Confessions of a Justified Sinner Read online

  He sprung up and opened the casement: the day-light was beginning to streak the east, for it was spring, and the nights were short, and the mornings very long. The laird half dressed himself in an instant, and strode through every room in the house, opening the windows as he went, and scrutinizing every bed and every corner. He came into the hall where the wedding festival had been held; and as he opened the various window-boards, loving couples flew off like hares surprised too late in the morning among the early braird. ‘Hoo-boo! Fie, be frightened!’ cried the laird. ‘Fie, rin like fools, as if ye were caught in an ill-turn!’ His bride was not among them; so he was obliged to betake himself to further search. ‘She will be praying in some corner, poor woman,’ said he to himself. ‘It is an unlucky thing this praying. But, for my part, I fear I have behaved very ill; and I must endeavour to make amends.’

  The laird continued his search, and at length found his beloved in the same bed with her Glasgow cousin who had acted as bridesmaid. ‘You sly and malevolent imp,’ said the laird; ‘You have played me such a trick when I was fast asleep! I have not known a frolic so clever, and, at the same time, so severe. Come along, you baggage you!’

  ‘Sir, I will let you know that I detest your principles and your person alike,’ said she. ‘It shall never be said, Sir, that my person was at the control of a heathenish man of Belial — a dangler among the daughters of women — a promiscuous dancer — and a player of unlawful games. Forgo your rudeness, Sir, I say, and depart away from my presence and that of my kinswoman.’

  ‘Come along, I say, my charming Rab. If you were the pink of all puritans, and the saint of all saints, you are my wife, and must do as I command you.’

  ‘Sir, I will sooner lay down my life than be subjected to your godless will; therefore I say, desist, and begone with you.’

  But the laird regarded none of these testy sayings: he rolled her in a blanket, and bore her triumphantly away to his chamber, taking care to keep a fold or two of the blanket always rather near to her mouth, in case of any outrageous forthcoming of noise.

  The next day at breakfast the bride was long in making her appearance. Her maid asked to see her; but George did not choose that anybody should see her but himself: he paid her several visits, and always turned the key as he came out. At length breakfast was served; and during the time of refreshment the laird tried to break several jokes; but it was remarked that they wanted their accustomed brilliancy, and that his nose was particularly red at the top.

  Matters, without all doubt, had been very bad between the new-married couple; for in the course of the day the lady deserted her quarters, and returned to her father’s house in Glasgow, after having been a night on the road; stage-coaches and steam-boats having then no existence in that quarter.

  Though Baillie Orde had acquiesced in his wife’s asseveration regarding the likeness of their only daughter to her father, he never loved or admired her greatly; therefore this behaviour nothing astounded him. He questioned her strictly as to the grievous offence committed against her, and could discover nothing that warranted a procedure so fraught with disagreeable consequences. So, after mature deliberation, the baillie addressed her as follows:

  ‘Aye, aye, Raby! An’ sae I find that Dalcastle has actually refused to say prayers with you when you ordered him; an’ has guidit you in a rude indelicate manner, outstepping the respect due to my daughter — as my daughter. But, wi’ regard to what is due to his own wife, of that he’s a better judge nor me. However, since he has behaved in that manner to my daughter, I shall be revenged on him for aince; for I shall return the obligation to ane nearer to him: that is, I shall take pennyworths of his wife — an’ let him lick at that.’

  ‘What do you mean, Sir?’ said the astonished damsel.

  ‘I mean to be revenged on that villain Dalcastle,’ said he, ‘for what he has done to my daughter. Come hither, Mrs. Colwan, you shall pay for this.’

  So saying, the baillie began to inflict corporal punishment on the runaway wife. His strokes were not indeed very deadly, but he made a mighty flourish in the infliction, pretending to be in a great rage only at the Laird of Dalcastle. ‘Villain that he is!’ exclaimed he, ‘I shall teach him to behave in such a manner to a child of mine, be she as she may; since I cannot get at himself, I shall lounder her that is nearest to him in life. Take you that, and that, Mrs. Colwan, for your husband’s impertinence!’

  The poor afflicted woman wept and prayed, but the baillie would not abate aught of his severity. After fuming, and beating her with many stripes, far drawn, and lightly laid down, he took her up to her chamber, five stories high, locked her in, and there he fed her on bread and water, all to be revenged on the presumptuous Laird of Dalcastle; but ever and anon, as the baillie came down the stair from carrying his daughter’s meal, he said to himself: ‘I shall make the sight of the laird the blithest she ever saw in her life.’

  Lady Dalcastle got plenty of time to read, and pray, and meditate; but she was at a great loss for one to dispute with about religious tenets; for she found that, without this advantage, about which there was a perfect rage at that time, the reading and learning of Scripture texts, and sentences of intricate doctrine, availed her naught; so she was often driven to sit at her casement and look out for the approach of the heathenish Laird of Dalcastle.

  That hero, after a considerable lapse of time, at length made his appearance. Matters were not hard to adjust; for his lady found that there was no refuge for her in her father’s house; and so, after some sighs and tears, she accompanied her husband home. For all that had passed, things went on no better. She would convert the laird in spite of his teeth: the laird would not be converted. She would have the laird to say family prayers, both morning and evening: the laird would neither pray morning nor evening. He would not even sing psalms, and kneel beside her while she performed the exercise; neither would he converse at all times, and in all places, about the sacred mysteries of religion, although his lady took occasion to contradict flatly every assertion that he made, in order that she might spiritualize him by drawing him into argument.

  The laird kept his temper a long while, but at length his patience wore out; he cut her short in all her futile attempts at spiritualization, and mocked at her wire-drawn degrees of faith, hope, and repentance. He also dared to doubt of the great standard doctrine of absolute predestination, which put the crown on the lady’s Christian resentment. She declared her helpmate to be a limb of Antichrist, and one with whom no regenerated person could associate. She therefore bespoke a separate establishment, and, before the expiry of the first six months, the arrangements of the separation were amicably adjusted. The upper, or third, story of the old mansion-house was awarded to the lady for her residence. She had a separate door, a separate stair, a separate garden, and walks that in no instance intersected the laird’s; so that one would have thought the separation complete. They had each their own parties, selected from their own sort of people; and, though the laird never once chafed himself about the lady’s companies, it was not long before she began to intermeddle about some of his.

  ‘Who is that fat bouncing dame that visits the laird so often, and always by herself?’ said she to her maid Martha one day.

  ‘Oh dear, mem, how can I ken? We’re banished frae our acquaintances here, as weel as frae the sweet gospel ordinances.’

  ‘Find me out who that jolly dame is, Martha. You, who hold communion with the household of this ungodly man, can be at no loss to attain this information. I observe that she always casts her eye up towards our windows, both in coming and going; and I suspect that she seldom departs from the house empty-handed.’

  That same evening Martha came with the information that this august visitor was a Miss Logan, an old an intimate acquaintance of the laird’s, and a very worthy respectable lady, of good connections, whose parents had lost their patrimony in the civil wars.

  ‘Ha! very well!’ said the lady; ‘very well, Martha! But, nevertheless, go thou
and watch this respectable lady’s motions and behaviour the next time she comes to visit the laird — and the next after that. You will not, I see, lack opportunities.’

  Martha’s information turned out of that nature, that prayers were said in the uppermost story of Dalcastle house against the Canaanitish woman, every night and every morning; and great discontent prevailed there, even to anathemas and tears. Letter after letter was dispatched to Glasgow; and at length, to the lady’s great consolation, the Rev. Mr. Wringhim arrived safely and devoutly in her elevated sanctuary. Marvellous was the conversation between these gifted people. Wringhim had held in his doctrines that there were eight different kinds of FAITH, all perfectly distinct in their operations and effects. But the lady, in her secluded state, had discovered another five, making twelve [sic] in all: the adjusting of the existence or fallacy of these five faiths served for a most enlightened discussion of nearly seventeen hours; in the course of which the two got warm in their arguments, always in proportion as they receded from nature, utility, and common sense. Wringhim at length got into unwonted fervour about some disputed point between one of these faiths and TRUST; when the lady, fearing that zeal was getting beyond its wonted barrier, broke in on his vehement asseverations with the following abrupt discomfiture: ‘But, Sir, as long as I remember, what is to be done with this case of open and avowed iniquity?’

  The minister was struck dumb. He leaned him back on his chair, stroked his beard, hemmed — considered, and hemmed again, and then said, in an altered and softened tone: ‘Why, that is a secondary consideration; you mean the case between your husband and Miss Logan?’

  ‘The same, Sir. I am scandalized at such intimacies going on under my nose. The sufferance of it is a great and crying evil.’

  ‘Evil, madam, may be either operative, or passive. To them it is an evil, but to us none. We have no more to do with the sins of the wicked and unconverted here than with those of an infidel Turk; for all earthly bonds and fellowships are absorbed and swallowed up in the holy community of the Reformed Church. However, if it is your wish, I shall take him to task, and reprimand and humble him in such a manner that he shall be ashamed of his doings, and renounce such deeds for ever, out of mere self-respect, though all unsanctified the heart, as well as the deed, may be. To the wicked, all things are wicked; but to the just, all things are just and right.’

  ‘Ah, that is a sweet and comfortable saying, Mr. Wringhim! How delightful to think that a justified person can do no wrong! Who would not envy the liberty wherewith we are made free? Go to my husband, that poor unfortunate, blindfolded person, and open his eyes to his degenerate and sinful state; for well are you fitted to the task.’

  ‘Yea, I will go in unto him, and confound him. I will lay the strong holds of sin and Satan as flat before my face as the dung that is spread out to fatten the land.’

  ‘Master, there’s a gentleman at the fore-door wants a private word o’ ye.’

  ‘Tell him I’m engaged: I can’t see any gentleman to-night. But I shall attend on him to-morrow as soon as he pleases.’

  ‘He’s coming straight in, Sir. Stop a wee bit, Sir, my master is engaged. He cannot see you at present, Sir.’

  ‘Stand aside, thou Moabite! My mission admits of no delay. I come to save him from the jaws of destruction!’

  ‘An that be the case, Sir, it makes a wide difference; an’, as the danger may threaten us a’, I fancy I may as weel let ye gang by as fight wi’ ye, sin’ ye seem sae intent on ’t. — The man says he’s comin’ to save ye, an’ canna stop, Sir. Here he is.’

  The laird was going to break out into a volley of wrath against Waters, his servant; but, before he got a word pronounced, the Rev. Mr. Wringhim had stepped inside the room, and Waters had retired, shutting the door behind him.

  No introduction could be more mal-a-propos: it was impossible; for at that very moment the laird and Arabella Logan were both sitting on one seat, and both looking on one book, when the door opened. ‘What is it, Sir?’ said the laird fiercely.

  ‘A message of the greatest importance, Sir,’ said the divine, striding unceremoniously up to the chimney, turning his back to the fire, and his face to the culprits. ‘I think you should know me, Sir?’ continued he, looking displeasedly at the laird, with his face half turned round.

  ‘I think I should,’ returned the laird. ‘You are a Mr. How’stey-ca’-him, of Glasgow, who did me the worst turn ever I got done to me in my life. You gentry are always ready to do a man such a turn. Pray, Sir, did you ever do a good job for anyone to counterbalance that? For, if you have not, you ought to be—-’

  ‘Hold, Sir, I say! None of your profanity before me. If I do evil to anyone on such occasions, it is because he will have it so; therefore, the evil is not of my doing. I ask you, Sir, before God and this witness, I ask you, have you kept solemnly and inviolate the vows which I laid upon you that day? Answer me!’

  ‘Has the partner whom you bound me to kept hers inviolate? Answer me that, Sir! None can better do so than you, Mr. How’s-tey-ca’-you.’

  ‘So, then, you confess your backslidings, and avow the profligacy of your life. And this person here is, I suppose, the partner of your iniquity — she whose beauty hath caused you to err! Stand up, both of you, till I rebuke you, and show you what you are in the eyes of God and man.’

  ‘In the first place, stand you still there, till I tell you what you are in the eyes of God and man. You are, Sir, a presumptuous, self-conceited pedagogue, a stirrer up of strife and commotion in church, in state, in families, and communities. You are one, Sir, whose righteousness consists in splitting the doctrines of Calvin into thousands of undistinguishable films, and in setting up a system of justifying-grace against all breaches of all laws, moral or divine. In short, Sir, you are a mildew — a canker-worm in the bosom of the Reformed Church, generating a disease of which she will never be purged, but by the shedding of blood. Go thou in peace, and do these abominations no more; but humble thyself, lest a worse reproof come upon thee.’

  Wringhim heard all this without flinching. He now and then twisted his mouth in disdain, treasuring up, meantime, his vengeance against the two aggressors; for he felt that he had them on the hip, and resolved to pour out his vengeance and indignation upon them. Sorry am I that the shackles of modern decorum restrain me from penning that famous rebuke; fragments of which have been attributed to every divine of old notoriety throughout Scotland. But I have it by heart; and a glorious morsel it is to put into the hands of certain incendiaries. The metaphors are so strong and so appalling that Miss Logan could only stand them a very short time; she was obliged to withdraw in confusion. The laird stood his ground with much ado, though his face was often crimsoned over with the hues of shame and anger. Several times he was on the point of turning the officious sycophant to the door; but good manners, and an inherent respect that he entertained for the clergy, as the immediate servants of the Supreme Being, restrained him.

  Wringhim, perceiving these symptoms of resentment, took them for marks of shame and contrition, and pushed his reproaches farther than ever divine ventured to do in a similar case. When he had finished, to prevent further discussion, he walked slowly and majestically out of the apartment, making his robes to swing behind him in a most magisterial manner; he being, without doubt, elated with his high conquest. He went to the upper story, and related to his metaphysical associate his wonderful success; how he had driven the dame from the house in tears and deep confusion, and left the backsliding laird in such a quandary of shame and repentance that he could neither articulate a word nor lift up his countenance. The dame thanked him most cordially, lauding his friendly zeal and powerful eloquence; and then the two again set keenly to the splitting of hairs, and making distinctions in religion where none existed.

  They being both children of adoption, and secured from falling into snares, or anyway under the power of the wicked one, it was their custom, on each visit, to sit up a night in the same apartment, for the sake
of sweet spiritual converse; but that time, in the course of the night, they differed so materially on a small point somewhere between justification and final election that the minister, in the heat of his zeal, sprung from his seat, paced the floor, and maintained his point with such ardour that Martha was alarmed, and, thinking they were going to fight, and that the minister would be a hard match for her mistress, she put on some clothes, and twice left her bed and stood listening at the back of the door, ready to burst in should need require it. Should anyone think this picture over-strained, I can assure him that it is taken from nature and from truth; but I will not likewise aver that the theologist was neither crazed nor inebriated. If the listener’s words were to be relied on, there was no love, no accommodating principle manifested between the two, but a fiery burning zeal, relating to points of such minor importance that a true Christian would blush to hear them mentioned, and the infidel and profane make a handle of them to turn our religion to scorn.

  Great was the dame’s exultation at the triumph of her beloved pastor over her sinful neighbours in the lower parts of the house; and she boasted of it to Martha in high-sounding terms. But it was of short duration; for, in five weeks after that, Arabella Logan came to reside with the laird as his housekeeper, sitting at his table and carrying the keys as mistress-substitute of the mansion. The lady’s grief and indignation were now raised to a higher pitch than ever; and she set every agent to work, with whom she had any power, to effect a separation between these two suspected ones. Remonstrance was of no avail: George laughed at them who tried such a course, and retained his housekeeper, while the lady gave herself up to utter despair; for, though she would not consort with her husband herself, she could not endure that any other should do so.