and back: only a big ball o’ fire nearly killed me as I turned into the lane.’
The minister raised his head slightly as if listening. He turned slowly and gazed intently into the recess beyond the fireplace.
‘So you’ve come at last, have you?’
Mary Sloan cast a frightened glance into the recess but there was nothing save the darkness of the shadows where the light of the fire and the shaded oil lamp did not reach. She felt she wanted to run.
‘That will be all you’ll be wanting of me to-night, sir?’
The Reverend John Ross turned his head slowly in her direction and she saw that the light had died in his eyes. They were sunk and lustreless and the colour seemed to have drained from his cheeks. It semed impossible that such a change could have come over a man in the turn of his head.
‘Aye … that will be all, Mary. Bolt the doors and see that the windows are made fast. Go to bed. You hear me? Go to bed! No matter what you may hear do not move from your room. Do you understand me?’
‘Yes, sir. Is that all?’
‘No, that is not all. In the morning, at the hour of seven, go to the Suie and tell Andrew Ramsay to come to me.’
‘Go to Andrew Ramsay at seven o’clock and tell him you want him?’
‘That is correct. But see that you do not enter this room, or any other room, before you go: let yourself out quietly by the back door. Now go to bed and remember to pay attention to what I have said. Good-night!’
Mary Sloan turned and hurried from the room. But she took care in her flight to close the door. She had scarcely reached her room when she was almost blinded by a teriffic sheet of flame. The cry had not strangled in her throat when she felt the earth being torn asunder beneath her feet and the heavens crashing downwards.
No one in Galloway could recall such a storm of lightning and thunder and rain. Flash consumed flash; all the drums of heaven rolled and crashed till the very earth rocked and swayed on its spinning axis; the clouds burst and torrential cascading rain poured down on the land.
The call of the flesh, strong as it was to Bob MacHaffie, could not triumph over his fear of the unleashed elements. Nor could he console himself in drink for the end of the world might well be nigh and the terror of being catapulted into eternity was stronger than all the combined strength of strong drink. He crouched, trembling and afraid, in the cellar.
The morning sun rose on a stricken world staggering under the burden of shock and destruction.
Andrew Ramsay slipped on his well-worn jacket and came quietly with Mary Sloan. There was a resignation, a weariness about him, that was not altogether the result of a sleepless night. It did not seem as if sleep would ever again refresh and re-invigorate him. His head was bent forward over his chest: his eyes seemed to be closed in meditation.
He was not surprised at the summons. Of late the minister had been very queer. He had seemed to be more of his old self at the grave of Sam MacKitteroch than he had been for a long time. And yet something seemed to have passed from him into that grave. In the pulpit his voice was cold and passionless. He spoke with little conviction or authority either on Heaven or Hell. Going about the parish he recognised people with difficulty: his salutations seemed to come from afar off. But no one passed comment. The Reverend John Ross had always been a queer man …
Andrew Ramsay alone had any inkling of his minister’s trouble. But it was no more than an inkling. John Ross had lost his bearings, was drifting on the dark uncharted waters of unbelief. He had lost faith: he had lost hope: he was no longer in direct communion with his Maker. He was trembling on the brink of Hell.
But the minister’s trouble was capable of more rational explanation. He had no roots. He had no real part in the life of the community. He preached sermons, he baptised children, he gave the last rites. But he did not live with the people and the people looked on him as something above and apart from their day-to-day existence. His life was lived in the manse with his books. Once a week he foregathered with his leading elders and talked and drank. But since Sam MacKitteroch died it was brought home to him that his life had neither purpose nor significance: that there was nothing for him but to grow old and lonely and die. Already his eyesight was failing so that he had difficulty in reading by candle-light. Physical desire burned very low in him. Strange and morbid fancies began to take possession of his mind. More and more he sought relief in the bottle. But alcohol only increased his morbidity. The conception of the Devil began to fill his night-thoughts. He had never been pious, never felt himself in direct communion with his God. The Almighty had never been more to him than a theological and quasi-philosophical abstraction.
In the uselessness and idleness and terrible loneliness of his days and nights the mind of John Ross became slowly deranged …
Andrew Ramsay found his body in the study. The throat had been gashed with a razor. The minister had made several attempts before he had succeeded in mortally wounding himself. There was blood everywhere. It had gushed over his desk, his books and his papers. Still bleeding, he had staggered round the room…
Now that he saw what had happened Andrew Ramsay was not surprised; but he felt sick and weak. There was no doubt that this was the Devil’s work. He remembered with significance many strange sayings of John Ross.
He drew the back of his coat sleeve across his face. Tears were in his eyes. Many a pleasant Sabbath they had spent together in the Auld Kirk vestry …
He locked the study door. Taking the key with him he went down to the kitchen and sent Mary Sloan for Doctor Gebbie. There was no need for any one to know what had happened to the minister. Not even Sir Thomas MacCready or the Presbytery must know. David MacGhie, the undertaker, could be trusted. David was an elder himself and would understand. Doctor Gebbie was also a man of some understanding and sympathy. He had managed to save Richard’s name from the shame of suicide.
Andrew Ramsay sat alone in the manse kitchen waiting for the doctor. Of his intimate friends and cronies, the companions of his youth, there remained only William MacGeoch. He brooded, as he had brooded since the death of Richard, on the transitoriness of life. Life was pain and anguish and heart-break. It was hard to believe that the Father could treat His children so. God might not be mocked: but for all that the wicked seemed to flourish like the green bay tree. What sin had Richard and John Ross committed that they had not? For if John Ross had been tempted by the Power of Darkness it did not seem that the Lord had struggled for his soul. But maybe the Father had long ceased to care for His children. Maybe there was nothing between man and nature, between life and death, but what man’s mind put there. Andrew Ramsay could not be sure.
LAND OF HOPE AND HARDSHIP
It was cattle show day: all roads led to Stranraer. The show day was the one holiday of the year. Every one who could be spared from the farms was allowed to take part in the festival. And it was a festival. Brothers and sisters and friends met on that day and perhaps did not meet again for another year.
Carts lumbered out of the steadings as soon as the cows had been milked and the milk vatted for cheese. Every one was light-hearted – more so that the day was pleasant and warm. There was laughter and bantering and singing: here and there the music of a melodeon. For a year they had laboured day in and day out: now there was a brief spell of freedom, communal freedom.
For the lovers – and every eligible youth and maid in Galloway were lovers – there was the prospect of a meal together and the buying of favours. For the women there was the prospect of shopping: for the men a social round of drinks. For many there was the anticipation of being photographed: it was the latest craze. The two photographers in the town looked forward to an endless procession of sitters.
David Ramsay was full of high eager spirit. He had never been to Stranraer though he had often gazed on it from a distance, his eye picking out the thin ship masts in the harbour. Maybe to-day there would be a ship and he would manage to steal a word with the skipper or the mate.
But