LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2157, 24 January 1881, Page 3

LITERATURE.

SANDY THE TINKER.

[From " London Soolety." ' Before commencing my story, I wish to state it is perfectly true in every particular.'

'We quite understand that,' said the sceptio of our party, who was wont, in the se urlty of friendly intercourse, to characterise all suoh prefaces as mere introductions to some tremendous blank, blank, blank, which trio the reader oan fill up at his own pleasure and leisure.

On the occasion in question, however, we had donned oar beat behaviour, a garment which did not alt ungracefully on some of us; and onr host, who was about to draw ent from the stores of memory one narrative for oar entertainment, was scarcely the person before whom even Jack Hill would have oared to express his cynical and unbelieving views.

We were seated, an incongruous company of ten persons, in the best room of an old manse among the Scottish hills. Accident had thrown us together, and accident had driven us under the minister's hospitable roof. Gold, wet, and hungry, drenched with rain, sorely beaten by the wind, we had crowded through the door opened (by a friendly hand, and now, wet no longer, the pangs of hunger assuaged with smoking rashers of ham, poached eggs, and steaming potatoes, we sat around a blazing fire drinking toddy out of tumblers, whilst the two ladies who graced the assemblage partook of a modicum of the same beverage from wine-glasses. Everything was eminently comfortable, but done upon the most correct principles. Jack could no more have taken it upon him to shock the minister's ear with some of the opinions he aired in Fleet street than he could have asked for more whisky with his water.

'Yes, it is perfectly trae,'continued the minister, looking thoughtfully at the fire. ' I can't explain it. I cannot even try to explain it. I will tell the story exactly as it occurred, and leave yon to draw your own deductions from it.' None of us answered. We fell Into listening attitudes instantly, and eighteen eyes fixed themselves by one accord upon our host.

He was an old man, but hale. The weight of eighty winters had whitened his head, but not bent it. He seemed young as any of us—younger than Jack Hill, who was a reviewer end a newspaper hack, and whote way through life had not been altogether on easy lines. ' Thirty years ago, npon a certain Friday morning in August,' began the minister, ' 1 was sitting at breakfast in the room on the other side of the passage where yoa ate your supper, when the servant girl oame in with a letter.;she said a laddie, all out of breath, had brought over from D end tidy Manse. "He was bidden rin a' the way," she went on, " and he's fairly beaten." 'I told her to make the messenger sit down, and put food before him ; and then, when she went to do my bidding, proceeded, I mast confess with some cariosity, to break the seal of a missive forwarded in such hot haste.

'lt was from the minister at Dendeldy, who had been newly chosen to occupy the pulpit his father occupied for a quarter of a century and more. ' The call from the congregation originated rather out of respect to the father's memory than any extraordinary liking for the son. He had been reared for the most part In England, and was somewhat distant and formal in his manners ; and, though full of Greek and Latin and Hebrew, wanted the true Scotch accent that goes straight to the heart of those accustomed to the broad, honest, tender Scottish tongue. * His people wero proud of him, but they did not just like all his ways. They could remember him a lad running about tbe whole country-side, and they could not understand, and did not approve of, his holding them at arm's length and shutting himself up among his books, and refusing their hospitality, and sending out word he waß bu r .y when maybe some very decent man wanted speech of him. I had taken upon myself to point out that I thought he was wrong, and that he would alienate his flock from him. Perhaps it was for this very reason, because I was blunt and plain, he took to me kindly, and never got on bis high horse, no matter what I said to bin.

'Well, to return to the letter. It was written in the wildest haste, and entreated me not to lose a momet t in coming to him. as he was in the very greatest distress and anxiety. "Let nothing delay you," ho proceeded. "If I cannot speak to you soon I believe I shall go out of my senses." " What conld ba the matter ?" I thought. " What, in all the wide earth, could have happened t" •I had seen him but a few days before, and he was in good health and spirits, getting on better with his people, feoling hopeful of so altering his style of preaching as to touoh their hearts more sensibly.

I must lay wide Southern ideas an well as aocent, if I car.,'ho went on. ,S Men who live such lives of hardship and privation, who oast their seed Into the ground under such rigorous skies, and cut their corn m fear and trembling at the end of late uncertain Bummers, who take tU jbeep out of the snow-drifts and carry the ambsmto shelter beside their own humble hearths, must want a different sort of sermon from him who sleeps soft and walks delicately." •»«*»» «I had Implied something of all this myself, and it amused me to find my own thoughts come back clothed in different 8Hn 10 » n n a ? *»"»*«* to me as strangers, 2KM™ I wan * ed wa * h « good, and I felt g Hll? ? howe , d snch aptitude to learn. What could have happened, however puzzled me sorely. As I made my hurried preparations for Ee tting out I fairly per plued mjtdt with speculation. I w?nfc into the kitchen, whore his messenger wm eating some breakfast, and aaked him if l£ CawJey was ill. "** "I dinr>a ken," he answered. ««He made no complaint, but he laiked awfu' bad f eat. awfu' " ,J " In what way?" "As if ha had seen aghnist," was the reply. 'This made me very uneaßy, and I jumped to the conclusion the trouble was connected with money matters. Young men will be young men ;' and here the minister looked sigcifioantly at the callow bird of our company, a youth who had never owed a six. ponce in his life or given away a cent; while Jack Hill—no chicken by the way—was over head and ears in debt, and could not keep a sovereign in his pocket, though spending or bestowing it involved gome dinnerless the next day. ■ '■ ' Young men will be young men.' repeated the minister, in his best pulpit manner ( Ju«t as though any one expected them to be young women!' grumbled Jaok to me afterwards), 'and I feared that now he was settled and oomfortably off some old creditor he had been paying as best he could might ?•*?. J, e °?. me P«wsing. I knew nothing of his liabilities, or, beyond the amount of the stipend paid him, the state of his peauniary affairs ; but having once in my own life made myself responsible for a debt Iwas aware of all the trouble putting your arm out further than yon can draw it baok involves, and I considered it moat probably money, which is the root of all evil'('and all good, Jack's eyes suggested to me); was the cause of my young friend's agony Of mind. Blessed with a large family—every one of whom is now alive and doing well, I thank God, oat in the world—yoi may imagine I had not muoh opportunity for laying by; still, I had put aside a little for a rainy day, and that littlo I placed in my pocket book, hoping even a small sum might prove of ass in case of emergency.» 'Come, yon are a trump,' I saw wrlttea Plainly on Jack Hill's face; and be settled himself to listen to the remainder of the minister's story ia a manner which could not be considered other than complimentary. e

Duly and truly I knew quite well he had already devoted the first five-guinca cheque he received to the poor of that minister's parish.

By the road,' proceeded onr host, 'Den. deldy is distant from here ten long miles, but by a short cut across the hills it can b« reached in something under six. For me it was nothing of a walk, and accordingly I axrived at the manse ere noon.'

He paused, and, though thirty years had elapsed, drew a handkerchief aoroas his. forehead ere he continued his narrative. 'I had to climb a steep brae to reach the front door, but ere I oould breast it my friend met me.

Thank God you are come,' he said, pressing my hand in his. *O, I aw grateful.' •He was trembling with excitement. His face was of a ghastly pallor. His voloe was that of a person suffering from some terrible shook, laboring under some awful feu*.

•What has happened, Edward?' I ashed. I had known him when he was a little boy. ' I am distressed to see you in suoh a state. Rouse yourself; be a man; whatever may have gone wrong oan possibly be righted. I have oome over to do all that lies in my power for you. If It is a matter of. money—'

' No, no; it is not money,' he Interrupted ; 'would that it were;' and he began to tremble again so violently that really he communicated some part of his nervousness to me, and put me into a state of perfect terror.

• Whatever is it, Cawley, out with it,' I said ; ' have you murdered anybody ?' • No, it is worse than that,' he answered. 'But that's just noncense,' I declared. ' Are you in your right mind, do yoa think P

' I wish I were not,' he returned. 'l'd like to know I was stark staring mad ; it would be happier for me—far, far happier.' • ** If you don't tell me this minute what is the matter, I shall tarn on my heel and tramp my way home again,' I said, half In a passion, for what I thought his folly angered me.

'Come into the house,' he entreated, ' and try to have patience with me; for indeed, Mr Morison, I am sorely troubled. I have been through my deep waters, and they have gone clean over my head.' 'We went into the little study and sat down. For a while he remained silent, his head resting upon his hand, struggling with Rome strong emotion ; but after about five minutes he asked, in a low subdued voice.

' Do yoa believe In dreams P' • What has my belief to do with the matter in hand ?' I inquired. 'lt is a dream, an awful dream, that is troubling me.' ' I rose from my ohair.

'Do you mean to say,' I anked, 'yoa have brought me from my business and my parish to tell me you have had a bad dream?'

'That is just what I do mean to say,' he answered. 'At least, it was not a dream

—it was a vision; no, I don't mean a vision; I can't tell you what it was; bet nothing I ever went through in actual Hie was half so real, and I have bound myself; to go through it again. There is no hope for me, Mr Morison. I sit before yon a lost creature, the most miserable man on the ii ce of the whole earth.'

' What did yoa dream V I irqnired. ' A dreadful fit of trembling again seized him ; but at last he managed to say, * I have been like this ever since, and I shall be like this for evermore, till—till the end comes.'

' When did you have your bad dream ?' I asked

' Last night, or rather, this morning,' he answered. 'l'll teil yon all about it in a minute? and he covered his faoe with liia hands again. ' I was as well when I went to bod about eleven o'clock as ever I was in my life,' he began, putting a great restraint upon h!n> self, as I conld see by the nervous way be kept knotting and unknotting his fingers. ' I had been considering my sermon, and felt satisfied I shonld be able to deliver a good one on Sunday morning. I had taken nothing after my tea, and I lay down in my bed feeling at peace with all mankind, satisfied with my lot, thankful for the many blec inga vouchsafed to me. How long I slept, or what I dreamt about at first, if I dreamt at all, I don't know; bat after a time the mists seemed to clear from before my eyes, to roll away like clouds from & mountain summit, and I found myielf walking on a beautiful summer's evening beside the river Deldy. (To be continued.')