Читать книгу The Days of Auld Lang Syne - Ian Maclaren - Страница 6

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It was known in the Glen that Burnbrae must choose on Monday between his farm and his conscience, and the atmosphere in the Free Church on Sabbath was such as might be felt. When he arrived that morning, with Jean and their three sons—the fourth was in a Highland regiment on the Indian frontier—the group that gathered at the outer gate opened to let them pass, and the elders shook Burnbrae by the hand in serious silence; and then, instead of waiting to discuss the prospects of the Sustentation Fund with Netherton, Burnbrae went in with his family, and sat down in the pew where they had worshipped God since the Disruption.

The cloud of the coming trial fell on the elders, and no man found his voice for a space. Then Donald Menzies's face suddenly lightened, and he lifted his head.

“'With persecutions' wass in the promise, and the rest it will be coming sure.”

“You hef the word, Donald Menzies,” said Lachlan; and it came to this handful of Scottish peasants that they had to make that choice that has been offered unto every man since the world began.

Carmichael's predecessor was minister of the Free Church in those days, who afterwards got University preferment—he wrote a book on the Greek particles, much tasted in certain circles—and is still called “the Professor” in a hushed voice by old people. He was so learned a scholar that he would go out to visit without his hat, and so shy that he could walk to Kildrummie with one of his people on the strength of two observations, the first at Tochty bridge and the other at the crest of the hill above the station. Lachlan himself did not presume at times to understand his sermons, but the Free Church loved their scholar, for they knew the piety and courage that dwelt in the man.

The manse housekeeper, who followed Cunningham with his hat and saw that he took his food at more or less regular intervals, was at her wit's end before that Sabbath.

“A 've hed chairge o' him,” she explained to the clachan, “since he wes a laddie, an' he 's a fine bit craiturie ony wy ye tak' him.

“Ye juist hammer at his door in the morning till ye 're sure he's up, an' bring him oot o' the study when denner's ready, an' watch he hesna a buke hoddit aboot him—for he's tricky—an' come in on him every wee whilie till ye think he's hed eneuch, an' tak' awa his lamp when it's time for him tae gang tae bed, an' it's safer no tae lat him hae mair than a can'le end, or he wud set tae readin' in his bed. Na, na, he's no ill tae guide.

“But keep's a', he's been sae crouse this week that he's fair gae'n ower me. He's been speakin' tae himsel' in the study, an' he 'll get up in the middle o' his denner an' rin roond the gairden.

“Ye ken the minister hardly ever speaks gin ye dinna speak tae him, though he's aye canty; bit this week if he didna stop in the middle o' his denner an' lay aff a story aboot three hun-der lads that held a glen wi' their swords till the laist o' them wes killed—a'm dootin' they were Hielan' caterans—an' he yokit on the auld martyrs ae nicht tae sic an extent that I wes near the greetin'.

“Ye wudna ken him thae times—he's twice his size, an' the langidge poors frae him. A' tell ye Burnbrae's on his brain, and ye 'll hae a sermon worth hearin' on Sabbath. Naebody kens the spirit 'at's in ma laddie when he's roosed,” concluded Maysie, with the just pride of one who had tended her scholar since childhood.

“What shall it profit a man,” was the text, and in all the sermon there was not one abusive word, but the minister exalted those things that endure for ever above those that perish in the using, with such spiritual insight and wealth of illustration—there was a moral resonance in his very voice which made men's nerves tingle—that Mrs. Macfadyen, for once in her life, refused to look at heads, and Donald Menzies could hardly contain himself till the last psalm.

It was the custom in the Free Kirk for the minister to retire first, facing the whole congregation on his way to the vestry at the back of the church, and Cunningham confided to a friend that he lost in weight during the middle passage; but on this Sabbath he looked every man in the face, and when he came to Burn-brae's pew the minister paused, and the two men clasped hands. No word was spoken, not a person moved around, but the people in front felt the thrill, and knew something had happened.

No one was inclined to speak about that sermon on the way home, and Netherton gave himself with ostentation to the finger-and-toe disease among the turnips. But the Free Kirk had no doubt what answer Burnbrae would give the factor, and each man resolved within his heart that he would do likewise in his time.

“It's michty,” was Jamie Soutar's comment, who had attended the Free Kirk to show his sympathy, “what can be dune by speech. Gin there wes a juitlin', twa-faced wratch in the kirk, yon sermon hes straichtened him oot an' made a man o' him.

“Maister Cunningham 's no muckle tae look at an' he 's the quietest body a' ever saw; but he's graund stuff every inch o' him, and hes the courage o' a lion.”

Burnbrae and Jean walked home that Sabbath alone, and the past encompassed their hearts.

The road they had walked since childhood, unchanged save for the gap where the old beech fell in the great storm, and the growth of the slowly maturing oaks; the burns that ran beneath the bridges with the same gurgling sound while generations came and went; the fields that had gone twelve times through the rotation of grass, oats, turnips, barley, grass since they remembered; the farmhouses looking down upon the road with familiar kindly faces—Gormack had a new window, and Claywhat another room above the kitchen—awoke sleeping memories and appealed against their leaving.

When they came below Woodhead, the two old people halted and looked up the track where the hawthorn hedges, now bright with dog-roses, almost met, and a cart had to force its way through the sweet-smelling greenery. It was in Woodhead that Jean had been reared, and a brother was still living there with her only sister.

“Div ye mind the nicht, Jean, that ye cam doon the road wi' me and a' askit ye tae be ma wife? it wes aboot this time.”

“It 'ill be forty-five year the mornin's nicht, John, and a' see the verra place fra here. It wes at the turn o' the road, and there's a rosebush yonder still.

“Ye pluckit me a rose afore we pairtit, an' a' hae the leaves o't in the cover of ma Bible, an' the rose at oor gairden gate is a cuttin' that a' took.”

The old school-house was not visible from the road, but on sight of the path that turned upwards to its wood, Jean looked at Burnbrae with the inextinguishable roguery of a woman in her eyes, and he understood.

“Aye, ye were a hempie o' a lassie, Jean, making faces at me as often as a' lookit at ye, an' crying, 'Douce John Baxter.' till a' wes near the greetin' on the wy hame.”

“But a' likit ye a' the time better than ony laddie in the schule; a' think a' luved ye frae the beginnin', John.”

“Wes't luve gared ye dad ma ears wi' yir bukes at the corner, and shute me in amang the whins? but ye'll hae forgotten that, wumman.”

“Fient a bit o' me; it wes the day ye took Meg Mitchell's pairt, when we fell oot ower oor places in the class. A' didna mind her bein' abune me, but a' cudna thole ye turnin' against me.”

“Hoo lang is that ago, Jean?”

“Sax and fifty year ago laist summer.”

The auld kirk stood on a bluff overlooking the Tochty, with the dead of the Glen round it; and at the look on Jean's face, Burnbrae turned up the kirk road along which every family went some day in sorrow.

The Baxters' ground lay in a corner, where the sun fell pleasantly through the branches of a beech in the afternoon, and not far from the place where afterwards we laid Dom-sie to rest. The gravestone was covered on both sides with names, going back a century, and still unable to commemorate all the Baxters that had lived and died after an honest fashion in Drumtochty. The last name was that of a child: