THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 JAMES J. MC BRIDE
 
 THE STICK IT MINISTER 
 
 AND SOME COMMON MEN.
 
 THE 
 
 STICKIT MINISTER 
 
 AND SOME COMMON MEN 
 
 BY 
 
 S. R. CROCKETT 
 
 Ncto |lorli 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND LONDON 
 1894
 
 Reprinted March, May, August, December, 1894.
 
 
 ^ LETTER DECLARATORY TO THE 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 Dear Louis Stevenson, — It is, I think, a remark of 
 your own that the imprudences of men, even oftener 
 than their ill deeds, come home to roost. At least, if 
 you have not so remarked it, you have not lived so 
 long without observing it. Now, in some wise, you 
 have at least a god-papa's responsibility for the 
 *' Stickit Minister," and if you have no spoon of silver 
 for the poor fellow, you will be expected at the least 
 duly to hear his catechism. 
 
 A month ago when, entirely without permission, 
 I dedicated the first edition of my prose first-born to 
 you, shame kept me from further connecting you 
 with what no one but yourself might ever read. As 
 for you, I had you in a cleft stick, as you shall presently 
 hear. But now a second edition and a preface impera- 
 tively required have together thawed my blateness. 
 But it occurs to me that you may deny any parental 
 responsibility, even vicarious. Well, as much is mostly 
 done on these occasions. In that case we will proceed 
 to lead the proof. You have, no doubt, forgotten a 
 power of good law in your time, and might have 
 forgotten even more had you ever known it. But not 
 the wit of the Great Lord President himself in his 
 best days could have shaken this case of mine. 
 
 Let me then suggest to you Saranac Lake, a bleak 
 sheet of ice " somewhere in America " — east winds, 
 hotels with a smell of cooking in the corridors, melting 
 gnows, and mountains. It is near flitting and settling
 
 3 A LETTER DECLARATORY. 
 
 day with you there, and as your custom is, you are 
 owing a many letters — to me among others, epistles one, 
 two, and three. For days you have passed your desk 
 with a kind of pride and wicked pleasure in stubbornly 
 defying your conscience. 
 
 But one morning in the gloaming, Conscience has 
 you down before you were fairly awake, and right 
 grimly takes certain long arrears out of you. Then, 
 according to your own account, your cries of penitence 
 might have been heard a mile. In this abased condi- 
 tion, the Black Dog riding hard on your back, you 
 made yourself responsible for words to the ensuing 
 effect : " Write," you said, " my Timothy, no longer 
 verse, but use Good Galloway Scots for your stomach's 
 sake — and mine. There be overly many at the old 
 tooth comb ! " 
 
 Well, 'tis scarce fair to hold you to it, I know ; but 
 your will thus fleeing in a mere sauve qui pent — 
 conscience hot-foot after you, hectoring with victory — 
 " If you do^ ril read it every word ! " says you. And 
 so I had you. 
 
 Often when in my turn the Black Dog hath been 
 upon me, and I seemed to see plainly that no Adam's 
 son would ever read a single line, least of all a reviewer 
 — have I rubbed hands and laughed to think of you in 
 that spotless linen suit, sitting, as you imagined, safe 
 and cool under whatever may be the Samoan substitute 
 for a rose. 
 
 But I hold to my pound of flesh. Will you, nill 
 you, you must read — and every word. 
 
 Nevertheless, if you find anything here, even a 
 thousand sea miles from good, it is so because ever 
 since Saranac, I have been like Macready in Edinburgh 
 when the Great Unknown came in, " playing to Sir 
 Walter." 
 
 S. R. CROCKETT. 
 
 Penicuik, Midlothian, April z^, 1893.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 fAGB 
 
 THE STICKIT MINISTER •••••• 7 
 
 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS 15 
 
 TRIALS FOR LICENSE BY THE PRESBYTERY OF PIT- 
 
 SCOTTIE 28 
 
 "THE HEATHER LINTIE " ..«••• 3^ 
 
 THE SPLIT IN THE MARROW KIRK . • • t 53 
 
 THE PROBATIONER ...•••• 66 
 
 THE LAMMAS PREACHING 79 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON, SCHOOLMASTER 9I 
 
 WHY DAVID OLIPHANT REMAINED A PRESBYTERIAN I06 
 THE THREE MAISTER PETER SLEES, MINISTERS IN 
 
 THE PARISH OF COUTHY . . . . II4 
 
 THE COURTSHIP OF ALLAN FAIRLEY, OF EARLSWOOD I24 
 
 JOHN SMITH OF ARKLAND PREPARES HIS SERMON I33 
 A DAY IN THE LIFE OF THE REVEREND JAMES PITBYE, 
 
 MINISTER OF NETHER DULLARG . . • . 142 
 
 THE GLEN KELLS SHORT LEET . . .,#149 
 
 3
 
 4 CONTENTS, 
 
 rAGB 
 
 BOANERGES SIMPSON'S ENCUMBRANCE . . . I59 
 
 A KNIGHT-ERRANT OF THE STREETS , . . I71 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY, MISSION WORKER . 181 
 
 ENSAMPLES TO THE FLOCK 202 
 
 THE SIEGE OF M'LURG'S MILL ..... 2l6 
 
 THE MINISTER OF SCAUR CASTS OUT WITH HIS MAKER 231 
 JOHN BLACK, CRITIC IN ORDINARY . . . . 241 
 
 THE CANDID FRIEND ....,, 250 
 
 A MIDSUMMER IDYLL ...,„,, 259 
 THE TUTOR OF CURLYWEE ..so 274
 
 To 
 
 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON^ 
 
 of Scotland and Samoa^ 
 
 1 dedicate these stories 
 
 of that grey Galloway land, 
 
 wke}'e, about the graves of the Martyri, 
 
 the whaups are crying — 
 
 his heart remembers how.
 
 / h^ish to acknowledge a 
 continual indebtedness to 
 the memory of the reverend 
 william howie wylie, late 
 editor of the " christian 
 leader" who first gave hos- 
 pitality TO THESE STORM- 
 TOSSED WAIFS AND EST RAYS, 
 THEY ARE REPRINTED FROM 
 THE COLUMNS OF THAT JOUR- 
 NAL BY THE COURTESY OF HIS 
 SONf THE PRESENT PROPRIETOR
 
 THE STICK IT MINISTER. 
 
 THE RENUNCIATION OF ROBERT ERASER, FOR- 
 MERLY STUDENT IN DIVINITY. 
 
 The crows were wheeling behind the plough in 
 scattering clusters, and plumping singly upon the 
 soft, thick grubs which the ploughshare was 
 turning out upon an unkindly world. It was a 
 bask blowy day in the end of March, and there 
 was a hint of storm in the air — a hint emphasised 
 for those skilled in weather lore by the presence 
 of half a dozen sea gulls, white vagrants among 
 the black coats, blown by the south wind up from 
 the Solway — a snell, Scotch, but not unfriendly day 
 altogether. Robert Fraser bent to the plough 
 handles, and cast a keen and wary eye towards 
 his guide posts on the ridge. His face was colour- 
 less, even when a dash of rain came swirling across 
 from the crest of Ben Gairn, whose steep bulk 
 heaved itself a blue haystack above the level 
 horizon of the moorland. He was dressed like
 
 8 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 any other ploughman of the south uplands — rough 
 homespun much the worse for wear, and leggings 
 the colour of the red soil which he was reversing 
 with the share of his plough. Yet there was that 
 about Robert Fraser which marked him no common 
 man. When he paused at the top of the ascent, 
 and stood with his back against the horns of the 
 plough, the country man's legacy from Adam of 
 the Mattock, he pushed back his weatherbeaten 
 straw hat with a characteristic gesture, and showed 
 a white forehead with blue veins channelling it — a 
 damp, heavy lock of black hair clinging to it as in 
 Severn's picture of John Keats on his deathbed. 
 Robert Fraser saw a couple of black specks which 
 moved smoothly and evenly along the top of the 
 distant dyke of the highway. He stood still for a 
 moment or two watching them. As they came 
 nearer, they resolved themselves into a smart young 
 man sitting in a well-equipped gig drawn by a 
 showily actioned horse, and driven by a man in 
 livery. As they passed rapidly along the road the 
 hand of the young man appeared in a careless 
 wave of recognition over the stone dyke, and 
 Robert Fraser lifted his slack reins in staid ac- 
 knowledgment. It was more than a year since 
 the brothers had looked each other so nearly in 
 the eyes. They were Dr. Henry Fraser, the rising
 
 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 9 
 
 physician of Cairn Edward, and his elder brother 
 Robert, once Student of Divinity at Edinburgh 
 College, whom three parishes knew as " The 
 Stickit Minister." 
 
 When Robert Eraser stabled his horses that 
 night and went in to his supper, he was not surprised 
 to find his friend, Saunders M'Quhirr of Drumqu- 
 hat, sitting by the peat fire in the "room." Almost 
 the only thing which distinguished the Stickit 
 Minister from the other small farmers of the parish 
 of Dullarg was the fact that he always sat in the 
 evening by himself ben the hoose, and did not use the 
 kitchen in common with his housekeeper and herd 
 boy save only at meal-times. Robert had taken to 
 Saunders ever since— the back of his ambition 
 broken— he had settled down to the farm, and he 
 welcomed him with shy cordiality. 
 
 " You'll take a cup of tea, Saunders ? " he asked. 
 
 ** Thank ye, Robert, I wadna be waur o't," re- 
 turned his friend. 
 
 " I saw your brither the day," said Saunders 
 M'Quhirr, after the tea cups had been cleared away, 
 and the silent housekeeper had replaced the books 
 upon the table. Saunders picked a couple of them 
 up, and, having adjusted his glasses, he read the 
 titles—" Milton's Works," and a volume of a trans- 
 lation of " Dorner's Person of Christ"
 
 lO THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 " I saw yer brither the day ; he maun be gettin* 
 a big practice ! " 
 
 " Ay ! " said Robert Fraser, very thoughtfully. 
 
 Saunders M'Quhirr glanced up quickly. It was, 
 of course, natural that the unsuccessful elder brother 
 should envy the prosperous younger, but he had 
 thought that Robert Fraser was living on a different 
 plane. It was one of the few things that the friends 
 had never spoken of, though every one knew why 
 Dr. Fraser did not visit his brother's little farm. 
 " He's gettin' in wi' the big fowk noo, an' thinks 
 maybe that his brither wad do him nae credit." 
 That was the way the clash of the countryside 
 explained the matter. 
 
 " I never told you how I came to leave the 
 college, Saunders," said the younger man, resting 
 his brow on a hand that even the horn of the plough 
 could not make other than diaphanous. 
 
 "No," said Saunders quietly, with a tender gleam 
 coming into the humorsome kindly eyes that 
 lurked under their bushy tussocks of grey eye- 
 brow. Saunders' humour lay near the Fountain of 
 Tears. 
 
 "No," continued Robert Fraser, "I have not spoken 
 of it to so many ; but you've been a good frien' to 
 me, Saunders, and I think you should hear it. I have 
 not tried to set myself right with folks in the general,
 
 THE STICKIT MINISTER. II 
 
 but I would like to X^lyou see clearly before I go 
 my ways to Him who seeth from the beginning." 
 
 " Hear till him," said Saunders ; " man, yer hoast 
 [cough] is no' near as sair as it was i' the back-end. 
 Ye'll be here lang efter me ; but lang or short, 
 weel do ye ken, Robert Fraser, that ye need not to 
 pit yersel' richt wi' me. Hev I no' kenned ye sins 
 ye war the size o' twa scrubbers ? " 
 
 " I thank you, Saunders," said Robert, "but I am 
 well aware that I'm to die this year. No, no, not 
 a word. It is the Lord's will ! It's more than 
 seven year now since I first kenned that my days 
 were to be few. It was the year my faither died, 
 and left Harry and me by our lane. 
 
 " He left no sillar to speak of, just plenty 
 to lay him decently in the kirkyard among his 
 forebears. I had been a year at the Divinity Hall 
 then, and was going up to put in my discourses for 
 the next session. I had been troubled with my 
 breast for some time, and so called one day at the 
 infirmary to get a word with Sir James. He was 
 very busy when I went in, and never noticed me 
 till the hoast took me. Then on a sudden he 
 looked up from his papers, came quickly over 
 to me, put his own white handkerchief to my 
 mouth, and quietly said, ' Come into my room, 
 laddie 1 Ay, he was a good man and a faithful,
 
 12 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 Sir James, if ever there was one. He told me that 
 with care I might live five or six years, but it would 
 need great care. Then a strange prickly coldness 
 came over me, and I seemed to walk light-headed 
 in an atmosphere suddenly rarified. I think I know 
 now how the mouse feels under the air-pump." 
 
 " What's that ? " queried Saunders. 
 
 " A cruel ploy not worth speaking of," continued 
 the Stickit Minister. " Well, I found something 
 in my throat when I tried to thank him. But I 
 came my ways home to the Dullarg, and night and 
 day I considered what was to be done, with so 
 much to do and so little time to do it. It was 
 clear that both Harry and me could not go through 
 the college on the little my faither had left. So late 
 one night I saw my way clear to what I should do. 
 Harry must go, I must stay. I must come home 
 to the farm, and be my own ' man ' ; then I could 
 send Harry to the college to be a doctor, for he had 
 no call to the ministry as once I thought I had. 
 More than that, it was laid on me to tell Jessie 
 Loudon that Robert Fraser was no better than a 
 machine set to go five year. 
 
 "Now all these things I did, Saunders, but 
 there's no use telling you what they cost in the 
 doing. They were right to do, and they were 
 done. I do not repent any of them. I would do
 
 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 13 
 
 them all over again were they to do, but it's been 
 bitterer than I thought." 
 
 The Stickit Minister took his head off his hand 
 and leaned wearily back in his chair. 
 
 "The story went over the country that I had 
 failed in my examinations, and I never said that I 
 had not. But there were some that knew better 
 who might have contradicted the report if they had 
 liked. I settled down to the farm, and I put 
 Harry through the college, sending all but a bare 
 living to him in Edinburgh. I worked the work 
 of the farm, rain and shine, ever since, and have 
 been for these six years the * stickit minister ' that 
 all the world kens the day. Whiles Harry did not 
 think that he got enough. He was always writing 
 for more, and not so very pleased when he did 
 not get it. He was aye different to me, ye ken, 
 Saunders, and he canna be judged by the same 
 standard as you and me." 
 
 " I ken," said Saunders M'Quhirr, a spark of 
 light lying in the quiet of his eyes. 
 
 "Well," continued Robert Fraser, lightened by 
 Saunders' apparent agreement, "the time came 
 when he was clear from the college, and wanted a 
 practice. He had been ill-advised that he had not 
 got his share of the farm, and he wanted it selled 
 to share and share alike. Now I kenned, and you
 
 14 THE STICK IT MINISTER. 
 
 ken, Saunders, that it's no' worth much in one share 
 let alone two. So I got the place quietly bonded, 
 and bought him old Dr. Aitkin's practice in Cairn 
 Edward with the money. 
 
 " I have tried to do my best for the lad, for it 
 was laid on me to be my brother's keeper. He 
 doesna come here much," continued Robert, " but 
 I think he's not so ill against me as he was. 
 Saunders, he waved his hand to me when he was 
 gaun by the day ! " 
 
 "That was kind of him," said Saunders M'Quhirr. 
 
 " Ay, was it no'," said the Stickit Minister, 
 eagerly, with a soft look in his eyes as he glanced 
 up at his brother's portrait in cap and gown, which 
 hung over the china dogs on the mantelpiece. 
 
 " I got my notice this morning that the bond is 
 to be called up in November," said Robert "So 
 I'll be obliged to flit." 
 
 Saunders M'Quhirr started to his feet in a 
 moment. " Never," he said, with the spark of fire 
 alive now in his eyes, "never as lang as there's a beast 
 on Drumquhat, or a poun' in Cairn Edward Bank," 
 bringing down his clenched fist upon the Milton on 
 the table. 
 
 "No, Saunders, no," said the Stickit Minister, 
 very gently ; " I thank you kindly, but fll be flitted 
 before that I "
 
 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS 
 
 It was a bright June day when the Reverend 
 Hugh Hamilton was placed in the little kirk of 
 the Cowdenknowes. He was twenty-two years of 
 age, and he had flushed like a girl of sixteen when 
 he preached as a candidate before the congregation. 
 But he did not blush when he was ordained by the 
 laying on of the hands of the presbytery. There 
 was a look of the other world on his face as he 
 knelt in sight of all the people to receive on his 
 yellow hair the hands of the assembled brethren. 
 Hugh Hamilton had been devoted to temple 
 service, like Samuel, from his birth ; yet there 
 had never been anything of the " pious boy " about 
 him even as a lad. He could always climb a tree 
 or run a race to the top of the Bow Fell with any 
 one. He w?3 therefore never lightly treated by 
 his companions, but as he had not been known to 
 tell a lie even when circumstances made it ax- 
 is
 
 i6 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS. 
 
 tremely convenient, nor even so much as steal a 
 turnip — a plant in which there are no rights of 
 property in Scotland — his companions had long 
 ago decided that there must be a lack of sound 
 morality somewhere about him. He was a popular 
 sort of boy, but was not considered to have very 
 good principles. 
 
 At college he spent most of his time in helping 
 the laggards of his companions over the numerous 
 examination fences that barred their way — mere 
 skipping-ropes to him, but very five-barred gates 
 to the Rodericks and Dugalds who had come down 
 from the hills with the grace of God in their hearts, 
 a bag of oatmeal coarse ground for brose in their 
 wooden boxes, and twelve pounds in single notes 
 inside their waistcoats to see them through the 
 session. 
 
 One of these came all the way to Hugh's ordi- 
 nation. He was now the Rev. Roderick M'Leod 
 of the parish of Kilmuir in the Lews, and he made 
 the speech of the evening. It ran or rather hirpled 
 somewhat as follows : 
 
 " I hef arose to speak, no' that I am that goot 
 at the speakin', but I can not gang away back to the 
 Hielan's an' keep silence on this occasion. For if 
 it had no been for your minister and the kindness 
 of Providence, it's no' here that I would hef been,
 
 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS. 17 
 
 nor yet at my awn manse in the Lews ; but it's 
 sittin' I would hef been on a stone dyke in the 
 Ross of Mull keepin' the craws aff three rigs of 
 pitawties. If I could speak to you in the Gaelic, I 
 would tell you the feelin's that's in my heart for 
 your minister, but the English is no' a langvvage 
 that is good for expressin' the feelin's in. I hef no 
 wife at awl, but if I had ten wifes I wouldna think 
 ass muckle o' them ass I do of your minister for 
 his kindness to a puir lad from Mull." 
 
 It was thought to be a very happy settlement, 
 and Hugh Hamilton felt it to be a consecration. 
 Had he been called to minister to a congregation 
 of the angels in some rural parish of heaven, 
 he could not have held higher opinions of his 
 parishioners. He might have had a fair chance in 
 the garden of Eden to the general advantage of 
 the race, but he was sorely handicapped in the 
 Cowdenknowes. He was aware that all men 
 did not act aright on every occasion ; but Hugh 
 considered this to be not so much their own fault, 
 as a proof of the constant agency of that power 
 which worketh for evil, of which he was almost 
 morbidly conscious in his own soul. 
 
 His first sermon was a wonder. As the theolo- 
 gical postman said, " He was ayont the cluds afore 
 we could get oor books shut, oot o* sicht gin we
 
 i8 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS. 
 
 gat oorsel's settled in oor seats, an' we saw nae 
 mair o' him till he said, ' Amen.' " But Hugh 
 Hamilton knew nothing of this. He had been in 
 high communion with the unseen, and he doubted 
 not that each one of his hearers had accompanied 
 him all the way and seen the sights of the seventh 
 heavens as he had seen them that day. 
 
 As he walked down the street on the following 
 day he swung along to an unheard melody — the 
 music of the other world playing in his ear. But 
 he did not know enough of this world to catch the 
 eye of the wife of the richest merchant in the place 
 when she had got all ready to bow to him. 
 
 " An' him had his tea in my verra hoose on 
 Wednesday three weeks, nae farther gane, the 
 prood upstart ! " said she. 
 
 Hugh Hamilton went on to the deathbed of a 
 child, all unconscious that he had made an enemy 
 for life. But Mrs. Penpont went home in a white 
 rage, and told her husband the story with frills and 
 furbelows of adornment — how the new minister 
 had " slichtit her, the Bailie's wife, that had taen 
 twa seats in his kirk juist for oblcegement — her 
 that was a laird's dochter " 
 
 " I wadna work the auld man's kail-yard ower 
 sair ! " said her husband. 
 
 "An' you're but little better, Andra Penpont,
 
 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS. 19 
 
 jibin' an jcerin' at yer ain marriet wife, you that 
 wad hae been nocht ava but for what ye got wi' 
 me!" 
 
 " 'Deed, Jess, I wad let that flee stick to the wa' 
 gin I war you. A' that I ever gat wi' you has 
 been paid for twa or three times ower ! " 
 
 But Mrs. Andrew did not stand fire, for her 
 husband knew how to keep a tight grip of these 
 two vast forces in affairs domestic — the purse and 
 the temper. Great power is given to him who 
 knoweth how to keep these two. 
 
 Hugh Hamilton was not a great success in the 
 pulpit. " He's far ower the heids o' the fowk," was 
 the complaint laid against him where the wiseacres 
 most did congregate. " Withoot doot he has 
 graun' heid-knowledge, but it's no' to be lookit 
 for that a laddie like him should hae the leevin' 
 experience o' religion." 
 
 But he had a mysterious fascination for children 
 of all ages. They recognised that in somewise he 
 was kin to them. The younger they were, the 
 stronger seemed the attraction which drew them 
 to the minister. He seemed to be a citizen 
 of that country forth from which they had lately 
 voyaged. There were a dozen of them ever about 
 his knees, listening rapt while he told them the 
 simple stories which pleased them best, or as he
 
 20 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS. 
 
 sang to them in a voice like a heavenly flute or a 
 lonely bird singing in the first of Spring. 
 
 " I like uae siccan wark," said some, " how is he to 
 fricht them when he comes to catechise them if he 
 makes so free wi' them the noo, that's what I wad 
 like to ken ? " " Na, an' anither thing, he's aye 
 sing, singin' at his hymns. Noo, there may be 
 twa-three guid hymns, though I hae my doots — 
 but among a' that he sings, it Stan's to reason that 
 there maun be a hantle o' balderdash ! " 
 
 Meantime Hugh Hamilton went about as he did 
 ever with his head in the air, unconscious that he 
 had an evil-wisher in the world, smiling with boyish 
 frankness on all with his short-sighted blue eyes. 
 There was not a lass in the parish but looked 
 kindly upon him, for Hugh's eyes had the 
 dangerous gift of personal speech, so that the 
 slightest word from him seemed under the radiance 
 of his glance to be weighty with personal meanings. 
 If one heart beat faster as he walked down the 
 long green Kirk Loan with May Carruthers, the 
 belle of the parish, that heart was not Hugh 
 Hamilton's. He was trysted to a fairer bride, 
 and like Him whom he took to be his Master in 
 all things, he longed to lay down his life for the 
 people. But he was too humble to expect that 
 his God would so honour him.
 
 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS. 4i 
 
 He awakened memories of that young James 
 Renwick who died in the Edinburgh Grass- Market, 
 last of them who counted not their lives dear for 
 the sake of the Scottish Covenant ; but he had 
 something too of the over-sweetness which marks 
 certain of Rutherford's letters. His was a life 
 foredoomed to bitter experience, and to the out- 
 sider his actual experience seemed of the grimmest 
 and bitterest, yet he never thought himself worth 
 even self-pity, that most enervating draught which 
 any man can drink. Like the Israelitish city he 
 was ringed round with unseen celestial defences 
 and passed unscathed through the most terrible 
 experiences. 
 
 So two years went over the young man's head, 
 and to the few who best understood him he 
 seemed like an angel entertained unawares. But 
 in the secret darks of the stairs, in the whispered 
 colloquy of the parlours, an enemy was at work ; 
 and murderous whispers, indefinite, disquieting, 
 suggesting vague possibilities of all things evil, 
 brought with them the foul reek of the pit where 
 they were forged, paralysing his work and killing 
 his best usefulness. But Hugh Hamilton wotted 
 not at all of it. What threats came to him by 
 the penny post or were slipped into his letter-box 
 on dark nights, were known only to himself and
 
 22 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS. 
 
 his Maker. Probably he held them to be only 
 what he must expect from the Accuser of the 
 Brethren. At least, he made no sound, and none 
 knew if he suffered. Elders dropped away, mem- 
 bers lifted their lines and went to other com- 
 munions. Only his Sabbath school remained 
 unimpaired. There his marvellous voice shrilled 
 clearer and ever clearer, even after there remained 
 no teacher to assist him, as though he had led 
 his little flock to the very gate of heaven, and were 
 now pleading with the Guardian of the Keys to 
 let the children in straightway to their inheritance. 
 Children of strict and orthodox parents were re- 
 moved, but the Sabbath school remained full. For 
 this strange young minister, a fairy changeling 
 surely, had but to go out into the highways and 
 the hedges to compel others to come in. 
 
 Then in a little there came the clamant and 
 definite bitterness of the " Fama Clamosa " — the 
 moving of the Presbytery which had licensed and 
 ordained him, by his ruling elder and one other 
 of the congregation. In the reverend court itself 
 there was, at first, only bitterness and dissension. 
 Hugh Hamilton met his accusers openly, but there 
 was no fiery indignation in his defence, only a 
 certain sad disappointment. He had received his 
 first backset, and it told on him like a sentence
 
 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS. 23 
 
 of death. His faith in man died in a day ; there- 
 fore he clung more closely to his faith in a God 
 who looketh not on the outward appearance, but 
 on the heart. 
 
 He could not conceive how it was possible that 
 any should for a moment believe those things which 
 certain witnessed against him. He had brought 
 no witnesses. He would employ no lawyer. If 
 the Presbytery thought fit in the interests of the 
 religion of the parish, he would demit his charge ; 
 if they judged it right he would accept deposition 
 without a word. 
 
 But Hugh Hamilton was not to be deposed. 
 Suspended during inquiry, he still did the few 
 duties which remained to him, and visited where- 
 ever there was a door open for him to enter. There 
 were not many. This was for him " that Mount 
 Sinai in Arabia " beneath which his Scripture 
 told him the Christ's Man must a while sojourn. 
 
 One morning the farmer of Drumrash v/ent out 
 early among his beasts, and was surprised to find 
 them grouped in a dense swaying mass about 
 an empty quarry, horning and shouldering one 
 another in their eagerness to approach. Mys- 
 terious sounds arose from the whin-bound quarry 
 hole, disquieting even in the cool dawn of the 
 morning. The farmer crept to a gap in the
 
 24 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS. 
 
 whin-bushes, and through it he was astonished 
 to see the suspended minister of the Covvden- 
 knowes with a face all suffused with joy, singing 
 words he could not understand to a tune no man 
 had ever heard before ; while about him, ever 
 nearer and nearer, the " nowt " beasts pressed, 
 tossing their sullen fronts, silent and fascinated 
 by the magic of the singing.^ 
 
 Then the farmer remembered that he had heard 
 tell that the minister had wandered on the hills 
 singing and praying to himself ever since they 
 shut the door of his Sabbath school against him. 
 
 Gradually the words came clearer — 
 
 " He was despised . . . despised . • • 
 And rejected of men, 
 A Man of Sorrows, 
 And acquainted with grief** 
 
 So the melody swayed and thrilled, breaking for 
 a moment into delicious heart-breaking silences, 
 anon returning with thrilling power, like the voice 
 of a martyr praising God out of the place of fire. 
 Drumrash felt his eyes wet with unaccustomed 
 tears. He had never heard of Handel, and if he 
 had he need not have been less affected, for surely 
 
 ' "Horae Subsecivae." By Dr. John Brown. 2nd series, 
 p. 362.
 
 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS. 25 
 
 never was the great music sung in such wise or to 
 such an audience. 
 
 " He was despisid . . . despisid . 
 And rejected of tnen ..." 
 
 • • 
 
 The lowering foreheads and tossing horns 
 drooped lower, and hung over the singer like the 
 surge of a breaking wave. 
 
 *' A Man of Sorrows, 
 And acquainted with grief?' 
 
 The song rose, beating tremulously against the 
 sky, till the listener felt his heart brimming to the 
 overflow ; so, abruptly rising, he turned and fled, 
 leaving Hugh Hamilton alone with his last con- 
 gregation. 
 
 Two hours afterwards a shepherd came that way 
 by chance seeking a lost lamb, and in its place he 
 found the minister of Cowdenknowes, fallen still 
 and silent, his face turned to the sky, and the dew 
 of the morning yet wet upon it. There was a light 
 of emancipation on his brow, for he had seen the 
 Vision which every man shall one day see, and 
 it had not affrighted him. There was even a kind 
 of triumph under the film which had begun to 
 gather over the eyes of translucent blue. 
 
 They buried him at his own expense in the 
 deserted kirkyard at Kirkclaugh, a mile or two
 
 26 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS. 
 
 along the windy brow of the sea cliff, looking to 
 the sale of his books to defray the cost. There 
 were just six people at the funeral, and one of 
 them was the farmer of Drumrash. But the whole 
 countryside stood afar off to see what the end 
 would be. Only the " nowt " beasts came gazing 
 and wondering into the unfenced and deserted 
 burying-ground as though they at least would 
 have mourned for him who had drawn them about 
 him when other congregation he had none. 
 , . . . • • 
 
 Hardly a week after the minister was laid to 
 rest, the dead body of the Strange Woman, whose 
 accusation had wrought the ill — one of small re- 
 pute but infinite power of mischief — was found, 
 wave-driven, at the foot of the Kirkclaugh Heuchs. 
 On the cliff edge above there lay a hat and veil, 
 the latter neatly folded, and on it a note pinned — 
 
 " I can live no longer. I betrayed innocent 
 blood. As Judas betrayed his Master, so I sold 
 him — yet got neither money nor kiss. Now I also 
 go to my own place." 
 
 The minister's books fetched enough to put up 
 a little tombstone of red sandstone simply graver 
 with his name and age. But the farmer of Drum- 
 rash thought it looked bare and unkindly, so 
 taking counsel of no man, he laid his wait one
 
 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS. 27 
 
 day for Bourtree, the drunken stone-cutter. Him 
 he stood over with the horsewhip of coercion till 
 he had done his will. So now, in staggering 
 capitals, you may read the words — 
 
 HUGH HAMILTON, 
 
 Aged 24 Years. 
 
 ''*^ He was despised . . . atid rejected of inen.^ 
 
 And still Hugh Hamilton's last congregation toss 
 their sullen frontals, and nose with the moist and 
 stupid affection of " bestial " the crumbling stone 
 which, on that wind-vexed and unkindly promon- 
 tory, tells the infrequent wayfarer of yet another 
 " Rejected of Men."
 
 TRIALS FOR LICENSE BY THE PRES- 
 BYTERY OF PITSCOTTIE. 
 
 When I cam' hame from my first presbytery at 
 Pitscottie, the wife was awfu' keen to ken a' that 
 had passed, for she said, " If it's sae graun' to 
 Hsten to yae minister on Sabbath, what maun it no 
 be to hear a dizzen a' at yince ? " But there was 
 juist where my wife was mistaen that time what- 
 ever, for as a matter o' experience, it's a moral 
 impossibeelity to hear ony yin o' twal ministers 
 when they are a' speakin' at yae time. 
 
 But I said to Mrs. MaWhurr, " Do you no' think 
 that ye had better wait till the forenicht, an' then 
 ye can hear a' aboot it, no in snips an' clippets? 
 Rob Adair will likely be ower frae the toon, for 
 he was gaun to come this way to gie a look at 
 some score or twa o' Kirkconnel's yowes." 
 
 So in the efternoon she pat on a bit fire in the 
 parlour ben the hoose, which she disna do unless 
 we're gaun' to hae company, and by the time that 
 
 aS
 
 TRIALS FOR LICENSE. 29 
 
 Rob Adair cam' she was in graun' fettle to listen. 
 For ye see this was the first time that I had ever 
 been presbytery elder, an' oor minister was fell 
 anxious for me to gang doon to Pitscottie, for 
 there was a lad that he kenned comin' a' the road 
 frae Enbra' for leecense to preach the gospel, an' 
 the minister thocht that some o' the auld yins o' 
 the presbytery micht be ower sair on the young 
 man. 
 
 Rob Adair cam' in baith wat an' dry, an' to help 
 baith, got a change o' claes an' his tea oot o' oor 
 best cheena. Then when the pipes were gaun weel, 
 they baith looked ower at me. Brawly kenned I 
 that they were hotchin' for me to gie them the 
 presbytery ; but I gaed on askin' Rob aboot the 
 price o* beasts, an' hoo mony lambs had been 
 selled on the hill that day, till my wife could stand 
 it no longer. 
 
 " Saunders MaWhurr," says she, " if there's a 
 waur tried woman than me or a mair aggravatin' 
 man than you in sax pairishes, I dinna ken them." 
 
 So I began. 
 
 "Weel, as ye ken, I was no* that carin' aboot 
 gaun to the presbytery at the first go-off, but oor 
 minister wadna be said ' No ' to." 
 
 "■ An' you're no' the man to say it gin he war," 
 said the mistress.
 
 30 TRIALS FOR LICENSE. 
 
 ** She means that me an' the minister 'grees 
 fine," said I to Rob, "though he wasna my man 
 when he cam' on accoont o' his giein' oot a Para- 
 phrase. This was my opeenion at that time ; he 
 haes a harmonium noo i* the kirk, an' Alexander 
 M'Quhirr, Drumquhat, was the first name on the 
 list o' subscribers. Change ? — I wadna gie a 
 whustle for a man that canna change when he 
 fin's he's wrang ; so it's no wonder oor minister 
 an' me's verra pack. He has taen me a lang gate 
 sins him an' me fell aquant. I used to think Jeems 
 Carlyle the only yin o' the Carlyles that had come 
 to ony guid [an' deed there were few better sheep 
 in Dumfries market on Wednesdays than Jeems 
 Carlyle's] ; but oor minister, wi' the help o' the 
 Almichty an' some bulks o' Tammas Carlyle, 
 thrawn stick as he was, hae garred anither thrawn 
 stick o' a farmer body lift his een abune the newt 
 an' the shairn." 
 
 " Skip the minister, an' the haivers the twa o' ye 
 talk aboot auld Tam — drive on wi' yer presby- 
 tery ! " said my wife. In the generality, ye ken, 
 I'm ower slow for the wife ; she kind o' likes a' 
 things to gang forrit gye-an' sherp, an' wad gar a' 
 the hens hae their layin' dune i' the mornin' an 
 their nests ma le afore they gaed oot to pick a 
 single corn.
 
 TRIALS FOR LICENSE. 31 
 
 Yince I offended her sair when the factor was 
 here to his tea. " Hae a bit o' this skim milk 
 cheese, Factor," says I, " it's my wife's ain makkin', 
 an' I'se warrant there's neyther dirt nor butter 
 in't ! " 
 
 " Weel, the presbytery be't," says I, for I saw 
 that my wife's patience, never verra lang at the 
 best, was comin' near an end. I ken the length o't 
 to a hair as by this time I hae a good richt to do. 
 " Weel, the coort met an' was constitutit." 
 
 " What's that ? " asked Rob Adair. 
 
 " Fegs, I do not ken, ye'll hae to ask the clerk, it 
 was him that said it," says I, " an' then there was 
 reports, an' strings o' feegures like laddies' coonts 
 [sums] ; but naebody payed muckle attention, but 
 talkit to their neebours till the clerk caaed * Order ! ' 
 Then they were quaite for half a meenit, an' syne 
 at it again. Deed the clerk talkit too when he 
 didna mind." 
 
 " Deer sirce, an' that's a presbytery. I thocht it 
 was like a week o' sacraments ! " said my wife. 
 
 " Verra far frae that," saj'S I, " for o' a' the 
 craiturs to fecht, doos an' ministers are the maist 
 quarrelsome." 
 
 " Did oor minister fecht ? " asked the mistress, 
 verra pointed. 
 
 " Na, he was raither a peacemaker, so to speak,"
 
 3* TRIALS FOR LICENSE. 
 
 says I, cautious like ; " of coorse a man haes whiles 
 ' o speak his mind." 
 
 " Ow ! he's the wee white hen that never lays 
 iway, oor minister, I ken," says she, dried 
 like. 
 
 " Ye never war the bird to fyle yer ain kirk 
 riggin," said Rob. Whiles I'm feared that auld 
 Rob is gettin' a wee doited. 
 
 "Yer keepin' me frae the presbytery wi' yer 
 haivers," says I, an' that made them as quaite as 
 pussy. " Weel, in a wee it came on to the leec^n- 
 sin', an' the laddie frae Enbra' was bidden to step 
 in alang wi' twa ither lads frae the neebourhood 
 that had compleetit their studies at the college. The 
 Enbra' laddie had been an' unco graun' scholar — 
 had gotten the Knox Fellowship, I think they 
 caaed it, an' was noo gaun oot to be a missionar' to 
 the haythen. So afore they could let him gang 
 they bood examine him on the Hebrew an' Latin, 
 an' ither langwiges that naebody speaks noo. I 
 wasna lang in seein' that the lad kenned mair 
 than maybes a' the presbytery pitten thegither. 
 [" Surely no' than yer ain minister I" pat in my 
 wife.] An' for the life o' me I couldna see what 
 they could fin' faut wi'. The ither twa were nice 
 lads aneuch, an' they hummered an' ha'ed through 
 some gate, but the Enbra' lad never made a stam-
 
 TRIALS FOR LICENSE. 33 
 
 mer, an* had his answers oot afore they could read 
 their quastions off the paper." 
 
 " But I thocht that they war a' sair again the 
 paper," said my wife. 
 
 " Weel, sae they maistly are, but some o' them 
 are maybes a wee mair comfortable wi' a bit note 
 when it comes to the Greek an' the Laitin. 
 
 " At ony rate, it wasna till they cam' to the dis- 
 coorses that there was ony o' the kin' o' din that 
 oor minister was sae feared o'. The laddie was 
 askit to read yin o' his discoorses — I kenna what it 
 was aboot, something ony wye that he had wraitten 
 in the Laitin, but was askit to read in the English 
 as bein' mair convenienter for the presbytery. 
 
 " He wasna half wey through when up gets 
 Maister Begbie frae Soorkirk, michty door-lookin', 
 an' he says, ' I'll no' sit in this presbytery an' listen 
 to ony siccan doctrine, frae a Knox Fella' or ony 
 ither fella 1 ' says he. 
 
 "An' wi' that Maister Pitbye o' the Dullarg gat 
 himsel' on his legs; ' I canna help thinkin',' says he, 
 ' that we wad not hev been asked to license the 
 young man noo afore us if he had been considered 
 soun' in the faith in his ain presbytery. There 
 maun be something sore wrang,' he says. 
 
 " A' this time the young man had been standin' 
 Wi' a face like daith, his lips workin', tryin' to get a
 
 34 TRIALS FOR LICENSE. 
 
 word in, an' oor minister haudin' him by the coat- 
 tails, an' tellin' him for ony sake to sit doon, that 
 there war plenty there to speak for him. But he 
 got awa' frae the minister an' juist on Maister 
 Pitbye's heels he spoke oot, ' May I say that this 
 discoorse has passed through Professor Robertson's 
 hauns and has received his approval.' 
 
 "Oor minister sat back wi' a look in his face as 
 muckle as to say ' Ye hae done for't noo, young 
 man ! ' Then there was a din to speak about. 
 There was Maister Bangour frae Muldow, an' he 
 was a wild man this day. * Professor Robison, 
 indeed ! I'll learn you, young man, that Professor 
 Robison has nae standi n' i' the presbytery o' 
 Pitscottie, an' faith, if he had we wad libel him this 
 verra day, for he's a rank heyretic, leadin' the young 
 men o' oor kirk astra}- efter strange gods 1 Aye 
 an' I wull testifee ' 
 
 " 'Sit doon,' says Forbes, the new-placed minister 
 o' the Pits, him that the collier lads like so weel, 
 ' testifee in your ain pairish if you want to testifee ! 
 Talk sense here ! ' says he. Forbes is a deter- 
 mined North-countryman as dour an' radical as 
 fire, that got scunnered at hame wi' the mair auld- 
 fashioned o' his brethren o' the kirk. He's no a 
 great respecter o' persons neyther. He looks as if 
 he had focht mony battles in his day, and by his
 
 TRIALS FOR LICENSE. 35 
 
 set teeth I could see he was bidin' his time for 
 anither. 
 
 " Richt gled was I that he didna mean to set 
 them in me. 
 
 "By this time the fiery young minister frae the 
 Shavvs was on his feet, and wi' the strongest words 
 an' a power o' gesture he was layin' intil them on 
 the ither side. An' they were speakin* aye back 
 till ye couldna tell what was what. But I watched 
 Forbes bidin' his time wi' a face like a grew [grey- 
 hound] when he sees the hare but canna get slippit. 
 
 " There was the verra sma'est calm, an' then like a 
 shot there was Maister Forbes at the table. Some o' 
 them cried, ' Hear Mr. Girmory,' but Forbes said — 
 
 " ' No, Maister Begbie, ye'll be hearin' me the 
 noo. Ye are makkin' bonny fules o' yersels.'" 
 
 " My conscience," said my wife, who was listen- 
 ing with her whole being, " was he no' blate to say 
 that to ministers ? " 
 
 " Hoots, woman, that's nocht to what he said 
 efter : 
 
 "'Ye are pittin' a premium on mediocrity,' he 
 says. ' Thae ither twa chaps ye let through with- 
 out a word, though they stammered like a boy new 
 into the tenpenny. But ye settled on this lad 
 because he was clever, an' wrote what he thocht 
 himsel', an' didna juist tak' twa-three pages frae a
 
 36 TRIALS FOR LICENSE. 
 
 sermon o* Spurgeon's, or water doon the Shorter's 
 Quastions,' says he. ' As for you,' he says, turnin' 
 sharp to Maister Pitbye, ' ye are speakin' on a 
 quastion ye ken nocht aboot ava. An' ye are 
 weel aware ye ken nocht aboot it. Gae hame, 
 man,* he says, * an' read yer Calvin, or buy a 
 Turretin an' read him, an' then come back an' gie 
 us an opeenion worth Hstenin' to on a theological 
 subject' 
 
 " 'Order, order!' said the clerk, but the moderator 
 said naething, for he didna want Forbes doun on 
 him. 
 
 '"I'll no' be spoken to in that mainner. I've 
 never listened to sic' words in my life,' said Maister 
 Pitbye. 
 
 " ' The mair's the peety,' says Maister Forbes, ' it's 
 time ye did — but better late than never I ' 
 
 *' * I move we proceed to license,' says oor 
 minister, verra quaite ; so efter a show o' hands, 
 an' a bit grummle, they juist did that ; but there 
 was some warm wark efter the young men had 
 gaen oot, an' yince it lookit as if the neeves micht 
 sune be goin' ; but it cleared up verra sudden, and 
 when a' was dune, and they cam' oot, they war a' 
 as thick as thieves — an Maister Bourtree, nae less, 
 gaed roon shakin' hands wi' everybody, an' sayin', 
 Whatna graun' day we've had the day; there's
 
 TRIALS FOR LICENSE, 37 
 
 been some life in Pitscottie presbytery this day, 
 something worth comin' doun frae Muldow for ! ' 
 
 " But I'm no' so sure that it was as great fun for 
 the puir lad frae Enbra'. He said to mysel' he was 
 glad he was gaun awa' to the Cannibal Islands, 
 an' no settling in oor pairt o' the country."
 
 « THE HE A THER UNTIE : - 
 
 BEING A REVIEW OF THE POEMS OF JANET 
 BALCHRYSTIE, OF BARBRAX. 
 
 Janet Balchrystie lived in a little cottage at 
 the back of the Long Wood of Barbrax. She had 
 been a hard-working woman all her days, for her 
 mother died when she was but young, and she had 
 lived on, keeping her father's house by the side of 
 the single track railway line. Gavin Balchrystie 
 was a foreman platelayer on the P.P.R., and, with 
 two men under him, had charge of a section of 
 three miles. He lived just where that distinguished 
 but impecunious line plunges into a moss-covered 
 granite wilderness of moor and bog, where there 
 is not more than a shepherd's hut to the half-dozen 
 miles, and where the passage of a train is the 
 occasion of commotion among scattered groups of 
 black-faced sheep. Gavin Balchrystie's three miles 
 of P.P.K metals gave him little work, but a good 
 
 38
 
 •• THE HEATHER UNTIE." 39 
 
 deal of healthy exercise. The black-faced sheep 
 breaking down the fences and straying on the line 
 side, and the torrents coming down the granite 
 gullies, foaming white after a water-spout, and 
 tearing into his embankments, undermining his 
 chairs and plates, were the only troubles of his 
 life. There was, however, a little public-house at 
 " The Huts," which in the old days of construction 
 had had the license, and which had lingered alone, 
 license and all, when its immediate purpose in life 
 had been fulfilled, because there was nobody but 
 the whaups and the railway officials on the passing 
 trains to object to its continuance. Now it is cold 
 and blowy on the westland moors, and neither 
 whaups nor dark blue uniforms object to a little 
 refreshment up there. The mischief was that 
 Gavin Balchrystie did not, like the guards and 
 engine-drivers, go on with the passing train. He 
 was always on the spot, and the path through 
 Barbrax Wood to the Railway Inn was as well 
 trodden as that which led over the big moss, 
 where the whaups built, to the great white viaduct 
 of Loch Merrick, where his three miles of parallel 
 gleaming responsibility began. 
 
 When his wife was but newly dead, and his 
 Janet just a smart elf-locked lassie running to and 
 from the school, Gavin got too much in the way
 
 40 " THE HEATHER LINTIBr 
 
 of " sHppin' doon by." When Janet grew to be 
 woman- muckle, Gavin kept the habit, and Janet 
 hardly knew that it was not the use-and-wont of 
 all fathers to sidle down to a contiguous Railway 
 Arms, and return some hours later with uncertain 
 step, and face picked out with bright pin-points of 
 red — the sure mark of the confirmed drinker of 
 whisky neat. 
 
 They were -long days in the cottage at the back 
 of Barbrax Long Wood. The little " but and ben" 
 was whitewashed till it dazzled the eyes as you 
 came over the brae to it and found it set against 
 the solemn depths of dark-green firwood. From 
 early morn when she saw her father off, till the 
 dusk of the day when he would return for his 
 supper, Janet Balchrystie saw no human being. 
 She heard the muffled roar of the trains through 
 the deep cutting at the back of the wood, but she 
 herself was entirely out of sight of the carriagefuls 
 of travellers whisking past within half a mile of her 
 solitude and meditation. 
 
 Janet was what is called a " through-gaun lass," 
 and her work for the day was often over by eight 
 o'clock in the morning. Janet grew to womanhood 
 without a sweetheart She was plain, and she 
 looked plainer than she was in the dresses which 
 she made for herself by the light of nature and
 
 •• THE HE A THER LINTJE:' 41 
 
 what she could remember of the current fashions 
 at Merrick Kirk, to which she went every alternate 
 Sunday. Her father and she took day about. 
 Wet or shine, she tramped to Merrick Kirk, even 
 when the rain blattered and the wind raved and 
 bleated alternately among the pines of the Long 
 Wood of Barbrax. Her father had a simpler way 
 of spending his day out. He went down to the 
 Railway Inn and drank "ginger-beer" all day 
 with the landlord. Ginger-beer is an unsteadying 
 beverage when taken the day by the length. Also 
 the man who drinks it steadily and quietly never 
 enters on any inheritance of length of days. 
 
 So it came to pass that one night Gavin Bal- 
 chrystie did not come home at all, at least not till 
 he was brought lying comfortably on the door of 
 a disused third-class carriage, which was now seeing 
 out its career, anchored under the bank at Loch 
 Merrick, where Gavin had used it as a shelter. 
 The driver of the " six-fifty up " train had seen him 
 walking soberly along towards the Huts [and the 
 Railway Inn] letting his long surfaceman's hammer 
 fall against the rail keys occasionally as he walked. 
 He saw him bend once, as though his keen ear 
 detected a false ring in a loose length between two 
 plates. This was the last that was seen of him till 
 the driver of the "nine-thirty-seven down " express
 
 42 " THE HEATHER UNTIED 
 
 — the " boat-train," as the employes of the P.P.R. 
 call it, with a touch of respect in their voices — 
 passed Gavin fallen forward on his face just when 
 he was flying down grade under a full head of 
 steam. It was duskily-clear, with a great lake 
 of crimson light dying into purple over the hills 
 of midsummer heather. The driver was John 
 Piatt, the Englishman from Crewe, who had 
 been brought from the great London and North- 
 western Railway, locally known as " The Eil- 
 nen-doubleyou." In these remote railway circles 
 the talk is as exclusively of matters of the four- 
 foot way as in Crewe or Derby. There is an 
 inspector of traffic whose portly presence now 
 graces Carlisle station, who left the P.P.R. in 
 these sad days of amalgamation, because he could 
 not endure to see so many " Sou'- West" waggons 
 passing over the sacred metals of the P.P.R. per- 
 manent way. From his youth he had been trained 
 in a creed of two articles — "To swear by the P.P.R. 
 through thick and thin, and hate the apple-green 
 of the ' Sou'- West.' " It was as much as he could 
 do to put up with the sight of the abominations — 
 to have to hunt for their trucks when they got 
 astray was more than mortal could stand, so he 
 fled the land. 
 
 So when they stopped the express for Gavin
 
 " THE HEA THER LINTIEV 43 
 
 Balchrystie every man on the line felt that it was 
 an honour to the dead. John Piatt sent a "gurrring" 
 thrill through the train as he put his brakes hard 
 down, and whistled for the guard. He, thinking 
 that the Merrick Viaduct was down at least, twirled 
 his brake to such purpose that the rear car pro- 
 gressed along the metals by a series of convulsive 
 bounds. Then they softly ran back, and there lay 
 Gavin fallen forward on his knees, as though he 
 had been trying to rise, or had knelt down to pray. 
 Let him have " the benefit of the doubt " in this 
 world. In the next, if all tales be true, there is no 
 such thing. 
 
 So Janet Balchrystie dwelt alone in the white 
 * but-an-ben " at the back of the Long Wood of 
 Barbrax. The factor gave her notice, but the 
 laird, who was not accounted by his neighbours 
 to be very wise, because he did needlessly kind 
 things, told the factor to let the lassie bide, and 
 delivered to herself with his own hand writing 
 to the effect that Janet Balchrystie, in considera- 
 tion of her lonely condition, was to be allowed 
 the house for her lifetime, a cow's grass, and thirty 
 pound sterling in the year as a charge on the 
 estate. He drove down the cow himself, and 
 having stalled it in the byre, he informed her of 
 the fact over the yard dyke by word of mouth,
 
 44 " THE HEATHER UNTIE." 
 
 for he never could be induced to enter her door. 
 He was accounted to be " gey an' queer " save by 
 those who had tried malting a bargain with him. 
 But his farmers Hked him, knowing him to be an 
 easy man with those who had been really unfortu- 
 nate, for he knew to what the year's crops of each 
 had amounted, to a single chalder and head of nowt. 
 Deep in her heart Janet Balchrystie cherished 
 a great ambition. When the earliest blackbird 
 awoke and began to sing, while it was yet grey 
 twilight, Janet would be up and at her work. 
 She had an ambition to be a great poet. No less 
 than this would serve her. But not even her 
 father had known, and no other had any chance 
 of knowing. In the black leather chest, which had 
 been her mother's, upstairs, there was a slowly 
 growing pile of manuscript, and the editor of the 
 local paper received every other week a poem, 
 longer or shorter, for his Poet's Corner, in an 
 envelope with the New Dairy post-mark. He 
 was an obliging editor, and generally gave the 
 closely written manuscript to the senior office- 
 boy who had passed the sixth standard, to cut 
 down, tinker the rhymes, and lop any super- 
 fluity of feet. The senior office-boy " just spread 
 himself," as he said, and delighted to do the job 
 in style. But there was a woman fading into a
 
 " THE HEATHER UNTIE." 45 
 
 grey old maidlshness which had hardly ever been 
 girlhooJ, who did not at all approve of these cor- 
 rections. She endured them because over the 
 signature of " Heather Bell " it was a joy to see 
 in the rich, close luxury of type her own poetry, 
 even though it might be a trifle tattered and 
 tossed about by hands ruthless and alien — those, 
 in fact, of the senior office-boy. 
 
 Janet walked every other week to the post- 
 office at New Dairy to post her letters to the 
 editor, but neither that great man nor yet the 
 senior office-boy had any conception that the 
 verses of their " esteemed correspondent " were 
 written by a woman too early old who dwelt 
 alone at the back of Barbrax Long Wood. 
 
 One day Janet took a sudden but long meditated 
 journey. Shewent down by rail fromthe little station 
 of the "Huts" to the large town of Drum, thirty miles 
 to the east. Here, with the most perfect courage 
 and dignity of bearing, she interviewed a printer 
 and arranged for the publication of her poems in 
 their own original form, no longer staled and 
 clapperclawed by the pencil of the senior office- 
 boy. When the proof-sheets came to Janet, she 
 had no way of indicating the corrections but by 
 again writing the whole poem out in a neat print 
 hand on the edge of the proof, and underscoring
 
 46 " THE HE A THER UNTIE:' 
 
 the words which were to be altered. This, when 
 you think of it, is a very good way, when the 
 happiest part of your life is to be spent in such 
 concrete pleasures of hope, as Janet's were over the 
 crackly sheets of the printer of Drum. Finally 
 the book was produced, a small rather thickish 
 octavo, on sufficiently wretched grey paper which 
 had suffered from want of thorough washing in 
 the original paper-mill. It was bound in a 
 peculiarly deadly blue, of a rectified Reckitt 
 tint, which gave you dazzles in the eye at any 
 distance under ten paces. Janet had selected 
 this as the most appropriate of colours. She had 
 also many years ago decided upon the title, so that 
 Reckitt had printed upon it, back and side, " The 
 Heather Lintie," while inside there was the 
 acknowledgment of authorship, which Janet felt 
 to be a solemn duty to the world, "Poems by 
 Janet Balchrystie, Barbrax Cottage, by New 
 Dalr\'." First she had thought of withholding her 
 name and style ; but on the whole, after the most 
 prolonged consideration she felt that she was not 
 justified in bringing about such a controversy as 
 divided Scotland concerning that "Great Unknown" 
 who wrote the Waverley Novels. 
 
 Almost every second or third day Janet trod 
 that long lochside road to New Dairy for her
 
 " THE HEATHER UNTIE," i;i 
 
 proof-sheets, and returned them on the morrow 
 corrected in her own way. Sometimes she got a 
 lift from some farmer or carter, for she had worn 
 herself with anxiety to the shadow of what she 
 had once been, and her dry bleached hair became 
 grey and greyer with the fervour of her devotion 
 to letters. 
 
 By April the book was published, and at the 
 end of this month, laid aside by sickness of the 
 vague kind called locally " a decline," she took to 
 her bed, rising only to lay a iow sticks upon the 
 fire from her store gathered in the autumn, or to 
 brew herself a cup of tea, she waited for the 
 tokens of her book's conquests in the great world 
 of thought and men. She had waited so long 
 for her recognition, and now it was coming. She 
 felt that it would not be long before she was 
 recognised as one of the singers of the world. 
 Indeed, had she but known it, her recognition was 
 already on its way. 
 
 In a great city of the north a clever young 
 reporter was cutting open the leaves of " The 
 Heather Lintie " with a hand almost feverishly 
 
 eager. 
 
 " This is a perfect treasure. This is a find 
 
 indeed. Here is my chance ready to my hand." 
 
 His paper was making a speciality of " ex-
 
 48 " THE HE A THER UNTIE.'* 
 
 posures." If there was anything weak and erring, 
 anything particularly helpless and foolish which 
 could make no stand for itself, The Night 
 Hawk was on the pounce. Hitherto the Junior 
 Reporter had never had a " two column chance." 
 He had read — it was not much that he had read — 
 Macaulay's too famous article on " Satan " Mont- 
 gomery, and not knowing that Macaulay lived to 
 regret the spirit of that assault, he felt that if 
 he could bring down The Night Hawk on "The 
 Heather Lintie," his fortune was made. So he sat 
 down and he wrote, not knowing and not regarding 
 a lonely woman's heart, to whom his word would 
 be as the word of a God, in the lonely cottage 
 lying in the lee of the Long Wood of Barbrax. 
 
 The Junior Reporter turned out a triumph of 
 the New Journalism. " This is a book which 
 may be a genuine source of pride to every native 
 of the ancient province of Galloway," he wrote. 
 " Galloway has been celebrated for black cattle 
 and for wool — as also for a certain bucolic belated- 
 ness of temperament, but Galloway has never 
 hitherto produced a poetess. One has arisen in 
 the person of Miss Janet Bal — something or other. 
 We have not an interpreter at hand, and so cannot 
 wrestle with the intricacies of the authoress's name, 
 which appears to be some Galwegian form of Erse
 
 « IHE HE A THER LINTIE." 49 
 
 or Choctaw. Miss Bal — and so forth — has a true 
 fount of pathos and humour. In what touching 
 language she chronicles the death of two young 
 lambs which fell into one of the puddles they call 
 rivers down there, and were either drowned or 
 choked with the dirt — 
 
 •* ' They were two bonny, bonny lambs, 
 That played upon the daisied lea, 
 And loudly mourned their woolly dams 
 Above the drumly flowing Dee.' " 
 
 ** How touchingly simple," continued the Junior 
 Reporter,' buckling up his sleeves to enjoy him- 
 self, and feeling himself born to be a Saturday 
 Reviewer, " mark the local colour, the wool and 
 the dirty water of the Dee — without doubt a name 
 applied to one of their bigger ditches down there 
 Mark also the over-fervency of the touching line, 
 
 'And loudly mourned their woolly dams,* 
 
 which, but for the sex of the writer and her evident 
 genius, might be taken for an expression of a 
 strength hardly permissible even in the metropolis." 
 The Junior Reporter filled his two columns and 
 enjoyed himself in the doing of it. He concluded 
 with the words, " The authoress will make a great 
 success. If she will come to the capital where
 
 so •• THE HE A THER UNTIE!' 
 
 genius is always appreciated, she will, without 
 doubt, make her fortune. Nay, if Miss Bal — , but 
 again we cannot proceed for the want of an inter- 
 preter — if Miss B., we say, will only accept a 
 position at Cleary's Waxworks and give readings 
 from her poetry, or exhibit herself in the act of 
 pronouncing her own name, she will be a greater 
 draw in this city than Punch and Judy, or even the 
 latest American advertising evangelist who preaches 
 standing on his head." 
 
 The Junior Reporter ceased here from very 
 admiration at his own cleverness in so exactly 
 hitting the tone of the masters of his craft, and 
 handed his manuscript in to the editor. 
 
 It was the gloaming of a long June day when 
 Rob Affleck, the woodman over at Barbrax, having 
 been at New Dairy with a cart of wood, left his 
 horse on the roadside and ran over through Gavin's 
 old short cut, now seldom used, to Janet's cottage 
 with a paper in a yellow wrapper. 
 
 " Leave it on the step, and thank you kindly, 
 Rob," said a weak voice within, and Rob, anxious 
 about his horse and his bed, did so without 
 another word. In a moment or two Janet crawled 
 to the door, listened to make sure that Rob was 
 really gone, opened the door, and protruded a hand 
 wasted to the hard flat bone — an arm that ought
 
 " THE HEATHER UNTIE." 51 
 
 for her years to have been of full flesh and noble 
 curves. 
 
 When Janet got back to bed it was too dark to 
 see anything except the big printing at the top of 
 the paper, 
 
 " Two columns of it ! " said Janet, with great 
 thankfulness in her heart, lifting up her soul to 
 God who had given her the power to sing. She 
 strained her prematurely old and weary eyes to 
 make out the sense. " A genuine source of pride 
 to every native of the ancient province," she read. 
 
 " The Lord be praised ! " said Janet, in a rapture 
 of devout thankfulness, "though I never really 
 doubted it," she added, as though asking pardon 
 for a moment's distrust. " But I tried to write 
 these poems to the glory of God and not to my 
 own praise, and He will accept them and keep me 
 humble under the praise of men as well as under 
 their neglect." 
 
 So clutching the precious paper close to her 
 breast, and letting tears of thankfulness fall on 
 the article which, had they fallen on the head of 
 the Junior Reporter, would have burnt like fire, 
 she patiently awaited the coming dawn. 
 
 " I can wait till the morning now to read the 
 rest," she said. 
 
 So hour after hour, with her eyes wide, staring
 
 52 " THE HEATHER LIN TIE." 
 
 hard at the grey window squares, she waited the 
 dawn from the east. About half-past two there 
 was a stirring and a moaning among the pines, 
 and the roar of the sudden gust came with the 
 breaking day through the dark arches. In the 
 whirlwind there came a strange expectancy and 
 tremor into the heart of the poetess, and she 
 pressed the wet sheet of crumpled paper closer to 
 her bosom, and turned to face the light. Through 
 the spaces of the Long Wood of Barbrax there 
 came a shining visitor, the Angel of the Presence, 
 he who comes but once and stands a moment with 
 a beckoning finger. Him she followed up through 
 the wood. 
 
 They found Janet on the morning of the second 
 day after, with a look so glad on her face and so 
 natural an expectation in the unclosed eye, that 
 Rob Affleck spoke to her and expected an answer. 
 The Night Hazvk was clasped to her breast with 
 a hand that they could not loosen. It went to 
 the grave with her body. The ink had run a 
 little here and there, where the tears had fallen 
 thickest. 
 
 God is more merciful than man.
 
 THE SPLIT IN THE MARROW KIRK. 
 
 JiMlNY and Jaikie were two little boys. They 
 played together at the bottom of a large and 
 beautiful garden. Jaikie did not believe that there 
 was another garden so large and fine in all the 
 world. Jiminy said so, and he was the minister's 
 son and had been at Dalmarnock where the five 
 steeples are, with the stars sitting on the tops of 
 them. The stars are the tops of steeples which 
 one cannot see for the darkness of the night. In 
 the daytime, just the other way about, one sees 
 the steeples, but cannot see the stars. Jiminy was 
 also the authority for these statements. He was, 
 as we said before, a minister's son, and, of course, 
 knew everything. Jaikie's father was an elder, and 
 did not admire the father of Jiminy at all ; but his 
 son made it up by holding Jiminy infallible. 
 
 There was a great dispute in the little Kirk of 
 the Marrow. Long ago, long before these boys 
 were born, or their grandfathers either, a book had 
 
 S3
 
 54 THE SPLIT IN THE MARROW KIRK. 
 
 been carried up from England in an old soldier's 
 satchel which had set all Scotland by the ears. 
 Kirks had been split, ministers had been deposed, 
 new denominations had been formed over the old 
 soldier's wallet book. Now, a hundred years later, 
 the little Kirk of the Marrow in the village of 
 Muirgate was in the " deed thraws " of a disruption. 
 The Reverend Simon Adam, locally known as 
 " Maister Aydam," with the larger portion of the 
 congregation, were for following the majority of 
 the congregations of the Kirk of the Marrow 
 scattered over the Southern Uplands into the 
 larger fold of one of the better-known evangelical 
 communions of Scotland. Ebenezer Langbakkit, 
 Jaikie's father, led the opposition to this union, 
 and threatened to carry their opposition even to 
 the extremity of extruding the minister from his 
 manse and kailyard, and barring the door of the 
 kirk in his face, because he had forsworn his ordi- 
 nation vows, and gone back from the pure doctrine 
 and practice of the " Marrowmen," as laid down in 
 the famous controversy by Thomas Boston and 
 other precious and savoury divines. 
 
 Thus far the war of the Marrow Kirk of Muir- 
 gate. But the two little boys wotted little of it as 
 they played together in that large garden during 
 the long continued heats of the Dry Summer. The
 
 THE SPLIT IN THE MARROW KIRK. 55 
 
 garden was cut up into squares by walks which ran 
 at right angles to one another. There were square 
 plots of gooseberry bushes, square wildernesses 
 of pea-sticks, and square strawberry beds in that 
 corner where it was forbidden for small, sweet- 
 toothed boys to go. At the upper end an orchard 
 ran right across, every tree in which was climbable, 
 and a wall, with a flight of steps over into a field, 
 bounded all. Great trees, generations old, sur- 
 rounded the garden and orchard, and cast here and 
 there throughout it circular plots of pleasant shade 
 amid the garden squares. It was, said the wise- 
 acres, too much buried in foliage to make the best 
 of gardens. But it suited two small boys that 
 summ^er very well. 
 
 The boys did not go to school. Jiminy Adam 
 had a brief and terrible struggle with the Latin 
 verb every morning in his father's study, whence he 
 emerged to forget all about the matter for other 
 twenty-three hours ; but Jaikie had no call to go 
 to the school at all, for there was no school-board 
 officer in tho.se days, the dominie was infirm and 
 old, and Jaikie's father divided between plotting 
 against Maister Aydam and a course of black, 
 gloomy drinking in his own house. 
 
 Week after week the climax of discontent ap- 
 proached. The true Marrowmen, as Eby Lang-
 
 56 THE SPLIT IN THE MARROW KIRK. 
 
 bakkit's party called themselves, were all grim 
 men determined not to company with those who 
 had but recently separated from an " Erastian and 
 Malignant" (with a capital M) Establishment, and 
 who had never purged themselves from their guilty 
 compliance. Nor would they permit the kirk of 
 bygone valiant protestings to be longer desecrated 
 by the services of a man like Mr. Adam, who 
 had conformed to the too easy temper of the 
 times. 
 
 Thus far had the matter gone when one day 
 Jiminy and Jaikie played together by the orchard 
 wall. They were very small boys, and as there 
 were no girls about, or other boys to reproach them 
 for the childishness, they played at building houses 
 and living in them. Jiminy was architect, and 
 directed the operations, ordering Jaikie about like 
 a hod-carrier to fetch and carry for him all day 
 long-. When he threw a load of stones at him 
 disdainfully, Jaikie was in the seventh heaven 
 of ecstasy. Jaikie adored all who abused him, 
 if only they allowed him to worship them. 
 Jiminy had no objection. Often Jaikie would have 
 liked to inhabit for a little one of the splendid 
 mansions which he toiled in the sweat of his brow to 
 erect But it was not to be. As soon as a plan was 
 completed, after one discontented survey, Jiminy
 
 THE SPLIT IN THE MARRO W KIRK. 57 
 
 would kick down all their hard work and start over 
 again on a new and improved plan. Once Jaikie 
 begged Jiminy not to kick down- a specially noble 
 tower built with mud, which Jaikie had laboured 
 like a Hebrew slave bondaging in Egypt, to bring 
 up from the river. Then Jiminy kicked Jaikie for 
 interfering where he had no business, which sent 
 that hero-worshipper into the seventh heavens of 
 happiness. 
 
 Couched in his bunk at nights, beneath the little 
 gable window in the attic, Jaikie could hear the 
 confabulations of the Marrowmen who came to 
 receive their instructions from that grim sectary, 
 Eby Langbakkit. It was some time before Jaikie 
 paid any heed to these gatherings. He had been 
 accustomed to such silent and dour assemblies 
 downstairs as long as he could remember, with a 
 black bottle of whisky sitting in the middle of the 
 table, and his father casting a wary eye at each 
 man as he took his dram to see that no advantage 
 was taken. If there were, Ebenezer Langbakkit 
 checked the offender sharply, as, indeed, he had 
 every right to do, being an elder. 
 
 Lately, however, stirred to some attention by 
 Jiminy's dark hints of plots and conspiracies, he 
 had taken to crawling out of his bed every night 
 and lying at the top of the ladder, a shivering
 
 58 THE SPLIT IN THE MARROW KIRK. 
 
 little phantom, listening to the talk that went on 
 beneath. 
 
 " Shall we be degradit and abolished," said 
 Jaikie's father, "swallowed quick by the whore that 
 sitteth on the Seven Hills?" 
 
 Murmurs of applause. "'Deed, they're little 
 better ! " 
 
 " Shall the truth-forsaking hireling of the flock 
 lead away his silly sheep, and also keep possession 
 of the sheep-fold ? Nay, verily ! The faithful must 
 take and the contending remnant must possess ! " 
 
 All this was not much to the purpose, and Jaikie 
 dovered over to sleep. When he awoke his father 
 was giving more understandable directions. 
 
 " You, John Howieson, are to tak' three wi' you 
 an' lie in the trees at the foot o' the orchard ; then 
 when ye see Bell Girmory gaun doon to the village 
 with a message — I'll see that she gangs — ye'll gang 
 yer ways up and tak' possession o' the manse. The 
 minister will no' be hame for the maitter o' an 'oor. 
 He'll be preachin' at Cairn Edward, as I telled ye. 
 Then yince in the manse, ye maun haud it against 
 a' comers by virtue o' the deeds and charters that 
 I gie ye. When he brings ye to the question, ye are 
 to say to him that all his household goods will be 
 cared for and delivered to him upon demand, and 
 that a decent lodging has been bespoken for him
 
 THE SPLIT IN THE MARROW KIRK. 59 
 
 in the house of Elspeth MacClevver, that's a decent 
 woman, an' clean, though no better than a 
 Burgher." 
 
 " Meanwhile, the lave o' ye are to come wi' me 
 an' we are in like manner to haud the kirk. Come 
 weel providit, for we're to haud it a' day on Satur- 
 day, and a* the nicht likewise, till Zechariah Moss- 
 haggs, that true servant of the Lord, shall come to 
 preach the kirk vacant in the name of the Faithful 
 Remnant of the Synod of the Marrowmen." 
 
 Jaikie had not been asleep all this time. He 
 listened as he never listened before, except when 
 Jiminy was giving his orders and looking as if he 
 were going to kick. 
 
 All night Jaikie lay awake till the early light 
 brightened to another dewless morning, for the 
 earth was dun and dusty with the parching of the 
 sun. As soon as it was light, Jaikie slid down the 
 trunk of the rowan tree which threw a convenient 
 branch to his window, to make a staircase for a little 
 boy in a hurry, who might not wish to disturb his 
 father with his late bedding or his early rising. The 
 bare legs of Jaikie paddled through the dust and 
 over the burnt-up russet grass, across the dry bed 
 of the burn to Jiminy's window. Here he whistled 
 that peculiar call which Jiminy had revealed to him 
 under the dreadful shadow of night, in the dusky
 
 6o THE SPLIT IN THE MARROW KIRK. 
 
 cavern of the Bloody Hand (known in the daytime 
 as the manse potato house), a call which Jaikie 
 believed to be connected with the black art, and in 
 case of revealing the secret of which he was under 
 solemn obligation, sealed with his blood, to cut his 
 throat and afterwards to be kicked black and blue 
 by Jiminy, who was a master of the darkest wizardr}-, 
 according to his own account. 
 
 As he continued to whistle a large sea-shell, pink 
 inside, swung down from an upper window and 
 impinged abruptly on his bare leg. 
 
 " Ow ! " said Jaikie. 
 
 " Stop that horrid noise. That'll learn ye. You'll 
 wakken my father ! " said Jiminy, in his nightdress. 
 " What d'ye want at ony rate at this time in the 
 mornin'?" 
 
 " Come doon an' I'll tell ye ; I canna cry it up 
 there." 
 
 " Get away. I'm no' comin' doon in the middle 
 o' the nicht," said Jiminy, who had lapsed into the 
 Doric of his play hours. 
 
 "O Jiminy, ye micht come doon. It's an awfu'- 
 like thing I hae to tell ye. It's aboot yer faither. 
 Ye maun come doon the noo. I'll let ye kick me 
 for hale five meenites gin ye like." 
 
 Filial affection or the prospect of healthy leg- 
 exercise brought Jiminy down with a run, and the
 
 THE SPLIT IN THE MARROW KIRK. 6i 
 
 two boys wandered off into the wood in close con- 
 fabulation. 
 
 It was the Saturday morning of the plot. The 
 minister who stood so near the brink of his extru- 
 sion was on his way home from Cairn Edward, 
 where he had been "daubing with untempered 
 mortar," as Eby Langbakkit said, by preaching in 
 an Uncovenanted Kirk. 
 
 Round the corner of the orchard, dividing into 
 two bands as they came, stole the Faithful 
 Remnant to take possession of the kirk and manse 
 into which Simon Adam was no more to come. 
 Bell Girmory duly departed through the trees 
 with her lilac sun-bonnet on, in the direction of 
 the village. She had a large basket over her 
 arm. 
 
 John Howieson and his henchmen took the 
 manse in front and rear ; but the front door, which 
 had only been shut at night and never locked even 
 then, was now bolted and barred. The back door 
 was also firmly locked, and when John Howieson 
 went to lift the kitchen window, the secret of 
 which he knew from having courted (unsuccessfully) 
 numerous manse lasses, Bell's predecessors, he re- 
 coiled in sudden amazement. He had looked 
 down the bell mouth of an ancient blunderbuss 
 into which the sun shone so plain that, as he said
 
 62 THE SPLIT IN THE MARROW KIRK. 
 
 afterwards, " Man, I could hae coontit the lead 
 draps at the buddom [bottom] o' her ! " 
 
 This weapon of war was in the hands of a 
 militant small boy. The council of war had 
 forgotten to reckon with Jiminy ; still more, they 
 had not taken Jaikie into account. They soon 
 had to do so, for Jaikie was under orders from 
 " General " Jiminy, and had every intention of 
 obeying them. 
 
 Ebenezer Langbakkit had gone openly with 
 half a dozen others to take possession of the kirk 
 at twelve of the clock. He had made a key for 
 the lock, and anticipated no difficulty. His surprise 
 was great when he found that there was a key 
 already in the lock on the inside. He tried the 
 southern door with a similar effect. He put his 
 fingers through the hole by which, as in a stable 
 door, the inside latch was lifted, but within that 
 aperture his finger encountered something hard 
 and cold. He applied his eye, and, just as John 
 Howieson was doing at that moment over at the 
 manse, he found himself looking down the barrel 
 of a gun. The sensation is not an agreeable one 
 even to an elder of the Kirk of the Marrow. 
 Looking through the window precariously, from 
 the branches of a neighbouring tree, his surprise 
 was not lessened and his anger greatly increased
 
 THE SPLIT IN THE MARROW KIRK. 63 
 
 by seeing his own son, Jaikie, marching up and 
 down the aisle, with a gun on his shoulder, as 
 proud and erect as a veteran of Ramilies. 
 
 " Open the door this instant, Jaikie ! " he 
 thundered, black anger sitting on him like the 
 night But Jaikie answered not a word. He had 
 his orders from Jiminy. 
 
 From window to window thundered Eby Lang- 
 bakkit, but there was no way of entrance. 
 
 At each window and door stood the inevitable 
 small boy with the large gun, and the reflection 
 lay heavily on all the party that a small boy with 
 a man's gun is more to be feared than a large 
 man with a boy's gun. A commonplace thought, 
 but one with practical bearing at that moment to 
 the sect of Eby Langbakkit. 
 
 Then Eby Langbakkit swore a great oath that 
 in that kirk he v/ould be, though he swung for it. 
 
 " Bring me the poother flask ! " he ordered ; 
 but no man gave to him, for they feared what 
 they saw in his face. 
 
 " Ye'll no' hurt the laddie. He's your ain son," 
 said one to him. 
 
 " Then he's no' yours," he answered, blackly ; 
 " so mind your ain business." 
 
 He got his own powder flask, inserted a slow 
 match into it, and placed it beneath the door
 
 64 THE SPLIT IN THE MARROW KIRK. 
 
 Then he stood apart waiting for the event. There 
 was a loud report, an instant rush of white smoke, 
 and the side of the flask buried itself in the tree 
 close to the elder's head. When the smoke 
 cleared away the kirk door lay on its side, having 
 fallen heavily inward. There was no small bo)- 
 to be seen from end to end of the empty kirk. 
 Langbakkit sprang forward in fierce anger that 
 his son had escaped without his deserts. The 
 silence and chill of the empty kirk alone met him. 
 
 He was about to step over the fallen door, 
 when out from beneath the heavy iron-studded 
 oak he saw stealing a tiny thread of red. Some- 
 thing struck him to the heart. He pressed his 
 hand on his breast and stood, not daring to go 
 farther. 
 
 " Mr. Langbakkit, what is the meaning of this ? " 
 said the calm voice of the minister, Mr. Adam. 
 No one replied. The protest died out at the 
 sight of that faint streak of liquid scarlet and the 
 fear of what lay unseen beneath it. 
 
 " Saunders Grierson and David Robb, I com- 
 mand you, help me to lift the door of the house 
 of God 1 " said the minister. 
 
 The two men named approached awkwardly, 
 and between them the three lifted the heavy door 
 Beneath it lay the crushed and torn body of a
 
 THE SPLIT IN THE MARROW KIRK, 65 
 
 boy, still clasping firmly an iron tube thrust into a 
 rough lump of wood. He must have stood quite 
 close to the door when the flask exploded, for the 
 explosion had torn the clothes almost off his poor 
 body. 
 
 The minister raised him tenderly in his arms, 
 and wiped his face very gently with his napkin. 
 The sight of this seemed to awaken Ebenezer 
 Langbakkit. 
 
 " Give me my dead," he said, suddenly and 
 roughly. " The Lord has stricken me. I am a 
 man of violence ! " 
 
 So saying he strode away, bowed with his burden. 
 
 Now, this is properly the end of the story of 
 the split in the Marrow Kirk, but for the sake of 
 some who may love Jaikie, it is enough to say 
 that, though sore wounded, he did not die. When 
 Jiminy went to see him, he lay a long time 
 silently holding his friend's hand. 
 
 " I couldna keep them oot, Jiminy, but I did my 
 best. Ye'll no' hae to kick me for't when I get better." 
 
 And Jiminy never kicked him any more. When 
 it was time for Jiminy to go to college he had for 
 companion, at Maister Adam's expense, a lame 
 lad with a beautiful countenance. His name wa.s 
 Jaikie.
 
 THE PROBATIONER, 
 
 Thomas Todd has just received a call to the 
 Kirk of Dowiedens, somewhere over on Tweed- 
 side, so he can hardly be called a minister of our 
 countryside ; but there need be no objection if 
 the lad is allowed to say his say among the rest, 
 for he belongs to this part of the country, and his 
 father before him. He has been a long time as a 
 probationer — six year and more — so that there 
 were some that said that he would never wag 
 his head but in another man's pulpit. But Tam 
 cheated them all, for he is to be ordained to the 
 pastoral charge of Dowiedens, a fortnight come 
 Friday. It's not to say a large parish, being wide 
 scattered, with as much exercise for the legs as for 
 the brains in looking after the fowk. There are 
 but few parishioners, only, as Tammas says, " they 
 are as ill to please as Saint George's itsel' I " 
 Tammas has been biding with us at Drumquhat ;
 
 THE PROBATIONER. 67 
 
 he's a great favourite with the mistress. Many is 
 the girdleful of crumpy cakes that she will bake 
 for him, when I dare not suggest the like to her — 
 no, not for my life. 
 
 " Hae ye nae sense ava', Saunders MaWhurr, to 
 come fleechin' wi' me to bake ye short-breed an' 
 sic like, wi' the pigs to feed an' the hervesters 
 comin' in gilravagin' wi' hunger at six o'clock. 
 Think shame o' yer bairnly weys, man ! " 
 
 But if Tammas Todd comes ben an' sits doon, 
 the wife'll gie her ban's a dicht, slip aff her apron, 
 an' come in to hear aboot Enbro' an' the laddies' 
 landladies, and their awfu' wickednesses wi' the 
 coals an' the butter, till she'll say, " Come awa' to 
 the kitchen, an' I can be bakin' a bit sweet cake 
 for the tea — the guidman's fell fond o't ! " 
 
 The Almichty in His wonderful providence 
 made mony curious things, but nane o' them so 
 queer an' contrary as the weemen-fowk. This is 
 what I says to myself, but I have more sense than 
 to say it aloud. I'll warrant that King Solomon 
 among his other wisdom learned to haud his 
 tongue before he got as many as three hunder 
 wives. 
 
 This is what the laddie said sitting on the table 
 at the end of the bake-board. Tammas is gettin' 
 on for thirty, but in some things it's strange to see
 
 68 THE PROBATIONER. 
 
 him so keen of sweet things. He'll take up a bit 
 o' the dough that the wife is rolling out wi' hei 
 wooden pin, and he eats it like a laddie hame from 
 the school ; but my certie, I would like to see ony 
 one of her ain try that ; he would get a ring on 
 the side of the head that would learn him to leave 
 his mither alone when she was baking. But 
 Tammas could aye get the soft side of the 
 mistress. 
 
 " We'll no' hae to ca' ye ' Tammas ' when ye get 
 to be a placed minister," says she, knowing brawly 
 that the lad'll be "Tammas" to all at Drumquhat 
 till his dying day. 
 
 " If ye dinna," says he, " I'll never look near the 
 bit." Tammas can speak the English as weel as 
 onybody, but when he gets among his own folk he 
 prides himself on relapsing, so to speak, into the 
 broadest Gallowa'. He laughs at me for being 
 fond of writing in proper English. He says that I 
 need not try it, for when I do my best, every sen- 
 tence has got the " Gallowa' lug-mark " plain on it. 
 But this is his nonsense. 
 
 "Ye maun hae had some queer bars, Tammas, in 
 your time," said the mistress. 
 
 Tammas gied a bit smile, and said with the 
 pleased look that a man has when he's accused of 
 something that he likes to hear about, like a pussy
 
 THE PROBA TIONER. 69 
 
 strokit the richt way — I mind weel mysel' walking 
 three miles to be tormented about Jessie Scott before 
 we were married — " Nocht to speak aboot," says he, 
 " but of coorse, a man canna gang aboot six }ear 
 vvi' a pokemantie withoot seein' somethin' o' baith 
 sides o' life." 
 
 " Ye'll hae been in a feck o' manses in yer time, 
 Tammas? " 
 
 " Ay, Mrs. MaWhurr," says he, " and let me tell 
 you, that there's no sic hooses as manses in Scot- 
 land, or onywhere else — that is," he says, " nine oot 
 o' every ten o' them. I wad be an ingrate to say 
 onything else, for in nearly every instance I have 
 been treated, no like a puir probationer preachin' 
 for his guinea fee and gaun off like a beggar wi' his 
 awmus on Monday mornin', but like a verra prince. 
 I hae memories o' the mistresses o' the manses o' 
 Scotlan' that will never be forgotten ! " 
 
 " An' o' the dochters o' the manses .? " says I, just 
 above my breath. Then there was a warm colour 
 rose to the cheek of the minister-elect of the 
 Dowiedens, and mantled on his brow, but he said 
 bravely : 
 
 " Ay, an' the lasses were kind to me, they were 
 that." 
 
 " When is't to be ? " says I. 
 
 "Let the lad alane, can ye no, Saunders Ma-
 
 70 THE PROBATIONER. 
 
 Whurr ; ye' re never dune wi' yer fule talk," says 
 my wife. She had been talking even on the whole 
 night, and I had said maybe a dozen words. But 
 I let that pass. 
 
 " Of coorse, among so mony there were bun' to 
 be some queer yins ? " suggested my wife, fishing 
 in the young man's shallow water. The wife can 
 draw most folks, but Saunders MaWhurr has leeved 
 ower lang wi' her not to see through her 
 wiles. 
 
 "Weel, I mind," says Tammas Tod, "o' yince 
 being askit to preach at a certain place ; I'll no say 
 where, nor I'll no tell ye gin ye speer. It was 
 maybes half-past seeven when I got to the manse, 
 an' I had had a long journey. 
 
 " ' Ye'U be tired an' hungry,' said the mistress. 
 ' Ye'll be wantin' to gang sune to your bed.' Hungry 
 i was, but to gang sune to your bed is no so common 
 amang us lads wi' the black bag; but I said nocht, 
 and took my cup o' tea, an' some bread and butter. 
 ' Tak' plenty o' the bread an' butter,' she says ; * we 
 hae nae cauld meat,' I wad hae been gled to see 
 some o' that same, but it wasna for me to say ony- 
 thing. 
 
 " Aboot nine I saw some o* them gettin' par- 
 tic'lar fidgety like, gaun oot an' in, yin sayin, * Is 
 Mr. Todd's room ready ? ' an' another yin rinnin'
 
 THE PROBA TIONER. 71 
 
 doon stairs cryin' to somebody in the kitchen, 'Can 
 ye no wait awee ? ' 
 
 " Then I was askit to tak' the buik, an' as sune 
 as ever I gat up the mistress brocht in my bedroom 
 •'ran'le. * Yer room's ready whenever ye like,' she 
 says. This was what I wad ca' a solid kind o' hint, 
 aboot as braid as it's lang, an' it was mair than 
 eneuch for me, so I took baith hint an' can'le, an' 
 gaed my ways. 
 
 " But I hadna been ten meenutes in my room 
 when I took a thocht to gie my sermons for the 
 morn a bit look, but I fand that I had left my 
 Bible in the room where I had my tea. So withoot 
 a thocht doon I gaed to get the buik, an' when I 
 opened the door what do ye think I saw ? " 
 We were silent every one. 
 
 " Weel, I saw the hale family sittin' doon to a hot 
 supper ! " 
 
 " Davert ! that cowes a'," said my wife, her hos- 
 pitable soul up in arms. " An' tell me, whatever 
 did ye do .? " 
 
 "Well," said Tammas Todd, "I hae lookit in 
 every buik o' Guid Mainners, an' in a' the Guides 
 to Polite Society, but I canna find a word in ony 
 yin o' them that tells me what I should hae 
 dune." 
 " I daresay no, ye were in no polite society thai
 
 72 THE PROBA TIONER. 
 
 nicht ! " said Mrs. MaWhurr ; " but tell me, what 
 did ye do ? " 
 
 " Weel," said Tammas, " I juist cam' my ways up 
 the stair again, an' took the lave o' the sandwiches 
 that the minister's wife, whas hoose I had left that 
 mornin', had kindly pitten up for me." 
 
 " The Lord be thankit, they're no a' alike," said 
 my wife, devoutly. 
 
 " Na, far frae that," said Tammas Todd ; " deed 
 I'm ashamed to tell ye o' this yin,but there's no sic 
 anither in a' Scotlan', I'se warrant. An' when I 
 gaed back to the leddy's hoose that gied me the 
 sandwiches, which I did on the followin' Setterday, 
 she was like to greet to think on the wey that I had 
 been used. She aye said that I minded her o' her 
 ain boy that she had lost — * My puir lad ! ' she says, 
 an' she cam' near takin' me roun' the neck, she was 
 that sair pitten aboot." 
 
 " Maybes the dochter did it a'thegither," says 
 I, for a wee bird had brocht the news that the 
 manse at Dowiedens wasna long to be withoot a 
 mistress. 
 
 " Saunders MaWhurr " began my wife in the 
 
 voice that she uses when the byre lass is ower lang 
 in bringin' in the kye. 
 
 " Never mind him, Mrs. MaWhurr, he maun hae 
 been a gey boy himsel' to hae the lasses so con-
 
 THE PROBATIONER. 73 
 
 stant tn his mind ! " said Tammas, which was a 
 most uncalled for observe. 
 
 " Ye'll be a' by wi' probationerin' noo, Tammas ? " 
 says I, to gie him a new lead. 
 
 " Weel, I had a sma' experience Sabbath 
 eight days, nae farther gane," said he. " I had 
 occasion to look in at the kirk offices to see old 
 'Jeremiah' — him that sen's us to oor preachin' 
 places, ye ken, an' says he, ' Man, ye micht gang 
 doon to Elvanby, it'll no be oot o' yer wey 
 gin ye're gaun doon to the Border Country ony- 
 w&y ' " 
 
 " On yer wey to the manse whaur the fowk tak' 
 ye roon the neck, nae doot ! " says I. 
 
 My wife gied me a look that wad hae speaned a 
 foal, but Tammas Todd never let on. 
 
 "So I gaed doon wi' the efternoon train to 
 Elvanby, which is a biggish place on the railway 
 line. I got there ower in the forenicht. It was as 
 dark as the guidman's snuff-box, an' rainin' in 
 sheets. I had a heavy bag, for I had my buiks to 
 prepare for my ordination " 
 
 "An' yer co-ordination too, no doot," says 1, 
 " for wi' you ministers I hae noticed that the ordi- 
 nation comes first, an' syne the co-ordination, but 
 ye're maistly sunest ready for the co-ordination 
 The last first, that's your motto," says I.
 
 74 THE PROBATIONER. 
 
 " I dinna understand a word ye're sayin'," says 
 he; "ye're haiverin', guidman." 
 
 " Dinna be ashamed o't, my young man," says I. 
 " It's a hantle easier gettin' a lass than a kirk ony 
 day ! " says I. 
 
 " And that's a true word," said the probationer 
 of six years' standing. 
 
 " So," continued Tammas, " I speered at the 
 porter at the station the wey to the manse. * It's 
 at the fit o' the Back Street,' says he, * but some- 
 body telled me that he was no leevin' in't noo ; but 
 gang ye ower there to the shop o' yin o' the elders, 
 an' he'll be sure to ken.' 
 
 " The master was oot, but a laddie telled me 
 that the minister was lee\ in' aboot twa mile oot 
 the Carlisle Road, but he didna think that he was 
 at hame, for there had been naething sent up to 
 the hoose for a month. This was real cheerfu' 
 hearin* for me wi' my heavy bag and an umbrella, 
 but there was naething for it but to gang on. So 
 I trudged away doon the Carlisle Road, glaur to 
 the oxters, an' changin' my bag frae the yae side 
 to the ither as if I war swingin' it for a wager. I 
 speered at every hoose, but the answer was aye, 
 ' It's aboot a mile farther doon ! ' They maun be 
 poor road surveyors in that direction, for theii miles 
 arc like sea miles for length.
 
 THE PROBATIONER. 75 
 
 ** At the hinner en' I fand the hoose, by scartin' 
 a match an' readin' the plate on the gate. I rang 
 the bell, but a' was in darkness. I stood a gey 
 while in the rain, an' I declare that my thochts 
 were no ministerial. 
 
 " Presently a wunda' gaes up somewhere in the 
 garret stories, an' a held pops oot. 
 
 " ' Fa' be you ? ' it says. 
 
 " ' I'm the minister that's to preach for Mr. 
 Fergusson the morn,' says I, ' an' I'll thank you to 
 let me in oot o' the rain.' 
 
 " * I ken nocht aboot you ! ' it says, and doon 
 gaed the wunda. 
 
 " Noo I tell you that if that woman hadna letten 
 me in at that time o' nicht I wad hae driven a stane 
 through the gless, if they had had me afore the 
 Presbytery for't. But in a wee the door opened an' 
 the lassie lets me in. 
 
 " She had just come from the Aberdeenshire 
 Deeside that day, and was as great a stranger as 
 myself But yince in, she did verra weel for my 
 comfort. But as she kenned naething about the 
 hours of worship I had to go awa' doon to the toon 
 early on the neest mornin' to find oot when the 
 service was. Then back up I cam' again for the 
 sermons an' my breakfast. The service was at twal, 
 an' aboot half-past eleeven I was at the kirk, an'
 
 76 THE PROBATIONER. 
 
 sittin' waitin' in the vestry for somebody to come 
 to speak to me, for I had spoken to nobody bena 
 [except] the servant lass frae Aberdeen an' the shop 
 laddie that I had met on the street. 
 
 " As I sat in the vestry I could hear them firslin 
 aboot the door, an' the fowk comin' in, but naebody 
 lookit near me till maybe five meenutes to twal'. 
 Then a man cam' in that I took to be the precentor, 
 so I gied him what I usually gied to toun kirks, a 
 psalm, a paraphrase, an' twa hymns. He took 
 them, put on his glesses, an' lookit at my writin' 
 gye scornfu' like. 
 
 " * Hymns ! ' he says. * Na, we sing nae hymns 
 here — na— an' we're nana sae carin' aboot para- 
 phrases, neyther ! ' 
 
 "This was a thocht discouragin', but I said 
 that I would gladly gie him all the four psalms, 
 that I could easily find psalms to suit my 
 subject 
 
 " ' Ay, an' I think they micht hae served ye too,' 
 says he. 
 
 " I went up to the pulpit and preached, but what 
 I said I do not ken ; I had gotten my surmon frae 
 the precentor, and felt juist like a schule-boy that 
 has come to the dominie withoot his lesson. When 
 I had feenished I thocht that some o' the elders 
 wad speak to me, but not a one showed face. I
 
 THE PROBATIONER. 77 
 
 gaed into the vestry an' got my hat, an' so back to 
 the manse on the Carlisle Road, 
 
 " A laddie met me at the gate. ' You're the 
 minister that preached the day — hae ! ' says he. It 
 was a note frae somebody I didna ken tellin' me 
 that I was expected to address the Sabbath Schule 
 that efternune at three o'clock. So I slippit doon, 
 an' fand that the schule only gaed in at that hour. 
 So I had to wait sittin' by mysel' till aboot the 
 half-hour. Then a man cam' an' chappit me on 
 the shoother, * Ye'll hae twunty meenites,' he says. 
 
 " ' Twunty meenites ? ' says I, no seein' his drift. 
 
 " * Ay,' he says, ' to address the bairns ! ' 
 
 " So I talked to the bairns for a wee, a job I aye 
 likit, an' at the end I pat up a prayer and sat for 
 maybes half a meenit efter withoot lookin' up. 
 Wull you believe me," said the probationer, " that 
 when I liftit my held there wasna a body, bairn, 
 teacher, or superintendent, in the place? 
 
 "So yince mair gaed I back alang that wear)' 
 Carlisle Road withoot a word frae leevin' craitur. 
 
 "' Heaven do so to me an' more also,' said I to 
 mysel', * if I ever mislippen a probationer when 
 yince I'm settled in the Dowiedens ! ' Next 
 mornin' I raise gye an' early, an' shook off the dust 
 of Elvanby frae my feet for a testimony again an 
 unkindly parish, an' a minister and people that
 
 78 THE PROBATIONER. 
 
 muzzled into silence the ox that treadeth out the 
 corn, though I fear that I gied them mair cauff than 
 corn that day." 
 
 " And nae wunner," said Mrs. MaWhurr. 
 
 " They wad just be blate to pit themsel's forrit, 
 Tammas ! " said I. " They wadna Hke to speak to 
 a strainge minister." 
 
 '• Strainge minister here, strainge minister there. 
 I'll gang nae mair to yon toon ! " says he. " They 
 made me fine an' blate. When I'm settled in the 
 Dowiedens " 
 
 " An' mairrit to that wifie's dochter that pat her 
 airms " 
 
 " Haud yer tongue, man ! " cried my mistress to 
 me in a mainner that couldna be ca'ed mair than 
 ceeviL
 
 THE LAMMAS PREACHING. 
 
 "And I further intimate," said the minister, " that 
 I will preach this evening at Cauldshaws, and my 
 text will be from the ninth chapter of the book of 
 Ecclesiastes and the tenth verse, * Whatsoever thy 
 hand findeth to do, do it with thy might' " 
 
 " Save us," said Janet MacTaggart, " he's clean 
 forgotten 'if it be the Lord's wull.' Maybe he'll 
 be for gaun whether it's His wull or no' — he's a 
 sair masterfu' man, the minister ; but he comes 
 frae the Machars,i an' kens little aboot the jealous 
 God we hae amang the hills o' Gallawa' ! " 
 
 The minister continued, in the same high, level 
 tone in which he did his preaching, " There are a 
 number of sluggards who lay the weight of their 
 own laziness on the Almighty, saying, * I am a 
 worm and no man — how should I strive with my 
 Maker,' whenever they are at strife with their own 
 sluggishness. There will be a word for all such 
 
 * The Eastern Lowlands of Wigtonshire. 
 
 79
 
 8o THE LAMMAS PREACHING. 
 
 this evening at the farmtown of Cauldshaws, pre- 
 sently occupied by Gilbert M'Kissock — public 
 worship to begin at seven o'clock." 
 
 The congregation of Barnessock kirk tumbled 
 amicably over its own heels with eagerness to get 
 into the kirkyaird in order to settle the momen- 
 tous question, " Whose back was he on the day ? " 
 
 Robert Kirk, Carsethorn, had a packet of pepper- 
 mint lozenges in the crown of his " lum " hat — 
 deponed to by Elizabeth Douglas or Barr, in 
 Barnbogrie, whose husband, Weelum Barr, put on 
 the hat of the aforesaid Robert Kirk by mistake 
 for his own, whereupon the peppermints fell to the 
 floor and rolled under the pews in most unseemly 
 fashion. Elizabeth Kirk is of opinion that this 
 should be brought to the notice of Session, she 
 herself always taking her peppermint while gen- 
 teelly wiping her mouth with the corner of her 
 handkerchief Robert Kirk, on being put to the 
 question, admits the facts, but says that it was his 
 wife put them there to be near her hand. 
 
 The minister, however, ever ready with his word, 
 brought him to shame by saying, " O Robert, 
 Robert, that was just what Adam said, ' The 
 woman Thou gavest me, she gave me to eat ! ' " 
 The aforesaid Robert Kirk thinks that it is 
 meddling with the original Hebrew to apply this
 
 THE LAMMAS PREACHING. 8l 
 
 to peppermints, and also says that Elizabeth Kirk 
 is an impident besom, and furthermore that, as all 
 
 the country well knows (Here the chronicler 
 
 omits much matter actionable in the civil courts 
 of the realm.) 
 
 "Janet," said the minister to his housekeeper, 
 " I am to preach to-night at Cauldshaws on the 
 text, ' Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it 
 with thy might.' " 
 
 " I ken," said Janet, " I saw it on yer desk. I 
 pat it ablow the clock for fear the wun's o' heeven 
 micht blaw it awa' like chaff, an' you couldna do 
 wantin' it ! " 
 
 " Janet MacTaggart," said the minister, tartly, 
 "bring in the denner, and do not meddle with 
 what does not concern you.** 
 
 Janet could not abide read sermons; her natural 
 woman rose against them. She knew, as she had 
 said, that God was a jealous God, and, with regard 
 to the minister, she looked upon herself as His 
 vicegerent. 
 
 " He's young an* terrable ram-stam an' opeenion- 
 ated — fu' o' buik-lear, but wi' little gracious experi- 
 ence. For a' that, the root o' the maitter 's in 
 'im," said Janet, not unhopefully. 
 
 " I'm gaun to preach at Cauldshaws, and my 
 text's * Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it
 
 82 THE LAMMAS PREACHING. 
 
 with thy might,' " said the minister to the pre- 
 centor that afternoon, on the manse doorstep. 
 
 " The Lord's no' in a' his thochts. I'll gang wi' 
 the lad mysel'," said the precentor. 
 
 Now, Galloway is so much out of the world that 
 the Almighty has not there lifted His hand from 
 reward and punishment, from guiding and restrain- 
 ing, as He has done in big towns where everything 
 goes by machinery. Man may say that there is 
 no God when he only sees a handbreadth of 
 smoky heaven between the chimney-pots ; but out 
 on the fields of oats and bear, and up on the 
 screes of the hillsides, where the mother granite 
 sticks her bleaching ribs through the heather, men 
 have reached great assurance on this and other 
 matters. 
 
 The burns were running red with the mighty July 
 rain when Douglas Maclellan started over the 
 meadows and moors to preach his sermon at the 
 farmtown of Cauldshaws. He had thanked the 
 Lord that morning in his opening prayer for 
 "the bounteous rain wherewith He had seen meet 
 to refresh His weary heritage." 
 
 His congregation silently acquiesced, "for what,' 
 said they, " could a man from the Machars be 
 expected to ken about meadow hay } " 
 
 When the minister and the precentor got to the
 
 THE LAMMAS PREACHING. 83 
 
 foot of the manse loaning, they came upon the 
 parish ne'er-do-weel, Ebie Kirgan, who kept him- 
 self in employment by constantly scratching his 
 head, trying to think of something to do, and 
 whose clothes were constructed on the latest 
 sanitary principles of ventilation. The ruins of 
 Ebie's hat were usually tipped over one eye for 
 enlarged facilities of scratching in the rear. 
 
 " If it's yer wull, minister, I'll come to hear ye 
 the nicht. It's drawing to mair rain, I'm thinkin' ! " 
 said the Scarecrow. 
 
 " I hope the discourse may be profitable to you, 
 Ebenezer, for, as I intimated this morning, I am to 
 preach from the text, ' Whatsoever thy hand findeth 
 to do, do it with thy might' " 
 
 " Ay, minister," said Ebie, relieving his right 
 hand, and tipping his hat over the other eye to 
 give his left free play. So the three struck over 
 the fields, making for the thorn tree at the corner, 
 where Robert Kirk's dyke dipped into the standing 
 water of the meadow. 
 
 " Do you think ye can manage it, Maister 
 Maclellan } " said the precentor. " Ye're wat half- 
 way up the leg already." 
 
 " An' there's sax feet o' black moss water in the 
 Laneburn as sure as I'm a leevin' sowl," added 
 Ebie Kirgan.
 
 84 THE LAMMAS PREACHING 
 
 " I'm to preach at Cauldshaws, and my text is, 
 " Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with 
 thy might ! '" said the minister, stubbornly gloom- 
 ing from under the eaves of his eyebrows as the 
 swarthy men from the Machars are wont to do. 
 His companions said no more. They came to 
 Camelon Lane, where usually Robert Kirk had a 
 leaping pole on either bank to assist the traveller 
 across, but both poles had gone down the water in 
 the morning to look for Robert's meadow hay. 
 
 " Tak' care, Maister Maclellan, ye'll be in deep 
 water afore ye ken. O man, ye had far better 
 turn ! " 
 
 The precentor stood up to his knees in water on 
 what had once been the bank, and wrung his 
 hands. But the minister pushed steadily ahead 
 into the turbid and sluggish water. 
 
 " I canna come, oh, I canna come, for I'm a man 
 that has a family." 
 
 " It's no' your work ; stay where ye are," cried 
 the minister, without looking over his shoulder ; 
 " but as for me, I'm intimated to preach this night 
 at Cauldshaws, and my text " 
 
 Here he stepped into a deep hole, and his text 
 was suddenly shut within him by the gurgle of 
 moss witer in his throat. His arms rose above the 
 surface like the black spars of a windmill. But
 
 THE LAMMAS PREACHING. 85 
 
 Ebie Kirgan sculled himself swiftly out, swimming 
 with his shoeless feet, and pushed the minister 
 before him to the further bank — the water gushing 
 out of rents in his clothes as easily as out of the 
 gills of a fish. 
 
 The minister stood with unshaken confidence on 
 the bank. He ran peat water like a spout in a 
 thunder plump, and black rivulets of dye were 
 trickling from under his hat down his brow and 
 dripping from the end of his nose. 
 
 " Then you'll not come any farther ? " he called 
 across to the precentor. 
 
 " I canna, oh, I canna ; though I'm most awfu' 
 wullin'. Kirsty wad never forgie me gin I was to 
 droon," 
 
 " Then I'll e'en have to raise the tune myself — 
 though three times 'Kilmarnock' is a pity," said 
 the minister, turning on his heel and striding away 
 through the shallow sea, splashing the water as 
 high as his head with a kind of headstrong glee 
 which seemed to the precentor a direct defiance of 
 Providence. Ebie Kirgan followed half a dozen 
 steps behind. The support of the precentor's lay 
 semT-equality taken from him, he began to regret 
 that he had come, and silently and ruefully plunged 
 along after the minister through the water-logged 
 meadows. They came in time to the foot of
 
 86 THE LAMMAS PREACHING. 
 
 Robert Kirk's march dyke, and skirted it a hun- 
 dred yards upward to avoid the deep pool in 
 which the Laneburn waters were swirling. The 
 minister climbed silently up the seven-foot dyke, 
 pausing a second on the top to balance himself for 
 his leap to the other side. As he did so Ebie 
 Kirgan saw that the dyke was swaying to the fall, 
 having been weakened by the rush of water on the 
 farther side. He rushed instantly at the minister, 
 and gave him a push with both hands which 
 caused Mr. Maclellan to alight on his feet clear of 
 the falling stones. The dyke did not so much fall 
 outward as settle down on its own ruins. Ebie 
 fell on his face among the stones with the impetus 
 of his own eagerness. He arose, however, quickly — 
 only limping slightly from what he called a " bit 
 chack " (nip) on the leg between two stones. 
 
 "That was a merciful Providence, Ebenezer," 
 said the minister, solemnly; "I hope you are duly 
 thankful!" 
 
 " Dod, I am that ! " replied Ebie, scratching his 
 head vigorously with his right hand and rubbing, 
 his leg with his left. " Gin I hadna gi'en ye that 
 dunch, ye micht hae preachen nane at Cauldshaws 
 this nicht." 
 
 They now crossed a fairly level clover field, 
 dank and laid with wet. The scent of the clover
 
 THE LAMMAS PREACHING. 87 
 
 rose to their nostrils with almost overpowering 
 force. There was not a breath of air. The sky 
 was blue and the sun shining. Only a sullen roar 
 came over the hill, sounding in the silence like the 
 rush of a train over a far-away viaduct. 
 
 " What is that ? " queried the minister, stopping 
 to listen. 
 
 Ebie took a brisk sidelong look at him. 
 
 " I'm some dootsome that'll be the Skyreburn 
 coming doon off o' Cairnsmuir ! " 
 
 The minister tramped unconcernedly on. Ebie 
 Kirgan stared at him. 
 
 " He canna ken what a ' Skyreburn warnin* ' is 
 — he'll be thinkin' it's some bit Machar's burn that 
 the laddies set their whurlie mills in. But he'll 
 turn richt eneuch when he sees Skyreburn roarin' 
 reed in a Lammas flood, I'm thinkin' 1" 
 
 They took their way over the shoulder of the 
 hill in the beautiful evening, leaning eagerly for- 
 ward to get the first glimpse of the cause of that 
 deep and resonant roar. In a moment they saw 
 below them a narrow rock-walled gulley, ten or 
 fifteen yards across, filled to the brim with rushing 
 water. It was not black peat water like the 
 Camelon Lane, but it ran red as keel, flecked now 
 and then with a revolving white blur as one of the 
 Cauldshaws sheep spun downward to the sea, with
 
 88 THE LAMMAS PREACHING. 
 
 four black feet turned pitifully up to the blue 
 sky. 
 
 Ebie looked at the minister. " He'll turn noo if 
 he's mortal," he said. But the minister held on. 
 He looked at the water up and down the roaring 
 stream. On a hill above, the farmer of Cauld- 
 shaws, having driven all his remaining sheep 
 together, sat down to watch. Seeing the minister, 
 he stood up and excitedly waved him back. But 
 Douglas Maclellan from the Machars never gave 
 him a look, and his shouting was of less effect than 
 if he had been crying to an untrained collie. 
 
 The minister looked long up the stream, and at 
 a point where the rocks came very close together, 
 and many stunted pines were growing, he saw one 
 which, having stood on the immediate brink, had 
 been so much undercut that it leaned over the 
 gulley like a fishing-rod. With a keen glance 
 along its length, the minister, jamming his drip- 
 ping soft felt hat on the back of his head, was 
 setting foot on the perilous slope of the uneven 
 red-brown trunk, when Ebie Kirgan caught him 
 sharply by the arm. 
 
 " It's no' for me to speak to a minister at 
 ordinar' times," he stammered, gathering courage 
 in his desperation ; " but, oh, man, it's fair murder 
 to try to gang ower that water 1 "
 
 THE LAMMAS PREACHING. bg 
 
 The minister wrenched himself free, and sprang 
 along the trunk with wonderful agility. 
 
 " I'm intimated to preach at Cauldshaws this 
 night, and my text is, ' Whatsoever thy hand 
 findeth to do, do it with thy might ! '" he shouted. 
 
 He made his way up and up the slope of the fir 
 tree, which, having little grip of the rock, dipped 
 and swayed under his tread. Ebie Kirgan fell on 
 his knees and prayed aloud. He had not prayed 
 since his stepmother boxed his ears for getting 
 into bed without saying his prayers twenty years 
 ago. This had set him against it. But he prayed 
 now, and to infinitely more purpose than his 
 minister had recently done. But when the climber 
 had reached the branchy top, and was striving to 
 get a few feet farther, in order to clear the surging 
 linn before he made his spring, Ebie rose to his 
 feet, leaving his prayer unfinished. He sent forth 
 an almost animal shriek of terror. The tree roots 
 cracked like breaking cables and slowly gave way, 
 an avalanche of stones plumped into the whirl, and 
 the top of the fir crashed downwards on the rocks 
 of the opposite bank. 
 
 " Oh man, call on the name of the Lord ! " cried 
 Ebie Kirgan, the ragged preacher, at the top of his 
 voice. 
 
 Then he saw something detach itself from the
 
 90 THE LAMMAS PREACHING. 
 
 tree as it rebounded, and for a moment rise and fall 
 black against the sunset. Then Ebie the Outcast 
 fell on his face like a dead man. 
 
 In the white coverleted " room " of the farmtown 
 of Cauldshaws, a white-faced lad lay with his 
 eyes closed, and a wet cloth on his brow. A 
 large-boned, red-cheeked, motherly woman stole 
 to and fro with a foot as light as a fairy. The 
 sleeper stirred and tried to lift an unavailing hand 
 to his head. The mistress of Cauldshaws stole to 
 his bedside as he opened his eyes. She laid a 
 restraining hand on him as he strove to rise. 
 
 " Let me up," said the minister, " I must away, 
 for I'm intimated to preach at Cauldshaws, and 
 my text is, ' Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, 
 do it with thy might.' " 
 
 " My bonny man," said the goodwife, tenderly, 
 " you'll preach best on the broad o' yer back this 
 mony a day, an' when ye rise your best text will 
 be, * He sent from above, He took me, and drew 
 me out of many waters 1 ' "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUN- 
 CANSON, SCHOOLMASTER, 
 
 SOMETIME MINISTER OF THE PARISH OF 
 SHAWS: DEPOSED FOR DRUNKENNESS. 
 
 Duncan Duncanson, parochial schoolmaster in 
 the parish of Nether Dullarg, stood at the door of 
 his schoolhouse, shading his eyes with his hand. 
 He looked down the road and up the road, but no 
 one was in sieht. Not a leaf moved that breathless 
 July morning. It was yet too early for the scholars 
 to come, and indeed being high haytime the 
 dominie did not expect a large attendance. He 
 was not watching the stray collie puppy which 
 made noisy demonstrations against the blue bottles 
 near the water spout at the foot of the playground. 
 He was looking out for a tall girl carrying a black 
 bag. To his mind she had delayed too long, and 
 he was muttering what seemed by the gruff tones 
 to be threats, but which was in reality something 
 much milder.
 
 92 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON. 
 
 " Never was there sic a lassie ; she canna even 
 come straight back from the heid o' the street!" 
 he said, complain ingly. " There's no' a dowg in 
 the Dullarg but she maun clap, an' no' a pussy 
 sleepin' in the sun but she maun cross the road 
 to stroke. She gets hersel' fair covered wi' dirt 
 playin' wi' the laddies ; she'll even set doon the 
 black bag to play for keeps wi' the boys at the 
 bools, an' her comin' on for fifteen." 
 
 He sighed as though this were a deep grief to 
 him, and a tear stood, with a kind of melancholy 
 entirely unsuited to the slightness of the occasion, 
 in his unsteady eye of watery blue. But it was 
 not at all the shortcomings of the " lassie " that 
 filled his heart He kept muttering under his 
 breath : 
 
 "If my Flora had but had her ain — shame to 
 you, Duncan Duncanson, shame to you, shame 
 to you, she micht hae been a dochter o' the 
 manse." 
 
 Suddenly there was a glint as of sunshine in a 
 shady place among the trees at the foot of the 
 inclined slope of beaten earth which was called the 
 playground. So steep was it, that when a scholar 
 fell anywhere upon it he rolled over and over till 
 brought up by the dyke. A tall girl came up the 
 steps with a hop, skip and jump, took the dominie
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON. 93 
 
 round the neck in a disconiposing manner, swung 
 him on his heels as on a pivot, and puslied him 
 into the school. 
 
 " There," she said, " that's the last time that I 
 gang for your bag. I wonder that you are not 
 ashamed to sen' your daughter to the public-hoose 
 for a black bag that every bairn kens what's in, 
 every Tuesday and Friday, an' you the maister ! " 
 
 Duncan Duncanson stood knitting his broad 
 smooth brow, and clasping and unclasping his 
 hands nervously. But he said nothing. His 
 attention was irresolutely divided between his 
 daughter, who stood before him with arms akimbo, 
 the image of a petty tyrant, and the black bag 
 which more and more strongly drew his gaze. 
 " I'll slip ower," he said, "an' see gin there's a big 
 eneuch coal on the fire to keep it in 1" So, taking 
 the black bag in his hand, he went out like a 
 chidden child glad to escape from observation. 
 The girl maintained her dignified position till he 
 was out of sight, then threw herself down on the 
 hacked and ink-stained desk and cried as if her 
 heart would break. 
 
 " Oh, my faither, my faithcr," she sobbed, " an' 
 him yince a minister." 
 
 When the dominie returned, with a flush on his 
 cheek which slowly ebbed away, he found his girl
 
 94 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON. 
 
 in the midst of a riotous game of " steal the 
 bonnets," which was only played at by the aristo- 
 crats of the school. Flora Duncanson was easily 
 empress both in the schoolhouse and in the school 
 of the Nether Dullarg ; and except when her 
 father took one of his occasional turns of wild and 
 ungovernable temper after too close devotion to 
 the black bag which he had returned from locking 
 in its skeleton cupboard, she was also the mistress 
 of the master. 
 
 Every one in Nether Dullarg knew the history 
 of Duncan Duncanson. He had taught nearly all 
 the younger portion of them, for it was many 
 years since he was appointed parish teacher in 
 Nether Dullarg, long before Mr. Pitbye came to be 
 minister. Duncan Duncanson was college bred. 
 More than that he had been a minister, and no 
 " stickit " minister either, but duly licensed, 
 ordained, and inducted — also, alas ! deposed. 
 There had been a black bag even in those early 
 days, as Duncan Duncanson knew to his cost. His 
 had been the good seed sown among the abundance 
 of thorns. These two, thorns and wheat, grew up 
 together into a deadly crop, and together were cut 
 down in that terrible day of reckoning when the 
 presbytery of Pitscottie solemnly deposed Duncan 
 Duncanson, sometime minister of the parish of
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON. 95 
 
 Shaws, from the office of the ministry o\ the Kirk 
 of Scotland. 
 
 Then the presbytery of that day adjourned to 
 the Gordon Arms to wash down their presbyterial 
 dinner with plentiful jorums of toddy, and Duncan 
 Duncanson sat for the last time in his study in the 
 manse of the Shaws, sipping and filling the demon 
 bottle which he carried like a familiar spirit in his 
 black bag. This was his Day of Judgment ; and 
 the hopes of his youth, the aspirations of his 
 middle life, the forecasts of a quiet age were all 
 consumed in the flaming wrath of it. This was 
 all because the Reverend Duncan Duncanson had 
 fallen down one Sabbath day at the front door of 
 the Shaws manse. There were those in the pres- 
 bytery who had often fallen down at their back 
 doors, but then this made a great difference, and 
 they all prayed fervently for the great sinner and 
 backslider who had slidden at his front door in the 
 sight of men. The moderator, who in the presby- 
 tery had called Duncan everything that he could 
 lay his tongue to, reflected as he drove home that 
 he had let him off far too easily. Then he stooped 
 down and felt in the box of his gig if the two- 
 gallon " greybeard " from the Gordon Arms were 
 sitting safely on its own bottom. So much respon- 
 sibility made him nervous on a rough road.
 
 96 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON. 
 
 Duncan Duncanson, no longer Reverend, at 
 once returned to his native village to the house of 
 his father and mother, the daily cause and witness 
 of their grey hairs whitening to the winter of the 
 grave. They had a Httle house of their own, and 
 it had not taken all their slender store to put their 
 lad through college ; for, save in the matter of the 
 black bag and its inmate, Duncan Duncanson was 
 neither spendthrift nor prodigal. Before he left 
 the Shaws he was to have been married to the 
 daughter of the neighbouring minister, but in the 
 wild upheaval of that earthquake shock she obedi- 
 ently gave Duncan up as soon as the parish had 
 given him up ; and in time married a wealthy 
 farmer who did not come sober home from market 
 for twenty years. 
 
 In his own village Duncan was looked upon with 
 an odd kind of respect. He was thought to have 
 been led astray, though this was not the case — the 
 devil, together with the weak chin and unstable 
 eye, having been leading enough. He was looked 
 on as " byordnar' clever," "a dungeon o' learnin'." 
 So, after some years, when the parochial school fell 
 vacant, the minister who had baptised him, and 
 who had helped him lamely with his rusty scraps 
 of Latin and Greek (Latin as far as " Omnis 
 Gallia " — Greek, the alphabet merely), put Duncan
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON. 97 
 
 into the school, sure that he would teach the 
 children well and conscientiously, and hopeful 
 that he might ultimately be led to reform ; for 
 ministers are sanguine men, at least all who do 
 any good among other men. 
 
 And the new schoolmaster had indeed done his 
 duty, though with abundance of the rod and some 
 detriment to his own temper and the cuticle of 
 his pupils. But no such scholars went up from 
 three counties as those who matriculated straight 
 from the hedge school of the parish of Dullarg 
 during the reign of the deposed minister of the 
 Shaws. By and by Duncan picked up other little 
 bits of patronage — the precentorship, as a matter of 
 course, the inspectorship of poor, and ultimately 
 the registrarship of births, deaths, and marriages. 
 In the Dullarg it is a saying that we " keep oor ain 
 fish guts for oor ain sea maws." This is not an ex- 
 pression common in the higher circles, but the thing 
 itself is common enough there. Duncan married 
 a village girl, who had made him a good wife 
 during her short life, but had not been able to 
 master the bottle imp. She had left him one 
 daughter, our imperious beauty of the yellow locks. 
 
 But we have gone afield from our school. The 
 whole building, a long narrow barn, built of rough 
 ashlar work with many small windows, never all
 
 98 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON. 
 
 whole at once, was sleepily droning with the morn- 
 ing lessons. Flora Duncanson, within a yard of 
 her father, was making paper arrows to throw at 
 Andrew Tait, the son of the wealthy farmer who 
 had married Duncan Duncanson's old sweetheart. 
 Andrew was a long-limbed lad, known as "the 
 fathom o' pump water." He was shy and thought- 
 ful, prone to moon in corners, a lad in whom could 
 be perceived no tincture of the bucolic clumsiness 
 of the one parent or the faded and selfish gentility 
 of the other. He liked to be teased by Flora 
 Duncanson, for it gave him an opportunity of look- 
 ing at her hair. He had never heard of Rossetti, 
 but he said in his heart, " Her hair that lay along 
 her back was yellow like ripe corn ! " 
 
 The ex-minister sat at his high desk, and the 
 hum of the school acted soothingly upon his un- 
 steady nerves. A vision began to assert itself of 
 something that he knew to be on one shelf of his 
 private cupboard in the little dominie's house 
 adjoining the school. Without a word he rose 
 and stepped out. Before he could get round the 
 school, Flora was out and after him. Thereupon 
 the school resolved itself into a pandemonium, and 
 Andrew the smith, shoeing his horses in the old 
 " smiddy " at the foot of the lane, said to his 
 apprentice, " The dominie'll be oot to wat his
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON. 99 
 
 thrapple. Oor Wull will be keepin* the schule the 
 noo ! " " Wull " was a good-natured clever elder 
 boy who was supposed to take charge of the school 
 in the absence of the dominie. This he did usually 
 by stopping the promiscuous fighting and scuffling 
 which went on all round the school and organising 
 a stated and official combat in the middle of the 
 floor between a pair of well-matched urchins. 
 " Let all things be done decently and in order " 
 was Wull's motto. 
 
 In the height of the turmoil a great brown head 
 presented itself at the door. It was the head of 
 big red " Trusty," the half-collie half-St. Bernard 
 which sometimes accompanied Andrew Tait to the 
 school, and played about outside till that youth 
 got free of his bondage, when the pair went 
 joyously homewards. 
 
 No sooner was he spied than fifty voices invited 
 him to enter. He came in, nothing loath, and 
 crouched beneath the desk which stood against 
 the wall by the window where sat his master with 
 some bosom cronies. There he was lying con- 
 cealed by a rampart of legs and slates when the 
 master entered with an angry frown on his brow 
 and his hat jammed over his forehead m a way 
 that boded no good to the school. " It's gaun to 
 be a lickin' day," said Andrew Tait, with an air of
 
 loo THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON. 
 
 grim foreboding. All was quiet in a moment, for 
 the fear of Duncan Duncanson with the black dog 
 on his back was heavy on every young heart. 
 Duncan was a good and a kindly man, and would 
 go anywhere to help a neighbour in trouble, but he 
 was undoubtedly savage in his cups. The imp of 
 the black bag was in possession. 
 
 The boys trembled, but the great red dog lay 
 quiet as pussy with his immense faithful head 
 pillowed on his master's knees. The dominie 
 went to his desk, and as nothing seemed to come 
 of his ill-humour the school gradually returned to 
 its condition of lazy inattention. Fred Graham, 
 the boy next to Andrew Tait, whispered, " Let me 
 stroke the doggie's held." 
 
 " What'll ye gie's ? " promptly replied Andrew, 
 with the truly boyish commercial spirit. 
 
 " A peerie," said his friend. 
 
 "An' the string?" added Andrew, who had a 
 corner in dogs and could force the market. So 
 for five minutes the big head was transferred to 
 Fred Graham's knee, and the stroking performed 
 to the satisfaction of all parties. Then the next 
 chance had been for some time disposed of to 
 young Sanny M'Quhirr of Drumquhat, who being 
 a farmer's son never would have thought of 
 stroking a dog save in school, for the laudable
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON loi 
 
 purpose of killing time and doing what was 
 forbidden. 
 
 School currency was changing hands and finding 
 its way into Andrew Tail's pockets at a great 
 rate. The various claimants for next turn were 
 so clamorous that they created some little dis- 
 turbance, so that the master, seeing a cluster of 
 heads together, noiselessly opened the lid of his 
 desk and sent the " taws " whirling down into their 
 midst with hearty goodwill. They took Fred 
 Graham round the neck, and he at once rose to 
 receive his " pawmies," the price of his general 
 amusements. He had not been the guilty person, 
 but he hardly denied it even pro fonnd, so accus- 
 tomed were they in that school to the Spartan 
 code that the sin lay not in the action, but in the 
 stupidity of being found out. 
 
 Through the gap formed by the absence of Fred 
 on his melancholy errand, a gap like that made by 
 the drawing of a tooth, the master saw the orange 
 skin and solemn eyes of " Trusty Tait," boys' dog 
 to the parish school of Nether Dullarg. 
 
 His wrath turned instantly on Trusty and his 
 owner, and his resentment burned with a sullen 
 exaggerated fury. He imagined that the animal 
 had been brought into the school in order directly 
 to insult him.
 
 X02 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON. 
 
 •' Who brought that dog in here?" he asked. 
 
 " Please, sir, he juist cam'," said Andrew Tait 
 
 " Put him out instantly ! " he commanded. 
 
 " Please, sir, he'll no' gang." 
 
 The dominie then went for the poker and 
 approached the big dog, whose eyes began to 
 shine with a yellow light curiously different from 
 that which had been in them when the boys were 
 stroking his shaggy coat. But he lay motionless as 
 though cut in stone, nothing living about him except 
 those slumberous eyes with the red spark flaming at 
 the bottom of them. His great tail lay along the 
 floor of the thickness of a boy's arm, with which 
 it was his wont to beat the floor as a thresher 
 beats his sheaves at the approach of his master. 
 " Trusty " Tait's dignity lay in his tail. His 
 tenderest feelings had their abode there. By 
 means of it he communicated his sentiments, 
 belligerent or amicable. When his master ap- 
 peared in the distance he wagged it ponderously, 
 when a canine friend hove in sight it waved 
 triumphantly, at the sight of a gipsy or a tramp 
 it grew oratory with the expressiveness of its 
 resentment. As the dominie approached with his 
 weapon of warfare, Andrew Tait drew the 'i"on 
 shod of his clog, which he would have called his 
 "cakkar," across Trusty's tail. The dog instantly
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON 103 
 
 halt rose on his forepaws, showing a seam of 
 teeth like a row of danger-signals, and gave vent 
 to a thunderous subterranean growl, which so 
 intimidated the master that he turned his anger 
 on the victim who promised less resistance. He 
 dragged Andrew Tait by the collar of his jacket 
 into the middle of the floor, and, forgetting in his 
 beclouded condition what he held in his hand, he 
 struck him once across the head with the heavy 
 iron poker, stretching him senseless on the ground. 
 The whole school rose to its feet with a dull, con- 
 fused moan of horror, but before any one could 
 move Trusty had the dominie by the throat, threw 
 him backwards over a form, and now stood guard, 
 growling with short blood-curdling snorts over the 
 prostrate body of his young master. Through the 
 open door Flora Duncanson came flying, for the 
 noise had told her even in the cottage that some- 
 thing unusual was happening. 
 
 " Go home at once ! " she called to the children, 
 and though there were many there older than she, 
 without a murmur they filed outside — remaining, 
 however, in whispering awestruck groups at the 
 foot of the playground. 
 
 " Go home, father, this moment ! " she said to 
 her father, who had gathered himself together, and 
 now stood shaking and uncertain like one awakened
 
 ro4 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON. 
 
 from a dream, groping stupidly with his bands. 
 The old man turned and went heavily away at his 
 daughter's word. He even thought of asking her 
 for the key of the cupboard, the strife for the 
 possession of which had been the beginning of 
 his black humour ; but a moment's thought con- 
 vinced him of the hopelessness of the request. 
 " But I would be muckle the better o't ! " he said, 
 and sighed — perhaps for a moment conscious how 
 much the worse he had been of it. 
 
 Flora Duncanson stood over the senseless body 
 of Andrew Tait. Trusty was licking the face. A 
 thin streak of blood stole from under the hair and 
 down the brow. The dog growled as the girl 
 approached, but ultimately allowed her to come to 
 the lad's side. 
 
 " Oh, Andra, Andra ! " she said, the salt water 
 running silently down her cheeks. 
 
 The boy slowly opened his eyes, looked at the 
 dog once more and then fixedly at Flora Duncan- 
 son. He always liked to look at her hair, but he 
 had never noticed till now how beautiful her eyes 
 were. He could not think what it was they 
 reminded him of — something he had seen in a 
 dream, he thought. 
 
 " Dinna greet. Flora," he said, " I'll tell my 
 faither that I fell, an' I'll lick ony boy in the
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON. 105 
 
 schule that says I didna I Oh, Flora, but yer e'en 
 
 are terrible bonny 1 " 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 This is all a very old story in the Dullarg now, 
 
 and Trusty is a Nestor among dogs. He spends 
 
 all his fine afternoons on a broomy knowe by 
 
 himself, for what with puppies and bairns the 
 
 farm is not the quiet place that it used to be when 
 
 he was young. Trusty overlooks a wide prospect 
 
 were his faithful dim eyes able to see, but as it is 
 
 he devotes himself chiefly to the flies which settle 
 
 upon his nose. Over there on the slope glimmer 
 
 in the haze the white stones in the churchyard. 
 
 Trusty never was much of a scholar, in spite of so 
 
 long frequenting the village academy, but had he 
 
 been able to read he might have found this 
 
 inscription on a granite tombstone down in the old 
 
 kiikyard by the Dee water : — 
 
 OF 
 
 DUNCAN DUNCANSON, 
 
 AGED 71 YEARS, SOMETIME 
 
 MINISTER OF THE PARISH OF SHAWS, 
 
 KOR THIRTY YEARS SCHOOLMASTER IN THIS PARISH, 
 
 ERECTED BY HIS AFFECTIONATE CHILDREN, 
 
 ANDREW AND FLORA TAIT. 
 
 .*«TO WHOM LITTLE IS FORGIVEN, THE SAME 
 
 LOVETH LITTLE."
 
 WHY DAVID OLIPHANT REMAINED 
 A PRESBYTERIAN. 
 
 " Now, Mr. OHphant, can you conceive any reason 
 except national prejudice, to which I am sure you 
 are superior, why you should not be with us in the 
 Church? It is, as you know, quite time that you 
 made up your mind. It is, indeed, solely with the 
 hope of assisting you to a decision that I have 
 desired to see you now." 
 
 An urbanely dignified clergyman is speaking to 
 a young man in an Oxford Common Room. 
 
 " I am very sensible of your lordship's conde- 
 scension," replied David Oliphant, late scholar of 
 St. Magnus, to the Right Reverend the Bishop of 
 Alchester. 
 
 That learned and liberal prelate was to preach 
 before the University on the following day, and in 
 the meantime he was endeavouring to serve his 
 Church by attracting to her bosom, that refuge at 
 once so inclusive and so exclusive, another of those 
 brilliant young Northmen who have given to St. 
 Magnus its primacy among Oxford colleges, and 
 
 106
 
 DAVID OLIPHANT. I07 
 
 from whose number the Anglican Church has 
 obtained many of her finest scholars and her wisest 
 prelates. 
 
 The Bishop's main question David Oliphant did 
 not answer immediately, for many strange things 
 were working within him. His certain desire was 
 to do the work of the Christ. So much was clear to 
 him — but how and where ? The answer was not 
 so definite. His college friends were entering the 
 Church by troops. They were as earnest and hope- 
 ful as he — they looked forward to beginning their 
 work at once. They seemed beckoning him to 
 come along with them into their mother-church, at 
 whose door stood the amiable and comfortable 
 Bishop of Alchester, with hands outstretched in 
 welcome. And then before David Oliphant there 
 rose up the vision of his own rugged Cameronian 
 kirk — like Nature, a stern but not unkindly foster- 
 mother. He thought of the four slow years of 
 strictest theological training which awaited him if 
 he returned to the North — four years for the scholar 
 of St. Magnus equally with the rudest country lad 
 who had stumbled through the requisite sessions 
 in arts. Small wonder that he wavered, dividing 
 the swift mind, or that the Bishop waited his 
 decision with the smile of successful persuasion in 
 his shrewd and kindly eyes.
 
 io8 DAVID OLIPHANT. 
 
 "We need such men as you, Mr. OHphant," he 
 said ; " with your parts and — ah — your other ad- 
 vantages you may go very far." 
 
 They say that before the mind of the drowning, 
 the past defiles in a panorama of inconceivable 
 rapidity. David Oliphant had almost made up his 
 mind to follow what seemed his manifest destiny, 
 when certain visions of a time long past rose 
 up before him, stood a moment clear, and then 
 vanished, even before the grey eyes of his Grace of 
 Alchester had lost their expectant smile. How 
 swiftly they came and went it is hard to give an 
 idea of. They take so long to tell, so unwillingly 
 do words carry pictures. 
 
 These are the things which came to David 
 Oliphant, in clear and solemn vision, during the 
 five minutes ere he answered the Bishop of 
 Alchester. 
 
 He saw an old grey-headed man, who worshipped, 
 leaning upon the top of his staff, in a sheltered 
 nook behind a low whitewashed Galloway farm- 
 house. He held his broad bonnet in his hands and 
 the wind blew a stray lock over a brow like a 
 weather-beaten cliff. His lips moved, but there 
 was no sound. A little lad of five came pattering 
 up the foot- worn path which led to the private
 
 DAVID OLIPHANT. 109 
 
 oratory of the family high priest. He had asked 
 hurriedly of the general public of the kitchen, 
 " What gate did G'appa gae ? " but without waiting 
 for the superfluous answer he trotted along that 
 well-known path that " G'appa " always " gaed." 
 The silent prayer ended, the pair took their way 
 hand in hand to the heights of the crags, where, 
 under its shallow covering of turf and heather, the 
 grey teeth of the granite shone. As they sit they 
 speak, each to the other, like men accustomed to 
 high and serious discourse. 
 
 " But why did the martyrs not go to the kirk the 
 king wanted them to ? " the child asked. 
 
 The old man rose, strong now on his feet, the fire 
 in his eye, his natural force not abated. He pointed 
 north to where on Auchenreoch Muir the slender 
 shaft of the martyrs' monument gleamed white 
 among the darker heather — south to where on 
 Kirkconnel hillside Grier of Lag found six living 
 men and left six corpses — west toward Wigtown 
 Bay, where the tide drowned two of the bravest of 
 women, tied like dogs to a stake — east to the kirk- 
 yards of Balweary and Nether Dullarg, where under 
 the trees the martyrs of Scotland lie thick as gowans 
 on the lea. The fire of the Lord was in his eye. 
 
 "Dinna forget, David Oliphant," he said, his 
 voice high and solemn, as in a chant, " that these
 
 no DAVID OLIPHANT. 
 
 all died for Christ's cause and covenant. They 
 were murdered because they worshipped God 
 according to their conscience. Remember, boy, 
 till the day of your death, that among these men 
 were your forbears, and forget not also who they 
 were that slew them ! " 
 
 And after twenty years the late scholar of St. 
 Magnus remembered. 
 
 Again the young man saw a wide black night 
 filled with the echoes of thundering and the rushing 
 of rain. The same child stood in the open doorway, 
 and, weeping, called pitifully for "Grandfather." 
 There was no answer, but the whole firmament 
 lightened with white flame from east to west ; and 
 in that silent moment of infinite clearness he saw 
 his grandfather's figure upright on the knoll before 
 the house, the head thrown upwards towards that 
 intense whiteness where the heavens seemed to 
 open and the very face of God to look through. 
 
 • • • • • • 
 
 Once more he saw a Sabbath morning, still with 
 the primeval stillness of "a land where no man 
 comes or hath come since the making of the world." 
 Peace all about the farm-steading, silence on all 
 the fields, hardly a bleat from the lambs on the 
 hill \ within, a cool and calm crispness as of home-
 
 DAVID O LIP HA NT. in 
 
 spun linen kept in lavender. It was the silence 
 which in an old Cameronian household succeeded 
 the " taking of the Buik " on the morning of the 
 day of the Lord. 
 
 Suddenly at the outer door the old man appears, 
 and he calls upstairs to his couple of manly sons — 
 to him ever but lads to do his will — " Boys, bring 
 the ' Queen's Airms ' ^ up to the march dyke this 
 minute ! " The men come downstairs, and, without 
 any show of surprise, take down the old muskets 
 off the wall, provide themselves with powder and 
 shot, and follow their father along the wide stony 
 sweep of the hill road. The little lad also follows, 
 with a sense that the bottom has dropped out of 
 his universe, when guns could be taken down on 
 Sabbath morning. 
 
 In the brisk morning sun a scattered group of 
 men and dogs was drawing slowly through the 
 great gaps in the pine woods towards the gate 
 which was the entrance of the small rock-bound 
 farm. At this gate the old man stands, his 
 stalwart sons behind him, his broad blue bonnet in 
 his hand. The hunters come coursing over the 
 green. But ere any one can open the gate the old 
 man steps forward, his white head bare to the sun. 
 
 • " Queen's Airms," i.e.^ muskets of the reign of Queen 
 Anne.
 
 H2 DAVID OLIPHANT. 
 
 David OHphant can see the white hairs glisten 
 even now. 
 
 " My lord," he says, " forty year I have been on 
 your land and your father's land. It does not become 
 me to tell you that you are breaking the law of God 
 by hunting the beasts of the field on His day ; but, 
 my lord, one thing you cannot do — you cannot 
 break it on this land as long as I am upon it." 
 
 The great laird came forward, young and pas- 
 sionate, a Rehoboam of many foolish counsellors. 
 
 " What's that he says, Daly ? That we can't hunt 
 on his farm ! I'll teach the canting old hypocrite 
 that every yard belongs to me. Open the gate, 
 Daly ! " 
 
 " My lord," said the old man, " I am not careful 
 to answer you concerning this matter, but I beseech 
 you for your father's memory not to do this thing." 
 
 The young man wavered ; but a murmur arose 
 from his companions. 
 
 " Don't let them spoil the sport with their canting 
 and their blunderbusses. Stand out of the way, 
 Oliphant ! Down with the gates, Daly 1 " 
 
 But Daly was not destined to take the gates 
 down, for once again the voice of the Cameronian 
 elder rang out, steady and respectful as ever. 
 
 " My lord, it is not my will to shed human blood, 
 or to resist you by force, though I might well do it,
 
 DAVID O LIP H ANT. 113 
 
 but I solemnly warn you I will shoot every dog of 
 yours that sets foot on my land this day. Boys, 
 are you ready ? Stan' forrit ! '* 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 The visions melted from before David Oliphant, 
 and he saw only the patient Bishop waiting his 
 answer, yawning a little because his dinner was 
 deferred. But there was no uncertainty in the 
 young man's answer. 
 
 " My lord," said he, with the steady voice and eye 
 that had come to him from his grandfather, " I 
 thank you heartily for your good and kindly thought 
 for me. Indeed, I am in no way deserving of your 
 interest ; but, such as I am, I must cleave to my 
 own church and my own people ! '"' 
 
 8
 
 THE THREE MAISTER PETER SLEES, 
 MINISTERS IN THE PARISH OF 
 COUTHY. 
 
 REPORTED VERBATIM FROM THE CONVERSATION 
 OF WILLIAM M'KIE, GRAVEDIGGER AND 
 
 minister's man. 
 
 It was a still summer evening in the slack 
 between hay and harvest on the farm of Drum- 
 quhat. The Galloway moors rose in long purple 
 ridges to the west. The sun had set, and in the 
 hollows pools of mist were gathering, islanded 
 with clumps of willow. The " maister" had made 
 his nightly rounds, and was now meditatively 
 taking his smoke, leaning on the gate at the 
 head of the loaning, and looking over a green 
 cornfield, through the raw colour of which the 
 first yellow was beginning to glimmer. From 
 the village half a mile away he could hear the 
 clink of the smith's anvil. There came into his 
 mind a slow thought of the good crack going on
 
 THE THREE MAISTER PETER SLEES. 115 
 
 there, and he erected himself as far as a habitual 
 stoop would allow him, as if he proposed " daun- 
 erin' " over to the village to make one of the 
 company in the heartsome " smiddy." 
 
 For a moment he stood undecided, and then 
 deliberately resumed his former position with his 
 elbows on the "yett." Saunders MaVVhurr had 
 remembered his wife. To do him justice, it was 
 seldom that he forgot her. But in his single 
 perpendicular moment Saunders had been able 
 to see over the stone dyke which hid from him 
 the broken and deceptive path which led from the 
 farm along the burnside and over the meadows to 
 the village of Whunnyliggat. What he saw would 
 have astonished a stranger, but it did not even 
 induce Saunders to take a second look. A man 
 was approaching up the loaning, apparently on 
 all-fours. The farmer knew instinctively that the 
 stranger was no stranger to him. He only saw 
 William Kie, grave-digger and minister's man, 
 walking as he had walked any time these forty 
 years. [William's name was strictly, no doubt, 
 M'Kie, but the Mac was as hopelessly lost as 
 the Books of Manetho.] He even remembered 
 William when he was a dashing young hedger 
 and ditcher with a red plush waistcoat for the 
 lasses to look at on Sabbaths as they walked
 
 Ii6 THE THREE MAISTER PETER SLEES. 
 
 modestly from the churchyard gate to the door 
 of Couthy Kirk. 
 
 That was before William got his hurt by being 
 thrown off a hearse in the famous south country 
 snowstorm of the 1st of May. William Kie had 
 never married. Why, you shall hear some day if you 
 care, for once in a mellow mood William told me 
 the story in his whitewashed bachelor's house, that 
 stood with its gable end to the street, opposite the 
 Free Kirk School. The bairns vexed his soul by 
 playing "Antony Over" against the end of his house, 
 and running into his garden for the ball when, at 
 every third throw, it went among the beadle's kale. 
 Had they been the pupils of the authorised paro- 
 chial dominie at the other end of the village, 
 William might have borne it with some degree 
 of equal mind ; but, as he said, a beadle for forty 
 years in the Parish Kirk is bound to have his 
 feelings about the Free Kirk. 
 
 The farmer of Drumquhat did not turn round 
 in reply to the greeting of the minister's man. He, 
 too, had his feelings, for he was a " Free " and an 
 elder. 
 
 He said, " Thank ye, Weelum, I canna compleen. 
 Hoo's yersel' t " 
 
 "No' that weel, Drumquhat ; things are awfu' 
 drug [slow]. I hacna buried but yin since Mar-
 
 THE THREE MAISTER PETER SLEES. 117 
 
 tinmas — no' a sowl for fower months, and the last 
 but a tramp body that drooned himsel' in the 
 Dee — a three- fit grave that I made ower narrow 
 an' had to widen in the sweat o' my broo — never 
 a bawbee extra for't frae the parish, but a grummle 
 from that thrawn stick o' a registrar ! " „.'- 
 
 " Man aHve ! " said Saunders MaWhurr, indif- 
 ferently, his thoughts being arithmetically with 
 his calves as he watched Jo, his farm boy, turn 
 them out in to the field. The gravedigger knew 
 that the farmer's attention was perfunctory, but he 
 was not offended, for Saunders kept three pair of 
 horse and a gig. Instinctively, however, he took 
 up a subject that was bound to interest a Free 
 Kirk elder. 
 
 He said, " Did ye hear what we got at the Hie 
 Kirk yesterday .? I daresay no'. Yer plooman 
 was there, I ken, to see Jess Coupland ; but him — 
 he disna ken a sermon frae an exposcetion, let 
 alane bringing awa' the fine points o' sic a dis- 
 coorse as we gat yesterday." 
 
 " He was oot a' nicht, an' I havna seen him since 
 he lowsed," said Saunders, in his non-committal 
 manner. "But what did ye get to mak' ye craw 
 sae croose ? No' a new sermon, I'sc warrant ! " 
 
 " Weel, na, he didna exactly gang that length ; 
 but, dod, it was better than that — it was a new yin
 
 ii8 THE THREE MAISTER PETER SLEES 
 
 d his granfaithcr's ! VVhaur he had fa'en on vvi't 
 is mair than I can say, but the manse lass tells me 
 that he was hovvkin' up in the garret tvva after- 
 noons last week, an' a bonny sicht he made o' 
 himsel' 1 " 
 
 In a moment the farmer of Drumquhat was 
 quite a different man ; he even offered William 
 Kie a share of the gate to lean upon by silently 
 stepping aside, which was a great deal for a man 
 in his position. William acknowledged his kind- 
 ness by silently seating himself on a broken gate- 
 post lying at the dykeback. This was what is 
 known in learned circles as a compromise. 
 
 The beadle took up his parable : " As sune as he 
 steppit oot o' the manse, I could see that there 
 was something onusual in the wund. First, I 
 thocht that it micht be clean bands that the 
 mistress had gotten for him ; for Mistress Slee 
 was in gey guid fettle last week, an' I didna ken 
 what she michtna hae dune ; but when I saw him 
 tak' oot o' his case the same auld pair that he has 
 worn since the Sacrament afore last — ye can juist 
 tell them frae the colour o' the goon — I kenned 
 that it bood be something else that was makkin' 
 him sae brisk. Man, Saunders," said William, 
 forgetting to say " Drumquhat," as he had in- 
 tended which was counted more polite from a
 
 THE THREE MAJSTER PETER SLEES. 119 
 
 man like him, " Man, Saunders, I dinna ken whaur 
 my een could hae been, for I even gat a glisk o' 
 the sermon as it gaed intil the Buik, yet never for 
 a minute did I jaloose what was cominV 
 
 " Ay, man, Weelum, an' what was't ava ? " said 
 Saunders, now thoroughly awake to a congenial 
 topic. He was glad that he had not gone down 
 to the " smiddy " now, for Saunders was not in the 
 habit of opening out there before so many. 
 
 " Weel, Saunders, as I am tellin' you, it was a 
 new sermon o' his granfaither's, daecent man, him 
 that lies aneath the big thruch stane in the wast 
 corner o' the kirkyaird. It's maistly covered wi' 
 dockens an' soorocks noo, for the Maister Slee that 
 we hae the noo is mair fameeliar wi' his forbears' 
 han' o' write than wi' the bit stanies that baud 
 them daecently doon till Gawbriel's trump bids 
 them rise ! " 
 
 " Haun' o' write ! " quoth Saunders ; " what can 
 the craitur mean ? " 
 
 " Saunders MaWhurr," said the minister's man, 
 solemnly, " thcrty year an' mair hae I carried the 
 Buik, an' howkit the yaird, an' dibbled the cabbage 
 for the Maister Slees, faither an' son. Ay, an' i 
 mind brawly o' the granfaither — a graun' figure o' 
 a man him, sax fit twa in his buckled shoon. 
 Saunders, I'n no' an' upsettin' man, an' quate-
 
 I20 THE THREE MAISTER PETER SLEES 
 
 spoken even on Setterday nicht, but ye wull aloo 
 that I'm bun' to ken something aboot the three 
 Peter Slees, ministers o' the parish o' Couthy." 
 
 •* Gae on," said Saunders. 
 
 "Weel, it's no' onkenned to you that the twa 
 first Maister Slees wraite their sermons, for they 
 were self-respecktin' men, an' nae ranters haiverin' 
 oot o' their heids ! Na " 
 
 " What aboot the granfaither, Weelum ? " put in 
 Saunders, quickly, avoiding, in the interests of the 
 history, contentious matter upon which at another 
 time he would gladly have accepted gage of battle. 
 
 " Weel, the granfaither was, as I hae said, a 
 graun', solit man, wi' a reed face on him like the 
 mune in hairst, an' sic a bonny heid o' hair it was 
 hardly considered daecent in the parish o' Couthy. 
 Fowk used to think he wore a wig till they saw 
 him on horseback, for he wad ride wi' his hat in 
 his haun' an' his hair blawin' oot in the wund like 
 Absalom's. He was a rale fine moral preacher, 
 reared in the hinder end o' the last century, but 
 neyther to baud nor to bind if onybody ca'ed him 
 a Moderate. In deed an' truth, onybody that saw 
 him wi' the laird when the twasome had been 
 haein' denner thegither could see that was a lee 
 an' a big yin ! " 
 
 " Juist that," said the farmer of Drumquhat
 
 THE THREE MAISTER PETER SLEES. 121 
 
 " But when he preached on the Sabbath he gied 
 the fowk no gospel to ca' gospel, but he did mak' 
 them scunner with the Law ; an' when he preached 
 on Justice, Temperance, an' Judgment to come 
 there wasna a shut ee in a' Couthy Kirk ! Fine 
 I mind o' it, though I was but a callant, an' hoo 
 I wussed that he wad hae dune an' let me hame to 
 mak' pyozves o' poother for the fair on Monday. 
 
 " The faither o' oor present Maister Slee ye'll 
 mind yersel'. He was a strong Non-Intrusion 
 man afore the ' forty-three,' as strong as it was in 
 the craitur to be. A' fowk thocht that he wad hae 
 comed oot wi' the lave, an' sae I believe he wad 
 but for the wife, wha lockit him in the garret for 
 three days, an' gied him his meals through the 
 sky-licht ! 
 
 " His sermons were like himsel', like pease brose, 
 made o' half a pun o' peas to the boilerfu' o' water 
 — rale evangelical, ye ken, but meat for babes, 
 hardly for grown fowk. 
 
 " I needna tell ye, eyther, aboot young Maister 
 Slee ; weel, he's no' young noo ony mair than 
 oorsel's." 
 
 " Humph ! " said Saunders. 
 
 " He preaches aboot the lilies o* the field, hoo 
 bonny they are, an' aboot the birds o' the air, an' 
 the mowdies in the yird — the very craws he canna
 
 122 THE THREE MAISTER PETER SLEES. 
 
 let alane. He said the ither Sabbath day that 
 fowk that wraite guid resolutions in their note- 
 bulks to keep out the de'il war like the farmer 
 that shut the yetts o' his cornfields to keep oot 
 the craws ! " 
 
 " That's nane sae stupit! " said Saunders. 
 
 " Na ; he's a graun' naiteralist, the body," said 
 the minister's man, " an' when the big Enbra' 
 societies come doon here to glower an' wunner at 
 the bit whurls an' holes in the rocks, he's the verra 
 man to tak' them to the bit ; an' whan the Crech- 
 ton Asylum fowk cam' doon to a picnic, as they 
 ca'ed it, it was Maister Slee that gied them a 
 lectur' on the bonny heuchs o' Couthy. An' faith, 
 I couldna tell ye what yin o' the twa companies 
 was the mair sensible. 
 
 " Weel, to mak' a lang story short, if I get a fair 
 guid look at the paper when he pits it intil the 
 Buik, I can tell by the yellaness o't whether it's 
 his ain, or his faither's, or his granfaither's ; but 
 I maistly forget to look, for he generally gies us 
 them day aboot, beginnin' on the sacrament wi' 
 his faither's famous discoorse, ' As a nail in a sure 
 place,' that we had every sax months, till the Glen- 
 cairn joiner, a terrible outspoken body, telt him 
 that that nail wadna baud in that hole ony langer ! 
 
 " But when he begins to preach, we sune ken
 
 THE THREE MAISTER PETER SLEES. 123 
 
 wha's barrel he has been in, for if we hear o' oor 
 duty to the laird, an' the State, an' them in 
 authority ower us, we say, ' If the wast winda 
 was open, an' the auld man wad cock his lug, he 
 wad hear something that he wad ken.' On the 
 ither haun', if we hear aboot these present sad 
 troubles, an speeritual independence, an' Effectual 
 Calling, we ken he's been howkin' in the big beef- 
 barrel whaur the Pre-Disruption sermons o' his 
 daddy lie in pickle. 
 
 " Sae yesterday he gied us a terrible startle wi* 
 a new yin' o' his granfaither's that nae man leevin' 
 had ever heard." 
 
 " An' what was his text ? " said practical 
 Saunders. 
 
 " 'Deed, an' I'm no' sae guid at mindin' texts as 
 I yince was ; but the drift o' it was that we war to 
 be thankfu' for the recent maist remarkable pre- 
 servation o' oor land in the great victory that the 
 Duke o' Wellington an 'oor noble airmy had won 
 ower the usurper Bonyparty on the plains o' 
 Waterloo ! " 
 
 " That maun hae been a treat ! " said Saunders.
 
 THE COURTSHIP OF ALLAN FAIRLE\\ 
 OF EARLS WOOD. 
 
 This is no carried tale, but just as the minister 
 himself told it to me. He was pleased like when 
 he telled me, an' I am giving you what is not to 
 be told to everybody. Not that Allan Fairley 
 need be ashamed, but proud the rather if every 
 soul from here to Maidenkirk had the outs and 
 the ins of the story at their fingers' end. But I'm 
 telling you tliat you may know the right way of 
 the story, for there's as many ways of it as bees in 
 a byke. 
 
 The way I came to hear it was this. Allan 
 and the wife were at Drumquhat overnight on 
 their marriage jaunt, him being sib to my mistress, 
 and prood of the connection as he has a right to 
 be. My wife was a wee feared about having her 
 in the house, being aware that she was a Gordon 
 of Earlswood — the auldest stock in Galloway, and 
 brought up to be a lady-body. But she need have 
 
 »«4
 
 THE COURTSHIP OF ALLAN FAIRLEY. 125 
 
 had no fears, for ye never saw gentle or semple 
 mair free or heartsome. She ran to the barn to 
 help to gather the eggs, and got five, three being 
 nest-eggs and a cheena one that was put there to 
 deceive the chuckies. She kilted her coats and 
 helped to feed the calves. Then she was for learn- 
 ing to milk, but Black Bet laid back her lugs, and 
 in the hinderend kicked ower the luggie ; and 
 there was never such laughing in Drumquhat since 
 it was a farm-town. She made hersel' as merry 
 and heartsome as though there had never been a 
 Gordon in Earlswood or a Douglas in the Isle. 
 And Allan watched her as if he could not let her 
 out of his sight — smiling like a man that dreams a 
 pleasant dream but fears he will awaken. Then 
 when her dancing een came across his steady, 
 quiet look, she would come behind him and put 
 her hands over his eyes, asking what she had done 
 that he should look at her like that. 
 
 "You haven't found out my last murder yet, 
 Allan ! " she would say, and Allan would shift in 
 his chair well pleased to watch her. It was gurly 
 weather when they were at Drumquhat — 
 
 " The wind made wave the red weed on the dyke, 
 An' gurl' weather gruit beastes' hair," 
 
 quoted Allan, who has store of ballads, beyond
 
 126 THE COURTSHIP OF ALLAN FAIRLEY. 
 
 what most ministers think it their duty to carry. 
 When the wife was off with the candles and her 
 hostess' mysteries (mostly kindly fuss and a chance 
 to gossip) to see Allan's young guidwife to her 
 chamber, Allan and me sat a gye while glowering 
 at the red of the peat, till I broke the silence that 
 had fallen between us — the silence of companion- 
 ship, with the question that rose quite natural, for 
 it was not yesterday or the day before that I first 
 kenned the lad. "Ay, Allan, lad, an' where did 
 ye fa' on wi' her ? " I could see the pride, good 
 honest pride, rising in Allan's face, flushing his 
 cheek, and setting his eye fairly in a lowe, as he 
 answered, "Ay, Saunders, didna I do the best 
 day's work ever I did when I got her ? " This 
 was my own thought for the lad, but I only said, 
 "An' hoo did ye fa' on wi' her ? " 
 
 " It's a long story, Saunders, but I'll tell you " — 
 here he glanced at the clock, him that used to sit 
 till the cocks were crawin' a merry midnight — "I'll 
 tell ye briefly," says he. " The wives are not long 
 in making us " like the horse or mule, 
 
 Whose mouth, lest they come near to him, 
 A bridle must command.' 
 
 I quoted this once to my wife, who replied : 
 " Humph, an' I never heard ye war the waur
 
 THE COURTSHIP OF ALLAN FAIRLEY. 127 
 
 o't — 'horse or mule' " quo she, " fegs, it's anither 
 quaderaped I was referrin' to I " But at this point 
 I had business in the stable. 
 
 " To begin at the beginning," said Allan. "When 
 I was elected to the parish of Earlsvvood I was the 
 people's candidate, ye maun ken. I had four 
 hundred votes to thirty-three ; but Walter Douglas 
 Gordon of Earlswood, sole heritor of the parish, 
 was against me. He proposed a far-out friend of 
 his own, never dreaming but he would be elected 
 without a word, and ye may guess what a back-set 
 he got when only his foresters and them that was 
 most behadden to him voted for his man." 
 
 " He wad neyther be to haud nor bin'," said I. 
 
 " Na," said Allan, " and in open kirk meeting he 
 cuist up to them that was proposin' me that my 
 faither was but a plooman, and my mither knitted 
 his hose. But he forgot that the days of patronage 
 were by, for the Cross Roads joiner rises, and says 
 he : ' I ken Allan Fairley, and I ken his faither an' 
 mither, an' they hae colleged their son as honestly 
 on plooin' an' stockin'-knittin' as your son on a' the 
 rents o' Earlswood ! ' 
 
 " * He'll never be minister o' the parish of Earls- 
 wood wi' my guidwull ! ' says he. 
 
 " ' He'll e'en be minister o' Earlswood withoot 
 it, then,' said the joiner — an honest man, not
 
 128 THE COURTSHIP OF ALLAN FAIRLEY. 
 
 troubled with respect of persons. ' There's nae 
 richt o' pit an' gallows noo, laird ! ' says he. 
 
 " ' An' it's as well for you and your like ! * said 
 the Laird of Earlswood, as he strode out of the 
 kirk, grim as Archie Bell-the-Cat. 
 
 " Weel, Saunders, I considered that four hundred 
 was a good enough off-set against thirty-five of 
 Earlswood's foresters and cot-men, so I was settled 
 in ihe parish, and took my mither from her knitting 
 to keep the manse." 
 
 " Honour thy father and thy mother I " said I : 
 "you did well, Allan." 
 
 " The folk at the big house left the kirk and 
 drove over to the Episcopalians at Ford, but I went 
 to call, as it was my duty to do. And I met a 
 young lady in the grounds and asked her the 
 way." 
 
 " I ken they are extensive," says I ; "it was as 
 weel to mak' sure of your road ! " 
 
 "Yes," said Allan, ignoring a slight significance 
 of tone, " I asked the way, and the young lady 
 kindly walked with me to the door. This was the 
 message that the footman brought back, the young 
 lady standing by : 'Mr. Gordon declines to see you, 
 and if you come on the policies again he will have 
 you prosecuted for trespass.'" 
 
 " Of course he couldna uphaud that," I put in.
 
 THE COURTSHIP OF ALLAN FAIRLEY. 129 
 
 "Very likely no'," said Allan, " but it was sore 
 to bide from a poo'dered fitman on Earlswood 
 doorstep under the blue een o' Grace Gordon ! " 
 
 " An' what did she say ? " I asked, curious for 
 once. 
 
 " Say ! " said Allan, proudly ; " this is what she 
 did: 'Permit me to offer you an apology, Mr. 
 Fairley,' she said, ' and to show you the private 
 path through the fir plantation which you may not 
 know.' Oh, I know it was maybe no' ladylike, 
 Saunders " 
 
 " But it was awfu' womanASko, ! " said I. 
 
 " I'll no' say anything about the walk through 
 the plantation," said Allan Fairley, who no doubt 
 had his own sacred spots like other folk, " but I 
 have no need to deny that a new thing came into 
 my life that day when the rain-drops sparkled on 
 the fir needles. I mind the damp smell o' them to 
 this day." (And there is no doubt that the boy 
 
 would to his dying day. I mind mysel' but 
 
 there is no need going into that.) 
 
 " The time gaed on as it has the gait of doing," 
 Allan continued, " and things settled a wee, and I 
 thocht that they would maybe all come round — 
 except Earlswood, of course. Ye maun ken that 
 there's a big colony o' dreadfu' respectable gentry 
 in oor pairish— retired tradesfolk frae Glasgow and
 
 I30 THE COURTSHIP OF ALLAN FAIRLEY. 
 
 Edinburgh, with a pickle siller and a back-load o* 
 pride." 
 
 " I ken the clan ! " says I. 
 
 "Weel, Saunders, ye'll hardly believe what I'm 
 gaun to tell you, but it's no made story I'm telling 
 you. There was two o' them cam' to the manse 
 yae nicht," said Allen, lapsing into his Doric, " and 
 the lass showed them intil the study. It was gye 
 an' dark, but they wadna hear o' lichtin' the lamp, 
 an' I didna wunner or a' was dune. They didna 
 seem to have come aboot onything in partiklar, but 
 they couldna get awa', so they sat and sat an* just 
 mishandled the rims o' their hats. They lookit at 
 yin anither an' oot at the wunda an' up at the ceilin', 
 but they never lookit at me. At last yin o' them, 
 a writer body, said in a kin' o' desperation, ' Mr. 
 Fairley, we have been deputed to tell you what the 
 better classes of the parish think would be the best 
 for you to do ' 
 
 " ' I am muckle obliged for the interest of the 
 better classes of the parish in my affairs,' says I ; 
 but he gaed on like a bairn that has his lesson 
 perfect. 
 
 "* They think that it is a very noble thing of you 
 to provide for your mother — filial piety and so on ' 
 — here he was at a loss, so he waved his hands — 
 — ' but you must be aware that — that I have a
 
 THE COURTSHIP OF ALLAN FAIRLEY. 131 
 
 difficulty in expressing my meaning — that the 
 ladies of the congregation, however willing, are as 
 unable to call upon Mistress Fairley, as it would no 
 doubt be embarrassing for her to receive them 
 Would it not be better that some other arrange- 
 ment — some smaller cottage could surely be 
 taken ' 
 
 " He got no further ; he wadna hae gotten as far 
 if for a moment I had jaloosed his drift. I got on 
 my feet. I could hardly keep my hands off them, 
 minister as I was ; but I said : * Gentlemen, you 
 are aware of what you ask me to do. You ask me 
 to turn out of my house the mither that bore me, the 
 mither that learned me " The Lords my Shepherd" 
 the mither that wore her fingers near the bane that 
 I might gang to the college, that selled her bit 
 plenishin' that my manse micht be furnished ! Ye 
 ask me to show her to the door — I'll show YOU 
 TO THE DOOR ! ' — an' to the door they gaed ! " 
 
 " Weel dune ! That was my ain Allan!" cried I. 
 
 " The story was ower a' the parish the next day, 
 as ye may guess, an' wha but Miss Gordon o' 
 Earlswood ca'ed on my mither the day efter that — 
 an' kissed her on the doorstep as she gaed away. 
 The lawyer's wife saw her. 
 
 "There was a great gathering o' the clans at 
 Earlswood when it a' cam' cot, but Grace had the
 
 132 THE COURTSHIP OF ALLAN FAIRLEY, 
 
 blood of Archibald the Grim as weel as her faither , 
 an' she stood by the black armour of the Earlswood 
 who died at Flodden by the king, and said she 
 afore them a' : ' I have heard what you say of Mr. 
 Fairley, now you shall all hear what I say. I say 
 that I love Allan Fairley with all my heart, and if 
 one of you says another word against him, I shall 
 walk down to Earlswood manse and ask Allan 
 Fairley if he will marry Grace Gordon as she 
 stands!" 
 
 • • • • t • 
 
 " Saunders," said my wife, entering as if she had 
 not been having an hour long woman's gossip with 
 Grace Fairley, " Saunders, tliere'll be nae word o' 
 this when the clock strikes five the morrow's morn. 
 I wunner at you, Allan Fairley, a mairriet man, 
 keepin' him oot o' his bed till this time o' nicht wi' 
 yer clavers ! " 
 
 The meeting here broke up in confusion.
 
 THE REV. JOHN SMITH, OF ARK LAND 
 PREPARES HIS SERMON, 
 
 It is Friday, and the minister of Arkland was 
 writing his sermon. Things had not gone well in 
 Arkland that week. The meeting of the church 
 court charged with the temporalities had not 
 passed off well on Tuesday. One man especially 
 had hurt the minister in a sensitive place. This 
 was Peter M'Robert, the shoemaker. The minister 
 had represented that a bath in a manse was not a 
 luxury but a necessity, when Peter M'Robert said 
 that as for him he had never " had sic a thing in 
 his life, an' as for the minister that auld Maister 
 Drouthy had dune withoot yin in the manse for 
 thirty-three year to the satisfaction o' the pairish." 
 Then there had been certain differences of 
 opinion within the manse itself, and altogether 
 the sermon had been begun with the intention of 
 dressing down the offending parishioners. Nearly 
 all sermons are personal to the preacher. They 
 
 133
 
 134 JOHN SMITH, OF ARKLAND. 
 
 have been awakened within him by some circum- 
 stance which has come to his knowledge during 
 the week. Preachers use this fact for good or evil 
 according to their kind. 
 
 A plain man was John Smith of Arkland — 
 as plain and hodden grey as his name. He 
 had succeeded to the church with the largest 
 majority that had been known in the presbytery, 
 for in that neighbourhood to have given a man a 
 unanimous call would have been considered a dis- 
 grace and a reflection on the critical discrimination 
 of the congregation. He had tried to do his duty 
 without fear or favour, only asking that his hands 
 should not be tied. He visited the sick with a 
 plain quiet helpfulness which brought sympathy 
 with it as surely as the minister entered the house. 
 His sermons were not brilliant, but they were 
 staves and crutches to many. 
 
 Now as he sat at his manse window that bitter 
 November morning he watched the rain volleying 
 on the round causeway stones and the wide spaces 
 of the village street dimly white with the dancing 
 spray. The minister felt grimly in unison with the 
 elements as he sat framing his opening sentences. 
 He had chosen his text from a wonderful chapter. 
 " Wisdom is justified of her children." And in 
 this wise he began to write : " To be ignorant is to
 
 JOHN SMITH, OF ARKLAND. 135 
 
 be dangerous. The ignorant man, though he be but 
 one, can make of no account the wisdom of many 
 men. After the wise of many generations have 
 been striving to teach a people wisdom, a knave or 
 a fool may come and cry aloud, ' There is no god 
 but ourselves, there is no law but our own desires, 
 there is no hereafter but the grave which we share 
 with our sister the worm and our brother the dead 
 dog ! ' Yet so great is the folly of man that such 
 an one may draw away much people after him into 
 the wilderness of sin and self-indulgence. It is in 
 accordance with the nature of man that ignorance 
 and narrowness should often succeed where wisdom 
 is wholly rejected." 
 
 " That will do," said the minister, lookine over 
 his work. He had Peter M'Robert in his mind, 
 and he rose and walked his study, *' mandating " 
 his opening sentences with appropriate gestures, 
 much to the astonishment of Marget Lowrie in the 
 kitchen, who said, " Save us ! What's wrang wi' the 
 minister ? This is no' Setturday ! " 
 
 As he came in his sentry walks to the window 
 which looked up the rain-swept street, he saw a 
 dark-coloured oblong patch with a strange pro- 
 tuberance on the right side, hirpling like a decrepit 
 beetle athwart the road, till, being caught at the 
 manse corner by a bitter swirl, this irregular shape —
 
 136 JOHN SMITH, OF ARKLAND. 
 
 " If shape it could be called, that shape had none," 
 stumbled and fell within thirty yards of the study 
 window, discharging on the muddy road an ava- 
 lanche of shavings, small branches, knobs, angles, 
 and squares of wood. In a moment the minister 
 was out at the door and was helping old Nance 
 Kissock to her feet, and then under the eyes of 
 all the wives in the village assisting her to collect 
 again her bagful of chips and kindlings which the 
 good-natured joiner allowed her to take once a 
 week from his floor. 
 
 " I hope you are none the worse, Nance ? " said 
 the minister. 
 
 " I thank ye, Maister Smith ; I'm sair for- 
 foughten wi' the wun', but gin the Almichty be 
 willing I'll be at the kirk on Sabbath to hear ye. 
 It's guid to think on a' the week what ye tell us. 
 Whiles it gars me forget the verra rheumatics ! " 
 
 When the minister got back into the friendly 
 shelter of his study he took up the sheet which he 
 had laid down in order to rush out to Nance Kis- 
 sock's assistance. He read it over, but when he 
 took his pen again, he did not seem to like it so 
 well. If Nance were speaking the truth, and she 
 fed during the week on the spiritual food which 
 she received in his kirk on the Sabbath, he could 
 not conceal from himself that next week she had a
 
 JOHN SMITH, OF ARK LAND. 137 
 
 good chance of going hungry. Yet he could not 
 allow Peter M'Robert to get off without a word, so 
 he put the thought away from him and went on 
 with his task. " How often docs a man of limited 
 view mistake his own limitations for the possi- 
 bilities of others. He never judges himself- — he 
 could not if he would — and naturally when he 
 judges others it is only to condemn them. ' A gust 
 more than ordinarily powerful took the minister 
 again to the window, and he saw John Scott, the 
 herd from the Dornel, wringing the wet from his 
 plaid. He knew that he had come down to the 
 village from the hills three miles out of his road to 
 get his wife's medicine. Presently he would trudge 
 away manfully back again to the cot-house on the 
 edcfe of the heather. Now the minister knew that 
 come storm or calm John Scott would be at the 
 kirk on the next day but one, and that he would 
 carry away in the cool quiet brain that lay behind 
 the broad brow the heads and particulars of the 
 sermon he heard. As he went steadily knitting 
 his stocking, conquering the heather with strides 
 long and high, visiting his black-faced flock, he 
 would go revolving the message that his minister 
 had given him in the house of God. 
 
 "Wisdom is justified of her children," repeated 
 the minister, doggedly ; but his text now awakened
 
 138 JOHN SMITH, OF ARKLAND. 
 
 no fervour. There was no enthusiasm in it. He 
 thought that he would go out and let the Novem- 
 ber winds drive the rain into his face for a tonic. 
 So he slipped on his Inverness and let himself out. 
 His feet carried him towards the garret of one of 
 his best friends, where an aged woman, blind and 
 infirm, was spending the latter end of her days. 
 She could not now come to church, therefore the 
 minister went often to her — for it was sunshine 
 to him also to bring light into that very dark 
 place where the aged servant of God waited her 
 end. 
 
 Mary Garment knew his step far down the stair, 
 and she said to herself: " It is himsel' ! " and deep 
 within her she gave thanks. " It is a great thing 
 to hae the bread o' life broken to us so simply that 
 we a' understan' it, Maister Smith," she said. 
 
 " But, Mary, how long is it since you heard a 
 sermon of mine ? " 
 
 " It's true it's a lang time since I heard ye preach, 
 minister, but I hear o' yer sermons every Sabbath. 
 Yin and anither tells me pairt o't till I get as 
 muckle as I can think on." 
 
 As the minister said good-bye to Mary Garment, 
 she said : " Ye'll hae ower muckle to think on to 
 mind me on the Lord's day when ye're speakin' for 
 ver Maister ; but I hae nane but you to mind, sir,
 
 JOHN SMITH, OF ARKLAND. 139 
 
 SO I'll be prayin' for you a' the time that ye're up- 
 haudin' His name." 
 
 "Thank you, Mary, I'll not forget!" said her 
 minister. 
 
 And he went out much strengthened. 
 
 As he went mansewards he passed the little 
 cobbler's den where Peter M'Robert was tap- 
 tapping all the day, and the sound of Peter's 
 terrible cough called to him with a voice that 
 claimed him. He stepped in, and after the word 
 of salutation, he asked his office-bearer : 
 
 " Are you not thinking of getting that cough 
 attended to, Peter ? " he said. 
 
 " Wha — me ? Na, no' me ; hoots, it's but a bit 
 host, nocht to speak aboot, thank ye for speerin', 
 Maister Smith." 
 
 Just then the minister saw the doctor walking 
 rapidly up the far side of the street, calm-faced and 
 dignified, as if this howling November north-easter 
 were a beautiful June morning. Him he sum- 
 moned. 
 
 " Here's Peter'll no' speak to you about his 
 cough. He must have some of your drugs, doctor." 
 
 The doctor called the unwilling cobbler from his 
 last, and after a brief examination he said : 
 
 "No, I don't think there will be any need for 
 drugs, Mr. Smith ; if you, Peter, will use a gargle
 
 i40 JOHN SMITH, OF ARK LAND. 
 
 to get rid of a trifling local inflammation. Less 
 lapstone dust and less snuff, Peter, and warm 
 water three times a day," said the doctor, succinctly, 
 and proceeded on his rounds. 
 
 As the minister went out, Peter looked up with 
 a queer twinkle in his eye. 
 
 " Maister Smith," he said, " gin water be sae 
 needful for the inside o' a cobbler's thrapple, 
 maybe I was wrang in thinkin' that it wasna as 
 necessary for the ootside o' a minister ! " 
 
 " Then we'll say no more about it, Peter," said 
 the minister, smiling, as he closed the door. 
 "Mind your gargle ! " 
 
 When the minister got to his study, he never 
 stopped even to wipe his feet, and when the 
 mistress followed to remonstrate, she found him 
 putting his sermon in the fire. 
 
 • t • • 4 • 
 
 The minister's text on the following Sabbath 
 morning was an old one, but it was no old sermon 
 that the Arkland folk got that day. The text was, 
 " Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy 
 laden, and I will give you rest." 
 
 Nance Kissock was there, and did not go home 
 hungry ; John Scott had come down from the 
 muirs, and had something better than physic to 
 take back to his ailing wife ; Peter M'Robert sat
 
 JOHN SMITH, OF ARKLAND. 141 
 
 in his corner looking cleaner than he had done 
 within the memory of man — also he never coughed 
 once ; no less than eight different folk came in to 
 tell blind Mary Garment about the sermon. 
 
 But none but the minister knew who it was that 
 had been praying for him.
 
 A DAY IN THE LIFE OF REV. JAMES 
 
 PITBYE, MINISTER OF NETHER 
 
 DULLARG, 
 
 There is no doubt that we in this part of the 
 world have the wale of ministers. And this is 
 what nobody but John Tamson of the Risk thinks 
 of denying ; but then John was never a weel- 
 spoken body, and indeed had some bit thought of 
 trouble with the session in his young days long 
 before he was an elder himsel'. So nobody heeds 
 much what he says. 
 
 John was over at Drumquhat the other night, 
 and after him and me had settled our matters, he 
 was telling me about the minister that they had 
 got now in the parish of Nether Dullarg. 
 
 " Ay," says he, " he's a rale quaite chiel, oor 
 minister — faut ? Na, I hae no faut to find wi' 
 him. Na, he's rale ceevil," 
 
 " I'm glad ye like your minister, for there's no 
 
 that mony pleases you, John ! " said I, to give him 
 
 143
 
 THE MINISTER OF NETHER DULLARG. 143 
 
 an opening, for I had heard that he was waur 
 ta'en with this minister than with all the rest. 
 
 " You'll see a heap of him, having him, so to 
 speak, just over the dyke ? " said my mis- 
 tress. 
 
 " Ow, ay, he's no' that ill to see," he said, very 
 slow-like, for I could see that he was fair girnin' 
 with what the clerk of our School Board calls " an 
 ironical mainner o' speech." This is a thing no 
 much affected in our countryside, except by John 
 Tamson himsel' and a road-man they call " Snash" 
 Magill. Snash, when the School Board had him up 
 before them for not sending his bairns to the new 
 school at Dyke End, had the assurance to ask the 
 chairman if Jiis father would ever have been out of 
 gaol if there had been a School Board in his young 
 days. But the Board was very sore on him for this, 
 because they mostly all were much obligated to the 
 chairman or were nearly related to them that were. 
 
 John Tamson is no a man that I would be fond 
 of having for next neighbour myself, but he's very 
 entertaining when he comes over for a forenicht. 
 He likes to sit in the kitchen, so when he is at 
 Drumquhat the men are very exact about " lowsin'- 
 time," and I take a bit turn round the yard myself, 
 just to see that they don't skimp the stabling of 
 the horses in their hurry to get in to their supper,
 
 144 THE MINISTER OF NETHER DULLARG. 
 
 being well aware that John will be in full blast, 
 and anxious to miss as little as possible. 
 
 " We fand faut wi' oor last twa ministers for no 
 stoppin' lang wi' us," said John, when we were all 
 quiet, for John cannot do with folk " hotchin' an' 
 fidgin'." If he had been a minister, as at one time 
 he thought of being before his trouble, he would 
 have taken a drink and unfolded his white napkin 
 when the late folk are coming up the aisle, as our 
 Mr. Fairley does whiles to encourage them to be in 
 time next Sabbath. " Ay, fowk were no pleased 
 wi' them for shiftin' so quick, but that's no a faut 
 that they'll hae to fin' wi' Maister Pitbye, or I'm 
 sair mista'en, for I'm thinkin' that the Dullarg 
 folk'll get him to bury ! " 
 
 Here my wife put in her word as she stood at 
 the bake-board — the wife whiles allows that she is 
 scandalised with John's wild talk, but she finds a 
 great deal of work in the kitchen when he is here 
 for all that. She " likes to hear the body's din," 
 as she once said when I tried her with a chapter or 
 two of Tammas Carlyle when I was reading in the 
 winter forenichts about the Heroes. " It's better 
 than sittin' clockin' an' readin' — a body micht as 
 weel no hae a man ava — though I cannot mak' 
 oot what the craitur wad be at, I like to hear the 
 body's din ! " My wife's a good wife, but her
 
 THE MINISTER OF NETHER DULLARG. 145 
 
 tongue wad clip cloots, or as the clerk o' the 
 School Board would say, she has " a facility in 
 expressing her meaning." 
 
 " I hear that he's a very quaite man," said 
 Mistress M'Quhirr, " but somebody was tellin' me 
 that he was no considered a great veesitor." 
 
 " Veesitor, quo' she 1 " says John, with his birses 
 up in a moment, " hoo div ye think that the man 
 has time to veesit, considerin' the wark that he pits 
 through han' in a day! I wonder to hear ye, 
 Mistress MaWhurr ! " 
 
 The herd-boy got up off the settle, for it was 
 interesting to hear John Tamson up-haudin' the 
 ministers — him bein' weel kenned for an Auld 
 Kirk elder and nae great professor. 
 
 " If I dinna ken what that man does in the day, 
 there's naebody kens," said John, raxing for a peat 
 to light his pipe. " Noo, I'll juist gie ye an idea^ 
 last Friday I was aboot the hoose a' day, aff an' on, 
 wi' a meer that was near the foalin'. 
 
 " At nine by the clock his bedroom blind gaed up, 
 an* he cam' doon the stair maybe a quarter o' an 'oor 
 after or thereby. The mistress had been up an' 
 aboot frae seven, an' had the bairns a' washt an' 
 dresst, an' oot at the back so as no to wakken their 
 faither, or disturb him in his thinkin'. Weel, doon 
 he comes ^an' gets his breakfast, ^or I saw Betty
 
 146 THE MINISTER OF NETHER DULLARG. 
 
 takkin' in the cream frae the larder at the end o* 
 the hoose. She skimmed it aff the bairns' milk 
 for their parritch, an' set it there for the minister 
 himsel', it being weel kenned through a' Gallawa' 
 that cream is needed for the brain wark. Then 
 there's a bell rings for prayers, an' Betty synes 
 hersel' an' gangs ben, an' their mither shoos the 
 bairns out o' the sand-hole, an' gies them a dicht 
 to mak' them faceable to gang in. Then in ten 
 minutes they're a' oot again, an' here comes himsel' 
 for a rest an' a smoke, and to look oot for the 
 post. Maybes in half an 'oor the post comes in 
 sicht, wi' his troosers buckled up, for he's an 
 onmarried man an' thinks a dale o' his reed 
 braid. The minister has never moved, smokin' 
 an' thin kin', nae doot, o' the Sabbath's sermon. 
 The post gies him twa-three papers an' letters, 
 an' then yesterday's Scotsman that he tak's alang 
 vvi' Maister MacPhun doon at the Cross Roads. 
 The post's auntie cleans Maister MacPhun's kirk, 
 so the post tak's the paper up to the Dullarg for 
 naething. 'They're juist from the Church Offices, 
 take them on to the Manse, an' gie me the paper,' 
 he says. Syne he sits doon, decent man, as he 
 had a good richt to do, on the green seat at the 
 end o' the hoose, an' wi' great an surprisin' dili- 
 gence he reads the Scotsman till maybe half-past
 
 THE MINISTER OF NETHER DULLARG. 147 
 
 twal. But he has had cracks forbye in the bye- 
 gaun, wi' a farmer that had been at the smiddy, 
 wi' John Grier the tea-man, wha is an elder o' his 
 an' never centres him in the session, an' forbye has 
 sent twa tramps doon the road wi' a' flee i' their 
 lug, I'm thinkin'. Then he lays the paper doon 
 on's knees an' ye wad think that his studies war' 
 makkin' him sleepy ; but httle do ye ken him if 
 ye think sae — for roon the hoose efter a yella 
 butterflee comes his boy Jeems, wha disna promise 
 to be the quaite ceevil man his father is. He 
 stops the callant aboot the quickest, an' sen's him 
 in to his mither to bring oot word when the denner 
 will be ready. Maister Pitbye says nocht when 
 the answer comes, but he tak's up Thursday's 
 paper again, an' has a look at the adverteesements 
 an' the births, daiths, an' mairraiges. Then he 
 cleans his pipe, for he's a carefu' man, an' in some 
 things baith eident [diligent] and forehanded. 
 
 " Then efter denner is by he has another smoke, 
 as every man should that has a respec for his 
 inside. Then he fills again an' gangs inbye to his 
 study, where the blind is drawn doon, for ower 
 muckle licht is no guid for the sermon-makkin'. 
 For twa 'oor he works hard there, an' disna like to 
 be disturbit nayther, for yince afore we fell oot, 
 when I gaed to see him about some sma' maitter,
 
 148 THE MINISTER OF NETHER DULLARG. 
 
 the lass pit me in raither sharp, an' the sofa gied 
 an awfu' girg, an' there sat the minister on's ain 
 study chair, bUnkin' an' no vveel pleased, like a 
 hoolet, at bein' disturbit at the studyin'. 
 
 " There's nae mainner o' doot that it's then that 
 the sermons are made, for a' the rest o's time I can 
 accoont for. Then when tea is bye, oot comes the 
 minister wi' his pipe, an' set his elbavvs on the 
 dyke, an' does some mair o' the thinkin'. Then 
 he pits on his third best hat an' avva' he sets doon 
 the brae to the shop, an' there, as oor lass Peg 
 tolled me, him an' John Aitken ca'ed the crack for 
 the best pairt o' an 'oor. Then he gangs his wa's 
 in, as he does every nicht, to see the Clerk o' oor 
 Schule Board, wha ance at an election time made 
 a temperance speech in the next coonty, but wha's 
 ower weel kenned a man to do the like at hame. 
 It was chappin' nine by the clock when the 
 minister cam' hame to his supper, to tak' the 
 Book, an' decently to gang to his bed, nae doot 
 wi' the approval o' his conscience that he had dune 
 a good day's wark." 
 
 " An' it's time that we were a' in oor beds I " 
 said my wife.
 
 THE GLEN KELLS SHORT LEET, 
 
 There was a silence in all the chambers of the 
 manse of Glen Kells. A wet and dreary wind 
 wailed about it and shook the rain-drops off the 
 Scotch firs that sheltered it. Hushed footsteps 
 moved to and fro in the kitchen, with occasional 
 pauses, as if conscious of their own inappropriate- 
 ness. There was the dank trail of many wheels on 
 the narrow gravelled walk before the porch. The 
 rain stood in them as in the dismalest of canals, 
 It was the day after the minister's funeral. 
 
 In an upper room two women sat looking out at 
 the rain. The younger held the hand of the elder ; 
 but in this room also there was silence. They were 
 silent, for they had seen their old life crumble like 
 a swallow's nest in the rain, and they had not yet 
 seen the possibility of any new life rise before them. 
 So they sat and looked at the rain, and it seemed 
 that there was nothing for them to do but to go
 
 I50 THE GLEN KELLS SHORT LEET. 
 
 forward for ever and ever — the rain beating about 
 them, their feet 
 
 " Deep down in a drift of dead leaves." 
 
 • ••••* 
 
 There was a " short leet " — mystic words, not 
 understanded of the Southron — in the Glen of the 
 Kells. The " short leet " did not come all at once 
 — this had been too much happiness, tending to 
 make kirk " members and adherents " lose distinc- 
 tion in their joys. But they came — there were just 
 three of them, the leet being the shortest of leets — 
 each for a Sabbath into the glen, preaching at noon 
 in the kirk, and in the evening in the school-house 
 of the clachan. Yet all but one went away feeling 
 that, whoever was the man, it could not possibly be 
 he, for the congregation of the hill-folk at each diet 
 of worship sat silent and expressionless, while fiery 
 denunciation and thunderous exhortation passed 
 them over sitting there equal-minded and unscathed. 
 The first who preached was the Rev. James Augustus 
 Towers, assistant in St. Mungo's in Edinburgh, no 
 less. He had been pitched upon as the likely man 
 as soon as the list had been made up by the 
 "c6- mi-tee" — the assembly of office-bearers and 
 honourable men not a few of the parish of Glen 
 Kells. The Rev. James Augustus Towers, was a 
 distinguished assistant. He had been brought out,
 
 THE GLEN KELLS SHORT LEET. 151 
 
 a very callow fledgling, under the aristocratic wing 
 of the great Dr. Paton, the Distinguished Critic and 
 Superior Person of the whole church. There he 
 learned that Presbyterianism had no claims on any 
 man's admiration — that Presbytery was singularly 
 unbeautiful — that the Beautiful alone was the Good 
 — that a Creed was a most inconvenient incum- 
 brance — that enthusiasm made a man hot and 
 ridiculous, whilst the cultured calms and ordered 
 forms of the Anglican church, as understood by 
 her higher clergy, were the only things really worthy 
 of admiration, though even these must be carefully 
 denuded of all meaning. Such was the equipment 
 wherewith the Rev. James Augustus Towers under- 
 took to become a candidate for the suffrages of the 
 herds and farmers of Glen Kells. He brought his 
 own gown and cassock from Edinburgh, and had 
 a coloured cloth hanging over his back when he 
 preached in the kirk in the morning. The sermon 
 was lost to the Glen of the Kells, for nobody ever 
 heard a word of it, so intent were their eyes on this 
 new thing, unknown and unimagined, that had 
 come into their midst. The "Frees "said it was 
 " a rag of Rome," while the U.P.s up at St. John's 
 Town said that it was " nocht less than the mark 
 of the beast." But " Clicky " Steward, the grieve 
 at Craigencaillie, who had never attended church
 
 152 THE GLEN KELLS SHORT LEET. 
 
 with any regularity before, and who meant to vote 
 as an adherent, said, with a strong expression which 
 those who know him will recognise, " Say as ye 
 like, the lad wi' the tippet's the boy for me ! " And 
 there were not a few of " Clicky's " mind. 
 
 All the candidates stayed at the manse, past 
 which the Kells water was slipping gently as of 
 old. The late minister's widow was still in posses- 
 sion, and it was expected by the not unkindly folk 
 that she would not have to flit till May — "she wad 
 get time to look aboot her." Gavin Ross had died 
 a poor man, but he had not forgotten to make 
 what provision he could for his wife and daughter. 
 Indeed, there had no day dawned and no night 
 fallen since ever he married when he did not bear 
 this within him next the very skin of his naked 
 soul. The mother and daughter had looked over 
 the possibilities — to go to Edinburgh, and there to 
 take the better kind of house and try the old sad 
 plan of keeping lodgers, which none who undertake 
 have their trials to seek ; to settle in Cairn Edward 
 and open a little school, where no doubt Margaret 
 could get a few pupils in music and French. But 
 in the heart of Margaret Ross there often came a 
 thought which never visited that of her mother, 
 that the best of these prospects was miserably in- 
 adequate to the supply of her mother's needs on
 
 THE GLEN KELLS SHORT LEET. 153 
 
 anything like the scale to which she was accustomed. 
 She felt that it lay on her to keep her mother, 
 whose heart had never recovered from the shock of 
 her husband's death — all whose sorrow was now 
 bound up in the thought that before long she must 
 leave the manse to which she had come as a bride 
 on Gavin Ross's arm so many years ago. 
 
 Into this home of silence came the Rev. James 
 Augustus Towers, and his attitude was as conde- 
 scending and superior as though he were already 
 master of the manse, and the pale women-folk but 
 lodgers on sufferance. He made himself at home 
 — in carpet slippers, for it was only in the pulpit 
 that he covered himself with the vain gauds of 
 adornment. As soon as he came to a dining-table, 
 or into a drawing-room — then, ah 1 then, in spite 
 of the veneer of culture, it was in the power of the 
 most casual observer " to trace, with half an eye, 
 
 The still triumphant carrot through !" 
 
 The Rev. James Augustus Towers, assistant in 
 the kirk of St. Mungo, sat at the fire in the manse 
 dining-room while Margaret Ross helped Janet to 
 take the things to the kitchen after dinner. He 
 kept his back steadily to them, being content with 
 himself and secure of his chances. Then he lay at 
 length in an easy-chair and picked his teeth, while
 
 154 THE GLEN KELLS SHORT LEET, 
 
 the carpet slippers sunned themselves on Gavin 
 Ross's fender. 
 
 It was the night when the Third Candidate was 
 expected at the manse of Kells. He had never 
 been there before, but a friend of the banker who 
 was convener of committee had heard the lad preach 
 in a neighbouring parish, and that very powerful 
 man had exerted his influence — no light thing in 
 a community of small farmers — to have Christopher 
 Murray put on the list, and afterwards drafted into 
 the mystic trio of the short leet. The Second 
 Candidate had come and gone, without leaving any 
 impression ; " his name was indeed writ in water." 
 Had he known it, he owed this to the banker. He 
 was the son of the prominent ecclesiast who was 
 prime minister of the local Presbytery — " could 
 twist them roon' his wee finger," it was said. Now 
 the banker had no idea of committing the affairs 
 of the parish to this prominent father in the church 
 
 " Of large discourse and excellent taste in wines." 
 
 He had received a letter from the wife of this 
 gentleman, who was a distant kin of his own, an 
 epistle evidently inspired by a hand heavily clerkly 
 and prcsbyterial, recounting the marvels of her 
 son's academic career, and all his later fitness for
 
 THE GLEN KELLS SHORT LEET, 155 
 
 the position of minister of the parish of Glen Kells. 
 This was hardly fair to the youth, who, in spite of 
 his training, was a really modest lad. But the 
 banker, a man wise in counsel as kindly in heart, 
 smiled as he wrote him down on his official list, 
 under the column devoted to testimonials — By 
 whom recommended. " The Rev. Roderick Rorison, 
 recommended by his mother." And the smile was 
 as wide and as long as the Glen Kells in twenty- 
 four hours after the next committee meeting, while 
 the young man's chances had utterly vanished 
 away. 
 
 At the Bank as well as in the Manse there was 
 expectancy going out towards the gig of the 
 farmer of Drumrash, in which the last man on the 
 short leet was to make his way up the Glen of the 
 Kells Water. On its jigging and swaying eminence 
 the other two had likewise made their exits and 
 their entrances. For Glen Kells believed in giving 
 every man an equal chance — except the banker, who 
 smiled to himself as he thought of the Rev. Peter 
 Rorison, folding his comfortable hands and looking 
 across to his wife as if between them they had 
 already annexed the Glen of the Kells to their 
 diocese. But the banker was far from comfortable ; 
 for, though he wished the Rev. Christopher Murray 
 well, he knew that if he failed to please, the only
 
 156 THE GLEN KELLS SHORT LEET, 
 
 alternative was the Rev. James Augustus Towers — 
 and the banker did not admire the " tippet." 
 
 When Christopher Murray topped the brae at the 
 head of which the manse stood, he was thinking of 
 nothing higher than the prospect of a cup of tea and 
 a quiet fire by which to spend the evening and read 
 the book which lie had brought with him in his black 
 bag. He pulled at the manse bell, and somewhere 
 far down the stone passages he heard it ring. It had 
 a fixed and settled sound, quite different from the 
 deafening clangour of the town house bells, where, 
 when you pull an innocent-looking knob in a lintel, 
 you seem to set in motion a complete church peal 
 immediately on the other side of the door, Chris- 
 topher Murray was ready to tell the maid whom 
 he expected to open the door that he was the 
 minister come to supply on the next day. He was 
 prepared for that look of compassion for his youth 
 which he knew so well, which said as plain as 
 words could say, " Puir lad, little do ye ken what's 
 afore ye in this pairish ! " But he was not prepared 
 for what he did see. A slender girl in black, fair 
 as a lily, stood in the dark of the doorway, waiting 
 for him to speak. Speak he did, but what he said 
 he could never remember ; for he found himself, 
 with his hat in his hand, endeavouring to apologise 
 for some offence which, though quite clear to him-
 
 THE GLEN KELLS SHORT LEET. 157 
 
 self, he was strangely unable to express in words. 
 He felt himself uncouth, ungainly, coltish, generally 
 " in the road," but he never got any great length 
 with putting it into words ; for in an incredibly short 
 time he found himself mysteriously at home in the 
 manse parlour, an apartment unpenetrated by the 
 assurance of the Rev. James Augustus Towers, or the 
 illustrious ancestry of the Rev. Roderick Rorison ; 
 where, at the head of her mother's invalid sofa, his 
 eyes could watch the busy fingers and flower-like 
 face of Margaret Ross, pathetic in her black dress. 
 Christopher Murray was an orphan, and had little 
 knowledge of the life of the home, but he says now 
 that his aspirations for a home of his own dated 
 from this time. It is safest to believe a man when 
 he tells you little coincidences of this kind. Very 
 likely he believes them himself 
 
 The fateful morrow came, and the last man on 
 the leet proved himself no bungler. He preached 
 straight from the shoulder. There were more there 
 at night than had been in the forenoon, a thing 
 that had not been known in the Glen Kells in the 
 memory of man. This is what old Betty Grierson 
 said ; she was a great critic of sermons, and they 
 say that even Mr. Rorison was feared for her : 
 " 'Deed, sirs, I howp the fear o' God has been gicn 
 to that young man, for of a truth the fear o' man
 
 r";8 THE GLEN KELLS SHORT LEET. 
 
 has been withhauden from him," which was better 
 than twenty testimonials in the parish. The 
 banker smiled, for he knew that the " tippet " had 
 now small chance of being aired a second time in 
 the kirk of the Glen Kells. 
 
 So Christopher Murray is now placed minister in 
 the Glen of the Kells, and has a good prospect of a 
 home of his own. But Mrs. Ross and her daughter 
 Margaret are still in the manse, and the young 
 minister is lodging for a time over the shop in the 
 village. The Rosses have given up the little house 
 they had taken in Cairn Edward, and Christopher 
 Murray smiles like a man well pleased when the 
 people ask him when he is going into the manse. 
 He does not think that Mrs. Ross will be troubled 
 to move out of the old manse overhanging the 
 Kells Water in which she has lived so long, and he 
 has the best of reasons for his belief.
 
 BOANERGES SIMPSON'S ENCUM- 
 BRANCE, 
 
 Every one said that it was a pity of Boanerges 
 Simpson, the minister of St. Tudno's. This was 
 universally recognised in Maitland. Not only the 
 congregation of St. Tudno's, but the people of other 
 denominations knew that Mr. Simpson was saddled 
 with a wife who was little but a drag upon him. 
 They even said that he had been on the point of 
 obtaining a call to a great city charge, when, his 
 domestic circumstances being inquired into, it was 
 universally recognised by the session of that com- 
 pany of humble followers of Christ that, however 
 suitable the Rev. Boanerges Simpson might be to 
 receive ;^i,200 a year for preaching the Carpenter's 
 gospel to it, Mrs. Boanerges Simpson was not at 
 all the woman to dispense afternoon tea to the 
 session's spouses between the hours of three and 
 six. 
 
 It was, however, also well known that the minister 
 
 »69
 
 i6o BOANERGES SIMPSON'S ENCUMBRANCE. 
 
 of St. Tudno's bore up under this household trial 
 like an angel. His quiet patience with his help 
 unmeet became a proverb. He had a bland, 
 vague, upward-looking eye, and walked as one 
 wrapped in the mysteries of such deep thought 
 as few could fathom. When any one glanced at 
 his particular sufiferings, he sighed and passed 
 lightly to another subject. He had a softly 
 episcopal handshake which made some women 
 call him blessed, and many men itch to kick 
 him. This handshake was one of his chief assets. 
 
 But his great power came out in his sermons. 
 Even his enemies admitted that he was noble in 
 the pulpit. Yet he was not a natural orator. He 
 had not the readiness of resource, the instantaneous- 
 ness of attack and defence requisite for the speaker. 
 His sermons were given in an exquisitely varied 
 recitative, and when he redelivered them, it was 
 often remarked with admiration that he placed the 
 emphasis on the same words, made the same pauses, 
 and became affected as close to tears as decorum 
 would permit, in precisely the same places. 
 
 His care in preparation was often held up to his 
 brother ministers in the town of Maitland, among 
 whom he was not popular, owing, no doubt, to the 
 jealousy which prevails in all professions. Still 
 they had him often to preach for them, for n(
 
 BOANERGES SIMPSON'S ENCUMBRANCE. i6i 
 
 minister in the country could draw such a crowd 
 — or such a collection. There were half a dozen 
 rich old ladies who were known to have Mr. 
 Simpson in their wills, and these accompanied 
 him about wherever he preached, like Tabbies 
 following a milk jug. There were also a good 
 many ladies of various ages who visited at the 
 manse of St. Tudno's at hours when the Reverend 
 Boanerges was known to be resting from the 
 labours of sermon production in the drawing- 
 room. They did not often see his wife. She, no 
 doubt, felt herself quite unpresentable, poor thing ! 
 So one of the visitors was asked to dispense 
 tea. This was generally recognised to be as it 
 should be. 
 
 The town of Maitland came as near to being a 
 city as some fools come to being geniuses. Mait- 
 land has an ancient, and, in its early stages, an 
 honourable history. It had been a great city when 
 the capital of Scotland was a barren rock, and 
 when the fisher steered his coracle below the 
 lonely braes of the Clydeside Broomielaw. In its 
 latter days it had taken to the manufacture of 
 thread and the digging of coal. But its burghers 
 have still much pride about them, severely tempered 
 with economy. 
 
 Some years ago Maitland resolved on having new
 
 i62 BOANERGES SIMPSON'S ENCUMBRANCE. 
 
 municipal buildings. The ancient town hall was also 
 in its under story the gaol, and it was not seemly 
 that the bailies and the very provost should be 
 compelled to listen to the sighing of the prisoner 
 whom they had just committed for being drunk 
 and disorderly, and who in the cells beneath still 
 audibly continued to be the latter. The town 
 hall was, therefore, abandoned to the victims of 
 police interference, and the new municipal build- 
 ings rose nobly in the middle of the town. 
 
 But when the first assessment of one and ten- 
 pence in the pound was made on the ratepayers, 
 they rose in instant rebellion. Letters in the local 
 papers could not ease the smart. They must have 
 the blood of the whole town council, and specially 
 of the bailies. The provost was held to be a decent 
 man who had been led into this bad business 
 against his will. This provost was the paragon 
 of provosts. He spoke broad Scots, and spoke it, 
 too, with a rollicking local accent which went 
 straight to the heart of every Maitland man and 
 woman. He had wrinkles round his eyes, and the 
 meditative way with him which all meal millers 
 achieve from leaning their elbows on the lower 
 halves of their mill doors. He sometimes came to 
 the council with the white dust of his profession 
 emphasising his homeliness. The Rev. Boanerges
 
 BOANERGES SIMPSON'S ENCUMBRANCE. 163 
 
 Simpson had a pique at the provost. The trenchant 
 Doric sense of the layman cut through the preten- 
 tious unction of the cleric like a knife through soap. 
 But hitherto the opposition had been private, for 
 the provost had the strange taste to prefer the 
 invisible and incompatible wife to the active and 
 brilliant husband. 
 
 The matter of the municipal buildings came to a 
 head over the town bell. There was an indignation 
 meeting summoned by aggrieved ratepayers, and 
 all the correspondents of the local newspapers 
 attended in force. The Rev. Boanerges Simpson 
 proposed the first resolution, "That it is the 
 opinion of this meeting that the proposal to waste 
 the ratepayers' money in a bell to be used for 
 profane purposes is subversive of all morality and 
 good government, and the provost and magistrates 
 (except Councillor MacBean of the Third Ward, 
 who voted against it), are requested to resign forth- 
 with." The Rev. Boanerges was not so fluent as 
 usual. His forte was the pulpit. He liked to keep 
 himself before the public, but he lacked in a gather- 
 ing of men his personal following of old ladies, 
 and had not quite his usual nerve in consequence. 
 The motion was, however, unanimously carried, 
 and that with great acclamation. Resolution after 
 resolution was carried, each more sweeping than
 
 i64 BOANERGES SIMPSON'S ENCUMBRANCE- 
 
 the last. Enthusiastic indignation rose feverishly 
 till the burgesses were almost committed to burn- 
 ing the magistrates in front of their own doors. 
 Now the provost had been all day from home, and 
 did not hear of the meeting till some time after 
 his return. 
 
 " I'll gie mysel' a bit wash an' gang doon," he 
 said, quietly. 
 
 When he stepped on the platform he was received 
 with a storm of howls. The meeting would not 
 hear him. Councillor MacBean, who had the credit 
 of being able to swing the Third Ward like a dead 
 cat, and who thought of standing for provost, led 
 the groans. 
 
 The provost waited smiling. He dusted the 
 meal from the creases of his coat, and brushed up 
 his grey soft hat with his elbow. He even got out 
 his knife to pare his nails. At last he got in a word, 
 and as soon as ever his sonorous steady Scots was 
 heard the storm fell to a dead calm, for the only 
 man who could sway a Maitland audience was on 
 his feet, and the provost knew that the hearts of 
 these men were like wax in his hands. This was 
 the matter of his speech : 
 
 " My freens, Aw was up at Allokirk the day, an' 
 div ye ken what the craiturs war sayin' ? Na, ye'll 
 no' believe me gin Aw tell ye. The assurance o'
 
 BOANERGES SIMPSON'S ENCUMBRANCE. 165 
 
 the upsetting cieests is juist by ordinar'. Ye ken 
 that Allokirk can never forgie Maitland for bein' 
 a bigger, bonnier, aulder toon, and for haein' the 
 kings an' queens o' braid Scotland lying in cor 
 aibbey yaird ower by. Wha but a wheen Allokirk 
 jute fowk an' ither upstart tinkler bodies wad lie 
 ablow the jow o' the Allokirk bell " 
 
 Cries of " Come to the point ! " " We dinna 
 want to hear aboot Allokirk. It's aboot oor ain 
 bell we want to hear." ** Ye'll no' throw stoor in 
 oor een, provost ! " 
 
 " Bide a wee, I'm juist comin' to that. This is 
 what the Allokirk fowk were sayin'. Ye ken the 
 thocht o' oor braw new toon buildin' is juist gall 
 and wormwud to them. They ken that their toon 
 hall vvadna be a back kitchen to the Maitland 
 fowk's, an' sae, to even themsel's to' us, what hae 
 the blasties dune but gotten a bell to hing in their 
 bit toorock — a twenty-ton bell, nae less. An,' says 
 they, the like o' that bell wull never ring in Mait- 
 land toon ! Na, the puir feckless, bankrupt bodies 
 o' Maitland, wi' their thread an' their coals, canna 
 afford sic a bell as Allokirk has ! Whatna answer 
 wull ye gie back, ma frien's } Wull ye let Allokirk 
 craw ower you ? Wull ye sit doon like Henny- 
 penny in the hornbuik ' wi' your finger in your 
 • A picture in the old-fashioned child's primer.
 
 i66 BOANERGES SIMPSON'S ENCUMBRANCE. 
 
 mooth ? Na, ye're Maitland men, and as sure as 
 yer provost is a Maitland man we'll hing a thirty 
 ton bell in oor braw too'er, and ilka jow o't, 
 soondin' across the water, wull tell the AUokirk 
 bodies that they're but cauld kail an' soor dook 
 beside the burgers o' the Auld Grey Toon ! " 
 
 The meeting here rose in a frenzy. The thirty- 
 ton bell was voted. MacBean was put out feet 
 foremost for moving the previous question, and the 
 Rev. Boanerges Simpson went home to bring his 
 wife to a sense of her position. 
 
 After this the provost was more inclined than 
 before to like his worsted antagonist, and even got 
 into the habit of attending the church of St. Tudno. 
 
 What bothered him most was the quality of the 
 sermons of the Rev. Boanerges Simpson. They 
 were certainly full of a subtle sympathy with the 
 suffering and down-trodden. An exquisite pathos 
 welled through them. It was a remarkable fact 
 that many of the most impartial and intelligent of 
 the congregation listened to these productions with 
 their eyes shut, in order that they might not have 
 the contrast of the preacher's oleaginous presence 
 and his thrilling words. It was also observed and 
 commented upon that on the occasions when every 
 eye in the church was riveted upon the preacher, 
 his own wife never so much as raised her eyes from
 
 BOANERGES SIMPSON'S ENCUMBRANCE. 107 
 
 the bookboard. This was set down to a nature 
 averse to the message of grace which so strongly 
 affected others. The provost's sister called his at- 
 tention to this, and even the good man was some- 
 what shaken in his belief in the minister's wife. 
 Whatever her private opinion of her husband, she 
 should certainly have shown her reverence for a 
 man so highly gifted with a message. 
 
 Day by day, therefore, Mrs. Simpson shrank 
 more and more into her own silence. Isolation 
 grew upon her till she had walled herself off 
 from her fellow-creatures. Then she stopped 
 going to church at all, and the Rev. Boanerges 
 walked along with the seraphic smile of a 
 martyr whose burden was almost more than he 
 could bear. His sermons became too high strung 
 and ethereal for the edification of the work- 
 aday sons and daughters of men. What was the 
 most extraordinary thing of all, the pathos and 
 sentiment, the spiritual communion were so clearly 
 a personal experience of the preacher, that even 
 those who had been repelled by his personality 
 gave him credit for having such communion with 
 the unseen as few are privileged to attain to in this 
 world. There was a deep belief in Maitland that 
 there can be no effect without a sufficient cause, for 
 Maitland is above all things a logical place. St,
 
 i68 BOANERGES SIMPSON'S ENCUMBRANCE. 
 
 Tudno's became a place of pilgrimage from far and 
 near, and its gifted and saintly minister seemed to 
 be mellowing from a Boanerges into a John. It 
 was thought that what he was suffering at home 
 was refining his soul. It is thus that the finest 
 spirits are moulded. The provost was so touched 
 that he went to ask his pardon for any hasty ex- 
 pressions which he might have used in the affair of 
 the bell. Mrs. Simpson received him and listened 
 with a dull silence to his frank and kindly words. 
 
 " Your guidman an' me haes oor differences," 
 said the provost ; " but I wull alloo that there's 
 naebody atween Tweed an' Tay can come within a 
 lang sea mile o* him for preachin'." 
 
 The minister's wife made a strange reply. 
 
 " Would you say as much a year from now, if 
 many other people were to turn against him ? " she 
 asked, lifting her abased eyes and letting them rest 
 for a moment on the kindly face of the good 
 provost. 
 
 " Aw'm gye an' weel used to stickin' to my 
 opeenion," said the meal miller. * Aw hae seen the 
 Maitland fowk's verdick come roon' to mine a deal 
 oftener than mine whurl aboot to theirs ! " 
 
 " Then you'll be a friend to my husband in the 
 days to come," she said, earnestly. 
 
 " That Aw wull ! " said the provost, heartily.
 
 BOANERGES SIMPSON'S ENCUMBRANCE. 169 
 
 " Thank you," said Mrs. Simpson ; " thank you 
 more than I can tell you. That is what I've been 
 praying for. I'll sleep sound to-night ! " 
 
 And she did. Only she forgot to awaken the 
 next morning. The funeral was a great one, for 
 the sake of the bereaved man ; but every one felt 
 that a barrier to the success of the preacher had 
 been providentially removed. On the Sabbath 
 following there was such a congregation as has 
 never been seen since within the walls of St. 
 Tudno's. The minister surpassed himself. There 
 was not a dry eye between the topmost gallery and 
 the back seat below the loft where the provost sat. 
 Now, in that church it was the custom of the elders 
 to take in the Bible and bring it out to the vestry 
 afterwards. This they did in rotation. It was the 
 provost's day. As he lifted the Bible, the sermon 
 slid to the floor. He picked it up, glanced at it, and 
 turned pale. Then he sat down to recover himself 
 The funeral sermon tvas neatly written out in Mrs. 
 Simpson's own hand. 
 
 The Rev. Boanerges never preached another 
 great sermon — never one even mediocre. It was 
 said that grief had permanently weakened his 
 faculties. It is strange that men cannot benefit by 
 the opportunities which Providence makes for them, 
 Ti\ere were many who wondered that the provost
 
 r70 BOANERGES SIMPSON'S ENCUMBRANCE. 
 
 stood by him ; but the meal miller was not the 
 man to forget a word passed to a dead woman, and 
 he kept her secret well. He was (and is) the pearl 
 of provosts. 
 
 As for the Rev. Boanerges, he married again 
 within a year, a maiden lady with ;^50,ooo in 
 consols and a temper — both her own. Her husband 
 is a man of great reputation. He has retired to a 
 comfortable estate in the Highlands, which shows 
 that true merit is always rewarded. He has since 
 put out two volumes of sermons, which are allowed 
 by the religious press to be among the most subtle 
 and suggestive which have been published this 
 century. They ought to be in every preacher's 
 library. His first wife had carefully copied them 
 all out for the printer, which seems to be about the 
 only useful thing she did during her life. But the 
 funeral sermon was written in the minister's large 
 sprawling characters. There is no monument over 
 the grave of the first Mrs. Simpson, but the provost 
 often walks out there of an evening and lays a 
 white rose upon it.
 
 A KNIGHT ERRANT OF THE STREETS. 
 
 Cleg ^ Kelly was out of his latitude, and knew 
 it. He was a Pleasance laddie, and he lived in one 
 of the garret rooms of a big " land," as full of pass- 
 ages and bye-ways as a rabbit warren. He was 
 not a Christian, was Cleg Kelly. Neither was his 
 father. He said he was a " snow-shoveller," and as 
 his profession could be carried on during a very 
 limited number of days in the year, he made his 
 fellow-citizens chargeable for his keep during the 
 rest of the year, and personally collected the need- 
 ful. So his fellow-citizens thoughtfully provided 
 for his accommodation a splendid edifice on the 
 side of the Calton — the same which American 
 tourists wax enthusiastic about as they come into 
 the Scots metropolis by the North British Railway, 
 mistaking its battlemented towers for those of 
 Edinburgh Castle. 
 
 Here Mr. Timothy Kelly occupied a beautifully 
 
 ' " Cleg " means, in the dialect of the Lowlands, the small 
 common gad-fly or horse-fly. 
 
 171
 
 172 A KNIGHT ERRANT OF THE STREETS. 
 
 clean and healthy apartment for at least six months 
 in the year. During this time he worked at a 
 Government contract, and so, of course, could not 
 devote much time to the education of his son and 
 heir. But Tim Kelly, though a fascinating study, 
 must not tempt us away from his equally accom- 
 plished son. As was said at the beginning, Cleg 
 Kelly was out of his latitude, and he did not like it. 
 It was Sunday afternoon, and he had been across 
 the narrow isthmus of houses which separates the 
 Alps of the Salisbury Crags from the Lombard 
 plain of the Meadows. He had been putting in his 
 attendances at five Sunday schools that day, for it 
 was the leafy month of June when "trips " abound, 
 and Cleg Kelly was not quite so green as the 
 summer foliage ; besides all which, about five 
 o'clock there are lots of nice clean children in that 
 part of the town on their way home from " Con- 
 gregational" Sabbath schools. These did not speak 
 to Cleg, for he only went to the Mission schools 
 which were specially adapted for such as he. Also, 
 he wore no stockings. But Cleg Kelly was not 
 bashful, so he readily spoke to them. He noted, 
 especially, a spruce party of three leaving a 
 chemist's shop on the shortest track between the 
 park and the meadows, and he followed them 
 down through the narrow defile of Gifford Park —
 
 A KNIGHT ERRANT OF THE STREETS. 173 
 
 thoughts of petty larceny crystallising in his heart. 
 Ere they could escape through the needle's eye at 
 the further end, Cleg Kelly had accosted them 
 after his kind. 
 
 " Hey, you, gie's that gundy [toffy], or I'll knock 
 your turnip heids thegither ! " The three lambs stood 
 at bay, huddled close together, and helplesslybleated 
 feeble derisives at the wolf who has headed them off 
 from safety ; but their polite and Englishy tone was 
 a source of Homeric laughter to this Thersites of 
 the Pleasance. He mocked their decent burgher 
 attire ; he sparred up to them — his " neives " 
 describing stately circles like a paddle wheel — and, 
 shaking a murky fist an inch below their several 
 noses, he invited them individually to " smell that," 
 and then inform him where they would like it 
 applied, together with other resourceful amenities, as 
 the auctioneer's advertisements say, too numerous 
 to mention. While the marauding wolf was thus at 
 play with his innocent victims, scorning their feeble 
 efforts at rejoinder, and circumventing without 
 difficulty their yet feebler efforts at flight, it so 
 happened that a member of the city force, to whom 
 Master Cleg Kelly was well known, stopped for 
 a moment to look down the aristocratic avenues of 
 the park, bordered with frugal lines of " ash 
 backets " for all ornament. The coincidence of
 
 174 A KNIGHT ERRANT OF THE STREETS. 
 
 necessity and presence is remarkable, but not un- 
 precedented. He was a young officer of but 
 eighteen months' standing, and his district had 
 been previously in the " Sooth Back," a district to 
 which the talent of Master Kelly was indigenous. 
 Had the officer been six months more in the ser- 
 vice, he would probably have contented himself 
 with a warning trumpet note which would have 
 sent the enemy flying ; but being young and 
 desirous of small distinctions, he determined to 
 " nab the young scamp and take him along." He 
 had full justification for this, for at this moment a 
 howl told that the assault had reached the stage of 
 battery, and that the young " gundy " garrotter was 
 qualifying for the cat at an early age, by com- 
 mitting robbery with violence. 
 
 It was at this moment that Cleg felt that there's 
 no place like home. He was a stranger in a strange 
 land, where he knew not even the walls that had 
 nicks in them, climbable by the sooty toe of an 
 eleven-year-old city boy. He could not tell 
 whether any particular " land " had a ladder and 
 trap-door — valuable right-of-way upon the roof 
 He knew not the alleys which gave double exit by 
 unexpected elbows, and he could not shun those 
 which invited with fair promises, but which were 
 really traps with no way of escape. He did not
 
 A KNIGHT ERRANT OF THE STREETS. 175 
 
 wish, in that awful moment, that he had been a 
 better boy, as his young Sunday-school teacher 
 in Hunker Court had often urged him to become ; 
 what he wanted was the " Sooth Back," ten yards 
 start, and the rigour of the game. But there 
 was no time for meditation, for the heavy footed, 
 but alert young "bobby" was almost upon him. 
 Cleg Kelly sprang side-ways and dived into the 
 first convenient entry, then skimmed up some steps 
 that wound skyward, down again, and along a 
 passage with not a single side turning. He heard 
 his pursuer lumbering after him, and his own heart 
 kettle-drumming in his ears. An unexpected 
 doorway gave outward as his weight came on it, 
 and he found himself in a curious court somewhere 
 at the back of St Simon Square, as near as he could 
 make out. There was a strange square block 
 towards one side of the open space, round which 
 he ran ; and, climbing up a convenient roan or 
 water pipe, he squirmed himself through a stair 
 window, crossed the landing of an uninhabited 
 house, and looked down on the interior of a court 
 which was well known to him, from the safe 
 elevation of a first floor window. As he rested, 
 panting, he said to himself that he " kenned where 
 he was noo." It was the court which contained 
 one of his too numerous Sunday schools. Hunker
 
 176 A KNIGHT ERRANT OF THE STREETS. 
 
 Court Mission School was " scaling." As it was 
 the school where there was most " fun," it was also 
 the school which was best beloved by that scholar 
 who was duly enrolled in Miss Celie Tennant's 
 class [No. 6], as : — 
 
 C. Kelly ^ age 14, Residence, 200 Pleasance. 
 — the age being a gratuitous impromptu on the 
 part of Cleg in order to impress his teacher 
 with a sense of his importance — in his own 
 language, " a big lee ! " " Fun " in this Mission 
 school meant chiefly bombarding the teachers as 
 they ran the gauntlet after the school was dis- 
 missed, specially one, who for private reasons was 
 known as " Pun' o' Cannles." All this happened 
 years ago, and of course there are no such schools 
 in Edinburgh now. But Celie Tennant, a cheery 
 little lady with the brightest eyes that Cleg had 
 ever seen, had never been molested. This day 
 Cleg watched, with the delight of the bird that 
 has just escaped the fowler's snare, the " clodding " 
 of the teachers, and their discomposed look as the 
 missiles interfered with their dignity. He was 
 a connoisseur in these matters, and applauded 
 critically as a cunningly directed cabbage heart 
 dropped reposefully into " Pun' o' Cannles' " tail 
 pockets. He remembered how his ears had rung 
 under the very hand which now extracted the
 
 A KNIGHT ERRANT DF THE STREETS. 177 
 
 cabbage under a galling cross fire. He observed 
 how Humpy Joe, the pride of Simon Square, deftly 
 removed the " lum hat " of the newest teacher, who 
 had yet to learn what clothes to come in when he 
 set out to instruct the youth of Gifford Park. He 
 saw with complaisance Archie Drabble, the " de'il " 
 of the school, prepare a hand grenade of moist 
 mud for the superintendent, as he thought. The 
 young idea of the city needs not to be taught how 
 to shoot. He rubbed his hands with glee to think 
 how juicily and satisfactorily the " pyeowe" would 
 spread, and he became d\s,t\nci\y partkeps crijninibiis 
 as the most gleeful of accessories before the fact. 
 But at this moment out walked his own teacher, 
 Miss Tennant, on her way home through Archer's 
 Hall by way of the Meadows. Now Cleg Kelly 
 was secretly and desperately in love with his teacher, 
 and he would willingly have gone to school every 
 Sunday, simply to be scolded by her for mis- 
 behaviour. He found that this was the best way 
 to keep her attention fixed upon him ; and the 
 boy who sat next him in class had a poor time of 
 it. It pleased Cleg to notice that his teacher 
 had a new summer hat and dress on, one that he 
 had not seen before. Cleg became sorry, for 
 the first time, that he had waited to take it out of 
 these " softies." This was the nearest that he ever
 
 178 A KNIGHT ERRANT OF THE STREETS. 
 
 came to repentance. It struck him that he might 
 have looked at the hat and dress, and the face 
 between, for an hour. It is a mistake to think that 
 boys do not notice dress. The boy, as has been 
 said before more than once, is the father of the 
 man. Cleg was complacently feeling a proprietary 
 interest in both the summer hat and bright print 
 dress, when suddenly his eye caught the slouching 
 figure of Archie Drabble, standing exactly beneath. 
 Cleg's face whitened as he took in his intention. 
 Could it be to desecrate the spotless hat and 
 dress of his. Cleg's, teacher, hitherto held inviolate 
 by the strange chivalry of Hunker Court School? 
 Small time there was for the true knight to don his 
 armour and ride cap-a-pie into the lists. There 
 was no time to blow a trumpet, even had one been 
 handy. There were no heralds to announce the 
 victory of the champion of distressed demoiselles ; 
 but all these could not have rendered the feat of 
 arms (if so it might be called which was mostly legs) 
 more rounded and complete. As the cowardly arm 
 of the " Drabble " — fit name for knight unknightly 
 — paused a moment to gather force for the dastard's 
 blow ; and even as the unconscious lady of the 
 Road Perilous half turned to settle her skirts into a 
 daintier swing, a bolt fell from the blue, a deus from 
 the machina — a small boy arrayed completely in two
 
 A KNIGHT ERRANT OF THE STREETS. 179 
 
 well-ventilated garments, sprang with horrid yell 
 from a first-floor window, and, sudden as Jove's 
 thunderbolt, struck the audacious Drabble to the 
 earth. Then springing up, this impish Mercury of 
 Hunker Court dowsed the prostrate one with his 
 own hand grenade, hoisted him with a grimy foot 
 in lieu of a petard, once more returned him to 
 earth with that clenched organ to which the 
 " softies " had been invited to apply their noses. 
 Having performed a war dance on the prostrate foe 
 which had small store of knightly courtesy in it, 
 Cleg, with the derring-do of battle upon him, 
 dared the assembled Mission to the unequal fray ; 
 and, no champion accepting, presently took him- 
 self off, as unconventionally as he came, turning 
 three double cart wheels through the archway that 
 led in the direction of the Meadows. So uplifted 
 was he by the pride of success, that he looked 
 about valiantly for the " bobby." He was not in 
 sight. 
 
 " It's as wee! for him ! " said the hero of battles. 
 
 As Miss Celie Tennant waited at her own gate a 
 moment that afternoon, she was aware, as heroines 
 often are, of the presence of a hero. He was small 
 and very dirty, and he stood by a lamp-post 
 abstracted, scratching one bare leg with the toe of 
 the other foot. It is a primeval attitude, and Sir
 
 i8o A KNIGHT ERRANT OF THE STREETS. 
 
 John Lubbock will be able to explain it Some 
 thing familiar caught the lady's attention. 
 
 " Is that you, Charles ? " she asked ; " why didn't 
 you come to Sunday school to-day ? " She was 
 under the impression that " C." in her roll-book 
 stood for Charles. This was a mistake. 
 
 Charles gasped inarticulately, and was under- 
 stood to say that he would be on view next Sabbath 
 without fail. 
 
 Celie Tennant patted him kindly on the head, 
 tripped gracefully up the steps, and paused to nod 
 ere she reached the door. Not till then did Cleg 
 Kelly find his tongue. 
 
 " Pit on the new frock," he said, "dinna be feared, 
 Airchie Drabble 'ill throw nae mair glaur ! " 
 
 " Thank you, Charles ! " said the summer hat, in 
 sweet unconsciousness of his meaning, as the door 
 closed. This is how Cleg Kelly began to be a 
 Christian.
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY, 
 
 MISSION WORKER. 
 
 Inquiring friends request the latest news of 
 Mr. C Kelly, of the "Sooth Back." We are 
 most happy to supply them, for Cleg is a 
 favourite of our own. Since we revealed how 
 he began to become a Christian, Cleg has felt 
 himself more or less of a public character ; but 
 he is modest, and for several weeks kept out of 
 our way, apparently lest he should be put into 
 another book. A too appreciative superintendent 
 unfortunately read the plain little story of Cleg's 
 gallant knight-errantry to the senior division of 
 his sometime school, and Cleg blushed to find 
 himself famous. Consequently he left Hunker 
 Court for good. But for all that he is secretly 
 pleased to be in a book, and having received our 
 most fervent assurance that he will not be made 
 into a " tract," he has signified that he is appeased, 
 and that - no legal proceedings will be taken. 
 
 x8i
 
 1 82 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 
 
 Cleg does not so much mind a book, a book is 
 respectable ; but he draws the line at tracts. He 
 says that he is " doon on them tracks." Even as 
 a reformed character they raise the old Adam in 
 him. A good lady, sweeping hy in her carriage 
 the other day, threw one graciously to the ragged 
 lad, who was standing in a moment of meditation 
 pirouetting his cap on the point of his boot, half 
 for the pleasure of seeing that he had actually a 
 boot upon his foot, and half to intimate to all 
 concerned that he has not become proud and 
 haughty because of the fact. The good lady 
 was much surprised by that small boy's action, 
 and has a poorer opinion than ever of the " lower 
 orders." 
 
 She is now sure that there must be some very 
 careful grading in heaven before it can be a com- 
 fortable place of permanent residence. Her idea 
 of doing good has always been to go through the 
 houses of the poor with the gracious hauteur of a 
 visitant from another and a better world, and to 
 scatter broadcast largesse of tracts and good 
 advice. The most pleasant way of doing this, 
 she finds, is from a carriage, for some of the 
 indigent have a way of saying most unpleasant 
 things ; but a pair of spanking bays can sweep 
 away from all expressions of opinion. Besides,
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 183 
 
 tracts delivered in this way bring with them a 
 sense of proper inferiority as coming from one 
 who would say, "There, take that, you poor 
 wicked people, and may it do you good ! " Cleg 
 Kelly was " again' tracks." But after a single 
 moment of stupefied surprise that this woman 
 should insult him, he rushed for the tract. The 
 lady smiled at his eagerness, and pointed out to 
 her companion, a poor lady whose duty it was 
 to agree with her mistress, the eager twinkling 
 eyes and flushed face of Cleg as he pursued the 
 bays. Cleg at short distances could beat any 
 pair of horses in Edinburgh. He had not raced 
 with bobbies and fire-engines for nothing. He 
 was in fine training, and just as the carriage 
 slackened to turn past the immense conglomerate 
 castle which guards the St. Leonard's Park en- 
 trance. Cleg shot up to the side at which his 
 benefactor sat. He swiftly handed her a parcel, 
 and so vanished from the face of the earth. There 
 is no safer hiding place than the coal -waggons full 
 and empty that stand in thousands just over the 
 wall. The good lady opened the little parcel with 
 her usual complaisance. It was her own tract, and 
 it contained a small selection of articles — the staple 
 product, indeed, of the Pleasance ash-baskets — im- 
 primis, one egg-shell filled with herring bones, item
 
 i84 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 
 
 — a cabbage top in fine gamey condition, the head 
 of a rat some time deceased, and the tail of some 
 other animal so worn by age as to make identifi- 
 cation uncertain. On the top lay the dirtiest of 
 all scrawls. It said, " With thanks for yer traks** 
 The lady fell back on her cushions so heavily that 
 the C springs creaked, and the poor companion 
 groped frantically for the smelling-bottle. She 
 knew that she would have a dreadful time of it 
 that night ; but her mistress has resolved that she 
 will distribute no more tracts from her carriage, 
 the lower orders may just be left to perish. Their 
 blood be on their own heads ; she has once and 
 for all washed her hands of them. 
 
 Many people may be of opinion that Cleg 
 Kelly, judging by his first exploit this Friday 
 morning of which we speak, had not advanced very 
 far along the narrow way of righteousness ; but 
 this was not Cleg's own opinion. He felt that 
 he had done a good deed, and he said within him- 
 self, " Them ould women dae mair ill wi' their 
 tracks than twa penny gaffs an' a side-show ! " 
 
 Then Cleg Kelly went on to his next busi- 
 ness. It had to do with keeping the fifth com- 
 mandment. He had heard about it the Sunday 
 before, not at the forsaken Hunker Court, but at 
 a Uttle class for boys at the foot of the Pleasance,
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 185 
 
 in a court there, which his teacher, Miss Celie 
 Tennant, was organising for lads of Cleg's age 
 or a little older. It was a daring undertaking for 
 one so young, and all her friends tried to stop her, 
 and called it foolhardy ; but Celie Tennant being, 
 as Cleg admiringly said, " no' big, but most 
 michty plucky," had found out her power in 
 managing the most rebellious larrikins that walked 
 on hobnails. Moreover, the work had sought her, 
 not she it. Her praises had been so constantly 
 chanted by Cleg that she had been asked to 
 take pity on a number of the " Sooth Back gang," 
 anc" have a class for them in the evenings. It was 
 manifestly impossible to receive such a number of 
 wild loons at Hunker Court. They were every 
 one upon terms of open war with the Gifford 
 Park train-bands ; and had a couple of them 
 showed their faces in the neighbourhood at any 
 hour of the day or night, the " Cooee-EE " of 
 the Park would have sounded, and fists and brick- 
 bats would have been going in a couple of shakes. 
 Clearly, then, as they could not come to her 
 without breaking her Majesty's peace, it was her 
 duty to go to them. To do them justice, they 
 were quite willing to risk it ; but Celie felt that it 
 would hardly be doing herself justice to sow her 
 seed so very near to the fowls of the air. So
 
 i86 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLy. 
 
 Cleg proudly took his friend down to the 
 " Sooth Back," where there was a kind-hearted 
 watchman who had occasionally let Cleg sleep 
 in some warm place about the " works " at which 
 he was on night duty. To him Miss Tennant was 
 introduced, and by him was taken into the presence 
 of the junior partner, who was sitting in a very 
 easy attitude indeed, with his back against his desk, 
 and balancing himself precariously on one leg of 
 a stool. He effected a descent successfully, and 
 blushed becomingly, for he was a very junior 
 partner indeed, and he had more than once met 
 Miss Tennant at a West-end evening party. But 
 when Miss Celie, infinitely self-possessed, stated 
 her business in clear-cut accents of maidenly re- 
 serve, the Very Junior Partner instantly mani- 
 fested almost too great an interest in the concern, 
 and offered the use of a disused store-room where 
 there was a good fireplace. 
 
 " I shall see to it. Miss Tennant," he said, "that 
 there is a fire for you there whenever you wish to 
 use the room." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Iverach," returned Celie, with 
 just the proper amount of gratitude, " but I would 
 not dream of troubling you. One of my boys 
 will do that." 
 
 The Very Junior would have liked to say that
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 187 
 
 he did not consider it quite the thing for a young 
 lady to be in the purlieus of the " Sooth Back " 
 after nightfall. Indeed, he would have been glad 
 to offer his escort ; but he did not say so, for he 
 was a very nice Junior Partner indeed, and his 
 ingenuous blush was worth a fortune to him as a 
 certificate of character. He therefore contented 
 himself with saying : 
 
 " If there is anything that I can do for you, you 
 will always be good enough to let me know." 
 
 Celie Tennant thanked him, and gave him her 
 hand. He came as far as the street with her, but 
 did not offer to see her home. He was no fool, 
 though so Very Junior a Partner. 
 
 Celie Tennant established her night-school in 
 the Sooth Back with Cleg Kelly as her man 
 Friday. Cleg showed at once a great faculty 
 for organisation, and he added the function of 
 police to his other duties. On the principle of 
 " Set a thief," &c., he ought to have made the 
 best of policemen, and so he did. He was not 
 by any means the biggest or the heaviest, but he 
 had far more wild-cat in him than any of his mates. 
 Once he had taken the gully on the Salisbury 
 Crags on his way to safety, when he was too much 
 pressed by force of circumstances to go round the 
 ordinary way ; and it was quite an every-day
 
 1 88 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 
 
 habit of his to call upon his friends by way of the 
 roof and the sky-lights therein. 
 
 Celie Tennant was opening her night-school this 
 Friday evening, and Cleg Kelly was on his way 
 thither to get the key from the porter, his good 
 friend at most times. He knew where there was 
 an old soap-box which would make rare kindling, 
 and he had a paraffin cask also in his mind, 
 though as yet he had not made any inquiries as 
 to the ownership of this latter. On his way he 
 rushed up to the seldom-visited garret that was 
 the domicile of his parent, Mr. Timothy Kelly, 
 when he came out of gaol. During these intervals 
 Cleg withdrew himself from night quarters, only 
 occasionally reconnoitring the vicinity, if he wanted 
 any of his hid treasures very keenly. He had as 
 many as twenty " hidie-holes " in the floor, walls, 
 eaves, and roof of the wretched dwelling that was 
 his only home. Some of these his father frequently 
 broke into, and scattered his poor horde, con- 
 fiscating the coppers, and sending the other 
 valuables through the glassless windows, but on 
 the whole Cleg could beat his parent at the 
 game of hide-and-seek. When the evening came, 
 however, Cleg hovered in the neighbourhood 
 till he saw whether his father went straight 
 from his lair, growling and grumbling, to Hare's
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 189 
 
 Public, or remained in bed on the floor with 
 certain curious implements around him. If the 
 latter were the case, Cleg vanished, and was 
 seen no more in the neighbourhood for some 
 days, because he knew well that his father was 
 again qualifying for her Majesty's hospitality, and 
 that was a business he always declined to be 
 mixed up in. He knew that his father would in 
 all probability be " lagged " by the morrow's morn. 
 Cleg hoped that he would be, and the longer 
 sentence his father got the better pleased his son 
 was. Once when Timothy Kelly got six months 
 for house-breaking, a small boy was ignominiously 
 expelled from the back benches of the court 
 for saying, " Hip, Hooray." It was Cleg. His 
 father, however, heard, and belted him for it 
 unmercifully when he came out, saying between 
 every stroke and bound, * Take that, ye sorra ! 
 Was it for this I brought yez up, ye spalpeen o' 
 the worrld ? An' me at all the trubble an' expinse 
 av yer rearin' — you to cry " hooroosh " when yer 
 own father got a sixer in quod. Be me conscience 
 an' sleeve-buttons, but I'd be dooin' my duty but 
 poorly by Father Brady an' the Tim Command- 
 ments if I didn't correct } ez ! " , 
 So nobody could say that Cieg was not well 
 brought up.
 
 I90 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 
 
 If, however, Cleg saw his father take the 
 straight road for the Public, he knew that there 
 was still a shot in the old man's locker, and that 
 there were enough of the " shiners for another 
 booze," as it was expressed classically in these 
 parts. He betook himself to his own devices, 
 therefore, till closing time ; but about eleven 
 o'clock he began to haunt the vicinity of Hare's, 
 and to peep within whenever the door opened. 
 On one occasion he opened the door himself, and 
 nearly got his head broken with the pound weight 
 that came towards it. They did not stand on cere- 
 mony with small boys in that beershop. They 
 knocked them down, and then inquired their errand 
 aiterwards. The landlord came from Jedburgh. 
 
 When his father came out of the Public, Cleg 
 saw him home in original fashion. He had a 
 curiously shaped stick which he employed on these 
 occasions. It was the fork of a tree that he had 
 got from a very kind builder of the neighbour- 
 hood whose name was Younger. This stick was 
 only produced at such times, and the police of 
 the district, men with children of their own, 
 and a kindly blind eye towards Cleg's ploys 
 when not too outrageous, did not interfere with 
 his manifestations of filial piety. Indeed, it was 
 none such a pleasant job to take Tim Kelly to the
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELL Y. 191 
 
 lock-up, even with " The Twist " on him, and Cleg 
 harassing the official rear with his crooked stick. 
 So they generally let the father and son alone, 
 though every now and then some energetic young 
 man, new to the district, interfered. He did it just 
 once 
 
 Having seen his father safely into Hare's, 
 Cleg went down the Pleasance with a skip and 
 a jump to light his fire. He found another boy 
 haling off his soap-box. Cleg threw a " paver " 
 to halt him, much as a privateer throws a shot 
 athwart the bows of a prize as a signal to slacken 
 speed. The boy turned instantly, but seeing 
 Cleg coming with the swiftness of the wind, and 
 his conscience telling him that he could make good 
 no claim to the soap-box ; knowing, moreover, 
 that Cleg Kelly could " lick him into shivereens," 
 he abandoned his prize and took to his heels, 
 pausing at a safe distance to bandy epithets and 
 information as to ancestors with Cleg. But Cleg 
 marched off without a word, which annoyed the 
 other boy much more than the loss of the box. That 
 was the fortune of war, but what would happen if 
 Cleg Kelly took to getting proud. He stood a 
 moment in thought. A light broke on him. Cleg 
 had a pair of boots with a shine on them. He had 
 it That was the reason of this aristocratic reserve.
 
 192 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELL Y. 
 
 The lads who came to the class first that night 
 were few and evil. The bulk of the better boys were 
 working in shoe factories in the suburbs, and could 
 not get there at seven. That was a full hour too 
 early for them, and the lads who arrived were there 
 simply "on for a lark." But they did not know 
 Miss Cecilia Tennant, and they had reckoned with- 
 out Mr. C. Kelly, who had resolved that he would 
 be hawk to their larks. The half-dozen louts sat 
 lowering and leering in the neat and clean store- 
 room in which the Very Young Partner, Mr. 
 Donald Iverach, had arranged with his own hand a 
 chair, a table, and a good many forms, which he had 
 been at the expense of sending the porter to buy 
 from the founder of a bankrupt sect who lately had 
 had a meeting-house left on his hand. The Very 
 Youngest was prepared to say that he had "found" 
 these lying about the premises, had he been ques- 
 tioned about the matter. And so he had, but the 
 porter had put them there first. But Celie Ten- 
 nant took what the gods had sent her, and asked 
 no questions ; though, not being simpler than other 
 young women of her determination of character, 
 she had her own ideas as to where they came 
 from. Celie asked the company to stand up as she 
 entered, which with some nudging and shuffling 
 they did whereupon she astounded them by shaking
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 193 
 
 hands with them. This set them rather on their 
 beam-ends for a moment, and they did not recover 
 any power for mischief till Celie asked them to 
 close their eyes during prayer. Standing up at 
 her desk, she folded her little hands and closed her 
 own eyes to ask the God whom she tried to serve 
 (surely a different God from the one whom the 
 tract-scattering woman worshipped), to aid her 
 and help the lads. Cleg Kelly watched her with 
 adoring eyes. He had heard of the angels. She 
 had often told him about them, but he privately 
 backed his teacher against the best of them. When 
 Celie opened her eyes no one was visible save 
 Cleg, who stood with his eyes aflame. The class 
 had vanished. 
 
 " The dirty bliggards ;" said Cleg, the tongue of 
 his father coming back to him in his excitement, 
 " I'll bring them up to the scratch by the scruff av 
 their impident necks ! " 
 
 So he darted underneath the forms, and shortly 
 reappeared with a couple of much bigger boys 
 clinging on to him, and belabouring him with all 
 their might. Wresting himself clear for a moment, 
 Cleg dashed up the green blind which covered 
 the small single-pane window in the gable, and 
 turned to bay. The two whom he had brought up 
 from the depths made a dash at him as he passed,
 
 194 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 
 
 overturned the teacher's table in their eagerness to 
 prevent him from getting to the door; but it was 
 not the door that Cleg wanted to reach. It was 
 'his crook, which he had cunningly hitched to the 
 back of the teacher's chair. With that he turned 
 valiantly to bay, making the table a kind of forti- 
 fication. 
 
 " Sit down, Miss," he said, reassuringly ; " I'll do 
 for them, shure." 
 
 At this moment the outer door opened, and his 
 friend, the night-watchman, arrived armed with a 
 formidable stick, the sight of which, and the know- 
 ledge that they were trapped, took all the tucker 
 out of these very cowardly young men. 
 
 " It was only a bit of fun, Cleg ! " they whined. 
 
 " Get out av this ! " shouted Cleg, dancing in 
 his fury ; and out of this they got, the watchman's 
 stick doing its duty as they passed, and his dog 
 hanging determinedly on to their ankles. 
 
 What surprised them most was a sudden and 
 unexpected hoist they each received, apparently 
 from the door of the yard, which deposited them 
 on the street with their systems considerably jarred. 
 The Very Junior Partner smiled thoughtfully as he 
 rubbed his toe. For the first time in his life he 
 wished that he had worn boots both larger and 
 heavier. "But 'twill sufifice, 'twill serve!" he
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELL Y. 195 
 
 quoted, as he turned away into his office ; for, by a 
 strange coincidence, he was working late that night. 
 The Senior Partner knew that he had given up an 
 engagement to go to a dance that evening in order 
 to work up some business that had been lying 
 over. He rubbed his hands delightedly, ..> 
 
 " Donald is taking to the business at last," he 
 told his wife as they prepared for bed. 
 
 Celie had taken no part in this scene, but she 
 was far too energetic and fearless a young woman 
 to remain long quiescent. She went round the 
 benches, and as she came in sight of each grovelling 
 lout she ordered him to get up, and, abashed and 
 cowed, they rose one by one to their feet. The 
 dust of the floor had made no apparent change in 
 their original disarray. They stood grinning help- 
 lessly and inanely, like yokels before a show at a 
 country fair ; but there was no heart in their affec- 
 tation of mirth. The discomfiture of their com- 
 rades, and the sound of the watchman's oak "rung" 
 had been too much for them. Then, for five lively 
 minutes, Miss Cecilia's tongue played like lambent 
 lightning about their ears, and they visibly wilted 
 before her. 
 
 It was now eight o'clock, and the genuine mem- 
 bers of the class began to put in an appearance, 
 and each of them was welcomed with the most
 
 196 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 
 
 friendly of greetings from the teacher : and as each 
 passed, Cleg's left eyelid drooped suddenly upon 
 his cheek, so decorously that no one could call it 
 a wink. The four malcontents moved for the door, 
 but the clear voice of Miss Tennant brought them 
 to a stand. 
 
 " Sit down, all of you, and speak to me at the 
 close of the class." 
 
 So they sat down, being well aware that they 
 had not a sympathiser in the room. It had been 
 their intention to " raise a dust " before the arrival 
 of the factory brigade, and then to get clear off; 
 and, barring Cleg Kelly, they would have done it. 
 Cleg did not yet go to the factory, for the manager 
 would not believe that he was thirteen, though 
 Cleg had told him so times without number ; he 
 had even on one occasion stretched a point and as 
 vainly tried fourteen. Cleg Kelly went to school 
 ever since he became a reformed character ; but 
 not every day, so as to prevent the teacher from 
 becoming too conceited. However, he looked in 
 occasionally when he had nothing better to do. If 
 he were cold when he entered, in about half an hour 
 he was quite warm. 
 
 What Celie Tennant said to these four louts will 
 never be known — they have never told ; but it is 
 sufficient to say that they became pillars of the
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 197 
 
 "Sooth Back" Mission and Night School, and 
 needed no more attention than any of the others. 
 
 The Very Junior Partner and Cleg Kelly both 
 saw home the teacher that night, walking close 
 together ; though, of course, entirely ignoring 
 each other, each some hundred yards behind Miss 
 Tennant, who walked serene in the consciousness of 
 lonely courage, her roll-book in one hand and her 
 skirt daintily held in the other, walking with that 
 charming side-swing which both her escorts thought 
 adorable. They did not communicate this to each 
 other. On the contrary, Cleg took a "gob" of 
 hard mud in his hand, and stood a moment in 
 doubt, dividing the swift mind, whether or no to 
 " bust the swell's topper in." But a consciousness 
 of the excellence of that young man's intentions 
 preserved the shiny crown which it had cost a 
 shilling to have ironed that morning at the Shop- 
 up-three-Steps at the corner of the North Bridge. 
 The Very Junior liked to go spruce to business. 
 
 On his return to the yard. Cleg Kelly found 
 that his day's work was not yet done. One of 
 his special chums came to tell him that " Hole 
 i' the Wa'," the biggest of the louts first expelled, 
 was thirsting for his blood, and had dared him to 
 fight him that very night. Now, had Cleg been 
 more advanced in reformation, he would of course
 
 rgS THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELL V. 
 
 have refused, and given his voice for peace ; but 
 then, you see, he was only a beginner. He sent 
 his friend to tell " Hole i' the Wa' " that he would 
 wait for him in the " Polissman's Yard." This was 
 a court at the back of a police station in the 
 vicinity, which could only be entered by a low 
 " pend " or vaulted passage, though commanded 
 from above by the high windows of the station- 
 house. It had long been a great idea of Cleg's 
 to have a battle royal under the very nose of the 
 constituted authority of the city. Thither he re- 
 sorted, and in a little a crowd of his friends and 
 his foes followed him, all protesting that he could 
 not mean to fight fair so near to the " bobbies' " 
 abode. But Cleg unfolded his scheme, which 
 instantly placed him on the giddy apex of popu- 
 larity. He got them to roll a heavy barrel which 
 stood in one corner of the yard into the " pend," 
 which it almost completely blocked up, and he 
 himself fixed it in position with some of the great 
 iron curved shods which the lorrymen used to stop 
 their coal waggons on the steep streets of the south- 
 side. It stood so firm that nothing short of dyna- 
 mite could have shifted it. 
 
 The fight proceeded, but into its details we need 
 not enter. It was truly Homeric. Cleg flitted 
 here and there like the active insect from which
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 199 
 
 he got his name, and stung wherever he could get 
 an opening. The shouts of the spectators might 
 have been heard in that still place for the better 
 part of a mile, and in a few minutes all the police 
 who were on duty were thundering on the barrel, 
 and all those who had been in bed manned the 
 windows in dishabille, and threatened the comba- 
 tants and spectators by name. 
 
 Cleg Kelly, dancing ever more wildly round 
 his adversary, revolving his fists like the spokes of 
 a bicycle, shouted defiance, 
 
 "Come on, Hole," he cried, "ye're no' worth 
 a buckie at fechtin 1 " and as he circled near the 
 " pend," and heard the heaves of the labouring 
 officers of justice, he called out : " You, Lang- 
 shanks, cast yer coat an' crawl through the bung ; 
 ye micht ken that the sergeant's ower fat. Hae ye 
 nae sense ? " 
 
 There was laughter aloft in the station windows. 
 But somebody at the outside had brought a sledge 
 hammer, and at the first blow the barrel resolved 
 itself into its component staves, and the police 
 tumbled in, falling headlong over Cleg's waggon 
 clamps. 
 
 Then there was a wild scurry of the lads up the 
 piles of casks and rubbish at the back of the yard, 
 and over the outhouses and roofs. Cleg was not
 
 200 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 
 
 first in getting away, but he had studied the 
 locality, and he had his plans cut and dried. He 
 would have been ashamed to have been caught 
 now that he was on his way to be a reformed 
 character. In half an hour he was waiting with 
 crooked stick to "boost" his father home when 
 he was duly cast out of Hare's Public at the 
 stroke of eleven as the completed produce of that 
 establishment. 
 
 So in due time, and with many hard words from 
 Timothy, they neared the den which they called 
 home. At the foot of the long stair Timothy Kelly 
 lay down with the grunt of a hog, and refused to 
 move or speak. He would arise for no punchings, 
 however artistic, with the knobbiest portions of the 
 stick, and Cleg paused, for the first time that day, 
 almost in despair. A policeman came round the 
 corner, flashing the light of his bull's-eye right and 
 left. Cleg's heart stood still. It was the lengthy 
 officer whom he had called " Langshanks," and 
 invited to come through the bung. He feared that 
 he was too kenspeckle to escape. He went over 
 to him, and taking a tug at his hair, which meant 
 manners, said : 
 
 " Please, officer, will ye gie me a lift up the stair 
 wi' my faither ? " 
 
 The policeman whistled a long., low whistle, and 
 laughed.
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 201 
 
 " Officer ! " says he, " Officer ! Be the powers, 
 'twas ' Langshanks ' ye called me the last time, ye 
 thief o' the wurrld ! " said the man, who was of 
 national kin to Cleg. 
 
 So they twain helped their compatriot unsteadily 
 to his den at the head of the stairs. ,-* 
 
 " Ye're the cheekiest young shaver I ivver saw," 
 said Longshanks, admiringly, as he turned ; " but 
 there's some good in yez ! " 
 
 Cleg Kelly locked the door on the outside, said 
 his prayers like the reformed character that he 
 was, and laid him down on the mat to sleep the 
 sleep of the just. The Junior Partner always saw 
 Miss Tennant home after this. He calls her 
 " Celie " now. She has been meaning to tell him 
 for the last month that he must not do so any 
 more.
 
 ENSAMPLES TO THE FLOCK, 
 
 The family of the late Tyke M'Lurg consisted of 
 three loons and a lassie. Tyke had never done 
 anything for his children except share with a short- 
 lived and shadowy mother the responsibility of 
 bringing them into the world. The time that he 
 could spare from his profession of poacher, he had 
 systematically devoted to neglecting them. Tyke 
 had solved successfully for many years the problem 
 of how to live by the least possible expenditure of 
 labour. Kind ladies had taken him in hand time and 
 again. They had provided clothes for his children, 
 which Tyke had primarily converted into coin of 
 the realm, and indirectly into liquid refreshment, at 
 Lucky Morgan's rag store in Cairn Edward. Work 
 had been found for Tyke, and he had done many 
 half days of labour in various gardens. Unfor- 
 tunately, however, before the hour of noon, it was 
 Tyke's hard case to be taken with a " grooin' in his 
 inside" of such a nature that he became rapidly 
 incapacitated for further work.
 
 ENSAMPLES TO THE FLOCK. 203 
 
 " No, mem, I canna tak' it It's mony a year 
 since I saw the evil o't. Ye'll hae to excuse me, 
 but I really couldna. Oh, thae pains ! O sirce, 
 my inside ! Weel, gin ye insist, I'll juist hae to try 
 a toothfu' to obleege ye, like." 
 
 But Tyke's toothfu's were over for this world, 
 and his shortcomings were lying under four feet of 
 red mould. Half a dozen kindly folk who pitied 
 his ''three loons and a lassie" gathered a few 
 pounds and gave him a decent burial, not for his 
 own sake, but in order that the four little scarecrows 
 might have a decent start in life. It is the most 
 fatal and indestructible of reproaches in the south 
 of Scotland to have a father buried by the parish. 
 
 The lassie was the eldest of the children. She 
 was thirteen, and she hardly remembered what it 
 was to have a mother or a new frock. But ever 
 since she was eleven she had never had a dirty one. 
 The smith's wife had shown her how to wash, and 
 she had learned from the teacher how to mend. 
 " Leeb" had appeared on the books of the school as 
 Elizabeth M'Lurg, and she had attended as often 
 as she could — that is, as often as her father could 
 not prevent her; for Tyke, being an independent 
 man, was down on the compulsory clause of the 
 Education Act, and had more than once got thirty 
 days for assaulting the School Board officer.
 
 204 ENSAMPLES TO THE FLOCK. 
 
 When he found out that Leeb was attending 
 school at the village, he lay in wait for her on her 
 return, with a stick, and after administering chastise- 
 ment on general principles, he went on to specify 
 his daughter's iniquities : 
 
 " Ye upsettin' blastie, wad ye be for gangin* to 
 their schule, learnin' to look doon on yer ain faither 
 that has been at sic pains to rear ye " — (a pause for 
 further correction, to which poor Leeb vocalised an 
 accompaniment). " Let me see gin ye can read ! 
 Hae, read that ! " he said, flinging a tattered lesson 
 book, which the teacher had given her, to his 
 daughter. Leeb opened the book, and, punctuating 
 the lesson with her sobs, she read in the high and 
 level shriek of a locomotive engine, " And so brave 
 Bobby, hav-ing sa-ved the tr-r-r-em-bling child, 
 re-turn-ed with the res-cu-ed one in his mouth to 
 the shore." 
 
 " Davert ! but ye can read ! " said her father, 
 snatching the book and tearing it up before her 
 eyes. " Noo, listen ; I'll hae nane o' my bairns 
 teached to despise their faither by no Schule 
 Boards. Look you here, Leeb M'Lurg, gin ever I 
 catch you within a mile o' the schule, I'll skin ye ! " 
 
 But for all this tremendous threat, or maybe all 
 the more because of it, and also because she so 
 much desired to be able to do a white seam, Leeb
 
 ENSAMPLES TO THE FLOCK. 205 
 
 so arranged it that there were few days when she 
 did not manage to come along the mile and half of 
 lochside road which separated her from the little 
 one-roomed, white-washed school-house on the face 
 of the brae. She even brought one of the " loons " 
 with her pretty often ; but as Jock, Rab, and Benny 
 (otherwise known as Rag, Tag, and Bobtail) got a 
 little older, they more easily accommodated them- 
 selves to the wishes of their parent ; and, in spite 
 of Leeb's blandishments, they went into *' hidie 
 holes " till the School Board officer had passed by. 
 M'Lurg's Mill, where the children lived, was a 
 tumbledown erection, beautiful for situation, set 
 on the side of the long loch of Kenick. The house 
 had once been a little farmhouse, its windows 
 brilliant with geraniums and verbenas ; but in the 
 latter days of the forlorn M'Lurgs it had become 
 betrampled as to its doorsteps by lean swine, and 
 bespattered as to its broken iloor by intrusive hens. 
 It was to M'Lurg's Mill that the children returned 
 after the funeral. Leeb had been arrayed in the 
 hat and dress of a neighbour's daughter for the 
 occasion, but the three loons had played " tig " in 
 the intervals of watching their father's funeral from 
 the broomy knoll behind the mill. Jock, the eldest, 
 was nearly eleven, and had been taken in hand by 
 the kind neighbour wife at the same time as Leeb.
 
 2o6 ENSAMPLES TO THE FLOCK. 
 
 At one time he looked as though he would even 
 better repay attention, for he feigned a sleek-faced 
 submission and a ready compliance which put 
 Mistress Auld of the Arkland off her guard. Then 
 as soon as his sister, of whom Jock stood much in 
 awe, was gone out, he snatched up his ragged 
 clothes and fled to the hill. Here he was im- 
 mediately joined by the other two loons. They 
 caught the Arkland donkey grazing in the field 
 beside the mill dam, and having made a parcel of 
 the good black trousers and jacket, they tied them 
 to the donkey and drove him homeward with blows 
 and shoutings. A funeral was only a dull pro- 
 cession to them, and the fact that it was their 
 father's made no difference. 
 
 Next morning Leeb sat down on the " stoop " or 
 wooden bench by the door, and proceeded to cast 
 up her position. Her assets were not difficult to 
 reckon. A house of two rooms, one devoted to 
 hens and lumber ; a mill which had once sawn 
 good timber, but whose great circular saw had 
 stood still for many months ; a mill-lade broken 
 down in several places, three or four chairs and a 
 stool, a table, and a wash-tub. When she got so 
 far she paused. It was evident that there could 
 be no more school for her, and the thought struck 
 her that now she must take the responsibility for
 
 ENSAMPLES TO THE FLOCK. 207 
 
 the boys, and bring them up to be useful and 
 diligent. She did not and could not so express 
 her resolve to herself, but a still and strong 
 determination was in her sore little heart not to 
 let the boys grow up like their father. 
 
 Leeb had gone to Sabbath school every week, 
 when she could escape from the tyranny of home, 
 and was, therefore, well known to the minister, 
 who had often exercised himself in vain on the 
 thick defensive armour of ignorance and stupidity 
 which encompassed the elder M'Lurg. His office- 
 bearers and he had often bemoaned the sad 
 example of this ne'er-do-weel family which had 
 entrenched itself in the midst of so many well- 
 doing people. M'Lurg's Mill was a reproach and 
 an eyesore to the whole parish, and the M'Lurg 
 "weans" a gratuitous insult to every self-respecting 
 mother within miles. For three miles round the 
 children were forbidden to play with, or even to 
 speak to, the four outcasts at the mill. Con- 
 sequently their society was much sought after. 
 
 When Leeb came to set forth her resources, she 
 could not think of any except the four-pound loaf, 
 the dozen hens and a cock, the routing wild Indian 
 of a pig, and the two lean and knobby cows on the 
 hill at the back. It would have been possible to 
 haves:)ld all these things, perhaps, but Leeb looked
 
 2o8 ENSAMPLES TO THE FLOCK. 
 
 upon herself as trustee for the rest of the family 
 She resolved, therefore, to make what use of them 
 she could, and having most of the property under 
 her eye at the time, there was the less need to 
 indite an inventory of it 
 
 But, first, she must bring her brothers to a sense 
 of their position. She was a very Napoleon of 
 thirteen, and she knew that now that there was no 
 counter authority to her own, she could bring Jock, 
 Rob, and Benny to their senses very quickly. She 
 therefore selected with some care and attention a 
 hazel stick, using a broken table-knife to cut it 
 with a great deal of deftness. Having trimmed it, 
 she went out to the hill to look for her brothers. 
 It was not long before she came upon them 
 engaged in the fascinating amusement of rooting 
 for pignuts in a green bankside. The natural Leeb 
 would instantly have thrown down her wand of 
 office and joined them in the search, but the Leeb 
 of to-day was a very different person. Her second 
 thought was to rush among them and deal lusty 
 blows with the stick, but she fortunately remem- 
 bered that in that case they would scatter, and 
 that by force she could only take home one or at 
 most two. She therefore called to her assistance 
 the natural guile of her sex. 
 
 " Boys, are ye hungry ? " she said. ** There's
 
 ENSAMPLES TO THE FLOCK. 209 
 
 sic a graun' big loaf come frae the Arkland ! " 
 B}' this time all her audience were on their feet. 
 " An' I'll milk the kye, an' we'll hae a feast." 
 
 " Come on, Jock," said Rab, the second loon, 
 and the leader in mischief, " I'll race ye for the 
 loaf." 
 
 " Ye needna do that," said Leeb, calmly ; " the 
 door's lockit." 
 
 So as Leeb went along she talked to her 
 brothers as soberly as though they were models of 
 good behaviour and all the virtues, telling them 
 what she was going to do, and how she would 
 expect them to help her. By the time she got 
 them into the mill yard, she had succeeded in 
 stirring their enthusiasm, especially that of Jock, 
 to whom with a natural tact she gave the wand 
 of the office of " sairgint," a rank which, on the 
 authority of Sergeant M'Millan, the village pen- 
 sioner, was understood to be very much higher 
 than that of general. " Sairgint " Jock foresaw 
 much future interest in the disciplining of his 
 brothers, and entered with eagerness into the new 
 ploy. The out-of-doors live stock was also com- 
 mitted to his care. He was to drive the cows 
 along the roadside and allow them to pasture on 
 the sweetest and most succulent grasses, while 
 Rab scduted in the direction of the village for
 
 2IO ENS AMPLE S TO THE FLOCK. 
 
 suppositious " poalismen " who were understood to 
 take up and sell for the Queen's benefit all cows 
 found eating grass on the public highway. Im- 
 mediately after Jock and Rab had received a 
 hunch of the Arkland loaf and their covenanted 
 drink of milk, they went off to drive the cows to 
 the loch road, so that they might at once begin to 
 fill up their lean sides. Benny, the youngest, who 
 was eight past, she reserved for her own assistant. 
 He was a somewhat tearful but willing little fellow, 
 whose voice haunted the precincts of M'Lurg's 
 mill like a wistful ghost His brothers were con- 
 stantly running away from him, and he pattering 
 after them as fast as his fat little legs could carry 
 him, roaring with open mouth at their cruelty, the 
 tears making clean watercourses down his grimy 
 cheeks. But Benny soon became a new boy under 
 his sister's exclusive care. 
 
 " Noo, Benny," she said, " you an' me's gaun 
 to clean the hoose. Jock an' Rab will no' be 
 kcnnin' it when they come back ! " So, having 
 filled the tub with water from the mill-lade, and 
 carried every movable article of furniture outside, 
 Leeb began to wash out the house and rid it of 
 the accumulated dirt of years. Benny carried 
 small bucketfuls of water to swill over the floor. 
 Gradually the true colour of the stones began to
 
 ENSAMPLES TO THE FLOCK. 21 1 
 
 shine up, and the black encrustation to retreat 
 towards the outlying corners. 
 
 " I'm gaun doon to the village," she said 
 abruptly. " Benny, you keep scrubbin' alang the 
 wa's." 
 
 Leeb took her way down rapidly to where Joe 
 Turner, the village mason, was standing by a 
 newly begun pig-stye or swine-ree, stirring a 
 heap of lime and sand. 
 
 "G'ye way oot o' that !" he said instantly, with 
 the threatening gesture which every villager except 
 the minister and the mistress of Arkland instinc- 
 tively made on seeing a M'Lurg. This it is to have 
 a bad name. 
 
 But Leeb stood her ground, strong in the con- 
 sciousness of her good intentions. 
 
 " Maister Turner," she said, " could ye let me 
 hae a bucketfu' or twa o' whitewash for the mill 
 kitchen, an' I'll pey ye in hen's eggs. Oor hens 
 are layin' fine, an' your mistress is fond o' an egg 
 in the mornin'." 
 
 Joe stopped and scratched his head. This was 
 something new, even in a village where a good deal 
 of business is done according to the rules of truck 
 or barter. 
 
 *' What are ye gaun to do wi' the whitewash } " 
 he inquired, to get time to think. " There was
 
 212 ENSAMPLES TO THE FLOCK. 
 
 little whitewash in use about M'Lurg's Mill in yer 
 faither's time !" 
 
 " But I'm gaun to bring up the boys as they 
 should," said Leeb, with some natural importance, 
 sketching triangles on the ground with her bare 
 toe. 
 
 "An' what's whitewash got to do wi' that?" 
 asked Joe, with some asperity. 
 
 Leeb could not just put the matter into words, 
 but she instinctively felt that it had a good deal to 
 do with it. Whitewash was her badge of respect- 
 ability both inside the house and out, in which 
 Leeb was at one with modern science. 
 
 " I'll gie three dizzen o' eggs for three bucket- 
 fu's," she said. 
 
 " An' hoo div I ken that I'll ever see ane o' the 
 eggs 1 " asked Joe. 
 
 " I've brocht a dizzen wi' me noo ! " said 
 Leeb, promptly, producing them from under her 
 apron. 
 
 Leeb got the whitewash that very night and the 
 loan of a brush to put it on with. Next morning 
 the farmer of the Crae received a shock. There 
 was something large and white down on the loch- 
 side, where ever since he came to the Crae he had 
 seen naething but the trees which hid M'Lurg's 
 mill
 
 ENS AMPLE S TO THE FLOCK. 213 
 
 " I misdoot it's gaun to be terrible weather. I 
 never saw that hoose o' Tyke M'Lurg's aff our hill 
 afore ! " he said. 
 
 The minister came by that day and stood per- 
 fectly aghast at the new splendours of the M'Lurg 
 mansion. Hitherto when he had strangers staying 
 with him, he took them another way, in order that 
 his parish might not be disgraced. Not only were 
 the walls of the house shining with whitewash, but 
 the windows were cleaned, a piece of white muslin 
 curtain was pinned across each, and a jug with a 
 bunch of heather and wild flowers looked out smiling 
 on the passers by. The minister bent his steps to 
 the open door. He could see the two M'Lurg 
 cows pasturing placidly with much contented 
 head-tossing on the roadside, while a small boy 
 sat above labouring at the first rounds of a 
 stocking. From the house came the shrill voice 
 of singing. Out of the firwood over the knoll 
 came a still smaller boy bent double with a load 
 of sticks. 
 
 In the window, written with large sprawling 
 capitals on a leaf of a copy-book under the head- 
 ing " Encourage Earnest Endeavour," appeared the 
 striking legend :
 
 214 ENSAMPLES TO THE FLOCK. 
 
 SOWING & MENDING DUN 
 GOOD COWS MILK 
 
 STICKS FOR FIREWOOD CHEEP 
 NEW LAID EGGS 
 
 BY ELIZABETH MC LURG 
 
 The minister stood regarding, amazement on every 
 line of his face. Leeb came out singing, a neatly 
 tied bundle of chips made out of the dry debris of 
 the saw-mill in her hand. 
 
 " Elizabeth," said he, " what is the meaning of 
 this ? " 
 
 " Will ye be pleased to step ben ? " said Leeb. 
 The minister did so, and was astonished to find 
 himself sitting down in a spotless kitchen, the 
 walls positively painfully white, the wooden chairs 
 scoured with sand till the very fibre of the wood 
 was blanched, and on a floor, so clean that one 
 might have dined off it, the mystic whorls and 
 crosses of whiting which connect all good Gallo- 
 way housekeepers with Runic times. 
 
 Before the minister went out of M'Lurg's Mill he
 
 ENSAMPLES TO THE FLOCK. 215 
 
 had learned the intentions of Leeb to make men of 
 her brothers. He said : 
 
 " You are a woman already, before your time, 
 Elizabeth !" which was the speech of all others best 
 fitted to please Leeb M'Lurg. He had also ordered 
 milk and eggs for the manse to be delivered by 
 Benny, and promised that his wife would call upon 
 the little head of the house. 
 
 As he went down the road by the loch-side he 
 meditated, and this was the substance of his 
 thought, " If that girl brings up her brothers like 
 herself, Tyke M'Lurg's children may yet be en- 
 samples to the flock." 
 
 But as to this wc shall see
 
 THE SIEGE OF WLURGS MILL, 
 
 Elizabeth M'Lurg had been over at the village 
 for her groceries. Dressed in her best— clean 
 piiiafored, lilac sun-bonneted — she was a comely 
 picture. Half a dozen years had made a difference 
 in the coltish lassie who had dragooned her three 
 loons of brothers into decency and school attend- 
 ance after her father's funeral. There was now not 
 a better-doing family in the parish than that over 
 which the rule of Leeb M'Lurg had the unques- 
 tioned force of an autocracy. Leeb had saved 
 enough from her cows and poultry to employ 
 Sanny MacQuhatt, the travelling millwright, to 
 put the old sawmill in order against that ap- 
 proaching day when John M'Lurg, her eldest 
 brother, would be out of his time at the shop of 
 Rob Johnstone, joiner and cartwright in Whunny- 
 liggate. Affairs had marched well with the 
 M'Lurgs. Rob, the second, was still at school, 
 but there was word of his getting into a Cairn 
 
 ai6
 
 THE SIEGE OF MLURGS MILL, zi-j 
 
 Edward bank ; and it was the desire of Leeb's 
 life to see her favourite Benny turned into a 
 dominie. She had already spoken to the minister 
 about having him made a pupil teacher at the next 
 vacancy. 
 
 Elizabeth had a word for every one as she walked 
 sedately up the narrow unpaved street — modest 
 for the minister, shy for young Will Morton, the 
 teacher of the village school where her brothers 
 were alternately at the head of the highest class 
 in sharp fraternal emulation — no other pupil 
 coming within a mile of them ; straightforward 
 with the women folk, who came to their doors to 
 look down the street every ten minutes or so on 
 the chance of seeing a cadger, or even a red farm 
 cart, whose clanking passage might break the 
 soundless monotony. 
 
 The village lads would also cry, " Hoo's a* wi' ye 
 the day, Leeb ? " in an offhand way which did not 
 conceal from that sharp-eyed young woman their 
 desire to stand well with her. 
 
 " She's the only lass i' the parish that kens hoo 
 to lift her feet afif the grund," said Saunders 
 Paterson to Rab Affleck, as they watched Leeb's 
 progress up the street 
 
 "Ay, man, ye're richt ; there's nae glaur'll [mud] 
 stick to Leeb's coat-tail."
 
 2i8 THE SIEGE OF APLURGS MILL. 
 
 But this morning many came to look after Leeb 
 M'Lurg of M'Lurg's Mill who had hitherto paid 
 small attention to her comings and goings. For 
 it was the village talk that Timothy M'Lurg, Tyke 
 M'Lurg's younger brother, otherwise known as 
 " Tim the Tairger," had come back, and had been 
 seen and heard in the skirts of the publichouse 
 declaring that he had come as trustee of his 
 brother to take possession of M'Lurg's Mill, its 
 cattle and sheep, house gear and bestial, and to 
 administer the same for the behoof of the children 
 of the departed. It was a noble ambition, and 
 when declared among the choice company as- 
 sembled at the "public," it elicited warm com- 
 mendations there, for Timothy M'Lurg had always 
 spent other people's money like a man. 
 
 But when the better spirits of the village heard 
 of it, there were many who grieved for the children 
 who had made so gallant a fight. So when Eliza- 
 beth M'Lurg went up the street that day there 
 was many a one who watched her with a wae 
 heart. Yet it was not until David Clark, the 
 village shopkeeper, had finished serving her with 
 tea and sugar that he said to Leeb, in a friendly 
 way: 
 
 ** I hear ye've gotten your Uncle Timothy back." 
 
 Leeb whitened to the lips at that name of dread.
 
 THE SIEGE OF M'LURGS MILL. 219 
 
 She remembered the wild nights when Timothy 
 brought his companions with him, and turned the 
 little world of M'Lurg's Mill upside down. 
 
 " No," she answered, determined not to show 
 any emotion to the watchful eyes of David Clark, 
 " I didna ken." 
 
 She spoke as though the news were sojjie ordinary 
 and unimportant gossip. 
 
 " Where has he come frae ? " she asked. 
 
 David Clark knew that he had come from a long 
 sojourn in her Majesty's prisons, owing to the 
 death of a keeper in one of Tim's poaching affrays. 
 But David was not a man to commit himself 
 unnecessarily when a well-paying customer was 
 concerned. 
 
 " They were sayin' that he was up aboot the 
 public, an' that he cam' frae Cairn Edward in the 
 bottom o' a coal cairt." 
 
 Calmly Leeb settled her reckoning with the eggs 
 and butter which she had brought, and received 
 the balance in good Queen's silver. Calmly she 
 took her sedate way down the street, no step dis- 
 composed or hurried. But in her heart there was 
 a deadly tumult. 
 
 Her scheme of life, so carefully constructed and so 
 sturdily worked for, came tumbling about her ears. 
 She had no idea what her uncle's powers might be
 
 220 THE SIEGE OF M' EUROS MILL. 
 
 ^whether he could take the mill or claim the 
 lows. She only knew that he would certainly do 
 all the ill he was capable of, and she thought of 
 her fortress lying open and unguarded at her 
 enemy's mercy, with only old Sanny MacQuhatt 
 hammering and grumbling to himself over the 
 reconstruction of the ricketty sawmill. As soon as 
 she was clear of the village Leeb took to her heels, 
 and glinted light foot through the poplar avenues 
 along the skirts of the bright June meadows, 
 where the hemlock was not yet overtopped by the 
 meadow-sweet, as in a week or two it would be. 
 
 She struck across the hill above the loch, which 
 lay below her rippleless and azure as the blue of a 
 jay's wing. The air from off the heather was warm 
 and honey-scented. At the second stile, when she 
 turned into her own hill pasture, some vague fear 
 struck her heart. She dared not take the first 
 look at the homestead which she had given her 
 young life to make worthy of her vow to bring up 
 her brothers as they should. As she set her foot 
 on the lowest stone of the high, uncouth stile in 
 the dry-stone dyke something grunted heavily on 
 the other side. 
 
 There was something so bestially human and 
 superfluously degraded in the noise that Leeb 
 knew that it could not be produced by any of the
 
 THE SIEGE OF APLURGS MILL. 221 
 
 "lower" animals. Gathering her skirts about her 
 for a spring, and turning up a supercilious nose, she 
 peeped over the top stone of the dyke. Beneath 
 her lay Tim M'Lurg, sleeping stertorously, with 
 his head recumbent on the lowest step, by which 
 she must descend. A swarm of flies buzzed and 
 crawled over his face, unhealthily flushed through 
 its prison sallowness by drink and the June sun. 
 
 Leeb, whose tastes were dainty as those of any 
 other lady, glanced at him with such extreme 
 disfavour that her fear was for the time being 
 swallowed up in disgust She paused for half a 
 dozen long moments, finally reached down an 
 experimental toe, and with a sharp side push on 
 the close-cropped head she undid the precarious 
 balance of her relative, who collapsed flaccidly 
 sideways on the heather like an overset bolster. 
 
 His niece sprang over his prostrate hulk, took 
 two or three rapid steps, faced about, and gazed 
 fixedly at him, to show that she was not in the 
 least afraid, then walked slowly up the path to the 
 crest of the hill, where she was out of sight of the 
 stile; then, with heart beating wildly, her terror 
 came upon her, and she ran as hard as she could 
 towards M'Lurg's Mill, which lay peacefully among 
 the trees at the foot of the hill. 
 
 As she came down the woodside she caught up
 
 222 THE SIEGE OF M'LURGS MILL. 
 
 the tough branch of a fir tree, and drove the two 
 cows, now no longer lean and ill-favoured, and the 
 young bull, to which Leeb had been looking to pay 
 her rent that year, towards the byre. She sent 
 Jock and his mother on with vicious blows till 
 they were safely stabled in their stalls, with fresh 
 bundles of clover grass before them. Then Leeb 
 locked the byre door with a ponderous seldom-used 
 key, and went down to the Mill to warn Sanny 
 MacQuhatt 
 
 "Ay, an' yer uncle's come hame," muttered 
 Sanny. " That's no' sae guid ; an ill yin him a' 
 the days o' him. Tim the Tairger they ca' him— 
 no' withoot raison. Ay, ay, an ill yin Tim." 
 
 "You'll no' let him within the Mill, wull ye, 
 Sanny ? " 
 
 " Certes, he'll no' come here as long as I'm 
 responsible for pittin' the auld ramshackle in order 
 — mair fule me for takin' on the job. It's never 
 worth it ; guid for nocht but firewood." 
 
 And Sanny grumbled away till his words were 
 lost in the snuffling produced by repeated pinches 
 of brown Taddy from his waistcoat pocket. Leeb 
 stood patient by, knowing that at this juncture the 
 word of Sanny MacQuhatt, ill-tempered old cur- 
 mudgeon of a millwright though he might be, was 
 to her a tower of strength.
 
 THE SIEGE OF iWLURGS MILL. 223 
 
 The cattle put under lock and key, the Mill 
 garrisoned, Leeb proceeded to the house, where 
 she carefully locked every door and put the hasp 
 on every window. Those which had no defence 
 of this kind she secured with nails. While she 
 was still employed about this last operation there 
 came a loud knock at the front door, which Leeb 
 had secured first of all. 
 
 " VVha's there ? " challenged the besieged, sharp 
 and clear. 
 
 " Open the door, Leeb," returned a thick voice, 
 which Leeb knew instinctively to be that of her 
 uncle. " It's me come hame." 
 
 " I ken naebody that's to come hame," returned 
 Leeb. " Wha micht 'me' be ? " 
 
 " D'ye no' mind yer Uncle Timothy?" said the 
 thick voice outside, subsiding into a whine. " Let 
 me come ben, Leeb ; I'm comed to look efter ye, 
 an' to work for ye a'." 
 
 "Na," said Leeb, "I've worked for mysel' a' thae 
 years that }'e've been lyin' in the gaol, a disgrace 
 to us a', and I'm no' gaun to let ye scatter what I 
 hae gathered, sae just e'en tak' yersel' aff to where 
 ye cam' frae. This is nae hame o' yours." 
 
 The wrath of the still half-tipsy man rose in a 
 flash. His voice became an unsteady scream. 
 
 " Then tak' heed to yersel', Leeb M'Lurg ! " he
 
 224 THE SIEGE OF AfLURGS MILL. 
 
 shouted through the keyhole. " Gin ye dinna let 
 me in I'll burn the riggin' ower yer heid — Mill 
 first and then the hoose — ye ill-set, ungratefu' 
 besom ! " 
 
 " Ay, Uncle Timothy, ye can try either o' the 
 twa," said Leeb, from the safe vantage of a little 
 staircase window, which, made of a single pane, 
 opened inwards. " Gae 'wa' frae my door this 
 minute," she said. 
 
 The gaolbird beneath threw himself furiously 
 against the old wooden door, which opened in the 
 middle ; but the oak bolt was firm, and held. 
 Still, the whole house shook with the shock of his 
 onslaught. 
 
 Leeb hesitated no longer, but snatched a black 
 " goblet " from the side of the kitchen fire, and sent 
 the contents out of the window with a deft hand. 
 There was an answering howl of pain. 
 
 " Ye've scadded me ! I'll hae the law on ye, ye 
 randy ! I'll hae yer life ! " 
 
 " There's a potfu' mair on the fire for ye, gin ye 
 dinna gang awa' quaitly wi' what ye hae gotten ! " 
 said Tim M'Lurg's hard-hearted niece. 
 
 He now took himself off in the direction of the 
 barn. Hardly had he disappeared on the other 
 side when Leeb's favourite brother, Benny, came 
 whistling round the corner opposite to that at
 
 THE SIEGE OF MLURGS MILL, 225 
 
 whicli Tim had disappeared. He stood astonished 
 to see the front door shut. Leeb hurried down, 
 unlocked the door, and called to him to run. He 
 came slowly towards her with a bewildered coun- 
 tenance. She pulled him inside, told him hurriedly 
 what had happened, and sent him off through the 
 back window, which abutted on the moor, with a 
 message to Will Morton, the schoolmaster. Benny 
 flew like the wind. He knew that it was his part 
 to bring up reinforcements while his sister kept the 
 castle. Leeb watched till Benny was safe over 
 the hill, then she herself slipped out of the house, 
 locking the door behind her, and went towards the 
 Mill, from which rose the sound of angry voices. 
 Before she got there, however, the commotion was 
 evidently reaching its climax, and Leeb deemed 
 it best to slip into the byre, through one of the 
 wickets of which she could see the Mill door. 
 Through that wide-open square tumbled Tim the 
 Tairger, bareheaded and in disarray, and behind 
 him appeared the burly figure of old Sanny Mac- 
 Quhatt, with his millwrighting mallet in his hand. 
 
 " I wad be wae to strike the like o' you, Tim," said 
 the old man. " Ye michtna need anither, but dinna 
 ye come back here to interfere wi' my wark. Gang 
 awa' an' collogue wi' yer cronies, poachers an' sic- 
 like, an' lea' decent folk abee ! "
 
 226 THE SIEGE OF M'LURGS MILL. 
 
 Timothy gathered himself up. He had had 
 enough of the millwright, who, having done his 
 part, went staidly back to his interrupted work. 
 The ill-treated one came towards the byre, and, 
 seeing the door open, he went in. Leeb sprang 
 into the bauks above the stall of the bull just in 
 time. Her uncle looked the cattle over with a 
 dissatisfied eye. He seemed to Leeb to be reckon- 
 ing how much Crummie and Specklie would bring 
 in the auction mart. She resolved that he should 
 also have a look at Jock, and so be able to decide 
 on his market value as well. Stooping over, she 
 undid his binding, and lashed him at the same 
 time sharply across the nose with the rope. Jock 
 lowered his head, and backed indignantly out of 
 his stall. As he turned he found himself face to 
 face with an intruder, a man whose red neckcloth 
 proved him evidently his enemy and assailant. 
 Jock's charge was instant and effective. With a 
 snort he cleared the byre, and pursued across the 
 open square of the yard, tail in air and horns to 
 the ground. Timothy M'Lurg could not complain 
 of the warmth of his reception in the home of his 
 ancestors. 
 
 He sought refuge from the bull in the big water 
 hole under the mill-wheel. Here, waiting the bull's 
 retirement, Leeb interviewed him from the Mill
 
 THE SIEGE OF M'LURGS MILL. 227 
 
 window, under the protection of Sanny Mac- 
 Quhatt, and offered him a pound note to go away. 
 This compromise had the weakness of a v/oman's 
 compunction, and was strongly disapproved of by 
 her ally. 
 
 ** Gie that craitur a poun' to drink — he'll sune 
 come back on ye for anither," said Sanny, who 
 knew the breed. " I'd 'pound ' him," he muttered. 
 
 But Tim the Tairger, also thinking that this 
 offer gave signs of yielding, rejected it with oaths 
 and contumely. On the contrary, he would sell 
 them up, bag and baggage. The whole place be- 
 longed to him. He had deeds that could prove 
 it Stock, plenishing, water-power — all were his, 
 
 " Gin the water-poo'er be yours, ma man," said 
 Sanny, " ye can hae that, an' welcome." 
 
 Sanny's humour was of the entirely practical 
 kind. 
 
 He went to the mill-lade, and turned on the 
 stream. The whole force of M'Lurg's mill-dam 
 took its way smoothly down the repaired lade, and 
 flashed with a solid leap over the old green wheel 
 upon Timothy, as he stood between the bull to 
 landward and the plunging mill-wheel. Sanny 
 grimly kept up his end of the jest. 
 
 " Hae, ma man, ye'U no' say that we keepit ye 
 oot o' yer richts. ' Water-poo'er,' " quo' he ; " nae
 
 228 THE SIEGE OF M'LURGS MILL. 
 
 pound notes ye'se get i' this pairish, but it'll no' 
 be Sanny MacQuhatt that'll keep ye oot o' the use 
 o' yer ain water-poo'er." 
 
 Tim the Tairger was in a woeful case. The old 
 man looked from the Mill window, and comforted 
 him with crusty humour, the points of which were 
 all too obvious. The cold water plunged upon him 
 from the mill-wheel, it deepened about his knees, 
 and Jock, the young bull, pawed the ground and 
 snorted murderously for his blood. He was com- 
 pletely sobered now, and vowed repeatedly that if 
 they would only give him the pound note he would 
 eo and never disturb them more. 
 
 But Sanny had taken things into his own hands, 
 and would not allow Leeb to interfere. 
 
 " Bide ye where ye are, ma man ; ye're braw 
 and caller doon there. Ye were aye a drouthy 
 lad, Tim, since ever I kenned \'e. Ye're in the 
 way o' being slockened noo ! An' in a wee there'll 
 be a bonny lad wi' silver buttons comin' up that 
 road to look for ye, Benny, yer ain bluid relative 
 he's gane for him, an' he'll hae him here the noo 
 It was a blessin' he was in the daistrict onyway ; 
 it's no' that often a polisman's where he's wantit." 
 
 " Here he's comes," cried Leeb, from her post of 
 observation in the Mill gable. 
 
 Tim the Tairger took one look down the road
 
 THE SIEGE OF MLURG'S MILL. 229 
 
 one link of which he could see as it wound round 
 the loch. He saw the sun glitter on the white 
 buttons of a policeman's coat, who came stalking 
 majestically along. Whatever evil Tim had on his 
 conscience of prison-breaking or ticket-of-leave 
 unreported we do not know, but the fear of the 
 officer of the law overpowered even his fear of Jock's 
 horns. With a wild skelloch of desperation he 
 dashed out of the pool, and took down the road, 
 doubling from the bull like a- hunted hare. 
 
 The schoolmaster — masquerading according to 
 Leeb's orders, in Sergeant Macmillan's old police- 
 man's coat — saw Timothy M'Lurg leap the low 
 loaning dyke and tear down the road. After him 
 thundered the bull, routing in blood-curdling 
 wrath. From a high knoll he watched the chase, 
 till hunter and hunted were lost in the shades of 
 Knockangry Wood. The bull was found next 
 day wandering near Dairy, with a clouted deer- 
 stalking cap transfixed on one horn ; but as for 
 Tim the Tairger, he was never more heard tell of 
 in Stewartry or in Shire. 
 
 The mystery is not likely to be solved now, for 
 the secrets of that chase are only known to Jock, 
 and he ran his earthly race to the beef-tub half a 
 dozen years ago without unburdening his conscience 
 to any. From his uncertain temper it is, how-
 
 230 THE SIEGE OF UPLURGS MILL. 
 
 ever, suspected that he had something on his 
 mind. 
 
 As for Sanny MacQuhatt, he says that he is 
 " miickle feared that Tim the Tairger is gane whaur 
 he wad be michty gled o' the water-poo'er o' Mac- 
 Lurg's mill-lade, whilk," concludes Sanny, "I defy 
 him to say that I ever denied him."
 
 THE MINISTER OF SCAUR CASTS OUT 
 WITH HIS MAKER. 
 
 Silas CartwrigHT had a quarrel with the Al- 
 mighty. He had dwelt five years by the side of 
 the Scaur Water. He was a lonely man and 
 little given to going into company. The men of his 
 presbytery found it hard to draw him away from 
 his manse even for a night. He asked none of 
 them to assist him at his Communion seasons 
 except Mr, Ure of Crawwheats and Mr. Croft of 
 the Riggs, both of whom could go back to their 
 manses the same night. 
 
 The manse of the Scaur sat on a high bank 
 overlooking the long, narrow, densely wooded 
 valley. From his study window the minister could 
 look over the clustered slate roofs of the village 
 of Scaur into the pale-blue misty distance, through 
 which a silver thread ran — Silas Cartwright's 
 glimpse of that other world where the Nith 
 glimmered among its rich wheat-fields. Above the 
 manse of Scaur the woods died out into fringing
 
 232 THE MINISTER OF SCA UR. 
 
 hazel and birch, and the brown moorland began 
 where the whaups and the peewits made a blithe 
 crj'ing on the June mornings, and the jacksnipe 
 swooped sidelong with melancholy wing-quaverings 
 every autumn evening. 
 
 It was to the bare hills of heather that Silas 
 Cartwright took his way every time that he undid 
 the hasp of the creaking front door of the manse 
 which was so seldom used. He dwelt amons his 
 hill folk like a man of another blood and another 
 speech. City bred and delicately nurtured, he had 
 come to the parish of Scaur in the last days of 
 patronage, through the interest of a university 
 friend who happened to be the penniless laird of 
 a barren heritage of bog and morass. 
 
 " You tak' the lairdship, an' I'll tak' the stee- 
 pend ! " his friend had said. 
 
 But Silas Cartwright had stuck to the manse. 
 He had a great desire in his heart to be a leader 
 among men, and the chance which opened to him 
 among the shepherds and small sheep farmers of 
 the Scaur Water was peculiarly feiscinating. Like- 
 wise there was a girl with a pale cheek and shining 
 gold hair for whom the minister dreamed of making 
 a home. He had met Cecilia Barton in Edinburgh 
 drawing-rooms, where her pale beauty and crown 
 of glistening tresses had lain heavy on his heart
 
 THE MINISTER OF SCAUR. 233 
 
 for many many days after. Then they had met 
 again by the side of the Eastern sea, where the 
 rocky islands stood out in the morning like dusky 
 amethysts against the sun. He had paced the 
 sands with her, overtowering her sHm form with 
 his masculine stolidity. Cecilia Barton listened 
 with a far-off sympathy while the tall student 
 quoted Tennyson to her, and even thrilled with 
 a faint emotion as the tones of his voice proclaimed 
 more plainly than words that she, she only, was 
 the power 
 
 " Whose slightest whisper moves me more, 
 Than all the rano^ed reasons of the world." 
 
 't>^ 
 
 This girl with the far-off eyes had trod, careless 
 but not unconscious, on many hearts, and the 
 virginal whiteness of her summer dress was more 
 passionate than the heart which beat beneath it. 
 
 Silas Cartwright, as he walked on the moorland 
 with his staff in his hand, thought often of the 
 days when Tantallon's toothless portcullis was a 
 gateway to the palace of delights, and when Fidra 
 and the small isles swam on a sea of bliss. All this 
 because there was a tolerant kindness in a girl's 
 languid eyes, and because the glamour of a first 
 love had fallen upon a young man. Then it was 
 that Cecilia Barton had expressed her fondness for
 
 234 THE MINISTER OF SCAUR. 
 
 a life of pastoral quietness, simple among a simple 
 people. This was her ideal, she said, her desire 
 above all others. Her voice was soft ; her eyes 
 luminous. Her mother would have smiled had 
 she heard her, but Cecilia Barton did not talk thus 
 to her mother. Really her ideals lay in the region 
 of C-springed carriages and dressing-cases with 
 fittings of monogramed gold. 
 
 When Silas Cartwright went back to his city 
 home that autumn he treasured some words which 
 in the silent coolness of a rocky recess this girl's 
 voice had said to him. Indeed, they were more 
 to him than the call of the Master whom he had 
 promised to serve. 
 
 He took her hand in his, and she let it lie. He 
 saw strange meanings in her eyes as they looked 
 out to sea. Really she was only wondering what 
 he would do next. Men do not act alike in such 
 cases and the uncertainty was pleasing. But Silas 
 Cartwright, with small originality, only leaned 
 towards the reflected light on the pale-gold hair. 
 
 " Do you love me ? " he asked. 
 
 After a pause Cecilia Barton answered him, 
 " There is no man I love so well." 
 
 Which was true and hopeful so far, and might 
 have been sufficient had there not been a girl 
 whom she loved infinitely more.
 
 THE MINISTER OF SCA UR. 235 
 
 That last winter passed with presbyterial trials 
 and class examinations to be overleaped, meaning- 
 less to him as hurdles in a handicap. License and 
 ordination he passed like mile-stones which marked 
 his progress towards the white-walled manse in a 
 sunny glen which should be a home for a new 
 Adam and Eve. Then came Adam Stennis and 
 his offer of the manse of the Scaur. The young 
 minister preached there to a scanty flock who 
 accepted him with unconcern. The Cameronians 
 were strong in that glen, and they looked on the 
 new parish minister as an emblem of the powers of 
 State which had refused to set up a Covenanted 
 church. They came to the ordination, however, 
 and sat silent with grim disapproval in every line 
 of their faces. Then Silas Cartwright occupied 
 himself in making a round of pastoral visitations, 
 and in getting his furniture up from Thorniwood. 
 He saw each article taken carefully off the carts ; 
 he unpacked it with his own hands, saying to him- 
 self, "In this chair she will sit. At this table she 
 will preside ! " His Sabbaths were chiefly delight- 
 ful to him because of the vision of shining pale- 
 gold hair which glimmered, unseen by all save the 
 minister, in the gloomy square prison of the manse 
 seat. Here he would open the Sunday school. 
 Here at the little school's lower end, beneath the
 
 236 THE MINISTER OF SCA UR. 
 
 windows round which the white roses clambered to 
 peep in, the little cottage organ which he had 
 bought for her would sit, and the thrill of her voice 
 would shake the tendrils of the honeysuckle about 
 the porch. 
 
 One day the carrier brought the minister of the 
 Scaur a parcel, and on the same day the postman 
 brought him a newspaper. The latter was marked 
 with a blue cross, and announced that the marriage 
 of Perkins Dobbs and Cecilia Barton had been 
 celebrated by the Rev. Dean Harkaway in the 
 cathedral church of St. Kentigern. The bride had 
 chosen the monograms and the C-springs. The 
 country manse was a mere holiday opinion vanish- 
 ing with Fidra and the grassy gateways of Tan- 
 tallon. She whirled away amid smiles and rice, 
 with the coat of arms of the paternal Dobbs (who 
 in his day had brewed the best of ale) on the panels 
 of her carriage, and there was an end of her. 
 
 But what of the manse that was furnished for 
 her, the chairs which, as they were bought, packed, 
 transported, and set up, were each consecrated to 
 her down-sitting ? What of the man whose every 
 breath was a spasm of pain, to whom sleep came 
 with a feeling of deadliest oppression, and who 
 awoke in the morning to a sharp and cruel stound 
 of agony ?
 
 THE MINISTER OF SCA UR. 237 
 
 Silas Cartwright walked on the moorland by 
 night and day. He did not think. He did not 
 speak. He did not nmrmur. He only looked for 
 God's juniper bush, under which he might lie down 
 and die. 
 
 But a man cannot die naturally when he will, 
 and Silas Cartwright had stronger stuff in him than 
 those have who take away their own lives. 
 
 The girl who had wronged him still lived with 
 him a ghostly presence, and sat opposite him in the 
 chairs which he had dreamed she would occupy. 
 
 He saw her in the graceful quiet of her white 
 gown on the little green lawn under the apple 
 trees. In his dreams he took her hand and climbed 
 the mountains with her, taking her far up into the 
 bosom of the moors, where the high Lead Hills fold 
 themselves in overlapping purple masses about the 
 Pass of Dalveen. 
 
 " This way madness lies ! " he would say time 
 and again to himself, when like a dash of cold rain 
 the reality of his loss came upon him ; but as his 
 strange fancy strengthened, he walked with a 
 ghostly bride and buried himself in an unreal 
 present in order to shut out a hopeless future. 
 
 His pulpit work alternated between severely 
 orthodox disquisitions quarried from the literature 
 of the past, over which every minister has mining
 
 238 THE MINISTER OF SCAUR. 
 
 rights, and strange, dreamy rhapsodies which con- 
 siderably astonished his hearers in the little kirk of 
 Scaur. 
 
 Silas Cartwright had never been a deeply spiritual 
 man ; but now, steeped in a kind of mystic make- 
 believe, he reached out towards all sorts of spiri- 
 tualism and occultism. He had catalogues of 
 books on these subjects sent to him, and from these 
 he made extensive purchases, far beyond what his 
 means allowed. He steeped his mind in these 
 studies, and it was not long before his work as 
 pastor among the hill folk became distasteful to 
 him. His congregation of a Sunday — droning 
 psalms and fluttering leaves, sitting in straggling 
 clusters about the pews, each looking more uncom- 
 fortable than his neighbour — moved before him 
 like idle painted shapes in a mummer's show. The 
 only real figure in that grey kirk of rough harled 
 masonry was the Presence with the shining hair 
 sitting quiet on the cushions of the manse seat. 
 
 The parish of Scaur did not let its tongue lie 
 still while all this was going on. It had its own 
 opinion, which was plainly, that the minister was 
 going out of his mind. But he was all the less to 
 be meddled with on that account. He had even 
 an increase of his Sabbath congregations, for it 
 was a fascinating subject to discuss the strange
 
 THE MINISTER OF SCAUR. 239 
 
 Utterances of a mad minister at farm ingle nooks, 
 and by the smithy fire during the week. The 
 Cameronians took little heed. It was small con- 
 cern of theirs if an Erastian went wrong in his 
 mind. He was far from right to begin with. So 
 their minister simply kept leathering on at the 
 fundamentals. One of the things most noted was 
 the care with which the minister paraphrased the 
 name of God in his prayers and discourses. The 
 superstitious said that he dared not utter the Name. 
 The bolder made bets that he would not do so in 
 the whole course of a morning's diet of worship ; 
 and they won their wagers. It was, indeed, small 
 wonder that the parish decided that its minister 
 was going out of his mind. 
 
 But the seasons went round, and the most that 
 any one could say when asked about Mr. Cartwright 
 was that he was " No' muckle waur than usual ! " 
 He himself got little ease or peace of mind, and it 
 was impossible that he could, considering the pur- 
 pose which his mind confessed. This was no less 
 than to take his revenge on God for denying him 
 the desire of his heart. There was a kind of joy 
 in the thought that he had cast out with his Maker. 
 What actually cured him it is strange to have to 
 tell. When Cecilia Barton drove away that day 
 behind the bays of Dobbs, she covenanted for a
 
 240 THE MINISTER OF SCA UR. 
 
 position and for riches. On the other hand, she 
 had a husband whom she loved with such love that 
 when he died after five years, she put on widow's 
 weeds of the best quality and was exceeding thank- 
 ful. Then she came down to a shooting-lodge in 
 the Nith valley, and sent for Silas Cartwright to 
 come to see her. He resisted the summons for 
 some days, for his ideal bride had grown to suffice 
 him, and then finally he went. He saw and he 
 returned — a sane man whose cure was complete. 
 He had seen a fat woman with two fatter lap dogs, 
 who talked concerning horses and sneered at the 
 people of the shepherd's houses about the mansion- 
 house which she occupied. 
 
 So Silas Cartwright returned, clothed and in his 
 right mind. There was no presence in the manse 
 seat any more. He made his peace with God in 
 ways that are not our business. His sermons were 
 new things — instinct with actuality and fervour. 
 Some of the hill folk went over to the parish church 
 to hear him one night when he held an evening 
 service. An old elder walked to the manse gate 
 with the young man. They two stood a moment 
 silent, and then the elder spoke. 
 
 " Maister Cartwright," he said, "you and your 
 Maker had an* awfu' cast oot ; but noo that ye've 
 made it up, man, ye're fit to be a Cameronian ! "
 
 JOHN BLACK, CRITIC IN ORDINARY. 
 
 John Black was not a minister, but there were 
 few ministers that could hold a candle to him. 
 This is a fact. John Black says so himself. He 
 desires to add " if any." But owing to jealousy he 
 has somehow never been appreciated. But if John 
 Black were to speak his mind, he " kens o' at least 
 twal' ministers that had better resign." Previous, 
 however, to this holocaust we may endeavour to do 
 some justice to John Black himself. He came to 
 our Sunday-school trip this year, and his sayings 
 and doings for a long summer's day were within 
 our observation. The result is appended here- 
 under, and may form a humble introduction to 
 John's intended series of essays in destructive 
 criticism. 
 
 First of all, John Black said that we were sure 
 to get a bad day because we were going in the 
 month of July. It is sure to rain in July. John 
 had been a teacher in the school as long as he had 
 a class, or, more accurately, as often as he could 
 
 i6
 
 242 JOHN BLACK, CRITIC IN ORDINARY. 
 
 get his class to attend, for he used to disperse any 
 class that was given to him in about three Sabbath 
 days. The laddies said that " they werena comin' 
 there to hae their lugs dadded." John said that 
 " he never saw sic a set o' young haythens ; " and 
 as for the superintendent, he said that "he had 
 something else to do than to rampage the country 
 seeking for laddies to run away from John Black. 
 If John wanted any more classes he could seek 
 them himself" John felt that this was a discourage- 
 ment, and resigned his position as an acting teacher 
 in our congregational Sabbath school. But he re- 
 tained, entirely by his own appointment, a sort of 
 honorary position as general critic to the manage- 
 ment, and thought himself more indispensable 
 than the entire staff. This was not, however, we 
 believe, the universal opinion. 
 
 Last year we went up the country for our 
 summer trip to a field on the farm of Greenshiels ; 
 John Black's auntie, who lived on the farm, had 
 the supplying of the milk on that occasion, and, as 
 everybody allowed, she just charged us two prices. 
 John Black wanted us to go back to Greenshiels 
 this year, but the minister had made arrangements 
 with one of his elders to visit his farm of Port 
 More, on the shores of the Frith. John Black was 
 much distressed at the thought of all the children
 
 JOHN BLACK, CRITIC IN ORDINARY. 243 
 
 falling off the rocky " heughs " of Port More, and 
 being brought home on a procession of shutters. 
 Whereupon the minister said that in that case 
 they had better take the shutters with them, for 
 there were none within six miles of Port More. 
 John told the minister that he would not have his 
 responsibility for the best cow in the parish. But 
 the minister thought he could take the responsibility 
 without the cow. He is quite able for John Black 
 at any time, is our minister. 
 
 We were going in carts, for the reason that if we 
 did not go in carts we should have had to walk. 
 Indeed, many did walk ; the younger teachers 
 of both sexes in order to take the short cuts 
 through the wood, and so save the horses — while 
 many of the elder boys ranged on both sides of 
 the road, like greyhounds fresh off the slip. The 
 minister walked sedately behind all the carts along 
 with the superintendent, seeing more than any one 
 gave him credit for. 
 
 There was not much cheering when we started, 
 for not many people were about, and it is no use 
 hurrahing if there is no one to hear you. The 
 girls, for the most part, stayed quietly in their carts 
 and sang hymns softly, with such of their teachers 
 as, from age or other cause, had no call to rest the 
 horses. There were some farmers' sons driving the
 
 244 JOHN BLACK, CRITIC IN ORDINARY. 
 
 carts, very nice lads, though shy as a rule till they 
 found their tongues — which they did not do in 
 general until they were within a mile of their own 
 homes, and could see the smoke from their ancestral 
 chimneys. Then they became unexpectedly voluble, 
 and displayed astonishing local knowledge for the 
 benefit of the lady teachers. James Greg even 
 asked the Misses Robb, whose father keeps the 
 shop at the Bridge End, if they would not like to 
 come and live at his house. This was felt to be 
 a very great length for Jam-es to go, but then 
 James was known in all the parish to be a very 
 daring Romeo. But Nancy Robb soon brought 
 him to confusion by replying : " We canna a' three 
 come, Jamie ; tell us what ane ye want, an' then 
 we'll see aboot it ! " 
 
 Nancy had been used to holding her own with 
 the town lads, so James's rustic gallantry was 
 child's play to her. Besides, she was going to be 
 married in the back end, and so could speak more 
 freely. No one is so dangerous as an engaged 
 girl, not even a widow, though here the authorities 
 are against us. The engaged girl is a licensed 
 heart- breaker, certified capable, who knows that 
 her time is short. 
 
 V/hen we got to Port More we all went to have 
 a look at the tide, which was just coming in. Some
 
 JOHN BLACK, CRITIC IN ORDINARY. 245 
 
 of the boys were only restrained by the most 
 forcible arguments from bathing there and then. 
 The water was about four inches deep half a mile 
 from the shore ; so, to make fun of them, the 
 minister advised them to walk out with their 
 clothes on, and strip when they got into deep 
 water ; but none of them did that. 
 
 We were just all seated in a great irregular semi- 
 circle, having milk and buns, when John Black 
 drove up in his auntie's gig, which he had borrowed 
 for the occasion. He had not been asked, but that 
 did not prevent him from finding fault with all 
 the arrangements as soon as he arrived. Milk, 
 it appeared, was bad for the stomach when over- 
 heated, and ought to have had its acidity corrected, 
 according to his auntie's recipe, with a little water. 
 
 " We want nane of yer milk frae the coo wi' the 
 iron tail, John," said one of the teachers, who did 
 not like John, and had said that he would not 
 come if John was asked. 
 
 The children did not seem to feel any bad effects, 
 however, nor did they quarrel with the want of the 
 corrective water, judging by the milk they stowed 
 away about their persons. In a few minutes, after 
 sundry cautions from the minister not to go along 
 the shore without a teacher, they scattered into 
 small roving bands. The cricket stumps were soon
 
 246 JOHN BLACK, CRITIC IN ORDINARY. 
 
 up, and a good game going. One of the teachers 
 took the biggest boys to bathe in a sheltered cove 
 at some distance, where the tide had come 
 sufficiently far up. The lady teachers wandered 
 about and picked rock rose and other seaside 
 flowers, or explored with their classes the great 
 shell heaps for " rosebuds " and " legs of mutton." 
 All was peaceful and happy, and the minister was 
 the happiest of all, for his sermons were both done, 
 and lying snug within his Bible in the study of the 
 manse. He talked to the superintendent at inter- 
 vals, sucking meanwhile the ends of some sprays of 
 honeysuckle. Then he crossed his legs, and told 
 tales of how Rob Blair and he lived on ten shillings 
 a week in their first session at college. The super- 
 intendent took mental notes for the benefit of his 
 own boys, two of whom were going up to college this 
 winter with quite other notions. All was peaceful 
 — a bland happiness settled upon the chiefs 
 looking down on the whole of their extensive 
 family — a peace rudely disturbed by a "cleg" 
 which had inquiringly settled on the back of the 
 minister's neck. It was a trying moment ; but the 
 minister was calm. He said, quietly : 
 
 " Will you be kind enough to kill me that * cleg ' 
 on the back of my neck, Mr. Poison ? " 
 
 The superintendent saw the insect apparently
 
 JOHN BLACK, CRITIC IN ORDINARY. 247 
 
 standing on its head, gorging itself with clerical 
 blood, and realised that he had got a great man 
 for his minister. John Black (who was not far 
 away, explaining to three teachers and four of the 
 elder scholars that the minister and superintendent 
 were a couple of incapables) said when he went 
 home that it was no wonder that the school was 
 going to rack and ruin, for he " saw wi' his ain een 
 the superintendent and the minister fa'in' oot to that 
 extent that the superintendent gied the minister a 
 daud i' the side o' the heid 1 " 
 
 In the afternoon we made tea. The young men 
 helped the ladies, while John Black kept off the 
 children with a stick and also offered advice. The 
 children made faces at him, and once when he went 
 out of earshot of the group at the fire Wattie Robb 
 squared up at him, and dared him to " come ahint 
 the plantin' ! " He was not a man who was much 
 appreciated, was John Black. The minister smiled, 
 looking at the bright print-clad girls and their 
 willing assistants, for he thought that he would be 
 a white silk handkerchief or two the richer before 
 the winter. It is the correct thing for the bride to 
 give the minister on the occasion of a wedding. 
 
 " It wad be mair wiselike," said his housekeeper, 
 Mary, " if folk that gets marriet had eneuch gump- 
 tion to gie ye guid linen instead o' middlin' silk ! "
 
 248 JOHN BLACK, CRITIC IN ORDINARY. 
 
 The children were not a bit tired when they 
 came to be mustered for the home-going, and life 
 and Hmb were intact, in spite of John Black's 
 prophecy. They would certainly have been the 
 better of a wash, for some of them had apparently 
 been trying to tunnel right through " to the Aunty 
 Pods," as the farmer of Port More said. The 
 superintendent knew of at least four boys with 
 deceased rabbits up their trouser legs ; but they 
 were all the happier, and they made perfect bowers 
 of the carts on the way home with green branches 
 and flowers, cheering the long journey with song. 
 They were a jovial company, and each one of them 
 was as hoarse as a crow with shouting and hurrah- 
 ing as they came in triumph through the town to 
 dismount at the cross before the assembled towns- 
 folk. The superintendent was a proud man that 
 night seeing the end of his labours, and a kindly 
 dew stood in the minister's eyes as he watched the 
 red carts, crowded with happy young ones, pass 
 him in review order. " Of such," he said, " is the 
 kingdom of heaven." 
 
 But John Black's voice recalled him to himself 
 as he drove by in his auntie's gig. 
 
 " There'll be an awfu' lot o' them no' weel the 
 morn wi' a' that unta'en doon raw milk. Ye wad 
 hae been better up at Greenshiels wi' my auntie I "
 
 THE CANDID FRIEND. 
 
 The lamp had long been lighted in the manse 
 of Dule — that is, the lamp in the minister's study. 
 The one belonging to the sitting-room was not yet 
 brought in, for the mistress of the manse was teach- 
 ing the bairns their evening lesson, and the murmur 
 of her voice, broken into by the high treble of 
 children's questions, came fitfully to the minister as 
 he ploughed his way through Thirdly. He smiled 
 as he heard the intermittent din, and once he 
 moved as if to leave his work to itself and go into 
 the other room ; but a glance at the expanse of 
 unfilled paper changed his purpose, and he pro- 
 ceeded with his dark spider tracks across the white 
 sheet. Men who write chiefly for their own read- 
 ing write badly — ministers worst of all. The wind 
 was blowing a hurricane about the manse of Dule 
 the bare branches of the straggling poplars that 
 bordered the walk whipped the window of the 
 study, and the rain volleyed against the panes in 
 
 349
 
 250 THE CANDID FRIEND. 
 
 single drops the size of shillings. The ministei 
 put a lump of coal on the fire, pausing a long 
 time before he put it on, finally letting it drop 
 with a bang as the uncertain joints of the spindle- 
 legged tongs gave way diagonally. 'Tis a way 
 that tongs have, and the minister seemed to feel 
 it, for he said emphatically, " No ; that will not 
 do ! " But he was referring to Thirdly. So he lay 
 back for a long time and cogitated an illustration ; 
 then he took a book of reference down from the 
 shelf, which proved so interesting that he continued 
 to read long after he had passed the limit at which 
 all information germane to his subject ceased. It 
 was another way he had, and he excused the habit 
 to himself by saying that doubtless he thus gained 
 a good deal of information. 
 
 Then to the window there came a roaring gust 
 which bent the frame and thundered amongr the 
 fir trees at the gable end as if it would have them 
 all down before the morning. The minister hoped 
 that there would be no poor outcast homeless on 
 such a night, and as a sort of per contra he 
 remembered that no one could possibly come to 
 interrupt him this evening at least, and that he 
 might even finish one sermon and get well under 
 weigh with the other. 
 
 At this moment he heard the squeak of the bell
 
 THE CANDID FRIEND. »$! 
 
 wire that told him that a visitor was at the outer 
 door. Some Solomon of an architect or bell-hanger 
 had made the bell wire pass through the study on 
 its way to the kitchen, and so the minister was 
 warned of the chance comer while his feet were 
 yet on the threshold. The student under the lamp 
 sighed, lay back in his chair, and waited. He 
 almost prayed that it might merely be a message ; 
 but no — the sound of shuffling feet : it was some- 
 body coming in. 
 
 There was a knock at the study door, and then 
 the voice of the faithful Marget, saying : 
 " Maister Tammas Partan to see ye, sir." 
 She said this with great distinctness, for the 
 minister had once checked her for saying, " Here's 
 Tammas Partan ! " which was what she longed to 
 say to this day. 
 
 " How are you to-night, Thomas ? " asked the 
 minister. He tried hard to say, " I'm glad to see 
 you," but could not manage it, for even a minister 
 has a conscience. Mr. Partan's feet left two muddy 
 marks side by side across the carpet. He made a 
 conscience of stepping over two mats on his way 
 in. This helped among other things to make him 
 a popular visitor at the manse. 
 
 " Thank you, minister ; I'm no' that unco weel." 
 ** Then are you sure that you should be out such
 
 252 THE CANDID FRIEND. 
 
 a night ? " said the minister, anxious for the welfare 
 of his parishioner. 
 
 " But, as ye say yersel', Maister Girmory, * When 
 duty calls or danger, be never wanting there.'" 
 
 The minister's heart sank within him, as a stone 
 sinks in a deep lake, for he knew that the " candid 
 friend " had found him out once more — and that 
 his tenderest mercies were cruel. But he kept a 
 discreet and resigned silence. If the minister had 
 a fault, said his friends, it was that he was too 
 quiet. 
 
 "Weel, minister," said Tammas Partan, " I just 
 cam' up my ways the nicht to see ye, and tell ye 
 what the folk were sayin'. I wadna be a frien' 
 till ye gin I didna. Faithfu', ye ken, are the 
 wounds of a friend ! " 
 
 The minister looked at the fire. He was not a 
 man inclined to think more highly of himself than 
 he ought to think, and he knew that before Tam- 
 mas Partan had done with his recital he would be 
 too upset to continue with his Sabbath morning's 
 sermon on " The Fruits of the Spirit," at least for 
 that night. It was not the first time that Tammas 
 had " thocht it his duty " to come in at the critical 
 moment and introduce some sand into the bear- 
 ings. Had the minister been a stronger or a more 
 emphatic man, he would have told his visitor that
 
 THE CANDID FRIEND. S53 
 
 he did not want to hear his stories, or at least he 
 would have so received them that they would not 
 have been told a second time. But the minister of 
 Dule was acutely sensitive to blame, and the pain 
 of a cruel word or an intentional slight would keep 
 him sleepless for nights. It is in such parishes as 
 Dule that " Tammas Partans " thrive. He had just 
 tried it once with Mr. Girmory's predecessor, one 
 of the grand old school of farmer clerics now 
 almost extinct. Tammas Partan had once at a 
 Fast Day service on the Thursday before the 
 Sacrament Day, risen to his feet and said to old 
 Mr. M'Gowl, who was standing among his elders 
 ready for the distribution of tokens : 
 
 " Remember the young communicants ! " 
 " Remember your own business ! " returned Mr. 
 M'Gowl, instantly, at the same time giving the 
 officious interrupter a sounding "cuff" on the side 
 of the head. 
 
 After which Tammas, feeling that his occupa- 
 tion was gone, joined himself to the sect of the 
 Apostolic Brethren, at that time making a stir in 
 the neighbourhood, with whom he was just six 
 weeks in communion till they arose in a body and 
 cast him out of the synagogue. So he had been 
 houseless and homeless spiritually till Mr. Girmory 
 came, when Tammas, seeing him to be a man after
 
 254 THE CANDID FRIEND. 
 
 his own heart, returned back gladly to his old 
 nest. 
 
 " They are sayin' that there's no' eneuch life in 
 yer sermons, minister — nae grup, so to speak, kind 
 o' wambly an' cauldrife. Noo, that's no' a faut that 
 I wad like to fin' mysel', but that's what they're 
 sayin', and I thocht it my duty to tell ye." 
 "Also Gashmu saith it I " said the minister. 
 " What did ye say ? Na, it wasna him ; it was 
 Rab Flint, the quarryman, and Andrew Banks of 
 Carsewall, that said it — I dinna ken the party that 
 ye name." 
 
 " Ay," said the minister. 
 
 " An' Lame Sandy, the soutar, thocht that there 
 was an awesome lack o' speerituality in yer dis- 
 coorse the Sabbath afore last. He asked, " Hoo 
 could ony minister look for a blessin' efter playin' 
 a hale efternune at the Channel-stanes wi' a' the 
 riff-raff o' the neebourhood ? ' " 
 
 " Were ye not there yersel', Thomas ? " queried 
 the minister, quietly, wondering how long this was 
 going to last. 
 
 " Ou, ay ; I'm far frae denyin' it — but it's no' my 
 ain opeenions I'm giein' till ye. I wadna presume 
 to do that ; but it's the talk o' the pairish. An' 
 there's Gilbert Loan's auntie ; she has been troubled 
 wi' a kin o' dwaminess in her inside for near three
 
 THE CANDID FRIEND 255 
 
 weeks, an' ye've gane by the door mair nor yince, 
 an' never looked the road she was on, sae Gilbert 
 an' a' his folk are thinkin' o' leavin' the kirk." 
 
 " But I never heard of it till this minute ! " pro- 
 tested the minister, touched at last on a tender 
 spot. " Why did they not send me word ? " 
 
 "Weel, minister, Gilbert said to me that if ye 
 had nae better ken o' yer fowk than no' to miss 
 them three Sabbaths oot o' the back gallery, they 
 werena gaun to bemean themsel's to sen' ye nae 
 word." 
 
 The minister could just see over the pulpit 
 cushion as far as the bald spot on the precentor's 
 head, but he said nothing. 
 
 At this point there was a diversion, for the 
 minister's wife came in. She was not tall in 
 stature, but to Tammas she loomed up now like 
 a Jael among women. The minister rose to give 
 her a seat, but she had not come to sit down. 
 
 " Now, I would have you understand once for all, 
 Tammas Partan," she began — (" Weel dune the 
 mistress ! " said Marget, low to herself, behind the 
 door) — " that we have had more than enough of 
 this ! I've heard every word ye've said to Mr. 
 Girmory, for the door was left open " — (" I saw to 
 that mysel'," said Marget) — " and I want you to 
 carry no more parish clashes into my house."
 
 256 THE CANDID FRIEND. 
 
 " Hush, hush ! my dear ; Tammas means well ! " 
 said the minister, deprecatingly. 
 
 But the belligerent little woman did not hear, or 
 at any rate did not heed, for she continued ad- 
 dressing herself directly to Tammas, who sat on 
 the low chair as if he had been dropped there 
 unexpectedly from a great height. 
 
 •'Take for granted," she said, " that whatever is 
 for the minister's good to hear, that he'll hear with- 
 out your assistance. And you can tell your friends, 
 Rob Flint and Andrew Banks, that if they were 
 earlier out of the ' Red Lion ' on Saturday night, 
 and earlier up on the Sabbath morning, they would 
 maybe be able to appreciate the sermon better ; 
 and ye can tell Lame Sandy, the soutar, that when 
 he stops wearing his wife into the grave with his 
 ill tongue, he may have some right to find fault 
 with the minister for an afternoon on the ice. 
 And as for Gilbert Loan's auntie, just ask her if 
 she let the doctor hear about her trouble, or if she 
 expects him to look in and ask her if there's 
 anything the matter with her little finger every 
 time he passes her door ! " 
 
 She paused for breath. 
 
 " I think I'll hae to be gaun ; it's a coorse nicht ! " 
 said the Object on the chair, staggering to its feet. 
 
 " Now, Thomas, no offence is meant, and I hope
 
 THE CANDID FRIEND. 257 
 
 you'll remember that I'm only speaking for your 
 good," said the minister's wife, taking a parting 
 shot at a venture, and scoring a bull's-eye, 
 
 " Guid-nicht, Tammas Partan," said Marget, as 
 she closed the door. " Haste ye back again." 
 
 But Tammas has not yet revisited the manse of 
 Dule. 
 
 17
 
 A MIDSUMMER IDYLL. 
 
 THE THREE BRIDEGROOMS AND THE ONE 
 
 BRIDE. 
 
 Yes, sir, I am the Registrar of births, deaths, and 
 marriages in the parish of Kilconquhar, and I am 
 asked to tell you the story of Meg MacGregor 
 and her three lads. Well, it's an old tale now, 
 and Meg's boys are here every summer vacation 
 pestering the life out of me to bait their lines and 
 dress their hooks. But it is a tale that is not by 
 any means forgotten in Kilconquhar, and in the 
 winter forenights the wives tell it to this day in 
 the big kitchen where the lasses are at their knit- 
 ting and the lads are making baskets of the long 
 saugh wands before the heartsome fire. 
 
 It was mostly the wild Gregor blood that did it ; 
 but Meg's mother was an Elliot from the Border, 
 and we all know that that's not greatly better. So 
 what could ye expect of a lassie that had the daft- 
 ness in her from both sides of the house, as ye 
 
 might say ? 
 
 ■If
 
 A MIDSUMMER IDYLL. 259 
 
 Meg was a beauty. There is no doubt of that. 
 She had been a big-boned "hempie " at the Kirk- 
 land school for many a day, playing with the 
 laddies when they would let her, early and late. 
 Yet clever at her books when she would take the 
 trouble to learn. She had the " birr " and go of 
 twenty in her from the time that she could run 
 alone. Peter Adair, one of her lads that was to 
 be, came roaring in to his mother one morning 
 when she was a dotting wee thing of four or 
 five. 
 
 " What for are ye greetin' like that, Peter ? " said 
 his mother. " Wha has been meddlin' ye ? " Peter 
 was soft in disposition, but the apple of his mother's 
 eye. 
 
 "Meg MacGregor dadded my lugs because I 
 wadna let her kiss me," said the gallant Peter, 
 between his sobs. 
 
 His mother laughed. " Dinna greet, my bonny 
 wean," she said ; " the day'll ma) be come when 
 ye'll change yer mind aboot that ! " 
 
 But when that day did come, his mother did not 
 like it nearly so well as she had expected. 
 
 When Meg was between sixteen and seventeen 
 it suddenly occurred to everybody that she was a 
 beauty. It was at a party at the New Year at the 
 Folds, and Meg went there in a white gown. She
 
 26o A MIDSUMMER IDYLL. 
 
 had been at the dancing-school that Fiddler Stewart 
 had in the village that winter, and she got very 
 fond of the dancing. There were two or three lads 
 at the Folds from the next parish, and as soon as 
 the dancing began there was nobody that was 
 sought after but only that hempie Meg. 
 
 The very next day it was a different Meg that 
 walked the street, and a different Meg it was that 
 came to the kirk on the Sabbath. She rode no 
 more astride of the wildest pony in the glen, but 
 she twined the lads like rushes of the meadows 
 round the least of her fingers. Her father was 
 then, as he is to this day, farmer in Stanninstane, 
 and as douce and civil a man as there is in the 
 parish, so the wild blood must have skipped a 
 generation somehow. Say you so, sir ? Indeed, I 
 did not know that such a thing could be explained 
 scientifically, but it's a thing I have noticed time 
 and again. "// has been recently discovered" you 
 say. Dear me, 1 did not know it had ever been 
 forgotten. " Unto the third and fourth genera- 
 tion " is an old saying enough, but it's not unlikely 
 that the wise men have forgotten all about 
 Moses. 
 
 Isobel Elliot, David MacGregor's wife, died 
 when Meg was but a lassie, and David himself 
 never laid hand on his daughter in the way of cor-
 
 A MIDSUMMER IDYLL. 261 
 
 rection all his life. She did as she liked with her 
 father all the days of her life — as, indeed, for the 
 matter of that, she did with every one in this 
 parish, with the very minister when the fit was on 
 her, as ye shall hear 
 
 " With yourself, for instance, Registrar ? " 
 
 Me? Oh, no, sir. I'm a man that is well 
 stricken in years and she would not trouble with 
 me, but I do not deny that there was that in the 
 lassie that one could not help but like, though as 
 an elder I felt it my duty to give her a word of 
 caution and advice more than once or twice. 
 
 What said she to that ? Well, sir, she said not 
 much ; but she turned her eyes up at me under the 
 fringes of her eyelashes, and pushing out her red 
 lips discontentedly she said : 
 
 " What can I do ? The lads will not let me 
 alone. I'm sure I want none of them ! " 
 
 " And what are you going to do, Meg ? " said I, 
 smiling-like at her. 
 
 " Indeed, Registrar," says she, " that I don't 
 know. Unless " — here the witch looked shyly up 
 at me with her eyes fairly swimming in mischief — 
 "unless ye maybe micht tak' me yoursel'." 
 
 Keenest of all her suitors — " clean daft " about 
 her, said the countryside — were three lads of the 
 parish. The first I have mentioned already
 
 262 A MIDSUMMER IDYLL. 
 
 Peter Adair was his mother's son. She h'ved in 
 the large house with the gate that stood a Httle 
 back from the village street by the side of the 
 bridge. She had money, and Peter bemg a 
 delicate lad in his mother's estimation, and the 
 apple of her eye at all times, had been kept at 
 home when he should have been learning some 
 profession. There was now and then a talk of his 
 going up to Edinburgh to learn the scientific farm- 
 ing before he took a farm of his own, but it had 
 never come to anything. He had fallen madly in 
 love with Meg, however, and went regularly to 
 town on Wednesdays to have a chance of talking 
 with her for five minutes as she went about her 
 shopping. His mother had so far yielded to his 
 wishes as to get David MacGregor to take him on 
 at Stanninstane to try his hand at the practical part 
 of farming. He was in ecstasy, for, thought he, 
 who knows what opportunities there may be of 
 seeing Meg in the intervals of daily duty. But 
 when David handed him over to the grieve, that 
 unsympathetic Ayrshire man said, "Practical 
 fermin' ! Certie, he shall hae that or my name's 
 no' James Greg ! " Whereupon in five minutes the 
 delicate-handed Peter found himself on the top of 
 a cart with a fork in his hand, taking his first 
 lesson in practical farming by learning how to
 
 A MIDSUMMER IDYLL. 263 
 
 apply to the soil the natural fertilisers necessary 
 for next year's crop. He had two days of that, 
 when he resigned and went home, having decided 
 that after all scientific farming was most in his 
 line. 
 
 Peter Adair was known to be rich — at least in 
 expectations — but nobody thought that Meg would 
 favour him on that account. Being an heiress in 
 her own right, she had no need. It was, therefore, 
 with very great surprise that I was called into 
 the office where I do my registrar's business, and 
 authorised by Peter to put up his name on the 
 board along with that of Margaret MacGregor, 
 spinster, also of this parish. 
 
 " Meg's at the door," he said ; " but she did not 
 like to come in." 
 
 Accordingly I went to the door, and caught 
 a glimpse of Meg vanishing into Webster the 
 draper's, two doors above. 
 
 Peter had not long gone his way when another 
 knock came to the door. 
 
 I opened the door myself. It was just growing 
 dusk, and I could hear Meg MacGregor's voice 
 saying : 
 
 " I tolled ye afore, ye can gie in the names if ye 
 like, but I'll no tell ye whether I'll hae ye or no' 
 till the first of August. That's my twenty-first
 
 264 A MIDSUMMER IDYLL. 
 
 birthday, and I'll no' hae a mind o' my ain till that 
 day." 
 
 Again a single man came into the little office, 
 lighted with the oil lamp which always smelled a 
 little when I had the trimming of it to do myself. 
 It was Robert Hislop, the stalwart son of the 
 farmer of Netherton, known to be the strongest 
 man in the parish. He had waited many a long 
 night to have the duty of taking Meg home from 
 all the soirees and parties in the neighbourhood. 
 He was a steadfast, sturdy, and stupid fellow who 
 had first of all come about the Stanninstane farm- 
 house to court Meg's younger sister Bess ; but who, 
 like a piece of loose paper on the platform of a 
 wayside station when the " Flying Scotsman " 
 thunders through, had been drawn into the wake 
 of the greater power. 
 
 The story which connected him with Meg was 
 one very characteristic of the man. He had been 
 seeing Meg and her sister home from some party 
 over at the village, and they had got as far on 
 their way as the dark avenue under the trees 
 where the white gate of the manse and the black 
 gate of the kirkyard face one another in a weird 
 whispering silence under the arch of leaves. There 
 had been stories of a ghost which walked there, 
 and Bess MacGregor was in a state of nervous
 
 A MIDSUMMER IDYLL. 265 
 
 excitement. Meg alternately played with and 
 laughed at the fears of her sister. As they came 
 between the gates something white leapt along the 
 wall with an elrich shriek and stood gibbering 
 upon the black gate of the kirkyard. 
 
 Bess MacGregor dropped instantly in a faint. 
 Stalwart Rob Hislop took one troubled glance at 
 her. Then putting her into the hands of her sister 
 he said, " Pit some sna' on her face ; I'll be back 
 the noo ! " 
 
 The spectre did not wait to be pursued, but 
 made off swiftly among the tombs, its white robes 
 flying in the wind. Rob Hislop went after it with 
 the intentness of a greyhound on the trail. He 
 caught his foot in some twisted grass, fell heavily, 
 but rose again in an instant. He saw the spectre 
 leap the wall and take the way through the fir- 
 wood. Swifter than before he followed, and in a 
 few minutes he ran the ghost down in a glade into 
 which the moon was peeping over the edge of a 
 cloud. The ghost hollaoed for mercy as Rob's 
 heavy weight came down upon him. 
 
 " Let me up," he said ; " it's only fun. I'm Tam 
 M'Kittrick frae the Gallaberry ! " 
 
 " Stan' up, then, Tam M'Kittrick frae the Galla- 
 berry, for I'm gaun to gie ye the best lickin' ye 
 ever got in your life ! "
 
 266 A MIDSUMMER IDYLL. 
 
 Next morning Rob was down at the village 
 bright and early, before Purdie the grocer, that 
 sells drugs to us when there's not time to go to 
 Dumfries for them, had down his shutters. He 
 rapped at his door, and Purdie opened it. 
 
 " Onybody no' weel, Rob ? " he says, astonished 
 like. 
 
 " Hoo muckle stickin' plaister hae ye, Maister 
 Purdie ? " says Rob, anxiously. 
 
 " I dinna ken," said the grocer, retreating into 
 his shop to see ; " maybes a yaird or a yaird an' a 
 quarter." 
 
 " Then ye had better gie me a yaird an' a 
 quarter ! " answered Rob, instantly. 
 
 " Preserve us a', Rob, what's wrang ? Hae a' 
 your kye fallen intil the quarry hole ? " 
 
 " Na," said Rob, seriously ; " it's for Tarn 
 M'Kittrick o' the Gallaberry. He was playing 
 bogles up by the minister's liggate yestreen, an' I 
 misdoot but he fell and hurt himsel' 1 " 
 
 Now, sir, you'll hardly believe me, though I can 
 show you the notices in a minute, but that very 
 nicht on the back of ten o'clock there was another 
 knock came on the door, and in comes Frank 
 Armstrong, the young son of the farmer of Lint-
 
 A MIDSUMMER IDYLL. 267 
 
 field, whose ground marches with that of David 
 MacGregor. 
 
 " Are you going to be married to Meg Mac- 
 Gregor ? " said I, laughing. 
 
 " Yes," said he, surprised. " Hoo did ye ken 
 that, Registrar?" 
 
 You might have knocked me down with a straw. 
 There were three bridegrooms to one bride. 
 
 " Did Meg tell ye ye were to come an' gie in the 
 names .'' " said I. 
 
 " Ay," said the boy, blushing to the roots of his 
 fair hair, for he was only a year older than Meg 
 herself, and did not look his years. 
 
 " We made it up when I was harvesting there 
 last year ; but Meg, she wad never gie a decided 
 answer till the nicht." 
 
 " What did she say ? " I asked. 
 
 " She said that she was to be married on her 
 twenty-first birthday, but that she wadna tell me 
 whether she wad hae me till we were afore the 
 minister. ' But ye can pit up the names gin ye 
 like,' says she." 
 
 So all the names were put up. 
 
 There never was such a day on the street of this 
 village as what there was that day. I had to lock 
 myself in, front and back, and get my groceries 
 through the window in the gable end, but I
 
 268 A MIDSUMMER IDYLL. 
 
 answered no questions, the young men held their 
 counsel, and Meg was away from home. 
 
 Some one went to see the minister and inform 
 him of the scandal. But they came away with a 
 flea in their lug, for the minister told them that 
 Meg herself had trysted him to marry her at 
 Stanninstane on the ist of August. 
 
 "And who did she say was the young man?" 
 inquired the deputation. 
 
 "Well," said the minister, running his hand 
 through his white locks, " I don't think she said, 
 but I have no doubt that he is worthy of her. I 
 have a very high opinion of Margaret's common 
 sense and practical ability." 
 
 "Preserve us, she's made a fule o' the verra 
 minister ! " said the gossips. 
 
 There was nothing talked about but the marriage 
 as the 1st of August came on. I got an invite 
 from David himself, who kept a very straight upper 
 lip on the subject. There were many that went 
 up to the Stanninstane loaning end to see what was 
 to come of it, but they got no farther, for there was 
 David MacGregor's two brothers from the High- 
 lands with big sticks, dour and determined chiels, 
 and they let nobody pass but them that were 
 invited. 
 
 When we got there we were shown into the
 
 A MIDSUMMER IDYLL. 269 
 
 parlour, where about twenty of a company were 
 assembled. Bess moved about as shy and sweet 
 as any girl need be. Out of the reach of the more 
 brilliant attractions of her sister, she was a very 
 pretty young woman. Soon the minister came in. 
 Peter Adair sat and simpered on the sofa in his 
 lavender kids. Rob Hislop looked exceedingly 
 uncomfortable in a black suit and a white rose 
 which Bess had pinned in his button-hole. It took 
 a long time to pin, for Rob is very tall, and Bess 
 could hardly reach so far up. During the operation 
 Rob went red and white by turns, and looked 
 pitifully at Bess. I thought that he was trying 
 vainly to read her sister's decision in her eyes, but 
 it turned out that I was wrong. 
 
 Sharp at the stroke of four David brought Meg 
 in on his arm. She looked radiant in fleecy white, 
 and her hair in rippling waves like the edges of 
 the little clouds when the sun begins to think about 
 going to bed. Well, yes, sir, if I am a crusty old 
 bachelor, I thank God I was not born blind. 
 
 " Let the parties take their place," said the 
 minister. 
 
 Meg looked wildly about. 
 
 " Where's Frank ? " she cried, going suddenly as 
 white as her dress. 
 
 " He has not come yet," said Bess, as sweet as
 
 270 A MIDSUMMER IDYLL. 
 
 a ripe gooseberry, looking innocently at her sister 
 " Rob Hislop says he saw him working in the barn!" 
 Meg dropped into a chair. " It serves me right I" 
 she said, beginning to sob. " It serves me quite 
 right I'll not be married to anybody but Frank. 
 I've been a wicked girl, and I deserve it ! " 
 
 So she sat and cried while all of us looked 
 helplessly on. Sometimes she glanced up at us, 
 with the tears running steadily down her cheeks 
 and dripping on the thin white of her marriage 
 dress. 
 
 Bess stood by the side of Rob Hislop very 
 demure and quiet, but with a curious light on her 
 face. 
 
 "Run," she said suddenly to Rob, "and bring 
 Frank Armstrong here this minute. 
 
 And Rob Hislop, glad to find something to do, 
 started immediately. Peter Adair went after him, 
 but ere they were clear of the house Meg suddenly 
 started from her chair and disappeared into the 
 part of the house from which she had come. In a 
 minute I followed the others to the door, and as I 
 got to the end of the house I caught one glimpse 
 of Meg MacGregor's white frock vanishing down 
 the woodside path which led in the direction of 
 Lintfield. Rob Hislop and Peter Adair had taken 
 the same direction, but had gone round by the
 
 A MIDSUMMER IDYLL. 271 
 
 highway. It is said that Meg found Frank Arm- 
 strong in the barn getting the reaper ready for the 
 harvest. But no one knows what she said to him. 
 This only is certain, that in a Httle Frank and Meg 
 came arm in arm along the plantation path, his 
 father and brother following full of surprise. 
 Frank was dressed in his working suit, but for 
 all that he looked a bright and handsome bride- 
 groom. 
 
 Soon the two messengers came in, much out of 
 breath. 
 
 Meg went up to them and said, " Rob, you'll be 
 best man and tak' in Bessie. It was her ye aye 
 likit best at ony rate ! " 
 
 " I'll no' say but ye're richt ! " said Rob, obe- 
 diently giving his arm to the blushing Bessie. 
 
 "And, Peter, you'll forgive me, I'm sure. It's 
 for the best, an' I wad never have got on wi' yer 
 mither ! " 
 
 Peter extended his hand with the lavender glove 
 still on it. 
 
 " Weel," he said, " maybes it'll be a relief to her!" 
 
 So Frank Armstrong married Meg MacGregor 
 on her twenty-first birthday in his working coat, 
 and it was not long before Rob Hislop married 
 Bessie in new Sunday " blacks." 
 
 Peter Adair still lives with his mother in the
 
 272 A MIDSUMMER IDYLL. 
 
 house with the green gate by the bridge. He has 
 started a poultry show, for he has become a great 
 pigeon fancier. Meg's boys spend most of their 
 time with him when they're here. But what put 
 the ploy into the madcap lassie's head is more 
 than I can tell. In my way of thinking it was 
 just the wild blood of the MacGregors of the 
 Highlands, and indeed the Border Elliots are 
 little better. As is, indeed, generally admitted.
 
 -'• 
 
 THE TUTOR OF CURL YWEE 
 
 The Minister of Education started to walk across 
 the great moors of the Kells Range so early in the 
 morning that for the first time for twenty years he 
 saw the sun rise. Strong, stalwart, unkemp, John 
 Bradfield, Right Honourable and Minister of the 
 Queen, strode over the Galloway heather in his 
 rough homespun. " Ursa Major" they called him 
 in the House. His colleagues, festive like school- 
 boys before the Old Man with the portfolios came 
 in, subscribed to purchase him a brush and comb 
 for his hair, for the jest of the Cabinet Minister is 
 even as the jest of the schoolboy. John Bradfield 
 was sturdy in whatever way you might take him. 
 Only last session he had engineered a great 
 measure of popular education through the House 
 of Commons in the face of the antagonism, bitter 
 and unscrupulous, of Her Majesty's Opposition, 
 and the GalHo lukewarmness of his own party. 
 So now there was a ripple of great contentment 
 
 iS 379
 
 274 THE TUTOR OF CURL YWEE. 
 
 in the way he shook back locks which at forty-five 
 were as raven black as they had been at twenty- 
 five, and the wind that blew gently over the great 
 billowy expanse of rock and heather smoothed out 
 some of the crafty crow's feet deepening about his 
 eyes. 
 
 When he started on a thirty-mile walk over the 
 moors, along the dark purple precipitous slopes 
 above Loch Trool, the glory of summer was melting 
 into the more Scottish splendours of a fast coming 
 autumn, for the frost had held off long, and then in 
 one night had bitten snell and keen. The birches 
 wept sunshine, and the rowan trees burned red 
 fire. 
 
 The Minister of Education loved the great 
 spaces of the Southern uplands, at once wider and 
 eerier than those of the Highlands. There they 
 lie waiting for their laureate. No one has sung of 
 them nor written in authentic rhyme the strange 
 weird names which the mountain tops bandy about 
 among each other, appellations hardly pronounce- 
 able to the southron. John Brad field, however, 
 had enough experience of the dialect of the 
 " Tykes " of Yorkshire to master the intricacies of 
 the nomenclature of the Galloway uplands. He 
 even understood and could pronounce the famous 
 quatrain —
 
 THE TUTOR OF CURL YWEE. 275 
 
 **The Slock, Milquharker, and Craignine, 
 The Breeshie and Craignaw ; 
 The five best hills for corklit, 
 That ere the Star wife saw.'' • 
 
 The Minister of Education hummed this rhyme, 
 which he had learned the night before from his 
 host in the tall tower which stands by the gate of 
 the Ferrytown of Cree. As he made his way with 
 long svv'inging gait over the heather, travelling by 
 compass and the shrewd head which the Creator 
 had given him, he was aware about midday of a 
 shepherd's hut which lay in his track. He went 
 briskly up to the door, passing the little pocket-i 
 handkerchief of kail-yaird which the shepherd had 
 carved out of the ambient heather. The purple 
 bells grew right up to the wall of grey stone dyke 
 which had been built to keep out the deer, or may- 
 hap occasionally to keep them in, when the land 
 was locked with snow, and vension was toothsome. 
 
 " Good day to you, mistress," said the Minister 
 of Education, who prided himself on speaking to 
 every woman in her own tongue. 
 
 ' In old times the rocks and cliffs of the Dungeon of 
 Biichan were famous for a kind of moss known as " corklit,'' 
 used for dyeing, the gathering of which formed part of the 
 livelihood of the peasantry. At one time it was much used 
 for dyeing soldiers' red coats. — Harper's Rambles in Gallo- 
 way.
 
 276 THE TUTOR OF CURLYWEE. 
 
 " And good day to you, sir," heartily returned 
 the sonsy, rosy-cheeked goodwife, who came to the 
 door, " an' blithe I am to see ye. It's no that aften 
 that I see a body at the Back Hoose o' Curlywee.*' 
 
 John Bradfield soon found himself well enter- 
 tained — fades of cake, crisp and toothsome, milk 
 from the cow, with golden butter in a lordly dish, 
 cheese from a little round kebbuck, which the 
 mistress of the Back House of Curlywee kept 
 covered up with a napkin to keep it moist. 
 
 The goodwife looked her guest all over. 
 
 " Ye'll not be an Ayrshire man nae, I'm thinkin'. 
 Ye kind o' favour them in the features, but ye hae 
 the tongue o' the English." 
 
 " My name is John Bradfield, and I come from 
 Yorkshire," was the reply. 
 
 " An' my name's Mistress Glencairn, an' my man 
 Tammas is herd on Curlywee. But he's awa' 
 ower by the Wolf's Slock the day lookin' for 
 some forwandered yowes." 
 
 The Minister of Education, satisfied with the 
 good cheer, bethought himself of the curly heads 
 that he had seen about the door. There was a 
 merry face, brown with the sun, brimful of mischief, 
 looking round the corner of the lintel at that 
 moment. Suddenly the head fell forward and the 
 body tumultuously followed, evidently by some
 
 THE TUTOR OF CURLYWEE. 277 
 
 sudden push from behind. The small youth re- 
 covered himself and vanished through the door, 
 before his mother had time to do more than say, 
 
 " My certes, gin I catch you loons ," as she 
 
 made a dart with the handle of the besom at the 
 culprit 
 
 For a little John Bradfield was left alone. There 
 were sounds of a brisk castigation outside, as though 
 some one were taking vigorous exercise on tightly 
 stretched corduroy. " And on the mere the 
 wailing died away ! " 
 
 " They're good lads eneuch," said the mistress, 
 entering a little breathless, and with the flush 
 of honest endeavour in her eye, " but when their 
 faither's oot on the hill they get a wee wild. But 
 as ye see, I try to bring them up in the way that 
 they should go," she added, setting the broomstick 
 in the corner. 
 
 " What a pity," said the Minister of Education, 
 " that such bright little fellows should grow up 
 in this lonely spot without an education." 
 
 He was thinking aloud more than speaking to 
 his hostess. The herd's wife of Curlywee looked 
 him over with a kind of pity mingled with con- 
 tempt. 
 
 " Edicated ! Did ye say ? My certes, but my 
 bairns are as weel edicated as onybody's bairns.
 
 278 THE TUTOR OF CURL YWEE. 
 
 Juist e'en try them, gin it be your wull, sir, arf 
 ye'll fin' them no that far ahint yer ain ! " 
 
 Going to the door she raised her voice to the 
 telephonic pitch of the Swiss jodel and the Aus- 
 traHan " coo — ee.'' 
 
 " Jee-mie, Aa-leck, Aa-nie, come ye a' here this 
 meenit ! " 
 
 The long Galloway vowels lingered on the still 
 air, even after Mistress Glencairn came her ways 
 into the house. There was a minute of a great 
 silence outside. Then a scuffle of naked feet, the 
 sough of subdued whispering, a chuckle of interior 
 laughter, and a prolonged scuffling just outside the 
 window. 
 
 " Gin ye dinna come ben the hoose an' be douce, 
 you Jeemie, an' Rob, an' Alick, I'll come till ye wi' 
 a stick ! Mind ye, your faither 'ill no be lang frae 
 hame the day." 
 
 A file of youngsters entered, hanging their heads, 
 and treading on each other's bare toes to escape 
 being seated next to the formidable visitor. 
 
 " Wull it please ye, sir, to try the bairns' learn- 
 ing for yoursel'." 
 
 A Bible was produced, and the three boys and 
 their sister read round in a clear and definite 
 manner, lengthening the vowels it is true, but 
 giving them their proper sound, and clanging
 
 THE TUTOR OF CURL YWEE. 279 
 
 their consonants like hammers ringing on 
 anvils. 
 
 " Very good ! " said John Bradfield, who knew 
 good reading when he heard it 
 
 From reading they went on to spelling, and the 
 great Bible names were tried in vain. The 
 Minister of Education was glad that he was 
 examiner, and not a member of the class. Hebrew 
 polysyllables and Greek proper names fell thick 
 and fast to the accurate aim of the boys, to whom 
 this was child's play. History followed, geography, 
 even grammar, maps were exhibited, and the rising 
 astonishment of the Minister of Education kept 
 pace with the quiet complacent pride of the Herd's 
 Wife of Curlywee. The examination found its 
 climax in the recitation of the "Shorter Catechism." 
 Here John Bradfield was out of his depth, a fact 
 instantly detected by the row of sharp examinees. 
 He stumbled over the reading of the questions ; he 
 followed the breathless enunciation of that expert 
 in the " Caratches," Jamie, with a gasp of astonish- 
 ment. Jamie was able to say the whole of Effectual 
 Calling in six ticks of the clock, the result sound- 
 ing to the uninitiated like the prolonged birr of 
 intricate clockwork rapidly running down. 
 
 " What is the chief end of man } " slowly queried 
 the Minister of Education, with his eye on the book.
 
 28o THE TUTOR OF CURL YWEE. 
 
 " Mans-chiefend-glorfyGod-joyi'm-f 'rever ! " re- 
 turned Jamie nonchalantly, all in one word, as 
 though some one had asked him what was his name. 
 
 The Minister of Education threw down his 
 Catechism. 
 
 " That is enough. They have all done well, and 
 better than well. Allow me," he said, doubtfully 
 turning to his hostess, "to give them each a 
 trifle " 
 
 " Na, na," said Mistress Glencairn, " let them 
 e'en do their work withoot needin' carrots hadden 
 afore their nose like a cuddy. What wad they do 
 wi' siller ? " 
 
 " Well, you will at least permit me to send them 
 each a book by post — I suppose that you get 
 letters up here occasionally ? " 
 
 " Deed, there's no that muckle correspondence 
 amang us, but when we're ower at the kirk, there 
 yin o' the herds on Lamachan that gangs doon by 
 to see a lass that leeves juist three miles frae the 
 post office, an' she whiles fetches ocht that there 
 may be for us, an' he gi'es it us at the kirk." 
 
 John Bradfield remembered his letters and 
 telegrams even now entering in a steady stream 
 into his London office and overflowing his minis- 
 terial tables, waiting his return — a solemnising 
 thought. He resolved to build a house on the
 
 THE TUTOR OF CURLYWEE. 281 
 
 Back Hill of Curlywee, and have his letters brought 
 by way of the kirk and the Lamachan herd's lass 
 that lived three miles from the post office. 
 
 " Oot v^^i' ye ! " said the mistress briefly, address- 
 ing her offspring, and the school scaled with a 
 tumultuous rush, which left a sense of vacancy and 
 silence and empty space about the kitchen. 
 
 " And now will you tell me how your children 
 are so well taught ? " said John Bradfield. " How 
 far are you from a school ? " 
 
 " Weel, we're sixteen mile frae Newton Stewart, 
 where there's a schule but no road, an' eleven frae 
 the Clatterin' Shaws, where there's a road but no 
 schule. 
 
 " How do you manage then ? " The Minister 
 was anxious to have the mystery solved. 
 
 " We keep a tutor ! " said the herd's wife of 
 Curlywee, as calmly as though she had been a 
 duchess. 
 
 The clock ticked in its shiny mahogany case, 
 like a hammer on an anvil, so still it was. The 
 cat yawned and erected its back. John Bradfield's 
 astonishment kept him silent. 
 
 " Keep a tutor," he muttered ; " this beats all I 
 have ever heard about the anxiety of the Scotch 
 peasantry to have their children educated. We 
 have nothing like this even in Yorkshire."
 
 2S2 THE TUTOR OF CURLYWEE. 
 
 Then to his hostess he turned and put anothei 
 question. 
 
 ' And, if I am not too bold, how much might 
 your husband get in the year ? " 
 
 " Tammas Glencairn is a guid man, though he's 
 my man, an' he gets a good wage. He's wee! 
 worthy o't. He gets three an' twenty pound in 
 the year, half score o' yowes, a coo's grass, a bow 
 o' meal, a bow o' pitatas, an' as mony peats as he 
 likes to cast, an' win', an' cairt." 
 
 " But how," said John Bradfield, forgetting his 
 manners in his astonishment, " in the name of 
 fortune does he manage to get a tutor .'' " 
 
 " He disna keep him. / keep him ! " said 
 Mistress Glencairn with great dignity. 
 
 The Minister of Education looked his genuine 
 astonishment this time. Had he come upon an 
 heiress in her own right t 
 
 His hostess was mollified by his humbled look. 
 
 " Ye see, sir, it's this way," she said, seating her- 
 self opposite to him on a clean-scoured, white 
 wooden chair, " there's mair hooses in this neigh- 
 boorhood than ye wad think. There's the farm 
 hoose o' the Black Craig o' Dee, there's the herd's 
 hoose o' Garrary, the onstead o' Neldricken, the 
 Dungeon o' Buchan — an' a wheen mair that, gin I 
 telled ye the names o', ye wadna be a bit the
 
 THE TUTOR OF CURL YWEE. 283 
 
 wiser. Weel, in the simmer time, whan the 
 colleges gang doon, we get yin o' the college lads 
 to come to this quarter. There's some o' them 
 fell fond to come. An' they pit up for three or 
 fower weeks here, an' for three or four weeks at 
 the Garrary ower by, an' the bairns travels ower to 
 whaur the student lad is bidin', an' gets their 
 learnin'. Then when it's time for the laddie to be 
 gaun his ways back to college, we send him awa' 
 weel buskit wi' muirland claith, an' weel providit 
 wi* butter an' eggs, oatmeal an' cheese for the 
 comfort o' the wame o' him. Forbye we gather 
 up among oorsels an' bid him guid speed wi' a 
 maitter o' maybe ten or twal' poun' in his pooch. 
 An' thafs the way we keep a tutor I "
 
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