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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 49342
   :PG.Title: The Stickit Minister's Wooing
   :PG.Released: 2015-07-01
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: \S. \R. Crockett
   :DC.Title: The Stickit Minister's Wooing
              and Other Galloway Stories
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1900
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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THE STICKIT MINISTER'S WOOING
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      THE

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      STICKIT MINISTER'S WOOING

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      AND OTHER GALLOWAY STORIES

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      By

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      \S. \R. CROCKETT

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      LONDON
      HODDER AND STOUGHTON
      PATERNOSTER ROW
      MCM

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      *Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.*

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      *To
      The Well-Beloved Memory
      of*

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      *\R. \L. \S.*

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      *to whom, eight years ago, I
      dedicated the first series of
      the "Stickit Minister" stories*

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   A LOOK BEHIND—AND FORWARD

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Eight years ago "The Stickit Minister" stood
friendless without the door of letters.  He knew
no one within, and feared greatly lest no hand of
welcome should be held out to him from those
already within, so that, being encouraged, he too
might pluck up heart of grace to enter.

Yet when the time came, the Stickit One found
not one, but two right hands outstretched to greet
him, which, after all, is as many as any man may
grasp at once.  One was reached out to me from
far-away Samoa.  The other belonged to a man
whom, at that time, I knew only as one of the most
thoughtful, sympathetic, and brilliant of London
journalists, but who has since become my friend,
and at whose instance, indeed, this Second Series
of "The Stickit Minister" stories has been written.
To these two men, the London man of letters and
the Samoan exile, I owe the first and greatest
of an author's literary debts—that of a first
encouragement.

They were both men I had never seen; and
neither was under any obligation to help me.
Concerning the former, still strenuously and
gallantly at work among us, I will in this place say
nothing further.  But, after having kept silence
for eight years lest I should appear as one that
vaunted himself, I may be permitted a word
of that other who sleeps under the green tangle of
Vaea Mountain.

Mr. Stevenson and I had been in occasional
communication since about the year 1886, when,
in a small volume of verse issued during the early
part of that year, the fragment of a "Transcript
from the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's,"
chanced to attract his attention.  He wrote
immediately, with that beautiful natural generosity of
appreciation of his, to ask the author to finish
his translation in verse, and to proceed to other
dramatic passages, some of which, chiefly from
Isaiah and Job, he specified.  I remember that
"When the morning stars sang together" was
one of those indicated, and "O, thou afflicted,
tossed with tempest and not comforted," another.
"I have tried my hand at them myself," he added
kindly; "but they were not so good as your
Shulamite."

After this he made me more than once the
channel of his practical charity to certain poor
miner folk, whom disaster had rendered homeless
and penniless on the outskirts of his beloved
Glencorse.

A year or two afterwards, having in the intervals
of other work written down certain countryside
stories, which managed to struggle into print in
rather obscure corners, I collected these into a
volume, under the title of "The Stickit Minister
and Some Common Men."  Then after the volume
was through the press, in a sudden gulp of
venturesomeness I penned a dedication.

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   TO

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   Robert Louis Stevenson

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   OF SCOTLAND AND SAMOA,
   I DEDICATE THESE STORIES OF THAT
   GREY GALLOWAY LAND
   WHERE
   ABOUT THE GRAVES OF THE MARTYRS
   THE WHAUPS ARE CRYING—
   HIS HEART REMEMBERS HOW.

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Still much fearing and trembling, how needlessly
I guessed not then, I packed up and despatched
a copy to Samoa.  Whereupon, after due interval,
there came back to these shores a letter—the
sense of which reached me deviously—not to
myself but to his friend, Mr. Sidney Colvin.
"If I could only be buried in the hills, under the
heather, and a table tombstone like the martyrs;
'where the whaups and plovers are crying!'  Did
you see a man who wrote 'The Stickit Minister,'
and dedicated it to me, in words that brought
the tears to my eyes every time I looked at
them?  'Where about the graves of the martyrs
the whaups are crying—his heart remembers
how.'  Ah, by God, it does! Singular that I
should fulfil the Scots destiny throughout, and
live a voluntary exile and have my head filled
with the blessed, beastly place all the time!"

To another friend he added some criticism of
the book.  "Some of the tales seem to me a trifle
light, and one, at least, is too slender and
fantastic—qualities that rarely mingle well."  (How oft in
the stilly night have I wondered which one he
meant!)  "But the whole book breathes admirably
of the soil.  'The Stickit Minister,' 'The Heather
Lintie,' are two that appeal to me particularly.
They are drowned in Scotland.  They have
refreshed me like a visit home.  'Cleg Kelly' also
is a delightful fellow.  I have enjoyed his
acquaintance particularly."

Curiously enough, it was not from Samoa, but
from Honolulu, that I first received tidings that
my little volume had not miscarried.  It was
quite characteristic of Mr.  Stevenson not to
answer at once: "I let my letters accumulate
till I am leaving a place," he said to me more
than once; "then I lock myself in with them,
and my cries of penitence can be heard a mile!"

In a San Francisco paper there appeared a
report of a speech he had made to some kindly
Scots who entertained him in Honolulu, In it
he spoke affectionately of "The Stickit Minister."  I
have, alas! lost the reference now, but at the
time it took me by the throat.  I could not get
over the sheer kindness of the thing.

Then came a letter and a poem, both very
precious to me:

"Thank you from my heart, and see with what
dull pedantry I have been tempted to extend your
beautiful phrase of prose into three indifferent
stanzas:

   |  "Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying;
   |    Blows the wind on the moors to-day, and now,
   |  Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying—
   |    My heart remembers how!

   |  Grey recumbent tombs of the dead in desert places,
   |    Standing Stones on the vacant, wine-red moor;
   |  Hills of sheep, and the howes of the silent vanished races,
   |    And winds austere and pure!

   |  Be it granted me to behold you again in dying,
   |    Hills of home! and to hear again the call—
   |  Hear about the graves of the martyrs the pee-wees crying,
   |    And hear no more at all."
   |

To me, in the all too brief days that
remained to him, he wrote letter after letter of
criticism, encouragement, and praise (in which
last, as was his wont, he let his kind heart
run far ahead of his judgment).  It goes to
my heart now not to quote from these, for
they are in some wise my poor patent of
nobility.  But, perhaps with more wisdom, I
keep them by me, to hearten myself withal
when the days of darkness grow too many and
too dark.

So much for bush to this second draught of
countryside vintage—the more easily forgiven that
it tells of the generosity of a dead man whom I
loved.  But and if in any fields Elysian or grey
twilight of shades, I chance to meet with Robert
Louis Stevenson, I know that I shall find him in
act to help over some ghostly stile, the halt, the
maimed, and the faint of heart—-even as in these
late earthly years he did for me—and for many
another.

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\S. \R. CROCKETT.

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   CONTENTS

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I.  `THE STICKIT MINISTER'S WOOING`_
II.  `THE STICKIT MINISTER WINS THROUGH`_
III.  `GIBBY THE EEL, STUDENT IN DIVINITY`_
IV.  `DR. GIRNIGO'S ASSISTANT`_
V.  `THE GATE OF THE UPPER GARDEN`_
VI.  `THE TROUBLER OF ISRAEL`_
VII.  `CARNATION'S MORNING JOY`_
VIII.  `JAIMSIE`_
IX.  `BEADLE AND MARTYR`_
X.  `THE BLUE EYES OF AILIE`_
XI.  `LOWE'S SEAT`_
XII.  `THE SUIT OF BOTTLE GREEN`_
XIII.  `A SCIENTIFIC SYMPOSIUM`_
XIV.  `THE HEMPIE'S LOVE STORY`_
XV.  `THE LITTLE FAIR MAN`_—

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I.—`SEED SOWN BY THE WAYSIDE`_
II.—`THE HUMBLING OF STRENGTH-O'-AIRM`_
III.—`THE CURATE OF KIRKCHRIST`_

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XVI.  `MY FATHER'S LOVE STORY`_
XVII.  `THE MAN OF WRATH`_
XVIII.  `THE LASS IN THE SHOP`_
XIX.  `THE RESPECT OF DROWDLE`_
XX.  `TADMOR IN THE WILDERNESS`_
XXI.  `PETERSON'S PATIENT`_
XXII.  `TWO HUMOURISTS`_





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.. _`THE STICKIT MINISTER'S WOOING`:

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   THE STICKIT MINISTER'S WOOING[#]

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[#] These stories have been edited chiefly from manuscripts
supplied to me by my friend Mr. Alexander McQuhirr, M.D.,
of Cairn Edward in Galloway, of whose personal adventures
I treated in the volume called "Lad's Love," I have let
my friend tell his tale in his own way in almost every case.

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It was in the second year of my college life thai
I came home to find Robert Fraser, whom a
whole country-side called the "Stickit Minister,"
distinctly worse, and indeed, set down upon his
great chair in the corner as on a place from
which he would never rise.

A dour, grippy back-end it was, the soil
stubborn and untoward with early frost.  And a
strange sound it was to hear as I (Alexander
McQuhirr) came down the Lang Brae, the channel
stones droning and dinnelling on the ice by the
third of November; a thing which had not
happened in our parts since that fell year of the
Sixteen Drifty Days, which has been so greatly
talked about.

I walked over to the Dullarg the very night
I arrived from Edinburgh.  I had a new volume
of Tennyson with me, which I had bought with
the thought that he would be pleased with it.
For I loved Robert Fraser, and I will not deny
that my heart beat with expectation as I went
up the little loaning with the rough stone dyke
upon either side—aye, as if it had been the way
to Nether Neuk, and I going to see my sweetheart.

"Come your ways in, Alec, man," his voice
came from the inner room, as he heard me pause
to exchange banter of a rural sort with the servant
lasses in the kitchen; "I have been waitin' for
ye.  I kenned ye wad come the nicht!"

I went in.  And there by the little peat fire,
drowsing red and looking strangely out of place
behind the ribs of the black-leaded "register"
grate, I saw the Stickit Minister with a black-and-white
check plaid about his knees.  He smiled
a strange sweet smile, at once wistful and
distant, as I entered—like one who waves farewell
through a mist of tears as the pier slides back
and the sundering water seethes and widens about
the ship.

"You are better, Robert!" I said, smiling too.
Dully, and yet with dogged cheerfulness, I said
it, as men lie to the dying—and are not believed.

He stretched out his thin hand, the ploughman's
horn clean gone from it, and the veins blue and
convex upon the shrunk wrist.

"*Ave atque vale*, Alec, lad!" he answered.
"That is what it has come to with Robert Fraser.
But how are all at Drumquhat?  Ye will be on
your road ower to the Nether Neuk?"

This he said, though he knew different.

"I have brought you this from Edinburgh,"
I said, giving him the little, thin, green volume
of Tennyson.  I had cut it to save him trouble,
and written his name on the blank page before
the title.

I shall never forget the way he looked at it.
He opened it as a woman unfolds a new and
costly garment, with a lingering caress of the
wasted finger-tips through which I could almost
see the white of the paper, and a slow soft intake
of the breath, like a lover's sigh.

His eyes, of old blue and clear, had now a kind
of glaze over them, a veiling Indian summer mist
through which, however, still shone, all undimmed
and fearless, the light of the simplest and manfulest
spirit I have ever known.  He turned the leaves
and read a verse here and there with evident
pleasure.  He had a way of reading anything he
loved as it listening inly to the cadences—a little
half-turn of the head aside, and a still contented
smile hovering about the lips, like one who catches
the first returning fall of beloved footsteps.

But all at once Robert Fraser shut the book
and let his hands sink wearily down upon his knee.
He did not look at me, but kept his eyes on the
red peat ash in the "register" grate.

"It's bonnie," he murmured softly; "and it was
a kind thing for you to think on me.  But it's
gane frae me, Alec—it's a' clean gane.  Tak' you
the book, Alec.  The birdies will never sing again
in ony spring for me to hear.  I'm back upon
the Word, Alec.  There's nocht but That for me
noo!"

He laid his hand on a Bible that was open
beside him on the stand which held his medicine
bottles, and a stocking at which his wearied fingers
occasionally knitted for a moment or two at a time.

Then he gave the little green-clad Tennyson
back to me with so motherly and lingering a regard
that, had I not turned away, I declare I know
not but that I had been clean done for.

"Yet for a' that, Alec," he said, "do you take
the book for my sake.  And see—cut out the
leaf ye hae written on and let me keep it here
beside me."

I did as he asked me, and with the leaf in
his hand he turned over the pages of his Bible
carefully, like a minister looking for a text.  He
stopped at a yellowing envelope, as if uncertain
whether to deposit the inscription in it.  Then he
lifted the stamped oblong and handed it to me
with a kind of smile.

"There, Alec," he said, "you that has (so they
tell me) a sweetheart o' your ain, ye will like to
see that.  This is the envelope that held the letter
I gat frae Jessie Loudon—the nicht Sir James
telled me at the Infirmary that my days were
numbered!"

"Oh, Robert!" I cried, all ashamed that he
should speak thus to a young man like me, "dinna
think o' that.  You will excite yourself—you may
do yourself a hurt——"

But he waved me away, still smiling that slow
misty smile, in which, strangely enough, there
was yet some of the humoursomeness of one who
sees a situation from the outside.

"Na, Alec, lad," he said, softly, "that's gane too.
Upon a dark day I made a pact wi' my Maker, and
now the covenanted price is nearly paid.  *His*
messenger wi' the discharge is already on the road.
I never hear a hand on the latch, but I look up
to see Him enter—aye, and He shall be welcome,
welcome as the bridegroom that enters into the
Beloved's chamber!"

I covered my brows with my palm, and pretended
to look at the handwriting on the envelope,
which was delicate and feminine.  The Stickit
Minister went on.

"Aye, Alec," he said, meditatively, with his eyes
still on the red glow, "ye think that ye love the
lass ye hae set your heart on; and doubtless ye
do love her truly.  But I pray God that there
may never come a day when ye shall have spoken
the last sundering word, and returned her the
written sheets faithfully every one.  Ye hae heard
the story, Alec.  I will not hurt your young heart
by telling it again.  But I spared Jessie Loudon
all I could, and showed her that she must not mate
her young life with one no better than dead!"

The Stickit Minister was silent a long time here.
Doubtless old faces looked at him clear out of
the red spaces of the fire.  And when he began
to speak again, it was in an altered voice.

"Nevertheless, because power was given me, I
pled with, and in some measure comforted her.
For though the lassie's heart was set on me, it
was as a bairn's heart is set, not like the heart
of a woman; and for that I praise the Lord—yes,
I give thanks to His name!

"Then after that I came back to an empty
house—and this!"

He caressed the faded envelope lovingly, as a
miser his intimatest treasure.

"I did not mean to keep it, Alec," he went
on presently, "but I am glad I did.  It has been
a comfort to me; and through all these years
it has rested there where ye see it—upon the
chapter where God answers Job out of the
whirlwind.  Ye ken yon great words."

We heard a slight noise in the yard, the wheels
of some light vehicle driven quickly.  The Stickit
Minister started a little, and when I looked at
him again I saw that the red spot, the size of
a crown-piece, which burned so steadfastly on his
check-bone had spread till now it covered his
brow.

Then we listened, breathless, like men that wait
for a marvel, and through the hush the peats on
the grate suddenly fell inward with a startling
sound, bringing my heart into my mouth.  Next
we heard a voice without, loud and a little thick,
in heated debate.

"Thank God!" cried the Stickit Minister,
fervently.  "It's Henry—my dear brother!  For
a moment I feared it had been Lawyer Johnston
from Cairn Edward.  You know," he added, smiling
with all his old swift gladsomeness, "I am now
but a tenant at will.  I sit here in the Dullarg
on sufferance—that once was the laird of acre
and onstead!"

He raised his voice to carry through the door
into the kitchen.

"Henry, Henry, this is kind—kind of you—to
come so far to see me on such a night!"

The Stickit Minister was on his feet by this
time, and if I had thought that his glance had
been warm and motherly for me, it was fairly on
fire with affection now.  I believe that Robert
Fraser once loved his betrothed faithfully and well;
but never will I believe that he loved woman
born of woman as he loved his younger brother.

And that is, perhaps, why these things fell
out so.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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I had not seen Henry Fraser since the first year
he had come to Cairn Edward.  A handsome
young man he was then, with a short, supercilious
upper lip, and crisply curling hair of a fair colour
disposed in masses about his brow.

He entered, and at the first glimpse of him I stood
astonished.  His pale student's face had grown
red and a trifle mottled.  The lids of his blue eyes
(the blue of his brother's) were injected.  His
mouth was loose and restless under a heavy
moustache, and when he began to speak his voice
came from him thick and throaty.

"I wonder you do not keep your people in
better order, Robert," he said, before he was fairly
within the door of the little sitting-room.  "First I
drove right into a farm-cart that had been left
in the middle of the yard, and then nearly broke
my shins over a pail some careless slut of a
byre-lass had thrown down at the kitchen-door."

Robert Fraser had been standing up with the
glad and eager look on his face.  I think he had
half stretched out his hand; but at his brother's
querulous words he sank slowly back into his
chair, and the grey tiredness slipped into his face
almost as quickly as it had disappeared.

"I am sorry, Henry," he said, simply.  "Somehow
I do not seem to get about so readily as I did, and
I daresay the lads and lasses take some advantage."

"They would not take advantage with me, I
can tell you!" cried the young doctor, throwing
down his driving-cape on the corner of the old
sofa, and pulling a chair in to the fire.  He bent
forward and chafed his hands before the glowing
peats, and as he did so I could see by a slight
lurch and quick recovery that he had been
drinking.  I wondered if Robert Fraser noticed.

Then he leaned back and looked at the Stickit
Minister.

"Well, Robert, how do you find yourself
to-night?  Better, eh?" he said, speaking in his
professional voice.

His brother's face flushed again with the same
swift pleasure, very pitiful to see.

"It is kind of you to ask," he said; "I think
I do feel a betterness, Henry.  The cough has
certainly been less troublesome this last day or
two."

"I suppose there are no better prospects about
the property," said Dr. Fraser, passing from the
medical question with no more than the words I
have written down.  I had already risen, and,
with a muttered excuse, was passing into the outer
kitchen, that I might leave the brothers alone.

So I did not hear Robert Fraser's reply, but
as I closed the door I caught the younger's loud
retort: "I tell you what it is, Robert—say what
you will—I have not been fairly dealt with in
this matter—I have been swindled!"

So I went out with my heart heavy within me
for my friend, and though Bell Gregory, the
bonniest of the farm lasses, ostentatiously drew
her skirts aside and left a vacant place beside her
in the ingle-nook, I shook my head and kept
on my way to the door with rib more than a smile
and "Anither nicht, Bell."

"Gie my love to Nance ower at the Nether
Neuk," she cried back, with challenge in her tone,
as I went out.

But even Nance Chrystie was not in my thoughts
that night.  I stepped out, passing in front of the
straw-thatched bee-hives which, with the indrawing
days, had lost their sour-sweet summer smell, and
so on into the loaning.  From the foot of the little
brae I looked back at the lights burning so warmly
and steadily from the low windows of the Dullarg,
and my mind went over all my father had told me
of what the Stickit Minister had done for his
brother: how he had broken off his own college
career that Henry might go through his medical
classes with ease and credit; and how, in spite of
his brother's rank ingratitude, he had bonded his
little property in order to buy him old Dr. Aitkin's
practice in Cairn Edward.

Standing thus and thinking under the beeches
at the foot of the dark loaning, it gave me quite a
start to find a figure close beside me.  It was
a woman with a shawl over her head, as is the
habit of the cotters' wives in our parish.

"Tell me," a voice, eager and hurried, panted
almost in my ear, "is Dr. Fraser of Cairn Edward
up there?"

"Yes," I said in reply, involuntarily drawing
back a step—the woman was so near me—"he is
this moment with his brother."

"Then for God's sake will ye gang up and tell
him to come this instant to the Earmark cothouses.
There are twa bairns there that are no like to see
the mornin' licht if he doesna!"

"But who may you be?" I said, for I did not
want to return to the Dullarg.  "And why do you
not go in and tell him for yourself?  You can give
him the particulars of the case better than I!"

She gave a little shivering moan.

"I canna gang in there!" she said, clasping her
hands piteously; "I darena.  Not though I am
Gilbert Harbour's wife—and the bairns' mither.
Oh, sir, rin!"

And I ran.

But when I had knocked and delivered my
message, to my great surprise Dr. Henry Fraser
received it very coolly.

"They are only some cotter people," he said,
"they must just wait till I am on my way back
from the village.  I will look in then.  Robert, it
is a cold night, let me have some whisky before
I get into that ice-box of a gig again."

The Stickit Minister turned towards the
wall-press where ever since his mother's day the
"guardevin," or little rack of cut-glass decanters,
had stood, always hospitably full but quite
untouched by the master of the house.

I was still standing uncertainly by the door-cheek,
and as Robert Fraser stepped across the little
room I saw him stagger; and rushed forward to
catch him.  But ere I could reach him he had
commanded himself, and turned to me with a smile
on his lips.  Yet even his brother was struck by
the ashen look on his face.

"Sit down, Robert," he said, "I will help myself."

But with a great effort the Stickit Minister set
the tall narrow dram-glass on the table and
ceremoniously filled out to his brother the stranger's
"portion," as was once the duty of country
hospitality in Scotland.

But the Doctor interrupted.

"Oh, I say!" he exclaimed, when he saw what
his brother was doing, "for heaven's sake not that
thing—give me a tumbler."

And without further ceremony he went to the
cupboard; then he cried to Bell Gregory to
fetch him some hot water, and mixed himself a
steaming glass.

But the Stickit Minister did not sit down.  He
stood up by the mantelpiece all trembling.  I
noted particularly that his fingers spilled half the
contents of the dram-glass as he tried to pour
them back into the decanter.

"Oh, haste ye, Henry!" he said, with a pleading
anxiety in his voice I had never heard there in
any trouble of his own; "take up your drink and
drive as fast as ye can to succour the poor woman's
bairns.  It is not for nothing that she would come
here seeking you at this time of night!"

His brother laughed easily as he reseated himself
and drew the tumbler nearer to his elbow.

"That's all you know, Robert," he said; "why,
they come all the way to Cairn Edward after me
if their little finger aches, let alone over here.  I
daresay some of the brats have got the mumps,
and the mother saw me as I drove past.  No,
indeed—she and they must just wait till I get
through my business at Whinnyliggate!"

"I ask you, Henry," said his brother eagerly,
"do this for my sake; it is not often that I ask
you anything—nor will I have long time now
wherein to ask!"

"Well," grumbled the young doctor, rising and
finishing the toddy as he stood, "I suppose I must,
if you make a point of it.  But I will just look
in at Whinnyliggate on my way across.  Earmark
is a good two miles on my way home!"

"Thank you, Henry," said Robert Fraser, "I
will not forget this kindness to me!"

With a brusque nod Dr. Henry Fraser strode
out through the kitchen, among whose merry
groups his comings and goings always created a
certain hush of awe.  In a few minutes more we
could hear the clear clatter of the horse's shod
feet on the hard "macadam" as he turned out
of the soft sandy loaning into the main road.

The Stickit Minister sank back into his chair.

"Thank God!" he said, with a quick intake of
breath almost like a sob.

I looked down at him in surprise.

"Robert, why are you so troubled about this
woman's bairns?" I asked.

He did not answer for a while, lying fallen in
upon himself in his great armchair of worn horse-hair,
as if the strain had been too great for his weak
body.  When he did reply it was in a curiously
far-away voice like a man speaking in a dream.

"They are Jessie Loudon's bairns," he said, "and
a' the comfort she has in life!"

I sat down on the hearthrug beside him—a
habit I had when we were alone together.  It
was thus that I used to read Homer and Horace
to him in the long winter forenights, and wrangle
for happy hours over a construction or the turning
of a phrase in the translation.  So now I simply sat
and was silent, touching his knee lightly with my
shoulder.  I knew that in time he would tell me all
he wished me to hear.  The old eight-day clock in
the corner (with "*John Grey, Kilmaurs, 1791*"
in italics across the brass face of it), ticked on
interminably through ten minutes, and I heard the
feet of the men come in from suppering the horse,
before Robert said another word.  Then he spoke:
"Alec," he said, very quietly—he could hardly say
or do anything otherwise (or rather I thought so
before that night).  "I have this on my spirit—it
is heavy like a load.  When I broke it to Jessie
Loudon that I could never marry her, as I told you,
I did not tell you that she took it hard and high,
speaking bitter words that are best forgotten.  And
then in a week or two she married Gib Barbour,
a good-for-nothing, good-looking young ploughman,
a great don at parish dances—no meet
mate for her.  And that I count the heaviest part
of my punishment.

"And since that day I have not passed word
or salutation with Jessie Loudon—that is, with
Jessie Barbour.  But on a Sabbath day, just before
I was laid down last year—a bonnie day in
June—I met her as I passed though a bourock fresh
with the gowden broom, and the 'shilfies' and
Jennie Wrens singing on every brier.  I had been
lookin' for a sheep that had broken bounds.  And
there she sat wi' a youngling on ilka knee.  There
passed but ae blink o' the e'en between us—ane
and nae mair.  But oh, Alec, as I am a sinful
man—married wife though she was, I kenned that she
loved me, and she kenned that I loved her wi'
the love that has nae ending!"

There was a long pause here, and the clock
struck with a long preparatory *g-r-r-r*, as if it were
clearing its throat in order to apologise for the
coming interruption.

"And that," said Robert Fraser, "was the reason
why Jessie Loudon would not come up to the
Dullarg this nicht—no, not even for her bairns'
sake!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE STICKIT MINISTER WINS THROUGH`:

.. class:: center large bold

   THE STICKIT MINISTER WINS THROUGH

.. vspace:: 2

Yet Jessie Loudon did come to the Dullarg that
night—and that for her children's sake.

Strangely enough, in writing of an evening so
fruitful in incident, I cannot for the life of me
remember what happened during the next two
hours.  The lads and lasses came in for the
"Taking of the Book."  So much I do recall.
But that was an exercise never omitted on any
pretext in the house of the ex-divinity student.
I remember this also, because after the brief
prelude of the psalm-singing (it was the 103rd),
the Stickit Minister pushed the Bible across to
me, open at the thirty-eighth chapter of Job.  The
envelope was still there.  Though it was turned
sideways I could see the faintly written address:

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

   *MR. ROBERT FRASER,*
       *Student in Divinity,*
           *50, St. Leonard's Street,*
               *Edinburgh.*

.. vspace:: 2

Even as I looked I seemed to hear again the
woman's voice in the dark loaning—"I canna
gang in *there*!"  And in a lightning flash of
illumination it came to me what the answer to
that letter had meant to Jessie Loudon, and the
knowledge somehow made me older and sadder.

Then with a shaking voice I read the mighty
words before me: "When the morning stars
sang together and all the sons of God shouted for
joy"....  But when I came to the verse which
says: "Have the gates of death been opened unto
thee?  Or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow
of death?" I saw the Stickit Minister nod his head
three times very slightly, and a strange subtle
smile came over his face as though he could have
answered: "Yea, Lord, verily I have seen
them—they have been opened to me!"

And as the lads and lasses filed out in a kind
of wondering silence after Robert Fraser had
prayed—not kneeling down, but sitting erect in
his chair and looking out before him with
wide-open eyes—we in the little sitting-room became
conscious of a low knocking, persistent and remote,
somewhere about the house of Dullarg.  We could
hear Bell Gregory open and then immediately
close the kitchen door, having evidently found no
one there.  The knocking still continued.

"I believe it is somebody at the front door," I
said, turning in that direction.

And then the Stickit Minister cried out in a
curious excited voice: "Open to them—open,
Alec!  Quick, man!"

And his voice went through me with a kind of
thrill, for I knew not who it was he expected to
enter, whether sheriff's officer or angry creditor—or
as it might be the Angel of the Presence
Himself come to summon his soul to follow.

Nevertheless, with quaking heart enough, and
resolving in future to be a more religious man, I
made bold to undo the door.

The woman I had seen in the lane stood before
me, as it were, projected out of the dense darkness
behind, her shawl fallen back from her face, and
her features all pale and changeful in the flicker of
the candle I had snatched up to take with me into
the little hall.  For the front door was only used
on state occasions, as when the parish minister
came to call, and at funerals.

"He has not come—and the bairns are dying!
So I had to come back!" she cried, more hoarsely
and breathlessly than I had ever heard woman
speak.  But her eyes fairly blazed and her lips
were parted wide for my answer.

"Dr. Fraser left here more than an hour ago,"
I stammered.  "Has he not been to see the
children?"

"No—no, I tell you, no.  And they are
choking—dying—it is the trouble in the throat.  They
will die if he does not come——"

I heard a noise behind me, and the next moment
I found myself put aside like a child, and Robert
Fraser stood face to face with her that had been
Jessie Loudon.

"Come in," he said.  And when she drew back
from him with a kind of shudder, and felt uncertainly
for her shawl, he stepped aside and motioned her
to enter with a certain large and commanding
gesture I had never seen him use before.  And as
if accustomed to obey, the woman came slowly
within the lighted room.  Even then, however,
she would not sit down, but stood facing us both,
a girl prematurely old, her lips nearly as pale as
her worn cheeks, her blown hair disordered and
wispy about her forehead, and only the dark
and tragic flashing of her splendid eyes telling of
a bygone beauty.

The Stickit Minister stood up also, and as he
leaned his hand upon the table, I noticed that he
gently shut the Bible which I had left open, that
the woman's eye might not fall upon the faded
envelope which marked the thirty-eighth of Job.

"Do I understand you to say," he began, in a
voice clear, resonant, and full, not at all the voice
of a stricken man, "that my brother has not yet
visited your children?"

"He had not come when I ran out—they are
much worse—dying, I think!" she answered, also
in another voice and another mode of speech—yet
a little stiffly, as if the more correct method had
grown unfamiliar by disuse.

For almost the only time in his life I saw a look,
stern and hard, come over the countenance of the
Stickit Minister.

"Go home, Jessie," he said; "I will see that he
is there as fast as horses can bring him!"

She hesitated a moment.

"Is he not here?" she faltered.  "Oh, tell me
if he is—I meant to fetch him back.  I dare not
go back without him!"

The Stickit Minister went to the door with firm
step, the woman following without question or
argument.

"Fear not, but go, Jessie," he said; "my brother
is not here, but he will be at the bairns' bedside
almost as soon as you.  I promise you."

"Thank you, Robin," she stammered, adjusting
the shawl over her head and instantly disappearing
into the darkness.  The old sweethearting name
had risen unconsciously to her lips in the hour
of her utmost need.  I think neither of them
noticed it.

"And now help me on with my coat," said
Robert Fraser, turning to me.  "I am going over
to the village."

"You must not," I cried, taking him by the
arm; "let *me* go—let me put in the pony; I
will be there in ten minutes!"

"I have no pony now," he said gently and a
little sadly, "I have no need of one.  And besides,
the quickest way is across the fields."

It was true.  The nearest way to the village,
by a great deal, was by a narrow foot-track that
wound across the meadows.  But, fearing for his
life, I still tried to prevent him.

"It will be your death!" I said, endeavouring
to keep him back.  "Let me go alone!"

"If Henry is where I fear he is," he answered,
calmly, "he would not stir for you.  But he will
for me.  And besides, I have passed my word
to—to Jessie!"

The details of that terrible night journey I will
not enter upon.  It is sufficient to say that I bade
him lean on me, and go slowly, but do what I
would I could not keep him back.  Indeed, he
went faster than I could accompany him—for,
in order to support him a little, I had to walk
unevenly along the ragged edges of the little
field-path.  All was dark gray above, beneath, and to
the right of us.  Only on the left hand a rough
whinstone dyke stood up solidly black against the
monotone of the sky.  The wind came in cold
swirls, with now and then a fleck of snow that
stung the face like hail.  I had insisted on the
Stickit Minister taking his plaid about him in
addition to his overcoat, and the ends of it flicking
into my eyes increased the difficulty.

I have hardly ever been so thankful in my life,
as when at last I saw the lights of the village
gleam across the little bridge, as we emerged
from the water-meadows and felt our feet firm
themselves on the turnpike road.

From that point the Stickit Minister went faster
than ever.  Indeed, he rushed forward, in spite
of my restraining arm, with some remaining
flicker of the vigour which in youth had made
him first on the hillside at the fox-hunt and first
on the haystacks upon the great day of the
inbringing of the winter's fodder.

It seemed hardly a moment before we were at
the door of the inn—the Red Lion the name of it,
at that time in the possession of one "Jeems"
Carter.  Yes, Henry Fraser was there.  His horse
was tethered to an iron ring which was fixed in
the whitewashed wall, and his voice could be heard
at that very moment leading a rollicking chorus.
Then I remembered.  It was a "Cronies'" night.
This was a kind of informal club recruited from
the more jovial of the younger horsebreeding
farmers of the neighbourhood.  It included the
local "vet.," a bonnet laird or two grown lonesome
and thirsty by prolonged residence upon the edges
of the hills, and was on all occasions proud and
glad to welcome a guest so distinguished and
popular as the young doctor of Cairn Edward.

"Loose the beast and be ready to hand me the
reins when I come out!" commanded the Stickit
Minister, squaring his stooped shoulders like the
leader of a forlorn hope.

So thus it happened that I did not see with my
own eyes what happened when Robert Fraser
opened the door of the "Cronies'" club-room.
But I have heard it so often recounted that I
know as well as if I had seen.  It was the Laird
of Butterhole who told me, and he always said
that it made a sober man of him from that day
forth.  It was (he said) like Lazarus looking out
of the sepulchre after they had rolled away the
stone.

Suddenly in the midst of their jovial chorus
some one said "*Hush*!"—some one of themselves—and
instinctively all turned towards the door.

And lo! there in the doorway, framed in the
outer dark, his broad blue bonnet in his hand, his
checked plaid waving back from his shoulders,
stood a man, pale as if he had come to them
up through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
With a hand white as bone, he beckoned to his
brother, who stood with his hands on the table
smiling and swaying a little with tipsy gravity.

"Why, Robert, what are you doing here——?"
he was beginning.  But the Stickit Minister
broke in.

"Come!" he said, sternly and coldly, "the
children you have neglected are dying—if they
die through your carelessness you will be their
murderer!"

And to the surprise of all, the tall and florid
younger brother quailed before the eye of this
austere shade.

"Yes, I will come, Robert—I was coming in a
moment anyway!"

And so the Stickit Minister led him out.
There was no great merriment after that in the
"Cronies'" club that night.  The members conferred
chiefly in whispers, and presently emptying
their glasses, they stole away home.

But no mortal knows what Robert Fraser said
to his brother during that drive—something
mightily sobering at all events.  For when the
two reached the small cluster of cothouses lying
under the lee of Earmark wood, the young man,
though not trusting himself to articulate speech,
and somewhat over-tremulous of hand, was yet
in other respects completely master of himself.
I was not present at the arrival, just as I had
not seen the startling apparition which broke up
the "Cronies'" club.  The doctor's gig held only
two, and as soon as I handed Robert Fraser the
reins, the beast sprang forward.  But I was limber
and a good runner in those days, and though
the gray did his best I was not far behind.

There is no ceremony at such a house in time
of sickness.  The door stood open to the wall.  A
bright light streamed through and revealed the
inequalities of the little apron of causewayed
cobblestones.  I entered and saw Henry Fraser
bending over a bed on which a bairn was lying.
Robert held a candle at his elbow.  The mother
paced restlessly to and fro with another child in
her arms.  I could see the doctor touch again
and again the back of the little girl's throat with
a brush which he continually replenished from a
phial in his left hand.

Upon the other side of the hearthstone from the
child's bed a strong country lout sat, sullenly
"becking" his darned stocking feet at the clear
embers of the fire.  Then the mother laid the first
child on the opposite bed, and turned to where
the doctor was still operating.

Suddenly Henry Fraser stood erect.  There was
not a trace of dissipation about him now.  The
tradition of his guild was as a mantle of dignity
about him.

"It is all right," he said as he took his brother's
hand in a long clasp.  "Thank you, Robert, thank
you a thousand times—that you brought me
here in time!"

"Nay, rather, thank God!" said Robert Fraser,
solemnly.

And even as he stood there the Stickit Minister
swayed sidelong, but the next moment he had
recovered himself with a hand on the bed-post.
Then very swiftly he drew a handkerchief from
his pocket and set it to his lips.

His brother and I went towards him with a quick
apprehension.  But the Stickit Minister turned
from us both to the woman, who took two swift
steps towards him with her arms outstretched, and
such a yearning of love on her face as I never
saw before or since.  The sullen lout by the fire,
drowsed on unheeding.

"*Jessie!*" cried the Stickit Minister, and with
that fell into her arms.  She held him there a long
moment as it had been jealously, her head bent
down upon his.  Then she delivered him up to
me, slowly and reluctantly.

Henry Fraser put his hand on his heart and
gave a great sob.

"My brother is dead!" he said.

But Jessie Loudon did not utter a word.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`GIBBY THE EEL, STUDENT IN DIVINITY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   GIBBY THE EEL, STUDENT IN DIVINITY

.. vspace:: 2

Naturalists have often remarked how little
resemblance there is between the young of certain
animals and the adult specimen.  Yonder tottering
quadrangular arrangement of chewed string,
remotely and inadequately connected at the upper
corners, is certainly the young of the horse.  But
it does not even remotely suggest the war-horse
sniffing up the battle from afar.  This irregular
yellow ball of feathers, with the steel-blue mask set
beneath its half-opened eyelids, is most ridiculously
unlike the magnificent eagle, which (in books) stares
unblinded into the very eye of the noonday sun.

In like manner the young of the learned
professions are by no means like the full-fledged
expert of the mysteries.  If in such cases the
child is the father of the man, the parentage is
by no means apparent.

To how many medical students would you
willingly entrust the application of one square inch
of sticking-plaster to a cut finger, or the care of a
half-guinea umbrella?  What surgeon would you
not, in an emergency, trust with all you hold dear?
You may cherish preferences and even prejudices,
but as a whole the repute of the profession is
above cavil.

There is, perhaps, more continuity above the
legal profession, but even there it is a notable fact
that the older and more successful a lawyer is,
the more modest you find him, and the more
diffident of his own infallibility.  Indeed, several
of the most eminent judges are in this matter
quite as other men.

But of all others, the divinity student is perhaps
the most misunderstood.  He is wilfully
misrepresented by those who ought to know him best.
Nay, he misrepresents himself, and when he doffs
tweeds and takes to collars which fasten behind and
a long-skirted clerical coat, he is apt to disown his
past self; and often succeeds in persuading himself
that as he is now, diligent, sedate, zealous of good
works, so was he ever.

Only sometimes, when he has got his Sunday
sermons off his mind and two or three of the
augurs are gathered together, will the adult clerk
in holy orders venture to lift the veil and chew
the cud of ancient jest and prank not wholly
sanctified.

Now there ought to be room, in a gallery which
contains so many portraits of ministers, for one
or two Students of Divinity, faithfully portrayed.[#]


[#] These studies I wrote down during certain winters,
when, to please my mother, I made a futile attempt to
prepare myself "to wag my head in a pulpit."  Saving a
certain prolixity of statement (which the ill-affected call
long-windedness), they were all I carried away with me when I
resolved to devote myself to the medical profession.—A. McQ.


And of these the first and chief is Mr. Gilbert
Denholm, Master of Arts, Scholar in Theology—to
his class-fellows more colloquially and generally
known as "Gibby the Eel."

At college we all loved Gilbert.  He was a
merry-hearted youth, and his mere bodily presence
was enough to make glad the countenances of his
friends.  His father was a minister in the West
with a large family to bring up, which he effected
with success upon a stipend of surprising tenuity.
So it behoved Gilbert to keep himself at college
by means of scholarships and private tuition.  His
pupils had a lively time of it.

Yet his only fault obvious to the world was
a certain light-headed but winsome gaiety, and a
tendency to jokes of the practical kind.  I used
often to restrain Gilbert's ardour by telling him
that if he did not behave himself and walk more
seemly, he would get his bursary taken from him
by the Senatus.

This would recall Gilbert to himself when almost
everything else had failed.

Part of Gilbert's personal equipment was the
certain lithe slimness of figure which gained him
the title of "Gibby the Eel," and enabled him to
practise many amusing pranks in the class-room.
He would have made an exceptionally fine burglar,
for few holes were too small and no window too
secure for Gilbert to make his exits and entrances
by.  Without going so far as to say that he could
wriggle himself through an ordinary keyhole, I
will affirm that if anybody ever could, that person
was Gilbert Denholm.

One of the most ordinary of his habits was that
of wandering here and there throughout the
classroom during the hour of lecture, presuming upon
the professor's purblindness or lack of attention.
You would be sitting calmly writing a letter,
drawing caricatures in your note-book, or
otherwise improving your mind with the most laudable
imitation of attention, when suddenly, out of the
black and dusty depths about your feet would
arise the startling apparition of Gibby the Eel.
He would nod, casually inquire how you found
yourself this morning, and inform you that he only
dropped in on his way up to Bench Seventeen
to see Balhaldie, who owed him a shilling.

"Well, so long!"  Again he would nod
pleasantly, and sink into the unknown abyss
beneath the benches as noiselessly and
unobtrusively as a smile fades from a face.

Sometimes, however, when in wanton mood, his
progress Balhaldie-wards could be guessed at by
the chain of "*Ouchs*" and "*Ohs*" which indicated
his subterranean career.  The suddenness with
which Gilbert could awaken to lively interest the
most somnolent and indifferent student, by means
of a long brass pin in the calf of the leg, had
to be felt to be appreciated.  Thereupon ensued
the sound of vigorous kicking, but generally by
the time the injured got the range of his unseen
foe, Gilbert could be observed two or three forms
above intently studying a Greek Testament wrong
side up, and looking the picture of meek
reproachful innocence.

In no class could Gilbert use so much freedom
of errancy as in that of the venerable Professor
Galbraith.  Every afternoon this fine old gentleman
undertook to direct our studies in New Testament
exegesis, and incidentally afforded his students an
hour of undisturbed repose after the more exciting
labours of the day.

No one who ever studied under Dr. Simeon
Galbraith will forget that gentle droning voice
overhead, that full-orbed moon-like countenance,
over which two smaller moons of beamy spectacle
seemed to be in perpetual transit, and in especial
he will remember that blessed word "Hermeneutics,"
of which (it is said) there was once one
student who could remember the meaning.  He
died young, much respected by all who knew him.
Dreamily the great word came to you, soothing
and grateful as mother's lullaby, recurrent as the
wash of a quiet sea upon a beach of softest sand.
"Gentlemen, I will now proceed to call your
attention ... to the study of Hermeneutics
... Hermeneut ... Gegenbauer has affirmed
... but in my opeenion, gentlemen
... Hermeneutics...!"  (Here you passed from the
subconscious state into Nirvana.)

And so on, and so on, till the college bell clanged
in the quadrangle, and it was time to file out for
a wash and brush-up before dinner in hall.

Upon one afternoon every week, Professor
Galbraith read with his students the "Greek
Oreeginal."  He prescribed half-a-dozen chapters
of "Romans" or "Hebrews," and expected us to
prepare them carefully.  I verily believe that he
imagined we did.  This shows what a sanguine
and amiable old gentlemen he was.  The beamy
spectacle belied him not.

The fact was that we stumbled through our
portions by the light of nature, aided considerably
by a class copy of an ingenious work known by
the name of "Bagster," in which every Greek word
had the English equivalent marked in plain figures
underneath, and all the verbs fully parsed at the
foot of the page.

The use of this was not considered wicked,
because, like the early Christians, in Professor
Galbraith's class we had all things common.
This was our one point of resemblance to the
primitive Church.

One day the Doctor, peering over his brown
leather folio, discerned the meek face and beaming
smile of Gilbert the Eel in the centre of Bench
One, immediately beneath him.

"Ah!  Mr. Denholm, will you read for us this
morning—beginning at the 29th verse—of the
chapter under consideration?"

And he subsided expectantly into his lecture.

Up rose Gilbert, signalling wildly with one hand
for the class "Bagster" to be passed to him, and
meantime grasping at the first Testament he could
see about him.  By the time he had read the
Greek of half-a-dozen verses, the sharpness of
the trouble was overpast.  He held in his hands
the Key of Knowledge, and translated and parsed
like a Cunningham Fellow—or any other fellow.

"Vairy well, Mr. Denholm; vairy well indeed.
You may now sit down while I proceed to expound
the passage!"

Whereupon Gibby the Eel ungratefully pitched
the faithful "Bagster" on the bench and
disappeared under the same himself on a visit to
Nicholson McFeat, who sat in the middle of the
class-room.

For five minutes—ten—fifteen, the gentle voice
droned on from the rostrum, the word "Hermeneutics"
discharging itself at intervals with the
pleasing gurgle of an intermittent spring.  Then
the Professor returned suddenly to his Greek
Testament.

"Mr. Denholm, you construed *vairy* well last
time.  Be good enough to continue at the place
you left off.  Mr. Denholm—where is
Mister—Mister Den—holm?"

And the moon-like countenance rose from its
eclipse behind six volumes of Owen (folio edition),
while the two smaller moons in permanent transit
directed themselves upon the vacant place in
Bench One, from which Gibby the Eel had construed
so glibly with the efficient aid of "Bagster."

"Mister—Mist—er Denholm?"

The Professor knew that he was absent-minded,
but (if the expression be allowable) he could have
sworn——.

"I am here, sir!"

Gibby the Eel, a little shame-faced and rumpled
as to hair, was standing plump in the very middle
of the class-room, in the place where he had been
endeavouring to persuade Nick McFeat to lend
him his dress clothes "to go to a conversazione
in," which request Nick cruelly persisted in refusing,
alleging first, that he needed the garments himself,
and secondly, that the Eel desired to go to no
"conversazione," but contrariwise to take a certain
Madge Robertson to the theatre.

At this moment the fateful voice of the Professor
broke in upon them just as they were rising to
the height of their great argument.

"Mister—Den—holm, will you go on where
you left off?"

Gibby rose, signalling wildly for "Bagster," and
endeavouring to look as if he had been a plant
of grace rooted and grounded on that very spot.
Professor Galbraith gazed at Gibby *in situ*, then at
the place formerly occupied by him, tried hard
to orient the matter in his head, gave it up, and
bade the translation proceed.

But "Bagster" came not, and Gilbert did not
distinguish himself this time.  Indeed, far from it.

"Will you parse the first verb, Mr. Denholm—no,
not that word!  That has usually been
considered a substantive, Mr. Denholm—the next
word, ah, yes!"

"The first aorist, active of—*confound you fellows,
where's that 'Bagster'?  I call it dashed mean—*yes,
sir, it is connected with the former clause by
the particle—*have you not found that book yet?
Oh, you beasts!*"

(The italics, it is hardly necessary to say, were
also spoken in italics, and were not an integral
part of Gibby's examination as it reached the ear
of Professor Galbraith.)

"Ah, that will do, Mr. Denholm—not so well—not
quite so well, sir—yet" (kindly) "not so vairy
ill either."

And Gilbert sat down to resume the discussion
of the dress clothes.  By this time, of course, he
considered himself quite safe from further molestation.
The Professor had never been known to call
up a man thrice in one day.  So, finding Nick
McFeat obdurate in the matter of the dress suit,
Gilbert announced his intention of visiting Kenneth
Kennedy, who, he said pointedly, was not a selfish
and unclean animal of the kind abhorred by Jews,
but, contrariwise, a gentleman—one who would
lend dress clothes for the asking.  And Kennedy's
were better clothes, any way, and had silk linings.
Furthermore, Nick need not think it, he (Mr. Gilbert
Denholm) would not demean himself to put
on his (Mr. McFeat's) dirty "blacks," which had
been feloniously filched from a last year's
scarecrow that had been left out all the winter.  And
furthermore, he (the said Gilbert) would take Madge
Robertson to the theatre in spite of him, and what
was more, cut Nick McFeat out as clean as a leek.

At this the latter laughed scornfully, affirming
that the grapes had a faintly sub-acid flavour,
and bade Gibby go his way.

Gibby went, tortuously and subterraneously
worming his way to the highest seats in the
synagogue, where Kenneth Kennedy, M.A., reposed at
full length upon a vacant seat, having artistically
bent a Highland cloak over a walking-stick to
represent scholastic meditation, if perchance the
kindly spectacle of the Professor should turn in his
direction.  Gibby gazed rapturously on his friend's
sleep, contemplating him, as once in the Latmian
cave Diana gazed upon Endymion.  He was
proceeding to ink his friend's face preparatory to
upsetting him on the floor, when he remembered
the dress suit just in time to desist.

"Eel, you are a most infamous pest—can't you
let a fellow alone?  What in the world do you
want now?"

Whereupon, with countenance of triple brass,
Gibby entered into the question of the dress suit
with subtlety and tact.  There never was so good
a chap as Kennedy, never one so generous.  He
(G.D.) would do as much for him again, and
he would bring it back the next day, pressed by
a tailor.

Kennedy, however, was not quite so enthusiastic.
There are several points of view in matters of
this kind.  Kenneth Kennedy did not, of course,
care "a dump" about Madge Robertson, but he
had the best interests of his silk-lined dress coat
at heart.

"That's all very well, Eel," he said, raising
himself reluctantly to the perpendicular; "but you
know as well as I do that the last time I lent
it to you, you let some wax drop on the waistcoat,
right on the pocket, and I have never been
able to get it out since——"

Suddenly the pair became conscious that the
gentle hum of exegetical divinity from the rostrum
had ceased.  The word "Hermeneutics" no longer
soothed and punctuated their converse at intervals
of five minutes, like the look-out's "All's well"
on a ship at sea.

"Ah, Mis—ter Den—holm, perhaps you have
recovered yourself by this time.  Be good enough
to continue where you left off—Mis—ter
Den—holm—Mister Denholm—where in the world is
Mr. Denholm?"

The spectacles were hardly beaming now.  A
certain shrewd suspicion mixed with the wonder in
their expression, as Dr. Galbraith gazed from the
Eel's position One to position Two, and back
again to position One.  Both were empty as the
cloudless empyrean.  His wonder culminated when
Gilbert was finally discovered in position Three,
high on the sky-line of Bench Twenty-four!

How Gilbert acquitted himself on this occasion
it is perhaps better not to relate.  I will draw a
kindly veil over the lamentable tragedy.  It is
sufficient to say that he lost his head completely—as
completely even as the aforesaid Miss Madge
Robertson could have wished.

And all though the disastrous exhibition the
Professor did not withdraw his gaze from the
wretched Eel, but continued to rebuke him, as
it seemed, for the astral and insubstantial nature
of his body.

No better proof can be adduced that the Eel
had become temporarily deranged, than the fact
that even now, when it was obvious that the long
latent suspicions of the Gentle Hermeneut were
at last aroused, he refused to abide in his breaches;
but, scorning all entreaty, and even Kennedy's
unconditioned promise of the dress suit, he proceeded
to crawl down the gallery steps, in order to regain
position Number One, in the front seat under the
Professor's very nose.

*Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.*

Meanwhile the class, at first raised to a state of
ecstatic enjoyment by the Eel's misfortunes, then
growing a little anxious lest he should go too far,
was again subsiding to its wonted peaceful hum,
like that of a vast and well-contented bumble-bee.

Suddenly we became aware that the Professor
was on his feet in the midst of a stern and
awful silence.

"My eye has fallen," he began solemnly, "on
what I do not expect to see.  I hope the—gentleman
will remember where he is—and who I am!"

During the pronouncement of this awful
allocution the professorial arm was extended, and a
finger, steady as the finger of Fate, pointed directly
at the unhappy Gibby, who, prone in the dust,
appeared to be meditating a discourse upon the
text, "I am a worm and no man!"

His head was almost on the level of the floor
and his limbs extended far up the gallery stairs.
To say that his face was fiery-red gives but a faint
idea of its colour, while a black streak upon his
nose proved that the charwomen of the college
were not a whit more diligent than the students
thereof.

What happened after this is a kind of maze.  I
suppose that Gibby regained a seat somewhere,
and that the lecture proceeded after a fashion;
but I do not know for certain.  Bursts of unholy
mirth forced their way through the best linen
handkerchiefs, rolled hard and used as gags.

But there grew up a feeling among many that
though doubtless there was humour in the case, the
Eel had gone a little too far, and if Professor
Galbraith were genuinely angered he might bring
the matter before the Senatus, with the result
that Gilbert would not only lose his bursary, but
be sent down as well, to his father's sorrow and
his own loss.

So when the class was at last over, half-a-dozen
of us gathered round Gibby and represented to
him that he must go at once to the retiring-room
and ask the Professor's pardon.

At first and for long the Eel was recalcitrant.
He would not go.  What was he to say?  We
instructed him.  We used argument, appeal,
persuasion.  We threatened torture.  Finally, yielding
to those heavier battalions on the side of which
Providence is said to fight, Gibby was led to the
door with a captor at each elbow.  We knocked;
he entered.  The door was shut behind him, but
not wholly.  Half-a-dozen ears lined the crack at
intervals, like limpets clinging to a smooth streak
on a tidal rock.  We could not hear the Eel's
words.  Only a vague murmur reached us, and I
doubt if much more reached Professor Galbraith.
The Eel stopped and there was a pause.  We
feared its ill omen.

"Poor Eel, the old man's going to report him!"
we whispered to each other.

And then we heard the words of the Angelical
Scholiast.

"Shake hands, Mr. Denholm.  If, as ye say, this
has been a lesson to you, it has been no less a
lesson to me.  Let us both endeavour to profit by
it, unto greater diligence and seemliness in our
walk and conversation.  We will say no more
about the matter, if you please, Mr. Denholm."

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We cheered the old man as he went out, till he
waved a kindly and tolerant hand back at us, and
there was more than a gleam of humour in the
kindly spectacles, as if our gentle Hermeneut were
neither so blind nor yet so dull in the uptake as
we had been accustomed to think him.

As for the Eel, he became a man from that day,
and, to a limited extent, put away childish
things—though his heart will remain ever young and
fresh.  His story is another story, and so far as
this little study goes it is enough to say that when
at last the aged Professor of Hermeneutics passed
to the region where all things are to be finally
explicated, it was Gilbert Denholm who got up the
memorial to his memory, which was subscribed to
by every student without exception he had ever
had.  And it was he who wrote Dr. Galbraith's
epitaph, of which the last line runs:

"GENTLE, A PEACE-MAKER, A LOVER OF
GOOD AND OF GOD."





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.. _`DR. GIRNIGO'S ASSISTANT`:

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   DOCTOR GIRNIGO'S ASSISTANT

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"Off, ye lendings!" said Gibby the Eel to his
heather-mixture knicker-bocker suit, on the day
when his Presbytery of Muirlands licensed him
to preach the gospel.

And within the self-same hour the Reverend
Gilbert Denholm, M.A., Probationer, in correct
ministerial garb, had the honour of dining with the
Presbytery, and of witnessing the remarkable
transformation which overtakes that august body
as soon as it dips its collective spoon in the
official soup.

I knew a Presbytery once which tried to lunch
on cold coffee and new bread.  The survivors
unanimously took to drink.

But the Presbytery of Muirlands were sage
fathers and brethren, and they knew better than
that.  They dined together in a reasonable manner
at the principal inn of the place.  An enthusiast,
who suggested that they should transfer their
custom to the new Temperance Hotel up near the
railway station, was asked if he had sent in his
returns on Life and Work—and otherwise severely
dealt with.

Gilbert had been remitted to the Presbytery
of Muirlands from his own West Country one of
Burnestown, because he had been appointed
assistant to the Reverend Doctor Girnigo of
Rescobie; and it was considered more satisfactory
that the Presbytery within whose bounds he was
to labour, should examine him concerning his
diligence and zeal.

So they asked him all the old posers which
had made the teeth of former examinees of the
Presbytery of Muirlands chatter in their heads.
But the Eel's teeth did not chatter.  He had got
a rough list from a friend who had been that way
before, and so passed the bar with flying colours.
The modest way in which the new brother (unattached)
behaved himself at dinner completed
Gibby's conquest of the Brethren—with the single
but somewhat important exception of the Reverend
Doctor Joseph Girnigo of Rescobie, Gilbert's future
chief.

It was the cross of Dr. Girnigo's life that his
session compelled him to engage an assistant.
Dr. Girnigo felt that here were three hundred
pieces of silver (or more accurately, £60 sterling)
which ought to have been given to the poor—that is,
to the right breeches' pocket of Joseph Girnigo—instead
of being squandered in providing such a thorn
in the flesh within the parish as a licensed assistant.

Dr. Girnigo was in the habit of saying, whenever
he had made it too hot for his acting assistant,
that he would rather look after three parishes than
one probationer.  At first the engaging and
dismission of these unfortunate young men had been
placed unreservedly in the Doctor's hands; but as
the affair assumed more and more the appearance
and proportions of a mere procession to and from
the railway station, the members of Session were
compelled to assume the responsibility themselves.
So long as the Doctor's sway continued
unchallenged, the new assistant usually arrived in
Nether Balhaldie's "machine" on Saturday night,
and departed on Tuesday morning very early in the
gig belonging to Upper Balhaldie.  He preached
on Sabbath, and Monday was spent in Dr. Girnigo's
study, where it was explained to him: first, that
he knew nothing; secondly, that what he thought
he knew was worse than nothing; thirdly, that
there is nothing more hateful than a vain pretence
of earthly learning; and fourthly, that Paul and
Silas knew nothing of "Creeticism."  No, they
were better employed—aye, and it would be telling
the young men of the day—the conclusion of the
whole matter being that the present victim would
never do at all for the parish of Rescobie and had
better go.

He went, in Upper Balhaldie's gig, and Watty
Learmont, the tenant thereof, who could be
trusted to know, said that the rejected probationers
very seldom engaged in prayer (to call prayer) on
the road to the station.  I do not know what
Watty meant to insinuate, but that is what he
said.  He had that mode of speech to perfection
which consists in saying one thing and giving the
impression that the speaker means another.

But it was felt that this was a state of affairs
which could not continue.  It amounted, indeed, to
nothing less than a scandal that the Session should
be paying £60 for an assistant, and that at the end
of the year eight of these should only have spent
exactly twenty-seven days in the parish, while the
remaining three hundred and thirty-eight days had
been occupied by the Doctor in filling the vacancies
he had himself created.  Besides, since he always
insisted on a week's trial without salary when he
engaged his man (in order, as he said, to discover
where there was a likelihood of the parties being
mutually satisfied), the shrewd business men of the
Session saw more than a probability of their good
and hardly gathered sixty "notes" still remaining
intact in the possession of their minister.

It was, however, the affair of the prayer-meeting
which brought the matter to a head.  For after all,
such hard-headed bargain-makers as Learmont,
Senior of Balhaldie, and his coadjutors on the
Session, could not help having a sort of respect
for the Doctor's business qualities.  But they
could not bear to be made a laughing stock of in
the market of Drumfern.

"What's this I hear aboot your new helper's
prayer-meetin' up at Rescobie?" Cochrane of
Tatierigs cried one Wednesday across the mart
ring to Upper Balhaldie.  "Is't true that that
minister o' yours broke it up wi' a horse-whup?"

No, it was not true.  But there was enough of
truth in it to make the members of Rescobie
Session nervous of public appearances for a long
time, indeed till the affair was forgotten.

The truth was that during the Doctor's absence
at the house of his married son in Drumfern,
Mr. Killigrew, a soft-voiced young man, who, being
exceedingly meek, had been left in charge of the
parish, thought it would be a surprise for his chief
if he started a prayer-meeting on Wednesday
evenings in the village schoolhouse.  He pictured
to himself his principal's delight when he should
hand over the new departure as a going concern.
So he made a house-to-house visitation of Rescobie
village and neighbourhood, this young man with
the soft voice.  The popular appeal was favourable.
He went round and saw the school-mistress.
She was fond of young men with soft voices
(and hats).  She readily consented to lend her
harmonium, and to lead the singing from a
certain popular hymn-book.

The first meeting was an unqualified success,
and the young man promptly began a series of
rousing addresses on the "Pilgrim's Progress."  There
were to be thirty in all.  But alas, for the
vanity of human schemes, the second address (on
the Slough of Despond) was scarcely under weigh
when, like an avenging host, or Cromwell entering
the Long Parliament, the Doctor strode into the
midst, booted and spurred, as he had ridden over
all the way from Drumfern.  He had a riding-whip
in his hand, which was the foundation of
the Tatierigs story, but there is no record that
he used it on any in the meeting.

The services closed without the benediction, and
as the Doctor wrath fully clicked the key in the
lock, he said that he would see the school-mistress
in the morning.

Then he turned to the young man in the soft
hat.  The remains left Rescobie early next
morning in Upper Balhaldie's gig.

Since this date it was enough to call out to
a Rescobie man, "Ony mair Pilgrims up your
way?" in order to have him set his dogs on you or
wrathfully bring down his herd's crook upon
your crown.

Being thus stirred to action, the Session wrestled
with Dr. Girnigo, and prevailing by the unanswerable
argument of the purse-strings, it took the
appointment and dismission of the "helpers" into
its own hands.

So Dr. Girnigo had to try other tactics.  Usually
he gave the unfortunate "helper" delivered into
his hands no peace night nor day, till in despair
he threw up his appointment, and shook the
Rescobie dust off the soles of his feet.

First (under the new regime) came Alexander
Fairbody, a thoughtful, studious lad, whom the
Doctor set to digging top-dressing into his garden
till his hands were blistered.  He would not allow
him to preach, and as to praying, if he wanted
to do that he could go to his bedroom.  So
Mr. Fairbody endured hardness for ten days, and
then resigned in a written communication, alleging
as a reason that he had come to Rescobie as to
work in a spiritual and not in a material vineyard.
The Doctor burked the document, and the Reverend
Robert Begg reigned in the stead of Alexander
Fairbody, resigned for cause.

Mr. Begg was athletic.  Him Dr. Girnigo set
to the work of arranging his old sermons, seven
barrels full.  He was to catalogue them under
eighteen heads, and be prepared to give his reasons
in every case.  The first three classes were—"Sermons
Enforcing the Duty of Respect for
Ecclesiastical Superiors," "Sermons upon Christian
Giving," and "Sermons Inculcating Humility in
the Young."  The Reverend Robert Begg would
have enjoyed the digging of the garden.  He
stood just one full week of the sermon-arranging.
He declared that sixteen of the eighteen classes
were cross divisions, and that the task of looking
through the written matter permanently enfeebled
his intellect.  Sympathetic friends consoled him
with the reflection that nobody would ever find
out.

On the second Wednesday after his appointment
he departed, uttering sentiments which were a
perfect guarantee of good faith (but which were
manifestly not for publication) to Watty Learmont
as he journeyed to the railway station in the
Upper Balhaldie gig.

A new sun rose upon Rescobie with the coming
of Gibby the Eel.  He had known both of his
predecessors at college, and he had pumped them
thoroughly upon the life and doctrine of their
former chief.  In addition to which Gilbert had
taken to him a suit of tweeds and a fishing-rod,
and with a piece of bread and cheese in his pocket,
and guile in his heart, he had gone up the Rescobie
water, asking for drinks at the farmhouses on the
way, much as he used to perambulate Professor
Galbraith's class-room in his old, abandoned,
unregenerate, sans-dog-collar days.

Hitherto the helper, a mere transient bird-of-passage,
had lodged with Mistress Honeytongue,
the wife of Hosea Honeytongue, the beadle and
minister's man of Rescobie.  This brought the
youth, as it were, under the shadow of the manse,
and what was more to the point, under the
eye of the minister.  But Gilbert Denholm had
other aims.

He took rooms in the village, quite
three-quarters of a mile from the manse, with one
Mrs. Tennant, the widow of a medical man in
the neighbourhood who had died without making
adequate provision for his family.  She had never
taken a lodger before, but since his investiture in
clericals the Eel had filled out to a handsome
figure, and he certainly smiled a most irresistible
smile as he stood on the doorstep.

Gilbert arrived late one Friday night in
Rescobie, and speculation was rife in the parish
as to whether he would preach on Sabbath or
not.  Most were of the negative opinion, but
Watty Learmont, for reasons of his own, offered
to wager a new hat that he would.

On Saturday morning Gilbert put on his longest
tails and his doggiest collar and marched boldly
up to the front door of the manse, with the general
air of playing himself along the road upon war
pipes.  Perhaps, however, he was only whistling
silently to keep his courage up.

"Is Miss Girnigo at home?" said he to the
somewhat stern-visaged personage who opened
the door.

"*I* am Miss Girnigo," said a sepulchral voice.
(Miss Girnigo was suffering from the summer cold
which used to be called a "hay fever.")

"Indeed—I might have known; how delightful!"
said the Eel, now, alas! transformed into an old
serpent; "I am so glad to find you at home!"

"I am always at home!" returned Miss Girnigo,
keeping up a semblance of severity, but secretly
mollified by the homage of Gibby's smile.

"Then I hope you will let me come here very
often.  I shall find it lonely in the village, but I
thought it better to be near my work," said
Gilbert; "I am staying with Mrs. Tennant, the
doctor's widow.  Do you know Mrs. Tennant?"

"Oh, yes," said Miss Girnigo, smiling for the
first time; "she is one of my dearest friends.  I
often go there to tea."

"I love tea," said Gilbert, with enthusiasm;
"Mrs. Tennant has invited me to take tea in her parlour
in the afternoon as often as I like, but I was
not expecting such a reward as this!"

Miss Girnigo was considerably over forty, but
she was even more than youthfully amenable to
flattery and to the Eel's beaming and boyish face.

"You are the new assistant," she said, "Mister—ah——!"

"Denholm!" said Gilbert, smiling; "it is a
nice name.  Don't you think so?"

"I have not thought anything about the matter,"
said Miss Girnigo, bridling, yet with the ghost of
a blush.  "I do not charge my mind with such
things.  Have you come to see my father?"

"Yes, after a while.  But just at present I
would rather see your plants!" said the Serpent,
who had been well coached.  (No wonder Watty
Learmont smiled when he asserted that the New
Man would preach on Sunday.)

Now Miss Girnigo lived chiefly for her flowers.
The Serpent had a list of them, roughly but
accurately compiled from the lady's seed-merchant's
ledger by a friend in the business.  He had also
a fund of information respecting "plants," very
recently acquired, on his mind.

"How did you know I was fond of flowers?"
asked Miss Girnigo.

"Could any one doubt it?" cried Gilbert, with
enthusiasm.  "Who was the Jo——" (he was on the
brink of saying "Johnny") "g—gentleman of whom
it was said: 'If you want to see his monument,
look around'—Sir Christopher Wren, wasn't it?
Well, I looked around as I came up the street!"

And Gilbert took in the whole front of the
manse with his glance.  It certainly was very
pretty, covered from top to bottom with rambler
roses and Virginia cress.

Gilbert entered, and as they passed in front of
the minister's study door Miss Girnigo almost
skittishly made a sign for silence, and Gilbert
tip-toed past with an exaggeration of caution
which made his companion laugh.  They found
themselves presently in the drawing-room, where
again the flower-pots were everywhere, but specially
banked round the oriel window.  Gilbert named
them one after the other like children at a
baptism, with a sort of easy certainty and
familiarity.  His friend the nurseryman's clerk
had not failed him.  Miss Girnigo was delighted.

"Well," she said, "it *is* pleasant to have some
one who knows Ceterach Officinarum from a
kail-stock.  We shall go botanising together!"

"Ye-es," said Gilbert, a little uncertainly, and
with less enthusiasm than might have been
expected.

"Good heavens," he was saying, "how shall I
grind up the beastly thing if I have to live up
to all this?"

But Miss Girnigo was in high good-humour,
though her pleasure was sadly marred by the
incipient cold in her head, which she was conscious
prevented her from doing herself justice.  At
forty, eyes that water and a nose tipped with
pink do not make for maiden beauty.

"I have a dreadful cold coming on,
Mr. Denholm," she said; "I really am not fit to
be seen.  I wonder what I was thinking of to
ask you in!"

"Try this," said Gilbert, pulling a kind of
india-rubber puff-ball out of his pocket; "it is
quite good.  It makes you sneeze like the
very—ahem—like anything.  Stops a cold in no
time—won't be happy till you get it!"

"I don't dare to—how does it work?" demurred
Miss Girnigo.

Gilbert illustrated, and began to sneeze promptly,
as the snuff titillated his air passages.

"Now you try!" he said, and smiled.

Gilbert held it insinuatingly to the lady's nostrils
and pumped vigorously.

"*A-tish—shoo!*" remarked the lady, as if he
had touched a spring.

"*A-tish—shoo-oo-ooh!*" replied Gilbert.

After that they responded antiphonally, like
Alp answering Alp, till the door opened and
Dr. Girnigo appeared with a half-written sheet
of sermon paper in his hand.

The guilty pair stood rooted to the ground—at
least, spasmodically so, for every other moment
a sneeze lifted one of them upon tiptoe.

"What is this, Arabella, what is this?  What is
this young man doing here?"

"Don't be—*a-tish—oo*—stupid, papa!  You know
very well—*shoo*—it is Mr. Denholm, the new
Assist—*aroo*!"

"Sir!" said Dr. Girnigo, turning upon his
junior and angrily stamping his foot.

Gilbert held out his hand, and as the Doctor
did not take it he waggled it feebly in the air
with a sort of impotent good-fellowship.

"All right," he said; "better presently—only
c-curing Miss—Miss Girni—*goo-ahoo—arish-chee-hoo*—of
a cold!"

"I do not know any one of that name, sir!"
thundered the Doctor, not wholly unreasonably.

"No?" said Gilbert, anxiously; "I understood
that this—*a-tishoo*—lady was Miss Girnigo, though
I thought she was too young for a daughter—your
granddaughter, perhaps, Doctor?"

And the smile once more took in Miss Girnigo
as if she had been a beautiful picture.

By this time Miss Girnigo had somewhat recovered.

"Papa," she said, sharply, "Mr. Denholm is going
to be such an acquisition.  He is a botanist—a
Fellow of the Linnæan Society, I understand——"

"Of Pittenweem," muttered Gilbert between
his teeth.

"And he is going to preach on Sunday.  You
have had a lot to worry you this week and
need a rest.  Besides, your best shirts are not
ironed—-not dry indeed.  The weather has been
so bad!"

"I had made up my mind to preach on Sabbath
myself," said Dr. Girnigo, who, though a tyrant
untamed without, was held in considerable
subjection to the higher power within the bounds of
his own house.

"Nonsense, papa—I will not allow you to think
of such a thing!" cried Miss Girnigo.  "Besides,
Mr. Denholm is coming to supper to-night, and we
will talk botany all the time!"

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Which was why the Eel, falling off his bicycle
at 1.45 p.m. that same day in front of my house
in Cairn Edward (sixteen miles away), burst into
my consulting-room with the following demand,
proclaimed in frenzied accents: "Lend me your
Bentley's Botany, or something—not that beastly
jaw-breaking German thing you are so fond of, but
something plain and easy, with the names of all
the plants in.  I have the whole thing to get up
by eight o'clock to-night, and I'll eat my head if
I can remember what a cotyledon is!"

It is believed that on the way back the Eel
studied Bentley, cunningly adjusted on the
handlebar, with loops of string to keep the pages from
fluttering.  (He was a trick-rider of repute.)  At
any rate, he did not waste his time, and arrived
at the manse so full of botanical terms that he had
considerable difficulty in making himself intelligible
to the maid, who on this occasion, being cleaned
up, opened the door to him in state.

This was the beginning of the taming of the
tiger.  Gilbert preached the next forenoon, and
pleased the Doctor greatly by the excellent taste
of his opening remarks upon his text, which was,
"To preach the gospel ... and not to boast
in another man's line of things made ready to
our hand."

The preacher, as a new and original departure,
divided his subject into three heads, as followeth:
First, "The Duty of Respect for Ecclesiastical
Superiors"; second, "The Duty of Christian
Liberality" (he had to drag this in neck and
crop); and thirdly, "The Supreme Duty of
Humility in the Young with respect to their
Elders."

While he was looking it over on Sunday morning
Gilbert heartily confounded his friend Begg for
forgetting the other fifteen divisions of
Dr. Girnigo's sermons.

"I could have made a much better appearance
if that fellow Begg had had any sense!" he said
to himself.  "But" (with a sigh) "I must just do
the best I can with these."

Nevertheless, Dr. Girnigo considered that Gibby
had surpassed himself in his application.  He
showed how any good that he might do in the
parish must not be set down to his credit, but to that
of Another who had so long laboured among them;
and how that he (the preacher), being but "as one
entering upon another man's line of things," it
behoved him above all things not to be boastful.

"A very sound address—quite remarkable in
one so young!" was the Doctor's verdict as
he met the Session after the close of Gilbert's
first service.

The Session and congregation, however, did not
approve quite so highly, having had a surfeit of
similar teaching during the past forty years.

But Walter Learmont, senior (sad to tell it
of an Elder), winked the sober eye and remarked
to his intimates: "Bide a wee—he kens his way
aboot, thon yin.  He wad juist be drawin' the
auld man's leg!"

At any rate, certain it is that after this auspicious
beginning Gibby the Eel (M.A.) remained longer
in Rescobie than all his predecessors put together.

But it was to Jemima Girnigo that he owed this.





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.. _`THE GATE OF THE UPPER GARDEN`:

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   THE GATE OF THE UPPER GARDEN

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For the first six months that Gibby the Eel,
otherwise the Reverend Gilbert Denholm, M.A.,
acted as "helper" to Dr. Joseph Girnigo in the
parish of Rescobie, he was much pleased with
himself.  He laughed with his friend and
classmate, Robertland, over the infatuation of the
doctor's old maid daughter.  The parish, reading
the situation like a book, smiled broadly when the
"helper" and Miss Jemima Girnigo were discerned
on an opposite braeface, botanising together, or,
with heads bent over some doubtful bloom, stood
silhouetted against the sunlit green of some glade
in Knockandrews wood.

During this period Gibby hugged himself upon
his cleverness, but the time came when he began to
have his doubts.  What to him was a lightheart
prank, an "Eel's trick," like his college jest of
squirming secretly under class-room benches, was
obviously no jest to this pale-eyed, sharp-featured
maiden of one-and-forty.

Jemima Girnigo had never been truly young.
Repressed and domineered over as a child, she
had been suddenly promoted by her mother's death
to the care of a household and the responsibility
of training a bevy of younger brothers, all now
out in the world and doing for themselves.  Her life
had grown more and more arid and self-contained.
She had nourished her soul on secret penances,
setting herself hard household tasks, and doing
with only one small, untaught, slatternly maid from
the village, in order that her father might be able to
assist his sons into careers.  She read dry theology
to mortify a liking for novels, and shut up her soul
from intercourse with her equals, conscious, perhaps,
that visitors would infallibly discover and laugh at
her father's meannesses and peculiarities.

Only her flowers kept her soul sweet and a
human heart beating within that
buckram-and-whalebone-fenced bosom.

Then, all suddenly came Gilbert Denholm with
his merry laugh, his light-heart ways (which she
openly reproved, but secretly loved), his fair curls
clustering about his brow, and his way of throwing
back his head as if to shake them into place.
Nothing so young, so winsome, or so gay had
ever set foot within that solemn dreich old manse.
It was like a light-heart city beauty coming to
change the life and disturb the melancholy of
some stern woman-despising hermit.  But Jemima
Girnigo's case was infinitely worse, in that she
was a woman and the disturber of her peace little
better than a foolish boy.

But Gilbert Denholm, kindly lad though he was,
saw no harm.  He was only, he thought, impressing
himself upon the parish.  He saw himself daily
becoming more popular.  No farmer's party was
considered to be anything which wanted his ready
wit and contagious merriment.  Already there was
talk among the Session of securing him as permanent
assistant and successor.  There were fairways
and clear sunlit vistas before Gilbert Denholm;
and he liked his professional prospects all the better
that he owed them to his own wit and knowledge
of the world.  He was a good preacher.  He made
what is called an excellent appearance in the pulpit.
He did not "read."  His fluency of utterance held
sleepy ploughmen in a state of blinking
attention for the better part of an hour.  Even
Dr. Girnigo commended, and Gibby who had no
more abundant or direct "spiritual gifts" than are
the portion of most kind-hearted, well-brought-up
Scottish youths, was unconscious of his lack of
any higher qualifications for the Christian ministry.

But Gibby was like hundreds, aye, thousands
more, who break the bread and open unto men the
Scriptures in all the churches.  His office meant
to him a career, not a call.  His work was the
expression of hearty human goodwill to all
men—and so far helpful and godlike; but he had
never tasted sorrow, never drunken of the cup
of remorse as a daily beverage, never "dreed"
the common weird of humanity.  Sorely he needed
a downsetting.  He must endure hardness, be
driven out of self to the knowledge that self is
nowise sufficient for a sinful man.

Even Jemima Girnigo was a far better servant
of God than the man who had spent seven years
in preparation for that service.  In the shut deeps
of her heart there were locked up infinite treasures
of self-sacrifice.  Love was pitifully ready to look
forth from those pale eyes at whose corners the
crow's feet were already clutching.  And so it
came to pass that, knowing her folly (and yet, in
a way, defying it), this old maid of forty-one loved
the handsome youth of four-and-twenty, the only
human love-compelling thing that had ever come
into her sombre life.

Yet there were times when Jemima Girnigo's
heart was bitter within her, even as there were
seasons when the crowding years fell away and
she seemed almost young and fair.  Jemima had
never been either very pretty or remarkably
attractive, but now when the starved instincts of
her lost youth awoke untimeously within her, she
unconsciously smiled and tossed her head, to the
full as coquettishly as a youthful beauty just
becoming conscious of her own power.

It was all very pitiful.  But Gibby passed on
his heedless way and saw not, neither recked of
his going.

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Yet a time came when his eyes were opened.
A new paper-mill had come to Rescobie, migrating
from somewhere in the East country, where the
Messrs. Coxon had had a serious quarrel with their
ground landlord.  From being a quiet hamlet the
village of Rescobie began rapidly to put on the
airs of a growing town.  Tall houses of three
storeys, with many windows and outside stairs,
usurped the place of little old-fashioned
"but-and-bens."  Red brick oblongs of mill frontage rose
along the valley of the Rescobie Water, which,
dammed and weired and carried along countless
lades, changed the cheerful brown limpidity of its
youthful stream for a frothy mud colour below
the mills.

The new immigrants were mostly a sedate and
sober folk, as indeed, nearly all paper-makers are.
To the easy-going villagers their diligence seemed
phenomenal.  They were flocking into the mill
gates by six in the morning.  It was well nigh
six in the evening before the tide flowed back
toward the village.  Among the youths and men
there was night-shift and day-shift, and a new and
strange pallor began to pervade the street and show
itself, carefully washed, in the gallery of Rescobie
Kirk.  The village girls, finding that they could
make themselves early independent, took their
places in the long "finishing saal," while elderly
women, for whom there had been no outlook
except the poorhouse, found easy work and a
living wage in Coxon's rag-house.

The increase of the congregation in the second
year of Gilbert Denholm's assistantship compelled
the Session to bethink themselves of some more
permanent and satisfactory arrangement.  Finally,
after many private meetings they resolved to beard
the lion in his den and lay before Dr. Girnigo
the proposal that Gilbert should be officially called
and ordained as the old man's "colleague and
successor."

It was the ruling elder, called, after the name
of his farm, Upper Balhaldie, who belled the cat
and made the fateful proposition.  In so doing
that shrewd and cautious man was considered to
have excelled himself.  But Dr. Girnigo was far
from being appeased.

"Sirs," he said, "I have been sole minister of
the parish of Rescobie for forty years, and sole
minister of it I shall die!"

"Mr. Denholm will be to you as a son!"
suggested Balhaldie.

"I have sons of my body," said the old minister,
looking full at the quiet men before him, who sat
on the edges of their several chairs fingering the
brims of their hats; "did I make any of them a
minister?  Nay, sirs, and for this reason: because
the parish of Rescobie has been so near my heart
that I would not risk even the fruit of my body
coming between me and it!"

"We have sounded Mr. Denholm," said Balhaldie,
quietly ignoring the sentimental, "and you
may rest assured that you will not be disturbed
in your tenancy of the manse.  Mr. Denholm has
no thought at present of changing his condition,
and is quite content with his lodging—and an
eident carfu' woman is his landlady the doctor's
weedow!"

"Aye, she is that!" concurred several of the
Session, speaking for the first time.  It was a
relief to have something concrete to which they
could assent.

Dr. Girnigo looked at his Session.  They
seemed to shrink before him.  Nervousness
quivered on their countenances.  They tucked
their heavily-booted feet beneath the chairs on
which they sat, to be out of the way.  The brims
of their hats were rapidly wearing out.  Surely
such men could never oppose him.

But Dr. Girnigo knew better.  Underneath
that awkward exterior, in spite of those embarrassed
manners, that air of anxious self-effacement,
Dr. Girnigo was well aware that there abode inflexible
determination, shrewd common sense and abounding
humour—chiefly, however, of the ironic sort.

"Are ye all agreed on this?" he asked.

"I speak in name of the Session!" said Upper
Balhaldie succinctly, looking around the circle.
And as he looked each man nodded slightly,
without, however, raising his eyes from the
pattern on the worn study carpet.

The Doctor sighed a long sigh.  He knew that
at last his trial was come upon him, and nerved
himself to meet it like a man.

"It is well," he said; "I shall offer no objection
to the congregation calling Mr. Denholm, and I
can only hope that he will serve you as faithfully
as I have done!  I wish you a very good day,
gentlemen!"

And with these words the old minister went
out, leaving the Session to find their way into the
cold air as best they might.

The day after the interview between the Session
and the Doctor, Gilbert Denholm called at the
manse.  He came bounding up the little avenue
between the lilac and rhododendron bushes.
Jemima Girnigo heard his foot long ere he had
reached the porch.  Nay, before he had set foot
on the gravel she caught the click of the gate
latch, which was loose and would only open one
way.  This Gibby always forgot and rattled it
fiercely till he remembered the trick of it.

Then when she heard the *rat-tat-tat* of Gibby's
ash-plant on the panels of the door, she caught
her hand to her heart and stood still among her
plants.

There was a bell, but Gibby was always in too
great a hurry to ring it.

"Perhaps he has come to——"  She did not
finish the sentence, but the blood, rising hotly to
her poor withered cheeks, finished it for her.

"Oh, Miss Jemima!" cried Gibby, bursting in;
"I came up to tell you first.  I owe it all to
you—every bit of it.  They are going to call me to
be colleague—and—and—we can botanise any
amount.  Isn't it glorious?"

He held her hand while he was speaking; and
Jemima had been looking with hope into his frank,
enkindled, boyish eyes.  Her eyelids fell at his
announcement.

"Yes," she faltered after a pause, "we can
botanise!"

"And they wanted to know if I would like to
have the manse—as if I would turn you out, who
have been my best friend here ever since I came
to Rescobie!  Not very likely!"

Gilbert had an honest liking for Jemima Girnigo,
a feeling, however, which was not in the least akin
to love.  Indeed, he would as soon have thought
of marrying his grandmother or any other of the
relationships in the table of prohibited degrees
printed at the beginning of the Authorised Version,
which he sometimes looked at furtively when
Dr. Girnigo was developing his "fourteenthly."

"You are happy where you are?" said Jemima,
smiling a little wistfully.

"Oh, yes," cried Gibby enthusiastically; "my
landlady makes me perfectly comfortable.  She
thinks I am a lost soul, I am afraid, but in the
meantime she comforts me with apples—first-rate
they are in dumplings, too, I can tell you!"

While he spoke Jemima Girnigo was much
absorbed over a plant in a remote corner, and
more than one drop of an alien dew glistened upon
its leaves ere she turned again to the window.
Gibby's enthusiasm was a little damped by her
seeming indifference.

"Are you not glad?" he asked anxiously; "I
came to tell you first.  I thought what good times
we should have.  We must go up Barstobrick
Hill for the parsley fern before it gets too late."

"Oh, yes," said Jemima Girnigo, holding out her
hand, "I am very glad.  No one is as glad as
I—I want you to believe that!"

"Of course I do!" cried Gibby; "you always
were a good fellow, Jemima!  We'll go up to
Barstobrick to-morrow.  Mind you are ready by
nine.  I have to be back for a meeting in the
afternoon early.  It is a hungry place.  Put some
'prog' in the *vasculum*!"

And as from the parlour window she watched
him down the gravel, he turned around and wrote
"9 A.M." in large letters on the gravel with his
ash-plant, tossed his hand up at her in a gay
salute, and was gone.

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But Gilbert Denholm and Jemima Girnigo did
not climb Barstobrick for parsley fern on the
morrow, and the "9 A.M." stood long plain upon
the gravel as a monument of the frail and futile
intents of man.

For before the morrow's morn had dawned there
had fallen upon Rescobie the dreaded scourge of
all paper-making villages.  Virulent small-pox
had broken out.  There were already four
undoubted cases, all emanating from the rag-house
of Coxon's mills.

About the streets and close-mouths stood
awe-struck groups of girls, uncertain whether to go on
with their work or return home.  There was none
of the usual horse-play among the lads of the
day-shift as they went soberly mill-ward with their cans.
Grave elders, machinemen and engineers, shook their
heads and recalled the date at which (a fortnight
before) a large consignment of Russian rags had
been received and immediately put in hand.

It was whispered, on what authority did not
appear, that the disease was of the malignant
"black" variety, and that all smitten must surely
die.  Fear ran swift and chilly up each outside
staircase and entered unbidden every "land" in
Rescobie.  It was the first time such a terror had
been in the village, and those who had opposed
the settlement of the mills, staid praisers of ancient
quiet, lifted their hands with something of jubilation
mixed with their fear.  "Verily, the judgment of
God has fallen," they said, "even as in a night it
fell on Babylon—as in fire and brimstone it came
upon the Cities of the Plain."

Dr. Girnigo retired to his study, feeling that if
the Session had allowed him his own way, things
would not have been as they were.  He had a
sermon to write.  So he mended a quill pen, took
out his sermon-paper (small quarto ruled in blue),
and set to work to improve the occasion.  He said
to himself that since the parish had now a young
and active minister, it was good for Gilbert
Denholm to bear the yoke in his youth.

And, indeed, none was readier for the work
than that same Gilbert.  He was shaving when
his landlady, the doctor's widow, cried in the
information through the panels of his closed door.

"Thank God," murmured Gibby, "that I have
none to mourn for me if I don't get through this!"

Then he thought of his father, but, as he well
knew, that fine old Spartan was too staunch a
fighter in the wars of grace to discourage his son
from any duty, however dangerous.  He thought
next of—well, one or two girls he had known—and
was glad now that it had gone no further.

He did not know yet what was involved in the
outbreak or what might be demanded of him.
Gilbert Denholm may have had few of the peculiar
graces of spiritual religion, but he was a fine,
manly, upstanding young fellow, and he resolved
that he would do his duty as if he had been
heading a rush of boarders or standing in the
deadly imminent breach.  More exactly, perhaps,
he did not resolve at all.  It never occurred to
him that he could do anything else.

As soon as he had snatched a hasty breakfast
and thrown on his coat, he hurried up to the house
of Dr. Durie.  A plain blunt man was John
Durie—slim, pale, with keen dark eyes, and a
pointed black beard slightly touched with gray.
The doctor was not at home.  He had not been
in all night and the maid did not know where
he was to be found.

To the right-about went Gilbert, asking all and
sundry as he went where and when they had seen
the doctor.  Thomas Kyle, with his back against
the angle of the Railway Inn, averred that he had
seen him "an 'oor syne gangin' gye fast into Betty
McGrath's—but they say Betty is deid or this!"
he added, somewhat irrelevantly.  Chairles Simson,
tilting his bonnet over his brows in order to scratch
his head in a new and attractive spot, deponed
that about ten minutes before he had noticed "the
tails o' the doctor's coat gaun roond the Mill-lands'
corner like stoor on a windy day."

Gibby tried Betty McGrath's first.  Yes,
Dr. Durie had ordered everybody out except the
sick woman, who was tossing on her truckle bed,
calling on the Virgin and all the saints in a shrill
Galway dialect, and her daughter Bridget, a
heavy-featured girl of twenty, who stood disconsolately
looking out at the window as if hope had wholly
forsaken her heart.

Gibby inquired if the doctor had been there
recently.

"Oh, yes," said Bridget; "as ye may see if ye'll
be troubled lookin' in the corner.  He tore down
all thim curtains off the box-bed.  It'll break the
ould woman's heart, that it will, if ever the craitur
gets over this."

At the door Gibby met Father Phil Kavannah,
a tall young man with honest peasant's eyes and
a humorous mouth.

"You and I, surr, will have to see this through
between us," said Father Phil, grasping his hand.

"It is a bad business," responded Gilbert; "I
fear it will run through the mills."

"Worse than ye think," said the priest very
gravely, "ten times worse—three-fourths of the
workers have no relatives here, and there will
be no one to nurse them.  They've talked lashin's
about the new village hospital, and raised all
Tipperary about where it is to stand and what
it is to cost, but that's all that's done about
it yet."

Gilbert whistled a bar of "Annie Laurie," which
he kept for emergencies.

"Well," he said slowly, "it will be like serving
a Sunday-school picnic with half a loaf and one
jar of marmalade—but we'll just need to see
how far we can make ourselves go round!"

"Right!" said Father Phil with a wave of his
hand as he stood with his fingers on the latch of
Betty McGrath's door.

Gilbert found the doctor in the great "saal" at
the mills.  He had his coat off and was scraping
at bared arms for dear life.  At each door stood a
pair of stalwart sentinels, and several hundred
mill workers were grouped about talking in
low-voiced clusters.  Only here and there one more
diligent than the rest, or with quieter nerves, deftly
passed sheets of white paper from hand to hand
as if performing a conjuring trick.

The doctor spied Gilbert as he entered.  They
were excellent friends.  "Man," he cried across the
great room, looking down again instantly to his
work, "run up to the surgery for another tube of
vaccine like this.  It is in B cabinet, shelf 6.  And
as you come back, wire for half-a-dozen more.
You know where I get them!"

And Gilbert sped upon his first errand.  After
that he deserted his own lodgings, and he and
Dr. Durie took hasty and informal meals when
they could snatch a moment from work.  Sundry
cold edibles stood permanently on the doctor's
oaken sideboard, and of these Gilbert and his
host partook without sitting down.  Then on
a couch, or more often on a few rugs thrown
on the floor, one or the other would snatch a
hurried sleep.

There were twenty-six cases on Saturday—fifty-eight
by the middle of the following week.  Within
the same period nine had terminated fatally, and
there were others who could not possibly recover.
Nurses came in from the great city hospitals, as
they could be spared, but the demand far exceeded
the supply, and Gilbert was indefatigable.  Yet his
laugh was cheery as ever, and even the delirious
would start into some faint consciousness of
pleasure at the sound of his voice.

But one day the young minister awoke with a
racking head, a burning body, a dry throat, and
the chill of ice in his bones.

"This is nothing—I will work it off," said Gibby;
and, getting up, he dressed with haste and went
out without touching food.  The thought of eating
was abhorrent to him.  Nevertheless, he did his
work all the forenoon, and went here and there
with medicine and necessaries.  He relieved a
nurse who had been two nights on duty, while she
slept for six hours.  Then after that he set off
home to catch Dr. Durie before he could be
out again.  For he had heard his host come in
and throw himself down on the couch while he
was dressing.

As he passed the front of Rescobie Manse,
he looked up to wave a hand to Jemima, as he
never forgot to do.  Her father was still
"indisposed," and Miss Girnigo was understood to be
taking care of him.  Yes, there she was among
her flowers, and Gibby, hardly knowing what he
did—being light-headed and racked with pain—openly
kissed his hand to her within sight of
half-a-score of Rescobie windows.

Then, his feet somehow tangling themselves and
his knees failing him, he fell all his length in the
hot dust of the highway.

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When Gilbert Denholm came to himself he
found a white-capped nurse sitting by the window
of a room he had never before seen.  There was
a smell of disinfectants all about, which somehow
seemed to have followed him through all the
boundless interstellar spaces across which he had
been wandering.

"Where am I?" said Gibby, as the nurse came
toward the bed.  "I have not seen Betty McGrath
this morning, and I promised Father Phil that
I would."

"You must not ask questions," said the nurse
quietly.  "Dr. Durie will soon be here."

And after that with a curious readiness Gibby
slipped back into a drowsy dream of gathering
flowers with Jemima Girnigo; but somehow it
was another Jemima—so young she seemed, so
fair.  Crisp curls glanced beneath her hat brim.
Young blood mantled in changeful blushes on
her cheeks.  Her pale eyes, which had always
been a little watery, were now blue and bright
as a mountain tarn on a day without clouds.  He
had never seen so fair and joyous a thing.

"Jemima," he said, or seemed to himself to
say, "what is the matter with you?  You are
different somehow."

"It is all because you love me, Gilbert," she
answered, and smiled up at him.  "Ever since
you told me that, I have grown younger every
hour; and, do you know, I have found the Grass
of Parnassus at last.  It grows by the Gate into
the Upper Garden?"

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"Hello, Denholm, clothed and in your right
mind, eh?  That's right!"

It was the cheerful voice of his friend,
Dr. Durie, as he stood by Gibby's bedside.

"What has been the matter with me, Durie?"
said Gilbert, though in his heart he knew.

"You have had bad small-pox, my boy; and
have had a hot chance to find out whether you
have been speaking the truth in your sermons."

Gibby could hardly bring his lips to frame the
next question.  He was far from vain, but to a
young man the thought was a terrible one.

"Shall I be much disfigured?"

"Oh, a dimple or two—nothing to mar you
on your marriage day.  You have been well
looked after."

"You have saved my life, doctor."

And Gibby strove to reach a feeble hand
outward, which, however, the doctor did not seem
to see.

"Not I—you owe that to some one else."

"The nurse who went out just now?" queried Gibby.

"No, she has just been here a few clays, after
all danger had passed."

Gilbert strove to rise on his elbow and the red
flushed his poor face.

The doctor restrained him with a strong and
gentle hand.

"Lie back," he said, "or I will go away and
tell you nothing."

He sat down by the bedside, and with a soft
sponge touched the convalescent's brow.  As he
did so he spoke in a low and meditative tone
as though he had been talking to himself.

"There was once a foolish young man who
thought that he could take twenty shillings out
of a purse into which he had only put half a
sovereign.  He fell down one day on the street.
A woman carried him in and nursed him through
a fortnight's delirium.  A woman caught him as
he ran, with only a blanket about him, to drown
himself in the Black Pool of Rescobie Water.
Night and day she watched him, sleepless, without
weariness, without murmuring——"

"And this woman—who saved my life—what
was—her name?"

Gibby's voice was very hoarse.

"Jemima Girnigo!" said the doctor, sinking his
voice also to a whisper.

"Where is she—I want to see her—I want to
thank her?" cried Gibby.  He was actually upon
his elbow now.

Dr. Dune forced him gently back upon the pillows.

"Yes, yes," he said soothingly, "so you shall—if
all tales be true; but for that you must wait."

"Why—why?" cried impatient Gibby.  "Why
cannot I see her now?  She has done more for
me than ever I deserved——"

"That is the way of women," said the doctor,
"but you cannot thank her now.  She is dead."

"Dead—dead!" gasped Gilbert, stricken to the
heart; "then she gave her life for me!"

"Something like it," said the doctor, a trifle
grimly.  For though he was a wise man, the ways
of women were dark to him.  He thought that
Gilbert, though a fine lad, was not worth all this.

"Dead," muttered Gibby, "and I cannot even
tell her—make it up to her——"

"She left you a message," said the doctor
very quietly.

"What was it?" cried Gibby, eagerly.

"Oh, nothing much," said Dr. Durie; "there
was no hope from the first, and she knew it.  Her
mind was clear all the three days, almost to the
last.  She may have wandered a little then, for
she told me to tell you——"

"What—what—oh, what?  Tell me quickly.
I cannot wait."

"That the flowers were blooming in the Upper
Garden, and that she would meet you at the Gate!"

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The Reverend Gilbert Denholm never married.
He bears a scar or two on his open face—a face
well beloved among his people.  There is a grave
in Rescobie kirkyard that he tends with his own
hands.  None else must touch it.

It is the resting-place of a woman whom love
made young and beautiful, and about whose feet
the flowers of Paradise are blooming, as, alone but
not impatient, she waits his coming by the Gate.





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.. _`THE TROUBLER OF ISRAEL`:

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   THE TROUBLER OF ISRAEL

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Unless you happen to have made one of a group
of five or six young men who every Sunday
morning turned their steps towards the little
meeting-house in Lady Nixon's Wynd, it is safe
to say that you did not know either it or the
Doctor of Divinity.  That is to say, not unless you
were born in the Purple and expert of the mysteries
of the Kirk of the Covenants.

The denomination was a small one, smaller even
and poorer than is the wont of Scottish sects.  By
the eternal process of splitting off, produced by the
very faithfulness of the faithful, and the remorseless
way in which they carried out their own logic, by
individual pretestings and testifyings, by the yet
sadder losses inflicted by the mammon of
unrighteousness, when some, allured by social wealth
and position, turned aside to worship in some
richer or more popular Zion, the Kirk of the
Covenants worshipping in Lady Nixon's Wynd
had become but the shadow of its former self.

Still, however, by two infallible signs you might
know the faithful.  They spoke of the "Boady"
and of the "Coavenants" with a lengthening of
that *O* which in itself constituted a shibboleth, and
their faces—grim and set mostly—lit up when
you spoke of the "Doctor."

But one—they had but one—Dr. Marcus Lawton
of Lady Nixon's Wynd.  He was their joy, their
pride, their poetry; the kitchen to their sour
controversial bread, the mellow glory of their
denomination.  (Again you must broaden the *a*
indefinitely.)  He had once been a professor, but
by the noblest of self-denying ordinances he had
extruded himself from his post for conscience sake.

There was but one fly in their apothecary's
ointment-pot when my father grew too stiff to
attend the Kirk of the Covenants even once a year,
and that was that the Doctor, unable to live and
bring up a family on a sadly dwindling stipend
(though every man and woman in the little kirk
did almost beyond their possible to increase it), had
been compelled to bind himself to spend part of
the day in a secular pursuit.

At least to the average mind his employment
could hardly be called "secular," being nothing
more than the Secretaryship of the Association for
the Propagation of Gospel Literature; but to the
true covenant man this sonorous society was
composed of mere Erastians, or what was little
better, ex-Erastians and common Voluntaries.
They all dated from 1689, and the mark of the
beast was on their forehead—that is to say, the
seal of the third William, the Dutchman, the
revolutionary Gallio.  Yet their Doctor, with his
silver hair, his faithful tongue, his reverence, wisdom,
and weight of indubitable learning, had to sit silent
in the company of such men, to take his orders
from them, and even to record their profane
inanities in black and white.  The Doctor's office
was at the corner of Victoria Street as you turn
down towards the Grassmarket.  And when any
of his flock met him coming or going thither, they
turned away their heads—that is, if he had passed
the entrance to Lady Nixon's Wynd when they
met him.  So far it was understood that he *might*
be going to write his sermon in the quiet of the
vestry.  After that, there was no escape from the
damning conclusion that he was on his way to the
shrine of Baal—and other Erastian divinities.  So
upon George Fourth Bridge the Covenant folk turned
away their heads and did not see their minister.

Now this is hardly a story—certainly not a
tale.  Only my heart being heavy, I knew it
would do me good to turn it upon the Doctor.
Dr. Marcus Lawton was the son of Dr. Marcus
Lawton.  When first he succeeded his father, which
happened when he was little more than a boy,
and long before I was born, he was called "young
Maister Lawton."  Then it was that he lectured on
"The Revelation" on Sabbath evenings, his father
sitting proudly behind him.  Then the guttering
candles of Lady Nixon's looked down on such an
array as had never been seen before within her
borders.  College professors were there, ministers
whose day's work was over—as it had been, Cretes
and Arabians, heathen men and publicans.  Edward
Irving himself came once, in the weariful days before
the great darkness.  The little kirk was packed
every night, floor and loft, aisle and pulpit stairs,
entrance hall and window-sill, with such a crowd of
stern, grave-visaged men as had never been gathered
into any kirk in the town of Edinburgh, since a
certain little fair man called Rutherford preached
there on his way to his place of exile in Aberdeen.

So my father has often told me, and you may
be sure he was there more than once, having made
it a duty to do his business with my lord's factor
at a time when his soul also might have dealings
with the most approven factors of Another Lord.

These were great days, and my father (Alexander
McQuhirr of Drumwhat), still kindles when he
tells of them.  No need of dubious secretaryships
then, or of the turning away of faithful heads at
the angle of the Candlemaker-row.  No young
family to be provided for, Doctorate coming at
the Session's close from his own university,
Professorship on the horizon, a united Body of the
devout to minister to!  And up there in the pulpit
a slim young man with drawing power in the
eyes of him, and a voice which even then was
mellow as a blackbird's flute, laying down the
law of his Master like unto the great of old who
testified from Cairntable even unto Pentland, and
from the Session Stane at Shalloch-on-Minnoch
to where the lion of Loudon Hill looks defiant
across the green flowe of Drumclog.

But when I began to attend Lady Nixon's
regularly, things were sorely otherwise.  The kirk
was dwindled and dwindling—-in membership, in
influence, most of all in finance.  But not at all
in devotion, not in enthusiasm, not in the sense
of privilege that those who remained were thought
worthy to sit under such faithful ministrations as
those of the Doctor.  There was no more any
"young Maister Lawton."  Nor was a comparison
pointed disparagingly by a reference to "the Auld
Doctor, young Dr. Marcus's faither, ye ken."

From the alert, keen-faced, loyal-hearted precentor
(no hireling he) to the grave and dignified
"kirk-officer" there were not two minds in all
that little body of the faithful.

You remember MacHaffie-a steadfast man
Haffie—no more of his name ever used.  Indeed,
it was but lately that I even knew he owned the
prefatory Mac.  He would give you a helpful
hint oftentimes (after you had passed the plate),
"It's no himsel' the day!"  Or more warningly
and particularly, "It's a student."  Then Haffie
would cover your retreat, sometimes going the
length of making a pretence of conversation with
you as far as the door, or on urgent occasions (as
when the Doctor was so far left to himself as to
exchange with a certain "popular preacher") even
taking you downstairs and letting you out secretly
by a postern door which led, in the approven
manner of romances, into a side street down which,
all unseen, you could escape from your fate.  But
Haffie always kept an eye on you to see that you
did not abstract your penny from the plate.  That
was the payment he exacted for his good offices;
and as I could not afford two pennies on one
Sunday morning, Haffie's "private information"
usually drove me to Arthur's Seat, or down to
Granton for a smell of the salt water; and I can
only hope that this is set down to Haffie's account
in the books of the recording angel.

But all this was before the advent of Gullibrand.
You have heard of him, I doubt not—Gullibrand
of Barker, Barker, & Gullibrand, provision
merchants, with branches all over the three
kingdoms.  His name is on every blank wall.

Gullibrand was not an Edinburgh man.  He
came, they say, from Leicester or some Midland
English town, and brought a great reputation with
him.  He had been Mayor of his own city, a
philanthropist almost by profession, and the light
and law-giver of his own particular sect always.
I have often wondered what brought him to Lady
Nixon's Wynd.  Perhaps he was attracted by the
smallness of our numbers, and by the thought that,
in default of any congregation of his own peculiar
sect in the northern metropolis, he could "boss" the
Kirk of the Covenants as he had of a long season
"bossed" the Company of Apocalyptic Believers.

It was said, with I know not what truth, that
the first time Mr. Gullibrand came to the Kirk of
the Covenants, the Doctor was lecturing in his
ordinary way upon Daniel's Beast with Ten Horns.
And, if that be so, our angelical Doctor had reason
to rue to the end of his life that the discourse
had been so faithful and soul-searching.  Though
Gullibrand thought his interpretation of the ninth
horn very deficient, and told him so.  But he was
so far satisfied that he intimated his intention of
"sending in his lines" next week.

At first it was thought to be a great thing that
the Kirk of the Covenants in Lady Nixon's Wynd
should receive so wealthy and distinguished an
adherent.

"Quite an acquisition, my dear," said the
hard-pressed treasurer, thinking of the ever increasing
difficulty of collecting the stipend, and of the
church expenses, which had a way of totalling
up beyond all expectation.

"Bide a wee, Henry," said his more cautious
wife; "to see the colour o' the man's siller is
no to ken the colour o' his heart."

And to this she added a thoughtful rider.

"And after a', what does a bursen Englishy
craitur like yon ken aboot the Kirk o' the
Co-a-venants?"

And as good Mistress Walker prophesied as
she took her douce way homeward with her husband
(honorary treasurer and unpaid precentor) down
the Middle Meadow Walk, even so in the fulness
of time it fell out.

Mr. Jacob Gullibrand gave liberally, at which
the kindly heart of the treasurer was elate within
him.  Mr. Jacob Gullibrand got a vacant seat in
the front of the gallery which had once belonged
to a great family from which, the faithful dying
out, the refuse had declined upon a certain
Sadducean opinon calling itself Episcopacy; and
from this highest seat in the synagogue Mr. Jacob
blinked with a pair of fishy eyes at the Doctor.

Then in the fulness of time Mr. Jacob became
a "manager," because it was considered right that
he should have a say in the disposition of the
temporalities of which he provided so great a part.
Entry to the Session was more difficult.  For the
Session is a select and conservative body—an inner
court, a defenced place set about with thorns and
not to be lightly approached; but to such a man
as Gullibrand all doors in the religious world open
too easily.  Whence cometh upon the Church
of God mockings and scorn, the strife of tongues—and
after the vials have been poured out, at the
door One with the sharp sword in His hand,
the sword that hath two edges.

So after presiding at many Revival meetings
and heading the lists of many subscriptions, Jacob
Gullibrand became an elder in the Kirk of the
Covenants and a power in Lady Nixon's Wynd.

He had for some time been a leading Director
of the Association for the Propagation of Gospel
Literature; and so in both capacities he was the
Doctor's master.  Then, having gathered to him
a party, recruited chiefly from the busybodies in
other men's matters and other women's characters,
Jacob Gullibrand turned him about, and set
himself to drive the minister and folk of the Kirk
of the Covenant as he had been wont to drive his
clerks and shop-assistants.

He went every Sabbath into the vestry after
service to reprove and instruct Dr. Marcus Lawton.
His sermons (so he told him) were too old-fashioned.
They did not "grip the people."  They
did not "take hold of the man on the street."  They
were not "in line with the present great
movement."  In short, they "lacked modernity."

Dr. Marcus answered meekly.  Man more
modest than our dear Doctor there was not in
all the churches—no, nor outside of them.

"I am conscious of my many imperfections,"
he said; "my heart is heavy for the weakness
and unworthiness of the messenger in presence of
the greatness of the message; but, sir, I do the
best I can, and I can only ask Him who hath
the power, to give the increase."

"But how," asked Jacob Gullibrand, "can you
expect any increase when I never see you preaching
in the market-place, proclaiming at the
street-corners, denouncing upon a hundred platforms the
sins of the times?  You should speak to the times,
my good sir, you should speak to the times."

"As worthy Dr. Leighton, that root out of a
dry ground, sayeth," murmured our Doctor with a
sweet smile, "there be so many that are speaking
to the times, you might surely allow one poor
man to speak for eternity."

But the quotation was thrown away upon
Jacob Gullibrand.

"I do not know this Leighton—and I think
I am acquainted with all the ministers who have
the root of the matter in them in this and in
other cities of the kingdom.  And I call upon you,
sir, to stir us up with rousing evangelical addresses
instead of set sermons.  We are asleep, and we
need awakening."

"I am all too conscious of it," said the Doctor;
"but it is not my talent."

"Then if you do know it, if your conscience
tells you of your failure, why not get in some
such preachers as Boanerges Simpson of Maitland,
or even throw open your pulpit to some earnest
merchant-evangelist such as—well, as myself?"

But Mr. Gullibrand had gone a step too far.
The Doctor could be a Boanerges also upon
occasion, though he walked always in quiet ways
and preferred the howe of life to the mountain tops.

"No, sir," he said firmly; "no unqualified or
unlicensed man shall ever preach in my pulpit
so long as I am minister and teaching elder of
a Covenant-keeping Kirk!"

"We'll see about that!" said Jacob Gullibrand,
thrusting out his under lip over his upper half-way
to his nose.  Then, seizing his tall hat and
unrolled umbrella, he stalked angrily out.

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And he kept his word.  He did see about it.
In Lady Nixon's Wynd there was division.  On
the one side were ranged the heads of families
generally, the folk staid and set in the old
ways—"gospel-hardened" the Gullibrandites called them.
With the Doctor were the old standards of the
Kirk, getting a little dried, maybe, with standing
so long in their post-holes, but, so far as in them
lay, faithful unto death.

But the younger folk mostly followed the new
light.  There were any number of Societies, Gospel
Bands, Armies of the Blue Ribbon, and of the
White—all well and better than well in their
places.  But being mostly imported wholesale from
England, and all without exception begun, carried
on, and ended in Gullibrand, they were out of
keeping with the plain-song psalms of the Kirk
of the Martyrs.  There were teas also at "Mount
Delectable," the residence of Gullibrand, where,
after the singing of many hymns and the superior
blandishments of the Misses Gullibrand, it was
openly said that if the Kirk in Lady Nixon's
Wynd was to be preserved, the Doctor must
"go."  He was in the way.  He was a fossil.  He had
no modern light.  He took no interest in the
"Work."  He would neither conduct a campaign
of street-preaching nor allow an unordained
evangelist into his pulpit.  The Doctor must
go.  Mr. Gullibrand was sure that a majority of
the congregation was with him.  But there were
qualms in many hearts which even three cups of
Gullibrand's Coffee Essence warm could not cure.

After all, the Doctor was the Doctor—and he had
baptised the most part of those present.  Besides,
they minded that time when Death came into their
houses—and also that Noble Presence, that saintly
prayer, that uplifted hand of blessing; but in
the psychological moment, with meet introduction
from the host, uprose the persecuted evangelist.

"If he was unworthy to enter the pulpits of
Laodicean ministers, men neither cold nor hot,
whom every earnest evangelist should" (here he
continued the quotation and illustrated it with
an appropriate gesture) "he at least thanked God
that he was no Doctor of Divinity.  Nor yet of
those who would permit themselves to be dictated
to by self-appointed and self-styled ministers."

And so on, and so on.  The type does not vary.

The petition or declaration already in Gullibrand's
breast pocket was then produced, adopted,
and many signatures of members and adherents
were appended under the influence of that stirring
appeal.  Great was Gullibrand.  The morning light
brought counsel—but it was too late.  Gullibrand
would erase no name.

"You signed the document, did you not?  Of
your own free will?  That is your handwriting?
Very well then!"

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The blow fell on the Sabbath before the summer
communion, always a great time in the little
Zion in Lady Nixon's Wynd.

A deputation of two, one being Jacob Gullibrand,
elder, waited on Dr. Marcus Lawton after the first
diet of worship.  They gave him a paper to read
in which he was tepidly complimented upon his
long and faithful services, and informed that the
undersigned felt so great an anxiety for his health
that they besought him to retire to a well-earned
leisure, and to permit a younger and more vigorous
man to bear the burden and the heat of the day.
(The choice of language was Gullibrand's.)  No
mention was made of any retiring allowance, nor
yet of the manse, in which his father before him
had lived all his life, and in which he himself had
been born.  But these things were clearly enough
understood.

"What need has he of a manse or of an allowance
either?" said Gullibrand.  "His family are
mostly doing for themselves, and he has no doubt
made considerable savings.  Besides which, he
holds a comfortable appointment with a large
salary, as I have good reason to know."

"But," he added to himself, "he may not hold
that very long either.  I will teach any man
living to cross Jacob Gullibrand!"

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The Doctor sat in the little vestry with the tall
blue scroll spread out before him.  The light of
the day suddenly seemed to have grown dim, and
somehow he could hardly see to smooth out the
curled edges.

"It is surely raining without," said the Doctor,
and lighted the gas with a shaking hand.  He
looked down the list of names of members and
adherents appended to the request that he should
retire.  The written letters danced a little before
his eyes, and he adjusted his glasses more firmly.

"William Gilmour, elder," he murmured; "ah,
his father was at school with me; I mind that
I baptised William the year I was ordained.  He
was a boy at my Bible-class, a clever boy, too.  I
married him; and he came in here and grat like a
bairn when his first wife died, sitting on that chair.
I called on the Lord to help William Gilmour—and
now—he wants me away."

"Jacob Gullibrand, elder."

The Doctor passed the name of his persecutor
without a comment.

"Christopher Begbie, manager.  He was kind
to me the year the bairns died."

(Such was Christopher's testimony.  The year
before I went to Edinburgh the Doctor had lost
a well-beloved wife and two children, within a
week of each other.  He preached the Sabbath
after on the text, "All thy waves have gone over
me!"  Christopher Begbie, manager, had been
kind then.  Pass, Christopher!)

"Robert Armstrong, manager.  Mine own
familiar friend in whom I trusted," said the Doctor,
and stared at the lozenges of the window till
coloured spots danced before his kind old eyes.
"Robert Armstrong, for whose soul I wrestled
even as Jacob with his Maker; Robert Armstrong
that walked with me through the years together,
and with whom I have had so much sweet
communion, even Robert also does not think
me longer fit to break the bread of life among
these people!"

Pass, Robert!  There is that on the blue foolscap
which the Doctor hastened to wipe away with his
sleeve.  But it is doubtful if such drops are ever
wholly wiped away.

"John Malcolm—ah, John, I do not wonder.
Perhaps I was over faithful with thee, John.  But
it was for thy soul's good.  Yet I did not think
that the son of thy father would bear malice!"

"Margaret Fountainhall, Elizabeth Fountainhall—the
children of many prayers.  Their mother
was a godly woman indeed; and you, too,
Margaret and Elizabeth, would sit under a younger
man.  I mind when I prepared you together for
your first communion!"

The Doctor sighed and bent his head lower
upon the paper.  "Ebenezer Redpath, James
Bannatyne, Samuel Gardiner"—he passed the names
rapidly, till he came to one—"Isobel Swan."

The Doctor smiled at the woman's name.  It
was the first time he had smiled since they
gave him the paper and he realised what was
written there.

"Ah, Isobel," he murmured, "once in a far-off
day you did not think as now you think!"

And he saw himself, a slim stripling in his
father's pew, and across the aisle a girl who
worshipped him with her eyes.  And so the Doctor
passed from the name of Isobel Swan, still
smiling—but kindly and graciously, for our Doctor had
it not in him to be anything else.

He glanced his eye up and down the list.  He
seemed to miss something.

"Henry Walker, treasurer—I do not see thy
name, Henry.  Many is the hard battle I have
had with thee in the Session, Henry.  Dost thou
not want thine old adversary out of thy path once
and for all?  And Mary, thy wife?  Tart is thy
tongue, Mary, but sweet as a hazel-nut in the
front of October thy true heart!"

"Thomas Baillie—where art thou, true Thomas?
I crossed thee in the matter of the giving out of
the eleventh paraphrase, Thomas.  Yet I do not
see thy name.  Is it possible that thou hast
forgotten the nearer ill and looked back on the days
of old when Allan Symington with Gilbert his
brother, and thou and I, Thomas Baillie, went to
the house of God in company?  No, these things
are not forgotten.  I thank God for that.  The
name of Thomas Baillie is not here."

And the Doctor folded up the blue crackling
paper and placed it carefully between the "leds"
of the great pulpit Bible.

"It is the beginning of the week of Communion,"
he said; "it is not meet that I should mingle
secular thoughts with the memory of the broken
body and the shed blood.  On your knees, Marcus
Lawton, and ask forgiveness for your repining
and discriminating among the sheep of the flock
whom it is yours to feed on a coming Lord's
day; and are they not all yours—your responsibility,
your care, aye, Marcus—even—even Jacob
Gullibrand?"

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It was the Sabbath of High Communion in the
Kirk of the Covenants.  Nixon's Wynd, ordinarily
so grim and bare, so gritty underfoot and so narrow
overhead, now seemed to many a spacious way to
heaven, down which walked the elect of the Lord
in a way literally narrow, and literally steep, and
literally closed with a gate at which few, very
few, went in.

A full hour too soon they began to arrive,
strange quaint figures some of them, gathered from
the nooks and corners of the old town.  They
arrived in twos and threes—the children's children
of the young plants of grace who saw Claverhouse
ride down the West Bow on his way to Killiecrankie.
As far as Leith walk you might know
them, bent a little, mostly coopers in the Trongate,
wrights in the Kirk Wynd, ships' carpenters at the
Port.  They had their little "King's Printer" Bibles
in the long tails of their blue coats—for black had
not yet come in to make uniform all the congregations
of every creed.  But the mistress, walking a
little behind, carried her Bible decently wrapped in a
white napkin along with a sprig of southern-wood.

All that Sabbath day there hung, palpable and
almost visible, about Nixon's Wynd a sweet savour
as of "Naphtali," and the Persecutions, and Last
Testimonies in the Grassmarket; but in the
shrine itself there was nothing grim, but only
graciousness and consolation and the sense of the
living presence of the Hope of Israel.  For our
Doctor was there sitting throned among his elders.
The sun shone through the narrow windows, and
just over the wall, it it were your good fortune to
be near those on the left-hand side, you could see
the top of the Martyrs' monument in the kirkyard
of Old Greyfriars.

It was great to see the Doctor on such days,
great to hear him.  Beneath, the white cloths
glimmered fair on the scarred bookboards, bleached
clean in honour of the breaking of holy bread.
The silver cups, ancient as Drumclog and Shalloch,
so they said, shone on the table of communion,
and we all looked at them when the Doctor said
the solemn and mysterious words, "wine on the
lees well refined."

For there are no High Churchmen so truly high
as the men of the little protesting covenanting
remnants of the Reformation Kirk of Scotland;
none so jealous in guarding the sacraments; none
that can weave about them such a mantle of awe
and reverence.

The Doctor was concluding his after-table
address.  Very reverend and noble he looked, his
white hair falling down on his shoulders, his hands
ever and anon wavering to a blessing, his voice
now rising sonorous as a trumpet, but mostly of
flute-like sweetness, in keeping with his words.
He never spoke of any subject but one on such a
day.  That was, the love of Christ.

"Fifty-one summer communions have I been
with you in this place," so he concluded, "breaking
the bread and speaking the word.  Fifty-one years
to-day is it since my father took me by the hand
and led me up yonder to sit by his side.  Few
there be here in the flesh this day who saw that.
But there are some.  Of such I see around me
three—Henry Walker, and Robert Armstrong, and
John Malcolm.  It is fitting that those who saw
the beginning should see the end."

At these words a kind of sough passed over the
folk.  You have seen the wind passing over a field
of ripe barley.  Well, it was like that.  From my
place in the gallery I could see set faces whiten,
shoulders suddenly stoop, as the whole congregation
bent forward to catch every word.  A woman
sobbed.  It was Isobel Swan.  The white faces
turned angrily as if to chide a troublesome child.

"It has come upon me suddenly, dear friends,"
the Doctor went on, "even as I hope that Death
itself will.  Sudden as any death it hath been, and
more bitter.  For myself I was not conscious of
failing energies, of natural strength abated.  But
you, dear friends, have seen clearer than I the needs
of the Kirk of the Covenants.  One hundred and
six years Marcus Lawtons have ministered in this
place.  From to-day they shall serve tables no
more.  Once—and not so long ago, it seems,
looking back—I had a son of my body, a plant reared
amid hopes and prayers and watered with tears.
The Lord gave.  The Lord took.  Blessed be
the name of the Lord."

There ensued a silence, deep, still—yet somehow
also throbbing, expectant.  Isobel Swan did not
sob again.  She had hidden her face.

"And now my last word.  After fifty-one years
of service in this place, it is hard to come to the
end of the hindmost furrow, to drop the hand
from the plough, never more to go forth in the
morning as the sower sowing precious seed."

"*No—no—no!*"

It was not only Isobel Swan now, but the
whole congregation.  Here and there, back and
forth subdued, repressed, ashamed, but irresistible,
the murmur ran; but the doctor's voice did not
shake.

"Fifty-one years of unworthy service, my
friends—what of that?—a moment in the eternity
of God.  Never again shall I meet you here as
your minister; but I charge you that when we
meet in That Day you will bear me witness
whe her I have loved houses or lands, or father or
mother or wife or children better than you!  And
now, fare you well.  The memory of bygone
communions, of hours of refreshment and prayer
in this sacred place, of death-beds blessed and
unforgotten in your homes shall abide with me as
they shall abide with you.  The Lord send among
you a worthier servant than Marcus Lawton, your
fellow-labourer and sometime minister.  Again,
and for the last time, fare you well!"

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It was a strange communion.  The silver cups
still stood on the table, battered, but glistening.
The plates of bread that had been blessed were
beside them.  The elders sat around.  A low
inarticulate murmur of agony travelled about the
little kirk as the Doctor sat down and covered
his face with his hands, as was his custom after
pronouncing the benediction.

Then in the strange hush uprose the tall angular
form of William Gilmour from the midst of the
Session, his bushy eye-brows working and twitching.

"Oh, sir," he said, in forceful jerks of speech,
"dinna leave us.  I signed the paper under a
misapprehension.  The Lord forgive me!  I
withdraw my name.  Jacob Gullibrand may
dischairge me if he likes!"

He sat down as abruptly as he had risen.

Then there was a kind of commotion all over
the congregation.  One after another rose and
spoke after their kind, some vehemently, some
with shamed faces.

"And I!"  "And I!"  "And I!" cried a
dozen at a time.  "Bide with us, Doctor!  We
cannot want you!  Pray for us!"

Then Henry Walker, the white-haired, sharp-featured
treasurer and precentor of Nixon's Wynd,
stretched out his hand.  The Doctor had been
speaking, as is the custom, not from the pulpit,
but from the communion table about which the
elders sat.  He had held the Gullibrand manifesto
in his hand; but ere he lifted them up in his
final blessing he had dropped it.

Henry Walker took it and stood up.

"Is it your will that I tear this paper?  Those
contrary keep their seats—those agreeable
STAND UP!"

As one man the whole congregation stood up.

All, that is, save Jacob Gullibrand.  He sat a
moment, and then amid a silence which could be
felt, he rose and staggered out like a man suddenly
smitten with sore sickness.  He never set foot in
Nixon's Wynd again.

Henry Walker waited till the door had closed
upon the Troubler of Israel, the paper still in
his hand.  Then very solemnly he tore it into
shreds and trampled them under foot.

He waited a moment for the Doctor to speak,
but he did not.

"And you, also, will withdraw your resignation
and stay with us?" he said.

The Doctor could not answer in words; but he
nodded his head.  It was, indeed, the desire of his
heart.  Then in a loud and surprising
voice—jubilant, and yet with a kind of godly anger in it,
Henry Walker gave out the closing psalm.

   |  "All people that on earth do dwell,
   |    Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice;
   |  Him serve with mirth, His praise forthtell,
   |    Come ye before Him and rejoice!"





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.. _`CARNATION'S MORNING JOY`:

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   CARNATION'S MORNING JOY

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This is the story of the little white-washed cottage
at the top of the brae a mile or so before you
come into Cairn Edward.  It is a love story, a
simple and uneventful one, quickly told.

The cottage is not now what it was—I fear to
say how many years ago—when I was wont to drive
in to the Cameronian Kirk on summer Sabbaths in
the red farm cart.  Then not only I, but every
one used to watch from far for the blue waft of
reek going up as we sighted the white
gable-end far away.

"Carnation's Cottage!" we used to call it, and
even my father, Cameronian elder as he was, smiled
when he passed it.

It was so named because a girl once lived there
whose fame for worth and beauty had travelled
very far.  Her name was Carnation Maybold, a
combination which at once tells its tale of no
countryside origin.  Carnation's father was a
railroad engineer who had come from England
and married a farmer's daughter in a neighbouring
parish.  Then when Carnation's mother died in
childbirth, he had called his one daughter by
the name of his wife's favourite flower.

"What for do ye no caa' her Jessie like her
mither?" said the ancient dame who had come
to keep his house.

"Because I never want to hear that name
again!" Engineer Maybold had said.  For he had
been wrapped up in his wife.

Carnation Maybold lost her father, the imaginative
man and second-rate engineer, when she was
thirteen, a tall slim slip of a girl, with a face like
a flower and a cheek that already had upon it the
blush of her name.  Old Tibbie Lockhart dwelt
with her, and defenced the orphan maid about more
securely than a city set with walls.  The girl went
a mile to the Cairn Edward Academy, where she
was already in the first girls' class, and John
Charles Morrison carried the green bag which held
her books.  In addition to this, being strongly built,
he thrashed any boy who laughed at him for
doing so.  John Charles was three years older
than his girl friend, and had the distinct beginnings
of a moustache in days when Carnation still
wore her hair in a long plaited tail down her
back—for in those days Gretchen braids were
the fashion.

It is curious to remember that, while all the
other girls were Megs and Katies, Madges and
Jennies, Carnation Maybold's first name knew
no diminutive.  She was, and has remained, just
Carnation.  That is enough.  She was fifteen
when John Charles was sent to college.  After
that she carried her own books both ways.  She
had offers from several would-be successors to
the honourable service, but she accepted none.
Besides, she was thinking of putting her hair up.

When John Charles came home in the windy
close of the following March, the first thing he
did was to put the little box which contained his
class medal into his vest pocket, and hasten down
the road to meet Carnation.  His father was at
market.  His mother (a peevish, complaining,
prettyish woman) was in bed with sick headache,
and not to be disturbed.  But there remained
Carnation.  The returned scholar asked no better.

The heart of John Charles beat as he kept
the wider side of the turns of the road that he
might the sooner spy her in front of him.  She
was only a slip of a school girl and he a penniless
student—but nevertheless his heart beat.

Did he love her?  No, he knew that he had
never uttered the word in her hearing, and that if
he had, she was too young to know its meaning.
She was just Carnation—and—and, how his
heart beat!

But still the wintry trees stood gaunt and
spectral on either hand.  He passed them as in
a dream, his soul bent on the next twist of the
red-gray sandy ribbon of road, that was flung
so unscientifically about among the copses and
pastures.

There she was at last—taller, lissomer than
ever, her green bag swinging in her hand and
a gay lilt of a tune upon her lips.

"Carnation!"

She did not answer him by any word.  Instead,
she stood silent with the song stilled mid-flight
upon her lips.  She smiled happily, however, as
he came near.

"Carnation!" he cried again.  And there was
something shining in the lad's eyes which she
had never seen there before.

She held out the green bag.  Then she turned
her elbow towards him with a certain defensive
instinct.

"Here, take my books, John Charles!" she
said, as if he had never been away; and with
no more than that they began to walk homeward
together.

"Are you not glad to see me?" he asked presently.

"Oh, yes, indeed—very glad!" she answered,
looking at the ground; "you will be able to
carry my books again, you see!"

"Who has carried them while I have been away?"

"Carried them myself!"

"For true?"

"Honour!"

John Charles breathed so long a breath that
it was almost a sigh.  Carnation looked at him
curiously.

"Why, you have grown a moustache," she said,
smiling a quick, radiant smile.

"And you—you are different too.  What is it?"
he returned, gazing openly at her, as indeed he
had been doing ever since they met.  She turned
her face piquantly towards him.  It was like a
flower.  A faint perfume seemed to breathe about
the boy, making his brain whirl.

"Not grown a moustache, anyway," Carnation
said, tauntingly.

And she roguishly twirled imaginary tips
between her finger and thumb.

"Let me see!" said John Charles, drawing
nearer as if to examine into the facts.

"Oh, no," said Carnation hastily, fending him
off with a glance, "I'm grown up now, and it's
different!  Besides——"

And she glanced behind her along the red-gray
ribbon of dusty road, along which for lack of
company the March dust was dancing little jigs of
its own.

"Why different?" began John Charles, thrusting
his hands deep into his pockets.

"Well, don't you see, stupid?" she gave her head
a pretty coquettish turn, "I've got my hair up!"

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After this they walked somewhat moodily along
a while.  Or, at least the young man was moody
and silent, while Carnation only smiled sedately,
and something, perhaps a certain bitter easting
in the wind, made her cheeks more fiowerlike
and reminiscent of her name than ever.

"Carnation," he said at last, "why are we not
to be friends any more?  Why have you grown
away from me?  You are three years younger—and
yet—you seem older somehow to-day—years
and years older."

"Well, what more do you want—aren't you
carrying my bag?"

"Tell me about yourself—what have you been
doing?"  He changed the subject.

"Going to school—let me see, six twenties are
a hundred and twenty.  Coming back another
hundred and twenty times.  Two hundred and
forty trudges, and the bag growing heavier all
the time!  It is quite time you came back,
John Charles!"

"Carnation, dear," with trepidation he ventured
the adjective, "I have something to show you
that nobody has seen—what will you give me
if I show it you?"

"I shan't give you anything; but you can
show me and see," was the somewhat
inconsequent reply.

"Come here then, by the end of the house."

They had arrived at Carnation's cottage, and
the consciousness of the eye of Tibbie Lockhart
out of the kitchen window was upon the youth.

"I shan't—show it to me here!" said Carnation,
swinging the bag of books through the open front
door in a casual and school-girlish manner.

"I can't.  I don't want Tibbie to know about
it—nobody but you must see it!"

"Are you sure nobody has seen it—no girl in
Edinburgh—nobody in Cairn Edward?"

"No one at all—not even my mother, not since
I got it.  I kept it for you, Carnation."

"Is it *very* pretty?"

"Yes, very pretty!  Come in here; you will
be sorry if you don't!"

"Well, I will come—just for a moment!"

They went round to the gable of the cottage
where, being sheltered from the wind, a couple of
sentinel Irish yews grew tall and erect.  Between
them there was a little bower.  John Charles took
the little flat box out of his pocket and opened it.

A gold class medal lay within, not fitting very
well on account of a thin blue ribbon which the
proprietor had strung through a clasp at the top.

"Oh," said Carnation with a gasp, "it *is* lovely.
Is it gold?  Why, it has your name on.  It is
the medal of the class.  How proud your father
and mother will be!"

And she clasped her hands and gazed, but did
not offer to take it in her fingers.

"No, indeed, that they won't," said John Charles
grimly; "they won't ever know, and if they did
they wouldn't care.  I am not going to tell them
or any one.  I won it for you.  All the time
I was working I kept saying to myself, 'If I win
the medal I shall give it to Carnation to wear
round her neck on a blue ribbon—because blue
is her colour——'"

"Oh, but I could not!" cried the girl, going
back a step or two, "I dare not!  Any one might
see and read—what is written on it."

"You needn't wear it outside, Carnation," he
pleaded, in a low tone; "see, I put the ribbon
through it that you might."

"It *is* pretty"—her face had a kind of inner
shining upon it, and her eyes glittered darkly—"it
was very nice of you to think about me—not
that I believe for a moment you really did.  But,
indeed, indeed, I can't take it——"

The face of John Charles Morrison fell.  His jaw,
a singularly determined one, began to square itself.

"Very well," he said, flirting the ribbon out
of the clasp and throwing the box on the ground,
"do you see that pond down there?  As sure
as daith" (he used the old school-boy oath of
asseveration) "I'll throw it in that pond if ye
dinna tak' it!"

Something very like a sob came into the lad's
throat.

"And I worked so hard for it.  And I thought
you would have liked it!"

"I do like it—I do—I do!" cried Carnation,
agonised and affrayed.

"No, you don't!"

"Give it me, then—don't look!"

She turned her back upon him, and for a long
moment her fingers were busy about her neck.

"*Now!*"

She faced about, the light of a showery April
in her eyes.  She was smiling and blushing at
the same time.  There was just a faint gleam of
blue ribbon where the division of the white collar
came in front of her throat.

John Charles recognised that the moment for
which he had striven all through the winter had
come.  He stooped and kissed her where she
stood.  Then he turned on his heel and walked
silently away, leaving her three times Carnation
and a school-girl no more.

She watched him out of sight, the vivid blush
slowly fading from her face, and then went
demurely within.

"Where gat ye that ribbon wi' the wee guinea
piece at the end o't?" said guardian Tibbie that
night, suggestively.

"I know; but I promised not to tell!" quoth
the witch, who indeed, twisted the shrewish-tongued
old woman round her finger.

"But I think I can guess," said Tibbie shrewdly;
"gin that blue ribbon wasna coft in Edinbra toon,
I'se string anither gowden guinea upon it!"

But Carnation Maybold only smiled and pouted
her lips, as if at a pleasant memory.

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From sixteen to twenty-six is more than a full
half of the period of life to which we give the
name of girlhood.  But at twenty-six Carnation
Maybold was Carnation Maybold still.  Yet there
had been no breaking off, no failure in the
steadfastness of that early affection which had sent
John Charles along the dusty road to carry the
school-bag of green baize.

But the medallist never returned to college.
During the early falling twilight of the next
Hint-o'-Hairst (or end of harvest), his father,
Gawain Morrison, driving homeward from market
all too mellow, brake neck-bone over the crags of
the Witch's pool.

So, his mother being a feeble woman, though
still young and buxom, John Charles had perforce
to bide at home and shoulder the responsibilities of
a farm of two thousand pastoral acres and a rent of
£800, payable twice a year in Cairn Edward town.

It was a sore burden for such young shoulders,
but John Charles had grit in him, and, what made
his heart glad, he could do most of his work, by
lea rig and pasturage, within sight of a certain
cottage where dwelt the maid with a ribbon of
blue about her neck.

There was no possibility of any marriage, nor,
indeed, talk of any between them, and that for two
good reasons: Gawain Morrison had died in debt.
He was "behindhand at the Bank," and his farm
and stock were left to his widow at her own
disposition, unless she should marry again, in
which case they were willed to his son John
Charles Morrison, presently student of arts in
the University of Edinburgh.  The will had been
made during the one winter that son had spent
away from home.

John Charles' bitter hour in the bank at Cairn
Edward was sweetened by the sympathy and
kindliness of Henry Marchbanks, who, being one
of the best judges of character in Scotland, saw
cause to give this young man a chance to
discharge his father's liabilities.

At twenty-five John Charles was once more
a free man, and there was a substantial balance
to his mother's credit in the bank of Cairn Edward.
Penny of his own he had not received one for
all his five years' work.

But Mrs. Morrison was that most foolish of
womankind—an old woman striving to appear
young.  She had taken a strong dislike to the
girl mistress of the white cottage at her gates,
and was never tired of railing at her pretensions
to beauty, at her lightheadedness, and at the
suitors who stayed their horses for a word or
a flower from across the cropped yew hedge of
Carnation Maybold's cottage.

But John Charles, steadfast in all things, was
particularly admirable in his silences.  He let
his mother rail on, and then, at the quiet hour
of e'en stole down to the dyke-side for a "word."  He
never entered Carnation's dwelling, nor did
he even pass the girdling hedge of yew and privet.
But there was one place where the defences were
worn low.  Behind the well curb occurred this
breach of continuity in the dead engineer's hedges,
and to this place night after night through the
years, that quiet steadfast lover, John Charles
Morrison, came to touch the hand of his mistress.

She did not always meet him.  Sometimes she
had girl friends with her in the cottage, sometimes
she had been carried off to a merry-making in
Cairn Edward, to return under suitable escort
in the evening.

But even then Carnation had a comfortable
sense of safety, for ever since one unforgotten
night, Carnation knew that in any danger she
had only to raise her voice to bring to her rescue
a certain tall broad-shouldered ghost, which with
attendant collies haunted the gray hillsides.

That night was one on which a tramp, denied
an alms, had seized the girl by the arm within
half a mile of her home.  And at the voice of
her sharp crying, a different John Charles from
any she had ever seen had swung himself over
the hillside dyke, and descended like an avenging
whirlwind upon the assailant.

Yet so secretive is the country lover, that few
save an odd shepherd or two of his own suspected
the comradeship which existed between these two.
Carnation was in great request at concerts and
church bazaars in the little neighbouring town;
she even went to a local "assembly" or two every
winter, under the sheltering wing of a school friend
who had married early.

John Charles did not dance, so he was not
asked to these.  He was thought, indeed, to be
rather a grave young fellow, busied with his farm
and his books.  No one connected his name with
that of his fair and sprightly neighbour.

Yet somehow, in spite of many opportunities,
Carnation Maybold did not marry.  She was
bright, cultivated, winsome, and certainly the
prettiest girl for miles around.

"Are you waiting for a prince?" little Mrs. George
Walter, her friend of the assemblies, had
said to her more than once.

"Yes," smiled Carnation, "the true Prince!"

"I suppose that is why you always wear a
ribbon of true blue?" retorted her friend.  "Do let
me see what is at the end of it—ah, you will not.
I think you are very mean, Carnation.  All is over
between us from this moment.  I'm sure I came
and told *you* as soon as ever George spoke!"

"But perhaps," said Carnation quietly, "*my*
George has not yet spoken!"

"Well, if he hasn't, why don't you make him,"
said her friend with vehemence, "or else why
have eyes like those been thrown away upon you?"

"I have worn this nearly ten years!" said
Carnation, a little wistfully.

"Carnation Maybold," said her friend indignantly,
"you ought to be ashamed!  And so it was
for the sake of that school-girl's split sixpence
that you refused Harry Foster, whose father has
an estate of his own, and Kenneth Walker, the
surveyor, as well as—oh, I have no patience with
such silly sentiment!"

Carnation smiled even more quietly than usual.

"Gracie," she said, "if I am content, I don't
see what difference it can make to you."

"You ought to be married—you oughtn't to
live alone with only an old woman to look after
you.  You are wasting the best years of your
life——"

"Gracie, dear," said Carnation, "you mean to
be kind; but I ask you not to say any more
about this.  There are worse things that may
happen to a woman, than that she should wait and
wait—aye, even if she should die waiting!"

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It was the evening of the August day on which
Mrs. Walter had spoken thus to Carnation that
John Charles came cottagewards slowly and
gloomily.  He had been thinking bitter thoughts,
and at last had taken a resolve that was likely
to cost him dear.

In the warm light of evening the girl, who stood
at the farther side of the gap, seemed wondrously
beautiful.  The school-girl look had long since
passed away.  Only the fresh rose on the cheeks, the
depths in the eyes (as if a cloud shadowed them),
the lissom bend of the young body towards him
were the same.  But the hair was waved and
plaited about the head in a larger and nobler
fashion.  The contours were a little fuller, and
the lips, perfect as ever in shape, were stiller,
and the smile on them at once more assured and
more sedate.

"Carnation, I cannot hold you any longer to
your promise!"

"And why not, John; are you tired of me?"

"I am not one of those who grow tired, dear,"
the young man's voice was so low none could hear
it but the one listener.  "I will never grow
tired—you know that.  But I waste the best years
of your life.  You are beautiful, and the time is
passing.  You might marry any one——"

"Have you any particular one in your mind?"

The question at once spurred and startled him.
He moved his feet on the soft grass of the meadow
with a certain embarrassment.

"Yes, Carnation; my mother was speaking
to me to-night of Harry Foster of Carnsalloch.
His father has told her of his love for you.  She
says I am keeping you from accepting him.  I
have come to release you from any promise,
Carnation, spoken or implied."

"There is no promise, John—save that I love
you, and will never marry any one else."

"But if I went away you might—you might
change your mind.  I am thinking of West
Australia!  I am making nothing of it here.  All
is as much my mother's as it was the day my
father died!  I can get her a good 'grieve' to
take charge, and go in the spring!"

The girl winced a little, but did not speak for
a while.

"Well," she said at last, "you must do as you
think best.  I shall wait all the same.  Thank
God, there is no law against a woman waiting."

"Carnation, do you mean it?"

The gap was a gap still; but both the lovers
were on one side of it, and the night was
dark about them.  Indeed, they were so close
each to the other that there was no need of
light.

"If I go, I shall make a home for you!"

"However long it is, I shall be ready when
you want me!"

"Carnation!"

"John!"

And so, as it was in the beginning, the old, old
tale was retold beneath the breathing rustle of
the orchard trees.

Yet their hearts were sore when they parted,
because the springtime was so near, and the home
they longed for seemed so very far.

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Carnation slept in a little garret room with a
gable window.  She had chosen it, because she
liked to look down on John Charles' fields and
on the low place in the hedge where he always
stood waiting for her.

The waning moon had risen late, and Carnation
undressed without a candle.  Having said her
prayers, she stole into bed.  But sleep would not
come, and, her heart being right sore within her,
the tears forced up her eyelids instead, as it is
woman's safety that they should.

She lay and sobbed her heart out because John
was going away.  But through the tears that wet
her pillow certain words she had been singing
in the choir on Sunday forced themselves:—

   |  "Weeping may endure for a night,
   |  But joy cometh in the morning."
   |

Nevertheless, Carnation must have sobbed herself
to sleep, for it was nigh the dawn when she was
awakened by something that flicked her lattice at
regular intervals.  It could not be a bird.  It
was too sharp and regular for that.

Could it be——?

Impossible!

He had never come before at such a time!
If it were indeed he, there must be some terrible
news to tell.

Carnation rose hastily, and threw a loose cloak
about her shoulders.  Then she went and opened
the little French lattice with the criss-cross
diamond panes.  The dawn was coming slowly
up out of the east, and the gray fields were turning
rosy beneath her.

A dark figure filled up the low place in the hedge.

"Carnation, I had something to tell you!"

"Is it bad news?  I cannot bear it, if it is."

"No, the best of news!  I am not going at
Whitsunday to Australia.  My mother told me
last night that she is to be married at the New
Year.  He is a rich man—Harry Foster's father.
She is going to live at Carnsalloch."

"Well?" said Carnation, doubtfully, not seeing
all that this sudden change meant to them both.

"Why, then, dearest," the voice of John Charles
Morrison shook with emotion, "we can be married
as soon as we like after that.  The farm and
everything on it is ours—yours and mine!"

Carnation's brain reeled, and she found herself
without a word to say.  Only the sound of the
happy singing ran in her head:

"*Joy cometh in the morning—joy cometh in the
morning!*"

"Why don't you speak, Carnation?  Are you
not glad?"

The voice down at the gap was anxious now.

"I am too far away from you to say anything,
but I am glad, very glad, dear John!"

"You will be ready by Whitsunday?"

"I shall be ready by Whitsunday!"

There was a pause.  The light came clearer
in the east.  John Charles could see the girl's
fresh complexion thrown up by the dark cloak,
an edging of lace, white and dainty, just showing
beneath.

"Carnation, I wish I could kiss you!" he said.

"Will this do instead?" she answered him,
smiling through the wetness of her eyes.

And she lifted up the old worn class medal
she had carried so long on its blue ribbon, and
kissed it openly.

And that had perforce to "do" John Charles—at
least, for that time of asking.





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.. _`JAIMSIE`:

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   JAIMSIE

.. vspace:: 2

As I drove home the other day I saw that old
lazybones Jacob Irving seated in the sun with
a whole covey of boys round him.  He had his
pocket-knife in his hand, and was busy mending
a "gird."  The "gird," or wooden hoop,
belonged to Will Bodden, and its precedence in
medical treatment had been secured by Will's
fists.  There was quite a little hospital ward
behind, of toys all awaiting diagnosis in strict
order of primacy.

Here was Dick Dobie with a new blade to put into
his shilling knife.  A shilling knife, Jacob assured
him, is not fitted for cutting down fishing rods.
It is however, excellent as a saw when used on
smaller timber.  Next came Peter Cheesemonger,
who was in waiting with a model schooner, the
rising of which had met with an accident.  And
there hurrying down from the cottage on the
Brae, was one of the younger Allan lasses with
her mother's "wag-at-the-wa'" clock.  The
pendulum had wagged to such purpose that it had
swung itself out of its right mind.

After I had left behind me this vision of old
Jacob Irving seated on the wall of the boys'
playground at the village school, I fell into a
muse upon the narrowness of the line which in
our Scottish parishes, divides the "Do-Everythings"
from the "Do-Nothings."

I could give myself the more completely to this
train of thought that I had finished my rounds
for the day, and had now nothing to do except to
look forward to seeing Nance, and to the excellent
dinner for which the shrewd airs of the moorland
were providing internal accommodation of quite
a superior character.

The conditions of Scottish life are generally
so strenuous, and the compulsions of "He that
will not work, neither shall he eat" so absolute
that we cannot afford more than one local Do-Nothing
in a village or rural community.  Equally
certainly, however, one is necessary.  The business
of the commonwealth could not be carried on
without him.  Besides, he is needed to point the
indispensable moral.

"There's that guid-for-naething Jacob Irvin'
sittin' wi' a' the misleared boys o' the neighbourhood
aboot him!" I can hear a douce goodwife
say to her gossip.  "Guid peety his puir wife
and bairns!  Guidman, lay ye doon that paper
an awa' to your wark, or ye'll sune be nae better—wi'
your Gledstane and your speeches and your
smokin'!  Think shame o' yersel', guidman."

As the community grows larger, however, there
is less and less room for the amiable Do-Nothing.
He is, indeed, only seen to perfection in a village
or rural parish.  In Cairn Edward, for instance
which thinks itself quite a town, he does not
attain the general esteem and almost affectionate
reprobation which, in my native Whinnyliggate,
follow Jacob Irving about like his shadow.

In a town like Cairn Edward a local Do-Nothing
is apt to attach himself to a livery stable, and
there to acquire a fine coppery nose and a
permanent "dither" about the knees.  He is spoken
of curtly and even disrespectfully as "that waister
Jock Bell."  In cities he becomes a mere matter
for the police, and the facetious reporter chronicles
his two-hundredth appearance before the magistrate.

But in Whinnyliggate, in Dullarg, in
Crosspatrick, and in the surrounding parishes, the
conditions for the growth of the Do-Nothing
approach as near perfection as anything merely
mundane can be expected to do.  Jacob Irving
is hardly a typical specimen, for he has a trade.
The genuine Do-Nothing should have none.  It
is true that Jacob's children might reply, like the
boy when asked if his father were a Christian,
"Yes, but he does not work at it much!"

Jacob is a shoe-maker—or rather shoe-mender.
For I have never yet been able to trace an entire
pair of Jacob's foot-gear on any human extremities.
It does not fit his humour to be so utilitarian.
He has, however, made an excellent toy pair for
the feet of little Jessie Lockhart's doll, with soles,
heels, uppers, tongues, and lacing gear all complete.
He spent, to my personal knowledge, an entire
morning in showing her (on the front step of her
father's manse) how to take them off and put them
on again.  And in the future he will never meet
Jessie on the King's highway without stopping and
gravely asking her if any repairs are yet requisite.
When such are necessary they will, without doubt,
receive his best attention.

I had not, however, made a study of Jacob
Irving for any considerable period without
exploding the vulgar opinion that the parish
Do-Nothing is an idle or a lazy man.  Nay, to repeat
my initial paradox, the Do-Nothing is the only
genuine Do-Everything.

When on a recent occasion I gave Jacob, in
return for the pleasure of his conversation, a
"lift" in my doctor's gig, he talked to me very
confidentially of his "rounds."  At first I imagined
in my ignorance that, like the tailors of the
parishes round about, he went from farm to farm
prosecuting his calling and cobbling the shoes of
half the countryside.  I was buttressed in this
opinion by his expressed pity or contempt for
wearers of "clogs."

"Here's anither puir body wi' a pair o' clogs on
his feet," Jacob would say; "and to think that for
verra little mair than the craitur paid for them, I wad
fit him wi' as soond a pair o' leather-soled shoon
as were ever ta'en frae amang tanners' bark!"

I had also seen him start out with a thin-bladed
cobbler's knife and the statutory piece of "roset"
or resin wrapped in a palm's-breadth of soft leather.
But, alas, all was a vain show.  The knife was to
be used in delicate surgical work upon the deceased
at a pig-killing, and the resin was for splicing
fishing-rods.

After a while I began by severe study to get
to the bottom of a Do-Nothing's philosophy.  To
do the appointed task for the performance of which
duty calls, man waits, and money will be paid,
that is work to be avoided by every means—by
procrastination, by fallacious promise, by prevarication,
and (sad to have to say it) by the plainest
of plain lying.

Whatever brings in money in the exercise of a
trade, whatever must be finished within a given
time, that needs the co-operation of others or
prolonged and consecutive effort on his own part, is
merely anathema to the Do-Nothing.

On the other hand, no house in the parish is
too distant for him to attend at the "settin' o'
the yaird" (the delving must, however, be done
previously).  On such occasions the Do-Nothing
revels in long wooden pins with string wrapped
mysteriously about them.  He can turn you out
the neatest shaped bed of "onions" and "syboes,"
the straightest rows of cabbages, and potato drills
so level that the whole household feels that it must
walk the straight path in order not to shame them.
The wayfaring man though a fool, looks over the
dyke, and says: "Thae dreels are Jacob's—there's
nane like them in the countryside!"

This at least is Jacob's way of it.

But though all this is by the way of introduction
to the particular Do-Nothing I have in my
eye, it is not of Jacob that I am going to write.
Jacob is indeed an enticing subject, and from the
point of view of his wife, might be treated very
racily.  But, though I afterwards made Margate
Irving's acquaintance (and may one day put her
opinions on record), I have other and higher game
in my mind.

This is none other than the Reverend James
Tacksman, B.A., licentiate of the Original Marrow
Kirk of Scotland.  In fact, a clerical Do-Nothing
of the highest class.

Now, to begin with, I will aver that there is
no scorn in all this.  "Jaimsie" is more to me
than many worthy religious publicists, beneficed,
parished, churched, stipended, and sustentationed
to the eyes.  He was not a very great man.  He
was in no sense a successful man, but—he was
"Jaimsie."

I admit that my zeal is that of the pervert.  It
was not always thus with me when "Jaimsie" was
alive, and perhaps my enthusiasm is so full-bodied
from a sense that it is impossible for the gentle
probationer to come and quarter himself upon Nance
and myself for (say) a period of three months in
the winter season, a thing he was quite capable of
doing when in the flesh.

In the days before I was converted to higher
views of human nature as represented in the person
of "Jaimsie," I was even as the vulgar with regard
to him.  I admit it.  I even openly scoffed, and
retailed to many the story of Jamie and my father,
Saunders McQuhirr of Drumquhat, with which I
shall conclude.  I used to tell it rather well at
college, the men said.  At least they laughed
sufficiently.  But now I shall not try to add, alter,
amend, or extenuate, as is the story-teller's wont
with his favourites.  For in sackcloth and ashes
I have repented me, and am at present engaged
in making my honourable amend to "Jaimsie."

For almost as long as I can remember the
Reverend James Tacksman, B.A., was in the habit
of coming to my father's house, and the news that
he was in view on the "far brae-face" used to put
my mother into such a temper that "dauded" heads
and cuffed ears were the order of the day.  The
larger fry of us cleared out promptly to the barn
and stack-yard till the first burst of the storm
was over.  Even my father, accustomed as he was
to carry all matters ecclesiastical with a high
hand, found it convenient to have some harness
to clean in the stable, or the lynch-pin of a cart
to replace in the little joiner's shop where he
passed so much of his time.

"I'll no hae the craitur aboot the hoose," my
mother would cry; "I telled ye sae the last time
he was here—sax weeks in harvest it was—and
then had maist to be shown the door.  (Haud oot
o' my road, weans!  Can ye no keep frae rinnin'
amang my feet like sae mony collie whaulps?
Tak' ye that!)  Hear ye this, guidman, if ye
willna speak to the man, by my faith I wull.
Mary McQuhirr is no gaun to hae the bread ta'en
oot o' the mooths o' her innocent bairns——(Where
in the name o' fortune, Alec, are ye gaun wi'
that soda bannock?  Pit it doon this meenit, or
I'll tak' the tings to ye!).  Na, nor I will be run
aff my feet to pleesure ony sic useless,
guid-for-naething seefer as Jaimsie Tacksman!"

At this moment a faint rapping made itself
audible at the front door, never opened except
on the highest state occasions, as when the minister
called, and at funerals.

My mother (I can see her now) gave a hasty
"tidy" to her gray hair and adjusted her
white-frilled "mutch" about her still winsome brow.

"*And hoo are ye the day, Maister Tacksman,
an' it's a lang, lang season since we've had the
pleasure o' a veesit frae you!*"

Could that indeed be my mother's voice, so
lately upraised in denunciation over a stricken
and cowering world?  I could not understand it
then, and to tell the truth I don't quite yet.  I
have, however, asked her to explain, and this
is what she says:

"Weel, ye see, Alec, it was this way" (she is
pleased when I require any points for my "scribin',"
though publicly she scoffs at them and declares
it will ruin my practice if the thing becomes
known), "ye see I had it in my mind to the last
minute to deny the craitur.  But when I gaed to
open the door, there stood Jaimsie wi' his wee bit
shakin' hand oot an' his threadbare coatie hingin'
laich aboot his peetifu' spindle shanks, and his
weel-brushit hat, an' the white neck-claith that
wanted doin' up.  And I kenned that naebody
could laundry it as weel as me.  My fingers juist
fair yeukit (itched) to be at the starchin' o't.  And
faith, maybes there was something aboot the craitur
too—he was sae cruppen in upon himsel', sae
wee-bookit, sae waesome and yet kindly aboot the e'en,
that I juist couldna say him nay."

That is my mother's report of her feelings in
the matter.  She does not add that the ten minutes
or quarter of an hour in which she had been
able to give the fullest and most public expression
to her feelings had allowed most of the steam of
indignation to blow itself off.  My father, who was
a good judge, gave me, early in my married life,
some excellent advice on this very point, which
I subjoin for the edification of the general public.

"Never bottle a woman up, Alec," he said,
meditatively.  "What Vesuvius and Etna and thae
ither volcanoes are to this worl', the legeetimate
exercise o' her tongue is to a woman.  It's a
naitural function, Alec.  Ye may bridle the ass or
the mule, but—gie the tongue o' a woman (as
it were) plenty o' elbow-room!  Gang oot o' the
hoose—like Moses to the backside o' the wilderness
gin ye like, and when ye come in she will be as
quaite as pussy; and if ever ye hae to contradick
your mairried wife, Alec, let it be in deeds, no in
words.  Gang your road gin ye hae made up
your mind, immovable like the sun, the mune, and
the stars o' heeven in their courses—but, as ye
value peace dinna be aye crying' 'Aye,' when your
wife cries 'No'!"

Which things may be wisdom.  But to the tale
of our Jaimsie.

Sometimes, moreover, even the natural man in
my kindly and long-suffering father uprose against
the preacher.  Jaimsie knew when he was
comfortable, and no mere hint of any delicate sort
would make him curtail his visit by one day.
I can remember him creeping about the farm of
Drumquhat all that summer, a book in his hand,
contemplating the works of God as witnessed
chiefly in the growth of the "grosarts."  (We
always blamed him—quite unjustly, I believe—for
eating the "silver-gray" gooseberries on the sly.)
Now he would stand half an hour and gaze up
among the branches of an elm, where a cushat was
tirelessly *coorooring* to his mate.  Anon you would
see him apparently deeply engaged in counting the
sugar-plums in the orchard.  After a little he
would be found seated on the red shaft of a cart
in the stackyard, jotting down in a shabby
notebook ideas for the illustrations of sermons never
to be written; or if written, doomed never to
be preached.  His hat was always curled up at
the back and pulled down at the front, and till
my mother made down an old pair of my father's
Sunday trousers for him (and put them beside
his bed while he slept), you could see in a good
light the reflection of your hand on the knees of
his "blacks."  It is scarcely necessary to say that
Jaimsie never referred to the transposition, nor,
indeed, in all probability, so much as discovered it.

Jaimsie was used to conduct family worship
morning and evening in the house of his sojourn,
as a kind of quit-rent for his meal of meat and his
prophet's chamber.  To the ordinary reading of
the Word he was wont to subjoin an "exposeetion"
of some disputed or prophetical passage.
The whole exercises never took less than an hour,
if Jaimsie were left to the freedom of his own
will—which, as may be inferred, was extremely awkward
in a busy season when the corn was dry in the
stock or when the scythes flashed rhythmically like
level silver flames among the lush meadow grass.

Finally, therefore, a compromise had to be
effected.  My father took the morning diet of
worship, but Jaimsie had his will of us in the
evening.  I can see them yet—those weariful
sederunts, when even my father wrestled with
sleep like Samson with the Philistines, while
my mother periodically nodded forward with
a lurch, and, recovering herself with a start, the
next moment looked round haughtily to see
which of us was misbehaving.  Meanwhile the
kitchen was all dark, save where before Jaimsie
the great Bible lay open between two candles,
and on the hearth the last peat of the evening
glowed red.

Many is the fine game of draughts I have had
with my brother Rob and Christie Wilson our
herd lad, by putting the "dam-brod" behind the
chimney jamb where my father and mother could
not see it, and moving the pieces by the light
of the red peat ash.  I am ashamed to think on
it now, but then it seemed the only thing to do
which would keep us from sleep.

And meantime Jaimsie prosed on, his gentle
sing-song working its wicked work on mother
like a lullaby, and my father sending his nails
into the palms of his hands that he might not
be shamed before us all.

I remember particularly how Jaimsie addressed
us for a whole week on his favourite text in he
Psalms, "The hill of God is as the hill of
Bashan—an high hill, as the hill of Bashan."

And in the pauses of crowning our men and
scuffling for the next place at the draught board,
we could catch strange words and phrases which
come to me yet with a curious wistful thrilling
of the heart.  Such are "White as snow on
Salmon"—"That mount Sinai in Arabia"—"Ye
mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither
let there be rain upon you, nor fields of offering."

And as a concluding of the whole matter we
sang this verse out of Francis Roos's psalter:

   |  "Ye mountains great, wherefore was it
   |    That ye did skip like rams?
   |  And wherefore was it, little hills,
   |    That ye did leap like lambs?"
   |

It was all double-Dutch to me then, but now
I can see that Jaimsie must have been marshalling
the mountains of Scripture to bear solemn
witness against an evil and exceedingly
somnolent generation.

Once when my mother snored audibly Jaimsie
looked up, but at that very moment she awoke,
and with great and remarkable presence of mind
promptly cuffed Rob, who in his turn knocked
the draught-board endways, just as I had his last
man cornered, to our everlasting disgrace.

My mother asked us next day pointedly where
we thought we were going to, and if we were of
opinion that there would be any dam-brods in
hell.  I offered no remarks, but Rob—who was
always an impudent boy—got on the other side
of the dyke from my mother and answered that
there would be no snorers there either.

From an early age he was a lad of singularly sound
judgments, my brother Rob.  He stayed out in the
barn till after my mother was asleep that night.

At last, however, even my father grew tired
of Jaimsie.  He stayed full three months on this
occasion.  Autumnal harvest fields were bared of
stooks, the frost began to glisten on the stiff turnip
shaws, the wreathed nets were put up for the
wintering sheep, and still the indefatigable Jaimsie
stayed on.

I remember yet the particular morning when,
at long and last, Jaimsie left us.  All night almost
there had been in the house the noise as of a
burn running over hollow stones, with short solid
interruptions like the sound of a distant mallet
stricken on wood.  It came from my father's and
mother's room.  I knew well what it meant.  The
sound like running water was my mother trying to
persuade my father to something against his will,
and the far-away mallet thuds were his
mono-syllabic replies.

This time it was my mother who won.

After the harvest bustle was over, Jaimsie had
resumed his practice of taking worship in the
mornings, but any of us who had urgent work
on hand could obtain, by proper representation,
a dispensing ordinance.  These were much sought
after, especially when Jaimsie started to tackle
the Book of Daniel "in his ordinary," as he
phrased it.

But this Monday morning, to the general surprise,
my father sat down in the chair of state himself
and reached the Bible from the shelf.

"I will take family worship this morning,
Mr. Tacksman," he said, with great sobriety.

Then we knew that something extraordinary
was coming, and I was glad I had not "threeped"
to my mother that I had seen some of the Nether
Neuk sheep in our High Park—which would have
been quite true, for I had put them there myself
on purpose the night before.

It was during the prayer that the blow fell.
My father had a peculiarly distinct and solemn
way with him in supplication; and now the
words fell distinct as hammer strokes on our ear.

He prayed for the Church of God in all
covenanted lands; for all Christian peoples of every
creed (here Jaimsie, faithful Abdiel, always said
"Humph"); for the heathen without God and
without hope; for the family now present and for
those of the family afar off.  Then, as was his
custom, he approached the stranger (who was no
stranger) within our gates.

"And do Thou, Lord, this day vouchsafe journeying
mercies to Thy servant who is about to leave us.
Grant him favourable weather for his departure,
good speed on his way, and a safe return to his
own country!"

A kind of gasping sigh went all about the
kitchen.  I knew that my mother had her eye
on my father to keep him to his pledged word
of the night season.  So I dared not look round.

But we all ached to know how Jaimsie would
take it, and we all joined fervently in the
supplication which promised us a couple of hours more
added to our day.

Then came the Amen, and all rose to their
feet.  Jaimsie seemed a little dazed, but took
the matter like a scholar and a gentleman.

He held out his hand to my father with his
usual benevolent smile.

"I did not know that I had mentioned it,"
he said, "but I was thinking of leaving you
to-day."

And that was all he said, but forthwith went
upstairs to pack his shabby little black bag.

My father stood a while as if shamed; then,
when we heard Jaimsie's feet trotting overhead,
he turned somewhat grimly to my mother.  On
his face was an expression as if he had just
taken physic.

"Well," he said, "you will be easier in your
mind now, Mary."  This he said, well knowing
that the rat of remorse was already getting his
incisors to work upon his wife's conscience.  She
stamped her foot.

"Saunders McQuhirr," she said in suppressed
tones, "to be a Christian man, ye are the maist
aggrevatin'——"

But at that moment my father went out through
the door, saying no further word.

My mother shooed us all out of the house like
intrusive chickens, and I do not know for certain
what she did next.  But Rob, looking through
the blind of the little room where she kept her
house-money, saw her fumbling with her purse.
And when at last Jaimsie, having addressed his
bag to be sent with the Carsphairn carrier into
Ayrshire (where dwelt the friends next on his
visiting list), came out with his staff in one hand,
he was dabbing his eyes with a clean handkerchief.

Then, after that, all that I remember is the
pathetic figure of the little probationer lifting up
a hand in silent blessing upon the house which
had sheltered him so long; and so taking his
lonely way over the hillside towards the northern
coach road.

When my father came in from the sheep at
mid-day, he waited till grace was over, and then,
looking directly at my mother, he said: "Weel,
Mary, how mony o' your pound notes did he
carry away in his briest-pocket this time?"

I shall never forget the return and counter
retort which followed.  My mother was vexed—one
of the few times that I can remember seeing
her truly angered with her husband.

"I would give you one advice, Saunders
McQuhirr," she said, "and that is, from this forth,
to be mindful of your own business."

"I will tak' that advice, Mary," he answered
slowly; "but my heart is still sore within me
this day because I took the last advice you gied
me!"

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And it was destined to be yet sorer for that
same cause.  Jaimsie never was within our doors
again.  He abode in Ayrshire and the Upper
Ward all that winter and spring, and it was not
till the following back-end, and in reply to a
letter and direct invitation from my conscience-stricken
father, that he announced that, all being
well and the Lord gracious, he would be with
us the following Friday.

But on the Thursday night a great snow storm
came on, and the drift continued long unabated.
We all said that Jaimsie would doubtless be safely
housed, and we did not look for him to arrive
upon the day of his promise.  However, by
Monday, when the coach was again running, my
mother began to be anxious, and all the younger
of us went forth to try and get news of him.  We
heard that he had left Carsphairn late on the
Thursday forenoon, meaning to stop overnight
at the shepherd's shieling at the southern end
of Loch Dee.  But equally certainly he had never
reached it.

It was not till Tuesday morning early that
Jaimsie was found under a rock near the very
summit of the Dungeon hill, his plaid about him
and his frozen hand clasping his pocket Bible.
It was open, and his favourite text was thrice
underscored.

"*The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan; an
high hill, as the hill of Bashan.*"

Well, there is no doubt that the little forlorn
"servant of God" has indeed gotten some new
light shed upon the text, since the dark hour when
he sat down to rest his weary limbs upon the
snow-clad summit of the Dungeon of Buchan.





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.. _`BEADLE AND MARTYR`:

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   BEADLE AND MARTYR

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I sometimes give it as a reason for a certain
lack of uniformity in church attendance, that I
cannot away with the new-fangled organs, hymns,
and chaunts one meets with there.  I love them
not, in comparison, that is, with the old psalm
tunes.  They do not make the heart beat quicker
and more proudly, like Kilmarnock and Coleshill,
Duke Street and Old 124th.

Nance, however, is so far left to herself as to
say that this is only an excuse, and that my
real reason is the pleasure I have in thinking that
all the people must perforce listen to a sermon,
while I can put my feet upon another chair and
read anything I like.  This, however, is rank
insult, such as only wives long wedded dare to
indulge in.  Besides, it shows, by its imputation
of motives, to what lengths a sordid and
ill-regulated imagination will go.

Moreover, I have never grown accustomed to
the hours of town churches, and I consider, both
from a medical and from a spiritual point of view,
that afternoon services in town churches are
directly responsible for the spread of indigestion,
as well as of a spirit of religious infidelity
throughout our beloved land.

(Nance is properly scandalised at this last
remark, and says that she hopes people will
understand that I only believe about half of what
I put down on paper when I get a pen in my
hand.  She complains that she is often asked
to explain some of my positions at afternoon teas.
I say it serves her right for attending such gatherings
of irresponsible gossip, tempered with boiled
tannin.  It is easy to have the last word with
Nance—here.)

But after all the chief thing that I miss when
I go to church is just Willie McNair.

The sermon is nowadays both shorter and
better.  The singing is good of its kind, and
I can always read a psalm or a paraphrase if
the hymn prove too long, or, as is often the case,
rather washy in sentiment.  The children's address
is really designed for children, and the prayers
do not exceed five minutes in length.  But—I
look in vain for Willie McNair.

Alas!  Willie lies out yonder on the green
knowe, his wife Betty by his side, and four feet
of good black mould over his coffin-lid.

Willie was just our beadle, and he had a story.
When I am setting down so many old things, if
I forget thee, Willie McNair, may my right hand
forget his cunning.

Ah, Willie, though you never were a "church-officer,"
though you never heard the Word, it is
you, you alone that I miss.  I just cannot think
of the kirk without you.  Grizzled, gnarled,
bow-shouldered of week-days, what a dignity of port,
what a solemnising awe, what a processional
tread was thine on Sabbaths!  We had only one
service in the Kirk on the Hill in my youth.
But, speaking in the vulgar tongue, that one
was a "starcher."

It included the "prefacing" of a psalm, often
extending over quite as long a period of time as
an ordinary modern sermon, a "lecture," which
as a rule (if "himsel'" was in fettle) lasted about
three quarters of an hour.  Then after that the
sermon proper was begun without loss of time.

Now I cannot say, speaking "from the heart
to the heart" (a favourite expression of Willie's),
that I regret the loss of all this.  I was but a boy,
and the torment of having to sit still for from
two hours and a half to three hours on a hard
seat, close-packed and well-watched to keep me
out of mischief, has made even matrimony seem
light and easy.  How mere Episcopalians and
other untrained persons get through the sorrows
and disappointments incident to human life I do
not know.

It was not till the opening of the Sabbath-school
by Mr. Osbourne, however, that I came to know
Willie well.  Hitherto he had been as inaccessible
and awestriking as the minister's neckcloth.  And
of that I have a story to tell.  I think what made
me a sort of advanced thinker in these early
days, was once being sent by my father to the
lodgings of the minister who was to "supply" on
a certain Sabbath morning.  The manse must
have been shut for repairs and "himsel'" on his
holidays.  At any rate, the minister was stopping
with Miss Bella McBriar in the little white house
below the Calmstone Brig.  Miss Bella showed
me in with my missive, and there, on the morning
of the Holy Day, before a common unsanctified
glass tacked to a wall, with a lathery razor in his
hand, in profane shirt-sleeves, stood the minister,
shaving himself!  His neckcloth, that was to
appear and shine so glorious above the cushions
of the pulpit, hung limp and ignominious over
the back of a chair.  A clay pipe lay across the
ends of it.

This was the beginning of the mischief, and
if I ever take to a criminal career, here was the
first and primal cause.

Shortly after I went to Sabbath-school, and
having been well trained by my father in
controversial divinity, and drilled by my mother in
the Catechism, I found myself in a fair way of
distinguishing myself; but for all that, I cannot
truly say that I ever got over the neckcloth on
the back of Miss McBriar's chair.  When I aired
my free-thinking opinions before my father, and
he shut me off by an appeal to authority, I kept
silence and hugged myself.

"That may be a good enough argument," I
said to myself, "but—I have seen a minister's
neckcloth hung over the back of a chair, and
shaving-soap on his chafts on Sabbath morning.
How can you believe in revealed religion after
that?"

But I had so much of solid common-sense,
even in these my salad days, that I refrained from
saying these things to my father.  Indeed, I would
not dare to say them now, even if I believed them,
Willie McNair regarded the Sabbath-school
much as I did.  To both of us it was simply
an imposition.

Willie thought so for two reasons—first and
generally, because it was an innovation; and
secondly, because he had to clean up the kirk
after it.  I agreed with him, because I was
compelled to attend—the farm cert being delayed a
whole hour in order that I might have the privilege
of religious instruction by the senior licensed
grocer of the little town.  This gentleman had
only one way of imparting knowledge.  That was
with the brass-edged binding of his pocket Bible.
Even at that time I preferred the limp Oxford
morocco.  And so would you, if something so
unsympathetic as brass corners were applied to
the sides of your head two or three times every
Sunday afternoon.

After several years of this experience, I passed
into Henry Marchbank's class and was happy.
But that is quite another chapter, and has nothing
to do with Willie McNair.

Now, Sabbath-school was over about three
o'clock, and our conveyance did not start till
four.  That is the way I became attached to
Willie.  I used to stay and help him to clean the
kirk.  This is the way he did it.

First, he unfrocked himself of his broadcloth
dignity by hanging his coat upon a nail in the
vestry.  Then he put on an apron which covered
him from gray chin-beard to the cracks in the
uppers of his shining shoes.  Into the breast of
this envelope he thrust a duster large enough for
a sheet.  It was, in fact, a section of a departed
pulpit swathing.

Then, muttering quite scriptural maledictions,
and couching them in language entirely Biblical,
Willie proceeded to visit the pews occupied by
each class, restoring the "buiks" he had
previously piled at the head of each seat to their
proper places on the book-board in front, and
scrutinising the woodwork for inscriptions in
lead-pencil.  Then he swept the crumbs and apple-cores
carefully off the floor and delivered judgment at
large.

"I dinna ken what Maister Osbourne was
thinkin' on to begin sic a Popish whigmaleery as
this Sabbath-schule!  A disgrace an' a mockin'
in the hoose o' God!  What kens the like o'
Sammle Borthwick aboot the divine decrees?
When I, mysel', that has heard them treated on
for forty year under a' the Elect Ministers o' the
Land, can do no more than barely understand
them to this day!  And a wheen silly lasses, wi'
gum-floo'ers in their bonnets to listen to bairns
hummerin' ower 'Man's Chief End'!  It's eneuch
to gar decent Doctor Syminton turn in his grave!
'Man's Chief End'—faith—it's wumman's chief
end that they're thinkin' on, the madams; they
think I dinna see them shakin' their gum-floo'ers
and glancing their e'en in the direction o' the
onmarriet teacher bodies——"

"And such are all they that put their trust in
them!" concluded Willie, somewhat irrelevantly.

"Laddie, come doon out o' the pulpit.  I canna
lippen (trust) ony body to dust that, bena mysel'!
Gang and pick up the conversation lozengers aff
the floor o' the Young Weemen's Bible Cless!"

Printed words can give small indication of the
intense bitterness and mordant satire of Willie's
speech as he uttered these last words.

Yet Willie was far from being a hater of women
kind.  Indeed, the end of all his moralising was
ever the same.

"There's my ain guid wife—was there ever a
woman like her?  Snod as a new preen, yet nocht
gaudy, naething ken-speckle.  If only the young
weemen nooadays were like Betty, they wad hae
nae need o' gum-floo'ers an' ither abominations.
Na, nor yet Bible clesses!  Faith, set them up!
It wad better become them to sit them doon wi'
their Bibles in their laps and the grace o' God
in their hearts, an' tak' a lesson to themsel's
oot o' Paaal!"

Here Willie dusted the pulpit cushions, vigorously
shaking them as a terrier does a rat, and then
carefully brushing them all in one direction, in
order that, as he said, "the fell may a' lie the
yae way."

Willie was no eye servant.  No spider took
hold with her hands and was in the Palace of
Willie's King.  Dust had no habitation there,
and if a man did not clean his boots on the mat
before entering, Willie went to him personally and
told him his probable chances of a happy hereafter.
These were but few and evil.

Then having got the "shine" to fall as he
wanted it, and the dark purple velvet overhang,
pride of his heart, to sit to a nicety, Willie lifted
up the heavy tassels, and at the same time resumed
the thread of his discourse, standing there in the
pulpit with the very port of a minister, and in his
speech a point and pith that was all his own.

"Aye, Paul," (he always pronounced it *Paaal*)—"aye,
Paaal, it's a peety ye never marriet and left
nae faim'ly that we ken o'.  For we hae sair need
o' ye in thae days.  But ye kenned better than
to taigle yersel' wi' silly lasses.  It was you that
bade the young weemen to be keepers at hame—nae
Bible clesses for Paaal—na, na!

"And you mind Peter—oh, Peter was juist as
soond on gum-floo'ers an' weemen's falderals as
Paaal, 'Whose adorning, let it not be the outward
adorning of plaiting the hair, and wearing of gold,
and putting on of apparel, but the ornament of
a meek and quiet speerit——'"

He stopped in the height of his discourse and
waggled his hand down at me.

"Here, boy!" he cried, "what did ye do wi'
thae conversation lozengers?"

I indicated that I had them still in my pocket,
for I had meant to solace the long road home
with the cleaner of them.

"Let me see them!"

Somewhat unwillingly I handed them up to
Willie as he stood in the pulpit, a different Willie,
an accusing Willie, Nathan the Prophet with a
large cloth-brush under his arm.

   |  "When this you see, remember me!"
   |

He read the printed words through his glasses
deliberately.

"Aye," he sneered, "that wad be Mag Kinstrey.
I saw Rob Cuthbert smirkin' ower at her when
the minister was lookin' up yon reference to
Melchisadek.  Aye, Meg, I'll remember ye—I'll
no forgot ye.  And if ye mend not your
ways——"

Willie did not conclude the sentence, but
instead, he shook his head in the direction of the
door of the Session house.

He picked out another.

   |  "The rose is red—the violet's blue,
   |  But fairer far, my love, are you!"
   |

Willie opened the door of the pulpit.

"Preserve me, what am I doin'?  It's fair
profanation to be readin' sic balderdash in a place
like this.  Laddie, hear ye this, whatever ye hae
to say to a lass, gang ye and say it to hersel', by
yoursel'.  For valenteens are a vain thing, and
conversation lozengers a mock and an abomination."

Willie threatened me a moment with uplifted
finger, and then added his stereotyped conclusion:
"And so are all such as put their trust in them!"

And through life I have acted strictly on Willie's
advice, and I am bound to admit that I have found
it good.

About this period, also, I began to take tea,
not infrequently, with Willie, and occasionally, but
not often, I saw his wife, the incomparable Betty,
whose praises Willie was never tired of singing.
I am forced to say that, after these harangues,
Betty disappointed me.  She sat dumb and
appeared singularly stupid, and this to a lad
accustomed to a housewife like my mother, with her
woman's wit keen as a razor, and a speech pointed
to needle fineness, appeared more than strange.

But Willie's affection was certainly both lovely
and lovable.  He was a gnarled grey old man
with a grim mouth, but for Betty he ran like
a young lover, and served her with meat and
drink, as it had been on bended knee.  His smile
was ready whenever she looked at him, and he
watched her with anxious eyes, dwelling on her
every word and movement with a curious
perturbation.  If she happened not to be in when he
came to the door, he would fall to trembling like
a leaf, and the bleached look on his face was
sad to see.

Willie McNair dwelt in a rickety old house at
the bottom of the kirk hill, separated from the
other village dwellings by the breadth of a field.
There was a garden behind it, and a heathery
common behind that, with whins growing to the
very dyke of Willie's kail yard.

The first time that Betty was not in the house
when we went home, it was to the hill behind
that Willie ran first.  Under a broom bush he
found her, after a long search, and lifting her up
in his arms he carried her to the house.

"Poor Betty," he cried over his shoulder as he
went before me down the walk; "she shouldna
gang oot on sic a warm day.  The sun has been
ower muckle for her.  See, boy, rin doon to the
Tinkler's well for some caller water.  The can's
at the gable end."

When I returned Betty was quietly in bed;
and Willie had made the tea with ordinary water.
He was somewhat more composed, but I could
see his hand shake when he tried to pour out
the first cup.  He "skailed" it all over the cloth,
and then was angered with himself for what he
called his "trimlin' auld banes."

But I never knew or suspected Willie's secret
till that awful Sabbath day, when the cross that
he had borne so long hidden from the eyes of
men, was suddenly lifted high in air.

Then all at once Willie towered like a giant,
and the bowed shoulders seemed to support a
grey head about which had become visible an
apparent aureole.

It was the day of High Communion, and the
solemn services were drawing to a yet more solemn
close.  The elements had been dispensed and
the elders were back again in their places.
Mr. Osbourne had Dr. Landsborough of Portmarnock
assisting him that day—a tall man with a gracious
manner, and the only man who could give an
after-communion address without his words being
resented as an intrusion.

"It is always difficult," he said, "to disturb the
peculiarly sacred pause which succeeds the act of
communion by any words of man——"

He had got no farther when he stopped, and the
congregation regarded him with the strained
attention which a beautiful voice always compels.  The
beadle was sitting in all the reasonable pride of his
dignity in the first pew to the right of the Session.
When Dr. Landsborough stopped, the congregation
followed the direction of his eyes.

The door at the back of the kirk was seen to
be open and a woman stood there, dishevelled,
wild-eyed, a black bottle in her shaking hand, a
red shawl about her head.

It was Betty McNair.

"Willie!" she cried aloud in the awful silence,
"Willie, come forth—you that lockit me in the
back kitchin, an' thocht to stop me frae the
saicrament—I hae deceived ye, Willie McNair, clever
man as ye think yersel'!"

I was in the corner pew opposite Willie (being,
of course, a non-communicant at that date), so that
I could see his face.  At the first sound of that
voice his countenance worked as if it would change
its shape, but in a moment I saw him grip the
book-board and stand up.  Then he went quietly
down the aisle to where his wife stood, gabbling
wild and wicked words, and laughing till it turned
the blood cold to hear her in that sacred place,
and upon that solemn occasion.

Firmly, but very gently, Willie took the woman
by the arm, and led her out.  She went like a
lamb.  He closed the door behind him, and after
a quaking and dreadful pause, Dr. Landsborough
took up the interrupted burden of his discourse.

I was a great lad of twelve or thirteen at the
time and unused to tears for many years.  But I
know that I wept all the time till the service was
ended, thinking of Willie and wondering where he
was and what he would be doing.

That same night I heard my father telling my
mother about what came next.

The Session were in their little square room after
the service, counting the tokens.  The minister was
sitting in his chair waiting to dismiss them with the
benediction, when a rap came to the door.  My
father opened it, being nearest, and there without
stood Willie McNair.

"I wish to speak with the Session," he said, firmly.

"Come in—come your ways in, William," said
the minister, kindly, and the elders resumed their
seats, not knowing what was to happen.

"Moderator and ruling elders of this congregation,"
said Willie, who had not served tables so
long without knowing the respect due to his
spiritual superiors, "I have come before you in
the day of my shame to demit the office I have
held so long among you.  Gentlemen, I do not
complain, I own I am well punished.  These
twenty years I have lived for my pride.  I have
lied to each one of you—to the minister, to you
the elders, and to the hale congregation, making
a roose of my wife, and sticking at nothing to
hide the shame of my house.

"Sirs, for these lying words, it behoves that ye
deal strictly with me, and I will submit willingly.
But believe me, sirs, it was through a godly
jealousy that I did it, that the Kirk of the New
Testament might not be made ashamed through
me and mine.  But for a' that I have done wrong,
grievous wrong.  I aye kenned in my heart that
it would come—though, God helping me, I never
thocht that it would be like this!

"But noo I maun gang awa'," here he broke
into dialect, "for I could never bear to see anither
man carry up the Buiks and open the door for
you, sir, to enter in.  Forty years has William
McNair been a hewer of wood and a drawer of
water in this tabernacle.  Let there be pity in
your hearts for him this day.  He hath borne
himself with pride, and for that the Lord hath
brought him very low.  And, oh! sirs, pray for
her—flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone,
come to what ye saw this day!  Tell me that
He will forgie—be sure to tell me that He will
forgie Betty—for what she has dune this day!"

The minister reassured him in affectionate
words, and the whole Session tried to get Willie
to withdraw his decision.  But in vain.  The old
man was firm.

"No," he said, "Betty is noo my chairge.  The
husband of a drunkard is not a fit person to serve
tables in the clean and halesome sanctuary.  I
will never leave Betty till the day she dees!"

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And neither he did.  It was not long.  Willie
nursed his wife with unremitting tenderness,
breaking himself down as he did so.  I did not
see him again till the day of Betty's funeral.  I
went with my father, feeling very important, as
it was the first function I had been at in my
new character of a man.

When they were filling in the grave, Willie
stood at the head with his hat in his hand, and
his grey locks waving in the moderate wind.
His lips were tremulous, but I do not think there
were tears in his eyes.

I went up to try to say something that might
comfort him.  I knew no better then.  But I
think he did not wish me to speak about Betty,
for with a strange uncertain kind of smile he
lifted up his eyes till they rested upon the golden
fields of ripening corn all about the little kirkyard.

"I think it will be an early harvest," he said,
in a commonplace tone.

Then all suddenly he broke into a kind of
eager sobbing cry—a heart-prayer of ultimate
agony.

"Oh, my God! my God! send that it be an
early harvest to puir Willie McNair."

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And it was, for before a sheaf of that heartsome
yellow corn was gathered into barn, they laid
Willie beside the woman he had watched so long,
and sheltered so faithfully behind the barriers
of his love.





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.. _`THE BLUE EYES OF AILIE`:

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   THE BLUE EYES OF AILIE

.. vspace:: 2

When first I went to Cairn Edward as a medical
man on my own account, I had little to do
with the district of Glenkells.  For one thing,
there was a resident doctor there, Dr. Campbell—Ignatius
Campbell—and in those days professional
boundaries were more strictly observed than they
have been in more recent years.  But in time,
whether owing to the natural spread of my practice,
or through some small name which I got in the
countryside, owing to a successful treatment of
tubercular cases, I found myself oftener and oftener
in the Glenkells.  And, indeed, ever since I began
to be able to keep a stated assistant, it has been
my custom to take day about with him on the
Glenkells round.

But in what follows I speak of the very early
years when I had still little actual connection
with the district.  The Glenkells folk are always
in the habit of referring to themselves as a
community apart.  They may, indeed, in extreme
cases include the rest of the United Kingdom—but,
as it were, casually.  Thus, "If the storm
continues it will be a sair winter in Glenkells,
*and the rest o' the country*!"

Or when some statesman conspicuously
blundered, or a foreign nation involved themselves
in superfluous difficulties, you could not go into
a farmhouse or traverse the length of the main
street of the Clachan without hearing the words:
"The like o' that could never hae happened i'
the Glenkells!"

So there arose a proverb which, though of local
origin, was not without a certain wider acceptation:
"As conceity as Glenkells," or, in a more diffuse
form: "Glenkells cocks craw aye croosest an' on
a muckler midden!"

But Glenkells wotted little of such slurs, or if
it minded at all took them for compliments with
a solid and irrefutable foundation.  On the other
hand, it retorted upon the rest of the world in
characteristic fashion, visiting the sins of the
fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth
generation.  As thus: "Tak' care o' him.  He's no
to be trustit.  His grandfaither cam' frae Borgue!"  Or,
more allusively: "Aye, a Nicholson aye needs
watchin'.  They a' come frae Kirkcudbright, *where
the jail is*!"

One peculiarity of the speech of this country
within a country struck me more than all the
others—perhaps because it came in the line of
my own profession.

More than once an applicant for my services
would say, in answer to my question: "Have you
called in the doctor?"  "Oh, no, it has no been so
serious as that!"  Succeedantly I would find that
Dr. Ignatius Campbell had been in attendance for
some time, and that I ought to have consulted
with him before, as it were, jumping his claim.

Dr. Campbell was a queer, dusty, smoky old
man who, when seen abroad, sat low in a kind
of basket-phaeton—as it were, on the small of
his back, and visited his patients in a kind of
dreamy exaltation which many put down to drink.
They were wrong.  The doctor was something
much harder to cure—an habitual opium-eater.
Somehow Dr. Campbell had never taken the
position in the Glenkells to which his abilities
entitled him.  He came from the North, and that
was against him.  More than that, he sent in his
bills promptly, and saw that they were settled.
Worst of all, he took no interest in imaginary
diseases.

He openly laughed at calomel—which in the
Glenkells was looked upon as a kind of blaspheming
of the Trinity.  But he was a duly certified
graduate of Edinburgh like myself.  His name
was on the Medical List, and only his unfortunate
habit and the dreamy idleness engendered by it
kept him from making a very considerable name
for himself in his profession.  I found, for instance,
after his death (he left his books, papers, and
instruments to me) that he had actually anticipated
in his vague theoretical way some of the most
applauded discoveries of more recent times, and
that he was well versed in all the foreign literature
of such subjects as interested him.

But Dr. Ignatius Campbell with his great pipe,
his low-crowned hat, his seedy black clothes with
the fluff sticking here and there upon them, was
not the man to impress the Glenkells.  For in
Galloway the minister may go about in
fishing-boots, shooting-jacket, and deerstalker if he
will—nobody thinks the worse of him for it.  The
lawyer may look as if he bought his clothes from
a slopshop.  The country gentleman may wear
a suit of tweeds for ten years, till the leather
gun-patch on the shoulder threatens to pervade
the whole man, back and front.  But the doctor,
if he would be successful, must perforce dress
strictly by rule.  Sunday and Saturday he must
go buttoned up in his well-fitting surtout.  His
hat must be glossy, no matter what the weather
may be (for myself I always kept a spare one
in the box of the gig), and the whole man upon
entering a sick-room must bring with him the
fragrance of clean linen, good clothes, and
personal exactitude.  And though naturally a little
rebellious at first, I hereby subscribe to the
Galloway view of the case.

Nance converted me.

"Is that a clean collar?—no, sir, you don't!
Take it off this instant!  I think this tie will suit
you better.  It is a dull day and something light
becomes you.  I have ironed your other hat.  See
that you put it on!  Let me look at your cuffs.
Mind that you turn down your trousers before you
come in sight of the house.  John" (this to my
driver), "see that Dr. McQuhirr turns down his
trousers and puts on his hat right side first.
There is a dint at the back that I cannot quite
get out!"

It is no wonder that I succeeded in Galloway,
having such a—I mean being endowed with such
professional talents!

I had not, however, been long in Glenkells before
I found out that there was another medical adviser
on the scene—a kind of Brownie who did
Dr. Campbell's work while he slept or dreamed his
life away over his pipe and his coloured diagrams,
whose very name was never mentioned, to me at
least—perhaps from some idea that as an orthodox
professional man I might resent the Brownie's
intrusion.

But matters came to a head one day when I
found the bottle of medicine I had sent up from
the Cairn Edward apothecary standing untouched
on the mantelpiece, while another and wholly
unlicensed phial stood at the bed-head with a glass
beside it, in which lingered a few drops of
something which I knew well that I had not prescribed.

"What is this?" I demanded.  "Why have you
not administered the medicine I sent you?"

The woman put her apron to her lips in some
embarrassment.

"Oh, doctor—ye see the way o't was this," she
said.  "Jeems was ta'en that bad in the nicht that
I had to caa' in—a neebour o' oors—an' he brocht
this wi' him."

I lifted my hat.

"Good morning, Mrs. Landsborough," I said,
with immense dignity; "I am sorry that I must
retire from the case.  It is impossible for me to
go on if you disregard my instructions in that
manner.  No doubt Dr. Campbell——"

The good woman lifted up her hands in amazement
and appeal.  Even Jeems turned on his bed
in quick alarm.

"'Deed, Dr. Ma Whurr!" she cried, "it wasna
Dr. Cawmell ava.  We wadna think on sic a
thing——"

"Your faither's son will never gang oot o' a
MacLandsborough's hoose in anger, surely?" said
Jeems, making the final Galloway appeal to the
clan spirit.

This was conjuring with a name I could not
disavow, and strongly against my first intentions
I continued to attend the case.  Jeems got rapidly
better, and my bottle diminished steadily day by
day.  But whether it went down Jeems's throat
or mended the health of the back of the grate,
it was better, perhaps, that I did not inquire too
closely.  On my way home I considered my own
prescription, and recalled the ingredients which
by taste and smell I discovered in the intruding
bottle.

"I am not sure but what—well, it might have
been better.  I wonder who the man is?"  This
was as much as I could be brought to admit in
those days, even to myself.  The doctor, who in
the first years of his practice does not think
more of the sacredness of his diagnosis than of
his married wife and all his family unto cousins
six times removed, is not fit to be trusted—not
so much as with the administering of one
Beecham's pill.

Yet I own the matter troubled me.  I had a rival
who—no, he did not understand more of the case
than myself.  But all the same, I wanted to find
him out—in the interests of the Medical Register.

But the riddle was resolved one day about a
week afterwards in a rather remarkable manner.
I was proceeding up the long main street of
the Clachan, looking for a house in which
Dr. Campbell (with whom of late I had grown
strangely intimate) had told me that he would
be found at a certain hour.

As I went I noticed, what I had never seen
before, a little house, white and clean without,
the creepers clambering all over it.  This agreed,
so far, with the doctor's description.  I turned
aside and went up two or three carefully reddened
steps.  A brass knocker blinked in the evening
sunshine.  I lifted it and knocked.

"Is the doctor in?" I said to a tall gaunt
woman who opened the door an inch or two.  As
it was I could only see a lenticular section of her
person, so that in describing her I draw upon
later impressions.  She hesitated a second or two,
and then, rather grudgingly as I thought, opened
the door.

"Come in," she said.

With no more greeting than that she ushered
me into a small room crowded with books and
apparatus.  The table held a curious microscope,
evidently home-made in most of its fittings.
Pieces of mechanism, the purpose of which I
could not even guess, were strewn about the floor.
Castings were gripped angle-wise in vices, and at
the end of an ordinary carpenter's bench stood
a small blacksmith's furnace, with bellows and
anvil all complete.  In the recess, half hidden
by a screen, I could catch a glimpse of a lathe.
There was no carpet on the floor.

The door opened and a small spare man stood
before me, the deprecation of an offending dog
in his beautiful brown eyes.  He did not speak
or offer to shake hands, but only stood shyly
looking up at me.  It was some time before
I could find words.  Nance often tells me that I
need a push behind to enable me to take the
lead in any conversation—except with herself,
that is, and then I never get a chance.

"I beg your pardon, doctor," said I, "I was
seeking my friend Campbell.  I did not know
you had settled amongst us, or I should have
been to call on you before this."

I held out my hand cordially, for the man
appealed to me somehow.  But he did not seem
to notice it.

"No, not 'doctor,'" he said, speaking in a
quick agitated way.  "Mister—Roger is my
name."

"I beg your pardon, I am sure," I stammered;
"in that case I do not know how to excuse
my intrusion.  I asked for the doctor, meaning
Dr. Campbell, and your servant——"

"My mother, sir!"

There was pride as well as challenge in the
brown eyes now, and I found myself liking the
young man better than ever.

"I beg your pardon—Mrs. Roger showed me
in by mistake, I fear."

"It was no mistake—I am sometimes called
so in this place, though not by my own will;
I have no right to the title!"

"Well," I said, as I looked round the room.
"won't you shake hands with me?  You don't
know what a pleasure it is to meet a man of
science, as it is evident you are, here in these
forlorn uplands!"

"Will you pardon me a moment till I inform
you exactly of my status?" he said, "and when
you clearly understand, if you still wish to shake
my hand—well, with all my heart."

He stood silent a moment, and then, suddenly
recollecting himself, "Will you not sit down?"
he said.  "Pray forgive my discourtesy."

I sat down, displacing as I did so a box of tools
which had been planted on the green rep of the
easy-chair cover.

"You may well be astonished that I wish
to speak to you, Dr. McQuhirr," he said,
beginning restlessly to pace the room, mechanically
avoiding the various obstacles on the floor as
he did so; "but I have long wished to put
myself right with a member of the profession,
and now that chance has thrown us together, I
feel that I must speak——"

"But there is Dr. Campbell—surely it cannot
be that two men of such kindred tastes, in
a small place like this, should not know each
other!"

He flushed painfully, and turning to a stand
near the window, played with the flywheel of a
small model, turning it back and forward with
his finger.

"Dr. Campbell is the victim of a most unfortunate
prejudice," he murmured softly, and for a
space said no more.  It was so still in the room
that through the quiet I could hear the tall
eight-day clock ticking half-way up the stairs.

He resumed his narrative and his pacing to
and fro at the same moment.

"I am," he went on, "at heart of your
profession.  I have attended all the classes and
earned the encomiums of my professors in the
hospitals.  I stood fairly well in the earlier
written examinations, but at my first oral I
broke down completely—a kind of aphasia came
over me.  My brain reeled, a dreadful shuddering
took hold of my soul, and I fell into a dead
faint.  For months they feared for my reason,
and though ultimately I recovered and completed
my course of study, I was never able to sit down
at an examination-table again.  After my father's
death my mother settled here, and gradually
it has come about that in any emergency I have
been asked to visit and prescribe for a patient.
I believe the poor people call me 'doctor' among
themselves, but I have never either countenanced
the title, or on any occasion failed to rebuke the
user.  Neither have I ever accepted fee or reward,
whether for advice or medicine!"

I held out my hand.

"I care not a brass farthing about professional
etiquette," said I; "it is my opinion that you are
doing a noble work.  And I know of one case, at
least, where your diagnosis was better than mine!"

More I could not say.  He flushed redly and
took my hand, shaking it warmly.  Then all at
once he dropped the somewhat strained elevation
of manner in which he had told his story, and
began to speak with the innocent confidence and
unreserve of a child.  He was obviously much
pleased at my inferred compliment.

"Ah!" he said, "I know what you mean.  But
then, you see, you did not know James
MacLandsborough's life history.  He was my father's
gardener.  I knew his record and the record of
his father before him.  It was nothing but an
old complaint, for which I had treated him over
and over again—working, that is, on the basis of
a recent chill.  In your place and with your data
I should have done what you did.  In fact, I
admired your treatment greatly."

We talked a long while, so long, indeed, that I
forgot all about Dr. Campbell, and it was dusk
before I found myself at Mr. Roger's door saying
"Good-night."

"If I might venture to say so," he stammered,
holding my hand a moment in his quick nervous
grasp, "I would advise you not to mention your
visit here to your friend, Dr. Campbell."

"I am afraid I must," I replied; "I had an
appointment with him which I have unfortunately
forgotten in the interest of our talk!"

"Then I much fear that it is not 'Good-night'
but 'Good-bye' between us!" he murmured sadly,
and went within.

And even as he had prophesied so it was.

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"Sir," said Dr. Campbell, "I shall be sorry to
lose your society, but you must choose between
that house and mine.  I have special and family
reasons why I cannot be intimate with any visitor
to Mr.——ah, Roger!"

I had found the doctor lying on his couch, as
was his custom, his curious Oriental tray beside
him, and an acrid tang in the air; but at my
first words about my visit he shook off his dreamy
abstraction and sat up.

"To tell you the truth, Campbell," I said, as
calmly as possible, for, of course, I could not allow
any one (except Nance) to dictate to me, "I was
singularly interested in the young man, and—he
told his tale, as it seemed to me, quite frankly.  If
I am not to call upon him, I must ask you as to
your reasons for a request so singular."

"It is not a request, McQuhirr," said the doctor,
passing his hand across his brow as if to clear
away moisture.  "It is only a little information
I give you for your guidance.  If you wish to
visit this young man—well, I am deeply grieved,
but I cannot receive you here, or have any
intercourse with you professionally."

"That is saying too much or too little," I replied;
"you must tell me your reasons."

Then he hesitated, looking from side to side
in a semi-dazed way.

"I would rather not—they are family reasons!"
he stammered, as he spoke.

"There is such a thing as the seal of the
profession," I reminded him.

"Well," he said at last, "I will tell you.  That
young man is my nephew, the son of my elder
brother.  His name is not Roger, but Roger
Campbell.  His mother was my poor brother's
housekeeper.  He married her some time after
his first wife's death.  This boy was their child,
and, like a cuckoo in the nest, he tried from the
first to oust his elder brother—the child of the
dead woman.  Indeed, but for my interference
his mother and he would have done it between
them; for my brother was latterly wholly in
their hands.

"Finally this lad went to college, and coming
here one summer after the breaking up of the
classes he must needs fall in love with Ailie—my
daughter, that is.  What?—You never knew that
I had a daughter!  Ah, Alec, I was not always
the man you see me—I too have had ambitions.
But after—well, what use is there to speak of
it?  At any rate, young Roger Campbell fell
in love with my Ailie, and she, I suppose, liked
it well enough, but like a sensible girl gave him
no immediate answer.  Then after that came his
half-brother, who was heir to the little property
on Loch Aweside, and he too fell in love with
Ailie.  There was no girl like her in all the Glen
of Kells; and as for him, he was a tall, handsome,
fair lad, not crowled and misshapen like this one.
Well, Ailie and he fell in love, and then Roger's
mother moved heaven and earth to disinherit
Archie.  It was for this cause that I went up
to Inchtaggart and watched my brother during
the last weeks of his life.  The woman fought
like a wild cat for her son, but I and Archie
watched in turns.  It was I who found the will
by which Archie inherited all.  In three months
Ailie and he were married.  Roger Campbell
failed in his examinations the same year, and the
next mother and son came back here to her native
village to live on their savings.

"The mere choice of this place showed their
spite against me, but that is not the worst.  Ever
since that day they have devoted themselves to
discrediting me in my profession.  And you, who
know these people, know to what an extent they
have succeeded.  My practice has shrunk to
nothing—almost.  Even the patients I have, when they
do call me in, send secretly for my enemy before
my feet are cold off the doorstep.  Yet I have no
redress, for I have never been able to bring a
case of taking fees home to him.  Ah! if only
I could!"

Dr. Ignatius fell back exhausted, for towards
the last he had been talking with a vehemence
that shook the casements and set the prisms of
the little old chandelier a-tingling.

"And that is why I say you must choose between
us," he said.  "Is it not enough?  Have I asked
too much?"

"It is enough for me," I said; "I will do as
you wish!"

Now I did not see anything in his story very
much against the young man; but, after all, the
lad was nothing to me, and I had known
Dr. Ignatius a long time.

So I asked him how it came that the young
man was called Roger and not Campbell.

"Oh!" he said, "that is the one piece of
decent feeling he has shown in the whole affair.
He called himself Campbell Roger when he came
here.  You are the only person who knows that
he is my nephew."

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I was glad afterwards that I had made him the
promise he asked for.  I never saw him in life
again.  Dr. Ignatius Campbell died two days after,
being found dead in bed with his tiny pipe clutched
in his hand.  I went up that same day, and in
conjunction with Dr. John Thoburn Brown of
Drumfern, found that our colleague had long
suffered from an acute form of heart disease, and
that it was wonderful how he had survived so long.
The body was lying at the time in the room
where he died.  The maid-servant had gone to
stay with relatives in the village, not being willing
to remain all night in the house alone; for which,
all things considered, I did not greatly blame her.
I asked if there was anything I could do, but was
informed that all arrangements for the funeral
had been made.  It was to be on the Friday,
two days after.

I drove up the glen early that morning, and found
a tall young man in the house, opening drawers
and rummaging among papers.  I understood at
once that this was Mr. Archibald Campbell of
Inchtaggart.  I greeted him by that name, and
he responded heartily enough.

"You are Dr. McQuhirr," he said; "my father-in-law
often spoke about you and how kind you
were to him.  You know that he has left all his
books, papers, and scientific apparatus to you?"

"I did not know," I said; "that is as unexpected
as it is undeserved, and I hope you will
act precisely as if such a bequest had not existed.
You must take all that either you or your wife
would care to possess."

"Oh!" he cried lightly, "Ailie could not come.
She has been ill lately, and as for me, I would not
touch one of the beastly things with a ten-foot
pole.  Come into the garden and have a smoke."

There Mr. Archibald Campbell told me that
he had arranged for a sale of the doctor's house
and all his effects as soon as possible.

"Better to have it over," he said, "so you had
as well bring up a conveyance and cart off all the
scientific rubbish you care about.  I want all
settled up and done with within the month."

He departed the night after the funeral, leaving
the funeral expenses unpaid.  He was a hasty,
though well-meaning young man, and no doubt he
forgot.  When I came up on the Monday of the
week following, I discovered that the account had
been paid.

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After I had made my selection of books and
instruments, besides taking all the manuscripts
(watched from room to room by the Drumfern
lawyer's sharp eye), I strolled out, and my steps
turned involuntarily towards the little house
covered with creepers where I had seen the young
man Roger.  I felt that death had absolved me
from my promise, and with a quick resolve I
turned aside.

The same woman opened the door an inch or
two.  I lifted my hat and asked if her son was in.
She held the door open for me without speaking
a word and ushered me into the model-strewn
little parlour.  I cast my eyes about.  On the
table lay the discharged account for the funeral
expenses of Dr. Ignatius Campbell!

In another moment the door opened and the
young man came in, paler than before, and with
the slight halt in his gait exaggerated.

"How do you do, Mr. Campbell?" I said quietly,
holding out my hand.

He gave back a step, almost as if I had struck
him.  Then he smiled wanly.  "Ah! he told you.
I expected he would; and yet you have come?"  He
spoke slowly, the words coming in jerks.

I held out my hand and said heartily: "Of
course I came."

I did not think it necessary to tell him
anything about my agreement with Dr. Campbell.
He, on his part, had quietly possessed himself
of John Ewart's bill for the funeral expenses.
We had a long talk, and I stayed so late that
Nance had begun to get anxious about me before
I arrived home.  But not one word, either in
justification of himself or of accusation against
his uncle, did he utter, though he must have
known well enough what his uncle had said of him.

Nor was it till a couple of months afterwards
that Roger Campbell adverted again to the
subject.  I had been to the churchyard to look at
the headstone which had been erected, as I knew,
at his expense.  He had asked me to write the
inscription for it, and I had done so.

Coming home, he had to stop several times on
the hill to take breath.  When we got to the
door he said: "I have but one thing to pray for
now, Dr. McQuhirr, and that is that I may
outlive my mother.  Give me your best skill and
help me to do that."

His prayer was answered.  He lived just two
days after his mother.  And I was with him most
of the time, while Nance stayed with my people
at Drumquhat.  It was a beautiful Sabbath
evening, and the kirk folk were just coming home.
Most who suffer from his particular form of phthisis
imagine themselves to be getting better to the
very last, but he knew too much to have any
illusions.  I had put the pillows behind him,
and he was sitting up making kindly comment
on the people as they passed by, Bible in hand.
He stopped suddenly and looked at me.

"Doctor," he said, "what my uncle told you
about me never made any difference to you?"

"No," I said, rather shamefacedly, "no difference
at all!"

"No," he went on, meditatively, "no difference.
Well, I want you to burn two documents for me,
lest they fall into the wrong hands—as they might
before these good folk go back kirkward again."

He directed me with his finger, at the same
time handing me a key he wore upon his watch-chain.

"Even my poor mother up there," he said,
pointing to the room above, "has never set eyes
on what I am going to show you.  It is weak
of me; I ought not to do it, doctor, but I will
not deny that it is some comfort to set myselt
right with one human soul before I go."

I took out of a little drawer in a bureau a
miniature, a bundle of letters, and a broadly
folded legal-looking document.

I offered them to Roger, but he waved them away.

"I do not want to look upon them—they are
here!"  He touched his forehead.  "And one
of them is here!"  He laid his hand on his heart
with that freedom of gesture which often comes
to the dying, especially to those who have
repressed themselves all their lives.

I looked down at the miniature and saw the
picture of a girl, very pretty, beautiful indeed,
but with that width between the eyes which, in
fair women, gives a double look.

"Ailie, my brother's wife!" he said, in answer
to my glance.  "These are her letters.  Open
them one by one and burn them."

I did as he bade me, throwing my eyes out
of focus so that I might not read a word.  But
out of one fluttered a pressed flower.  It was
fixed on a card with a little lock of yellow hair
arranged about it for a frame, fresh and crisp.
And as I picked it up I could not help catching
the prettily printed words:

   |  "TO DARLING ROGER, FROM HIS OWN AILIE."

There was also a date.

"Let me look at that!" he said quickly.  I
gave it to him.  He looked at the flower—a
quick painful glance, but as he handed me back
the card he laughed a little.

"It is a 'Forget-me-not,'" he said.  Then in
a musing tone he added: "*Well, Ailie, I never
have!*"

So one by one the letters were burnt up, till
only a black pile of ashes remained, in ludicrous
contrast to the closely packed bundle I had taken
from the drawer.

"Now burn the ribbon that kept them together,
and look at the other paper."

I unfolded it.  It was a will in holograph, the
characters clear and strong, signed by Archibald
Ruthven Campbell, of Inchtaggart, Argyleshire,
devising all his estate and property to his son Roger,
with only a bequest in money to his elder son!

I was dazed as I looked through it, and my lips
framed a question.  The young man smiled.

"My father's last will," he said, "dated a month
before his death.  She never knew it."  (Again he
indicated the upper room where his mother's body
lay.)  "*They* never knew it."  (He looked at the
girl's picture as it smiled up from the table where I
had laid it.)  "My brother Archie succeeded on a
will older by twenty years.  But when I lost Ailie, I
lost all.  Why should she marry a failure?  Besides,
I truly believe that she loves my brother, at least
as well as ever she loved me.  It is her nature.
That she is infinitely happier with him, I know."

"Then you were the heir all the time and
never told it—not to any one!" I cried, getting
up on my feet.  He motioned me towards the
grate again.

"Burn it," he said, "I have had a moment of
weakness.  It is over.  I ought to have been
consistent and not told even you.  No, let the picture
lie.  I think it does me good.  God bless you,
Alec!  Now, good-night; go home to your Nance."

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He died the next forenoon while I was still on
my rounds.  And when I went in to look at him,
the picture had disappeared.  I questioned the old
crone who had watched his last moments and
afterwards prepared him for burial.

"He had something in his hand," she answered,
"but I couldna steer it.  His fingers grippit it
like a smith's vice."

I looked, and there from between the clenched
fingers of the dead right hand the eyes of Ailie
Campbell smiled out at me—blue and false as
her own Forget-me-not.





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.. _`LOWE'S SEAT`:

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   LOWE'S SEAT

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Elspeth did not mean to go to Lowe's Seat.
She had indeed no business there.  For she was
the minister's daughter, and at this time of the
day ought to have been visiting the old wives
in the white-washed "Clachan" on the other side
of the river, showing them how to render their
patchwork quilts less hideous, compassionating
them on their sons' ungrateful silence (letters
arrive so seldom from the "States").  Yet here
was Elspeth Stuart under the waving boughs,
seated upon the soft grassy turf, and employed
in nothing more utilitarian than picking a gowan
asunder petal by petal.  It was the middle of
an August afternoon, and as hot as it ever is
in Scotland.

Why then had Elspeth gone to Lowe's Seat?
It seemed a mystery.  It was to the full as
pleasant on the side of the river where dwelt
her father, where complained her maiden aunt,
and where after their kind racketed and stormed
her roving vagabond bird-nesting brothers.  On
the Picts' Mound beside the kirk (an ancient
Moothill, so they say, upon which justice of the
rudest and readiest was of old dispensed) there
were trees and green depths of shade.  She might
have stayed and read there—the "Antiquary"
perhaps, or "Joseph Andrews," or her first favourite
"Emma," all through the long sweet drowsing
summer's afternoon.  But somehow up at Lowe's
Seat, the leaves of the wood laughed to a different
tune and the Airds woods were dearer than all
sweet Kenside.

So in spite of all Elspeth Stuart had crossed
in her father's own skiff, which he used for his
longer ministerial excursions "up the water," and
her brothers Frank and Sandy for perch-fishing
and laying their "ged" lines.  There was indeed
a certain puddock in a high state of decomposition
in a locker which sadly troubled Elspeth
as she bent to the oars.  And now she was at
Lowe's Seat.

It is strange to what the love of poetry will
drive a girl.  Elspeth tossed back the fair curls
which a light wind persisted in flicking ticklingly
over her brow.  With a coquettish, blushful,
half-indignant gesture she thrust them back with her
hand, as if they ought to have known better than
to intrude upon a purpose so serious as hers in
coming to Lowe's Seat.

"Here was the place," she murmured to herself,
explanatorily, "where the poor boy hid himself to
write his poem—a hundred years ago!  Was it
really a hundred years ago?"

She looked about her, and the wind whispered
and rustled and laughed a little down among the
elms and the hazels, while out towards the river and
on a level with her face the silver birches shook
their plumes daintily as a pretty girl her wandering
tresses, bending saucily toward the water as they
did so.  Then Elspeth said the first two verses of
"Mary's Dream" over to herself.  The poem was
a favourite with her father, a hard stern man with
a sentimental base, as is indeed very common
in Scotland.

   |  "The moon had climbed the highest hill
   |    That rises o'er the source of Dee,
   |  And from the eastern summit shed
   |    Her silver light on tower and tree.

   |  When Mary laid her down to sleep,
   |    Her thoughts on Sandy far at sea,
   |  There soft and low a voice was heard,
   |    Saying, 'Mary, weep no more for me!'"
   |

Elspeth was young and she was not critical.
Lowe's simple and to the modern mind somewhat
obvious verse, seemed to her to contain the
essence of truth and feeling.  But on the other
hand she looked adorable as she said them.  For,
strangely enough, a woman's critical judgment is
generally in inverse ratio to her personal attractions—though
doubtless there are exceptions to the rule.

As has been said, she did not go to Lowe's
Seat for any particular purpose.  She said so to
herself as many as ten times while she was
crossing in the skiff, and at least as often when she
was pulling herself up the steep braeface by the
supple hazels and more stubborn young oaks.

So Elspeth Stuart continued to hum a vagrant
tune, more than half of the bars wholly silent,
and the rest sometimes loud and sometimes soft,
as she glanced downwards out of her green
garret high among the leaves.

More than once she grew restive and pattered
impatiently with her fingers on her lap as if
expecting some one who did not come.  Only
occasionally she looked down towards the river.
Indeed, she permitted her eyes to rove in every
direction except immediately beneath her, where
through a mist of leaves she could see the Dee
kissing murmuringly the rushes on its marge.

A pretty girl—yes, surely.  More than that,
one winsome with the wilful brightness which takes
men more than beauty.  And being withal only
twenty years of her age, it may well be believed
that Elspeth Stuart, the only daughter of the
parish minister of Dullarg, did not move far
without drawing the glances of men after her as
a magnet attracts steel filings.

Yet a second marvel appeared beneath.  There
was a young man moving along by the water's
edge and he did not look up.  To all appearance
Lowe's Seat might just as well not have existed
for him, and its pretty occupant might have been
reading Miss Austen under the pines of the Kirk
Knowe on the opposite side of Dee Water.

Elspeth also appeared equally unconscious.  Of
course, how otherwise?  She had plucked a spray
of bracken and was peeling away the fronds,
unravelling the tough fibres of the root and
rubbing off the underleaf seeds, so that they showed
red on her fingers like iron rust.  Wondrous
busy had our maid become all suddenly.  But
though she had not smiled when the youth came
in sight, she pouted when he made as if he would
pass by without seeing her.  Which is a strange
thing when you come to think of it, considering
that she herself had apparently not observed him.

Suddenly, however, she sang out loudly, a
strong ringing stave like a blackbird from the
copse as the sun rises above the hills.  Whereat
the young man started as if he had been shot.
Hitherto he had held a fishing-rod in his hand
and seemed intent only on the stream.  But at the
sound of Elspeth's voice he whirled about, and
catching a glimpse of bright apparel through the
green leaves, he came straight up through the tangle
with the rod in his hand.  Even at that moment it
did not escape Elspeth's eye that he held it
awkwardly, like one little used to Galloway burn-sides.
She meant to show him better by-and-by.

Having arrived, the surprise and mutual
courtesies were simply overpowering.  Elspeth
had not dreamed—the merest impulse had led
her—she had been reading Lowe's poem the night
before.  It was really the only completely sheltered
place for miles, where one could muse in peace.
He knew it was, did he not?

But we must introduce this young man.  If
he had possessed a card it would have said: "The
Rev. Allan Syme, B.A."

He was the new minister of the Cameronian
Kirk at Cairn Edward.  He has just been "called,"
chiefly because the other two on the short leet
had not been considered sufficiently "firm" in
their views concerning an "Erastian Establishment,"
as at the Kirk on the Hill they called the
Church of Scotland nationally provided for by
the Revolution Settlement.

In his trial discourses, however, Mr. Syme had
proved categorically that no good had ever come
out of any state-supported Church, that the
ministers of the present establishment were little
better than priests of the Scarlet Woman who
sitteth on the Seven Hills, and that all those
who trusted in them were even as the moles and
the bats, children of darkness and travellers on
the smoothly macadamised highway to destruction.

Nevertheless, at that free stave of Elspeth's carol
Allan Syme went up hill as fast as if he had
never preached a sermon on the text, "And
Elijah girded up his loins and ran before Ahab
unto the entering in of Jezreel."

At half-past eleven by the clock the minister
of the Cameronian Kirk sat down beside this
daughter of an Erastian Establishment.

Have you heard the leaves of beech and birch
laugh as they clash and rustle?  That is how the
wicked summer woods of Airds laughed that day
about Lowe's Seat.

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Half a mile down the river there is a ferry boat
which at infrequent intervals pushes a flat duck's
bill across Dee Water.  It is wide enough to take
a loaded cart of hay, and long enough to accommodate
two young horses tail to tail and yet leave
room for the statutory flourishing of heels.

Bess MacTaggart could take it across with any
load upon it you pleased, pushing easily upon an
iron lever.  They use a wheel now, but it was much
prettier in the old days when all for a penny
you could watch Bess lift the toothed lever with
a sharp movement of her shapely arm, wet and
dripping from the chain, as it slowly dredged
itself up from the river bed.

It was half-past four when, in reply to repeated
hails, the boat left the Dullarg shore with a
company of three men on board, and in addition
the sort of person who is called a "single lady."

Two of the men stood together at one end
of the ferry-boat, and after Bess had bidden one of
them sharply to "get out of her road," she called
him "Drows" to make it up, and asked him if he
were going over to the lamb sale at Nether Airds.

"If it's the Lord's wull!" Drows replied, with
solemnity.

Both he and his companion had commodious,
clean-shaven "horse" faces, with an abundance
of gray hair standing out in a straggling
semi-circular aureole underneath the chin.  Cameronian
was stamped upon their faces with broad strong
simplicity.  The blue bonnet, already looking
old-world among the universal "felts" common
to most adult manhood—the deep serious eyes,
as it were withdrawn under the penthouse of
bushy brows, and looking upon all things (even
lamb sales) as fleeting and transitory—the long
upper lip and the mouth tightly compressed—these
marked out John Allanson of Drows and
Matthew Carment of Craigs as pillars of that
Kirk which alone of all the fragments of
Presbytery is senior to the Established Church of
Scotland.

On the other side of the boat and somewhat
apart stood Dr. Hector Stuart, gazing gloomily
at the black water as it rippled and clappered
under the broad lip of the ferry-boat.  A proud
man, a Highland gentleman of old family, was
the minister of Dullarg.  He kept his head
erect, and for any notice he had taken of the
Cameronian elders, they might just as well not
have been on the boat at all.  And in their turn
the elders of the Cameronian Kirk compressed
their lips more firmly and their eyes seemed deeper
set in their heads when their glances fell on this
pillar of Erastianism.  For nowhere is the racial
antipathy of north and south so strong as in
Galloway.  There, and there alone, the memory
of the Highland Host has never died out, and
every autumn when the hills glow red with
heather from horizon to horizon verge, the story
is told to Galloway childhood of how Lag and
Clavers wasted the heritage of the Lord, and how
from Ailsa to Solway all the west of Scotland is
"flowered with the blood of the Martyrs."

The thin nervous woman kept close to the
minister's elbow.

"I tell you I saw her cross the water, Hector," she
was saying as Dr. Stuart looked ahead, scanning
keenly the low sandy shores they were nearing.

"The boat is gone and she has not returned.
It is a thing not proper for a young lady and
a minister's daughter to be so long absent from
home!"

"My daughter has been too well brought up
to do aught that is improper!" said Dr. Stuart,
with grave sententious dignity.  "You need not
pursue the subject, Mary!"

There was just enough likeness between them
to stamp the pair as brother and sister.  As the
boat touched the edge of the sharply sloping
shingle bank, the hinged gang-plank tilted itself
up at a new angle.  The passengers paid their
pennies to Bess MacTaggart and stepped sedately
on shore.  The boat-house stands in a water-girt
peninsula, the Ken being on one side broad and
quiet, the Black Water on the other, sulky and
turbulent.  So that for half a mile there was but
one road for this curiously assorted pair of pairs.

And as they approached them the woods of Airds
laughed even more mockingly, with a ripple of
tossing birch plumes like a woman when she is
merry in the night and dares not laugh aloud.
And the beeches responded with a dryish cackle
that had something of irony in it.  Listen and you
will hear how it was the next time a beech-tree
shakes out his leaves to dry the dew off them.

The two elders came to a quick turn of the road.
There was a stile just beyond.  A moment before
a young man had overleaped it, and now he was
holding up his hands encouragingly to a girl who
smiled down upon him from above.  It was a
difficult stile.  The dyke top was shaky.  Two
of the bottom steps; were missing altogether.  All
who have once been young know the kind of stile—verily,
a place of infinite danger to the unwary.

So at least thought Elspeth Stuart, as for a
long moment she stood daintying her skirts about
her ankles on the perilous copestone, and drawing
her breath a little short at the sight of the steep
descent into the road.

The elders also stood still, and behind them
the other pair came slowly up.  And surely some
wicked tricksome Puck laughed unseen among
the beech leaves.

Elspeth Stuart had taken the young man's hand
now.  He was lifting her down.  There—it was
done.  And—yes, you are right—something else
happened—just what would have happened to you
and me, twenty, thirty, or is it forty years ago?

Then with a clash and a rustle the beeches told
the tale to the birches over all the wooded slopes
of the hill of Airds.

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"Elspeth!"

"Elspeth Stuart!"

"*Maister Syme!*"

The names came from four pairs of horrified lips
as the parties to the above mentioned transaction
fell swiftly asunder, with sudden stricken horror
on their faces.  The first cry came shrill and
keen, and was accompanied by an out-throwing
of feminine hands.  The second fell sternly from
the mouth of one who was at once a parent and
a minister of the Establishment outraged in his
tenderest feelings.  But indubitably the elders had
it.  For one thing, they were two to one, and
as they said for the second time with yet deeper
gravity "*Maister Syme!*" it appeared at once
that they, and only they, were able adequately
to deal with the unprecedented situation.  But
the others did what they could.

Mistress Mary Stuart, the minister's maiden
sister, flew forward with an eager cry, the
"scraich" of a desperate hen when she is on the
wrong side of the fence and sees the "daich"
disappearing down a hundred hungry throats.

She clutched her niece by the arm.

"Come away this moment!" she cried, "do you
know who this young man is?"

But Elspeth did not answer.  She was looking
at her father, Dr. Stuart, whose eyes were bent
upon the young man.  Very stern they were,
the fierce sudden darkness of Celtic anger in
them.  But the young Cameronian minister knew
that he had far worse to face than that, and met
the frown of paternal severity with shame indeed
mantling on his cheek and neck, but yet with
a certain quiet of determination firming his heart
within him.

"Sir," he said, "that of which you have been
witness was no more than an accident—the
fault of impulse and young blood.  But I own I
was carried away.  I ask the young lady's pardon
and yours.  I should have spoken to you first,
but now I will delay no longer.  Sir, I love
your daughter!"

Then came for the first time a slight smile upon
the pale face of his fellow-culprit.  She said in
her heart, "Ah, Allan, if ye had spoken first to
my father, feint a kiss would ye ever have gotten
from Elspeth Stuart!"

But at the manful words of the young Cameronian
the face of her father grew only the more stern,
the two elders watching and biding their time
by the roadside.

They knew that it would come before long.

At last after a long silence Dr. Stuart spoke.

"Sir," he said grimly, "I do not bandy words
with a stranger upon the public highway.  I
myself have nothing to say to you.  I forbid you
ever again to speak to my daughter.  Elspeth,
follow me!"

And with no more than this he turned and
stalked away.  But his daughter also had the
high Highland blood in her veins.  She shook
off with one large motion of her arm the stringy
clutch of her aunt's fingers.

"Heed you not, Allan," she said, speaking very
clearly, so that all might hear, "when ye want
her, Elspeth Stuart will come the long road and
the straight road to speak a word with you."

It was a bold avowal to make, and a moment
before the girl had not meant to say anything
of the kind.  But they had taken the wrong way
with her.

"Oh, unmaidenly—most unmaidenly!" cried her
aunt, "come away—ye are mad this day, Elspeth
Stuart—he has but a hunder a year of stipend,
and may lose that ony day!"

But Elspeth did not answer.  She was holding
out her hand to Allan Syme.  He bent quickly
and kissed it.  This young man had had a
mother who taught him gracious ways, not at
all in keeping with the staid manners of a son
of the covenants.

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"And now, sir," said John Allanson of Drows,
turning grimly upon his minister, who stood
watching Elspeth's girlish figure disappear round
the curve of the green-edged track, "what have
you to say to us?"

Then Allan Syme's pulses leaped quick and
light, for he knew that of a surety the time of
his visitation was at hand.  Yet his heart did not
fail within him.  At the last it was glad and high.
"For after all" (he smiled as he thought it),
"after all—well, they cannot *take* that from me."

"Sir," said Matthew Carment, in a louder tone,
"heard ye the quastion that your ruling elder
hath pitten till ye?"

"John and Matthew," said the young man,
gently, "ye are my elders, and I will not answer
you as I did Dr. Stuart."

"The priest of Midian!" said Matthew Carment.

"The forswearer of covenants!" said John Allanson.

"But I will speak with you as those who have
been unto me as Aaron and Hur for the
upholding of mine hands——"

"Say, rather," said John Allanson, sternly, "as
Phineas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the
priest who thrust through the Midianitish woman
in sight of all the congregation of Israel, as they
stood weeping before the door of the tabernacle!"

"So the plague was stayed from the children
of Israel," quoted Matthew Carment, gravely,
finishing his friend's sentence.

Allan Syme winced.  The words had been his
Sunday's text.

"I tell you, gentlemen," he said quickly, "since
God gave Eve to Adam there has not been on
earth a sweeter, truer maid than this.  You have
heard me declare my love for her.  Well, I love
her more than I dare trust my tongue to utter!"

"And how about your love for the Covenants?
And for the Faithful Remnant of the persecuted
Kirk of the Martyrs?" said Drows, with a certain
dreary persistence that wore on Allan Syme like
prolonged toothache.

Then Matthew Carment, who, though slower
than the ruling elder, but was not less sure, gave
in his contribution.

"'Like unto Eve,' said ye?  A true word—verily,
a most true word!  For did not we with our own
eyes see ye with her partake of the forbidden
fruit?  But there is a difference—*your* eyes, young
man, have not yet been opened!"

Allan Syme began to grow angry.

"I am a free agent," he said fiercely.  "I am
not a child under bonds.  You are not my tutors
and governors by any law, human or divine.
Nor am I answerable to you whom I shall woo,
or whom I shall wed!"

"Ye are answerable to God and the Kirk!"
cried the two with one voice.

And to this Matthew Carment again added
his say.  The three were now walking slowly in
the direction of the lamb sale.

"Sir, I mind how ye well described the so-called
ministers of the establishment—'locusts on
the face of our land,' these were your words,
'instruments of inefficiency, the plague spot upon
the nation, the very scorn of Reformation, and a
scandal to Religion!'  Ye said well, minister;
and the spawn of Belial is like unto Belial!"

Allan Syme was now angry exceedingly.

"God be my judge," he cried, "she whom I
love is more Christian than the whole pack of
you.  Never has she spoken an ill word of any,
ever since I have known her!"

"And wherefore should she?" said John Allanson
of Drows, as dispassionately as a clerk
reading an indictment.  "Hath she not been
clothed in fine linen and fared sumptuously every
day?  Hath she not eaten of the fine flour and
the honey and the oil?  Hath she not been
adorned with broidered work and shod with
badger skin, and, even as her sisters Aholah and
Aholibah of old, hath not power been given unto
her to lead even the hearts of the elect captive?"

Then Allan Syme broke forth furiously.

"Your tongues are evil!" he said, "ye are not
fit to take her name on your lips.  She is to me
as the mother of our Lord—yes, as Mary, the
wife of Joseph, the carpenter!"

"And indeed I never thocht sae muckle o' that
yin either," said Matthew of Craigs, "the Papishes
make ower great a to-do about her for my liking!"

"Matthew Carment and John Allanson, I bid
you hearken to me," cried the young minister.

"Aye, Allan Syme, we will hearken!" they
answered, fronting him eye to eye.

"God judge between you and me," he said.
"He hath said that for this cause shall a man
leave father and mother, and cleave unto his wife.
Now, I know well that if ye like, you two can take
from me my kirk and all my living.  But I have
spoken, and I will adhere.  I have promised, and
I will keep.  Take this my parting message.  Do
your duty as it is revealed to you.  I will go forth
freely and willingly.  Naked I came among
you—naked will I go.  The hearts of my people are
dearer to me than life.  Ye can twine them from
me if you will.  Ye can out me from my kirk,
send me forth of my manse—cast me upon the
world as a man disgraced.  But, as I am a sinner
answerable to God, there are two things you
cannot do, ye cannot make me break my plighted
word nor make me other than proud of the love I
have won from God's fairest creature upon earth."

And with these words he turned on his heel
and strode straight uphill away from them in the
direction of his distant home.

The two men stood looking after him.  Drows
stroked his shaggy fringe of beard.  Matthew
Carment put his hand to his eyes and gazed
under it as if he had been looking into the sunset.
There was a long silence.  At last the two turned
and looked at each other.

"Weel, what think ye?" said Drows, ruling elder
and natural leader in debate.

There was a still longer pause, for Matthew
Carment was a man slow by nature and slower
by habit.

"He's a fine lad!" he said at last.

Drows broke a twig elaborately from the hedge
and chewed the ends.

"So I was thinkin'!" he answered.

"I had it in my mind at the time he was
speakin'," began Matthew, and then hesitated.

"Aye, what was in your mind?"

"I was thinkin' on the days when I courted Jean!"

"Aye, man!"

There was another long silence.

It was Draws who broke it this time, and he
said, "I—I was thinkin' too, Mathy!  Aye, man,
I was thinkin'!"

"Aboot Marget?" queried Matthew Carment.

"*Na, no aboot Marget!*"

They were silent again.  The ruling elder
settled to another green sprig of hedge-thorn.
It seemed palatable.  He got on well with it.

"Man," he said at last, "do ye ken, Mathy—when
he turned on us like yon, I was kind o'
prood o' him.  My heart burned within me.  It
was maybe no verra like a minister o' the Kirk.
But, oh man, it was awesome human!"

"Then I judge we'll say nae mair aboot it!"
said Matthew Carment, turning towards the farm
where the lamb sale was by this time well under
weigh.  "Hoo mony are ye thinkin' o' biddin'
for the day, Drows?"





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.. _`THE SUIT OF BOTTLE GREEN`:

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   THE SUIT OF BOTTLE GREEN

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At the Manse of Dullarg things did not go over
well.  Dr. Stuart, being by nature a quick,
passionate, and imperious Celt, had first of all
ordered his daughter to promise never again to hold
any communication with the young Cameronian
minister of Cairn Edward.  It was thus that he
himself had been taught to understand family
discipline.  He was the head of the clan, as his
father had been before him.  He claimed to be
Providence to all within his gates.  His hand of
correction was not withheld from his boys, Frank
and Sandy, until the day they ran away from home
to escape him.  He could not well adopt this plan
to the present case, but when Elspeth refused point
blank to give any promise, her father promptly
convoyed his daughter to her own room and
locked her up there.  She would stay where she
was till she changed her mind.  Her aunt would
take up her meals, and he himself would undertake
to inform her as to her duties and responsibilities
at suitable intervals.  There was not the least
doubt in the mind of Dr. Stuart as to the result
of such a course of treatment.  Had he not willed
it?  That was surely enough.

But his sister was not so sure, though she did
not dare to say so to the Doctor more than once.

"She is a very headstrong girl, Murdo," she
said, tremulously, as she gathered Elspeth's scanty
breakfast on a tray next morning, "it might drive
her to some rash act!"

"Nonsense," retorted her brother, sharply, "did
not our father do exactly the same to you, to keep
you from marrying young Campbell of Luib?"

Mary Stuart's wintry-apple face twitched and
flushed.

"Yes—yes," she fluttered, with a quaver in
her voice, as if deprecating further allusion to
herself, "but Elspeth is not like me, Murdo.  She
has more of your spirit."

"Let me hear no more of the matter," said her
brother, turning away, "*I* wish it, and besides, I
have my sermon to write."

But when the maiden aunt knocked at the door
and entered with Elspeth's breakfast, she was
astonished to find the girl sitting by the window
dressed exactly as she had been on the previous
evening.  Her face was very pale, but her lips
were compressed and her eyes dry.

"Elspeth," she said uncertainly, her woman's
intuition in a moment detecting that which a man
might not have discovered at all, "you have not
had off your clothes all night.  You have never
been to bed!"

"No, Aunt Mary!"

"But what will the Doctor say—think of
your father——"

"I do not care what he will say.  Let him come
and compel me if he can.  He can thrash me as
he does Frank."

"But—oh, Elspeth—Elspeth, dear," the old lady
trembled so much that she just managed to
lay the tray down on the untouched bed opposite
the window, "what will God say?"

"'Like as a father pitieth his children,' isn't
that what it says?"  The words came out of the
depths of the bitterness of that young heart,
"well, if that be true, God will say nothing; for
if He is like my father, He will not care!"

The old lady sat down on an old rocking-chair
which Elspeth liked to keep in the window to
sit in and read, half because it had been her
mother's, and half (for Elspeth was not usually
a sentimental young woman) because it was
comfortable.

She put her hands to her face and sobbed into
them.  Then for the first time Elspeth looked
at her.  Hitherto she had been staring straight
out at the window.  So she had seen the day pass
and the night come.  So she had seen and not
seen, heard and not heard the shadow of night
sweep across the broad river, the stars come out,
the cue owls mew as they flashed past silent as
insects on the wing, and last of all, the rooks
clamour upwards from the tall trees at break
of day.

Now, however, she watched her aunt weeping
with that curious sense of detachment which comes
to the young along with a first great sorrow.

"Why should *she* weep?" Elspeth was asking
herself, "she had nothing to cry for.  There can
be no sorrow in the world like my sorrow and
shame—and *his*, that is, if he really cares.  Perhaps
he does not care.  They say in books that men
often pretend.  But no—he at least never could
do that.  He is too true, too simple, too
direct—and he loves me!"

So she watched her aunt rock to and fro and
sob without any pity in her heart, but only with
a growing wonderment—much as a condemned
man might look at a companion who was
complaining of toothache.  The long vigil of the night
had made the girl's heart numb and dead within
her.  At twenty sorrow and joy alike arrive in
superlatives.

Then quite suddenly a spasm of pity of a
curious sort came to Elspeth Stuart.  After all,
it was worth while to love.  *He* was suffering too.
Aunt Mary had no one to love her—to suffer with
her.  Poor Aunt Mary!  So she went quickly across
and laid her hand on the thin shoulder.  It felt
angular even through the dress.  The sobs shook it.

"Do not cry, auntie," she said, softly and
kindly.  "I am sorry I vexed you.  I did not know."

The old lady looked up at her niece.  Elspeth
started at the sight of a tear stealing down a
wrinkle.  Tears on young faces are in place.
They can be kissed away, but this seemed wrong
somehow.

She patted the thin cheek which had already
begun to take on the dry satiny feel of age, which
is so different from the roseleaf bloom of youth.

"Then you will obey your father?"

The words came tremulously.  The pale lips
"wickered."  The tear had trickled thus far now,
but Aunt Mary did not know it.  It is only youth
that tastes its own tears.  And generally rather
likes the flavour.

Elspeth did not stop petting her aunt.  She
stroked the soft hair, thinning now and silvering.
Then she smiled a little.

"No," she said, "I will *not* obey my father,
Aunt Mary.  I am no child to be put in the
corner.  I am a woman, and know what I want."

Yet it was only during the past night watches
that she had known it for certain.  But yesterday
her desire to see Allan Syme had been no more
than a little ache deep down in her heart.  Now
it had become all her life.  So fertile a soil
wherein to grow love is injudicious opposition.

"But at any rate you will take your breakfast?"

"To please you I will try, aunt!"

Aunt Mary plucked up heart at once.  This
was better.  She had made a beginning.  The
rest would follow.

When she went downstairs her brother came out
of his study to get the key of his daughter's room.
She told him how that Elspeth had never gone to
bed, and had barely picked at her breakfast.

Dr. Stuart made no remark.  He turned and
went into his study again to work at his sermon.
He too thought that all went well.  He held that
belief which causes so much misery in the world,
that woman's will must always bend before man's.

So it does—provided the man is the right man.

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On the third day of her confinement Elspeth
Stuart wrote a letter.  It began without ceremony,
and ended without signature:

"You told me that you loved me.  Tell it me
again—on paper.  I am very unhappy.  My father
keeps me locked up to make me promise never to
speak to you or write to you.  I do not mind
this, except that I cannot go to Lowe's Seat.
But I must be assured that you continue to love
me.  I know you do, but all the same I want to
be told it.  If you address, 'Care of the Widow
Barr, at the Village of Crosspatrick,' Frank will
bring it safely."

It was a simple epistle, without lofty aspirations
or wise words.  But it was a loving letter, and
admirably adapted to prove satisfactory to its
recipient.  And had Allan Syme known what was
on its way to him he would have lifted up his
heart.  He was completing his pastoral visitation,
and with a sort of fixed despair awaiting the
next meeting of Session.  For neither his ruling
elder nor yet that slow-spoken veteran, Matthew
Carment, had passed a word more to him concerning
the vision they had seen upon the fringes
of the Airds woods, on the day that had proved
such a day of doom to his sweetheart and
himself.

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Frank Stuart, keenly sympathetic with Elspeth's
sufferings though notably contemptuous of their
cause, willingly performed what was required of
him.  Being as yet untouched by love, he thought
Elspeth extremely silly.  He had no interest
ministers.  If Elspeth had fallen in love with a
soldier now—he meant to be a sailor himself, but
a soldier was at least somebody in the scheme
of things.  Of course, his father was a minister—but
then people must have fathers.  This was
different.  However, it was not his business: girls
were all silly.

And on this broad principle Master Frank
took his stand.  With equal breadth of view he
conveyed the letter to the "Weedow's" at
Crosspatrick, en route for the Cameronian manse at
Cairn Edward.

But before he set out, he must have his grumble.
He was beneath the window of his sister's room
at the time.  His father had been under
observation all the morning, and was now safely off on
his visitations.  By arrangement with Aunt Mary,
Elspeth was allowed the run of the whole upper
story of the Dullarg Manse during Dr. Stuart's
daily absences.  So, on parole, she came to this
little window in the gable end, where Frank
and she could commune without fear of foreign
observation.

"What for could ye no have promised my father
onything—and then no done it!"

The suggestion betrayed Master Frank's own
plan of campaign, and renders more excusable
the Doctor's frequent appeal to the argument of
the hazel.

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After this there ensued for Elspeth a long and
weary time.  Every day Frank, detaching himself
from the untrustworthy Sandy, slid off down the
waterside to Crosspatrick.  Every day he returned
empty-handed and contemptuous.

This it was to love a minister, and one who
was not even a "regular."  Why had not Elspeth,
if she must fall in love, chosen a sailor?

In those days there was no regular postal
delivery on the remoter country districts.  The
mails came in an amateurish sort of way by coach
to Cairn Edward, and thereafter distributed themselves,
as it were, automatically.  When the postage
was paid, the authorities had no more care in the
matter.  Yet there was a kind of system in the
thing, too.

It was understood that any one being in Cairn
Edward on business should "give a look in" at the
Post Office, and if there were any letters for his
neighbourhood, and he happened to have in his pocket
the necessary spare "siller" at the moment, he would
pay the postage and bring them to the "Weedow
Barr's" shop in the village of Crosspatrick.

It may be observed that there were elements
of uncertainty inseparable from such an arrangement.
And these told hard on our poor prisoner
of fate during these great endless midsummer
days.  She pined and grew pale, like a woodland
bird shut suddenly in a close cage at that season
when mate begins to call to mate through all the
copses of birch and alder.

"He does not love me—oh, he cannot love
me!" she moaned.  But again, as she thought
of the stile on the way to Lowe's Seat—"But
he does love me!" she said.

Then, sudden as a falling star, Fear fell on that
green summer world.  There came a weird sough
through all the valley, a crying of folk to each
other across level holms, shrill answerings of herd
to herd on the utmost hills.  The scourge of God
had come again!  The Cholera—the Cholera!
Dread word, which we in these times have almost
forgot the thrill of in our flesh.  Mysteriously and
inevitably the curse swept on.  It was at Leith
at Glasgow—at Dumfries—at Cairn Edward.  It
was coming! coming! coming!  Nearer, nearer
ever nearer!

And men at the long scythe, sweeping the lush
meadow hay aside with that most prideful of all
rustic gestures, fell suddenly chill and shuddered
to their marrows.  The sweat of endeavour dried
on them, and left them chill, as if the night wind
had stricken them.  Women with child swarfed
with fear at their own door cheeks, and there
was a crying within long ere the posset-cup could
be made ready.  Neighbour looked with sudden
suspicion at neighbour, and men at friendly talk
upon the leas manoeuvred to get to windward
of each other.

Death was coming—had come!  And in his
study, grim and unmoved, Dr. Murdo Stuart
sat preparing his Sabbath's sermon on the text,
"Therefore ... because I will do this unto thee,
prepare to meet thy God, O Israel!"

But in the shut chamber above Elspeth waited
and watched, the hope that is deferred making
her young heart sicker and ever sicker.  Still she
had not heard.  No answering word had reached
her, and it was now the second week.  He did
not love her—he could not.

*But still!*

They had told her nothing, and, indeed, during
that first time of fear and uncertainty, they knew
nothing for certain, away up by themselves in the
wide wild moor parish of Dullarg.  There were
no market days in Cairn Edward any more.  So
much the farmers knew.  The men of the landward
parishes set guards with loaded guns upon
every outgoing road.  There was no local authority
in those days, and men in such cases had to look
to themselves.  The infected place, be it city,
town, or village, farm-steading or cottage, was
completely and bitterly isolated.  None might
come out or go in.  Provisions, indeed, were left
in a convenient spot; but secretly and by night.
And the bearer shot away again, bent half to
the ground with eagerness, fear, and speed, a
cloth to his mouth, for the very wind that passed
over him was Death.  It was not so much a
disease as a certain Fate.  Whoso was smitten was
taken.  In fact, to all that rustic world it was
the Visitation of Very God.

In the main street of Cairn Edward grass
grew; yet the place was not unpopulous.  With
the revival of trade and industry during the later
years of the great war a cotton mill had been
erected in a side street.  The houses of the work
folk were strung out from it.  Then parallel with
this there was a more ancient main street of low
beetle-browed houses, many of them entering
by a step down off the uneven causeway.  At
the upper end, near the Cross, were some
better-class houses, some of them of two stories, a
change-house or two, and down on the damp
marshy land towards the loch, the cluster of
huts which had formed the original nucleus of
the village—now fallen into disrepute and
disrepair, and nominated, from the nationality of
many of its inhabitants, "Little Dublin."

In ten days a third of the inhabitants of this
suburb had died.  There was but one minister
within the strait bounds of the straggling village.
The parish church and manse lay two miles away
out on a braeface overlooking yellowing widths
of corn-land.  And the minister thereof abode in
his breaches, every day giving God thank that
he was not shut up within those distant white
streets, from which, day by day, the housewifely
reek rose in fewer and fewer columns.

But Allan Syme was within, and could not
pause to marry or to give in marriage, to preach
or to pray, so full of his Master's business was
he.  For he must nurse and succour by day and
bury by night, week day and Holy Day.  He
it was who upheld the dying head.  He swathed
the corpse while it was yet warm.  He tolled
the death-bell in the steeple.  He harnessed the
horse to the rude farm-cart.  Sometimes all alone
he dug the grave in the soft marshy flow, and
laid the dead in the brown peat-mould.  For
it was no time to stand upon trifles this second
time that the Scourge of God had come to
Cairn Edward.

To the outer limit of the cordon of watchers
came the carriers and the farmers, the country
lairds' servants, and less frequently the bien
well-stomached meal millers.  In silence they deposited
their goods, for the most part with no niggard hand.
In silence they took the fumigated pound notes,
smelling of sulphur, or the silver coin of the realm,
with the crumbles of quick-lime still sticking to
the milling of the edges.

So across a kind of neutral zone, fearful
country and infected town stood glowering at
each other like embattled enemies, musket laid
ready in the crook of elbow.

And when one mad with the Fear tried to
cross, he was hunted like a wild beast, or shot
at like a rabbit running for its burrow.  And the
townsmen did in like manner.  For ill as it
might fare with them, there was deadlier yet to
fear.  In Cairn Edward they had the White
Cholera, as it was called.  The Black was at
Dumfries—so, at least, the tale ran.

And as he went about his work, Allan Syme
called upon his God, and thought of Elspeth.  But
her letter never reached him, and he knew nothing
of her vigils.  The day before he might have
known the Fear fell, and the door was shut.

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It was on Saturday afternoon that the tidings
came to Elspeth Stuart, lonely watcher and loving
heart.  It was her brother Sandy who brought
them.  He knew nothing of Elspeth's matters,
being young and by nature unworthy of trust.  He
had been down to Crosspatrick on some errand, and
now, having arrived back within hailing distance,
he was retailing his experiences to his brother
Frank.

"I got yon letter back frae the Weedow—an',
as I wasna gangin' hame, I gied it to my faither."

"*What letter?*"

Elspeth could hear the sudden angry alarm in
Frank's voice; but she herself had no premonition
of danger.

"The letter ye took doon to Crosspatrick for
Elspeth ten days syne.  Ye'll catch it, my man!"

The girl's heart sank, and then leapt again
within her.

Her father had her letter—he would read it.
It was plainly addressed in her handwriting to
Allan Syme.  What should she do?

But wait—there was something else.  With a
quick back-spang came the countering joy.

"But then he has never got my letter.  He
knows nothing of my unhappiness.  He has not
forgotten me.  He loves me still.  What care I
for aught else but that?"

There came up from the courtyard a sound of
blows, and then Sandy's wail.

"I'll tell my faither on ye, that I will.  How
was I to ken aboot Elspeth's letter?  And they
say the minister-man it was wrote to is dead, at
ony rate!"

Elspeth heard unbelievingly.  Dead—Allan
dead!  And she not know.  Absurd!  It was
only one of Sandy's lies to irritate his brother
because he had been thrashed.  She knew Sandy.
Nevertheless she threw up the window.  Sandy
was again at his parable.

"They buried twenty-five yesterday in the moss.
The minister was there wi' the last coffin, and fell
senseless across it.  He never spoke again.  He
is to be buried the morn if they can get the
coffin made!"

Then, so soon as she was convinced that Sandy
was not inventing, and that he had only repeated the
gossip of the village, a kind of cold calmness took
hold of Elspeth.  She called Frank in to her, and
when he came, lo! his face was far whiter than hers.

She made him tell her all they had kept from
her—of the dread plague that had fallen so sudden
and swift upon the townlet to which Allan had
carried her heart.  Then she thought awhile
fiercely, not wavering in her purpose, but only
trying this way and that, like one who thrusts with
his staff for the safest passage over a dangerous
bog.  Frank watched her keenly, but could make
nothing of her intent.  At last she spoke:

"Go and get me the key of your box."

"What do ye want with the key of my box?"
queried her brother, astonished.

"Never heed that," said Elspeth, clipping her
words imperiously, as, in seasons of stress, she
had a way of doing; "do as I bid you!"

And being accustomed to such obediences, and
albeit sorry for her, Frank went out, only remarking
ominously that he would have a job, for that
Aunt Mary carried it on her bunch.

He came back in exactly ten minutes, and threw
the key on the floor.

"Easier than I expected," he said, triumphantly;
"the old buzzer was asleep!"

"Give me the key," said Elspeth, still in a brown
study by the window.

But this was too much for Frank.

"Pick it up for yourself, Els," he said, "and
mind you are to swear you found it on the floor!"

Frank knew very well that if one is going to
lie back and forth (as he intended to do when
questioned), it is well to be prepared with occasional
little scraps of truth.  They cheer one up so.

Elspeth took the key, and hid it in her pocket.

"Now you can go," she said, and sat down on
the bed, staring out at the broad river quietly
slipping by.

"Well, you might at least have said 'thank
you——'" began Frank.  But catching the
expression of her face, he suddenly desisted, and
went out without another word.

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No, Allan Syme was not dead.  But he staggered
home that night certainly more dead than alive.
All day long he had moved in an atmosphere
of the most appalling pestilence.  The reek of
mortality seemed to solidify in his nostrils, and
his heart for the first time fainted within him.

He knew that there would be no welcome for
him in the dark and lonely manse; no meal, no
comfort, no living voice; not so much as a dog
to lick his hand.  His housekeeper, a mere hireling,
had fled at the first alarm.

It was dusk as he thrust the key into the
latch, as he did so staggering against the lintel
from sheer weariness.  He stood a little while in
the passage, shuddering with the oncomings of
mortal sickness.  Then with flint, steel, and
laborious tinder box he coaxed a light for the
solitary taper on the hall table.  This done, he
turned aside into the little sitting-room on the
right hand, where he kept his divinity books.

A slight figure came forward to meet him, with
upturned face and clasped petitionary hands.
The action was a girl's, but the dress and figure
were those of a boy.  Upon the threshold the
minister stopped dead.  He thought that this was
the first symptom of delirium—he had seen it in
so many, and had watched for it in himself.

But the lad still came forward, and laid a hand
on his arm.  He wore a suit of bottle green with
silver buttons, a world too wide for his slim form.
Knee breeches and buckled shoes completed his
attire.  Allan Syme stared wide-eyed, uncomprehending,
his hand pressed to his aching brow in
the effort to see truly.

"You are not dead.  Thank God!" said the
boy, in a voice that took him by the throat.

"Who—who are you?" The words came dry
and gasping from the minister's parched lips.

"*I am Elspeth—do you not know me?*"

"Elspeth—Elspeth—why did you come here—and thus?"

"They told me you were dead—and my father
locked me up!  And—what chance had a girl
to pass the guards?  They fired at me—see!"

And lifting a wet curl from her brow, she
showed a wound.

"Elspeth—Elspeth—what is all this?  What
have they done to you?"

"Nothing—nothing—it is but a scratch.  The
man almost missed me altogether."

"Beloved, what have you done with your hair?"

"I cut it off, that I might the better deceive
them!"

"Elspeth—you must go back!  This is no
place for you!"

"I will not go back home.  I will die first!"

"But, Elspeth, think if any one saw you—what
would they say?"

"That I came to help you—to nurse you!  I
do not care what they would say."

"My dear—my dear, you cannot bide here.
I would to God you could; but you cannot.  I
must think how to get you away.  I must
think—I must think!"

The minister, sick unto death, stood with his hand
still pressed to his brow.  At sight of him, and
because, after all she had gone through for him, he
had given her neither welcome nor kiss, a swift
spasm of anger flashed up into Elspeth's eyes.

"You are ashamed of me, Allan Syme—let
me go.  I will never see you more.  You do
not love me!  I will not trouble you.  Open
the door!"

"God knows I love you better than my soul!"
said Allan; "but let me think.  Father in
heaven—I cannot think!  My brain runs round."

He gave a slight lurch like a felled ox, and
swayed forward.

Instantly, as a lamp that the wind blows out,
all the anger went out of Elspeth Stuart's eyes.
She caught Allan in her strong young arms and
laid him on the worn couch, displacing with a
sweep of her hand a whole score of volumes as
she laid him down.

He lay a moment stiff and still.  Then a
spasm of pain contorted his features.  He opened
his eyes, and looked into his sweetheart's eyes.
Then, with the swift astonishing clearness of the
mortally stricken, he saw what must be done.

"Allan, Allan, what is the matter—what shall
I do for you?" she mourned over him.

"Do this," answered the minister.  "Take the
cloak out of that cupboard there.  I have never
worn it.  Go straight to John Allanson.  He
is my Ruling Elder.  He bides at his daughter's
house close by the cotton mill.  Tell him all,
and bid him come to me."

"The dreadful man who was so angry—that
day at Lowe's Seat!" she objected, not fearing
for herself, but for him.

"He is not a dreadful man.  Do as I bid you,
childie; I am sick, but I judge not unto death!"

"But you may die before I return!"

"Do as I bid you, Elspeth," said the minister,
waving her away; "not a hundred choleras can
deprive me of one minute God has appointed mine!"

She bent over quickly, and kissed him on lips
and brow.

"There—and there!  Now if you die, I will
die too.  Remember that!  And I do not care
now.  I will go!"

Saying this, she rushed from the room.

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It was a strange visitor who came to the house
of the Elder's daughter that evening, as the gloaming
fell darker, her feet making no sound on the
deserted and grass-grown streets.

"A young laddie wants to see you, father," said
John Allanson's married daughter, with whom he
had been lodging for a night when the plague
came, in a single hour putting a great gulf between
town and country.  Then, finding his minister
alone, he was not the man to leave him to fight
the battle single-handed.

Shamefacedly Elspeth crept in.  The old man
and his daughter were by themselves, the husband
not yet home from the joiner's shop, where the
hammers went *tap-tap* at the plain deal coffins all
day and all night.

"The minister is dying—come and help him
or he will die!" she cried, as they sat looking
curiously at her in the clear, leaping red of the
firelight.

"Who are you, laddie?" said the elder.

"I am no laddie," said Elspeth, redder than the
peat ashes.  "Oh, I am shamed—I am shamed!
But I could not help it.  And I am not sorry!
They told me he was dead.  I am Elspeth Stuart,
of the Dullarg Manse."

The elder sat gazing at her, open-mouthed,
leaning forward, his hands on his knees.  But
his daughter, with the quick sympathy of woman,
held out her arms.

"My puir lassie!" she said.  She had once lost
a bairn, her only one.

And Elspeth wept on her bosom.

The daughter waved her father to the door with
one hand.

"She will tell me easier!" she said.

And straightway the old man went out into
the dark.

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It did not take long to tell, with Allan Syme
lying so near to the gates of death.  Almost in
less time than it needs to write it, Elspeth was
arrayed, so far at least as outer seeming went,
in the garments of her sex.  A basket was filled
with the necessities which were kept ready for
such an emergency in every house.

"Come, father," the loving wife cried at the
door; "I will tell you as we gang!"

And before she had won third way through
her story, John Allanson had taken Elspeth's
hand in his.

"My bairn! my bairn!" he said.

In this manner Elspeth came the second time
to the Manse of Allan Syme.

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But the third time was as the mistress thereof.
For she and the elder's daughter nursed Allan
Syme through into safety.  For the very day that
Allan was stricken, a great rain fell and a great
wind blew.  The birds came back to the gardens
of Cairn Edward, and the plague lifted.  In time,
too, Dr. Stuart submitted with severe grace to
that which he could not help.

"Indeed, it was all my fault, father," Elspeth
said; "I made Allan come back by the stile.  I
had made up my mind that he should.  I knew
he would kiss me there!"

"Then I can only hope," answered her father,
severely, lifting up his gold-knobbed cane and
shaking it at her to emphasise his point, "that
by this time your husband has learned the secret
of making you obey him.  It is more than ever
your father did!"





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.. _`A SCIENTIFIC SYMPOSIUM`:

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   A SCIENTIFIC SYMPOSIUM

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.. class:: noindent small

(*Being some Hitherto Unobserved Phenomena of Feminine
Psychology from the notebook of A. McQuhirr,
M.D. Edin.*)

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These papers of mine have been getting out of
hand of late.  I am informed from various quarters
that they are becoming so exceedingly popular
and discursive in their character, that they are
enough to ruin the reputation of any professing
man of science.  I will therefore be severe with
myself (and, incidentally, with my readers), and
occupy one or two papers with a consideration
of some of the minor characteristics common to
the female sex.  Indeed, upon a future occasion
I may even devote an entire work to this subject.

I have mentioned before that my wife's younger
sister was called the "Hempie,"[#] which, being
interpreted, signifies a wild girl.  This had certainly
been her character at one time; and though she
deserves the name less now than of yore, all her
actions are still marked by conspicuous decision
and independence.

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[#] Some of the earlier and less reputable of the "Hempie's"
adventures may be found in a certain unscientific work
entitled "Lad's Love."

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For instance, the year after Nance and I were
married, the Hempie abruptly claimed her share
of her mother's money, and departed to Edinburgh
"to get learning."

Now it was a common thing enough in our
part of the country for boys to go out on such
a quest.  It was unheard of in a girl.  And the
parish would have been shocked if the emigrant
had been any other than the Hempie.  But Miss
Elizabeth Chrystie, daughter of Peter of Nether
Neuk, was a young woman not accustomed to
be bound by ordinary rules.  In person she had
grown up handsome rather than pretty, and was
so athletic that she stood in small need of the
ordinary courtesies which girls love—hands over
stiles, and so forth.  Eyes and hair of glossy jet,
the latter crisping naturally close to her head,
a healthy colour in her cheeks, an ironic curl to
her firm fine lips,—that is how our Hempie came
back to us.

Of her career in the metropolis, of the boarding-school
dames, strait-laced and awful, whom she
scandalised, the shut ways of learning which
somehow were opened before her, I have no room here
to tell.  It is sufficient to say that out of all this
the Hempie came home to Nether Neuk, and at
once established herself as the wonder of the
neighbourhood.

Nance was gone, Grace going; Clemmy Kilpatrick,
the unobtrusive little woman whom Peter
Chrystie had married as a kind of foot-warmer, had
been laid aside for six weeks with an "income" on
her knee.  The maidservants naturally took
advantage.  Every individual pot and pan in the house
cumbered the back kitchen unwashed and begrimed.
In the byres you did not walk—you waded.  The
ploughmen hung about the house half the morning,
gossiping with the half-idle maidens.  The very
herds on the hill eluded Peter's feeble judicature,
and lay asleep behind dyke-backs, while the
week-weaned lambs, with many tail-wagglings, rejoined
their mothers on the pastures far below.

Upon this confusion enter the New Hempie.
And with her gown pinned up and a white apron
on that met behind her shapely figure, she set
to and helped the servants.

In six days she had the farm town of Nether
Neuk in such a state of perfection as it had not
known since my own Nance left it.  For Grace,
though a good girl enough, cared not a jot for
house work.  Her sphere was the dairy and
cheese-room, where in an atmosphere of simmering curds
and bandaged cheddars she reigned supreme.

So much to indicate to those who are not
acquainted with Miss Elizabeth Chrystie the kind
of girl she was.

For the rest, she despised love and held wooers
in contempt, as much as she had done in the old
days when she ascended the roofs of the pigstyes,
and climbed into the beech-tree tops in the
courtyard of Nether Neuk, rather than meet me face to
face as I went to pay my court to her eldest sister.

"Love——" she said, scornfully, when I
questioned her on the subject the first time she
came to see us at Cairn Edward, "*love*—have
Nance and you no got ower sic nonsense yet?
*Love*——" (still more scornfully); "as if I hadna
seen as much of that as will serve me for my
lifetime, wi' twa sisters like Grace and Nance
there!"

It did not take us much by surprise, therefore,
when one morning, while we sat at breakfast,
the Hempie dropped in with the announcement
that she could not stand her father any longer,
and that she had engaged herself to be governess
in the house of a certain Major Randolph Fergus
of Craignesslin.

To a young lady so determined there was
no more to be said.  Besides which, the Hempie
was of full age, perfectly independent as far as
money went, and more than independent in
character.

"Now," she said, "I have just fifteen minutes
to catch my train: how am I to get my bag up
to the station?"

"If you wait," I said, "the gig will be round
at the door in seven minutes.  I have a case, or
I should go up with you myself."

"Who is driving the gig?"

"Tad Anderson," said I.

The Hempie picked up a pair of tan gloves
and straightened her tall lithe figure.

"Good-morning," she said; "give me a lift
with my box and wraps to the door.  I would
not trust Tad Anderson to get to the station
in time if he had seven hours to do it in!"

At the door a boy was passing with a grocer's
barrow.  The Hempie swung her box upon it
with a deft strong movement.

"Take that to the station, boy," she commanded,
"and tell Muckle Aleck that Elizabeth Chrystie
of the Nether Neuk will be up in ten minutes."

"But—but," stammered the boy, astonished,
"I hae thae parcels to deliver."

"Then deliver them on your road down!"
said the Hempie.  And her right hand touched
the boy's left for an instant.

"A' richt, mem!" he nodded, and was off.

"Don't trouble, Alec.  Nance, bide where you
are—I have three calls to make on the way up.
Good-morning!"

And the Hempie was off.  We watched her
through the little oriel window, Nance nestling
against my coat sleeve pleasantly, and, in the
shadow of the red stuff curtain, even surreptitiously
kissing my shoulder—a thing I had often
warned her against doing in public.  So I reproved
her.

"Nance, mind what you are about, for heaven's
sake!  Suppose anyone were to see you.  It is
enough to ruin my professional reputation to
have you do that on a market day in your own
front window."

"Well, please may I hold your hand?"  (Then,
piteously, and, if I might call it so,
"Nancefully")  "You know I shall not see you all day."

"The Hempie would not do a thing like that!"
I answer, severely.

Nance watches the supple swing of her sister's
figure, from the stout-soled practical boots to the
small erect head, with its short black curls and
smart brown felt hat with the silver buckle at
the side.

"No," she said, "she wouldn't."  Then, after a
sigh, she added, "Poor Hempie!"

That was the last we saw of our sister for
more than a year.  Elizabeth Chrystie did not
come back even for Grace's marriage to the laird
of Butterhole.

"I am of more use where I am," she wrote.
"Tell Grace I am sending her an alarm clock!"

Whether this was sarcasm on the Hempie's part,
I am not in a position to say.  Grace had always
been the sleepy-head of the family.  If, however,
it was meant ironically, the sarcasm was wasted,
for Grace was delighted with the present.

"It is so useful, you know," the Mistress of
Butterhole told Nance.  "I set it every morning
for four o'clock.  It is so nice to turn over and
know that you do not need to get up till eight!"

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As suddenly as she had gone away, so suddenly
the Hempie returned, giving reasons to no man.
I am obliged to say that even I would never
have known the true story of the adventures
which follows had I not shamefully played the
eavesdropper.

It happened this way.

My study, where I try upon occasion to do a
little original work and keep myself from dropping
into the rut of the pill-and-potion practitioner so
common in rural districts, is next the little room
where Nance sits reading, or sewing at the
garmentry, white and mysterious, which some women
seem never to be able to let out of their reach.
Here I have a small wall-press, in which I keep
my microscopes and preparations.  It is divided
by a single board from a similar one belonging
to Nance on the other side.  When both doors
are open you can hear as well in one room as
in the other.  I often converse with Nance without
rising, chiefly as to how long it will be till
dinner-time, together with similar important and
soul-elevating subjects.  But it never seems to strike
her that I can hear as easily what is said in
her room when I am not expected to hear.

Now, if you are an observant man, you have
noticed, I daresay, that so soon as women are
alone together, they begin to talk quite
differently from what they have done when they had
reason to know of your masculine presence.  Yes, it
is true—especially true of your nearest and dearest.
Men do something of the same kind when women
go out after dinner.  But quite otherwise.  A
man becomes at once broader and louder, more
unrestrained in quotation, allusion, illustration,
more direct in application.  His vocabulary
expands.  In anecdote he is more abounding
and in voice altogether more natural.  But with
women it is not so.  They do not look blankly
at the tablecloth or toy with the stem of a
wineglass, as men do when the other sex vanishes.
They glance at each other.  A gentle smile
glimmers from face to face, in which is a world
of irony and comprehension.  It says, "They
are gone—the poor creatures.  We can't quite
do without them; but oh, are they not funny
things?"  Then they exchange sighs equally
gentle.  If you listen closely you can hear a little
subdued rustle.  That is the chairs being moved
gently forward nearer each other—not dragged,
mark you, as a man would do.  A man has no
proper respect for a carpet.

"Well, dear——?"

"Well?"

And then they begin really to talk.  They have
only "conversed" so far.  How do I know all
this?  Well, that's telling.  As I say, I
eavesdropped part of it—in the interests of science.
But the facts are true, in every case.

The Hempie came in one Saturday morning.
It was in August, and a glorious day.  There was
nothing pressing.  I had been out early at the
only case which needed to be seen to till I went
on my afternoon round.

Nance was upstairs giving a wholly supererogatory
attention to a certain young gentleman who
had already one statutory slave to anticipate his
wants.  He was getting ready to be carried into
the garden.  I could detect signs from the
basement that cook also was tending nursery-wards.
The shrine would have its full complement of
devout worshippers shortly.

It was thus that I came to be the first to
welcome the Hempie upon her return.  She
opened the glass door and walked in without
ceremony, putting her umbrella in the rack and
hanging her hat on a peg like a man, not bringing
them in to cumber a bedroom as a woman does.
These minor differences of habit in the sexes have
never been properly collated and worked out.  As
I said before, I think I must write a book on the
subject.

At any rate, the Hempie's action was the
exception which proved the rule.

Then she strolled nonchalantly into my study
and flung herself into a chair without shaking
hands.  I leaped to my feet.

"Hempie," I cried, "I am dreadfully glad to
see you."  And I stooped to kiss her.

To my utter astonishment she took the salute as
a matter of course, a thing she had never done before.
Yes, somehow the Hempie was startlingly different.

"What," she said, "are you as glad as all that?
What a loving brother!"

But I think she was pleased all the same.

"Where's Nance?"  The question was shot
out rather than asked.

I indicated the upper regions of the house
with my thumb, and inclined my ear to direct her
attention.

A high voice of wonderful tone and compass
(if a little thin) was lifted up in a decimating howl.
Ensued a gentle confused murmur: "*Didums,
then?  Was it, then?*" together with various lucid
observations of that kind.

A change passed over the Hempie's face.

"Now we are in for it," I thought.  "She will
leave the house and never enter it again.  The
Hempie hates babies.  She has always been
particularly clear on that point."

"*Why* did you never tell me, Alec?"

"Because—because—we thought you would not
care to hear.  I understood you didn't like——"

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

"Boy."

There was a sudden uprising from the depths
of the easy-chair, a rustle of skirts, the clang of
a door, hasty footsteps on the stairs, a clamour
of voices from which, after a kind of confused
climax as the hope of the house blared his woes
like a young bull of Bashan, there finally emerged
the following remarkable sentiments:—

"Oh, the darling!  Isn't he a *pet*?  Give him
to me.  Was they bad to him?  Then—well then!
They shan't—no, indeed they shan't!  Now, then!
Didums, then!"

And *da capo*.

I could not believe my ears.  The words were
the words of Nance, but the voice was undoubtedly
the voice of the Hempie.  It was half an hour
and more before they descended the stairs, the
Hempie still carrying young "Bull of Bashan,"
now pacifically sucking his thumb and gazing
serenely through and behind his nurse in the
disconcerting way which is common to infants of the
human species—and cats.

The Hempie passed out across the little strip
of garden we had at the back.  The sunlight
checkered the grass, and the new nurse carried
her charge as if she had never done anything else
all her life.  Every moment she would stop to
coo at him.  Then she would duck her head like
a turtle-dove bowing to his mate; and finally,
as if taken by some strange contortive disease,
she would bend her neck suddenly and nuzzle
her whole face into the child's, as a pet pony does
into your hand—a hot, fatiguing, and wholly
unscientific proceeding on an August day.

I called Nance back on pretext of matters
domestic.

"What's the matter with the Hempie?" I said.

"Matter with the Hempie?" repeated Nance,
trying vainly to look blank.  "Why, what should
be the matter with the Hempie?"

"Don't try that on with me, you little fraud.
There *is* something!  What is it?"

"I have not the least idea."

"Have you kissed her?"

"No, she never looked at me—only at the
baby, *of course*."

"Then go and kiss her."

Nance went off obediently, and the sisters
walked a while together.  Presently the baby
took the red thumb out of his mouth, and through
the orifice thus created issued a bellow.  The
nurse came running.  Nance took him in her
arms, replaced the thumb, and all was well.  Then
she handed him back to the Hempie and kissed
her as she did so.  The Hempie raised her head
into position naturally, like one well accustomed
to the operation.

Nance came slowly back and rejoined me.
She was unusually thoughtful.

"Well?" I said.

She nodded gravely and shook her head.

"It *is* true," she murmured, as if convinced
against her will; "there is something.  She is
different."

"Nance," said I, triumphantly, for I was pleased
with myself, "the Hempie is in love at last.
You must find out all about it and tell me."

She looked at me scornfully.

"I will do no such thing——" she began.

"It is not curiosity—as you seem to think,"
I remarked with dignity.  "It is entirely in the
interests of science," I said.

"Rats!" cried Nance, rudely.

As I have had occasion to remark more than
once before, she does not show that deference to
her husband to which his sterling worth and many
merits entitle him.  Indeed, few wives do—if any.

"Well, I will find out for myself," I said,
carelessly.

"*You!*"

Scorn, derision, challenge were never more
briefly expressed.

"Yes, I."

"I'll wager you a new riding-whip out of my
house money that you don't find out anything
about it!"

"Done!" said I.

For I remembered about the little wall-press
where I kept my microscope.  Not that I am by
nature an eavesdropper; but, after all, a scientific
purpose—and a new riding-whip, make some
difference.

I was busy mounting my slides when I heard
them come in.  Instantly I needed some Canada
balsam out of the wall-press—in the interests of
science.  I heard Nance go to the door to listen
"if baby was asleep."  I have often represented
to her that she does not require to do this, because
the instant baby is awake he advertises the fact
to the whole neighbourhood, as effectually as if
he had been specially designed with a steam
whistle attachment for the purpose.  But I have
never succeeded.

"You think you are a doctor, Alec," is the
answer, "but you know nothing about babies!
You know you don't!"

Which shows that I must have spent a
considerable part of my medical curriculum in vain.

There ensued the soft muffled hush of chairs
being pushed into the window.  Then came the
first *click-click, jiggity-click* of a rocking-chair,
which Nance had bought for me "when you are
tired, dear"—and has used ever since herself.  I
did not regret this, for it left the deep-seated
chintz-covered one free.  They are useless things,
anyway: a man cannot go to sleep on a rocking-chair,
or strike a match under the seat, or stand
on it to put up a picture—or, in fact, do any of
the things for which chairs are really designed.

Now when a woman goes to sleep in a chair, she
always wakes up cross.  All that stuff in romances
about kissing the beloved awake in the dear old
rose-scented parlour, and about the lids rising sweetly
from off loving and happy eyes, is, scientifically
considered, pure nonsense.  Believe me, if she
greets you that way the lady has not been asleep
at all, and was waiting for you to do it.

But when she, on the other hand, wakes with
a start and opens her eyes so promptly that you
step back quickly (having had experience); when
she speaks words like these, "Alec, I have a great
mind to give you a sound box on the ear—coming
waking me up like that, when you know I didn't
have more than an hour's good sleep last night!"—this
is the genuine article.  The lady was asleep
that time.  The other kind may be pretty enough
to read about, but that is its only merit.

It was Nance who spoke first.  I heard her
drop the scissors and stoop to pick them up.
I also gathered from the tone of her first words
that she had a pin in her mouth.  Yet she goes
into a fit if baby tries to imitate her, and wonders
where he can learn such habits.  This also is
incomprehensible.

"Have you left Craignesslin for good?" said
Nance, using a foolish expression for which I have
often reproved her.

"I am going back," said the Hempie.  I am
not so well acquainted with the *nuances* of the
Hempie's voice and habit as I am with those of
her sister, but I should say that she was leaning
back in her chair with her hands clasped behind
her head, and staring contentedly out at the
window.

"I thought perhaps the death of the old major
would make a difference to you," said Nance.  I
knew by the mumbling sound that she was biting
a thread.

"It does make a difference," said the Hempie,
dreamily, "and it will make a greater difference
before all be done!"

Nance was silent for a while.  I knew she was
hurt at her sister's lack of communicativeness.
The rocking-chair was suddenly hitched sideways,
and the stroking rose from fifty in the minute to
about sixty or sixty-five, according, as it were, to
the pressure on the boiler.

Still the Hempie did not speak a word.

The rocking-chair was doing a good seventy
now—but it was a spurt, and could not last.

"Elizabeth," said Nance, suddenly, "I did not
think you could be so mean.  I never behaved
like this to you."

"No?" said the Hempie, with serene interrogation,
but did not move, so far as I could make out.
The rocking-chair ceased.  There was a pause,
painful even to me in my little den.  The strain
on the other side of the wall must have been
enormous.

When Nance spoke it was in a curiously altered
voice.  It sounded even pleading.  I wish the
Hempie would teach me her secret.

"Who is it?—tell me, Hempie," said Nance, softly.

I did not catch the answer, though obviously
one was given.  But the next moment I heard the
unbalanced clatter of the abandoned rocker, and
then Nance's voice saying: "No, it is impossible!"

Apparently it was not, however, for presently
I heard the sound of more than one kiss, and I
knew that my dear Mistress Impulsive had her
sister in her arms.

"Then you know all about it now, Hempie?"

"All about what?"

"Don't pretend,—about love.  You do love
him very much, don't you?"

"I don't know.  I have never told him so!"

"Hempie!"

"It is true, Nance!"

"Then why have you come home?"

"To get married!" said the Hempie, calmly.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE HEMPIE'S LOVE STORY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   THE HEMPIE'S LOVE STORY

.. vspace:: 2

This is the somewhat remarkable story the Hempie
told my wife as she sat sewing in the little parlour
overlooking the garden, the day Master Alexander
McQuhirr, Tertius, cut his first tooth.[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] This, however, was not discovered till afterwards, and
was then acclaimed as the reason why he cried so much
on the arrival of his aunt Elizabeth.  To his nearest relative
on the father's side, however, the young gentleman's
performances seemed entirely normal.—A. McQ.

.. vspace:: 2

Elizabeth Chrystie was a free-spoken young
woman, and she told her tale generally in the
English of the schools, but sometimes in the plain
countryside talk she had spoken when, a barefoot
bare-legged lass, she had scrieved the hills, the
companion of every questing collie and scapegrace
herd lad, 'twixt the Bennan and the Butt o'
Benerick.

"When I first got to Craignesslin," said the
Hempie, "I thought I had better turn me about
and come right back again.  And if it had not
been for pride, that is just what I should have
done."

"Were they not kind to you?" asked Nance.

"Kind?  Oh, kind enough—it was not that.  I
could easily have put an end to any unkindness
by walking over the hill.  But I could not.  To
tell the truth, the place took hold of me from
the first hour.

"Craignesslin, you know, is a great house, with
many of the rooms unoccupied, sitting high up on
the hills, a place where all the winds blow, and
where the trees are mostly scrubby scrunts of
thorn, turning up their branches like skeleton
hands asking for alms, or shrivelled birches and
cowering firs all bent away from the west.

"When first I saw the place I thought that I
could never bide there a day—and now it looks
as if I were going to live there all my life.

"The hired man from the livery stables in
Drumfern set my box down on the step of the
front door, and drove off as fast as he could.
He had a long way before him, he said, the first
five miles with not so much as a cottage by the
wayside.  He meant a public-house.

"He was a rude boor.  And when I told him
so he only laughed and said: 'For a' that ye'll
maybe be glad to see me the next time I come—even
if I bring a hearse for ye to ride to the
kirkyaird in!'

"And with that he cracked his whip and drove
out of sight.  I was left alone on the doorstep
of the old House of Craignesslin.  I looked up at
the small windows set deep in the walls.  Above
one of them I made out the date 1658, and over
the door were carven the letters W.F.

"Then I minded the tales my father used to
tell in the winter forenights, of Wicked Wat Fergus
of Craignesslin, how he used to rise from his bed
and blow his horn and ride off to the Whig-hunting
with Lag and Heughan, how he kept a tally on
his bed-post of the men he had slain on the moors,
making a bigger notch all the way round for
such as were preachers.

"And while I was thinking all this, I stood
knocking for admission.  I could not hear a living
thing move about the place.  The bell would not
ring.  At the first touch the brass pull came away
in my hands, and hung by the wire almost to the
ground.

"Yet there was something pleasant about the
place too, and if it had not been for the uncanny
silence, I would have liked it well enough.  The
hills ran steeply up on both sides, brown with
heather on the dryer knolls, and the bogs yellow and
green with bracken and moss.  The sheep wandered
everywhere, creeping white against the hill-breast
or standing black against the skyline.  The
whaups cried far and near.  Snipe whinnied up
in the lift.  Magpies shot from thorn-bush to
thorn-bush, and in the rose-bush by the
door-cheek a goldfinch had built her nest.

"Still no one answered my knocking, and at
last I opened the door and went in.  The door
closed of its own accord behind me, and I found
myself in a great hall with tapestries all round,
dim and rough, the bright colours tarnished with
age and damp.  There were suits of armour on
the wall, old leathern coats, broad-swords
basket-hiked and tasselled, not made into trophies, but
depending from nails as if they might be needed
the next moment.  Two ancient saddles hung
on huge pins, one on either side of the antique
eight-day clock, which ticked on and on with a
solemn sound in that still place.

"I did not see a single thing of modern sort
anywhere except an empty tin which had held
McDowall's Sheep Dip.

"Nance, you cannot think how that simple thing
reassured me.  I opened the door again and pulled
my box within.  Then I turned into the first
room on the right.  I could see the doors of
several other rooms, but they were all dark and
looked cavernous and threatening as the mouths
of cannon.

"But the room to the right was bright and
filled with the sunshine from end to end, though
the furniture was old, the huge chairs uncovered
and polished only by use, and the great oak table
in the centre hacked and chipped.  From the
window I could see an oblong of hillside with
sheep coming and going upon it.  I opened the
lattice and looked out.  There came from somewhere
far underneath, the scent of bees and honeycombs.
I began to grow lonesome and eerie.
Yet somehow I dared not for the life of me
explore further.

"It was a strange feeling to have in the daytime,
and you know, Nance, I used to go up to the
muir or down past the kirkyaird at any hour
of the night.

"I did not take off my things.  I did not sit
down, though there were many chairs, all of plain
oak, massive and ancient, standing about at all
sorts of angles.  One had been overturned by
the great empty fireplace, and a man's worn
riding-glove lay beside it.

"So I stood by the mantelpiece, wondering
idly if this could be Major Fergus's glove, and
what scuffle there had been in this strange place
to overturn that heavy chair, when I heard a
stirring somewhere in the house.  It was a curious
shuffling tread, halting and slow.  A faint tinkling
sound accompanied it, like nothing in the world
so much as the old glass chandelier in the room
at Nether Neuk, when we danced in the parlour
above.

"The sound of that shuffling tread came nearer,
and I grew so terrified, that I think if I had
been sure that the way to the door was clear,
I should have bolted there and then.  But just
at that moment I heard the foot trip.  There was
a muffled sound as of someone falling forward.
The jingling sound became momentarily louder
than ever, to which succeeded a rasping and a
fumbling.  Something or someone had tripped
over my box, and was now examining it in a
blind way.

"I stood turned to stone, with one hand on
the cold mantelpiece and the other on my heart
to still the painful beating.

"Then I heard the shuffling coming nearer
again, and presently the door lurched forward
violently.  It did not open as an intelligent being
would have opened a door.  The passage was
gloomy without, and at first I saw nothing.  But
in a moment, out of the darkness, there emerged
the face and figure of an old woman.  She wore
a white cap or 'mutch,' and had a broad and
perfectly dead-white face.  Her eyes also were
white—or rather the colour of china ware—as
though she had turned them up in agony and
had never been able to get them back again.
At her waist dangled a bundle of keys; and that
was the reason of the faint musical tinkling I
had heard.  She was muttering rapidly to herself
in an undertone as she shuffled forward.  She
felt with her hands till she touched the great
oaken table in the centre.

"As soon as she had done so, she turned
towards the window, and with a much brisker
step she went towards it.  I think she felt the
fresh breeze blow in from the heather.  Her
groping hand went through the little hinged
lattice I had opened.  She started back.

"'Who has opened the window?' she said.
'Surely he has not been here!  Perhaps he has
escaped!  Walter—Walter Fergus—come oot!' she
cried.  'Ah, I see you, you are under the table!'

"And with surprising activity the blind old
woman bent down and scrambled under the table.
She ran hither and thither like a cat after a
mouse, beating the floor with her hands and
colliding with the legs of the table as she did so.

"Once as she passed she rolled a wall-white
eye up at me.  Nance, I declare it was as if
the week-old dead had looked at you!

"Then she darted back to the door, opened
it, and with her fingers to her mouth, whistled
shrilly.  A great surly-looking dog of a brown
colour lumbered in.

"'Here, Lagwine, he's lost.  Seek him, Lagwine!
Seek him, Lagwine!'

"And now, indeed, I thought, 'Bess Chrystie,
your last hour is come.'  But though the dog
must have scented me—nay, though he passed
me within a foot, his nose down as if on a hot
trail—he never so much as glanced in my
direction, but took round the room over the tumbled
chairs, and with a dreadful bay, ran out at the
door.  The old woman followed him, but most
unfortunately (or, as it might be, fortunately) at
that moment my foot slipped from the fender,
and she turned upon me with a sharp cry.

"'Lagwine, Lagwine, he is here!  He is here!'
she cried.

"And still on all fours, like a beast, she rushed
across the floor straight at me.  She laid her
hand on my shoe, and, as it were, ran up me
like a cat, till her skinny hands fastened
themselves about my throat.  Then I gave a great
cry and fainted.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1



"At least, I must have done so, for when I
came to myself a young man was bending over
me, with a white and anxious face.  He had on
velveteen knickerbockers, and a jacket with a
strap round the waist.

"'Where is that dreadful old woman?' I cried,
for I was still in mortal terror."

"*I* should have died," said Nance.  And from
the sound of her voice I judged that she had
given up the attempt to continue her seam in
order to listen to the Hempie's tale, which not
the most remarkable exposition of scientific truth
on my part could induce her to do for a moment.

"'It's all my fault—all my fault for not being
at home to meet the trap,' I heard him murmur,
as I sank vaguely back again into
semi-unconsciousness.  When I opened my eyes I found
myself in a pleasant room, with modern furniture
and engravings on the wall of the 'Death of
Nelson' and 'Washington crossing the Delaware.'

"As soon as I could speak I asked where I
was, and if the horrible old woman with the white
eyes would come back.  The young man did
not answer me directly, but called out over his
shoulder, 'Mother, she is coming to.'

"And the next moment a placid, comfortable-looking
lady entered, with the air of one who
has just left the room for a moment.

"'My poor lassie,' she said, bending over me,
'this is a rough home-coming you have got to
the house of Craignesslin.  But when you are
better I will tell you all.  You are not fit to
hear it now.'

"But I sat up and protested that I was—that
I must hear it all at once, and be done with it."

"Of course," cried Nance, "you felt that you
could not stay unless you knew.  And I would
not have stopped another minute—not if they
had brought down the Angel Gabriel to explain."

"Not if Alec had been there?" queried the
Hempie, smiling.

"Alec!" cried Nance, in great contempt.
"Indeed, if Alec had been in such a place, I
would have made Alec come away inside of three
minutes—yes, and take me with him if he had
to carry me out on his back!  Stop there for
Alec's sake?  No fear!"

That is the way my married wife speaks of
me behind my back.  But, so far as I can see,
there is no legal remedy.

"Go on, Hempie; you are dreadfully slow."

"So," continued the Hempie, placidly, "the
nice matronly woman bade me lie down on a
sofa, and put lavender-water on my head.  She
petted me as if I had been a baby, and I lay there
curiously content—me, Elizabeth Chrystie, that
never before let man or woman lay a hand on
me——"

"Exactly," said Nance; "was he very nice-looking?"

"Who?"

"The young man in the velveteen suit, of
course."

"I don't know what you mean."

"I mean, was he better-looking than Alec?"

"Better-looking than Alec?  Why, of course,
Alec isn't a bit——"

"*Hempie!*"

There was a pause, and then, to relieve the
strain, the Hempie laughed.  "Are you never
going to get over it, Nance?"

"Get on with your story, and be sensible."  I
could hear a thread bitten through.

"So the lady began to talk to me in a quiet
hushed tone, like a minister beside a sick bed.
She told me how some years ago her poor husband,
Major Fergus, had hart a dreadful accident.  He
was not only disfigured, but the shock had affected
his brain.

"'At first,' she said, 'we thought of sending
him to an asylum, but we could not find one
exactly suited to his case.  Besides which, his
old nurse, Betty Hearseman, who had always had
great influence with him, was wild to be allowed
to look after him.  She is not quite right in the
head herself, but most faithful and kind.  She cried
out night and day that they were abusing him
in the asylum.  So at last he was brought here
and placed in the old wing of the house, into
which you penetrated by misadventure to-day.'

"'But the dog?' I asked; 'do they hunt the
patient with a fierce dog like that?'

"'Ah, poor Lagwine,' she sighed, 'he is devoted
to his old master.  He would not hurt a hair of
his head or of anybody's head.  Only sometimes,
when he finds the door open, my poor Roger will
slip out, and then nobody else can find him on
these weariful hills.'

"Then I asked her of the younger children
whom I had been engaged to teach.

"'They are my grandchildren,' she said; 'you
can hear them upstairs.'

"And through the clamour of voices, that of
the young man I had seen rang loudest of all.

"'They are playing with their father?' I said.

"She shook her head.  'They are the children
of my daughter Isobel,' she said.  'She married
Captain Fergus, of the Engineers, her own cousin,
and died on her way out to the West Indies.
So Algernon brought them home, and here they
are settled on us.  And what with my husband's
wastefulness before he was laid aside, and the
poor rents of the hill farms nowadays, I know
not what we shall do.  Indeed, if it were not for
my dear son Harry we could not live.  He takes
care of everything, and is most scrupulous and
saving.'

"So when she had told me all this, I lay still
and thought.  And the lady's hand went slower
and slower across my head till it ceased altogether.

"'I cannot expect you to remain with us after
this, Miss Chrystie,' she said, 'and yet I know
not what I shall do without you.  I think we
should have loved one another.'

"I told her that I was not going away—that
I was not afraid at all.

"'But, to tell you the truth, my dear,' she said,
'I do not rightly see where your wages are to
come from.'

"'That does not matter in the least, if I like
the place in other ways,' I said to her."

"He must be *very* good-looking!" interjected
Nance.

"So I told her I would like to see the children.
She went up to call them, and presently down
they came—a girl of six and a little boy of four.
They had been having a rough-and-tumble, and
their hair was all about their faces.  So in a little
we were great friends.  They went up to the
nursery with their grandmother, and I was following
more slowly, when all at once, Harry—I mean
the young man—came hurrying in, carrying a tray.
He had an apron tied about him, and the bottom
hem of it was tucked into the string at the waist.
As soon as he saw me he blushed, and nearly
dropped the tray he was carrying.  I think he
expected me to laugh, but I did not——"

"Of course not," coincided Nance, with decision.

"I just opened the top drawer in the sideboard
and took out the cloth and spread it, while he
stood with the tray still in his arms, not knowing,
in his surprise, what to do with it.

"'I thought you had gone upstairs with my
mother,' he said.  'Old John Hearseman is out on
the hill with the lambs, and we have no other
servants except the children's little nurse.'

"And so—and so," said the Hempie, falteringly,
"that is how it began."

I could hear a little scuffle—which, being
interpreted, meant that Nance had dropped her
workbasket and sewing on the floor in a heap
and had clasped her sister in her arms.

"Darling, cry all you want to!"  My heart
would know that tone through six feet of
kirkyard mould—aye, and leap to answer it.

"I am not crying—I don't want to cry."  It
was the Hempie's voice, but I had never heard
it sound like that before.  Then it took a stronger
tone, with little pauses where the tears were
wiped away.

"And I found out that night from the children
how good he was—how helpful and strong.  He
had to be out before break of day on the hills
after the sheep.  Often, with a game-bag over
his shoulder, he would bring in all that there was
for next day's dinner.  Then when Betsy, the small
maid, was busy with his mother, he would bath
Algie and Madge, and put them to bed.  For
Mrs. Fergus, though a kind woman in her way,
had been accustomed all her life to be waited on,
and accepted everything from her son's hands
without so much as 'Thank you.'

"So I did not say a word, but got up early
next morning and went downstairs.  And what
do you think I found that blessed Harry
doing—*blacking my boots*!"

There was again a sound like kissing and
quiet crying, though I cannot for the life of me
tell why there should have been.  Perhaps the
women who read this will know.  And then the
Hempie's voice began again, striving after its
kind to be master of itself.

"So, of course, what could I do when his
father died?  He and I were with him night
and day.  For Betty Hearseman being blind
could not handle him at all, and Harry's mother
was of no use.  Indeed, we did not say anything
to alarm her till the very last morning.  No, I
cannot tell even you, Nance what it was like.
But we came through it together.  That is all."

Nance had not gone back to her sewing.  So I
could not make out what was her next question.
It was spoken too near the Hempie's ear.  But
I heard the answer plainly enough.

"A month next Wednesday was what we
thought of.  It ought to be soon, for the
children's sake, poor little things."

"Oh, yes," echoed Nance, meaningly, "for
the children's sake, of course."

The Hempie ignored the tone of this remark.

"Harry is having the house done up.  The
old part is to be made into a kitchen.  Old John
and Betty Hearseman are to have a cottage down
the glen."

"And you are to be all alone," cried Nance,
clapping her hands, "with only the old lady to
look after.  That will be like playing at house."

"Yes," said the Hempie, ironically, "it
would—without the playing.  Oh no, I am going to
have a pair of decent moorland lasses to train
to my ways, and Harry will have a first-rate
herd to help him on the hill."

Then she laughed a little, very low, to herself.

"The best of it is that he still thinks I am
poor," she said.  "I have never told him about
mother's money, and I mean to ask father to give
me as much as he gave you and Grace."

"Of course," said Nance, promptly.  "I'll come
up and help you to make him."

There was a cheerful prospect in front of
Mr. Peter Chrystie, of Nether Neuk, if he did not
put his hand in his breeches' pocket to some
purpose.

"Will Alec let you come?" queried the Hempie,
doubtfully.  "He will miss you."

"Oh, I'll tell him it is for the sake of baby's
health," said Nance; "and, besides, husbands are
all the better for being left alone occasionally.
They are so nice when they get you back again."

"What!" cried the Hempie, "you don't mean
to say that Alec has fits of temper?  I never
would have believed it of him."

"Hush!" said Nance.  There was again that
irritating whispered converse, from which emerged
the Hempie's clear voice:

"Oh, but my Harry will never be like that."

"Wait—only wait," said Nance.  "Hempie,
they are all alike.  And besides, they write you
such nice letters when they are away.  I suppose
you get one every day?  Yes, of course.  What,
he walks six miles over the hill to post it?  That
is nice of him.  Alec once came all the way
from Edinburgh, and went back the next day,
just because he thought I was cross with him——"

"Oh, but my Harry never, never——"

(Left speaking.)





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE LITTLE FAIR MAN`:

.. _`SEED SOWN BY THE WAYSIDE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   THE LITTLE FAIR MAN.

.. class:: center medium bold

   \I.—SEED SOWN BY THE WAYSIDE

.. vspace:: 2

Notable among my father's papers was one
bundle quite by itself which he had always looked
upon with peculiar veneration.  The manuscripts
which composed it were written in crabbed
handwriting on ancient paper, very much creased at
the folds, and bearing the marks of diligent
perusal in days past.  My father could not read
these, but had much reverence for them because
of the great names which could be deciphered
here and there, such as "Mr. D. Dickson,"
"Mr. G. Gillespie," and in especial "Mr. Samuel
Rutherfurd."

How these came into the possession of my
father's forbears, I have no information.  They
were always known in the family as "Peden's
Papers," though so far as I can now make out,
that celebrated Covenanter had nothing to do with
them—or, at least, is never mentioned in them
by name.  On the other hand I find from the family
Bible, written as a note over against the entry
of my great-grandmother's death, "Aprile the
seventeene, 1731," the words, "Cozin to Mr. Patrick
Walker, chapman, of Bristo Port, Edinburgh."

The letters and narratives are in many hands
and vary considerably in date, some being as
early as the high days of Presbytery, about 1638,
whilst others in a plainer hand have manifestly
been copied or rewritten in the first decade of
last century.

Now after I came from college and before my
marriage, I had sometimes long forenights with
little to do.  So having got some insight into
ancient handwriting from my friend Mr. James
Robb, of the College of Saint Mary, an expert
in the same—a good golfer also, and a better
fellow—I set me to work to decipher these
manuscripts both for my own satisfaction and
for the further pleasure of reading them to my
father on Saturday nights, when I was in the
habit of driving over to see my mother at
Drumquhat on my way from visiting my patients
in the Glen of Kells.

That which follows is from the first of these
documents which I read to my father.  He was
so much taken by it that he begged me to publish
it, as he said, "as a corrective to the sinful
compliances and shameless defections of the
times."  And though I am little sanguine of any good
it may do from a high ecclesiastic point of view,
the facts narrated are interesting enough in
themselves.  The manuscript is clearly written out in
a tall copy-book of stout bluish paper, without
ruled lines, and is bound in a kind of grey
sheepskin.  The name "Harry Wedderburn" is
upon the cover here and there, and within is a
definitive title in floreated capitals, very ornately
inscribed:

.. _`Inscription`:

.. figure:: images/img-235.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: Inscription

   Inscription

"The Story of the Turning of me, Harry
Wedderburn, from Darkness to Light, by the means
and instrument of Mr. Samuel Rutherfurd of
Anwoth, Servant of God."

.. vspace:: 2

Then the manuscript proceeds:—

"The Lord hath spared me, Harry Wedderburn,
these many years, delaying the setting of my sun
till once more the grass grows green where I saw
the blood lie red, and I wait in patience to lay
my old head beneath the sod of a quiet land.

"This is my story writ at the instance of good
Mr. Patrick Walker, and to be ready at his next
coming into our parts.  The slack between hay
and harvest of the Year of Deliverance, 1689, is
the time of writing.

"I, Harry Wedderburn, of Black Craig of Dee,
in the country of Galloway, acknowledging the
mercies of God, and repenting of my sins, set
these things down in my own hand of write.
Sorrow and shame are in my heart that my sun
was so high in the heavens before I turned me
from evil to seek after good.

"We were a wild and froward set in those days
in the backlands of the Kells.  It was not long,
indeed, since the coming of a law stronger than
that of the Strong Hand.  Our fathers had driven
the cattle from the English border—yea, even
out of the fat fields of Niddisdale, and over the
flowe of Solway.  And if a man were offended
with another, he went his straightest way home
and took gun and whinger to lie in wait for his
enemy.  Or he met him foot to foot with
staff on the highway, if he were of ungentle heart
and possessed neither pistol nor musketoon.

"I mind well that year 1636, more than fifty
years bygone—I being then in the twenty-second
year of my age, a runagate castaway loon, without
God and without hope in the world.  My father
had been in his day a douce sober man, yet he
could do little to restrain myself or my brother
John, who was, they said, 'ten waurs' than I.
For there was a wild set in the Glen of Kells in
those days, Lidderdale of Slogarie and Roaring
Raif Pringle of Kirkchrist being enough to poison
a parish.  We four used to forgather to drink
the dark out and the light in, two or three times
in the week at the change house of the Clachan.
Elspeth Vogie keeped it, and no good name it
got among those well-affected to religion—aye,
or Elspeth herself either.

"But these are vain thoughts, and I have had
of a long season no pleasure in them.  Yet will
I not deny that Elspeth Vogie, though in some
things sore left to herself, was a heartsome quean
and well-favoured of her person.

"So at Elspeth's some half-dozen of us were
drinking down the short dark hours of an August
night.  It was now the lull between the
hay-winning and the corn-shearing.  For hairst was
late that year, and the weather mostly backward
and dour.  There had come, however, with the
advent of the new month, a warm drowsy spell
of windless days, the sun shining from morn to
even through a kind of unwholesome mist, and
the corn standing on the knowes with as little
motion as the grey whinstane tourocks and granite
cairns on the hilltaps.  The farmers and cottiers
looked at their scanty roods of ploughland, and
prayed for a rousing wind from the Lord to
winnow away the still dead easterly mist, and gar
the corn reestle ear against ear so that it might
fill and ripen for the ingathering.

"But we that were hand-fasted to sin and bonded
to iniquity, young plants of wrath, ill-doers and
forlorn of grace, cared as little for the backward
year as we did for the sad state of Scotland and
the strifes that were quickly coming upon that
land.  So long as our pint-stoup was filled, and
plack rattled on plack in the pouch, sorrow the
crack of the thumb we cared for harvest or
sheep-shearing, king or bishop, Bible or incense-pot.

"To us sitting thus on the Sabbath morning
(when it had better set us to have been sleeping
in our naked beds) there came in one Rab Aitkin
of Auchengask, likeminded with us.  Rab was
seeking his 'morning' or eye-opening draught of
French brandy, and to us bleared and leaden-eyed
roisterers, he seemed to come fresh as the dew on
the white thorn in the front of May.  For he had
a clean sark upon him, a lace ruffle about his neck,
and his hair was still wet with the good well water
in which he had lately washen himself.

"'Whither away, Rab?' we cried; 'is it to visit
fair Meg o' the Glen so early i' the mornin'?'

"'He is on his way to holy kirk!' cried another,
daffingly.

"'If so—'tis to stand all day on the stool of
repentance!' declared another.  Then in the
precentors whining voice he added: 'Robert
Aitkin, deleted and discerned to compear at both
diets of worship for the heinous crime of—and so
forth!'  This was an excellent imitation of the
official method of summoning a culprit to stand
his rebuke.  It was Patie Robb of Ironmannoch
who said this.  And this same Patie had had the
best opportunities for perfecting himself in the
exercise, having stood the session and received the
open rebuke on three several occasions—two of
them in one twelve-month, which is counted a
shame even among shameless men.

"'No, Patie,' said Rab in answer, 'I am indeed
heading for the kirk, but on no siccan gowk's errand
as takes you there twice in the year, my man.  I
go to hear the Gospel preached.  For there is to be
a stranger frae the south shore at the Kirk of Kells
this day, and they say he has a mighty power of
words; and though ye scoff and make light o'
me, I care not.  I am neither kirk-goer nor
kirk-lover, ye say.  True, but there is a whisper in my
heart that sends me there this day.  I thank ye,
bonny mistress!'

"He took the pint-stoup, and with a bow of his
head and an inclination of his body, he did
his service to Mistress Elspeth.  For that lady,
looking fresh as himself, had just come forth from
her chamber to relieve Jean McCalmont, who, poor
thing, had been going to sleep on her feet for
many weary hours.

"Then Roaring Raif Pringle cried out, 'Lads,
we will a' gang.  I had news yestreen of this
ploy.  The new Bishop, good luck to him, has
outed another of the high-flying prating
cushion-threshers.  This man goes to Edinburgh to be
tried before his betters.  He is to preach in Kells
this very morn on the bygoing, for the minister
thereof is likeminded with himself.  We will
all gang, and if he gets a hearin' for his rebel's
cant—why, lads, you are not the men I tak
you for!'

"So they cried out, 'Weel said, Roaring Raif!'
and got them ready to go as best they could.
For some were red of face and some were ringed
of eye, and all were touched with a kind of
disgust for the roysterous spirit of the night.  But
a dabble in the chill water of the spring and a
rub of the rough-spun towel brought us mostly
to some decent presentableness.  For youth easily
recovers itself while it lasts, though in the latter
end it pays for such things twice over.

"We partook of as mickle breakfast as we
could manage, and that was no great thing after
such a night.  But we each drank down a
stirrup-cup and with various good-speeds to Elspeth
Vogie and Jean her maid, we wan to horseback
and so down the strath to the Kirk of Kells.
It sits on the summit of a little knowe with the
whin golden about it at all times of the year,
and the loch like a painted sheet spread below.

"We could see the folk come flocking from far
and near, from their mailings and forty-shilling
lands, their farm-towns and cot-houses in
half-a-dozen parishes.

"'We are in luck's way, lads,' cried Lidderdale,
called Ten-tass Lidderdale because he could
drink that number of stoups of brandy neat; 'it
is a great gathering of the godly.  Lads, the
shutting of this man's mouth will make such a
din as will be heard of through all Galloway!'

"And so to our shame and my sorrow we made
it up.  We were to go the rounds of the meeting,
and gather together all the likely lads who
would stand with us.  There were sure to be
plenty such who had no goodwill to preachings.
And with these in one place we could easily
shut the mouth of this fanatic railer against law
and order.  For so in our ignorance and folly
we called him.  Because all this sort (such as
I myself was then) hated the very name of religion,
and hoped to find things easier and better for
them when the king should have his way, and
when the bishops would present none to parishes
but what we called 'good fellows'—by which
we meant men as careless of principle as
ourselves—loose-livers and oath-swearers, such as in truth
they mostly were themselves.

"But when we arrived that August morning at
the Kirk of Kells, lo! there before us was
outspread such a sight as my eyes never beheld.
The Kirk Knowe was fairly black with folk.
A little way off you could see them pouring
inward in bands like the spokes of a wheel.
Further off yet, black dots straggled down hill
sides, or up through glens, disentangling
themselves from clumps of birches and scurry thorns
for all the world like the ants of the wise king
gathering home from their travels.

"Then we were very well content and made it our
business to go among the gay young blades who
had come for the excitement, or, as it might be,
because all the pretty lasses of the countryside
were sure to be there in their best.  And with
them we arranged that we should keep silence
till the fanatic minister was well under way
with his treasonable paries.  Then we would rush
in with our swords drawn, carry him off down the
steep and duck him for a traitorous loon in the
loch beneath.

"To this we all assented and shook hands upon
the pact.  For we knew right sickerly what would
be our fate, if in the battle which was coming on
the land, the Covenant men won the day.
Perforce we must subscribe to deeds and religious
engagements, attend kirks twice a day, lay aside
gay colours, forswear all pleasant daffing with such
as Elspeth Vogie and Jean her maid (not that
there was anything wrong in my own practice
with such—I speak only of others).  The merry
clatter of dice would be heard no more.  The
cartes themselves, the knowledge of which then
made the gentleman, would be looked upon as the
'deil's picture-books.'  A good broad oath would
mean a fine as broad.  Instead of chanting loose
catches we should have to listen to sermons five
hours long, and be whipt for all the little pleasing
transgressions that made life worth living.

"So 'Hush,' we said—'we will salt this preacher's
kail for him.  We will drill him, wand-hand and
working-hand, so that he cannot stir.  We will
make him drink his fill of Kells Loch this day!'

"All this while we knew not so much as the name
of the preacher—nor, indeed, cared.  He came
from the south, so much we knew, and he had a
great repute for godliness and what the broad-bonnets
called 'faithfulness,' which, being interpreted,
signified that he condemned the king and
the bishops, and held to the old dull figments about
doctrine, free grace, and the authority of Holy Kirk.

"The man had not arrived when we reached
the Kirk of Kells.  Indeed, it was not long before
the hour of service when up the lochside we saw
a cavalcade approach.  Then we were angry.  For,
as we said, 'This spoils our sport.  These are
doubtless soldiers of the king who have been sent
to put a stop to the meeting.  We shall have no
chance this day.  Our coin is spun and fallen
edgewise between the stones.  Let us go home!'

"But I said: 'There may be some spirity work
for all that, lads.  Better bide and see!'

"So they abode according to my word.

"But when they came near we could see that
these were no soldiers of the king, nor, indeed, any
soldiers at all, though the men were armed with
whingers and pistolets, and rode upon strong
slow-footed horses like farmers going to market.  There
was a gentleman at the head of them, very tall
and stout, whom Roaring Raif, in an undertone,
pointed out as Gordon of Earlstoun, and in the
midst, the centre of the company, rode a little
fair man, shilpit and delicate, whom all deferred
to, clad in black like a minister.  He rode a
long-tailed sheltie like one well accustomed to the
exercise and bore about with him the die-stamp
of a gentleman.

"This was the preacher, and these other riders
were mostly his parishioners, come to convoy him
through the dangerous and ill-affected districts
to the great Popish and Prelatic city of Aberdeen,
where for the time being he was to be interned.

"Then Roaring Raif whispered amongst us that
we had better have our swords easy in the sheath
and our pistols primed, for that these men in the
hodden grey would certainly fight briskly for their
minister.

"'Gordon of Cardoness is there also,' he said, 'a
stout angry carle.  Him in the drab is Muckle
Ninian Mure of Cassencarry.  Beyond is Ugly
Peter of Rusco, and that's Bailie Fullerton o'
Kirkcudbright, the man wi' the wame swaggin' and
the bell-mouthed musket across his saddle-bow.
There will be a rare tulzie, lads.  This is indeed
worth leavin' Elspeth's fireside for.  We will let
oot some true blue Covenant bluid this holy day!'

"And when the Little Fair Man dismounted there
was a rush of the folk and some deray.  But we
of the other faction kept in the back part and
bided our time.

"Then the Little Fair Man went up into the
pulpit, which was a box on great broad, creaking,
ungreased wheels, which they had brought out
from the burial tool-house as soon as they saw
that the mighty concourse could in no wise be
contained in the kirk—no, not so much as a tenth
part of them!

"After that there was a great hush which lasted
at least a minute as the minister kneeled down
with his head in his hands.  Then at last he rose
up and gave out the psalm to be sung.  It was the
one about the Israelites hanging their harps on the
trees of Babylon.  And I mind that he prefaced
it with several pithy sayings which I remembered
long afterwards, though I paid little heed to them
at the time.  'This tree of Babylon is a strange
plant,' he said; 'it grows only in those backsides
of deserts where Moses found it, or by Babel
streams where men walk in sorrow and exile.  It
is an ever-burning bush, yet no man hath seen
the ashes of it.'

"Then the people sang with a great voice,
far-swelling, triumphant, and the Little Fair Man led
them in a kind of ecstasy.  I do not mind much
about his prayer.  I was no judge of prayers in
those days.  All I cared about them was that they
should not be too long and so keep me standing
in one position.  But I can recall of him that
he inclined his face all the time he was speaking
towards the sky, as if Someone Up There had been
looking down upon him.  At that I looked also,
following the direction of his eyes.  And so did
several others, but could see nothing.  But I think
it was not so with the Little Fair Man.

"Now it was not till the sermon was well begun
that we were to break in and 'skail' the
conventicle with our swords in our hands.  I could
hear Lidderdale behind me murmuring, 'How
much longer are we to listen to this treason-monger?'

"'Let us give him five minutes by the watch
lads!' I said, 'the same as a man that is to be
hanged hath before the topsman turns him off.
And after that I am with you.'

"Then Roaring Raif said in my ear, 'We have
them in the hollow of our hand.  This will be a
great day in the Kells.  We will put the broad
bonnets to rout, so that no one of them after this
shall be able to show face upon the causeway of
Dumfries.  There are at least fifty staunch lads,
good honest swearing blades, in and about the
kirkyard of Kells this day!'

"For even so we delighted to call ourselves in
our ignorance and headstrong folly—as the Buik
sayeth, glorying in our shame.

"And according to my word we waited five
minutes on the minister.  He had that day a
text that I will always mind, 'God is our refuge
and our strength,' from the 46th Psalm—one that
was ever afterwards a great favourite with me.
And when at first he began, I thought not muckle
about what he said, but only of the great ploy and
bloody fray that was before me.  For we rejoiced
in suchlike, and called it among ourselves a
'bloodletting of the whey-faced knaves!'

"Then the Little Fair Man began to warm to
his work, and just when the five minutes drew on
to their end, he was telling of a certain Friend
that he had, One that loved him, and had been
constantly with him for years—so that his married
wife was not so near and dear.  This Friend had
delivered him, he said, from perils of great waters,
and from the edge of the sword.  He had also
put up with all the evil things he had done to
Him.  Ofttimes he had cast this Friend off and
buffeted Him, but even then He would not go
away from him or leave him desolate.

"So, as I had never heard of such strange friendship,
I was in a great sweat to find out who this
Friend might be, so different from the comrades I
knew, who drew their swords at a word and gave
buffet for buffet as quick as drawing a breath.

"So I whispered again, 'Give him another five
minutes!'

"And I could hear them growl behind me, Tam
Morra of the Shields, called Partan-face Tam,
Glaikit Gib Morrison, and the others—'What for
are ye waitin'?  Let the grey-breeks hae it noo!'

"But since I was by much the strongest there,
and in a manner the leader, they did not dare
to counter me, fearing that I might give them
'strength-o'-airm' as I did once in the vennel
of Dumfries to Mathew Aird when he withstood
me in the matter of Bonny Betty Coupland—a
rencontre which was little to my credit from any
point of view.

"And then the Little Fair Man threw himself
into a rapture like a man going out of the body,
and his voice sounded somehow uncanny and
of the other world.  For there was a 'scraich'
in it like the snow-wind among the naked trees
of the wood at midnight.  Yet for all it was not
unpleasant, but only eery and very affecting to
the heart.

"He told us how that he had shamed and grieved
his Friend, how he had oftentimes wounded Him
sore, and once even crucified Him——

"Then when he said that I knew what the man
was driving at, and if I had been left to myself
I would have fallen away and thought no more
of the matter.  But at that moment, with a sudden
calm, there fell a hush over the people.  They
seemed to be waiting for something.  Then the
Little Fair Man leaned out of the pulpit and
stretched his arm toward me, where I stood like
Saul, taller by a head than any about me.

"'There is a great strong young man there,' he
said, 'standing by the pillar, that hitherto has used
his strength for the service of the devil, but from
this forward he shall use it for the Lord.  Even
now he is plotting mischief.  He, too, hath wounded
my Friend, even Jesus Christ, and smitten Him
on the cheekbone.  But to-day he shall stand
in the breach and fight for Him.  Young man, I
bid you come forward!'

"And with that he continued, pointing at me
with his finger a little crooked.  At first I was
angry, and could have made his chafts ring with
my neive had I been near enough.  But presently
something uprose in my heart—great, and terrible,
and melting all at once.  I took a step forward.
But my companions held me back.  I could feel
Lidderdale and Roaring Raif with each a hand
on a coat tail.

"'Harry,' they said, 'do not mind him—cry
the word and we will fall on and pull the wizard
down by the heels!'

"'Come hither!' said the Little Fair Man again,
in a stronger voice of command.  'Come up hither,
friend.  Thou didst come to this place to do evil;
but the Spirit hath thee now by the head, though
well do I see that a pair of black deils have thee
yet by the tail.  Come hither, friend, resist not
the Spirit!'

"Then there arose a mighty flame in my heart,
the like of which I never felt before.  It was a
very gale of the Spirit—a breaking down of dams
that imprisoned waters might flow free.  And
before I knew what I did I took my hand and
dealt a buffet right and left, so that Roaring Raif
roared amain.  And as for Jock Lidderdale, I
know not what became of him, for they carried
him over the heads of the crowd and laid him
under a tree to come to himself again.

"'Thou shalt know a Friend to-day, young
man,' the minister said, when, being thus enlarged,
I came near.  'Thou shall be the firstfruits to
the Lord in the Kells this day.  There is to be
a great ingathering of sheaves here, though some
of them shall yet have bloody shocks.  But thou,
young sir, shalt be the first of all and shalt stand
the longest!'

"Then on the outskirts of the crowd there arose
a mighty turmoil.  For all those that had been
of my party made a rush forward, that they might
rescue me from what they thought was rank
witchcraft.

"'Overturn!  Overturn!' they cried, 'ding
doon the wizard!  He hath bewitched "Harry
Strength-o'-Airm"!  Fight, Harry—for thine own
hand, and we will rescue thee!'

"And so ardent was their onset that they had
well-nigh opened a way to where the Little Fair
Man stood, as unmoved and smiling as if he had
been sitting in his own manse.  So great became
the crowd that the very preaching-box rocked.
The men of the cavalcade drew their swords
and met the assailants hand to hand.  In another
minute there had been bloodshed.

"But by some strange providence there came
into my hand the pole of a burying bier, whereon
men bear coffins to the kirkyard.  I know not
how it came there, unless, peradventure, they had
used it to roll out the preaching-box.  But, in any
case, it made a goodly and a gruesome weapon.

"Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon me,
and I shouted aloud: 'I am on the Little Fair
Man's side—and on the side of his Friend!  Peace!
Peace!'

"And with that I laid about me as the Lord
gave me strength, and I heard more than one
sword snap, and more than one head crack.

"Then, again, I cried louder than before: 'Let
there be peace—and God help ye if ye come in
Harry Wedderburn's road this day—all ye that
are set on mischief!'

"And lo! by means of the bier-pole, a way
was opened, a large and an effectual, before me;
and, like Samson, I smote and smote, and stayed
not, till I was weary.  For none could stand
against me, and such as could, ran out to their
horses.  But the most part of them, I, with my
grave-pole, caused to remain—that they, too,
might be turned to the Lord by the Word of
the preacher.

"So they came back, and I bade the Little Fair
Man preach to them, while I kept guard.  And
at that he smiled and said: 'Did I not say that
thou also shouldst be a soldier of God?  Thine arm
this day hath been indeed an arm of flesh.  But thou
shalt yet wield in thy time the sword of the Spirit,
which is the word of God!'  And of a truth,
there was a great work and an effectual that day
in the Kells.  For they say that more than four
score turned them from their evil way, and many
of these blessed me thereafter for the breaking
of their heads—yes, even upon their dying beds.

"Now I have myself backslidden since that,
but have not altogether fallen away or shamed my
first love.  And when the cavalcade rode away up
the muir road, I heard them tell that the Little
Fair Man, who had called me out of my heady
folly, was no other than the famous Mr. Samuel
Rutherfurd, minister of Anwoth, on his way to
his place of exile in Aberdeen, for conscience sake.

"That these things are verity I vouch for with
my soul.  The truth is thus, neither less nor more.
Which is the testimony of me, Harry Wedderburn,
written in this year of Grace and a freed
Israel, 1689."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE HUMBLING OF STRENGTH-O'-AIRM`:

.. class:: center large bold

   THE LITTLE FAIR MAN

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center medium bold

   \II.—THE HUMBLING OF STRENGTH-O'-AIRM

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

*The continuation of the Adventure of Mr. Harry Wedderburn,
called "Strength-o'-Airm" written by himself, and
transcribed by Alexander McQuhirr, M.D.*

.. vspace:: 2

"All this fell out exceeding well, and the fact was
much bruited abroad throughout all the
southland of Galloway, how that with the tram of a
bier I convertit thirty-three men, in and about
the kirkyaird of Kells, in one day.  But (what
was not so good) the first man that I brak the
head of was Roaring Raif Pringle of Kirkchrist—and,
I was engaged in the bands of affection with
his sister Rachel, expecting indeed to wed her
with the first falling of the leaf.

"Now Roaring Raif was so worshipfully smitten
on the pate, that before he could sit up to hearken
to the voice of the Little Fair Man,
Mr. Rutherfurd had ridden northwards on his way
and all his folk with him.  Now when at last
Raif sat up and drew his hand across his brow
he asked who had done this, and when they told
him that it was his friend Harry Wedderburn of
the Black Craig who had broke his own familiar
head with the tram of the dead bier, who but
Raif Pringle was a wild man, and swore in his
unhallowed wrath to shoot me if ever I came
anigh the house of Kirkchrist, either to see his
sister or for any other purpose!

"Now I was not anxious about Rachel herself.
I knew that when it came to the point, she cared
not a doit either for Roaring Raif or for Slee
Todd Pringle, her cunning father.  She was a
fell clever lass, and had always been a great
toast among us—though continually urging me
to forswear sitting drinking at the wine with wild
runagates in public places and change houses, if
I hoped to stand well in her favour.  But once,
having been with her and Roaring Raif at
Dumfries, it was my good fortune to carry her
across the ford at Holywood when Nith Water
was rising fast, and since that day somehow she
had always thought better than well of me.  For
we left the Roaring One on the Dumfries shore.

"'I will go over and bring him hither on my
back,' said I.  And would have plunged in again
to do it.  For I thought nothing of perils of
waters, being tall and a good swimmer to boot.
But this Rachel would in no wise permit.  She
caught me by the arm and would not let me
go back.

"''Deed will you do somewhat less, Harry
Wedderburn; if Raif thinks so little of his sister
as to convoy her home disguised in liquor, e'en
let him stand there on the shore, or else take his
way home by the Brig of Dumfries!'

"And this I was very content to do, delivering
Rachel into the hands of her uncle, Lancelot
Pringle of Quarrelwood, in due time—but a longer
time mayhap than in ordinary circumstances it
takes to traverse the distance between the fords
of Holywood over against Netherholm and the
mansion house of Quarrelwood.  For the pleasure
that I had in carrying of Rachel Pringle through
the water had gone to my head some little, and
I was perhaps not so clear about my way as I
might have been.

"So, minding me on that heartsome and memorable
night, together with other things more recent,
I was not perhaps very anxious about the
affection of Rachel Pringle.  For I thought that it
would take more than the word of Roaring Raif
to change the heart of that little Rachel whom
I had carried in my arms over the swellings of
Nith Water.  I minded me how tight she had
held to me, and how, when we got over, she
whispered in my ear, before I set her down,
'Harry, I like strong men!'  Which saying
somewhat delayed my putting of her down, for
the ground grew exceedingly boggy and unstable
just at that spot.

"So, on the evening of the day after I had
forsaken my ill courses at the bidding of the
Little Fair Man, I set out from the onsteading
of Black Craig of Dee, leaving all there in the
keeping of my brother John, a stark upstanding
lad, and in those of Gilbert Grier, my chief hired
herd.  I told them not where I was going, but I
think they knew well enough.  For John brought
me my father's broadsword, which he had sharpened
instead of my own smaller whinger, and Gib the
herd took the pistols out of my belt and saw
to their priming anew.  They were always very
loyal and sib to my heart, these two, and sped
me on my love adventures without a word.

"Now the turn or twist that I gat at the outdoor
service before the Kirk of Kells was strange
enough.  It may seem that the conduct of a man
can only be turned by the application of reason
or argument.  But it was not so with me.  The
Little Fair Man crooked his finger and said:
'Come!' and I came.  So also was it with the
others who were convertit that day, aided maybe
somewhat by my black quarter-staff.  But I
have since read in the Book that even so did
Mr. Rutherfurd's Friend, when on the shores of
the sea He called to Him his disciples.  'Come!'
He said to the fishermen, and forthwith they
left all and followed Him.

"Now my call did not cause me to follow the
Little Fair Man.  It was not of such a sort.  He did
not bid me to that of it.  But those who have been
my neighbours will bear me witness that I never
was the same man again, but through many shortcomings
and much warring of the flesh against the
spirit, have ever sought after better things, during
all the fifty-and-one years since that day.

"So out I set on my road to Kirkchrist with
a rose in my coat, the covenanted work of
reformation in my heart—and my pistols primed.
I knew it would need all three to win bonny
Rachel Pringle out of the hand of the Slee Tod
and his son Raif, the Roaring One.

"Now Kirkchrist is one of the farm-towns of
Galloway, many of which in the old days have
been set like fortilices high on every defenced hill.
Indeed, the ancient tower still stands at one angle
of the square of houses, where it is used for a
peat-shed.  But by an outside stair it is possible
to get on the roof and view the country for miles
round.  On one side the Cooran burn runs down
a deep ravine full of hazel copses feathering to
the meadow-edges, where big bumble bees have
their bykes, and where I first courted Rachel,
sitting behind a cole of hay on the great day of
the meadow ingathering.  On the other three sides
the approach to Kirkchrist is as bare as the palm
of my hand, all short springy turf, with not so
much as a daisy on it, grazed over by Slee Tod's
sheep, and cast up in places by conies, whose white
tails are for ever to be seen bunting about here
and there among the warreny braes.

"Now somehow it never struck me that Roaring
Raif would bear malice.  What mattered a broken
head that he should take offence at his ancient
friend?  Had I not had my own sconce broke a
score of times, and ever loved the breaker better,
practising away with John and Gib till I could
break his for him in return?  Why not thus Raif
Pringle?  It was true that he had gotten an
uncouth clour from the bier-tram of Kells, but I
was willing to give him his revenge any day in
the week—and, for my part, bore no malice.

"So in this frame of mind I strolled up towards
Kirkchrist, when the reek of the peat fires was
just beginning to go up into a still heaven from
the cot-house in the dell, and the good cottier
wives were putting on their pots to make their
Four-Hours.  I was at peace with all the world,
for since the Kirk of Kells there had been a
marvellous lightening of my spirit.

"Rachel is yonder, I thought within me, as I
went up the hillside towards the low four-square
homestead of Kirkchrist.  Her hand will be laying
the peat and blowing up the kindling.  She will
be looking out for me somewhere, most likely at
yonder window in the gable end.

"Yes, so she was.  For as I came in view of the
yard gate I saw a white thing waved vehemently,
and then suddenly withdrawn.

"'Dear lass,' I thought, 'she is watching; and
thinks thus to bid me welcome.  She has
doubtless made my peace with the Roaring One.'

"And I smiled within myself, like a vain fool,
well-content and secure.

"Also I quickened my steps a little, so that I
might arrive in time for the meal, being
hunger-sharpened with my travel, and having out of
expectance and forgetfulness taken but little nooning
provender with me from the Black Craig of Dee.

"I watched the window eagerly, as I came nearer,
for another glint of the kerchief.  But not the beck
of a head or the flutter of a little hand intimated
that one of the bonniest lasses in Galloway was
waiting within.  Yet it struck me as strange that
there were no clamorous dogs about, or indeed
any sound of life whatever.  And ever and anon
I seemed to hear my name called, but yet, when
I stopped and listened, all was still again on the
moment.

"Now the entrance into the courtyard or inner
square of Kirkchrist was by a 'yett' or strong
gate, closed when any raiders or doubtful characters
were in the neighbourhood, as well as in the night
season.  But now this 'yett' stood wide open, and
I could see the yellow straw in the yard all freshly
spread, the stray ears yet upon it—which last,
together with the empty look of the crofts, told
me that the oats had been gathered in that day.
Where, then, were the men who had done the
work?  It was a thing unheard of that they
should depart without making merry in the house-place,
and drinking of the home-brewed ale, laced
with a tass of brandy to each tankard.

"The sun was low behind my back, and I was
looking towards the onstead of Kirkchrist, when
suddenly I saw something glisten in one of the
little three-cornered wicket-windows of the barn.
It was bright, and shone like polished metal—a
steel pistol stock belike.  But, nevertheless, I went
on in the same dead, uncanny silence.

"Suddenly '*Blaff!  Blaff!  Blaff!*'  Three or
four shots went off in front of me and to the
right.  I heard the smooth hissing sound of lead
bullets and the whistle of slugs.  Something
struck me on the muscle of the forearm, stunning
me like a blow, then I felt a kind of ragged tear or
searing of the flesh as with a hot iron.  I cannot
describe it better—not very painful at first, but
rather angering, and inclining me, but for my recent
conversion, to stamp and swear like a king's
trooper.

"This, however, I had small time to do, even
if I had wished it; for, after one glance at the
barn, through the three-cornered wicks of which,
as through the portholes of a ship in action, white
wreaths of the smoke of gunpowder were curling,
my right arm fell to my side, and I turned to
run.  Even as I did so, a little cloud of
men—perhaps half-a-dozen—came rushing out of the
mickle 'yett' with a loud shout, and made for
me across the level sward.  Foremost of them
was Roaring Raif.  Then I was advertised indeed
that he had not forgiven the clour on the head he
had gotten.  I knew him by his height and by the
white clout that was bound like a mutch about
his brows.

"'Harry,' said I to myself, when I saw them
thus take after me, 'the Black Craig will never
see you more.  Ye are as a dead man.  You
cannot run far with that arm draining the life
from you, and there is no shelter within miles.'

"Then I heard the brainge of breaking glass
behind me, and a voice: 'The linn—the linn,
Harry Wedderburn; flee to the linn!  It is your
only chance.  They are mad to kill you, Harry!'

"And even then I was glad to hear the voice
of my lass, for to know that her heart and her
prayers were with me.  So I turned at the word,
and ran redwud for the Linn of Kirkchrist—a
wild steep place, all cliffs and screes and slithery
spouts of broken slate.  I felt my strength fast
leaving me as I ran, and ever the enemy shouted
nearer to my back.

"'Kill him!  Shoot him!  Put a bullet into him!'

"Wondrous stimulating I found such remarks as
these, made a hundred or two yards to leeward,
with an occasional pistol bullet whistling by to
mark the sense, as in a printed book.  This made
me run as I think I never ran before.  For, though
I was a changed man, I did not want to die and
go straight to that Abraham's bosom, of which
the Little Fair Man had spoken as one that had
lain there of a long season.  I did not surmise
that the accommodation would suit me so well.
No, not yet awhile, with Rachel Pringle praying
for my life half-a-mile behind.  So I ran and better
ran, till the sweat of my brow ran into my eyes
and well nigh blinded me.  Now in those days I
was very young and limber.  And I am none so
stiff yet for my age.

"At all events, when I came to the taking off
of the linn I saw that there was nothing for it
but my callant's monkey trick of letting myself
down like a wheel.  I had often practised it on
the heathery slopes of the Black Craig of Dee,
so I caught myself behind the knees, and, with
my head bent like a hoop, flung myself over the
edge.  Presently I felt myself tearing through the
copses and plunging into little darksome dells.
I rebounded from tree trunks and bruised myself
against rocks.  Stones I had started span whizzing
about my ears, and I heard the risp and rattle
of shot fired after me from the margin of the
linn.  My wounded arm seemed as if drawn from
its socket.  Then I felt the cool plash of water,
and I knew no more.

"I might very well have been drowned in
Kirkchrist Linn that day, but it had not been to
be.  For it so chanced that I fell into the deepest
pool for miles, and was carried downwards by the
strongest current into the place that is now called
the 'Harry's Jaws.'  This is a darksome spot,
half-cavern, half-bridge, under the gloomy arch
of which the brown peat-water foams white as
fresh-poured ale, and the noise of its thundering
deafens the ear.  When I came to myself I was
lying half out of the water and half in, on the
verge of a great fall where the burn takes a leap
thirty or forty feet into a black pool.  I looked
over, and there beneath me, with one of my own
pistols in his hand, was Roaring Raif, a terrifying
sight, with his bloody clout all awry about his
head.  He was looking at the pistol, dripping wet
as it had gone over the fall when I came down like
a runaway cart wheel into the Linn of Kirkchrist.

"'He's farther doon the water, boys,' I heard
him cry, and the sound was sweet to my ear.
'Here's the pistol he has left behint him!  Scatter,
boys, and a braw sheltie to the man that first
puts an ounce o' lead into him!'

"A pleasant forgiving nature had this same
Roaring One.  And I resolved that, though a
converted man, I would deal with him accordingly
when I gat him into my clutches.

"The place where I found me was not
uncommodious.  To make the most of it I crawled
backwards till I came to the end of the rocks.
Here was a little strip of sand, and over that a
dry recess almost large enough for a cave.  Some
light filtered in from unseen crevices above, so
that I think it was not roofed with solid rock
overhead.  Rather it was some falling in of the
sides of the linn which had made the hiding-place.
Here I was safe enough so long as the burn did not
rise suddenly, for I knew well from the 'glet' on
the stones and the bits of stick and dried rushes
that the waters of the linn filled all the interior in
time of flood.

"Then I made what shift I could to bind up
my arm.  I was already faint from loss of blood,
but I bound a band tight about my upper arm,
twisting it with a stick till I almost cried out
with the greatness of the pain.  Then I tied a
rag, torn from my shirt, about the wound itself,
which turned out to be in the fleshy part, very
red and angry.  However, it had bled freely,
which, though it made me faint at the time,
together with the washing in the water of the
linn, was probably the saving of me.  There was
a soft fanning air as the night drew on, and, in
my wet clothes, I shivered, now hot, now cold.
My head was throbbing and over-full; and I began
to see strange lights about me as the cave
alternately grew wide and high as the firmament,
and anon contracted to the size of a hazel-nut.
That was the little touch of fever which always
comes after a gunshot wound.

"So after a while fell the darkness, or, rather,
if there had not been a full moon, the darkness
would have fallen.  But, being thirsty with my
wound, I crawled down to the water's edge and
bent my head to drink, with the drumming of the
fall loud in my ears.  And, lo! in the pool I saw
the round of the moon reflected.  I was at the
mouth of the little cave, and there, to the north,
the Plough hung as from a nail in the August
sky, while a little higher I saw one prong of
silvery Cassiopeia's broken-legged 'W.'

"The stars looked so remote and lonesome, so
safe and careless up there.  They minded so
little that I was wounded and helpless, that if I
had not been a changed man, I declare I could
have cursed them in my heart.

"But suddenly from above came a sound that
made all my heart beat and quiver.  It was a
woman's cry.  All you who have never heard
how soft a woman can make her speech when she
fears for her true man's life, take this word.
There is no sound so sweet, so low, so
far-searching in the world.

"'Harry!  Harry Wedderburn!' it said.  And
I knew that in the midnight Rachel Pringle
was searching and calling for me.  Though there
might be danger, I could not bear that she
should pass away from me.

"'I am here,' I answered as softly as I could.
But the noise of the waterfall drowned my voice,
though my ears, grown accustomed to the roar,
had caught hers easily enough.

"So, steadying me on the crutch of a tree that
grew perilously over the fall, I went out and
stood in the full light of the moon, taking my
life in my hand if it had so chanced that any of
my enemies were in ambush round about.

"Rachel saw me instantly, and I could see her
clasp her hands over her heart as she stood on
the margin of the cleuch, black against the indigo
sky of night.

"'Harry—Harry Wedderburn!'

"'Here—dear love—here!  By the waterfall.'

"In an instant she was flying down the slope,
having lifted her skirt, and, as we say, 'kilted'
it, so that she might go the lighter.  She wore a
white gown, and I could see her flit like a moth
through the covert of birk and hazel to the
water-edge.  In another moment, without stopping either
for direction or to draw breath, she was coming
towards me, her face to the precipice, swiftly,
fearlessly, clinging to the little ragged rock-rifts,
from which scarce a wind-wafted seed would grow
or a tuft of gilly-flower protrude about which to
clasp her fingers.  But Rachel Pringle came as
lightly and easily as if she had been ascending
the steps of her father's ha'.

"'Go back,' she whispered, 'go back, dear
love!  They may see you.  I am coming—I know
the way!'

"And with that I stepped back out of the
moonlight, obedient to her word.  Yet I stood near
enough to the wall of the cliff to reach my arm
over for her to take, so that she might have
something to hold by during the last and most difficult
steps of the goats' path, the roaring linn being
above, the pool deep and black below.

"Now, either by chance or because it was the
one which could reach farthest, I tendered Rachel
my wounded arm, and as soon as she clasped my
hand so rude a stound ran up my wrist that it
seemed as though I had been pierced through and
through with a hot iron.  So when at last Rachel
leaped lightly upon the wet rock, I was ready to
droop like a blown windlestrae in a December gale
into her arms—yes, I, that was the strong man,
called Strength-o'-Airm, laid my head on her
shoulder, and she drew me within the shelter of
the cave's mouth, crooning over me as wood doves
do to their mates, and whispering soft words to
me as a mother doth to a bairn that hath fallen
down and hurt itself.

"But in a little the stound of pain passed away,
what with the happiness of her coming, the plash
of the nearer waters, and the coolness of the night
winds which blew to and fro in our refuge place
as through a tunnel.

"Then Rachel told me that she had run from
the house while they were all searching for me
everywhere.  Roaring Raif and his brother Peter,
together with Gib Maxwell of Slagnaw, Paul
Riddick of the Glen, and Black-Browed Macclellane
of Gregorie, Will of Overlaw, and Lancelot
Lindesay, the tutor of Rascarrel—as bloodthirsty
a crew as ever raked the brimstony by-roads
of hell.

"Very well I knew that if they lighted on us
together there was no hope for me.  But Rachel
allayed my fear a little by telling me that she
did not believe that any in the house knew of
the cave beneath the tumble of rocks save only
herself.  It had long been her custom to seek it
for quiet, when the Roaring One brought his crew
about the house of Kirkchrist, and none had ever
tracked her thither.

"So she examined my wound in the light of the
moon, which shone in at one end as we sat on the
inmost crutch of the tree.  Now Rachel had much
skill in wounds, for, indeed, her house was never
free of them, her brothers, Peter and the Roaring
One, never both being skin-whole at the same time.
And so, with a handsbreadth torn from her white
underskirt, she bathed and bandaged the wound,
telling me for my comfort that the shot appeared
to have gone through the fleshy part without
lodging, so that most likely the wound would come
together sweetly and heal by the first intention.

"Then, after this was done, we arrived at our
first difference.  For Rachel vowed that she would
in no wise go back to the onstead of Kirkchrist,
but would stop and nurse me here in the linn;
which thing, indeed, would have been mightily
pleasant to the natural man.  But, being mindful
of that which the Little Fair Man had said, and
also of the censorious clatter of the countryside,
I judged this to be impossible, and told Rachel
so; who, in her turn, received it by no means
with meekness, but rose and stamped her little
foot, and said that she would go and never
return—that she was sorry to her heart she had ever
come where she was so little thought of, with
many other speeches of that kind, such as spirity
maids use when they are affronted and in danger
of not getting their own sweet way with the
men of their hearts.

"Now it went sore against the grain thus to deal
with Rachel.  And yet I could think of no way
of appeasing her, but to feign a dwalm of faintness
and pain from my wound.  So when I staggered
and appeared to hold myself up by the rock
with difficulty, she stayed in the full flood of her
reproaches, and faltered, 'What is the matter,
Harry?'

"Then, because I made no answer, she kneeled
down beside me, and, taking my head in both of
her hands, she kissed my brow.

"'I did not mean it—indeed, I did not, Harry,'
she said, with that delicious contrition which at
all times sat so well on her—even after we were
married, which is a strange thing and very uncommon.

"So I touched her cheek with my fingers and
forgave her, as a man who has been in the wrong
forgives a loving woman who has not.  (There is
ever a touch of superiority in a man's forgiving—in
a woman's there is only love and the desire
for peace).

"'Then I may stay with you?' she said.

"And I will not deny but she tempted me sore.

"But swift as the sunbeam that strikes from
cloud to hilltop, a thought came to me.

"'Listen to me, Rachel,' I said.  'At the break
of day or thereby all will be quiet.  The Roaring
One and his crew will be snoring in bed——'

"'Or on the floor,' said Rachel, with a quick
and dainty sniff of distaste.

"'Either will suffice,' I said.  'Then will we go
down and call up the minister.  We will cause
him to marry us, and then we will fear neither
traitor nor slanderer.'

"'But he will not!' she cried.  'Donald Bain is
a bishop's hireling, and, besides, our Raif's boon
companion.'

"Then I drew my dirk and held it aloft, so that
the moonlight ran like molten silver down the
blade.

"'See,' said I, 'dear Rachel, if this does not gar
the curate of Kirkchrist marry us to a galloping
tune, Harry Wedderburn kens not the breed, that
is all.'

"'Content!' said she.  'I will do what you say,
Harry; only I will not go back to Kirkchrist nor
will I part from you now when I have gotten you.'

"Which thing I was most glad to hear from her
fair and loving lips.  And I thought, smilingly,
that Rachel's manner of speaking these words
became her very well.

"So there in the din of the water-cavern and
under the wheeling shafts of silver light as the
moon swung overhead, we two abode well content,
waiting for the dawn.

"And so, in this manner, and for all my brave
words, the witch got her way."

*But how—we shall see.*





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.. _`THE CURATE OF KIRKCHRIST`:

.. class:: center large bold

   THE LITTLE FAIR MAN

.. class:: center medium bold

   \III.—THE CURATE OF KIRKCHRIST

.. vspace:: 2

"The manse of Kirkchrist parish was less than a
mile down the glen.  It had only a week or two
before been taken possession of by one Donald
Bain, an ignorant fellow, so they said, intruded
upon us by the new bishop.  For Mr. Gilbert, our
old and tried minister and servant of God, had
been removed, even as Mr. Rutherfurd had been
put out of Anwoth, and at about the same time.

"Thither, then, we took our way, my dear
betrothed and I, with my wounded arm carried
across me, the sleeve being pinned to my coat front
so that I could not move my hand.

"We kept entirely to the thickets by the waterside,
Rachel leading the way.  For she had played
all her life at the game which had now become
earnest and deadly.  But we need not have
troubled.  For as we went, from far away, light as
a waft of wind blown athwart a meadow, we heard
the chorus of the roisterers in the house of
Kirkchrist, and emergent from the servile ruck, the
voice of her brother, the Roaring One, urging
good fellows all to 'come drink with him.'  Somewhat
superfluously, indeed, to all appearance, for
the good fellows all had apparently been 'come-drink-ing'
all night to the best of their ability and
opportunities.

"After this Rae and I went a little more openly
and swiftly.  This chiefly for my sake, because
the uneven ground and the little branches of the
hazel bushes caught and whipped my wounded
arm, making me more than once to wince with
the pain.

"And Rachel kept a little beneath me on the
brae, and bade me lean my well hand on her
shoulder, saying that I could not press over-hard,
and that the more I did so, the more would she
know that I loved her.  In this not unpleasing
fashion we came to the house of the curate that
had so lately been intruded upon the manse of
godly Mr. Gilbert.

"The place was all dark, and the shutters put
over the windows for fear of shots from without.
Then with my sword hilt I began to knock, and the
noise of the blows resounded through the house
hollow and loud.  For the Highlandman had as
yet put little furniture into it, save as they said a
sheave or two of rushes for a bed for himself, and
another for the wench that keeped house to
him—his sister, as he averred.

"In no long space of time his reverence set a
shock head out of the window to ask what was
the din.  The which he did in a bold manner, as
though he were the lord and master of the
neighbourhood.  But I tamed him, for I bade him do his
curate's coat upon him, and bring his service book,
for that he was to marry two people there and then.

"'Who be you that seek to be married so
untimeous?' he asked.  'Cannot ye be content
till the morning?'

"'That is just why we cannot be content,' I
answered; 'we must be far away by then!'

"So in a little he rose up grumbling and came down.

"'Have you not also a maid in the house?' I
asked of him.

"'Aye,' said he, very dried like, 'my sister Jean!'

"'Bid her rise.  We have need of a witness!'
I bade him.

"'And I, of someone to hold the candle!' he added.

"It was about four of the clock, and the east
little more than greying, as we four stood in
front of the manse of Kirkchrist.  Had any
been abroad to see us we had seemed a curious
company.  The curate in his white gown and
black bands, his shambling nightgear peeping out
above and under—a red peaked nightcap on his
head, the tassel of which nodded continually over
his right eye in a most ludicrous manner (only
that none thought of mirth that night).  Beside
him, a dripping candle in her hand, stood his
sister, a buxom quean, blowsed with health and
ruddy as the cherry.

"Before these two I stood, 'a black towering
hulk with one arm in a sling' (Rachel's words),
and beside me, my sweet bride, dainty and light
as a butterfly at poise on a flower's lip.

"Overhead among the trees the wind began to
move, blowing thin and chill before the dawn.
And even as the curate thumbed and mumbled
beneath the flicker of the candle, I saw the light
break behind the Black Craig of Dee, and wondered
if ever Rae and I should dwell in peace and content
in the lee of it.

"And because neither Rachel nor I knew that
form of words, Jean Bain kept us right, prompting
us how to kneel here, and what to answer there,
here to say our names over, and there promise
to love each other—the last not necessary, for if
we had not done that already, we had hardly
been at the manse of Kirkchrist at four of the
August morning in order to be wed by an alien
and uncovenanted priest.

"But scarcely had the blessing of Donald Bain
made us man and wife, when we heard the
roysterers' chorus again abroad on the hills, and
Jean Bain came rushing upon us wild with alarm.
She guessed well enough who we were.  For the
searchers had been at the manse the night before
swearing to have my life.

"'Flee,' she said; 'take to the heather for your
lives.  They have sworn to kill your husband!'

"This I knew well enough; but the perversity
of fate which at that time clung to me, made
me ready to faint.

"'I cannot go—I am dizzy with my wound!' I
said, and would have fallen but that Rachel and the
young Highland woman held me up in their arms.

"All this time the shouting and hallooing like
the crying of hunters on the hills came nearer,
and the day was breaking fast.

"Rachel and I were, indeed, in a strait place.
I bethought me on the Little Fair Man, and
almost repented that his counsels had brought me
to this.  But even then, and in the house of the
Philistine, help came.

"'Come in with you both,' said Jean Bain in
a fierce voice, as if daring contradiction.  'Donald,
aff wi' your surplice and on wi' your coat.  You
must meet them, and hold them in parley.  It
shall not be said that a bridegroom was slaughtered
like an ox upon our doorstep within an hour of his
wedding.'

"With that she bustled us upstairs to her own
room.  Truly enough, there was but one broad
pallet of heather covered with rushes spread on
the floor, and no other furniture whatever.

"Near the bed-head there was the low door of a
little closet or deep cupboard.  Into this she
bade us enter, and told us that she would hang
her clothing over it upon the wooden pegs which
were there for the purpose.  Since no better
might be we entered, for my head was running
round with my loss of blood and the pain in my
wounded arm.  I was glad to lie down anywhere.

"Then through the buzzing bees' byke in my
skull I could hear Jean Bain giving her last orders
to the curate.

"'Hear ye, Donald, lee to them weel.  Ye hae
seen nocht—ken nocht; and if they offer to bide,
tell them that it is the hour when ye engage
in family worship.  That will flit them if nocht
else will!'

"And though I could hear the raucous voice of
that gomeril brother-in-law of mine at the bottom
of the stairs, I could not help laying my head
on Rachel's shoulder, and whispering in her ear
the words, 'Little wife!'  To which she
responded with no more than 'Hush!'  So there we
abode, crouching and cowering in that dark
cupboard while a score of raging demons turned
the curate's house upside down, crying for jugs
of brandy and tasses of aquavity, while Jean Bain
shrilly declared that no brandy could they expect
in such a poverty-stricken land, but good
home-brewed ale—and even that they should not have
unless they behaved themselves more seemly.

"But ever as I lay the darkness seemed to stretch
far above me, the walls to mount and then
swiftly come together again; now I was upheaved
on delicious billows of caller air, and anon
I fell earthward again through the illimitable vault
of heaven.  Yet every now and then I would awake
for a moment to find my head on a sweeter than
Abraham's bosom, and so fall to contemning
my folly.  But ere I had time to realise my
happiness I was off again ranging the universe,
or at converse with hundreds and hundreds of
mocking spirits that mopped and mowed about
my path.  For I was just falling into a fever,
and my dear lass had to put her skirt about my
mouth to keep the man-hunters from hearing me
moan and struggle in my phantasy.

"By nine of the clock they had drunken all
that was in the curate's house, and poor Donald
Bain had gone to convoy them on their way.
They were going (so they swore) to the Black
Craig o' Dee to rout me out of my den.  And
this made Rachel very sore afraid, for she knew
well that if we were to go back to the damp
cave in the linn I would never rise from my bed
alive.  And now, as she thought, the way was
shut to our only port of refuge.  Also she feared
for John, my brother—not being acquaint with
John, and conceiving tnat they might do him a
mischief, together with the innocent plough lads
and herds in the house.  But this need not have
troubled her, for indeed no one about the Black
Craig o' Dee desired anything better than that
Roaring Raif and his crew should come near at
hand to receive the welcome prepared for him.

"But in the very hour of the storm-breaking there
appeared a bieldy dyke-back to shelter two poor
lost wandering lambs.  For no sooner was Donald
Bain out of the house with all the ungodly crew
than Jean, his sister, flew upstairs to us, with her
gown all pulled awry as she had escaped from
the hands of the roysterers.

"'Come your ways out, you puir young things,'
she cried; 'they are gane, and the foul fiend ride
ahint them.  May they never come this road
again, that kenned neither how to behave
themselves seemly in a manse nor how to conduct
them before a decent lass.  Faith, they little
jalloused how near they were to gettin' a durk
between the ribs!'

"But by the time Rachel and Jean Bain got me
out of that darksome closet I was fairly beside
myself.  The fever ran high, and I raved about
rivers of waters and the sound of great floods, and
threeped with them that I saw the Little Fair Man
coming on the wings of seraphims and cherubims
and lifting me up out of the mire.

"And as soon as Jean Bain heard the yammer
and yatter of my foolish running on, she went
to the closet for some simple herbs, and put
them in a pot over the fire to steam.  Then she
bade Rachel help me down to the minister's
chamber, and between them they undressed me,
cutting the sleeve from my coat so as to save the
poor wounded arm.  They got me finally between
the blankets, and made me drink of this herb-tea
and that, willy-nilly.  For which, as I heard
afterwards, I called them 'witch-wives,' 'black crows
of a foul nest,' with many other names.  But Jean
Bain held me by the arm that was whole, while
Rachel fleeched with me through her streaming
tears; and so in time they gat me to take down
the naughty-tasting brew.  Nevertheless, in a little
it soothed me as a mother's lullaby doth a fractious
wean, and in time I fell on a refreshing sleep.

"Yet Rachel would not be comforted, but mourned
for me greatly, till Jean Bain told her of the yet
sorer case in which she and Donald had but lately
been.  To which my lass rejoined, proud of her
exceedingly recent wifehood!  'Ah, but he is your
brother—not your man!  I would not care what
became of Raif, not if they hanged him on the
Gallows hill, and the craws pyked his banes!'

"For she was angry with her brother.

"Then all suddenly Jean Bain set her head
between her hands, and began to greet as if her
poor heart were near the breaking.

"'He *is* my man—he *is* my man!' she cried.
"And I wish we were back again in bonny Banff,
him a herd-laddie an' me a herd-lassie, and that
we could hear again the waves break amang the
rocks at Tarlair!

"'Wedded—aye, that are we, firm and staunch,—but
Donald daurna let on, or Bishop Sydserf
wad turn him awa'.  He will hae nae wedded
priests amang them that he sets ower his parochins.
But, as he says, men kinless and cumberless that
are neither feared to stand and fight or mount
and ride.  It came aboot this gate.  When Donald
was comin' awa' to get his lear, I was fair
broken-hearted.  For we had herded lang thegether on
the gowden braes, and lain mony a simmer day
amang the broom wi' our een on the sheep, but
our hearts verra close the yin to the ither.  The
bishop was o' our clan and country-side, and he
made Donald graund offers—siccan fat parishes
as there were in the Lawlands—stipend—house
and gear—guid faith, he dazzled a' the weel-doin'
laddies there-aboot.  And Donald gied his word
to be a curate, for he was weel-learned, and had
been to the schule as mony as four winters, me
gangin wi' him, and carryin' his books when I
could win clear o' my mither.

"'So since I couldna bide frae him, Donald
brocht me here to this cauld, ill, ootland place,
where we bide amang fremit and unco folk that
hate us.  But we were married first and foremost
by the minister o' Deer, that was a third cousin o'
Donald's aunt's—and a solid man that can keep
his tongue safe and siccar ahint his teeth.'

"'But oh—this place that we thocht to be a
garden o' a delichts and an orchard o' gowden
fruit is hard and unkindly and bare.  The gear
and plenishin' of this manse are nocht but the
heather beds that our ain fingers pu', and the
blankets we brocht wi' us.  And for meat we hae
the fish o' the stream an' the birds that Donald
whiles shoots wi' his gun—paitricks and wild
ducks on the ponds.  For no a penny's worth o'
steepend will they pay.  And the bishop's
warrandice runs nae farther than the range o' the
guns o' his bodyguard.'

"So, after this explanation, the two women
mourned together as they tended me, and presently
the poor curate, Donald Bain, came back to find
them thus, and me raving at large, and trying to
tear off the bandages from my arm.

"So here in this house, ill-furnished and cheerless,
this kindly couple kept us safely hid till the blast
had overblown and the bitterest of the shower
slacked.  Five weeks we abode there before I
could be moved, and even then I was still as weak
as water.  But for the last fortnight we lived in more
comfort.  For the curate went over on a sheltie
which, as he said, he 'had fand in a field,' to the
Black Craig of Dee, and there held a long parley
with my brother in the gate, while John had all his
work to keep Gib Grier and his herd-laddies from
shooting the curate for a black hoodie craw o'
Prelacy, as they named him.

"And John came back with his visitor to the
manse of Kirkchrist on a beast with store of
provend upon it, together with good French wines
and other comforts, for the upbuilding of the sick.

"'I declare I will never speak against a curate
again,' said John, when he heard that which we
had to tell him.  And he kissed his new sister
Rachel with great and gracious goodwill, for John
was ever fond of a bonnie lass.  Besides, we had
had no woman body about the Black Craig ever
since our mother died, when we were but wild
laddies herding the craws off the corn in the long
summer days, and hiding lest we should be made
to go with the funeral that wimpled over the moor
to the Kirkyaird of Kells.

"Likewise also he saluted Jean Bain, or she
him—I am not sure which.  For Jean was in no wise
backward in affection, but of a liberal, willing,
softish nature; fond of a talk with a lad over a
'yett,' and fond, too, of a kiss at parting.  Which
last she gave to John with hearty goodwill, and
that, too, in the presence of the curate.

"And as we went slowly back over the heather,
John walked on one side of the horse which carried
me, and Rachel rode on the sheltie on the other.
John was silent for a long while, and then he all
at once said: 'Dod, but I think I could fancy
that Heelant lass mysel'!'

"So Rachel began to tell him how it was with
Donald Bain the curate and Jean his wife.  For
with a woman's love for a fair field and no favour
in matters of love, she did not wish John to spend
himself on that which could never be his.  Then
was John very doleful for a space.

"But in time he, too, changed his mind, and
was most kind to poor Donald Bain and his wife
when in the year 1638 he was outed from his
parish in the same month that Sydserf, his master,
was set aside by the parliament and the people
of Scotland.  Then great evil might have befallen
him but that, being long fully recovered from my
wound, Gib Grier and I set out for the manse
of Kirkchrist, and brought them both, Donald and
Jean, to the Black Craig of Dee, where in the
midst of our great moors and black moss-hags
they were safe even as I had been in their house.
And in our spare chamber, too, was born to them
a babe, a thing which, had it been kenned, would
have caused great scandal all over the land for
the wickedness of the curates.  But none knew
(save John and Gib, who were sworn to secrecy)
till we gat them convoyed away to the north
again, where they did very well, and Donald
became chaplain to my Lord of Sutherland.
And every year for long and long the Edinburgh
carrier brought us a couple of haunches of venison
well smoked, which served us till Yule or Pasch,
and very toothsome and sweet it was.  This was
a memorial from Donald Bain and Jean his wife.

"Douce and sober we lived, Rachel and I, we
who had been so strangely joined.  For the Slee
Tod of Kirkchrist was glad enough to have his
daughter wed to one who asked neither dower
nor wedding-gift, tocher nor house linen; and
as for Roaring Raif, he broke his neck-bone over
the linn coming home one night from the rood-fair
of Dumfries.  But I kept my mind steadfastly
set to make my new life atone for the faults of
the old—which may be bad theology, but is good
sound fact.  And Rachel, like a valiant housewife,
aided me in that as in all things.  So that I became
in time a man of mark, and was chosen an elder
by the Session of the parish.  But nevertheless the
old Adam was not dead within me, but only kept
close behind bars waiting to be quits with me.  For
as the years went by I was greatly taken up with
my own righteousness, and so in excellent case
to backslide.

"Now it chanced that, being one day in the
change house of the clachan, I heard one speak
lightly of our daughter Anne, that was now of
marriageable age, and of a most innocent and
merry heart.  So anger took hold of me, and,
unmindful of my great strength, I dealt the young
man such a buffet on the side of his head that
he was carried out for dead, and indeed lay long
at his father's house between life and death.

"Now this was a mighty sorrow to me and to
Rachel my wife.  And though little was said
because of the provocation I had (which all had
heard), I thought it my duty to resign my office
of the eldership, confessing my hastiness and sin
to my brethren, and offering public contrition.
But for all that I gat no ease, but was under
a great cloud of doubt, feeling myself once again
without God and without hope in the world.

"Then it came to me that if I could but see
the Little Fair Man again he would tell me what
I should do.  I knew that he had been of a long
season regent of a college in the town of Sanct
Anders.  So I gave myself no rest day nor night
till my good wife, after vainly trying to settle me
by her loving words, made all preparation of
provend in saddle-bags, and guineas in pouch, and
set me on a good beast at the louping-on stone
by our door.  It was the first year of the restored
King Charles, the Second of that name, and the
darkness was just thickening upon the land, a
darkness greater than the first, when I set out to
see Mr. Rutherfurd.

"For the early part of my travel all went well,
but when I was passing through the town of
Hamilton, certain soldiers set upon me, asking
for my pass, and calling me 'Westland Whig' and
'canting rebel.'  They would have taken from me
all that I had, having already turned my
saddle-bags outside in, and one of them even came near
to thrust his hand into my pocket, when a coach
drove up with six horses and outriders mired to
the shoulders.  Then a pair of grand servants
sprang down from behind, and cried: 'Room for
my Lord Bishop!'  And at this the soldiers
desisted from plundering me to do their obeisance.

"Then there came forth first a rosy buxom
woman, breathing heavily, and holding out a
plump hand to the man-servant.

"But when she saw me with a soldier at either
side, she took one long look, and then cried out
in a hearty voice: 'What's this—what's this—my
friend Harry Wedderburn in the gled's claws?
Let be, scullions!  Donald, here's our host frae
the Black Craig o' Dee!'

"And forthwith, the soldiers falling back abashed,
the bishop's lady, she that had been poor Jean
Bain, came at me in her old reckless way, and
flung her arms about my neck, kissing me soundly
and heartily—as I had not been kissed of a long
season by any save Rachel, me being no more
a young man.

"And the bishop was no other than Donald
himself, the same who had been curate of
Kirkchrist—and a right reverend prelate he looked.

"Then nothing would do Jean and Donald but
I must get into the carriage with them, and have
one of their men-servants ride my beast into
Edinburgh.  Neither excuse nor nay-say would
my lady bishop take.  So in this manner we
travelled very comfortably, I sitting beside her,
and at Edinburgh we parted, I to Sanct Anders,
they to a lodging near my Lord of Sutherland's
house, to whose influence with the king they owed
their advancement.  For they were hand and glove
with him.  And the morning I was to ride away
came their carriage to the door, and lo! my lady
again—this time with a safe-conduct and letter of
certification from the Privy Council setting forth
that I was a person notably well-affected and
staunch; that none were to hinder or molest me
or mine in body or estate under penalty of the
King's displeasure.  Which thing in the troublous
times to come more than once or twice stood
me in great stead.

"But when I came to Sanct Anders, the first
thing I heard was that Mr. Rutherfurd lay a-dying
in his college of St. Mary's.  I betook me thither,
and lo! a guard of soldiers was about the doors,
and would in no wise permit me pass.  They were
burning a pile of books, and I heard say that it
was done by order of the parliament, and that
thereafter Mr. Rutherfurd was to be carried out,
alive or dead, and his bed set in the open street.
*Lex Rex* was the name of the book I saw them
turning this way and that with sticks, so as to
make the leaves burn faster.  I know not why
it was so dour to catch, for out of curiosity I got
me a copy afterwards, and the Lord knows it was
dry enough—at least to my taste.

"But after a while, showing the officer my Privy
Council letter, I prevailed on him that I had a
mandate from government to see Mr. Rutherfurd,
and that I had come directly and of purpose from
Edinburgh to oversee the affair, and report on
those who were diligent.  So at long and last
they let me go up the stair.

"And at the top I found many doors closed, but
one open, and the sound of a voice I knew well
speaking within.

"And still it was telling the praises of the
Friend—yes, after a lifetime of struggle and suffering.
Nor do I think that, save for taking rest in sleep,
the voice had ever been silent on that theme.

"So though none knew me, I passed straight
through the little company to the deathbed of
the man who spoke.  He was the Little Fair Man
no longer.  But his scant white hair lay soft as
silk on the pillow.  His face was pale as ivory,
his cheeks fallen in, only his eyes glowed like live
coals deep-sunken in his head.

"'So, friend—you have come to see an old man
die,' he said, when his eyes lighted on me; 'what,
a bairn of mine, sayst thou—not after the flesh
but after the spirit.  Aye, I do mind that day at
Kells.  A gale from the Lord blew about us that
day.  So you are Harry of the Rude Hand, and
you have fallen into sin.  Ah, you must not come
to me—you must to the Master!  You had
better have gone to your closet, and worn the
whinstone a little with the knees of your breeks.
And yet I ken not.  None hath been a greater
sinner or known greater mercy than Samuel
Rutherfurd.  I am summoned by the Star
Chamber—I go to the chamber of Stars.  I will
see the King.  I will carry Him your message,
Harry.  Fear not, the young man you smote will
recover.  He will yet bless you for laying a hand
on him, even as this day you acknowledge the
unworthy servant who on the green sward of Kells
called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.

"'Sir, fare you well.  Go home to your wife,
nothing doubting.  This night shall close the door.
At five of the morning I will fasten my anchor
within the veil.'

"And even as he said so it was.  He passed
away, and, as for me, secure that he would carry my
message to the Alone Forgiver of Sins I returned
home to find the youth recovered and penitent.  He
afterwards became a noted professor and field
preacher, and died sealing his testimony with
his blood on the victorious field of Loudon Hill.

"This is the testimony of me, Harry Wedderburn,
sometime called Strength-o'-Airm, who now in
the valley of peace and a restored Israel wait
the consummation of all things.  Being very
lonely, I write these things out to pass the time
till I, too, cast mine anchor within the veil.  And I
cheer myself with thinking that two shall meet me
there, one on either side of the gate—Rachel, my
heart's dear partner, and the Little Fair Man,
who will take by either hand and lead into the
presence of the Friend, poor unworthy Harry
Wedderburn, sometime bond-slave of sin, but now
servant most unprofitable of the Lord."

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(Note by Mr. John Wedderburn.—"*My father
departed this life on the morning after finishing this
paper, sleeping quietly away about five of the clock.*")





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.. _`MY FATHER'S LOVE STORY`:

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   MY FATHER'S LOVE STORY

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When I am putting together family stories, new
and old, I may as well tell my father's.  Sometimes
we of a younger day thought him stiff, silent, out
of sympathy with our interests and amusements;
but the saving salt of humour that was in him
made this only seeming.  In reality tolerance and
kindliest understanding beaconed from under the
covert of his bushy grey eyebrows.

There was the savour of an infinite discernment
in the slow "Aye?" with which he was wont to
receive any doubtful statement.  My mother said
ever ten words for his one, and it was his wont
to listen to her gravely and unsmilingly, as if
giving the subject the profoundest attention, while
all the time his thoughts were far away—a fact
well understood and much resented by his wife.

"What am I talkin' aboot, Saunders?" she
would say, pausing in the midst of a commination
upon some new and garish fashion in dress, or
the late hours kept by certain young men not a
thousand miles away.

"Oh, breaking the second commandment, as
usual," he would reply; "discoursing of the
heavens above, the earth beneath, and the waters
under the earth!"

"Havers," she would reply, her face, however,
glancing at him bright as a new-milled shilling,
"your thochts were awa' on the mountains o'
vainity!  Naething richt waukens ye up but a
minister to argue wi'!"

And, indeed, that was a true word.  For though
an unusually silent man, my father, Alexander (or
Saunders) McQuhirr, liked nothing better than a
minister to argue with—if one of the Kirk of
Scotland, well and good.  There was the Revolution
Settlement, the Headship of Christ, the Power of
the Civil Magistrate.  My father enjoyed himself
thoroughly, and if the minister chanced to be
worthy, so did he.  But it took a Cameronian or an
Original Secession divine really to rouse within him,
what my mother called "his bowels of wrath."

"There is a distinct Brownist strain in your
opinions, Alexander," Mr. Osbourne would
say—his own minister from the Kirk on the Hill.
"Your father's name was not Abel for nothing!"[#]

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.. class:: noindent small

[#] "Abel," "Jacob," "Abraham" were not common names
in Scotland, and such as occurred in families during last
century might generally be traced to the time of Cromwellian
occupation.  David and Samuel were the only really
common Old Testament names at that time.

.. vspace:: 2

Mr. Osbourne generally reminded him of this
when he had got the worse of some argument on
the true inwardness of the Marrow Controversy.
He did not like to be beaten, and my father was
a dour arguer.  Once it is recorded that the
minister brought all the way up to Drumquhat
on a Communion Friday—the "off-day" as it were
of the Scottish Holy Week—the great Dr. Marcus
Lawton himself from Edinburgh.  It happened
to be a wettish day in the lull between hay and
harvest.  My father was doing something in the
outhouse where he kept his joinering tools, and
the two ministers joined him there early in the
forenoon.  They were well into "Freewill" before
my father was at the end of the board he had been
planing.  "Predestination" was the overword of
their conversation at the noonday meal, which all
three seemed to partake of as dispassionately as if
they had been stoking a fire—this to the great
indignation of my mother, who having been warned
of the proposed honour, had given herself even more
completely to hospitality than was habitual with her.

Mr. Osbourne, indeed, made a pretext of talking
to her about the price of butter, and how her
hens were laying.  But she saw through him
even as he spoke.

For, as she said afterwards, describing the scene,
"I saw his lug cockit for what the ither twa were
saying, and if it hadna been for the restrainin'
grace o' God, I declare I wad hae telled him
that butter was a guinea a pound in Dumfries
market, and that my hens were laying a score
o' eggs apiece every day—he never wad hae
kenned that I was tellin' him a lee!"

All day the great controversy went on.  Even
now I can remember the echoes of it coming to
me through the wet green leaves of the mallows
my mother had planted along the south-looking
wall.  To this day I can hear the drip of the
water from the slates mingling with such phrases
as "the divine sovereignty," the "Covenant of
Works," "the Adamic dispensation."  I see the
purple of the flowers and smell the sweet smell
of the pine shavings.  They seemed to my childish
mind like three Titans hurling the longest words
in the dictionary at each other.  I know nothing
wherewith to express the effect upon my mind of
this day-long conflict save that great line in the
fifth book of *Paradise Lost*:

   |  "Thrones, dominations, princedoms, vertues, powers!"
   |

It was years after when first I read it, but
instantly I thought of that wet summer day in
Lammastide, when my father wrestled with his
peers concerning the deep things of eternity, and
was not overcome.

My mother has often told me that he never slept
all that night—how waking in the dawn and
finding his place vacant, she had hastily thrown
on a gown and gone out to look for him.  He
was walking up and down in the little orchard
behind the barn, his hands clasped behind his
back.  And all he said in answer to her reproaches
was: "It's vexin', Mary, to think that I only
minded that text in Ephesians about being 'sealed
unto the day of redemption' after he was ower
the hill.  It wad hae ta'en the feet clean frae
him if I had gotten hand o' it in time."

"What can ye do wi' a man like that?"
she would conclude, summing up her husband's
character, mostly in his hearing.

"But remember, Mary, the pit from which I
was digged!" he would reply, reaching down the
worn old leather-bound copy of Boston's *Fourfold
State* out of the wall-press and settling himself
to re-peruse a favourite chapter.

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My father's father, Yabel McQuhirr, was a
fierce hard man, and seldom showed his heart,
ruling his house with a rod of iron, setting each
in his place, wife, child, man-servant and
maid-servant, ox and ass—aye, and the stranger within
his gates.

My father does not talk of these things, but
my mother has often told me of that strange
household up among the granite hills, to which,
as a maid of nineteen, she went to serve.  In
those days in all the Galloway farm-towns, master
and servant sat down together to meals.  The
head of the house was lawgiver and potentate,
priest and parent to all beneath his roof.  And
if Yabel McQuhirr of Ardmannoch did not
exercise the right of pit and gallows, it was about
all the authority he did not claim over his own.

Yabel had a family of strong sons, silent,
dour—the doctrine of unquestioning obedience driven into
them by their father's right arm and oaken staff.
But their love was for their mother, who drifted
through the house with a foot light as a falling
leaf, and a voice attuned to the murmuring of a hill
stream.  There was no daughter in the household,
and Mary McArthur had come partly to supply
the want.  She had brought a sore little heart
with her, all because of a certain ship that had
gone over the sea, and the glint of a sailor lad's
merry blue eyes she would see no more.

She had therefore no mind for love-making, and
Thomas and Abel, the two eldest sons, got very
short answers for their pains when they "tried their
hand" on their mother's new house-lass.  Tom,
the eldest, took it well enough, and went
elsewhere; but Abel was a bully by nature, and would
not let the girl alone.  Once he kissed her by
force as, hand-tied, she carried in the peats from
the stack.  Whereupon Alexander, the silent third
brother, found out the reason of Mary's red eyes,
and interviewed his brother behind the barn to
such purpose that his face bore the marks of
fraternal knuckles for a week.  Also Alexander
had his lip split.

"Ye hae been fechtin' again, ye blakes,"
thundered their father.  "Mind ye, if this happens
again I will break every bane in your bodies.  I
will have you know that I am a man of peace!
How did you get that black eye, Yabel?"

"I trippit ower the shaft o' a cairt!" said Abel,
lying glibly in fear of consequences.

"And you, Alexander—where gat ye that lip?"

"I ran against something!" said the defender
of innocence, succinctly.  And stuck to it
stubbornly, refusing all amplification.

"Well," said their father, grimly, "take considerably
more heed to your going, both of ye, or you
may run against something more serious still!"

Then he whistled on his dogs, and went up
the dyke-side towards the hill.

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After this, Alexander always carried in the
peats for Mary McArthur, and, in spite of the
taunts and gibes of his brothers, did such part
of her work as lay outside the house.  On winter
nights and mornings he lighted the stable lantern
for her before she went to milk the kye, and
then when she was come to the byre he took his
mother's stool and pail and milked beside her
cow for cow.

All these things he did without speaking a word
of love, or, indeed, saying a word of anything
beyond the commonplaces of a country life.  He
never told her whether or no he had heard about
the sailor lad who had gone over seas.

Indeed, he never referred to the subject throughout
a long lifetime.  All the same, I think he
must have suspected, and with natural gentleness
and courtesy set himself to ease the girl's
heart-sore burden.

Sometimes Mary would raise her eyes and catch
him looking at her—that was all.  And more often
she was conscious of his grave staid regard when
she did not look up.  At first it fretted her a
little.  For, of course, she could never love
again—never believe any man's word.  Life was ended
for her—ended at nineteen!  So at least Mary
McArthur told herself.

But all the same, there—a pillar for support,
a buckler for defence, was Alexander McQuhirr,
strong, undemonstrative, dependable.  One day
she had cut her finger, and he was rolling it up
for her daintily as a woman.  They were alone in
the shearing field together.  Alexander had the
lint and the thread in his pocket.  So, indeed, he
anticipated her wants silently all his life.

It had hurt a good deal, and before he had
finished the tears stood brimming in her eyes.

"I think you must get tired of me.  I bring all
my cut fingers to you, Alec!" she said, looking
up at him.

He gave a kind of gasp, as if he were going
to say something, as a single drop of salt water
pearled itself and ran down Mary's cheek; but
instead he only folded the lint more carefully in at
the top, and went on rolling the thread round it.

"She is learnin' to love me!" he thought, with
some pleasure, but he was too bashful and diffident
to take advantage of her feeling.  He contented
himself with making her life easier and sweeter
in that hard upland cantonment of more than
military discipline, from whose rocky soil Yabel
and his sons dragged the bare necessities of life,
as it were, at the point of the bayonet.

All the time he was thinking hard behind his
broad forehead, this quiet Alexander McQuhirr.
He was the third son.  His father was a poor
man.  He had nothing to look for from him.  In
time Tom would succeed to the farm.  It was
clear, then, that if he was ever to be anything,
he must strike out early for himself.  And, as
many a time before and since, it was the tears
in the eyes of a girl that brought matters to the
breaking point.

Yes, just the wet eyes of a girl—that is, of
Mary McArthur, as she looked up at him
suddenly in the harvest-field among the serried lines
of stocks, and said: "I bring all my cut fingers
to you, Alec!"

Something, he knew not exactly what, appealed
to him so strongly in that word and look, that
resolve came upon him sudden as lightning, and
binding as an oath—the man's instinct to be all
and to do all for the woman he loves.

He was unusually silent during the rest of the
day, so that Mary McArthur, walking beside him
down the loaning to bring home the cows, said:
"You are no vexed wi' me for onything, Alec?"

But it was the man's soul of Saunders McQuhirr
which had come to him as a birthright—born out
of a glance.  He was a boy no longer.  And that
night, as his father Yabel stood looking over his
scanty acres with a kind of grim satisfaction in
the golden array of corn stooks, his son Alexander
went quietly up to him.

"Father," he said, "next week I shall be
one-and-twenty!"  In times of stress they spoke the
English of the schools and of the Bible.

His father turned a deep-set irascible eye upon
him.  The thick over-brooding brows lowered
convulsively above him.  A kind of illuminating
flash like faint sheet lightning passed over the
stern face.  A week ago, nay, even twenty-four
hours ago, Saunders McQuhirr would have trembled
to have his father look at him thus.  But—he had
bound up a girl's finger since then, and seen her
eyes wet.

"Well, what of that?"  The words came fiercely
from Yabel, with a rising anger in them, a kind
of trumpet blare heralding the storm.

"I am thinking of taking a herd's place at the
term!" said Alexander, quietly.

Yabel lifted his great body off the dyke-top,
on which he had been leaning with his elbows.
He towered a good four inches above his son,
though my father was always considered a tall man.

"You—you are going to take a herd's place—at
the term—-you?" he said, slowly and incredulously.

"Yes," answered his son; "you will not need
me.  There is no outgate for me here, and I have
my way to make in the world."

"And what need have you of an outgate, sir?"
cried his father.  "Have I housed you and schooled
you and reared you that, when at last you are of
some use, you should leave your father and mother
at a word, like a day-labourer on Saturday night?"

"A day-labourer on Saturday night gets his
wages—I have not asked for any!"

At this answer Yabel stood tempestuously
wrathful for a moment, his hand and arm uplifted
and twitching to strike.  Then all suddenly his
mood changed.  It became scornfully ironic.

"I see," he said, dropping his arm, "there's a
lass behind this—that is the meaning of all the
peat-carrying and byre-milking and handfasting in
corners.  Well, sirrah, I give you this one night.
In the morning you shall pack.  From this instant
I forbid you to touch aught belonging to me, corn
or fodder, horse or bestial.  Ye shall tramp, lad,
you and your madam with you.  The day is not
yet, thank the Lord, when Abel McQuhirr is not
master in his own house!"

But the son that had been a boy was now a
man.  He stood before his father, giving him back
glance for glance.  And an observer would have
seen a great similarity between the two, the same
attitude to a line, the massive head thrown back,
the foot advanced, the deep-set eye, the
compressed mouth.

"Very well, father!" said Alexander McQuhirr,
and he went away, carrying his bonnet in his hand.

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And on the morning that followed the sleepless
night of thinking and planning, Alexander
McQuhirr went forth to face the world, his plaid
about his shoulders, his staff in his hand, his
mother's blessing upon his head—and, what was
most of all to a young man, his sweetheart's kiss
upon his lips:

For in this part of his mandate Yabel had
reckoned without his host.  His wife, long trained
to keep silence for the sake of peace, had turned
and openly defied him—nay, had won the victory.
The "Man of Wrath" knew exactly how far it
was wise to push the doctrine of unquestioning
wifely obedience.  Mary McArthur was to bide
still where she was, till—well, till another home
was ready for her.  And though her eyes were
red, and there was no one to tie up her cut
fingers any more, there was a kind of pride upon
her face too.  And the image of the young
sailor-man over seas utterly faded away.

At ten by the clock, Yabel McQuhirr, down
in his harvest-field, saw his son set out.  He
gave no farewell.  He waved no hand.  He said
no word.  All the same, he smiled grimly to
himself behind the obedient backs of Tom and
Abel the younger.

"There's the best stuff o' the lot in that fule
laddie," he growled; "even so for a lass's sake
left I my father's house!"

And of all his children, this dour, hard-mouthed,
gnarl-fisted man loved best the boy who for the
sake of a lass had outcasted himself without fear
and without hesitation.

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It was to a herd's house, shining white on a
hillside, a burnie trilling below, the red heather
surging about the garden dyke on all sides,
that Alexander McQuhirr took his wife Mary,
a year later.  And there in the fulness of time
my brother Willie was born—the child of the
cot-house and of the kailyaird.  In time followed
other, if not better things—first a small
holding, then a farm—then I, Alexander the second.
And still, thank God, we, the children of Mary
McArthur, run with our cut fingers to that
steadfast, loving, silent man, Saunders McQuhirr,
son of Yabel, the Man of Violence and Wrath.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE MAN OF WRATH`:

.. class:: center large bold

   THE MAN OF WRATH

.. vspace:: 2

A man of wrath was my grandfather, Yabel
McQuhirr, from his youth up.  And I am now
going to tell the story of how by a strange
providence he was turned aside from the last sin
of Judas, and how he became in his latter days
a man of peace and a lover of young children.

He was my father's father, and I have already
told how that son of his to whom I owe my life,
went forth to make a new hearthstone warm and
bright for the girl who was to be my mother.  But
after the departure of that third son, darker and
darker descended the gloom upon the lonely
uplying farm.  Fiercer and ever fiercer fell the
angers of Yabel McQuhirr upon his remaining
children, Thomas and Abel—the latter named
after his father, but whose Christian name never
acquired the antique and preliminary "Y" that
marks the border-line between the old and the new.

One dismal Monday morning in the back-end
of the year there were bitter words spoken in the
barn at the threshing, between Thomas and his
father.  Retort followed retort, till, with knotted
fist, the father savagely felled the youth to the
ground.  There was blood upon the clean yellow
straw when he rose.  Thomas went indoors, opened
his little chest, took from it all the money he had,
shook hands silently with his mother, and took
his way over the Rig of Bennanbrack, never to
be heard of more.

And after this ever closer and closer Yabel
McQuhirr shut the door of his heart.  He hardened
himself under the weight of his wife's gentle
sufferance and reproachful silences.  He gripped his
hands together when, with the corner of an eye
that would not humble itself to look, he saw the
tear trickling down the wasted cheek.  He uttered
no word of sorrow for the past, nor did the name
of either of his departed sons pass his lips.

Nevertheless, he grew markedly kinder in deed
to Abel, the one son who remained—not much
kinder in word perhaps, for still that loud and angry
voice could be heard coming from field and meadow,
barn or byre, till the fearful mother would steal
silent-footed to the kitchen-door lest the last part
of her threefold sorrow should indeed have come
upon her.  But not in this manner was the blow
to fall.

Abel was the least worthy but greatly the
handsomest of the sons of Yabel McQuhirr.  He
had a large visiting acquaintance among the
farm-towns, and often did not seek his garret-bed till
the small hours of the morning.  Then his mother,
awake and vigilant, would incline her ear on the
pillow to hear whether her husband was asleep
beside her.

Now, oftentimes Yabel, her husband, slept not,
yet for his wife's sake, and perhaps because Abel,
with his bright smile and clean-limbed figure,
reminded him of a wild youth he had long put
behind him, he bore with the lad, even to giving
him in one short year more money to spend than
had been his brothers' portion during all the time
they had faithfully served their father.

And this was not good for a young man.

So that early one spring, the wild oat crop that
Abel had been sowing began to appear with braird
and luxuriant shoot.  A whisper overran the
parish swifter than the moor-burn when the
heather is dry on the moors.  Two names were
coupled, not unto honour.  And on a certain wild
March morning, Yabel McQuhirr, having called
his son three times, clambered fiercely up to the
little garret stair to find an open skylight, a
pallet-bed not slept in, and a home that was now
childless from flagged hearth to smoke-browned
roof-tree.

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Yabel rode to market upon Mary Grey, his old
rough-fetlocked mare, once badger-grey, but now
white as the sea-gulls that fluttered and settled
upon his springtime furrows.  He heard no word
of the story of Abel his son and the gypsy lass,
for none durst tell him—till one Rob Girmory of
Barscob, bolder or drunker than the rest, blurted
it out with an oath and a scurvy jest.  The next
moment he was smitten down, and Yabel
McQuhirr stood over him with his riding-whip
clubbed in his hand, the fierce irascible eyebrows
twitching, and wide nostrils blown out with the
breath of the man's wrath.

But certain good friends, strong-armed men
of peace, held him back, and got Girmory away
to a quiet cartshed, where, on a heap of straw, he
could sleep off his stupor and awake to wonder
what had given him that lump, great as a hen's
egg, over his right eye.

As for Yabel McQuhirr he saddled Mary Grey
and took the road homeward lest any should
bring the story first to his wife.  For Jen, his
Jen, was the kernel of that rough-husked,
hard-shelled heart.  And as he rode, he cursed Girmory
with the slow studied anathema of the Puritan
which is not swearing, but something sterner,
solemner, more enduring.  Sometimes he would
cheat himself by saying over and over that there
was nothing in the story.  Abel had gone in his
best clothes to a neighbouring town—he knew
the lad had a pound or two that burnt a hole
in his spendthrift pocket.  He would return
penitent when it was finished.  And the old man
found himself already "birsing" with anger, and
thinking of what he would say to the returned
prodigal when he caught sight of him—a greeting
which would certainly not have run upon the
lines of the parable.

Yet, as he went on and on, fear began to enter
in, and he set his spurless heels grimly to Mary
Grey's well-padded ribs.  Never had that sober
steed gone home at such a pace, and on brown
windy braefaces ploughmen stood wiping their
brows and watching and wondering.  Shepherds,
high on the hills, set their palms horizontally
above their brows and murmured, "What's takin'
auld Yabel hame at sic a pelt this day, as if the
Ill Yin himsel' were after him?"

But for all his haste, some one had forestalled
him.  The busybody in other men's matters, the
waspish gossip to whom the carrying of ill tidings
is a chief joy, had been before him.  Mary Grey
had sweated in vain.  There was no one to be
heard stirring as he tramped eagerly in—no one
flitting softly to and fro in milk-house or dairy.

But within Yabel McQuhirr found his wife
fallen by the bake-board near the window, where
she had been at work when the Messenger of
Evil entered to do her fell work.  Her eyes were
closed, her hands limp and numb.  With a
hoarse inarticulate cry of rage Yabel raised his
wife and carried her to the neatly-made bed
with the patchwork quilt upon it.  There he
laid her down.

"Jen," he said, more gently than one could
have believed the rough harsh man of wrath could
have spoken, "Jen, waken, lassie.  It's maybe no
true.  I tak' it on my soul it's no true!"

But on his wife's face there remained a strange
fixed smile, and her eyes, opening slowly, began
to follow him about wistfully, and seemed
somehow to beckon him.  Then with infinite care
Yabel removed his wife's outer garments,
cutting that which would not loosen otherwise, till
the stricken woman reposed at ease beneath the
coverlet.

"Now, Jen," he said, "I maun ride to the town
for a doctor.  Will I tell Allison Brown to come
and look after you?"

The wistful following eyes expressed neither
yea nor nay.

"Then will I send in Jean Murray frae the Boreland?"

The eyes were still indifferent.  There was no
desire for the help of any of human kind in the
stricken woman's heart.

Her husband watched her keenly.

"Or wad ye like Martha Yeatman ower frae
the Glen?"

Then all suddenly the dull eyes flashed, glowed,
almost flamed, so fierce was the "No" that was
in them.

Yabel shut down his upper lip upon his nether.
He nodded his head.

"Then I will bring the doctor, and nurse you
mysel'," he answered.  But within him he said:
"So it was Martha o' the Glen.  For this thing
will I reckon with Martha Yeatman."

It was fortunate for Mary Grey that the distance
was not long, for, like Jehu the son of Nimshi,
Yabel McQuhirr drave furiously.  But at the bend
of the highway called the Far-away Turn, just
at the point at which the road dives down under
a tangle of birch and alder, the old white mare was
pulled suddenly up.  For there was Dr. Brydson,
riding cautiously on his little round-barrelled sheltie,
his saddle-bags in front of him, and a silver-headed
Malacca cane held in his hand like a riding-whip.

It was no long time before the good old doctor
was raising the lax head of Yabel McQuhirr's
wife.  The strange distant smile was still in her
eyes, and the left corner of her mouth twitched.

"She has had a shock," said Dr. Brydson,
slowly, when Yabel and he had withdrawn a little.
He was pulling his chin meditatively, and not
thinking much of the husband.

"A stroke!" said Yabel, and the tone of his
voice was so strange and terrible that the doctor
turned quickly—"but not unto death!  You can
cure her—surely you can cure her?"

And he caught the doctor by the arm and
shook it vehemently.

"Take your hands away, sir, and calm yourself!"
said the physician.  "If I am to do anything,
we must have none of this."

"Say that she will not die!" he cried.  And
the deep-set angry eyes flamed down upon the
physician, the great fists of iron were clenched.

Dr. Brydson was a little man, but a long course of
being deferred to had given him great local dignity.

"I will say nothing of the kind, sir," he retorted.
"I will do what I can; but this thing is the
visitation of God, and human skill avails but little.
Stand away from my patient, sir."

But at that moment a sudden and wondrous
change passed over the face of Yabel McQuhirr.
The physician was startled.  It was like an
earthquake rifting and changing a landscape while one
looks.  In the twinkling of an eye the fashion of
Yabel's countenance was altered.  He would have
wept, yet stood gasping like one who knows not
the way to weep.  Instead he uttered a hoarse
and terrible cry, and flung himself upon his knees
by the bed.

"Jen," he cried, "Jen—speak to me, Jen—to your
ain man Yabel!  Say that this man lies!  Tell
me ye are no gaun to dee, Jen—Jen, my Jen!"

And at the voice of that strange crying the doctor
stood back, for he knew that no earthly physician
had power to stay a soul's agony.

Then, like a tide that wells up full to the
flood-mark, the slow love rose in the eyes of his wife.
Her lips moved.  He bent his head eagerly.
They seemed to form his name.

"Yes, yes," he said eagerly, "'Yabel, Yabel,' I
hear that!  What mair?  Tell me—oh, tell me,
ye are no gaun to leave me!"

He bent his head lower, holding his breath and
laying his hand on his own heart as if to still its
dull, thick beating.  But though the pallid lips
seemed to move, no words came, and Yabel
McQuhirr heaved up his head and struck his
palm upon his brow.

"I canna hear!" he wailed.  "She will dee,
and no speak to me!"  Then he turned fiercely
upon the doctor, as if he did not know him.
"Who are you that spies on my grief, standing
there and doing nothing?  Get oot o' my hoose,
lest I do ye a hurt."

And the indignant little man went at the word,
mounting his sheltie and riding away across the
moors without once turning his head, the "Penang
lawyer" tapping unwontedly upon the rounded
indignant flank of his little mare.

When Yabel turned again to his wife there were
tears in her eyes, and the heart of the Man of
Wrath was softened within him.

"I am a fool," he said, "an angry fool.  I have
driven him away that came to do her good.  I
will call him back."

But though he made the hills to echo, and the
startled sheep to run together into frightened
bunches, the insulted little doctor upon the sheltie
never turned in his saddle.

"Vain is the help of man," said Yabel, as he
turned to go in, "and if God will not help me,
I will renounce Him also."

He sat awhile by Janet's side, and it was very
quiet, save for the clock ticking out the moments
of a woman's life.  A hen cackled without in the
yard with sudden joy over an egg safely nested.
Yabel started up angrily and laid his hand on his
gun in the rack above the smoked mantel-board.
But the woman's eyes called him to desist, and
he sat down again beside her with a sigh.

"What is it, Jen?  Can ye no speak to me?"  The
eyes seemed to compel him yet lower—upon
his knees.

"To pray—I canna pray, Jen; I winna pray.
If the Lord tak's you, I will arise and curse Him
to His face."

The direction of the gaze changed.  It was
upon the family Bible on the shelf, where it
lay with Boston's *Fourfold State* and a penny
almanack, the entire family library.

"Am I to read?" said Yabel, reaching it down.
"What am I to read?"  He ran down the table
of contents with his great stub-nailed fingers,
"Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus."  But the speaking
eyes did not check him till he came to the Psalms.

He turned them over till he came to the twenty-third.
The will in his wife's glance stopped him
again.  He read the psalm slowly, kneeling on
his knees by the bedside.

At the fourth verse his voice changed.  "*Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with
me——*"

And at the sound of these words the unstricken
left hand of his wife wavered upward uncertainly.
It lay a moment, with something in its touch
between a caress and a blessing, upon his head.
Then it dropped lightly back upon the coverlet.

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Yabel McQuhirr sat till the gloaming by the
side of his dead wife, a terrible purpose firming
itself in his heart.  His children had risen up
against him.  God had cast him off.  Well, he,
Yabel McQuhirr, would cast Him off.  At His
very Judgment Seat he would dare Him, and so
be thrown unrepenting into the pit prepared for
the impenitent.

He had done that which was needful to the
body of his helpmeet of many years.  There was
no more to do—save one thing.  He rose and
was going out, when his bloodshot eye fell on the
great family Bible from which he had read eve
and morn for forty years.  A spasm of anger
fierce as a blast from a furnace came over the
man.  That Book had lied!  It had deceived
him.  He lifted it in one strong hand and threw
it upon the fire.

Then he walked across the yard to the stable
to get a coil of cart rope.  He stumbled rather than
stepped as he went, the ground somehow meeting
his feet unexpectedly.  He could not find the rope,
and found himself exclaiming savagely at the
absent and outcast Abel who had mislaid it.

At last he found it among some stable litter,
lying beneath the peg on which it ought to have
hung.  Gathering the coils up in his hand, he
crossed the straw-strewn yard again to the barn.
There were sound open beams in the open space
between mow and mow.

"*It* had best be done there," he muttered.

There was a rustling among the straw as he
pushed back the upper half of the divided door—rats,
as he would have thought at another time.
Now he only wondered if he could reach the
beams by standing on the corn bushel.

As he made the knot firm and noosed the rope
through the loop, his eyes fell on the further door
of the barn—the one through which, in bygone
golden Septembers, he had so often pitchforked
the sheaves of corn.

There was something moving between him and
the orchard door.  In the dull light it looked like
a young child.  And then the heart of Yabel
McQuhirr, who was not afraid to meet God face
to face, was filled with a great fear.

A faint moaning whimper came to his ear.
He dropped the coil of rope and ran back to
the house for the stable lantern.  He lighted the
candle with a piece of red peat-ash, tossing the
unconsumed Bible off the fire.  Only the rough
calf-skin cover was singed, and its smouldering
had filled the house with a keen acrid smell.

Yabel went out again with the lantern in his
hand.  Without entering, he held it over the lower
half of the barn door which had swung to after
him.  A young woman, clad in the habit of a
"gypsy" or "gaun body," lay huddled on the
straw, while over her, whimpering and nosing
like a puppy, crawled the most beautiful child
Yabel had ever seen.  As the light broke into
the darkness of the barn the little fellow stood
up, a golden-haired boy of two years of age.
He smiled and blinked, then, with his hands
outstretched, he came running across the floor
to Yabel.

"Mither willna speak to Davie," he said.  "Up—up,
Mannie, tak' wee Davie up!"

A sob, or something like it, rose in the stern
old man's throat.  He could forfeit life, he could
defy God, he could abandon all his possessions;
but to leave this little shining innocent to
starve—no, he could not do it.

He opened the door and went in.  The child
insisted fearlessly on being taken in his arms.  He
lifted him up, and the boy hid his face gladly on
his shoulder.  Yabel put his hand on the woman's
breast; she was stone-cold, and had been so
for hours.  Death had been busy both without
and within the little hill-farm that snell March
afternoon.

He covered her decently up with a pair of
corn-sacks, and as he did so a scrap of paper
showed between her fingers, white in the light of
the lantern.

"Mither will soon be warm noo," said the child,
from the safe covert of Yabel's shoulder.  And in
the clasping of the baby fingers the evil spirit
passed quite out of the heart of Yabel McQuhirr.

And when by the open door of the lantern he
smoothed out the paper that had been in the dead
woman's fingers, he read these words:—

"This is to bear testimony that I, Abel McQuhirr
the younger, take Alison Baillie to be my wedded
wife.  Done in the presence of the undersigned
witnesses

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.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

   "Abel McQuhirr.  May 3rd, 18—.
     "RO GRIER.       }
     "JOHN LORRAINE.  }  Witnesses."

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So in the day when Yabel McQuhirr defied
his Maker and hardened his heart, God sent unto
him His mercy in the shape of a young child.
Then, after the grave had claimed its dead, the
heart of Yabel was wondrously softened, and
these two dwelt on in the empty house in great
content.  And in the rescued Book, with its
charred calf-skin cover, the old man reads to
the boy morning and evening the story of One
Other who came to sinful men in the likeness of a
Young Child.  But though his heart takes comfort
in the record, Yabel never can bring himself to
read aloud that verse which says: "*Inasmuch as
ye did it unto one of the least of these ... ye did
it unto Me*."

"I am not worthy.  He can never mean Yabel
McQuhirr," he says, and shuts the Book.





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.. _`THE LASS IN THE SHOP`:

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   THE LASS IN THE SHOP

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In Galloway, if you find an eldest son of the same
name as his father, search the mother's face for the
marks of a tragedy.  An eldest son is rarely called
by his father's Christian name, and when he is,
usually there is a little grave down in the kirkyard
or a name that is seldom spoken in the house—a
dead Abel or a wandering Cain, at any rate a
first-born that was—and is not.

Now I am called Alexander McQuhirr.  My
father also is Alexander McQuhirr.  And the
reason is that a link has dropped out.  I remember
the day I found out that you could make my
mother jump by coming quietly behind her and
calling "Willie."  It was Willie McArthur I was
after—he had come over from Whinnyliggate to
play with me.  We were busy at "hide-and-seek."

"Willie!" I cried, sharp as one who would
wake an echo.

My mother dropped a bowl and caught at her side.

It is only recently that she told me the whole
story.

The truth was that with twelve years between
our ages and Willie away most of the time, I
had no particular reason to remember my elder
brother.  For years before I was born my mother
had been compassionated with by the good wives
of the neighbourhood, proud nursing mothers of
ten or eleven, because she could boast of but one
chicken in her brood.  She has confessed to me
what she suffered on that account.  And though
now I have younger brothers and the reproach
was wiped away in time, there are certain Job's
comforters whom my mother has never forgiven.

She would be sure to spoil Willie,—one child in
a house was always spoilt.  So the tongues went
ding-dong.  It was foolish to send him to school
at Cairn Edward, throwing away good siller,
instead of keeping him at home to single the
turnips.  Thus and thus was the reproach of my
mother's reluctant maternity rubbed in—and to
this day the rubbers are not forgotten.  It will
be time enough to forgive them, thinks my mother,
when she comes to lie on her death-bed.

Yet from all that I can gather there was some
truth in what they said, and probably this is what
rankles in that dear, kindly, ever vehement bosom.
Willie was indeed spoilt.  He was by all accounts
a handsome lad.  He had his own way early, and
what was worse—money to spend upon it.  At
thirteen he was bound apprentice to good honest
Joseph Baillieson of the Apothecaries' Hall in
Cairn Edward.  Joseph was a chemist of the old
school, who, when a more than usually illegible
line occurred in the doctors' prescriptions of the
day, always said: "We'll caa' it barley-water.
That'll hairm naebody."  All Joseph's dispensing
was of the eminently practical kind.

To Mr. Baillieson, therefore, Willie was made
apprentice, and if he would have profited, he could
not have been in better hands, and this story
never had been written.  But the fact was, he
was too early away from home.  He was my
mother's eye-apple, and as the farm was doing
well during these years, an occasional pound note
was slipped him when my mother was down on
Market Monday.  Now this is a part of the
history she has never told me.  I can only piece
it together from hints and suggestions.  But it
is a road I know well.  I have seen too many
walk in it.

Mainly, I do not think it was so much bad
company as thoughtlessness and high spirits.
Sweetmeats and gloves to a girl more witty than
wise, neckties and a small running account yonder,
membership of the rowing club and a small
occasional stake upon the races—not much in
themselves, perhaps, but more than enough for
an apprentice with two half-crowns a week of
pocket money.  So there came a time when honest
Joseph Baillieson, with many misgivings and grave
down-drawings of upper lip, as I doubt not, took
my father into the little back shop where the
liniments were made up and the pills rolled.

What they said to each other I do not know,
but when Alexander McQuhirr came out his face
was marvellously whitened.  He waited for Willie
at his lodgings, and brought him home that night
with him.  He stayed just a week at the farm,
restlessly scouring the hills by day and coming
in to his bed late at night.

After a time, by means of the minister, a place
was found for him in Edinburgh, and he set off
in the coach with his little box, leaving what
prayerful anxious hearts behind him only those
who are fathers and mothers know.

He was to lodge with a good old woman in
the Pleasance, a regular hearer of Dr. Lawton's
of Lady Nixon's Wynd.  For a small wage she
agreed to mend his socks and keep a motherly
eye on his morals.  He was to be in by ten, and
latch-keys were not allowed.

Now I do not doubt that it was lonely for
Willie up there in the great city.  And in all
condemnation, let the temptation be weighed and
noted.

May God bless the good folk of the Open
Door who, with sons and daughters of their own,
set wide their portals and invite the stranger
within where there is the sound of girlish laughter,
the boisterous give-and-take of youthful wit,
and—yes, as much as anything else, the clatter of
hospitable knives and forks working together.

Such an Open Door has saved many from
destruction, and in That Day it shall be counted
to that Man (or, more often, that Woman) for
righteousness.

For consider how lonely a lad's life is when
first he comes up from the country.  He works
till he is weary, and in the evening the little
bedroom is intolerably lonely and infinitely stuffy.
If the Door of Kindness be not opened for him—if
he lack the friend's hand, the comrade's slap
on the back, the modest uplift of honest maidenly
eyes—take my word for it, the Lad in the Garret
will soon seek another way of it.  There are
many that will show him the guide-posts of that
road.  Other doors are open.  Other laughter
rings, not mellow and sweet, but as the crackling
of thorns under a pot.  If a youth be cut off
from the one, he will have the other—that is, if
the blood course hot and quick in his veins.

And so, good folk of the city, you bien and
comfortable householders, you true mothers in
Israel, fathers and mothers of brisk lads and
winsome lasses, do not forget that you may save
more souls from going down to the Pit in one
year than a score of ministers in a lifetime.  And
I, who write these things, know.

Many a foot has been stayed on the Path called
Perilous simply because "a damsel named Rhoda"
came to answer a knock at a door.  The time
is not at all bygone when "Given to hospitality"
is also a saving grace.  And in the Day of Many
Surprises, it shall be said of many a plain man
and unpretending housewife: "*Inasmuch as ye
did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it
unto Me!*"

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But so it was not with Willie my brother.
There was none to speak the word, and so he
did after his kind.  How much he did or how far
he went I cannot tell.  Perhaps it is best not
to know.  But, at all events, I can remember his
home-coming to Drumquhat one Saturday night
after he had been a year or fifteen months in
Edinburgh.  He came unexpectedly, and I was
sleeping in a little crib set across the foot of my
parents' bed in the "ben" room.

My mother was a light sleeper all her days,
and, besides, I judge her heart was sore.  For
never breeze tossed the trees or rustled the
beech-leaves, but she thought of her boy so far away.
In a moment she was up, and I after her, all
noiseless on my bare feet, though the tails of my
night gear flapped like a banner in the draughty
passage.  The dogs upon the hearthstone never
so much as growled.

"Wha's there?"

"It's me, mither!"

"Willie!"

It was indeed Willie, a tall lad with a white
face, a bright colour high-set on his cheek-bone,
a dancing light in his eyes, and, at sight of his
mother, a smile on his lips.  He was dressed in
what seemed to me a style of grandeur such as
I had never beheld, probably no more than a suit
of town-cut tweeds, a smart tie, and a watch-chain.
But then my standard was grey home-spun and
home-dyed—as often as not home-tailored too.
And Solomon in all his glory did not seem to
be arrayed one half so nobly as my elder brother
Willie.

I do not mind much about the visit, except that
Willie let me wear his watch-chain, which was of
gold, for nearly half-an-hour, and promised that the
next time he came back he would trust me with
the watch, as well.  But the following afternoon
something happened that I do remember.  After
dinner, which was at noon as it had been ever
since the beginning of time, my father sat still
in his great corner chair instead of going to the
barn.  My mother sent me out to play.

"And bide in the yaird till I send for ye,
mind—and dinna let me see your face till tea-time!"
was her command, giving me a friendly cuff on
the ear by way of speeding the parting guest.

By this I knew that there was something she
did not want me to hear.  So I went about the
house to the little window at which my father
said his prayers.  It stood open as always, like
Daniel's, towards Jerusalem.  I could not hear
very well; but that was no fault of mine.  I did
my best.

Willie was speaking very fast, telling his father
something—something to which my mother
vehemently objected.  I could hear her interruptions
rising stormily, and my father trying to
calm her.  Willie spoke low, except now and
then when his voice broke into a kind of scream.
I remember being very wae for him, and feeling
in my pocket for a dirty half-sucked brandy ball
which I resolved to give him when he came out.
It had often comforted me in times of trouble.

"Siclike nonsense I never heard!" cried my
mother, "a callant like you!  A besom—a
designing madam, nocht else—that's what she
is!  I wonder to hear ye, Willie!"

"Wheesh, wheest—Mary!"

I could hear my father's voice, grave and sober
as ever.  Then Willie's vehement rush of words
went on till I heard my mother break in again.

"Marriage!  Marriage!  Sirce, heard ye ever
the like?  A bairn to speak to me o' mairrying
a woman naebody kens ocht aboot—a 'lass in
a shop,' ye say; aye, I'se warrant a bonny
shop——!"

Then there came the sound of a chair pushed
vehemently back, the crash of a falling dish.  My
father's voice, deep and terrible so that I trembled,
followed.  "Sir, sit down on your seat and
compose yourself!  Do not speak thus to your
mother!"

"I will not sit down—I will not compose
myself—I will never sit down in this house
again—I will marry Lizzie in spite of you all!"

And almost before I could get round to the
front yard again Willie had come whirling all
disorderedly out of the kitchen door, shutting it
to with a clash that shook the house.  Then with
wild and angry eyes he strode across the straw-littered
space, taking no notice of me, but leaping
the gate and so down the little loaning and
up towards the heather like a man walking in
his sleep.

I remember I ran after him, calling him to
come back; but he never heeded me till I pulled
him by the coat tails.  It was away up near the
march dyke, and I could hardly speak with
running so fast.  He stared as if he did not
know me.

"Oh, dinna—dinna—come back!" I cried (and
I think I wept); "dinna vex my mither!—And—there's
'rummelt tawties'{#} to the supper!"

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.. class:: noindent small

[#] "Rummelt tawties," *i.e.*, a sort of *purée* of potatoes,
made in the pot in which they have been boiled, with sweet
milk, butter, and sometimes a little flavouring of cheese.  All
hands are expected to assist in the operation of "champing,"
that is, pounding and stirring them to a proper consistency
of toothsomeness.

.. vspace:: 2

But Willie would not stop for all I could say
to him.

However, he patted me on the head.

"Bide at hame and be Jacob," he said; "they
have cast out this Esau."

For he had been well learned in the Bible, and
once got a prize for catechism at the day school
at Whinnyliggate.  It was Boston's *Fourfold
State*, so, though there were three copies in the
house, I never tried to read it.

So saying, he took the hillside like a goat,
while I stood open-mouthed, gazing at the lithe
figure of him who was my brother as it grew
smaller, and finally vanished over the heathery
shoulder of the Rig of Drumquhat.

That night I heard my father and mother talking
far into the morning, while I made a pretence
of sleeping.

"I will never own him!" said my father, who
was now the angry one.

"I'm feared he doesna look strong!" answered
my mother in the darkness.

"He shall sup sorrow for the way he spoke to
the father that begat him and the mother that bore
him!" said my father.

"Dinna say that, guidman!" pled my mother;
"it is like cursin' oor ain firstborn.  Think how
proud ye were the time he grippit ye by the
hand comin' up the loanin' an' caa'ed ye 'Dadda!'"

After this there was silence for a space, and
then it was my mother who spoke.

"No, Alexander, you shallna gang to Edinbra
to bring him hame.  Gin yin o' us maun gang,
let it be me.  For ye wad be overly sore on the
lad.  But oh, the madam—the Jezebel, her that
has wiled him awa' frae us, wait till I get my
tongue on her!"

And this is how my mother carried out her
threat, told in her own words.

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"Oh, that weary toon!" she said afterwards.
"The streets sae het and dry, the blawin' stoor, the
peetifu' bairns in the gutter, and the puir
chapman's joes standin' at the close-mouths wi' their
shawls aboot their heads!  I wondered what yin
o' them had gotten haud o' my Willie.  But at
last I cam' to the place where he lodged.  It was
at a time o' the day when I kenned he wad be
at his wark.  It was a hoose as muckle as three
kirks a' biggit on the tap o' yin anither, an' my
Willie bode, as it were, in the tapmaist laft.

"It was an auld lame woman wi' a mutch on
her head that opened the door.  I askit for Willie.

"'He's no here,' says she; 'an' what may ye
want wi' him?'

"'I'm his mither,' says I, and steppit ben.  She
was gye thrawn at the first, but I sune tamed her.
She was backward to tell me ocht aboot Willie's
ongangin's, but nane backward to tell me that
his 'book' hadna been payit for six weeks, and
that she was sore in need o' the siller.  So I
countit it doon to her shillin' by shillin', penny by
penny.

"'An' noo,' says I, 'tell me a' ye ken o' this
madam that has bewitched my bairn, her that's
costin' him a' this siller—for doubtless he is wearin'
it on the Jezebel—an' breakin' his mither's heart.'

"Then the landlady's face took on anither cast
and colour.  She hummed an' hawed a whilie.
Then at last she speaks plain.

"'She's nane an ill lass,' she says, ''deed, she
comes o' guid kin, and—she's neither mair nor
less than sister's bairn to mysel'!'

"Wi' that I rises to my feet.  'If she be in this
hoose, let me see her.  I will speak wi' the woman
face to face.  Oh, if I could only catch them
thegither I wad let her ken what it is to twine a
mither and her boy!'

"The auld lame guidwife opens the door o' a
bit closet wi' a bed in it and a chair or twa.

"'Gang in there,' she says, 'an' ye shall hae
your desire.  In a quarter o' an hour Lisbeth will
be comin' hame frae the shop where she serves,
and its mair than likely that your son will be
wi' her!'

"And wi' that she snecks the door wi' a brainge.
For I could see she was angry at what I had said
aboot her kith an' kin.  And I liked her the
better for that.

"So there I sat thinkin' on what I wad say to
the lass when she cam' in.  And aye the mair I
thocht, the faster the words raise in my mind, till
I was fair feared I wad never get time to utter a
tenth-part o' my mind.  It needna hae troubled
me, had I only kenned.

"Then there was the risp o' a key in the lock,
for in thae rickles o' stane an' lime that they rin
up noo a days, ye can hear a cat sneeze ower a
hale 'flat.'  I heard footsteps gang by the door o'
the closet an' intil the front room.  And I grippit
the handle, bidin' my time to break oot on them.

"But there was something that held me.  A
lassie's voice, fleechin' and fleechin' wi' the lad she
loves as if for life or death.  Hoo did I ken
that?—Weel, it's nae business o' yours, Alec, hoo I
kenned it.  But yince hear it and ye'll never
forget it.

"'Willie,' it said, 'tak' the siller, I dinna need it.
Put it back before they miss it—and oh, never,
never gang to thae races again!'

"I sat stane-cauld, dumb-stricken.  It was an
awesome thing for a mither to hear.  Then Willie
answered.

"''Lizzie,' he said, and, I kenned he had been
greeting, 'Lizzie, I canna tak' the money.  I
would be a greater hound than I am if I took
the siller ye hae saved for the house and the
marriage braws—and——'

"'Oh, Will,' she cried, and I kenned fine she
was greetin' too, an' grippin' him aboot the neck,
'I dinna want to be mairried—I dinna want a
hoose o' my ain—I dinna want ony weddin' braws,
if only ye will tak' the siller—and—be my ain
guid lad and never break your mither's heart—an'
mine!  Oh, promise me, Willie!  Let me hear
ye promise me!'

"Aye, she said that—an' me hidin' there ready
to speak to her like a tinkler's messan.

"So I opens the door an' gaed in.  Willie had
some pound notes grippit in his hand, and the lassie
was on her knees thankin' God that he had ta'en
her hard-earned savin's as she asked him, and
that he had promised to be a guid boy.

"'Mither!' says Willie, and his lips were white.

"And at the word the lassie rises, and I could
see her legs tremble aneath her as she cam' nearer
to me.

"'Dinna be hard on him,' she says; 'he has
promised——'

"'What's that in your hand?' says I, pointing
at the siller.

"'It's money I have stolen!' says Willie, wi'
a face like a streikit corpse.

"'Oh no, no,' cries the lass, 'it's his ain—his
an' mine!'

"And if ever there was a lee markit doon in
shinin' gold in the book o' the Recordin' Angel
it was that yin.  She was nae great beauty to
look at—a bit slip o' a fair-haired lass, wi' blue
een an' a ringlet or twa peepin' oot where ye
didna expect them.  But she looked bonny
then—aye, as bonny as ever your Nance did.

"'Gie the pound notes back to the lass!' says
I, 'and syne you and me will gang doon and
speak with your maister that ye hae robbit!'

"And wi' that the lass fell doon at my feet
and grippit me, and fleeched on me, and kissed
my hands, and let the warm tears rin drap—drap
on my fingers.

"'Oh dinna, dinna do that,' she cried, 'let him
pit them back.  He only took them for a loan.
Let him pit them back this nicht when his maister
is awa hame for his tea.  He is a hard man,
and Willie is a' I hae!'"

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"Weel," my mother would conclude, "may be
it wasna juist richt—but I couldna resist the lass.
So Willie did as she said, and naething was
kenned.  But I garred him gie in his notice the
next day, and I took him hame, for it was clear
as day that the lad was deein' on his feet.  And
I brocht the lass hame wi' me too.  And if Willie
had leeved—but it wasna to be.  We juist keepit
him till November.  And the last nicht we sat
yin on ilka side o' the bed, her haudin' a hand
and me haudin' a hand, neither jealous o' the
ither, which was a great wonder.  An' I think
he kind o' dovered an' sleepit—whiles wanderin'
in his mind and syne waukin' wi' a strange look
on his face.  But ower in the sma' hours when
the wind begins to rise and blaw caulder, and
the souls o' men to slip awa, he started up.  It
was me he saw first, for the candle was on
my side.

"'Mither,' he said, 'where's Lizzie?'

"And when he saw her sit by him, he drew
away the hand that had been in mine and laid
it on hers.

"'Lizzie,' he said, 'dinna greet, my bonnie: I
promise!  I will be your ain guid lad!'"

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"And the lass?" I queried.

"Oh, she gaed back to the shop, and they say
she has chairge o' a hale department noo, and is
muckle thocht on.  But she has never mairried,
and, though we hae askit her every year, she
wad never come back to Drumquhat again!"

"And that," said my mother, smiling through
her tears, "is the story how my Willie was led
astray by the Lass in the Shop."





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.. _`THE RESPECT OF DROWDLE`:

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   THE RESPECT OF DROWDLE

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Most folk in the West of Scotland know the
parish of Drowdle, at least by repute.  It is a
great mining centre, and the inhabitants are not
counted among the peaceable of the earth.

"If ye want your head broken, gang doon to
Drowdle on a Saturday nicht" is an advice often
given to the boastful or the bumptious.  Drowdle
is a new place too, and the inhabitants, instead
of being, like ordinary Scottish Geordies, settled
for generations in one coal-field and with whole
streets of relatives within stonethrow, are composed
of all the strags and restless ne'er-do-weels of such
as go down into the earth, from Cornwall even
to the Hill-o'-Beith.

Most, I say, know Drowdle by repute.  I myself,
indeed, once acted as *locum tenens* for the
doctor there during six hot and lively summer
weeks, and gained an experience in the treatment
of contusions, discolorations, and abrasions of the
skull and frontal bones which has been of the
greatest possible use to me since.  The younger
Drowdleites, however, had at that time a habit
of stretching a cord across the threshold about
a foot above the step, which interfered
considerably with professional dignity of exit—that
is, till you were used to it.  But after one has
got into the habit of scouting ahead with a spatula
ground fine and tied to a walking-stick on darkish
nights, Drowdle began to respect you.  Still
better if (as I did) you can catch a couple of
the cord-stretchers, produce an occipital contusion
or two on your own account, and finish by
kicking the jesters bodily into Drowdle Water.
Then the long rows of slated brick which
constitute the mining village agree that "the new
doakter kens his business—a smart lad, yon!
Heard ye what he did to thae twa deils, Jock
Lee an' Cockly Nixon?  He catchit them
trippin' him wi' a cairt rape at Betty Forgan's
door, and, faith, he threw them baith into Drowdle
Water!"

Such being the way to earn the esteem of
Drowdle, it would have saved the telling of this
story if, when young Dairsie Gordon received a
call to be minister of the recently established
mission church there, he had had any one to
enlighten him on the subject.

He was so young that he was ashamed when
any one asked him his age.  They had called him
"Joanna" at college, and sent him recipes along
the desk for compelling a beard and moustache
to grow under any conditions of soil and climate,
however unfavourable.

Dairsie Gordon was very innocent, very learned,
very ignorant, and—the only son of a well-to-do
mother, who from a child had destined him for the
ministry.  The more was the pity!

As a child he was considered too delicate for
the rough-and-tumble of school.  He had a tutor,
a mild-faced young man who seldom spoke above
his breath, and never willingly walked more than
a mile at a time, and then with a book in his hand
and a flute in his tail pocket.  Under his instruction,
however, Dairsie became an excellent classic, and
his verse gained the approval of Professor Jupiter
Olympus when he went up to the University of
Edinburgh, where Latin verse was a rare accomplishment
in those days, and Greek ones as extinct
as the dodo.

When her son went to college, Mrs. Gordon
came up herself from the country to settle Dairsie
in the house of a friend of her own, the widow
of a deceased minister who had married an old
maid late in life.  This excellent lady possessed
much experience of bazaars and a good working
knowledge of tea-meetings, but she knew nothing
of young men.

So, being placed in authority over Dairsie, she
insisted that he should come straight back to Rose
Crescent from his classes, take dinner in the middle
of the day alone with his hostess, and then—as a
treat—accompany her while she made a call or
two on other clerical widows who had married
late in life.  Then she took him home to open
his big lexicons and pore over crabbed
constructions till supper-time.  This feast consisted
of plain bread and butter with the smallest morsel
of cheese, because much cheese is not good for
the digestion at night.  A glass of milk
accompanied these delicacies.  It also was plain and
blue, because the cream (a doubtful quantity at
best) had been skimmed off it for Mrs. McSkirmish's
tea in the morning.

After that Dairsie was sent to bed.  He was
allowed ten minutes to take off his clothes and
say his prayers.  Then the gas was turned out
at the meter.  If he wanted time for more study
and reading he could have it in the morning.  It
is good for youth to rise betimes and study the
Hebrew Scriptures with cold feet and fingers that
will not turn the leaves of Gesenius till they are
blown upon severally and individually.  In this
fashion, varying in nothing, save that on alternate
Sundays there was something hot for supper,
because Mrs. McSkirmish's minister—a severe and
faithful divine—came to interview Dairsie and
report on his progress to his mother, the future
pastor passed seven winter sessions.

Scholastically his victories were many.  Bursaries
seemed purposely created for him to take—and
immediately resign in favour of his *proxime accessit*,
who needed the money more.  The class never
queried as to who would be first in the "exams.,"
but only wrangled concerning who would come
next after Gordon—and how many marks below.

In summer Dairsie went quietly down to his
mother's house in the country, where his neck was
fallen upon duly, and four handmaids (with little
else to do) worshipped him—especially when for the
first time he took the "Book" at family worship.
There was a wood before the door, in which he
passed most of his time lying on his back reading,
and his old tutor came to stay with him for a
month at a time.

Thus was produced the Reverend Dairsie
Gordon, B.D., without doubt the first student
of his college, Allingham Fellow, and therefore
entitled to go to Germany for a couple of years
by the terms of his Fellowship.

But by one of these interpositions of Providence,
which even the most orthodox denominate
"doubtful," there was at this time a vacancy in
the pastoral charge of the small Mission Church
at Drowdle.  The late minister had accepted a
call to a moorland congregation of sixty members,
where nothing had happened within the memory
of man, more stirring than the wheel coming off
a cart of peats opposite the manse.

Dairsie Gordon preached at Drowdle.  His
voice was sweet and cultivated and musical, so
that it fell pleasantly on the ears of the kirkgoers
of Drowdle, over whose heads had long blared
a voice like to the trumpets at the opening of
the seventh seal in the book of the Revelation.

So they elected him unanimously.  Also he
was "well-to-do," and it was understood in the
congregation that his salary would not be a
consideration.  The minister elect immediately
resigned his fellowship, considering this a direct
call to the work.

In this fashion Dairsie Gordon went to his
martyrdom.  Ignorant of the world as a child
of four, never having been elbowed and buffeted
and brow-beaten by circumstances, never cuffed
at school, snubbed at college, and so variously and
vicariously licked and kicked into shape, he found
himself suddenly pitchforked into the spiritual
charge of one of the most difficult congregations
in Scotland.

The new minister was introduced socially at
a tea-meeting on the evening of the ordination,
and then and there he had his first taste of the
Drowdelian quality.  There were plenty of douce
and sober folk in the front pews of the little
kirk, but at the back reckless, unmarried Geordies
were sandwiched between a militant and ungodly
hobbledehoyhood.  Paper bags that had contained
fruit exploded in the midst of the most solemn
addresses.  Dairsie's own remarks were fairly
punctuated with these explosions, and by the
flying shells of Brazil nuts.  Bone buttons at the
end of knitting needles clicked and tapped at
windows, and a shutter fell inward with a crash.
It was thus that Dairsie returned thanks.

"My dear people," (a penny trumpet blew an
obligato accompaniment under the bookboard of
a pew,) "I have been led to the oversight of this
flock" (pom-pom-pom) "after prayer and under
guidance.  I shall endeavour to teach
you—" ("Catch-the-Ten!"  "All-Fours!"  "Quoits!") "some
of those things which I have devoted my
life to acquiring.  I am prepared for some little
difficulty at first, till we know one another——"

The remainder of the address was inaudible
owing to cries of, "Rob Kinstry has stole my
bag!"  "Ye're a liar!"  All which presently
issued in the general turmoil of a free fight toward
the rear of the church.

Mrs. Gordon had come up to be present on
the occasion of her son's ordination, and that
night in the little manse mother and son mingled
their tears.  It all seemed so wrong and pitiful
to them.

But Dairsie, with a fine hopefulness on his
delicate face, lifted his head from his mother's
shoulder, smiling like a girl through his own
tears.

"But after all, this is the work to which I have
been called, mother.  And you know if it is His
will that I am to labour here, in time He will give
the increase."

So somewhat heartened, mother and son kneeled
down together, prayed, and went to bed.

On the forenoon of the next day two of the
elders, decent pitmen, who happened to be on
the night-shift, called in to give their verdict and
to drop a word of advice.

"A graund meetin'," said Pate Tamson, the
oversman of No. 4; "what for didna ye tak' your
stick and gie some o' the vaigabonds a clour on
the lug?  It wad hae served them weel!"

"I could not think of doing such a thing," said
Dairsie.  "I desire to wield a spiritual, not a
carnal influence!"

"Carnal influence here, carnal influence there,"
cried Robin Naysmith, stamping his foot till the
little study trembled, "if ye are to succeed in
this village o' Drowdle, ye maun pit doon your
fit—like that, sir, like that!"

And he stamped on the new Brussels carpet
till the plaster began to come down in flakes from
the ceiling.  Dairsie tried to imagine himself
stamping like that, but could not.  For one thing, he
had always worn single-soled shoes, with silk ties
and woollen 'soles' (which he had promised his
mother to take out and dry whenever he came
in), a fact which has more bearing on the main
question than appears on the surface.

"A man has to assert hissel' in this toon, or he
is thocht little on," said Pate Tamson, the oversman.
"Noo, there's MacGrogan, the Irish priest—I dinna
agree wi' his releegion, an' dootless he will hae
verra little chance at the Judgment.  But, faith,
when he hears that there's ony o' his fowk drinkin'
ower lang aboot Lucky Moat's, in he gangs wi'
a cudgel as thick as your airm, and the great
solemn curses, fair rowlin' aff the tongue o'
him—and faith, he clears Lucky's faster than a hale raft
of polissmen!  Aye, he does that!"

"Aye," assented the junior elder, Robin
Naysmith, he whose feet had put the plaster in
danger, "what we need i' Drowdle is a man o'
poo'er—a man o' wecht——!"

"'*Quit ye like men—be strong!*' saith the
Scriptures," summed up the oversman.  Then
both of them waited for Dairsie, to see what he
had got to say.

"I—I am sure I shall endeavour to do my
best," said the young minister, "but I fear I have
underestimated the difficulties of the position."

The oversman shook his head as he went out
through the manse gate.

"And I am some dootfu' that we hae made a mistak'!"

"If we hae," rejoined Naysmith, the strong
man, "we maun keep it frae the knowledge o'
Drowdle.  But the lad is young—young.  And
when he has served his 'prenticeship to sorrow,
he will maybes come oot o' the furnace as silver
that is tried!"

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Now, neither Drowdle nor its inhabitants meant
to be unkind.  In case of illness or accident
among themselves, none gave material help more
liberally.  What belonged to one was held in a
kindly communism to be the right of all.  But
Drowdle was not to be handled delicately.  It
was a nettle to be grasped with gloves of untanned
leather.

Dairsie Gordon opened his first Sunday-school
at three in the afternoon.  At a quarter to four
as he stood up on the platform to give his closing
address, he found boys scuttling and playing
"tig" between his legs.  He laid down his
hymn-book, and on lifting it to read the closing verses,
discovered that a certain popular bacchanalian
collection entitled "Songs of the Red, White, and
Blue," had mysteriously taken its place.

The young minister had other and graver trials
also.  The pitmen passed him on the road with
a surly grunt, and he did not know it was only
because they were trudging home dog-tired from
their long shift.  The hard-driving managers and
sub-managers, men without illusions and as blatantly
practical as a Scottish daily paper, passed him
by contemptuously, as if he had been a tract thrust
under their doors.  The schoolmaster, a cleverish
machine-made youth of inordinate conceit, openly
scoffed.  He was a weakling, this minister, and
he had better know it.

And, indeed, in these days, Dairsie gave them
plenty of scope for complaint.  His sermons might
possibly have edified a company of the unfallen
angels, if we can fancy such being interested in
heathen philosophy and the interpretation of the
more obscure Old Testament Scriptures.  But to this
gritty, ungodly, crass-natured, rasp-surfaced village
of Drowdle, the young man merely babbled in his
pulpit as the summer brooks do over the pebbles.

An itinerant evangelist, who shook the fear
of hell-fire under their noses with the fist of a
pugilist, and claimed in ancient style the power
to bind and the power to loose, might conceivably
have succeeded in Drowdle, but as it was, Dairsie
Gordon proved a failure of the most absolute sort.
And Drowdle, having no false modesty, told him
plainly of it.  At informal meetings of Session
the question of their minister's shortcomings was
discussed with freedom and point, only the
overs-man and Robin Naysmith pleading suspension of
judgment on account of the young man's years.

For there were sympathetic hearts here and
there among the folk of Drowdle.  Women with
the maternal instinct yet untrampled out of them,
came to their doors to look after the tall slim
"laddie" who was so like the sons they had
dreamed of when the maiden's blush still tinged
their cheeks.

"He's a bonnie laddie to look on," they said
to each other as, palm on hip, they stood looking
after him.  "It's a peety that he is sae feckless!"

Yet Dairsie was always busy.  He was no
neglecter of duty.  He worked with eager strained
hopefulness.  No matter how deep had been his
depression of the evening, the morning found him
contemplating a day of work with keen anticipation
and unconquerable desire to succeed.

To-day, at last, he would begin to make an
impression.  He would visit the remainder of
Dickson's Row, and perhaps—who knew?—it
might be the turning of the tide.  So he sat
down opposite his mother at breakfast, smiling
and rubbing his hands.

"To-day I am going to show them, mother,"
he would say.

"Show them what, Dairsie dear?"

"*That I am a man!*"

But within him he was saying, "Work while
it is day!"  And yet deeper in his heart, so deep
that it became almost a prayer for release, he
was wont to add—"*The night cometh when no
man can work!*"  Then to this he added, as he
took his round soft hat and went out, "O Lord,
help me to do something worthy before I
die—something to make these people respect me."

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It was a hot September afternoon.  Drowdle
was a-drowse from Capersknowe to the Back Raw.
Here and there could be heard a dull recurring
thud, which was the *dunt dunt* of the roller on
the dough of the bake-board as some housewife
languidly rolled out her farles of oatcake.  For
the rest, there was no sound save the shout of
a callant fishing for minnows in the backwaters
of Drowdle, and the buzz of casual bluebottles
on the dirty window-panes.

Suddenly there arose a cry, dominant and
far-reaching.  No words were audible, but the tone
was enough.  Women blenched and dropped the
crockery they were carrying.  The men of the
night-shift, asleep on their backs in the hot and
close-curtained wall-beds, tumbled into their grimy
moleskins with a single movement.

"*Number Four pit's a-fire!  The pit's a-fire!
Number Fower!*"

It was a mile to the particular colliery where
the danger was.  The rows of houses emptied
themselves simultaneously upon the white dusty
road, women running with men and barefooted
children speeding between, a little scared, but,
on the whole, rather enjoying the excitement.

As they came nearer, the great high-mounted
head-wheels of pit Number Four were spinning
furiously, and over the mounds which led to it
little ant-like figures were hurrying.  A thin
far-spreading spume of brownish smoke rose sluggishly
from the pithead.  At sight of it women cried out:
"Oh God, my Jock's doon there!"  And more
than one set her hand suddenly upon her side and
swung away from the rush into the hedge-root.

A hundred questions were being fired at the
steadfast engineer, men and women all shouting
at once.  He answered such as he could, but with
his hand ever upon the lever and his eye upon
the scale which told at what point the cage stood
in the long incline of the "dook."

"The fire's in the main pit-shaft," he said.
"They are trying to get doon by the second exit;
but it's half fu' o' steam pipes to drive the bottom
engine."

"Wha's gane doon?"

"Pate Tamson and Muckle Greg are in the
cage tryin' to put the fire oot wi' the hose——"

"They micht as weel spit on't if it's gotten ony
catch!"

"And Robin Naysmith and the minister are
tryin' the second exit——"

"*The minister——*"

The cry was very scornful.  The minister,
indeed—what good could "a boy like him" do down
there where strong men were dying helplessly?

So for half-an-hour Walter McCartney the
pithead engineer stood at his post watching the
cage index, and listening for the tinkle of the
bell which signalled "up" or "down."

Suddenly the faces of such as could see the
numbers blanched.  And a murmur ran round
the crowd at the long *t-r-r-r-r-r-r* which told that
the cage was coming to the surface.

Had all hope been abandoned, that the rescue
party were returning so unexpectedly?  A woman
shrieked suddenly on the edges of the crowd.

"Who's that?" queried the manager, turning
sharply.  And when he was answered, "Take
her away—don't let her come near the shaft!"
was his order.

Out of the charred and dripping cage came
Pate Tamson and his mate, blackened and wet
from head to foot.

"The cage is to be sent empty to the
dook-bottom!" they said.  "Somebody has managed
to get doon the second exit."

With a quick switch of levers and a humming
hiss of woven wire from the headwheels, down
sank the cage into the belching brown smother
of the deadly reek.

Then there was a long pause.  The index sank
till it pointed to the pit-bottom.  The cage had
passed through the fire safely.  It had yet to be
proved that living men could also pass.

"*Tinkle—tink!*"

It was the bell for lifting.  Walter McCartney
compressed his lips on receiving the signal, and
pulled down the shiny cap over his forehead, as
if he himself were about to face that whirlwind
of fire six hundred feet down in the bowels of
the earth.  He drew a long breath and opened
the lever for "Full Speed Up."  The cage must
have passed the zone of flame like a bird rising
through a cloud.  The folk silenced themselves as
it neared the surface.  Then a great cry arose.

The minister sat in the cage with a couple
of boys in his arms.  The rough wet brattice
cloths that had been placed over them were charred
almost to a cinder.  Dairsie Gordon's face was
burnt and blackened.

He handed the boys out into careful hands.

"I am going down again," he said; "unless
I do the men will not believe that it is possible
to come alive through the fire.  Are you ready,
Walter?  Let her go!"

So a second time the young minister went
down through the furnace.  Presently the men
began to be whisked up through the fire, and as
each relay arrived at the pit-bank they sang the
praises of Dairsie Gordon, telling with Homeric
zest how he had crawled half-roasted down the
narrow throat of the steam-pipe-filled shaft, how
he had argued with them that the fire could be
passed, and at last proved it with two boys for
volunteer passengers.  Dairsie Gordon, B.D., was
the last man to leave the pit, and he fainted with
pain and excitement when all Drowdle cheered
him as they carried him home to his mother.

And when at last he came to himself, swathed
in cotton wool to the eyes, he murmured, "*Do
you not think they will respect me now, mother?*"





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.. _`TADMOR IN THE WILDERNESS`:

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   TADMOR IN THE WILDERNESS

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The calm and solemn close of a stormy day—that
is the impression which the latter years of the life
of Bertram Erskine made on those who knew him
best.  Though I was young at the time, I well
remember his solitary house of Barlochan, a small
laird's mansion to which he had added a tiny
study and a vast library, turning the whole into an
externally curious, but internally comfortable
conglomerate of architecture.  The house stood near a
little green depression of the moorland, shaped like
the upturned palm of a hand.  In the lowest part
was the "lochan" or lakelet from which the place
had its name, while the mansion with its
white-washed gables and many chimneys rose on the
brow above—and, facing south, overlooked well
nigh a score of parishes.  There was also a garden,
half hidden behind a row of straggling poplars.
A solitary "John" tended it, who, in the time
of Mr. Erskine's predecessor, had doubled his
part of gardener with that of butler at the family's
evening meal.

Few people in the neighbourhood knew much
about the "hermit of Barlochan."  Yet he had
borne a great part in the politics of twenty years
before.  He had been a minister of the Queen, a
keen and vehement debater, a dour political
fighter, as well as a man of some distinction in
letters; he had suddenly retired from all his offices
and emoluments without a day's warning.  The
reason given was that he had quite suddenly lost
an only and much beloved daughter.

After a few years he had bought, through an
Edinburgh lawyer, the little estate of Barlochan,
and it was reported that he meant to settle in the
district.  Upon which ensued a clatter of masons
and slaters, joiners and plasterers, all sleeping in
stable-lofts, and keeping the scantily peopled
moorland parish in a turmoil with their midnight
predatory raids and madcap freaks.

Then came waggon-load after waggon-load of
books—two men (no less) to look after them and
set them in their places on the shelves.  After that,
the advent of a housekeeper and a couple of staid
maid-servants with strange English accents.  Last
of all arrived Bertram Erskine himself, a tall figure
in grey, stepping out of a high gig at his own door,
and the establishment of an ex-minister of the
Crown was complete.

That is, with one exception—for John McWhan,
gardener to the ancient owners of Barlochan,
was digging in the garden when Mr. Erskine went
out on the first morning after his arrival.

"Good-morning!"

John looked up from his spade, put his hand
with the genuine Galloway reluctance to his
bonnet, and remarked, "I'm thinkin' we'll hae
a braw year for grosarts, sir!"

The new proprietor smiled, and as John said
afterwards, "*Then* I kenned I was a' richt!"

"You are Mr. McCulloch's gardener?"

"Na, na, sir; I am your ain gardener, sir,"
answered John McWhan promptly.  "Coarnel
(Colonel) McCulloch pat everything intil my hand
on the day he gaed awa' to the wars—never to set
fit on guid Scots heather mair!"

Mr. Erskine nodded quietly, like one who
accepts a legal obligation.

"I have heard of you, John," he said.  "I will
take you with the other pendicles of the estate.
You are satisfied with your former wages?"

"Aye, sir, aye—a bonny-like thing that I should
hae been satisfied wi' thretty pound and a
cot-hoose for five-and-forty year, and begin to
compleen at this time o' the day."

"But I am somewhat peculiar, John," said Mr. Erskine,
smiling.  "I see little company: I desire
to see none at all.  If you remain with me, you
must let nothing pass your lips regarding me or
my avocations."

"Ye'll find that John McWhan can haud his
tongue to the full as well as even a learned man
like yoursel', sir!"

"I have an uncertain temper, John!"

"Faith, then ye hae gotten the verra man for
ye, sir," cried John, slapping his knee delightedly.
"Lord keep us, ye will be but as a bairn at the
schule to what Maister McCulloch was.  I tell
ye, when the Coarnel's liver was warslin' wi' him,
it was as muckle as your life was worth to gang
within bowshot o' him.  But yet he never hairmed
John.  He miscaaed him—aya, he did that—till
the ill names cam' back oot o' the wood ower bye,
as if the wee green fairies were mockin' the sinfu'
angers o' man.  But John never heeded.  And in
a wee, the Coarnel wad be calm as a plate o'
parritch, and send me into the hoose for his muckle
pipe, saying, 'John, that has dune me guid, I think
I'll hae a smoke.'  Na, na, ye may be as short
in the grain as ye like, but after Coarnel
McCulloch——"

At this point of his comparison John felt the
inadequacy of further words and could only
ejaculate, "Hoots awa, man!"

So in this fashion John McWhan stayed on as
"man" upon the policies of Barlochan.

That night at dinner it was John who carried
in the soup tureen and deposited it before his
new master, a very much scandalised table-maid
following in the wake of the victor.

"I hae brocht ye your kail, Maister Areskine,"
he said, setting the large vessel down with a
flourish, "as I hae dune in this hoose for
five-and-forty year.  This trimmie (though Guid forgie
me, I doubt na that she is a decent lass, for an
Englisher) may set the glesses and bring ben the
kickshaws, but the kail and the roast are John
McWhan's perquisite—as likewise the cleanin'
o' the silver.  And I wad thank ye kindly, sir, to
let the hizzie ken your mind on that same!"

With these words, John stood at attention with
his hands at his sides and his lips pursed, gazing
solemnly at his master.  Mr. Erskine turned
round on his chair, his napkin in his hand.  His
eyes encountered with astonishment a tall figure,
gaunt and angular, clad in an ancient livery coat
of tarnished blue and gold; knee breeches, black
stockings, and a pair of many-clouted buckled
shoes completed an attire which was certainly a
marvellous transformation from John's ordinary
labouring moleskins.

With a word quiet and sedate, Mr. Erskine
satisfied John's pride of place, and with another
(the latter accompanied with a certain humorous
twinkle of the eye) he soothed the ruffled Jane.

After that the days passed quietly and
uneventfully enough at Barlochan.  Mr. Erskine's
habits were regular.  He rose early, he read much,
he wrote more.  The mail he received, the book
packets the carrier brought him, the huge sealed
letters he sent off, were the wonder of the
countryside—for a month or two.  Then, save for the
carters who drove the coal from the town, or
brought in the firewood for Mr. Erskine's own
library fire (for there he burned wood only), and
the boxes of provisions ordered from Cairn
Edward by his prim housekeeper Mrs. Lambert,
Barlochan was silent and without apparent
distraction.

All the same there were living souls and busy
brains about it.  The massive intellect of the
master worked at unknown problems in the
library.  Busy Mrs. Lambert hurried hither and
thither contriving household comforts, and developing
the scanty resources of a moorland cusine to
their uttermost.  Jane and Susan obeyed her beck,
while out in the garden John McWhan dug and
raked, pruned and planted, his hand never idle,
while his brain busied itself with his master.

"It's a michty queer thing he doesna gang to
the kirk," said John to himself, "a terrible queer
thing—him bein' itherwise sic a kindly weel-learned
gentleman.  I heard some word he was eddicated
for the kirk himsel'.  Oh, that we had amang us a
plant o' grace like worthy Master Hobbleshaw
doon at the Nine-Mile-Burn, that can whup the
guts oot o' a text as gleg and clever as cleanin' a
troot.  Faith, I wad ask him to come wi' me to
oor bit kirk at Machermore, had we a man there
that could do mair than peep and mutter.  I
wonder what we hae dune that we should be
afflicted wi' siccan a reed shaken wi' the wun' as
that feckless bit callant, Hughie Peebles.  He
can preach nae mair than my cat Tib—and as for
unction——"

Here again John's words failed him under the
press of his own indignant comminations.  He
could only drive the "graip" into the soil of the
Barlochan garden, with a foot whose vehemence
spoke eloquently of his inward heat.  For the pulpit
of the little Dissenting kirk which John McWhan
supported by his scanty contributions (and abundant
criticisms), was occupied every Sabbath day by
that saddest of all labourers, a minister who has
not fulfilled his early promise, and of whom his
congregation desire to be rid.

"No but what we kind o' like the craitur, too,"
John explained to his master, as he paused near
him in one of his frequent promenades in the
garden.  "He has his points.  He is a decent
lad, and wi' some sma' gift in intercessory prayer.
But he gangs frae door to door amang the fowk,
as if he were comin' like a beggar for an awmous
and were feared to daith o' the dog.  Noo what the
fowk like is a man that walks wi' an air, that speaks
wi' authority, that stands up wi' some presence
in the pulpit, and gies oot the psalm as if he
war kind o' prood to read words that the guid
auld tune o' Kilmarnock wad presently carry to
the seeventh heevens!"

"And your minister, John, with whom you are
dissatisfied—how came you to choose him?"

"Weel, sir," said the old man, palpably
distressed, "it was like this—ye see fowk are no
what they used to be, even in the kirk o' the
Marrow.  In auld days they pickit a minister
for the doctrine and smeddom that was in him.
'Was he soond on the fundamentals?'  'Had
he a grip o' the fower Heads?'  'Was he faithfu'
in his monitions?'  Thae were the questions they
askit.  But nooadays they maun hae a laddie
fresh frae the college, that can leather aff a blatter
o' words like a bairn's lesson.  I'm tellin' ye the
truth, sir—Sant Paul himsel', after he had had
the care o' a' the churches for a generation, wadna
hae half the chance o' a bare-faced, aipple-cheekit
loon in a black coatie and a dowg-collar.  An' as
for Peter, he wad hae had juist nae chance ava.
He wad never hae gotten sae muckle as a smell
o' the short leet."

"And how would Saint Peter have had no
chance?  Wherein was his case worse than
Paul's?" said Mr. Erskine, smiling.

"Because he was a mairriet man, sir.  It's a'
thae feckless weemen fowk, sir.  A man o'
wecht and experience has little chance, though
he speak wi' the tongue o' men and o' angels—a
mairriet man has juist nae chance ava.'  It's my
solemn opeenion that, when it comes to electin'
a new minister, only respectable unmairriet men
o' fifty years an' upwards should be allowed to
vote.  It's the only thing that will stop thae
awfu' weemen frae ruling the kirk o' God.  Talk
o' the Session—faith, it's no the Session that
bears rule ower us in things speeritual—na, na,
it's juist thae petticoated randies that got us
turned oot' o' Paradise at the first, and garred
me hae to grow your honour's veegetables in the
sweet o' my broo!"

"But why only unmarried men of over fifty?"
said Mr. Eskine, humouring his servitor.

"For this reason,"—John laid down the points
of his argument on the palm of one hand with
the crooked forefinger of the other, his foot
holding the "graip" steady in the furrow all
the while.  "The young unmairriet men wad
be siccan fules as to do what the young lasses
wanted them to do, and the mairriet men o' a'
ages (as say the Scriptures) wad necessarily vote
as their wives bade them, for the sake o' peace
and to keep doon din!"

"Well, John," said Mr. Erskine, "I will go down
to the kirk with you next Sunday morning, and
see what I can advise.  It is a pity that in this
small congregation and thinly-peopled district you
should be saddled with an unsuitable minister!"

"Eh, sir, but we wad be prood to see ye at
Machermore Marrow Kirk," cried John, dusting
his hands with sheer pleasure, as if he were about
to shake hands with his master on the spot.  "I
only wish it had been Maister MacSwatter o'
Knockemdoon that was gaun to preach.  He
fairly revels in Daniel and the Revelations.  He
can gie ye a screed on the ten horns wi' faithfu'
unction, and mak' a maist affectin' application
frae the consideration o' the wee yin in the middle.
But oor Maister Peebles—he juist haes nae
'fushion' in him, ony mair than a winter-frosted
turnip in the month o' Aprile!"

In accordance with his promise to his factotum,
on the following Sabbath morning, Mr. Erskine
walked down to the little Kirk of Machermore.
It was a fine harvest day and the folk had turned
out well, as is usually the case at that season of
the year.  John McWhan was too old a servant
to dream of walking with his master to the kirk.
He had "mair mainners," as he would have said
himself.  All the same, he had privately
communicated with several of the elders, and so
ensured Mr. Erskine a reception suited to his
dignity.

The ex-minister of State was received at the
little kirk door by Bogrie and Muirkitterick,
two tenants on a large neighbouring property.
These were the leading Marrow men in the
district, and much looked up to, as both coming
in their own gigs to the kirk.  Bogrie it was who
opened the inner door for him, and Muirkitterick
conducted him to the seat of honour in the
mountain Zion, being the manse pew, immediately
to the right of the pulpit.

It was not for some time that Mr. Erskine
perceived that he did not sit alone.  Being a
little short-sighted until he got his glasses
adjusted, the faces of any audience or congregation
were always a blur to him.  Then all at once
he noticed a slim girlish figure in a black dress
almost shrinking from observation in the opposite
corner.  The service began immediately after he
sat down.

The minister was tall, of good appearance and
presence, but Mr. Erskine shuddered at the first
grating notes of the clerical falsetto, which
Mr. Peebles had adopted solely because it had been
the fashion at college in his time; but it was
not until the short prayer before the sermon that
anything occurred to fix the politician's wandering
attention.

Then, as he bent forward, he heard a voice near
him saying, in an intense inward whisper: "*O
God, help my Hughie!*"

He glanced about him in astonishment.  It
was the girl in the black dress.  She had knelt
in the English fashion when all the rest of the
congregation were merely bending forward "on
their hunkers," or, as in the case of not a few
ancient standards of the Faith, standing erect and
protestant against all weak-hammed defection.

When the girl arose again Mr. Erskine saw that
her lips were trembling and that she gazed
wistfully about at the set and severe faces of the
congregation.  The minister began his sermon.

It was not in any sense a good discourse.
Rather, with the best will in the world, the hearer
found it feeble, flaccid, unenlivened by illustration,
unfirmed by doctrine, unclinched by application.
Yet all the time Mr. Erskine was saying to
himself: "What a fool that young man is!  He has
a good voice and presence—how easily he might
study good models, and make a very excellent
appearance.  It cannot be so difficult to please
a few score country farmers and ditchers!"  But
he ended with his usual Gallio-like reflection that
"After all, it is none of my business;" and so
forthwith removed his mind from the vapidity
of the discourse, to a subject connected with his
own immediate work.

But as he issued out of the little kirk, he passed
quite close to the vestry door.  The girl who had
sat in the pew beside him was coming out with the
minister.  He could not help hearing her words,
apparently spoken in answer to a question: "It
was just beautiful, Hughie; you never preached
better in your life."  And in the shadow of the
porch, before they turned the corner, Mr. Erskine
was morally certain that the young minister gave
the girl's arm an impulsive little hug.

But his own heart was heavy, for as he walked
away there came a thought into his heart.  A
resemblance that had been haunting him suddenly
flashed up vividly upon him.

"If Marjorie had lived she would have been
about that girl's age—and like her, too, pale and
slim and dark."

So all the way to his lonely mansion of Barlochan
the ex-minister of the Crown thought of the
young girl who had faded from his side, just as
she was becoming a companion for the man who,
for her sake, had put his career behind him.

In the afternoon Mr. Erskine sat in the arbour,
while John in his Sunday best tried to
compromise with his conscience as to how much
gardening could be made to come under the
catechistic heading, "Works of Necessity and
Mercy."  He solved this by watering freely,
training and binding up sparingly, pruning in a
furtive and shamefaced manner (when nobody
was looking), but strictly abstaining from the
opener iniquities of weeding, digging, or knocking
in nails with hammers.  In the latter emergency
John kept for Sunday use the ironshod heel of
an old boot, and in no case did he ever so far
forget himself as to whistle.  On that point he
was adamant.

At last, after hovering nearer and nearer, he
paused before the arbour and addressed his master
directly.

"*Thon* juist settles it!"

Mr. Erskine slowly put down his book, still,
however, marking the place with his finger.

"I do not understand—what do you mean by *thon*?"

"The sermon we had the day, sir.  It was
fair affrontin'.  The Session are gaun up to ask
Maister Peebles to consider his resignation.  The
thing had neither beginning o' days nor end o'
years.  It was withoot form and void.  It's a
kind o' peety, too, for the laddie, wi' that young
Englishy wife that he has ta'en, on his hand.
I'm feared she is no the kind that will ever help
to fill his meal-ark!"

"I am very sorry to hear you say so, John," said
Mr. Erskine; "can nothing be done, think you?
Why don't they give the young man another
chance?  Can no one speak to him?  There were
some things about the service that I liked very
much.  Indeed, I found myself feeling at home
in a church for the first time for years."

"Did ye, sir?  That's past a' thinkin'!  A'
Machermore was juist mournin' and lamentin'.
What micht the points be that ye liket?  I will
tell the elders.  It micht do some guid to the
puir lad!"

Mr. Erskine was a little taken aback.  He
could not say that what pleased him most in the
service had sat in the manse-seat beside him,
had worn a plain black dress, and possessed a
pair of eyes that reminded him of a certain young
girl who had taken walks with him over the
hills of Surrey, when the blackbirds were singing
in the spring.

Nevertheless, he managed to convey to John
a satisfaction and a hopefulness that were all the
more helpful for being a little vague.  To which
he added a practical word.

"If you think it would do any good, John, I
might see one or two of the members of Session
themselves."

"Ye needna trouble yoursel', thank ye kindly,
sir," said John, "I will undertak' the job.  Though
my infirmity at orra times keeps me frae acceptin'
the eldership (I hae been twice eleckit), I may
say that John McWhan's influence in the testifyin'
and Covenant-keeping Kirk o' the Marrow at
the Cross-roads o' Machermore has to be reckoned
wi'—aye, it has to be reckoned wi'!"

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Nevertheless, the agitation for a change of
ministry continued to increase rather than to
diminish.  It took the form of a petition to the
Rev. Hugh Peebles to consider the spiritual needs
of the congregation and forthwith to remove
himself to another sphere of labour.

Now, John McWhan's Zion was not one of the
greater and richer denominations into which
Presbytery in Scotland is unhappily divided.  It
was but a small and poor "body" of the faithful,
and such changes of ministry as that proposed
were frequent enough.  The operative cause might
be inability to pay the minister's "steepend" if
it happened to be a bad year.  Or, otherwise, and
more frequently, a "split"—a psalm tune misplaced,
an overplus of fervour in prayer for the Royal
Family (a very deadly sin), or a laxity in dealing
with a case of discipline—and, lo! the minister
trudged down the glen with his goods before him in
a red cart, to fight his battle over again in another
glen, and among a people every whit as difficult
and touchy.  But one day there was an intimation
read out in the Machermore Kirk of the Marrow
to the following effect: "The Annual Sermon
of the Stewartry Branch of the British and Foreign
Bible Society will be preached in the Townhill
Kirk at Cairn Edward, on Sabbath next, at 6 p.m.,
by the Rev. Hugh Peebles of the Marrow Kirk,
Machermore."

Mr. Peebles read this through falteringly, as
if it concerned some one else, and then added
a doubtful conclusion: "In consequence of this
honour which has been done me, I know not why,
there will be no service here on the evening of
next Lord's Day!"

It was observed by the acute that Mrs. Peebles
put her face into her hands very quickly as her
husband finished reading the intimations.

"Praying for him, was she?" said the Marrow
folk, grimly, as they went homeward; "aye, an'
she had muckle need!"

To say that the congregation of Machermore
was dumfounded is wholly to underestimate the
state of their feelings.  They were aghast.  For
the occasion was a most notable one.

All the wale of the half-dozen central Galloway
parishes, which were canvassed as one district by
the agents of the Bible Society, would be
there—the professional sermon-tasters of twenty
congregations.  At least a dozen ministers of all
denominations (except the Episcopalian) would
be seated in an awe-inspiring quadrilateral about
the square elders' pew.  The Townhill Kirk, the
largest in Galloway, would be packed from floor
to ceiling, and the sermon, published at length
in the local paper, would be discussed in all its
bearings at kirk-door and market-ring for at least
a month to come.

And all these things must be faced by their
"reed shaken with the wind," their feckless shadow
of a minister, weak in doctrine, ineffective in
application, utterly futile in reproof.  Hughie
Peebles, and he alone, must represent the high
ancient liberties of the Marrow Kirk before Free
Kirk Pharisee and Erastian Sadducee.

Considering these things, Machermore hung
its head, and the wailing of its eldership was
heard afar.  Only John McWhan, as he had
promised, kept his counsel, and went about with
a shrewd twinkle in his eye.  He continued to
bring in the soup at Barlochan—indeed, he now
waited all through dinner, and, though there was
nothing said that he could definitely take hold
upon, John had a shrewd suspicion that it was not
for nothing that the young minister had been
closeted with his master for two or three hours, six
days a week, for the last month.  But though it
went sorely to his heart that he could not even
bid Machermore and the folk thereof—"Wait till
next Sabbath at six o'clock, an' ye'll maybes hear
something!" he loyally refrained himself.

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At last the hour came and the man.  Mr. Erskine,
having ordered a carriage from the town,
drove the minister and his wife down to Cairn
Edward in style.  John McWhan held the reins,
the urban "coachman" sitting, a silent and
indignant hireling, on the lower place by his side.

On the front seat within sat Mr. Peebles, very
pale, and with his hands gripping each other
nervously.  But when he looked across at the
calm face of Mr. Erskine, a sigh of relief broke
from him.  The Townhill Kirk was densely
crowded.  There was that kind of breathing hush
over all, which one only hears in a country kirk
on a very solemn occasion.  Places had been kept
for young Mrs. Peebles and Mr. Erskine in the
pew of honour near the elders' seat, but the
ex-minister of State, after accompanying
Mrs. Peebles to her destination, went and sat
immediately in front of the pulpit.

"Wondrous weel the laddie looks," said one
of the judges as Hugh Peebles came in, boyish
in his plain black coat, "though they say he is
but a puir craitur for a' that!"

"Appearances are deceitful—beauty is vain!"
agreed her neighbour, in the same unimpassioned
whisper.

There was nothing remarkable about the
"preliminaries," as the service of praise and prayer
was somewhat slightingly denominated by these
impatient sermon-lovers.

"*Sap, but nae fushion!*" summed up Mistress
Elspeth Milligan, the chief of these, after the
first prayer.

The preliminaries being out of the way, the
great congregation luxuriously settled itself down
to listen to the sermon.  Machermore, which
had hidden itself bodily in a remote corner
of one of the galleries, began to perspire with
sheer fright.

"They'll throw the psalm-buiks at him, I wadna
wunner—siccan grand preachers as they hae doon
here in Cairn Edward!" whispered the ruling
elder to a friend.  He had sneaked in after all
the others, and was now sitting on one of the
steps of the laft.  It was John McWhan who
occupied the corner seat beside him.

"Maybe aye, an' maybe no!" returned John,
drily, keeping his eye on the pulpit.  The hush
deepened as Hugh Peebles gave out his text.

"*And he built Tadmor in the Wilderness.*"

Whereupon ensued a mighty rustling of turned
leaves, as the folk in the "airy" and the three
"galleries" pursued the strange text to its lair
in the second book of Chronicles.  It sounded like
the blowing of a sudden gust of wind through
the entire kirk.

Then came the final stir of settling to attention
point, and the first words of Hugh Peebles' sermon.
Machermore, elder and kirk-member, adherent and
communicant, young and old, bond and free,
crouched deeper in their recesses.  Some of the
more bashful pulled up the collars of their coats
and searched their Bibles as if they had not yet
found the text.  The seniors put on their glasses
and stared hard at the minister as if they had
never seen him before.  They did not wish it
to appear that he belonged to them.

But when the first notes of the preacher's voice
fell on their astonished ears, it is recorded that
some of the more impulsive stood up on their feet.

That was never their despised minister, Hughie
Peebles.  The strong yet restrained diction, the
firmness of speech, the resonance of voice in
the deeper notes—all were strange, yet somehow
curiously familiar.  They had heard them all
before, but never without that terrible alloy of
weakness, and the addition of a falsetto
something that made the preacher's words empty
and valueless.

And the sermon—well, there never had been
anything like it heard in the Ten Parishes before.
There was, first of all, that great passage where
the preacher pictured the Wise King sending out
his builders and carpenters, his architects and
cunning workmen—those very men who had
caused the Temple to rise on Moriah and set up
the mysterious twin pillars thereof—to build in
that great and terrible wilderness a city like to
none the world had ever seen.  There was his
gradual opening up of the text, and applying
it to the sending of the Word of God to the
heathen who dwelt afar off—without God and
without hope in the world.

Then came the searching personal appeal, which
showed to each clearly that in his own heart
there were wilderness tracts—as barren, as deadly,
as apparently hopeless as the ground whereon
Solomon set up his wonder-city—Tadmor,
Palmyra, the city of temples and palaces and
palm-trees.

And above all, the preacher's application was
long remembered, his gradual uprising from the
picture of the earthly king, "golden-robed in
that abyss of blue," to the Great King of all
the worlds—"He who can make the wilderness,
whether that of the heathen in distant lands and
far isles of the sea, or that other more difficult,
the wilderness in our own breasts, to blossom as
the rose!"  These things will never be forgotten
by any in that congregation.

Once only Hugh Peebles faltered.  It was but
for a moment.  He gasped and glanced down to
the first seat in the front of the church.  Then in
another moment he had gripped himself and
resumed his argument.  Some there were who
said that he did this for effect, to show emotion,
but there were two men in that congregation who
knew better—the preacher and Mr. Erskine.

All Machermore went home treading on the
viewless air.  They hardly talked to each other
for sheer joy and astonishment.  "Dinna look
as if we were surprised, lads!  Let on that we
get the like o' that every day in oor kirk!"

That was John McWhan's word, which passed
from lip to lip.  And Machermore and the Marrow
Kirk thereof became almost insufferably puffed up.

"I'll no say a word mair," said the ruling elder,
"gin he never preaches anither decent word till
the day o' his death."

This was, indeed, the general sense of the
congregation.  But Hugh Peebles, though perhaps he
never reached the same pinnacle of fame, certainly
preached much better than of old.  With his
wonderful success, too, he had gained a certain
confidence in himself; added to which he was
almost as often at Barlochan as before the
missionary sermon.

His wife came with him sometimes in the
evenings to dinner, and then Mr. Erskine's eyes
would dwell on her with a kind of gladness.  For
now she had a colour in her cheek and a proud
look on her face, which had not been there on the
day when he had first heard her pray: "O God,
help my Hughie!" in the square manse pew.

God had indeed helped Hughie—as He mostly
does, through human agency.  And Mr. Erskine
was happier too.  He had found an object in life,
and, on the whole, his pupil did him great credit.

He also inserted a clause in his will, which
ensures that Hugh and his wife shall not be
dependent in their old age upon the goodwill of
a faithful but scanty flock.

And as for Hugh Peebles, probable plagiarist, he
writes his own sermons now, though he always
submits them before preaching to his wise friend
up at Barlochan.  But it is for his first success
that he is always asked when he goes from home.
There is a never-failing postscript to any
invitation from a clerical brother upon a sacramental
occasion: "The congregation will be dreadfully
disappointed if you do not give us 'Tadmor in
the Wilderness.'"

And Hugh Peebles never disappoints them.





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.. _`PETERSON'S PATIENT`:

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   PETERSON'S PATIENT

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When I go out on the round of a morning I
generally take John with me.  John is my "man,"
and of course it is etiquette that he should drive
me to my patients' houses.  But sometimes I tell
him to put in old Black Bess for a long
round-about journey, and then, in that case, I can
drive myself.

For Black Bess is a real country doctor's horse.
She will stand at a loaning foot with the reins
hitched over a post—that is, if you give her a
yard or so of head liberty, so that she may solace
herself with the grass and clover tufts on the
bank.  Even without any grass at all, she will
stand by a peat-stack in as profound a meditation
as if she were responsible for the diagnosis of
the case within.  I honestly believe Bess is more
than half a cow, and chews the cud on the sly.
So whenever I feel a trifle lazy, I take the outer
round and Black Bess, leaving the town and
what the ambitious might call its "suburbs" to
Dr. Peterson, my assistant.  Not that this helps
me much in the long run, because I have to
keep track of what is going on in Peterson's head
and revise his treatment.  For, though his zeal
and knowledge are always to be counted on,
Peterson is apt to be lacking in a certain tact which
the young practitioner only acquires by experience.

For instance, to take the important matter of
diagnosis, Peterson used to think nothing of
standing silent five or ten minutes making up his mind
what was the matter with a patient.  I once told
him about this.

"Why," he replied, with, I must say, some
slight disrespect for his senior, "you often do
that yourself.  You said this very morning that
it took you twenty minutes to make up your
mind whether to treat Job Sampson's wife for
scarlet fever or for diphtheria!"

"Yes," I retorted, "I told you so, but I didn't
stand agape all the time I was thinking it out.
I took the temperature of the woman's armpits,
and the back of her neck, and between her toes.
I asked her about her breakfast, and her dinner,
and her supper of the day before.  Then I took
a turn at her sleeping powers, and whether she
had been eating too many vegetables lately.  I
inquired if she had had the measles, and the
whooping-cough, and how often she had been
vaccinated.  I was just going to begin on her
father, mother, and collateral relatives in order
to trace hereditary tendencies, when I made up
my mind that it would be safest to treat the
woman for scarlet fever."

"Yes," said Peterson, drily, "Job was praising
you up to the skies this very day.  'There never
was sic a careful doctor,' he swears; 'there wasna
a blessed thing that he didna speer into, even
unto the third and fourth generation.'"

"There, you hear, Peterson," I said, with sober
triumph, "that is the first step in your profession.
You must create confidence.  Never let them
think for a moment you don't know everything.
Why, old Ned Harper sent for me to-day—said
you didn't understand the case, because you
declined to prescribe."

"He is malingering," cried Peterson, hotly;
"he only wants to draw full pay out of his two
benefit societies.  The man is a fraud, open and
patent.  I wouldn't have anything to do with him."

"Now, Peterson," I said, very seriously, "once
for all, this is my practice, 'not yours.  You are
my salaried assistant.  That is what you have
to attend to.  You are not revising auditor of
the local benefit societies.  If you do as you did
with old Harper a time or two, you will lose me
my appointment as Society's doctor, and not
that one appointment alone.  They all follow each
other like a flock of sheep jumping through a
slap in a dyke.  Besides, the Benefit Society
officials don't thank you, not a bit!  They expect
Harper to do as much for them the next time
they feel like taking a holiday between the sheets!"

"What would you do then?" cried this furious
young apostle of righteousness.  "You surely
would not have me become art and part in a
swindle."

I patted him on the shoulder.

"Temper your zeal with discretion, my friend,"
I said.  "I have found a rising blister between
the shoulder-blades very efficacious in such cases."

Yet my immaculate assistant, had he only
known it, was to go further and fare worse.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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Meanwhile to pass the time I told him the
story of old Maxwell Bone.  Peterson was clearly
getting restive, and it is not good for young men
of the medical profession to think that they know
everything at five-and-twenty.  Maxwell was an
aged hedger-and-ditcher, who lived in a tumble-down
cottage at the upper end of Whinnyliggate.
Of that parish I was (and still am) parish doctor,
and Maxwell being in receipt of half-a-crown a
week as parochial supplement to his scanty earnings,
I was, *ipso facto*, responsible for Maxwell's
state of health, and compelled in terms of my
contract to obey any reasonable summons I might
receive from him.

Upon several occasions I had prescribed for
the old ruffian, chiefly for rheumatism and the
various internal pains and weaknesses affected
by ancient paupers.  When I was going away
on one occasion Maxwell asked me for an order
on the Inspector of Poor for a bottle of brandy
"for outward application only."  I refused him
promptly, telling him with truth that he was far
better without it.

"Weel, doctor," he said, shaking his head,
"dootless ye ken best.  But there's nocht like
brandy when thae stammack pains come on me.
It micht save ye a lang journey some cauld snawy
nicht.  The guard o' the late train will tak' doon
ony message frae the junction, and if I dinna get
the brandy to hae at hand to rub my legs wi' ye
micht hae a lang road to travel!  But gin ye
let me hae it, doctor, it micht save ye a heap o'
trouble——"

"The old wretch!" cried Peterson.  "Of course
you did not let him have it?"

"Peterson," I replied, sententiously, "I decline
to answer you.  Wait till you have been a winter
here and know what a thirty-mile drive in a
raging snowstorm to the head-end of the parish of
Whinnyliggate means.  Then you will not have
much doubt whether Maxwell got his brandy or not."

Now Peterson was really a very excellent fellow,
and when he had run his head against the requisite
number of stone walls, and learned to bite hard on
his tongue when tempted to over-hasty speech, he
made a capital assistant.  I shall be sorry to lose
him when the time comes.

For one thing Nance is fond of him, especially
since he fell in love, and that goes for a great deal
in our house.  Peterson performed the latter feat
quite suddenly and unexpectedly, as he did
everything.  It happened thuswise.

I had had a hard winter, and Nance was
needing a change, so, about Easter, I took her
south, for a few weeks in the mild and recuperative
air of the Regent Street bonnet shops.  I have
noted more than once that in Nance's case the
jewellers' windows along Bond Street possess tonic
qualities, quite unconnected with going inside to
buy anything, as also the dark windows of certain
merchant tailors in which the patient can see her
new dress and hat reflected as in a mirror.  As for
me, I enjoyed the British Medical Club and the
Scientific Museums—which, of course, was what I
came for.

But when we went back home we found that
Peterson's daily report of cases had not conveyed
all the truth.  Peterson himself was changed.  So
far as I could gather, he seemed to have done his
work very well and to have given complete
satisfaction.  He had even added the names of
several new patients to my list.  One of these
was that of a somewhat large proprietor in a
neighbouring parish, who was said to be exceedingly
eccentric, but of whom I knew nothing save by the
vaguest report.

"How did you get hold of old Bliss Bulliston?"
I asked my assistant, as I glanced over the list
he handed me.  We were sitting smoking in the
study while Nance was unpacking upstairs and
spreading her new things on the bed, amid the
rapturous sighs and devotionally clasped hands of
Betty Sim, our housemaid.

Peterson turned away towards the mantelpiece
for another spill.  He appeared to have a difficulty
with his pipe.

"Well, I don't exactly know," he said at last,
when the problem was solved; "it just came about
somehow.  You know how these things happen."

"They generally happen in our profession by
the patient sending for the physician," I remarked,
drily.  "I hope you have not been poaching on
anyone else's preserves, Peterson.  Did Bulliston
send for you?"

Peterson stooped for a coal to light his pipe.
It had gone out again.  Perhaps it was the exertion
that reddened his handsome face.

"No," he said, slowly, "he did not send for
me.  I went of my own accord."

I started from my seat.

"Why, man," I cried, "you'll get me struck
off the register, not to speak of yourself.  You
don't mean to say that you went to the house
touting for custom?"

"Now don't get excited," he said, smoking
calmly, "and I'll tell you all about it."

I became at once violently calm.  Nevertheless,
in spite of this, it took some time to get him
under way.

"Well," he said at last, "Bulliston has got a
daughter."

"Oh," said I, "so you were called in to attend
on Mrs. Bulliston."

"When I say he has a daughter, I mean a
grown-up daughter, not an infant!"

Peterson seemed quite unaccountably ruffled
by my innocent remark.  I thought of pointing
out to him the advantages of habitual clearness of
speech, but, on the whole, decided to let him tell his
story, for I was really very anxious about Bulliston.

"Well," I said soothingly, "did Miss Bulliston
call you in?"

"It might be looked at that way," he said.

"What was the case?"

"A nest of peregrine's eggs near the top of
Carslaw Craig."

"Peterson!" I exclaimed, somewhat sternly,
"don't forget that I am talking to you seriously!"

But he continued smoking.

"I am perfectly serious," he said, and stopped.
After he had thought a while he continued: "It
happened at the end of the first week you were
away.  I had left John at home.  I had old Black
Bess with me—you know she will stand anywhere.
I took the long round, and was coming home a
little tired.  As I drove past the end of Carslaw
Hill, happening to look up I saw something
sticking to the sheer face of the cliff like a fly
on a wall.  At first I could not believe my eyes,
for when I came nearer I saw it was a girl.
She seemed to be calling for help.  So of course
I jumped down and tied old Bess to a post by
the roadside.  Then I began to climb up towards
her, but I soon saw that I could not help the
girl that way—to do her any good, that is.  So
I shouted to her to hold on and I would get at
her over the top.

"I ran up an easier place, where the hill slopes
away to the left, and came down opposite where
the girl was.  She had got to within ten feet of
the top, but could not get a bit higher to save
her life.  It looked almost impossible, but luckily,
right on top there was a hazel-bush, and I caught
hold of the lower boughs—three or four of
them—and lowered my legs down over the edge.

"'Catch hold of my ankles,' I shouted, 'and
I'll pull you up.'

"'Can't; they're too thick!' the girl cried; and
from that I judged she must be a pretty cool one.

"'Then catch hold of one of them in both
hands!' I shouted.

"'Right!' she said, and gripped.

"And it was as well that she did not take my
first offer, for, as it turned out, I had all I could
do to get her up, jamming the toe of my other
boot in the crevices and barking my knee against
the hazel roots.  Still, I managed it finally."

"Whereupon she promptly fainted away in
your arms," I interjected, "and you recovered her
with some smelling-salts and sal volatile you
happened to have brought in your tail-coat pockets
in view of such emergencies."

"Not at all," said Peterson, quite unabashed;
"she didn't faint—never thought of such a thing.
Instead, she got behind the hazel-bush I had been
hanging on to.

"'Stop where you are a moment,' she spluttered;
'till I get rid of these horrid eggs.  Then I'll
talk to you.'"

"Tears of beauty!" I cried; "emotion hidden
behind a hazel-bush.  'Alfred, you have saved
my life—accept my hand.'  That was what she
really said to you—you know it was, Peterson."

"Not much," said Peterson.  "She was back
again in a trice, and, if you'll believe me, started
in to give it me hot and strong for smashing her
blissful birds' eggs.

"'Here I've been watching this peregrine for
weeks, and I'd got two beauties, and just because
I got stuck a bit on the cliff you must come
along and jolt me so that I have broken both
of them—one was in my mouth, and the other
I had tied up in a handkerchief.

"But I told the girl that I knew where I could
get her another pair and also a rough-legged
buzzard's nest, and that did a lot to comfort her.
She was a pretty girl, though I don't believe she had
ever given it a thought; and she was dead on to
getting enough birds' eggs to beat her brother,
who had said that a girl could never get as good
a collection as a boy, because of her petticoats!"

"And where are you going to get those eggs?"
I said to Paterson.  "If you think that hunting
falcons' eggs for roving schoolgirls comes within
your duties as my assistant—well, I shall have
to explicate your responsibilities to you, that's
all, young man!"

Peterson laid his finger lightly on his cheek,
not far from the bridge of his nose.

"You know old Davie Slimmon, the keeper
up at the lodge?  You remember I doctored
his foot when he got it bitten with an adder.
Well, anyway, he would do anything for me.  I've
had Davie on the egg-hunt ever since."

"And the girl thinks you are getting them all
yourself," I said, with some severity.  "Peterson,
this is both unbecoming and unscientific.  More
than that, you are a blackguard."

"Oh," said Peterson, lightly, "it's all right.  I
go regularly to see the old boy.  He is a patient
properly on the books, and when all is over, you
can charge him a swingeing fee.  Well, to begin
at the beginning, each time I saw the girl I took
her all the eggs I could pick up in the interval.
I got them properly blown and labelled—particulars,
habitat, how many in the clutch, whether
the nest was oriented due east and west, whether
made of sticks or weeds or curl-papers, the size
of the shell in fractions of a millimetre——"

"Peterson," I said, sternly, "I don't believe you
have the remotest idea what a millimetre is!"

"No more I have," answered Peterson, stoutly,
not in the least put out; "but then, no more
has she.  And it looks well—thundering well!"
he added, after a ruminant consideration of the
visionary labelled egg.  "You've no idea what
a finish these tickets give to the collection."

"So this was Miss Bulliston," I said, to bring
him back to the point in which I was most
immediately interested.  "That's all very well,
but what was the matter with old Bliss, her
father?"

Peterson looked as if he would have winked
if he had dared, but the sternness in my eye
checked him.

"Something nervous," he said, gazing at me
blankly.  "Truda kept stirring him up till the
poor old boy nearly fretted himself into a fever,
and so had me sent for.  Oh, I was properly enough
called in.  You needn't look like that, McQuhirr.
You've no gratitude for my getting you a good
paying patient.  I tell you the old man was so
frightened that Truda——"

"It had got to 'Truda,' had it?" I interjected,
bitterly.  But Peterson took no notice, going
composedly on with his story.

"... Truda ran all the way to the lodge gates,
where I was waiting with two kestrels' and a
marsh-harrier, unblown, but all done up in cotton
wool."

"What!" I cried, "the birds?"

"No, the eggs, of course," said Peterson; "and
she said: 'What have you got there?'  So I told
her two kestrels' and a marsh-harrier.  Then she
said: 'Is that all?  I thought you would have got
that kite's you promised me by this time.  But
come along and cure my father of the cholera, and
the measles, and the distemper, and the spavin!
He's got them all this morning, besides several
other things I've forgot the names of.  Come
quick!  Cousin Jem from London is with him.
He'll frighten him worse than anybody.  I'll take
you up through the shrubbery.  Give me your hand!'

"So she took my hand, and we ran up together
to the house."

"Peterson," I said, "you and I have a monthly
engagement.  On this day month I shall have no
further occasion for your services.  Suppose
anyone had seen you!  What would they have
thought of Dr. McQuhirr's assistant?"

"I never gave it a thought," he said, waving
the interruption away; "and anyway, if all tales
are true, you did a good deal of light skirmishing
up about Nether Neuk in your own day!"

Now this was a most uncalled-for remark, and
I answered: "That may be true or not, as the
case may be.  But, at all events, I was no one's
*locum tenens* at that time."

"Oh," he said, "it's no use making a fuss now,
McQuhirr.  Nobody saw us, and as soon as we
got to the open part near the house, Truda said:
'Now I'm going to get these eggs fixed into their
cases.  So you trot round and physic up the old
man.  And mind and ask to see his collection
of dog-whips.  It is the finest in the world.  We
all collect something here.  Pa is crazy about
dog-whips.  And if you can't find anything else
wrong with him, tell him that his corns want
cutting.  They always do!'

"'But I haven't a knife with me,' I objected.

"'I'll lend you a ripper.'  (Truda had an answer
ready every time.)  'I keep it edged like a razor.
It is a cobbler's leather knife.  It will make the
shavings fly off dad's old corns, I tell you!'

"'But I never pared a corn in my life,' I said.

"'Then you've jolly well got to now, my friend,'
she said, 'for I've yarned it to him that his life
may depend on it, and that only a trained surgeon
can operate on his sort.  So don't you give me
away, or he may let you have the contents of a
shot-gun as you go out through the front window.
And what will happen to me, I don't know.  Now
go on!'

"And with that she vanished in the direction
of the stables."

"A most lively young lady!" I cried, with
enthusiasm.

"Um-m," grunted Peterson (I have often had
cause to remark Peterson's gruffness).  "Lively,
you think?  Well, she nearly got me into a pretty
mess with her liveliness.  The butler put me into
a waiting-room out of the hall.  It was all sparred
round with fishing-rods, and had crossed trophies
of dog-whips festooned about the walls.  I waited
here for a quarter of an hour, listening to the
rumbling bark of an angry voice in the distance,
and wondering what the mischief Truda had let
me in for.

"Presently the girl came round to the open
window, and as the sill was a bit high she gave
a sort of sidelong jump and sat perched on the
ledge outside.

"'You are a great donkey,' she said, looking
in at me; 'both the kestrels' are set as hard as
a rock—here, take them!'

"And with that she threw the eggs in at me
one after another through the open sash of the
window.  One took me right on the pin of my
tie and dripped on to my waistcoat.  Smell?  Well,
rather!  Just then the old butler came in, looking
like a field-marshal and archbishop rolled in one,
and there was I rubbing the abominable yolk from
my waistcoat.  Truda had dropped off the window-sill
like a bird, and the old fellow looked round
the room very suspiciously.  I think he thought I
must have been pocketing the spoons or something.

"'Mr. Bliss Bulliston waits!' he said, as if he
were taking me into the presence-chamber of
royalty.  And so he was, by George!  I was
shown into a large library-looking room where
two men were sitting.  One was a little Skye-terrier
of a man, with bristly grey hair that stood
out everyway about his head.  He was lying in
a long chair, half reclining, a rug over his knees
though the day was warm.  The other man sat
apart in the window, a quiet fellow to all
appearance, bald-headed, and rather tired-looking.

"'You are the doctor from Cairn Edward my
daughter has been pestering me to see,' snapped
the elder man.  'My case is a very difficult and
complicated one, and quite beyond the reach of
an average local practitioner, but I understand
from my daughter that you have very special
qualifications.'  Whereupon I bowed, and said that
I was your assistant."

"Good heavens!" I cried.  "Peterson, had you
no sense?  Why on earth did you bring my name
into the affair?  I shall never get over it!"

"Oh," he answered, lightly; "wait a bit.  I
cleared you sufficiently in the end.  Just listen.

"I was in a tight place, you will admit, but I
thought it was best to put on my most impressive
manner, and after a look or two at the old fellow,
I resolved to treat him for nervous exhaustion.
It was a dead fluke, but I had been reading
Webb-Playfair's article on Neurasthenia just before
I went out, and though men don't often have
it, I thought it would do as well for old Bulliston
as anything else.

"So I yarned away to him about his condition
and symptoms, emaciated physical state, and so
forth.  Well, when I was getting pretty well warmed
up I saw the young man with the hair thin-sown
on top rise and go quietly over to another window.
I put this down to modesty on his part.  He wished
to leave me alone with my patient.  So I became
more and more confidential to old Bulliston."

("Peterson," I moaned, "all is over between
us from this moment!")

"But the old ruffian would not allow Mr. Baldhead
to remove himself quietly," said Peterson,
continuing his tale calmly.

"'James,' he cried, sharply, 'stop where you
are.  All this should be very interesting to you.'

"'So it is,' said the young man, smiling in
the rummest way, 'very interesting indeed!'

"So, somewhat elated, I went on prescribing
rest, massage, the double-feeding dodge, and, above
all, no intercourse with his own family.  When I
got through my rigmarole, the old fellow cocked his
head to the side like a blessed dicky-bird, and
remarked: 'It shows what wonderful similarity there
is between the minds of you men of science.  Talk
of the transference of ideas!  Why, that is just
what my nephew was saying before you came
in—almost in the same words.  Let me introduce you
to my nephew, Dr. Webb-Playfair, of Harley Street.'

"You could have knocked me down with a
straw.  I could hardly return the fellow's very
chilly nod.  I heartily confounded that little
bird-nesting minx who had got me into such a
scrape.  But I had an idea.

"'Perhaps, sir,' I said, 'if you would allow me
to consult Dr. Webb-Playfair we might be able
to assist one another.'

"'Certainly,' cried the little old man, speaking
as sharply as a Skye-terrier yelps; 'be off into the
library.  Jem, you know the way!'

"I tell you what, McQuhirr, I did not feel
particularly chirpy as I followed that fellow's shiny
crown into the next room.  He sat down on a
table, swinging one leg and looking at me without
speaking.  For a moment I could not find words
to begin, but his eyes were on me with a kind of
twinkle in them.

"'Well?' he said, as if he had a right to
demand an explanation.  That decided me.  I
would make a clean breast of it.

"So I told him the whole story—how I had
first met Truda, of our bird-nesting, and how
Truda wanted me to be able to come often to the
house—because of the eggs.

"The bald young man began to laugh as I went
on with my narrative, though it was no laughing
matter to me, I can tell you.  And especially
when I confessed that I did not think there was
anything the matter with his uncle, and that
Neurasthenia was the first thing that came into
my head, because I had been reading his own
article in the *Lancet* before I came out.  He
thought that was the cream of the joke.  He was
all of a good fellow, and no mistake.

"'So,' he said, 'to speak plainly, you are in love
with my cousin, and you plotted to keep the father
in bed in order that you might make love to the
daughter!  That is the most remarkable recent
application of medical science I have heard of!'

"'Oh no,' I cried, 'I assure you it was
Truda who——!

"'Ah,' he said, quietly, 'it was Truda, was it?
I can well believe that.'

"Then he thought a long while, and at last he
said, 'Well, it will do the old man a great deal of
good to stay in bed and not worry his own family
and the whole neighbourhood with his whimsies.
Moreover, milk diet is a very soothing thing.  We
will let it go at that.  You can settle your own
affairs with my cousin Gertrude, Dr. Peterson; I
have nothing to do with that.  Indeed, I would
not meddle with that volcanic young person's
private concerns for all the wealth of the Indies!
Let us go back to my uncle.'

"So," concluded Peterson, knocking the ashes
out of his pipe on the bars of the grate, "the old
fellow has been in bed ever since and has drunk
his own weight in good cow's milk several times
over.  He is putting on flesh every day, and his
temper is distinctly improving.  He can be trusted
with a candlestick beside him on the stand now,
without the certainty of his throwing it at his
nurse."

"And Truda?" I suggested, "what did she say?"

"Well, of course I told her how her cousin
had said that I had ordered the father to bed,
in order that I might make love to the daughter.
She and I were in the waterside glade beyond the
pond at the time.  You know the place.  We
were looking for dippers' nests.  She stopped and
said:

"'Jem Playfair said that, did he?'

"'Yes, these were his very words,' I said, with
a due sense of their heinousness.

"'He said you sent my father to bed that you
might make love to me?'

"'Yes.'

"She looked all about the glade, and then up
at me.

"'*Well, did you?*' she said."

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This is Peterson's story exactly as he told it
to me on my return.  That is some time ago
now, but there is little to add.  Mr. Bliss Bulliston
is now much better both in health and in temper,
and there is every reason to believe that I shall
lose my assistant some of these days.  The young
couple are talking of going out to British Columbia.
No complete collection of the eggs of that Colony
has ever been made, and Peterson says that the
climate is so healthy there, that for some years
there will be nothing for him to do but to help
Truda with her collecting.

This is all very well now, in the first months
of an engagement, but as a family man myself,
I have my doubts as to the permanence of such
an arrangement.





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.. _`TWO HUMOURISTS`:

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   TWO HUMOURISTS

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Our gentle humourist is Nathan Monypenny.
No man ever heard him laugh aloud, yet as few
had ever seen him without a gleam of something
akin to kindly humour in his eye.  Even now,
when the bitterness of life and its ultimate
loneliness are upon him, it is a pleasure to be next
Nathan, even at a funeral.  During that dreadful
ten minutes when the black-coated, crinkle-trousered
company waits outside for the "service"
to be over, his company is universally considered
"as good as a penny bap and a warm drink."  In
former days, within the memory of my father,
he had a friend and fellow-humourist in the village,
one "Doog" (that is, Douglas) Carnochan.

The contrast between the two companions was
remarkable.  They both lived in the same street
of our little country hamlet.  Indeed, necessarily
so, for Whinnyliggate has but one street, strictly
so called.  The few cottages along the "Well-road,"
and the more pretentious cluster of upstarts
which keeps the Free Kirk in countenance on
the braeface, have never arrogated to themselves
the name of a street.

So at one end of the Piccadilly-cum-Regent-street
of Whinnyliggate—the upper end—lived
Nathan Monypenny, and at the other end dwelt
his rival, Doog, also, though less worthily,
denominated "humourist."  They were thus
separated by something considerably less than a
quarter of a mile of honest unpavemented king's
highway.  But, though they were personally
friends, green oceans and trackless continents lay
between their several characters and dispositions.

Nathan, at the upper end, was a bachelor,
hale, fresh, and hearty as when he had finished
his 'prenticeship.  Doog at forty possessed several
children, all that remained of a poor, over-worked,
downtrodden wife, and a countenance so marled
and purpled with drink, that he looked an old
man before his time.  Nathan's shop was his
own, and he was understood to have already a
"weel-filled stocking-fit up the lum," or, in the
modern interpretation, a comfortable balance down
at Cairn Edward Bank, and a quiet old age
assured to him by a life of industrious self-denial.

Doog never had a penny to bless himself with,
later in the week than Tuesday; and, indeed,
often enough very few to bless his wife withal
even on Saturday nights, when, as was his custom,
he staggered homewards with the poor remnants
of his week's wage in his pocket.

Nathan's wit was of the kind which goes best
with the sedate tapping of a snuffmull, or the
tinkling of brass weights into counter-scales—Doog's
rang loudest to the jingling of toddy tumblers.
Nathan loved to gossip doucely at the door of
even-tide with the other tradesmen of the village, with
Bob Carter the joiner, his apron twisted about his
scarred hands, with bluff prosperous Joe Mitchell
the mason, and with Peter Miles the tailor, as he
sat on the low seat outside his door picking the
last basting threads out of a new waistcoat.

Doog's witticisms, on the other hand, were
chiefly launched in the "Golden Lion," amid the
uproarious laughter of Jake McMinn, the "cattle
dealer frae Stranraer," Leein' Tam, the local
horse-doctor (without diploma), and "Chuckie" Orchison,
the village ne'er-do-weel and licensed sponger for
drinks upon the neighbourhood.

Yet there existed a curious and inexplicable
liking between the two men.  There was never
a day that Nathan, the douce and respectable,
did not leave his quiet white cottage at the head
of the brae, where he dwelt all alone with his
groceries, and step sedately down, stopping every
twenty yards to gossip, or drop a word, flavoured
with one of his kindly smiles, with every passer-by.
He never seemed to be going anywhere in
particular, yet he always visited Doog Carnochan's
house before he returned.  And many a night did
Nathan, finding the husband not at home, pursue
and recapture the truant, and bring him back to
the tumble-down shanty, where the five ill-fed
children and the one weary-faced woman furnished
a tragic comment upon the far-renowned convivial
humours of the husband and father.

The tale of Nathan and Doog is one which
wants not examples in all ages of the earth's
history.  It is the story of a woman's mistake.
Once Dahlia Ogilvy had been a bright frolicsome
girl, winding the young fellows of the parish
round her fingers with arch mischief, granting
a favour here and denying one there, with
that pleasant and innocent abuse of power which
comes so suddenly to a girl who, in any rank
of life, awakes to find herself beautiful.

There was nothing of the wilful beauty now
about Dahlia Carnochan.  A stronger woman
might have mastered her fate, a weaker would have
fled from it; but she only accepted the inevitable,
and, like one who knows beforehand that her
task is hopeless, she did what she could with
silent resignation, waiting clear-eyed for that death
which alone would bring her to the end of her pain.

Yet at the time it had seemed natural enough
that Dahlia should prefer the handsome debonair
Douglas Carnochan, to quiet Nathan Monypenny,
who had so little to say for himself, and so seldom
said it.  Besides, Dahlia had always known that
she could with a word send Nathan to the ends
of the earth, whilst there were certain wild ways
about the other even then, which had, for a
foolish ignorant maid, all the attraction of the
unknown.  She was a little afraid of Doog
Carnochan, and there is no better subsoil whereon to
grow love in a girl's heart, than just the desire
of conquest mixed with a little fear.

So it came to pass that, though Nathan had
carried little Dahlia's school-bag and fought her
battles ever since she could toddle across from
one cottage to the other, it was not he who, in
the fulness of time, when the blossom came to its
brightest and most beautiful, gathered it and set
it on his bosom.  It ought to have been, but it
was not.

As a young man Doog Carnochan was bright
and clever.  Most people in the village prophesied
a brilliant future for him—that is, those who knew
not the "unstable as water" which was written
like a legend across his character.  He was the
son of a small crofter in the neighbourhood, but
he companied habitually with those above him in
rank, with the sons of large farmers and rich
stock-breeders.  Some of these, his cronies and
boon companions, would be sure to assist him, so
every one said.  They would set him up as a
"dealer"—they would put him in charge of a
"led" farm or two.  Doog's fortune was as good
as made.

So, at least, injudicious flatterers assured him.
So he himself believed.  So he told the innocent,
lily-like Dahlia Ogilvy at the time of year when
the Sweet William gave forth his evening perfume,
when the dew was on the latest wall-flowers, and
the scarlet lightning spangled the dusky places
beneath the hedgerows where the lovers were wont
to sit.  But the blue cowled bells of the poisonous
monkshood in the cottage flower-beds they did
not see, though with some premonition of fate,
Dahlia shivered and nestled to her betrothed as
the breeze swept over them chill and bitter from
the east.

And Nathan Monypenny, leaning on the gate-post
that he might sigh out his soul towards
the cottage of his beloved, by chance heard their
words; and, therewith being stricken well-nigh
to the death, softly withdrew, and left them
alone.

After that night Nathan sought the company
of Doog Carnochan more than ever.

Friends warned him that Doog was no fit
companion for such as he.  They insisted that
he was neglecting his business.  They said all
those useful and convincing things which friends
keep in stock for such occasions.  Yet Nathan
did not desist, till he had arranged the marriage
of Dahlia Ogilvy and Douglas Carnochan beyond
all possibility of retractation.

He it was who accompanied the swain to put
up the banns.  He it was who paid the five-shilling
fee that the pair should be thrice cried
on one Sabbath day, and the wedding hastened
by a whole fortnight.

Perhaps he wished to shorten his own pain.
Perhaps, he told himself, when once Dahlia was
Douglas Carnochan's wife, he would think no
more of her.  At any rate, something strong
and moving wrought in the reticent heart of the
young tradesman.  He approved the house which
Doog took for his bride.  He also guaranteed the
rent.  He lent the money for the furniture, and
looked after Doog on the day of the marriage,
that he might be brought soberly and worthily
to the altar.

It was a plain-song altar indeed, for, of course,
the pair were married in the little white cottage
next to Nathan's, where Dahlia had lived all her
life.  When he saw her in bridal white, Nathan
remembered with a sudden gulp a certain little
toddling thing in white pinafores, whom he used
to lift over the hedge that he might feed her with
the earliest ripe gooseberries.

Every one said that they made a handsome
pair as they stood up before the minister, who,
with his back to the fire, did not know that he was
singeing his Geneva gown.  For, being yet young
to these occasions, he wore that encumbrance
because it gave him an opportunity of displaying
the hood of his college degree.

The young women smiled covertly at the
contrast afforded by the bridegroom and his
"best-man," as they stood up together.  They
did not wonder at Dahlia's preference.  Any of
them would have done the same thing, if she had
had the chance.

"What a fine grey suit!—how well it fits!"

"Yes, and that pale blue tie, how it matches
the flower in his coat!"

Thus they gossiped, all unaware that it was
the hard-earned money of the plain-favoured and
shy "best-man" which had bought all that wedding
raiment, paid for that sky-blue tie, and that even
the flower in the bridegroom's button-hole had
grown in Nathan Monypenny's garden, and had
been plucked and affixed by his hands.

Thus it was that the story began, and this was
the reason why Nathan sought carefully day by
day, if by any means he might yet withdraw his
friend's erring feet out of fearful pit and miry
clay.

Never a morning dawned for Nathan, waking,
as he had done all his life, with the hum of the
ranged bee-hives under his window in his ear, or
else listening to the pattering of the winter storms
on his lattice, that he did not bethink himself:
"It is I who am responsible.  I must help him."  Then
he would add with a sigh: "And her."

And so help he did, for the most part in ways
hidden and secret.  For he dared not give money
to Doog.  He knew all too well where that would
have gone.  Neither for very pride's sake, and in
reverence for the secret of his heart, could he bring
himself to give money to Dahlia.  Nevertheless,
as by some unseen hand, the tired heartsick woman
found her burden in many directions marvellously
eased.

Sticks were stacked in the little wood-shed
which Doog had set up in the first virtuous glow
of husbandhood—and never been inside since.  No
hens laid like Dahlia's—and the strange thing was
that they invariably laid in the night, sometimes
a dozen at a time, all in one nest.  Her children,
playing in the hot dusk of her little garden,
had more than once turned up a sovereign or a
crownpiece wrapped in paper and run with it to
their mother.

From Nathan's shop, also, there came flitches
of bacon which were never ordered by Dahlia
Carnochan—flour and meal, too, in times of stress.
And it nearly always was a time of stress with Doog.

Twice a year Nathan, with much circumlocution,
would extract a reluctant shilling or two from
Doog on a flush pay-night, taking care that some
of his cronies should hear the colloquy.  Then in
the morning he would send round the six months'
account duly and completely receipted.

But more often than not the crony would put it
all round the village that Nathan Monypenny had
been dunning poor Doog Carnochan the night
before; and so, among the unthinking, Nathan got
the reputation of being a hard man.

"He doesna do onything for nocht!  Na, sune or
syne, Nathan likes to see the colour o' his siller,"
was said of him behind his back.  And Doog's
generous kindness of heart was dwelt upon as a
foil to his friend's niggardliness.

"He micht hae letten puir Doog owe him the bit
shillin' or twa and never missed it!" represented
the general sense of the community.

But Doog himself, be his faults what they might,
allowed none to speak ill of Nathan Monypenny.

Did he not half choke the life out of Davie
Hoatson for some hinted comment (it was never
clearly understood what), till they had to be
separated by kindly violence, Doog being yet
unappeased?  Furthermore, did he not seek the
jester for three whole days, all the time breathing
fire and fury, with intent to choke the other half of
a worthless life out of him?

This was the state of the case when Nathan
Monypenny's life temptation came upon him.  It
was a grim and notable January night—the fourth
day of the great thaw.  The rain had gusted and
blown and threshed and pelted upon those window-panes
of Whinnyliggate which looked towards the
west, till there was not a speck of dirt upon them
anywhere, except on the inside.  The snow had
melted fast under the pitiless downpour, and the
patient sheep stood about behind dyke-backs, or
with the courage of despair pushed through holes
in bedraggled hedges, to take a furtive nibble
at the brown stubble of last year's cornfields.

It was half-past nine when Nathan went to his
door to look out.  Nathan Monypenny had built
himself a lobby, and so was thought to be
"upsetting."  At that time for a man to wear a
white collar on weekdays, or to walk with his
hands out of his pockets, for a woman to be
"dressed" in the forenoon, or to wear gloves
except when actually entering the kirk door, for
a householder to whitewash his premises oftener
than once in five years, or to erect a porch to his
dwelling, was held to be "upsetting"—that is, he
(or she) was evidently setting up to be better than
their neighbours—an iniquity as unpopular in
Whinnyliggate as elsewhere in the world.

From this "upsetting" porch, then, Nathan
looked out.  A dash of rain, solid as if the little
house had shipped a sea in a perilous ocean
passage, took Nathan about the ankles and
rebuked him in a very practical fashion for coming
to the door, as is Galloway custom, in his
"stocking-feet."  It had blown in from a broken
"roan" pipe, which Nathan had been intending
to mend as soon as the snow went off the root.

Nathan shut the door and went within.  He
had seen little through the blackness save the
bright lights of the "Golden Lion," and heard
nothing above the long-drawn *whoo* of the storm
save the noisy chorus of the drinking song which
Doog Carnochan was singing.  Nathan knew it
was Doog's voice.  About this he could make no
mistake.  Had he not listened to it long ago,
when Doog sang in the village choir, knowing all
the while, full well, that he was singing his Dahlia's
heart out of her bosom?  Nathan Monypenny
sighed and thought of that desolate house down
at the other end of the street where that same
Dahlia would even then be putting her children to
bed.  He knew just the faintly wearied look there
would be on the face from which the youthful
roses had long since faded.  He would have given
all he possessed in the world to sit and watch
her thus, to comfort her in her loneliness; but,
resolutely putting the temptation aside, he drew
the great Bible that had been his father's off its
shelf and laid it on the table.

Then he brought a new candle from the shop
and lighted it.  But, so great was the storm
without that even in that comfortable inner room
the draught blew the flame about and the words
seemed to dance on the printed page.

Again and again during his reading Nathan
lifted his head and listened.  The "wag-at-the-wa'"
clock struck ten with enormous birr and
clatter, beginning with a buzz of anticipation five
minutes too soon, and continuing to emit applausive
"curmurrings" of internal satisfaction for full five
minutes after the actual stroke of the hour had
died on the ear.

Nathan paused in his reading to listen for
the sound of the roysterers' feet going homeward
from the "Golden Lion."  Doog would be one
of those, most likely the drunkest and the
noisiest.  He must be half-way down the street
by now, stumbling along with trippings and foul,
irresponsible words.  Now Dahlia would be opening
the door to him—Nathan knew the look on her
face.  When he shut his eyes he could see it
even more clearly.  In the middle dark of the
night, when he lay sleepless, staring at the ceiling,
he could see it most clearly of all.

For this reason he was in no hurry to finish
and put out the light; but it had to be done at
last.  And then with his head on the pillow
Nathan Monypenny bethought himself with small
satisfaction of his wasted life.  Of what use was
his house, his money in the bank, his eldership,
the praise of men, the satisfactory state of his
ledger?  After all, he was a lonely man, and out
there in the rain, dank and dripping, leafless and
forlorn, shivered the hedge over which in golden
weather he had lifted Dahlia Ogilvy.  At the
rose-bush in the corner she had once let him
kiss her.  Ah! but he must not think of that.
She was Dahlia Carnochan, and her drunken
husband had just reeled home to her.  Yet as
he sat and stared at the red peats on the hearth
Nathan Monypenny could think of nothing else,
and how her hair had had a flower-like scent as
he drew her to him that night when (for once
in his grey and barren life) the roses bloomed red
and smelled sweet.

But there was something else which kept
Nathan's nerves on the stretch, something that
was not summed up in his thoughts of Dahlia—an
apprehension of impending disaster.  Even
after he had gone to bed he lifted his head more
than once from the pillow, for his heart, stounding
and rushing in his ears, shut out all other noises.
Then he sat up and listened.  He seemed to
hear a cry above the roar and swelter of the
storm—a man's cry for help in mortal need.

Nathan rose and drew on his clothes hurriedly,
yet buttoning with his accustomed carefulness
an overcoat closely about him.  Then, leaving
a lighted candle on the table, he opened the door
and stepped out into the darkness.  The wind
met him like a wall.  The rain assailed his cheeks
and stunned his ears like a volley of bullets.
For a full minute he stood exposed to the broad
fury of the tempest, slashed by the driving sleet,
beaten and deafened into bewilderment by a
turmoil of buffeting gusts.  Then, recovering
himself a little, he turned aside the lee of the gable
of his cottage, which looked towards the north-east.
Here he was more sheltered, and though
the winds still sang stridently overhead, and the
swirls of lashing rain occasionally beat upon
him like "hale water," he could listen with some
composure for a repetition of the sound which
had disturbed him.

There—there it was again!  A hoarse cry,
ending in a curious gasp and gurgle of extinction.
Nathan almost thought that he could distinguish
his own name.

He put his hands to his mouth funnel-wise, to
form a sort of rough-speaking trumpet.  "Haloo!"
he shouted.  "Where are you?"

But it was an appreciable interval before any
voice replied, and then it seemed more like a
dying man's moan of anguish than any human
tones.

"It's somebody in the water!" Nathan cried,
and rushed down the little strip of garden which
separated his cottage from the Whinnyliggate
Burn.  This was ordinarily a clear little rivulet,
running lucidly brown and pleasantly at prattle
over a pebbly bed.  Boys fished for "bairdies"
in its three-foot-deep pools.  Iris and water-lily
fringed the swamps where it expanded into broad
sedgy ponds.  But in spite of its apparent
innocence, Whinnyliggate Lane was a stream of
a dangerous reputation.  Its ultimate source was
a deep mountain lake high among the bosoming
hills of Girthon, and when the rains descended and
the floods came, it sometimes chanced that the
inhabitants of the village awoke to find that their
prattling babe had become a giant, and that the
burn, which the night before had scarce covered
the pebbles in its bed, was now roaring wide and
strong, thirty feet from bank to bank, crumbling
their garden walls, and even threatening with
destruction the sacred Midtoon Brig itself, from
time immemorial the Palladium of the liberties and
the Parliament House of the gossip of the village.

The part of the bank down which Nathan ran
was used by the village smith for the important
work of "hooping wheels," or shrinking the iron
"shods" on the wheels of the red farm carts.
There were always a few rusty spare "hoops"
of solid iron scattered about, while a general *débris*
of blacksmithery, outcast and decrepit, cumbered
the burnside.

Before Nathan had gone far he found himself
splashing in the rising water.

"Loch Girthon has broken its dam!" he
murmured; "God help the puir soul that fa's
intil Whinnyliggate Lane this nicht!"

It was nearly pitch dark, and Nathan Monypenny,
standing up to his knees in the swirl of the
flood, called aloud, but got no reply from any
human voice.  The forward hurl of the storm
whooping overhead, the roar of the icy torrent
fighting with the caving banks beneath, were the
only sounds he could distinguish.

He was indeed on the point of leaving the water
edge and regaining his comfortable cottage, when,
wading through a shallow extension of the stream
near the bridge, his foot struck something soft,
which carried with it a curiously human suggestion.
He stopped and laid his hand on the rough cloth
and sodden sock which covered a man's ankle.

Though not great of stature, Nathan Monypenny
was both strong and brave.  He stooped and
endeavoured to disentangle the boot from the iron
hoop in which it was caught.  Succeeding in this,
he next endeavoured to pull the drowning man
out of the water.  But the head and upper part
of the body hung over the bank, and were drawn
down by the whole force of the torrent.

Again and again Nathan strove with all his
might, but the water wrenched and wrestled till
the body was almost snatched from his grasp.
More than once, indeed, Nathan came very near
going over the verge himself and sharing the fate
of the unfortunate whom he was endeavouring
to rescue.

At last, however, by dint of exertions almost
superhuman, he succeeded in getting the man
to the edge of the water, and immediately sank
exhausted on the sodden grass.  By-and-bye,
however, he staggered up, and without ever thinking
of going to seek for help, he succeeded in balancing
the unconscious burden upon his shoulders and
carrying it staggeringly to his own door.

The candle he had lighted was still burning,
though it seemed to Nathan that he must have
been a very long time away.  He let the body
fall upon the settle bed, and then, catching sight
of the pale features, dripping ghastly under the
flicker of the farthing dip, he sank dismayed on
a chair.

It was Doog Carnochan—Dahlia Carnochan's
husband.  The story was plain enough.  Stumbling
homeward from the "Golden Lion," he had missed
his drunken way, and wandered down by the
"hooping" place to the water's edge.

Nathan stared open-mouthed.  What should he
do?—go for assistance?  That perhaps had been
wisest—yet, to leave a man in whom there might
be some faint spark of life!  He rose and stretched
Doog's arms out over his head and back again
time after time, as he had once seen a doctor
do on the ice after a curling accident.

But there was no drawing of breath, nor could
he distinguish the least beating of the heart.  He
took down the little hand-mirror, which had satisfied
the frugal demands of his toilet all these years,
and put it close to the drowned man's lips.

Yes—no—it could not be, yet it was just possible
that there might be a faint dimming of the surface
of the mirror.

Then a hot wondrous thought leaped up in
Nathan Monypenny's heart—the devil in the garb
of an angel of light.

What if he were simply to hold his hand—the
man was as good as dead already.

And what then?  There rose up before Nathan
Monypenny a vision of the woman whom he had
loved more than life, of a pale and weary face
upon which he would rejoice to bring out the
roses as in the days of old.  Happiness would
do it, he knew.  And, like all true lovers, he
believed that he alone could make that one woman
happy.  Douglas Carnochan?  What was he but
a drunkard who had blighted two lives?  If a hand
were stirred to help him now, he would simply
go on and finish the fell work of the years.  His
Dahlia's face would grow yet more weary, her
shoulders more bent, and her eyes would less
seldom be raised from the ground till on a
thrice-welcome day the grave should be opened
before her.  Nathan knew it all by heart.

And this man—why did he deserve to live?
Had not he (Nathan) afforded him every chance?
Had he not obtained situation after situation for
him?  Had he not, in fact, kept Doog Carnochan
and his family for years?  Surely God did not
require from him this great final sacrifice.  It
was certainly a chance to do lasting good—a
happy woman, a happy man, a happy home!
Better, too, (so Nathan told himself) for Douglas
Carnochan's children.  He would be a father to
them—that which this their own father had never
been.  He would train, instruct, place them in
the world.  *But—he would be a murderer!*

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After an hour's hard work Doog Carnochan
sighed.  Five minutes more and he opened his
eyes.  They twinkled blackly up at his preserver
with a kind of ironical appreciation of the situation,
and he smiled.

"Ah, Nathan," he murmured, "sae it's you
that has drawn me oot o' the black flood water!
Man, ye had better hae let weel alane!"

On this occasion Doog was not a humourist
only.  He was also a true prophet.  For, from
every point of view save that of the Eternal
Decrees, it would indeed have been infinitely
better if Nathan had let well alone, and not
wrested back the unstable and degraded spirit
of Douglas Carnochan from the rushing waters
of Whinnyliggate Lane, that January night when
Loch Girthon burst its bounds.

For, as Nathan had forecast, even so it was.
Doog promptly returned to his wallowing in the
mire, without even making a pretence of amending
his restored life.  Duly he brought down his
wife's too early grey hairs in sorrow to the grave.
His children, left to run wild, divided their time
between the "Golden Lion" and the country
gaol.  Doog drank himself into an unhonoured
grave.  Only Nathan Monypenny remains, an
old man now, yet holding firm-lipped to a
conviction that God has explanations of the working
of His laws which He refuses to us on this
Hither Side, but which will be granted in full
to us when we "know as also we are known."

After Doog's death Nathan bought and
immediately razed to the ground the cottage at the
foot of the street where Dahlia Carnochan's life
tragedy had been enacted.  He has planted a
garden of flowers there, to the scorn and scandal
of the whole village, which is cut to its utilitarian
heart to see so much good potato land wasted—simply
wasted.

And every night before Nathan goes to bed
he steps quietly to the low place in the privet
hedge, over which he lifted little Dahlia Ogilvy
more than fifty years ago.  He does nothing when
he gets there.  He does not even pray.  He has
none to pray for, and he wants nothing for himself
save God's ultimate gift, easeful death, and that,
he knows, cannot long be delayed.

But if you watch him closely, you may see
him lift his hand and rest it gently upon the
stem of an ancient rose-tree, as if he had laid
it in benediction upon a young child's head.

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*Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.*

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