Salted With Fire | Page 2

"There's naething, o' late, I ha'e to be sae gratefu' for to Him as that I
can. But I confess I had lang to try sair!"
"The mair I was to try, the mair I jist couldna."
"But ye could try; and He could help ye!"
"I dinna ken; I only ken that sae ye say, and I maun believe ye. Nane
the mair can I see hoo it's ever to be broucht aboot."
"No more can I, though I ken it can be. But just think, my ain Maggie,
hoo would onybody ken that ever ane o' 's was his disciple, gien we war
aye argle-barglin aboot the holiest things--at least what the minister
coonts the holiest, though may be I think I ken better? It's whan twa o'
's strive that what's ca'd a schism begins, and I jist winna, please
God--and it does please him! He never said, Ye maun a' think the same

gait, but he did say, Ye man a' loe are anither, and no strive!"
"Ye dinna aye gang to his kirk, father!"
"Na, for I'm jist feared sometimes lest I should stop loein him. It
matters little about gaein to the kirk ilka Sunday, but it matters a heap
aboot aye loein are anither; and whiles he says things aboot the mind o'
God, sic that it's a' I can dee to sit still."
"Weel, father, I dinna believe that I can lo'e him ony the day; sae, wi'
yer leave, I s' be awa to Stanecross afore he comes."
"Gang yer wa's, lassie, and the Lord gang wi' ye, as ance he did wi'
them that gaed to Emmaus."
With her shoes in her hand, the girl was leaving the house when her
father called after her--
"Hoo's folk to ken that I provide for my ain, whan my bairn gangs
unshod? Tak aff yer shune gin ye like when ye're oot o' the toon."
"Are ye sure there's nae hypocrisy aboot sic a fause show, father?"
asked Maggie, laughing, "I maun hide them better!"
As she spoke she put the shoes in the empty bag she carried for the
chaff. "There's a hidin' o' what I hae--no a pretendin' to hae what I
haena!--Is' be hame in guid time for yer tay, father.--I can gang a heap
better withoot them!" she added, as she threw the bag over her shoulder.
"I'll put them on whan I come to the heather," she concluded.
"Ay, ay; gang yer wa's, and lea' me to the wark ye haena the grace to
adverteeze by weirin' o' 't."
Maggie looked in at the window as she passed it on her way, to get a
last sight of her father. The sun was shining into the little bare room,
and her shadow fell upon him as she passed him; but his form lingered
clear in the close chamber of her mind after she had left him far. And it
was not her shadow she had seen, but the shadow, rather, of a great

peace that rested concentred upon him as he bowed over his last, his
mind fixed indeed upon his work, but far more occupied with the
affairs of quite another region. Mind and soul were each so absorbed in
its accustomed labour that never did either interfere with that of the
other. His shoemaking lost nothing when he was deepest sunk in some
one or other of the words of his Lord, which he sought eagerly to
understand--nay, I imagine his shoemaking gained thereby. In his
leisure hours, not a great, he was yet an intense reader; but it was
nothing in any book that now occupied him; it was the live good news,
the man Jesus Christ himself. In thought, in love, in imagination, that
man dwelt in him, was alive in him, and made him alive. This moment
He was with him, had come to visit him--yet was never far from
him--was present always with an individuality that never quenched but
was continually developing his own. For the soutar absolutely believed
in the Lord of Life, was always trying to do the things he said, and to
keep his words abiding in him. Therefore was he what the parson called
a mystic, and was the most practical man in the neighbourhood;
therefore did he make the best shoes, because the Word of the Lord
abode in him.
The door opened, and the minister came into the kitchen. The soutar
always worked in the kitchen, to be near his daughter, whose presence
never interrupted either his work or his thought, or even his
prayers--which often seemed as involuntary as a vital automatic
impulse.
"It's a grand day!" said the minister. "It aye seems to me that just on
such a day will the Lord come, nobody