Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush | Page 9

as in a picture, a hard-visaged man. He looked
down at us laddies in the front, and asked us if we knew what like hell

was. By this time we were that terrified none of us could speak, but I
whispered 'No.'
"Then he rolled up a piece of paper and held it in the flame, and we saw
it burn and glow and shrivel up and fall in black dust.
"'Think,' said he, and he leaned over the desk, and spoke in a gruesome
whisper which made the cold run down our backs, 'that yon paper was
your finger, one finger only of your hand, and it burned like that for
ever and ever, and think of your hand and your arm and your whole
body all on fire, never to go out.' We shuddered that you might have
heard the form creak. 'That is hell, and that is where ony laddie will go
who does not repent and believe.'
"It was like Dante's Inferno, and I dared not take my eyes off his face.
He blew out the candle, and we crept to the door trembling, not able to
say one word.
"That night I could not sleep, for I thought I might be in the fire before
morning. It was harvest time, and the moon was filling the room with
cold clear light. From my bed I could see the stooks standing in rows
upon the field, and it seemed like the judgment day.
"I was only a wee laddie, and I did what we all do in trouble, I cried for
my mother.
"Ye hae na forgotten, mither, the fricht that was on me that nicht."
"Never," said Marget, "and never can; it's hard wark for me to keep frae
hating that man, dead or alive. Geordie gripped me wi' baith his wee
airms round my neck, and he cries over and over and over again, 'Is yon
God?'"
"Ay, and ye kissed me, mither, and ye said (it's like yesterday), 'Yir
safe with me,' and ye telt me that God micht punish me to mak me
better if I was bad, but that he wud never torture ony puir soul, for that
cud dae nae guid, and was the Devil's wark. Ye asked me:

"'Am I a guid mother tae ye?' and when I could dae naethin' but hold,
ye said, 'Be sure God maun be a hantle kinder.'
"The truth came to me as with a flicker, and I cuddled down into my
bed, and fell asleep in His love as in my mother's arms.
"Mither," and George lifted up his head, "that was my conversion, and,
mither dear, I hae longed a' thro' thae college studies for the day when
ma mooth wud be opened wi' this evangel."
Marget's was an old-fashioned garden, with pinks and daisies and
forget-me-nots, with sweet-scented wall-flower and thyme and moss
roses, where nature had her way, and gracious thoughts could visit one
without any jarring note. As George's voice softened to the close, I
caught her saying, "His servants shall see His face," and the peace of
Paradise fell upon us in the shadow of death.
The night before the end George was carried out to his corner, and
Domsie, whose heart was nigh unto the breaking, sat with him the
afternoon. They used to fight the College battles over again, with their
favourite classics beside them, but this time none of them spoke of
books. Marget was moving about the garden, and she told me that
George looked at Domsie wistfully, as if he had something to say and
knew not how to do it.
After a while he took a book from below his pillow, and began, like
one thinking over his words:
"Maister Jamieson, ye hae been a gude freend tae me, the best I ever
hed aifter my mither and faither. Wull ye tak this buik for a keepsake o'
yir grateful scholar? It's a Latin 'Imitation' Dominie, and it's bonnie
printin'. Ye mind hoo ye gave me yir ain Virgil, and said he was a kind
o' Pagan sanct. Noo here is my sanct, and div ye ken I've often thocht
Virgil saw His day afar off, and was glad. Wull ye read it, Dominie, for
my sake, and maybe ye 'ill come to see--" and George could not find
words for more.
But Domsie understood. "Ma laddie, ma laddie, that I luve better than

onythin' on earth, I'll read it till I die, and, George, I'll tell ye what livin'
man does na ken. When I was your verra age I had a cruel trial, and ma
heart was turned frae faith. The classics hae been my bible, though I
said naethin' to ony man against Christ. He aye seemed beyond man,
and noo