Bog-Myrtle and Peat Part 26

Saunders simply told them that if what they asked was not for their good they would not get it--a fact which, he said, "they had as lief learn sune as syne."

This excellent theory of prayer was certainly productive of curious results. For instance, Alec is recorded in the family archives to have interjected the following pet.i.tion into his devotions. While saying his own prayers, he had been keeping a keen fraternal eye upon sundry delinquencies of his younger brother. These having become too outrageous, Alec continued without break in his supplications--"And now, Lord, will you please excuse me till I gang an' kick that loon Rab, for he'll no' behave himsel'!" So the spiritual exercises were interrupted, and in Alec's belief the universe waited till discipline allowed the pet.i.tionary thread to be taken up.

The "buik" being over, the red farm-cart rattled to the door to convey such of the churchgoers as were not able to walk all the weary miles to the Cameronian kirk in Cairn Edward. The stalwart, long-legged sons cut across a shorter way by the Big Hoose and the Deeside kirk. Both the cart and the walkers pa.s.sed on the way a good many churches, both Established and Free; but they never so much as looked the road they were on.

This hardly applied to Alec, whose sweetheart (for the time-being) attended the Free kirk at Whinnyliggate. He knew within his own heart that he would have liked to turn in there, and the consciousness of his iniquity gave him an acute sense of the fallen nature of man--at least, till he got out of sight of the spireless rigging of the kirk, and out of hearing of the jow of its bell. Then his spirits rose to think that he had resisted temptation. Also, he dared not for his life have done anything else, for his father's discipline, though kindly, was strict and patriarchal.

And, moreover, there was a la.s.s at the Cameronian kirk, a daughter of the Arkland grieve, whose curls he rather liked to see in the seat before him. He had known her when he went to the neighbouring farm to harvest--for in that lowland district the corn was all cut and led, before it was time to begin it on the scanty upland crop which was gathered into the barns of Drumquhat. Luckily, she sat in a line with the minister; and when she was there, two sermons on end were not too long.

II. THE ROAD TO THE KIRK

The clean red farm-cart rattled into the town of Cairn Edward at five minutes past eleven. The burghers looked up and said, "Hoo is the clock?" Some of them went so far as to correct any discrepancy in their time-keepers, for all the world knew that the Drumquhat cart was not a moment too soon or too late, so long as Saunders had the driving of it.

Times had not been too good of late; and for some years--indeed, ever since the imposition of the tax on light-wheeled vehicles--the "tax-cart" had slumbered wheelless in the back of the peat-shed, and the Drumquhat folk had driven a well-cleaned, heavy-wheeled red cart both to kirk and market. But they were respected in spite of their want of that admirable local certificate of character, "He is a respectable man. He keeps a gig." One good man in Whinnyliggate says to this day that he had an excellent upbringing. He was brought up by his parents to fear G.o.d and respect the Drumquhat folks!

Walter generally went to church now, ever since his granny had tired of conveying him to the back field overlooking the valley of the Black Water of the Dee, while his mother made herself ready. He was fond of going there to see the tents of the invading army of navvies who were carrying the granite rock-cuttings and heavy embankments of the Portpatrick Railway through the wilds of the Galloway moors. But Mary M'Quhirr struck work one day when the "infant," being hungry for a piece, said calmly, "D'ye no think that we can gang hame? My mither will be awa' to the kirk by noo!"

On the long journey to church, Walter nominally accompanied the cart.

Occasionally he seated himself on the clean straw which filled its bottom; but most of the time this was too fatiguing an occupation for him. On the plea of walking up the hills, he ranged about on either side of the highway, scenting the ground like a young collie. He even gathered flowers when his grandfather was not looking, and his mother or his "gran," who were not so sound in the faith, aided and abetted him by concealing them when Saunders looked round. The master sat, of course, on the front of the cart and drove; but occasionally he cast a wary eye around, and if he saw that they were approaching any houses he would stop the cart and make Walter get in. On these occasions he would fail to observe it even if Walter's hands contained a posy of wild-flowers as big as his head. His blindness was remarkable in a man whose eyesight was so good. The women-folk in the cart generally put the proceeds of these forays under the straw or else dropped them quietly overboard before entering Cairn Edward.

The old Cameronian kirk sits on a hill, and is surrounded by trees, a place both bieldy and heartsome. The only thing that the Cameronians seriously felt the want of was a burying-ground round about it. A kirk is never quite commodious and cheery without monuments to read and "thruchs" to sit upon and "ca' the crack." Now, however, they have made a modern church of it, and a steeple has been set down before it, for all the world as if Cleopatra's needle had been added to the front wall of a barn.

But Cairn Edward Cameronian kirk has long been a gate of heaven. To many who in their youth have entered it the words heard there have brought the beginning of a new life and another world. Of old, as the morning psalm went upward in a grand slow surge, there was a sense of hallowed days in the very air. And to this day Walter has a general idea that the mansions of the New Jerusalem are of the barn cla.s.s of architecture and whitewashed inside, which will not show so much upon the white robes when it rubs off, as it used to do on plain earthly "blacks."

III. A CAMERONIAN DIET OF WORSHIP

There were not many distractions for a boy of active habits and restless tendencies during the long double service of two hours and a bittock in the Cameronian kirk of Cairn Edward. The minister was the Reverend Richard Cameron, the youngest scion of a famous Covenanting family.

He had come to Cairn Edward as a stripling, and he was now looked upon as the future high priest of the sect in succession to his father, at that time minister of the metropolitan temple of the denomination. Tall, erect, with flowing black hair that swept his shoulders, and the exquisitely chiselled face of some marble Apollo, Richard Cameron was, as his name-sake had been, an ideal minister of the Hill Folk. His splendid eyes glowed with still and chastened fire, as he walked with his hands behind him and his head thrown back, up the long aisle from the vestry.

His successor was a much smaller man, well set and dapper, who wore black gloves when preaching, and who seemed to dance a minuet under his spectacles as he walked. Alas! to him also came in due time the sore heart and the bitter draught. They say in Cairn Edward that no man ever left that white church on the wooded knoll south of the town and was happier for the change. The leafy garden where many ministers have written their sermons, has seemed to them a very paradise in after years, and their cry has been, "O why left I my hame?"

But these were happy days for Richard Cameron when he brought his books and his violin to the manse that nestled at the foot of the hill. He came among men strict with a certain staid severity concerning things that they counted material, but yet far more kindly-hearted and charitable than of recent years they have gotten credit for.

Saunders did not object to the minister's violin, being himself partial to a game at the ice, and willing that another man should also have his chosen relaxation. Then, again, when the young man began to realise himself, and lay about him in the pulpit, there were many who would tell how they remembered his father--preaching on one occasion the sermon that "fenced the tables," on the Fast Day before the communion, when the part.i.tions were out and the church crowded to the door. Being oppressed with the heat, he craved the indulgence of the congregation to be allowed to remove his coat; and thereafter in his shirt-sleeves, struck terror into all, by denunciations against heresy and infidelity, against all evil-doing and evil-speaking. It was interesting as a battle-tale how he barred the table of the Lord to "all such as have danced or followed after play-actors, or have behaved themselves unseemly at Kelton Hill or other gathering of the unG.o.dly, or have frequented public-houses beyond what is expedient for lawful entertainment; against all such as swear minced oaths, such as 'losh,'

'gosh,' 'fegs,' 'certes,' 'faith'; and against all such as swear by heaven or earth, or visit their neighbours' houses upon the Lord's Day, saving as may be necessary in coming to the house of the Lord."

The young man could not be expected at once to come up to the high standard of this paternal master-work--which, indeed, proved to be too strong meat for any but a few of the sterner office-bearers, who had never heard their brother-elders' weaknesses so properly handled before.

But they had, nevertheless, to go round the people and tell them that what the Doctor had said was to be understood spiritually, and chiefly as a warning to other denominations, else there had been a thin kirk and but one spa.r.s.e table instead of the usual four or five, on the day of high communion in the Cairn Edward Cameronian kirk.

Now, Walter could be a quiet boy in church for a certain time. He did not very much enjoy the service, except when they sang "Old Hundred" or "Scarborough," when he would throw back his head and warble delightedly with the best. But he listened attentively to the prayers, and tracked the minister over that well-kenned ground. Walter was prepared for his regular stint, but he did not hold with either additions or innovations.

He liked to know how far he was on in the prayer, and it was with an exhausted gasp of relief that he caught the curious lowering of the preacher's voice which tells that the "Amen" is within reasonable distance.

The whole congregation was good at that, and hearers began to relax themselves from their standing postures as the minister's shrill pipe rounded the corner and tacked for the harbour; but Walter was always down before them. Once, however, after he had seated himself, he was put to shame by the minister suddenly darting off on a new excursion, having remembered some other needful supplication which he had omitted. Walter never quite regained his confidence in Mr. Cameron after that. He had always thought him a good and Christian man hitherto, but thereafter he was not so sure.

Once, also, when the minister visited the farm of Drumquhat, Walter, being caught by his granny in the very act of escaping, was haled to instant execution with the shine of the soap on his cheeks and hair. But the minister was kind, and did not ask for anything more abstruse than "Man's Chief End." He inquired, however, if the boy had ever seen him before.

"Ou ay," said Walter, confidently; "ye're the man that sat at the back window!"

This was the position of the manse seat, and at the Fast Day service Mr.

Cameron usually sat there when a stranger preached. Not the least of Walter's treasures, now in his library, is a dusky little squat book called _The Peep of Day_, with an inscription on it in Mr. Cameron's minute and beautiful backhand: "To Walter Carmichael, from the Man at the Back Window."

The minister was grand. In fact, he usually _was_ grand. On this particular Sunday he preached his two discourses with only the interval of a psalm and a prayer; and his second sermon was on the spiritual rights of a Covenanted kirk, as distinguished from the worldly emoluments of an Erastian establishment. Nothing is so popular as to prove to people what they already believe and that day's sermon was long remembered among the Cameronians. It redd up their position so clearly, and settled their precedence with such finality, that Walter, hearing that the Frees had done far wrong in not joining the Church of the Protests and Declarations in the year 1843, resolved to have his school-bag full of good road-metal on the following morning, in order to impress the Copland boys, who were Frees, with a sense of their position.

But as the sermon proceeded on its conclusive way, the bowed ranks of the attentive Hill Folk bent further and further forward, during the long periods of the preacher; and when, at the close of each, they drew in a long, united breath like the sighing of the wind, and leaned back in their seats, Walter's head began to nod over the chapters of First Samuel, which he was spelling out.

David's wars were a great comfort to him during long sermons. Gradually he dropped asleep, and wakened occasionally with a start when his granny nudged him when Saunders happened to look his way.

As the little fellow's mind thus came time and again to the surface, he heard s.n.a.t.c.hes of fiery oratory concerning the Sanquhar Declarations and the Covenants, National and Solemn League, till it seemed to him as though the trump of doom would crash before the minister had finished.

And he wished it would! But at last, in sheer desperation, having slept apparently about a week, he rose with his feet upon the seat, and in his clear, childish treble he said, being still dazed with sleep--

"Will that man no' soon be dune?"

It was thus that the movement for short services began in the Cameronian kirk of Cairn Edward. They are an hour and twenty minutes now--a sore declension, as all will admit.

IV. THE THREE M'HAFFIES

Again the red farm-cart rattled out of the town into the silence of the hedges. For the first mile or two, the church-folk returning to the moor-farm might possibly meet and, if they did so, frankly reprove with word or look the "Sunday walkers," who bit shamefacedly, as well they might, the ends of hawthorn twigs, and communed together apparently without saying a word to each other. There were not many pairs of sweethearts among them--any that were, being set down as "regardless Englishry," the sp.a.w.n of the strange, uncannylike building by the lochside, which the "General" had been intending to finish any time these half-dozen years.

For the most part the walkers were young men with companions of their own s.e.x and age, who were anxious to be considered broad in their views.

Times have changed now, for we hear that quite respectable folk, even town-councillors, take their walks openly on Sabbath afternoons. It was otherwise in those days.

But none of their own kind did the Drumquhat folk meet or overtake, till at the bottom rise of the mile-long Whinnyliggate Wood the red cart came up with the three brave little old maids who, leaving a Free kirk at their very door, and an Established over the hill, made their way seven long miles to the true kirk of the persecutions.

It had always been a grief to them that there was no Clavers to make them testify up to the chin in Solway tide, or with a great fiery match between their fingers to burn them to the bone. But what they could they did. They trudged fourteen miles every Sabbath day, with their dresses "fait and snod" and their linen like the very snow, to listen to the gospel preached according to their conscience. They were all the smallest of women, but their hearts were great, and those who knew them hold them far more worthy of honour than the three lairds of the parish.

Of them all only one remains. (Alas, no more!) But their name and honour shall not be forgotten on Deeside while fire burns and water runs, if this biographer can help it. The M'Haffies were all distinguished by their st.u.r.dy independence, but Jen M'Haffie was ever the cleverest with her head. The parish minister had once mistaken Jen for a person of limited intelligence; but he altered his opinion after Jen had taken him through-hands upon the Settlement of "Aughty-nine" (1689), when the Cameronians refused to enter into the Church of Scotland as reconstructed by the Revolution Settlement.

The three sisters had a little shop which the two less active tended; while Mary, the business woman of the family, resorted to Cairn Edward every Monday and Thursday with and for a miscellaneous cargo. As she plodded the weary way, she divided herself between conning the sermons of the previous Sabbath, arranging her packages, and anathematising the cuddy. "Ye person--ye awfu' person!" was her severest denunciation.

Billy was a donkey of parts. He knew what houses to call at. It is said that he always brayed when he had to pa.s.s the Established kirk manse, in order to express his feelings. But in spite of this Billy was not a true Cameronian. It was always suspected that he could not be much more than Cameronian by marriage--a "tacked-on one," in short. His walk and conversation were by no means so straightforward, as those of one sound in the faith ought to have been. It was easy to tell when Billy and his cart had pa.s.sed along the road, for his tracks did not go forward, like all other wheel-marks, but meandered hither and thither across the road, as though he had been weaving some intricate web of his own devising.

He was called the Whinnyliggate Express, and his record was a mile and a quarter an hour, good going.

Mary herself was generally tugging at him to come on. She pulled Billy, and Billy pulled the cart. But, nevertheless, in the long-run, it was the will of Billy that was the ultimate law. Walter was very glad to have the M'Haffies on the cart, both because he was allowed to walk all the time, and because he hoped to get Mary into a good temper against next Tuesday.

Mary came Drumquhat way twice a week--on Tuesdays and Fridays. As Wattie went to school he met her, and, being allowed by his granny one penny to spend at Mary's cart, he generally occupied most of church time, and all the school hours for a day or two before these red-letter occasions, in deciding what he would buy.

It did not make choice any easier that alternatives were strictly limited. While he was slowly and laboriously making up his mind as to the long-drawn-out merits of four farthing biscuits, the way that "halfpenny Abernethies" melted in the mouth arose before him with irresistible force. And just as he had settled to have these, the thought of the charming explorations after the currants in a couple of "cookies" was really too much for him. Again, the solid and enduring charms of a penny "Jew's roll," into which he could put his lump of b.u.t.ter, often entirely unsettled his mind at the last moment. The consequence was that Wattie had always to make up his mind in the immediate presence of the objects, and by that time neither Billy nor Mary could brook very long delays.

It was important, therefore, on Sabbaths, to propitiate Mary as much as possible, so that she might not cut him short and proceed on her way without supplying his wants, as she had done at least once before. On that occasion she said--

"D'ye think Mary M'Haffie has naething else in the world to do, but stan' still as lang as it pleases you to gaup there! Gin ye canna tell us what ye want, ye can e'en do withoot! Gee up, Billy! Come oot o' the roadside--ye're aye eat-eatin', ye bursen craitur ye!"

III