And now this high occasion was to be celebrated by a 'meat-tea,' for the Reverend Andrew was no stingy person, though his wife had sighed and sighed again over the bringing into the house of a new mouth to feed. Maggie came downstairs, accompanied by the other members of the family; Mr. M'Lachlan was invited to sit at his hostess's right hand; the others of them took their seats in due course; and the minister pronounced a long and formal blessing, which was not without a reference or two to the special circumstances of their being thus brought together. And if the good man spoke apparently under the assumption that the Deity had a particular interest in this tea-meeting in Abbotsford Place, it was assuredly without a thought of irreverence; to himself the occasion was one of importance; and the way of his life led him to have continual—and even familiar—communion with the unseen Powers.
But it was not Ronald's affairs that were to be the staple of conversation at this somewhat melancholy banquet. It very soon appeared that Mr. M'Lachlan was an elder—and a ruling elder, unmistakably—of Andrew Strang's church, and he had come prepared with a notable proposal for wiping off the debt of the same.
'Ah'm not wan that'll gang back from his word,' he said, in his pompous and raucous voice, and he leaned back in his chair, and crossed his hands over his capacious black satin waistcoat, and gazed loftily on his audience. 'Wan hundred pounds—there it is, as sure as if it was in my pocket this meenit—and there it'll be when ye get fower ither members o' the congregation to pit doon their fifty pounds apiece. Not but that there's several in the church abler than me to pit doon as much; but ye ken how it is, Mr. Strang, the man makes the money and the woman spends it; and there's mair than one family we ken o' that should come forrit on an occasion like this, but that the money rins through the fingers o' a feckless wife. What think ye, noo, o' Mrs. Nicol setting up her powny-carriage, and it's no nine years since Geordie had to make a composition? And they tell me that Mrs. Paton's lasses, when they gang doon the waiter—and not for one month in the year will they let that house o' theirs at Dunoon—they tell me that the pairties and dances they have is jist extraordinar' and the wastry beyond a' things. Ay, it's them that save and scrimp and deny themselves that's expected to do everything in a case like this—notwithstanding it's a public debt—mind, it's a public debt, binding on the whole congregation; but what ah say ah'll stand to—there's wan hundred pounds ready, when there's fower ithers wi' fifty pounds apiece—that's three hundred pounds—and wi' such an example before them, surely the rest o' the members will make up the remaining two hundred and fifty—surely, surely.'
'It's lending to the Lord,' said the minister's wife sadly, as she passed the marmalade to the children.
The conversation now took the form of a discussion as to which of the members might reasonably be expected to come forward at such a juncture; and as Ronald had no part or interest in this matter he made bold to turn to Mr. Weems, who sate beside him, and engage him in talk on their own account. Indeed, he had rather taken a liking for this timorous little man, and wished to know more about him and his belongings and occupations; and when Mr. Weems revealed to him the great trouble of his life—the existence of a shrill-voiced chanticleer in the backyard of the cottage adjoining his own, out somewhere in the Pollokshaws direction—Ronald was glad to come to his help at once.
'Oh, that's all right,' said he. 'I'll shoot him for you.'
But this calm proposal was like to drive the poor little man daft with terror. His nervous system suffered cruelly from the skirling of the abominable fowl; but even that was to be dreaded less than a summons and a prosecution and a deadly feud with his neighbour, who was a drunken, quarrelsome, cantankerous shoemaker.
'But, God bless me,' Ronald said, 'it's not to be thought of that any human being should be tortured like that by a brute beast. Well, there's another way o' settling the hash o' that screeching thing. You just go and buy a pea-shooter—or if one of the laddies will lend you a tin whistle, that will do; then go and buy twopence-worth of antibilious pills—indeed, I suppose any kind would serve; and then fire half a dozen over into the back-yard; my word, when the bantam gentleman has picked up these bonny looking peas, and swallowed them, he'll no be for flapping his wings and crowing, I'm thinking; he'll rather be for singing the tune of "Annie Laurie." But maybe you're not a good shot with a pea-shooter? Well, I'll come over and do it for you early some morning, when the beast's hungry.'
But it was difficult for any one to talk, even in the most subdued and modest way, with that harsh and strident voice laying down the law at the head of the table. And now the large-waistcoated elder was on the subject of the temperance movement; arraigning the government for not suppressing the liquor-traffic altogether; denouncing the callous selfishness of those who were inclined to temporise with the devil, and laying at their door all the misery caused by the drunkenness of their fellow-creatures; and proudly putting in evidence his own position in the city of Glasgow—his authority in the church—the regard paid to his advice—and the solid, substantial slice of the world's gear that he possessed—as entirely due to the fact that he had never, not even as a young man, imbibed one drop of alcohol. Now Ronald Strang was ordinarily a most abstemious person—and no credit to him, nor to any one in the like case; for his firm physique and his way of living hitherto had equally rendered him independent of any such artificial aid (though a glass of whisky on a wet day on the hillside did not come amiss to him, and his hard head could steer him safely through a fair amount of jollification when those wild lads came down from Tongue). But he was irritated by that loud and raucous voice; he resented the man's arrogance and his domineering over the placid and phlegmatic Andrew, who scarcely opened his mouth; and here and there he began to put in a sharp saying or two that betokened discontent and also a coming storm. 'They used to say that cleanliness was next to godliness; but nowadays ye would put total abstinence half a mile ahead of it,' he would say, or something of the kind; and in due course these two were engaged in a battle-royal of discussion. It shall not be put down here; for who was ever convinced—in morals, or art, or literature, or anything else—by an argument? it needs only be said that the elder, being rather hard pressed, took refuge in Scriptural authority. But alas! this was not of much avail; for the whole family of the East Lothian farmer (not merely the student one of them) had been brought up with exceeding care, and taught to give chapter and verse for everything; so that when Mr. M'Lachlan sought to crush his antagonist with the bludgeon of quotation he found it was only a battledore he had got hold of.
'"Wine is a mocker; strong drink is raging; and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise,"' he would say severely.