That was the beginning. He went again, and as hands happened to be scarce at the time, he was kept on, and his wages were raised as his skill and his strength increased. By and by he was offered permanent work on a mill that was to be built in a country place at some distance.

It would take months to build, and he would be sure of work for that time; so he took his mother with him, and what household stuff they had left, and lived in a tiny room in a cottage for a while.

Not very far from the new mill was Nethermuir, a quiet place, out of the way, where they might live, they said to one another, unknown and forgotten. And here, after many thoughts about it, they resolved to make themselves a home.

At the end of the street on which stood the missionary kirk and manse, was a small house which had once been of the better sort, but which had been vacant for some time, and had fallen into disrepair. The thatch was rotten and the roof had partly fallen in, but the foundation was firm, and the walls were thick and strong. This house John leased for seven years, at a very small rent, and by his own strength, and skill, and will, with some help from his fellow-workmen, he made of it such a house as was not unworthy of being a home for his mother; and in it, while her son went here and there as his work called him, she lived content.

Terrible as the blow was which took from them husband and father and home, it might have been worse in the end had John Beaton died a rich man. So said some of the lookers-on, who long before that time had declared that his son, having all his life long got more of his own will than was good for him, was in a fair way to become a "spoiled laddie" at last.

Some said it who envied the lad, and others said it who loved him well, and it is possible that they were not far wrong in the belief. John the younger was a "bonny lad," tall and strong, sweet-tempered and light-hearted, a favourite with all. But he was open to temptation like the rest of his kind, even more so than many, and not all of those who gathered round him in his prosperous days were of the sort likely to influence him for good. He went through the first years at the university without getting much good from it, it was said. He had disappointed his father greatly, as well as his teachers; but though he had been foolish and idle, he had not disgraced himself by anything beyond idleness and folly. Whether he would have gone through the course without doing worse, might be questioned.

The chance was not given him. His father died, and instead of inheriting what would have been called wealth among those who were his friends, he found himself penniless, having his own bread, and possibly his mother's also, to win. And seeing there was good stuff in the lad, his mother's helplessness and desolation might be the saving of him, said one of his mother's humble friends.

They had friends--yes, many of them--but some of them had suffered loss as they themselves had suffered, and had no power to help except with kind words. Others who had the power to help had not the will, or only the will to help in their own way. Others added to their offers advice that could not be followed, or they hurt the sore hearts of the lad and his mother with words which implied censure on the dead, because he had not foreseen and provided against the coming of evil days. And so, seeing no help among "kenned folk," the two went out, "not knowing whither they went."

They had gone away bravely enough, and even through the dark days which came first, it cannot be said that they quite lost heart or hope. As long as his mother was content, John told himself, he did not care what fell to him to do or to endure; and as long as John was well, and within reach of hand or voice, it was well with the mother. It was not till the first months were over that John's heart seemed to fail. When the mill was finished, instead of going with the men to other work in another direction, he remained in Nethermuir, hoping to find something to do in the neighbourhood, so that he might be near his mother. He found enough to do for a time in making the little house a comfortable and even beautiful home for her. Then he prepared the neglected bit of ground around it for a garden and took pleasure in doing it. It was work which he liked, and which he knew how to do, but it put nothing into the family purse, which was getting low, and something must be done to replenish it.

He worked for a few weeks in harvest in the narrow fields of Peter Gilchrist, and to good purpose, though the work was new to him; and he made friends with Peter himself, which was something. But the harvest wore over and winter was coming on, and then he wrote to Jamie Dunn, his first friend, saying he was now ready and willing to go wherever he should be sent.

But in his heart he knew that for the only work which was left to him to do, he was neither ready nor willing, nor for the kind of life which he saw stretching a long, weary way before him.

He could do as his father had done before him, he told his mother cheerfully, and who had done better than he? But to himself he owned that this was to be doubted. He could never do as his father had done; he was not the man his father had been, or he could never have played the fool, wasting his time and losing his opportunities, as he had done.

He had been spoiled with softness, with idle days, and the pleasant things of life, which he could not forget, and which, like a weakling, he was in his secret heart longing for still. And even his father had not won what men called success, and a firm footing among his fellows, till the best part of his life was over.

But his father had been content through all his days as they came, and with his day's work and his day's wages. And his father had known his own strength and could bide his time. As for his son, John told himself that he was neither strong nor wise. He knew, or he feared at this time, that only the thought of his mother and her need of him kept him from despair.

He called it despair, poor lad, not knowing what he said. The depths of despair came to him with the thought of enlisting as a common soldier, to go away and live his life with as little exercise of his own will as the musket he carried, and to death and a nameless grave. Or it meant to sail away before the mast, a slave to some tyrant who held the power of life and death, because he held the power of the lash. And it might have come to one or other of these possibilities with him, if it had not been for his mother and her need of him.

For the dead level of the life which he saw stretching out before him seemed even worse to him than that--the life of ceaseless, ill-remunerated labour, the companionship of men grown dull through a changeless routine of toilsome days, or debased through ignorance or self-indulgence, a life and a companionship with which he might at last grow content, being no stronger or wiser than other men.

These were dark days for the young man. At last he took his mother's gently spoken words of counsel to heart, and opened the box in which she had secretly packed his college-books, and where they had lain hidden all this time. But the sight of them, and the a.s.sociations they called up, made him heartsick and ashamed, and it was only by the exercise of strong self-restraint that he made himself pretend to take some interest in them for his mother's sake. After this he fell into the way of taking long walks in all directions, and did a turn of work here and there as he could get it, and generally came home hungry, and tired, and ready for his bed, so that no reading could be expected of him.

But the days were growing short, and the dark hours many and long, and the mother's heart "grew wae" for her son many a time. By and by something happened.

It was a good thing for the minister's Davie that John Beaton was within sound of the voices of the lad's terrified companions the day that he fell into "Burney's Pot," and it was a good thing also for John. The little lad was nearly gone when he was pulled out of the water, and having no knowledge of his home or name, since his young companions had taken to their heels as soon as they saw Davie safe, John took him home to his mother, and together they did what could be done for his help.

This was the beginning. Davie was allowed to fall asleep in Mrs Beaton's bed, and in the gloaming John carried him home wrapped in a blanket, and then he saw the minister and his wife and Marjorie. It was the beginning for John of more than can well be told.

His manner of life from that time was changed. Not that he went often to the manse at first, though the door was always open to him, and a welcome awaiting him. But the life he saw there, the words he heard, and the spirit that showed in all that was done, or said, or planned, in great things and in small, came like a new revelation to him; and the more he saw and thought of it all, the less he thought about his own loss and his changed life and his unhopeful prospects.

He had more days of leisure that winter than well pleased him, but not one of them was spent in wandering aimlessly about the dreary hills. He had company, most days, wherever he went. If he had not Robin or Jack, there was always Davie, who seemed to think he had a special claim upon him. Davie had not yet been promoted to a seat in the parish school, but was beginning to think himself, at eight, too big a boy for Mistress Jamieson's rule, since he could say the Catechism from end to end, proofs and pet.i.tions and all. With Davie trotting along at his side, John had little chance for brooding. Besides, he had taken to his books again, and meant to employ his leisure and make up for lost time if such a thing might be. It was not likely that he would have much use for Latin or Logic in the life that lay before him, he told himself; but he might as well make the most of the idle days, and keep his mind from stagnation.

And he had less of leisure after a while. It was about this time that he began to try his hand at the making of "headstones" for the kirkyard.

Chance put such work in his way, and being ready of hand and quick of eye, and having long patience and much need of a job, he set to work with a will. He did not succeed in pleasing himself, but he pleased his employer, which answered the purpose; and he did more at the work, at odd times, when he could get nothing else to do.

The life which he saw lived in the manse did something for him, and the Word as it was held forth in the little kirk did more; but that came long afterward. The minister was the busiest of men, either among his books or among his people, or in his garden or his land; but he was never too busy for a cheery word to John, or for help or counsel to any one who needed them. And the same might be said of the minister's wife.

She was active and had enough to do at home, but she was glad to help those who needed help anywhere. She had good sense and good judgment, and was ready with sweet words or sharp words, as the case presented seemed to demand. She was firm where firmness seemed to be required, but had long patience and unfailing gentleness in her dealings with the weak and even with the wilful; and as the days pa.s.sed, John took heed of her words and ways with ever-growing interest.

She had not an easy life, but she had usually firm health and she had a cheerful nature, and the peace of G.o.d was in her heart. So she "stood in her lot" strong and unafraid, whatever might befall.

She was a loving mother to her sons, but her rule was firm as well as gentle. There was no need in that house to appeal to the father's stronger will where obedience was not promptly given. It was a serious matter indeed that needed an appeal to their father. To the lads their mother's word was law. Not that the law was not forgotten sometimes, or even wilfully broken in times of strong temptation. But confession of sins, though not always prompt, was, in course of time, quite certain.

She had their confidence entirely. It was an unhappy boy, indeed, who carried about, for even a few days, a sinful or sorrowful secret hidden from his mother.

In among these lads John came as another brother, and Mrs Hume was kind and gracious in her intercourse with him. She was faithful also, and told him of faults and failings which his own mother never acknowledged, and helped him to correct them, as, even had she seen them, his own mother might have hesitated to do. It was, indeed, a good day for John when the door of the manse was opened to him.

And then there was Marjorie, poor little soul, who was nearly nine, and who looked like six, a fair, weak little creature, who could only walk a step or two at a time, and who was yet as eager to know, and to do, and to be in the midst of things as the strongest of them all. "Another brother," she called their new friend, who had more sense and patience than Robin or Jack, and who could carry her so easily and strongly without being tired. It was a happy day for Marjorie when John came in to see her. It was better than a new book, she thought, to hear him talk.

"And a new book is so soon done with," said Marjorie, who did not see very many new books, and who had usually learned them by heart before she had had them many days. But John had always something to tell her.

He told her about new places and new people, and he had seen the sea, and had sailed on it. He had been in London and had seen the king and the queen, "like the travelled cat," as Robin said. And there was no end to the stories he could tell her that she had never heard before.

She was never tired of listening to him, and hailed his coming with delight, and long before he had come to feel quite at ease with the mother, John had learned to love dearly the eager, gentle little creature, from whose eyes the joy at his coming chased the look of pain and weariness.

As for the friendship which grew more slowly, but quite as surely, between John and the elder boys of the manse, it cannot be said whether he or they benefited most by it. To Robin and Jack, John seemed a far wiser and stronger man than he knew himself to be--a man of wider experience, higher aims, and firmer purpose. And their belief in him, their silent yet evident admiration of all his words and ways, their perfect trust in his discretion and sympathy, did as much for him as for them, and helped him to strive for the attainment of all the good gifts which they believed him to possess.

He helped them in many ways. He helped them at their work and kept them back from taking part in many a "ploy," which, though only foolish, and not so very wrong, were still both foolish and wrong to them, because in engaging in them they would waste their time, and--being the minister's sons--set a bad example to the rest of the lads, and, worst of all, vex their father and their mother. And they could bear to be restrained by him, because, in the carrying out of all harmless fun, they profited by many a hint from John, and sometimes even by his help. But they all agreed that the less said about this matter among the neighbours the better for all concerned.

John had been in Nethermuir several months before he saw the inside of the little kirk. He knew little about the folk who worshipped there, except that they were said to be "a queer kin' o' folk, who set themselves up as better than their neebors, and wiser than a' their teachers." Differing, as they seemed to do, both in preaching and in practice, from the kirk of the nation, they were doubtless wrong, thought John. But whatever they were, they were folk in whom he took no interest, and with whom he had nothing at all to do. So when he had gone to the kirk at all, he had gone to the parish kirk to please his mother, who was not always able to go so far herself. Sometimes he had permitted himself to go even farther than the kirk, coming back when the service was half over to sit for a while on a fallen headstone, as Allison did afterward when her turn came.

On fine days his mother went with him, and then it was different. He sat with the rest and listened to what the minister had to say, with no inclination to find fault. Indeed there was no fault to be found from John's point of view or from the minister's. It cannot be averred that in what was said there was either "food or physic for the soul of man."

But not knowing himself to be in especial need of either the one or the other, John missed nothing to which he had been accustomed all his days to listen in the kirk.

"We had a good discourse," his mother would say, as they went slowly home together, and John always a.s.sented. "Yes, mother, we had a good discourse."

So John went most days to please his mother. But there came a day of rain, and sleet, and bitter east wind, when, if her conscience would have permitted, Mrs Beaton would have refrained from making her usual suggestion about the propriety of honouring the Sabbath-day by going to the kirk. As for John, he was no more afraid of the rain, and the sleet, and the east wind than he was afraid of the summer sunshine; but when he proposed to go to hear Mr Hume, the sound of the sleet and the rain on the windows silenced any objection she might have had to his going "once in a way, the day being wild and wintry," and she even added a hope that he might "hear something to do him good."

This was at the very beginning of his acquaintance with the minister and his family. If he had waited for a while, till the charm of their friendliness and genuine kindness had wrought, till the time came when he had seen with his own eyes, and heard with his own ears that which proved his new friend to be different in some ways from the most of those to whom he had all his life looked up as leaders and teachers, yet not unworthy also to teach and to lead, John might have been better prepared to get the good which his mother hoped for him. And yet he might not. At any rate, it was to that dark day in the little kirk that, in the years which came afterward, he looked back as the beginning of "good" to him.

"A dismal hole," he called it, as he went in among the first and sat down in a corner. It was scarcely barer or more dingy and dim than the rest of the kirks in country places were in those days; but it was very small, and it had windows only on one side. On that dark day it was dismal, and it could not have been beautiful at any time. The chill of the sleet and the wild east wind had got into it, and John wondered at the folk who should choose, of their own free will, to pa.s.s two hours, or even three, in the damp and gloom and dreariness. "There will be few here to-day," thought he.

But they came one after another, and by twos and threes, and there was the stamping of wet shoes, and the shaking out of wet plaids, and many a sneeze, and many a "hoast" (cough). And still more came, some of them with familiar faces from the neighbouring streets, and some from beyond the hills, miles away. Peter Gilchrist was there, of course, and Saunners Crombie, and an old woman or two, who would better have kept the house, John thought, on such a day. And by and by the kirk was well filled. John would have liked to see the minister's seat. It was close to the door, and so was the one in which he sat; but a little porch, which protected the door, came between. He heard the clatter of the boys' feet as they came in, and once he heard their mother's "quietly, boys," gently but firmly uttered, and by that time the minister was in the pulpit, and the service began.

It was just to be like other services in other kirks, John thought at first. There was a psalm read, and a remark was made on a verse here and there, and then they sang. He had a certain enjoyment in the singing, because he had never heard anything like it before. The sleet or something else had kept the usual precentor at home, and Saunners Crombie filled the office for the time. He had the singing mostly to himself for the first verse, because no one knew what tune he meant to sing, and some of those who joined, trying to do their best, "went out of it a'thegither," as Saunners said angrily afterward. The second verse went better. The minister's boys took it up and their mother, and were joined by "the discordant crowd," as John called them while he listened; and though he might have done good service on the occasion, he never opened his lips.

Then came the "long prayer," in which John certainly did not join. But he listened, and after a little he wondered. It was "like all the prayers," he said to himself at first--confession, pet.i.tion, thanksgiving. Yet it was a little different. The words came with a certain power. It was as if he who prayed saw the face of Him whom he addressed, a living Person whom he knew and had proved, and not an awful unknown Being hidden in light unapproachable, or in dimness or darkness.

He was speaking to One whose promise had been given, and many times made good unto those who trusted Him. And to him who was asking, evidently the promise was sure, the Word unchangeable.

"All good things! Why, a man who believed that need be afraid of nothing," said John to himself.

Then a chapter from the New Testament was read. It was the one in Corinthians about charity, from every verse of which a sermon might be preached, the minister said; but he only lingered a minute on the verse which speaks of the charity "which thinketh no evil," and by the little stir that went through the congregation, John thought that perhaps a word on that subject might be specially needed.

Then came the sermon, and John listened intently. But he did not like it. He told his mother, when he went home, that he had heard the folk saying about the kirk door that they had had a grand sermon. "And they should ken," said John with a shrug.

"The text? Oh! it was a fine text: 'Christ the power of G.o.d, and the wisdom of G.o.d unto salvation.' It was like no sermon I ever heard before," said John, "and I am not sure that I ever wish to hear another of the same kind."

John did not go to the manse that week, and he had no intention of going to the kirk on Sunday, but when Sunday came he changed his mind and was there with the rest. He sat in his corner and listened, and wondered, and grew angry by turns.

"Is not my Word like as a fire? saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?"

That was the text and that was the way in which the Word came to John Beaton, and he would have none of it--for a time.

To his mother, who went to the kirk with him after a while, it came in another way. It was not new to her. It was just what she had been hearing all her life, she said, only the minister made it clearer and plainer than ever it had been made to her before. Or it might be that her heart was more open to receive the Word than it used to be in former days, when both heart and hands were full of the good things of this life, which, she said, had contented her to the forgetting of the Giver's greater gifts.