Produced by Al Haines. *THE* *STICKIT MINISTERâS WOOING* *AND OTHER GALLOWAY STORIES* By *S. R. CROCKETT* LONDON HODDER AND STOUGHTON PATERNOSTER ROW MCM _Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._ _To The Well-Beloved Memory of_ _R. L. S._ _to whom, eight years ago, I dedicated the first series of the "Stickit Minister" stories_ Eight years ago "The Stickit Minister" stood friendless without the door of letters. He knew no one within, and feared greatly lest no hand of welcome should be held out to him from those already within, so that, being encouraged, he too might pluck up heart of grace to enter. Yet when the time came, the Stickit One found not one, but two right hands outstretched to greet him, which, after all, is as many as any man may grasp at once. One was reached out to me from far-away Samoa. The other belonged to a man whom, at that time, I knew only as one of the most thoughtful, sympathetic, and brilliant of London journalists, but who has since become my friend, and at whose instance, indeed, this Second Series of "The Stickit Minister" stories has been written. To these two men, the London man of letters and the Samoan exile, I owe the first and greatest of an authorâs literary debtsâthat of a first encouragement. They were both men I had never seen; and neither was under any obligation to help me. Concerning the former, still strenuously and gallantly at work among us, I will in this place say nothing further. But, after having kept silence for eight years lest I should appear as one that vaunted himself, I may be permitted a word of that other who sleeps under the green tangle of Vaea Mountain. Mr. Stevenson and I had been in occasional communication since about the year 1886, when, in a small volume of verse issued during the early part of that year, the fragment of a "Transcript from the Song of Songs, which is Solomonâs," chanced to attract his attention. He wrote immediately, with that beautiful natural generosity of appreciation of his, to ask the author to finish his translation in verse, and to proceed to other dramatic passages, some of which, chiefly from Isaiah and Job, he specified. I remember that "When the morning stars sang together" was one of those indicated, and "O, thou afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted," another. "I have tried my hand at them myself," he added kindly; "but they were not so good as your Shulamite." After this he made me more than once the channel of his practical charity to certain poor miner folk, whom disaster had rendered homeless and penniless on the outskirts of his beloved Glencorse. A year or two afterwards, having in the intervals of other work written down certain countryside stories, which managed to struggle into print in rather obscure corners, I collected these into a volume, under the title of "The Stickit Minister and Some Common Men." Then after the volume was through the press, in a sudden gulp of venturesomeness I penned a dedication. TO Robert Louis Stevenson OF SCOTLAND AND SAMOA, I DEDICATE THESE STORIES OF THAT GREY GALLOWAY LAND WHERE ABOUT THE GRAVES OF THE MARTYRS THE WHAUPS ARE CRYINGâ HIS HEART REMEMBERS HOW. Still much fearing and trembling, how needlessly I guessed not then, I packed up and despatched a copy to Samoa. Whereupon, after due interval, there came back to these shores a letterâthe sense of which reached me deviouslyânot to myself but to his friend, Mr. Sidney Colvin. "If I could only be buried in the hills, under the heather, and a table tombstone like the martyrs; âwhere the whaups and plovers are crying!â Did you see a man who wrote âThe Stickit Minister,â and dedicated it to me, in words that brought the tears to my eyes every time I looked at them? âWhere about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are cryingâhis heart remembers how.â Ah, by God, it does! Singular that I should fulfil the Scots destiny throughout, and live a voluntary exile and have my head filled with the blessed, beastly place all the time!" To another friend he added some criticism of the book. "Some of the tales seem to me a trifle light, and one, at least, is too slender and fantasticâqualities that rarely mingle well." (How oft in the stilly night have I wondered which one he meant!) "But the whole book breathes admirably of the soil. âThe Stickit Minister,â âThe Heather Lintie,â are two that appeal to me particularly. They are drowned in Scotland. They have refreshed me like a visit home. âCleg Kellyâ also is a delightful fellow. I have enjoyed his acquaintance particularly." Curiously enough, it was not from Samoa, but from Honolulu, that I first received tidings that my little volume had not miscarried. It was quite characteristic of Mr. Stevenson not to answer at once: "I let my letters accumulate till I am leaving a place," he said to me more than once; "then I lock myself in with them, and my cries of penitence can be heard a mile!" In a San Francisco paper there appeared a report of a speech he had made to some kindly Scots who entertained him in Honolulu, In it he spoke affectionately of "The Stickit Minister." I have, alas! lost the reference now, but at the time it took me by the throat. I could not get over the sheer kindness of the thing. Then came a letter and a poem, both very precious to me: "Thank you from my heart, and see with what dull pedantry I have been tempted to extend your beautiful phrase of prose into three indifferent stanzas: "Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying; Blows the wind on the moors to-day, and now, Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are cryingâ My heart remembers how! Grey recumbent tombs of the dead in desert places, Standing Stones on the vacant, wine-red moor; Hills of sheep, and the howes of the silent vanished races, And winds austere and pure! Be it granted me to behold you again in dying, Hills of home! and to hear again the callâ Hear about the graves of the martyrs the pee-wees crying, And hear no more at all." To me, in the all too brief days that remained to him, he wrote letter after letter of criticism, encouragement, and praise (in which last, as was his wont, he let his kind heart run far ahead of his judgment). It goes to my heart now not to quote from these, for they are in some wise my poor patent of nobility. But, perhaps with more wisdom, I keep them by me, to hearten myself withal when the days of darkness grow too many and too dark. So much for bush to this second draught of countryside vintageâthe more easily forgiven that it tells of the generosity of a dead man whom I loved. But and if in any fields Elysian or grey twilight of shades, I chance to meet with Robert Louis Stevenson, I know that I shall find him in act to help over some ghostly stile, the halt, the maimed, and the faint of heartâ-even as in these late earthly years he did for meâand for many another. S. R. CROCKETT. *CONTENTS* I. THE STICKIT MINISTERâS WOOING II. THE STICKIT MINISTER WINS THROUGH III. GIBBY THE EEL, STUDENT IN DIVINITY IV. DR. GIRNIGOâS ASSISTANT V. THE GATE OF THE UPPER GARDEN VI. THE TROUBLER OF ISRAEL VII. CARNATIONâS MORNING JOY VIII. JAIMSIE IX. BEADLE AND MARTYR X. THE BLUE EYES OF AILIE XI. LOWEâS SEAT XII. THE SUIT OF BOTTLE GREEN XIII. A SCIENTIFIC SYMPOSIUM XIV. THE HEMPIEâS LOVE STORY XV. THE LITTLE FAIR MANâ I.âSEED SOWN BY THE WAYSIDE II.âTHE HUMBLING OF STRENGTH-Oâ-AIRM III.âTHE CURATE OF KIRKCHRIST XVI. MY FATHERâS LOVE STORY XVII. THE MAN OF WRATH XVIII. THE LASS IN THE SHOP XIX. THE RESPECT OF DROWDLE XX. TADMOR IN THE WILDERNESS XXI. PETERSONâS PATIENT XXII. TWO HUMOURISTS *THE STICKIT MINISTERâS WOOING[#]* [#] These stories have been edited chiefly from manuscripts supplied to me by my friend Mr. Alexander McQuhirr, M.D., of Cairn Edward in Galloway, of whose personal adventures I treated in the volume called "Ladâs Love," I have let my friend tell his tale in his own way in almost every case. It was in the second year of my college life thai I came home to find Robert Fraser, whom a whole country-side called the "Stickit Minister," distinctly worse, and indeed, set down upon his great chair in the corner as on a place from which he would never rise. A dour, grippy back-end it was, the soil stubborn and untoward with early frost. And a strange sound it was to hear as I (Alexander McQuhirr) came down the Lang Brae, the channel stones droning and dinnelling on the ice by the third of November; a thing which had not happened in our parts since that fell year of the Sixteen Drifty Days, which has been so greatly talked about. I walked over to the Dullarg the very night I arrived from Edinburgh. I had a new volume of Tennyson with me, which I had bought with the thought that he would be pleased with it. For I loved Robert Fraser, and I will not deny that my heart beat with expectation as I went up the little loaning with the rough stone dyke upon either sideâaye, as if it had been the way to Nether Neuk, and I going to see my sweetheart. "Come your ways in, Alec, man," his voice came from the inner room, as he heard me pause to exchange banter of a rural sort with the servant lasses in the kitchen; "I have been waitinâ for ye. I kenned ye wad come the nicht!" I went in. And there by the little peat fire, drowsing red and looking strangely out of place behind the ribs of the black-leaded "register" grate, I saw the Stickit Minister with a black-and-white check plaid about his knees. He smiled a strange sweet smile, at once wistful and distant, as I enteredâlike one who waves farewell through a mist of tears as the pier slides back and the sundering water seethes and widens about the ship. "You are better, Robert!" I said, smiling too. Dully, and yet with dogged cheerfulness, I said it, as men lie to the dyingâand are not believed. He stretched out his thin hand, the ploughmanâs horn clean gone from it, and the veins blue and convex upon the shrunk wrist. "_Ave atque vale_, Alec, lad!" he answered. "That is what it has come to with Robert Fraser. But how are all at Drumquhat? Ye will be on your road ower to the Nether Neuk?" This he said, though he knew different. "I have brought you this from Edinburgh," I said, giving him the little, thin, green volume of Tennyson. I had cut it to save him trouble, and written his name on the blank page before the title. I shall never forget the way he looked at it. He opened it as a woman unfolds a new and costly garment, with a lingering caress of the wasted finger-tips through which I could almost see the white of the paper, and a slow soft intake of the breath, like a loverâs sigh. His eyes, of old blue and clear, had now a kind of glaze over them, a veiling Indian summer mist through which, however, still shone, all undimmed and fearless, the light of the simplest and manfulest spirit I have ever known. He turned the leaves and read a verse here and there with evident pleasure. He had a way of reading anything he loved as it listening inly to the cadencesâa little half-turn of the head aside, and a still contented smile hovering about the lips, like one who catches the first returning fall of beloved footsteps. But all at once Robert Fraser shut the book and let his hands sink wearily down upon his knee. He did not look at me, but kept his eyes on the red peat ash in the "register" grate. "Itâs bonnie," he murmured softly; "and it was a kind thing for you to think on me. But itâs gane frae me, Alecâitâs aâ clean gane. Takâ you the book, Alec. The birdies will never sing again in ony spring for me to hear. Iâm back upon the Word, Alec. Thereâs nocht but That for me noo!" He laid his hand on a Bible that was open beside him on the stand which held his medicine bottles, and a stocking at which his wearied fingers occasionally knitted for a moment or two at a time. Then he gave the little green-clad Tennyson back to me with so motherly and lingering a regard that, had I not turned away, I declare I know not but that I had been clean done for. "Yet for aâ that, Alec," he said, "do you take the book for my sake. And seeâcut out the leaf ye hae written on and let me keep it here beside me." I did as he asked me, and with the leaf in his hand he turned over the pages of his Bible carefully, like a minister looking for a text. He stopped at a yellowing envelope, as if uncertain whether to deposit the inscription in it. Then he lifted the stamped oblong and handed it to me with a kind of smile. "There, Alec," he said, "you that has (so they tell me) a sweetheart oâ your ain, ye will like to see that. This is the envelope that held the letter I gat frae Jessie Loudonâthe nicht Sir James telled me at the Infirmary that my days were numbered!" "Oh, Robert!" I cried, all ashamed that he should speak thus to a young man like me, "dinna think oâ that. You will excite yourselfâyou may do yourself a hurtââ" But he waved me away, still smiling that slow misty smile, in which, strangely enough, there was yet some of the humoursomeness of one who sees a situation from the outside. "Na, Alec, lad," he said, softly, "thatâs gane too. Upon a dark day I made a pact wiâ my Maker, and now the covenanted price is nearly paid. _His_ messenger wiâ the discharge is already on the road. I never hear a hand on the latch, but I look up to see Him enterâaye, and He shall be welcome, welcome as the bridegroom that enters into the Belovedâs chamber!" I covered my brows with my palm, and pretended to look at the handwriting on the envelope, which was delicate and feminine. The Stickit Minister went on. "Aye, Alec," he said, meditatively, with his eyes still on the red glow, "ye think that ye love the lass ye hae set your heart on; and doubtless ye do love her truly. But I pray God that there may never come a day when ye shall have spoken the last sundering word, and returned her the written sheets faithfully every one. Ye hae heard the story, Alec. I will not hurt your young heart by telling it again. But I spared Jessie Loudon all I could, and showed her that she must not mate her young life with one no better than dead!" The Stickit Minister was silent a long time here. Doubtless old faces looked at him clear out of the red spaces of the fire. And when he began to speak again, it was in an altered voice. "Nevertheless, because power was given me, I pled with, and in some measure comforted her. For though the lassieâs heart was set on me, it was as a bairnâs heart is set, not like the heart of a woman; and for that I praise the Lordâyes, I give thanks to His name! "Then after that I came back to an empty houseâand this!" He caressed the faded envelope lovingly, as a miser his intimatest treasure. "I did not mean to keep it, Alec," he went on presently, "but I am glad I did. It has been a comfort to me; and through all these years it has rested there where ye see itâupon the chapter where God answers Job out of the whirlwind. Ye ken yon great words." We heard a slight noise in the yard, the wheels of some light vehicle driven quickly. The Stickit Minister started a little, and when I looked at him again I saw that the red spot, the size of a crown-piece, which burned so steadfastly on his check-bone had spread till now it covered his brow. Then we listened, breathless, like men that wait for a marvel, and through the hush the peats on the grate suddenly fell inward with a startling sound, bringing my heart into my mouth. Next we heard a voice without, loud and a little thick, in heated debate. "Thank God!" cried the Stickit Minister, fervently. "Itâs Henryâmy dear brother! For a moment I feared it had been Lawyer Johnston from Cairn Edward. You know," he added, smiling with all his old swift gladsomeness, "I am now but a tenant at will. I sit here in the Dullarg on sufferanceâthat once was the laird of acre and onstead!" He raised his voice to carry through the door into the kitchen. "Henry, Henry, this is kindâkind of youâto come so far to see me on such a night!" The Stickit Minister was on his feet by this time, and if I had thought that his glance had been warm and motherly for me, it was fairly on fire with affection now. I believe that Robert Fraser once loved his betrothed faithfully and well; but never will I believe that he loved woman born of woman as he loved his younger brother. And that is, perhaps, why these things fell out so. * * * * * I had not seen Henry Fraser since the first year he had come to Cairn Edward. A handsome young man he was then, with a short, supercilious upper lip, and crisply curling hair of a fair colour disposed in masses about his brow. He entered, and at the first glimpse of him I stood astonished. His pale studentâs face had grown red and a trifle mottled. The lids of his blue eyes (the blue of his brotherâs) were injected. His mouth was loose and restless under a heavy moustache, and when he began to speak his voice came from him thick and throaty. "I wonder you do not keep your people in better order, Robert," he said, before he was fairly within the door of the little sitting-room. "First I drove right into a farm-cart that had been left in the middle of the yard, and then nearly broke my shins over a pail some careless slut of a byre-lass had thrown down at the kitchen-door." Robert Fraser had been standing up with the glad and eager look on his face. I think he had half stretched out his hand; but at his brotherâs querulous words he sank slowly back into his chair, and the grey tiredness slipped into his face almost as quickly as it had disappeared. "I am sorry, Henry," he said, simply. "Somehow I do not seem to get about so readily as I did, and I daresay the lads and lasses take some advantage." "They would not take advantage with me, I can tell you!" cried the young doctor, throwing down his driving-cape on the corner of the old sofa, and pulling a chair in to the fire. He bent forward and chafed his hands before the glowing peats, and as he did so I could see by a slight lurch and quick recovery that he had been drinking. I wondered if Robert Fraser noticed. Then he leaned back and looked at the Stickit Minister. "Well, Robert, how do you find yourself to-night? Better, eh?" he said, speaking in his professional voice. His brotherâs face flushed again with the same swift pleasure, very pitiful to see. "It is kind of you to ask," he said; "I think I do feel a betterness, Henry. The cough has certainly been less troublesome this last day or two." "I suppose there are no better prospects about the property," said Dr. Fraser, passing from the medical question with no more than the words I have written down. I had already risen, and, with a muttered excuse, was passing into the outer kitchen, that I might leave the brothers alone. So I did not hear Robert Fraserâs reply, but as I closed the door I caught the youngerâs loud retort: "I tell you what it is, Robertâsay what you willâI have not been fairly dealt with in this matterâI have been swindled!" So I went out with my heart heavy within me for my friend, and though Bell Gregory, the bonniest of the farm lasses, ostentatiously drew her skirts aside and left a vacant place beside her in the ingle-nook, I shook my head and kept on my way to the door with rib more than a smile and "Anither nicht, Bell." "Gie my love to Nance ower at the Nether Neuk," she cried back, with challenge in her tone, as I went out. But even Nance Chrystie was not in my thoughts that night. I stepped out, passing in front of the straw-thatched bee-hives which, with the indrawing days, had lost their sour-sweet summer smell, and so on into the loaning. From the foot of the little brae I looked back at the lights burning so warmly and steadily from the low windows of the Dullarg, and my mind went over all my father had told me of what the Stickit Minister had done for his brother: how he had broken off his own college career that Henry might go through his medical classes with ease and credit; and how, in spite of his brotherâs rank ingratitude, he had bonded his little property in order to buy him old Dr. Aitkinâs practice in Cairn Edward. Standing thus and thinking under the beeches at the foot of the dark loaning, it gave me quite a start to find a figure close beside me. It was a woman with a shawl over her head, as is the habit of the cottersâ wives in our parish. "Tell me," a voice, eager and hurried, panted almost in my ear, "is Dr. Fraser of Cairn Edward up there?" "Yes," I said in reply, involuntarily drawing back a stepâthe woman was so near meâ"he is this moment with his brother." "Then for Godâs sake will ye gang up and tell him to come this instant to the Earmark cothouses. There are twa bairns there that are no like to see the morninâ licht if he doesna!" "But who may you be?" I said, for I did not want to return to the Dullarg. "And why do you not go in and tell him for yourself? You can give him the particulars of the case better than I!" She gave a little shivering moan. "I canna gang in there!" she said, clasping her hands piteously; "I darena. Not though I am Gilbert Harbourâs wifeâand the bairnsâ mither. Oh, sir, rin!" And I ran. But when I had knocked and delivered my message, to my great surprise Dr. Henry Fraser received it very coolly. "They are only some cotter people," he said, "they must just wait till I am on my way back from the village. I will look in then. Robert, it is a cold night, let me have some whisky before I get into that ice-box of a gig again." The Stickit Minister turned towards the wall-press where ever since his motherâs day the "guardevin," or little rack of cut-glass decanters, had stood, always hospitably full but quite untouched by the master of the house. I was still standing uncertainly by the door-cheek, and as Robert Fraser stepped across the little room I saw him stagger; and rushed forward to catch him. But ere I could reach him he had commanded himself, and turned to me with a smile on his lips. Yet even his brother was struck by the ashen look on his face. "Sit down, Robert," he said, "I will help myself." But with a great effort the Stickit Minister set the tall narrow dram-glass on the table and ceremoniously filled out to his brother the strangerâs "portion," as was once the duty of country hospitality in Scotland. But the Doctor interrupted. "Oh, I say!" he exclaimed, when he saw what his brother was doing, "for heavenâs sake not that thingâgive me a tumbler." And without further ceremony he went to the cupboard; then he cried to Bell Gregory to fetch him some hot water, and mixed himself a steaming glass. But the Stickit Minister did not sit down. He stood up by the mantelpiece all trembling. I noted particularly that his fingers spilled half the contents of the dram-glass as he tried to pour them back into the decanter. "Oh, haste ye, Henry!" he said, with a pleading anxiety in his voice I had never heard there in any trouble of his own; "take up your drink and drive as fast as ye can to succour the poor womanâs bairns. It is not for nothing that she would come here seeking you at this time of night!" His brother laughed easily as he reseated himself and drew the tumbler nearer to his elbow. "Thatâs all you know, Robert," he said; "why, they come all the way to Cairn Edward after me if their little finger aches, let alone over here. I daresay some of the brats have got the mumps, and the mother saw me as I drove past. No, indeedâshe and they must just wait till I get through my business at Whinnyliggate!" "I ask you, Henry," said his brother eagerly, "do this for my sake; it is not often that I ask you anythingânor will I have long time now wherein to ask!" "Well," grumbled the young doctor, rising and finishing the toddy as he stood, "I suppose I must, if you make a point of it. But I will just look in at Whinnyliggate on my way across. Earmark is a good two miles on my way home!" "Thank you, Henry," said Robert Fraser, "I will not forget this kindness to me!" With a brusque nod Dr. Henry Fraser strode out through the kitchen, among whose merry groups his comings and goings always created a certain hush of awe. In a few minutes more we could hear the clear clatter of the horseâs shod feet on the hard "macadam" as he turned out of the soft sandy loaning into the main road. The Stickit Minister sank back into his chair. "Thank God!" he said, with a quick intake of breath almost like a sob. I looked down at him in surprise. "Robert, why are you so troubled about this womanâs bairns?" I asked. He did not answer for a while, lying fallen in upon himself in his great armchair of worn horse-hair, as if the strain had been too great for his weak body. When he did reply it was in a curiously far-away voice like a man speaking in a dream. "They are Jessie Loudonâs bairns," he said, "and aâ the comfort she has in life!" I sat down on the hearthrug beside himâa habit I had when we were alone together. It was thus that I used to read Homer and Horace to him in the long winter forenights, and wrangle for happy hours over a construction or the turning of a phrase in the translation. So now I simply sat and was silent, touching his knee lightly with my shoulder. I knew that in time he would tell me all he wished me to hear. The old eight-day clock in the corner (with "_John Grey, Kilmaurs, 1791_" in italics across the brass face of it), ticked on interminably through ten minutes, and I heard the feet of the men come in from suppering the horse, before Robert said another word. Then he spoke: "Alec," he said, very quietlyâhe could hardly say or do anything otherwise (or rather I thought so before that night). "I have this on my spiritâit is heavy like a load. When I broke it to Jessie Loudon that I could never marry her, as I told you, I did not tell you that she took it hard and high, speaking bitter words that are best forgotten. And then in a week or two she married Gib Barbour, a good-for-nothing, good-looking young ploughman, a great don at parish dancesâno meet mate for her. And that I count the heaviest part of my punishment. "And since that day I have not passed word or salutation with Jessie Loudonâthat is, with Jessie Barbour. But on a Sabbath day, just before I was laid down last yearâa bonnie day in JuneâI met her as I passed though a bourock fresh with the gowden broom, and the âshilfiesâ and Jennie Wrens singing on every brier. I had been lookinâ for a sheep that had broken bounds. And there she sat wiâ a youngling on ilka knee. There passed but ae blink oâ the eâen between usâane and nae mair. But oh, Alec, as I am a sinful manâmarried wife though she was, I kenned that she loved me, and she kenned that I loved her wiâ the love that has nae ending!" There was a long pause here, and the clock struck with a long preparatory _g-r-r-r_, as if it were clearing its throat in order to apologise for the coming interruption. "And that," said Robert Fraser, "was the reason why Jessie Loudon would not come up to the Dullarg this nichtâno, not even for her bairnsâ sake!" *THE STICKIT MINISTER WINS THROUGH* Yet Jessie Loudon did come to the Dullarg that nightâand that for her childrenâs sake. Strangely enough, in writing of an evening so fruitful in incident, I cannot for the life of me remember what happened during the next two hours. The lads and lasses came in for the "Taking of the Book." So much I do recall. But that was an exercise never omitted on any pretext in the house of the ex-divinity student. I remember this also, because after the brief prelude of the psalm-singing (it was the 103rd), the Stickit Minister pushed the Bible across to me, open at the thirty-eighth chapter of Job. The envelope was still there. Though it was turned sideways I could see the faintly written address: _MR. ROBERT FRASER,_ _Student in Divinity,_ _50, St. Leonardâs Street,_ _Edinburgh._ Even as I looked I seemed to hear again the womanâs voice in the dark loaningâ"I canna gang in _there_!" And in a lightning flash of illumination it came to me what the answer to that letter had meant to Jessie Loudon, and the knowledge somehow made me older and sadder. Then with a shaking voice I read the mighty words before me: "When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy".... But when I came to the verse which says: "Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? Or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?" I saw the Stickit Minister nod his head three times very slightly, and a strange subtle smile came over his face as though he could have answered: "Yea, Lord, verily I have seen themâthey have been opened to me!" And as the lads and lasses filed out in a kind of wondering silence after Robert Fraser had prayedânot kneeling down, but sitting erect in his chair and looking out before him with wide-open eyesâwe in the little sitting-room became conscious of a low knocking, persistent and remote, somewhere about the house of Dullarg. We could hear Bell Gregory open and then immediately close the kitchen door, having evidently found no one there. The knocking still continued. "I believe it is somebody at the front door," I said, turning in that direction. And then the Stickit Minister cried out in a curious excited voice: "Open to themâopen, Alec! Quick, man!" And his voice went through me with a kind of thrill, for I knew not who it was he expected to enter, whether sheriffâs officer or angry creditorâor as it might be the Angel of the Presence Himself come to summon his soul to follow. Nevertheless, with quaking heart enough, and resolving in future to be a more religious man, I made bold to undo the door. The woman I had seen in the lane stood before me, as it were, projected out of the dense darkness behind, her shawl fallen back from her face, and her features all pale and changeful in the flicker of the candle I had snatched up to take with me into the little hall. For the front door was only used on state occasions, as when the parish minister came to call, and at funerals. "He has not comeâand the bairns are dying! So I had to come back!" she cried, more hoarsely and breathlessly than I had ever heard woman speak. But her eyes fairly blazed and her lips were parted wide for my answer. "Dr. Fraser left here more than an hour ago," I stammered. "Has he not been to see the children?" "Noâno, I tell you, no. And they are chokingâdyingâit is the trouble in the throat. They will die if he does not comeââ" I heard a noise behind me, and the next moment I found myself put aside like a child, and Robert Fraser stood face to face with her that had been Jessie Loudon. "Come in," he said. And when she drew back from him with a kind of shudder, and felt uncertainly for her shawl, he stepped aside and motioned her to enter with a certain large and commanding gesture I had never seen him use before. And as if accustomed to obey, the woman came slowly within the lighted room. Even then, however, she would not sit down, but stood facing us both, a girl prematurely old, her lips nearly as pale as her worn cheeks, her blown hair disordered and wispy about her forehead, and only the dark and tragic flashing of her splendid eyes telling of a bygone beauty. The Stickit Minister stood up also, and as he leaned his hand upon the table, I noticed that he gently shut the Bible which I had left open, that the womanâs eye might not fall upon the faded envelope which marked the thirty-eighth of Job. "Do I understand you to say," he began, in a voice clear, resonant, and full, not at all the voice of a stricken man, "that my brother has not yet visited your children?" "He had not come when I ran outâthey are much worseâdying, I think!" she answered, also in another voice and another mode of speechâyet a little stiffly, as if the more correct method had grown unfamiliar by disuse. For almost the only time in his life I saw a look, stern and hard, come over the countenance of the Stickit Minister. "Go home, Jessie," he said; "I will see that he is there as fast as horses can bring him!" She hesitated a moment. "Is he not here?" she faltered. "Oh, tell me if he isâI meant to fetch him back. I dare not go back without him!" The Stickit Minister went to the door with firm step, the woman following without question or argument. "Fear not, but go, Jessie," he said; "my brother is not here, but he will be at the bairnsâ bedside almost as soon as you. I promise you." "Thank you, Robin," she stammered, adjusting the shawl over her head and instantly disappearing into the darkness. The old sweethearting name had risen unconsciously to her lips in the hour of her utmost need. I think neither of them noticed it. "And now help me on with my coat," said Robert Fraser, turning to me. "I am going over to the village." "You must not," I cried, taking him by the arm; "let _me_ goâlet me put in the pony; I will be there in ten minutes!" "I have no pony now," he said gently and a little sadly, "I have no need of one. And besides, the quickest way is across the fields." It was true. The nearest way to the village, by a great deal, was by a narrow foot-track that wound across the meadows. But, fearing for his life, I still tried to prevent him. "It will be your death!" I said, endeavouring to keep him back. "Let me go alone!" "If Henry is where I fear he is," he answered, calmly, "he would not stir for you. But he will for me. And besides, I have passed my word toâto Jessie!" The details of that terrible night journey I will not enter upon. It is sufficient to say that I bade him lean on me, and go slowly, but do what I would I could not keep him back. Indeed, he went faster than I could accompany himâfor, in order to support him a little, I had to walk unevenly along the ragged edges of the little field-path. All was dark gray above, beneath, and to the right of us. Only on the left hand a rough whinstone dyke stood up solidly black against the monotone of the sky. The wind came in cold swirls, with now and then a fleck of snow that stung the face like hail. I had insisted on the Stickit Minister taking his plaid about him in addition to his overcoat, and the ends of it flicking into my eyes increased the difficulty. I have hardly ever been so thankful in my life, as when at last I saw the lights of the village gleam across the little bridge, as we emerged from the water-meadows and felt our feet firm themselves on the turnpike road. From that point the Stickit Minister went faster than ever. Indeed, he rushed forward, in spite of my restraining arm, with some remaining flicker of the vigour which in youth had made him first on the hillside at the fox-hunt and first on the haystacks upon the great day of the inbringing of the winterâs fodder. It seemed hardly a moment before we were at the door of the innâthe Red Lion the name of it, at that time in the possession of one "Jeems" Carter. Yes, Henry Fraser was there. His horse was tethered to an iron ring which was fixed in the whitewashed wall, and his voice could be heard at that very moment leading a rollicking chorus. Then I remembered. It was a "Croniesâ" night. This was a kind of informal club recruited from the more jovial of the younger horsebreeding farmers of the neighbourhood. It included the local "vet.," a bonnet laird or two grown lonesome and thirsty by prolonged residence upon the edges of the hills, and was on all occasions proud and glad to welcome a guest so distinguished and popular as the young doctor of Cairn Edward. "Loose the beast and be ready to hand me the reins when I come out!" commanded the Stickit Minister, squaring his stooped shoulders like the leader of a forlorn hope. So thus it happened that I did not see with my own eyes what happened when Robert Fraser opened the door of the "Croniesâ" club-room. But I have heard it so often recounted that I know as well as if I had seen. It was the Laird of Butterhole who told me, and he always said that it made a sober man of him from that day forth. It was (he said) like Lazarus looking out of the sepulchre after they had rolled away the stone. Suddenly in the midst of their jovial chorus some one said "_Hush_!"âsome one of themselvesâand instinctively all turned towards the door. And lo! there in the doorway, framed in the outer dark, his broad blue bonnet in his hand, his checked plaid waving back from his shoulders, stood a man, pale as if he had come to them up through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. With a hand white as bone, he beckoned to his brother, who stood with his hands on the table smiling and swaying a little with tipsy gravity. "Why, Robert, what are you doing hereââ?" he was beginning. But the Stickit Minister broke in. "Come!" he said, sternly and coldly, "the children you have neglected are dyingâif they die through your carelessness you will be their murderer!" And to the surprise of all, the tall and florid younger brother quailed before the eye of this austere shade. "Yes, I will come, RobertâI was coming in a moment anyway!" And so the Stickit Minister led him out. There was no great merriment after that in the "Croniesâ" club that night. The members conferred chiefly in whispers, and presently emptying their glasses, they stole away home. But no mortal knows what Robert Fraser said to his brother during that driveâsomething mightily sobering at all events. For when the two reached the small cluster of cothouses lying under the lee of Earmark wood, the young man, though not trusting himself to articulate speech, and somewhat over-tremulous of hand, was yet in other respects completely master of himself. I was not present at the arrival, just as I had not seen the startling apparition which broke up the "Croniesâ" club. The doctorâs gig held only two, and as soon as I handed Robert Fraser the reins, the beast sprang forward. But I was limber and a good runner in those days, and though the gray did his best I was not far behind. There is no ceremony at such a house in time of sickness. The door stood open to the wall. A bright light streamed through and revealed the inequalities of the little apron of causewayed cobblestones. I entered and saw Henry Fraser bending over a bed on which a bairn was lying. Robert held a candle at his elbow. The mother paced restlessly to and fro with another child in her arms. I could see the doctor touch again and again the back of the little girlâs throat with a brush which he continually replenished from a phial in his left hand. Upon the other side of the hearthstone from the childâs bed a strong country lout sat, sullenly "becking" his darned stocking feet at the clear embers of the fire. Then the mother laid the first child on the opposite bed, and turned to where the doctor was still operating. Suddenly Henry Fraser stood erect. There was not a trace of dissipation about him now. The tradition of his guild was as a mantle of dignity about him. "It is all right," he said as he took his brotherâs hand in a long clasp. "Thank you, Robert, thank you a thousand timesâthat you brought me here in time!" "Nay, rather, thank God!" said Robert Fraser, solemnly. And even as he stood there the Stickit Minister swayed sidelong, but the next moment he had recovered himself with a hand on the bed-post. Then very swiftly he drew a handkerchief from his pocket and set it to his lips. His brother and I went towards him with a quick apprehension. But the Stickit Minister turned from us both to the woman, who took two swift steps towards him with her arms outstretched, and such a yearning of love on her face as I never saw before or since. The sullen lout by the fire, drowsed on unheeding. "_Jessie!_" cried the Stickit Minister, and with that fell into her arms. She held him there a long moment as it had been jealously, her head bent down upon his. Then she delivered him up to me, slowly and reluctantly. Henry Fraser put his hand on his heart and gave a great sob. "My brother is dead!" he said. But Jessie Loudon did not utter a word. *GIBBY THE EEL, STUDENT IN DIVINITY* Naturalists have often remarked how little resemblance there is between the young of certain animals and the adult specimen. Yonder tottering quadrangular arrangement of chewed string, remotely and inadequately connected at the upper corners, is certainly the young of the horse. But it does not even remotely suggest the war-horse sniffing up the battle from afar. This irregular yellow ball of feathers, with the steel-blue mask set beneath its half-opened eyelids, is most ridiculously unlike the magnificent eagle, which (in books) stares unblinded into the very eye of the noonday sun. In like manner the young of the learned professions are by no means like the full-fledged expert of the mysteries. If in such cases the child is the father of the man, the parentage is by no means apparent. To how many medical students would you willingly entrust the application of one square inch of sticking-plaster to a cut finger, or the care of a half-guinea umbrella? What surgeon would you not, in an emergency, trust with all you hold dear? You may cherish preferences and even prejudices, but as a whole the repute of the profession is above cavil. There is, perhaps, more continuity above the legal profession, but even there it is a notable fact that the older and more successful a lawyer is, the more modest you find him, and the more diffident of his own infallibility. Indeed, several of the most eminent judges are in this matter quite as other men. But of all others, the divinity student is perhaps the most misunderstood. He is wilfully misrepresented by those who ought to know him best. Nay, he misrepresents himself, and when he doffs tweeds and takes to collars which fasten behind and a long-skirted clerical coat, he is apt to disown his past self; and often succeeds in persuading himself that as he is now, diligent, sedate, zealous of good works, so was he ever. Only sometimes, when he has got his Sunday sermons off his mind and two or three of the augurs are gathered together, will the adult clerk in holy orders venture to lift the veil and chew the cud of ancient jest and prank not wholly sanctified. Now there ought to be room, in a gallery which contains so many portraits of ministers, for one or two Students of Divinity, faithfully portrayed.[#] [#] These studies I wrote down during certain winters, when, to please my mother, I made a futile attempt to prepare myself "to wag my head in a pulpit." Saving a certain prolixity of statement (which the ill-affected call long-windedness), they were all I carried away with me when I resolved to devote myself to the medical profession.âA. McQ. And of these the first and chief is Mr. Gilbert Denholm, Master of Arts, Scholar in Theologyâto his class-fellows more colloquially and generally known as "Gibby the Eel." At college we all loved Gilbert. He was a merry-hearted youth, and his mere bodily presence was enough to make glad the countenances of his friends. His father was a minister in the West with a large family to bring up, which he effected with success upon a stipend of surprising tenuity. So it behoved Gilbert to keep himself at college by means of scholarships and private tuition. His pupils had a lively time of it. Yet his only fault obvious to the world was a certain light-headed but winsome gaiety, and a tendency to jokes of the practical kind. I used often to restrain Gilbertâs ardour by telling him that if he did not behave himself and walk more seemly, he would get his bursary taken from him by the Senatus. This would recall Gilbert to himself when almost everything else had failed. Part of Gilbertâs personal equipment was the certain lithe slimness of figure which gained him the title of "Gibby the Eel," and enabled him to practise many amusing pranks in the class-room. He would have made an exceptionally fine burglar, for few holes were too small and no window too secure for Gilbert to make his exits and entrances by. Without going so far as to say that he could wriggle himself through an ordinary keyhole, I will affirm that if anybody ever could, that person was Gilbert Denholm. One of the most ordinary of his habits was that of wandering here and there throughout the classroom during the hour of lecture, presuming upon the professorâs purblindness or lack of attention. You would be sitting calmly writing a letter, drawing caricatures in your note-book, or otherwise improving your mind with the most laudable imitation of attention, when suddenly, out of
{'title': "The Stickit Minister's Wooing, and Other Galloway Stories by S. R. Crockett", 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}