Salted with Fire

“I do not understand you, Mr. MacLear!” answered James with dignity.

“Na, ye canna! Gien ye could, ye wouldna be sae comfortable as ye seem!”

“I cannot think, Mr. MacLear, why you should be rude to me!”

“Gien ye saw the hoose on fire aboot a man deid asleep, maybe ye micht be in ower great a hurry to be polite til ‘im!” remarked the soutar.

“Dare you suggest, sir, that I have been drinking?” cried the parson.

“Not for a single moment, sir; and I beg yer pardon for causin ye so to mistak me: I do not believe, sir, ye war ever ance owertaen wi’ drink in a’ yer life! I fear I’m jist ower ready to speyk in parables, for it’s no a’body that can or wull un’erstan’ them! But the last time ye left me upo’ this same stule, it was wi’ that cry o’ the Apostle o’ the Gentiles i’ my lug—‘Wauk up, thoo that sleepest!’ For even the deid wauk whan the trumpet blatters i’ their lug!”

“It seems to me that there the Apostle makes allusion to the condition of the Gentile nations, asleep in their sins! But it may apply, doubtless, to the conversion of any unbelieving man from the error of his ways.”

“Weel,” said the soutar, turning half round, and looking the minister full in the face, “are ye convertit, sir? Or are ye but turnin frae side to side i’ yer coffin—seekin a sleepin assurance that ye’re waukin?”

“You are plain-spoken anyway!” said the minister, rising.

“Maybe I am at last, sir! And maybe I hae been ower lang in comin to that same plainness! Maybe I was ower feart for yer coontin me ill-fashiont—what ye ca’ rude!”

The parson was half-way to the door, for he was angry, which was not surprising. But with the latch in his hand he turned, and, lo, there in the middle of the floor, with the child in her arms, stood the beautiful Maggie, as if in act to follow him: both were staring after him.

“Dinna anger him, father,” said Maggie; “he disna ken better!”

“Weel ken I, my dautie, that he disna ken better; but I canna help thinkin he’s maybe no that far frae the waukin. God grant I be richt aboot that! Eh, gien he wud but wauk up, what a man he would mak! He kens a heap—only what’s that whaur a man has no licht?”

“I certainly do not see things as you would have me believe you see them; and you are hardly capable of persuading me that you do, I fear!” said Blatherwick, with the angry flush again on his face, which had for a moment been dispelled by pallor.

But here the baby seeming to recognize the unsympathetic tone of the conversation, pulled down his lovely little mouth, and sent from it a dread and potent cry. Clasping him to her bosom, Maggie ran from the room with him, jostling James in the doorway as he let her pass.

“I am afraid I frightened the little man!” he said.

“‘Deed, sir, it may ha’ been you, or it may ha’ been me ‘at frichtit him,” rejoined the soutar. “It’s a thing I’m sair to blame in—that, whan I’m in richt earnest, I’m aye ready to speyk as gien I was angert. Sir, I humbly beg yer pardon.”

“As humbly I beg yours,” returned the parson; “I was in the wrong.”

The heart of the old man was drawn afresh to the youth. He laid aside his shoe, and turning on his stool, took James’s hand in both of his, and said solemnly and lovingly—

“This moment I wad wullin’ly die, sir, that the licht o’ that uprisin o’ which we spak micht brak throuw upon ye!”

“I believe you, sir,” answered James; “but,” he went on, with an attempt at humour, “it wouldn’t be so much for you to do after all, seeing you would straightway find yourself in a much better place!”

“Maybe whaur the penitent thief sat, some auchteen hunner year ago, waitin to be called up higher!” rejoined the soutar with a watery smile.

The parson opened the door, and went home—where his knees at once found their way to the carpet.

From that night Blatherwick began to go often to the soutar’s, and soon went almost every other day, for at least a few minutes; and on such occasions had generally a short interview with Maggie and the baby, in both of whom, having heard from the soutar the story of the child, he took a growing interest.

“You seem to love him as if he were your own, Maggie!” he said one morning to the girl.

“And isna he my ain? Didna God himsel gie me the bairn intil my vera airms—or a’ but?” she rejoined.

“Suppose he were to die!” suggested the minister. “Such children often do!”

“I needna think aboot that,” she answered. “I would just hae to say, as mony ane has had to say afore me: ‘The Lord gave,’—ye ken the rest, sir!”

But day by day Maggie grew more beautiful in the minister’s eyes, until at last he was not only ready to say that he loved her, but for her sake to disregard worldly and ambitious considerations.

CHAPTER X

On the morning of a certain Saturday, therefore, which day of the week he always made a holiday, he resolved to let her know without further delay that he loved her; and the rather that on the next day he was engaged to preach for a brother clergyman at Deemouth, and felt that, his fate with Maggie unknown, his mind would not be cool enough for him to do well in the pulpit. But neither disappointment nor a fresh love had yet served to set him free from his old vanity or arrogance: he regarded his approaching declaration as about to confer great honour as well as favour upon the damsel of low estate, about to be invited to share in his growing distinction. In his late disappointment he had asked a lady to descend a little from her social pedestal, in the belief that he offered her a greater than proportionate counter-elevation; and now in his suit to Maggie he was almost unable to conceive a possibility of failure. When she would have shown him into the kitchen, he took her by the arm, and leading her to the ben-end, at once began his concocted speech. Scarcely had she gathered his meaning, however, when he was checked by her startled look.

“And what wad ye hae me dee wi’ my bairn?” she asked instantly, without sign of perplexity, smiling on the little one as at some absurdity in her arms rather than suggested to her mind.

But the minister was sufficiently in love to disregard the unexpected indication. His pride was indeed a little hurt, but he resisted any show of offence, reflecting that her anxiety was not altogether an unnatural one.

“Oh, we shall easily find some experienced mother,” he answered, “who will understand better than you even how to take care of him!”

“Na, na!” she rejoined. “I hae baith a father and a wean to luik efter; and that’s aboot as muckle as I’ll ever be up til!”

So saying, she rose and carried the little one up to the room her father now occupied, nor cast a single glance in the direction of her would-be lover.

Now at last he was astonished. Could it mean that she had not understood him? It could not be that she did not appreciate his offer! Her devotion to the child was indeed absurdly engrossing, but that would soon come right! He could have no fear of such a rivalry, however unpleasant at the moment! That little vagrant to come between him and the girl he would make his wife!

He glanced round him: the room looked very empty! He heard her oft-interrupted step through the thin floor: she was lavishing caresses on the senseless little animal! He caught up his hat, and with a flushed face went straight to the soutar where he sat at work.

“I have come to ask you, Mr. MacLear, if you will give me your daughter to be my wife!” he said.

“Ow, sae that’s it!” returned the soutar, without raising his eyes.

“You have no objection, I hope?” continued the minister, finding him silent.

“What says she hersel? Ye comena to me first, I reckon!”

“She said, or implied at least, that she could not leave the child. But she cannot mean that!”

“And what for no?—There’s nae need for me to objeck!”

“But I shall soon persuade her to withdraw that objection!”

“Then I should hae objections—mair nor ane—to put to the fore!”

“You surprise me! Is not a woman to leave father and mother and cleave to her husband?”

“Ow ay—sae be the woman is his wife! Than lat nane sun’er them!—But there’s anither sayin, sir, that I doobt may hae something to dee wi’ Maggie’s answer!”

“And what, pray, may that be?”

“That man or woman must leave father and mother, wife and child, for the sake o’ the Son o’ Man.”