Page:Martha Spreull by Zachary Fleming.pdf/91

Rh up before me on a chair. My faither wished to send for a doctor, but my mither wud hear o’ no sic thing. She felt sure they wud be gled o’ a leg like that for the college, and what wis to hinder them frae chackin’t aff and makin’a speckilation o’t before the students?

At that time there wis a releegious body in the east-end o* the toon, ca’in’ themsel’s Latter-Day Saints. They had been haudin’ great meetin’s and makin’ a heap o’ converts. Mrs. Gomorrow, the greengrocer i’ the Drygate, had got bapteest into the body, and naething wud dae but that my mither should alloo ane o’ the elders to come and pray wi’ me and pass his hand ower the place. They had removed “ incomes,” no to speak o’ the “ rose,” “ white swellin’s,” and divers other diseases. Weel, the elder cam’ ae nicht when my faither wis at a meetin’ o’ the Incorporation o’ Cordiners—for my mither wis feart they should meet. He wis a black-aviced, laigh-set man, wi’ sma’ grey beads o’ een, and an unco deep voice. He prayed as Christian a prayer as onybody could wish, passin’ his hand the while ower the place affected, but I wis terribly disappointed when, efter prayin’ a’ his pith, there wisna ae bit o’ odds on the leg. I had thocht a’ day aboot Naaman, the leper, and the wondrous change that cam’ ower him efter dippen seven times i’ the River Jordan, and fully expectit my cure wud be something like that. He said, hooever, it wis want o’ faith, and urged my mither to come wi’ Mrs. Gomorrow to their meetin’s and be bapteest. He cam’ back efter that to argy wi’ my faither, but as he had heard in the meantime what had already taken place, he met the elder in the trance as he wis cornin’ ben, and seizin’ the black body by the cuff o’ the neck ran him to the door, and dippet his head in a byne o’ sapples that my mither had been scoorin’ blankets in. It wis real droll to see the cratur’ makin’ aff doon the Bell-o’-the-Brae