“Will ye hae me, Mr Bigg?”
“Most willingly, ma’am; and we’ll be still better pleased if you’ll sit down with us to the Lord’s table afterwards.”
“I gang to the perris-kirk, ye ken,” said Miss Horn, supposing the good man unaware of the fact.
“Oh! I know that, ma’am. But don’t you think, as we shall, I trust, sit down together to his heavenly supper, it would be a good preparation to sit down together, once at least, to his earthly supper first?”
“I didna ken ’at ye wad hae ony but yer ain fowk! I hae aften thoucht mysel’, it was jist the ae thing ony Christi-an sud be ready to du wi’ ony ither. Is ’t a new thing wi’ ye to haud open hoose this gait, sir,—gien I may tak the leeberty to speir?”
“We don’t exactly keep open house. We wouldn’t like to have any one with us who would count it poor fare. But still less would we like to exclude one of the Lord’s friends. If that is a new thing, it ought to be an old one.—You believe in Jesus Christ—don’t you, ma’am?”
“I dinna ken whether I believe in him as ye wad ca’ believin’ or no—there’s sic a heap o’ things broucht to the fore noo-a-days ’at I canna richtly say I un’erstan’. But as he dee’d for me, I wad dee for him. Raither nor say I didna ken him, I wad hing aside him. Peter an’ a’, I canna say less.”
Mr Bigg’s eyes began to smart, and he turned away his head.
“Gien that’ll du wi’ ye,” Miss Horn went on, “an’ ye mean nae desertion o’ the kirk o’ my father an’ his fathers afore him, I wad willin’ly partak wi’ ye.”
“You’ll be welcome, Miss Horn—as welcome as any of my own flock.”