_SOPHIA'S ANSWER_.
Thursday morning was the opening of a great day in Glen Effick. The
foundation stone of the new Church was to be laid, and from the most
distant corners of Kilrundle parish the people came streaming in
across the braes, more numerously even than for the Sunday meeting.
The Session had at last come to an agreement with Widow Forester for
half of her kaleyard on which to build their Church. The foundation
was already dug, and every owner of a horse and cart had agreed to
contribute so many days' labour towards delivering the materials on
the ground. And now the work was to be inaugurated with preaching and
prayer, that it might be brought to a speedy and prosperous issue. The
good people having neither oil nor wine to bestow in cementing the
stones, had resolved to pour forth a copious oblation of words devout
and stirring, and to celebrate their triumph over Laird and Law in
true democratic fashion, by a general gathering and unstinted
speechification.
The hot stillness of September days had passed away, and the fresh
cool brightness of October had succeeded. In low-lying hollows the
first hoar-frost of the season was melting into dew before the
approaching noon, and straggling flecks of cloud swam merrily overhead
in the breezy sky. The crimson of the moors was withering somewhat
into rusty brown, but the birch along the watercourses had ripened
into sprays of gold, while the distant hills stood out against the sky
in violet and blue. The trooping worshippers displayed all their
Sunday bravery of apparel, but the solemnity of their Sabbath
demeanour they had felt at liberty to leave behind. The children ran
hither and thither shouting their loudest, while the seniors chatted
cheerily as they went, carrying their dinners in heavy baskets between
them, and resolved to make the most of the day's 'ploy.'
Along the village street the people trickled in a continuous stream,
and by and by Ebenezer Prittie and Peter Malloch put up the shutters
on their respective shops. Donald Maclachlan shut up the smithy, and
Angus Eldrecht, the wheel-wright, closed his yard, and stepped off
with their wives to the meeting place on the brae-side, where Mr.
Dowlas and a reverend brother of the presbytery were already in the
tent waiting to conduct the exercises.
Mrs. Sangster, with her daughter, was on the ground betimes,
discussing with unwonted affability the terrible scandal to the elders
and more prominent people near her. She occupied, of course, the
beadle's special chairs, and as the time to commence the service drew
near, she beckoned to her Stephen Boague and his wife, and seated them
beside herself and daughter. It was a public recognition of their
exemplary character she considered, which would fully reward the woman
for her hospitality the day she was lost in the mist, and was quite
inexpensive besides. When Mary Brown presently appeared, the good
woman would fain have yielded up to her her accustomed seat under the
matronly wing of the congregation's only lady; but Mrs. Sangster
requested that she would not move. 'I could not countenance Mr. Brown
or his family,' she said, 'under the circumstances.' So the poor woman
had to remain; but she no longer felt promotion in her place of
honour, and all her acquaintances looked askance, and wondered at her
'upsettin' impidence.' Mrs. Sangster was too busy with her 'spy-glass'
and psalm-book to see the approach of Mary, who coloured with
resentment at what, since Eppie's explanation, she now perfectly
understood, and looked about for another seat. The Laird had been
watching his wife's proceedings with cynical amusement, he now came
forward and removed his daughter to the elder's bench, setting the
chair she had been occupying beside her, and seating Mary upon it,
while he took his own stand beside them.
Mrs. Sangster's spy-glass dropped upon her book; amazement and
indignation paralyzed her, which was fortunate, or she might have
exhibited a tantrum, even in that sacred assembly. She! that
congregation's Deborah without a Barak, as a fawning preacher had once
described her at family prayers, to be thus flouted before them all!
And the wholesome discipline she had meant to exercise in support of
the public morals to be turned round upon herself! and this, too, by
her own husband! the man bound to protect, honour, and obey her! For
_of course_ he was bound so to do, whatever Saint Paul, or any other
old bachelor who knew nothing about it, might say. Was she not the
more advanced Christian? and in right of her higher standing in '_The
Kingdom_' entitled to instruct, advise, and reprove those on a lower
level. Oh! how should she punish him and bring him to book? There was
the difficulty. Scolding would not do. She had tried that before, and
it did not succeed. He was apt to laugh in her face, and sometimes
even to scold back in return, in an altogether dreadful and appalling
way--for an elder--if she persisted; and then nothing, not even her
unfailing Christian meekness could secure her the last word, which was
her due as a lady. She thought of putting him on low diet for a
while.--'And it would serve that monkey Sophia right, too, for
sympathising with her father. See how contentedly she cottons up to
Mary Brown!' thought she. But she did not like bad dinners herself,
and it would come out if she had a sweetbread quietly in her own room.
Besides, she had attempted a penitential regimen of cold mutton once
before, and it had not ministered to his spiritual needs; on the
contrary, he had broken out in a way that was simply dreadful, and had
threatened her with a housekeeper if she could not keep a better
table. Her crosses were indeed many and grievous, and she might have
grown weak and hysterical in reviewing them, but that other cares and
anxieties demanded her present attention. Surely there was something
rubbing up against her in a familiar and unbecoming way. She turned,
looked, and almost leaped into Mrs. Boague's lap. Stephen's largest
collie was titillating his spine by pushing it up and down against her
new plum-coloured silk gown.
'Haud steady, mem! The folk 'ull see ye, an' ye're nae licht wecht
forby!' whispered Mrs. Boague. 'Ne'er mind the dugs, an' they winna
fash wi' _you_. An' de'il a yelp or snap wull they gie, sae lang as ye
dinna staund on their tails.'
Touseler, finding his scratching-post withdrawn, stretched himself on
the ground to sleep out the sermon, and Mrs. Sangster resumed her
chair. Her tranquility was of short duration. First would come a tug
at her parasol, accompanied by a strangled yelp, as a puppy having
swallowed the tassel would struggle to escape, like a trout on a
fish-hook; and next it would be her shawl. A dirty little finger would
be found tracing the flowing lines of its elegant embroidery, or the
corner would be pulled down, that the critics squatting on the sward
might more conveniently scrutinize the elaborate design.
When Sophia's chair was removed it had left an open spot in the crowd,
to Mrs. Sangster's left, and as nature abhors a vacuum, the unplaced
material of her party had flowed in to fill it. She looked down on a
confused knot of dog and child life, heads and tails, legs and arms
swaying and kicking to and fro in silent happiness. Had a quadruped or
a biped given tongue in the 'House of God,' there would have been
whipping behind the first big boulder-stone on the home-going, and
they had all felt the weight of Stephen's hand at sometime, so were
wary; but so long as silence was kept, and they remained beside the
shepherd and his wife, they might kick, roll, and be happy as they
pleased.
Poor Mrs. Sangster's attention was fully occupied in protecting her
dress from the busy fingers of the little boys and girls, and in
seeing that the dogs did not make a coverlet of her skirts; and she
vowed never again to 'take notice' of people from the 'lower orders,'
who so little appreciated the honour she did them, and made themselves
so utterly abominable with their ill-reared dogs and children. She
lost all the good of their sermons as she told the reverend orators
that evening at supper, and was far too concerned for what might
befall her own draperies, to give much heed to the Rev. Æmelius
Geddie's description of the curtains of fine linen and badger skins,
blue and scarlet, prepared for the Tabernacle in the wilderness, and
his tender appeal to the women of Glen Effick to go and do likewise.
Mr. Dowlas described the building of Solomon's Temple, its joists of
cedar covered with plates of pure gold, the chapiters, the
pomegranates, and the wreathen-work, the brazen pillars and the
vessels of pure gold. He interspersed these with spiritual
interpretations and mystical images drawn from the Prophets, till the
hearers were brought under a general vague impression of splendour and
solemnity, they could not have explained wherefore; but they all
agreed that it was a 'graund discoorse,' and 'very refreshing,' and
that they had entered on a high, noble and arduous work, in proposing
to build themselves a little meeting house; and that, though propriety
forbade their saying so, the Divine Head of the Church was greatly
beholden to them, and that they might look, as their certain due, for
large amounts of blessing, spiritual and temporal, to requite their
exertions in church-building, as well as that heroic penny-a-week to
the Sustentation Fund.
Like other fine things, the sermon came to an end at last, and after
psalms and benediction, it was announced that they would proceed in
procession to the site of their future church, where reports of the
different committees would be received, and addresses given, after
which the foundation stone would be laid with prayer and praise.
The congregation then broke up, and in the confusion Sophia got the
opportunity she had been desiring of a quiet word with Mary.
Circumstances had befriended her wonderfully she thought, when her
father had brought her away from her mother, and placed her beside
Mary Brown. She had always been fond of Mary, but now she felt a
sisterly drawing towards her which she had not known before. Mary was
her junior by about a year, but was quicker and earlier to mature, and
this had sometimes made Sophia feel a rawness in herself, and a
general slowness and obtuseness by comparison, in a way approaching as
near to jealousy as her somewhat stolid and easy-going disposition was
capable of experiencing. But as Mary neither assumed nor probably was
aware of any advantage, this feeling in great measure slept; and now,
when Sophia's development had advanced as with a bound, under the
stirrings of awakening emotion, the latent grudge was altogether
overborne. She sat up very close to her and pressed her softly. Mary
was surprised. Demonstration of the faintest kind was something new in
Sophia, and altogether unexpected. Her heart was sore at the
unkindness of the parishioners to her brother, and their haste to
adopt unwarrantable and improbable suspicion against him; and that
Mrs. Sangster; who had assumed to play the rôle of mother to her in
her lonely position, should turn and publicly visit the imaginary
misdeeds of her brother on her head, had been very grievous. She
assumed that Sophia meant to signify her disbelief in the idle rumours
afloat, and, accepting the proffered sympathy, she returned the
friendly pressure with grateful warmth. The two read from the same
bible and psalm-book, and sat so close that the Laird was able to find
room on the bench beside his daughter, just as he was beginning to
think a two hours' stand rather a heavy penalty for interfering with
his wife's absurdity.
'Mary!' whispered Sophia, when the assemblage was breaking up, 'I want
you to tell your brother that I received his letter. Whoever told him
that I am engaged is altogether mistaken. Nobody ever asked me to--be
engaged, and there is no one who could have any right to do so. I
would have answered his letter, but mamma forbade me; she even says I
must not come and see you, while some report or other, I don't know
what it is, is going about. So I have been waiting for an opportunity
to speak to you. Mamma says papa does not believe the report, so--'
here the words died away and the colour deepened on her cheeks--'but
papa does not know of his letter to me.' Mary leant forward to bestow
a kiss, but Sophia started back under a sharp prod from the parasol of
her mother, who was eagerly reaching over the shoulders of the
intervening crowd.
'Sophia Sangster! what are you lingering there for? Don't you see
everybody is on the move? Come to your mother's side, your proper
place, this moment.'
It was not a happy half-hour for Sophia that followed. The maternal
plumage was sadly ruffled, and in the 'preening' that ensued to
readjust the feathers mental as well as physical (for the silk gown
was rumpled as much as the self-complacency was disturbed), not a few
stray pecks fell to her portion. That her husband should have carried
away her own girl from her side was almost intolerable; only, till she
could devise a way to punish him which she had not yet discovered, she
must bear that; but the girl had acquiesced without sign of reluctance
or remonstrance, had consented to be separated from her own mother
with perfect equanimity, and in spite of all that had passed, had
seemed entirely comfortable beside Mary Brown, notwithstanding the
maternal taboo. She had had little leisure for observation. Her gown,
her shawl, the children, the sheep-dogs had made constant demands on
her attention, and when she looked for succour to the shepherd and his
wife, they were drinking in the sumptuous splendours of Solomon's
temple, and had no thought for the turbulent little Bethel at their
feet. Once however she had found time to glance across and was
disgusted to see Sophia and Mary singing amicably from one book and
evidently on the best of terms.
'You're a saft feckless tawpie, Sophia Sangster!' she enunciated with
much emphasis, as she and her daughter were carried along in the
stream of the procession. 'It seems to me sometimes that you have no
more sense than a sookin' turkey!' Mrs. Sangster rather prided herself
on her English, which she considered equal to that of any body on her
side of London or Inverness. These were the two seats of perfect
speech she considered; but failing them Auchlippie could hold its own
against Edinburgh, St. Andrews, or anywhere else, and was decidedly a
better model than her son Peter since he had adopted a Lancashire
brogue. Nevertheless when she became 'excited' (_i.e_. angry), she
admitted that she had to fall back on the pith and vigour of her
native Doric with its unlimited capacity for picturesque vituperation.
'It's not from me you take your fushionless gates! That comes o' the
donnart Sangster bluid in you, I'm thinking. But what possessed you to
take up publicly like yon with Mary Brown, when you know I want you to
steer clear of her just now? When the Presbytery has taken the matter
up, it will be proper enough to bestow patronage and show sympathy for
the poor girl; but meanwhile we have a testimony to bear, and it will
not do to countenance evil doers or their families.'
'Mamma, I don't know what you are talking about.'
'Of course not. It's no subject for a young girl to know anything
about; but you must not think in your ignorance to set yourself above
the advice and opinion of your mother, who knows all about it.'
Sophia said no more. To speak was but to stir the fire of her mother's
wrath. She held her peace, and left the flame to burn itself out, or
smother in its own smoke and ashes. She simply did not attend, and
when her mother, stopping for breath, turned to survey, as it were,
the field of battle, or at least to view the result of her onslaught
as depicted in the girl's face, she was smiling to a bare-footed
urchin who trotted by her side, Stephen Boague's youngest, who had
taken a fancy to the gay apparel of Mrs. Sangster, and still kept it
in view.
'Let that de'il's buckie alone, Sophia Sangster, and attend to me! It
has been pulling the fringes of my shawl for the past two hours, and
made it smell of peat-reek and moss-water so that I shall never be
able to put it on again.'
The meeting was held in the field adjoining the excavation made for
the church's foundation. Mr. Sangster was in the chair and supported
on either hand by a minister, and there were chairs in front for Mrs.
Sangster, her daughter, and Miss Brown, to which the matron, somewhat
mollified by this observance, was ushered, when she very quickly
appropriated the remaining seat for her shawl, so that there might be
no vacant place for any one else. She might have spared herself the
trouble. Mary was not in the crowd, and if she had been, would not
have desired to sit beside her.
At the close of the religious exercises, Mary had hastened home to her
brother, from whom she had already been longer away than at any
previous time since he was taken ill. She would not have attended the
meeting at all, but for his desire that she should; and she was glad
to return home at the earliest moment, for since she had learned its
proneness to think evil without cause, she loathed Glen Effick utterly
and all its affairs. Her brother had been drowsing, but he woke up at
her entrance, and asked to hear what had been done.
'Just the usual thing. Mr. Geddes preached about the Tabernacle, and
Mr. Dowlas about Solomon's Temple.'
'Ah! I can imagine it; very pretty and flowery, no doubt. But I think
when so many were collected they might have had something more useful
and more likely to do good to the poor people. "A dish of metaphor,"
as my good father used to say, "is light feeding for hungry souls."'
'They did not think so, I assure you; they seemed quite delighted;
though I confess I rather wearied over the inventory of the golden
vessels, and I saw Sophia Sangster yawn once at any rate.'
'Was Sophia there?'
'Oh yes. And by the way she sent a most particular message to you; or
at least she seemed particularly anxious that you should receive it.'
'Ah!' said Roderick, raising himself, 'tell me quick.'
'I declare, Roddie, you look quite excited! She asked me to tell you
she had received your letter--You rogue! What have you been writing to
her? I remember now how restless you were one morning till you had got
Joseph sent off to Auchlippie! But I, simple soul, supposed it was
Session business with the Laird. To think I should be so obtuse with a
little comedy going on under my very nose! But, ah me! It has been
more like tragedy of late, you have been so ill, and we have both been
so lonely.'
'But, to return to your comedy, or at least to Sophia, what more?'
'She said she had got your letter! Was not that enough? She did not
_say_ it was a sonnet to her eyebrows--but I suspect, she blushed so
prettily--yet, now I think of it, it was not a sonnet you sent, for I
was to tell you that she is not engaged--that there is no one who has
a right to ask her to be engaged. You must have been jealous, Roddie!
Who was it? And she said she would have written, but her mother
forbade her.'
'Oh that tiresome Duchess! What ridiculous fancy has she got in her
head now, I wonder? I feel quite ashamed when I recall the black
thoughts I have been nourishing against that poor harmless cockney or
whatever he is, Mr. Wallowby; all along of some absurd scheme of hers,
which rushed to her lips in her agitation that day on the hill. Poor
Duchess! She must have a bee in her bonnet; but she is a sad worry.'
'She is far worse that that!--hard, evil-minded, worldly.'
'Hush, Mary! "Judge not," et cetera. But proceed!'
'Sophia told me that her mother says there is some rumour afloat which
must be cleared up before she can have communication with us; and, in
fact, the tiresome old thing did her best, not only to cut me to-day,
but to keep Soph away too; but the Laird, honest man, was too many for
her.'
'You do not mean to say that that abominable Duchess was publicly rude
to _you?_ I could not stand that! Though she may do or say to me as
she likes (and she generally does;) for I do not suppose any sensible
man could seriously mind her.'
'Oh no! The Laird came to the rescue like a man and a gentleman, as he
always does; and, in fact, if the Duchess had behaved herself, and
Soph and I had been under her wing, I do not believe the poor
oppressed child would have had courage or opportunity to send you your
message, sir, so do not be harbouring bad thoughts of the poor
Duchess! Ah! ah! And by the way, there is more message yet! Sophia
says her father does not believe the rumours which her mother has been
so ready to accept; and--but she blushed and stammered and I could not
make sense of it, for you see I was not in your confidence, Mr.
Prudence--but, if I were an old woman and understood about those sort
of things, it sounded suspiciously like bidding you carry your tale to
'Papa!' Ha! Have I found you out, old gentleman? I suppose I may go
for a governess now; I may be losing my place as house-keeper any
day!' And she laughed merrily while Roderick coloured and looked
confused, but intensely happy.
When the Doctor came to visit his patient that afternoon, he was
astonished at the improvement in his condition, and quite confirmed in
his belief as to the wisdom of his own prescriptions, and general
course of treatment.