Inchbracken Part 4

'Ah!' sighed the minister, 'filthy lucre!' It is strange, people will set so much store by things which perish in the using, notwithstanding the n.o.ble example of the widow in the gospel, who cast into the treasury all her living!'

'Yes, it is indeed sad to see such worldly-mindedness; and you see we've a poor congregation, and whatever money is spent on the ground, there will be just so much less to lay out on the building, and we will end with having some poor draughty little place, with narrow benches and straight backs, enough to give one the fidgets in a long service, or an attack of rheumatism. We have subscribed twenty pounds ourselves to the church building fund, and it seems very hard that so much of the money should just be going into widow Forester's pocket; I cannot think that a person like that can be in a proper frame of mind. Indeed, I called on her myself, and strove to place the matter before her in all love and faithfulness. I earnestly besought her to leave all care and anxiety for her poor perishing body in higher hands,--and, what do you think? Mr. Dowlas, she had the a.s.surance to tell me that we had better give them a site for church, manse and school, up here at Auchlippie! The impertinent beasom! I just gave her one look, and I walked out of her house--and I will never speak to that woman again!'

There came a twinkle into the minister's eye. He was by no means devoid of the sense of humour, and perhaps that trait in himself, which led the 'unregenerate' to think they detected in him a considerable vein of pawkie selfishness, led him more keenly to enjoy his friend's unconscious display of a similar propensity. He soon, however, solemnized his features and voice with the regulation ecclesiastical sigh.

'The flesh is weak! my dear friend,' he said in time, 'and we must bear with one another's infirmities! The strong especially must bear with the weak.'

'Yes,' retorted the lady, whose meekness was generally absent on the faintest hint of reproof, 'but the weak are required to look up to the strong for guidance as well as protection; for the powers that be are ordained of G.o.d. And I consider that the like of Widow Forester was very far out of her duty to speak back to _me_. The Shorter Catechism is most precise about superiors, inferiors, and equals.'

'Ah yes!' said the minister, with his twinkle of eye, and more unction of voice. He was too sensible a man to embroil himself with an angry woman and a hospitable hostess. 'It is a wonderful compendium of sound and wholesome doctrine, the Shorter Catechism. I hope our young friend Mr. Brown sees that the lambs of the flock are well grounded in its hallowed teachings.'

'Oh he does, and I am very particular myself that my young women's cla.s.s have all the scripture proofs to each question at their finger ends. I would like you to examine them, Mr. Dowlas, to-morrow afternoon. You see Mr. Brown is but young yet, though he is a most excellent lad, and I feel to him almost like a mother, and try to advise him as an older head sometimes can. But he's rather fractious at times to the voice of instruction. Young folk, you see, will be young folk!'

'Yes ma'am,' said Mr. Dowlas, who, whatever his faults, was always loyal to his cloth, and would permit no one but himself to say anything against a cleric in his presence, 'I look on you people of Kilrundle as most fortunate in your minister. He is one of the excellent of the earth, and has few equals in the presbytery either for piety or learning, or I think talent. If he lives he will take a high place in the church, and then his zeal and his sacrifices for the cause are something to make many an older member blush. You see, to him Erastianism showed itself in its most enticing aspect, for his father, we must all admit, was a worthy man, though moderate.'

'Ah yes!' broke in the lady; 'there's where it is! In this life he had his good things, and was thought a worthy man; but he would not join at the Disruption. The pleasures of sin for a season were too much for him, and now he is gone to his account! It's a solemn thought, Mr.

Dowlas, to think where that poor old man may be now!' Here she became ejaculatory. 'Without are dogs--and moderates.'

The minister here broke in to prevent worse, 'As the tree falleth, dear lady, so shall it lie. Old Doctor Brown led a G.o.dly life, and it is not permitted to pry into the mysteries beyond the veil. He belonged to an earlier generation, and was so bound up in the work of his parish that I do not think he gave much thought to what was transpiring in the church at large. We may judge from the training he gave his son, that his heart was in the right place, and from the course his son has taken since he was brought face to face with the questions of the day, we may guess how the father would have acted if he had been similarly placed. Just see how young Roderick, though not yet ordained, has brought out the whole of his large parish with him.

It is a great achievement! When do Mr. Sangster and the Session intend to moderate the call, and get him ordained and settled among you?'

'Well! to tell you the truth, Mr. Dowlas, I have been rather delaying and keeping back Mr. Sangster (so far as a wife may) from pressing that matter forward too precipitately. It seems to me that, with the young man's talents, it is like hiding gospel light under a bushel, to keep him in this poor neighbourhood. If he had only a chance now to preach in Edinburgh or Glasgow, or even Aberdeen, who knows but he might get a call to a city church? While if he is once ordained and settled here, he may be twenty years before he gets out of it. Between ourselves--you see, there has been a very considerable intimacy between him and our Sophia, for years and years back. I cannot say that anything has ever been said--I will not say that anything wants to be said--but a mother's heart, Mr. Dowlas, will ponder and be anxious. Before the Disruption, when there was every prospect of his becoming a.s.sistant and successor to his father, such an arrangement might have been feasible enough--not that it could be said to be much of a match for our daughter--but when there is true love and true religion, and a very good position in the county--for the Browns always visited with the best, and the money the uncle that died in India left them--. I fear I am a wee bit romantic, Mr. Dowlas, but I think if matters had arranged themselves in that way, and Sophia had wished, I could have given my consent. But the Disruption has changed all that! Still, with a city charge, and a nice congregation able to support a minister, like St. George's, Edinburgh, we will say,--perhaps we might have thought of it yet. But if he settled down here in Kilrundle, without either church or manse, it would be a clear tempting of Providence to entrust him with the happiness of our Sophia. I think of her that we have reared with such care, and given the most expensive education to!--potichomania, even, and the use of the globes!--to be living about among the cottars in Glen Effick. It would never do! The clay floors would bring on a galloping consumption in six month's time!'

'Mr. Guthrie, ma'am, of Edinburgh, will remedy all that before long.

Have you not heard of the wonderful success that is attending his scheme? which is, to build a manse for every minister in the Church? I hear he is carrying everything before him, and I am not surprised.

Such energy and such powers of persuasion could not possibly fail.'

'I hope it may be so, for the Church's sake. But as regards Mr. Brown, he would still be in but a small way to take a wife. Not that I would have you for a moment to imagine that we are looking for a proposal from him. I have great confidence in Sophia's sound Christian principles. I do not think she would ever bring herself to do anything rashly or unadvisedly--she has great prudence and sound sense. Did you observe Mr. Wallowby at dinner, and the very marked attention he paid her? I believe he is interested in her already! and no wonder, for there are few like her, either for good looks or solid sense. Mr.

Wallowby is very wealthy, and perhaps Sophia might see it her duty to accept, if he were to propose. Great wealth opens such a door for extended usefulness! That would relieve my mind greatly as to Roddie Brown, poor man, and his prospects. But as I said before, Sophia has never opened her mind to me, nor, I believe, has either admirer spoken to her. Roddie would speak fast enough, I am sure, if he either saw his way to keep a wife, or got encouragement from us; but we must see our way better before doing that. As for Mr. Wallowby, he only arrived yesterday, but I think so soon as he knows his own mind, he will let us know it too.'

'It is an anxious time for a mother, when a beloved daughter's settlement comes to be decided. But here come our young friends Mr.

and Miss Brown!'

In fact the Sangster dog-cart here drove past the window, and set down the young preacher and his sister at the door. Thereupon supervened considerable noise of voices in the hall, for Peter Sangster and his friend had been smoking through the bars of the lodge gate when the dog-cart came in sight, and Mr. Wallowby had been so taken with what he was pleased to call the trim clipper-like cut of Mary Brown, that he had persuaded Peter to dismiss the groom driving, and get in themselves to accompany the new comers to the house. Peter being an old acquaintance and admirer of Mary's was not averse, and when he found her seated at his side, he wished the avenue had been of greater length.

Sophia left her embroidery frame to meet Mary as she alighted, and carry her off to her chamber, while Roderick entered the presence of the Lady of Auchlippie.

Mr. Dowlas hailed the arrival with sincere satisfaction, for his hostess' postprandial confidences had been a little irksome. She had been loquacious and exciting, when, if the unvarnished truth may be told, he would fain have been silent, still, tranquil, somnolent and perhaps even asleep; for he had dined copiously. At any time it is unpleasant to hear one's sincerely cherished sentiments caricatured, or made ridiculous by being introduced in a discordant connection, but it is aggravating when the exhibition is obtruded on a mind rendered reposeful by the sense of physical repletion. The lady's jumble of genuine selfish worldliness and artificial pietism had been very far from soothing. He could not but admit in his heart, that he had detected something like the same stirring of mixed motives in himself; but then, even to himself, they had taken a more seemly guise. Here in their grosser manifestation they shocked him greatly. It seemed like looking in a distorting mirror, when the gazer cannot withdraw his eyes from the hideous image, which he still perceives to be his own, although so different and deformed.

Mr. Dowlas rose, and said he would take a short stroll in the garden before tea. Mrs. Sangster re-seated herself with Roderick, and proceeded to make herself busy with the worldly affairs and spiritual state of many members of his flock, giving much valuable advice, as of a mother in Israel to her youngest son. Her eye, however, rested not on his comely face, but peered over his shoulder to see how it sped with Sophia and Mr. Wallowby, for she was resolved that no detrimental influence should come between that wealthy man of Manchester and her daughter's charms, if perchance she might find favour in his eyes.

Alas! the rich man's eyes were fixed on Mary Brown, whose lively talk engaged both himself and Peter, while Sophia, resplendent embodiment of repose and still life, completed the group, but contributed nothing to the conversation. Mrs. Sangster grew restless as she watched, lost the thread of her discourse more than once, resumed in the wrong place, and wondering what her interlocutor would think, grew more and more confused. Had she looked in his face instead of past him, she would have been rea.s.sured. He had moved his chair a little so as to see, by turning his eye, in the same direction to which her looks were directed, and he sat regarding her with a smile of reposeful content.

He probably knew nothing of what she was saying, and in truth he bestowed only so much attention as enabled him to smile or bow when a pause in the current of words seemed to call for a sign of a.s.sent. The young man's soul was steeped in tranquil satisfaction. He breathed the same air, he occupied the same room with Sophia,--the Sophia ever present in his thoughts by day and his dreams by night, and when he raised his eyes they rested on her form.

Sophia Sangster--the name is prosaic enough. Not Romeo himself could have taught the nightingales to warble it. But there are no nightingales in the North, and the name of the girl he loved best had never struck Roderick as wanting in melody. She was about the same age as his sister, but taller and larger in every way. Indeed, she was on as large a scale as a woman can well be, without disturbing the sense of fitness and harmony; but the proportion was so fine, that unless when some one was near with whom to compare her, she would have pa.s.sed for the medium height. Perfectly modelled, and in the finest health, she lent to each movement a rhythmical repose, while rest was in her the suspended action we see in a marble statue, all free from the limp flaccidity of lolling sloth. Her abundant hair was coiled in numberless braids about her head, whose low forehead reminded one of ancient sculpture. So also did the straight nose, full lips, and chin.

The rich currents of exuberant health lent brilliant carnation tints to a soft and delicate skin, and nourished the cool shining of the large brown eyes beneath the shadow of their curving lids and long dark lashes-eyes into which poor Roderick had gazed with reverent wonder since long ago.

He saw in this maiden of the admirable physique, and the transparent well-coloured eyes, all that was responsive to his enthusiastic and imaginative nature. Another Pygmalion, he had breathed into her clay a life derived from his own, and now, heathen-like, he worshipped and rejoiced in the work of his own hands, and basked in the light of perfections which existed only in his fanciful desires. With her fine person and her talent for silence and repose, she was like a handsome wall, on which the magic lantern of his thoughts could disport itself in the gayest hues of imagination, and, for the present, with far more comfort and delight than had the Sophia of his worship been a real person, liable to be found wanting, and falling short of expectation.

Being an ideal creature altogether, it wanted but a little more make-believe in a new place to fit her exactly to each varying mood.

A young child finds greater and more lasting amus.e.m.e.nt in the rough, coa.r.s.e cuts to be found in a backstreet picture book, than in the daintiest ill.u.s.trations of Caldecott or Kate Greenaway; and the reason, no doubt is, that art having realized less, there is more scope for imagination--more field for the young idea to play in. So too in heathendom, the worship of Isis continued a living cult long after that of the Latin G.o.ds had become merely a state ceremonial. The blank impersonal carving of the Egyptian idol left unlimited possibilities to the devout imagination, which each worshipper could work out according to his own needs, while the fully realized conceptions of Grecian art showed more to the worshipper than perhaps he could take in, and the bodily perfection displayed recalled rather the victor in some circus contest than suggested the mysteries of the unseen.

But while we have been talking of her daughter, Mrs. Sangster and her guests have gone to tea. Tea was a meal forty years ago. The company sat round the table, which was set out with plates of bread and b.u.t.ter, various kinds of cake, and sundry varieties of preserves, the work of Sophia all, and works whose excellence warranted the pride she took in them; for before all else Sophia was a notable housekeeper.

After tea there was music, but it being Sat.u.r.day night, Sophia refrained from performing her last-learned polka, seeing it was an elder's house and two ministers were present; not that she feared to seduce these grave gentlemen into the levity of a dance, but that it was not consonant with the Sabbath exercises of the coming morrow.

Mary therefore was called on to sing for them 'Angels ever bright and fair,' and such other morsels of Handel as she could recall without her music. After that, Mr. Sangster called for his favourite Psalm tunes, in which he and Mr. Dowlas joined with immense relish, and no small volume of sound. Mary's voice was completely overborne in the din, and Mr. Wallowby added a new experience in sacred song to his not very complimentary catalogue of the transgressions and shortcomings of the Scotch as measured by the standard of Manchester.

CHAPTER VII.

JOSEPH.

If night follows brighter day in more sunny climes, the colder skies of Scotland enjoy at least the compensation of a lengthened gloaming.

The crimson glory of sunset ebbs more slowly away, and a paler daylight lingers on and on, fading by imperceptible degrees, as the blue transparent vapours of the still and warm earth rise to meet the golden blue of heaven; it is hours before the two unite to wrap the world in the purple gloom of night.

On a slope of the upland moor which divides Glen Effick from the coast was the spot where the Free Church congregation of Kilrundle held its Sunday meetings in the open air. 'The Muir Foot' sloped evenly down into the glen, not far outside the village, and close to the high road, from which, nevertheless, it was entirely screened by a thicket of birch and hazel. On the inner edge of this was a small platform for the preacher, roofed and enclosed with canvas, and hence denominated the tent. When the services were in Gaelic and the preacher indulged in much action, the arrangement might have been suggested of Punch and Judy to a frivolous stranger, but the people were too full of solemn and earnest enthusiasm to see anything amiss. A stray colt on the hillside projected against the sky, would bring to the minds of some a vision of Claverhouse and his troopers in the olden time, for that was a theme often presented to their thoughts in tract and sermon. They had almost persuaded themselves the covenanting scenes were to be played over again in their own times, and were steadfastly resolved to 'quit themselves like men' in the day of trouble.

Before the tent there was a plat of turf, through the middle of which a burn babbled over the stones; beyond, the moor swept gently upwards, and here the worshippers were wont to sit, tier above tier, like the audience in a theatre, to listen to the preaching of the word. In that gloaming the place was not altogether deserted, the tap of a hammer driving nails reverberated through the stillness. Joseph Smiley the beadle and a joiner by trade, was at work making preparation for the services of the morrow. He had driven a few posts into the sward, and on these was nailing planks to form a rough bench or two, for the eldership and the _elite_ of the congregation. There were also two or three wooden chairs, but these he hid away in the tent to keep them safe till the Sangster family should appear, and he had an opportunity to present them.

'It's nane o' yer orra bodies 'at's to hecht their tail on thae chairs, an' me feshin' them a' the gate fra' hame, I'se warrant! I'll mak an errand up til Auchlippie come Monday, an' gin I hae na twa half crowns in my pouch, or a pair o' the maister's breeks in my oxter at the hamecomin', my name's no Joseph Smiley!' With these comfortable reflections he put on his coat, gathered up his tools, and started for home in the gathering darkness.

'Joseph Smiley!'

The words came out of the darkness under a tree, as he pa.s.sed through the thicket and gained the road. Joseph recognized the voice, though he could not see the speaker.

'The deil flee awa wi' her auld banes! If that's no Tibbie Tirpie!

What brings the auld witch here wi' her blathers and fleetchin'! I hae lippened til her haudin' her tongue afore folk, but here she's grippet me my lane. But we maun speak the carlin fair'--so much under his breath, then aloud--

'Hoo's a' wi' ye, Mistress Tirpie? It's lang sin we hae forgathered the gither. But I'm aye speerin' after ye; I ken ye're weel!'

It's no my bodily health 'at's ailin', Joseph Smiley, but my heart's sair in me, an' ye ken what for.'

'I'm sure, Luckie, I kenna what ye're drivin' at; gin gude will o'

mine wad gar ye thrive, ye'se thrive wi' the lave! an' as for sare heart I kenna what there can be to fash ye. But there's balm in Gilead, Mistress Tirpie, take ye yer burden there. I'm but a puir door-keeper in the house of the Lord,--tho' it's better that nor dwellin' in tents o' sin,--juist a puir silly earthen vessel, but I'se testifee sae far.

'Joseph Smiley! Ye twa-faced heepocrit. Hoo daar ye tak the word o'

G.o.d atween yer leein' lips like that? Are ye no feared the grund will open an' swally ye up?'

Fient a fear! Luckie, gin the earth swallied a' body 'at spak unadveesedly wi' their lips, it wad hae a sair wamefu'! There's no mony wad be left stan'in' ower grund. An' I'm mis...o...b..in' but ye'd no be to the fore yersel', Tibbie. But lay by yer flitin'. Hoo's a' wi'

young Tib?'

'An' it sets ye weel, Joseph Smiley, to be speerin' after my puir dautie, after a' 'at's come an' gane. An' ye hae na come naar her this three month come Saubith, for a' the wite ye hae wrocht her.'

'What's the wite, mither? Is she no weel?'