RGL Edition
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.
RGL Edition
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
Sheeps-Head and Babylon, The Bodley Head, 1929
THE Reverend Zachary Barlas opened the door of the manse and entered with a flagging step.
It was a melancholy day in deep winter, and the wind howled incessantly through the hills, across the moor and beat into the little garden of the manse, (in summer rich with honeysuckle and roses) and on to the unsheltered square walls of the building itself, and up the struggling village street through which the minister had just come with his slow and uneasy walk. It was no earthly trouble that made the Rev. Zachary look haggard and pallid, but prolonged wrestling with spiritual hosts and exhausting struggles with diabolic terrors.
It was indeed only what he had to expect, for he had long been devoting his austere leisure to the writing of a book entitled "The Snares of Satan Exposed," which must certainly be highly displeasing to the Father of Evil, since it so learnedly, succinctly and clearly exposed his traps and wiles, and was a kind of chart or guide to the unwary to avoid the pitfalls set by the legions of the Infernal One.
Long and late had the Rev. Zachary laboured at this work, putting into it a burning zeal, an exalted piety and the fervent outpourings of a devoted heart, and now that his work was nearing completion he felt an exhaustion of the spirit, a feebleness of the body not surprising, for, besides the book into which he had put such passionate ardour, he had toiled ceaselessly in his tiny parish, preaching, exhorting, tending the sick, the penitent and the sinner, encouraging the worthy, comforting the distressed; for a holy and fearless man was he, albeit stern and unrelenting.
As he crossed the threshold of the manse the wind sent a dismal sigh through a leafless ash tree that overhung the house, and the minister shivered; the thought of his book lying upstairs, finished save for the last few pages, gave him, however, a sense of chill triumph; he had put through his appointed task, and the Devil had not been able to prevent him. Indeed, he believed that the invisible powers that had been harrying him had given up a vain pursuit, for during several days he had been conscious of a certain calm in the atmosphere in which he moved, an atmosphere hitherto filled with a wild commotion as of spirits battling for his soul.
As he passed down the narrow passage he peeped in at the kitchen, with the yellow sanded floor and the bright pots and pans and the pleasant fire.
On the freshly scrubbed table was the food prepared for his supper: a bundle of herbs, a winter cabbage and a sheep's head.
The minister stood still and gazed at the sheep's head.
It was a drab white colour with great curling horns, a long beard that hung over the edge of the table and slant eyes that appeared still to glow with life.
"Maisie!" cried the minister, and his thin voice failed in his withered throat.
The maid, a big bustling woman with horseshoe-shaped mutch on her head, appeared instantly from an inner room, her red hands dripping with fresh cold water.
"Maisie," said the minister, "I no like the look of yon sheep's head. It's ower long in the beard, and ower powerfu' in the horns, and unco' cunning in the eyes for the hoose of an honest mon."
"Losh!" cried the old woman, and "Gude save us!" she cried. "What daftlike thing is this? 'Twas the bit wench brought it in, and she'll e'en tak it back."
"It's gey and queerish," added the minister slowly.
"It's a willie goat," said Maisie, sniffing the head; "an unearthly rank smell it has, and it's no the meat for a Christian hoose."
"Boil the pot with a bit of beef," replied the minister, "the thing is no canny."
Slowly he went upstairs, thinking dourly of Tam Todd the butcher who had sent such an unsightly object to the manse, and shuddering as the cleaving wind swept down from the hills and across the bleak moor, curdling the loch and the rivulet into spate and whistling through the crevices in the manse walls. On his neat desk were his neat papers, and he seized on them with lean hands.
"That was an unearthly sign," he muttered; "a Jeroboam among sheep! Sheep, did I say? Maybe sae. Maybe sae. But strang is the hand of God! He no let ony sic a mischanter come ower me noo!" Yet he looked round fearfully, prying into every corner of the room and fingering his sharp chin.
It was very cold in this upper room; the icicles hung on the pane, the madly-fleeing east wind was carrying the first snowflakes past the window.
"There's a fire bleezing awa in the parlour," came Maisie's voice up the narrow stairs, "an' all tosh and comfortable. Wull ye no come down and tak the bit supper?"
"Have ye sent back the deil's heid to the auld carlin that sent it?" demanded the minister.
"It's gone awa," came the screaming reply, "and blessings on it, no the deil, but a willie goat; and dinna fash yersel, I'll get as fine a heid of sheep as ever fed on Cheviot."
"A foolish, doited body," muttered the minister, "do ye no speir the deil's trick through the hands of that puir body Tam Todd? And dinna ye ken the likeness of the Father of Evil when it lies before ye?"
He turned his back again to his desk; neither meal nor fire nor toddy-glass had any attraction for him, save as temptations to be gloriously resisted.
"I maun finish," he said, lovingly taking up his pen, "for the deil's on my tracks. And what needeth man with food when his innards are burnt up with a fervent heat which is the love of the Lord?"
Crouching his limbs together in his rusty black single-breasted coat, his Cameron breeches, darned stockings and square-toed shoes, propping his meagre face on his hollowed and claw-like hand, Zachary Barlas gazed at the flying storm that leapt past the window and concentrated on his final chapters.
He was writing a vision of Babylon, the City of Sin, the capital of the country called Destruction, circled about by the moat filled with the waters of despair and warmed by the fires of hell.
"Babylon," he wrote, "is not a place, but a state; to be in sin is to be in Babylon; to be in temptation is to be lingering at the gates."
Soaring above the homely vernacular in which he daily expressed himself, the Rev. Zachary launched into the florid and robust diction drawn from the writings of the Covenanters, flushed and glorified by the splendours of the Bible—the Holy Book that lay open at his elbow, and at which he often glanced with a pale but sparkling eye.
As he wrote he forgot the cold, forgot the storm sweeping down from Craigie Sauchie, forgot the disdained comforts of food and warmth below.
"This great city, this glorious city, this rich city, this mighty powerful city, this queen of the earth, with Antichrist, her king and husband, is to be judged by the spirit of life, which ariseth out of the dust of Sion."
Soft the snow thudded on the window, cramped and frozen were the blue fingers of the minister, but unfalteringly flowed the eager words on to the paper.
"Sing, sing, O inhabitant of Sion! Dost thou not perceive the crown of pride going down apace? The decree sealed against her; she cannot escape; yea, she is fallen, she is fallen, she is already taken in the snow; the eye of my life seeth it and rejoiceth over her in the living power."
The minister sank back in his mean chair, his eyes rolled in his head, and he broke into emphatic speech:
"'Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment is come!'" he cried, adding: "an' ye canna escape! ye canna escape!"
The little room was darkening in the winter twilight; fleeting wind and gathering snow made one commotion outside; the white drift was piling high on the window-sill and blotting the murky pane.
"A beam o' light, O Lord!" prayed the Rev. Zachary, "for the place darkens!"
He rose, but his limbs were stiff and his pace was stumbling; indeed the room seemed to be full of a deep gloom which rendered the objects in it nearly indistinguishable. Whether this was due to the thickening of the storm without or the failing of his own senses the minister did not know. He pulled open the door.
Instead of the mean, shabby staircase of the manse he saw before him a passage of shimmering gold, washed by a pale and unearthly light.
"Babylon!" whispered the Rev. Zachary, and, irritated by this device of the Evil One, he turned to reach the safe harbourage of his chill workroom; but the door had disappeared.
The long gold street was in front and behind him; to his left was a wall of jasper or some translucent material, crowned at intervals with turrets of silver hung with hundreds of little silver bells that clashed gently in an eternal breeze. On the other side tall straight buildings of a milky alabaster rose till they disappeared in the rosy clouds.
There were deep-set windows latticed with ivory and high doors curtained with satin in these houses, and long festoons of roses falling from golden balconies; the air was drowsy with the scents of jasmine, of honeysuckle, of musk, and alive with the sounds of sackbut, dulcimer and zither. The minister felt like a drab insect drawling over a luscious fruit.
Yet he was able to show his contempt for the Devil by walking straight on with no glance to right or left.
"I'll walk clean through yon gaudy show," he said, "and back to my wee bit room."
A door opened with a soft sliding sound and a woman peeped out; a flimsy lawn barely veiled the palpitations of her delicate bosom, long strands of golden hair escaped from a fillet of white roses, and over her polished bare shoulders hung a cloak of royal purple.
"It is far from Drumknockie Manse to Babylon," she said. "Will you not come in and rest?"
So sweet and beguiling was her accent, so delicious the perfume that wafted from the open door, so entrancing the glimpse of the soft couch within and the display of exquisite viands on a table of pure jade, that the Rev. Zachary actually paused.
"I must not eat or rest in Babylon," he muttered. But he fingered his chin and sighed, and many things became dim in his mind.
"Many a holy man has rested here before you," smiled the lady, "and passed on his way much refreshed."
The Rev. Zachary gazed at her dewy lips, her blooming cheeks, her sapphire eyes, and he forgot he was in Babylon.
His hand went out, wavered and strayed towards the lovely lady's heavy locks.
"I might—rest—a while," he stammered, and stepped on to the threshold. Then he glanced down, dazzled, maybe, by the brightness of the lady's charms; and what did he behold?
A neat little goat's foot—white, it is true, as to hair, and shell-pink as to horn, but indubitably a goat's foot—peeping out under the purple cloak.
And what did he see on the table among the costly meats and delicate drinks?
The sheep's head, with the beard and the horns, leering at him with half-closed eyes.
The Rev. Zachary groaned.
"Sathanas, avaunt!" he cried desperately.
The golden city melted about him; he seemed to pitch into an abyss, and found himself on his hands and knees, sprawling down his own stairs.
"Guid save us!" cried Maisie, running out, "and what cantrips are these? Coming down heid formaist! Losh, but it's a ghaistly sicht!"
The minister sat at the bottom of the stairs and rubbed his elbows.
"Maisie," he mumbled, "I've been to Babylon—it was a maist ungodly sicht! Streets o' gowd, an' a woman—"
"I'll no hear about the woman," retorted Maisie firmly. "If ye've been to Babylon, it's no the women o' that city will be the decent talk for a Christian buddy."
The minister rose stiffly from his sitting posture and limped towards the parlour.
"Ye're ower lang at the writing," said the housekeeper, anxiously following him into the light and warmth; "tak a drap and a bite noo."
She pointed to the supper displayed temptingly on the hearth. But the Rev. Zachary remembered the invitation extended to him recently by a fairer favoured damsel.
"It's no the willie goat?" he asked, glancing at the covered dish.
"The willie goat?" replied Maisie scornfully. "Has na the willie goat gone back to auld Tam Todd?"
"I'm glad," replied the minister. He sank down in the old armchair by the cheerful fire and ate his supper with a quiet relish.
He felt great cause for rejoicing. Had he not passed down the very streets of Babylon and returned unscathed? Had he not withstood temptations as successfully as St. Anthony himself (who was but a Papist, after all!) and returned safe and sound to eat his own food by his own fireside? "Surely," he thought, "the Devil has done with me now, and left me in peace." Flushed with a sense of exultation he climbed again to his workroom, and, albeit a little stiff from his fall, he seized his pen with fervour and in a kind of delirium of zeal finished the last few pages of his book.
"Auld Mahoun nearly had me that time—I was half-way hame to his cauldron, nae doot," he muttered triumphantly as he tied up the thick pile of manuscript; "and mony hae travelled that road afore me, as the Scarlet Woman herself testified with her soft words and wanton looks."
The wind whirled round the house and cast thuds of snow at the windows and whistled icy breaths through the crevices as the Rev. Zachary went downstairs to his warm and sheltered, if grim and dour, parlour.
Casting his haggard eyes upwards in self-congratulatory praise, he took down from the shelf that formed his meagre library a big Bible bound in black oak and clasped with silver; he turned over the pages with gaunt fingers and muttered over the familiar passages with which he had often rebuked sin and hurled at the abomination of witchcraft and devilry.
With these forces he had held many a dubious and fierce conflict; on the hills above Drumknockie were the ruins of a Runic temple, well known to be still the abode of unclean spirits, and on the coast not far distant was a wrecked ship, stuck in the quicksands, that had sailed from the haunted coast of Norway, and was still the abode of ghastly spectres; of these things the Rev. Zachary was thinking as he thumbed his Bible and listened to the storm. Yet he felt as secure in his triumph as any of the lonely Covenanters lying in the solitary graves among the hills had felt in their faith.
Had he not actually visited Babylon and rejected it, together with the lure of the Scarlet Woman?
He was totally absorbed in these pleasing reflections when old Maisie opened the door and peeped in, with a look of awed respect for his devotions.
"There's a bit lassie at the door, begging to see you, and saying she's in sair trouble, and has great need of a douce and godly man."
The heart of the pastor swelled with pride; secure as a watcher on the tower of Judah, he ordered the wench to be brought in. It was always a joy to him to receive penitents and wrestle with crime, sin and folly, and many a redoubtable battle of this kind had been fought out in the dreary little parlour.
"But it's an awfu' night for a lassie to be abroad," he added as another shrieking gust shook the house.
"The lassie," replied Maisie, lowering her voice, "has the snood weel ower her face; but I shouldn't wonder if it were Geordie Murray's daughter, and she'll nae hae far to gang."
The pastor was surprised, for the girl in question lived next door, in one of the better cottages of the village, and was the daughter of a decent shepherd, and but a child in years.
"Aweel, bring her in," he said, and, with the Bible still open on his knee, he waited.
Maisie showed into the parlour a young girl whose maiden snood was drawn well over her face, and whose plaid was huddled closely round her shoulders; her feet were bare, her skirt short, and she carried a bundle wrapped in a white cloth which she at once placed on the table.
The Rev. Zachary saw that his visitor indeed was Jessie Murray, the light-hearted child he had so often seen pulling gowans on the hills and singing at her spinning wheel.
"Oh, I'm in sair trouble," she said, clasping her hands, "sair trouble! What am I brocht to?"
The pastor observed that Jessie, though she had only run a few yards through the storm, was pale and shivering with cold, and drifts of snow already lay in her snood and plaid.
"What for will ye no warm yerself, Jessie Murray?" said the pastor, "and shake the snow frae ye wee plaid? I'm a wearifu' mon tonight, but I'm aye ready for a gude deed."
With a deep sigh the girl took off her plaid, loosened her wet snood, sending a shower of auburn curls on to her shoulders, and knelt before the glowing fire.
"Sic a nicht to gang about in!" she said in a low voice, "the snaw drifting, the stars a' put out and a spate in the river, and maybe the Faither o' Lies riding the clouds!"
The tempest had indeed reached a terrific pitch; the shriek of the wind had a human quality, like the screams of tormented voices, and the manse literally quivered on its foundations.
"Preserve us a'!" exclaimed the pastor, gripping the Bible tighter.
"An' dinna ye think it's ower powerfu' for a storm?" whispered Jessie.
"And what wud it be?" demanded the Rev. Zachary. "An'," he added, with a rising voice, "gin it waur the Devil at his tantrums, I'm the maister! Sae dinna be frightened."
Thus encouraged, Jessie clasped her hands on her bosom and, crouching nearer to the minister's chair, stammered out her story.
"I'm sair afraid—my father awa'—and I biding in the hoose, when who should come but a bit laddie to the door, through the storm and a', and slippit into my hand—"
She broke off and glanced fearfully at the covered bundle she had placed on the table.
"'It's the wee meat frae Tam Todd,' says he, and rips awa'—and what is it?"
As she spoke she snatched away the cloth and displayed to the amazed gaze of the minister the sheep's head he had seen on his own kitchen table.
"Sic doings!" he exclaimed. "But be no afeard, lassie—'tis but a willie goat which that miserable creature, Tam Todd, wad pass off as gude Christian meat—gang hame and tak it wi' ye, and think nae mair o't."
"But I'm afeard to take it up!" cried Jessie, "and afeard to gang hame in sic a storm!"
The Rev. Zachary gazed at the head on the table; it was a fearsome sight with the shining curling horns, the drab mottled fur, the long beard and the glinting eyes, and wrath grew in the minister's breast at the impudence of the butcher who persisted in delivering this unsavoury object at the houses of honest folk.
While he was considering the stern terms of rebuke he would administer on the morrow he felt his knees softly clasped and the lassie clinging to him.
"I'm cauld," she murmured, "cauld, cauld, and sair afeard."
The Rev. Zachary looked down at her; he had never remembered that the child was so lovely, so dewy bright, so glowing and soft. As he gazed into the upturned face, the glittering curls falling beside the rounded throat and over the white shoulders, and the delicate bosom swelling beneath the cotton kerchief, the Bible slipped from his knees and crashed unheeded to the floor.
"You're ower lovely for Jessie Murray," he murmured. "But gang awa'—put yon heid in your apron and gang hame."
But the girl did not move; nay, she clung tighter to the minister's knees, and moaned and sobbed while the wind shook and shrilled.
The Rev. Zachary could do nothing but raise her up, and when he had his arms about her she clung like young ivy that has got a hold on a sapling.
The peculiar yet familiar fragrance crept into the pastor's nostrils; the lassie's beauty dazzled him, blotting out the room.
"You're ower bonny for flesh and blood," he muttered faintly.
She twined her arms round his neck; her hair, like a golden net, fell over his shoulders. The storm had ceased, and the peace was beautiful to his tired soul. Gently she drew him to the door, and as she opened it he saw again the long gold streets of Babylon, with the pale hyacinth skies above, the tinkling bells, the festoons of roses.
And now he saw that the girl in his arms wore a chaplet of white roses and a purple robe over her falling lawn.
"It's a long way to Babylon from Drumknockie," she said. "Will you not come in and rest?"
Struggling with the luxurious languor of his senses the minister glanced back into his room and saw the horned head on the table; the lips were moving in a sneer of triumph, and the long wicked eyes shot a gleam of contempt.
With a yell of horror the Rev. Zachary sprang back and snatched at the head; it was in his arms instead of the fair woman; it lay on his bosom like a bride, but his feet were still on the golden streets of Babylon, and he could not find the door into his room. The head had grown a long, dangling body now, and arms that held him fast; a pit opened in the golden street and the Rev. Zachary slipped down...down...down.
"Preserve us a'!" exclaimed old Maisie. "What for
does the minister need to gang oot wi' the nicht like
this?"
She sprang out of her little bedroom and into the kitchen, and then into the passage; a howl of chilly air had come into the house, then the door was clapped to.
The Rev. Zachary had gone into the darkness; the fire was nearly extinguished on the hearth, the taper was blown out, and the Bible lay on the floor.
"Losh!" cried old Maisie as she picked up the Holy Book, "nae doot he's gang on some errand o' maircy, and may a' gude attend him, but this is no the manner to sarve the blessed Word!"
THEY found him frozen stiff in a snowdrift on the way to the hills; dead, with neither coat nor hat, and clasped in his arms the head of the old goat that Tam Todd had hoped would pass for that of a fine Cheviot sheep.
"It's nae wonder," said old Maisie, "that the douce man should gang queer in the head wi' a' that book making an' learning, but, preserve us a'! why should he tak' wi' him the heid o' the willie goat? And he must have creppit into the kitchen maist carefu' and got it frae the basket whaur it were hid biding Tam Todd's lad. It's unco' queer, and maybe the Deil has a hand in't, but I lay the blame o' a gude man's death on Tam Todd."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.