THE NORTH CHURCH.
It was a cold night in March, cloudy and blowing. Every human body was
turned into a fortress for bare defence of life. There was no snow on
the ground, but it seemed as if there must be snow everywhere else.
There was snow in the clouds overhead, and there was snow in the mind
of man beneath. The very air felt like the quarry out of which the snow
had been dug which was being ground above. The wind felt black, the
sky was black, and the lamps were blowing about as if they wanted to
escape, for the darkness was after them. It was the Sunday following
the induction of Fergus, and this was the meteoric condition through
which Donal and Gibbie passed on their way to the North church, to hear
him preach in the pulpit that was now his own.
The people had been gathering since long before the hour, and the
youths could find only standing room near the door. Cold as was the
weather, and keen as blew the wind into the church every time a door
was opened, the instant it was shut again it was warm, for the place
was crowded from the very height of the great steep-sloping galleries,
at the back of which the people were standing on the window sills,
down to the double swing-doors, which were constantly cracking open
as if the house was literally too full to hold the congregation. The
aisles also were crowded with people standing, all eager yet solemn,
with granite faces and live eyes. One who did not know better might
well have imagined them gathered in hunger after good tidings from
the kingdom of truth and hope, whereby they might hasten the coming
of that kingdom in their souls and the souls they loved. But it was
hardly that; it was indeed a long way from it, and no such thing: the
eagerness was, in the mass, doubtless with exceptions, to hear the new
preacher, the pyrotechnist of human logic and eloquence, who was about
to burn his halfpenny blue lights over the abyss of truth, and throw
his yelping crackers into it.
The eyes of the young men went wandering over the crowd, looking for
any of their few acquaintances, but below they mostly fell of course on
the backs of heads. There was, however, no mistaking either Ginevra’s
bonnet or the occiput perched like a capital on the long neck of her
father. They sat a good way in front, about the middle of the great
church. At the sight of them Gibbie’s face brightened, Donal’s turned
pale as death. For, only the last week but one, he had heard of the
frequent visits of the young preacher to the cottage, and of the favour
in which he was held by both father and daughter; and his state of mind
since, had not, with all his philosophy to rectify and support it, been
an enviable one. That he could not for a moment regard himself as a fit
husband for the lady-lass, or dream of exposing himself or her to the
insult which the offer of himself as a son-in-law would bring on them
both from the laird, was not a reflection to render the thought of such
a bag of wind as Fergus Duff marrying her, one whit the less horribly
unendurable. Had the laird been in the same social position as before,
Donal would have had no fear of his accepting Fergus; but misfortune
alters many relations. Fergus’s father was a man of considerable
property, Fergus himself almost a man of influence, and already in
possession of a comfortable income: it was possible to imagine that the
impoverished Thomas Galbraith, late of Glashruach, Esq., might contrive
to swallow what annoyance there could not but in any case be in wedding
his daughter to the son of John Duff, late his own tenant of the Mains.
Altogether Donal’s thoughts were not of the kind to put him in fit
mood--I do not say to gather benefit from the prophesying of Fergus,
but to give fair play to the peddler who now rose to display his loaded
calico and beggarly shoddy over the book-board of the pulpit. But the
congregation listened rapt. I dare not say there was no divine reality
concerned in his utterance, for Gibbie saw many a glimmer through the
rents in his logic and the thin-worn patches of his philosophy; but
it was not such glimmers that fettered the regards of the audience,
but the noisy flow and false eloquence of the preacher. In proportion
to the falsehood in us are we exposed to the falsehood in others. The
false plays upon the false without discord; comes to the false, and is
welcomed as the true; there is no jar, for the false to the false look
the true; darkness takes darkness for light, and great is the darkness.
I will not attempt an account of the sermon; even admirably rendered,
it would be worthless as the best of copies of a bad wall-paper. There
was in it, to be sure, such a glowing description of the city of God
as might have served to attract thither all the diamond-merchants of
Amsterdam; but why a Christian should care to go to such a place, let
him tell who knows; while, on the other hand, the audience appeared
equally interested in his equiponderating description of the place of
misery. Not once did he even attempt to give, or indeed could have
given, the feeblest idea, to a single soul present, of the one terror
of the universe--the peril of being cast from the arms of essential
Love and Life into the bosom of living Death. For this teacher of men
knew nothing whatever but by hearsay, had not in himself experienced
one of the joys or one of the horrors he endeavoured to embody.
Gibbie was not at home listening to such a sermon; he was distressed,
and said afterwards to Donal he would far rather be subjected to Mr.
Sclater’s _isms_ than Fergus’s _ations_. It caused him pain too to see
Donal look so scornful, so contemptuous even; while it added to Donal’s
unrest, and swelled his evil mood, to see Mr. Galbraith absorbed. For
Ginevra’s bonnet, it did not once move--but then it was not set at an
angle to indicate either eyes upturned in listening, or cast down in
emotion. Donal would have sacrificed not a few songs, the only wealth
he possessed, for one peep round the corner of that bonnet. He had
become painfully aware, that, much as he had seen of Ginevra, he knew
scarcely anything of her thoughts; he had always talked so much more
to her than she to him, that now, when he longed to know, he could
not even guess what she might be thinking, or what effect such “an
arrangement” of red and yellow would have upon her imagination and
judgment. She could not think or receive what was not true, he felt
sure, but she might easily enough attribute truth where it did not
exist.
At length the rockets, Roman candles, and squibs were all burnt out,
the would-be “eternal blazon” was over, and the preacher sunk back
exhausted in his seat. The people sang; a prayer, fit pendent to such
a sermon, followed, and the congregation was dismissed--it could not
be with much additional strength to meet the sorrows, temptations,
sophisms, commonplaces, disappointments, dulnesses, stupidities, and
general devilries of the week, although not a few paid the preacher
welcome compliments on his “gran’ discoorse.”
The young men were out among the first, and going round to another
door, in the church-yard, by which they judged Ginevra and her father
must issue, there stood waiting. The night was utterly changed. The
wind had gone about, and the vapours were high in heaven, broken all
into cloud-masses of sombre grandeur. Now from behind, now upon their
sides, they were made glorious by the full moon, while through their
rents appeared the sky and the ever marvellous stars. Gibbie’s eyes
went climbing up the spire that shot skyward over their heads. Around
its point the clouds and the moon seemed to gather, grouping themselves
in grand carelessness; and he thought of the Son of Man coming in the
clouds of heaven; to us mere heaps of watery vapour, ever ready to
fall, drowning the earth in rain, or burying it in snow; to angel-feet
they might be solid masses whereon to tread attendant upon him, who,
although with his word he ruled winds and seas, loved to be waited
on by the multitude of his own! He was yet gazing, forgetful of the
human tide about him, watching the glory dominant over storm, when
his companion pinched his arm: he looked, and was aware that Fergus,
muffled to the eyes, was standing beside them. He seemed not to see
them, and they were nowise inclined to attract his attention, but gazed
motionless on the church door, an unsealed fountain of souls. What a
curious thing it is to watch an issuing crowd of faces for one loved
one--all so unattractive, provoking, blamable, as they come rolling
round corners, dividing, and flowing away--not one of them the right
one! But at last out she did come--Ginevra, like a daisy among mown
grass! It was really she!--but with her father. She saw Donal, glanced
from him to Gibbie, cast down her sweet eyes, and made no sign. Fergus
had already advanced and addressed the laird.
“Ah, Mr. Duff!” said Mr. Galbraith; “excuse me, but would you oblige me
by giving your arm to my daughter? I see a friend waiting to speak to
me. I shall overtake you in a moment.”
Fergus murmured his pleasure, and Ginevra and he moved away together.
The youths for a moment watched the father. He dawdled--evidently
wanted to speak to no one. They then followed the two, walking some
yards behind them. Every other moment Fergus would bend his head
towards Ginevra; once or twice they saw the little bonnet turn upwards
in response or question. Poor Donal was burning with lawless and
foolish indignation: why should the minister muffle himself up like
an old woman in the crowd, and take off the great handkerchief when
talking with the lady? When the youths reached the street where the
cottage stood, they turned the corner after them, and walked quickly up
to them where they stood at the gate waiting for it to be opened.
“Sic a gran’ nicht!” said Donal, after the usual greetings. “Sir Gibbie
an’ me ’s haein’ a dauner wi’ the mune. Ye wad think she had licht
eneuch to haud the cloods aff o’ her, wad ye no, mem? But na! they’ll
be upon her, an’ I’m feart there’s ae unco black ane yon’er--dinna ye
see ’t--wi’ a straik o’ white, aboot the thrapple o’ ’t?--There--dinna
ye see ’t?” he went on pointing to the clouds about the moon, “--that
ane, I’m doobtin’, ’ill hae the better o’ her or lang--tak her intil
’ts airms, an’ bray a’ the licht oot o’ her. Guid nicht, mem.--Guid
nicht, Fergus. You ministers sudna mak yersels sae like cloods. Ye
sud be cled in white an’ gowd, an’ a’ colours o’ stanes, like the new
Jerooslem ye tell sic tales aboot, an’ syne naebody wad mistak the news
ye bring.”
Therewith Donal walked on, doubtless for the moment a little relieved.
But before they had walked far, he broke down altogether.
“Gibbie,” he said, “yon rascal’s gauin’ to merry the leddy-lass! an’
it drives me mad to think it. Gien I cud but ance see an’ speyk till
her--ance--jist ance! Lord! what ’ll come o’ a’ the gowans upo’ the
Mains, an’ the heather upo’ Glashgar!”
He burst out crying, but instantly dashed away his tears with
indignation at his weakness.
“I maun dree my weird,” (_undergo my doom_), he said, and said no more.
Gibbie’s face had grown white in the moon-gleams, and his lips
trembled. He put his arm through Donal’s and clung to him, and in
silence they went home. When they reached Donal’s room, Donal entering
shut the door behind him and shut out Gibbie. He stood for a moment
like one dazed, then suddenly coming to himself, turned away, left the
house, and ran straight to Daur-street.
When the minister’s door was opened to him, he went to that of the
dining-room, knowing Mr. and Mrs. Sclater would then be at supper.
Happily for his intent, the minister was at the moment having his
tumbler of toddy after the labours of the day, an indulgence which,
so long as Gibbie was in the house, he had, ever since that first
dinner-party, taken in private, out of regard, as he pretended to
himself, for the boy’s painful associations with it, but in reality,
to his credit be it told if it may, from a little shame of the thing
itself; and his wife therefore, when she saw Gibbie, rose, and, meeting
him, took him with her to her own little sitting-room, where they had a
long talk, of which the result appeared the next night in a note from
Mrs. Sclater to Gibbie, asking him and Donal to spend the evening of
Tuesday with her.