Johnston had tramped on foot the greater part of the road from Glasgow to Edinburgh, and had just crossed the boundary of the shire, which means that he was ten or twelve miles from the capital. His appearance was very much against him, or his route would have been easier. His boots were mere shreds of leather, through which his feet showed conspicuously, and he had no stockings. He had no shirt, and the utmost ingenuity in buttoning up his ragged coat could scarcely conceal the fact. The only trace of respectability remaining about his attire was a shabby and much battered dress hat. Johnston was a very good-looking fellow, with fine flowing black hair, and a big beard and moustache, and was still young—about thirty—but Apollo himself would have had an evil look in such a garb, so this prodigal’s lines had been hard ones for some time. In this plight—wearied in body, tired of life, disgusted with himself and all the world—Johnston lay down on a green bank by the road-side, wondering whether it were best to lie there and die, or struggle on over the remaining miles, which seemed to lengthen as they grew fewer in number.
A lovely sunset was shedding glory on the scene, and all was peaceful but the mind of that lost man. In looking listlessly around, his eye fell on a comfortable and well-sheltered residence, the very air of which proclaimed it, to Johnston’s experienced eye, a minister’s manse. There was a large garden attached, well stocked with fruit trees and bushes, and every other appurtenance that could render a country house snug and attractive. I don’t know whether the thought struck him that he might have been the comfortable occupant of such a house—possibly it did, for he was conscious that he had more talent than dozens of the drones occupying manses of the kind—but his immediate action was to rouse himself to consider whether he could not lay the occupant under contribution. A passing field hand, belonging to the village close by, supplied him with the occupant’s name and opinions, and, thus armed, he ventured up to the house, gently rang the bell, and with some difficulty induced the servant to take up his name—“The Rev. Alfred Johnston”—to her master.
Johnston stood demurely in the lobby, to which he had been admitted with marked suspicion by the servant, till the Rev. Robert Goodall appeared, in spectacles and slippers, direct from his study. If he had been startled to learn that a brother clergyman wished to see him, he was much more so at seeing the brother clergyman. But Johnston was fluent of tongue, and he had experience in dealing with such surprise.
“I am really a clergyman, as I can prove to you, but have been reduced to this state by my own folly,” he hastened to humbly say. “And I have not come to beg or ask you for money, as I daresay there are so many legitimate calls upon your goodness that you can ill afford to succour strangers. But I have walked all the way from Glasgow, and am now nearly fainting with hunger. If you could tell your servant to give me, out on the door-step or at the road-side, enough broken victuals, no matter how plain or coarse, to support me till morning, your kindness will never be forgotten.”
The clergyman heard him in silence, and probably scepticism; but on questioning him closely as to his college career, was surprised to find every statement agreeing with his own knowledge. Johnston described the classes; mimicked the Professors; quoted Greek and Hebrew writings with the utmost ease and correctness, and even showed that he had made the acquaintance of personal friends of Mr Goodall who had attended during the same sessions. In this narration Johnston had only to keep to the truth to make it saddening to listen to, and this he did, adding a few pathetic touches about a wife and child left in great want in Glasgow, while he made a struggle to reach Edinburgh on foot, in hope of securing a tutor’s place, for which he was well qualified.
“Do you mean to try to reach Edinburgh to-night?” inquired the clergyman, with some pity in his tones.
“No, that is impossible, for I am quite exhausted,” said the wanderer, with apparent frankness. “I cannot go much further. I shall rest under some hedge or hay-stack till morning, and then make my way thither by daylight.”
“I am sorry for you, a man of education and talent, who might be in so much better a position,” said the clergyman, in gentle rebuke. “However, you shall have the food you require, but not out on the door-step. Come this way.”
Mr Goodall led the way to a comfortable parlour, where he lighted a lamp, drew the blinds, and then ordered in the remains of his own dinner—cold, of course, but much better fare than Johnston had tasted for many a day. When he had eaten his fill, and finished with a glass of wine brought to him by the kind clergyman, he was in no hurry to leave, and his entertainer was as willing that he should linger. Johnston’s tongue was fluent, and he could tell many strange stories of his ups and downs, and in the present case so suited them to a clerical ear that the good-hearted man at length felt strong qualms as to sending such a man out into the darkness. The best plan would have been to give the needy being a shilling wherewith to pay for a lodging at some travellers “howff,” but that never occurred to the minister. He was entertained, flattered, and amused by the queer waif cast up at his door, and fancied that the best way to show his gratitude was to invite Johnston to stay there over the night. The wanderer affected to receive the invitation with unbounded astonishment, but was at length prevailed upon to accept the offer, and after patiently listening to some of Mr Goodall’s printed sermons, and passing very flattering criticisms upon their logic and learning, he followed the good man upstairs to a spare bedroom, where an old suit of the minister’s, with a pair of boots and a shirt, made a considerable improvement in his appearance.
After supper they parted for the night with mutual good wishes, and the minister lay down to a sound night’s sleep, conscious of having that day emulated his great Master in doing one good action to the neediest near his hands. Johnston ought to have slept soundly too, for he had travelled far and fasted, and then eaten well, but cupidity was in him stronger than drowsiness. In producing his pet sermons to read them over for his guest’s edification, the clergyman had used his keys to a drawer in the writing-table and exposed something very like a cash-box. When the sermons had been restored to their place of security, the drawer had been again locked, but the keys were left in the lock. Johnston, during a momentary absence of his entertainer, unlocked the drawer and placed the keys ostentatiously on the top of the writing-table, from which they were lifted by the owner a few minutes later, all unconscious but that he had himself left them there.