Winter Evening Tales | Page 9

other's hands
Davie came very near touching for a moment a David Lockerby no one
had seen for many long years. But he said nothing during his visit of
Willie's sermon, nor indeed in several subsequent ones. Scotsmen are
reticent on all matters, and especially reticent about spiritual experience;
and though Davie lingered in Edinburgh a week, he was neither able to
speak to Willie about his soul, nor yet in all their conversations get rid
of that haunting, uncomfortable influence Willie had raised.
But as they stood before the Queen's Hotel at midnight bidding each
other an affectionate farewell, David suddenly turned Willie round and
opened up his whole heart to him. And as he talked he found himself
able to define what had been only hitherto a vague, restless sense of
want.
"I am the poorest rich man and the most miserable failure, Willie Caird,
that ever you asked yon fearsome question of--and I know it. I have
achieved millions, and I am a conscious bankrupt to my own soul. I
have wasted my youth, neglected my talents and opportunities, and

whatever the world may call me I am a wretched breakdown. I have
made money--plenty of it--and it does not pay me. What am I to do?"
"You ken, Davie, my dear, dear lad, what advice the Lord Jesus gave to
the rich man--'distribute unto the poor--and come, follow me!'"
Then up and down Princes street, and away under the shadow of the
Castle Hill, Willie and David walked and talked, till the first sunbeams
touched St. Leonard's Crags. If it was a long walk a grand work was
laid out in it.
"You shall be more blessed than your namesake," said Willie, "for
though David gathered the gold, and the wood, and the stone, Solomon
builded therewith. Now, an' it please God, you shall do your ain work,
and see the topstone brought on with rejoicing."
Then at David's command, workmen gathered in companies, and some
of the worst "vennels" in old Glasgow were torn down; and the
sunshine flooded "wynds" it had scarcely touched for centuries, and a
noble building arose that was to be a home for children that had no
home. And the farms of Ellenmount fed them, and the fleeces of
Lockerby clothed them, and into every young hand was put a trade that
would win it honest bread.
In a short time even this undertaking began to be too small for David's
energies and resources, and he joined hands with Willie in many other
good works, and gave not only freely of his gold, but also of his time
and labor. The old eloquence that stirred his classmates in St. Andrew's
Hall, "till they would have followed him to the equator" began to stir
the cautious Glasgow traders to the bottom of their hearts, and their
pocketbooks; and men who didn't want to help in a crusade against
drunkenness, or in a crusade for the spread of the Gospel, stopped away
from Glasgow City Hall when David Lockerby filled the chair at a
public meeting and started a subscription list with £1000 down on the
table.
But there were two old ladies that never stopped away, though one of
them always declared "Master Davie had fleeched her last bawbee out

o' her pouch;" and the other generally had her little whimper about
Davie "waring his substance upon ither folks' bairns."
"There's bonnie Bessie Lament, Janet; an' he would marry her we might
live to see his ain sons and daughters in the old house."
"'Deed, then, ma'am, our Davie has gotten him a name better than that
o' sons an' dochters; and though I am sair disappointed in him--"
"You shouldn't say that, Janet; he made a gran' speech the day."
"A speech isna' a sermon, ma'am; though I'll ne'er belittle a speech wi' a
£1000 argument."
"And there was Deacon Moir, Janet, who didna approve o' the scheme,
and who would therefore gie nothing at a'."
"The Deacon is sae godly that God doesna get a chance to improve his
condition, ma'am. But for a' o' Deacon Moir's disapproval I'se count on
the good work going on."
"'Deed yes, Janet, and though our Davie should ne'er marry at a'--"
"There'll be generations o' lads an' lasses, ma'am, that will rise up in
auld Scotland an' go up an' down through a' the warld a' ca' David
Lockerby 'blessed.'"

FRANZ MÜLLER'S WIFE.
"Franz, good morning. Whose philosophy is it now? Hegel, Spinosa,
Kant or Dugald Stewart?"
"None of them. I am reading Faust."
"Worse and worse. Better wrestle with philosophies than lose yourself
in the clouds. At any rate, if the poets are to send the philosophers to
the right about, stick to Shakespeare."

"He is too material. He can't get rid of