Books: The Little Minister
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J.M. Barrie >> The Little Minister
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Jean shuddered, and said, "It's mair like an ordinary rain now,
ma'am."
"But it has put out your fire, and I wanted another heater.
Perhaps the one I have is hot enough, though.'"
Margaret returned to the parlor, and from the kitchen Jean could
hear the heater tilted backward and forward in the box-iron--a
pleasant, homely sound when there is happiness in the house. Soon
she heard a step outside, however, and it was followed by a rough
shaking of the barred door.
"Is it you, Mr. Dishart?" Jean asked nervously.
"It's me, Tammas Whamond," the precentor answered. "Unbar the
door."
"What do you want? Speak low."
"I winna speak low. Let me in. I hae news for the minister's
mother."
"What news?" demanded Jean.
"Jean Proctor, as chief elder of the kirk I order you to let me do
my duty."
"Whaur's the minister?"
"He's a minister no longer. He's married a gypsy woman and run awa
wi' her."
"You lie, Tammas Whamond. I believe--"
"Your belief's of no consequence. Open the door, and let me in to
tell your mistress what I hae seen."
"She'll hear it first frae his ain lips if she hears it ava. I
winna open the door."
"Then I'll burst it open,"
Whamond flung himself at the door, and Jean, her fingers rigid
with fear, stood waiting for its fall. But the rain came to her
rescue by lashing the precentor until even he was forced to run
from it.
"I'll be back again," he cried. "Woe to you, Jean Proctor, that
hae denied your God this nicht."
"Who was that speaking to you, Jean?" asked Margaret, re-entering
the kitchen. Until the rain abated Jean did not attempt to answer.
"I thought it was the precentor's voice," Margaret said.
Jean was a poor hand at lying, and she stuttered in her answer.
"There is nothing wrong, is there?" cried Margaret, in sudden
fright. "My son--"
"Nothing, nothing."
The words jumped from Jean to save Margaret from falling. Now she
could not take them back. "I winna believe it o' him," said Jean
to herself. "Let them say what they will, I'll be true to him; and
when he comes back he'll find her as he left her."
"It was Lang Tammas," she answered her mistress; "but he just came
to say that--"
"Quick, Jean! what?"
"Mr. Dishart has been called to a sick-bed in the country, ma'am--
to the farm o' Look-About-You; and as it's sic a rain, he's to
bide there a' nicht."
"And Whamond came through that rain to tell me this? How good of
him. Was there any other message?"
"Just that the minister hoped you would go straight to your bed,
ma'am," said Jean, thinking to herself, "There can be no great sin
in giving her one mair happy nicht; it may be her last."
The two women talked for a short time, and then read verse about
in the parlor from the third chapter of Mark.
"This is the first night we have been left alone in the manse,"
Margaret said, as she was retiring to her bedroom," and we must
not grudge the minister to those who have sore need of him. I
notice that you have barred the doors."
"Ay, they're barred. Nobody can win in the nicht."
"Nobody will want in, Jean," Margaret said, smiling.
"I dinna ken about that," answered Jean below her breath. "Ay,
ma'am, may you sleep for baith o' us this nicht, for I daurna gang
to my bed."
Jean was both right and wrong, for two persons wanted in within
the next half-hour, and she opened the door to both of them. The
first to come was Babbie.
So long as women sit up of nights listening for a footstep, will
they flatten their faces at the window, though all without be
black. Jean had not been back in the kitchen for two minutes
before she raised the blind. Her eyes were close to the glass,
when she saw another face almost meet hers, as you may touch your
reflection in a mirror. But this face was not her own. It was
white and sad. Jean suppressed a cry, and let the blind fall, as
if shutting the lid on some uncanny thing.
"Won't you let me in?" said a voice that might have been only the
sob of a rain-beaten wind; "I am nearly drowned."
Jean stood like death; but her suppliant would not pass on.
"You are not afraid?" the voice continued. "Raise the blind again,
and you will see that no one need fear me."
At this request Jean's hands sought each other's company behind
her back.
"Wha are you?" she asked, without stirring. "Are you--the woman?"
"Yes."
"Whaur's the minister?"
The rain again became wild, but this time it only tore by the
manse as if to a conflict beyond.
"Are you aye there? I daurna let you in till I'm sure the mistress
is bedded. Gang round to the front, and see if there's ony licht
burning in the high west window."
"There was a light," the voice said presently, "but it was turned
out as I looked."
"Then I'll let you in, and God kens I mean no wrang by it."
Babbie entered shivering, and Jean rebarred the door. Then she
looked long at the woman whom her master loved. Babbie was on her
knees at the hearth, holding out her hands to the dead fire.
"What a pity it's a fause face."
"Do I look so false?"
"Is it true? You're no married to him?"
"Yes, it is true."
"And yet you look as if you was fond o' him. If you cared for him,
how could you do it?"
"That was why I did it."
"And him could hae had wha he liked."
"I gave up Lord Rintoul for him."
"What? Na, na; you're the Egyptian."
"You judge me by my dress."
"And soaking it is. How you're shivering--what neat fingers--what
bonny little feet. I could near believe what you tell me. Aff wi'
these rags, an I'll gie you on my black frock, if--if you promise
me no to gang awa wi't."
So Babbie put on some clothes of Jean's, including the black
frock, and stockings and shoes.
"Mr. Dishart cannot be back, Jean," she said, "before morning, and
I don't want his mother to see me till he comes."
"I wouldna let you near her the nicht though you gaed on your
knees to me. But whaur is he?"
Babbie explained why Gavin had set off for the Spittal; but Jean
shook her head incredulously, saying, "I canna believe you're that
grand leddy, and yet ilka time I look at you I could near believe
it."
In another minute Jean had something else to think of, for there
came a loud rap upon the front door.
"It's Tammas Whamond back again," she moaned; "and if the mistress
hears, she'll tell me to let him in."
"You shall open to me," cried a hoarse voice.
"That's no Tammas' word," Jean said in bewilderment.
"It is Lord Rintoul," Babbie whispered.
"What? Then it's truth you telled me."
The knocking continued; a door upstairs opened, and Margaret spoke
over the banisters.
"Have you gone to bed, Jean? Some one is knocking at the door, and
a minute ago I thought I heard a carriage stop close by. Perhaps
the farmer has driven Mr. Dishart home."
"I'm putting on my things, ma'am," Jean answered; then whispered
to Babbie, "What's to be done?"
"He won't go away," Babbie answered, "You will have to let him
into the parlor, Jean. Can she see the door from up there?"
"No; but though he was in the parlor?"
"I shall go to him there."
"Make haste, Jean," Margaret called. "If it is any persons wanting
shelter, we must give it them on such a night."
"A minute, ma'am," Jean answered. To Babbie she whispered, "What
shall I say to her?"
"I--I don't know," answered Babbie ruefully. "Think of something,
Jean. But open the door now. Stop, let me into the parlor first."
The two women stole into the parlor.
"Tell me what will be the result o' his coming here," entreated
Jean.
"The result," Babbie said firmly, "will be that he shall go away
and leave me here."
Margaret heard Jean open the front door and speak to some person
or persons whom she showed, into the parlor.
CHAPTER XLI.
RINTOUL AND BABBIE--BREAKDOWN OF THE DEFENCE OF THE MANSE.
"You dare to look me in the face!"
They were Rintoul's words. Yet Babbie had only ventured to look up
because he was so long in speaking. His voice was low but harsh,
like a wheel on which the brake is pressed sharply.
"It seems to be more than the man is capable of," he added sourly.
"Do you think," Babbie exclaimed, taking fare, "that he is afraid
of you?"
"So it seems; but I will drag him into the light, wherever he is
skulking."
Lord Rintoul strode to the door, and the brake was off his tongue
already.
"Go," said Babbie coldly, "and shout and stamp through the house;
you may succeed in frightening the women, who are the only persons
in it."
"Where is he?"
"He has gone to the Spittal to see you."
"He knew I was on the hill."
"He lost me in the darkness, and thought you had run away with me
in your trap."
"Ha! So he is off to the Spittal to ask me to give you back to
him."
"To compel you," corrected Babbie.
"Pooh!" said the earl nervously, "that was but mummery on the
hill."
"It was a marriage."
"With gypsies for witnesses. Their word would count for less than
nothing. Babbie, I am still in time to save you."
"I don't want to be saved. The marriage had witnesses no court
could discredit."
"What witnesses?"
"Mr. McKenzie and yourself."
She heard his teeth meet. When next she looked at him, there were
tears in his eyes as well as in her own. It was perhaps the first
time these two had, ever been in close sympathy. Both were
grieving for Rintoul.
"I am so sorry," Babbie began in a broken voice; then stopped,
because they seemed such feeble words.
"If you are sorry," the earl answered eagerly, "it is not yet too
late. McKenzie and I saw nothing. Come away with me, Babbie, if
only in pity for yourself."
"Ah, but I don't pity myself."
"Because this man has blinded you."
"No, he has made me see."
"This mummery on the hill--"
"Why do you call it so? I believe God approved of that marriage,
as He could never have countenanced yours and mine."
"God! I never heard the word on your lips before."
"I know that."
"It is his teaching, doubtless?"
"Yes."
"And he told you that to do to me as you have done was to be
pleasing in God's sight?"
"No; he knows that it was so evil in God's sight that I shall
suffer for it always."
"But he has done no wrong, so there is no punishment for him?"
"It is true that he has done no wrong, but his punishment will be
worse, probably, than mine."
"That," said the earl, scoffing, "is not just."
"It is just. He has accepted responsibility for my sins by
marrying me."
"And what form is his punishment to take?"
"For marrying me he will be driven from his church and dishonored
in all men's eyes, unless--unless God is more merciful to us than
we can expect."
Her sincerity was so obvious that the earl could no longer meet it
with sarcasm.
"It is you I pity now," he said, looking wonderingly at her. "Do
you not see that this man has deceived you? Where was his boasted
purity in meeting you by stealth, as he must have been doing, and
plotting to take you from me?"
"If you knew him," Babbie answered, "you would not need to be told
that he is incapable of that. He thought me an ordinary gypsy
until an hour ago."
"And you had so little regard for me that you waited until the eve
of what was to be our marriage, and then, laughing at my shame,
ran off to marry him."
"I am not so bad as that," Babbie answered, and told him what had
brought her to Thrums. "I had no thought but of returning to you,
nor he of keeping me from you. We had said good-by at the mudhouse
door--and then we heard your voice."
"And my voice was so horrible to you that it drove you to this?"
"I--I love him so much."
What more could Babbie answer? These words told him that, if love
commands, home, the friendships of a lifetime, kindnesses
incalculable, are at once as naught. Nothing is so cruel as love
if a rival challenges it to combat.
"Why could you not love me, Babbie?" said the earl sadly. "I have
done so much for you."
It was little he had done for her that was not selfish. Men are
deceived curiously in such matters. When, they add a new wing to
their house, they do not call the action virtue; but if they give
to a fellow-creature for their own gratification, they demand of
God a good mark for it. Babbie, however, was in no mood to make
light of the earl's gifts, and at his question she shook her head
sorrowfully.
"Is it because I am too--old?"
This was the only time he ever spoke of his age to her.
"Oh no, it is not that," she replied hastily, "I love Mr. Dishart-
-because he loves me, I think."
"Have I not loved you always?"
"Never," Babbie answered simply. "If you had, perhaps then I
should have loved you."
"Babbie," he exclaimed, "if ever man loved woman, and showed it by
the sacrifices he made for her, I--"
"No," Babbie said, "you don't understand what it is. Ah! I did not
mean to hurt you."
"If I don't know what it is, what is it?" he asked, almost humbly.
"I scarcely know you now."
"That is it," said Babbie.
She gave him back his ring, and then he broke down pitifully.
Doubtless there was good in him, but I saw him only once; and with
nothing to contrast against it, I may not now attempt to breathe
life into the dust of his senile passion. These were the last
words that passed between him and Babbie:
"There was nothing," he said wistfully, "in this wide world that
you could not have had by asking me for it. Was not that love?"
"No," she answered. "What right have I to everything I cry for?"
"You should never have had a care had you married me. That is
love."
"It is not. I want to share my husband's cares, as I expect him to
share mine."
"I would have humored you in everything."
"You always did: as if a woman's mind were for laughing at, like a
baby's passions."
"You had your passions, too, Babbie. Yet did I ever chide you for
them? That was love."
"No, it was contempt. Oh," she cried passionately, "what have not
you men to answer for who talk of love to a woman when her face is
all you know of her; and her passions, her aspirations, are for
kissing to sleep, her very soul a plaything? I tell you, Lord
Rintoul, and it is all the message I send back to the gentlemen at
the Spittal who made love to me behind your back, that this is a
poor folly, and well calculated to rouse the wrath of God."
Now, Jean's ear had been to the parlor keyhole for a time, but
some message she had to take to Margaret, and what she risked
saying was this:
"It's Lord Rintoul and a party that has been catched in the rain,
and he would be obliged to you if you could gie his bride shelter
for the nicht."
Thus the distracted servant thought to keep Margaret's mind at
rest until Gavin came back.
"Lord Rintoul!" exclaimed Margaret. "What a pity Gavin has missed
him. Of course she can stay here. Did you say I bad gone to bed? I
should not know What to say to a lord. But ask her to come up to
me after he has gone--and, Jean, is the parlor looking tidy?"
Lord Rintoul having departed, Jean told Babbie how she had
accounted to Margaret for his visit. "And she telled me to gie you
dry claethes and her compliments, and would you gang up to the
bedroom and see her?"
Very slowly Babbie climbed the stairs. I suppose she is the only
person who was ever afraid of Margaret. Her first knock on the
bedroom door was so soft that Margaret, who was sitting up in bed,
did not hear it. When Babbie entered the room, Margaret's first
thought was that there could be no other so beautiful as this, and
her second was that the stranger seemed even more timid than
herself. After a few minutes' talk she laid aside her primness, a
weapon she had drawn in self-defence lest this fine lady should
not understand the grandeur of a manse, and at a "Call me Babbie,
won't you?" she smiled.
"That is what some other person calls you," said Margaret archly.
"Do you know that he took twenty minutes to say good-night? My
dear," she added hastily, misinterpreting Babbie's silence, "I
should have been sorry had he taken one second less. Every tick of
the clock was a gossip, telling me how he loves you."
In the dim light a face that begged for pity was turned to
Margaret.
"He does love you, Babbie?" she asked, suddenly doubtful.
Babbie turned away her face, then shook her head.
"But you love him?"
Again Babbie shook her head.
"Oh, my dear," cried Margaret, in distress, "if this is so, are
you not afraid to marry him?"
She knew now that Babbie was crying, but she did not know why
Babbie could not look her in the face.
"There may be times," Babbie said, most woeful that she had not
married Rintoul, "when it is best to marry a man though we do not
love him."
"You are wrong, Babbie," Margaret answered gravely; "if I know
anything at all, it is that."
"It may be best for others."
"Do you mean for one other?" Margaret asked, and the girl bowed
her head. "Ah, Babbie, you speak like a child."
"You do not understand."
"I do not need to be told the circumstances to know this--that if
two people love each other, neither has any right to give the
other up."
Babbie turned impulsively to cast herself on the mercy of Gavin's
mother, but no word could she say; a hot tear fell from her eyes
"upon the coverlet, and then she looked at the door, as if to run
away.
"But I have been too inquisitive," Margaret began; whereupon
Babbie cried, "Oh no, no, no: you are very good. I have no one who
cares whether I do right or wrong."
"Your parents--"
"I have had none since I was a child."
"It is the more reason why I should be your friend," Margaret
said, taking the girl's hand.
"You do not know what you are saying. You cannot be my friend."
"Yes, dear, I love you already. You have a good face, Babbie, as
well as a beautiful one."
Babbie could remain in the room no longer. She bade Margaret good-
night and bent forward to kiss her; then drew back, like a Judas
ashamed.
"Why did you not kiss me?" Margaret asked in surprise, but poor
Babbie walked out of the room without answering.
Of what occurred at the manse on the following day until I reached
it, I need tell little more. When Babbie was tending Sam'l
Farquharson's child in the Tenements she learned of the flood in
Glen Quharity, and that the greater part of the congregation had
set off to the assistance of the farmers; but fearful as this made
her for Gavin's safety, she kept the new anxiety from his mother.
Deceived by another story of Jean's, Margaret was the one happy
person in the house.
"I believe you had only a lover's quarrel with Lord Rintoul last
night," she said to Babbie in the afternoon. "Ah, you see I can
guess what is taking you to the window so often. You must not
think him long in coming for you. I can assure you that the rain
which keeps my son from me must be sufficiently severe to separate
even true lovers. Take an old woman's example, Babbie. If I
thought the minister's absence alarming, I should be in anguish;
but as it is, my mind is so much at ease that, see, I can thread
my needle."
It was in less than an hour after Margaret spoke thus tranquilly
to Babbie that the precentor got into the manse.
CHAPTER XLII.
MARGARET, THE PRECENTOR. AND GOD BETWEEN.
Unless Andrew Luke, who went to Canadas be still above ground, I
am now the only survivor of the few to whom Lang Tammas told what
passed in the manse parlor after the door closed on him and
Margaret. With the years the others lost the details, but before I
forget them the man who has been struck by lightning will look at
his arm without remembering what shrivelled it. There even came a
time when the scene seemed more vivid to me than to the precentor,
though that was only after he began to break up.
"She was never the kind o' woman," Whamond said, "that a body need
be nane feared at. You can see she is o' the timid sort. I couldna
hae selected a woman easier to speak bold out to, though I had
ha'en my pick o' them."
He was a gaunt man, sour and hard, and he often paused in his
story with a puzzled look on his forbidding face.
"But, man, she was so michty windy o' him. If he had wanted to put
a knife into her, I believe that woman would just hae telled him
to take care no to cut his hands. Ay, and what innocent-like she
was! If she had heard enough, afore I saw her, to make her uneasy,
I could hae begun at once; but here she was, shaking my hand and
smiling to me, so that aye when I tried to speak I gaed through
ither. Nobody can despise me for it, I tell you, mair than I
despise mysel'.
"I thocht to mysel', 'Let her hae her smile out, Tammas Whamond;
it's her hinmost,' Syne wi' shame at my cowardliness, I tried to
yoke to my duty as chief elder o' the kirk, and I said to her, as
thrawn as I could speak, 'Dinna thank me; I've done nothing for
you.'
"'I ken it wasna for me you did it,' she said, 'but for him; but,
oh, Mr. Whamond, will that make me think the less o' you? He's my
all,' she says, wi' that smile back in her face, and a look mixed
up wi't that said as plain, 'and I need no more.' I thocht o'
saying that some builds their house upon the sand, but--dagont,
dominie, it's a solemn thing the pride mithers has in their
laddies. I mind aince my ain mither--what the devil are you
glowering at, Andrew Luke? Do you think I'm greeting?
"'You'll sit down, Mr. Whamond,' she says next."
'"No, I winna,' I said, angry-like. 'I didna come here to sit.'"
"I could see she thocht I was shy at being in the manse parlor;
ay, and I thocht she was pleased at me looking shy. Weel, she took
my hat out o' my hand, and she put it on the chair at the door,
whaur there's aye an auld chair in grand houses for the servant to
sit on at family exercise.
"'You're a man, Mr. Whamond,' says she, 'that the minister
delights to honor, and so you'll oblige me by sitting in his own
armchair.'"
Gavin never quite delighted to honor the precentor, of whom he was
always a little afraid, and perhaps Margaret knew it. But you must
not think less of her for wanting to gratify her son's chief
elder. She thought, too, that he had just done her a service. I
never yet knew a good woman who did not enjoy flattering men she
liked.
"I saw my chance at that," Whamond went on, "and I says to her
sternly, 'In worldly position,' I says, 'I'm a common man, and
it's no for the like o' sic to sit in a minister's chair; but it
has been God's will,' I says,' to wrap around me the mantle o'
chief elder o' the kirk, and if the minister falls awa frae grace,
it becomes my duty to take his place.'
"If she had been looking at me, she maun hae grown feared at that,
and syne I could hae gone on though my ilka word was a knockdown
blow. But she was picking some things aff the chair to let me down
on't.
"'It's a pair o' mittens I'm working for the minister,' she says,
and she handed them to me. Ay, I tried no to take them, but--Oh,
lads, it's queer to think how saft I was.
"'He's no to ken about them till they're finished/ she says,
terrible fond-like.
"The words came to my mouth, 'They'll never be finished,' and I
could hae cursed mysel' for no saying them. I dinna ken how it
was, but there was something; pitiful in seeing her take up the
mittens and begin working cheerily at one, and me kenning all the
time that they would never be finished. I watched her fingers, and
I said to mysel', 'Another stitch, and that maun be your last.' I
said that to mysel' till I thocht it was the needle that said it,
and I wondered at her no hearing.
"In the tail o' the day I says, 'You needna bother; he'll never
wear them,' and they sounded sic words o' doom that I rose up off
the chair. Ay, but she took me up wrang, and she said, 'I see you
have noticed how careless o' his ain comforts he is, and that in
his zeal he forgets to put on his mittens, though they may be in
his pocket a' the time. Ay,' says she, confident-like, 'but he
winna forget these mittens, Mr. Whamond, and I'll tell you the
reason: it's because they're his mother's work.'
"I stamped my foot, and she gae me an apologetic look, and she
says, 'I canna help boasting about his being so fond o' me.'
"Ay, but here was me saying to mysel', 'Do your duty, Tammas
Whamond; you sluggard, your duty, and without lifting my een frae
her fingers I said sternly, 'The chances are,' I said, 'that these
mittens will never be worn by the hands they are worked for.'
"'You mean,' says she,' that he'll gie them awa to some ill-off
body, as he gies near a' thing he has? Ay, but there's one thing
he never parts wi', and that's my work. There's a young lady in
the manse the now,' says she, 'that offered to finish the mittens
for me, but he would value them less if I let ony other body put a
stitch into them.'
"I thocht to mysel', 'Tammas Whamond, the Lord has opened a door
to you, and you'll be disgraced forever if you dinna walk straucht
in.' So I rose again, and I says, boldly this time, 'Whaur's that
young leddy? I hae something to say to her that canna be kept
waiting.'
"'She's up the stair,' she says, surprised, 'but you canna ken
her, Mr. Whamond, for she just came last nicht.'"
'"I ken mair o' her than you think,' says I; 'I ken what brocht
her here, and ken wha she thinks she is to be married to, and I've
come to tell her that she'll never get him.'"
'"How no?' she said, amazed like.
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