Miss Mary was resolute, however, and would be told. She sat herself down on a stool beside Eppie, and between coaxing and sheer pertinacity she at last prevailed on the old woman to speak. They sat together for some time with their heads very close, conversing in whispers.
'Oh how could any one believe so monstrous an invention?' she cried at last, her face suffused with crimson, while she kissed the sleeping baby, the innocent cause of so much confusion, and returned to her brother's room.
CHAPTER XXV.
[SOPHIA'S ANSWER].
Thursday morning was the opening of a great day in Glen Effick. The foundation stone of the new Church was to be laid, and from the most distant corners of Kilrundle parish the people came streaming in across the braes, more numerously even than for the Sunday meeting. The Session had at last come to an agreement with Widow Forester for half of her kaleyard on which to build their Church. The foundation was already dug, and every owner of a horse and cart had agreed to contribute so many days' labour towards delivering the materials on the ground. And now the work was to be inaugurated with preaching and prayer, that it might be brought to a speedy and prosperous issue. The good people having neither oil nor wine to bestow in cementing the stones, had resolved to pour forth a copious oblation of words devout and stirring, and to celebrate their triumph over Laird and Law in true democratic fashion, by a general gathering and unstinted speechification.
The hot stillness of September days had passed away, and the fresh cool brightness of October had succeeded. In low-lying hollows the first hoar-frost of the season was melting into dew before the approaching noon, and straggling flecks of cloud swam merrily overhead in the breezy sky. The crimson of the moors was withering somewhat into rusty brown, but the birch along the watercourses had ripened into sprays of gold, while the distant hills stood out against the sky in violet and blue. The trooping worshippers displayed all their Sunday bravery of apparel, but the solemnity of their Sabbath demeanour they had felt at liberty to leave behind. The children ran hither and thither shouting their loudest, while the seniors chatted cheerily as they went, carrying their dinners in heavy baskets between them, and resolved to make the most of the day's 'ploy.'
Along the village street the people trickled in a continuous stream, and by and by Ebenezer Prittie and Peter Malloch put up the shutters on their respective shops. Donald Maclachlan shut up the smithy, and Angus Eldrecht, the wheel-wright, closed his yard, and stepped off with their wives to the meeting place on the brae-side, where Mr. Dowlas and a reverend brother of the presbytery were already in the tent waiting to conduct the exercises.
Mrs. Sangster, with her daughter, was on the ground betimes, discussing with unwonted affability the terrible scandal to the elders and more prominent people near her. She occupied, of course, the beadle's special chairs, and as the time to commence the service drew near, she beckoned to her Stephen Boague and his wife, and seated them beside herself and daughter. It was a public recognition of their exemplary character she considered, which would fully reward the woman for her hospitality the day she was lost in the mist, and was quite inexpensive besides. When Mary Brown presently appeared, the good woman would fain have yielded up to her her accustomed seat under the matronly wing of the congregation's only lady; but Mrs. Sangster requested that she would not move. 'I could not countenance Mr. Brown or his family,' she said, 'under the circumstances.' So the poor woman had to remain; but she no longer felt promotion in her place of honour, and all her acquaintances looked askance, and wondered at her 'upsettin' impidence.' Mrs. Sangster was too busy with her 'spy-glass' and psalm-book to see the approach of Mary, who coloured with resentment at what, since Eppie's explanation, she now perfectly understood, and looked about for another seat. The Laird had been watching his wife's proceedings with cynical amusement, he now came forward and removed his daughter to the elder's bench, setting the chair she had been occupying beside her, and seating Mary upon it, while he took his own stand beside them.
Mrs. Sangster's spy-glass dropped upon her book; amazement and indignation paralyzed her, which was fortunate, or she might have exhibited a tantrum, even in that sacred assembly. She! that congregation's Deborah without a Barak, as a fawning preacher had once described her at family prayers, to be thus flouted before them all! And the wholesome discipline she had meant to exercise in support of the public morals to be turned round upon herself! and this, too, by her own husband! the man bound to protect, honour, and obey her! For of course he was bound so to do, whatever Saint Paul, or any other old bachelor who knew nothing about it, might say. Was she not the more advanced Christian? and in right of her higher standing in 'The Kingdom' entitled to instruct, advise, and reprove those on a lower level. Oh! how should she punish him and bring him to book? There was the difficulty. Scolding would not do. She had tried that before, and it did not succeed. He was apt to laugh in her face, and sometimes even to scold back in return, in an altogether dreadful and appalling way--for an elder--if she persisted; and then nothing, not even her unfailing Christian meekness could secure her the last word, which was her due as a lady. She thought of putting him on low diet for a while.--'And it would serve that monkey Sophia right, too, for sympathising with her father. See how contentedly she cottons up to Mary Brown!' thought she. But she did not like bad dinners herself, and it would come out if she had a sweetbread quietly in her own room. Besides, she had attempted a penitential regimen of cold mutton once before, and it had not ministered to his spiritual needs; on the contrary, he had broken out in a way that was simply dreadful, and had threatened her with a housekeeper if she could not keep a better table. Her crosses were indeed many and grievous, and she might have grown weak and hysterical in reviewing them, but that other cares and anxieties demanded her present attention. Surely there was something rubbing up against her in a familiar and unbecoming way. She turned, looked, and almost leaped into Mrs. Boague's lap. Stephen's largest collie was titillating his spine by pushing it up and down against her new plum-coloured silk gown.
'Haud steady, mem! The folk 'ull see ye, an' ye're nae licht wecht forby!' whispered Mrs. Boague. 'Ne'er mind the dugs, an' they winna fash wi' you. An' de'il a yelp or snap wull they gie, sae lang as ye dinna staund on their tails.'