Books: The Little Minister
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J.M. Barrie >> The Little Minister
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Elspeth retired to discuss the probable disturbance at the Spittal
with her family, giving Waster Lunny the opportunity of saying to
me impressively--
"Man, man, has it never crossed you that it's a queer thing the
like o' you and me having no ancestors? Ay, we had them in a
manner o' speaking, no doubt, but they're as completely lost sicht
o' as a flagon lid that's fallen ahint the dresser. Hech, sirs,
but they would need a gey rubbing to get the rust off them now,
I've been thinking that if I was to get my laddies to say their
grandfather's name a curran times ilka day, like the Catechism,
and they were to do the same wi' their bairns, and it was
continued in future generations, we micht raise a fell field o'
ancestors in time. Ay, but Elspeth wouldna hear o't. Nothing
angers her mair than to hear me speak o' planting trees for the
benefit o' them that's to be farmers here after me; and as for
ancestors, she would howk them up as quick as I could plant them.
Losh, dominie, is that a boot in your hand?"
To my mortification I saw that I had run out of the school-house
with the boot on my hand as if it were a glove, and back I went
straightway, blaming myself for a man wanting in dignity. It was
but a minor trouble this, however, even at the time; and to recall
it later in the day was to look back on happiness, for though I
did not know it yet, Lauchlan's playing raised the curtain on the
great act of Gavin's life, and the twenty-four hours had begun, to
which all I have told as yet is no more than the prologue.
CHAPTER XXVI.
SCENE AT THE SPITTAL.
Within an hour after I had left him, Waster Lunny walked into the
school-house and handed me his snuff-mull, which I declined
politely. It was with this ceremony that we usually opened our
conversations.
"I've seen the post," he said, and he tells me there has been a
queer ploy at the Spittal. It's a wonder the marriage hasna been
turned into a burial, and all because o' that Highland stirk,
Lauchlan Campbell.
Waster Lunny was a man who had to retrace his steps in telling a
story if he tried short cuts, and so my custom was to wait
patiently while he delved through the ploughed fields that always
lay between him and his destination.
"As you ken, Rintoul's so little o' a Scotchman that he's no
muckle better than an Englisher. That maun be the reason he hadna
mair sense than to tramp on a Highlandman's ancestors, as he tried
to tramp on Lauchlan's this day."
"If Lord Rintoul insulted the piper," I suggested, giving the
farmer a helping hand cautiously, "it would be through
inadvertence. Rintoul only bought the Spittal a year ago, and
until then, I daresay, he had seldom been on our side of the
Border."
This was a foolish, interruption, for it set Walter Lunny off in a
new direction.
"That's what Elspeth says. Says she, 'When the earl has grand
estates in England, what for does he come to a barren place like
the Spittal to be married! It's gey like,' she says, 'as if he
wanted the marriage to be got by quietly; a thing,' says she,
'that no woman can stand. Furthermore,' Elspeth says, 'how has the
marriage been postponed twice?' We ken what the servants at the
Spittal says to that, namely, that the young lady is no keen to
take him, but Elspeth winna listen to sic arguments. She says
either the earl had grown timid (as mony a man does) when the
wedding-day drew near, or else his sister that keeps his house is
mad at the thocht o' losing her place; but as for the young
leddy's being sweer, says Elspeth, 'an earl's an earl however auld
he is, and a lassie's a lassie however young she is, and weel she
kens you're never sure o' a man's no changing his mind about you
till you're tied to him by law, after which it doesna so muckle
matter whether he changes his mind about you or no.' Ay, there's a
quirk in it some gait, dominie; but it's a deep water Elspeth
canna bottom."
"It is," I agreed; "but you were to tell me what Birse told you of
the disturbance at the Spittal."
"Ay, weel." he answered, "the post puts the wite o't on her little
leddyship, as they call her, though she winna be a leddyship till
the morn. All I can say is that if the earl was saft enough to do
sic a thing out of fondness for her, it's time he was married on
her, so that he may come to his senses again. That's what I say;
but Elspeth conters me, of course, and says she, 'If the young
leddy was so careless o' insulting other folks' ancestors, it
proves she has nane o' her ain; for them that has china plates
themsel's is the maist careful no to break the china plates of
others.'"
"But what was the insult? Was Lauchlan dismissed?" "Na, faags! It
was waur than that. Dominie, you're dull in the uptake compared to
Elspeth. I hadna telled her half the story afore she jaloused the
rest. However, to begin again; there's great feasting and
rejoicings gaen on at the Spittal the now, and also a banquet,
which the post says is twa dinners in one. Weel, there's a curran
Ogilvys among the guests, and it was them that egged on her little
leddyship to make the daring proposal to the earl. What was the
proposal? It was no less than that the twa pipers should be
ordered to play 'The Bonny House o' Airlie.' Dominie, I wonder you
can tak it so calm when you ken that's the Ogilvy's sang, and that
it's aimed at the clan o' Campbell."
"Pooh!" I said. "The Ogilvys and the Campbells used to be mortal
enemies, but the feud has been long forgotten."
"Ay, I've heard tell," Waster Lunny said sceptically, "that Airlie
and Argyle shakes hands now like Christians; but I'm thinking
that's just afore the Queen. Dinna speak now, for I'm in the thick
o't. Her little leddyship was all hinging in gold and jewels, the
which winna be her ain till the morn; and she leans ower to the
earl and whispers to him to get the pipers to play 'The Bonny
House.' He wasna willing, for says he, 'There's Ogilvys at the
table, and ane o' the pipers is a Campbell, and we'll better let
sleeping dogs lie.' However, the Ogilvys lauched at his caution;
and he was so infatuated wi' her little leddyship that he gae in,
and he cried out to the pipers to strike up 'The Bonny House.'"
Waster Lunny pulled his chair nearer me and rested his hand on my
knees.
"Dominie," he said in a voice that fell now and again into a
whisper, "them looking on swears that when Lauchlan Campbell heard
these monstrous orders his face became ugly and black, so that
they kent in a jiffy what he would do. It's said a' body jumped
back frae him in a sudden dread, except poor Angus, the other
piper, wha was busy tuning up for 'The Bonny House.' Weel, Angus
had got no farther in the tune than the first skirl when Lauchlan
louped at him, and ripped up the startled crittur's pipes wi' his
dirk. The pipes gae a roar o' agony like a stuck swine, and fell
gasping on the floor. What happened next was that Lauchlan wi' his
dirk handy for onybody that micht try to stop him, marched once
round the table, playing 'The Campbells are Coming,' and then
straucht out o' the Spittal, his chest far afore him, and his head
so weel back that he could see what was going on ahint. Frae the
Spittal to here he never stopped that fearsome tune, and I'se
warrant he's blawing away at it at this moment through the streets
o' Thrums."
Waster Lunny was not in his usual spirits, or he would have
repeated his story before he left me, for he had usually as much
difficulty in coming to an end as in finding a beginning. The
drought was to him as serious a matter as death in the house, and
as little to be forgotten for a lengthened period.
"There's to be a prayer-meeting for rain in the Auld Licit kirk
the night," he told me as I escorted him as far as my side of the
Quharity, now almost a dead stream, pitiable to see, "and I'm
gaen; though I'm sweer to leave thae puir cattle o' mine. You
should see how they look at me when I gie them mair o' that rotten
grass to eat. It's eneuch to mak a man greet, for what richt hae I
to keep kye when I canna meat them?"
Waster Lunny has said to me more than once that the great surprise
of his life was when Elspeth was willing to take him. Many a time,
however, I have seen that in him which might have made any
weaver's daughter proud of such a man, and I saw it again when we
came to the river side.
"I'm no ane o' thae farmers," he said, truthfully, "that's aye
girding at the weather, and Elspeth and me kens that we hae been
dealt wi' bountifully since we took this farm wi' gey anxious
hearts. That woman, dominie, is eneuch to put a brave face on a
coward, and it's no langer syne than yestreen when I was sitting
in the dumps, looking at the aurora borealis, which I canna but
regard as a messenger o' woe, that she put her hand on my shoulder
and she says, 'Waster Lunny, twenty year syne we began life
thegither wi' nothing but the claethes on our back, and an it
please God we can begin it again, for I hae you and you hae me,
and I'm no cast down if you're no.' Dominie, is there mony sic
women in the warld as that?"
"Many a one," I said.
"Ay, man, it shamed me, for I hae a kind o' delight in angering
Elspeth, just to see what she'll say. I could hae ta'en her on my
knee at that minute, but the bairns was there, and so it wouldna
hae dune. But I cheered her up, for, after all, the drought canna
put us so far back as we was twenty years syne, unless it's true
what my father said, that the aurora borealis is the devil's
rainbow. I saw it sax times in July month, and it made me shut my
een. You was out admiring it, dominie, but I can never forget that
it was seen in the year twelve just afore the great storm. I was
only a laddie then, but I mind how that awful wind stripped a' the
standing corn in the glen in less time than we've been here at the
water's edge. It was called the deil's besom. My father's hinmost
words to me was, 'It's time eneuch to greet, laddie, when you see
the aurora borealis.' I mind he was so complete ruined in an hour
that he had to apply for relief frae the poor's rates. Think o'
that, and him a proud man. He would tak' nothing till one winter
day when we was a' starving, and syne I gaed wi' him to speir
for't, and he telled me to grip his hand ticht, so that the
cauldness o' mine micht gie him courage. They were doling out the
charity in the Town's House, and I had never been in't afore. I
canna look at it now without thinking o' that day when me and my
father gaed up the stair thegither. Mr. Duthie was presiding at
the time, and he wasna muckle older than Mr. Dishart is now. I
mind he speired for proof that we was needing, and my father
couldna speak. He just pointed at me. 'But you have a good coat on
your back yoursel',' Mr. Duthie said, for there were mony waiting,
sair needing. 'It was lended him to come here,' I cried, and
without a word my father opened the coat, and they saw he had
nothing on aneath, and his skin blue wi' cauld. Dominie, Mr.
Duthie handed him one shilling and saxpence, and my father's
fingers closed greedily on't for a minute, and syne it fell to the
ground. They put it back in his hand, and it slipped out again,
and Mr. Duthie gave it back to him, saying, 'Are you so cauld as
that?' But, oh, man, it wasna cauld that did it, but shame o'
being on the rates. The blood a' ran to my father's head, and syne
left it as quick, and he flung down the siller and walked out o'
the Town House wi' me running after him. We warstled through that
winter, God kens how, and it's near a pleasure to me to think o't
now, for, rain or no rain, I can never be reduced to sic straits
again."
The farmer crossed the water without using the stilts which were
no longer necessary, and I little thought, as I returned to the
school-house, what terrible things were to happen before he could
offer me his snuff-mull again. Serious as his talk had been it was
neither of drought nor of the incident at the Spittal that I sat
down to think. My anxiety about Gavin came back to me until I was
like a man imprisoned between walls of his own building. It may be
that my presentiments of that afternoon look gloomier now than
they were, because I cannot return to them save over a night of
agony, black enough to darken any time connected with it. Perhaps
my spirits only fell as the wind rose, for wind ever takes me back
to Harvie, and when I think of Harvie my thoughts are of the
saddest. I know that I sat for some hours, now seeing Gavin pay
the penalty of marrying the Egyptian, and again drifting back to
my days with Margaret, until the wind took to playing tricks with
me, so that I heard Adam Dishart enter our home by the sea every
time the school-house door shook.
I became used to the illusion after starting several times, and
thus when the door did open, about seven o'clock, it was only the
wind rushing to my fire like a shivering dog that made me turn my
head. Then I saw the Egyptian staring at me, and though her sudden
appearance on my threshold was a strange thing, I forgot it in the
whiteness of her face. She was looking at me like one who has
asked a question of life or death, and stopped her heart for the
reply.
"What is it?" I cried, and for a moment I believe I was glad she
did not answer. She seemed to have told me already as much as I
could bear.
"He has not heard," she said aloud in an expressionless voice,
and, turning, would have slipped away without another word.
"Is any one dead?" I asked, seizing her hands and letting them
fall, they were so clammy. She nodded, and trying to speak could
not.
"He is dead," she said at last in a whisper. "Mr. Dishart is
dead," and she sat down quietly.
At that I covered my face, crying, "God help Margaret!" and then
she rose, saying fiercely, so that I drew back from her, "There is
no Margaret; he only cared for me."
"She is his mother," I said hoarsely, and then she smiled to me,
so that I thought her a harmless mad thing. "He was killed by a
piper called Lauchlan Campbell," she said, looking up at me
suddenly. "It was my fault."
"Poor Margaret!" I wailed.
"And poor Babbie," she entreated pathetically; "will no one say,
'Poor Babbie'?"
CHAPTER XXVII.
FIRST JOURNEY OF THE DOMINIE TO THRUMS DURING THE TWENTY-FOUR
HOURS.
"How did it happen?" I asked more than once, but the Egyptian was
only with me in the body, and she did not hear. I might have been
talking to some one a mile away whom a telescope had drawn near my
eyes.
When I put on my bonnet, however, she knew that I was going to
Thrums, and she rose and walked to the door, looking behind to see
that I followed.
"You must not come," I said harshly, but her hand started to her
heart as if I had shot her, and I added quickly, "Come." We were
already some distance on our way before I repeated my question.
"What matter how it happened?" she answered piteously, and they
were words of which I felt the force. But when she said a little
later, "I thought you would say it is not true," I took courage,
and forced her to tell me all she knew. She sobbed while she
spoke, if one may sob without tears.
"I heard of it at the Spittal," she said. "The news broke out
suddenly there that the piper had quarrelled with some one in
Thrums, and that in trying to separate them Mr. Dishart was
stabbed. There is no doubt of its truth."
"We should have heard of it here," I said hopefully, "before the
news reached the Spittal. It cannot be true."
"It was brought to the Spittal," she answered, "by the hill road."
Then my spirits sank again, for I knew that this was possible.
There is a path, steep but short, across the hills between Thrums
and the top of the glen, which Mr. Glendinning took frequently
when he had to preach at both places on the same Sabbath. It is
still called the Minister's Road.
"Yet if the earl had believed it he would have sent some one into
Thrums for particulars," I said, grasping at such comfort as I
could make.
"He does believe it," she answered. "He told me of it himself."
You see the Egyptian was careless of her secret now; but what was
that secret to me? An hour ago it would have been much, and
already it was not worth listening to. If she had begun to tell me
why Lord Rintoul took a gypsy girl into his confidence I should
not have heard her.
"I ran quickly," she said. "Even if a messenger was sent he might
be behind me."
Was it her words or the tramp of a horse that made us turn our
heads at that moment? I know not. But far back in a twist of the
road we saw a horseman approaching at such a reckless pace that I
thought he was on a runaway. We stopped instinctively, and waited
for him, and twice he disappeared in hollows of the road, and then
was suddenly tearing down upon us. I recognised in him young Mr.
McKenzie, a relative of Rintoul, and I stretched out my arms to
compel him to draw up. He misunderstood my motive, and was raising
his whip threateningly, when he saw the Egyptian, It is not too
much to say that he swayed in the saddle. The horse galloped on,
though he had lost hold of the reins. He looked behind until he
rounded a corner, and I never saw such amazement mixed with
incredulity on a human face. For some minutes I expected to see
him coming back, but when he did not I said wonderingly to the
Egyptian--
"He knew you."
"Did he?" she answered indifferently, and I think we spoke no more
until we were in Windyghoul. Soon we were barely conscious of each
other's presence. Never since have I walked between the school-
house and Thrums in so short a time, nor seen so little on the
way.
In the Egyptian's eyes, I suppose, was a picture of Gavin lying
dead; but if her grief had killed her thinking faculties, mine,
that was only less keen because I had been struck down once
before, had set all the wheels of my brain in action. For it
seemed to me that the hour had come when I must disclose myself to
Margaret.
I had realised always that if such a necessity did arise it could
only be caused by Gavin's premature death, or by his proving a bad
son to her. Some may wonder that I could have looked calmly thus
far into the possible, but I reply that the night of Adam
Dishart's home-coming had made of me a man whom the future could
not surprise again. Though I saw Gavin and his mother happy in our
Auld Licht manse, that did not prevent my considering the
contingencies which might leave her without a son. In the school-
house I had brooded over them as one may think over moves on a
draught-board. It may have been idle, but it was done that I might
know how to act best for Margaret if any thing untoward occurred.
The time for such action had come. Gavin's death had struck me
hard, but it did not crush me. I was not unprepared. I was going
to Margaret now.
What did I see as I walked quickly along the glen road, with
Babbie silent by my side, and I doubt not pods of the broom
cracking all around us? I saw myself entering the Auld Licht
manse, where Margaret sat weeping over the body of Gavin, and
there was none to break my coming to her, for none but she and I
knew what had been.
I saw my Margaret again, so fragile now, so thin the wrists, her
hair turned grey. No nearer could I go, but stopped at the door,
grieving for her, and at last saying her name aloud.
I saw her raise her face, and look upon me for the first time for
eighteen years. She did not scream at sight of me, for the body of
her son lay between us, and bridged the gulf that Adam Dishart had
made.
I saw myself draw near her reverently and say, "Margaret, he is
dead, and that is why I have come back," and I saw her put her
arms around my neck as she often did long ago.
But it was not to be. Never since that night at Harvie have I
spoken to Margaret.
The Egyptian and I were to come to Windyghoul before I heard her
speak. She was not addressing me. Here Gavin and she had met
first, and she was talking of that meeting to herself.
"It was there," I heard her say softly, as she gazed at the bush
beneath which she had seen him shaking his fist at her on the
night of the riots. A little farther on she stopped where a path
from Windyghoul sets off for the well in the wood. She looked up
it wistfully, and there I left her behind, and pressed on to the
mud-house to ask Nanny Webster if the minister was dead. Nanny's
gate was swinging in the wind, but her door was shut, and for a
moment I stood at it like a coward, afraid to enter and hear the
worst.
The house was empty. I turned from it relieved, as if I had got a
respite, and while I stood in the garden the Egyptian came to me
shuddering, her twitching face asking the question that would not
leave her lips.
"There is no one in the house," I said. "Nanny is perhaps at the
well."
But the gypsy went inside, and pointing to the fire said, "It has
been out for hours. Do you not see? The murder has drawn every one
into Thrums."
So I feared. A dreadful night was to pass before I knew that this
was the day of the release of Sanders Webster, and that frail
Nanny had walked into Tilliedrum to meet him at the prison gate.
Babbie sank upon a stool, so weak that I doubt whether she heard
me tell her to wait there until my return. I hurried into Thrums,
not by the hill, though it is the shorter way, but by the Roods,
for I must hear all before I ventured to approach the manse. From
Windyghoul to the top of the Roods it is a climb and then a steep
descent. The road has no sooner reached its highest point than it
begins to fall in the straight line of houses called the Roods,
and thus I came upon a full view of the street at once. A cart was
laboring up it. There were women sitting on stones at their doors,
and girls playing at palaulays, and out of the house nearest me
came a black figure. My eyes failed me; I was asking so much from
them. They made him tall and short, and spare and stout, so that I
knew it was Gavin, and yet, looking again, feared, but all the
time, I think, I knew it was he.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE HILL BEFORE DARKNESS FELL--SCENE OF THE IMPENDING CATASTROPHE.
"You are better now?" I heard Gavin ask, presently.
He thought that having been taken ill suddenly I had waved to him
for help because he chanced to be near. With all my wits about me
I might have left him in that belief, for rather would I have
deceived him than had him wonder why his welfare seemed so vital
to me. But I, who thought the capacity for being taken aback had
gone from me, clung to his arm and thanked God audibly that he
still lived. He did not tell me then how my agitation puzzled him,
but led me kindly to the hill, where we could talk without
listeners. By the time we reached it I was again wary, and I had
told him what had brought me to Thrums, without mentioning how the
story of his death reached my ears, or through whom.
"Mr. McKenzie," he said, interrupting me, "galloped all the way
from the Spittal on the same errand. However, no one has been hurt
much, except the piper himself."
Then he told me how the rumor arose.
"You know of the incident at the Spittal, and that Campbell
marched off in high dudgeon? I understand that he spoke to no one
between the Spittal and Thrums, but by the time he arrived here he
was more communicative; yes, and thirstier. He was treated to
drink in several public-houses by persons who wanted to hear his
story, and by-and-by he began to drop hints of knowing something
against the earl's bride. Do you know Rob Dow?"
"Yes," I answered, "and what you have done for him."
"Ah, sir!" he said, sighing, "for a long time I thought I was to
be God's instrument in making a better man of Rob, but my power
over him went long ago. Ten short months of the ministry takes
some of the vanity out of a man."
Looking sideways at him I was startled by the unnatural brightness
of his eyes. Unconsciously he had acquired the habit of pressing
his teeth together in the pauses of his talk, shutting them on
some woe that would proclaim itself, as men do who keep their
misery to themselves.
"A few hours ago," he went on, "I heard Rob's voice in altercation
as I passed the Bull tavern, and I had, a feeling that if I failed
with him so should I fail always throughout my ministry. I walked
into the public-house, and stopped at the door of a room in which
Dow and the piper were sitting drinking. I heard Rob saying,
fiercely, 'If what you say about her is true, Highlandman, she's
the woman I've been looking for this half year and mair; what is
she like?' I guessed, from what I had been told of the piper, that
they were speaking of the earl's bride; but Rob saw me and came to
an abrupt stop, saying to his companion, 'Dinna say another word
about her afore the minister.' Rob would have come away at once in
answer to my appeal, but the piper was drunk and would not be
silenced. 'I'll tell the minister about her, too,' he began. 'You
dinna ken what you're doing," Rob roared, and then, as if to save
my ears from scandal at any cost, he struck Campbell a heavy blow
on the mouth. I tried to intercept the blow, with the result that
I fell, and then some one ran out of the tavern crying, 'He's
killed!' The piper had been stunned, but the story went abroad
that he had stabbed me for interfering with him. That is really
all. Nothing, as you know, can overtake an untruth if it has a
minute's start."
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