Donkey Boy to the Queen.
A True Incident. By Alfred T. Story.
One dull though calm afternoon, when the century was younger by nearly half its years than it is to-day, two bright-faced, handsome boys, dressed in Highland costume, were quietly fishing in a mountain stream, when they were disturbed in their contemplative pastime by the piteous cries of a dog. Barely had they time to look round before a poor, miserable little cur ran past them, followed by an irate youth brandishing a stout cudgel. As the dog turned and cowered behind their creel, and seemed to crave their protection, the elder of the brothers—for such they were—stepped between the poor brute and its tormentor, asking the latter what the dog had done that it should be so ill-treated.
Said the lad gruffly, resenting the boys' interference:
"What's it to ye? She's ma dug, an' I'll do what I like wi' her."
"You shan't hit her with that stick," replied the sturdy youth, who, though tall for his age, was not so thick-set as his opponent, and was evidently a couple of years his junior.
"Mebbe I will, mebbe I willna," returned the lad, who, though not ill-looking, was poorly clad, and, for the time being, ugly with passion. "But I'll hae th' dug," and with the word he tried to push past the obstructer. A scuffle ensued, in which the younger boy wrested the cudgel from the dog's tormentor, but, as his share, received a blow on the nose which brought blood.
"Gie me ta stick," said the owner of the dog, surprised that he had so far underrated his antagonist.
The latter's answer was to cast it into the stream.
This still more astonished the peasant lad, who seemed as though he would again fall upon his antagonist. But there was something about the youth's straight, well-knit figure, his handsome face, and flashing eye that caused him to reflect; whereupon he lowered his fists, which had risen to the bravado of attack, and, in a less defiant tone, said:
"Weel, let me hae Meg, an' I'll say naethin' aboot ta stick."
"Promise me not to beat her then."
The young callant gave the required undertaking, and the next minute he had the shrinking little animal in his arms and was walking away with it the way he had come. But, turning round when he had gone a few rods, he saw the youth who had withstood him bending over the stream, laving his face in the cool water.
Now, for the first time, Tam, as he was called, noticed something about the boys which in his anger he had failed to mark. It was not their dress—though that betokened rank above the common; it was something more intimate than that; something in the air, in the manner, of them which made him uneasy in his mind, and caused him to steal home with lagging gait and eyes that sought the ground.
His home was a little bracken-thatched one-storey cottage, or hut, with stone walls, planted in a green oasis of a few yards square, amid a wilderness of rock and shingle, overgrown with moss and heather and other rough vegetation, from which a few stray sheep and stunted cattle gathered a scanty subsistence. These were Tam's charge. For not far from the little two-roomed cot which he called his home were other huts like it, inhabited by poor, hard-working people like his grandparents, each having a few sheep, or a cow or two, and one or another a donkey or wild-looking Highland pony; and he, having to look after his grandfather's little stock, was paid a trifle by the others to tend theirs too.
Tam Jamison had done this since he was five, at which age he was left an orphan by the death of his mother, who died broken-hearted at the loss of her husband, fighting in a distant land against Britain's foes.
He was now twelve; and though he loved the braes and the mountain streams, he was beginning to chafe at his narrow life, wanting to be off now with the drovers, now with the sportsmen and gillies, or the coachmen who drove their teams daily in the season past his grandfather's croft. It was a hard task for the old folks, Donal and Yetta Jamison, to retain him at home, impossible to make him content. They did their best to keep him under control; but it was chiefly done by coaxing, a good deal by petting. This in the end did not lighten their task. Every day Tam became more wayward and difficult; every other day there were complaints of his negligence on the one hand, of his mischief on the other; and then, to cap all, it came to the old people's ears that their Tam—it could be no other—had dared to raise his fist against one of the princes of the blood, no less than the Prince of Wales.
That very evening the news was all over the country-side. The next morning there was such a hubbub as never was heard. Everybody said Tam would certainly be sent to jail, if no worse thing befell him. Tam, braving the thing out, said he "didna mind"; but the old folks, greatly caring, put on their Sunday best, and set out to walk to Braemar to see and intercede with the Queen on the boy's behalf. They found her not at home, and so had their long trudge for nothing. However, one of the domestics drew from them what their business was; and the next day a little lady, very plainly dressed, riding on a wee, shaggy pony, stopped at the door, and, being helped to dismount by a man who was with her, entered the hut and asked for Tam's grandparents.
A little lady on a shaggy pony stopped at the door.
They were not afraid of the little lady, because she looked so good and kind, and spoke so gently, but when they discovered that she was from Braemar, and that it was to learn all about Tam that she had come, they were almost tremblingly anxious. Thinking that the Queen had sent her, they apologised very humbly for the boy's misbehaviour, saying it did not arise from any badness in him so much as from wilfulness and daring. They hoped the Queen wouldna be severe on the laddie; he was little more than a child, and though masterful and not to be said, he had not a bad heart. It was partly their fault, no doubt, as Tam, having no parents, had been left to them very young, and they, perhaps, had spoiled him just a little.
So the old folks went on, the tears often in their eyes.
In a few minutes the good lady from Braemar had made herself acquainted with all the circumstances of Tam's birth and rearing, had heard the catalogue of his faults and shortcomings, and been posted as to his restlessness and discontent. It was a long and interesting human inventory, wound up with the declaration, tearfully attested by both Donal and Yetta, that "he wasna sae bad as wilfu'"; albeit they confessed to being greatly afraid, if he went away from them, as he wished, lest his masterfulness should lead him into evil ways.
"And where is this masterful one, this Tam?" asked the Lady of Braemar. "One would like to see him."
Tam, however, could nowhere be found. The old man looked up and down for him, neighbours joined in the search; but it was only too plain that Tam had hidden himself away somewhere.
"Well," said the Lady, at length, "I cannot tarry any longer. But the boy cannot be far away; so when he is found bring him to Braemar, and we will see what can be done."
Donal and Yetta promised that such should be their care, and, as a last word, ere the Lady rode away, they begged that she would intercede on Tarn's behalf "wi' the gude and gracious Queen."
The Lady promised to do her utmost, and so departed.
The next day, the "sodger's laddie," as Tam was called, having in the meanwhile been found, the grey-headed old crofter and his wife, both of them bent with toil and drooping with care, once more made their way over the hills to Braemar; Tam, downhearted, demure, and in his Sabbath claes, padding the turf by their side.
Arrived at their destination, Tam hung a low head; for in front of the house was congregated a little party, chiefly of children, preparing to set out for a ride; among the number being the two young gentlemen whom he knew.
The elder of them, the Prince of Wales, at once recognising his antagonist of three days ago, stepped up to him and said, with a frank and kindly smile:
"Good-morning, Tam! You haven't forgotten me, have you?"
Tam uttered a barely audible "Nae."
"And you hold no grudge against me for throwing your stick in the river, do you?"
Another demure "Nae" found its way between Tam's half-closed teeth; but this time he allowed his blue eyes to meet the young Prince's in a surprised gaze.
"Then let us shake hands and be friends," said the Prince.
Tam extended his brown paw, and they clasped in token of mutual goodwill.
The little scene transacted itself almost as quickly as it can be read—so quickly, indeed, that Tam's grandparents witnessed it in mute astonishment; and before they had recovered their self-possession, the Lady who had called at the hut on Tam's account issued from the house, looking much as she had done the previous day, with the exception that a broad-brimmed straw hat covered her head in place of a sun-bonnet.
"So you found the little runagate, did you?" said she, addressing the old folks.
"Yes, madam," replied Donal. "Mister Fargus found him at night in a cave in the birch-wood above the burn."
"What made you run away, Tam?" said the Lady, turning to the youth.
Tam was silent.
"Tell me. You need not be afraid."
"I thought mebbe I had hurt him"—with a nod in the direction of the Prince.
"Oh, you didn't hurt me! You only brought a little of the red juice out of my nose, and that can hurt nobody," said the Heir-Apparent.
Prince Alfred, who was standing by, smiled at his brother's sally, as did also the Lady in the straw hat.
Tam laughed outright. He had never heard or known of a bleeding nose being treated so lightly, and at the same time so funnily. His poor grandparents, however, were shocked at his levity, and Yetta gave him a vigorous nudge to recall him to a due sense of his position.
"If you like," said the Prince, "I'll give you one of my sticks in place of the one I threw away," adding, with nice diplomacy, "but I can tell you it's too proud a stick to hit a dog."
Tam smiled, and said he would not use it in that way.
"And I think we must ask you to promise not to think of ever running away from your grandparents," said the Lady.
That seemed to strike Tam as a large order.
"I wouldna like to bide on the croft when I get bigger."
"Why, what do you wish to be when you grow bigger?"
"I want to be a soldier, like my father."
Yetta drew a pained breath; Donal's lips twitched.
"You would not like him to go for a soldier?" queried the Lady.
"Baith my sons focht and deed for their kintra," said Donal.
"And you would like to keep your grandson to comfort you in your old age?"
The old folks bowed; their trembling lips could hardly frame an audible "Yes."
"It is quite natural. You hear that, Tam? You would not like to go away to the wars, as your father and your uncle did, and be killed, and so grieve your poor grandparents."
"I dinna want to grieve 'em," replied Tam. "But I'd like to be a soldier and fight for the Queen."
At this answer there was more than one moistened eyelid in the little group, whereof Tam, for the time being, constituted the central figure.
After a brief pause, his interlocutor continued:
"But, my boy, there are other ways of serving the Queen than by becoming a soldier—many other ways."
That was a new aspect of things to the boy, and his eyes, when he lifted them up to meet the Lady's, contained each a large note of interrogation.
"For instance," she continued, "the Queen wants a donkey-boy now, to attend her or the children when they drive about in their little phaeton." The boy's eyes brightened, then fell.
"You think the care of a donkey beneath you?"
"Then let us shake hands," said the Prince.
"Nae, but I doubt that the Queen wouldna hae me to be her donkey-boy."
"Why not?"
"'Cos I hae nae bin a donkey-boy, an' I might do things wrang."
"But you could learn—everybody has to learn. And if you did your best there could not be much fault-finding."
"I'd do my best."
"Nobody could say better than that," replied the Lady.
"Ah, if your leddyship," faltered Yetta, "could get her Majesty to mek' him her donkey-boy, or to 'point him to any sic position, he would still be near to us, an' a comfort in our old age."
"Ay, an' he would think nae mair o' running away," added Donal.
"You may be sure the matter will be taken into her earnest consideration," said the Lady. "And now, after you have had some refreshment, which I will ask them to give you, you had better go home, and in the course of a few days you will doubtless hear further."
TO BE CONCLUDED.
The Jeshurun[1] of Christ.
[1] "All the tribes are here summed up in one name, derived from jasher, righteous. All the blessings of the Israel of God are concentrated here in Him, through Whom alone we are justified before God, Christ Who is the Lord our Righteousness."—Bishop Wordsworth on Deut. xxviii. 26.
"There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun."—Deut. xxxiii. 26. "Peace—upon the Israel of God."—Gal. vi. 16.
AN ORIGINAL HYMN
By the Rev. S. J. Stone, Author of "Lays of Iona," "The Church's One Foundation," &c.
Music specially composed by Sir George Martin, Mus.D.
(Organist of St. Paul's Cathedral.)
mf moderato
1. On, o'er the waste, Jeshurun!
Thy Help rides on the sky;
On, when thy hope seems farthest,
Sure that thy Lord is nigh.
Sure of the sacred fountain,
The mystic corn and vine;
On through thy "days," Jeshurun,
There is no God like thine.
2. All things the sun makes precious!
All fulness 'neath the moon;
The buds and blooms of morning,
The fair fruits of the noon;
All chief things of the mountains,
All wealth of shade or shine;
These are for thee, Jeshurun,
There is no God like thine.
3. He is the shrine about thee,
His arms beneath thee spread;
His Excellence and Glory
The shield above thine head;
What tempests rave around thee,
What foes and fears combine—
Still thou art safe, Jeshurun,
There is no God like thine.
4. Bethink thee how from Sinai
His Law was seen as flame;
How, as He shone from Paran,
His saints in thousands came:
How these are thine ensample,[2]
Of fear and love the sign—
On then, in love, Jeshurun,
There is no God like thine.
5. Thine is sweet Hope made perfect;
On thee her ends have come;
Of all her silvern shinings
Thine is the golden sum;
The Church the vesture human
Wears now the robe Divine!
On through the years, Jeshurun,
There is no God like thine.
6. O Israel of Jesus,
O happy in thy King!
His Righteousness thy surety,
His Peace thy covering,
His Grace thy Fount of cleansing,
Thy food, His Bread and Wine—
On to the end, Jeshurun,
There is no God but thine. Amen.
[2] Cf. I Cor. x. 1-12. From this passage it is clear that a warning, as well as an encouragement, is part of the admonition to the Israel of God.