Touseler, finding his scratching-post withdrawn, stretched himself on the ground to sleep out the sermon, and Mrs. Sangster resumed her chair. Her tranquility was of short duration. First would come a tug at her parasol, accompanied by a strangled yelp, as a puppy having swallowed the tassel would struggle to escape, like a trout on a fish-hook; and next it would be her shawl. A dirty little finger would be found tracing the flowing lines of its elegant embroidery, or the corner would be pulled down, that the critics squatting on the sward might more conveniently scrutinize the elaborate design.
When Sophia's chair was removed it had left an open spot in the crowd, to Mrs. Sangster's left, and as nature abhors a vacuum, the unplaced material of her party had flowed in to fill it. She looked down on a confused knot of dog and child life, heads and tails, legs and arms swaying and kicking to and fro in silent happiness. Had a quadruped or a biped given tongue in the 'House of God,' there would have been whipping behind the first big boulder-stone on the home-going, and they had all felt the weight of Stephen's hand at sometime, so were wary; but so long as silence was kept, and they remained beside the shepherd and his wife, they might kick, roll, and be happy as they pleased.
Poor Mrs. Sangster's attention was fully occupied in protecting her dress from the busy fingers of the little boys and girls, and in seeing that the dogs did not make a coverlet of her skirts; and she vowed never again to 'take notice' of people from the 'lower orders,' who so little appreciated the honour she did them, and made themselves so utterly abominable with their ill-reared dogs and children. She lost all the good of their sermons as she told the reverend orators that evening at supper, and was far too concerned for what might befall her own draperies, to give much heed to the Rev. Æmelius Geddie's description of the curtains of fine linen and badger skins, blue and scarlet, prepared for the Tabernacle in the wilderness, and his tender appeal to the women of Glen Effick to go and do likewise. Mr. Dowlas described the building of Solomon's Temple, its joists of cedar covered with plates of pure gold, the chapiters, the pomegranates, and the wreathen-work, the brazen pillars and the vessels of pure gold. He interspersed these with spiritual interpretations and mystical images drawn from the Prophets, till the hearers were brought under a general vague impression of splendour and solemnity, they could not have explained wherefore; but they all agreed that it was a 'graund discoorse,' and 'very refreshing,' and that they had entered on a high, noble and arduous work, in proposing to build themselves a little meeting house; and that, though propriety forbade their saying so, the Divine Head of the Church was greatly beholden to them, and that they might look, as their certain due, for large amounts of blessing, spiritual and temporal, to requite their exertions in church-building, as well as that heroic penny-a-week to the Sustentation Fund.
Like other fine things, the sermon came to an end at last, and after psalms and benediction, it was announced that they would proceed in procession to the site of their future church, where reports of the different committees would be received, and addresses given, after which the foundation stone would be laid with prayer and praise.
The congregation then broke up, and in the confusion Sophia got the opportunity she had been desiring of a quiet word with Mary. Circumstances had befriended her wonderfully she thought, when her father had brought her away from her mother, and placed her beside Mary Brown. She had always been fond of Mary, but now she felt a sisterly drawing towards her which she had not known before. Mary was her junior by about a year, but was quicker and earlier to mature, and this had sometimes made Sophia feel a rawness in herself, and a general slowness and obtuseness by comparison, in a way approaching as near to jealousy as her somewhat stolid and easy-going disposition was capable of experiencing. But as Mary neither assumed nor probably was aware of any advantage, this feeling in great measure slept; and now, when Sophia's development had advanced as with a bound, under the stirrings of awakening emotion, the latent grudge was altogether overborne. She sat up very close to her and pressed her softly. Mary was surprised. Demonstration of the faintest kind was something new in Sophia, and altogether unexpected. Her heart was sore at the unkindness of the parishioners to her brother, and their haste to adopt unwarrantable and improbable suspicion against him; and that Mrs. Sangster; who had assumed to play the rôle of mother to her in her lonely position, should turn and publicly visit the imaginary misdeeds of her brother on her head, had been very grievous. She assumed that Sophia meant to signify her disbelief in the idle rumours afloat, and, accepting the proffered sympathy, she returned the friendly pressure with grateful warmth. The two read from the same bible and psalm-book, and sat so close that the Laird was able to find room on the bench beside his daughter, just as he was beginning to think a two hours' stand rather a heavy penalty for interfering with his wife's absurdity.
'Mary!' whispered Sophia, when the assemblage was breaking up, 'I want you to tell your brother that I received his letter. Whoever told him that I am engaged is altogether mistaken. Nobody ever asked me to--be engaged, and there is no one who could have any right to do so. I would have answered his letter, but mamma forbade me; she even says I must not come and see you, while some report or other, I don't know what it is, is going about. So I have been waiting for an opportunity to speak to you. Mamma says papa does not believe the report, so--' here the words died away and the colour deepened on her cheeks--'but papa does not know of his letter to me.' Mary leant forward to bestow a kiss, but Sophia started back under a sharp prod from the parasol of her mother, who was eagerly reaching over the shoulders of the intervening crowd.
'Sophia Sangster! what are you lingering there for? Don't you see everybody is on the move? Come to your mother's side, your proper place, this moment.'
It was not a happy half-hour for Sophia that followed. The maternal plumage was sadly ruffled, and in the 'preening' that ensued to readjust the feathers mental as well as physical (for the silk gown was rumpled as much as the self-complacency was disturbed), not a few stray pecks fell to her portion. That her husband should have carried away her own girl from her side was almost intolerable; only, till she could devise a way to punish him which she had not yet discovered, she must bear that; but the girl had acquiesced without sign of reluctance or remonstrance, had consented to be separated from her own mother with perfect equanimity, and in spite of all that had passed, had seemed entirely comfortable beside Mary Brown, notwithstanding the maternal taboo. She had had little leisure for observation. Her gown, her shawl, the children, the sheep-dogs had made constant demands on her attention, and when she looked for succour to the shepherd and his wife, they were drinking in the sumptuous splendours of Solomon's temple, and had no thought for the turbulent little Bethel at their feet. Once however she had found time to glance across and was disgusted to see Sophia and Mary singing amicably from one book and evidently on the best of terms.
'You're a saft feckless tawpie, Sophia Sangster!' she enunciated with much emphasis, as she and her daughter were carried along in the stream of the procession. 'It seems to me sometimes that you have no more sense than a sookin' turkey!' Mrs. Sangster rather prided herself on her English, which she considered equal to that of any body on her side of London or Inverness. These were the two seats of perfect speech she considered; but failing them Auchlippie could hold its own against Edinburgh, St. Andrews, or anywhere else, and was decidedly a better model than her son Peter since he had adopted a Lancashire brogue. Nevertheless when she became 'excited' (i.e. angry), she admitted that she had to fall back on the pith and vigour of her native Doric with its unlimited capacity for picturesque vituperation.
'It's not from me you take your fushionless gates! That comes o' the donnart Sangster bluid in you, I'm thinking. But what possessed you to take up publicly like yon with Mary Brown, when you know I want you to steer clear of her just now? When the Presbytery has taken the matter up, it will be proper enough to bestow patronage and show sympathy for the poor girl; but meanwhile we have a testimony to bear, and it will not do to countenance evil doers or their families.'