THE CHAPEL.
The next morning the sun rose into a cloudless blue sky, and Mona
found herself looking forward with pleasure to the walk into
Kirkstoun. The road lay along the coast, and was separated from the
sea by a stretch of yellow corn-fields. The inland scenery was flat
and tame, but, after the massive grandeur of Norway, Mona's eye
rested with quiet satisfaction on the smiling acres, cut into
squares, like a giant's chess-board, by scraggy hedges and
lichen-grown dykes.
They had gone about half-way, when a pleasant voice behind them said,
"Good morning, Miss Simpson."
"Oh, good morning, doctor! My dear, this is Dr Dudley."
He lifted his hat and accommodated his long ramshackle stride to
Rachel's podgy steps.
"How goes the rheumatism?" he asked.
"It's wonderful, doctor. Whenever I feel a twinge, I get the chemist
to make me up some of those powders of yours, and they work like
magic."
"That's right. You will give me a testimonial, won't you?"
"That I will, with all my heart. But you are surely forsaking Mr
Ewing this morning? What will he say to that?"
"Even so, Miss Simpson. Fortunately, Mr Ewing is not touchy on that
score. Your Mr Stuart asked me with charming frankness to come and
hear him, so I am taking the first opportunity of accepting his
invitation."
"I'm glad to hear it. You will hear a very different sermon to one
of Mr Ewing's."
He laughed. "Mr Ewing is not a Chrysostom," he said, "but he is a
good fellow and a gentleman, and in that capacity I think he has a
distinctly refining influence on his people."
"No doubt, doctor; but don't you think it is better to have the water
of life in an earthen vessel----?"
"Ah, yes," he said, with sudden seriousness. "If you give us the
water of life, we won't stop to criticise the bowl."
"Well, you wait till you hear Mr Stuart."
An almost imperceptible smile played about his mouth. He glanced at
Mona, and found her eyes fixed on his face; but she looked away
instantly. She would not be guilty of the disloyalty to Rachel
involved in the subtlest voluntary glance of comprehension; but her
face was a very eloquent one, and his short-sighted eyes were quick.
"_Que diable allait-elle faire dans cette galère?_" he thought.
"My dear," said Rachel to Mona, in that mysterious tone invariably
assumed by some people when they speak of things sacred, "we always
have the Communion after the morning service. Were you meaning to
stay?"
"You would not have me, would you?"
"You'd wonder." Rachel raised her voice. "We're very wide. Mr
Stuart has got into trouble with several other ministers in the Union
for his liberality. He says he will turn away no man who is a
converted Christian."
Dr Dudley's eyes sparkled. "I should have thought a converted pagan
would be even dearer to Stuart's heart."
"So he would, so he would, doctor. You know what I mean. Mr Stuart
says the simple name Christian is not sufficient nowadays, because so
many folks who call themselves by that name fight shy of the word
'converted.'"
Again Dr Dudley glanced at Mona, but this time she was on her guard.
"I think it is one of the grandest words I know," she said proudly,
looking straight in front of her. "But I think I won't stay to-day,
dear, thank you. Shall I wait for you?"
"Please yourself, my dear, please yourself. There's always quite a
party of us walks home together."
They had entered the quaint old town, and were greeted by a strong
smell of fish and of sea-weed, as they descended a steep angular
street to the shore. Here a single row of uneven shops and tenements
faced the harbour, alive to-day with the rich tints and picturesque
outlines of well-patched canvas sails; and brown-faced, flaxen-haired
babies basked on the flags at the mouths of the closes. A solitary
gig was rattling over the stones, with a noise and stir quite
disproportionate to its size and importance; and the natives, Bible
in hand, were quietly discussing the last haul of herring on their
way to the kirk.
Rachel led the way up another steep little hill, away from the sea;
and they entered the dark, narrow, sunless street, where the chapel
stood in well-to-do simplicity, opposite a large and odoriferous
tannery.
The interior of the chapel opened up another new corner of the world
for Mona. Fresh paint and varnish and crimson cushions gave a
general impression of smug respectability, and half the congregation
had duly assembled in Sunday attire; the women in well-preserved
Paisley shawls and purple bonnet-strings, the little girls in blue
ribbons and pink roses, and the boys severely superior in
uncompromising, ill-fitting Sabbath suits, with an extra supply of
"grease" on their home-cropped hair. Already there was a distinct
suspicion of peppermint in the atmosphere, and the hymn-books and
Bibles on the book-boards were interspersed with stray marigolds and
half-withered sprigs of southernwood.
There was nothing remarkable about either service or sermon. The
latter was a fair average specimen of thousands that were being
delivered throughout the country at the same moment. Those in
sympathy with the preacher would have found something to
admire--those out of sympathy, something to smile at; probably there
was not a single word that would have surprised or startled any one.
The sun became very hot about noon. The air in the chapel grew
closer and closer, the varnish on the pews more and more sticky, and
the smell of peppermint stronger every minute. A small boy beside
Mona fell asleep immediately after the first hymn; and, but for the
constant intervention of Dr Dudley, who sat behind, a well-oiled
little head would have fallen on her arm a dozen times in the course
of the service. She was thankful that she had not promised to wait
for Rachel, and as soon as the benediction had been pronounced, she
escaped into the fresh air like an uncaged bird.
She had not walked far before she was overtaken by Dr Dudley.
"Well," he said, "you will be glad to hear that the india-rubber has
been doing yeoman service."
Mona bowed without replying. She was annoyed with him for entering
into conversation with her in this matter-of-course way. No doubt he
thought that a shop-girl would be only too much flattered by his
condescension.
But Dudley was thinking more of her face than of her silence. One
did not often see a face like that. He had been watching it all
through the sermon, and it tempted him to go on.
"Pathetic soul, that," he said.
"Mr Stuart?" asked Mona indifferently.
"Yes. He is quite a study to me when I come down here. He is
struggling out of the mire of mediocrity, and he might as well save
himself the trouble."
Mona smiled in spite of herself--a quick, appreciative smile--and
Dudley hesitated no longer.
"After undergoing agonies of doubt, and profound study--of Joseph
Cook--he has decided 'to accept evolution within limits,' as he
phrases it. I believe he never enters the pulpit now without an
agreeable and galling sense of how he might electrify his
congregation if he only chose, and of how his scientific culture is
thrown away on a handful of fisher-folk."
Dr Dudley was amused with himself for talking in this strain; but in
his present mood he would have discussed the minister with his horse
or his dog, had either of them been his sole companion; and besides,
he was interested to see how Mona would take his character-sketch.
Would she understand his nineteenth-century jargon?
Her answer was intelligent if non-committal.
"He must be a man of sense and of self-repression," she said quietly.
"Well, he does not preach the survival of the fittest and the action
of environment, certainly; but that is just where the pathos of it
comes in. If he were the man he thinks he is, he would preach those
things in spite of himself, and without his people finding it out.
The fact is, that in the course of his life he has assimilated two
doctrines, and only two,--Justification by Faith--or his own version
of the same,--and Baptism by Immersion as a profession of Faith.
Anything else that he has acquired, or will acquire, is the merest
accretion, and not a part of himself at all."
"In other words, he resembles ninety-nine-hundredths of the human
race."
Dudley laughed. "Perhaps," he said. "Poor Stuart! I believe that
in every new hearer he sees a possible interesting young sceptic, on
whom he longs to try the force of concession. Such a tussle is the
Ultima Thule of his ambition."
"It seems a pity that it should not be realised. The interesting
young sceptic is a common species enough nowadays, and he rarely has
any objection to posing in that capacity."
Dr Dudley had not been studying her for nothing all morning. Her
tone jarred on him now, and he looked at her with his quick, keen
glance.
"I wonder how long it is----" he said, and then he decided that the
remark was quite unwarrantable.
Mona's stiffness thawed in a quiet laugh.
"Since I was an interesting young sceptic myself?" she said. "I
suppose I did lay myself open to that. Oh, it is a long, long time!
I don't find it easy to build a new Rome on the ashes of one that has
been destroyed."
"Don't you!" he said, with quick comprehension. "I think I do,
rather. It is such a ghastly sensation to have no Rome.
'Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul--'"
"Go on," said Mona.
"'Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past.
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven by a dome more vast;
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!'"
Then suddenly it flashed on Mona wherein his great charm lay. He had
one of the most beautiful voices she had ever heard.
"We might strike down to the beach here," he said, "and go home by
the braes. It is ever so much pleasanter."
"Not to-day, I think," said Mona; but what she meant was, "Not with
you."
They were deep in conversation when they reached Mrs Hamilton's gate,
and he was almost in the act of walking on with her to her own door;
but he suddenly remembered who she was, and thought better of it.
Not a very noble consideration, perhaps, when looked at from the
standpoint of eternity; but even the best of us do not at all times
look at life from the standpoint of eternity.
"Who is that young--person, who lives with Miss Simpson?" he asked
his aunt as they sat at lunch. He would have said "young lady" but
for Mrs Hamilton's well-known prejudices on the subject. "She seems
remarkably intelligent."
"She's a niece, I believe. Yes, she's sensible enough. I have not
seen them since I came back."
"But you don't mean to say her mother was Miss Simpson's sister?"
"I suppose so. Why not?"
"Why not? Talk of freaks of Nature! This girl seems to be a sort of
hidden genius."
"Oh, Ralph, come!" said the old lady, with a twinkle in her eye.
"There's plenty of backbiting in Borrowness, and Miss Simpson's niece
must expect to come in for her share of it, but I never heard _that_
said of her yet!"