Читать книгу Scottish Reminiscences - Archibald Geikie - Страница 5

BOBBIE FLOCKHART

In connection with the regular clergy, reference may be made to the free-lances who, as street-preachers, have long taken their place among the influences at work for rousing the lower classes in our large towns to a sense of their duties. These men have often displayed a single-hearted devotion and persistence, in spite of the most callous indifference or even active hostility on the part of their auditors. The very homeliness of their language, which repels most educated people, gives them a hold on those who come to listen to them, while now and then their vehement enthusiasm rises into true eloquence. The most remarkable of these men I have ever listened to was a noted character in Edinburgh during the later years of the first half of last century, named Bobbie Flockhart. He was diminutive in stature, but for this disadvantage he endeavoured to compensate by taking care that

The apparel on his back,

Though coarse, was reverend, and though bare, was black.

Eccentric in manner and speech, he long continued to be an indefatigable worker for the good of his fellow townsmen. He used to spend the forenoon and afternoon of every Sunday in flitting from church to church, listening to the sermons, of each of which he remained to hear only a small portion. Then in the evening, not only of Sundays but of week days, he would hold forth from a chair or barrel outside the west gate of St. Giles, and gather round him a crowd of loafers from the High Street, who, it is to be feared, were attracted to him rather by the expectation of some new drollery of language, than from any interest in the substance of his discourses. They would interrupt him now and then with ribald remarks, but they often met with such a rebuke as turned the laugh against them, and increased the popularity of the preacher. He was discoursing one evening on the wickedness of the town, especially of the district in which his audience lived, when in his enthusiasm he pointed up in the direction of the Castle, where stands the huge historic cannon, and exclaimed: ‘O that I could load Mons Meg wi’ Bibles, and fire it doon every close in the High Street!’ On another occasion he was depicting to the people the terrors of the day of judgment. ‘Ay,’ said he, ‘some of you that mock me the day will be comin’ up to me then and sayin’, “Bobbie, ye’ll mind us, we aye cam’ to hear ye.” But I’ll no’ help ye. Maybe ye’ll think to cling on to my coat-tails, but I’ll cheat ye there, for I’ll put on a jacket.’ He was fond of similes that could bring home to the rough characters around him the truths he sought to impress on them. He was once denouncing the careless ingratitude of man for all the benefits conferred on him by Providence. ‘My friends,’ he said, ‘look at the hens when they drink. There’s not ane o’ them but lifts its heid in thankfulness, even for the water that is sae common. O that we were a’ hens.’