Eleven days afterwards I saw Mr. Rand, and he told me they were reading proof, and much pleased with the book, and on February seventeenth, A.D. 1884, I received a letter from the Cluny MacPherson, chief of the clan MacPherson, thanking me 370 for such a good picture of the clan life. The letter was dated from Castle Cluny, but the chief himself filled some important office in the Queen’s Household.
Just about the time that I finished “Cluny MacPherson,” Lilly returned home at my urgent request, and we went to housekeeping in some furnished rooms at 128 East Tenth Street. Then I made a short visit to England, leaving Alice at home with her sisters, as she was very averse to taking another ocean voyage.
My visit to Glasgow this year contained one scene, which made a great impression on me, and the recent death of General Booth brings it back so vividly, that I think my readers will be interested in the picture of this early salvation service.
At that time I had thought little of the movement. What I had seen of its noisy, moblike parades, with their deafening clang of cymbals and drums, and their shouting, jumping excitement, was not calculated to enlist the sympathy of intelligent persons. But then it was not such persons Mr. Booth wished to reach. “I have been sent into the world, to do the Lord’s gutter work,” was his own definition of his mission; and certainly at that day, his methods could only appeal to those on the lowest plane of humanity.
Well, one Saturday night in June, I had been dining with an old friend living beyond Rutherglen Bridge on the east side of the city, and in returning to my hotel, I had to pass through that portion of the old town, where Hamilton Street, High Street, the Saltmarket, and the Trongate pour their night crowd into the open place around the old Cross. The rain was falling in a black, steady downpour. The ragged crowd was swaying to and fro to the sounds of drums and cornets, and above all, I heard the shrill continuous scream of a woman’s voice.
I put down the window of the carriage, and saw the woman. She was marching, with an open Bible in her hands, at the head of a noisy crowd, and reading, or rather reciting, verses from the Gospels. Her face showed deathly white from under her black hood, her voice cut the yellow dismal fog in sharp screaming octaves, her whole appearance was that of one inspired or insane, and the rain poured down on the barefooted women, 371 with ragged kilted petticoats, and wretched little babies hanging over their shoulders, who followed her. I shut the window, and shut my eyes in a kind of horror. I had a feeling, that somewhere, centuries ago, I had seen such a nightmare of black houses, and black rain, and such a heaving and tossing flood of miserable humanity, and somehow it comforted me to hope, that through the tumult, the fierce sorrowful laughter, and drunken jibes, some poor breaking heart must have heard, and understood, that woman’s shrill intensity as she called out, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
I had another experience of the Salvation Army, so perfectly Scotch and so characteristic, that I think my friends will be pleased to hear it. I was coming down the old Shorehead of Arbroath, and I met a band of men and women carrying flags and singing hymns. In Glasgow I had become familiar with these parades, and had been astonished at the toleration with which they were regarded. But the men and women of Arbroath, were of a different spirit and the tumult, and abusive storm of language became so great, that I stepped inside a little shop for shelter. The proprietor, a very dry rusk of a Scotchman, in a green duffle apron, and a red Kilmarnock night cap, was standing at the open door.
“The Salvation Army?” I said inquiringly.
“Ye arena far wrang.”
“What do you think of them?”