THE LAMMAS PREACHING
By S. R. CROCKETT
'And I further intimate,' said the minister, 'that I will preach this evening at Cauldshaws, and my text will be from the ninth chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes and the tenth verse, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."'
'Save us,' said Janet MacTaggart, 'he's clean forgotten "if it be the Lord's wull." Maybe he'll be for gaun whether it's His wull or no'—he's a sair masterfu' man, the minister; but he comes frae the Machars,[*] an' kens little aboot the jealous God we hae amang the hills o' Gallowa'!'
[*] The Eastern Lowlands of Wigtonshire.
The minister continued, in the same high, level tone in which he did his preaching, 'There are a number of sluggards who lay the weight of their own laziness on the Almighty, saying, "I am a worm and no man—how should I strive with my Maker?" whenever they are at strife with their own sluggishness. There will be a word for all such this evening at the farmtown of Cauldshaws, presently occupied by Gilbert M'Kissock—public worship to begin at seven o'clock.'
The congregation of Barnessock kirk tumbled amicably over its own heels with eagerness to get into the kirkyaird in order to settle the momentous question, 'Wha's back was he on the day?'
Robert Kirk, Carsethorn, had a packet of peppermint lozenges in the crown of his 'lum' hat—deponed to by Elizabeth Douglas or Barr, in Barnbogrie, whose husband, Weelum Barr, put on the hat of the aforesaid Robert Kirk by mistake for his own, whereupon the peppermints fell to the floor and rolled under the pews in most unseemly fashion. Elizabeth Kirk is of opinion that this should be brought to the notice of Session, she herself always taking her peppermint while genteelly wiping her mouth with the corner of her handkerchief. Robert Kirk, on being put to the question, admits the fact, but says that it was his wife put them there to be near her hand.
The minister, however, ready with his word, brought him to shame by saying, 'O Robert, Robert, that was just what Adam said, "The woman Thou gavest me, she gave me to eat!"' The aforesaid Robert Kirk thinks that it is meddling with the original Hebrew to apply this to peppermints, and also says that Elizabeth Kirk is an impident besom, and furthermore that, as all the country well knows—— (Here the chronicler omits much matter actionable in the civil courts of the realm).
'Janet,' said the minister to his housekeeper, 'I am to preach to-night at Cauldshaws on the text, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."'
'I ken,' said Janet, 'I saw it on yer desk. I pat it ablow the clock for fear the wun's o' heeven micht blaw it awa' like chaff, an' you couldna do wantin' it!'
'Janet MacTaggart,' said the minister, tartly, 'bring in the denner, and do not meddle with what does not concern you.'
Janet could not abide read sermons; her natural woman rose against them. She knew, as she had said, that God was a jealous God, and, with regard to the minister, she looked upon herself as His viceregent.
'He's young an' terrable ram-stam an' opeenionated—fu' o' buik-lear, but wi' little gracious experience. For a' that, the root o' the maitter's in 'im,' said Janet, not unhopefully.
'I'm gaun to preach at Cauldshaws, and my text's "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might,"' said the minister to the precentor that afternoon, on the manse doorstep.
'The Lord's no' in a' his thochts. I'll gang wi' the lad mysel',' said the precentor.
Now, Galloway is so much out of the world that the Almighty has not there lifted His hand from reward and punishment, from guiding and restraining, as He has done in big towns where everything goes by machinery. Man may say that there is no God when he only sees a handbreadth of smoky heaven between the chimney-pots; but out on the fields of oats and bear, and up on the screes of the hillsides, where the mother granite sticks her bleaching ribs through the heather, men have reached great assurance on this and other matters.
The burns were running red with the mighty July rain when Douglas Maclellan started over the meadows and moors to preach his sermon at the farmtown of Cauldshaws. He had thanked the Lord that morning in his opening prayer for 'the bounteous rain wherewith He had seen meet to refresh His weary heritage.'
His congregation silently acquiesced, 'for what,' said they, 'could a man from the Machars be expected to ken about meadow hay?'
When the minister and the precentor got to the foot of the manse loaning, they came upon the parish ne'er-do-weel, Ebie Kirgan, who kept himself in employment by constantly scratching his head, trying to think of something to do, and whose clothes were constructed on the latest sanitary principles of ventilation. The ruins of Ebie's hat were usually tipped over one eye for enlarged facilities of scratching in the rear.
'If it's yer wull, minister, I'll come to hear ye the nicht. It's drawing to mair rain, I'm thinkin'!' said the Scarecrow.
'I hope the discourse may be profitable to you, Ebenezer, for, as I intimated this morning, I am to preach from the text, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."'
'Ay, minister,' said Ebie, relieving his right hand, and tipping his hat over the other eye to give his left free play. So the three struck over the fields, making for the thorn tree at the corner, where Robert Kirk's dyke dipped into the standing water of the meadow.
'Do you think ye can manage it, Maister Maclellan?' said the precentor. 'Ye're wat half-way up the leg already.'
'An' there's sax feet o' black moss water in the Laneburn as sure as I'm a leevin' sowl,' added Ebie Kirgan.
'I'm to preach at Cauldshaws, and my text is, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might!"' said the minister, stubbornly glooming from under the eaves of his eyebrows as the swarthy men from the Machars are wont to do. His companions said no more. They came to Camelon Lane, where usually Robert Kirk had a leaping pole on either bank to assist the traveller across, but both poles had gone down the water in the morning to look for Robert's meadow hay.
'Tak' care, Maister Maclellan, ye'll be in deep water afore ye ken. O man, ye had far better turn!'
The precentor stood up to his knees in water on what had once been the bank, and wrung his hands. But the minister pushed steadily ahead into the turbid and sluggish water.
'I canna come, oh, I canna come, for I'm a man that has a family.'
'It's no' your work; stay where ye are,' cried the minister, without looking over his shoulder; 'but as for me, I'm intimated to preach this night at Cauldshaws, and my text——'
Here he stepped into a deep hole, and his text was suddenly shut within him by the gurgle of moss water in his throat. His arms rose above the surface like the black spars of a windmill. But Ebie Kirgan sculled himself swiftly out, swimming with his shoeless feet, and pushed the minister before him to the further bank—the water gushing out of rents in his clothes as easily as out of the gills of a fish.
The minister stood with unshaken confidence on the bank. He ran peat water like a spout in a thunder plump, and black rivulets of dye were trickling from under his hat down his brow and dripping from the end of his nose.
'Then you'll not come any farther?' he called cross to the precentor.
'I canna, oh, I canna; though I'm most awfu' wullin'. Kirsty wad never forgie me gin I was to droon.'
'Then I'll e'en have to raise the tune myself—though three times "Kilmarneck" is a pity,' said the minister, turning on his heel and striding away through the shallow sea, splashing the water as high as his head with a kind of headstrong glee which seemed to the precentor a direct defiance of Providence. Ebie Kirgan followed half a dozen steps behind. The support of the precentor's lay semi-equality taken from him, he began to regret that he had come, and silently and ruefully plunged along after the minister through the waterlogged meadows. They came in time to the foot of Robert Kirk's march dyke, and skirted it a hundred yards upward to avoid the deep pool in which the Laneburn waters were swirling. The minister climbed silently up the seven-foot dyke, pausing a second on the top to balance himself for his leap to the other side. As he did so Ebie Kirgan saw that the dyke was swaying to the fall, having been weakened by the rush of water on the farther side. He ran instantly at the minister, and gave him a push with both hands which caused Mr. Maclellan to alight on his feet clear of the falling stones. The dyke did not so much fall outward as settle down on its own ruins. Ebie fell on his face among the stones with the impetus of his own eagerness. He arose, however, quickly—only limping slightly from what he called a 'bit chack' on the leg between two stones.
'That was a merciful providence, Ebenezer,' said the minister, solemnly; 'I hope you are duly thankful!'
'Dod, I am that!' replied Ebie, scratching his head vigorously with his right hand and rubbing his leg with his left. 'Gin I hadna gi'en ye that dunch, ye micht hae preachen nane at Cauldshaws this nicht.'
They now crossed a fairly level clover field, dark and laid with wet. The scent of the clover rose to their nostrils with almost overpowering force. There was not a breath of air. The sky was blue and the sun shining. Only a sullen roar came over the hill, sounding in the silence like the rush of a train over a far-away viaduct.
'What is that?' queried the minister, stopping to listen.
Ebie took a brisk sidelong look at him.
'I'm some dootsome that'll be the Skyreburn coming doon aff o' Cairnsmuir!'
The minister tramped unconcernedly on. Ebie Kirgan stared at him.
'He canna ken what a "Skyreburn warnin'" is—he'll be thinkin' it's some bit Machars burn that the laddies set their whurlie mills in. But he'll turn richt eneuch when he sees Skyreburn roarin' reed in a Lammas flood, I'm thinkin'!'
They took their way over the shoulder of the hill in the beautiful evening, leaning eagerly forward to get the first glimpse of the cause of that deep and resonant roar. In a moment they saw below them a narrow rock-walled gully, ten or fifteen yards across, filled to the brim with rushing water. It was not black peat water like the Camelon Lane, but it ran red as keel, flecked now and then with a revolving white blur as one of the Cauldshaws sheep spun downward to the sea, with four black feet turned pitifully up to the blue sky.
Ebie looked at the minister. 'He'll turn noo if he's mortal,' he said. But the minister held on. He looked at the water up and down the roaring stream. On a hill above, the farmer of Cauldshaws, having driven all his remaining sheep together, sat down to watch. Seeing the minister, he stood up and excitedly waved him back. But Douglas Maclellan from the Machars never gave him a look, and his shouting was of less effect than if he had been crying to an untrained collie.
The minister looked long up the stream, and at a point where the rocks came very close together, and many stunted pines were growing, he saw one which, having stood on the immediate brink, had been so much undercut that it leaned over the gully like a fishing-rod. With a keen glance along its length, the minister, jamming his dripping soft felt hat on the back of his head, was setting foot on the perilous slope of the uneven red-brown trunk, when Ebie Kirgan caught him sharply by the arm.
'It's no' for me to speak to a minister at ordinar' times,' he stammered, gathering courage in his desperation; 'but, oh, man, it's fair murder to try to gang ower that water!'
The minister wrenched himself free, and sprang along the trunk with wonderful agility.
'I'm intimated to preach at Cauldshaws this night, and my text is, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might!"' he shouted.
He made his way up and up the slope of the fir tree, which, having little grip of the rock, dipped and swayed under his tread. Ebie Kirgan fell on his knees and prayed aloud. He had not prayed since his stepmother boxed his ears for getting into bed without saying his prayers twenty years ago. This had set him against it. But he prayed now, and to infinitely more purpose than his minister had recently done. But when the climber had reached the branchy top, and was striving to get a few feet farther, in order to clear the surging linn before he made his spring, Ebie rose to his feet, leaving his prayer unfinished. He sent forth an almost animal shriek of terror. The tree roots cracked like breaking cables and slowly gave way, an avalanche of stones plumped into the whirl, and the top of the fir crashed downwards on the rocks of the opposite bank.
'Oh, man, call on the name of the Lord,' cried Ebie Kirgan, the ragged preacher, at the top of his voice.
Then he saw something detach itself from the tree as it rebounded, and for a moment rise and fall black against the sunset. Then Ebie the Outcast fell on his face like a dead man.
In the white coverleted 'room' of the farmtown of Cauldshaws, a white-faced lad lay with his eyes closed, and a wet cloth on his brow. A large-boned, red-cheeked, motherly woman stole to and fro with a foot as light as a fairy. The sleeper stirred and tried to lift an unavailing hand to his head. The mistress of Cauldshaws stole to his bedside as he opened his eyes. She laid a restraining hand on him as he strove to rise.
'Let me up,' said the minister, 'I must away, for I'm intimated to preach at Cauldshaws, and my text is, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."'
'My bonny man,' said the goodwife, tenderly, 'you'll preach best on the broad o' yer back this mony a day, an' when ye rise your best text will be, "He sent from above, He took me, and drew me out of many waters!"'