'THE END CROWNS ALL'.
His sole relaxation almost lay in the visit he paid every evening to the soutar and his wife.Their home was a wretched place; but notwithstanding the poverty in which they were now sunk, Robert soon began to see a change, like the dawning of light, an alba, as the Italians call the dawn, in the appearance of something white here and there about the room.Robert's visits had set the poor woman trying to make the place look decent.It soon became at least clean, and there is a very real sense in which cleanliness is next to godliness.If the people who want to do good among the poor would give up patronizing them, would cease from trying to convert them before they have gained the smallest personal influence with them, would visit them as those who have just as good a right to be here as they have, it would be all the better for both, perhaps chiefly for themselves.
For the first week or so, Alexander, unable either to work or play, and deprived of his usual consolation of drink, was very testy and unmanageable.If Robert, who strove to do his best, in the hope of alleviating the poor fellow's sufferings--chiefly those of the mind--happened to mistake the time or to draw a false note from the violin, Sandy would swear as if he had been the Grand Turk and Robert one of his slaves.But Robert was too vexed with himself, when he gave occasion to such an outburst, to mind the outburst itself.And invariably when such had taken place, the shoemaker would ask forgiveness before he went.Holding out his left hand, from which nothing could efface the stains of rosin and lamp-black and heel-ball, save the sweet cleansing of mother-earth, he would say,'Robert, ye'll jist pit the sweirin' doon wi' the lave (rest), an'
score 't oot a'thegither.I'm an ill-tongued vratch, an' I'm beginnin' to see 't.But, man, ye're jist behavin' to me like God himsel', an' gin it warna for you, I wad jist lie here roarin' an'
greitin' an' damnin' frae mornin' to nicht.--Ye will be in the morn's night--willna ye?' he would always end by asking with some anxiety.
'Of coorse I will,' Robert would answer.
'Gude nicht, than, gude nicht.--I'll try and get a sicht o' my sins ance mair,' he added, one evening.'Gin I could only be a wee bit sorry for them, I reckon he wad forgie me.Dinna ye think he wad, Robert?'
'Nae doobt, nae doobt,' answered Robert hurriedly.'They a' say 'at gin a man repents the richt gait, he'll forgie him.'
He could not say more than 'They say,' for his own horizon was all dark, and even in saying this much he felt like a hypocrite.Aterrible waste, heaped thick with the potsherds of hope, lay outside that door of prayer which he had, as he thought, nailed up for ever.
'An' what is the richt gait?' asked the soutar.
''Deed, that's mair nor I ken, Sandy,' answered Robert mournfully.
'Weel, gin ye dinna ken, what's to come o' me?' said Alexander anxiously.
'Ye maun speir at himsel',' returned Robert, 'an' jist tell him 'at ye dinna ken, but ye'll do onything 'at he likes.'
With these words he took his leave hurriedly, somewhat amazed to find that he had given the soutar the strange advice to try just what he had tried so unavailingly himself.And stranger still, he found himself, before he reached home, praying once more in his heart--both for Dooble Sanny and for himself.From that hour a faint hope was within him that some day he might try again, though he dared not yet encounter such effort and agony.
All this time he had never doubted that there was God; nor had he ventured to say within himself that perhaps God was not good; he had simply come to the conclusion that for him there was no approach to the fountain of his being.
In the course of a fortnight or so, when his system had covered over its craving after whisky, the irritability of the shoemaker almost vanished.It might have been feared that his conscience would then likewise relax its activity; but it was not so: it grew yet more tender.He now began to give Robert some praise, and make allowances for his faults, and Robert dared more in consequence, and played with more spirit.I do not say that his style could have grown fine under such a master, but at least he learned the difference between slovenliness and accuracy, and between accuracy and expression, which last is all of original that the best mere performer can claim.
One evening he was scraping away at Tullochgorum when Mr.Maccleary walked in.Robert ceased.The minister gave him one searching glance, and sat down by the bedside.Robert would have left the room.
'Dinna gang, Robert,' said Sandy, and Robert remained.
The clergyman talked very faithfully as far as the shoemaker was concerned; though whether he was equally faithful towards God might be questioned.He was one of those prudent men, who are afraid of dealing out the truth freely lest it should fall on thorns or stony places.Hence of course the good ground came in for a scanty share too.Believing that a certain precise condition of mind was necessary for its proper reception, he would endeavour to bring about that condition first.He did not know that the truth makes its own nest in the ready heart, and that the heart may be ready for it before the priest can perceive the fact, seeing that the imposition of hands confers, now-a-days at least, neither love nor common-sense.He therefore dwelt upon the sins of the soutar, magnifying them and ****** them hideous, in the idea that thus he magnified the law, and made it honourable, while of the special tenderness of God to the sinner he said not a word.Robert was offended, he scarcely knew why, with the minister's mode of treating his friend; and after Mr.Maccleary had taken a far kinder leave of them than God could approve, if he resembled his representation, Robert sat still, oppressed with darkness.
'It's a' true,' said the soutar; 'but, man Robert, dinna ye think the minister was some sair upo' me?'
'I duv think it,' answered Robert.