“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!”
Chapter XI. Holyrood awakens
We were to make our bow to the Lord High Commissioner and the Marchioness of Heatherdale in the evening, and we were in a state of republican excitement at 22 Breadalbane Terrace.
Francesca had surprised us by refusing to be presented at this semi-royal Scottish court. “Not I,” she said. “The Marchioness represents the Queen; we may discover, when we arrive, that she has raised the standards of admission, and requires us to ‘back out’ of the throne-room. I don’t propose to do that without London training. Besides, I detest crowds, and I never go to my own President’s receptions; and I have a headache, anyway, and I don’t feel like coping with the Reverend Ronald to-night!” (Lady Baird was to take us under her wing, and her nephew was to escort us, Sir Robert being in Inveraray).
“Sally, my dear,” I said, as Francesca left the room with a bottle of smelling-salts somewhat ostentatiously in evidence, “methinks the damsel doth protest too much. In other words, she devotes a good deal of time and discussion to a gentleman whom she heartily dislikes. As she is under your care, I will direct your attention to the following points:—
“Ronald Macdonald is a Scotsman; Francesca disapproves of international alliances.
“He is a Presbyterian; she is a Swedenborgian.
“His father was a famous old-school doctor; Francesca is a homoeopathist.
“He is serious; Francesca is gay.
“I think, under all the circumstances, their acquaintance will bear watching. Two persons so utterly dissimilar, and, so far as superficial observation goes, so entirely unsuited to each other, are quite likely to drift into marriage unless diverted by watchful philanthropists.”
“Nonsense!” returned Salemina brusquely. “You think because you are under the spell of the tender passion yourself that other people are in constant danger. Francesca detests him.”
“Who told you so?”
“She herself,” triumphantly.
“Salemina,” I said pityingly, “I have always believed you a spinster from choice; don’t lead me to think that you have never had any experience in these matters! The Reverend Ronald has also intimated to me as plainly as he dared that he cannot bear the sight of Francesca. What do I gather from this statement? The general conclusion that if it be true, it is curious that he looks at her incessantly.”
“Francesca would never live in Scotland,” remarked Salemina feebly.
“Not unless she were asked, of course,” I replied.
“He would never ask her.”
“Not unless he thought he had a chance of an affirmative answer.”
“Her father would never allow it.”
“Her father allows what she permits him to allow. You know that perfectly well.”