William, as chairman, was the first to speak. He presented St. Cuthbert's case with dignity and force, beginning with the tidings that the Board wished me henceforth to take two months' holidays instead of one. This started in my mind a swift reflection upon the native perversity of the Scotch. To prove that they cannot do without you, they banish you altogether for an extra month, but William Collin gave the thing a more graceful turn:
"We love you weel eneuch to do without you—but no' for lang," he said.
Then he concluded, as was his inviolate custom, with a reference to Burns, in whom he had sat down and risen up for forty years:
"I canna better close what I hae to say," he assured me, "than by the use o' the plowboy's words, slightly changed for the occasion:
"'Better lo'ed ye canna be
Will ye no' abide at hame?'"
With this he reached behind him (this too, a time-honoured custom), seized the aforesaid caudal parts of his coat, removed them from the path of descending danger, and lowered his stalwart form with easy dignity, his kindly eyes aglow with friendship's light.
David Carrick was the next to speak. Cautious and severe, his chief aim was to express the hope that I was sincere in my indecision.
"We had a sair shock wi' a former minister long years ago," he said, "he had a call, like yirsel', but he aye kept puttin' us off, tellin' us he was aye seekin' licht frae above; but Sandy Rutherford saw an or'nary licht in the manse ae nicht after twal o'clock. He peekit in the window, an' he saw the minister wi' his coat off, packin' up the things. The twa lichts kind o' muddled him, ye ken."
His colleagues may have thought David unnecessarily severe. In any case several of them began signalling to Geordie Bickell to take the floor. Geordie responded with much modesty and misgiving, for he was the saintliest man amongst us; and his own estimate of himself was in direct antagonism to our own.
"We willna urge ye, sir," he said, with a winsome smile, "but I'm sure the maist of us hae been pleadin' hard afore a higher court than this. A' I want to tell ye is this—there hasna been wound or bruise upon yir relation to yir people. An' there's but ae hairt amongst us, an' we're giein' ye anither call this day—an' we're hopin' it's the will o' God."