"
"Is that a' ye can say, mem?" interposed the soutar. "Surely ye wadna daur
imaigine her drappit oot o' _his_ han's!"
"Na," returned Marion; "but I wad richt fain ken her fair intil them! Wha
is there to assure 's o' her faith i' the atonement?"
"Deed, I kenna, and I carena, mem! I houp she had faith i' naething, thing
nor thoucht, but the Lord himsel! Alive or deid, we're in his han's wha
dee'd for us, revealin his Father til 's," said the soutar; "--and gien she
didna ken Him afore, she wull noo! The holy All-in-all be wi' her i' the
dark, or whatever comes!--O God, hand up her heid, and latna the watters
gang ower her!"
So-called Theology rose, dull, rampant, and indignant; but the solemn face
of the dead interdicted dispute, and Love was ready to hope, if not quite
to believe. Nevertheless to those guileless souls, the words of the soutar
sounded like blasphemy: was not her fate settled, and for ever? Had not
death in a moment turned her into an immortal angel, or an equally immortal
devil? Only how, at such a moment, with the peaceful face before them, were
they to argue the possibility that she, the loving, the gentle, whose
fault they knew but by her own voluntary confession, was now as utterly
indifferent to the heart of the living God, as if He had never created her
--nay even had become hateful to him! No one spoke; and the soutar, after
gazing on the dead for a while, prayer overflowing his heart, but never
reaching his lips, turned slowly, and departed without a word.
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