"We was saying," began the post briskly, "that----"
"It was me that was saying it," said Waster Lunny. "So, dominie----"
"Haud your gabs, baith o' you," interrupted Elspeth. "You've been
roaring the story to ane another till you're hoarse."
"In the forenoon," Waster Lunny went on determinedly, "Mr. Dishart
preached on the riot, and fine he was. Oh, dominie, you should hae
heard him ladling it on to Lang Tammas, no by name but in sic a way
that there was no mistaking wha he was preaching at, Sal! oh losh!
Tammas got it strong."
"But he's dull in the uptake," broke in the post, "by what I expected.
I spoke to him after the sermon, and I says, just to see if he was
properly humbled, 'Ay, Tammas,' I says, 'them that discourse was
preached against, winna think themselves seven feet men for a while
again.' 'Ay, Birse,' he answers, 'and glad I am to hear you admit it,
for he had you in his eye.' I was fair scunnered at Tammas the day."
"Mr. Dishart was preaching at the whole clanjamfray o' you," said
Elspeth.
"Maybe he was," said her husband, leering; "but you needna cast it at
us, for, my certie, if the men got it frae him in the forenoon, the
women got it in the afternoon."
"He redd them up most michty," said the post. "Thae was his very words
or something like them. 'Adam,' says he, 'was an erring man, but aside
Eve he was respectable.'"
"Ay, but it wasna a' women he meant," Elspeth explained, "for when he
said that, he pointed his finger direct at T'nowhead's lassie, and I
hope it'll do her good."
"But I wonder," I said, "that Mr. Dishart chose such a subject to-day.
I thought he would be on the riot at both services."
"You'll wonder mair," said Elspeth, "when you hear what happened afore
he began the afternoon sermon. But I canna get in a word wi' that man
o' mine."
"We've been speaking about it," said Birse, "ever since we left the
kirk door. Tod, we've been sawing it like seed a' alang the glen."
"And we meant to tell you about it at once," said Waster Lunny; "but
there's aye so muckle to say about a minister. Dagont, to hae ane
keeps a body out o' langour. Ay, but this breaks the drum. Dominie,
either Mr. Dishart wasna weel, or he was in the devil's grip."
This startled me, for the farmer was looking serious.
"He was weel eneuch," said Birse, "for a heap o' fowk speired at Jean
if he had ta'en his porridge as usual, and she admitted he had. But
the lassie was skeered hersel', and said it was a mercy Mrs. Dishart
wasna in the kirk."
"Why was she not there?" I asked anxiously.
"Oh, he winna let her out in sic weather."
"I wish you would tell me what happened," I said to Elspeth.
"So I will," she answered, "if Waster Lunny would haud his wheesht for
a minute. You see the afternoon diet began in the ordinary way, and a'
was richt until we came to the sermon. 'You will find my text,' he
says, in his piercing voice, 'in the eighth chapter of Ezra.'"
"And at thae words," said Waster Lunny, "my heart gae a loup, for Ezra
is an unca ill book to find; ay, and so is Ruth."
"I kent the books o' the Bible by heart," said Elspeth, scornfully,
"when I was a sax year auld."
"So did I," said Waster Lunny, "and I ken them yet, except when I'm
hurried. When Mr. Dishart gave out Ezra he a sort o' keeked round the
kirk to find out if he had puzzled onybody, and so there was a kind o'
a competition among the congregation wha would lay hand on it first.
That was what doited me. Ay, there was Ruth when she wasna wanted, but
Ezra, dagont, it looked as if Ezra had jumped clean out o' the
Bible."
"You wasna the only distressed crittur," said his wife. "I was ashamed
to see Eppie McLaren looking up the order o' the books at the
beginning o' the Bible."
"Tibbie Birse was even mair brazen," said the post, "for the sly
cuttie opened at Kings and pretended it was Ezra."
"None o' thae things would I do," said Waster Lunny, "and sal, I
dauredna, for Davit Lunan was glowering over my shuther. Ay, you may
scrowl at me, Elspeth Proctor, but as far back as I can mind, Ezra has
done me. Mony a time afore I start for the kirk I take my Bible to a
quiet place and look Ezra up. In the very pew I says canny to mysel',
'Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job,' the which should be a help, but the
moment the minister gi'es out that awfu' book, away goes Ezra like the
Egyptian."
"And you after her," said Elspeth, "like the weavers that wouldna
fecht. You make a windmill of your Bible."
"Oh, I winna admit I'm beat. Never mind, there's queer things in the
world forby Ezra. How is cripples aye so puffed up mair than other
folk? How does flour-bread aye fall on the buttered side?"
"I will mind," Elspeth said, "for I was terrified the minister would
admonish you frae the pulpit."
"He couldna hae done that, for was he no baffled to find Ezra
himsel'?"
"Him no find Ezra!" cried Elspeth. "I hae telled you a dozen times he
found it as easy as you could yoke a horse."
"The thing can be explained in no other way," said her husband,
doggedly, "if he was weel and in sound mind."
"Maybe the dominie can clear it up," suggested the post, "him being a
scholar."
"Then tell me what happened," I asked.
"Godsake, hae we no telled you?" Birse said. "I thocht we had."
"It was a terrible scene," said Elspeth, giving her husband a shove.
"As I said, Mr. Dishart gave out Ezra eighth. Weel, I turned it up in
a jiffy, and syne looked cautiously to see how Eppie McLaren was
getting on. Just at that minute I heard a groan frae the pulpit. It
didna stop short o' a groan. Ay, you may be sure I looked quick at the
minister, and there I saw a sicht that would hae made the grandest
gape. His face was as white as a baker's, and he had a sort of fallen
against the back o' the pulpit, staring demented-like at his open
Bible."
"And I saw him," said Birse, "put up his hand atween him and the Book,
as if he thocht it was to jump at him."
"Twice," said Elspeth, "he tried to speak, and twice he let the words
fall."
"That," says Waster Lunny, "the whole congregation admits, but I didna
see it mysel', for a' this time you may picture me hunting savage-like
for Ezra. I thocht the minister was waiting till I found it."
"Hendry Munn," said Birse, "stood upon one leg, wondering whether he
should run to the session-house for a glass of water."
"But by that time," said Elspeth, "the fit had left Mr. Dishart, or
rather it had ta'en a new turn. He grew red, and it's gospel that he
stamped his foot."
"He had the face of one using bad words," said the post. "He didna
swear, of course, but that was the face he had on."
"I missed it," said Waster Lunny, "for I was in full cry after Ezra,
with the sweat running down my face."
"But the most astounding thing has yet to be telled," went on Elspeth.
"The minister shook himsel' like one wakening frae a nasty dream, and
he cries in a voice of thunder, just as if he was shaking his fist at
somebody----"
"He cries," Birse interposed, cleverly, "he cries, 'You will find the
text in Genesis, chapter three, verse six.'"
"Yes," said Elspeth, "first he gave out one text, and then he gave out
another, being the most amazing thing to my mind that ever happened in
the town of Thrums. What will our children's children think o't? I
wouldna hae missed it for a pound note."
"Nor me," said Waster Lunny, "though I only got the tail o't. Dominie,
no sooner had he said Genesis third and sixth, than I laid my finger
on Ezra. Was it no provoking? Onybody can turn up Genesis, but it
needs an able-bodied man to find Ezra."
"He preached on the Fall," Elspeth said, "for an hour and twenty-five
minutes, but powerful though he was I would rather he had telled us
what made him gie the go-by to Ezra."
"All I can say," said Waster Lunny, "is that I never heard him mair
awe-inspiring. Whaur has he got sic a knowledge of women? He riddled
them, he fair riddled them, till I was ashamed o' being married."
"It's easy kent whaur he got his knowledge of women," Birse explained,
"it's a' in the original Hebrew. You can howk ony mortal thing out o'
the original Hebrew, the which all ministers hae at their finger ends.
What else makes them ken to jump a verse now and then when giving out
a psalm?"
"It wasna women like me he denounced," Elspeth insisted, "but young
lassies that leads men astray wi' their abominable wheedling ways."
"Tod," said her husband, "if they try their hands on Mr. Dishart
they'll meet their match."
"They will," chuckled the post. "The Hebrew's a grand thing, though
teuch, I'm telled, michty teuch."
"His sublimest burst," Waster Lunny came back to tell me, "was about
the beauty o' the soul being everything and the beauty o' the face no
worth a snuff. What a scorn he has for bonny faces and toom souls! I
dinna deny but what a bonny face fell takes me, but Mr. Dishart
wouldna gie a blade o' grass for't. Ay, and I used to think that in
their foolishness about women there was dagont little differ atween
the unlearned and the highly edicated."
The gossip about Gavin brought hitherto to the school-house had been
as bread to me, but this I did not like. For a minister to behave thus
was as unsettling to us as a change of Government to Londoners, and I
decided to give my scholars a holiday on the morrow and tramp into the
town for fuller news. But all through the night it snowed, and next
day, and then intermittently for many days, and every fall took the
school miles farther away from Thrums. Birse and the crows had now the
glen road to themselves, and even Birse had twice or thrice to bed
with me. At these times had he not been so interested in describing
his progress through the snow, maintaining that the crying want of our
glen road was palings for postmen to kick their feet against, he must
have wondered why I always turned the talk to the Auld Licht
minister.
"Ony explanation o' his sudden change o' texts?" Birse said, repeating
my question. "Tod, and there is and to spare, for I hear tell there's
saxteen explanations in the Tenements alone. As Tammas Haggart says,
that's a blessing, for if there had just been twa explanations the
kirk micht hae split on them."
"Ay," he said at another time, "twa or three even dared to question
the minister, but I'm thinking they made nothing o't. The majority
agrees that he was just inspired to change his text. But Lang Tammas
is dour. Tammas telled the session a queer thing. He says that after
the diet o' worship on that eventful afternoon Mr. Dishart carried the
Bible out o' the pulpit instead o' leaving that duty as usual to the
kirk-officer. Weel, Tammas, being precentor, has a richt, as you ken,
to leave the kirk by the session-house door, just like the minister
himsel'. He did so that afternoon, and what, think you, did he see? He
saw Mr. Dishart tearing a page out o' the Bible, and flinging it
savagely into the session-house fire. You dinna credit it? Weel, it's
staggering, but there's Hendry Munn's evidence too. Hendry took his
first chance o' looking up Ezra in the minister's Bible, and, behold,
the page wi' the eighth chapter was gone. Them that thinks Tammas
wasna blind wi' excitement hauds it had been Ezra eighth that gaed
into the fire. Onyway, there's no doubt about the page's being
missing, for whatever excitement Tammas was in, Hendry was as cool as
ever."
A week later Birse told me that the congregation had decided to regard
the incident as adding lustre to their kirk. This was largely, I fear,
because it could then be used to belittle the Established minister.
That fervent Auld Licht, Snecky Hobart, feeling that Gavin's action
was unsound, had gone on the following Sabbath to the parish kirk and
sat under Mr. Duthie. But Mr. Duthie was a close reader, so that
Snecky flung himself about in his pew in misery. The minister
concluded his sermon with these words: "But on this subject I will say
no more at present." "Because you canna," Snecky roared, and strutted
out of the church. Comparing the two scenes, it is obvious that the
Auld Lichts had won a victory. After preaching impromptu for an hour
and twenty-five minutes, it could never be said of Gavin that he
needed to read. He became more popular than ever. Yet the change of
texts was not forgotten. If in the future any other indictments were
brought against him, it would certainly be pinned to them.
I marvelled long over Gavin's jump from Ezra to Genesis, and at this
his first philippic against Woman, but I have known the cause for many
a year. The Bible was the one that had lain on the summer-seat while
the Egyptian hid there. It was the great pulpit Bible which remains in
the church as a rule, but Gavin had taken it home the previous day to
make some of its loose pages secure with paste. He had studied from it
on the day preceding the riot, but had used a small Bible during the
rest of the week. When he turned in the pulpit to Ezra, where he had
left the large Bible open in the summer-seat, he found this scrawled
across chapter eight:--
"I will never tell who flung the clod at Captain Halliwell. But why
did you fling it? I will never tell that you allowed me to be called
Mrs. Dishart before witnesses. But is not this a Scotch marriage?
Signed, Babbie the Egyptian."
Chapter Eleven.