Salted with Fire by George MacDonald (best contemporary novels .TXT) 📕

chance of certain of another breed showing themselves.

"No that," he once said to Maggie, "I ever cared vera muckle aboot the angels: it's the man, the perfec man, wha was there wi' the Father afore ever an angel was h'ard tell o', that sen's me upo my knees! Whan I see a man that but minds me o' Him , my hert rises wi' a loup, as gien it wad 'maist lea' my body ahint it.-Love's the law o' the universe, and it jist works amazin!"

One day a man, seeing him approach in the near distance, and knowing he had not perceived his presence, lay down behind a great stone to watch "the mad soutar," in the hope of hearing him say something insane. As John came nearer, the man saw his lips moving, and heard sounds issue from them; but as he passed, nothing was audible but the same words repeated several times, and with the same expression of surprise and joy as if at something for the first time discovered:-"Eh, Lord! Eh, Lord, I see! I un'erstaun'!-Lord, I'm yer ain-to the vera deith!-a' yer ain!-Thy father bless thee, Lord!-I ken ye care for noucht else!-Eh, but my hert's glaid!-that glaid, I 'maist canna speyk!"

That man ever after spoke of the soutar with a respect that resembled awe.

After that talk with her father about the child and his mother, a certain silent change appeared in Maggie. People saw in her face an expression which they took to resemble that of one whose child was ill, and was expected to die. But what Maggie felt was only resignation to the will of her Lord: the child was not hers but the Lord's, lent to her for a season! She must walk softly, doing everything for him as under the eye of the Master, who might at any moment call to her, "Bring the child: I want him now!" And she soon became as cheerful as before, but never after quite lost the still, solemn look as of one in the eternal spaces, who saw beyond this world's horizon. She talked less with her father than hitherto, but at the same time seemed to live closer to him. Occasionally she would ask him to help her to understand something he had said; but even then he would not always try to make it plain; he might answer-

"I see, lassie, ye're no just ready for 't! It's true, though; and the day maun come whan ye'll see the thing itsel, and ken what it is; and that's the only w'y to win at the trowth o' 't! In fac', to see a thing, and ken the thing, and be sure it's true, is a' ane and the same thing!" Such a word from her father was always enough to still and content the girl.

Her delight in the child, instead of growing less, went on increasing because of the awe , rather than dread of having at last to give him up.


CHAPTER XIX.


Meanwhile the minister remained moody, apparently sunk in contemplation, but in fact mostly brooding, and meditating neither form nor truth. Sometimes he felt indeed as if he were losing altogether his power of thinking-especially when, in the middle of the week, he sat down to find something to say on the Sunday. He had greatly lost interest in the questions that had occupied him while he was yet a student, and imagined himself in preparation for what he called the ministry-never thinking how one was to minister who had not yet learned to obey, and had never sought anything but his own glorification! It was little wonder he should lose interest in a profession, where all was but profession! What pleasure could that man find in holy labour who, not indeed offered his stipend to purchase the Holy Ghost, but offered all he knew of the Holy Ghost to purchase popularity? No wonder he should find himself at length in lack of talk to pay for his one thing needful! He had always been more or less dependent on commentaries for the joint he provided-and even for the cooking of it: was it any wonder that his guests should show less and less appetite for his dinners?

The hungry sheep looked up and were not fed!

To have food to give them, he must think! To think, he must have peace! to have peace, he must forget himself! to forget himself, he must repent, and walk in the truth! to walk in the truth, he must love God and his neighbour!-Even to have interest in the dry bone of criticism, which was all he could find in his larder, he must broil it-and so burn away in the slow fire of his intellect, now dull and damp enough from lack of noble purpose, every scrap of meat left upon it! His last relation to his work, his fondly cherished intellect, was departing from him, to leave him lord of a dustheap! In the unsavoury mound he grubbed and nosed and scraped dog-like, but could not uncover a single fragment that smelt of provender. The morning of Saturday came, and he recognized with a burst of agonizing sweat, that he dared not even imagine his appearance before his congregation: he had not one written word to read to them; and extempore utterance was, from conscious vacancy, impossible to him; he could not even call up one meaningless phrase to articulate! He flung his concordance sprawling upon the floor, snatched up his hat and clerical cane, and, scarce knowing what he did, presently found himself standing at the soutar's door, where he had already knocked, without a notion of what he was come to seek. The old parson, generally in a mood to quarrel with the soutar, had always walked straight into his workshop, and greeted him crouched over his work; but the new parson always waited on the doorstep for Maggie to admit him.

She had opened the door wide ere he knew why he had come, or could think of anything to say. And now he was in greater uneasiness than usual at the thought of the cobbler's deep-set black eyes about to be fixed upon him, as if to probe his very thoughts.

"Do you think your father would have time," he asked humbly, "to measure me for a pair of light boots?"

Mr. Blatherwick was very particular about his foot-gear, and had hitherto always fitted himself at Deemouth; but he had at length learned that nothing he could there buy approached in quality, either of material or workmanship, what the soutar supplied to his poorest customer: he would mend anything worth mending, but would never make anything inferior.

"Ye'll get what ye want at such and such place," he would answer, "and I doobtna it'll be as guid as can be made at the siller; but for my ain pairt, ye maun excuse me!"

"'Deed, sir, he'll be baith glad and prood to mak ye as guid a pair o' beets as he can compass," answered Maggie. "Jist step in here, sir, and lat him ken what ye want. My bairn's greitin, and I maun gang til 'im; it's seldom he cries oot!"

The minister walked in at the open door of the kitchen, and met the eyes of the soutar expectant.

"Ye're welcome, sir!" said MacLear, and returned his eyes to what he had for a moment interrupted.

"I want you to make me a nice pair of boots, if you please," said the parson, as cheerily as he could. "I am rather particular about the fit, I fear!"

"And what for no, sir?" answered the soutar. "I'll do what I can onygait, I promise ye-but wi' mair readiness nor confidence as to the fit; for I canna profess assurance o' fittin' the first time, no haein the necessar instinc' frae the mak' o' the man to the shape o' the fut, sir."

"Of course I should like to have them both neat and comfortable," said the parson.

"In coorse ye wad, sir, and sae would I! For I confess I wad fain hae my customers tak note o' my success in followin the paittern set afore me i' the first oreeginal fut!"

"But you will allow, I suppose, that a foot is seldom as perfect now as when the divine idea of the member was first embodied by its maker?" rejoined the minister.

"Ow, ay; there's been mony an interferin circumstance; but whan His kingdom's come, things 'll tak a turn for the redemption o' the feet as weel as the lave o' the body-as the apostle Paul says i' the twenty-third verse o' the aucht chapter o' his epistle to the Romans;-only I'm weel aveesed, sir, 'at there's no sic a thing as adoption mintit at i' the original Greek. That can hae no pairt i' what fowk ca's the plan o' salvation-as gien the consumin fire o' the Love eternal was to be ca'd a
plan ! Hech, minister, it scunners me! But for the fut, it's aye perfec' eneuch to be my pattern, for it's the only ane I hae to follow! It's Himsel sets the shape o' the shune this or that man maun weir!"

"That's very true-and the same applies to everything a man cannot help. A man has both the make of his mind and of his circumstances to do the best he can with, and sometimes they don't seem to fit each other-so well as, I hope, your boots will fit my feet."

"Ye're richt there, sir-only that no man's bun' to follow his inclinations or his circumstances, ony mair than he's bun' to alter his fut to the shape o' a ready-made beet!-But hoo wull ye hae them made, sir?-I mean what sort o' butes wad ye hae me mak?"

"Oh, I leave that to you, Mr. MacLear!-a sort of half Wellington, I suppose-a neat pair of short boots."

"I understand, sir."

"And now tell me," said the minister, moved by a sudden impulse, coming he knew not whence, "what you think of this new fad, if it be nothing worse, of the English clergy-I mean about the duty of confessing to the priest.- I see they have actually prevailed upon that wretched creature we've all been reading about in the papers lately, to confess the murder of her little brother! Do you think they had any right to do that? Remember the jury had acquitted her."

"And has she railly confessed? I am glaid o' that! I only wuss they could get a haud o' Madeline Smith as weel, and persuaud her to confess! Eh, the state o' that puir crater's conscience! It 'maist gars me greit to think o' 't! Gien she wad but confess, houp wad spring to life in her sin-oppressed soul! Eh, but it maun be a gran' lichtenin to that puir thing! I'm richt glaid to hear o' 't."

"I didn't know, Mr. MacLear, that you favoured the power and influence of the priesthood to such an extent! We Presbyterian clergy are not in the way of doing the business of detectives, taking upon us to act as the agents of human justice! There is no one, guilty or not, but is safe with us!"

"As with any confessor, Papist or Protestant," rejoined the soutar. "If I understand your news, sir, it means that they persuaded the poor soul to confess her guilt, and so put herself safe in the hands of God!"

"And is not that to come between God and the sinner?"

"Doubtless, sir-in order to bring them together; to