I had often marvelled at this; for Geordie's last word to his little daughter had been a promise to meet her in the land o' the leal. But it is not chains alone that make a slave.
After a little further conversation, I sent the poor woman home, assuring her that I would do the best I could for Geordie. Which promise I proceeded to fulfill. Two or three of his well-known resorts had been visited with fruitless quest, when I repaired to the Maple Leaf, a notoriously sunken hole, which thus blasphemed the name of the fairest emblem of the nations. I observed a few sorry wastrels leaning in maudlin helplessness upon the bar as I pressed in, still cleaving to their trough—but Geordie was not among them. I was about to withdraw, when I heard a familiar voice, above the noise of a phonograph, from one of the rooms just above the bar. It was Geordie's.
"Gie us 'Nearer, my God, to Thee,'" I heard him cry, with drunken unction. "Gin ye haena ane o' the psalms o' Dauvit i' yir kist o' tunes, mak' the creetur play 'Nearer, my God, to Thee.'"
Here was Geordie's evil genius in evidence again, his profligacy and his piety hand in hand. Ascending the stairs, I reached the door just in time to see the landlord, manipulator of the musical machine, forcing Geordie to the door, one hand gripping his throat, the other buffeting the helpless wretch in the face. Two or three of his unspeakable kindred were applauding him.
"Get out of here, you beast," he muttered savagely, "and let decent folk enjoy themselves. You'll not get no music nor no whisky either, hangin' round an honest man's house without a penny in your pocket—get out, you brute." And he struck him full in the face again.
It were wrong to say that I forgot I was a minister; I think I recalled that very thing, and it gave more power to my arm, for I knew the poverty amid which Geordie's poor wife strove to keep their home together; and the pitiful bareness of wee Jessie's death-chamber flashed before me. This well-nourished vampire had sucked the life-blood from them all, and remembering this, I rushed into the unequal conflict and smote the vampire between his greedy eyes with such fervour that he fell where he stood. In a moment he was on his feet again, but my ministry with him was not complete, and I seized him where he had gripped his own victim, by the throat.
"Let me be. Remember you're a minister," he gasped.
"God forbid I should forget," I thundered back, for my blood was hot. I remembered just then that wee Jessie had been dependent on charity for the little delicacies that go with death; "and if God helps me you won't forget it either," with which addition I hurled him down the stairs, his final arrival signalled back by the sulphurous aroma of bruised and battered maledictions.
It may be incidentally inserted here that this unclerical encounter of mine was afterwards referred to at a meeting of St. Cuthbert's session. One of the elders, never very friendly to me, preferred the charge of conduct unbecoming a minister. Only two of his colleagues noticed the indictment, and they both were elders of the old Scotch school.
"Oor minister's fine at the castin' doon o' the strongholds o' Satan," said the one; "it minds me o' what the beasts got i' the temple."