[Footnote 42: On one occasion a descendant of Nabal having put a crown piece into "the plate" instead of a penny, and staring at its white and precious face, asked to have it back, and was refused—"In once, in for ever." "A weel, a weel," grunted he, "I'll get credit for it in heaven." "Na, na," said Jeems, "ye'll get credit only for the penny!">[
One day two strangers made themselves over to Jeems to be furnished with seats. Motioning them to follow, he walked majestically to the farthest in corner, where he had decreed they should sit. The couple found seats near the door, and stepped into them, leaving Jeems to march through the passages alone, the whole congregation watching him with some relish and alarm. He gets to his destination, opens the door, and stands aside; nobody appears. He looks sharply round, and then gives a look of general wrath "at lairge." No one doubted his victory. His nose and eye fell, or seemed to fall, on the two culprits, and pulled them out instantly, hurrying them to their appointed place; Jeems snibbed them slowly in, and gave them a parting look they were not likely to misunderstand or forget.
At that time the crowds and the imperfect ventilation made fainting a common occurrence in Broughton Place, especially among "thae young hizzies," as Jeems called the servant girls. He generally came to me, "the young Doctor," on these occasions with a look of great relish. I had indoctrinated him in the philosophy of syncopes, especially as to the propriety of laying the "hizzies" quite flat on the floor of the lobby, with the head as low as the rest of the body; and as many of these cases were owing to what Jeems called "that bitter yerkin" of their boddices, he and I had much satisfaction in relieving them, and giving them a moral lesson, by cutting their stay-laces, which ran before the knife, and cracked "like a bowstring," as my coadjutor said. One day a young lady was our care. She was lying out, and slowly coming to. Jeems, with that huge terrific visage, came round to me with his open gully in his hand, whispering, "Wull oo ripp 'er up noo?" It happened not to be a case for ripping up. The gully was a great sanitary institution, and made a decided inroad upon the yerking system—Jeems having, thanks to this and Dr. Coombe, every year fewer opportunities of displaying and enjoying its powers.
He was sober in other things besides drink, could be generous on occasion, but was careful of his siller; sensitive to fierceness ("we're uncommon zeelyous the day," was a favourite phrase when any church matter was stirring) for the honour of his church and minister, and to his too often worthless neighbours a perpetual moral protest and lesson—a living epistle. He dwelt at the head of big Lochend's Close in the Canongate, at the top of a long stair—ninety-six steps, as I well know—where he had dwelt, all by himself, for five-and-thirty years, and where, in the midst of all sorts of flittings and changes, not a day opened or closed without the well-known sound of Jeems at his prayers,—his "exercise,"—at "the Books." His clear, fearless, honest voice in psalm and chapter, and strong prayer, came sounding through that wide "land," like that of one crying in the wilderness.
Jeems and I got great friends; he called me John, as if he was my grandfather; and though as plain in speech as in feature, he was never rude. I owe him much in many ways. His absolute downrightness and yaefauldness; his energetic, unflinching fulfilment of his work; his rugged, sudden tenderness; his look of sturdy age, as the thick silver-white hair lay on his serious and weatherworn face, like moonlight on a stout old tower; his quaint Old Testament exegetics, his lonely and contented life, his simple godliness,—it was no small privilege to see much of all this.
But I must stop. I forget that you didn't know him; that he is not your Jeems. If it had been so, you would not soon have wearied of telling or of being told of the life and conversation of this "fell body." He was not communicative about his early life. He would sometimes speak to me about "her," as if I knew who and where she was, and always with a gentleness and solemnity unlike his usual gruff ways. I found out that he had been married when young, and that "she" (he never named her) and their child died on the same day,—the day of its birth. The only indication of married life in his room, was an old and strong cradle, which he had cut down so as to rock no more, and which he made the depository of his books—a queer collection.
I have said that he had what he called, with a grave smile, family worship, morning and evening, never failing. He not only sang his psalm, but gave out or chanted the line in great style; and on seeing me one morning surprised at this, he said, "Ye see John, oo," meaning himself and his wife, "began that way." He had a firm, true voice, and a genuine though roughish gift of singing, and being methodical in all things, he did what I never heard of in any one else,—he had seven fixed tunes, one of which he sang on its own set day. Sabbath morning it was French, which he went through with great birr. Monday, Scarborough, which, he said, was like my father cantering. Tuesday, Coleshill, that soft exquisite air,—monotonous and melancholy, soothing and vague, like the sea. This day, Tuesday, was the day of the week on which his wife and child died, and he always sang more verses then than on any other. Wednesday was Irish; Thursday, Old Hundred; Friday, Bangor; and Saturday, Blackburn, that humdrummest of tunes, "as long, and lank, and lean, as is the ribbed sea-sand." He could not defend it, but had some secret reason for sticking to it. As to the evenings, they were just the same tunes in reversed order, only that on Tuesday night he sang Coleshill again, thus dropping Blackburn for evening work. The children could tell the day of the week by Jeems's tune, and would have been as much astonished at hearing Bangor on Monday, as at finding St. Giles's half-way down the Canongate.
I frequently breakfasted with him. He made capital porridge, and I wish I could get such butter-milk, or at least have such a relish for it, as in those days. Jeems is away—gone over to the majority; and I hope I may never forget to be grateful to the dear and queer old man. I think I see and hear him saying his grace over our bickers with their brats on, then taking his two books out of the cradle and reading, not without a certain homely majesty, the first verse of the 99th Psalm,
"Th' eternal Lord doth reign as king,
Let all the people quake;
He sits between the cherubims,
Let th' earth be mov'd and shake;"
then launching out into the noble depths of Irish. His chapters were long, and his prayers short, very scriptural, but by no means stereotyped, and wonderfully real, immediate, as if he was near Him whom he addressed. Any one hearing the sound and not the words, would say, "That man is speaking to some one who is with him—who is present,"—as he often said to me, "There's nae glide dune, John, till ye get to close grups."