‘The head of the woman is her husband,’ said Mr. John, loftily, ‘it is the sign of God’s will towards you. If you are to be given to me, your instructions, your directions, must come through my hands. It is to me it is revealed, for I am the head. Listen to the Lord’s voice. Want of faith has laid one head low that should have shone above us all. Will you let it overcome you now that have triumphed in your time? Ailie, beware! The blasphemy that cannot be pardoned, and the sin that may not be forgiven, is the sin against the Holy Ghost.’
‘But I canna see it! I canna see it!’ cried poor Ailie, bursting into tears. Her dignity seemed to have deserted her, and all her spiritual gifts. She kept indoors, shut up in her room, spending her time in feverish prayers and divinations from the Bible. ‘I will do what the Lord wills,’ she said to herself and others twenty times in a day; but when any text which seemed to favour Mr. John’s cause caught her eye on opening ‘the Book,’ she would shut it again hastily, and try again, without any acknowledgment. All her partizans, and indeed the entire parish, took an interest in the question which no previous features in the movement had elicited to such an extent. The matter was discussed everywhere, involving as it did the interest of a personal romance along with the intense charm of the religious excitement, and calling forth a hundred different opinions. There were some who thought that Ailie—‘set her up!’—had won what she aimed at in making herself so conspicuous, and that her reluctance was pretence. And there were some who, without going so far, still felt that the promotion of a gentleman’s hand thus offered to her, was enough to make the prophetess forget her calling. Miss Catherine, who was of a sceptical mind, and had never given in to Ailie’s pretensions, was so much moved by her kinsman’s madness, that it almost broke down the barrier which had divided them since the time when Mr. John’s evil ways had finally closed her doors against him. She even hesitated at the church-door whether she would not pause and accost him, and see what reason could do to turn him from his fatal intention; but was deterred by the haggard look, the watery bloodshot eyes, the parched and feverish lips, which struck her like a revelation. ‘I understand it all now,’ she said, so much agitated by the supposed discovery, that she went in tremulous to the Manse, to recover herself. ‘It is not a common failing among us Diarmids of the old stock—but that accounts for everything. And as for arguing with a man in that state——’
‘You mistake,’ said the minister; ‘indeed you mistake.’
Miss Catherine shook her head. ‘Well I know the signs of it,’ she said; ‘it is not a failing of the race, but when it comes it is all the worse for that. The unhappy lad! One would think that the words of Scripture came true, and that such a man was delivered over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.’
‘He has been wrong, no doubt; but not in that way,’ said Mr. Lothian. ‘It is grief—despair if you like; and all this excitement, and agitation, and sickness, which he will not give in to—but not what you suppose.’
Once more Miss Catherine shook her head. ‘He is but a distant cousin, thank God,’ she said to herself. But yet he was related nearly enough to throw upon the house of Lochhead a certain share of the responsibility. ‘I am glad his poor mother is safe in her grave,’ she added; ‘ye preach, and ye preach, you ministers, but ye never will persuade the young what a weary wilderness this world is, nor the old that there’s anything but tribulation and sorrow in it. Will ye marry them when all is done and said?’
This question was asked so abruptly, that Mr. Lothian was startled. ‘Marry whom?’ he asked.
‘Those I am speaking of: John Diarmid and that lass. Is it a thing you can bless, you that are an honest man, and know your duty, and have some experience in this world?’
‘My dear Miss Catherine,’ said the minister, ‘you have too much experience yourself not to know that if they’ve made up their minds it will make little difference what I do or what I think. I have no right to say they are not to marry if they please.’
‘No; I wish you had,’ said Miss Catherine, rising: ‘and I wish there was some kind of a real government, or some control, that men should not be left to make fools of themselves and put shame upon an old name whenever they please.’