THE REVIVAL.
Before the close of the herring-fishing, one of those movements of
the spiritual waters, which in different forms, and under different
names, manifest themselves at various intervals of space and of
time, was in full vortex. It was supposed by the folk of Portlossie
to have begun in the village of Scaurnose, but by the time it was
recognized as existent, no one could tell whence it had come, any
more than he could predict whither it was going. Of its spiritual
origin it may be also predicated with confidence that its roots lay
deeper than human insight could reach, and were far more interwoven
than human analysis could disentangle.
One notable fact bearing on its nature was, that it arose amongst
the people themselves, without the intervention or immediate
operation of the clergy, who indeed to a man were set against it.
Hence the flood was at first free from the results of one influence
most prolific of the pseudo-spiritual, namely, the convulsive efforts
of men with faith in a certain evil system of theology, to rouse a
galvanic life by working on the higher feelings through the electric
sympathies of large assemblages, and the excitement of late hours,
prolonged prayers and exhortations, and sometimes even direct
appeal to individuals in public presence. The end of these things
is death, for the reaction is towards spiritual hardness and a
more confirmed unbelief: when the excitement has died away, those
at least in whom the spiritual faculty is for the time exhausted,
presume that they have tasted and seen, and found that nothing is
there. The whole thing is closely allied to the absurdity of those
who would throw down or who would accept the challenge to test the
reality of answer to prayer by applying the force of a multitudinous
petition to the will of the supposed divinity--I say _supposed
divinity_, because a being whose will could be thus moved like a
water-wheel could not be in any sense divine. If there might be a
religious person so foolish and irreverent as to agree to such a
test--crucial indeed, but in a far other sense than that imagined
--I would put it to him whether the very sense of experiment would
not destroy in his mind all faculty of prayer, placing him in the
position, no more of a son of God, but of one who, tempting the
Lord his God, may read his rebuke where it stands recorded for the
ages.
But where such a movement has originated amongst the people, the
very facts adduced to argue its falsehood from its vulgarity, are to
me so many indications on the other side; for I could ill believe
in a divine influence which did not take the person such as he
was; did not, while giving him power from beyond him, leave his
individuality uninjured, yea intensify it, subjecting the very
means of its purification, the spread of the new leaven, to the
laws of time and growth. To look at the thing from the other side,
the genuineness of the man’s reception of it will be manifest in
the meeting of his present conditions with the new thing--in the
show of results natural to one of his degree of development. To
hear a rude man utter his experience in the forms of cultivation,
would be at once to suspect the mere glitter of a reflex, and to
doubt an illumination from within. I repeat, the genuine influence
shows itself such in showing that it has laid hold of the very man,
at the very stage of growth he had reached. The dancing of David
before the ark, the glow of St. Stephen’s face, and the wild gestures
and rude songs of miners and fishers and negroes, may all be signs
of the presence of the same spirit in temples various. Children
will rush and shout and hollo for the same joy which sends others
of the family to weep apart.
Of course the one infallible test as to whether any such movement
is of man without God, or of God within the man, is the following
life; only, a large space for fluctuation must be allowed where a
whole world of passions and habits has to be subjected to the will
of God through the vice-regency of a human will hardly or only just
awakened, and as yet unconscious of itself.
The nearest Joseph Mair could come to the origin of the present
movement was the influence of a certain Stornoway fisherman, whom
they had brought back with them on their return from the coasts
of Lewis--a man of Celtic fervour and faith, who had agreed to
accompany them probably in the hope of serving a set of the bravest
and hardest-working men in the world, who yet spent a large part
of their ease in drinking up the earnings of fierce and perilous
labour. There were a few amongst them, he found, already prepared
to receive the word, and to each of these he spoke in private. They
spoke to one another, then each to his friend outside the little
circle. Next a few met to pray. These drew others in, and at length
it was delivered from mouth to mouth that on the following Sunday,
at a certain early hour in the morning, a meeting would be held
in the Bailie’s Barn, a cave large enough to receive all the grown
population of Scaurnose.
The news of this gathering of course reached the Seaton, where some
were inclined to go and see, others to go and hear; most of even
the latter class, however, being at the same time more than inclined
to mock at the idea of a popular religious assembly.
Not so Duncan MacPhail, who, notwithstanding the more than half
Pagan character of his ideas, had too much reverence to mock at
anything in the form of religion, to all the claims of which he
was even eager to assent: when the duty of forgiveness was pressed
upon him too hard, he would take his last refuge in excepting to
the authority of the messenger. He regarded the announcement of
the meeting with the greater respect that the man from Stornoway
was a MacLeod, and so of his mother’s clan.
It was now the end of August, when the sky is of a paler blue in
the day time, and greener about the sunset. The air had in it a
touch of cold, which, like as a faint acid affects a sweet drink,
only rendered the warmth more pleasant. On the appointed morning,
the tide was low, and the waves died gently upon the sand, seeming
to have crept away from the shore to get nearer to the sunrise.
Duncan was walking along the hard wet sand towards the promontory,
with Mr Graham on one side of him and Malcolm on the other. There
was no gun to fire this morning; it was Sunday, and all might
repose undisturbed: the longer sleep in bed, possibly the shorter
in church.
“I wish you had your sight but for a moment, Mr MacPhail,” said
the schoolmaster. “How this sunrise would make you leap for joy.”
“Ay!” said Malcolm, “it wad gar daddy grip till ’s pipes in twa
hurries.”
“And what should she’ll pe wanting her pipes for?” asked Duncan.
“To praise God wi’,” answered Malcolm.
“Ay; ay;” murmured Duncan thoughtfully. “Tey are tat.”
“What are they?” asked Mr Graham gently.
“For to praise Cod,” answered Duncan solemnly.
“I almost envy you,” returned Mr Graham, “when I think how you will
praise God one day. What a glorious waking you will have!”
“Ten it’ll pe your opinion, Mr Craham, tat she’ll pe sleeping her
sound sleep, and not pe lying wite awake in her coffin all ta time?”
“A good deal better than that, Mr MacPhail!” returned the schoolmaster
cheerily. “It’s my opinion that you are, as it were, asleep now,
and that the moment you die, you will feel as if you had just woke
up, and for the first time in your life. For one thing, you will
see far better then than any of us do now.”
But poor Duncan could not catch the idea; his mind was filled with
a preventing fancy.
“Yes; I know; at ta tay of chutchment,” he said. “Put what’ll pe
ta use of ketting her eyes open pefore she’ll pe up? How should
she pe seeing with all ta earth apove her--and ta cravestone
too tat I know my poy Malcolm will pe laying on ta top of his old
cranfather to keep him waarm, and let peoples pe know tat ta plind
piper will be lying town pelow wite awake and fery uncomfortable?”
“Excuse me, Mr MacPhail, but that’s all a mistake,” said Mr Graham
positively. “The body is but a sort of shell that we cast off when
we die, as the corn casts off its husk when it begins to grow. The
life of the seed comes up out of the earth in a new body, as St
Paul says,----”
“Ten,” interrupted Duncan, “she’ll pe crowing up out of her crave
like a seed crowing up to pe a corn or a parley?”
The schoolmaster began to despair of ever conveying to the piper
the idea that the living man is the seed sown, and that when the
body of this seed dies, then the new body, with the man in it,
springs alive out of the old one--that the death of the one is
the birth of the other. Far more enlightened people than Duncan
never imagine, and would find it hard to believe, that the sowing
of the seed spoken of might mean something else than the burying
of the body; not perceiving what yet surely is plain enough, that
that would be the sowing of a seed already dead, and incapable of
giving birth to anything whatever.
“No, no,” he said, almost impatiently, “_you_ will never be in the
grave: it is only your body that will go there, with nothing _like_
life about it except the smile the glad soul has left on it. The
poor body when thus forsaken is so dead that it can’t even stop
smiling. Get Malcolm to read to you out of the book of the Revelation
how there were multitudes even then standing before the throne.
They had died in this world, yet there they were, well and happy.”
“Oh, yes!” said Duncan, with no small touch of spitefulness in his
tone, “--twang-twanging at teir fine colden herps! She’ll not be
thinking much of ta herp for a music-maker! And peoples tells her
she’ll not pe hafing her pipes tere! Och hone! Och hone!--She’ll
chust pe lying still and not pe ketting up, and when ta work is ofer,
and eferypody cone away, she’ll chust pe ketting up, and taking a
look apout her, to see if she’ll pe finding a stand o’ pipes that
some coot highlandman has peen left pehint him when he tied lately.”
“You’ll find it rather lonely--won’t you?”
“Yes; no toubt, for tey’ll aal be cone up. Well, she’ll haf her
pipes; and she could not co where ta pipes was looked town upon by
all ta creat people--and all ta smaal ones too.”
They had now reached the foot of the promontory, and turned
northwards, each of his companions taking an arm of the piper to
help him over the rocks that lay between them and the mouth of the
cave, which soon yawned before them like a section of the mouth of
a great fish. Its floor of smooth rock had been swept out clean,
and sprinkled with dry sea sand. There were many hollows and
projections along its sides rudely fit for serving as seats, to
which had been added a number of forms extemporized of planks and
thwarts. No one had yet arrived when they entered, and they went at
once to the further end of the cave, that Duncan, who was a little
hard of hearing, might be close to the speakers. There his companions
turned and looked behind them: an exclamation, followed by a full
glance at each other, broke from each.
The sun, just clearing the end of the opposite promontory, shone
right into the mouth of the cave, from the midst of a tumult of gold,
in which all the other colours of his approach had been swallowed
up. The triumph strode splendent over sea and shore, subduing waves
and rocks to a path for its mighty entrance into that dark cave
on the human coast. With his back to the light stood Duncan in the
bottom of the cave, his white hair gleaming argentine, as if his
poor blind head were the very goal of the heavenly progress. He
turned round.
“Will it pe a fire? She feels something warm on her head,” he
said, rolling his sightless orbs, upon which the splendour broke
waveless, casting a grim shadow of him on the jagged rock behind.
“No,” answered Mr Graham; “it is the sun you feel. He’s just out
of his grave.”
The old man gave a grunt.
“I often think,” said the schoolmaster to Malcolm, “that possibly
the reason why we are told so little about the world we are going
to, is, that no description of it would enter our minds any more
than a description of that sunrise would carry a notion of its
reality into the mind of your grandfather.”
“She’s obleeched to you, Mr Craham!” said the piper with offence.
“You take her fery stupid. You’re so proud of your eyes, you think
a plind man cannot see at aall! Chm!”
But the folk began to assemble. By twos and threes, now from the
one side, now from the other, they came dropping in as if out of the
rush of the blinding sunshine, till the seats were nearly filled,
while a goodly company gathered about the mouth of the cave, there
to await the arrival of those who had called the meeting. Presently
MacLeod, a small thin man, with iron-gray hair, keen, shrewd
features, large head, and brown complexion, appeared, and made his
way to the further end of the cave, followed by three or four of
the men of Scaurnose, amongst whom walked a pale-faced, consumptive
lad, with bowed shoulders and eyes on the ground: he it was who,
feebly clambering on a ledge of rock, proceeded to conduct the worship
of the assembly. His parents were fisher-people of Scaurnose, who
to make a minister of him had been half-starving the rest of their
family; but he had broken down at length under the hardships of
endless work and wretched food. From the close of the session in
March, he had been teaching in Aberdeen until a few days before,
when he came home, aware that he was dying, and full of a fervour
betraying anxiety concerning himself rather than indicating the
possession of good news for others. The sun had now so far changed
his position, that, although he still shone into the cave, the preacher
stood in the shadow, out of which gleamed his wasted countenance,
pallid and sombre and solemn, as first he poured forth an abject
prayer for mercy, conceived in the spirit of a slave supplicating
the indulgence of a hard master, and couched in words and tones that
bore not a trace of the filial; then read the chapter containing
the curses of Mount Ebal, and gave the congregation one of Duncan’s
favourite psalms to sing; and at length began a sermon on what he
called the divine justice. Not one word was there in it, however,
concerning God’s love of fair dealing, either as betwixt himself
and man, or as betwixt man and his fellow; the preacher’s whole
notion of justice was the punishment of sin; and that punishment
was hell, and hell only; so that the whole sermon was about hell
from beginning to end--hell appalling, lurid, hopeless. And the
eyes of all were fixed upon him with that glow from within which
manifests the listening spirit. Some of the women were as pale as
himself from sympathetic horror, doubtless also from a vague stirring
of the conscience, which, without accusing them of crime, yet told
them that all was not right between them and their God; while the
working of the faces of some of the men betrayed a mind not at all
at ease concerning their prospects. It was an eloquent and powerful
utterance, and might doubtless claim its place in the economy of
human education; but it was at best a pagan embodiment of truths
such as a righteous pagan might have discovered, and breathed
nothing of the spirit of Christianity, being as unjust towards God
as it represented him to be towards men: the God of the preacher
was utterly unlike the father of Jesus. Urging his hearers to flee
from the wrath to come, he drew such a picture of an angry Deity
as in nothing resembled the revelation in the Son.
“Fellow sinners,” he said in conclusion, “haste ye and flee from
the wrath to come. Now is God waiting to be gracious--but only
so long as his Son holds back the indignation ready to burst forth
and devour you. He sprinkles its flames with the scarlet wool and
the hyssop of atonement; he stands between you and justice, and
pleads with his incensed Father for his rebellious creatures. Well
for you that he so stands and so pleads! Yet even _he_ could not
prevail for ever against such righteous anger; and it is but for a
season he will thus entreat; the day will come when he will stand
aside and let the fiery furnace break forth and slay you. Then,
with howling and anguish, with weeping and wailing and gnashing of
teeth, ye shall know that God is a God of justice, that his wrath
is one with his omnipotence, and his hate everlasting as the fires
of hell. But do as ye will, ye cannot thwart his decrees, for to
whom he will he showeth mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.”
Scarcely had he ceased, when a loud cry, clear and keen, rang through
every corner of the cave. Well might the preacher start and gaze
around him! for the cry was articulate, sharply modelled into the
three words--“Father o’ lichts!” Some of the men gave a scared
groan, and some of the women shrieked. None could tell whence the
cry had come, and Malcolm alone could guess who must have uttered
it.
“Yes,” said the preacher, recovering himself, and replying to the
voice, “he _is_ the Father of lights, but only to them that are in
Christ Jesus;--he is no father, but an avenging deity, to them
over whom the robe of his imputed righteousness is not cast. Jesus
Christ himself will not be gracious for ever. Kiss ye the Son,
lest even _he_ be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath
is kindled but a little.”
“Father o’ lichts!” rang the cry again, and louder than before.
To Malcolm it seemed close behind him, but he had the self-possession
not to turn his head. The preacher took no farther notice. MacLeod
stood up, and having, in a few simple remarks, attempted to smooth
some of the asperities of the youth’s address, announced another
meeting in the evening, and dismissed the assembly with a prayer.
Malcolm went home with his grandfather. He was certain it was the
laird’s voice he had heard, but he would attempt no search after his
refuge that day, for dread of leading to its discovery by others.
That evening most of the boats of the Seaton set out for the fishing
ground as usual, but not many went from Scaurnose. Blue Peter would
go no more of a Sunday, hence Malcolm was free for the night, and
again with his grandfather walked along the sands in the evening
towards the cave.
The sun was going down on the other side of the promontory before
them, and the sky was gorgeous in rose and blue, in peach and
violet, in purple and green, barred and fretted, heaped and broken,
scattered and massed--every colour edged and tinged and harmonized
with a glory as of gold, molten with heat, and glowing with fire.
The thought that his grandfather could not see, and had never
seen such splendour, made Malcolm sad, and very little was spoken
between them as they went.
When they arrived, the service had already commenced, but room was
made for them to pass, and a seat was found for Duncan where he
could hear. Just as they entered, Malcolm spied, amongst those who
preferred the open air at the mouth of the cavern, a face which he
was all but certain was that of one of the three men from whom he
had rescued the laird.
MacLeod was to address them. He took for his text the words of the
Saviour, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest,” and founded upon them a simple, gracious,
and all but eloquent discourse, very different in tone and influence
from that of the young student. It must be confessed that the
Christ he presented was very far off, and wrapped in a hazy nimbus
of abstraction; that the toil of his revelation was forgotten, the
life he lived being only alluded to, and that not for the sake of
showing what he was, and hence what God is, but to illustrate the
conclusions of men concerning him; and yet there was that heart of
reality in the whole thing which no moral vulgarity of theory, no
injustice towards God, no tyranny of stupid logic over childlike
intuitions, could so obscure as to render it inoperative. From the
form of the Son of Man, thus beheld from afar, came a warmth like
the warmth from the first approach of the far-off sun in spring,
sufficing to rouse the earth from the sleep of winter--in which
all the time the same sun has been its warmth and has kept it from
sleeping unto death.
MacLeod was a thinker--aware of the movements of his own heart,
and able to reflect on others the movements of their hearts; hence,
although in the main he treated the weariness and oppression from
which Jesus offered to set them free, as arising from a sense of
guilt and the fear of coming misery, he could not help alluding to
more ordinary troubles, and depicting other phases of the heart’s
restlessness with such truth and sympathy that many listened with
a vague feeling of exposure to a supernatural insight. The sermon
soon began to show its influence; for a sense of the need of help
is so present to every simple mind, that, of all messages, the offer
of help is of easiest reception; some of the women were sobbing,
and the silent tears were flowing down the faces of others; while
of the men many were looking grave and thoughtful, and kept their
eyes fixed on the speaker. At length, towards the close, MacLeod
judged it needful to give a word of warning.
“But, my friends,” he said, and his voice grew low and solemn, “I
dare not make an end without reminding you that, if you stop your
ears against the gracious call, a day will come when not even the
merits of the Son of God will avail you, but the wrath of the----”
“_Father o’ lichts!_” once more burst ringing out, like the sudden
cry of a trumpet in the night.
MacLeod took no notice of it, but brought his sermon at once to a
close, and specified the night of the following Saturday for next
meeting. They sung a psalm, and after a slow, solemn, thoughtful
prayer, the congregation dispersed.
But Malcolm, who, anxious because of the face he had seen as he
entered, had been laying his plans, after begging his grandfather
in a whisper to go home without him for a reason he would afterwards
explain, withdrew into a recess whence he could watch the cave,
without being readily discovered.
Scarcely had the last voices of the retreating congregation died
away, when the same ill-favoured face peeped round the corner of the
entrance, gave a quick glance about, and the man came in. Like a
snuffing terrier, he went peering in the dimness into every hollow,
and behind every projection, until he suddenly caught sight of
Malcolm, probably by a glimmering of his eyes.
“Hillo, Humpy!” he cried in a tone of exultation, and sprang up
the rough ascent of a step or two to where he sat.
Malcolm half rose, and met him with a well-delivered blow between
the eyes. He fell, and lay for a moment stunned. Malcolm sat down
again and watched him. When he came to himself, he crept out,
muttering imprecations. He knew it was not Humpy who dealt that
blow.
As soon as he was gone, Malcolm in his turn began searching.
He thought he knew every hole and corner of the cave, and there
was but one where the laird, who, for as near him as he heard his
voice the first time, certainly had not formed one of the visible
congregation, might have concealed himself: if that was his covert,
there he must be still, for he had assuredly not issued from it.
Immediately behind where he had sat in the morning, was a projection
of rock, with a narrow cleft between it and the wall of the cavern,
visible only from the very back of the cave, where the roof came
down low. But when he thought of it, he saw that even here he could
not have been hidden in the full light of the morning from the eyes
of some urchins who had seated themselves as far back as the roof
would allow them, and they had never looked as if they saw anything
more than other people. Still, if he was to search at all, here he
must begin. The cleft had scarcely more width than sufficed to admit
his body, and his hands told him at once that there was no laird
there. Could there be any opening further? If there was, it could
only be somewhere above. Was advance in that direction possible?
He felt about, and finding two or three footholds, began to climb
in the dark, and had reached the height of six feet or so, when he
came to a horizontal projection, which, for a moment only, barred
his further progress. Having literally surmounted this, that is,
got on the top of it, he found there a narrow vertical opening:
was it but a shallow recess, or did it lead into the heart of the
rock?
Carefully feeling his way both with hands and feet, he advanced a
step or two, and came to a place where the passage widened a little,
and then took a sharp turn and became so narrow that it was with
difficulty he forced himself through. It was, however, but one close
pinch, and he found himself, as his feet told him, at the top of
a steep descent. He stood for a moment hesitating, for prudence
demanded a light. The sound of the sea was behind him, but all
in front was still as the darkness of the grave. Suddenly up from
unknown depths of gloom, came the tones of a sweet childish voice,
singing--_The Lord’s my Shepherd_.
Malcolm waited until the psalm was finished, and then called out:
“Mr Stewart! I’m here--Malcolm MacPhail. I want to see ye. Tell
him it’s me, Phemy.”
A brief pause followed; then Phemy’s voice answered:
“Come awa’ doon. He says ye s’ be welcome.”
“Canna ye shaw a licht than; for I dinna ken a fit o’ the ro’d,”
said Malcolm.
The next moment a light appeared at some little distance below,
and presently began to ascend, borne by Phemy, towards the place
where he stood. She took him by the hand without a word, and led
him down a slope, apparently formed of material fallen from the
roof, to the cave already described. The moment he entered it, he
marked the water in its side, the smooth floor, the walls hollowed
into a thousand fantastic cavities, and knew he had come upon the
cave in which his great grandfather had found refuge so many years
before. Changes in its mouth had rendered entrance difficult, and
it had slipped by degrees from the knowledge of men.
At the bottom of the slope, by the side of the well, sat the laird.
Phemy set the little lantern she carried on its edge. The laird
rose and shook hands with Malcolm and asked him to be seated.
“I’m sorry to say they’re efter ye again, laird,” said Malcolm
after a little ordinary chat.
Mr Stewart was on his feet instantly.
“I maun awa’. Tak care o’ Phemy,” he said hurriedly.
“Na, na, sir,” said Malcolm, laying his hand on his arm; “there’s
nae sic hurry. As lang ’s I’m here ye may sit still; an’, as far ’s
I ken, naebody’s fun’ the w’y in but mysel’, an’ that was yer am
wyte (_blame_), laird. But ye hae garred mair fowk nor me luik, an’
that’s the pity o’ ’t.”
“I tauld ye, sir, ye sudna cry oot,” said Phemy.
“I couldna help it,” said Stewart apologetically.
“Weel, ye sudna ha’ gane near them again,” persisted the little
woman.
“Wha kent but they kent whaur I cam frae?” persisted the laird.
“Sit ye doon, sir, an’ lat’s hae a word aboot it,” said Malcolm
cheerily.
The laird cast a doubting look at Phemy.
“Ay, sit doon,” said Phemy.
Mr Stewart yielded, but nervous starts and sudden twitches of the
muscles betrayed his uneasiness: it looked as if his body would
jump up and run without his mind’s consent.
“Hae ye ony w’y o’ winnin’ oot o’ this, forbye (_besides_) the mou’
o’ the cave there?” asked Malcolm.
“Nane ’at I ken o’,” answered Phemy. “But there’s heaps o’ hidy
holes i’ the inside o’ ’t.”
“That’s a’ verra weel; but gien they keppit the mou’ an’ took their
time till ’t, they bude to grip ye.”
“There _may_ be, though,” resumed Phemy. “It gangs back a lang road.
I hae never been in sicht o’ the en’ o’ ’t. It comes doon verra
laich in some places, and gangs up heich again in ithers, but nae
sign o’ an en’ till ’t.”
“Is there ony soon’ o’ watter intill ’t?” asked Malcolm.
“Na, nane at ever I hard. But I’ll tell ye what I _hae_ hard: I hae
hard the flails gaein’ thud, thud, abune my heid.”
“Hoot toot, Phemy!” said Malcolm; “we’re a guid mile an’ a half frae
the nearest ferm-toon, an’ that I reckon, ’ll be the Hoose-ferm.”
“I canna help that,” persisted Phemy. “Gien ’t wasna the flails,
whiles ane, an’ whiles twa, I dinna ken what it cud hae been. Hoo
far it was I canna say, for it’s ill measurin’ i’ the dark, or wi’
naething but a bowat (_lantern_) i’ yer han’; but gien ye ca’d it
mair, I wadna won’er.”
“It’s a michty howkin!” said Malcolm; “but for a’ that it wadna
haud ye frae the grip o’ thae scoonrels: wharever ye ran they cud
rin efter ye.”
“I think we cud sort them,” said Phemy. “There’s ae place, a guid
bit farrer in, whaur the rufe comes doon to the flure, leavin’ jist
ae sma’ hole to creep throu’: it wad be fine to hae a gey muckle
stane handy, jist to row (_roll_) athort it, an’ gar ’t luik as gien
’t was the en’ o’ a’thing. But the hole’s sae sma’ at the laird
has ill gettin’ his puir back throu’ ’t.”
“I couldna help won’erin’ hoo he wan throu’ at the tap there,” said
Malcolm.
At this the laird laughed almost merrily, and rising, took Malcolm
by the hand and led him to the spot, where he made him feel a rough
groove in the wall of the rocky strait: into this hollow he laid
his hump, and so slid sideways through.
Malcolm squeezed himself through after him, saying,--
“Noo ye’re oot, laird, hadna ye better come wi’ me hame to Miss
Horn’s, whaur ye wad be as safe ’s gien ye war in h’aven itsel’?”
“Na, I canna gang to Miss Horn’s,” he replied.
“What for no, laird?”
Pulling Malcolm down towards him, the laird whispered in his ear,
“’Cause she’s fleyt at my back.”
A moment or two passed ere Malcolm could think of a reply both true
and fitting. When at length he spoke again there was no answer,
and he knew that he was alone.
He left the cave and set out for the Seaton; but, unable to feel
at peace about his friends, resolved, on the way, to return after
seeing his grandfather, and spend the night in the outer cave.