The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

Straloch had sought me out in my schoolroom, and had found me in the midst of explaining a passage of Buchanan to my scholars. The laird would not hear of me interrupting my lesson, and had sat quietly at the back of the room, now nodding, now noting a query, until I released the boys for lunch. But the letter he had then handed me was not of history, nor yet of politics or plots, but of philosophy, of logic, of rhetoric, and of mathematics. In short, it was an invitation from Patrick Dun, principal of the Marischal College in the new burgh of Aberdeen, to submit myself for trial before the principal, regents, magistrates and ministers of the new town for the vacant place of Regent of Philosophy in that college. The letter bore reference to recommendations of me from Dr John Forbes of Corse, from Bishop Patrick, his father, and from Robert Gordon of Straloch himself. At the end of Principal Dun’s letter was a short note from Dr Forbes, a few words only, but they spoke from Philippians to my soul. ‘He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.’ As I read it and reread it, chains and bounds snapped and fell away at my feet. After the laird had gone, I climbed the thirty-seven steps to my chamber and prayed as I had not prayed for almost a year; I prayed and knew I was heard. That night, I opened my books, grown dusty and threatened with damp from misuse, and I began to read once more. And then, within two days of the arrival of Gordon of Straloch had come, hot on his heels, William Cargill, who knew all the business that passed in Aberdeen, often before it had passed. Such was his fear that I would still keep to my pit of self-pity that he dared not trust me to answer for myself and so had come to do it for me. How could I tell him that, within a moment of breaking the seal, I had known that I would accept this new call, and leave this place, with no mind ever to return?

Charles Thom was not there to bid me farewell, for he was returned to his post in the music school, and the baillie and his fellows kept a closer eye than ever on their young precentor, having learnt, at last, to look beyond a man’s face to know his heart. There was no Jaffray there, either. He had wished me my farewells last night, over a bottle of the finest uisge beatha in his house. He had waxed long and hard at my ingratitude in leaving him now, in a household where his maid no longer cared whether he ate or starved, such was her anxiety for their new lodger. He had warned me of the fickleness of women, and the weakness of men, lamented the distance from Banff to Aberdeen and yet complained at my stubbornness at not taking ship for Europe, where a real career was still to be had. At the last he had told me he could not spare me the time to come down to the shore and see me off, for he was a busy man, and what was I to him but the ingrate stripling of an honourable hammerman and his lovely Irish wife. And he had held me close and called me son.