Winter Evening Tales | Page 8

also one of those self-dependent men who dislike to ask
questions or advice from anyone. Though a comparative stranger he
would not have allowed himself to think that anyone could direct him
better than he could choose for himself. He looked up and down the
street, and finally followed a company which increased continually
until they entered an old church in the Canongate.
Its plain wooden pews and old-fashioned elevated pulpit rather pleased
than offended David, and the air of antiquity about the place
consecrated it in his eyes. Men like whatever reminds them of their
purest and best days, and David had been once in the old Relief Church
on the Doo Hill in Glasgow--just such a large, bare, solemn-looking
house of worship. The still, earnest men and women, the droning of the
precentor, the antiquated singing pleased and soothed him. He did not
notice much the thin little fair man who conducted the services; for he
was holding a session with his own soul.
A peculiar movement among the congregation announced that the
sermon was beginning, and David, looking up, saw that the officiating
minister had been changed. This man was swarthy and tall, and looked
like some old Jewish prophet, as he lifted his rapt face and cried, like
one crying in the wilderness, "Friends! I have a question to ask you

to-night: '_What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and
lose his own soul_?'"
For twenty-three years David had silenced that voice, but it had found
him out again--it was Willie Caird's. At first interested and curious,
David soon became profoundly moved as Willie, in clear, solemn,
thrilling sentences, reasoned of life and death and judgment to come.
Not that he followed his arguments, or was more than dimly conscious
of the moving eloquence that stirred the crowd as a mighty wind stirs
the trees in the forest: for that dreadful question smote, and smote, and
smote upon his heart as if determined to have an answer.
_What shall it profit? What shall it profit? What shall it profit_? David
was quick enough at counting material loss and profit, but here was a
question beyond his computation. He went silently out of the church,
and wandered away by Holyrood Palace and St. Anthony's Chapel to
the pathless, lonely beauty of Salisbury Crags. There was no answer in
nature for him. The stars were silent above, the earth silent beneath.
Weariness brought him no rest; if he slept, he woke with the start of a
hunted soul, and found him asking that same dreadful question. When
he looked in the mirror his own face queried of him, "What profit?" and
he was compelled to make a decided effort to prevent his tongue
uttering the ever present thought.
But at noon he would meet the defaulting bank committee, "and
doubtless his lawful business would take its proper share of his
thought!" He told himself that it was the voice and face of his old friend
that had affected him so vividly, and that if he went and chatted over
old times with Willie, he would get rid of the disagreeable influence.
The influence, however, went with him into the creditors' committee
room. The embarrassed officials had dreaded greatly the interview. No
one hoped for more than bare justice from David Lockerby. "Clemency,
help, sympathy! You'll get blood out o' a stane first, gentlemen," said
the old cashier, with a dour, hopeless face.
And yet that morning David Lockerby amazed no one so much as
himself. He went to the meeting quite determined to have his

own--only his own--but something asked him, "_What shall it profit_?"
and he gave up his lawful increase and even offered help. He went
determined to speak his mind very plainly about mismanagement and
the folly of having losses; and something asked him, "_What shall it
profit_?" and he gave such sympathy with his help that the money came
with a blessing in its hand.
The feeling of satisfaction was so new to him that it embarrassed and
almost made him ashamed. He slipped ungraciously away from the
thanks that ought to have been pleasant, and found himself, almost
unconsciously, looking up Willie's name in the clerical directory, "Dr.
William Caird, 22 Moray place." David knew enough of Edinburgh to
know that Moray place contained the handsomest residences in the city,
and therefore he was not astonished at the richness and splendor of
Willie's library; but he was astonished to see him surrounded by five
beautiful boys and girls, and evidently as much interested in their
lessons and sports as if he was one of them.
"Ech! Davie man! but I'm glad to see you!" That was all of Willie's
greeting, but his eyes filled, and as the friends held each