The Little Minister Read online

  Chapter Three.

  THE NIGHT-WATCHERS.

  What first struck Margaret in Thrums was the smell of the caddis. Thetown smells of caddis no longer, but whiffs of it may be got even nowas one passes the houses of the old, where the lay still swings atlittle windows like a great ghost pendulum. To me it is a homelysmell, which I draw in with a great breath, but it was as strange toMargaret as the weavers themselves, who, in their colored nightcapsand corduroys streaked with threads, gazed at her and Gavin. Thelittle minister was trying to look severe and old, but twenty-one wasin his eye.

  "Look, mother, at that white house with the green roof. That is themanse."

  The manse stands high, with a sharp eye on all the town. Every backwindow in the Tenements has a glint of it, and so the back of theTenements is always better behaved than the front. It was in the frontthat Jamie Don, a pitiful bachelor all his life because he thought thewomen proposed, kept his ferrets, and here, too, Beattie hangedhimself, going straight to the clothes-posts for another rope when thefirst one broke, such was his determination. In the front SandersGilruth openly boasted (on Don's potato-pit) that by having a seat intwo churches he could lie in bed on Sabbath and get the credit ofbeing at one or other. (Gavin made short work of him.) To theright-minded the Auld Licht manse was as a family Bible, ever lyingopen before them, but Beattie spoke for more than himself when hesaid, "Dagone that manse! I never gie a swear but there it isglowering at me."

  The manse looks down on the town from the north-east, and is reachedfrom the road that leaves Thrums behind it in another moment by awide, straight path, so rough that to carry a fraught of water to themanse without spilling was to be superlatively good at one thing.Packages in a cart it set leaping like trout in a fishing-creel.Opposite the opening of the garden wall in the manse, where for manyyears there had been an intention of putting up a gate, were two bigstones a yard apart, standing ready for the winter, when the path wasoften a rush of yellow water, and this the only bridge to the glebedyke, down which the minister walked to church.

  When Margaret entered the manse on Gavin's arm, it was a whitewashedhouse of five rooms, with a garret in which the minister could sleepif he had guests, as during the Fast week. It stood with its gardenwithin high walls, and the roof facing southward was carpeted withmoss that shone in the sun in a dozen shades of green and yellow.Three firs guarded the house from west winds, but blasts from thenorth often tore down the steep fields and skirled through the manse,banging all its doors at once. A beech, growing on the east side,leant over the roof as if to gossip with the well in the courtyard.The garden was to the south, and was over full of gooseberry andcurrant bushes. It contained a summer seat, where strange things weresoon to happen.

  Margaret would not even take off her bonnet until she had seen throughthe manse and opened all the presses. The parlour and kitchen weredownstairs, and of the three rooms above, the study was so small thatGavin's predecessor could touch each of its walls without shifting hisposition. Every room save Margaret's had long-lidded beds, which closeas if with shutters, but hers was coff-fronted, or comparativelyopen, with carving on the wood like the ornamentation of coffins.Where there were children in a house they liked to slope the boards ofthe closed-in bed against the dresser, and play at sliding downmountains on them.

  But for many years there had been no children in the manse. He inwhose ways Gavin was to attempt the heavy task of walking had been awidower three months after his marriage, a man narrow when he came toThrums, but so large-hearted when he left it that I, who know there isgood in all the world because of the lovable souls I have met in thiscorner of it, yet cannot hope that many are as near to God as he. Themost gladsome thing in the world is that few of us fall very low; thesaddest that, with such capabilities, we seldom rise high. Of thosewho stand perceptibly above their fellows I have known very few; onlyMr. Carfrae and two or three women.

  Gavin only saw a very frail old minister who shook as he walked, as ifhis feet were striking against stones. He was to depart on the morrowto the place of his birth, but he came to the manse to wish hissuccessor God-speed. Strangers were so formidable to Margaret that sheonly saw him from her window.

  "May you never lose sight of God, Mr. Dishart," the old man said inthe parlour. Then he added, as if he had asked too much, "May younever turn from Him as I often did when I was a lad like you."

  As this aged minister, with the beautiful face that God gives to allwho love Him and follow His commandments, spoke of his youth, helooked wistfully around the faded parlour.

  "It is like a dream," he said. "The first time I entered this room thethought passed through me that I would cut down that cherry-tree,because it kept out the light, but, you see, it outlives me. I grewold while looking for the axe. Only yesterday I was the youngminister, Mr. Dishart, and to-morrow you will be the old one, biddinggood-bye to your successor."

  His eyes came back to Gavin's eager face.

  "You are very young, Mr. Dishart?"

  "Nearly twenty-one."

  "Twenty-one! Ah, my dear sir, you do not know how pathetic that soundsto me. Twenty-one! We are children for the second time at twenty-one,and again when we are grey and put all our burden on the Lord. Theyoung talk generously of relieving the old of their burdens, but theanxious heart is to the old when they see a load on the back of theyoung. Let me tell you, Mr. Dishart, that I would condone many thingsin one-and-twenty now that I dealt hardly with at middle age. GodHimself, I think, is very willing to give one-and-twenty a secondchance."

  "I am afraid," Gavin said anxiously, "that I look even younger."

  "I think," Mr. Carfrae answered, smiling, "that your heart is as freshas your face; and that is well. The useless men are those who neverchange with the years. Many views that I held to in my youth and longafterwards are a pain to me now, and I am carrying away from Thrumsmemories of errors into which I fell at every stage of my ministry.When you are older you will know that life is a long lesson inhumility."

  He paused.

  "I hope," he said nervously, "that you don't sing the Paraphrases?"

  Mr. Carfrae had not grown out of all his prejudices, you see; indeed,if Gavin had been less bigoted than he on this question they mighthave parted stiffly. The old minister would rather have remained todie in his pulpit than surrender it to one who read his sermons.Others may blame him for this, but I must say here plainly that Inever hear a minister reading without wishing to send him back tocollege.

  "I cannot deny," Mr. Carfrae said, "that I broke down more than onceto-day. This forenoon I was in Tillyloss, for the last time, and itso happens that there is scarcely a house in it in which I have nothad a marriage or prayed over a coffin. Ah, sir, these are the scenesthat make the minister more than all his sermons. You must jointhe family, Mr. Dishart, or you are only a minister once a week. Andremember this, if your call is from above, it is a call to stay. Manysuch partings in a lifetime as I have had to-day would be tooheartrending."

  "And yet," Gavin said, hesitatingly, "they told me in Glasgow that Ihad received a call from the mouth of hell."

  "Those were cruel words, but they only mean that people who are seldommore than a day's work in advance of want sometimes rise in arms forfood. Our weavers are passionately religious, and so independent thatthey dare any one to help them, but if their wages were lessened theycould not live. And so at talk of reduction they catch fire. Change ofany kind alarms them, and though they call themselves Whigs, they rosea few years ago over the paving of the streets and stoned the workmen,who were strangers, out of the town."

  "And though you may have thought the place quiet to-day, Mr. Dishart,there was an ugly outbreak only two months ago, when the weaversturned on the manufacturers for reducing the price of the web, made abonfire of some of their doors, and terrified one of them into leavingThrums. Under the command of some Chartists, the people next paradedthe streets to the music of fife and drum, and six policemen who droveup from Tilliedrum in a light cart were sent back tied to t
he seats."

  "No one has been punished?"

  "Not yet, but nearly two years ago there was a similar riot, and thesheriff took no action for months. Then one night the square suddenlyfilled with soldiers, and the ringleaders were seized in their beds.Mr. Dishart, the people are determined not to be caught in that wayagain, and ever since the rising a watch has been kept by night onevery road that leads to Thrums. The signal that the soldiers arecoming is to be the blowing of a horn. If you ever hear that horn, Iimplore you to hasten to the square."

  "The weavers would not fight?"

  "You do not know how the Chartists have fired this part of thecountry. One misty day, a week ago, I was on the hill; I thought I hadit to myself, when suddenly I heard a voice cry sharply, 'Shoulderarms.' I could see no one, and after a moment I put it down to a freakof the wind. Then all at once the mist before me blackened, and a bodyof men seemed to grow out of it. They were not shadows; they wereThrums weavers drilling, with pikes in their hands.

  "They broke up," Mr. Carfrae continued, after a pause, "at myentreaty, but they have met again since then."

  "And there were Auld Lichts among them?" Gavin asked. "I should havethought they would be frightened at our precentor, Lang Tammas, whoseems to watch for backsliding in the congregation as if he hadpleasure in discovering it."

  Gavin spoke with feeling, for the precentor had already put himthrough his catechism, and it was a stiff ordeal.

  "The precentor!" said Mr. Carfrae. "Why, he was one of them."

  The old minister, once so brave a figure, tottered as he rose to go,and reeled in a dizziness until he had walked a few paces. Gavin wentwith him to the foot of the manse road; without his hat, as all Thrumsknew before bedtime.

  "I begin," Gavin said, as they were parting, "where you leave off, andmy prayer is that I may walk in your ways."

  "Ah, Mr. Dishart," the white-haired minister said, with a sigh, "theworld does not progress so quickly as a man grows old. You only beginwhere I began."

  He left Gavin, and then, as if the little minister's last words hadhurt him, turned and solemnly pointed his staff upward. Such men arethe strong nails that keep the world together.

  The twenty-one-years-old minister returned to the manse somewhatsadly, but when he saw his mother at the window of her bedroom, hisheart leapt at the thought that she was with him and he had eightypounds a year. Gaily he waved both his hands to her, and she answeredwith a smile, and then, in his boyishness, he jumped over a gooseberrybush. Immediately afterwards he reddened and tried to look venerable,for while in the air he had caught sight of two women and a manwatching him from the dyke. He walked severely to the door, and, againforgetting himself, was bounding upstairs to Margaret, when Jean, theservant, stood scandalised in his way.

  "I don't think she caught me," was Gavin's reflection, and "The Lordpreserve's!" was Jean's.

  Gavin found his mother wondering how one should set about getting acup of tea in a house that had a servant in it. He boldly rang thebell, and the willing Jean answered it so promptly (in a rush andjump) that Margaret was as much startled as Aladdin the first time herubbed his lamp.

  Manse servants of the most admired kind move softly, as if constantcontact with a minister were goloshes to them; but Jean was new andraw, only having got her place because her father might be an elderany day. She had already conceived a romantic affection for hermaster; but to say "sir" to him--as she thirsted to do--would havebeen as difficult to her as to swallow oysters. So anxious was she toplease that when Gavin rang she fired herself at the bedroom, butbells were novelties to her as well as to Margaret, and she cried,excitedly, "What is 't?" thinking the house must be on fire.

  "There's a curran folk at the back door," Jean announced later, "andtheir respects to you, and would you gie them some water out o' thewell? It has been a drouth this aucht days, and the pumps is locked.Na," she said, as Gavin made a too liberal offer, "that would toom thewell, and there's jimply enough for oursels. I should tell you, too,that three o' them is no Auld Lichts."

  "Let that make no difference," Gavin said grandly, but Jean changedhis message to: "A bowlful apiece to Auld Lichts; all otherdenominations one cupful."

  "Ay, ay," said Snecky Hobart, letting down the bucket, "and we'llinclude atheists among other denominations." The conversation came toGavin and Margaret through the kitchen doorway.

  "Dinna class Jo Cruickshanks wi' me," said Sam'l Langlands the U. P.

  "Na, na," said Cruickshanks the atheist, "I'm ower independent to bereligious. I dinna gang to the kirk to cry, 'Oh, Lord, gie, gie,gie.'"

  "Take tent o' yoursel', my man," said Lang Tammas sternly, "or you'llsoon be whaur you would neifer the warld for a cup o' that cauldwater."

  "Maybe you've ower keen an interest in the devil, Tammas," retortedthe atheist; "but, ony way, if it's heaven for climate, it's hell forcompany."

  "Lads," said Snecky, sitting down on the bucket, "we'll send Mr.Dishart to Jo. He'll make another Rob Dow o' him."

  "Speak mair reverently o' your minister," said the precentor. "He hasthe gift."

  "I hinna naturally your solemn rasping word, Tammas, but in the heartI speak in all reverence. Lads, the minister has a word! I tell you heprays near like one giving orders."

  "At first," Snecky continued, "I thocht yon lang candidate was theearnestest o' them a', and I dinna deny but when I saw him wi' hishead bowed-like in prayer during the singing I says to mysel', 'Thouart the man.' Ay, but Betsy wraxed up her head, and he wasna praying.He was combing his hair wi' his fingers on the sly."

  "You ken fine, Sneck," said Cruickshanks, "that you said, 'Thou artthe man' to ilka ane o' them, and just voted for Mr. Dishart becausehe preached hinmost."

  "I didna say it to Mr. Urquhart, the ane that preached second," Snecksaid. "That was the lad that gaed through ither."

  "Ay," said Susy Tibbits, nicknamed by Haggart "the Timidest Woman"because she once said she was too young to marry, "but I was fellsorry for him, just being over anxious. He began bonny, flinginghimself, like ane inspired, at the pulpit door, but after Hendry Munnpointed at it and cried out, 'Be cautious, the sneck's loose,' he a'gaed to bits. What a coolness Hendry has, though I suppose it was hisduty, him being kirk-officer."

  "We didna want a man," Lang Tammas said, "that could be put out by sica sma' thing as that. Mr. Urquhart was in sic a ravel after it thatwhen he gies out the first line o' the hunder and nineteenth psalm forsinging, says he, 'And so on to the end.' Ay, that finished hischance."

  "The noblest o' them to look at," said Tibbie Birse, "was that anefrae Aberdeen, him that had sic a saft side to Jacob."

  "Ay," said Snecky, "and I speired at Dr. McQueen if I should vote forhim. 'Looks like a genius, does he?' says the Doctor. 'Weel, then,'says he, 'dinna vote for him, for my experience is that there's nofolk sic idiots as them that looks like geniuses.'"

  "Sal," Susy said, "it's a guid thing we've settled, for I enjoyedsitting like a judge upon them so muckle that I sair doubt it was akind o' sport to me."

  "It was no sport to them, Susy, I'se uphaud, but it is a blessingwe've settled, and ondoubtedly we've got the pick o' them. The onlything Mr. Dishart did that made me oneasy was his saying the wordCaesar as if it began wi' a _k_."

  "He'll startle you mair afore you're done wi' him," the atheist saidmaliciously. "I ken the ways o' thae ministers preaching for kirks.Oh, they're cunning. You was a' pleased that Mr. Dishart spoke aboutlooms and webs, but, lathies, it was a trick. Ilka ane o' thae youngministers has a sermon about looms for weaving congregations, and asecond about beating swords into ploughshares for country places, andanother on the great catch of fishes for fishing villages. That'stheir stock-in-trade; and just you wait and see if you dinna get theploughshares and the fishes afore the month's out. A ministerpreaching for a kirk is one thing, but a minister placed in't may be avery different berry."

  "Joseph Cruickshanks," cried the precentor, passionately, "none o'your d----d blasphemy!"

  They all l
ooked at Whamond, and he dug his teeth into his lips inshame.

  "Wha's swearing now?" said the atheist.

  But Whamond was quick.

  "Matthew, twelve and thirty-one," he said.

  "Dagont, Tammas," exclaimed the baffled Cruickshanks, "you're ayequoting Scripture. How do you no quote Feargus O'Connor?"

  "Lads," said Snecky, "Jo hasna heard Mr. Dishart's sermons. Ay, we getit scalding when he comes to the sermon. I canna thole a ministerthat preaches as if heaven was round the corner."

  "If you're hitting at our minister, Snecky," said James Cochrane, "letme tell you he's a better man than yours."

  "A better curler, I dare say."

  "A better prayer."

  "Ay, he can pray for a black frost as if it was ane o' the RoyalFamily. I ken his prayers, 'O Lord, let it haud for anither day, andkeep the snaw awa'.' Will you pretend, Jeames, that Mr. Duthie couldmake onything o' Rob Dow?"

  "I admit that Rob's awakening was an extraordinary thing, andsufficient to gie Mr. Dishart a name. But Mr. Carfrae was baffled wi'Rob too."

  "Jeames, if you had been in our kirk that day Mr. Dishart preachedfor't you would be wearying the now for Sabbath, to be back in'tagain. As you ken, that wicked man there, Jo Cruickshanks, got RobDow, drucken, cursing, poaching Rob Dow, to come to the kirk to annoythe minister. Ay, he hadna been at that work for ten minutes when Mr.Dishart stopped in his first prayer and ga'e Rob a look. I couldna seethe look, being in the precentor's box, but as sure as death I felt itboring through me. Rob is hard wood, though, and soon he was at histricks again. Weel, the minister stopped a second time in the sermon,and so awful was the silence that a heap o' the congregation couldnakeep their seats. I heard Rob breathing quick and strong. Mr. Disharthad his arm pointed at him a' this time, and at last he says sternly,'Come forward.' Listen, Joseph Cruickshanks, and tremble. Rob grippedthe board to keep himsel' frae obeying, and again Mr. Dishart says,'Come forward,' and syne Rob rose shaking, and tottered to the pulpitstair like a man suddenly shot into the Day of Judgment. 'You hulkingman of sin,' cries Mr. Dishart, not a tick fleid, though Rob's as bigas three o' him, 'sit down on the stair and attend to me, or I'll stepdoun frae the pulpit and run you out of the house of God.'"

  "And since that day," said Hobart, "Rob has worshipped Mr. Dishart asa man that has stepped out o' the Bible. When the carriage passed thisday we was discussing the minister, and Sam'l Dickie wasna sure butwhat Mr. Dishart wore his hat rather far back on his head. You shouldhave seen Rob. 'My certie,' he roars, 'there's the shine frae Heavenon that little minister's face, and them as says there's no has me tofecht.'"

  "Ay, weel," said the U. P., rising, "we'll see how Rob wears--and howyour minister wears too. I wouldna like to sit in a kirk whaur theydaurna sing a paraphrase."

  "The Psalms of David," retorted Whamond, "mount straight to heaven,but your paraphrases sticks to the ceiling o' the kirk."

  "You're a bigoted set, Tammas Whamond, but I tell you this, and it'smy last words to you the nicht, the day'll come when you'll hae Mr.Duthie, ay, and even the U. P. minister, preaching in the Auld Lichtkirk."

  "And let this be my last words to you," replied the precentor,furiously; "that rather than see a U. P. preaching in the Auld Lichtkirk I would burn in hell fire for ever!"

  This gossip increased Gavin's knowledge of the grim men with whom hehad now to deal. But as he sat beside Margaret after she had gone tobed, their talk was pleasant.

  "You remember, mother," Gavin said, "how I almost prayed for the mansethat was to give you an egg every morning. I have been telling Jeannever to forget the egg."

  "Ah, Gavin, things have come about so much as we wanted that I'm akind o' troubled. It's hardly natural, and I hope nothing terrible isto happen now."

  Gavin arranged her pillows as she liked them, and when he next stoleinto the room in his stocking soles to look at her, he thought she wasasleep. But she was not. I dare say she saw at that moment Gavin inhis first frock, and Gavin in knickerbockers, and Gavin as he used towalk into the Glasgow room from college, all still as real to her asthe Gavin who had a kirk.

  The little minister took away the lamp to his own room, shaking hisfist at himself for allowing his mother's door to creak. He pulled uphis blind. The town lay as still as salt. But a steady light showed inthe south, and on pressing his face against the window he saw anotherin the west. Mr. Carfrae's words about the night-watch came back tohim. Perhaps it had been on such a silent night as this that thesoldiers marched into Thrums. Would they come again?