"The sun and the bees,
And the face of her love through the green,
The shades of the trees,
And the poppy heads glowing between:
His heart asked no more,
'Twas full as the hawthorn in May,
And Life lay before,
As the hours of a long summer day."
For a week there was no change in the usual course and tenor of life at the Little House. Dr. Macrae read or wrote all morning, and after his lunch he dressed with care and rode over to the Hall, took a late dinner with Lady Cramer, and returned home about ten o'clock. He usually took a manuscript with him, and often spoke of reading it to Lady Cramer. Sometimes, also, he alluded to other company who were present, most frequently to the elderly Earl Travers, whom he described as an ultramontane Presbyterian. "He sits in a Free Church," he would say, with a slight tone of anger, "but his place is in one of the churches yet subject to Cæsar, not in a Free Church, which is a Law unto itself; its title deeds being only in the Registry above." Marion was proud of his enthusiasm, but Mrs. Caird told herself, privately, that Earl Travers had no doubt stimulated its character. For it was evident he disliked Travers on grounds more personal than the government of the Church.
Travers had been a close friend of the late Lord Cramer, and he took his place quietly but authoritatively at the side of his widow; indeed it appeared to Dr. Macrae that, on the very first night he met him at the Hall, Lady Cramer referred questions to the Earl that might have been left to his judgment. Even then, Dr. Macrae had an incipient jealousy of the Earl, who had just returned from a twelve months' cruise, rich in charming anecdotes of entertaining persons and events.
Really, Travers was much interested by the Minister and, hearing that he was going to preach in Cramer Church on the following Sabbath, he made an engagement at once with Lady Cramer to go with her to the service. She was delighted with the proposal and, with an intimate look at Dr. Macrae and a private handclasp as she passed him, vowed it would be the greatest pleasure the Earl could offer her. "I have always longed," she continued, "to hear one of those famous sermons that are said to thrill the largest congregations in Glasgow."
Certainly Dr. Macrae was flattered and much pleased. He had no fear of falling below any standard set up for him, yet he kept closely to himself all the previous Saturday, for he was gathering together his personality, so largely diffused by his late happiness, and flooding the sermon he was to deliver with streams of his own feeling and intellect. And, oh, how good he felt this exercise to be! For some hours he rose like a tower far above the restless sea of his passions. He put every doubt under his feet, he made himself forget he ever had a doubt.
The next morning was in itself sacramental, a Sabbath morning
"so cool, so calm, so bright;
The bridal of the earth and sky,"
filled the soul with peace, and everywhere there was a sense of rest. Even the cart horses knew it was Sunday, and were standing at the field gates, idle and happy. In the pale sunlight the moor stretched away to the mountains, and silent and serious little groups of people were crossing it from every side, but all making for one point—Cramer Church.
Dr. Macrae had been driven there very early and, during the hour before service, he was in the small vestry at the entrance of the church, and was, as he desired, left quite alone. In that hour he rose to the grandest altitude of his nature and, when the cessation of footsteps told him the congregation was gathered, he opened the vestry door. Then a very aged elder set wide the pulpit door, and Dr. Macrae—tall, stately, long-gowned and white-banded—walked with a serious deliberation unto that High Place from which he was to break the Bread of Life to the waiting worshipers before him. There was an irresistible power, both in him and going forth from him, that drew everyone present to himself. His burning, vehement spirit found its way in full force to his face, and it infected, nay, it went like a dart, to souls sleepy and careless in Zion.