‘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 they have power,’ 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 his papers, 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