But certain good friends, strong-armed men of peace, held him back, and

got Girmory away to a quiet cartshed, where, on a heap of straw, he

could sleep off his stupor and awake to wonder what had given him that

lump, great as a hen's egg, over his right eye.

As for Yabel McQuhirr he saddled Mary Grey and took the road homeward

lest any should bring the story first to his wife. For Jen, his Jen,

was the kernel of that rough-husked, hard-shelled heart. And as he

rode, he cursed Girmory with the slow studied anathema of the Puritan

which is not swearing, but something sterner, solemner, more enduring.

Sometimes he would cheat himself by saying over and over that there was

nothing in the story. Abel had gone in his best clothes to a

neighbouring town--he knew the lad had a pound or two that burnt a hole

in his spendthrift pocket. He would return penitent when it was

finished. And the old man found himself already "birsing" with anger,

and thinking of what he would say to the returned prodigal when he

caught sight of him--a greeting which would certainly not have run upon

the lines of the parable.

Yet, as he went on and on, fear began to enter in, and he set his

spurless heels grimly to Mary Grey's well-padded ribs. Never had that

sober steed gone home at such a pace, and on brown windy braefaces

ploughmen stood wiping their brows and watching and wondering.

Shepherds, high on the hills, set their palms horizontally above their

brows and murmured, "What's takin' auld Yabel hame at sic a pelt this

day, as if the Ill Yin himsel' were after him?"

But for all his haste, some one had forestalled him. The busybody in

other men's matters, the waspish gossip to whom the carrying of ill

tidings is a chief joy, had been before him. Mary Grey had sweated in

vain. There was no one to be heard stirring as he tramped eagerly

in--no one flitting softly to and fro in milk-house or dairy.

But within Yabel McQuhirr found his wife fallen by the bake-board near

the window, where she had been at work when the Messenger of Evil

entered to do her fell work. Her eyes were closed, her hands limp and

numb. With a hoarse inarticulate cry of rage Yabel raised his wife and

carried her to the neatly-made bed with the patchwork quilt upon it.

There he laid her down.

"Jen," he said, more gently than one could have believed the rough harsh

man of wrath could have spoken, "Jen, waken, lassie. It's maybe no

true. I tak' it on my soul it's no true!"

But on his wife's face there remained a strange fixed smile, and her

eyes, opening slowly, began to follow him about wistfully, and seemed

somehow to beckon him. Then with infinite care Yabel removed his wife's

outer garments, cutting that which would not loosen otherwise, till the

stricken woman reposed at ease beneath the coverlet.

"Now, Jen," he said, "I maun ride to the town for a doctor. Will I tell

Allison Brown to come and look after you?"

The wistful following eyes expressed neither yea nor nay.

"Then will I send in Jean Murray frae the Boreland?"

The eyes were still indifferent. There was no desire for the help of

any of human kind in the stricken woman's heart.

Her husband watched her keenly.

"Or wad ye like Martha Yeatman ower frae the Glen?"

Then all suddenly the dull eyes flashed, glowed, almost flamed, so

fierce was the "No" that was in them.

Yabel shut down his upper lip upon his nether. He nodded his head.

"Then I will bring the doctor, and nurse you mysel'," he answered. But

within him he said: "So it was Martha o' the Glen. For this thing will

I reckon with Martha Yeatman."

It was fortunate for Mary Grey that the distance was not long, for, like

Jehu the son of Nimshi, Yabel McQuhirr drave furiously. But at the bend

of the highway called the Far-away Turn, just at the point at which the

road dives down under a tangle of birch and alder, the old white mare

was pulled suddenly up. For there was Dr. Brydson, riding cautiously on

his little round-barrelled sheltie, his saddle-bags in front of him, and

a silver-headed Malacca cane held in his hand like a riding-whip.

It was no long time before the good old doctor was raising the lax head

of Yabel McQuhirr's wife. The strange distant smile was still in her

eyes, and the left corner of her mouth twitched.

"She has had a shock," said Dr. Brydson, slowly, when Yabel and he had

withdrawn a little. He was pulling his chin meditatively, and not

thinking much of the husband.

"A stroke!" said Yabel, and the tone of his voice was so strange and

terrible that the doctor turned quickly--"but not unto death! You can

cure her--surely you can cure her?"

And he caught the doctor by the arm and shook it vehemently.

"Take your hands away, sir, and calm yourself!" said the physician. "If

I am to do anything, we must have none of this."

"Say that she will not die!" he cried. And the deep-set angry eyes

flamed down upon the physician, the great fists of iron were clenched.

Dr. Brydson was a little man, but a long course of being deferred to had

given him great local dignity.

"I will say nothing of the kind, sir," he retorted. "I will do what I

can; but this thing is the visitation of God, and human skill avails but

little. Stand away from my patient, sir."

But at that moment a sudden and wondrous change passed over the face of

Yabel McQuhirr. The physician was startled. It was like an earthquake

rifting and changing a landscape while one looks. In the twinkling of

an eye the fashion of Yabel's countenance was altered. He would have

wept, yet stood gasping like one who knows not the way to weep. Instead

he uttered a hoarse and terrible cry, and flung himself upon his knees

by the bed.

"Jen," he cried, "Jen--speak to me, Jen--to your ain man Yabel! Say

that this man lies! Tell me ye are no gaun to dee, Jen--Jen, my Jen!"

And at the voice of that strange crying the doctor stood back, for he

knew that no earthly physician had power to stay a soul's agony.

Then, like a tide that wells up full to the flood-mark, the slow love

rose in the eyes of his wife. Her lips moved. He bent his head eagerly.

They seemed to form his name.

"Yes, yes," he said eagerly, "'Yabel, Yabel,' I hear that! What mair?

Tell me--oh, tell me, ye are no gaun to leave me!"

He bent his head lower, holding his breath and laying his hand on his

own heart as if to still its dull, thick beating. But though the pallid

lips seemed to move, no words came, and Yabel McQuhirr heaved up his

head and struck his palm upon his brow.

"I canna hear!" he wailed. "She will dee, and no speak to me!" Then he

turned fiercely upon the doctor, as if he did not know him. "Who are you

that spies on my grief, standing there and doing nothing? Get oot o' my

hoose, lest I do ye a hurt."

And the indignant little man went at the word, mounting his sheltie and

riding away across the moors without once turning his head, the "Penang

lawyer" tapping unwontedly upon the rounded indignant flank of his

little mare.

When Yabel turned again to his wife there were tears in her eyes, and

the heart of the Man of Wrath was softened within him.

"I am a fool," he said, "an angry fool. I have driven him away that

came to do her good. I will call him back."

But though he made the hills to echo, and the startled sheep to run

together into frightened bunches, the insulted little doctor upon the

sheltie never turned in his saddle.

"Vain is the help of man," said Yabel, as he turned to go in, "and if

God will not help me, I will renounce Him also."

He sat awhile by Janet's side, and it was very quiet, save for the clock

ticking out the moments of a woman's life. A hen cackled without in the

yard with sudden joy over an egg safely nested. Yabel started up angrily

and laid his hand on his gun in the rack above the smoked mantel-board.

But the woman's eyes called him to desist, and he sat down again beside

her with a sigh.

"What is it, Jen? Can ye no speak to me?" The eyes seemed to compel

him yet lower--upon his knees.

"To pray--I canna pray, Jen; I winna pray. If the Lord tak's you, I will

arise and curse Him to His face."

The direction of the gaze changed. It was upon the family Bible on the

shelf, where it lay with Boston's _Fourfold State_ and a penny almanack,

the entire family library.

"Am I to read?" said Yabel, reaching it down. "What am I to read?" He

ran down the table of contents with his great stub-nailed fingers,

"Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus." But the speaking eyes did not check him

till he came to the Psalms.

He turned them over till he came to the twenty-third. The will in his

wife's glance stopped him again. He read the psalm slowly, kneeling on

his knees by the bedside.

At the fourth verse his voice changed. "_Yea, though I walk through the

valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with

me----_"

And at the sound of these words the unstricken left hand of his wife

wavered upward uncertainly. It lay a moment, with something in its touch

between a caress and a blessing, upon his head. Then it dropped lightly

back upon the coverlet.

* * * * *

Yabel McQuhirr sat till the gloaming by the side of his dead wife, a

terrible purpose firming itself in his heart. His children had risen up

against him. God had cast him off. Well, he, Yabel McQuhirr, would

cast Him off. At His very Judgment Seat he would dare Him, and so be

thrown unrepenting into the pit prepared for the impenitent.

He had done that which was needful to the body of his helpmeet of many

years. There was no more to do--save one thing. He rose and was going

out, when his bloodshot eye fell on the great family Bible from which he

had read eve and morn for forty years. A spasm of anger fierce as a

blast from a furnace came over the man. That Book had lied! It had

deceived him. He lifted it in one strong hand and threw it upon the

fire.

Then he walked across the yard to the stable to get a coil of cart rope.

He stumbled rather than stepped as he went, the ground somehow meeting

his feet unexpectedly. He could not find the rope, and found himself

exclaiming savagely at the absent and outcast Abel who had mislaid it.

At last he found it among some stable litter, lying beneath the peg on

which it ought to have hung. Gathering the coils up in his hand, he

crossed the straw-strewn yard again to the barn. There were sound open

beams in the open space between mow and mow.

"_It_ had best be done there," he muttered.

There was a rustling among the straw as he pushed back the upper half of

the divided door--rats, as he would have thought at another time. Now he

only wondered if he could reach the beams by standing on the corn

bushel.

As he made the knot firm and noosed the rope through the loop, his eyes

fell on the further door of the barn--the one through which, in bygone

golden Septembers, he had so often pitchforked the sheaves of corn.

There was something moving between him and the orchard door. In the

dull light it looked like a young child. And then the heart of Yabel

McQuhirr, who was not afraid to meet God face to face, was filled with a

great fear.

A faint moaning whimper came to his ear. He dropped the coil of rope and

ran back to the house for the stable lantern. He lighted the candle

with a piece of red peat-ash, tossing the unconsumed Bible off the fire.

Only the rough calf-skin cover was singed, and its smouldering had

filled the house with a keen acrid smell.

Yabel went out again with the lantern in his hand. Without entering, he

held it over the lower half of the barn door which had swung to after

him. A young woman, clad in the habit of a "gypsy" or "gaun body," lay

huddled on the straw, while over her, whimpering and nosing like a

puppy, crawled the most beautiful child Yabel had ever seen. As the

light broke into the darkness of the barn the little fellow stood up, a

golden-haired boy of two years of age. He smiled and blinked, then, with

his hands outstretched, he came running across the floor to Yabel.

"Mither willna speak to Davie," he said. "Up--up, Mannie, tak' wee

Davie up!"

A sob, or something like it, rose in the stern old man's throat. He

could forfeit life, he could defy God, he could abandon all his

possessions; but to leave this little shining innocent to starve--no, he

could not do it.

He opened the door and went in. The child insisted fearlessly on being

taken in his arms. He lifted him up, and the boy hid his face gladly on

his shoulder. Yabel put his hand on the woman's breast; she was

stone-cold, and had been so for hours. Death had been busy both without

and within the little hill-farm that snell March afternoon.

He covered her decently up with a pair of corn-sacks, and as he did so a

scrap of paper showed between her fingers, white in the light of the

lantern.

"Mither will soon be warm noo," said the child, from the safe covert of

Yabel's shoulder. And in the clasping of the baby fingers the evil

spirit passed quite out of the heart of Yabel McQuhirr.

And when by the open door of the lantern he smoothed out the paper that

had been in the dead woman's fingers, he read these words:--

"This is to bear testimony that I, Abel McQuhirr the younger, take

Alison Baillie to be my wedded wife. Done in the presence of the

undersigned witnesses

"Abel McQuhirr. May 3rd, 18--.

"RO GRIER. }

"JOHN LORRAINE. } Witnesses."

* * * * *

So in the day when Yabel McQuhirr defied his Maker and hardened his

heart, God sent unto him His mercy in the shape of a young child. Then,

after the grave had claimed its dead, the heart of Yabel was wondrously

softened, and these two dwelt on in the empty house in great content.

And in the rescued Book, with its charred calf-skin cover, the old man

reads to the boy morning and evening the story of One Other who came to

sinful men in the likeness of a Young Child. But though his heart takes

comfort in the record, Yabel never can bring himself to read aloud that

verse which says: "_Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these

... ye did it unto Me_."

"I am not worthy. He can never mean Yabel McQuhirr," he says, and shuts

the Book.

*THE LASS IN THE SHOP*

In Galloway, if you find an eldest son of the same name as his father,

search the mother's face for the marks of a tragedy. An eldest son is

rarely called by his father's Christian name, and when he is, usually

there is a little grave down in the kirkyard or a name that is seldom

spoken in the house--a dead Abel or a wandering Cain, at any rate a

first-born that was--and is not.

Now I am called Alexander McQuhirr. My father also is Alexander

McQuhirr. And the reason is that a link has dropped out. I remember

the day I found out that you could make my mother jump by coming quietly

behind her and calling "Willie." It was Willie McArthur I was after--he

had come over from Whinnyliggate to play with me. We were busy at

"hide-and-seek."

"Willie!" I cried, sharp as one who would wake an echo.

My mother dropped a bowl and caught at her side.

It is only recently that she told me the whole story.

The truth was that with twelve years between our ages and Willie away

most of the time, I had no particular reason to remember my elder

brother. For years before I was born my mother had been compassionated

with by the good wives of the neighbourhood, proud nursing mothers of

ten or eleven, because she could boast of but one chicken in her brood.

She has confessed to me what she suffered on that account. And though

now I have younger brothers and the reproach was wiped away in time,

there are certain Job's comforters whom my mother has never forgiven.

She would be sure to spoil Willie,--one child in a house was always

spoilt. So the tongues went ding-dong. It was foolish to send him to

school at Cairn Edward, throwing away good siller, instead of keeping

him at home to single the turnips. Thus and thus was the reproach of my

mother's reluctant maternity rubbed in--and to this day the rubbers are

not forgotten. It will be time enough to forgive them, thinks my

mother, when she comes to lie on her death-bed.

Yet from all that I can gather there was some truth in what they said,

and probably this is what rankles in that dear, kindly, ever vehement

bosom. Willie was indeed spoilt. He was by all accounts a handsome lad.

He had his own way early, and what was worse--money to spend upon it.

At thirteen he was bound apprentice to good honest Joseph Baillieson of

the Apothecaries' Hall in Cairn Edward. Joseph was a chemist of the old

school, who, when a more than usually illegible line occurred in the

doctors' prescriptions of the day, always said: "We'll caa' it

barley-water. That'll hairm naebody." All Joseph's dispensing was of

the eminently practical kind.

To Mr. Baillieson, therefore, Willie was made apprentice, and if he

would have profited, he could not have been in better hands, and this

story never had been written. But the fact was, he was too early away

from home. He was my mother's eye-apple, and as the farm was doing well

during these years, an occasional pound note was slipped him when my

mother was down on Market Monday. Now this is a part of the history she

has never told me. I can only piece it together from hints and

suggestions. But it is a road I know well. I have seen too many walk

in it.

Mainly, I do not think it was so much bad company as thoughtlessness and

high spirits. Sweetmeats and gloves to a girl more witty than wise,

neckties and a small running account yonder, membership of the rowing

club and a small occasional stake upon the races--not much in

themselves, perhaps, but more than enough for an apprentice with two

half-crowns a week of pocket money. So there came a time when honest

Joseph Baillieson, with many misgivings and grave down-drawings of upper

lip, as I doubt not, took my father into the little back shop where the

liniments were made up and the pills rolled.

What they said to each other I do not know, but when Alexander McQuhirr

came out his face was marvellously whitened. He waited for Willie at

his lodgings, and brought him home that night with him. He stayed just

a week at the farm, restlessly scouring the hills by day and coming in

to his bed late at night.

After a time, by means of the minister, a place was found for him in

Edinburgh, and he set off in the coach with his little box, leaving what

prayerful anxious hearts behind him only those who are fathers and

mothers know.

He was to lodge with a good old woman in the Pleasance, a regular hearer

of Dr. Lawton's of Lady Nixon's Wynd. For a small wage she agreed to

mend his socks and keep a motherly eye on his morals. He was to be in

by ten, and latch-keys were not allowed.

Now I do not doubt that it was lonely for Willie up there in the great

city. And in all condemnation, let the temptation be weighed and noted.

May God bless the good folk of the Open Door who, with sons and

daughters of their own, set wide their portals and invite the stranger

within where there is the sound of girlish laughter, the boisterous

give-and-take of youthful wit, and--yes, as much as anything else, the

clatter of hospitable knives and forks working together.

Such an Open Door has saved many from destruction, and in That Day it

shall be counted to that Man (or, more often, that Woman) for

righteousness.

For consider how lonely a lad's life is when first he comes up from the

country. He works till he is weary, and in the evening the little

bedroom is intolerably lonely and infinitely stuffy. If the Door of

Kindness be not opened for him--if he lack the friend's hand, the

comrade's slap on the back, the modest uplift of honest maidenly

eyes--take my word for it, the Lad in the Garret will soon seek another

way of it. There are many that will show him the guide-posts of that

road. Other doors are open. Other laughter rings, not mellow and

sweet, but as the crackling of thorns under a pot. If a youth be cut

off from the one, he will have the other--that is, if the blood course

hot and quick in his veins.

And so, good folk of the city, you bien and comfortable householders,

you true mothers in Israel, fathers and mothers of brisk lads and

winsome lasses, do not forget that you may save more souls from going

down to the Pit in one year than a score of ministers in a lifetime.

And I, who write these things, know.

Many a foot has been stayed on the Path called Perilous simply because

"a damsel named Rhoda" came to answer a knock at a door. The time is

not at all bygone when "Given to hospitality" is also a saving grace.

And in the Day of Many Surprises, it shall be said of many a plain man

and unpretending housewife: "_Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the

least of these, ye did it unto Me!_"

* * * * *

But so it was not with Willie my brother. There was none to speak the

word, and so he did after his kind. How much he did or how far he went

I cannot tell. Perhaps it is best not to know. But, at all events, I

can remember his home-coming to Drumquhat one Saturday night after he

had been a year or fifteen months in Edinburgh. He came unexpectedly,

and I was sleeping in a little crib set across the foot of my parents'

bed in the "ben" room.

My mother was a light sleeper all her days, and, besides, I judge her

heart was sore. For never breeze tossed the trees or rustled the

beech-leaves, but she thought of her boy so far away. In a moment she

was up, and I after her, all noiseless on my bare feet, though the tails

of my night gear flapped like a banner in the draughty passage. The

dogs upon the hearthstone never so much as growled.

"Wha's there?"

"It's me, mither!"

"Willie!"

It was indeed Willie, a tall lad with a white face, a bright colour

high-set on his cheek-bone, a dancing light in his eyes, and, at sight

of his mother, a smile on his lips. He was dressed in what seemed to me

a style of grandeur such as I had never beheld, probably no more than a

suit of town-cut tweeds, a smart tie, and a watch-chain. But then my

standard was grey home-spun and home-dyed--as often as not home-tailored

too. And Solomon in all his glory did not seem to be arrayed one half so

nobly as my elder brother Willie.

I do not mind much about the visit, except that Willie let me wear his

watch-chain, which was of gold, for nearly half-an-hour, and promised

that the next time he came back he would trust me with the watch, as

well. But the following afternoon something happened that I do

remember. After dinner, which was at noon as it had been ever since the

beginning of time, my father sat still in his great corner chair instead

of going to the barn. My mother sent me out to play.

"And bide in the yaird till I send for ye, mind--and dinna let me see

your face till tea-time!" was her command, giving me a friendly cuff on

the ear by way of speeding the parting guest.

By this I knew that there was something she did not want me to hear. So

I went about the house to the little window at which my father said his

prayers. It stood open as always, like Daniel's, towards Jerusalem. I

could not hear very well; but that was no fault of mine. I did my best.

Willie was speaking very fast, telling his father something--something

to which my mother vehemently objected. I could hear her interruptions

rising stormily, and my father trying to calm her. Willie spoke low,

except now and then when his voice broke into a kind of scream. I

remember being very wae for him, and feeling in my pocket for a dirty

half-sucked brandy ball which I resolved to give him when he came out.

It had often comforted me in times of trouble.

"Siclike nonsense I never heard!" cried my mother, "a callant like you!

A besom--a designing madam, nocht else--that's what she is! I wonder to

hear ye, Willie!"

"Wheesh, wheest--Mary!"

I could hear my father's voice, grave and sober as ever. Then Willie's

vehement rush of words went on till I heard my mother break in again.

"Marriage! Marriage! Sirce, heard ye ever the like? A bairn to speak

to me o' mairrying a woman naebody kens ocht aboot--a 'lass in a shop,'

ye say; aye, I'se warrant a bonny shop----!"

Then there came the sound of a chair pushed vehemently back, the crash

of a falling dish. My father's voice, deep and terrible so that I

trembled, followed. "Sir, sit down on your seat and compose yourself!

Do not speak thus to your mother!"

"I will not sit down--I will not compose myself--I will never sit down

in this house again--I will marry Lizzie in spite of you all!"

And almost before I could get round to the front yard again Willie had

come whirling all disorderedly out of the kitchen door, shutting it to

with a clash that shook the house. Then with wild and angry eyes he

strode across the straw-littered space, taking no notice of me, but

leaping the gate and so down the little loaning and up towards the

heather like a man walking in his sleep.

I remember I ran after him, calling him to come back; but he never

heeded me till I pulled him by the coat tails. It was away up near the

march dyke, and I could hardly speak with running so fast. He stared as

if he did not know me.

"Oh, dinna--dinna--come back!" I cried (and I think I wept); "dinna vex

my mither!--And--there's 'rummelt tawties'{#} to the supper!"

[#] "Rummelt tawties," _i.e._, a sort of _puree_ of potatoes, made in

the pot in which they have been boiled, with sweet milk, butter, and

sometimes a little flavouring of cheese. All hands are expected to

assist in the operation of "champing," that is, pounding and stirring

them to a proper consistency of toothsomeness.

But Willie would not stop for all I could say to him.

However, he patted me on the head.

"Bide at hame and be Jacob," he said; "they have cast out this Esau."

For he had been well learned in the Bible, and once got a prize for

catechism at the day school at Whinnyliggate. It was Boston's _Fourfold

State_, so, though there were three copies in the house, I never tried

to read it.

So saying, he took the hillside like a goat, while I stood open-mouthed,

gazing at the lithe figure of him who was my brother as it grew smaller,

and finally vanished over the heathery shoulder of the Rig of Drumquhat.

That night I heard my father and mother talking far into the morning,

while I made a pretence of sleeping.

"I will never own him!" said my father, who was now the angry one.

"I'm feared he doesna look strong!" answered my mother in the darkness.

"He shall sup sorrow for the way he spoke to the father that begat him

and the mother that bore him!" said my father.

"Dinna say that, guidman!" pled my mother; "it is like cursin' oor ain

firstborn. Think how proud ye were the time he grippit ye by the hand

comin' up the loanin' an' caa'ed ye 'Dadda!'"

After this there was silence for a space, and then it was my mother who

spoke.

"No, Alexander, you shallna gang to Edinbra to bring him hame. Gin yin

o' us maun gang, let it be me. For ye wad be overly sore on the lad.

But oh, the madam--the Jezebel, her that has wiled him awa' frae us,

wait till I get my tongue on her!"

And this is how my mother carried out her threat, told in her own words.

* * * * *

"Oh, that weary toon!" she said afterwards. "The streets sae het and

dry, the blawin' stoor, the peetifu' bairns in the gutter, and the puir

chapman's joes standin' at the close-mouths wi' their shawls aboot their

heads! I wondered what yin o' them had gotten haud o' my Willie. But

at last I cam' to the place where he lodged. It was at a time o' the

day when I kenned he wad be at his wark. It was a hoose as muckle as

three kirks a' biggit on the tap o' yin anither, an' my Willie bode, as

it were, in the tapmaist laft.

"It was an auld lame woman wi' a mutch on her head that opened the door.

I askit for Willie.

"'He's no here,' says she; 'an' what may ye want wi' him?'

"'I'm his mither,' says I, and steppit ben. She was gye thrawn at the

first, but I sune tamed her. She was backward to tell me ocht aboot

Willie's ongangin's, but nane backward to tell me that his 'book' hadna

been payit for six weeks, and that she was sore in need o' the siller.

So I countit it doon to her shillin' by shillin', penny by penny.

"'An' noo,' says I, 'tell me a' ye ken o' this madam that has bewitched

my bairn, her that's costin' him a' this siller--for doubtless he is

wearin' it on the Jezebel--an' breakin' his mither's heart.'

"Then the landlady's face took on anither cast and colour. She hummed

an' hawed a whilie. Then at last she speaks plain.

"'She's nane an ill lass,' she says, ''deed, she comes o' guid kin,

and--she's neither mair nor less than sister's bairn to mysel'!'

"Wi' that I rises to my feet. 'If she be in this hoose, let me see her.

I will speak wi' the woman face to face. Oh, if I could only catch them

thegither I wad let her ken what it is to twine a mither and her boy!'

"The auld lame guidwife opens the door o' a bit closet wi' a bed in it

and a chair or twa.

"'Gang in there,' she says, 'an' ye shall hae your desire. In a quarter

o' an hour Lisbeth will be comin' hame frae the shop where she serves,

and its mair than likely that your son will be wi' her!'

"And wi' that she snecks the door wi' a brainge. For I could see she was

angry at what I had said aboot her kith an' kin. And I liked her the

better for that.

"So there I sat thinkin' on what I wad say to the lass when she cam' in.

And aye the mair I thocht, the faster the words raise in my mind, till I

was fair feared I wad never get time to utter a tenth-part o' my mind.

It needna hae troubled me, had I only kenned.

"Then there was the risp o' a key in the lock, for in thae rickles o'

stane an' lime that they rin up noo a days, ye can hear a cat sneeze

ower a hale 'flat.' I heard footsteps gang by the door o' the closet

an' intil the front room. And I grippit the handle, bidin' my time to

break oot on them.

"But there was something that held me. A lassie's voice, fleechin' and

fleechin' wi' the lad she loves as if for life or death. Hoo did I ken

that?--Weel, it's nae business o' yours, Alec, hoo I kenned it. But

yince hear it and ye'll never forget it.

"'Willie,' it said, 'tak' the siller, I dinna need it. Put it back

before they miss it--and oh, never, never gang to thae races again!'

"I sat stane-cauld, dumb-stricken. It was an awesome thing for a mither

to hear. Then Willie answered.

"''Lizzie,' he said, and, I kenned he had been greeting, 'Lizzie, I

canna tak' the money. I would be a greater hound than I am if I took

the siller ye hae saved for the house and the marriage braws--and----'

"'Oh, Will,' she cried, and I kenned fine she was greetin' too, an'

grippin' him aboot the neck, 'I dinna want to be mairried--I dinna want

a hoose o' my ain--I dinna want ony weddin' braws, if only ye will tak'

the siller--and--be my ain guid lad and never break your mither's

heart--an' mine! Oh, promise me, Willie! Let me hear ye promise me!'

"Aye, she said that--an' me hidin' there ready to speak to her like a

tinkler's messan.

"So I opens the door an' gaed in. Willie had some pound notes grippit

in his hand, and the lassie was on her knees thankin' God that he had

ta'en her hard-earned savin's as she asked him, and that he had promised

to be a guid boy.

"'Mither!' says Willie, and his lips were white.

"And at the word the lassie rises, and I could see her legs tremble

aneath her as she cam' nearer to me.

"'Dinna be hard on him,' she says; 'he has promised----'

"'What's that in your hand?' says I, pointing at the siller.

"'It's money I have stolen!' says Willie, wi' a face like a streikit

corpse.

"'Oh no, no,' cries the lass, 'it's his ain--his an' mine!'

"And if ever there was a lee markit doon in shinin' gold in the book o'

the Recordin' Angel it was that yin. She was nae great beauty to look

at--a bit slip o' a fair-haired lass, wi' blue een an' a ringlet or twa

peepin' oot where ye didna expect them. But she looked bonny then--aye,

as bonny as ever your Nance did.

"'Gie the pound notes back to the lass!' says I, 'and syne you and me

will gang doon and speak with your maister that ye hae robbit!'

"And wi' that the lass fell doon at my feet and grippit me, and fleeched

on me, and kissed my hands, and let the warm tears rin drap--drap on my

fingers.

"'Oh dinna, dinna do that,' she cried, 'let him pit them back. He only

took them for a loan. Let him pit them back this nicht when his maister

is awa hame for his tea. He is a hard man, and Willie is a' I hae!'"

* * * * *

"Weel," my mother would conclude, "may be it wasna juist richt--but I

couldna resist the lass. So Willie did as she said, and naething was

kenned. But I garred him gie in his notice the next day, and I took him

hame, for it was clear as day that the lad was deein' on his feet. And

I brocht the lass hame wi' me too. And if Willie had leeved--but it

wasna to be. We juist keepit him till November. And the last nicht we

sat yin on ilka side o' the bed, her haudin' a hand and me haudin' a

hand, neither jealous o' the ither, which was a great wonder. An' I

think he kind o' dovered an' sleepit--whiles wanderin' in his mind and

syne waukin' wi' a strange look on his face. But ower in the sma' hours

when the wind begins to rise and blaw caulder, and the souls o' men to

slip awa, he started up. It was me he saw first, for the candle was on

my side.

"'Mither,' he said, 'where's Lizzie?'

"And when he saw her sit by him, he drew away the hand that had been in

mine and laid it on hers.

"'Lizzie,' he said, 'dinna greet, my bonnie: I promise! I will be your

ain guid lad!'"

* * * * *

"And the lass?" I queried.

"Oh, she gaed back to the shop, and they say she has chairge o' a hale

department noo, and is muckle thocht on. But she has never mairried,

and, though we hae askit her every year, she wad never come back to

Drumquhat again!"

"And that," said my mother, smiling through her tears, "is the story how

my Willie was led astray by the Lass in the Shop."

*THE RESPECT OF DROWDLE*

Most folk in the West of Scotland know the parish of Drowdle, at least

by repute. It is a great mining centre, and the inhabitants are not

counted among the peaceable of the earth.

"If ye want your head broken, gang doon to Drowdle on a Saturday nicht"

is an advice often given to the boastful or the bumptious. Drowdle is a

new place too, and the inhabitants, instead of being, like ordinary

Scottish Geordies, settled for generations in one coal-field and with

whole streets of relatives within stonethrow, are composed of all the

strags and restless ne'er-do-weels of such as go down into the earth,

from Cornwall even to the Hill-o'-Beith.

Most, I say, know Drowdle by repute. I myself, indeed, once acted as

_locum tenens_ for the doctor there during six hot and lively summer

weeks, and gained an experience in the treatment of contusions,

discolorations, and abrasions of the skull and frontal bones which has

been of the greatest possible use to me since. The younger Drowdleites,

however, had at that time a habit of stretching a cord across the

threshold about a foot above the step, which interfered considerably

with professional dignity of exit--that is, till you were used to it.

But after one has got into the habit of scouting ahead with a spatula

ground fine and tied to a walking-stick on darkish nights, Drowdle began

to respect you. Still better if (as I did) you can catch a couple of

the cord-stretchers, produce an occipital contusion or two on your own

account, and finish by kicking the jesters bodily into Drowdle Water.

Then the long rows of slated brick which constitute the mining village

agree that "the new doakter kens his business--a smart lad, yon! Heard

ye what he did to thae twa deils, Jock Lee an' Cockly Nixon? He catchit

them trippin' him wi' a cairt rape at Betty Forgan's door, and, faith,

he threw them baith into Drowdle Water!"

Such being the way to earn the esteem of Drowdle, it would have saved

the telling of this story if, when young Dairsie Gordon received a call

to be minister of the recently established mission church there, he had

had any one to enlighten him on the subject.

He was so young that he was ashamed when any one asked him his age.

They had called him "Joanna" at college, and sent him recipes along the

desk for compelling a beard and moustache to grow under any conditions

of soil and climate, however unfavourable.

Dairsie Gordon was very innocent, very learned, very ignorant, and--the

only son of a well-to-do mother, who from a child had destined him for

the ministry. The more was the pity!

As a child he was considered too delicate for the rough-and-tumble of

school. He had a tutor, a mild-faced young man who seldom spoke above

his breath, and never willingly walked more than a mile at a time, and

then with a book in his hand and a flute in his tail pocket. Under his

instruction, however, Dairsie became an excellent classic, and his verse

gained the approval of Professor Jupiter Olympus when he went up to the

University of Edinburgh, where Latin verse was a rare accomplishment in

those days, and Greek ones as extinct as the dodo.

When her son went to college, Mrs. Gordon came up herself from the

country to settle Dairsie in the house of a friend of her own, the widow

of a deceased minister who had married an old maid late in life. This

excellent lady possessed much experience of bazaars and a good working

knowledge of tea-meetings, but she knew nothing of young men.

So, being placed in authority over Dairsie, she insisted that he should

come straight back to Rose Crescent from his classes, take dinner in the

middle of the day alone with his hostess, and then--as a

treat--accompany her while she made a call or two on other clerical

widows who had married late in life. Then she took him home to open his

big lexicons and pore over crabbed constructions till supper-time. This

feast consisted of plain bread and butter with the smallest morsel of

cheese, because much cheese is not good for the digestion at night. A

glass of milk accompanied these delicacies. It also was plain and blue,

because the cream (a doubtful quantity at best) had been skimmed off it

for Mrs. McSkirmish's tea in the morning.

After that Dairsie was sent to bed. He was allowed ten minutes to take

off his clothes and say his prayers. Then the gas was turned out at the

meter. If he wanted time for more study and reading he could have it in

the morning. It is good for youth to rise betimes and study the Hebrew

Scriptures with cold feet and fingers that will not turn the leaves of

Gesenius till they are blown upon severally and individually. In this

fashion, varying in nothing, save that on alternate Sundays there was

something hot for supper, because Mrs. McSkirmish's minister--a severe

and faithful divine--came to interview Dairsie and report on his

progress to his mother, the future pastor passed seven winter sessions.

Scholastically his victories were many. Bursaries seemed purposely

created for him to take--and immediately resign in favour of his

_proxime accessit_, who needed the money more. The class never queried

as to who would be first in the "exams.," but only wrangled concerning

who would come next after Gordon--and how many marks below.

In summer Dairsie went quietly down to his mother's house in the

country, where his neck was fallen upon duly, and four handmaids (with

little else to do) worshipped him--especially when for the first time he

took the "Book" at family worship. There was a wood before the door, in

which he passed most of his time lying on his back reading, and his old

tutor came to stay with him for a month at a time.

Thus was produced the Reverend Dairsie Gordon, B.D., without doubt the

first student of his college, Allingham Fellow, and therefore entitled

to go to Germany for a couple of years by the terms of his Fellowship.

But by one of these interpositions of Providence, which even the most

orthodox denominate "doubtful," there was at this time a vacancy in the

pastoral charge of the small Mission Church at Drowdle. The late

minister had accepted a call to a moorland congregation of sixty

members, where nothing had happened within the memory of man, more

stirring than the wheel coming off a cart of peats opposite the manse.

Dairsie Gordon preached at Drowdle. His voice was sweet and cultivated

and musical, so that it fell pleasantly on the ears of the kirkgoers of

Drowdle, over whose heads had long blared a voice like to the trumpets

at the opening of the seventh seal in the book of the Revelation.

So they elected him unanimously. Also he was "well-to-do," and it was

understood in the congregation that his salary would not be a

consideration. The minister elect immediately resigned his fellowship,

considering this a direct call to the work.

In this fashion Dairsie Gordon went to his martyrdom. Ignorant of the

world as a child of four, never having been elbowed and buffeted and

brow-beaten by circumstances, never cuffed at school, snubbed at

college, and so variously and vicariously licked and kicked into shape,

he found himself suddenly pitchforked into the spiritual charge of one

of the most difficult congregations in Scotland.

The new minister was introduced socially at a tea-meeting on the evening

of the ordination, and then and there he had his first taste of the

Drowdelian quality. There were plenty of douce and sober folk in the

front pews of the little kirk, but at the back reckless, unmarried

Geordies were sandwiched between a militant and ungodly hobbledehoyhood.

Paper bags that had contained fruit exploded in the midst of the most

solemn addresses. Dairsie's own remarks were fairly punctuated with

these explosions, and by the flying shells of Brazil nuts. Bone buttons

at the end of knitting needles clicked and tapped at windows, and a

shutter fell inward with a crash. It was thus that Dairsie returned

thanks.

"My dear people," (a penny trumpet blew an obligato accompaniment under

the bookboard of a pew,) "I have been led to the oversight of this

flock" (pom-pom-pom) "after prayer and under guidance. I shall

endeavour to teach you--" ("Catch-the-Ten!" "All-Fours!" "Quoits!")

"some of those things which I have devoted my life to acquiring. I am

prepared for some little difficulty at first, till we know one

another----"

The remainder of the address was inaudible owing to cries of, "Rob

Kinstry has stole my bag!" "Ye're a liar!" All which presently issued

in the general turmoil of a free fight toward the rear of the church.

Mrs. Gordon had come up to be present on the occasion of her son's

ordination, and that night in the little manse mother and son mingled

their tears. It all seemed so wrong and pitiful to them.

But Dairsie, with a fine hopefulness on his delicate face, lifted his

head from his mother's shoulder, smiling like a girl through his own

tears.

"But after all, this is the work to which I have been called, mother.

And you know if it is His will that I am to labour here, in time He will

give the increase."

So somewhat heartened, mother and son kneeled down together, prayed, and

went to bed.

On the forenoon of the next day two of the elders, decent pitmen, who

happened to be on the night-shift, called in to give their verdict and

to drop a word of advice.

"A graund meetin'," said Pate Tamson, the oversman of No. 4; "what for

didna ye tak' your stick and gie some o' the vaigabonds a clour on the

lug? It wad hae served them weel!"

"I could not think of doing such a thing," said Dairsie. "I desire to

wield a spiritual, not a carnal influence!"

"Carnal influence here, carnal influence there," cried Robin Naysmith,

stamping his foot till the little study trembled, "if ye are to succeed

in this village o' Drowdle, ye maun pit doon your fit--like that, sir,

like that!"

And he stamped on the new Brussels carpet till the plaster began to come

down in flakes from the ceiling. Dairsie tried to imagine himself

stamping like that, but could not. For one thing, he had always worn

single-soled shoes, with silk ties and woollen 'soles' (which he had

promised his mother to take out and dry whenever he came in), a fact

which has more bearing on the main question than appears on the surface.

"A man has to assert hissel' in this toon, or he is thocht little on,"

said Pate Tamson, the oversman. "Noo, there's MacGrogan, the Irish

priest--I dinna agree wi' his releegion, an' dootless he will hae verra

little chance at the Judgment. But, faith, when he hears that there's

ony o' his fowk drinkin' ower lang aboot Lucky Moat's, in he gangs wi' a

cudgel as thick as your airm, and the great solemn curses, fair rowlin'

aff the tongue o' him--and faith, he clears Lucky's faster than a hale

raft of polissmen! Aye, he does that!"

"Aye," assented the junior elder, Robin Naysmith, he whose feet had put

the plaster in danger, "what we need i' Drowdle is a man o' poo'er--a

man o' wecht----!"

"'_Quit ye like men--be strong!_' saith the Scriptures," summed up the

oversman. Then both of them waited for Dairsie, to see what he had got

to say.

"I--I am sure I shall endeavour to do my best," said the young minister,

"but I fear I have underestimated the difficulties of the position."

The oversman shook his head as he went out through the manse gate.

"And I am some dootfu' that we hae made a mistak'!"

"If we hae," rejoined Naysmith, the strong man, "we maun keep it frae

the knowledge o' Drowdle. But the lad is young--young. And when he has

served his 'prenticeship to sorrow, he will maybes come oot o' the

furnace as silver that is tried!"

* * * * *

Now, neither Drowdle nor its inhabitants meant to be unkind. In case of

illness or accident among themselves, none gave material help more

liberally. What belonged to one was held in a kindly communism to be

the right of all. But Drowdle was not to be handled delicately. It was

a nettle to be grasped with gloves of untanned leather.

Dairsie Gordon opened his first Sunday-school at three in the afternoon.

At a quarter to four as he stood up on the platform to give his closing

address, he found boys scuttling and playing "tig" between his legs. He

laid down his hymn-book, and on lifting it to read the closing verses,

discovered that a certain popular bacchanalian collection entitled

"Songs of the Red, White, and Blue," had mysteriously taken its place.

The young minister had other and graver trials also. The pitmen passed

him on the road with a surly grunt, and he did not know it was only

because they were trudging home dog-tired from their long shift. The

hard-driving managers and sub-managers, men without illusions and as

blatantly practical as a Scottish daily paper, passed him by

contemptuously, as if he had been a tract thrust under their doors. The

schoolmaster, a cleverish machine-made youth of inordinate conceit,

openly scoffed. He was a weakling, this minister, and he had better

know it.

And, indeed, in these days, Dairsie gave them plenty of scope for

complaint. His sermons might possibly have edified a company of the

unfallen angels, if we can fancy such being interested in heathen

philosophy and the interpretation of the more obscure Old Testament

Scriptures. But to this gritty, ungodly, crass-natured, rasp-surfaced

village of Drowdle, the young man merely babbled in his pulpit as the

summer brooks do over the pebbles.

An itinerant evangelist, who shook the fear of hell-fire under their

noses with the fist of a pugilist, and claimed in ancient style the

power to bind and the power to loose, might conceivably have succeeded

in Drowdle, but as it was, Dairsie Gordon proved a failure of the most

absolute sort. And Drowdle, having no false modesty, told him plainly of

it. At informal meetings of Session the question of their minister's

shortcomings was discussed with freedom and point, only the overs-man

and Robin Naysmith pleading suspension of judgment on account of the

young man's years.

For there were sympathetic hearts here and there among the folk of

Drowdle. Women with the maternal instinct yet untrampled out of them,

came to their doors to look after the tall slim "laddie" who was so like

the sons they had dreamed of when the maiden's blush still tinged their

cheeks.

"He's a bonnie laddie to look on," they said to each other as, palm on

hip, they stood looking after him. "It's a peety that he is sae

feckless!"

Yet Dairsie was always busy. He was no neglecter of duty. He worked

with eager strained hopefulness. No matter how deep had been his

depression of the evening, the morning found him contemplating a day of

work with keen anticipation and unconquerable desire to succeed.

To-day, at last, he would begin to make an impression. He would visit

the remainder of Dickson's Row, and perhaps--who knew?--it might be the

turning of the tide. So he sat down opposite his mother at breakfast,

smiling and rubbing his hands.

"To-day I am going to show them, mother," he would say.

"Show them what, Dairsie dear?"

"_That I am a man!_"

But within him he was saying, "Work while it is day!" And yet deeper in

his heart, so deep that it became almost a prayer for release, he was

wont to add--"_The night cometh when no man can work!_" Then to this he

added, as he took his round soft hat and went out, "O Lord, help me to

do something worthy before I die--something to make these people respect

me."

* * * * *

It was a hot September afternoon. Drowdle was a-drowse from Capersknowe

to the Back Raw. Here and there could be heard a dull recurring thud,

which was the _dunt dunt_ of the roller on the dough of the bake-board

as some housewife languidly rolled out her farles of oatcake. For the

rest, there was no sound save the shout of a callant fishing for minnows

in the backwaters of Drowdle, and the buzz of casual bluebottles on the

dirty window-panes.

Suddenly there arose a cry, dominant and far-reaching. No words were

audible, but the tone was enough. Women blenched and dropped the

crockery they were carrying. The men of the night-shift, asleep on

their backs in the hot and close-curtained wall-beds, tumbled into their

grimy moleskins with a single movement.

"_Number Four pit's a-fire! The pit's a-fire! Number Fower!_"

It was a mile to the particular colliery where the danger was. The rows

of houses emptied themselves simultaneously upon the white dusty road,

women running with men and barefooted children speeding between, a

little scared, but, on the whole, rather enjoying the excitement.

As they came nearer, the great high-mounted head-wheels of pit Number

Four were spinning furiously, and over the mounds which led to it little

ant-like figures were hurrying. A thin far-spreading spume of brownish

smoke rose sluggishly from the pithead. At sight of it women cried out:

"Oh God, my Jock's doon there!" And more than one set her hand suddenly

upon her side and swung away from the rush into the hedge-root.

A hundred questions were being fired at the steadfast engineer, men and

women all shouting at once. He answered such as he could, but with his

hand ever upon the lever and his eye upon the scale which told at what

point the cage stood in the long incline of the "dook."

"The fire's in the main pit-shaft," he said. "They are trying to get

doon by the second exit; but it's half fu' o' steam pipes to drive the

bottom engine."

"Wha's gane doon?"

"Pate Tamson and Muckle Greg are in the cage tryin' to put the fire oot

wi' the hose----"

"They micht as weel spit on't if it's gotten ony catch!"

"And Robin Naysmith and the minister are tryin' the second exit----"

"_The minister----_"

The cry was very scornful. The minister, indeed--what good could "a boy

like him" do down there where strong men were dying helplessly?

So for half-an-hour Walter McCartney the pithead engineer stood at his

post watching the cage index, and listening for the tinkle of the bell

which signalled "up" or "down."

Suddenly the faces of such as could see the numbers blanched. And a

murmur ran round the crowd at the long _t-r-r-r-r-r-r_ which told that

the cage was coming to the surface.

Had all hope been abandoned, that the rescue party were returning so

unexpectedly? A woman shrieked suddenly on the edges of the crowd.

"Who's that?" queried the manager, turning sharply. And when he was

answered, "Take her away--don't let her come near the shaft!" was his

order.

Out of the charred and dripping cage came Pate Tamson and his mate,

blackened and wet from head to foot.

"The cage is to be sent empty to the dook-bottom!" they said. "Somebody

has managed to get doon the second exit."

With a quick switch of levers and a humming hiss of woven wire from the

headwheels, down sank the cage into the belching brown smother of the

deadly reek.

Then there was a long pause. The index sank till it pointed to the

pit-bottom. The cage had passed through the fire safely. It had yet to

be proved that living men could also pass.

"_Tinkle--tink!_"

It was the bell for lifting. Walter McCartney compressed his lips on

receiving the signal, and pulled down the shiny cap over his forehead,

as if he himself were about to face that whirlwind of fire six hundred

feet down in the bowels of the earth. He drew a long breath and opened

the lever for "Full Speed Up." The cage must have passed the zone of

flame like a bird rising through a cloud. The folk silenced themselves

as it neared the surface. Then a great cry arose.

The minister sat in the cage with a couple of boys in his arms. The

rough wet brattice cloths that had been placed over them were charred

almost to a cinder. Dairsie Gordon's face was burnt and blackened.

He handed the boys out into careful hands.

"I am going down again," he said; "unless I do the men will not believe

that it is possible to come alive through the fire. Are you ready,

Walter? Let her go!"

So a second time the young minister went down through the furnace.

Presently the men began to be whisked up through the fire, and as each

relay arrived at the pit-bank they sang the praises of Dairsie Gordon,

telling with Homeric zest how he had crawled half-roasted down the

narrow throat of the steam-pipe-filled shaft, how he had argued with

them that the fire could be passed, and at last proved it with two boys

for volunteer passengers. Dairsie Gordon, B.D., was the last man to

leave the pit, and he fainted with pain and excitement when all Drowdle

cheered him as they carried him home to his mother.

And when at last he came to himself, swathed in cotton wool to the eyes,

he murmured, "_Do you not think they will respect me now, mother?_"

*TADMOR IN THE WILDERNESS*

The calm and solemn close of a stormy day--that is the impression which

the latter years of the life of Bertram Erskine made on those who knew

him best. Though I was young at the time, I well remember his solitary

house of Barlochan, a small laird's mansion to which he had added a tiny

study and a vast library, turning the whole into an externally curious,

but internally comfortable conglomerate of architecture. The house

stood near a little green depression of the moorland, shaped like the

upturned palm of a hand. In the lowest part was the "lochan" or lakelet

from which the place had its name, while the mansion with its

white-washed gables and many chimneys rose on the brow above--and,

facing south, overlooked well nigh a score of parishes. There was also

a garden, half hidden behind a row of straggling poplars. A solitary

"John" tended it, who, in the time of Mr. Erskine's predecessor, had

doubled his part of gardener with that of butler at the family's evening

meal.

Few people in the neighbourhood knew much about the "hermit of

Barlochan." Yet he had borne a great part in the politics of twenty

years before. He had been a minister of the Queen, a keen and vehement

debater, a dour political fighter, as well as a man of some distinction

in letters; he had suddenly retired from all his offices and emoluments

without a day's warning. The reason given was that he had quite

suddenly lost an only and much beloved daughter.

After a few years he had bought, through an Edinburgh lawyer, the little

estate of Barlochan, and it was reported that he meant to settle in the

district. Upon which ensued a clatter of masons and slaters, joiners

and plasterers, all sleeping in stable-lofts, and keeping the scantily

peopled moorland parish in a turmoil with their midnight predatory raids

and madcap freaks.

Then came waggon-load after waggon-load of books--two men (no less) to

look after them and set them in their places on the shelves. After

that, the advent of a housekeeper and a couple of staid maid-servants

with strange English accents. Last of all arrived Bertram Erskine

himself, a tall figure in grey, stepping out of a high gig at his own

door, and the establishment of an ex-minister of the Crown was complete.

That is, with one exception--for John McWhan, gardener to the ancient

owners of Barlochan, was digging in the garden when Mr. Erskine went out

on the first morning after his arrival.

"Good-morning!"

John looked up from his spade, put his hand with the genuine Galloway

reluctance to his bonnet, and remarked, "I'm thinkin' we'll hae a braw

year for grosarts, sir!"

The new proprietor smiled, and as John said afterwards, "_Then_ I kenned

I was a' richt!"

"You are Mr. McCulloch's gardener?"

"Na, na, sir; I am your ain gardener, sir," answered John McWhan

promptly. "Coarnel (Colonel) McCulloch pat everything intil my hand on

the day he gaed awa' to the wars--never to set fit on guid Scots heather

mair!"

Mr. Erskine nodded quietly, like one who accepts a legal obligation.

"I have heard of you, John," he said. "I will take you with the other

pendicles of the estate. You are satisfied with your former wages?"

"Aye, sir, aye--a bonny-like thing that I should hae been satisfied wi'

thretty pound and a cot-hoose for five-and-forty year, and begin to

compleen at this time o' the day."

"But I am somewhat peculiar, John," said Mr. Erskine, smiling. "I see

little company: I desire to see none at all. If you remain with me, you

must let nothing pass your lips regarding me or my avocations."

"Ye'll find that John McWhan can haud his tongue to the full as well as

even a learned man like yoursel', sir!"

"I have an uncertain temper, John!"

"Faith, then ye hae gotten the verra man for ye, sir," cried John,

slapping his knee delightedly. "Lord keep us, ye will be but as a bairn

at the schule to what Maister McCulloch was. I tell ye, when the

Coarnel's liver was warslin' wi' him, it was as muckle as your life was

worth to gang within bowshot o' him. But yet he never hairmed John. He

miscaaed him--aya, he did that--till the ill names cam' back oot o' the

wood ower bye, as if the wee green fairies were mockin' the sinfu'

angers o' man. But John never heeded. And in a wee, the Coarnel wad be

calm as a plate o' parritch, and send me into the hoose for his muckle

pipe, saying, 'John, that has dune me guid, I think I'll hae a smoke.'

Na, na, ye may be as short in the grain as ye like, but after Coarnel

McCulloch----"

At this point of his comparison John felt the inadequacy of further

words and could only ejaculate, "Hoots awa, man!"

So in this fashion John McWhan stayed on as "man" upon the policies of

Barlochan.

That night at dinner it was John who carried in the soup tureen and

deposited it before his new master, a very much scandalised table-maid

following in the wake of the victor.

"I hae brocht ye your kail, Maister Areskine," he said, setting the

large vessel down with a flourish, "as I hae dune in this hoose for

five-and-forty year. This trimmie (though Guid forgie me, I doubt na

that she is a decent lass, for an Englisher) may set the glesses and

bring ben the kickshaws, but the kail and the roast are John McWhan's

perquisite--as likewise the cleanin' o' the silver. And I wad thank ye

kindly, sir, to let the hizzie ken your mind on that same!"

With these words, John stood at attention with his hands at his sides

and his lips pursed, gazing solemnly at his master. Mr. Erskine turned

round on his chair, his napkin in his hand. His eyes encountered with

astonishment a tall figure, gaunt and angular, clad in an ancient livery

coat of tarnished blue and gold; knee breeches, black stockings, and a

pair of many-clouted buckled shoes completed an attire which was

certainly a marvellous transformation from John's ordinary labouring

moleskins.

With a word quiet and sedate, Mr. Erskine satisfied John's pride of

place, and with another (the latter accompanied with a certain humorous

twinkle of the eye) he soothed the ruffled Jane.

After that the days passed quietly and uneventfully enough at Barlochan.

Mr. Erskine's habits were regular. He rose early, he read much, he

wrote more. The mail he received, the book packets the carrier brought

him, the huge sealed letters he sent off, were the wonder of the

countryside--for a month or two. Then, save for the carters who drove

the coal from the town, or brought in the firewood for Mr. Erskine's own

library fire (for there he burned wood only), and the boxes of

provisions ordered from Cairn Edward by his prim housekeeper Mrs.

Lambert, Barlochan was silent and without apparent distraction.

All the same there were living souls and busy brains about it. The

massive intellect of the master worked at unknown problems in the

library. Busy Mrs. Lambert hurried hither and thither contriving

household comforts, and developing the scanty resources of a moorland

cusine to their uttermost. Jane and Susan obeyed her beck, while out in

the garden John McWhan dug and raked, pruned and planted, his hand never

idle, while his brain busied itself with his master.

"It's a michty queer thing he doesna gang to the kirk," said John to

himself, "a terrible queer thing--him bein' itherwise sic a kindly

weel-learned gentleman. I heard some word he was eddicated for the kirk

himsel'. Oh, that we had amang us a plant o' grace like worthy Master

Hobbleshaw doon at the Nine-Mile-Burn, that can whup the guts oot o' a

text as gleg and clever as cleanin' a troot. Faith, I wad ask him to

come wi' me to oor bit kirk at Machermore, had we a man there that could

do mair than peep and mutter. I wonder what we hae dune that we should

be afflicted wi' siccan a reed shaken wi' the wun' as that feckless bit

callant, Hughie Peebles. He can preach nae mair than my cat Tib--and as

for unction----"

Here again John's words failed him under the press of his own indignant

comminations. He could only drive the "graip" into the soil of the

Barlochan garden, with a foot whose vehemence spoke eloquently of his

inward heat. For the pulpit of the little Dissenting kirk which John

McWhan supported by his scanty contributions (and abundant criticisms),

was occupied every Sabbath day by that saddest of all labourers, a

minister who has not fulfilled his early promise, and of whom his

congregation desire to be rid.

"No but what we kind o' like the craitur, too," John explained to his

master, as he paused near him in one of his frequent promenades in the

garden. "He has his points. He is a decent lad, and wi' some sma' gift

in intercessory prayer. But he gangs frae door to door amang the fowk,

as if he were comin' like a beggar for an awmous and were feared to

daith o' the dog. Noo what the fowk like is a man that walks wi' an

air, that speaks wi' authority, that stands up wi' some presence in the

pulpit, and gies oot the psalm as if he war kind o' prood to read words

that the guid auld tune o' Kilmarnock wad presently carry to the

seeventh heevens!"

"And your minister, John, with whom you are dissatisfied--how came you

to choose him?"

"Weel, sir," said the old man, palpably distressed, "it was like

this--ye see fowk are no what they used to be, even in the kirk o' the

Marrow. In auld days they pickit a minister for the doctrine and

smeddom that was in him. 'Was he soond on the fundamentals?' 'Had he a

grip o' the fower Heads?' 'Was he faithfu' in his monitions?' Thae

were the questions they askit. But nooadays they maun hae a laddie

fresh frae the college, that can leather aff a blatter o' words like a

bairn's lesson. I'm tellin' ye the truth, sir--Sant Paul himsel', after

he had had the care o' a' the churches for a generation, wadna hae half

the chance o' a bare-faced, aipple-cheekit loon in a black coatie and a

dowg-collar. An' as for Peter, he wad hae had juist nae chance ava. He

wad never hae gotten sae muckle as a smell o' the short leet."

"And how would Saint Peter have had no chance? Wherein was his case

worse than Paul's?" said Mr. Erskine, smiling.

"Because he was a mairriet man, sir. It's a' thae feckless weemen fowk,

sir. A man o' wecht and experience has little chance, though he speak

wi' the tongue o' men and o' angels--a mairriet man has juist nae chance

ava.' It's my solemn opeenion that, when it comes to electin' a new

minister, only respectable unmairriet men o' fifty years an' upwards

should be allowed to vote. It's the only thing that will stop thae

awfu' weemen frae ruling the kirk o' God. Talk o' the Session--faith,

it's no the Session that bears rule ower us in things speeritual--na,

na, it's juist thae petticoated randies that got us turned oot' o'

Paradise at the first, and garred me hae to grow your honour's

veegetables in the sweet o' my broo!"

"But why only unmarried men of over fifty?" said Mr. Eskine, humouring

his servitor.

"For this reason,"--John laid down the points of his argument on the

palm of one hand with the crooked forefinger of the other, his foot

holding the "graip" steady in the furrow all the while. "The young

unmairriet men wad be siccan fules as to do what the young lasses wanted

them to do, and the mairriet men o' a' ages (as say the Scriptures) wad

necessarily vote as their wives bade them, for the sake o' peace and to

keep doon din!"

"Well, John," said Mr. Erskine, "I will go down to the kirk with you

next Sunday morning, and see what I can advise. It is a pity that in

this small congregation and thinly-peopled district you should be

saddled with an unsuitable minister!"

"Eh, sir, but we wad be prood to see ye at Machermore Marrow Kirk,"

cried John, dusting his hands with sheer pleasure, as if he were about

to shake hands with his master on the spot. "I only wish it had been

Maister MacSwatter o' Knockemdoon that was gaun to preach. He fairly

revels in Daniel and the Revelations. He can gie ye a screed on the ten

horns wi' faithfu' unction, and mak' a maist affectin' application frae

the consideration o' the wee yin in the middle. But oor Maister

Peebles--he juist haes nae 'fushion' in him, ony mair than a

winter-frosted turnip in the month o' Aprile!"

In accordance with his promise to his factotum, on the following Sabbath

morning, Mr. Erskine walked down to the little Kirk of Machermore. It

was a fine harvest day and the folk had turned out well, as is usually

the case at that season of the year. John McWhan was too old a servant

to dream of walking with his master to the kirk. He had "mair mainners,"

as he would have said himself. All the same, he had privately

communicated with several of the elders, and so ensured Mr. Erskine a

reception suited to his dignity.

The ex-minister of State was received at the little kirk door by Bogrie

and Muirkitterick, two tenants on a large neighbouring property. These

were the leading Marrow men in the district, and much looked up to, as

both coming in their own gigs to the kirk. Bogrie it was who opened the

inner door for him, and Muirkitterick conducted him to the seat of

honour in the mountain Zion, being the manse pew, immediately to the

right of the pulpit.

It was not for some time that Mr. Erskine perceived that he did not sit

alone. Being a little short-sighted until he got his glasses adjusted,

the faces of any audience or congregation were always a blur to him.

Then all at once he noticed a slim girlish figure in a black dress

almost shrinking from observation in the opposite corner. The service

began immediately after he sat down.

The minister was tall, of good appearance and presence, but Mr. Erskine

shuddered at the first grating notes of the clerical falsetto, which Mr.

Peebles had adopted solely because it had been the fashion at college in

his time; but it was not until the short prayer before the sermon that

anything occurred to fix the politician's wandering attention.

Then, as he bent forward, he heard a voice near him saying, in an

intense inward whisper: "_O God, help my Hughie!_"

He glanced about him in astonishment. It was the girl in the black

dress. She had knelt in the English fashion when all the rest of the

congregation were merely bending forward "on their hunkers," or, as in

the case of not a few ancient standards of the Faith, standing erect and

protestant against all weak-hammed defection.

When the girl arose again Mr. Erskine saw that her lips were trembling

and that she gazed wistfully about at the set and severe faces of the

congregation. The minister began his sermon.

It was not in any sense a good discourse. Rather, with the best will in

the world, the hearer found it feeble, flaccid, unenlivened by

illustration, unfirmed by doctrine, unclinched by application. Yet all

the time Mr. Erskine was saying to himself: "What a fool that young man

is! He has a good voice and presence--how easily he might study good

models, and make a very excellent appearance. It cannot be so difficult

to please a few score country farmers and ditchers!" But he ended with

his usual Gallio-like reflection that "After all, it is none of my

business;" and so forthwith removed his mind from the vapidity of the

discourse, to a subject connected with his own immediate work.

But as he issued out of the little kirk, he passed quite close to the

vestry door. The girl who had sat in the pew beside him was coming out

with the minister. He could not help hearing her words, apparently

spoken in answer to a question: "It was just beautiful, Hughie; you

never preached better in your life." And in the shadow of the porch,

before they turned the corner, Mr. Erskine was morally certain that the

young minister gave the girl's arm an impulsive little hug.

But his own heart was heavy, for as he walked away there came a thought

into his heart. A resemblance that had been haunting him suddenly

flashed up vividly upon him.

"If Marjorie had lived she would have been about that girl's age--and

like her, too, pale and slim and dark."

So all the way to his lonely mansion of Barlochan the ex-minister of the

Crown thought of the young girl who had faded from his side, just as she

was becoming a companion for the man who, for her sake, had put his

career behind him.

In the afternoon Mr. Erskine sat in the arbour, while John in his Sunday

best tried to compromise with his conscience as to how much gardening

could be made to come under the catechistic heading, "Works of Necessity

and Mercy." He solved this by watering freely, training and binding up

sparingly, pruning in a furtive and shamefaced manner (when nobody was

looking), but strictly abstaining from the opener iniquities of weeding,

digging, or knocking in nails with hammers. In the latter emergency

John kept for Sunday use the ironshod heel of an old boot, and in no

case did he ever so far forget himself as to whistle. On that point he

was adamant.

At last, after hovering nearer and nearer, he paused before the arbour

and addressed his master directly.

"_Thon_ juist settles it!"

Mr. Erskine slowly put down his book, still, however, marking the place

with his finger.

"I do not understand--what do you mean by _thon_?"

"The sermon we had the day, sir. It was fair affrontin'. The Session

are gaun up to ask Maister Peebles to consider his resignation. The

thing had neither beginning o' days nor end o' years. It was withoot

form and void. It's a kind o' peety, too, for the laddie, wi' that

young Englishy wife that he has ta'en, on his hand. I'm feared she is no

the kind that will ever help to fill his meal-ark!"

"I am very sorry to hear you say so, John," said Mr. Erskine; "can

nothing be done, think you? Why don't they give the young man another

chance? Can no one speak to him? There were some things about the

service that I liked very much. Indeed, I found myself feeling at home

in a church for the first time for years."

"Did ye, sir? That's past a' thinkin'! A' Machermore was juist

mournin' and lamentin'. What micht the points be that ye liket? I will

tell the elders. It micht do some guid to the puir lad!"

Mr. Erskine was a little taken aback. He could not say that what

pleased him most in the service had sat in the manse-seat beside him,

had worn a plain black dress, and possessed a pair of eyes that reminded

him of a certain young girl who had taken walks with him over the hills

of Surrey, when the blackbirds were singing in the spring.

Nevertheless, he managed to convey to John a satisfaction and a

hopefulness that were all the more helpful for being a little vague. To

which he added a practical word.

"If you think it would do any good, John, I might see one or two of the

members of Session themselves."

"Ye needna trouble yoursel', thank ye kindly, sir," said John, "I will

undertak' the job. Though my infirmity at orra times keeps me frae

acceptin' the eldership (I hae been twice eleckit), I may say that John

McWhan's influence in the testifyin' and Covenant-keeping Kirk o' the

Marrow at the Cross-roads o' Machermore has to be reckoned wi'--aye, it

has to be reckoned wi'!"

* * * * *

Nevertheless, the agitation for a change of ministry continued to

increase rather than to diminish. It took the form of a petition to the

Rev. Hugh Peebles to consider the spiritual needs of the congregation

and forthwith to remove himself to another sphere of labour.

Now, John McWhan's Zion was not one of the greater and richer

denominations into which Presbytery in Scotland is unhappily divided.

It was but a small and poor "body" of the faithful, and such changes of

ministry as that proposed were frequent enough. The operative cause

might be inability to pay the minister's "steepend" if it happened to be

a bad year. Or, otherwise, and more frequently, a "split"--a psalm tune

misplaced, an overplus of fervour in prayer for the Royal Family (a very

deadly sin), or a laxity in dealing with a case of discipline--and, lo!

the minister trudged down the glen with his goods before him in a red

cart, to fight his battle over again in another glen, and among a people

every whit as difficult and touchy. But one day there was an intimation

read out in the Machermore Kirk of the Marrow to the following effect:

"The Annual Sermon of the Stewartry Branch of the British and Foreign

Bible Society will be preached in the Townhill Kirk at Cairn Edward, on

Sabbath next, at 6 p.m., by the Rev. Hugh Peebles of the Marrow Kirk,

Machermore."

Mr. Peebles read this through falteringly, as if it concerned some one

else, and then added a doubtful conclusion: "In consequence of this

honour which has been done me, I know not why, there will be no service

here on the evening of next Lord's Day!"

It was observed by the acute that Mrs. Peebles put her face into her

hands very quickly as her husband finished reading the intimations.

"Praying for him, was she?" said the Marrow folk, grimly, as they went

homeward; "aye, an' she had muckle need!"

To say that the congregation of Machermore was dumfounded is wholly to

underestimate the state of their feelings. They were aghast. For the

occasion was a most notable one.

All the wale of the half-dozen central Galloway parishes, which were

canvassed as one district by the agents of the Bible Society, would be

there--the professional sermon-tasters of twenty congregations. At

least a dozen ministers of all denominations (except the Episcopalian)

would be seated in an awe-inspiring quadrilateral about the square

elders' pew. The Townhill Kirk, the largest in Galloway, would be

packed from floor to ceiling, and the sermon, published at length in the

local paper, would be discussed in all its bearings at kirk-door and

market-ring for at least a month to come.

And all these things must be faced by their "reed shaken with the wind,"

their feckless shadow of a minister, weak in doctrine, ineffective in

application, utterly futile in reproof. Hughie Peebles, and he alone,

must represent the high ancient liberties of the Marrow Kirk before Free

Kirk Pharisee and Erastian Sadducee.

Considering these things, Machermore hung its head, and the wailing of

its eldership was heard afar. Only John McWhan, as he had promised,

kept his counsel, and went about with a shrewd twinkle in his eye. He

continued to bring in the soup at Barlochan--indeed, he now waited all

through dinner, and, though there was nothing said that he could

definitely take hold upon, John had a shrewd suspicion that it was not

for nothing that the young minister had been closeted with his master

for two or three hours, six days a week, for the last month. But though

it went sorely to his heart that he could not even bid Machermore and

the folk thereof--"Wait till next Sabbath at six o'clock, an' ye'll

maybes hear something!" he loyally refrained himself.

* * * * *

At last the hour came and the man. Mr. Erskine, having ordered a

carriage from the town, drove the minister and his wife down to Cairn

Edward in style. John McWhan held the reins, the urban "coachman"

sitting, a silent and indignant hireling, on the lower place by his

side.

On the front seat within sat Mr. Peebles, very pale, and with his hands

gripping each other nervously. But when he looked across at the calm

face of Mr. Erskine, a sigh of relief broke from him. The Townhill Kirk

was densely crowded. There was that kind of breathing hush over all,

which one only hears in a country kirk on a very solemn occasion.

Places had been kept for young Mrs. Peebles and Mr. Erskine in the pew

of honour near the elders' seat, but the ex-minister of State, after

accompanying Mrs. Peebles to her destination, went and sat immediately

in front of the pulpit.

"Wondrous weel the laddie looks," said one of the judges as Hugh Peebles

came in, boyish in his plain black coat, "though they say he is but a

puir craitur for a' that!"

"Appearances are deceitful--beauty is vain!" agreed her neighbour, in

the same unimpassioned whisper.

There was nothing remarkable about the "preliminaries," as the service

of praise and prayer was somewhat slightingly denominated by these

impatient sermon-lovers.

"_Sap, but nae fushion!_" summed up Mistress Elspeth Milligan, the chief

of these, after the first prayer.

The preliminaries being out of the way, the great congregation

luxuriously settled itself down to listen to the sermon. Machermore,

which had hidden itself bodily in a remote corner of one of the

galleries, began to perspire with sheer fright.

"They'll throw the psalm-buiks at him, I wadna wunner--siccan grand

preachers as they hae doon here in Cairn Edward!" whispered the ruling

elder to a friend. He had sneaked in after all the others, and was now

sitting on one of the steps of the laft. It was John McWhan who

occupied the corner seat beside him.

"Maybe aye, an' maybe no!" returned John, drily, keeping his eye on the

pulpit. The hush deepened as Hugh Peebles gave out his text.

"_And he built Tadmor in the Wilderness._"

Whereupon ensued a mighty rustling of turned leaves, as the folk in the

"airy" and the three "galleries" pursued the strange text to its lair in

the second book of Chronicles. It sounded like the blowing of a sudden

gust of wind through the entire kirk.

Then came the final stir of settling to attention point, and the first

words of Hugh Peebles' sermon. Machermore, elder and kirk-member,

adherent and communicant, young and old, bond and free, crouched deeper

in their recesses. Some of the more bashful pulled up the collars of

their coats and searched their Bibles as if they had not yet found the

text. The seniors put on their glasses and stared hard at the minister

as if they had never seen him before. They did not wish it to appear

that he belonged to them.

But when the first notes of the preacher's voice fell on their

astonished ears, it is recorded that some of the more impulsive stood up

on their feet.

That was never their despised minister, Hughie Peebles. The strong yet

restrained diction, the firmness of speech, the resonance of voice in

the deeper notes--all were strange, yet somehow curiously familiar.

They had heard them all before, but never without that terrible alloy of

weakness, and the addition of a falsetto something that made the

preacher's words empty and valueless.

And the sermon--well, there never had been anything like it heard in the

Ten Parishes before. There was, first of all, that great passage where

the preacher pictured the Wise King sending out his builders and

carpenters, his architects and cunning workmen--those very men who had

caused the Temple to rise on Moriah and set up the mysterious twin

pillars thereof--to build in that great and terrible wilderness a city

like to none the world had ever seen. There was his gradual opening up

of the text, and applying it to the sending of the Word of God to the

heathen who dwelt afar off--without God and without hope in the world.

Then came the searching personal appeal, which showed to each clearly

that in his own heart there were wilderness tracts--as barren, as

deadly, as apparently hopeless as the ground whereon Solomon set up his

wonder-city--Tadmor, Palmyra, the city of temples and palaces and

palm-trees.

And above all, the preacher's application was long remembered, his

gradual uprising from the picture of the earthly king, "golden-robed in

that abyss of blue," to the Great King of all the worlds--"He who can

make the wilderness, whether that of the heathen in distant lands and

far isles of the sea, or that other more difficult, the wilderness in

our own breasts, to blossom as the rose!" These things will never be

forgotten by any in that congregation.

Once only Hugh Peebles faltered. It was but for a moment. He gasped

and glanced down to the first seat in the front of the church. Then in

another moment he had gripped himself and resumed his argument. Some

there were who said that he did this for effect, to show emotion, but

there were two men in that congregation who knew better--the preacher

and Mr. Erskine.

All Machermore went home treading on the viewless air. They hardly

talked to each other for sheer joy and astonishment. "Dinna look as if

we were surprised, lads! Let on that we get the like o' that every day

in oor kirk!"

That was John McWhan's word, which passed from lip to lip. And

Machermore and the Marrow Kirk thereof became almost insufferably puffed

up.

"I'll no say a word mair," said the ruling elder, "gin he never preaches

anither decent word till the day o' his death."

This was, indeed, the general sense of the congregation. But Hugh

Peebles, though perhaps he never reached the same pinnacle of fame,

certainly preached much better than of old. With his wonderful success,

too, he had gained a certain confidence in himself; added to which he

was almost as often at Barlochan as before the missionary sermon.

His wife came with him sometimes in the evenings to dinner, and then Mr.

Erskine's eyes would dwell on her with a kind of gladness. For now she

had a colour in her cheek and a proud look on her face, which had not

been there on the day when he had first heard her pray: "O God, help my

Hughie!" in the square manse pew.

God had indeed helped Hughie--as He mostly does, through human agency.

And Mr. Erskine was happier too. He had found an object in life, and,

on the whole, his pupil did him great credit.

He also inserted a clause in his will, which ensures that Hugh and his

wife shall not be dependent in their old age upon the goodwill of a

faithful but scanty flock.

And as for Hugh Peebles, probable plagiarist, he writes his own sermons

now, though he always submits them before preaching to his wise friend

up at Barlochan. But it is for his first success that he is always

asked when he goes from home. There is a never-failing postscript to any

invitation from a clerical brother upon a sacramental occasion: "The

congregation will be dreadfully disappointed if you do not give us

'Tadmor in the Wilderness.'"

And Hugh Peebles never disappoints them.

*PETERSON'S PATIENT*

When I go out on the round of a morning I generally take John with me.

John is my "man," and of course it is etiquette that he should drive me

to my patients' houses. But sometimes I tell him to put in old Black

Bess for a long round-about journey, and then, in that case, I can drive

myself.

For Black Bess is a real country doctor's horse. She will stand at a

loaning foot with the reins hitched over a post--that is, if you give

her a yard or so of head liberty, so that she may solace herself with

the grass and clover tufts on the bank. Even without any grass at all,

she will stand by a peat-stack in as profound a meditation as if she

were responsible for the diagnosis of the case within. I honestly

believe Bess is more than half a cow, and chews the cud on the sly. So

whenever I feel a trifle lazy, I take the outer round and Black Bess,

leaving the town and what the ambitious might call its "suburbs" to Dr.

Peterson, my assistant. Not that this helps me much in the long run,

because I have to keep track of what is going on in Peterson's head and

revise his treatment. For, though his zeal and knowledge are always to

be counted on, Peterson is apt to be lacking in a certain tact which the

young practitioner only acquires by experience.

For instance, to take the important matter of diagnosis, Peterson used

to think nothing of standing silent five or ten minutes making up his

mind what was the matter with a patient. I once told him about this.

"Why," he replied, with, I must say, some slight disrespect for his

senior, "you often do that yourself. You said this very morning that it

took you twenty minutes to make up your mind whether to treat Job

Sampson's wife for scarlet fever or for diphtheria!"

"Yes," I retorted, "I told you so, but I didn't stand agape all the time

I was thinking it out. I took the temperature of the woman's armpits,

and the back of her neck, and between her toes. I asked her about her

breakfast, and her dinner, and her supper of the day before. Then I

took a turn at her sleeping powers, and whether she had been eating too

many vegetables lately. I inquired if she had had the measles, and the

whooping-cough, and how often she had been vaccinated. I was just going

to begin on her father, mother, and collateral relatives in order to

trace hereditary tendencies, when I made up my mind that it would be

safest to treat the woman for scarlet fever."

"Yes," said Peterson, drily, "Job was praising you up to the skies this

very day. 'There never was sic a careful doctor,' he swears; 'there

wasna a blessed thing that he didna speer into, even unto the third and

fourth generation.'"

"There, you hear, Peterson," I said, with sober triumph, "that is the

first step in your profession. You must create confidence. Never let

them think for a moment you don't know everything. Why, old Ned Harper

sent for me to-day--said you didn't understand the case, because you

declined to prescribe."

"He is malingering," cried Peterson, hotly; "he only wants to draw full

pay out of his two benefit societies. The man is a fraud, open and

patent. I wouldn't have anything to do with him."

"Now, Peterson," I said, very seriously, "once for all, this is my

practice, 'not yours. You are my salaried assistant. That is what you

have to attend to. You are not revising auditor of the local benefit

societies. If you do as you did with old Harper a time or two, you will

lose me my appointment as Society's doctor, and not that one appointment

alone. They all follow each other like a flock of sheep jumping through

a slap in a dyke. Besides, the Benefit Society officials don't thank

you, not a bit! They expect Harper to do as much for them the next time

they feel like taking a holiday between the sheets!"

"What would you do then?" cried this furious young apostle of

righteousness. "You surely would not have me become art and part in a

swindle."