“I’ll sleep on it,” said he, “and I’ll seek counsel.”
It was a wise resolution to which to come. Saunners was a good man, though, perhaps, he did not always do full honour to his Master or to himself in the sight of those who were looking on. He was “dour, and sour, and ill to bide,” it was said of him, even by some among his friends.
But there was this also to be said of Saunners. It was only when a life of struggle and disappointment and hard, wearing work was more than half over, that he had come to see the “True Light,” and to find the help of the Burden-Bearer. A man may forsake the sins of his youth and learn to hate the things which he loved before, and to love the things which he hated, and in his heart long, and in his life strive, to follow the Perfect Example in all things. But the temper which has been indulged for half a lifetime cannot be easily and always overcome, and habits which have grown through the years cannot be cast aside and put out of sight in a moment, like an ill-fitting garment which will never trouble more. Life was, in a way, a struggle to Saunners still.
But though he lost his temper sometimes and seemed to those who were too ready to judge him to fail in the putting on of that Charity which “thinketh no evil” and which is “the bond of perfectness,” he was still a good man, honest, conscientious, just, and he could never willingly have sought to harm or to alarm any helpless or suffering creature. But then neither would his conscience let him consent to suffer sin in one whom he might, through faithful dealing, save from loss and ruin, and whom he might bring back to the right way again.
“She doesna look like a sinfu’ woman,” he thought, recalling the glimpse he had got through the open door, of Allison sitting at peace and safe from harm. “She is like a woman who has seen sorrow, and who is winning through wi’t. And yon man had an evil look.
“And after a’, what hae I to go upon? A name on a headstane in a farawa’ kirkyard! A’ the rest came frae the wee wud wifie (the little mad woman), who micht have made up the story, or only believed it true because o’ the ill-will she bore to yon dark, angry-lookin’ man. And even if the story be true, what call have I to mak’ or meddle in it?
“No’ an ill word that ever I hae heard has been spoken of the lass since she came to the manse. She’s at peace, and she’s doing the duty that seems to be given her to do, and—I’ll bide a wee and seek counsel. And after a’, what hae I to go upon?” repeated Saunners.
But there was plenty to go upon, as he knew well,
if he had only been sure that it would be wise to do anything, or meddle at all in the matter. He had only spoken a word to Allison; but the wee wifie, while they sat together on a fallen gravestone, had told him, not the whole story—she was hardly capable of doing that—but all of it that she had seen with her own eyes.