Robin Greenlaw sat beside Elspeth, and the laird by
Greenlaw. Half the congregation thought with variations:
"Wha ever heard of the laird's not being in his ain place? He and
White Farm and Littlefarm maun be well acquaint'! He's foreign,
amaist, and gangs his ain gait!"
Glenfernie, who had broken the conventions, sat in a profound
carelessness of that. The kirk was not gray to him to-day, though he
had thought it so on other days, nor bare, nor chill. June was
without, but June was more within. He also prayed, though his
unuttered words ran in and out between the minister's uttered ones.
Under the wintry sermon he built a dream and it glowed like jewels. At
the psalm, standing, he heard Elspeth's clear voice praising God, and
his heart lifted on that beam of song until it was as though it came
to Heaven.
"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place
In generations all.
Before thou ever hadst brought forth
The mountains great or small,
Ere ever thou hadst formed the earth
And all the world abroad,
Ev'n thou from everlasting art
To everlasting God."
"Love, love, love!" cried Glenfernie's heart. His nature did with
might what its hand found to do, and now, having turned to love
between man and woman, it loved with a huge, deep, pulsing, world-old
strength.
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