The Storyteller.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 23, Issue 47, 23 November 1899, Page 23

The Storyteller.

JOJIX GREGOR. ARTIST.

' No, no. Maister Douglas, ye would na' tell us we must give the lad up? Ye diiiua'siy 'tis right to send him sac far away, for Edinboro' town is many a good league fro-n hert>, sir, and he be home no mair'n a fortnight in a' the year. Ah, we could na' do it, sir, we could na'.' 'It's hard for you, William,' said the oM schoolmaster, geutly, 'butt' would bd a crying sh ime to hive the lad's talent wasted. Why, man, he draws like (in ang«l, and some day, when he comes back to you a great man. you'll be goo I and proud to hive him tor a son, depend upjn it 1 I love the lad and I have watched him these many days as he givw up and drew his pictures and told me his thoughts— an 1 I h.ive wondered an I bte'i afraid. Each day 1 have said to m.ys If. "The if no I Go I h i*> givi-n the bairn a great gift, and it would ill" do for us to think of oumelves and keep him with us here at Li hLn. No, he mu,t leave thu old place and go away to stu<iy, aid when the tine cones 1.l speik to William about it, and we'll see whit we can do for him." And now, old friend, the time has come and we must think o' the lad's own good.' ' T'd break his mither's heart, fcir, to have him sent away. He's our own bairn, Maister Douglas — our a' — and we're fast growin auld. We'd set our hearts on keepin' him wi' us till the end. We'd thought as how he'd be a comfort to us and take the bit o' farm as I and my feyther did afaire me. But maybe he's sumraat different from the rest o' the auld stock — he ne'er seemed to take kindly to the farmin'. No tellin' but you're right, sir, but I canna' bring myself to see it yet. It's a sair blow — a sair blow ' ' Aye, it's a sair trial for ye both, William, my man ; but after all, we're livin' only for the little lad. Our day is nearly over now, old friend, and his is just beginning. Let's think of him and the road that's before him.' 'I want to do what's right for the lad, Maister Douglas, but it's his mither I'm thinkin' o' — nay, nay, I ken well enough the good wife will give ne'er a thought to herself. We'll think on it, sir, we'll think on it. But it's been a bad year, and there's not a bito' crop to sell, and it'll take rnuckle siller for the lad's trainin'. We'll do our bast, sir.' And old William sighed. 'Ay, William, I had thought o' that,' said the kindly master as he laid his hand on the old man's shoulder. ' Now, list to me, man — you know I have no bairns of my own, and the lad is all I have to live for. I've been laying up a little these last few years — it's not much, William, but it will help, and between us both we might manage it. You won't say me nay — for the sake of the love I bear the lad V ' Thank ye, kindly, sir. Ye've been too good to the lad and to us a. May God bless ye for it! But keep yur bit o' gold, man I'll talk it over wi' the inither. and we'll try to gather up enough.' ' Nay, nay, f rien 1, you must not gruige a bit o' pleasure to an auld man who has not much iti his life But now I must be getting home. The sun is far down the path, and my old feet grow slower with the day*. Think it over, William, and I'll be back the Sunday to hear how you've settled it. Think o' the little lad,' he said again as they shook hands, and William stood looking after the stooping figure as it went down the flower-bordered pittf and on to green hillside beyond. There was a sad look in his eyes as he turned into the old farm house— homely place, sleeping there in the fresh heather-country, near the little village of Licklan, that lay further down the valley, in the way of the low stretching'sun. He paused in the doorway. 'Mither, leave thy iinnes a bit and come here for a breath o' breeze. 1 have summat to say to ye. Ye ken as Maister Douglas is just gone and he Ciiue to .spaak o' the b,iir D . lie says the lad has great pairta ; some day hell make a fiie painter, but he must learn from maisters and we must send him away, fd,r away, mither, to Edinboro'. I would na' rcind the partin' now sac muck'le, but I'm sair and heavy lest it take the lad from u< for good and a. But ye ken a« how he'll ne'er take to the farmin', and the maister says we'll be dam' him a wrong if we keep him wi' us. T'd be sair hard for you. mither, to be parted from him, but I thought it best to tell you o't.' ' You were right, William ; we'd both be full o' pain at partin' from the lad, but we can give up much fcr the barnie's sake feyther, and we must have no thought o' self. The good Feyther above has given him gifts that we dinna' ken, and we must do the Feyther's will.' Her wrinkled hand stole intj her husband's rough palm, and the dying sunlight touchei the whitening hair and lighted up the patient faces. ' Nay, nay,' she went on after a pause as they stood thus together in the fading day, ' we must na' be nae selfish, William, let's give the lad a' that we can. We two started out together, feyther ; we hare stood by each other these many years, and we'll not be sair put to bide alone a wee bit longer. I' or John '11 be wi' us again afaire long and then yeTl ba fine and proud o' him. Sac we'll tell the maister we'll do it, and now come in man, and get a bite o' supper. The laddie '11 be here in a bit, and ye must na' let him see ye sac downhearted.' And so it was settled. When the master came on the Sunday they told him the lad should go. They had s ived up a little, 'gainst a rainy day,' and after a hard struggle, the maister's mitfl' too, went to swell the sum that was to give the bjy his first year's training at Edinboro.' 'No mair'n a month, is it, Maister Douglas?' s li 1 old Gregor, when the arrangements were completed. 'We have na' told the'lad yet, but he's yonder by the hillside. Ye might tell him as ye gae home.' The old schoolmaster's heart was very blithe as he walked down the pathway. He drank in the pure freshness of tho heather air and watched the mellow afternoon |ight as it warmed the blue hill tops

and shone on the little Lachl»n church tower -and his o.\n heart, ! too, was aglow with the radiance of a deep, selfith gladness, lia pave not a thought to the good horse and saddle old Tammae had shown him the other day. and that he had hoped to buy, now that he was so often tired and the way over the hill seemed bo long. He felt that he could tread the little brown path forever bo long as 'his laddie ' was happy in the fulfilment of his dream. ' Ah, John, niy lad, is it you ?' he asked, as he came upon a tall boy stretched in the heather and gazing-, with dreaming eyes, at the far hill tops swathed in rnibt. ' Yes, sir,' said the lad, springing up with a ready smile ; ' I was just wondering if yonder veil of haze did not love the mountain. It seems to wrap it so tenderly — don't you think so sir !' 1 That's another of your pretty fancies, lad,' said the old man brightly; 'and now, my boy, I've something good to tell you. Come walk a bit with me through the meadow and you shall ht-ar it.' They walked on in silence for a few minutes, the boj's face eager with expectation. The the master went on slowly: 'John, you are going to do what you have longed for and lived for— you are going away to study your art. Nay, bid, keep c dm,' as he watched the gray eyes sparkle and the breath come quick, ' and try to think what it means to the auld folk to give you up, and try try to be worthy. Remember your art is nothing uuljss it leads you to better things— you and other men. Do your best, lnddie, and may God bless you and wa eh over you tor aye !' The old man's voice quivered as he spoke, and laying his hand a moment on the lad's brown hair, he turned and walked through the fields, leaving the boy with bared head uplifted to the glory of the sinking sun— another glory of thankfulness in his heart. ° That month and many months had come and gone. John Gregor had passed a year of hard untiring study at Edinboro' ; and he had gone home, just when the autumn touch was stealing over hill and meadow, when the leaves of the great trees were turning sere and all the country was blazing in autumn glory. But somehow the old place had lost its charm for him. With a keen artist's eye he had seen the beauty of leaf and hill, but his thoughts and his ideas had changed. The homely praise of the village folk jarred upon his ear, the little sleeping town was distasteful to him, even the master's friendly counsel sounded strangely harsh. It was all so old-fashioned, so alien to the spirit of the busy, on-hurrying world he had entered Vaguely dissatisfied and dimly seeing- the old folks' pain at the change the year had wrought, he had gone back to his work He told himself that he had thrown off the shackles of the old life, that he had outgrown its narrowness and broadened with his broader world. Another year made things even worse, and when the next fall came, it found him in Paris, in a great Etudier, whither he had worked his way from Edinboro', and he could plead distance and expense as an excuse for neglecting his annual visit to Lachlan. And so the years had slipped by, each one bearing the current of his heart and mind further away from the distant source among the Scottish hills. He had been in Paris five years now, and never*once, during all that time, had he gone back to the old home place! Indeed, for the past two years or more he had even ceased writing" He thought of them pometimes, to be sure ; he could not quite forget, yet. But he was a man of the world now; he had tastel something of its bitterness, something of its sin, and his conscience was not so tender as in the days when he had lain dreaming in the far north heather fields. He was a success the world said : his pictures certainly sold well and for good price-*, too. He was a master of 'technique,' you know— his persevering study had accomplished that, at leist. All in all, he was a prosperous man, a man to be envied. And yet with all this, he was not satisfiei with his work, and even the world did not give to it the meed of highest praise. There was something wanting, people siid, something that they could not name, that they knew only by its absence. And he saw the want, too, perhaps more clearly than any who criticised ; he, too, missed that indefiaable something that he had struggled early and late, night and d<iy, to giasp. And to-night, as he hurries through the crowded Paris streets, he is thinking with a kind of hr.peles3 bitterness, that he might a3 well give up the effort. ' I wonder what can it be. this power that the world tells me I lack / How can I find it— and where 7 ' he mutters for the hundredth time, as he stumbles on. 'Could it bj ' ■ Hello ! be good enough to remember that others are struggling in the crubh, too 1' some one remonstrates in a strangely familiar voice. ' Why, John Gregor, id it you who are dreaming away in a crowd like this 1 Well, well, who ever expected to bump into you here, of all places in the world 1 I'm glad to see you, old man ; but come, let's get out of this and try to find a place where we can hear ourselves without half Paris watching the ceremony.' ' Yes, come up to my rooms,' said Johu, after doing his share of greeting, ' we'll fiud quiet there, at any rate.' ISo you are established here .' Why, of course, I've heard of John Gregor, the prosperous, the much-to-be-envied ! Yo have been successful, eh John ? ' ' After a fashion, yes,' said Gregor ; ' that is, my work has not been a financial failure, and that, I believe, is the world's standard of success. But how do you happen to be in Paris 1 I haven't seen you since the old Edinboro' days.' ' Oh, I've been knocking about, seeing something of the world, hailing at all sorts of out-of-the-way places and painting a great deal by the way. It has been good training, John, and I ieel all the better armed for the battles to come.' In the old student days at Edinboro' Richard Kent had ranked much lower in his work than Gregor ; he had not the same teuhuical and mechanical skill. But now that the Fchool days were over and both men had set themselves up in the broader .school of life, Kent bade fair, for all that the public had had so little of his woik, to be more successful than hid fellow. His fow tketches drawn with bold, strong strokes, had set the world to wondering He drew men's hearts with that very power that Gregor lacked, and his own magnetic sympathy informed the pencilled lines and gave them life.

1 Now, Gregor, you must show me some of your work,' he said, as they entered the studio, 'and you must let me give you my honest criticism, just as old Don used to do at Edinboro'. Is this your last picture? "Parting," you call it ? Ah, it is wonderful I The grouping and colouring are exquisite ; but, old man, there's something lacking ' 1 Just what they all say,' said Gregor, sadly. ' Both the world and my inner self tell me I lack something, but neither the one nor the other tell me what the want is.' ' I think I know what is the matter, John,' said Kent, looking gravely from the canvas to his friend's face ; ' you lack something that so many of us miss as we go through the world — it is touch with the great human brotherhood around us, with its joy and sorrow, its hope and despair. And how can we touch this great heart-note of mankind when our own hearts have never been attuned to it ? It is the broad, quick sympathy that you need, my friend — you have not yet entered into the lives, the wants, the soulstrifes of men.' He paused, and Gregor sat with his face bowed in his hands. 'Am I preaching, old man ? It is only because I want to help you to have the promise of your work fulfilled. Let me suggest something. You are rich, you are young — leave your work for a time and go study in the living school. My word on it, you'll be thankful when you take up your work once more Now, old fellow, I must go — I have an appointment for this evening. Think over what I've said and come up to see me. I'm" at the Continental.' John Gregor did think. A week later, when Kent called up at the studio again, he found it closed and its owner gone ; they did know where or for how long, the concierge said. Richard Kent smiled as he went down the steps. 'It will do him good,' he said.

11.

There are four walls around a little Provencil garden that hold their little world of sorrow. In the cottage opening on the tiny grass plot lives an old French peasant and her grandchild. The old woman's face is marked with many a line that tells its silent history of pain and struggle. She has had more than falls to to the lot of most women and men, this old French peasant. But one bit of happiness seems left to her — it is the little Babbette. The child seems to understand it all and she gives the old woman a great heartf ul of the love she craves. But now the little one is dying, and the old grandmother's heart is heavy with hopelessness Each day as she carries the lighter-growin* burden, into the little garden, she feels the feeble life-pulse beating fainter, she sees the pale face grow paler. ' Gran'mere,' said the child one day at twilight as she leaned back, white and tired, on the pillows of her great chair, 'gran'mere, see the sun is almost gone ! He will not come to-day.' ' Oh, yes, cherie, he will come ; he never lets the sun die without coming to brighten thee up a bit, petite. See, there he is now I ' It was John Gregor who walked so quickly across the little gravelled walk ; but not the same John we left in the Paris studio. He is a happier and a better man for his year with the people. He has wandered through many lands in that year, living always the fuller life that is born of intercourse with the lives and hearts of common men. For the past three months he has lived in the little Provencal to<vn. Walking through the streets and lanes of the sleeping village, he met often the little Babbette, and he was strangely attracted by the pure, flower face of the child. Afterwards, he went to see her, and now that she was ill, he went each day with his great bunch of the wood-flowers that she loved and his kind smile, helping to while away the long hours and cheering the old grandmother with his hopefulness. 'Am I late to-day, little one ? ' he asked, as he laid his cool hand on her fevered head. ' Never mind, we shall have a long evening together to make up for it. Come, grandmother, the evening air will soon be too chill for her : but we'll put ihe chair close to the window where we can watch each star as it peeps out of the darkness.' That night, when the stars came, they beckoned the little soul away, and at last, when Gregor went out into the darkness, he left the old grandmother alone beside the window, holding tight the little cold form and speaking tender words that only the htars could hear. All the long night John Gregor thought. The coming of the silent death so near him has stirred old feelings, old regrets. He had knelt in the shadow of eternity and he rose up to look with clearer eyea in the face of the living duty. He looked within himself and shuddered at the sight. He looked at the boy-dreamer among the Scottish meadows — he looked at the years of patient sacrifice, at the hopes his baseness had shattered — he saw the simple, loving hearts trampled and crushed by his ingratitude. And then he did a strange thing — this world-schooled man : ' Help me, 0 God ! ' he moaned. '0, God I — ' And when the dawn came, the little dead face seemed to smile on him in blessing. In another month he was back at Lachlan. The old town still slumbered among the blue hills, and as he left the little station and mounted the worn path, he saw that the autumn glory again covered leaf and fell and meadow, as it had done when years ago he went away. ' I must find out if there are any changes in the old place,' he said, as he paused before the smith shop, the village gathering place. Had he changed so much, he wondered, that none of the familiar faces that he remembered so well lighted up with recognition as he stepped in amongst them. The old villagers looked up, surprised, as a stranger entered. ' Good day to ye, sir,' said one ; ' hay ye made muckle o' journey th' da ? ♦ Maybe ye're gaein' t' bide o' Lachlan ? ' another ventured, voicing the curiosity of the group.

' I have not been here for many years, 1 said George, ' not since I was a lad. But I know something of the village. I suppose farmer Gregor still lives in the old farm house under the hill? And Maister Douglas 1 Does he still teach the village school ? ' Nae, nae, friend, the auld Gregor fairm is empty an' the gnde mon is dead these two year. Ye ken he ha' ac son — a likely lad enow till he took up wi' paintin' an' sioh foolishness. They sent th' lad awa' t' study an' they worked sair hard, th day an' nicht, tha' he maut ha' a. Ay weel, sir, it cam' about tha' th' auld fauk war nae gude enow' for th' bairn — he ne'er cam' back to them, an' it brecht their hearts. It was a sicht to mak' a mon's c'en tak' t' battin' to see th' two. sac sad an' sac patient, fadin' awa' for grief— for the bairn was their a. The blaw just techt their bit o' life awa' an' am brecht day in the summer-time we laid them i' th' auld kirk -yard yonder. They went togither. sir, an' there wa' nae better fauk in' a' the country round. Aye' an' th' auld maister — God bless him ! went suinmat afair them. His heart was crushed, too, for he loved th' Gregor lad an' — why mon, wha, ails thee ? Why, he maun be crazed ! ' For John Gregor had turned and fled, as men do flee from that most merciless of pursuers — self.

111.

' What a crash this ia, to be sure 1 Lady Craigie's receptions are always so overcrowded ! I'm so glad to find this quiet comer — and you. Yes, I have tickets for the academy to-morrow ; it will be the best exhibit of years, they say. You have heard of the first-place pictures, of course — those two by John Gregor. You remember him, do you not ? The young artist that gave so much promise five or six years ago. You know he disappeared rather suddenly, and aome thought he was dead ; but it seems he has been living like a hermit way up in some unheard of place in North Scotland. They say he's had a great sorrow — maybe he's been crossed in love, poor fellow I he looks like a man to love or suffer deeply. I saw him the other day when they were hanging his picture?. I thought he was a young man, but his hair is quite white, and such a face as looks out from under that hair ! His pictures are certainly wonderful, though the subjects are very bimple. One is a scene at twilight in an old Provencal garden — a peasant woman with a seamed and careworn face is looking with despair in her eyes at a frail, wistful child, on whom there rests already the shadow of the coming death. She holds a few faded flowers in her hands and is looking at something afar off — beyond the grey, sad twilight of the peaceful garden. The other picture is beyond words — it is the painting of a soul, all unrest, sin, shame, despair. Strange, but as the artist looked up at it, I caught a flash of resemblance between the dark, shadowed face in the picture and the one raised beneath it. But you'll see them to-morrow for yourself. I hope you II see the artist as well, but- 1 hear he shuns these fashionable cru-hes. Indeed, he's a modern St. Francis, they say — an apostle of the poor and all that kind of thing, you know. At any rate, he seems to have that something in his work that draws out the hearts ot men and makes them akin to him and his thought. But I'm keeping you with my enthusiasm. Good-bye, I'll see you to-morrow. And, by the way, don'c fail to notice the pictures of Richard Kent — he's next to Gregor, I think. They are great friends, those two ; I believe it was Kent who persuaded Gregor to come out of his seclusiou and take up his art again.' The fulnees of the years ha 3 brought John Gregor what he sought. He has touched the preaO chord of sympathy and its echoes have rung in the hearts of men.