Part 16 (2/2)

'Shargar, what think ye?' he said suddenly, one day. 'Gin a de'il war to repent, wad G.o.d forgie him?'

'There's no sayin' what fowk wad du till ance they're tried,' returned Shargar, cautiously.

Robert did not care to resume the question with one who so circ.u.mspectly refused to take a metaphysical or a priori view of the matter.

He made an attempt with his grandmother.

One Sunday, his thoughts, after trying for a time to revolve in due orbit around the mind of the Rev. Hugh Maccleary, as projected in a sermon which he had botched up out of a commentary, failed at last and flew off into what the said gentleman would have p.r.o.nounced 'very dangerous speculation, seeing no man is to go beyond what is written in the Bible, which contains not only the truth, but the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, for this time and for all future time--both here and in the world to come.' Some such sentence, at least, was in his sermon that day, and the preacher no doubt supposed St. Matthew, not St.

Matthew Henry, accountable for its origination. In the Limbo into which Robert's then spirit flew, it had been sorely exercised about the subst.i.tution of the sufferings of Christ for those which humanity must else have endured while ages rolled on--mere ripples on the ocean of eternity.

'Noo, be douce,' said Mrs. Falconer, solemnly, as Robert, a trifle lighter at heart from the result of his cogitations than usual, sat down to dinner: he had happened to smile across the table to Shargar. And he was douce, and smiled no more.

They ate their broth, or, more properly, supped it, with horn spoons, in absolute silence; after which Mrs. Falconer put a large piece of meat on the plate of each, with the same formula:

'Hae. Ye s' get nae mair.'

The allowance was ample in the extreme, bearing a relation to her words similar to that which her practice bore to her theology. A piece of cheese, because it was the Sabbath, followed, and dinner was over.

When the table had been cleared by Betty, they drew their chairs to the fire, and Robert had to read to his grandmother, while Shargar sat listening. He had not read long, however, before he looked up from his Bible and began the following conversation:--

'Wasna it an ill trick o' Joseph, gran'mither, to put that cup, an' a siller ane tu, into the mou' o' Benjamin's seck?'

'What for that, laddie? He wanted to gar them come back again, ye ken.'

'But he needna hae gane aboot it in sic a playactor-like gait. He needna hae latten them awa' ohn tellt (without telling) them that he was their brither.'

'They had behaved verra ill till him.'

'He used to clype (tell tales) upo' them, though.'

'Laddie, tak ye care what ye say aboot Joseph, for he was a teep o'

Christ.'

'Hoo was that, gran'mither?'

'They sellt him to the Ishmeleets for siller, as Judas did him.'

'Did he beir the sins o' them 'at sellt him?'

'Ye may say, in a mainner, 'at he did; for he was sair afflickit afore he wan up to be the King's richt han'; an' syne he keepit a hantle o'

ill aff o' 's brithren.'

'Sae, gran'mither, ither fowk nor Christ micht suffer for the sins o'

their neebors?'

'Ay, laddie, mony a ane has to do that. But no to mak atonement, ye ken.

Naething but the sufferin' o' the spotless cud du that. The Lord wadna be saitisfeet wi' less nor that. It maun be the innocent to suffer for the guilty.'

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