well, well," he said apologetically, "they would not be meaning any harm, and Donal' will be at home for his holidays, and the lads will be jist a wee bit noisy. And, indeed, Sandy would be playing a fine strathspey the other night." He checked himself hurriedly, feeling that such a subject was incongruous on the Sabbath.
Andrew Johnstone seemed to share his opinion, for he made no answer, but walked along whacking the wayside weeds with vicious strokes of his big stick. This was always a bad sign, and Duncan was silent for a time. He had a great piece of good news regarding one of those same nephews, but the turn the conversation had taken rendered it rather difficult to tell his friend.
"I would be thinking this morning of the great power of prayer, Andra," he said, by way of introduction. "All the good that would be coming to Glenoro in these years the good Lord would be sending it in answer to prayer."
Andrew Johnstone put his stick behind him; his face cleared. "Aye, aye, Duncan, yon's a fact. Man, d'ye mind how your faither an' mine, an' old Donald Fraser would meet when we were lads an' pray for the means o' grace an' the ordinances o' God's hoose?"
"Yes, yes, Andra, yes indeed, and He would be sending Mr. McAlpine to awaken the people, and then the church came, and Mr. Cameron."
"Man, yon were wild days, before Mr. McAlpine cam'," replied his friend, giving himself up to the joys of retrospect. "Yer faither used to say the Glen was jist like the Garden o' Eden until the serpent cam', an' it wes the tavern. Ah mind when yon Eerish crew from the Flats cam' up here to Pete Nash's tavern, an' the lads from the Oa cam' doon, a' McDonalds to a man, an' ye could hear the fechtin' ower on the Tenth. Man, yon Murphys were a bad lot!"
Duncan's eyes shone. He was leading up skilfully to his happy disclosure. "Yes, the times would be bad, but Mr. McAlpine came, and the revival came. He would be the man of God indeed, and it would be jist prayer that brought him, and it would be prayer that brought the church and Mr. Cameron among us."
"Aye, aye, Duncan; when we remember all the way He has led us, we shouldna' lose faith."
There was a pause and Duncan began again with an effort. It was always difficult for him to open his heart, even to the comrade of his youth. "I would be praying all these years for something, Andra, and it would seem almost too great, but the Father would be answering me. Oh, yes, He would be kinder than we can ever know."
His friend turned and looked at him sharply, and noticed for the first time the unusual radiance of his face. "Aye?" he inquired. "It would be aboot Betsey's lads."
Duncan nodded, his face aglow. "Donal'."
"An' what aboot him?"
"He would be studying so hard when I sent him to the school that now I will be sending him to college next fall, an' I will be praying that——" He faltered, almost fearing to put his great hope into words.
Andrew Johnstone paused in his walk and stared. He knew Duncan had been long nursing a great ambition for his eldest nephew and had been educating him at his own expense towards that end, but he could not believe it was to be fulfilled.
"He'll no be thinkin' o' bein' a meenister?" he inquired, failing to keep his utter astonishment out of his tone.
Duncan nodded, his eyes shining. "He would not be jist promising me yet, for Donal' says he will not be worthy, and the lad is right, for it will be a high calling. But he would not be refusing me when I asked him, and he will be going to Toronto in the fall, and surely the Lord will touch the lad's heart——" He was off in a happy day-dream again, a dream wherein his nephew stood in Glenoro pulpit when their aged minister laid down the work.
Andrew Johnstone did not answer for some minutes. He hesitated to disturb his friend's airy castles, but in his estimation there was no material in any of the youth of Glenoro for the making of a minister, much less in Duncan's eldest nephew. For one thing, the young man was far too intimate with his own son.
"Ah houp it'll be so, Duncan," he said at last, as they turned in at the church gate. "Maister Cameron's an' auld man noo an' he'll soon be wantin' to retire, an' mebby——" He paused as though the sequel were impossible, adding at last the rather ambiguous encouragement, "With God, all things are possible, ye ken."
II
A MEMORABLE SABBATH
The Glenoro Presbyterian Church, which the two old men were entering, was a bare, white structure, very grand in the eyes of the old folk who remembered the little log building where Mr. McAlpine, their first minister, used to preach. But to the rising generation it appeared much inferior to the neat brick church on the slope of the northern hill, where the Methodists worshipped.
It was certainly not a handsome edifice, but Nature had done much where man had been most neglectful. It stood right by the water's edge; and the Oro River, coming out from between its high wooded banks, made a pretty sweep round the quiet graveyard with its white stones. A fringe of willows hung over the water, mirrored in its green depths, and some woodbine from the neighbouring forest had found its way up the church walls and covered them with a drapery green and enduring. Verily, beautiful for situation was the Zion of the Glenoro Presbyterians.
But inside, where man's taste had full control, everything was very severe. The two rows of long, stiff, black pews, the high, box-like pulpit, the little cage for the precentor, a few oil lamps in brackets along the walls and the huge black stove with its weary length of pipes stretching from end to end of the building, constituted the furniture. As for decoration, there was absolutely none, unless the high arched panel behind the pulpit, painted a dull grey and looking like a gigantic tombstone, or the two shining tin pails hung at the elbows of the stove-pipes to prevent the rain from dripping upon the worshippers could be considered ornaments. But the floor and the walls were white and spotless, the stove and stove-pipes shone with all the brilliancy that polish could give them; and the big, rectangular, thirty-six paned windows glittered like the waters of the Oro, whose music was now being wafted through their open sashes.
And, indeed, to the two old men who were entering the church it mattered little that man's hand had no part in adorning their Zion, for to them the place was clothed in the beauty of holiness and filled with the presence of Him who is the brightness of His Father's glory.
They stepped in quietly and reverently, each passing at once to his own place, Andrew to his prominent pew at the side of the pulpit, Duncan to his modest seat behind the stove. They never addressed each other after entering the sanctuary, but sat with bowed heads in meditation and prayer until the commencement of the service. They generally had a long time to wait, too, for no matter at what unseasonable hour in the morning the other worshippers might start for church, it was well nigh impossible to get there before the elders.
Some time passed before anyone else arrived, but at last the big door swung slowly open and Peter McNabb, elder and precentor, who was always a good second in the stately and pious race for church, entered, and went silently forward to his place in front of the pulpit. The custom of having a precentor to "raise the tune" instead of a choir and organ was considered extremely old-fashioned by the more juvenile members of the congregation, but the old people held tenaciously to this time-honoured custom, in spite of much agitation for a change. And, indeed, had the young advocates of progress but paused to consider, they must have been forced to confess that Peter McNabb was a much better musical instrument than any that could ever be produced by man. He was the village blacksmith and he put the
