Winter Evening Tales | Page 5

been brought up in the fear of God and the love of mankind, father. It would be an ill thing for me to slink out of life and leave the world no better for my living."
"God bless you, lad; and the ��20,000 will be to the fore when it is called for, and you shall make it ��60,000, and I'll see again Ellenmount in the Lockerby's keeping. But you'll walk in the ways o' your fathers, and gie without grudging of your increase."
David nodded rather impatiently. He could hardly understand the struggle going on in his father's heart--the wish to say something that might quiet his own conscience, and yet not make David's unnecessarily tender. It is hard serving God and Mammon, and Andrew Lockerby was miserable and ashamed that morning in the service.
And yet he was not selfish in the matter--that much in his favor must be admitted. He would rather have had the fine, handsome lad he loved so dearly going in and out his own house. He could have taken great interest in all his further studies, and very great pride in seeing him a successful "placed minister;" but there are few Scotsmen in whom pride of lineage and the good of the family does not strike deeper than individual pleasure. Andrew really believed that David's first duty was to the house of Lockerby.
He had sacrificed a great deal toward this end all his own life, nor were his sacrifices complete with the resignation of his only child to the same purpose. To a man of more than sixty years of age it is a great trial to have an unusual and unhappy atmosphere in his home; and though Mrs. Lockerby was now tearful and patient under her disappointment, everyone knows that tears and patience may be a miserable kind of comfort. Then, though Janet had as yet preserved a dour and angry silence, he knew that sooner or later she would begin a guerilla warfare of sharp words, which he feared he would have mainly to bear, for Janet, though his housekeeper, was also "a far-awa cousin," had been forty years in his house, and was not accustomed to withhold her opinions on any subject.
Fortunately for Andrew Lockerby, Janet finally selected Mary Moir as the Eve specially to blame in this transgression. "A proud up-head lassie," she asserted, "that cam o' a family wha would sell their share o' the sunshine for pounds sterling!"
From such texts as this the two women in the Lockerby house preached little daily sermons to each other, until comfort grew out of the very stem of their sorrow, and they began to congratulate each other that "puir Davie was at ony rate outside the glamour o' Mary Moir's temptations."
"For she just bewitched the laddie," said Janet, angrily; and, doubtless, if the old laws regarding witches had been in Janet's administration it would have gone hardly with pretty Mary Moir.

PART II.
"God's work is soon done."
It is a weary day when the youth first discovers that after all he will only become a man; and this discovery came with a depressing weight one morning to David, after he had been counting bank notes for three hours. It was noon, but the gas was lit, and in the heavy air a dozen men sat silent as statues, adding up figures and making entries. He thought of the college courts, and the college green, of the crowded halls, and the symposia, where both mind and body had equal refection. There had been days when he had a part in these things, and when to "strive with things impossible," or "to pluck honor from the pale-faced moon," had not been unreasonable or rash; but now it almost seemed as if Mr. Buckle's dreary gospel was a reality, and men were machines, and life was an affair to be tabulated in averages.
He had just had a letter from Willie Caird, too, and it had irritated him. The wounds of a friend may be faithful, but they are not always welcome. David determined to drop the correspondence. Willie was going one way and he another. They might never see each other again; and--
If they should meet one day, If both should not forget They could clasp hands the accustomed way.
For by simply going with the current in which in great measure, subject yet to early influences, he found himself, David Lockerby had drifted in one twelve months far enough away from the traditions and feelings of his home and native land. Not that he had broken loose into any flagrant sin, or in any manner cast a shadow on the perfect respectability of his name. The set in which Alexander Gordon and his nephew lived sanctioned nothing of the kind. They belonged to the best society, and were