Books: The Little Minister

J >> J.M. Barrie >> The Little Minister

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"I owe five shillings to Hendry Munn for mending my boots, and a
smaller sum to Baxter, the mason. I have two pounds belonging to
Rob Dow, who asked me to take charge of them for him. I owe no
other man anything, and this you will bear in mind if Matthew
Cargill, the flying stationer, again brings forward a claim for
the price of Whiston's 'Josephus,' which I did not buy from him.

"Mr. Moncur, of Aberbrothick, had agreed to assist me at the
Sacrament, and will doubtless still lend his services. Mr. Carfrae
or Mr. Trail will take my place if my successor is not elected by
that time. The Sacrament cups are in the vestry press, of which
you will find the key beneath the clock in my parlor. The tokens
are in the topmost drawer in my bedroom.

"The weekly prayer-meeting will be held as usual on Thursday at
eight o'clock, and the elders will officiate.

"It is my wish that the news of my death be broken to my mother by
Mr. Ogilvy, the schoolmaster, and by no other. You will say to him
that this is my solemn request, and that I bid him discharge it
without faltering and be of good cheer.

"But if Mr. Ogilvy be not now alive, the news of my death will be
broken to my mother by my beloved wife. Last night I was married
on the hill, over the tongs, but with the sanction of God, to her
whom you call the Egyptian, and despite what has happened since
then, of which you will soon have knowledge, I here solemnly
declare that she is my wife, and you will seek for her at the
Spittal or elsewhere till you find her, and you will tell her to
go to my mother and remain with her always, for these are the
commands of her husband."

It was then that Gavin paused, for Lord Rintoul had that to say to
him which no longer could be kept back. All the women were crying
sore, and also some men whose eyes had been dry at the coffining
of their children.

"Now I ken," said Cruickshanks, who had been an atheist, "that
it's only the fool wha' says in his heart, 'There is no God.'"

Another said, "That's a man."

Another said, "That man has a religion to last him all through."

A fourth said, "Behold, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."

A fifth said, "That's our minister. He's the minister o' the Auld
Licht Kirk o' Thrums. Woe is me, we're to lose him."

Many cried, "Our hearts was set hard against him. O Lord, are you
angry wi' your servants that you're taking him frae us just when
we ken what he is?"

Gavin did not hear them, and again he spoke:

"My brethren, God is good. I have just learned that my wife is
with my dear mother at the manse. I leave them in your care and in
His."

No more he said of Babbie, for the island was become very small.

"The Lord calls me hence. It is only for a little time I have been
with you, and now I am going away, and you will know me no more.
Too great has been my pride because I was your minister, but He
who sent me to labor among you is slow to wrath; and He ever bore
in mind that you were my first charge. My people, I must say to
you, 'Farewell.'"

Then, for the first time, his voice faltered, and wanting--to go
on he could not. "Let us read," he said, quickly, "in the Word of
God in the fourteenth of Matthew, from the twenty-eighth verse."

He repeated these four verses:--

"'And Peter answered Him and said, Lord, if it be Thou, bid me
come unto Thee on the water.

"'And He said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship,
he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.

"'But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and
beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.

"'And immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand and caught him,
and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou
doubt?'"

After this Gavin's voice was again steady, and he said, "The sand-
glass is almost run out. Dearly beloved, with what words shall I
bid you good-by?"

Many thought that these were to be the words, for the mist parted,
and they saw the island tremble and half of it sink.

"My people," said the voice behind the mist, "this is the text I
leave with you: 'Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,
where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through
and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where
neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break
through nor steal.' That text I read in the flood, where the hand
of God has written it. All the pound-notes in the world would not
dam this torrent for a moment, so that we might pass over to you
safely. Yet it is but a trickle of water, soon to be dried up.
Verily, I say unto you, only a few hours ago the treasures of
earth stood between you and this earl, and what are they now
compared to this trickle of water? God only can turn rivers into a
wilderness, and the water-springs into dry ground. Let His Word be
a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path; may He be your
refuge and your strength. Amen."

This amen he said quickly, thinking death was now come. He was
seen to raise his hands, but whether to Heaven or involuntarily to
protect his face as he fell none was sure, for the mist again
filled the chasm. Then came a clap of stillness. No one breathed.

But the two men were not yet gone, and Gavin spoke once more.

"Let us sing in the twenty-third Psalm."

He himself raised the tune and so long as they heard Ms voice they
sang--

"The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want;
He makes me down to lie
In pastures green; He leadeth me
The quiet waters by.

"My soul He doth restore again;
And me to walk doth make
Within the paths of righteousness
Ev'n for His own name's sake.

"Yea, though I walk in Death's dark vale,
Yet will I fear none ill;
For Thou art with me; and Thy rod
And staff--"

But some had lost the power to sing in the first verse, and others
at "Death's dark vale," and when one man found himself singing
alone he stopped abruptly. This was because they no longer heard
the minister.

"O Lord!" Peter Tosh cried, "lift the mist, for it's mair than we
can bear."

The mist rose slowly, and those who had courage to look saw Gavin
praying with the earl. Many could not look, and some of them did
not even see Rob Dow jump.

For it was Dow, the man with the crushed leg, who saved Gavin's
life, and flung away his own for it. Suddenly he was seen on the
edge of the bank, holding one end of the improvised rope in his
hand. As Tosh says--

"It all happened in the opening and shutting o' an eye. It's a
queer thing to say, but though I prayed to God to take awa the
mist, when He did raise it I couldna look. I shut my een tight,
and held my arm afore my face, like ane feared o' being struck.
Even when I daured to look, my arm was shaking so that I could see
Rob both above it and below it. He was on the edge, crouching to
leap. I didna see wha had haud o' the other end o' the rope. I
heard the minister cry, 'No, Dow, no!' and it gae through me as
quick as a stab that if Rob jumped he would knock them both into
the water. But he did jump, and you ken how it was that he didna
knock them off."

It was because he had no thought of saving his own life. He
jumped, not at the island, now little bigger than the seat of a
chair, but at the edge of it, into the foam, and with his arm
outstretched. For a second the hand holding the rope was on the
dot of land. Gavin tried to seize the hand; Rintoul clutched the
rope. The earl and the minister were dragged together into safety,
and both left the water senseless. Gavin was never again able to
lift his left hand higher than his head. Dow's body was found next
day near the school-house.

TALK OF A LITTLE MAID SINCE GROWN TALL,

My scholars have a game they call "The Little Minister," in which
the boys allow the girls as a treat to join. Some of the
characters in the real drama are omitted as of no importance--the
dominie, for instance--and the two best fighters insist on being
Dow and Gavin. I notice that the game is finished when Dow dives
from a haystack, and Gavin and the earl are dragged to the top of
it by a rope. Though there should be another scene, it is only a
marriage, which the girls have, therefore, to go through without
the help of the boys. This warns me that I have come to an end of
my story for all except my little maid. In the days when she sat
on my knee and listened it had no end, for after I told her how
her father and mother were married a second time she would say,
"And then I came, didn't I? Oh, tell me about me!" So it happened
that when she was no higher than my staff she knew more than I
could write in another book, and many a time she solemnly told me
what I had told her, as--

"Would you like me to tell you a story? Well, it's about a
minister, and the people wanted to be bad to him, and then there
was a flood, and a flood is lochs falling instead of rain, and so
of course he was nearly drownded, and he preached to them till
they liked him again, and so they let him marry her, and they like
her awful too, and, just think! it was my father; and that's all.
Now tell me about grandmother when father came home."

I told her once again that Margaret never knew how nearly Gavin
was driven from his kirk. For Margaret was as one who goes to bed
in the daytime and wakes in it, and is not told that there has
been a black night while she slept. She had seen her son leave the
manse the idol of his people, and she saw them rejoicing as they
brought him back. Of what occurred at the Jaws, as the spot where
Dow had saved two lives is now called, she learned, but not that
these Jaws snatched him and her from an ignominy more terrible
than death, for she never knew that the people had meditated
driving him from his kirk. This Thrums is bleak and perhaps
forbidding, but there is a moment of the day when a setting sun
dyes it pink, and the people are like their town. Thrums was never
colder in times of snow than were his congregation to their
minister when the Great Rain began, but his fortitude rekindled
their hearts. He was an obstinate minister, and love had led him a
dance, but in the hour of trial he had proved himself a man.

When Gavin reached the manse, and saw not only his mother but
Babbie, he would have kissed them both; but Babbie could only say,
"She does not know," and then run away crying. Gavin put his arm
round his mother, and drew her into the parlor, where he told her
who Babbie was. Now Margaret had begun to love Babbie already, and
had prayed to see Gavin happily married; but it was a long time
before she went upstairs to look for his wife and kiss her and
bring her down. "Why was it a long time?" my little maid would
ask, and I had to tell her to wait until she was old, and had a
son, when she would find out for herself.

While Gavin and the earl were among the waters, two men were on
their way to Mr. Carfrae's home, to ask him to return with them
and preach the Auld Licht kirk of Thrums vacant; and he came,
though now so done that he had to be wheeled about in a little
coach. He came in sorrow, yet resolved to perform what was asked
of him if it seemed God's will; but, instead of banishing Gavin,
all he had to do was to remarry him and kirk him, both of which
things he did, sitting in his coach, as many can tell. Lang Tammas
spoke no more against Gavin, but he would not go to the marriage,
and he insisted on resigning his eldership for a year and a day. I
think he only once again spoke to Margaret. She was in the manse
garden when he was passing, and she asked him if he would tell her
now why he had been so agitated when he visited her on the day of
the flood. He answered gruffly, "It's no business o' yours." Dr.
McQueen was Gavin's best man. He died long ago of scarlet fever.
So severe was the epidemic that for a week he was never in bed. He
attended fifty cases without suffering, but as soon as he had bent
over Hendry Munn's youngest boys, who both had it, he said, "I'm
smitted," and went home to die. You may be sure that Gavin proved
a good friend to Micah Dow. I have the piece of slate on which Rob
proved himself a good friend to Gavin; it was in his pocket when
we found the body. Lord Rintoul returned to his English estates,
and never revisited the Spittal. The last thing I heard of him was
that he had been offered the Lord-Lieutenantship of a county, and
had accepted it in a long letter, in which he began by pointing
out his unworthiness. This undid him, for the Queen, or her
councillors, thinking from his first page that he had declined the
honor, read no further, and appointed another man. Waster Lunny is
still alive, but has gone to another farm. Sanders Webster, in his
gratitude, wanted Nanny to become an Auld Licht, but she refused,
saying, "Mr. Dishart is worth a dozen o' Mr. Duthie, and I'm
terrible fond o' Mrs. Dishart, but Established I was born and
Established I'll remain till I'm carried out o' this house feet
foremost."

"But Nanny went to Heaven for all that," my little maid told me.
"Jean says people can go to Heaven though they are not Auld
Lichts, but she says it takes them all their time. Would you like
me to tell you a story about my mother putting glass on the manse
dike? Well, my mother and my father is very fond of each other,
and once they was in the garden, and my father kissed my mother,
and there was a woman watching them over the dike, and she cried
out--something naughty."

"It was Tibbie Birse," I said, "and what she cried was, 'Mercy on
us, that's the third time in half an hour!' So your mother, who
heard her, was annoyed, and put glass on the wall."

"But it's me that is telling you the story. You are sure you don't
know it? Well, they asked father to take the glass away, and he
wouldn't; but he once preached at mother for having a white
feather in her bonnet, and another time he preached at her for
being too fond of him. Jean told me. That's all."

No one seeing Babbie going to church demurely on Gavin's arm could
guess her history. Sometimes I wonder whether the desire to be a
gypsy again ever comes over her for a mad hour, and whether, if
so, Gavin takes such measures to cure her as he threatened in
Caddam Wood. I suppose not; but here is another story:

"When I ask mother to tell me about her once being a gypsy she
says I am a bad 'quisitive little girl, and to put on my hat and
come with her to the prayer-meeting; and when I asked father to
let me see mother's gypsy frock he made me learn Psalm forty-eight
by heart. But once I see'd it, and it was a long time ago, as long
as a week ago. Micah Dow gave me rowans to put in my hair, and I
like Micah because he calls me Miss, and so I woke in my bed
because there was noises, and I ran down to the parlor, and there
was my mother in her gypsy frock, and my rowans was in her hair,
and my father was kissing her, and when they saw me they jumped;
and that's all."

"Would you like me to tell you another story? It is about a little
girl. Well, there was once a minister and his wife, and they
hadn't no little girls, but just little boys, and God was sorry
for them, so He put a little girl in a cabbage in the garden, and
when they found her they were glad. Would you like me to tell you
who the little girl was? Well, it was me, and, ugh! I was awful
cold in the cabbage. Do you like that story?"

"Yes; I like it best of all the stories I know."

"So do I like it, too. Couldn't nobody help loving me, 'cause I'm
so nice? Why am I so fearful nice?"

"Because you are like your grandmother."

"It was clever of my father to know when he found me in the
cabbage that my name was Margaret. Are you sorry grandmother is
dead?"

"I am glad your mother and father were so good to her and made her
so happy."

"Are you happy?"

"Yes."

"But when I am happy I laugh."

"I am old, you see, and you are young."

"I am nearly six. Did you love grandmother? Then why did you never
come to see her? Did grandmother know you was here? Why not? Why
didn't I not know about you till after grandmother died?"

"I'll tell you when you are big."

"Shall I be big enough when I am six?"

"No, not till your eighteenth birthday."

"But birthdays comes so slow. Will they come quicker when I am
big?"

"Much quicker."

On her sixth birthday Micah Dow drove my little maid to the
school-house in the doctor's gig, and she crept beneath the table
and whispered--

"Grandfather!"

"Father told me to call you that if I liked, and I like," she said
when I had taken her upon my knee. "I know why you kissed me just
now. It was because I looked like grandmother. Why do you kiss me
when I look like her?"

"Who told you I did that?"

"Nobody didn't tell me. I just found out. I loved grandmother too.
She told me all the stories she knew."

"Did she ever tell you a story about a black dog?"

"No. Did she know one?"

"Yes, she knew it,"

"Perhaps she had forgotten it?"

"No, she remembered it."

"Tell it to me."

"Not till you are eighteen."

"But will you not be dead when I am eighteen? When you go to
Heaven, will you see grandmother?"

"Yes."

"Will she be glad to see you?"

My little maid's eighteenth birthday has come, and I am still in
Thrums, which I love, though it is beautiful to none, perhaps,
save to the very done, who lean on their staves and look long at
it, having nothing else to do till they die. I have lived to
rejoice in the happiness of Gavin and Babbie: and if at times I
have suddenly had to turn away my head after looking upon them in
their home surrounded by their children, it was but a moment's
envy that I could not help. Margaret never knew of the dominie in
the glen. They wanted to tell her of me, but I would not have it.
She has been long gone from this world; but sweet memories of her
still grow, like honeysuckle, up the white walls of the manse,
smiling in at the parlor window and beckoning from the door, and
for some filling all the air with fragrance. It was not she who
raised the barrier between her and me, but God Himself; and to
those who maintain otherwise, I say they do not understand the
purity of a woman's soul. During the years she was lost to me her
face ever came between me and ungenerous thoughts; and now I can
say, all that is carnal in me is my own, and all that is good I
got from her. Only one bitterness remains. When I found Gavin in
the rain, when I was fighting my way through the flood, when I saw
how the hearts of the people were turned against him--above all,
when I found Whamond in the manse--I cried to God, making promises
to Him, if He would spare the lad for Margaret's sake, and He
spared him; but these promises I have not kept.

THE END

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