School being over, the laird was modestly leaving
with the rest, when the master gently called him,
and requested the favour of a moment more of his company.
As soon as they were alone, he took a Bible from his
desk, and read the words:
“I am the door: by me if any man enter
in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and
find pasture.”
Without comment, he closed the book, and put it away.
Mr Stewart stood staring up at him for a moment, then
turned, and gently murmuring, “I canna win at
the door,” walked from the schoolhouse.
It was refuge the poor fellow sought—whether
from temporal or spiritual foes will matter little
to him who believes that the only shelter from the
one is the only shelter from the other also.
It began to be whispered about Portlossie, that the
marquis had been present at one of the fishermen’s
meetings—a report which variously affected
the minds of those in the habit of composing them.
Some regarded it as an act of espial, and much foolish
talk arose about the covenanters and persecution and
martyrdom. Others, especially the less worthy
of those capable of public utterance, who were by
this time, in virtue of that sole gift, gaining an
influence of which they were altogether unworthy, attributed
it to the spreading renown of the preaching and praying
members of the community, and each longed for an opportunity
of exercising his individual gift upon the conscience
of the marquis. The soberer portion took it for
an act of mere curiosity, unlikely to be repeated.
Malcolm saw that the only way of setting things right
was that the marquis should go again—openly,
but it was with much difficulty that he persuaded
him to present himself in the assembly. Again
accompanied by his daughter and Malcolm, he did, however,
once more cross the links to the Baillies’ Barn.
Being early they had a choice of seats, and Florimel
placed herself beside a pretty young woman of gentle
and troubled countenance, who sat leaning against
the side of the cavern.
The preacher on this occasion was the sickly young
student—more pale and haggard than ever,
and halfway nearer the grave since his first sermon.
He still set himself to frighten the sheep into the
fold by wolfish cries; but it must be allowed that,
in this sermon at least, his representations of the
miseries of the lost were not by any means so gross
as those usually favoured by preachers of his kind.
His imagination was sensitive enough to be roused by
the words of Scripture themselves, and was not dependent
for stimulus upon those of Virgil, Dante, or Milton.
Having taken for his text the fourteenth verse of
the fifty-ninth psalm, “And at evening let them
return; and let them make a noise like a dog, and go
round about the city,” he dwelt first upon the
condition and character of the eastern dog as contrasted
