Big Game - A Story for Girls

The Chieftain chuckled softly.

"A good deal, I'm afraid! I'm sorry for you, after all your efforts at

conciliation. It's bad luck that you should have stumbled upon an

unforgivable offence. I'm afraid that there is no doubt that you will

be turned out of the inn, neck and crop. Not to-day, perhaps, as she

won't send out the trap, but certainly to-morrow morning."

"I shan't go!" protested Margot defiantly. If eviction had been

probable, she did not believe that the Chieftain would have taken it in

so unperturbed a fashion; but it was evident that she had committed some

offence, and that he was aware of its nature. "But what have I done?"

she continued urgently. "That's what I want to discover. There can't

be any harm in going to church!"

"Oh, can't there, just? That's the whole crux of the matter. You went

to the wrong church!"

There was a pause of stunned surprise while Margot gasped, and Ron's

sleepy eyes brightened with curiosity.

"The wrong church! How can that be? They are both Scotch

Presbyterians? There is no difference between them?"

"Only this difference, that the members of one kirk are hardly on

speaking terms with the members of the other! That their leaders are at

law together in the Courts, and that feeling runs so high, even in this

sleepy hollow, that Mrs McNab, being a Free, refuses to sell milk to

the `Wees,' and is shamed to the heart to think that a guest living

under her house-roof should have condescended to attend their service.

It will be all over the Glen this afternoon that the bonny lady fra the

inn chose to give her offering of siller to the `Wees,' and they will

bear themselves haughtily in consequence. Mrs McNab feels that she has

been humiliated the day in the eyes of the neighbourhood. No wonder she

looks coldly upon you!"

Margot flushed with resentment and indignation, but before she could

speak Ron burst into impetuous speech.

"They quarrel? Up here? A handful of men and women among the great

mountains? How can they do it? How can they harbour ill-feeling?

"And what can they quarrel about? There must be such tiny, trivial

differences. I am thankful I am not a Dissenter!" cried Margot proudly.

"There are so many sects that one gets muddled among them all, and even

in the same one it appears that there are differences! I am thankful

that I belong to the Church."

The Chieftain looked at her quietly.

"To which Church?"

"The Church of England, of course."

"Oh!" He elevated his light eyebrows expressively. "Because its

members have no quarrels with one another?"

Margot frowned uneasily.

"Oh, well--I suppose they have. But at the worst there are two parties,

as compared to a dozen. You cannot deny that we are more united?"