In the meantime Helen Buchanan remained perfectly unconscious of her election. Mr Insches, his good qualities, and his indifferent ones, had passed from her mind altogether. She was not even angry at his desertion of her, during the earlier part of that Mossgray party, and met him the next time she saw him after it with a quite unclouded face. If William Oswald had been the offender, the offence would have ruffled in a very different way the memory of Helen. It was a bad omen for the Reverend Robert.
And William Oswald was gone. He had established himself now, a permanent inhabitant of Edinburgh, practising his profession as it pleased the public to give him opportunity; and the public was not unpropitious. His father had many connections in other little towns like Fendie, and Fendie itself was respectably litigious. William Oswald was pronounced “a rising young man,” “a sagacious lad,” by voices of authority in the sacred precincts of the Parliament House. His prospects were fair and prosperous—the banker began to be proud of his thriving son.
And William began to be heard of in other spheres than the Parliament House. In the Scottish capital as in the English, stout hearts were banding themselves for a holy war, a new Crusade. Against the physical evils which debase the poor, against giant sins which have their absolute dominions mapped out in every city; for wise men began to see how poverty and wretchedness, iniquity and pollution, press forward upon the mere barrier of defence set up to oppose their progress, and steadily make a way. So one here and there, stung to the heart with one particular evil, and yearning over the masses of unregarded poor, had snatched a flaming brand out of the slow consuming fire, and holding it up above his head, in earnestness almost wild, had begged and prayed his fellows to look upon the ghastly sight below. Little perishing outcast children, trained, as one could fancy, by malignant spirits only, to breathe in crime like daily air. Strong men sinking—sinking—into woe and misery ineffable, binding themselves with those green withes of customary sin, which by and by should harden into chains of iron. Women, woe of woes, lost without hope. And good men had united themselves in an aggressive war, to go forth against all the powers of darkness—not simply to defend, but to invade and rout and conquer, holding no terms or parley with the might of sin.
The fluttering flush came and went over Helen’s cheek, as she read eagerly the doings of this new chivalry of Scotland. Her breast swelled—her heart beat. William was among them, bearing arms like a true man.
The Reverend Robert had no chance against this: the young man had strayed further from the East than he need have done, and though performing his ministerial work well and conscientiously, did by no means project his very heart into it, or live for it as his chief end. He also was a good man and a Christian; but from his life you would have fancied that the ardent rejoicing might of labour, which insures success in any other profession, was misplaced in his—that the work of all others in which every moment is solemn and weighty, was the one work which should be done in deliberate calmness—for he was not aggressive. He lamented over existing evils, but he did not bravely and at once attack them. He was content to be a matter-of-course minister—as good as his neighbours, moving along in a sort of mechanical respectable way. He was not yet roused to feel himself standing alone, with God his master over him, and the whole world lying in wickedness—to be saved.
CHAPTER XVIII.
“I am bid forth to supper.”—Merchant of Venice.
It was the evening of Miss Insches’ party, and two of her guests were already comfortably established in the sacred drawing-room. Next day was the fast day in Fendie, and the Reverend Paulus Whyte was to preach. Mr Insches was rather a favourite with Mrs Whyte. She had been persuaded to accompany her husband, and was to remain all night at the Manse.
Mr Whyte was seated in an easy chair, talking in a low, gentle, pleasant voice to the very attentive Miss Insches. He was a little man, with courteous, graceful manners, and a very mild, engaging face. No tongue, however slanderous, could find matter of accusation against Paulus Whyte; friend and foe alike did unconscious homage to the pure, unselfish spirit which dwelt among them in its peaceful mildness—a visible citizen of heaven. He was one of those few men whose especial gift seems holiness; you heard all classes, the religious and the profane, do reverence to the distinguishing quality of the gentle minister. He was a holy man.
He had one weakness—a failing incident to his guileless, benevolent nature. He was a little too apt to write biographies of very good little boys, who died at eight or nine in the odour of sanctity, and little girls who, at a like age, were experienced in all the difficulties and temptations of the spiritual life. On the counters of religious booksellers you were continually picking up little books in coloured covers, memorials of the last small pious Jane or William who had died within the good minister’s ken. In the simplicity of his own gentle nature, he received all the traits of childish goodness, which weeping mothers and aunts told him when their first grief began to soften; and rejoicing in “the holiness of youth,” recorded the little incidents of those young lives for the edification of all. They were not always to edification; but the good man fervently believed them so, and in his own devout heart gave thanks joyfully for the youthful angels of whom he had registered so many. There were some who smiled at the weakness, and some who sneered at its fruits; but few men sneered at Paulus Whyte. His garments were too spotless—his serene life too pure for any reproaches of the adversary.