Playing With Fire

The man heard and understood, he looked at the skipper and the skipper bent to his face. Something was asked, something was promised, and the two men, with one long farewell look, parted forever.

The Doctor soon found other patients, and he told Ian to watch by the dying sailor and to give him spoonsful of cold water as long as he could take them.

"Is that all that can be done?" inquired Ian.

"I will ask him," and he said, "Adam, you are in mortal pain – the pains of death – shall I give you something to ease them?"

"What can you give me?"

"Laudanum."

"No. I won't go to God drunk."

"You are right, Bork. Good-bye."

About dawning the dying man looked at Ian with such a piteous entreaty in his pale blue eyes that Ian felt he must, if possible, grant whatever he desired. Very slowly and distinctly he asked, "What – do – you – want – me – to – do?" and the answer came, as if from another world, muffled and far off, but thrilled with such an agonizing intensity that it struck Ian as if it was a physical blow,

"Pray for me!"

Ian knelt down. He tried to pray, but he could not. With almost superhuman efforts he tried to pray, not for himself, but for this poor sailor sinking and dying in that dark place, struggling, forsaken, alone, but he could not. Again the dying man whispered, "Pray!" and his eyes were full of reproach, and the look in them almost broke Ian's heart. The next moment he was gone.

It was against all Ian's spiritual feelings to pray for the dead, but in after years he prayed often and sincerely, "for the repose of the soul of Adam Bork." And why not? God was still in His Universe, Adam was therefore somewhere in God's presence. It may even be that prayer prevails there more easily than here. Creeds may say what they like, the heart of humanity prays for its beloved dead as naturally as it prays for its beloved absent.

As soon as possible Ian was put on shore, and a week afterward he found himself in his uncle's home. He had gone first to Bath Street, but the house there was closed and empty. There were placards in the windows offering it for sale or rent, and the windows themselves, always so spotless, were now black with smoke and dust. It was a cold day and had a sharp promise of winter in its flurries of north wind and little showers of icy rain with them. All was desolation. Ian's first thoughts were of an angry, injured nature. The empty house told its own story. Marion was married, Donald in California, and Jessy had doubtless returned to her own home in the Border country. "No one cared about him, etc.," and when people get into this selfish mood they never ask themselves whether they are reasoning on just or unjust premises.

So Ian went to Blytheswood Square, and found his uncle cheerfully eating a good dinner. He was delighted at his nephew's return. "Laddie! Laddie!" he cried joyfully, "you are a sight to cure sore eyes. I was just thinking of you; when did you touch Glasgow?"

"An hour ago. I went to Bath Street, and found the house empty."

"Just so. All gone to bonnier and better homes. At least they think so, and we must even bear the same hope. Where have you been?"

"In the Shetlands. I found nothing to help me there. The last week I spent with the North Sea Fishing Fleet."

"Did you? I am delighted. That is where all my spare cash goes. That is the reason I do not give Elder Reid a big sum for his Foreign Mission Fund. I do not like Hindoos and Chinamen, and they have a religion of their own quite good enough for them. But oh! Ian, those big, brave fellows, working like giants and suffering beyond ease or help, they are our kin – leal, brave Scots, who would die for Scotland's right, or Scotland's faith, any hour it was necessary. It was only yesterday Reid stopped me on the street and asked me for a subscription for the Chinese Missions."

"What did you say?"

"I did not heed him. I buttoned up my coat and set my eyes far off to the river side."

"You did right."

"It stands to reason that Scotchmen ought to look after their own first."

"I suppose I am quite forgotten. I have had no letters. I do not know whether anything has happened or not."

"You left no address. You wrote to no one. Yes, to me you sent one letter, full to its edges with uncertainties. You must remember Marion is married and greatly taken up with her husband. You never answered Donald's letter, and the lad, of course, takes it for granted that his silence was what you wished. Ian, you have tried wandering, and there is no peace or profit in it. Now, then, if you cannot pray, you can work; if you can't love God, you can love your fellow creatures. Dr. James Lindsey was here last week, and I spoke to him about you. When you were a stripling you were all for surgery, and Dr. James thinks you will yet make a fine surgeon. You are to live with him, and he was delighted at the very thought of your company. It is the great opportunity left you, and I hope you see all its possibilities and will accept them."

Ian was satisfied at the prospect. It was quite true that even in boyhood he had had a craving for the surgical profession, and the arrangements made for him by the two elder gentlemen were so homely and generous, and so full of kind consideration, that he was greatly moved by their unselfishness. In a few days he went to London, and was met at the train by Dr. Lindsey. Ian was not ignorant of him. He had seen him at his uncle's house several times, and he knew that the Major and Dr. James had been friends since ever they were barefooted laddies, fishing in the mountain streams together.

Neither was Lindsey ignorant of Ian. He had heard him preach, and he knew something of the soul struggle through which he was passing. Indeed, he had his own plans for relieving this spiritual misery, and, as soon, therefore, as Ian reached London, he found all his days filled with study and labor. But his surroundings were homelike and pleasant, and the men were intellectually well matched.

Now, the road downward is easy and rapidly taken, and Ian had managed to slip from the pinnacle of ministerial fame into silence and forgetfulness in about one year, but it took him a ten years' climb to win his way to about the same pitch of public favor in his new vocation. But of this ten years I shall have little to say. The road upward is a climb to the very top, and all men find it so, but Ian enjoyed the study and the practical work of his profession and became extraordinarily skillful in it.

Their lives were by no means dull or monotonous. Truly the day was given up to business, but they usually dined together at seven, and afterward went to the opera or theater, or perhaps to a reception at some house where they were familiar and honored guests. Or, if they wished to stay at their own fireside, they were the best of good company for each other. Nothing that touched man's soul or body came amiss for their discussion, and if Ian was the more widely and generally educated, Dr. Lindsey had the keener spiritual instinct, and his soul often ventured where Ian's followed only with flagging and uncertain wings. In the summer they made short trips to the Continent or they went to Glasgow, and, being joined there by the Major, sailed north to the Macrae country, and then home by Cromarty and Fife.

When Ian had been in London ten years Dr. Lindsey began to talk of a rather longer holiday than usual. "But first," he added, "here is a letter from Squire Airey, and he wants either you or me to run up to Airey Hall to examine his fractured arm. It is all right, I know, but he is frightened and impatient, and you might go as far as Furness and make him comfortable."

"I should like to go. I have long wanted to see Windermere, and I could return that way."

With his patient at Airey Hall Ian stayed two days, and on the third morning the Squire said: "Doctor, I will give you a good mount, and you can ride as far as Ambleside. You will go through a lovely land. Leave the horse at the Salutation Inn in Ambleside when you take the train. I will send a groom for it."

So Ian took the Squire's offer, for it was a lovely day in August, and everything seemed to shimmer and glow through a soft golden haze. The tender, peaceful scenes on all sides induced in him a little mood of pathos or regret. He could not help it. He had no particular reason for it; he appeared, indeed, to be in a very enviable condition. He was yet exceedingly handsome, for it takes a Scotchman fifty years to clothe his big frame, to round off the corners and soften the large features, and to make out of a gigantic block of bone and sinew a handsome, finely modeled man. He had, as far as business went, made himself twice over. He was the welcome friend and guest of the greatest scientists and physicians, and his short visits to the most exclusive drawing-rooms were regarded as great favors. Was he not happy, then? No. Regret, like a slant shadow, darkened all his sunshine, and the want of personal love left his life poor and thin on its most vital side.

Nor could he ever forget that solemnly joyful night following the day of his admission to the ministry. Like the knights of old, he had spent the midnight hours in the dark, still Kirk of Macrae, and the promises he then made and the secret, sacred joys of his espousal to the Holy Office, had been graven on his memory by a pen which no eraser can touch. Whenever he was long alone this memory shone out in every detail, and he said once, in a passion of anger at himself: "If I had been a soldier of the Queen, they would have drummed me out of the ranks. I would have deserved it – yes, I would!"

This morning the unwelcome memory returned and returned, and, in order to be rid of it, he began to pity himself for the loneliness of his life and the misfortune which had attended all his affections.

"There was old Lord Cramer, his apparent kindness was all a plot to get a little posthumous fame out of my intellect. His one thousand pounds was a miserable price for the work he proposed for me, and he tried to pass it off as a kindness. I hate the man, and I hate myself for being fooled by him. Lady Cramer – nay, I will let her go – another has judged her now. Donald, whom I idolized, nearly broke my heart, gave a son's love to a stranger, married a Spaniard and a Roman Catholic, and has not noticed me for years. I dare say Donald and that Scotchman have had many a laugh over my leaving the ministry. Jessy went to them, and she could tell them every circumstance of the event. And, though Marion writes whiles, and has called her son after me, I never see her unless she happens to be at Uncle Hector's when I go to see him. And, of course, I cannot call at Lord Cramer's house, not even to see my daughter. Was any man ever so undeservedly deserted as I am?"

He was slowly passing through a little village as he troubled his heart with these thoughts. And, as he looked at the small dark cottages wanting the usual gardens of flowers, he said to himself, "It is a mining village; there must be many of them in this locality;" and so was returning to his unprofitable musing when a tremendous explosion occurred, and the women from every cottage ran crying to the pit mouth. Ian also hastened there, and, when he said he was a physician, was taken down in the first cage. It stopped at an upper gallery and the men ran backward into the mine. Ian thought he had suddenly awakened from life and found himself in hell. He heard only cries and groans and shouts, and the running of men and their frantic calling of names. And he was spellbound at the first moment by the sight of a boy about nine years old, lying in a narrow cut of the coal, with a great block of coal across his body. His father stood beside him, his face full of unspeakable love and pity, for the mute anguish of the child was terrible. But, ere he could speak to them, there was a frenzied rush of men crying, "Fire! Fire! After-damp!" For just one minute they stood at the cut where the child lay, and called, "For God's sake, Davie, come, come, come!" and Davie shook his head slightly, and answered,

"Nay, I'll stay with the lad."

And when Ian heard these words, they smote him like a sword, and he cried out: "I have seen God's love! This hour I have seen God's love– like as a father pitieth his children – even unto death – so God pities and loves. My God, love me! Teach me how to love! I am thy faithless son, Ian; forgive me and love me!"

He was in an ecstasy, and, even as he prayed, a still, small voice ran, like a swift arrow of flame, through all the black galleries of the mine – a voice like the noise of many waters, but sweet as the music of heaven, and it spoke but one word:

"Ian!"

Through all that earthly hell, filled with death and horror of suffering, above the crying of the men, above the screams of the wounded, the voices of fear and agony, this wonderful voice passed along, swift as the lightning, yet full of the divinest melody.

These events so marvelous to Ian had not occupied more than a moment or two of time. Then there was another rush of men with the assurance that it would be the last. They swept Ian with them, but Davie, still standing by his child, just shook his head and repeated his decision, "Nay, I'll stay with the lad"; and the crowd, with fire behind them, struggled to the cage and were drawn up to the sunshine.

At the pit mouth Ian met the rescue company of the pit and the physicians, and he untied his horse and rode away into the woods and hills. He was weeping unconsciously, washing every word he uttered with tears of repentance and love.

"Oh, it is wonderful!" he cried. "Wonderful! Wonderful! Out of all the millions of men in this world, God knew my name. He knew where I was. He called me by my name. Oh, miracle of love!"

All the way to Ambleside he rode slowly. He was in a transport of love and joy – had he not been veritably taken by God's love "out of hell"? He was thrilled with wonder, and he would make no haste. He bent his soul to the heavenly influences which had made the last few hours forever memorable. So his prayers grew sweeter and calmer. They had in them the voices of the night wind, the awe of the stars, and the rustle of unseen wings. And, just as he was entering Ambleside, his Bible took part in his happiness and whispered to his heart a verse he had read hundreds of times, but which at this hour seemed to have been written specially for him.

"Fear thou not. I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name. Thou art mine." – Isaiah 43:1.

He knew then what he was to do.

CHAPTER XII

AFTERWARD

"Christ is God's realized idea of perfected humanity."