Wallis liked the sound of his own sentences, and a great deal more talk of similar character followed before they got back from the tailor’s. Malcolm was tired enough of him, and never felt the difference between man and man more strongly than when, after leaving him, he set out for a walk with Blue Peter, whom he found waiting him at his lodging. On this same Blue Peter, however, Wallis would have looked down from the height of his share of the marquisate as one of the lower orders—ignorant, vulgar, even dirty.
They had already gazed together upon not a few of the marvels of London, but nothing had hitherto moved or drawn them so much as the ordinary flow of the currents of life through the huge city. Upon Malcolm, however, this had now begun to pall, while Peter already found it worse than irksome, and longed for Scaurnose. At the same time loyalty to Malcolm kept him from uttering a whisper of his home-sickness. It was yet but the fourth day they had been in London.
“Eh, my lord!” said Blue Peter, when by chance they found themselves in the lull of a little quiet court, somewhere about Gray’s Inn, with the roar of Holborn in their ears, “it’s like a month sin’ I was at the kirk. I’m feart the din’s gotten into my heid, an’ I’ll never get it oot again. I cud maist wuss I was a mackerel, for they tell me the fish hears naething. I ken weel noo what ye meant, my lord, whan ye said ye dreidit the din micht gar ye forget yer Macker.”
“I hae been wussin’ sair mysel’, this last twa days,” responded Malcolm, “’at I cud get ae sicht o’ the jaws clashin’ upo’ the Scaurnose, or rowin’ up upo’ the edge o’ the links. The din o’ natur’ never troubles the guid thouchts in ye. I reckon it’s ’cause it’s a kin’ o’ a harmony in ’tsel’, an’ a harmony’s jist, as the maister used to say, a higher kin’ o’ a peace. Yon organ ’at we hearkent till ae day ootside the kirk, ye min’—man, it was a quaietness in ’tsel’, and cam throu’ the din like a bonny silence—like a lull i’ the win’ o’ this warl’! It wasna a din at a’, but a gran’ repose like. But this noise tumultuous o’ human strife, this din’ o’ iron shune an’ iron wheels, this whurr and whuzz o’ buyin’ an’ sellin’ an’ gettin’ gain—it disna help a body to their prayers.”
“Eh, na, my lord! Jist think o’ the preevilege—I never saw nor thoucht o’ ’t afore—o’ haein’ ’t i’ yer pooer, ony nicht ’at ye’re no efter the fish, to stap oot at yer ain door, an’ be in the mids o’ the temple! Be ’t licht or dark, be ’t foul or fair, the sea sleepin’ or ragin’, ye ha’e aye room, an’ naething atween ye an’ the throne o’ the Almichty, to the whilk yer prayers ken the gait, as weel ’s the herrin’ to the shores o’ Scotlan’: ye ha’e but to lat them flee, an’ they gang straucht there. But here ye ha’e aye to luik sae gleg efter yer boady, ’at, as ye say, my lord, yer sowl’s like to come aff the waur, gien it binna clean forgotten.”
“I doobt there’s something no richt aboot it, Peter,” returned Malcolm.
“There maun be a heap no richt aboot it,” answered Peter.
“Ay, but I’m no meanin’ ’t jist as ye du. I had the haill thing throu’ my heid last nicht, an’ I canna but think there’s something wrang wi’ a man gien he canna hear the word o’ God as weel i’ the mids o’ a multitude no man can number, a’ made ilk ane i’ the image o’ the Father—as weel, I say, as i’ the hert o’ win’ an’ watter an’ the lift an’ the starns an’ a’. Ye canna say ’at thae things are a’ made i’ the image o’ God, in the same w’y, at least, ’at ye can say ’t o’ the body an’ face o’ a man, for throu’ them the God o’ the whole earth revealed Himsel’ in Christ.”
“Ow, weel, I wad alloo what ye say, gien they war a’ to be considered Christi-ans.”
“Ow, I grant we canna weel du that i’ the full sense, but I doobt, gien they bena a’ Christi-ans ’at ca’s themsels that, there’s a heap mair Christi-anity nor gets the credit o’ its ain name. I min’ weel hoo Maister Graham said to me ance ’at hoo there was something o’ Him ’at made him, luikin’ oot o’ the een o’ ilka man ’at he had made; an’ what wad ye ca’ that but a scart or a straik o’ Christi-anity.”