Afterwards, and Other Stories

by Ian Maclaren

During the week the probationer was much tried on a question of conscience, whether he ought to act on a suggestion of his friend at Tilliegask.

“It happens,” he explained to me, “that the people at Tilliegask are very conservative in their views of the Bible, while, as you are aware, I have been led to accept certain modern conclusions regarding the history of the books, and my good friend desires that I should... make no allusion to them in my discourse.

“Now,” went on the probationer, “it was not my intention to do so, but after this advice am I not bound in conscience to indicate, simply to indicate, my position, that they may not be deceived, and that I may not obtain a church by guile?” And he read to me the sentence, which I make no doubt no one understood, but which was to Mr. Clunas a great relief. He came home from Tilliegask in high spirits, and speculated every evening on his chances as against the other man who was to preach on Sabbath.

“No, he was not what you would call a scholar,” and then the probationer laughed aloud—a rare occurrence; “well, it was a translation in the Latin class; he rendered adhuc juvenis as 'a still youth,' which was much tasted, and others, too, as remarkable; but it is not generous to remember such... failings.”

The good man was indeed so distressed by this disparaging allusion to his rival that he searched his heart for the sins of pride and jealousy, which with envy and worldliness, he confessed to me, constantly beset him. He also impressed upon me that although Mr. Tosh might not be a scholar in the academic sense, yet he had such gifts of speech that he would be an excellent minister for Tilliegask if the choice of that secluded place should fall on Tosh. But the probationer waited anxiously for the first post on Tuesday, which would give the result, and I was only less anxious.

When he did not come down with tidings, and only the faintest sound came from his room as of a chair occasionally shifted before the fire, I went up, and found my friend very low and two open letters on the table.

“It has not been... God's will,” and he signed that I should read the letters. One was from the ecclesiastical functionary who presides over elections and church courts, and who is called by the suggestive name of “moderator”; that the vote had been fifty-two for Mr. Clunas and ninety-three for Mr. Tosh; that Mr. Tosh had been elected; that on his, the moderator's appeal, the minority had “fallen in”; that he, the moderator, was sure that Mr. Clunas would be pleased to know that his supporters had shown so good a spirit, and that there was no doubt that the Great Head of the Church had something in store for His servant; and that in the event of Mr. Clunas applying in another vacancy he, the moderator, would be willing to give him a strong certificate as to the impression he, Mr. Clunas, had produced on the congregation of Tilliegask. The second letter was from Wester Tilliegask, my friend's host, who was full of genuine regret that Mr. Clunas had not won the poll, who explained that up to Sabbath his chance was excellent, but that Mr. Tosh had carried all before him by a sermon on “A Rainbow round about the Throne,” with very fetching illustrations and quotations—Mr. Tosh had also won several votes by shaking hands with the people at the door, and ingeniously giving it to be understood that his idea of pastoral duty was to visit his congregation four times a year; that, notwithstanding all these Tosh attractions, he, Wester Tilliegask, would have preferred Mr. Clunas; and that as there was a rumour that the minister of Ballengeich would soon need a colleague, he would arrange through his, Wester Tilliegask's, wife's brother that Mr. Clunas should have a hearing. He added that a certificate from MacDuff MacLeear, placing Mr. Tosh a little lower than St Paul, had told.

The probationer was very brave and generous, blaming no one, and acknowledging that Tosh would be a more suitable man for Tilliegask, but it was evident he was hardly hit.

“It was not to escape the unrest of this life,” he said, “nor for the position, nor even for the sanction of my work; it was for the sake of one who... has waited long to see me an ordained minister. She may not... be spared much longer; my mother is now nearly seventy.” So it was no sweetheart, but his mother of whom he thought.

“If I had been elected, I had purposed to start this forenoon and carry the news myself, and I imagined the scene. I never could reach the cottage unseen, for there is a window in the gable which commands the road, so that mother is ever waiting at the garden gate for me.