_TIBBIE_.
On rainy evenings Roderick had to accommodate his Bible-class in his
study. The books and pamphlets piled on the floor were removed, and
stools and chairs brought in from all the neighbouring cottages. The
attendance was large, the room but small, and the window could not be
opened without admitting the rain. The sole ventilation therefore was
by the chimney, for Roderick's chest was delicate and could not endure
open doors or draughts. The breaths of the people and the steam from
their plaids and umbrellas made an atmosphere almost too dense to
breathe, but no one stayed away on account of that. Discomfort in fact
was the chosen salt and relish of popular piety in those days. The old
stories of the covenant and the persecutions had been brought out
afresh after lying hid for a century under the dust of time and
'moderatism,' so called, which perhaps means only the new ideas
begotten of newer circumstances in advancing civilization. These tales
told in modern language and addressed to the people from hundreds of
pulpits and platforms, and scattered by the thousand in illustrated
tracts and broad sheets over the country, roused the best instincts of
the people into a sort of fanaticism; common sense appeared sinful
latitudinarianism, and there seemed a very hunger for austerity and
persecution in a small way, which raised an uncomfortable church-going
into a meritorious claim on divine favour. Like other artificial
revivals of obsolete feeling with their inevitable unreality and
exaggeration--for the one begets the other, seeing that each
individual, knowing his own earnestness to be below the standard,
compensates by intensity of expression for what is lacking in
depth--all that has now passed away. No better cushioned pews
now-a-days invite to repose in the green pastures of the word, than
those which the Free Church supplies, and the erewhile battle cry of
'Christ's Crown and Covenant' has moderated down into a demand for
Disestablishment.
These cottage services were far more exhausting to their conductor
than the regular preaching, and after struggling through them under
the oppression of heat and bad air, he found when his apartment was
left to him, that it had become uninhabitable for the rest of the
evening. Whenever, therefore, the weather at all permitted, he
conducted his Bible-class in the open air.
Down by the Effick side was a meadow where the villagers washed and
dried their clothes, and their cattle browsed. The grass was short and
thick, and the stream slid by with a low soft lapping among the
stones. An aged beech tree formed a landmark, and there on summer
evenings the minister was wont to assemble his class. The faint
evening breezes nestled drowsily among the leaves overhead, and the
glassy surface of the stream shone in the yellow radiance of the
evening light. No scene could be more peaceful and still, or lent
itself better to the earnest exhortations of the teacher, and the
unflagging attention of his auditors, who had grown to comprise the
whole inhabitants of the village, old people and children as well as
the youths and maidens for whom the meeting was designed. 'Free Church
Principles,' or the superiority of the church to the interference of
civil authority, were the stated subjects of consideration, but this
pious and indefatigable teacher would not let slip the opportunity of
pressing all other branches of religious truth, as occasion offered,
in a way more familiar and impressive, as his people thought, than
even the regular services of the church.
It was dark ere all was over, and after singing a hymn the meeting
dispersed. Then Roderick remembered the errand of mercy with which he
had proposed to himself to conclude his day, and set out at once for
Widow Tirpie's cottage, which was about a mile from the village.
Reaching it, he found the daughter on the threshold, gazing motionless
towards the western sky, where the last faint gleams of evening still
struggled with the coming night. A girl of about twenty, but looking
older, worn with care or illness, but with a face superior to her
station, she sat like an image of regret, pale-cheeked and thin, with
her great dark eyes looking out into the ebbing twilight. She rose on
Roderick's approach and followed him inside.
There knelt the mother crouching on the hearth, where with distended
cheeks she was endeavouring to blow two peats into a blaze, that she
might boil her pot and prepare their evening meal.
Tibbie's husband had been a gamekeeper on the Inchbracken property,
her daughter had been employed there as seamstress, and she herself
was in some sort a client of the great house. Therefore it was a point
of loyalty or policy with her to keep aloof from the Free Church, and
occasionally to attend at Kilrundle, but that was not very often, the
church being three miles off, and she herself, as she admitted, 'no
kirk greedy.' Roderick had not therefore considered her a member of
his flock, and knew little of herself or her daughter or their
circumstances. She was poor, but not more so than her neighbours, or
much more so now than she had always been, and she had no claim to be
described as she had been by Joseph Smiley either in the matter of her
poverty or her high principle. She had expected a visit from the
minister, and although she had no intention of devolving on him the
burden of her support, which she destined for his beadle's shoulders,
still she was not averse to profiting by his bounty, and had indeed
arranged her little scene so as to justify any touching appeal Joseph
might have made on her behalf. She had watched Joseph from the thicket
after they parted, and observed his closeting with the minister at the
close of the service, and knowing Roderick's eager charity, she had
thought it not improbable he might visit her that very evening, and
accordingly had arranged the tableau of a scanty supper as more
effective than anything she could say; besides that, being honest
after her fashion and shrewd, she was unwilling to lie unnecessarily.
Tibbie had risen and followed the minister into the house, looking
deprecatingly at her mother over his shoulder. She revolted at the
idea of charity-getting, and dreaded the references to her own
affairs, which her mother might be led into.
'Here Tibbie!' said the elder woman, 'tak' the stoup an' fesh some
water frae the spring on the muir, the minister micht be for a drink;
ye hae nae sic water down by in the Glen, sir, sae cauld an' sae
caller!'
Tibbie took the stoup, well pleased to get away from whatever
conversation might follow.
'I hear you are not very well off, Mrs. Tirpie,' said Roderick, 'and I
have come to see if I can give you any help.'
'A' weel, sir! It's thankin' ye kindly a' the same, but I winna
complain. Ye can see for yersel'--Some folk can mak oot to live whaur
ithers wad starve. But I'm no beggin'.'
'I never heard that you had got relief from the parish, and I know
that you have got nothing from us. You know we have a fund, though not
a large one, for our poor brethren, and I think it is often quite as
usefully employed when we look about for those who are bearing their
lot in silence, as when we give to those who claim our help.'
'I dinna belang to yer kirk, sir, an' I hae nae claim on ye ava'; tho'
I canna but say it's whiles gye an' hard for a puir body to gar the
twa ends meet. What wi' sickness, an' a' things sae dear, it's a sair
fecht for puir folk, whiles, to keep saul an' body thegither. But we
maun thole. Them 'at sends a' things kens what's for our gude.' And so
on. A spirit of fine sturdy independence, uncomplaining poverty, and
patient trust in Providence, moderately expressed, furnished out a
harangue which refreshed the soul of the worthy preacher. If tares
must inevitably be found among the standing corn, it is all the more
refreshing to the disappointed husbandman to see the good seed
springing up outside his enclosure, and Tibbie Tirpie bore the
reputation of being a cold and worldly person with the fervid
professors among whom he laboured. He felt himself privileged in being
allowed to minister assistance to so much modest worth, and returned
home refreshed in spirit.
When he left the cottage the night had closed in, with only the
glimmering stars to light him on his way. He walked slowly homewards,
musing as he went on the trials and hardships of the poor, and the
pious fortitude and noble courage with which they so often bear them.
He fell into a reverie, and did not perceive that two men coming down
behind him had overtaken and passed him. It was quite otherwise with
them. Like the owls and other creatures which fly by night, their
faculties were all awake.
'Preserve us a! Saw ye e'er the like? Slinkin' hame e'y dark, wi' his
head atween 's feet, like a dug scaddet wi' puddin' brue. He ne'er
turned round e'en whan we gaed by, like's he thocht shame to meet the
glint o' honest folk's e'en.'
'What mean ye? Peter Malloch. Yon's the minister! or I'm sair mistaen,
stappin' cannily hame. He's been readin', belike, an' prayin wi' some
auld puir body 'at's ower frail to gang t'ey kirk. My certie! but he's
the faithfu' servant, 'at sees the folk hae their meat i' due season.
I wuss there were mair like him. It gars a body think shame o' their
ain puir fushionless godliness, to see the gude he's aye after. Ne'er
sparin' himsel', but juist spendin,' an' spent for the gude o' ither
folk. He'll hae his reward!'
'Man, Tummas, ye're a rael Nathanael! It diz a body gude to hear til
ye whiles. Ye hae the charity 'at thinketh no evil, an' mony's the
time I'm juist winderin' hoo ye can carry on wi't. Ye do weel to think
nae ill, but hoo ye can look about ye, an' stick til't, passes me. I
dinna see either 'at we're ca'd on to let folk mak a fuil o's wi'
their sough o' godliness an them nae better than oorsels, but rather
waur, seein' what they set up for. I'm thinkin' they're juist maist
like whitet sepulchers ower the dead men's banes; an' naebody's ca'd
on to think weel o' sic like, ye ken.'
'I see na what ye're drivin' at. But I'se lippen 'til our young
minister afore ony man I hae e'er clappit my eyen on!'
'Trust not in princes nor men's sons,' as the Psalm says, 'an' the
ministers are kittle cattle to tackle wi'. Saw na ye whause house yon
was he cam out o', richt afore yer eyen?'
'I ken Tibbie Tirpie brawly, an' it's her bides up yonder.'
'An' what kind tak ye Tibbie to be? She's no a kirk member ava, I'm
thinkin'; a bonny ane for a minister to be sitten' aside a' Sabbath
forenicht!'
'I ken naething against her; but gin she be worldly or waur, she has
mair need o' the minister's advice.'
'An' there's that hizzie, her dochter! Ye'll be for makin' out the
minister was adveesin _her_ belike?'
'An' what for no? Gin she be young an' fu' o' daffin' she'll a' the
mair need to be adveesed.'
'Young an' fu' o' daffin'! Ye're for letting her down easy. There's
mair wrang nor that, I'm feared. Some folk say she's nae better nor
she suld be. But there's nae gude threapin' wi' you. Ye'se think nae
harm--ye'se tell me he was sympatheezin wi' her in her misfortun.'
'Whisht man! Let the lassie's gude name be gin ye hae nae proof.'
'But there maun be pruif some gate seein' it's true. The gentles hae
heard tell o't. An' what's mair, it's them 'at's sayin' up by at
Inchbracken 'at Mister Brown's at the fundation o' the hale mischief.
Sae noo ye ken a' about it, an ye'll own yersel it's gye an' like it,
to see him slinkin' up here after dark. An' ye'll mind hoo you an' me
saw him bringin' hame the bairn yon mornin' early, whan the roads war
that bad there wasna like to be ony body about, to see what he was
after. We a' ken hoo he gaed awa for the bairn the verra nicht 'at
Tibbie cam hame. Think o't! Tummas. Pet that an' that thegither, an'
syne ye'll may be hae mair charity, an' no be accuisin' me o' evil
speakin'. Charity thinketh no evil, sae what for suld ye be thinkin' I
wad tak awa a decent lass's gude name? But gin she be na decent, an'
hae nae richt til the gude name, I see nae wrang to say sae. Let the
skelpet wein skirl! What says Scripture? Is na the maugistrate for the
terror o' evil doers an' the praise o' them 'at do weel? An' be na I
wan in authority? The Convener o' the Deacons' Court? Tak tent,
Tummas, and dinna be impuitin' yer ain sinfu' thochts til ither folk,
an' them folk setten ower ye in the Lord! Speak not evil of dignities!
It's against a' Scripter--an' I may sae as weel, in a' luve and
faithfulness, seein I hae a kin' o' charge o' ye, an' may hae to gie
account, ye're juist a wee pridefu' whiles, an' ower set in yer ain
notions, for a humble private member o' the kirk. Think o't, Tummas,
an' lay't to heart!'
Tummas was silenced, fairly overthrown and carried away by the torrent
of words, and every meek stirring of self-assertion completely
devoured out. He had meant to defend his pastor from what he thought
were improbable and poorly supported suspicions; but he was meek and
diffident, and accustomed to be over-borne by his arrogant companion,
so he held his peace, content to cherish unuttered the assurance that
there was some mistake, and to leave time to disabuse others of their
misconceptions.