ye, it was a sair sight," he said,
abruptly, made a pause, then went on with the impetuousness of a burn
unlocked from winter ice. "If I should say just what I think, I
suppose, uncle, that I could not come here again! So I'll e'en say
only that I think that was a sair sight and that I felt great shame
and pity for all sinners. So, feeling it for all, I felt it for Mallie
and Jock, standing there an hour, first on one foot and then on the
other, to be gloated at and rebukit, and for the minister doing the
rebuking, and for the kirkful all gloating, and thinking, 'Lord, not
such are we!' and for Robin Greenlaw who often enough himself takes
wildfire for true light! I say I think it was sair sight and sair
doing--"
Barrow's hand came down upon the table. "Robin Greenlaw!"
"You need not thunder at me, sir. I'm done! I did not mean to make
such a clatter, for in this house what clatter makes any difference?
It's the sinner makes the clatter, and it's just promptly sunk and
lost in godliness!"
The old man and the young turned in their chairs, faced each other.
They looked somewhat alike, and in the heart of each was fondness for
the other. Greenlaw, eye to eye with the patriarch, felt his wrath
going.
"Eh, uncle, I did not mean to hurt the Sunday!"
Jarvis Barrow spoke with the look and the weight of a prophet in
Israel. "What is your quarrel about, and for what are ye flyting
against the kirk and the minister and the kirkkeepers? Are ye wanting
that twa sinners, having sinned, should hae their sin for secret and
sweet to their aneselves, gilded and pairfumed and excused and
unnamed? Are ye wanting that nane should know, and the plague should
live without the doctor and without the mark upon the door? Or are ye
thinking that it is nae plague at all, nae sin, and nae blame? Then ye
be atheist, Robin Greenlaw, and ye gae indeed frae my door, and wad
gae were ye na my nephew, but my son!" He gathered force. "Elder of
the kirk, I sit here, and I tell ye that were it my ain flesh and
blood that did evil, my stick and my plaid I wad take and ower the
moor I wad gae to tell manse and parish that Sin, the wolf, had crept
into the fauld! And I wad see thae folly-crammed and sinfu' sauls,
that had let him in and had his bite, set for shame and shawing and
warning and example before the congregation, and I wad say to the
minister, 'Lift voice against them and spare not!' And I wad be there
the day and in my seat, though my h
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