CHAPTER VIII.
A WOMAN OF THE OLD DISPENSATION.
very Sabbath at eleven o'clock, or as soon thereafter as the people were seated—consideration was always shown to distant figures coming down from the high glen—Carmichael held what might be called High Mass in the Free Kirk. Nothing was used in praise but the Psalms of David, with an occasional Paraphrase sanctioned by usage and sound teaching. The prayers were expected to be elaborate in expression and careful in statement, and it was then that they prayed for the Queen and Houses of Parliament. And the sermon was the event to which the efforts of the minister and the thoughts of the people had been moving for the whole week. No person was absent except through sore sickness or urgent farm duty; nor did rain or snow reduce the congregation by more than ten people, very old or very young. Carmichael is now minister of a West End kirk, and, it is freely rumoured in Drumtochty, has preached before Lords of Session; but he has never been more nervous than facing that handful of quiet, impenetrable, critical faces in his first kirk. When the service was over, the people broke into little bands that disappeared along the west road, and over the moor, and across the Tochty. Carmichael knew each one was reviewing his sermon head by head, and, pacing his garden, he remembered the missing points with dismay.
It was the custom of the Free Kirk minister to go far afield of a summer evening, and to hold informal services in distant parts of the parish. This was the joy of the day to him, who was really very young and hated all conventionalities even unto affectation. He was never weary of complaining that he had to wear a gown, which was continually falling back and being hitched over with impatient motions, and the bands, which he could never tie, and were, he explained to a horrified beadle in Muirtown, an invention of Satan to disturb the preacher's soul before his work. Once, indeed, he dared to appear without his trappings, on the plea of heat, but the visible dismay and sorrow of the people was so great—some failing to find the Psalm till the first verse had been sung—that he perspired freely and forgot the middle head of his discourse.
"It's a mercy," remarked Mrs. Macfadyen to Burnbrae afterward, "that he didna play that trick when there wes a bairn tae be baptised. It wudna hae been lichtsome for its fouk; a'body wants a properly ordained minister. Ye 'll gie him a hint, Burnbrae, for he's young and fordersome (rash), but gude stuff for a' his pliskies (frolics)."
No one would have liked to see the sacred robes in the places of evening worship, and Carmichael threw all forms to the winds—only drawing the line, with great regret and some searchings of heart, at his tweed jacket. His address for these summer evening gatherings he studied as he went through the fragrant pine woods or over the moor by springy paths that twisted through the heather, or along near cuts that meant leaping little burns and climbing dykes whose top stones were apt to follow your heels with embarrassing attachment. Here and there the minister would stop as a trout leapt in a pool, or a flock of wild duck crossed the sky to Loch Sheuchie, or the cattle thrust inquisitive noses through some hedge, as a student snatches a mouthful from some book in passing. For these walks were his best study; when thinking of his people in their goodness and simplicity, and touched by nature at her gentlest, he was freed from many vain ideas of the schools and from artificial learning, and heard the Galilean speak as He used to do among the fields of corn. He came on people going in the same direction, but they only saluted, refraining even from the weather, since the minister's thoughts must not be disturbed, and they were amazed to notice, that he stooped to pluck a violet in the wood. His host would come a little way to meet him and explain the arrangements that had been made for a kirk. Sometimes the meeting-place was the granary of the farm, with floor swept clean and the wooden shutters opened for light, where the minister preached against a mixed background of fanners, corn measures, piles of sacks, and spare implements of the finer sort; and the congregation, who had come up a ladder cautiously like hens going to roost—being severally warned about the second highest step—sat on bags stuffed with straw, boards resting on upturned pails, while a few older folk were accommodated with chairs, and some youngsters disdained not the floor. It was pleasanter in the barn, a cool, lofty, not unimpressive place of worship, with its mass of golden straw and its open door through which various kindly sounds of farm life came in and strange visitors entered. The collies, most sociable of animals, would saunter in and make friendly advances to Carmichael reading a chapter; then, catching their master's eye and detecting no encouragement, would suddenly realise that they were at kirk, and compose themselves to sleep—"juist like ony Christian," as Hillocks once remarked with envy, his own plank allowing no liberties—and never taking any part except in a hymn like
"See the mighty host advancing,
Satan leading on,"
which they regarded as recreation rather than worship.