Winter Evening Tales | Page 6

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 of those well-dressed, well-behaved people whom
Canon Kingsley described as "the sitters in pews."
In their very proper company David had gone to ball and party, to
opera and theatre. On wet Sundays they sat together in St. George's
Church; on fine Sundays they had sailed quietly down the Thames, and
eaten their dinner at Richmond. Now, sin is sin beyond all controversy,
but there were none of David's companions to whom these things were
sins in the same degree as they were to David.
To none of them had the holy Sabbath ever been the day it had been to
him; to none of them was it so richly freighted with memories of
wonderful sermons and solemn sacraments that were foretastes of
heaven. Coming with a party of gentlemanly fellows slowly rowing up
the Thames and humming some passionate recitative from an opera, he
alone could recall the charmful stillness of a Scotch Sabbath, the
worshiping crowds, and the evening psalm ascending from so many
thousand hearthstones:
O God of Bethel, by whose hand Thy people still are led.
He alone, as the oars kept time to "aria" or "chorus," heard above the
witching melody the solemn minor of "St. Mary's," or the tearful
tenderness of "Communion."
To most of his companions opera and theatre had come as a matter of
course, as a part of their daily life and education. David had been
obliged to stifle conscience, to disobey his father's counsels and his
mother's pleadings, before he could enjoy them. He had had, in fact, to
cultivate a taste for the sin before the sin was pleasant to him; and he
frankly told himself that night, in thinking it all over, that it was harder
work getting to hell than to heaven.
But then in another year he would become a partner, marry Mary, and
begin a new life. Suddenly it struck him with a new force that he had
not heard from Mary for nearly three weeks. A fear seized him that

while he had been dancing and making merry Mary had been ill and
suffering. He was amazed at his own heartlessness, for surely nothing
but sickness would have made Mary forget him.
The next morning as he went to the bank he posted a long letter to her,
full of affection and contrition and rose-colored pictures of their future
life. He had risen an hour earlier to write it, and he did not fail to notice
what a healthy natural pleasure even this small effort of self-denial
gave him. He determined that he would that very night write long
letters to his mother and Janet, and even to his father. "There was a
good deal he wanted to say to him about money matters, and his
marriage, and fore-talk always saved after-talk, besides it would keep
the influence of the old and better life around him to be in closer
communion with it."
Thus thinking, he opened the door of his uncle's private room, and said
cheerily, "Good morning, uncle."
"Good morning, Davie. Your father is here."
Then Andrew Lockerby came forward, and his son met him with
outstretched hands and paling cheeks. "What is it, father? Mother?
Mary? Is she dead?"
"'Deed, no, my lad. There's naething wrang but will turn to right. Mary
Moir was married three days syne, and I thocht you wad rather hear the
news from are that loved you. That's a', Davie; and indeed it's a loss
that's a great gain."
"Who did she marry?"
"Just a bit wizened body frae the East Indies, a'most as yellow as his
gold, an' as auld as her father. But the Deacon is greatly set up wi' the
match--or the settlements--and Mary comes o' a gripping kind. There's
her brother Gavin, he'd sell the ears aff his head, an' they werena
fastened on."
Then David went away with his father, and after half-an-hour's talk on

the subject together it was never mentioned more between them. But it
was a blow that killed effectually all David's eager yearnings for a
loftier and purer life. And it not only did this, but it also caused to
spring up into active existence a passion which was to rule him
absolutely--a passion for