Old Andrew drew in a deep breath, but made no reply. The minister demurred at first, but finally yielded. If there was anything in the old adage that "music hath charms," he told himself grimly that now was the time to put it to the test. He took up a hymn book and selected a hymn Janet could play. The leader of the Methodist Choir condescended to flop down noisily from his oblique position and join him. Janet's sweet, timid voice made a pleasant third and the trio rendered some gospel hymns very musically.
When they had finished Wee Andra begged so hard for a song that the visitor could not well refuse and, taking Janet's place at the organ, he played and sang "Sailing" in splendid style. Jimmie Bailey, who was always threatening to run away on a Lake Huron boat, was enchanted and called for more, but something in the elder's face warned the young minister that he had sung enough. He went back to his uncomfortable seat on the sofa and strove to carry on a conversation, but without success.
At length, despairing of ever making friends with this strange family, he made up his mind to depart. He asked for a Bible and Mrs. Johnstone handed him a ponderous volume, bound in gilt-edged leather, which she took, with deep reverence and some pride, from beneath the coffin-plate. Old Andrew drew a breath of relief. Now at last he would see if this young man were really worthy of his high calling and the name he bore; now surely he would speak and show that his mind was set on higher things. Likely he would say something that would set Wee Andra thinking and put some solemn truths in his empty head.
But John Egerton's one thought was to get away as quickly as possible. He read a very short psalm, in a spiritless voice, and they all knelt for a moment while he led in prayer. He took a hurried farewell of the family; the elder scarcely spoke and Mrs. Johnstone regarded him with a puzzled expression.
He walked homeward in the soft summer dusk, down the great wide staircase, which grew a deeper purple towards the bottom, his heart very heavy. He had tried so hard to do his best, but there was something sadly wrong, he could not quite understand what.
He was beginning to fear that Mrs. McNabb's warning that "Glenoro church was full of old cranks" was only too true.
He was passing slowly down the sloping, faintly pink road, absorbed in his unhappy reflections when, glancing up as he neared the edge of the valley, he noticed an old man standing at the gate of a little log shanty. The young minister remembered shaking hands with him at church—a quiet old fellow with a handsome, refined face. He had opened his gate and stood as though waiting, looking so kind, so sympathetic and so altogether different from old Andrew Johnstone that the young man felt drawn towards him. He paused involuntarily. "Good evening," he said pleasantly, "Mr.—Polite, I think?"
Duncan's smile grew more radiant. "Oh, indeed, they will be calling me that foolish name, whatever," he said apologetically, "but my name will be jist McDonald, Duncan McDonald; oh yes, and you will be coming in for a little rest?"
His manner was so eager and kindly that John Egerton readily accepted. He could not account, however, for the look of joy that overspread the old man's face as he led him up the flower-bordered path; for he was unaware that Duncan was saying to himself that Donald would be sure to drop in on his way to the Glen, as he always did, and at last he would see those two together and the Lord would do the rest.
The visitor sat down on the chair beside the lilac bush, having persuaded his host that he preferred to sit out of doors. He leaned back with a sigh of relief and gazed around him. The whole landscape was darkly radiant with that wonderful life-like pulsation which we call the after-glow. The sky was a suggestion of rose and amber fainting into a delicate green and deepening again into a transparent blue where one star hung above Duncan's pines. A world of insect life hummed sleepily in the long grass of the meadow; across the road in the darkness of the woods, a whip-poor-will was whistling away at his plaintive little tune; and from far down in the valley at their feet came up the laughter and shouts of children at play.