George MacDonald - David Elginbrod

In the evening, he took a volume of Wordsworth, and repaired, according to his wont, to David’s cottage. It was Saturday, and he would stay to supper. After they had given the usual time to their studies, Hugh, setting Margaret some exercises in English to write on her slate, while he helped David with some of the elements of Trigonometry, and again going over those elements with her, while David worked out a calculation—after these were over, and while Janet was putting the supper on the table, Hugh pulled out his volume, and, without any preface, read them the Leech-Gatherer. All listened very intently, Janet included, who delayed several of the operations, that she might lose no word of the verses; David nodding assent every now and then, and ejaculating ay! ay! or eh, man! or producing that strange muffled sound at once common and peculiar to Scotchmen, which cannot be expressed in letters by a nearer approach than hm—hm, uttered, if that can be called uttering, with closed lips and open nasal passage; and Margaret sitting motionless on her creepie, with upturned pale face, and eyes fixed upon the lips of the reader. When he had ceased, all were silent for a moment, when Janet made some little sign of anxiety about her supper, which certainly had suffered by the delay. Then, without a word, David turned towards the table and gave thanks. Turning again to Hugh, who had risen to place his chair, he said,

“That maun be the wark o’ a great poet, Mr. Sutherlan’.”

“It’s Wordsworth’s,” said Hugh.

“Ay! ay! That’s Wordsworth’s! Ay! Weel, I hae jist heard him made mention o’, but I never read word o’ his afore. An’ he never repentit o’ that same resolution, I’se warrant, ‘at he eynds aff wi’. Hoo does it gang, Mr. Sutherlan’?”

Sutherland read:—

and added, “It is said Wordsworth never knew what it was to be in want of money all his life.”

“Nae doubt, nae doubt: he trusted in Him.”

It was for the sake of the minute notices of nature, and not for the religious lesson, which he now seemed to see for the first time, that Hugh had read the poem. He could not help being greatly impressed by the confidence with which David received the statement he had just made on the authority of De Quincey in his unpleasant article about Wordsworth. David resumed:

“He maun hae had a gleg ‘ee o’ his ain, that Maister Wordsworth, to notice a’thing that get. Weel he maun hae likit leevin’ things, puir maukin an’ a’—jist like our Robbie Burns for that. An’ see hoo they a’ ken ane anither, thae poets. What says he aboot Burns?—ye needna tell me, Mr. Sutherlan’; I min’t weel aneuch. He says:—

Puir Robbie! puir Robbie! But, man, he was a gran’ chield efter a’; an’ I trust in God he’s won hame by this!”

Both Janet and Hugh, who had had a very orthodox education, started, mentally, at this strange utterance; but they saw the eye of David solemnly fixed, as if in deep contemplation, and lighted in its blue depths with an ethereal brightness; and neither of them ventured to speak. Margaret seemed absorbed for the moment in gazing on her father’s face; but not in the least as if it perplexed her like the fir-wood. To the seeing eye, the same kind of expression would have been evident in both countenances, as if Margaret’s reflected the meaning of her father’s; whether through the medium of intellectual sympathy, or that of the heart only, it would have been hard to say. Meantime supper had been rather neglected; but its operations were now resumed more earnestly, and the conversation became lighter; till at last it ended in hearty laughter, and Hugh rose and took his leave.

The following morning, the laird’s family went to church as usual, and Hugh went with them. Their walk was first across fields, by pleasant footpaths; and then up the valley of a little noisy stream, that obstinately refused to keep Scotch Sabbath, praising the Lord after its own fashion. They emerged into rather a bleak country before reaching the church, which was quite new, and perched on a barren eminence, that it might be as conspicuous by its position, as it was remarkable for its ugliness. One grand aim of the reformers of the Scottish ecclesiastical modes, appears to have been to keep the worship pure and the worshippers sincere, by embodying the whole in the ugliest forms that could be associated with the name of Christianity. It might be wished, however, that some of their followers, and amongst them the clergyman of the church in question, had been content to stop there; and had left the object of worship, as represented by them, in the possession of some lovable attribute; so as not to require a man to love that which is unlovable, or worship that which is not honourable—in a word, to bow down before that which is not divine. The cause of this degeneracy they share in common with the followers of all other great men as well as of Calvin. They take up what their leader, urged by the necessity of the time, spoke loudest, never heeding what he loved most; and then work the former out to a logical perdition of everything belonging to the latter.

Hugh, however, thought it was all right: for he had the same good reasons, and no other, for receiving it all, that a Mohammedan or a Buddhist has for holding his opinions; namely, that he had heard those doctrines, and those alone, from his earliest childhood. He was therefore a good deal startled when, having, on his way home, strayed from the laird’s party towards David’s, he heard the latter say to Margaret as he came up:

“Dinna ye believe, my bonny doo, ‘at there’s ony mak’ ups or mak’ shifts wi’ Him. He’s aye bringin’ things to the licht, no covenin’ them up and lattin them rot, an’ the moth tak’ them. He sees us jist as we are, and ca’s us jist what we are. It wad be an ill day for a’ o’s, Maggy, my doo, gin he war to close his een to oor sins, an’ ca’ us just in his sicht, whan we cudna possibly be just in oor ain or in ony ither body’s, no to say his.”

“The Lord preserve’s, Dawvid Elginbrod! Dinna ye believe i’ the doctrine o’ Justification by Faith, an’ you a’maist made an elder o’?”

Janet was the respondent, of course, Margaret listening in silence.

“Ou ay, I believe in’t, nae doot; but, troth! the minister, honest man, near-han’ gart me disbelieve in’t a’thegither wi’ his gran’ sermon this mornin’, about imputit richteousness, an’ a clean robe hidin’ a foul skin or a crookit back. Na, na. May Him ‘at woosh the feet o’ his friens, wash us a’thegither, and straucht oor crookit banes, till we’re clean and weel-faured like his ain bonny sel’.”

“Weel, Dawvid—but that’s sanctificaition, ye ken.”

“Ca’t ony name ‘at you or the minister likes, Janet, my woman. I daursay there’s neither o’ ye far wrang after a’; only this is jist my opingan aboot it in sma’—that that man, and that man only, is justifeed, wha pits himsel’ into the Lord’s han’s to sanctifee him. Noo! An’ that’ll no be dune by pittin’ a robe o’ richteousness upo’ him, afore he’s gotten a clean skin aneath’t. As gin a father cudna bide to see the puir scabbit skin o’ his ain wee bit bairnie, ay, or o’ his prodigal son either, but bude to hap it a’ up afore he cud lat it come near him! Ahva!”