When this had happened two or three times, it was considered necessary to take notice of it, and Mrs Hume did so, telling her, quietly but firmly, how necessary it was that the minister’s household should set a good example in the place. And, beyond that, she sought to make it clear that it was the duty of all to avail themselves of the privilege of worshipping with God’s people on His day, in His house. If Allison—being the daughter of one who had been in his lifetime an elder in the established kirk, as Dr Fleming had informed them—had any doubts of the propriety of worshipping with dissenters, that was another matter. But she should go to her own kirk, if she could not take pleasure in coming to theirs.
“It’s a’ ane to me,” said Allison.
But on the next fine Sabbath morning she availed herself of the permission, and took her way to the parish kirk. She would like the walk, at any rate, she told herself, and she did enjoy the walk down the lanes, in her own sad fashion; but the lanes took her out of the way a little, and made her late.
That night, at worship-time, when Allison’s turn came to be questioned as to what she had heard at the kirk, she could tell the text. But she did not tell that she had learned it by overhearing it repeated by an old man to his neighbour, as they came after her up the road. Nor did she tell that, being late at the kirk door, and shrinking from the thought of going in alone among so many strange folk, she had passed the time occupied by the preaching sitting on a broken headstone in the kirkyard.
She never went there again. It was truly “a’ ane” to one whose mind, the moment her hands and her head were no longer occupied with the round of daily work, went back to brood over the days and joys that could never return, or over the sorrow which could never be outlived.
“I see no difference. It’s a’ ane to me,” repeated she when Mrs Hume, not wishing to seem to influence her against her will, again suggested that, if she preferred it, she should go to the kirk.
“Difference!” There was all the difference between truth only dimly perceived and truth clearly uttered, in what she would be likely to hear in the two kirks, in the opinion of the minister’s wife. And if that might be not altogether a charitable judgment, it might at least be said that it would be but a cold exposition of the Gospel that old Mr Geddes would be likely to give, either in the pulpit or out of it. But she did not enter into the discussion of the matter with Allison. She was well pleased that she should decide the matter for herself.
“For though she sits in the kirk like a person in a dream, surely some true, good word will reach her heart after a time,” said her kindly mistress. She had a good while to wait before it came to that with Allison. But it came at last.
“Allison,” said Mrs Hume, coming into the kitchen one afternoon, “we’ll do without the scones at tea to-night, in case the baking them should make you late with other things. You mind you did not get to the meeting at all last time, and the minister wishes all his own family to be present when it is possible.”
Allison raised herself up from the work which was occupying her at the moment, and for once gave her mistress a long look out of her sad brown eyes.