JEEMS THE DOORKEEPER. WH HEN my father was in Broughton Place Church, we had a doorkeeper called Jeems, and a formidable little man and doorkeeper he was; of unknown age and name, for he existed to us, and indeed still exists to me-though he has been in his grave these sixteen years-as Jeems, absolute and per se, no more needing a surname than did or do Abraham or Isaac, Samson or Nebuchadnezzar. We young people of the congregation believed that he was out in the '45, and had his drum shot through and quenched at Culloden; and as for any indication on his huge and grey visage, of his ever having been young, he might safely have been Bottom the Weaver in A Midsummer Night's Dream,' or that excellent, ingenious, and 'wise-hearted' Bezaleel, the son of Uri, whom Jeems regarded as one of the greatest of men and of weavers, and whose 'ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, each of them with fifty loops on the edge of the selvedge in the coupling, with their fifty taches of gold,' he, in confidential moments, gave it to be understood were the sacred triumphs of his craft; for, as you may infer, my friend was a man of the treddles and the shuttle, as well as the more renowned grandson of Hur. Jeems's face was so extensive, and met you so formidably and at once, that it mainly composed his whole; and such a face! Sydney Smith used to say of a certain quarrelsome man, 'His very face is a breach of the peace.' Had he seen our friend's, he would have said he was the imperative mood on two (very small) legs, out on business in a blue greatcoat. It was in the nose and the keen small eye that his strength lay. Such a nose of power, so undeniable, I never saw, except in what was said to be a bust from the antique, of Rhadamanthus, the well-known Justice-Clerk of the Pagan Court of Session Indeed, when I was in the Rector's class, and watched Jeems turning interlopers out of the church seats, by merely presenting before them this tremendous organ, it struck me that if Rhadamanthus had still been here, and out of employment, he would have taken kindly to Jeems's work,-and that possibly he was that potentate in a U.P. disguise. Nature having fashioned the huge face, and laid out much material and idea upon it, had finished off the rest of Jeems somewhat scrimply, as if she had run out of means; his legs especially were of the shortest, and, as his usual dress was a very long blue greatcoat, made for a much taller man, its tails resting upon the ground, and its large hind buttons in a totally preposterous position, gave him the look of being planted, or rather after the manner of Milton's beasts at the creation, in the act of emerging painfully from his mother earth. Now, you may think this was a very ludicrous old object. If you had seen him, you would not have said so; and not only was he a man of weight and authority,—he was likewise a genuine, indeed a deeply spiritual Christian, well read in his Bible, in his own heart, and in human nature and life, knowing both its warp and woof; more peremptory in making himself obey his Master, than in getting himself obeyed, and this is saying a good deal; and, like all complete men, he had a genuine love and gift of humour,1 kindly and uncouth, lurking in those small, deep-set grey eyes, shrewd and keen, which like two sharpest of shooters, enfiladed that massive and redoubtable bulwark, the nose. One day two strangers made themselves over to Jeems to be furnished with seats. Motioning them to follow, he walked majestically to the farthest in 1 On one occasion a descendant of Nabal having put a crown piece into the plate' instead of a penny, and starting at its white and precious face, asked to have it back, and was refused -'In once, in for ever.' 'Aweel, aweel,' grunted he, 'I'll get credit for it in heaven.' 'Na, na,' said Jeems, ‘ye'ii get credit only for the penny!' |