Foes Part 13

"I's fearing," said Thomas, "that he's lost the taste o' releegion!"

"Eh," exclaimed Jenny Barrow, "but he's a bonny big man! He came by yestreen, and I thought, 'For a' there is sae muckle o' ye, ye look as though ye walked on air!'"

Thomas groaned. "Muckle tae be saved, muckle tae be lost!"

Jarvis Barrow spoke from the head of the table. "If fowk canna talk on the Sabbath o' spiritual things, maybe they can mak s.h.i.+ft to haud the tongue in their chafts! I wad think that what we saw and heard the day wad put ye ower the burn frae vain converse!"

Thomas nodded approval.

"Aweel--" began Jenny, but did not find just the words with which to continue.

Elspeth, turning ever so slightly in her chair, looked farther off to the hills and summer clouds. A slow wave of color came over her face and throat. Menie and Merran looked sidelong each at the other, then their blue eyes fell to their plates. But w.i.l.l.y almost audibly smacked his lips.

"Gude keep us! the meenister gaed thae sinners their licks!"

"A sair sight, but an eedifying!" said Thomas.

Robin Greenlaw pushed back his chair. He saw the inside of the kirk again, and two miserable, loutish, lawless lovers standing for public discipline. His color rose. "Aye, it was a sair sight," he said, abruptly, made a pause, then went on with the impetuousness of a burn unlocked from winter ice. "If I should say just what I think, I suppose, uncle, that I could not come here again! So I'll e'en say only that I think that was a sair sight and that I felt great shame and pity for all sinners. So, feeling it for all, I felt it for Mallie and Jock, standing there an hour, first on one foot and then on the other, to be gloated at and rebukit, and for the minister doing the rebuking, and for the kirkful all gloating, and thinking, 'Lord, not such are we!' and for Robin Greenlaw who often enough himself takes wildfire for true light! I say I think it was sair sight and sair doing--"

Barrow's hand came down upon the table. "Robin Greenlaw!"

"You need not thunder at me, sir. I'm done! I did not mean to make such a clatter, for in this house what clatter makes any difference?

It's the sinner makes the clatter, and it's just promptly sunk and lost in G.o.dliness!"

The old man and the young turned in their chairs, faced each other.

They looked somewhat alike, and in the heart of each was fondness for the other. Greenlaw, eye to eye with the patriarch, felt his wrath going.

"Eh, uncle, I did not mean to hurt the Sunday!"

Jarvis Barrow spoke with the look and the weight of a prophet in Israel. "What is your quarrel about, and for what are ye flyting against the kirk and the minister and the kirkkeepers? Are ye wanting that twa sinners, having sinned, should hae their sin for secret and sweet to their aneselves, gilded and pairfumed and excused and unnamed? Are ye wanting that nane should know, and the plague should live without the doctor and without the mark upon the door? Or are ye thinking that it is nae plague at all, nae sin, and nae blame? Then ye be atheist, Robin Greenlaw, and ye gae indeed frae my door, and wad gae were ye na my nephew, but my son!" He gathered force. "Elder of the kirk, I sit here, and I tell ye that were it my ain flesh and blood that did evil, my stick and my plaid I wad take and ower the moor I wad gae to tell manse and parish that Sin, the wolf, had crept into the fauld! And I wad see thae folly-crammed and sinfu' sauls, that had let him in and had his bite, set for shame and shawing and warning and example before the congregation, and I wad say to the minister, 'Lift voice against them and spare not!' And I wad be there the day and in my seat, though my heart o' flesh was like to break!"

His hand fell again heavily upon the board. "Sae weak and womanish is thae time we live in!" He flashed at his great-nephew. "Sae poetical!

It wasna sae when the Malignants drove us and we fled to the hills and were fed on the muirs with the word of the Lord! It wasna sae in the time when Gawin Elliot that Glenfernie draws frae was hanged for gieing us that word! Then gin a sin-blasted ane was found amang us, his road indeed was shawn him! Aye, were't man or woman! _'For while they be folded together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry!'_"

He pushed back his heavy chair; he rose from table and went forth, tall, ancient, gray, armored in belief. They heard him take his Bible from where it lay, and knew that he was back under the fir-tree, facing from the house toward moor and hill and mountain.

"Eh-h," groaned Thomas, "the elder is a mighty witness!"

The family at White Farm ate in silence. Elspeth slipped from her place.

"Where are ye gaeing, hinny?" asked Jenny. "Ye hae eaten naething."

"I've finished," said Elspeth. "I'm going to afternoon kirk, and I'll be getting ready."

She went into the room that she shared with Gilian and shut the door.

Robin looked after her.

"When is Gilian coming home?"

"Naebody knows. She is sae weel at Aberdeen! They write that she is a great student and is liked abune a', and they clamor to keep her.--Are ye gaeing to second kirk, Robin?"

"I do not think so. But I'll walk over the moor with you."

The meal ended. Thomas and w.i.l.l.y went forth to the barn. Menie and Merran began to clear the table. They were not going to second kirk, and so the work was left to their hand. Jenny bustled to get on again her Sunday gear. She would not have missed, for a pretty, afternoon kirk and all the neighbors who were twice-goers. It was fair and theater and promenade and kirk to her in one--though of course she only said "kirk."

They walked over the moor, Jarvis Barrow and Jenny and Robin and Elspeth. And at a crossing path they came upon a figure seated on a stone and found it to be that of the laird of Glenfernie.

"Gude day, Glenfernie!"

"Good day, White Farm!"

He joined himself to them. For a moment he and Robin Greenlaw were together.

"Do you know what I hear them calling you?" quoth the latter. "I hear them say 'The wandering laird!'"

Alexander smiled. "That's not so bad a name!"

He walked now beside Jarvis Barrow. The old man's stride was hardly shortened by age. The two kept ahead of the two women, Greenlaw, Thomas, and the sheep-dog Sandy.

"It's a bonny day, White Farm!"

"Aye, it's bonny eneuch, Glenfernie. Are ye for kirk?"

"Maybe so, maybe not. I take much of my kirk out of doors. Moors make grand kirks. That has a sound, has it not, of heathenish bra.s.s cymbals?"

"It hae."

"All the same, I honor every kirk that stands sincere."

"Wasna your father sincere? Why gae ye not in his steps?"

"Maybe I do.... Yes, he was sincere. I trust that I am so, too. I would be."

"Why gae ye not in his steps, then?"

"All buildings are not alike and yet they may be built sincerely."

"Ye're wrong! Ye'll see it one day. Ye'll come round to your father's steps, only ye'll tread them deeper! Ye've got it in you, to the far back. I hear good o' ye, and I hear ill o' ye."

"Belike."

"Ye've traveled. See if ye can travel out of the ring of G.o.d!"

"What is the ring of G.o.d? If it is as large as I think it is," said Glenfernie, "I'll not travel out of it."

He looked out over moor and moss. There breathed about him something that gave the old man wonder. "Hae ye gold-mines and jewels, Glenfernie? Hae the King made ye Minister?"

The wandering laird laughed. "Better than that, White Farm, better than that!" He was tempted then and there to say: "I love your granddaughter Elspeth. I love Elspeth!" It was his intention to say something like this as soon as might be to White Farm. "I love Elspeth and Elspeth loves me. So we would marry, White Farm, and she be lady beside the laird at Glenfernie." But he could not say it yet, because he did not know if Elspeth loved him. He was in a condition of hope, but very humbly so, far from a.s.surance. He never did Elspeth the indignity of thinking that a lesser thing than love might lead her to Glenfernie House. If she came she would come because she loved--not else.