ambling home 
 
 with a priest. 
 Chatted and laughed in the parlour, sailed through 
 
 a waltz at the ball, 
 And, thinking nothing of Ughtred, made herself 
 
 pleasant to all.
 
 THE MAD EARL. 
 
 97 
 
 So it went on, till a day when bills must be settled 
 
 at last ; 
 They had been falling like snow-flakes white on the 
 
 old house cast, 
 And duns had been prowling about it, threatening 
 
 letters been sent ; 
 What could it mean, these people growing so 
 
 insolent ? 
 
 Where was the chamberlain? Why had those men 
 
 never been paid? 
 Where were the millions of dollars for which they 
 
 had boldly played? 
 What had "my Lady" to do with it? was not her 
 
 money my Lord's? 
 Had she not titles and honours for her squatter 
 
 father's hoards? 
 
 Then they learnt what it meant, that glitter of steel 
 
 in her eye ; 
 Surely poor folk must be paid for the things that 
 
 the rich folk buy, 
 And her lady mother and Ion had ordered every 
 
 thing nice, 
 And, of course, she had always supposed they were 
 
 r 
 
 careful to count the price.
 
 98 THE MAD EARL. 
 
 As for her money — her father who honestly had 
 
 come by it, 
 Had tied it up, every penny, as fast as the law 
 
 could tie it ; 
 Her marriage was not a joint-stock; each managed 
 
 their own affairs ; 
 Not a dollar of hers was Ughtred's, and never a 
 
 penny was theirs. 
 
 Ay ! they had met their match ; it was even so as 
 
 she said ; 
 The lawyers had warned the Earl ; but he never 
 
 was strong in the head, 
 Folk even doubted, at times, if he knew what his 
 
 marriage meant, 
 And as for the signing of papers — he had signed 
 
 whatever was sent. 
 
 So she sat smiling there calmly, and spoke in the 
 
 blandest way 
 Soft lisping words that were daggers ; how could 
 
 she know but that they — ■ 
 She was but a squatter's daughter — had only to clap 
 
 their hands, 
 And slaves would bring dresses and jewels, and 
 
 horses and houses and lands ?
 
 THE MAD EARL. 
 
 99 
 
 But, of course, if their money was gone they must 
 
 Hve in a quieter way; 
 No ladies, as she supposed, would wear what they 
 
 could not pay; 
 And she knew that one could be happy, as free 
 
 from the burden of cares, 
 In a hut with a maid-of-all-work as in a great 
 
 castle like theirs. 
 
 Oh the glitter of that blue eye ! yet it showed too 
 
 a gleam of fun. 
 As she told them of mutton and damper and tea 
 
 on her father's "run," 
 Cooked by herself, with a wild Irish girl who saw 
 
 to the fire ; — 
 It was spiteful, no doubt ; but the sketch was 
 
 cleverly hit off by her. 
 
 What could they do? They might rage, but she 
 
 shrugged her shoulders, and smiled; 
 If they could not pay their own tradesmen, why, 
 
 then she had been beguiled; 
 She had known that he was not burdened with 
 
 brains, nor in vigorous health. 
 But she took all their stories for gospel, when they 
 
 spoke of his greatness and wealth.
 
 lOO THE MAD EARL. 
 
 So the ladies and princes and dukes and priests all 
 
 vanished like smoke, 
 And our clever Colonial countess had all her own 
 
 way with the folk, 
 And we soon had an orderly household and thrifty, 
 
 yet stately withal, 
 And just a year after the wedding there came a 
 
 young heir to it all. 
 
 I think she had honestly tried to help the poor 
 
 Earl in his fits 
 And moods, till it plainly appeared he was fairly 
 
 out of his wits, 
 Harmless enough, but nothing was left of his brains 
 
 but the husk. 
 And he muttered a deal to himself as he wandered 
 
 about in the dusk. 
 
 I had not seen him for years, till I met him this 
 
 evening by chance, 
 In the wood, and as soon as he saw me, he looked 
 
 with a furtive glance 
 This side and that, like a wild beast, to find what 
 
 way he could go, 
 For we were on the narrow path 'tween the rock 
 
 and the river below.
 
 THE MAD EARL. loi 
 
 So he turned right round, and made for the beech- 
 wood, sir; but my stride 
 
 Is longer than his, and soon I was walking along 
 by his side; 
 
 I hoped that my good Lord was well ; and his folk 
 would be glad to see 
 
 More of him now and then : and did he remembei 
 me? 
 
 We used to go fishing together; and would he not 
 
 like now to try — 
 The stream was in beautiful trim — to cast a line and 
 
 afly ! 
 " I seem to have seen you before," he knitted his 
 
 brows, and said, 
 As if he were catching at something ; " My friend, 
 
 have you long been dead? 
 
 Why are you all so restless ? this place now is 
 
 haunted with ghosts ; 
 They come out singly by day, but at night they are 
 
 trooping in hosts ; 
 No one sees them, but I; it's the second sight, you 
 
 know. 
 Sir Lachlan brought when he married the heiress 
 
 long ago."
 
 I02 THE MAD EARL. 
 
 Poor fellow ! He had been fumbling a while 
 
 with his seals and chain, 
 Still looking this side and that for a way of escape, 
 
 but in vain, 
 Till now when he suddenly plunged down into a 
 
 deep-sunk dell 
 Strewn with brachen and moss where the shy deer 
 
 love to dwell. 
 
 I saw them leaping up near, and laying their horns 
 
 on their back 
 As they sought for a lonelier dingle, while he went 
 
 on in their track, 
 And there was a lump in my throat, sir, as I sat 
 
 me down on a stone 
 And heard him mutter and stumble and still keep 
 
 hurrying on. 
 
 Think of it, sir ; when you climb there up to the 
 
 top of the Ben, 
 Up through the oak and the pine wood, and the 
 
 birch and juniper then. 
 Up through the belt of heather, and past where the 
 
 moss only grows, 
 Till you reach the bare scalp of the rock with its 
 
 lichens and rifted snows ;
 
 THE MAD EARL. 103 
 
 And there as you stand, at last, looking north and 
 
 south and west, 
 Far as the eye can see from the crag of the eagle's 
 
 nest, 
 Cornland, woodland, moorland, every acre is his 
 And the villages down on the beach where the wild 
 
 wan water is : 
 
 And there are three old burghs too, paymg him 
 
 stents and dues, 
 With hamlets maybe a score, and farms and crofts 
 
 and feus, 
 And over the highland border there are miles of 
 
 moor and moss. 
 You cannot see from the Ben, where the deer their 
 
 antlers toss. 
 
 And yonder he is, poor fellow, wandering by night 
 
 in the dew. 
 Hurrying by day through the thickest shades of the 
 
 pine and yew; 
 It's Nebuchadnezzar once more summering, wintering 
 
 out 
 Among the black horned cattle, or where the screech 
 
 owls shout.
 
 I04 THE MAD EARL. 
 
 What a heritage that, sir ! a cup filled up to the 
 
 brim, 
 Yet never a drop can he taste, and it stands there 
 
 mocking at him ! 
 There is my boy now, barefoot, paddhng about in 
 
 the stream, 
 His life is a fact at least, but the Earl's — it is only 
 
 a dream. 
 
 What can you make of it, sir ? Is it Fate, as the 
 
 people aver? 
 Our Lady is shrewd, and they tell me the young 
 
 Lord takes after her. 
 Is more of the squatter kind than the noble of high 
 
 degree, . ■ 
 
 But good at his books, and his manners, like her's, 
 
 are frank and free. 
 
 I have not much faith in weirds, though the Lord's 
 
 Law says, it is true, 
 The third and fourth generation may reap the wrong 
 
 that you do ; 
 Yet God does not do much cursing, nor tie it in 
 
 long entails. 
 Not in the female line, but still to be heired by 
 
 the males.' •
 
 THE MAD EARL. 105 
 
 And I have some faith in Love, that it might have 
 
 brought all right, 
 As sunshine quickens the seed with its play of 
 
 warmth and light ; 
 Yet he never got much of that, sir, from sister, 
 
 mother or wife, 
 And I cannot get over the thought, that they wasted 
 
 a gentle life. 
 
 Never a pleasanter lad, sir, — nothing was wrong 
 
 with him then — 
 Cast e'er a line on the river, or stalked the red 
 
 deer in the glen; 
 But they must thwart his first love, and none to 
 
 give him had they — 
 And then forsooth it was heaven had taken his 
 
 reason away. 
 
 Ay, ay ! God and heaven, it's little we heed their 
 
 . say, 
 When good might come of our keeping the straight 
 
 and narrow way. 
 But they're handy to lay the blame on, when things 
 
 go wrong at last. 
 And you need a glisk of religion to glamour the 
 
 days that are past.
 
 io6 PROVOST CHIVAS. 
 
 ^robost dhtbas. 
 
 Come, Martin, don't stand stiffly there; 
 Be seated now, and draw the chair 
 
 A little closer to the fire ; 
 It's winter weather, see, without ; 
 And I would talk with you about 
 
 Old days, before our day expire. 
 
 Note. — The story of Peter Williamson revealed, in the last 
 century, a strange tale of the kidnapping of boys in our towns 
 by the magistrates and leading citizens, and sending them to 
 the Plantations virtually as slaves. That is the origin of this 
 poem.
 
 PROVOST CHIVAS. 107 
 
 What will you take, now? Nothing! nay, 
 I know what you're about to say ; 
 
 You know your place : but that is pride — 
 You think you are quite as good as I ; 
 And so you are ; there, don't be shy : 
 
 Your place is here, man, at my side. 
 
 Look, Martin ; we are growing old : 
 Why should you be so stiff and cold, 
 
 And 4ook as if you hated all — 
 The wine, the table, and the seat, 
 The Turkey carpet 'neath your feet, 
 
 The very pictures on the wall? 
 
 I stopt you on the high street once. 
 But you — you gave me not a chance 
 
 To tell you what was in my heart ; 
 Though I was Provost at the time, 
 You looked at me as if a crime 
 
 Might bring me soon to the hangman's cart. 
 
 And Bailie Webbe was at my side. 
 And vowed for such contempt and pride 
 He would have had you in the dock ;
 
 io8 PROVOST CHIVAS. 
 
 Of course, I did not dream of that, 
 But yet you might have raised your hat, 
 And done for once Hke other folk. 
 
 Nay, Martin, do not turn away ; 
 Our day is short, our hairs are grey, 
 
 It's time to grease our boots for going; 
 Why should we fall out, when we meet, 
 Like strange dogs snarling on the street? 
 
 We have small space for quarrels growing. 
 
 I mind me, we were boys together ; 
 In summer's sun and winter weather 
 
 We padded, barefoot, to the school ; 
 Boys were not nice and dainty then 
 With shoes and hats like little men ; 
 
 They bred us on the Spartan rule. 
 
 As lads too we were seldom parted, 
 True friends and loving and one-hearted. 
 
 Though now and then we had our jars ; 
 Each night I would convoy you home, 
 Then back with me you needs must come. 
 
 Talking of poetry and the stars,
 
 PROVOST C HIV AS. 109 
 
 Or of the sermon we had heard 
 On Sabbath from the Holy Word, 
 
 Or of the minister, good and true, 
 Who christened us, and made us sit 
 Together, when the time was fit, 
 
 Down at the holy table too. 
 
 Ay, ay ! it's good to think of these 
 Good days and high solemnities, 
 
 That linked us close when we were youths 
 Why should we not have many a walk 
 Together still, and cheerful talk 
 
 About these everlasting truths? 
 
 Well, yes; I grant the blame was mine 
 At first, yet lately it was thine 
 
 Who would not help to heal the breach 
 And, man, it does not mend one's song 
 To know that one was in the wrong, 
 
 When friends went drifting out of reach. 
 
 It could not well be helped, besides; 
 This man must walk, while that one rides 
 And even the holy prophet says
 
 I lO 
 
 PROVOST CHIVAS. 
 
 That in this race of hfe, of course, 
 The footman runs not with the horse, 
 And so we took our several ways ; 
 
 And I grew rich, and you were poor ; 
 Yet you've the best of it, I'm sure, 
 
 My money, man, it's hke a curse : 
 I wish you had it — no, I don't; 
 For sure there is no blessing on't. 
 
 And it would only make you worse. 
 
 Yes, Martin, houses, lands and gold 
 Bring little comfort when you're old, 
 
 Or honours which the world can give : 
 But you've had love to sweeten life, 
 A happy home, and faithful wife, 
 
 Though that wild laddie made her grieve. 
 
 Now, do not sniff and sneer at me ; 
 Folk call me Lord by courtesy, 
 
 But not in scorn, nor yet in sport ; 
 Remember I've been Provost twice, 
 And given the government advice, 
 
 And was presented too at Court.
 
 PROVOST C HIV AS. m 
 
 You should respect my office, even 
 If to the man may not be given 
 
 The honour which he thinks his due ; — 
 And for your son, no doubt, it's sad, 
 Although he was a worthless lad, 
 
 If all accounts of him be true. 
 
 They say he broke his mother's heart; 
 They say that he was art and part 
 
 With them that robbed the County Bank- 
 Well, well; it's natural for you 
 To say that's false; they say it's true; 
 
 And sure enough he swore and drank. 
 
 Only a thoughtless boy ! — more shame 
 To bring dishonour on your name. 
 
 And vex a mother fond and true ! 
 And she was all that, I am told — 
 Indeed, I know — as good as gold ; 
 
 And such a comely woman too ! 
 
 Ah ! Martin, you were fortunate 
 To find so excellent a mate ; 
 
 Though she is gone now, is she not?
 
 112 PROVOST C HIV AS. 
 
 Gone to a better, happier land — 
 Give me a grip, man, of your hand ; 
 But death is our appointed lot. 
 
 Ay, ay ! this world is full of change ; 
 A tangled hank it is, and strange 
 
 With ups and downs, and loss and gain, 
 And here to-day, and there to-morrow, 
 And nothing certain here but sorrow : — 
 
 Enough to puzzle heart and brain. 
 
 Nay, nay ; don't go yet, Martin, stay ; 
 You've heard about your son, you say? 
 
 I'm glad of it for your sake, man : 
 But for this trumped-up story now, 
 It's quite absurd, you must allow. 
 
 And you must stop him, for you can. 
 
 He'll get into worse trouble yet 
 Unless he hold his peace on it, 
 
 I warn you fairly while it's time ; 
 They say that from his earliest youth 
 He ne'er was known to speak the truth, 
 
 And was convicted once of crime. 

 
 PROVOST C HIV AS. 113 
 
 That may be false, or may be true ; 
 But, Martin, I appeal to you : 
 
 You are a man of sense : just think ! 
 To charge those men who represent 
 Order and law and government, 
 
 That they at any crime could wink ! 
 
 The provost, bailies, city clerk. 
 The men of highest rank and mark. 
 
 The rulers of your native town. 
 And men of quality, beside, 
 Who shall be nameless, but are tried 
 
 And faithful servants of the crown, 
 
 Was ever Judge or jury yet 
 Could be persuaded these had set 
 
 Common and Statute law at nought? 
 They're liker, man, to hold that he 
 Is guilty of Lese-majesty — 
 
 And that's a grave crime even in thought. 
 
 It's true there were some gutter boys — 
 Rogues, always bent on thievish ploys — 
 Who, for the town's good and their own 
 
 H
 
 114 FROVOST CHIVAS. 
 
 Were 'prenticed to some honest men 
 In the plantations, now and then — 
 Good riddance too as can be shewn. 
 
 And if you'll read them I will lend 
 The grateful letters that they send 
 
 About their happy life abroad, 
 With plenty wage, and plenty food, 
 And pious ministers and good 
 
 Who guide them on the better road. 
 
 'Twould do your heart, man, good to read 
 What wholesome, useful lives they lead, 
 
 Instead of prowling in the street, 
 Now begging bits, now stealing bits, 
 And living badly on their wits. 
 
 With ill- clad backs and ill-shod feet. 
 
 And for the Indians, now, they say 
 These hardly ever come their way, 
 
 And when they do, it is to truck 
 Powder and guns for beavers' skins. 
 And drops of drink for moccasins. 
 
 Or horns of buffalo or buck.
 
 PROVOST CHIVAS. 115 
 
 A better country theirs than ours 
 
 Where cadgers claim their rights and powers, 
 
 And tinkers will have law on you ! 
 I sometimes wish that I were there, 
 Free from the burden and the care 
 
 Of thankless work I have to do. 
 
 But for your son. you'll stop his plea; 
 Of course, it's nothing, man, to me 
 
 Although it's hard, when one is old, 
 To have been Provost once, and then 
 Be charged with stealing boys and men. 
 
 And selling them for lust of gold. 
 
 I'm glad for your sake that the lad 
 Turns up again, though he was bad 
 
 Before, and seems no better now ; 
 But if he will persist to blame 
 His betters, there's against his name 
 
 Enough to hang him yet, I trow. 
 
 Just tell him if he'll hold his peace, 
 And bid that lawyer's "clavers" cease, 
 Who says whate'er he's paid to say,
 
 Il6 PROVOST CHIVAS. 
 
 The town wants some one to engage 
 For little work and plenty wage, 
 And I might put it in his way. 
 
 A bribe ! no, no ; it is not fit 
 
 That you should look that way at it ; 
 
 Martin, you pull me up too short : 
 I only meant, if he should want 
 A job of work — and work is scant — 
 
 It's well to have a friend at Court. 
 
 And he must choose between this chance 
 And being led a bonny dance, 
 
 Through courts of Law, for crimes and debts,- 
 Hame-sucken, stouthrief, common theft, 
 Smuggling, and heavy claims he left 
 
 For gambling and horse-racing bets. 
 
 Or man or boy, it matters not : 
 
 These pleas against him will be brought, 
 
 And there's a long purse too behind; 
 Think ye that Provost, Bailies, Clerk 
 Will let a messan-dog come bark 
 
 Right at their heels, and never mind?
 
 FROVOST CHI V AS. ny 
 
 It is not reason, man : be sure 
 
 They'll play their game, and find a cure 
 
 For their hurt honour at any cost, 
 They'll plea it in the inner court, 
 They'll plea it to the last resort 
 
 Before they let the game be lost. 
 
 Law is the hardest mill to grind, 
 Nor is it water, man, or wind, 
 
 But gold that makes its wheels to go, 
 And ere the Inner House we're through, 
 I doubt it will be hard for you 
 
 A plack or penny more to show. 
 
 But you can stop it if you will ; 
 And maybe manage even to fill 
 
 The purse which it would empty soon : 
 Now, do not play the fool, and rob 
 Your age for such an idle job, 
 
 Which is like reaching for the moon. 
 
 I do not say the thing was right 
 Exactly, now I have more light. 
 
 Though no one blamed it at the time ;
 
 ll8 PROVOST CBIVAS. 
 
 The very ministers would say, 
 Each time the laddies went away, 
 It saved them from a life of crime. 
 
 We gave them clothes, we gave them meat, 
 And shoes and stockings for their feet. 
 
 Which seldom they had known before : 
 We saw too their indentures writ, 
 And signed and sealed as sure as wit 
 
 Of man could do. What could we more? 
 
 And when the ship would sail away, 
 We had a minister to pray 
 
 With the poor laddies, as was right. 
 And, oh how earnest they would plead 
 That waifs and prodigals, the seed 
 
 Of righteous men, might yet get light 
 
 And now to charge us with offence, 
 Because we made, perhaps, some pence — 
 
 It was a trifle at the most — 
 Clearing our streets of rogues and thieves 
 Who grew there thick as Autumn leaves 
 
 That from November woods are tossed !
 
 PROVOST C HIV AS. 
 
 Think, Martin ; to be charged with crime, 
 I who have Hved here all my time, 
 
 Respected in my native town ! 
 And, maybe, see my little gear, 
 Gathered through many a busy year, 
 
 Escheated some day to the Crown ! 
 
 That's hard, you surely must allow : 
 And all for what? Just tell me how 
 
 Was I to know these Chippeways — 
 Incarnate fiends ! — would hack and hew, 
 And burn and torture, as they do : 
 
 That is, if all is true he says. 
 
 Nay, Martin, do not look like that. 
 And knit your brows, and grip your hat; 
 
 Well ; yes, it's true that I did make 
 Some statement once about your child — 
 For I with rage and fear was wild — 
 
 And maybe it was a mistake. 
 
 I wronged him? yes; he may have been 
 All that you say ; for I am clean 
 Distraught and maddened now about 
 
 119
 
 J20 PROVOST CHIVAS. 
 
 This business ; will you not have pity ? 
 'Twill bring shame on your native city : 
 And you could easily pull us out. 
 
 Give me some drink, then, if you'll not 
 Take it yourself: it's some I got 
 
 To toast our friendship once again ; 
 But that, it seems, is not to be — • 
 My hand is shaking : let me see, 
 
 What was I saying ? — Yes, it's plain : 
 
 You mean to plead this case, and I 
 Will fight it till the day I die 
 
 Through Outer House, and Inner House, 
 And House of Lords, though there should be 
 No more of all my property 
 
 Than might give house-room to a mouse. 
 
 It's war — and all is fair in war : 
 
 Things can't be worse than now they are ; 
 
 And you and your's what should I heed? 
 I'm to be once more Provost soon, 
 And we'll all sing the self-same tune, 
 
 For all the Council are agreed.
 
 PROVOST CHIVAS. 121 
 
 We will not brook this scaith and shame, 
 We will not lose our own good name 
 
 For vagabonds and gutter bairns 
 The town is better far without ; 
 And he is like the rest, no doubt. 
 
 Of no more use than brachen-ferns. 
 
 Ay ! leave me now : I tell you true, 
 It shames me to have bowed to you, 
 
 A fellow poor as any rat, 
 Who thinks to fight the Clerk and me, 
 The Bailies, too, and Quality 
 
 With such a trumpery tale as that ! 
 
 I thought at first you had some heart, 
 Some sense, at least to play the part 
 
 Which any man of judgment would : 
 But there : I'm done with you : away ! 
 You'd better make friends while you may. 
 
 You'll need them, for our names are good. 
 
 There's Little-mills and Chokit-burn, 
 Woodside and Tarvet, Drums and Durn 
 And Bees-wood too and Otterslack,
 
 J o ^ 
 
 PROVOST CHIVAS. 
 
 And Bailie Webbe, and Bailie Sym, 
 And the Town Clerk — take note of him — 
 He has the bank, too, at his back. 
 
 And you would mell with all of these ! 
 Man, saw ye ever a skep of bees 
 
 O'erturned, and how they buzz and sting 
 I pity you, with such a crew 
 Upon you, and the lawyers too. 
 
 And all the heavy costs they bring. 
 
 Take thought, e'en, yet while it is time : 
 It's a grave thing to charge a crime 
 
 On honest men and Magistrates : 
 Better your son had never come 
 Than bring such ruin on your home, 
 
 And also waste our braw estates. 
 
 Remember all our early days, 
 Remember all our kindly ways, 
 
 Remember that bit post of profit, 
 With little work and plenty wage : 
 I think I almost might engage 
 
 That you should have refusal of it.
 
 PROVOST C IT IV AS. 123 
 
 You will not ? Nay, then, off with you '. 
 And do the worst that you can do ; 
 I've been too humble to you, sir. 
 
 {Solus.) 
 Woe's me ! the house and land and gear, 
 And Provost's chain and badge next year : 
 And oh, 'twill make an awful stir ! 
 
 And though we'll brave it out, I doubt 
 
 The thing will hardly bear inspection; 
 These lawyers' tongues will fleer and flout, 
 The Judge too will have turn about 
 In that unsparing vivisection. 
 
 And lose or win, we'll have to pay; 
 
 A lawyer's tongue's a costly dish : — 
 Better the ship had sailed away 
 To Newfoundland or Hudson's Bay, 
 
 Or north for Greenland's whales to fish. 
 
 I wish the job were now to do ; 
 
 I would not be so rash or fain : 
 Yet we had merry evenings too, 
 When each his share of profits drew, 
 
 And counted up his honest gain.
 
 124 PROVOST C HIV AS. 
 
 Good were the suppers, and the wine 
 
 Was mellow at the Lemon Tree, 
 .And cheery was our talk, and fine 
 The wit which never crossed the line 
 Proper to men of our degree. 
 
 Pity our merry nights should bring 
 Bad mornings, as they mostly do ! 
 
 Why should the honey have a sting? 
 
 Why should this fellow come to wring 
 Good money from our purses too ? 
 
 It's very hard that Providence 
 
 Can never leave our minds at ease ; 
 
 For me, I cannot see the sense 
 
 Of raking up an old offence 
 
 To waste our means on Lawyer's fees.
 
 MORGANA. 125 
 
 ^ttorgaiva. 
 
 Oh, green are the pines of the Barleywood, 
 
 And the drooping birches are fair to see, 
 
 And bonnie the carpet that summer weaves 
 
 Of the green overlapping brachen leaves ; 
 
 And the spring blue-bell and anemone 
 
 You might bind up there in sheaves. 
 
 And blythe are the birds in the Barleywood, 
 Where merle and mavis and woodlark sing, 
 And the cushat croodles high unseen, 
 And the cuckoo calls from the brachen green; 
 And sweet are the smells that the wind-wafts 
 bring, 
 When the morning airs are keen.
 
 126 MORGANA. 
 
 But woe is me for the Barleywood ! 
 
 There's a pang in my heart for every tree, 
 And for every bird in the wood that dwells, 
 And for every waft of the woodland smells ; 
 
 The pang of a cruel memory 
 For all its buds and bells. 
 
 For fairest things may dreariest be, 
 
 And sweetest of songs most sad to hear, 
 
 \Vhen tree and blossom and bird and flower 
 
 All link them on to a woful hour, 
 
 And bring the past and its sorrow near, 
 The heart to overpower. 
 
 There were two lovers that sought my love- 
 Ay me ! but it's ever so long ago — 
 One was beautiful, young and brave, 
 But the other was noble and rich and grave : 
 And how should a silly young maiden know 
 Fittingly to behave? 
 
 I had no mother to guide me right — 
 
 Ah, woe ! for a thoughtless girl like me ! 
 And my father he left me all the day, 
 ' *£And went to his sleep in the evening grey ; 
 And how should a foolish maiden see 
 Rightly to guide her way?
 
 MORGANA. 127 
 
 I loved my beautiful youth and brave — 
 Lack-a-day ! I was still in my teens — 
 Yet I longed for the wealth and the noble name, 
 But I had not a thought of sin or shame ; 
 And how should a girl know what it means 
 To keep from evil fame ? 
 
 My Lord, he came, when the day was high — 
 
 And oh but the hours went heavy and slow — 
 But my Love stole quietly up to my side, 
 And low at my feet in the evening sighed. 
 And then would the hours like minutes flow 
 In the happy eventide. 
 
 My Lord, he would hold my worsted hank, 
 
 Pleased when my needle was briskly plied ; 
 But my Love would not hear of work to do 
 When he was with me, and well he knew 
 To make the happy hours swiftly glide 
 With love that was always new. 
 
 And close to his heart he clasped me once — 
 Oh what so sweet as a love-embrace ? 
 
 My Lord, he would only touch the tip 
 
 Of my little hand with a dainty lip. 
 And then smile prettily into my face 
 And let the little hand slip.
 
 128 MORGANA. 
 
 But my love he clasped me once and twice — 
 
 How I thrilled all through in his fond embrace ! 
 And he vowed, if ever my Lord should dare 
 To hold me so, tliat he did not care 
 What might happen of foul disgrace. 
 He would not leave me there. 
 
 I wist not then what his words might mean, 
 
 But oh hi? look it was fierce and wild, 
 It frightened me so, that I bade him go : 
 And my Lord he spake to me sweet and low, 
 Next day and next, and I heard and smiled, 
 And did not say him No. 
 
 But by and by a low whisper ran — 
 
 It should have blistered every tongue — 
 
 Ran through the evil-speaking place. 
 
 Whisper wicked of foul disgrace : 
 
 And I so simple and pure and young ! 
 Oh it was vile and base. 
 
 He was a villain, I said, and lied — 
 Ah me ! what can a poor girl do ? — 
 
 He lied, he lied : I had nothing to hide ; 
 
 Yet, he struck me down when I was a bride, 
 Pierced my heart with a falsehood through : 
 Oh how the villain lied 1
 
 MORGANA. 129 
 
 My Lord, he came of a noble race, 
 
 And yes ! his heart it was noble too ; 
 Lo ! now, he said, this lie has gone 
 All through the city, and there are none, 
 But only I, that believe in you, 
 And still keep loving on. 
 
 But I have trusted you, and I trust — 
 I took his hand, and I kissed it then — 
 
 Yes, I trust, for I know you true. 
 
 And I should die if I doubted you; 
 And I scorn the women and viler men 
 Who lie now as they do. 
 
 Then let the wedding bells ring out, 
 
 And let the priest make haste and come ; 
 Our name was ever without a stain, 
 And they will tattle and talk in vain. 
 When we to the altar go, and home 
 Return together again. 
 
 ■'D^ 
 
 It was a hard and a cruel place, 
 
 Where every man of his neighbour spoke, 
 And evil report of sin or wrong 
 Grew louder still as it went along. 
 
 Till on some happy life it broke 
 And silenced its happy song.
 
 13° 
 
 MORGANA. 
 
 Had I only thought ! But my heart was hot ; 
 
 I am certain now that he was belied, 
 For there were women that hated me 
 Because men said I was fair to see ; 
 
 And women will humble woman's pride, 
 False as the tale may be. 
 
 But I was mad : and I said, he lies ; 
 
 Oh is there none who will take my part? 
 Were I a man, I would lay him low, 
 And who shall give him a right death blow. 
 
 Him I will love with all my heart 
 For slaying the villain so. 
 
 Slowly, slowly my Lord he rose — 
 
 And oh but he looked grave and sad : 
 
 And he bent him low, and he went his way. 
 
 Never a word then did he say, 
 
 And my heart leaped up, and I was glad. 
 Until the close of day. 
 
 But all that night I found no sleep, 
 
 Tossing in restless, troubled thought ; 
 I said I would love my Lord truly and well, 
 I said I was happy, and yet there fell 
 
 Such gloom on my heavy heart as brought 
 Horror on me like hell. 
 
 i
 
 MORGANA. 131 
 
 All through the night I lay, and tossed, 
 
 Wearily longing for the day, 
 And rose at dawn in a troubled mood, 
 And hied me away to the Barley-wood, 
 
 And through its dewy glades took my way, 
 Where the air was fresh and good. 
 
 Sweet smelled the pines of the Barley-wood, 
 
 And oh I shall never forget the birds. 
 They gathered about me, and had no fear. 
 And sang the thought of my heart as clear 
 As if they were speaking it out in words- -- 
 His lie shall cost him dear ! 
 
 And I too sang, yet I was not glad ; 
 
 I said I was, but it was not so : 
 I sang as the mad folk I have known 
 Sing, when their heart is like a stone, 
 
 But I could have wept with joy to know 
 No fell deed had been done. 
 
 Just then, and ever so near, I heard — 
 
 Ah me ! how they ring in my heart this day ! 
 Two shots, and a thud on the de^vy grass— 
 O heart ! my heart, how it sunk alas ! 
 Oh cruel madness, and evil day 
 
 That brought this thing to pass !
 
 132 
 
 MORGANA. 
 
 Well did I know what had befallen,— 
 
 As well as if I had seen it all — 
 Great Lords have a steady hand and eye, 
 They sleep, and they do not fear to die : 
 But my young Love for sleep would call, 
 And it would not come nigh. 
 
 't>' 
 
 Well did I wot what had befallen, — 
 
 As Avell as if I had seen it all — 
 
 And out of the wood I rushed, and there 
 
 My Love lay dead in the morning air, 
 
 Close by the mossy brambly wall. 
 
 Upon the moorland bare. 
 
 I fell on him, and I clasped him close — 
 
 Oh how the love of him all came back I 
 Men were near me, standing about, 
 But I only saw the blood oozing out 
 
 From his dear mouth in a thread-like track. 
 That killed all hope and doubt. 
 
 Beautiful there in death he lay, 
 
 But ah the cold damp on his brow ! 
 
 Oh my beautiful, young, and brave ! 
 
 I — it is I that have dug your grave ! 
 And oh that I were but with you now ! 
 For Death is the boon I crave.
 
 MORGANA. 133 
 
 I kissed his mouth — I kissed his cheek — 
 
 Love, my love ! I wildly cried : 
 
 The red blood stained my mouth and chin, 
 And the stain of it was on my soul within ; 
 For I was his murderer : yes, he lied : 
 But oh my sin, my sin ! 
 
 It was in the madness of Love he lied : 
 
 And I- — -I loved him in spite of it : 
 Come back, my Love : come back, my Life : 
 Will none of you thrust in my heart a knife? 
 For I surely might overtake him yet, 
 And be his own true wife. 
 
 He lied, but I would have done it too, 
 
 Had he been false to his love and me ; 
 Leave us here : how I hate you now ; 
 There's a lock of fair hair on his brow — 
 
 1 have curled it oft on my finger : see 
 
 It knows my finger now : 
 
 Oh I would not give that lock of hair 
 For all your lordship and your land : 
 
 But bury us both together here ; 
 
 And come not hither to drop a tear, 
 You who slew him with your hand, 
 
 And me with the murderous cheer.
 
 T34 MORGANA. 
 
 Mad I was and unjust to him — 
 
 What would you have from a breakmg heait? 
 He was too noble to take it ill ; 
 Besides, they hurried him down the hill, 
 
 And far away to a foreign part 
 Where he is wandering still. 
 
 They made a bier of the green pine-boughs — 
 Ay me ! the Barley-wood pines are sweet ! 
 
 A bier for him and a bier for me, 
 
 For I was as like to death as he. 
 
 And they bore us down to my Father's seat, 
 A woeful sight to see. 
 
 Yet I lived on, who would have gone 
 
 So glad with my love to his early rest ; 
 My hair grew white, but not with years, 
 And I lived down all their lies and sneers. 
 But with a heavy heart in my breast, 
 And many sighs and tears. 
 
 Never I saw my Lord again, 
 
 Never I wished to see his face ; 
 Yet he was sure of a noble strain. 
 Trusty and true; but it would be pain 
 
 Recalling the tale of foul disgrace, 
 And all that past again.
 
 MORGANA. 135 
 
 One thing only has made me glad — 
 After the healing mercy of God — 
 
 The day of the Duel now is past; 
 
 And never shall maiden stare aghast, 
 As I did then, on the blood-tinged sod 
 Where my dead Love was cast.
 
 136 
 
 jMRS. COVENTRY. 
 
 Jttrs. OTobcntra- 
 
 Wh^'sht ! John ; why should you aye complain 
 
 Of trade and profits being bad, 
 And cry about your litde gain, 
 
 And moan at every loss you've had? 
 You have more money than you know 
 
 What to do with, man. God has blessed 
 Your labour, and you ought to show 
 
 His bounty has not been misplaced. 
 
 Sometimes I almost pity Him, 
 
 Sometimes I'm clean ashamed to pray. 
 
 Seeing our cup filled to the brim, 
 And so much goodness thrown away !
 
 MRS. COVENTRY. 137 
 
 It must be hard to bear, I think, 
 
 To be replenishing folk's store 
 With wealth of clothes and meat and drink. 
 
 And hear them crying still for more. 
 
 It's easier learning how to win, 
 
 Than how to use wealth as we should : 
 And though we gain it without sin, 
 
 It's sin to have, and do no good 
 With what we have ; and what is worse, 
 
 It eats the heart like rust or rot : 
 Think, now, if there should be a curse 
 
 Wrapt up in every hoarded note. 
 
 When we were young, John, we were^poor, 
 
 And yet we were far richer then ; 
 We sent no beggar from the door, 
 
 Nor grudged the wage of working men : 
 We had enough, and some to spare 
 
 For them that were worse off than we ; 
 And there was sunshine in the air 
 
 Each night when you came home to me. 
 
 But now the pocket's buttoned up. 
 The beggar comes not to our door. 
 
 He knows there's neither bite nor sup 
 For tramps, as used to be before :
 
 138 MRS. COVENTRY. 
 
 Ah well ! maybe they're mostly rogues : 
 
 There were rogues too when we were young, 
 
 Yet none were driven away like dogs ; 
 And even tramps' hearts may be wrung. 
 
 There's none will speak to you as I 
 
 Am free to do, who love you best : 
 I dare not flatter you, and lie 
 
 With a false heart upon your breast. 
 And, O John, but your wealth has made 
 
 A hard bit on that breast for me, 
 That does not give an easy head. 
 
 And is not as it used to be. 
 
 O ay ! you give me all I need, 
 
 And more than all I care to get 
 For gowns and gawds, and meat to feed 
 
 Us all, and ne'er to be in debt ; 
 There's plenty on ourselves to spend, 
 
 E'en more, I think, than's good for health ; 
 But, think ye, was that God's chief end 
 
 In giving you that heap of wealth ? 
 
 I've heard you say it's hard to find 
 
 Investments safe— and thought that odd : 
 
 But here is one just to your mind, 
 A good investment, John, with God :
 
 MRS. COVENTRY. 
 
 139 
 
 They never lose who lend to Hun, 
 They get good interest, indeed ; 
 
 And that poor man who broke his limb, 
 Has five wee helpless bairns to feed. 
 
 Nay, do not grudge it, man : God loves 
 
 A cheerful giver : e'en be glad 
 That you can help the bonnie doves 
 
 Left hungry there at home and sad — 
 There ; take it back ; I want to get 
 
 A blessing for you, John, from heaven; 
 But they who grudge to pay their debt 
 
 To God, shall find no blessing given. 
 
 We have no bairns at our fireside ; 
 
 God would not send His children here 
 To folk whose hearts are full of pride, 
 
 And set on hoarding worldly gear. 
 They'd only learn, what makes them worse, 
 
 To hanker for the gold they see : — ■ 
 No; this is not a house to nurse 
 
 God's little ones, as they should be. 
 
 And who's to heir it all, since we 
 
 Are childless? Is it not a sin 
 To leave a fruitful legacy 
 
 Of quarrels to the next of kin.
 
 140 
 
 MRS. COVENTRY. 
 
 ^^'hen we could gladden many a home, 
 And brighten many a sunless life, 
 
 And lift up for the days to come, 
 Maybe, some hapless child or wife? 
 
 How freely, John, we used to give 
 
 To every holy cause and good, 
 When it was hard enough to live, 
 
 For then you would do as you should ; 
 The Kirk was never then forgot, 
 
 You never did neglect the poor. 
 You pitied too the sick man's lot, 
 
 And sought his comfort and his cure. 
 
 Yet then your mite was more to you 
 
 Than is your five-pound note to-day, 
 For there was something you must do 
 
 Without, to give the mite away ; 
 You wore the old coat for a time, 
 
 That some one might get warmth from you ; 
 And I — I thought the old coat sublime. 
 
 Because the heart beneath was true. 
 
 O John, this big house, and the host 
 
 Of lazy servants, full of meat, 
 And carriages and horses cost 
 
 The poor what they have need to eat :
 
 I\rES. COVENTRY. 
 
 141 
 
 And cost you too ; you used to speak 
 Of books, and made me blythe and gay, 
 
 But now it's funds through all the week, 
 And markets even on Sabbath day. 
 
 And you must buy a fine estate, 
 
 And shoot your rabbits and your hares, 
 And dine and visit with the great. 
 
 And sometimes even put on their airs, 
 And send your poachers to the gaol. 
 
 And set your keepers o'er the fish : — 
 O man, can you forget how well 
 
 Ye liked to catch a dainty dish? 
 
 That's a braw greenhouse ; and it's true 
 
 I like the bonnie flowers ; but yet 
 You made me happier, John, when you 
 
 Brought me the box of mignonette. 
 The greenhouse speaks to me of gold, 
 
 And it may bide, or may depart ; 
 But still I keep the box that told 
 
 About the kind and thoughtful heart. 
 
 O man, let 'Change and Market be ! 
 
 Let others get their turn ; and come, 
 Just think how pleasant it would be 
 
 To have once more the old sweet home.
 
 142 
 
 MRS. COVENTRY. 
 
 To read together in the mirk, 
 
 Together mercy to invoke, 
 To walk together to the Kirk, 
 
 And do some good to other folk. 
 
 I'm weary of this grand display, 
 
 And hearing of the rise and fall 
 Of prices ; would I were away 
 
 From ships and yarns and funds and all : 
 Oh if the Lord would only take. 
 
 And lift our hearts to things above ! 
 Or else some bank, perhaps, would break 
 
 And leave us nought but health and love ?
 
 MOTHER AND STEPMOTHER. 14; 
 
 pother anb <Ste]j-Jttothcr. 
 
 Oh my baby, my sweet, my Own ! 
 
 Oh, joy to have one to love Hke this ! 
 And love like this to be so bestown ! 
 
 Oh, the wonder of it, and bliss ! 
 Look at me, baby, with those deep eyes, 
 
 Smile to me, baby, with those soft lips 
 Oh, the tremulous thrills that rise 
 
 At the fine touch of those finger tips ! 
 
 And yet you fill me with fear and awe, 
 God's little child, that He gave to me 
 
 To rear you up in His Love and Law, 
 For the life that is, and that is to be;
 
 144 
 
 MOTHER AND STEPMOTHER. 
 
 Lo ! Heaven is looking out from the blue 
 And solemn depths of those great eyes ; 
 
 How shall I keep you pure and true ? 
 How shall I make you just and wise ? 
 
 I promised to mother those babes of his, 
 
 And, oh, I have tried to pay my vow ; 
 But I did not know what a mother is, 
 
 I did not know, as I know it now. 
 I loved them for his sake, and always will ; 
 
 Poor motherless babes, I love them yet ; 
 But motherless babes they must be still. 
 
 For I cannot love them like you, my pet. 
 
 They're very nice, and they've been so good, 
 
 And they really are fond of me, as they say ; 
 But they're not like my blossom of ladyhood, 
 
 And they have not their father's gentle way. 
 No doubt, they take after the mother, and she 
 
 Was vulgar — her picture shows that right; 
 And there's something in them — it is plain to see 
 
 They never will grow to be ladies quite. 
 
 Well, yes; she was pretty, and so are they; 
 
 She has sandy curls, and she wears a wreath. 
 And her eyes are meaningless cold and grey. 
 
 And her lips are parted to shew her teeth.
 
 MOTHER AND STEPMOTHER. 
 
 145 
 
 She has dumpy hands, but she thinks them fine — 
 It's all in her picture, baby dear — 
 
 And the painter has hinted a sullen line 
 Across her brow, with a shade of fear. 
 
 I often look at that picture now 
 
 Which hangs in the nursery as it should, 
 And I watch for the faint line on the brow 
 
 When her children are ever in angry mood : 
 I never have seen it, I'm bound to say, 
 
 Though it may come yet, as they grow old; 
 Still I never have seen it, and never may, — 
 
 Yet these things run in the blood, I'm told. 
 
 He does not speak of her much to me, 
 
 Though he does to his children, which is right ; 
 I tell him to do it, and sometimes he 
 
 Sits by their beds, and talks at night. 
 For, oh, were I taken, my pet, from you, 
 
 I should like you to hear of me from your 
 father : — 
 Should I like him to give you a step-mother too? 
 
 Nay, let us die together rather. 
 
 I talk to you, baby, as I can 
 Unto no other but you, my pet : 
 
 K
 
 146 MOTHER AND STEPMOTHER. 
 
 There's a nook in my heart which my own good 
 man — 
 
 And he's very good — has not been in yet : 
 It is there where I think of his former wife, 
 
 And the picture up in the nursery, 
 And wonder if they had peace or strife, 
 
 And if he could love her as he loves me 
 
 Oh, baby, it's hard to fill my post ? 
 
 But yes ! I will love her children more ; 
 They shall not feel that for you they lost 
 
 One touch of the love that they had before. 
 I cannot give them my own baby's part. 
 
 That's yours, my darling, whatever befall; 
 But, oh, your coming has filled my heart 
 
 More and more with the love of all.
 
 BAILIE BUTTERS AND YOUNG DINIVOODIE. 147 
 
 ^ntlic gutters anb loitng gintocroliic. 
 
 Two men in a cosy Hostel sitting 
 
 By a sea-coal fire, in a cheerful light, 
 While past the window were shadows flitting 
 
 Through the fog of a dull November night, 
 Were cracking their walnuts after dinner, 
 
 With dry-palate olives to flavour the wine, 
 Hardly feeling like saint or sinner. 
 
 But that it was good for a man to dine. 
 
 One was a smooth, smug, florid, pot-bellied 
 Clean-shaven man, of a portly mould, 
 
 With tremulous cheeks, as if nicely jellied. 
 And coloured with port-wine ricli and old ;
 
 148 BAILIE BUTTERS AND 
 
 The other an Exquisite, long-Hmbed, sprawHng 
 
 Low on an easy soft-cushioned seat, 
 Lisping his words, and slowly drawling 
 
 Thoughts that ran on at a fever-heat. 
 
 Quoth the pot-bellied one : " You were saying 
 
 Life's not worth living ; you're wrong, sir, quite : 
 This world, though it's not just for idling and playing, 
 
 Is the best of all worlds if you take it right. 
 It is not the heaven folk see before 'em, 
 
 ^Vhen they fall in love at a country dance, 
 But I've seen more than you of its variorum, 
 
 And I'd live it again, if I had the chance. 
 
 Not worth living, sir ! If you are sober, 
 
 Honest and willing to do its work, 
 Hating a rogue and a thief and a robber, 
 
 And playing a fairly good knife and fork — 
 For I admit that if one is dyspeptic 
 
 He cannot well live as a good man should : 
 His bad digestion will make him skeptic 
 
 Of all that is happy and right and good — 
 
 But let him be sober and prudent and willing 
 To work, as he should, till his sixty years. 
 
 With his wits about him to turn a shilling, 
 
 And know a good thing, when his chance appears.
 
 YOUNG DINWOODIE. 149 
 
 Let him be civil, and follow the leading 
 Of common sense just, whatever he's at, 
 
 And his life shall be pleasant as novel-reading — 
 And I am myself now a proof of that. 
 
 I was poor enough when I was a lad, sir; 
 
 Hadn't a copper for some folk's pound ; 
 Yet most of them, by and by, went to the bad, sir. 
 
 And God knows where they are now to be found; 
 But I worked at anything that was going. 
 
 And I saved up every penny I could ; 
 And my ventures grew as my cash was growing, 
 
 And whatever I promised, my word was good: 
 
 Yes ! I was poor, when first 1 started, 
 
 And should have been poor still, according to you, 
 If God does not care though we're all broken-hearted, 
 
 But just goes His own way whatever we do ; 
 Yet here I am, sir; I'm nobody's debtor, 
 
 And I lay a calm head on my pillow at night, 
 For God has been good — He could scarce have 
 been better — 
 
 To order things rightly, because I did right. 
 
 Now if I had taken to gambling and drinking. 
 Do you think I should be where I am to-day
 
 15° 
 
 BAILIE BUTTERS AND 
 
 'With funds in the Bank and the Stocks — though 
 they're sinking 
 
 Almost a quarter, I'm sorry to say? — 
 Never, sir. But there's a God up in heaven 
 
 Who always takes care of respectable folk ; 
 And what better proof of it could there be given ? — ■ 
 
 I feel that my faith is placed firm on a rock. 
 
 I had not a shilling once ; but I determined 
 
 That I would take warning by what I had seen ; 
 And look to me now : not a judge ever ermined 
 
 Drinks better port wine, with a conscience more 
 clean; 
 My wife is a model ; my children are pictures ; 
 
 My business is thriving ; my home, come and see 
 How its happiness wholly refutes all your strictures, 
 
 And tells a plain tale for my Maker and me. 
 
 Oh I'm grateful to Him ! Yes ; of course, I've had 
 losses ; 
 There is no life without ups and downs here 
 below ; 
 But mine have been mostly benevolent crosses, 
 Where the balance came right, as the ledgers will 
 show.
 
 YOUNG DINWOODIE. 
 
 iSr 
 
 So in me He finds nothing but thankfulness truly 
 That I am not like some who have wasted His 
 o-ift 
 That I never gave way to a passion unruly, 
 
 And when things at the worst were, I always 
 made shift 
 
 To believe in His providence ; and I have seen it, 
 
 For every thing throve with me well from the 
 first; 
 I am sure not an hour of my life or a minute 
 
 But He faithfully saw to my hunger and thirst. 
 But it all depends, sir, on doing your duty, 
 
 And carefully laying your doubts on the shelf, 
 And keeping your head clear of women and beauty. 
 
 To make it the best of all worlds — for yourself.'" 
 
 To him then, the Exquisite : " Ah ! it is pleasant 
 
 To meet, now and then, an exceptional case, 
 A man who is really content with his present, 
 
 Content with himself, and his prize in the race : 
 Not that I think, now, you should be contented 
 
 I could not, though I had your luck, sir, instead 
 Of the emptiest life that was ever invented; 
 
 But I call no one happy, until he is dead.
 
 152 BAILIE BUTTERS AND 
 
 You've not seen the end yet. The cup running over 
 
 May be dashed from your lips, and its treasures 
 all spilt : 
 ^Nlost likely it will ; and your friend then and lover 
 
 Will look on your trouble as if it were guilt. 
 ^Ve are playthings of Nature, and Nature is cruel ; 
 
 She mocks us with favours to break our hearts 
 w^orse ; 
 To-day, she adorns us with some precious jewel, 
 
 To-morrow, the jewel of life is its curse. 
 
 We have pure thoughts of love, we have higli 
 thoughts of goodness, 
 
 We glow with fine feelings, and call them divine, 
 While nature is raging in wrath, or in lewdness, 
 
 And planning an earthquake, or twisting the spine. 
 And why has she made us so, but for the keen edge 
 
 Which conscience can put on the pain we must 
 bear? 
 And we fondly look on to a happy serene age, 
 
 While she has made sure of its sorrow and care. 
 
 Oh your life has been filled full of mercies and 
 blessings. 
 Wife and children and all that your heart can 
 desire ;
 
 YOUNG DINWOODIE. 153 
 
 Your God whom you trust has been kind and 
 caressing, 
 And how can you praise Him enough and admire? 
 Well ; I hope it may last, sir ; but sometimes one's 
 children 
 Have broken the hearts that they once made 
 so glad — 
 I don't say yours will ; but it's rather bewildering 
 When our mercies turn out the worst ills we 
 have had. 
 
 You think it's all goodness that sends you your 
 treasures ; 
 
 And yet your heart sinks at a fall in consols, 
 And there is a bitter drop mixed in all pleasures, 
 
 And there is a vague longing still in our souls : 
 Why can this Goodness not heartily give us 
 
 What cannot be lost, and what fills up our 
 peace ? 
 And why does He grudge all at once to relieve us. 
 
 And bid fear and trouble and sorrow to cease ? 
 
 Was it Goodness that fashioned the tiger ? and 
 hollowed 
 The fang of the cobra that bites in the dark ?
 
 154 
 
 BAILIE BUTTERS AND 
 
 And what was the fond line of thought which it 
 followed 
 When it planted the teeth in the jaws of the 
 shark ? 
 Or the love that created those lizards and dragons, 
 And mail-clad the fishes, when earth was but 
 slime ! 
 It could wait through long ceons for ploughshares 
 and waggons, 
 But for carnage must not lose a moment of time I 
 
 We blame our fierce soldiery lusting for battle, 
 We number their slain with a horror aghast. 
 We mourn the waste land, without homestead or 
 cattle, 
 Through which the fell march of their armies has 
 past; 
 Yet what have they done but what Nature is doing 
 On a yet grander scale all the days and the 
 years. 
 For she either is battling, or else is renewing 
 
 Her strength for the war, with its woes and its 
 tears. 
 
 J ust look at the ants on their slave-stealing forays ; 
 What goodness and mercy impel them to go ?
 
 YOUNG DINWOODIE. 155 
 
 Or gaze on the tender young lambs in the corries 
 As the ravens scoop out their meek eyes in the 
 snow : 
 And perhaps it was love armed the midge and 
 mosquito 
 That curse the bright warm summer day to us all, 
 And the wasp and the hornet are owing to it too, 
 And the centipede hid in the old mossy wall. 
 
 Nay, but Nature is fierce, sir, and false too and 
 cruel, 
 And all through her realm there is war to the 
 knife, 
 All through her years runs the long deadly duel, 
 
 The constant unpitying battle for life. 
 And what is such life worth ? and what of its 
 donor ? 
 When each creature takes what advantage he may 
 Of cunning or sickness, and no laws of honour 
 Can stay the fierce hunger, or shelter the prey ? 
 
 Oh, it's not so with man, is it ? He has a higher 
 And nobler law which he is bound to obey; 
 
 Though sprung from the brute, it is his to aspire 
 To a grander and happier life than they !
 
 156 BAILIE BUTTERS AND 
 
 A happy life ! — ^gout-racked or tossing in fever ; 
 
 A nobis life ! — scrambling for pence in the mire ; 
 Oh, you pity the poor Chartist cobbler or weaver, 
 
 But you leave him for all that to pine by the 
 fire! 
 
 And then, sir, what need of our huge grated prisons, 
 
 Our gibbets and soldiers and batoned police, 
 And other the like most convincing of reasons 
 
 In the best of all possible worlds like this, 
 But that the stronger would keep down the weaker, 
 
 But that the cunning would outwit the fools, 
 But that the poorer of us and the meeker 
 
 Must needs be their victims, or else be theii 
 tools ? 
 
 Well ; but here is a manor-house, yonder a palace, 
 
 Or a lot of trim villas — sure God must be good ! 
 Ay ; but what of the millions in closes and alleys 
 
 Scant of all raiment and light, sir, and food, 
 And the babes that are suckled on whisky or fever, 
 
 And the girls that ne'er knew a maiden's pure 
 thoughts. 
 And the pains and the aches that the Bountiful 
 Giver 
 
 Dispenses as freely as dust and motes ?
 
 YOUNG DINWOODIE. 157 
 
 No, it is not worth living, this hard life of soitow; 
 
 But there is no other, and we must bear on, 
 Toiling to-day without hope of to-morrow, 
 
 Weary and dull till the light is gone. 
 I once held with you, sir; trying to dream on, 
 
 In spite of the facts, in a fool's paradise; 
 But if there's a deity, sure he's a demon 
 
 Who wrings us with anguish, or tempts us with vice. 
 
 Well spoke the wise Greek in his tragic elation, 
 
 As he pictured the brave heart Fate held in his 
 mesh. 
 Hurling his scorn at the gods and salvation 
 
 With the spikes of the Caucasus piercing his flesh. 
 High-souled the Greek was, moral and fearless, 
 
 And his gods must do right ; or his soul would 
 rebel ; 
 But we must be meek when our life is most cheerless, 
 
 With a lie in our mouth saying, It is all well." 
 
 So they sat there— the two of them — talking and 
 drinking, 
 And eyeing the ruby light-gleam of the wine, 
 Well pleased with their talk, for they thought they 
 were thinking. 
 And each deemed that he did the secret divine;
 
 1^8 BAILIE BUTTERS AND YOUNG DINWOODIE. 
 
 And each took his bottle there pleasant and merry, 
 And each with an easy mind then had his nod. 
 
 And which was the best judge of claret and sherry? 
 And who of the twain Avas the farthest from God? 
 
 Oh best of all worlds for the selfish and shifty, 
 
 Thou art not so good for the noble and true : 
 Oh life well rewarding the prudent and thrifty, 
 
 How shall the Christ-spirit travail with you ? 
 Oh worst of all worlds to the proud heart and 
 faithless ! 
 
 And yet thou canst perfect the meek and the 
 brave ; 
 Strange, sorrowful life that in dying is deathless, 
 
 Glory and mystery, found in a grave. 
 
 Evil the world is; Life a long battle, 
 
 Wrestle with anguish, and warfare with sin, 
 Proving the heart of us, trying our mettle 
 
 By troubles without us and terrors within ; 
 And yet 'tis worth living, to-day and to-morrow, 
 
 The life which God lived in the wealth of His love, 
 Life He made perfect in patience of sorrow, 
 
 God-life on earth like the god-life above.
 
 DEACON DOKATS STORY. 159 
 
 ^eacon glorat's <Ston). 
 
 This is the saw that cut him down, 
 
 The last in our place that was hung in chains, 
 Left to bleach in the suns and rains 
 
 On the gallow-hill of our Burgh town. 
 
 What he had done I remember not — 
 Sheep-stealing, forgery, some offence 
 Which rich men hate with a hate intense, 
 
 Nought can appease but to see the man rot. 
 
 Of course, in those days it was wrong to kill. 
 
 Yet murder often escaped the rope ; 
 
 But for him there was not a gleam of hope, 
 Who wrote your name to a -cheque or bill.
 
 i6o DEACOX DOR ATS STORY. 
 
 I say this because, though I am not aware, 
 After all these years, what his crime might be. 
 Had he wrought a murder, it's certain we 
 
 Would have left the corbies to pick him bare. 
 
 Yet it was not for that we cut him down: 
 
 But the gallow-hill stood at the end of the Links, 
 And it spoilt our game at the golfing rinks, 
 
 That ghastly thing with its grinning frown. 
 
 And we also thought they might hang, or shoot, 
 Or head the living rogues, as they chose ; 
 But it was like a savage to punish those 
 
 Who Avere tried already, and dead to boot. 
 
 And it was not our kindly old Scotch Law 
 
 Which hanged a man, and was done with him : 
 It was only the English that left the grim 
 
 Corpse for the kite's and the raven's maw. 
 
 So we vowed to get the thing out of our way; 
 We were young fellows, and apt to think 
 In a wildish way o'er a drop of drink. 
 
 And the gallows, at any rate, spoilt our play.
 
 DEACON DOR AT' S STORY. i6i 
 
 A dismal night ! I remember well 
 The sullen moan of the restless sea, 
 And the rain that plashed on hill and tree, 
 
 And how my heart thumped at the midnight bell ! 
 
 Ugh ! how the creature grinned and mowed. 
 As if he knew what we were about. 
 And thought that his airy perch without 
 
 Was better perhaps than a grave and shroud. 
 
 Now and then from the town we heard 
 
 The night-watch call, but he came not near, 
 And once we paused with a thrill of fear 
 
 Ax two or three notes like a singing bird. 
 
 What was it? where was it? Hushed with awe. 
 We stood for a moment with bated breath ; 
 When tripping up to that loathsome death 
 
 Two merry boys and a girl we saw. 
 
 Wild black elf-locks, and wild large eyes, 
 Came, weirdlike, tripping along the hill, 
 Singing a merry song, until 
 
 They saw us there with a blank surprise.
 
 1 62 DEACON DO RAT'S STORY. 
 
 " Come hither, now, children : what do ye, 
 At midnight here, by the gibbeted dead? 
 And are ye not fearful now, I said, 
 
 On the bleak bare hill of the gallows tree?" 
 
 " Nay," quoth the maiden straight and tall, 
 "Why should we fear the peaceful dead? 
 He is our father, sirs," she said ; 
 
 " He is our father," said they all. 
 
 There was a lump, sir, rose in my throat, 
 
 And there was a something that dimmed my sight; 
 But I said, "Would you be glad this night. 
 
 If this your father again you got ? " 
 
 " Mother will soon be here, they said, 
 
 She is coming to curse the Law and the Judge, 
 But there is no blessing that she will grudge 
 
 If you give us our father back instead. 
 
 " Lo ! we will haste, and bid her come, 
 Yea, we will haste, and drive the cart. 
 For she will have drunk to cheer her heart " — 
 
 Then they hurried away and left us dumb.
 
 DEACON DORAT'S STORY. 163 
 
 So we cut him down ; and an ugly job 
 It was — may I ne'er do the like again, 
 And we waited an hour, in the pelting rain. 
 
 Under the gallows that we did rob. 
 
 But the wild elf-locks, and the wild large eyes, 
 And the tripping feet, and the eerie song, 
 We looked for them, and we listened long; 
 
 Then laughed that we could have believed their lies. 
 
 We had cut him down ; but what now to do, 
 When we had him down, that puzzled us all, 
 For we had not thought of his burial, 
 
 And it must be done before morning too. 
 
 We spoke of the river near at hand, 
 
 But the thing would float there by and by; 
 We thought of the sea where the tide was high, 
 
 But that would drift him again to land. 
 
 We could easily climb the Kirkyard wall, 
 But the bedral slept near, wakeful, grim, 
 And the crunch of a spade would waken him. 
 
 And a glance would tell him about it all.
 
 1 64 DEACON DOR ATS STORY. 
 
 Were ever men puzzled so much before 
 By getting the thmg they were fain to get? 
 An' if it had been a burden of debt 
 
 It could not have loaded our spirits more. 
 
 We could not carry the creature home, 
 We could not leave it upon the hill ! 
 Oh, but it's strange to get your will. 
 
 And wish you hadn't for days to come ! 
 
 Then up by the winding sandy road 
 
 A light cart passed by the shooting-butts. 
 Jolting o'er hummocks, and creaking in ruts, 
 
 And came to the place where we still abode. 
 
 And with it a gipsy woman we saw. 
 Straight and tall, with a manlike stride. 
 With the three elf-children by her side. 
 
 And she came cursing the Judge and the Law, 
 
 Till she saw the Thing that lay at our feet. 
 
 When she fell on the earth with a wild-beast cry. 
 And clasped it, and kissed it, as we stood by 
 
 Silent, and hearing our own hearts beat.
 
 DEACON DORATS STORY. 165 
 
 Then they four lifted it from the ground, 
 And laid it there on the donkey cart; 
 Who shall tell me the thoughts of that wild heart — 
 
 For she too could love — when her dead she found. 
 
 "I am better at banning than blessing," .she said, 
 " But what of blessing my lips can give, 
 May it be yours, while you breathe and live, 
 
 For that ye have given me back my dead. 
 
 "A rogue and a thief — what else could he be? 
 
 But rogue or thief, lads, he loved us well ; 
 
 If he beat us too, as our backs can tell. 
 Who had a better right than he? 
 
 " Fear not the law shall find out what 
 
 Ye have done this night; go home and sleep, 
 Sure that your secret is buried deep ; 
 
 I have them near by who will see to that." 
 
 She did not weep, and she did not pray, 
 There was not a tremor in her tone. 
 Yet she left us sobbing somehow alone, 
 
 When into the dark she strode away.
 
 i66 
 
 DEACON DOR AT' S STORY. 
 
 That day each street had its eager crowd ; 
 
 Who could have robbed the gallows tree ? 
 
 And the Council met, and the Provost, he 
 Spoke like a minister long and loud. 
 
 Oh how he fumed like a turkey-cock ! 
 We had done despite to the sacred law, 
 We had robbed the gallows of half its awe, 
 
 We had given authority there a shock. 
 
 Nobody knew before in the town 
 
 He could have been half so eloquent ; 
 And he was sure he was on the scent 
 
 Of the Law-defiers that " cut him down." 
 
 By and by they should find that he 
 
 The law and its majesty would maintain. 
 And hang the rogue in his chains again, 
 
 And make those rebels a sight to see. 
 
 They dredged the river, they searched the shore, 
 They watched the kirk-yard, night by night. 
 They questioned here and there, and quite 
 
 Lost their heads for a week and more.
 
 DEACON DOR ATS STORY. 167 
 
 Then one of us just threw out a hint, 
 
 It must have been witchcraft — and it took 
 With the ministers hke a baited hook, 
 
 Who preached on it without let or stint. 
 
 That Sunday, sir, we learnt far more 
 Of the Witch of Endor, and her arts 
 For the making of dead men play the parts 
 
 Of living saints than for years before. 
 
 But the Provost, shrewd man, muttered Pshaw : 
 Let the ministers preach and catechize ; 
 If the devil had wanted such a prize. 
 
 What should he do with a workman's saw ? 
 
 But for me I heeded not what they said ; 
 
 For it rung in my head there all day long, 
 
 That eerie snatch of a gipsy song. 
 And " He is our Father, living or dead." 
 
 All the father she ever knew 
 
 In earth or in heaven — that gruesome thing ! 
 
 And she had come up the hill to sing 
 Her song to him as she used to do !
 
 1 68 DEACON DOR ATS STORY. 
 
 O it was pitiful ! but when I thought 
 Of that wild night, and its madcap job, 
 I could not be sorry that we did rob 
 
 The gallows, and gave them what they sought. 
 
 Better a quiet grave to fill. 
 
 Where the grass is green, and the daisies grow, 
 And the white thorn scatters its fragrant snow, 
 
 Than to mock their hearts on the Gallow hill. 
 
 And this is the saw that cut him down. 
 
 And this is the hand that cleared the Links 
 Of a thing that spoilt the golfing rinks, 
 
 Now and again, in our Burgh town.
 
 THE POETASTER. 169 
 
 1!ke ^0£titsta. 
 
 There was a pathos in it, friend, 
 
 Though you might smile, as I did too. 
 To see that pile of manuscript 
 So strangely from its cradle-crypt 
 Brought suddenly to view. 
 
 Ah ! there are things in this strange life, 
 
 Which move us unto mirth, and yet 
 Behind the laughter there are tears. 
 And thoughts which in the after years 
 Bring touches of regret. 
 
 And oft it is an accident 
 
 Whether you chance to laugh or weep, 
 But when you call it back again 
 The laughter has a twinge of pain 
 
 Which haunts you in your sleep.
 
 I 70 
 
 THE POETASTER. 
 
 He was a poor dull-plodding man, 
 So poor he kept not even a bird 
 To cheer his solitude by song, 
 And voice for him the silent throng 
 Of thoughts that find no word. 
 
 Nor dog, nor cat, nor bird had he, 
 
 Nor wife nor child had ever come 
 To share the burden of his lot, 
 Which he endured and murmured not, 
 In quiet patience- dumb. 
 
 And now he lay there cold and dead, 
 
 And none had watched to see him die ; 
 Alone he had lived all his days, 
 Alone he passed from human ways 
 Beneath the All-seeing eye. 
 
 There was a little loaf of bread — 
 He had not died of hunger then — 
 
 A little fuel too, and oil. 
 
 And water in a can to boil 
 If day should come again,
 
 THE POETASTER. 
 
 171 
 
 Which never came ; and when we sought 
 Through press and drawers for aught to give 
 
 Him decent burial with the dead, 
 
 As he had always held his head 
 'Mong them that decent live, 
 
 Nor gold nor silver there was found, 
 
 Nor plack nor penny; life had gone 
 Just as the little purse was spent. 
 Which lately had no increment 
 From work that he had done. 
 
 It had just lasted out his time 
 
 Through careful scrimping day by day ; 
 He had no debt, he had no kin, 
 And there was nought to lose or win, 
 
 When thus he went his way. 
 
 But for the money, vainly sought. 
 In a moth-eaten trunk we found 
 A mass of manuscripts — a pile 
 Of papers writ in careful style, 
 Some loose, some rudely bound.
 
 172 THE POETASTER. 
 
 Strange gatherings ! scraps of every kind, 
 
 Backs of old letters, envelopes. 
 Half-used account books, paper bags 
 Picked up among the ash and rags 
 And refuse of the shops : 
 
 And every tattered scrap close writ 
 
 With pen or pencil, as 'twould bear, 
 With verses on a hundred themes. 
 With pious arguments and dreams, 
 All rhymed with patient care. 
 
 Oh no ; he had no message, none. 
 To wise or foolish, good or bad; 
 No prophet's burden-word he bore. 
 Which he must speak; and what is more. 
 He never thought he had. 
 
 A silent soul, he went about 
 
 His daily task, and every night 
 Back to his dingy attic came. 
 Nor dreamed about a coming fame 
 Or setting this world right.
 
 THE POETASTER. 
 
 None ever heard him hint a thought 
 
 Of fancied greatness ; never Une 
 Of his competed for a place 
 In corners which small poets grace ; 
 He bottled it like wine. 
 
 But when his fellow labourers met 
 
 With pipe and tankard at the inn, 
 He to his attic would retire, 
 And trim his lamp, and light his fire, 
 And pen his verses thin; 
 
 And lived unto a good old age, 
 
 And never begged a bit of bread. 
 And cheered his loneliness with these 
 Bald rhymes about the birds and trees, 
 And living men and dead. 
 
 There is no sacred fire in them. 
 
 Nor much of homely sense and shrewd 
 Imperfect lines, imperfect rhymes, 
 False quantities, mistaken chimes, 
 Yet all the feeling good. 
 
 173
 
 174 
 
 THE POETASTER. 
 
 There is no envy of the great, 
 
 There's praise of patriot and saint ; 
 If now the story have no point, 
 The reasoning now be out of joint. 
 There is no vain complaint. 
 
 Hard toil it was for that hard hand 
 
 To hammer out these limping lines, 
 Harder than handling spade or hod, 
 Or trenching ditch, or delving sod, 
 Or picking in dark mines. 
 
 Yet night by night he must have writ 
 
 His verse or two for forty years. 
 Long poems some, some meant for songs, 
 Some voiced the common people's wrongs, 
 Some breathed his own sad fears. 
 
 But none had ever heard him say 
 
 How the long evening hours were spent ; 
 He never showed the rhymes he writ, 
 Nor tried to see their clumsy wit 
 How it might look in print. 
 
 -^-
 
 THE POETASTER. 
 
 ns 
 
 Enough for him the silent task, 
 
 Enough to read the abortive rhyme, 
 Now pleased with this, now touched with that, 
 He knew not why; he knew not what 
 Was pathos or sublime. 
 
 Strange passion ! thus to jingle words, 
 And hide them in a big old chest ! 
 
 'Twas but some hours before he died 
 
 The last was written, and beside 
 The rest in order placed. 
 
 Yet there was pathos in it, friend ; 
 
 I laughed a little on my road, 
 But the tears got the better soon, 
 It was so innocent to croon 
 
 His bits of verse to God.
 
 176 
 
 PARISH PASTORS. 
 
 ^arieh pastor© 
 
 LONG AGO. 
 
 There were some five hundred, young and old, 
 Souls in the parish, when all were told, — 
 Cock-lairds upon the landward braes, 
 Scattered farmers, and cottar folk, 
 And the fishers who kept to tlieir own old ways 
 In the village that huddled beneath the rock, 
 Where a sheltering cove made a safe retreat 
 For the brown lug-sails of their little fleet ; 
 'Twas the only break in a stormy shore 
 Rock-girdled for ten good miles, and more. 
 
 Five hundred souls, and they did not care 
 Though neither a Bank nor a Post was there,
 
 PARISH PASTORS. 177 
 
 Nor Doctor to physic their mortal ills, 
 Nor Lawyer to draw their deeds and wills — 
 Ten miles off was a town where these 
 Might be had by them when they please ; 
 And farmers, going to market, brought 
 What letters there might be, now and then, 
 Which maybe had lain for a month, unsought. 
 Spotted with flies in the window pane. 
 Easily went the world with them. 
 They made no struggle its tide to stem, 
 But slumbered as in a quiet bay, 
 And heard its murmuring far away. 
 And grew their oats, and ground their bere, 
 And caught the fish, and fed the steer. 
 And noted the changes of the year. 
 
 But for the care of their souls they had 
 
 Of pious and learned pastors three; 
 
 Not that the way of their life was bad, 
 
 Or that more godly they sought to be 
 
 Than their neighbour-folk by the wild North Sea ; 
 
 But just that it had been so of old, 
 
 And they never thought to enlarge the fold, 
 
 And gather the flock together there 
 
 With ampler room and a freer air. 
 
 M
 
 178 PARISH PASTORS. 
 
 So had their fathers done, and they ' 
 Followed of course in their fathers' way. 
 And the pastors three with their scanty flocks 
 Of cock-lairds, farmers, and fisher folks, 
 Peacefully lived, as brethren should. 
 All of them busy in doing good. 
 Christening, wedding, and burying, each 
 After the manner his Church did teach, 
 And trying on Sundays truth to preach. 
 
 Dr. Boyack. 
 
 Low on a haugh, by the river side. 
 The homely Manse in its garden stood, 
 With a clump of grand old elms to hide 
 The rough-cast walls, and the paintless wood. 
 And close to it was the parish kirk. 
 But what it was there w^as nought to tell 
 Save only a belfry and tinkling bell, 
 Above its rough-cast rubble-work. 
 A humble Kirk, and a homely Manse 
 On the haugh among the trees and rooks ; 
 Where the white-thorn hedges had grown, per- 
 chance, 
 IJnpruned for the sake of the ricks and stocks,
 
 PARISH PASTORS. 
 
 179 
 
 For the stocks of corn and hay are more 
 
 Than a well-trimmed hedge to a household poor: 
 
 But they helped to make more wildly fair 
 
 The old Manse-garden breathing there 
 
 Of thyme and every sweet herb that grows, 
 
 And the pink, and wall-flower, and cabbage rose. 
 
 Oh, there the strawberry beds were good, 
 
 And the gooseberry bushes had golden fruit. 
 
 And the apple-tree boughs were stayed with wood, 
 
 They clustered so thick upon every shoot, 
 
 And the jargonelles on the gable hung 
 
 Sweet as honey the leaves among : 
 
 Just a garden for boys and girls. 
 
 Ne'er while they lived to be forgot; 
 
 And sunny faces and golden curls- 
 
 Flashed through its trees when the sun was 
 
 hot- 
 Eight wild boys, and as many maids 
 In homespun dresses, with unkempt hair, 
 Laughed and sang in the grassy glades, 
 Or gathered the fruits of the garden fair. 
 And gladdened the minister's heart, but yet 
 They burdened it too with a fear of debt. 
 
 Easy-natured and kindly he, 
 Respectable always in every thing ;
 
 i8o PARISH PASTORS. 
 
 Nothing he did but it had the ring 
 
 Of cultured mediocrity ; 
 
 In talents, in morals, in learned lore 
 
 Respectable ever, and nothing more. 
 
 No special mission had he to preach; 
 
 No special faculty his to teach ; 
 
 Nor special power of the priestly art 
 
 Or to console, or move the heart ; 
 
 There seemed no reason why he should be 
 
 God's servant there in the parish Kirk, 
 
 Instead of dealing out tape or tea, 
 
 Or driving the plough from morn to mirk, 
 
 Save that he read some Latin and Greek, 
 
 And wrote good words that were smooth and 
 
 weak. 
 Yet he did his task in a patient way. 
 With doctrine solid, if stiff and cold. 
 Ready by day or by night to pray 
 With the sick or the poor that were in his fold — 
 Mostly the farmers and cottar-folk. 
 To all of whom, as they hung about 
 After sermon, the minister spoke 
 Of the weather and crops, and the sheep and nowt, 
 And their rheumatisms, and their girls and boys, 
 And all their commonplace griefs and joys. 
 No high ideal had he to raise
 
 PARISH PASTORS. t8i 
 
 Their souls from the level ot common ways, 
 Nor passion nor power to stir the mind 
 As with the rush of a heaven-born wind : 
 But well he knew all their homely lot, 
 Their joys and sorrows he ne'er forgot. 
 Could tell what came of the scholar son, 
 And where had the married daughter gone, 
 Had ever the fitting word on his lip, 
 And griped each hand with the proper grip : 
 That bound their hearts to him fast and true 
 As surest cords of love could do. 
 Little he read, and what he did 
 Was mostly sermons to "fang his pump," 
 When it ran dry, and the weekly need 
 Rang in his head like a warning trump. 
 Yet though he made complaint that wealth 
 Of letters, alas ! was not for him. 
 Being rich in children in hungry health, 
 I trow he was not a man to dim 
 His eyes with poring on musty books ; 
 Far better he liked the cawing rooks. 
 The smell of the hay-field, and the talk 
 Of farming folk in a sauntering walk ; 
 For what of learning he had was worn 
 Outside, like clothes of the proper trim, 
 But it never was truly part of him,
 
 1 82 PARISH PASTORS. 
 
 And now it was somewhat rent and torn. 
 
 He had not a doubt to trouble him, 
 
 And his faiths Avere only as corks to swim 
 
 Through life as easily as he might, 
 
 And net whatever might come his way ; 
 
 And with the world he would not fight, 
 
 If he could only get through the day. 
 
 Yet he was reasonable, and shed 
 
 A sort of light too along his path, 
 
 Which not from the heavenly founts was fed, 
 
 Nor yet from the baleful fires of wrath : 
 
 It was somewhat earthly perhaps and cold. 
 
 And led not many into the fold, 
 
 But yet it did not lead astray, 
 
 If it only lit up half the way. 
 
 No lofty purpose in life had he. 
 
 No spirit earnest and brave and true 
 
 The glory and hope of God to see ; 
 
 Nor yet a-craving for something new : 
 
 But he walked with them in the way they 
 
 trod, 
 And talked with them of the things they knew, 
 And his speech was easy and natural too, 
 Save when he spoke of the things of God. 
 A wholesome nature, and fain to please ; 
 Saintship in him had been like disease
 
 PARISH PASTORS. 183 
 
 Which he was ever upon the watch — 
 Though he hardly needed it — not to catch ; 
 For to be called Fanatic he 
 Dreaded like sin and misery. 
 
 Dean Duffus. 
 
 Down in the cove, where the fisher folk 
 
 Huddled beneath the lighthouse rock, 
 
 There was a dainty little Kirk 
 
 Of the old faithful mason-work,— 
 
 It might be the choir, or the pillared nave, — 
 
 With a bell that rung o'er the breaking wave. 
 
 And a great cross on the gable stood; 
 
 And all within it was fair and good, — 
 
 Marble altar, and carven font, 
 
 And silver vessels, as were wont. 
 
 Under the great black holy Rood. 
 
 Long it had been but a ruin grey. 
 
 Roofless, and wasting in slow decay. 
 
 The muUions all from the windows gone ; 
 
 The carven niche, and the fine-scrolled stone 
 
 By nettles and long grass hid from view; 
 
 And the font had been broken and overthrown. 
 
 And pillar and arch were crumbling too ;
 
 1 84 PARISH PASTORS. 
 
 And the cunning fox had made his lair, 
 
 And the rook and the jay had nestled there. 
 
 Some laid the blame upon Knox's wrath ; 
 
 Some held it was swept from the Covenant's path ; 
 
 Some charged it to Cromwell's Ironclads ; 
 
 And some to a raid of the Highland lads ) 
 
 But they who had searched the matter well 
 
 Read how a great Lord lost a bet, 
 
 And tore off the roof, and melted the bell, 
 
 And sold them to pay his gambling debt, 
 
 After the new Kirk was built away 
 
 Landward, far from the little bay. 
 
 And all agreed that a Kirk was there 
 
 From the days that the Culdee launched his boat. 
 
 And came with the voice of psalm and prayer, 
 
 And gospel true to the people brought 
 
 From the lone Isle of saints that lay 
 
 Where ghostly mists on the waters slept. 
 
 But God shone out of the mists by day, 
 
 And spake in dreams to them Avhen they slept. 
 
 And ever their souls in quiet kept. 
 
 So the good Dean, when he came there, 
 Curate or priest, long years ago. 
 Loving a Kirk that was old and fair 
 As the ivy loves round its walls to grow,
 
 PARISH PASTORS. 185 
 
 Had clung to it with a longing heart, 
 
 And with his own hands cleared a part, 
 
 Casting out nettles and grass and earth, 
 
 Till he came to the pavement of solid stone, 
 
 And whatever of beauty he found, or worth, 
 
 He sought out its place, and fitted it on. 
 
 Then with his savings, year by year, 
 
 He mended a bit, and roofed it in, 
 
 Living himself on sorriest cheer 
 
 This trophy again for his Church to win : 
 
 And now it stood there fair to see 
 
 In lines of graceful symmetry ; 
 
 A bell once more from the steeple rung, 
 
 And matin and vesper were daily sung, 
 
 And the organ pealed, and the common prayer 
 
 Was sweetly toned to the fishers there. 
 
 Yet all the wealth of his worldly gear 
 
 Was less than three score pounds a year. 
 
 Near by the Kirk was a cottage small, 
 
 With a red-tiled roof, and a white-washed 
 
 wall, 
 A garden plot that was bright with flowers, 
 An old sun-dial to tell the hours. 
 Some carven stones that were broken quite. 
 And might not fit in their places right,
 
 1 86 PARISH PASTORS. 
 
 Yet were too sacred to be thrown 
 
 Among the rubbish of common stone, 
 
 With a green paling to fence all round, — 
 
 These told where the Dean a home had found. 
 
 It was not other than all the rest 
 
 Of the fishermen's huts that there were seen, 
 
 Save only that it was neat and clean. 
 
 With an attic chamber for a guest: 
 
 But the Dean's own bed was in the wall. 
 
 Hid behind volumes, great and tall, 
 
 In the little room where he read and wrote, 
 
 And did the work that a pastor ought. 
 
 There on the shelves were folios piled ; 
 
 There Benedictine fathers smiled 
 
 In snowy vellum, crimson-lettered — 
 
 These he said were his golden mines — 
 
 Anfl high on the upper shelves were scattered 
 
 Big quartos too of the great divines, 
 
 And tables and chairs and floor were littered — 
 
 With books that were scored with scarlet 
 
 lines ; 
 For he was a classic ripe and good, 
 And loved the old wine in the seasoned wood, 
 But all translations were bottled and dead. 
 With an evil taste of the cork, he said.
 
 PARISH PASTORS. 187 
 
 The other room was a kitchen dean. 
 And there no woman was ever seen, 
 But once a day, about noon, his man 
 Lit up the fire for a little can — 
 If it were not a fast, and a fast, at least, 
 Came twice a week to this humble priest — 
 And made for him pulse or porridge sweet. 
 But the Church's Feasts had sodden meat; 
 And if a guest by chance was there, 
 There might be a glass of mildest ale ; 
 And an evening pipe to soothe his care 
 Was the one luxury did not fail. 
 Yet was he healthy and strong, nor kept 
 Ever his bed for a day, or slept 
 After the dawn, but rose to pray 
 For his fisher lads in the stormy ba}'. 
 
 A tall, lean form with lank grey hair. 
 Bushy his eyebrows, and grey his eyes, 
 Deep sunk in a face that was pale and spare ; 
 And he dressed in a threadbare lowly guise. 
 One apron had served him all his days, 
 His newest hat, it was ten years old, 
 His well-brushed coat had a shining glaze, 
 And his great thick shoes had been patched and 
 soled ;
 
 1 88 PARISH PASTORS. 
 
 White was his lawn on the Sabbath morn, 
 
 But half was darning, and all was worn 
 
 Into so fine a filament 
 
 It scarce could be handled without a rent. 
 
 Yet had he ever so stately an air 
 
 That rich and poor did understand, 
 
 Whatsoever his raiment were, 
 
 He was a man to hold command. 
 
 And none might slight him in all the land. 
 
 Old was the world in which he lived, 
 
 Old the evils at which he grieved, 
 
 Old were the things that most he cherished, 
 
 Old were his hopes too, past and perished. 
 
 He held that it was a sin to own 
 
 Other than Stuart to sit on the throne. 
 
 And still did his faith intact remain 
 
 Now that there was not a Stuart to reign. 
 
 Therefore a strict non-juror he 
 
 All the years of his youth had been. 
 
 Doing his constant ministry 
 
 In hidden ways, and in spots unseen. 
 
 Praying for him who in exile lay 
 
 " Over the hills and far away." 
 
 Now law and order he kept, 'tis true. 
 
 Giving to Caesar Caesar's due,
 
 PARISH PASTORS. 189 
 
 But the lo3'al heart that would have shed 
 
 Its blood for the kings of the ancient line, 
 
 Clung to the memories of the dead, 
 
 And the vanished rule of the Right divine. 
 
 He fasted still for the martyred Charles, 
 
 And him who perished on Magus moor. 
 
 And held that the Parliament men were 
 
 carles, 
 The devil pricked on to delude the poor. 
 And that gallant Dundee did right to maul 
 The Westland Whigs who were rebels all. 
 But for the new world, and its ways, 
 And all the great hopes of the latter days, 
 Their science and its expanding views, 
 New-fangled craving for latest news, 
 And workmen striking for higher wage, 
 And all that mostly our thoughts engage — 
 For them he kept strictly a yearly Fast, 
 Each year bitterer than the last — 
 It fell when Culloden day begins — 
 And he called it the Fast of All the Sins. 
 
 So, true to his own ideal, there 
 He chaunted the psalm, and read the prayer, 
 And gathered the lore of ancient times 
 From Latin Fathers and Latin rhymes.
 
 I go PARISH PASTORS. 
 
 Till scholars came from far and near 
 
 This primitive Pastor to revere ; 
 
 But hardly ever a point was found 
 
 Where he touched the life that went on around, 
 
 Moved it, or felt with it as it spoke, 
 
 Or heeded how its passions woke, 
 
 Or how its bubbles swelled and broke. 
 
 The Reverend Richard Rule. 
 
 Landward upon the rolling braes. 
 
 Wind-swept, and apart from the common ways, 
 
 Where once had stretched a moorland waste. 
 
 But now it was covered with grass and corn. 
 
 Another kirk on a height was placed 
 
 Among two or three pinetrees tempest-torn ; 
 
 And Church of the Wilderness it was named. 
 
 Built for a prophet-pastor famed 
 
 For his doom-speaking words, and his stedfast 
 
 faith, 
 When the wild dragoons were dealing death ; 
 But he lived through the evil times, and saw 
 Though he would not allow, a better law; 
 And the bonnet lairds on the rolling braes 
 Had been Cameron's men in the troublous days.
 
 PARISH PASTORS. 
 
 191 
 
 A plain square building, never meant 
 To be tricked with carnal ornament, 
 Roudi in its stonework, and rude in its lines, 
 Grimly it stood by the ragged pines. 
 
 There ministered one who held his head 
 
 High as the Dean, and would not brook 
 
 King or Parliament, living or dead, 
 
 Unless the Covenant oath they took : 
 
 William or George, Charles or James, 
 
 Stuart or Guelph, it mattered not. 
 
 Nor what their characters, what their aims. 
 
 Or whence their claim to have rule was 
 
 brought. 
 Whether from Bishop's anointing oil, 
 Or from the people who sweat and toil. 
 Or from a long ancestral line 
 Lapt in the dream of a right divine; 
 He would protest against the throne, 
 Unless the Covenant it would own, 
 For this was a Covenant Land, and bound 
 By solemn league to be holy ground 
 Where Papist, Prelatist, Sectaries all 
 Should ne'er have authority great or small. 
 Nor should Erastian preach the Word 
 Where the martyred saints of old were heard.
 
 1 92 PARISH PASTORS. 
 
 He was a small, brisk, cheerful soul, 
 
 Not a whit gloomy or morose, 
 
 Apt at telling a story droll, 
 
 Gay among brethren and jocose, 
 
 And hardly would he restrain his wit 
 
 When in grave Presbytery even they sit. 
 
 Yet in the pulpit he would groan 
 
 About the defections which he saw, 
 
 And that he would soon be left alone 
 
 Even as Elijah to stand by the Law, 
 
 And by the altar and irutii of God, 
 
 For which our Fathers dyed the sod 
 
 Red with their own best blood, that we 
 
 Might have the gospel pure and free. 
 
 Then would his tremulous voice swell higher, 
 
 Like the sound of winds among trees that 
 
 moan, 
 As though some Power did his soul inspire. 
 Nor even the Dean could so finely intone. 
 
 He, too, was a man of learning, skilled 
 
 In all polemics since Luther broke 
 
 Her sleep, and the Church from dreams awoke, 
 
 And wrath was kindled, and blood was spilled. 
 
 Well had he conned each mighty tome 
 
 Of Calvinist, Lutheran, Doctor of Rome,
 
 PARISH PASTORS. 
 
 ^93 
 
 And what the Philistine Prelate writ, 
 
 And how the Puritan-David hit 
 
 The boastful giant with sling and stone, 
 
 And struck down the mitre that wrecked the 
 
 throne. 
 The faintest shade of Arminian error 
 Well could his watchful eye detect, 
 And he thundered at it, in wrath and terror, 
 For comfort there of the Lord's Elect. 
 So he deemed he must faithful be 
 Unto the little flock that he 
 Tended and fed amid sore distress 
 In the lonely Church of the Wilderness. 
 
 Stronger he than the other two, 
 
 Learning and talent he did not lack ; 
 
 Yet were there some things he could do 
 
 From which their souls would have shrunken back. 
 
 He was not so noble, I reckon, as they, 
 
 At least, he could stoop to a meaner way, 
 
 And did not feel it, but made a jest 
 
 Of that which had broken their soundest rest. 
 
 For the wee cock-lairds that were his flock, 
 
 They were as hard as the flinty rock; 
 
 And minded to have their gospel cheap, 
 
 Letting him sow if themselves might reap ; 
 
 N
 
 194 
 
 PARISH PASTORS. 
 
 And, maybe, dealing with them had been 
 The blunting of feelings that once were keen ; 
 And maybe the children's hungry cry 
 Quenched the gleam of his wrathful eye. 
 
 Five hundred souls, when all were told, 
 
 Dwelt in the parish, young and old, 
 
 Well shepherded surely by pastors three 
 
 Who lived together in amity, 
 
 And had no quarrels, nor sought to rob 
 
 Each other's folds of a sheep or lamb, 
 
 And lived, far off from the noisy mob. 
 
 In a world of their o\\ti that was full of calm. 
 
 Yet what could they do for the landward folk, 
 
 Or the fishers beneath the lighthouse rock? 
 
 AVhat help to their warfare could they bring? 
 
 What light to shine on the darkening road? 
 
 What song could they give their hearts to sing 
 
 When burdened with sorrow or death or- 
 
 God? 
 What gospel had they to raise the soul 
 Above the weather and crops and beeves, 
 And spur them to run for the grander goal 
 In the world beyond these falling leaves? 
 
 Respectable one, and easy-hearted,
 
 PARISH PASTORS. 
 
 195 
 
 He went about in a kindly way ; 
 
 One lived in a world that had long departed ; 
 
 And one was eager the slain to slay \ 
 
 Meanwhile the people grew their oats, 
 
 And mended lines and nets and boats, 
 
 And made their malt, and brewed their ale, 
 
 And drank at wedding-feast and fair. 
 
 And harvest-home, and auction- sale \ 
 
 And at the funerals took their share 
 
 Of heavy wines and waters strong, 
 
 As they bore the dismal bier along. 
 
 But there were mothers that were not wives, 
 
 And there were widows that tired of weeping, 
 
 And there were prodigals wasting lives, 
 
 And sorrowful hearts that lay unsleeping, 
 
 Through weary nights long vigil keeping. 
 
 And they had their thoughts about life and 
 
 death. 
 And sin and mercy and God and faith ; 
 And now and then from the world without 
 There came to their souls strange wafts of doubt. 
 And things that were not in the catechism ; 
 But how to deal with them no one knew 
 They dreaded heresy, error and schism, 
 But wist not what of these thoughts were true, 
 Or what, if they were, they ought to do :
 
 196 PARISH PASTORS. 
 
 For the three good pastors kept their road, 
 And lightened not any one of his load. 
 
 Now, times are changed ; there are not many more 
 
 Souls in the parish than were of yore, 
 
 Yet the pastors three have grown to four; 
 
 And their thoughts are run in a sharper mould, 
 
 And a spirit is there which was not of old. 
 
 It may be, their faith in God is more, 
 
 But they have not the same faith in each other ; 
 
 It may be, they love Christ as before. 
 
 But they walk not so lovingly now together : 
 
 And mostly they build partition wall, 
 
 Not the wall of a larger fold ; 
 
 For that which is common alike to all, 
 
 That of little account they hold. 
 
 And yet a milder gospel tells 
 
 Of love that in the Father dwells, 
 
 And sweeter strains of praise are sung, 
 
 And bells in graceful spires are rung, 
 
 And they all walk in stricter ways, 
 
 And they all spend laborious days. 
 
 For life is there, and that is good, 
 
 Though it be young life in its selfish mood — 
 
 Life is there, with its warmth and power, 
 
 Its yearning hope, and its eager strife.
 
 PARISH PASTORS. 197 
 
 Its thought unfolding like a flower, 
 Its craving still for a fuller life, 
 Its futile effort, its failing faith, 
 Its fresh revival and confidence. 
 Its error too, like a misty wraith, 
 Ghost of some old forgotten sense — 
 Life with its loves, and hates, and fears. 
 Its wondrous joys, and its bitter tears. 
 Its follies, blunders, useless fights. 
 Its brooding shadows, and mystic lights : 
 Life has broken the slumberous spell. 
 And it is not all good, — yet it is all well.
 
 198 
 
 AMORY HILL. 
 
 ^morg X^ill. 
 
 Does any one know about Amory Hill ? 
 What an unrestful mind she had, 
 Questioning everything, good and bad, 
 
 Subtle in thought, and firm of will ! 
 Beautiful, too, in her way : but what 
 Ever could come of a girl like that? 
 
 &' 
 
 Oh, you remember the large grey eyes ; 
 
 What a keen look in them did lie, 
 
 Fain to be told the reason why 
 We ever held anything true or wise ! 
 
 And say what you might, she would still find out, 
 
 Somehow or other, a ground for doubt.
 
 AMORY HILL. 
 
 Under the Word she must see the Thing. 
 
 Never content with the neatest phrase; 
 
 The coin might be of the ancient days, 
 But still she must try if it truly ring, 
 
 And bite it too with her dainty teeth, 
 
 For it might look well, and be false beneath. 
 
 No matter how old a lie might be. 
 
 Age, she said, could not make it true ; 
 No matter though truth be fresh and new, 
 
 It was the pleasanter sight to see, 
 Like a fresh star your eyes behold, 
 Where never a star had been seen of old. 
 
 Liked ! how could she be liked, a girl 
 Who'd squat her down in a quiet nook, 
 Out of the way, with a folio book. 
 
 With all the rest of us there in a whirl 
 Of work or talk ? And she did not heed, 
 If only we left her at peace to read. 
 
 Of course, her doubts and her questions tried 
 Every one's patience, more or less, 
 And the older folk, when they felt the stress', 
 
 Were fain their ignorance to hide, 
 
 And sent her off, with a sharp rebuke. 
 Back again to her foHo book. 
 
 199
 
 200 AMORY HILL. 
 
 Somehow she never took it ill, 
 
 Whatsoever you chanced to say ; 
 
 But not in the least did it change her way ; 
 She soon had another question still : 
 
 Never the same one twice, for now 
 
 She would puzzle it out by herself somehow. 
 
 What could come of a girl like that, 
 
 Who would not walk on the common road, 
 Who fretted at bearing the common load, 
 
 And did not know what she would be at. 
 And was not sure of the common creed, 
 And gave not her dress a moment's heed? 
 
 Oh, Amory Hill ! Amory Hill ! 
 
 And yet how good she was and nice. 
 Scorning a meanness, and hating a vice. 
 
 With a brave true heart and a patient will. 
 Loving the truth, and not afraid ! — 
 What has come of the grey-eyed maid ?
 
 . AMORY HILL. 201 
 
 ^mors liU. 
 II. 
 
 I thought you had heard of Amoiy Hill : 
 It made at the time a mighty stir, 
 But nobody no\v-a-days thinks of her. 
 
 We wonder at nothing, good or ill. 
 After two or three days are past — 
 That is enough for a comet to last. 
 
 Amory grew, as you might expect, 
 
 F^om a doubting, questioning, restless elf 
 To a woman, who brooded by herself 
 
 About the Church, and the Lord's Elect, 
 About the fate of the quick and dead, 
 Doubting the more', the more she read.
 
 202 
 
 AMORY HILL. 
 
 At a Revival some one got 
 
 A hold of her for a little while ; 
 
 And she sang their hymns with an angel's smile, 
 And tried to live on their shallow thought; 
 
 But back the questions came, and then 
 
 Oh, she was deep ni her doubts again. 
 
 She writ a Book that I tried to read, 
 But could not tell what it was about — 
 Just like thoughts that she had thrown out 
 
 Into the darkness of thought and deed, 
 And heard them in the silence roll 
 Back again on her yearning soul. 
 
 Poor girl ! she wandered, here and there, 
 
 From pastures green where the grace was rife, 
 Seeking the Way and the Truth and the Life, 
 
 And finding but shadows and dim despair. 
 Till she came to the perilous brink of Faith, 
 Beyond which lieth the realm of death. 
 
 Star after star had all gone out. 
 
 Darkest night was on all her sky; 
 
 And moaning as one who is ready to die, 
 Ah, me ! she said. Must I live without 
 
 God and His Christ and the hope divine. 
 
 That erewhile gladdened this life of mine ?
 
 AMORY HILL. 203 
 
 Then one laid hold of her, drew her back 
 From the dismal gloom of that deadly brink, 
 Told her that now she must cease to think. 
 
 And then no wisdom her soul should lack ; 
 If to the Church she would only bow. 
 It would do all of her thinking now. 
 
 Bland his speech was, and mild his look ; 
 Was he an angel come from heaven 
 To save the soul that was tempest-driven 
 
 There where in terror and pain it shook? 
 And what had all of her thinking brought, 
 Except despair of all certain thought? 
 
 So straightway into his arms she fell, 
 
 Cast away Reason, and swallowed the Creeds, 
 Mumbled her aves, and counted her beads, 
 
 And said it was good in peace to dwell 
 
 With Nuns who had not a thought in their head — 
 But is it the peace of the living or dead ? 
 
 She does much good to the sick and poor. 
 Going about in that quaint odd dress 
 With the little book which her fingers press : 
 
 But then she did quite as much good before. 
 For Amory Hill was always sweet, 
 And came like a sunbeam along the street.
 
 204 AMORY HILL. 
 
 III. 
 
 Who would know me for Amory Hill, 
 
 Once the plague and the tease of School, 
 
 Querying lesson, and breaking rule? 
 And yet I fear I am Amory still, 
 
 Under the white cap and the hood 
 
 Of the patient merciful Sisterhood. 
 
 I've tried, till I think there is no use trying 
 To be anything other than I was made; 
 I've sought the Hght, and I've sought the shade, 
 
 I've crushed my thought, when it rose defying, 
 I've nursed submission, and fondled pam, 
 Yet ever the thoughts come back again.
 
 AMORY HILL. 
 
 205 
 
 Weary, I'm weary ; what shall I do ? 
 
 Oh, will that chatter of theirs not cease ? 
 
 Here I had hoped to have quiet peace 
 In the daily round of duties true, 
 
 And the tranquil hymn, and the whispered prayer. 
 
 Freed from the burden of trouble and care. 
 
 Once I wrestled, in earnest thought. 
 
 With weighty problems of truth and faith, 
 With the high issues of life and death, 
 
 And what we should not do, what we ought : 
 But here our wrestle is not to think — 
 Can it be more sinful to see than wink? 
 
 Does God, indeed, mean that we should not bear 
 The burden of thought ? or fashion a life 
 Of peace, instead of the noble strife 
 
 Inspiring ever the soul to dare, 
 
 And make fresh conquests, if it may, 
 On the realm of darkness, day by day? 
 
 Oh ! but this is rebellion, this is sin : 
 So they tell me, and I have tried 
 To crush it out, and have done, beside, 
 
 Many a penance for letting it in. 
 
 But is it sinful ? and can it be right 
 
 To close the shutters, when God is Light ?
 
 2o6 AMORY HILL. 
 
 This is the hour when they sit and talk, 
 Oh. such nothings ! and not without 
 Touches of malice too, all about 
 
 What they saw in the daily walk 
 
 To visit the sick and the poor, when they 
 Looked on the world and its wicked way. 
 
 But why is the world more wicked than they? 
 They were silly girls ere they took the vow, 
 And they're just as silly sisters now. 
 
 Ribbons and gawds may be put away, 
 
 And love and marriage be counted shame, 
 Yet heart and mind may be still the same. 
 
 How should they differ from what they were?- 
 Hear ! how they chatter as school girls do, 
 And gossip about the folk they knew, 
 
 And who was married, and who was there : — 
 I blame them not, if they did not blame 
 The world as wicked for doing the same. 
 
 ^o 
 
 Are all the people who try to do good 
 As little-minded as those I've known ? 
 Ere I came here, how I used to groan 
 
 At Dorcas meetings in angry mood ! 
 
 And the District Visitors need, I'm sure, 
 Quite as much visiting as the poor.
 
 AAfO/?y HILL. 207 
 
 Oh, how I shrank from the vulgar talk, 
 
 The fuss, and the hard mechanical way 
 
 Of saving so many souls a day 
 By dropping tracts in a morning walk ! 
 
 Not so, I said, would the work be done 
 
 Here by the consecrated Nun. 
 
 But here or there, it is all the same, 
 The talk alike, and the fuss and fret. 
 And the vulgar methods of clearing debt. 
 
 And the mechanical ways and lame 
 For doing of spiritual work, without 
 The faintest thought what you are about. 
 
 And then this drilling of hands and lips ! 
 
 So many hours of work a day, 
 
 So many hours to praise and pray, 
 All of our time cut into snips, 
 
 And just as you get your mind in swing, 
 
 There goes the bell with its ting, ting, ting ! 
 
 Was I mistaken in coming here? 
 
 Was it a hasty step I made? 
 
 I am still free to go back, 'tis said ; 
 And I was not meant for a Nun, I fear. 
 
 But they are all pleased with their happy lot. 
 
 And what would they think if they knew my 
 thought ?
 
 2o8 AMORY HILL. 
 
 It's nonsense what people were wont to say 
 
 About the misery vows may bring, 
 
 About the hearts that are suffering, 
 And the glad bright youth as it wastes away ; 
 
 There is nothing to waste, for they have no mind 
 
 Nor heart nor passion of any knid. 
 
 And yet I feel that I am not free. 
 
 Oh, the subtle threads that are wound 
 
 About us here till our souls are bound, 
 And there's nothing for it but just to be 
 
 As silly as all the rest, and make 
 
 A merit of it for Jesus' sake. 
 
 I gave up my former life in dread 
 
 Of the rush of thoughts into my soul. 
 
 Terrible as the waves that roll 
 Over the weary swimmer's head ; 
 
 But now if I leave this, it will be 
 
 In scorn of its dull vacuity. 
 
 Ay, if I leave it ! but dare I go ? 
 
 Do I not know what would be said 
 
 Better it were to be lying dead 
 Than pine away with a poison slow 
 
 Of lies that would tingle in every vein, 
 
 And break the heart with a nameless pain?
 
 AMORY HILL. 
 
 Ah ! rebel nature could not endure 
 
 The vacant mind and the weary day, 
 The effort to keep all thought away, 
 
 But for the work 'mong the sick and poor : 
 It is among them that I find my good,- 
 If they would not pain me by gratitude. 
 
 209
 
 2IO MISS BELLA J A PR 
 
 Jti03 §dh\ JajJiJ. 
 
 TO HER YOUNG MINISTER. 
 
 Speak out, speak out ! 
 We are all hungering, sir, for truthful words 
 
 Of faith or doubt; 
 And we are weary of all mocking-birds 
 
 Who would be dumb 
 If they might eat their meat, and do no more ; 
 
 And only come, 
 And sing again what we have heard before, 
 And grind again the same tune at the door 
 
 To get their crumb.
 
 J//SS BELLA JAPP. 211 
 
 Oh yes, yes, yes ! 
 We have much talk, we have abundant speech 
 
 In Rhetoric dress — 
 Thin thready talk that has no truth to teach ; 
 
 Poor echoes sent 
 From rock-like brains that barren are of thought : 
 
 No nutriment 
 On which a soul may live is to be got 
 From echoes which are shadows, and give not 
 
 The least content. 
 
 Just speak out that 
 Which God gives you to live on day by day; 
 
 And say not what 
 The people round about would have you say — 
 
 Oh I could preach, 
 If they would let me, if I had a sphere I — 
 
 If you ^\•ould reach 
 The hearts of others, Hsten first and hear 
 What your own heart is saying, and speak it clear 
 
 To all and each. 
 
 Take not your words 
 From pulpit, platform, or from parliament; 
 
 Just take the Lord's — 
 The words which from His lips to you are sent.
 
 212 ^f!SS BELLA JAPP. 
 
 Which few desire, 
 But all believe, whether they will or no : 
 
 And for no hire 
 Proclaim them from the housetops where you go, 
 And cry aloud because they burn and glow 
 
 In you like fire ! 
 
 What ! man, you talk 
 Of living by the gospel you proclaim ! 
 
 Well, if you walk 
 So as to glorify the Lord's great name, 
 
 You shall have meat 
 Enough — the meat He gave to His own Son, 
 
 And that was sweet. 
 " Not muzzle the ox ! " what harm that text has done. 
 Just making lazy " nowt " of many a one 
 
 For meat to eat ! 
 
 I've gone to Kirk 
 Sixty years now since first with Jenny, nurse; 
 
 And what a work 
 I've heard them make about the Fall and Curse, 
 
 Imputed sin. 
 Imputed right, imputed everything,
 
 MISS BELLA J A PP. 213 
 
 Meanwhile within 
 The Devil who had us in his grips would sing, 
 " Impute away ! that's just the way to bring 
 
 My bairns in." 
 
 Now don't you spin 
 Notions and crotchet-things like that about 
 
 Imputed sin, 
 When sin's a fact whereof there is no doubt; 
 
 As you can see 
 Flaunting at every corner its disgrace 
 
 Or misery. 
 And in the " Publics " running a hot race, 
 Ay ! and at Kirk too smirking in the face 
 
 O' the Pharisee. 
 
 Then speak out, man ; 
 Out with it plain, the Devil is in the town, 
 
 And what we can. 
 That, with God's help, we must, to put him down : 
 
 Oh, fools may scoff, 
 But he laughs last who truth has oil his side : 
 
 Hell's not far off 
 Where dead folk are; it's at your very side, 
 And souls drop in as balls are made to slide, 
 
 I' th' holes at golf.
 
 2 14 '^^^■^■^ BELLA JAPP. 
 
 There are the holes, 
 And here's the Devil's game, and well he plays : 
 
 For thoughtless souls . 
 Come dropping in, with some bit pleasant phrase, 
 
 Each hour o' the day. 
 An easy job he's had this many a year, 
 
 For it's poor play 
 We've had against him ; God's been ill served here, 
 And it's been like to drive me mad to hear 
 
 Their feckless wa\". 
 
 But you have come 
 Fresh and hot-hearted, as I hear, from College, 
 
 Freighted like some 
 Others, no doubt, with tons of useless knowledge. 
 
 But, O my man. 
 It's not your metaphysics that we need 
 
 ^Vatery and wan ; 
 Just take the Book, and with your own eyes read. 
 And drop the spectacles of an old-world creed 
 
 About "The Plan." 
 
 And preach right out 
 And pray ; I do not mean to stamp the lloor, 
 
 And sweat and shout ; 
 Cod is not deaf that you .should need to roar :
 
 MTSS BELLA JAPP. 
 
 But take our sin 
 Right by the throat, and call it by its name, 
 
 Nor mind the din 
 The DeA'il will raise because ye spoil his game. 
 Or Pharisee because he's put to shame, 
 
 I'urncd outside in. 
 
 Pick ye no words 
 To tickle itching ears with rhetoric ; 
 
 They have the birds 
 To sing to them if that is what they seek : 
 
 It's dainty phrase 
 And mincing speech have been our very deatli 
 
 These many days, 
 As in the Kirk we sought not truth and faith. 
 But tricks of art to hear with bated breath, 
 
 Like fine stage plays. 
 
 Be strong and true ; 
 Hold up our sins that we may see them bare, 
 
 And hold up too 
 The Cross both to beheve it, and to share 
 
 Its pain and loss. 
 Should sorrow fill our cup unto the brim ; 
 
 215
 
 2i6 MISS BELLA J AFP. 
 
 For on the Cross 
 We see the glory as the eye grows dim, 
 Only we're fain to hand it on to him, 
 
 Who clasped it close. 
 
 Believing much 
 The Cross, that it is all our help and ho])e, 
 
 We will not touch 
 It with our finger, fain to let it drop ; 
 
 And therewith cease 
 The grace and bliss and riches that it brings, 
 
 And all increase ; 
 Meanwhile we sing about the angels' wings, 
 And soothe the sickly conscience as it stings. 
 
 And call this Peace.
 
 THE VILLAGE PHILOSOPHER. 217 
 
 %\\t 13iUitC|c IJhilosopher. 
 
 He kept the village school — some score 
 
 Of boys and girls, with little primers ; 
 Their fathers he had taught before, 
 
 Had called their mothers " idle limmers " : 
 For well he liked to y,ive hard names, 
 
 But still in blandest accent spoken ; 
 They never spoilt the children's games, 
 
 Nor yet by them their heads were broken. 
 
 He had been village "merchant" once, 
 
 But had not prospered in that calling ; 
 A trade, he said, for any dunce, 
 
 To be a ledger overhauling : 
 A silly, mindless business, he 
 
 Was heard in very scorn to mutter, 
 To barter cloth and combs and tea 
 
 And spades and rakes for eggs and butter !
 
 2/8 ■ THE VILLAGE PHIL.OSOPHER. 
 
 For he was a philosopher, 
 
 And such with trade make no aUiance ; 
 They said that even the minister 
 
 Was puzzled with his views of science : 
 He knew the hour of the Eclipse, 
 
 He made the Kirk a ventilator, 
 And could have sailed the biggest ships 
 
 Across the line of the Equator. 
 
 Before the school door he had reared 
 
 A pillar-stone and true sun-dial ; 
 And in the window tliere appeared 
 
 For weather glass a wondrous phial. 
 Its neck was partly ground, and then 
 
 'Twas hung, mouth-downward, filled with water ; 
 And if it dropped, there would be rain, 
 
 But if it shrunk, the clouds would scatter. 
 
 He had a glass that showed the moon 
 
 Whose mountains looked like inky blotches. 
 
 He had a box that played a tune. 
 
 When rightly touched at certain notches ; 
 
 He had a round electric wheel 
 
 Could give a shock to all the village, 
 lat made their elbows ache, and feel 
 As tired as with a hard day's tillage.
 
 THE VILLAGE PHILOSOPHER. 219 
 
 He beat the smith — until he drank — 
 
 At working cures on sickly cattle ; 
 For when he came to byre or fank, 
 
 The sight of him was half the battle : 
 In very fear the ewes grew well 
 
 The moment that they smelt his potions, 
 And cows to healthy sweating fell 
 
 To see his poultices and lotions. 
 
 So blandly as he pinched his snuff 
 
 When he did horse or bullock handle ; 
 So careful as he mixed the stuff 
 
 By light of flaring lamp or candle ; 
 So wisely as he would discourse 
 
 Of Pleuro, Foot-and-Mouth, or Staggers, 
 And if the stubborn brutes grew worse, 
 
 He glared at them with looks like daggers. 
 
 O little village-world that hast 
 
 Thy prophets, watched with faith and wonder, 
 Stoutly believed in to the last 
 
 In spite of failure, loss and blunder, 
 What art thou but the world in small? 
 
 And what its prophets more than thine are? 
 Perhaps an inch or two more tall, 
 
 But hardly even a shade diviner.
 
 2 20 ALTNACRAIG. 
 
 ^Ituaaaig. 
 
 THE HIGHLAND HOME OF PROFESSOR BLACKIE. 
 
 Fair within and without, 
 
 Meet home for a sage and poet, 
 
 With the pine-clad red crags all about, 
 
 And the islanded sea below it; 
 
 Behind, is a ridgy hill, 
 
 And a burn leaps down the brae, 
 
 Where the sleepy clack of a little mill 
 
 T^ow-pulses through the day. 
 
 Fair without, but within 
 Is a rarer nobler beauty — 
 Womanly grace the heart to wm. 
 And patient doing of duty ;
 
 ALTNACRAIG. 221 
 
 And manly thinking and wise, 
 
 And lore of the ancient times, 
 
 And a free true soul that hath no disguise, 
 
 Still singing its careless rhymes. 
 
 Without and within, all fair,— 
 The form alike and the spirit- 
 He bhthe and gay as the bird of the air, 
 She calm in her modest merit ; 
 A self-assertive Greek, 
 Brisk to reason or jest, 
 Espoused to a Roman matron meek 
 And patient and selfsuppressed. 
 
 Green Kerrera lies below, 
 
 You can see the green tower of Dunolly, 
 
 Lismore is green where the white ships go 
 
 Sailing by Appin slowly, 
 
 There are clouds on the hills of Mull, 
 
 And the mist over Morven streams; 
 
 And the heart of the Celt, like his day, is dull, 
 
 Or its lights but the fitfullest gleams. 
 
 O hills of Appin and Lorn, 
 
 And green foam-girdled islands. 
 
 And pools where the rushing streams are born 
 
 That sing to the lonely Highlands ;
 
 222 ALTNACRAIG. 
 
 Dear to this friend of the Gael 
 
 Are loch and stream and Ben, 
 
 And the eerie legend and song and tale 
 
 That haunt the brachened glen. 
 
 Elf-like his locks and grey, 
 
 That wave o'er a Greek-like beauty — 
 
 Tokens of wisdom ripe, whose day 
 
 Was spent in Love and Duty ; 
 
 But the spirit is gay and young 
 
 As in its dewy morn, 
 
 And ever the bird-like song is sung 
 
 As the fresh new thought is born ; 
 
 Bird-like song from the hour 
 
 That fresh as the sun he rises. 
 
 Song in the mist and the flying shower, 
 
 Song when the light surprises, 
 
 Song on the lonely road. 
 
 Song in the thronging street ; 
 
 Ever singing his thoughts to God, 
 
 For his thoughts are pure and sweet. 
 
 And whether of Claclian he speaks 
 Crumbling in dell of the Forest, 
 Or the rich full life of the grand old Greeks, 
 Or Him whom thou surely adorest,
 
 ALTNACRAIG. zzx 
 
 The torrent of speech high-wrought, 
 It may be with froth on it, 
 Is ever a power too of generous thought, 
 With flashes of sparkHng wit. 
 
 Now fatefuUest tales are told 
 
 From yEschylus' tragic pages ; 
 
 Now Plato and Goethe converse hold 
 
 Across the years and the ages ; 
 
 Or Duncan Ban and the deer 
 
 Sweep down the rocky deli. 
 
 And burning pleas from his lips you hear 
 
 For the Celt he loves so well. 
 
 O haunt of the good and wise. 
 
 How oft have thy walls resounded 
 
 With eloquent pleas for the Celt that lies 
 
 By a sordid life surrounded, 
 
 Or with grief that his soul's true health 
 
 Should yield to the bigot's spell, 
 
 Or the meaner sway of vulgar wealth 
 
 That lords the hill and the dell ! 
 
 Beautiful home of truth ! 
 
 Shall we taste no more thy gladness, 
 
 Thy mirth with the innocent bloom of youth, 
 
 Thy wise and thoughtful sadness?
 
 224 
 
 ALTNACRAIG. 
 
 Shall we sit no more at thy board 
 
 As in the bright old times 
 
 With the lights-ome jest, and the grave good word 
 
 And jets of dainty rhymes? 
 
 Farewell ! the sea will beat 
 
 On thy brown rocks, crisply foaming, 
 
 And friends will sit on the far-viewed seat, 
 
 And talk in the golden gloaming ; 
 
 But not such talk as we 
 
 Under the red pines had, 
 
 And, I think, I shall never more care to see 
 
 The place where I was so glad.
 
 COBAIRDY. 
 
 !25 
 
 Cobairiij. 
 
 An old Scotch house, only one room wide, 
 
 But four storeys high, with "a turnpike stair." 
 That corkscrewed up a round tower on its side, 
 
 With the outhouses, made three parts of a square ; 
 A quaint coat-of-arms o'er the big-nailed door 
 
 Had roughly been carved on a red sand stone, 
 And the gate to the square, which the same arms 
 bore. 
 
 Was arched overhead with a whale's jawbone. 
 
 The laird was a squat, little, hard-featured man, 
 Something deaf in the hearing, and bowed in the 
 legs. 
 Careful to waste nought, and get all he can 
 
 For his oats and his here, and his butter and 
 eggs;
 
 2 26 COBAIRDY. 
 
 His mother lived with him in the kitchen there, 
 For the parlour was draughty, and the dining 
 room grim, 
 With no sort of comfort, the laird would declare, 
 From portraits of old lairds that glowered down 
 at him. 
 
 For some of them had red coats, and whips in their 
 hand, 
 Some, gay powdered heads and lace-ruffles fine, 
 And the red coats and ruffles meant acres of 
 land. 
 The laird could not think of, and cheerfully dine; 
 Yet the " Madams " were worse, with their head- 
 tires and frills 
 And satins, every yard of which had cost him dear ; 
 For the clothing of their backs they had stript half 
 his hills, 
 And they were not like his mother for all their 
 fine gear. 
 
 Rarely in the parlour, then, Cobairdy would sit, 
 And never in the dining room, for that made 
 him glum 
 
 To think how his forbears, men of little wit, 
 
 Had parted with his acres for all time to come ;
 
 COBAIRDY. 227 
 
 Racing and dressing and rattling at the dice, 
 To rob him of half his bonny green hills, 
 
 Drinking and card-playing, and dabbling in vice, 
 Till there was little left him but wadsets and 
 bills. 
 
 So each night by the big kitchen fire he was seen, 
 Where an oil-cruse and rushwick bleared through 
 the reek, 
 He and his mother, with a draught-board between, 
 
 Playing a long game would last near a week : 
 'Twas a saving of fire, and a saving of light 
 
 And twice as much comfort, and half as much 
 care j 
 And as for the game, if he lost in a night 
 
 A penny to his mother, it was neither here nor 
 there. 
 
 And day after day, with the sickle or the flail, 
 Or the harrow or the plough he would toil, and 
 not tire; 
 And night after night, his mother would not fail 
 To set forth the draught-board beside the peat- 
 fire; 
 Only on the Sundays, when they came from the Kirk,
 
 2 28 COBAIKDY. 
 
 And saw to the kye, and their fodder and their 
 drink, 
 For the draughts they had " Boston " to read in 
 the mirk, 
 And maybe o'er his pages would get just a wink. 
 
 Few were their words as they sat there alone. 
 With the "lass" at her wheel, for no idleness 
 was there ; 
 And five and forty years now had thus come and 
 gone, 
 And the gear was aye growing, but the laird had 
 grizzly hair; 
 Then his old mother sickened in the fall of the year 
 When most she was needed as the long nights 
 came. 
 And before the oak leaves were yellow all and sere 
 He laid her in the Kirkyard with the rest of his 
 name. 
 
 He laid her in the Kirkyard, and turned round his 
 
 head, 
 
 With a lump in his throat and a tear in his eye, 
 
 And thanked us for the honour we had shewn to 
 
 the dead. 
 
 And also he was glad that the day had been dry ;
 
 COBAIRDY. 
 
 229 
 
 Could his mother but have known, the house had 
 been right 
 
 His friends to receive as they surely ought to be, 
 And a proud woman she would have been that night 
 
 To witness the respect of such a good company. 
 
 Then he took off his hat, and took from its crown 
 
 A yard of red cotton, and bowed to us low. 
 Cried Gee ! to the cart horse, and then sat him 
 down 
 Just where the coffin lay a little while ago ; 
 And home came the poor laird, and went to the 
 byre, 
 And patted brown Crummie, his old mother's pet, 
 And stared at her hens, and her ducks in the mire, 
 And vowed they should live, though they brought 
 him in debt. 
 
 What could he do then? He tried for a time 
 
 " The Fourfold State " of the children of men ; 
 Good were the words, and the doctrine was prime. 
 
 But it was a week day, and who could read then ? 
 Not one good thought got he into his mind 
 
 Of all that the good man tried hard to say. 
 And the more that he read, the more he grew blind, 
 
 And oh but his old heart was " dowie and wae."
 
 2^0 COBAIRDY. 
 
 At last, looking round to "the lass" at her wheel, 
 
 "Jeanie," he said, "will ye bring your stool near? 
 My mother's awa, but I think she would feel 
 
 Better pleased if I went on as when she was here. 
 I've tried hard to read, but instead of the book, 
 
 I see her old face, Jeanie, there where she sat, 
 And how, when she gave me a check, she would 
 look — 
 
 And we had not half finished the game we 
 were at." 
 
 So the laird and his Jeanie sat down by the fire, 
 With the cruse and the rush-wick to light u]> 
 their play ; 
 And she played her game well both in kitchen 
 and byre. 
 For Crummie grew sleek and Cobairdy grew gay. 
 And now she's the " leddy," as braw as the best. 
 And sits in the parlour, and dines in the hall, 
 And her picture is hung by the laird's, with the rest 
 Of the red coats and farthingales high on the 
 wall.
 
 DONALD TOSH AC II. 
 
 231 
 
 |)onall5 ^oshach. 
 
 HIGHLAND LAND IMPROVER. 
 
 Big and burly and jolly and strong, 
 Nineteen stone if he weighs a pound, 
 
 Yet as he strides, with his gun, among 
 
 The corries and hills where the game is found, 
 How light is his step o'er the heathery ground ! 
 
 For his wind is sound, and his heart is gay ; 
 
 There's a dash of Norse blood in that light- 
 haired Celt, 
 
 And his enterprise, and his dashing way 
 He -got from the Vikings of old that dwelt 
 In the ships or the Brochs where the sea is smelt.
 
 232 DONALD TOSH AC H. 
 
 Great is his laughter, and needs but the half 
 Of a joke to set it in roaring trim ; 
 
 It is not the laughter that makes you laugh, 
 
 Yet you would give something to laugh like him, 
 For it seems to go rolling through every limb. 
 
 Shrewd at an argument, always keen, 
 
 Celt-like, to reason of things divine, 
 Yet not, like the Celt, upon faith to lean, 
 
 And pelt you with Scriptures line upon line ; 
 
 For texts to him are like sips of wine : 
 
 So he goes groping half in the dark, — 
 
 Half in the dark, but he swears it is day — 
 
 Like one in a deep mine working stark. 
 By a flickering lamp that shoots its ray. 
 And shows the dark, if it shows the way. 
 
 But his strength is in action, in setting the folk 
 Road making, bridge-building, planting trees, 
 
 Draining the marshes, and blasting the rock. 
 Or reaping the harvest of the seas, 
 Making the idlest busy as bees. 
 
 Watch him sitting on some grey stone, 
 And overlooking the moorland brown ;
 
 DONALD TOSH AC H. 
 
 233 
 
 What are his thoughts as he broods alone ? — 
 Of forests where now only heather is grown, 
 And homesteads and mills, when it shall be his own. 
 
 " Yonder the mansion shall stand on its lawn, 
 The hills shall be covered with larch and pine, 
 
 Here shall the flowering shrubs glow in the dawn, 
 And the wasted torrents shall all combine 
 To be a power and a slave of mine. 
 
 " God made no part of his earth to lie 
 Waste as this is, with idle men 
 
 Watching the wild birds as they fly, 
 
 Or red deer cropping the brachened glen, 
 Or the salmon seeking the streams again. 
 
 *' The corn may mildew, alas ! on the field, 
 And the hay lie wasted there where it grew ; 
 
 Yet something there is which the land should yield. 
 Something there must be for man to do 
 Other than sport the whole year through." 
 
 Then will he buy a big lump of the shire. 
 And men from the isles will come at his call, 
 
 To trench it, and fence it with stone and wire. 
 Five hundred Islesmen strong and tall. 
 Able workers at ditch and wall.
 
 2 34 DONALD TOSHACH. 
 
 And slicing it up into small estates, 
 Planning houses and carriage-ways, 
 
 And winding paths with their wicket gates, 
 And planting thick on the hills and braes, 
 He toils through the sunny summer days. 
 
 Neighbours laugh at him, call him mad. 
 Prophesy death to his million trees, 
 
 Mock at his schemes, and are almost glad 
 Of any mishap that they can seize 
 To shew they were right in their auguries. 
 
 Till some day, lo ! the five hundred men 
 Shoulder their picks, and march away 
 
 Back to their Western Isles again ; 
 
 But twenty freeholders come, and they 
 Pitch their tents, for they mean to stay. 
 
 They love not idle folk there to see. 
 
 But they pay fur work with their crowns and 
 groats ; 
 
 And they would have people strong and free 
 With kindlier crofts, and warmer cots, 
 And they are many — and they have votes.
 
 DONALD rOSHACH. 
 
 235 
 
 But steeped in pride from the toe to the crown, 
 Steeped in debt too up to the Hp, 
 
 The neighbours askance at them look and frown. 
 And try to hold on with a firmer grip, 
 Lest from their hands the County slip. 
 
 But not for that does he toil and scheme ; 
 
 What cares he for their party wars, 
 Could he but rouse them from their dream 
 
 To care for the people, and heal their scars, 
 
 And grow what Nature not del)ars ? 
 
 But what they want is a solitude, 
 A land that hath no neighbour folk, 
 
 Nor any work for the common good, 
 But only a desert of bog and rock, 
 Where the antlered stag and his hinds may flock. 
 
 '' For deer and gilliedom are our curse," 
 So he vows in his stormy way, 
 
 " Making the lazy clansman worse, 
 
 As he lives on the thriftless Saxon's pay 
 With two months work, and ten of play." 
 
 Then will he turn and say, " 'Tis time 
 I made a nest for myself at last ;
 
 236 
 
 DONALD TOSHACH. 
 
 ■> " 
 
 I have been changing soil and chme 
 Only for others, but that is past; 
 Where shall my own lot now be cast 
 
 Yonder a waste and lonely land 
 
 (3f bog and rock by a spreading lake 
 
 There shall a goodly mansion stand, 
 And glade and garden he will make, 
 And all the hills into leafage break. 
 
 Yet when he looks on his finished home. 
 
 Garth and forest and mansion too, 
 How shall he spend the days to come, 
 
 Now there is nothing for him to do? 
 
 Ah ! he must find out something new. 
 
 Fair is the house beside the lake, 
 
 And it rings with the voices of child and guest 
 But there his pleasure he cannot take, 
 
 It is no pleasure for him to rest ; — 
 
 Making a new world still is best. 
 
 Sell it off for a rocky isle ; 
 
 There will he fashion a busy life ;
 
 DONALD TOSHACH. 237 
 
 Bleak as the land is, it shall smile 
 
 For ragged children and drudging wife, 
 For there the wealth of the sea is rife. 
 
 Oats will not ripen, and barley fails, 
 
 But the grass in the glens is green and sweet. 
 
 And the Lochs shall gleam with the fishers' sails, 
 And the coves shall smile with houses neat, 
 While the flocks in the glen shall browse and 
 bleat. 
 
 O Rocky Isle in the western sea, 
 Rouse thee on every cape and bay ; 
 
 Now listless slumber is not for thee, 
 But curing and coopering all the day. 
 And launching of boats on the ocean spray. 
 
 Oh for a hundred such as he ! 
 
 They tell me he will be ruined soon : 
 
 Pity ! and yet his work will be 
 
 Stirring and brisk as a merry tune, 
 
 E'en should he wane like a waning moon. 
 
 Industry has its martyrs too. 
 
 And one might die in a worser cause ;
 
 238 DONALD TOSHACIL 
 
 Yet do I hope he will live to view 
 A people living by wholesome laws, 
 And thriving homes where the sea-gull was. 
 
 For his brain is shrewd, and his schemes have 
 thriven, 
 
 As schemes never throve on these hills before ; 
 And why should he miss of the blessing of heaven, 
 
 Now that his wits and his skill are more ? 
 Oh, your prophets of evil are fain to prate 
 
 If you scratch but the moss from their altar 
 stones; 
 But what do they know of the Gods and Fate, 
 
 More than old wives from their aching bones?
 
 lONA. 
 
 239 
 
 £oua. 
 
 Lone, green Isle of the West, 
 
 Where the Monks, their corracle steering, 
 
 Could see no more, o'er the wave's white crest, 
 
 Their own loved home in Erin : 
 
 Shrouded often in mist, 
 
 And buried in cloud and rain ; 
 
 Yet once by the light of a glory kissed, 
 
 Which nothing can dim again ! 
 
 O'er tangled and shell-paved rocks 
 
 The white sea-gulls are flying ; 
 
 And in the sunny coves brown flocks 
 
 Of wistful sealsare lying ; 
 
 The waves are breaking low, 
 
 Hardly their foam you trace; 
 
 All hushed and still, as if they know 
 
 This is a sacred place.
 
 240 
 
 lONA. 
 
 The diving guillemot 
 
 Is preening his dappled feather ; 
 
 The great merganser shows his throat, 
 
 Red in this summer weather ; 
 
 And bathed in a tremulous light 
 
 Are minster, cross, and grave, 
 
 That call up the past with a spell of might. 
 
 To tell of the meek and brave. 
 
 No fitter day than this 
 
 To look on thy mystic beauty. 
 
 And brood on memories of the bliss 
 
 Of faith and love and duty, 
 
 Of the hours of quiet prayer, 
 
 Of the days of patient toil, 
 
 Of the love that always, and everywhere, 
 
 Burned like a holy oil. 
 
 lone green Isle of the West, 
 So oft by the mist enshrouded, 
 
 1 have seen thee to-day in thy quiet best, 
 Not noisily mobbed, and crowded, 
 
 Seen thee in flooding light, 
 Seen thee in perfect calm ; 
 Yet am I sad as at the sight 
 Of mummy that men embalm.
 
 ION A. 241 
 
 Isle of the past and gone, 
 
 The life from thee has departed ; 
 
 Thy best is now but a carven stone, — 
 
 And a memory lonely-hearted ! 
 
 Yet thou wert a power erewhile. 
 
 O'er the great world's mind and heart ; 
 
 But where now the priests of the Holy Isle 
 
 And the skill of its graceful Art? 
 
 Skilled was the hand that wrouLdit 
 
 Your traceried tombs and crosses, 
 
 And silvern brooches that yet are brought 
 
 From depths of the black peat mosses ; 
 
 And theirs was a holy work 
 
 Who carried the gospel pure 
 
 Where the white waves break by the old White-kirk, 
 
 And brought salvation sure. 
 
 Was it the Norseman's sword, 
 And the ships of Thor and Odin 
 That drove the saints with the sacred Word 
 From the peaceful ways they trod in ? 
 AVas it the Saxon's sway, 
 Brutal and selfish and strong, 
 That swept the beautiful Art away, 
 And stifled the Celtic song? 
 
 Q
 
 24' 
 
 ION A. 
 
 Only this do we know, 
 
 The Celt brought light to the Teuton, 
 
 And ever the knowledge of God did grow 
 
 In the land he set his foot on; 
 
 But as they throve he pined, 
 
 But as they smiled he sighed, 
 
 But as they grew he surely dwined, 
 
 And in their life he died. 
 
 O passion of holy love ! 
 
 O sacrificial people. 
 
 Dying to lift men's thoughts above 
 
 By altar and cross and steeple ! 
 
 Through stormy seas ye passed, 
 
 And moor and marsh and fen, 
 
 To be left behind in the march at last 
 
 As weak exhausted men ! 
 
 They say ye shall rise again 
 
 On the level Western prairie. 
 
 With a larger life and a keener brain, 
 
 Like eagle out of his eyrie ; 
 
 But not the mind and the heart 
 
 That grew by the Lochs and Bens, 
 
 Nor the plaintive song and the mystic Art 
 
 Nursed in the rushy glens.
 
 CUV OF THE MAIDEN SHARE HOLDERS. 
 
 ^43 
 
 Wxt (JTri) of the Jttaibm (Shareholders.* 
 
 Pity us, God ! there are five of us here, 
 
 With threescore years on the youngest head, 
 Five of us sitting in sorrow and fear — 
 
 Well for our widowed one she is dead ! 
 Day and night sitting, we've not laid a head 
 
 Down on a pillow this week and more; 
 Trembling has seized on us, shrinking and dread, 
 
 To hear the bell ring, or be seen at the door. 
 Pity us, pity, O God ! 
 
 * These Verses appeared in "The Scotsman" newspaper at 
 the time of the failure of the City of Glasgow Bank. And 
 now I reprint them, chiefly because I wish to make grateful 
 acknowledgements to the unknown friends whose generosity 
 enabled me greatly to help those poor ladies till their aff'airs 
 were finally settled.
 
 244 THE CRY OF THE 
 
 Pity us, God ! when our father died, 
 
 His mind was at ease, for he left us " shares," 
 And a roof o'er our head too ; and side by side, 
 
 Happy and loving, we faced life's cares. 
 Then we were young, but now feeble and old, 
 
 And we never wronged any as far as we knew. 
 And we tried to do right with our silver and gold. 
 
 And the poor had their portion, the Church had 
 its due. 
 
 Pity us, pity, O God ! 
 
 Pity us, God ! we would work if we could, 
 
 But suppler fingers must stitch and hem ; 
 And who would give us our morsel of food, 
 
 Though we span and knitted all day for them? 
 We never knew work, but to keep ourselves neat. 
 
 And we never knew want, but our wants are small, 
 And there's bread in the house yet if we could eat. 
 
 But the sickness of sorrow is mixed with it all. 
 Pity us, pity, O God ! 
 
 Pity us, God ! must our little things go ? 
 
 All — even our mother's things, cherished with care? 
 Must we leave the old house — the one house that 
 we know ? 
 
 But not for the poorhouse — Oh, surely not there?
 
 MAIDEN SHAREHOLDERS. 
 
 H5 
 
 Could they not wait a while ?— we will not keep 
 them long; 
 We would live on so little too, cheerful and brave ; 
 But to leave the old house where old memories 
 throng 
 For the poorhouse, oh ! rather the peace of the 
 grave, 
 
 Pity us, pity, O God ! 
 
 Pity us, God ! as for those who have wrought 
 
 This terrible ruin so wide and deep, 
 Oh, how could they do it, and know it not ? 
 
 How could they know it, and think or sleep ? 
 But we would not, one of us, change, this day, 
 
 Our lot for theirs, for our hands are clean; 
 And the bankrupt soul has a darker way 
 
 Than the way of the honest poor ever has been. 
 Pity us, pity, O God 1
 
 246 ^ CRY FRO AT THE MERSE. 
 
 ^ drg from the Jttersc^ 
 
 " They have heard evil tidings; there is sorrow on the sea.' 
 jferem. xlix., 23. 
 
 Half o' us drooned in the Firth : 
 
 Hearses at ilk ither door ! 
 No a hale heart in the toon, 
 
 No a dry e'e on the shore ! 
 No a hooss but has its dead, 
 
 Father, or cousin, or brither ! 
 For nane o' us stands by himsel', 
 
 We are a' sib to ilk ither. 
 
 * In October, 1882, a terrible storm destroyed, in a brief hour, 
 half the boats of the fishers of Eyemouth. This suggested the 
 two poems "From the Merse."
 
 A CJ?V FR03I THE MERSE. 
 
 247 
 
 My Janet was wedded to Jake, 
 
 George was my brither-in-law, 
 Elsie was promised to Will — 
 
 An' noo they're a' dead an' avva' ; 
 Drooned within sight o' their hames, 
 
 Throttled richt doon to their graves, 
 Wi' the screams o' their wives an' the weans 
 
 Mixed up wi' the crash o' the waves. 
 
 Lord God, what does it mean ? 
 
 They were a' brave lads an' true. 
 And what can this misery bring 
 
 O' profit tae us or you ? 
 My head gangs roon when I think 
 
 Hoo the sea lay calm in the bay, 
 Till it had them a' weel in its grip, 
 
 An' took the brave lads for a prey. 
 
 Lord, keep me frae sin if ye can : 
 
 I canna be sure what I do : 
 There's Elsie sits dazed-like an' dumb. 
 
 And Janet moans a' the day through ; 
 I try tae keep bauds o' Thee, Lord, 
 
 But a' that I get for my pains 
 Is tae drift farther into the dark 
 
 *Mid the wail o' the women an' weans.
 
 248 A CRY FROM THE MERSE. 
 
 Oh, the folk are a' kind in their way, 
 
 Baith gentle an' simple, nae doot ; 
 An' ready wi' pity an' prayers, 
 
 An' siller if siller wu'd do't ! 
 liUt prayers winna bring the lads back, 
 
 An' pity feels almost like mockin'. 
 An' a' the fine gowd i' the Ian' 
 
 Winna sowder the heart that is broken. 
 
 The bairnies are greetin' a' day. 
 
 An' the women are moanin' a' nicht, 
 An' the bread winna gang doon oor throats, 
 
 An' the Book doesna bring ony licht ; 
 An' though there's nae hope in oor hearts, 
 
 We gang an' glower lang at the sea. 
 An' scan weel the rig o' ilk boat, 
 
 An' then we come hame like tae dee. 
 
 Half o' us drooned i' the Firth ! 
 
 A' o' us drooned in despair ! 
 Bairns cryin', " Daddie, come hame," 
 
 As their mithers are rivin' their hair ! 
 An' where there's a corpse they are glad. 
 
 For the sea has the maist in her maw ; 
 An' I watna weel what's tae come neist — 
 
 But, Lord, if ye'd just tak' us a'.
 
 A REMONSTRANCE FROM THE MERSE. 249 
 
 ^ liemonstntucc from the JHerse. 
 
 Ay ! Robin, lad, it's liard to bear, 
 
 An' we've had mony a grief before ; 
 It's nae the first whase yallow hair 
 
 Lay wat and dragglet on the shore. 
 The sea has gi'en us meat an' bield, 
 
 An' robbed us too o' young an' brave; 
 But aye we kent, wha ploughed that field 
 
 Was ploughin' o'er an open grave. 
 
 We'll see nae mair the bonnie boats 
 Trip dainty owre the moon-lit Firth, 
 
 Wi' baited lines, or nets an' floats, 
 
 Maist a' oor hard-earned gear on earth ;
 
 250 
 
 A REMONSTRANCE FROM THE MERSE. 
 
 We'll hear nae mair the lasses gay 
 A' daffin' wi' the buirdly chiels, 
 
 An' splashin' through the surf and spray 
 Tae bring ashore the weel-fiUed creels. 
 
 It's wae and weary is the day, 
 
 An' dark an' dreary is the nicht, 
 The sunshine o' oor life's away, 
 
 An' stars gi'e but a cauldrife licht. 
 We lo'ed the Firth, we lo'ed the sea, 
 
 The tanglet rock, the ripply sand. 
 But noo where'er oor steps may be, 
 
 There's nocht but grief on ilka hand. 
 
 Oh, weel I ken your heart is true, 
 
 But, Robin, lad, your words are wild ; 
 An' " laich an' lown " is best for you, 
 
 God hears the breathin' o' a child. 
 He's no the ane, as I ha'e heard, 
 
 Tae make man an offender be 
 For nae thing but a hasty word — 
 
 He leaves that tae the Pharisee : 
 
 Yet, Robin, better tae be still, 
 An' murmur not, as He has bid ; 
 
 Wha' wrastles wi' his Maker's will 
 Comes hameward lame, as Jacob did.
 
 A REMONSTRANCE FROM THE AIERSE. 25 1 
 
 He made the sea, He sent the win', 
 He cast the Hft that day in gloom : 
 
 Wha judges Him will scarce get in 
 Whaur lowly hearts find plenty room. 
 
 Speak lown, my man ; though God may hear 
 
 The honest thocht that's in the heart. 
 Folk only catch what meets the ear. 
 
 An' understand it but in part. 
 Wild thochts will come at times, I ken, 
 
 But then they needna be expressed ; 
 Or say them, lad, tae God, not men ; 
 
 They mak' the w;arst o't, He the best. 
 
 Ye canna sowder hearts wi' gowd, 
 
 Nor plaister notes upon your pain ; 
 As little, though ye cry aloud, 
 
 Will that bring back the deid again. 
 I dauma say its wholly sin 
 
 That ye should wince beneath the rod, 
 Yet hear the still small voice within, 
 
 Be still and know that this is God.
 
 252 IN MEMORIAM-DR. JOHN BROWN. 
 
 ill Jtcmoriam— ir. John f roton. 
 
 O sweet and pure and tender heart, 
 
 With the child's gift to pray and play, 
 That, artless in thy perfect art, 
 Could'st blissful tears to us impart. 
 And smile the blissful tears away. 
 
 Most human thou of humankind. 
 
 What wealth of love accrued to thee ! 
 To thee dumb creatures looked to find 
 The meanings which their wistful mmd 
 Was groping for, and could not see. 
 
 We were the better for the mirth, 
 We were the better for the tears,
 
 IN MExMORIAM—DR. JOHN BROWN. 253 
 
 We were the better seeing worth 
 In the dumb creatures of the earth, 
 
 Their loves, their hatreds, and their fears. 
 
 Not all could comprehend thy mirth, 
 Thy dainty humour playing round 
 All things that be ; yet heaven and earth 
 Thine awe and wonder still called forth. 
 For all to thee was holy ground. 
 
 We are so little; God requires, 
 
 The greatness of His thoughts to prove, 
 Some altars burning with strange fires. 
 Some songs not meant for sacred choirs. 
 Some souls that shun the common groove. 
 
 And thou — thy smile was like a prayer. 
 Thy humour like a psalm of praise ; 
 They mingled with the holiest there 
 Where hearts breathe out their grief and care 
 To Him that Ancient is of days. 
 
 Yet oftentimes that smile was seen 
 
 Kindling the near edge of a cloud 
 That gathered o'er thy soul serene, 
 And haunted thee with anguish keen^ 
 And bitter wailing low or loud.
 
 2 54 i^ MEMORIAM—DR. JOHN BROWN. 
 
 That cloud is past of fear and doubt ; 
 
 But ah ! this other cloud that lies 
 With hush of silence all about, 
 And opens to let no man out, 
 
 And hides thee from our wistful eyes ! 
 
 We gaze at it with brimming tears ; 
 
 Vain all our yearning looks and fond ; 
 No smile upon its edge appears ; 
 And yet the faith is wise that hears 
 
 A voice say, It is light beyond. 
 
 ROBERT IIACI.EHOSE, PRINTER TO THE UNn'ERSIT^', GLASGOW.
 
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