|
|
|
Prev
| Next
| Contents
THE MINISTER'S DEFEAT.
The minister's wrath, when he found he had been followed home by
Gibbie who yet would not enter the house, instantly rose in
redoubled strength. He was ashamed to report the affair to Mrs.
Sclater just as it had passed. He was but a married old bachelor,
and fancied he must keep up his dignity in the eyes of his wife, not
having yet learned that, if a man be true, his friends and lovers
will see to his dignity. So his anger went on smouldering all night
long, and all through his sleep, without a touch of cool
assuagement, and in the morning he rose with his temper very
feverish. During breakfast he was gloomy, but would confess to no
inward annoyance. What added to his unrest was, that, although he
felt insulted, he did not know what precisely the nature of the
insult was. Even in his wrath he could scarcely set down Gibbie's
following of him to a glorying mockery of his defeat. Doubtless,
for a man accustomed to deal with affairs, to rule over a
parish -- for one who generally had his way in the kirk-session, and
to whom his wife showed becoming respect, it was scarcely fitting
that the rude behaviour of an ignorant country dummy should affect
him so much: he ought to have been above such injury. But the lad
whom he so regarded, had first with his mere looks lowered him in
his own eyes, then showed himself beyond the reach of his reproof by
calmly refusing to obey him, and then become unintelligible by
following him like a creature over whom surveillance was needful!
The more he thought of this last, the more inexplicable it seemed
to become, except on the notion of deliberate insult. And the worst
was, that henceforth he could expect to have no power at all over
the boy! If it was like this already, how would it be in the time
to come? If, on the other hand, he were to re-establish his
authority at the cost of making the boy hate him, then, the moment
he was of age, his behaviour would be that of a liberated enemy: he
would go straight to the dogs, and his money with him! -- The man of
influence and scheme did well to be annoyed.
Gibbie made his appearance at ten o'clock, and went straight to the
study, where at that hour the minister was always waiting him. He
entered with his own smile, bending his head in morning salutation.
The minister said "Good morning," but gruffly, and without raising
his eyes from the last publication of the Spalding Club. Gibbie
seated himself in his usual place, arranged his book and slate, and
was ready to commence -- when the minister, having now summoned
resolution, lifted his head, fixed his eyes on him, and said
sternly --
"Sir Gilbert, what was your meaning in following me, after refusing
to accompany me?"
Gibbie's face flushed. Mr. Sclater believed he saw him for the
first time ashamed of himself; his hope rose; his courage grew; he
augured victory and a re-established throne: he gathered himself up
in dignity, prepared to overwhelm him. But Gibbie showed no
hesitation; he took his slate instantly, found his pencil, wrote,
and handed the slate to the minister. There stood these words:
"I thougt you was drunnk."
Mr. Sclater started to his feet, the hand which held the offending
document uplifted, his eyes flaming, his checks white with passion,
and with the flat of the slate came down a great blow on the top of
Gibbie's head. Happily the latter was the harder of the two, and
the former broke, flying mostly out of the frame. It took Gibbie
terribly by surprise. Half-stunned, he started to his feet, and for
one moment the wild beast which was in him, as it is in everybody,
rushed to the front of its cage. It would have gone ill then with
the minister, had not as sudden a change followed; the very same
instant, it was as if an invisible veil, woven of gracious air and
odour and dew, had descended upon him; the flame of his wrath went
out, quenched utterly; a smile of benignest compassion overspread
his countenance; in his offender he saw only a brother. But Mr.
Sclater saw no brother before him, for when Gibbie rose he drew back
to better his position, and so doing made it an awkard one indeed.
For it happened occasionally that, the study being a warm room,
Mrs. Sclater, on a winter evening, sat there with her husband,
whence it came that on the floor squatted a low foot-stool, subject
to not unfrequent clerical imprecation: when he stepped back, he
trod on the edge of it, stumbled, and fell. Gibbie darted forward.
A part of the minister's body rested upon the stool, and its
elevation, made the first movement necessary to rising rather
difficult, so that he could not at once get off his back.
What followed was the strangest act for a Scotch boy, but it must be
kept in mind how limited were his means of expression. He jumped
over the prostrate minister, who the next moment seeing his face
bent over him from behind, and seized, like the gamekeeper, with
suspicion born of his violence, raised his hands to defend himself,
and made a blow at him. Gibbie avoided it, laid hold of his arms
inside each elbow, clamped them to the floor, kissed him on forehead
and cheek, and began to help him up like a child.
Having regained his legs, the minister stood for a moment, confused
and half-blinded. The first thing he saw was a drop of blood
stealing down Gibbie's forehead. He was shocked at what he had
done. In truth he had been frightfully provoked, but it was not for
a clergyman so to avenge an insult, and as mere chastisement it was
brutal. What would Mrs. Sclater say to it? The rascal was sure to
make his complaint to her! And there too was his friend, the
herd-lad, in the drawing-room with her!
"Go and wash your face," he said, "and come back again directly."
Gibbie put his hand to his face, and feeling something wet, looked,
and burst into a merry laugh.
"I am sorry I have hurt you," said the minister, not a little
relieved at the sound; "but how dared you write such a -- such an
insolence? A clergyman never gets drunk."
Gibbie picked up the frame which the minister had dropped in his
fall: a piece of the slate was still sticking in one side, and he
wrote upon it:
I will kno better the next time. I thout it was alwais whisky that
made peeple like that. I begg your pardon, sir.
He handed him the fragment, ran to his own room, returned presently,
looking all right, and when Mr. Sclater would have attended to his
wound, would not let him even look at it, laughing at the idea.
Still further relieved to find there was nothing to attract
observation to the injury, and yet more ashamed of himself, the
minister made haste to the refuge of their work; but it did not
require the gleam of the paper substituted for the slate, to keep
him that morning in remembrance of what he had done; indeed it
hovered about him long after the gray of the new slate had passed
into a dark blue.
From that time, after luncheon, which followed immediately upon
lessons, Gibbie went and came as he pleased. Mrs. Sclater begged he
would never be out after ten o'clock without having let them know
that he meant to stay all night with his friend: not once did he
neglect this request, and they soon came to have perfect confidence
not only in any individual promise he might make, but in his general
punctuality. Mrs. Sclater never came to know anything of his
wounded head, and it gave the minister a sharp sting of compunction,
as well as increased his sense of moral inferiority, when he saw
that for a fortnight or so he never took his favourite place at her
feet, evidently that she should not look down on his head.
The same evening they had friends to dinner. Already Gibbie was so
far civilized, as they called it, that he might have sat at any
dining-table without attracting the least attention, but that
evening he attracted a great deal. For he could scarcely eat his
own dinner for watching the needs of those at the table with him,
ready to spring from his chair and supply the least lack. This
behaviour naturally harassed the hostess, and at last, upon one of
those occasions, the servants happening to be out of the room, she
called him to her side, and said,
"You were quite right to do that now, Gilbert, but please never do
such a thing when the servants are in the room. It confuses them,
and makes us all uncomfortable."
Gibbie heard with obedient ear, but took the words as containing
express permission to wait upon the company in the absence of other
ministration. When therefore the servants finally disappeared, as
was the custom there in small households, immediately after placing
the dessert, Gibbie got up, and, much to the amusement of the
guests, waited on them as quite a matter of course. But they would
have wondered could they have looked into the heart of the boy, and
beheld the spirit in which the thing was done, the soil in which was
hid the root of the service; for to him the whole thing was sacred
as an altar-rite to the priest who ministers. Round and round the
table, deft and noiseless, he went, altogether aware of the pleasure
of the thing, not at all of its oddity -- which, however, had he
understood it perfectly, he would not in the least have minded.
All this may, both in Gibbie and the narrative, seem trifling, but I
more than doubt whether, until our small services are sweet with
divine affection, our great ones, if such we are capable of, will
ever have the true Christian flavour about them. And then such
eagerness to pounce upon every smallest opportunity of doing the
will of the Master, could not fail to further proficiency in the
service throughout.
Presently the ladies rose, and when they had left the room, the host
asked Gibbie to ring the bell. He obeyed with alacrity, and a
servant appeared. She placed the utensils for making and drinking
toddy, after Scotch custom, upon the table. A shadow fell upon the
soul of Gibbie: for the first time since he ran from the city, he
saw the well-known appointments of midnight orgy, associated in his
mind with all the horrors from which he had fled. The memory of old
nights in the street, as he watched for his father, and then helped
him home; of his father's last prayer, drinking and imploring; of
his white, motionless face the next morning; of the row at Lucky
Croale's, and poor black Sambo's gaping throat -- all these terrible
things came back upon him, as he stood staring at the tumblers and
the wine glasses and the steaming kettle.
"What is the girl thinking of!" exclaimed the minister, who had been
talking to his next neighbour, when he heard the door close behind
the servant. "She has actually forgotten the whisky! -- Sir Gilbert,"
he went on, with a glance at the boy, "as you are so good, will you
oblige me by bringing the bottle from the sideboard?"
Gibbie started at the sound of his name, but did not move from the
place. After a moment, the minister, who had resumed the
conversation, thinking he had not heard him, looked up. There,
between the foot of the table and the sideboard, stood Gibbie as if
fixed to the floor gazing out of his blue eyes at the
minister -- those eyes filmy with gathering tears, the smile utterly
faded from his countenance. -- Would the Master have drunk out of that
bottle? he was thinking with himself. Imagining some chance remark
had hurt the boy's pride, and not altogether sorry -- it gave hope of
the gentleman he wanted to make him -- Mr. Sclater spoke again:
"It's just behind you, Sir Gilbert -- the whisky bottle -- that purple
one with the silver top."
Gibbie never moved, but his eyes began to run over. A fearful
remembrance of the blow he had given him on the head rushed back on
Mr. Sclater: could it be the consequence of that? Was the boy
paralyzed? He was on the point of hurrying to him, but restrained
himself, and rising with deliberation, approached the sideboard. A
nearer sight of the boy's face reassured him.
"I beg your pardon, Sir Gilbert," he said; "I thought you would not
mind waiting on us as well as on the ladies. It is your own fault,
you know. -- There," he added, pointing to the table; "take your
place, and have a little toddy. It won't hurt you."
The eyes of all the guests were by this time fixed on Gibbie. What
could be the matter with the curious creature? they wondered. His
gentle merriment and quiet delight in waiting upon them, had given a
pleasant concussion to the spirits of the party, which had at first
threatened to be rather a stiff and dull one; and there now was the
boy all at once looking as if he had received a blow, or some
cutting insult which he did not know how to resent!
Between the agony of refusing to serve, and the impossibility of
putting his hand to unclean ministration, Gibbie had stood as if
spell-bound. He would have thought little of such horrors in Lucky
Croale's houff, but the sight of the things here terrified him. He
felt as a Corinthian Christian must, catching a sight of one of the
elders of the church feasting in a temple. But the last words of
the minister broke the painful charm. He burst into tears, and
darting from the room, not a little to his guardian's relief,
hurried to his own.
The guests stared bewildered.
"He'll be gone to the ladies," said their host. "He's an odd
creature. Mrs. Sclater understands him better than I do. He's more
at home with her."
Therewith he proceeded to tell them his history, and whence the
interest he had in him, not bringing down his narrative beyond the
afternoon of the preceding day.
The next morning, Mrs. Sclater had a talk with him concerning his
whim of waiting at table, telling him he must not do so again; it
was not the custom for gentlemen to do the things that servants were
paid to do; it was not fair to the servants, and so on -- happening to
end with an utterance of mild wonder at his fancy for such a
peculiarity. This exclamation Gibbie took for a question, or at
least the expression of a desire to understand the reason of the
thing. He went to a side-table, and having stood there a moment or
two, returned with a New Testament, in which he pointed out the
words, "But I am among you as he that serveth." Giving her just
time to read them, he took the book again, and in addition presented
the words, "The disciple is not above his master, but every one that
is perfect shall be as his master."
Mrs. Sclater was as much put out as if he had been guilty of another
and worse indiscretion. The idea of anybody ordering his common
doings, not to say his oddities, by principles drawn from a source
far too sacred to be practically regarded, was too preposterous to
have ever become even a notion to her. Henceforth, however, it was
a mote to trouble her mind's eye, a mote she did not get rid of
until it began to turn to a glimmer of light. I need hardly add
that Gibbie waited at her dinner-table no more.
Prev
| Next
| Contents
|
|
|