“Across the fever’s fiery path he trod,
And one went with him like the Son of God.”
Rev. W. Alexander
After the death of Hugh Wigton, the Duncan’s took his desolate and broken-hearted orphan to their own home. Mary’s grief was not wild — that was not in her character — but it was intense and crushing. Except the absent brother, her father had been her only surviving relative, and all the tendrils of her loving nature had entwined themselves around him. He was snatched from her in a single day; and that in a manner so bitter and heart-rending that horror was at first almost stronger than sorrow. One thought, above all others, cruelly aggravated her distress, and it was rarely absent from her. He died without the sacraments of the Church — what then would become of his soul? This anguish was too deep for words, and almost for tears; it was only upon one occasion that she even alluded to it.
“I wonner,” she said to Janet one day, while she helped her in some humble household work, “I wonner gin the kirlcmen be richt sure themsels that a’ they tell is is true.”
“Oh, Mary!” exclaimed Janet, whose mind was the reverse of speculative in its tendencies, “what gars ye speir sic’ a thing?”
But Mary answered intelligently, for sorrow is a good master in the art of thinking, “ Did they no care for their ain lives, and let my dear father dee like a puir dumb beast, that has nae soul ava’
“Tut, lassie, a’body cares for his life,” said Jan going on vigorously with her work.
Mary shook her head. “But they suld hae main pity. They suld hae a thocht o’ the puir souls that are deeing around them. God forgie me, I canna bide the thocht of it! My puir, puir father An’ there’s mony sic’ as he, Janet; mony sic’!”
Weel, it’s no for the like of us to be cleaving our beads wi’ sic’ things; — gie us a hand wi’ the spurtle, Mary; Jamie ‘ll come ben keen for his parritch,-tho’ there’s unco little meal left in the kist.”
Mary was silenced, but not comforted. Soon, however, other troubles came. The victims of the pestilence were every day more numerous; and although Mazy cared but little just then for her own life, she took part in the fears of the Duncan family for each other; nor could any of them remain unmoved by the universal terror and distress. To their trials that of want was now added; for James Dune’s master had dismissed hint from his employment on hearing that a person had died of the plague in the “land” where he lived; And although the girls could spin and sew, they found it for the same reason, impossible to dispose of their work.
Knowing it would be useless to seek another situation at present, Jamie had no alternative but to sit at home, idle, hungry, and miserable. Naturally, these circumstances did not tend to improve his temper, which was further soured by various collisions with Archie. It was not to be expected that a bright active boy would be content to stay indoors all day without occupation of amusement; and yet it seemed little less than madness to allow him to wander about the streets at his will Janet’s good sense fortunately led her to corn promise matters by sending him, whenever she could, upon necessary errands, cautioning him to “gang hoolie,” to keep the middle of the street, and above all not to linger with idle boys, “wha might gie him the sickness.”
On One of these occasions he delayed Such an unreasonable time that Jamie vowed summary vengeance as his return. His absence being still further prolonged, annoyance changed to serious anxiety, as instances had occurred of persons being suddenly seized With the pestilence in the streets, and unable ever to regain their homes. Bet towards the end of the second hour, Archie reappeared, and with a countenance and manner which showed there was nothing amiss.
Laying down the loaf he had been sent to purchase, he exclaimed, “Eh, but there’s braw news the day! A’ the tounfolk are weel nigh daft wi’ joy, sae that a body wad think the sickness was awa’. Maister Wishart’s come back again.”
“Who’s he?” asked Effie, who thought that what pleased Archie ought to interest her.
“Hoot! a’body kens Maister George Wishart. He’s a guid priest (but they ca’ him the minister), and nae common priest either; he’s a braw gentleman, and sae guid to the puir folk, forbye preaching like an angel.”
“He’s nae priest ava’,” said Jamie. “He’s naebut a preacher; and he’s a muckle heretic. Do ye no mind when he was here before, how the lord cardinal put the tounfolk in fear, and they bade him gang his ways?” “He’s nae heretic!” returned Archie, who was not sorry to contradict his elder brother, and who besides had spent the greater part of the last two hours taking lessons in “heresy” at the street corners and in the shops. “He’s nae heretic. It’s naebut the bishops ca him that, because they canna preach like him theirsels, the doited loons!”
“Whist, kiddie! ye suldna misca’ yer betters.”
“But what gars him come back the noo when a’body wha could do it lls just rin awa’? Is he no fear’t o’ the sickness1” asked Janet.
“He’s no fear’t of anything,” said Archie, with genuine admiration, for courage is perhaps the only virtue a boy can thoroughly appreciate. But at these words Mary dropped her thread (she had been spinning), and fixed her eyes on his face with a sudden look of interest. “And he’s gaun to preach the morn frae the Cowgate.”
“Rae the Cowgate!”
“Rae the top o’ the Cowgate. And the folk wha hae had the sickness amang them maun gang outside; and the free folk maun bide inside.”
“Then we maun gang out,” said Janet.
“Yell gang neither out nor in wi’ my guid will,” Jamie interposed.
“Gin our puir souls havens enoo’ upon them, these ill times, without fashing oursels wi’ his heresies. He was weel awa’. What gars him come back to set the town in a bleeze wi’ sic’ fooleries?” An ungenerous speech, which James Duncan afterwards repented. “He maun hae a guid heart to Dundee,” Janet ventured to remark, “or he wadna come here sic’ a time. Mair pity gin he is a heretic.”
“! Gin!” repeated Jamie ironically;, “gin my lord cardinal had him in his grip, nae doot but he’d burn him quick, and gie the silly folk wha gang to hear him something to remember.”
Atweel,” said Archly smartly, “let my lord cardinal come and gie us a sermon himsel, and we’ll a’ leave Maister Wishart and gang to hear him. But I wad ye a plack, he’ll put mair than the length of his muckle cross between us and him the noo!”
“Ye may haud yer slavers,” said Jamie, who did not feel himself equal to a discussion of the subject.” Ye’re nane gaun to the Cowgate the morn.”
Archie vigorously remonstrated against this decision. “It’s no for the heresy,” he said in self-vindication, but I want to see a man preach frae the top o’ the gate.”
Janet however, as in duty bound, threw her weight into the scale of Jamie’s lawful authority. Ye’ll be a quid lad and mind yer brither,” she said to Archie; “and forbye the heresy, wha kens but we might tak’ the sickness, gaun promiscuous into sic’ a muckle crowd.” Here the matter might have ended, but for Mary Wigton, who looked up and said very quietly, “I hope ye’ll no be fashed or think hard o’ me, but I maim gang to hear Maister Wishart.”
This took them all by surprise, for since her father’s death Mary had been as it were quite passive, not seeming to have any will or purpose of her own.
“An’ what for, Mary, lass?” Jamie asked, in the Softened tone he always used when speaking to her.
“Because he hae ta’en thocht o’ the puir folks’ souls, and doesna think muckle to set his ain life i’ the bawls. God bless him for it! Gin he had been here, father beedna hae dee’d like — like — ”
“Atvteel, he maun hae the love o’ God in his heart, and the Word o’ God on his lips, let them ca’ him heretic as they may,”
When James Duncan gave himself time to reflect, he began to modify the opinions he had expressed. Granted that Wishart was a heretic, he was still a man of rank and talent, admired and beloved not only by thousands of the people, but by many of the nobles of the land. That such a man should put his life in his hand, and voluntarily hasten to the city where death was raging, and whence all who could do it had fled in terror, served at least to impress one lesson on his mind. The men of Dundee were not, as in his dejeo Lion he had begun to think, quite forsaken both of heaven and earth. One man at least there was who had found it in his heart to come to them in this time of trouble, for the express purpose of giving them all the help and comfort he could. Might not his courageous charity be a sign that God’s mercy was not so far away as they were tempted to imagine? Thus, at last, Wishatt’s coming began to look very like a single ray of light in their clouded sky, and in his heart he “blessed him unawares,”
Janet having ascertained next morning that Mars still persisted in her intention of going to the preaching, was considerably surprised to see her brother take from the “kist” in which it was deposited, a gown which had belonged to his father, and which he carefully reserved for important occasions.
“Ye’re no gaun out the morn?” she asked.
“Do ye think, woman, I could let the lassie gang her lane to the Cowgate?” was the answer.
“An’ you maun gang, I’ll not be left behind,” said Janet “Please yersel,” was Jamie’s laconic reply.
“But we dauma leave the bairns,” suggested Janet The “bairns” overhearing this, entreated to be of the party; and after a little more discussion it was decided that all were to go, Jamie quieting his conscience with the reflection, “Ane sermon willna dae us muckle harm, an’ it were as full of heresies as Glasgow is of bells.”
They were soon a part of the crowd that thronged about the east gate of the town. Janet and Mary stood together; Jamie took little Effie in his arms; while Archie, to his great joy, succeeded in dislodging a taller boy than himself from the top of a particularly eligible heap of stones. Mary could not help remarking the mournful expression of all the faces that surrounded them. Pallid, sickly, worn-out faces they were, for the most part; many of them bearing the traces of just such agonies as she had passed through when she watched by her father’s death-bed. And not a few had a wild and reckless look, as if, in the effort to escape from anguish, they were hardening themselves into despair.
Suddenly every eye was raised upwards with a look of eager interest and expectation. Very touching was the gaze of that great multitude, in its wistful, silent appeal to the heart of him who had come among them, promising to tell them something which could make life more tolerable, and death less bitter. Mary looked where others did, and her eye rested with involuntary admiration on the stately figure of the preacher, a tall man, dark-haired, and of dark complexion, with a noble countenance, and singularly graceful manner. Something else there was, not so easy to describe or, to analyze, which insensibly attracted her. It may have been the love and pity that beamed from his face as he looked on those sorrowing thousands — the love that winged his footsteps to that scene of death, because, as he said, “They are now in trouble, and need comfort; and perhaps the hand of God will make them now to magnify and reverence that Word which before, for fear of men, they set at light part.”
But besides this, a man could scarcely live as George Wishart did — so very near to Christ that he loved to spend whole days and nights in direct communion with him, or follow so closely in the footsteps of his self-denying charity — without reflecting, even in outward appearance, some little of the glory of that land in which his spirit dwelt. For there is a calm and an elevation which nothing but the peace and the presence of God can impart to the countenance of man.
Amidst a deep silence he read aloud the text he had chosen: “He sent his Word, and healed them.” “It is neither herb nor plaster, O Lord,” he said, “but thy Word that heals all.” And then, for the first time, Mary Wigton heard Christ preached. She heard that there was a disease more deadly than the dreaded pestilence; that she herself had breathed its poison; that it had entered her being and become a part of it; and her heart and her conscience answered “yes” to the charge, Then she heard of the Deliverer, the “Word” of God, who, because he loved mankind, because he loved her, had left his home which was the Heaven of Heavens, to suffer and die upon earth, that all who believed on him might be healed of their deadly sickness, forgiven their transgressions, renewed in the spirit of their minds, and made the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty.
Are “the words of this life” in our ears as an oft told tale? If so, let as thank God for it, while We ask him never to allow their familiarity to let them seem less precious, But to Mary, and to many who heard them with het, they were new and wonderful as the glory of the sunrise in the eyes of one who has dwelt all his life darksome cave. The love of the blessed Son of God, and of the Father who sent him, sank to the very depths of her heart. She believed that love was for her; she received and embraced it, without so much as staying to question whether this was indeed the faith upon which the preacher insisted. For her the fiat had gone forth, “Behold, I make all things new!” and peace and joy took the place of the deep dejection which before had threatened to overwhelm her. Lonely and sorrowful, an “orphan of the earthly love and heavenly,” had she come thither that morning; she returned home with a happy, thankful heart, — God’s forgiven and accepted child.
Nor was hers the only heart to which George Wishart was made the messenger of peace that day. The great reformer Knox, who loved and reverenced him deeply, tells us that by this sermon “he raised up the hearts of all that heard him, that they regardit not death, but judgit thame mair happie that sould depairt, than sic as sould remain behind.”
And was not the joy of bringing this joy to thousands, who otherwise would have lain in darkness and the shadow of death, worth all he braved and all he suffered for it? This was far more than the peril of infection; inasmuch as the wrath of wicked men is more deadly than the breath of disease, and as we have yet to learn, they gave him “cruel thanks” for his labors of self-devoted love. Yet it is true that “ he that reapeth receiveth wages “here and now, as well as” gathereth fruit into life eternal” It does not need the heart of a hero or a martyr, it only needs a little sense of the value of one human soul, and a little love to Him who died to redeem it, to enable the humblest Christian to comprehend what that wages is, and to esteem such a life as George Wishart’s, not only grander and nobler, but actually happier than the most triumphant career the lofty ambition of youth ever pictured forth in the future.