Kitabı oku: «Salted with Fire», sayfa 13

Something like this was the meditation of the soutar, as he saw the farmer stride away into the dusk of the gathering twilight, going home with glad heart to his wife and son.

Peter had told the soutar that his son was sorely troubled because of a sin of his youth and its long concealment: now he was bent on all the reparation he could make. “Mr. Robertson,” said Peter, “broucht the lass to oor hoose, never mentionin Jamie, for he didna ken they war onything til ane anither; and for her, she never said ae word aboot him to Mirran or me.”

The soutar went to the door, and called Isy. She came, and stood humbly before her old master.

“Weel, Isy,” said the farmer kindly, “ye gied ‘s a clever slip yon morning and a gey fricht forbye! What possessed ye, lass, to dee sic a thing?”

She stood distressed, and made no answer.

“Hoot, lassie, tell me!” insisted Peter; “I haena been an ill maister til ye, have I?”

“Sir, ye hae been like the maister o’ a’ til me! But I canna—that is, I maunna—or raither, I’m determined no to explain the thing til onybody.”

“Thoucht ye my wife was feart the minister micht fa’ in love wi ye?”

“Weel, sir, there micht hae been something like that intil ‘t! But I wantit sair to win at my bairn again; for i’ that trance I lay in sae lang, I saw or h’ard something I took for an intimation that he was alive, and no that far awa.—And—wad ye believe’t, sir?—i’ this vera hoose I fand him, and here I hae him, and I’m jist as happy the noo as I was meeserable afore! Is ‘t ill o’ me at I canna be sorry ony mair?”

“Na, na,” interposed the soutar: “whan the Lord wad lift the burden, it wad be baith senseless and thankless to grup at it! In His name lat it gang, lass!”

“And noo,” said Mr. Blatherwick, again taking up his probe, “ye hae but ae thing left to confess—and that’s wha’s the father o’ ‘im!”

“Na, I canna dee that, sir; it’s enough that I have disgracet myself! You wouldn’t have me disgrace another as well! What good would that be?”

“It wad help ye beir the disgrace.”

“Na, no a hair, sir; he cudna stan’ the disgrace half sae weel ‘s me! I reckon the man the waiker vessel, sir; the woman has her bairn to fend for, and that taks her aff o’ the shame!”

“Ye dinna tell me he gies ye noucht to mainteen the cratur upo?”

“I tell ye naething, sir. He never even kenned there was a bairn!”

“Hoot, toot! ye canna be sae semple! It’s no poassible ye never loot him ken!”

“‘Deed no; I was ower sair ashamit! Ye see it was a’ my wyte!—and it was naebody’s business! My auntie said gien I wouldna tell, I micht put the door atween ‘s; and I took her at her word; for I kenned weel she couldna keep a secret, and I wasna gaein to hae his name mixed up wi’ a lass like mysel! And, sir, ye maunna try to gar me tell, for I hae no richt, and surely ye canna hae the hert to gar me!—But that ye sanna, ony gait!”

“I dinna blame ye, Isy! but there’s jist ae thing I’m determined upo—and that is that the rascal sail merry ye!”

Isy’s face flushed; she was taken too much at unawares to hide her pleasure at such a word from his mouth. But the flush faded, and presently Mr. Blatherwick saw that she was fighting with herself, and getting the better of that self. The shadow of a pawky smile flitted across her face as she answered—

“Surely ye wouldna merry me upon a rascal, sir! Ill as I hae behaved til ye, I can hardly hae deservit that at yer han’!”

“That’s what he’ll hae to dee though—jist merry ye aff han’! I s’ gar him.”

“I winna hae him garred! It’s me that has the richt ower him, and no anither, man nor wuman! He sanna be garred! What wad ye hae o’ me—thinkin I would tak a man ‘at was garred! Na, na; there s’ be nae garrin!—And ye canna gar him merry me gien I winna hae him! The day’s by for that!—A garred man! My certy!—Na, I thank ye!”

“Weel, my bonny leddy,” said Peter, “gien I had a prence to my son,—providit he was worth yer takin—I wad say to ye, ‘Hae, my leddy!’”

“And I would say to you, sir, ‘No—gien he bena willin,’” answered Isy, and ran from the room.

“Weel, what think ye o’ the lass by this time, Mr. Bletherwick?” said the soutar, with a flash in his eye.

“I think jist what I thoucht afore,” answered Peter: “she’s ane amo’ a million!”

“I’m no that sure aboot the proportion!” returned MacLear. “I doobt ye micht come upo twa afore ye wan throw the million!—A million’s a heap o’ women!”

“All I care to say is, that gien Jeemie binna ready to lea’ father and mother and kirk and steeple, and cleave to that wuman and her only, he’s no a mere gomeril, but jist a meeserable, wickit fule! and I s’ never speyk word til ‘im again, wi my wull, gien I live to the age o’ auld Methuselah!”

“Tak tent what ye say, or mint at sayin, to persuaud him:—Isy ‘ill be upo ye!” said the soutar laughing. “—But hearken to me, Mr. Bletherwick, and sayna a word to the minister aboot the bairnie.”

“Na, na; it’ll be best to lat him fin’ that oot for himsel.—And noo I maun be gaein, for I hae my wallet fu’!”

He strode to the door, holding his head high, and with never a word more, went out. The soutar closed the door and returned to his work, saying aloud as he went, “Lord, lat me ever and aye see thy face, and noucht mair will I desire—excep that the haill warl, O Lord, may behold it likewise. The prayers o’ the soutar are endit!”

Peter Blatherwick went home joyous at heart. His son was his son, and no villain!—only a poor creature, as is every man until he turns to the Lord, and leaves behind him every ambition, and all care about the judgment of men. He rejoiced that the girl he and Marion had befriended would be a strength to his son: she whom his wife would have rejected had proved herself indeed right noble! And he praised the father of men, that the very backslidings of those he loved had brought about their repentance and uplifting.

“Here I am!” he cried as he entered the house. “I hae seen the lassie ance mair, and she’s better and bonnier nor ever!”

“Ow ay; ye’re jist like a’ the men I ever cam across!” rejoined Marion smiling; “—easy taen wi’ the skin-side!”

“Doobtless: the Makker has taen a heap o’ pains wi the skin!—Ony gait, yon lassie’s ane amang ten thoosan! Jeemie sud be on his k-nees til her this vera moment—no sitting there glowerin as gien his twa een war twa bullets—fired aff, but never won oot o’ their barrels!”

“Hoot! wad ye hae him gang on his k-nees til ony but the Ane!”

“Aye wad I—til ony ane that’s nearer His likness nor himsel—and that ane’s oor Isy!—I wadna won’er, Jeemie, gien ye war fit for a drive the morn! In that case, I s’ caw ye doon to the toon, and lat ye say yer ain say til her.”

James did not sleep much that night, and nevertheless was greatly better the next day—indeed almost well.

Before noon they were at the soutar’s door. The soutar opened it himself, and took the minister straight to the ben-end of the house, where Isy sat alone. She rose, and with downcast eyes went to meet him.

“Isy,” he faltered, “can ye forgie me? And wull ye merry me as sene’s ever we can be cried?—I’m as ashamed o’ mysel as even ye would hae me!”

“Ye haena sae muckle to be ashamet o’ as I hae, sir: it was a’ my wyte!”

“And syne no to haud my face til’t!—Isy, I hae been a scoonrel til ye! I’m that disgustit at mysel ‘at I canna luik ye i’ the face!”

“Ye didna ken whaur I was! I ran awa that naebody micht ken.”

“What rizzon was there for onybody to ken? I’m sure ye never tellt!”

Isy went to the door and called Maggie. James stared after her, bewildered.

“There was this rizzon,” she said, re-entering with the child, and laying him in James’s arms.

He gasped with astonishment, almost consternation.

“Is this mine?” he stammered.

“Yours and mine, sir,” she replied. “Wasna God a heap better til me nor I deserved?—Sic a bonnie bairn! No a mark, no a spot upon him frae heid to fut to tell that he had no business to be here!—Gie the bonnie wee man a kiss, Mr. Blatherwick. Haud him close to ye, sir, and he’ll tak the pain oot o’ yer heart: aften has he taen ‘t oot o’ mine—only it aye cam again!—He’s yer ain son, sir! He cam to me bringin the Lord’s forgiveness, lang or ever I had the hert to speir for ‘t. Eh, but we maun dee oor best to mak up til God’s bairn for the wrang we did him afore he was born! But he’ll be like his great Father, and forgie us baith!”

As soon as Maggie had given the child to his mother, she went to her father, and sat down beside him, crying softly. He turned on his leather stool, and looked at her.

“Canna ye rejice wi’ them that rejice, noo that ye hae nane to greit wi’, Maggie, my doo?” he said. “Ye haena lost ane, and ye hae gaint twa! Haudna the glaidness back that’s sae fain to come to the licht i’ yer grudgin hert, Maggie! God himsel ‘s glaid, and the Shepherd’s glaid, and the angels are a’ makin sic a flut-flutter wi’ their muckle wings ‘at I can ‘maist see nor hear for them!”

Maggie rose, and stood a moment wiping her eyes. The same instant the door opened, and James entered with the little one in his arms. He laid him with a smile in Maggie’s.

“Thank you, sir!” said the girl humbly, and clasped the child to her bosom; nor, after that, was ever a cloud of jealousy to be seen on her face. I will not say she never longed or even wept after the little one, whom she still regarded as her very own, even when he was long gone away with his father and mother; indeed she mourned for him then like a mother from whom death has taken away her first-born and only son; neither did she see much difference between the two forms of loss; for Maggie felt in her heart that life nor death could destroy the relation that already existed between them: she could not be her father’s daughter and not understand that! Therefore, like a bereaved mother, she only gave herself the more to her father.

I will not dwell on the delight of James and Isobel, thus restored to each other, the one from a sea of sadness, the other from a gulf of perdition. The one had deserved many stripes, the other but a few: needful measure had been measured to each; and repentance had brought them together.

Before James left the house, the soutar took him aside, and said—

“Daur I offer ye a word o’ advice, sir?”

“‘Deed that ye may!” answered the young man with humility: “and I dinna see hoo it can be possible for me to hand frae deein as ye tell me; for you and my father and Isy atween ye, hae jist saved my vera sowl!”

“Weel, what I wad beg o’ ye is, that ye tak no further step o’ ony consequence, afore ye see Maister Robertson, and mak him acquant wi the haill affair.”

“I’m vera willin,” answered James; “and I doobtna Isy ‘ill be content.”

“Ye may be vera certain, sir, that she’ll be naething but pleased: she has a gran’ opingon, and weel she may, o’ Maister Robertson. Ye see, sir, I want ye to put yersels i’ the han’s o’ a man that kens ye baith, and the half o’ yer story a’ready—ane, that is, wha’ll jeedge ye truly and mercifully, and no condemn ye affhan’. Syne tak his advice what ye oucht to dee neist.”

“I will—and thank you, Mr. MacLear! Ae thing only I houp—that naither you, sir, nor he will ever seek to pursuaud me to gang on preachin. Ae thing I’m set upon, and that is, to deliver my sowl frae hypocrisy, and walk softly a’ the rest o’ my days! Happy man wad I hae been, had they set me frae the first to caw the pleuch, and cut the corn, and gether the stooks intil the barn—i’stead o’ creepin intil a leaky boat to fish for men wi’ a foul and tangled net! I’m affrontit and jist scunnert at mysel!—Eh, the presumption o’ the thing! But I hae been weel and richteously punished! The Father drew his han’ oot o’ mine, and loot me try to gang my lane; sae doon I cam, for I was fit for naething but to fa’: naething less could hae broucht me to mysel—and it took a lang time! I houp Mr. Robertson will see the thing as I dee mysel!—Wull I write and speir him oot to Stanecross to advise wi my father aboot Isy? That would bring him! There never was man readier to help!—But it’s surely my pairt to gang to him, and mak my confession, and boo til his judgment!—Only I maun tell Isy first!”

Isy was not only willing, but eager that Mr. and Mrs. Robertson should know everything.

“But be sure,” she added, “that you let them know you come of yourself, and I never asked you.”

Peter said he could not let him go alone, but must himself go with him, for he was but weakly yet—and they must not put it off a single day, lest anything should transpire and be misrepresented.

The news which father and son carried them, filled the Robertsons with more than pleasure; and if their reception of him made James feel the repentant prodigal he was, it was by its heartiness, and their jubilation over Isy.

The next Sunday, Mr. Robertson preached in James’s pulpit, and published the banns of marriage between James Blatherwick and Isobel Rose. The two following Sundays he repeated his visit to Tiltowie for the same purpose; and on the Monday married them at Stonecross. Then was also the little one baptized, by the name of Peter, in his father’s arms—amid much gladness, not unmingled with shame. The soutar and his Maggie were the only friends present besides the Robertsons.

Before the gathering broke up, the farmer put the big Bible in the hands of the soutar, with the request that he would lead their prayers; and this was very nearly what he said:—“O God, to whom we belang, hert and soul, body and blude and banes, hoo great art thou, and hoo close to us, to hand the richt ower us o’ sic a gran’ and fair, sic a just and true ownership! We bless thee hertily, rejicin in what thoo hast made us, and still mair in what thoo art thysel! Tak to thy hert, and hand them there, these thy twa repentant sinners, and thy ain little ane and theirs, wha’s innocent as thoo hast made him. Gie them sic grace to bring him up, that he be nane the waur for the wrang they did him afore he was born; and lat the knowledge o’ his parents’ faut haud him safe frae onything siclike! and may they baith be the better for their fa’, and live a heap the mair to the glory o’ their Father by cause o’ that slip! And gien ever the minister should again preach thy word, may it be wi’ the better comprehension, and the mair fervour; and to that en’ gie him to un’erstan’ the hicht and deepth and breid and len’th o’ thy forgivin love. Thy name be gloryfeed! Amen!”

“Na, na, I’ll never preach again!” whispered James to the soutar, as they rose from their knees.

“I winna be a’thegither sure o’ that!” returned the soutar. “Doobtless ye’ll dee as the Spirit shaws ye!”

James made no answer, and neither spoke again that night.

The next morning, James sent to the clerk of the synod his resignation of his parish and office.

No sooner had Marion, repentant under her husband’s terrible rebuke, set herself to resist her rampant pride, than the indwelling goodness swelled up in her like a reviving spring, and she began to be herself again, her old and lovely self. Little Peter, with his beauty and his winsome ways, melted and scattered the last lingering rack of her fog-like ambition for her son. Twenty times in a morning would she drop her work to catch up and caress her grandchild, overwhelming him with endearments; while over the return of his mother, her second Isy, now her daughter indeed, she soon became jubilant.

From the first publication of the banns, she had begun cleaning and setting to rights the parlour, meaning to make it over entirely to Isy and James; but the moment Isy discovered her intent, she protested obstinately: it should not, could not, must not be! The very morning after the wedding she was down in the kitchen, and had put the water on the fire for the porridge before her husband was awake. Before her new mother was down, or her father-in-law come in from his last preparations for the harvest, it was already boiling, and the table laid for breakfast.

“I ken weel,” she said to her mother, “that I hae no richt to contre ye; but ye was glaid o’ my help whan first I cam to be yer servan-lass; and what for shouldna things be jist the same noo? I ken a’ the w’ys o’ the place, and that they’ll lea’ me plenty o’ time for the bairnie: ye maun jist lat me step again intil my ain auld place! and gien onybody comes, it winna tak me a minute to mak mysel tidy as becomes the minister’s wife!—Only he says that’s to be a’ ower noo, and there’ll be no need!”

With that she broke into a little song, and went on with her work, singing.

At breakfast, James made request to his father that he might turn a certain unused loft into a room for Isy and himself and little Peter. His father making no objection, he set about the scheme at once, but was interrupted by the speedy advent of an exceptionally plentiful harvest.

The very day the cutting of the oats began, James appeared on the field with the other scythe-men, prepared to do his best. When his father came, however, he interfered, and compelled him to take the thing easier, because, unfit by habit and recent illness, it would be even dangerous for him to emulate the others. But what delighted his father even more than his good-will, was the way he talked with the men and women in the field: every show of superiority had vanished from his bearing and speech, and he was simply himself, behaving like the others, only with greater courtesy.

When the hour for the noonday meal arrived, Isy appeared with her mother-in-law and old Eppie, carrying their food for the labourers, and leading little Peter in her hand. For a while the whole company was enlivened by the child’s merriment; after which he was laid with his bottle in the shadow of an overarching stook, and went to sleep, his mother watching him, while she took her first lesson in gathering and binding the sheaves. When he woke, his grandfather sent the whole family home for the rest of the day.

“Hoots, Isy, my dauty,” he said, when she would fain have continued her work, “wad ye mak a slave-driver o’ me, and bring disgrace upo the name o’ father?”

Then at once she obeyed, and went with her husband, both of them tired indeed, but happier than ever in their lives before.

CHAPTER XXVI

The next morning James was in the field with the rest long before the sun was up. Day by day he grew stronger in mind and in body, until at length he was not only quite equal to the harvest-work, but capable of anything required of a farm servant.

His deliverance from the slavery of Sunday prayers and sermons, and his consequent sense of freedom and its delight, greatly favoured his growth in health and strength. Before the winter came, however, he had begun to find his heart turning toward the pulpit with a waking desire after utterance. For, almost as soon as his day’s work ceased to exhaust him, he had begun to take up the study of the sayings and doings of the Lord of men, full of eagerness to verify the relation in which he stood toward him, and, through him, toward that eternal atmosphere in which he lived and moved and had his being, God himself.

One day, with a sudden questioning hunger, he rose in haste from his knees, and turned almost trembling to his Greek Testament, to find whether the words of the Master, “If any man will do the will of the Father,” meant “If any man is willing to do the will of the Father;” and finding that just what they did mean, he was thenceforward so far at rest as to go on asking and hoping; nor was it then long before he began to feel he had something worth telling, and must tell it to any that would hear. And heartily he betook himself to pray for that spirit of truth which the Lord had promised to them that asked it of their Father in heaven.

He talked with his wife about what he had found; he talked with his father about it; he went to the soutar, and talked with him about it.

Now the soutar had for many years made a certain use of his Sundays, by which he now saw he might be of service to James: he went four miles into the country to a farm on the other side of Stonecross, to hold there a Sunday-school. It was the last farm for a long way in that direction: beyond it lay an unproductive region, consisting mostly of peat-mosses, and lone barren hills—where the waters above the firmament were but imperfectly divided from the waters below the firmament. For there roots of the hills coming rather close together, the waters gathered and made marshy places, with here and there a patch of ground on which crops could be raised. There were, however, many more houses, such as they were, than could have been expected from the appearance of the district. In one spot, indeed, not far from the farm I have mentioned, there was a small, thin hamlet. A long way from church or parish-school, and without any, nearer than several miles, to minister to the spiritual wants of the people, it was a rather rough and ignorant place, with a good many superstitions—none of them in their nature specially mischievous, except indeed as they blurred the idea of divine care and government—just the country for bogill-baes and brownie-baes, boodies and water-kelpies to linger and disport themselves, long after they had elsewhere disappeared!

When, therefore, the late minister came seeking his counsel, the soutar proposed, without giving any special reason for it, that he should accompany him the next Sunday afternoon, to his school at Bogiescratt; and James consenting, the soutar undertook to call for him at Stonecross on his way.

“Mr. MacLear,” said James, as they walked along the rough parish road together, “I have but just arrived at a point I ought to have reached before even entertaining a thought of opening my mouth upon anything belonging to religion. Perhaps I knew some little things about religion; certainly I knew nothing of religion; least of all had I made any discovery for myself in religion; and before that, how can a man understand or know anything whatever concerning it? Even now I may be presuming, but now at last, if I may dare to say so, I do seem to have begun to recognize something of the relation between a man and the God who made him; and with the sense of that, as I ventured to hint when I saw you last Friday, there has risen in my mind a desire to communicate to my fellow-men something of what I have seen and learned. One thing I dare to hope—that, at the first temptation to show-off, I shall be made aware of my danger, and have the grace given me to pull up. And one thing I have resolved upon—that, if ever I preach again, I will never again write a sermon. I know I shall make many blunders, and do the thing very badly; but failure itself will help to save me from conceit—will keep me, I hope, from thinking of myself at all, enabling me to leave myself in God’s hands, willing to fail if he please. Don’t you think, Mr. MacLear, we may even now look to God for what we ought to say, as confidently as if, like the early Christians, we stood accused before the magistrates?”

“I div that, Maister Jeames!” answered the soutar. “Hide yersel in God, sir, and oot o’ that secret place, secret and safe, speyk—and fear naething. And never ye mint at speykin doon to your congregation. Luik them straucht i’ the een, and say what at the moment ye think and feel; and dinna hesitate to gie them the best ye hae.”

“Thank you, thank you, sir! I think I understand,” replied James.—“If ever I speak again, I should like to begin in your school!”

“Ye sall—this vera nicht, gien ye like,” rejoined the soutar. “I think ye hae something e’en noo upo yer min’ ‘at ye would like to say to them—but we’ll see hoo ye feel aboot it efter I hae said a word to them first!”

“When you have said what you want to say, Mr. MacLear, give me a look; and if I have anything to say, I will respond to your sign. Then you can introduce me, saying what you will. Only dinna spare me; use me after your judgment.”

The soutar held out his hand to his disciple, and they finished their journey in silence.

When they reached the farm-house, the small gathering was nearly complete. It was mostly of farm-labourers; but a few of the congregation worked in a quarry, where serpentine lay under the peat. In this serpentine occurred veins of soapstone, occasionally of such a thickness as to be itself the object of the quarrier: it was used in the making of porcelain; and small quantities were in request for other purposes.

When the soutar began, James was a little shocked at first to hear him use his mother-tongue as in his ordinary conversation; but any sense of its unsuitableness vanished presently, and James soon began to feel that the vernacular gave his friend additional power of expression, and therewith of persuasion.

“My frien’s, I was jist thinkin, as I cam ower the hill,” he began, “hoo we war a’ made wi’ differin pooers—some o’ ‘s able to dee ae thing best, and some anither; and that led me to remark, that it was the same wi’ the warl we live in—some pairts o’ ‘t fit for growin aits, and some bere, and some wheat, or pitatas; and hoo ilk varyin rig had to be turnt til its ain best eese. We a’ ken what a lot o’ eeses the bonny green-and-reid-mottlet marble can be put til; but it wadna do weel for biggin hooses, specially gien there war mony streaks o’ saipstane intil ‘t. Still it’s no ‘at the saipstane itsel’s o’ nae eese, for ye ken there’s a heap o’ eeses it can be put til. For ae thing, the tailor taks a bit o’ ‘t to mark whaur he’s to sen’ the shears alang the claith, when he’s cuttin oot a pair o’ breeks; and again they mix’t up wi the clay they tak for the finer kin’s o’ crockery. But upo’ the ither han’ there’s ae thing it’s eesed for by some, ‘at canna be considert a richt eese to mak o’ ‘t: there’s ae wull tribe in America they tell me o’, ‘at ait a hantle o’ ‘t—and that’s a thing I cannot un’erstan’; for it diz them, they say, no guid at a’, ‘cep, maybe, it be jist to fill-in the toom places i’ their stammacks, puir reid craturs, and haud their ribs ohn stucken thegither—and maybe that’s jist what they ait it for! Eh, but they maun be sair hungert afore they tak til the vera dirt! But they’re only savage fowk, I’m thinkin, ‘at hae hardly begun to be men ava!

“Noo ye see what I’m drivin’ at? It’s this—that things hae aye to be put to their richt eeses! But there are guid eeses and better eeses, and things canna aye be putten to their best eeses; only, whaur they can, it’s a shame to put them to ony ither but their best! Noo, what’s the best eese o’ a man?—what’s a man made for? The carritchis (catechism) says, To glorifee God. And hoo is he to dee that? Jist by deein the wull o’ God. For the ae perfec’ man said he was born intil the warl for that ae special purpose, to dee the wull o’ him that sent him. A man’s for a heap o’ eeses, but that ae eese covers them a’. Whan he’s deein’ the wull o’ God, he’s deein jist a’thing.

“Still there are vahrious wy’s in which a man can be deein the wull o’ his Father in h’aven, and the great thing for ilk ane is to fin’ oot the best w’y he can set aboot deein that wull.

“Noo here’s a man sittin aside me that I maun help set to the best eese he’s fit for—and that is, tellin ither fowk what he kens aboot the God that made him and them, and stirrin o’ them up to dee what He would hae them dee. The fac is, that the man was ance a minister o’ the Kirk o’ Scotlan’; but whan he was a yoong man, he fell intil a great faut:—a yoong man’s faut—I’m no gaein to excuse ‘t—dinna think it!—Only I chairge ye, be ceevil til him i’ yer vera thouchts, rememberin hoo mony things ye hae dene yersels ‘at ye hae to be ashamit o’, though some o’ them may never hae come to the licht; for, be sure o’ this, he has repentit richt sair. Like the prodigal, he grew that ashamit o’ what he had dene, that he gied up his kirk, and gaed hame to the day’s darg upon his father’s ferm. And that’s what he’s at the noo, thof he be a scholar, and that a ripe ane! And by his repentance he’s learnt a heap that he didna ken afore, and that he couldna hae learnt ony ither w’y than by turnin wi’ shame frae the path o’ the transgressor. I hae broucht him wi’ me this day, sirs, to tell ye something—he hasna said to me what—that the Lord in his mercy has tellt him. I’ll say nae mair: Mr. Bletherwick, wull ye please tell’s what the Lord has putten it intil yer min’ to say?”

The soutar sat down; and James got up, white and trembling. For a moment or two he was unable to speak, but overcoming his emotion, and falling at once into the old Scots tongue, he said—

“My frien’s, I hae little richt to stan’ up afore ye and say onything; for, as some o’ ye ken, if no afore, at least noo, frae what my frien’ the soutar has jist been tellin ye, I was ance a minister o’ the kirk, but upon a time I behavet mysel that ill, that, whan I cam to my senses, I saw it my duty to withdraw, and mak room for anither to tak up my disgracet bishopric, as was said o’ Judas the traitor. But noo I seem to hae gotten some mair licht, and to ken some things I didna ken afore; sae, turnin my back upo’ my past sin, and believin God has forgien me, and is willin I sud set my han’ to his pleuch ance mair, I hae thoucht to mak a new beginnin here in a quaiet heumble fashion, tellin ye something o’ what I hae begoud, i’ the mercy o’ God, to un’erstan’ a wee for mysel. Sae noo, gien yell turn, them o’ ye that has broucht yer buiks wi’ ye, to the saeventh chapter o’ John’s gospel, and the saeventeenth verse, ye’ll read wi me what the Lord says there to the fowk o Jerus’lem: Gien ony man be wullin to dee His wull, he’ll ken whether what I tell him comes frae God, or whether I say ‘t only oot o’ my ain heid. Luik at it for yersels, for that’s what it says i’ the Greek, the whilk is plainer than the English to them that un’erstan’ the auld Greek tongue: Gien onybody be wullin to dee the wull o’ God, he’ll ken whether my teachin comes frae God, or I say ‘t o’ mysel.”

From that he went on to tell them that, if they kept trusting in God, and doing what Jesus told them, any mistake they made would but help them the better to understand what God and his son would have them do. The Lord gave them no promise, he said, of knowing what this or that man ought to do; but only of knowing what the man himself ought to do. And he illustrated this by the rebuke the Lord gave Peter when, leaving inquiry into the will of God that he might do it, he made inquiry into the decree of God concerning his friend that he might know it; seeking wherewithal, not to prophesy, but to foretell. Then he showed them the difference between the meaning of the Greek word, and that of the modern English word prophesy.