Part 8

"Yes," Billy agreed, "that's an ugly thing you're making. I thought a battleship had lovely masts, and lots of little windows, and was all curly."

"He's thinking," said Thomas, "of pictures of ships in poetry-books."

"I know," said Arthur Townshend. "Ballad ships that sailed to Norroway ower the faem. This is our poor modern substitute."

"Now a submarine," Buff begged.

Arthur Townshend drew a periscope, and remarked that of course the rest of the submarine was under water.

"Aw!" cried Buff; and the three sprang upon their new friend, demanding further amusements.

But Elizabeth intervened, saying Thomas and Billy must go home, as it was Saturday night. Thomas pointed out that Saturday night made no real difference to him or Billy, and gave several excellent reasons for remaining where he was; but, Elizabeth proving adamant, they went, promising Mr. Townshend that he would see them early the next morning. Buff was told to show the guest to his room (where, finding himself well entertained, he remained till nearly dinner-time, when he was fetched by Ellen and sent, bitterly protesting, to seek his couch), and Elizabeth was left to tidy away the story-books and try to realize her impressions.

Dinner went off quite well. The food, if simple, was well cooked; for Marget, in spite of her temper, had done her best, and Ellen made an efficient if almost morbidly painstaking waitress.

Elizabeth smiled to herself, but made no remark, as she watched her pour water firmly into the guest's glass; and her father, leaning forward, said kindly, "I think you will find Glasgow water particularly good, Mr. Townshend; it comes from Loch Katrine."

Mr. Townshend replied very suitably that water was a great treat to one who had been for so long a dweller in the East. Elizabeth found that with this guest there was going to be no need of small talk--no aimless, irrelevant remarks uttered at random to fill up awkward silences. He was a good talker and a good listener.

Mr. Seton was greatly interested in his travellers' tales, and as Elizabeth watched them honesty compelled her to confess to herself that this was not the guest she had pictured. She liked his manner to her father, and she liked his frank laugh. After all, it would not be difficult to amuse him when he was so willing to laugh.

"I wonder," said Mr. Seton, as he pared an apple, "if you have ever visited my dream-place?" He gave his shy boy's smile. "I don't know why, but the very name spells romance to me--Bokhara."

"Yes--'that outpost of the infinitive.' I know it well; or rather I don't, of course, for no stray Englishman can know a place like that well, but I have been there several times.... I'm just wondering if it would disappoint you."

"I dare say it might," said Mr. Seton. "But I'm afraid there is no likelihood of my ever journeying across the desert to find my 'dream-moon-city' either a delight or a disappointment. But I keep my vision--and I have a Bokhara rug that is a great comfort to me."

"When you retire, Father," broke in Elizabeth, "when we're done with kirks and deacons'-courts for ever and a day, we shall go to Bokhara, you and I. It will be such a nice change."

"Well, well," said her father, "perhaps we shall; but in the meantime I must go to my sermon."

In the drawing-room Elizabeth settled herself in an arm-chair with some needlework, and pointed out the cigarettes and matches to her guest.

"Don't you smoke?" he asked.

"No. Father would hate it: he doesn't ever smoke himself."

"I see. I say, you have got a lot of jolly prints. May I look at them?"

He proved very knowledgeable about the prints, and from prints they passed to books, and Elizabeth found him so full of honest enthusiasm, and with so nice a taste in book-people, that the last shreds of distrust and reserve vanished, and she cried in her Elizabethan way: "And actually I wondered what in the world I would talk to you about!"

Arthur Townshend laughed.

"Tell me," he said, "what subjects you had thought of?"

"Well," said she, sitting up very straight and counting on her fingers, "first I thought I would start you on Persia and keep you there as long as possible; then intelligent questions about politics, something really long-drawn-out, like Home Rule or Women's Suffrage; then--then--I _had_ thought of Ellen Wheeler Wilcox!"

Arthur Townshend groaned.

"_What_ sort of an idea had Aunt Alice given you of me?"

"Quite unintentionally," Elizabeth said, "she made you sound rather a worm. Not a crawling worm, you understand, but a worm that reared an insolent head, that would think it a horrid bore to visit a manse in Glasgow--a side-y worm."

"Good Lord," said Mr. Townshend, stooping to pick up Elizabeth's needlework which in her excitement had fallen on the rug, "this is not Aunt Alice----"

"No," said Elizabeth, "it's my own wickedness. The fact is, I was jealous--Aunt Alice seemed so devoted to you, and quoted you, and admired everything about you so much, and I thought that in praising you she was 'lychtlying' my brothers, so of course I didn't like you. Yes, that's the kind of jealous creature I am."

The door opened, and Ellen came in with a tray on which stood glasses, a jug of milk, a syphon, and a biscuit-box. She laid it on a table beside her mistress and asked if anything else was needed and on being told "No," said good-night and made her demure exit.

"Pretend you've known me seven years, and put a log on the fire," Elizabeth asked her guest.

He did as he was bid, and remained standing at the mantelpiece looking at the picture which hung above it.

"Your mother, isn't it?" he asked. "She was beautiful; Aunt Alice has often told me of her."

He looked in silence for a minute, and then went back to his chair and lit another cigarette.

"I never knew my mother, and I only remember my father dimly. I was only her husband's nephew, but Aunt Alice has had to stand for all my home-people, and no one knows except myself how successful she has been."

"She is the most golden-hearted person," said Elizabeth. "I don't believe she ever has a thought that isn't kind and gentle and sincere. I am so glad you had her--and that she had you. One can't help seeing what you have meant to her...." Then a spark of laughter lit in Elizabeth's grey eyes.

"Don't you love the way her sentences never end? just trail deliciously away ... and her descriptions of people?--'such charming people, _such_ staunch Conservatives and he plays the violin so beautifully.'"

Arthur Townshend laughed in the way that one laughs at something that, though funny, is almost too dear to be laughed at.

"That is exactly like her," he said. "Was your mother at all like her sister?"

"Only in heart," said Elizabeth. "Mother was much more definite. People always said she was a 'sweet woman,' but that doesn't describe her in the least. She was gentle, but she could be caustic at times: she hated shams. That picture was painted before her marriage, but she never altered much, and she never got a bit less lovely. I remember once we were all round her as she stood dressed to go to some wedding, and Alan said, 'Are _you_ married, Mums?' and when she said she was, he cried consolingly, 'But you would do again.'... I sometimes wonder now how Mother liked the work of a minister's wife in Glasgow. I remember she used to laugh and say that with her journeys ended in Mothers' Meetings. I know she did very well, and the people loved her. I can see her now coming in from visiting in the district, crying out on the drabness of the lives there, and she would catch up Buff and dance and sing with him and say little French nursery-songs to him, like a happy school-girl. Poor little Buff! He doesn't know what a dreadful lot he is missing. Sometimes I think I spoil him, and then I remember 'his mother who was patient being dead.'"

The fire had fallen into a hot red glow, and they sat in silence looking into it.

Presently the door opened, and Mr. Seton came in. He came to the fire and warmed his hands, remarking, "There's a distinct touch of frost in the air to-night, and the glass is going up. I hope it means that you are going to have good weather, Mr. Townshend."

He helped himself to a glass of milk and a biscuit.

"Elizabeth, do you know what that brother of yours has done? I happened to take down _The Pilgrim's Progress_ just now, and found that the wretched little fellow had utterly ruined those fine prints by drawing whiskers on the faces of the most unlikely people."

Mr. Seton's mouth twitched.

"The effect," he added, "is ludicrous in the extreme."

His listeners laughed in the most unfeeling way, and Elizabeth explained to Mr. Townshend that when Buff was in fault he was alluded to as "your brother," as if hers was the sole responsibility.

"Well, you know," said Mr. Seton, as he made the window secure, "you spoil the boy terribly."

Elizabeth looked at Arthur Townshend, and they smiled to each other.

_CHAPTER X_

"If ever you have looked on better days, If ever been where bells have knolled to church." _As You Like It._

Mr. Seton's church was half an hour's walk from his house, and the first service began at nine-forty-five, so Sabbath morning brought no "long lie" for the Seton household. They left the house at a quarter-past nine, and remained at church till after the afternoon service, luncheon being eaten in the "interval."

Thomas and Billy generally accompanied them to church, not so much from love of the sanctuary as from love of the luncheon, which was a picnic-like affair. Leaving immediately after it, they were home in time for their two-o'clock Sunday dinner with "Papa."

Elizabeth had looked forward with horror to the prospect of a Sunday shut in with the Arthur Townshend of her imagination, but the actual being so much less black than her fancy had painted she could view the prospect with equanimity, hoping only that such a spate of services might not prove too chastening an experience for a worldly guest.

Sabbath morning was always rather a worried time for Elizabeth. For one thing, the Sabbath seemed to make Buff's brain more than usually fertile in devising schemes of wickedness, and then, her father _would_ not hurry. There he sat, calmly contemplative, in the study while his daughter implored him to remember the "intimations," and to be sure to put in that there was a Retiring Collection for the Aged and Infirm Ministers' Fund.

Mr. Seton disliked a plethora of intimations, and protested that he had already six items.

"Oh, Father," cried his exasperated daughter, "what _is_ the use of saying that when they've all to be made?"

"Quite true, Lizbeth," said her father meekly.

Mr. Seton always went off to church walking alone, Elizabeth following, and the boys straggling behind.

"I'm afraid," said Elizabeth to Mr. Townshend, as they walked down the quiet suburban road with its decorous villa-residences--"I'm afraid you will find this rather a strenuous day. I don't suppose in Persia--and elsewhere--you were accustomed to give the Sabbath up wholly to 'the public and private exercises of God's worship'?"

Mr. Townshend confessed that he certainly had not.

"Oh, well," said Elizabeth cheeringly, "it will be a new experience. We generally do five services on Sunday. My brother Walter used to say that though he never entered a church again, his average would still be higher than most people's. What king was it who said he was a 'sair saunt for the Kirk'? I can sympathise with him."

They drifted into talk, and became so engrossed that they had left the suburbs and had nearly reached the church before Elizabeth remembered the boys and stopped and looked round for them.

"I don't see the boys. They must have come another way. D'you mind going back with me to see if they're coming down Cumberland Street?"

It was a wide street, deserted save for a small child carrying milk-pitchers, and a young man with a bowler hat hurrying churchwards; but, as they watched, three figures appeared at the upper end. Thomas came first, wearing with pride a new overcoat and carrying a Bible with an elastic band. (He had begged it from the housemaid, who, thankful for some sign of grace in such an abandoned character, had lent it gladly.) Several yards behind Billy marched along, beaming on the world as was his wont; and last of all came Buff, deep in a story, walking in a dream. When the story became very exciting he jumped rapidly several times backwards and forwards from the pavement to the gutter. He was quite oblivious of his surroundings till a starved-looking cat crept through the area railings and mewed at him. He stopped and stroked it gently. Then he got something out of his trouser-pocket which he laid before the creature, and stood watching it anxiously.

Elizabeth's eyes grew soft as she watched him.

"Buff has the tenderest heart for all ill-used things," she said, "especially cats and dogs." She went forward to meet her young brother. "What were you giving the poor cat, sonny?" she asked.

"A bit of milk-chocolate. It's the nearest I had to milk, but it didn't like it. Couldn't I carry it to the vestry and give it to John for a pet?"

"I'm afraid John wouldn't receive it with any enthusiasm," said his sister. ("John's the beadle," she explained to Mr. Townshend.) "But I expect, Buff, it really has a home of its home--quite a nice one--and has only come out for a stroll; anyway, we must hurry. We're late as it is."

The cavalcade moved again, and as they walked Elizabeth gave Mr. Townshend a description of the meeting he was about to attend.

"It's called the Fellowship Meeting," she told him, "and it is a joint meeting of the Young Men's and the Young Women's Christian Association. Someone reads a paper, and the rest of us discuss it--or don't discuss it, as the case may be. Some of the papers are distinctly good, for we have young men with ideas. Today I'm afraid it's a wee young laddie reading his first paper. The president this winter is a most estimable person, but he has a perfect genius for choosing inappropriate hymns. At ten a.m. he gives out 'Abide with me, fast falls the eventide,' or again, we find ourselves singing

'The sun that bids us rest is waking Our brethren 'neath the Western sky,'

--such an obvious untruth! And he chooses the prizes for the Band of Hope children, and last year, when I was distributing them, a mite of four toddled up in response to her name, and I handed her a cheerful-looking volume. I just happened to glance at the title, and it was _The Scarlet Letter_, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I suppose he must have bought it because it had a nice bright cover! Don't look at me if he does anything funny to-day! I am so given to giggle."

The Fellowship Meeting was held in the hall, so Elizabeth led the way past the front of the church and down a side-street to the hall door.

First, they all marched into the vestry, where coats could be left, and various treasures, such as books to read in "the interval," deposited in the cupboard. The vestry contained a table, a sofa, several chairs, two cupboards, and a good fire; Mr. Seton's own room opened out of it.

Billy sat down on the sofa and said languidly that if the others would go to the meeting he would wait to help Ellen lay the cloth for luncheon, but his suggestion not meeting with approval he was herded upstairs. As it was, they were late. The first hymn and the prayer were over, and the president was announcing that he had much pleasure in asking Mr. Daniel Ross to read them his paper on Joshua when they trooped in and sat down on a vacant form near the door.

Mr. Daniel Ross, a red-headed boy, rose unwillingly from his seat on the front bench and, taking a doubled-up exercise book from his pocket, gave a despairing glance at the ceiling, and began. It was at once evident that he had gone to some old divine for inspiration, for the language was distinctly archaic. Now and again a statement, boyish, abrupt, and evidently original, obtruded itself oddly among the flowery sentences, but most of it had been copied painfully from some ancient tome. He read very rapidly, swallowing audibly at intervals, and his audience was settling down to listen to him when, quite suddenly, the essay came to an end. The essayist turned a page of the exercise-book in an expectant way, but there was nothing more, so he sat down with a surprised smile.

Elizabeth suppressed an inclination to laugh, and the president, conscious of a full thirty minutes on his hands, gazed appealingly at the minister. Mr. Seton rose and said how pleasant it was to hear one of the younger members, and that the paper had pleased him greatly. (This was strictly true, for James Seton loved all things old--even the works of ancient divines.) He then went on to talk of Joshua that mighty man of valour, and became so enthralled with his subject he had to stop abruptly, look at his watch, and leave the meeting in order to commune with the precentor about the tunes.

The president asked for more remarks, but none were forthcoming till John Jamieson rose, and leaning on his stick, spoke. An old man, he said, was shy of speaking in a young people's meeting, but this morning he felt he had a right, for the essayist was one of his own boys. Very kindly he spoke of the boy who had come Sabbath after Sabbath to his class: "And now I've been sitting at my scholar's feet and heard him read a paper. It's Daniel Ross's first attempt at a paper, and I think you'll agree with me that he did very well. He couldn't have had a finer subject, and the paper showed that he had read it up." (At this praise the ears of Daniel Ross sitting on the front bench glowed rosily.) "Now, I'm not going to take up any more time, but there's just one thing about Joshua that I wonder if you've noticed. _He rose up early in the morning._ Sometimes a young man tells me he hasn't time to read. Well, Joshua when he had anything to do rose up early in the morning. Another man hasn't time to pray. There are quiet hours before the work of the day begins. The minister and the essayist have spoken of Joshua's great deeds, deeds that inspire; let me ask you to learn this homely lesson from the great man, to rise up early in the morning."

The president, on rising, said he had nothing to add to the remarks already made but to thank the essayist in the name of the meeting for his "v'ry able paper," and they would close by singing Hymn 493:

"Summer suns are glowing Over land and sea; Happy light is flowing Bountiful and free."

As they filed out Elizabeth spoke to one and another, asking about ailing relations, hearing of any happenings in families. One boy, with an eager, clever face, came forward to tell her that he had finished Blake's _Songs of Innocence and Experience_, and they were fine; might he lend the book to another chap in the warehouse? Elizabeth willingly gave permission, and they went downstairs together talking poetry.

In the vestry Elizabeth paraded the boys for inspection. "Billy, you're to _sit_ on the seat to-day, remember, not get underneath it."

"Buff, take that sweetie out of your mouth. It's most unseemly to go into church sucking a toffee-ball."

"_Thomas!_ What is that in the strap of your Bible?"

"It's a story I'm reading," said Thomas.

"But surely you don't mean to read it in church?"

"It passes the time," said Thomas, who was always perfectly frank.

Mr. Seton caught Arthur Townshend's eye, and they laughed aloud; while Elizabeth hastily asked the boys if they had their collection ready.

"The 'plate' is at the church door," she explained to Mr. Townshend. "As Buff used to say, 'We pay as we go in.' Thomas, put that book in the cupboard till we come out of church. Good boy: now we'd better go in. You've got your intimations, Father?"

"Seton's kirk," as it was called in the district, was a dignified building, finely proportioned, and plain to austerity. Once it had been the fashionable church in a good district. Old members still liked to tell of its glorious days, when "braw folk" came in their carriages and rustled into their cushioned pews, and the congregation was so large that people sat on the pulpit steps.

These days were long past. No one sat on the pulpit steps to hear James Seton preach, there was room and to spare in the pews. Indeed, "Seton's kirk" was now something of a forlorn hope in a neighbourhood almost entirely given over to Jews and Roman Catholics. A dreary and disheartening sphere to work in, one would have thought, but neither Mr. Seton nor his flock were dreary or disheartened. For some reason, it was a church that seemed difficult to leave. Members "flitted" to the suburbs and went for a Sabbath or two to a suburban church, then they appeared again in "Seton's kirk," remarking that the other seemed "awful unhomely somehow."

Mr. Seton would not have exchanged his congregation for any in the land. It was so full of character, he said; his old men dreamed dreams, his young men saw visions. That they had very little money troubled him not at all. Money was not one of the things that mattered to James Seton.

Arthur Townshend sat beside Elizabeth in the Manse seat. Elizabeth had pushed a Bible and Hymnary in his direction and, never having taken part in a Presbyterian service, he awaited further developments with interest, keeping an eye the while on Billy, who had tied a bent pin to a string and was only waiting for the first prayer to angle in the next pew. As the clock struck eleven the beadle carried the big Bible up to the pulpit, and descending, stood at the foot of the stairs until the minister had passed up. Behind came the precentor, distributing before he sat down slips with the psalms and hymns of the morning service, round the choir.

Mr. Seton entered the pulpit. A hush fell over the church. "Let us pray," he said.

A stranger hearing James Seton pray was always struck by two things--the beauty of his voice, or rather the curious arresting quality of it which gave an extraordinary value to every word he said, and the stateliness of his language. There was no complacent camaraderie in his attitude towards his Maker. It is true he spoke confidently as to a Father, but he never forgot that he was in the presence of the King of kings.

"Almighty and merciful God, who hast begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, we approach Thy presence that we may offer to Thee our homage in the name of our risen and exalted Saviour. Holy, holy, holy art Thou, Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of Thy glory. Thou art more than all created things, and Thou givest us Thyself to be our portion. Like as the hart pants after the water-brooks, so make our souls to thirst for Thee, O God. Though Abraham acknowledge us not and Israel be ignorant of us, we are Thy offspring...."

Mr. Seton had a litany of his own, and used phrases Sabbath after Sabbath which the people looked for and loved. The Jews were prayed for with great earnestness--"Israel beloved for the Father's sake"; the sick and the sorrowing were "the widespread family of the afflicted." Again, for those kept at home by necessity he asked, "May they who tarry by the brook Bezor divide the spoil"; and always he finished, "And now, O Lord, what wait we for? Our hope is in Thy word."