In reply, he fell upon me, literally and figuratively, with tones of reproachful tenderness.
"Minister," he said, "I own ye as a faithfu' guide." ("You'd better," said I to myself, for I was weary.) "I own ye as a faithfu' guide, an' I wudna gie ye pain. For we've had oor ain times thegither. I micht maist say as 'at 'We twa hae paiddled i' the burn,' only it wudna be becomin'. But aboot that word—I've heard ye say yirsel' frae the pulpit as how hell is a maist awfu' feelin' i' the breist. Verra well, dinna ye think as hoo yon Irish whelp I skelpit the day 'll hae a waesome feelin' i' his breist? That's a' the meanin' I desired till convey. It's nae wrang when it's expoun'it. Guid-nicht till ye, minister."
XI
PLUCKING A FIERY BRAND
But there are others of whom I have better things to record, and indeed better things shall yet be set down by me concerning Geordie Lorimer before these short and simple annals shall have ended. For there is nothing so joysome to record as the brightening story of a soul coming to its real birth from the travail of its sin and struggle. For perchance time itself is God's great midwife, and man's writhing agony is to the end that he may soon be born.
The serious will doubtless wish to learn what befell me in my effort to beguile the rugged Donald M'Phatter and his wife, who had quit the kirk when the kirk quit the tokens, back to the worship of the sanctuary. It is many years since they returned to St. Cuthbert's hallowed shrine, and they now sing the uncreated song.
For they have joined that choir invisible whose voices, trained by God, blend in perfect unison, but not in time; for they reckon not by days and years where they have gone to dwell.
It may be set down as certain that I would never have won them back to church had it not been that I abandoned argument and adopted friendship.