David Elginbrod

“ Is it not strange?”
“It is very natural, I think,” answered Margaret.
“I seem now to have known him for years.”
But what is most worthy of record is, that ever as the picture of David grew on the vision of Euphra, the idea of God was growing unawares upon her inward sight. She was learning more and more about God all the time. The sight of human excellence awoke a faint Ideal of the divine perfection. Faith came of itself, and abode, and grew; for it needs but a vision of the Divine, and faith in God is straightway born in the soul that beholds it. Thus, faith and sight are one. ”

“ That birth of nature in his soul, which enabled him to understand and love Margaret, helped him likewise to contemplate with admiration and awe, the towering peaks of David’s hopes, trusts, and aspirations. He had taught the ploughman mathematics, but that ploughman had possessed in himself all the essential elements of the grandeur of the old prophets, glorified by the faith which the Son of Man did not find in the earth, but left behind him to grow in it, and which had grown to a noble growth of beauty and strength in this peasant, simple and patriarchal in the midst of a self-conceited age. ”

“ But Margaret was in mourning: was David indeed dead?
He was dead.—Yet his name will stand as the name of my story for pages to come; because, if he had not been in it, the story would never have been worth writing; because the influence of that ploughman is the salt of the whole; because a man’s life in the earth is not to be measured by the time he is visible upon it; and because, when the story is wound up, it will be in the presence of his spirit. ”

“ “‘Here lie I, Martin Elginbrodde: Hae mercy o’ my soul, Lord God; As I wad do, were I Lord God, And ye were Martin Elginbrodde.’”
Certainly Hugh could not help a slight shudder at what seemed to him the irreverence of the epitaph, if indeed it was not deserving of a worse epithet. ”

“ David opened the door himself.
“Eh! Maister Sutherlan’,” said he, “I thocht it micht aiblins be yersel. Ye’re welcome, sir. Come butt the hoose. Our place is but sma’, but ye’ll no min’ sitttin’ doon wi’ our ain sels. Janet, ooman, this is Maister Sutherlan’. Maggy, my doo, he’s a frien’ o’ yours, o’ a day auld, already. Ye’re kindly welcome, Maister Sutherlan’. I’m sure it’s verra kin’ o’ you to come an’ see the like o’ huz.”
As Hugh entered, he saw his own bright volume lying on the table, evidently that from which David had just been reading. ”

“ There’s doctrine for ye, Mr. Sutherlan’!” added David, with a queer laugh.
“I thought they could hardly be your books,” said Hugh.
“But I hae ae odd beuk, an’ that brings me upo’ my pedigree, Mr. Sutherlan’; for the puirest man has as lang a pedigree as the greatest, only he kens less aboot it, that’s a’. An’ I wat, for yer lords and ladies, it’s no a’ to their credit ‘at’s tauld o’ their hither-come; an’ that’s a’ against the breed, ye ken. A wilfu’ sin in the father may be a sinfu’ weakness i’ the son; an’ that’s what I ca’ no fair play.” ”

“ Glasford glanced round at Hugh, whose defection she had seen with indignation, and who, waiting for them by the roadside, had heard the last question and reply, with an expression that seemed to attribute any defect in the answer, entirely to the carelessness of the tutor, and the withdrawal of his energies from her boys to that “saucy quean, Meg Elginbrod.”
CHAPTER IX. NATURE.
When the Soul is kindled or enlightened by the Holy Ghost, then it beholds what God its Father does, as a Son beholds what his Father does at Home in his own House.—JACOB BEHMEN’S Aurora—Law’s Translation. ”

“ Life intelligently met and honestly passed, is the best education of all; except that higher one to which it is intended to lead, and to which it had led David. Both these educations, however, were nearly unknown to the student of books. But he was still more astonished to hear from the lips of Margaret, who was sitting by:
“That’s it, father; that’s it! I was jist ettlin’ efter that same thing mysel, or something like it, but ye put it in the richt words exackly.”
The sound of her voice drew Hugh’s eyes upon her: he was astonished at the alteration in her countenance. ”

“ David, who was quite calm, got the whisky bottle out, and tried to administer some to Margaret first; but her teeth were firmly set, and to all appearance she was dead. One of the young men succeeded better with Hugh, whom at David’s direction they took into the study; while he and Janet got Margaret undressed and put to bed, with hot bottles all about her; for in warmth lay the only hope of restoring her. ”

“ Glasford, forgetting her dignity, and becoming confidentially remonstrative. “Here’s a young gentleman o’ talans, wi’ ilka prospeck o’ waggin’ his heid in a poopit some day; an’ ye aid an’ abet him in idlin’ awa’ his time at your chimla-lug, duin’ waur nor naething ava! I’m surprised at ye, Dawvid. I thocht ye had mair sense.”
David looked out of his clear, blue, untroubled eyes, upon the ruffled countenance of his mistress, with an almost paternal smile.
“Weel, mem, I maun say I dinna jist think the young man’s in the warst o’ company, when he’s at our ingle-neuk. ”

“ Margaret gave him a still look full in the face, and, seeing his emotion, did not even approach to offer him any welcome. She hastened, instead, to place a chair for him as she had done when first he entered the cottage, and when he had taken it sat down at his feet on her creepie. With true delicacy, no one took any notice of him for some time. David said at last,
“An’ hoo’s yer puir mother, Mr. Sutherlan’?”
“She’s pretty well,” was all Hugh could answer.
“It’s a sair stroke to bide,” said David; “but it’s a gran’ thing whan a man’s won weel throw’t. ”

“ What for are ye knittin’ yer broos ower a leein’ ballant—a’ havers as weel as lees?”
“I’m no jist prepared to say sae muckle, Janet,” replied David; “there’s mony a thing ‘at’s lees, as ye ca’t, ‘at’s no lees a’ through. Ye see, Maister Sutherlan’, I’m no gleg at the uptak, an’ it jist taks me twise as lang as ither fowk to see to the ootside o’ a thing. Whiles a sentence ‘ill leuk to me clean nonsense a’thegither; an’ maybe a haill ook efter, it’ll come upo’ me a’ at ance; an’ fegs! it’s the best thing in a’ the beuk.” ”

“ It was for the sake of the minute notices of nature, and not for the religious lesson, which he now seemed to see for the first time, that Hugh had read the poem. He could not help being greatly impressed by the confidence with which David received the statement he had just made on the authority of De Quincey in his unpleasant article about Wordsworth. David resumed:
“He maun hae had a gleg ‘ee o’ his ain, that Maister Wordsworth, to notice a’thing that get. Weel he maun hae likit leevin’ things, puir maukin an’ a’—jist like our Robbie Burns for that. ”

“ Of course Hugh was quite at a loss to understand what he meant, and begged him to explain.
“Ye see,” replied David, “we hae verra little hoose-room i’ this bit cot; for, excep this kitchen, we hae but the ben whaur Janet and me sleeps; and sae last year I spak’ to the laird to lat me hae muckle timmer as I wad need to big a kin’ o’ a lean-to to the house ahin’, so ‘at we micht hae a kin’ o’ a bit parlour like, or rather a roomie ‘at ony o’ us micht retire till for a bit, gin we wanted to be oor lanes. ”

“ The chapter finished—it is none of the shortest, and Meg had not yet returned—the two knelt, and David prayed thus:
“O Thou who holdest the waters in the hollow of ae han’, and carriest the lambs o’ thy own making in thy bosom with the other han’, it would be altogether unworthy o’ thee, and o’ thy Maijesty o’ love, to require o’ us that which thou knowest we cannot bring unto thee, until thou enrich us with that same. Therefore, like thine own bairns, we boo doon afore thee, an’ pray that thou wouldst tak’ thy wull o’ us, thy holy an’ perfect an’ blessed wull o’ us ”

“ Harry was silent, and so was Hugh; for he could not understand himself quite. He felt, all the time he was speaking, is if he were listening to David, instead of talking himself. The fact was, he was only expanding, in an imaginative soil, the living seed which David had cast into it. There seemed to himself to be more in his parable than he had any right to invent. But is it not so with all stories that are rightly rooted in the human?
“What a delightful story, Mr. Sutherland!” said Harry, at last. “Euphra tells me stories sometimes ”

“ Some people think he was almost inspired.”
“Maybe, maybe,” was all David’s doubtful response.
“At all events, though I know nothing about it myself, he must have written wonderfully for a cobbler.”
“For my pairt,” replied David, “if I see no wonder in the man, I can see but little in the cobbler. What for shouldna a cobbler write wonnerfully, as weel as anither? It’s a trade ‘at furthers meditation. My grandfather was a cobbler, as ye ca’t; an’ they say he was no fule in his ain way either.”
“Then it does go in the family!” cried Hugh, triumphantly. ”

“ Village Dialogues; and others of a like class. To these must be added a rare edition of Blind Harry. It was clear to Hugh, unable as he was fully to appreciate the wisdom of David, that it was not from such books as these that he had gathered it; yet such books as these formed all his store. He turned from them, found his own, and sat down to read. By and by David came in.
“I’m ower sune, I doubt, Mr. Sutherlan’. I’m disturbin’ ye.”
“Not at all,” answered Hugh. “Besides, I am not much in a reading mood this evening: Mrs. Glasford has been annoying me again.”
“Poor body! ”

“ Gin a body wad lea’ a’ that, and jist get fowk persuâdit to speyk a word or twa to God him lane, the loss, in my opingan, wad be unco sma’, and the gain verra great.”
Even Janet dared not reply to the solemnity of this speech; for the seer-like look was upon David’s face, and the tears had gathered in his eyes and dimmed their blue. A kind of tremulous pathetic smile flickered about his beautifully curved mouth, like the glimmer of water in a valley, betwixt the lofty aquiline nose and the powerful but finely modelled chin. ”

“ That’s a sma’ matter; but frae what I ha’e seen—an’ I trust in God I’m no’ mista’en—ye come o’ the richt breed for the min’ as weel. I’m no flatterin’ ye, Mr. Sutherlan’; but jist layin’ it upo’ ye, ‘at gin ye had an honest father and gran’father, an’ especially a guid mither, ye hae a heap to answer for; an’ ye ought never to be hard upo’ them ‘at’s sma’ creepin’ creatures, for they canna help it sae weel as the like o’ you and me can.”
David was not given to boasting. Hugh had never heard anything suggesting it from his lips before. He turned full round and looked at him. ”

“ Faster and faster they fell—wonderful multitudes of delicate crystals, adhering in shapes of beauty which outvied all that jeweller could invent or execute of ethereal, starry forms, structures of evanescent yet prodigal loveliness—till the whole air was obscured by them, and night came on, hastened by an hour, from the gathering of their white darkness. ”

“ Little would the passer-by imagine that beneath that roof, which seemed worthy only of the name of a shed, there sat, in a snug little homely room, such a youth as Hugh, such a girl as Margaret, such a grand peasant king as David, and such a true-hearted mother to them all as Janet. There were no pictures and no music; for Margaret kept her songs for solitary places; but the sound of verse was often the living wind which set a-waving the tops of the trees of knowledge, fast growing in the sunlight of Truth. ”

“ With the sorrow and loneliness of loss within him, and Nature around him seeming to sigh for a fuller expression of the thought that throbbed within her, it is no wonder that the form of Margaret, the gathering of the thousand forms of nature into one intensity and harmony of loveliness, should rise again upon the world of his imagination, to set no more. ”

“ An’ may be he remembered ‘at the Saviour himsel’ said: ‘Be ye perfect as your father in Heaven is perfect;’ and that the perfection o’ God, as He had jist pinted oot afore, consisted in causin’ his bonny sun to shine on the evil an’ the good, an’ his caller rain to fa’ upo’ the just an’ the unjust.”
It may well be doubted whether David’s interpretation of the epitaph was the correct one. It will appear to most of my readers to breathe rather of doubt lighted up by hope, than of that strong faith which David read in it. ”

“ She must leave her former self, like a dead body, behind her, and rise into a purer air of life and reality, else she would perish with that everlasting death which is the disease and corruption of the soul itself. ”

“ Woods of the richest growth were around him; heaps on heaps of leaves floating above him like clouds, a trackless wilderness of airy green, wherein one might wish to dwell for ever, looking down into the vaults and aisles of the long-ranging boles beneath. But no peace could rest on his face; only, at best, a false mask, put on to hide the trouble of the unresting heart. Had he been doing his duty to Harry, his love for Euphra, however unworthy she might be, would not have troubled him thus. ”

“ So a small seed that in the earth lies hid And dies, reviving bursts her cloddy side, Adorned with yellow locks, of new is born, And doth become a mother great with corn, Of grains brings hundreds with it, which when old Enrich the furrows with a sea of gold. ”