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KATE CARNEGIE AND THOSE MINISTERS.
by
IAN MACLAREN.
Toronto:
Fleming H. Revell Company,
140-142 Yonge Street.
1896.
Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada,
in the year 1896, by Hodder & Stoughton,
at the Department of Agriculture.
TO
A CERTAIN BROTHERHOOD
Faithful in Criticism
Loyal in Affection
Tender in Trouble
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I. PANDEMONIUM
II. PEACE
III. A HOME OF MANY GENERATIONS
IV. A SECRET CHAMBER
V. CONCERNING BESOMS
VI. A PLEASAUNCE
VII. A WOMAN OF THE NEW DISPENSATION
VIII. A WOMAN OF THE OLD DISPENSATION
IX. A DAUGHTER OF DEBATE
X. A SUPRA-LAPSARIAN
XI. IN THE GLOAMING
XII. KILBOGIE MANSE
XIII. PREPARING FOR THE SACRAMENT
XIV. A MODERATE
XV. JOINT POTENTATES
XVI. DRIED ROSE LEAVES
XVII. SMOULDERING FIRES
XVIII. LOVE SICKNESS
XIX. THE FEAR OF GOD
XX. THE WOUNDS OF A FRIEND
XXI. LIGHT AT EVENTIDE
XXII. WITHOUT FEAR AND WITHOUT REPROACH
XXIII. MARGET HOWE'S CONFESSIONAL
XXIV. LOVE IS LORD
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Carmichael had taken his Turn
"Many a Ploy we had together"
Peter was standing in his Favourite Attitude
"I am the General's Daughter"
Janet Macpherson was waiting in the Deep Doorway
"It's a Difficult Key to turn"
Kate in her Favourite Position
One Gardener who . . . works for Love's Sake
Among the Great Trees
"Mr. Carmichael, you have much Cause for Thankfulness"
Carmichael sang a Solo
"Here iss your Silver Piece"
"I should call it a Deliberate--"
"She had an Unfortunate Tendency to meddle with my Books"
Mother Church cast her Spell over his Imagination
"Ye'll be hanging Dr. Chalmers there"
A Tall, Bony, Forbidding Woman
Gathering her Berry Harvest
He was a Mere Wisp of a Man
"Will you let me walk with you for a Little?"
"Private Capaucity"
Standing with a Half-Dried Dish in her Hand
The Old Man escorted her Ladyship
Would gossip with him by the Hour
The Driver stops to exchange Views
Two Tramps held Conference
Wrestling in Darkness of Soul
His Attitude for Exposition
"Ay, he's in, but ye canna see him"
"To put Flowers on his Grave"
"You have been awfully Good to me"
"He sat down by the River-side to meditate"
KATE CARNEGIE.
CHAPTER I.
PANDEMONIUM.
It was the morning before the Twelfth, years ago, and nothing like unto
Muirtown Station could have been found in all the travelling world.
For Muirtown, as everybody knows, is the centre which receives the
southern immigrants in autumn, and distributes them, with all their
belongings of servants, horses, dogs, and luggage, over the north
country from Athole to Sutherland. All night, express trains, whose
ordinary formation had been reinforced by horse boxes, carriage trucks,
saloons and luggage vans, drawn by two engines, and pushed up inclines
by a third, had been careering along the three iron trunk roads that
run from London to the North. Four hours ago they had forced the
border, that used to be more jealously guarded, and had begun to
converge on their terminus. Passengers, awakened by the caller air and
looking out still half asleep, miss the undisciplined hedgerows and
many-shaped patches of pasture, the warm brick homesteads and shaded
ponds of the south. Square fields cultivated up to a foot of the stone
dykes or wire-fencing, the strong grey-stone farm-houses, the
swift-running burns, and the never-distant hills, brace the mind.
Local passengers come in with deliberation, whose austere faces condemn
the luxurious disorder of night travel, and challenge the defence of
Arminian doctrine. A voice shouts "Carstairs Junction," with a command
of the letter _r_, which is the bequest of an unconquerable past, and
inspires one with the hope of some day hearing a freeborn Scot say
"Auchterarder." The train runs over bleak moorlands with black peat
holes, through alluvial straths yielding their last pickle of corn,
between iron furnaces blazing strangely in the morning light, at the
foot of historical castles built on rocks that rise out of the fertile
plains, and then, after a space of sudden darkness, any man with a soul
counts the ten hours' dust and heat but a slight price for the sight of
the Scottish Rhine flowing deep, clear, and swift by the foot of its
wooded hills, and the "Fair City" in the heart of her meadows.
"Do you see the last wreath of mist floating off the summit of the
hill, and the silver sheen of the river against the green of the woods?
Quick, dad," and the General, accustomed to obey, stood up beside Kate
for the brief glimpse between the tunnel and a prison. Yet they had
seen the snows of the Himalayas, and the great river that runs through
the plains of India. But it is so with Scottish folk that they may
have lived opposite the Jungfrau at Mürren, and walked among the big
trees of the Yosemite Valley, and watched the blood-red afterglow on
the Pyramids, and yet will value a sunset behind the Cuchullin hills,
and the Pass of the Trossachs, and the mist shot through with light on
the sides of Ben Nevis, and the Tay at Dunkeld--just above the
bridge--better guerdon for their eyes.
"Ay, lassie"--the other people had left at Stirling, and the General
fell back upon the past--"there 's just one bonnier river, and that's
the Tochty at a bend below the Lodge, as we shall see it, please God,
this evening."
"Tickets," broke in a voice with authority. "This is no the station,
an' ye 'll hae to wait till the first diveesion o' yir train is
emptied. Kildrummie? Ye change, of coorse, but yir branch 'll hae a
lang wait the day. It 'll be an awfu' fecht wi' the Hielant train.
Muirtown platform 'll be worth seein'; it 'll juist be michty," and the
collector departed, smacking his lips in prospect of the fray.
"Upon my word," said the General, taken aback for a moment by the easy
manners of his countryman, but rejoicing in every new assurance of
home, "our people are no blate."
"Is n't it delicious to be where character has not been worn smooth by
centuries of oppression, but where each man is himself? Conversation
has salt here, and tastes in the mouth. We 've just heard two men
speak this morning, and each face is bitten into my memory. Now our
turn has come," and the train wound itself in at last.
Porters, averaging six feet and with stentorian voices, were driving
back the mixed multitude in order to afford foothold for the new
arrivals on that marvellous landing place, which in those days served
for all the trains which came in and all that went out, both north and
south. One man tears open the door of a first with commanding gesture.
"A' change and hurry up. Na, na," rejecting the offer of a private
engagement; "we hev nae time for that trade the day. Ye maun cairry
yir bags yersels; the dogs and boxes 'll tak us a' oor time." He
unlocks an under compartment and drags out a pair of pointers, who fawn
upon him obsequiously in gratitude for their release. "Doon wi' ye,"
as one to whom duty denies the ordinary courtesies of life, and he
fastens them to the base of an iron pillar. Deserted immediately by
their deliverer, the pointers made overtures to two elderly ladies,
standing bewildered in the crush, to be repulsed with umbrellas, and
then sit down upon their tails in despair. Their forlorn condition,
left friendless amid this babel, gets upon their nerves, and after a
slight rehearsal, just to make certain of the tune, they lift up their
voices in melodious concert, to the scandal of the two females, who
cannot escape the neighbourhood, and regard the pointers with horror.
Distant friends, also in bonds and distress of mind, feel comforted and
join cheerfully, while a large black retriever, who had foolishly
attempted to obstruct a luggage barrow with his tail, breaks in with a
high solo. Two collies, their tempers irritated by obstacles as they
follow their masters, who had been taking their morning in the
second-class refreshment room, fall out by the way, and obtain as by
magic a clear space in which to settle details; while a fox-terrier,
escaping from his anxious mistress, has mounted a pile of boxes and
gives a general challenge.
Porters fling open packed luggage vans with a swing, setting free a
cataract of portmanteaus, boxes, hampers, baskets, which pours across
the platform for yards, led by a frolicsome black leather valise, whose
anxious owner has fought her adventurous way to the van for the purpose
of explaining to a phlegmatic Scot that he would know it by a broken
strap, and must lift it out gently, for it contained breakables.
"It can gang itsel, that ane," as the afflicted woman followed its
reckless progress with a wail. "Sall, if they were a' as clever on
their feet as yon box there wud be less tribble," and with two
assistants he falls upon the congested mass within. They perform
prodigies of strength, handling huge trunks that ought to have filled
some woman with repentance as if they were Gladstone bags, and light
weights as if they were paper parcels. With unerring scent they detect
the latest label among the remains of past history, and the air
resounds with "Hielant train," "Aiberdeen fast," "Aiberdeen slow,"
"Muirtown"--this with indifference--and at a time "Dunleith," and once
"Kildrummie," with much contempt. By this time stacks of baggage of
varying size have been erected, the largest of which is a pyramid in
shape, with a very uncertain apex.
Male passengers--heads of families and new to Muirtown--hover anxiously
round the outskirts, and goaded on by female commands, rush into the
heart of the fray for the purpose of claiming a piece of luggage, which
turns out to be some other person's, and retire hastily after a
fair-sized portmanteau descends on their toes, and the sharp edge of a
trunk takes them in the small of the back. Footmen with gloves and
superior airs make gentlemanly efforts to collect the family luggage,
and are rewarded by having some hopelessly vulgar tin boxes, heavily
roped, deposited among its initialled glory. One elderly female who
had been wise to choose some other day to revisit her native town,
discovers her basket flung up against a pillar, like wreckage from a
storm, and settles herself down upon it with a sigh of relief. She
remains unmoved amid the turmoil, save when a passing gun-case tips her
bonnet to one side, giving her a very rakish air, and a good-natured
retriever on a neighbouring box is so much taken with her appearance
that he offers her a friendly caress. Restless people--who remember
that their train ought to have left half an hour ago, and cannot
realise that all bonds are loosed on the eleventh--fasten on any man in
a uniform, and suffer many rebuffs.
"There 's nae use asking me," answers a guard, coming off duty and
pushing his way through the crowd as one accustomed to such spectacles;
"a 'm juist in frae Carlisle; get haud o' a porter."
"Cupar Angus?"--this from the porter--"that's the Aiberdeen slow; it's
no made up yet, and little chance o't till the express an' the Hielant
be aff. Whar 'll it start frae?" breaking away; "forrit, a' tell ye,
forrit."
Fathers of families, left on guard and misled by a sudden movement
"forrit," rush to the waiting-room and bring out, for the third time,
the whole expedition, to escort them back again with shame. Barrows
with towering piles of luggage are pushed through the human mass by two
porters, who allow their engine to make its own way with much
confidence, condescending only at a time to shout, "A' say, hey, oot o'
there," and treating any testy complaint with the silent contempt of a
drayman for a costermonger. Old hands, who have fed at their leisure
in callous indifference to all alarms, lounge about in great content,
and a group of sheep farmers, having endeavoured in vain, after one
tasting, to settle the merits of a new dip, take a glance in the
"Hielant" quarter, and adjourn the conference once more to the
refreshment-room. Groups of sportsmen discuss the prospects of
to-morrow in detail, and tell stories of ancient twelfths, while
chieftains from London, in full Highland dress, are painfully conscious
of the whiteness of their legs. A handful of preposterous people who
persist in going south when the world has its face northwards, threaten
to complain to headquarters if they are not sent away, and an official
with a loud voice and a subtle gift of humour intimates that a train is
about to leave for Dundee.
During this time wonderful manoeuvres have been executed on the lines
of rail opposite the platform. Trains have left with all the air of a
departure and disappeared round the curve outside the station, only to
return in fragments. Half a dozen carriages pass without an engine, as
if they had started on their own account, break vans that one saw
presiding over expresses stand forsaken, a long procession of horse
boxes rattle through, and a saloon carriage, with people, is so much in
evidence that the name of an English Duke is freely mentioned, and
every new passage relieves the tedium of the waiting.
Out of all this confusion trains begin to grow and take shape, and one,
with green carriages, looks so complete that a rumour spreads that the
Hielant train has been made up and may appear any minute in its place.
The sunshine beating through the glass roof, the heat of travel, the
dust of the station, the moving carriages with their various colours,
the shouts of railway officials, the recurring panics of fussy
passengers, begin to affect the nerves. Conversation becomes broken,
porters are beset on every side with questions they cannot answer,
rushes are made on any empty carriages within reach, a child is knocked
down and cries.
Over all this excitement and confusion one man is presiding, untiring,
forceful, ubiquitous--a sturdy man, somewhere about five feet ten,
whose lungs are brass and nerves fine steel wire. He is dressed, as to
his body, in brown corduroy trousers, a blue jacket and waistcoat with
shining brass buttons, a grey flannel shirt, and a silver-braided cap,
which, as time passes, he thrusts further back on his head till its
peak stands at last almost erect, a crest seen high above the conflict.
As to the soul of him, this man is clothed with resolution, courage,
authority, and an infectious enthusiasm. He is the brain and will of
the whole organism, its driving power. Drivers lean out of their
engines, one hand on the steam throttle, their eyes fixed on this man;
if he waves his hands, trains move; if he holds them up, trains halt.
Strings of carriages out in the open are carrying out his plans, and
the porters toil like maniacs to meet his commands. Piles of luggage
disappear as he directs the attack, and his scouts capture isolated
boxes hidden among the people. Every horse box has a place in his
memory, and he has calculated how many carriages would clear the north
traffic; he carries the destination of families in his head, and has
made arrangements for their comfort. "Soon ready now, sir," as he
passed swiftly down to receive the last southerner, "and a second
compartment reserved for you," till people watched for him, and the
sound of his voice, "forrit wi' the Hielant luggage," inspired
bewildered tourists with confidence, and became an argument for
Providence. There is a general movement towards the northern end of
the station; five barrows, whose luggage swings dangerously and has to
be held on, pass in procession; dogs are collected and trailed along in
bundles; families pick up their bags and press after their luggage,
cheered to recognise a familiar piece peeping out from strange goods; a
bell is rung with insistence. The Aberdeen express leaves--its
passengers regarding the platform with pity--and the guard of the last
van slamming his door in triumph. The great man concentrates his force
with a wave of his hand for the _tour de force_ of the year, the
despatch of the Hielant train.
The southern end of the platform is now deserted--the London express
departed half an hour ago with thirteen passengers, very crestfallen
and envious--and across the open centre porters hustle barrows at
headlong speed, with neglected pieces of luggage. Along the edge of
the Highland platform there stretches a solid mass of life,
close-packed, motionless, silent, composed of tourists, dogs, families,
lords, dogs, sheep farmers, keepers, clericals, dogs, footmen,
commercials, ladies' maids, grooms, dogs, waiting for the empty train
that, after deploying hither and thither, picking up some trifle, a
horse box or a duke's saloon, at every new raid, is now backing slowly
in for its freight. The expectant crowd has ceased from conversation,
sporting or otherwise; respectable elderly gentlemen brace themselves
for the scramble, and examine their nearest neighbours suspiciously;
heads of families gather their belongings round them by signs and
explain in a whisper how to act; one female tourist--of a certain age
and severe aspect--refreshes her memory as to the best window for the
view of Killiecrankie. The luggage has been piled in huge masses at
each end of the siding; the porters rest themselves against it, taking
off their caps, and wiping their foreheads with handkerchiefs of many
colours and uses. It is the stillness before the last charge; beyond
the outermost luggage an arm is seen waving, and the long coil of
carriages begins to twist into the station.
People who know their ancient Muirtown well, and have taken part in
this day of days, will remember a harbour of refuge beside the
book-stall, protected by the buffers of the Highland siding on one side
and a breakwater of luggage on the other, and persons within this
shelter could see the storming of the train to great advantage.
Carmichael, the young Free Kirk minister of Drumtochty, who had been
tasting the civilisation of Muirtown overnight and was waiting for the
Dunleith train, leant against the back of the bookstall, watching the
scene with frank, boyish interest. Rather under six feet in height, he
passed for more, because he stood so straight and looked so slim, for
his limbs were as slender as a woman's, while women (in Muirtown) had
envied his hands and feet. But in chest measure he was only two inches
behind Saunders Baxter, the grieve of Drumsheugh, who was the standard
of manhood by whom all others were tried and (mostly) condemned in
Drumtochty. Chancing to come upon Saunders putting the stone one day
with the bothy lads, Carmichael had taken his turn, with the result
that his stone lay foremost in the final heat by an inch exactly.
MacLure saw them kneeling together to measure, the Free Kirk minister
and the ploughmen all in a bunch, and went on his way rejoicing to tell
the Free Kirk folk that their new minister was a man of his hands. His
hair was fair, just touched with gold, and he wore it rather long, so
that in the excitement of preaching a lock sometimes fell down on his
forehead, which he would throw back with a toss of his head--a gesture
Mrs. Macfadyen, our critic, thought very taking. His dark blue eyes
used to enlarge with passion in the Sacrament and grow so tender, the
healthy tan disappeared and left his cheeks so white, that the mothers
were terrified lest he should die early, and sent offerings of cream on
Monday morning. For though his name was Carmichael, he had Celtic
blood in him, and was full of all kinds of emotion, but mostly those
that were brave and pure and true. He had done well at the University,
and was inclined to be philosophical, for he knew little of himself and
nothing of the world. There were times when he allowed himself to be
supercilious and sarcastic; but it was not for an occasional jingle of
cleverness the people loved him, or, for that matter, any other man.
It was his humanity that won their hearts, and this he had partly from
his mother, partly from his training. Through a kind providence and
his mother's countryness, he had been brought up among animals--birds,
mice, dormice, guinea-pigs, rabbits, dogs, cattle, horses, till he knew
all their ways, and loved God's creatures as did St. Francis d'Assisi,
to whom every creature of God was dear, from Sister Swallow to Brother
Wolf. So he learned, as he grew older, to love men and women and
little children, even although they might be ugly, or stupid, or
bad-tempered, or even wicked, and this sympathy cleansed away many a
little fault of pride and self-conceit and impatience and hot temper,
and in the end of the days made a man of John Carmichael. The dumb
animals had an instinct about this young fellow, and would make
overtures to him that were a certificate for any situation requiring
character. Horses by the wayside neighed at his approach, and
stretched out their velvet muzzles to be stroked. Dogs insisted upon
sitting on his knees, unless quite prevented by their size, and then
they put their paws on his chest. Hillocks was utterly scandalised by
his collie's familiarity with the minister, and brought him to his
senses by the application of a boot, but Carmichael waived all
apologies. "Rover and I made friends two days ago on the road, and my
clothes will take no injury." And indeed they could not, for
Carmichael, except on Sundays and at funerals, wore a soft hat and suit
of threadbare tweeds, on which a microscopist could have found traces
of a peat bog, moss of dykes, the scale of a trout, and a tiny bit of
heather.
[Illustration: Carmichael had taken his turn.]
His usual fortune befell him that day in Muirtown Station, for two
retrievers, worming their way through the luggage, reached him, and
made known their wants.
"Thirsty? I believe you. All the way from England, and heat enough to
roast you alive. I 've got no dish, else I 'd soon get water.
"Inverness? Poor chaps, that's too far to go with your tongues like a
lime-kiln. Down, good dogs; I 'll be back in a minute."
You can have no idea, unless you have tried it, how much water a soft
clerical hat can hold--if you turn up the edges and bash down the
inside with your fist, and fill the space to the brim. But it is
difficult to convey such a vessel with undiminished content through a
crowd, and altogether impossible to lift one's eyes. Carmichael was
therefore quite unconscious that two new-comers to the shelter were
watching him with keen delight as he came in bareheaded, flushed,
triumphant--amid howls of welcome--and knelt down to hold the cup
till--drinking time about in strict honour--the retrievers had reached
the maker's name.
"Do you think they would like a biscuit?" said a clear, sweet, low
voice, with an accent of pride and just a flavour of amusement in its
tone. Carmichael rose in much embarrassment, and was quite confounded.
They were standing together--father and daughter, evidently--and there
was no manner of doubt about him. A spare man, without an ounce of
superfluous flesh, straight as a rod, and having an air of command,
with keen grey eyes, close-cropped hair turning white, a clean-shaven
face except where a heavy moustache covered a firm-set mouth--one
recognised in him a retired army man of rank, a colonel at least, it
might be a general; and the bronze on his face suggested long Indian
service. But he might have been dressed in Rob Roy tartan, or been a
naval officer in full uniform, for all Carmichael knew. A hundred
thousand faces pass before your eyes and are forgotten, mere physical
impressions; you see one, and it is in your heart for ever, as you saw
it the first time. Wavy black hair, a low, straight forehead, hazel
eyes with long eyelashes, a perfectly-shaped Grecian nose, a strong
mouth, whose upper lip had a curve of softness, a clear-cut chin with
one dimple, small ears set high in the head, and a rich creamy
complexion--that was what flashed upon Carmichael as he turned from the
retrievers. He was a man so unobservant of women that he could not
have described a woman's dress to save his life or any other person's;
and now that he is married--he is a middle-aged man now and threatened
with stoutness--it is his wife's reproach that he does not know when
she wears her new spring bonnet for the first time. Yet he took in
this young woman's dress, from the smart hat, with a white bird's wing
on the side, and the close-fitting tailor made jacket, to the small,
well-gloved hand in dogskin, the grey tweed skirt, and one shoe, with a
tip on it, that peeped out below her frock. Critics might have hinted
that her shoulders were too square, and that her figure wanted somewhat
in softness of outline; but it seemed to Carmichael that he had never
seen so winsome or high-bred a woman; and so it has also seemed to many
who have gone farther afield in the world than the young minister of
Drumtochty.
Carmichael was at that age when a man prides himself on dressing and
thinking as he pleases, and had quite scandalised a Muirtown elder--a
stout gentleman, who had come out in '43, and could with difficulty be
weaned from Dr. Chalmers--by making his appearance on the preceding
evening in amazing tweeds and a grey flannel shirt. He explained
casually that for a fifteen-mile walk flannels were absolutely
necessary, and that he was rather pleased to find that he had come from
door to door in four hours and two minutes exactly. His host was at a
loss for words, because he was comparing this unconventional youth with
the fathers, who wore large white stocks and ambled along at about two
and a half miles an hour, clearing their throats also in a very
impressive way, and seasoning the principles of the Free Kirk with
snuff of an excellent fragrance. It was hard even for the most
generous charity to identify the spirit of the Disruption in such a
figure, and the good elder grew so proper and so didactic that
Carmichael went from bad to worse.
"Well, you would find the congregation in excellent order. The
Professor was a most painstaking man, though retiring in disposition,
and his sermons were thoroughly solid and edifying. They were possibly
just a little above the heads of Drumtochty, but I always enjoyed Mr.
Cunningham myself," nodding his head as one who understood all
mysteries.
"Did you ever happen to hear the advice Jamie Soutar gave the
deputation from Muirtown when they came up to see whether Cunningham
would be fit for the North Kirk, where two Bailies stand at the plate
every day, and the Provost did not think himself good enough to be an
elder?" for Carmichael was full of wickedness that day, and earning a
judgment.
His host indicated that the deputation had given in a very full and
satisfactory report--he was, in fact, on the Session of the North
himself--but that no reference had been made to Jamie.
"Well, you must know," and Carmichael laid himself out for narration,
"the people were harassed with raids from the Lowlands during
Cunningham's time, and did their best in self-defence. Spying makes
men cunning, and it was wonderful how many subterfuges the deputations
used to practise. They would walk from Kildrummie as if they were
staying in the district, and one retired tradesman talked about the
crops as if he was a farmer, but it was a pity that he did n't know the
difference between the cereals.
"'Yon man that wes up aifter yir minister, Elspeth,' Hillocks said to
Mrs. Macfadyen, 'hesna hed muckle money spent on his eddication. "A
graund field o' barley," he says, and as sure as a 'm stannin' here, it
wes the haugh field o' aits.'
"'He 's frae Glaisgie,' was all Elspeth answered, 'and by next Friday
we 'll hae his name an' kirk. He said he wes up for a walk an' juist
dropped in, the wratch.'
"Some drove from Muirtown, giving out that they were English tourists,
speaking with a fine East Coast accent, and were rebuked by Lachlan
Campbell for breaking the Sabbath. Your men put up their trap at the
last farm in Netheraird--which always has grudged Drumtochty its
ministers and borne their removal with resignation--and came up in
pairs, who pretended they did not know one another.
"Jamie was hearing the Professor's last lecture on Justification, and
our people asked him to take charge of the strangers. He found out the
town from their hats, and escorted them to the boundaries of the
parish, assisting their confidences till one of your men--I think it
was the Provost--admitted that it had taken them all their time to
follow the sermon.
"'A 'm astonished at ye,' said Jamie, for the Netheraird man let it
out; 'yon wes a sermon for young fouk, juist milk, ye ken, tae the
ordinar' discoorses. Surely,' as if the thought had just struck him,
'ye werena thinkin' o' callin' Maister Cunningham tae Muirtown.
"'Edinboorgh, noo; that micht dae gin the feck o' the members be
professors, but Muirtown wud be clean havers. There's times when the
Drumtochty fouk themsels canna understand the cratur, he 's that deep.
As for Muirtown'--here Jamie allowed himself a brief rest of enjoyment;
'but ye've hed a fine drive, tae say naethin' o' the traivel.'"
Then, having begun, Carmichael retailed so many of Jamie's most wicked
sayings, and so exalted the Glen as a place "where you can go up one
side and down the other with your dogs, and every second man you meet
will give you something to remember," that the city dignitary doubted
afterwards to his wife "whether this young man was . . . quite what we
have been accustomed to in a Free Church minister." Carmichael ought
to have had repentances for shocking a worthy man, but instead thereof
laughed in his room and slept soundly, not knowing that he would be
humbled in the dust by mid-day to-morrow.
It seemed to him on the platform as if an hour passed while he, who had
played with a city father, stood, clothed with shame, before this
commanding young woman. Had she ever looked upon a more abject wretch?
and Carmichael photographed himself with merciless accuracy, from his
hair that he had not thrown back to an impress of dust which one knee
had taken from the platform, and he registered a resolution that he
would never be again boastfully indifferent to the loss of a button on
his coat. She stooped and fed the dogs, who did her homage, and he
marked that her profile was even finer--more delicate, more perfect,
more bewitching--than her front face, but he still stood holding his
shapeless hat in his hand, and for the first time in his life had no
words to say.
"They are very polite dogs," and Miss Carnegie gave Carmichael one more
chance; "they make as much of a biscuit as if it were a feast; but I do
think dogs have such excellent manners, they are always so
un-self-conscious."
"I wish I were a dog," said Carmichael, with much solemnity, and
afterwards was filled with thankfulness that the baggage behind gave
way at that moment, and that an exasperated porter was able to express
his mind freely.
"Dinna try tae lift that box for ony sake, man. Sall, ye 're no'
feared," as Carmichael, thirsting for action, swung it up unaided; and
then, catching sight of the merest wisp of white, "A' didna see ye were
a minister, an' the word cam oot sudden."
"You would find it a help to say Northumberland, Cumberland,
Westmoreland, and Durham," and with a smile to Carmichael, still
bareheaded and now redder than ever, Miss Carnegie went along the
platform to see the Hielant train depart. It was worth waiting to
watch the two minutes' scrimmage, and to hear the great man say, as he
took off his cap with deliberation and wiped his brow, "That's anither
year ower; some o' you lads see tae that Dunleith train." There was a
day when Carmichael would have enjoyed the scene to the full, but now
he had eyes for nothing but that tall, slim figure and the white bird's
wing.
When they disappeared into the Dunleith train, Carmichael had a wild
idea of entering the same compartment, and in the end had to be pushed
into the last second by the guard, who knew most of his regular people
and every one of the Drumtochty men. He was so much engaged with his
own thoughts that he gave two English tourists to understand that Lord
Kilspindie's castle, standing amid its woods on the bank of the Tay,
was a recently erected dye work, and that as the train turned off the
North trunk line for Dunleith they might at any moment enter the pass
of Killiecrankie.