"But did he mak' his choice so redeek'lus sudden?" he was asked.
"I dinna ken," he answered tropically, "and I dinna care. If he bided three weeks, he bided ower lang. I kent that fine when ance I saw her. Noo, I pit it till ye, gin ye were crossin' a desert place, an' ye saw the Rose o' Sharon afore ye, wad ye no' pluck it gin ye micht, and pluck it quick? I pit it till ye." And they answered him not a word, for there is no debater like the heart.
I was told in after days that my historic friend the beadle canvassed for me night and day, laying mighty stress upon the fact that he knew me well, since he had travelled with me, assuring every ear that I was "uncommon ceevil," and proudly laying bare the independent scorn with which I had met his proposition to inspect the manse.
"But we micht get him yet," he concluded, "gin we gang richt aboot it."
These testimonials, together with his plaintive appeal to be relieved of the responsibility which the absence of a fixed minister threw upon himself, went far to confirm the wavering.
Nor shall I linger to trace the workings of that ponderous machinery whereby I was at last installed as the minister of St. Cuthbert's Church. Even the great assemblage which gathered to welcome us, with its infinite introductions, its features social, devotional, and deputational, its addresses civic and ecclesiastical, must be dismissed with a word.
It reminded me of nothing so much as of the launching of a ship, and beneath all its tumult of artillery there thrummed the deep undertone of joy. For St. Cuthbert's, contrary to its historic way, had parted with its last minister, a man of great ability, amid the smoke of battle, and he had gone forth as Napoleon went, with a martial record which the corroding years even yet have scarcely tarnished. Fierce had been the fight, the factions grimly equal, and beclouded with a sublime confusion as to which side had been led by heaven and which by Belial. On this point, even now, they do not exactly see eye to eye.
And this deep joy, whose untiring hum (joy's native voice) had entwined itself with every exercise of our exultant gathering was born of the assurance of returning harmony and the welcome calm which follows the departing storm. The gentle vines of peace were beginning to clothe their scarred and disfigured Zion.
St. Cuthbert's hailed that night as the hour of its convalescence. In consequence, every speech, even those from dry and desiccated lips, was coloured with the melody of hope. Even hoary jokes and ancestral stories, kept for tea-meetings as hard tack is kept for the army and navy, were disinfected by the kindly flavour which brooded like an April cloud.
And now it is my purpose to set down as best I may some of the features of my life, and a few of my most vivid observations among these remarkable folk.