EARLY in the month of April, 1734, three Cromarty boatmen, connected with the Custom House, were journeying along the miserable road which at this period winded between the capital of the Highlands and that of the kingdom. They had already traveled since morning more than thirty miles through the wild Highlands of Inverness-shire, and were now toiling along the steep side of the uninhabited valley of Badenoch. A dark, sluggish morass, with a surface as level as a sheet of water occupied the bottom of the valley; a few scattered tufts of withered grass were mottled over it, but the unsolid, sooty-colored spaces between were as bare of vegetation as banks of sea-weed left by the receding tide. On either hand, a series of dreary mountains thrust up their jagged and naked summits into the middle sky. A scanty covering of heath was thrown over their bases, except where the frequent streams of loose debris which had fallen from above were spread over them; but higher up, the heath altogether disappeared, and the eye rested on what seemed an endless wall of bare, gloomy cliffs, partially covered with snow.
The evening — for the day was fast drawing to a close — was as melancholy as the scene. A dense volume of gray cloud hung over the valley like a ceiling, and seemed descending along the cliffs. There was scarcely any wind, but at times a wreath of vapor would come rolling into a lower region of the valley as if shot out from the volume above; and the chill, bleak air was filled with small specks of snow, so light and fleecy that they seemed scarcely to descend, but, when caught by the half-perceptible breeze, went sailing past the boatmen in long horizontal lines. It was evident there impended over them one of those terrible snowstorms which sometimes overwhelm the hapless traveler in these solitudes, and the house in which they were to pass the night was still nearly ten miles away.
The gloom of evening, deepened by the coming storm, was closing around them as they entered one of the wildest recesses of the valley, —an immense precipitous hollow scooped out of the side of one of the hills. The wind began to howl through the cliffs, and the thickening flakes of snow to beat against their faces.
“It will be a terrible night, lads, in the Moray Frith,” said the foremost traveler, a strong-looking, middle-aged man, and a believer. “I would ill like to hae to beat up through the drift along the rough shores o’ Cadboll. It was in just such a night as this, ten years ago, that old Walter Hogg went down in the Red Sally.”
“It will be as terrible a night, I’m feared, just where we are, in the black strath o’ Badenoch,” said one of the men behind, who seemed much fatigued. “I wish we were a’ safe i’ the clachan.”
“Hoot, man,” said Sandy Wright, the first speaker; “it canna now be muckle mair than sax miles afore us, an’ we’ll hae the tail of the gloamin’ for half an hour yet. But, what’s that?” he exclaimed, pointing to a little figure that seemed sitting by the side of the road, about twenty yards before him; “it’s surely a fairie!”
The figure rose from its seat, and came up, staggering apparently from extreme weakness, to meet them. It was a boy scarcely more than ten years of age.
“O my puir boy,” said Sandy Wright, “what can hae taken ye here in a night like this?”
“I was going to Edinburgh, to my friends,” replied the boy, “for my mother died and left me among the freines; but I’m tired, and canna walk farther; and I’ll be lost, I’m feared, in the yown drift.”
“That ye winna, my puir bairn,” said the Scottish Christian, “if I can help it. Gi’e’s a haud o’ your ham’,” grasping, as he spoke, the extended hand of the boy; “dinna tine heart, an’ lean on me as muckle’s ye can.”
But the poor little fellow was already exhausted, and after a vain attempt to proceed, the boatman had to carry him on his back, and did it willingly, weary as he was.
The storm burst out in all its fury, and the travelers, half suffocated, and more than half blinded, had to grope onwards along the rough road, still more roughened by the snow wreaths that were gathering over it. They stopped at every fiercer blast, and turned their backs to the storm to recover breath; and every few yards they advanced, they had to stoop to the earth to ascertain the direction of their path, by catching the outline of the nearer objects between them and the sky. After many a stumble and fall, however, and many a groan and exclamation from the two boatmen behind, who were well-nigh worn out they all reached the clachan in safety about two hours after nightfall.
The inmates were seated round an immense peat fire, placed, according to the custom of the country, in the middle of the floor. They made way for the travelers, and Sandy Wright, drawing his seat near the fire, forgetting his own weariness, began to chafe the hands and feet of the boy, who was almost insensible from cold and fatigue.
“Bring us a mutchkin o’ brandy here,” said the boatman, “an’, as supper canna be ready for awhile yet, get me a piece a bread for the boy He has had a narrow escape, puir little fellow, an’ may be there’s some that would miss him, lanerly as he seems. Only hear how the win’ roars on the gable, an’ rattles at the winnocks and the door. It’s an’ awfu’ night in the Moray Frith....”
Sandy Wright, Christian-like, shared with the boy his supper and his bed, and on setting out on the following morning he brought him along with him, despite the remonstrances of the other boatmen, who dreaded his proving an encumbrance.
The story of the little fellow, though simple, was very affecting. His mother, a poor widow who seems to have been a believer, had lived for the five preceding years in the vicinity of Inverness, supporting herself and her boy by her skill as a sempstress. As early as his sixth year he had shown a predilection for reading, and with the anxious solicitude of a Scottish mother, she had wrought late and early to keep him at school. But her efforts were above her strength, and after a sore struggle of nearly four years, she at length sunk under them. “Oh,” said the boy to his companion, “often would she stop in the middle of her work, and lay her hand on her breast, and then she would ask me what I would do when she would be dead; and we would both greet. Her fingers grew white and sma’, and she couldna’ sit up at nights as before; but her cheeks were redder and bonnier than ever, and I thought that she surely wouldna’ die; she had told me that she wasna’ eighteen years older than myself. Often, often when I waukened in the morning, she would be greetin’ at my bedside, and I mind one day when I brought home the first prize from school, that she drew me till her, an’ told me, wi’ the tear in her e’e, that the day would come, when her head would be low, that my father’s gran’ friends, who were ashamed o’ her because she was poor, would be glad to own me. She soon couldna’ hold up her head at all, and if it wasna’ for a neighbor woman, who hadna’ muckle to spare, we would have starved. I couldna’ go to the school, for I needed to stay and watch by her bedside, and do things in the house; and it vexed her more that she was keeping me from my learning than that hersel’ was sae ill. But I used, by her desire, to read chapters to her out of the Bible. One day, when she was very sick, two neighbor women came in, and she called me to her, and told me, that when she would be gone to the Lord, I would need to go to Edinburgh, for I had no friends anywhere else. Her own friends were there, she said, but they were poor and couldna’ do muckle for me; and my father’s friends were there too, and they were rich, though they wadna’ own her. She told me no to be feared by the way, for that the Lord kent every bit o’t, and he would make folk to be kind to me; and then she kissed me, and Brat, and bade me go to the school. When I came out she was lying wi’ a white cloth on her face, and the bed was all white. She was dead, and I could do nothing but greet a’ that night, and she was dead still! I’m now traveling to Edinburgh, as she bade me, and folk are kind to me just as she said; and I have letters to show me the way to my mother’s friends when I reach the town; for I can read and write.” Such was the narrative of the poor boy.
Throughout the whole journey, Sandy Wright was as a father to him. He pitied the poor orphan; the love of Christ constrained him. He shared with him his meals and his bed, and usually, for the last half-dozen miles of every stage, he carried him on his back.
“An’ now, my boy,” said the boatman, as they reached the West-port, “I ha’e business to do at the Custom House, an’ some money to get; but I maun first try and find out your friends for ye. Look at the letters and tell me the street where they put up.”
The boy untied his little bundle, which contained a few shirts and stockings, a parcel of papers, and a small box.
“What are a’ the papers about?” inquired the boatman, “an’ what have ye in the wee box?”
“My mither,” said the boy, “bade me be sure to keep the papers, for they tell of her marriage to my father, and the box hauds her ring. She could have got money for it when she was sick, and no able to work, she said, but she would sooner starve than part wi’ it; and I widna’ like to part wi’t either, to ony bodie but yoursel’ — but if ye would take it? “He opened the box, and passed it to his companion. It contained a valble diamond ring.
“No, no, my boy,” said the boatman,” that widna’ do; the ring’s a bonnie ring, an something bye ordinar, though I be no judge; but, blessings on your head! tak’ ye care o’ it, an’ part wi’ t on no account, to ony bodie. Hae ye found out the direction?”
The boy named some place in the vicinity of the Cowgate, and in a few minutes they were both walking up the Grass market.
“Oh, yonder’s my aunt,” exclaimed the boy, pointing to a young woman, who was coming down the street; “yonder’s my mither’s sister!” and away he sprang to meet her.
She immediately recognized and welcomed him; and he introduced the boatman to her, as the kind friend who had rescued him from the snow-storm, and brought him safely all his journey through. She related in a few words the story of the boy’s parents. His father had been a dissipated young man, of good family, whose follies had separated him from his friends; and the difference he had rendered irreconcilable by marrying a poor but industrious and virtuous woman, who, despite of her birth, was deserving of a better husband. In a few years he had sunk into indigence and contempt; and in the midst of a wretchedness which would have been still more complete had it not been for the efforts of his wife, he was seized by a fever, of which he died.
“Two of his brothers,” said the woman, “who are gentlemen of the law, were lately inquiring about the boy, and will, I hope, interest themselves in his behalf.”
In this hope the boatman cordially acquiesced. “An’ now, my boy,” said he, as he bade him farewell, “I have just one great left yet; it’s an honest great, anyhow,” he added, as he gave it to the child, “an’ I’m sure I wish the Lord’s blessing on it.”
Eighteen years elapsed before Sandy Wright again visited Edinburgh. He had quitted it a robust, powerful man of forty-seven, and returned to it a gray-headed old man of sixty-five. His humble fortunes, too, were sadly in the wane. His son William, who had risen, in a few years on the score of merit alone, from the forecastle to a lieutenancy, had headed under Admiral Vernon some desperate enterprise, from which he never returned; and the boatman himself, when on the eve of retiring on a small pension, from his long service in the Custom House, was dismissed without a shilling, on the charge of having connived at the escape of a smuggler. He was slightly acquainted with one of the inferior clerks in the Edinburgh Custom House, and in the slender hope that this person might prove powerful enough to get him reinstated, had now traveled from Cromarty to Edinburgh, a weary journey of nearly two hundred miles. He had visited the clerk, who had given him scarcely any encouragement; and he was now waiting for him in a street near Brown Square, where he had promised to meet him in less than half an hour. But more than two hours had elapsed; and Sandy Wright, fatigued and melancholy, was sauntering slowly along the street, musing on his altered circumstances, when a gentleman, who passed him with the quick, hurried step of a person engaged in business, stopped abruptly a few yards away, and returning at a much slower pace, eyed him steadfastly as he repassed. He again came forward, and stood.
“Are you not Mr. Wright?” he inquired.
“My name, sir, is Sandy Wright,” exclaimed the boatman, touching his bonnet.
The face of the stranger glowed with pleasure, and grasping him by the hand, “Oh my good kind friend, Sandy Wright!” he exclaimed; “often, often have I inquired after you, but no one could tell me where you resided, or whether you were living or dead. Come along with me, my house is in the next square. What! not remember me; oh, but it will be ill with me when I cease to remember you! I am Hamilton, an advocate — but you will scarcely know me as that.”
The boatman accompanied him to an elegant house in Brown Square, and was ushered into a splendid apartment, where there sat a young lady, engaged in reading.
“Who of all the world have I found,” said the advocate to the young lady, “but good Sandy Wright, the kind brave man who rescued me when perishing in the snow, and who was so true a friend to me when I had no friend besides.”
The lady welcomed the boatman with one of her warmest smiles, and held out her hand.
“How happy I am,” she said, “that we should have met with you. Often has Mr. Hamilton told me of your kindness to him, and regretted that he should have no opportunity of acknowledging it.”
The boatman made one of his best bows, but he had no words for so fine a lady.
The advocate inquired kindly after his concerns, and was told of his dismissal from the Custom House.
“I’ll vouch,” he exclaimed, “it was nothing an honest man should be ashamed of.”
“Oh, only a slight matter, Mr. Hamilton,” said the boatman; “an’ truth I couldna’ weel do other than what I did, though I should base to do’t o’er again.... I have an acquaintance in the Custom House here, Mr. Scrabster, the clerk; an’ I came up ance errand to Edinburgh, in the hope that he might do something for me; but he’s no Terra able, I’m thinking, an’ I’m feared no verra willing; an’ so, Mr. Hamilton, I just canna help it. My day, o’ course o’ nature, canna be verra long, an’ the Lord that has aye carried me through as yet, winna, surely, let me stick now.”
“Ah no, my poor friend,” said the advocate; “make up your mind, however, to stay for a few weeks with Helen and me, and I’ll try in the meantime what my little influence may be able to do for you at the Custom House.”
A fortnight passed away very agreeably to the boatman. Mrs. Hamilton was delighted with his character and his conversation, and the advocate, a man of high talent and Christian benevolence, seemed to regard him with the feelings of an affectionate son. At length, however, he began to weary sadly of what he termed the life of a gentleman, and to sigh after his little smoky cottage and “the puir auld wife.”
“Just remain with us one week longer,” said the advocate, “and I shall learn in that time the result of my application. You are not now quite so active a man as when you carried me ten miles through the snow, and so I shall secure for you a passage in one of the Leith Traders.”
In a few days after, when the boatman was in the middle of one of his most interesting conversations with Mrs. Hamilton, the advocate entered the apartment, his eyes beaming with pleasure, and a packet in his hand.
“This is from London,” he said, as he handed it to his wife; “it intimates to us, that, Alexander Wright, Custom House Boatman,’ is to rire from the service on a pension for life.”
But why dwell longer on the story? Sandy Wright parted from his kind friends, and returned to Cromarty, where he died in the spring of 1769, in the eighty-second year of his age.
“Folk hae aye to learn,” he used to say, “an’, for my own pairt, I was a sixty-year-auld scholar afore I kept one meaning o’ that verse, ‘Cast thy bread on the waters, and thou shalt find it after many days.’”
“Be ye therefore imitators of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor.” In taking charge of the poor, perishing orphan boy, this Scottish Christian only did what it was his duty to do. Carrying him on his back for miles in the teeth of the storm, weary as he was himself; providing him with food and shelter at his own cost; and afterward, in spite of opposition, delay, and all inconvenience, seeing him safely to his destination, this dear old Christian was but following (though at infinite distance) in the footsteps of his gracious Master; nevertheless such instances of real Christ-like love and self-denial are, alas! so rare that it has been thought well to record this as an example to those young readers of Good News who love the Lord Jesus Christ.
Practical Christianity is at a very low ebb in these days, even much that is so called is nothing but active religiousness — that kind of zealous Pharisaism which “tithes mint and anise and cummin” for its own sake and to be seen of men. In seeking to avoid this we may fall into the other extreme (a very common thing in human experience), and sit down content with a kind of spiritual sentimentalism, which feeds on the most precious truths and enjoys them after a fashion of its own, but never carries them out into the practical details of daily walk, nor knows what it is to “love with a pure heart fervently.”
Sandy Wright was a Christian of another sort. He saw the lost child and he sought to save him. He was weary and he carried him, hungry and he fed him, “a stranger and he took him in,” friendless and he befriended him; nor left him till he had set him in safety among his own far-distant relatives, bearing him on over many a mile of moor and mountain and through difficulties which but for him, it would have been physically impossible for the fatherless boy to have surmounted. And the Lord honored and rewarded him even here, though he does not always do so. But he has said, “Them that honor me I will honor;” and sooner or later the reward will follow labors of love done for his name’s sake by those who love him and “look for nothing again.” Would that there were more Sandy Wrights among us!