The Laird in his gig had driven up during the negotiation with the proposed catechist. He now caught up Mr. Geddie, and left Joseph in the middle of the road to pursue his reflections.
CHAPTER XXXII.
[CHANGES].
Three weeks passed after the sitting of the Congregational Council which had agreed that there was a 'fama clamosa' in the parish. The Presbytery had sat with closed doors to consider the case. It had adjourned, and met again to further consider, decide, and order under the circumstances. Enquiry into the facts, and such like trifles, would come later, when the evidence for the prosecution was matured. Clearly there could be no defence until there was an indictment, a defence in its very nature being a reply; and until the thesis of accusation could be formulated, there was nothing to reply to. Wherefore Mr. Brown could not be heard either in person or through his friends at this early stage of the proceedings. Still he was suspected, though not formally accused; and, although he possessed the common right of all men to be deemed innocent till found guilty, he was by no means in the position of an innocent man. The immortal interests of the Free Church adherents in the Parish of Kilrundle were at stake, and could by no means be left for a single day exposed to the influence of a perhaps improper person. He had been notified to discontinue his duties till further notice, and another young man had been sent to fill his place, as well as (but these were his private instructions from the leaders and wire-pullers who guided the Presbytery's movements) to act as amateur detective in ferreting out evidence for the prosecution, which, singularly enough, was yet too defective to warrant bringing the case into court.
There is no power like a democracy for precipitate and arbitrary action. The units composing it so fully realize their authority, and so like to exercise it; while, being many, and co-ordinate, they have little or no sense of individual responsibility. They propose, vote, and order, each in obedience to his individual whim or impulse, and imagine that they are doing great things; but it is the body corporate, the official abstraction, which is left to bear the blame when justice or policy miscarry. In this respect, if in no other, the one-man power has the advantage, the king or bishop is personally identified with each transaction of his reign, and when a failure occurs he feels himself personally discredited; he has therefore the strongest incentive to walk circumspectly, that he may not have hereafter to retrace his steps, while with popular assemblies, a reversal of policy or a change of front is immaterial, so long as the majority has its way.
Roderick, therefore, being suspected, was now placed under a vigorous taboo--boycotted we would have called it thirty-five years later, but boycotted under a wisely modified form. Ebenezer Prittie or Peter Malloch would still have been happy to sell him all they had in their shops,--at a proper advance on cost--seeing that the coin of an excommunicate is no worse than other people's, and money, however come by, is 'all right,' as Vespasian found out long ago. There was no fear, therefore, of his being starved out so long as he continued able to buy. But intercourse with his parishioners had come to an end. Some few were veritably unwilling to have dealings with iniquity, but the majority dared not offend public opinion by appearing to hold communication with him; and these secretly knowing the shakiness of their own principles were the loudest in denouncing any one who should venture to approach the Browns, thereby contributing much of the strength of that public opinion which tyrannized over themselves. The only exceptions were Roderick's pensioners. These, defying the censorious, presented themselves in shy and deprecatory fashion (deprecatory alike to the offended righteous without, and to the indignant and maligned within), each as his pay-day came round. The money had become an established item in their income, which those who disapproved would assuredly not make good; wherefore, they felt constrained to revisit the flesh pots. After all, even if the worst were true, what was it but a spoiling of the Egyptians? A perfectly allowable, perhaps a praiseworthy act, which Moses himself had suggested, and even recommended to the chosen people of old. They took the money, therefore, in defiance of such as shook their heads, and, finding it retained its old purchasing power, were none the worse.
The days dragged wearily along for Roderick and his sister. October, which began in summer sunshine, relieved but not chilled by bracing airs, was waning in cloud and gloom; dull foggy days of rain, or windy tempests ending in early frosts. The sick room was close and damp. The ruddier the blaze upon the hearth, the stronger the flavour of mould and damp drawn out from the oozy walls and cold clay floor. The chamber would grow close but never warm, and the capacious chimney seemed powerless for ventilation, and served only as an escape for the heat. After undergoing the visitation of Mr. Geddie and his companions, Roderick had had a return of his more serious symptoms. Indignation and outraged feelings sent the blood boiling in stormy tumult through his veins, and he was not weak enough to obtain the relief of tears. Self-respect required him to preserve calmness before the friends who were with him; and his irritation, deprived of vent in speech or action, settled in the morbid part of his system, and rekindled the expiring inflammation in his chest. He was therefore a prisoner once more to his bed, when he would gladly have been removing himself from the scene of his mortifications, and had no alleviation save the visits of Kenneth and the Laird; but these were frequent.
Whenever other matters brought the former to the village he made a point of calling to enquire; and it was remarkable how frequently business demanded his presence there at this time. During the first week the gossips observed him ride three alternate days down their street, and the traders began seriously to consider whether they could not so improve their stocks as to tempt some share of the Inchbracken petty custom from Inverlyon. After that, however, his visits became daily, there was no longer even a pretence of other business, and Ebenezer Prittie abandoned the hope of supplying the Drysdale property with nails and ironmongery. Kenneth was sincerely interested in his friend's health, and sat sympathizingly by his bedside, but the patient was not able to talk much, and even if he had been, was forbidden to try. He was often drowsy, too, and sometimes slept, owing to the restless wakefulness of his nights. It fell, therefore, on Mary to make the conversation, a duty which she fulfilled apparently to their mutual satisfaction, seeing that the visits grew more frequent and of longer and longer duration. What they found to talk about no one can say, for their voices were pitched in the lowest tones--of course that the patient might not be disturbed; and apparently he was not, if we may judge from the ease with which he soon fell into an established routine. He would welcome his visitor with a cordial handshake, answer the regulation questions about his health, hear any little item of news that might be stirring, and then calmly close his eyes, and turn round for another nap.
When two people find pleasure in each other's conversation, surrounding circumstances are of little account. The most momentous questions have ere now been asked and answered during the gyrations of a waltz, or the intervals of a square dance. Pyramus and Thisbe were happy in whispering to each other through the chink in a paling, and my neighbour next door used to save shoeleather by chatting to a young lady at the other end of the town down the pipe of a telephone. That turned out badly, however, in the end, as one night his soft engaging whisper was replied to in the gruff and stormy tones of papa! who bade him have done with his nonsense, or he would put the d--d wire out of the house! He had done something of the same kind to my poor friend already. It was nothing new, therefore, if these two young people forgot for the time the stuffy little room in which they sat, and the gruesome army of medicine bottles, getting more and more numerous every day. They were as utterly content as though they had been sitting under one of the great shady trees of Eden, with only birds, flowers, and tame lions to listen to their discourse. The flowers, at least, they had in ever increasing profusion, as poor Colewort knew to his cost, in the sad devastation that fell on his most sacred preserves in the greenhouses of Inchbracken. Their sweetness brought something like the freshness of spring, (or was it only of hope?) into that close and frowsy place; even the fumes of damp and mouldiness fled before the breath of these children of dew and sunshine.
At length there came a day, after many others that had been made bright with flowers, and fragrant with sweeter words, when Kenneth brought nothing in his hand but a bunch of violets, which he told her his mother had sent. A slip of paper was tied to them on which was written, 'For dearest Mary.' 'And so you may know, Mary,' he said, 'that everything between us is known at home, and you will be made welcome. My mother will come and see you, or if that cannot be managed she will write to you, after you have left Glen Effick; and I think you will overlook her not coming here. After the decided stand our family has taken against this church secession, she would rather not do that; and as you are going to be one of the family yourself, you will not wish us to stultify ourselves. That is what the old gentleman calls it at least, though I daresay it is nonsense. Still, he is an old man, and he is going to be very fond of you, so we must humour him.' There came a tear in Mary's eye, a smile to her lip, a blush, and words presently. She said exactly what was prettiest and nicest, or so thought Kenneth. Every nice girl knows what the words would be, they were just what she would say herself on a like occasion. As for the men, they will hear them, each for himself let us hope, when the time comes; therefore let us not rub the bloom from the plum by unwise anticipation.