THE STICKIT MINISTER'S WOOING (continued 6)

Mainly, I do not think it was so much bad company as thoughtlessness and high spirits. Sweetmeats and gloves to a girl more witty than wise, neckties and a small running account yonder, membership of the rowing club and a small occasional stake upon the races—not much in themselves, perhaps, but more than enough for an apprentice with two half-crowns a week of pocket money. So there came a time when honest Joseph Baillieson, with many misgivings and grave down-drawings of upper lip, as I doubt not, took my father into the little back shop where the liniments were made up and the pills rolled.

What they said to each other I do not know, but when Alexander McQuhirr came out his face was marvellously whitened. He waited for Willie at his lodgings, and brought him home that night with him. He stayed just a week at the farm, restlessly scouring the hills by day and coming in to his bed late at night.

After a time, by means of the minister, a place was found for him in Edinburgh, and he set off in the coach with his little box, leaving what prayerful anxious hearts behind him only those who are fathers and mothers know.

He was to lodge with a good old woman in the Pleasance, a regular hearer of Dr. Lawton's of Lady Nixon's Wynd. For a small wage she agreed to mend his socks and keep a motherly eye on his morals. He was to be in by ten, and latch-keys were not allowed.

Now I do not doubt that it was lonely for Willie up there in the great city. And in all condemnation, let the temptation be weighed and noted.

May God bless the good folk of the Open Door who, with sons and daughters of their own, set wide their portals and invite the stranger within where there is the sound of girlish laughter, the boisterous give-and-take of youthful wit, and—yes, as much as anything else, the clatter of hospitable knives and forks working together.

Such an Open Door has saved many from destruction, and in That Day it shall be counted to that Man (or, more often, that Woman) for righteousness.

For consider how lonely a lad's life is when first he comes up from the country. He works till he is weary, and in the evening the little bedroom is intolerably lonely and infinitely stuffy. If the Door of Kindness be not opened for him—if he lack the friend's hand, the comrade's slap on the back, the modest uplift of honest maidenly eyes—take my word for it, the Lad in the Garret will soon seek another way of it. There are many that will show him the guide-posts of that road. Other doors are open. Other laughter rings, not mellow and sweet, but as the crackling of thorns under a pot. If a youth be cut off from the one, he will have the other—that is, if the blood course hot and quick in his veins.

And so, good folk of the city, you bien and comfortable householders, you true mothers in Israel, fathers and mothers of brisk lads and winsome lasses, do not forget that you may save more souls from going down to the Pit in one year than a score of ministers in a lifetime. And I, who write these things, know.

Many a foot has been stayed on the Path called Perilous simply because "a damsel named Rhoda" came to answer a knock at a door. The time is not at all bygone when "Given to hospitality" is also a saving grace. And in the Day of Many Surprises, it shall be said of many a plain man and unpretending housewife: "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto Me!"

* * * * *

But so it was not with Willie my brother. There was none to speak the word, and so he did after his kind. How much he did or how far he went I cannot tell. Perhaps it is best not to know. But, at all events, I can remember his home-coming to Drumquhat one Saturday night after he had been a year or fifteen months in Edinburgh. He came unexpectedly, and I was sleeping in a little crib set across the foot of my parents' bed in the "ben" room.

My mother was a light sleeper all her days, and, besides, I judge her heart was sore. For never breeze tossed the trees or rustled the beech-leaves, but she thought of her boy so far away. In a moment she was up, and I after her, all noiseless on my bare feet, though the tails of my night gear flapped like a banner in the draughty passage. The dogs upon the hearthstone never so much as growled.

"Wha's there?"

"It's me, mither!"

"Willie!"

It was indeed Willie, a tall lad with a white face, a bright colour high-set on his cheek-bone, a dancing light in his eyes, and, at sight of his mother, a smile on his lips. He was dressed in what seemed to me a style of grandeur such as I had never beheld, probably no more than a suit of town-cut tweeds, a smart tie, and a watch-chain. But then my standard was grey home-spun and home-dyed—as often as not home-tailored too. And Solomon in all his glory did not seem to be arrayed one half so nobly as my elder brother Willie.

I do not mind much about the visit, except that Willie let me wear his watch-chain, which was of gold, for nearly half-an-hour, and promised that the next time he came back he would trust me with the watch, as well. But the following afternoon something happened that I do remember. After dinner, which was at noon as it had been ever since the beginning of time, my father sat still in his great corner chair instead of going to the barn. My mother sent me out to play.

"And bide in the yaird till I send for ye, mind—and dinna let me see your face till tea-time!" was her command, giving me a friendly cuff on the ear by way of speeding the parting guest.

By this I knew that there was something she did not want me to hear. So I went about the house to the little window at which my father said his prayers. It stood open as always, like Daniel's, towards Jerusalem. I could not hear very well; but that was no fault of mine. I did my best.

Willie was speaking very fast, telling his father something—something to which my mother vehemently objected. I could hear her interruptions rising stormily, and my father trying to calm her. Willie spoke low, except now and then when his voice broke into a kind of scream. I remember being very wae for him, and feeling in my pocket for a dirty half-sucked brandy ball which I resolved to give him when he came out. It had often comforted me in times of trouble.

"Siclike nonsense I never heard!" cried my mother, "a callant like you! A besom—a designing madam, nocht else—that's what she is! I wonder to hear ye, Willie!"

"Wheesh, wheest—Mary!"

I could hear my father's voice, grave and sober as ever. Then Willie's vehement rush of words went on till I heard my mother break in again.

"Marriage! Marriage! Sirce, heard ye ever the like? A bairn to speak to me o' mairrying a woman naebody kens ocht aboot—a 'lass in a shop,' ye say; aye, I'se warrant a bonny shop——!"

Then there came the sound of a chair pushed vehemently back, the crash of a falling dish. My father's voice, deep and terrible so that I trembled, followed. "Sir, sit down on your seat and compose yourself! Do not speak thus to your mother!"

"I will not sit down—I will not compose myself—I will never sit down in this house again—I will marry Lizzie in spite of you all!"

And almost before I could get round to the front yard again Willie had come whirling all disorderedly out of the kitchen door, shutting it to with a clash that shook the house. Then with wild and angry eyes he strode across the straw-littered space, taking no notice of me, but leaping the gate and so down the little loaning and up towards the heather like a man walking in his sleep.

I remember I ran after him, calling him to come back; but he never heeded me till I pulled him by the coat tails. It was away up near the march dyke, and I could hardly speak with running so fast. He stared as if he did not know me.

"Oh, dinna—dinna—come back!" I cried (and I think I wept); "dinna vex my mither!—And—there's 'rummelt tawties'{#} to the supper!"

[#] "Rummelt tawties," i.e., a sort of purée of potatoes, made in the pot in which they have been boiled, with sweet milk, butter, and sometimes a little flavouring of cheese. All hands are expected to assist in the operation of "champing," that is, pounding and stirring them to a proper consistency of toothsomeness.

But Willie would not stop for all I could say to him.

However, he patted me on the head.

"Bide at hame and be Jacob," he said; "they have cast out this Esau."

For he had been well learned in the Bible, and once got a prize for catechism at the day school at Whinnyliggate. It was Boston's Fourfold State, so, though there were three copies in the house, I never tried to read it.

So saying, he took the hillside like a goat, while I stood open-mouthed, gazing at the lithe figure of him who was my brother as it grew smaller, and finally vanished over the heathery shoulder of the Rig of Drumquhat.

That night I heard my father and mother talking far into the morning, while I made a pretence of sleeping.

"I will never own him!" said my father, who was now the angry one.

"I'm feared he doesna look strong!" answered my mother in the darkness.

"He shall sup sorrow for the way he spoke to the father that begat him and the mother that bore him!" said my father.

"Dinna say that, guidman!" pled my mother; "it is like cursin' oor ain firstborn. Think how proud ye were the time he grippit ye by the hand comin' up the loanin' an' caa'ed ye 'Dadda!'"

After this there was silence for a space, and then it was my mother who spoke.

"No, Alexander, you shallna gang to Edinbra to bring him hame. Gin yin o' us maun gang, let it be me. For ye wad be overly sore on the lad. But oh, the madam—the Jezebel, her that has wiled him awa' frae us, wait till I get my tongue on her!"

And this is how my mother carried out her threat, told in her own words.

* * * * *

"Oh, that weary toon!" she said afterwards. "The streets sae het and dry, the blawin' stoor, the peetifu' bairns in the gutter, and the puir chapman's joes standin' at the close-mouths wi' their shawls aboot their heads! I wondered what yin o' them had gotten haud o' my Willie. But at last I cam' to the place where he lodged. It was at a time o' the day when I kenned he wad be at his wark. It was a hoose as muckle as three kirks a' biggit on the tap o' yin anither, an' my Willie bode, as it were, in the tapmaist laft.

"It was an auld lame woman wi' a mutch on her head that opened the door. I askit for Willie.

"'He's no here,' says she; 'an' what may ye want wi' him?'

"'I'm his mither,' says I, and steppit ben. She was gye thrawn at the first, but I sune tamed her. She was backward to tell me ocht aboot Willie's ongangin's, but nane backward to tell me that his 'book' hadna been payit for six weeks, and that she was sore in need o' the siller. So I countit it doon to her shillin' by shillin', penny by penny.

"'An' noo,' says I, 'tell me a' ye ken o' this madam that has bewitched my bairn, her that's costin' him a' this siller—for doubtless he is wearin' it on the Jezebel—an' breakin' his mither's heart.'

"Then the landlady's face took on anither cast and colour. She hummed an' hawed a whilie. Then at last she speaks plain.

"'She's nane an ill lass,' she says, ''deed, she comes o' guid kin, and—she's neither mair nor less than sister's bairn to mysel'!'

"Wi' that I rises to my feet. 'If she be in this hoose, let me see her. I will speak wi' the woman face to face. Oh, if I could only catch them thegither I wad let her ken what it is to twine a mither and her boy!'

"The auld lame guidwife opens the door o' a bit closet wi' a bed in it and a chair or twa.

"'Gang in there,' she says, 'an' ye shall hae your desire. In a quarter o' an hour Lisbeth will be comin' hame frae the shop where she serves, and its mair than likely that your son will be wi' her!'

"And wi' that she snecks the door wi' a brainge. For I could see she was angry at what I had said aboot her kith an' kin. And I liked her the better for that.

"So there I sat thinkin' on what I wad say to the lass when she cam' in. And aye the mair I thocht, the faster the words raise in my mind, till I was fair feared I wad never get time to utter a tenth-part o' my mind. It needna hae troubled me, had I only kenned.

"Then there was the risp o' a key in the lock, for in thae rickles o' stane an' lime that they rin up noo a days, ye can hear a cat sneeze ower a hale 'flat.' I heard footsteps gang by the door o' the closet an' intil the front room. And I grippit the handle, bidin' my time to break oot on them.

"But there was something that held me. A lassie's voice, fleechin' and fleechin' wi' the lad she loves as if for life or death. Hoo did I ken that?—Weel, it's nae business o' yours, Alec, hoo I kenned it. But yince hear it and ye'll never forget it.

"'Willie,' it said, 'tak' the siller, I dinna need it. Put it back before they miss it—and oh, never, never gang to thae races again!'

"I sat stane-cauld, dumb-stricken. It was an awesome thing for a mither to hear. Then Willie answered.

"''Lizzie,' he said, and, I kenned he had been greeting, 'Lizzie, I canna tak' the money. I would be a greater hound than I am if I took the siller ye hae saved for the house and the marriage braws—and——'

"'Oh, Will,' she cried, and I kenned fine she was greetin' too, an' grippin' him aboot the neck, 'I dinna want to be mairried—I dinna want a hoose o' my ain—I dinna want ony weddin' braws, if only ye will tak' the siller—and—be my ain guid lad and never break your mither's heart—an' mine! Oh, promise me, Willie! Let me hear ye promise me!'

"Aye, she said that—an' me hidin' there ready to speak to her like a tinkler's messan.

"So I opens the door an' gaed in. Willie had some pound notes grippit in his hand, and the lassie was on her knees thankin' God that he had ta'en her hard-earned savin's as she asked him, and that he had promised to be a guid boy.

"'Mither!' says Willie, and his lips were white.

"And at the word the lassie rises, and I could see her legs tremble aneath her as she cam' nearer to me.

"'Dinna be hard on him,' she says; 'he has promised——'

"'What's that in your hand?' says I, pointing at the siller.

"'It's money I have stolen!' says Willie, wi' a face like a streikit corpse.

"'Oh no, no,' cries the lass, 'it's his ain—his an' mine!'

"And if ever there was a lee markit doon in shinin' gold in the book o' the Recordin' Angel it was that yin. She was nae great beauty to look at—a bit slip o' a fair-haired lass, wi' blue een an' a ringlet or twa peepin' oot where ye didna expect them. But she looked bonny then—aye, as bonny as ever your Nance did.

"'Gie the pound notes back to the lass!' says I, 'and syne you and me will gang doon and speak with your maister that ye hae robbit!'

"And wi' that the lass fell doon at my feet and grippit me, and fleeched on me, and kissed my hands, and let the warm tears rin drap—drap on my fingers.

"'Oh dinna, dinna do that,' she cried, 'let him pit them back. He only took them for a loan. Let him pit them back this nicht when his maister is awa hame for his tea. He is a hard man, and Willie is a' I hae!'"

* * * * *

"Weel," my mother would conclude, "may be it wasna juist richt—but I couldna resist the lass. So Willie did as she said, and naething was kenned. But I garred him gie in his notice the next day, and I took him hame, for it was clear as day that the lad was deein' on his feet. And I brocht the lass hame wi' me too. And if Willie had leeved—but it wasna to be. We juist keepit him till November. And the last nicht we sat yin on ilka side o' the bed, her haudin' a hand and me haudin' a hand, neither jealous o' the ither, which was a great wonder. An' I think he kind o' dovered an' sleepit—whiles wanderin' in his mind and syne waukin' wi' a strange look on his face. But ower in the sma' hours when the wind begins to rise and blaw caulder, and the souls o' men to slip awa, he started up. It was me he saw first, for the candle was on my side.

"'Mither,' he said, 'where's Lizzie?'

"And when he saw her sit by him, he drew away the hand that had been in mine and laid it on hers.

"'Lizzie,' he said, 'dinna greet, my bonnie: I promise! I will be your ain guid lad!'"

* * * * *

"And the lass?" I queried.

"Oh, she gaed back to the shop, and they say she has chairge o' a hale department noo, and is muckle thocht on. But she has never mairried, and, though we hae askit her every year, she wad never come back to Drumquhat again!"

"And that," said my mother, smiling through her tears, "is the story how my Willie was led astray by the Lass in the Shop."

THE RESPECT OF DROWDLE

Most folk in the West of Scotland know the parish of Drowdle, at least by repute. It is a great mining centre, and the inhabitants are not counted among the peaceable of the earth.

"If ye want your head broken, gang doon to Drowdle on a Saturday nicht" is an advice often given to the boastful or the bumptious. Drowdle is a new place too, and the inhabitants, instead of being, like ordinary Scottish Geordies, settled for generations in one coal-field and with whole streets of relatives within stonethrow, are composed of all the strags and restless ne'er-do-weels of such as go down into the earth, from Cornwall even to the Hill-o'-Beith.

Most, I say, know Drowdle by repute. I myself, indeed, once acted as locum tenens for the doctor there during six hot and lively summer weeks, and gained an experience in the treatment of contusions, discolorations, and abrasions of the skull and frontal bones which has been of the greatest possible use to me since. The younger Drowdleites, however, had at that time a habit of stretching a cord across the threshold about a foot above the step, which interfered considerably with professional dignity of exit—that is, till you were used to it. But after one has got into the habit of scouting ahead with a spatula ground fine and tied to a walking-stick on darkish nights, Drowdle began to respect you. Still better if (as I did) you can catch a couple of the cord-stretchers, produce an occipital contusion or two on your own account, and finish by kicking the jesters bodily into Drowdle Water. Then the long rows of slated brick which constitute the mining village agree that "the new doakter kens his business—a smart lad, yon! Heard ye what he did to thae twa deils, Jock Lee an' Cockly Nixon? He catchit them trippin' him wi' a cairt rape at Betty Forgan's door, and, faith, he threw them baith into Drowdle Water!"

Such being the way to earn the esteem of Drowdle, it would have saved the telling of this story if, when young Dairsie Gordon received a call to be minister of the recently established mission church there, he had had any one to enlighten him on the subject.

He was so young that he was ashamed when any one asked him his age. They had called him "Joanna" at college, and sent him recipes along the desk for compelling a beard and moustache to grow under any conditions of soil and climate, however unfavourable.

Dairsie Gordon was very innocent, very learned, very ignorant, and—the only son of a well-to-do mother, who from a child had destined him for the ministry. The more was the pity!

As a child he was considered too delicate for the rough-and-tumble of school. He had a tutor, a mild-faced young man who seldom spoke above his breath, and never willingly walked more than a mile at a time, and then with a book in his hand and a flute in his tail pocket. Under his instruction, however, Dairsie became an excellent classic, and his verse gained the approval of Professor Jupiter Olympus when he went up to the University of Edinburgh, where Latin verse was a rare accomplishment in those days, and Greek ones as extinct as the dodo.

When her son went to college, Mrs. Gordon came up herself from the country to settle Dairsie in the house of a friend of her own, the widow of a deceased minister who had married an old maid late in life. This excellent lady possessed much experience of bazaars and a good working knowledge of tea-meetings, but she knew nothing of young men.

So, being placed in authority over Dairsie, she insisted that he should come straight back to Rose Crescent from his classes, take dinner in the middle of the day alone with his hostess, and then—as a treat—accompany her while she made a call or two on other clerical widows who had married late in life. Then she took him home to open his big lexicons and pore over crabbed constructions till supper-time. This feast consisted of plain bread and butter with the smallest morsel of cheese, because much cheese is not good for the digestion at night. A glass of milk accompanied these delicacies. It also was plain and blue, because the cream (a doubtful quantity at best) had been skimmed off it for Mrs. McSkirmish's tea in the morning.

After that Dairsie was sent to bed. He was allowed ten minutes to take off his clothes and say his prayers. Then the gas was turned out at the meter. If he wanted time for more study and reading he could have it in the morning. It is good for youth to rise betimes and study the Hebrew Scriptures with cold feet and fingers that will not turn the leaves of Gesenius till they are blown upon severally and individually. In this fashion, varying in nothing, save that on alternate Sundays there was something hot for supper, because Mrs. McSkirmish's minister—a severe and faithful divine—came to interview Dairsie and report on his progress to his mother, the future pastor passed seven winter sessions.

Scholastically his victories were many. Bursaries seemed purposely created for him to take—and immediately resign in favour of his proxime accessit, who needed the money more. The class never queried as to who would be first in the "exams.," but only wrangled concerning who would come next after Gordon—and how many marks below.

In summer Dairsie went quietly down to his mother's house in the country, where his neck was fallen upon duly, and four handmaids (with little else to do) worshipped him—especially when for the first time he took the "Book" at family worship. There was a wood before the door, in which he passed most of his time lying on his back reading, and his old tutor came to stay with him for a month at a time.

Thus was produced the Reverend Dairsie Gordon, B.D., without doubt the first student of his college, Allingham Fellow, and therefore entitled to go to Germany for a couple of years by the terms of his Fellowship.

But by one of these interpositions of Providence, which even the most orthodox denominate "doubtful," there was at this time a vacancy in the pastoral charge of the small Mission Church at Drowdle. The late minister had accepted a call to a moorland congregation of sixty members, where nothing had happened within the memory of man, more stirring than the wheel coming off a cart of peats opposite the manse.

Dairsie Gordon preached at Drowdle. His voice was sweet and cultivated and musical, so that it fell pleasantly on the ears of the kirkgoers of Drowdle, over whose heads had long blared a voice like to the trumpets at the opening of the seventh seal in the book of the Revelation.

So they elected him unanimously. Also he was "well-to-do," and it was understood in the congregation that his salary would not be a consideration. The minister elect immediately resigned his fellowship, considering this a direct call to the work.

In this fashion Dairsie Gordon went to his martyrdom. Ignorant of the world as a child of four, never having been elbowed and buffeted and brow-beaten by circumstances, never cuffed at school, snubbed at college, and so variously and vicariously licked and kicked into shape, he found himself suddenly pitchforked into the spiritual charge of one of the most difficult congregations in Scotland.

The new minister was introduced socially at a tea-meeting on the evening of the ordination, and then and there he had his first taste of the Drowdelian quality. There were plenty of douce and sober folk in the front pews of the little kirk, but at the back reckless, unmarried Geordies were sandwiched between a militant and ungodly hobbledehoyhood. Paper bags that had contained fruit exploded in the midst of the most solemn addresses. Dairsie's own remarks were fairly punctuated with these explosions, and by the flying shells of Brazil nuts. Bone buttons at the end of knitting needles clicked and tapped at windows, and a shutter fell inward with a crash. It was thus that Dairsie returned thanks.

"My dear people," (a penny trumpet blew an obligato accompaniment under the bookboard of a pew,) "I have been led to the oversight of this flock" (pom-pom-pom) "after prayer and under guidance. I shall endeavour to teach you—" ("Catch-the-Ten!" "All-Fours!" "Quoits!") "some of those things which I have devoted my life to acquiring. I am prepared for some little difficulty at first, till we know one another——"

The remainder of the address was inaudible owing to cries of, "Rob Kinstry has stole my bag!" "Ye're a liar!" All which presently issued in the general turmoil of a free fight toward the rear of the church.

Mrs. Gordon had come up to be present on the occasion of her son's ordination, and that night in the little manse mother and son mingled their tears. It all seemed so wrong and pitiful to them.

But Dairsie, with a fine hopefulness on his delicate face, lifted his head from his mother's shoulder, smiling like a girl through his own tears.

"But after all, this is the work to which I have been called, mother. And you know if it is His will that I am to labour here, in time He will give the increase."

So somewhat heartened, mother and son kneeled down together, prayed, and went to bed.

On the forenoon of the next day two of the elders, decent pitmen, who happened to be on the night-shift, called in to give their verdict and to drop a word of advice.

"A graund meetin'," said Pate Tamson, the oversman of No. 4; "what for didna ye tak' your stick and gie some o' the vaigabonds a clour on the lug? It wad hae served them weel!"

"I could not think of doing such a thing," said Dairsie. "I desire to wield a spiritual, not a carnal influence!"

"Carnal influence here, carnal influence there," cried Robin Naysmith, stamping his foot till the little study trembled, "if ye are to succeed in this village o' Drowdle, ye maun pit doon your fit—like that, sir, like that!"

And he stamped on the new Brussels carpet till the plaster began to come down in flakes from the ceiling. Dairsie tried to imagine himself stamping like that, but could not. For one thing, he had always worn single-soled shoes, with silk ties and woollen 'soles' (which he had promised his mother to take out and dry whenever he came in), a fact which has more bearing on the main question than appears on the surface.

"A man has to assert hissel' in this toon, or he is thocht little on," said Pate Tamson, the oversman. "Noo, there's MacGrogan, the Irish priest—I dinna agree wi' his releegion, an' dootless he will hae verra little chance at the Judgment. But, faith, when he hears that there's ony o' his fowk drinkin' ower lang aboot Lucky Moat's, in he gangs wi' a cudgel as thick as your airm, and the great solemn curses, fair rowlin' aff the tongue o' him—and faith, he clears Lucky's faster than a hale raft of polissmen! Aye, he does that!"

"Aye," assented the junior elder, Robin Naysmith, he whose feet had put the plaster in danger, "what we need i' Drowdle is a man o' poo'er—a man o' wecht——!"

"'Quit ye like men—be strong!' saith the Scriptures," summed up the oversman. Then both of them waited for Dairsie, to see what he had got to say.

"I—I am sure I shall endeavour to do my best," said the young minister, "but I fear I have underestimated the difficulties of the position."

The oversman shook his head as he went out through the manse gate.

"And I am some dootfu' that we hae made a mistak'!"

"If we hae," rejoined Naysmith, the strong man, "we maun keep it frae the knowledge o' Drowdle. But the lad is young—young. And when he has served his 'prenticeship to sorrow, he will maybes come oot o' the furnace as silver that is tried!"

* * * * *

Now, neither Drowdle nor its inhabitants meant to be unkind. In case of illness or accident among themselves, none gave material help more liberally. What belonged to one was held in a kindly communism to be the right of all. But Drowdle was not to be handled delicately. It was a nettle to be grasped with gloves of untanned leather.

Dairsie Gordon opened his first Sunday-school at three in the afternoon. At a quarter to four as he stood up on the platform to give his closing address, he found boys scuttling and playing "tig" between his legs. He laid down his hymn-book, and on lifting it to read the closing verses, discovered that a certain popular bacchanalian collection entitled "Songs of the Red, White, and Blue," had mysteriously taken its place.

The young minister had other and graver trials also. The pitmen passed him on the road with a surly grunt, and he did not know it was only because they were trudging home dog-tired from their long shift. The hard-driving managers and sub-managers, men without illusions and as blatantly practical as a Scottish daily paper, passed him by contemptuously, as if he had been a tract thrust under their doors. The schoolmaster, a cleverish machine-made youth of inordinate conceit, openly scoffed. He was a weakling, this minister, and he had better know it.

And, indeed, in these days, Dairsie gave them plenty of scope for complaint. His sermons might possibly have edified a company of the unfallen angels, if we can fancy such being interested in heathen philosophy and the interpretation of the more obscure Old Testament Scriptures. But to this gritty, ungodly, crass-natured, rasp-surfaced village of Drowdle, the young man merely babbled in his pulpit as the summer brooks do over the pebbles.

An itinerant evangelist, who shook the fear of hell-fire under their noses with the fist of a pugilist, and claimed in ancient style the power to bind and the power to loose, might conceivably have succeeded in Drowdle, but as it was, Dairsie Gordon proved a failure of the most absolute sort. And Drowdle, having no false modesty, told him plainly of it. At informal meetings of Session the question of their minister's shortcomings was discussed with freedom and point, only the overs-man and Robin Naysmith pleading suspension of judgment on account of the young man's years.

For there were sympathetic hearts here and there among the folk of Drowdle. Women with the maternal instinct yet untrampled out of them, came to their doors to look after the tall slim "laddie" who was so like the sons they had dreamed of when the maiden's blush still tinged their cheeks.

"He's a bonnie laddie to look on," they said to each other as, palm on hip, they stood looking after him. "It's a peety that he is sae feckless!"

Yet Dairsie was always busy. He was no neglecter of duty. He worked with eager strained hopefulness. No matter how deep had been his depression of the evening, the morning found him contemplating a day of work with keen anticipation and unconquerable desire to succeed.

To-day, at last, he would begin to make an impression. He would visit the remainder of Dickson's Row, and perhaps—who knew?—it might be the turning of the tide. So he sat down opposite his mother at breakfast, smiling and rubbing his hands.

"To-day I am going to show them, mother," he would say.

"Show them what, Dairsie dear?"

"That I am a man!"

But within him he was saying, "Work while it is day!" And yet deeper in his heart, so deep that it became almost a prayer for release, he was wont to add—"The night cometh when no man can work!" Then to this he added, as he took his round soft hat and went out, "O Lord, help me to do something worthy before I die—something to make these people respect me."

* * * * *

It was a hot September afternoon. Drowdle was a-drowse from Capersknowe to the Back Raw. Here and there could be heard a dull recurring thud, which was the dunt dunt of the roller on the dough of the bake-board as some housewife languidly rolled out her farles of oatcake. For the rest, there was no sound save the shout of a callant fishing for minnows in the backwaters of Drowdle, and the buzz of casual bluebottles on the dirty window-panes.

Suddenly there arose a cry, dominant and far-reaching. No words were audible, but the tone was enough. Women blenched and dropped the crockery they were carrying. The men of the night-shift, asleep on their backs in the hot and close-curtained wall-beds, tumbled into their grimy moleskins with a single movement.

"Number Four pit's a-fire! The pit's a-fire! Number Fower!"

It was a mile to the particular colliery where the danger was. The rows of houses emptied themselves simultaneously upon the white dusty road, women running with men and barefooted children speeding between, a little scared, but, on the whole, rather enjoying the excitement.

As they came nearer, the great high-mounted head-wheels of pit Number Four were spinning furiously, and over the mounds which led to it little ant-like figures were hurrying. A thin far-spreading spume of brownish smoke rose sluggishly from the pithead. At sight of it women cried out: "Oh God, my Jock's doon there!" And more than one set her hand suddenly upon her side and swung away from the rush into the hedge-root.

A hundred questions were being fired at the steadfast engineer, men and women all shouting at once. He answered such as he could, but with his hand ever upon the lever and his eye upon the scale which told at what point the cage stood in the long incline of the "dook."

"The fire's in the main pit-shaft," he said. "They are trying to get doon by the second exit; but it's half fu' o' steam pipes to drive the bottom engine."

"Wha's gane doon?"

"Pate Tamson and Muckle Greg are in the cage tryin' to put the fire oot wi' the hose——"

"They micht as weel spit on't if it's gotten ony catch!"

"And Robin Naysmith and the minister are tryin' the second exit——"

"The minister——"

The cry was very scornful. The minister, indeed—what good could "a boy like him" do down there where strong men were dying helplessly?

So for half-an-hour Walter McCartney the pithead engineer stood at his post watching the cage index, and listening for the tinkle of the bell which signalled "up" or "down."

Suddenly the faces of such as could see the numbers blanched. And a murmur ran round the crowd at the long t-r-r-r-r-r-r which told that the cage was coming to the surface.

Had all hope been abandoned, that the rescue party were returning so unexpectedly? A woman shrieked suddenly on the edges of the crowd.

"Who's that?" queried the manager, turning sharply. And when he was answered, "Take her away—don't let her come near the shaft!" was his order.

Out of the charred and dripping cage came Pate Tamson and his mate, blackened and wet from head to foot.

"The cage is to be sent empty to the dook-bottom!" they said. "Somebody has managed to get doon the second exit."

With a quick switch of levers and a humming hiss of woven wire from the headwheels, down sank the cage into the belching brown smother of the deadly reek.

Then there was a long pause. The index sank till it pointed to the pit-bottom. The cage had passed through the fire safely. It had yet to be proved that living men could also pass.

"Tinkle—tink!"

It was the bell for lifting. Walter McCartney compressed his lips on receiving the signal, and pulled down the shiny cap over his forehead, as if he himself were about to face that whirlwind of fire six hundred feet down in the bowels of the earth. He drew a long breath and opened the lever for "Full Speed Up." The cage must have passed the zone of flame like a bird rising through a cloud. The folk silenced themselves as it neared the surface. Then a great cry arose.

The minister sat in the cage with a couple of boys in his arms. The rough wet brattice cloths that had been placed over them were charred almost to a cinder. Dairsie Gordon's face was burnt and blackened.

He handed the boys out into careful hands.

"I am going down again," he said; "unless I do the men will not believe that it is possible to come alive through the fire. Are you ready, Walter? Let her go!"

So a second time the young minister went down through the furnace. Presently the men began to be whisked up through the fire, and as each relay arrived at the pit-bank they sang the praises of Dairsie Gordon, telling with Homeric zest how he had crawled half-roasted down the narrow throat of the steam-pipe-filled shaft, how he had argued with them that the fire could be passed, and at last proved it with two boys for volunteer passengers. Dairsie Gordon, B.D., was the last man to leave the pit, and he fainted with pain and excitement when all Drowdle cheered him as they carried him home to his mother.

And when at last he came to himself, swathed in cotton wool to the eyes, he murmured, "Do you not think they will respect me now, mother?"

TADMOR IN THE WILDERNESS

The calm and solemn close of a stormy day—that is the impression which the latter years of the life of Bertram Erskine made on those who knew him best. Though I was young at the time, I well remember his solitary house of Barlochan, a small laird's mansion to which he had added a tiny study and a vast library, turning the whole into an externally curious, but internally comfortable conglomerate of architecture. The house stood near a little green depression of the moorland, shaped like the upturned palm of a hand. In the lowest part was the "lochan" or lakelet from which the place had its name, while the mansion with its white-washed gables and many chimneys rose on the brow above—and, facing south, overlooked well nigh a score of parishes. There was also a garden, half hidden behind a row of straggling poplars. A solitary "John" tended it, who, in the time of Mr. Erskine's predecessor, had doubled his part of gardener with that of butler at the family's evening meal.

Few people in the neighbourhood knew much about the "hermit of Barlochan." Yet he had borne a great part in the politics of twenty years before. He had been a minister of the Queen, a keen and vehement debater, a dour political fighter, as well as a man of some distinction in letters; he had suddenly retired from all his offices and emoluments without a day's warning. The reason given was that he had quite suddenly lost an only and much beloved daughter.

After a few years he had bought, through an Edinburgh lawyer, the little estate of Barlochan, and it was reported that he meant to settle in the district. Upon which ensued a clatter of masons and slaters, joiners and plasterers, all sleeping in stable-lofts, and keeping the scantily peopled moorland parish in a turmoil with their midnight predatory raids and madcap freaks.

Then came waggon-load after waggon-load of books—two men (no less) to look after them and set them in their places on the shelves. After that, the advent of a housekeeper and a couple of staid maid-servants with strange English accents. Last of all arrived Bertram Erskine himself, a tall figure in grey, stepping out of a high gig at his own door, and the establishment of an ex-minister of the Crown was complete.

That is, with one exception—for John McWhan, gardener to the ancient owners of Barlochan, was digging in the garden when Mr. Erskine went out on the first morning after his arrival.

"Good-morning!"

John looked up from his spade, put his hand with the genuine Galloway reluctance to his bonnet, and remarked, "I'm thinkin' we'll hae a braw year for grosarts, sir!"

The new proprietor smiled, and as John said afterwards, "Then I kenned I was a' richt!"

"You are Mr. McCulloch's gardener?"

"Na, na, sir; I am your ain gardener, sir," answered John McWhan promptly. "Coarnel (Colonel) McCulloch pat everything intil my hand on the day he gaed awa' to the wars—never to set fit on guid Scots heather mair!"

Mr. Erskine nodded quietly, like one who accepts a legal obligation.

"I have heard of you, John," he said. "I will take you with the other pendicles of the estate. You are satisfied with your former wages?"

"Aye, sir, aye—a bonny-like thing that I should hae been satisfied wi' thretty pound and a cot-hoose for five-and-forty year, and begin to compleen at this time o' the day."

"But I am somewhat peculiar, John," said Mr. Erskine, smiling. "I see little company: I desire to see none at all. If you remain with me, you must let nothing pass your lips regarding me or my avocations."

"Ye'll find that John McWhan can haud his tongue to the full as well as even a learned man like yoursel', sir!"

"I have an uncertain temper, John!"

"Faith, then ye hae gotten the verra man for ye, sir," cried John, slapping his knee delightedly. "Lord keep us, ye will be but as a bairn at the schule to what Maister McCulloch was. I tell ye, when the Coarnel's liver was warslin' wi' him, it was as muckle as your life was worth to gang within bowshot o' him. But yet he never hairmed John. He miscaaed him—aya, he did that—till the ill names cam' back oot o' the wood ower bye, as if the wee green fairies were mockin' the sinfu' angers o' man. But John never heeded. And in a wee, the Coarnel wad be calm as a plate o' parritch, and send me into the hoose for his muckle pipe, saying, 'John, that has dune me guid, I think I'll hae a smoke.' Na, na, ye may be as short in the grain as ye like, but after Coarnel McCulloch——"

At this point of his comparison John felt the inadequacy of further words and could only ejaculate, "Hoots awa, man!"

So in this fashion John McWhan stayed on as "man" upon the policies of Barlochan.

That night at dinner it was John who carried in the soup tureen and deposited it before his new master, a very much scandalised table-maid following in the wake of the victor.

"I hae brocht ye your kail, Maister Areskine," he said, setting the large vessel down with a flourish, "as I hae dune in this hoose for five-and-forty year. This trimmie (though Guid forgie me, I doubt na that she is a decent lass, for an Englisher) may set the glesses and bring ben the kickshaws, but the kail and the roast are John McWhan's perquisite—as likewise the cleanin' o' the silver. And I wad thank ye kindly, sir, to let the hizzie ken your mind on that same!"

With these words, John stood at attention with his hands at his sides and his lips pursed, gazing solemnly at his master. Mr. Erskine turned round on his chair, his napkin in his hand. His eyes encountered with astonishment a tall figure, gaunt and angular, clad in an ancient livery coat of tarnished blue and gold; knee breeches, black stockings, and a pair of many-clouted buckled shoes completed an attire which was certainly a marvellous transformation from John's ordinary labouring moleskins.

With a word quiet and sedate, Mr. Erskine satisfied John's pride of place, and with another (the latter accompanied with a certain humorous twinkle of the eye) he soothed the ruffled Jane.

After that the days passed quietly and uneventfully enough at Barlochan. Mr. Erskine's habits were regular. He rose early, he read much, he wrote more. The mail he received, the book packets the carrier brought him, the huge sealed letters he sent off, were the wonder of the countryside—for a month or two. Then, save for the carters who drove the coal from the town, or brought in the firewood for Mr. Erskine's own library fire (for there he burned wood only), and the boxes of provisions ordered from Cairn Edward by his prim housekeeper Mrs. Lambert, Barlochan was silent and without apparent distraction.

All the same there were living souls and busy brains about it. The massive intellect of the master worked at unknown problems in the library. Busy Mrs. Lambert hurried hither and thither contriving household comforts, and developing the scanty resources of a moorland cusine to their uttermost. Jane and Susan obeyed her beck, while out in the garden John McWhan dug and raked, pruned and planted, his hand never idle, while his brain busied itself with his master.

"It's a michty queer thing he doesna gang to the kirk," said John to himself, "a terrible queer thing—him bein' itherwise sic a kindly weel-learned gentleman. I heard some word he was eddicated for the kirk himsel'. Oh, that we had amang us a plant o' grace like worthy Master Hobbleshaw doon at the Nine-Mile-Burn, that can whup the guts oot o' a text as gleg and clever as cleanin' a troot. Faith, I wad ask him to come wi' me to oor bit kirk at Machermore, had we a man there that could do mair than peep and mutter. I wonder what we hae dune that we should be afflicted wi' siccan a reed shaken wi' the wun' as that feckless bit callant, Hughie Peebles. He can preach nae mair than my cat Tib—and as for unction——"

Here again John's words failed him under the press of his own indignant comminations. He could only drive the "graip" into the soil of the Barlochan garden, with a foot whose vehemence spoke eloquently of his inward heat. For the pulpit of the little Dissenting kirk which John McWhan supported by his scanty contributions (and abundant criticisms), was occupied every Sabbath day by that saddest of all labourers, a minister who has not fulfilled his early promise, and of whom his congregation desire to be rid.

"No but what we kind o' like the craitur, too," John explained to his master, as he paused near him in one of his frequent promenades in the garden. "He has his points. He is a decent lad, and wi' some sma' gift in intercessory prayer. But he gangs frae door to door amang the fowk, as if he were comin' like a beggar for an awmous and were feared to daith o' the dog. Noo what the fowk like is a man that walks wi' an air, that speaks wi' authority, that stands up wi' some presence in the pulpit, and gies oot the psalm as if he war kind o' prood to read words that the guid auld tune o' Kilmarnock wad presently carry to the seeventh heevens!"

"And your minister, John, with whom you are dissatisfied—how came you to choose him?"

"Weel, sir," said the old man, palpably distressed, "it was like this—ye see fowk are no what they used to be, even in the kirk o' the Marrow. In auld days they pickit a minister for the doctrine and smeddom that was in him. 'Was he soond on the fundamentals?' 'Had he a grip o' the fower Heads?' 'Was he faithfu' in his monitions?' Thae were the questions they askit. But nooadays they maun hae a laddie fresh frae the college, that can leather aff a blatter o' words like a bairn's lesson. I'm tellin' ye the truth, sir—Sant Paul himsel', after he had had the care o' a' the churches for a generation, wadna hae half the chance o' a bare-faced, aipple-cheekit loon in a black coatie and a dowg-collar. An' as for Peter, he wad hae had juist nae chance ava. He wad never hae gotten sae muckle as a smell o' the short leet."

"And how would Saint Peter have had no chance? Wherein was his case worse than Paul's?" said Mr. Erskine, smiling.

"Because he was a mairriet man, sir. It's a' thae feckless weemen fowk, sir. A man o' wecht and experience has little chance, though he speak wi' the tongue o' men and o' angels—a mairriet man has juist nae chance ava.' It's my solemn opeenion that, when it comes to electin' a new minister, only respectable unmairriet men o' fifty years an' upwards should be allowed to vote. It's the only thing that will stop thae awfu' weemen frae ruling the kirk o' God. Talk o' the Session—faith, it's no the Session that bears rule ower us in things speeritual—na, na, it's juist thae petticoated randies that got us turned oot' o' Paradise at the first, and garred me hae to grow your honour's veegetables in the sweet o' my broo!"

"But why only unmarried men of over fifty?" said Mr. Eskine, humouring his servitor.

"For this reason,"—John laid down the points of his argument on the palm of one hand with the crooked forefinger of the other, his foot holding the "graip" steady in the furrow all the while. "The young unmairriet men wad be siccan fules as to do what the young lasses wanted them to do, and the mairriet men o' a' ages (as say the Scriptures) wad necessarily vote as their wives bade them, for the sake o' peace and to keep doon din!"

"Well, John," said Mr. Erskine, "I will go down to the kirk with you next Sunday morning, and see what I can advise. It is a pity that in this small congregation and thinly-peopled district you should be saddled with an unsuitable minister!"

"Eh, sir, but we wad be prood to see ye at Machermore Marrow Kirk," cried John, dusting his hands with sheer pleasure, as if he were about to shake hands with his master on the spot. "I only wish it had been Maister MacSwatter o' Knockemdoon that was gaun to preach. He fairly revels in Daniel and the Revelations. He can gie ye a screed on the ten horns wi' faithfu' unction, and mak' a maist affectin' application frae the consideration o' the wee yin in the middle. But oor Maister Peebles—he juist haes nae 'fushion' in him, ony mair than a winter-frosted turnip in the month o' Aprile!"

In accordance with his promise to his factotum, on the following Sabbath morning, Mr. Erskine walked down to the little Kirk of Machermore. It was a fine harvest day and the folk had turned out well, as is usually the case at that season of the year. John McWhan was too old a servant to dream of walking with his master to the kirk. He had "mair mainners," as he would have said himself. All the same, he had privately communicated with several of the elders, and so ensured Mr. Erskine a reception suited to his dignity.

The ex-minister of State was received at the little kirk door by Bogrie and Muirkitterick, two tenants on a large neighbouring property. These were the leading Marrow men in the district, and much looked up to, as both coming in their own gigs to the kirk. Bogrie it was who opened the inner door for him, and Muirkitterick conducted him to the seat of honour in the mountain Zion, being the manse pew, immediately to the right of the pulpit.

It was not for some time that Mr. Erskine perceived that he did not sit alone. Being a little short-sighted until he got his glasses adjusted, the faces of any audience or congregation were always a blur to him. Then all at once he noticed a slim girlish figure in a black dress almost shrinking from observation in the opposite corner. The service began immediately after he sat down.

The minister was tall, of good appearance and presence, but Mr. Erskine shuddered at the first grating notes of the clerical falsetto, which Mr. Peebles had adopted solely because it had been the fashion at college in his time; but it was not until the short prayer before the sermon that anything occurred to fix the politician's wandering attention.

Then, as he bent forward, he heard a voice near him saying, in an intense inward whisper: "O God, help my Hughie!"

He glanced about him in astonishment. It was the girl in the black dress. She had knelt in the English fashion when all the rest of the congregation were merely bending forward "on their hunkers," or, as in the case of not a few ancient standards of the Faith, standing erect and protestant against all weak-hammed defection.

When the girl arose again Mr. Erskine saw that her lips were trembling and that she gazed wistfully about at the set and severe faces of the congregation. The minister began his sermon.

It was not in any sense a good discourse. Rather, with the best will in the world, the hearer found it feeble, flaccid, unenlivened by illustration, unfirmed by doctrine, unclinched by application. Yet all the time Mr. Erskine was saying to himself: "What a fool that young man is! He has a good voice and presence—how easily he might study good models, and make a very excellent appearance. It cannot be so difficult to please a few score country farmers and ditchers!" But he ended with his usual Gallio-like reflection that "After all, it is none of my business;" and so forthwith removed his mind from the vapidity of the discourse, to a subject connected with his own immediate work.

But as he issued out of the little kirk, he passed quite close to the vestry door. The girl who had sat in the pew beside him was coming out with the minister. He could not help hearing her words, apparently spoken in answer to a question: "It was just beautiful, Hughie; you never preached better in your life." And in the shadow of the porch, before they turned the corner, Mr. Erskine was morally certain that the young minister gave the girl's arm an impulsive little hug.

But his own heart was heavy, for as he walked away there came a thought into his heart. A resemblance that had been haunting him suddenly flashed up vividly upon him.

"If Marjorie had lived she would have been about that girl's age—and like her, too, pale and slim and dark."

So all the way to his lonely mansion of Barlochan the ex-minister of the Crown thought of the young girl who had faded from his side, just as she was becoming a companion for the man who, for her sake, had put his career behind him.

In the afternoon Mr. Erskine sat in the arbour, while John in his Sunday best tried to compromise with his conscience as to how much gardening could be made to come under the catechistic heading, "Works of Necessity and Mercy." He solved this by watering freely, training and binding up sparingly, pruning in a furtive and shamefaced manner (when nobody was looking), but strictly abstaining from the opener iniquities of weeding, digging, or knocking in nails with hammers. In the latter emergency John kept for Sunday use the ironshod heel of an old boot, and in no case did he ever so far forget himself as to whistle. On that point he was adamant.

At last, after hovering nearer and nearer, he paused before the arbour and addressed his master directly.

"Thon juist settles it!"

Mr. Erskine slowly put down his book, still, however, marking the place with his finger.

"I do not understand—what do you mean by thon?"

"The sermon we had the day, sir. It was fair affrontin'. The Session are gaun up to ask Maister Peebles to consider his resignation. The thing had neither beginning o' days nor end o' years. It was withoot form and void. It's a kind o' peety, too, for the laddie, wi' that young Englishy wife that he has ta'en, on his hand. I'm feared she is no the kind that will ever help to fill his meal-ark!"

"I am very sorry to hear you say so, John," said Mr. Erskine; "can nothing be done, think you? Why don't they give the young man another chance? Can no one speak to him? There were some things about the service that I liked very much. Indeed, I found myself feeling at home in a church for the first time for years."

"Did ye, sir? That's past a' thinkin'! A' Machermore was juist mournin' and lamentin'. What micht the points be that ye liket? I will tell the elders. It micht do some guid to the puir lad!"

Mr. Erskine was a little taken aback. He could not say that what pleased him most in the service had sat in the manse-seat beside him, had worn a plain black dress, and possessed a pair of eyes that reminded him of a certain young girl who had taken walks with him over the hills of Surrey, when the blackbirds were singing in the spring.

Nevertheless, he managed to convey to John a satisfaction and a hopefulness that were all the more helpful for being a little vague. To which he added a practical word.

"If you think it would do any good, John, I might see one or two of the members of Session themselves."

"Ye needna trouble yoursel', thank ye kindly, sir," said John, "I will undertak' the job. Though my infirmity at orra times keeps me frae acceptin' the eldership (I hae been twice eleckit), I may say that John McWhan's influence in the testifyin' and Covenant-keeping Kirk o' the Marrow at the Cross-roads o' Machermore has to be reckoned wi'—aye, it has to be reckoned wi'!"

* * * * *

Nevertheless, the agitation for a change of ministry continued to increase rather than to diminish. It took the form of a petition to the Rev. Hugh Peebles to consider the spiritual needs of the congregation and forthwith to remove himself to another sphere of labour.

Now, John McWhan's Zion was not one of the greater and richer denominations into which Presbytery in Scotland is unhappily divided. It was but a small and poor "body" of the faithful, and such changes of ministry as that proposed were frequent enough. The operative cause might be inability to pay the minister's "steepend" if it happened to be a bad year. Or, otherwise, and more frequently, a "split"—a psalm tune misplaced, an overplus of fervour in prayer for the Royal Family (a very deadly sin), or a laxity in dealing with a case of discipline—and, lo! the minister trudged down the glen with his goods before him in a red cart, to fight his battle over again in another glen, and among a people every whit as difficult and touchy. But one day there was an intimation read out in the Machermore Kirk of the Marrow to the following effect: "The Annual Sermon of the Stewartry Branch of the British and Foreign Bible Society will be preached in the Townhill Kirk at Cairn Edward, on Sabbath next, at 6 p.m., by the Rev. Hugh Peebles of the Marrow Kirk, Machermore."

Mr. Peebles read this through falteringly, as if it concerned some one else, and then added a doubtful conclusion: "In consequence of this honour which has been done me, I know not why, there will be no service here on the evening of next Lord's Day!"

It was observed by the acute that Mrs. Peebles put her face into her hands very quickly as her husband finished reading the intimations.

"Praying for him, was she?" said the Marrow folk, grimly, as they went homeward; "aye, an' she had muckle need!"

To say that the congregation of Machermore was dumfounded is wholly to underestimate the state of their feelings. They were aghast. For the occasion was a most notable one.

All the wale of the half-dozen central Galloway parishes, which were canvassed as one district by the agents of the Bible Society, would be there—the professional sermon-tasters of twenty congregations. At least a dozen ministers of all denominations (except the Episcopalian) would be seated in an awe-inspiring quadrilateral about the square elders' pew. The Townhill Kirk, the largest in Galloway, would be packed from floor to ceiling, and the sermon, published at length in the local paper, would be discussed in all its bearings at kirk-door and market-ring for at least a month to come.

And all these things must be faced by their "reed shaken with the wind," their feckless shadow of a minister, weak in doctrine, ineffective in application, utterly futile in reproof. Hughie Peebles, and he alone, must represent the high ancient liberties of the Marrow Kirk before Free Kirk Pharisee and Erastian Sadducee.

Considering these things, Machermore hung its head, and the wailing of its eldership was heard afar. Only John McWhan, as he had promised, kept his counsel, and went about with a shrewd twinkle in his eye. He continued to bring in the soup at Barlochan—indeed, he now waited all through dinner, and, though there was nothing said that he could definitely take hold upon, John had a shrewd suspicion that it was not for nothing that the young minister had been closeted with his master for two or three hours, six days a week, for the last month. But though it went sorely to his heart that he could not even bid Machermore and the folk thereof—"Wait till next Sabbath at six o'clock, an' ye'll maybes hear something!" he loyally refrained himself.

* * * * *

At last the hour came and the man. Mr. Erskine, having ordered a carriage from the town, drove the minister and his wife down to Cairn Edward in style. John McWhan held the reins, the urban "coachman" sitting, a silent and indignant hireling, on the lower place by his side.

On the front seat within sat Mr. Peebles, very pale, and with his hands gripping each other nervously. But when he looked across at the calm face of Mr. Erskine, a sigh of relief broke from him. The Townhill Kirk was densely crowded. There was that kind of breathing hush over all, which one only hears in a country kirk on a very solemn occasion. Places had been kept for young Mrs. Peebles and Mr. Erskine in the pew of honour near the elders' seat, but the ex-minister of State, after accompanying Mrs. Peebles to her destination, went and sat immediately in front of the pulpit.

"Wondrous weel the laddie looks," said one of the judges as Hugh Peebles came in, boyish in his plain black coat, "though they say he is but a puir craitur for a' that!"

"Appearances are deceitful—beauty is vain!" agreed her neighbour, in the same unimpassioned whisper.

There was nothing remarkable about the "preliminaries," as the service of praise and prayer was somewhat slightingly denominated by these impatient sermon-lovers.

"Sap, but nae fushion!" summed up Mistress Elspeth Milligan, the chief of these, after the first prayer.

The preliminaries being out of the way, the great congregation luxuriously settled itself down to listen to the sermon. Machermore, which had hidden itself bodily in a remote corner of one of the galleries, began to perspire with sheer fright.

"They'll throw the psalm-buiks at him, I wadna wunner—siccan grand preachers as they hae doon here in Cairn Edward!" whispered the ruling elder to a friend. He had sneaked in after all the others, and was now sitting on one of the steps of the laft. It was John McWhan who occupied the corner seat beside him.

"Maybe aye, an' maybe no!" returned John, drily, keeping his eye on the pulpit. The hush deepened as Hugh Peebles gave out his text.

"And he built Tadmor in the Wilderness."

Whereupon ensued a mighty rustling of turned leaves, as the folk in the "airy" and the three "galleries" pursued the strange text to its lair in the second book of Chronicles. It sounded like the blowing of a sudden gust of wind through the entire kirk.

Then came the final stir of settling to attention point, and the first words of Hugh Peebles' sermon. Machermore, elder and kirk-member, adherent and communicant, young and old, bond and free, crouched deeper in their recesses. Some of the more bashful pulled up the collars of their coats and searched their Bibles as if they had not yet found the text. The seniors put on their glasses and stared hard at the minister as if they had never seen him before. They did not wish it to appear that he belonged to them.

But when the first notes of the preacher's voice fell on their astonished ears, it is recorded that some of the more impulsive stood up on their feet.

That was never their despised minister, Hughie Peebles. The strong yet restrained diction, the firmness of speech, the resonance of voice in the deeper notes—all were strange, yet somehow curiously familiar. They had heard them all before, but never without that terrible alloy of weakness, and the addition of a falsetto something that made the preacher's words empty and valueless.

And the sermon—well, there never had been anything like it heard in the Ten Parishes before. There was, first of all, that great passage where the preacher pictured the Wise King sending out his builders and carpenters, his architects and cunning workmen—those very men who had caused the Temple to rise on Moriah and set up the mysterious twin pillars thereof—to build in that great and terrible wilderness a city like to none the world had ever seen. There was his gradual opening up of the text, and applying it to the sending of the Word of God to the heathen who dwelt afar off—without God and without hope in the world.

Then came the searching personal appeal, which showed to each clearly that in his own heart there were wilderness tracts—as barren, as deadly, as apparently hopeless as the ground whereon Solomon set up his wonder-city—Tadmor, Palmyra, the city of temples and palaces and palm-trees.

And above all, the preacher's application was long remembered, his gradual uprising from the picture of the earthly king, "golden-robed in that abyss of blue," to the Great King of all the worlds—"He who can make the wilderness, whether that of the heathen in distant lands and far isles of the sea, or that other more difficult, the wilderness in our own breasts, to blossom as the rose!" These things will never be forgotten by any in that congregation.

Once only Hugh Peebles faltered. It was but for a moment. He gasped and glanced down to the first seat in the front of the church. Then in another moment he had gripped himself and resumed his argument. Some there were who said that he did this for effect, to show emotion, but there were two men in that congregation who knew better—the preacher and Mr. Erskine.

All Machermore went home treading on the viewless air. They hardly talked to each other for sheer joy and astonishment. "Dinna look as if we were surprised, lads! Let on that we get the like o' that every day in oor kirk!"

That was John McWhan's word, which passed from lip to lip. And Machermore and the Marrow Kirk thereof became almost insufferably puffed up.

"I'll no say a word mair," said the ruling elder, "gin he never preaches anither decent word till the day o' his death."

This was, indeed, the general sense of the congregation. But Hugh Peebles, though perhaps he never reached the same pinnacle of fame, certainly preached much better than of old. With his wonderful success, too, he had gained a certain confidence in himself; added to which he was almost as often at Barlochan as before the missionary sermon.

His wife came with him sometimes in the evenings to dinner, and then Mr. Erskine's eyes would dwell on her with a kind of gladness. For now she had a colour in her cheek and a proud look on her face, which had not been there on the day when he had first heard her pray: "O God, help my Hughie!" in the square manse pew.

God had indeed helped Hughie—as He mostly does, through human agency. And Mr. Erskine was happier too. He had found an object in life, and, on the whole, his pupil did him great credit.

He also inserted a clause in his will, which ensures that Hugh and his wife shall not be dependent in their old age upon the goodwill of a faithful but scanty flock.

And as for Hugh Peebles, probable plagiarist, he writes his own sermons now, though he always submits them before preaching to his wise friend up at Barlochan. But it is for his first success that he is always asked when he goes from home. There is a never-failing postscript to any invitation from a clerical brother upon a sacramental occasion: "The congregation will be dreadfully disappointed if you do not give us 'Tadmor in the Wilderness.'"

And Hugh Peebles never disappoints them.

PETERSON'S PATIENT

When I go out on the round of a morning I generally take John with me. John is my "man," and of course it is etiquette that he should drive me to my patients' houses. But sometimes I tell him to put in old Black Bess for a long round-about journey, and then, in that case, I can drive myself.

For Black Bess is a real country doctor's horse. She will stand at a loaning foot with the reins hitched over a post—that is, if you give her a yard or so of head liberty, so that she may solace herself with the grass and clover tufts on the bank. Even without any grass at all, she will stand by a peat-stack in as profound a meditation as if she were responsible for the diagnosis of the case within. I honestly believe Bess is more than half a cow, and chews the cud on the sly. So whenever I feel a trifle lazy, I take the outer round and Black Bess, leaving the town and what the ambitious might call its "suburbs" to Dr. Peterson, my assistant. Not that this helps me much in the long run, because I have to keep track of what is going on in Peterson's head and revise his treatment. For, though his zeal and knowledge are always to be counted on, Peterson is apt to be lacking in a certain tact which the young practitioner only acquires by experience.

For instance, to take the important matter of diagnosis, Peterson used to think nothing of standing silent five or ten minutes making up his mind what was the matter with a patient. I once told him about this.

"Why," he replied, with, I must say, some slight disrespect for his senior, "you often do that yourself. You said this very morning that it took you twenty minutes to make up your mind whether to treat Job Sampson's wife for scarlet fever or for diphtheria!"

"Yes," I retorted, "I told you so, but I didn't stand agape all the time I was thinking it out. I took the temperature of the woman's armpits, and the back of her neck, and between her toes. I asked her about her breakfast, and her dinner, and her supper of the day before. Then I took a turn at her sleeping powers, and whether she had been eating too many vegetables lately. I inquired if she had had the measles, and the whooping-cough, and how often she had been vaccinated. I was just going to begin on her father, mother, and collateral relatives in order to trace hereditary tendencies, when I made up my mind that it would be safest to treat the woman for scarlet fever."

"Yes," said Peterson, drily, "Job was praising you up to the skies this very day. 'There never was sic a careful doctor,' he swears; 'there wasna a blessed thing that he didna speer into, even unto the third and fourth generation.'"

"There, you hear, Peterson," I said, with sober triumph, "that is the first step in your profession. You must create confidence. Never let them think for a moment you don't know everything. Why, old Ned Harper sent for me to-day—said you didn't understand the case, because you declined to prescribe."

"He is malingering," cried Peterson, hotly; "he only wants to draw full pay out of his two benefit societies. The man is a fraud, open and patent. I wouldn't have anything to do with him."

"Now, Peterson," I said, very seriously, "once for all, this is my practice, 'not yours. You are my salaried assistant. That is what you have to attend to. You are not revising auditor of the local benefit societies. If you do as you did with old Harper a time or two, you will lose me my appointment as Society's doctor, and not that one appointment alone. They all follow each other like a flock of sheep jumping through a slap in a dyke. Besides, the Benefit Society officials don't thank you, not a bit! They expect Harper to do as much for them the next time they feel like taking a holiday between the sheets!"

"What would you do then?" cried this furious young apostle of righteousness. "You surely would not have me become art and part in a swindle."

I patted him on the shoulder.

"Temper your zeal with discretion, my friend," I said. "I have found a rising blister between the shoulder-blades very efficacious in such cases."

Yet my immaculate assistant, had he only known it, was to go further and fare worse.

* * * * *

Meanwhile to pass the time I told him the story of old Maxwell Bone. Peterson was clearly getting restive, and it is not good for young men of the medical profession to think that they know everything at five-and-twenty. Maxwell was an aged hedger-and-ditcher, who lived in a tumble-down cottage at the upper end of Whinnyliggate. Of that parish I was (and still am) parish doctor, and Maxwell being in receipt of half-a-crown a week as parochial supplement to his scanty earnings, I was, ipso facto, responsible for Maxwell's state of health, and compelled in terms of my contract to obey any reasonable summons I might receive from him.

Upon several occasions I had prescribed for the old ruffian, chiefly for rheumatism and the various internal pains and weaknesses affected by ancient paupers. When I was going away on one occasion Maxwell asked me for an order on the Inspector of Poor for a bottle of brandy "for outward application only." I refused him promptly, telling him with truth that he was far better without it.

"Weel, doctor," he said, shaking his head, "dootless ye ken best. But there's nocht like brandy when thae stammack pains come on me. It micht save ye a lang journey some cauld snawy nicht. The guard o' the late train will tak' doon ony message frae the junction, and if I dinna get the brandy to hae at hand to rub my legs wi' ye micht hae a lang road to travel! But gin ye let me hae it, doctor, it micht save ye a heap o' trouble——"

"The old wretch!" cried Peterson. "Of course you did not let him have it?"

"Peterson," I replied, sententiously, "I decline to answer you. Wait till you have been a winter here and know what a thirty-mile drive in a raging snowstorm to the head-end of the parish of Whinnyliggate means. Then you will not have much doubt whether Maxwell got his brandy or not."

Now Peterson was really a very excellent fellow, and when he had run his head against the requisite number of stone walls, and learned to bite hard on his tongue when tempted to over-hasty speech, he made a capital assistant. I shall be sorry to lose him when the time comes.

For one thing Nance is fond of him, especially since he fell in love, and that goes for a great deal in our house. Peterson performed the latter feat quite suddenly and unexpectedly, as he did everything. It happened thuswise.

I had had a hard winter, and Nance was needing a change, so, about Easter, I took her south, for a few weeks in the mild and recuperative air of the Regent Street bonnet shops. I have noted more than once that in Nance's case the jewellers' windows along Bond Street possess tonic qualities, quite unconnected with going inside to buy anything, as also the dark windows of certain merchant tailors in which the patient can see her new dress and hat reflected as in a mirror. As for me, I enjoyed the British Medical Club and the Scientific Museums—which, of course, was what I came for.

But when we went back home we found that Peterson's daily report of cases had not conveyed all the truth. Peterson himself was changed. So far as I could gather, he seemed to have done his work very well and to have given complete satisfaction. He had even added the names of several new patients to my list. One of these was that of a somewhat large proprietor in a neighbouring parish, who was said to be exceedingly eccentric, but of whom I knew nothing save by the vaguest report.

"How did you get hold of old Bliss Bulliston?" I asked my assistant, as I glanced over the list he handed me. We were sitting smoking in the study while Nance was unpacking upstairs and spreading her new things on the bed, amid the rapturous sighs and devotionally clasped hands of Betty Sim, our housemaid.

Peterson turned away towards the mantelpiece for another spill. He appeared to have a difficulty with his pipe.

"Well, I don't exactly know," he said at last, when the problem was solved; "it just came about somehow. You know how these things happen."

"They generally happen in our profession by the patient sending for the physician," I remarked, drily. "I hope you have not been poaching on anyone else's preserves, Peterson. Did Bulliston send for you?"

Peterson stooped for a coal to light his pipe. It had gone out again. Perhaps it was the exertion that reddened his handsome face.

"No," he said, slowly, "he did not send for me. I went of my own accord."

I started from my seat.

"Why, man," I cried, "you'll get me struck off the register, not to speak of yourself. You don't mean to say that you went to the house touting for custom?"

"Now don't get excited," he said, smoking calmly, "and I'll tell you all about it."

I became at once violently calm. Nevertheless, in spite of this, it took some time to get him under way.

"Well," he said at last, "Bulliston has got a daughter."

"Oh," said I, "so you were called in to attend on Mrs. Bulliston."

"When I say he has a daughter, I mean a grown-up daughter, not an infant!"

Peterson seemed quite unaccountably ruffled by my innocent remark. I thought of pointing out to him the advantages of habitual clearness of speech, but, on the whole, decided to let him tell his story, for I was really very anxious about Bulliston.

"Well," I said soothingly, "did Miss Bulliston call you in?"

"It might be looked at that way," he said.

"What was the case?"

"A nest of peregrine's eggs near the top of Carslaw Craig."

"Peterson!" I exclaimed, somewhat sternly, "don't forget that I am talking to you seriously!"

But he continued smoking.

"I am perfectly serious," he said, and stopped. After he had thought a while he continued: "It happened at the end of the first week you were away. I had left John at home. I had old Black Bess with me—you know she will stand anywhere. I took the long round, and was coming home a little tired. As I drove past the end of Carslaw Hill, happening to look up I saw something sticking to the sheer face of the cliff like a fly on a wall. At first I could not believe my eyes, for when I came nearer I saw it was a girl. She seemed to be calling for help. So of course I jumped down and tied old Bess to a post by the roadside. Then I began to climb up towards her, but I soon saw that I could not help the girl that way—to do her any good, that is. So I shouted to her to hold on and I would get at her over the top.

"I ran up an easier place, where the hill slopes away to the left, and came down opposite where the girl was. She had got to within ten feet of the top, but could not get a bit higher to save her life. It looked almost impossible, but luckily, right on top there was a hazel-bush, and I caught hold of the lower boughs—three or four of them—and lowered my legs down over the edge.

"'Catch hold of my ankles,' I shouted, 'and I'll pull you up.'

"'Can't; they're too thick!' the girl cried; and from that I judged she must be a pretty cool one.

"'Then catch hold of one of them in both hands!' I shouted.

"'Right!' she said, and gripped.

"And it was as well that she did not take my first offer, for, as it turned out, I had all I could do to get her up, jamming the toe of my other boot in the crevices and barking my knee against the hazel roots. Still, I managed it finally."

"Whereupon she promptly fainted away in your arms," I interjected, "and you recovered her with some smelling-salts and sal volatile you happened to have brought in your tail-coat pockets in view of such emergencies."

"Not at all," said Peterson, quite unabashed; "she didn't faint—never thought of such a thing. Instead, she got behind the hazel-bush I had been hanging on to.

"'Stop where you are a moment,' she spluttered; 'till I get rid of these horrid eggs. Then I'll talk to you.'"

"Tears of beauty!" I cried; "emotion hidden behind a hazel-bush. 'Alfred, you have saved my life—accept my hand.' That was what she really said to you—you know it was, Peterson."

"Not much," said Peterson. "She was back again in a trice, and, if you'll believe me, started in to give it me hot and strong for smashing her blissful birds' eggs.

"'Here I've been watching this peregrine for weeks, and I'd got two beauties, and just because I got stuck a bit on the cliff you must come along and jolt me so that I have broken both of them—one was in my mouth, and the other I had tied up in a handkerchief.

"But I told the girl that I knew where I could get her another pair and also a rough-legged buzzard's nest, and that did a lot to comfort her. She was a pretty girl, though I don't believe she had ever given it a thought; and she was dead on to getting enough birds' eggs to beat her brother, who had said that a girl could never get as good a collection as a boy, because of her petticoats!"

"And where are you going to get those eggs?" I said to Paterson. "If you think that hunting falcons' eggs for roving schoolgirls comes within your duties as my assistant—well, I shall have to explicate your responsibilities to you, that's all, young man!"

Peterson laid his finger lightly on his cheek, not far from the bridge of his nose.

"You know old Davie Slimmon, the keeper up at the lodge? You remember I doctored his foot when he got it bitten with an adder. Well, anyway, he would do anything for me. I've had Davie on the egg-hunt ever since."

"And the girl thinks you are getting them all yourself," I said, with some severity. "Peterson, this is both unbecoming and unscientific. More than that, you are a blackguard."

"Oh," said Peterson, lightly, "it's all right. I go regularly to see the old boy. He is a patient properly on the books, and when all is over, you can charge him a swingeing fee. Well, to begin at the beginning, each time I saw the girl I took her all the eggs I could pick up in the interval. I got them properly blown and labelled—particulars, habitat, how many in the clutch, whether the nest was oriented due east and west, whether made of sticks or weeds or curl-papers, the size of the shell in fractions of a millimetre——"

"Peterson," I said, sternly, "I don't believe you have the remotest idea what a millimetre is!"

"No more I have," answered Peterson, stoutly, not in the least put out; "but then, no more has she. And it looks well—thundering well!" he added, after a ruminant consideration of the visionary labelled egg. "You've no idea what a finish these tickets give to the collection."

"So this was Miss Bulliston," I said, to bring him back to the point in which I was most immediately interested. "That's all very well, but what was the matter with old Bliss, her father?"

Peterson looked as if he would have winked if he had dared, but the sternness in my eye checked him.

"Something nervous," he said, gazing at me blankly. "Truda kept stirring him up till the poor old boy nearly fretted himself into a fever, and so had me sent for. Oh, I was properly enough called in. You needn't look like that, McQuhirr. You've no gratitude for my getting you a good paying patient. I tell you the old man was so frightened that Truda——"

"It had got to 'Truda,' had it?" I interjected, bitterly. But Peterson took no notice, going composedly on with his story.

"... Truda ran all the way to the lodge gates, where I was waiting with two kestrels' and a marsh-harrier, unblown, but all done up in cotton wool."

"What!" I cried, "the birds?"

"No, the eggs, of course," said Peterson; "and she said: 'What have you got there?' So I told her two kestrels' and a marsh-harrier. Then she said: 'Is that all? I thought you would have got that kite's you promised me by this time. But come along and cure my father of the cholera, and the measles, and the distemper, and the spavin! He's got them all this morning, besides several other things I've forgot the names of. Come quick! Cousin Jem from London is with him. He'll frighten him worse than anybody. I'll take you up through the shrubbery. Give me your hand!'

"So she took my hand, and we ran up together to the house."

"Peterson," I said, "you and I have a monthly engagement. On this day month I shall have no further occasion for your services. Suppose anyone had seen you! What would they have thought of Dr. McQuhirr's assistant?"

"I never gave it a thought," he said, waving the interruption away; "and anyway, if all tales are true, you did a good deal of light skirmishing up about Nether Neuk in your own day!"

Now this was a most uncalled-for remark, and I answered: "That may be true or not, as the case may be. But, at all events, I was no one's locum tenens at that time."

"Oh," he said, "it's no use making a fuss now, McQuhirr. Nobody saw us, and as soon as we got to the open part near the house, Truda said: 'Now I'm going to get these eggs fixed into their cases. So you trot round and physic up the old man. And mind and ask to see his collection of dog-whips. It is the finest in the world. We all collect something here. Pa is crazy about dog-whips. And if you can't find anything else wrong with him, tell him that his corns want cutting. They always do!'

"'But I haven't a knife with me,' I objected.

"'I'll lend you a ripper.' (Truda had an answer ready every time.) 'I keep it edged like a razor. It is a cobbler's leather knife. It will make the shavings fly off dad's old corns, I tell you!'

"'But I never pared a corn in my life,' I said.

"'Then you've jolly well got to now, my friend,' she said, 'for I've yarned it to him that his life may depend on it, and that only a trained surgeon can operate on his sort. So don't you give me away, or he may let you have the contents of a shot-gun as you go out through the front window. And what will happen to me, I don't know. Now go on!'

"And with that she vanished in the direction of the stables."

"A most lively young lady!" I cried, with enthusiasm.

"Um-m," grunted Peterson (I have often had cause to remark Peterson's gruffness). "Lively, you think? Well, she nearly got me into a pretty mess with her liveliness. The butler put me into a waiting-room out of the hall. It was all sparred round with fishing-rods, and had crossed trophies of dog-whips festooned about the walls. I waited here for a quarter of an hour, listening to the rumbling bark of an angry voice in the distance, and wondering what the mischief Truda had let me in for.

"Presently the girl came round to the open window, and as the sill was a bit high she gave a sort of sidelong jump and sat perched on the ledge outside.

"'You are a great donkey,' she said, looking in at me; 'both the kestrels' are set as hard as a rock—here, take them!'

"And with that she threw the eggs in at me one after another through the open sash of the window. One took me right on the pin of my tie and dripped on to my waistcoat. Smell? Well, rather! Just then the old butler came in, looking like a field-marshal and archbishop rolled in one, and there was I rubbing the abominable yolk from my waistcoat. Truda had dropped off the window-sill like a bird, and the old fellow looked round the room very suspiciously. I think he thought I must have been pocketing the spoons or something.

"'Mr. Bliss Bulliston waits!' he said, as if he were taking me into the presence-chamber of royalty. And so he was, by George! I was shown into a large library-looking room where two men were sitting. One was a little Skye-terrier of a man, with bristly grey hair that stood out everyway about his head. He was lying in a long chair, half reclining, a rug over his knees though the day was warm. The other man sat apart in the window, a quiet fellow to all appearance, bald-headed, and rather tired-looking.

"'You are the doctor from Cairn Edward my daughter has been pestering me to see,' snapped the elder man. 'My case is a very difficult and complicated one, and quite beyond the reach of an average local practitioner, but I understand from my daughter that you have very special qualifications.' Whereupon I bowed, and said that I was your assistant."

"Good heavens!" I cried. "Peterson, had you no sense? Why on earth did you bring my name into the affair? I shall never get over it!"

"Oh," he answered, lightly; "wait a bit. I cleared you sufficiently in the end. Just listen.

"I was in a tight place, you will admit, but I thought it was best to put on my most impressive manner, and after a look or two at the old fellow, I resolved to treat him for nervous exhaustion. It was a dead fluke, but I had been reading Webb-Playfair's article on Neurasthenia just before I went out, and though men don't often have it, I thought it would do as well for old Bulliston as anything else.

"So I yarned away to him about his condition and symptoms, emaciated physical state, and so forth. Well, when I was getting pretty well warmed up I saw the young man with the hair thin-sown on top rise and go quietly over to another window. I put this down to modesty on his part. He wished to leave me alone with my patient. So I became more and more confidential to old Bulliston."