“Na, Sir, I canna speak to the minister,” said Saunders. “The minister’s a young man, and doesna ken the afflictions of the like o’ me. He may hae comfort for his ain kind, but the griefs o’ the gray head are aboon the ken o’ lads like him. I canna speak to the minister.”
Mr Oswald had heard the rumour of Peter Delvie’s death, and pitied the stern old father; again he asked him to sit down.
Saunders took the offered seat, and pressed his bonnet convulsively between his hands.
“It’s touching the lawfulness of a vow—a vow before the Lord.”
Mr Oswald’s voice faltered a little; an indefinite thrill of conscience moved him.
“What is it, Saunders?”
“I made a resolve,” said the old man, his features twitching, and his strong, harsh voice shaking with the very force of his determination to steady it, “to put forth ane—ane that had sinned—out from my house as an alien and a reprobate. He had shamed the name that righteous puir men had laboured to keep honest for him—he had sinned in the sight of God and man; and before the Lord I pat him forth, and took a vow on me that he should cross my doorstane never mair. Maister Oswald, ye’re an elder of the Kirk, and a man of years, and ane that has had bairns born to ye, and ken—am I no’ bound before the Lord to haud to my vow?”
Mr Oswald moved upon his chair uneasily. He could not answer.
“I have had converse with Mossgray,” continued Saunders, shrill tones of excitement mingling with the usual slow, grave accents of his broken voice, “but Mossgray is anither manner of man, and kensna—kensna the like o’ me. He tells me that change is a guid gift of God, given for our using like ither providences, and that what I have said wi’ my lips may be broken, and me no mansworn—but I say, no—I ken nae law ither than the auld law of Scripture, and I maun perform to the Lord my vow. Sir, Mr Oswald, think ye not so?”
The old man’s shaggy eyelash was wet, but the fire shot forth behind. Strongly the two contending powers within him struggled for the mastery. He wanted his authority to second the dictates of the yearning nature, which, moved by whispers of some unknown calamity to his son, contended bitterly with the stern obstinacy of his temper and his sense of right; yet he had entered upon the oft-repeated arguments, with which he had been used to defend himself against the gentle attacks of Mossgray, and was becoming heated in his own defence. If the banker had pronounced his judgment against the breaking of this vow, it would have carried a bitter pang to the old man’s heart, and yet would have been a triumph. He sat, pressing his bonnet in his hard hands, and shaking like a palsied man. He had put his fate on this chance. He had resolved to make the judgment of the other pertinacious man to whom he appealed, his final rule, and anxiously he waited for the decision.