Out in the Forty-Five Part 58

"And did the Bishop hear of it?"

"Ay, did he, and sent doun a big chiel, like an auld eagle, wi' a' his feathers ruffled the wrang way. But the minister, he stood his ground: 'There were three, Mr Archdeacon,' says he, as quiet as a mill-tarn, 'and the Lord Himsel' made the third.' 'And how am I to ken that?' says the big chiel, ruffling up his feathers belike. 'Will ye be sae gude as to ask Him?' says the minister. I dinna ken what the big chiel made o'

the tale to the Bishop, but we heard nae mair on't. Maybe he did ask Him, and gat the auld answer,--'Touch not Mine anointed, and do My prophet no harm.'"

"Still, rules ought to be kept, Sam."

"Rules ought to be kept in ordinar'. But this was bye-ordinar', ye see.

If a big lad has been tauld no to gang frae the parlour till his faither comes back, and he sees his little brither drooning in the pond just afore the window, I reckon his faither 'll no be mickle angered if he jumps out of the window and saves him. Any way, I wad nae like to ha'e what he'd get, gin he said,--'Faither, ye bade me tarry in this chalmer, and sae I could nae do a hand's turn for Willie.' Rules are man's, Miss Cary, but truth and souls belang to G.o.d."

My Aunt Kezia and Sophy had come in while Sam was talking, and Father and Hatty followed now, so we sat down to breakfast.

"Sam has told you one story, girls," said my Aunt Kezia, "and I will tell you another. You will find the singers changed when you go to church. Dan Oldfield and Susan Nixon are gone."

"Dan and Susan!" cried Hatty. "The two best voices in the gallery!"

"Well, you know, under old Mr Digby, there always used to be an anthem before the service began, in which Dan and Susan did their best to show off. The second week that Mr Liversedge was here, he stopped the anthem. Up started the singers, and told him they would not stand it.

It wasn't worth their while coming just for the psalms. Mr Liversedge heard them out quietly, and then said,--'Do you mean what you have just said?' Yes, to be sure they meant it. 'Then consider yourselves dismissed from the gallery without more words,' says he. 'You are not worthy to sing the praises of Him before whom mult.i.tudes of angels veil their faces. Not worth your while to praise G.o.d!--but worth your while to show man what fine voices He gave you whom you think scorn to thank for it!' And he turned them off there and then."

The next time I was alone with Sophy, she said to me, with tears in her eyes,--"Cary, I don't want you to reckon me worse than I am. That is bad enough, in all conscience. I would have knelt down with Annie Crosthwaite, and so, I am sure, would my Aunt Kezia; but it was while she was up in London with you, and Father was so poorly with the gout, I could not leave him. You see there was n.o.body to take my place, with all of you away. Please don't fancy I was one of those that refused, for indeed it was not so."

"I fancy you are a dear, good Sophy," said I, kissing her; "and I suppose, if Mr Liversedge asked you to shake hands with a chimney-sweep just come down the chimney, you would be delighted to do it."

"Well, perhaps I might," said Sophy, laughing. "But that, Cary, I should have done, not for him, but for our Master."

I found that I liked Mr Liversedge very much, as one would wish to like a brother-in-law that was to be. His whole heart seems to be in his Lord's work: and if, perhaps, he is a little sharp and abrupt at times, I think it is simply because he sees everything quickly and distinctly, and speaks as he sees. I was afraid he would have something of the pope about him, but I find he is not like that at all. He lets you alone for all mere differences of opinion, though he will talk them over with you readily if he sees that you wish it. But let those keen, black eyes perceive something which he thinks sin, and down he comes on you in the very manner of the old prophets. Yet show him that he has made a mistake, and that your action was justified, and he begs your forgiveness in a moment. And I never saw a man who seemed more fitted to deal with broken-hearted sinners. To them he is tenderness and comfort itself.

"He just takes pattern frae his Maister; that's whaur it is," said old Elspie. "Mind ye, He was unco gentle wi' the puir despised publicans, and vara tender to the wife that had been a sinner. It was the Pharisees He was hard on. And that's just what the minister is. Miss Cary, he's just the best blessing the Lord ever sent till Brocklebank!"

"I hardly thought, Elspie," said I, a little mischievously, "to hear you speak so well of a Prelatist clergyman."

"Hoot awa', we a' ha'e our bees in our bonnets, Miss Cary," said the old woman, a trifle testily. "The minister's no pairfect, I daur say. But he's as gran' at praying as John Knox himself and he gars ye feel the loue and loueliness o' Christ like Maister Rutherford did. And sae lang 's he'll do that, I'm no like to quarrel wi' him, if he do ha'e a fancy for lawn sleeves and siccan rubbish, I wish him better sense, that's a'.

Maybe he'll ha'e it ane o' thae days."

I cannot understand Hatty as she is now. For a while after that affair with the Crosslands she was just like a drooping, broken-down flower; all her pertness, and even her brightness, completely gone. Now that is changed, and she has become, not pert again, but hard--hard and bitter.

n.o.body can do anything to suit her, and she says things now and then which make me jump. Things, I mean, as if she believed nothing and cared for n.o.body. When Hatty speaks in that way, I often see my Aunt Kezia looking at her with a strange light in her eyes, which seems to be half pain and half hopefulness. Mr Liversedge, I fancy, is studying her; and I am not sure that he knows what to make of her.

Yesterday evening, f.a.n.n.y and Ambrose came in and sat a while. f.a.n.n.y is ever so much improved. She has brightened up, and lost much of that languid, limp, fanciful way she used to have; and, instead of writing odes to the stars, she seems to take an interest in her poultry-yard and dairy. My Aunt Kezia says f.a.n.n.y wanted an object in life, and I suppose she has it now.

When they had been there about an hour, Mr Liversedge came in. He does not visit Sophy often; I fancy he is too busy; but Tuesday evening is usually his leisure time, so far as he can be said to have one, and he generally spends it here when he can. He and Ambrose presently fell into discourse upon the parish, and somehow they got to talking of what a clergyman's duties were. Ambrose thought if he baptised and married and buried people, and administered the sacrament four times a year, and preached every month or so, and went to see sick people when they sent for him, he had done all that could be required, and might quite reasonably spend the rest of his time in hunting either foxes or Latin and Greek, according as his liking led him.

"You think Christ spent His life so?" asked Mr Liversedge, in that very quiet tone in which he says his sharpest things, and which reminds me so often of Colonel Keith.

Ambrose looked as if he did not know what to say; and before he had found out, Mr Liversedge went on,--

"Because, you see, He left me an example, that I should follow His steps."

"Mr Liversedge, I thought you were orthodox."

"I certainly should have thought so, as long as I quoted Scripture,"

said the Vicar.

"But, you know, n.o.body does such a thing," said Ambrose.

"Then is it not high time somebody should?"

"Mr Liversedge, you will never get promotion, if that be the way you are going on."

"In which world?"

"'Which world'! There is only one."

"I thought there were two."

Ambrose fidgetted uneasily on his chair.

"I tell you what, my good Sir, you are on the way to preach your church empty. The pews have no souls to be saved, I believe,"--and Ambrose chuckled over his little joke.

"What of the souls of the absent congregation?" asked Mr Liversedge.

"Oh, they'll have to get saved elsewhere," answered Ambrose.

"Then, if they do get saved, what reason shall I have to regret their absence? But suppose they do not, Mr Catterall,--is that my loss or theirs?"

"Why couldn't you keep them?" said Ambrose.

"At what cost?" was the Vicar's answer.

"A little more music and rather less thunder," said Ambrose, laughing.

"Give us back the anthem--you have no idea how many have taken seats at All Saints' because of that. And do you know your discarded singers are there?"

"All Saints' is heartily welcome to everybody that has gone there,"

replied Mr Liversedge. "If I drive them away by preaching error, I shall answer to G.o.d for their souls. But if men choose to go because they find truth unpalatable, I have no responsibility for them. The Lord has not given me those souls; that is plain. If He have given them to another sower of seed, by all means let them go to him as fast as they can."

"Mr Liversedge, I do believe,"--Ambrose drew his chair back an inch--"I do almost think--you must be--a--a Calvinist."

"It is not catching, I a.s.sure you, Mr Catterall."

"But are you?"

"That depends on what you mean. I certainly do not go blindly over hedge and ditch after the opinions of John Calvin. I am not sure that any one does."

"No, but--you believe that people are--a--are elect or non-elect; and if they be elect, they will be saved, however they live, and if they be not, they must needs be lost, however good they are. Excuse my speaking so freely."

"I am very much obliged to you for it. No, Mr Catterall, I do not believe anything of the sort. If that be what you mean by Calvinism, I abhor it as heartily as you do."

"Why, I thought all Calvinists believed that!"