Salted With Fire | Page 3

expecting him, and the folk all
following their various callings--as when the flood came and
astonished them."
The man was but reflecting, without knowing it, what the soutar had
been saying the last time they encountered; neither did he think, at the
moment, that the Lord himself had said something like it first.
"And I was thinkin, this vera meenute," returned the soutar, "sic a
bonny day as it was for the Lord to gang aboot amang his ain fowk. I
was thinkin maybe he was come upon Maggie, and was walkin wi' her

up the hill to Stanecross--nearer til her, maybe, nor she could hear or
see or think!"
"Ye're a deal taen up wi' vain imaiginins, MacLear!" rejoined the
minister, tartly. "What scriptur hae ye for sic a wanderin' invention, o'
no practical value?"
"'Deed, sir, what scriptur hed I for takin my brakwast this mornin, or
ony mornin? Yet I never luik for a judgment to fa' upon me for that! I'm
thinkin we dee mair things in faith than we ken--but no eneuch! no
eneuch! I was thankfu' for't, though, I min' that, and maybe that'll stan'
for faith. But gien I gang on this gait, we'll be beginnin as we left aff
last nicht, and maybe fa' to strife! And we hae to loe ane anither, not
accordin to what the ane thinks, or what the ither thinks, but accordin
as each kens the Maister loes the ither, for he loes the twa o' us
thegither."
"But hoo ken ye that he's pleased wi' ye?"
"I said naething aboot that: I said he loes you and me!"
"For that, he maun be pleast wi' ye!"
"I dinna think nane aboot that; I jist tak my life i' my han', and awa' wi'
't til _Him_;--and he's never turned his face frae me yet.--Eh, sir! think
what it would be gien ever he did!"
"But we maunna think o' him ither than he would hae us think."
"That's hoo I'm aye hingin aboot his door, luikin for him."
"Weel, I kenna what to mak o' ye! I maun jist lea' ye to him!"
"Ye couldna dee a kinder thing! I desire naething better frae man or
minister than be left to Him."
"Weel, weel, see til yersel."
"I'll see to _him_, and try to loe my neebour--that's you, Mr. Pethrie. I'll

hae yer shune ready by Setterday, sir. I trust they'll be worthy o' the feet
that God made, and that hae to be shod by me. I trust and believe they'll
nowise distress ye, sir, or interfere wi' yer comfort in preachin. I'll fess
them hame mysel, gien the Lord wull, and that without fail."
"Na, na; dinna dee that; lat Maggie come wi' them. Ye wad only be
puttin me oot o' humour for the Lord's wark wi' yer havers!"
"Weel, I'll sen' Maggie--only ye wad obleege me by no seein her, for ye
micht put her oot o' humour, sir, and she michtna gie yer sermon fair
play the morn!"
The minister closed the door with some sharpness.

CHAPTER II
In the meantime, Maggie was walking shoeless and bonnetless up the
hill to the farm she sought. It was a hot morning in June, tempered by a
wind from the north-west. The land was green with the slow-rising tide
of the young corn, among which the cool wind made little waves,
showing the brown earth between them on the somewhat arid face of
the hill. A few fleecy clouds shared the high blue realm with the keen
sun. As she rose to the top of the road, the gable of the house came
suddenly in sight, and near it a sleepy old gray horse, treading his
ceaseless round at the end of a long lever, too listless to feel the
weariness of a labour that to him must have seemed unprogressive, and,
to anything young, heart-breaking. Nor did it appear to give him any
consolation to be aware of the commotion he was causing on the other
side of the wall, where a threshing machine of an antiquated sort
responded with multiform movement to the monotony of his
round-and-round.
Near by, a peacock, as conscious of his glorious plumage as indifferent
to the ugliness of his feet, kept time with undulating neck to the motion
of those same feet, as he strode with stagey gait across the cornyard,
now and then stooping to pick up a stray grain spitefully, and

occasionally erecting his superb neck to give utterance to a hideous cry
of satisfaction at his own beauty--a cry as unlike the beauty as ever was
discord to harmony. His glory, his legs and his voice, perplexed
Maggie with an unanalyzed sense of contradiction and unfitness.
Radiant with age and light, the old horse stood