第27章

We determined to go to all these functions impartially, tracking thus the Presbyterian lion to his very lair, and observing his home as well as his company manners. In everything that related to the distinctively religious side of the proceedings we sought advice from Mrs. M'Collop, while we went to Lady Baird for definite information on secular matters. We also found an unexpected ally in the person of our own ex-Moderator's niece, Miss Jean Dalziel (Deeyell). She has been educated in Paris, but she must always have been a delightfully breezy person, quite too irrepressible to be affected by Scottish haar or theology. "Go to the Assemblies, by all means," she said, "and be sure and get places for the heresy case. These are no longer what they once were,--we are getting lamentably weak and gelatinous in our beliefs,--but there is an unusually nice one this year; the heretic is very young and handsome, and quite wicked, as ministers go. Don't fail to be presented at the Marchioness's court at Holyrood, for it is a capital preparation for the ordeal of Her Majesty and Buckingham Palace. `Nothing fit to wear'? You have never seen the people who go or you wouldn't say that! I even advise you to attend one of the breakfasts; it can't do you any serious or permanent injury so long as you eat something before you go. Oh no, it doesn't matter,--whichever one you choose, you will cheerfully omit the other; for I avow, as a Scottish spinster, and the niece of an ex-Moderator, that to a stranger and a foreigner the breakfasts are worse than Arctic explorations. If you do not chance to be at the table of honour--"

"The gifted Miss Hamilton is always at the table of honour; unless she is placed there she refuses to eat, and then the universe rocks to its centre," interpolated Francesca impertinently.

"It is true," continued Miss Dalziel, "you will often sit beside a minister or a minister's wife, who will make you scorn the sordid appetites of flesh, but if you do not, then eat as little as may be, and flee up the Mound to whichever Assembly is the Mecca of your soul!"

"My niece's tongue is an unruly member," said the ex-Moderator, who was present at this diatribe, "and the principal mistakes she makes in her judgment of these clerical feasts is that she criticises them as conventional repasts, whereas they are intended to be informal meetings together of people who wish to be better acquainted."

"Hot bacon and eggs would be no harm to friendship," answered Miss Dalziel, with an affectionate moue.

"Cold bacon and eggs is better than cold piety," said the ex-Moderator, "and it may be a good discipline for fastidious young ladies who have been spoiled by Parisian breakfasts."

It is to Mrs. M'Collop that we owe our chief insight into technical church matters, although we seldom agree with her `opeenions' after we gain our own experience. She never misses hearing one sermon on a Sabbath, and oftener she listens to two or three. Neither does she confine herself to the ministrations of a single preacher, but roves from one sanctuary to another, seeking the bread of life,--often, however, according to her own account, getting a particularly indigestible `stane.'

She is thus a complete guide to the Edinburgh pulpit, and when she is making a bed in the morning she dispenses criticism in so large and impartial a manner that it would make the flesh of the `meenistry' creep were it overheard. I used to think Ian Maclaren's sermon-taster a possible exaggeration of an existent type, but I now see that she is truth itself.

"Ye'll be tryin' anither kirk the morn?" suggests Mrs. M'Collop, spreading the clean Sunday sheet over the mattress. "Wha did ye hear the Sawbath that's bye? Dr. A? Ay, I ken him ower weel; he's been there for fifteen years an' mair. Ay, he's a gifted mon--AFF AN' ON!' with an emphasis showing clearly that, in her estimation, the times when he is `aff' outnumber those when he is `on' . . . "Ye havena heard auld Dr. B yet?" (Here she tucks in the upper sheet tidily at the foot.) "He's a graund strachtforrit mon, is Dr. B, forbye he's growin' maist awfu' dreich in his sermons, though when he's that wearisome a body canna heed him wi'oot takin' peppermints to the kirk, he's nane the less, at seeventy-sax, a better mon than the new asseestant. Div ye ken the new asseestant? He's a wee-bit, finger-fed mannie, ower sma' maist to wear a goon! I canna thole him, wi' his lang-nebbit words, explainin' an' expoundin' the gude Book as if it had jist come oot! The auld doctor's nae kirk-filler, but he gies us fu' meesure, pressed doun an' rinnin' ower, nae bit- pickin's like the haverin' asseestant; it's my opeenion he's no soond, wi' his parleyvoos an' his clishmaclavers! . . . Mr. C?"

(Now comes the shaking and straightening and smoothing of the first blanket.) "Ay, he's weel eneuch! I mind aince he prayed for oor Free Assembly, an' then he turned roon' an' prayed for the Estaiblished, maist in the same breath,--he's a broad, leeberal mon is Mr. C! . . . Mr. D? Ay, I ken him fine; he micht be waur, though he's ower fond o' the kittle pairts o' the Old Testament; but he reads his sermon frae the paper, an' it's an auld sayin', `If a meenister canna mind [remember] his ain discoorse, nae mair can the congregation be expectit to mind it.' . . . Mr. E? He's my ain meenister." (She has a pillow in her mouth now, but though she is shaking it as a terrier would a rat, and drawing on the linen slip at the same time, she is still intelligible between the jerks).

"Susanna says his sermon is like claith made o' soond `oo [wool] wi' a guid twined thread, an' wairpit an' weftit wi' doctrine. Susanna kens her Bible weel, but she's never gaed forrit." (To `gang forrit' is to take the communion). "Dr. F? I ca' him the greetin' doctor! He's aye dingin' the dust oot o' the poopit cushions, an' greetin' ower the sins o' the human race, an' eespecially o' his ain congregation. He's waur sin his last wife sickened an' slippit awa'. `Twas a chastenin' he'd put up wi' twice afore, but he grat nane the less. She was a bonnie bit body, was the thurd Mistress F!

E'nboro could `a' better spared the greetin' doctor than her, I'm thinkin'."

"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, according to His good will and pleasure," I ventured piously, as Mrs. M'Collop beat the bolster and laid it in place.

"Ou ay," responded that good woman, as she spread the counterpane over the pillows in the way I particularly dislike,--"ou ay, but whiles I think it's a peety he couldna be guidit!"