Gordon paused; out of breath, I reckon. By this time quite a number of the crowd had eddied back, listening attentively, you may be sure, to this candid conversation. One or two of them gave me a detailed account later on.
"I appeal," blustered Mr. Ashton, "I appeal to those who know me. I spoke to you as an officer of St. Andrew's. I have been a faithful supporter of the church—and I've always paid my debts," he blurted out irrelevantly, hard put to it to make defense.
"Ye ha'ena'," a squeaking voice came suddenly from the bystanders.
Mr. Ashton turned sharply round. "I haven't?—where's the man that dares to say I haven't?" he hectored, searching the group for the interrupter.
"I'm the mon," came quietly from the lips of a little old Scotchman as he moved slowly to the front; "ye didna' pay oor Jock what ye owed him. He took the consumption workin' for ye," the squeaky voice went on, "an' when he lay deein', ye never lookit near him; an' the day o' his funeral, ye drove by the hoose wi'oot lookin' at us. An' he was a foreman till ye for mair nor twenty year," the plaintive indictment proceeded—"an' ye owed him a wee bit mark o' respec' like that. An' ye never paid it—but it's ower late noo." Then the little man slipped back among the bystanders; Mr. Ashton followed him, loudly protesting that the dead servant had got his wages regularly, the second Tuesday of every month.
Gordon took advantage of the diversion to move away; and the story, substantially as I have told it, was given to me on his arrival home.
I did not question him closely about the original cause of the discussion—about his theological views, I mean; but it started an uneasiness that grew upon me day by day. And a few weeks later I learned something more that did not reassure me much.
I was sitting with Harold—we had named our son Gordon Harold; but the latter half was what we called him, to avoid confusion—one evening in the study; two ministers, visitors to some church gathering and guests of ours, were talking on the piazza. By and by Harold grew silent, and so did I; which, I suppose, led the two brethren to think I had disappeared. And they talked freely.
"It's too bad," one of them said, whereat I sat up and listened, "that Laird's gone that way. He can't hold those views, and his pulpit, at the same time."
"Have you any idea what his views really are?" the other asked.