_A FIELD PREACHING_.
Sunday in summertime among the hills is not like other days of the
week, and it is not like the Sundays given to less favoured scenes. It
is free from the smothering sense of restraints experienced in cities,
shut up as it were for the day, with their inhabitants paraded through
the streets in solemn raiment returning home to depressing lunches and
drowsy afternoons. It seems rather to foreshadow that bright eternal
Sabbath we looked forward to in childhood, ere faith grew dim-sighted
or criticism had been heard of,--that day when every act shall be
spontaneously holy, and each sacred observance a delight. The glorious
sunshine, the bright breezy sky streaked and dappled with shining
white clouds, the crimson moors and the all-pervading scent of the
heather, the hum of bees and the chirp of grasshoppers in the herbage,
a silence that is musical with faint and distant sounds, burns
babbling in the hollows, lambs bleating on the braes, all speak to the
spirit of perfect peace and freedom and holy gladness.
The Sangster family preferred walking to church that morning. It was a
long walk, but they set forth in good time and the phaeton would bring
them home. It was with some misgiving lest she was yielding to the
allurements of sense, that Mrs. Sangster consented to gratify this
desire of the young people, but prudential considerations seemed to
recommend the arrangement. Sophia could have no better opportunity for
free and friendly talk with Mr. Wallowby, and Peter could walk with
Mary Brown. Mary had two or three thousand pounds, and was a 'nice
girl,' and should his lordship Peter, so incline, would not be an
unsuitable connection. Peter's private idea was not unlike his
mother's, indeed their views in secular matters were wonderfully
alike, and each could count on the support of the other without the
unpleasant feeling of conspiracy, which comes of putting schemes into
words, when they are apt to confront one so strangely and stare one
out of countenance. He was therefore the earliest in the hall and
stood hatted and gloved, ready to step forward so soon as his intended
companion should issue from her room.
'What brings that fool Wallowby, in such a hurry?' he thought to
himself, as the latter appeared shortly after him, also equipped for
the walk But the 'fool Wallowby' had his own plans. He too was minded
to cross the moorland with 'that jolly Brown girl,' as he called her
to himself, rather than with the other 'stick' who had so little to
say for herself.
'I think we have got ready too soon,' said Peter; 'the ladies will not
come down stairs for twenty minutes at least, they take so long to
dress,' and he moved as if for the door.
'One expects to have to wait,' replied Wallowby, and he stood his
ground.
Presently Mary appeared, descending the stairs. Wallowby secured her
book as she reached the landing, and placed himself at her side; and
Peter, not to be cut out, had to make a dash for her parasol on the
stand, and so constitute himself a third in the party. They set forth,
and when Mrs. Sangster got down stairs she beheld to her disgust Mary
Brown disappearing in the shrubbery attended by both the squires.
'Bother that lassie!' she muttered, but whether it was her own
daughter or the other will never be known. At that moment Sophia, in
perfect tranquility, was still giving her orders in the kitchen for
the family dinner.
Mr. Sangster kept his room. He often did so of a Sunday, for the time
had not yet arrived when a godly divine should stigmatize taking
medicine on Sunday as a form of Sabbath breaking.
Eventually Sophia was ready to start, and at the same moment the two
ministers appeared. Mrs. Sangster was of course taken possession of by
the elder, and there was nothing for it but to let the ineligible
escort Sophia. There was consolation then in remembering how slow and
safe she was. No fear of _her_ being hurried into an entangling
admission during one moorland walk, but 'Oh! if Providence had only
seen fit to grant her a bright lively girl like Mary Brown!'
No misgiving oppressed the soul of Roderick. The Sabbath in any case
was to him a day of holy calm, whose devout associations he had
cultivated by long habit into a sacred joy. To-day these were
exhausted by the surroundings. The sunshine on the hills seemed to
bring him into the very presence of a loving creator, and the
companion by his side was one whose image in his thoughts had long
stood for the embodiment of the good and beautiful. It was no vulgar
love-making that he poured forth as they walked along, but the
enthusiastic utterances of a devout young heart brimming over with
piety and content.
And she? She looked up in his face and softly smiled. No need for
words, the light in her eye spoke more eloquently than poets had ever
sung. Poor youth! That light had shone as brightly and the smile had
been as sweet--less vague and more intelligent--when a little while
before she stood at the kitchen table and bade the cook put ten eggs
instead of twelve in the custard for dinner.
Yet she really liked Roderick Brown. He was so good and so kind. She
had known him all her life, and she knew that he admired her. He did
not exactly say so, in fact she did not expect that, it would have
been too frivolous; but his voice grew softer when he spoke to her,
his eyes glowed, and his pale face would sometimes flush. She did not
understand much of what he said, but she knew she was not clever, and
was content it should be so. It was 'nice' to hear him talk about
heaven in his earnest eloquent way; it sounded all so real, and she
felt always more sure of going there when she was with him--he was so
good.
Over the moor, down a brae, across a burn and up another slope.
Moorland again, past a peat hag with the new cut turf drying in the
sun. Straggling groups dotted the outlook, the dwellers in many a
distant shieling, all converging towards the common goal--the
preaching tent. Old men and women, mothers with their children,
shepherds with their dogs, lads and lasses, the latter carrying their
heavy shoes and stockings in their hands, till they should come to the
last burn before reaching the kirk, there, after a preliminary
footbath, to put them on and appear before the congregation decently
clad.
Joseph Smiley, ever on the alert, produced his chairs as the Lady of
Auchlippie and her suite entered the assembly and took her place in
the front with a condescending smile, and Mr. Dowlas disappeared from
view behind the curtains of the tent.
Roderick not being as yet an ordained minister, was not authorized to
celebrate the sacraments of the church, which necessitated the
occasional intervention of some one who was, as on the present
occasion, when Mr. Dowlas was to perform the rite of baptism, as might
be guessed from frequent thin small wails which issued intermittingly
from the neighbouring covert. Immediately in front of the tent were
the elders and deacons seated on the uncomfortable benches which
Joseph had constructed, and near them the older and more devout of the
people sat on their folded plaids, on stools or bunches of bracken.
These were the more earnest church members, denominated the 'far ben
christians' by their neighbours. Behind, reclining at their ease on
the elastic heather, where it sloped upward from the grassy level,
were the general company, who felt diffident about including
themselves with the 'professors,'--men, women, children and collie
dogs, basking in the sun and fanned by breezes sweet with the heather
and the wild thyme.
Mr. Wallowby had all the prejudices of a middle-class Englishman.
Whatever differed from the use and wont of his native county and
country was wrong, and a good many things in the North had therefore
met with his disapproval; but of all the matters on which sane men
could differ, the most preposterous appeared to him to be church
affairs, in a country where the established religion was not entitled
to be called a church at all, but only, by a supercilious adoption of
the native speech, a 'Kirk,' as something altogether different;
though, to be sure, all bodies of Christians not affiliated to his
church were in the same position, excepting the Latin and Greek
communions, which being older than his, are wont to treat it with
precisely the same contemptuous disrespect. The present conventicle
promised at least more interest than a schismatic service in a kirk,
and Mr. Wallowby had come in a mood of bland condescension to enjoy
the humours of the scene, and amuse his superior mind with Sawney at
his devotions. But when he seated himself in the silent assemblage,
the spirit of the scene seemed to fall on him, and he found himself
strongly impressed.
The minister shortly appeared in gown and bands, and although silence
overspread the crowd before, it seemed to deepen as the worshippers
straightened themselves in their seats, and fixed their gaze intently
on his face. Around, the swelling hills showed not a sign of life or
habitation; yet in this sequestered hollow a thousand souls perhaps,
were gathered together for prayer. The minister gave out a psalm, and
the whole congregation presently burst forth in song. At first the
voice of the precentor quavered uncertain and thin in the wide expanse
of the open air, then one by one a few others tremulously joined in,
till at length the ear of the people caught the familiar cadence of
'Bangor,' and the multitudinous voice rose in a mighty swell, filling
up that recess in the hillside, brimming over and reverberating among
the rocks around. Here and there around him he would perceive the
momentary jar of a bad voice or a false ear, but these were overborne
in the vast flood of sound, in which every one joined with a seeming
intensity of feeling that counterbalanced mere technical
imperfections, and fulfilling the purpose of all art, that of
conveying emotion from soul to soul, the song of those uncultured
voices impressed him as he had never been by choir and organ under the
fretted roof of church or minster.
Mr. Dowlas preached from the Canticles, applying the apostrophe to the
Shulamite to such as had wandered from the truth. The audience
listened with silent and deep attention, but without any of the
ejaculation and amens with which Mr. Wallowby's dissenting
fellow-countrymen relieve and stimulate their fervour. Some aged
grandmother would occasionally shake her head in concurrence with the
minister's words, but that was all.
At the beginning of the sermon a slight rustling attracted Joseph
Smiley's attention. He looked up and beheld Tibbie Tirpie taking her
seat on the outskirts of the crowd. She was accompanied by a young
woman who leant on her arm and appeared delicate and pale till she
caught sight of Joseph, when her cheeks became suffused with crimson,
and she bent down her head. A look of annoyance came into his sharp,
squirrel-like eyes, but he passed his hand across his mouth, which
appeared to act like the wet sponge over a much be-written slate, and
left it blank and sober as before.
There were four babies to be baptized at the conclusion of the sermon,
and during the singing of a hymn, Joseph, as master of the ceremonies,
proceeded to the clump of hazel bushes and thence ushered three well
pleased mothers, each with her latest born held proudly in her arms.
As struts the brood hen before her chippering train, calling the
universe to witness the last new life added to the mighty sum by her
praiseworthy exertions, so sailed these worthy women behind the
beadle, and took their places with rustle and importance in front of
the congregation. The husband of each came diffidently behind, and
stood in front of his proprietress, tall, awkward, and a little
shame-faced before all the people, the length of leg and arm appearing
sadly in its owner's way, and the hands especially difficult to
dispose of. Behind the matrons came Mary Brown, carrying the little
waif rescued by her brother from the sea, Roderick himself bringing up
the rear. Their appearance created a sensation, and a hum of enquiry
ran through the congregation, for many were as yet ignorant of the
addition to the minister's family. Mary gave her own name to the
little one, and Roderick presented it for baptism as the several sires
presented theirs, vowing to bring it up in the nurture and admonition
of the Lord.
Mr. Dowlas concluded the service, and while the younger and the
English-speaking part of the congregation rose to depart, the older
members drew more closely together before the tent, and Roderick at
once commenced the afternoon service in Gaelic for their behoof. Many
of them having come long distances, it was best that the two services
should follow each other without interval, that they might start the
earlier on their return home. In reverent haste the retiring
worshippers withdrew from the ground, that they might not disturb the
Gaelic congregation, and in ten minutes every one of them was out of
sight. Joseph's duties were now over till the breaking up of the
meeting, and as he did not understand Gaelic he withdrew to a mossy
bank hard by, where birch trees warded off the afternoon sun, and
stretched himself at length to enjoy a little repose. He had drawn
from the crown of his tall black hat a bannock and a hunch of
skim-milk cheese wrapped in a turkey red cotton handkerchief which he
spread out on his knees, and proceeded to refresh himself. While he
was still so engaged there approached him from the thicket in his rear
Tibbie Tirpie.
'I wuss ye gude day! Joseph Smiley.'
Joseph snorted with impatience, and the squirrel-like gleam came into
his eyes, but he merely answered--
'Gude day to ye! Tibbie,' sweeping together the scattered fragments of
his repast, and causing them all to disappear in one comprehensive
gulp. Then he wiped his mouth with the red cloth, replaced it in the
hat, and resumed his wonted look of solemn composure.
'A weel, Tibbie! an' it's a graund discourse we hae heard this day;
an' I houp it'll do ye gude. He's a godly man, Mester Dowlas, an' he's
gaen hame wi' Mistress Sangster til a verra gude denner I mak nae
doubt. But you an' me has haen a feast of fat things o' his
providence. Marrow an' fatness truly, tho' it's juist a when bannocks
we may hae to stay the flesh withal an' aiblins just a drappie o'
something to wash a' down. Will ye taste, hinnie?' Thereupon he arose
and retreated some steps to where the tree stems would conceal him
from any wandering eye among the congregation, and drew forth from his
bosom a flat bottle, which he applied to his lips, throwing back his
head the while. After a prolonged gulp he paused for breath, and
passed the bottle to his friend with one hand, while with the back of
the other he wiped his lips.
'Pruive all things! Eppie. Try the speerits, an' I'm thinkin' ye'll
find them not that bad.'
Eppie tasted and sipped, and tasted again, very well pleased, nodded,
and returned the bottle, which was forthwith emptied where the bulk of
its contents had already been poured.
'Hech! but my eyes are enlichtened like Jonathan's, an' noo let's
crack about the preachin'.'
'Joseph! I hae bed a wee, as ye said. What is't a' comin' til?'
'Bed sin yest're'en! No muckle bidin' there I ween! But let's lay
worldly business by, this holy Sawbith day, an' think o' wir
sauls!--our puir perishin' sauls!'
`An' what'll come o' your saul? Joseph Smiley, an' you sinnin' wi' the
high haund an' wrangin' my puir lass Tibbie. Saw na ye hoo she was
e'en ower blate to forgather wi' the neighbours, an' gaed creepin'
hame afore the kirk wad skell?'
'The mair fule she! There's naething kenned again her. What maks her
blate?'
'It's no for you to speer! Them 'at pet the cat e'y kirn, can best
fesh't out. Ye ken what's wrang, an' ye beut to mak it richt!'
'Hech! Tibbie, ye're troubled an' carefu' about mony things. But _wan_
thing is needfu', as the Scriptur says, an' this is the Sawbith day,
an' I'se speak o' naething else but that same. Think o' yer saul!
Tibbie, yer sinfu' saul!'
'Speak o' yer ain sins, ye rascal! an' let mine be. Yer saul's black
wi' them, an' it's time ye was mendin'.'
'Na, na, Tibbie! that wad be _works!_ an' they're filthy rags. I'm a'
for grace!'
'For grace? ye villain! Grace Grimmond belike, gin' a' folk says be
true. An' what's to come o' Tibbie? But ye'se never wad wi' Grace
onybody, sae lang as Tibbie's to the fore! Tak my word for't.'
'Ye tak me up wrang, neighbour, it's the kingdom o' heaven I'm after,
whaur they neither marry nor are given in marriage. An' I houp ye'll
win there yet! It's no o' women, puir silly earthen vessels I'm
speakin' or wull speak this holy day.'
'But ye'll hae to speak o' them! Ay, an' speak plenn--or I'se doon t'ey
minister an' hae ye up afore the Kirk-Session the maament the kirk
skells. I'm for nae mair o' yer parryin' I'se tell ye--ye thocht ye
had puir Tibbie a' by her lane, yon fore nicht, doon i' the loanin',
whan ye ca'd God to witness ye took her for yer lawfu' wife, an' juist
wanted it keepit quiet till the bawbees was gathered for the
plennissin'. But ye didna keek ahint the dike, an' ye kenna wha was
hearkenin'!'
Joseph's countenance fell, his eyes opened wider, and strove to read
in the other's face whether the witness suggested was a reality or a
mere _ruse_ to overawe him. He took the red handkerchief from his hat,
and mopped his brow as a partial screen for his features, and finding
evasion no longer possible, concluded to mitigate his opponent's
excitement, and man[oe]uvre for time.
'Ye needna thrape that gate, Mistress Tirpie, gin Tibbie wad hae me; I
kenna the lass in a' Glen Effick I'd sooner wad wi', but what ye said
ey noo about the bawbees an' the plennissin' hauds true yet. I canna
tak the lassie hame an' no a bed for her to lie down on, an' what for
wad ye be raisin' a din an' a clash? It's a filthy fowl 'at files its
ain nest. An' it's yer ain dochter the folk wad lichtly, gin ye didna
haud yer tongue.
'But ye can bide wi' me, Joseph, till yer gear's gathered; I'se be
blythe to hae ye.'
Na, na, Luckie! Ilka pat till its ain cleek! we maun hae our ain
fire-side.'
'An' it's little fireside me an' Tibbie's like tae hae gin ye haud
back muckle langer! I hae na claes eneugh to keep her warm, an' she
hasna strength to tak' wark, an' hoo can she get her strength on
sowans an' kirn-milk? An' that's a' I hae to gie her. Ye maun keep yer
wife, Joseph, e'en gin ye dinna bide wi' her.'
'An' hoo's a man to gather the bawbees, gin he's payin' them awa
faster nor they come?'
'_Ye_ ken that, Joseph; an' I'm thinkin' it's a denty pose ye hae
hidden awa in some auld hugger, an' hae na the heart to spend. We a'
ken ye for a hard thrifty body 'at winna spend yer ain, gin ye can
finger ither folk's.'
Ye're hard on me, Luckie, but I'se do what I can. I hae nae siller in
my pouch the day but a bawbee for the plate, seein' it's Sawbith, but
I'll tell ye what I wull do, speak to the minister. An' he's the gude
man wi' the free haund and the saft heid. Gin ye getna a' ye need out
o' _him_, yer tongue winna wag sae souple, as I hae fand it can this
hour back.'
And here, to avoid rejoinder he ran down the slope and took his place
demurely on a stool by the tent to await the conclusion of the
exercises.