"Man," were Drumtochty's last words, "a' wish Elspeth Macfadyen cud hear ye, her 'at prees (tastes) the sermons in oor Glen; a' believe she wud pass ye, an' if ye got a certeeficat frae Elspeth, ye wud be a prood man."
Drumtochty read widely—Soutar was soaked in Carlyle, and Marget Howe knew her "In Memoriam" by heart—but our intellectual life centred on the weekly sermon. Men thought about Sabbath as they followed the plough in our caller air, and braced themselves for an effort at the giving out of the text. The hearer had his snuff and selected his attitude, and from that moment to the close he never moved nor took his eyes off the preacher. There was a tradition that one of the Disruption fathers had preached in the Free Kirk for one hour and fifty minutes on the bulwarks of Zion, and had left the impression that he was only playing round the outskirts of his subject. No preacher with anything to say could complain of Drumtochty, for he got a patient, honest, critical hearing from beginning to end. If a preacher were slightly equipped, the audience may have been trying. Well-meaning evangelists who came with what they called "a simple Gospel address," and were accustomed to have their warmer passages punctuated with rounds of spiritual applause in the shape of smiles and nods, lost heart in face of that judicial front, and afterwards described Drumtochty in the religious papers as "dead." It was as well that these good men walked in a vain show, for, as a matter of fact, their hearers were painfully alive.
"Whar did yon wakely body come frae, Burnbrae? it wes licht wark the day. There wes nae thocht worth mentionin', and onything he hed wes eked oot by repeetition. Tae sae naethin' o' bairnly stories."
"He lives aboot England, a'm telt, an' dis a feck o' gude in his ain place. He hesna muckle in his head, a'll alloo that, Netherton, but he's an earnest bit cratur."
"Ou ay, and fu' o' self-conceit. Did ye hear hoo often he said 'I'? a' got as far as saxty-three, and then a' lost coont. But a' keepit 'dear,' it cam tae the hundred neat.
"'Weel?' a' says tae Elspeth Macfadyen. A' kent she wud hae his measure.
"'Gruel, Netherton, juist gruel, and eneuch tae scunner (disgust) ye wi' sugar.'"
It was the birthright of every native of the parish to be a critic, and certain were allowed to be experts in special departments—Lachlan Campbell in doctrine and Jamie Soutar in logic—but as an old round practitioner Mrs. Macfadyen had a solitary reputation. It rested on a long series of unreversed judgments, with felicitous strokes of description that passed into the literary capital of the Glen. One felt it was genius, and could only note contributing circumstances—an eye that took in the preacher from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot; an almost uncannie insight into character; the instinct to seize on every scrap of evidence; a memory that was simply an automatic register; an unfailing sense of fitness; and an absolute impartiality regarding subject.
It goes without saying that Mrs. Macfadyen did not take nervous little notes during the sermon—all writing on Sabbath, in kirk or outside, was strictly forbidden in Drumtochty—or mark her Bible, or practise any other profane device of feeble-minded hearers. It did not matter how elaborate or how incoherent a sermon might be, it could not confuse our critic.
When John Peddie of Muirtown, who always approached two hours, and usually had to leave out the last head, took time at the Drumtochty Fast, and gave, at full length, his famous discourse on the total depravity of the human race, from the text, "Arise, shine, for thy light is come," it may be admitted that the Glen wavered in its confidence. Human nature has limitations, and failure would have been no discredit to Elspeth.