It was very dark by the time she left the house, for the night was
drizzly; but she knew the windings of Glamerton almost as well as the
way up her garret-stair. Thomas's door was half open, and a light was
shining from the kitchen. She knocked timidly. At the same moment she
heard the voice of Thomas from the other end of this house, which
consisted only of a _but and a ben_. In the ben-end (the inner
originally, hence better room) there was no light: Thomas often sat in
the dark.
"Jean, come ben to worship," he cried roughly.
"Comin', Thamas," answered Jean.
Again Annie knocked, but again without result. Her knock was too
gentle. After a moment's pause, dreading that the intended prayers
might interfere with her project, she knocked yet again; but a second
time her knock was overwhelmed in the gruff call of Thomas, sounding
yet more peremptory than before.
"Jean, come ben to worship."
"Hoot, Thamas, hae patience, man. I canna come."
"Jean, come ben to worship direckly."
"I'm i' the mids' o' cleanin' the shune. I hae dooble wark o' Mononday,
ye ken."
"The shune can bide."
"Worship can bide."
"Haud yer tongue. The shune can bide."
"Na, na; they canna bide."
"Gin ye dinna come ben this minute, I'll hae worship my lane."
Vanquished by the awful threat, Jean dropped the shoe she held, and
turned her apron; but having to pass the door on her way to the
ben-end, she saw Annie standing on the threshold, and stopped with a
start, ejaculating:
"The Lord preserve's, lassie!"
"Jean, what are ye sweerin' at?" cried Thomas, angrily.
"At Annie Anderson," answered Jean simply.
"What for are ye sweerin' at _her_? I'm sure she's a douce lassie. What
does the bairn want?"
"What do ye want, Annie?"
"I want to see Thomas, gin ye please," answered Annie.
"She wants to see you, Thomas," screamed Jean; remarking in a lower
voice, "He's as deef's a door-nail, Annie Anderson."
"Lat her come in, than," bawled Thomas.
"He's tellin' ye to come in, Annie," said Jean, as if she had been
interpreting his words. But she detained her nevertheless to ask
several unimportant questions. At length the voice of Thomas rousing
her once more, she hastened to introduce her.
"Gang in there, Annie," she said, throwing open the door of the dark
room. The child entered and stood just within it, not knowing even
where Thomas sat. But a voice came to her out of the gloom:
"Ye're no feared at the dark, are ye, Annie? Come in."
"I dinna ken whaur I'm gaein."
"Never min' that. Come straucht foret. I'm watchin' ye."
For Thomas had been sitting in the dark till he could see in it (which,
however, is not an invariable result), while out of the little light
Annie had come into none at all But she obeyed the voice, and went
straight forward into the dark, evidently much to the satisfaction of
Thomas, who seizing her arm with one hand, laid the other, horny and
heavy, on her head, saying:
"Noo, my lass, ye'll ken what faith means. Whan God tells ye to gang
into the mirk, gang!"
"But I dinna like the mirk," said Annie.
"No human sowl _can_," responded Thomas. "Jean, fess a can'le
direckly."
Now Thomas was an enemy to everything that could be, justly or
unjustly, called _superstition_; and this therefore was not the answer
that might have been expected of him. But he had begun with the
symbolic and mystical in his reception of Annie, and perhaps there was
something in the lovely childishness of her unconscious faith (while
she all the time thought herself a dreadful unbeliever) that kept
Thomas to the simplicities of the mystical part of his nature. Besides,
Thomas's mind was a rendezvous for all extremes. In him they met, and
showed that they met by fighting all day long. If you knocked at his
inner door, you never could tell what would open it to you--all
depending on what happened to be _uppermost_ in the wrestle.
The candle was brought and set on the table, showing two or three
geranium plants in the window. Why her eyes should have fixed upon
these, Annie tried to discover afterwards, when she was more used to
thinking. But she could not tell, except it were that they were so
scraggy and wretched, half drowned in the darkness, and half blanched
by the miserable light, and therefore must have been very like her own
feelings, as she stood before the ungentle but not unkind stone-mason.
"Weel, lassie," said he, when Jean had retired, "what do ye want wi'
me?"
Annie burst into tears again.
"Jean, gae butt the hoose direckly," cried Thomas, on the mere chance
of his attendant having lingered at the door. And the sound of her
retreating footsteps, though managed with all possible care,
immediately justified his suspicion. This interruption turned Annie's
tears aside, and when Thomas spoke next, she was able to reply.
"Noo, my bairn," he said, "what's the maitter?"
"I was at the missionar kirk last nicht," faltered Annie.
"Ay! And the sermon took a grip o' ye?--Nae doot, nae doot. Ay. Ay."
"I canna help forgettin' _him_, Thomas."
"But ye maun try and no forget him, lassie."
"Sae I do. But it's dour wark, and 'maist impossible."
"Sae it maun aye be; to the auld Aidam impossible; to the young
Christian a weary watch."
Hope began to dawn upon Annie.
"A body micht hae a chance," she asked with meditative suggestion,
"allooin' 'at she did forget him whiles?"
"Nae doot, lassie. The nations that forget God are them that dinna
care, that never fash their heids, or their herts aither, aboot
him--them that were never called, never chosen."
Annie's trouble returned like a sea-wave that had only retired to
gather strength.
"But hoo's a body to ken whether she _be_ ane o' the elec'?" she said,
quaking.
"That's a hard maitter. It's no needfu' to ken't aforehan'. Jist lat
that alane i' the mean time."
"But I canna lat it alane. It's no for mysel' aither a'thegither. Could
_ye_ lat it alane, Thomas?"
This home-thrust prevented any questioning about the second clause of
her answer. And Thomas dearly loved plain dealing.
"Ye hae me there, lassie. Na, I cudna lat it alane. An' I never did lat
it alane. I plaguit the Lord nicht an' day till he loot me ken."
"I tried hard last nicht," said Annie, "but the rottans war ower mony
for me."
"Sawtan has mony wiles," said the mason reflectively.
"Do ye think they warna rottans?' asked Annie.
"Ow! nae doot. I daursay."
"'Cause, gin I thocht they war only deils, I wadna care a buckie
(periwinkle) for them."
"It's muckle the same what ye ca' them, gin they ca you frae the throne
o' grace, lassie."
"What am I to do than, Thomas?"
"Ye maun haud at it, lassie, jist as the poor widow did wi' the unjust
judge. An' gin the Lord hears ye, ye'll ken ye're ane o' the elec', for
it's only his own elec' that the Lord dis hear. Eh! lassie, little ye
ken aboot prayin' an' no faintin'."
Alas for the parable if Thomas's theories were to be carried out in its
exposition! For they would lead to the conclusion that the Lord and the
unjust judge were one and the same person. But it is our divine
aspirations and not our intellectual theories that need to be carried
out. The latter may, nay must in some measure, perish; the former will
be found in perfect harmony with the divine Will; yea, true though
faint echoes of that Will--echoes from the unknown caves of our deepest
humanity, where lies, yet swathed in darkness, the divine image.
To Thomas's words Annie's only reply was a fixed gaze, which he
answered thus, resuming his last words:
"Ay, lassie, little ye ken aboot watchin' and prayin'. Whan it pleased
the Lord to call me, I was stan'in' my lane i' the mids' o' a
peat-moss, luikin' wast, whaur the sun had left a reid licht ahin him,
as gin he had jist brunt oot o' the lift, an' hadna gane doon ava. An'
it min'd me o' the day o' jeedgment. An' there I steid and luikit, till
the licht itsel' deid oot, an' naething was left but a gray sky an' a
feow starns intil't. An' the cloods gethered, an' the lift grew black
an' mirk; an' the haill countryside vainished, till I kent no more
aboot it than what my twa feet could answer for. An' I daurna muv for
the fear o' the pits o' water an' the walleen (well-eyes--quagmire-springs)
on ilka han'. The lee-lang nicht I stood, or lay, or kneeled upo' my
k-nees, cryin' to the Lord for grace. I forgot a' aboot election, an'
cried jist as gin I could gar him hear me by haudin' at him. An' i' the
mornin', whan the licht cam', I faund that my face was to the risin'
sun. And I crap oot o' the bog, an' hame to my ain hoose. An' ilka body
'at I met o' the road took the tither side o' 't, and glowert at me as
gin I had been a ghaist or a warlock. An' the bairns playin' aboot the
doors ran in like rabbits whan they got sicht o' me. An' I begud to
think 'at something fearsome had signed me for a reprobate; an' I jist
closed my door, and gaed to my bed, and loot my wark stan', for wha cud
wark wi' damnation hingin' ower his heid? An' three days gaed ower me,
that nothing passed my lips but a drap o' milk an' water. An' o' the
fourth day, i' the efternoon, I gaed to my wark wi' my heid swimmin'
and my hert like to brak for verra glaidness. I _was_ ane o' the
chosen.["]
"But hoo did ye fin' that oot, Thomas?" asked Annie, trembling.
"Weel, lassie," answered Thomas, with solemn conviction in every tone,
"it's my firm belief that, say what they like, there is, and there can
be, but _one_ way o' comin' to the knowledge o' that secret."
"And what's that?" entreated Annie, whose life seemed to hang upon his
lips.
"Jist this. Get a sicht o' the face o' God.--It's my belief, an' a' the
minnisters in creation'll no gar me alter my min', that no man can get
a glimp' o' the face o' God but ane o' the chosen. I'm no sayin' 'at a
man's no ane o' the elec' that hasna had that favour vouchsaufed to
_him_; but this I _do_ say, that he canna ken his election wi'oot that.
Try ye to get a sicht o' the face o' God, lassie: syne ye'll ken and be
at peace. Even Moses himsel' cudna be saitisfeed wi'oot that."
"What is't like, Thomas?" said Annie, with an eagerness which awe made
very still.
"No words can tell that. It's all in the speerit. Whan ye see't ye'll
ken't. There's no fear o' mistakin' _that_."
Teacher and scholar were silent. Annie was the first to speak. She had
gained her quest.
"Am I to gang hame noo, Thomas?"
"Ay, gang hame, lassie, to yer prayers. But I doobt it's dark. I'll
gang wi' ye.--Jean, my shune!"
"Na, na; I could gang hame blinlins," remonstrated Annie.
"Haud yer tongue. I'm gaein hame wi' ye, bairn.--Jean, my shune!"
"Hoot, Thamas! I've jist cleaned them," screeched Jean from the kitchen
at the second call.
"Fess them here direckly. It's a jeedgment on ye for sayin' worship cud
bide better nor the shune."
Janet brought them and put them down sulkily. In another minute the
great shoes, full of nails half an inch broad, were replaced on the
tired feet, and with her soft little hand clasped in the great horny
hand of the stonemason, Annie trotted home by his side. With Scotch
caution, Thomas, as soon as they entered the shop, instead of taking
leave of Annie, went up to the counter, and asked for an "unce o'
tobawco," as if his appearance along with Annie were merely accidental;
while Annie, with perfect appreciation of the reticence, ran through
the gap in the counter.
She was so far comforted and so much tired, that she fell asleep at her
prayers by the bedside. Presently she awoke in terror. It was Pussy
however that had waked her, as she knew by the green eyes lamping in a
corner. But she closed her prayers rather abruptly, clambered into bed,
and was soon fast asleep.
And in her sleep she dreamed that she stood in the darkness of the same
peat-moss which had held Thomas and his prayers all the night long. She
thought she was _kept in_ there, till she should pray enough to get
herself out of it. And she tried hard to pray, but she could not. And
she fell down in despair, beset with the terrors of those frightful
holes full of black water which she had seen on her way to Glamerton.
But a hand came out of the darkness, laid hold of hers, and lifting her
up, led her through the bog. And she dimly saw the form that led her,
and it was that of a man who walked looking upon the earth. And she
tried to see his face, but she could not, for he walked ever a little
before her. And he led her home to the old farm. And her father came to
the door to meet them. And he looked just the same as in the old happy
days, only that his face was strangely bright. And with the joy of
seeing her father she awoke to a gentle sorrow that she had not seen
also the face of her deliverer.
The next evening she wandered down to George Macwha's, and found the
two boys at work. She had no poetry to give them, no stories to tell
them, no answer to their questions as to where she had been the night
before. She could only stand in silence and watch them. The skeleton of
the boat grew beneath their hands, but it was on the workers and not on
their work that her gaze was fixed. For her heart was burning within
her, and she could hardly restrain herself from throwing her arms about
their necks and imploring them to seek the face of God. Oh! if she only
knew that Alec and Curly were of the elect! But they only could find
that out. There was no way for her to peer into that mystery. All she
could do was to watch their wants, to have the tool they needed next
ready to their hand, to clear away the spales from before the busy
plane, and to lie in wait for any chance of putting to her little
strength to help. Perhaps they were not of the elect! She would
minister to them therefore--oh, how much the more tenderly!
"What's come ower Annie?" said the one to the other when she had gone.
But there was no answer to be found to the question. Could they have
understood her if she had told them what had come over her?