FullReads

(1) “He could never come better,” says the clown in Shakespeare’s *The Winter’s Tale,* when Autolycus, the pedler, is announced; “he shall come in. I love a ballad but even too well, if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.” Act IV. scene 4.

Thou, too, O Parson B.,–with thy pale student’s brow and rubicund nose, with thy rusty and tattered black coat overswept by white, flowing locks, with thy professional white neckcloth scrupulously preserved when even a shirt to thy back was problematical,–art by no means to be overlooked in the muster- roll of vagrant gentlemen possessing the *entree* of our farmhouse. Well do we remember with what grave and dignified courtesy he used to step over its threshold, saluting its inmates with the same air of gracious condescension and patronage with which in better days he had delighted the hearts of his parishioners. Poor old man! He had once been the admired and almost worshipped minister of the largest church in the town where he afterwards found support in the winter season, as a pauper. He had early fallen into intemperate habits; and at the age of three-score and ten, when I remember him, he was only sober when he lacked the means of being otherwise. Drunk or sober, however, he never altogether forgot the proprieties of his profession; he was always grave, decorous, and gentlemanly; he held fast the form of sound words, and the weakness of the flesh abated nothing of the rigor of his stringent theology. He had been a favorite pupil of the learned and astute Emmons,(1) and was to the last a sturdy defender of the peculiar dogmas of his school. The last time we saw him he was holding a meeting in our district school-house, with a vagabond pedler for deacon and travelling companion. The tie which united the ill-assorted couple was doubtless the same which endeared Tam O’Shanter to the souter:(2)–

“They had been fou for weeks thegither.”

He took for his text the first seven verses of the concluding chapter of Ecclesiastes, furnishing in himself its fitting illustration. The evil days had come; the keepers of the house trembled; the windows of life were darkened. A few months later the silver cord was loosed, the golden bowl was broken, and between the poor old man and the temptations which beset him fell the thick curtains of the grave.

(1) Nathaniel Emmons was a New England theologian of marked character and power, who for seventy years was connected with a church in that part of Wrentham, Mass., now called Franklin. He exercised considerable influence over the religious thought of New England, and is still read by theologians. He died in 1840, in his ninety-sixth year.
(2) Souter (or cobbler) Johnny, in Burns’s poetic tale of *Tam O’Shanter,* had been *fou* or *full* of drink with Tam for weeks together. One day we had a call from a “pawky auld carle”(1) of a wandering Scotchman. To him I owe my first introduction to the songs of Burns. After eating his bread and cheese and drinking his mug of cider he gave us Bonny Doon, Highland Mary, and Auld Lang Syne. He had a rich, full voice, and entered heartily into the spirit of his lyrics. I have since listened to the same melodies from the lips of Dempster(2) (than whom the Scottish bard has had no sweeter or truer interpreter), but the skilful performance of the artist lacked the novel charm of the gaberlunzie’s singing in the old farmhouse kitchen. Another wanderer made us acquainted with the humorous old ballad of “Our gude man cam hame at e’en.” He applied for supper and lodging, and the next morning was set at work splitting stones in the pasture. While thus engaged the village doctor came riding along the highway on his fine, spirited horse, and stopped to talk with my father. The fellow eyed the animal attentively, as if familiar with all his good points, and hummed over a stanza of the old poem:–