第48章

"To what?" gasped Mr. Duff, to whom it appeared for the moment that the foundations of things in heaven and on earth had indeed been removed. It was only after the shout of laughter on the part of the "sinners" had subsided that Mr. Duff realised that it was the spirit only, and not the ipsissima verba, of the devout and reverent professor, that had been translated in the vigorous vernacular of his son.

Unhappily, however, for Boyle, the report of his heretical tendencies had reached other ears than those of the sane and liberal-minded professor, those, namely, of that stern and rigid churchman, the Rev. Alexander Naismith, some time minister of St.

Columba's. Not through Finlayson, however, be it understood, did this report reach him. That staunch defender of orthodoxy might, under stress of conscience, find it his duty to inform the proper authority of the matter, but sooner than retail gossip to the hurt of his fellow-student he would have cut off his big, bony right hand.

The Rev. Alexander Naismith was a little man with a shrill voice, which gained for him the cognomen of "Squeaky Sandy," and a most irritatingly persistent temper. Into his hands, while candidates and examiners were disporting themselves in the calm waters of Systematic Theology, fell poor Dick, to his confusion and the temporary withholding of his license. It was impossible but that in the college itself, and in the college circles of society, this event should become a subject of much heated discussion.

Professor Macdougall's student parties were not as other student parties. They were never attended from a sense of duty. This was undoubtedly due, not so much to the popularity of the professor with his students, as to the shrewd wisdom and profound knowledge of human nature generally and of student nature particularly, on the part of that gentle lady, the professor's wife. Mrs.

Macdougall was of the old school, with very beautiful if very old-fashioned notions of propriety. Her whole life was one poetic setting forth of the manners and deportment proper to ladies, both young and old. But none the less her shrewd mother wit and kindly heart instructed her in things not taught in the schools. The consequence was that, while she herself sat erect in fine scorn of the backs of her straight-backed Sheratons, her drawing-room was furnished with an abundance of easy chairs and lounges, and arranged with cosey nooks and corners calculated to gratify the luxurious tastes and lazy manners of a decadent generation. Her shrewd wit was further discovered in the care she took to assemble to her evening parties the prettiest, brightest, wickedest of the young girls in the wide circle of her friends. As young Robert Kidd put it with more vigour than grace, "There were no last roses in her bunch." Moreover, the wise little lady took pains to instruct her young ladies as to their duties toward the young men of the college.

"You must exert yourselves, my dears," she would explain, "to make the evening pleasant for the young men. And they require something to distract their attention from the too earnest pursuit of their studies."

And it is a tradition that so heartily did the young ladies throw themselves into this particular duty that there were, even of the saintliest of the saints, who found it necessary to take their lectures in absentia for at least two days in order that they might recover from the all too successful distractions of the Macdougall party.

Among the guests invited was Margaret, beloved for her own sake, but even more for the sake of her mother, who had been Mrs.

Macdougall's college companion and lifelong cherished friend. The absorbing theme of conversation, carried on in a strictly confidential manner, was the sensational feature of the Presbytery examination. The professor himself was deeply grieved, and no less so his stately little lady, for to both of them Dick was as a son.

But from neither of them could Margaret extract anything but the most meagre outline of what had happened. For full details of the whole dramatic scene she was indebted to Robert Kidd, second year theologue, whose brown curly locks and cherubic face and fresh innocence of manner won for him the sobriquet of "Baby Kidd," or more shortly, "Kiddie."

"Tell us just what happened," entreated Miss Belle Macdougall, with a glance of such heart-penetrating quality that Kiddie promptly acquiesced.

"Well, I'll tell you," he said, adopting a low confidential tone.

"I could see from the very start that old Squeaky Sandy was out after Dick. He couldn't get him on his Hebrew, so the old chap lay low till everything was lovely and they were falling on each others' necks over the Shorter Catechism, and things every fellow is supposed to be quite safe on. All at once Sandy squeaked in, 'Mr. Boyle, will you kindly state what you consider the correct theory of the Atonement?' 'I don't know,' said Boyle; 'I haven't got any.' By Jove! everyone sat up. 'You believe in the doctrine, I suppose?' Boyle waited a while and my heart stopped till he went on again. 'Yes, sir, I believe in it.' 'How is that, sir? If you believe in it you must have a theory. What do you believe about it?' 'I believe in the fact. I don't understand it, and I have no theory of it as yet.' And Boyle was as gentle as a sucking dove.

Then the Moderator, decent old chap, chipped it."

"Who was it?" inquired Miss Belle.

"Dr. Mitchell. Fine old boy. None too sound himself, I guess.

Pre-mill, too, you know. Well, he chipped in and got him past that snag. But old Sandy was not done yet by a long shot. He went after Boyle on every doctrine in the catalogue where it was possible for a man to get off the track, Inspiration, Inerrancy, the Mosaic Authorship, and the whole Robertson Smith business. You know that last big heresy hunt in Scotland."

"No," said Miss Belle, "I don't know. And you don't, either, so you needn't stop and try to tell us."