‘No, I don’t know what you mean,’ cried the young man, with a kind of brutality. ‘I never understand your Scotch. If this is the sort of figure I am to cut, making you devote yourself more to Margaret and the bairns, as you call them, I had better take myself off, it would seem. A fellow is not to lose the best days of his life for such a reward as that.’
Isabel looked at him with but partial comprehension; her point of view was more elevated than his, but yet it was limited, like his, to her own side of the question. She looked at his clouded brow and averted face with a woman’s first violent effort to enter into a state of feeling which was the antipodes of her own. Slowly it dawned upon her that it might be as just as her own though so different. She clasped her arms round the slender white stem of a young birch-tree, and leant against it, gazing at her lover with dreamy eyes.
‘Maybe it’s all true,’ she said, slowly, ‘both what I think and what you think, Horace. It will break my heart, but I can bear it if that is best. Go away into the world, and please your own folk—and I’ll wait for you; I’ll wait all my life; I’ll wait years and years. Why should you lose your best days for me? Oh, I see well it is neither just nor right; and me that has so little to give! It’s a sin to keep you here,’ she continued, tears, unthought of, dropping from her eyes. ‘Loch Diarmid comes natural to me, and folk forget—But go, Horace, and think on me sometimes; and my heart will go with you; and if you should ever come back you’ll find me waiting here.’
‘Isabel, this is all folly and nonsense,’ cried young Stapylton. ‘What are you crying about? am I talkingof going away? It is all very easy to send a fellow off and make a fuss, or to keep him hanging on, and kicking his heels among this confounded heather. Can’t you do what I want you instead? it’s simple enough. What’s the good of living in Scotland if you can’t get married how you please? If I were to go away I might never come back. They’d keep fast hold of me at home, or they’d pack me off somewhere out of reach; and you would change, and I might change. Who can undertake what would happen? I don’t believe in comings back. I should find you Mrs. Somebody or other with half a dozen—— Hallo, where are you going now?’
‘I’m going home,’ said Isabel, drying her tears indignantly. ‘It’s late, and I cannot enter into such questions. I am not one to change; but, Mr. Stapylton, if that’s your way of thinking it’s far best it should all come to an end. I don’t want to be married. I will never leave my sister. If you will have an answer yes or no, there’s your answer. Never, never, if she should live a dozen years!—and God send she may live a dozen years, and a dozen more to that!’ cried Isabel with a sob. ‘My Margaret, that never has a thought but for me! And to bid me run away and shame the house, and break her heart—and to call it love!’ said the girl, with an outburst of tears.
She had come back to the birch and leant her pretty head upon the graceful young tree, which waved its tender branches over her with a curious sympathetic resemblance to her own drooping form, while her lover drew near her slowly, his heart melting, though his temper was still ruffled. He was going to her to take her in his arms, to whisper his final arguments, to woo her with his breath on her cheek. At such a moment it did not occur to the young man to look around him, to guard against interruption; and, perhaps, in the soft twilight he could scarcely have perceived the lonely personage who was winding with a noiseless step among the heather, full of her own thoughts.
The dew was falling among the slender birches, and on the heather and gorse—the wild gale underfoot filled the air with sweetness, and with this soft perfume came the soft stir of silence, the breath of the great quiet, which gave a musical tone to the atmosphere. The shadows were falling over the loch and the hills; points of view that had been visible one moment were invisible the next; and all at once, up in the blue heavens, stars were revealing themselves, here and there one, like lamps among the clouds. A night to tempt anyone to linger in the open air, in the quiet, sweet, soft, darkling, humid twilight, full of the silences and splendours of nature,and unawares moved by some brooding of God. The other figure which, veiled by night, and by abstracting thought, was wandering devious on those hills, thinking little of where she went or whom she met, was in her way a better embodiment of the sentiment of the night than were the agitated lovers. It was Ailie Macfarlane come out to roam at eventide like Isaac. She had a shawl over her head after the primitive fashion common to all nations, her head veiled because of the angels. Sometimes she stumbled among the heather, not remarking whither her foot strayed. The darkling world in which those solemn hills stood up each folded in his twilight mantle, with stars about his head and a forehead wet with dew, was full of God to the inspired maiden. Her eyes were moist, like all the earth, with dew. Her mind was full, not of thought but of a quiet consciousness. The poetry that was love to Isabel was to Ailie, God. She was in His presence, His great eyes were upon her, at any moment she might hear His voice calling to her, as Adam heard it in the cool of the garden. As she strayed upon the hills alone with that great trembling, thrilling Nature which was conscious, too, of His presence, the Lord had strayed communing with His Father. He had passed the whole night there, as His servant was not able to do. He had gone down the darkling slopes and set his foot, unaware of the restrictions of nature, upon the gleaming silvery waters below as she could have done on the loch had her faith been but strong enough. ‘More faith! more faith!’ she murmured to herself as she went, ‘O Lord, increase my faith.’ Her young soul was burning within her with the cravings which Margaret Diarmid had divined; not soft submission to Him that rules Heaven and earth, but eager anticipations, restless energy, a heart full of passion. Joan of Arc might so have strayed on her southern moors; though it was from the yoke of Satan that Ailie longed to deliver her people—from wickedness, and disease, and misery. Why should not she? Had not the Lord promisedwhatsoever ye ask? Had not He granted to all eyes authentic wonders? Was His arm shortened that it could not save? or was there anything wanted but faith, more faith?
The sound of voices roused her from her abstraction, first to a sudden flush of annoyance, and then, as she perceived the two figures before her, to a warm thrill of zeal for their conversion. ‘The Lord has delivered them into my hand,’ the enthusiast said to herself. Their backs were turned to her, and their minds so much occupied that even the crackle of the heather under her foot did not betray her approach. She was close by theirside, laying a sudden hand upon the shoulder of each before they were even aware of her presence.
‘What do ye here?’ said Ailie, rising as it seemed to them like a ghost out of the darkness. The two sprang apart and gazed at the intruder, but Ailie was too much absorbed by her office to heed their looks. ‘Isabel Diarmid,’ she repeated with solemnity, ‘what do you here?’
‘I was doing nothing,’ said Isabel, startled back into self-possession: ‘I might say what were you doing coming upon folk like a ghost?’
‘If ye mean a spirit,’ said Ailie, ‘it’s like that I wish to come. What is this poor body that we should let it thrall us? If I had faith I might fly upon angel’s wings: but oh! I’m feared it was not to serve the Lord that you two came here. Na, stand apart, and let me speak. Can ye see a’ this world round about ye, and no feel that you’re immortal? Isabel, the Lord would fain have ye to be His servant—and you too, young man.’
‘Oh, Ailie, I’m no like you,’ murmured Isabel, awed out of her first self-assertion. As for Stapylton, he turned away with contemptuous impatience.
‘What does she know about it?’ he said. ‘Isabel, don’t you give in to this rubbish. Nobody has any right to intrude upon another. Tell her to mind her own business.’ This was said in a low tone. ‘Come, I’ll see you home. It is getting late,’ he said, aloud.
‘Ah!’ said Ailie, ‘it’s getting late, awfu’ late. The blackness of the night is coming on afore the awfu’ dawn. Think what it will be when you canna go home, nor find a place to hide yourself in from the brightness of His coming. Worldly wisdom would bid you join yourselves to Him now. But I’m no thinking of worldly wisdom. To stand up for Him in a dark world; to go forth like the angels, and make the way clear; to love and to bless, and to give life for death. O Isabel! O young man! I would rather that than Heaven.’
Ailie, with her young face gleaming white in the twilight, her nervous arm raised, her abstracted, humid eyes gazing into the vacant darkness, was a creature whose influence it was hard to be altogether indifferent to. Stapylton, though he was capable of laughter at this exhibition ten minutes after, was, at least, silenced for the moment. He looked at her with that curious stupidity, in which the ordinary mind loses its faculties at the sight of such incomprehensible poetic exaltation. But Isabel, already excited, gazed upon the young prophetess with the big tears still standing in her eyes, drawn by one emotion more closely within the reach of another than she had yet been.
‘I am not standing against Him! Oh, Ailie, dinnathink it! Not for the world!’ she cried, dropping those two great tears; and Nature gave a little gasp and sob within her. To go forth with God’s servants on this austere road, or to wander with her love in the primrose paths. If there was a choice to be made, could anyone doubt for a moment which would be the right choice? But Isabel felt herself so different from this inspired creature, so different even from Margaret, so much slighter, younger, more trifling, fond of praise and admiration, and amusement; not able to give her mind to it. And yet she was the same age as Margaret, and very little younger than Ailie. ‘I am not like you,’ she added, with an exquisite sense of her own imperfection, which brought other tears from those same sources. And then the feminine impulse of excuse came upon her: ‘We were meaning nothing,’ she said, hurriedly and humbly. ‘I met Mr. Stapylton here on the hill. And it’s a bonnie night. You were walking yourself, Ailie. And I’m going home. It was no harm.’
‘Oh, Isabel, ye never mind how you weary the Lord with your contradictions,’ said the prophetess. ‘I canna see your heart like Him; but do you think I canna see what’s moved ye? No the bonnie night, nor the bonnie hill, nor His presence that’s brooding ower a’ the world; but a lad that says he loves you, Isabel. There’s nae true love that’s no in Christ. If he’s true, let him come to the Lord with ye this moment, afore this blessed hour is gane. Eh, my heart’s troubled,’ she cried, suddenly raising her arms; ‘my heart’s sore for you. If he comes not now, when the Lord is holding wide the door, it’s that he’ll never come; and then there is nothing for you but tribulation and sorrow, and lamentation and woe!’
Her voice sank as suddenly as it had risen. She pressed her hands upon her eyes, with what seemed, to the terrified Isabel, the gesture of one who shuts out something terrible from her vision.
‘It is the spirit that’s upon her,’ Isabel murmured to herself, shivering. ‘Oh, Ailie, dinna lay any curse on us, that never did you harm!’
‘Curse!’ she said, so low that they could scarcely hear her. ‘It’s no for me to curse. He had no curses in His mind, and wherefore should I? It was a cloud that passed. Isabel, bring yon lad to God, bring him to God! or he’ll bring you to misery, and trouble, and pain. I am saying the truth. It’s borne in on me that he’ll bring you awfu’ trouble. But if he comes to the Lord, ye’ll break Satan’s spell.’
Stapylton had turned aside in impatience, and heard nothing of this; but now he came forward and laid his hand on Isabel’s arm.
‘Your sister will want you,’ he said, almost roughly; ‘it is getting late, and this is not the place for a prayer-meeting; let me take you home.’
‘Oh, Ailie, I must go home to my Margaret,’ said Isabel, clasping her hands. Nature was contending, with natural awe and reverence, in the girl’s mind. She did not reject the authority of the holy maid for one moment—she was ready to yield to its power; but as soon as the possibility of escape became visible to her, she seized it anxiously. ‘She’ll be waiting and watching for me; and you know how ill she is, and I must not keep her anxious,’ pleaded Isabel; ‘but I’ll think upon all you say.’
‘Aye, gang your ways, gang your ways,’ said Ailie, turning her back upon them and dismissing them with a wave of her hand. ‘Put it off to a convenient season; wait till you’re hardened in your worldly thoughts, and the Lord has shut-to the door; but dinna come then and say, Give us of your oil, for there will be nane to give in that day—nane to give! The market’s open the noo, and plenty to fill your vessels; but in that day there will be nane. Gang your ways to Margret, and tell her she’s but a faint heart, that will lie down and die, when the Lord has that need of her for His work. I’m no saying she’s not a child of God, but she has a faint heart. Gang your ways.’
‘If you knew my Margaret better, ye would never dare to speak like this,’ said Isabel, flushing into opposition. Stapylton drew her hand into his arm, and led her away.
‘Come now,’ he said, ‘come while she has turned her head. I want no more sermons for my part. Your sister is waiting, Isabel—come! this is too much for me.’
Isabel suffered herself to be led across the heather, scarcely aware, in her excitement, of the close pressure with which her lover held her hand. She was angry for Margaret’s sake. ‘Nobody understands,’ she murmured to herself. ‘Nobody knows what they’re saying. Her to be blamed that is the flower of all!’ and turned her head, notwithstanding Stapylton’s opposition, to maintain her sister’s cause against her rival. But Ailie had turned away. She was going back, moving slowly among the heather, with her head bent and her eyes cast down, dreaming after her fashion, though not dreams like those of Isabel. Ailie was thinking—with much confusion of images and vagueness of apprehension, but with the exalted glow of ascetic passion—of the love of God. Poor Isabel was trembling with all the complications, the duties, and desires going contradictory to each other which adhere to the love of man.
‘I suppose she must be mad,’ said Stapylton; ‘nothing but madness could account for it. That is what comes of prayer-meetings and such stuff. Or if she’s not mad, she’s cunning and likes the power.’
‘And how do you think you can judge?’ cried Isabel, turning upon him with the ready irritation of excitement,—‘you that know nothing of Ailie, nor of her way of living. If you were healed all in a moment and raised out of your bed, who would you believe did it but God? and could you stop to think and consider the question if you were mad or not, before you spoke. Let them judge that know!’
‘Never mind,’ said the young man, caressing the hand he held, ‘you little fury! I don’t know and I don’t care; but you never thanked me for reminding you of your sister, and freeing you from that mad creature. Now she is gone there is no hurry, Isabel. It is not late, after all.’
‘But Margaret will want me,’ said the girl. ‘No; I’ll not wait, I must go home.’
‘Only half an hour,’ he pleaded; ‘she is gone, and we have all the hill-side to ourselves.’
Isabel made no answer, but she drew her hand from his arm, and continued on her way, quickening rather than delaying her progress. He walked by her for some time, sullen and lowering. He had no comprehension of the high spirit of the girl, though he loved her. After a while he drew closer to her side, and laid his hand on her arm.
‘You must do as I said, my darling, now,’ he said, with real fervour. ‘She is going back to her meeting, and it will be all over the parish to-morrow, that you and I were courting on the hill.’
This was the drop too much that made Isabel’s cup run over. She turned upon him with eyes that flashed through her tears. ‘Do you reproach me with it?’ she cried—‘you I did it for? Oh, if I had known! But, Mr. Stapylton, it shall be the last time.’
‘Don’t turn my words against me,’ he said, ‘don’t be so peevish, so foolish, Isabel! as if it was that I meant.’
‘No, I’ll not be foolish,’ she answered, in her heat, ‘nor think shame of myself for any lad. After this ye may be sure, Mr. Stapylton, I’ll never do it again.’
And then she hastened down, increasing her speed at every step, and taking no time to think. And he went sullenly by her side, not quite sure whether he loved or hated her most in her perversity. And they parted with a curt, resentful good night at the very door of the Glebe Cottage, he being too angry and she too proud to linger over the parting. It was a partingwhich all the world might have witnessed. And Isabel returned to her quiet home, and Horace proceeded on to the village, each with the blaze of a lover’s quarrel quivering about them. Such flames are too hot and sudden to last; but nothing had yet done so much to separate them as had this unexpected meeting with Ailie on the hill.
TheManse of Lochhead was not a venerable, nor a beautiful house. It had none of the associations which sometimes cluster about an English parsonage. It had not been built above twenty years, and neither its dimensions nor its appearance were in the least manorial. But it was a comfortable square house, quite large enough for the owner’s wants and income, and important enough to represent the dignity of the minister, amid the humble roofs of the village. It was built on a slope of the braes which rose heathery and wild behind, and the prospect from its windows was as soft as if there had been no mountains within a hundred miles. The unequal combination of the great Highland range on one side, with the pastoral loch on the other, which gave a charm to the Glebe Cottage, was lost on this lower elevation.
The minister and the Dominie had dined together on the afternoon preceding an adjourned meeting of the Kirk Session, partly because it was habitual on the Saturday half-holiday, and partly to strengthen each other for the work before them. The hour of their dinner was four o’clock, which was as if you had said eight o’clock to that primitive community. When the meal was over they adjourned to the study to smoke the quiet pipe which was one of their bonds of union. The study was a small room with one window looking into a vast rose-bush, though peeps of the trim kitchen-garden were to be had on one side. You would have supposed that it would be natural for two such men to prefer the other side of the house, where the loch was visible, changing to a hundred opal tints as the shadows pursued the fleeting uncertain sunshine of its bosom. But they were very familiar with the view, and the little study at the back was the legitimate place for the pipe and the consultation.
‘I am always afraid of these violent men,’ said the minister, ‘and then they are so much in earnest. Earnestness is a fine quality, no doubt, but it’s very hard to keep it in bounds; and I cannot let things goon as they are doing. They’ll soon take the very work out of my hands. Already it is not me but Ailie that’s at the head of the parish. And you tell me you’ll give me no help?’
‘It’s against my principles,’ said the Dominie. ‘Let alone, that’s ay my rule. I’m no for meddling with the development of the mind whatever form it takes. You may say it’s a childish way to take up religion; but so far as it’s gone there’s no harm.’
‘No harm! after what I told you of that scene at the Glebe, and the reprobate turned prophet,’ said Mr. Lothian, angrily.
‘You’re very sensitive about the Glebe. If it had been any other house in the parish it would not have gone so much to your heart.’
‘Well,’ said Mr. Lothian, ‘if I am, is it not natural? Two young creatures, so strangely situated, neither ladies, so to speak, nor simple lasses, though ladies in their hearts. And then that saint there is more like Heaven than earth. You need not smile. I do not disguise my feeling for her sister. It’s a mad notion for a man of my years, but I don’t disguise it. And yet it was of Margaret I thought.’
‘By all I hear,’ said the Dominie, ‘she’ll soon be out of all risk of disturbance.’
‘You speak at your ease,’ said the minister, rising in agitation to pace about the little room. ‘When Margaret Diarmid dies it will be like the quenching of a light to me, and more than me. And how can I protect her deathbed but by putting a stop to this? Her deathbed, aye, or her very grave. Have you forgot that they go further and further every day?’
‘I heard they were raising the dead,’ said the Dominie, calmly. ‘It’s the sense o’ power that leads them away.’
‘And theyhavepower,’ said the minister, ‘that is the strangest of all. Wherever it comes from, from God or the devil, they have power in their hands. I cannot deny it—I cannot understand it. Are we to believe what we see in contradiction of every instinct, or are we to hold by reason and common sense, and the truth we understand, and give facts the lie? The thought is too much for me.’
‘And so you would put a stop to it?’ the Dominie said, with a long puff of smoke. ‘But ye’ll have discussion enough before that’s done. I’m more concerned for the two poor things at the Glebe. If Margaret dies, as she must die, what is to become of bonnie Isabel?’
The minister, though he was a man of vigorous frame, gave a momentary shiver, as if the cold had seized him, and then sat down again, and began to turn over hispapers, averting his face. ‘You know what would become of her,’ he said, ‘if I had my will.’
‘You would bring the lassie down here to be mistress and mair,’ said Galbraith. ‘I’m no blaming you, though I cannot understand it myself. You and me are more wiselike companions than her and you could ever be. If you had married in your youth, like most men, ye might have had a daughter of your own as old as she is now.’
‘I’ve said all that to myself,’ said the minister, ‘a hundred times over. But it makes no difference. And I can bear whatever may happen—but my heart craves this thing from the Lord, and no other, before I die.’
‘You’re taking up their phraseology, for all your objections to them,’ said the Dominie, with a little disdain.
‘It’s the phraseology of all that yearn,’ cried the minister. ‘Why should I not ask it of the Lord? It’s a lawful thing I crave. God do so to me and more also if I would not cherish her like Christ His Church. I am old enough to be her father, as you say; but I never loved woman till now, and that is the youth of the heart. The boy there is fond of her in his way—but what sort of a way? a fancy of the moment for her sweet face. And you’ll say it’s more natural. But I tell you, Galbraith, there is no nature in it,’ he said, once more rising in his excitement, ‘to link that creature’s pure soul to a hardened, heathen, self-seeking man of the world. I know the lad; he is near her in age, but in nothing else. She makes a God of him in her imagination; and when her eyes were opened, and she saw the loathly creature by her side, what would become of my Isabel? She would break her heart, and she would die.’
‘Her eyes might never be opened,’ said the Dominie, reflectively. ‘There’s no bounds to a woman’s power of deceiving herself. She might make a hero of him all her days, though he was but a demon to the rest of the world. And the lad is maybe not so ill as ye say.’
‘That would be worst of all—for then he would drag her down to his level, and blind her eyes to good and evil. No more,’ said the minister, with a trembling voice; ‘you mean, well, Galbraith, but you don’t know how hard all this is to bear.’
‘Maybe no—maybe no,’ was the answer; ‘but she might stay still at the Glebe for all I can see, as long as Jean Campbell is there to take care of her. Jean Campbell is a very decent woman. Margaret knows the worth of her, but no yon hasty lassie of an Isabel. As long as she is there there’s no such desperate necessity for a change.’
‘And Margaret is living, and may live,’ said Mr. Lothian, sinking back into his easy chair.
The Dominie shook his head. ‘If one life could stand for another, I would be sore tempted to give her mine,’ he said; ‘it’s so little good to a man like me. I’ve had all that life can give. Ye may say it was a niggardly portion—daily bread and little more—no comfort to speak of, nothing like what you call success—no love beyond my mother’s when I was a lad. And yet, though there’s so little, I’ll have all the trouble of old age and death at the hinder end. Poor thing, she would be very welcome to my life if there was any possibility of a transfer. But ye must put away your profane thoughts, and get out your books, for yonder is Andrew White coming down the brae.’
Half an hour after the Kirk Session had met. The minister took his place at the head of the table, and Mr. Galbraith, with his book of minutes opened before him, prepared to fulfil his office of Session clerk. ‘I give no opinion,’ he had said to the other members of the court, ‘but I’m Session clerk, and I’ll not neglect my duty.’ There was a prayer to begin with, said by the minister, while they all stood up round the table, some with wide-open eyes and restless looks, some with bowed heads and reverence. And then the Dominie read the minutes of the last meeting, and the present one was constituted.
‘To appoint the Rev. the Moderator, Mr. Andrew White, and Mr. William Diarmid to inquire into the effect of the recent movement in the parish, with power to act against all presuming and schismatical persons that may be taking authority into their own hands.’
‘I have to ask the Moderator,’ said the Dominie, ‘if he is ready to present his report.’
‘I have to make an explanation instead,’ said the minister. ‘We were not agreed. What William Diarmid and myself found to be unreasonable and bordering upon enthusiasm. Andrew approved of with all his heart. I will give you the result of my own inquiries without prejudice to other members of the court. In the first place, there are two or three women who, contrary to all the rules of the church, and to the Apostle’s order, take upon them to speak and lead the prayers of the congregation——’
‘Wi’ a’ respect to the minister,’ said Andrew White, ‘I’ve ae small remark to make. If it had been contrary to the order of the Apostles, wherefore does St. Paul speak of the prophetesses that were to have a veil upon their heads? There’s plenty of passages I could quote to that——’
‘There’s ane that’s decisive to my way o’ thinking,said William Diarmid. ‘That women are no to speak in the church.’
‘A law’s one thing,’ said Samuel of Ardintore. ‘But an institution that’s actually existing is mair to be remembered than ae mention of a rule against it, that might be nae law.’
‘We can leave that point,’ said the minister. ‘I say it is not for edification, that Ailie Macfarlane, though I have not a word to say against her, should be led away by her zeal to take up such a position in the parish. By custom and use, if by nothing else, such things are forbidden. I have not finished. I have to object further that persons holding no office in the church, neither ministers, nor licentiates, nor elders, have likewise taken a leading part, and prayed, and exhorted, and held meetings, that so far as I can see they had no authority for. If it is sanctioned by the Kirk Session, that is a different matter. But the fact is that there are meetings taking place in every quarter of the parish without the authority of the Kirk Session, or so much as a sanction either from the elders or from me.’
‘I must protest,’ Moderator, said Samuel Diarmid. ‘I cannot allow that the freedom of the subject is to be sae confined, that a man canna praise God with his neighbours without authority from the minister; that I canna allow.’
‘Ye may enter your protest,’ said the Dominie, ‘but the Moderator must say out his say.’
‘And now I come to what is most serious of all,’ said Mr. Lothian. ‘It is my opinion that these continual meetings, held by unauthorised persons, are doing harm and not good to the devout in this parish. I say nothing about the wonders that have attended the movement. These may have been delusion; but far be it from me to say that there’s been deception——’
‘There can be nae deception,’ said Andrew White, ‘in the work of the Lord.’
‘Whisht, man!’ said Samuel; ‘the question the minister puts, if no in as many words, is, If itisthe work of the Lord?’
‘For my part,’ said Mr. William, ‘I’ve no objection to meetings now and then. It’s a good way of keeping the folk alive, and keeping up their interest; and I wouldna say that Ailie Macfarlane should be put to silence. I canna think but the Spirit in her comes from above; and we a’ know that she was raised up by a miracle. I wouldna put a stop to nothing. I would only give them rules to guide them, and appoint the meetings oursels; and let none take place without the minister and an elder, or one of the neighbour ministers; or ifthat canna be, then twa elders, to see that things are done decently in order. That would be my proposition. No to let the parish go into ranting and violence; and at the same time, so far as it’s His doing, no to strive against the Lord.’
‘And are ye to dictate to the Lord what day He shall come and what day He shall bide?’ said Andrew. ‘If He gives a word of instruction to His servants, is the voice to be silenced by the Kirk Session? I’ll never give in to that. If it’s the work of man, let it come to an end; but dinna put your straw bands on the flame o’ the Spirit o’ God.’
‘That’s a’ very true,’ said Mr. Smeaton; ‘but if the word o’ the Lord was to come in the middle of the nicht, when the parish was sleeping, ye wouldna have the prophet rise up and ca’ the honest folk out of their beds? And if they can wait till the morning—or rather till the night after, for they’re a’ at night these prayer-meetings—what’s to hinder them to wait till anither day?’
‘It’s awfu’ carnal reasoning,’ said Samuel Diarmid; ‘but it’s no without meaning for them that ken no better. I wouldna object to William’s proposition mysel; but I canna answer for them that feel the word burning within them that they can bide for your set days.’
‘Your sawbaths and your new moons,’ said Andrew. ‘Na, ye might as well leemit the sun in his shining and the dew in its falling—they’ll speak in season and out of season. It was for that they were sent.’
But Mr. William’s conciliatory motion was at last carried after much more discussion. And the struggle did not break the bonds of amity which united the little assembly: Samuel Diarmid volunteered not only his advice, but a cart of guano to a certain field on the glebe, which, in his opinion, was not producing such a crop as it ought. ‘You’re no a married man yoursel, and it’s of less importance to ye,’ Samuel said, ‘but I canna bide to see land lying idle no more than men.’ And Andrew White announced the intention of the mistress to send the minister a skep of honey from the hills. ‘Ye keep nae bees yoursel, which is a pity,’ said the elder, always with that gentle touch of admonition with which the rural Scotch personage naturally addresses his clergyman. They parted in the soft gloaming, while still there was light enough to guide them on their respective ways. Mr. Smeaton, the stock farmer, had his horse waiting at John Macwhirter’s; and the others dropped in there on their homeward way to fight the battle over once more; all but Samuel and Andrew, who climbed the hill together to the mill, where the former was to take a bed for the night, his house beingat the furthest limits of the parish, on the other side of ‘the braes.’
‘Yon was grand about the minister’s sermons, to his face,’ said Mr. Smeaton, as they went over the whole discussion in the smithy.
‘Ay, man; did they gang into that subject? I’m real glad o’t,’ said John Macwhirter; ‘he’s a learned man and a clever man, but he’s as fu’ of doctrines as an egg’s fu’ of meat. He’s no half practical enough for me.’
Thus it will be seen opinions differed widely even on the primitive shores of the Loch.
Thenext day, which was Sunday, carried the news of this decision through all the parish. It was a bright morning after the rain, one of those radiant pathetic days which are so usual in the Highlands. The women came across the hill with their dresses ‘kilted’ and pinned up to preserve them from the moisture which glistened on the heather. The birch-trees hung their glistening branches out to the sun. The paths ran with the recent rain; and at the same time the sun shone brilliantly upon everything reflected from the dazzling mirror of the Loch, where not a boat or sign of life disturbed the Sabbatical repose. The gathering of the kirk-going crowd is always a pretty sight. Dissent scarcely existed in those days in such rural places. Groups came gathering along all the paths; the village emptied itself of all but an occasional housewife, or the old grannie too deaf or feeble to join the congregation. While the cracked and miserable bell tingled forth its ten minutes from the tower, the women and children poured into the church, while the men lingered in a crowd in the churchyard waiting till the tingle should be over. This was the habit of the Loch; but to-day these groups were animated by a livelier interest than usual. There was no question of crops outside among the men, nor of measles and whooping-cough among the women rustling and whispering in their pews. ‘Have ye heard the news that the meetings are stopped?’ ‘I have heard it, but I canna believe it.’ ‘I’m very thankful, for there was nae saying what they might have turned to;’ or, ‘I’m awfu’ sorry, and such good as they were doing in the parish.’ ‘But the thing is, will Ailie submit, or Mr. John?’ These were the words that were whispered from one to another as the bell jingled forth its summons to church. The two thus conjoined hadcome to be regarded universally as the leaders of the movement; they were patronised and supported by many parochial personages of weight, but in the end it was evidently they who must decide.
Mr. Lothian’s sermon, as was expected, bore some reference to the momentous crisis of affairs. With that natural perversity to which even the best of men yield like their inferiors, the minister’s sermon, instead of being as Samuel Diarmid had suggested, ‘rousing,’ was calmer than usual in its tone; and he was so bold, almost rash, all things taken into consideration, as to take his text from the strange description in the Old Testament of those prophets whom Saul joined in their wild rapture of inspiration. By a rare self-denial he refrained from absolutely quoting the words which were on the lips of all his parishioners. ‘Is Saul also among the prophets?’—but dwelt upon the wild outburst which had so little effect upon the condition of the people, and upon the sorrowful calm of Samuel to whom no such ardour of religious excitement seemed to have been given. ‘From all we can see,’ said the minister, ‘he stood and looked on, not disapproving, but well aware in his heart how little was to be expected from such bursts of enthusiasm.’ The attention in the church was absorbing. Sometimes there would be a stolen glance at Ailie, who listened like the rest with profound attention, a gleam of colour now and then flitting over her visionary face; and he was happy who could obtain from his seat a glimpse of the Ardnamore pew, with Mr. John’s dark head relieved against the high back. He sat alone, and was very conspicuous in the front of the gallery, and at any time he would have been notable among the shrewd, expressive, peasant countenances round him. Something of the finer and more subtle varieties of expression given by education and intercourse with the world, and—though he was at best but a country squire—something of the flavour of race was in the passionate, dark face, fixed upon the preacher with a defiant attention which seemed likely at any moment to burst into utterance. People said he had actually risen to sneak when Mr. Lothian hastily gave the benediction and concluded the service. There had not been so exciting a ‘diet of worship’ on the Loch in the memory of man. The congregation, as it dispersed, broke into little groups, discussing the one subject from every point of view.
‘I wonder how he daur speak, with her yonder before him like one of the saints, and sae humble for a’ her gifts.’ ‘And, eh, I wonder how a young lass could sit and listen to a’ yon from the minister and still bide steadfast in her ain way, said the gossips. ‘But I cannahaud with that way o’ finding fault with Scripture,’ said one of the fathers of the village. ‘A’ Scripture’s written for our instruction; and wha gave ony man authority to judge the auld prophets as if they were not examples every ane?’
‘It’s a fashion nowadays,’ said another. ‘I’ve heard some o’ them as hard on Jacob, honest man, as if he had been a neebor lad; and as for King Dawvid and his backslidings——’
‘Had he been a neebor lad, as ye say, he had never come within my door,’ cried Jenny Spence, ‘and seeing the Lord puts them to shame Himsel, wherefore should we set up for making them perfect? And, bless me, if ye think of a wheen naked men, tearing their claes, and ranting afore decent folk——’
‘Haud your tongue, Jenny!’ said John, ‘or speak o’ things ye understand.’
‘If I didna understand better nor you lads that never take thought of naething, it would be queer to me,’ retorted Jenny. ‘What wi’ your work, and your clavers, and Luckie Bisset ower the hill——’
‘Whisht! whisht! woman, it’s the Sawbath-day,’ said an older neighbour; and then the original subject was resumed.
Among the many church-going parties there was the habitual one from the Glebe. Jean Campbell, in her best attire, the heavy, well-preserved, but somewhat rusty weeds which became the Captain’s widow was an imposing figure. Her crape was rather brown, but it was a more perfect evidence of rank to her than silk or satin. Her fresh, comely face looked out pleasantly from the white crimped borders, and overshadowing pent-house of black, which marked her condition. Not a new-made widow on all the Loch had deeper weeds than she; though Isabel by her side in her grey gown and with her rose ribbons looked fresh as the day.
Jean had many salutations to make as they issued out of church; and pretty Isabel, who was very conscious of the little step of superiority in her position which make her notice of her rustic neighbours, ‘a compliment,’ distributed her little greetings like a princess, shyly looking out for Miss Catherine, with whom she was wont to walk home a far as the gate of Lochhead, thus separating herself from the common level on which her stepmother stood.
‘Look well at Isabel of the Glebe as you pass her; you maun make your new frock like yon,’ an anxious mother would say to her daughter. ‘They say she’s aye meeting that young Stapylton on the braes, but he daurna come near her on the Sabbath-day.’ ‘Eh, no, I’m thinking he wouldna have the face, and her waiting for MissCatherine.’ Isabel was softly conscious of the comments made upon her. When Margaret and she were children, standing together waiting for their father on the same spot ten years before, the same looks had been turned upon them; the same curious observations made on their dress and their ‘manners;’ and ‘Ye dinna see the wee ladies behaving like that,’ had been a common admonition to the unruly children around.
‘I hope you are all well,’ she said to Jenny Spence with the pretty ‘English,’ which the Loch admired, and which, to tell the truth, Isabel herself often forgot, except on those Sabbatical occasions. And Jenny felt the compliment of the salutation and the pride of the connection so profoundly that she rushed into eager tender inquiries about Margaret, overwhelming the girl with her reverential affection. While she stood, with smiling dignity, listening to Jenny Spence, another little incident occurred that increased still further her importance with the crowd. Ailie Macfarlane was not in the habit of speaking to anyone as she left the church. She would pass through them all with her little Bible folded in her hands, her eyes either cast down or gazing rapt into the air, while everybody made way for her. But when she approached Isabel on this memorable day, Ailie paused. She took one of her hands from her Bible, and suddenly laid it upon Isabel’s. It was cold; and the girl, who had not expected it, made a little start backward from the touch.
‘It’s like ice to your warm blood,’ said Ailie; ‘and so am I to you. But I’m no acting on my ain notion. Isabel Diarmid, promise me you’ll come to the prayer-meeting the morn.’
‘O Ailie, how can I promise?’ said Isabel in dismay, ‘and Margaret so ill.’
‘Dinna set that up for an excuse. I’m bidden to ask you by them that will have no excuse,’ said Ailie. ‘To her ain Master she standeth or falleth—I’m no judging Margaret. But, Isabel, I’m bidden to summon you.’
‘I cannot leave my sister,’ faltered Isabel, raising her eyes to the crowd with a mute appeal for defence.
‘You can leave her for the hill,’ said Ailie, very low; and then she added hurriedly. ‘It’s no me that speaks. There’s awfu’ trouble and sorrow in your way, and you’re but a soft feckless thing to bear it. Come to the prayer-meeting the morn.’
It was just at this moment that Miss Catherine appeare. Isabel’s eyes had been diverted for the moment away from the church, and she had not seen the approach of her friend; who laid her hand upon the girl’s shoulder as Ailie repeated her invitation.
‘Ailie Macfarlane,’ Miss Catherine said, while Isabel started nervously at the unexpected touch. ‘You are not to bid her to your meetings; she is too young, and she is my kinswoman, and I cannot let her go.’
‘If she was the queen’s kinswoman I would bid her,’ said Ailie. ‘What are your ranks and degrees to the Spirit of the Lord? I’m offering her far more than you can offer her, though you’re a lady and me but a simple lass. Now that persecution has come upon us, as was to be looked for, it canna be but the Spirit will be poured out double. It’s out of love to Isabel I ask her, that she may taste the first-fruits and be kent for ane of the chosen. Who are you that would stand between the Lord and His handmaid? I’m freed from earthly bonds this day. Isabel, I’ll say nae mair to ye; but tell Margaret I bid her arise and meet me—for the corn is whitening to the harvest; and come yoursel.’
When she had said these words she passed on with the same rapt look as before, speaking to no one, seeing no one. The people round had gathered close to hear what she said, and dispersed slowly out of her path as she turned, making way for her reluctantly, and full of curiosity. Some of the women even plucked at her dress as she passed. ‘Eh, Ailie! speak one word. Will’t bring judgment on the parish?’ said one anxious voice. But Ailie made no reply. She glided away from them, with that directness and silent speed of motion which gives a certain spiritual and ghostly air to the very movements of the abstracted and impassioned.
Isabel had forgotten her simple vanity. She stood trembling, with tears in her eyes, by Miss Catherine’s side, not even capable of pride in being thus adopted as the special charge of the great lady of the parish.
‘She says I’m coming to grief and trouble,’ sobbed poor Isabel. ‘Oh, is it my Margaret she means?’
‘Hush!’ said Miss Catherine drawing Isabel’s hand through her own; ‘you must not cry before all these folk. Come and tell me all that ails you. Is Margaret worse that you tremble so? and what can that poor thing know about it more than you or me? Can she know as well as Margaret herself?’
‘But if it was true that she had the Spirit?’ faltered Isabel through her tears. ‘And oh, Miss Catherine, it goes to my heart what she aye says—if Margaret had but faith!’
‘Margaret has all the faith a Christian woman wants—be you sure of that,’ said Miss Catherine, with impatience; ‘and I wish the minister had taken order sooner to put a stop to all this. But, Isabel, there might be worse things in your way than the grief we all share. My dear, Ihave been wanting long to speak to you. Put Ailie and her raving put of your mind, and come cannily up to Lochhead with me.’
‘Margaret will want me,’ said Isabel, awakening suddenly to a sense that admonitions of another kind were hanging over her.
‘I’ll not keep you long,’ said Miss Catherine, ‘and Jean shall say where you are. Good-day, Mrs. Diarmid. I am taking Isabel with me to have a talk. Give Margaret my love, and I’ll walk up to see her this afternoon and bring her sister back. There’s no change?’
‘I canna say there’s ony change, Miss Catherine,’ said Jean, divided between the melancholy meaning of what she said and the glory of this address; for even Miss Catherine, punctilious as she was in giving honour where honour was due, seldom addressed her by the dignified title of Mrs. Diarmid; ‘but she’s aye wearing away, and weaker every day.’
‘The Lord help us, there’s nothing else to be looked for,’ said Miss Catherine, sadly. And Isabel, who had regained her composure to some extent, fell weeping once more, silently leaning on her friend’s arm. There was nothing more said till they descended the brae, and made their way through the village. The Loch had never been trained to the custom of curtseying to the lady of the manor. The groups stood aside with kindly looks to let her pass, and here and there a man better bred than usual took off his hat, but the salutations in general were rather nods of friendly greeting and smiles that broadened the honest rural faces than more reverential servilities. ‘How are all at home, John?’ Miss Catherine said, in her peremptory way as she passed. ‘How is all with ye, Janet?’ And then there was a needful pause, and the story of the children’s recovery from some childish epidemic would be told, or of the letter from ‘the lads’ in Canada, or of family distress and anxiety. When they were quite free of these interruptions, which had once more the effect of bringing composure to Isabel, whose April tears dried quickly, and whose heart could not be coerced out of hope, Miss Catherine turned to the special charge she had taken upon her.
‘My dear,’ she said, ‘I am going to be a cruel friend. I have made up in my mind all manner of hard things to say to you, Isabel. You are not to take them ill from me. We’re kindred far removed, but yet there’s one drop’s blood between you and me, and I know nobody on the Loch that wishes you well more warmly. Will you let me speak as if I were your mother? Had she been living it would have been her place.’
‘Miss Catherine,’ said Isabel, with a thrill of nervous impatience, a sudden heat flushing to her face, ‘how can you ask it? Ye have always said whatever you liked to me.’
‘And you think I’ve sometimes been hard upon you?’ said Miss Catherine. ‘Well, we’ll not argue. Your mother was younger than me, Isabel, and she had no near friends any more than you. If she had had a father or a brother to take care of her, she never would have married Duncan Diarmid. I am meaning no offence to the Captain. He did very well for himself, and a man that makes his way is always to be respected; but he was a different man from what your mother thought when she married him, and her life was short, and far from happy. She was a sweet, wilful tender, hot-tempered thing, just like you.’
‘Eh, I’m no wilful!’ said Isabel, thrilling in every vein with the determination to resist all advice that could be given to her. They were almost alone on the green glistening road which wound round the head of the Loch, and the water rippled up upon the pebbles, and flashed like a great mirror in the sunshine. The girl’s heart rose with the exhilaration of the brightness.
‘Your mother would take no advice,’ said Miss Catherine, ‘and she died at five-and-twenty, and left you, two poor babies, without a mother to guide you in the world.’
‘But, oh, it was not her fault she died,’ cried Isabel. ‘Folk die that are happy too.’
‘I’ll tell you what it was,’ said Miss Catherine; ‘not to put you against your father. He never pretended to more than he was. Duncan was aye honest, whatever else. But your mother saw qualities in him that no mortal could see. And when the hasty thing saw her idol broken, her heart broke too; and you’re like her—too like, Isabel.’
‘For one thing at least, I’m wronging nobody; and why should you say all this to me?’ cried the girl all flushed and resentful, and yet struggling with her tears.
‘How can I tell what you might be tempted to do? Margaret Diarmid—that’s your mother—gave me her word she would take time and think, and the very next Sabbath she was cried in the kirk! Isabel, I said I would be cruel. Do you know, do you ever think, what’s coming upon you, bairn?’
Isabel made no answer—her resentment could not stand against this solemnity of tone. She raised her eyes to Miss Catherine as one who awaits the sentence of fate.
‘While you are running about, out and in, like abutterfly or a bird, and singing your songs, and working at your seam, and meeting strange folk upon the braes’—said Miss Catherine with emphasis. ‘I am not blaming you, even for the last. But all this time there’s coming a day when you will be left alone in the world, Isabel. Your bit cottage will still be yours—so to speak a home; but a home that’s empty and desolate, what is that? And none to lean on, none to advise you, none to be your guide—silence in the chambers, and cold on the hearth; and you no better than a bairn, used from your cradle to lean on her and turn to her: what will you do when you are alone in the world?’
‘Oh, my Margaret!’ cried Isabel, drawing her hand from Catherine’s arm and bursting into a passion of tears. They were within the gate at Lochhead, and there was no one by to see the girl’s weeping, which was beyond control. She had been told of it again and again, and realised it to some degree, but never until now had brought her imagination to bear on the life that remained for herself after her sister was gone. Miss Catherine was softened by the violence of her emotion. She took Isabel into her arms and let fall a tear or two out of her old eyes, to mingle with those scorching drops that came wrung out of the other’s very heart.
‘Oh, you are cruel, cruel,’ cried Isabel, struggling out of her embrace; ‘I will die too! I canna bear it; I canna bear it! It is more than I can bear.’
Then Miss Catherine led her, blind with her tears, to a grassy seat hid among the trees, and sat down by her and did her best to administer comfort. ‘Isabel, you know well it must be so,’ she said at length, with some severity. ‘It cannot be that you have found it out for the first time to-day.’
‘Oh, do not speak to me,’ cried Isabel; ‘how can ye dare to say it is to be, when God could raise her up in a moment like Ailie? And there was Mary Diarmid down the Loch that was—dying—that’s what they said—and even she got the turn. Oh, do not speak to me, God is not cruel as you say.’
All these reproaches Miss Catherine bore, sitting compassionately by her victim until the force of her passion was spent; and when Isabel, faint and exhausted, like a creature in a dream, could resist no longer, she resumed where she had left off.
‘My dear, I am thinking what is to become of you when this comes to pass—and so does Margaret. Bless her, she thinks of you night and day; and many a talk we have about you, Isabel, when you’re little thinkingof us. There is one good man in the parish that loves you well——’
‘I want no love,’ answered the girl, almost sullenly. ‘Oh, Miss Catherine, don’t speak like this to me.’
‘But I am speaking for Margaret’s sake. There is one that would be a comfort and strength and blessing to any woman. And there is the other lad. Isabel! your father was rough and wild, and not a match for my kinswoman Margaret Diarmid; but he had always a heart. This lad has little heart. If you but heard how he can speak of them you hold most dear——’
‘Miss Catherine,’ said Isabel, with a voice of despair, starting to her feet, ‘I will run home to Margaret; I can bear no more.’
Theprayer-meeting on Monday evening was the most exciting ‘occasion’ that had been known on the Loch for years. At this the decision of the prophets would be made known, as the decision of the Kirk Session had already been. It was moonlight, that great necessity of all rural evening gatherings; and from all the corners of the parish came curious hearers eager to know what was the next step to be taken. Mr. William’s wife from Wallacebrae was even one of the audience, undeterred by her husband’s objections. ‘How can I say I’m against them, and my ain wife led away to hear?’ he said. ‘Hoot away! No to hear them, but to see what they will do,’ said Mrs. Diarmid; ‘am I to be led away?’
And Isabel, who had begun to place a certain vague hope in Ailie, after the struggle she had gone through the day before, had made up her mind to obey the injunction so strongly laid upon her, and to go also. ‘I would like to hear what they say, and what they are going to do,’ she said to her sister, in almost the same words which the mistress at Wallacebrae had given as her excuse, owning no sympathy with the enthusiasts, but simple curiosity.
‘But you must not go to hear the Word of God as if it were a play,’ said Margaret, ‘it is always the word of God whoever speaks it. If you are but going out of curiosity, Isabel, it would be better to bide with me.’
‘I would rather stay with you than do anything else in the world; if you would but stay with me,’ said Isabel, with wistful looks, ‘and try, maybe, what Ailie said?’
‘Ye vex me,’ said the dying girl. But the tone was so soft that it could scarcely be called a reproach. And yet Margaret felt that to remain with her in the unbroken quiet of the long evening was more than Isabel could nowbear. There were the braes with all their wistful delights to tempt her forth, and her own unquiet, restless heart, tortured by doubt and grief, and distracting gleams of the future; and there was perhaps the lover whom in her heart she yearned for and yet had begun to flee.
‘Sheis going,’ Isabel said again, after a pause, ‘and you are always so kind, you say ye want for nothing, Margaret. It is not for curiosity. They told me I was warned by name. No, I am not going away after them; I was thinking of different things.’
‘Ever of that miracle?’ said Margaret, with a faint smile, ‘which will never come. If it was not for you, Isabel, it would be a miracle to me to be away. But we will no speak of that; leave little Mary with me if you will go—not that I want anybody, I am real well to-night, and no breathless to speak of; but it’s ill for the bairn.’
‘Oh, Margaret! I feel whiles as if you thought more of that bairn than of your own sister!’ said Isabel, with all the hot jealousy of a heart which felt itself divided and guilty.
‘Sheismy sister,’ said Margaret, softly; ‘but nobody could ever be like my Bell; it would be strange if you needed to be told that now.’
And then the impatient, impetuous girl wept and upbraided herself. ‘Oh, I am not myself, I am not myself!’ she said; ‘I’m all wrong; it’s as if I could not submit to God.’
‘My bonnie Bell!’ said Margaret, wistfully, gazing at the perplexing creature, whom she could not understand, and laying her hand upon the bowed-down head. A little sigh of weariness mingled with her perplexity. She had come to that point when peace is demanded by worn-out nature; and those tumults were too much for her. ‘Put on something warm,’ she said, ‘and tellhershe is not to go too far in; but be home soon and let me hear what’s passed. If Ailie speaks to you, tell her I’m real well and content.’
‘Will I tell her you are better? Oh, will I say you’re mending, Margaret?’
‘Ye cannot think how you vex me,’ said poor Margaret, sighing, ‘you more than all. Why should I mend? I am far on my journey now, and why should I come back just to tread all the weary way over again another time? Tell Ailie I’m winning home. The road is uphill, and maybe the last bit is the steepest; but I am real content. If you will not say that, say nothing, Isabel. And if you are going, it is time for you to go.’
‘But I’ll go and leave you angry, Margaret,’ cried Isabel; ‘angry and vexed at me?’
‘No, no; no angry,’ said Margaret, wearily. Thehectic spot had come into her cheek. She laid her head back on the cushions with again a weary sigh. What wonder if she longed for the end—she to whom life had no longer anything to give? She closed her eyes for a moment, and Isabel, feeling more guilty than ever, stole away to warn her stepmother, and to tie on her cottage bonnet and great grey cloak. ‘You’ll watch Margaret that she wants nothing; but you’ll not speak to her to wear her out,’ she said to little Mary, ever jealous of her sister’s love.
The schoolhouse was all dark when the crowd reached it. Instead of the usual preparation for them the door was locked, and the Dominie stood on the step, looking down upon the dark groups as they began to arrive and gather round, with the patience of the rural mind. ‘The door’s no open yet.’ ‘The lights are no lightet.’ ‘I tell’t ye, for a’ your grumbling, we would be here soon enough.’ ‘It’s no often Ailie’s late.’ ‘And what’s the Dominie waiting there like a muckle ghost,’ murmured the crowd.
Mr. Galbraith, to tell the truth, was in no desirable position. He had the key in his hand, but that could not be seen; and he was charged with the dangerous mission of temporising, and commissioned to coax the multitude out of their excitement, and persuade them to go quietly home. If he did not succeed, there was always the key to fall back upon. ‘In the last place, if better is not to be made of it, I’ll let them have their will,’ he had said. Of all offices in the world the least satisfactory. Already he had begun to see that it was a mistake, but it was now too late to withdraw. ‘They should have found a’ dark and been treated to no explanations,’ he said to himself, as he stood with his back against the door and gazed on them. A mob is not an easy thing to deal with in any circumstances; and a religious mob, spurred up to the highest point of spiritual excitement, is the most dangerous of all. Had it not been for the large leaven of mere curiosity which kept down the pitch of agitation, things might have gone badly for the Dominie. He cleared his throat a great many times before he screwed himself to the point of addressing them. The prophets themselves had not yet appeared, and if it might be possible to dismiss the people before the arrival of their leaders, a great point would be gained. Spurred by this thought he at last broke the silence.
‘My friends,’ said the Dominie; and there was an immediate hush of the scraping feet, and the coughs and whispers of impatience. The moon had gone in and all was dark, so that he could distinguish none of the facesturned to him, and felt, as few orators can do, the sense of that vague abstraction, a crowd unbroken by the glance of any exceptional sympathetic face. ‘My friends, I’m here to say a word to you from the Kirk Session. Those that are put over ye in the Lord have taken much thought and counsel together to see what’s best to be done. I am reflecting upon nobody. It’s not my place to tell you who you are to hear, or when you are to forbear. But I appeal to those that are heads of families if there have not been too many of these meetings? The human mind is not equal to such a strain. I’ve studied it all my life, and ye may believe me when I speak. There must be a Sabbath for the body, and the mind’s mair delicate than the body. But any night, every night, have ye no assembled here, to listen to the most agitating addresses, given, I do not gainsay, with what is more touching than oratory, with the whole conviction of the soul. My friends, ye have but a delicate machine to manage. Your minds are no like your ploughs that are simple things to guide. They’re like the new-fangled steam-engines, full of delicate bits of wheels, and cranks, and corners——’
At this moment a figure glided up to him out of the crowd. The Dominie divined at once whose were those swift and noiseless steps, and felt that his oratory and his object were defeated. She came and placed herself beside him holding up her hand, and at that moment the moon burst forth and shone full upon Ailie’s face, which in that light was white as marble, with the full large lambent eyes, almost projected from it, looking out upon the eager spectators.
‘Come na here with your carnal wisdom,’ said Ailie, putting up her hand as if to stop him. ‘Oh come na here! What’s learning, and knowledge, and a’ your science afore the fear of the Lord? And how dare ye stop His servants from constant prayer to Him, and saving souls? Will ye quench the Spirit, O man, with your vain words? Think ye we’re sae little in earnest that we want biggit walls to shelter us, or your fine candles to give us light? The Lord is our light,’ cried the prophetess, stretching out her hand towards the moon that shone full upon her. And there was a rustle and stir in the crowd which told the instant response of the audience.
The Dominie’s own feelings were not beyond the reach of such an apostrophe. He moved uneasily from one foot to another, and began to fumble in his coat-pocket for the key, the last concession which he was prepared to make.
‘I am saying nothing against that, my good lass,’ hesaid; ‘not a word am I saying, but that for you and the like of you there’s too much of this; and that’s the Kirk Session’s opinion. You shall have plenty of opportunity—plenty of occasion, but, my dear, for the sake of your own life, and for all the rest of them, not every night——’
‘Friends,’ said another voice suddenly from another quarter, ‘it is nothing wonderful if persecution has come upon us. I have expected it from the first. The hand of this world is against the servants of God, and ever will be. We are driven forth like our forefathers to the hill-side. The Church has shut to her doors against us. I told you it would be so. I told you a lukewarm, unawakened Church would never bear that within her bosom that was a reproach to her. And what of that?’ the speaker went on with growing excitement, ‘there is God’s word that they cannot drive us out of, and God’s lights that He has set for us in the heavens, and His ear that is ever open, and His hand that is ready to save. On your knees, my brethren! What hinders that we should pray to Him here?’
Then there arose a murmur among the crowd: ‘It’s Mr. John!’ ‘Eh, it’s the days of the persecution come back.’ ‘We’ll no thole’t.’ ‘Who’s the minister or the Kirk Session either to stand up against the Christian people?’ ‘And quench the Spirit?’ cried a voice above the rest; ‘do they mind that’s the unpardonable sin?’
Mr. Galbraith made vain efforts to speak; the murmurs rose higher and higher, and began at last to direct themselves to him. ‘Is the like of that weirdless Dominie to stand against ye a’, feeble loons?’ cried a woman. ‘Wha’s he that he should daur to stand against us?’ ‘Let me at him!’ ‘Eh, lads, canny, canny, he’s an auld man.’ Such were the cries of indignation and alarm that rose in the stillness. The remnant of people who had been left in the village came rushing forth to see what was the matter. Mr. Lothian was at the other end of the parish, but young Stapylton, who had just returned from a fruitless ramble on the braes, came lounging to the Manse gate. The moon went suddenly behind a cloud, leaving all that darkling mass confused and struggling. Then it was that the Dominie made himself heard. ‘Lads,’ he shouted, his voice reaching the entire crowd though he was himself unseen, ‘I’ve trained ye, and I’m reaping the credit. If it was for your sakes ye might tear the auld man in pieces before you should have your will. Dinna think ye can frighten me. If I give the key to Ailie, it is for the women’s sake; and the bairns. Women, are ye mad that ye bring bairns here?’
‘It’s because their souls are mair precious to us than a’ the world,’ cried some mother in the crowd. ‘It’s little enough you teach them,’ cried another. ‘Where would they hear the Gospel if no in the meetings?’ ‘No in the kirk, wi’ a moderate minister and his moral essays.’ ‘And now when we’ve found the Word of God ye would drive us to the hill-side to seek it.’ ‘They would drive us into the Loch if they had their will,’ cried the crowd.
Isabel Diarmid, with all her sensibilities in arms, humiliated to the dust, indignant, terrified, stood trembling in the midst of this seething, agitated mass, thrust about by its sudden movements, ready to cry or to faint, feeling her self-respect for ever lost, no better than ‘a common lass’ among the crowd. She felt herself drawn along by the movement of the people round her rushing in one body for the door, which, with much noise of the key in the keyhole, had at length been opened. Clinging to her stepmother, vainly resisting, overwhelmed with shame, she felt herself swept out of the fresh air into the dark schoolroom no longer an individual with a will of her own, but a helpless portion of the crowd. When the first pioneers succeeded in lighting one miserable candle to throw a glimmer over the scene, its feeble rays gave no one any assistance, but only cast a wretched twinkle of revelation, showing the struggle—the benches pushed aside by the blind, uncertain crowd; the throng pouring in darkling through the black doorway. By degrees a few other feeble twinkles began to glitter about the room, and the people subsided into seats, with much commotion and struggling.
The strange gloom, the flicker of the candles, the eager look of all those faces turned towards the Dominie’s table, at which stood Mr. John; the thrill of excitement and expectation among them, overcame Isabel’s susceptible nature. All her shame disappeared before the extraordinary fire of popular emotion which she had suddenly caught. If she could be said to have hated any man in the world, Mr. John would have been the man. And yet she sat and gazed at him as if he had been an angel of fate.
‘It’s come at last,’ he said; ‘my brothers, I’ve been looking for it long. None can live godly in Christ Jesus but suffer persecutions. And Satan has found his instruments. Two nights had not gone from your first meeting in this place when the Lord showed me how it would be. But are we to give up our sacred standard because the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing—aye, a vain thing! As well might they bind the Loch that the flood should not come up. Has not theSpirit of the Lord come like a flood upon this parish; and they try to stop Him with a key turned in the lock and a shut door! But the Lord has opened us a door, great and effectual. Praise Him, my friends, that He has given us the victory. The horse and his rider has He overthrown in the sea——’
‘But this is awfu’ irregular,’ cried another personage, who rose suddenly out of the darkness, and was discovered after a time to be Samuel Diarmid the elder. He came out of the front row, which was merely a range of dark heads to the people behind, and stepped before the prophet with a small Bible in his hand. ‘My friends,’ he said, ‘though Mr. Galbraith took upon him to shut ye out o’ this public place belonging to the parish, I am here in my capacity as an elder o’ this parish to preside among ye. I hope there’s none here will dispute my right. We’ll open the meeting in the usual way by singing to the praise of God in the Psalms; and after the meeting’s lawfully constituted, ye shall hear whatever word the Lord’s servant may have to say.’
At this announcement, there arose a sudden rustle and resolute thumbing of the Psalms, which were attached to everybody’s Bible. The audience found the place conscientiously, though only a few could by any possibility see the page. Samuel himself led the singing, standing with his book in his hand, and his figure swaying to and forward with the cadence of the ‘tune;’ and seated in darkling rows, with their books held in every possible slope to reach the light, the audience lifted up their voices and sang one of those strange measures at which musicians stand aghast. Isabel sang it with all her heart. No criticism occurred to her. Her ear was not shocked by the false notes, the curious growls and creaks of utterance around her.
And then she closed her little Testament, and stood up, covering her face with her hands for the prayer. It was the prayer of a man having authority which Samuel Diarmid poured forth; and in that darkness through which no man could make out his neighbour’s face, the crowd stood and listened. His prayer was a kind of liturgy in itself. He prayed for her Sacred Majesty, as is the custom in Scotland, and for the Government and magistrates, and every class of men who could be put together in a general supplication. There was something half-comic, half-solemn in his formality; but it did not strike his audience as anything peculiar. They drew a long breath when it was ended, with conscious but unexpressed relief.