Part 42 (1/2)

”The Lord preserve us! In five meenetes there'll be nae Marrow Kirk” said John Bairdieson, and flung himself against the door; but the moderator had taken the precaution of locking it and placing the key on his desk.

The two ministers rose simultaneously. Gilbert Peden stood at the head and Allan Welsh at the foot of the little table. They were so near that they could have shaken hands across it. But they had other work to do.

”Allan Welsh,” said the moderator, stretching out his hand, ”minister of the gospel in the parish of Dullarg to the faithful contending remnant, I call upon you to show cause why you should not be deposed for the sins of contumacy and contempt, for sins of person and life, confessed and communicate under your hand.”

”Gilbert Peden,” returned the minister of the Dullarg and clerk to the Marrow Synod, looking like a c.o.c.k-boat athwart the hawse of a leviathan of the deep, ”I call upon you to show cause why you should not be deposed for unfaithfulness in the discharge of your duty, in so far as you have concealed known sin, and by complicity and compliance have been sharer in the wrong.”

There was a moment's silence. Gilbert Peden knew well that what his opponent said was good Marrow doctrine, for Allan Welsh had confessed to him his willingness to accept deposition twenty years ago.

Then, as with one voice, the two men p.r.o.nounced against each other the solemn sentence of deposition and deprivation:

”In the name of G.o.d, and by virtue of the law of the Marrow Kirk, I solemnly depose you from the office of the ministry.”

John Bairdieson burst in the door, leaving the lock hanging awry with the despairing force of his charge.

”Be merciful, oh, be merciful!” he cried; ”let not the Philistines rejoice, nor the daughter of the uncirc.u.mcised triumph. Let be!

let be! Say that ye dinna mean it! Oh, say ye dinna mean it! Tak'

it back--tak' it a' back!”

There was the silence of death between the two men, who stood lowering at each other.

John Bairdieson turned and ran down the stairs. He met Ralph and Professor Thriepneuk coming up.

”Gang awa'! gang awa'!” he cried. ”There's nae leecense for ye noo. There's nae mair ony Marrow Kirk! There's nae mair heaven and earth! The Kirk o' the Marrow, precious and witnessing, is nae mair!”

And the tears burst from the old sailor as he ran down the street, not knowing whither he went.

Half-way down the street a seller of sea-coal, great and grimy, barred his way. He challenged the runner to fight. The spirit of the Lord came upon John Bairdieson, and, rejoicing that a foe withstood him, he dealt a buffet so sore and mighty that the seller of coal, whose voice could rise like the grunting of a sea beast to the highest windows of the New Exchange Buildings, dropped as an ox drops when it is felled. And John Bairdieson ran on, crying out: ”There's nae kirk o' G.o.d in puir Scotland ony mair!”

CHAPTER XLII.

PURGING AND RESTORATION.

It was the Lord's day in Edinburgh town. The silence in the early morning was something which could be felt--not a footstep, not a rolling wheel. Window-blinds were mostly down--on the windows provided with them. Even in Bell's Wynd there was not the noise of the week. Only a tinker family squabbled over the remains of the deep drinking of the night before. But then, what could Bell's Wynd expect--to harbour such?

It was yet early dawn when John Bairdieson, kirk officer to the little company of the faithful to a.s.semble there later in the day, went up the steps and opened the great door with his key. He went all round the church with his hat on. It was a Popish idea to take off the head covering within stone walls, yet John Bairdieson was that morning possessed with the fullest reverence for the house of G.o.d and the highest sense of his responsibility as the keeper of it.

He was wont to sing:

”Rather in My G.o.d's house would I keep a door Than dwell in tents of sin.”

That was the retort which he flung across at Taminas Laidlay, the beadle of the Established Kirk opposite, with all that scorn in the application which was due from one in John Bairdieson's position to one in that of Tammas Laidlay.

But this morning John had no spirit for the encounter. He hurried in and sat down by himself in the minister's vestry. Here he sat for a long season in deep and solemn thought.

”I'll do it!” he said at last.