‘But this is awfu’ irregular,’ cried another personage, who rose suddenly out of the darkness, and was discovered after a time to be Samuel Diarmid the elder. He came out of the front row, which was merely a range of dark heads to the people behind, and stepped before the prophet with a small Bible in his hand. ‘My friends,’ he said, ‘though Mr. Galbraith took upon him to shut ye out o’ this public place belonging to the parish, I am here in my capacity as an elder o’ this parish to preside among ye. I hope there’s none here will dispute my right. We’ll open the meeting in the usual way by singing to the praise of God in the Psalms; and after the meeting’s lawfully constituted, ye shall hear whatever word the Lord’s servant may have to say.’
At this announcement, there arose a sudden rustle and resolute thumbing of the Psalms, which were attached to everybody’s Bible. The audience found the place conscientiously, though only a few could by any possibility see the page. Samuel himself led the singing, standing with his book in his hand, and his figure swaying to and forward with the cadence of the ‘tune;’ and seated in darkling rows, with their books held in every possible slope to reach the light, the audience lifted up their voices and sang one of those strange measures at which musicians stand aghast. Isabel sang it with all her heart. No criticism occurred to her. Her ear was not shocked by the false notes, the curious growls and creaks of utterance around her.
And then she closed her little Testament, and stood up, covering her face with her hands for the prayer. It was the prayer of a man having authority which Samuel Diarmid poured forth; and in that darkness through which no man could make out his neighbour’s face, the crowd stood and listened. His prayer was a kind of liturgy in itself. He prayed for her Sacred Majesty, as is the custom in Scotland, and for the Government and magistrates, and every class of men who could be put together in a general supplication. There was something half-comic, half-solemn in his formality; but it did not strike his audience as anything peculiar. They drew a long breath when it was ended, with conscious but unexpressed relief.