“Weel, noo, that I ca’ Christi-an,” said Miss Horn, rising. “An’ ’deed I cud wuss,” she added, “’at in oor ain kirk we had mair opportunity, for ance i’ the twalmonth’s no verra aften to tak up the thouchts ’at belang to the holy ord’nance.”
The next day, after a powerful sermon from a man who, although in high esteem, was not for moral worth or heavenly insight to be compared with him whose place he took, they proceeded to the celebration of the Lord’s supper, after the fashion of that portion of the church universal.
The communicants sat in several long pews facing the communion table, which was at the foot of the pulpit. After the reading of St Paul’s account of the institution of the Lord’s Supper, accompanied by prayers and addresses, the deacons carried the bread to the people, handing a slice to the first in each pew; each person in turn broke off a portion, and handed what remained to the next: thus they divided it among themselves.
It so happened that, in moving up to the communion seats, Miss Forsyth and Miss Horn were the last to enter one of them, and Miss Horn, very needlessly insisting on her custom of having her more capable ear towards her friend, occupied the place next the passage.
The service had hardly commenced, when she caught sight of the face of the mad laird peeping in at the door, which was in the side of the building, near where she sat. Their eyes met. With a half-repentant, half-apologetic look, he crept in, and, apparently to get as near his protectress as he could, sat down in the entrance of an empty pew, just opposite the one in which she was seated, on the other side of the narrow passage. His presence attracted little notice, for it was quite usual for individuals of the congregation who were not members of the church to linger on the outskirts of the company as spectators.
By the time the piece of bread reached Miss Horn from the other end, it was but a fragment. She broke it in two, and, reserving one part for herself in place of handing the remnant to the deacon who stood ready to take it, stretched her arm across the passage, and gave it to Mr Stewart, who had been watching the proceedings intently. He received it from her hand, bent his head over it devoutly, and ate it, unconscious of the scandalized looks of the deacon, who knew nothing of the miserable object thus accepting rather than claiming a share in the common hope of men.
When the cup followed, the deacon was on the alert, ready to take it at once from the hands of Miss Horn. But as it left her lips she rose, grasping it in both hands, and with the dignity of a messenger of the Most High, before which the deacon drew back, bore it to the laird, and having made him drink the little that was left, yielded it to the conservator of holy privileges, with the words:
“Hoots, man! the puir body never had a taste o’ the balm o’ Gilead in a’ ’s persecutit life afore!”
The liberality of Mr Bigg had not been lost upon her: freely she had received—freely she gave. What was good must, because it was good, be divided with her neighbour. It was a lawless act.
As soon as the benediction was spoken, the laird slipped away, but as he left the seat, Miss Horn heard him murmur—“Eh, the bonny man! the bonny man!” He could hardly have meant the deacon. He might have meant Mr Bigg, who had concluded the observance with a simple and loving exhortation.