Chapter 30

THE MEETING FOR RAIN.

Meanwhile the Auld Lichts were in church, waiting for their
minister, and it was a full meeting, because nearly every well in
Thrums had been scooped dry by anxious palms. Yet not all were
there to ask God's rain for themselves. Old Charles Yuill was in
his pew, after dreaming thrice that he would break up with the
drought; and Bell Christison had come, though her man lay dead at
home, and she thought it could matter no more to her how things
went in the world.

You, who do not love that little congregation, would have said
that they were waiting placidly. But probably so simple a woman as
Meggy Rattray could have deceived you into believing that because
her eyes were downcast she did not notice who put the three-penny-
bit in the plate. A few men were unaware that the bell was working
overtime, most of them farmers with their eyes on the windows, but
all the women at least were wondering. They knew better, however,
than to bring their thoughts to their faces, and none sought to
catch another's eye. The men-folk looked heavily at their hats in
the seats in front. Even when Hendry Munn, instead of marching to
the pulpit with the big Bible in his hands, came as far as the
plate and signed to Peter Tosh, elder, that he was wanted in the
vestry, you could not have guessed how every woman there, except
Bell Christison, wished she was Peter Tosh. Peter was so taken
aback that he merely gaped at Hendry, until suddenly he knew that
his five daughters were furious with him, when he dived for his
hat and staggered to the vestry with his mouth open. His boots
cheeped all the way, but no one looked up.

"I hadna noticed the minister was lang in coming," Waster Lunny
told me afterward, "but Elspeth noticed it, and with a quickness
that baffles me she saw I was thinking o' other things. So she let
out her foot at me. I gae a low cough to let her ken I wasna
sleeping, but in a minute out goes her foot again. Ay, syne I
thocht I micht hae dropped my hanky into Snecky Hobart's pew, but
no, it was in my tails. Yet her hand was on the board, and she was
working her fingers in a way that I kent meant she would like to
shake me. Next I looked to see if I was sitting on her frock, the
which tries a woman sair, but I wasna, 'Does she want to change
Bibles wi' me?' I wondered; 'or is she sliding yont a peppermint
to me?' It was neither, so I edged as far frae her as I could
gang. Weel, would you credit it, I saw her body coming nearer me
inch by inch, though she was looking straucht afore her, till she
was within kick o' me, and then out again goes her foot. At that,
dominie, I lost patience, and I whispered, fierce-like, 'Keep your
foot to yoursel', you limmer!'