Inchbracken Part 29

Mr. Geddie parted from his companions in the village, and finding he had missed the Laird, set forth on a solitary walk back to Auchlippie.

It had been but a sorry day's work, with much that was painful in its course, and no good done to show for it. He sighed as he pa.s.sed in the waning light the remembered landmarks of the morning, and recalled the very different state of feeling in which he had then remarked them.

The light had faded in himself as well as in the sky overhead. Then, was he not going forth in his might? a Gideon in armour to vanquish the armies of the aliens? or Ithuriel, perhaps, his bright pinions flashing in the sun, the long sharp spear of truth in his hand, gleaming like a star, and ready to pierce through sin and falsehood?

Now it was different. The spear was blunted or had lost its point, the wings hung limp and useless from his shoulders, and the feathers were all in disarray, like some poor game-bird worsted in the fight, or caught in heavy rain; the gay plumage draggled pitifully and dim, the neck and tail, that erst stood so erect, now drooping and forlorn in wisps of humiliation. The day had faded and the sun had gone down. It was a new chapter added to his ministerial experience. Alas, for the persistency of the besotted human heart in sin, and its callous insensibility to words in season, spoken in love and faithfulness.

Mankind must be wickeder even than he had thought, and he had been taught to believe in their total depravity. It never occurred to him that there might be some mistake. The accusers comprised nearly the whole body of office-bearers in the church--the excellent of the earth, men with the same 'views' and shibboleths as himself; and more than that, most attentive hearers and great admirers of his preaching--the strongest possible proof in favour of their credibility and soundness of judgment. He felt fully justified in adopting their suspicions and accepting them as certainties--facts either already established or about to be proved, and then with the characteristic tenacity of the clerical mind, he held them fast. It was true that this accused brother had hitherto led an exemplary life, that, refusing opportunities of greater ease and emolument, he had declined to be a candidate for more than one city charge, and that his life in the parish had hitherto been an almost apostolic example of all the charities and virtues; still, to err was human; and had not the most conspicuous saints been permitted at times, (doubtless for wise purposes and the good of their souls, in saving them from spiritual pride), to fall into grievous sin? 'Humanly speaking,' and 'to the eye of sense,' the man's whole walk and conversation' stamped the charge with improbability. But what was that to the theologian equipped at all points to contend with error? The doctrine of total depravity removed all difficulty on that point, and the more improbable from a mere worldly point of view, the more likely it became when attributed to a wile of the enemy. He felt that his erring brother must have been over confident, hence his fall. Still it was a new view of total depravity, and an appalling one, that it should have been able to withstand his preaching. He went over in his mind all the telling things he had said, and considered how they might have been intensified, but he found that he could have added little to their force. And yet all had been in vain. His words had fallen like drops of rain on the flinty hardness of that obdurate heart, and failed of any effect. It was a bitter experience, but he resolved to profit by it, and as he went along he thought over the heads for a discourse to backsliders, in which this sad incident should be introduced, and might perhaps even turn to good in the end, if it warned some wayward sheep to retrace his steps.

Thus meditating, Mr. Geddie beguiled the time away. He had come within sight of Auchlippie gate, whence Joseph Smiley was issuing at that moment, and coming towards him. Joseph descried his reverence simultaneously, and prepared for an interview by pa.s.sing his sleeve across his lips. 'I wuss he mayna be findin' out the dram on me,' he muttered to himself; but added rea.s.suringly--'Hoot, no! They're glaiket bodies thae ministers! They wadna ken their ain parritch gin ye didna haud the spune fornent their nebs.'

'Well, my friend!' said Mr. Geddie, with outstretched hand and a condescending smile. 'I am glad to have another opportunity of speaking to you. That was a very sad meeting at which I saw you give your evidence yesterday--a sad and a humbling investigation!'

'Hech, sir, an' it was a' that. Terrible backslidings were na they, sir? But ye see, sir, it's just the flesh 'at's sae weak. We canna a'

houpe to be strong in the word, an' able to resist, sir, as _ye_ can, an' sae there's aye some o' 's gettin' a tum'le.'

'I fear, my friend, I must not venture to rejoice in my strength,'

replied the minister, much gratified, and smiling with pensive radiance, as one who, after long neglect, is appreciated at last. 'It is humility alone that can hope to pa.s.s scatheless along the seductive paths of life.'

'Deed ay, sir. Let him 'at thinks he's stan'in' tak tent he dizna fa', says Scripter. We're but puir craeters! That's me an' my likes, I mean, sir. As for a G.o.dly minister an' a powerfu' preacher, wha's praise is in a' the churches, I wadna venture to say the like o' him.'

'I fear we are all alike, Joseph! (is not that your name?) said Mr.

Geddie, slowly shaking his head, and blushing with pleasure so far as his drab and yellow complexion would allow. 'I fear we are all alike,'

he repeated, still toying with the sweet morsel before he swallowed it.

'Ou ay, sir! Dawvit was a man, an' sae was Sant Paul! A man of like paussions, an' sae aiblins a body micht ventur to say o' yersel'; but it's terrible odds atween the likes o' ye, an' hiz 'at's creepin' on wur bellies, as I may say, just worms o' the dust!'

'Alas! alas! Joseph, there are no exceptions! Just look at the unhappy man who has created so sad a scandal in this very parish!'

'Nae doubt, sir, an' I'm wae to think o't. But after a' he's but young--an' he's no ordeened--an' ye ken, sir, his faither was a moderate! That maks a terrible odds! What says Scripter? "The faithers hae aeten soor grapes," (gye an' like the grosets, I'm thinkin', afore they're just ripe), an the bairns' teeth is set on edge. (I see na sae weel what that means, but I'm thinkin' it's just 'at it gars their rotten teeth dirl). An' again the sins o' the faithers on the children til the third an' fourth generation. Hech, sirse! It's weel for me my granny wasna a moderate! an' as for my faither, I ne'er heard tell o'

him.'

'Yes, Joseph! (I believe I am right in calling you Joseph?) But you have a fine lively knowledge of Scripture, and I think--I hope--I may almost say I am sure, from what I have seen, that the root of the matter is in you. Now, my friend, would you not like to come forward openly, to take a plainer, bolder, stronger, n.o.bler stand for the truth? Does not your heart burn within you? when you see this glen and other glens too, my brother, there are so many other glens, given over to sin and worldliness, or it may be to moderatism--as soul-destroying an error as any of them. Does not your heart burn within you? And do you not feel constrained to cry aloud--"Here am I, send me?" To put it to you in plainer, if less moving words, how would you like to be a catechist?'

Joseph's heart did indeed burn at the suggestion, though not perhaps exactly in the sense intended by Mr. Geddie. It had been promotion for him when he was made beadle and appointed to carry the great Bible up and down the pulpit stairs,--a ministrant, and in his own opinion an essential one, in all the public functions of religion; and he loved to skip about among the hushed and reverent worshippers, showing one where he might sit, and admonishing another to behave. But what was all that to being a catechist? which was 'the next door,' as he told himself, 'to a minister a' thegither;' not merely to go up the pulpit stairs, but to go into the pulpit and sit down, while future beadles would meekly follow, and close the pulpit door behind his reverence.

It was too delightful! An utterly beatific vision! He had just parted from Jean Macaulay, and his mind had been full of schemings how to secure her for a wife. But would Jean make a help-meet for a catechist? Even with Elspeth's croft and her savings, he feared Jean would scarcely be equal to that higher sphere; and before even he had replied to Mr. Geddie, he had almost made up his mind that she would not suit.

'Aweel, sir! there's nae mis...o...b..in' but it wad be a preevilege to be layin' out the truith afore the neglecket puir. But whaur was't ye was wantin't for?'

'There is a neglected district along the coast, where the people are too poor to support a minister; but yet they should not be left a prey to Erastianism, and it has been proposed to send some pious man to labour among them who would read to them and talk to them, enlighten them on Free Church principles, and address them occasionally. How would the work suit you? And would you like to give it a trial?'

'Aweel sir! I wad like weel to be direckin' the puir bodies the gate they suld gang. An' what's the waages, sir? Or I'm thinkin' I hae heard tell it's saalary ye ca' a catechist's pay, being mair honorable.'

'About thirty pounds a-year we think we could raise. You would live among them, of course, and you would find it a most interesting and constant employment. I should think for an earnest and active man like you it would be the very thing.'

'But thirty pound the year's no twal shilling e'y week, an' the folk ye say's puir, an' gin a man gaed out an' in amang them, he beut to help them whiles wi' siller. I see na hoo yer catechist cud do't at the price.'

'Think on the privilege, Joseph! And if you do well no doubt we will be able to find higher work for you.'

'Ay! But a man canna just eat an' drink his preevileges, an' he canna sell them for siller to buy shune! I'm but a bederal, sir, but week out an' week in, it 's liker t.w.u.n.ty shillin's, what I can mak atween that an' my tred.'

'Well! we must think it over, Joseph, and you can write to me what you think you could undertake the work for, and we'll consider how much we can give. Mr. Sangster! I am so sorry to have missed you, but I understood you had gone home.'

'I have been waiting for you at the inn for an hour past. Never mind!

get in now.'

The Laird in his gig had driven up during the negotiation with the proposed catechist. He now caught up Mr. Geddie, and left Joseph in the middle of the road to pursue his reflections.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

_CHANGES_.

Three weeks pa.s.sed after the sitting of the Congregational Council which had agreed that there was a 'fama clamosa' in the parish. The Presbytery had sat with closed doors to consider the case. It had adjourned, and met again to further consider, decide, and order under the circ.u.mstances. Enquiry into the facts, and such like trifles, would come later, when the evidence for the prosecution was matured.

Clearly there could be no defence until there was an indictment, a defence in its very nature being a reply; and until the thesis of accusation could be formulated, there was nothing to reply to.

Wherefore Mr. Brown could not be heard either in person or through his friends at this early stage of the proceedings. Still he was suspected, though not formally accused; and, although he possessed the common right of all men to be deemed innocent till found guilty, he was by no means in the position of an innocent man. The immortal interests of the Free Church adherents in the Parish of Kilrundle were at stake, and could by no means be left for a single day exposed to the influence of a perhaps improper person. He had been notified to discontinue his duties till further notice, and another young man had been sent to fill his place, as well as (but these were his private instructions from the leaders and wire-pullers who guided the Presbytery's movements) to act as amateur detective in ferreting out evidence for the prosecution, which, singularly enough, was yet too defective to warrant bringing the case into court.

There is no power like a democracy for precipitate and arbitrary action. The units composing it so fully realize their authority, and so like to exercise it; while, being many, and co-ordinate, they have little or no sense of individual responsibility. They propose, vote, and order, each in obedience to his individual whim or impulse, and imagine that they are doing great things; but it is the body corporate, the official abstraction, which is left to bear the blame when justice or policy miscarry. In this respect, if in no other, the one-man power has the advantage, the king or bishop is personally identified with each transaction of his reign, and when a failure occurs he feels himself personally discredited; he has therefore the strongest incentive to walk circ.u.mspectly, that he may not have hereafter to retrace his steps, while with popular a.s.semblies, a reversal of policy or a change of front is immaterial, so long as the majority has its way.

Roderick, therefore, being suspected, was now placed under a vigorous taboo--boycotted we would have called it thirty-five years later, but boycotted under a wisely modified form. Ebenezer Prittie or Peter Malloch would still have been happy to sell him all they had in their shops,--at a proper advance on cost--seeing that the coin of an excommunicate is no worse than other people's, and money, however come by, is 'all right,' as Vespasian found out long ago. There was no fear, therefore, of his being starved out so long as he continued able to buy. But intercourse with his parishioners had come to an end. Some few were veritably unwilling to have dealings with iniquity, but the majority dared not offend public opinion by appearing to hold communication with him; and these secretly knowing the shakiness of their own principles were the loudest in denouncing any one who should venture to approach the Browns, thereby contributing much of the strength of that public opinion which tyrannized over themselves. The only exceptions were Roderick's pensioners. These, defying the censorious, presented themselves in shy and deprecatory fashion (deprecatory alike to the offended righteous without, and to the indignant and maligned within), each as his pay-day came round. The money had become an established item in their income, which those who disapproved would a.s.suredly not make good; wherefore, they felt constrained to revisit the flesh pots. After all, even if the worst were true, what was it but a spoiling of the Egyptians? A perfectly allowable, perhaps a praiseworthy act, which Moses himself had suggested, and even recommended to the chosen people of old. They took the money, therefore, in defiance of such as shook their heads, and, finding it retained its old purchasing power, were none the worse.

The days dragged wearily along for Roderick and his sister. October, which began in summer sunshine, relieved but not chilled by bracing airs, was waning in cloud and gloom; dull foggy days of rain, or windy tempests ending in early frosts. The sick room was close and damp. The ruddier the blaze upon the hearth, the stronger the flavour of mould and damp drawn out from the oozy walls and cold clay floor. The chamber would grow close but never warm, and the capacious chimney seemed powerless for ventilation, and served only as an escape for the heat. After undergoing the visitation of Mr. Geddie and his companions, Roderick had had a return of his more serious symptoms.

Indignation and outraged feelings sent the blood boiling in stormy tumult through his veins, and he was not weak enough to obtain the relief of tears. Self-respect required him to preserve calmness before the friends who were with him; and his irritation, deprived of vent in speech or action, settled in the morbid part of his system, and rekindled the expiring inflammation in his chest. He was therefore a prisoner once more to his bed, when he would gladly have been removing himself from the scene of his mortifications, and had no alleviation save the visits of Kenneth and the Laird; but these were frequent.

Whenever other matters brought the former to the village he made a point of calling to enquire; and it was remarkable how frequently business demanded his presence there at this time. During the first week the gossips observed him ride three alternate days down their street, and the traders began seriously to consider whether they could not so improve their stocks as to tempt some share of the Inchbracken petty custom from Inverlyon. After that, however, his visits became daily, there was no longer even a pretence of other business, and Ebenezer Prittie abandoned the hope of supplying the Drysdale property with nails and ironmongery. Kenneth was sincerely interested in his friend's health, and sat sympathizingly by his bedside, but the patient was not able to talk much, and even if he had been, was forbidden to try. He was often drowsy, too, and sometimes slept, owing to the restless wakefulness of his nights. It fell, therefore, on Mary to make the conversation, a duty which she fulfilled apparently to their mutual satisfaction, seeing that the visits grew more frequent and of longer and longer duration. What they found to talk about no one can say, for their voices were pitched in the lowest tones--of course that the patient might not be disturbed; and apparently he was not, if we may judge from the ease with which he soon fell into an established routine. He would welcome his visitor with a cordial handshake, answer the regulation questions about his health, hear any little item of news that might be stirring, and then calmly close his eyes, and turn round for another nap.

When two people find pleasure in each other's conversation, surrounding circ.u.mstances are of little account. The most momentous questions have ere now been asked and answered during the gyrations of a waltz, or the intervals of a square dance. Pyramus and Thisbe were happy in whispering to each other through the c.h.i.n.k in a paling, and my neighbour next door used to save shoeleather by chatting to a young lady at the other end of the town down the pipe of a telephone. That turned out badly, however, in the end, as one night his soft engaging whisper was replied to in the gruff and stormy tones of papa! who bade him have done with his nonsense, or he would put the d--d wire out of the house! He had done something of the same kind to my poor friend already. It was nothing new, therefore, if these two young people forgot for the time the stuffy little room in which they sat, and the gruesome army of medicine bottles, getting more and more numerous every day. They were as utterly content as though they had been sitting under one of the great shady trees of Eden, with only birds, flowers, and tame lions to listen to their discourse. The flowers, at least, they had in ever increasing profusion, as poor Colewort knew to his cost, in the sad devastation that fell on his most sacred preserves in the greenhouses of Inchbracken. Their sweetness brought something like the freshness of spring, (or was it only of hope?) into that close and frowsy place; even the fumes of damp and mouldiness fled before the breath of these children of dew and sunshine.

At length there came a day, after many others that had been made bright with flowers, and fragrant with sweeter words, when Kenneth brought nothing in his hand but a bunch of violets, which he told her his mother had sent. A slip of paper was tied to them on which was written, 'For dearest Mary.' 'And so you may know, Mary,' he said, 'that everything between us is known at home, and you will be made welcome. My mother will come and see you, or if that cannot be managed she will write to you, after you have left Glen Effick; and I think you will overlook her not coming here. After the decided stand our family has taken against this church secession, she would rather not do that; and as you are going to be one of the family yourself, you will not wish us to stultify ourselves. That is what the old gentleman calls it at least, though I daresay it is nonsense. Still, he is an old man, and he is going to be very fond of you, so we must humour him.' There came a tear in Mary's eye, a smile to her lip, a blush, and words presently. She said exactly what was prettiest and nicest, or so thought Kenneth. Every nice girl knows what the words would be, they were just what she would say herself on a like occasion. As for the men, they will hear them, each for himself let us hope, when the time comes; therefore let us not rub the bloom from the plum by unwise antic.i.p.ation.

The visits of the Laird were somewhat less frequent; but he was fortunate in always finding Roderick awake, and, after the first few days following the relapse, eager to converse; and as the visits were repeated two or three times a week, an intimacy sprung up between the two men which had not existed before. The Laird was pleased to find what he had not hitherto looked for, a sound and mature judgment and abundant common sense where he had been wont to expect only pious good intentions and a youthful enthusiasm, beautiful and interesting enough but somewhat raw, and needing much of the pressure of time and circ.u.mstance to squeeze out the green and vapid whey of youth and inexperience. Roderick was equally surprised to find that the husk of hard dry business shrewdness, which he had hitherto looked upon as the man himself, was but the dried or hardened scars or cicatrices of rubs and bruises long since endured by a true and gentle nature, now healed and wholesome, and that beneath the somewhat repulsive exterior, there were rich stores of experience, charity and christian wisdom.

Heretofore their intercourse had consisted in visits from Roderick to Auchlippie on parochial business; and on these occasions Mrs. Sangster in her character of Mother in Israel, high patroness and Lady Bountiful to the congregation, was always present. It might be Roderick who proposed the subject to be considered or it might be the Laird, but at the first opening Mrs. Sangster would take up her parable, and after that there was little opportunity for any one else to slip in a word even edgewise. She loved the sound of her own sweet voice better than any other music, and with a silent, perforce an attentive audience, her periods would swell and round themselves with evangelical commonplaces, and a general overflowing of conventional piety. When his lady opened her mouth on any subject, it was the Laird's practice to close his for good and all; that was his mode of fulfilling the apostolic precept to honour the weaker vessel. Had he spoken, he would have been compelled to distinguish and except, to rip up sophisms and show that the conclusion arrived at was not deducible from the premises stated, and endless altercation would have ensued.

Wherefore, like a sensible man, he held his peace, and left his fair partner to discourse at her own sweet will. When, also, it became necessary for him to express his own views, he would do it in the dryest, clearest, and most concise form, leaving no room for question or debate from his better and more loquacious half. It was therefore as if for the first time that these two met and became acquainted in that sickroom; and the discovery each made of the other was an unexpected happiness to both. Timidly and doubtfully Roderick would sometimes bring the conversation round to Sophia, but it was in a diffident and uncertain way. He hungered to hear or talk of her, but as regarded his hopes and aspirations he felt bound to keep silence.

His instinct of what was fitting withheld him from attempting to entangle his friend in his more genial moments, in any kind of promise or consent, so long as a breath, however groundless, hung over his reputation. It was true that the Laird did not believe a syllable to his disadvantage, but on that very account he felt so deeply indebted to him, when all the world beside had turned its back, that he could not take advantage of the old man's goodwill.

Whether the Laird saw more than Roderick put in words, it would not be easy to say; but it is certain that at that time an understanding sprung up between himself and his daughter which had not existed before. He had hitherto regarded her simply as a child, female child, belonging to his wife, and rather a dull one as that. It now first seemed to dawn on him that she was a woman, a distinct person, and his own daughter, and that it was in her to become the dearest companion of his life. What he may have known of her relations with her mother, incident to Roderick's letter, cannot be known, for he never told; but from the evening after the congregational council, when she plucked up courage to enter into conversation with him, and glean such news about the proceedings as she could ask or he communicate, they found they had entered upon new relations with each other. It may have been the Sangster element in her, of which her mother so loudly complained that engaged his sympathy so directly, or it may have been the incense of her feminine hero worship, seeing that he appeared to her so great, and strong, and good, in opposing himself singly to the universal prejudice, and manfully espousing the cause of worth and innocence maligned, but certainly from that day forth, father and daughter became fast friends and constant companions. Often she would accompany him in his walks to the village, and though she would not defy her mother by accompanying him to the Browns', still her father would carry messages to and fro between her and Mary, which brought a.s.surance both to Roderick and herself that they were not parted. The old lady was the only party dissatisfied with these new combinations.

She felt her authority slipping from her fingers. Her daughter had, she could not tell how, developed an independent personality of her own, and was evidently now held in allegiance to herself only by a sense of duty. The daughter was also establishing a hold on her father's regard, which her mother herself had long since allowed to pa.s.s from her, as costing too much trouble to retain; and Mrs.

Sangster beheld already in prophetic vision, herself as a meek old lady seated by her work-table near the fire, while Sophia, the mistress of Auchlippie, ruled the roast! The meekness of her future role had not as yet, however, come to Mrs. Sangster. She fumed and fretted like a spirit in chains, and the mornings which mother and daughter spent together were by no means smooth or enjoyable for poor Sophia. Her mother's grievance being incapable of statement, the ebullitions thence arising could neither be foreseen nor a.s.signed to any specific cause. The scandalous rumours relating to the Browns were retailed and enlarged on in a way that, but a few short weeks before, Mrs. Sangster would have been shocked to think she could indulge in before her carefully nurtured child; and Sophia, as her only defence, had to fall back on the paternal gift of silence. But that invariably drove her mother vanquished from the field, seeing that it takes two to fight, and with a parting shot at the dull _dour_ blood of the Sangsters, she would seek relief in the privacy of her chamber from that sovereign remedy, 'a good cry.'

At the end of three weeks Roderick was found well enough to travel, and it was time that they should start, if, in those ante-railway days, they would avoid the delays, discomforts, and extra fatigue of bad roads. They took the stage coach as far as Dundee, where they would embark in the steamer for London. Thence there was railway westward, and with more staging, they would reach their destination.

It need scarcely be said that Eppie and the baby stood on the inn steps to watch the travellers drive away, and wish them 'G.o.d-speed.'

Mary kissed them both, hoping a father might shortly be found for the little one, but grudgingly, for she deeply loved it herself. Kenneth was there, likewise, with regretful adieux and repet.i.tion of the already-made promises to write soon and often. So too was the Laird, and this time Sophy was on his arm, and Roderick thenceforth had at least one smile and handshake to treasure in his memory, unspoken answers to his letter of a month back, and tokens from which to bode hopefully of the future.

There were other onlookers, but they peered from windows, over averted shoulders, or from behind corners. The parishioners had begun to find out many differences between their new pastor and his predecessor.

There were no alms now, for the new man had no money to give; and there was less sympathy, for he was a stranger in the parish, and likewise new to ministerial work. Shame kept them from coming forward; but when the guard blew his horn, the coachman tipped up his leaders with the whip, and the lumbering vehicle rolled up the eastern brae, every one felt that he had a friend the less left in Glen Effick.