The Little Minister Read online

  Chapter One.

  THE LOVE-LIGHT.

  Long ago, in the days when our caged blackbirds never saw a king'ssoldier without whistling impudently, "Come ower the water toCharlie," a minister of Thrums was to be married, but somethinghappened, and he remained a bachelor. Then, when he was old, he passedin our square the lady who was to have been his wife, and her hair waswhite, but she, too, was still unmarried. The meeting had only onewitness, a weaver, and he said solemnly afterwards, "They didna speak,but they just gave one another a look, and I saw the love-light intheir een." No more is remembered of these two, no being now livingever saw them, but the poetry that was in the soul of a batteredweaver makes them human to us for ever.

  It is of another minister I am to tell, but only to those who knowthat light when they see it. I am not bidding good-bye to manyreaders, for though it is true that some men, of whom Lord Rintoul wasone, live to an old age without knowing love, few of us can have metthem, and of women so incomplete I never heard.

  Gavin Dishart was barely twenty-one when he and his mother came toThrums, light-hearted like the traveller who knows not what awaits himat the bend of the road. It was the time of year when the ground iscarpeted beneath the firs with brown needles, when split-nuts patterall day from the beech, and children lay yellow corn on the dominie'sdesk to remind him that now they are needed in the fields. The day wasso silent that carts could be heard rumbling a mile away. All Thrumswas out in its wynds and closes--a few of the weavers still inknee-breeches--to look at the new Auld Licht minister. I was theretoo, the dominie of Glen Quharity, which is four miles from Thrums;and heavy was my heart as I stood afar off so that Gavin's mothermight not have the pain of seeing me. I was the only one in the crowdwho looked at her more than at her son.

  Eighteen years had passed since we parted. Already her hair had lostthe brightness of its youth, and she seemed to me smaller and morefragile; and the face that I loved when I was a hobbledehoy, and lovedwhen I looked once more upon it in Thrums, and always shall love tillI die, was soft and worn. Margaret was an old woman, and she was onlyforty-three; and I am the man who made her old. As Gavin put his eagerboyish face out at the carriage window, many saw that he was holdingher hand, but none could be glad at the sight as the dominie was glad,looking on at a happiness in which he dared not mingle. Margaret wascrying because she was so proud of her boy. Women do that. Poor sonsto be proud of, good mothers, but I would not have you dry thosetears.

  A STREET IN THRUMS.]

  When the little minister looked out at the carriage window, many ofthe people drew back humbly, but a little boy in a red frock withblack spots pressed forward and offered him a sticky parly, whichGavin accepted, though not without a tremor, for children were moreterrible to him then than bearded men. The boy's mother, trying not tolook elated, bore him away, but her face said that he was made forlife. With this little incident Gavin's career in Thrums began. Iremembered it suddenly the other day when wading across the wynd whereit took place. Many scenes in the little minister's life come back tome in this way. The first time I ever thought of writing his lovestory as an old man's gift to a little maid since grown tall, was onenight while I sat alone in the school-house; on my knees a fiddle thathas been my only living companion since I sold my hens. My mind haddrifted back to the first time I saw Gavin and the Egyptian together,and what set it wandering to that midnight meeting was my garden gateshaking in the wind. At a gate on the hill I had first encounteredthese two. It rattled in his hand, and I looked up and saw them, andneither knew why I had such cause to start at the sight. Then the gateswung to. It had just such a click as mine.

  These two figures on the hill are more real to me than things thathappened yesterday, but I do not know that I can make them live toothers. A ghost-show used to come yearly to Thrums on the merry MuckleFriday, in which the illusion was contrived by hanging a glass betweenthe onlookers and the stage. I cannot deny that the comings and goingsof the ghost were highly diverting, yet the farmer of T'nowhead onlylaughed because he had paid his money at the hole in the door like therest of us. T'nowhead sat at the end of a form where he saw round theglass and so saw no ghost. I fear my public may be in the samepredicament. I see the little minister as he was at one-and-twenty,and the little girl to whom this story is to belong sees him, thoughthe things I have to tell happened before she came into the world. Butthere are reasons why she should see; and I do not know that I canprovide the glass for others. If they see round it, they will neitherlaugh nor cry with Gavin and Babbie.

  When Gavin came to Thrums he was as I am now, for the pages lay beforehim on which he was to write his life. Yet he was not quite as I am.The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story,and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares thevolume as it is with what he vowed to make it. But the biographer seesthe last chapter while he is still at the first, and I have only towrite over with ink what Gavin has written in pencil.

  How often is it a phantom woman who draws the man from the way hemeant to go? So was man created, to hunger for the ideal that is abovehimself, until one day there is magic in the air, and the eyes of agirl rest upon him. He does not know that it is he himself who crownedher, and if the girl is as pure as he, their love is the one form ofidolatry that is not quite ignoble. It is the joining of two souls ontheir way to God. But if the woman be bad, the test of the man is whenhe wakens from his dream. The nobler his ideal, the further will hehave been hurried down the wrong way, for those who only run afterlittle things will not go far. His love may now sink into passion,perhaps only to stain its wings and rise again, perhaps to drown.

  Babbie, what shall I say of you who make me write these things? I amnot your judge. Shall we not laugh at the student who chafes whenbetween him and his book comes the song of the thrushes, with whom, onthe mad night you danced into Gavin's life, you had more in commonthan with Auld Licht ministers? The gladness of living was in yourstep, your voice was melody, and he was wondering what love might be.

  "BABBIE."]

  You were the daughter of a summer night, born where all the birds arefree, and the moon christened you with her soft light to dazzle theeyes of man. Not our little minister alone was stricken by you intohis second childhood. To look upon you was to rejoice that so fair athing could be; to think of you is still to be young. Even those whocalled you a little devil, of whom I have been one, admitted thatin the end you had a soul, though not that you had been born with one.They said you stole it, and so made a woman of yourself. But again Isay I am not your judge, and when I picture you as Gavin saw youfirst, a bare-legged witch dancing up Windyghoul, rowan berries inyour black hair, and on your finger a jewel the little minister couldnot have bought with five years of toil, the shadows on my pages lift,and I cannot wonder that Gavin loved you.

  Often I say to myself that this is to be Gavin's story, not mine.Yet must it be mine too, in a manner, and of myself I shallsometimes have to speak; not willingly, for it is time my littletragedy had died of old age. I have kept it to myself so long thatnow I would stand at its grave alone. It is true that when I heardwho was to be the new minister I hoped for a day that the life brokenin Harvie might be mended in Thrums, but two minutes' talk with Gavinshowed me that Margaret had kept from him the secret which was hersand mine, and so knocked the bottom out of my vain hopes. I didnot blame her then, nor do I blame her now, nor shall any one whoblames her ever be called friend by me; but it was bitter to look atthe white manse among the trees and know that I must never enter it.For Margaret's sake I had to keep aloof, yet this new trial cameupon me like our parting at Harvie. I thought that in those eighteenyears my passions had burned like a ship till they sank, but Isuffered again as on that awful night when Adam Dishart came back,nearly killing Margaret and tearing up all my ambitions by theroot in a single hour. I waited in Thrums until I had looked againon Margaret, who thought me dead, and Gavin, who had never heardof me, and then I trudged back to the school-house. Something Iheard of th
em from time to time during the winter--for in thegossip of Thrums I was well posted--but much of what is to be toldhere I only learned afterwards from those who knew it best. Gavinheard of me at times as the dominie in the glen who had ceased toattend the Auld Licht kirk, and Margaret did not even hear of me. Itwas all I could do for them.