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Archie Moncur, elder, and James Macfadyen, deacon, were counting the collection in the vestibule, and the congregation within were just singing the last verse of their first psalm, when General Carnegie and his daughter appeared at the door. "Has service begun?" whispered Kate, while her father reverently bared his head.
I want to take part, but only such a small part as will make it true to say, "assisted by the brother of the bridegroom." It is for you and Dr. Macfadyen to say what that small part shall be; all I have to say about it, the smaller the better. 'My experiences of the ceremonies of social Christianity have been mixed a little.
When the Free Kirk quarrelled in their vacancy over two probationers, Mrs. Macfadyen summed them up with such excellent judgment that they were thrown over and peace restored. "There's some o' thae Muirtown drapers can busk oot their windows that ye canna pass withoot lookin'; there's bits o' blue and bits o' red, and a ribbon here an' a lace yonder.
Macfadyen to Burnbrae afterward, "that he didna play that trick when there wes a bairn tae be baptised. It wudna hae been lichtsome for its fouk; a'body wants a properly ordained minister.
"A' acknowledge a' scrapit, but a' houp tae gudeness a'll never be tempted like yon again. Then I understood that Mrs. Macfadyen had been humbled in the dust. Drumtochty was accustomed to break every law of health, except wholesome food and fresh air, and yet had reduced the Psalmist's farthest limit to an average life-rate.
The confidence of the Glen and tributary states was unbounded, and rested partly on long experience of the doctor's resources, and partly on his hereditary connection. "His father was here afore him," Mrs. Macfadyen used to explain; "atween them they've hed the countyside for weel on tae a century; if MacLure disna understand oor constitution, wha dis, a' wud like tae ask?"
When Lachlan had departed, with gracious words on his lips and a very sticky imprint on his right cheek, I settled down in the big chair, beyond the power of speech, and Mrs. Macfadyen opened the mystery. "Ye may weel look, for twa month syne I wudna hae believed this day, though a' hed seen him wi' ma ain een.
Na, na, a' wesna feared o' that when a' examined yon man gieing oot the Psalm, but a' didna like his een. "'He's ravelled, a' said tae masel, 'without beginning or end; we 'ill hae a nicht o't, and sae we hed." I preserved a sympathetic silence till Mrs. Macfadyen felt herself able to proceed.
It goes without saying that Mrs. Macfadyen did not take nervous little notes during the sermon all writing on Sabbath, in kirk or outside, was strictly forbidden in Drumtochty or mark her Bible, or practise any other profane device of feeble-minded hearers. It did not matter how elaborate or how incoherent a sermon might be, it could not confuse our critic.
Macfadyen also pretended to recall a "whup" of some kind or other he had in the fifties, but this was considered to be rather a pyrotechnic display of Elspeth's superior memory than a serious statement of fact. MacLure could not have ridden through the snow of forty winters without suffering, yet no one ever heard him complain, and he never pled illness to any messenger by night or day.
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