There were many of the wondering party thus accosted who believed that Mr. John had been betrayed by his grief into a new vice, the most common failing of the country-side. ‘He’s been drinking,’ they said among themselves: ‘puir fellow!—to make him forget.’ ‘Na, na, it’s no drink, it’s grief,’ said others. ‘And wha are ye that speak like them in Jerusalem,’ cried a third party, ’"they’re drunk with new wine,” when it was the Spirit of the Lord?’
And then, a few days later, it became known in the parish that he had bidden Ailie Macfarlane in the name of God to become his wife, and excitement rose very high on Loch Diarmid. Something in the passionate, haggard face, which looked like that of a man on the point of death, and yet was to be seen more than ever at kirk and market, awed the common mind and threw a certain light of reality upon those desperate and tragic motives which had led him to such a proposal.
‘He’s lost Margret for this world; and now he thinks to force the Lord to come afore His ain time and get her back,’ said Jenny Spence.
‘And Ailie—poor thing!—is to be his tool that he’ll work with. I see his meaning—a’ his meaning, as clear as daylight. He’s out o’ his wits about Margret Diarmid; and he’s ta’en to the drink for consolation,’ said another gossip, ‘and he hasna strength to stand it. It’ll be his death, and that you’ll see.’
Poor Ailie, however, on her side, was of a very different mind. When ‘the word of the Lord’ had burst upon her on that night of Margaret’s death, her very heart had failed in dismay and consternation. She had implicitly believed all that had been revealed to herself of her own mission, and was ready to set out at any moment without staff or scrip, with all the simplicity of a child. But her faith failed her when Mr. John’s strange proposal fell on her ear. ‘Is this a time for marrying or giving in marriage?’ she asked, with something like indignation, when, with infinitely greater vehemence, he renewed his commands to her as the handmaid of the Lord. ‘Is not the time of His appearing near? and are we to be burdened with earthly ties and earthly troubles when the Lord comes to His ain work? Oh, man! I’m no made to be ony man’s helpmeet. There are plenty round you that are better for that; it’s my meat and my drink to serve God. I couldna think of the flesh to please my husband, but of the Spirit to please the Lord.’
‘And yet you contradict His Spirit and refuse His message,’ said Mr. John, ‘which I brought to you out of the darkness of the night—out of a mind rent and torn with pain, not lightly, or with common thoughts, but from His presence. Will you please Him by rejecting His word?’
‘But it might be a lying spirit,’ said Ailie. ‘It might be to tempt us—as if you and me had need of alliance in the flesh.’
‘We have need of alliance for the work,’ he said, with his great, heavy, passionate eyes fixed upon her. ‘Men have gone before, but never man and woman. The Lord has said to me, Go in to the prophetess. Fear not to take unto thee thy wife. If you disobey, the sin be upon your head.’
‘But it has never been revealed to me,’ cried Ailie, her cheeks crimsoning with shame, and whitening with terror. ‘When there have been messages concerning this life, they have been revealed to them that were to profit, and no to another. And in the mouth of two or three is every testimony to be established. If the word comes to me I’ll no resist the Lord.’