Now, had they confined their prayers and exhortations to those which, from an ecclesiastical point of view, constitute the unholy days of the week, Mr Cairns would have neither condescended nor presumed to take any notice of them; but when the bird's eye view from his pulpit began to show patches of bare board where human forms had wont to appear; and when these plague spots had not only lasted through successive Sundays, but had begun to spread more rapidly, he began to think it time to put a stop to such fanatical aberrations—the result of pride and spiritual presumption—hostile towards God, and rebellious towards their lawful rulers and instructors.
For what an absurdity it was that the spirit of truth should have anything to communicate to illiterate and vulgar persons except through the mouths of those to whom had been committed the dispensation of the means of grace! Whatever wind might blow, except from their bellows, was, to Mr Cairns at least, not even of doubtful origin. Indeed the priests of every religion, taken in class, have been the slowest to recognize the wind of the spirit, and the quickest to tell whence the blowing came and whither it went—even should it have blown first on their side of the hedge. And how could it be otherwise? How should they recognize as a revival the motions of life unfelt in their own hearts, where it was most required? What could they know of doubts and fears, terrors and humiliations, agonies of prayer, ecstasies of relief, and thanksgiving, who regarded their high calling as a profession, with social claims and ecclesiastical rights; and even as such had so little respect for it that they talked of it themselves as the cloth? How could such a man as Mr Cairns, looking down from the height of his great soberness and the dignity of possessing the oracles and the ordinances, do other than contemn the enthusiasms and excitements of ignorant repentance? How could such as he recognize in the babble of babes the slightest indication of the revealing of truths hid from the wise and prudent; especially since their rejoicing also was that of babes, hence carnal, and accompanied by all the weaknesses and some of the vices which it had required the utmost energy of the prince of apostles to purge from one at least of the early churches?
He might, however, have sought some foundation for a true judgment, in a personal knowledge of their doctrine and collective behaviour; but, instead of going to hear what the babblers had to say, and thus satisfying himself whether the leaders of the movement spoke the words of truth and soberness, or of discord and denial—whether their teaching and their prayers were on the side of order and law, or tending to sedition—he turned a ready ear to all the reports afloat concerning them, and, misjudging them utterly, made up his mind to use all lawful means for putting an end to their devotions and exhortations. One fact he either had not heard or made no account of—that the public houses in the villages whence these assemblies were chiefly gathered, had already come to be all but deserted.
Alone, then, and unsupported by one of his brethren of the Presbytery, even of those who suffered like himself, he repaired to Lossie House, and laid before the marquis the whole matter from his point of view—that the tabernacles of the Lord were deserted for dens and caves of the earth; that fellows so void of learning as not to be able to put a sentence together, or talk decent English, (a censure at which Lord Lossie smiled, for his ears were accustomed to a different quality of English from that which now invaded them) took upon themselves to expound the Scriptures; that they taught antinomianism, (for which assertion, it must be confessed, there was some apparent ground) and were at the same time suspected of Arminianism and Anabaptism: that, in a word, they were a terrible disgrace to the godly and hitherto sober minded parishes in which the sect, if it might be dignified with even such a name, had sprung up.
The marquis listened with much indifference, and some impatience: what did he or any other gentleman care about such things? Besides, he had a friendly feeling towards the fisher folk, and a decided disinclination to meddle with their liberty, either of action or utterance.3
"But what have I to do with it, Mr Cairns?" he said, when the stream of the parson's utterance had at length ceased to flow. "I am not a theologian; and if I were, I do not see how that even would give me a right to interfere."
"In such times of insubordination as these, my lord," said Mr Cairns, "when every cadger thinks himself as good as an earl, it is more than desirable that not a single foothold should be lost. There must be a general election soon, my lord. Besides, these men abuse your lordship's late hospitality, declaring it has had the worst possible influence on the morals of the people."
A shadow of truth rendered this assertion the worse misrepresentation: no blame to the marquis had even been hinted at; the speakers had only animadverted on the fishermen who had got drunk on the occasion.
"Still," said the marquis, smiling, for the reported libel did not wound him very deeply, "what ground of right have I to interfere?"
"The shore is your property, my lord—every rock and every buckie (spiral shell) upon it; the caves are your own—every stone and pebble of them: you can prohibit all such assemblies."
"And what good would that do? They would only curse me, and go somewhere else."
"Where could they go, where the same law wouldn't hold, my lord? The coast is yours for miles and miles on both sides."
"I don't know that it should be."
"Why not, my lord? It has belonged to your family from time immemorial, and will belong to it, I trust, while the moon endureth."
"They used to say," said the marquis thoughtfully, as if he were recalling something he had heard long ago, "that the earth was the Lord's."
"This part of it is Lord Lossie's," said Mr Cairns, combining the jocular with the complimentary in one irreverence; but, as if to atone for the freedom he had taken—"The Deity has committed it to the great ones of the earth to rule for him," he added, with a devout obeisance to the delegate.
Lord Lossie laughed inwardly.
"You can even turn them out of their houses, if you please, my lord," he superadded.
"God forbid!" said the marquis.
"A threat—the merest hint of such a measure is all that would be necessary."
"But are you certain of the truth of these accusations?"
"My lord!"
"Of course you believe them, or you would not repeat them, but it does not follow that they are fact."
"They are matter of common report, my lord. What I have stated is in every one's mouth."
"But you have not yourself heard any of their sermons, or what do they call them?"
"No, my lord," said Mr Cairns, holding up his white hands in repudiation of the idea; "it would scarcely accord with my position to act the spy."
"So, to keep yourself immaculate, you take all against them for granted! I have no such scruples, however. I will go and see, or rather hear, what they are about: after that I shall be in a position to judge."
"Your lordship's presence will put them on their guard."
"If the mere sight of me is a check," returned the marquis, "extreme measures will hardly be necessary."
He spoke definitively, and made a slight movement, which his visitor accepted as his dismissal. He laughed aloud when the door closed, for the spirit of what the Germans call Schadenfreude was never far from his elbow, and he rejoiced in the parson's discomfiture. It was in virtue of his simplicity, precluding discomfiture, that Malcolm could hold his own with him so well. For him he now sent.
"Well, MacPhail," he said kindly, as the youth entered, "how is that foot of yours getting on?"
"Brawly, my lord; there's naething muckle the maitter wi' hit or me aither, noo 'at we're up. But I was jist nearhan' deid o' ower muckle bed."
3
Ill, from all artistic points of view, as such a note comes in, I must, for reasons paramount to artistic considerations, remind my readers, that not only is the date of my story half a century or so back, but, dealing with principles, has hardly anything to do with actual events, and nothing at all with persons. The local skeleton of the story alone is taken from the real, and I had not a model, not to say an original, for one of the characters in it—except indeed Mrs Catanach's dog.