My wandering but faithful pen, whose every child, though homely, is its legitimate own, must now forsake Angus and his fortunes for a season. It shall again return to him, if it be spared. For the good folk of St. Cuthbert's have taught me to insert this phrase at every seasonable opening—indeed, they deem it fitting for every season, and the very first marriage in New Jedboro at which I officiated afforded a vivid proof of this.

The young couple were just emerging from the heavenly operation, still somewhat under the celestial chloroform, when Ronald M'Gregor admonished them. His admonition was after a fashion almost ministerial, for Ronald had once culled himself from out the common herd as meant for a minister, and had abandoned his pursuit only when he found that he had every qualification except the gifts.

"Ye maun bear in mind," he said, "that ye're nae mair twa, but ae flesh; an' ye'll bide wi' ane anither till deith shall ye pairt—that is, gin ye're spared."

Meantime, this friendly pen must record this news of Angus, that the very morning he left St. Cuthbert's manse he entered upon his apprentice term in the great iron manufactory of which Mr. Blake was the head and the propelling power; for behind every engine is the ingenuity, not of many men, but of one.

And leaving him there to ply his fortune and to confront that unseen antagonist against whom every ambitious man plays move and move about, I betake myself again to the records of St. Cuthbert's.

Yet I find it hard to dismiss the lad, for his is a besetting face, and besides, it stubbornly appears above the main current of all the story I have yet to tell.

My fortunes with these strange Scotch folk must be recorded, and chief among my handiwork I think of Geordie Lorimer. For he was a typical Scot, and supremely so in this, that he could be both very religious and very bad. Of which the remarkable thing lies here, that he was both of these at one and the self-same time.

Now, although I am an Irishman, and boast the most romantic blood of time, yet must I frankly admit that few countrymen of mine have such facility. Many of them there are who could be religious, and more who could be bad, with spontaneous ease, but few there be who know how to be both at once. But Geordie did. He was a profligate, but a pious profligate; a terror he was, but he was a holy terror. Mind you well, I do not mean to impugn Geordie's sincerity in the last appeal; not for one moment, for I believe implicitly that Geordie, in the very heart of him, meant to do well. Indeed, I will go further, and say that in his very soul he wished to be closer to God; for he could not well help that wish—it was his inseparable heritage from a saintly father, long a beloved elder in St. Cuthbert's, whose sacred suit of "blacks" Geordie had inherited, himself wearing them to the sacrament till the session denied him his token, and shut him out, blacks and all. The memory of his mother's life was still fragrant to hundreds, fresh and dewy in love's unwithering morn; upon the tide of prayer had Geordie's infant life been launched, and its gentle waves, faint but palpable, still sought to lave his soul.

How many a Northern island-life, bleak and wild, is redeemed from utter destruction by that great gulfstream, the prayers of a mother who was in league with God! Thus it came about that Geordie Lorimer's life was a muddy stream, still tinged with the crystal waters of its hill-born spring. He had made the ghastly find, that when he would do good, evil was present with him; to will was present with him, but how to perform that which was good he found not. For Geordie had, alas! a stronger thirst than that for righteousness. He was given to "tasting," a homeopathic word which Scotsmen use to indicate a trough. I soon heard of him as incorrigibly religious but incorrigibly dry.

Geordie was the best-known character in New Jedboro, as well known as the town pump, the one famed for its outgiving, the other for its intaking powers, but both alike for liquid prowess. His principal occupation was in his wife's name, being a boarding-house whose inmates were secretly and shamefully proud of Geordie's unique superiority in his own particular line, for he could outdrink the countryside.

The very Saturday which preceded my Sunday as a candidate of St. Cuthbert's (they afterwards told me) Geordie was in the kindly grip of the town constable, who was bearing him towards the jail, his victim loudly proclaiming to the world that the guardian of the law had arrested him only when he, Geordie, had refused to treat for the eleventh time.

"He tret the ainst, an' I tret ten times or mair," Geordie was vehemently affirming to a sympathetic street. Turning a corner, they met no less a personage than Sandy Weir, the session clerk.

"Sandy, dinna let him tak' me to the lock-up. There's to be a new minister i' the kirk," he cried, "an' I maun gang to hear him preach the morn. Sandy, wull ye no' bid him no' to tak' me to the lock-up?"

But Sandy was a man under authority, having elders under him, and he refrained, knowing the boundaries of his power.

Passing along a quiet street some years after this, I beheld the unreforming Geordie in a savage fight with a kindred spirit, who drew his inspiration from the same source as his antagonist; for many a cork they had released together. The two men fought like tigers, abandoning themselves the more cheerfully to the combat they both knew would end in a renewal of brotherhood and beer. This thought lent a sanguine enthusiasm to their every effort, for each felt it a point of honour to make the engagement worthy of the "treaty" (a fitting word) that awaited them at the Travellers' Rest.

Above the din of battle I heard a voice emerging from Geordie's head, which head emerged from his opponent's oxter—

"Dinna mark me, Jock, dinna mark me; for we're gaun to hae the bairn baptized i' the kirk the morn," and I knew not which to admire more, Geordie's moral versatility, or the beautiful comity of war.

Geordie did appear in the kirk with the bairn the next morning, unmarked, except by unusual solemnity. He did not take the vows, of course—these were assumed by his long-suffering and devoted wife; but Geordie felt he should be there as collateral security.

I coveted Geordie's soul, and longed to add his regeneration to the new Acts of the Apostles. No opportunity to speak with him was ever allowed to slip, and one came to me whose details I must recount. There had been an election for the town council, which had, half in joke and half in jealousy, returned Geordie as the councillor of his ward; for our glorious manhood suffrage, as some one has pointed out, makes Judas Iscariot as influential at the polls as the Apostle Paul.

Returning, the night of the election, from a sickbed visit, I overtook the jubilant Geordie, full of emotion and other things. His locomotion was irregular and spasmodic, his course original, picturesque, and variable. Geordie was having it out with the law of gravitation.

He was as a ship returning from Jamaica, a precious cargo of spirits in its hold, and labouring heavily in the trough of the sea. I essayed to take his arm, intending to be his wheelsman home, but it was like trying to board a vessel in a storm; for Geordie had at least a hundred routes which he must traverse with impartial feet. After I had somewhat managed to adopt his swing, I sought to deal faithfully with him, though it was like preaching from the plunging deck of a ship at sea, while the breath of my swaying auditor suggested that the aforesaid cargo had sprung a leak.

He was raising a double pÆan to voice a twofold joy: the first, the joy of triumph in the recent contest; the second, the historic and imperishable joy that he was a Scotsman born.

"Yon whelp I skelpit the day was naething but an Irishman," he cried loftily. "I canna get Robbie Burns' graun' words oot o' my heid: 'The Scotsmen staun' an' Irish fa'—let him on wi' me,'" and on this wave of martial spirit Geordie took another plunge at right angles from our previous course, bearing me after him like a skiff tied to a schooner amid stormy seas.

After we had put about and regained our bearings, I nimbly took advantage of this patriotic opening, having ever a quick mind for the transition of ideas.

"Yes, Geordie, many good things are Scotch, and many Scotch things are good. Some misguided persons think even that Scotch liquor is good. Now, George——" But I got no further. This time Geordie swung around before me, like a boat that trusts its moorings—

"Ye're richt, minister; wha wad hae thocht ye kent the difference? But ye're richt—a' whusky is guid, but some's mair guid nor ithers, an' Scotch is mair guid nor ony ithers. Those feckless Irish fowk aye tak' the speerits o' oor native land gin they hae the siller, which isna likely. An' I dinna blame them muckle."

I now saw that there was no opening along this line, favourable at first sight as it had appeared. The attack must be plain and straight.

"Geordie," I began, "this is a pitiable situation for a minister to be in, and you know, George——"

"That's a' richt, minister—dinna fash yersel'. I'll no' mention it to a soul. Mony's the time I hae been fou masel', 'peetiably seetivated,' as ye ca' it, bein' mair learned nor me; to be honest wi' ye, I'm juist a wee bit 'peetiably seetivated' this vera nicht. But I'll tak' ye hame for a' that, an nane'll hear tell o't frae Geordie Lorimer."

Then he plunged again, propelled by the sense of a new responsibility, and for a minute we two performed, unaided and alone, the several different parts of an eight-hand reel.

Nevertheless, I relinquished not my hold, for I was truly attached to the fellow, and in due time we made a mile, though I know the cyclometer would have recorded ten. More hopeful, I was steaming on, a clerical tugboat, when of a sudden Geordie stopped, pointing with his right leg high in air, trusting me and his left to perform the relief duty thus demanded.

"Yon's ma coo, ma Ayrshire coo," he exclaimed, pointing with his initial leg to the white-faced cow which lay among its kindred, its jaw gently swinging.

"The beast disna ken," I heard him mutter; then he suddenly bolted, breaking his tether, and before I could recover him he had shambled on to the road with the gait of a delirious camel, and kicking his innocent property from behind, cried out—

"Get oot o' that. Sic like a thing, to be lyin' wi' the common herd. Mind ye, ye're no' an or'nary man's coo—ye're a cooncillor's coo." Then he retraced his labyrinthian steps in a corresponding swath.

As we drew near his humble gate (how often Geordie had made that last port with pain), he muttered to himself reflectively—

"I gied him hell," referring doubtless to the vanquished candidate.

Whereat I took him to task right sternly, giving him sharply to understand that such language was an insult to his minister and friend.

In reply, he fell upon me, literally and figuratively, with tones of reproachful tenderness.

"Minister," he said, "I own ye as a faithfu' guide." ("You'd better," said I to myself, for I was weary.) "I own ye as a faithfu' guide, an' I wudna gie ye pain. For we've had oor ain times thegither. I micht maist say as 'at 'We twa hae paiddled i' the burn,' only it wudna be becomin'. But aboot that word—I've heard ye say yirsel' frae the pulpit as how hell is a maist awfu' feelin' i' the breist. Verra well, dinna ye think as hoo yon Irish whelp I skelpit the day 'll hae a waesome feelin' i' his breist? That's a' the meanin' I desired till convey. It's nae wrang when it's expoun'it. Guid-nicht till ye, minister."