Arthur M. Winfield - "The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes"

Horace Walpole - "Letters of Horace Walpole, V4"

E. P. Roe - "Miss Lou"

William Wordsworth - "Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Little Minister

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




"Mr. Dishart was preaching at the whole clanjamfray o' you," said
Elspeth.

"Maybe he was," said her husband, leering; "but you needna cast it
at us, for, my certie, if the men got it frae him in the forenoon,
the women got it in the afternoon."

"He redd them up most michty," said the post. "Thae was his very
words or something like them. 'Adam,' says he, 'was an erring man,
but aside Eve he was respectable.'"

"Ay, but it wasna a' women he meant," Elspeth explained, "for when
he said that, he pointed his finger direct at T'nowhead's lassie,
and I hope it'll do her good."

"But I wonder," I said, "that Mr. Dishart chose such a subject to-
day. I thought he would be on the riot at both services."

"You'll wonder mair," said Elspeth, "when you hear what happened
afore he began the afternoon sermon. But I canna get in a word wi'
that man o' mine."

"We've been speaking about it," said Birse, "ever since we left
the kirk door. Tod, we've been sawing it like seed a' alang the
glen."

"And we meant to tell you about it at once," said Waster Lunny;
"but there's aye so muckle to say about a minister. Dagont, to hae
ane keeps a body out o' langour. Ay, but this breaks the drum.
Dominie, either Mr. Dishart wasna weel, or he was in the devil's
grip."

This startled me, for the farmer was looking serious.

"He was weel eneuch," said Birse, "for a heap o' fowk speired at
Jean if he had ta'en his porridge as usual, and she admitted he
had. But the lassie was skeered hersel', and said it was a mercy
Mrs. Dishart wasna in the kirk."

"Why was she not there?" I asked anxiously.

"Oh, he winna let her out in sic weather."

"I wish you would tell me what happened," I said to Elspeth.

"So I will," she answered, "if Waster Lunny would haud his wheesht
for a minute. You see the afternoon diet began in the ordinary
way, and a' was richt until we came to the sermon. 'You will find
my text,' he says, in his piercing voice, 'in the eighth chapter
of Ezra.'"

"And at thae words," said Waster Lunny, "my heart gae a loup, for
Ezra is an unca ill book to find; ay, and so is Ruth."

"I kent the books o' the Bible by heart," said Elspeth,
scornfully, "when I was a sax year auld."

"So did I," said Waster Lunny, "and I ken them yet, except when
I'm hurried. When Mr. Dishart gave out Ezra he a sort o' keeked
round the kirk to find out if he had puzzled onybody, and so there
was a kind o' a competition among the congregation wha would lay
hand on it first. That was what doited me. Ay, there was Ruth when
she wasna wanted, but Ezra, dagont, it looked as if Ezra had
jumped clean out o' the Bible."

"You wasna the only distressed crittur," said his wife. "I was
ashamed to see Eppie McLaren looking up the order o' the books at
the beginning o' the Bible."

"Tibbie Birse was even mair brazen," said the post, "for the sly
cuttie opened at Kings and pretended it was Ezra."

"None o' thae things would I do," said Waster Lunny," and sal, I
dauredna, for Davit Lunan was glowering over my shuther. Ay, you
may scrowl at me, Elspeth Proctor, but as far back as I can mind,
Ezra has done me. Mony a time afore I start for the kirk I take my
Bible to a quiet place and look Ezra up. In the very pew I says
canny to mysel', 'Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job,' the which should
be a help, but the moment the minister gi'es out that awfu' book,
away goes Ezra like the Egyptian."

"And you after her," said Elspeth, "like the weavers that wouldna
fecht. You make a windmill of your Bible."

"Oh, I winna admit I'm beat. Never mind there's queer things in
the world forby Ezra. How is cripples aye so puffed up mair than
other folk? How does flour-bread aye fall on the buttered side?"

"I will mind," Elspeth said, "for I was terrified the minister
would admonish you frae the pulpit."

"He couldna hae done that, for was he no baffled to find Ezra
himsel'?"

"Him no find Ezra!" cried Elspeth. "I hae telled you a dozen times
he found it as easy as you could yoke a horse."

"The thing can be explained in no other way," said her husband,
doggedly, "if he was weel and in sound mind."

"Maybe the dominie can clear it up," suggested the post, "him
being a scholar."

"Then tell me what happened," I asked.

"Godsake, hae we no telled you?" Birse said. "I thocht we had."

"It was a terrible scene," said Elspeth, giving her husband a
shove. "As I said, Mr. Dishart gave out Ezra eighth. Weel, I
turned it up in a jiffy, and syne looked cautiously to see how
Eppie McLaren was getting on. Just at that minute I heard a groan
frae the pulpit. It didna stop short o' a groan. Ay, you may be
sure I looked quick at the minister, and there I saw a sicht that
would hae made the grandest gape. His face was as white as a
baker's, and he had a sort of fallen against the back o' the
pulpit, staring demented-like at his open Bible."

"And I saw him," said Birse, "put up his hand atween him and the
Book, as if he thocht it was to jump at him."

"Twice," said Elspeth, "he tried to speak, and twice he let the
words fall."

"That," says Waster Lunny, "the whole congregation admits, but I
didna see it mysel', for a' this time you may picture me hunting
savage-like for Ezra. I thocht the minister was waiting till I
found it."

"Hendry Munn," said Birse, "stood upon one leg, wondering whether
he should run to the session-house for a glass of water."

"But by that time," said Elspeth, "the fit had left Mr. Dishart,
or rather it had ta'en a new turn. He grew red, and it's gospel
that he stamped his foot."

"He had the face of one using bad words," said the post, "He didna
swear, of course, but that was the face he had on."

"I missed it," said Waster Lunny, "for I was in full cry after
Ezra, with the sweat running down my face."

"But the most astounding thing has yet to be telled," went on
Elspeth. "The minister shook himsel' like one wakening frae a
nasty dream, and he cries in a voice of thunder, just as if he was
shaking his fist at somebody--"

"He cries," Birse interposed, cleverly, "he cries, 'You will find
the text in Genesis, chapter three, verse six.'"

"Yes," said Elspeth, "first he gave out one text, and then he gave
out another, being the most amazing thing to my mind that ever
happened in the town of Thrums. What will our children's children
think o't? I wouldna hae missed it for a pound note."

"Nor me," said Waster Lunny, "though I only got the tail o't.
Dominie, no sooner had he said Genesis third and sixth, than I
laid my finger on Ezra. Was it no provoking? Onybody can turn up
Genesis, but it needs an able-bodied man to find Ezra."

"He preached on the Fall," Elspeth said, "for an hour and twenty-
five minutes, but powerful though he was I would rather he had
telled us what made him gie the go-by to Ezra."

"All I can say," said Waster Lunny, "is that I never heard him
mair awe-inspiring. Whaur has he got sic a knowledge of women? He
riddled them, he fair riddled them, till I was ashamed o' being
married."

"It's easy kent whaur he got his knowledge of women," Birse
explained, "it's a' in the original Hebrew. You can howk ony
mortal thing out o' the original Hebrew, the which all ministers
hae at their finger ends. What else makes them ken to jump a verse
now and then when giving out a psalm?"

"It wasna women like me he denounced," Elspeth insisted, "but
young lassies that leads men astray wi' their abominable wheedling
ways."

"Tod," said her husband, "if they try their hands on Mr. Dishart
they'll meet their match."

"They will," chuckled the post. "The Hebrew's a grand thing,
though teuch, I'm telled, michty teuch."

"His sublimest burst," Waster Lunny came back to tell me, "was
about the beauty o' the soul being everything and the beauty o'
the face no worth a snuff. What a scorn he has for bonny faces and
toom souls! I dinna deny but what a bonny face fell takes me, but
Mr. Dishart wouldna gie a blade o' grass for't. Ay, and I used to
think that in their foolishness about women there was dagont
little differ atween the unlearned and the highly edicated."

The gossip about Gavin brought hitherto to the schoolhouse had
been as bread to me, but this I did not like. For a minister to
behave thus was as unsettling to us as a change of Government to
Londoners, and I decided to give my scholars a holiday on the
morrow and tramp into the town for fuller news. But all through
the night it snowed, and next day, and then intermittingly for
many days, and every fall took the school miles farther away from
Thrums. Birse and the crows had now the glen road to themselves,
and even Birse had twice or thrice to bed with me. At these times
had he not been so interested in describing his progress through
the snow, maintaining that the crying want of our glen road was
palings for postmen to kick their feet against, he must have
wondered why I always turned the talk to the Auld Licht minister.

"Ony explanation o' his sudden change o' texts?' Birse said,
repeating my question. "Tod, and there is and to spare, for I hear
tell there's saxteen explanations in the Tenements alone. As
Tammas Haggart says, that's a blessing, for if there had just been
twa explanations the kirk micht hae split on them."

"Ay," he said at another time, "twa or three even dared to
question the minister, but I'm thinking they made nothing o't. The
majority agrees that he was just inspired to change his text. But
Lang Tammas is dour. Tammas telled the session a queer thing. He
says that after the diet o' worship on that eventful afternoon Mr.
Dishart carried the Bible out o' the pulpit instead o' leaving
that duty as usual to the kirk-officer. Weel, Tammas, being
precentor, has a richt, as you ken, to leave the kirk by the
session-house door, just like the minister himsel'. He did so that
afternoon, and what, think you, did he see? He saw Mr. Dishart
tearing a page out o' the Bible, and flinging it savagely into the
session-house fire. You dinna credit it? Weel, it's staggering,
but there's Hendry Munn's evidence too. Hendry took his first
chance o' looking up Ezra in the minister's Bible, and, behold,
the page wi' the eighth chapter was gone. Them that thinks Tammas
wasna blind wi' excitement hauds it had been Ezra eighth that gaed
into the fire. Onyway, there's no doubt about the page's being
missing, for whatever excitement Tammas was in, Hendry was as cool
as ever."

A week later Birse told me that the congregation had decided to
regard the incident as adding lustre to their kirk. This was
largely, I fear, because it could then be used to belittle the
Established minister. That fervent Auld Licht, Snecky Hobart,
feeling that Gavin's action was unsound, had gone on the following
Sabbath to the parish kirk and sat under Mr. Duthie. But Mr.
Duthie was a close reader, so that Snecky flung himself about in
his pew in misery. The minister concluded his sermon with these
words: "But on this subject I will say no more at present."

"Because you canna," Snecky roared, and strutted out of the
church. Comparing the two scenes, it is obvious that the Auld
Lichts had won a victory. After preaching impromptu for an hour
and twenty-five minutes, it could never be said of Gavin that he
needed to read. He became more popular than ever. Yet the change
of texts was not forgotten. If in the future any other indictments
were brought against him, it would certainly be pinned to them.

I marvelled long over Gavin's jump from Ezra to Genesis, and at
this his first philippic against Woman, but I have known the cause
for many a year. The Bible was the one that had lain on the
summer-seat while the Egyptian hid there. It was the great pulpit
Bible which remains in the church as a rule, but Gavin had taken
it home the previous day to make some of its loose pages secure
with paste. He had studied from it on the day preceding the riot,
but had used a small Bible during the rest of the week. When he
turned in the pulpit to Ezra, where he had left the large Bible
open in the summer-seat, he found this scrawled across chapter
eight:--

"I will never tell who flung the clod at Captain Halliwell. But
why did you fling it? I will never tell that you allowed me to be
called Mrs. Dishart before witnesses. But is not this a Scotch
marriage? Signed, Babbie the Egyptian."




CHAPTER XI.

TELLS IN A WHISPER OF MAN'S FALL DURING THE CURLING SEASON.


No snow could be seen in Thrums by the beginning of the year,
though clods of it lay in Waster Lunny's fields, where his hens
wandered all day as if looking for something they had dropped. A
black frost had set in, and one walking on the glen road could
imagine that through the cracks in it he saw a loch glistening.
From my door I could hear the roar of curling stones at Rashie-
bog, which is almost four miles nearer Thrums. On the day I am
recalling, I see that I only made one entry in my diary, "At last
bought Waster Lunny's bantams." Well do I remember the
transaction, and no wonder, for I had all but bought the bantams
every day for a six months.

About noon the doctor's dog-cart was observed by all the Tenements
standing at the Auld Licht manse. The various surmises were wrong.
Margaret had not been suddenly taken ill; Jean had not swallowed a
darning-needle; the minister had not walked out at his study
window in a moment of sublime thought. Gavin stepped into the dog-
cart, which at once drove off in the direction of Rashie-bog, but
equally in error were those who said that the doctor was making a
curler of him.

There was, however, ground for gossip; for Thrums folk seldom
called in a doctor until it was too late to cure them, and McQueen
was not the man to pay social visits. Of his skill we knew
fearsome stories, as that, by looking at Archie Allardyce, who had
come to broken bones on a ladder, he discovered which rung Archie
fell from. When he entered a stuffy room he would poke his staff
through the window to let in fresh air, and then fling down a
shilling to pay for the breakage. He was deaf in the right ear,
and therefore usually took the left side of prosy people, thus, as
he explained, making a blessing of an affliction. "A pity I don't
hear better?" I have heard him say. "Not at all. If my misfortune,
as you call it, were to be removed, you can't conceive how I
should miss my deaf ear." He was a fine fellow, though brusque,
and I never saw him without his pipe until two days before we
buried him, which was five-and-twenty years ago come Martinmas.

"We're all quite weel," Jean said apprehensively as she answered
his knock on the manse door, and she tried to be pleasant, too,
for well she knew that, if a doctor willed it, she could have
fever in five minutes.

"Ay, Jean, I'll soon alter that," he replied ferociously. "Is the
master in?"

"He's at his sermon," Jean said with importance.

To interrupt the minister at such a moment seemed sacrilege to
her, for her up-bringing had been good. Her mother had once
fainted in the church, but though the family's distress was great,
they neither bore her out, nor signed to the kirk-officer to bring
water. They propped her up in the pew in a respectful attitude,
joining in the singing meanwhile, and she recovered in time to
look up 2nd Chronicles, 21st and 7th.

"Tell him I want to speak to him at the door," said the doctor
fiercely, "or I'll bleed you this minute."

McQueen would not enter, because his horse might have seized the
opportunity to return stablewards. At the houses where it was
accustomed to stop, it drew up of its own accord, knowing where
the Doctor's "cases" were as well as himself, but it resented new
patients.

"You like misery, I think, Mr. Dishart," McQueen said when Gavin
came to him, "at least I am always finding you in the thick of it,
and that is why I am here now. I have a rare job for you if you
will jump into the machine. You know Nanny Webster, who lives on
the edge of Windyghoul? No, you don't, for she belongs to the
other kirk. Well, at all events, you knew her brother, Sanders,
the mole-catcher?"

"I remember him. You mean the man who boasted so much about seeing
a ball at Lord Rintoul's place?"

"'The same, and, as you may know, his boasting about maltreating
policemen whom he never saw led to his being sentenced to nine
months in gaol lately."

"That is the man," said Gavin. "I never liked him."

"No, but his sister did," McQueen answered, drily, "and with
reason, for he was her breadwinner, and now she is starving."

"Anything I can give her--"

"Would be too little, sir."

"But the neighbours--"

"She has few near her, and though the Thrums poor help each other
bravely, they are at present nigh as needy as herself. Nanny is
coming to the poorhouse, Mr. Dishart."

"God help her!" exclaimed Gavin.

"Nonsense," said the doctor, trying to make himself a hard man.
"She will be properly looked after there, and--and in time she
will like it."

"Don't let my mother hear you speaking of taking an old woman to
that place," Gavin said, looking anxiously up the stair. I cannot
pretend that Margaret never listened.

"You all speak as if the poorhouse was a gaol," the doctor said
testily. "But so far as Nanny is concerned, everything is
arranged. I promised to drive her to the poorhouse to-day, and she
is waiting for me now. Don't look at me as if I was a brute. She
is to take some of her things with her to the poorhouse, and the
rest is to be left until Sanders's return, when she may rejoin
him. At least we said that to her to comfort her."

"You want me to go with you?"

"Yes, though I warn you it may be a distressing scene; indeed, the
truth is that I am loth to face Nanny alone to-day. Mr. Duthie
should have accompanied me, for the Websters are Established Kirk;
ay, and so he would if Rashie-bog had not been bearing. A terrible
snare this curling, Mr. Dishart"--here the doctor sighed--"I have
known Mr. Duthie wait until midnight struck on Sabbath and then be
off to Rashie-bog with a torch."

"I will go with you," Gavin said, putting on his coat.

"Jump in then. You won't smoke? I never see a respectable man not
smoking, sir, but I feel indignant with him for such sheer waste
of time."

Gavin smiled at this, and Snecky Hobart, who happened to be
keeking over the manse dyke, bore the news to the Tenements.

"I'll no sleep the nicht," Snecky said, "for wondering what made
the minister lauch. Ay, it would be no trifle."

A minister, it is certain, who wore a smile on his face would
never have been called to the Auld Licht kirk, for life is a
wrestle with the devil, and only the frivolous think to throw him
without taking off their coats. Yet, though Gavin's zeal was what
the congregation reverenced, many loved him privately for his
boyishness. He could unbend at marriages, of which he had six on
the last day of the year, and at every one of them he joked (the
same joke) like a layman. Some did not approve of his playing at
the teetotum for ten minutes with Kitty Dundas's invalid son, but
the way Kitty boasted about it would have disgusted anybody. At
the present day there are probably a score of Gavins in Thrums,
all called after the little minister, and there is one Gavinia,
whom he hesitated to christen. He made humorous remarks (the same
remark) about all these children, and his smile as he patted their
heads was for thinking over when one's work was done for the day.

The doctor's horse clattered up the Backwynd noisily, as if a
minister behind made no difference to it. Instead of climbing the
Roods, however, the nearest way to Nanny's, it went westward,
which Gavin, in a reverie, did not notice. The truth must be told.
The Egyptian was again in his head.

"Have I fallen deaf in the left ear, too?" said the doctor. "I see
your lips moving, but I don't catch a syllable."

Gavin started, coloured, and flung the gypsy out of the trap.

"Why are we not going up the Roods?" he asked.

"Well," said the doctor slowly, "at the top of the Roods there is
a stance for circuses, and this old beast of mine won't pass it.
You know, unless you are behind in the clashes and clavers of
Thrums, that I bought her from the manager of a travelling show.
She was the horse ('Lightning' they called her) that galloped
round the ring at a mile an hour, and so at the top of the Roods
she is still unmanageable. She once dragged me to the scene of her
former triumphs, and went revolving round it, dragging the machine
after her."

"If you had not explained that," said Gavin, "I might have thought
that you wanted to pass by Rashie-bog."

The doctor, indeed, was already standing up to catch a first
glimpse of the curlers.

"Well," he admitted, "I might have managed to pass the circus
ring, though what I have told you is true. However, I have not
come this way merely to see how the match is going. I want to
shame Mr. Duthie for neglecting his duty. It will help me to do
mine, for the Lord knows I am finding it hard, with the music of
these stones in my ears."

"I never saw it played before," Gavin said, standing up in his
turn. "What a din they make! McQueen, I believe they are
fighting!"

"No, no," said the excited doctor, "they are just a bit daft.
That's the proper spirit for the game. Look, that's the baron-
bailie near standing on his head, and there's Mr. Duthie off his
head a' thegither. Yon's twa weavers and a mason cursing the
laird, and the man wi' the besom is the Master of Crumnathie."

"A democracy, at all events," said Gavin.

"By no means," said the doctor, "it's an aristocracy of intellect.
Gee up, Lightning, or the frost will be gone before we are there."

"It is my opinion, doctor," said Gavin, "that you will have bones
to set before that game is finished. I can see nothing but legs
now."

"Don't say a word against curling, sir, to me," said McQueen, whom
the sight of a game in which he must not play had turned crusty.
"Dangerous! It's the best medicine I know of. Look at that man
coming across the field. It is Jo Strachan. Well, sir, curling
saved Jo's life after I had given him up. You don't believe me?
Hie, Jo, Jo Strachan, come here and tell the minister how curling
put you on your legs again."

Strachan came forward, a tough, little, wizened man, with red
flannel round his ears to keep out the cold.

"It's gospel what the doctor says, Mr. Dishart," he declared. "Me
and my brither Sandy was baith ill, and in the same bed, and the
doctor had hopes o' Sandy, but nane o' me. Ay, weel, when I heard
that, I thocht I micht as weel die on the ice as in my bed, so I
up and on wi' my claethes. Sandy was mad at me, for he was no
curler, and he says, 'Jo Strachan, if you gang to Rashie-bog
you'll assuredly be brocht hame a corp.' I didna heed him, though,
and off I gaed."

"And I see you did not die," said Gavin.

"Not me," answered the fish cadger, with a grin. "Na, but the joke
o't is, it was Sandy that died."

"Not the joke, Jo," corrected the doctor, "the moral."

"Ay, the moral; I'm aye forgetting the word."

McQueen, enjoying Gavin's discomfiture, turned Lightning down the
Rashie-bog road, which would be impassable as soon as the thaw
came. In summer Rashie-bog is several fields in which a cart does
not sink unless it stands still, but in winter it is a loch with
here and there a spring where dead men are said to lie, There are
no rushes at its east end, and here the dog-cart drew up near the
curlers, a crowd of men dancing, screaming, shaking their fists
and sweeping, while half a hundred onlookers got in their way,
gesticulating and advising.

"Hold me tight," the doctor whispered to Gavin, "or I'll be
leaving you to drive Nanny to the poorhouse by yourself."

He had no sooner said this than he tried to jump out of the trap.

"You donnert fule, John Robbie," he shouted to a player, "soop her
up, man, soop her up; no, no, dinna, dinna; leave her alane.
Bailie, leave her alane, you blazing idiot. Mr. Dishart, let me
go; what do you mean, sir, by hanging on to my coat tails? Dang it
all, Duthie's winning. He has it, he has it!"

"You're to play, doctor?" some cried, running to the dog-cart. "We
hae missed you sair."

"Jeames, I--I--. No, I daurna."

"Then we get our licks. I never saw the minister in sic form. We
can do nothing against him."

"Then," cried McQueen, "I'll play. Come what will, I'll play. Let
go my tails, Mr. Dishart, or I'll cut them off. Duty?
Fiddlesticks!"

"Shame on you, sir," said Gavin; "yes, and on you others who would
entice him from his duty."

"Shame!" the doctor cried. "Look at Mr. Duthie. Is he ashamed? And
yet that man has been reproving me for a twelvemonths because I've
refused to become one of his elders. Duthie," he shouted," think
shame of yourself for curling this day."

Mr. Duthie had carefully turned his back to the trap, for Gavin's
presence in it annoyed him. We seldom care to be reminded of our
duty by seeing another do it. Now, however, he advanced to the
dog-cart, taking the far side of Gavin.

"Put on your coat, Mr. Duthie," said the doctor, "and come with me
to Nanny Webster's. You promised."

Mr. Duthie looked quizzically at Gavin, and then at the sky.