“I don’t see much mercy in the matter. Better far that I were stiff and cold now under the yarran bush; but I am much obliged to you all the same.”
“Kindly welcome; ye’re kindly welcome, young man: ye’ve been on the spree, as they ca’ it, I can tell that weel, more by token I hae nae preevilege to school ye on that heed, seeing that I, Jock Harlaw, am just as good as ready money in the deel’s purse from that self-same inseedious, all-devourin’ vice.”
“No, it’s not that,” said Jack, with a faint smile, “but I don’t wonder that you thought so. I’m very tired, that’s all, and there’s something wrong with my head, I think.”
“The Lord be thankit; I’m glad it’s no that devil’s glamour that’s seized ye. But surely I ken the collie; how did ye come by him, may I speer?”
“So you don’t remember me or the dog; you came to Gondaree with him and the other pups on your back.”
“Lord save us! auld lassie wasna wrang, then; it’s just fearsome,” ejaculated the old man, in accents of the deepest concern and wonder. “And do you tell me,” continued he, “that you’re the weel-gained, prosperous, kind-spoken gentleman that helped old Jock in his sair need yon time? Fortune’s given ye a downthraw; but oh, hinny, however sair the burden may be, or sharp the strokes of adversity, better a hunner times to bear a thing than to sell your manhood to the enemy of the flesh.”
Jack saw there was still a suspicion in the old man’s mind; it must have been hard for him to believe anything but drink could have brought a man so low, but he did not resent the mistake, and only closed his eyes wearily.
“If ye ask auld Jock Harlaw to tell you the truth,” the old man continued, “he’ll say that of all the men he’s had ken of he never saw one that did not die in the wilderness once he had bowed the knee to the Moloch of drink. Ye may see the Promised Land, and the everlastin’ hills glintin’ in the gold o’ the new Jerusalem; but ye maun see, like Moses on the mountain top, or on the sands o’ the desert, ye’ll no win oot, ance ye’re like me, if the angels frae heaven cam and draggit ye by the hand.”
“It’s a bad look out, Jock, by your showing; but how is it, with your strong perception of the evils of the habit, and your religious turn of mind, that you have not broken yourself of it?”
“Maister Redgrave,” answered the old man, solemnly, “that is one of the awful and inscrutable meesteries of the life of the puir, conceited, doited crater that ca’s himsel’ man. My forbears were godly, sober, self-denying Christian men and women. Till the day I left the bonny homes o’ Ettrick, for this far, sad, wearifu’ land, nae living man had ever seen the sign o’ liquor upon me, or could hae charged me wi’ the faintest token of excess. I was shepherd for the Laird o’ Hopedale, and nae happier lad than Jock Harlaw ever listened to the lilting o’ the lasses on the Cowden Knowes.”