Auld Licht Idyls | Page 5

for one vegetable-cart left in the care of a
lean collie, which, tied to the wheel, whined and shivered underneath.
Pools of water gather in the coarse sacks that have been spread over the
potatoes and bundles of greens, which turn to manure in their lidless
barrels. The eyes of the whimpering dog never leave a black close over
which hangs the sign of the Bull, probably the refuge of the hawker. At
long intervals a farmer's gig rumbles over the bumpy, ill-paved square,
or a native, with his head buried in his coat, peeps out of doors, skurries
across the way, and vanishes. Most of the leading shops are here, and
the decorous draper ventures a few yards from the pavement to scan the

sky, or note the effect of his new arrangement in scarves. Planted
against his door is the butcher, Henders Todd, white-aproned, and with
a knife in his hand, gazing interestedly at the draper, for a mere man
may look at an elder. The tinsmith brings out his steps, and, mounting
them, stealthily removes the saucepans and pepper-pots that dangle on
a wire above his sign-board. Pulling to his door he shuts out the foggy
light that showed in his solder-strewn workshop. The square is deserted
again. A bundle of sloppy parsley slips from the hawker's cart and
topples over the wheel in driblets. The puddles in the sacks overflow
and run together. The dog has twisted his chain round a barrel and
yelps sharply. As if in response comes a rush of other dogs. A terrified
fox-terrier tears across the square with half a score of mongrels, the
butcher's mastiff, and some collies at his heels; he is doubtless a
stranger, who has insulted them by his glossy coat. For two seconds the
square shakes to an invasion of dogs, and then again there is only one
dog in sight.
No one will admit the Scotch mist. It "looks saft." The tinsmith "wudna
wonder but what it was makkin' for rain." Tammas Haggart and Pete
Lunan dander into sight bareheaded, and have to stretch out their hands
to discover what the weather is like. By-and-bye they come to a
standstill to discuss the immortality of the soul, and then they are
looking silently at the Bull. Neither speaks, but they begin to move
toward the inn at the same time, and its door closes on them before they
know what they are doing. A few minutes afterward Jinny Dundas, who
is Pete's wife, runs straight for the Bull in her short gown, which is
tucked up very high, and emerges with her husband soon afterward.
Jinny is voluble, but Pete says nothing. Tammas follows later, putting
his head out at the door first, and looking cautiously about him to see if
any one is in sight. Pete is a U.P., and may be left to his fate, but the
Auld Licht minister thinks that, though it be hard work, Tammas is
worth saving.
To the Auld Licht of the past there were three degrees of damnation--
auld kirk, playacting, chapel. Chapel was the name always given to the
English Church, of which I am too much an Auld Licht myself to care
to write even now. To belong to the chapel was, in Thrums, to be a

Roman Catholic, and the boy who flung a clod of earth at the English
minister- -who called the Sabbath Sunday--or dropped a "divet" down
his chimney was held to be in the right way. The only pleasant story
Thrums could tell of the chapel was that its steeple once fell. It is
surprising that an English church was ever suffered to be built in such a
place; though probably the county gentry had something to do with it.
They travelled about too much to be good men. Small though Thrums
used to be, it had four kirks in all before the disruption, and then
another, which split into two immediately afterward. The spire of the
parish church, known as the auld kirk, commands a view of the square,
from which the entrance to the kirk-yard would be visible, if it were not
hidden by the town-house. The kirk-yard has long been crammed, and
is not now in use, but the church is sufficiently large to hold nearly all
the congregations in Thrums. Just at the gate lived Pete Todd, the father
of Sam'l, a man of whom the Auld Lichts had reason to be proud. Pete
was an every-day man at ordinary times, and was even said, when his
wife, who had been long ill, died, to have clasped his hands and
exclaimed, "Hip, hip, hurrah!" adding only as an afterthought, "The
Lord's will be done." But midsummer was his great opportunity. Then
took place the rouping of the seats