Shona MacLEAN - The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

So shocked was I at the sight of him there that, for a few moments, I could find no words to answer him. Nevertheless, I think my face told him my thoughts, for his hand fell away and his smile faded. ‘Alexander, you have not come to see me, have you?’

‘No,’ I replied, my voice dry. ‘I had business with Dr Dun, about the bursaries, and had to come and meet him here.’ I registered the hurt in his eyes and cursed my pride. ‘I am sorry; I should have told you I was coming, but I was …’ There was little point in lying to this man who for four years had been my spiritual guide and who had kept the fervour of my calling burning within me. He deserved at least my honesty. ‘I was ashamed,’ I said.

Dr Forbes well knew the cause of my shame. Astonishment at my failure to secure the approval of the Presbytery of Fordyce had given way to fury, and he and his father had both written to the brethren, demanding an explanation. The brethren had responded obliquely – for they had not the information to do otherwise, and had directed both the bishop and his son to myself and to my Lord Hay of Delgatie. Bishop Forbes had written then to Delgatie, his son to me. His lordship, I was given to understand, had given a plain and truthful account of the grounds of his objection to my person and to my candidature for the ministry. I had written that whatever the family of Hay should accuse me of, of that was I guilty, before God and man. Urgent letters of friendship and entreaty to turn to him for spiritual counsel had flown from the divinity professor’s rooms at the King’s College of Old Aberdeen to my attic room in the schoolhouse of Banff. None had been answered. Now here we stood, face to face, no hiding behind silence.

Dr Forbes stood squarely before me. ‘There is a time for shame, and a time for repentance.’ His voice was measured, calm. ‘You were right to feel shame for your deeds, but to hold fast to that shame at the expense of all else is an indulgence. You were carnal – who among us has not been tempted, has not fallen? You betrayed the trust of a friend and patron. Ungrateful and graceless indeed, but who amongst us has not been guilty of ingratitude, of gracelessness in our behaviour?’

I looked at the man. How was I to believe that he might ever have been led into such behaviour, such immorality as I had? He leant against the wall of the well, tired-looking now, his eyes searching mine for an understanding I was struggling to find. ‘You may have sinned, Alexander, but remember the words of the prophet: He waits to be gracious.’

I felt the resilience seeping from me. ‘I have tried, believe me, doctor, I have tried. I have looked for God, called on God, but found myself only in a wilderness.’

He spoke gently, quoting Ezekiel. ‘“For my gracious Lord was pleased to let me see, that, by leading me into this wilderness, and pleading with me there, would he bring me into the bond of the Covenant.” In all your years here, Alexander, you grappled with and mastered the most abstruse theological propositions. You could argue any point almost as well as I could myself. For all that though, God’s greatest gift in you was the pure faith with which He graced you. It was that above all that I thought would make you the finest of ministers. I have no doubt that you could still argue with insight and exactitude whichever point I might throw your way, but I fear you have forgotten the most important lesson of all, the promise of that Covenant.’

I looked at him, expectantly. He answered my unasked question. ‘The Son of God came into this world to save sinners such as you and me. That is the great Covenant. Do not ask me ever to believe, Alexander, that you have grown so arrogant as to think your sin greater than His sacrifice.’

I could not look at him. ‘Take thought on this,’ he said. ‘For friendship’s sake promise me that you will. Come back and see me soon. We will work on this together. Never be ashamed to call me friend.’ He clasped my hand and then left me.

My last night with William and Elizabeth was an evening of quiet contentment. Elizabeth had, to our great relief, at length agreed to my suggestion for easing her present and coming burdens. She asked many questions, and I felt that only the whole truth, as far as I knew it, would be worth telling to her, so I did. Anger and compassion vied within her as I told her Sarah Forbes’s tale, and at the end of it it was all that William and I could do to prevent her from setting out there and then to put the matter to rights.

‘Alexander will see to it all on Monday,’ William assured her. ‘All will be well; only have patience.’

I had much to prepare for the following day’s journey, and was glad, for once, of an excuse to retire early. As I lay in my bed in William’s house, my candle snuffed out and the shutters still open, I looked up at the northern stars, at the majesty of the works of God. They challenged me, as Matthew and Dr Forbes had challenged me, to leave off from my self-imposed indulgence of penitence and sloth, and to set forth once again with purpose on this earthly life. My last thought, before I was finally conquered by sleep, was that I was looking forward to the day to come.

I left Aberdeen the next day in the early afternoon. The service in the West Kirk of St Nicholas had lasted from ten until noon, and I had shared a hasty meal of broth and bread with William and Elizabeth before taking my leave of them. When I rode out from Aberdeen that afternoon it was with a new determination to be whatever it might be given to me to be. The need to free Charles from his prison was as strong as it had been from the first, not just for his sake now, though, but for my own, for I felt that I had been chosen for the task. I felt no great sorrow at leaving Aberdeen, as I had feared only two days previously that I might, and no sense of dread at the prospect of making my way back to Banff. I had not failed myself, not shamed myself or my burgh since leaving, and I had come to understand, in my few days with old friends and new acquaintances, that it was not universally expected of me that I should hang my head in shame and achieve nothing.

As I crossed the Don at the Brig o’ Balgownie, and left the two towns behind me once more, my hand went to the saddlebag and I checked the clasp once again, fearful that it might have been interfered with. My commission from Banff, the precious map, with its accompanying letter from the provost, were still there, still sealed, but now they were accompanied by not one but two other, sealed documents, whose contents remained a tantalising secret to me. There was the letter, written before my eyes, by the artist George Jamesone to the provost of Banff, and there was another, by the same hand, which had arrived by a servant at William’s door late last night, addressed to Robert Gordon of Straloch himself. Jamesone’s servant had relayed that his master very kindly asked that I might deliver this letter into the laird of Straloch’s own hand. As I had assured William, I had told the artist nothing of my business at Straloch, other than that I would bed there on my homeward journey. William was uneasy that I had said anything at all. I could scarcely refuse, but I did not like the commission.

Not only letters, but voices too, accompanied me as I left the two towns behind and took the road north-west. Voices of encouragement, voices of warning, voices of fear. As the horse, not yet wearying under its extra burden of newly bought books, trampled out the road and the spires and coastline of Aberdeen faded further into the distance until at last they disappeared, so too did the encouraging voices of Matthew Lumsden, Dr Dun and Dr Forbes recede. Their place was taken by the ever more insistent voice of caution of my friend William Cargill, and the determined terror of the departing Mary Dawson. ‘Why you, Alexander? Why your schoolroom? Why you with this commission? Have a care, Alexander.’ The horse’s hooves beat out the rhythm of William’s warnings and every so often they found a reply on the wind from Mary Dawson, ‘I will never see Banff again.’