Inchbracken: The Story of a Fama Clamosa

by Robert Cleland

His voice rose and fell according to his peculiar theory of elocution, getting fuller and louder as he warmed to the work, till he had read through the seven penitential Psalms. Then he paused and closed the book.

'Brother!' he said, 'the words which we have read are the inspired expression of contrition and penitence. They give fitting voice to every agonized soul that has--stumbled in the miry ways of life. Still, they are but in the general. Each case must bring its own particular specification of transgression--must bring forth its own dead out of its secret chambers, must lay bare its own moral wounds, and expose them to the healing sight of truth. The passer-by may shoot out the tongue and say, 'Aha!' but thou, my brother, hast purged thy skirts by open confession and separation, and mayhap thou mayest save thy soul! And oh! my brother, it is above price!'

Roderick sat speechless and amazed. Had Mr. Geddie been alone, he would have supposed that he had lost his wits, or, in view of the weight he attached to the penitential Psalms and to penitence, which might perhaps mean penance, especially when coupled with confession, he might have supposed that he had joined the Jesuits, who were believed to be especially active at that time, and to be using all manner of crafty devices to secure converts; but after what the Laird had said, and in view of the lay delegates present, some other explanation was needed.

'And art thou still speechless, Oh, my brother?' the exhorter went on, 'Thou for whom our hearts have yearned with many tears? Think not longer to shelter in delusive secresy. Thy refuges of lies are overthrown, thy sin discovered. Come forth and make submission to the Church, while there is time! lest no place be found for repentance, though thou seek it with tears!'

Mr. Geddie's own handkerchief here came into requisition. If we would raise the sluices of our neighbours' tears, it is not amiss to begin by letting loose our own. Hysteria is infinitely infectious, as more than one pulpit orator, blessed with the gift of tears, has found in his brilliantly successful experience.

Roderick caught at the momentary silence to enquire what it all meant, and to what circumstance he could possibly be indebted for the singular scene. He looked to Ebenezer and Peter Malloch, but both turned their eyes austerely away, and fixed them on the carpet. He next addressed the Laird; but the Laird replied that they must state their own errand, he would not soil his lips with it, and if they had sense enough left to let decent shame keep them even yet from speaking, the best thing they could do would be to leave it unsaid, and trust to the whole exhibition being condoned as a mistake.

Mr. Geddie, handkerchief in hand, eyes fixed on the ground, was gathering his forces for a fresh onslaught on this hard and obdurate conscience. Mr. Sangster's remark appeared singularly inopportune, treacherous even, and most censurable. What hope of reducing the garrison if his own followers, his auxiliaries at least, were thus to turn and raise a diversion in favour of the besieged? He turned to the Laird in sorrow rather than in anger--

'Surely, Mr. Sangster, in view of the heavy responsibility we yesterday undertook, it is not well to encourage our brother in hardening his heart!'

'What responsibilities have you undertaken, Mr. Geddie?' asked Roderick; 'and who has laid them upon you?' I have listened to your reading and your exhortation, which I assume are meant for my benefit, but you have not condescended to explain their object, and I am at a loss to understand what it is you want.'

Mr. Geddie looked to his two associates, appalled at such persistence, and sadly shook his head. The associates shook their heads also, and looked uncomfortable. They were aware from the attitude of the Laird that there was a certain degree of thinness as yet in their case, when it came to be stated in detail without inference and insinuation; and they had been hoping that the solemn exercises in which they had engaged were to move the sinner to repentance and compel him to confess his fault. For they began to fear it might be hard for the present to prove the fault, and would have preferred to be left only the easier parts, rebuking the offender, and figuring before the Church as its zealous and victorious champions. The silence continued. Mr. Geddie had been dwelling on the moral and emotional aspects of the case, rather than the circumstantial. To his excellent, and even devout, but far from legal mind, the question had appeared to be one of sin, repentance, and church discipline; the more secular considerations of guilty or not guilty, facts, proofs, and probabilities, had never occurred to him at all. The case had been presented to him by persons whom he believed to be excellent and of sound evangelical views, and he had never dreamed of questioning what they said, revising the grounds of their suspicions, or asking what there might be to urge on the other side. When, therefore, the defendant requested, as it were, to hear the indictment against him, his thoughts and ideas had to be called in from the wide and very different field over which they were scattered, and brought to bear on a different and entirely new aspect of the case. While he had been deeply moved and interested in the case, viewed as one of established ill-doing, and had thought out very fully the relations of the church to the sinner and the sin, he found that his mind had entirely left out of consideration the grounds on which the accusation had been based, and that if it came to discussing the question of guilty or not guilty, he knew nothing about it and had nothing to say. It is not to be supposed, however, that on that account he believed any the less utterly in the guilt of the accused. He felt that he could not discuss it, being unprepared; but his mind, though well-meaning and incapable of intentional disingenuousness, was of the tenacious rather than that facile and self-styled candid order which, because it is incapable of taking strong hold, and is easily moved by every fresh suggestion, claims to be dispassionate and judicial. This man had been represented to him by what he considered good authority, as a sinner, and a sinner he would continue to regard him till irrefragable proof or higher authority declared the reverse. Mr. Geddie, therefore, kept silence under the new aspect of the case. He was clearly entitled to do so, seeing that in a question of circumstance, a parishioner with local knowledge must be able to speak with more understanding than a stranger, even though an ordained minister. On Ebenezer it naturally devolved to speak. He straightened himself in his seat, opened his mouth even and drew in the needful breath; but while he considered how the 'winged words' ought to arrange themselves, the vital wind escaped unmodulated from the doubting chest. A henpecked person, his verbal ventures had so often come to grief, that he had learned so to think and think, before he hazarded an utterance, that the opportunity, the breath, and even the idea were generally gone before he had strung himself to the utterance. The duty, therefore, fell to Peter Malloch, on whom no suspicion of henpecking could rest, as witness the mild apologetic sister who sometimes waited in the shop, and the meek old mother who was always stitching shirts for him, and spoke of him as the Convener;--and then there was no wife.