He went up the aisle reverently, and took his place in the pew with lowered eyes, for he feared he had already offended the kind old gentleman in the pulpit, and was sedulous to offend no further.He could not follow the prayer, not even the heads of it.Brightnesses of azure, clouds of fragrance, a tinkle of falling water and singing birds, rose like exhalations from some deeper, aboriginal memory, that was not his, but belonged to the flesh on his bones.His body remembered; and it seemed to him that his body was in no way gross, but ethereal and perishable like a strain of music; and he felt for it an exquisite tenderness as for a child, an innocent, full of beautiful instincts and destined to an early death.And he felt for old Torrance - of the many supplications, of the few days - a pity that was near to tears.The prayer ended.Right over him was a tablet in the wall, the only ornament in the roughly masoned chapel - for it was no more; the tablet commemorated, I was about to say the virtues, but rather the existence of a former Rutherford of Hermiston; and Archie, under that trophy of his long descent and local greatness, leaned back in the pew and contemplated vacancy with the shadow of a smile between playful and sad, that became him strangely.Dandie's sister, sitting by the side of Clem in her new Glasgow finery, chose that moment to observe the young laird.Aware of the stir of his entrance, the little formalist had kept her eyes fastened and her face prettily composed during the prayer.It was not hypocrisy, there was no one further from a hypocrite.The girl had been taught to behave: to look up, to look down, to look unconscious, to look seriously impressed in church, and in every conjuncture to look her best.That was the game of female life, and she played it frankly.Archie was the one person in church who was of interest, who was somebody new, reputed eccentric, known to be young, and a laird, and still unseen by Christina.Small wonder that, as she stood there in her attitude of pretty decency, her mind should run upon him! If he spared a glance in her direction, he should know she was a well-behaved young lady who had been to Glasgow.In reason he must admire her clothes, and it was possible that he should think her pretty.At that her heart beat the least thing in the world; and she proceeded, by way of a corrective, to call up and dismiss a series of fancied pictures of the young man who should now, by rights, be looking at her.She settled on the plainest of them, - a pink short young man with a dish face and no figure, at whose admiration she could afford to smile; but for all that, the consciousness of his gaze (which was really fixed on Torrance and his mittens) kept her in something of a flutter till the word Amen.Even then, she was far too well-bred to gratify her curiosity with any impatience.She resumed her seat languidly - this was a Glasgow touch - she composed her dress, rearranged her nosegay of primroses, looked first in front, then behind upon the other side, and at last allowed her eyes to move, without hurry, in the direction of the Hermiston pew.For a moment, they were riveted.Next she had plucked her gaze home again like a tame bird who should have meditated flight.Possibilities crowded on her; she hung over the future and grew dizzy; the image of this young man, slim, graceful, dark, with the inscrutable half-smile, attracted and repelled her like a chasm."Iwonder, will I have met my fate?" she thought, and her heart swelled.
Torrance was got some way into his first exposition, positing a deep layer of texts as he went along, laying the foundations of his discourse, which was to deal with a nice point in divinity, before Archie suffered his eyes to wander.They fell first of all on Clem, looking insupportably prosperous, and patronising Torrance with the favour of a modified attention, as of one who was used to better things in Glasgow.Though he had never before set eyes on him, Archie had no difficulty in identifying him, and no hesitation in pronouncing him vulgar, the worst of the family.Clem was leaning lazily forward when Archie first saw him.Presently he leaned nonchalantly back; and that deadly instrument, the maiden, was suddenly unmasked in profile.Though not quite in the front of the fashion (had anybody cared!), certain artful Glasgow mantua-makers, and her own inherent taste, had arrayed her to great advantage.Her accoutrement was, indeed, a cause of heart-burning, and almost of scandal, in that infinitesimal kirk company.
Mrs.Hob had said her say at Cauldstaneslap."Daft-like!" she had pronounced it."A jaiket that'll no meet! Whaur's the sense of a jaiket that'll no button upon you, if it should come to be weet? What do ye ca' thir things? Demmy brokens, d'ye say? They'll be brokens wi'
