St. Cuthbert's Part 12

"Up to date!" retorted Archie scornfully; "it's a sair date an' a deein'

ane. It'll dee the nicht, an' there'll be a new ane the morn, an' wha ever heard tell o' an Easter Sabbath in the Kirk o' Scotland? It'll dae weel eneuch for thae dissentin' bodies, wi' their prayer-books, but what hae we, wi' the psalm-buik, an' a regular ministry, an' a regular kirk, to dae wi' siclike follies? Ilka Sabbath day is Easter day, I'm tellin'

ye. Is oor Lord no' aye risin' frae the dead? Gin a soul braks intil new life, or a deein' man pillows his weary heid on Him, or the heavy-herted staun' up in His michty strength, ye hae yir Easter Sabbath; an' that's ilka Sabbath, I'm sayin'. Nane o' yir enawmelled bit toys for Presbyterian fowk."

"I do not want to interfere with the good old Presbyterian ways,"

responded Mr. Blake; for the elders seemed to have committed the entire debate to those two representatives of the old school and the new. "But it seems to me the whole Christian religion is a religion of change," he continued; "the new path, the new and living way, the new covenant, the new name, the new song--and the new heart," he concluded fervently.

Then a moment later he added, "Thank G.o.d for that!" and the elders looked at him in astonishment, for his face bore again that look of anguish and remorse to which I have referred before, the oft-recurring evidence of some bitter secret, deep hidden in his heart.

"We understaun' fine," the session clerk appended. "Mr. Blake is only contending that there are two sides to every question."

"Twa sides!" shouted the precentor, now on his feet again, "there's mair nor twa. There's three sides to ilka question: there's yir ain side, an'

there's my side, an' there's G.o.d's side," he added almost fiercely; "an'

when I ken G.o.d's side, there's nae ither side ava."

The debate was not continued long, and closed with the compromise that Mr. Blake's motion should prevail, the whole matter to be referred to a committee composed of Mr. Blake, the precentor, the moderator, and the clerk, no report to be made to the kirk session unless the committee was unanimous in its finding. This committee was instructed to meet and confer with the representatives of the Young People's Guild.

While this resolution was being recorded, Archie was still indulging in smothered protests, the dying voice of the thunder-storm; and as the session dispersed he was heard to say, "Committee or no committee, as lang as I'm in the kirk they'll sing the psalms o' Dauvit--an' the tunes o' Dauvit tae."

The next evening I informed Angus of the session's action, and told him the names of the committee. When I mentioned that of Mr. Blake, his eyes flashed fire, and in bitter tones he said, "I will meet no committee of which that man is one. I hate him, sir. I would as lief confer with the devil as with him."

This staggered me. I knew no cause for an outburst so pa.s.sionate, nor any provocation for a resentment so savage and so evidently real. My attempt to question him concerning either met with an abrupt but final refusal. Concerning these things I said nothing to Margaret or her mother, but kept them all and pondered them in my heart.

XVI

_GEORDIE'S OOT-TURN_

It was Geordie Lorimer who first taught me to curl. This I still reckon a great kindness, for I have gone from strength to strength till I am now upon the verge of tankard skiphood. Besides, Geordie's besetting sin still clinging close, I had hoped in this social way the more readily to win his friends.h.i.+p, with a view to his deliverance.

Some of the old elders looked askance at my frivolity, for Sanderson's "Mountain Dew" flowed freely at every bonspiel, and it was generally understood that all bigoted teetotalism was justly suspended till the ice vanished in the spring. These aforesaid elders had no sympathy with men who tasted standing up, or who took their "Mountain Dew" unwarmed.

They would gravely quote the scriptural admonition that all things should be done decently and in order, adding the exposition, logically deduced, that the more important the transaction, the more imperative that order and decency should be observed. For which reason they took their whisky hot, and hallowed by the gentler name of "toddy." At eventide they took it, within the sacred precincts of their own firesides, and immediately after family wors.h.i.+p. Many a time and oft the very lips which fervently sang the psalm--

"Like Hermon's dew, the dew that doth,"

were the same that sampled Sanderson's with solemn satisfaction.

The session clerk once presented to the court a letter from a worthy but wandering temperance orator, craving permission to give his celebrated "dog talk" in St. Cuthbert's on a Sabbath afternoon.

"I move that the kirk be no' granted," said Archie M'Cormack. "He'll be revilin' the ways o' men far abune him. Ma faither aye took a drappy ilka nicht, haudin' his bonnet in his haun' the while. He wad drink the health o' Her Majesty ('G.o.d bless her,' he aye said), and mebbe ane to the auld kirk in bonnie Scotland, an' mebbe ane to the laddies wha used to rin wi' him aboot the braes, an' mebbe then he wad hae jist ane mair to Her Majesty, for ma faither was aye uncommon loyal at the hinner end.

But atween him an' ma mither he aye kent fine when to stop.

"An' a' oor faithers tasted afore they gaed to bed, an' they a' dee'd wi' their faces to the licht; an' I wadna gie ane o' them for a wheen o'

yir temperance haverers wi' their dog talks on the Sabbath day."

"I second that," said Ronald M'Gregor. "The injudeecious use o'

speerits, or o' ony ither needcessity, is no' to be commendit, but the Sabbath he's askin' 'll be the sacrament, and that's no day for dog talkin', I'm thinkin'"--and the motion carried unanimously.

"How's the ice to-day?" I asked Thomas Laidlaw, one winter's afternoon.

"Fair graun'," replied the solemn Thomas. "Ye'll never throw a stane on better till ye draw by yir last gaird; 'twad dae fine for the New Jerusalem."

"You don't think there'll be curling there, Thomas?" I said.

"I dinna ken," he answered, "but I'm no' despairin'. They aye speak o't as a land where everlasting spring abides; but I hae ma doots. There'll be times when the ice'll hold, I'm thinkin'. Yon crystal river's no' for naethin'."

Geordie Lorimer was my skip that day, and soon the armoured floor was echoing to the "roarin' game," the largest, n.o.blest, brotherliest game known to mortal men. The laird and the cottar were there, the homely shepherd and the village snab who cobbled his shoes, the banker and the carter, the manufacturer and the mechanic--all on that oft-quoted platform which is built alone of curlers' ice.

"Lay me a pat-lid richt here, man. Soop her up--soop, soop, man. Get her by the gaird. Let her be. I'm wrang, bring her ben the hoose.

Stop--stop, I'm tellin' ye. Noo, soop, soop her in, man."

"Noo, minister, be up this time," cries Geordie. "Soop, soop her up.

That's a graun' yin, minister. Shake ye yir ain haun'. Gin yir sermons were deleevered like yir stanes, there wadna be an empty seat i' the kirk. Lat her dee, she's ower fiery. That'll dae fine for a gaird, an'

Tam'll be fashed to get roun' ye."

Thus roared the game along, and at its close Geordie and I were putting our stones away together, flushed with victory. The occasion seemed favourable for the moral influence which it was my constant aim to exercise.

"By the way, Geordie," I began, "I have not seen you in the kirk of late."

"What's that?" said Geordie, his invariable challenge, securing time to adjust himself for the encounter.

"I have missed you nearly all winter from the church on the Sabbath day," I replied, leaving no room for further uncertainty.

Geordie capitulated slowly: "I'll grant ye I've no' been by-ord'nar regglar," he admitted, "but I hae a guid excuse. I haena been ower weel.

Ma knee's been sair. To tell ye the truth, minister, half the time 'twas a' I could dae to get doon to curl."

I sighed heavily and said no more, for Geordie was hopelessly sincere in his idea of first things first.

The very next night I was sitting quietly in my study, talking to Margaret and Angus, though I was beginning to suspect already that they had come to endure my absence with heroic fort.i.tude.

About eleven o'clock the door-bell rang, and I answered it myself. It was Geordie's distracted wife. Leading her to the drawing-room, I asked her mission, though her pale and care-rung face left little room for doubt.

"Wad ye think it bold o' me, sir, gin I was to ask you to find Geordie an' fetch him hame? He's off sin' yestere'en."

"Why, it was only yesterday evening I saw him on the ice."

"Ay, sir, but he winned the game, an' that's aye a loss for Geordie; he aye tak's himsel' to the tavern when he wins. Oh, sir, ma hairt's fair broken; it's a twalmonth this verra nicht sin' oor wee Jessie dee'd, an'

I was aye lippenin' to that to bring him till himsel'; but he seems waur nor ever--he seeks to droon his sorrow wi' the drink."

I had often marvelled at this; for Geordie's last word to his little daughter had been a promise to meet her in the land o' the leal. But it is not chains alone that make a slave.

After a little further conversation, I sent the poor woman home, a.s.suring her that I would do the best I could for Geordie. Which promise I proceeded to fulfill. Two or three of his well-known resorts had been visited with fruitless quest, when I repaired to the Maple Leaf, a notoriously sunken hole, which thus blasphemed the name of the fairest emblem of the nations. I observed a few sorry wastrels leaning in maudlin helplessness upon the bar as I pressed in, still cleaving to their trough--but Geordie was not among them. I was about to withdraw, when I heard a familiar voice, above the noise of a phonograph, from one of the rooms just above the bar. It was Geordie's.

"Gie us 'Nearer, my G.o.d, to Thee,'" I heard him cry, with drunken unction. "Gin ye haena ane o' the psalms o' Dauvit i' yir kist o' tunes, mak' the creetur play 'Nearer, my G.o.d, to Thee.'"