"I believe your Sabbath school to be a most exemplary one, Mr. Johnstone, but I hope you do not mind my saying that I believe the children should take a more active part in the exercises. They should feel it is theirs. A few good rousing hymns, now, in which they are interested, and—" he hesitated a moment, and then remembering how often the young people had begged him to open the subject of a musical instrument to Splinterin' Andra, and feeling that he was doing well, and now was his opportunity, continued—"and perhaps the use of an organ to help the music would aid greatly and add brightness and interest to the school."
The red rag had been shaken in the bull's face! Shaken very politely and gently it is true, but a maddening challenge nevertheless. Had the minister only left out the organ the presence of Duncan Polite might have restrained his friend from violence, but an organ stood for everything that was frivolous and worldly. And now that this man who had been the Joshua of his hopes, who was to lead the young people into the promised land of righteousness after their old leader had gone up to his rest, now that he had come out avowedly the promoter of instability and the apostle of fashion, it was too much for Splinterin' Andra. He had loved and revered the young man so long, in spite of his many failures, that his resentment was now in proportion to his former confidence.
Peter McNabb saw the danger, and burst in with a not altogether irrelevant remark about there being thunder in the air; but he was too late; already Splinterin' Andra's stick had darted from its place like a sword from its scabbard.
"Man!" he exclaimed, turning a face of righteous wrath upon the well-meaning young clergyman, "man! It's ma' opeenion, that wi' an instrument o' wund in the pulpit, we're no in great need o' anither in the congregation!" and sweeping a clattering shower of stones down the hill, he tramped away ahead, leaving consternation and dismay in his wake.
Duncan Polite walked by his friend's side in silence. He sympathised deeply with Andrew's feelings, but this new disaster was like to break the old man's heart. But Andrew Johnstone was not done.
"An organ!" He repeated the words with all the bitterness of his disappointed soul. "An organ! The Lord peety the kirk that has a fule for a meenister!"
"Oh, you must not be saying that, Andra," said Duncan Polite. "The Lord will be a better judge than man——"
But old Andrew interrupted him tempestuously.
"Man, Duncan, Ah've kept it tae ma'sel for mony a day, but Ah jist canna bide it ony mair! Him an' his organ! Aye, he's after some bit balderdash a' the time. Ah tell ye the buddy's no got the root o' the matter in him! He can preach, aye, Ah'll no deny yon, but what's the gude o' what he's haverin' aboot? This mornin' he preached jist half an oor, aye, an' twenty meenits o' it taken up in provin' that Paul was a gude man, a thing that no the biggest fule in the Glen would gainsay, no, not even oor Andra'," he concluded sombrely.
Duncan sighed. He had noticed that the sermons were steadily growing shorter. Indeed, from the first Sabbath of his pastorate the young minister had deliberately set himself to abbreviate the church service, commencing with the sermon. He had done it so gradually that he flattered himself it was unnoticed, but no one could depart one jot or one tittle from the ancient ways without the argus eye of the ruling elder spying out the offence.