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A SUNDAY AT HOME.
Such were the events of every night, and such had they been since
Gibbie first assumed this office of guardian -- a time so long in
proportion to his life that it seemed to him as one of the laws of
existence that fathers got drunk and Gibbies took care of them. But
Saturday night was always one of special bliss; for then the joy to
come spread its arms beneath and around the present delight: all
Sunday his father would be his. On that happiest day of all the
week, he never set his foot out of doors, except to run twice to
Mistress Croale's, once to fetch the dinner which she supplied from
her own table, and for which Sir George regularly paid in advance on
Saturday before commencing his potations.
But indeed the streets were not attractive to the child on Sundays:
there were no shops open, and the people in their Sunday clothes,
many of them with their faces studiously settled into masks intended
to express righteousness, were far less interesting, because less
alive, than the same people in their work-day attire, in their
shops, or seated at their stalls, or driving their carts, and
looking thoroughly human. As to going to church himself, such an
idea had never entered his head. He had not once for a moment
imagined that anybody would like him to go to church, that such as
he ever went to church, that church was at all a place to which
Gibbies with fathers to look after should have any desire to go. As
to what church going meant, he had not the vaguest idea; it had not
even waked the glimmer of a question in his mind. All he knew was
that people went to church on Sundays. It was another of the laws
of existence, the reason of which he knew no more than why his
father went every night to Jink Lane and got drunk. George,
however, although he had taught his son nothing, was not without
religion, and had notions of duty in respect of the Sabbath. Not
even with the prize of whisky in view, would he have consented to
earn a sovereign on that day by the lightest of work.
Gibbie was awake some time before his father, and lay revelling in
love's bliss of proximity. At length Sir George, the merest bubble
of nature, awoke, and pushed him from him.
The child got up at once, but only to stand by the bed-side. He
said no word, did not even think an impatient thought, yet his
father seemed to feel that he was waiting for him. After two or
three huge yawns, he spread out his arms, but, unable to stretch
himself, yawned again, rolled himself off the bed, and crept feebly
across the room to an empty chest that stood under the skylight.
There he seated himself, and for half an hour sat motionless, a
perfect type of dilapidation, moral and physical, while a little way
off stood Gibbie, looking on, like one awaiting a resurrection. At
length he seemed to come to himself -- the expected sign of which was
that he reached down his hand towards the meeting of roof and floor,
and took up a tiny last with a half-made boot upon it. At sight of
it in his father's hands, Gibbie clapped his with delight -- an old
delight, renewed every Sunday since he could remember. That boot
was for him! and this being the second, the pair would be finished
before night! By slow degrees of revival, with many pauses between,
George got to work. He wanted no breakfast, and made no inquiry of
Gibbie whether he had had any. But what cared Gibbie about
breakfast! With his father all to himself, and that father working
away at a new boot for him -- for him who had never had a pair of any
sort upon his feet since the woollen ones he wore in his mother's
lap, breakfast or no breakfast was much the same to him. It could
never have occurred to him that it was his father's part to provide
him with breakfast. If he was to have none, it was Sunday that was
to blame: there was no use in going to look for any when the shops
were all shut, and everybody either at church, or closed in domestic
penetralia, or out for a walk. More than contented, therefore,
while busily his father wedded welt and sole with stitches
infrangible, Gibbie sat on the floor, preparing waxed ends,
carefully sticking in the hog's bristle, and rolling the
combination, with quite professional aptitude, between the flat of
his hand and what of trouser-leg he had left, gazing eagerly between
at the advancing masterpiece. Occasionally the triumph of
expectation would exceed his control, when he would spring from the
floor, and caper and strut about like a pigeon -- soft as a shadow,
for he knew his father could not bear noise in the morning -- or
behind his back execute a pantomimic dumb show of delight, in which
he seemed with difficulty to restrain himself from jumping upon him,
and hugging him in his ecstasy. Oh, best of parents! working thus
even on a Sunday for his Gibbie, when everybody else was at church
enjoying himself! But Gibbie never dared hug his father except when
he was drunk -- why, he could hardly have told. Relieved by his dumb
show, he would return, quite as an aged grimalkin, and again deposit
himself on the floor near his father where he could see his busy
hands.
All this time Sir George never spoke a word. Incredible as it may
seem, however, he was continually, off and on, trying his hardest to
think of some Sunday lesson to give his child. Many of those that
knew the boy, regarded him as a sort of idiot, drawing the
conclusion from Gibbie's practical honesty and his too evident love
for his kind: it was incredible that a child should be poor,
unselfish, loving, and not deficient in intellect! His father knew
him better, yet he often quieted his conscience in regard to his
education, with the reflection that not much could be done for him.
Still, every now and then he would think perhaps he ought to do
something: who could tell but the child might be damned for not
understanding the plan of salvation? and brooding over the matter
this morning, as well as his headache would permit, he came to the
resolution, as he had often done before, to buy a Shorter Catechism;
the boy could not learn it, but he would keep reading it to him, and
something might stick. Even now perhaps he could begin the course
by recalling some of the questions and answers that had been the
plague of his life every Saturday at school. He set his
recollection to work, therefore, in the lumber-room of his memory,
and again and again sent it back to the task, but could find nothing
belonging to the catechism except the first question with its
answer, and a few incoherent fragments of others. Moreover, he
found his mind so confused and incapable of continuous or
concentrated effort, that he could not even keep "man's chief end"
and the rosined end between his fingers from twisting up together in
the most extraordinary manner. Yet if the child but "had the
question," he might get some good of it. The hour might come when
he would say, "My father taught me that!" -- who could tell? And he
knew he had the words correct, wherever he had dropped their
meaning. For the sake of Gibbie's immortal part, therefore, he
would repeat the answer to that first, most momentous of questions,
over and over as he worked, in the hope of insinuating something -- he
could not say what -- into the small mental pocket of the innocent.
The first, therefore, and almost the only words which Gibbie heard
from his father's lips that morning, were these, dozens of times
repeated -- "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for
ever." But so far was Gibbie from perceiving in them any meaning,
that even with his father's pronunciation of chief end as chifenn,
they roused in his mind no sense or suspicion of obscurity. The
word stuck there, notwithstanding; but Gibbie was years a man before
he found out what a chifenn was. Where was the great matter? How
many who have learned their catechism and deplore the ignorance of
others, make the least effort to place their chief end even in the
direction of that of their creation? Is it not the constant
thwarting of their aims, the rendering of their desires futile, and
their ends a mockery, that alone prevents them and their lives from
proving an absolute failure? Sir George, with his inveterate,
consuming thirst for whisky, was but the type of all who would gain
their bliss after the scheme of their own fancies, instead of the
scheme of their existence; who would build their house after their
own childish wilfulness instead of the ground-plan of their being.
How was Sir George to glorify the God whom he could honestly thank
for nothing but whisky, the sole of his gifts that he prized? Over
and over that day he repeated the words, "Man's chief end is to
glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever," and all the time his
imagination, his desire, his hope, were centred on the bottle, which
with his very back he felt where it stood behind him, away on the
floor at the head of his bed. Nevertheless when he had gone over
them a score of times or so, and Gibbie had begun, by a merry look
and nodding of his head, to manifest that he knew what was coming
next, the father felt more content with himself than for years past;
and when he was satisfied that Gibbie knew all the words, though,
indeed, they were hardly more than sounds to him, he sent him, with
a great sense of relief, to fetch the broth and beef and potatoes
from Mistress Croale's.
Eating a real dinner in his father's house, though without a table
to set it upon, Gibbie felt himself a most privileged person. The
only thing that troubled him was that his father ate so little. Not
until the twilight began to show did Sir George really begin to
revive, but the darker it grew without, the brighter his spirit
burned. For, amongst not a few others, there was this strange
remnant of righteousness in the man, that he never would taste drink
before it was dark in winter, or in summer before the regular hour
for ceasing work had arrived; and to this rule he kept, and that
under far greater difficulties, on the Sunday as well. For Mistress
Croale would not sell a drop of drink, not even on the sly, on the
Sabbath-day: she would fain have some stake in the hidden kingdom;
and George, who had not a Sunday stomach he could assume for the day
any more than a Sunday coat, was thereby driven to provide his
whisky and that day drink it at home; when, with the bottle so near
him, and the sense that he had not to go out to find his relief, his
resolution was indeed sorely tried; but he felt that to yield would
be to cut his last cable and be swept on the lee-shore of utter
ruin.
Breathless with eager interest, Gibbie watched his father's hands,
and just as the darkness closed in, the boot was finished. His
father rose, and Gibbie, glowing with delight, sprang upon the seat
he had left, while his father knelt upon the floor to try upon the
unaccustomed foot the result from which he had just drawn the last.
Ah, pity! pity! But even Gibbie might by this time have learned to
foresee it! three times already had the same thing happened: the
boot would not go on the foot. The real cause of the failure it
were useless to inquire. Sir George said that, Sunday being the
only day he could give to the boots, before he could finish them,
Gibbie's feet had always outgrown the measure. But it may be Sir
George was not so good a maker as cobbler. That he meant honestly
by the boy I am sure, and not the less sure for the confession I am
forced to make, that on each occasion when he thus failed to fit
him, he sold the boots the next day at a fair price to a ready-made
shop, and drank the proceeds. A stranger thing still was, that,
although Gibbie had never yet worn boot or shoe, his father's
conscience was greatly relieved by the knowledge that he spent his
Sundays in making boots for him. Had he been an ordinary child, and
given him trouble, he would possibly have hated him; as it was, he
had a great though sadly inoperative affection for the boy, which
was an endless good to them both.
After many bootless trials, bootless the feet must remain, and
George, laying the failure down in despair, rose from his knees, and
left Gibbie seated on the chest more like a king discrowned, than a
beggar unshod. And like a king the little beggar bore his pain. He
heaved one sigh, and a slow moisture gathered in his eyes, but it
did not overflow. One minute only he sat and hugged his
desolation -- then, missing his father, jumped off the box to find
him.
He sat on the edge of the bed, looking infinitely more disconsolate
than Gibbie felt, his head and hands hanging down, a picture of
utter dejection. Gibbie bounded to him, climbed on the bed, and
nearly strangled him in the sharp embrace of his little arms. Sir
George took him on his knees and kissed him, and the tears rose in
his dull eyes. He got up with him, carried him to the box, placed
him on it once more, and fetched a piece of brown paper from under
the bed. From this he tore carefully several slips, with which he
then proceeded to take a most thoughtful measurement of the baffling
foot. He was far more to be pitied than Gibbie, who would not have
worn the boots an hour had they been the best fit in shoedom. The
soles of his feet were very nearly equal in resistance to leather,
and at least until the snow and hard frost came, he was better
without boots.
But now the darkness had fallen, and his joy was at the door. But
he was always too much ashamed to begin to drink before the child:
he hated to uncork the bottle before him. What followed was in
regular Sunday routine.
"Gang ower to Mistress Croale's, Gibbie," he said, "wi' my
compliments."
Away ran Gibbie, nothing loath, and at his knock was admitted.
Mistress Croale sat in the parlour, taking her tea, and expecting
him. She was always kind to the child. She could not help feeling
that no small part of what ought to be spent on him came to her; and
on Sundays, therefore, partly for his sake, partly for her own, she
always gave him his tea -- nominally tea, really blue city-milk -- with
as much dry bread as he could eat, and a bit of buttered toast from
her plate to finish off with. As he ate, he stood at the other side
of the table; he looked so miserable in her eyes that, even before
her servant, she was ashamed to have him sit with her; but Gibbie
was quite content, never thought of sitting, and ate in gladness,
every now and then looking up with loving, grateful eyes, which must
have gone right to the woman's heart, had it not been for a vague
sense she had of being all the time his enemy -- and that although she
spent much time in persuading herself that she did her best both for
his father and him.
When he returned, greatly refreshed, and the boots all but
forgotten, he found his father, as he knew he would, already started
on the business of the evening. He had drawn the chest, the only
seat in the room, to the side of the bed, against which he leaned
his back. A penny candle was burning in a stone blacking bottle on
the chimney piece, and on the floor beside the chest stood the
bottle of whisky, a jug of water, a stoneware mug, and a wineglass.
There was no fire and no kettle, whence his drinking was sad, as
became the Scotch Sabbath in distinction from the Jewish. There,
however, was the drink, and thereby his soul could live -- yea, expand
her mouldy wings! Gibbie was far from shocked; it was all right,
all in the order of things, and he went up to his father with
radiant countenance. Sir George put forth his hands and took him
between his knees. An evil wind now swelled his sails, but the
cargo of the crazy human hull was not therefore evil.
"Gibbie," he said, solemnly, "never ye drink a drap o' whusky.
Never ye rax oot the han' to the boatle. Never ye drink anything
but watter, caller watter, my man."
As he said the words, he stretched out his own hand to the mug,
lifted it to his lips, and swallowed a great gulp.
"Dinna do't, I tell ye, Gibbie," he repeated.
Gibbie shook his head with positive repudiation.
"That's richt, my man," responded his father with satisfaction.
"Gien ever I see ye pree (taste) the boatle, I'll warstle frae my
grave an' fleg ye oot o' the sma' wuts ye hae, my man."
Here followed another gulp from the mug.
The threat had conveyed nothing to Gibbie. Even had he understood,
it would have carried anything but terror to his father-worshipping
heart.
"Gibbie," resumed Sir George, after a brief pause, "div ye ken what
fowk'll ca' ye whan I'm deid?"
Gibbie again shook his head -- with expression this time of mere
ignorance.
"They'll ca' ye Sir Gibbie Galbraith, my man," said his father, "an'
richtly, for it'll be no nickname, though some may lauch 'cause yer
father was a sutor, an' mair 'at, for a' that, ye haena a shee to
yer fut yersel', puir fallow! Heedna ye what they say, Gibbie.
Min' 'at ye're Sir Gibbie, an' hae the honour o' the faimily to
haud up, my man -- an' that ye can not dee an' drink. This cursit
drink's been the ruin o' a' the Galbraiths as far back as I ken.
'Maist the only thing I can min' o' my gran'father -- a big bonny man,
wi' lang white hair -- twise as big's me, Gibbie -- is seein' him deid
drunk i' the gutter o' the pump. He drank 'maist a' thing there
was, Gibbie -- lan's an' lordship, till there was hardly an accre left
upo' haill Daurside to come to my father -- 'maist naething but a
wheen sma' hooses. He was a guid man, my father; but his father
learnt him to drink afore he was 'maist oot o' 's coaties, an' gae
him nae schuilin'; an' gien he red himsel' o' a' 'at was left, it
was sma' won'er -- only, ye see, Gibbie, what was to come o' me? I
pit it till ye, Gibbie -- what was to come o' me? -- Gien a kin' neiper,
'at kent what it was to drink, an' sae had a fallow-feelin', hadna
ta'en an' learnt me my trade, the Lord kens what wad hae come o' you
an' me, Gibbie, my man! -- Gang to yer bed, noo, an' lea' me to my ain
thouchts; no' 'at they're aye the best o' company, laddie. -- But
whiles they're no that ill," he concluded, with a weak smile, as
some reflex of himself not quite unsatisfactory gloomed faintly in
the besmeared mirror of his uncertain consciousness.
Gibbie obeyed, and getting under the Gordon tartan, lay and looked
out, like a weasel from its hole, at his father's back. For half an
hour or so Sir George went on drinking. All at once he started to
his feet, and turning towards the bed a white face distorted with
agony, kneeled down on the box and groaned out:
"O God, the pains o' hell hae gotten haud upo' me. O Lord, I'm i'
the grup o' Sawtan. The deevil o' drink has me by the hause. I
doobt, O Lord, ye're gauin' to damn me dreidfu'. What guid that'll
do ye, O Lord, I dinna ken, but I doobtna ye'll dee what's richt,
only I wuss I hed never crossed ye i' yer wull. I kenna what I'm to
dee, or what's to be deene wi' me, or whaur ony help's to come frae.
I hae tried an' tried to maister the drink, but I was aye whumled.
For ye see, Lord, kennin' a' thing as ye dee, 'at until I hae a
drap i' my skin, I canna even think; I canna min' the sangs I used
to sing, or the prayers my mither learnt me sittin' upo' her lap.
Till I hae swallowed a mou'fu' or twa, things luik sae awfu'-like
'at I'm fit to cut my thro't; an' syne ance I'm begun, there's nae
mair thoucht o' endeevourin' to behaud (withhold) till I canna drink
a drap mair. O God, what garred ye mak things 'at wad mak whusky,
whan ye kenned it wad mak sic a beast o' me?
He paused, stretched down his hand to the floor, lifted the mug, and
drank a huge mouthful; then with a cough that sounded apologetic,
set it down, and recommenced:
"O Lord, I doobt there's nae houp for me, for the verra river o' the
watter o' life wadna be guid to me wantin' a drap frae the boatle
intil 't. It's the w'y wi' a' hiz 'at drinks. It's no 'at we're
drunkards, Lord -- ow na! it's no that, Lord; it's only 'at we canna
dee wantin' the drink. We're sair drinkers, I maun confess, but no
jist drunkards, Lord. I'm no drunk the noo; I ken what I'm sayin',
an' it's sair trowth, but I cudna hae prayt a word to yer lordship
gien I hadna had a jooggy or twa first. O Lord, deliver me frae the
pooer o' Sawtan. -- O Lord! O Lord! I canna help mysel'. Dinna sen'
me to the ill place. Ye loot the deils gang intil the swine, lat me
tee."
With this frightful petition, his utterance began to grow
indistinct. Then he fell forward upon the bed, groaning, and his
voice died gradually away. Gibbie had listened to all he said, but
the awe of hearing his father talk to one unseen, made his soul very
still, and when he ceased he fell asleep.
Alas for the human soul inhabiting a drink-fouled brain! It is a
human soul still, and wretched in the midst of all that whisky can
do for it. From the pit of hell it cries out. So long as there is
that which can sin, it is a man. And the prayer of misery carries
its own justification, when the sober petitions of the
self-righteous and the unkind are rejected. He who forgives not is
not forgiven, and the prayer of the Pharisee is as the weary beating
of the surf of hell, while the cry of a soul out of its fire sets
the heart-strings of love trembling. There are sins which men must
leave behind them, and sins which they must carry with them.
Society scouts the drunkard because he is loathsome, and it matters
nothing whether society be right or wrong, while it cherishes in its
very bosom vices which are, to the God-born thing we call the soul,
yet worse poisons. Drunkards and sinners, hard as it may be for
them to enter into the kingdom of heaven, must yet be easier to save
than the man whose position, reputation, money, engross his heart
and his care, who seeks the praise of men and not the praise of God.
When I am more of a Christian, I shall have learnt to be sorrier for
the man whose end is money or social standing than for the drunkard.
But now my heart, recoiling from the one, is sore for the
other -- for the agony, the helplessness, the degradation, the
nightmare struggle, the wrongs and cruelties committed, the duties
neglected, the sickening ruin of mind and heart. So often, too, the
drunkard is originally a style of man immeasurably nobler than the
money-maker! Compare a Coleridge, Samuel Taylor or Hartley,
with -- no; that man has not yet passed to his account. God has in
his universe furnaces for the refining of gold, as well as for the
burning of chaff and tares and fruitless branches; and, however they
may have offended, it is the elder brother who is the judge of all
the younger ones.
Gibbie slept some time. When he woke, it was pitch dark, and he was
not lying on his father's bosom, He felt about with his hands till
he found his father's head. Then he got up and tried to rouse him,
and failing to get him on to the bed. But in that too he was sadly
unsuccessful: what with the darkness and the weight of him, the
result of the boy's best endeavour was, that Sir George half
slipped, half rolled down upon the box, and from that to the floor.
Assured then of his own helplessness, wee Gibbie dragged the
miserable bolster from the bed, and got it under his father's head;
then covered him with the plaid, and creeping under it, laid himself
on his father's bosom, where soon he slept again.
He woke very cold, and getting up, turned heels-over-head several
times to warm himself, but quietly, for his father was still asleep.
The room was no longer dark, for the moon was shining through the
skylight. When he had got himself a little warmer, he turned to
have a look at his father. The pale light shone full upon his face,
and it was that, Gibbie thought, which made him look so strange. He
darted to him, and stared aghast: he had never seen him look like
that before, even when most drunk! He threw himself upon him: his
face was dreadfully cold. He pulled and shook him in fear -- he could
not have told of what, but he would not wake. He was gone to see
what God could do for him there, for whom nothing more could be done
here.
But Gibbie did not know anything about death, and went on trying to
wake him. At last he observed that, although his mouth was wide
open, the breath did not come from it. Thereupon his heart began to
fail him. But when he lifted an eyelid, and saw what was under it,
the house rang with the despairing shriek of the little orphan.
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