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CHAPTER VI
As soon as the baby was asleep, Maggie went back to the kitchen where her
father still sat at work.
"Ye're late the night, father!" she said.
"I am that, lassie; but ye see I canna luik for muckle help frae you for
some time: ye'll hae eneuch to dee wi' that bairn o' yours; and we hae him
to fen for noo as weel's oorsels! No 'at I hae the least concern aboot the
bonny white raven, only we maun consider him like the lave!" "It's
little he'll want for a whilie, father!" answered Maggie. "--But noo," she
went on, in a tone of seriousness that was almost awe, "lat me hear what
ye're thinkin:--what kin' o' a mither could she be that left her bairn
theroot i' the wide, eerie nicht? and what for could she hae dene 't?"
"She maun hae been some puir lassie that hadna learnt to think first o' His
wull! She had believt the man whan he promised to merry her, no kennin he
was a leear, and no heedin the v'ice inside her that said ye maunna; and
sae she loot him dee what he likit wi' her, and mak himsel the father o' a
bairnie that wasna meant for him. Sic leeberties as he took wi' her, and
she ouchtna to hae permittit, made a mither o' her afore ever she was
merried. Sic fules hae an awfu' time o' 't; for fowk hardly ever forgies
them, and aye luiks doon upo' them. Doobtless the rascal ran awa and left
her to fen for hersel; naebody would help her; and she had to beg the breid
for hersel, and the drap milk for the bairnie; sae that at last she lost
hert and left it, jist as Hagar left hers aneath the buss i' the wilderness
afore God shawed her the bonny wall o' watter."
"I kenna whilk o' them was the warst--father or mither!" cried Maggie.
"Nae mair do I!" said the soutar; "but I doobt the ane that lee'd to the
ither, maun hae to be coontit the warst!"
"There canna be mony sic men!" said Maggie.
"'Deed there's a heap o' them no a hair better!" rejoined her father; "but
wae's me for the puir lassie that believes them!"
"She kenned what was richt a' the time, father!"
"That's true, my dauty; but to ken is no aye to un'erstan'; and even to
un'erstan' is no aye to see richt intil't! No wuman's safe that hasna the
love o' God, the great Love, in her hert a' the time! What's best in her,
whan the vera best's awa, may turn to be her greatest danger. And the
higher ye rise ye come into the waur danger, till ance ye're fairly intil
the ae safe place, the hert o' the Father. There, and there only, ye're
safe!--safe frae earth, frae hell, and frae yer ain hert! A' the
temptations, even sic as ance made the haivenly hosts themsels fa' frae
haiven to hell, canna touch ye there! But whan man or wuman repents and
heumbles himsel, there is He to lift them up, and that higher than ever
they stede afore!"
"Syne they're no to be despised that fa'!"
"Nane despises them, lassie, but them that haena yet learnt the danger
they're in o' that same fa' themsels. Mony ane, I'm thinking, is keepit
frae fa'in, jist because she's no far eneuch on to get the guid o' the
shame, but would jist sink farther and farther!"
"But Eppie tells me that maist o' them 'at trips gangs on fa'in, and never
wins up again."
"Ou, ay; that's true as far as we, short-lived and short-sichtit craturs,
see o' them! but this warl's but the beginnin; and the glory o' Christ,
wha's the vera Love o' the Father, spreads a heap further nor that. It's
no for naething we're tellt hoo the sinner-women cam til him frae a' sides!
They needit him sair, and cam. Never ane o' them was ower black to be
latten gang close up til him; and some o' sic women un'erstede things he
said 'at mony a respectable wuman cudna get a glimp o'! There's aye rain
eneuch, as Maister Shaksper says, i' the sweet haivens to wash the vera
han' o' murder as white as snow. The creatin hert is fu' o' sic rain. Loe
him, lassie, and ye'll never glaur the bonny goon ye broucht white frae
his hert!"
The soutar's face was solemn and white, and tears were running down the
furrows of his cheeks. Maggie too was weeping. At length she said--
Supposin the mither o' my bairnie a wuman like that, can ye think it fair
that her disgrace should stick til him?"
"It sticks til him only in sic minds as never saw the lovely greatness o'
God."
"But sic bairns come na intil the warl as God wad hae them come!"
"But your bairnie is come, and that he couldna withoot the creatin wull
o' the Father! Doobtless sic bairnies hae to suffer frae the prood
jeedgment o' their fellow-men and women, but they may get muckle guid and
little ill frae that--a guid naebody can reive them o'. It's no a mere
veesitin o' the sins o' the fathers upo' the bairns, but a provision to
haud the bairns aff o' the like, and to shame the fathers o' them. Eh, but
sic maun be sair affrontit wi' themsels, that disgrace at ance the wife
that should hae been and the bairn that shouldna! Eh, the puir bairnie that
has sic a father! But he has anither as weel--a richt gran' father to rin
til!--The ae thing," the soutar went on, "that you and me, Maggie, has to
do, is never to lat the bairn ken the miss o' father or mother, and sae
lead him to the ae Father, the only real and true ane.--There he's wailin,
the bonny wee man!"
Maggie ran to quiet her little one, but soon returned, and sitting down
again beside her father, asked him for a piece of work.
All this time, through his own cowardly indifference, the would-be-grand
preacher, James Blatherwick, knew nothing of the fact that, somewhere in
the world, without father or mother, lived a silent witness against him.
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