_THE GLORY OF THEIR STRENGTH_
We went to the theatre that night, Charlie and I, as we had arranged.
But one-half of us didn't enjoy it very much. The play was a light,
frivolous thing, and I so defined it to Charlie before the second act
was through.
"I thought you liked the gay and festive sort," he said; "I do believe
this preachers' convocation is having a depressing influence on you,"
which remark I resented not a little; whatever my weaknesses were, I
knew susceptibility to the clergy was not one of them.
"Nothing of the sort," I retorted; "but the thing isn't true to
life--life was never one long cackle like that. Besides, they haven't
any fire on, and it's cold--and I'm going home after the next act."
Which I did, sure enough, and took Charlie with me. Our seats were
near the front; and I must confess I did enjoy our procession down the
aisle. I could see the looks of admiration on every hand--of envy,
too, from some maidenly and matronly eyes.
Charlie was so tall and straight and handsome, and had such an original
head of hair. Besides, most of our townspeople knew he was an
aristocrat--our little city made a specialty of aristocracy--and
absolutely all of them knew that he was rich. The darkies had a good
deal to do with this, I fancy. My admirer had come from far away, from
a city, too, and all the sons of Ham invest the stranger from a
distance with the glory of wealth untold. But white folks aren't so
very different after all; it's a very odd sort of girl that doesn't
take some satisfaction out of these far-travelled pilgrims that come
hundreds of miles, and stay several days at the best hotel, just to
worship at her feet. A local sweetheart is all very well in his
way--but the whole town doesn't know when he comes. Besides, it's so
convenient for the local to pay his homage that it may mean very much
or very little. But when a lover comes across a couple of states,
leaving behind him a big city--and all the girls that are sorry to see
him go, that's the best of it--that is something else, as we used to
say in the South. It means his temperature must be about a hundred and
twenty in the shade, as I have heard Uncle Henry say many a time.
Yes, I was proud enough of Charlie as we walked the full length of the
theatre that night, he keeping close behind and carrying my white opera
cloak on his arm. I remember an old maid--and they are the best
authority on such matters--telling me that Charlie had a very caressing
way of carrying a cloak, as if it were a sacred thing. I have thought
quite a little over this, and I believe there's something in it.
I cannot say I was sorry when I heard voices in the library as we came
in the house. And that's a bad sign when a girl's in love. There
should be no such music to a love-lorn pair as dead silence in the
library when they come home through the dark. When the poet sang of
voices of the night I'm sure he meant just two.
The Presbytery meeting was evidently over, for they were all home, Mr.
Furvell among them. Now I should have said at the outset that Mr.
Furvell, although he was our pastor and much beloved at that, was
really quite a Puritan of a man. And I was sure, as soon as he shook
hands with me that night, that he was concerned about my soul.
"Did you enjoy the play, Miss Helen?" he said, looking as solemnly at
me as though I had spent the evening where Dives was when he asked for
a drop of water to cool his tongue.
"No," said I, "it was a fool play," whereat Mr. Furvell looked a little
comforted.
"We had a beautiful service at the Presbytery," he went on, his
solemnity but little diluted; "the Lord was with us, Miss Helen," with
an intonation that implied a monopoly. "You'd have been more profited
if you had been there. Don't you think so, Mr. Laird?"
I fancy none of us learned much from our visitor's reply. Whatever it
was, it was quite evasive; but I remember that he looked at me instead
of his questioner--and I felt a little rising anger that my own
minister should have put me in this light before a stranger. He would
have found out what a frivolous heathen I was quite soon enough, I
thought, without any assistance of this kind from Mr. Furvell. The
conversation seemed to flag a little after this, and it wasn't very
long till Charlie and I slipped off into the library. I didn't slip as
cheerfully as Charlie. And he hadn't got more than well begun upon a
general criticism of Mr. Laird before uncle knocked at the door--uncle
was a very cautious man--"We're going to have prayers; will you and Mr.
Giddens come in to worship?"
Charlie gave a little gasp. "We're at our devotions right now
ourselves," he said, so low that uncle could not hear. Then we had a
swift little debate. I was for prayers, and Charlie said he believed
they had brought that whole Presbytery together just to convert me.
Which, I retorted, would be like training all the guns of the American
navy on one little house fly.
Anyhow, we went in--even Charlie couldn't have done anything else--and
the Reverend Gordon Laird had the Bible in his hand.
"Do you sing?" he suddenly enquired, looking up from the book.
"Who?" asked my Aunt Agnes, quite amazed.
"Oh! I mean, do you have singing at family worship? It's a very
common custom in Scotland--they usually go together."
Of course we had never heard of such a thing. In fact, family worship
in any form was one of the dainties we kept for visitors--if they were
able to help themselves.
So Mr. Laird spoke a few words about their Scottish Psalmody--I had
never heard the term before--and he said there were no hymns to touch
them, for strength and grandeur. I consider this epoch-making, in a
certain sense; for the psalms of David have been the songs in the house
of my pilgrimage for long years now.
Suddenly uncle asked him to sing one for us. He seemed quite willing,
and we all listened eagerly; except Charlie, who thought, I fancied,
that it was a waste of precious time.
I love to sit and think again of that wonderful experience. Uncle was
there, and my Aunt Agnes, and my precious mother; my promised husband,
too, was of the little company. I can see again the look of
expectation, surprise, and almost wonder as the young minister, with
serious mien, sang us one of the psalms of his native land. He chose
the eighty-ninth--I know them nearly all by number now. Our visitor's
voice was not so cultured as some I have heard, but it was clear and
sweet, and his ear was true,--and, best of all, his whole soul seemed
to be in the great words as they rose slowly from his lips. The words
are so noble that I must write them out.
"Oh! greatly blessed the people are
The joyful sound that know--
In brightness of Thy face, oh, Lord,
They ever on shall go.
"They in Thy name shall all the day
Rejoice exceedingly
And in Thy righteousness shall they
Exalted be on high."
So ran the mighty song. But I think we felt the grandeur of it most
when he sang the next two lines:
"Because the glory of their strength
Doth only stand in Thee,"
which impressed me then, and still impresses me, as the most majestic
union of words I ever heard in any form of religious song.
"That's wonderful!" said my mother as the psalm was finished.
"Beautiful!" contributed my uncle; "sounds like it ought to be sung by
a race of giants."
"So it was," said Mr. Laird. "The martyrs have sung those
words--hundreds of them. That psalm was a favourite with the
Covenanters."
"The what?" interjected Mr. Giddens. "The Covenanters, did you say?
Who were they?"
"The Covenanters," replied Mr. Laird. "And I consider that's the
greatest name ever given to a band of men."
"Were they a religious sect?" asked Charlie.
"No, sir--they were a religious army," answered Mr. Laird. "And I've
got their blood in my veins. Some of my ancestors laid down their
lives for their faith--and this world never saw an aristocracy like to
them." His cheeks were flushed, his whole face animated with a
wonderful light--and he looked really beautiful. Never shall I forget
the expression on the faces round me; they didn't know what to make of
this so unfamiliar kind of man.
But Charlie was not through with the subject yet. "Well, that kind of
thing may have suited them," he began again, "and there certainly is a
kind of strength about it. But I don't like it as well as our church
hymns," he continued, smiling.
"I didn't think you would," replied the minister, not smiling at all.
Then Mr. Laird took the Bible and went on with worship. He first read
a bit from the Scriptures, though what part it was I cannot remember.
After that he prayed. A beautiful, simple prayer--I thought it was so
manly, though that's a strange word to apply to a prayer. But he never
did think, as I came to know well enough later on, that God cares to
have us abase ourselves just for the sake of doing so. Strangely
enough, the only one thing I definitely remember about his prayer is
that he said: "Give us a good night's rest," and it struck me as a
beautifully simple petition.
There is one feature of that evening's worship that lingers with me
very vividly. After we knelt down--his chair was a few feet from
mine--Charlie crept over to the sofa where I was kneeling and bowed
down beside me. It thrilled me so--perhaps not in terms of Charlie
Giddens exactly--but it was the first time I ever thought of love and
prayer going together. And I recall how overpoweringly it came to me
that there could, surely, be nothing more sweet than this, that two who
loved each other should pray together, and should feel that even death
could never separate them, because their love was set in the light of
the Invisible. Charlie took my hand, too, and I rather think his eyes
were open--I know his face was turned to mine--but I couldn't be sure
of this, for my own were tightly closed.
I went outside the door with Charlie after he had said good-night to
all but me; and I do not think the silent night ever appeared so
glorious before. There was no moon, but the stars were shining calmly
overhead, and a sweet stillness, fragrant with the breath of spring,
was all about us. I could hear the twittering of birds in the magnolia
tree, and wondered if they were the love-lorn pair I had seen taking
shelter there.
I fancy I was still thinking of the great words and the great thoughts
of the swelling psalm, but Charlie seemed to have forgotten all about
it. He evidently didn't want anything but me. And his voice was full
of tender passion as he began and pressed his suit again--right away,
he said, it must be right away. And he rang the changes a little on
the yacht and Europe--I wished so much he hadn't mentioned these, for I
felt, in a kind of hungry way, that they had nothing to do with the
real case. He told me how much he loved me, and how empty life would
be without me at his side--but this was in between, and I felt, away
down in my heart, that he wasn't putting things in their proper places.
But he put his arm about me, and kissed me, three or four times, I
think. And then he tried again to make me promise--but I wouldn't.
"When we go abroad, we'll go and see where that parson used to herd the
sheep," he said, and laughed. "It's a wonder he didn't bring his
collie with him, isn't it?" and I felt my cheeks burn with resentment
at the jest. But I didn't let him see it--for I felt I had no right to
resent it. Besides, he had herded sheep on the hills--he said so
himself--and that was the worst of it. I thought something like that
then, at least, poor fool.
"Let me see its light again," said Charlie, taking my hand and looking
at my engagement ring; "it makes the whole night radiant, doesn't it?"
with which he kissed it, and held it to my lips that I might do the
same. I couldn't help glancing proudly at it, too, for it was a
beauty--and mother said no girl of our circle had ever had one so
valuable.
Then Charlie went away and I went back into the parlour. They were all
there except Mr. Laird.
"Well, I took him to the attic myself," said my Aunt Agnes, "and it was
right amusing to see how he went on over it. I had told Lyn to light
the fire, and it really looked cozy in the dark when we went in. He
said it was a room fit for a king--said he felt sorry for the elder.
Oh! he was just lovely about it."
My mother's mind was engrossed with something else. "Wasn't that
mortifying at the table," she began, "about his having been a shepherd,
I mean--he doesn't understand our way of looking at things here, or
he'd never have mentioned it. I saw Mr. Giddens fairly jump in his
chair."
"I thought it was lovely," I broke in with a vehemence I could not
restrain; "I don't see any disgrace in that. I think it's all the more
to his credit."
"Oh! no, of course, I don't mean it's any disgrace," my mother
exclaimed, "but--it's so funny. It's so different from anything we've
been used to."
"You're right there," said my uncle, rising and moving towards the gas
jet, for he was sleepy. "That's the truth all right--he's different
enough from what we usually see. I think he's refreshing, if you ask
me. But he had better go slow about expressing his views on these
niggers--if he doesn't want to get into trouble. That's one thing
sure."
"I wish he had told us a little more about his folks," said my Aunt
Agnes, yawning, and winding up her watch. "Did you notice he didn't
tell us anything about his father, except that he was a shepherd--that
he _is_ a shepherd," she revised, "for he's still living. I do wonder
if he's engaged," she added, placing the screen in front of the fire as
she spoke.
"Of course," said I; "certainly he's engaged."
"How could you know?" queried my mother instantly.
"Well, of course, I don't--but why shouldn't he be?"
No argument could avail against this very easily, and the matter stood
as before.
"Oh!" my uncle suddenly exclaimed, his hand upon the chandelier, "I
forgot to give him this letter--Mr. Furvell gave it to me for him at
the church; it was sent on in care of Dr. Paine. But he can get it in
the morning," as he deposited it on the mantel.