I Pllf JE^XIL^K .^o IKIQI^UB X (j 
 
 L I B R.AFIY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 or ILLI NOIS 

 
 ^ 
 
 ^s 
 
 -cr^- 
 
 oo ;:i 
 
 D3 
 
 Is* 
 
 B 
 
 O 
 
 o 
 
 
 73 
 > 
 
 tn - 
 
 5 
 
 o 
 
 S - 
 § ^ 
 
 ^ < 
 
 0. «*j CO 
 
 ^ ^ o 
 
 pi 
 
 r 
 o 
 
 a 
 o 
 2: 
 
 o 
 
 u>
 
 THE LITTLE MINISTER.
 
 THE 
 
 LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 «Y 
 
 J. M. BARRIE. 
 
 in C^rfe Folumrs. 
 
 Vol. I. 
 
 CASSELL & COMPANY, LnriTKD 
 
 LOXDON, PARIS ^- MELBOURNE. 
 1891. 
 
 [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]
 
 /.I 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 -•o*- 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGK 
 
 The Love-Light . . . . i 
 
 CHAPTER J I. 
 Runs ALo^'GSIDE the Making of a Minister . . 12 
 
 , CHAPTER III. 
 The Night-Watchees 31 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 First Coming of the Egyptian Woman ... 55 
 
 '^ CHAPTER V. 
 
 A Warlike Chapter, culminating in the Flouting 
 ^ OF THE Minister by the Woman. ... 78 
 
 ^ CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ^ In WHICH THE Soldiers meet the Amazons of 
 
 ^ Thrums 94
 
 VIU THE LITTLE MINISTEK. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Has the Folly of Looking into a Woman's Eyes 
 
 BY Way of Text 116 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 3 A.M. — Monstrous Audacity of the Woman . . 129 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The W^oman considered in Absence. — Adventures 
 
 OF A Military Cloak 148 
 
 CHAPTEEi X. 
 First Sermon against Women 168 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Tells in a Whisper of Man's Fall during the 
 
 Curling Season 188 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Tragedy of a Mud House 206 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Second Coming of the Egyptian Woman. . 218
 
 THE 
 
 LITTLE MIXISTER. 
 
 -K>«- 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE LOVE-LIGHT. 
 
 Long ago in the days when our caged black 
 
 birds never saw a king's soldier without 
 
 whistling impudently, " Come ower the water 
 to Charlie/' a minister of Thrums was to be 
 married, but something happened, and he 
 remained a bachelor. Then, when he was 
 old, he passed in our square the lady who 
 was to have been his wife, and her hair was 
 white, but she, too, was still unmarried. The 
 meeting had only one witness, a weaver, and 
 he said solemnly afterwards, '' They didna 
 speak, but they just gave one another a look, 
 and I saw the love-light in their een." 
 No more is remembered of these two, no ^lj 
 
 B xC
 
 2 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 being now living ever saw them, but the 
 poetry that was in the soul of a battered 
 weaver makes them human to us for ever. 
 
 It is of another minister I am to tell, 
 but only to those who know that light when 
 they see it. I am not bidding good-bye to 
 many readers, for though it is true that 
 some men, of whom Lord Itintoul was one, live 
 to an old age without knowing love, few of 
 us can have met them, and of women so 
 incomplete I never heard. 
 
 Gavin Dishart was barely twenty-one when 
 he and his mother came to Thrums, light- 
 hearted like the traveller who knows not what 
 awaits him at the bend of the road. It was 
 the time of year when the ground is carpeted 
 beneath the firs with brown needles, when 
 splitnuts patter all day from the beech, and 
 cliildren lay yellow corn on the dominie's 
 desk to remind him that now they are 
 needed in the fields. The day was so silent 
 that carts could be heard rumbling a mile
 
 THE LOVE-LIGHT. 3 
 
 away. All Thrums was out in its w^ynds and 
 closes — a few of the weavers still in knee- 
 breeches — to look at the new Auld Licht 
 minister. I was there too, the dominie of Glen 
 Quharity, which is four miles from Thrums ; 
 and heavy was my heart as I stood afar off 
 so that Gavin's mother might not have the 
 pain of seeing me. I w^as the only one in 
 the crowd who looked at her more than at 
 her son. 
 
 Eighteen years had passed since we parted. 
 Already her hair had lost the brightness of 
 its youth, and she seemed to me smaller and 
 more fragile ; and the face that I loved when 
 I was a hobbledehoy, and loved wdien I looked 
 once more upon it in Thrums, and always 
 shall love till I die, was soft and worn. 
 Margaret w^as an old w^oman, and she w^as 
 only forty-three : and , I am the man who 
 made her o!d. As Gavin put his eager boyish 
 face out at the carriage window, many saw that 
 he was holding her hand, but none could be glad 
 B 2
 
 4 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 at the sight as the dominie was glad, looking on 
 at a happiness in which he dared not mingle. 
 Margaret was crying because slie was so proud 
 of her boy. Women do that. Poor sons to 
 be proud of, good mothers, but I would not 
 have you dry those tears. 
 
 When the little minister looked out at 
 the carriage window, many of the people drew 
 back humbly, but a little boy in a red frock 
 with black spots pressed forward and offered 
 him a stick}^ parly, which Gavin accepted, 
 though not without a tremor, for children 
 were more terrible to him then than bearded 
 men. The boy's mother, trying not to look 
 elated, bore him away, but her face said that 
 he was made for life. With this little inci- 
 dent Gavin's cai'cer in Thrums began. I 
 remembered it suddenly the other day when 
 wading across the wynd where it took place. 
 Many scenes in the little minister's life come 
 back to me in this way. The first time I 
 ever thought of writing his love story as an
 
 THE LOVE-LIGHT. 
 
 old man's gift to a little maid since grown 
 tall, was one niglit while I sat alone in the 
 school-house ; on my knees a fiddle that has 
 been my only living companion since I sold 
 my hens. My mind had drifted back to the 
 first time I saw Gavin and the Egyptian to- 
 gether, and what set it wandering to that 
 midnight meeting was my garden gate shaking 
 in the wind. At a gate on the hill I had 
 first encountered these two. It rattled in 
 his hand, and I looked up and saw them, 
 and neither knew why I had such cause to 
 start at the sight. Then the gate swung to 
 It had just such a click as mine. 
 
 These two figures on the hill are more real 
 to me than things that happened yesterday, 
 but I do not know that I can make them live 
 to others. A ghost-show used to come yearly 
 to Thrums on the merry Muckle Friday, in 
 which the illusion was contrived by hanging 
 a glass between the onlookers and the stage. 
 I cannot deny that the comings and goings
 
 G THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 of the ghost were highly diverting, yet the 
 farmer of T'nowhead only laughed because he 
 had paid his money at the hole in the door 
 like the rest of us. T'nowhead sat at the 
 end of a form where he saw round the glass 
 and so saw no ghost. 1 fear my public may 
 be in the same predicament. I see the little 
 minister as he was at one - and - twenty, and 
 the little girl to whom this story is to belong 
 sees him, though the things I have to tell 
 happened before she came into the world. But 
 there are reasons why she should see ; and I 
 do not know that I can provide the glass 
 for others. If they see round it, they will 
 neither laugh nor cry with Gavin and Babbie. 
 
 When Gavin came to Thrums he was as I 
 am now, for the pages lay before him on 
 which he was to write his life. Yet he was 
 not quite as I am. The life of every man is 
 a diary in which he means to write one story, 
 and writes another ; and his humblest hour 
 is when he compares the volume as it is with
 
 THE LOVE -LIGHT. 
 
 what he vowed to make it. But the bio- 
 grapher sees the last chapter w^hile he is still 
 at the first, and I have only to write over 
 with ink what Gavin has written in pencil. 
 
 How often is it a phantom woman who 
 draws the man from the way he meant 
 to go? So was man created, to hunger for 
 the ideal that is above himself, until one day 
 there is magic in the air, and the eyes of a 
 girl rest upon him. He does not know that 
 it is he himself who crowned her, and if the 
 girl is as pure as he, their love is the one 
 form of idolatry that is not quite ignoble. 
 It is the joining of two souls on their way 
 to God. But if the woman be bad, the test 
 of the man is when he wakens from his 
 dream. The nobler his ideal, the further will 
 he have been hurried down the wrong way, 
 for those who onlj^ run after little things will 
 not go far. His love may now sink into 
 passion, perhaps only to stain its wings and 
 rise again, perhaps to drown.
 
 8 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 Babbie, what shall I say of you who 
 make me write these things ? I am not 
 your judge. Shall we not laugh at the 
 student who chafes when between him and 
 his book comes the song of the thrushes, 
 with whom, on the mad night you danced 
 into Gavin's life, you had more in common 
 than with Auld Licht ministers ? The glad- 
 ness of living was in your step, your voice 
 was melody, and he was wondering what love 
 might be. You were the daugliter of a 
 summer night, born where all the birds are 
 free, and the moon christened you with her 
 soft light to dazzle the eyes of man. Not 
 our little minister alone was stricken by you 
 into his second childhood. To look upon you 
 was to rejoice that so fair a thing could be ; 
 to think of you is still to be young. Even 
 those who called you a little devil, of whom 
 I have been one, admitted that in the end 
 you had a soul, though not that you had 
 been born with one. They said you stole it.
 
 THE LOVE-LIGHT. 9 
 
 and so made a woman of yourself. But again 
 I say I am not your judge, and when I 
 picture you as Gavin saw you first, a bare- 
 legged witch dancing up Windyghoul, rowan 
 berries in your black hair, and on your finger 
 a jewel the little minister could not have 
 bought with five years of toil, the shadows on 
 my pages lift, and I cannot wonder that 
 Gavin loved you. 
 
 Often I say to myself that this is to be 
 Gavin's story, not mine. Yet must it be 
 mine too, in a manner, and of myself I shall 
 sometimes have to speak ; not willingly, for 
 it is time my little tragedy had died of old 
 age. I have kept it to myself so long that 
 now I would stand at its grave alone. It is 
 true that when I heard who was to be the 
 new minister I hoped for a day that the life 
 broken in Harvie might be mended in Thrums, 
 but two minutes' talk with Gavin showed me 
 that Margaret had kept from him the secret 
 which was hers and mine, and so knocked
 
 10 
 
 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 the bottom out of my vain hopes. I did 
 not blame her then, nor do I blame her now, 
 nor shall anyone who blames her ever be 
 called friend by me ; but it was bitter to 
 look at the white manse amono- the trees 
 and know that I must never enter it. For 
 Margaret's sake I had to keep aloof, yet 
 this new trial came upon me like our parting 
 at Harvie. I thought that in those eighteen 
 years my passions had burned like a ship till 
 they sank, but I suffered again as on that 
 awful night when Adam Dishart came back, 
 nearly killing Margaret and tearing up all my 
 ambitions by the root in a single hour. I 
 waited in Thrums until I had looked again 
 on Margaret, who thought me dead, and 
 Gavin who had never heard of me, and then 
 I trudged back to the school-house. Some- 
 thing I heard of them from time to time 
 during the winter — for in the gossip of Thrums 
 I was well posted — but much of what is to be 
 told here I only learned afterwards from those
 
 THE LOVE-LIGHT. 11 
 
 who knew it best. Gavin heard of me at 
 times as the dominie in the glen who had 
 ceased to attend the Auld Licht kirk, and 
 Margaret did not even hear of me. It was 
 all I could do for them.
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 llUxNS ALONGSIDE THE MAKING OF A MINISTER. 
 
 On the east coast of Scotland, hidden, as if 
 in a quarry, at tlie foot of cliffs that may one 
 day fall forward, is a village called Harvie. So 
 has it shrunk since the day when I skulked 
 from it that I hear of a traveller's asking 
 lately at one of its doors how far he was from 
 a village ; yet Harvie throve once and was 
 celebrated even in distant Thrums for its fish. 
 Most of our weaA'^ers would have thought it 
 as unnatural not to buy harvies in the square 
 on the Muckle Friday, as to let Saturday 
 night pass without laying in a sufficient stock 
 of halfpennies to go round the family twice. 
 
 Gavin was born in Harvie, but left it at 
 such an early age that he could only recall 
 thatched houses with nets drying on the roofs, 
 and a sandy shore in which coarse grass grew.
 
 THE MAKING OF A MINISTER. 13 
 
 In the picture he could not pick out the 
 house of his birth, though he naight have 
 been able to go to it had he ever returned 
 to the village. Soon he learned that his 
 mother did not care to speak of Harvie, and 
 perhaps he thought that she had forgotten it 
 too, all save one scene to which his memory 
 still oruided liirn. When his mind wandered 
 to Harvie, Gavin saw the door of his home 
 open and a fisherman enter, who scratched his 
 head and then said, " Your man 's drowned, 
 missis." Gavin seemed to see many women 
 crying, and his mother staring at them with 
 a face suddenly painted white, and next to 
 hear a voice that was his own sa3'ing, " Never 
 mind, mother ; I'll be a man to you now, and I'll 
 need breeks for the burial." But Adam required 
 no funeral, for his body lay deep in the sea. 
 
 Gavin thought that this was the tragedy 
 of his mother's life, and the most memorable 
 event of his own childhood. But it was 
 neither. When Margaret, even after she came
 
 14 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 to Thrums, thought of Harvie, it was not at 
 Adam's death she shuddered, but at the recol- 
 lection of me. 
 
 It would ill become me to take a late 
 revenge on Adam Dishart now by saying 
 what is not true of him. Though he died a 
 fisherman he was a sailor for a great part of 
 his life, and doubtless his recklessness was 
 washed into him on the high seas, where in 
 his time men made a crony of death, and 
 drank merrily over dodging it for another 
 night. To me his roars of laughter without 
 cause were as repellent as a boy's drum ; yet 
 many faces that were long in my company 
 brightened at his coming, and women, with 
 whom, despite my learning, I was in no wise 
 a favourite, ran to their doors to listen to him 
 as readily as to the bell-man. Children scurried 
 from him if his mood was savage, but to him 
 at all other times, while me they merely dis- 
 regarded. There was always a smell of the 
 sea about him. He had a rolling gait, unless
 
 THE MAKING OF A MINISTER. 15 
 
 lie was drunk, when he walked very straight, 
 and before both sexes he boasted that any 
 woman would take him for his beard alone. 
 Of this beard he took prodigious care, though 
 otherwise thinking little of his appearance, and 
 I now see that he understood women better 
 than I did, who had nevertheless reflected 
 much about them. It cannot be said that he 
 was vain, for though he thought he attracted 
 women strangely, that, I maintain, is a weak- 
 ness common to all men, and so no more to 
 be marvelled at than a stake in a fence. 
 Foreisfn oaths were tlie nails with which he 
 held his talk together, yet I doubt not they 
 were a curiosity gathered at sea, like his 
 chains of shells, more for his own pleasure 
 than for others' pain. His friends gave them 
 no weight, and when he wanted to talk em- 
 phatically he kept them back, though they 
 were then as troublesome to him as e^rirs to 
 the bh'd-nesting boy who has to speak with 
 his spoil in his mouth.
 
 16 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 Adam was drowned on Gavin's fourth 
 birtliday, a year after I had to leave Harvie. 
 He was blown off his smack in a storm, and 
 could not reach the rope his partner flung 
 him. " It's no go, lad," he shouted ; " so. 
 long, Jim," and sank. 
 
 A month afterwards Margaret sold her 
 share in the smack, which was all Adam left 
 her, and the furniture of the house was rouped, 
 Siie took Gavin to Glasgow, where her only 
 brother needed a housekeeper, and there 
 mother and son remained until Gavin got 
 his call to Thrums. During those seventeen 
 years I lost knowledge of them as completely 
 as Margaret had lost knowledge of me. On 
 hearing of Adam's death I went back to 
 Harvie to try to trace her, but she had 
 feared this, and so told no one where she 
 was going. 
 
 According to Margaret, Gavin's genius 
 showed itself while he was still a child. He 
 was born with a brow whose nobility im-
 
 THE MAKING Of A MINISTEE. 17 
 
 pressed her from the first. It was a minis- 
 ter's brow, and though Margaret herself was 
 no scholar, being as slow to read as she was 
 quick at turning bannocks on the girdle, 
 she decided, when his age was still counted 
 by months, that the ministry had need of 
 him. In those days the first question asked 
 of a child was not '' Tell me your name," but 
 " What are you to be ? " and one child in 
 every family replied " A minister." He was 
 set apart for the Church as doggedly as the 
 shilling a week for the rent, and the rule 
 held good though the family consisted of only 
 one boy. From his earliest days Gravin thought 
 he had been fashioned for the ministry as 
 certainly as a spade for digging, and Mar- 
 garet rejoiced and marvelled thereat, tliough 
 she had made her own puzzle. An enthusi- 
 astic mother may bend her son's mind as she 
 chooses if she begins at once ; nay, she may 
 do stranger things. I know a mother in 
 Thrums who loves " features," and had a child 
 c
 
 18 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 born with no chin to speak of. The neigh- 
 bours expected this to bring her to the dust, 
 but it only showed what a mother can do. 
 In a few months that child had a chin with 
 the best of them. 
 
 Margaret's brother died, but she remained 
 in his single room, and, ever with a picture 
 of her son in a pulpit to repay her, contrived 
 to keep Gravin at school. Everything a 
 woman's fingers can do Margaret's did better 
 than most, and among the wealthy people 
 who employed her — would that I could have 
 the teaching of the sons of such as were 
 good to her in those hard days ! — her gentle 
 manner was spoken of. For though Margaret 
 had no schooling, she was a lady at heart, 
 moving and almost speaking as one even in 
 Harvie, where they did not perhaps like her 
 the better for it. 
 
 At six Gavin hit another boy hard for 
 belonging to the Established Church, and at 
 seven he could not lose himself in the Shorter
 
 THE MAKING OF A MINISTER. 19 
 
 Catechism. His mother expounded the Scrip- 
 tures to him till he was eight, when he began 
 to expound them to her. By this time he 
 was studying the practical work of the pulpit 
 as enthusiastically as ever medical student 
 cut off a leg. From a front pew in the gal- 
 lery Gavin watched the minister's every move- 
 ment, noting that the first thing to do on 
 ascending the pulpit is to cover your face 
 with your hands, as if the exalted position 
 affected you like a strong light, and the 
 second to move the big Bible slightly, to 
 show that the kirk officer, not having had a 
 university education, could not be expected 
 to know the very spot on which it ought to 
 lie. Gavin saw that the minister joined in 
 the singing more like one countenancing a 
 seemly thing than because he needed it him- 
 self, and that he onlj^ sang a mouthful now 
 and again after the congregation was in full 
 pursuit of the precentor. It was noteworthy 
 that the first prayer lasted longer than all 
 c 2
 
 20 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 the others, and that to read the intimations 
 ahout the Bible -class and the collection else- 
 where than immediately hefore the last Psalm 
 would have been as sacrilegious as to insert 
 the dedication to King James at the end of 
 Revelation. Sitting under a minister justly 
 honoured in his da}^, the boy was often some 
 words in advance of him, not vainglorious of 
 his memory, hut fervent, eager, and regarding 
 the preacher as hardly less sacred than the Book. 
 Gavin was encouraged by his frightened yet 
 admiring mother to saw the air from their 
 pew as the minister sawed it in the j^ulpit, 
 and two benedictions were pronounced twice 
 a Sabbath in that church, in the same words, 
 the same manner, and simultaneously. 
 
 There was a black year when the things 
 of this world, especially its pastimes, took 
 such a grip of Gavin that he said to Mar- 
 garet he would rather be good at the high 
 jump than the author of " The Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress." That year passed, and Gavin came
 
 THE MAKING OF A MINISTER. 21 
 
 to liis riglit mind. One afternoon Margaret 
 was at liome making a glengarry for him 
 out of a piece of carpet, and giving it a 
 tartan edging, when the boy bounded in from 
 school, crying, " Come quick, mother, and 
 you '11 see him." Margaret reached the door 
 in time to see a street musician flying from 
 Gravin and his friends. "Did you take stock 
 of him, mother?" the boy asked when he 
 reappeared with the mark of a muddy stick 
 on his back. " He 's a Papist ! — a sore sight, 
 mother, a sore sight. We stoned him for 
 persecuting the noble Martyrs." 
 
 When Gravin was twelve he went to the 
 University, and also got a place in a shop as 
 errand boy. He used to run through the 
 streets between his work and his classes. 
 Potatoes and salt fish, which could then be 
 got at twopence the pound if bought by the 
 half-hundredweight, were his food. There 
 was not always a good meal fur two, yet 
 when Gavin reached home at night there was
 
 22 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 generally something ready for him, and Mar- 
 garet had supped " hours ago." Gavin's 
 hunger urged him to fall to, but his love 
 for his mother made him watchful. 
 
 " What did you have yourself, mother ? " 
 he would demand suspiciously. 
 
 " Oh, I had a fine supper, I assure you." 
 
 ''What had you?" 
 
 " I had potatoes, for one thing." 
 
 '' And dripping ? " 
 
 "You may be sure." 
 
 " Mother, you're cheating me. The drip- 
 ping hasn't been touched since yesterday." 
 
 "I dinna — don't — care for dripping — no 
 inuch." 
 
 Then would Gavin stride the room fiercely, 
 a queer little figure. 
 
 "Do you think I'll stand this, mother? 
 Will I let myself be pampered with dripping 
 and every delicacy while you starve ? " 
 
 " Gavin, I really dinna care for drip- 
 ping."
 
 THE MAKING OF A MINISTER. 23 
 
 " Then I'll give up my classes, and we 
 can have butter." 
 
 " I assure you I'm no hungry. It's dif- 
 ferent wi' a growing laddie." 
 
 "I'm not a growing laddie," Gavin would 
 say, bitterly ; " but, mother, I warn you that 
 not another bite passes my throat till I see 
 you eating too." 
 
 So Margaret had to take her seat at the 
 table, and when she said " I can eat no more," 
 Gavin retorted sternly, " Nor will I, for fine I 
 see through you." 
 
 These two were as one far more than most 
 married people, and, just as Gavin in his child- 
 hood reflected his mother, she now reflected him. 
 The people for whom she sewed thought it was 
 contact with them that had rubbed the broad 
 Scotch from her tongue, but she was only keep- 
 ing pace with Gavin. When she was excited 
 the Harvie words came back to her, as they 
 come back to me. I have taught the English 
 language all my life, and I try to write it, but
 
 24 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 everything I say in this book I first think to 
 myself in the Doric. This, too, I notice, that 
 in talking to myself I am broader than when 
 gossiping with the farmers of the glen, who send 
 their children to me to learn English, and then 
 jeer at them if they say " old lights " instead of 
 "auld lichts." 
 
 To Margaret it was happiness to sit through 
 the long evenings sewing, and look over her 
 work at Gavin as he read or wrote or recited to 
 himself the learning of the schools. But she 
 coughed every time the weather changed, and 
 then Gavin would start. 
 
 *' You must go to your bed, mother," he 
 would say, tearing himself from his books ; or 
 he would sit beside her and talk of the dream 
 that was common to both — a dream of a manse 
 where Margaret was mistress and Gavin was 
 called the minister. Every night Gavin was at 
 his mother's bedside to wind her shawl round 
 her feet, and while he did it Margaret smiled. 
 
 " Mother, this is the chaff pillow you've
 
 THE MAKING OV A MINISTER. 25 
 
 taken out of my bed, and given me your feather 
 one. 
 
 " Gavin, you needna change them. I winna 
 have the feather pillow." 
 
 " Do you dare to think I'll let you sleep on 
 chaff ? Put up your head. Now, is that 
 soft ? " 
 
 " It's fine. I dinna deny but what I sleep 
 better on feathers. Do you mind, Gavin, you 
 bought this pillow for me the moment you got 
 your bursary money ? " 
 
 The reserve that is a wall between many of 
 the Scottish poor had been broken down by these 
 two. When he saw his mother sleeping hap- 
 pily, Gavin went back to his work. To save the 
 expense of a lamp, he would put his book 
 almost beneath the dying fire, and, taking the 
 place of the fender, read till he was shivering 
 with cold. 
 
 " Gavin, it is near morning, and you not in 
 your bed yet ! What are you thinking about 
 so hard ? "
 
 26 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 " Oh, mother, I was wondering if the time 
 would ever come when I would be a minister, 
 and you would have an egg for your breakfast 
 every morning." 
 
 So the years passed, and soon Gavin would 
 be a minister. He had now sermons to pre- 
 pare, and every one of them was first preached 
 to Margaret. How solemn was his voice, how 
 his eyes flashed, how stern were his admoni- 
 tions. 
 
 " Gavin, such a sermon I never heard. The 
 spirit of God is on you. I'm ashamed you 
 should have me for a mother." 
 
 " God grant, mother," Gavin said, little 
 thinking what was soon to happen, or he would 
 have made this prayer on his knees, " that you 
 may never be ashamed to have me for a son." 
 
 "Ah, mother," he w^ould say wistfully, "it 
 is not a great sermon, but do you think I'm 
 preaching Christ ? That is what I try, but 
 I'm carried away and forget to watch myself." 
 
 " The Lord has you by the hand, Gavin ;
 
 THE MAKING OF A MINISTER. 27 
 
 and mind, I dinna say that because you're my 
 laddie." 
 
 " Yes you do, mother, and well I know it, 
 and yet it does me good to hear you." 
 
 That it did him good, I who would fain have 
 shared those days with them, am verj^ sure. The 
 praise that comes of love does not make us 
 vain, but humble rather. Knowing what we 
 are, the j)ride that shines in our mother's eyes 
 as she looks at us, is about the most pathetic 
 thing a man has to face, but he would be a devil 
 altogether if it did not burn some of the sin out 
 of him. 
 
 Not long before Gavin preached for our kirk 
 and got his call, a great event took place in the 
 little room at Glasgow. The student appeared 
 for the first time before his mother in his minis- 
 terial clothes. He wore the black silk hat, that 
 was destined to become a terror to evil-doers in 
 Thrums, and I dare say he was rather puffed up 
 about himself that day. You would probably 
 have smiled at him.
 
 28 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 " It's a pity I'm so little, mother," lie said 
 with a sigh. 
 
 " You're no what I would call a particularly 
 long man," Margaret said, " but you're just the 
 height I like." 
 
 Then Gavin went out in his grandeur, and 
 Margaret cried for an hour. She was think- 
 ing of me as well as of Gravin, and as it 
 happens, I know that I was thinking at the 
 same time of her. Gavin kept a diary in 
 those days, which I have seen, and by com- 
 paring it with mine, I discovered that while 
 he was showing himself to his mother in his 
 black clothes, I was on my way back from 
 Tilliedrum, where I had gone to buy a sand- 
 glass for the school. The one I bought was 
 so like another Margaret had used at Harvie 
 that it set me thinking of her again all the 
 way home. This is a matter hardly worth 
 mentioning, and yet it interests me. 
 
 Busy days followed the call to Thrums, 
 and Gavin had difficulty in forcing himself to
 
 THE MAKING OF A MINISTER. 29 
 
 liis sermons when tLere was always something 
 more to tell his mother about the weaving 
 town they were going to, or about the manse 
 or the furniture that had been transferred to 
 hhn by the retiring minister. The little room 
 which bad become so familiar that it seemed 
 one of a family party of three had to be 
 stripped, and many of its contents were sold. 
 Among what were brought to Thrums was 
 a little exercise book, in which Margaret had 
 tried, unknown to Gavin, to teach herself 
 writing and grammar, that she might be less 
 unfit for a manse. He found it accidentally 
 one d'dy. It was full of " I am, thou art, he 
 is," and the like, written many times in a 
 shaking hand. Gravin put his arms round 
 his mother when he saw what she had been 
 doing. The exercise book is in my desk now, 
 and will be my little maid's when I die. 
 
 " Gavin, Gavin," Margaret said many times 
 in those last days at Glasgow, " to think it 
 has all come true ! "
 
 30 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 " Let the last word you say in the house 
 be a prayer of thankfulness," she whispered 
 to him when they were takiDg a final glance 
 at the old home. 
 
 In the bare room they called the house, 
 the little minister and his mother went on 
 their knees, but, as it chanced, their last word 
 there was not addressed to God. 
 
 " Gavin," Margaret whispered as he took 
 her arm, " do you think this bonnet sets 
 me ? "
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 THE NIGHT-WATCHERS. 
 
 What first struck Margaret in Tlirums was 
 the smell of the caddis. The town smells 
 of caddis no longer, but whiffs of it may be 
 got even now as one passes the houses of the 
 old, where the lay still swings at little win- 
 dows like a great ghost pendulum. To me 
 it is a homely smell, which I draw in with a 
 great breath, but it was as strange to Mar- 
 garet as the weavers themselves, who, in their 
 coloured nightcaps and corduroys streaked with 
 threads, gazed at her and Gravin. The little 
 minister was trying to look severe and old, 
 but twenty-one was in his eye. 
 
 " Look, mother, at that white house with 
 the green roof. That is the manse." 
 
 The manse stands high, with a sharp eye 
 on all the town. Every back window in the 
 Tenements has a glint of it, and so the back
 
 32 THE LITTLE MINISTKll. 
 
 of tlie Tenements is always better behaved 
 tban the front. It was in the front that 
 Jamie Don, a pitiful bachelor all his life be- 
 cause he thought the women proposed, kept 
 his ferrets, and here, too, Beattie hanged him- 
 self, going straight to the clothes-posts for 
 another rope when the first one broke, such 
 was his determination. In the front Sanders 
 Gih'uth openly boasted (on Don's potato-pit) 
 that by having a seat in two churches he could 
 lie in bed on Sabbath and get the credit of 
 being at one or other. (Gavin made short 
 work of him.) To the right-minded the 
 Auld Licht manse was as a family Bible, ever 
 lying open before them, but Beattie spoke for 
 more than himself when he said, " Dagon that 
 
 manse ! I never gie a swear but there it 
 is glowering at me." 
 
 The manse looks down on the town from 
 the north-east, and is reached from the road 
 that leaves Thrums behind it in another mo- 
 ment by a wide, straight piith, so rough that
 
 THE NIGHT-WATCHERS. 33 
 
 to carry a fraught of water to the manse with- 
 out spilling w^as to be superlatively good at 
 one thing. Packages in a cart ifc set leaping 
 like trout in a fishing-creel. Opposite the open- 
 ing of the garden wall in the manse, where 
 for many years there had been an intention of 
 putting up a gate, were two big stones a yard 
 apart, standing ready for the winter, when the 
 path was often a rush of yellow water, and 
 this the only bridge to the glebe dyke, down 
 which the minister walked to church. 
 
 When Margaret entered the manse on 
 Gravin's arm, it was a whitewashed house of 
 five rooms, w4tli a garret in which the minister 
 could sleep if he had guests, as during the 
 Fast week. It stood with its garden within 
 high w^alls, and the roof facing southward was 
 carpeted with moss that shone in the sun in 
 a dozen shades of green and yellow. Three 
 firs guarded the house from west winds, but 
 blasts from the north often tore down the steep 
 fields and skirled through the manse, banging 
 
 D
 
 Q A 
 
 4 THE LITTLK MINISTER. 
 
 all its doors at once. A beech, growing on the 
 east side, leant over the roof as if to gossip 
 with the well in the courtyard. The garden 
 was to the south, and was over full of goose- 
 berry and currant bushes. It contained a 
 summer seat, where strange things were soon 
 to happen. 
 
 Margaret would not even take off her bonnet 
 until she had seen through the manse and opened 
 all the presses. The parlour and kitchen were 
 downstairs, and of the three rooms above, the 
 study was so small that Gavin's predecessor could 
 touch each of its walls without shifting his posi- 
 tion. Every room save Margaret's had long- 
 lidded beds, which close as if with shutters, but 
 hers was coff-fronted, or comparatively open, 
 with carvino" on the wood like the ornamentation 
 of coffins. Where there were children in a house 
 they liked to slope the boards of the closed-in 
 bed against the dresser, and play at sliding down 
 mountains on them. 
 
 But for man}" years there had been no
 
 THE NIGHT- WATCHERS. 35 
 
 children in the manse. He in whose ways Gavin 
 was to attempt the heavy task of walking had 
 been a widower three months after his marriage, 
 a man narrow when he came to Thrums, but so 
 large-hearted when he left it that I, who know 
 there is good in all the Avorld because of the 
 lovable souls I have met in this corner of it, yet 
 cannot hope that many are as near to God as he. 
 The most gladsome thing in the world is that 
 few of us fall very low ; the saddest that, with 
 such capabilities, we seldom rise high. Of those 
 who stand perceptibly above their fellows I have 
 known very few ; only Mr. Carfrae and two or 
 three women. 
 
 Gavin only saw a very frail old minister who 
 shook as he walked, as if his feet were striking 
 against stones. He was to depart on the 
 morrow to the place of his birth, but he came to 
 the manse to wish his successor God-speed. 
 Strangers were so formidable to Margaret that 
 she only saw him from her window. 
 
 " May you never lose sight of God, Mr. 
 D 2
 
 36 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 Dishart," tlie old man said in the parlour. 
 Then lie added, as if lie had asked too much, 
 " May you never turn from Him as I often did 
 when I was a lad like you." 
 
 As this aged minister, with the beautiful face 
 that God gives to all who love Him and follow 
 His commandments, spoke of his youth, he looked 
 wistfully around the faded parlour. 
 
 " It is like a dream," he said. " The first 
 time I entered this room the thought passed 
 through me that I would cut down that cherry- 
 tree, because it kept out the light, but, you see, 
 it outlives me. I grew old while looking for the 
 axe. Only yesterday I was the young minister, 
 Mr. Dishart, and to-morrow you will be the old 
 one, bidding good-bye to your successor." 
 
 His eyes came back to Gavin's eager face. 
 
 " You are very young, Mr. Dishart ? " 
 
 " Nearly twenty-one." 
 
 " Twenty-one ! Ah, my dear sir, you do not 
 know how pathetic that sounds to me. Twenty- 
 one ! We are children for the second time at
 
 THE XIGIIT-WATCHERS. 37 
 
 twenty-one, and again when we are grey and put 
 all our burden on tlie Lord. The young talk 
 generously of relieving the old of their burdens, 
 but the anxious heart is to the old when they see 
 a load on the back of the young. Let me tell 
 you, Mr. Dishart, that I would condone many 
 things in one-and-twenty now that I dealt hardly 
 with at middle age. God Himself, I think, is 
 very willing to give one-and-twenty a second 
 chance." 
 
 " I am afraid," Gavin said anxiously, '' that 
 I look even younger." 
 
 ^' I think," Mr. Carfrae answered smiling, 
 " that your heart is as fresh as your face ; and 
 that is well. The useless men are those who 
 never change with the years. Many views that 
 I held to in my youth and long afterwards are a 
 pain to me now, and I am carrying away from 
 Thrums memories of errors into which I fell at 
 every stage of ray ministry. When you are 
 older }'0u will know that life is a long lesson 
 in humility."
 
 38 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 He paused. 
 
 " I hope," be said nervously, '' that j^ou 
 don't sing the Paraphrases ? " 
 
 Mr. Carfrae had not grown out of all his 
 prejudices, you see ; indeed, if Gavin had been 
 less bigoted than he on this question they might 
 have parted stiffly. The old minister would 
 rather have remained to die in his pulpit than 
 surrender it to one who read his sermons. Others 
 may blame him for this, but I must say here 
 plainly that I never hear a minister reading 
 without wishing to send him back to college. 
 
 " I cannot deny," Mr. Carfrae said, " that I 
 broke down more than once to-day. This fore- 
 noon I was in Tilljdoss, for the last time, and it 
 so happens that there is scarcely a house in it in 
 which I have not had a marriage or prayed over 
 a coffin. Ah, sir, these are the scenes that make 
 the minister more than all his sermons. You 
 must join the family, Mr. Dishart, or 3^ou are 
 only a minister once a week. And remember 
 this, if your call is from above it is a call to stay.
 
 THE iMGHT-AVATCHERS. 3D 
 
 Many siicli partings in a lifetime as I have had 
 to-claj would be too heartrending." 
 
 "And yet," Gavin said, hesitatingly, ''they 
 told me in Glasgow that I had received a call 
 from the mouth of hell." 
 
 " Those were cruel words, but they only 
 mean that people who are seldom more than 
 a day's work in advance of want sometimes 
 rise in arms for food. Our weavers are passion- 
 ately religious, and so independent that they 
 dare any one to help them, but if their wages 
 were lessened they could not live. And so at 
 talk of reduction they catch fire. Change of 
 any kind alarQis them, and though they call 
 themselves Whigs, they rose a few years ago 
 over the paving of the streets and stoned the 
 workmen, who were strangers, out of the town. 
 
 " And though you may have thought the 
 place quiet to-da}^ Mr. Dishart, there was an 
 ugly outbreak only two months ago, when the 
 weavers turned on the manufacturers for re- 
 ducing the price of the web, made a bonfire
 
 40 THE IJTTLE MINISTER. 
 
 of some of tlieir doors, and terrified one of 
 tliem into leaving Thrums. Under the com- 
 mand of some Chartists, the people next paraded 
 the streets to the music of fife and drum, and 
 six policemen who drove up from Tilliedrum 
 in a lioflit cart were sent hack tied to the 
 seats." 
 
 " No one has heen punished ? " 
 
 " Not yet, hut nearly two years ago there ' 
 Avas a similar riot, and the sheriff took no action 
 for months. Then one night the square sud- 
 denly filled with soldiers, and the ringleaders 
 were seized in their beds. Mr. Dishart, the 
 people are determined not to be caught in 
 that way again, and ever since the rising a 
 watch has been kept by night on every road 
 that leads to Thrums. The signal that the 
 soldiers are coming is to be the blowing of a 
 horn. If you ever hear that horn, 1 implore 
 you to hasten to the square." 
 
 *' The weavers would not fight? " 
 
 " You do not know how the Chartists have
 
 THE NIGHT-WATCHERS. 41 
 
 fired this part of the country. One misty day, 
 a week ago, I \vas on the hill ; I thought I 
 had it to myself, when suddenly I heard a voice 
 cry sharply, ' Shoulder arms.' I could see no 
 one, and after a moment I put it down to a 
 freak of the wind. Then all at once the mist 
 before me blackened, and a body of men seemed 
 to grow out of it. They were not shadows ; 
 the}^ were Thrums weavers drilling, with pikes 
 in their hands. 
 
 " They broke up," Mr. Carfrae continued, 
 after a pause, " at my entreaty, but they have 
 met as^ain since then." 
 
 "And there were Auld Liclits among 
 them? " Gavin asked. " I should have thought 
 they would be frightened at our precentor, 
 Lang Tammas, who seems to watch for back- 
 sliding in the congregation as if he had plea- 
 sure in disco verinsT it." 
 
 Gavin spoke with feeling, for the precentor 
 had already put him through his catechism, 
 and it was a stiff ordeal.
 
 4:2 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 *' The precentor ! " said Mr. Carfrae. " Why, 
 he was one of them." 
 
 The old minister, once so brave a figure, 
 tottered as he rose to go, and reeled in a 
 dizziness until he had walked a few paces. 
 Gavin went with him to the foot of the manse 
 road ; without his hat, as all Thrums knew 
 before bedtime. 
 
 " I begin," Gavin said, as the}^ were part- 
 ing, where you leave off, and my prayer is that 
 I may walk in your ways." 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Dishart," the white-haired minis- 
 ter said, with a sigh, " the world does not pro- 
 gress so quickly as a man grows old. You only 
 begin where I began." 
 
 He left Gavin, and then, as if the little 
 minister's last words had hurt him, turned and 
 solemnly pointed his staff upward. Such men 
 are the strong nails that keep the world together. 
 
 The twenty-one-years-old minister returned 
 to the manse somewhat sadly, but when he saw 
 his mother at the window of her bed-room, his
 
 THE NIGHT-WATCHERS. 43 
 
 heart leapt at the thought that she was with 
 him and he had eighty pounds a year. Gaily 
 he waved both his hands to her, and she an- 
 swered with a smile, and then, in his boyishness, 
 he jumped over a gooseberry bush. Immedi- 
 ately afterwards he reddened and tried to look 
 venerable, for while in the air he had caught 
 sicfht of two women and a man watching^ him 
 from the dyke. He w^alked severely to the door, 
 and, again forgetting himself, was bounding 
 upstairs to Margaret, when Jean, the servant, 
 stood scandalised in his way. 
 
 " I don't think she caught me," was Gavin's 
 reflection, and " The Lord preserve 's ! " was 
 Jean's. 
 
 Gavin found his mother wondering how 
 one should set about getting a cup of tea in 
 a house that had a servant in it. He boldly 
 rang the bell, and the willing Jean answered 
 it so promptly (in a rush and jump) that 
 Marofaret was as much startled as Aladdin 
 the first time he rubbed his lamp.
 
 44 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 Manse servants oE the most admired kind 
 move softlj, as if constant contact with a 
 minister were goloshes to them ; but Jean was 
 new and raw, only having got her place because 
 her father might be an elder any day. She had 
 already conceived a romantic affection for her 
 master; but to say "sir" to him — as she 
 thirsted to do — would have been as difficult to 
 her as to swallow oysters. So anxious was she 
 to please that when Gavin rang she fired herself 
 at the bed-room, but bells were novelties to her 
 as well as to Margaret, and she cried, excitedly, 
 '' What is 't ? " thinking the house must be on 
 fire. 
 
 " There's a curran folk at the back door," Jean 
 announced later, " and their respects to you, and 
 would you gie them some water out o' the well ? 
 It has been a drouth this audit days, and the 
 pumps is locked. " Na," she said, as Gavin made 
 a too liberal offer, '' that would toom the well, and 
 there's jimply enough for oursels. I should tell 
 you, too, that three o' them is no Auld Lichts."
 
 THE NIGHT- WATCHERS. 45 
 
 " Let that make no difference," Gavin said 
 grandly, but Jean changed his message to : "A 
 bowlful apiece to Auld Lichts ; all other denomi- 
 nations one cupful." 
 
 " Ay, ay," said Snecky Hobart, letting down 
 the bucket, " and w^ell include atheists among 
 other denominations." The conversation came 
 to Gavin and Margaret through the kitchen 
 doorway. 
 
 " Dinna class Jo Cruickshanks wi' me," said 
 Sam'l Lanii^lands the U.P. 
 
 " Na, na," said Cruickshanks the atheist, 
 " I'm ower independent to be religious. I dinna 
 gang to the kirk to cry, ' Oh, Lord, gie, gie, gie.' " 
 
 " Take tent o' yoursel', my man/' said Lang 
 Tammas sternly, " or you'll soon be whaur you 
 would neifer the warld for a cup o' that cauld 
 water." 
 
 " Maybe you've ower keen an interest in the 
 devil, Tammas," retorted the atheist, " but, ony 
 way, if it's heaven for climate, it's hell for com- 
 pany."
 
 46 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 " Lads," said Sneck}^ sitting down on the 
 bucket, " we'll send Mr. Dishart to Jo. He'll 
 make another Rob Dow o' him." 
 
 " Speak mair reverently o' your minister," 
 said the precentor. " He has the gift." 
 
 " I hinna naturally your solemn rasping 
 word, Tammas, but in the heart I speak in all 
 reverence. Lads, the minister has a word ! I 
 tell you he prays near like one giving orders." 
 
 " At first," Snecky continued, " I thocht 
 yon lang candidate was the earnestest o' them 
 a', and I dinna deny but when I saw him wi' his 
 head bowed-like in prayer during the singing I 
 says to mysel', 'Thou art the man.' Ay, but 
 Betsy wraxed up her head, and he wasna I3ray- 
 ing. He was combing his hair wi' his fingers on 
 the sly." 
 
 " You ken fine, Sneck," said Cruickshanks, 
 '' that you said, ' Thou art the man ' to ilka ane 
 o' them, and just voted for Mr. Dishart because 
 he preached hinmost." 
 
 '* I didna say it to Mr. Urquhart, the ane
 
 THE NIGHT- WATCHERS. 4 
 
 -7 
 
 that preaclied second," Sneck said. " That was 
 the lad tliat gaed through ither." 
 
 " Ay," said Susy Tibbits, nicknamed by 
 Haof(yart '' the Timidest Woman " because she 
 once said she was too young to marry, " but I 
 was fell sorry for him, him just being over 
 anxious. He began bonny, flinging himself, 
 like ane inspired, at the pulpit door, but after 
 Hendry Munn pointed at it and cried out, ' Be 
 cautious, the sneck's loose,' he a gaed to bits. 
 What a coolness Hendry has, though I suppose 
 it was his duty, him being kirk-officer." 
 
 " We didna w^ant a man," Lang Tammas said, 
 '' that could be put out by sic a sma' thing as that. 
 Mr. Urquhart was in sic a ravel after it that 
 when he gies out the first line o' the hunder and 
 nineteenth psalm for singing, says he, ' And so 
 on to the end.' Ay, that finished his chance." 
 
 " The noblest o' them to look at," said 
 Tibbie Birse, " was that ane frae Aberdeen, him 
 that had sic a saft side to Jacob." 
 
 '' Ay," said Snecky, " and I speired at Dr.
 
 48 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 McQueen if I should vote for liim. ' Looks 
 like a genius, does he? ' says the Doctor. ' Weel, 
 then/ says he, ' dinna vote for him, for my 
 experience is that there's no folk sic idiots as 
 
 J )> 
 
 them that looks like geniuses. 
 
 "Sal," Susy said, "it's a guid thing we've 
 settled, for I enjoyed sitting like a judge upon 
 them so muckle that I sair doubt it was a kind 
 o' sport to me." 
 
 " It was no sport to them, Susy, I'se uphaud, 
 but it is a blessing we've settled, and ondoubtedly 
 we've got the pick o' them. The only thing 
 Mr. Dishart did that made me oneasy was his 
 saying the word Caesar as if it began wi' a y(r." 
 
 " He'll startle you mair afore you're done wi' 
 him," the atheist said maliciously. "I ken the 
 ways o' thae ministers preaching for kirks. Oh, 
 they're cunning. You was a' pleased that Mr. 
 Dishart sjDoke about looms and webs, but, 
 lathies, it was a trick. Ilka ane o' thae young 
 ministers has a sermon about looms for weaving 
 congregations, and a second about beating swords
 
 THE NIGHT-WATCIIERS. 49 
 
 into plouglisliares for country places, and another 
 on the great catch of fishes for fishing villages. 
 That's their stock-in-trade; and just you wait 
 and see if you dinna get the ploughshares and 
 the fishes afore the month's out. A minister 
 preaching for a kirk is one thing, but a minister 
 placed in't may be a very different berry." 
 
 " Joseph Cruickshanks," cried the precentor, 
 passionately, " none o' your d d blas- 
 phemy ! " 
 
 They all looked at Whamond, and he dag 
 his teeth into his lips in shame. 
 
 " Wha's swearing now? " said the Atheist. 
 
 But Whamond was quick. 
 
 " Matthew, twelve and thirtv-one," he 
 said. 
 
 '' Dagont, Tammas," exclaimed the baffled 
 Cruickshanks, " you're aye quoting Scripture. 
 How do you no quote Feargus O'Connor ? " 
 
 " Lads," said Snecky, " Jo' hasna heard Mr. 
 Dishart's sermons. Ay, we get it scalding 
 when he comes to the sermon. I canna tliole 
 
 E
 
 50 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 a minister that preaches as if heaven was round 
 the corner." 
 
 "If you're hitting at our minister, Sneck}^" 
 said James Cochrane, " let me tell 3'ou he's 
 a better man than yours." 
 
 " A better curler, I dare say." 
 
 " A better prayer." 
 
 . " Ay, he can pray for a black frost as if 
 it was ane o' the Eoyal Family. I ken his 
 prayers, ' Lord, let it baud for anither day, 
 and keep the snaw awa'.' Will you pretend, 
 Jeames, that Mr. Duthie could make onythiug 
 o' Rob Dow?" 
 
 " I admit that Rob's awakening was an 
 extraordinary thing, and sufficient to gi'e Mr. 
 Dishart a name. But Mr. Carfrae was baffled 
 wi' Rob too." 
 
 " Jeames, if you had been in our kirk that 
 day Mr. Dishart preached for't you would be 
 wearying the now for Sabbath, to be back in't 
 again. As you ken, that wicked man there, 
 Jo Cruick shanks, got Rob Dow, drucken, curs-
 
 THE NIfiHT-WATCHERS. 51 
 
 ing, poacliing Eob Dow, to come to tlie kirk 
 to annoy the minister. Ay, he hadna been at 
 that work for ten minutes when Mr. Dishart 
 stopped in his first prayer and ga'e Eob a look. 
 I couklna see the look, being in the precentor's 
 box, but as sure as death I felt it borinc^ throusrh 
 me. Eob is hard wood, though, and soon he 
 was at his tricks again. Weel, the minister 
 stopped a second time in the sermon, and so 
 awful was the silence that a heap o' the con- 
 gregation couldna keep their seats. I heard 
 Eob breathing quick and strong. Mr. Dishart 
 had his arm pointed at him a' this time, and 
 at last he says sternly, 'Come forward.' Listen, 
 Joseph Cruickshanks, and tremble. Eob gripped 
 the board to keep himsel' frae obeying, and 
 again Mr. Dishart says, ' Come forward,' and 
 syne Eob rose shaking, and tottered to the 
 pulpit stair like a man suddenly shot into the 
 Day of Judgment. ' You hulking man of sin,' 
 cries Mr. Dishart, not a tick fieid, though Eob's 
 as big as three o' him, ' sit down on the stair 
 E 2
 
 52 THE LITTJ>E MINISTER. 
 
 and attend to me, or I'll step doun frae the 
 pulpit and run you out of the house of 
 God/ " 
 
 "And since that clay," said Hobart, *' Eob 
 has worshipped Mr. Dishart as a man that has 
 stepped out o' the Bible. When the carriage 
 passed this day we was discussing the minister, 
 and Sam'l Dickie wasna sure but what Mr. 
 Dishart wure his hat rather far back on his 
 head. You should ha'e seen Eob. ' My 
 certie,' he roars, ' there's the shine frae Heaven 
 on that little minister's face, and them as 
 says there's no has me to fecht.' " 
 
 " Ay, weel," said the U.P., rising, " we'll 
 see how lloh wears — and how your minister 
 wears too. I wouldna like to sit in a kirk 
 whaur they daurna sing a paraphrase." 
 
 " The Psalms of David," retorted Whamond, 
 " mount straight to heaven, but your para- 
 phrases sticks to the ceiling o' the kirk." 
 
 *' You're a bigoted set, Tammas Whamond, 
 but I tell you this, and it's my last words to
 
 THE NIGHT-WATCBERS. 53 
 
 you the iiicht, the day'll come wlien you'll liae 
 Mr. Duthie, ay, and ei^en the U.P. minister, 
 preaching in the Auld Licht kirk." 
 
 "And let this be my last words to you," 
 replied the precentor, furiously ; " that rather 
 than see a U.P. preaching in the Auld Licht 
 kirk I would burn in hell fire for ever ! " 
 
 This gossip increased Gravin's knowledge of 
 
 the grim men with whom he had now to 
 
 deal. But as he sat beside Margaret after she 
 
 had gone to bed, their talk was pleasant. 
 
 "You remember, mother," Gavin said, 
 
 " how I almost prayed for the manse that was 
 
 to give you an egg every morning. I have 
 
 been telling Jean never to forget the egg.'' 
 
 " Ah, Gavin, things have come about so 
 much as we wanted that I'm a kind o' troubled. 
 It's hardly natural, and I hope nothing terrible 
 is to happen now." 
 
 Gavin arranged her pillows as she liked 
 them, and when he next stole into the room 
 in his stocking soles to look at her, he thought
 
 54 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 slie was asleep. But slie was not. I dare say 
 she saw at that moment Gavin in his first 
 frock, and Gavin in knickerbockers, and Gavin 
 as he used to walk into the Glasgow room 
 from college, all still as real to her as the 
 Gavin wdio had a kirk. 
 
 The little minister took away the lamp to 
 his own room, shaking his fist at himself for 
 allowing his mother's door to creak. He 
 pulled ujD his blind. The town lay as 
 still as salt. But a steady light showed in 
 the south, and on pressing his face against 
 the window he saw another in the west. Mr. 
 Carfrae's words about the night-watch came 
 back to him. Perhaps it had been on such a 
 silent night as this that the soldiers marched 
 into Thrums. Would they come again ?
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 FIRST COMING OF THE EGYPTIAN WOMAN. 
 
 A LEARN ^:D man says in a book, otherwise beau- 
 tiful wdth truth, tliat villages are family groups. 
 To him Thrums would only be a village, though 
 town is the word we have ever used, and this is 
 not true of it. Doubtless we have interests in 
 common, from which a place so near (but the road 
 is heavy) as Tilliedrum is shut out, and we have 
 an individuality of our own too, as if, like our 
 red houses, we came from a quarry that supplies 
 no other place. But we are not one family. 
 In the old days, those of us who were of the 
 Tenements seldom wandered to the Croft head, 
 and if we did go there we saw men to whom we 
 could not always give a name. To flit from the 
 Tan age brae to Haggart's roady was to change 
 one's friends. A kirk-wynd weaver might kill 
 his swine and Tillyloss not know of it until 
 boys ran westward hitting eacli other with the
 
 50 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 bladders. Only the voice of the dulsemen could 
 be heard, all over Thrums at once. Thus even 
 in a small place hut a few outstanding persons 
 are known to everybody. 
 
 In eight days Gavin's figure was more fami- 
 liar in Thrums than many that had grown bent 
 in it. He had already been twice to the ceme- 
 tery, for a minister onl}^ reaches his new charge 
 in time to attend a funeral. Though short of 
 stature he cast a great shadow. He was so full 
 of his duties, Jean said, that though he pulled to 
 the door as he left the manse, he had passed the 
 currant bushes before it snecked. He darted 
 through courts, and invented ways into awkward 
 houses. If you did not look up quickly he was 
 round the corner. His visiting exhausted him 
 only less than his zeal in the pulpit, from which, 
 according to report, he staggered damp with 
 perspiration to the vestry, where Hendry Munn 
 wrung him like a wet clout. A. deaf lady, cele- 
 brated for giving out her washing, compelled 
 him to hold her trumpet until she had peered
 
 THE EGYPTIAN. 57 
 
 into all his crannies, with the Shorter Catechism 
 for a lantern. Janet Dundas told him, in answer 
 to his knock, that she could not ahide him, but 
 she changed her mind when he said her garden 
 was quite a show. The wives who expected a 
 visit scrubbed their floors for him, cleaned out 
 their presses for him, put diamond socks on their 
 bairns for him, rubbed their hearthstones blue 
 for him, even tidied up the garret for him, and 
 triumphed over the neighbours whose houses he 
 passed bj. For Gavin blundered occasionally 
 by inadvertence, as when he gave dear old Betty 
 Davie occasion to say bitterly : — - 
 
 '^ Ou ay, you can sail by my door and gang 
 to Easie's, but I'm thinking you would stop at 
 mine too if I had a brass handle on't." 
 
 So passed the first four weeks, and then came 
 the fateful night of the seventeenth of October, 
 and with it the strange woman. Family wor- 
 ship at the manse was over, and Gavin w^as 
 talking to his mother, who never crossed the 
 threshold save to go to church (though her
 
 58 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 activity at home was among the marvels Jean 
 sometimes slipped clown to the Tenements to 
 announce), when Weary world the policeman came 
 to the door " with Kob Dow's compliments, and 
 if you're no wi' me by ten o'clock I'm to break 
 out again." Gavin knew what this meant, and 
 at once set off for E.ob's. 
 
 '' You'll let me gang a bit wi' you," the 
 policeman entreated, " for till Eob sent me on 
 this errand not a soul has spoken to me the 
 day ; ay, mony a ane hae I spoken to, but not a 
 man, woman, nor bairn would fling me a word." 
 
 "I often meant to ask you," Gavin said as 
 they went along the Tenements, which smelled 
 at that hour of roasted potatoes, " why you are 
 so unpopular." 
 
 '' It's because I'm police. I'm the first ane 
 that has ever been in Thrums, and the very folk 
 that appointed me at a crown a week looks upon 
 me as a disgraced man for accepting. It's 
 Gospel that my ain wife is short wi' me when 
 I've on my uniform, though weel she kens that
 
 THE EGYPTIAN. 59 
 
 I would rather hae stuck to the loora if I hadna 
 ha'en sic a queer richt leg. Nobody feels the 
 shame o' my position as I do mysel', but this 
 is a town without pity." 
 
 " It should be a consolation to you that 
 you are discharging useful duties." 
 
 " But I'm no. I'm doing harm. There's 
 Charles Dickson saj^s that the very sicht o' my 
 uniform rouses his dander so muckle that it 
 makes him break windows, though a peaceably- 
 disposed man till I was appointed. And what's 
 the use o' their haeing a policeman when they 
 winna come to the lock-up after I lay hands 
 on them ? " 
 
 " Do they say they won't come ? " 
 
 '' Say ? Catch them saying ony thing ! 
 They just gie me a wap into the gutters. If 
 they would speak I wouldna complain, for I'm 
 nat'rally the sociablest man in Thrums, 
 
 " Rob, however, had spoken to you. 
 
 " Because he had need o' me. That was 
 ay Hob's way, converted or no converted. 
 
 J5 
 
 J5
 
 GO THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 When he was blind drunk lie would order 
 me to see liim safe liame, but would he crack 
 wi' me? Na, na." 
 
 Weary world, who was so called because of 
 his forlorn way of muttering, " It's a weary 
 warld, and nobody bides in 't " as he went his 
 melancholy rounds, sighed like one about to 
 cry, and Gavin changed the subject. 
 
 " Is the watch for the soldiers still kept 
 up ? " he asked. 
 
 *' It is, but the watchers winna let me in 
 aside them. I'll let you see that for yoursel' 
 at the head o' the Boods, for they watch there 
 in the auld windmill." 
 
 Most of the Thrums lights were already 
 out, and that in the windmill disappeared as 
 footsteps were heard. 
 
 " You're desperate characters," the police- 
 man cried, but got no answer. He changed 
 his tactics. 
 
 '' A fine nicht for the time o' year," he cried. 
 No answer.
 
 THE EGYPTIAN. Gl 
 
 " But I wouldna wonder," be shouted, 
 " thouofli we had rain afore mornino:." No 
 answer. 
 
 "Surely you could gie me a word frae 
 ahint the door. You're doiaof' an onlawful 
 thing, but I dinna ken wha you are." 
 
 "You'll swear to that?" some one asked 
 gruffly. 
 
 " I swear to it, Peter." 
 
 Wearyworld tried another six remarks in 
 vain. 
 
 *' A}^" he said to the minister, " that's what 
 it is to be an onpopular man. And now I'll 
 hae to turn back, for the very anes that winna 
 let me join them would be the first to com- 
 plain if I gaed out o' bounds." 
 
 Gavin found Dow at Xew Zealand, a ham- 
 let of mud houses, whose tenants could be 
 seen on any Sabbath morning washing them- 
 selves in the burn that trickled hard by. 
 Kob's son, Micah, was asleep at the door, but 
 he brii^htened when he saw who was shakini^ him.
 
 62 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 " My father put me out," he explained, 
 " because he's daft for the drink, and was 
 lleid he would curse me. He hasna cursed 
 me," Micah added, proudly, "for an aught 
 days come Sabbath. Hearken to him at his 
 loom. He daurna take his feet off the 
 treadles for fear o' running straught to the 
 drink." 
 
 Gavin went in. The loom, and two stools, 
 the one four-footed and the other a buffet, 
 were Hob's most conspicuous furniture. A 
 shaving-strap hung on the wall. The fire 
 was out, but the trunk of a tree, charred at 
 one end, showed how he heated his house. 
 He made a fire of peat, and on it placed one 
 end of a tree trunk that might be six feet long. 
 As the tree burned away it was pushed further 
 into the fireplace, and a roaring fire could ahvays 
 be got by kicking pieces of the smouldering 
 wood and blowing them into flame with the 
 bellows. When Hob saw the minister he 
 2rroaned relief and left his loom. He had been
 
 THE EGYPTIAN. 63 
 
 weaving, his teeth clenched, his eyes on fire, 
 for seven hours. 
 
 "I vvasna fleid," little Micah said to the 
 neighbours afterwards, " to gang in wi' the 
 minister. He's a fine man that. He didna 
 ca' my father names. Na, he said, ' You're a 
 brave fellow, E/ob,' and he took my father's 
 hand, he did. My father was shaking after 
 his fecht wi' the drink, and, says he, ' Mr. 
 Dishart,' he says, ' if you'll let me break out 
 nows and nans, I could bide straucht atween 
 times, but I canna keep sober if I hinna a drink 
 to look forrit to.' Ay, my father prigged sair 
 to get one fou day in the month, and he said, 
 'Syne if I die sudden, there's thirty chances 
 to one that I gang to heaven, so it's worth 
 risking.' But Mr. Dishart wouldna hear o't, 
 and he cries, ' No, by Grod/ he cries, ' we'll 
 wrestle wi' the devil till we throttle him,' 
 and down him and my father gaed on their 
 knees. 
 
 The minister prayed a lang time till my 
 
 (< Tl
 
 04 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 father said his liunger for the drink was gone, 
 'but,' he says, ' it swells up in me o' a sudden 
 aye, and it may be back afore you're hame.' 
 * Then come to me at once,' says Mr. Dishart ; 
 but my father says, ' Na, for it would haul me 
 into the pubUc-house as if it had me at the 
 end o' a rope, but I'll send the laddie.' 
 
 " You saw my father crying the minister 
 back ? It was to gie him twa pound, and, 
 says my fabher, ' God helping me,' he says, 
 ' I'll droon mysel in the dam rather than let 
 the drink master me, but in case it should 
 get baud o' me and I should die drunk, it 
 would be a michty gratification to me to ken 
 that you had the siller to bury me respect- 
 able without ony help frae the poor's rates.' 
 The minister wasna for taking it at first, but 
 he took it when he saw how earnest my father 
 was. Ay, he's a noble man. After he gaed 
 awa my father made me learn the names o' 
 the apostles frae Luke sixth, and he saj^s to 
 me, ' Miss out Bartholomew,' he says, ' for he
 
 THE EGYPTIAN. 65 
 
 did little, and put Gravin Dishart in his 
 place. 
 
 Feeling as old as he sometimes tried to look, 
 Gavin turned homeward. Margaret was already 
 listening for him. You may be sure she knew 
 his step. I think our steps vary as much as the 
 human face. My bookshelves were made by a 
 blind man who could identify by their steps 
 nearly all who passed his window. Yet he has 
 admitted to me that he could not tell wherein 
 my steps differed from others ; and this I 
 believe, though rejecting his boast that he could 
 distinguish a minister's step from a doctor's, 
 and even tell to which denomination the 
 minister belonged. 
 
 I have sometimes asked myself what would 
 have been Gravin's future had he gone straight 
 home that night from Dow's. He would doubt- 
 less have seen the Egyptian before morning 
 broke, but she would not have come upon him 
 like a witch. There are, I dare say, many 
 lovers who would never have been drawn to 
 
 F
 
 (j6 the little minister. 
 
 each other had they met for the first time, as, 
 say, they met the second time. But such 
 dreaming is to no purpose. Gavin met Sanders 
 Webster, the mole-catcher, and was persuaded 
 by him to go home by Caddam Wood. 
 
 Gavin took the path to Caddam, because 
 Sanders told him the Wild Lindsays were there, 
 a gypsy family that threatened the farmers by 
 day and danced devilishly, it was said, at night. 
 The little minister knew them by re|)ute as a 
 race of giants, and that not many persons would 
 have cared to face them alone at midnight, but 
 he was feeling as one wound up to heavy duties, 
 and meant to admonish them severely. 
 
 Sanders, an old man who lived with his 
 sister Nanny on the edge of the wood, went 
 with him, and for a time both were silent. But 
 Sanders had something to say. 
 
 " Was you ever at the Spittal, Mr. Dishart?" 
 he asked. 
 
 " Lord Eintoul's house at the top of Glen 
 Quharity ? No."
 
 THE EGYPTIAN. 67 
 
 " Hae you ever looked on a lord? " 
 
 '' 'Nor 
 
 " Or on an auld lord's young 1 eddy ship ? I 
 have." 
 
 "What is she?" 
 
 " You surely ken that Eintoul's auld, and is 
 to be married on a young leddyship. She's no' 
 a leddyship yet, but they're to be married soon, 
 so I may say I've seen a leddyship. Ay, an 
 impressive sicht. It was yestreen." 
 
 " Is there a great difference in their ages ? " 
 
 " As muckle as atween auld Peter Spens and 
 his wife, wha was saxteen when he was saxty, 
 and she was playing at dumps in the street 
 when her man was waiting for her to make his 
 porridge. Ay, sic a differ doesna suit wi' com- 
 mon folk, but of course earls can please themsels. 
 Eintoul's so fond o' the leddyship 'at is to be, 
 that when she was at the school in Edinbury 
 he wrote to her ilka day. Kaytherine Crummie 
 telled me that, and she says aince you're used to 
 it, writing letters is as easy as skiDuing moles. 
 
 E 2
 
 6S THE LITTLE MIXLSTER. 
 
 I dinna ken what they can write sic a heap 
 about, but I daur say he gies her his views on 
 the Chartist agitation and the potato disease, 
 and she'll write back about the romantic sichts 
 o' Edinbury and the sermons o' the grand 
 preachers she hears. Sal, though, thae grand 
 folk has no religion to speak o', for they're 
 a' English kirk. You're no' speering what her 
 leddyship said to me ? " 
 
 ''What did she say?" 
 
 " Weel, you see, there was a dancing ball 
 on, and Kaytherine Crura mie took me to a 
 window whaur I could stand on a Hower-pot and 
 watch the critturs whirlins^ round in the ball 
 like teetotums. What's mair, she pointed out 
 the leddyship that's to be to me, and I just 
 gloured at her, for thinks I, ' Take your fill, 
 Sanders, and whaur there 's lords and leddyships, 
 dinna waste a minute on colonels and honourable 
 misses and sic like dirt.' Ay, but what wi' my 
 'een blinking at the blaze o' candles, I lost sicht 
 o' her till all at aince somebody says at my lug.
 
 THE EGYPTIAN. 69 
 
 ' Well, my man, and who is the prettiest lady in 
 the room ? ' Mr. Dishart, it was her leddyship. 
 She looked like a star." 
 
 " And what did you do ? " 
 
 " The first thing I did was to fall aff the 
 flower-pot, hut syne I came to, and says I, 
 wi' a polite smirk, ' I'm thinking your leddy- 
 ship,' says I, ' as you're the bonniest yoursel'." 
 
 " I see 3^ou are a cute man, Sanders." 
 
 " Ay, but that's no' a'. She lauched in a 
 pleased way and tapped me wi' her fan, and 
 says she, ' Why do you think me the prettiest ? ' 
 I dinna deny but what that staggered me, but 
 I thocht a minute, and took a look at the other 
 dancers again, and syne I says, michty sly like, 
 ' The other leddies,' I says, * has sic sma' feet.' " 
 
 Sanders stopped here and looked doubtingly, 
 at Gavin. 
 
 '' I canna make up my mind," he said, 
 " whether she liked that, for she rapped my 
 knuckles wi' her fan fell sair, and aff she gaed. 
 Ay, I consulted Tammas Haggart about it, and
 
 70 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 he says, ' The flirty crittar,' he says. What 
 would you say, Mr. Dishart? " 
 
 Gavm managed to escape without giving 
 an answer, for here their roads separated. He 
 did not find the wild Lindsays, however. 
 Children of whim, of prodigious strength while 
 in the open, bat destined to wither quickly 
 in the hot air of towns, they had gone from 
 Caddam, leaving nothing of themselves behind 
 but a black mark burned by their fires into 
 the ground. Thus they branded the earth 
 through many counties until some hour when 
 the spirit of wandering again fell on them, 
 and they forsook their hearths with as little 
 compunction as the bird leaves its nest. 
 
 Gavin had walked quickly, and he now 
 stood silently in the wood, his hat in his hand. 
 In the moonlight the grass seemed tipped 
 with hoar frost. Most of the beeches were 
 already bare, but the shoots, clustering round 
 them, like children at their mothers' skirts, 
 still retained their leaves red and brown.
 
 THE EGYPTIAN. 71 
 
 Amon^ the pines these leaves were as incon- 
 gruous as a wedding-dress at a funeral. Gavin 
 was standing on grass, but there were patches 
 of heather within sight, and broom, and the 
 leaf of the blaeberry. Where the beeches had 
 drawn up the earth with them as they grew, 
 their roots ran this way and that, slippery to tlie 
 feet and looking like disinterred bones. A 
 squirrel appeared suddenly on the charred ground, 
 looked doubtfully at Gavin to see if he was grow- 
 ing there, and then glided up a tree, where it sat 
 eyeing him, and forgetting to conceal its shadow. 
 Caddam was very still. At long intervals came 
 from far away the whack of an axe on wood. 
 Gavin was in a world by himself, and this might 
 be someone breakins: into it. 
 
 The mystery of woods by moonlight thrilled 
 the little minister. His eyes rested on the 
 shining roots, and he remembered what had 
 been told him of the legend of Caddam, how once 
 on a time it was a mighty wood, and a maiden 
 most beautiful stood on its confines, panting and
 
 72 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 t 
 
 afraid, for a wicked man pursued her ; how he 
 drew near, and she ran a little way into the 
 wood, and he followed her, and she still ran, 
 and still he followed, until both were for ever 
 lost, and the bones of her pursuer lie beneath 
 a beech, but the lady may still be heard singing 
 in the woods if the night be fine, for then she 
 is a glad spirit, but weeping when there is wild 
 wind, for then she is but a mortal seeking a 
 way out of the wood. 
 
 The squirrel slid down the fir and was gone. 
 The axe's blows ceased. Nothing that moved 
 was in sight. The wind that has its nest in 
 trees was circling around with many voices, 
 that never rose above a whisper, and were often 
 but the echo of a sigh. 
 
 Gavin was in the Caddam of past days, 
 where the beautiful maiden wanders ever, wait- 
 ing for him who is so pure that he may find 
 her. He will wander over the tree-tops looking 
 for her, with the moon for his lamp, and some 
 night he will hear her singing. The little
 
 THE EGYPTIAX. 73 
 
 minister drew a deep breath, and bis foot 
 snapped a brittle twig. Then he remembered 
 who and where he w^as, and stooped to pick up 
 his staff. But he did not pick it up, for as liis 
 fingers were closing on it the lady began to sing. 
 
 For perhaps a minute Gavnn stood stock 
 still, like an intruder. Then he ran towards 
 the singing, which seemed to come from Wind}^- 
 ghoul, a straight road through Caddani that 
 farmers use in summer, but leave in the back 
 end of the year to leaves and pools. In Windy- 
 ghoul there is either no wind or so much that it 
 rushes down the sieve like an army, entering 
 with a shriek of terror, and escaping with a 
 derisive howl. The moon was crossing the 
 avenue. But Gavin only saw the singer. 
 
 She was still fifty yards away, sometimes 
 singing gleefully, and again letting her body 
 sway lightly as she came dancing up Windy- 
 ghoul. Soon she was within a few feet of the 
 little minister, to whom singing, except when 
 out of tune, was a suspicious thing, and dancing
 
 74 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 a device of the devil. His arm weut out vvratli- 
 fiill}^, and his intention was to pronounce sen- 
 tence on this woman. 
 
 But she passed, unconscious of his presence, 
 and he had not moved nor spoken. Though 
 really of the average height, she was a little 
 thing to the eyes of Gavin, who always felt 
 tall and stout except when he looked down. 
 The grace of her swaying figure was a new 
 thins: in the world to him. Only while she 
 passed did he see her as a gleam of 
 colour, a gypsy elf poorly clad, her bare feet 
 flashing beneath a short green skirt, a twig of 
 rowan berries stuck carelessly into her black 
 hair. Her face was pale. She had an angel's 
 loveliness. Gavin shook. 
 
 Still she danced onwards, but she was very 
 human., for when she came to muddy water she 
 let her feet linger in it, and flung up her arms, 
 dancing more wantonly than before. A dia- 
 mond on her finger shot a thread of fire over 
 the pool. Undoubtedly she was the devil.
 
 THE EGYPTIAN. 75 
 
 Gavin leaped into the avenue, and she heard 
 him and looked behind. He tried to cry 
 " Woman ! " sternly, but lost the word, for now 
 she saw him, and laughed wdth her shoulders, 
 and beckoned to him, so that he shook his fist 
 at her. She tripped on, but often turning her 
 head beckoned and mocked him, and he forgot 
 his dignity and his pulpit and all other things, 
 and ran after her. Up Windy ghoul did he 
 pursue her, and it was well that the precentor 
 was not there to see. She reached the mouth of 
 the avenue, and kissing her hand to Gavin, so 
 that the ring gleamed again, was gone. 
 
 The ministers one thought w^as to find her, 
 but he searched in vain. She might be crossing 
 the hill on her way to Thrums, or perhaps she 
 was still laughing at him from behind a tree. 
 After a longer time than he was aware of, 
 Gavin realised that his boots were chirping and 
 his trousers streaked with mud. Then he aban- 
 doned the search and hastened homew^ards in a 
 rasje.
 
 76 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 From the hill to the manse the nearest way 
 is down two fields, and the little minister de- 
 scended them rapidly. Thrums, which is red 
 in daylight, was grey and still as the cemetery. 
 He had glimpses of several of its deserted 
 streets. To the south the watch- light showed 
 brightly, but no other was visible. So it 
 seemed to Gavin, and then — suddenly — he lost 
 the power to move. He had heard the horn. 
 Thrice it sounded, and thrice it struck him 
 to the heart. He looked again and saw a 
 shadow stealing along the Tenements, then 
 another, then half-a-dozen. He remembered Mr. 
 Carfrae's words, " If you ever hear that horn, 
 I implore you to hasten to the square," and in 
 another minute he had reached the Tenements. 
 
 Now again he saw the gypsy. She ran 
 past him, half-a-score of men, armed with staves 
 and pikes, at her heels. At first he thought they 
 were chasing her, but they w^ere following her as 
 a leader. Her eyes sparkled as she waved them 
 to the square w4th her arms.
 
 THE EGYPTIAN. 77 
 
 " The soldiers, the soldiers ! " was the uni- 
 versal cry. 
 
 "Who is that woman?" demanded Gavin, 
 catching hold of a frightened old man. 
 
 " Curse the Egyptian limmer," the man 
 answered, " she's egging my laddie on to fecht." 
 
 " Bless her rather," the son cried, " for warn- 
 ing us that the sojers is coming. Put your 
 ear to the ground, Mr. Dishart, and you'll hear 
 the dirl o' their feet." 
 
 The young man rushed away to the square, 
 flinging his father from him. Gavin followed. 
 As he turned into the school-wynd, the town 
 drum began to heat, windows were thrown 
 open, and sullen men ran out of closes where 
 women were screaming and trying to hold 
 them hack. At the foot of the wynd Gavin 
 passed Sanders Webster. 
 
 "' Mr. Dishart," the mole-catcher cried, " hae 
 you seen that Egyptian ? May I be struck 
 dead if it's no' her little leddysliip." 
 
 But Gavin did not hear him.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 a warlike chapter, culminating in the flouting 
 of the minister by the woman. 
 
 "Mr. Dishart!" 
 
 Jean had clutcbed at Gavin in Bank Street. 
 Her hair was streaming, and her wrapper but 
 half buttoned. 
 
 '' Oh, Mr. Dishart, look at the mistress ! I 
 couldna keep her in the manse." 
 
 Gavin saw his mother beside him, bare- 
 headed, trembling. 
 
 " How could I sit still, Gavin, and the 
 town full o' the skirls of women and bairns ? 
 Oh, Gavin, what can I do for them ? They 
 will suffer most this night." 
 
 As Gavin took her hand he knew that Mar- 
 garet felt for the people more than he. 
 
 " But you must go home, mother," he 
 said, " and leave me to do my duty. I will
 
 A WARLIKE CHAPTER. 79 
 
 take you myself if you will not go with Jean. 
 Be careful of lier, Jean." 
 
 " Ay, will I/' Jean answered, then burst 
 into tears. " Mr. Dishart," she cried, '' if they 
 take my father they'd best take my mither 
 too." 
 
 The two women went back to the manse, 
 where Jean re-lit the fire, having nothing 
 else to do, and boiled the kettle, Avhile Mar- 
 garet wandered in anguish from room to room. 
 
 Men nearly naked ran past Gravin, seeking 
 to escape from Thrums by the fields he had 
 descended. When he shouted to them they only 
 ran faster. A Tillyloss weaver whom he tried 
 to stop struck him savagely and sped past to 
 the square. In Bank Street, which was full 
 of people at one moment and empty the next, 
 the minister stumbled over old Charles Yuill. 
 
 " Take me and welcome," Yuill cried, mis- 
 taking Gavin for the enemy. He had only 
 one arm through the sleeve of his jacket, and 
 his feet were bare.
 
 80 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 " I am Mr. Dishart. Are the soldiers 
 already in the square, Yuill? " 
 
 " They'll be there in a minute." 
 
 The man was so weak that Gravin had to 
 hold him. 
 
 "Be a man, Charles. Yoa have no tiling 
 to fear. It is not such as you the soldiers have 
 come for. If need be, I can swear that you 
 had not the strength, even if you had the will, 
 to join in the weavers' riot." 
 
 " For Godsake, Mr. Dishart," Yuill cried, 
 his hands chattering on Graviri's coat, " dinna 
 swear that. My laddie was in the thick o' the 
 riot ; and if he's ta'en there's the poors-house 
 gaping for Kitty and me, for I couldna weave half 
 a web a week. If there's a warrant agin ony- 
 body o' the name o' Yuill, swear it's me ; swear 
 I'm a desperate character, swear I'm michty 
 strong for all I look palsied ; and if when they 
 take me, my courage breaks down, swear the 
 mair, swear I confessed my guilt to you on 
 the Book."
 
 A WARLIKE CHAPTER. 81 
 
 As Yuill spoke the quick rub-a-dub of a 
 drum was heard. 
 
 " The soldiers ! " Gavin let go his hold of the 
 old man, who hastened away to give himself up. 
 
 "That's no the sojers," said a woman ; ''it's 
 the folk gathering in the square. This '11 be 
 a watery Sabbath in Thrums." 
 
 " Eob Dow," shouted Gavin, as Dow flung 
 past with a scythe in his hand, " lay down 
 that scythe." 
 
 " To hell wi' religion ! " Eob retorted, fiercely; 
 
 '' it spoils a' thing." 
 
 " Lay down that scythe ; I command you." 
 
 Rob stopped undecidedly, then cast the 
 scythe from him, but its rattle on the stones 
 was more than he could bear. 
 
 *' I winna," he cried, and, picking it up, 
 ran to the square. 
 
 An upper window in Bank Street opened, 
 and Dr. McQueen put out his head. He was 
 smoking as usual. 
 
 *'Mr. Dishart," he said, ''you will return 
 
 G
 
 82 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 home at once if you are a wise man ; or, better 
 still, come in here. You can do nothing with 
 these people to-night." 
 
 " I can stop their fighting." 
 
 " You will only make black blood between 
 them and you." 
 
 " Dinna heed him, Mr. Dishart," cried some 
 women. 
 
 '' You had better heed him," cried a man. 
 
 -' I will not desert my people," Gavin said. 
 
 '' Listen, then, to my prescription," the 
 doctor replied. '' Drive that gypsy, lassie out of 
 the town before the soldiers reach it. She is fir- 
 ing the men to a red-heat through sheer devihy." 
 
 " She brocht the news, or we would have 
 been nipped in our beds," some people cried. 
 
 " Does any one know who she is ? " Gavin 
 demanded, but all shook their heads. The 
 Egyptian, as they called her, had never been 
 seen in these parts before. 
 
 " Has any other person seen the soldiers ? " 
 he asked. " Perhaps this is a false alarm."
 
 A WARLIKE CHAPTER. 83 
 
 *' Several have seen tliem within the last 
 few minutes," the doctor answered. " They 
 came from Tilliedrum, and were advancing 
 on us from the south, but when they heard 
 that we had got the alarm they stopped at the 
 top of the brae, near T'nowhead's farm. Man, 
 you would take these things more coolly if you 
 smoked." 
 
 " Show me this woman," Gavin said 
 sternly to those who had been listening. Then 
 a stream of people carried him into the 
 square. 
 
 The square has altered little, even in these 
 days of enterprise, when Tillyloss has become 
 Newton Bank, and the Craft Head Croft Ter- 
 race, with enamelled labels on them for the 
 guidance of slow people, who forget their 
 address and have to run to the end of the 
 street and look up every time they write a 
 letter. The stones on which the butter-wives 
 sat have disappeared, and with them the clay 
 walls and the outside stairs. Gone, too, is the 
 G 2
 
 84 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 stair of the town-house, from the top of which 
 tlie drummer roared the gossip of the week on 
 Sabbaths to country folk, to the scandal of all 
 who knew that the proper thing on that day 
 is to keep your blinds down ; but the town- 
 house itself, round and red, still makes exit to 
 the south troublesome. Wherever streets meet 
 the square there is a house in the centre of 
 them, and thus the heart of Thrums is a box, 
 in which the stranger finds himself suddenly, 
 wondering at first how he is to get out, and 
 presently how he got in. 
 
 To Gavin, who never before had seen a score 
 of people in the square at once, here was a sight 
 strange and terrible. Andrew Struthers, an old 
 soldier, stood on the outside stair of the town- 
 house, shouting words of command to some fifty 
 weavers, many of them scantily clad, but all 
 armed with pikes and poles. Most were known 
 to the little minister, but they wore faces that 
 were new to him. New-comers joined the body 
 every moment. If the drill was clumsy the
 
 A WARLIKE CHAPTER. 85 
 
 men were fierce. Hundreds of people gathered 
 around, some screaming, some shaking their 
 fists at the old soldier, many trying to pluck 
 their relatives out of danger. Gavin could not 
 see the Egyptian. Women and old men, fight- 
 ing for the possession of his ear, implored him 
 to disperse the armed band. He ran up the 
 town-house stair, and in a moment it had 
 become a pulpit. 
 
 " Dinna dare to interfere, Mr. Dishart," 
 Struthers said savagely. 
 
 *' Andrew Struthers," said Gravin solemnly, 
 " in the name of God I order you to leave me 
 alone. If you don't," he added ferociously, 
 " I'll fling you over the stair." 
 
 " Dinna heed him, Andrew," some one 
 shouted ; and another cried, " He canna under- 
 stand our sufferings ; he has dinner ilka 
 day." 
 
 Struthers faltered, however, and Gavin cast 
 his eye over the armed men. 
 
 " Rob Dow," he said, " William Carmichael,
 
 86 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 Thomas Whamond, William Munn, Alexander 
 Hobbart, Henders Haggart, step forward/' 
 
 These were Aiild Lichts, and when they 
 found that the minister would not take his 
 eyes off them, they obeyed, all save Eob 
 Dow. 
 
 " Never mind him, Eob," said the atheist, 
 Cruickshanks, " it 's better playing cards in hell 
 than singing psalms in heaven." 
 
 " Joseph Cruickshanks," responded Gravin 
 grimly, " you will find no cards down there." 
 
 Then Eob also came to the foot of the stair. 
 There was some angry muttering from the 
 crowed, and young Charles Yuill exclaimed, 
 '' Curse you, would you lord it ower us on 
 week-days as weel as on Sabbaths ? " 
 
 " Lay down your weapons," Gavin said to 
 the six men. 
 
 They looked at each other. Hobbart slipped 
 his pike behind his back. 
 
 " I hae no weapon," he said slily. 
 
 " Let me hae my fling this nicht," Dow
 
 A WARLIKE CHAPTER. 87 
 
 entreated, "and I'll promise to bide sober for 
 a twelvemonth." 
 
 " Oh, Eob, Rob ! " the minister said bitterl}^ 
 " are you the man I prayed with a few hours 
 ago.^ 
 
 The scythe fell from Rob's hands. 
 
 " Down wi' your pikes," he roared to his 
 companions, '' or I'll brain you w^i' them." 
 
 '•' Ay, lay them down," the precentor whis- 
 pered, " but keep your feet on them." 
 
 Then the minister, who was shaking with 
 excitement, though he did not know it, 
 stretched forth his arms for silence, and it 
 came so suddenly as to frighten the peoj^le in 
 ihe neighbouring streets. 
 
 *' If he prays we're done for," cried young 
 Charles Yuill, but even in that hour many of 
 the people unbonneted. 
 
 " Oh, Thou who art the Lord of hosts," 
 Gavin prayed, " we are in Thy hands this night. 
 These are Thy people, and they have sinned, 
 but Thou art a merciful God, and they were
 
 88 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 sore tried, and knew not what they did. To 
 Thee, our God, we turn for deliverance, for 
 without Thee we are lost." 
 
 The little minister's prayer was heard all 
 round the square, and many weapons were 
 dropped as an Amen to it. 
 
 *' If you fight," cried Gavin, brightening 
 as he heard the clatter of the iron on the 
 stones, '' your wives and children may be shot 
 in the streets. These soldiers have come for a 
 dozen of ^^ou ; will you be benefited if they 
 take away a hundred ? " 
 
 " Oh, hearken to him," cried many women. 
 
 " I winna," answered a man, '' for I'm ane 
 o' the dozen. Whaur's the Egyptian ? " 
 
 ^' Here." 
 
 Gavin saw the crowd open, and the woman 
 of Windyghoul come out of it, and, while he 
 should have denounced her, he only blinked, 
 for once more her loveliness struck him full 
 in the eyes. She was beside him on the stair 
 before he became a minister again.
 
 A WARLIKE CHAPTER. 89 
 
 "How dare you, w^oman?" he cried; but 
 she flung a rowan berry at him. 
 
 " If I were a man," she exclaimed, address- 
 ing the people, " I wouldna let mysel be 
 catched like a mouse in a trap." 
 
 '* We winna," some answered. 
 
 "What kind o' women are you," cried the 
 Egyptian, her face gleaming as she turned to her 
 own sex, " that bid your men folk gang to gaol 
 when a bold front w^ould lead them to safety ? 
 Do you want to be husbandless and hame- 
 less ? " 
 
 " Disperse, I command you ! " cried Gavin. 
 " This abandoned woman is inciting you to riot." 
 
 " Dinna heed this little man," the Egyptian 
 retorted. 
 
 It is curious to know that even at that 
 anxious moment Gravin winced because she 
 called him little. 
 
 " She has the face of a mischief-maker," he 
 shouted, " and her words are evil." 
 
 " You men and women o' Thrums," she
 
 90 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 responded, *' ken that I wisli you weel by the 
 service I hae done you this nicht. Wha telled 
 you the sojers was coming ? " 
 
 " It was you ; it was you ! " 
 
 " Ay, and mony a mile I ran to bring the 
 news. Listen, and I'll tell you mair." 
 
 " She has a false tongue," Gavin cried ; 
 " listen not to the brazen woman." 
 
 "What I have to tell," she said, "is as true 
 as what I've telled already, and how true that 
 is you a ken. You're wondering how the 
 sojers has come to a stop at the tap o' 
 the brae instead o' marching on the town. 
 Here's the reason. They agreed to march 
 straucht to the square if the alarm wasna given, 
 but if it was they were to break into small 
 bodies and surround the town so that you 
 couldna get out. That's what they're doing 
 
 now." 
 
 At this the screams were redoubled, and 
 man}^ men lifted the weapons they had 
 dropped.
 
 A WARLIKE CHAPTER. 91 
 
 " Believe lier not," cried Gavin. '' How 
 could a wandering gypsy know all this?" 
 
 " Ay, how can you ken ? " some de- 
 manded. 
 
 " It's enough that I do ken," the Egyptian 
 answered. " And this mair I ken, that the 
 captain of the soldiers is confident he'll nab 
 every one o' you that^s wanted unless you do 
 one thing." 
 
 " What is 't ? " 
 
 " If you a' run different ways you're lost, 
 but if you keep thegither you'll be able to 
 force a road into the country, whaur 3^ou can 
 scatter. That's what he's field you'll do." 
 
 " Then it's what we will do." 
 
 " It is what you will not do," Gavin said 
 passionately. " The truth is not in this wicked 
 woman." 
 
 But scarcely had he spoken when he knew 
 that startling news had readied the square. 
 A murmur arose on the skirts of the mob, 
 and swept with the roar of the sea towards
 
 92 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 the town-house. A detachment of the soldiers 
 were marching down the Roods from the 
 north. 
 
 " There's some coming frae the east-town 
 end/' was the next intelligence, " and they've 
 gripped Sanders Webster, and auld Charles 
 Yuill has gien himsel' up." 
 
 " You see, you see," the gypsy said, flash- 
 ing triumph at Gavin. 
 
 " Lay down your weapons," Gavin cried, 
 but his power over the people had gone. 
 
 " The Egyptian spoke true," they shouted ; 
 " dinna heed the minister." 
 
 Gavin tried to seize the gypsy by the 
 shoulders, but she slipped past him down the 
 stair, and crying '' Follow me ! " ran round 
 the town-house and down the brae. 
 
 " Woman ! " he shouted after her, but she 
 only waved her arms scornfully. The people 
 followed her, many of the men still grasping 
 their weapons, but all in disorder. Within 
 a minute after Gavin saw the gleam of the
 
 A WARLIKE CHAPTER. 93 
 
 ring on her finger, as she waved her hands, 
 he and Dow were alone in the square. 
 
 " She's an awfu' woman that," Eob said. 
 " I saw her lauching.'* 
 
 Gavin ground his teeth. 
 
 " Rob Dow," he said, slowly, '' if I had not 
 found Christ I would have throttled that 
 woman. You saw how she flouted me ? "
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 IS WHICH THE SOLDIERS MEET THE AMAZONS 01? 
 
 THRUMS. 
 
 Dow looked shamefacedly at the minister, and 
 then set off up the square. 
 
 " Where are you going, Bob ? " 
 
 " To gie myself up. I maun do something 
 to let you see there's one man in Thrums that 
 has mair faith in you than in a fliskraahoy." 
 
 '' And only one, Rob. But I don't know 
 that they want to arrest you." 
 
 " Ay, I had a hand in tying the polissman 
 to the " 
 
 " I want to hear nothing about that," Gavin 
 said, quickly. 
 
 "Willi hide, then?" 
 
 "I dare not advise you to do that. It 
 would be wrong." 
 
 Half a score of fugitives tore past the town- 
 house, and were out of sight without a cry.
 
 THE AMAZONS OF THRUMS. 95 
 
 There was a tread of heavier feet, and a dozen 
 soldiers, with several policemen and two pri- 
 soners, appeared suddenly on the north side of 
 the square. 
 
 " Eob," cried the minister in desperation, 
 '' run ! " 
 
 When the soldiers reached the town-house, 
 where they locked up their prisoners, Dow was 
 skulking eastward, and Graviu running down 
 the brae. 
 
 '' They're fechting," he was told, " they're 
 fechting on the brae, the sojers is firing, a man's 
 killed ! " 
 
 But this was an exaggeration. 
 
 The brae, though short, is very steep. There 
 is a hedge on one side of it, from which the 
 land falls away, and on the other side a hillock. 
 Gravin reached the scene to see the soldiers 
 marching down the brae, guarding a small body 
 of policemen. The armed weavers were retreat- 
 ing before them. A hundred women or more 
 were on the hillock, shrieking and gesticulating.
 
 96 , THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 Gavin joined them, calling on them not to fling 
 the stones they had begun to gather. 
 
 The armed men broke into a rabble, flung 
 down their weapons, and fled back towards the 
 town-house. Here they almost ran against the 
 soldiers in the square, who again forced them 
 into the brae. Finding themselves about to be 
 wedged between the two forces, some crawled 
 through the hedge, where they were instantly 
 seized by policemen. Others sought to climb 
 up the hillock and then escape into the 
 country. The policemen clambered after them. 
 The men were too frightened to fight, but a 
 woman seized a policeman by the waist and 
 flung him head foremost among the soldiers. 
 One of these shouted " Fire ! " but the captain 
 cried "No." Then came showers of missiles 
 from the women. They stood their ground and 
 defended the retreat of the scared men. 
 
 Who flung the first stone is not known, but 
 it is believed to have been the Egyptian. The 
 policemen were recalled, and the whole body
 
 THE AMAZONS OF THRUMS. 97 
 
 ordered to advance down the brae. Thus the 
 weavers who had not escaped at once were 
 driven before them, and soon hemmed in 
 between the two bodies of soldiers, Avhen thev 
 were easily captured. But for two minutes 
 there was a thick shower of stones and clods 
 of earth. 
 
 It was ever afterwards painful to Gavin to 
 recall this scene, but less on account of the 
 shower of stones than because of the flight of 
 one divit in it. He had been watching- the 
 handsome young captain, Halliweli, riding with 
 his men ; admiring him, too, for his coolness. 
 This coolness exasperated the gypsy, who twice 
 flung at Halliwell and missed him. He rode 
 on smiling contemptuously. 
 
 " Oh, if I could only fling straight ! " the 
 Egyptian moaned. 
 
 Then she saw the minister by her side, and 
 in the tick of a clock something happened that 
 can never be explained. For the moment Gavin 
 was so lost in misery over the probable effect of 
 
 H
 
 98 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 the night's noting that he had forgotten where 
 he was. Suddenly the Egyptian's beautiful face 
 was close to his, and she pressed a divit into his 
 hand, at the same time pointing at the officer, 
 and whispering " Hit him." 
 
 Gavin flung the clod of earth, and hit 
 Hall i well on the head. 
 
 I say I cannot explain this. I tell what 
 happened, and add with thankfulness that only 
 the Egyptian witnessed the deed. Gavin, 
 I suppose, had flung the divit before he 
 could stay his hand. Then he shrank in 
 horror. 
 
 " Woman ! " he cried asrain. 
 
 " You are a dear," she said, and vanished. 
 
 By the time Gavin was breathing freely 
 again the lock-up was crammed with prisoners, 
 and the Hiot Act had been read from the town- 
 house stair. It is still remembered that the 
 baron-bailie, to whom this duty fell, had got no 
 further than, " Victoria, by the Grace of God," 
 when the paper was struck out of his hands.
 
 THE AMAZONS OF THRUMS. 99 
 
 When a stirring event occurs up here we 
 smack our lips over it for months, and so I 
 could still write a history of that memorahle 
 night in Thrums. I could tell how the doctor, 
 a man whose shoulders often looked as if 
 the}^ had been caught in a shower of tobacco 
 ash, brought me the news to the school-house, 
 and how, when I crossed the fields to durn- 
 founder Waster Lunny with it, I found Birse, 
 the post, reeling off the story to him as fast 
 as a fisher could let out line. I know who 
 was the first woman on the Marj^well brae to 
 hear the horn, and how she w^oke her husband, 
 and who heard it first at the Denhead and tlie 
 Tenements, with what they immediately said 
 and did. I had from Dite Deuchar's own lips 
 the curious story of his sleepiog placidly 
 throughout the whole disturbance, and on 
 wakening in the morning yoking to his loom 
 as usual ; and also his statement that such ill- 
 luck was enough to shake a man's faith iii 
 religion. The police had knowledge that 
 H 2
 
 100 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 enabled them to go straight to the houses of 
 the weavers wanted, but they sometimes brought 
 away the wrong man, for such of the people 
 as did not escape from the town had swopped 
 houses for the night — a trick that served them 
 better than all their drilling on the hill. Old 
 Yuill's son escaped by burjdng himself in a 
 peat-rick, and Snecky Hobart by pretending 
 that he was a sack of potatoes. Less fortunate 
 was Sanders Webster, the mole-catcher already 
 mentioned. Sanders was really an innocent 
 man. He had not even been in Thrums on the 
 night of the rising against the manufacturers, 
 but thinking that the outbreak was to be left 
 impunished, he wanted his share in the glory 
 of it. So he had boasted of being a ringleader 
 until many believed him, including the authori- 
 ties. His braggadocio undid him. He was 
 run to earth in a pig-sty, and got nine months. 
 With the other arrests I need not concern my- 
 self, for they have no part in the story of the 
 little minister.
 
 THE AMAZONS OF THRUMS. 101 
 
 While Gavin was with the families wliose 
 breadwinners were now in the lock-up, a cell 
 that was usually crammed on fair nights and 
 empty for the rest of the year, the sheriff 
 and Halliwell were in the round-room of the 
 town-house, not in a good temper. They spoke 
 loudly, and some of their words sank into the 
 cell below. 
 
 *' The whole thing has been a fiasco," the 
 sheriff was heard saying, " owing to our failing 
 to take them by surprise. Why, three-fourths 
 of those taken will have to be liberated, and 
 we have let the worst offenders slip through 
 our hands." 
 
 " Well," answered Halliwell, who was wear- 
 ing a heavy cloak, "I have brought your 
 policemen into the place, and that is all I 
 undertook to do." 
 
 " You brought them, but at the expense 
 of alarmins: the countrv-side. I wish we had 
 come without you." 
 
 "Nonsense! My men advanced like ghosts.
 
 102 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 Could your police have come down tliat brae 
 alone to-night ? " 
 
 '* Yes, because it would have been deserted. 
 Your soldiers, I tell you, have done the mis- 
 chief. This woman, who, so many of our 
 prisoners admit, brought the news of our coming, 
 must either have got it from one of your men 
 or have seen them on the march." 
 
 " The men did not know their destination. 
 True, she might have seen us despite our pre- 
 cautions, but you forget that she told them 
 how we were to act in the event of our being 
 seen. That is what perplexes me." 
 
 " Yes, and me too, for it was a close secret 
 between you and me and Lord Rintoul and 
 not half-a-dozen others." 
 
 " Well, find the woman, and we shall get 
 the explanation. If she is still in the town 
 she cannot escape, for my men are every- 
 where." 
 
 "She was seen ten minutes ago." 
 
 " Then she is ours. I say, lliach, if I were
 
 THE AMAZONS OF THRL'MS. 103 
 
 you I would set all my prisoners free and 
 take away a cartload of their wives instead. 
 I liave only seen the hacks of the men of 
 Thrums, hut, on my word, I very nearly ran 
 away from the women. Hallo ! I helieve one 
 of your police has caught our virago single- 
 handed." 
 
 So Halliwell exclaimed, hearing some one 
 shout, " This is the rascal ! " But it was not 
 the Egyptian who was then thrust into the 
 round-room. It was John Dunwoodie, look- 
 ing very sly. Prohably there was not, even 
 in Thrums, a cannier man than Dunwoodie. 
 His religious views were those of Cruickshanks, 
 but he went res^ularlv to church '• on the off- 
 chance of there being a God after all ; so I'm 
 safe, whatever side may be wrong." 
 
 " This is the man," explained a policeman, 
 " who brought the alarm. He admits himself 
 having been in Tilliedrum just before we started." 
 
 *' Your name, my man ? " the sheriff de- 
 manded.
 
 104 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 "Tt miclifc be John Daiiwoodie," the tin- 
 smith answered cautiously. 
 
 ^' But is it?" 
 
 " I dinna say it's no." 
 
 " You were in TiUiedrnm this evening: ? " 
 
 " I micht hae heen." 
 
 '' Were you ? " 
 
 " I'll swear to nothing." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 *' Because I'm a canny man." 
 
 " Into the cell with him," Halliwell cried, 
 losing patience. 
 
 "Leave him to me," said the sheriff.' "I 
 understand the sort of man. Now, Dunwoodie, 
 what were you doing in Tilliedrum ? " 
 
 " I was taking my laddie down to be pren- 
 tlced to a writer there," answered Dunwoodie, 
 fallino- into the sheriff's net. 
 
 " What are you yourself? " 
 
 " 1 micht be a tinsmith to trade." 
 
 ^'And you, a mere tinsmith, dare to tell 
 me that a lawyer was willing to take your
 
 THE AMAZONS OF THRUMS. 105 
 
 son into his office ? Be cautious, Dun- 
 vvoodie." 
 
 " Weelj then, the laddie's highly edicated 
 and T hae siller, and that's how the writer was 
 to take him and make a gentleman o' him." 
 
 " I learn from the neighbours," the police- 
 man explained, " that this is partly true, but 
 what makes us suspect him is this. He left the 
 laddie at Tilliedrum, and yet when he came 
 home the first person he sees at the fireside is 
 the laddie himself. The laddie had run home, 
 and the reason plainly was that he had heard 
 of our preparations and wanted to alarm the 
 town." 
 
 "There seems something in this, Dunwoodie," 
 the sheriff said, " and if you cannot explain it I 
 must keep you in custody." 
 
 " I'll make a clean breast o't,'' Dunwoodie 
 replied, seeing that in this matter truth was 
 best. " The laddie was terrible a^rainst beinof 
 made a gentleman, and when he saw the kind o' 
 life he would hae to lead, clean hands, clean
 
 106 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 dickies, and no gubters on his breeks, his heart 
 took mair scunner at genfceelity than ever, 
 and he ran hame. Ay, I was mad when I saw 
 him at the fireside, but he says to me, 
 * How would you like to be a gentleman yoursel', 
 father? ' he savs, and that so affected me 'at 
 I'm to gie him his ain wa}^" 
 
 Another prisoner, Dave Langlands, was con- 
 fronted with Dunwoodie. 
 
 " John Dunwoodie's as innocent as I am 
 mysel," Dave said, " and I'm most michty 
 innocent. It wasna John but the Egyptian 
 that gave the alarm. I tell you what, sheriff, 
 if it'll make me innocenter-like I'll picture the 
 Egyptian to you just as I saw her, and syne 
 you'll be able to catch her easier." 
 
 " You are an honest fellow," said the sheriff. 
 
 " I only wish I had the whipping of him," 
 growled Halliwell, who was of a generous 
 nature. 
 
 " For what business had she," continued 
 Dave righteously, " to meddle in other folks'
 
 (( 
 
 K 
 
 THE AMAZONS OF THRUMS. 107 
 
 business ? She's no a Thrums lassie, and so I 
 say, ' Let the law take its course on her.' " 
 
 " Will you listen to such a cur, Riacli ? " 
 asked Halliwell. 
 
 " Certainly. Speak out, Langlands." 
 
 '' Weel, then, I was in the windmill the 
 nicht/' 
 
 You were a watcher ? " 
 I happened to be in the windmill wi' 
 another man," Dave went on, avoiding the 
 officer's question. 
 
 "What was his name?" demanded Halli- 
 well. 
 
 " It was the Egyptian I was to tell you 
 about," Dave said, looking to the sheriff. 
 
 " Ah, yes, you only tell tales about women," 
 said Halliwell. 
 
 " Strange women," corrected Dave. " Weel, 
 we was there, and it would maybe be twal 
 o'clock, and we was speaking (but about lawful 
 things) when we heard some ane running yont 
 the road. I keeked through a hole in the door,
 
 108 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 and I saw it was an Egyptian lassie 'at I had 
 never clapped een on afore. She saw the licht 
 in the window, and she cried, ' Hie, you billies 
 in the windmill, the sojers is coming ! ' I fell 
 in a fricht, but the other man opened the door, 
 and again she cries, ' The sojers is coming ; 
 quick, or you'll be ta'en.' At that the other 
 man up wi' his bonnet and ran, but I didna 
 make off so smart." 
 
 " You had to pick yourself up first," sug- 
 srested the officer. 
 
 " Sal, it was the lassie picked me up ; ay, 
 and she picked up a horn at the same time." 
 
 " ' Blaw on that,' she cried, ' and alarm the 
 town.' But, sheriff, T didna do't. Na, I had 
 ower muckle respect for the law." 
 
 " In other words," said Halliwell, " vou also 
 bolted, and left the gyp^y to blow the horn 
 herself." 
 
 " I dinna deny but what I made my feet ray 
 friend, but it wasna her that blew the horn. 
 I ken that, for I looked back and saw her trying
 
 THE AMAZONS OF THRUMS. 109 
 
 to do't, but she couldaa, she diclna ken the 
 way." 
 
 " Then who did blow it ? " 
 
 " The first man slie met, I suppose. We 
 a' kent tliat the horn was to be the signal 
 except Wearywarld. He's police, so we kept it 
 frae him." 
 
 " That is all you saw of the woman ? " 
 
 " Ay, for I ran straucht to my garret, and 
 there your men took me. Can I gae hame now, 
 sheriff? " 
 
 " No, you cannot. Describe the woman's 
 appearance." 
 
 " She had a heap o' rowan berries stuck in 
 her hair, and, I think, she had on a green 
 wrapper and a red shawl. She had a most 
 extraordinar face. 1 canna exact describe it, 
 for she would be lauchin' one second and svne 
 solemn the next. I tell you her face changed as 
 quick as you could turn the pages o' a book. 
 Ay, here comes Weary warld to speak up for 
 
 >3 
 
 me.
 
 110 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 Weary world entered cheerfully. 
 
 '' This is the local policeman/' a Tilliedrum 
 officer said ; " we have been searching for him 
 everywhere, and only found him now." 
 
 " Where have you b3en? " asked the sheriff, 
 wrathfully. 
 
 " Whaur maist honest men is at this hour," 
 replied Wearyworld; "in my bed." 
 
 " How dared you ignore your duty at such 
 a time ? " 
 
 " It's a long story," the policeman answered, 
 pleasantly, in anticipation of a talk at last. 
 
 " Answer me in a word." 
 
 '' In a word ! " cried the policeman, quite 
 crestfallen. " It canna be done. You'll need 
 to cross-examine me, too. It's my lawful 
 richt." 
 
 " I'll take you to the Tilliedrum gaol for 
 your share in this night's work if you do not 
 speak to the purpose. Why did you not hasten 
 to our assistance ? " 
 
 " As sure as death I never kent you was
 
 THE AMAZONS OF THRUMS. Ill 
 
 here. I was up the Eoods on my rounds when 
 I heard an avvfu' din down in the square, and 
 thinks I, there's rough characters about, and 
 the place for honest folk is their bed. So to 
 my bed I gaed, and I was in't when your men 
 gripped me." 
 
 " We must see into this before w^e leave. 
 In the meantime you wall act as a guide to 
 my searchers. Stop ! Do you know anything 
 of this Egj^ptian ? " 
 
 "What EgyjDtian? Is't a lassie wu' row^ans 
 in her hair ? " 
 
 " The same. Have you seen her ? " 
 
 " That I have. There's nothino^ ao^in her, 
 is there ? Whatever it is, I'll uphaud she didna 
 do 't, for a simpler, franker-spoken crittur 
 couldua be." 
 
 '' Never mind what I want her for. When 
 did 3^ou see her? " 
 
 " It w^ould be about twal o'clock," be^'an 
 Weary wo rid unctuously, '* when I was in the 
 Koods, ay, no lang afore I heard the disturbance
 
 112 THE LITTI.E MINISTER. 
 
 in the square. I was standing in the middle 
 o' the road, wondering how the door o' the 
 windmill was swinging open, when she came 
 up to me. 
 
 " ' A fine nicht for the time o' year,' I says 
 to her, for nohody but the minister had spoken 
 to me a' day. 
 
 " ' A very fine nicht,' says she, very frank, 
 though she was breathing quick like as if she 
 had been running. ' You'll be police ? ' says 
 she. 
 
 " ' I am,' says I, ' and wha be you ? ' 
 
 " ' I'm just a puir gypsy lassie,' she says. 
 
 " ' And what's that in your hand ? ' says I. 
 
 " ' It's a horn I found in the wood,' says she, 
 ' but it's rusty and winna blaw.' 
 
 " I laughed at her ignorance, and says T, 
 ' I warrant I could blaw it.' 
 
 '' ' I din Da believe you,' says she. 
 
 " ' Gie me baud o't,' says I, and she gae it 
 to me, and I blew some bonny blasts on't. Aj, 
 you see she didna ken the way o't. ' Thank
 
 THE AMAZONS OV THRUMS. 113 
 
 you kindly,' says she, and sbe ran awa with- 
 out even minding to take the horn back 
 again." 
 
 " You incredible idiot 1 '' cried the sheriff. 
 " Then it was you who gave the alarm?" 
 
 " What hae I done to madden you ? " honest 
 Wearyworld asked in perplexity. 
 
 '' Get out of my sight, sir ! " roared the 
 sheriff. 
 
 But the captain laughed. 
 
 "I like your doughty policeman, Riach," 
 he said. "Hie, obliging friend, let us hear 
 how this gypsy struck you. How was she 
 dressed ? " 
 
 " She was snod, but no unca snod," replied 
 Wearyworld, stiffly. 
 
 " I don't understand you." 
 
 " I mean she was couthie, but no sair in 
 order." 
 
 " What on earth is that ? " 
 
 "Weel, a tasty stocky, but gey orra put 
 
 on."
 
 114 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 " What language are you speaking, you 
 
 enigma 
 
 P" 
 
 "I'm saying she was naturally a bonny 
 bit kimmer rather than happit up to the 
 
 nines." 
 
 " Oh, go away," cried Halliwell ; whereupon 
 Wearyworld descended the stair haughtily, 
 declaring that the sheriff was an unreasonable 
 man, and that he was a queer captain who did 
 not understand the English language. 
 
 "Can I gae hame now, sheriff?" asked 
 Langlands, hopefully. 
 
 " Take this fellow back to his cell," Eiach 
 directed, shortly, " and whatever else you do, 
 see that you capture this woman. Halliwell, 
 I am going out to look for her myself. Con- 
 found it, what are you laughing at? " 
 
 " At the way this vixen has slipped through 
 your fingers." 
 
 " Not quite that, sir, not quite that. She 
 is in Thrums still, and I swear I'll have her 
 before day breaks. See to it, Halliwell, that
 
 THE AMAZONS OF THRUMS. 115 
 
 if she is brought here in my absence she does 
 not slip through your fingers." 
 
 '' If she is brought here," said HalHwell, 
 mocking him, ''you must return and protect 
 me. It would be cruelty to leave a poor soldier 
 in the hands of a woman of Thrums." 
 
 '' She is not a Thrums woman. You have 
 been told so a dozen times." 
 
 *' Then I am not afraid." 
 
 In the round-rootn (which is oblong) there is 
 a throne on which the bailie sits when he dis- 
 penses justice. It is swathed in red cloths that 
 give it the appearance of a pulpit. Left to him- 
 self, H alii well flung off his cloak and taking a 
 chair near this dais rested his legs on the bare 
 wooden table, one on each side of the lamp. 
 He was still in this position when the door 
 opened, and two policemen thrust the Egyptian 
 into the room. 
 
 1 2
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HAS TJiE FOLLY OF LOOKING INTO A WOMAn's 
 EYES BY WAY OF TEKT. 
 
 " This is the woman, captain," one of the 
 policemen said in triumph, " and, begging your 
 pardon, will you keep a grip of her till the 
 sheriff comes back ? " 
 
 Halliwell did not turn his head. 
 
 " You can leave her here," he said carelessly. 
 " Three of us are not needed to guard a woman." 
 
 " But she's a slippery customer." 
 
 ''You can go," said Halliwell; and the 
 policemen withdrew slowly, eyeing their pri- 
 soner doubtfully until the door closed. Then 
 the officer wheeled round languidly, expecting 
 to find the Egyptian gaunt and muscular. 
 
 " Now then," he drawled, " why By 
 
 Jove ! " 
 
 The gallant soldier was as much taken
 
 A ^yOMAN's EYES. 117 
 
 aback as if he had turned to find a pistol at his 
 ear. He took his feet off the table. Yet he 
 only saw the gypsy's girlish figure in its red 
 and green, for she had covered her face with 
 her hands. She was looking at him intently 
 between her fingers, but he did not know this. 
 All he did want to know just then was what 
 was behind the hands. 
 
 Before he spoke again she had perhaps 
 made up her mind about him, for she began 
 to sob bitterly. At the same time she slipped 
 a finger over her ring. 
 
 " AVhy don't you look at me ? " asked Halli- 
 well, selfishly. 
 
 " I daurna." 
 
 "Am I so fearsome ? " 
 
 *' You're a sojer, and you would shoot me 
 like a craw." 
 
 Halliwell laughed, and taking her wrists 
 in his hands, uncovered her face. 
 
 '' Oh, by Jove ! " he said again, but this 
 time to himself.
 
 118 THE LIITLE MINISTER. 
 
 As for the Egyptian, slie slid the ring into 
 lier pocket, and fell back before the officer's 
 magnificence. 
 
 " Oh," she cried, "is all sojers like you? " 
 
 There was such admiration in her eyes that 
 it would have been self-contempt to doubt her. 
 Yet having smiled complacently, Halliwell 
 became uneasy. 
 
 '' Who on earth are you? " he asked, finding 
 it wise not to look her in the face. " Why do 
 you not answer me more quickly ? " 
 
 " Dinna be angry at that, captain," the 
 Egyptian implored. " I promised my mither 
 aye to count twenty afore I spoke, because she 
 thocht I was ower glib. Captain, how is't 
 that you're so fleid to look at me ? " 
 
 Thus put on his mettle, Halliwell again 
 faced her, with the result that his question 
 changed to " Where did you get those eyes ? " 
 Then was he indignant with himself. 
 
 " What I want to know," he explained 
 severely, "is how you were able to acquaint the
 
 A woman's eyes. 119 
 
 Thrums people with our movements ? That 
 you must tell me at once, for the sheriff blames 
 my soldiers. Come now, no counting twenty ! " 
 
 He was pacing the room now, and she had 
 her face to herself.. It said several things, 
 among them that the officer evidently did not 
 like this charge against his men. 
 
 "Does the shirra blame the sojers?" ex- 
 claimed this quick- w^itted Egyptian. " Wee), 
 that cows, for he has nane to blame but him- 
 sel'." 
 
 "What!" cried Halliwell, delighted. "It 
 was the sheriff who told tales ? Answer me. 
 You are counting a hundred this time." 
 
 Perhaps the gypsy had two reasons for with- 
 holding her answer. If so, one of them was 
 that as the sheriff had told nothing, slie had a 
 story to make up. The other was that she 
 wanted to strike a bargain with the officer. 
 
 " If I tell you," she said eagerly, " will you 
 set me free ? " 
 
 " I may ask the sheriff to do so."
 
 120 THK LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 '' But lie mauna see me," the Egyptian said 
 in distress. '' There's reasons, captain." 
 
 " Why, surely you have not been before 
 him on other occasions," said Halliwell, sur- 
 prised. 
 
 " No in the way you mean," muttered the 
 gypsy, and for the moment her eyes twinkled. 
 But the light in them went out when she 
 remembered that the sheriff was near, and she 
 looked desperately at the window as if ready to 
 fling herself from it. She had very good 
 reasons for not wishing to be seen by Eiach, 
 though fear that he would put her in gaol was 
 not one of them. 
 
 Halliwell thought it was the one cause of 
 her woe, and great Avas his desire to turn the 
 tables on the sheriff. 
 
 " Tell me the truth," he said, " and I pro- 
 mise to befriend you." 
 
 " Weel, then," the gypsy said, hoping still 
 to soften his heart, and making up her story as 
 she told it, " yestreen I met the shirra, and he
 
 A Avo man's eyes. 121 
 
 telled me a' I liae telled the Thrums folk this 
 nicht." 
 
 " You can scarcely expect me to believe that. 
 Where did you meet him ? " 
 
 " In Glen Quharity. He was riding on a 
 horse." 
 
 '' Well, I allow he was there yesterday, and 
 on horseback. He was on his way back to 
 Tilliedrum from Lord Eintoul's place. But 
 don't tell me that he took a gypsy girl into his 
 confidence." 
 
 " Ay, he did, without kenning. He was 
 gieing his horse a drink when I met him, and 
 he let me tell him his fortune. He said he 
 would gaol me for an impostor if I didna tell 
 him true, so I gaed about it cautiously, 
 and after a minute or twa I telled him he was 
 coming to Thrums the nicht to nab the rioters." 
 
 " You are trifling with me," interposed the 
 indignant soldier. '' You promised to tell me 
 not what you said to the sherifl*, but how he dis- 
 closed our movements to you."
 
 122 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 " And tliat's just what I am telling you, 
 only you hinna the rumelgumption to see it. 
 How do you think fortunes is telled ? First we 
 get out o' the man, without his seeing what 
 we're after, a' about himsel', and syne we 
 repeat it to him. That's what I did wi' the 
 shirra." 
 
 " You drew the whole thing out of him 
 without his knowing ? " 
 
 '' 'Deed I did, and he rode awa' saying I 
 was a witch." 
 
 The soldier heard with the delight of a 
 schoolboy. 
 
 " Now if the sheriff does not liberate 3^ou at 
 my request," he said, " I will never let him hear 
 the end of this story. He was right ; you are 
 a witch. You deceived the sheriff: yes, un- 
 doubtedly you are a witch." 
 
 He looked at her with fun in his face, but 
 the fun disappeared, and a wondering admiration 
 took its place. 
 
 " By Jove ! " he said, " I don't w^onder you
 
 A woman's eyes. 123 
 
 bewitched the sheriff. I must take care or you 
 will bewitch the captain, too." 
 
 At this notion he smiled, but he also ceased 
 looking at her. Suddenly the Egyptian again 
 began to cry. 
 
 "You're angry wi' me," she sobbed. "I 
 wish I had never set e'en on you." 
 
 " Why do you wish that ? " Halliwell asked. 
 
 " Fine you ken," she answered, and again 
 covered her face with her hands. 
 
 He looked at her undecidedly. 
 
 " I am not angry with you," he said, gently. 
 '' You are an extraordinary girl." 
 
 Had he really made a conquest of this beau- 
 tiful creature ? Her words said so, but had he? 
 The captain could not make up his mind. 
 He gnawed his moustache in doubt. 
 
 There was silence, save for the Egyptian's 
 sobs. Halliwell's heart was touched, and he 
 drew nearer her. 
 
 " My poor girl " 
 
 He stopped. Was she crying? Was she
 
 124 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 not JaugliiDg at him rather? He becam(^ 
 red. 
 
 The gypsy peeped at hmi between her 
 fingers, and saw that he was of two minds. She 
 let her hands fall from her face, and undoubtedly 
 there were tears on her cheeks. 
 
 " If you're no angry wi' me," she said, sadly, 
 ''' how will you no look at me ? " 
 
 " I am looking at you now." 
 
 He was very close to her, and staring into 
 her wonderful eyes. I am older than the Cap- 
 tain, and those eyes have dazzled me. 
 
 " Captain dear." 
 
 She put her hand in his. His chest rose. 
 He knew she was seeking to beguile him, but he 
 could not take his eyes off hers. He was in a 
 worse plight than a woman listening to the first 
 whisper of love. 
 
 Now she was further from him, but the spell 
 held. She reached the door, without taking 
 her eyes from his face. For several seconds he 
 had been as a man mesmerised.
 
 A woman's eyes. 125 
 
 Jusfc in time he came to. It was wlien she 
 turned from him to find tlie handle of the door. 
 She was turning it when liis hand fell on hers 
 so suddenly that she screamed. He twisted her 
 round. 
 
 "Sit down there," he said hoarsely, pointing 
 to the chair upon which he had flung his cloak. 
 She dared not disobey. Then he leant against 
 the door, his back to her, for just then he 
 wanted no one to see his face. The gypsy sat 
 ver}^ still and a little frightened. 
 
 Halliwell opened the door presently, and 
 called to the soldier on duty below. 
 
 " Davidson, see if you can find the sheriff. 
 I want him. And Davidson '* 
 
 The captain paused. 
 
 " Yes," he muttered, and the old soldier 
 marvelled at his words, " it is better. David- 
 son, lock this door on the outside." 
 
 Davidson did as he was ordered, and ai^aln 
 the Egyptian was left alone with Halliwell. 
 
 " Afraid of a woman ! " she said, con-
 
 126 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 temptuously, thougli her heart sank when she 
 heard the key turn in the lock. 
 
 " I admit it," he answered, calmly. 
 
 He walked up and down the room, and she 
 sat silently watching him. 
 
 *' That story of yours about the sheriff was 
 not true," he eaid at last. 
 
 " I suspect it wasna," answered the Egyptian 
 coolly. " Hae you been thinking about it a' 
 this time ? Captain, 1 could tell you what 
 you're thinking now. You're wishing it had 
 been true, so that the ane o' you couldna lauch 
 at the other." 
 
 *' Silence ! " said the captain, and not another 
 word would he speak until he heard the sheriff 
 coming up the stair. The Egyptian trembled at 
 his step, and. rose in desperation. 
 
 *' Why is the door locked ? " cried the 
 sheriff, shaking it. 
 
 " All right," answered Halliwell ; " the key 
 is on your side." 
 
 At that moment the Egyptian knocked the
 
 A woman's eyes. 127 
 
 lamp off the tal)le, and the room was at once 
 in darkness. The officer sprang at her, and 
 catching her by the skirt, held on. 
 
 " Why are you in darkness ? " asked the 
 sheriff, as he entered. 
 
 "Shut the door," cried Halliwell. "Put 
 your back to it." 
 
 " Don't tell me the woman has escaped ? " 
 
 " I have her, I have her ! She capsized the 
 lamp, the little jade. Shut the door." 
 
 Still keeping firm hold of her, as he 
 thought, the captain relit the lamp with his 
 other hand. It showed an extraordinary 
 scene. The door was shut, and the sheriff 
 was guarding it. Halliwell was clutching the 
 cloth of the bailie's seat. There was no Egyptian. 
 
 A moment passed before either man found 
 his tongue. 
 
 " Open the door. After her ! " cried Halli- 
 well. 
 
 But the door would not open. The Egyptian 
 had fled and locked it behind her.
 
 128 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 What the two men said to each other, it 
 would not be fitting to tell. When David- 
 son, who had been gossiping at the corner of 
 the town-house, released his captain and the 
 sheriff, the gypsy had been gone for some 
 minutes. 
 
 " But she shan't escape us," Riach cried, 
 and hastened out to assist in the pursuit. 
 
 Halliwell was in such a furious temper 
 that he called ^up Davidson and admonished 
 him for neglect of duty.
 
 CHAPTEE YIII. 
 
 3 A.M. MONSTROUS AUDACITY OF THE WOMAN. 
 
 Not till the stroke of three did Gavia turn 
 homeward, with the legs of a ploughman, and 
 eyes rebelling against over-work. Seeking to 
 comfort his dejected people, whose courage lay 
 spilt on the brae, he had been in as many houses 
 as the policemen. The soldiers marching 
 through the wynds came frequently upon hini, 
 and found it hard to believe that he w^as always 
 the same one. They told afterwards that 
 Thrums was remarkable for the ferocity of its 
 v/omen, and the number of its little ministers. 
 The morning w^as nipping cold, and the 
 streets deserted, for the people had been ordered 
 wdthin doors. As he crossed the Hoods, Gavin 
 saw a gleam of red-coats. In the Back wynd 
 he heard a bugle blown. A stir in the Banker's
 
 130 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 close spoke of another seizure. At the top of 
 the school wjnd two policemen, of whom one 
 was Weaiyworld, stopped the minister with the 
 flash of a lantern. 
 
 " We dauredna let you pass, sir," the Tillie- 
 drum man said, " without a good look at you. 
 That's the orders." 
 
 " I hereby swear," said Weary world, au- 
 thoritatively, " that this is no the Egyptian. 
 Signed, Peter Spens, policeman, called by the 
 vulgar. Weary world. Mr. Dishart, you can 
 pass, unless you'll bide a wee and gie us your 
 crack." 
 
 "You have not found the gypsy, then?" 
 Gravin asked. 
 
 " No," the other j)oliceman said, '' but we 
 ken she's within cry o' this very spot, and 
 escape she canna." 
 
 " What mortal man can do," Wearyworld 
 said, '' we're doing : ay, and mair, but she's 
 auld wecht, and may find bilbie in queer 
 places. Mr. Dishart, my official opinion is
 
 AUDACITY OF THE WOMAN. 131 
 
 that this Egyptian is fearsomelj like my snuff- 
 spoon. I've kent me drap that spoon on the 
 fender, and be beat to find it in an hour. And 
 yet, a' the time I was sure it was there. This 
 is a gey mysterious world, and women's the 
 uncanniest things in't. It's hardly mous to 
 think how uncanny they are." 
 
 " This one deserves to be punished," Gavin 
 said, firmly ; " she incited the people to riot." 
 
 " She did," agreed Weary world, w^ho was 
 supj)ing ravenously on sociability; ''ay, she 
 even tried her tricks on me, so that them 
 that kens no better thinks she fooled me. 
 But she's crack3^ To gie her her due, she's 
 cracky, and as for her being a cuttie, you've 
 said yoursel, Mr. Dishart, that we're all 
 desperately wicked. But we're sair tried. 
 Has it ever struck you that the trouts bites 
 best on the Sabbath ? God's critturs tempting 
 decent men." 
 
 *'Come alang," cried the Tilliedrum man, 
 impatiently. 
 J 2
 
 132 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 " I'm coming, but I maun give Mr. Disliart 
 23ermission to pass first. Hae you heard. Mr. 
 Dish art," Weary world whispered, " that the 
 Egyptian diddled baith the captain and the 
 shirra? It's my official opinion that she's no 
 better than a roasted onion, the which, if you 
 grip it firm, jumps out o' sicht, leaving its coat 
 in your fingers. Mr. Dishart, you can pass." 
 
 The 2^olicemen turned down the school- 
 wynd, and Gavin, who had abeady heard 
 exaggerated accounts of the strange woman's 
 escape from the town-house, proceeded along the 
 Tenements. He walked in the black shadows 
 of the houses, though across the way there was 
 the morning light. 
 
 In talking of the gypsy, the little minister 
 had, as it were, put on the black cap ; but now, 
 even though he shook his head angrily with 
 every thought of her, the scene in Windyghoul 
 glimmered before his eyes. Sometimes when he 
 meant to frown he only sighed, and then having 
 sighed he shook himself. He was unpleasantly
 
 AUDACITY OF THE WOMAN. 133 
 
 conscious of his right hand, which had flung the 
 divit. Ah, she was shameless, and it would be 
 a bright day for Thrums that saw the last of 
 her. He hoped the policemen would succeed 
 
 in . It was the gladsomeness of innocence 
 
 that he had seen dancing in the moonlight. A 
 mere w^oman could not be like that. How 
 
 soft . And she had derided him ; he, the 
 
 Auld Licht minister of Thrums, had been 
 flouted before his people by a hussy. She was 
 without reverence, she knew no difference 
 between an Auld Licht minister, whose duty it 
 was to speak and hers to listen, and herself. 
 
 This woman deserved to be . And the look 
 
 she cast behind her as she danced and sang ! 
 It was sweet, so wistful ; the presence of purity 
 had silenced him. Purity ! Who had made 
 him fling that divit ? He would think no more 
 of her. Let it suffice that he knew what she 
 was. He would ^ui her from his thoughts. 
 Was it a ring on her finger ? 
 
 Fifty yards in front of him Gavin saw the
 
 134 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 road end in a wall of soldiers. They were 
 between him and the manse, and he was still in 
 darkness. No sound reached him, save the echo 
 of his own feet. But was it an echo ? He 
 stopped, and turned round sharply. Now he 
 heard nothing, he saw nothing. Yet was not 
 that a human figure standing motionless in the 
 shadow behind ? 
 
 He walked on, and again heard the sound. 
 Again he looked behind, but this time without 
 stopping. The figure was following him. He 
 stopped. So did it. He turned back, but it 
 did not move. It was the Egyptian ! 
 
 Gravin knew her, despite the lane of dark- 
 ness, despite the long cloak that now concealed 
 even her feet, despite the hood over her head. 
 She was looking quite respectable, but he knew 
 her. 
 
 He neither advanced to her nor retreated. 
 Could the unhappy girl not see that she was 
 walking into the arms of the soldiers ? But 
 doubtless she had been driven from all her
 
 AUDACITY OF THE WOMAX. 135 
 
 hiding-places. For a moment Gavin had it in 
 his heart to warn her. But it was only for a 
 moment. The next a sudden horror shot 
 through him. She was stealing toward him, so 
 softly that he had not seen her start. The 
 woman had designs on him ! Gfavin turned 
 from her. He walked so quickly that judges 
 would have said he ran. 
 
 The soldiers, I have said, stood in the dim 
 light. Gavin had almost reached them, when 
 a little hand touched his arm. 
 
 '' Stop," cried the sergeant, hearing some 
 one approaching, and then Gavin stepped out of 
 the darkness with the gypsy on his arm. 
 
 " It is you, Mr. Dishart," said the sergeant, 
 *' and your lady ? " 
 
 "I ■," said Gavin. 
 
 His lady pinched his arm. 
 
 " Yes," she answered, in an elegant English 
 voice that made Gavin stare at her, " but, in- 
 deed, I am sorry I ventured into the streets 
 to-night. I thought I might be able to comfort
 
 13G THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 some of these unhappy people, captain, but I 
 could do little, sadly little." 
 
 " It is no scene for a lady, ma'am, but your 
 
 husband has . Did you speak, Mr. Dis- 
 
 liart? " 
 
 " Yes, I must inf " 
 
 " My dear," said the Egyptian, '' I quite 
 agree with you, so we need not detain the cap- 
 tain." 
 
 " I'm only a sergeant, ma'am." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said the Egyptian, raising her 
 pretty eyebrows, " and how long are you to 
 remain in Thrums, sergeant ? " 
 
 " Only for a few hours, Mrs. Dishart. If 
 this gypsy lassie had not given us so much 
 trouble, we might have been gone by now." 
 • " Ah, yes, I hope you will catch her, ser- 
 
 geant. 
 
 j> 
 
 " Sergeant," said Gavin, firmly, *' I 
 must " 
 
 C( ^^. 
 
 You must, indeed, dear," said the Egyptian, 
 "for you are sadly tired. Good-night, sergeant."
 
 AUDACITY or THE WOMAN. 137 
 
 '' Your servant, Mrs. DIsliart. Your ser- 
 vant, sir." 
 
 ''But ," cried Gravin. 
 
 "Come, love," said the Egyptian, and she 
 walked the distracted minister throui^h the 
 soldiers and up the manse road. 
 
 The soldiers left hehind, Gavin flung her 
 arm from him, and, standing still, shook his fist 
 in her face. 
 
 " You — you — woman ! " he said. 
 
 This, I think, was the last time he called 
 her a woman. 
 
 But she was clapping her hands merrily. 
 
 " It was beautiful ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 "It was iniquitous !" he answered. ''And 
 I a minister ! " 
 
 "You can't help that," said the Egyptian, 
 who pitied all ministers heartily. 
 
 " No," Gavin said, misunderstanding her, 
 " I could not help it. No blame attaches to 
 
 me. 
 
 " I meant that you could not help being a
 
 138 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 minister. Yon conld have helped saving me, 
 and I thank yon so much." 
 
 " Do not dare to thank me. I forbid yon 
 to say that I saved you. I did my best to hand 
 you over to the authorities." 
 
 " Then why did you not hand me over ? " 
 
 Gravin groaned. 
 
 " All you had to say," continued the merci- 
 less Egyptian, " was, ' This is the person you 
 are in search of.' I did not have my hand 
 over your mouth. Why did you not say it ? " 
 
 " Forbear ! " said Gavin, woefully. 
 
 " It must have been," the gypsy said, 
 " because you really wanted to help me." 
 
 " Then it was against my better judgment," 
 said Gravin. 
 
 " I am glad of that," said the gypsy. '' Mr. 
 Dishart, I do believe you like me all the 
 time." 
 
 '' Can a man like a w^oman against his 
 will ? " Gavin blurted out. 
 
 "Of course he can," said the Egyptian,
 
 AUDACITY OF THE WOMAN. 139 
 
 speaking as one wlio knew. " That is tlie very 
 nicest way to be liked." 
 
 Seeing how agitated Gavin was, remorse 
 filled her, and she said in a wheedling voice — 
 
 " It is all over, and no one w^ll know." 
 
 Passion sat on the minister's brow, but he 
 said nothing, for the gypsy's face had changed 
 with her voice, and the audacious w^oman was 
 become a child. 
 
 "I am very sorry," she said, as if he had 
 caught her stealing jam. The hood had fallen 
 back, and she looked pleadingly at him. She 
 had the appearance of one who was entirely 
 in his hands. 
 
 There was a torrent of w^ords in Gavin, but 
 only these trickled forth — 
 
 " I don't understand you." 
 
 *' You are not angry any more ? " pleaded 
 the Egyptian. 
 
 "Angry ! " he cried, with the righteous rage 
 of one who when his leg is being sawn off is 
 asked gently if it hurts him.
 
 140 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 " I know you are," slie sighed, and the sigli 
 meant that men are sfcrano^e. 
 
 " Have you no respect for law and order ? " 
 demanded Gavin. 
 
 " Not much," she answered, honestly. 
 
 He looked down the road to where the 
 red-coats were still visible, and his face became 
 hard. She read his thoughts. 
 
 " No/' she said, becoming a woman again, 
 "it is not yet too late. Why don't you shout 
 to them ? " 
 
 She was holding herself like a queen, but 
 there was no stiffness in her. They might 
 have been a pair of lovers, and she the wronged 
 one. Again she looked timidly at him, and 
 became beautiful in a new way. Her eyes 
 said that he was very cruel, and she was only 
 keeping back her tears till he had gone. More 
 dangerous than her face was her manner, 
 which gave Gavin the privilege of making her 
 unhapp}^ ; it permitted him to argue with her ; 
 it never implied that though he raged at lier
 
 AUDACITY OF THE WOMAN. 141 
 
 lie must stand afar off; it called him a bully, 
 but did not end the conversation. 
 
 Now (but perhaps I should not tell this) 
 unless she is his wife a man is shot with a 
 thrill of exultation every time a pretty woman 
 allows him to upbraid her. 
 
 " I do not understand you," Gavin repeated 
 weakly, and the gypsy bent her head under 
 this terrible charge. 
 
 " Only a few hours ago," he continued, 
 "you were a gypsy girl in a fantastic dress, 
 barefooted " 
 
 The Egyptian's bare foot at once peeped 
 out mischievously from beneath the cloak, then 
 again retired into hiding. 
 
 " You spoke as broadly," complained the 
 minister, somewhat taken aback by this appari- 
 tion, " as any woman in Thrums, and now 
 you fling a cloak over your shoulders, and 
 immediately become a fine lady. Who are 
 you ? " 
 
 " Perliajjs," answered the Egyptian, " it is
 
 •142 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 the cloak tliat has bewitched me." She slipped 
 out of it. " Ay, ay, ou losh ! " she said, as 
 if surprised, " it was just the cloak that did 
 it, for now I'm a puir ignorant bit lassie again. 
 My, certie, but claithes does make a differ to 
 a woman ! " 
 
 This was sheer levity, and Gavin walked 
 scornfully away from it. 
 
 " Yet, if you will not tell me who you are," 
 he said, looking over his shoulder, " tell me 
 where you got the cloak." 
 
 '' Na faags,'' replied the gypsy out of the 
 cloak. " Really, Mr. Dishart, you had better 
 not ask," she added, replacing it over her. 
 
 She followed him, meaning to gain the 
 open by the fields to the north of the manse. 
 
 "Good-bye," she said, holding out her 
 hand, ''if you are not to give me uj)." 
 
 " I am not a policeman," replied Gavin, 
 but he would not take her hand. 
 
 " Surely, we part friends, then ? " said the 
 Egyptian, sweetly.
 
 AUDACITY OF THE WOMAN. 143 
 
 " 'No/' Gavin answered. " I hope never to 
 see your face again." 
 
 " I cannot help/' the Egyptian said, with . 
 dignity, " your not liking my face." Then, with 
 less dignity, she added, " There is a splotch of 
 mud on j^our own, little minister ; it carae off 
 the divit you Hung at the captain." 
 
 With this parting shot she tripped past 
 him, and Gavin would not let his eyes follow 
 her. It was not the mud on his face that 
 distressed him, nor even the hand that had 
 flung the divit. It was the word " little." 
 Though even Margaret was not aware of it, 
 Gavin's shortness had grieved him all his life. 
 There had been times when he tried to keep 
 the secret from himself. In his boyhood he 
 had sought a remedy by getting his larger 
 comrades to stretch him. In the company of 
 tall men he was always self-conscious. In the 
 pulpit he looked darkly at his congregation 
 when he asked them who, by taking thought, 
 could add a cubit to his stature. When
 
 144 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 standing on a liearthrug his heels were fre- 
 quently on the fender. In his hedroom he has 
 stood on a footstool and surveyed himself in 
 the mirror. Once he fastened high heels to 
 his hoots, being ashamed to ask Hendry Munn 
 to do it for him ; but this dishonesty shamed 
 him, and he tore them off. So the Egyptian 
 had put a needle into his pride, and he walked 
 to the manse gloomily. 
 
 Margaret was at her window, looking for 
 him, and he saw her though she did not see 
 him. He was stepping into the middle of 
 the road to w^ave his hand to her, when some 
 sudden weakness made him look towards the 
 fields instead. The Egyptian saw him and 
 nodded thanks for his interest in her, but he 
 scowled and pretended to be studying the 
 sky. Next moment he saw her running back 
 to him. 
 
 *' There are soldiers at the top of the field," 
 she cried. " I cannot escape that w^ay." 
 
 " There is no other way," Gavin answered.
 
 AUDACITY OF THE WOMAN. 145 
 
 ''Will you not liel^) me again?" she en- 
 treated. 
 
 She should not have said " ag^ain." Gavin 
 shook his head, but pulled her closer to the 
 manse dyke, for his mother was still in 
 sight. 
 
 " Why do you do that ? " the girl asked, 
 quickly, looking round to see if she were jDur- 
 sued. " Oh, I see," she said, as her eyes fell 
 on the figure at the window. 
 
 "It is my mother," Gavin said, though he 
 need not have explained, unless he wanted the 
 gypsy to know that he was a bachelor. 
 
 " Only your mother ? " 
 
 " Only ! Let me tell you she may suffer 
 more than you for your behaviour to- 
 night ! " 
 
 " How can she ! " 
 
 " If you are caught, will it not be discovered 
 that I helped you to escape ? " 
 
 '' Bat you said j^ou did not." 
 
 " Yes, I helped you," Gavin admitted. 
 
 K
 
 146 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 '' My God ! what would my congregation say 
 if they knew I had let you pass yourself off 
 as — as my wife ? " 
 
 He struck his brow, and the Egyptian had 
 the propriety to blush. 
 
 '' It is not the punishment from men I 
 am afraid of," Gavin said, bitterly, " but from 
 my conscience. No, that is not true. I do 
 fear exposure, but for my mother's sake. Look 
 at her ; she is happy, because she thinks me 
 good and true ; she has had such trials as you 
 cannot know of, and now, when at last I seemed 
 able to do something for her, you destroy her 
 happiness. You have her life in your hands." 
 
 The Egyptian turned her back upon him, 
 and one of her feet tapped angrily on the dry 
 ground. Then, child of impulse as she always 
 was, she flashed an indignant glance at him, 
 and walked quickly down the road. 
 
 " Where are you going ? " he cried. 
 
 " To give myself up. You need not be 
 alarmed ; I will clear you."
 
 AUDACITY OF THE WOMAN. 147 
 
 There was not a shake in her voice, and 
 she spoke without looking back. 
 
 "Stop!" Gavin called, but she would not, 
 until his hand touched, her shoulder. 
 
 " What do you want ? '' she asked. 
 
 " Why — " whispered Gravin, giddily, '' why 
 — why do you not hide in the manse garden P 
 — No one will look for you there." 
 
 There were genuine tears in the gypsy's eyes 
 now. 
 
 "You are a good man," she said; "I like 
 
 you." 
 
 "Don't say that," Gravin cried in Horror. 
 " There is a summer-seat in the garden." 
 
 Then he hurried from her, and without 
 looking to see if she took his advice, hastened 
 to the manse. Once inside, he snibbed the 
 door. 
 
 K 2
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE WOMAN COXSIDERED IN ABSENCE ADVEN- 
 TURES OF A MILITARY CLOAK. 
 
 About six o'clock Margaret sat up suddenly in 
 bed, with the conviction that she had slept in. 
 To her this was to ravel the day : a dire thing. 
 The last time it happened Gavin, softened by 
 her distress, had condensed morning worship 
 into a sentence that she might make up on the 
 clock. 
 
 Her part on waking w^as merely to ring her 
 bell, and so rouse Jean, for Margaret had given 
 Gavin a promise to breakfast in bed, and remain 
 there till her fire was lit. Accustomed all her 
 life, however, to early rising, her feet w^ere 
 usually on the floor before she remembered her 
 vow, and then it was but a step to the window 
 to survey the morniDg. To Margaret, who 
 seldom went out, the weather was not of great 
 moment, while it mattered much to Gavin, yet 
 she always thought of it the first thing, and he
 
 THE WOMAN CONSIDERED IN ABSENCE. 149 
 
 not at all until lie had to decide whether his 
 companion should be an umbrella or a staff. 
 
 On this mornino: Marq-aret onlv noticed that 
 there had been rain since Gavin came in. For- 
 getting that the w^ater obscuring the outlook 
 was on the other side of the panes she tried to 
 brush it away with her fist. It was of the 
 soldiers she w^as thinking. They might have 
 been awaiting her appearance at the window as 
 their signal to depart, for hardly had she raised 
 the blind when they began their march out of 
 Thrums. From the manse she could not see 
 them, but she heard them, and she saw some 
 people at the Tenements run to their houses at 
 sound of the drum. Other persons, less timid, 
 followed the enemy w4tli execrations half-way 
 to Tilliedrum. Margaret, the only person, as 
 it happened, then awake in the manse, stood 
 listening for some time. In the summer-seat 
 of the garden, however, there was another 
 listener protected from her sight by thin spai's. 
 
 Despite the lateness of the hour Margaret
 
 150 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 was too soft-hearted to rouse Jean, who had lain 
 down in her clothes, trembling for her father. 
 She went instead into Gravin's room to look 
 admiringly at him as he slept. Often Gavin 
 woke to find that his mother had slipped in to 
 save him the enormous trouble of opening a 
 drawer for a clean collar, or of pouring the 
 water into the basin with his own hand. 
 Sometimes he caught her in the act of putting 
 thick socks in the place of thin ones, and it 
 must be admitted that her passion for keeping 
 his belongings in boxes, and the boxes in secret 
 places, and the secret places at the back of 
 drawers, occasionally led to their being lost 
 when wanted. " They are safe, at any rate, for 
 I put them away some gait," was then Mar- 
 garet's comfort, but less soothing to Gavin. 
 Yet if he upbraided her in his hurry, it was to 
 repent bitterly his temper the next, and to feel 
 its effects more than she, temper being a 
 weapon that we hold by the blade. When he 
 awoke and saw her in his room he would pre-
 
 THE WOMAN CONSIDERED IN ABSENCE. 151 
 
 tend, unless lie felt called upon to rage at lier 
 for self-neglect, to be still asleep, and then be 
 filled with tenderness for her. A great writer 
 has spoken sadly of the shock it w^ould be to a 
 mother to know her boy as he really is, but I 
 think she often knows him better than he is 
 known to cynical friends. We should be slower 
 to think that the man at his worst is the real 
 man, and certain that the better we are ourselves 
 the less likely is he to be at his worst in our 
 company. Every time he talks away his own 
 character before us he is signifying contempt for 
 ours. 
 
 On this morning Margaret only ojDened 
 Gavin's door to stand and look, for she was fearful 
 of awakening him after his heavy night. Even 
 before she saw that he still slept she noticed 
 with surprise that, for the first time since he 
 came to Thrums, he had put on his shutters. 
 She concluded that he had done this lest the 
 light should rouse him. He was not sleeping 
 pleasantly, for now he put his open hand before
 
 152 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 his face, as if to guard himself, and again he 
 frowned and seemed to draw back from some- 
 thiDg. He pointed his finger sternly to the 
 north, ordering the weavers, his mother thought, 
 to return to their homes, and then he muttered 
 to himself so that she heard the words, " And if 
 thy right hand offend thee cut it off, and cast it 
 from thee, for it is profitable for thee that one 
 of thy members should perish, and not that th}^ 
 whole body should be cast into hell." Then 
 suddenly he bent forward, his eyes open and 
 fixed on the window. Thus he sat, for the space 
 of half a minute, like one listening with painful 
 intentness. When he lay back Margaret slipped 
 away. She knew he was living the night over 
 again, but not of the divit his right hand had 
 cast, nor of the woman in the garden. 
 
 Gavin was roused presently by the sound of 
 voices from Margaret's room, where Jean, who 
 had now gathered much news, was giving it 
 to her mistress. Jean's cheerfulness would 
 have told him that her father was safe had he
 
 THE WOMAN CONSIDERED IN ABSENCE. 153 
 
 not wakened to thoughts of the Egyptian. I 
 suppose he was at the window in an instant, 
 unsnibbling the shutters and looking out as 
 cautiously as a burglar might have looked in. 
 The Egyj^tian was gone from the summer- 
 seat. He drew a great breath. 
 
 But his troubles were not over. He had 
 just lifted his ewer of w^ater when these words 
 from the kitchen capsized it : — 
 
 " Ay, an Egyptian. That's what the auld 
 folk call a gj^psy. Weel, Mrs. Dishart, she 
 led police and sojers sic a dance through 
 Thrums as would baffle description, though 
 I kent the fits and fors o't as I dinna. Ay, 
 but they gri|)ped her in the end, and the queer 
 thins: is " 
 
 Gavin listened to no more. He suddenly 
 sat down. The queer thing, of course, was 
 that she had been caught in his garden. Yes, 
 and doubtless queerer things about this hussy 
 and her '' husband " were being bawled from 
 door to door. To the girl's probable sufferings
 
 154 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 lie gave no lieed. What kind of man 
 had he been a few hours ago to yield to 
 the machinations of a woman who was so ob- 
 viously the devil? Now he saw his folly in 
 the face. 
 
 The tray in Jean's hands clattered against 
 the dresser, and Gavin sprang from his chair. 
 He thought it was his elders at the front door. 
 
 In the parlour he found Margaret sorrow- 
 ing for those whose mates had been torn from 
 them, and Jean with a face flushed by talk. 
 On ordinary occasions the majesty of the 
 minister still cowed Jean, so that she could 
 only gaze at him without shaking when in 
 church, and then because she wore a veil. In 
 the manse he was for taking a glance at side- 
 ways and then going away comforted, as a 
 respectable woman may once or twice in a day 
 look at her brooch in the pasteboard box as 
 a means of helping her with her work. But 
 with such a to-do in Thrums, and she the 
 possessor of exclusive information, Jean's
 
 THE WOMAN CONSIDERED IN ABSENCE. 155 
 
 reverence for Gavin only took lier to-day as 
 far as tlie door, where slie lingered half in 
 the 23arlonr and half in the lobby, her eyes 
 turned politely from the minister, but her 
 ears his entirely. 
 
 " I thought I heard Jean telling you about 
 the capture of the — of an Egyptian woman," 
 Gavin said to his mother, nervously. 
 
 '• Did you cry to me ? " Jean asked, turning 
 round longingly. " But maybe the mistress 
 will tell you about the Egyptian hersel'." 
 
 "Has she been taken to Tilliedrum? " Gavin 
 asked in a hollow voice. 
 
 " Sup up your porridge, Gavin," Margaret 
 said. " I'll have no speaking about this terrible 
 night till you've eaten something." 
 
 "I have no appetite," the minister replied, 
 pushing his plate from him. " Jean, answer me." 
 
 '''Deed, then," said Jean willingly, "they 
 hinna ta'en her to Tilliedrum." 
 
 " For what reason ? " asked Gavin, his dread 
 increasing.
 
 156 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 " For tlie reason that they couldna catch 
 her," Jean answered. " She spirited hersel awa', 
 the niagerful crittur." 
 
 '' What ! But I heard you say " 
 
 *' A}^, they had her aince, but they couldna 
 keep her. It's like a witch story. They 
 had her safe in the town-house, and baith shirra 
 and captain guarding her, and syne in a clink 
 she wasna there. A' nicht they looked for 
 her, but she hadna left so muckle as a foot- 
 print ahint her, and in the tail of the day 
 they liad to up wi' their tap in their lap and 
 march awa without her." 
 
 Gavin's appetite returned. 
 
 *' Has she been seen since the soldiers went 
 away ? " he asked, laying down his spoon with 
 a new fear. " Where is she now ? " 
 
 "1^0 human eye has seen her," Jean answered 
 impressively. " Wliaur is she now ? Whaur 
 does the flies vanish to in winter ? We ken 
 they're some gait, but whaur ? " 
 
 " But what are the people saying about her?"
 
 THE WOMAN CONSIDERED IN ABSENCE. 157 
 
 "Daft tilings," said Jean. "Old Charles 
 Yuill gangs the length o' hinting that she's 
 dead and buried." 
 
 "She coald not hav^e buried herself, Jean," 
 Margaret said, mildly. 
 
 " I dinna ken. Charles says she's even 
 capable o' that." 
 
 Then Jean retired reluctantly (but leaving 
 the door ajar) and Gavin fell to on his por- 
 ridore. He was now so cheerful that Marofaret 
 wondered. 
 
 " If half the stories about this gypsy be 
 true," she said, " she must be more than a 
 mere woman." 
 
 " Less, you mean, mother," Gavin said, 
 with conviction. " She is a woman, and a 
 sinful one." 
 
 "Did you see her Gavin ? " 
 
 " I saw her. Mother, she flouted me ! " 
 
 " The daring tawpie 1 " exclaimed Mar- 
 garet. 
 
 " She is all that," said the minister.
 
 158 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 '' Was she dressed just like an ordinary 
 gypsy body? But you don't notice clothes 
 much, Gavin." 
 
 *'I noticed hers," Gavin said, slowly, "she 
 was in green and red, I think, and bare- 
 footed." 
 
 " Ay," shouted Jean from the kitchen, start- 
 ling both of them, "but she had a lang grey- 
 like cloak too. She was seen jouking up closes 
 m t. 
 
 Gavin rose, considerably anno3^ed, and shut 
 the parlour door. 
 
 " Was she as bonny as folks say ? " asked 
 Margaret. " Jean says they speak of her 
 beauty as unearthly." 
 
 " Beauty of her kind," Gavin explained 
 learnedly, " is neither earthly nor heavenly." 
 He was seeing things as they are ver}^ clearly 
 now. " What," he said " is mere physical 
 beauty ? Pooh ! " 
 
 " And yet," said Margaret, " the soul surely 
 does speak through the face to some extent."
 
 THE WOMAN CONSIDERED IN ABSENCE. 159 
 
 "Do you really think so, mother?" Gavin 
 asked, a little uneasily. 
 
 " I have always noticed it," Margaret said, 
 and then her son sighed. 
 
 " But I would let no face influence me a 
 jot," he said, recovering. 
 
 " Ah, Gavin, I'm thinking I'm the reason 
 you pay so little regard to women's faces. It's 
 no natural." 
 
 "You've spoilt me, you see, mother, for 
 ever caring for another woman. I would com- 
 pare her to you, and then where would she 
 be?" 
 
 " Sometime," Margaret said, " you'll think 
 differently." 
 
 " Never," answered Gavin, with a violence 
 that ended the conversation. 
 
 Soon afterwards he set off for the town, and 
 in passing down the garden walk cast a guilty 
 glance at the summer-seat. Something black 
 was lying in one corner of it. He stopped irre- 
 solutely, for his mother was nodding to him
 
 IGO THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 from her window. Then he disappeared into 
 the little arbour. What had caught his eye 
 was a Bible. On the previous day, as he now 
 remembered, he had been called away while 
 studying in the garden, and had left his Bible on 
 the summer-seat, a pencil between its pages. 
 Not often probably had the Egyptian passed a 
 night in such company. 
 
 But what was this ? Gavin had not to ask 
 himself the question. The gypsy's cloak was 
 lying neatly folded at the other end of the seat. 
 Why had the woman not taken it with her? 
 Hardly had he put this question when another 
 stood in front of it. What was to be done with 
 the cloak ? He dared not leave it there for 
 Jean to discover. He could not take it into the 
 manse in daylight. Beneath the seat was a 
 tool-chest without a lid, and into this he 
 crammed the cloak. Then, having turned the 
 box face downwards he went about his duties. 
 But many a time during the day he shivered to 
 the marrow, reflecting suddenly that at this
 
 THE MILITARY CLOAK. 101 
 
 very moment Jean might be carrying the 
 accursed thing (at arms' length, like a dog in 
 disgrace) to his mother 
 
 Now let those who think that Gavin has 
 not yet paid toll for taking the road with the 
 Egyptian, follow the adventures of the cloak. 
 Shortly after gloaming fell tliat night Jean en- 
 countered her master in the lobby of the manse. 
 He was carrying something, and when he saw 
 her he slipped it behind his back. Had he 
 passed her openly she would have suspected 
 nothing, but this made her look at him. 
 
 " Why do 3^ou stare so, Jean? " Gavin asked. 
 con>cience-stricken, and he stood with his back 
 to the wall until she had retired in bewilderment. 
 
 " I have noticed her watching me sharply all 
 day," he said to himself, though it v.as only he 
 who had been watching her. 
 
 Gavin carried the cloak to his bedroom, 
 thinking to lock it away in his chest, but it 
 looked so wicked lying there that he seemed 
 to see it after the lid was shut.
 
 1G2 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 The garret was tlie best place for it. He 
 took it out of the cliest and was opening his 
 door gently, when there was Jean again. She 
 had been employed very innocently in his 
 mother's room, but he said tartly — 
 
 '' Jean, I really cannot have this," which 
 sent Jean to the kitchen with her ajDron at her 
 eyes. 
 
 Gavin stowed the cloak beneath the garret 
 bed, and an hour afterwards was engaged on his 
 sermon, when he distinctly heard some one in 
 the garret. He ran up the ladder with a terrible 
 brow for Jean, but it was not Jean ; it was 
 Margaret. 
 
 " Mother," he said in alarm, " what are you 
 doiug here? " 
 
 " I am only tidying up the garret, Gavin." 
 
 " Yes, but — it is too cold for you. Did Jean 
 — did Jean ask you to come up here ? " 
 
 "Jean? She knows her place better." 
 
 Gavin took Margaret down to the parlour, 
 but his confidence in the garret bad gone. He
 
 THE MILITARY CLOAK. 1G3 
 
 stole up the ladder again, dragged the cloak 
 from its larking place, and took it into the 
 garden. He very nearly met Jean in the 
 lobby again, but hearing him coming she fled 
 precipitately, which he thought very sus- 
 picious. 
 
 In the garden he dug a hole, and there 
 buried the cloak, but even now he was not 
 done with it. He was wakened early by a 
 noise of scraping in the garden, and his first 
 thought was " Jean ! " But peering from the 
 window, he saw that the resurrectionist was 
 a dog, which already had its teetli in the 
 cloak. 
 
 That forenoon Gavin left the manse un- 
 ostentatiously, carrying a brown-paper parcel. 
 He proceeded to the hill, and having dropped 
 the parcel tliere, retired hurriedly. On his 
 way home, nevertheless, he was overtaken by 
 D. Fittis, who had been cutting down whins. 
 Fittis had seen the parcel fall, and runninfj* 
 after Gavin, returned it to him. Gavin thanked
 
 1G4 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 D. Fittls, and then sat down gloomily on the 
 cemetery dyke. Half an hour afterwards he 
 flung the parcel into a Tillyloss garden. 
 
 In the evening Margaret had news for 
 him, got from Jean. 
 
 " Do you remember, Gravin, that the Egyp- 
 tian every one is still speaking of, wore a long 
 cloak ? Well, would you believe it, the cloak 
 was Captain Halliwell's, and she took it from 
 the town -house when she escaped. She is 
 supposed to have worn it inside out. He did 
 not discover that it was gone until he was 
 leaving Thrums." 
 
 '' Mother, is this possible ? " Gavin said. 
 
 " The policeman, Wearyworld, has told it. 
 He was ordered, it seems, to look for the cloak 
 quietly, and to take any one into custody in 
 whose possession it was found. 
 Has it been found ? " 
 No." 
 
 The minister walked out of the parlour, 
 for he could not trust his face. What was to 
 
 (( 
 
 ((
 
 THE MILITARY CLOAK. 105 
 
 be done now? The cloak v/as lying in mason 
 Baxter's garden, and Baxter was therefore, in 
 all probability, within four-and-twenty hours 
 of the Tilliedrum gaoL 
 
 " Does Mr. Dishart ever wear a cap at 
 nichts ? " Femie Wilkie asked Sam'l Fair- 
 weather three hours later. 
 
 " Na, na, he has ovver muckle respecb for 
 his lum hat," answered Sam'l; ''and richtl}^, 
 for it's the crowning^ stone o' the edifice." 
 
 " Then it couldna hae been him I met at 
 the back o' Tilly loss the now," said Femie, 
 " though like him it was. He joukit back 
 when he saw me." 
 
 While Femie was telling her story in the 
 Tenements, mason Baxter, standing at the 
 window which looked into his garden, was 
 shouting, " AVha's that in my yard ? " There 
 was no answer, and Baxter closed his window, 
 under the impression that he had been speak- 
 ing to a cat. The man in the cap then emerged 
 from the corner where he had been crouching,
 
 166 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 and stealtliil}^ felt for sometliing among the 
 cabbages and pea sticks. It was no longer 
 there, however, and by-and-bj he retired em2}ty- 
 handed. 
 
 " The Egyptian's cloak has been found," 
 Margaret was able to tell Gavin next day. 
 " Mason Baxter found it yesterday afternoon." 
 
 " In his garden ? " Gravin asked hurriedly. 
 
 ''No; in the quarry, he says, but according 
 to Jean he is known not to liave been at the 
 quarry to-day. Some seem to think that the 
 gypsy gave him the cloak for helping her to 
 escape, and that he has delivered it up lest he 
 should get into difficulties." 
 
 "Whom has he given it to, mother? " Gavin 
 asked. 
 
 " To the policeman." 
 
 " And has Weary world sent it back to 
 Halliwell?" 
 
 " Yes. He told Jean he sent it off at once, 
 with the information that the masons had found 
 it in tlie quarry."
 
 THE MILITARY CLOAK. 107 
 
 The next day was Sabbatli, when a new 
 trial, now to be tolcl, awaited Gavin in the 
 pulpit ; bnt it had nothing to do with 
 the cloak, of which I may here record the 
 end. Wearv world had not forwarded it to 
 its owner; Meggy, his wife, took care of that. 
 It made its reappearance in Thrums, several 
 months after the riot, as two pairs of Sabbath 
 breeks for her sons, James and Andrew.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 FIRST SERMON AGAINST WOMEN. 
 
 On tlie afternoon of the following Sabbath, 
 as I have said, something strange happened 
 in the Auld Licht pulpit. The congregation, 
 despite their troubles, turned it over and peered 
 at it for days, but had they seen into the inside 
 of it they would have weaved few webs until 
 the session had sat on the minister. The affair 
 baffled me at the time, and for the Egyptian's 
 sake I would avoid mentioning it now, were 
 it not one of Gravin's milestones. It includes the 
 first of his memorable sermons against Woman. 
 
 I was not in the Auld Licht chui'ch that 
 day, but I heard of the sermon before night, 
 and this, I think, is as good an opportunit}'^ as 
 another for showing how the gossip about Gavin 
 reached me up here in the Grlen school-house.
 
 rillST SERMON AGAINST WOMEN. 
 
 169 
 
 Since Maro^aret and lier son came to the manse 
 I had kept the vow made to myself and avoided 
 Thrums. Only once had I ventured to the kirk, 
 and then, instead of taking my old seat, the 
 fourth from the pulpit, I sat down near the 
 plate, where I could look at Margaret without 
 her seeing me. To spare her that agony I even 
 stole away as the last word of the benediction 
 was pronounced, and my haste scandalised many, 
 for with Auld Liclits it is not customary to 
 retire quickly from church after the manner of 
 the godless U.P.'s (and the Free Kirk is little 
 better), who have their hats in their hand when 
 they rise for the benediction, so that they may at 
 once pour out like a burst dam. We resume our 
 seats, look straight before us, clear our throats 
 and stretch out our hands for our womenfolk to 
 put our hats into them. In time we do get 
 out, but 1 am never sure how. 
 
 One may gossip in a glen on Sabbaths, 
 though not in a town, without losing his 
 character, and I used to await the return of my
 
 170 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 neisrlibour, the fanner of Waster Lunnv, and of 
 Silva Birse, the Glen Quliarity post, at the end of 
 the school-house path. Waster Lunny was a man 
 whose care in his leisure hours was to keep from 
 his wife his great pride in her. His horse, Cat- 
 law, on the other hand, he told outright what 
 he thought of it, praising it to its face and 
 blackguarding it as it deserved, and I have seen 
 him, when completely baffled by the brute, sit 
 down before it on a stone and thus harangue : 
 "You think you're clever, Catlaw, my lass, but 
 you're mista'en. You're a thrawn limmer, that's 
 what you are. You think you have blood in 
 you. You liae blood ! Gae away, and dinna 
 blether. I tell you what, Catlaw, I met a man 
 yestreen that kent your mither, and he says she 
 was a feikie fushionless besom. AVhat do j'ou 
 sav to that? " 
 
 As for the post, I will say no more of him 
 than that his bitter topic was the unreasonable- 
 ness of humanity, which treated him graciously 
 when he had a letter for it, but scowled at him
 
 FIRST SERMON AGAINST WOMEN. 171 
 
 when lie had none, " aye implying that I 
 hae a letter, but keep it back." 
 
 On the Sabbath evening after the riot, I 
 stood at the usual place awaiting my friends, 
 and saw before they reached me that they had 
 something untow^ard to telL The farmer, his 
 W'ife and three children, holding each other's 
 hands, stretched across the road. Birse was a 
 little behind, but a couA^ersation was being kept 
 up by shouting. All were walking the Sabbath 
 pace, and the family having started half a 
 minute in advance, the post had not yet made 
 up on them. 
 
 " It's sitting to snaw," Waster Lunny said, ^ 
 drawing near, and just as I Avas to reply " It 
 is so," Silva slipped in the words before me. 
 
 " You wasna at the kirk," was Elspeth's 
 salutation. I had been at the Glen church, 
 but did not contradict her, for it is Established, 
 and so neither here nor there. I was anxious, 
 too, to know what their long faces meant, and so 
 asked at once —
 
 172 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 " Was Mr. Dishart on the riot? " 
 
 " Forenoon, ay ; afternoon, no," replied 
 Waster Lunny, walking round his wife to get 
 nearer me. " Dominie, a queery thing happened 
 in the kirk this day, sic as " 
 
 " Waster Lunny," interrupted Elspeth 
 sharply ; " have you on your Sahbath shoon 
 or have you no on your Sabbath shoon ? " 
 
 " Guid care you took I should liae the 
 dagont oncanny things on," retorted the 
 farmer. 
 
 " Keep out o' the gutter, then," said Elspeth, 
 " on the Lord's day." 
 
 " Him," said her man, " that is forced by 
 a foolish woman to wear genteel 'lastic-sided 
 boots canna forget them till he takes them aff. 
 Whaur's the extra reverence in wearing shoon 
 twa sizes ower sma ? " 
 
 " It mayna be mair reverent," suggested 
 Birse, to whom Elspeth's kitchen was a pleasant 
 place, " but it's grand, and you canna expect to 
 be baith grand and comfortable."
 
 FIRST SERMON AGAINST WOMEN. 173 
 
 I reminded them that they were speaking 
 of Mr. Dishart. 
 
 " We ^vas saying," began the post briskly, 
 - that " 
 
 *' It was me that was saying it," said Waster 
 Lunny. " So, Dominie " 
 
 " Hand your gabs, baith o' you," interrupted 
 Elspeth. " You've been roaring the story to 
 ane another till you're hoarse." 
 
 " In the forenoon," Waster Lunnv w^nt on 
 determinedly, " ^Mr. Dishart preached on the 
 riot, and fine he was. Oh, dominie, you should 
 hae heard him ladlin^^ it on to Lano^ Tammas, 
 no by name but in sic a way that there was no 
 mistaking wha he was j^reaching at. Sal ! oh 
 losh ! Tammas got it strong." 
 
 " But he's dull in the uptake," broke in the 
 post, " by what I expected. I spoke to him 
 after the sermon, and I says, just to see if he 
 was properly humbled, ' Ay, Tammas,' I says, 
 ' them that discourse was preached against, 
 winna think themselves seven feet men for a
 
 174 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 while again.' ' Aj^ Birse/ lie answers, ' and 
 glad I am to bear you admit it, for he had you 
 in his eye.' I was fair scunnered at Tammas 
 the day." 
 
 " Mr. Dishart was preaching at the whole 
 clan-jamfray o' you," said Elspeth. 
 
 " Maybe he was," said her husband, leering ; 
 " but you needna cast it at us, for, my certie, 
 if the men got it frae him in the forenoon, the 
 women got it in the afternoon." 
 
 " He redd them up most michty," said the 
 post. " Thae was his yery words or something 
 like them. ' Adam,' says he, ' was an erring 
 man, but aside Eve he was respectable.' " 
 
 " Ay, but it wasna a' women he meant," 
 Elspeth explained, " for when he said that, he 
 pointed his linger direct at T'uowhead's lassie, 
 and I hope it'll do her good." 
 
 " But I wonder," I said, " that Mr. Dishart 
 chose such a subject to-day. I thought he 
 would be on the riot at both services." 
 
 " You'll wonder mair," said Elspeth, " when
 
 FIRST SERMON AGAINST WOMEN. 175 
 
 you hear what happened afore he began the 
 afternoon sermon. But I canna get in a word 
 wi' that man o' mine." 
 
 " We've been speaking about it," said Birse, 
 " ever since w^e left the kirk door. Tod, 
 we've been savvins: it like seed a' alanof the 
 glen." 
 
 " And w^e meant to tell you about it at 
 once," said Waster Lunny ; " but there's aye 
 so muckle to say about a minister. Dagont, 
 to hae ane keeps a body out o' langour. Ay, 
 but this breaks the drum. Dominie, either 
 Mr. Dish art wasna weel, or he was in the 
 devil's grip." 
 
 This startled me, for the farmer was looking 
 serious. 
 
 " He was weel eneuch," said Birse, '' for a 
 heap o' fowk spiered at Jean if he bad ta'en 
 his porridge as usual, and she admitted he had. 
 But the lassie was skeered hersel', and said 
 it was a mercy Mrs. Dishart wasna in the 
 kirk."
 
 17G THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 " Why was she not there ? " I asked 
 anxiously. 
 
 " Oh, he winna let her out in sic weather." 
 
 " I wish you would tell me what happened," 
 I said to Elspeth. 
 
 " So I will," she answered, " if Waster 
 Lunny would hand his wheest for a minute. 
 You see the afternoon diet bec^an in the ordi- 
 nary way, and a' was richt until we came to 
 the sermon. ' You will find my text,' he says, 
 in his piercing voice, ' in the eighth chapter of 
 Ezra.' " 
 
 "And at thae w^ords," said Waster Lunny, 
 " my heart gae a loup, for Ezra is an unca ill 
 book to find ; ay, and so is Rutli." 
 
 " I kent the books o' the Bible by heart," 
 said Elspeth, scornful 1}^ " when I was a sax 
 year auld." 
 
 *' So did I," said Waster Lunny, "and I 
 ken them yet, except when I'm hurried. 
 When Mr. Dishart gave out Ezra he a sort 
 o' keeked round the kirk to find out if he
 
 FIRST SERMON AGAINST WOMEN. 177 
 
 had puzzled onybod}^ and so there was a 
 kind o' a competition among the congrega- 
 tion wha would lay hand on it first. That 
 was what doited me. Ay, there w^as Kutli when 
 she w^asna wanted, but Ezra, dagont, it looked 
 as if Ezra had jumped clean out o' the Bible." 
 
 " You wasna the only distressed crittur," 
 said his wife. " I w^as ashamed to see Eppie 
 McLaren looking up the order o* the books 
 at the beginning o' the Bible." 
 
 "Tibbie Birse was even mair brazeu," said 
 the post, "for the sly cuttie opened at Kings 
 and pretended it was Ezra." 
 
 "None o' thae things would I do," said 
 Waster Lunny, " and sal, I dauredna, for 
 Davit Lunan was glowering over my shuther. 
 Ay, you, may scowl at me, Elspeth Proctor, 
 but as far back as I can mind, Ezra has done 
 me. Mony a time afore I start for the kirk 
 I take my Bible to a quiet place and look 
 Ezra up. In the very pew I says canny to 
 mysel', 'Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job,' the 
 
 M
 
 178 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 wliicli should be a help, but the moment the 
 minister gi'es out that aw£u' book, away goes 
 Ezra like the Egyptian." 
 
 "And you after her," said Elspeth, "like 
 the weavers that wouldna fecht. You make a 
 windmill of your Bible." 
 
 " Oh, I winna admit I'm beat. N^ever mind, 
 there's queer things in the world forby Ezra. 
 How is cripples aye so puffed up mair than 
 other folk ? How does flour-bread aye fall on 
 the buttered side ? " 
 
 "I will mind," Elspeth said, "for I was 
 terrified the minister would admonish you frae 
 the pulpit." 
 
 " He couldna hae done that, for was he no 
 baffled to find Ezra himsel' ? " 
 
 " Him no find Ezra ! " cried Elspeth. " I 
 hae telled you a dozen times he found it as 
 easy as you could yoke a horse." 
 
 " The thing can be explained in no other 
 way," said her husband, doggedly, "if he was 
 weel and in sound mind."
 
 FIRST SERMOX AGAINST WOMEN.. 179 
 
 "Maybe tlie dominie can clear it up," sug- 
 gested the post, " him being a scholar." 
 
 '' Then tell me what happened," I asked. 
 
 " Grodsake, hae we no telled you?" Birse 
 said. ''I thocht we had." 
 
 " It was a terrible scene," said Elspeth, 
 giving her husband a shove. ''As I said, Mr. 
 Dishart gave out Ezra eighth. Weel, I turned 
 it up in a jiffy, and syne looked cautiously to 
 see how Eppie McLaren was getting on. Just 
 at that minute I heard a groan frae the pulpit. 
 It didna stop short o' a groan. Ay, you may be 
 sure I looked quick at the minister, and there I 
 saw a sicht that would hae made the grandest 
 gape. His face was as white as a baker's, and 
 he had a sort of fallen at>;ainst the back o" the 
 pulpit, staring demented-like at his open Bible." 
 
 " And I saw him," said Birse, " put up his 
 hand atween him and the Book, as if he thocht 
 it was to jump at him." 
 
 " Twice," said Elspeth, " he tried to speak, 
 and twice he let the words fall." 
 M 2
 
 180 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 (( Tl 
 
 That," says Waster Lunny, " the whole 
 congregation admits, but I didna see it mysel', 
 for a' this time you may picture me hunting 
 savage-like for Ezra. I thocht the minister was 
 waiting till I found it." 
 
 " Hendry Munn," said Birse, " stood upon 
 one leg, wondering whether he should run to 
 the session-house for a glass of water." 
 
 " But by that time," said Elspeth, "the fit had 
 left Mr. Dishart, or rather it had ta'en a new 
 turn. He grew red, and it's gosj^el that he 
 stamped his foot." 
 
 '' He had the face of one using bad words," 
 said the post. " He didna swear, of course, but 
 that w^as the face he had on." 
 
 *' I missed it," said Waster Lunny, " for I 
 was in full cry after Ezra, with the sweat run- 
 ning down my face." 
 
 " But the most astounding thing has 3^et to 
 be telled," went on Elspeth. " The minister 
 shook himsel' like one wakening frae a nasty 
 dream, and he cries in a voice of thunder,
 
 FIRST SERMON AGAINST WOMEN. 181 
 
 just as if he was shaking his fist at some- 
 body " 
 
 " He cries," Birse interposed, cleverly, "he 
 cries, ' You will find the text in Genesis, chapter 
 three, verse six/ " 
 
 " Yes," said Elspeth, " first he gave out one 
 text, and then he gave out another, being the 
 most amazing thing to my mind that ever hap- 
 pened in the town of Thrums. What will our 
 children's children think o't ? I w^ouldna hae 
 missed it for a pound note." 
 
 '' Nor me," said Waster Lunny, " though I 
 only got the tail o't. Dominie, no sooner had 
 he said Grenesis third and sixth, than I laid my 
 finger on Ezra. Was it no provoking ? Ony- 
 body can turn up Genesis, but it needs an 
 able-bodied man to find Ezra." 
 
 " He preached on the Fall," Elspeth said, 
 *' for an hour and twenty-five minutes, but 
 powerful though he was I would rather he had 
 telled us what made him gie the go-by to 
 Ezra."
 
 182 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 "All I can say," said Waster Lunny, "is 
 that I never heard him mair awe-inspiring. 
 Whaur has he got sic a knowledge of women? 
 He riddled them, he fair riddled them, till I 
 was ashamed o' being married." 
 
 " It's easy kent whaur he got his knowledge 
 of women," Birse explained, " it's a' in the 
 original Hebrew. You can howk ony mortal 
 thing out o' the original Hebrew, the which all 
 ministers hae at their finger ends. What else 
 makes them ken to jump a verse now and then 
 when giving out a psalm ? " 
 
 " It wasna women like me he denounced," 
 Elspeth insisted, •' but young lassies that leads 
 rnen astray wi' their abominable wheedling 
 ways." 
 
 " Tod," said her husband, " if they try 
 their hands on Mr. Dishart they'll meet their 
 match." 
 
 " They will," chuckled the post. " The 
 Hebrew's a grand thing, though teuch, I'm 
 telled, michty teuch."
 
 FIRST SERMON AGAINST WOMEN. 183 
 
 " His sublimest burst/' Waster Lunnj came 
 back to tell me, " was about the beauty o' the 
 soul being everj'thing and the beauty o' the face 
 no worth a snuff. What a scorn he has for 
 bonny faces and toom souls ! I dinua deny but 
 wdiat a bonny face fell takes me, but Mr. 
 Dishart wouldna gie a blade o' grass for't. 
 Ay, and I used to think that in their foolish- 
 ness about women there was dagont little differ 
 atween the unlearned and the highly edicated." 
 
 The gossip about Gavin brought hitherto to 
 the school-house had been as bread to me, but 
 this I did not like. For a minister to behave thus 
 was as unsettlintr to us as a chancre of Govern- 
 ment to Londoners, and I decided to give my 
 scholars a holiday on the morrow and tramp 
 into the town for fuller news. But all through 
 the night it snow^ed, and next day, and then 
 intermittently for many days, and every fall 
 took the school miles farther away from 
 Thrums. Birse and the crows had now the 
 glen road to themselves, and even Birse had
 
 184 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 twice or thrice to bed with me. At these times 
 had he not been so interested in describinsr his 
 progress through the snow, maintaining that the 
 crying want of our glen road was palings for 
 postmen to kick their feet against, he must 
 have wondered why I always turned the talk to 
 the Auld Licht minister. 
 
 " Ony explanation o' his sudden change o' 
 texts ? " Birse said, repeating my question. 
 " Tod, and there is and to spare, for I hear tell 
 there's saxteen explanations in the Tenements 
 alone. As Tammas Haggart says, that's a 
 blessing, for if there had just been twa explana- 
 tions the kirk micht hae split on them." 
 
 "Ay," he said at another time, "twa or 
 three even dared to question the minister, 
 but I'm thinking they made nothing o't. The 
 majority agrees that he was just inspired to 
 change his text. But Lang Tammas is dour. 
 Tammas telled the session a queer thing. He 
 sa3^s that after the diet o' worship on that 
 eventful afternoon Mr. Dishart carried the
 
 FIRST SERMON AGAINST WOMEN. 185 
 
 Bible out o' the pulpit ins teal o' leaving that 
 duty as usual to the kirk-officer. Weel, 
 Tammas, being precentor, has a richt, as you 
 ken, to leave the kirk by the session-house 
 door, just like the minister himsel'. He did 
 so that afternoon, and what, think you, did 
 he see ? He saw Mr. Dishart tearing a page 
 out o' the Bible, and flinging it savagely into 
 the session-house fire. You dinna credit it? 
 Weel, it's staggering, but there's Hendry 
 Munn's evidence too. Hendry took his first 
 chance o' looking up Ezra in the minister's 
 Bible, and, behold, the page wi' the eighth 
 chapter was gone. Them that thinks Tammas 
 wasna blind wi' excitement bauds it had been 
 Ezra eighth that gaed into the fire. Onyway, 
 there's no doubt about the page's being missing, 
 for whatever excitement Tammas was in, Hendry 
 was as cool as ever." 
 
 A week later Birse told me that the concrre- 
 gation had decided to regard the incident as 
 adding lustre to their kirk. This w^as largely.
 
 186 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 I fear, because it could then be used to belittle 
 the Established minister. That fervent Auld 
 Licht, Snecky Hobart, feeling that Gravin's 
 action was unsound, had gone on the following 
 Sabbath to the parish kirk and sat under Mr. 
 Duthie. But Mr. Duthie was a close reader, 
 so that Snecky flung himself about in his pew 
 in misery. The minister concluded his sermon 
 with these words : '' But on this subject I 
 will say no more at present." *' Because you 
 canna," Snecky roared, and strutted out of the 
 church. Comparing the two scenes, it is ob- 
 vious that the Auld Lichts had won a victory. 
 After preaching impromptu for an hour and 
 twenty-five minutes, it could never be said of 
 Gavin that he needed to read. He became 
 more popular than ever. Yet the change of 
 texts was not forgotten. If in the future any 
 other indictments were brought against him, 
 it would certainly be pinned to them. 
 
 I marvelled long over Gravin's jump from 
 Ezra to Genesis, and at this his first philippic
 
 FIRST SERMON AGAINST WOMEN. 1S7 
 
 against womaiij but I have known tlie cause 
 for many a year. The Bible was the one 
 that had lain on the summer-seat while the 
 Egyptian hid there. It was the great pulpit 
 Bible which remains in the church as a rule, 
 but Gravin had taken it home the previous day 
 to make some of its loose pages secure with 
 paste. He had studied from it on the day pre- 
 ceding the riot, but had used a small Bible 
 during the rest of the week. When he turned 
 in the pulpit to Ezra, where he had left the 
 large Bible open in the summer- seat, he found 
 this scrawled across chapter eight : — 
 
 " I will never tell who flung the clod at 
 Captain Halliwell. But why did you fling 
 it? I will never tell that you allowed me 
 to be called Mrs. Dishart before witnesses. 
 But is not this a Scotch marriage ? Signed, 
 Babbie the Egyptian."
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 TELLS IN A WHISPER OF MAN's FALL DURING 
 THE CURLING SEASON. 
 
 No snow could be seen in Thrums by the 
 beginning of the year, though clods of it lay 
 in Waster Lunny's fields, where his hens 
 wandered all day as if looking for something 
 they had dropped. A black frost had set in, 
 and one walking on the glen road could imagine 
 that througli the cracks in it he saw a loch 
 glistening. From my door I could hear the 
 roar of curling stones at Eathie-bog, which is 
 almost four miles nearer Thrums. On the day 
 I am recalling, I see that I only made one 
 entry in my diary, '' At last bought Waster 
 Lunny's bantams." Well do I remember the 
 transaction, and no wonder, for I had all but 
 bought the bantams every day for a six 
 months.
 
 THE CUKLING SEASON. 189 
 
 About noon the doctor's dog-cart was ob- 
 served by all the Tenements standing at the 
 Auld Licht manse. The various surmises were 
 wrong. Margaret had not been suddenly 
 taken ill ; Jean had not swallowed a darning- 
 needle ; the minister had not walked out at 
 his study window in a moment of sublime 
 thought. Gravin stepped into the dog-cart, 
 which at once drove off in the direction of 
 Bathie-bog, but equally in error were those 
 who said that the doctor was making a curler 
 of him. 
 
 There was, however, ground for gossip ; for 
 Thrums folk seldom called in a doctor until 
 it was too late to cure them, and McQueen 
 
 « 
 
 was not the man to pay social visits. Of 
 his skill we knew fearsome stories, as that, 
 by looking at Archie Allardyce, who had 
 come to ■ broken bones on a ladder, he dis- 
 covered which rung Archie fell from. When 
 he entered a stuffy room he would poke his 
 staff through the window to let in fresh air, 
 
 e^
 
 190 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 and then fling down a shilling to pay for the 
 breakage. He was deaf in the right ear, 
 and therefore usually took the left side of 
 prosy people, thus, as he explained, making a 
 blessing of an affliction. " A pity I don't hear 
 better ? " I have heard him say. " Not at all. 
 If ray misfortune, as you call it, were to be 
 removed, you can't conceive how I should miss 
 my deaf ear." He was a fine fellow, though 
 brusque, and I never saw him without his 
 pipe until two days before we buried him, 
 which was five-and-twenty years ago come 
 Martinmas. 
 
 "We're all quite weel," Jean said apprehen- 
 sively as she answered his knock on the manse 
 door, and she tried to be jDleasant, too, for well 
 she knew that, if a doctor willed it, she could 
 have fever in five minutes. 
 
 " Ay, Jean, I'll soon alter that," he replied 
 ferociously. " Is the master in ? " 
 
 " He's at his sermon," Jean said with im- 
 portance.
 
 THE CURLING SEASON. 191 
 
 To interrupt the minister at such a moment 
 seemed sacrilege to her, for her up-bringing had 
 been good. Her mother had once fainted in 
 the church, but though the family's distress was 
 great, they neither bore her out, nor signed 
 to the kirk-officer to bring water. They 
 propped her up in the pew in a respectful atti- 
 tude, joining in the singing meanwhile, and 
 she recovered in time to look up .2nd Chronicles, 
 21st and 7th. 
 
 '' Tell him I want to speak to him at the 
 door," said the doctor fiercely, " or I'll bleed you 
 this minute." 
 
 McQueen would not enter, because his horse 
 might have seized the opportunity to return 
 stablevvards. At the houses where it was accus- 
 tomed to stop, it drew up of its own accord, 
 knowing where the Doctor's '' cases " were as 
 well as himself, but it resented new patients. 
 
 " You like misery, I think, Mr. Dishart," 
 McQueen said when Gavin came to him, " at 
 least I am always finding you in the thick of it,
 
 192 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 and tliat is why I am liere now. I have a rare 
 job for you if you will jump into the machine. 
 You know Nanny Webster, who lives on the 
 edge of Windyghoul ? No, you don't, for she 
 belongs to the other kirk. Well, at all events, you 
 knew her brother, Sanders, the mole-catcher ? " 
 
 " I remember him. You mean the man who 
 boasted so much about seeing a ball at Lord 
 Rintoul's place ? " 
 
 " The same, and, as you may know, his 
 boasting about maltreating policemen whom he 
 never saw led to his being sentenced to nine 
 months in gaol lately." 
 
 " That is the man," said Gavin. '' I never 
 liked him." 
 
 " No, but his sister did," McQueen answered, 
 drily, " and with reason, for he was her bread- 
 winner, and now she is starving." 
 
 " Anything I can give her " 
 
 " Would be too little, sir." 
 
 " But the neighbours " 
 
 " She has few near her, and though the
 
 THE CURLING SEASON. 193 
 
 Thrums poor help each other bravely, they 
 are at present nigh as needy as herself. 
 Nanny is coming to the poorhouse, Mr. 
 Dishart." 
 
 " Grod help lier ! " exclaimed Gavin. 
 
 " Nonsense," said the doctor, trying to make 
 himself a hard man. " She will be properly 
 looked after there, and — and in time she will 
 like it." 
 
 " Don't let my mother hear you speak- 
 ing of taking an old woman to that place," 
 (jravin said, looking anxiously up the stair. 
 I cannot pretend that Margaret never lis- 
 tened. 
 
 " You all speak as if the poorhouse was a 
 gaol," the doctor said testily. " But so far as 
 Nanny is concerned, everthing is arranged. I 
 promised to drive her to the poorhouse to-day, 
 and she is waiting for me now. Don't look at 
 me as if I was a brute. She is to take some of 
 her things with her to the poorhouse, and the 
 rest is to be left until Sanders's return, when 
 
 N
 
 194 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 she may rejoin him. At least we said that to 
 her to comfort her." 
 
 '' You want me to go with you ? '* 
 
 " Yes, though I warn you it may be a dis- 
 tressing scene ; indeed, the truth is that I am 
 loth to face Nanny alone to-day. Mr. Duthie 
 should have accompanied me, for the Wehsters 
 are Established Kirk ; ay, and so he would if 
 Rashie-bog had not been bearing. A terrible 
 snare this curling, Mr. Dishart " — here the doctor 
 sighed — " I have known Mr. Duthie wait until 
 midnight struck on Sabbath and then be off to 
 E-ashie-bog with a torch." 
 
 " I will go with you," Gravin said, putting on 
 his coat. 
 
 "Jump in then. You won't smoke? I 
 never see a respectable man not smoking, sir, 
 but I feel indignant with him for such sheer 
 waste of time." 
 
 Gavin smiled at this, and Snecky Hobart, 
 who happened to be keeking over the manse 
 dyke, bore the news to the Tenements.
 
 THE CURLING SEASON. 195 
 
 " I'll no sleep the niclit," Sneeky said, " for 
 wondering wliat made the minister lauch. Av, 
 it would be no trifle." 
 
 A minister, it is certain, w^ho w^ore a smile 
 on his face would never have been called to the 
 Auld Licht kirk, for life is a wrestle with the 
 devil, and only the frivolous think to throw him 
 without taking off their coats. Yet, though 
 Gavin's zeal was wdiat the cong-res^ation rever- 
 enced, many loved him j)rivately for his boyish- 
 ness. He could unbend at marriages, of w^hich 
 he had six on the last day of the year, and at 
 every one of them he joked (the same joke) like 
 a layman. Some did not approve of his playing 
 at the teetotum for ten minutes with Kitty 
 Dundas's invalid son, but the way Kitty boasted 
 about it would have disgusted anybody. At the 
 present day there are probably a score of Gavins 
 in Thrums, all called after the little minister, 
 and there is one Gavinia, whom he hesitated to 
 christen. He made humorous remarks (the 
 same remaik) about all these children, and his 
 N 2
 
 196 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 smile as he patted their heads was for thinking 
 over when one's work was done for the day. 
 
 The doctor's horse clattered up the Backvvynd 
 noisily, as if a minister behind made no differ- 
 ence to it. Instead of climbing the Eoods, 
 however, the nearest way to Nanny's, it went 
 westward, which Gavin, in a reverie, did not 
 notice. The truth must be told. The Egyptian 
 was again in his head. 
 
 " Have I fallen deaf in the left ear, too ? " 
 said the doctor. " I see your lips moving, but I 
 don't catch a syllable." 
 
 Gavin started, coloured, and flung the gypsy 
 out of the trap. 
 
 '' Wh}^ are we not going up the Eoods ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " Well," said the doctor slowly, " at the top 
 of the Roods there is a stance for circuses, and 
 this old beast of mine won't pass it. You know, 
 unless 3^ou are behind in the clashes and clavers 
 of Thrums, that I bought her from the manager 
 of a travelling show. She was the horse
 
 THE CURLING SEASON. 197 
 
 (' Lightning ' tliey called her) that galloped 
 round the ring at a mile an hour , and so at the 
 top of the Roods she is still unmanageable. She 
 once dragged me to the scene of her former 
 triumphs, and went revolving round it, dragging 
 the machine after her." 
 
 '' If you had not explained that," said Gavin, 
 " I might have thought that you wanted to pass 
 by Rashie-bog." 
 
 The doctor, indeed, was already standing up 
 to catch a first glimpse of the curlers. 
 
 " Well," he admitted, "I might have managed 
 to pass the circus ring, though what I have told 
 you is true. However, I have not come this 
 way merely to see how the match is going. I 
 want to shame Mr. Dathie for neglecting his 
 duty. It will help me to do mine, for the Lord 
 knows I am finding it hard, with the music of 
 these stones in my ears." 
 
 " I never saw it played before," Gavin said, 
 standing up in his turn. " AVhat a din they 
 make ! McQueen, I believe they are fighting 
 
 ! "
 
 198 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 " 'No, no," said the excited doctor, " they 
 are just a bit daft. That's the proper spirit for 
 the game. Look, that's the baron bailie near 
 standing on his head, and there's Mr. Duthie 
 off his head a' thegither. Yon's twa weavers 
 and a mason cursing the laird, and the man 
 wi' the besom is the Master of Crnmnathie." 
 
 " A democracy, at all events," said Gavin. 
 
 " By no means," said the doctor, " it's an 
 aristocracy of intellect. Gee up. Lightning, or 
 the frost will be gone before we are there." 
 
 " It is my opinion, doctor," said Gavin, 
 " that you will have bones to set before that 
 game is finished. I can see nothing but legs 
 now." 
 
 " Don't say a word against curling, sir, to 
 me," said McQueen, whom the sight of a game 
 in which he must not play had turned crusty. 
 " Dangerous ! It's the best medicine I know 
 of. Look at that man coming across the field. 
 It is Jo Strachan. Well, sir, curling saved Jo's 
 life after I had given him up. You don't
 
 THE CURLING SEASON. 199 
 
 believe me ? Hie, Jo, Jo Straclian, come here 
 and tell the minister how curling put you on 
 your legs again." 
 
 Strachan came forward, a tough, little, 
 wizened man, with red flannel round his ears to 
 keep out the cold. 
 
 " It's gospel what the doctor says, Mr. 
 Dishart," he declared. " Me and my brither 
 Sandy was baith ill, and in the same bed, and 
 the doctor had hopes o' Sandy, but nane o' me. 
 Ay, weel, when I heard that, I thocht I micht 
 as weel die on the ice as in my bed, so I up and 
 on wi' my claethes. Sandy was mad at me, for 
 he was no curler, and he says, ' Jo Strachan, if 
 you gang to Rashie-bog you'll assuredly be 
 brocht hame a corp.' I didna heed him, though, 
 and ofl* I gaed." 
 
 "And I see you did not die," said 
 Gavin. 
 
 *' Not me," answered the fish cadger, with a 
 grin. '' Na, but the joke o't is, it was Sandy 
 that died."
 
 200 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 " Not the joke, Jo," corrected the doctor, 
 " the moral." 
 
 " Ay, the moral ; I'm aye forgetting the 
 word." 
 
 McQueen, enjoying Gavin's discomfiture, 
 turned Lightning down the Eashie-bog road, 
 which would be impassable as soon as the thaw 
 came. In summer Eashie-bog is several fields 
 in which a cart does not sink unless it stands 
 still, but in winter it is a loch with here and 
 there a spring where dead men are said to lie. 
 There are no rushes at its east end, and here the 
 dog- cart drew up near the curlers, a crowd of 
 men dancing, screaming, shaking their fists and 
 sweeping, while half a hundred onlookers got in 
 their way, gesticulating and advising. 
 
 " Hold me tight," the doctor whispered to 
 Gavin, "or I'll be leaving you to drive Nanny 
 to the poorhouse by yourself." 
 
 He had no sooner said this than he tried to 
 jump out of the trap. 
 
 " You donnert fule, John Eobbie," he
 
 THE CURLING SEASON. 201 
 
 shouted to a player, " soop her up, man, soop 
 her up ; no, no, dinna, dinna ; leave her alane. 
 Bailie, leave her alane, you blazing idiot. 
 Mr. Dishart, let me go ; what do you mean, 
 sir, by hanging on to my coat tails ? Dang 
 it all, Duthie's winning. He has it, he has 
 it ! " 
 
 " You're to play, doctor ? " some cried, run- 
 ning to the dog-cart. " We hae missed you 
 sair. 
 
 *' Jeames, I — I — . No, I daurna." 
 
 " Then we get our licks. I never saw the 
 minister in sic form. We can do nothing 
 against him." 
 
 " Then," cried McQueen, " I'll play. Come 
 what will, I'll play. Let go my tails, Mr. 
 Dishart, or I'll cut them off. Duty ? Fiddle- 
 sticks ! " 
 
 " Shame on you, sir," said Gravin ; " yes, 
 and on you others who would entice him from 
 his duty." 
 
 " Shame ! " the doctor cried. " Look at
 
 202 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 Mr. Duthie. Is lie ashamed ? And yet that 
 man has been reproving me for a twelvemonths 
 because I've refused to become one of his elders. 
 Duthie," he shouted, "think shame of yourself 
 for curHng this day." 
 
 Mr. Duthie had carefully turned his back 
 to the trap, for Gavin's presence in it annoyed 
 him. We seldom care to be reminded of our 
 duty by seeing another do it. Now, however, 
 he advanced to the dog-cart, taking the far 
 side of Gavin. 
 
 *' Put on your coat, Mr. Duthie," said the 
 doctor, " and come with me to Nanny Web- 
 ster's. You promised." 
 
 Mr. Duthie looked quizzically at Gavin, and 
 then at the sky. 
 
 *' The thaw may come at any moment," he said. 
 
 " I think the frost is to hold," said Gavin. 
 
 " It may hold over to-morrow," Mr. Duthie 
 admitted ; " but to-morrow's the Sabbath, and 
 so a lost day." 
 
 " A what? " exclaimed Gavin, horrified.
 
 THE CURLING SEASON. 203 
 
 " I only mean," Mr. Dutliie answered, 
 colouring, " that we can't curl on the Lord's 
 day. As for what it may be like on Monday, 
 no one can say. No, doctor, I won't risk it. 
 We're in the middle of a game, man." 
 
 Gavin looked very grave. 
 
 *' I see what you are thinking, Mr. Dishart," 
 tlie old minister said doggedly ; " but then, 
 you don't curl. You are very wise. I have 
 forbidden my sons to curl." 
 
 " Then you openly snap your fingers at your 
 duty, Mr. Duthie?" said the doctor, loftily. 
 (" You can let go my tails now, Mr. Dishart, 
 for the madness has passed.") 
 
 "None of your virtuous airs, McQueen," 
 said Mr. Duthie, hotly. " What was the name 
 of the doctor that warned women never to have 
 bairns while it was handing ? " 
 
 ''And what," retorted McQueen, ''was the 
 name of the minister that told his session he 
 would neither preach nor pray while the black 
 f I'ost lasted ? "
 
 204 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 " Hoots, doctor," said Dutliie, " don't lose 
 your temper because I'm in such form." 
 
 " Don't lose yours, Duthie, because I aye 
 beat you." 
 
 " You beat me, McQueen ! Go borne, 
 sir, and don't talk havers. Who beat you 
 at " 
 
 " Who made you sing small at " 
 
 " Who won " 
 
 '' Who " 
 
 '' Who " 
 
 " I'll play you on Monday for whatever you 
 like ! " shrieked the doctor. 
 
 " If it holds," cried the minister, '' I'll be 
 here the whole day. Name the stakes your- 
 self. A stone ? " 
 
 '' No," the doctor said, " but I'll tell you 
 what we'll play for. You've been dinging me 
 doited about that eldership, and we'll play 
 for't. If you win I accept office." 
 
 " Done," said the minister, recklessly. 
 
 The dog- cart was now turned toward Windy-
 
 THE CURLING SEASON. 205 
 
 glioul, its driver once more good-humoured, but 
 Gravin silent. 
 
 " You would have been the better of my 
 deaf ear just now, Mr. Dishart," McQueen said 
 after the loch had been left behind. " Aye, 
 and I'm thinking my pipe would soothe 3^ou. 
 But don't take it so much to heart, man. I'll 
 lick him easily. He's a decent man, the 
 minister, but vain of his play, ridiculously 
 vain. However, I think the sight of you, in 
 the place that should have been his, has broken 
 his nerve for this day, and our side may win yet." 
 
 '' 1 believe," Gavin said, with sudden en- 
 lightenment, " that you brought me here for 
 that purpose." 
 
 " Maybe," chuckled the doctor ; " maybe." 
 Then he changed the subject suddenly. " Mr. 
 Dishart," he asked, "were you ever in love?" 
 
 " Never ! " answered Gavin violently. 
 
 " Well, well," said the doctor, " don't terrify 
 the horse. I have been in love myself. It's 
 bad, but it's nothing to curling."
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 TRAGEDY OF A MUD HOUSE. 
 
 The dog-cart bumped between the trees of 
 Caddam, flinging Gravin and the doctor at 
 each other as a wheel rose on some beech-root 
 or sank for a moment in a pool. I suppose 
 the wood was a pretty sight that day, the pines 
 only white where they had met the snow, as 
 if the numbed painter had left his work un- 
 finished, the brittle twigs snapping overhead, 
 the water as black as tar. But it matters 
 little what the wood was like. Within a 
 squirrel's leap of it an old woman was standing 
 at the door of a mud house, listening for the 
 approach of the trap that was to take her to 
 the poorhouse. Can you think of the beauty 
 of the day now ? 
 
 Nanny was not crying. She had redd up 
 her house for the last time and put on her
 
 TRAGEDY OF A MUD HOUSE. 207 
 
 black merino. Her moutli was wide open while 
 she listened. If you had addressed her you 
 would have thought her polite and stupid. Look 
 at her. A flabby-faced woman she is now, with 
 a swollen body, and no one has heeded her much 
 these thirty years. I can tell you something; 
 it is almost droll. Nanny Webster was once 
 a gay flirt, and in Airlie Square there is a 
 weaver with an unstead}^ head who thought all 
 the earth of her. His loom has taken a foot 
 from his stature, and gone are Nanny's raven 
 locks on which he used to place his adoring 
 hand. Down in Airlie Square he is weaving 
 for his life, and here is Nanny, ripe for the poor- 
 house, and between them is the hill where 
 they were lovers. That is all the story save that 
 when Nanny heard the dog-cart she screamed. 
 
 No neighbour was with her. If you think 
 this hard, it is because you do not understand. 
 Perhaps Nanny had never been very lovable 
 except to one man, and him, it is said, she lost 
 through her own vanity; but there was much
 
 208 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 in her to like. The neighbours, of whom there 
 were two not a hundred yards away, would 
 have been with her now but they feared to 
 hurt her feelings. No heart opens to sympathy 
 without letting in delicacy, and these poor 
 people knew that Nanny would not like them 
 to see her being taken away. For a week they 
 had been aware of what was coming, and 
 they had been most kind to her, but that 
 hideous word, the poorhouse, they had not 
 uttered. Poorhouse is not to be spoken in 
 Thrums, though it is nothing to tell a man 
 that you see death in his face. Did Nanny 
 think they knew where she was going ? was 
 a question they whispered to each other, and 
 her suffering eyes cut scars on their hearts. 
 So now that the hour had come they called 
 their children into their houses and pulled down 
 their blinds. 
 
 " If you would like to see her by yourself," 
 the doctor said eagerly to Gavin, as the horse 
 drew up at Nann^^'s gate, " I'll wait with the
 
 TRAGEDY OF A MUD HOUSE. 209 
 
 horse. Not," lie added, hastily, " that I 
 feel sorry for her. We are doing her a kind- 
 ness." 
 
 They dismounted together, however, and 
 Nanny, who had run from the trap into the 
 house, watched them from her window. 
 
 McQueen saw her and said glumly, " I 
 should have come alone, for if you J^ray she 
 is sure to break down. Mr. Dishart, could you 
 not pray cheerfully ? " 
 
 " You don't look very cheerful yourself," 
 Gavin said sadly. 
 
 " Nonsense," answered the doctor. " I have 
 no patience with this false sentiment. Stand 
 still. Lightning, and be thankful you are not 
 your master to-day." 
 
 The door stood open, and Nanny was crouch- 
 ing against the opposite wall of the room, such 
 a , poor, dull kitchen, that you would have 
 thought the furniture had still to be brought 
 into it. The blanket and the piece of old 
 carpet that was Nanny's coverlet were already 
 o
 
 210 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 packed in her box. The plate rack was empty. 
 
 Only the round table and the two chairs, and 
 
 the stools and some pans were being left 
 
 behind. 
 
 " Well, Nanny," the doctor said, trying to 
 
 bluster, " I have come, and you see Mr. Dishart 
 
 is with me." 
 
 Nanny rose bravely. She knew the doctor 
 was good to her, and she wanted to thank 
 him. I have not seen a great deal of the 
 world myself, but often the sweet politeness 
 of the aged poor has struck me as beautiful. 
 Nanny dropped a curtsey, an ungainly one 
 maybe, but it was an old woman giving the 
 best she had. 
 
 " Thank you kindly, sirs," she said ; and 
 then two pairs of eyes dropped before hers. 
 
 " Please to take a chair," she added timidly. 
 It is strange to know that at that awful 
 moment, for let none tell me it was less than 
 awful, the old woman was the one who could 
 speak.
 
 TRAGEDY OF A MUD HOUSE. 211 
 
 Both men sat down, for they would have 
 hurt Nanny by remaining standing. Some 
 ministers would have known the right thing to 
 say to her, but Gravin dared not let himself 
 speak. I have again to remind you that he 
 was only one-and-twenty. 
 
 " I'm drouthy, Nanny," the doctor said, to 
 give her something to do, " and I would be 
 obliged for a drink of water." 
 
 Nanny hastened to the pan that stood 
 behind her door, but stopped before she reached 
 it. 
 
 " It's toom," she said, " I — I didna think I 
 needed to fill it this morning." She caught the 
 doctor's eye, and could only half restrain a sob. 
 " I couldna help that," she said, apologetically. 
 " I'm richt angry at myself for being so ungrate- 
 ful like." 
 
 The doctor thought it best that they should 
 depart at once. He rose. 
 
 " Oh, no, doctor," cried Nanny in alarm. 
 
 "But you are ready ? " 
 o 2
 
 212 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 "Ay," she said, '' I have been ready this twa 
 hours, but you micht wait a minute. Hendry 
 Munn and Andrew Allardyce is coming yont 
 the road, and they would see me." 
 
 " Wait, doctor," Gravin said. 
 
 " Thank you kindly, sir," answered Nanny. 
 
 "But Nanny," the doctor said, " you must 
 remember what I told you about the poo — , 
 about the place you are going to. It is a fine 
 house, and you will be very happy in it." 
 
 " Ay, 111 be happy in't," Nanny faltered, 
 " but, doctor, if I could just hae bidden on here 
 though I wasna happy ! " 
 
 "Think of the food you will get; broth 
 nearly every day." 
 
 " It — it'll be terrible enjoyable," Nanny said. 
 
 " And there will be pleasant company for 
 you always," continued the doctor, " and a nice 
 room to sit in. Why, after you have been there 
 a week, you won't be the same woman." 
 
 " That's it ! " cried Nanny with sudden 
 passion. " Na, na ; I'll be a woman on the
 
 TRAGEDY OF A MUD HOUSE. 213 
 
 poor's rates. Oh, mither, mither, you little 
 tliocht when 3^ou bore me that I would come to 
 this ! " 
 
 " Nanny," the doctor said, rising again, " I 
 am ashamed of you." 
 
 "I humbly speir your forgiveness, sir," she 
 said, " and you micht bide just a wee yet. I've 
 been ready to gang these tvva hours, but now 
 that the machine is at the gate, I dhina ken 
 how it is, but I'm terrible sweer to come awa'. 
 Oh, Mr. Dishart, it's richt true what the doctor 
 says about the — the place, but I canna just 
 take it in. I'm — I'm gey auld." 
 
 " You will often get out to see your friends," 
 was all Gravin could say. 
 
 " JSTa, na, na," she cried, " dinna say that ; 
 I'll gang, but 3'ou mauna bid me ever come 
 out, except in a hearse. Dinna let onybody in 
 Thrums look on my face again." 
 
 " We must go," said the doctor firmly. 
 "Put on 3^our mutch, Nancy." 
 
 " I dinna need to j^ut on a mutch," she
 
 214 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 answered, with a faint flush of pride. " I have 
 a bonnet." 
 
 She took the bonnet from her bed, and put 
 it on slowly. 
 
 ''Are you sure there's naebody looking?" 
 she asked. 
 
 The doctor glanced at the minister, and 
 Gavin rose. 
 
 *' Let us pray," he said, and the three went 
 down on their knees. 
 
 It was not the custom of Auld Licht minis- 
 ters to leave any house without offering up a 
 prayer in it, and to us it always seemed that 
 when Gavin prayed, he was at the knees of God. 
 The little minister pouring himself out in 
 prayer in a humble room, with awed people 
 around him who knew much more of the world 
 than he, his voice at times thick and again a 
 squeal, and his hands clasped not gracefully, 
 may have been only a comic figure, but we were 
 old-fashioned, and he seemed to make us better 
 men. If I only knew the way, I would draw
 
 TRAGEDY OF A MUD HOUSE. 215 
 
 him as he was, and not fear to make him too 
 mean a man for you to read about. He had not 
 been long in Thrums before he knew that we 
 talked much of his pra3^ers, and that doubtless 
 pufPed him up a little. Sometimes, I daresay, 
 he rose from his knees feelino" that he had 
 prayed well to-day, which is a dreadful charge 
 to bring against anyone. But it was not always 
 so, nor was it so now. 
 
 I am not speaking harshly of this man, 
 whom I have loved beyond all others, when I 
 say that Nanny came between him and his 
 prayer. Had he been of God's own image, 
 unstained, he would have forgotten all else in 
 his Maker's presence, but Nanny was speaking 
 too, and her words choked his. At first she 
 only whispered, but soon what was eating her 
 heart burst out painfully, and she did not know 
 that the minister had stopped. They were such 
 moans as these that brought him back to 
 earth : — 
 
 '' I'll hae to gang . . . I'm a base
 
 216 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 woman no' to be mair thankfu' to them that is 
 so good to me ... I dinna like to prig 
 \vi' them to take a roundabout road, and I'm 
 sair fleid a' the E-oods will see me . . . If 
 it could just be said to poor Sanders when he 
 comes back that I died hurriedly, syne he would 
 be able to baud up his head . . . Oh, 
 mither ! . . . I wish terrible they had come 
 and ta'en me at nicht . . . It's a dog-cart, 
 and I was praying it micht be a cart, so that 
 they could cover me wi' straw." 
 
 '' This is more than I can stand," the doctor 
 cried. 
 
 Nanny rose frightened. 
 
 ''I've tried you, sair," she said, "but, oh, 
 I'm grateful, and I'm ready now." 
 
 The}' all advanced toward the door without 
 another word, and Nanny even tried to smile. 
 But in the middle of the floor something came 
 over her, and she stood there. Gavin took her 
 hand, and it was cold. She looked from one to 
 the other, her mouth opening and shutting.
 
 TRAGEDY OV A MUD HOUSE. 217 
 
 ** I canna lielp it," she said. 
 
 " It's cruel hard," muttered the doctor. " I 
 knew this woman when she was a lassie." 
 
 The little minister stretched out his hands. 
 
 " Have pity on her, God ! " he prayed, with 
 the presumptuousness of youth. 
 
 Nanny heard the words. 
 
 " Oh, God," she cried, "you micht ! " 
 
 God needs no minister to tell Him what to 
 do, hut it was His will that the poorhouse 
 should not have this woman. He made use of a 
 strange instrument, no other than the Egj'ptian, 
 who now opened the mud house door.
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 SECOND COMING OF THE EGYPTIAN WOMAN. 
 
 The gypsy had been passing the house, per- 
 haps on her way to Thrums for gossip, and 
 ifc was only curiosity, born suddenly of Gavin's 
 cry, that made her enter. On finding herself 
 in unexpected company she retained hold of 
 the door, and to the amazed minister she 
 seemed for a moment to have stepped into the 
 mud house from his garden. Her eyes danced, 
 however, as they recognised him, and then he 
 hardened. " This is no place for you," he 
 was saying fiercely, when Nanny, too distraught 
 to think, fell crying at the Egyptian's feet. 
 
 " They are taking me to the poorhouse," she 
 sobbed ; '' dinna let them, dinna let them." 
 
 The Egyptian's arms clasped her, and the 
 Egyptian kissed a sallow cheek that had 
 once been as fair as yours, madam, who may
 
 THE Egyptian's second coming. 219 
 
 read this story. No one had caressed Xanny 
 for many years, but do you think she was 
 too poor and old to care for those young 
 arms around her neck? There are those who 
 say that women cannot love each other, but 
 it is not true. Woman is not undeveloped 
 man, but something better, and Gavin and 
 the doctor knew it as they saw Nanny cling- 
 ing to her protector. When the gypsy turned 
 with flashing eyes to the two men she might 
 have been a mother guarding her chikl. 
 
 " How dare you ! " she cried, stamping her 
 foot ; and they quaked like malefactors. 
 
 " You don't see " Gavin began, but her 
 
 indignation stopped him. 
 
 '' You coward ! " she said. 
 
 Even the doctor had been impressed, so 
 that he now addressed the gypsy respectfully. 
 
 " This is all very well," he said, " but a 
 woman's sympathy " 
 
 " A woman 1 — ah, if I could be a man for 
 only five minutes ! "
 
 220 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 She clenclied "her little fists, and again turned 
 to Nanny. 
 
 " You poor dear," she said tenderly, " I 
 won't let them take you away." 
 
 She looked triumphantly at both minister 
 and doctor, as one who had foiled them in 
 their cruel designs. 
 
 " Go ! " she said, pointing grandly to the 
 door. 
 
 " Is this the Egyptian of the riots," the 
 doctor said in a low voice to Gavin, " or is she a 
 queen? Hoots, man, don't look so shamefaced. 
 We are not criminals. Say something." 
 
 Then to the Egyptian Gavin said firmly — 
 
 " You mean well, but you are doing this poor 
 woman a cruelty in holding out hopes to her 
 that cannot be realised. Sympathy is not meal 
 and bedclothes, and these are what she needs." 
 
 *' And you who live in luxury," retorted the 
 girl, " would send her to the poorhouse for 
 them. I thought better of you !" 
 
 '' Tuts ! " said the doctor, losing patience.
 
 THE Egyptian's second coming. 221 
 
 *' Mr. Disliart gives more than any other man 
 in Thrums to the poor, and he is not to be 
 preached to by a gypsy. We are waiting for 
 yon, Nanny." 
 
 " Ay, I'm coming," said Nanny, leaving the 
 Egyptian. '' I'll hae to gang, lassie. Dinna 
 greet for me." 
 
 But the Egyptian said, " No, you are not 
 going. It is these men who are going. Go, 
 sirs, and leave us." 
 
 " And you will provide for Nanny ? " asked 
 the doctor contemptuously. 
 
 '' Yes." 
 
 " And where is the siller to come from? " 
 
 "That is my affair, and Nanny's. Begone, 
 both of you. She shall never want again. 
 See how the very mention of your going brings 
 back life to her face." 
 
 " I won't begone," the doctor said roughly, 
 " till I see the colour of your siller." 
 
 " Oh, the money," said the Egyptian scorn- 
 fully. She put her hand into her pocket
 
 222 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 confidently, as if used to well-filled purses, but 
 could only draw out two silver pieces. 
 
 " I had forgotten," she said aloud, though 
 speaking to herself. 
 
 " I thought so,'' said the cynical doctor. 
 " Come, Nanny." 
 
 " You presume to doubt me ! " the Egyptian 
 said, blocking his way to the door. 
 
 " How could I presume to believe you ? " he 
 answered. " You are a beggar by profession, 
 and yet talk as if pooh, nonsense." 
 
 " I would live on terrible little," Nanny 
 whispered, " and Sanders will be out again 
 in August month." 
 
 " Seven shilHngs a week," rapped out the 
 doctor. 
 
 " Is that all ? " the Egyptian asked. " She 
 shall have it." 
 
 " When ? " 
 
 " At once. No, it is not possible to-night, 
 but to-morrow I will bring five pounds ; no, 
 I will send it ; no, you must come for it."
 
 THE Egyptian's second coming. 223 
 
 " And where, daughter of Dives, do you 
 reside ? " the doctor asked. 
 
 No doubt the Egyptian could have found a 
 ready answer had her pity for Xanny been less 
 sincere ; as it was, she hesitated, wantin<^ to pro- 
 pitiate the doctor, while holding her secret fast. 
 
 " I only asked," McQueen said, eyeing her 
 curiously, "because when I make an appoint- 
 ment I like to know where it is to be held. 
 But I suppose you are suddenly to rise out 
 of the ground as you have done to-day, and 
 did six weeks ago." 
 
 " Whether I rise out of the ground or not," 
 the gypsy said, keeping her temper with an 
 effort, " there will be a five-pound note in my 
 hand. You will meet me to-morrow about this 
 hour at — -say the Kaims of Cushie r " 
 
 " No," said the doctor after a moment's 
 pause ; " I won't. Even if I went to the Kaims 
 I should not find you there. Why can you 
 not come to me ? " 
 
 " Why do you carry a woman's hah*,"
 
 224 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 replied the Egyptian, " in tliat locket on your 
 chain ? " 
 
 Whether she was speaking of what she 
 knew, or this was only a chance shot, I cannot 
 tell, but the doctor stepped back from her 
 hastily, and could not help looking down at 
 the locket. 
 
 " Yes," said the Egyptian calmly, " it is 
 still shut ; but why do you sometimes open 
 it at nights ? " 
 
 '' Lassie," the old doctor cried, '' are you a 
 witch p " 
 
 "Perhaps," she said; "but I ask for no 
 answer to my questions. If you have your 
 secrets, why may I not have mine ? Now will 
 you meet me at the Kaims? " 
 
 " No ; I distrust you more than ever. Even 
 if you came, it would be to play with me as 
 you have done already. How can a vagrant 
 have live pounds in her pocket when she does 
 not have five shillings on her back ? " 
 
 " You are a cruel, hard man," the Egyptian
 
 THE Egyptian's second coming. 225 
 
 said, beginning to lose hope. " Bat, see," she 
 cried, brightening, '' look at this ring. Do 
 you know its value ? " 
 
 She held up her finger, but the stone would 
 not live in the dull light. 
 
 ** I see it is gold," the doctor said cautiously, 
 and she smiled at the ignorance that made 
 him look only at the frame. 
 
 " Certainly it is gold," said Gavin, equally 
 stupid. 
 
 "Mercy on us!" Nanny cried; "I believe 
 it's what they call a diamond." 
 
 ''How did you come by it?" the doctor 
 asked suspiciously. 
 
 " I thouo^ht we had ao^reed not to ask eacli 
 other questions," the Egyptian answered drih'. 
 " But, see, I will give it to you to hold in 
 hostage. If I am not at the Kaims to get it 
 back you can keep it." 
 
 The doctor took the ring in his hand and 
 examined it curiously. 
 
 " There is a quirk in this," he said at hist, 
 r
 
 :2:2C) the little minister. 
 
 '' that I don't like. Take back your ring, 
 lassie. Mr. Disharb, give Nanny your arm, 
 and I'll carry her box to the machine." 
 
 Now all this time Gavin had been in the 
 dire distress qf a man possessed of two minds, 
 of which one said, " This is a true woman," 
 and the other, " Remember the seventeenth of 
 
 October." They were at war within him, and 
 he knew that he must take a side, yet no sooner 
 had he cast one out than he invited it back. 
 He did not answer the doctor. 
 
 ''Unless," McQueen said, nettled by his 
 hesitation, " you trust this woman's word." 
 
 Gavin tried honestly to weigh those two 
 minds against each other, but could not prevent 
 impulse jumping into one of the scales. 
 
 '' You do trust me," the Egyptian said, with 
 wet eyes ; and now that he looked on her again — 
 
 " Yes," he said firmly, " I tru^t 3'ou," and 
 the words that had been so difficult to say were 
 the riofht words. He had no more doubt of it. 
 
 " Just think a moment first," the doctor
 
 THE Egyptian's second coming. 2. "2 7 
 
 warned him. '' I decline to have anything to 
 do with this matter. You will go to the Kaims 
 for the siller ? " 
 
 " If it is necessary," said Gavin. 
 
 *' It is necessary," the Egyptian said. 
 
 " Then I will go." 
 
 Nanny took his hand timidly, and would 
 have kissed it had he been less than a minister. 
 
 " You dare not, man," the doctor said gruffly, 
 *' make an appointment with this gypsy. Think 
 of what will be said in Thrums." 
 
 I honour Gavin for the way in which lit- 
 took this warning. For him, who was watched 
 from the rising of his congregation to their 
 lying down, whose every movement was ex- 
 pected to be a text to Thrums, it was no small 
 thing that he had promised. This he knew, 
 but he only reddened because the doctor had 
 implied an offensive thing in a woman's presence. 
 
 " You forget yourself, doctor," he said sharply. 
 
 '' Send some one in your place," advised the 
 doctor, who liked the little minister. 
 p 2
 
 228 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 " He must come himself and alone,'* said 
 the Egyptian. " You must both give me your 
 promise not to mention who is Nanny's friend, 
 and she must promise too." 
 
 " Well," said the doctor, buttoning up his 
 coat, " I cannot keep my horse freezing any 
 longer. Eemember, Mr. Dishart, you take the 
 sole responsibility of this." 
 
 " I do," said Gavin, " and with the utmost 
 confidence." 
 
 " Give him the ring then, lassie," said 
 McQueen. 
 
 She handed the minister the ring, but he 
 would not take it. 
 
 " I have your word," he said ; " that is 
 sufficient." 
 
 Then the Egyptian gav^e him the first look 
 that he could think of afterwards without mis- 
 givings. 
 
 " So be it," said the doctor. " Get the 
 money, and I will say nothing about it, unless 
 I have reason to think that it has been dis-
 
 THE Egyptian's second coming. 229 
 
 honestly come by. Don't look so frightened at 
 me, Nanny. I hope for your sake that her 
 stocking- foot is full of gold." 
 
 " Surely it's worth risking," Nanny said, not 
 very brightly, " when the minister's on her side." 
 
 "Ay, but on whose side, Nanny?" asked 
 the doctor. '' Lassie, I bear you no grudge ; 
 will you not tell me who you are ? " 
 
 '* Only a puir gypsy, your honour," said the 
 girl, becoming mischievous now that she had 
 gained her point ; " only a wandering hallen- 
 shaker, and will I tell you your fortune my 
 pretty gentleman ? " 
 
 '' No, you shan't," replied the doctor, 
 plunging his hands so hastily into his pockets 
 that Gavin laughed. 
 
 " I don't need to look at your hand," said 
 the gypsy, " I can read your fortune in your 
 face." 
 
 She looked at him fixedly, so that he 
 fidgeted. 
 
 " I see you," said the Egyptian in a sepul-
 
 230 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 chral voice, and speakinf^ slowly, " become very 
 frail. Your eyesight has almost gone. You are 
 sitting alone in a cauld room, cooking your ain 
 dinner ower a feeble fire. The soot is falling 
 down the lum. Your bearish manners towards 
 women have driven the servant lassie frae your 
 house, and your wife beats you." 
 
 " Ay, you spoil your prophecy there," the 
 doctor said, considerably relieved, " for I'm not 
 married ; my pipe's the only wife I ever had." 
 
 " You will be married by that time," con- 
 tinued the Egyptian, frowning at this interrup- 
 tion, ■' for I see your wife. She is a shrew. She 
 marries you in your dotage. She lauchs at you 
 in company. She doesna allow you to smoke." 
 
 "Away with you, you jade," cried the doctor 
 in a fury, and feeling nervously for his pipe. 
 " Mr. Dishart, you had better stay and arrange 
 this matter as you choose, but I want a word 
 with you outside." 
 
 " And you're no angry wi' me, doctor, are 
 you ? " asked Nanny wistfully. " You've been
 
 THE Egyptian's second coming. 231 
 
 riclit good to me, but I canna tliole the thocht 
 o' that place. And, oh, doctor, you winna tell 
 naebodj that I was so near taen to it ? " 
 
 In the garden McQueen said to (iavin — 
 
 " You may be right, Mr. Dishart, in this 
 matter, for there is this in our favour, that the 
 woman can gain nothing by tricking us. She 
 did seem to feel for Xanny. But who can she 
 be ? You saw she could put on and off the 
 Scotch tongue as easily as if it were a cap." 
 
 " She is as much a mysterj^to me as to you," 
 Gavin answered, " but she will give me the 
 money, and that is all I ask of her." 
 
 " Ay, that remains to be seen. But take 
 care of yourself; a man's second childhood 
 beofins when a w^oman p^ets hold of him." 
 
 " Don't alarm yourself about me, doctor. I 
 daresay she is only one of those gypsies from 
 the South. They are said to be wealthy, manv 
 of them, and even, when they like, to have a 
 grand manner. The Thrums people had no 
 doubt but that she was what she seemed to be."
 
 232 THE LITTLE MINISTER. 
 
 " Ay, but what does she seem to be ? Even 
 that puzzles me. And then there is this mystery 
 about her which she admits herself, though 
 perhaps only to play with us." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Gavin, " she is only taking 
 precautions against her discovery by the police. 
 You must remember her part in the riots." 
 
 '* Yes, but we never learned how she was 
 able to play that part. Besides, there is no fear 
 in her, or she would not have ventured back to 
 Thrums. However, good luck attend you. But 
 be wary. You saw how she kept her feet 
 among her shalls and wills ? Never trust a 
 Scotch man or woman who does not come to 
 grief among them." 
 
 The doctor took his seat in the dog-cart. 
 
 "And, Mr. Dishart," he called out, '^that 
 was all nonsense about the locket." 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 Printed by Cassell & Compant, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.G.
 
 Selections from Cassell S; Company^ s Publications. 
 
 iUustratctr, yitte-^rt, atiti ot^Er ITolumes. 
 
 Abbeys and Churches of England and Wales, The: Descriptive, 
 
 Historical, Pictorial. Two Series. 2is. each. 
 Adventure, The World of. Fully Illustrated. Complete in Three Vols. 
 
 gs each. 
 American Library of Fiction. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. each. 
 
 A L«Un-Quarter Courtship. By Karmel the Scout. By Sj-lvanus Cobb, 
 
 Henry Harland (Sidney Junr. 
 
 Luska). Grandison Mather. By Henry Harland 
 "89." By Edgar Henry. (Sidney Luska). 
 
 Anglomaniacs, The : A Story of New York Life of To-day. By 
 
 Mrs. Burton Harrison. 3s. 6d. 
 Arabian Nights Entertainments, Cassell's Pictorial. los. 6d. 
 Architectural Drawing. By Phen6 Spiers. Illustrated. los. 6d. 
 Art, The Magazine of. Yearly Vol. With 12 Photogravures, Etchings, 
 
 &c., and several hundred choice Engravings. i6s. 
 Artistic Anatomy. By Prof. M. Duval. Translated by F. E. Fenton. 5s. 
 BashkirtsefT, Marie, The Journal of. Cheap Edition. 7s. 6d. 
 
 Library Edition, in Two Vols., 24s. 
 Bashkirtseff, Marie, The Letters of. Translated by Mary J. 
 
 Serrano. 7s. 6d. 
 Birds' Nests, Eggs, and Egg-Collecting. By R. Kearton. Illus- 
 trated with 16 Coloured Plates. 5s. 
 Black America. A Study of the Ex-slave and his late Master. By W. 
 
 Laird Clowes. 6s. 
 Black Arrow, The. A Tale of the Two Roses. By R. L. Stevenson. 
 
 Illustrated. 3s. 6d. 
 British Ballads. With 275 Original Illustrations. In Two Vols. 15s. 
 British Battles on Land and Sea. By James Grant. With about 
 
 600 Illustrations. Three Vols., 4to, £^\ 7s.; Library Edition, £1 los. 
 British Battles, Recent. Illustrated. 410,95.; Library Edition, los. 
 Brow^ning, An Introduction to the Study of. By A. Svmons. 2s. 6d. 
 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and The Holy W^ar, Cassell's Illus- 
 trated Edition of. With 200 Original Illustrations. Cloth, i6s. 
 Butterflies and Moths, European, With 61 Coloured Plates. 35s. 
 Canaries and Cage-Birds, The Illustrated Book of. With 56 Fac- 
 simile Coloured Plates, 35s. Half-morocco, -£2 5s. 
 Cassell's Family Magazine. Yearly Vol. Illustrated, gs. 
 Cathedrals, Abbeys, and Churches of England and Wales. 
 Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial. Popular Edition. Two Vols. 25s. 
 Celebrities of the Century. Cheap Edition. los. 6d. 
 Choice Dishes at Small Cost. By A. G. Payne, is. 
 Cities of the World. Four Vols. Illustrated. 7s. 6d. each. 
 Civil Service, Guide to Employment in the. 3s. 6d. 
 Civil Service. — Guide to Female Employment in Government 
 
 Offices. IS. 
 Climate and Health Resorts. By Dr. Burney Veo. New and 
 
 Cheaper Edition. 7s. 6d. 
 Clinical Manuals for Practitioners and Students of Medicine. A 
 
 List of Volumes forwarded post free on application to the Publishers. 
 Clothing, The Influence of, on Health. By F. Treves, F.R.C.S. 2s. 
 Colonist's Medical Handbook, The. By E. A. Bakton,iM.R.C.S. 2s.6d. 
 Colour. By Prof. A. H. Church. With Coloured Plates. 3s. 6d. 
 Commerce, The Year- Book of. Third Year's Issue. 5s. 
 Commercial Botany of the Nineteenth Century. By J. R. Jackson, 
 
 A.L.S. Cloth gut, 3s. 6d. 
 Conning Tower, In a. By H. O. Arnold-Forster. is. 
 Cookery, A Year's. By Phyllis Brownb. New and Enlarged 
 Edition. 3s. 6d. 
 
 5 G. 9-91
 
 Selections from Cassell % Company's Publications. 
 
 Cookery, Cassell's Dictionary of. Containing about Nine Thousand 
 
 Recipes, 7s. 6d. ; Roxburgh, los. 6d. 
 Cookery, Cassell's Popular. With Four Coloured Plates, Cloth gilt, 2s. 
 Cookery, Cassell's Shilling. 384 pages, limp cloth, is. 
 Cookery, Vegetarian. By A. G. Payne, is. 6d. 
 Cooking by Gas, The Art of. By Marie J. Sugg. Illustrated. Cloth, 
 
 3s. 6d. 
 Copyright, The Law of Musical and Dramatic. By Edward 
 
 Cutler, Thomas Eustace Smith, and Frederic E. Weatherly, 
 
 Esquires, Barristers-at-Law. 3s. 6d. 
 Countries of the World, The. By Robert Brown, M.A., Ph.D., &c. 
 
 Complete in Six Vols., with about 750 Illustrations. 4to, 7s. 6d. each. 
 Cromwell, Oliver. By J. Allanson Picton, M.P. 5s. 
 Culmshire Folk. By the Author of "John Orlebar," &c. 3s. 6d. 
 Cyclopaedia, Cassell's Concise. Brought down to the latest date. With 
 
 about 600 Illustrations. Cheap Edition. 7s. 6d. 
 
 Cyclopaedia, Cassell's Miniature. Containing 30,000 subjects. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Dairy Farming. By Prof. J. P. Sheldon. With 25 Coloured Plates. 2is. 
 
 David Todd. By David Maclure. 5s. 
 
 Dickens, Character Sketches from. First, Second, and Third Series. 
 
 With Six Original Drawings in each by F. Barnard. 21s. each. 
 Disraeli, Benjamin, Personal Reminiscences of. By Henry Lake. 
 
 3s. 6d. 
 Disraeli in Outline. By F. Carroll Brewster, LL.D. 7s. 6d. 
 Dog, Illustrated Book of the. By Vero Shaw, B.A. With 28 Coloured 
 
 Plates. Cloth bevelled, 35s. ; half-morocco, 45s. 
 Dog, The. By Idstone. Illustrated. 2s. 6d. 
 Domestic Dictionary, The. Illustrated. Cloth, 7s. 6d. 
 
 Dore Gallery, The. With 250 Illustrations by Dore. 4to, 42s. 
 Dore's Dante's Inferno. Illustrated by Gustave Dor6. 21s. 
 Dore's Milton's Paradise Lost. Illustrated by Dor6. 4to, 21s. 
 Dr. Dumdny's Wife. A Novel. By Maurus Jokai. Translated from 
 
 the Hungarian by F. Steinitz. 7s. 6d. net. 
 Earth, Our, and its Story. By Dr. Robert Brown, F.L.S. With 
 
 Coloured Plates and numerous Wood Engravings. Three Vols. gs. each. 
 Edinburgh, Old and New^. With 600 Illustrations. Three Vols. gs. each. 
 Egypt: Descriptive, Historical, and Picturesque. ByProf G. Ebers. 
 
 With 800 Original Engravings. Popular Edition. In Two Vols. 42s. 
 Electricity in the Service of Man. With nearly 850 Illustrations. 
 
 Cheap Edition, gs. 
 Electricity, Age of. By Park Benjamin, Ph.D. 7s. 6d. 
 Electricity, Practical. By Prof. W. E. Ayrton. 7s. 6d. 
 Employment for Boys on Leaving School, Guide to. By W. S. 
 
 Beard, F.R.G.S. is. 6d. 
 Encyclopaedic Dictionary, The. Complete in Fourteen Divisional 
 
 Vols., los. 6d. each; or Seven Vols., half-morocco, 21s. each; half- 
 
 russia, 25s. 
 England, Cassell's Illustrated History of. With 2,000 Illustrations. 
 
 Ten Vols., 4to, gs. each. Revised Edition. Vols. I., II., III., and 
 
 IV., gs. each. 
 English Dictionary, Cassell's. Giving definitions of more than 
 
 100,000 words and phrases. 7s. 6d. 
 
 English History, The Dictionary of. Cheap Edition. los. 6d. 
 
 English Literature, Dictionary of. By W. Davenport Adams. 
 Cheap Edition f 7s. 6d. ; Roxburgh, los. 6d.
 
 Selections from Cassell S; Company's Publications. 
 
 English Literature, Library of. By Prof. Henry Morley. 
 
 Vol. L — Shorter English Poems. 7s. 6d. 
 
 Vol. H. — Illustrations of English Religion. 7s. 6d. 
 
 Vol. in.— English Plays. 7s. 6d. 
 
 Vol. IV.— Shorter Works in English Prose. 7s. 6d. 
 
 Vol. v.— Sketches of Longer Works in English Verse and 
 Prose. 7s. 6d. 
 English Literature, Motley's First Sketch of. Revised Edition, ^s.td. 
 English Literature, The Story of. By Anna Buckland. 3s. 6d. 
 English Writers. By Pvof. Henry Morley. Vols. I. toVIII. 5s. each, 
 ^sop's Fables. Illustrated by Ernest Griset. Cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 Etiquette of Good Society, is. ; cloth, is. 6d. 
 Eye, Ear, and Throat, The Management of the. 3s. 6d. 
 Faith Doctor, The. A Novel. By Edward Eggleston. 7s. 6d. net. 
 Family Physician, The. By Eminent Physicians and Surgeons. 
 
 New and Revised Edition. Cloth, 2IS. ; Roxburgh, 25s. 
 Father Stafford. A Novel. Py Anthony Hope. 6s. 
 Fenn, G. Manville, Works by. Boards. 2s. each; cloth, 2s. 6d. each. 
 
 Dutch the Diver. Boards only. 
 The Vicar's People. Cloth only. 
 
 Poverty Corner. 
 My Patients. Being the Notes 
 " of a Navy Surgeon. 
 
 The Parson o' Dumford. Boards only. 
 Field Naturalist's Handbook, The. By the Rev. J. G. Wood 
 
 and Rev. Theodore Wood. 5s. 
 Figuier's Popular Scientific Works. With Several Hundred Illustra 
 
 tions in each. 3s. 6d. each. 
 The Human Race. | Mam.malia. 1 Ocean World. 
 
 World before the Deluge. Revised. 
 Flora's Feast. A Masque of Flowers. Penned and Pictured by Walter 
 
 Crane. With 40 Pages in Colours. 5s. 
 Flower de Hundred, The Story of a Virginia Plantation. By Mrs 
 
 Burton Harrison, Author of the " Anglomaniacs," &c. 3s. 6d. 
 Flower Painting in V/ater Colours. With Coloured Plates. First 
 
 and Second Series. 5s. each. 
 Flower Painting, Elementary. With Eight Coloured Plates. 3s. 
 Flow^ers, and How^ to Paint Them. By Maud Naftel. With 
 
 Coloured Plates. 5s. 
 Fossil Reptiles, A History of British. By Sir Richard Owen, 
 
 K.C.B., F.R.S., &c. With 268 Plates. In Four Vols., £12 12s. 
 Four Years in Parliament w^ith Hard Labour. By C. W. Radcliffe 
 
 Cooke, M.P. Third Edition, is. 
 France as It Is. By Andr6 Lebon and Paul Pelef. With Three 
 
 Maps. Crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d. 
 Garden Flowers, Familiar. By Shirley Hibberd. With Coloured 
 
 Plates by F. E. Hulme, F.L.S. Complete in Five Series. 12s. 6d. each. 
 Gardening, Cassell's Popular. Illustrated. Four Vols. 5s. each. 
 Geometrical Drawing for Army Candidates. By H. T. Lilley, 
 
 M.A. 2S. 
 Geometry, First Elements of Experimental. By Paul Bert. is.6d. 
 Geometry, Practical Solid. By Major Ross. 2s. 
 Gilbert, Elizabeth, and her Work for the Blind. By Frances 
 
 Martin. 2s. 6d. 
 Gleanings from Popular Authors. Two Vols. With Original Illus- 
 trations. 4to, gs. each. Two Vols, in One, 15s. 
 Gulliver's Travels. With 88 Engravings by Morten. Cheap Edition. 
 
 Cloth, 3s. 6d. ; cloth gilt, 5s. 
 Gun and its Development, The. By W. W. Greener. With 500 
 
 Illustrations. los. 6d. 
 Guns, Modern Shot. By W. W. Greener. Illustrated. 5s. 
 Health at School. By Clement Dukes, M.D., B.S. 7s. 6d. 
 Health, The Book of. By Eminent Physicians and Surgeons, ais. 
 Health, The Influence of Clothing on. By F, Treves, F.R.G.S. as.
 
 Selections from Cassell ^ Company's Publications. 
 
 Heavens, The Story of the. By Sir Robert Stawell Ball, LL.D., 
 
 F.R.S., F.R.A.S. With Coloured Plates. Popular Edition. 12S. 6d. 
 Heroes of Britain in Peace and War. With 300 Original Illus- 
 trations. Cheap Edition. Vol. I. 3s. 6d. 
 Holiday Studies of Wordsworth. By Rev. F. A. Malleson, M.A. 5s. 
 Horse, The Book of the. By Samuel Sidney. With 28 Fac-simile 
 
 Coloured Plates. Enlarged Edition. Demy4to, 35s.; half-morocco, 45s. 
 Houghton, Lord : The Life, Letters, and Friendships of Richard 
 
 Monckton Milnes, First Lord Houghton. By T. Wemyss 
 
 Reid. In Two Vols., with Two Portraits. 32s. 
 Household, Cassell's Book of the. Complete in Four Vols. 5s. each. 
 How W^omen may Earn a Living. By Mercy Grogan. 6d. 
 Hygiene and Public Health. By B. Arthur Whitelegge, M.D. 7s. 6d. 
 India, Cassell's History of. By James Grant. With about 400 
 
 Illustrations. Library binding. One Vol. 15s. 
 In-door Amusements, Card Games, and Fireside Fun, Cassell's 
 
 Book of. Cheap Edition. 2s. 
 Irish Union, The; Before and After. By A. K. Connell, M.A. 2s. 6d. 
 Italy from the Fall of Napoleon I. in 1815 to 1890. By J. W. Probyn. 
 
 New and Cheaper Edition. 3s. 6d. 
 "Japanese" Library of Popular W^orks, Cassell's. Consisting of 
 
 Twelve Popular Works, printed on thin paper, is. 3d. each net. 
 
 Handy Andy. — Oliver Twist. — Ivanhoe. — Ingoldsby Legends.— 
 The Last of the Mohicans. — The Last Days of Pompeii.— The 
 Tellovirplush Papers. — The Last Days of Palmyra. — Ja'^k 
 Hinton, the Guardsman. — Selections from Hood's Works.— 
 American Humour.— The Tower of London. 
 John Orlebar, Clk. By the Author of " Culmshire Folk." 2s. 
 John Parmelee's Curse. By Julian Hawthorne. 2s. 6d. 
 Kennel Guide, The Practical. By Dr. Gordon Stables, is. 
 Khiva, A Ride to. By Col. Fred. Burnaby. is. 6d. 
 Kidnapped. By R. L. Stevenson. Illustrated. 3s. 6d. 
 King Solomon's Mines. By H. Rider Haggard. Illustrated. 3s. 6d. 
 Ladies' Physician, The. By a London Physician. 6s. 
 Lake Dwellings of Europe. By Robert Munro, M.D., M.A. 
 
 Cloth, 31S. 6d. ; Roxburgh, £2 2s. 
 Law, How to Avoid. By A. J. Williams, M.P. is. Cheap Edition. 
 Legends for Lionel. By Walter Crane. Coloured Illustrations. 5s. 
 Letts's Diaries and other Time-saving Publications published 
 
 exclusively by Casskll & Company. {A list free on application.') 
 Life Assurance, Medical Handbook of. 7s. 6d. 
 Little Minister, The. By J. M. Barrie. Three Vols. 31s. 6d. 
 Loans Manual. By Charles P. Cotton. 5s. 
 Local Government in England and Germany. By the Right Hon. 
 
 Sir Robert MoRiER, G.C.B., &c. is. 
 Local Option in Norw^ay. By Thomas M. Wilson, C.E. is. 
 Locomotive Engine, The Biography of a. By Henry Frith. 5s. 
 London, Greater. By Edward Walford. Two Vols. With about 
 
 400 Illustrations, gs. each. 
 London, Old and New. Six Vols., each containing about 200 
 
 Illustrations and Maps. Cloth, gs. each. 
 London Street Arabs. By Mrs. H. M. Stanley (Dorothy Tennant). 
 
 A Collection of Pictures. Descriptive Text by the Artist. 5s. 
 Master of Ballantrae, The. By R. L. Stevenson. Illustrated. 3s. 6i. 
 
 Mathew, Father, His Life and Times. By F. J. Mathew, a Grand- 
 nephew. 28. 6d. 
 
 Mechanics, The Practical Dictionary of. Containing 15,000 Draw- 
 ings. Four Vols. 2is. each. 
 
 Medicine, Manuals for Students of. [A List forwarded post free.) 
 
 Metropolitan Year-Book, The, for 1892. Paper, is. ; cloth, 2s.
 
 Selections from Cassell ^- Company's Publications. 
 
 Metzerott, Shoemaker. Cr. 8vo, 5s. 
 
 Modern Europe, A History of. By C. A. Fyffe, M.A. Complete in 
 
 Three Vols. I2S. each. 
 Music, Illustrated History of. By Emil Naumann. Edited by the 
 
 Rev. Sir F. A. Gore Ouseley, Bart. Illustrated. Two Vols. 31s. 6d. 
 National Library, Cassell's. In Volumes. Paper covers, 3d. ; cloth, 
 
 6d. {A Complete List 0/ the Volumes post free on application.) 
 Natural History, Cassell's Concise. By E. Perceval Wright, 
 
 M.A., M.D., F.L.S. With several Hundred Illustrations. 7s. 6d. 
 Natural History, Cassell's New. Edited by Prof. P. Martin 
 
 Duncan, M.B., F.R.S., F.G.S. Complete in Six Vols. With about 
 
 2.000 Illustrations. Cloth, gs. each. 
 Nature's Wonder Workers. By Kate R. Lovell. Illustrated. 5s. 
 Naval War, The Last Great. By A. Nelson Seaforth. One Vol., 
 
 with Maps and Plans. 2S. 
 Navy, Royal, All About The. By W. Laird Clowes. Illustrated, is. 
 Nelson, The Life of. By Robert Southey. Illustrated with Eight 
 
 Plates. 3s. 6d. An Edition of Southey's "Nelson" is published as a 
 
 Volume of the National Library, price 3d. Cloth, 6d. 
 Nursing for the Home and for the Hospital, A Handbook of. 
 
 By Catherine J. Wood. Cheap Edition, is. 6d. ; cloth, 2s. 
 Nursing of Sick Children, A Handbook for the. By Catherinb 
 
 J, Wood. 2s. 6d. 
 Oil Painting, A Manual of. By the Hon. John Collier, as. 6d. 
 Our Ov/n Country. Six Vols. With 1,200 Illustrations. 7s. 6d. each. 
 Pactolus Prime. A Novel. By Albion W. Tourg^e. 5s. 
 Painting, The English School of. By Ernest Chesneau. 5s. 
 Painting, Practical Guides to. With Coloured Plates :— 
 
 Marine Painting. 5s. 
 
 Animal Painting. 5s. 
 
 China Painting. 5s. 
 
 Figure Painting. 7s. 6d. 
 
 Elementary Flower Paint- 
 ing. 3s. 
 
 Flower Painting, Two Books, 
 5s. each. 
 
 Tree Painting. 5s. 
 Water-Colour Painting. 5s. 
 Neutral Tint. 5s. 
 
 Sepia, in Two Vols., 3s. each ; or 
 in One Vol., 5s. 
 
 Flowers, and How to Paint 
 Them. 5s. 
 
 Paxton's Flower Garden. By Sir Joseph Paxton and Prof. Lindley. 
 
 With 100 Coloured Plates. Price on application. 
 People I've Smiled with. By Marshall P. Wilder. 2s. ; cloth, 2s.6d. 
 Peoples of the W^orld, The. In Six Vols. By Dr. Robert Brown. 
 
 Illustrated. 7s. 6d. each. 
 Phantom City, The. By W. Westall. 5s. 
 Phillips, Watts, Artist and Playwright. By Miss E. Watts 
 
 Phillips. With 32 Plates. los. 6d. 
 Photography for Amateurs. By T. C. Hepworth. Illustrated, is.; 
 
 or cloth, IS. 6d. 
 Phrase and Fable, Dictionary of. By the Rev. Dr. Brewer. Cheap 
 
 Edition, Enlarged, cloth, 3s. 6d. ; or with leather back, 4s. 6d. 
 Picturesque America. Complete in Four Vols., with 48 Exquisite Steel 
 
 Plates and about 800 Original Wood Engravings. £^2 2s. each. 
 Picturesque Australasia, Cassell's. With upwards of 1,000 Illustrations. 
 
 Complete in Four Vols. 7s. 6d. each. 
 Picturesque Canada. With 600 Original Illustrations. 2 Vols. £3 3s . each. 
 Picturesque Europe. Complete in Five Vols. Each containing 
 
 13 Exquisite Steel Plates, from Original Drawings, and nearly 200 
 
 Original Illustrations. Original Edition. Cloth, £21; half-morocco, 
 
 £31 los. ; morocco gilt, £52 los. The Popular Edition is published in 
 
 Five Vols., 18s. each. 
 Picturesque Mediterranean. With Magnificent Original Illustrations 
 
 by the leading Artists of the Day. Complete in Two Vols. £2 2s. each. 
 Pigeon Keeper, The Practical. By Lewis Wright. Illustrated. 3s. 6d.
 
 Selections from Cassell ^ Company's Publications. 
 
 Pigeons, The Book of. By Robert Fulton. Edited and Arranged by 
 
 L. Wright. With 50 Coloured Plates, 31s. 6d. ; half-morocco, £2 2s. 
 
 Poems, Aubrey de Vere's. A Selection. Edited by J. Dennis. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Poets, Cassell's Miniature Library of the :- 
 
 Burns. Two Vols. 2s. 6d. 
 Byron. Two Vols. 2s. 6d. 
 Hood. Two Vols. as. 6d. 
 Longfellow. Two Vols-. 2s. 
 
 Milton. Two Vols. 2s. 6d. 
 Scott. Two Vols. 2s. 6d. [2s. 6d. 
 Sheridan and Goldsmith. 2 Vols. 
 6d. Wordsworth. Two Vols. 2S. 6d. 
 Shakespeare. Illustrated. In 12 Vols., in Case, 12s. 
 Police Code, and Manual of the Criminal Law. By C. E. Howard 
 
 Vincent, ALP. 2s. 
 Polytechnic Series, The. 
 
 Forty Lessons in Carpentry Workshop Practice. Cloth gilt, ts. 
 
 Practical Plane and Solid Geometry, including- Graphic Arithmetic. Vol. I., 
 
 Elementary Stage. Cloth gilt, 3s. 
 Forty Lessons in Engineerings Worlcshop Practice, is. 6d. 
 Technical Scales. Set of Ten in cloth case, is. Also on Celluloid in Case, los. 6d. 
 
 the set. 
 Elementary Chemistry for Science Schools and Classes. Crown 8vo, is. 6d. 
 Building Construction Plates. A Series of 40 Drawings. Koyal folio size. ijd. each. 
 Portrait Gallery, The Cabinet. First and Second Series, each con- 
 taining 36 Cabinet Photographs of Eminent Men and Women. With 
 Biographical Sketches. 15s. each. 
 Poultry Keeper, The Practical. By L. Wright. Illustrated. 3s. 6d. 
 Poultry, The Book of. By Lewis Wright. Popular Edition. los. 6d. 
 Poultry, The Illustrated Book of. By Lewis Wright. With Fifty 
 
 Coloured Plates. New and Revised Edition. Cloth, 31s. 6d. 
 Queen Summer ; or, The Tourney of the Lily and the Rose. Penned and 
 Portrayed by Walter Crane. With Forty Pages of Designs in 
 Colours. 6s. Large Paper Edition, 21s. net. 
 Queen Victoria, The Life and Times of. By Robert Wilson. Com- 
 plete in Two Vols. With numerous Illustrations, gs. each. 
 Rabbit-Keeper, The Practical. By Cuniculus. Illustrated. 3s. 6d. 
 Railway Guides, Official Illustrated. With Illustrations, Maps, &c. 
 
 each. 
 
 London and 
 Railway. 
 
 Price IS. each ; or in cloth, 2s. 
 Great Western Railway. 
 Great Northern Railway. 
 London, Brighton and South 
 
 Coast Railway. 
 London and North-Western 
 
 Railway, 
 
 South-Western 
 
 Midland Railway. 
 South-Eastern Railway. 
 Great Eastern Railway. 
 
 Railway Library, Cassell's 
 
 The Astonishing History of Troy 
 Town. By Q. 
 
 The Admirable Lady Biddy Fane. 
 By Frank Barrett. 
 
 commodore Junk. ByG. Manville 
 Fenn. 
 
 St. Cuthbert's Tower. By Flor- 
 ence Warden. 
 
 The Man with a Thumb. By Bar- 
 clay North. 
 
 By right not Law. By R. 
 Sherard. 
 
 Within Sound of the Weir. By 
 Thomas St. E. Hake. 
 
 UNDER a Strange Mask By Frank 
 Barrett. 
 
 The coombsberrow Mystery. By 
 James Colwall. 
 
 Dead Man's Rock. By Q. 
 
 A queer Race. By W. westall. 
 
 Captain Trafalgar. By Westall 
 and Laurie. 
 
 The phantom City. By w. Westall. 
 
 Redgrave, Richard, C.B., R.A. 
 By F. M. Redgrave. 10s. 6d 
 
 Crown 8vo, boards, 2S. each. 
 
 Jack Gordon, Knight Errant, 
 
 GOTHAM, 1883. By BARCLAY 
 
 North. 
 The Diamond Button. By Barclay 
 
 North. 
 Another's Crime. By Julian Haw- 
 thorne. 
 The yoke of the Thorah. By 
 
 Sidney Luska. 
 Who is John noman? By Charles 
 
 Henry Beckett. 
 The Tragedy of Brinkwater. By 
 
 Martha l. Moodey. 
 AN American Penman. By Julian 
 
 Hawthorne. 
 Section 558; or, the Fatal Letter. 
 
 By Julian Hawthorne. 
 The Brown Stone Boy. By W. H. 
 
 Bishop. 
 A Tragic Mystery. By Julian 
 
 Hawthorne. 
 The Great Bank Robbery. By 
 
 Julian Hawthorne. 
 
 Memoir. Compiled from his Diary.
 
 Selectio7is from Cassell f Company's Publications. 
 
 Richard, Henry, M,P. A Biography. By Charles S. Miall. 7s. 6d. 
 Rivers of Great Britain : Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial. Rivers 
 
 OF THE East Coast. 42s. 
 Rivers of Great Britain : The Royal 
 
 Source to Sea. With Descriptive 
 
 Engravings. Original Edition, £2 2s. 
 Robinson Crusoe, Cassell's New 
 
 upwards of 100 Original Illustrations 
 
 River: The Thames, from 
 Text and a Series of beautiful 
 ; Popular Edition, i6s. 
 
 Fine-Art Edition of. With 
 7s. 6d. 
 
 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, as Designer and Writer. Notes by 
 
 William Michael Rossetti. 7s. 6d. 
 Russia, Through, on a Mustang. By Thomas Stevens. 7s. 6d. 
 Russo-Turkish War, Cassell's History of. With about 500 Illus- 
 trations. Two Vols. gs. each. 
 Saturday Journal, Cassell's. Yearly Volume, cloth, 7s. 6d. 
 Science for All. Edited by Dr. Robert Brown. Revised Edition. 
 
 Illustrated. Five Vols. gs. each. 
 Sculpture, A Primer of. By E.Roscoe MuLLiNS. With Illustrations. 2s. 6d. 
 Sea, The: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, and Heroism. 
 
 By F. Whymper. With 400 Illustrations. Four Vols. 7s. 6d. each. 
 Secret of the Lama'^, The. A Tale of Thibet. Crown 8vo, 5s. 
 Shaftesbury, The Seventh Earl of, K.G., The Life and Work of. By 
 
 Edwin Hodder. Three Vols., 36s. Popular Edition, One Vol., 7s. ed. 
 Shakespeare, The Plays of. Edited by Professor Henry Morley. 
 
 Complete in 13 Vols., cloth, 21s. ; half-morocco, cloth sides, 42s. 
 Shakespeare, Cassell's Quarto Edition. Containing about 600 Illus- 
 trations by H. C. Selous. Complete in Three Vols., cloth gilt, £3 3s. 
 Shakespeare, Miniature. Illustrated. In Twelve Vols., in box, 12s. ; 
 
 or in Red Paste Grain (box to match), with spring catch, 2is. 
 Shakespeare, The England of. By E. Goadbv. Illustrated, as. 6d. 
 Shakspere, The International. Edition de Luxe. 
 
 " OTHELLO." Illustrated by Frauk Dicksee, R.A. £3 los. 
 
 " KING HENRV IV." Illustrated by Eduard Grutzner, £3 los. 
 
 "AS YOU LIKE IT." Illustrated by :fiMU.E Bayaru, £3 los. 
 
 "ROMEO AND JULIET." Illustrated by F. Dicksee. R.A. Is now 
 out of print, and scarce. 
 Shakspere, The Leopold. With 400 Illustrations. Cheap Edition. 
 
 3s. 6d. Cloth gilt, gilt edges, 5s. ; Roxburgh, 7s. 6d. 
 Shakspere, The Royal. With Steel Plates and Wood Engravings. 
 
 Three Vols. 15s. each. 
 Social Welfare, Subjects of. By Sir Lyon Playfair, K.C. B. 7s. 6d. 
 Splendid Spur, The. Edited by Q. Illustrated. 3s. 6d. 
 Standard Library, Cassell's. Stiff covers, is. each; cloth, 2s. each. 
 
 Coningsby. 
 Mary Barton. 
 The Antiquary. 
 Nicholas Niokleby 
 
 (Two Vols.). 
 Jane Eyre. 
 Wutliering Heights. 
 Dombey and Son 
 
 (Two Vols.) 
 Tlie Prairie. 
 Night and. Morning. 
 Kenilworth.. 
 Ingoldsby LegendB, 
 Tower of Londoi^ 
 The Pioneers. 
 Charles O'Malley. 
 Bamaby Hudge. 
 Cakes and Ale. 
 The King's Own. 
 People I have Met. 
 The Pathfinder. 
 EveUna. 
 Scott's Poems. 
 Last of the Barons. 
 
 Adventui-es of Mr. 
 
 Ledbury. 
 Ivanhoe. 
 Oliver Twist. 
 Selections from Hood's 
 
 Works. 
 Longfellow's Prose 
 
 "Works. 
 Sense and Sensibility. 
 Lytton's Plays. 
 Tales, Poems, and 
 
 Sketches. Bret Harte. 
 Martin Chuzzlewit 
 
 (Two Vols.). 
 The Prince of the 
 
 House of David. 
 Sheridan's Plays. 
 Uncle Tom's Cabin. 
 Deerslayer. 
 Rome and the Early 
 
 Christians. 
 The Trials of Mar- 
 garet Iiyndbay. 
 Harry Lorrequer. 
 
 Eugene Aram. 
 Jack Hintoa. 
 Poe's Works. 
 Old Mortality. 
 The Hour and the Min. 
 Handy Andy. 
 Scarlet Letter. 
 Pickwick (Two Vols.). 
 Last of the Mohicans. 
 Pride and Prejudice. 
 Yeliowplush Papers. 
 Tales of the Borders. 
 Last Days of Palmyra. 
 Washington Irving's 
 
 Sketch-Book. 
 The Talisman. 
 Rienzi. 
 
 Old Curiosity Shop. 
 Hear+ of Midlothian. 
 Last Days of Pompeii 
 American Humour. 
 Sketches by Boz. 
 Macau; ay's Lays and 
 
 £B8ay8.
 
 Selections from Cassell ^' Company s Publications. 
 
 Sports and Pastimes, Cassell's Complete Book of. Cheap Edition. 
 With more than goo Illustrations. Medium 8vo, qqi pages, cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Stanley in East Africa, Scouting for. By T. Stevens. With 14 Illus- 
 trations. Cloth, 7s. 6d. 
 
 Star-Land. By Sir Robert Stawell Ball, LL.D., F.R S., F.R.A.S. 
 Illustrated. Crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 Steam Engine, The. By W. H. Northcott, C.E. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Storehouse of General Information, Cassell's. With Wood Engrav- 
 ings, Maps, and Coloured Plat"<;. In Vols., 5s. each. 
 
 Story of Francis Cludde, The. A Novel. By Stanley J. Wevman. 
 7s. 6d. net. 
 
 Story Poems. For Young and Old. Edited by Miss E. Davenport 
 Adams. 6s. 
 
 Strange Doings in Strange Places. Complete Sensational Stories. 5s. 
 
 Teaching in Three Continents. Personal Notes on the Educational 
 Systems of the World. ByW. C. Grasby. 6s. 
 
 Technical Education. By F. C. Montague. 6d. 
 
 Thackeray, Character Sketches from. Six New and Original Draw- 
 ings by Frederick Barnard, reproduced in Photogravure. 21s. 
 
 The " Short Story" Library._ 
 
 Eleven Possible Cases. By Various 
 
 Authors. 6s. 
 Felicia. By MIssFannyMurfree. 5s. 
 The Poet's Audience, and Delilah. 
 By Clara Savile Clarke. 5s. 
 
 Noughts and Crosses. By Q. 5s. 
 
 Otto the Kniglit, &c. By Octave 
 Thanet. 5s. 
 
 Fourteen to One. &e. By Eliza- 
 beth Stuart Phelps. 5s. 
 
 Treasure Island. By R. L. Stevenson. Illustrated. 3s. 6d. 
 Trees, Familiar. By G. S. Boulger, F.L.S. Two Series. With 40 
 
 full-page Coloured Plates by W. H. J. Boot. 12s. 6d. each. 
 •' Unicode" : the Universal Telegraphic Phrase Book. Desk or 
 
 Pocket Edition. 2s. 6d. 
 United States, Cassell's History of the. By the late Edmund 
 
 Ollier. With 600 Illustrations. Three Vols. gs. each. 
 Universal History, Cassell's Illustrated. Four Vols. gs. each. 
 Vicar of \Vakefield and other Works by Oliver Goldsmith. 
 
 Illustrated. 3s. 6d. ; cloth, gilt edges, 5s. 
 Vision of Saints, A. Edition de Luxe. By Lewis Morris. With 
 
 20 Full-Page Illustrations. 2is. 
 Waterloo Letters. Edited by Major-General H. T. Siborne, late 
 
 Colonel R.E. With numerous Plans of the Battlefield. 21s. 
 W^eb of Gold, A. By Katharine Pearson Woods. Crown 8vo, 6s. 
 W^hat Girls Can Do. By Phyllis Browne. 2s. 6d. 
 Wild Birds, Familiar. By W. Swaysland. Four Series. With 40 
 
 Coloured Plates in each. 12s. 6d. each. 
 Wild Flowers, Farriiliar. By F. E. Hulme, F.L.S., F.S.A. Five 
 
 Series. With 40 Coloured Plates in each. 12s. 6d. each. 
 W^ood, Rev. J. G., Life of the. By the Rev. Theodore Wood. 
 
 Extra crown 8vo, cloth. Cheap Edition. 5s. 
 Work. An Illustrated Magazine for all Workmen. Yearly Vol., 7s. 6d. 
 World of Wit and Humour, The. With 400 Illustrations. 7s. 6d. 
 World of Wonders. Two Vols. With 400 Illustrations. 7s. 6d. each. 
 Yule Tide. Cassell's Christmas Annual, is. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINES. 
 The Quiver. Enlarged Series. Monthly, 6d. 
 CasselVs Family Magazine. Monthly, 7d. 
 "Little Folks"' Magazine. Monthly, 6d. 
 The Magazine of Art. Monthly, is. 
 
 Ca.<i.sell's Saturday tJournal. Weekly, id. ; Monthly, 6d. 
 Work. Weekly, id. ; Monthly, 6d. 
 
 Cassell's Complete Catalogue, coauining particulars of upwards of 
 One Thousand Volumes, will be Mnt post free on application. 
 
 CASSELL & COMPANY, Limitkd. Ludgate Hill, London.
 
 Selections from Cassell dk Company's Publications, 
 
 gtMca antr HcUgious Morka. 
 
 Bible, Cassell's Illustrated Family. With 900 Illustrations. Leather, 
 
 gilt edges, £2 los. 
 Bible Dictionary, Cassell's. With nearly 600 Illustrations. 7s. 6d. 
 Bible Educator, The. Edited by the Very Rev. Dean Plumptre, D.D., 
 
 Wells. With Illustrations, Maps, &c. Four Vols., cloth, 6s. each. 
 Bible Student in the British Museum, The. By the Rev. J. G. 
 
 KiTCHIN, M.A. IS. 
 
 Biblewomen and Nurses. Yearly Volume. Illustrated. 3s. 
 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and Holy 'War. With 200 Illustrations. 
 
 With a New LifeofBunyan by the Rev. John Brown, B.A., D.D. 
 
 Cloth, i6s. 
 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (Cassell's Illustrated). 4to. 7s. 6d. 
 
 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. With Illustrations. Cloth, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Child's Bible, The. With 200 Illustrations. 150^^ Thousand. 7s. 6d. 
 
 Child's Life of Christ, The. With 200 Illustiations. 7s. 6d. 
 
 "Come, ye Children." Illustrated. By Rev. Benjamin Waugh. 5s. 
 
 Conquests of the Cross. With numerous Illustrations. Complete in 
 
 Three Vols. gs. each. 
 Dore Bible. With 238 Illustrations by Gustave DoRi. Small folio, 
 
 best morocco, gilt edges, £15. 
 Early Days of Christianity, The. By the Ven. Archdeacon Farrak, 
 
 D.D., F.R.S. Library Edition. Two Vols., 24s. ; morocco, £2 2s. 
 
 Popular Edition. Complete in One Volume, cloth, 6s. ; cloth, gilt 
 
 edges, 7s. 6d. ; Persian morocco, los. 6d. ; tree-calf, 15s. 
 Family Prayer-Book, The. Edited by Rev. Canon Garbett, M..\., 
 
 and Rev. S. Martin. Extra crown 4to, cloth, 5s. ; morocco, i8s. 
 Gleanings after Harvest. Studies and Sketches by the Rev. John R. 
 
 Vernon, M.A. 6s. 
 «» Graven in the Rock." By the Rev. Dr. Samuel Kinns, F.R.A.S., 
 
 Author of " Moses and Geology." Illustrated. 12s. 6d. 
 "Heart Chords." A Series of Works by Eminent Divines. Bound in 
 
 cloth, red edges, One Shilling each. 
 
 MY Bible. By the Right Rev. W. bo yd 
 
 Carpenter, Bishop of Ripen. 
 MY Father. By the Right Rev. Ash 
 
 TON OXHNDEN, late Bishop of Mon- 
 treal. 
 My work for God. By the Right 
 
 Rev. Bishop COTTERILL. 
 My Object in life. By the Ven. 
 
 Archdeacon Farrar, D.D. 
 MY ASPIRATIONS. By the Rev. G. 
 
 Matheson, D.D. 
 My Emotional Life. By the Rev. 
 
 Preb. CHADWICK, D.D. 
 MY BODY. By the Rev. Prof. W. G. 
 
 BLAIKIE, D.D. 
 
 My Growth in Divine Life. By the 
 Rev. Preb. REYNOLDS, M.A. 
 
 My soul. By the Rev. P. B. POWER, 
 
 M.A. 
 My Hereafter. By the Very Rev. 
 
 Dean BICKERSTETH. 
 
 MY Walk with God. By the Very 
 Rev. Dean MONTGOMERY. 
 
 MY AIDS TO THE DIVINE LIFE. By 
 the Very Rev. Dean BOYLE. 
 
 MY SOURCES OF STRENGTH. By the 
 Rev. E. E.Jenkins, M.A., Secretary 
 of Wesleyan Missionary Society. 
 
 Helps to Belief. A Series of Helpful Manuals on the Religious 
 Difficulties of the Day. Edited by the Rev. Teignmouth Shore, .NLA., 
 Canon of Worcester, and Chaplain-in-Ordinar>' to the Queen. Cloth, 
 IS. each. 
 
 CREAtio.n. By the Lord Bishop of 
 Carlisle. 
 
 The Divinity of Our Lord. By 
 the Lord Bishop of Derry. 
 
 The Morality of the Old Testa- 
 ment. By the Rev. Newman 
 Smyth. D.D. 
 
 Miracles. By the Rev. Brownlow 
 
 Maitland, M.A. 
 Prayer. By the Rev. T. Teignmouth 
 
 Shore, M.A. 
 THE Atonement. By William Connor 
 
 Magee, D.D., Late Archbishop of 
 
 York. 
 
 SB 9-91
 
 Selections from Cassell 6; Company's Publications. 
 
 Holy Land and the Bible, The. By the Rev. Cunningham Gkikie, 
 D.D. Two Vols. , with Map, 24s. Ilhtsirated Edition, One Vol., 2is. 
 
 Lectures on Christianity and Socialism. By the Right Rev. Alfred 
 Barry, D.D. Cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Life of Christ, The. By the Ven. Archdeacon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S. 
 Illustrated Edition, morocco antique, 42s. Cheap Illustrated 
 Edition. Cloth, 7s. 6d. ; cloth, full gilt, gilt edges, ids. 6d. Library 
 Edition. Two Vols. Cloth, 24s. ; morocco, 42s. Popular Edition, 
 in One Vol., 8vo, cloth, 6s. ; cloth, gilt edges, 7s. 6d. ; Persian 
 morocco, gilt edges, los. 6d. ; tree-calf, 15s. 
 
 Marriage Ring, The. By William Landels, D.D. New and 
 Cheaper Edition. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Moses and Geology ; or. The Harmony of the Bible with Science. 
 By the Rev. Samuel Kinns, Ph.D., F.R.A.S. Illustrated. Cheap 
 Edition, 6s. 
 
 My Comfort in Sorrow. By Hugh Macmillan, D.D., LL.D., 
 F.R S.E., &c. Cloth, IS. 
 
 New Testament Commentary for English Readers, The. Edited 
 by the Rt. Rev. C. J. Ellicott, D.D., Lord Bishop of Gloucester 
 and Bristol. In Three Volumes. 21s. each. Vol. I. — The Four Gospels. 
 Vol._ II. — The Acts, Romans, Corinthians, Galatians. Vol. III. — The 
 remaining Books of the New Testament. 
 
 New Testament Commentary. Edited by Bishop Ellicott. Handy 
 Volume Edition. St. Matthew, 3s. 6d. St. Mark, 3s. St. Luke, 
 3s. 6d. St. John, 3s. 6d. The Acts of the Apostles, 3s. 6d. Romans, 
 2s. 6d. Corinthians I. and II., 3s. Galatians, Ephesians, and Philip- 
 pians, 3s. Colossians, Thessalonians, and Timothj', 3s. Titus, 
 Philemon, Hebrews, and James, 3s. Peter, Jude, and John, 3s. 
 The Revelation, 3s. An Introduction to the New Testament, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Old Testament Commentary for English Readers, The. Edited 
 by the Right Rev. C. J. Ellicott, D.D., Lord Bishop of Gloucester 
 and Bristol. Complete in Five Vols. 21s. each. Vol. I. — Genesis to Num- 
 bers. Vol. II. — Deuteronomy to Samuel II. Vol. HI. — Kings I. to 
 Esther. Vol. IV. — Job to Isaiah. Vol. V. —Jeremiah to Malachi. 
 
 Old Testament Commentary. Edited by Bishop Ellicott. Handy 
 Volume Edition. Genesis, 3s. 6d. Exodus, 3s. Leviticus, 3s. 
 Numbers, 2S. 6d. Deuteronomy, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Protestantism, The History of. By the Rev. J. A. Wvlie, LL.D. 
 Containing upwards of 600 Original Illustrations. Three Vols. gs. each. 
 
 Quiver Yearly Volume, The. 250 high-class Illustrations. 7s. 6d. 
 
 Religion, The Dictionary of. By the Rev. W. Benham, B.D. 
 Ch^ap Edition. los. 6d. 
 
 St. George for England ; and other Sermons preached to Children. By 
 the Rev. T, Teignmouth Shore, M.A., Canon of Worcester. 5s. 
 
 St. Paul, The Life and Work of. By the Ven. Archdeacon Farrar, 
 D.D., F.R.S., Chaplain-in-Ordinary to the Queen. Library Edition. 
 Two Vols., cloth, 24s. ; calf, 42s. Illustrated Edition, complete 
 in One Volume, with about 300 Illustrations, -£^1. is. ; morocco, £2 2S. 
 Popular Edition. One Volume, 8vo, cloth, 6s. ; cloth, gilt edges, 
 7s. 6d. ; Persian morocco, los. 6d. ; tree-calf, 15s. 
 
 Shall We Know One Another in Heaven ? By the Rt. Rev. J. C. 
 Ryle, D.D., Bishop of Liverpool. Cheap Edition. Paper covers, 6d. 
 
 Signa Christi : Evidences of Christianity set forth in the Person and 
 Work of Christ. By the Rev. James Aitchison. 5s. 
 
 "Sunday," Its Origin, History, and Present Obligation. By the 
 Ven. Archdeacon Hessey, D.C.L, Ft/ih Edition. 7s. 6d. 
 
 Twilight of Life, The. Words of Counsel and Comfort for the 
 Aged. By the Rev. John Ellerton, M.A. is. 6d.
 
 Selections from Cassell 4' CompaJifs Publications. 
 
 6tiucatiottal lEorka anti ^tutrcttts' Jllanuals. 
 
 Agricultural Series, Cassell's. Edited by John Wrightson, Pro- 
 fessor of Agriculture. 
 
 Crops. By Professor "WRIGHTSON. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Soils and Manures. By J. M. H. MUNRO, D.Sc. (London^, F.I.C., F.C.S. 
 2s. 6d. 
 
 Alphabet, Cassell's Pictorial. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Arithmetics, The Modern School. By George Ricks, B.Sc. Lond. 
 
 With Test Cards. {List on application.) 
 Atlas, Cassell's Popular. Containing 24 Coloured Maps. 3s. 6d. 
 Book-Keeping. By Theodore Jones. For Schools, 2s. ; cloth, 3s. 
 
 For the Million, 2S. ; cloth, 3s. Books for Jones's System, 2s. 
 Chemistry, The Public School. By J. H. Anderson, M.A. 2s. 6d. 
 Classical Texts for Schools, Cassell's. (A List post free 07i application.) 
 Cookery for Schools. By Lizzie Heritage. 6d. 
 Copy-Books, Cassell's Graduated. Eighteen Books. 2d. each. 
 Copy-Eooks, The Modern School. Twelve Books. 2d. each. 
 Drawing Copies, Cassell's Modern School Freehand. First Grade, 
 
 IS. ; Second Grade, 2S. 
 Drawing Copies, Cassell's " New Standard." Complete in Fourteen 
 
 Books. 2d., 3d., and 4d. each. 
 Electricity, Practical. By Prof. W. E. Ayrton. 7s. 6d. 
 Energy and Motion. By William Paice, M.A. Illustrated, is. 6d. 
 English Literature, First Sketch of. By Prof. Morley. 7s. 6d. 
 English Literature, The Story of. By Anna Buckland. 3s. 6d. 
 Euclid, Cassell's. Edited by Prof. Wallace, M.A. is. 
 Euclid, The First Four Books of. New Edition. In paper, 6d. ; cloth, gd. 
 Experimental Geometry. By Paul Bert. Illustrated, is. 6d. 
 French, Cassell's Lessons in. New and Revised Edition. Parts I. 
 
 and II., each 2s. 6d. ; complete, 4s. 6d. Key, is. 6d. 
 French -English and English- French Dictionary. Entirely New 
 
 and E7ilarged Edition. 1,150 pages, 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 French Reader. Cassell's Public School. By G. S. Conrad. 2s. 6d. 
 Gaudeamus. Songs for Colleges and Schools. Edited by John Farmer. 
 
 5s. Words only, paper covers, 6d. ; cloth, gd. 
 German Dictionary, Cassell's New. German-English, English- 
 German. Cheap Edition. Cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 German of To-Day. By Dr. Heinemann. is. 6d. 
 German Reading, First Lessons in. By A. Jagst. Illustrated, is. 
 Hand-and-Eye Training. By G. Ricks, B.Sc. 2 Vols., with 16 Coloured 
 
 Plates in each Vol. Cr. 4to, 6s. each. Cards for Class Use, 5 sets, is. each. 
 "Hand-and-Eye Training Cards." Five Sets in Case. is. each. 
 Handbook of New Code of Regulations. By J. F. Moss. is. ; cloth, 2s. 
 Historical Cartoons, Cassell's Coloured. Size 45 m. x 35 in., 2s. 
 
 each. Mounted on canvas and varnished, with rollers, 5s. each. 
 Historical Course for Schools, Cassell's. Illustrated throughout. 
 
 I.— Stories from English History, is. II.— The Simple Outline of 
 
 English Historj', is. 3d. III.— The Class History of England, 2s. 6d. 
 Latin-English Dictionary, Cassell's. By J. R. V. Marchant, 3s. 6d. 
 Latin Primer, The First. By Prof. Postgate. is. 
 Latin Primer, The New. By Prof. J. P. Postgate. Crown 8vo, 2s.6d. 
 Latin Prose for Lower Forms. By M. A. Bayfield, M.A. as. 6d. 
 Laundry Work (How to Teach It). By Mrs. E. Lord. 6d. 
 Laws of Every-Day Life. By H. O. Arnold-Forster. is. 6d. 
 Little Folks' History of England. Illustrated, is. 6d. 
 Making of the Home, The. By Mrs. Samuel A. Barnett. is. 6d. 
 Map-Building Series, Cassell's. Outline Maps prepared by H. O. 
 
 Arnold-Forster. Per Set of Twelve, is.
 
 Selections from Cassell ^- Company's Publications. 
 
 Marlborough Books :— Arithmetic Examples, 3s. Arithmetic Rules, is. 6d. 
 French Exercises, 3s. 6d. French Grammar, 2S. 6d. German do., 3s. 6d. 
 
 Mechanics for Young Beginners, A First Book of. By the Rev. 
 J. G. Easton, M.A. 4s. 6d. 
 
 Mechanics and Machine Design, Numerical Examples in Practical. 
 By R. G. Blaine, M.E. With Diagrams. Cloth, zs. 6d. 
 
 "Model Joint" Wall Sheets, for Instruction in Manual Training. By 
 S. Barter. Eight Sheets, 2s. 6d. each. 
 
 Natural History Coloured Wall Sheets, Cassell's New. 18 
 Subjects. Size, 39 by 31 in. Mounted on rollers and varnished. 3s. each. 
 
 Object Lessons from Nature. By Prof. L. C. Miall, F.L.S. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Physiology for Schools. By Alfred T. Schofield, M.D., M.R.C.S. 
 IS. gd. ; Three Parts, paper covers, 5d. each. 
 
 Poetry Readers, Cassell's New. illustrated. 12 Books, id. each. 
 
 Popular Educator, Cassell's NEW. With Revised Text, New Maps, 
 New Coloured Plates, New Type, &c. To be completed in 8 Vols. 5s. each. 
 
 Readers, Cassell's "Higher Class." i^List on application.) 
 
 Readers, Cassell's Historical. Illustrated. {List on application.') 
 
 Readers, Cassell's Readable. Illustrated. (List 07t application.) 
 
 Readers for Infant Schools, Coloured. Three Books. 4d. each. 
 
 Reader, The Citizen. By H. O. Arnold-Forster. Illustrated. is.6d. 
 
 Reader, The Empire. By G. R. Parkin, is. 6d 
 
 Reader, The Temperance. By Rev. J. Dennis Hird. Cr. 8vo, is. 6d. 
 
 Readers, The " Modern School " Geographical. {List on application.) 
 
 Readers, The "Modern School." Illustrated. [List on application.) 
 
 Reckoning, Howard's Anglo-American Art of. By C. Frusher 
 Howard. Paper covers, is. ; cloth, as. Large Paper Edition, 5s. 
 
 Round World, The. By H. O. Arnold-Forster. 3s. 6d. 
 
 School Certificates, Cassell's. Three Colours, 65 x 4Jin., id.; Five 
 Colours, 11^ X 9|in., 3d. j Seven Colours and Gold, gf x 6Jin., 3d. 
 
 Science Applied to W^ork. By J. A. Bower, is. 
 
 Science of Everyday Life. By J. A. Bower. Illustrated, is. 
 
 Shade from Models, Common Objects, and Casts of Ornament, 
 How to. By W. E. Sparkes. With 25 Plates by the Author. 3s. 
 
 Shakspere's Plays for School Use. 5 Books. Illustrated. 6d. each. 
 
 Shakspere Reading Book, The. IlUistrated. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Spelling, A Complete Manual of. By J. D. Morell, LL.D. is. 
 
 Technical Manuals, Cassell's. Illustrated throughout : — 
 
 Handrailing and Staircasing, 3s. 6d. — Bricklayers, Drawing for, 3s. — 
 Building Construction, 2s. — Cabinet-Makers, Drawing for, 3s. — 
 Carpenters and Joiners, Drawing for, 3s. 6d. — Gothic Stonework, 3s. 
 — Linear Drawing and Practical Geometry, 2s. — Linear Drawing and 
 Projection. The Two Vols, in One, 3s. 6d. — Machinists and Engineers, 
 Drawing for, 4s. 6d. — Metal-Plate Workers, Drawing for, 3s. — Model 
 Drawing, 3s. — Orthographical and Isometrical Projection, 2S. — Practical 
 Perspective, 3s. — Stonemasons, Drawing for, 3s. — Applied Mechanics, 
 by Sir R. S. Ball, LL.D., 2S. — Systematic Drawing and Shading, 2S. 
 
 Technical Educator, Cassell's. Revised Edition. Four Vols. 5s. each. 
 
 Technology, Manuals of. Edited by Prof. Avrton, F.R.S., and 
 Richard Wormell, D.Sc, M.A. Illustrated throughout : — 
 The Dyeing of Textile Fabrics, by Prof. Hummel, 5s. — Watch and 
 Clock Making, by D. Glasgow, Vice-President of the British Horo- 
 logical Institute, 4s. 6d. — Steel and Iron, by Prof. W. H. Greenwood, 
 F.C.S., M.I.C.E., &c., 5S.— Spinning Woollen and Worsted, by W. S. 
 B. McLaren, M. P., 4s. 6d.— Design in Textile Fabrics, by T. R.Ashen- 
 hur.st, 4s. 6d. — Practical Mechanics, by Prof. Perry, M.E., 3s. 6d. — 
 Cutting Tools Worked by Hand and Machine, by Prof. Smith, 3s. 6d. 
 {A Prospectus on application.) 
 
 CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited, Ludgate Hill, London.
 
 Selections from Cassell i|" Company^ s Publications. 
 
 i00ks for ^0ting ^people. 
 
 "Little Folks" Half- Yearly Volume. Containing 432 4to pages, with 
 about 300 lllustrsttions, and Pictures in Colour. Boards, 3s. 6d. ; cloth, 5s. 
 
 Bo-Peep. A Book for the Little Ones. With Original Stories and Verses. 
 Illustrated throughout. Yearly Volume. Boards, 2s. 6d. ; cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Pleasant\Vork for Busy Fingers. ByMAGGiE Browne. Illustrated. 5s. 
 
 Cassell's Pictorial Scrap Book, containing several thousand Pictures. 
 Coloured boards, 15s. ; cloth lettered, 2is. Also in Six Sectional Vols., 
 3s. 6d. each. 
 
 The Marvellous Budget: being 65,536 Stories of Jack and Jill. 
 By the Rev. F. Bennett Illustrated. 2S. 6d. 
 
 Schoolroom and Home Theatricals. By Arthur Waugh. Illus- 
 trated. 2S. 6d. 
 
 Magic at Home. By Prof. Hoffman. Illustrated. Cloth gilt, 5s. 
 
 "Little Folks" Painting Book, The New. Containing nearly 350 
 Outline Illustratioas suitable for Colouring, is. 
 
 Little Mother Bunch. By Mrs. Molesworth. Illustrated. Cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Ships, Sailors, and the Sea. By R. J. Cornewall-Jones. Cheap 
 Edition. Illustrated. Cloth, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Famous Sailors of Form.er Times. By Clements Markham. Illus- 
 trated. 23. 6d. 
 
 The Tales of the Sixty Mandarins. By P. V. Ramaswami Raju. 
 With an Introduction by Prof. Henry Morley. Illustrated. 5s. 
 
 Pictures of School Life and Boyhood. Selected from the best Authors. 
 Edited by Percy Fitzgerald, M.A. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Heroes of Every-day Life. By Laura Lane. With about 20 Full- 
 page Illustrations. Cloth. 2s. 6d. 
 Books for Young People. Illustrated. Cloth gilt, 5s. each. 
 
 The Champion of Odin; or. 
 Viking Life in the Days of 
 Old. By J. Fred. Hodgetts. 
 
 The Romance 01 Invention. 
 
 By James Burnley. 
 
 Books for Young People 
 
 The "White House at Inch Gow. 
 
 By Mrs. Pitt. 
 A Sweet G-irl Graduate. By L. T. 
 
 Meade. 
 The King's Command : A 8tory 
 
 for Girls. By Maggie Symington. 
 XjOst in Samoa. A Tade of Adven- 
 ture in the Navigator Islands. By 
 
 Edward S. EUis. 
 Tad; or, "Getting Even" with 
 
 Him. By Edward S. Ellis. 
 For Fortune and Glory: A Story 
 
 Of the Soudan War. By Lewis 
 
 Hough. 
 
 Under Bayard's Banner. By Henry 
 
 Frith. 
 Bovmd by a Spell; or. The Hunted 
 
 W^iten. of the Forest. By the 
 
 Hon. Mrs. Greene. 
 
 Illustrated. 3s. 6d. each. 
 
 Polly : A New-Fashioned Girl. By 
 
 L. T. Meade. 
 "Follow My Leader." By Talbot 
 
 Baines Reed. [Pitt. 
 
 The Cost of a Mistake. By Sarah 
 A W^orld of Girls: The Story of 
 
 a School. By L. T. Meade. 
 Lost among White Africans. By 
 
 David Ker. 
 The Palace BeautifuL By L. T. 
 
 Meade. 
 On Board the "Esmeralda." By 
 
 John C. Hutcheson. 
 In Quest of Gold. By A St John- 
 ston. 
 
 Crown 8vo Library. Cheap Editions 
 
 Hambles Round London. By C. 
 
 L. Matdaux. Illustrated. 
 Around and About Old E n gland. 
 
 By C. L. Mat^aux. Illustrated. 
 Paws and Claws. By one of the 
 
 Authors of " Poems written for a 
 
 Child." Illustrated. 
 Decisive Events in History. 
 
 By Thomas Archer. With Original 
 
 Illustrations. 
 The True B,obinson Crusoes. 
 
 Cloth gilt. 
 Peeps A broad for Folks at Home. 
 
 Illustrated throughout. 
 
 2s. 6d. each. 
 
 Wild Adventures in Wild Places. 
 
 By Dr. Gordon Stables, K.N. lUus- 
 
 trated. 
 Modern Explorers. By Thomas 
 
 Frost lUubtraied. New and Cheaper 
 
 E ition. 
 Early Explorers. By Thomas Frost 
 Home Chat wi'ti our Young Folks. 
 
 Illustrated throughout 
 Jungle, Peak, and PL-\in. lUustrated 
 
 throughout 
 The England of Sbakespe.ire. By 
 
 E. Goadby. With FulTpage Illus- 
 trations.
 
 Selections from Cassell ^ Company's Publications. 
 
 The "Cross and Crown" Series 
 
 Freedom's Sword : A Story of the 
 
 Days of Wallace and Bruce. 
 
 By Annie S. Swan. 
 Strong to Suffer: A Story of 
 
 the Jews. By E. Wynne. 
 Heroes of the Indiaa Empire; 
 
 or. Stories of Valour and 
 
 Victory. By Ernest Foster. 
 In Letters of Flame : A Story 
 
 of the Waldenses. By C. L. 
 
 Mat^aux. 
 
 Illustrated 2s.6d. each. 
 
 Through Trial to Triumph. By 
 
 Madeline B. Hunt. 
 By Fire and Sword : A Story of 
 
 the Huguenots. By Thomas 
 
 Adam Hepburn's Vow: A Tale of 
 Kirk and Covenant. By Annie 
 S. Swan. 
 
 No. XIII.; or. The Story of the 
 Lost Vestal. A Tale of Early 
 Christian Days. By Emma Marshall. 
 
 'Golden Mottoes" Series, The. Each Book containing 208 pages, with 
 Four full-page Original Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 2S. each. 
 
 "Nil Desperandum." By the 
 Rev. F. Langbridi^e, M.A. 
 
 "Bear and Forbear." By Sarah 
 
 Pitt. 
 "Foremost if I Can." By Helen 
 
 Atteridge. 
 
 " Honour is my G-uide." By Jeanie 
 
 Hering (Mrs. Adams-Acton). 
 "Aim at a Sure End." By Emily 
 
 Searchfield. 
 "He Conquers who Endures." By 
 
 the Author of "May Cunningham's 
 
 Trial." &c. 
 
 Cassell's Picture Story Books. Each containing about Sixty Pages of 
 
 Pictures and Stories, &c. 6d. each. 
 
 Daisy's Story Book. 
 Dot's Story Book. 
 A Nest of Stories. 
 Grood-Night Stories. 
 Chats for Small Chatterers. 
 
 Little Talks. 
 Bright Stars. 
 Nursery Toys. 
 Pet's Posy. 
 Tiny Tales. 
 
 Auntie's Stories. 
 Birdie's Story Book. 
 Little Chimes. 
 A Shpaf of Tales. 
 Dewdrop Stories. 
 
 Cassell's Sixpenny Story Books, All Illustrated, and containing 
 Interesting Stories by well-known writers. 
 
 The Smuggler's Cave. 
 
 Little Lizzie. 
 
 Little Bird, Life and Adven- 
 
 tu.res of. 
 Luke Barnieott. 
 
 The Delft Jug. 
 
 The Boat Club. 
 
 Little Pickles. 
 
 The Elehester College Boys. 
 
 My First Cruise. 
 
 The Little Peacemaker. 
 
 Cassell's Shilling Story Books. 
 
 ing Stories. 
 
 Bunty and the Boys. 
 The Heir of Elmdale. 
 The Mystery at Shoncliff 
 
 School. 
 Claimed at Last, and E.oy s 
 
 Reward. 
 Thorns and Tangles. 
 The Cuckoo in the Robin's Nest, 
 John's Mistake. 
 The History of Five Little 
 
 Pitchers. 
 Diamonds in the Sand. 
 
 Illustrated Books for the Little Ones. 
 
 All Illustrated, is. each ; cloth gilt, 
 Scrambles and Scrapes, 
 Tittle Tattle Tales. 
 Up and Down the Garden. 
 All Sorts of Adventures. 
 Our Sunday Stories. 
 Our Holi^iay Hours, 
 Indoors and Out. 
 Some Farm Friends. 
 
 Albums for Children, 3s. 6d 
 
 The Album for Home, School, 
 and Play. Containing Stories by 
 Popular Authors. Illustrated. 
 
 My Own Album of Animals. 
 With Full-page Illustrations. 
 
 All Illustrated, and containing Interest- 
 
 Surly Bob. 
 The Giant's Cradle. 
 Shag and Doll. 
 Aunt Lucia's Locket. 
 The Magic Mirror. 
 The Cost of Revenge. 
 Clever Frank, 
 Among the Redskins. 
 The Ferrjrman of Brill, 
 Harry Maxwell. 
 A Banished Monarch. 
 Seventeen Cats. 
 
 Containing interesting Stories. 
 IS, 6d. 
 
 Wandering Ways. 
 
 Dumb Friends. 
 
 Those Golden Sands. 
 
 Little Mothers & their Children. 
 
 Our Pretty Pets. 
 
 Our Sehoolday Hours, 
 
 Creatures Tame. 
 
 Creatures W^ild. 
 
 each. 
 
 Picture Album of All Sorts. With 
 
 Full-page Illustrations. 
 The Chit-Chat Album, Illustrated 
 
 throughout
 
 Selections from Cassell ^ Company's Publications. 
 
 " Wanted— a King " Series. Illustrated. 3s. 6d. each. 
 Great G-randmarama and Elsie. By Georgina M. Synge. 
 Robin's Hide. By Miss E. Davenport Adams. 
 
 "SVante J— aKin? ; o •, How Merle ser the Nursery Rhymes to Rights. 
 By Maggie Browne. AVith Original Designs by Harry Furniss. 
 
 The World's W^orkers. A Series of New and Original Volumes. 
 With Portraits printed on a tint as Frontispiece, is. each. 
 
 Dr. Arnold of Rugby. By Rose 
 E. Selfe. 
 
 The Earl ' of Shaftesbury. By 
 Henry Frith. 
 
 Sarah Robinson, Agnes "Wes- 
 ton, and Mrs. Ideredith. By 
 E. M. Tomkinson. 
 
 Thomas A. Edison and Samuel 
 P. B. Morse. By Dr. Denslow 
 and J. Marsh Parker. 
 
 Mrs. Somerville and Mary Car- 
 penter. By Phyllis Browne. 
 
 General Gordon. By the Rev. 
 S. A. Swaine. 
 
 Charles Dickens. By his Eldest 
 Daughter. 
 
 Sir Titus Salt and George 
 Moore. By J. Burnley. 
 
 David Livingstone. By Robert 
 Smiles. 
 
 Florence Nightingale. Catherine 
 Marsh, Frances Ridley Haver- 
 gal, Mrs. Ranyard t"L. N. R."i. 
 By Lizzie Alldridge. 
 
 Dr. Guthrie, Father Mathew, 
 Elihu Bixrritt, George Livesey. 
 By John W. Kirton, LL.D. 
 
 Sir Henry Havelocs and Colin 
 Campbell Lord Clyde. By E. C. 
 Phillips. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln. Ey Ernest Foster. 
 
 George Mulier and Andrew Reed. 
 By E. R. Pitman. 
 
 Richard Cobden. By R. Cowing. 
 
 Benjainin Franklin. By E. M. 
 Tomkinson. 
 
 Handel. By Eliza Clarke. rSwaine. 
 
 Turner the Artist. By the Rev. S. A. 
 
 George and Robert Stephenson. 
 By C. L. Mateaux. 
 
 •»• The above Works {exchiding RICHARD COBDEN) Va« also be had Three in 
 
 One Vol., cloth, gill edges, y. 
 
 Library of Wonders. Illustrated Gift-books for Boys. Paper, is. ; 
 
 cloth, IS. 6d. 
 
 ' Wonders of Bodily Strength 
 
 and Skill. 
 Wonderful Escapes. 
 
 Wonderful Adventures. 
 Wonders of Animal lustinct. 
 Wonderful Bailoon Ascents. 
 
 Cassell's Eighteenpenny Story 
 
 Wee Willie W'inkie. 
 
 Ups and Downs of a Donkey's 
 
 Life. 
 Three Wee TTlster Lassies. 
 Up the Ladder. 
 
 Dick's Hero; and other Stories. 
 The Chip Boy. 
 Baggies, Baggies, and the 
 
 Emperor. 
 Hoses from Thorns. 
 
 Gift Books for Young People 
 Original Illustrations in each. 
 
 The Boy Hunters of Kentucky. 
 
 By Edwjird S. Ellis. 
 Red Feather: a Taie of the 
 
 American Frontier. By 
 
 Edward S. Ellis. 
 
 Seeking a City. 
 
 Rhoda's Reward; or. 
 W^ishes were Horses." 
 
 Jack Marston's Anchor. 
 
 Frank's Life-Battle; or. The 
 Three Friends. 
 
 Fritters. By Sarah Pitt. 
 
 The Two Hardcastles By Made- 
 line Bonavia Hunt. 
 
 Cassell's Two-Shilling Story E 
 Stories of the Tower. 
 Mr. Burke's Nieces. 
 May Cunningham's Trial. 
 The Top of the Ladder : How to 
 Little Fiotsam. [Reach it. 
 
 Madge and Her Friends. 
 The Children ot the Court. 
 A Moonbeam Tangle. 
 Maid Marjory. 
 I'eggy, and other Tales. 
 
 If 
 
 Books. Illustrated. 
 
 Faith's Father. 
 
 By Land and Sea. 
 
 The Young Berringtons. 
 
 Jeff and LeflF. 
 
 Tom Morris's Error. 
 
 Worth more than Gold. 
 
 "Through Flood— Through Pire;" 
 
 and other Stories. 
 The Girl with the Golden Locks. 
 Stories of the Olden Time. 
 
 By Popular Authors. With Four 
 Cloth gilt, IS. 6d. each. 
 
 Major Monk's Motto. By the Rev. 
 
 F. Langbridge. 
 Trixy. By Maggie Symington. 
 Rags and Rainbows: A Story of 
 
 Thanksgiving. 
 Uncle Wilham's Charges; or. The 
 
 Broken Trust. 
 Pretty Pink's Purpose; or. The 
 
 Little Street Merchants. 
 Tim Thomson's TriaL By George 
 I Weatherly. 
 
 I Ursula's Stumbling-Block. By Julia 
 
 Goddard. 
 Ruth's Life-Work. By the Rev. 
 
 Joseph Johnson. 
 
 ooks. Illustrated. 
 I The Four Cats of the Tippertons. 
 
 Marion's Two Homes. 
 I Little Folks' Sunday Boo<c 
 
 Two Fourpenny B.is. 
 
 Poor Nelly. 
 
 Tom Heriot. 
 
 Through Peril to Fortune. 
 
 Aunt Tabitha's Waifs. 
 
 In Mischief Again. 
 
 School Girls.
 
 Selectioits from Cassell ^ Company s Publication^. 
 
 Cheap Editions of Popular Volumes for Young People. Bound in 
 cloth, gilt edges, 2s. 6d. each. 
 
 Tor Queen and King. I Three Home". 
 
 Esther West. I "Working to Win. 
 
 Perils Afloat and Brigands Ashore. 
 
 The "Deerfoot" Series. By Edward S. Ellis. With Four fiill-page 
 Illustrations in each Book. Cloth, bevelled boards, 2s. 6d. each. 
 
 The Hunters of the Ozark. | The Camp in the Mountains. 
 The Last War Trail. 
 
 The "Log Cabin" Series. By Edward S. Ellis. With Four 
 page Illustrations in each. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d. each. 
 
 The Lost Trail. | Camp-Fire and Wigwam. 
 
 Footprints in the Forest. 
 
 Full- 
 
 The "Great River" Series. By Edward S. Ellis. Illustrated. 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, bevelled boards, 2s. 6d. each. 
 
 Down the Mississippi. | Lost in the Wilds. 
 
 TTp the Tapajos ; or. Adventures in Brazil. 
 
 The " Boy Pioneer" Series. By Edward S. Ellis. With Four Full- 
 page Illustrations in each Book. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d. each. 
 Ned in the "Woods. A Tale of I Ned on the River. A Tale of Indian 
 Early Daj-S in the West. | River Warfare. 
 
 Ned in the Block House. A Story of Pioneer Life in Kentucky. 
 
 The "World in Pictures." Illustrated throughout. 2s. 6d. each. 
 
 £i 
 
 4 
 
 A Kamble Round France. 
 All the Russias. 
 Chats about Gennany. 
 The Land of the Pyramids 
 (Egypt). 
 
 Peeps into China. 
 
 The Eastern Wonderland (Japan). 
 G-limpses of South America. 
 Round Africa. 
 
 The Land of Temples (India). 
 The Isles of the Pacifl.c. 
 
 Half-Crown Story Books. 
 
 Little Hinges. 
 
 Margaret's Enemy. 
 
 Pen's Perplexities. 
 
 Notable Shipwrecks. 
 
 Golden Days. 
 
 W^onders of Common Things. 
 
 Truth will Out. 
 
 Soldier and Patriot (George Wash- 
 ington). 
 
 The Young Man in the Battle of 
 Life. By the Rev. Dr. Landels. 
 
 The True Glory of Woman. By the 
 Rev. Dr. Landels. 
 
 At the South Pole. 
 
 Three-and-Sixpenny Library of Standard Tales, &c. All Illus- 
 trated and bound in cloth gilt. Crown Svo. 3s. 6d. each. 
 
 The Half Sisters. 
 
 Peggy Oghvie's Inheritance. 
 
 The Family Honour. 
 
 Books for the Little Ones. 
 
 Rhymes for the Young Folk. 
 
 By William Allingham. Beautifully 
 
 Illustrated. 3s. 6d. 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. With 
 
 Coloured Illustrations. 2s. 6d. 
 The History Scrap Book. With 
 
 nearly 1,000 Engravings. 5s.; 
 
 cloth. 78. 6d. 
 
 Krilof and his Fables. By W. R. S. 
 
 Ralston, M.A. 
 Fairy Tales. By Prof. Morley. 
 
 The Old Fairy Tales. With Original 
 Illustrations. Boards, Is.; cl.. Is. 6d. 
 
 My Diary. With 12 Coloured Plates 
 and 366 Woodcuts. Is. 
 
 The Sunday Scrap Book. With 
 One Thousand Scripture Pictures. 
 Boards, Cs. ; cloth, 7s. 6d. 
 
 Cassell & Company's Complete Catalogue will be sent post 
 
 free on application to 
 
 CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited, Ludgate Hill, London. 
 
 il 
 
 'v-^
 
 
 ("ARNASSVS 
 
 RARE BCX)KS 
 
 3006 WILSHIRE BLVa 
 
 LOS ANGELtS
 
 (■^\.<^