_CHANGES_.
Three weeks passed after the sitting of the Congregational Council
which had agreed that there was a 'fama clamosa' in the parish. The
Presbytery had sat with closed doors to consider the case. It had
adjourned, and met again to further consider, decide, and order under
the circumstances. Enquiry into the facts, and such like trifles,
would come later, when the evidence for the prosecution was matured.
Clearly there could be no defence until there was an indictment, a
defence in its very nature being a reply; and until the thesis of
accusation could be formulated, there was nothing to reply to.
Wherefore Mr. Brown could not be heard either in person or through his
friends at this early stage of the proceedings. Still he was
suspected, though not formally accused; and, although he possessed the
common right of all men to be deemed innocent till found guilty, he
was by no means in the position of an innocent man. The immortal
interests of the Free Church adherents in the Parish of Kilrundle were
at stake, and could by no means be left for a single day exposed to
the influence of a perhaps improper person. He had been notified to
discontinue his duties till further notice, and another young man had
been sent to fill his place, as well as (but these were his private
instructions from the leaders and wire-pullers who guided the
Presbytery's movements) to act as amateur detective in ferreting out
evidence for the prosecution, which, singularly enough, was yet too
defective to warrant bringing the case into court.
There is no power like a democracy for precipitate and arbitrary
action. The units composing it so fully realize their authority, and
so like to exercise it; while, being many, and co-ordinate, they have
little or no sense of individual responsibility. They propose, vote,
and order, each in obedience to his individual whim or impulse, and
imagine that they are doing great things; but it is the body
corporate, the official abstraction, which is left to bear the blame
when justice or policy miscarry. In this respect, if in no other, the
one-man power has the advantage, the king or bishop is personally
identified with each transaction of his reign, and when a failure
occurs he feels himself personally discredited; he has therefore the
strongest incentive to walk circumspectly, that he may not have
hereafter to retrace his steps, while with popular assemblies, a
reversal of policy or a change of front is immaterial, so long as the
majority has its way.
Roderick, therefore, being suspected, was now placed under a vigorous
taboo--boycotted we would have called it thirty-five years later, but
boycotted under a wisely modified form. Ebenezer Prittie or Peter
Malloch would still have been happy to sell him all they had in their
shops,--at a proper advance on cost--seeing that the coin of an
excommunicate is no worse than other people's, and money, however come
by, is 'all right,' as Vespasian found out long ago. There was no
fear, therefore, of his being starved out so long as he continued able
to buy. But intercourse with his parishioners had come to an end. Some
few were veritably unwilling to have dealings with iniquity, but the
majority dared not offend public opinion by appearing to hold
communication with him; and these secretly knowing the shakiness of
their own principles were the loudest in denouncing any one who should
venture to approach the Browns, thereby contributing much of the
strength of that public opinion which tyrannized over themselves. The
only exceptions were Roderick's pensioners. These, defying the
censorious, presented themselves in shy and deprecatory fashion
(deprecatory alike to the offended righteous without, and to the
indignant and maligned within), each as his pay-day came round. The
money had become an established item in their income, which those who
disapproved would assuredly not make good; wherefore, they felt
constrained to revisit the flesh pots. After all, even if the worst
were true, what was it but a spoiling of the Egyptians? A perfectly
allowable, perhaps a praiseworthy act, which Moses himself had
suggested, and even recommended to the chosen people of old. They took
the money, therefore, in defiance of such as shook their heads, and,
finding it retained its old purchasing power, were none the worse.
The days dragged wearily along for Roderick and his sister. October,
which began in summer sunshine, relieved but not chilled by bracing
airs, was waning in cloud and gloom; dull foggy days of rain, or windy
tempests ending in early frosts. The sick room was close and damp. The
ruddier the blaze upon the hearth, the stronger the flavour of mould
and damp drawn out from the oozy walls and cold clay floor. The
chamber would grow close but never warm, and the capacious chimney
seemed powerless for ventilation, and served only as an escape for the
heat. After undergoing the visitation of Mr. Geddie and his
companions, Roderick had had a return of his more serious symptoms.
Indignation and outraged feelings sent the blood boiling in stormy
tumult through his veins, and he was not weak enough to obtain the
relief of tears. Self-respect required him to preserve calmness before
the friends who were with him; and his irritation, deprived of vent in
speech or action, settled in the morbid part of his system, and
rekindled the expiring inflammation in his chest. He was therefore a
prisoner once more to his bed, when he would gladly have been removing
himself from the scene of his mortifications, and had no alleviation
save the visits of Kenneth and the Laird; but these were frequent.
Whenever other matters brought the former to the village he made a
point of calling to enquire; and it was remarkable how frequently
business demanded his presence there at this time. During the first
week the gossips observed him ride three alternate days down their
street, and the traders began seriously to consider whether they could
not so improve their stocks as to tempt some share of the Inchbracken
petty custom from Inverlyon. After that, however, his visits became
daily, there was no longer even a pretence of other business, and
Ebenezer Prittie abandoned the hope of supplying the Drysdale property
with nails and ironmongery. Kenneth was sincerely interested in his
friend's health, and sat sympathizingly by his bedside, but the
patient was not able to talk much, and even if he had been, was
forbidden to try. He was often drowsy, too, and sometimes slept, owing
to the restless wakefulness of his nights. It fell, therefore, on Mary
to make the conversation, a duty which she fulfilled apparently to
their mutual satisfaction, seeing that the visits grew more frequent
and of longer and longer duration. What they found to talk about no
one can say, for their voices were pitched in the lowest tones--of
course that the patient might not be disturbed; and apparently he was
not, if we may judge from the ease with which he soon fell into an
established routine. He would welcome his visitor with a cordial
handshake, answer the regulation questions about his health, hear any
little item of news that might be stirring, and then calmly close his
eyes, and turn round for another nap.
When two people find pleasure in each other's conversation,
surrounding circumstances are of little account. The most momentous
questions have ere now been asked and answered during the gyrations of
a waltz, or the intervals of a square dance. Pyramus and Thisbe were
happy in whispering to each other through the chink in a paling, and
my neighbour next door used to save shoeleather by chatting to a young
lady at the other end of the town down the pipe of a telephone. That
turned out badly, however, in the end, as one night his soft engaging
whisper was replied to in the gruff and stormy tones of papa! who bade
him have done with his nonsense, or he would put the d--d wire out of
the house! He had done something of the same kind to my poor friend
already. It was nothing new, therefore, if these two young people
forgot for the time the stuffy little room in which they sat, and the
gruesome army of medicine bottles, getting more and more numerous
every day. They were as utterly content as though they had been
sitting under one of the great shady trees of Eden, with only birds,
flowers, and tame lions to listen to their discourse. The flowers, at
least, they had in ever increasing profusion, as poor Colewort knew to
his cost, in the sad devastation that fell on his most sacred
preserves in the greenhouses of Inchbracken. Their sweetness brought
something like the freshness of spring, (or was it only of hope?) into
that close and frowsy place; even the fumes of damp and mouldiness
fled before the breath of these children of dew and sunshine.
At length there came a day, after many others that had been made
bright with flowers, and fragrant with sweeter words, when Kenneth
brought nothing in his hand but a bunch of violets, which he told her
his mother had sent. A slip of paper was tied to them on which was
written, 'For dearest Mary.' 'And so you may know, Mary,' he said,
'that everything between us is known at home, and you will be made
welcome. My mother will come and see you, or if that cannot be managed
she will write to you, after you have left Glen Effick; and I think
you will overlook her not coming here. After the decided stand our
family has taken against this church secession, she would rather not
do that; and as you are going to be one of the family yourself, you
will not wish us to stultify ourselves. That is what the old gentleman
calls it at least, though I daresay it is nonsense. Still, he is an
old man, and he is going to be very fond of you, so we must humour
him.' There came a tear in Mary's eye, a smile to her lip, a blush,
and words presently. She said exactly what was prettiest and nicest,
or so thought Kenneth. Every nice girl knows what the words would be,
they were just what she would say herself on a like occasion. As for
the men, they will hear them, each for himself let us hope, when the
time comes; therefore let us not rub the bloom from the plum by unwise
anticipation.
The visits of the Laird were somewhat less frequent; but he was
fortunate in always finding Roderick awake, and, after the first few
days following the relapse, eager to converse; and as the visits were
repeated two or three times a week, an intimacy sprung up between the
two men which had not existed before. The Laird was pleased to find
what he had not hitherto looked for, a sound and mature judgment and
abundant common sense where he had been wont to expect only pious good
intentions and a youthful enthusiasm, beautiful and interesting enough
but somewhat raw, and needing much of the pressure of time and
circumstance to squeeze out the green and vapid whey of youth and
inexperience. Roderick was equally surprised to find that the husk of
hard dry business shrewdness, which he had hitherto looked upon as the
man himself, was but the dried or hardened scars or cicatrices of rubs
and bruises long since endured by a true and gentle nature, now healed
and wholesome, and that beneath the somewhat repulsive exterior, there
were rich stores of experience, charity and christian wisdom.
Heretofore their intercourse had consisted in visits from Roderick to
Auchlippie on parochial business; and on these occasions Mrs. Sangster
in her character of Mother in Israel, high patroness and Lady
Bountiful to the congregation, was always present. It might be
Roderick who proposed the subject to be considered or it might be the
Laird, but at the first opening Mrs. Sangster would take up her
parable, and after that there was little opportunity for any one else
to slip in a word even edgewise. She loved the sound of her own sweet
voice better than any other music, and with a silent, perforce an
attentive audience, her periods would swell and round themselves with
evangelical commonplaces, and a general overflowing of conventional
piety. When his lady opened her mouth on any subject, it was the
Laird's practice to close his for good and all; that was his mode of
fulfilling the apostolic precept to honour the weaker vessel. Had he
spoken, he would have been compelled to distinguish and except, to rip
up sophisms and show that the conclusion arrived at was not deducible
from the premises stated, and endless altercation would have ensued.
Wherefore, like a sensible man, he held his peace, and left his fair
partner to discourse at her own sweet will. When, also, it became
necessary for him to express his own views, he would do it in the
dryest, clearest, and most concise form, leaving no room for question
or debate from his better and more loquacious half. It was therefore
as if for the first time that these two met and became acquainted in
that sickroom; and the discovery each made of the other was an
unexpected happiness to both. Timidly and doubtfully Roderick would
sometimes bring the conversation round to Sophia, but it was in a
diffident and uncertain way. He hungered to hear or talk of her, but
as regarded his hopes and aspirations he felt bound to keep silence.
His instinct of what was fitting withheld him from attempting to
entangle his friend in his more genial moments, in any kind of promise
or consent, so long as a breath, however groundless, hung over his
reputation. It was true that the Laird did not believe a syllable to
his disadvantage, but on that very account he felt so deeply indebted
to him, when all the world beside had turned its back, that he could
not take advantage of the old man's goodwill.
Whether the Laird saw more than Roderick put in words, it would not be
easy to say; but it is certain that at that time an understanding
sprung up between himself and his daughter which had not existed
before. He had hitherto regarded her simply as a child, female child,
belonging to his wife, and rather a dull one as that. It now first
seemed to dawn on him that she was a woman, a distinct person, and his
own daughter, and that it was in her to become the dearest companion
of his life. What he may have known of her relations with her mother,
incident to Roderick's letter, cannot be known, for he never told; but
from the evening after the congregational council, when she plucked up
courage to enter into conversation with him, and glean such news about
the proceedings as she could ask or he communicate, they found they
had entered upon new relations with each other. It may have been the
Sangster element in her, of which her mother so loudly complained that
engaged his sympathy so directly, or it may have been the incense of
her feminine hero worship, seeing that he appeared to her so great,
and strong, and good, in opposing himself singly to the universal
prejudice, and manfully espousing the cause of worth and innocence
maligned, but certainly from that day forth, father and daughter
became fast friends and constant companions. Often she would accompany
him in his walks to the village, and though she would not defy her
mother by accompanying him to the Browns', still her father would
carry messages to and fro between her and Mary, which brought
assurance both to Roderick and herself that they were not parted. The
old lady was the only party dissatisfied with these new combinations.
She felt her authority slipping from her fingers. Her daughter had,
she could not tell how, developed an independent personality of her
own, and was evidently now held in allegiance to herself only by a
sense of duty. The daughter was also establishing a hold on her
father's regard, which her mother herself had long since allowed to
pass from her, as costing too much trouble to retain; and Mrs.
Sangster beheld already in prophetic vision, herself as a meek old
lady seated by her work-table near the fire, while Sophia, the
mistress of Auchlippie, ruled the roast! The meekness of her future
rôle had not as yet, however, come to Mrs. Sangster. She fumed and
fretted like a spirit in chains, and the mornings which mother and
daughter spent together were by no means smooth or enjoyable for poor
Sophia. Her mother's grievance being incapable of statement, the
ebullitions thence arising could neither be foreseen nor assigned to
any specific cause. The scandalous rumours relating to the Browns were
retailed and enlarged on in a way that, but a few short weeks before,
Mrs. Sangster would have been shocked to think she could indulge in
before her carefully nurtured child; and Sophia, as her only defence,
had to fall back on the paternal gift of silence. But that invariably
drove her mother vanquished from the field, seeing that it takes two
to fight, and with a parting shot at the dull _dour_ blood of the
Sangsters, she would seek relief in the privacy of her chamber from
that sovereign remedy, 'a good cry.'
At the end of three weeks Roderick was found well enough to travel,
and it was time that they should start, if, in those ante-railway
days, they would avoid the delays, discomforts, and extra fatigue of
bad roads. They took the stage coach as far as Dundee, where they
would embark in the steamer for London. Thence there was railway
westward, and with more staging, they would reach their destination.
It need scarcely be said that Eppie and the baby stood on the inn
steps to watch the travellers drive away, and wish them 'God-speed.'
Mary kissed them both, hoping a father might shortly be found for the
little one, but grudgingly, for she deeply loved it herself. Kenneth
was there, likewise, with regretful adieux and repetition of the
already-made promises to write soon and often. So too was the Laird,
and this time Sophy was on his arm, and Roderick thenceforth had at
least one smile and handshake to treasure in his memory, unspoken
answers to his letter of a month back, and tokens from which to bode
hopefully of the future.
There were other onlookers, but they peered from windows, over averted
shoulders, or from behind corners. The parishioners had begun to find
out many differences between their new pastor and his predecessor.
There were no alms now, for the new man had no money to give; and
there was less sympathy, for he was a stranger in the parish, and
likewise new to ministerial work. Shame kept them from coming forward;
but when the guard blew his horn, the coachman tipped up his leaders
with the whip, and the lumbering vehicle rolled up the eastern brae,
every one felt that he had a friend the less left in Glen Effick.