Out in the Forty-Five Part 11

"Hardening your heart, girl! What do you mean?" said Father.

"Hardening your heart by riding to hounds!"

"A little puzzling, certainly," said Sir Robert Dacre, who sat opposite.

"We must ask Miss Drummond to explain."

He did not speak in that disagreeable way that Mr Bagnall did; but Flora flushed up when she found three gentlemen looking at her, and asking her for an explanation.

"I mean," she answered, "that one hardens one's heart by taking pleasure in anything which gives another creature pain. But I beg your pardon; indeed I did not mean to put myself forward."

"No, no, child; we drew you forward," said Father, kindly. He gets over his tempers in a moment, and he seemed to have quite forgotten the pa.s.sage at arms with my Aunt Kezia.

"Still, I do not quite understand," said Sir Robert, not at all unkindly. "Who is the injured creature in this case, Miss Drummond?"

Flora's colour rose again. "The hare, Sir," she said.

"The hare!" cried Mr Bagnall, leaning back in his chair to laugh.

"Well, Miss Flora, you are quixotic."

"May I quote my father, Sir?" was her reply. "He says that Don Quixote (supposing him a real person, which I take it he was not) was one of the n.o.blest men the world ever saw, only the world was not ready for him."

"The world not ready for him? No, I should think not!" laughed Father.

"Not just yet, my little lady-errant."

Flora smiled quietly. "Perhaps it will be, some day. Uncle Courtenay,"

she said.

"When the larks fall from the sky--eh, Miss Flora?" said Mr Bagnall, rubbing his hands again in that odious way he has.

"When 'they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,'" was Flora's soft answer.

"Surely you don't suppose that literal?" replied Mr Bagnall, laughing.

"Why, you must be as bad--I had nearly said as _mad_--as my next neighbour, Everard Murthwaite (of Holme Cultram, you know," he explained aside to Father). "Why, he has actually got a notion that the Jews are to be restored to Palestine! Whoever heard of such a mad idea? Only think--the Jews!"

"Ridiculous nonsense!" said Father.

"Is it not usually the case," asked Mr Keith, who till then had hardly spoken, "that the world counts as mad the wisest men in it?"

"Why, Mr Keith, you must be one of them!" cried Mr Bagnall.

"Of the wise men? Thank you!" said Mr Keith, drily.

There was a laugh at this.

"But I can tell you of something queerer still," Mr Bagnall went on.

"Old Cis Crosthwaite, in my parish, says she knows her sins are forgiven."

Such exclamations came from most of the gentlemen at that!

"Preposterous!" said one. "Ridiculous!" said another. "Insufferable presumption!" cried a third.

"Cis Crosthwaite!" said Sir Robert Dacre, more quietly.

"Yes, Cis Crosthwaite," repeated Mr Bagnall; "an old wretch of a woman who has never been any better than she should be, and whom I met sticking hedges only last winter. Her son Joe is the worst poacher in the parish."

All the gentlemen seemed to think that most dreadful. I do not know why it is they always appear to reckon snaring wild game which belongs n.o.body a more wicked thing than breaking all the Ten Commandments.

Would it not have been in them if it were?

Only Sir Robert Dacre said, "Poor old creature! don't let us saddle her with Joe's sins. I dare say she has plenty of her own."

"Plenty? I should think so. She is a horrid old wretch," answered Mr Bagnall. "And do but think, if this miserable creature has not the arrogance and presumption to say that her sins are forgiven!"

"I suppose Christ died that somebody's sins might be forgiven?" said Mr Keith, in his quiet way.

"Of course, but those are respectable people," Mr Bagnall said, rather indignantly.

"Before or after the forgiveness?" asked Mr Keith.

"Sir," said Mr Bagnall, rather stiffly, "I am not accustomed to discuss such matters as these at table."

"Are you not? I am," said Mr Keith, quite simply.

"But," continued Mr Bagnall, "I thought every one understood the orthodox view--namely, that a man must do his best, and practise virtue, and lead a proper sort of life, and then, when G.o.d Almighty sees you a decent and fit person, and endeavouring to be good He helps you with His grace." [Note 2.]

"Of course!" said the Vicar of Sebergham--I suppose by way of Amen.

"Men are to do their best, then, and practise these virtues, in the first instance, without any a.s.sistance from G.o.d's grace? That Gospel sounds rather ill tidings," was Mr Keith's answer.

Everybody was listening by this time. Sir Robert Dacre, I thought, seemed secretly diverted; and Hatty's eyes were gleaming with fun.

Father looked uncomfortable, and as if he did not know what Mr Keith would be at. From my Aunt Kezia little nods of satisfaction kept coming to what he said.

"Sir," demanded Mr Bagnall, looking his adversary straight in the face, "are you not orthodox?"

He spoke rather in the tone in which he might have asked, "Are you not honest?"

"May I ask you to explain the word, before I answer?" was Mr Keith's response.

"I mean, are you one of these Methodists?"

"Certainly not. I belong to the Kirk of Scotland."

Mr Bagnall's "Oh!" seemed to say that some at any rate of Mr Keith's queer notions might be accounted for, if he were so unfortunate as to have been born in a different Church.

"But," pursued Mr Keith, "seeing that the Church of England, and the Kirk of Scotland, and the Methodists, all accept the Word of G.o.d as the rule of faith, they should all, methinks, be sound in the faith, if that be what you mean by 'orthodox.'"

"By 'orthodox,'" said the Vicar of Sebergham, after a sonorous clearing of his throat, "I understand a man who keeps to the Articles of the Church, and does not run into any extravagances and enthusiasm."

"Hear him!" cried Mr Bagnall, as if he were at a Tory meeting. Hatty burst out laughing, but immediately smothered it in her handkerchief.

"I do hear him, and with pleasure," said Mr Keith. "I am no friend to extravagance, I a.s.sure you. Let a Churchman keep to the Bible and the Articles, and I ask no more of him. But excuse me if I say that we are departing from the question before us, which was the propriety, or impropriety, of one saying that his sins were forgiven. May I ask why you object to that?--and is the objection to the forgiveness, or to the proclamation of it?"