-
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 MRS. VIRGINIA B. SPORER
 
 H. M. CALDWLL CO., PUBLISHERS 
 NEW YORK AND BOSTON .X J*
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PACK. 
 
 The Stickit Minister n 
 
 Accepted of the Beasts 19 
 
 Trials for License by the Presbytery of Pitscottie 31 
 
 " The Heather Lintie " 40 
 
 The Split in the Marrow Kirk 54 
 
 The Probationer 66 
 
 The Lammas Preaching 78 
 
 The Tragedy of Duncan Duncanson, Schoolmaster 89 
 
 Why David Oliphant Remained a Presbyterian 103 
 
 The Three Maister Peter Slees, Ministers in the Parish 
 
 of Couthy ill 
 
 The Courtship of Allan Fairley, of Earlswood rto 
 
 John Smith, of Arkland, Prepares his Sermon 128 
 
 A Day in the Life of the Reverend James Pitbye, 
 
 Minister of Nether Dullarg 136 
 
 The Glen Kells Short Leet 142 
 
 Boanerges Simpson's Incumbrance 152 
 
 A Knight-Errant of the Streets 163 
 
 The Progress of Cleg Kelly, Mission Worker 172 
 
 Ensamples to the Flock 192 
 
 The Siege of M'Lurg's Mill 304 
 
 2040454
 
 IV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOS 
 
 The Minister of Scaur casts out with his Maker 218 
 
 John Black, Critic in Ordinary 227 
 
 The Candid Friend 235 
 
 A Midsummer Idyl 243 
 
 The Tutor of C urlywee 256
 
 "Robert Xouis Stevenson, 
 
 OF 
 
 SCOTLAND AND SAMOA 
 I DEDICATE THESE STORIES OF THAT GRAY 
 
 GALLOWAY LAND, WHERE, 
 ABOUT THE GRAVES OF THE MARTYRS 
 THE WHAUPS ARE CRYING HIS 
 HEART REMEMBERS HOW. 
 
 I wish to acknowledge a continual indebtedness to the 
 memory of the Reverend William Howie Wylie, late editor 
 of the " Christian Leader," who first gave hospitality to these 
 storm-tossed waifs and estrays. They are reprinted from the 
 columns of that journal by the courtesy of his sou, the present 
 proprietor.
 
 A LETTER DECLARATORY TO THE 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 DEAR Louis STEVENSON, It is, I think, a re- 
 mark of your own that the imprudences of men, 
 even oftener than their ill deeds, come home to 
 roost. At least, if you have not so remarked it, 
 you have not lived so long without observing it. 
 Now, in somewise, you have at least a god-papa's 
 responsibility for the " Stickit Minister," and if 
 you have no spoon of silver for the poor fellow, 
 you will be expected at the least duly to hear his 
 catechism. 
 
 A month ago when, entirely without permission, 
 I dedicated the first edition of my prose first-born 
 to you, shame kept me from further connecting 
 you with what no one but yourself might ever 
 read. As for you, I had you in a cleft stick, as 
 you shall presently hear. But now a second edi- 
 tion and a preface imperatively required have 
 together thawed my blateness. But it occurs to 
 me that you may deny any parental responsibility, 
 
 7
 
 8 A LETTER DECLARATORY 
 
 even vicarious. Well, as much is mostly done 
 on these occasions. In that case we will proceed 
 to lead the proof. You have, no doubt, forgotten 
 a power of good law in your time, and might 
 have forgotten even more had you even known it. 
 But not the wit of the Great Lord President him- 
 self in his best days could have shaken this case 
 of mine. 
 
 Let me then suggest to you Saranac Lake, a 
 bleak sheet of ice " somewhere in America " east 
 winds, hotels with a smell of cooking in the cor- 
 ridors, melting snows, and mountains. It is near 
 flitting and settling day with you there, and as 
 yur custom is, you are owing a many letters 
 to me among others, epistles one, two and three. 
 For days you have passed your desk with a kind 
 of pride and wicked pleasure in stubbornly defy- 
 ing your conscience. 
 
 But one morning in the gloaming, Conscience 
 has you down before you were fairly awake, and 
 right grimly takes certain long arrears out of you. 
 Then, according to your own account, your cries 
 of penitence might have been heard a mile. In 
 this abased condition, the Black Dog riding hard 
 on your back, you made yourself responsible for 
 words to the ensuing effect : " Write," you said, 
 * my Timothy, no longer verse, but use Good Gal- 
 loway Scots for your stomach's sake and mine. 
 There be overly many at the old. tooth-comb ! "
 
 TO THE SECOND EDITION. 9 
 
 Well, 'tis scarce fair to hold you to it, I know ; 
 but your will thus fleeing in a mere sauve qui 
 pent conscience hot-foot after you, hectoring 
 with victory "If you do. Til read it every 
 word!" says you. And so I had you. 
 
 Often when in my turn the Black Dog hath 
 been upon me, and I seemed to see plainly that 
 no Adam's son would ever read a single line, least 
 of all a reviewer have I rubbed hands and 
 laughed to think of you in that spotless linen suit, 
 sitting, as you imagined, safe and cool under 
 whatever may be the Samoaii substitute for a 
 rose. 
 
 But I hold to my pound of flesh. Will you, nil 
 you, you must read and every word. 
 
 Nevertheless, if you find anything here, even a 
 thousand sea miles from good, it is so because 
 ever since Saranac I have been like Macready hi 
 Edinburgh when the Great Unknown came in, 
 " playing to Sir Walter." 
 
 S. R. CEOCKBTT. 
 
 PENICUIK, MIDLOTHIAN, April 27, 1893.
 
 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 THE RENUNCIATION OF ROBERT FRA8ER, FORMERLY 
 STUDENT IN DIVINITY. 
 
 THE crows were wheeling behind the plow in 
 scattering clusters, and plumping singly upon 
 the soft, thick grubs which the plowshare was 
 turning out upon an unkindly world. It was a 
 bask blowy day in the end of March, and there 
 was a hint of storm in the air a hint empha- 
 sized for those skilled in weather lore by the 
 presence of half a dozen sea-gulls, white vagrants 
 among the black coats, blown by the south wind 
 up from the Solway a snell, Scotch, but not un- 
 friendly day altogether. Robert Fraser bent to 
 the plow-handles, and cast a keen and wary eye 
 toward his guide-posts on the ridge. His face 
 was colorless, even when a dash of rain came 
 swirling across from the crest of Ben Gairn, 
 whose steep bulk heaved itself a blue haystack 
 above the level horizon of the moorland. He was 
 
 11
 
 12 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 dressed like any other plowman of the south up- 
 lands rou^h homespun much the worse for wear, 
 and leggings the color of the red soil which he 
 was reversing with the share of his plow. Yet 
 there was that about Robert Fraser which marked 
 him no common man. When he paused at the 
 top of the ascent, and stood with his back against 
 the horns of the plow, the country man's legacy 
 from Adam of the Mattock, he pushed back his 
 weather-beaten straw hat with a characteristic 
 gesture, and showed a white forehead with blue 
 veins channeling it a damp, heavy lock of black 
 hair clinging to it as in Severn's picture of John 
 Keats on his death-bed. Robert Fraser saw a 
 couple of black specks which moved smoothly 
 and evenly along the top of the distant dike of 
 the highway. He stood still for a moment or 
 two watching them. As they came nearer, they 
 resolved themselves into a smart young man sit- 
 ting in a well-equipped gig drawn by a showily 
 actioned horse, and driven by a man in livery. 
 As they passed rapidly along the road, the hand 
 of the young man appeared in a careless wave of 
 recognition over the stone dike, and Robert Fraser 
 lifted his slack reins in staid acknowledgment. 
 It was more than a year since the brothers had 
 looked each other so nearly in the eyes. They 
 were Dr. Henry Fraser, the rising physician of 
 Cairn Edward, and his elder brother Robert,
 
 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 13 
 
 once Student of Divinity at Edinburgh College, 
 whom three parishes knew as " The Stickit 
 Minister." 
 
 When Robert Eraser stabled his horses that 
 night and went in to his supper, he was not sur- 
 prised to find his friend, Saunders M'Quhirr of 
 Drumquhat, sitting by the peat fire in the 
 ' room." Almost the only thing which distin- 
 guished the Stickit Minister from the other small 
 farmers of the parish of Dullarg was the fact that 
 he always sat in the evening by himself ben the 
 hoose, and did not use the kitchen in common 
 with his housekeeper and herd-boy save only at 
 meal-times. Robert had taken to Saunders ever 
 since the back of his ambition broken he had 
 settled down to the farm, and he welcomed him 
 with shy cordiality. 
 
 You'll take a cup of tea, Saunders ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " Thank ye, Robert, I wadna be waur o't," re- 
 turned his friend. 
 
 " I saw your brither the day," said Saunders 
 M'Quhirr, after the tea-cups had been cleared 
 away, and the silent housekeeper had replaced 
 the books upon the table. Saunders picked a 
 couple of them up, and, having adjusted his 
 glasses, he read the titles " Milton's Works," and 
 a volume of translation of " Dorner's Person of 
 Christ."
 
 14 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 " I saw yer brither the day ; he maun be git- 
 tin' a big practice ! " 
 
 " Ay ! " said Robert Fraser, very thought- 
 fully. 
 
 Saunders M'Quhirr glanced up quickly. It was, 
 of course, natural that the unsuccessful elder 
 brother should envy the prosperous younger, but 
 he had thought that Robert Fraser was living on 
 a different plane. It was one of the few things that 
 the friends had never spoken of, though every 
 one knew why Dr. Fraser did not visit his 
 brother's little farm. " He's gettin' in wi' the big 
 fowk noo, an' thinks maybe that his brither wad 
 do him nae credit." That was the way the clash 
 of the country-side explained the matter. 
 
 "I never told you how I came to leave the 
 college, Saunders," said the younger man, rest- 
 ing his brow on a hand that even the horn of the 
 plow could not make other than diaphanous. 
 
 "No," said Saunders, quietly, with a tender 
 gleam coming into the humorsome, kindly eyes 
 that lurked under their bushy tussocks of gray 
 eyebrow. Saunders' humor lay near the Fountain 
 of Tears. 
 
 " No," continued Robert Fraser, " I have not 
 spoken of it to so many ; but you've been a good 
 frien' to me, Saunders, and I think you should 
 hear it. I have not tried to set myself right with 
 folks in the general, but I would like to let you
 
 THE STICK1T MINISTER. 15 
 
 see clearly before I go my ways to Him who 
 seeth from the beginning." 
 
 "Hear till him," said Saunders; "man, yer 
 hoast [cough] is no' near as sair as it was i' the 
 back-end. Ye'll be here lang efter me ; but lang 
 or short, weel do ye ken, Robert Fraser, that ye 
 need not to pit yersel' richt wi' me. Hev I no' 
 kenned ye sins ye war the size o' twa scrubbers ? " 
 
 " I thank you, Saunders," said Robert, " but I 
 am well aware that I'm to die this year. No, no, 
 not a word. It is the Lord's will ! It's more than 
 seven year now since I first kenned that my days 
 were to be few. It was the year my faither died, 
 and left Harry and me by our lane. 
 
 " He left no sillar to speak of, just plenty to 
 lay him decently in the kirk-yard among his fore- 
 bears. I had been a year at the Divinity Hall 
 then, and was going up to put in my discourses 
 for the next session. I had been troubled with 
 my breast for some time, and so called one day at 
 the infirmary to get a word with Sir James. He 
 was very busy when I went in, and never noticed 
 me till the hoast took me. Then on a sudden he 
 looked up from his papers, came quickly over to 
 me, put his own white handkerchief to my mouth, 
 and quietly said, ' Come into my room, laddie ! ' 
 Ay, he was a good man and a faithful, Sir James, 
 if ever there was one. He told me that with care 
 I might live five or six years, but it would need
 
 16 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 great care. Then a strange prickly coldness 
 came over me, and I seemed to walk light-headed 
 in an atmosphere suddenly rarified. I think I 
 know now how the mouse feels under the air- 
 pump." 
 
 " What's that ? " queried Saunders. 
 
 "A cruel ploy not worth speaking of," con- 
 tinued the Stickit Minister. " Well, I found 
 something in my throat when I tried to thank him. 
 But I came my ways home to the Dullarg, and 
 night and day I considered what was to be done, 
 with so much to do and so little time to do it. It 
 was clear that both Harry and me could not go 
 through the college on the little my faither had 
 left. So late one night I saw my way clear to 
 what I should do. Harry must go, I must stay. 
 I must come home to the farm, and be my own 
 * man ; ' then I could send Harry to the college to 
 be a doctor, for he had no call to the ministry, 
 as once I thought I had. More than that, it was 
 laid on me to tell Jessie Loudon that Robert 
 Fraser was no better than a machine set to go 
 five years. 
 
 "Now all these things I did, Saunders, but 
 there's no use telling you what they cost in the 
 doing. They were right to do, and they were 
 done. I do not repent any of them. I would do 
 them all over again were they to do, but it's been 
 bitterer than I thought."
 
 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 17 
 
 The Stickit Minister took his head off his hand 
 and leaned wearily back in his chair. 
 
 " The story went over the country that I had 
 failed in my examinations, and I never said that 
 I had not. But there were some that knew better 
 who might have contradicted the report if they 
 had liked. I settled down to the farm, and I put 
 Harry through the college, sending all but a bare 
 living to him in Edinburgh. I worked the work 
 of the farm, rain and shine, ever since, and have 
 been for these six years the ' Stickit Minister ' 
 that all the world kens the day. Whiles Harry 
 did not think that he got enough. He was always 
 writing for more, and not so very pleased when 
 he did not get it. He was aye different to me, ye 
 ken, Saunders, and he canna be judged by the 
 same standard as you and me." 
 
 " I ken," said Saunders M'Quhirr, a spark of 
 light lying in the quiet of his eyes. 
 
 " Well," continued Robert Fraser, lightened by 
 Saunders' apparent agreement, "the time came 
 when he was clear from college, and wanted a 
 practice. He had been ill-advised that he had not 
 got his share of the farm, and he wanted itselled 
 to share and share alike. Now I kenned, and you 
 ken, Saunders, that it's no' worth much in one 
 share, let alone two. So I got the place quietly 
 bonded, and bought him old Doctor Aitkin'a 
 practice in Cairn Edward with the money. 
 2
 
 18 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 " I have tried to do my best for the lad, for it 
 was laid on me to be my brother's keeper. He 
 doesna come here much," continued Robert, " but 
 I think he's not so ill against me as he was. 
 Saunders, he waved his hand to me when he was 
 gaun by the day ! " 
 
 "That was kind of him," said Saunders 
 M'Quhirr. 
 
 "Ay, was it no'," said the Stickit Minister, 
 eagerly, with a soft look in his eyes as he glanced 
 up at his brother's portrait in cap and gown, 
 which hung over the china dogs on the mantel- 
 piece. 
 
 " I got my notice this morning that the bond is 
 to be called up in November," said Robert. " So 
 I'll be obliged to flit." 
 
 Saunders M'Quhirr started to his feet in a 
 moment. "Never," he said, with the spark of 
 fire alive now in his eyes, " never as lang as there's 
 a beast on Drumquhat, or a poun' in Cairn 
 Edward Bank," bringing down his clinched fist 
 upon the Milton on the table. 
 
 " No, Saunders, no," said the Stickit Minister, 
 very gently; "I thank you kindly, but TUbt 
 flitted before that /"
 
 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS. 19 
 
 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS. 
 
 IT was a bright June day when the Reverend 
 Hugh Hamilton was placed in the little kirk of 
 the Cowdenknowes. He was twenty-two years of 
 age, and he had flushed like a girl of sixteen when 
 he preached as a candidate before the congrega- 
 tion. But he did not blush when he was or- 
 dained by the laying on of the hands of the pres- 
 bytery. There was a look of the other world on his 
 face as he knelt in sight of all- the people to 
 receive on his yellow hair the hands of the 
 assembled brethren. Hugh Hamilton had been 
 devoted to temple service, like Samuel, from his 
 birth ; yet there had never been anything of the 
 " pious boy " about him even as a lad. He could 
 always climb a tree or run a race to the top of 
 the Bow Fell with any one. He was therefore 
 never lightly treated by his companions, but as 
 he had not been known to tell a lie even when 
 circumstances made it extremely convenient, nor 
 even so much as steal a turnip a plant in which 
 there are no rights of property in Scotland his 
 companions had long ago decided that there must 
 be a lack of sound morality somewhere about him.
 
 20 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 He was a popular sort of boy, but was not con- 
 sidered to have very good principles. 
 
 At college he spent most of his time in helping 
 the laggards of his companions over the numer- 
 ous examination fences that barred their way 
 mere skipping-ropes to him, but very five-barred 
 gates to the Rodericks and Dugalds who had come 
 down from the hills with the grace of God in their 
 hearts, a bag of oatmeal coarse ground for brose 
 in their wooden boxes, and twelve pounds in 
 single notes inside their waistcoats to see them 
 through the session. 
 
 One of these came all the way to Hugh's ordi- 
 nation. He was now the Reverend Roderick 
 M'Leod of the parish of Kilmuir in the Lews, and 
 he made the speech of the evening. It ran, or 
 rather hirpled, somewhat as follows : 
 
 " I hef arose to speak, no' that I am that goot at 
 the speakin', but I cannot gang away back to the 
 Hielan's an' keep silence on this occasion. For if 
 it had no' been for your minister and the kind- 
 ness of Providence, it's no' here that I would hef 
 been, nor yet at my awn manse in the Lews ; but 
 it's sittin' I would hef been on a stone dike in the 
 Ross of Mull, keepin' the craws aff three rigs of 
 pitawties. If I could speak to you in the Gaelic, 
 I would tell you the feelin's that's in my heart 
 for your minister, but the English is no' a Ian- 
 gwage that is good for expressin' the feelin's in.
 
 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS. 21 
 
 I hef no wife at awl, but if I had ten wives I 
 wouldna think ass muckle o' them ass I do of 
 your minister for his kindness to a puir lad from 
 Mull." 
 
 It was thought to be a very happy settlement, 
 and Hugh Hamilton felt it to be a consecration. 
 Had he been called to minister to a congregation 
 of the angels in some rural parish of heaven, he 
 could not have held higher opinions of his parish- 
 ioners. He might have had a fair chance in the 
 garden of Eden to the general advantage of the 
 race, but he was sorely handicapped in the Cow- 
 denknowes. He was aware that all men did not 
 act aright on every occasion ; but Hugh consid- 
 ered this to be not so much their own fault, as a 
 proof of the constant agency of that power which 
 worketh for evil, of which he was almost mor- 
 bidly conscious in his own soul. 
 
 His first sermon was a wonder. As the theo- 
 logical postman said, "He was ayont the cluds 
 afore we could get oor books shut, oot o' sicht gin 
 we gat oorsel's settled in oor seats, an' we saw 
 nae mair o' him till he said, ' Amen.' " But Hugh 
 Hamilton knew nothing of this. He had been in 
 high communion with the unseen, and he doubted 
 not that each one of his hearers had accompanied 
 him all the way and seen the sights of the seventh 
 heaven as he had seen them that day. 
 
 As he walked down the street on the following
 
 22 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 day he swung along to an unheard melody the 
 music of the other world playing in his ear. But 
 he did not know enough of this world to catch 
 the eye of the wife of the richest merchant, in 
 the place when she had got all ready to bow to 
 him. 
 
 " An' him had his tea in my verra hoose on 
 Wednesday three weeks, nae farther gane, the 
 prood upstart ! " said she. 
 
 Hugh Hamilton went on to the death-bed of a 
 child, all unconscious that he had made an enemy 
 for life. But Mrs. Penpont went home in a white 
 rage, and told her husband the story with frills 
 and furbelows of adornment how the new min- 
 ister had " slichtit her, the bailie's wife, that had 
 taen twa seats in his kirk juist for obleegement 
 her that was a laird's dochter " 
 
 " I wadna work the auld man's kail-yard ower 
 sair ! " said her husband. 
 
 " An' you're but little better, Andra Penpont, 
 jibin' an' jeerin' at yer ain marriet wife, you that 
 wad hae been nocht ava but for what ye got wi' 
 me!" 
 
 " 'Deed, Jess, I wad let that flea stick to the 
 wa' gin I war you. A' that I ever gat wi' you 
 has been paid for twa or three times ower ! " 
 
 But Mrs. Andrew did not stand fire, for her 
 husband knew how to keep a tight grip of these 
 two vast forces in affairs domestic the purse and
 
 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS. 23 
 
 the temper. Great power is given to him who 
 knoweth how to keep these two. 
 
 Hugh Hamilton was not a great success in the 
 pulpit. " He's far ower the heids o' the fowk," 
 was the complaint laid against him where the 
 wiseacres most did congregate. "Withoot doot 
 he has graun' heid-knowledge, but it's no' to be 
 lookit for that a laddie like him should hae the 
 leevin' experience o' religion." 
 
 But he had a mysterious fascination for children 
 of all ages. They recognized that in somewise he 
 was kin to them. The younger they were, the 
 stronger seemed the attraction which drew them 
 to the minister. He seemed to be a citizen of that 
 country forth from which they had lately voyaged. 
 There were a dozen of them ever about his knees, 
 listening rapt while he told them the simple stories 
 which pleased them best, or as he sung to them 
 in a voice like a heavenly flute or a lonely bird 
 singing in the first of spring. 
 
 " I like na siccan wark," said some ; " how is 
 he to fricht them when he comes to catechise 
 them if he makes so free wi' them the noo, that's 
 what I wad like to ken?" "Na, an' anither 
 thing, he's aye sing, singin' at his hymns. Noo, 
 there may be twa-three guid hymns, though I 
 hae my doots but among a' that he sings, it 
 stan's to reason that there maun be a hantle tf 
 balderdash 1 "
 
 24 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 Meantime, Hugh Hamilton went about as he 
 did ever, with his head in the air, unconscious 
 that he had an evil-wisher in the world, smiling 
 with boyish frankness on all with his short- 
 sighted blue eyes. There was not a lass in the 
 parish but looked kindly upon him, for Hugh's 
 eyes had the dangerous gift of personal speech, so 
 that the slightest word from him seemed, under 
 the radiance of his glance, to be weighty with 
 personal meanings. If one heart beat faster as 
 he walked down the long green Kirk Loan with 
 May Carruthers, the belle of the parish, that heart 
 was not Hugh Hamilton's. He was trysted to a 
 fairer bride, and like Him whom he took to be 
 his Master in all things, he longed to lay down 
 his life for the people. But he was too humble 
 to expect that his God would so honor him. 
 
 He awakened memories of that young James 
 Renwick who died in Edinburgh Grass-Market, 
 last of them who counted not their lives dear for 
 the sake of the Scottish Covenant ; but he had 
 something too of the over-sweetness which marks 
 certain of Rutherford's letters. His was a life 
 foredoomed to bitter experience, and to the out- 
 sider his actual experience seemed of the grim- 
 mest and bitterest, yet he never thought himself 
 worth even self-pity, that most enervating draught 
 which any man can drink. Like the Israelitish 
 city, he was ringed round with unseen celestial
 
 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS. 25 
 
 defenses and passed unscathed through the most 
 terrible experiences. 
 
 So two years went over the young man's head, 
 and to the few who best understood him he seemed 
 like an angel entertained unawares. But in the 
 secret darks of the stairs, in the whispered col- 
 loquy of the parlors, an enemy was at work ; and 
 murderous whispers, indefinite, disquieting, sug- 
 gesting vague possibilities of all things evil, 
 brought with them the foul reek of the pit where 
 they were forged, paralyzing his work and killing 
 his best usefulness. But Hugh Hamilton wotted 
 not at all of it. "What threats came to him by 
 the penny post or were slipped into his letter-box 
 on dark nights, were known only to himself and 
 his Maker. Probably he held them to be only what 
 he must expect from the Accuser of the Brethren. 
 At least, he made no sound, and none knew if he 
 suffered. Elders dropped away, members lifted 
 their lines and went to other communions. Only 
 his Sabbath school remained unimpaired. There 
 his marvelous voice shrilled clearer and ever 
 clearer, even after there remained no teacher to 
 assist him, as though he had led his little flock to 
 the very gate of heaven, and were now pleading 
 with the Guardian of the Keys to let the children 
 in straightway to their inheritance. Children of 
 strict and orthodox parents were removed, but 
 the Sabbath school remained full. For this strange
 
 26 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 young minister, a fairy changeling surely, had 
 but to go out into the highways and the hedges 
 to compel others to come in. 
 
 Then in a little there came the clamant and 
 definite bitterness of the " Fama Clamosa " the 
 moving of the Presbytery which had licensed and 
 ordained him, by his ruling elder and one other 
 of the congregation. In the reverend court itself 
 there was, at first, only bitterness and dissension. 
 Hugh Hamilton met his accusers openly, but there 
 was no fiery indignation in his defense, only a 
 certain sad disappointment. He had received his 
 first backset, and it told on him like a sentence 
 of death. His faith in man died in a day ; there- 
 fore he clung more closely to his faith in a God 
 who looketh not on the outward appearance, but 
 on the heart. 
 
 He could not conceive how it was possible that 
 any should for a moment believe those things 
 which certain witnessed against him. He had 
 brought no witnesses. He would employ no 
 lawyer. If the Presbytery thought fit in the 
 interests of the religion of the parish, he 
 would demit his charge ; if they judged it 
 right, he would accept deposition without a 
 word. 
 
 But Hugh Hamilton was not to be deposed. 
 Suspended during inquiry, he still did the few 
 duties which remained to him, and visited wher-
 
 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS. 27 
 
 erer there was a door open for him to enter. 
 There were not many. This was for him " that 
 Mount Sinai in Arabia " beneath which his Script- 
 ure told him the Christ's Man must awhile so- 
 journ. 
 
 One morning the farmer of Drumrash went out 
 early among his beasts, and was surprised to 
 find them grouped in a dense swaying mass about 
 an empty quarry, horning and shouldering one 
 another in their eagerness to approach. Myste- 
 rious sounds arose from the whin-bound quarry 
 hole, disquieting even in the cool dawn of the 
 morning. The farmer crept to a gap in the whin- 
 bushes, and through it he was astonished to see 
 the suspended minister of the Cowdenknowes 
 with a face all suffused with joy, singing words 
 he could not understand to a tune no man had 
 ever heard before ; while about him, ever nearer 
 and nearer, the " nowt " beasts pressed, tossing 
 their sullen fronts, silent and fascinated by the 
 magic of the singing.* 
 
 Then the farmer remembered that he had 
 heard tell that the minister had wandered on the 
 hills singing and praying to himself ever since 
 they shut the door of his Sabbath school against 
 him. 
 
 Gradually the words came clearer 
 
 *" Horse Subsecivae." By Dr. John Brown. Second 
 eerles, p. 362.
 
 28 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 "He was despised .... despised .... 
 
 And rejected of men, 
 A Man of Sorrows, 
 And acquainted with grief." 
 
 So the melody swayed and thrilled, breaking 
 for a moment into delicious, heart-breaking 
 silences, anon returning with thrilling power, like 
 the voice of a martyr praising God out of the 
 place of fire. Drumrash felt his eyes wet with un- 
 accustomed tears. He had never heard of Handel, 
 and if he had, he need not have been less affected, 
 for surely never was the great music sung in such 
 wise or to such an audience. 
 
 " He was despised . . . . despised. . . 
 And rejected of men . . . ." 
 
 The lowering foreheads and tossing horns 
 drooped lower, and hung over the singer like the 
 surge of a breaking wave. 
 
 " A man of Sorrows, 
 And acquainted with grief." 
 
 The song rose, beating tremulously against the 
 sky, till the listener felt his heart brimming to 
 the overflow ; so, abruptly rising, he turned and 
 fled, leaving Hugh Hamilton alone with his last 
 congregation. 
 
 Two hours afterward a shepherd came that 
 way by chance seeking a lost lamb, and in its
 
 ACCEPTED OF THE BEASTS. 29 
 
 place he found the minister of Cowdenknowes, 
 fallen still and silent, his face turned to the sky, 
 and the dew of the morning yet wet upon it. 
 There was a light of emancipation on his brow, 
 for he had seen the Vision which every man shall 
 one day see, and it had not affrighted him. There 
 was even a kind of triumph under the film which 
 had begun to gather over the eyes of translucent 
 blue. 
 
 They buried him at his own expense in the de- 
 serted kirkyard at Kirkclaugh, a mile or two 
 along the windy brow of the sea cliff, looking to 
 the sale of his books to defray the cost. There 
 were just six people at the funeral, and one of 
 them was the farmer of Drumrash. But the 
 whole country-side stood afar off to see what the 
 end would be. Only the "nowt" beasts came 
 gazing and wondering into the unfenced and 
 deserted burying-ground as though they at least 
 would have mourned for him who had drawn 
 them about him when other congregation he had 
 none. 
 
 Hardly a week after the minister was laid to 
 rest, the dead body of the Strange Woman, whose 
 accusation had wrought the ill one of small 
 repute but infinite power of mischief was found, 
 wave-driven, at the foot of the Kirkclaugh Heuchs.
 
 30 THE STICKIT MINISTEB. 
 
 On the cliff above there lay a hat and veil, the 
 latter neatly folded, and on it a note pinned : 
 
 "I can live no longer. I betrayed innocent 
 blood. As Judas betrayed his Master, so I sold 
 him yet got neither money nor kiss. Now I 
 also go to my own place." 
 
 The minister's books fetched enough to put up 
 a little tombstone of red sandstone simply graven 
 with his name and age. But the farmer of 
 Drumrash thought it looked bare and unkindly, 
 so taking counsel of no man, he laid his wait one 
 day for Bourtree, the drunken stone-cutter. Him 
 he stood over with the horsewhip of coercion till 
 he had done his will. So now, in staggering cap- 
 itals, you may read the words 
 
 HUGH HAMILTON. 
 
 AGED 24 TEAKS. 
 " He was despised .... and rejected of men." 
 
 And still Hugh Hamilton's last congregation toss 
 their sullen f rentals, and nose with the moist and 
 stupid affection of " bestial " the crumbling stone 
 which, on that wind-vexed and unkindly promon- 
 tory, tells the infrequent wayfarer of yet another 
 " Rejected of Men."
 
 TRIALS FOE LICENSE. 31 
 
 TRIALS FOR LICENSE BY THE PRESBY- 
 TERY OF PITSOOTTIE. 
 
 WHEN I cam' hame from my first presbytery 
 at Pitscottie, the wife was awfu' keen to ken a' 
 that had passed, for she said, " If it's sae graun' 
 to listen to yae minister on Sabbath, what maun 
 it no' be to hear a dizzen a' at yince ? " But there 
 was juist where my wife was mista'en that time 
 whatever, for as a matter o' experience, it's' a 
 moral impossibeelity to hear ony yin o' twal 
 ministers when they are a' speakin' at yae time. 
 
 But I said to Mrs. MaWhurr, "Do you no' 
 think that ye had better wait till the forenicht, 
 an' then ye can hear a' aboot it, no in snips an' 
 clippets ? Rob Adair will likely be ower frae the 
 toon, for he was gaun to come this way to gie a 
 look at some score or twa o' Kirkconnel's yowes." 
 
 So in the afternoon she pat on a bit fire in the 
 parlor ben the hoose, which she disna do unless 
 we're gaun to hae company, and by the time that 
 Rob Adair cam' she was in graun' fettle to listen. 
 For ye see this was the first time that I had ever 
 been presbytery elder, an' oor minister was fell 
 anxious for me to gang doon to Pitscottie, for
 
 82 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 there was a lad that he kenned comin' a' the road 
 frae Enbra' for leecense to preach the Gospel, an' 
 the minister thocht that some o' the auld yins o' 
 the presbytery micht be ower sair on the young 
 man. 
 
 Rob Adair cam' in baith wat an' dry, an' to 
 help baith, got a change o' claes an' his tea oot o' 
 oor best cheena. Then when the pipes were gaun 
 weel, they baith looked ower at me. Brawly 
 kenned I that they were hotchin' for me to gie 
 them the presbytery ; but I gaed on askin' Rob 
 aboot the price o' beasts, an' hoo mony lambs had 
 been selled on the hill that day, till my wife could 
 stand it no longer. 
 
 " Saunders MaWhurr," says she, " if there's a 
 war tried woman than me or a mair aggravatin' 
 man than you hi sax parishes, I dinna ken 
 them." 
 
 So I began. 
 
 " Weel, as ye ken, I was no' that carin' aboot 
 gaun to the presbytery at the first go-off, but oor 
 minister wadna be said ' No ' to." 
 
 " An' you're no' the man to say it gin he war," 
 said the mistress. 
 
 " She means that me an' the minister 'grees 
 fine," said I to Rob, " though he wasna my man 
 when he cam' on accoont o' his giein' oot a Para- 
 phrase. This was my opeenion at that time ; he 
 haes a harmonium noo i' the kirk, an' Alexander
 
 TRIALS FOR LICENSE. 33 
 
 M'Quhirr, Drumquhat, was the first name on the 
 list o' subscribers. Change ? I wadna gie a 
 whustle for a man that canna change when he 
 fin's he's wrang ; so it's no wonder oor minister 
 an' me's verra pack. He has taen me a lang gate 
 sins him an' me fall aquant. I used to think 
 Jeems Carlyle the only yin o' the Carlyles that 
 had come to ony guid (an' 'deed there were few 
 better sheep in Dumfries market on Wednesday 
 than Jeems Carlyle's) ; but oor minister, wi' the 
 help o' the Almichty an' some buiks o' Tammas 
 Carlyle, thrawn stick as he was, hae garred 
 anither thrawn stick o' a farmer body lift his een 
 abune the nowt an' the shairn." 
 
 " Skip the minister, an' the haivers the twa o' 
 ye talk aboot auld Tarn drive on wi' yer presby- 
 tery ! " said my wife. In the generality, ye ken, 
 I'm ower slow for the wife ; she kind o' likes a' 
 things to gang forrit gye-an' sherp, an' wad gar 
 a' the hens hae their layin' dune i' the mornin' an' 
 their nests made afore they gaed oot to pick a 
 single corn. 
 
 Yince I offended her sair when the factor was 
 here to his tea. " Hae a bit o' this skim milk 
 cheese, factor," says I, " it's my wife's ain mak- 
 kin', an' 1'se warrant there's neyther dirt nor 
 butter in't!" 
 
 " Weel, the presbytery be't," says I, for I saw 
 that my wife's natience, never verra lang at the
 
 34 tHE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 best, was comin' near an end. I ken the length 
 o't to a hair, as by this time I hae a good richt to 
 do. " Weel, the coort met an' was constitutit." 
 
 "What's that?" asked Rob Adair. 
 
 " Fegs, I do not ken ; ye'll hae to ask the clerk, 
 it was him that said it," says I, " an' then there 
 was reports, an' strings o' feegures like laddies' 
 coonts (sums) ; but naebody payed muckle atten- 
 tion, but talkit to their neighbors till the clerk 
 caaed ' Order ! ' Then they were quaite for half 
 a meenit, an' syne at it again. 'Deed the clerk 
 talkit too when he didna mind." 
 
 " Deer sirce, an' that's a presbytery. I thocht 
 it was like a week o' sacraments I " said my wife. 
 
 " Verra far frae that," says I, " for o' a' the 
 craiturs to fecht, doos an' ministers are the maist 
 quarrelsome." 
 
 " Did oor minister fecht ? " asked the mistress, 
 verra pointed. 
 
 " Na ; he was raither a peacemaker, so to speak," 
 says I, cautious like ; " of coorse a man haes whiles 
 to speak his mind." 
 
 "Ow! he's the wee white hen that never 
 lays away, oor minister, I ken," says she, dried 
 like. 
 
 " Ye never war the bird to fyle yer ain kirk 
 riggin," said Rob. Whiles I'm feared that auld 
 Rob is gettin' a wee doited. 
 
 " Yer keepin' me frae the presbytery wi' yer
 
 TRIALS FOB LICENSE. 35 
 
 haivers," says I, an' that made them as quaite as 
 pussy. " Weel, in a wee it came on to the leecen- 
 sin', an' the laddie f rae Enbra' was bidden to step 
 in alang wi' twa ither lads frae the neeborhood 
 that had compleetit their studies at the college. 
 The Enbra' laddie had been an unco graun' scholar 
 had gotten the Knox Fellowship, I think they 
 caaed it, an' was noo gaun oot to be a missionar' 
 to the haythen. So afore they could let him 
 gang, they bood examine him on the Hebrew an' 
 Laitin, an' ither langwiges that naebody speaks 
 noo. I wasna lang in seem' that the lad kenned 
 mair than maybes a' the presbytery pitten the- 
 gither. (' Surely no' than yer ain minister ! ' pat 
 in my wife.) An' for the life o' me I couldna see 
 what they could fin' faut wi'. The ither twa were 
 nice lads aneuch, an' they hummered an' ha'ed 
 through some gate, but the Enbra' lad never made 
 a stammer, an' had his answers oot afore they 
 could read their questions off the paper." 
 
 " But I thocht that they war a' sair again the 
 paper," said my wife. 
 
 " Weel, sae they maistly are, but some o' them 
 are maybes a wee mair comfortable wi' a bit note 
 when it comes to the Greek an' the Laitin. 
 
 " At ony rate, it wasna till they cam' to the dis- 
 coorses that there was ony o' the kin' o' din that 
 oor minister was sae feared o'. The laddie was 
 askit to read yin o' his discoorses I kenna what
 
 16 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 it was aboct, something onywye that he had 
 wraitten in the Laitin, but was askit to read in 
 the English as bein' mair convenienter for the 
 presbytery. 
 
 "Pie wasna half-wey through when up gets 
 maister Begbie f rae Soorkirk, michty dour-lookin', 
 an' he says, ' I'll no' sit in this presbytery an' 
 listen to ony siccan doctrine, frae a Knox Fella* 
 or ony ither fella' ! ' says he. 
 
 " An' wi' that Maister Pitbye o' the Dullarg 
 gat himsel' on his legs ; * I canna help thinkin',' 
 says he, 'that we wad not hev been asked to 
 license the young man noo afore us if he had 
 been considered soun' in the faith in his ain 
 presbytery. There maun be something sore 
 wrang,' he says. 
 
 "A' this time the young man had been standin' 
 wi' a face like daith, his lips workin', tryin' to get 
 a word in, an' oor minister haudin' him by the coat- 
 tails, an' tellin' him for ony sake to sit doon, that 
 there war plenty there to speak for him. But he 
 got awa' frae the minister an' juist on Maister 
 Pitbye's heels he spoke oot, * May I say that this 
 discoorse has passed through Professor Robert- 
 son's hauns and has received his approval.' 
 
 " Oor minister sat back wi' a look in his face 
 as muckle as to say Ye hae done for't noo, young 
 man ! ' Then there was a din to speak about. 
 There was Maister Bangour frae Muldow, an' he
 
 TRIALS FOB LICENSE. 37" 
 
 was a wild man this day. 'Professor Robison r 
 indeed! I'll learn you, young man, that Pro- 
 fessor Robison has nae standin' i' the presbytery 
 o' Pitscottie, an' faith, if he had, we wad libel 
 him this verra day, for he's a rank heretic, leadin* 
 the young men o' oor kirk astray efter strange 
 gods ! Ay, an' I wull testifee ' 
 
 " ' Sit doon,' says Forbes, the new-placed min- 
 ister o' the Pits, him that the collier lads like so 
 weel ; * testifee in your ain pairish, if you want to 
 testifee ! Talk sense here ! ' says he. Forbes is a 
 determined North-countryman as dour an' radical 
 as fire, that got scunnered at hame wi' the mair 
 auld-fashioned o' his brethren o' the kirk. He's 
 no' a great respecter o' persons, neyther. He 
 looks as if he had focht mony battles in his day, 
 and by his set teeth I could see he was bidin' his 
 time for anither. 
 
 " Richt gled was I that he didna mean to set 
 them in me. 
 
 "By this time the fiery young minister frae 
 the Shaws was on his feet, and wi' the strongest 
 words an' a power o' gesture, he was layin' intil 
 them on the ither side. An' they were speakin' 
 aye back till ye couldna tell what was what. But 
 I watched Forbes bidin' his time wi' a face like a 
 grew [greyhound] when he sees the hare but 
 canna get slippit. 
 
 *' There was the verra sma'est calm, an' then
 
 88 THE STICKIT MINI8TEB. 
 
 like a shot there was Maister Forbes at the table. 
 Some o' them cried, 'Hear Mr. Girmory,' but 
 Forbes said 
 
 " ' No, Maister Begbie, ye'll be hearin' me the 
 noo. Ye are makkin' bonny fules o' yerself .' 
 
 " ' My conscience ! ' said my wife, who was 
 listening with her whole being, * was he no' blate 
 to say that to ministers ? ' 
 
 " Hoots, woman, that's nocht to what he said 
 efter. 
 
 " ' Ye are pittin' a premium on mediocrity,' he 
 says. * Thae ither twa chaps ye let through with- 
 out a word, though they stammered like a boy 
 new into the tenpenny. But ye settled on this 
 lad because he was clever, an' wrote what he 
 thocht himsel', an' didna juist tak* twa-three 
 pages frae a sermon o' Spurgeon's, or water doon 
 the Snorter's Quastions,' says he. ' As for you,' 
 he says, turnin' sharp to Maister Pitbye, 'ye are 
 speakin' on a quastion ye ken nocht aboot ava. 
 An' ye are weel aware ye ken nocht aboot it. 
 Gae hame, man,' he says, ' an' read yer Calvin, or 
 buy a Turretin an' read him, an' then come back 
 an' gie us an opeenion worth listenin' to on a the- 
 ological subject.' 
 
 " ' Order, order ! ' said the clerk ; but the moder- 
 ator said naething, for he didna want Forbes doun 
 on him. 
 
 "I'll no' be spoken to in that mainner. I've
 
 TRIALS FOR LICENSE. 39 
 
 never listened to sic' words in my life,' said 
 Maister Pitbye. 
 
 " The mair's the peety,' says Maister Forbes ; 
 it's time ye did but better late than never!' 
 
 " ' I move we proceed to license,' says oor min- 
 ister, verra quaite ; so efter a show o' hands, an* 
 a bit grummle, they juist did that ; but there 
 was some warm wark efter the young men had 
 gaen oot, an' yince it lookit as if the neeves micht 
 sune be goin' ; but it cleared up verra sudden, and 
 when a' was dune, and they cam' oot, they war a' 
 as thick as thieves an' Maister Bourtree, nae 
 less, gaed roon shakin' hands wi' everybody, an*' 
 sayin', ' Whatna graun' day we've had the day ; 
 there's been some life in Pitscottie Presbytery 
 this day, something worth comin' doun frae Mul- 
 dow for!' 
 
 " But I'm no' so sure that it was as great fun 
 for the puir lad frae Enbra'. He said to myseP 
 he was glad he was gaun awa' to the Canni- 
 bal Islands, an' no settling in oor pairt o'the 
 country.'
 
 40 THE STICKIT 
 
 "THE HEATHER LINTIE:" 
 
 BBING A BEVIBW OF THE POEMS OF JANET BAL- 
 CHRYSTIE, OF BABBBAX. 
 
 JANET BALCHBYSTIE lived in a little cottage at 
 the back of the Long Wood of Barbrax. She had 
 been a hard-working woman all her days, for her 
 mother died when she was but young, and she 
 had lived on, keeping her father's house by the 
 side of the single-track railway line. Gavin Bal- 
 chrystie was a foreman plate-layer on the P. P. 
 R., and, with two men under him, had charge of 
 a section of three miles. He lived just where 
 that distinguished but impecunious line plunges 
 into a moss-covered granite wilderness of moor 
 and bog, where there is not more than a shep- 
 herd's hut to the half dozen miles, and where the 
 passage of a train is the occasion of commotion 
 among scattered groups of black-faced sheep. 
 Gavin Balchrystie's three miles of P. P. R. metals 
 gave him little work but a good deal of healthy 
 exercise. The black-faced sheep breaking down 
 the fences and straying on the line side, and the 
 torrents coming down the granite gullies, foas*;ng
 
 "THE HEATHER LINTEE." 41 
 
 white after a water-spout, and tearing into his 
 embankments, undermining his chairs and plates, 
 were the only troubles of his life. There was, 
 however, a little public-house at The Huts, which 
 in the old days of construction had had the 
 license, and which had lingered alone, license and 
 all, when its immediate purpose in life had been 
 fulfilled, because there was nobody but the 
 whaups and the railway officials on the passing 
 trains to object to its continuance. Now it is 
 cold and blowy on the westland moors, and 
 neither whaups nor dark-blue uniforms object to 
 a little refreshment up there. The mischief was 
 that Gavin Balchrystie did not, like the guards 
 and engine-drivers, go on with the passing train. 
 He was always on the spot, and the path, through 
 Barbrax Wood to the Railway Inn was as well 
 trodden as that which led over the big moss, 
 where the whaups built, to the great white via- 
 duct of Loch Merrick, where his three miles of 
 parallel gleaming responsibility began. 
 
 When his wife was but newly dead, and his 
 Janet just a smart elf-locked lassie running to 
 and from the school, Gavin got too much in the 
 way of " slippin' doon by." When Janet grew to 
 be woman-muckle, Gavin kept the habit, and 
 Janet hardly knew that it was not the use-and- 
 wont of all fathers to sidle down to a contiguous 
 Railway Arms, and return some hours later with
 
 42 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 uncertain step, and face picked out with bright 
 pin-points of red the sure mark of the confirmed 
 drinker of whisky neat. 
 
 They were long days in the cottage at the back 
 of Barbrax Long Wood. The little " but-an'-ben " 
 was white- washed till it dazzled the eyes as you 
 came over the brae to it and found it set against 
 the solemn depths of dark-green firwood. From 
 early morn when she saw her father off, till the 
 dusk of the day, when he would return for his 
 supper, Janet Balchrystie saw no human being. 
 She heard the muffled roar of the trams through 
 the deep cutting at the back of the wood, but she 
 herself was entirely out of sight of the carriage- 
 fuls of travelers whisking past within half a mile 
 of her solitude and meditation. 
 
 Janet was what is called a " through-gaun 
 lass," and her work for the day was often over 
 by eight o'clock in the morning. Janet grew 
 to womanhood without a sweetheart. She was 
 plain, and she looked plainer than she was in the 
 dresses which she made for herself by the light of 
 nature and what she could remember of the cur- 
 rent fashions at Merrick Kirk, to which she went 
 every alternate Sunday. Her father and she took 
 day abotit. Wet or shine, she tramped to Merrick 
 Kirk, e . en when the rain blattered and the wind 
 raved nd bleated alternately among the pines 
 of the <ong Wood of Barbrax. Her father had a
 
 "THE HEATHER UNTIE." 43 
 
 simpler way of spending his day out. He went 
 down to the Railway Inn and drank "ginger- 
 beer " all day with the landlord. Ginger-beer is 
 an unsteadying beverage when taken the day by 
 the length. Also the man who drinks it steadily 
 and quietly never enters on any inheritance of 
 length of days. 
 
 So it came to pass that one night Gavin Bal- 
 chrystie did not come home at all, at least, not till 
 he was brought lying comfortably on the door of 
 a disused third-class carriage, which was now 
 seeing out its career anchored under the bank at 
 Loch Merrick, where Gavin had used it as a shel- 
 ter. The driver of the " six-fifty up " train had 
 seen him walking soberly along toward The Huts 
 (and the Railway Inn ), letting his long surface- 
 man's hammer fall against the rail keys occasion- 
 ally as he walked. He saw him bend once, as 
 though his keen ear detected a false ring in a loose 
 length between two plates. This was the last that 
 was seen of him till the driver of the " nine-thirty- 
 seven down" express the "boat-train," as the 
 employes of the P. P. R. call it, with a touch of 
 respect in iheir voices passed Gavin fallen for- 
 ward on his face just when he was flying down 
 grade under a full head of steam. It was duskily 
 clear, with a great lake of crimson light dying into 
 purple over the hills of midsummer heather. The 
 driver was John Platt, the Englishman from
 
 44 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 Crewe, who had been brought from the great 
 London and North- Western Railway, locally 
 known as " The Ell-nen-doubleyou." In these re- 
 mote railway circles the talk is as exclusively of 
 matters of the four-foot way as in Crewe or Derby. 
 There is an inspector of traffic whose portly pres- 
 ence now graces Carlisle Station, who left the P. 
 P. R. in these sad days of amalgamation, because 
 he could not endure' to see so many " Sou'- West ' 
 wagons passing over the sacred metals of the 
 P. P. R. permanent way. From his youth he had 
 been trained in a creed of two articles " To swear 
 by the P. P. R. through thick and thin, and hate 
 the apple-green of the " Sou'- West.' " It was as 
 much as he could do to put up with the sight of 
 the abominations to have to hunt for their trucks 
 when they got astray was more than mortal could 
 stand, so he fled the land. 
 
 So when they stopped the express for Gavin 
 Balchrystie, every man on the -line felt that it was 
 an honor to the dead. John Platt sent a " gur- 
 ring " thrill through the train as he put his brakes 
 hard down, and whistled for the guard. He, th ink- 
 ing that the Merrick Viaduct was down at least, 
 twirled his brake to such purpose that the rear 
 car progressed along the metals by a series of 
 convulsive bounds. Then they softly ran back, 
 and there lay Gavin fallen forward on his knees, 
 as though he bad been trying to rise, or had knelt
 
 "THE HEATHER LINTIE." 45 
 
 down to pray. Let him have " the benefit of the 
 doubt " in this world. In the next, if all tales be 
 true, there is no such thing. So Janet Balchrystie 
 dwelt alone in the white " but-an'ben " at the back 
 of the Long Wood of Barbrax. The factor gave 
 her notice, but the laird, who was not accounted 
 by his neighbors to be very wise, because he did 
 needlessly kind things, told the factor to let the 
 lassie bide, and delivered to herself with his own 
 handwriting to the effect that Janet Balchrystie, 
 in consideration of her lonely condition, was to 
 be allowed the house for her life-time, a cow's 
 grass, and thirty pound sterling in the year as a 
 charge on the estate. He drove down the cow 
 himself, and having stalled it in the byre, he in. 
 formed her of the fact over the yard dike by word 
 of mouth, for he never could be induced to enter 
 her door. He was accounted to be "gey an* 
 queer" save by those who had tried making a 
 bargain with him. But his farmers liked him, 
 knowing him to be an easy man with those who 
 had been really unfortunate, for he knew to what 
 the year's crops of each had amounted, to a single 
 chalder and head of nowt. 
 
 Deep in her heart Janet Balchrystie cherished 
 a great ambition. When the earliest blackbird 
 awoke and began to sing, while it was yet gray 
 twilight, Janet would be up and at her work. She 
 had an ambition to be a great poet. No less than
 
 46 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 this would serve her. But not even her father 
 had known, and no other had any chance of know- 
 ing. In the black leather chest, which had been 
 her mother's, upstairs, there was a slowly growing 
 pile of manuscript, and the editor of the local 
 paper received every other week a poem, longer 
 or shorter, for his Poet's Corner, in an envelope 
 with the New Dairy postmark. He was an oblig- 
 ing editor, and generally gave the closely written 
 manuscript to the senior office-boy, who had 
 passed the sixth standard, to cut down, tinker the 
 rhymes, and lop any superfluity of feet. The 
 senior office-boy "just spread himself," as he said, 
 and delighted to do the job in style. But there 
 was a woman fading into a gray olcl-maidishness 
 which had hardly ever been girlhood, who did not 
 at all approve of these corrections. She endured 
 them because over the signature of " Heather Bell ' 
 it was a joy to see in the rich, close luxury of type 
 her own poetry, even though it might be a trifle 
 tattered and tossed about by hands ruthless and 
 alien those, in fact, of the senior office-boy. 
 
 Janet walked every other week to the post- 
 office at New Dairy to post her letters to the 
 editor, but neither that great man nor 'yet the 
 senior office-boy had any conception that the 
 verses of their "esteemed correspondent" were 
 written by a woman too early old who dwelt 
 alone at the back of Barbrax Long Wood.
 
 "THE HEATHER LOTTIE." 47 
 
 One day Janet took a sudden but long-meditated 
 journey. She went down by rail from the little 
 station of The Huts to the large town of Drum, 
 thirty miles to the east. Here, with the most per- 
 feet courage and dignity of bearing, she inter- 
 viewed a printer and arranged for the publication 
 of her poems in their own original form, no longer 
 staled and clapper-clawed by the pencil of the 
 senior office-boy. When the proof-sheets came 
 to Janet, she had no way of indicating the correc- 
 tions but by again writing the whole poem out 
 in a neat print hand on the edge of the proof, and 
 underscoring the words which were to be altered. 
 This, when you think of it, is a very good way, 
 when the happiest part of your life is to be spent 
 in such concrete pleasures of hope, as Janet's 
 were over the crackly sheets of the printer of 
 Drum. Finally the book was produced, a small, 
 rather thickish octavo, on sufficiently wretched 
 gray paper which had suffered from want of thor- 
 ough washing in the original paper-mill. It was 
 bound in a peculiarly deadly blue, of a rectified 
 Reckitt tint, which gave you dazzles in the eye at 
 any distance under ten paces. Janet had selected 
 this as the most appropriate of colors. She had 
 also many years ago decided upon the title, so 
 that Reckitt had printed upon it, back and side, 
 " The Heather Lintie," while inside there was the 
 acknowledgment of authorship, which Janet felt
 
 48 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 to be a solemn duty to the world, " Poems by 
 Janet Balchrystie, Barbrax Cottage, by New 
 Dairy." First she had thought of withholding 
 her name and style ; but on the whole, after the 
 most prolonged consideration, she felt that she 
 was not justified in bringing about such a con- 
 troversy as divided Scotland concerning that 
 "Great Unknown" who wrote the Waverley 
 Novels. 
 
 Almost every second or third day Janet trod 
 that long loch-side road to New Dairy for her 
 proof-sheets, and returned them on the morrow 
 corrected in her own way. Sometimes she got a 
 lift from some farmer or carter, for she had worn 
 herself with anxiety to the shadow of what she 
 had once been, and her dry bleached hair became 
 gray and grayer with the fervor of her devotion, 
 to letters. 
 
 By April the book was published, and at the 
 end of this month, laid aside by sickness of the 
 vague kind called locally "a decline," she took to 
 her bed, rising only to lay a few sticks upon the 
 fire from her store gathered in the autumn, or to 
 brew herself a cup of tea, she waited for the 
 tokens of her book's conquests in the great world 
 of thought and men. She had waited so long for 
 her recognition, and now it was coming. She felt 
 that it would not be long before she was recog- 
 nized as one of the singers of the world. Indeed,
 
 "THE HEATHER LINTIE." 49 
 
 had she but known it, her recognition was already 
 on its way. 
 
 In a great city of the north a clever young 
 reporter was cutting open the leaves of " The 
 Heather Lintie " with a hand almost feverishly 
 eager. 
 
 " This is a perfect treasure. This is a find in- 
 deed. Here is my chance ready to my hand." 
 
 His paper was making a specialty of "ex- 
 posures." If there was anything weak and err- 
 ing, anything particularly helpless and foolish 
 which could make no stand for itself, the Night 
 Hawk was on the pounce. Hitherto the junior 
 reporter had never had a " two-column chance.'* 
 He had read it was not much that he had read 
 Macaulay's too famous article on " Satan " Mont- 
 gomery, and not knowing that Macaulay lived to 
 regret the spirit of that assault, he felt that if he 
 could bring down the Night Hawk on " The 
 Heather Lintie," his fortune was made. So he 
 sat down and he wrote, not knowing and not re- 
 garding a lonely woman's heart, to whom his 
 word would be as the word of a God, in the lonely 
 cottage lying in the lee of the Long Wood of 
 Barbrax. 
 
 The junior reporter turned out a triumph of 
 the new journalism. " This is a book which may 
 be a genuine source of pride to every native of 
 the ancient province of Galloway," he wrote.
 
 50 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 " Galloway has been celebrated for black cattle 
 and for wool as also for a certain bucolic be- 
 latedness of temperament, but Galloway has never 
 hitherto produced a poetess. One has arisen hi 
 the person of Miss Janet Bal something or other. 
 We have not an interpreter at hand, and so can- 
 not wrestle with the intricacies of the authoress's 
 name, which appears to be some Galwegian form 
 of Erse or Choctaw. Miss Bal and so forth 
 has a true fount of pathos and humor. In what 
 touching language she chronicles the death of 
 two young lambs which fell into one of the puddles 
 they call rivers down there, and were either 
 drowned or choked with the dirt 
 
 " ' They were two bonny, bonny lambs, 
 That played upon the daisied lea, 
 And loudly mourned their woolly dams 
 Above the drumly flowing Dee.' 
 
 How touchingly simple," continued the junior re- 
 porter, buckling up his sleeves to enjoy himself, 
 and feeling himself born to be a Saturday Re- 
 viewer ; "mark the local color, the wool and the 
 dirty water of the Dee without doubt a name 
 applied to one of their bigger ditches down there. 
 Mark also the overfervency of the touching line, 
 
 " * And loudly mourned their woolly dams,' 
 
 which, but for the sex of the writer and her
 
 "THE HEATHER LINTIE." 51 
 
 evident genius, might be taken for an expression 
 of a strength hardly permissible even in the 
 metropolis." 
 
 The junior reporter filled his two columns and 
 enjoyed himself in the doing of it. He concluded 
 with the words, " The authoress will make a great 
 success. If she will come to the capital, where 
 genius is always appreciated, she will, without 
 doubt, make her fortune. Nay, if Miss Bal , 
 but again we cannot proceed for the want of an 
 interpreter if Miss B., we say, will only accept 
 a position at deary's Waxworks and give read- 
 ings from her poetry, or exhibit herself in the 
 act of pronouncing her own name, she will be a 
 greater draw in this city than Punch and Judy, 
 or even the latest American advertising evangel- 
 ist who preaches standing on his head." 
 
 The junior reporter ceased here from very ad- 
 miration at his own cleverness in so exactly hit- 
 ting the tone of the masters of his craft, and 
 handed his manuscript in to the editor. 
 
 It was the gloaming of a long June day when 
 Rob Affleck, the woodman over at Barbrax, hav- 
 ing been at New Dairy with a cart of wood, left 
 his horse on the road-side and ran over through 
 Gavin's old short cut, now seldom used, to Janet's 
 cottage with a paper in a yellow wrapper. 
 
 " Leave it on the step, and thank you kindly, 
 Rob," said a weak voice within, and Rob, anxious
 
 52 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 about his horse and his bed, did so without an- 
 other word. In a moment or two Janet crawled 
 to the door, listened to make sure that Rob was 
 really gone, opened the door, and protruded a 
 hand wasted to the hard, flat bone an arm that 
 ought for years to have been of full flesh and noble 
 curves. 
 
 When Janet got back to bed it was too dark to 
 see anything except the big printing at the top 
 of the paper. 
 
 " Two columns of it ! " said Janet, with great 
 thankfulness in her heart, lifting up her soul to 
 God who had given her the power to sing. She 
 strained her prematurely old and weary eyes to 
 make out the sense. " A genuine source of pride 
 to every native of the ancient province," she read. 
 
 " The Lord be praised ! " said Janet, in a rapture 
 of devout thankfulness, " though I never really 
 doubted it," she added, as though asking pardon 
 for a moment's distrust. " But I tried to write 
 these poems to the glory of God and not to my 
 own praise, and He will accept them and keep me 
 humble under the praise of men as well as under 
 their neglect." 
 
 So clutching the precious paper close to her 
 breast, and letting tears of thankfulness fall on 
 the article which, had they fallen on the head of 
 the junior reporter, would have burned like fire, 
 she patiently awaited the coming dawn.
 
 "THE HEATHEB LINTIE." 53 
 
 " I can wait till the morning now to read the 
 rest," she said. 
 
 So hour after hour, with her eyes wide, staring 
 hard at the gray window squares, she waited the 
 dawn from the east. About half-past two there 
 was a stirring and a moaning among the pines, 
 and the roar of the sudden gust came with the 
 breaking day through the dark arches. In the 
 whirlwind there came a strange expectancy and 
 tremor into the heart of the poetess, and she 
 pressed the wet sheet of crumpled paper closer 
 to her bosom, and turned to face the light. 
 Through the spaces of the Long Wood of Bar- 
 brax there came a shining visitor, the Angel of 
 the Presence, he who comes but once and stands 
 a moment with a beckoning finger. Him she 
 followed up through the wood. 
 
 They found Janet on the morning of the second 
 day after, with a look so glad on her face and so 
 natural an expectation in the unclosed eye, that 
 Rob Affleck spoke to her and expected an answer. 
 The Night Hawk was clasped to her breast with 
 a hand that they could not loosen. It went to 
 the grave with her body. The ink had run a 
 little here and there, where the tears had fallen 
 thickest. 
 
 God is more merciful than man.
 
 54 $WE 8T Tr !KIT MINISTEB, 
 
 THE SPLIT IN THE MARROW KIRK. 
 
 JIMINY and Jaikie were two little boys. They 
 played together at the bottom of a large and 
 beautiful garden. Jaikie did not believe that 
 there was another garden so large and fine in all 
 the world. Jiminy said so, and he was the min- 
 ister's son and had been at Dalmarnock where 
 the five steeples are, with the stars sitting on tile 
 tops of them. The stars are the tops of steeples 
 which one cannot see for the darkness of the 
 night. In the day-time, just the other way about, 
 one sees the steeples, but cannot see the stars. 
 Jimmy was also the authority for these state- 
 ments. He was, as we said before, a minister's 
 son, and, of course, knew everything. Jaikie's 
 father was an elder, and did not admire the 
 father of Jiminy at all ; but his son made it up 
 by holding Jiminy infallible. 
 
 There was a great dispute in the little Kirk of 
 the Marrow. Long ago, long before these boys 
 were born, or their grandfathers either, a book 
 had been carried up from England in an old 
 soldier's satchel which had set all Scotland by 
 the ears. Kirks had been split, ministers had been
 
 THE SPLIT IN THE MARROW KIRK. 55 
 
 deposed, new denominations had been formed 
 over the old soldier's wallet book. Now, a hun- 
 dred years later, the little kirk of the Marrow, in 
 the village of Muirgate, was in the " deep thraws " 
 of a disruption. The Reverend Simon Adam, 
 locally known as " Maister Ay dam," with the 
 larger portion of the congregation, was for follow- 
 ing the majority of the congregations of the kirk 
 of the Marrow scattered over the southern up- 
 lands into the larger fold of one of the better- 
 known evangelical communions of Scotland. 
 Ebenezer Langbakkit, Jaikie's father, led the op- 
 position to this union, and threatened to carry 
 their opposition even to the extremity of extrud- 
 ing the minister from his manse and kail-yard, 
 and barring the door of the kirk in his face, 
 because he had forsworn his ordination vows, and 
 gone back from the pure doctrine and practice of 
 the " Marrowmen," as laid down in the famous 
 controversy by Thomas Boston and other precious 
 and savory divines. 
 
 Thus far the war of the Marrow Kirk of Muir- 
 gate. But the two little boys wotted little of it 
 as they played together in that large garden 
 during the long-continued heats of the dry sum- 
 mer. The garden was cut up into squares by 
 walks which ran at right angles to one another. 
 There were square plots of gooseberry bushes, 
 square wildernesses of pea-sticks, and square
 
 56 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 strawberry beds in that corner where it was for- 
 bidden for small, sweet-toothed boys to go. At the 
 upper end an orchard ran right across, every tree 
 in which was climbable, and a wall, with a flight of 
 steps over into a field, bounded all. Great trees, 
 generations old, surrounded the garden and 
 orchard, and cast here and there throughout it 
 circular plots of pleasant shade amid the garden 
 squares. It was, said the wiseacres, too much 
 buried in foliage to make the best of gardens. 
 But it suited two small boys that summer very 
 well. 
 
 The boys did not go to school. Jimmy Adam had 
 a brief and terrible struggle with the Latin verb 
 every morning in his father's study, whence he 
 smerged to forget all about the matter for the other 
 twenty-three hours ; but Jaikie had no call to go 
 to the school at all, for there was no school-board 
 officer in those days ; the dominie was infirm and 
 old, and Jaikie's father divided his time between 
 plotting against Maister Aydam and a course of 
 black, gloomy drinking in his own house. 
 
 Week after week the climax of dicontent ap- 
 proached. The true Marrowmen, as Eby Lang- 
 bakkit's party called themselves, were all grim 
 men determined not to company with those who 
 had but recently separated from an " Erastian 
 and Malignant" (with a capital M) Establish- 
 ment, and who had never purged themselves
 
 THE SPLIT IN THE MARROW KIRK. 57 
 
 from their guilty compliance. Nor would they 
 permit the kirk of by -gone valiant pretestings to 
 be longer desecrated by the services of a man 
 like Mr. Adam, who had conformed to the too 
 easy temper of the times. 
 
 Thus far had the matter gone when one day 
 Jiminy and Jaikie played together by the orchard 
 wall. They were very small boys, and as there 
 were no girls about, or other boys to reproach 
 them for their childishness, they played at build- 
 ing houses and living in them. Jiminy was arch- 
 itect, and directed the operations, ordering Jaikie 
 about like a hod-carrier to fetch and carry for him 
 all day long. When he threw a load of stones at 
 him disdainf ully, Jaikie was in the seventh heaven 
 of ecstasy. Jaikie adored all who abused him, if 
 only they allowed him to worship them. Jiminy 
 had no objection. Often Jaikie would have liked 
 to inhabit for a little one of the splendid mansions 
 which he toiled in the sweat of his brow to erect. 
 But it was not to be. As soon as a plan was 
 completed, after one discontented survey, Jiminy 
 would kick down all their hard work and start 
 over again on a new and improved plan. Once 
 Jaikie begged Jiminy not to kick down a specially 
 noble tower built with mud, which Jaikie had 
 labored like a Hebrew slave bondaging in Egypt 
 to bring up from the river. Then Jiminy kicked 
 Jaikie for interfering where he had no business,
 
 68 THE 8TICKIT MINI8TEB. 
 
 which sent that hero- worshiper into the seventh 
 heaven of happiness. 
 
 Couched in his bunk at nights, beneath the little 
 gable window in the attic, Jaikie could hear the 
 confabulations of the Marrowmen who came to 
 receive their instructions from that grim sectary, 
 Eby Langbakkit. It was some time before Jaikie 
 paid any heed to these gatherings. He had been 
 accustomed to such silent and dour assemblies 
 downstairs as long as he could remember, with 
 a black bottle of whisky sitting in the middle of 
 the table, and his father casting a wary eye at 
 each man as he took his dram to see that no ad- 
 vantage was taken. If there were, Ebenezer Lang, 
 bakkit checked the offender sharply, as, indeed, 
 he had every right to do, being an elder. 
 
 Lately, however, stirred to some attention by 
 Jiminy's dark hints of plots and conspiracies, he 
 had taken to crawling out of his bed every night 
 and lying at the top of the ladder, a shivering 
 little phantom, listening to the talk that went on 
 beneath. 
 
 "Shall we be degradit and abolished," said 
 Jaikie's father, " swallowed quick by the whore 
 that sitteth on the Seven Hills ? " 
 
 Murmurs of applause. 'Deed, they're little 
 better!" 
 
 " Shall the truth-forsaking hireling of the flock 
 lead away his silly sheep, and also keep possession
 
 THE SPLIT IN THE MARROW KIRK. 69 
 
 of the sheepf old ? Nay, verily ! The faithful 
 must take and the contending remnant must 
 possess ! " 
 
 All this was not much to the purpose, and 
 Jaikie dovered over to sleep. When he awoke 
 his father was giving more understandable direc- 
 tions. 
 
 " You, John Howieson, are to tak' three wi' you 
 an' lie in the trees at the foot o' the orchard ; then 
 when ye see Bell Girmory gaun doon to the village 
 with a message I'll see that she gangs ye'll 
 gang yer ways up and tak' possession o' the manse. 
 The minister will no' he hame for the maitter o' 
 an' 'oor. He'll be preachin' at Cairn Edward, as 
 I telled ye. Then yince in the manse, ye maun 
 haud it against a' comers by virtue o' the deeds 
 and charters that I gie ye. When he brings ye 
 to the question, ye are to say to him that all his 
 household goods will be cared for and delivered 
 to him upon demand, and that a decent lodging 
 has been bespoken for him in the house of Elspeth 
 MacClevver, that's a decent woman, an' clean, 
 though no better than a Burgher. 
 
 " Meanwhile, the lave o' ye are to come wi' me 
 an' we are in like manner to haud the kirk. Come 
 weel providit, for we're to haud it a' day on 
 Saturday, and a' the nicht likewise, till Zechariah 
 Mosshaggs, that true servant of the Lord, shall 
 come to preach the kirk vacant in the name of the
 
 60 THE STIOKIT MINISTER. 
 
 Faithful Remnant of the Synod of the Marrow- 
 men." 
 
 Jaikie had not been asleep all this time. He 
 listened as he never listened before, except when 
 Jiminy was giving his orders and looking as if he 
 were going to kick. 
 
 All night Jaikie lay awake till the early light 
 brightened to another dewless morning, for the 
 earth was dun and dusty with the parching of the 
 sun. As soon as it was light, Jaikie slid down 
 the trunk of the rowan tree which threw a con- 
 venient branch to his window, to make a stair- 
 case for a little boy in a hurry, who might not 
 wish to disturb his father with his late bedding 
 or his early rising. The bare legs of Jaikie pad- 
 dled through the dust and over the burned-up 
 russet grass, across the dry bed of the burn to 
 Jiminy's window. Here he whistled that peculiar 
 call which Jiminy had revealed to him under the 
 dreadful shadow of night, in the dusky cavern of 
 the Bloody Hand ( known in the day-time as the 
 manse potato house), a call which Jaikie believed 
 to be connected with the black art, and in case of 
 revealing the secret of which he was under solemn 
 obligation, sealed with his blood, to cut his throat 
 and afterward to be kicked black and blue by 
 Jiminy, who was a master of the darkest wizardry, 
 according to his own account. 
 
 As he continued to whistle, a large sea-shell,
 
 THE SPLIT HT THE MAKROW KUtK. 61 
 
 pink inside, swung down from an upper window 
 and impinged abruptly on his bare leg. 
 
 " Ow ! " said Jaikie. 
 
 "Stop that horrid noise. That'll learn ye. 
 You'll wakken my father ! " said Jiminy, in his 
 night-dress. " What d'ye want, at ony rate, at 
 this time in the mornin ' ? " 
 
 " Come doon an' I'll tell ye ; I canna cry it up 
 there." 
 
 " Get away. I'm no' comin' doon in the middle 
 o' the nicht," said Jimmy, who had lapsed into 
 the Doric of his play hours. 
 
 "Oh, Jiminy, ye micht come doon. It's an 
 awfu'-like thing I hae to tell ye. It's aboot yer 
 father. Ye maun come doon the noo. I'll let ye 
 kick me for hale five meenites gin ye like." 
 
 Filial affection or the prospect of healthy leg- 
 exercise brought Jiminy down with a run, and the 
 two boys wandered off into the wood in close 
 confabulation. 
 
 It was the Saturday morning of the plot. The 
 minister who stood so near the brink of his ex- 
 trusion was on his way home from Cairn Edward, 
 where he had been "daubing with untempered 
 mortar," as Eby Langbakkit said, by preaching 
 in an Unco venan ted Kirk. 
 
 Round the corner of the orcuard, dividing into 
 two bands as they came, stole the Faithful Rem- 
 nant to take possession of the kirk and manse
 
 62 THE 8TICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 into which Simon Adam was no more to come. 
 Bell Girmory duly departed through the trees 
 with her lilac sun-bonnet on in the direction of 
 the village. She had a large basket over her 
 arm. 
 
 John Howieson and his henchmen took the 
 manse in front and rear ; but the front door, 
 which had only been shut at night, and never 
 locked even then, was now bolted and barred. 
 The back door was also firmly locked, and when 
 John Howieson went to lift the kitchen window, 
 the secret of which he knew from having courted 
 (unsuccessfully) numerous manse lasses, Bell's 
 predecessors, he recoiled in sudden amazement. 
 He had looked down the bell mouth of an ancient 
 blunderbuss, into which the sun shone so plain 
 that, as he said afterward, "Man, I could hae 
 coontit the lead draps at the buddom [bottom] o* 
 her!" 
 
 This weapon of war was in the hands of a 
 militant small boy. The council of war had 
 forgotten to reckon with Jiminy ; still more, they 
 had not taken Jaikie into account. They soon had 
 to do so, for Jaikie was under orders from 
 " General " Jiminy, and had every intention of 
 obeying them. 
 
 Ebenezer Langbakkit had gone openly with half 
 a dozen others to take possession of the kirk at 
 twelve of the clock. He had made a key for the
 
 THE SPLIT IN THE MARROW KIRK. 68 
 
 lock, and anticipated no difficulty. His surprise 
 was great when he found that there was a key 
 already in the lock on the inside. He tried the 
 southern door with a similar effect. He put his 
 fingers through the hole by which, as in a stable 
 door, the inside latch was lifted, but within that 
 aperture his finger encountered something hard 
 and cold. He applied his eye, and, just as John 
 Howieson was doing at that moment over at the 
 manse, he found himself looking down the barrel 
 of a gun. The sensation is not an agreeable one 
 even to an elder of the Kirk of the Marrow. 
 Looking through the window precariously, from 
 the branches of a neighboring tree, his surprise 
 was not lessened and his anger greatly increased 
 by seeing his own son, Jaikie, marching up and 
 down the aisle, with a gun on his shoulder, as 
 proud and erect as a veteran of Ramilies. 
 
 " Open the door this instant, Jaikie ! " he thun- 
 dered, black anger sitting on him like the night. 
 But Jaikie answered not a word. He had his 
 orders from Jiminy. 
 
 From window to window thundered Eby Lang- 
 bakkit, but there was no way of entrance. 
 
 At each window and door stood the inevitable 
 small boy with the large gun, and the reflection 
 lay heavily on all the party that a small boy witi 
 a man's gun is more to be feared than a larg< 
 man with a boy's gun a commonplace thought
 
 64 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 but one with practical bearing at that moment to 
 the sect of Eby Langbakkit. 
 
 Then Eby Langbakkit swore a great oath 
 that in that kirk he would be, though he swung 
 for it. 
 
 "Bring me the poother flask!" he ordered; 
 but no man gave it to him, for they feared what 
 they saw in his face. 
 
 " Yo'll no' hurt the laddie. He's your ain son," 
 said one to him. 
 
 " Then he's no' yours," he answered, blackly ; 
 " so mind your ain business." 
 
 He got his own powder flask, inserted a slow 
 match into it, and placed it beneath the door. 
 Then he stood apart waiting for the event. 
 There was a loud report, an instant rush of white 
 smoke, and the side of the flask buried itself 
 the tree close to the elder's head. When the 
 smoke cleared away the kirk door lay on its side, 
 having fallen heavily inward. There was no 
 small boy to be seen from end to end of the 
 empty kirk. Langbakkit sprung forward hi 
 fierce anger that his son had escaped without his 
 deserts. The silence and chill of the empty kirk 
 alone met him. 
 
 He was about to step over the fallen door, 
 when out from beneath the heavy iron-studded 
 oak he saw stealing a tiny thread of red. Some- 
 thing struck him to the heart. He pressed his
 
 THE SPLIT IN THE MARROW KIRK. 65 
 
 hand on his breast and stood, not daring to go 
 further. 
 
 " Mr. Langbakkit, what is the meaning of this ? " 
 said the calm voice of the minister, Mr. Adam. 
 No one replied. The protest died out at the 
 sight of that faint streak of liquid scarlet and the 
 fear of what lay unseen beneath it. 
 
 " Saunders Grierson and David Robb, I command 
 you, help me to lift the door of the house of God ! " 
 said the minister. 
 
 The two men named approached awkwardly, 
 and between them the three lifted the heavy 
 door. Beneath it lay the crushed and torn body 
 of a boy, still clasping firmly an iron tube thrust 
 into a rough lump of wood. He must have stood 
 quite close to the door when the flask exploded, for 
 the explosion had torn the clothes almost off his 
 poor body. 
 
 The minister raised him tenderly in his arms, 
 and wiped his face very gently with his napkin. 
 The sight of this seemed to awaken Ebenezer 
 Langbakkit. 
 
 "Give me my dead," he said, suddenly and 
 roughly. " The Lord has stricken me. I am a 
 man of violence ! " So saying, he strode away, 
 
 wed with his burden. 
 
 Now, this is properly the end of the story of 
 5
 
 66 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 the split in the Marrow Kirk, but for the sake of 
 some who may love Jaikie, it is enough to say 
 that, though sore wounded, he did not die. 
 When Jiminy went to see him, he lay a long time 
 silently holding his friend's hand. 
 
 "I couldna keep them oot, Jiminy, but I did 
 my best. Ye'll no' hae to kick me for't when I 
 get better." 
 
 And Jiminy never kicked him any more. 
 When it was time for Jiminy to go to college, he 
 had for companion, at Maister Adam's expense, 
 a lame lad with a beautiful countenance. His 
 name was Jaikie. 
 
 THE PROBATIONER. 
 
 THOMAS TODD has just received a call to the 
 Kirk of Dowiedens, somewhere over on Tweed- 
 side, so he can hardly be called a minister of our 
 country-side ; but there need be no objection if 
 the lad is allowed to say his say among the rest, 
 for he belongs to this part of the country, and 
 his father before him. He has been a long time 
 as a probationer six year and more so that 
 there were some that said that he would never 
 wag his head but in another man's pulpit. But 
 Tarn cheated them all, for he is to be ordained to
 
 THE PROBATIONER. 67 
 
 the pastoral charge of Dowiedens a fortnight 
 come Friday. It's not to say a large parish, be- 
 ing wide scattered, with as much exercise for the 
 legs as for the brains in looking after the fowk. 
 There are but few parishoners, only, as Tammas 
 says, " They are as ill to please as St. George's 
 itsel' ! " Tammas has been biding with us at 
 Drumquhat ; he's a great favorite with the mis- 
 tress. Many is the girdleful of crumpy cakes 
 that she will bake for him, when I dare not 
 suggest the like to her no, not for my life. 
 
 " Hae ye nae sense ava, Saunders MaWhurr, to 
 come fleechin' wi' me to bake ye short-breed an* 
 sic like, wi' the pigs to feed an' the hervesters 
 comin' in gilravagin' wi' hunger at six o'clock. 
 Think shame o' yer bairnly weys, man ! " 
 
 But if Tammas Todd comes ben an' sits doon, 
 the wif e'll gie her han's a dicht, slip aff her apron, 
 an' come in to hear about Enbra' an' the laddies' 
 landladies, and their awfu' wickednesses wi' the 
 coals an' the butter, till she'll say, " Come awa' to 
 the kitchen, an' I can be bakin' a bit sweet cake 
 for the tea the guidman's fell fond o't!" 
 
 The Almichty in His wonderful providence 
 made mony curious things, but nane o' them so 
 queer an' contrary as the weemen-fowk. This is 
 what I says to myself, but I have more sense than 
 to say it aloud. I'll warrant that Bong Solomon 
 among his other wisdom learned to haud his
 
 68 THE STICKIT MINI8TEB. 
 
 tongue before he got as many as three hunder 
 wives. 
 
 This is what the laddie said sitting on the table 
 at the end of the bake-board. Tammas is gettin* 
 on for thirty, but in some things it's strange to 
 see him so keen of sweet things. He'll take up a 
 bit o' the dough that the wife is rolling out wi' 
 her wooden pin, and he eats it like a laddie harae 
 from the school ; but my certie, I would like to 
 see ony one of her ain try that ; he would get a 
 ring on the side of the head that would learn him 
 to leave his mither alone when she was baking. 
 But Tammas could aye get the soft side of the 
 mistress. 
 
 "We'll no' hae to ca* ye 'Tammas' when ye 
 get to be a placed minister," says she, knowing 
 brawly that the lad'll be " Tammas " to all at 
 Drumquhat till his dying day. 
 
 " If ye dinna," says he, " I'll never look near 
 the bit." Tammas can speak the English as weel 
 as ony body, but when he gets among his own folk 
 he prides himself on relapsing, so to speak, into 
 the broadest Gallowa'. He laughs at me for be- 
 ing fond of writing in proper English. He says 
 that I need not try it, for when I do my best, 
 every sentence has got the " Gallowa' lug-mark " 
 plain on it. But this is his nonsense. 
 
 " Te maun hae had some queer bars, Tammas, 
 in your time," said the mistress.
 
 THE PKOBATIONEE. 69 
 
 Tammas gied a bit smile, and said with the 
 pleased look that a man has when he's accused of 
 something that he likes to hear about, like a pussy 
 strokitthe richt way I mind weel mysel' walk- 
 ing three miles to be tormented about Jessie Scott 
 before we were married " Nocht to speak aboot," 
 says he, " but, of coorse, a man canna gang aboot 
 six years wi' a pokemantie withoot seem' some- 
 thin' o' baith sides o' life." 
 
 " Ye'll hae been in a fecko' manses in yer time, 
 Tammas ? " 
 
 "Ay, Mrs. MaWhurr," says he, "and let me 
 tell you, that there's no sic hooses as manses in 
 Scotlan', or onywhere else that is," he says, 
 "nine oot o' every ten o' them. I wad be an in- 
 grate to say onything else, for in nearly every 
 instance I have been treated, no like a puir pro- 
 bationer preachin' for his guinea fee and gaun off 
 like a beggar wi' his awmus on Monday mornin', 
 but like a verra prince. I hae memories o' the 
 mistresses o' the manses o' Scotlan' that will 
 never be forgotten ! " 
 
 " An' o' the dochters o' the manses ?" says I, just 
 above my breath. Then there was a warm color 
 rose to the cheek of the minister-elect of the 
 Dowiedens, and mantled on his brow, but he said, 
 bravely : 
 
 " Ay, an' the lasses were kind to me, they were 
 that."
 
 70 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 When is't to be?" says I. 
 
 " Let the lad alane, can ye no, Saunders Ma- 
 Whurr ; ye're never dune wi' yer fule talk," saya 
 my wife. She had been talking even on the whole 
 night, and I had said maybe a dozen words. But 
 I let that pass. 
 
 " Of coorse, among so mony there were bun' to 
 be some queer yins ? " suggested my wife, fishing 
 in the young man's shallow water. The wife can 
 draw most folks, but Saunders MaWhurr has 
 leeved ower lang wi' her not to see through her 
 wiles. 
 
 " Weel, I mind," says Tammas Todd, "o' yince 
 being askit to preach at a certain place ; I'll no say 
 where, nor I'll no' tell ye gin ye speer. It was 
 maybes half-past seven when I got to the manse, 
 an' I had a long journey. 
 
 " ' Ye'll be tired an' hungry,' said the mistress. 
 'Ye'll be wantin' to gang sune to your bed.' 
 Hungry I was, but to gang sune to your bed is 
 no' so common amang us lads wi' the black bag 
 but I said nocht, and took my cup o' tea, an' some 
 bread an' butter. ' Tak' plenty o' the bread an* 
 butter,' she says; 'we hae nae cauld meat.' I 
 wad hae been gled to see some o' that same, but 
 it wasna for me to say onything. 
 
 " Aboot nine I saw some o' them gettin' par- 
 tic'lar fidgety like, gaun oot an* in, yin sayin,' 
 Is Mr, Todd's room ready?' an' anituir yin
 
 THE PKOBATIONER. 71 
 
 rinnin' doon-stairs cryin' to somebody in the 
 kitchen, ' Can ye no' wait awee ? ' 
 
 " Then I was askit to tak' the Buik, an' as sune 
 as ever I gat up the mistress brocht in my bed- 
 room can'le. 'Yer room's ready whenever ye 
 like,' she says. This was what I ca' a solid kind 
 o' hint, aboot as braid as it's lang, an' it was mair 
 than eneuch for me, so I took baith hint an' can'le, 
 an' gaed my ways. 
 
 " But I hadna been ten meenutes in my room 
 when I took a thocht to gie my sermons for the 
 morn a bit look, but I fand that I had left my 
 Bible in the room where I had my tea. So with- 
 oot a thocht, doon I gaed to get the buik, an' when 
 I opened the door what do you think I saw?" 
 
 We were silent every one. 
 
 " Weel, I saw the hale family sittin' doon to a 
 hot supper ! " 
 
 " Davert ! that cowes a'," said my wife, her 
 hospitable soul up in arms. " An' tell me, what- 
 ever did ye do ? " 
 
 " Well," said Tammas Todd, " I hae lookit in 
 every buik o' ' Guid Mainners,' an' in a' the 
 * Guides to Polite Society,' but I canna find a 
 word in ony yin o' them that tells me what I 
 shoud hae dune. " 
 
 " I dare say no' ; ye were in no polite society 
 that nicht ! " said Mrs. MaWhurr ; " but tell me, 
 what did ye do ? "
 
 f2 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 "Weel," said Tammas, " I juist cam' my ways up 
 the stair again, an' took the lave o' the sandwiches 
 that the minister's wife, wha's hoose I had left 
 that inornin', had kindly pitted up for me." 
 
 " The Lord be thankit, they're no' a' alike," 
 said my wife, devoutly. 
 
 " Na, far f rae that," said Tammas Todd ; " deed 
 I'm ashamed to tell ye o' this yin, but there's no 
 sic anithir in a' Scotlan' I'se warrant. An' when 
 I gaed back to the leddy's hoose that gied me the 
 sandwiches, which I did on the followin' Setter- 
 day, she was like to greet to think on the wey 
 that I had been used. She aye said that I minded 
 her o' her ain boy that she had lost ' My puir 
 lad ! ' she says, an' she cam' near takin' me roun' 
 the neck, she was that sair pitten aboot." 
 
 " Maybes the dochter did it a'thegither," says 
 I, for a wee bird had brocht the news that the 
 manse at Dowiedens wasna long to be withoot a 
 mistress. 
 
 " Saunders MaWhurr " began my wife in the 
 voice that she uses when the byre lass is ower 
 lang in bringin' in the kye. 
 
 " Never mind him, Mrs. MaWhurr ; he maun 
 hae been a gey boy himseP to hae the lasses so 
 constant in his mind ! " said Tammas, which was 
 a most uncalled-for observe. 
 
 " Ye'll be a' by wi' probationeriri noo', Tammas? ' 
 says I, to gie him a new lead.
 
 THE PROBATIONER. 73 
 
 Weel, I had a sma' experience Sabbath eight 
 days, nae farther gane," said he. " I had occa- 
 sion to look in at the Kirk Offices to see old ' Jere- 
 miah ' him that sen's us to oor preachin' places, 
 ye ken, an' says he, ' Man, ye micht gang doon 
 to Elvanby ; it'll no' be oot o' yer wey gin ye're 
 gaun doon to the Border Country onywey : 
 
 " On yer wey to the manse whaur the fowk tak* 
 ye roon the neck, nae doot ! " says I. 
 
 My wife gied me a look that wad hae speaned a 
 foal, but Tammas Todd never let on. 
 
 " So I gaed doon wi' the afternoon train to 
 Elvanby, which is the biggest place on the rail- 
 way line. I got there ower in the forenicht. It 
 was as dark as the guidman's snuff-box, an* 
 rainin' in sheets. I had a heavy bag, for I had 
 my buiks to prepare for my ordination " 
 
 " An' yer co-ordination too, no doot," says I, 
 "forwi' you ministers I hae noticed that the 
 ordination comes first, an' syne the co-ordination, 
 but ye're maistly sunest ready for the co-ordi- 
 nation. The last first, that's your motto," says I. 
 
 " I dinna understand a word ye're sayin'," says 
 he ; " ye're haiverin', guidman." 
 
 " Dinna be ashamed o't, my young man," says 
 I. " It's a hantle easier gettin' a lass than a kirk 
 ony day ! " says I. 
 
 " And that's a true word," said the probationer 
 of six years' standing.
 
 f4 THE STICKIT MINI8TEB. 
 
 "So," continued Tammas, "I speered at the 
 porter at the station the wey to the manse. It's 
 at the fito' the Back Street,' says he, 'but some- 
 body telled me that he was no' leevin' in't noo ; 
 but gang ye ower there to the shop o' yin o' the 
 elders, an' he'll be sure to ken.' 
 
 " The master was oot, but a laddie telled me 
 that the minister was leevin' aboot twa mile oot 
 the Carlisle Road, but he didna think that he was 
 at hame, for there had been naething sent up to 
 the hoose for a month. This was real cheerfu' 
 hearin' for me wi' my heavy bag and an umbrella, 
 but there was naething for it but to gang on. So 
 I trudged away doon the Carlisle Road, glaur to 
 the oxters, an' changin' my bag frae the yae side 
 to the ither as if I war swingin' it for a wager. 
 I speered at every hoose, but the answer was 
 aye, 'It's aboot a mile farther doon!' They 
 maun be poor road surveyors in that direction, 
 for their miles are like sea miles for length. 
 
 " At the hinner en' I f and the hoose, by scartin* 
 a match an' readin' the plate on the gate. I 
 rang the bell, but a' was in darkness. I stood a 
 gey while in the rani, an' I declare that my 
 thochts were no ministerial. 
 
 "Presently a wunda' gaes up somewhere in 
 the garret stories, an' a heid pops oot. 
 
 "'Fa' be you? 'it says. 
 
 "I'm the minister that's to preach for Mr.
 
 THE PROBATIONER. 75 
 
 Fergusson the morn,' says I, ' an' I'll thank you 
 to let me in oot o' the rain.' 
 
 " ' I ken nocht aboot you ! ' it says, and doon 
 gaed the wunda'. 
 
 "Noo I tell you that if that woman hadna 
 letten me in at that time o' nicht I wad hae driven 
 a stane through the gless, if they had had me 
 afore the Presbytery for't. But in a wee the 
 door opened an' the lassie lets me in. 
 
 "She had just come from the Aberdeenshire 
 Deeside that day, and was as great a stranger as 
 myself. But yince in, she did verra weel for my 
 comfort. But as she kenned naething about the 
 hours of worship, I had to go awa' doon to the 
 toon early on the neest mornin' to find oot when 
 the service was. Then back up I cam' again for 
 the sermons an' my breakfast. The service was 
 at twal, an' aboot half-past eleeven I was at the 
 kirk, an' sittin' waitin' in the vestry for some- 
 body to come to speak to me, for I had spoken to 
 nobody bena [except] the servant lass frae Aber- 
 deen an' the shop laddie that I had met on the 
 street. 
 
 "As I sat in the vestry I could hear them 
 flrslin aboot the door, an' the fowk comin' in, but 
 naebody lookit near me till maybe five meenutes 
 to twal'. Then a man cam' in that I took to be the 
 precentor, so I gied him what I usually gied to 
 touu kirks, a psalm, a paraphrase, an' twa hymns.
 
 76 THE 8TICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 He took them, put on his glesses, an' lookit at 
 my writin' gye scornfu' like. 
 
 "' Hymns?' he says. 'Na, we sing nae 
 hymns here na an' we're nane sae carin' aboot 
 paraphrases, ney ther ! " 
 
 "This was a thocht discouragin', but I said 
 that I would gladly gie him all the four psalms, 
 that I could easily find psalms to suit my sub- 
 ject. 
 
 " ' Ay, an' I think they micht hae served ye too,' 
 says he. 
 
 " I went up to the pulpit and preached, but 
 what I said I do not ken ; I had gotten my sermon 
 frae the precentor, and felt just like a schule-boy 
 that has come to the dominie without his lesson. 
 When I had feenished I thocht that some o' the 
 elders wad speak to me, but not a one showed 
 face. I gaed into the vestry an' got my hat, an' 
 so back to the manse on the Carlisle Road. 
 
 " A laddie met me at the gate. ' You're the 
 minister that preached the day hae ! ' says he. 
 It was a note frae somebody I didna ken, tellin* 
 me that I was expected to address the Sabbath 
 schule that efternune at three o'clock. So I 
 slippit doon, an' farid that the schule only gaed 
 in at that hour. So I had to wait sittin' by my- 
 sel' till aboot the half-hour. Then a man cam* 
 an' chappit me on the shoother, ' Ye'll hae twunty 
 meenites,' he says.
 
 THE PROBATIONER. 77 
 
 "'Twunty meenites?' says I, no' seein' his 
 drift. 
 
 " * Ay,' he says, ' to address the bairns ! ' 
 
 " So I talked to the bairns for a wee, a job I 
 aye likit, an' at the end I pat up a prayer and sat 
 for maybes half a meenit ef ter withoot lookin' up. 
 Wull you believe me," said the probationer, " that 
 when I liftit my heid there wasna a body, bairn, 
 teacher, or superintendent, in the place ? 
 
 " So yince mair gaed I back alang that weary 
 Carlisle Road withoot a word frae leevin' crai- 
 tur. 
 
 " ' Heaven do so to me an' more also,' said I to 
 mysel', ' if I ever mislippen a probationer when 
 yince I'm settled in the Dowiedens ! ' Next 
 mornin' I raise gye an' early, on' shook off the 
 dust of Elvanby frae my feet for a testimony 
 against an unkindly parish, an' a minister and 
 people that muzzled into silence the ox that 
 treadeth out the corn, though I fear that I gied 
 them mair cauff than corn that day." 
 
 "And nae wunner," said Mrs. MaWhurr. 
 
 " They wad just be blate to pit themsel's forrit, 
 Tammas ! " said I. " They wadna like to speak 
 to a strainge minister." 
 
 " Strainge minister here, strainge minister there. 
 I'll gang nae mair to yon toon ! " says he. " They 
 made me fine an' blate. When I'm settled in the 
 Dowiedens "
 
 78 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 * An' mairrit to that wifie's dochter that pat 
 her airms " 
 
 " Haud yer tongue, man ! " cried my mistress 
 to me in a mainner that couldna be ca'ed mair 
 than ceevil. 
 
 THE LAMMAS PREACHING. 
 
 * AND I further intimate," said the minister, 
 " that I will preach this evening at Cauldshaws, 
 and my text will be from the ninth chapter of 
 the book of Ecclesiastes and the tenth verse, 
 * Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with 
 thy might.' " 
 
 " Save us," said Janet MacTaggart " he's clean 
 forgotten ' if it be the Lord's wull.' Maybe he'll 
 be for gaun whether it's His wull or no' he's a 
 sair masterfu' man, the minister ; but he comes 
 frae the Machars,* an' kens little aboot the jeal- 
 ous God we hae among the hills o' Gallowa ' ! " 
 
 The minister continued, in the same high, level 
 tone in which he did his preaching, " There are a 
 number of sluggards who lay the weight of their 
 own laziness on the Almighty, saying, 'I am a 
 worm and no man how should I strive with my 
 
 * The Eastern Lowlands of Wigtonshire.
 
 THE LAMMAS PEEACHING. 79 
 
 Maker,' whenever they are at strife with their 
 own sluggishness. There will be a word for all 
 such this evening at the farmtown of Cauldshaws, 
 presently occupied by Gilbert M'Kissock public 
 worship to begin at seven o'clock." 
 
 The congregation of Barnessock Kirk tumbled 
 amicably over its own heels with eagerness to get 
 into the kirk-yard in order to settle the momen- 
 tous question, " Whose back was he on the 
 .day?" 
 
 Robert Kirk, Carsethorn, had a packet of 
 peppermint lozenges in the crown of his " lum " 
 hat deponed to by Elizabeth Douglas Barr, 
 in Barnbogrie, whose husband, Weelum Barr, 
 put on the hat of the aforesaid Robert Kirk 
 by mistake for his own, whereupon the pepper- 
 mints fell to the floor and rolled under the pews 
 in most unseemly fashion. Elizabeth Kirk is of 
 opinion that this should be brought to the 
 notice of session, she herself always taking 
 her peppermint while genteelly wiping her mouth 
 with the corner of her handkerchief. Robert Kirk, 
 on being put to the question, admits the fact, but 
 says that it was his wife put them there to be 
 near her hand. 
 
 The minister, however, ever ready with his 
 word, brought him to shame by saying, " Oh, 
 Robert, Robert, that was just what Adam said, 
 * The woman Thou gavest me, she gave me to
 
 80 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 eat ! '" The aforesaid Robert Kirk thinks that 
 it is meddling with the original Hebrew to apply 
 this to peppermints, and also says that Elizabeth 
 Kirk is an impudent besom, and furthermore that 
 as all the country well knows (Here the 
 chronicler omits much matter actionable in the 
 civil courts of the realm.) 
 
 " Janet," said the minister to his housekeeper, 
 "I am to preach to-night at Cauldshaws on 
 the text, ' Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do 
 it with thy might.' " 
 
 " I ken," said Janet, " I saw it on yer desk. I 
 pat it ablow the clock for fear the wun's o' heeven 
 micht blaw it awa' like chaff, an' you couldna do 
 wantin' it ! " 
 
 '* Janet MacTaggart," said the minister, tartly, 
 u bring in the denner, and do not meddle with 
 what does not concern you." 
 
 Janet could not abide read sermons ; her 
 natural woman rose against them. She knew, as 
 she had said, that God was a jealous God, and, 
 with regard to the minister, she looked upon her- 
 self as His vicegerent. 
 
 " He's young an' terrable ram-stam an' opeen- 
 ionated fu' o' buik-lear, but wi' little gracious 
 experience. For a' that, the root o' the maitter 's 
 in 'im," said Janet, not unhopefully. 
 
 " I'm gaun to preach at Cauldshaws, and my 
 text's Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it
 
 THE LAMMAS PREACHING. 81 
 
 with thy might,' " said the minister to the precen- 
 tor that afternoon, on the manse doorstep. 
 
 " The Lord's no' in a' his thochts. FJ1 gang wi 1 
 the lad mysel'," said the precentor. 
 
 Now, Galloway is so much out of the world 
 that the Almighty has not there lifted His hand 
 from reward and punishment, from guiding and 
 restraining, as He has done in hig towns where 
 everything goes by machinery. Man may say 
 that there is no God when he only sees a hand- 
 breadth of smoky heaven between the chimney- 
 pots ; but out on the fields of oats and bear, and 
 up on the screes of the hillsides, where the 
 mother granite sticks her bleaching ribs through 
 the heather, men have reached great assurance 
 on this and other matters. 
 
 The burns were running red with the mighty 
 July rain when Douglas Maclellan started over 
 the meadows and moors to preach his sermon at 
 the farmtown of Cauldshaws. He had thanked 
 the Lord that morning in his opening prayer for 
 " the bounteous rain wherewith he had seen meet 
 to refresh His weary heritage." 
 
 His congregation silently acquiesced, "for 
 what," said they, " could a man from the Machars 
 be expected to ken about meadow hay ? " 
 
 When the minister and the precentor got to 
 the foot of the manse loaning, they came upon the 
 parish ne'er-do-weel, Ebie Kirgan, who kept 
 6
 
 82 THE STICKJT MINISTER. 
 
 himself in employment by constantly scratching 
 his head, trying to think of something to do, and 
 whose clothes were constructed on the latest 
 sanitary principles of ventilation. The ruins of 
 Ebie's hat were usually tipped over one eye for 
 enlarged facilities of scratching m the rear. 
 
 " If it's yer wull, minister, I'll come to hear ye 
 the nicht. It's drawing to mair rain, I'm think- 
 in' ! " said the scarecrow. 
 
 M I hope the discourse may be profitable to you, 
 Ebenezer, for, as I intimated this morning, I am 
 to preach from the text, * Whatsoever thy hand 
 flndeth to do, do it with thy might.' " 
 
 " Ay, minister," said Ebie, relieving his right 
 hand, and tipping his hat over the other eye to 
 give his left free play. So the three struck over 
 the fields, making for the thorn tree at the corner, 
 where Robert Kirk's dike dipped into the stand- 
 ing water of the meadow. 
 
 "Do you think ye can manage it, Maister 
 Maclellan?" said the precentor. "Ye're wat 
 half-way up the leg already." 
 
 " An' there's sax feet o' black moss water in the 
 Laneburn as sure as I'm a leevin' sowl," added 
 Ebie Kirgan. 
 
 " I'm to preach at Cauldshaws, and my text is, 
 * Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with 
 thy might ! " said the minister, stubbornly 
 glooming from under the eaves of his eyebrows
 
 THE LAMMAS PREACHING. 83 
 
 as the swarthy men from the Machars are wont 
 to do. His companions said no more. They 
 came to Camelon Lane, where usually Robert 
 Kirk had a leaping pole on either bank to assist 
 the traveler across, but both poles had gone down 
 the water in the morning to look for Robert's 
 meadow hay. 
 
 " Tak' care, Maister Maclellan, ye' 11 be in deep 
 water afore ye ken. Oh, man, ye had far better 
 turn ! " 
 
 The precentor stood up to his knees in water 
 on what had once been the bank, and wrung his 
 hands. But the minister pushed steadily ahead 
 into the turbid and sluggish water. 
 
 " I canna come oh, I canna come, for I'm a 
 man that has a family." 
 
 "It's no' your work; stay where ye are," cried 
 the minister, without looking over his shoulder ; 
 "but as for me, I'm intimated to preach this 
 night at Cauldshaws, and my text " 
 
 Here he stepped into a deep hole, and his text 
 was suddenly shut within him by the gurgle of 
 moss water in his throat. His arms rose above 
 the surface like the black spars of a windmill. 
 But Ebie Kirgan sculled himself swiftly out, 
 swimming with his shoeless feet, and pushed the 
 minister before him to the further bank the 
 water gushing out of rents in his clothes as easily 
 as out of the gills of a fish.
 
 84 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 The minister stood with unshaken confidence 
 on the bank. He ran peat water like a spout in 
 a thunder plump, and black rivulets of dye were 
 trickling from under his hat, down his brow, and 
 dripping from the end of his nose. 
 
 " Then you'll not come any further ?" he called 
 across to the precentor. 
 
 " I canna, oh, I canna ; though I'm most awfu' 
 willin'. Kirsty wad never forgie me gin I was to 
 droon." 
 
 " Then I'll e'en have to raise the tune myself 
 though three times ' Kilmarnock ' is a pity," said 
 the minister, turning on his heel and striding 
 away through the shallow sea, splashing the 
 water as high as his head with a kind of head- 
 strong glee which seemed to the precentor a 
 direct defiance of Providence. Ebie Kirgan fol- 
 lowed half a dozen steps behind. The support of 
 the precentor's lay semi-equality taken from him, 
 he began to regret that he had come, and silently 
 and ruefully plunged along after the minister 
 through the water-logged meadows. They came 
 in time to the foot of Robert Kirk's march dike, 
 and skirted it a hundred yards upward to avoid 
 the deep pool in which the Laneburn waters were 
 swirling. The minister climbed silently up the 
 seven-foot dike, pausing a second on the top to 
 balance himself for his leap to the other side. As 
 he did so, Ebie Kirgan saw that the dike was
 
 THE LAMMAS PREACHING. 85 
 
 swaying to the fall, having been weakened by the 
 rush of water on the further side. He rushed 
 instantly at the minister, and gave him a push 
 with both hands which caused Mr. Maclellan to 
 alight on his feet clear of the falling stones. The 
 dike did not so much fall outward as settle down 
 on its own ruins. Ebie fell on his face among 
 the stones with the impetus of his own eagerness. 
 He arose, however, quickly only limping slightly 
 from what he called a " bit chack " (nip) on the 
 leg between two stones. 
 
 " That was a merciful Providence, Ebenezer," 
 said the minister, solemnly ; " I hope you are duly 
 thankful ! " 
 
 "Dod, I am that ! " replied Ebie, scratching his 
 head vigorously with his right hand and rubbing 
 his leg with his left. " Gin I hadna gi'en ye that 
 dunch, ye micht hae preachen nane at Cauld- 
 shaws this nicht." 
 
 They now crossed a fairly level clover field, 
 dank and laid with wet. The scent of the clover 
 rose to their nostrils with almost overpowering 
 force. There was not a breath of air. The sky 
 was blue and the sun shining. Only a sullen roar 
 came over the hill, sounding in the silence like 
 the rush of a train over a far-away viaduct. 
 
 " "What is that ? " queried the minister, stop- 
 ping to listen. 
 
 Ebie took a brisk sidelong look at him.
 
 86 THE STIOKIT MINISTER. 
 
 " I'm some dootsome that'll be the Skyreburn 
 coming doon off o' Cairnsmuir ! " 
 
 The minister tramped unconcernedly on. Ebie 
 Kirgan stared at him. 
 
 " He canna ken what a ' Skyreburn warnin ' is 
 he'll be thinkin' it's some bit Machar's burn 
 that the laddies set their whurlie mills in. But 
 he'll turn richt eneuch when he sees Skyreburn 
 roarin' reed in a Lammas flood, I'm thinkin' ! " 
 
 They took their way over the shoulder of the 
 hill in the beautiful evening, leaning eagerly for- 
 ward to get the first glimpse of the cause of that 
 deep and resonant roar. In a moment they saw 
 below them a narrow, rock- walled gully, ten or 
 fifteen yards across, filled to the brim with rush- 
 ing water. It was not black peat water like the 
 Camelon Lane, but it ran red as keel, flecked now 
 and then with a revolving white blur as one of 
 the Cauldshaws sheep spun downward to the sea, 
 with four black feet turned pitifully up to the 
 blue sky. 
 
 Ebie looked at the minister. " He'll turn noo 
 if he's mortal," he said. But the minister held on. 
 He looked at the water up and down the roaring 
 stream. On a hill above, the farmer of Cauld- 
 shaws, having driven all his remaining sheep 
 together, sat down to watch. Seeing the minister, 
 he stood up and excitedly waved him back. But 
 Douglas Maclellan from the Machars never gave
 
 THE LAMMAS PKEACHING. 87 
 
 him a look, and his shouting was of less effect 
 than if he had been crying to an untrained colly. 
 
 The minister looked long up the stream, and at 
 a point where the rocks came very close together, 
 and many stunted pines were growing, he saw 
 one which, having stood on the immediate brink, 
 had been so much undercut that it leaned over 
 the gully like a fishing-rod. With a keen glance 
 along its length, the minister, jamming his drip- 
 ping soft felt hat on the back of his head, was 
 setting foot on the perilous slope of the uneven 
 red-brown trunk, when Kirgan caught him sharply 
 by the arm. 
 
 "It's no' for me to speak to a minister at 
 ordinar' times," he stammered, gathering courage 
 in his desperation ; " but, oh, man, it's fair mur- 
 der to try to gang ower that water ! " 
 
 The minister wrenched himself free, and sprung 
 along the trunk with wonderful agility. 
 
 " I'm intimated to preach at Cauldshaws this 
 night, and my text is, 'Whatsover thy hand 
 findeth to do, do it with thy might ! ' " he shouted. 
 
 He made his way up and up the slope of the 
 fir-tree, which, having little grip of the rock, 
 dipped and swayed under his tread. Ebie Kir- 
 gan fell on his knees and prayed aloud. He had 
 not prayed since his step-mother boxed his ears 
 for getting into bed without saying his prayers 
 twenty years ago. This had set him against it.
 
 88 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 But he prayed now, and to infinitely more pur- 
 pose than his minister had recently done. But 
 when the climber had reached the branchy top, 
 and was striving to get a few feet further, in 
 order to clear the surging linn before he made 
 his spring, Ebie rose to his feet, leaving his prayer 
 unfinished. He sent forth an almost animal 
 shriek of terror. The tree roots cracked like 
 breaking cables, and slowly gave way, an ava- 
 lanche of stones plumped into the whirl, and the 
 top of the fir crashed downward on the rocks of 
 the opposite bank. 
 
 " Oh, man, call on the name of the Lord ! " cried 
 Ebie Kirgan, the ragged preacher, at the top of 
 his voice. 
 
 Tuen he saw something detach itself from the 
 tree as it rebounded, and for a moment rise 
 and fall black against the sunset. Then Ebie the 
 Outcast fell on his face like a dead man. 
 
 In the white coverleted " room " of the farm- 
 town of Cauldshaws, a white-faced lad lay with 
 his eyes closed, and a wet cloth on his brow. A 
 large-boned, red-cheeked, motherly woman stole 
 to and fro with a foot as light as a fairy. The 
 sleeper stirred and tried to lift an unavailing 
 hand to his head. The mistress of Cauldshaws 
 stole to his bedside as he opened his eyes. She
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSO.N. 89 
 
 laid a restraining hand on him as he strove to 
 rise. 
 
 " Let me up," said the minister ; " I must away, 
 for I'm intimated to preach at Cauldshaws, and 
 my text is, ' Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, 
 do it with thy might.' " 
 
 " My bonny man," said the good wife, tenderly, 
 " you'll preach best on the broad o' yer back this 
 mony a day, an' when ye rise, your best text will 
 be, ' He sent from above, He took me, and drew 
 me out of many waters ! ' " 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON, 
 SCHOOLMASTER, 
 
 SOMETIME MINISTER OF THE PARISH OF SHAWS : DE- 
 POSED FOR DRUNKENNESS. 
 
 J_)UNCAN DUNCANSON, parochial schoolmaster in 
 the parish of Nether Dullarg, stood at the door of 
 his schoolhouse, shading his eyes with his hand. 
 He looked down the road and up the road, but no 
 one was in sight. Not a leaf moved that breath- 
 less July morning. It was yet too early for the 
 scholars to come, and indeed being high haytime, 
 the dominie did not expect a large attendance. 
 He was not watching the stray colly puppy which
 
 90 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 made noisy demonstrations against the blue bot- 
 tles near the waterspout at the foot of the play- 
 ground. He was looking out for a tall girl carry- 
 ing a black bag. To his mind she had delayed too 
 long, and he was muttering what seemed by the 
 gruff tones to be threats, but which was in reality 
 something much milder. 
 
 " Never was there sic a lassie ; she canna even 
 come straight back from the heid o' the street ! " 
 he said, complainingly. " There's no' a dowg in 
 the Dullarg but she maun clap, an' no' a pussy 
 sleepiri' in the sun but she maun cross the road to 
 stroke. She gets hersel' fair covered wi' dirt 
 playin' wi' the laddies ; she'll even set doon the 
 black bag to play for keeps wi' the boys at the 
 bools, an' her comin' on for fifteen." 
 
 He sighed as though this were a deep grief to 
 him, and a tear stood, with a kind of melancholy 
 entirely unsuited to the slightness of the occasion, 
 in his unsteady eye of watery blue. But it was 
 not at all the shortcomings of the "lassie" that 
 filled his heart. He kept muttering under his 
 breath : 
 
 "If my Flora had but had her ain shame to 
 you, Duncan Duncanson, shame to you, shame to 
 you, she micht hae been a dochter o' the manse." 
 
 Suddenly there was a glint of sunshine in a 
 shady place among the trees at the foot of the 
 inclined slope of beaten earth which was called the
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON. 91 
 
 play-ground. So steep was it, that when a scholar 
 fell anywhere upon it he rolled over and over till 
 brought up by the dike. A tall girl came up the 
 steps with a hop, skip and jump, took the dominie 
 round the neck in a discomposing manner, swung 
 him on his heels as on a pivot, and pushed him 
 into the school. 
 
 " There," she said, " that's the last time that I 
 gang for your bag. I wonder that you are not 
 ashamed to sen' your daughter to the public-hoose 
 for a black bag that every bairn kens what's in, 
 every Tuesday and Friday, an' you the maister ! " 
 
 Duncan Duncanson stood knitting his broad, 
 smooth brow, and clasping and unclasping his 
 hands nervously. But he said nothing. His 
 attention was irresolutely divided between his 
 daughter, who stood before him with arms akimbo, 
 the image of a petty tyrant, and the black bag 
 which more and more strongly drew his gaze. 
 " I'll slip ower," he said, " an' see gin there's a 
 big eneuch coal on the fire to keep it in." So, 
 taking the black bag in his hand, he went out like 
 a chidden child glad to escape from observation. 
 The girl maintained her dignified position till he 
 was out of sight, then threw herself down on the 
 hacked and ink-stained desk and cried as if her 
 heart would break. 
 
 " Oh, my faither, my faither," she sobbed, "an* 
 him yince a minister ! "
 
 92 THE STICKIT MINISTEB. 
 
 When the dominie returned, with a flush on his 
 cheek which slowly ebbed away, he found his girl 
 in the midst of a riotous game of " steal the bon- 
 nets," which was only played at by the aristocrats 
 of the school. Flora Duncanson was easily em- 
 press both in the schoolhouse and in the school of 
 the Nether Dullarg ; and except when her father 
 took one of his occasional turns of wild and un- 
 governable temper after too close devotion to the 
 black bag which he had returned from locking in 
 its skeleton cupboard, she was also the mistress 
 of the master. 
 
 Every one in Nether Dullarg know the history 
 of Duncan Duncanson. He had taught nearly all 
 the younger portion of them, for it was many 
 years since he was appointed parish teacher in 
 Nether Dullarg, long before Mr. Pitbye came to be 
 minister. Duncan Duncanson was college bred. 
 More than that, he had been a minister, and no 
 ** Stickit " minister either, but duly licensed, or- 
 dained, and inducted also, alas ! deposed. There 
 had been a black bag even in those early days, as 
 Duncan Duncanson knew to his cost. His had 
 been the good seed sown among the abundance of 
 thorns. These two, thorns and wheat, grew up 
 together into a deadly crop, and together were cut 
 down in that terrible day of reckoning when the 
 presbytery of Pitscottie solemnly deposed Duncan 
 Duncanson, sometime minister of the parish of
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON. 93 
 
 Shaws, from the office of the ministry of the Kirk 
 of Scotland. 
 
 Then the presbytery of that day adjourned to 
 the Gorden Arms to wash down their presbyterial 
 dinner with plentiful jorums of toddy, and Duncan 
 Duncanson sat for the last time in his study in 
 the manse of the Shaws, sipping and filling the 
 demon bottle which he carried like a familiar spirit 
 in his black bag. This was his Day of Judgment ; 
 and the hopes of his youth, the aspirations of his 
 middle life, the forecasts of a quiet age were all 
 consumed in the flaming wrath of it. This was 
 all because the Reverend Duncan Duncanson had 
 fallen down one Sabbath day at the front door of 
 the Shaws manse. There were those in the pres. 
 bytery who had often fallen down at their back 
 doors, but then this made a great difference, and 
 they all prayed fervently for the great sinner and 
 backslider who had slidden at his front door in 
 the sight of men. The moderator, who in the 
 presbytery had called Duncan everything that he 
 could lay his tongue to, reflected as he drove home 
 that he had let him off far too easily. Then he 
 stooped down and felt in the box of his gig if the 
 two-gallon " gray beard " from the Gordon Arms 
 were sitting safely on its own bottom. So much 
 responsibility made him nervous on a rough 
 road. 
 
 Duncan Duncanson, no longer Reverend, at once
 
 94 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 returned to his native village to the house of his 
 father and mother, the daily cause and witness of 
 their gray hairs whitening to the winter of the 
 grave. They had a little house of their own, and 
 it had not taken all their slender store to put their 
 lad through college ; for, save in the matter of the 
 black bag and its inmate, Duncan Duncanson was 
 neither spendthrift nor prodigal. Before he left 
 the Shaws he was to have been married to the 
 daughter of the neighboring minister, but in the 
 wild upheaval of that earthquake shock she obe- 
 diently gave Duncan up as soon as the parish had 
 given him up, and in time married a wealthy 
 farmer who did not come sober home from market 
 for twenty years. 
 
 In his own village Duncan was looked upon 
 with an odd of kind respect. He was thought to 
 have been led astray, though this was not the case 
 the devil, together with the weak chin and un- 
 stable eye, having been leading enough. He was 
 looked on as "byordnar' clever," a dungeon o' 
 learnin'." So, after some years, when the paro- 
 chial school fell vacant, the minister who had 
 baptized him, and who had helped him lamely 
 with his rusty scraps of Latin and Greek (Latin 
 as far as " Omnis Gallia" Greek, the alphabet 
 merely), put Duncan into the school, sure that he 
 would teach the children well and conscientiously, 
 and hopeful that he might ultimately be led to
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON. 95 
 
 reform ; for ministers are sanguine men, at least 
 all who do any good among other men. 
 
 And the new schoolmaster had indeed done his 
 duty, though with abundance of the rod and some 
 detriment to his own temper and the cuticle of 
 his pupils. But no such scholars went up from 
 three counties as those who matriculated straight 
 from the hedge school of the parish of Dullarg 
 during the reign of the deposed minister of the 
 Shaws. By and by Duncan picked up other little 
 bits of patronage the precentorship, as a matter 
 of course, the inspectorship of poor, and ulti- 
 mately the registrarship of births, deaths, and 
 marriages. In the Dullarg it is a saying that we 
 " keep oor ain fish-guts for oor ain sea-maws." 
 This is not an expression common in the higher 
 circles, but the thing itself is common enough 
 there. Duncan married a village girl, who had 
 made him a good wife during her short life, but 
 had not been able to master the bottle imp. She 
 had left him one daughter, our imperious beauty 
 of the yellow locks. 
 
 But we have gone afield from our school. The 
 whole building, a long narrow barn, built of rough 
 ashlar work, with many small windows, never 
 all whole at once, was sleepily droning with the 
 morning lessons. Flora Duncanson, within a 
 yard of her father, was making paper arrows to 
 throw at Andrew Tait, the son of the wealthy
 
 96 THE 8TICKJT MINISTER. 
 
 farmer who had married Duncan Duncanson's 
 old sweetheart. Andrew was a long- limbed lad, 
 known as " the fathom o' pump water." He was 
 shy and thoughtful, prone to moon in corners, a 
 lad in whom could be perceived no tincture of 
 the bucolic clumsiness of the one parent or the 
 faded and selfish gentility of the other. He 
 liked to be teased by Flora Duncanson, for it gave 
 him an opportunity of looking at her hair. He 
 had never heard of Rossetti, but he said in his 
 heart, " Her hair that lay along her back was 
 yellow like ripe corn ! " 
 
 The ex-minister sat at his high desk, and the 
 hum of the school acted soothingly upon his un- 
 steady nerves. A vision began to assert itself of 
 something that he knew to be on one shelf of his 
 private cupboard in the little dominie's house 
 adjoining the school. Without a word he rose 
 and stepped out. Before he could get round the 
 school, Flora was out and after him. Thereupon 
 the school resolved itself into a pandemonium, 
 and Andrew, the smith, shoeing his horses in the 
 old " smiddy " at the foot of the lane, said to his 
 apprentice, "The dominie'll be oot to wat his 
 thrapple. Oor Wull will be keepin' the schule the 
 the noo ! " " Wull " was a good-natured, clever 
 elder boy who was supposed to take charge of 
 the school in the absence of the dominie. This 
 he did usually by stopping the promiscuous fight-
 
 THE TRAGEDY OP DUNCAN DUNCANSON. 97 
 
 ing and scuffling which went on all round the 
 school and organizing a stated and official combat 
 in the middle of the floor between a pair of well- 
 matched urchins. " Let all things be done de- 
 cently and in order " was Wull's motto. 
 
 In the height of the turmoil, a great brown head 
 presented itself at the door. It was the head of 
 big red " Trusty," the half-colly, half-St. Bernard, 
 which sometimes accompanied Andrew Tait to 
 the school, and played about outside till that 
 youth got free of his bondage, when the pair went 
 joyously homeward. 
 
 No sooner was he spied than fifty voices invited 
 him to enter. He came in, nothing loath, and 
 crouched beneath the desk which stood against the 
 wall by the window where sat his master with some 
 bosom cronies. There he was lying concealed by 
 a rampart of legs and slates when the master en- 
 tered with an angry frown on his brow and his 
 hat jammed over his forehead in a way that 
 boded no good to the school. " It's gaun to be a 
 lickin' day," said Andrew Tait, with an air of 
 grim foreboding. All was quiet in a moment, for 
 the fear of Duncan Duncanson with the black 
 dog on his back was heavy on every young heart. 
 Duncan was a good and a kindly man, and would 
 go anywhere to help a neighbor in trouble, but 
 he was undoubtedly savage in his cups. The 
 imp of the black bag was in possession. 
 7
 
 98 THE STICKJT MINISTER. 
 
 The boys trembled, but the great red dog lay 
 quiet as a pussy, with his immense, faithful head 
 pillowed on his master's knees. The dominie 
 went to his desk, and as nothing seemed to come 
 of his ill-humor, the school gradually returned to 
 its condition of lazy inattention. Fred Graham, 
 the boy next to Andrew Tait, whispered : " Let 
 me stroke the doggie's held." 
 
 " What'll ye gie's ? " promptly replied Andrew, 
 with the truly boyish commercial spirit. 
 
 " A peerie," said his friend. 
 
 " An' the string ? " added Andrew, who had a 
 corner in dogs and could force the market. So 
 for five minutes the big head was transferred to 
 Fred Graham's knee, and the stroking performed 
 to the satisfaction of all parties. Then the next 
 chance had been for some time disposed of to 
 young Sanny M'Quhirr of Drumquhat, who, be- 
 ing a farmer's son, never would have thought of 
 stroking a dog save in school, for the laudable 
 purpose of killing time and doing what was for- 
 bidden. 
 
 School currency was changing hands and find- 
 ing its way into Andrew Tait's pockets at a great 
 rate. The various claimants for next turn were 
 so clamorous that they created some little dis- 
 turbance, so that the master, seeing a cluster of 
 heads together, noiselessly opened the lid of his 
 desk and sent the "taws" whirling down into
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSUJST. 99 
 
 their midst with hearty good-will. They took 
 Fred Graham round the neck, and he at once 
 rose to receive his " pawmies," the price of his 
 general amusements. He had not been the guilty 
 person, but he hardly denied it, even pro formd, 
 so accustomed were they in that school to the 
 Spartan code that the sin lay not in the action, 
 but in the stupidity of being found out. 
 
 Through the gap formed by the absence of 
 Fred on his melancholy errand, a gap like that 
 made by the drawing of a tooth, the master saw 
 the orange skin and solemn eyes of " Trusty 
 Tait," boys' dog to the parish school of Nether 
 Dullarg. 
 
 His wrath turned instantly on Trusty and his 
 owner, and his resentment burned with a sullen, 
 exaggerated fury. He imagined that the animal 
 had been brought into the school in order directly 
 to insult him. 
 
 " Who brought that dog in here ? " he asked. 
 
 " Please, sir, he just cam'," said Andrew Tait. 
 
 " Put him out instantly ! " he commanded. 
 
 " Please, sir, he'll no' gang." 
 
 The dominie then went for the poker and ap- 
 proached the big dog, whose eyes began to shine 
 with a yellow light curiously different from that 
 which had been in them when the boys were 
 stroking his shaggy coat. But he lay motionless 
 as though cut in stone, nothing living about him
 
 100 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 except these slumberous eyes with the red spark 
 flaming at the bottom of them. His great t?il 
 lay along the floor of the thickness of a boy's 
 arm, with which it was his wont to beat the floor 
 as a thresher beats his sheaves at the approach 
 of his master. " Trusty Tait's " dignity lay hi 
 his tail. His tenderest feelings had their abode 
 there. By means of it he communicated his sen- 
 timents, belligerent or amicable. When his 
 master appeared in the distance, he wagged it 
 ponderously ; when a canine friend hove in sight, 
 it waved triumphantly ; at the sight of a gypsy 
 or a tramp, it grew oratory with the expressive- 
 ness of its resentment. As the dominie ap- 
 proached with his weapon of warfare, Andrew 
 Tait drew the iron shod of his clog, which he 
 would have called his " cakkar," across Trusty's 
 tail. The dog instantly half rose on his fore- 
 paws, showing a seam of teeth like a row of 
 danger-signals, and gave vent to a thunderous 
 subterranean growl, which so intimidated the 
 master that he turned his anger on the victim 
 who promised less resistance. He dragged 
 Andrew Tait by the collar of his jacket into the 
 middle of the floor, and, forgetting in his be- 
 clouded condition what he held in his hand, he 
 struck him once across the head with the heavy 
 iron poker, stretching him senseless on the 
 ground. The whole school rose to its feet with
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF DUNCAN DUNCANSON. 101 
 
 a dull, confused moan of horror, but before any 
 one could move, Trusty had the dominie by the 
 throat, threw him backward over a form, and 
 now stood guard, growling with short, blood- 
 curdling snorts over the prostrate body of his 
 young master. Through the open door Flora 
 Dun can son came flying, for the noise had told 
 her even in the cottage that something unusual 
 was happening. 
 
 " Go home at once ! " she called to the chil- 
 dren ; and though there were many there older 
 than she, without a murmur they filed outside 
 remaining, however, in whispering, awe-struck 
 groups at the foot of the play-ground. 
 
 " Go home, father, this moment ! " she said to 
 her father, who had gathered himself together, 
 and now stood shaking and uncertain like one 
 awakened from a dream, groping stupidly with 
 his hands. The old man turned and went heavily 
 away at his daughter's word. He even thought 
 of asking her for the key of the cupboard, the 
 strife for the possession of which had been the 
 beginning of his black humor ; but a moment's 
 thought convinced him of the hopelessness of the 
 request. " But I would be muckle the better o't," 
 he said, and sighed perhaps for a moment con- 
 scious how much the worse he had been of it. 
 
 Flora Duncanson stood over the senseless body 
 of Andrew Tait. Trusty was licking his face.
 
 102 THE 8TICKIT MINISTEB. 
 
 A thin streak of blood stole from under the hair 
 and down the brow. The dog growled as the 
 girl approached, but ultimately allowed her to 
 come to the lad's side. 
 
 " Oh, Andra, Andra ! " she said, the salt water 
 running silently down her cheeks. 
 
 The boy slowly opened his eyes, looked at the 
 dog once more, and then fixedly at Flora Dun- 
 canson. He always liked to look at her hair, but 
 he had never noticed till now how beautiful her 
 eyes were. He could not think what it was they 
 reminded him of something he had seen hi a 
 dream, he thought. 
 
 "Dinna greet, Flora," he said; "I'll tell my 
 faither that I fell, an' I'll lick ony boy in the 
 schule that says I didna! Oh, Flora, but yer een 
 are terrible bonny ! " 
 
 ******* 
 
 This is all a very old story in the Dullarg now, 
 and Trusty is a Nestor among dogs. He spends 
 all his fine afternoons on a broomy knowe by 
 himself, for what with puppies and bairns the 
 farm is not the quiet place that it used to be 
 when he was young. Trusty overlooks a wide 
 prospect were his faithful dim eyes able to see, 
 but as it is, he devotes himself chiefly to the flies 
 which settle upon his nose. Over there on the 
 slope glimmer in the haze the white stones in the 
 churchyard. Trusty never was much of a
 
 DAVID OLIPHANT. 103 
 
 scholar, iii spite of so long frequenting the village 
 academy, but had he been able to read, he might 
 have found this inscription on a granite tomb- 
 stone down in the old kirk-yard by the Des 
 water : 
 
 SACKED TO THE MEMORY 
 OF 
 
 DUNCAN DUNCANSON, 
 
 AGED 71 YEARS, SOMETIME 
 
 MINISTER OP THE PARISH OF SHAW8, 
 
 FOB THIRTY YEABS SCHOOLMASTER IN THIS PABISH. 
 
 ERECTED BY HIS AFFECTIONATE CHILDREN, 
 
 ANDREW AND FLORA TAIT. 
 
 "TO WHOM LITTLE IS FORGIVEN, THE SAME 
 
 LOVETH LITTLE." 
 
 WHY DAVID OLIPHANT REMAINED A 
 PRESBYTERIAN. 
 
 "Now, Mr. Oliphant, can you conceive any 
 reason, except national prejudice, to which I am 
 sure you are superior, why you should not be 
 with us in the Church? It is, as you know, quite 
 time that you made up your mind. It is, indeed,
 
 101 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 solely with the hope of assisting you to a decis- 
 ion that I have desired to see you now." 
 
 An urbanely dignified clergyman is speaking to 
 a young man in an Oxford Common Room. 
 
 "I am very sensible of your lordship's con- 
 descension," replied David Oliphant, late scholar 
 of St. Magnus, to the Right Reverend the Bishop 
 of Alchester. 
 
 That learned and liberal prelate was to preach 
 before the University on the following day, and 
 in the meantime he was endeavoring to serve his 
 Church by attracting to her bosom, that refuge 
 at once so inclusive and so exclusive, another of 
 those brilliant young Northmen who have given 
 to St. Magnus its primacy among Oxford colleges, 
 and from whose number the Anglican Church 
 has obtained many of her finest scholars and her 
 wisest prelates. 
 
 The bishop's main question David Oliphant did 
 not answer immediately, for many strange things 
 were working within him. His certain desire 
 was to do the work of the Christ. So much was 
 clear to him but how and where ? The answer 
 was not so definite. His college friends were 
 entering the Church by troops. They were as 
 earnest and hopeful as he they looked forward 
 to beginning their work at once. They seemed 
 beckoning him to come along with them into their 
 mother-church, at whose door stood the amiable
 
 DAVID OLIPHANT. 105 
 
 and comfortable Bishop of Alchester, with hands 
 outstretched in welcome. And then before David 
 Oliphant there rose up the vision of his own rug- 
 ged Cameronian kirk like Nature, a stern but 
 not unkindly foster-mother. He thought of the 
 four slow years of strictest theological training 
 which awaited him if he returned to the North 
 four years for the scholar of St. Magnus equally 
 with the rudest country lad who had stumbled 
 through tlie requisite sessions in arts. Small 
 wonder that he wavered, dividing the swift mind, 
 or that the bishop waited his decision with the 
 smile of successful persuasion in his shrewd and 
 kindly eyes. 
 
 " We need such men as you, Mr. Oliphant," he 
 said ; " with your parts and ah your other 
 advantages you may go very far." 
 
 They say that before the mind of the drowning, 
 the past defiles in a panorama of inconceivable 
 rapidity. David Oliphant had almost made up 
 his mind to follow what seemed his manifest des- 
 tiny, when certain visions of a time long past 
 rose up before him, stood a moment clear, and 
 then vanished, even before the gray eyes of his 
 Grace of Alchester had lost their expectant smile. 
 How swiftly they came and went, it is hard to 
 give an idea of. They take so long to tell, so 
 unwillingly do words carry pictures. 
 
 These are the things which came to David
 
 106 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 Oliphant, in clear and solemn vision, during the 
 five minutes ere he answered the Bishop of Al- 
 
 chester. 
 
 * * * # * * * 
 
 He saw aa old gray-headed man, who worshiped, 
 leaning upon the top of his staff, in a sheltered 
 nook behind a low whitewashed Galloway farm- 
 house. He held his broad bonnet in his hands, 
 and the wind blew a stray lock over a brow like 
 a weather-beaten cliff. His lips moved, but there 
 was no sound. A little lad of five came pattering 
 up the foot- worn path which led to the private 
 oratory of the family high priest. He had asked 
 hurriedly of the general public of the kitchen, 
 " What gate did G'appagae?" but without wait- 
 ing for the superfluous answer, he trotted along 
 that well-known path that " G'appa " always 
 " gaed." The silent prayer ended, the pair took 
 their way hand in hand to the heights of the 
 crags, where, under its shallow covering of turf 
 and heather, the gray teeth of the granite shone. 
 As they sit they speak, each to the other like men 
 accustomed to high and serious discourse. 
 
 " But why did the martyrs not go to the kirk 
 the king wanted them to ? " the child asked. 
 
 The old man rose, strong now on his feet, the 
 fire in his eye, his natural force not abated. He 
 pointed north to whereon Auchenreoch Muir, the 
 slender shaft of the martyrs' monument, gleamed
 
 DAVID OLIPHANT. 107 
 
 white among the darker heather south to where 
 on Kirkconnel hillside Grier son of Lag found six 
 living men and left six corpses west toward 
 Wigtown Bay, where the tide drowned two of the 
 bravest of women, tied like dogs to a stake east 
 to the kirk-yards of Balweary and Nether 
 Dullarg, where under the trees the martyrs of 
 Scotland lie thick as gowans on the lea. The fire 
 of the Lord was in his eye. 
 
 "Dinna forget, David Oliphant," he said, his 
 voice high and solemn, as in a chant, " that these 
 all died for Christ's cause and covenant. They 
 were murdered because they worshiped God ac- 
 cording to their conscience. Remember, boy, till 
 the day of your death, that among these men were 
 your forebears, and forget not also who they were 
 that slew them ! " 
 
 And after twenty years the late scholar of St. 
 Magnus remembered. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Again the young man saw a wide black night 
 filled with the echoes of thundering and the rush- 
 ing of rain. The same child stood in the open 
 doorway, and, weeping, called pitifully for 
 " Grandfather." There was no answer, but the 
 whole firmament lightened with white flame from 
 east to west ; and in that silent moment of infinite 
 clearness he saw his grandfather's figure upright 
 on the knoll before the house, the head thrown
 
 108 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 upward toward that intense whiteness where the 
 heavens seemed to open and the very face of God 
 to look through. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Once more he saw a Sabbath morning, still with 
 the primeval stillness of " a land where no man 
 comes or hath come since the making of the 
 world." Peace all about the farm-steading, silence 
 on all the fields, hardly a bleat from the lambs 
 on the hill ; within a cool and calm crispness as 
 of homespun linen kept in lavender. It was the 
 silence which in an old Cameronian household 
 succeeded the " taking of the Buik " on the morn- 
 ing of the day of the Lord. 
 
 Suddenly at the outer door the old man appears, 
 and he calls upstairs to his couple of manly sons 
 to him ever but lads to do his will " Boys, 
 bring the 'Queen's Airms' * up to the march 
 dike this minute ! " The men come down the 
 stairs, and without any show of surprise, take 
 down the old muskets off the wall, provide them- 
 selves with powder and shot, and follow their 
 father along the wide stony sweep of the hill-road. 
 The little lad also follows, with a sense that the 
 bottom has dropped out of his universe when 
 guns could be taken down on Sabbath morning. 
 
 * " Queen's Airms," i. e., muskets of the reign of Queen 
 Anne.
 
 DAVID OLIPHANT. 109 
 
 In the brisk morning sun a scattered group of 
 men and dogs was drawing slowly through the 
 great gaps in the pine woods toward the gate 
 which was the entrance of the small, rock-bound 
 farm. At this gate the old man stands, his stal- 
 wart sons behind him, his broad blue bonnet in 
 his hand. The hunters come coursing over the 
 green. But ere any one can open the gate, the 
 old man steps forward, his white head bare to 
 the sun. David Oliphant can see the white hairs 
 glisten even now. 
 
 " My lord," he says, " forty year I have been 
 on your land and your father's land. It does not 
 become me to tell you that you are breaking the 
 law of God by hunting the beasts of the field on 
 His day ; but, rny lord, one thing you cannot do 
 you cannot break it on this land as long as I 
 am upon it ! " 
 
 The great laird came forward, young and 
 passionate, a Rehoboara of many foolish coun- 
 selors. 
 
 "What's that he says, Daly? That we can't 
 hunt on his farm! I'll teach the canting old 
 hypocrite that every yard belongs to me. Open 
 the gate, Daly ! " 
 
 " My lord," said the old man, " I am not care- 
 ful to answer you concerning this matter, but I 
 beseech you for your father's memory not to do 
 this thing."
 
 110 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 The young man wavered ; but a murmur arose 
 from his companions. 
 
 " Don't let them spoil the sport with their cant- 
 ing and their blunderbusses. Stand out of the 
 way, Oliphant ! Down with the gates, Daly ! " 
 
 But Daly was not destined to take the gates 
 down, for once again the voice of the Cameronian 
 elder rang out, steady and respectful as ever. 
 
 "My lord, it is not my will to shed human 
 blood, or to resist you by force, though I might 
 well do it, but I solemnly warn you I will shoot 
 every dog of yours that sets foot on my land this 
 day. Boys, are you ready ? Stan' forrit ! " 
 ******* 
 
 The visions melted from before David Oliphant, 
 and he saw only the patient bishop waiting his 
 answer, yawning a little because his dinner was 
 deferred. But there was no uncertainty in the 
 young man's answer. 
 
 " My lord," said he, with the steady voice and 
 eye that had come to him from his grandfather, 
 " I thank you heartily for your good and kindly 
 thought for me. Indeed, I am in no way deserv- 
 ing of your interest ; but, such as I am, I must 
 cleave to my own church and my own people ! "
 
 THE THREE MAISTER PETEK SLEES. Ill 
 
 THE THREE MAISTER PETER SLEES, MIN- 
 ISTERS IN THE PARISH OF COUTHY. 
 
 REPORTED VERBATIM FROM THE CONVERSATION OF 
 WILLIAM M'KIE, GRAVEDIGGER AND MINISTER'S 
 MAN. 
 
 IT was a still summer evening in the slack 
 between hay and harvest on the farm of Drum- 
 quhat. The Galloway moors rose in long purple 
 ridges to the west. The sun had set, and in the 
 hollows pools of mist were gathering, islanded 
 with clumps of willow. The "maister" had 
 made his nightly rounds, and was now medita- 
 tively taking his smoke, leaning on the gate at 
 the head of the loaning, and looking over a green 
 cornfield, through the raw color of which the first 
 yellow was beginning to glimmer. From the 
 village half a mile away he could hear the clink 
 of the smith's anvil. There came into his mind 
 a slow thought of the good crack going on there, 
 and he erected himself as far as a habitual stoop 
 would allow him, as if he proposed " daunerin' " 
 over to the village to make one of the company in 
 the heartsome " smiddy." 
 
 For a moment he stood undecided, and then
 
 112 THE STICKIT MINISTEB. 
 
 deliberately resumed his former position with his 
 elbows on the " yett." Saunders MaWhurr had 
 remembered his wife. To do him justice, it was 
 seldom that he forgot her. But in his single per- 
 pendicular moment Saunders had been able to 
 see over the stone dike which hid from him the 
 broken and deceptive path which led from the 
 farm along the burnside and over the meadows 
 to the village of Whunnyliggat. What he saw 
 would have astonished a stranger, but it did not 
 even induce Saunders to take a second look. A 
 man was approaching up the loaning, apparently 
 on all-fours. The farmer knew instinctively that 
 the stranger was no stranger to him. He only 
 saw William Kie, gravedigger and minister's man, 
 walking as he had walked any time these forty 
 years. [William's name was strictly, no doubt, 
 JTJSfte, but the Mac was as hopelessly lost as the 
 Books of Manetho.] He even remembered Will- 
 iam when he was a dashing young hedger and 
 ditcher, with a red plush waistcoat for the lasses 
 to look at on Sabbaths as they walked modestly 
 from the churchyard gate to the door of Couthy 
 Kirk. 
 
 That was before William got his hurt by being 
 thrown off a hearse in the famous south country 
 snow-storm of the 1st of May. William Kie had 
 never married. Why, you shall hear some day 
 if you care, for once in a mellow mood William
 
 THE THREE MAISTER PETER SLEES. US 
 
 told me the story in his whitewashed bachelor's 
 house, that stood with its gable end to the street* 
 opposite the Free Kirk School. The bairns vexed 
 his soul by playing " Antony Over " against the 
 end of his house, and running into his garden for 
 the ball when, at every third throw, it went 
 among the beadle's kale. Had they been the 
 pupils of the authorized parochial dominie at the 
 other end of the village, William might have 
 bore it with some degree of equal mind ; but, as 
 he said, a beadle for forty years in the parish kirk 
 is bound to have his feelings about the Free Kirk. 
 
 The farmer of Drumquhat did not turn round 
 in reply to the greeting of the minister's man. 
 He, too, had his feelings, for he was a " Free " 
 and an elder. 
 
 He said, " Thank ye, Weelum, I canna compleen. 
 Hoo's yersel'?" 
 
 " No' that weel, Drumquhat ; things are awfu* 
 drug [slow]. I haena buried but yin since Mar- 
 tinmas no' a sowl for fowar months, and the last 
 but a tramp body that drooned himseF in the 
 Dee a three-fit grave that I made ower narrow 
 an' had to widen in the sweat o' my broo never 
 a bawbee extra for't frae the parish, but a grum- 
 mel from that thrawn stick o' a registrar ! " 
 
 " Man alive ! " said Saunders MaWhurr, indif- 
 ferently, his thoughts being arithmetically with 
 his calves as he watched Jo, his farm boy, turn 
 8
 
 114 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 them out into the field. The gravedigger knew 
 that the farmer's attention was perfunctory, but 
 he was not offended, for Saunders kept three pair 
 of horse and a gig. Instinctively, however, he 
 took up a subject that was bound to interest a 
 Free Kirk elder. 
 
 He said, " Did you hear what we got at the Hie 
 Kirk yesterday ? I dare say no'. Yer plooman 
 was there, I ken, to see Jess Coupland ; but him 
 he disna ken a sermon frae an exposeetion, let 
 alane bringing awa' the fine points o' sic a dis- 
 coorse as we gat yesterday." 
 
 " He was oot a' nicht, an I havna seen him since 
 he lowsed," said Saunders, in his non-committal 
 manner. " But what did ye get to mak' ye craw 
 sae croose ? No' a new sermon, 1'se warrant ! " 
 
 " Weel, na, he didna exactly gang that length ; 
 but, dod, it was better than that it was a new 
 yin o 1 his grandfather's/ Whaur he had fa'en 
 on wi't is mair than I can say, but the manse 
 lass tells me that he was howkin' up in the garret 
 twa efternoons last week, an' a bonny sicht he 
 made o' himsel' ! " 
 
 In a moment the farmer of Drumquhat was 
 quite a different man ; he even offered William 
 Kie a share of the gate to lean upon by silently 
 stepping aside, which was a great deal for a man 
 in his position. William acknowledged his kind- 
 ness by silently seating himself on a broken gate-
 
 THE THREE MAISTEE PETER SLEES, 115 
 
 post lying at the dike-back. This was what is 
 known in learned circles as a compromise. 
 
 The beadle took up his parable : " As sune as 
 he steppit oot o' the manse, I could see that there 
 was something onusual in the wund. First, I 
 thocht that it micht be clean bands that the mis- 
 tress had gotten for him ; for Mistress Slee was in 
 gey guid fettle last week, an' I didna ken what she 
 michtna hae dune ; but when I saw him tak' oot 
 o' his case the same auld pair that he has worn 
 since the Sacrament afore last ye can juist tell 
 them frae the color o' the goon I kenned that it 
 bood be something else that was makkin' him sae 
 brisk. Man, Saunders," said William, forgetting 
 to say " Drumquhat," as he had intended, which 
 was counted more polite from a man like him, 
 " Man, Saunders, I dinna ken whaur my een could 
 hae been, for I even gat a glisk o' the sermon as 
 it gaed intil the Buik, yet never for a minute did 
 I jaloose what was comin'." 
 
 Ah, man, Weelum, an' what was't ava ? " said 
 Saunders, now thoroughly awake to a congenial 
 topic. He was glad that he had not gone down 
 to the " smiddy " now, for Saunders was not in 
 the habit of opening out there before so many. 
 
 " Weel, Saunders, as I am tellin' you, it was a 
 new sermon o' his granfaither's, daecent man, 
 him that lies aneath the big thruch stane in the 
 wast corner o' the kirk-yard. It's maistly covered
 
 116 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 vri' dockens an' soorocks noo, for the Maister Slee 
 that we hae the noo is raair fameeliar wi' his fore- 
 bears' ban' o' write than wi' the bit stanies that 
 baud them daecently doon till Gawbriel's trump 
 bids them rise ! " 
 
 " Haun' o' write ! " quoth Saunders ; " what can 
 the craitur mean ? " 
 
 " Saunders MaWhurr," said the minister's man 
 solemnly, " therty year an' inair hae 1 carried the 
 Buik, an' howkit the yaird, an' dibbled the cab- 
 bage for the Maister Slees, faither an' son. Ay, 
 an' I mind brawly o' the granfaither a graim' 
 figure o' a man him, sax fit two in his buckled 
 shoon. Saunders, I'm no' an' upsettin' man, an' 
 quate-spoken even on Setterday nicht, but ye will 
 aloo that I'm bun' to ken something aboot the 
 three Peter Slees, ministers o' the parish o' 
 Couthy." 
 
 " Gae on," said Saunders. 
 
 " Weel, it's no' onkenned to you that the twa 
 first Maister Slees wraite their sermons, for they 
 were self-respecktin' men, an' nae ranters haiver- 
 in' oof o' their heids ! Na " 
 
 " What aboot the granfaither, Weelum ? " put 
 in Saunders, quickly, avoiding, in the interests of 
 history, contentious matter upon which at another 
 time he would gladly have accepted gage of battle. 
 
 " Weel, the granfaither was, as I hae said, a 
 ', solit man, wi' a reed face on him like the
 
 THE THREE MAISTER PETER 8LEES. 117 
 
 mune in hairst, an' sic a bonny heid o' hair it was 
 hardly considered daecent in the parish o' Couthy. 
 Fowk used to think he wore a wig till they saw 
 him on horseback, for he wad ride wi' his hat in 
 his haun', an' his hair blawin' oot in the wund 
 like Absalom's. He was a rale fine moral 
 preacher, reared in the hinder end o' the last cent- 
 ury, but neyther to haud nor to bind if onybody 
 ca'ed him a Moderate. In deed an' truth, onybody 
 that saw him wi' the laird when the twasome 
 had been haein' denner thegither, could see that 
 was a lee an' a big yin ! " 
 
 " Juist that," said the farmer of Drumquhat. 
 
 " But when he preached on the Sabbath he gied 
 the fowk no gospel to ca' gospel, but he did mak' 
 them scunner with the Law ; an' when he preached 
 on justice, temperance, an' judgment to come, 
 there wasna a shut ee in a Couthy Kirk ! Fine I 
 mind o' it, though I was but a callant, an' hoo I 
 wussed that he wad hae dune an' let me hame to 
 mak' pyowes o' poother for the fair on Monday. 
 
 " The faither o' oor present Maister Slee ye'll 
 mind yersel'. He was a strong Non-Instrusion 
 man afore the ' forty-three,' as strong as it was 
 in the craitur to be. A' fowk thocht that he 
 wad hae corned oot wi' the lave, an' sae I believe 
 he wad but for the wife, wha lockit him in the 
 garret for three days, an' gied him his meals 
 through the sky-licht I
 
 118 THE STICKIT MINISTEB. 
 
 " His sermons were like himsel', like pease brose 
 made o' half a pun o' peas to the boilerf u' o' water 
 rale evangelical, ye ken, but meat for babes, 
 hardly for grown fowk. 
 
 " I needna tell ye, eyther, aboot young Maister 
 Slee ; weel, he's no' young noo ony mair than 
 oorsel's." 
 
 Humph ! " said Saunders. 
 
 " He preaches aboot the lilies o' the field, hoo 
 bonny they are, an' aboot the birds o' the air, an' 
 the mowdies in the yaird the very craws he 
 canna let alane. He said the ither Sabbath day 
 that fowk that wraite guid resolutions in their 
 note-buiks to keep oot the de'il war like the 
 farmer that shut the yetts o' his cornfields to keep 
 oot the craws ! " 
 
 " That's nane sae stupit ! " said Saunders. 
 
 " Na ; he's a graun' naiteralist, the body," said 
 the minister's man, " an' when the big Enbra' 
 societies come doon here to glower an' wunner at 
 the bit whurls an' holes in the rocks, he's the 
 verra man to tak' them to the bit ; an' whan the 
 Crechton Asylum fowk cam' doon to a picnic, as 
 they ca'ed it, it was Maister Slee that gied them 
 a lectur' on the bonny heuchs o' Couthy. An* 
 faith, I couldna tell ye what yin o' the twa com* 
 panies was the mair sensible. 
 
 " Weel, to mak' a lang story short, if I get a 
 lair guid look at the paper when he pits it intil
 
 THE THREE MAISTEB PETEE SLEES. 119 
 
 the Bulk, I can tell by the yellaness o't whether 
 it's his ain, or his faither's, or his granfaither's ; 
 but I maistly forget to look, for he generally gies 
 us them day aboot, beginnin' on the Sacrament 
 wi' his faither's famous discoorse, * As a nail in a 
 sure place,' that we had every sax months, till the 
 Glencairn joiner, a terrible outspoken body, telt 
 him that that nail wadna haud in that hole ony 
 langer ! 
 
 " But when he begins to preach, we sune ken 
 wha's barrel he has been in, for if we hear o' oor 
 duty to the laird, an' the State, an' them in au- 
 thority ower us, we say, ' If the wast wunda was 
 open, an' the auld man wad cock his lug, he wad 
 hear something that he wad ken.' On the ither 
 haun', if we hear aboot these present sad 
 troubles, an' speeritual independence, an' effect- 
 ual calling, we ken he's been howkin' in the big 
 beef-barrel whaur the Pre-Disruption sermons o' 
 his daddy lie in pickle. 
 
 " Sae yesterday he gied us a terrible startle wi' 
 a new yin o' his granfaither's that nae man leevin' 
 had ever heard." 
 
 " An' what was his text ? " said practical 
 Saunders. 
 
 " 'Deed, an' I'm no' sae guid at mindin' texts as 
 I yince was ; but the drift o' it was that we war 
 to be thankfu' for the recent maist remarkable 
 preservation o' oor land in the great victory that
 
 120 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 the Duke o' Wellington an' oor noble airmy had 
 won ower the usurper Bonyparty on the plains o' 
 Waterloo ! " 
 " That maun hae been a treat ! " said Saunders. 
 
 THE COURTSHIP OF ALLAN FAIRLEY, OF 
 EARLS WOOD. 
 
 THIS is no carried tale, but just as the minis- 
 ter himself told it to me. He was pleased like 
 when he telled me, an' I am giving you what is 
 not to be told to everybody. Not that Allan 
 Fairley need be ashamed, but proud the rather 
 if every soul from here to Maidenkirk had the 
 outs and the ins of the story at their fingers' end. 
 But I'm telling you that you may know the 
 right way of the story, for there's as many ways 
 of it as bees in a bike. 
 
 The way I came to hear it was this. Allan and 
 the wife were at Drumquhat overnight on their 
 marriage jaunt, him being sib to my mistress, 
 and prood of the connection, as he has a right to 
 be. My wife was a wee feared about having her 
 in the house, being aware that she was a Gordon 
 of Earlswood the auldest stock in Galloway, 
 and brought up to be a lady-body. But she need
 
 THE COURTSHIP OF ALLAN FAIBLEY. . 121 
 
 have had no fears, for ye never saw gentle or 
 semple mair free or heartsome. She ran to the 
 barn to help to gather the eggs, and got five, 
 three being nest-eggs and a cheena one that was 
 put there to deceive the chuckles. She kilted 
 her coats and helped to feed the calves. Then 
 she was for learning to milk, but Black Bet laid 
 back her lugs, and in the hinder end kicked ower 
 the luggie ; and there was never such laughing in 
 Drumquhat since it was a farm town. She made 
 herseV as merry and heartsome as though there 
 had never been a Gordon in Earlswood or a Doug- 
 las in the Isle. And Allan watched her as if he 
 could not let her out of his sight smiling like a 
 man that dreams a pleasant dream but fears he 
 will awaken. Then when her dancing een came 
 across his steady, quiet look, she would come 
 behind him and put her hands over his eyes, ask- 
 ing what she had done that he should look at her 
 like that. 
 
 " You haven't found out my last murder yet, 
 Allan ! " she would say, and Allan would shift in 
 his chair well pleased to watch her. It was gur- 
 ley weather when they were at Drumquhat 
 
 " The wind made wave the red weed on the dike, 
 An' guiT weather gruit beast's hair," 
 
 quoted Allan, who has store of ballads beyond
 
 122 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 what most ministers think it their duty to carry. 
 When the wife was off with the candles and her 
 hostess's mysteries (mostly kindly fuss and a 
 chance to gossip) to see Allan's young guidwife 
 to her chamber, Allan and me sat a gye while 
 glowering at the red of the peat, till I broke the 
 silence that had fallen between us the silence of 
 companionship, with the question that rose quite 
 natural, for it was not yesterday or the day before 
 that I first kenned the lad. " Ay, Allan, lad, an' 
 where did ye fa' on wi' her ? " I could see the 
 pride good honest pride rising in Allan's face, 
 flushing his cheek, and setting his eye fairly in a 
 lowe, as he answered, " Ay, Saunders, didna I do 
 the best day's work ever I did when I got her ? " 
 This was my own thought for the lad, but I only 
 said " An' boo did ye fa' on wi' her ? " 
 
 " It's a long story, Saunders, but Til tell you " 
 here he glanced at the clock, him that used to 
 sit till the cocks were crawin' a merry midnight 
 " I'll tell ye briefly," says he. " The wives are 
 not long in making us ' like the horse or mule, 
 
 Whose mouth, lest they come near to him, 
 A bridle must command.' " 
 
 I quoted this once to my wife, who replied: 
 "Humph, an' I never heard ye war the waur o't 
 'b.orseor mule,'" quo she; "fegs, it's anither
 
 THE COURTSHIP OF ALLAN FAIRLEY. 123 
 
 quaderaped I was referrin' to!" But at this 
 point I had business in the stable. 
 
 "To begin at the beginning," said Allan. 
 " When I was elected to the parish of Earlswood, 
 I was the people's candidate, ye maun ken. I 
 had four hundred votes to thirty-three; but 
 Walter Douglas Gordon of Earlswood, sole 
 heritor of the parish, was against me. He pro- 
 posed a far-out friend of his own, never dream- 
 ing but he would be elected without a word, and 
 ye may guess what a back-set he got when only 
 his foresters and them that was most behadden 
 to him voted for his m'an." 
 
 " He wad neyther be to haud nor bin'," said I. 
 
 "Na," said Allan, "and in open kirk meeting 
 he cuist up to them that was proposin' me that 
 my faither was but a plooman, and my mither 
 knitted his hose. But he forgot that the days 
 of patronage were by, for the Cross Roads joiner 
 rises, and says he : * I ken Allan Fairley, and I ken 
 his faither an' mither, an' they hae colleged their 
 son as honestly on plooin' an' stockin'-knittin' as 
 your son on a' the rents o' Earlswood ! ' 
 
 " ' He'll never be minister o' the parish of Earls- 
 wood wi' my guid-wull ! ' says he ! 
 
 " He'll e'en be minister o' Earlswood withoot it, 
 then,' said the joiner an honest man, not 
 troubled with respect of persons. 'There's nae 
 richt o' pit an' gallows noo, laird ! ' says he.
 
 124 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 " ' An' it's as well for you and your like ! ' said 
 the Laird of Earlswood, as he strode out of the 
 kirk, grim as Archie Bell-the-Cat. 
 
 " Weel, Saunders, I considered that four 
 hundred was a good enough off-set against thirty- 
 five of Earlswood foresters and cot-men, so I was 
 settled in the parish, and took my mither from 
 her knitting to keep the manse." 
 
 " Honor thy father and thy mother ! " said I. 
 You did well, Allan." 
 
 " The folk at the big house left the kirk and 
 drove over to the Episcopalians at Ford, but I 
 went to call, as it was my duty to do. And I met a 
 young lady in the grounds and asked her the way." 
 
 " I ken they are extensive," says I ; "it was as 
 weel to mak' sure of your road ! " 
 
 " Yes," said Allan, ignoring a slight significance 
 of tone," I asked the way, and the young lady kind- 
 ly walked with me to the door. This was the mes- 
 sage that the footman brought back, the young 
 lady standing by : ' Mr. Gordon declines to see 
 you, and if you come on the premises again, he 
 will have you prosecuted for trespass.' " 
 
 " Of course he couldna uphaud that," I put in. 
 
 " Very likely no'," said Allan, "but it was sore 
 to bide from a poo'dered fitman on Earlswood 
 doorstep under the blue een o' Grace Gordon ! " 
 
 " An' what did the say ? " I asked, curious for 
 once.
 
 THE COURTSHIP OF ALLAN FAIRLBY. 126 
 
 " Say ! " said Allan, proudly ; " this is what 
 she did: ' Permit me to offer you an apology, Mr. 
 Fairley,' she said, ' and to show you the private 
 path through the fir plantation which you may 
 not know.' Oh, I know it was maybe no' lady- 
 like, Saunders " 
 
 " But it was awf u' woman-like ! " said I. 
 
 " I'll no' say anything about the walk through 
 the plantation,'' said Allan Fairley, who no doubt 
 had his own sacred spots like other folk ; " but I 
 have no need to deny that a new thing came into 
 my life that day when the rain-drops sparkled on 
 the fir needles. I mind the damp smell o' them 
 to this day." (And there is no doubt that the 
 boy would to his dying day. I mind mysel' but 
 there is no need going into that.) 
 
 " The time gaed on as it has the gait of doing," 
 Allan continued, " and things settled a wee, and 
 I thocht that they would maybe all come round 
 except Earls wood, of course. Ye maun ken thai 
 there's a big colony o' dreadf u' respectable gentry 
 in oor parish retired tradesfolk frae Glasgow 
 and Edinburgh, with a pickle siller and a back- 
 load o' pride." 
 
 " I ken the clan ! " says I. 
 
 " Weel, Saunders, ye'll hardly believe what I'm 
 gaun to tell you, but it's no made story I'm tell- 
 ing you. There was two o' them cam' to the 
 manse yae uictit," aia AUan, lapsing into his
 
 126 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 Doric, " and the lass show ed them until the study. 
 It was gye an' dark, but they wadna hear o* 
 lichtin' the lamp, an' I didna wunner or a' was 
 dune. They didna seem to have come aboot ony- 
 thing in partiklar, but they couldna get awa', so 
 they sat an' just mishandled the rims o' their 
 hats. They lookit at yin anither an' oot at the 
 wunda, an' up at the ceilin', but they never lookit 
 at me. At last yin o' them, a writer body, said in 
 a kin' o' desperation, ' Mr. Fairley, we have been 
 deputed to tell you what the better classes of 
 the parish think would be the best for you to 
 do' 
 
 : ' ' I am muckle obliged for the interest of the 
 better classes of the parish in my affairs,' says I ; 
 but he gaed on like a bairn that has his lesson 
 perfect. 
 
 " ' They think that it is a very noble thing ot 
 you to provide for your mother filial piety and 
 so on ' here he was at a loss, so he waved his 
 hands 'but you must be aware that that I have 
 a difficulty in expressing my meaning that the 
 ladies of the congregation, however willing, are 
 as unable to call upon Mistress Fairley, as it would 
 no doubt be embarrassing for her to receive them. 
 Would it not be better that some other arrange- 
 ment some smaller cottage could surely be 
 taken" 
 
 " He got no further ; he wadna hae gotten as
 
 THE COURTSHIP OF ALLAN FAIRLEY. 127 
 
 far if for a moment I had jaloosed his drift. I 
 got on my feet. I could hardly keep my hands 
 off them, minister as I was ; but I said : * Gentle- 
 men, you are aware of what you ask me to do. 
 You ask me to turn out of my house the mither that 
 bore me, the mither that learned me " The Lord's 
 my Shepherd," the mither that wore her fingers 
 near the bane, that I might gang to the college, 
 that selled her bit plenishin', that my manse micht 
 be furnished! Ye ask me to show her to the 
 door I'LL SHOW YOU TO THE DOOR ! ' an' to the 
 door they gaed ! " 
 
 "Weel dune! That was my ain Allan!'' 
 cried I. 
 
 " The story was ower a' the parish the next day, 
 as ye may guess, an' wha but Miss Gordon o' 
 Earlswood ca'ed on my mither the day efter that, 
 an' kissed her on the doorstep as she gaed away. 
 
 The lawyer's wife saw her. 
 
 " There was a great gathering o' the clans at 
 Earlswood when it a' cam' oot, but Grace had the 
 blood of Archibald the Grim as weel as her faither ; 
 an' she stood by the black armor of the Earlswood 
 who died at Flodden by the king, and said she 
 afore them a' : ' I have heard what you say of Mr. 
 Fairley, now you shall all hear what I say. I say 
 that I love Allan Fairley with all my heart, and 
 if one of you says another word against him, I 
 shall walk down to Earlswood manse and ask
 
 128 THE STJCKIT MINISTER. 
 
 Allan Fairley if he will marry Grace Gordon as 
 
 she stands ! ' " 
 
 * # * # # # * 
 
 " Saunders," said my wife, entering as if she 
 had not been having an hour long woman's gossip 
 with Grace Fairley, " Saunders, there'll be nae 
 word o' this when the clock strikes five the mor- 
 row's morn. I wunner at you, Allan Fairley, a 
 mairriet man, keepin' him oot o' his bed till this 
 time o' iiicht wi' yer clavers ! " 
 
 The meeting here broke up in confusion. 
 
 THE REVEREND JOHN SMITH, OF ARK- 
 LAND, PREPARES HIS SERMON. 
 
 IT is Friday, and the minister of Arkland was 
 writing his sermon. Things had not gone well in 
 Arkland that week. The meeting of the church 
 court charged with the temporalities had not 
 passed off well on Tuesday. One man especially 
 had hurt the minister in a sensitive place. This 
 was Peter M'Robert, the shoemaker. The min- 
 ister had represented that a bath in a manse was 
 not a luxury but a necessity, when Peter M'Robert 
 said that as for him he had never "had sic a thing 
 in his life, an' as for the minister, that auld Maister
 
 JOHN SMITH, OF ARKLAND. 129 
 
 Drouthy had dune without yin in the manse for 
 thirty-three year to the satisfaction o' the pairish." 
 
 Then there had been certain differences of 
 opinion within the manse itself, and altogether the 
 sermon had been begun with the intention of dress- 
 ing down the offending parishioners. Nearly all 
 sermons are personal to the preacher. They have 
 been awakened within him by some circumstance 
 which has come to his knowledge during the week. 
 Preachers use this fact for good or evil, according 
 to their kind. 
 
 A plain man was John Smith, of Arkland as 
 plain and hodden gray as his name. He had 
 succeeded to the church with the largest majority 
 that had been known in the presbytery, for in 
 that neighborhood to have given a man a unani- 
 mous call would have been considered a disgrace 
 and a reflection on the critical discrimination of 
 the congregation. He had tried to do his duty 
 without fear or favor, only asking that his hands 
 should not be tied. He visited the sick with a 
 plain, quiet helpfulness which brought sympathy 
 with it as surely as the minister entered the house. 
 His sermons were not brilliant, but they were 
 staves and crutches to many. 
 
 Now as he sat at his manse window that bitter 
 
 November morning he watched the rain volleying 
 
 on the round causeway stones and the wide spaces 
 
 of the village street dimly white with the dancing 
 
 9
 
 130 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 spray. The minister felt grimly in unison with 
 the elements as he sat framing his opening sen- 
 tences. He had chosen his text from a wonderful 
 chapter. " Wisdom is justified of her children." 
 And in this wise he began to write: "To be 
 ignorant is to be dangerous. The ignorant man, 
 though he be but one, can make of no account the 
 wisdom of many men. After the wise of many 
 generations have been striving to teach a people 
 wisdom, a knave or a fool may come and cry 
 aloud, ' There is no god but ourselves, there is no 
 law but our own desires, there is no hereafter but 
 the grave which we share with our sister the worm 
 and our brother the dead dog ! ' Yet so great is 
 the folly of man that such an one may draw away 
 much people after him into the wilderness of sin 
 and self-indulgence. It is in accordance with the 
 nature of man that ignorance and narrowness 
 should often succeed where wisdom is wholly 
 rejected." 
 
 " That will do," said the minister, looking over 
 his work. He had Peter M'Robert in his mind, 
 and he rose and walked his study, " mandating " 
 his opening sentences with appropriate gestures, 
 much to the astonishment of Marget Lowrie in 
 the kitchen, who said, " Save us ! What's wrang 
 wf the minister ? This is no' Setturday ! " 
 
 As he came in his sentry walks to the window, 
 which looked up the rain-swept street, he saw a
 
 JOHN SMITH, OF AKKLAND. 131 
 
 dark-colored oblong patch with a strange protu- 
 berance on the right side, hirpling like a decrepit 
 beetle athwart the road, till, being caught at the 
 manse corner by a bitter swirl, this irregular 
 shape 
 
 " If shape it could be called, that shape had none," 
 
 stumbled and fell within thirty yards of the study 
 window, discharging on the muddy road an ava- 
 lanche of shavings, small branches, knobs, angles, 
 and squares of wood. In a moment the minister 
 was out at the door and was helping old Nance 
 Kissock to her feet, and then under the eyes of 
 all the wives in the village assisting her to collect 
 again her bagful of chips and kindlings which the 
 good-natured joiner allowed her to take once a 
 week from his floor. 
 
 " I hope you are none the worse, Nance? " said 
 the minister. 
 
 "I thank ye, Maister Smith; I'm sair for- 
 foughten wi' the wun', but gin the Almichty be 
 willing, I'll be at the kirk on Sabbath to hear ye. 
 It's guid to think on a' the week what ye tell 
 us. Whiles it gars me forget the verra rheu- 
 matics ! " 
 
 When the minister got back into the friendly 
 shelter of his study, he took up the sheet which 
 he had laid down in order to rush out to Nance 
 Eissock's assistance. He read it over, but when
 
 182 THE 8TTCKIT MINISTBB. 
 
 he took his pen again, he did not seem to like it 
 so well. If Nance were speaking the truth, and 
 she fed during the week on the spiritual food 
 which she received in his kirk on the Sabbath, 
 he could not conceal from himself that next week 
 she had a good chance of going hungry. Yet he 
 could not allow Peter M'Robert to get off with- 
 out a word, so he put the thought away from him 
 and went on with his task. " How often does a 
 man of limited view mistake his own limitations 
 for the possibilities of others. He never judges 
 himself he could not if he would and naturally 
 when he judges others it is only to condemn 
 them." A gust more then ordinarily powerful 
 took the minister again to the window, and he 
 saw John Scott, the herd from the Dornel, wring- 
 ing the wet from his plaid. He knew that he had 
 come down to the village from the hills three 
 miles out of his road to get his wife's medicine. 
 Presently he would trudge away manfully back 
 again to the cot-house on the edge of the heather. 
 Now, the minister knew that come storm or 
 calm John Scott would be at the kirk on the next 
 day but one, and that he would carry away in 
 the cool, quiet brain that lay behind the broad 
 brow the heads and particulars of the sermon he 
 heard. As he went steadily knitting his stock- 
 ing, conquering the heather with strides long 
 and high, visiting his black-faced flock, he would
 
 JOHN SMITH, OF ARKLAND. 133 
 
 go revolving the message that his minister had 
 given him in the house of God. 
 
 " Wisdom is justified of her children," repeated 
 the minister, doggedly ; but his text now awak- 
 ened no fervor. There was no enthusiasm in it. 
 He thought that he would go out and let the 
 November winds drive the rain into his face for 
 a tonic. So he slipped on his Inverness and let 
 himself out. His feet carried him toward the 
 garret of one of his best friends, where an aged 
 woman, blind and infirm, was spending the latter 
 end of her days. She could not now come to 
 church, therefore the minister went often to her 
 for it was sunshine to him also to bring light 
 into that very dark place where the aged serv- 
 ant of God waited her end. 
 
 Mary Garment knew his step far down the 
 stair, and she said to herself : " It is himsel ' ! " and 
 deep within her she gave thanks. " It is a great 
 thing to hae the bread o' life broken to us so 
 simply that we a' understan' it, Maister Smith," 
 she said. 
 
 " But, Mary, how long is it since you heard a 
 sermon of mine ? " 
 
 "It's true it's a lang time since I heard ye 
 preach, minister, but I hear o' yer sermons every 
 Sabbath. Yin and anither tells me pairt o't till 
 I get as muckle as I can think on." 
 
 As the minister said good-bye to Mary
 
 184 IKE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 Carment, she said: "Ye'll hae ower muckle to 
 think on to mind me on the Lord's day when 
 ye're speakin' for yer Maister ; but I hae nane 
 but you to mind, sir, so I'll be prayin' for you a* 
 the time that ye're uphaudin' His name." 
 
 " Thank you, Mary, I'll not forget ! " said her 
 minister. And he went out much strengthened. 
 
 As he went manse ward he passed the little 
 cobbler's den where Peter M'Robert was tap tap- 
 ping all the day, and the sound of Peter's terrible 
 cough called to him with a voice that claimed 
 him. He stepped in, and after the word of sal- 
 utation, he asked his office-bearer : 
 
 " Are you not thinking of getting that cough 
 attended to, Peter ? " he said. 
 
 " Wha me ? Na, no' me ; hoots, it's but a bit 
 boast, nocht to speak aboot, thank ye for speerin', 
 Maister Smith." 
 
 Just then the minister saw the doctor walking 
 rapidly up the far side of the street, calm-faced 
 and dignified, as if this howling November north- 
 easter were a beautiful June morning. Him he 
 summoned. 
 
 "Here's Peter'll no' speak to you about his 
 cough. He must have some of your drugs, 
 doctor." f 
 
 The doctor called the unwilling cobbler from 
 bis last, and after a brief examination, he said : 
 
 "No, I don't think there will be any need for
 
 JOHN SMITH, OF AEKLAND. 186 
 
 drugs, Mr. Smith; if you, Peter, will use a 
 gargle to get rid of a trifling local inflammation, 
 Less lapstone dust and less snuff, Peter, and 
 warm water three times a day," said the doctor, 
 succinctly, and proceeded on his rounds. 
 
 As the minister went out, Peter looked up with 
 a queer twinkle in his eye. 
 
 " Maister Smith," he said, " gin water be sae 
 needful for the inside o' a cobbler's thrapple, 
 maybe I was wrang in thinkin' that it wasna as 
 necessary for the ootside o' a minister ! " 
 
 " Then we'll say no more about it, Peter," said 
 the minister, smiling, as he closed the door. 
 " Mind your gargle ! " 
 
 When the minister got to his study, he never 
 stopped even to wipe his feet, and when the 
 mistress followed to remonstrate, she found him 
 putting his sermon in the fire. 
 
 ******* 
 
 The minister's text on the following Sabbath 
 morning was an old one, but it was no old 
 sermon that the* Arkland folk got that day. The 
 text was, " Come unto me all ye that labor and 
 are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." 
 
 Xance Kissock was there, and did not go home 
 hungry ; John Scott had come down from the 
 muirs, and had something better than physic to 
 take back to his ailing wife ; Peter M'Robert sat 
 in his corner looking cleaner than he had done
 
 136 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 within the memory of man also he never 
 coughed once ; no less than eight different folk 
 came in to tell blind Mary Carment about the 
 sermon. 
 
 But none but the minister knew who it was 
 that had been praying for him. 
 
 A DAY IN THE LIFE OF THE REVEREND 
 JAMES PITBYE, MINISTER OF NETHER 
 DULLARG. 
 
 THERE is no doubt that we in this part of the 
 world have the wale of ministers. And this is 
 what nobody but John Tamson of the Risk thinks 
 of denying; but then John was never a weel- 
 spoken body, and indeed had some bit thought of 
 trouble with the session in his young days long 
 before he was an elder himsel'. So nobody heeds 
 much what he says. 
 
 John was over at Drumquhat the other night, 
 and after him and me had settled our matters, he 
 was telling me about the minister that they had 
 got now in the parish of Nether Dullarg. 
 
 " Ay," says he, " he's a rale quaite chiel, oor 
 minister. Faut? Na, I hae no faut to find wi* 
 him. Na, he's rale ceevil."
 
 THE MINISTER OF NETHER DTJLLARG. 137 
 
 " I'm glad ye like your minister, for there's no 
 that mony pleases you, John," said I, to give an 
 opening, for I had heard that he was waur ta'en 
 with this minister than with all the rest. 
 
 "You'll see a heap of him, so to speak, just 
 over the dike ? " said my mistress. 
 
 " Ow, ay, he's no' that ill to see," he said, very 
 slowlike, for I could see that he was fair girnin.' 
 with what the clerk of our school board calls " an 
 ironical mainner o' speech." This is a thing no* 
 much affected in our countryside, except by John 
 Tamson himsel' and a road-man they call " Snash " 
 Magill. Snash, when the school board had him 
 up before them for not sending his bairns to the 
 new school at Dike End, had the assurance to ask 
 the chairman if his father would ever have been, 
 out of jail if there had been a school board in his 
 young days. But the board was very sore on him 
 for this, because they mostly all were much obli- 
 gated to the chairman or were nearly related to 
 them that were. 
 
 John Tamson is no* a man that I would be 
 fond of having for next neighbor myself, but he'd 
 very entertaining when he comes over forenicht. 
 He likes to sit in the kitchen, so when he is 
 at Drumquhat the men are very exact about 
 ' lowsin'-time," and I take a bit turn round the 
 yard myself, just to see that they don't skimp the 
 stabling of the horses in their hurry to get in to
 
 138 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 their supper, being well aware that John will be 
 in full blast, and anxious to miss as little as pos- 
 sible. 
 
 '" We f and f aut wi' oor last twa ministers for no* 
 atoppin' lang wi' us," said John, when we were 
 all quiet, for John can not do with folk " hotch- 
 in' an' fldgin'." If he had been a minister, as at 
 one time be thought of being, before his trouble, 
 he would have taken a drink and unfolded his 
 white napkin when the late folk are coming up 
 the aisle, as our Mr. Fairley does whiles to en- 
 courage them to be in time next Sabbath. " Ay, 
 fowk were no pleased wi' them for shiftin' so 
 quick, but that's no a faut that they'll hae to fin' 
 wi' Maister Pitbye, or I'm sair mista'en, for I'm 
 thinkin 1 that the Dullarg folk'll get him to 
 bury ! " 
 
 Here my wife put in her word as she stood at 
 the bakeboard the wife whiles allows that she 
 is scandalized with John's wild talk, but she finds 
 a great deal of work in the kitchen when he is 
 here, for all that. She " likes to hear the body's 
 din," as she once said when I tried her with a 
 chapter or two of Tammas Carlyle when I was 
 reading in the winter f orenichts about the Heroes. 
 * It's better than sittin' clockin' an' reading' a 
 body micht as weel no hae a man ava though I 
 can not mak' oot what the craitur wad be at, I 
 like to hear the body's din 1 " My wife's a good
 
 THE MINISTER OP NETHER DULLARG. 139 
 
 wife, but her tongue wad clip cloots, or as the 
 clerk o' the school board would say, she has " a 
 facility in expressing her meaning." 
 
 "I hear that he's a very quaite man," said 
 Mistress M'Quhirr; "but somebody was tellin' 
 me that he was no' considered a great veesitor." 
 
 " Veesitor, quo' she! " says John, with his birses 
 up in a moment, " hoo div ye think that the man 
 has time to veesit, considerin' the wark that he 
 pits through ban' in a day ! I wonder to hear ye, 
 Mistress MaWhurr ! " 
 
 The herd-boy got up off the settle, for it was 
 interesting to hear John Tamson uphaudin' the 
 ministers him bein' weel kenned for an Auld 
 Kirk elder and nae great professor. 
 
 "If I dinna ken what that man does in the day t 
 there's naebody kens," said John, raxing for a 
 peat to light his pipe. " Noo, I'll juist gie ye an 
 idea last Friday I was about the hoose a' day, 
 aff an' on, wi' a meer that was near the foalin'. 
 
 " At nine by the clock his bedroom blind gaed 
 up, an' he cam' doon the stair maybe a quarter o' 
 an 'oor after or thereby. The mistress had been 
 up an' aboot frae seven, an' had the bairns a* 
 washt an' dresst, an' oot at the back so as no to 
 waken their faither, or disturb him in his think- 
 in'. Weel, doon he comes an' gets his breakfast, 
 for I saw Betty takkin' in the cream frae the 
 larder at the end o' the hoose. She skimmed it
 
 140 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 aff the bairns' milk for their parritch, an' set it 
 there for the minister himsel', it being weel 
 kenned through a' Gallowa' that cream is needed 
 for the brain wark. Then there's a bell rings for 
 prayers, an' Betty synes herseF an' gangs ben, 
 an' their mither shoos the bairns out o' the sand- 
 hole, an' gies them a dicht to mak' them faceable 
 to gang in. Then in ten minutes they're a' oot 
 again, an' here comes himsel' for a rest an' a 
 smoke, and to look oot for the post. Maybes in 
 half an 'oor the post comes in sicht, wi' his 
 troosers buckled up, for he's an onmarried man 
 an' thinks a dale o' his reed braid The minister 
 has never moved, snaokin' an' thinkin', nae doot, 
 o' the Sabbath's sermon. The post gies him 
 twa-three papers an' letters, an' then yesterday's 
 Scotsman that he tak's alang wi' Maister Mac- 
 Phun doon at the Cross Roads. The post's auntie 
 cleans Maister MacPhun's kirk, so the post tak's 
 the paper up to the Dullarg for naething. 
 "They're juist from the Church Offices; take 
 them on to the manse, an' gie me the paper," he 
 says. Syne he sits doon, decent man, as he had 
 a good richt to do, on the green seat at the end o' 
 the hoose, an' wi' great an' surprisin' diligence 
 he reads the Scotsman till maybe half past twal. 
 But he has had cracks forbye in the byegaun, wi' 
 a farmer that had been at the smiddy, wi' John 
 Grier the tea-man, wha is an elder o' his an' never
 
 THE MINISTER OF NETHER DULLARG. 141 
 
 centres him in the session, an' forbye has sent twa 
 tramps doon the road wi' a' flea i' their lug, I'm 
 thinkin'. Then he lays the paper doon on's knees, 
 an' ye wad think that his studies war' makkin' 
 him sleepy ; but little do ye ken him if ye think 
 sae for roon the hoose efter a yella butterflee 
 comes his boy Jeems, wha disna promise to be 
 the quaite ceevil man his father is. He stops the 
 callant aboot the quickest, an' sen's him in to 
 his mither to bring oot word when the denner 
 will be ready. Maister Pitbye says nocht when 
 the answer comes, but he tak's up Thursday's 
 paper again, an' has a look at the adverteese- 
 ments an' the births, daiths, an' mairraiges. Then 
 he cleans his pipe, for he's a carefu' man, an' in 
 some things baith eident [diligent] and fore- 
 handed. 
 
 "Then efter denner is by he has another smoke, 
 as every man should that has a respec' for his 
 inside. Then he fills again an' gangs inbye to 
 his study, where the blind is drawn doon, for 
 ower muckle licht is no guid for the sermon- 
 makkin'. For twa 'oors he works hard there, an' 
 disna like to be disturbit nayther, for yince afore 
 we fell oot, when I gaed to see him about some 
 sma' maitter, the lass pit me in rather sharp, an' the 
 sofa gied an awfu' girg, an' there sat the minister 
 on's ain study chair, blinkin' an' no weel pleased, 
 like a hoolet, at bein' disturbit -U the studyin'.
 
 142 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 " There's nae mainner o' doot that it's then that 
 the sermons are made, for a' the rest o's time I 
 can accoont for. Then when tea is bye, oot 
 comes the minister wi' his pipe, an' sets his elbows 
 on the dike, an' does some mair o' the thinkin'. 
 Then he pits on his third best hat, an' awa' he 
 sets doon the brae to the shop, an' there, as oor 
 lass Peg telled me, him an' John Aitken ca'ed the 
 crack for the best pairt o' an 'oor. Then he 
 gangs his wa's in, as he does every nicht, to see 
 the clerk o' oor schule board, wha ance at an 
 election time made a temperance speech in the 
 next coonty, but wha's ower weel kenned a man 
 to do the like at hame. It was chappin' nine by 
 the clock when the minister cam' hame to his 
 supper, to tak' the Book, an' decently to gang to 
 his bed, nae doot wi' the approval o' his con- 
 science that he had dune a good day's wark." 
 
 " An' it's time that we were a' in oor beds ! " 
 said my wife. 
 
 THE GLEN KELLS SHORT LEET. 
 
 THEEB was a silence in all the chambers of the 
 manse of Glen Kells. A wet and dreary wind 
 wailed about it and shook the rain-drops off the 
 Scotch firs that sheltered it. Hushed footsteps
 
 THE GLEN KELLS SHORT LEET. 143 
 
 moved to and fro in the kitchen, with occasional 
 pauses, as if conscious of their own inappropri- 
 ateness. There was the dank trail of many 
 wheels on the narrow graveled walk before the 
 porch. The rain stood in them as in the dis- 
 malest of canals. It was the day after the mini- 
 ster's funeral. 
 
 In an upper room two women sat looking out 
 at the rain. The younger held the hand of the 
 elder ; but in this room also there was silence. 
 They were silent, for they had seen their old life 
 crumble like a swallow's nest in the rain, and 
 they had not yet seen the possibility of any new 
 life rise before them. So they sat and looked at 
 the rain, and it seemed that there was nothing for 
 them to do but to go forward forever and ever the 
 rain beating about them, their feet 
 
 "Deep down in a drift of dead leaves." 
 
 ****** 
 There was a " short leet" mystic words, not un- 
 derstanded of the Southron in the Glen of the 
 Kells. The " short leet " did not come all at once 
 this had been too much happiness, tending to 
 make kirk "members and adherents" lose dis- 
 tinction in their joys. But they came there 
 were just three of them, the leet being the short- 
 est of leets each for a Sabbath into the glen, 
 preaching at noon in the kirk, and in the evening
 
 144 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 in the schoolhouse of the clachan. Yet all but 
 one went away feeling that, whoever was the 
 man, it could not possibly be he, for the congrega- 
 tion of the hill-folk at each diet of worship sat 
 silent and expressionless, while fiery denuncia- 
 tion and thunderous exhortation passed them 
 over sitting there equal-minded and unscathed. 
 The first who preached was the Reverend James 
 Augustus Towers, assistant in St. Mungo's in 
 Edinburgh, no less. He had been pitched upon 
 as the likely man as soon as the list had been 
 made up by the "co-mitee" the assembly of 
 office-bearers and honorable men not a few of 
 the parish of Glen Kells. The Reverend James 
 Augustus Towers was a distinguished assistant. 
 He had been brought out, a very callow fledgling, 
 under the aristocratic wing of the great Dr. Paton, 
 the distinguished critic and superior person of the 
 whole church. There he learned that Presby- 
 terianism had no claims on any man's admira- 
 tion that Presbytery was singularly unbeautiful 
 that the beautiful alone was the good that a 
 creed was a most inconvenient incumbrance that 
 enthusiasm made a man hot and ridiculous, while 
 the cultured calms and ordered forms of the 
 Anglican Church, as understood by the higher 
 clergy, were the only things really worthy of 
 admiration, though even these must be carefully 
 denuded of all meaning. Such was the equip-
 
 THE GLEN KELLS SHORT LEET. 145 
 
 tnent wherewith the Reverend James Augustus 
 Towers undertook to become a candidate for the 
 suffrages of the herds and farmers of Glen Kells. 
 He brought his own gown and cassock from Edin- 
 burgh, and had a colored cloth hanging over his 
 back when he preached in the kirk in the morn- 
 ing. The sermon was lost to the Glen of the 
 Kells, for nobody ever heard a word of it, so in- 
 tent were their eyes on this new thing, unknown 
 and uniraagined, that had come into their midst. 
 The " Frees " said it was " a rag of Rome," 
 while the U. P.'s up at St. John's Town said that 
 it was " nocht less than the mark of the beast.'* 
 But "Clicky" Steward, the grieve at Craigen- 
 caille, who had never attended church with any 
 regularity before, and who meant to vote as an 
 adherent, said, with a strong expression which 
 those who know him will recognize, " Says as ye 
 like, the lad wi' the tippet's the boy for me ! " 
 And there were not a few of " dicky's " mind. 
 
 All the candidates stayed at the manse, past 
 which the Kells water was slipping gently as of 
 old. The late minister's widow was still in 
 possession, and it was expected by the not un- 
 kindly folk that she would not have to flit till 
 May "she wad get time to look aboot her." 
 Gavin Ross had died a poor man, but he had not 
 forgotten to make what provision he could for 
 his wife and daughter. Indeed, there had no day 
 10
 
 146 THE 8TICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 dawned and no night fallen since ever he married 
 when he did not bear this within him next the 
 very skin of his naked soul. The mother and 
 daughter had looked over the possibilities to go 
 to Edinburgh, and there to take the better kind 
 of house and try the old sad plan of keeping 
 lodgers, which none who undertake have their 
 trials to seek ; to settle in Cairn Edward and open 
 a little school, where no doubt Margaret could 
 get a few pupils in music and French. But in 
 the heart of Margaret Ross there often came a 
 thought which never visited that of her mother, 
 that the best of these prospects was miserably 
 inadequate to the supply of her mother's needs 
 on anything like the scale to which she was 
 accustomed. She felt that it lay on her to keep 
 her mother, whose heart had never recovered 
 from the shock of her husband's death all whose 
 sorrow was now bound up in the thought that 
 before long she must leave the manse to which 
 she had come as a bride on Gavin Ross's arm so 
 many years ago. 
 
 Into this home of silence came the Reverend 
 James Augustus Towers, and his attitude was as 
 condescending and superior as though he were 
 already master of the manse, and the pale women- 
 folk but lodgers on sufferance. He made himself 
 at home in carpet slippers, for it was only in the 
 pulpit that he covered himself with the vain gauda
 
 THE GLEN KELLS SHORT LEET. 147 
 
 of adornment. As soon as he came to a dining- 
 table, or into a drawing-room then, ah ! then, in 
 spite of the veneer of culture, it was in the power 
 of the most casual observer "to trace, with half 
 an eye, 
 
 The still triumphant carrot through !" 
 
 The Reverend James Augustus Towers, assist- 
 ant in the Kirk of St. Muugo, sat at the fire in the 
 manse dining-room while Margaret Ross helped 
 Janet to take the things to the kitchen after din- 
 ner. He kept his back steadily to them, being 
 content with himself and secure of his chances. 
 Then he lay at length in an easy-chair and picked 
 his teeth, while the carpet slippers sunned them- 
 selves on Gavin Ross's fender. 
 
 ******* 
 
 It was the night when the third candidate was 
 expected at the manse of Kells. He had never 
 been there before, but a friend of the banker, who 
 was convener of committee, had heard the lad 
 preach in a neighboring parish, and that very 
 powerful man had exerted his influence no light 
 thing in a community of small farmers to have 
 Christopher Murray put on the list, and after- 
 ward drafted into the mystic trio of the short 
 leet. The second candidate had come and gone, 
 without leaving any impression ; " his name was 
 indeed writ in water." Had he known it, he owed
 
 148 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 this to the banker. He was the son of the promi- 
 nent ecclesiast who was prime minister of the 
 local Presbytery "could twist them roon' his 
 wee finger," it was said. Now, the banker had 
 no idea of committing the affairs of the parish to 
 this prominent father in the church, 
 
 " Of large discourse and excellent taste in wines." 
 
 He had received a letter from the wife of this 
 gentleman, who was a distant kin of his own, 
 an epistle evidently inspired by a hand heavily 
 clerkly and presbyterial, recounting the marvels 
 of her son's academic career, and all his later fit- 
 ness for the position of minister of the parish of 
 Glen Kells. This was hardly fair to the youth, 
 who, in spite of his training, was a really modest 
 lad. But the banker, a man wise in counsel as 
 kindly in heart, smiled as he wrote him down 
 on his official list, under the column devoted to tes- 
 timonials By whom recommended. "The Rev- 
 erend Roderick Rorison, recommended by his 
 mother." And the smile was as wide and as long 
 as the Glen Kells in twenty-four hours after the 
 next committee meeting, while the young man's 
 chances had utterly vanished away. 
 
 At the bank as well as in the manse there was 
 expectancy going out toward the gig of the farmer 
 of Drumrash, in which the last man on the short
 
 THE GLJCN KELLS SHORT LEET. 149 
 
 leet was to make his way up the Glen of the Kells 
 Water. On its jigging and swaying eminence 
 the other two had likewise made their exits 
 and their entrances. For Glen Kells believed in 
 giving every man an equal chance except the 
 banker, who smiled to himself as he thought of 
 the Reverend Peter Rorison, folding his comfort 
 able hands and looking across to his wife as if 
 between them they had already annexed the Glen 
 of the Kells to their diocese. But the banker 
 was far from comfortable ; for, though he wished 
 the Reverend Christopher Murray well, he knew 
 that if he failed to please, the only alternative 
 was the Reverend James Augustus Towers and 
 the banker did not admire the " tippet." 
 
 When Christopher Murray topped the brae at 
 the head of which the manse stood, he was think- 
 ing of nothing higher than the prospect of a cup 
 of tea and a quiet fire by which to spend the 
 evening and read the book which he had brought 
 with him in his black bag. He pulled at the 
 manse bell, and somewhere far down the stone 
 passages he heard it ring. It had a fixed and 
 settled sound, quite different from the deafening 
 clangor of the town house bells, where, when you. 
 pull an innocent-looking knob in a lintel, you 
 seem to set in motion a complete church peal 
 immediately on the other side of the door. 
 Christopher Murray was ready to tell the maid
 
 150 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 whom he expected to open the door that he was 
 the minister come to supply on the next day. He 
 was prepared for that look of compassion for his 
 youth which he knew so well, which said as plain 
 as words could say, " Puir lad, little do ye ken 
 what's afore ye in this pairish ! " But he was not 
 prepared for what he did see. A slender girl in 
 black, fair as a lily, stood in the dark doorway, 
 waiting for him to speak. Speak he did, but 
 what he said he could never remember ; for he 
 found himself, with his hat in his hand, endeavor- 
 ing to apologize for some offense which, though 
 quite clear to himself, he was strangely unable to 
 express in words. He felt himself uncouth, un- 
 gainly, coltish, generally " in the road," but he 
 never got any great length with putting it into 
 words ; for in an incredibly short time he found 
 himself mysteriously at home in the manse par- 
 lor, an apartment unpenetrated by the assur- 
 ance of the Reverend James Augustus Towers, or 
 the illustrious ancestry of the Reverend Roderick 
 Rorison ; where, at the head of her mother's in- 
 valid sofa, his eyes could watch the busy fingers 
 and flower-like face of Margaret Ross, pathetic in 
 her black dress. Christopher Murray was an 
 orphan, and had little knowledge of the life of 
 the home, but he says now that his aspirations 
 for a home of his own dated from this time. It 
 is safest to believe a man when he tells you little
 
 THE GLEN KELLS SHORT LEET. 151 
 
 coincidences of this kind. Very likely he believes 
 them himself. 
 
 The fateful morrow came, and the last man on 
 the leet proved himself no bungler. He preached 
 straight from the shoulder. There were more 
 there at night than had been in the forenoon, a 
 thing that had not been known in the Glen Kells 
 in the memory of man. This is what old Betty 
 Grierson said; she was a great critic of sermons, 
 and they say that even Mr. Rorison was feared 
 for her : "'Deed, sirs, I howp the fear o' od has 
 been gien to that young man, for of a truth the 
 fear o' man has been withhauden from him," which 
 was better then twenty testimonials in the parish. 
 The banker smiled, for he knew that the " tippet" 
 had now small chance of being aired a second 
 time in the kirk of the Glen Kells. 
 
 ******* 
 
 So Christopher Murray is now placed minister 
 in the Glen of the Kells, and has a good prospect 
 of a home of his own. But Mrs. Ross and her 
 daughter Margaret are still in the manse, and the 
 young minister is lodging for a time over the 
 shop in the village. The Rosses have given up 
 the little house they had taken in Cairn Edward, 
 and Christopher Murray smiles like a man well 
 pleased when the people ask him when he is going 
 into the manse. He does not think that Mrs. 
 Ross will be troubled to move out of the old
 
 152 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 manse overhanging the Kells Water in which she 
 has lived so long, and he has the best of reasons 
 for his belief. 
 
 BOANERGES SIMPSON'S INCUMBRANCE. 
 
 EVERY one said that it was a pity of Boanerges 
 Simpson, the minister of St. Tudno's. This was 
 universally recognized in Maitland. Not only 
 the congregation of St. Tudno's, but the people of 
 other denominations, knew that Mr. Simpson 
 was saddled with a wife who was little but a 
 drag upon him. They even said that he had been 
 on the point of obtaining a call to a great city 
 charge, when, his domestic circumstances being 
 inquired into, it was universally recognized by 
 the session of that company of humble followers 
 of Christ that, however suitable the Reverend 
 Boanerges Simpson might be to receive 1,200 a 
 year for preaching the Carpenter's Gospel to it, 
 Mrs. Boanerges Simpson was not at all the woman 
 to dispense afternoon tea to the session's spouses 
 between the hours of three and six. 
 
 It was, however, also well known that the min- 
 ister of St. Tudno's bore up under this household 
 trial like an angel. His quiet patience with his 
 help unmeet became a proverb. He had a bland,
 
 BOANERGES SIMPSON'S INCUMBRANCE. 153 
 
 vague, upward-looking eye, and walked as one 
 wrapped in the mysteries of such deep thought 
 as few could fathom. When any one glanced at 
 his particular sufferings, he sighed and passed 
 lightly to another subject. He had a softly 
 episcopal hand-shake which made some women 
 call him blessed, and many men itch to kick him. 
 This hand-shake was one of his chief assets. 
 
 But his great power came out in his sermons. 
 Even his enemies admitted that he was noble in 
 the pulpit. Yet he was not a natural orator. He 
 had not the readiness of resource, the instanta- 
 neousness of attack and defense requisite for the 
 speaker. His sermons were given in an exqui- 
 sitely varied recitative, and when he redelivered 
 them, it was often remarked with admiration that 
 he placed the emphasis on the same words, made 
 the same pauses, and became affected as close to 
 tears as decorum would permit in precisely the 
 same places. 
 
 His care in preparation was often held up to 
 his brother ministers in the town of Maitland, 
 among whom he was not popular, owing, no 
 doubt, to the jealousy which prevails in all pro- 
 fessions. Still they had him often to preach for 
 them, for no minister in the country could draw 
 such a crowd or such a collection. There were 
 half a dozen rich old ladies who were known to have 
 Mr. Simpson in their wills, and these accompanied
 
 154 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 him about wherever he preached, like tabbies 
 following a milk jug. There were also a good 
 many ladies of various ages who visited at the 
 manse of St. Tudno's at hours when the Reverend 
 Boanerges was known to be resting from the 
 labors of sermon production in the drawing-room. 
 They did not often see his wife. She, no doubt, 
 felt herself quite unpresentable, poor thing ! So 
 ono of the visitors was asked to dispense tea. 
 This was generally recognized to be as it should be. 
 
 The town of Maitland came as near to being a 
 city as some fools come to being geniuses. Mait- 
 land has an ancient, and, in its early stages, an 
 honorable history. It had been a great city 
 when the capital of Scotland was a barren rock 
 and when the fisher steered his coracle below the 
 lonely braes of the Clydeside Broomielaw. In its 
 latter days it had taken to the manufacture of 
 thread and the digging of coal. But its burghers 
 have still much pride about them, severely tem- 
 pered with economy. 
 
 Some years ago Maitland resolved on having 
 new municipal buildings. The ancient town hall 
 was also in its under story the jail, and it was not 
 seemly that the bailies and the very provost 
 should be compelled to listen to the sighing of 
 the prisoner whom they had just committed for 
 being drunk and disorderly, and who in the cells 
 beneath still audibly continued to be the latter.
 
 BOANERGES SIMPSON'S INCUMBRANCE. 156 
 
 The town hall was, therefore, abandoned to the 
 victims of police interference, and the new mu- 
 nicipal buildings rose nobly in the middle of the 
 town. 
 
 But when the first assessment of one and ten- 
 pence in the pound was made on the ratepayers, 
 they rose in instant rebellion. Letters in the 
 local papers could not ease the smart. They 
 must have the blood of the whole town council, 
 and specially of the bailies. The provost was 
 held to be a decent man who had been led into 
 this bad business against his will. This provost 
 was the paragon of provosts. He spoke broad 
 Scots, and spoke it, too, with a rollicking local 
 accent which went straight to the heart of every 
 Maitland man and woman. He had wrinkles 
 round his eyes, and the meditative way with him 
 which all meal millers achieve from leaning their 
 elbows on the lower halves of their mill-doors. 
 He sometimes came to the council with the white 
 dust of his profession emphasizing his homeliness. 
 The Reverend Boanerges Simpson had a pique at 
 the provost. The trenchant Doric sense of the 
 layman cut through the pretentious unction of 
 the cleric like a knife through soap. But hitherto 
 the opposition had been private, for the provost 
 had the strange taste to prefer the invisible and 
 incompatible wife to the active and brilliant 
 husband.
 
 156 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 The matter of the municipal buildings came to 
 a head over the town bell. There was an indig- 
 nation meeting summoned by aggrieved rate- 
 payers, and all the correspondents of the local 
 newspapers attended in force. The Reverend 
 Boanerges Simpson proposed the first resolution, 
 " That it is the opinion of this meeting that the 
 proposal to waste the ratepayers' money in a bell 
 to be used for profane purposes is subversive of 
 all morality and good government, and the provost 
 and magistrates (except Councillor MacBean of 
 the Third Ward, who voted against it), are re- 
 quested to resign forthwith." The Reverend 
 Boanerges was not so fluent as usual. His forte 
 was the pulpit. He liked to keep himself before 
 the public, but he lacked in a gathering of men 
 his personal following of old ladies, and had not 
 quite his usual nerve in consequence. The motion 
 was, however, unanimously carried, and that with 
 great acclamation. Resolution after resolution 
 was carried, each more sweeping than the last. 
 Enthusiastic indignation rose feverishly till the 
 burgesses were almost committed to burning the 
 magistrates in front of their own doors. Now the 
 provost had been all day from home, and did not 
 hear of the meeting till some time after his 
 return. 
 
 " Til gie myseP a bit wash an' gang doon," he 
 said, quietly.
 
 BOANERGES SIMPSON'S ENCUMBRANCE. 157 
 
 When he stepped on the platform he was 
 received with a storm of howls. The meeting 
 would not hear him. Councillor MacBeau, who 
 had the credit of being able to swing the Third 
 Ward like a dead cat, and who thought of stand- 
 ing for provost, led the groans. 
 
 The provost waited smiling. He dusted the 
 meal from the creases of his coat, and brushed up 
 his gray soft hat with his elbow. He even got 
 out his knife to pare his nails. At last he got in 
 a word, and as soon as ever his sonorous steady 
 Scots was heard, the storm fell to a dead calm, 
 for the only man who could sway a Maitland audi- 
 ence was on his feet, and the provost knew that 
 the hearts of these men were like wax in his 
 hands. This was the matter of his speech: 
 
 " My freens, Aw was up at Allokirk the day, 
 an' div ye ken what the craiturs war sayin' ? Na, 
 ye'll no' believe me gin Aw tell ye. The as- 
 surance o' the upsetting creests is juist by 
 ordinar'. Ye ken that Allokirk can never forgie 
 Maitland for bein' a bigger, bonnier, aulder toon, 
 and for haein' the kings an' queens o' braid Scot- 
 land lying in oor aibbey yaird ower by. Wha 
 but a wheen Allokirk jute fowk an' ither upstart 
 tinkler bodies wad lie ablow the jow o' the Allo- 
 kirk bell" 
 
 Cries of " Come to the point ! " " We dinna 
 want to hear aboot Allokirk. It's aboot oor ain
 
 158 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 bell we want to hear." " Ye'll no' throw stoor in 
 oor een, provost ! " 
 
 " Bide a wee ; I'm juist comin' to that. This is 
 what the Allokirk fowk were sayin'. Ye ken the 
 thocht o' oor braw new toon buildin' is juist gall 
 and wormwud to them. They ken that their toon 
 hall wadna be a back kitchen to the Maitland 
 fowk's, an' sae, to even themsel's to us, what hae 
 the blasties dune but gotten a bell to hing in their 
 bit toorock a twenty-ton bell, nae less. An', 
 says they, the like o' that bell wull never ring in 
 Maitland toon ! Na, the puir, feckless, bankrupt 
 bodies o' Maitland, wi' their thread an' their coals, 
 canna afford sic a bell as Allokirk has ! Whatna 
 answer wull ye gie back, ma Men's ? Wull ye 
 let Allokirk craw ower you ? "Wull ye sit doon 
 like Henny-penny in the hornbuik,* wi' your 
 finger in your mooth ? Na, ye're Maitland men, 
 and as sure as yer provost is a Maitland man, 
 we'll hing a thirty-ton bell in oor braw too'er, and 
 ilka jow o't, soondin' across the water, wull tell 
 the Allokirk bodies that they're but cauld kail an' 
 soor dook beside the burgers o' the Auld Gray 
 Toon ! " 
 
 The meeting here rose in a frenzy. The thirty- 
 ton bell was voted. MacBean was put out feet 
 foremost for moving the previous question, and 
 
 * A picture in the old-fashioned child's primer.
 
 BOANERGES SIMPSON'S INCUMBRANCE. 159 
 
 the Reverend Boanerges Simpson went home to 
 bring his wife to a sense of her position. 
 
 After this the provost was more inclined than 
 before to like his worsted antagonist, and even 
 got into the habit of attending the Church of St. 
 Tudno. 
 
 What bothered him most was the quality ot 
 the sermons of the Reverend Boanerges Simpson. 
 They were certainly full of a subtle sympathy 
 with the suffering and down-trodden. An ex- 
 quisite pathos welled through them. It was a 
 remarkable fact that many of the most impartial 
 and intelligent of the congregation listened to 
 these productions with their eyes shut, in order 
 that they might not have the contrast of the 
 preacher's oleaginous presence and his thrilling 
 words. It was also observed and commented 
 upon that on the occasions when every eye in the 
 church was riveted upon the preacher, his own 
 wife never so much as raised her eyes from the 
 bookboard. This was set down to a nature averse 
 to the message of grace which so strongly affected 
 others. The provost's sister called his attention 
 to this, and even the good man was somewhat 
 shaken in his belief in the minister's wife. What- 
 ever her private opinion of her husband, she 
 should certainly have shown her reverence for a 
 man so highly gifted with a message. 
 
 Day by day, therefore. Mrs. Simpson shrunk
 
 160 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 more and more into her own silence. Isolation 
 grew upon her till she had walled herself off 
 from her fellow-creatures. Then she stopped 
 going to church at all, and the Reverend Boaner- 
 ges walked along with the seraphic smile of a 
 martyr whose burden was almost more than he 
 could bear. His sermons became too high-strung 
 and ethereal for the edification of the workaday 
 sons and daughters of men. What was the most 
 extraordinary thing of all, the pathos and senti- 
 ment, the spiritual communion were so clearly a 
 personal experience of the preacher, that even 
 those who had been repelled by his personality 
 gave him credit for having such communion with 
 the unseen as few are privileged to attain to in 
 this world. There was a deep belief in Maitland 
 that there can be no effect without a sufficient 
 cause, for Maitland is, above all things, a logical 
 place. St. Tudno's became a place of pilgrimage 
 from far and near, and its gifted and saintly 
 minister seemed to be mellowing from a Boa- 
 nerges into a John. It was thought that what he 
 was suffering at home was refining his soul. It 
 is thus that the finest spirits are molded. The 
 provost was so touched that he went to ask his 
 pardon for any hasty expressions which he might 
 have used in the affair of the bell. Mrs. Simpson 
 received him and listened with a dull silence to 
 his frank and kindly words.
 
 BOANERGES SIMPSON'S INCUMBRANCE. 161 
 
 " Your guidman an' me haes oor differences," 
 said the provost ; " but I wull alloo that there's 
 naebody atween Tweed an' Tay can come within 
 a lang sea mile o' him for preachin'. " 
 
 The minister's wife made a strange reply. 
 
 " Would you say as much a year from now, if 
 many other people were to turn against him ? " 
 she asked, lifting her abased eyes and letting 
 them rest for a moment on the kindly face of the 
 good provost. 
 
 " Aw'm gye an' weel used to stickin' to my 
 opeenion," said the meal miller. " Aw hae seen 
 the Maitland fowk's verdick come roon' to mine a 
 deal of tener than mine whurl aboot to theirs ! " 
 
 " Then you'll be a friend to my husband in the 
 days to come," she said, earnestly. 
 
 " That Aw wull ! " said the provost, heartily. 
 
 " Thank you," said Mrs. Simpson ; " thank 
 you more than I can tell you. That is what I've 
 been praying for. I'll sleep sound to-night ! " 
 
 And she did. Only she forgot to awaken the 
 next morning. The funeral was a great one, for 
 the sake of the bereaved man ; but every one felt 
 that a barrier to the success of the preacher had 
 been providentially removed. On the Sabbath 
 following there was such a congregation as has 
 never been seen since within the walls of St. 
 Tudno's. The minister surpassed himself. There 
 was not a dry eye between the topmost gallery
 
 162 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 and the back seat below the loft where the provost 
 sat. Now, in that church it was the custom of 
 the elders to take in the Bible and bring it out to 
 the vestry afterward. This they did in rotation. 
 It was the provost's day. As he lifted the Bible, 
 the sermon slid to the floor. He picked it up, 
 glanced at it, and turned pale. Then he sat down 
 to recover himself. The funeral sermon wa 
 neatly written out in Mrs. Simpson's own hand. 
 
 The Reverend Boanerges never preached another 
 great sermon never one even mediocre. It was 
 said that grief had permanently weakened his 
 faculties. It is strange that men cannot benefit 
 by the opportunities which Providence makes for 
 them. There were many who wondered that the 
 provost stood by him ; but the meal miller was 
 not the man to forget a word passed to a dead 
 woman, and he kept her secret well. He was 
 (and is) the pearl of provosts. 
 
 As for the Reverend Boanerges, he married 
 again within a year a maiden lady with 50,000 in 
 consols and a temper both her own. Her hus- 
 band is a man of great reputation. He has retired 
 to a comfortable estate in the Highlands, which 
 shows that true merit is always rewarded. He 
 has since put out two volumes of sermons, which 
 are allowed by the religious press to be among 
 the most subtle and suggestive which have been 
 published this century. They ought to be in
 
 A KNIGHT-ERRANT OP THE STREETS. 163 
 
 every preacher's library. His first wife had care- 
 fully copied them all out for the printer, which 
 seems to be about the only useful thing she did 
 during her life. But the funeral sermon was 
 written in the minister's large, sprawling char- 
 acters. There is no monument over the grave of 
 the first Mrs. Simpson, but the provost often 
 walks out there of an evening and lays a white 
 rose upon it. 
 
 A KNIGHT-ERRANT OF THE STREETS. 
 
 CLKG * KELLY was not of his latitude, and knew 
 it. He was a Pleasance laddie, and he lived in 
 one of the garret rooms of a big " land," as full 
 of passages and by-ways as a rabbit warren. He 
 was not a Christian, was Cleg Kelly. Neither 
 was his father. He said he was a " snow-shoveler," 
 and as his profession could be carried on during a 
 very limited number of days in the year, he made 
 his fellow-citizens chargeable for his keep during 
 the rest of the year, and personally collected the 
 needful, So his fellow citizens thoughtfully pro- 
 vided for his accommodation a splendid edifice on 
 the side of the Calton the same which Amer- 
 
 * " Cleg " means, in the dialect of the Lowlands, the small 
 common gad-fly or horse-fly.
 
 164 THE STICKIT MINISTEB. 
 
 ican tourists wax enthusiastic about as they 
 come into the Scots metropolis by the North 
 British Railway, mistaking its battlemented 
 towers for those of Edinburgh Castle. 
 
 Here Mr. Timothy Kelly occupied a beautifully 
 clean and healthy apartment for at least six 
 months in the year. During this time he worked 
 at a government contract, and so, of course, could 
 not devote much time to the education of his son 
 and heir. But Tim Kelly, though a fascinating 
 study, must not tempt us away from his equally 
 accomplished son. As was said at the beginning, 
 Cleg Kelly was out of his latitude, and he did not 
 like it. It was Sunday afternoon, and he had 
 been across the narrow isthmus of houses which 
 separates the Alps of the Salisbury Crags from, 
 the Lombard plain of the Meadows. He had 
 been putting in his attendances at five Sunday 
 schools that day, for it was the leafy month 
 of June when " trips" abound, and Cleg Kelly 
 was not quite so green as the summer foliage ; 
 besides all which, about five o'clock there are lots 
 of nice clean children in that part of the town on 
 their way home from " Congregational " Sabbath 
 schools. These did not speak to Cleg, for he 
 only went to the Mission schools which were 
 specially adapted for such as he. Also, he wore 
 no stockings. But Cleg Kelly was not bashful, 
 so he readily spoke to them. He noted, especially,
 
 A KNIGHT-ERRANT OF THE STREETS. 165 
 
 a spruce party of three leaving a chemist's shop 
 on the shortest track between the park and the 
 meadows, and he followed them down through 
 the narrow defile of Gifford Park thoughts of 
 petty larceny crystallizing in his heart. Ere 
 they could escape through the needle's eye at the 
 further end, Cleg Kelly had accosted them after 
 his kind. 
 
 "Hey, you, gie's that gundy [toffy], or I'll 
 knock your turnip heids thegither ! " The three 
 lambs stood at bay, huddled close together, and 
 helplessly bleated feeble derisives at the wolf 
 who had headed them off from safety ; but their 
 polite and Englishy tone was a source of Homeric 
 laughter to this Thersites of the Pleasance. He 
 mocked their decent burgher attire ; he sparred up 
 to them his " neives " describing stately circles 
 like a paddle-wheel and, shaking a murky fist 
 an inch below their several noses, he invited them 
 individually to " smell that," and then inform 
 him where they would like it applied, together 
 with other resourceful amenities, as the auction- 
 eer's advertisements say, too numerous to men- 
 tion. While the marauding wolf was thus at 
 play with his innocent victims, scorning their 
 feeble efforts at rejoinder, and circumventing 
 without difficulty their yet feebler efforts at 
 flight, it so happened that a member of the city 
 force to whom Master Cleg Kelly was well known,.
 
 166 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 Stopped for a moment to look down the aristo- 
 cratic avenues of the park, bordered with frugal 
 lines of " ash backets " for all ornament. The 
 coincidence of necessity and presence is remark- 
 able, but not unprecedented. He was a young 
 officer of but eighteen months' standing, and his 
 district had been previously in the " Sooth Back," 
 a district to which the talent of Master Kelly 
 was indigenous. Had the officer been six months 
 more in the service, he would probably have con- 
 tented himself with a warning trumpet noto 
 which would have sent the enemy flying; but be- 
 ing young and desirous of small distinctions, he 
 determined to " nab the young scamp and take 
 him along." He had full justification for this, for 
 at this moment a howl told that the assault had 
 reached the stage of battery, and that the young 
 " gundy " garroter was qualifying for the cat at 
 an early age, by committing robbery with vio- 
 lence. 
 
 It was at this moment that Cleg felt that 
 there's no place like home. He was a stranger 
 in a strange land, where he knew not even the 
 walls that had nicks in them, climbable by the 
 sooty toe of an eleven-year-old city boy. He 
 could not tell whether any particular " land " had 
 a ladder and trap-door valuable right-of-way 
 upon the roof. He knew not the alleys which 
 gave double exit by unexpected elbows, and ho
 
 A KNIGHT-ERRANT OP THE STREETS. 167 
 
 could not shun those which invited with fair 
 promises, but which were really traps with no 
 way of escape. He did not wish, in that awful 
 moment, that he had been a better boy, as his 
 young Sunday-school teacher in Hunker Court 
 had often urged him to become ; what he wanted 
 was the " Sooth Back," ten yards start, and the 
 rigor of the game. But there was no time for 
 meditation, for the heavy-footed but alert young 
 "bobby" was almost upon him. Cleg Kelly 
 sprung sideways and dived into the first conven- 
 ient entry, then skimmed up some steps that 
 wound skyward, down again, and along a passage 
 with not a single side-turning. He heard his 
 pursuer lumbering after him, and his own heart 
 kettle-drumming in his ears. An unexpected 
 door- way gave outward as his weight came on 
 it, and he found himself in a curious court some- 
 where at the back of St. Simon Square, as near as 
 he could make out. There was a strange square 
 block toward one side of the open space, round 
 which he ran; and, climbing up a convenient 
 roan or water pipe, he squirmed himself through 
 a stair window, crossed the landing of an unin- 
 habited house, and looked down on the interior of 
 a court which was well known to him, from the 
 safe elevation of a first-floor window. As he 
 rested, panting, he said to himself that he 
 " kenned where he was noo." It was the court
 
 168 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 which contained one of his too numerous Sunday 
 schools. Hunker Court Mission School was 
 " scaling." As it was the school where there was 
 most "fun," it was also the school which was best 
 beloved by that scholar who was duly enrolled in 
 Miss Celie Tennant's class [No. 6], as : 
 
 C. Kelly, age 14, Residence, 200 Pleasance. 
 
 the age being a gratuitous impromptu on the 
 part of Cleg in order to impress his teacher with a 
 sense of his importance in his own language, 
 " a big lee ! " " Fun " in this mission school 
 meant chiefly bombarding the teachers as they 
 ran the gantlet after the school was dismissed; 
 specially one, who for private reasons was known 
 as " Pun' o' Cannles." All this happened years 
 ago, and of course there are no such schools in 
 Edinburgh now. But Celie Tennant, a cheery lit- 
 tle lady with the brightest eyes that Cleg had 
 ever seen, had never been molested. This day 
 Cleg watched, with the delight of the bird that 
 has just escaped the fowler's snare, the " clodding " 
 of the teachers, and their discomposed look as 
 the missiles interfered with their dignity. He 
 was a connoisseur in these matters, and applauded 
 critically as a cunningly directed cabbage heart 
 dropped reposefully into " Pun' o' Cannles' " tail 
 pockets. He remembered how his ears had rung
 
 A KNIGHT-ERRANT OF THE STEEETS. 169 
 
 under the very hand which now extracted the 
 cabbage under a galling cross fire. He observed 
 how Humpy Joe, the pride of Simon Square, 
 deftly removed the " lum hat" of the newest 
 teacher, who had yet to learn what clothes to 
 come in when he set out to instruct the youth of 
 Gifford Park. He saw with complaisance Archie 
 Drabble, the "de'il" of the school, prepare a 
 hand grenade of moist mud for the superintend- 
 ent, as he thought. The young idea of the city 
 needs not to be taught how to shoot. He rubbed 
 his hande with glee to think how juicily and sat- 
 isfactorily the " pyeowe " would spread, and he 
 became distinctly particeps criminibus as the most 
 gleeful of accessories before the fact. But at this 
 moment out walked his own teacher, Miss Ten- 
 nant, on her way home through Archer's Hall by 
 way of the Meadows. Now, Cleg Kelly was 
 secretly and desperately in love with his teacher 
 and he would willingly have gone to school every 
 Sunday, simply to be scolded by her for mis- 
 behavior. He found that this was the best way 
 to keep her attention fixed upon him ; and the 
 boy who sat next him in class had a poor time of 
 it. It pleased Cleg to notice that his teacher had 
 a new summer hat and dress on, one that he had 
 not seen before. Cleg became sorry, for the first 
 time, that he had waited to take it out of these 
 ** softies." This was the nearest that he ever
 
 170 THE STICKIT MINISTER, 
 
 came to repentance. It struck him that he might 
 have looked at the hat and dress, and the face 
 between, for an hour. It is a mistake to think 
 that boys do not notice dress. The boy, as has 
 been said before more than once, is the father of 
 the man. Cleg was 'complacently feeling a pro- 
 prietary interest in both the summer hat and 
 bright print dress, when suddenly his eye caught 
 the slouching figure of Archie Drabble, standing 
 exactly beneath. Cleg's face whitened as he took 
 in his intention. Could it be to desecrate the spot- 
 less hat and dress of his, Cleg's, teacher, hitherto 
 held inviolate by the strange chivalry of Hunker 
 Court School ? . Small time there was for the true 
 knight to don his armor and ride cap-d-pie into 
 the lists. There was no time to blow a trumpet, 
 even had one been handy. There were no heralds 
 to announce the victory of the champion of dis- 
 tressed demoiselles ; but all these could not have 
 rendered the feat of arms (if so it might be called 
 which was most legs) more rounded and complete. 
 As the cowardly arm of the " Drabble " fit name 
 for knight unknightly paused a moment to 
 gather force for the dastard's blow ; and even as 
 the unconscious lady of the Road Perilous half 
 turned to settle her skirts into a daintier swing, 
 a bolt fell from the blue, a deus from the machind 
 * a small boy arrayed completely in two well- 
 Ventilated garments, sprung with horrid yell from
 
 THE CANONGATE.
 
 A KNIGHT-ERRANT OF THE STREETS. 171 
 
 t first-floor window, and, sudden as Jove's thun- 
 Jerbolt, struck the audacious Drabble to the 
 earth. Then springing up, this impish Mercury 
 of Hunker Court dowsed the prostrate one with 
 his own hand-grenade, hoisted him with a grimy 
 foot in lieu of a petard, once more returned him 
 to earth with that clinched organ to which the 
 " softies " had been invited to apply their noses. 
 Having performed a war dance on the prostrate 
 foe which had small store of knightly courtesy in 
 it, Cleg, with the deering-do of battle upon him, 
 dared the assembled mission to the unequal fray ; 
 and, no champion accepting, presently took him- 
 self off, as unconventionally as he came, turning 
 three double cart-wheels through the archway 
 that led in the direction of the Meadows. So 
 uplifted was he by the pride of success, that he 
 looked about valiantly for the " bobby." He was 
 not in sight. 
 
 " It's as weel for him ! " said the hero of bat- 
 tles. 
 
 As Miss Celie Tennant waited at her own gate 
 a moment that afternoon, she was aware, as hero- 
 ines often are, of the presence of a hero. He 
 was small and very dirty, and he stood by a lamp- 
 post abstracted, scratching one bare leg with the 
 toe of the other foot. It is a primeval attitude, 
 and Sir John Lubbock will be able to explain it. 
 Something familiar caught the lady's attention.
 
 172 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 "Is that you, Charles?" she asked; "why 
 didn't you come to Sunday-school to-day ? " She 
 was under the impression that " C " in her roll- 
 book stood for Charles. This was a mistake. 
 
 Charles gasped inarticulately, and was under- 
 stood to say that he would be on view next Sab- 
 bath without fail. 
 
 Celie Tennant patted him kindly on the head, 
 tripped gracefully up the steps, and paused to 
 not ere she reached the door. Not till then did 
 Cleg Kelly find his tongue. 
 
 "Pit on the new frock," he said; "dinna 
 be feared, Airchie Drabble'll throw nae mair 
 glaur ! " 
 
 " Thank you, Charles ! " said the summer hat, 
 in sweet unconsciousness of his meaning, as the 
 door closed. This is how Cleg Kelly began to be 
 a Christian. 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY, MIS- 
 SION WORKER. 
 
 INQUIRING friends request the latest news of 
 Mr. C. Kelly, of the " Sooth Back." We are most 
 happy to supply them, for Cleg is a favorite 
 of our own. Since we revealed how he began to 
 become a Christian, Cleg has felt himself more or
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 173 
 
 less of a public character ; but he is modest, and 
 for several weeks kept out of our way, apparently 
 lest he should be put into another book. A too 
 appreciative superintendent unfortunately read 
 the plain little story of Cleg's gallant knight- 
 errantry to the senior division of his sometimes 
 school, and Cleg blushed to find himself famous. 
 Consequently he left Hunker Court for good. 
 
 But for all that, he is secretly pleased to be in 
 a book, and having received our most fervent as- 
 surance that he will not be made into a " tract," 
 he has signified that he is appeased, and that no 
 legal proceedings will be taken. Cleg does not so 
 much mind a book a book is respectable, but he 
 draws the line on tracts. He says that he is 
 "doon on them tracks." Even as a reformed 
 character, they raise the old Adam in him. A good 
 lady, sweeping by in her carriage the other day, 
 threw one graciously to the ragged lad, who was 
 standing in a moment of meditation pirouetting 
 his cap on the point of his boot, half for the pleas- 
 ure of seeing that he had actually a boot upon 
 his foot, and half to intimate to all concerned that 
 he has not become proud and haughty because of 
 the fact. The good lady was much surprised by 
 that small boy's action, and has a poorer opinion 
 than ever of the " lower orders." 
 
 She is now sure that there must be some very 
 careful grading in heaven before it can be a com-
 
 174 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 fortable place of permanent residence. Her Idea 
 of doing good has always been to go through the 
 houses of the poor with the gracious hauteur of a 
 visitant from another and a better world, and 
 to scatter broadcast largesse of tracts and good 
 advice. The most pleasant way of doing this, 
 she finds, is from a carriage, for some of the 
 indigent have a way of saying most unpleasant 
 things ; but a pair of spanking bays can sweep 
 away from all expressions of opinion. Besides, 
 tracts delivered in this way bring with them 
 a sense of proper inferiority as coming from one 
 who would say, " There, take that, you poor 
 wicked people, and may it do you good ! " Cleg 
 Kelly was "again' tracks." But after a single 
 moment of stupefied surprise that this woman 
 should insult him, he rushed for the tract. The 
 lady smiled at his eagerness, and pointed out to 
 her companion, a poor lady whose duty it was to 
 agree with her mistress, the eager twinkling eyes 
 and flushed face of Cleg as he pursued the bays. 
 Cleg at short distances could beat any pair of 
 horses in Edinburgh. He had not raced with 
 bobbies and fire-engines for nothing. He was in 
 fine training, and just as the carriage slackened to 
 turn past the immense conglomerate castle which 
 guards the St. Leonard's Park entrance, Cleg 
 shot up to the side at which his benefactor sat. 
 He swiftly handed her a parcel, and so vanished
 
 THE PKOGEESS OF CLEG KELLY. 175 
 
 from the face of the earth. There is no safer hid- 
 ing-place than the coal- wagons full and empty 
 that stand in thousands just over the wall. The 
 good lady opened the little parcel with her usual 
 complaisance. It was her own tract, and it con- 
 tained a small selection of articles the staple 
 product, indeed, of the Pleasance ash-baskets 
 imprimis, one egg-shell filled with herring bones, 
 item a cabbage top in fine gamey condition, the 
 head of a rat some time deceased, and the tail of 
 some other animal so worn by age as to make 
 identificationuncertain. On the top lay the dirt- 
 iest of all scrawls. It said, " With thanks for yer 
 tracks." The lady fell back on her cushions so 
 heavy that C-springs creaked, and the poor com- 
 panion groped frantically for the smelling-bottle. 
 She knew that she would have a dreadful time of 
 it that night ; but her mistress has resolved that 
 she will distribute no more tracts from her 
 carriage, the lower orders may just be left to 
 perish. Their blood be on their own heads ; she 
 has once and for all washed her hands of 
 them. 
 
 Many people may be of opinion that Cleg Kelly, 
 judging by his first exploit this Friday morning 
 of which we speak, had not advanced very far 
 along the narrow way of righteousness ; but this 
 was not Cleg's own opinion. He felt that he had 
 done a good deed, and he said within himself
 
 176 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 " Them ould women dae mair ill wi' their tracks 
 than twa penny gaffs an' a side-show ! " 
 
 Then Cleg Kelly went on to his next business. 
 It had to do with keeping the fifth commandment. 
 He had heard about it the Sunday before, not 
 at the forsaken Hunker Court, but at a little class 
 for boys at the foot of the Pleasance, in a court 
 there, which his teacher, Miss Celie Tennant, was 
 organizing for lads of Cleg's age or a little older. 
 It was a daring undertaking for one so young, 
 and all her friends tried to stop her, and called it 
 foolhardy ; but Celie Tennant being, as Cleg ad- 
 miringly said, " no' big, but most michty plucky,'* 
 had found out her power in managing the most 
 rebellious larrikins that walked on hobnails. 
 Moreover, the work had sought her, not she it. 
 Her praises had been so constantly chanted by 
 Cleg that she had been asked to take pity on a 
 number of the " Sooth Back gang," and have a 
 class for them in the evenings. It was manifestly 
 impossible to receive such a number of wild loons 
 at Hunker Court. They were every one upon 
 terms of open war with the Gifford Park train- 
 bands ; and had a couple of them showed their 
 faces in the neighborhood at any hour of the day 
 or night, the " Cooee-EE " of the park would have 
 sounded, and fists and brickbats would have been, 
 going in a couple of shakes. Clearly, then, as 
 they could not come to her without breaking her
 
 THE PROGRESS OP CLEG KELLY. 177 
 
 majesty's peace, it was her duty to go to them. 
 To do them justice, they were quite willing to 
 risk it ; but Celie felt that it would hardly be 
 doing herself justice to sow her seed so very near 
 to the fowls of the air. So Cleg proudly took 
 his friend down to the " Sooth Back," where there 
 was a kind-hearted watchman who had occasion- 
 ally let Cleg sleep in some warm place about the 
 "works" at which he was on night duty. To 
 him Miss Tennant was introduced, and by him 
 was taken into the presence of the junior partner, 
 who was sitting in a very easy attitude indeed, with 
 his back against his desk, and balancing himself 
 precariously on one leg of a stool. He effected 
 a descent successfully, and blushed becomingly, for 
 he was a very junior partner indeed, and he had 
 more than once met Miss Tennant at a West-end 
 evening party. But when Miss Celie, infinitely 
 self-possessed, stated her business in clear-cut ac- 
 cents of maidenly reserve, the Very Junior Partner 
 instantly manifested almost too great an interest 
 in the concern, and offered the use of a disused 
 store-room where there was a good fireplace. 
 
 "I shall see to it, Miss Tennant," he said, "that 
 there is a fire for you there whenever you wish 
 to use the room." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Iverach," returned Celie, with 
 just the proper amount of gratitude, " but I would 
 
 12
 
 178 THE STICKIT MTNISTISB. 
 
 not dream of troubling you. One of my boys will 
 do that." 
 
 The Very Junior would have liked to say that 
 he did not consider it quite the thing for a young 
 lady to be in the purlieus of the " Sooth Back " 
 after nightfall. Indeed, he would have been glad 
 to offer his escort ; but he did not say so, for he 
 was a very nice Junior Partner indeed, and his in- 
 genuous blush was worth a fortune to him as a 
 certificate of character. He therefore contented 
 himself with saying : 
 
 " If there is anything that I can do for you, 
 you will always be good enough to let me know." 
 
 Celie Tennant thanked him, and gave him her 
 hand. He came as far as the street with her, but 
 did not offer to see her home. He was no fool, 
 though so Very Junior a Partner. 
 
 Celie Tennant established her night-school hi 
 the Sooth Back with Cleg Kelly as her man 
 Friday. Cleg showed at once a great faculty for 
 organization, and he added the function of police 
 to his other duties. On the principle of " Set a 
 thief," etc., he ought to have made the best of 
 policemen, and so he did. He was not by any 
 means the biggest or the heaviest, but he had far 
 more wild-cat in him than any of his mates. 
 Once he had taken the gully on the Salisbury 
 Crags on his way to safety, when he was too much 
 pressed by force of circumstances to go round the
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 179 
 
 ordinary way; and it was quite an everyday 
 habit of his to call upon his friends by way of the 
 roof and the skylights therein. 
 
 Celie Teunant was opening her night-school this 
 Friday evening, and Cleg Kelly was on his way 
 thither to get the key from the porter, his good 
 friend at most times. He knew where there was 
 an old soap-box which would make rare kindling, 
 and he had a paraffine cask also in his mind, 
 though as yet he had not made any inquiries as 
 to the ownership of this latter. On his way he 
 rushed up to the seldom -visited garret that was 
 the domicile of his parent, Mr. Timothy Kelly, 
 when he came out of jail. During these intervals 
 Cleg withdrew himself from night quarters, only 
 occasionally reconnoitering the vicinity, if he 
 wanted any of his hidden treasures very keenly, 
 He had as many as twenty " hidie-holes " in the 
 floor, walls, eaves, and roof of the wretched dwell- 
 ing that was his only home. Some of these his 
 father frequently broke into, and scattered his 
 poor horde, confiscating the coppers, and sending 
 the other valuables through the glassless 
 windows, but on the whole Cleg could beat his 
 parent at the game of hide-and-seek. When the 
 evening came, however, Cleg hovered in the 
 neighborhood till he saw whether his father went 
 straight from his lair, growling and grumbling, 
 to Hare's Public, or remained in bed on the floor
 
 180 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 with certain curious implements around him. If 
 the latter were the case, Cleg vanished, and was 
 seen no more in the neighborhood for some days, 
 because he knew well that his father was again 
 qualifying for her majesty's hospitality, and that 
 was a business he always declined to be mixed up 
 in. He knew that his father would in all proba- 
 bility be " lagged " by the morrow's morn. Cleg 
 hoped that he would be, and the longer sentence 
 his father got the better pleased his son was. 
 Once when Timothy Kelly got six months for 
 house-breaking, a small boy was ignominiously 
 expelled from the back benches of the court for 
 saying, " Hip, hooray ! " It was Cleg. His 
 father, however, heard, and belted him for it 
 unmercifully when he came out, saying between 
 every stroke and bound, " Take that, ye sorra ! 
 Was it for this I brought yez up, ye spalpeen o' 
 the wurrld ? An' me at all the trubble an' ex- 
 pinse av yer rearin' you to cry ' hooroosh ' when 
 yer own father got a sixer in quod. Be me con- 
 science an' sleeve-buttons, but I'd be doin' my 
 duty but poorly by Father Brady an' the Tin 
 Commandments if I didn't correct yez ! " 
 
 So nobody could say that Cleg was not well 
 brought up. 
 
 If, however, Cleg saw his father take the straight 
 road for the public, he knew that there was still 
 a shot in the old man's locker, and that there were
 
 THE PKOGRESS OP CLEG KELLY. 181 
 
 enough of the " shiners for another booze," as it 
 was expressed classically in these parts. He be- 
 took himself to his own devices, therefore, till 
 closing time ; but about eleven o'clock he began 
 to haunt the vicinity of Hare's, and to peep with- 
 in whenever the door opened. On one occasion 
 he opened the door himself, and nearly got his 
 head broken with the pound weight that came 
 toward it. They did not stand on ceremony with 
 small boys in that beershop. They knocked them 
 down, and then inquired their errand afterward. 
 The landlord came from Jedburgh. 
 
 When his father came out of the public, Cleg 
 saw him home in original fashion. He had a 
 curiously shaped stick which he employed on 
 these occasions. It was the fork of a tree that he 
 had got from a very kind builder of the neighbor- 
 hood whose name was Younger. This stick was 
 only produced at such times, and the police of the 
 district, men with children of their own, and .a 
 kindly blind eye toward Cleg's ploys when not 
 too outrageous, did not interfere with his mani- 
 festations of filial piety. Indeed, it was none 
 such a pleasant job to take Tim Kelly to the lock- 
 up, even with "The Twist" on him, and Cleg 
 harassing the official rear with his crooked stick. 
 So they generally let the father and son alone, 
 though every now and then some energetic young
 
 182 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 man, new to the district, interfered. He did it 
 just once. 
 
 Having seen his father safely into Hare's, Cleg 
 went down the Pleasance with a skip and a jump 
 to light his fire. He found another boy haling off 
 his soap-box. Cleg threw a " paver " to halt him, 
 much as a privateer throws a shot athwart the 
 bows of a prize as a signal to slacken speed. The 
 boy turned instantly, but seeing Cleg coming with 
 the swiftness of the wind, and his conscience tell- 
 ing him that he could make good no claim to the 
 soap-box; knowing, moreover, that Cleg Kelly 
 could " lick him into shivereens," he abandoned 
 his prize and took to his heels, pausing at a safe 
 distance to bandy epithets and information as to 
 ancestors with Cleg. But Cleg marched off with- 
 out a word, which annoyed the other boy much 
 more than the loss of the box. That was the fort- 
 une of war, but what would happen if Cleg Kelly 
 took to getting proud? He stood a moment hi 
 thought. A light broke on him. Cleg had a pair 
 of boots with a shine on them. He had it. That 
 was the reason of this aristocratic reserve. 
 
 The lads who came to the class .first that night 
 were few and civil. The bulk of the better boys 
 were working in shoe factories in the suburbs, 
 and could not get there at seven. That was a 
 full hour too early for them, and the lads who 
 arrived were there simply " on for a lark." But
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 183 
 
 they did not know Miss Cecilia Tennant, and they 
 had reckoned without Mr. C. Kelly, who had re- 
 solved that he would be hawk to their larks. The 
 half dozen louts sat lowering and leering in the 
 neat and clean store- room in which the Very 
 Young Partner, Mr. Donald Iverach, had arranged 
 with his own hand a chair, a table, and a good 
 many forms, which he had been at the expense 
 of sending the porter to buy from the founder of 
 a bankrupt sect who lately had had a meeting- 
 house left on his hands. The Very Youngest was 
 prepared to say that he had " found " these lying 
 about the premises, had he been questioned about 
 the matter. And so he had, but the porter had 
 put them there first. But Celie Tennant took 
 what the gods had sent her, and asked no ques- 
 tions ; though, not being simpler than other young 
 women of her determination of character, she had 
 her own ideas as to where they came from. Celie 
 asked the company to stand up as she entered, 
 which with some nudging and shuffling they did, 
 whereupon she astounded them by shaking hands 
 with them. This set them rather on their beam- 
 ends for a moment, and they did not recover any 
 power for mischief till Celie asked them to close 
 their eyes during prayer. Standing up at her 
 desk, she folded her little hands and closed her 
 own eyes to ask the God whom she tried to serve 
 (surely a different God from the one whom the
 
 184 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 tract-scattering woman worshiped), to aid her 
 and help the lads. Cleg Kelly watched her with 
 adoring eyes. He had heard of the angels. She 
 had often told him about them, but he privately 
 backed his teacher against the best of them. 
 When Celie opened her eyes no one was visible 
 save Cleg, who stood with his eyes aflame. The 
 class had vanished. 
 
 " The dirty bliggards," said Cleg, the tongue of 
 his father coining back to him in his excitement, 
 " I'll bring them up to the scratch by the scruff 
 av their impident necks ! " 
 
 So he darted underneath the forms, and shortly 
 reappeared with a couple of much bigger boys 
 clinging on to him, and belaboring him with all 
 their might. Wrestling himself clear for a mo- 
 ment, Cleg dashed up the green blind which 
 covered the small single-pane window in the gable, 
 and turned at bay. The two whom he had brought 
 up from the depths made a dash at him as he 
 passed, overturned the teacher's table in their 
 eagerness to prevent him from getting to the 
 door ; but it was not the door that Cleg wanted 
 to reach. It was his crook, which he had cun- 
 ningly hitched to the back of the teacher's chair. 
 With that he turned valiantly at bay, making 
 the table a kind of fortification. 
 
 " Sit down, miss," he said, reassuringly ; " I'll 
 do for them, shure."
 
 THE PROGKESS OF CLEG KELLY. 185 
 
 At this moment the outer door opened, and his 
 friend, the night-watchman, arrived armed with 
 a formidable stick, the sight of which, and 
 the knowledge that they were trapped, took all 
 the tucker out of these very cowardly young 
 men. 
 
 " It was only a bit of fun, Cleg ! " they 
 whined. 
 
 " Get out av this ! " shouted Cleg, dancing in 
 his fury ; and out of this they got, the watchman's 
 stick doing its duty as they passed, and his dog 
 hanging determinedly on to their ankles. 
 
 What surprised them most was a sudden and 
 unexpected hoist they each received, apparently 
 from the door of the yard, which deposited them 
 on the street with their systems considerably 
 jarred. The Very Junior Partner smiled thought- 
 fully as he rubbed his toe. For the first time in 
 his life he wished that he had worn boots larger 
 and heavier. " But 'twill suffice, 'twill serve ! " 
 he quoted, as he turned away into his office ; for, 
 by a strange coincidence, he was working late 
 that night. The Senior Partner knew that he 
 had given up an engagement to go to a dance 
 that evening in order to work up some business 
 that had been lying over. He rubbed his hands 
 delightedly. 
 
 " Donald is taking to the business at last," ho 
 told his wife as they prepared for bed.
 
 186 THE BTICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 Celie had taken no part in the scene, but she 
 was far too energetic and fearless a young woman 
 to remain long quiescent. She went round the 
 benches, and as she came in sight of each grovel- 
 ing lout she ordered him to get up, and, abashed 
 and cowed, they rose one by one to their feet. 
 The dust of the floor had made no apparent 
 change in their original disarray. They stood 
 grinning helplessly arid inanely, like yokels 
 before a show at a country fair ; but there was no 
 heart in their affectation of mirth. The discom- 
 fiture of their comrades, and the sound of the 
 watchman's oak "rung" had been too much for 
 them. Then, for five lively minutes, Miss Cecilia's 
 tongue played like lambent lightning about their 
 ears, and they visibly wilted before her. 
 
 It was now eight o'clock, and the genuine mem- 
 bers of the class began to put in an appearance, 
 and each of them was welcomed with the most 
 friendly of greetings from the teacher; and as 
 each passed, Cleg's left eyelid drooped suddenly 
 upon his cheek, so decorously that no one could 
 call it a wink. The four malcontents moved for 
 the door, but the clear voice of Miss Tennant 
 brought them to a stand. 
 
 " Sit down, all of you, and speak to me at the 
 close of the class." 
 
 So they sat down, being well aware that they 
 had not a sympathizer in the room. It had
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 187 
 
 been their intention to " raise a dust " before the 
 arrival of the factory brigade, and then to get 
 clear off ; and, barring Cleg Kelly, they would 
 have done it. Cleg did not yet go to the factory, 
 for the manager would not believe that he was 
 thirteen, though Cleg had told him so times with- 
 out number; he had even on one occasion 
 stretched a point and as vainly tried fourteen. 
 Cleg Kelly went to school ever since he became a 
 reformed character ; but not every day, so as to 
 prevent the teacher from becoming too conceited. 
 However, he looked in occasionally when he had 
 nothing better to do. If he were cold when he 
 entered, in about half an hour he was quite 
 warm. 
 
 What Celie Tennant said to these four louts 
 will never be known thy have never told ; but it 
 is sufficient to say that they became pillars of the 
 " Sooth Back " Mission and Night School, and 
 needed no more attention than any of the others. 
 
 The Very Junior Partner and Cleg Kelly both 
 saw home the teacher that night, walking close to- 
 gether ; though, of course, entirely ignoring each 
 other, each some hundred yards behind Miss 
 Tennant, who walked serene in the consciousness 
 of lonely courage, her roll-book in one hand and 
 her skirt daintily held in the other, walking with 
 that charming side-swing which both her escorts 
 thought adorable. They did not communicate
 
 188 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 this to each other. On the contrary, Cleg took a 
 "gob" of hard mud in his hand, and stood a 
 moment in doubt, dividing the swift mind, 
 whether or no to " bust the swell's topper in." 
 But a consciousness of the excellence of that 
 young man's intentions preserved the shiny 
 crown which it had cost a shilling to have ironed 
 that morning at the Shop-up-three-Steps at the 
 corner of the North Bridge. The Very Junior 
 liked to go spruce to business. 
 
 On his return to the yard, Cleg Kelly found 
 that his day's work was not yet done. One of 
 his special chums came to tell him that " Hole i' 
 the Wa'," the biggest of the louts first expelled, 
 was thirsting for his blood, and had dared him to 
 fight him that very night. Now, had Cleg been 
 more advanced in reformation, he would of course 
 have refused, and given his voice for peace ; but 
 then, you see, he was only a beginner. He sent 
 his friend to tell " Hole i' the Wa' " that he 
 would wait for him in the " Polisman's Yard." 
 This was a court at the back of a police station 
 in the vicinity, which could only be entered by a 
 low "pend" or vaulted passage, though com- 
 manded from above by the high windows of the 
 station-house. It had long been a great idea of 
 Cleg's to have a battle royal under the very nose 
 of the constituted authority of the city. Thither 
 be resorted, and in a little a crowd of his friends
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 189 
 
 and his foes followed him, all protesting that he 
 could not mean to fight so near to the "bob- 
 bies' " abode. But Cleg unfolded his scheme, 
 which instantly placed him on the giddy apex of 
 popularity. He got them to roll a heavy barrel 
 which stood in one corner of the yard into the 
 " pend," which it almost completely blocked up, 
 and he himself fixed it in position with some of 
 the great iron curved shods which the lorryraen 
 used to stop their coal wagons on the steep streets 
 of the southside. It stood so firm that nothing 
 short of dynamite could have shifted it. 
 
 The fight proceeded, but into its details we 
 need not enter. It was truly Homeric. Cleg 
 flitted here and there like the active insect from 
 which he got his name, and stung wherever he 
 could get an opening. The shouts of the specta- 
 tors might have been heard in that still place for 
 the better part of a mile, and in a few minutes 
 all the police who were on duty were thundering 
 on the barrel, and all those who had been in bed 
 manned the windows in dishabille, and threatened 
 the combatants and spectators by name. 
 
 Cleg Kelly, dancing ever more wildly round 
 his adversary, revolving his fists like the spokes 
 of a bicycle, shouted defiance. 
 
 " Come on, Hole," he cried, " ye're no' worth a 
 buckie at fechtin ! " and as he circled near the 
 "pend," and heard the heaves of the laboring
 
 190 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 officers of justice, he called out: "You, Lang, 
 shanks, cast yer coat an' crawl through the bung; 
 ye micht ken that the sergeant's ower fat. Hae 
 ye nae sense ? " 
 
 There was laughter aloft in the station win- 
 dows. But somebody at the outside had brought 
 a sledge-hammer, and at the first blow the barrel 
 resolved itself into its component staves, and the 
 police tumbled in, falling headlong over Cleg's 
 wagon clamps. 
 
 Then there was a wild scurry of the lads up the 
 piles of casks and rubbish at the back of the yard, 
 and over the outhouses and roofs. Cleg was not 
 first in getting away, but he had studied the 
 locality, and he had his plans cut and dried. He 
 would have been ashamed to have been caught 
 now that he was on his way to be a reformed 
 character. In half an hour he was waiting with 
 crooked stick to " boost " his father home when 
 he was duly cast out of Hare's public at the stroke 
 of eleven as the completed produce of that estab- 
 lishment. 
 
 So in due time, and with many hard words 
 from Timothy, they neared the den which they 
 called home. At the foot of the long stair Tim- 
 othy Kelly lay down with the grunt of a hog, and 
 refused to move or speak. He would arise for no 
 punchings, however artistic, with the knobbiest 
 portions of the stick, and Cleg paused, for the
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CLEG KELLY. 191 
 
 first time that day, almost in despair. A police- 
 man came round the corner, flashing the light of 
 his bull's-eye right and left. Cleg's heart stood 
 still. It was the lengthy officer whom he had 
 called " Langshanks," and invited to come through 
 the bung. He feared that he was too kenspeckle 
 to escape. He went over to him, and taking a 
 tug at his hair, which meant manners, said : 
 
 " Please, officer, will ye gie me a lift up the 
 stair wi' my farther?" 
 
 The policeman whistled a long, low whistle, 
 and laughed. 
 
 " Officer ! " says he, " officer ! Be the powers, 
 'twas ' Langshanks ' ye called me the last time, 
 ye thief o' the wurrld ! " said the man, who was 
 of national kin to Cleg. 
 
 So they twain helped their compatriot unstead- 
 ily to his den at the head of the stairs. 
 
 " Ye're the cheekiest young shaver I ivver saw," 
 said Longshanks, admiringly, as he turned ; " but 
 there's some good in yez ! " 
 
 Cleg Kelly locked the door on the outside, said 
 his prayers like the reformed character that he 
 was, and laid him down on the mat to sleep the 
 sleep of the just. The Junior Partner always 
 saw Miss Tennant home after this. He calls her 
 " Celie " now. She has been meaning to tell him 
 for the last month that he must not do so any 
 more.
 
 192 THE STICKIT MINISTER.- 
 
 ENSAMPLES TO THE FLOCK. 
 
 THE family of the late Tyke M'Lurg consisted 
 of three loons and a lassie. Tyke had never done 
 anything for his children except share with a 
 short-lived and shadowy mother the responsi- 
 bility of bringing them into the world. The time 
 that he could spare from his profession of poacher, 
 he had systematically devoted to neglecting them. 
 Tyke had solved successfully for many years the 
 problem of how to live by the least possible ex- 
 penditure of labor. Kind ladies had taken him 
 in hand time and again. They had provided 
 clothes for his children, which Tyke had prima- 
 rily converted into coin of the realm, and indirect- 
 ly into liquid refreshment, at Lucky Morgan's rag 
 store in Cairn Edward. Work had been found 
 for Tyke, and he had done many half days of 
 labor in various gardens. Unfortunately, how- 
 ever, before the hour of noon, it was Tyke's hard 
 case to be taken with a " grooin' in his inside " 
 of such a nature that he became rapidly incapac- 
 itated for further work. 
 
 " No, mem, I canna tak' it. It's mony a year 
 since I saw the evil o't. Ye'll hae to excuse me,
 
 ENSAMPLES TO THE FLOCK. 198 
 
 but I really couldna. Oh, thae pains ! Oh, sirce, 
 my inside ! Weel, gin ye insist, I'll juist hae to 
 try a toothfu' to oblige ye, like." 
 
 But Tyke's toothfu's were over for this world, 
 and his shortcomings were lying under four feet 
 of red mold. Half a dozen kindly folk who 
 pitied his " three loons and a lassie " gathered a 
 few pounds and gave him a decent burial, not for 
 his own sake, but in order that the four little 
 scarecrows might have a decent start hi life. It 
 is the most fatal and indestructible of reproaches 
 in the south of Scotland to have a father buried 
 by the parish. 
 
 The lassie was the eldest of the children. She 
 was thirteen, and she hardly remembered what 
 it was to have a mother or a new frock. But 
 ever since she was eleven she had never had a 
 dirty one. The smith's wife had shown her how 
 to wash, and she had learned from the teacher 
 how to mend. "Leeb" had appeared on the 
 books of the school as Elizabeth M'Lurg, and she 
 had attended as often as she could that is, as 
 often as her father could not prevent her ; for 
 Tyke, being an independent man, was down on 
 the compulsory clause of the Education Act, and 
 had more than once got thirty days for assault- 
 ing the school board officer. 
 
 When he found out that Leeb was attending 
 school at the village, he lay in wait for her on her 
 13
 
 194 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 return, with a stick, and after administering 
 chastisement on general principles, he went on to 
 specify his daughter's iniquities : 
 
 " Ye upsettin' blastie, wad ye be for gangin' to 
 their schule, learnin' to look doon on yer ain 
 faither that has been at sic pains to rare ye " (a 
 pause for further correction, to which poor Leeb 
 vocalized an accompaniment). " Let me see gin 
 ye can read ! Hae, read that ! " he said, flinging 
 a tattered lesson book, which the teacher had 
 given her, to his daughter. Leeb opened the 
 book, and, punctuating the lesson with her sobs, 
 she read in the high and level shriek of a locomo- 
 tive engine, "And so brave Bobby, hav'ing 
 sa-ved the tr-r-i -em-bling child, re-turn-ed with 
 the res-cu-ed one in his mouth to the shore." 
 
 " Davert ! but ye can read ! " said her father, 
 snatching the book and tearing it up before her 
 eyes. "Noo, listen; I'll hae nane o' my bairns 
 teached to despise their faither by no school 
 boards. Look you here, Leeb M'Lurg, gin ever 
 I catch you within a mile o' the schule, I'll skin 
 ye!" 
 
 But for all this tremendous threat, or maybe 
 all the more because of it, and also because she 
 so much desired to be able to do a white seam, 
 Leeb so arranged it that there were few days 
 when she did not manage to come along the mile 
 and a half of loch-side road which separated her
 
 ENSAMPLES TO THE FLOCK. 195 
 
 from the little one-roomed, whitewashed school- 
 house on the face of the brae. She even brought 
 one of the " loons " with her pretty often ; but as 
 Jock, Rob, and Benny (otherwise known as Rag, 
 Tag, and Bobtail) got a little older, they more 
 easily accommodated themselves to the wishes of 
 their parent; and, hi spite of Leeb's blandish- 
 ments, they went into " hidie-holes " till the 
 school-board officer had passed by. 
 
 M'Lurg's Mill, where the children lived, was a 
 tumble-down erection, beautiful for situation, set 
 on the side of the long loch of Kenick. The house 
 had once been a little farmhouse, its windows 
 brilliant with geraniums and verbenas; but in 
 the latter days of the forlorn M'Lurgs it had be- 
 come betrampled as to its doorsteps by lean swinOj 
 and bespattered as to its broken floor by intru- 
 sive hens. It was to M'Lurg's Mill that the 
 children returned after the funeral. Leeb had 
 been arrayed in the hat and dress of a neighbor's 
 daughter for the occasion, but the three loons had 
 played " tig " in the intervals of watching their 
 father's funeral from the broomy knoll behind the 
 mill. Jock, the eldest, was nearly eleven, and 
 had been taken in hand by the kind neighbor 
 wife at the same time as Leeb. At one time he 
 looked as though he would even better repay 
 attention, for he feigned a sleek-faced submission 
 and a ready compliance which put Mistress Auld
 
 196 THE 8TICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 of the Arkland off her guard. Then as soon as 
 nis sister, of whom Jock stood much hi awe, was 
 gone out, he snatched up his ragged clothes and 
 fled to the hill. Here he was immediately joined 
 l)y the other two loons. They caught the Ark- 
 land donkey grazing in the field beside the mill- 
 dam, and having made a parcel of the good black 
 trousers and jacket, they tied them to the donkey 
 and drove him homeward with blows and shout- 
 ings. A funeral was only a dull procession to 
 them, and the fact that it was their father's made 
 no difference. 
 
 Next morning Leeb sat down on the " stoop " 
 or wooden bench by the door, and proceeded to 
 cast up her position. Her assets were not dif- 
 ficult to reckon. A house of two rooms, one 
 devoted to hens and lumber ; a mill which had 
 once sawn good timber, but whose great circular 
 saw had stood still for many months ; a mill-lade 
 broken down in several places, three or four chairs 
 and a stool, a table, and a wash-tub. When she 
 got so far she paused. It was evident that there 
 could be no more school for her, and the thought 
 struck her that now she must take the responsi- 
 bility for the boys, and bring them up to be useful 
 and diligent. She did not and could not so 
 express her resolve to herself, but a still and 
 strong determination was in her sore little heart 
 not to let the boys grow up like their father.
 
 ENSAMPLES TO THE FLOCK. 197 
 
 Leeb had gone to Sabbath-school every week, 
 when she could escape from the tyranny of home, 
 and was, therefore, well known to the minister, 
 who had often exercised himself in vain on the 
 thick defensive armor of ignorance and stupidity 
 which encompassed the elder M'Lurg. His office- 
 bearers and he had often bemoaned the sad 
 example of this ne'er-do-weel family which had 
 intrenched itself in the midst of so many well- 
 doing people. M'Lurg's Mill was a reproach and 
 an eyesore to the whole parish, and the M'Lurg 
 "weans" a gratuitous insult to every self-re- 
 specting mother within miles. For three miles 
 round the children were forbidden to play with, 
 or even to speak to, the four outcasts at the mill. 
 Consequently their society was much sought 
 after. 
 
 When Leeb came to set forth her resources, she 
 could not think of any except the four-pound loaf, 
 the dozen hens and a cock, the routing wild Indian 
 of a pig, and the two lean and knobby cows on 
 the hill at the back. It would have been possible 
 to have sold all these things, perhaps, but Leeb 
 looked upon herself as trustee for the rest of the 
 family. She resolved, therefore, to make what 
 use of them she could, and having most of the 
 property under her eye at the time, there was the 
 less need to indite an inventory of it. 
 
 But, first, she must bring her brothers to a
 
 198 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 sense of their position. She was a very Napoleon 
 of thirteen, and she knew that now that there was 
 no counter authority to her own, she could bring 
 Jock, Rob, and Benny to their senses very quickly. 
 She therefore selected with some care and atten- 
 tion a hazel stick, using a broken table-knife to 
 cut it with a great deal of deftness. Having 
 trimmed it, she went out to the hill to look for 
 her brothers. It was not long before she came 
 upon them engaged in the fascinating amusement 
 of rooting for pig-nuts in a green bank-side. The 
 natural Leeb would instantly have thrown down 
 her wand of office and joined them in the search, 
 but the Leeb of to-day was a very different person. 
 Her second thought was to rush among them and 
 deal lusty blows with the stick, but she fortunately 
 remembered that in that case they would scatter, 
 and that by force she could only take home one 
 or at most two. She therefore called to her as- 
 sistence the natural guile of her sex. 
 
 " Boys, are ye hungry ? " she said. " There's 
 sic a graun' big loaf come frae the Arkland!" 
 By this time all her audience were on their feet. 
 An' I'll milk the kye, an' we'll hae a feast." 
 
 " Come on, Jock," said Rob, the second loon, 
 and the leader in mischief, " I'll race ye for the 
 loaf." 
 
 " Ye needna do that," said Leeb, calmly ; " the 
 door's lockit."
 
 ENSAMPLES TO THE FLOCK. 199 
 
 So as Leeb went along she talked to her 
 brothers as soberly as though they were models 
 of good behavior and all the virtues, telling them 
 what she was going to do, and how she would 
 expect them to help her. By the time she got 
 them into the mill-yard, she had succeeded in 
 stirring their enthusiasm, especially that of Jock, 
 to whom with a natural tact she gave the wand 
 of the office of " sairgint," a rank which, on the 
 authority of Sergeant M'Millan, the village pen- 
 sioner, was understood to be very much higher 
 than that of general, "Sairgint" Jock foresaw 
 much future interest in the disciplining of his 
 brothers, and entered with eagerness into the 
 new ploy. The out-of-doors livestock was also 
 committed to his care. He was to drive the cows 
 along the road-side and allow them to pasture 
 on the sweetest and most succulent grasses, while 
 Rob scouted in the direction of the village for 
 supposititious u poalismen " who were understood 
 to take up and sell for the queen's benefit all 
 cows found eating grass on the public highway. 
 Immediately after Jock and Rab had received a 
 hunch of the Arkland loaf and their covenanted 
 drink of milk, they went off to drive the cows to 
 the loch road, so that they might at once begin 
 to fill up their lean sides. Benny, the youngest, 
 who was eight past, she reserved for her own 
 assistant. He was a somewhat tearful but will-
 
 200 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 ing little fellow, whose voice haunted the pre- 
 cincts of M'Lurg's Mill like a wistful ghost. His 
 brothers were constantly running away from him, 
 and he pattering after them as fast as his fat 
 little legs could carry him, roaring with open 
 mouth at their cruelty, the tears making clean 
 water-courses down his grimy cheeks. But Ben- 
 ny soon became a new boy under his sister's 
 exclusive care. 
 
 " Noo, Benny," she said, " you an' me's gaun to 
 clean the hoose. Jock an' Rab will no' be kennin' 
 it when .they come back ! " So, having filled the 
 tub with water from the mill-lade, and carried 
 every movable article of furniture outside, Leeb 
 began to wash out the house and rid it of the 
 accumulated dirt of years. Benny carried small 
 bucketfuls of water to swill over the floor. Grad- 
 ually the true color of the stones began to shine 
 up, and the black incrustation to retreat toward 
 the outlying corners. 
 
 "I'm gaun doon to the village," she said 
 abruptly. " Benny, you keep scrubbin' alang the 
 wa's." 
 
 Leeb took her way down rapidly to where Joe 
 Turner, the village mason, was standing by a 
 newly begun pig-stye or swine-ree, stirring a heap 
 01 lime and sand. 
 
 " G'ye way oot o' tnat ! " he said, instantly, with 
 the threatening gesture which every villager ex-
 
 ENSAMPLES TO THE FLOCK. 201 
 
 cept the minister and the mistress of Arkland 
 instinctively made on seeing a M'Lurg. This it 
 is to have a bad name. 
 
 But Leeb stood her ground, strong in the con- 
 sciousness of her good intentions. 
 
 " Maistei Turner," she said, " could ye let me 
 hae a bucketfu' or twa o' whitewash for the mill 
 kitchen, an' I'll pey ye in hen's eggs. Oor hens 
 are layin' fine, an' your mistress is fond o' an egg 
 in the mornin'." 
 
 Joe stopped and scratched his head. This was 
 something new, even in a village where a good 
 deal of business is done according to the rules of 
 truck or barter. 
 
 " What are ye gaun to do wi' the whitewash ? " 
 he inquired, to get time to think. " There was 
 little whitewash in use about M'Lurg's Mill in 
 yer faither's time ! " 
 
 " But I'm gaun to bring up the boys as they 
 should," said Leeb, with some natural impor- 
 tance, sketching triangles on the ground with her 
 bare toe. 
 
 "An' what's whitewash got to do wi' that?" 
 asked Joe, with some asperity. 
 
 Leeb could not just put the matter into words, 
 but she instinctively felt that it had a good deal 
 to do with it. Whitewash was her badge of re- 
 spectability both inside the house and out, in 
 which Leeb was at one with modern science.
 
 202 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 'I'll gie three dizzeno' eggs for three bucket- 
 fu's," she said. 
 
 " An' hoo div I ken that I'll ever see ane o' the 
 eggs?" asked Joe. 
 
 " I've brocht a dizzen wi me noo ! " said Leeb, 
 promptly, producing them from under her apron. 
 
 Leeb got the whitewash that very night and 
 the loan of a brush to put it on with. Next morn- 
 ing the farmer of the Crae received a shock. 
 There was something large and white down on 
 the loch-side, where ever since he came to the 
 Crae he had seen nothing but the trees which hid 
 M'Lurg's Mill. 
 
 " I misdoot it's gaun to be terrible weather. I 
 never saw that hoose o' Tyke M'Lurg's aff our 
 hill afore ! " he said. 
 
 The minister came by that day and stood per- 
 fectly aghast at the new splendors of the M'Lurg 
 mansion. Hitherto when he had strangers stay- 
 ing with him, he took them another way, in order 
 that his parish might not be disgraced. Not only 
 were the walls of the house shining with white- 
 wash, but the windows were cleaned, a piece of 
 white muslin curtain was pinned across each, and 
 a jug with a bunch of heather and wild flowers 
 looked out smiling on the passers-by. The minis- 
 ter bent his steps to the open door. He could 
 see the two M'Lurg cows pasturing placidly with 
 much contented head-tossing on the road-side,
 
 BNSAMPLBS TO THE FLOCK. 203 
 
 while a small boy sat above laboring at the first 
 rounds of a stocking. From the house came the 
 shrill voice of singing. Out of the fir wood over 
 the knoll came a still smaller boy bent double 
 with a load of sticks. 
 
 In the window, written with large, sprawling 
 capitals on a leaf of a copy-book under the head- 
 ing "Encourage Earnest Endeavor," appeared 
 the striking legend : 
 
 SOWING & MENDING DUN 
 GOOD COWS MILK 
 
 STICKS FOR FIREWOOD CHEEP 
 NEW LAID EGGS 
 
 BY ELIZABETH MC LURG 
 
 The minister stood regarding, amazement on 
 every line of his face. Leeb came out singing, a 
 neatly tied bundle of chips made out of the dry 
 debris of the saw-mill in her hand. 
 
 " Elizabeth," said he, " what is the meaning of 
 this?" 
 
 " Will ye be pleased to step ben ? " said Leeb. 
 The minister did so, and was astonished to find 
 himself sitting down in a spotless kitchen, the 
 walls positively painfully white, the wooden 
 chairs scoured with sand till the very fiber of the
 
 204 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 wood was blanched, and on a floor, so clean that 
 one might have dined off it, the mystic whorls 
 and crosses of whiting which connect all good 
 Galloway housekeepers with Runic times. 
 
 Before the minister went out of JVFLurg's Mill 
 he had learned the intentions of Leeb to make 
 men of her brothers. He said : 
 
 " You are a woman already, before your time, 
 Elizabeth ! " which was the speech of all others 
 best fitted to please Leeb M'Lurg. He had also 
 ordered milk and eggs for the manse to be de- 
 livered by Benny, and promised that his wife 
 would call upon the little head of the house. 
 
 As he went down the road by the loch-side he 
 meditated, and this was the substance of his 
 thought, " If that girl brings up her brothers like 
 herself, Tyke M'Lurg's children may yet be en- 
 samples to the flock." 
 
 But as to this we shall see. 
 
 THE SIEGE OF M'LURG'S MILL. 
 
 ELIZABETH M'LtrBG had been over at the village 
 for her groceries. Dressed in her best clean- 
 pinafored, lilac-sun-bonneted she was a comely 
 picture. Half a dozen years had made a differ-
 
 THE SIEGE OF M'LURG'S MILL. 206 
 
 ence in the coltish lassie who had dragooned her 
 three loons of brothers into decency and school 
 attendance after her father's funeral. There was 
 now not a better-doing family in the parish than 
 that over which the rule of Leeb M'Lurg had the 
 unquestioned force of an autocracy. Leeb had 
 saved enough from her cows and poultry to em- 
 ploy Sanny MacQuhatt, the traveling millwright, 
 to put the old saw-mill in order against that 
 approaching day when John M'Lurg, her eldest 
 brother, would be out of his time at the shop of 
 Rob Johnstone, joiner and cartwright in Whunny- 
 liggate. Affairs had marched well with the 
 M'Lurgs. Rob, the second, was still at school* 
 but there was word of his getting into a Cairn 
 Edward bank ; and it was the desire of Leeb's life 
 to see her favorite Benny turned into a dominie. 
 She had already spoken to the minister about 
 having him made a pupil teacher at the next 
 vacancy. 
 
 Elizabeth had a word for every one as she 
 walked sedately up the narrow, unpaved street 
 modest for the minister, shy for young Will 
 Morton, the teacher of the village school where 
 her brothers were alternately at the head of the 
 highest class in sharp fraternal emulation no 
 other pupil coining within a mile of them ; 
 straightforward with the women-folk, who came 
 to their doors to look down the street every ten
 
 206 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 minutes or so on the chance of seeing a cadger, 
 or even a red farm-cart, whose clanking passage 
 might break the soundless monotony. 
 
 The village lads would also cry, " Hoo's a' wi' 
 ye the day, Leeb ? " in an off-hand way which did 
 not conceal from that sharp-eyed young woman 
 their desire to stand well with her. 
 
 " She's the only lass i' the parish that kens hoo 
 to lift her feet aff the grund," said Saunders 
 Paterson to Rab Affleck, as they watched Leeb's 
 progress up the street. 
 
 "Ay, man, ye're richt; there's nae glaur'll 
 [mud] stick to Leeb's coat-tail." 
 
 But this morning many came to look after Leeb 
 M'Lurg, of M'Lurg's Mill, who had hitherto paid 
 small attention to her comings and goings. For 
 it was the village talk that Timothy M'Lurg, 
 Tyke M'Lurg's younger brother, otherwise 
 known as " Tim the Tairger," had come back, 
 and had been seen and heard on the skirts of the 
 public-house declaring that he had come as trustee 
 of his brother to take possession of M'Lurg's 
 Mill, its cattle and sheep, house-gear and bestial, 
 and to administer the same for the behoof of the 
 children of the departed. It was a noble ambi- 
 tion, and when declared among the choice com- 
 pany assembled at the " public," it elicited warm 
 commendations there, for Timothy M'Lurg had 
 always spent other people's money like a man.
 
 THE SIEGE OP M'LURG'S MILL. 207 
 
 But when the better spirits of the village heard 
 of it, there were many who grieved for the chil- 
 dren who had made so gallant a fight. So when 
 Elizabeth M'Lurg went up the street that day 
 there was many a one who watched her with a 
 wae heart. Yet it was not until David Clark, the 
 village shopkeeper, had finished serving her with 
 tea and sugar that he said to Leeb, in a friendly 
 way: 
 
 " I hear ye've gotten your uncle Timothy back." 
 Leeb whitened to the lips at that name of dread. 
 She remembered the wild nights when Timothy 
 brought his companions with him, and turned the 
 little world of M'Lurg's Mill upside down. 
 
 " No," she answered, determined not to show 
 any emotion to the watchful eyes of David Clark, 
 " I didna ken." 
 
 She spoke as though the news were some ordi- 
 nary and unimportant gossip. 
 
 " Where has he come frae ? " she asked. 
 
 David Clark knew that he had come from a 
 long sojourn in her majesty's prisons, owing to 
 the death of a keeper in one of Tim's poaching 
 affrays. But David was not a man to commit 
 himself unnecessarily when a well-paying cus- 
 tomer was concerned. 
 
 " They were sayin' that he was up aboot the 
 public, an' that he cam' frae Cairn Edward in the 
 bottom o' a coal cairt."
 
 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 Calmly Leeb settled her reckoning with the 
 eggs and butter which she had brought, and re- 
 ceived the balance in good queen's silver. Calmly 
 she took her sedate way down the street, no step 
 discomposed or hurried. But in her heart there 
 was a deadly tumult. 
 
 Her scheme of life, so carefully constructed 
 and so sturdily worked for, came tumbling about 
 her ears. She had no idea what her uncle's 
 powers might be whether he could take the 
 mill or claim the cows. She only knew that he 
 would certainly do all the ill he was capable of, 
 and she thought of her fortress lying open and 
 unguarded at her enemy's mercy, with only old 
 Sanny MacQuhatt hammering and grumbling to 
 herself over the reconstruction of the rickety saw- 
 mill. As soon as she was clear of the village 
 Leeb took to her heels, and glinted light foot 
 through the poplar avenues along the skirts of 
 the bright June meadows, where the hemlock was 
 not yet overtopped by the meadow-sweet, as in a 
 week or two it would be. 
 
 She struck across the hill above the loch, which 
 lay below her rippleless and azure as the blue of 
 a jay's wing. The air from off the heather was 
 warm and honey-scented. At the second stile, 
 when she turned into her own hill pasture, some 
 vague fear struck her heart. She dared not take 
 the first look at the homestead which she had
 
 THE SIEGE OF M'LURG'S MILL. 209 
 
 given her young life to make worthy of her vow 
 to bring up her brothers as they should. As she 
 set her foot on the lowest stone of the high, un- 
 couth stile in the dry-stone dike, something 
 grunted heavily on the other side. 
 
 There was something so bestially human and 
 superfluously degraded in the noise that Leeb 
 knew that it could not be produced by any of the 
 " lower " animals. Gathering her skirts about 
 her for a spring, and turning up a supercilious 
 nose, she peeped over the top of the dike. Be- 
 neath her lay Tim M'Lurg, sleeping stertorously, 
 with his head recumbent on the lowest step, by 
 which she must descend. A swarm of flies buzzed 
 and crawled over his face, unhealthily flushed 
 through its prison sallowness by drink and the 
 June sun. 
 
 Leeb, whose tastes were dainty as those of any 
 other lady, glanced at him with such extreme 
 disfavor that her fear was for the time being 
 swallowed up in disgust. She paused for half a 
 dozen long moments, finally reached down an ex- 
 perimental toe, and with a sharp side push on the 
 close-cropped head she undid the precarious bal- 
 ance of her relative, who collapsed flaccidly side- 
 ways on the heather like an overset bolster. 
 
 His niece sprung over his prostrate hulk, took 
 two or three rapid steps, faced about, and gazed 
 fixedly at him, to show that she was not in the 
 14
 
 210 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 least afraid, then walked slowly up the path to the 
 crest of the hill, where she was out of sight of 
 the stile; then, with heart beating wildly, her 
 terror came upon her, and she ran as hard as she 
 could toward M'Lurg's Mill, which lay peacefully 
 among the trees at the foot of the hill. 
 
 As she came down Che wood-side she caught up 
 the tough branch of a fir-tree, and drove the two 
 cows, now no longer lean and ill-favored, and the 
 young bull, to which Leeb had been looking to 
 pay her rent that year, toward the byre. She 
 sent Jock and his mother on with vicious blows 
 till they were safely stabled in their stalls, with 
 fresh bundles of clover grass before them. Then 
 Leeb locked the byre door with a ponderous, sel- 
 dom-used key, and went down to the mill to warn 
 Sanny MacQuhatt. 
 
 " Ay, an' yer uncle's come hame," muttered 
 Sanny. " That's no, sae guid ; an' ill yin him a' 
 the days o' him. Tim the Tairger they ca' him 
 no' withoot raison. Ay, ay, an ill yin Tim." 
 
 " You'll no' let him within the mill, wull ye, 
 Sanny?" 
 
 " Certes, he'll no' come here as long as I'm 
 responsible for pittin' the auld ramshackle in 
 order mair fule me for takin' on the job. It's 
 never worth it : guid for nocht but firewood." 
 
 And Sanny grumbled away till his words were 
 lost in the snuffling produced by repeated pinches
 
 THE SIEGE OF M'LUKG'S MILL. 211 
 
 of brown Taddy from his waistcoat pocket. Leeb 
 stood patient by, knowing that at this juncture 
 the word of Sanny MacQuhatt, ill-tempered old 
 curmudgeon of a millwright though he might be, 
 was to her a tower of strength. 
 
 The cattle put under lock and key, the mill 
 garrisoned, Leeb proceeded to the house, where 
 she carefully locked every door and put the hasp 
 on every window. Those which had no defense 
 of this kind she secured with nails. While she 
 was still employed about this last operation, there 
 came a loud knock at the front door, which Leeb 
 had secured first of all. 
 
 " Wha's there ? " challenged the besieged, sharp 
 and clear. 
 
 " Open the door, Leeb," returned a thick voice, 
 which Leeb knew instinctively to be that of her 
 uncle. " It's me come hame." 
 
 " I ken naebody that's to come hame," returned 
 Leeb. " Wha micht < me ' be?" 
 
 " D'ye no' mind yer uncle Timothy ? " said the 
 thick voice outside, subsiding into a whine. " Let 
 me come ben, Leeb ; I'm corned to look efter ye, 
 an' to work for ye a'." 
 
 " Na," said Leeb, " I've worked for myseF a' 
 thae years that ye've been lyin' in the jail, a 
 disgrace to us a', and I'm no' gaun to let ye scatter 
 what I hae gathered, sae just e'en tak' yersel' aff 
 to where ye cam' frae. This is nae hame o' yours ! '
 
 212 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 The wrath of the still half- tipsy man rose in a 
 flash. His voice became an unsteady scream. 
 
 " Then tak' heed to yersel', Leeb M'Lurg ! " he 
 shouted through the keyhole. " Gin ye dinna let 
 me in I'll burn the riggin' ower yer heid mill 
 first and then the hoose ye ill-set, ungratefu' 
 besom ! " 
 
 " Ay, Uncle Timothy, ye can try either o' the 
 twa," said Leeb, from the safe vantage of a little 
 staircase window, which, made of a single pane, 
 opened inward. "Gae awa' frae my door this 
 minute ! " she said. 
 
 The jail-bird beneath threw himself furiously 
 against the old wooden door, which opened in the 
 middle ; but the oak bolt was firm, and held. 
 Still, the whole house shook with the shock of his 
 onslaught. 
 
 Leeb hesitated no longer, but snatched a black 
 " goblet " from the side of the kitchen fire, and 
 sent the contents out of the window with a deft 
 hand. There was an answering howl of pain. 
 
 " Ye've scadded me ! I'll hae the law on ye, 
 ye randy ! I'll hae yer life I " 
 
 " There's a potfu' mair on the fire for ye, gin ye 
 dinna gang awa' quaitly wi' what ye hae gotten ! " 
 said Tim M'Lurg's hard-hearted niece. 
 
 He now took himself off in the direction of the 
 barn. Hardly had he disappeared on the other 
 side when Leeb's favorite brother, Benny, came
 
 THE SIEGE OF M'LTJEQ'S MILL. 213 
 
 whistling round the corner opposite to that afc 
 which Tim had disappeared. He stood astonished 
 to see the front door shut. Leeb hurried down, 
 unlocked the door, and called to him to run. He 
 came slowly toward her with a bewildered coun- 
 tenance. She pulled him inside, told him hur- 
 riedly what had happened, and sent him off 
 through the back window, which abutted on the 
 moor, with a message to Will Morton, the school- 
 master. Benny flew like the wind. He knew 
 that it was his part to bring up re-enforcements 
 while his sister kept the castle. Leeb watched 
 till Benny was safe over the hill, then she herself 
 slipped out of the house, locking the door behind 
 her, and went toward the mill, from which rose 
 the sound of angry voices. Before she got there, 
 however, the commotion was evidently reaching 
 its climax, and Leeb deemed it best to slip into 
 the byre, through one of the wickets of which she 
 could see the mill door. Through that wide-open 
 square tumbled Tim the Tairger, bareheaded and 
 in disarray, and behind him appeared the burly 
 figure of old Sanny MacQuhatt, with his mill- 
 wright mallet in his hand. 
 
 " I wad be wae to strike the like o' you, Tim," 
 said the old man. " Ye michtna need anither, 
 but dinna ye come back here to interfere wi' my 
 wark. Gang awa' an' collogue wi' yer cronies, 
 poachers an' sic-like, an' lea' decent folk abee ! "
 
 214 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 Timothy gathered himself up. He had had 
 enough of the millwright, who, having done his 
 part, went staidly back to his interrupted work. 
 The ill-treated one came toward the byre, and, 
 seeing the door open, he went in. Leeb sprung 
 into the bauks above the stall of the bull just in 
 time. Her uncle looked the cattle over with a 
 dissatisfied eye. He seemed to Leeb to be reck- 
 oning how much Crummie and Specklie would 
 bring in the auction mart. She resolved that he 
 should also have a look at Jock, and so be able to 
 decide on his market value as well. Stooping 
 over, she undid his binding, and lashed him at 
 the same time sharply across the nose with the 
 rope. Jock lowered his head, and backed indig- 
 nantly out of his stall. As he turned he found 
 himself face to face with an intruder, a man whose 
 red neckcloth proved him evidently his enemy and 
 assailant. Jock's charge was instant and effect- 
 ive. "With a snort he cleared the byre, and 
 pursued across the open square of the yard, tail 
 in air and horns to the ground. Timothy M'Lurg 
 could not complain of the warmth of his reception 
 in the home of his ancestors. 
 
 He sought refuge from the bull in the big 
 water hole under the mill-wheel. Here, waiting 
 the bull's retirement, Leeb interviewed him from 
 the mill window, under the protection of Sanny 
 MacQuhatt, and offered him a pound note to go
 
 THE SIEGE OF M'LURG'S MILL. 215 
 
 away. This compromise had the weakness of a 
 woman's compunction, and was strongly disap- 
 proved of by her ally. 
 
 " Gie that craitur a poun' to drink he'll sune 
 come back on ye for anither," said Sanny, who 
 knew the breed. "I'd 'pound' him," he mut- 
 tered. 
 
 But Tim the Tairger, also thinking that this 
 offer gave signs of yielding, rejected it with oaths 
 and contumely. On the contrary, he would sell 
 them up, bag and baggage. The whole place be- 
 longed to him. He had deeds that could prove it. 
 Stock, plenishing, water-power all were his. 
 
 " Gin the water-poo'er be yours, ma man," said 
 Sanny, " ye can hae that, an' welcome." 
 
 Sanny's humor was of the entirely practical 
 kind. 
 
 He went to the mill-lade, and turned on the 
 stream. The whole force of M'Lurg's mill-dam 
 took its way smoothly down the repaired lade, 
 and flashed with a solid leap over the old green 
 wheel upon Timothy, as he stood between the 
 bull to landward and the plunging mill-wheel. 
 Sanny grimly kept up his end of the jest. 
 
 " Hae, ma man, ye'll no' say that we keepit ye 
 oot o' yer richts. ' Water-poo'er,' " quo' he ; 
 nae pound notes ye'se get i' this pairish, but it'll 
 ne' be Sanny MacQuhatt that'll keep ye oot o* 
 the use o' yer ain water-poo'er ! "
 
 216 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 Tim the Tairger was in a woful case. The old 
 man looked from the mill window, and comforted 
 him with crusty humor, the points of which were 
 all too obvious. The cold water plunged upon 
 him from the mill-wheel, it deepened about his 
 knees, and Jock, the young bull, pawed the 
 ground and snorted murderously for his blood. 
 He was completely sobered now, and vowed re- 
 peatedly that if they would only give him the 
 pound note he would go and never disturb them 
 more. 
 
 But Sanny had taken things into his own 
 hands, and would not allow Leeb to interfere. 
 
 " Bide ye where ye are, ma man ; ye're braw 
 and caller doon there. Ye were aye a drouthy 
 lad, Tim, since ever I kenned ye. Ye're in the 
 way o' being sleekened noo ! An' in a wee there'll 
 be a bonny lad wi' silver buttons comin' up that 
 road to look for ye. Benny, yer ain bluid relative, 
 he's gane for him, an' he'll hae him here the noo. 
 It was a blessin' he was in the district ony way ; 
 it's no' that often a polisman's where he's 
 wantit." 
 
 " Here he's come ! " cried Leeb, from her post 
 of observation in the mill gable. 
 
 Tim the Tairger took one look down the road, 
 one link of which he could see as it wound round 
 the loch. He saw the sun glitter on the white 
 buttons of a policeman's coat, who came stalking
 
 THE SIEGE OF M'LURG'S MILL. 217 
 
 majestically along. Whatever evil Tim had on 
 his conscience of prison-breaking or ticket-of- 
 leave unreported, we do not know, but the fear of 
 the officer of the law overpowered even his fear of 
 Jock's horns. With a wild skelloch of despera- 
 tion he dashed out of the pool, and took down 
 the road, doubling from the bull like a hunted 
 hare. 
 
 The schoolmaster masquerading according to 
 Leeb's orders, in Sergeant M'Millan's old police- 
 man's coat saw Timothy M'Lurg leap the low 
 loaning dike and tear down the road. After him 
 thundered the bull, routing in blood-curdling 
 wrath. From a high knoll he watched the chase, 
 till hunter and hunted were lost in the shades of 
 Knock-angry Wood. The bull was found next 
 day wandering near Dairy, with a clouted deer- 
 stalking cap transfixed on one horn ; but as for 
 Tim the Tairger, he was never more heard tell of 
 in stewartry or in shire. 
 
 The mystery is not likely to be solved now, for 
 the secrets of that chase are only known to Jock, 
 and he ran his earthly race to the beef-tub half a 
 dozen years ago without unburdening his con- 
 science to any. From his uncertain temper it is 
 however suspected that he had something on his 
 mind. 
 
 As for Sanny MacQuhatt, he says that he is 
 "muckle feared that Tim the Tairger is gane
 
 218 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 whaur he wad be michty gled o' the water-poo'er 
 o' M'Lurg's mill-lade ; whilk," concludes Sanny, 
 I defy him to say that I ever denied him I " 
 
 THE MINISTER OF SCAUR CASTS OUT 
 WITH HIS MAKER. 
 
 SILAS CAKTWRIGHT had a quarrel with the 
 Almighty. He had dwelt five years by the side 
 of the Scaur Water. He was a lonely man and 
 little given to going into company. The men of 
 his presbytery found it hard to draw him away 
 from his manse, even for a night. He asked none 
 of them to assist him at his communion seasons 
 except Mr. Ure of Crawwheats and Mr. Croft of 
 the Riggs, both, of whom could go back to their 
 manses the same night. 
 
 The manse of the Scaur sat on a high bank 
 overlooking the long, narrow, densely wooded 
 valley. From his study window the minister 
 could look over the clustered slate roofs of the 
 Tillage of Scaur into the pale-blue misty distance, 
 through which a silver thread ran Silas Cart- 
 wright's glimpse of that other world where the 
 Nith glimmered among its rich wheat-fields. 
 Above the manse of Scaur the woods died out into
 
 THE MINISTER OP SCAUR. 219 
 
 fringing hazel and birch, and the brown moorland 
 began where the whaups and the peewits made a 
 blithe crying on the June mornings, and the 
 jacksnipe swooped sidelong with melancholy 
 wing-quaverings every autumn evening. 
 
 It was to the bare hills of heather that Silas 
 Cartwright took his way every time that he undid 
 the hasp of the creaking front door of the manse 
 which was so seldom used. He dwelt among his 
 hill folk like a man of another blood and another 
 speech. City bred and delicately nurtured, he 
 had come to the parish of Scaur in the last days 
 of patronage, through the interest of a university 
 friend who happened to be the penniless laird of 
 a barren heritage of bog and morass. 
 
 " You tak' the lairdship, an' I'll tak' the steep- 
 end ! " his friend had said. 
 
 But Silas Cartwright had stuck to the manse. 
 He had a great desire in his heart to be a leader 
 among men, and the chance which opened to him 
 among the shepherds and small sheep farmers of 
 the Scaur Water was peculiarly fascinating. Like- 
 wise there was a girl with a pale cheek and 
 shining gold hair for whom the minister dreamed 
 of making a home. He had met Cecilia Barton in 
 Edinburgh drawing-rooms, where her pale beauty 
 and crown of glistening tresses had lain heavy on 
 his heart for many, many days after. Then they 
 had met again by the side of the eastern sea,
 
 220 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 where the rocky islands stood out in the morning 
 like dusky amethysts against the sun. He had 
 paced the sands with her, overtowering her slim 
 form with his masculine stolidity. Cecilia Barton 
 listened with a far-off sympathy while the tall 
 student quoted Tennyson to her, and even thrilled 
 with a faint emotion as the tones of his voice 
 proclaimed more plainly than words that she, she 
 only, was the power 
 
 " Whose slightest whisper moves me more. 
 Than all the ranged reasons of the world." 
 
 This girl with the far-off eyes had trod, careless 
 but not unconscious, on many hearts, and the 
 virginal whiteness of her summer dress was more 
 passionate than the heart which beat beneath it. 
 
 Silas Cartwright, as he walked on the moorland 
 with his staff in his hand, thought often of the 
 days when Tantallon's toothless portcullis was a 
 gate-way to the palace of delights, and when 
 Fidra and the small isles swam on the sea of bliss. 
 All this because there was a tolerant kindness hi 
 a girl's languid eyes, and because the glamour of 
 a first love had fallen upon a young man. Then 
 it was that Cecilia Barton had expressed her 
 fondness for a life of pastoral quietness, simple 
 among a simple people. This was her ideal, she 
 said ; her desire above all others. Her voice waa 
 soft, her eyes luminous. Her mother would have
 
 THE MINISTER OF SCAUR. 221 
 
 smiled had she heard her, but Cecilia Barton did 
 not talk thus to her mother. Really her ideals lay 
 in the region of C-springed carriages and dressing- 
 cases with fittings of monogrammed gold. 
 
 When Silas Cartvvright went back to his city 
 home that autumn he treasured some words which 
 in the silent coolness of a rocky recess this girl's 
 voice hard said to him. Indeed, they were more 
 to him than the call of the Master whom he had 
 promised to serve. 
 
 He took her hand in his, and she let it lie. He 
 saw strange meanings in her eyes as they looked 
 out to sea. Really she was only wondering what 
 he would do next. Men do not act alike in such 
 cases, and the uncertainty was pleasing. But Silas 
 Cartwright, with small originality, only leaned 
 toward the reflected light on the pale-gold hair. 
 
 " Do you love me ? " he asked. 
 
 After a pause Cecilia Barton answered him, 
 " There is no man I love so well." 
 
 Which was true and hopeful so far, and might 
 have been sufficient had there not been a girl 
 whom she loved infinitely more. 
 
 That last winter passed with presbyterial trials 
 and class examinations to be overleaped, meaning- 
 less to him as hurdles in a handicap. License 
 and ordination he passed like mile-stones which 
 marked his progress toward the white-walled 
 manse in a sunny glen which should be a home
 
 222 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 for a new Adam and Eve. Then came Adam 
 Stennis and his offer of the manse of the Scaur. 
 The young minister preached there to a scanty 
 flock who accepted him with unconcern. The 
 Cameronians were strong in that glen, and they 
 looked on the new parish minister as an emblem 
 of the powers of state which had refused to set 
 up a covenanted church. They came to the or- 
 dination, however, and sat silent with grim dis- 
 approval in every line of their faces. Then Silas 
 Cartwright occupied himself in making a round 
 of pastoral visitations, and in getting his furniture 
 up from Thorniwood. He saw each article taken 
 carefully off the carts ; he unpacked it with his 
 own hands, saying to himself. " In this chair she 
 will sit. At this table she will preside ! " His 
 Sabbaths were chiefly delightful to him because 
 of the vision of shining pale-gold hair which glim- 
 mered, unseen by all save the minister, in the 
 gloomy square prison of the manse seat. Here 
 he would open the Sunday-school. Here at the 
 little school's lower end, beneath the windows 
 round which the white roses clambered to peep 
 in, the little cottage organ which he had bought 
 for her would sit, and the thrill of her voice would 
 shake the tendrils of the honeysuckle about the 
 porch. 
 
 One day the carrier brought the minister of 
 the Scaur a parcel, and on the same day the post-
 
 THE MINISTER OF SCAUR. 223 
 
 man brought him a newspaper. The latter was 
 marked with a blue cross, and announced that 
 the marriage of Perkins Dobbs and Cecilia Barton 
 had been celebrated by the Reverend Dean Hark- 
 away in the cathedral church of St. Kentigern. 
 The bride had chosen the monograms and the 
 C-springs. The country manse was a mere holi- 
 day opinion vanishing with Fidra and the grassy 
 gate-ways of Tantallon. She whirled away amid 
 smiles and rice, with a coat of arms of the pater- 
 nal Dobbs (who in his day had brewed the best 
 of ale) on the panels of her carriage, and there 
 was an end of her. 
 
 But what of the manse that was furnished for 
 her, the chairs which, as they were bought, 
 packed, transported, and set up, were each con- 
 secrated to her down-sitting? What of the man 
 whose every breath was a spasm of pain, to whom 
 sleep came with a feeling of deadliest oppression, 
 and who awoke in the moaning to a sharp and 
 cruel stound of agony ? " 
 
 Silas Cartwright walked on the moorland by 
 night and day. He did not think. He did not 
 speak. He did not murmur. He only looked for 
 God's juniper bush, under which he might lie 
 down arid die. 
 
 But a man cannot die naturally when he will, 
 and Silas Cartwright had stronger stuff in him 
 than those who take away their own lives.
 
 224 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 The girl who had wronged him still lived with 
 him a ghostly presence, and sat opposite him in 
 the chairs which he had dreamed she would 
 occupy. 
 
 He saw her in the graceful quiet of her white 
 gown on the little green lawn under the apple- 
 trees. In his dreams he took her hand and 
 climbed the mountains with her, taking her far 
 up into the bosom of the moors, where the high 
 Lead Hills fold themselves in overlapping purple 
 masses about the Pass of Dalveen. 
 
 " This way madness lies ! " he would say time 
 and again to himself, when like a dash of cold 
 rain the reality of his loss came upon him ; but 
 as his strange fancy strengthened, he walked 
 with a ghostly bride arid buried himself in an 
 unreal present in order to shut out a hopeless 
 future. 
 
 His pulpit work alternated between severely 
 orthodox disquisitions quarried from the litera- 
 ture of the past, over which every minister has 
 mining rights, and strange, dreamy rhapsodies 
 which considerably astonished his hearers in the 
 little kirk of Scaur. 
 
 Silas Cartwright had never been a deeply 
 spiritual man ; but now, steeped in a kind of 
 mystic make-belief, he reached out toward all 
 sorts of spiritualism and occultism. He had 
 catalogues of books on these subjects sent to him,
 
 THE MINISTER OF SCAUR. 225 
 
 and from these he made extensive purchases, far 
 beyond what his means allowed. He steeped his 
 mind in these studies, and it was not long before 
 his work as pastor among the hill folk became 
 distasteful to him. His congregation of a Sunday 
 droning psalms and fluttering leaves, sitting in 
 straggling clusters about the pews, each looking 
 more uncomfortable than his neighbor moved 
 before him like idle painted shapes in a mummer's 
 show. The only real figure in that gray kirk of 
 rough harled masonry was the Presence, with 
 the shining hair sitting quiet on the cushions 
 of the manse seat. 
 
 The parish of Scaur did not let its tongue lie 
 still while all this was going on. It had its own 
 opinion, which was plainly, that the minister was 
 going out of his mind. But he was all the less to 
 be meddled with on that account. He had even an 
 increase in his Sabbath congregations, for it was 
 a fascinating subject to discuss the strange utter- 
 ances of a mad minister at farm ingle-nooks and 
 by the smithy fire during the week. The Camer- 
 onians took little heed. It was small concern of 
 theirs if an Erastian went wrong in his mind. 
 He was far from right to begin with. So their 
 minister simply kept leathering on at the funda- 
 mentals. One of the things most noted was the 
 care with which the minister paraphrased the 
 name of God in his prayers and discourses. The 
 15
 
 226 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 superstitious said that he dared not utter the 
 Name. The bolder made bets that he would not 
 do so in the whole course of a morning's diet of 
 worship, and they won their wagers. It was, 
 indeed, small wonder that the parish decided that 
 its minister was going out of his mind. 
 
 But the seasons went round, and the most that 
 any one could say when asked about Mr. Cart- 
 wright was that he was " No' muckle waur than 
 usual ! " He himself got little ease or peace of 
 mind, and it was impossible that he could, con- 
 sidering the purpose which his mind confessed. 
 This was no less than to take his revenge on God 
 for denying him the desire of his heart. There 
 was a kind of joy in the thought that he had cast 
 out with his Maker. 
 
 What actually cured him it is strange to have 
 to tell. When Cecilia Barton drove away that 
 day behind the bays of Dobbs, she covenanted for 
 a position and for riches. On the other hand, she 
 had a husband whom she loved with such love 
 that when he died, after five years, she put on 
 widow's weeds of the best quality and was exceed- 
 ing thankful. Then she came down to a shooting- 
 lodge in the Nith valley, and sent for Silas Cart- 
 wright to come to see her. He resisted the sum- 
 mons for some days, for his ideal bride had grown 
 to suffice him, and then finally he went. He saw 
 and he returned a sane man whose cure was
 
 JOHN BLACK, CRITIC IN ORDINARY. 227 
 
 complete. He had seen a fat woman with two 
 fatter lap dogs, who talked concerning horses and 
 sneered at the people of the shepherd's houses 
 about the mansion-house which she occupied. 
 
 So Silas Cartwright returned, clothed and in 
 his right mind. There was no presence in the 
 manse seat any more. He made his peace with 
 God in ways that are not our business. His ser- 
 mons were new things instinct with actuality 
 and fervor. Some of the hill folk went over to 
 the parish church to hear him one night when he 
 held an evening service. An old elder walked to 
 the manse gate with the young man. They two 
 stood a moment silent, and then the elder spoke. 
 
 " Maister Cartwright," he said, " you and your 
 Maker had an awfu' cast oot ; but noo that 
 ye've made it up, man, ye're fit to be a Cameron- 
 ian!" 
 
 JOHN BLACK, CRITIC IN ORDINRAY. 
 
 JOHN BLACK was not a minister, but there were 
 few ministers that could hold a candle to him. 
 This is a fact. John Black says so himself. He 
 desires to add " if any." But, owing to jealousy, 
 he has somehow never been appreciated. But if 
 John Black were to speak his mind, he " kens o*
 
 228 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 at least twal' ministers that had better resign." 
 Previous, however, to this holocaust we may en- 
 deavor to do some justice to John Black himself. 
 He came to our Sunday-school trip this year, and 
 his sayings and doings for a long summer's day 
 were within our observation. The result is 
 appended hereunder, and may form an humble 
 introduction to John's intended series of essays 
 in destructive criticism. 
 
 First of all, John Black said that we were sure 
 to get a bad day because we were going in th 
 month of July. It is sure to rain in July. John 
 had been a teacher in the school as long as he 
 had a class, or, more accurately, as often as he 
 could get his class to attend, for he used to dis- 
 perse any class that was given to him in about 
 three Sabbath days. The laddies said that " they 
 werena comin' there to hae their lugs dadded." 
 John said that " he never saw sic a set o' young 
 haythens;" and as for the superintendent, he 
 said that "he had something else to do than 
 rampage the country seeking for laddies to run 
 away from John Black. If John wanted any 
 more classes, he could seek them himself." John 
 felt that this was a discouragement, and resigned 
 his position as an acting teacher in our congrega- 
 tional Sabbath school. But he retained, entirely 
 by his own appointment, a sort of honorary posi- 
 tion as genera] critic to the management, and
 
 JOHN BLACK, CItlTIC IN OHDINAKl. 229 
 
 thought himself more indispensable than the en- 
 tire staff. This was not, however, we believe, the 
 universal opinion. 
 
 Last year we went up the country for our sum- 
 tner trip to a field on the farm of Greenshiels. 
 John Black's auntie, who lived on the farm, had 
 the supplying of the milk on that occasion, and, 
 as everybody allowed, she just charged us two 
 prices. John Black wanted us to go back to 
 Greenshiels this year, but the minister had made 
 arrangements with one of his elders to visit his 
 farm of Port Moor, on the shores of the Frith. 
 John Black was much distressed at the thought 
 of all the children falling off the rocky " heughs n 
 of Port More, and being brought home on a pro- 
 cession of shutters. Whereupon the minister said 
 that in that case they had better take the shutters 
 with them, for there were none within six miles 
 of Port More. John told the minister that he 
 would not have his responsibility for the best 
 cow in the parish. But the minister thought he 
 could take the responsibility without the cow. 
 He is quite able for John Black at any time, is 
 our minister. 
 
 We were going in carts, for the reason that if 
 we did not go in carts we should have had to walk. 
 Indeed, many did walk ; the younger teachers of 
 both sexes, in order to take the short cuts through 
 the wood, and so s? ve the horses while many of
 
 230 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 the elder boys ranged on both sides of the road, 
 like greyhounds fresh off the slip. The min- 
 ister walked sedately behind all the carts along 
 with the superintendent, seeing more than any 
 one gave him credit for. 
 
 There was not much cheering when we started, 
 for not many people were about, and it is no use 
 hurrahing if there is no one to hear you. The 
 girls, for the most part, stayed quietly in their 
 carts and sung hymns softly, with such of their 
 teachers as, from age or oth^r cause, had no call to 
 rest the horses. There were some farmers' sons 
 driving the carts very nice lads, though shy as 
 a rule till they found their tongues, which they 
 did not do in general until they were within a 
 mile of their own homes, and could see the smoke 
 from their ancestral chimneys. Then they be- 
 came unexpectedly voluble, and displayed aston- 
 ishing local knowledge for the benefit of th^ lady 
 teachers. James Greg even asked the Misses 
 Robb, whose father keeps the shop at the Bridge 
 End, if they would not like to come and live at 
 his house. This was felt to be a very great length 
 for James to go, but then James was known in 
 all the parish to be a very daring Romeo. But 
 Nancy Robb soon brought him to confusion by 
 replying : " We canna a' three come, Jamie ; tell 
 us what ane ye want, an' then we'll see aboot it ! " 
 
 Nancy had been used to holding her own with
 
 JOHN BLACK, CRITIC IN ORDINARY. 231 
 
 the town lads, so James's rustic gallantry was 
 child's play to her. Besides, she was going to be 
 married in the back-end, and so could speak more 
 freely. No one is so dangerous as an engaged 
 girl, not even a widow, though here the authorities 
 are against us. The engaged girl is a licensed 
 heart-breaker, certified capable, who knows that 
 her time is short. 
 
 When we got to Port More we all went to have 
 a look at the tide, which was just coming in. 
 Some of the boys were only restrained by the most 
 forcible arguments from bathing there and then. 
 The water was about four inches deep half a mile 
 from the shore; so, to make fun of them, the 
 minister advised them to walk out with their 
 clothes on, and strip when they got into deep 
 water ; but none of them did that. 
 
 We were just all seated in a great irregular 
 semicircle, having milk and buns, when John 
 Black drove up in his auntie's gig, which he had 
 borrowed for the occasion. He had not been asked, 
 but that did not prevent him from finding fault 
 with all the arrangements as soon as he arrived. 
 Milk, it appeared, was bad for the stomach when 
 overheated, and ought to have had its acidity cor- 
 rected, according to his auntie's recipe, with a 
 little water. 
 
 " We want nane of yer milk frae the coo wi* 
 the iron tail, John," said one of the teachers, who
 
 282 THE 8TICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 did not like John, and had said that he would not 
 come if John was asked. 
 
 The children did not seem to feel any bad effects, 
 however, nor did they quarrel with the want of 
 the corrective water, judging by the milk they 
 stowed away about their persons. In a few 
 minutes, after sundry cautions from the minister 
 not to go along the shore without a teacher, they 
 scattered into small roving bands. The cricket 
 stumps were soon up, and a good game going. 
 One of the teachers took the biggest boys to bathe 
 in a sheltered cove at some distance, where the 
 tide had come sufficiently far up. The lady 
 teachers wandered about and picked rock rose 
 and other seaside flowers, or explored with their 
 classes great shell heaps for " rosebuds " and " legs 
 of mutton." All was peaceful and happy, and 
 the minister was the happiest of all, for his 
 sermons were both done, and lying snug within 
 his Bible in the study of the manse. He talked 
 to the superintendent at intervals, sucking mean- 
 while the ends of some sprays of honeysuckle. 
 Then he crossed his legs, and told tales of how 
 Rob Blair and he lived on ten shillings a week in 
 their first session at college. The superintendent 
 took mental notes for the benefit of his own boys, 
 two of whom were going up to college this winter 
 with quite other notions. All was peaceful a 
 fcland happiness settled upon the chiefs looking
 
 JOHN BLACK, CRITIC IN ORDINARY. 238 
 
 down on the whole of their extensive family a 
 peace rudely disturbed by a "cleg" which had in- 
 quiringly settled on the back of the minister's 
 neck. It was a trying moment, but the minister 
 was calm. He said, quietly : 
 
 " Will you be kind enough to kill me that ' cleg ' 
 on the back of my neck, Mr. Poison ? " 
 
 The superintendent saw the insect apparently 
 standing on its head, gorging itself with clerical 
 blood, and realized that he had got a great man 
 for his minister. John Black (who was not far 
 away, explaining to three teachers and four of 
 the elder scholars that the minister and superin- 
 tendent were a couple of incapables) said when he 
 went home that it was no wonder that the school 
 was going to rack and ruin, for he " saw wi' his ain 
 een the superintendent and the minister fa'in' oot 
 to that extent that the superintendent gied the 
 minister a daud i' the side o' the head ! " 
 
 In the afternoon we made tea. The young men 
 helped the ladies, while John Black kept off the 
 children with a stick and also offered advice. 
 The children made faces at him, and once when 
 he went out of earshot of the group at the fire 
 Wattie Robb squared up at him, and dared him to 
 " come ahint the plantin' ! " He was not a man 
 who was much appreciated, was John Black, 
 The minister smiled, looking at the bright print- 
 clad girls and their willing assistants, for he
 
 234 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 thought that he would be a white silk handker- 
 chief or two the richer before the winter. It is 
 the correct thing for the bride to give the minister 
 on the occasion of a wedding. 
 
 " It wad be mair wiselike," said his house- 
 keeper, Mary, "if folk that gets mairriet had 
 eneuch gumption to gie ye guid linen instead o' 
 middlin'silk!" 
 
 The children were not a bit tired when they 
 came to be mustered for the home-going, and life 
 and limb were intact, in spite of John Black's 
 prophecy. They would certainly have been the 
 better of a wash, for some of them had apparently 
 been trying to tunnel right through "to the 
 Aunty Pods," as the farmer of Port More said. 
 The superintendent knew of at least four boys 
 with deceased rabbits up their trouser legs ; but 
 they were all the happier, and they made 
 perfect bowers of the carts on the way home with 
 green branches and flowers, cheering the long 
 journey with song. They were a jovial company, 
 and each one of them was as hoarse as a crow 
 with shouting and hurrahing as they came in 
 triumph through the town to dismount at the 
 cross before the assembled townsfolk. The su- 
 perintendent was a proud man that night seeing 
 the end of his labors, and a kindly dew stood in the 
 minister's eyes as he watched the red carts, 
 crowded with happy young ones, pass him in
 
 THE CANDID FEIEND. 235 
 
 review order. Of such," he said, is the king- 
 dom of heaven." 
 
 But John Black's voice recalled him to himself 
 as he drove by in his auntie's gig. 
 
 " There'll be an awfu' lot o' them no' weel the 
 morn wi' a' that unta'en doon raw milk. Ye wad 
 hae been better up at Greenshiels wi' my auntie 1 " 
 
 THE CANDID FRIEND. 
 
 THE lamp had long been lighted in the manse 
 of Dule that is, the lamp in the minister's study. 
 The one belonging to the sitting-room was not yet 
 brought in, for the mistress of the manse was 
 teaching the bairns their evening lesson, and the 
 murmur of her voice, broken into by the high 
 treble of children's questions, came fitfully to the 
 minister as he plowed his way through Thirdly. 
 He smiled as he heard the intermittent din, and 
 once he moved as if to leave his work to itself and 
 go into the other room ; but a glance at the ex- 
 panse of unfilled paper changed his purpose, and 
 he proceeded with his dark spider tracks across 
 the white sheet. Men who write chiefly for their 
 own reading write badly ministers worst of all.
 
 236 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 The wind was blowing a hurricane about the 
 manse of Dule, the bare branches of the strag- 
 gling poplars that bordered the walk whipped the 
 window of the study, and the rain volleyed against 
 the panes in single drops the size of shillings 
 The minister put a lump of coal on the fire, paus- 
 ing a long time before he put it on, finally letting 
 it drop with a bang as the uncertain joints of the 
 spindle-legged tongs gave way diagonally. 'Tis 
 a way that tongs have, and the minister seemed 
 to feel it, for he said emphatically, "No; that 
 will not do ! " But he was referring to Thirdly. 
 So he lay back for a long time and cogitated an 
 illustration ; then he took a book of reference 
 down from the shelf, which proved so interesting 
 that he continued to read long after he had passed 
 the limit at which all information germane to his 
 subject ceased. It was another way he had, and 
 he excused the habit to himself by saying that 
 doubtless he thus gained a good deal of informa- 
 tion. 
 
 Then to the window there came a roaring gust 
 which bent the frame and thundered among the 
 fir-trees at the gable end as if it would have them 
 all down before the morning. The minister hoped 
 that there would be no poor outcast homeless on 
 such a night, and as a sort of per contra he re- 
 membered that no one could possibly come to 
 interrupt him this evening at least, and that he
 
 THE CANDID FRIEND. 237 
 
 might even finish one sermon and get well under 
 way with the other. 
 
 At this moment he heard the squeak of the bell 
 wire that told him that a visitor was at the outer 
 door. Some Solomon of an architect or bell-hanger 
 had made the bell wire pass through the study on 
 its way to the kitchen, and so the minister was 
 warned of the chance comer while his feet were 
 yet on the threshold. The student under the 
 lamp sighed, lay back in his chair, and waited. 
 He almost prayed that it might merely be a mes- 
 sage ; but no the sound of shuffling feet : it was 
 somebody coming in. 
 
 There was a knock at the study door, and then 
 the voice of the faithful Marget, saying: 
 
 " Maister Tammas Partan to see ye, sir." 
 
 She said this with great distinctness, for the 
 minister had once checked her for saying, " Here's 
 Tammas Partan ! " which was what she longed to 
 say to this day. 
 
 "How are you to-night, Thomas?" aked the 
 minister. He tried hard to say, " I'm glad to see 
 you," but could not manage it, for even a min- 
 ister has a conscience. Mr. Partan's feet left two 
 muddy marks side by side across the carpet. He 
 made a conscience of stepping over two mats on 
 his way in. This helped among other things to 
 make him a popular visitor at the manse. 
 
 " Thank you, minister ; I'm no' that unco weel."
 
 238 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 "Then you are sure that you should be out 
 such a night? "said the minister, anxious for the 
 welfare of his parishioner. 
 
 " But, as ye say yersel', Maister Girmory, ' When 
 duty calls or danger, be never wanting there ? ' 
 
 The minister's heart sunk within him, as a 
 stone sinks in a deep lake, for he knew that the 
 " candid friend " had found him out once more 
 and that his tenderest mercies were cruel. But 
 he kept a discreet and resigned silence. If the 
 minister had a fault, said his friends, it was that 
 he was too quiet. 
 
 " Weel, minister," said Tammas Partan, " I just 
 cam' up my ways the nicht to see ye, and tell you 
 what the folk were sayin'. I wadna be a frien' 
 till ye gin I didna. Faithfu', ye ken, are the 
 wounds of a friend ! " 
 
 The minister looked at the fire. He was not a 
 man inclined to think more highly of himself than 
 he ought to think, and he knew that before Tam- 
 mas Partan had done with his recital he would be 
 too upset to continue with his Sabbath morning's 
 sermon on " The Fruits of the Spirit," at least for 
 that night. It was not the first time that Tammas 
 had "thocht it his duty" to come in at the 
 critical moment and introduce some sand into the 
 bearings. Had the minister been a stranger or a 
 more emphatic man, he would have told his visitor 
 that he did not want to hear his stories, or at least
 
 THE CANDID FRIEND. 239 
 
 he would have so received them that they would 
 not have been told a second time. But the min- 
 ister of Dule was acutely sensitive to blame, and 
 the pain of a cruel word or an intentional slight 
 would keep him sleepless for nights. It is in such 
 parishes as Dule that " Tammas Partons " thrive. 
 He had just tried it once with Mr. Girmory's 
 predecessor, one of the grand old school of farmer 
 clerics now almost extinct. Tammas Partan had 
 once at a Fast Day service on the Thursday be- 
 fore the Sacrament Day risen to his feet and said 
 to old Mr. M'Gowl, who was standing among his 
 elders ready for the distribution of tokens : 
 
 " Remember the young communicants ! " 
 
 " Remember your own business ! " returned 
 Mr. M'Gowl, instantly, at the same time giving 
 the officious interrupter a sounding " cuff " on the 
 side of the head. 
 
 After which Tammas, feeling that his occupa- 
 tion was gone, joined himself to the sect of the 
 Apostolic Brethren, at that time making a stir in 
 the neighborhood, with whom he was just six 
 weeks in communion till they arose in a body and 
 cast him out of the synagogue. So he had been 
 houseless and homeless spiritually till Mr. Gir- 
 mory came, when Tammas, seeing him to be a 
 man after his own heart, returned back gladly to 
 his old nest. 
 
 " They are sayin' that there's no' eneuch life
 
 240 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 in yer sermons, minister nae grup, so to speak^ 
 kind o' wambly an' cauldrife. Noo, that's no v 
 a faut that I wad like to fin' mysel', but that'* 
 what they're say in', and I thochtit my duty to 
 tell ye." 
 
 " Also Gashmu saith it ? " said the minister. 
 
 "What did ye say ? Na, it wasna him ; it was 
 Rab Flint, the quarryman, and Andrew Banks 
 of Carsewall, that said it I dinna ken the party 
 that ye name." 
 
 " Ay," said the minister. 
 
 "An' Lame Sandy, the soutar, thocht that 
 there was an awesome lack o' speerituality in yer 
 discoorse the Sabbath afore last. He asked, 
 * Hoo could ony minister look for a blessin' efter 
 playin' a hale efternune at the Channelstanes wi r 
 a' the riff-raff o' the neighborhood ? ' " 
 
 " Were ye not there yersel', Thomas?" queried 
 the minister, quietly, wondering how long this 
 was going to last. 
 
 " Ou, ay ; I'm far frae denyin' it but it's no' 
 my ain opeenions I'm giein' till ye. I wadna 
 presume to do that ; but it's the talk o' the 
 pairish. An' there's Gilbert Loan's auntie ; she 
 has been troubled wi' a kind o' dwaminess in her 
 inside for near three weeks, an' ye've gane by the 
 door mair nor yince, an' never looked the road 
 she was on, sae Gilbert an' a' his folk are thinkin* 
 o' leavin' the kirk."
 
 THE CANDID FRIEND. 241 
 
 "But I never heard of it till this minute!" 
 protested the minister, touched at last on a 
 tender spot. "Why did they not send me 
 word?" 
 
 "Weel, minister, Gilbert said to me that if ye 
 had nae better ken o' yer fowk than no' to miss 
 them three Sabbaths oot o' the back gallery, 
 they werena gaun to bemean themsel's to sen' ye 
 nae word." 
 
 The minister could just see over the pulpit 
 cushion as far as the bald spot on the precentor's 
 head, but he said nothing. 
 
 At this point there was a diversion, for the min- 
 ister's wife came in. She was not tall in stature,, 
 but to Tammas she loomed up now like a Jael 
 among women. The minister rose to give her a 
 seat, but she had not come to sit down. 
 
 " Now, I would have you understand onoe for 
 all, Tammas Partan," she began (" Weel dune 
 the mistress ! " said Marget, low to herself, be- 
 hind the door) "that we have had more than 
 enough of this! I've heard every word ye've 
 said to Mr. Girmory, for the door was left open " 
 (" I saw to that mysel'," said Marget) " and I 
 want you to carry no more parish clashes into 
 my house ! " 
 
 "Hush, hush! my dear; Tammas means well!" 
 said the minister, deprecatingly. 
 
 But the belligerent little woman did not hear, 
 16
 
 242 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 or at any rate did not heed, for she continued ad- 
 dressing herself directly to Tammas, who sat on 
 the low chair as if he had been dropped there 
 unexpectedly from a great height. 
 
 "Take for granted," she said, "that what- 
 ever is for the minister's good to hear, that 
 he'll hear without your assistance. And you can 
 tell your friends, Rob Flint and Andrew Banks, 
 that if they were earlier out of the Red Lion on 
 Saturday night, and earlier up on the Sabbath 
 morning, they would maybe be able to appreciate 
 the sermon better ; and ye can tell Lame Sandy, 
 the soutar, that when he stops wearing his wife 
 into the grave with his ill tongue, he may have 
 some right to find fault with the minister for an 
 afternoon on the ice. And as for Gilbert Loan's 
 auntie, just ask her if she let the doctor hear 
 about her trouble, or if she expects him to look 
 in and ask her if there's anything the matter with 
 her little finger every time he passes her door ! " 
 
 She paused for breath. 
 
 "I think I'll hae to be gaun; it's a coorse 
 nicht ! " said the object on the chair, staggering 
 to its feet. 
 
 " Now, Thomas, no offense is meant, and I 
 hope you'll remember that I'm only speaking for 
 your good," said the minister's wife, taking a 
 parting shot at a venture, and scoring a bull's- 
 eye.
 
 A MIDSUMMER IDYL. 243 
 
 "Guid-nicht, Tammas Partan," said Marget, 
 as she closed the door. " Haste ye back again." 
 
 But Tammas has not yet revisited the manse 
 ofDule. 
 
 A MIDSUMMER IDYL. 
 
 THE THBEE BRIDEGROOMS AND THE ONE BRIDE. 
 
 YES, sir, I am the registrar of births, deaths, and 
 marriages in the parish of Kilconquhar, and I am 
 asked to tell you the story of Meg MacGregor and 
 her three lads. Well, it's an old tale now, and 
 Meg's boys are here every summer vacation pest- 
 ering the life out of me to bait their lines and 
 dress their hooks. But it is a tale that is not by 
 any means forgotten in Kilconquhar, and in the 
 winter forenights the wives tell it to this day in 
 the big kitchen where the lasses are at their knit- 
 ting and the lads are making baskets of the long 
 saugh wands before the heartsome fire. 
 
 It was mostly the wild Gregor blood that did it ; 
 but Meg's mother was an Elliot from the Border, 
 and we all know that that's not greatly better. 
 So what could ye expect of a lassie that had the 
 daftness in her from both sides of the house, as ye 
 might say ?
 
 244 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 Meg was a beauty. There is no doubt of that. 
 She had been a big-boned " hempie " at the Kirk- 
 land school for many a day, playing with the 
 laddies when they would let her, early and late. 
 Yet clever at her books when she would take the 
 trouble to learn. She had the " birr " and go of 
 twenty in her from the time that she could run 
 alone. Peter Adair, one of her lads that was to 
 be, came roaring in to his mother one morning 
 when she was a dotting wee thing of four or five. 
 
 "What for are ye greetin' like that, Peter?" 
 said his mother. " Wha has been meddlin' ye ? " 
 Peter was soft in disposition, but the apple of his 
 mother's eye. 
 
 "Meg MacGregor dadded my lugs because I 
 wadna let her kiss me," said the gallant Peter, 
 between his sobs. 
 
 His mother laughed. " Dinna greet, my bonny 
 wean," she said ; " the day'll may be come when 
 ye'll change yer mind aboot that ! " 
 
 But when that day did come, his mother did not 
 like it nearly so well as she had expected. 
 
 When Meg was between sixteen and seventeen 
 it suddenly occurred to everybody that she was a 
 beauty. It was at a party at the New Year at the 
 Folds, and Meg went there in a white gown. She 
 had been at the dancing-school that Fiddler 
 Stewart had in the village that winter, and she 
 got very fond of the dancing. There were two or
 
 A MIDSUMMER IDYL. 246 
 
 three lads at the Folds from the next parish, and as 
 soon as the dancing began there was nobody that 
 was sought after but only that hempie Meg. 
 
 The very next day it was a different Meg that 
 walked the street, and a different Meg it was that 
 came to the kirk on the Sabbath. She rode no 
 more astride of the wildest pony in the glen, but 
 she twined the lads like rushes of the meadows 
 round the least of her fingers. Her father was 
 then, as he is to this day, farmer in Stanniustane, 
 and as douce and civil a man as there is in the 
 parish, so the wild blood must have skipped a 
 generation somehow. Say you so, sir ? Indeed, 
 I did not know that such a thing could be explained 
 scientifically, but it's a thing I have noticed time 
 and again. "It has been recently discovered" you 
 say. Dear me, I did not know it had ever been 
 forgotten. " Unto the third and fourth generation " 
 is an old saying enough, but it's not unlikely that 
 the wise men have forgotten all about Moses. 
 
 Isobel Elliot, David MacGregor's wife, died when 
 Meg was but a lassie, and David himself never 
 laid hand on his daughter in the way of correction 
 all his life. She did as she liked with her father 
 all the days of her life as, indeed, for the matter 
 of that, she did with every one in this parish, with 
 the very minister when the fit was on her, as ye 
 shall hear 
 
 " With yourself, for instance, registrar f "
 
 246 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 Me ? Oh, no, sir. I'm a man that is well stricken 
 in years and she would not trouble with me, but I 
 do not deny that there was that in the lassie that 
 one could not help but like, though as an elder I 
 felt it my duty to give her a word of caution and 
 advice more than once or twice. 
 
 What said she to that? Well, sir, she said not 
 much ; but she turned her eyes up at me under the 
 fringes of her eyelashes, and pushing out her red 
 lips discontentedly, she said : 
 
 " What can I do ? The lads will not let me 
 alone. I'm sure I want none of them ! " 
 
 " And what are you going to do Meg ? " said I 
 Bmiling-like at her. 
 
 "Indeed, registrar," says she, "that I don't 
 know. Unless " here the witch looked shyly up 
 at me with her eyes fairly swimming in mischief 
 " unless ye maybe micht tak' me yourseF." 
 
 Keenest of all her suitors " clean daft " about 
 her, said the country-side were three lads of 
 the parish. The first I have mentioned already, 
 Peter Adair, was his mother's son. She lived in 
 the large house with the gate that stood a little 
 back from the village street by the side of the 
 bridge. She had money, and Peter being a deli- 
 cate lad in his mother's estimation, and the apple 
 of her eye at all times, had been kept at home 
 when he should have been learning some pro- 
 fession. There was now and then a talk of hit
 
 A MIDSUMMER IDYL. 247 
 
 going up to Edinburgh to learn the scientific 
 farming before he took a farm of his own, but it 
 had never come to anything. He had fallen madly 
 in love with Meg, however, and went regularly 
 to town on Wednesdays to have a chance of talk- 
 ing with her for five minutes as she went about 
 her shopping. His mother had so far yielded to 
 his wishes as to get David MacGregor to take 
 him on at Stanninstaue to try his hand at the 
 practical part of farming. He was in ecstasy, 
 for, thought he, who knows what opportunities 
 there may be of seeing Meg in the intervals of 
 daily duty. But when David handed him over 
 to the grieve, that unsympathetic Ayrshire man 
 said, "Practical fermin'! Gertie, he shall hae 
 that or my name's no' James Greg!" Where- 
 upon in five minutes the delicate-handed Peter 
 found himself on the top of a cart with a fork in 
 his hand, taking his first lesson in practical farm- 
 ing by learning how to apply to the soil the nat- 
 ural fertilizers necessary for next year's crop. 
 He had two days of that, when he resigned and 
 went home, having decided that after all scientific 
 farming was more in his line. 
 
 Peter Adair was known to be rich at least in 
 expectations but nobody thought that Meg would 
 favor him on that account. Being an heiress in 
 her own right, she had no need. It was, there- 
 fore, with very great surprise that I was called
 
 248 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 into the office where I do my registrar's business, 
 and authorized by Peter to put up his name on 
 the board along with that of Margaret MacGregor, 
 Spinster, also of this parish. 
 
 " Meg's at the door," he said ; " but she did not 
 like to come in." 
 
 Accordingly I went to the door, and caught 
 a glimpse of Meg vanishing into Webster the 
 draper's, two doors above. 
 
 Peter had not long gone his way when another 
 knock came to the door. 
 
 I opened the door myself. It was just growing 
 dusk, and I could hear Meg MacGregor's voice 
 saying: 
 
 " I telled ye afore ye can gie in the names if ye 
 like, but I'll no tell ye whether I'll hae ye or no' 
 till the first of August. That's my twenty-first 
 birthday, and I'll no' hae a mind o' my ain till 
 that day." 
 
 Again a single man came into the little office, 
 lighted with the oil lamp which always smelled a 
 little when I had the trimming of it to do myself. 
 It was Robert Hislop, the stalwart son of the 
 farmer of Netherton, known to be the strongest 
 man in the parish. He had waited many a long 
 night to have the duty of taking Meg home from 
 all the soirees and parties in the neighborhood. 
 He was a steadfast, sturdy, and stupid fellow 
 Who had first of all come about the Stanninstane
 
 A MIDSUMMER IDYL. 249 
 
 farm-house to court Meg's younger sister Bess ; 
 but who, like a piece of loose paper on the plat- 
 form of a way-side station when the Flying 
 Scotsman thunders through, had been drawn into 
 the wake of the greater power. 
 
 The story which connected him with Meg was 
 one very characteristic of the man. He had been 
 seeing Meg and her sister home from some party 
 over at the village, and they had got as far on 
 their way as the dark avenue under the trees 
 where the white gate of the manse and the black 
 gate of the kirk-yard face each other in a weird 
 whispering silence under the arch of leaves. 
 There had been stories of a ghost which walked 
 there, and Bess MacGregor was in a state of nerv- 
 ous excitement. Meg alternately played with 
 and laughed at the fears of her sister. As they 
 came between the gates something white leaped 
 along the wall with an eldritch shriek and 
 stood gibbering upon the black gate of the kirk- 
 yard. 
 
 Bess MacGregor dropped instantly in a faint. 
 Stalwart Rob Hislop took one troubled glance at 
 her. Then putting her into the hands of her 
 sister, he said, " Pit some sna' on her face ; I'll be 
 back the noo ! " 
 
 The specter did not wait to be pursued, but 
 made off swiftly among the tombs, its white 
 robes flying in the wind. Rob Hislop went after
 
 250 THE 8TICKIT MINI8TBB. 
 
 it with the intentness of a greyhound on the trail. 
 He caught his foot in some twisted grass, fell 
 heavily, but rose again in an instant. He saw 
 the specter leap the wall and take the way 
 through the fir-wood. Swifter than before he 
 followed, and in a few minutes he ran the ghost 
 down in a glade into which the moon was peep- 
 ing over the edge of a cloud. The ghost hallooed 
 for mercy as Rob's heavy weight came down upon 
 him. 
 
 " Let me up," he said. " It's only fun. I'm 
 Tarn M'Kittrick frae the Gallaberry ! " 
 
 " Stan' up, then, Tarn M'Kittrick frae the Galla- 
 berry, for I'm gaun to gie ye the best lickin' ye 
 ever got in your life ! " 
 
 Next morning Rob was down at the village 
 bright and early, before Purdie the grocer, that 
 sells drugs to us when there's not time to go to 
 Dumfries for them, had down his shutters. He 
 rapped at his door, and Purdie opened it. 
 
 "Onybody no' weel, Rob?" he says, aston- 
 ished like. 
 
 "Hoo muckle stickin' plaster hae ye, Maister 
 Purdie ? " says Rob, anxiously. 
 
 " I dinna, ken," said the grocer retreating into 
 his shop to see ; " maybes a yaird or a yaird an' a 
 quarter." 
 
 "Then ye had better gie me a yaird an* a 
 quarter," answered Rob, instantly
 
 A MIDSUMMER IDYL. 251 
 
 "Preserve us a', Rob, what's wrang? Hae a' 
 your kye fallen intil the quarry hole ?" 
 
 "Na," said Rob, seriously; "it's for Tarn 
 M'Kittrick o' the Gallaberry. He was playing 
 bogles up by the minister's liggate yestreen, an' I 
 misdoot but he fell and hurt himsel' ! " 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 Now, sir, you'll hardly believe me, though I can 
 show you the notices in a minute, but that very 
 nicht on the back of ten o'clock there was another 
 knock came on the door, and in comes Frank 
 Armstrong, the young son of the farmer of Lint- 
 field, whose ground marches with that of David 
 MacGregor. 
 
 "Are you going to be married to Meg Mac- 
 Gregor?" said I, laughing. 
 
 " Yes," said he, surprised. " Hoo did ye ken 
 that, registrar?" 
 
 You might have knocked me down with a 
 straw. There were three bridegrooms to one 
 bride. 
 
 " Did Meg tell ye ye were to come an' gie in 
 the names ? " said I. 
 
 ' Ay," said the boy, blushing to the roots of his 
 fair hair, for he was only a year older than Meg 
 herself, and did not look his years. 
 
 " We made it up when I was harvesting there 
 last year ; but Meg, she wad never gie a decided 
 answer till the nicht."
 
 252 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 " What did she say ? " I asked. 
 
 " She said that she was to be married on her 
 twenty-first birthday, but that she wadna tell me 
 whether she wad hae me till we were afore the 
 minister. ' But ye can pit up the names gin ye 
 like,' says she." 
 
 So all the names were put up. 
 
 There never was such a day on the street of 
 this village as what there was that day. I had to 
 lock myself in, front and back, and get my gro- 
 ceries through the window in the gable end, but 
 I answered no questions ; the young men held 
 their counsel, and Meg was away from home. 
 
 Some one went to see the minister and inform, 
 him of the scandal. But they came away with 
 a flea in their lug, for the minister told them that 
 Meg herself had trysted him to marry her at 
 Stanninstane on the 1st of August. 
 
 "And who did she say was the young man?" 
 inquired the deputation. 
 
 "Well," said the minister, running his hand 
 through his white locks, " I don't think she said, 
 but I have no doubt that he is worthy of her. I 
 have a very high opinion of Margaret's com- 
 mon sense and practical ability." 
 
 " Preserve us, she's made a fule o' the verra 
 minister ! " said the gossips. 
 
 There was nothing talked about but the mar- 
 riage as the 1st of August came on. I got an in-
 
 A MIDSUMMER TDYL. 253 
 
 Vite from David himself, who kept a very straight 
 upper lip on the subject. There were many that 
 went up to the Stanninstane loaning end to see 
 what was to come of it, but they got no further, 
 for there was David MacGregor's two brothers 
 from the Highlands with big sticks, dour and de- 
 termined chiels, and they let nobody pass but 
 them that were invited. When we got there we 
 were shown into the parlor, where about twenty 
 of a company were assembled. Bess moved 
 about as shy and sweet as any girl need be. Out 
 of the reach of the more brilliant attractions of her 
 sister, she was a very pretty young woman. Soon 
 the minister came in. Peter Adair sat and sim- 
 pered on the sofa in his lavender kids. Rob Hislop 
 looked exceedingly uncomfortable in a black suit 
 and a white rose which Bess had pinned in his but- 
 tonhole. It took a long time to pin, for Rob is very 
 tall, and Bess could hardly reach so far up. Dur- 
 ing the operation Rob went red and white by 
 turns, and looked pitifully at Bess. I thought that 
 he was trying vainly to read her sister's decision in 
 her eyes, but it turned out that I was wrong. 
 
 Sharp at the stroke of four David brought Meg 
 in on his arm. She looked radiant in fleecy white, 
 and her hair in rippling waves like the edge of the 
 little clouds when the sun begins to think about 
 going to bed. Well, yes, sir, if I am a crusty old 
 bachelor; I thank God I was not born blind.
 
 254 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 "Let the parties take their place, said the 
 minister. 
 
 Meg looked wildly about. 
 
 " Where's Frank ? " she cried, going suddenly 
 as white as her dress. 
 
 " He has not come yet," said Bess, as sweet as 
 a ripe gooseberry, looking innocently at her sister ; 
 "Rob Hislop says he saw him working in the 
 barn ! " 
 
 Meg dropped into a chair. "It serves me 
 right ! " she said, beginning to sob. " It serves me 
 quite right. I'll not be married to anybody but 
 Frank. I've been a wicked girl, and I deserve it ! " 
 
 So she sat and cried while all of us looked help- 
 lessly on. Sometimes she glanced up at us, with 
 the tears running steadily down her cheeks and 
 dripping on the thin white of her marriage 
 dress. 
 
 Bess stood by the side of Rob Hislop very 
 demure and quiet, but with a curious light on 
 her face. 
 
 " Run," she said suddenly to Rob, " and bring 
 Frank Armstrong here this minute. 
 
 And Rob Hislop, glad to find something to do, 
 started immediately. Peter Adair went after 
 him, but ere they were clear of the house, Meg 
 suddenly started from her chair and disappeared 
 into the part of the house from which she had 
 come. In a minute I followed the others to the
 
 A MIDSUMMER IDYL. 255 
 
 door, and as I got to the end of the house I caught 
 one glimpse of Meg MacGregor's white frock 
 vanishing down the woodside path which led in 
 the direction of Lintfield. Rob Hislop and Peter 
 Adair had taken the same direction, but had gone 
 round by the highway. It is said that Meg found 
 Frank Armstrong in the barn getting the reaper 
 ready for the harvest. But no one knows what 
 she said to him. This only is certain, that in a 
 little Frank and Meg came arm in arm along the 
 plantation path, his father and brother following 
 full of surprise. Frank was dressed in his work- 
 ing suit, but for all that he looked a bright and 
 handsome bridegroom. 
 
 Soon the two messengers came in, much out of 
 breath. 
 
 Meg went up to them and said, " Rob, you'll be 
 best man and tak' in Bessie. It was her ye aye 
 likit best at ony rate." 
 
 " I'll no' say but ye're richt," said Rob, obedi- 
 ently giving his arm to the blushing Bessie. 
 
 " And, Peter, you'll forgive me, I'm sure. It's 
 for the best, an' I wad never have got on wi' yer 
 mither!" 
 
 Peter, extended his hand with the lavender 
 glove still on it. 
 
 " Weel," he said, " maybes it'll be a relief to 
 her." 
 
 So Frank Armstrong married Meg MacGregor
 
 256 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 on her twenty-first birthday in his working coat, 
 and it was not long before Rob Hislop married 
 Bessie in new Sunday " blacks." 
 
 Peter Adair still lives with his mother in the 
 house with the green gate by the bridge. He has 
 started a poultry show, for he has become a great 
 pigeon fancier. Meg's boys spend most of their 
 time with him when they're here. But what put 
 the ploy into the madcap lassie's head is more 
 than I can tell. In my way of thinking, it was 
 just the wild blood of the MacGregors of the 
 Highlands, and indeed the Border Elliots are 
 little better, as is indeed generally admitted. 
 
 THE TUTOR OF CURLYWEE. 
 
 THE minister of education started to walk 
 across the great moors of the Kells Range so 
 early in the morning that for the first time for 
 twenty years he saw the sun rise. Strong, stal- 
 wart, unkempt, John Bradfield, Right Honorable 
 and Minister of the Queen, strode over the Gallo- 
 way heather in his rough homespun. "Ursa 
 Major " they called him in the House. His col- 
 leagues, festive like schoolboys before the Old 
 Man with the portfolios came in, subscribed to
 
 THE TUTOR OF CUELYWBB. 267 
 
 purchase him a brush and comb for his hair, for 
 the jest of the cabinet minister is even as the jest 
 of the schoolboy. John Bradfield was sturdy in 
 whatever way you might take him. Only last 
 session he had engineered a great measure of 
 popular education through the House of Com- 
 mons in the face of the antagonism, bitter and 
 unscrupulous, of Her Majesty's Opposition, and 
 the Gallic lukewarmness of his own party. So 
 now there was a ripple of great contentment in 
 the way he shook back locks which at forty-five 
 were as raven black as they had been at twenty- 
 five, and the wind that blew gently over the great 
 billowy expanse of rock and heather smoothed 
 out some of the crafty crow's feet deepening 
 about his eyes. 
 
 When he started on a thirty-mile walk over 
 the moors, along the dark purple precipitous 
 slopes above Loch Trool, the glory of summer 
 was melting into the more Scottish splendors of a 
 fast coming autumn, for the frost had held off 
 long, and then in one night had bitten snell and 
 keen. The birches wept sunshine, and the rowan 
 trees burned red fire. 
 
 The minister of education loved the great spaces 
 of the Southern uplands, at once wider and eerier 
 than those of the Highlands. There tney lie 
 waiting for their laureate. No one has sung of 
 them nor written in authentic rhyme the strange
 
 258 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 weird names which the mountain tops bandy 
 about among each other, appellations hardly 
 pronounceable to the Southron. John Bradfield, 
 however, had enough experience of the dialect of 
 the "Tykes" of Yorkshire to master the intrica- 
 cies of the nomenclature of the Galloway uplands. 
 He even understood and could pronounce the 
 famous quatrain 
 
 " The Slock, Milquharker, and Craignine, 
 
 The Breeshie and Craignaw ; 
 The five best hills for corklit 
 That ere the Star wife saw." * 
 
 The minister of education hummed this rhyme, 
 which he had learned the night before from his 
 host in the tall tower which stands by the gate 
 of the Ferrytown of Cree. As he made his way 
 with long swinging gait over the heather, travel- 
 ing by compass and the shrewd head which the 
 Creator had given him, he was aware about mid- 
 day of a shepherd's hut which lay in his track. 
 He went briskly up to the door, passing the little 
 pocket-handkerchief of kail-yard which the shep- 
 herd had carved out of the ambient heather. The 
 
 * In olden times the rocks and cliffs of the Dungeon of 
 Buchanwere famous for a kind of moss known as "corklit," 
 used for dyeing, the gathering of which formed part of the 
 livelihood of the peasantry. At one time it was much used 
 for dyeing soldiers' red coats. Harper's Rambles in 
 Galloway.
 
 THE TUTOR OP CURLYWEE. 259 
 
 purple bells grew right up to the wall of gray- 
 stone dike which had been built to keep out the 
 desr, or mayhap occasionally to keep them in, 
 when the land was locked with snow and venison 
 was toothsome. 
 
 " Good-day to you, mistress," said the minister 
 of education, who prided himself on speaking to 
 every woman in her own tongue. 
 
 " And good-day to you, sir," heartily returned 
 the sonsy, rosy-cheeked goodwife who came to the 
 the door, " an' blithe I am to see ye. It's no' that 
 aften that I see a body at the Back Hoose o* 
 Curlywee." 
 
 John Bradfield soon found himself well enter- 
 tained farles of cake, crisp and toothsome milk 
 from the cow, with golden butter in a lordly dish, 
 cheese from a little round kebbuck, which the 
 mistress of the Back House of Curlywee kept 
 covered up with a napkin to keep it moist. 
 
 The goodwife looked her guest all over. 
 
 " Ye'll not be an Ayrshire man nae, I'm thinkin'. 
 Te kind o' favor them in the features, but ye hae 
 the tongue o' the English." 
 
 " My name is John Bradfield, and I come from 
 Yorkshire," was the reply. 
 
 " An' my name's Mistress Glencairn, an* my man 
 Tammas is herd on Curlywee. But he's awa 1 
 ower by the Wolfs Slock the day lookin' for 
 some forwandered yowes."
 
 260 THE BTICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 The minister of education, satisfied with the 
 good cheer, bethought himself of the curly heads 
 that he had seen about the door. There was a 
 merry face, brown with the sun, brimful of mis- 
 chief, looking round the corner of the lintel at 
 that moment. Suddenly the head fell forward 
 and the body tumultuously followed, evidently by 
 some sudden push from behind. The small youth 
 recovered himself and vanished through the door, 
 before his mother had time to do more than say, 
 "My certes, gin I catch you loons ," as she 
 made a dart with the handle of the besom at the 
 culprit. 
 
 For a little John Bradfield was left alone. 
 There were sounds of a brisk castigation outside, 
 as though some one were taking vigorous exercise 
 on tightly stretched corduroy. " And on the 
 mere the wailing died away ! " 
 
 " They're good lads eneuch," said the mistress, 
 entering a little breathless, and with the flush 
 of honest endeavor in her eye, " but when their 
 f aither's oot on the hill they get a wee wild. But 
 as ye see, I try to bring them up in the way that 
 they should go," she added, setting the broom- 
 stick hi the corner. 
 
 " What a pity," said the minister of education, 
 " that such bright little fellows should grow up 
 in this lonely spot without an education." 
 
 He was thinking aloud more than speaking to
 
 THE TUTOR OF CURLYWEE. 261 
 
 his hostess. The herd's wife of Curly wee looked 
 him over with a kind of pity mingled with con- 
 tempt. Edicated ! Did ye say ? My certes, but 
 my bairns are as weel edicated as onybody's 
 bairns. Just e'en try them gin it be your wull, 
 sir, an' ye'll fin' them no that far ahint yer ain ! " 
 
 Going to the door, she raised her voice to the 
 telephonic pitch of the Swiss jodel and the Austra- 
 lian coo ee" 
 
 " Jee-mie, Aa-leck, Aa-nie, come ye a' here this 
 meenit ! " 
 
 The long Galloway vowels lingered on the still 
 air, even after Mistress Glencairn came her ways 
 into the house. There was a minute of great 
 silence outside. Then a scuffle of naked feet, the 
 sough of subdued whispering, a chuckle of in- 
 terior laughter, and a prolonged scuffling just out- 
 side the window. 
 
 " Gin ye dinna come ben the hoose an' be douce, 
 you Jeemie, an' Rob, an' Alick, I'll come till ye 
 wi' a stick! Mind ye, your faither 'ill no be 
 lang frae hame the day." 
 
 A file of youngsters entered, hanging their 
 heads, and treading on each other's bare toes to 
 escape being seated next to the formidable 
 visitor. 
 
 " Wull it please ye, sir, to try the bairns' learn- 
 ing for yourseP." 
 
 A Bible was produced, and the three boys awl
 
 262 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 their sister read round in a clear and definite 
 manner, lengthening the vowels, it is true, but 
 giving them their proper sound, and clanging 
 their consonants like hammers ringing on anvils, 
 
 " Very good ! " said John Bradfield, who knew 
 good reading when he heard it. 
 
 From reading they went on to spelling, and the 
 great Bible names were tried in vain. The min- 
 ister of education was glad that he was examiner, 
 and not a member of the class. Hebrew poly- 
 syllables and Greek proper names fell thick and 
 fast to the accurate aim of the boys, to whom 
 this was child's play. History followed, geog- 
 raphy, even grammar, maps were exhibited, and 
 the rising astonishment of the minister of educa- 
 tion kept pace with the quiet complacent pride 
 of the herd's wife of Curlywee. The examina- 
 tion found its climax in the recitation of the 
 " Shorter Catechism." Here John Bradfield was 
 out of his depth, a fact instantly detected by the 
 row of sharp examinees. He stumbled over the 
 reading of the questions ; he followed the breath- 
 less enunciation of that expert in the " Caratches," 
 Jamie, with a gasp of astonishment. Jamie was 
 able to say the whole of Effectual Calling in six 
 ticks of the clock, the result sounding to the 
 uninitiated like the prolonged birr of intricate 
 clock-work rapidly running down. 
 . u What is the chief end of man ? " slowly
 
 THE TUTOR OF CTTBLYWEE. 263 
 
 queried the minister of education, with his eyes 
 on the book. 
 
 "Mans-chiefend-glorifyGod-joyim-frever !" re- 
 turned Jamie nonchalantly, all in one word, as 
 though some one had asked him what was his 
 name. 
 
 The minister of education threw down his cat- 
 echism. 
 
 " That is enough. They have all done well, 
 and better than well. Allow me," he said, doubt- 
 fully turning to his hostess, " to give them each 
 a trifle" 
 
 " Na, na," said Mistress Glencairn, " let them 
 e'en do their work withoot needin' carrots had- 
 den afore their nose like a cuddy. What wad 
 they do wi' siller ? " 
 
 "Well, you will at least permit me to send 
 them each a book by post I suppose that you 
 get letters up here occasionally?" 
 
 'Deed, there's no that muckle correspondence 
 am ting us, but when we're ower at the kirk, there 
 yin o' the herds on Lamachan that gangs doom 
 by to see a lass that leeves juist three miles frae 
 the post office, an' she whiles fetches ocht that 
 there may be for us, an' he gi'es it us at the kirk." 
 
 John Bradfield remembered his letters and 
 telegrams even now entering in a steady stream 
 into his London office and overflowing his minis- 
 terial tables, waiting his return a solemnizing
 
 264 THE STICKIT MINISTEB. 
 
 thought. He resolved to build a house on the 
 Back Hill of Curly wee, and have his letters 
 brought by way of the kirk and the Lamachan 
 herd's lass that lived three miles from the post 
 office. 
 
 " Got wi' ye ! " said the mistress, briefly, ad- 
 dressing her offspring, and the school scaled with 
 a tumultuous rush, which left a sense of vacancy 
 and silence and empty space about the kitchen. 
 
 " And now will you tell me how your children 
 are so well taught ? " said John Bradfield. "How 
 far are you from a school ? " 
 
 " Weel, we're sixteen mile frae Newton Stewart, 
 where there's a schule but no road, an' eleven 
 frae the Clatterin' Shaws, where there's a road 
 but no schule." 
 
 "How do you manage, then?" The minister 
 was anxious to have the mystery solved. 
 
 " WE KEEP A TUTOR ! " said the herd's wife of 
 Curlywee, as calmly as though she had been a 
 duchess. 
 
 The clock ticked in its shiny mahogany case, 
 like a hammer on an anvil, so still it was. The 
 cat yawned and erected its back. John Brad- 
 field's astonishment kept him silent. 
 
 " Keep a tutor," he muttered ; " this beats all I 
 have ever heard about the anxiety of the Scotch 
 peasantry to have their children educated. We 
 have nothing like this even in Yorkshire."
 
 THE TUTOR OR CTJRLYWEE. 265 
 
 Then to his hostess he turned and put another 
 question. 
 
 " And, if I am not too bold, how much might 
 your husband get in the year ? " 
 
 " Tammas Glencairn is a guid man, though he's 
 my man, an' he gets a good wage. He's well 
 worthy o't. He gets three- an'-twenty pound in 
 the year, half score o' yowes, a coo's grass, a bow 
 o' meal, a bow o' pitatas, an' as mony peats as he 
 likes to cast, an' win', an' cairt." 
 
 " But how," said John Bradfield, forgetting his 
 manners in his astonishment, " in the name of 
 fortune does he manage to get a tutor ? " 
 
 " He disna keep him. /keep him ! " said Mis- 
 tress Glencairn with great dignity. 
 
 The minister of education looked his genuine 
 astonishment this time. Had he come upon an 
 heiress in her own right ? 
 
 His hostess was mollified by his humbled look. 
 
 " Ye see, sir, it's this way," she said, seating 
 herself opposite to him on a clean-scoured, white 
 wooden chair, " there's mair hooses in this neigh- 
 borhood than ye wad think. There's the farm 
 hoose o' the Black Craig o' Dee, there's the herd's 
 hoose o' Garrary, the onstead o' Neldricken, the 
 Dungeon o' Buchan an' a wheen mair that, gin 
 I telled ye the names o', ye wadna be a bit the 
 wiser. Weel, in the simmer time, whan the 
 colleges gang doon, we get yin o' the college lada
 
 266 THE STICKIT MINISTER. 
 
 to come to this quarter. There's some o' them 
 fell fond to come. An' they pit up for three or 
 fewer weeks here, an' for three or four weeks at 
 the Garrary ower by, an' the bairns travels ower 
 to whaur the student lad is bidin', an' gets their 
 learnin'. Then when it's time for the laddie to 
 be gaun his ways back to college, we send him 
 awa' weel buskit wi' muirland claith, an' weel 
 providit wi' butter an' eggs, oatmeal an' cheese 
 for the comfort o' the wame o' him. Forbye we 
 gather up among oorsels an' bid him guid speed 
 wi' a maitter o' maybe ten or twal' poun' in his 
 pooch. Art that's ths way we keep a tutor/ " 
 
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