A Child of the Glens | Page 4

party quarrels and domestic disagreements. Harsh and brief as was the general style of intercourse between Mr. and Mrs. McAravey, there was no absolute anger or violence about it, except when allusion was made to the difference that through life had separated husband and wife. Even then it seemed strange to the children that such fierce feelings and such ill words should be excited by a matter that had absolutely no influence on ordinary life, and which was never introduced but as a bone of contention. Nor hitherto had the poor neglected ones any opportunity of learning the blessed truths of a Father's and a Saviour's love from any other quarter. There was no place of worship in the glen. The Presbyterian chapel was a mile away, and even there no Sunday-school was held. As for the Church, into the fold of which the poor babes had been received, it was scarcely to be thought of, being fully four miles off, across a rough mountain district. Here the Rev. Cooper Smith ministered to a congregation that fluctuated much, but was never very large. The parish was enormous, and the Church-people dotted over it in a most unmanageable fashion. Yet it was surprising what a considerable number of people were brought together on a fine Sunday morning in summer. The clergyman, too, persevered in keeping together what was at least the nucleus of a Sunday-school, consisting of some twelve or fifteen children, whom he and the clerk taught in the church before service. But from this means of grace Elsie and Jim were cut off by distance, even if, as was more than doubtful, their foster-parents would have allowed them to attend. In the glen that sloped down to Tor Bay, there were no Church-people, and but few children of any sort. Thus spiritual darkness reigned supreme throughout this beautiful domain. Twice during five years in a professional capacity (though several times on pic-nics) had the Rev. Cooper Smith made his way to Tor Bay. The people had received him with a patronising kindness, that was peculiarly irritating to his sensitive and somewhat small nature.
"Sit down, mon, and rest yeresel' a bit; ye must be tired," said McAravey, looking over his shoulder as he stalked out of the cottage.
"Don't you think you ought to send those children to school, Mrs. McAravey?" asked the clergyman, whose kind heart had been touched, on the occasion of a recent pic-nic, to see the half-drowned little ones toiling amid the heaps of wet and writhing sea-wrack.
"Maybe ye 'd send yere carriage to fetch them up the brae!" remarked Mrs. McAravey, with a harsh, disagreeable laugh at her own pleasantry.
"Well, it is rather far," replied Mr. Smith, somewhat apologetically; "but it grieves me to see them growing up in ignorance, and without any knowledge of the Saviour."
"Thank ye, sir," cried Mrs. McAravey, satirically, "but I think ma mon and mysel' knows our duties, and can teach the wains, too, wi'out any parson comin' to help us. A pretty thing to tell us we knows nothing o' the Saviour! I can tell you, mon, I've walked more miles o' the Sawbath to my place o' worship than some folks as I know walks in a week."
The clergyman, somewhat taken aback at this outbreak, felt a rising flush of anger, and could only reply--
"I think, my good woman, you might remember whom you are speaking to, and might be civil to a stranger when he comes into your house."
To judge by the response, the second part of this appeal was more effective than the first. An appeal to authority or respect of persons is not usually successful in Ulster.
"I knows rightly who I 'm speakin' to, and I don't see as it makes any differ; but I 'm sorry I spoke sharp, seein' ye come so far, only I can't thole to be towd I 'm na fit to train up a wain in the knowledge o' the Saviour."
Expressing a hope that Elsie and Jim would come to school when weather and work permitted, and with a somewhat vague remark about "calling again," the Rev. Cooper Smith beat as graceful a retreat as was possible.
His other calls that day were scarcely more satisfactory, for though he encountered no such actual rudeness, there was everywhere the same patronising familiarity.
Andrew McAuley, the wealthiest farmer in the glen, invited him to have "a drop o' something," adding, by way of encouragement, "Ye needn't be afeerd--there's plenty iv it in the house."
The only person who seemed to recognise his spiritual office was widow Spence, who, as the clergyman stood hesitating before leaving the cottage (he was debating whether he should offer the old woman a shilling), sympathetically remarked--
"Maybe, then, ye 'd like to mak' a wee bit o' a prayer afore ye