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Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers

by Ian Maclaren · English · Gutenberg #20399 · 544,007 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers

Author: Ian Maclaren


        
Release date: January 19, 2007 [eBook #20399]
                Most recently updated: January 1, 2021

Language: English

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KATE CARNEGIE AND THOSE MINISTERS.

by

IAN MACLAREN.







Toronto:
Fleming H. Revell Company,
140-142 Yonge Street.
1896.
Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada,
in the year 1896, by Hodder & Stoughton,
at the Department of Agriculture.




TO

A CERTAIN BROTHERHOOD


Faithful in Criticism

Loyal in Affection

Tender in Trouble




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER

     I.  PANDEMONIUM
    II.  PEACE
   III.  A HOME OF MANY GENERATIONS
    IV.  A SECRET CHAMBER
     V.  CONCERNING BESOMS
    VI.  A PLEASAUNCE
   VII.  A WOMAN OF THE NEW DISPENSATION
  VIII.  A WOMAN OF THE OLD DISPENSATION
    IX.  A DAUGHTER OF DEBATE
     X.  A SUPRA-LAPSARIAN
    XI.  IN THE GLOAMING
   XII.  KILBOGIE MANSE
  XIII.  PREPARING FOR THE SACRAMENT
   XIV.  A MODERATE
    XV.  JOINT POTENTATES
   XVI.  DRIED ROSE LEAVES
  XVII.  SMOULDERING FIRES
 XVIII.  LOVE SICKNESS
   XIX.  THE FEAR OF GOD
    XX.  THE WOUNDS OF A FRIEND
   XXI.  LIGHT AT EVENTIDE
  XXII.  WITHOUT FEAR AND WITHOUT REPROACH
 XXIII.  MARGET HOWE'S CONFESSIONAL
  XXIV.  LOVE IS LORD




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


   Carmichael had taken his Turn

   "Many a Ploy we had together"

   Peter was standing in his Favourite Attitude

   "I am the General's Daughter"

   Janet Macpherson was waiting in the Deep Doorway

   "It's a Difficult Key to turn"

   Kate in her Favourite Position

   One Gardener who . . . works for Love's Sake

   Among the Great Trees

   "Mr. Carmichael, you have much Cause for Thankfulness"

   Carmichael sang a Solo

   "Here iss your Silver Piece"

   "I should call it a Deliberate--"

   "She had an Unfortunate Tendency to meddle with my Books"

   Mother Church cast her Spell over his Imagination

   "Ye'll be hanging Dr. Chalmers there"

   A Tall, Bony, Forbidding Woman

   Gathering her Berry Harvest

   He was a Mere Wisp of a Man

   "Will you let me walk with you for a Little?"

   "Private Capaucity"

   Standing with a Half-Dried Dish in her Hand

   The Old Man escorted her Ladyship

   Would gossip with him by the Hour

   The Driver stops to exchange Views

   Two Tramps held Conference

   Wrestling in Darkness of Soul

   His Attitude for Exposition

   "Ay, he's in, but ye canna see him"

   "To put Flowers on his Grave"

   "You have been awfully Good to me"

   "He sat down by the River-side to meditate"




KATE CARNEGIE.


CHAPTER I.

PANDEMONIUM.

It was the morning before the Twelfth, years ago, and nothing like unto
Muirtown Station could have been found in all the travelling world.
For Muirtown, as everybody knows, is the centre which receives the
southern immigrants in autumn, and distributes them, with all their
belongings of servants, horses, dogs, and luggage, over the north
country from Athole to Sutherland.  All night, express trains, whose
ordinary formation had been reinforced by horse boxes, carriage trucks,
saloons and luggage vans, drawn by two engines, and pushed up inclines
by a third, had been careering along the three iron trunk roads that
run from London to the North.  Four hours ago they had forced the
border, that used to be more jealously guarded, and had begun to
converge on their terminus.  Passengers, awakened by the caller air and
looking out still half asleep, miss the undisciplined hedgerows and
many-shaped patches of pasture, the warm brick homesteads and shaded
ponds of the south.  Square fields cultivated up to a foot of the stone
dykes or wire-fencing, the strong grey-stone farm-houses, the
swift-running burns, and the never-distant hills, brace the mind.
Local passengers come in with deliberation, whose austere faces condemn
the luxurious disorder of night travel, and challenge the defence of
Arminian doctrine.  A voice shouts "Carstairs Junction," with a command
of the letter _r_, which is the bequest of an unconquerable past, and
inspires one with the hope of some day hearing a freeborn Scot say
"Auchterarder."  The train runs over bleak moorlands with black peat
holes, through alluvial straths yielding their last pickle of corn,
between iron furnaces blazing strangely in the morning light, at the
foot of historical castles built on rocks that rise out of the fertile
plains, and then, after a space of sudden darkness, any man with a soul
counts the ten hours' dust and heat but a slight price for the sight of
the Scottish Rhine flowing deep, clear, and swift by the foot of its
wooded hills, and the "Fair City" in the heart of her meadows.

"Do you see the last wreath of mist floating off the summit of the
hill, and the silver sheen of the river against the green of the woods?
Quick, dad," and the General, accustomed to obey, stood up beside Kate
for the brief glimpse between the tunnel and a prison.  Yet they had
seen the snows of the Himalayas, and the great river that runs through
the plains of India.  But it is so with Scottish folk that they may
have lived opposite the Jungfrau at Mürren, and walked among the big
trees of the Yosemite Valley, and watched the blood-red afterglow on
the Pyramids, and yet will value a sunset behind the Cuchullin hills,
and the Pass of the Trossachs, and the mist shot through with light on
the sides of Ben Nevis, and the Tay at Dunkeld--just above the
bridge--better guerdon for their eyes.

"Ay, lassie"--the other people had left at Stirling, and the General
fell back upon the past--"there 's just one bonnier river, and that's
the Tochty at a bend below the Lodge, as we shall see it, please God,
this evening."

"Tickets," broke in a voice with authority.  "This is no the station,
an' ye 'll hae to wait till the first diveesion o' yir train is
emptied.  Kildrummie?  Ye change, of coorse, but yir branch 'll hae a
lang wait the day.  It 'll be an awfu' fecht wi' the Hielant train.
Muirtown platform 'll be worth seein'; it 'll juist be michty," and the
collector departed, smacking his lips in prospect of the fray.

"Upon my word," said the General, taken aback for a moment by the easy
manners of his countryman, but rejoicing in every new assurance of
home, "our people are no blate."

"Is n't it delicious to be where character has not been worn smooth by
centuries of oppression, but where each man is himself?  Conversation
has salt here, and tastes in the mouth.  We 've just heard two men
speak this morning, and each face is bitten into my memory.  Now our
turn has come," and the train wound itself in at last.

Porters, averaging six feet and with stentorian voices, were driving
back the mixed multitude in order to afford foothold for the new
arrivals on that marvellous landing place, which in those days served
for all the trains which came in and all that went out, both north and
south.  One man tears open the door of a first with commanding gesture.
"A' change and hurry up.  Na, na," rejecting the offer of a private
engagement; "we hev nae time for that trade the day.  Ye maun cairry
yir bags yersels; the dogs and boxes 'll tak us a' oor time."  He
unlocks an under compartment and drags out a pair of pointers, who fawn
upon him obsequiously in gratitude for their release.  "Doon wi' ye,"
as one to whom duty denies the ordinary courtesies of life, and he
fastens them to the base of an iron pillar.  Deserted immediately by
their deliverer, the pointers made overtures to two elderly ladies,
standing bewildered in the crush, to be repulsed with umbrellas, and
then sit down upon their tails in despair.  Their forlorn condition,
left friendless amid this babel, gets upon their nerves, and after a
slight rehearsal, just to make certain of the tune, they lift up their
voices in melodious concert, to the scandal of the two females, who
cannot escape the neighbourhood, and regard the pointers with horror.
Distant friends, also in bonds and distress of mind, feel comforted and
join cheerfully, while a large black retriever, who had foolishly
attempted to obstruct a luggage barrow with his tail, breaks in with a
high solo.  Two collies, their tempers irritated by obstacles as they
follow their masters, who had been taking their morning in the
second-class refreshment room, fall out by the way, and obtain as by
magic a clear space in which to settle details; while a fox-terrier,
escaping from his anxious mistress, has mounted a pile of boxes and
gives a general challenge.

Porters fling open packed luggage vans with a swing, setting free a
cataract of portmanteaus, boxes, hampers, baskets, which pours across
the platform for yards, led by a frolicsome black leather valise, whose
anxious owner has fought her adventurous way to the van for the purpose
of explaining to a phlegmatic Scot that he would know it by a broken
strap, and must lift it out gently, for it contained breakables.

"It can gang itsel, that ane," as the afflicted woman followed its
reckless progress with a wail.  "Sall, if they were a' as clever on
their feet as yon box there wud be less tribble," and with two
assistants he falls upon the congested mass within.  They perform
prodigies of strength, handling huge trunks that ought to have filled
some woman with repentance as if they were Gladstone bags, and light
weights as if they were paper parcels.  With unerring scent they detect
the latest label among the remains of past history, and the air
resounds with "Hielant train," "Aiberdeen fast," "Aiberdeen slow,"
"Muirtown"--this with indifference--and at a time "Dunleith," and once
"Kildrummie," with much contempt.  By this time stacks of baggage of
varying size have been erected, the largest of which is a pyramid in
shape, with a very uncertain apex.

Male passengers--heads of families and new to Muirtown--hover anxiously
round the outskirts, and goaded on by female commands, rush into the
heart of the fray for the purpose of claiming a piece of luggage, which
turns out to be some other person's, and retire hastily after a
fair-sized portmanteau descends on their toes, and the sharp edge of a
trunk takes them in the small of the back.  Footmen with gloves and
superior airs make gentlemanly efforts to collect the family luggage,
and are rewarded by having some hopelessly vulgar tin boxes, heavily
roped, deposited among its initialled glory.  One elderly female who
had been wise to choose some other day to revisit her native town,
discovers her basket flung up against a pillar, like wreckage from a
storm, and settles herself down upon it with a sigh of relief.  She
remains unmoved amid the turmoil, save when a passing gun-case tips her
bonnet to one side, giving her a very rakish air, and a good-natured
retriever on a neighbouring box is so much taken with her appearance
that he offers her a friendly caress.  Restless people--who remember
that their train ought to have left half an hour ago, and cannot
realise that all bonds are loosed on the eleventh--fasten on any man in
a uniform, and suffer many rebuffs.

"There 's nae use asking me," answers a guard, coming off duty and
pushing his way through the crowd as one accustomed to such spectacles;
"a 'm juist in frae Carlisle; get haud o' a porter."

"Cupar Angus?"--this from the porter--"that's the Aiberdeen slow; it's
no made up yet, and little chance o't till the express an' the Hielant
be aff.  Whar 'll it start frae?" breaking away; "forrit, a' tell ye,
forrit."

Fathers of families, left on guard and misled by a sudden movement
"forrit," rush to the waiting-room and bring out, for the third time,
the whole expedition, to escort them back again with shame.  Barrows
with towering piles of luggage are pushed through the human mass by two
porters, who allow their engine to make its own way with much
confidence, condescending only at a time to shout, "A' say, hey, oot o'
there," and treating any testy complaint with the silent contempt of a
drayman for a costermonger.  Old hands, who have fed at their leisure
in callous indifference to all alarms, lounge about in great content,
and a group of sheep farmers, having endeavoured in vain, after one
tasting, to settle the merits of a new dip, take a glance in the
"Hielant" quarter, and adjourn the conference once more to the
refreshment-room.  Groups of sportsmen discuss the prospects of
to-morrow in detail, and tell stories of ancient twelfths, while
chieftains from London, in full Highland dress, are painfully conscious
of the whiteness of their legs.  A handful of preposterous people who
persist in going south when the world has its face northwards, threaten
to complain to headquarters if they are not sent away, and an official
with a loud voice and a subtle gift of humour intimates that a train is
about to leave for Dundee.

During this time wonderful manoeuvres have been executed on the lines
of rail opposite the platform.  Trains have left with all the air of a
departure and disappeared round the curve outside the station, only to
return in fragments.  Half a dozen carriages pass without an engine, as
if they had started on their own account, break vans that one saw
presiding over expresses stand forsaken, a long procession of horse
boxes rattle through, and a saloon carriage, with people, is so much in
evidence that the name of an English Duke is freely mentioned, and
every new passage relieves the tedium of the waiting.

Out of all this confusion trains begin to grow and take shape, and one,
with green carriages, looks so complete that a rumour spreads that the
Hielant train has been made up and may appear any minute in its place.
The sunshine beating through the glass roof, the heat of travel, the
dust of the station, the moving carriages with their various colours,
the shouts of railway officials, the recurring panics of fussy
passengers, begin to affect the nerves.  Conversation becomes broken,
porters are beset on every side with questions they cannot answer,
rushes are made on any empty carriages within reach, a child is knocked
down and cries.

Over all this excitement and confusion one man is presiding, untiring,
forceful, ubiquitous--a sturdy man, somewhere about five feet ten,
whose lungs are brass and nerves fine steel wire.  He is dressed, as to
his body, in brown corduroy trousers, a blue jacket and waistcoat with
shining brass buttons, a grey flannel shirt, and a silver-braided cap,
which, as time passes, he thrusts further back on his head till its
peak stands at last almost erect, a crest seen high above the conflict.
As to the soul of him, this man is clothed with resolution, courage,
authority, and an infectious enthusiasm.  He is the brain and will of
the whole organism, its driving power.  Drivers lean out of their
engines, one hand on the steam throttle, their eyes fixed on this man;
if he waves his hands, trains move; if he holds them up, trains halt.
Strings of carriages out in the open are carrying out his plans, and
the porters toil like maniacs to meet his commands.  Piles of luggage
disappear as he directs the attack, and his scouts capture isolated
boxes hidden among the people.  Every horse box has a place in his
memory, and he has calculated how many carriages would clear the north
traffic; he carries the destination of families in his head, and has
made arrangements for their comfort.  "Soon ready now, sir," as he
passed swiftly down to receive the last southerner, "and a second
compartment reserved for you," till people watched for him, and the
sound of his voice, "forrit wi' the Hielant luggage," inspired
bewildered tourists with confidence, and became an argument for
Providence.  There is a general movement towards the northern end of
the station; five barrows, whose luggage swings dangerously and has to
be held on, pass in procession; dogs are collected and trailed along in
bundles; families pick up their bags and press after their luggage,
cheered to recognise a familiar piece peeping out from strange goods; a
bell is rung with insistence.  The Aberdeen express leaves--its
passengers regarding the platform with pity--and the guard of the last
van slamming his door in triumph.  The great man concentrates his force
with a wave of his hand for the _tour de force_ of the year, the
despatch of the Hielant train.

The southern end of the platform is now deserted--the London express
departed half an hour ago with thirteen passengers, very crestfallen
and envious--and across the open centre porters hustle barrows at
headlong speed, with neglected pieces of luggage.  Along the edge of
the Highland platform there stretches a solid mass of life,
close-packed, motionless, silent, composed of tourists, dogs, families,
lords, dogs, sheep farmers, keepers, clericals, dogs, footmen,
commercials, ladies' maids, grooms, dogs, waiting for the empty train
that, after deploying hither and thither, picking up some trifle, a
horse box or a duke's saloon, at every new raid, is now backing slowly
in for its freight.  The expectant crowd has ceased from conversation,
sporting or otherwise; respectable elderly gentlemen brace themselves
for the scramble, and examine their nearest neighbours suspiciously;
heads of families gather their belongings round them by signs and
explain in a whisper how to act; one female tourist--of a certain age
and severe aspect--refreshes her memory as to the best window for the
view of Killiecrankie.  The luggage has been piled in huge masses at
each end of the siding; the porters rest themselves against it, taking
off their caps, and wiping their foreheads with handkerchiefs of many
colours and uses.  It is the stillness before the last charge; beyond
the outermost luggage an arm is seen waving, and the long coil of
carriages begins to twist into the station.

People who know their ancient Muirtown well, and have taken part in
this day of days, will remember a harbour of refuge beside the
book-stall, protected by the buffers of the Highland siding on one side
and a breakwater of luggage on the other, and persons within this
shelter could see the storming of the train to great advantage.
Carmichael, the young Free Kirk minister of Drumtochty, who had been
tasting the civilisation of Muirtown overnight and was waiting for the
Dunleith train, leant against the back of the bookstall, watching the
scene with frank, boyish interest.  Rather under six feet in height, he
passed for more, because he stood so straight and looked so slim, for
his limbs were as slender as a woman's, while women (in Muirtown) had
envied his hands and feet.  But in chest measure he was only two inches
behind Saunders Baxter, the grieve of Drumsheugh, who was the standard
of manhood by whom all others were tried and (mostly) condemned in
Drumtochty.  Chancing to come upon Saunders putting the stone one day
with the bothy lads, Carmichael had taken his turn, with the result
that his stone lay foremost in the final heat by an inch exactly.
MacLure saw them kneeling together to measure, the Free Kirk minister
and the ploughmen all in a bunch, and went on his way rejoicing to tell
the Free Kirk folk that their new minister was a man of his hands.  His
hair was fair, just touched with gold, and he wore it rather long, so
that in the excitement of preaching a lock sometimes fell down on his
forehead, which he would throw back with a toss of his head--a gesture
Mrs. Macfadyen, our critic, thought very taking.  His dark blue eyes
used to enlarge with passion in the Sacrament and grow so tender, the
healthy tan disappeared and left his cheeks so white, that the mothers
were terrified lest he should die early, and sent offerings of cream on
Monday morning.  For though his name was Carmichael, he had Celtic
blood in him, and was full of all kinds of emotion, but mostly those
that were brave and pure and true.  He had done well at the University,
and was inclined to be philosophical, for he knew little of himself and
nothing of the world.  There were times when he allowed himself to be
supercilious and sarcastic; but it was not for an occasional jingle of
cleverness the people loved him, or, for that matter, any other man.
It was his humanity that won their hearts, and this he had partly from
his mother, partly from his training.  Through a kind providence and
his mother's countryness, he had been brought up among animals--birds,
mice, dormice, guinea-pigs, rabbits, dogs, cattle, horses, till he knew
all their ways, and loved God's creatures as did St. Francis d'Assisi,
to whom every creature of God was dear, from Sister Swallow to Brother
Wolf.  So he learned, as he grew older, to love men and women and
little children, even although they might be ugly, or stupid, or
bad-tempered, or even wicked, and this sympathy cleansed away many a
little fault of pride and self-conceit and impatience and hot temper,
and in the end of the days made a man of John Carmichael.  The dumb
animals had an instinct about this young fellow, and would make
overtures to him that were a certificate for any situation requiring
character.  Horses by the wayside neighed at his approach, and
stretched out their velvet muzzles to be stroked.  Dogs insisted upon
sitting on his knees, unless quite prevented by their size, and then
they put their paws on his chest.  Hillocks was utterly scandalised by
his collie's familiarity with the minister, and brought him to his
senses by the application of a boot, but Carmichael waived all
apologies.  "Rover and I made friends two days ago on the road, and my
clothes will take no injury."  And indeed they could not, for
Carmichael, except on Sundays and at funerals, wore a soft hat and suit
of threadbare tweeds, on which a microscopist could have found traces
of a peat bog, moss of dykes, the scale of a trout, and a tiny bit of
heather.

[Illustration: Carmichael had taken his turn.]

His usual fortune befell him that day in Muirtown Station, for two
retrievers, worming their way through the luggage, reached him, and
made known their wants.

"Thirsty?  I believe you.  All the way from England, and heat enough to
roast you alive.  I 've got no dish, else I 'd soon get water.

"Inverness?  Poor chaps, that's too far to go with your tongues like a
lime-kiln.  Down, good dogs; I 'll be back in a minute."

You can have no idea, unless you have tried it, how much water a soft
clerical hat can hold--if you turn up the edges and bash down the
inside with your fist, and fill the space to the brim.  But it is
difficult to convey such a vessel with undiminished content through a
crowd, and altogether impossible to lift one's eyes.  Carmichael was
therefore quite unconscious that two new-comers to the shelter were
watching him with keen delight as he came in bareheaded, flushed,
triumphant--amid howls of welcome--and knelt down to hold the cup
till--drinking time about in strict honour--the retrievers had reached
the maker's name.

"Do you think they would like a biscuit?" said a clear, sweet, low
voice, with an accent of pride and just a flavour of amusement in its
tone.  Carmichael rose in much embarrassment, and was quite confounded.

They were standing together--father and daughter, evidently--and there
was no manner of doubt about him.  A spare man, without an ounce of
superfluous flesh, straight as a rod, and having an air of command,
with keen grey eyes, close-cropped hair turning white, a clean-shaven
face except where a heavy moustache covered a firm-set mouth--one
recognised in him a retired army man of rank, a colonel at least, it
might be a general; and the bronze on his face suggested long Indian
service.  But he might have been dressed in Rob Roy tartan, or been a
naval officer in full uniform, for all Carmichael knew.  A hundred
thousand faces pass before your eyes and are forgotten, mere physical
impressions; you see one, and it is in your heart for ever, as you saw
it the first time.  Wavy black hair, a low, straight forehead, hazel
eyes with long eyelashes, a perfectly-shaped Grecian nose, a strong
mouth, whose upper lip had a curve of softness, a clear-cut chin with
one dimple, small ears set high in the head, and a rich creamy
complexion--that was what flashed upon Carmichael as he turned from the
retrievers.  He was a man so unobservant of women that he could not
have described a woman's dress to save his life or any other person's;
and now that he is married--he is a middle-aged man now and threatened
with stoutness--it is his wife's reproach that he does not know when
she wears her new spring bonnet for the first time.  Yet he took in
this young woman's dress, from the smart hat, with a white bird's wing
on the side, and the close-fitting tailor made jacket, to the small,
well-gloved hand in dogskin, the grey tweed skirt, and one shoe, with a
tip on it, that peeped out below her frock.  Critics might have hinted
that her shoulders were too square, and that her figure wanted somewhat
in softness of outline; but it seemed to Carmichael that he had never
seen so winsome or high-bred a woman; and so it has also seemed to many
who have gone farther afield in the world than the young minister of
Drumtochty.

Carmichael was at that age when a man prides himself on dressing and
thinking as he pleases, and had quite scandalised a Muirtown elder--a
stout gentleman, who had come out in '43, and could with difficulty be
weaned from Dr. Chalmers--by making his appearance on the preceding
evening in amazing tweeds and a grey flannel shirt.  He explained
casually that for a fifteen-mile walk flannels were absolutely
necessary, and that he was rather pleased to find that he had come from
door to door in four hours and two minutes exactly.  His host was at a
loss for words, because he was comparing this unconventional youth with
the fathers, who wore large white stocks and ambled along at about two
and a half miles an hour, clearing their throats also in a very
impressive way, and seasoning the principles of the Free Kirk with
snuff of an excellent fragrance.  It was hard even for the most
generous charity to identify the spirit of the Disruption in such a
figure, and the good elder grew so proper and so didactic that
Carmichael went from bad to worse.

"Well, you would find the congregation in excellent order.  The
Professor was a most painstaking man, though retiring in disposition,
and his sermons were thoroughly solid and edifying.  They were possibly
just a little above the heads of Drumtochty, but I always enjoyed Mr.
Cunningham myself," nodding his head as one who understood all
mysteries.

"Did you ever happen to hear the advice Jamie Soutar gave the
deputation from Muirtown when they came up to see whether Cunningham
would be fit for the North Kirk, where two Bailies stand at the plate
every day, and the Provost did not think himself good enough to be an
elder?" for Carmichael was full of wickedness that day, and earning a
judgment.

His host indicated that the deputation had given in a very full and
satisfactory report--he was, in fact, on the Session of the North
himself--but that no reference had been made to Jamie.

"Well, you must know," and Carmichael laid himself out for narration,
"the people were harassed with raids from the Lowlands during
Cunningham's time, and did their best in self-defence.  Spying makes
men cunning, and it was wonderful how many subterfuges the deputations
used to practise.  They would walk from Kildrummie as if they were
staying in the district, and one retired tradesman talked about the
crops as if he was a farmer, but it was a pity that he did n't know the
difference between the cereals.

"'Yon man that wes up aifter yir minister, Elspeth,' Hillocks said to
Mrs. Macfadyen, 'hesna hed muckle money spent on his eddication.  "A
graund field o' barley," he says, and as sure as a 'm stannin' here, it
wes the haugh field o' aits.'

"'He 's frae Glaisgie,' was all Elspeth answered, 'and by next Friday
we 'll hae his name an' kirk.  He said he wes up for a walk an' juist
dropped in, the wratch.'

"Some drove from Muirtown, giving out that they were English tourists,
speaking with a fine East Coast accent, and were rebuked by Lachlan
Campbell for breaking the Sabbath.  Your men put up their trap at the
last farm in Netheraird--which always has grudged Drumtochty its
ministers and borne their removal with resignation--and came up in
pairs, who pretended they did not know one another.

"Jamie was hearing the Professor's last lecture on Justification, and
our people asked him to take charge of the strangers.  He found out the
town from their hats, and escorted them to the boundaries of the
parish, assisting their confidences till one of your men--I think it
was the Provost--admitted that it had taken them all their time to
follow the sermon.

"'A 'm astonished at ye,' said Jamie, for the Netheraird man let it
out; 'yon wes a sermon for young fouk, juist milk, ye ken, tae the
ordinar' discoorses.  Surely,' as if the thought had just struck him,
'ye werena thinkin' o' callin' Maister Cunningham tae Muirtown.

"'Edinboorgh, noo; that micht dae gin the feck o' the members be
professors, but Muirtown wud be clean havers.  There's times when the
Drumtochty fouk themsels canna understand the cratur, he 's that deep.
As for Muirtown'--here Jamie allowed himself a brief rest of enjoyment;
'but ye've hed a fine drive, tae say naethin' o' the traivel.'"

Then, having begun, Carmichael retailed so many of Jamie's most wicked
sayings, and so exalted the Glen as a place "where you can go up one
side and down the other with your dogs, and every second man you meet
will give you something to remember," that the city dignitary doubted
afterwards to his wife "whether this young man was . . . quite what we
have been accustomed to in a Free Church minister."  Carmichael ought
to have had repentances for shocking a worthy man, but instead thereof
laughed in his room and slept soundly, not knowing that he would be
humbled in the dust by mid-day to-morrow.

It seemed to him on the platform as if an hour passed while he, who had
played with a city father, stood, clothed with shame, before this
commanding young woman.  Had she ever looked upon a more abject wretch?
and Carmichael photographed himself with merciless accuracy, from his
hair that he had not thrown back to an impress of dust which one knee
had taken from the platform, and he registered a resolution that he
would never be again boastfully indifferent to the loss of a button on
his coat.  She stooped and fed the dogs, who did her homage, and he
marked that her profile was even finer--more delicate, more perfect,
more bewitching--than her front face, but he still stood holding his
shapeless hat in his hand, and for the first time in his life had no
words to say.

"They are very polite dogs," and Miss Carnegie gave Carmichael one more
chance; "they make as much of a biscuit as if it were a feast; but I do
think dogs have such excellent manners, they are always so
un-self-conscious."

"I wish I were a dog," said Carmichael, with much solemnity, and
afterwards was filled with thankfulness that the baggage behind gave
way at that moment, and that an exasperated porter was able to express
his mind freely.

"Dinna try tae lift that box for ony sake, man.  Sall, ye 're no'
feared," as Carmichael, thirsting for action, swung it up unaided; and
then, catching sight of the merest wisp of white, "A' didna see ye were
a minister, an' the word cam oot sudden."

"You would find it a help to say Northumberland, Cumberland,
Westmoreland, and Durham," and with a smile to Carmichael, still
bareheaded and now redder than ever, Miss Carnegie went along the
platform to see the Hielant train depart.  It was worth waiting to
watch the two minutes' scrimmage, and to hear the great man say, as he
took off his cap with deliberation and wiped his brow, "That's anither
year ower; some o' you lads see tae that Dunleith train."  There was a
day when Carmichael would have enjoyed the scene to the full, but now
he had eyes for nothing but that tall, slim figure and the white bird's
wing.

When they disappeared into the Dunleith train, Carmichael had a wild
idea of entering the same compartment, and in the end had to be pushed
into the last second by the guard, who knew most of his regular people
and every one of the Drumtochty men.  He was so much engaged with his
own thoughts that he gave two English tourists to understand that Lord
Kilspindie's castle, standing amid its woods on the bank of the Tay,
was a recently erected dye work, and that as the train turned off the
North trunk line for Dunleith they might at any moment enter the pass
of Killiecrankie.




CHAPTER II.

PEACE.

"The last stage now, Kit; in less than two hours we'll see Tochty
woods.  The very thought makes me a boy again, and it seems yesterday
that I kissed your mother on the door-step of the old lodge and went
off to the Crimean war.

"That's Muirtown Castle over there in the wood--a grand place in its
way, but nothing to our home, lassie.  Kilspindie--he was Viscount Hay
then--joined me at Muirtown, and we fought through the weary winter.
He left the army after the war, with lots of honour.  A good fellow was
Hay, both in the trenches and the messroom.

"I 've never seen him since, and I dare say he 's forgotten a battered
old Indian.  Besides, he's the big swell in this district, and I 'm
only a poor Hielant laird, with a wood and a tumble-down house and a
couple of farms."

"You are also a shameless hypocrite and deceiver, for you believe that
the Carnegies are as old as the Hays, and you know that, though you
have only two farms, you have twelve medals and seven wounds.  What
does money matter? it simply makes people vulgar."

"Nonsense, lassie; if a Carnegie runs down money, it's because he has
got none and wishes he had.  If you and I had only a few hundreds a
year over the half-pay to rattle in our pockets, we should have lots of
little pleasures, and you might have lived in England, with all sorts
of variety and comfort, instead of wandering about India with a gang of
stupid old chaps who have been so busy fighting that they never had
time to read a book."

"You mean like yourself, dad, and V. C. and Colonel Kinloch?  Where
could a girl have found finer company than with my Knights of King
Arthur?  And do you dare to insinuate that I could have been content
away from the regiment, that made me their daughter after mother died,
and the army?

"Pleasure!" and Kate's cheek flushed.  "I 've had it since I was a
little tot and could remember anything--the bugles sounding reveille in
the clear air, and the sergeants drilling the new drafts in the
morning, and the regiment coming out with the band before and you at
its head, and hearing 'God save the Queen' at a review, and seeing the
companies passing like one man before the General.

"Don't you think that's better than tea-drinking, and gossiping, and
sewing meetings, and going for walks in some stupid little hole of a
country town?  Oh, you wicked, aggravating dad.  Now, what more will
money do?"

"Well," said the General, with much gravity, "if you were even a
moderate heiress there is no saying but that we might pick up a
presentable husband for you among the lairds.  As it is, I fancy a
country minister is all you could expect.

"Don't . . . my ears will come off some day; one was loosened by a cut
in the Mutiny.  No, I 'll never do the like again.  But some day you
will marry, all the same," and Kate's father rubbed his ears.

"No, I 'm not going to leave you, for nobody else could ever make a
curry to please; and if I do, it will not be a Scotch minister--horrid,
bigoted wretches, V. C. says.  Am I like a minister's wife, to address
mothers' meetings and write out sermons?  By the way, is there a kirk
at Drumtochty, or will you read prayers to Janet and Donald and me?"

"When I was a lad there was just one minister in Drumtochty, Mr.
Davidson, a splendid specimen of the old school, who, on great
occasions, wore gaiters and a frill with a diamond in the centre; he
carried a gold-headed stick, and took snuff out of a presentation box.

"His son Sandie was my age to a year, and many a ploy we had together;
there was the jackdaw's nest in the ivy on the old tower we harried
together," and the General could only indicate the delightful risk of
the exploit.  "My father and the minister were pacing the avenue at the
time, and caught sight of us against the sky.  'It's your rascal and
mine, Laird,' we heard the minister say, and they waited till we got
down, and then each did his duty by his own for trying to break his
neck; but they were secretly proud of the exploit, for I caught my
father showing old Lord Kilspindie the spot, and next time Hay was up
he tried to reach the place, and stuck where the wall hangs over.  I
'll point out the hole this evening; you can see it from the other side
of the den quite plain."

[Illustration: "Many a ploy we had together."]

"Sandie went to the church--I wish every parson were as straight--and
Kilspindie appointed him to succeed the old gentleman, and when I saw
him in his study last month, it seemed as if his father stood before
you, except the breeches and the frill; but Sandie has a  marvellous
stock--what havers I 'm deivin' you with, lassie."

"Tell me about Sandie this minute--did he remember the raiding of the
jack-daws?"

"He did," cried the General, in great spirits; "he just looked at me
for an instant--no one knew of my visit--and then he gripped my hands,
and do you know, Kit, he was . . . well, and there was a lump in my
throat too; it would be about thirty years, for one reason and another,
since we met."

"What did he say? the very words, dad," and Kate held up her finger in
command.

"'Jack, old man, is this really you?'--he held me at arm's
length--'man, div ye mind the jackdaw's nest?'"

"Did he?  And he 's to be our padre.  I know I 'll love him at once.
Go on, everything, for you 've never told me anything about Drumtochty."

"We had a glorious time going over old times.  We fished up every trout
again, and we shot our first day on the moor again with Peter Stewart,
Kilspindie's head keeper, as fine an old Highlander as ever lived.
Stewart said in the evening, 'You 're a pair of prave boys, as becometh
your fathers' sons,' and Sandie gave him two and fourpence he had
scraped for a tip, but I had only one and elevenpence--we were both
kept bare.  But he knew better than to refuse our offerings, though he
never saw less than gold or notes from the men that shot at the lodge,
and Sandie remembered how he touched his Highland bonnet and said, 'I
will be much obliged to you both; and you will be coming to the moor
another day, for I hef his lordship's orders.'

"Boys are queer animals, lassie; we were prouder that Peter accepted
our poor little tip than about the muirfowl we shot, though I had three
brace and Sandie four.  Highlanders are all gentlemen by birth, and be
sure of this, Kit, it's only that breed which can manage boys and
soldiers.  But where am I now?"

"With Sandie--I beg his reverence's pardon--with the Rev. the padre of
Drumtochty," and Kate went over and sat down beside the General to
anticipate any rebellion, for it was a joy to see the warrior turning
into a boy before her eyes.  "Well?"

"We had a royal dinner, as it seemed to me.  Sandie has a couple of
servants, man and wife, who rule him with a rod of iron, but I would
forgive that for the cooking and the loyalty.  After dinner he
disappeared with a look of mystery, and came back with a cobwebbed
bottle of the old shape, short and bunchy, which he carried as if it
were a baby.

"'Just two bottles of my father's port left; we 'll have one to-day to
welcome you back, and we 'll keep the other to celebrate your
daughter's marriage.' He had one sister, younger by ten years, and her
death in girlhood nearly broke his heart.  It struck me from something
he said that his love is with her; at any rate, he has never married.
Sandie has just one fault--he would not touch a cheroot; but he snuffs
handsomely out of his father's box.

"Of course, I can't say anything about his preaching, but it's bound to
be sensible stuff."

"Bother the sermons; he 's an old dear himself, and I know we shall be
great friends.  We 'll flirt together, and you will not have one word
to say, so make up your mind to submit."

"We shall have good days in the old place, lassie; but you know we are
poor, and must live quietly.  What I have planned is a couple of handy
women or so in the house with Donald.  Janet is going to live at the
gate where she was brought up, but she will look after you well, and we
'll always have a bed and a glass of wine for a friend.  Then you can
have a run up to London and get your things, Kit," and the General
looked wistfully at his daughter, as one who would have given her a
kingdom.

"Do you think your girl cares so much about luxuries and dresses?  Of
course I like to look well--every woman does, and if she pretends
otherwise she 's a hypocrite; but money just seems to make some women
hideous.  It is enough for me to have you all to myself up in your old
home, and to see you enjoying the rest you have earned.  We'll be as
happy as two lovers, dad," and Kate threw an arm round her father's
neck and kissed him.

"We have to change here," as the train began to slow; "prepare to see
the most remarkable railway in the empire, and a guard to correspond."
And then it came upon them, the first sight that made a Drumtochty
man's heart warm, and assured him that he was nearing home.

An engine on a reduced scale, that had once served in the local goods
department of a big station, and then, having grown old and asthmatic,
was transferred on half-pay, as it were, to the Kildrummie branch,
where it puffed between the junction and the terminus half a dozen
times a day, with two carriages and an occasional coal truck.  Times
there were when wood was exported from Kildrummie, and then the train
was taken down in detachments, and it was a pleasant legend that, one
market day, when Drumtochty was down in force, the engine stuck, and
Drumsheugh invited the Glen to get out and push.  The two carriages
were quite distinguished in construction, and had seen better days.
One consisted of a single first-class compartment in the centre, with a
bulge of an imposing appearance, supported on either side by two
seconds.  As no native ever travelled second, one compartment had been
employed as a reserve to the luggage van, so that Drumtochty might have
a convenient place of deposit for calves, but the other was jealously
reserved by Peter Bruce for strangers with second-class tickets, that
his branch might not be put to confusion.  The other carriage was
three-fourths third class and one-fourth luggage, and did the real
work; on its steps Peter stood and dispensed wisdom, between the
junction and Kildrummie.

But neither the carriages nor the engine could have made history
without the guard, beside whom the guards of the main line--even of the
expresses that ran to London--were as nothing--fribbles and weaklings.
For the guard of the Kildrummie branch was absolute ruler, lording it
over man and beast without appeal, and treating the Kildrummie
stationmaster as a federated power.  Peter was a short man of great
breadth, like unto the cutting of an oak-tree, with a penetrating grey
eye, an immovable countenance, and bushy whiskers.  It was understood
that when the line was opened, and the directors were about to fill up
the post of guard from a number of candidates qualified by long
experience on various lines, Peter, who had been simply wasting his
time driving a carrier's cart, came in, and sitting down opposite the
board--two lairds and a farmer--looked straight before him without
making any application.  It was felt by all in an instant that only one
course was open, in the eternal fitness of things.  Experience was well
enough, but special creation was better, and Peter was immediately
appointed, his name being asked by the chairman afterwards as a
formality.  From the beginning he took up a masterful position,
receiving his human cargo at the junction and discharging it at the
station with a power that even Drumtochty did not resist, and a
knowledge of individuals that was almost comprehensive.  It is true
that, boasting one Friday evening concerning the "crooded" state of the
train, he admitted with reluctance that "there 's a stranger in the
second I canna mak oot," but it is understood that he solved the
problem before the man got his luggage at Kildrummie.

Perhaps Peter's most famous achievement was his demolition of a south
country bagman, who had made himself unpleasant, and the story was much
tasted by our guard's admirers.  This self-important and vivacious
gentleman, seated in the first, was watching Peter's leisurely
movements on the Kildrummie platform with much impatience, and lost all
self-control on Peter going outside to examine the road for any distant
passenger.

"Look here, guard, this train ought to have left five minutes ago, and
I give you notice that if we miss our connection I 'll hold your
company responsible."

At the sound of this foreign voice with its indecent clamour, Peter
returned and took up his position opposite the speaker, while the staff
and the whole body of passengers--four Kildrummie and three Drumtochty,
quite sufficient for the situation--waited the issue.  Not one word did
Peter deign to reply, but he fixed the irate traveller with a gaze so
searching, so awful, so irresistible, that the poor man fell back into
his seat and pretended to look out at the opposite window.  After a
pause of thirty seconds, Peter turned to the engine-driver.

"They 're a' here noo, an' there 's nae use waitin' langer; ca' awa',
but ye needna distress the engine."

It was noticed that the foolhardy traveller kept the full length of the
junction between himself and Peter till the Dunleith train came in,
while his very back was eloquent of humiliation, and Hillocks offered
his snuff-box ostentatiously to Peter, which that worthy accepted as a
public tribute of admiration.

"Look, Kate, there he is;" and there Peter was, standing in his
favourite attitude, his legs wide apart and his thumbs in his armholes,
superior, abstracted, motionless till the train stopped, when he came
forward.

[Illustration: Peter was standing in his favourite attitude.]

"Prood tae see ye, General, coming back at laist, an' the Miss wi' ye;
it 'll no be the blame o' the fouk up by gin ye bena happy.  Drumtochty
hes an idea o' itsel', and peety the man 'at tries tae drive them, but
they 're couthy.

"This wy, an' a'll see tae yir luggage," and before Peter made for the
Dunleith van it is said that he took off his cap to Kate; but if so,
this was the only time he had ever shown such gallantry to a lady.

Certainly he must have been flustered by something, for he did not
notice that Carmichael, overcome by shyness at the sight of the
Carnegies in the first, had hid himself in the second, till he closed
the doors; then the Carnegies heard it all.

"It's I, Peter," very quietly; "your first has passengers to-day,
and . . . I 'll just sit here."

"Come oot o' that," after a moment, during which Peter had simply
looked; then the hat and the tweeds came stumbling into the first,
making some sort of a bow and muttering an apology.

"A'll tak' yir ticket, Maister Carmichael," with severity.  "General,"
suddenly relaxing, "this is the Free Kirk minister of yir pairish, an'
a 'm jidgin' he 'll no try the second again."

Carmichael lifted his head and caught Kate's eye, and at the meeting of
humour they laughed aloud.  Whereupon the General said, "My daughter,
Miss Carnegie," and they became so friendly before they reached
Kildrummie that Carmichael forgot his disgraceful appearance and when
the General offered him a lift up, simply clutched at the opportunity.

The trap was a four-wheeled dog-cart.  Kate drove, with her father by
her side and Carmichael behind, but he found it necessary to turn round
to give information of names and places, and he so managed that he
could catch Kate's profile half the time.

When he got down at the foot of the hill by Hillocks' farm, to go up
the near road, instead thereof he scrambled along the ridge, and looked
through the trees as the carriage passed below; but he did not escape.

"What's he glowerin' at doon there?" Hillocks inquired of Jamie Soutar,
to whom he was giving some directions about a dyke, and Hillocks made a
reconnaissance.  "A 'll warrant that's the General and his dochter.
She 's a weel-faured lassie an' speerity-lookin'."

"It cowes a'," said Jamie to himself; "the first day he ever saw her;
but it's aye the way, aince an' ever, or . . . never."

"What's the Free Kirk, dad?" when Carmichael had gone.  "Is it the same
as the Methodists?"

"No, no, quite different.  I 'm not up in those things, but I 've heard
it was a lot of fellows who would not obey the laws, and so they left
and made a kirk for themselves, where they do whatever they like.  By
the way, that was the young fellow we saw giving the dogs water at
Muirtown.  I rather like him; but why did he look such a fool, and try
to escape us at the junction?"

"How should I know?  I suppose because he is a . . . foolish boy.  And
now, dad, for the Lodge and Tochty woods."




CHAPTER III.

A HOME OF MANY GENERATIONS.

It was the custom of the former time to construct roads on a straight
line, with a preference for uphill and down, and engineers refused to
make a circuit of twenty yards to secure level ground.  There were two
advantages in this uncompromising principle of construction, and it may
be doubtful which commended itself most to the mind of our fathers.
Roads were drained after the simplest fashion, because a standing pool
in the hollow had more than a compensation in the dryness of the ascent
and descent, while the necessity of sliddering down one side and
scrambling up the other reduced driving to the safe average of four
miles an hour--horse-doctors forming a class by themselves, and being
preserved in their headlong career by the particular Providence which
has a genial regard for persons who have too little sense or have taken
too much liquor.  Degenerate descendants, anxious to obtain the maximum
of speed with the minimum of exertion, have shown a quite wonderful
ingenuity in circumventing hills, so the road between Drumtochty Manse
and Tochty Lodge gate was duplicated, and the track that plunged into
the hollow was now forsaken of wheeled traffic and overgrown with grass.

"This way, Kate; it's the old road, and the way I came to kirk with my
mother.  Yes, it's narrow, but we'll get through and down below--it is
worth the seeing."

So they forced a passage where the overgrown hedges resisted the
wheels, and the trees, wet with a morning shower, dashed Kate's jacket
with a pleasant spray, and the rail of the dog-cart was festooned with
tendrils of honeysuckle and wild geranium.

"There is the parish kirk of Drumtochty," as they came out and halted
on the crest of the hill, "and though it be not much to look at after
the Norman churches of the south, it's a brave old kirk in our fashion,
and well set in the Glen."

For it stood on a knoll, whence the ground sloped down to the Tochty,
and it lay with God's acre round it in the shining of the sun.  Half a
dozen old beeches made a shadow in the summer-time, and beat off the
winter's storms.  One standing at the west corner of the kirkyard had a
fuller and sweeter view of the Glen than could be got anywhere save
from the beeches at the Lodge; but then nothing like unto that can be
seen far or near, and I have marvelled why painting men have never had
it on their canvas.

"Our vault is at the east end, where the altar was in the old days, and
there our dead of many generations lie.  A Carnegie always prayed to be
buried with his people in Drumtochty, but as it happened, two out of
three of our house have fallen on the field, and so most of us have not
had our wish.

"Black John, my great-grandfather, was out in '45, and escaped to
France.  He married a Highland lassie orphaned there, and entered the
French service, as many a Scot did before him since the days of the
Scots Guards.  But when he felt himself a-dying, he asked leave of the
English government to come home, and he would not die till he laid
himself down in his room in the tower.  Then he gave directions for his
funeral, how none were to be asked of the county folk but Drummonds and
Hays and Stewarts from Blair Athole and such like that had been out
with the Prince.  And he made his wife promise that she would have him
dressed for his coffin as he fought on Culloden field, for he had kept
the clothes.

"Then he asked that the window should be opened that he might hear the
lilting of the burn below; and he called for my grandfather, who was
only a young lad, and commanded him to enter one of the Scottish
regiments and be a loyal kingsman, since all was over with the Stewarts.

"He said a prayer and kissed his wife's hand, being a courtly
gentleman, and died listening to the sound of the water running over
the stones in the den below."

"It was as good as dying on the field," said Kate, her face flushing
with pride; "that is an ancestor worth remembering; and did he get a
worthy funeral?"

"More than he asked for; his old comrades gathered from far and near,
and some of the chiefs that were out of hiding came down, and they
brought him up this very road, with the pipers playing before the
coffin.  Fifty gentlemen buried John Carnegie, and every man of them
had been out with the Prince.

"When they gathered in the stone hall you 'll see soon, his
friend-in-arms, Patrick Murray, gave three toasts.  The first was 'the
king,' and every man bared his head; the second was 'to him that is
gone;' the third was 'to the friends that are far awa';' and then one
of the chiefs proposed another, 'to the men of Culloden;' and after
that every gentleman dashed his glass on the floor.  Though he was only
a little lad at the time, my grandfather never forgot the sight.

"He also told me that his mother never shed a tear, but looked prouder
than he ever saw her, and before they left the hall she bade each
gentleman good-bye, and to the chief she spoke in Gaelic, being of
Cluny's blood and a gallant lady.

"Another thing she did also which the lad could not forget, for she
brought down her husband's sword from the room in the turret, and
Patrick Murray, of the House of Athole, fastened it above the big
fireplace, where it hangs unto this day, crossed now with my father's,
as you will see, Kate, unless we stand here all day going over old
stories."

"They 're glorious stories, dad; why did n't you tell them to me
before?  I want to get into the spirit of the past and feel the
Carnegie blood swinging in my veins before we come to the Lodge.  What
did they do afterwards, or was that all?"

"They mounted their horses in the courtyard, and as each man passed out
of the gate he took off his hat and bowed low to the widow, who stood
in a window I will show you, and watched till the last disappeared into
the avenue; but my grandfather ran out and saw them ride down the road
in order of threes, a goodly company of gentlemen.  But this sight is
better than horsemen and swords."

They were now in the hollow between the kirk and the Lodge, a cup of
greenery surrounded by wood.  Behind, they still saw the belfry through
the beeches; before, away to the right, the grey stone of a turret
showed among the trees.  The burn that sang to Black John ran beneath
them with a pleasant sound, and fifty yards of turf climbed up to the
cottage where the old road joined the new and the avenue of the Lodge
began.  Over this ascent the branches met, through which the sunshine
glimmered and flickered, and down the centre came a white and brown cow
in charge of an old woman.

"It's Bell Robb, that lives in the cottage there among the bushes.  I
was at the parish school with her, Kate--she 's just my age--for we
were all John Tamson's bairns in those days, and got our learning and
our licks together, laird's son and cottar's daughter.

"People would count it a queer mixture nowadays, but there were some
advantages in the former parish school idea; there were lots of
cleverer subalterns in the old regiment, but none knew his men so well
as I did.  I had played and fought with their kind.  Would you mind
saying a word to Bell . . . just her name or something?" for this was a
new life to the pride of the regiment, as they called Kate, and
Carnegie was not sure how she might take it.  Kate was a lovable lass,
but like every complete woman, she had a temper and a stock of
prejudices.  She was good comrade with all true men, although her heart
was whole, and with a few women that did not mince their words or carry
two faces, but Kate had claws inside the velvet, and once she so
handled with her tongue a young fellow who offended her that he sent in
his papers.  What she said was not much, but it was memorable, and
every word drew blood.  Her father was never quite certain what she
would do, although he was always sure of her love.

"Do you suppose, dad, that I 'm to take up with all your friends of the
jackdaw days?  You seem to have kept fine company."  Kate was already
out of the dogcart, and now took Bell by the hand.

"I am the General's daughter, and he was telling me that you and he
were playmates long ago.  You 'll let me come to see you, and you 'll
tell me all his exploits when he was John Carnegie?"

[Illustration: "I am the General's daughter."]

"To think he minded me, an' him sae lang awa' at the weary wars."  Bell
was between the laughing and the crying.  "We 're lifted to know oor
laird 's a General, and that he's gotten sic honour.  There's nae bluid
like the auld bluid, an' the Carnegies cud aye afford to be hamely.

"Ye're like him," and Bell examined Kate carefully; "but a' can tell
yir mither's dochter, a weel-faured mettlesome lady as wes ever seen;
wae 's me, wae 's me for the wars," at the sight of Carnegie's face;
"but ye 'll come in to see Marjorie.  A 'll mak her ready," and Bell
hurried into the cottage.

"Marjorie has been blind from her birth.  She was the pet of the
school, and now Bell takes care of her.  Davidson was telling me that
she wanted to support Marjorie off the wages she earns as a field hand
on the farms, and the parish had to force half-a-crown a week on them;
but hear this."

"Never mind hoo ye look," Bell was speaking.  "A' canna keep them
waitin' till ye be snoddit."

"Gie me ma kep, at ony rate, that the minister brocht frae Muirtown,
and Drumsheugh's shawl; it wudna be respectfu' to oor Laird, an' it his
first veesit;" and there was a note of refinement in the voice, as of
one living apart.

"Yes, I'm here, Marjorie," and the General stooped over the low bed
where the old woman was lying, "and this is my daughter, the only child
left me; you would hear that all my boys were killed."

"We did that, and we were a' wae for ye; a' thocht o' ye and a' saw ye
in yir sorrow, for them 'at canna see ootside see the better inside.
But it 'll be some comfort to be in the hame o' yir people aince mair,
and to ken ye 've dune yir wark weel.  It's pleasant for us to think
the licht 'll be burnin' in the windows o' the Lodge again, and that ye
're come back aifter the wars.

"Miss Kate, wull ye lat me pass ma hand ower yir face, an' then a 'll
ken what like ye are better nor some 'at hes the joy o' seein' ye wi'
their een. . . .  The Glen 'll be the happier for the sicht o' ye; a'
thank ye for yir kindness to a puir woman."

"If you begin to pay compliments, Marjorie, I 'll tell you what I think
of that cap; for the pink is just the very shade for your complexion,
and it's a perfect shape."

"Ma young minister, Maister Carmichael, seleckit it in Muirtown, an' a'
heard that he went ower sax shops to find one to his fancy; he never
forgets me, an' he wrote me a letter on his holiday.  A'body likes him
for his bonnie face an' honest ways."

"Oh, I know him already, Marjorie, for he drove up with us, and I
thought him very nice; but we must go, for you know I 've not yet seen
our home, and I 'm just tingling with curiosity."

"You 'll not leave without breakin' bread; it's little we hae, but we
can offer ye oat-cake an' milk in token o' oor loyalty," and then Bell
brought the elements of Scottish food; and when Marjorie's lips moved
in prayer as they ate, it seemed to Carnegie and his daughter like a
sacrament.  So the two went from the fellowship of the poor to their
ancient house.

They drove along the avenue between the stately beeches that stood on
either side and reached out their branches, almost but not quite unto
meeting, so that the sun, now in the south, made a train of light down
which the General and Kate came home.  At the end of the beeches the
road wheeled to the right, and Kate saw for the first time the
dwelling-place of her people.  Tochty Lodge was of the fourth period of
Scottish castellated architecture, and till it fell into disrepair was
a very perfect example of the sixteenth century mansion-house, where
strength of defence could not yet be dispensed with, for the Carnegies
were too near the Highland border to do without thick walls or to risk
habitation on the ground floor.  The buildings had first been erected
on the L plan, and then had been made into a quadrangle, so that on the
left was the main part, with a tower at the south-west corner over the
den, and a wing at the south-east coming out to meet the gate.  On the
north-east and north were a tower and rooms now in ruins, and along the
west ran a wall some six feet high with a stone walk three feet from
the top, whence you could look down on the burn.  A big gateway, whose
doors were of oak studded with nails, with a grated lattice for
observation, gave entrance to the courtyard.  In the centre of the yard
there was an ancient oak and a draw well whose water never failed.  The
eastern face was bare of ivy, except at the north corner, where stood
the jackdaws' tower; but the rough grey stone was relieved by the
tendrils and red blossoms of the hardy tropaeolum which despises the
rich soil of the south and the softer air, and grows luxuriantly on our
homely northern houses.  As they came to the gateway, the General bade
Kate pull up and read the scroll above, which ran in clear-cut letters--

  TRY AND THEN
  TRVST BETTER GVDE
  ASSVRANCE
  BOT TRUST NOT
  OR YE TRY FOR FEAR
  OF REPENTANCE.


"We 've been a slow dour race, Kit, who never gave our heart lightly,
but having given it, never played the traitor.  Fortune has not
favoured us, for acre after acre has gone from our hands, but, thank
God, we 've never had dishonour."

"And never will, dad, for we are the last of the race."

Janet Macpherson was waiting in the deep doorway of the tower, and gave
Kate welcome as one whose ancestors had for four generations served the
Carnegies, since the day Black John had married a Macpherson.

[Illustration: Janet Macpherson was waiting in the deep doorway.]

"Calf of my heart," she cried, and took Kate in her arms.  "It is your
foster-mother that will be glad to see you in the home of your people,
and will be praying that God will give you peace and good days."

Then they went up the winding stone stair, with deep, narrow windows,
and came into the dining-hall where the fifty Jacobites toasted the
king and many a gathering had taken place in the olden time.  It was
thirty-five feet long by fifteen broad, and twenty-two feet high.  The
floor was of flags over arches below, and the bare stone walls showed
at the windows and above the black oak panelling which reached ten feet
from the ground.  The fireplace was six feet high, and so wide that two
could sit on either side within.  Upon the mantelpiece the Carnegie
arms stood out in bold relief under the two crossed swords.  One or two
portraits of dead Carnegies and some curious weapons broke the monotony
of the walls, and from the roof hung a finely wrought iron candelabra.
The western portion of the hall was separated by a screen of open
woodwork, and made a pleasant dining-room.  A door in the corner led
into the tower, which had a library, with Carnegie's bedroom above, and
higher still Kate's room, each with a tiny dressing closet.  For the
Carnegies always lived together in this tower, and their guests at the
other end of the hall.  The library had two windows.  From one you
could look down and see nothing but the foliage of the den, with a
gleam of water where the burn made a pool, and from the other you
looked over a meadow with big trees to the Tochty sweeping round a
bend, and across to the high opposite banks covered with brush-wood.
First they visited Carnegie's room.

"Here have we been born, and died if we did not fall in battle, and
it's not a bad billet after all for an old soldier.  Yes, that is your
mother when we were married, but I like this one better," and the
General touched his breast, for he carried his love next his heart in a
silver locket of Indian workmanship.

Three fine deerskins lay on the floor, and one side of the room was
hung with tapestry; but the most striking piece of furnishing in the
room was an oak cupboard, sunk a foot into the wall.

"I 'll show you something in that cabinet after luncheon, Kate; but now
let's see your room."

"How beautiful, and how cunning you have been," and then she took an
inventory of the furniture, all new, but all in keeping with the age of
the room.  "You have spent far too much on a very self-willed and
bad-tempered girl, and all I can do is to make you promise that you
will come up here sometimes and let me give you tea in this
window-seat, where we can see the woods and the Tochty."

"Well, Donald," said the General at table to his faithful servant, "how
do you think Drumtochty will suit you?"

"Any place where you and Miss Kate will be living iss a good place for
me, and there are six or maybe four men I hef been meeting that hef the
language, but not good Gaelic--just poor Perthshire talk," for Donald
was a West Highlander, and prided himself on his better speech.

"And what about a kirk, Donald?  Aren't you Free like Janet?"

"Oh, yes, I am Free; but it iss not to that kirk I will be going most
here, and I am telling Janet that she will be caring more about a man
that hass a pleasant way with him than about the truth."

"What's wrong with things, Donald, since we lay in Edinburgh twenty
years ago, and you used to give me bits of the Free Kirk sermons?"

"It iss all wrong that they hef been going these last years, for they
stand to sing and they sit to pray, and they will be using human himes.
And it iss great pieces of the Bible they hef cut out, and I am told
that they are not done yet, but are going from bad to worse," and
Donald invited questioning.

"What more are they after, man?"

"It will be myself that has found it out, and it iss only what might be
expected, but I am not saying that you will be believing me."

"Out with it, Donald; let's hear what kind of people we 've come
amongst."

"They 've been just fairly left to themselves, and the godless bodies
hef taken to watering the whisky."




CHAPTER IV.

A SECRET CHAMBER.

"The cabinet now, dad, and at once," when they went up the stairs and
were standing in the room.  "Just give me three guesses about the
mystery; but first let me examine."

It was pretty to see Kate opening the doors, curiously carved with
hunting scenes, and searching the interior, tapping with her knuckles
and listening for a hollow sound.

"Is it a treasure we are to find?  Then that's one point.  Not in the
cabinet?  I have it; there is a door into some other place; am n't I
right?"

"Where could it be?  We're in a tower cut off from the body of the
Lodge, with a room above and a room below;" and the General sat down to
allow full investigation.

After many journeys up and down the stair, and many questions that
brought no light, Kate played a woman's trick up in her room.

"The General wishes to show me the concealed room in this tower, Janet,
or whatever you call it.  Would you kindly tell us how to get entrance?
You need n't come down; just explain to me;" and Kate was very pleasant
indeed.

"Yes, I am hearing there iss a room in the tower, Miss Kate, that
strangers will not be able to find; and it would be very curious if the
Carnegies did not have a safe place for an honest gentleman when he
wass in a little trouble.  All the good houses will have their secret
places, and it will not be easy to find some of them.  Oh no; now I
will remember one at Glamis Castle. . . ."

"Never mind Glamis, nurse, for the General is waiting.  Where is the
spring? is it in the oak cabinet?"

"It will be good for the General to be resting himself after his
luncheon, and he will be thinking many things in his room.  Oh yes,"
continued Janet, settling herself down to narrative, and giving no heed
to Kate's beguiling ways, "old Mary that died near a hundred would be
often telling me stories of the old days when I wass a little girl, and
the one I liked best wass about the hiding of the Duke of Perth."

"You will tell me that to-morrow, when I come down to see your house,
Janet, and to-day you 'll tell me how to open the spring."

"But it would be a pity not to finish the story about the Duke of
Perth, for it goes well, and it will be good for a Carnegie to hear
it."  And Kate flung herself into the window-seat, but was hugely
interested all the same.

"Mary wass sitting at her door in the evening, and that would be three
days after Culloden, for the news had been sent by a sure hand from the
Laird, when a man came riding along the road, and as soon as Mary saw
him she knew he wass somebody; but perhaps it will be too long a
story," and Janet began to arrange dresses in a wardrobe.

"No, no; as you have begun it, I want to hear the end, but quick, for
there 's the room to see and the rest of the Lodge before it grows
dark.  What like was he?"

"He wass a man that looked as if he would be commanding, but his
clothes were common grey, and stained with the road.  He wass very
tired, and could hardly hold himself up in the saddle, and his horse
wass covered with foam.  'Is this Tochty Lodge?' he asked, softening
his voice as one trying to speak humbly.  'I am passing this way, and
have a message for Mistress Carnegie; think you that I can have speech
of her quietly?'

"So Mary will go up and tell the lady that one wass waiting to see her,
and that he seemed a noble gentleman.  When they came down to the
courtyard he had drawn water for his horse from the well, and wass
giving him to drink, thinking more of the beast that had borne him than
of his own need, as became a man of birth.

"At the sight of the lady he took off his bonnet and bowed low, and
asked if he might hef a private audience, to which Mistress Carnegie
replied, 'We are private here,' and asked, 'Have you been with my son?'

"'We fought together for the Prince three days since--my name is Perth.
I am escaping for my life, and desire a brief rest, if it please you,
and bring no danger to your house.'

"'Ye had been welcome, my Lord Duke,' and Mary used to show how her
mistress straightened herself, though you were the poorest soldier that
had drawn his sword for the good cause, and ye will stay here till it
be safe for you to escape to France.'

"He wass four weeks hidden in the room, and although the soldiers
searched all the house, they could never find the place, and Mrs.
Carnegie put scorn upon them, asking why they did her so much honour
and whom they sought.  Oh yes, it wass a cunning place for the bad
times, and you will be pleased to see it."

"And the secret, Janet," cried Kate, her hand upon the door; "you know
it quite well."

"So does the General, Catherine of my heart," said Janet, "and he will
be liking to show it himself."

So Kate departed in a rage, and gave orders that there be no more
delay, for she would not spend an afternoon seeking for rat-holes.

"No rat-hole, Kit, but a very fair chamber for a hunted man; it is
twenty years and more since this door opened last, for none knows the
trick of it save Janet and myself.  There it goes."

A panel in the back of the cabinet slid aside behind its neighbour and
left a passage through which one could squeeze himself with an effort.

"We go up a stair now, and must have light; a candle will do; the air
is perfectly pure, for there 's plenty of ventilation;" and then they
crept up by steps in the thickness of the walls, till they stood in a
chamber under six feet high, but otherwise as large as the bedroom
below.  The walls were lined with wood, and there were two tiny slits
that gave air, but hardly any light.  The only furniture in the room
was an oaken chest, clasped with iron and curiously locked.

"Our plate chest, Kit; but there 'a not much silver and gold in it,
worse luck for you, lassie; in fact, we're a pack of fools to set store
by it.  There 's nothing in the kist but some old clothes, and perhaps
some buckles and such like.  I dare say there is a lock of hair also.
Some day we will have a look inside."

"To-day, instantly," and Kate shook her father.  "You are a dreadful
hypocrite, for I can see that you would rather Tochty were burned down
than this box be lost.  Are there any relics of Prince Charlie in it?
Quick."

"Be patient; it's a difficult key to turn; there now;" but there was
not much to see--only pieces of woollen cloth tightly folded down.

[Illustration: "It's a difficult key to turn."]

"Call Janet, Kate, for she ought to see this opening, and we 'll carry
everything down to my room, for no one could tell what like things are
in this gloom.  Yes, Perth lived here for weeks, and used to go up to
the gallery where Black John's mother sat with her maid; but the son
was hiding in the North, and never reached his house till he came to
die."

First of all they came upon a ball dress of the former time, of white
silk, with a sash of Macpherson tartan, besides much fine lace.

"That is the dress your great-grandmother wore as a bride at the Court
of Versailles in the fifties.  She was only a lassie, and seemed like
her husband's daughter.  The Prince danced with her, and they counted
the dress something to be kept, and that night Locheil and Cluny also
had a reel with Sheena Carnegie, while Black John looked like a young
man, for he had been too sorely wounded to be able to dance with her
himself."  And then the General carried down with his own hands a
Highland gentleman's evening dress, trews of the Royal tartan, and a
velvet coat with silver buttons, and a light plaid of fine cloth.

"And this was her husband's dress that night; but why the Stewart
tartan?"

"No, lassie, that is the suit the Prince wore at Holyrood, where he
gave a great ball after Prestonpans, and danced with the Edinburgh
ladies.  It was smuggled across to France at last with other things of
the Prince's, and he gave it to Carnegie.  'It will remind you of our
great days,' he said, 'when the Stewarts saw their friends in Mary's
Palace.'"

Last of all, the General lifted out a casket and laid it on his table.
Within it was a brooch, such as might once have been worn either by a
man or a woman; diamonds set in gold, and in the midst a lock of fair
hair.

"Is it really, father? . . ."  And Kate took the jewel in her hand.

"Yes, the Prince's hair--his wedding present to Sheena Macpherson."

Kate kissed it fervently, and passed it to Janet, who placed it
carefully in the box, while the General made believe to laugh.

"Your mother wore the brooch on great occasions, and you will do the
same, Kit, for auld lang syne.  There are two or three families left in
Perthshire that will like to see it on your breast."

"Yes, and there will maybe be more than two or three that will like to
see the lady that wears it."  This from Janet.

"Your compliments are a little late, and you may keep them to yourself,
Janet; it would have been kinder to tell me. . . ."

"Tell you what?"  And the General looked very provoking.

"I hate to be beaten."  Kate first looked angry, and then laughed.
"What else is there to see?"

"There is the gallery, which is the one feature in our poor house, and
we will try to reach it from the Duke's hiding-place, for it was a
cleverly designed hole, and had its stair up as well as down."  And
then they all came out into one of the strangest rooms you could find
in Scotland, and one that left a pleasant picture in their minds who
had seen it lit of a winter night, and the wood burning on the hearth,
and Kate dancing a reel with Lord Hay or some other brisk young man,
while the General looked on from one of the deep window recesses.

The gallery extended over the hall and Kate's drawing-room, and
measured fifty feet long from end to end.  The upper part of the walls
was divided into compartments by an arcading, made of painted pilasters
and flat arches.  Each compartment had a motto, and this was on one
side of the fireplace:

  A nice wyfe and
    A back doore
  Oft maketh a rich
    Man poore.


And on the other:--

  Give liberalye
  To neidfvl folke
  Denye nane of
  Them al for litle
  Thow knawest heir
  In this lyfe of what
  Chaunce may the
  Befall.


The glory of the gallery, however, was its ceiling, which was of the
seventeenth century work, and so wonderful that many learned persons
used to come and study it.  After the great disaster when the Lodge was
sold and allowed to fall to pieces, this fine work went first, and now
no one examining its remains could have imagined how wonderful it was,
and in its own way how beautiful.  This ceiling was of wood, painted,
and semi-elliptical in form, and one wet day, when we knew not what
else to do, Kate and I counted more than three hundred panels.  It was
an arduous labour for the neck, and the General refused to help us; but
I am sure that we did not make too many, for we worked time about,
while the General took note of the figures, and our plan was that each
finished his tale of work at some amazing beast, so that we could make
no mistake.  Some of the panels were circles, and they were filled in
with coats-of-arms; some were squares and they contained a bestiary of
that day.  It was hard indeed to decide whether the circles or the
squares were more interesting.  The former had the arms of every family
in Scotland that had the remotest connection with the Carnegies, and
besides swept in a wider field, comprising David, King of Israel, who
was placed near Hector of Troy, and Arthur of Brittany not far from
Moses--all of whom had appropriate crests and mottoes.  In the centre
were the arms of our Lord Christ as Emperor of Judea, and the chief
part of them was the Cross.  But it came upon one with a curious shock,
to see this coat among the shields of Scottish nobles.  There were
beasts that could be recognised at once, and these were sparingly
named; but others were astounding, and above them were inscribed titles
such as these: Shoe-lyon, Musket, Ostray; and one fearsome animal in
the centre was designated the Ram of Arabia.  This display of heraldry
and natural history was reinforced by the cardinal virtues in
seventeenth century dress: Charitas as an elderly female of extremely
forbidding aspect, receiving two very imperfectly clad children; and
Temperantia as a furious-looking person--male on the whole rather than
female--pouring some liquor--surely water--from a jug into a cup, with
averted face, and leaving little to be desired.  The afternoon sun
shining in through a western window and lingering among the black and
white tracery, so that the marking of a shield came into relief or a
beast suddenly glared down on one, had a weird, old-world effect.

"It's half an armoury and half a menagerie," said Kate, "and I think we
'll have tea in the library with the windows open to the Glen."  And so
they sat together in quietness, with books of heraldry and sport and
ancient Scottish classics and such like round them, while Janet went
out and in.

"So Donald has been obliged to leave his kirk;" for Kate had not yet
forgiven Janet.  "He says it's very bad here; I hope you won't go to
such a place."

"What would Donald Macdonald be saying against it?" inquired Janet,
severely.

"Oh, I don't remember--lots of things.  He thought you were making too
much of the minister."

"The minister iss a good man, and hass some Highland blood in him,
though he hass lost his Gaelic, and he will be very pleasant in the
house.  If I wass seeing a sheep, and it will be putting on this side
and that, and quarrelling with everybody, do you know what I will be
thinking?"

"That's Donald, I suppose; well?"

"I will say to myself, that sheep iss a goat."  And Janet left the room
with the laurels of victory.




CHAPTER V.

CONCERNING BESOMS.

It is one of the miseries of modern life, for which telephones are less
than compensation, that ninety out of a hundred city folk have never
known the comfort and satisfaction of dwelling in a house.  When the
sashes are flying away from the windows and the skirting boards from
the floor, and the planks below your feet are a finger breadth apart,
and the pipes are death-traps, it does not matter that the walls are
covered by art papers and plastered over with china dishes.  This
erection, wherein human beings have to live and work and fight their
sins and prepare for eternity, is a fraud and a lie.  No man compelled
to exist in such an environment of unreality can respect himself or
other people; and if it come to pass that he holds cheap views of life,
and reads smart papers, and does sharp things in business, and that his
talk be only a clever jingle, then a plea in extenuation will be lodged
for him at the Great Assize.  Small wonder that he comes to regard the
world of men as an empty show and is full of cynicism, who has shifted
at brief intervals from one shanty to another and never had a fit
dwelling-place all his years.  When a prophet cometh from the Eternal
to speak unto modern times as Dante did unto the Middle Ages, and
constructs the other world before our eyes, he will have one circle in
his hell for the builders of rotten houses, and doubtless it will be a
collection of their own works, so that their sin will be its
punishment, as is most fitting and the way of things.

Surely there will also be some corner of heaven kept for the man who,
having received a charge to build the shell wherein two people were to
make a home, laid its foundations deep and raised strong walls that
nothing but gunpowder could rend in pieces, and roofed it over with
oaken timber and lined it with the same, so that many generations might
live therein in peace and honour.  Such a house was the Lodge in those
days, although at last beginning to show signs of decay, and it somehow
stirred up the heroic spirit of the former time within a man to sit
before the big fire in the hall, with grim Carnegies looking down from
the walls and daring you to do any meanness, while the light blazing
out from a log was flung back from a sword that had been drawn in the
'15.  One was unconsciously reinforced in the secret place of his
manhood, and inwardly convinced that what concerneth every man is not
whether he fail or succeed, but that he do his duty according to the
light which may have been given him until he die.  It was also a
regeneration of the soul to awake in a room of the eastern tower, where
the Carnegies' guests slept, and fling up the window, with its small
square panes, to fill one's lungs with the snell northern air, and look
down on the woods glistening in every leaf, and the silver Tochty just
touched by the full risen sun.  Miracles have been wrought in that
tower, for it happened once that an Edinburgh advocate came to stay at
the Lodge, who spake after a quite marvellous fashion, known neither in
England nor Scotland; and being himself of pure bourgeois blood, the
fifth son of a factor, felt it necessary to despise his land, from its
kirk downwards, and had a collection of japes at Scottish ways, which
in his provincial simplicity he offered to the Carnegies.  It seemed to
him certain that people of Jacobite blood and many travels would have
relished his clever talk, for it is not given to a national decadent to
understand either the people he has deserted or the ancient houses at
whose door he stands.  Carnegie was the dullest man living in the
matter of sneering, and Kate took an instant dislike to the mincing
little man, whom she ever afterwards called the Popinjay, and so
handled him with her tongue that his superiority was mightily shaken.
But there was good stuff in the advocate, besides some brains, and
after a week's living in the Lodge, he forgot to wear his eye-glass,
and let his r's out of captivity, and attempted to make love to Kate,
which foolishness that masterful damsel brought to speedy confusion.
It was also said that when he went back to the Parliament House, every
one could understand what he said, and that he got two briefs in one
week, which shows how good it is to live in an ancient house with
honest people.

"Is there a ghost, dad?"  They were sitting before the fire in the hall
after dinner--Kate in her favourite posture, leaning forward and
nursing her knee.  The veterans and I thought that she always looked at
her best so, with her fine eyes fixed on the fire, and the light
bringing her face into relief against the shadow.  We saw her feet
then--one lifted a little from the ground--and V. C. declared they were
the smallest you could find for a woman of her size.

[Illustration: Kate in her favourite position.]

"She knows it, too," he used to say, "for when a woman has big feet she
always keeps them tucked in below her gown.  A woman with an eight-size
glove and feet to correspond is usually a paragon of modesty, and
strong on women's rights."

"Kate's glove is number six, and I think it's a size too big," broke in
the Colonel--we were all lying in the sun on a bank below the beeches
at the time, and the Colonel was understood to be preparing a sermon
for some meeting--"but it's a strong little hand, and a steady; she
used to be able to strike a shilling in the air at revolver practice."

"Ghost, lassie.  Oh, in the Lodge, a Carnegie ghost--not one I've ever
heard of; so you may sleep in peace, and I 'm below if you feel lonely
the first night."

"You are most insulting; one would think I were a milksop.  I was
hoping for a ghost--a white lady by choice.  Did no Carnegie murder his
wife, for instance, through jealousy or quarrelling?"

"The Carnegies have never quarrelled," said the General, with much
simplicity; "you see the men have generally been away fighting, and the
women had never time to weary of them."

"No woman ever wearies of a man unless he be a fool and gives in to
her--then she grows sick of him.  Life might be wholesome, but it would
have no smack; it would be like meat without mustard.  If a man cannot
rule, he ought not to marry, for his wife will play the fool in some
fashion or other like a runaway horse, and he has half the blame.  Why
did he take the box-seat?" and Kate nodded to the fire.  "What are you
laughing at?"

"Perhaps I ought to be shocked, but the thought of any one trying to
rule you, Kit, tickles me immensely.  I have had the reins since you
were a bairn, and you have been a handful.  You were a 'smatchit' at
six years old, and a 'trimmie' at twelve, and you are qualifying for
the highest rank in your class."

"What may that be, pray? it seems to me that the Scottish tongue is a
perfect treasure-house for impertinent people.  How Scots must
congratulate themselves that they need never be at a loss when they are
angry or even simply frank."

"If it comes to downright swearing, you must go to Gaelic," said the
General, branching off.  "Donald used to be quite contemptuous of any
slight efforts at profanity in the barrack yard, although they sickened
me.  'Toots, Colonel; ye do not need to be troubling yourself with such
poor little words, for they are just nothing at all, and yet the bodies
will be saying them over and over again like parrots.  Now a Lochaber
man could hef been saying what he wass wanting for fifteen minutes, and
nefer hef used the same word twice, unless he had been forgetting his
Gaelic.  It's a peautiful language, the Gaelic, when you will not be
fery well pleased with a man.'"

"That is very good, dad, but I think we were speaking in Scotch, and
you have not told me that nice complimentary title I am living to
deserve.  Is 'cutty' the disreputable word? for I think I 've passed
that rank already; it sounds quite familiar."

"No, it's a far more fetching word than 'cutty,' or even than 'randy'
(scold), which you may have heard."

"I have," replied Kate instantly, "more than once, and especially after
I had a difference in opinion with Lieutenant Strange.  You called me
one or two names then, dad---in fact you were quite eloquent; but you
know that he was a bad fellow, and that the regiment was well rid of
him; but I 'm older now, and I have not heard my promotion."

"It's the most vigorous word that Scots have for a particular kind of
woman."

"Describe her," demanded Kate.

"One who has a mind of her own," began the General, carefully, "and a
way, too, who is not easily cowed or managed, who is not . . ."

"A fool," suggested Kate.

"Who is not conspicuously soft in manner," pursued the General, with
discretion, "who might even have a temper."

"Not a tame rabbit, in fact.  I understand what you are driving at, and
I know what a model must feel when she is being painted.  And now
kindly pluck up courage and name the picture."  And Kate leant back,
with her hand behind her head, challenging the General--if he dared.
"Well?"

"Besom."  And he was not at all ashamed, for a Scot never uses this
word without a ring of fondness and admiration in his voice, as of one
who gives the world to understand that he quite disapproves of this
audacious woman, wife or daughter of his, but is proud of her all the
time.  It is indeed a necessity of his nature for a Scot to have husks
of reproach containing kernels of compliment, so that he may let out
his heart and yet preserve his character as an austere person,
destitute of vanity and sentiment.

"Accept your servant's thanks, my General.  I am highly honoured."  And
Kate made a sweeping courtesy, whereupon they both laughed merrily; and
a log blazing up suddenly made an old Carnegie smile who had taken the
field for Queen Mary, and was the very man to have delighted in a besom.

"When I was here in June"--and the General stretched himself in a deep
red leather chair--"I stood a while one evening watching a fair-haired,
blue-eyed little maid who was making a daisy chain and singing to
herself in a garden.  Her mother came out from the cottage, and, since
she did not see me, devoured the child with eyes of love.  Then
something came into her mind--perhaps that the good man would soon be
home for supper; she rushed forward and seized the child, as if it had
been caught in some act of mischief.  'Come into the hoose, this
meenut, ye little beesom, an' say yir carritches.  What's the chief end
o' man?'"

"Could she have been so accomplished at that age?" Kate inquired, with
interest.  "Are you sure about the term of endearment?  Was the child
visibly flattered?"

"She caught my eye as they passed in, and flung me a smile like one
excusing her mother's fondness.  But Davidson hears better things, for
as soon as he appears the younger members of a family are taken from
their porridge and set to their devotions.

"'What are ye glowerin' at there, ye little cutty?  Toom (empty) yir
mooth this meenut and say the twenty-third Psalm to the minister.'"

"Life seems full of incident, and the women make the play.  What about
the men?  Are they merely a chorus?"

"A stranger spending a week in one of our farm-houses would be ready to
give evidence in a court of justice that he had never seen women so
domineering or men so submissive as in Drumtochty.

"And why?  Because the housewife who sits in church as if butter would
n't melt in her mouth speaks with much fluency and vigour at home, and
the man says nothing.  His normal state is doing wrong and being
scolded from morning till night--for going out without his breakfast,
for not cleaning his boots when he comes in, for spoiling chairs by
sitting on them with wet clothes, for spilling his tea on the
tablecloth, for going away to market with a dusty coat, for visiting
the stable with his Sunday coat, for not speaking at all to visitors,
for saying things he ought n't when he does speak--till the
long-suffering man, raked fore and aft, rushes from the house in
desperation, and outside remarks to himself, by way of consolation,
'Losh keep 's! there 's nae livin' wi' her the day; her tongue 's
little better than a threshing-mill.'  His confusion, however, is
neither deep nor lasting, and in a few minutes he has started for a
round of the farm in good heart, once or twice saying 'Sall' in a way
that shows a lively recollection of his wife's gifts."

"Then the men love to be ruled," began Kate, with some contempt; "it
does not give me a higher idea of the district."

"Wait a moment, young woman, for all that goes for nothing except to
show that the men allow the women to be supreme in one sphere."

"In the dairy, I suppose?"

"Perhaps; and a very pleasant kingdom, too, as I remember it, when a
hot, thirsty, tired laddie, who had been fishing or ferreting, was
taken into the cool, moist, darkened place, and saw a dish of milk
creamed for his benefit by some sonsy housewife.  Sandie and I used to
think her omnipotent, and heard her put the gude man through his
facings with awe, but by-and-by we noticed that her power had limits.
When the matter had to do with anything serious, sowing or reaping or
kirk or market, his word was law.

"He said little, but it was final, and she never contradicted; it was
rare to hear a man call his wife by name; it was usually 'gude wife,'
and she always referred to him as the 'maister.'  And without any
exception, these silent, reserved men were 'maister;' they had a look
of authority."

"They gave way in trifles, to rule in a crisis, which is just my idea
of masculine government," expatiated Kate.  "A woman likes to say what
she pleases and have her will in little things; she has her way, and if
a man corrects her because she is inaccurate, and nags at her when she
does anything he does not approve, then he is very foolish and very
trying, and if she is not quite a saint, she will make him suffer.

"Do you remember Dr. Pettigrew, that prim little effigy of a man, and
his delightful Irish wife, and how conversation used to run when he was
within hearing?"

"Glad to have a tasting, Kit," and the General lay back in expectation.

"'Oi remember him, as foine an upstanding young officer as ye would
wish to see, six feet in his boots.'

"'About five feet ten, I believe, was his exact height, my dear.'

"'Maybe he was n't full grown then, but he was a good-looking man, and
as pretty a rider as ever sat on a horse.  Well, he was a Warwickshire
man . . .'

"'Bucks, he said himself.'

"'He was maybe born in both counties for all you know.'

"'Alethea,' with a cough and reproving look.

"'At any rate Oi saw him riding in a steeplechase in the spring of '67,
at Aldershot.'

"'It must, I think, have been '66.  We were at Gibraltar in '67.
Please be accurate.'

"'Bother your accuracy, for ye are driving the pigs through my story.
Well, Oi was telling ye about the steeplechase Jimmy Brook rode.  It
was a mile, and he had led for half, and so he was just four hundred
yards from the post.'

"'A half would be eight hundred and eighty yards.'

"'Oi wish from my heart that geography, arithmetic, memory, and
accuracy, and every other work of Satan were drowned with Moses in the
Red Sea.  Go, for any sake, and bring me a glass of irritated water.'"

"Capital," cried the General.  "I heard that myself, or something like
it.  Pettigrew was a tiresome wretch, but he was devoted to his wife in
his own way."

"Which was enough to make a woman throw things at him, as very likely
Alethea did when they were alone.  What a fool he was to bother about
facts; the charm of Lithy was that she had none--dates and such like
would have made her quite uninteresting.  The only dates I can quote
myself are the Rebellion and the Mutiny, and I 'll add the year we came
home.  I don't like datey women; but then it's rather cheap for one to
say that who does n't know anything," and Kate sighed very becomingly
at the contemplation of her ignorance.

"Except French, which she speaks like a Parisian," murmured the General.

"That's a fluke, because I was educated at the Scotch convent with
these dear old absurd nuns who were Gordons, and Camerons, and
Macdonalds, and did n't know a word of English."

"Who can manage her horse like a rough-rider," continued the General,
counting on his finger, "and dance like a Frenchwoman, and play whist
like a half-pay officer, and--"

"That's not education; those are simply the accomplishments of a besom.
You know, dad, I 've never read a word of Darwin, and I got tired of
George Eliot and went back to Scott."

"I 've no education myself," said the General, ruefully, "except the
Latin the old dominie thrashed into me; and some French which all our
set in Scotland used to have, and . . . I can hold my own with the
broadsword.  When I think of all those young officers know, I wonder we
old chaps were fit for anything."

"Well, you see, dad," and Kate began to count also, "you were made of
steel wire, and were never ill; you could march for a day and rather
enjoy a fight in the evening; you would go anywhere, and the men
followed just eighteen inches behind; you always knew what the enemy
was going to do before he did it, and you always did what he did n't
expect you to do.  That's not half the list of your accomplishments,
but they make a good beginning for a fighting man."

"It will be all mathematics in the future, Kit, and there will be no
fighting at close quarters.  The officers will wear gloves and
spectacles--but where are we now, grumbling as if we were sitting in a
club window?  Besides, these young fellows can fight as well as pass
exams.  You were saying that it was a shame of a man to complain of his
wife flirting," and the General studied the ceiling.

"You know that I never said anything of the kind; some women are flirty
in a nice way, just as some are booky, and some are dressy, and some
are witty, and some are horsey; and I think a woman should be herself.
I should say the right kind of man would be proud of his wife's strong
point, and give her liberty."

"He is to have none, I suppose, but just be a foil to throw her into
relief.  Is he to be allowed any opinions of his own? . . .  It looks
hard, that cushion, Kit, and I 'm an old broken-down man."

"You deserve leather, for you know what I think about a man's position
quite well.  If he allow himself to be governed by his wife in serious
matters, he is not worth calling a man."

"Like poor Major Macintosh."

"Exactly.  What an abject he was before that woman, who was simply--"

"Not a besom, Kate," interrupted the General, anxiously--afraid that a
classical word was to be misused.

"Certainly not, for a besom must be nice, and at bottom a lady--in
fact, a woman of decided character."

"Quite so.  You 've hit the bull's-eye, Kit, and paid a neat compliment
to yourself.  Have you a word for Mrs. Macintosh?"

"A vulgar termagant"--the General indicated that would do--"who would
call her husband an idiot aloud before a dinner-table, and quarrel like
a fishwife with people in his presence.

"Why, he daren't call his soul his own; he belonged to the kirk, you
know, and there was a Scotch padre, but she marched him off to our
service, and if you had seen him trying to find the places in the
Prayer-book.  If a man has n't courage enough to stand by his faith, he
might as well go and hang himself.  Don't you think the first thing is
to stick by your religion, and the next by your country, though it cost
one his life?"

"That's it, lassie; every gentleman does."

"She was a disgusting woman," continued Kate, "and jingling with money:
I never saw so many precious stones wasted on one woman; they always
reminded me of a jewel in a swine's snout."

"Kate!" remonstrated her father, "that's . . ."

"Rather coarse, but it's her blame; and to hear Mrs. Macintosh
calculating what each officer had--I told her we would live in a Lodge
at home and raise our own food.  My opinion is that her father was a
publican, and I 'm sure she had once been a Methodist."

"Why?"

"Because she was so Churchy, always talking about celebrations and
vigils, and explaining that it was a sin to listen to a Dissenting
chaplain."

"Then, Kate, if your man--as they say here--tried to make you hold his
views?"

"I wouldn't, and I'd hate him."

"And if he accepted yours?"

"I 'd despise him," replied Kate, promptly.

"You are a perfect contradiction."

"You mean I 'm a woman, and a besom, and therefore I don't pretend to
be consistent or logical, or even fair, but I am right."

Then they went up the west tower to the General's room, and looked out
on the woods and the river, and on a field of ripe corn upon the height
across the river, flooded with the moonlight.

"Home at last, lassie, you and I, and another not far off, maybe."

Kate kissed her father, and said, "One in love, dad . . . and faith."




CHAPTER VI.

A PLEASAUNCE.

The General read Morning Prayers in brief, omitting the Psalms and
lessons, and then after breakfast, with much gossip and ancient stories
from Donald, the father and daughter went out to survey their domain,
and though there be many larger, yet there can be few more romantic in
the north.  That Carnegie had a fine eye and a sense of things who, out
of all the Glen--for the Hays had little in Drumtochty in those
days--fastened on the site of the Lodge and planted three miles of
wood, birch and oak, and beech and ash, with the rowan tree, along the
river that goes out and in seven times in that distance, so that his
descendants might have a fastness for their habitation and their
children might grow up in kindly woods on which the south sun beats
from early spring till late autumn, and within the sight and sound of
clean, running water.  No wonder they loved their lonely home with
tenacious hearts, and left it only because it was in their blood to be
fighting.  They had been out at Langside and Philiphaugh, in the '15
and the '45, and always on the losing side.  The Lodge had never been
long without a young widow and a fatherless lad, but family history had
no warning for him--in fact, seemed rather to be an inspiration in the
old way--for no sooner had the young laird loved and married than he
would hear of another rebellion, and ride off some morning to fight for
that ill-fated dynasty whose love was ever another name for death.
There was always a Carnegie ready as soon as the white cockade appeared
anywhere in Scotland, and each of the house fought like the men before
him, save that he brought fewer at his back and had less in his pocket.
Little was left to the General and our Kate, and then came the great
catastrophe that lost them the Lodge, and so the race has now neither
name nor house in Scotland, save in the vault in Drumtochty Kirk.  It
is a question whether one is wise to revisit any place where he has
often been in happier times and see it desolate.  For me, at least, it
was a mistake, and the melancholy is still upon me.  The deserted house
falling at last to pieces, the over-grown garden, the crumbling paths,
the gaping bridges over the little burns, and the loneliness, chilled
one's soul.  There was no money to spare in the General's time, but it
is wonderful what one gardener, who has no hours, and works for love's
sake, can do, even in a place that needed half a dozen.  Then he was
assisted unofficially by Donald, who declared that working in the woods
was "fery healthy and good for one or two small cuts I happened to get
in India," and Kate gave herself to the garden.  The path by the river
was kept in repair, and one never knew when Kate might appear round the
corner.  Once I had come down from the cottage on a fine February day
to see the snowdrops in the sheltered nooks, for there were little
dells white as snow at that season in Tochty woods, and Kate, hearing
that I had passed, came of her kindness to take me back to luncheon.
She had on a jacket of sealskin that we greatly admired, and a felt hat
with three grouse feathers on the side, and round her throat a red
satin scarf.  The sun was shining on the bend of the path, and she came
into the light singing "Jack o' Hazeldean," walking, as Kate ever did
in song, with a swinging step like soldiers on a march.  It seemed to
me that day that she was born to be the wife either of a noble or a
soldier, and I still wish at times within my heart she were Countess of
Kilspindie, for then the Lodge had been a fair sight to-day, and her
father had died in his own room.  And other times I have imagined
myself Kilspindie, who was then Lord Hay, and questioned whether I
should have ordered Tochty to be dismantled and left a waste as it is
this day, and would have gone away to the wars, or would not have loved
to keep it in order for her sake, and visited it in the springtime when
the primroses are out, and the autumn when the leaves are blood-red.
Then I declare that Hay, being of a brave stock, and having acted as a
man of honour--for that is known to all now--ought to have put a good
face on his disappointment; but all the time I know one man who would
have followed Lord Hay's suit, and who regrets that he ever again saw
Tochty Lodge.

[Illustration: One gardener who . . . works for love's sake.]

"First of all," said the General as they sallied forth, "we shall go to
the Beeches, and see a view for which one might travel many days, and
pay a ransom."

So they went out into the court with its draw-well, from which they
must needs have a draught.  Suddenly the General laid down the cup like
a man in sudden pain, for he was thinking of Cawnpore, and they passed
quickly through the gateway and turned into a path that wound among
great trees that had been planted, it was said, by the Carnegie who
rode with Montrose.  They were walking on a plateau stretching out
beyond the line of the Lodge, and therefore commanding the Glen, if one
had eyes to see and the trees were not in the way.  Kate laid her hand
on the General's arm beneath an ancient beech, and they stood in
silence to receive the blessing of the place, for surely never is the
soul so open to the voice of nature as by the side of running water and
in the heart of a wood.  The fretted sunlight made shifting figures of
brightness on the ground; above the innumerable leaves rustled and
whispered; a squirrel darted along a branch and watched the intruders
with bright, curious eyes; the rooks cawed from the distance; the
pigeons cooed in sweet, sad cadence close at hand.  They sat down on
the bare roots at their feet and yielded themselves to the genius of
the forest--the god who will receive the heart torn and distracted by
the fierce haste and unfinished labours and vain ambitions of life, and
will lay its fever to rest and encompass it with the quietness of
eternity.

"Father," whispered Kate, after a while, as one wishing to share
confidences, for there must be something to tell, "where are you?"

"You wish to know?  Well, all day I 've been fishing down the stream,
and am coming home, very tired, very dirty, very happy, and I meet my
mother just outside those trees.  I am boasting of the fish that I have
caught, none of which, I 'm sure, can be less than half a pound.  She
is rating me for my appearance and beseeching me to keep at a distance.
Then I go home and down into the vaulted kitchen, where Janet's mother
gives me joyous welcome, and produces dainties saved from dinner for my
eating.  The trouts are now at biggest only a quarter of a pound, for
they have to be cooked as a final course, but those that were hooked
and escaped are each a pound, except one in the hole below Lynedoch
Bridge, which was two pounds to an ounce.  Afterwards I make a brave
attempt to rehearse the day in the gunroom to Sandie, who first taught
me to cast a line, and fall fast asleep, and, being shaken up, sneak
off to bed, creeping slowly up the stair, where the light is falling,
to the little room above yours, where, as I am falling over, I seem to
hear my mother's voice as in this sighing of the wind.  Ah me, what a
day it was!  And you, Kit?"

"Oh, I was back in the convent with my nuns, and Sister Flora was
trying to teach me English grammar in good French, and I was correcting
her in bad French, and she begins to laugh because it is all so droll.
'I am Scotch, and I teach you English all wrong, and you tell me what I
ought to say in French which is all wrong; let us go into the garden,'
for she was a perfect love, and always covered my faults.  I am sitting
in the arbour, and the Sister brings a pear that has fallen.  'I do not
think it is wicked,' she says, and I say it is simply a duty to eat up
fallen pears, and we laugh again.  As we sit, they are singing in the
chapel, and I hear 'Ave Maria, ora pro nobis.'  Then I think of you,
and the tears will come to my eyes, and I try to hide my face, but the
Sister understands and comforts me.  'Your father is a gallant
gentleman, and the good God pities you, and will keep him in danger,'
and I fondle the Sister, and wonder whether any more pears have fallen.
How peaceful it is within that high wall, which is rough and forbidding
outside, but inside it is hung with greenery, and among the leaves I
see pears and peaches.  But I missed you, dad," and Kate touched her
father, for they had a habit of just touching each other gently when
together.

"Do you really think we have been in India, and that you have a dozen
medals, and I am . . . an old maid?"

"Certainly not, Kit, a mere invention--we are boy and girl, and . . .
we 'll go on to the view."

Suddenly they came out from the shade into a narrow lane of light,
where some one of the former time, with an eye and a soul, had cleared
a passage among the trees, so that one standing at the inner end and
looking outwards could see the whole Glen, while the outstretched
branches of the beeches shaded his eyes.  Morning in the summer-time
about five o'clock was a favourable hour, because one might see the
last mists lift, and the sun light up the face of Ben Urtach, and
evening-tide was better, because the Glen showed wonderfully tender in
the soft light, and the Grampians were covered with glory.  But it was
best to take your first view towards noon, for then you could trace the
Tochty upwards as it appeared and reappeared, till it was lost in woods
at the foot of Glen Urtach, with every spot of interest on either side.
Below the kirk it ran broad and shallow, with a bank of brushwood on
one side and a meadow on the other, fringed with low bushes from behind
which it was possible to drop a fly with some prospects of success,
while in quite unprotected situations the Drumtochty fish laughed at
the tempter, and departed with contemptuous whisks of the tail.  Above
the haughs was a little mill, where flax was once spun and its lade
still remained, running between the Tochty and the steep banks down
which the glen descended to the river.  Opposite this mill the Tochty
ran with strength, escaping from the narrows of the bridge, and there
it was that Weelum MacLure drove across Sir George in safety, because
the bridge was not for use that day.  Whether that bridge was really
built by Marshall Wade in his great work of pacifying the Highlands is
very far from certain, but Drumtochty did not relish any trifling with
its traditions, and had a wonderful pride in its solitary bridge, as
well it might, since from the Beeches nothing could well be more
picturesque.  Its plan came nearly to an inverted V, and the apex was
just long enough to allow the horses to rest after the ascent, before
they precipitated themselves down the other side.  During that time the
driver leant on the ledge, and let his eye run down the river, taking
in the Parish Kirk above and settling on the Lodge, just able to be
seen among the trees where the Tochty below turned round the bend.
What a Drumtochty man thought on such occasions he never told, but you
might have seen even Whinnie nod his head with emphasis.  The bridge
stood up clear of banks and woods, grey, uncompromising,
unconventional, yet not without some grace of its own in its high arch
and abrupt descents.  One with good eyes and a favouring sun could see
the water running underneath, and any one caught its sheen higher up,
before a wood came down to the water's edge and seemed to swallow up
the stream.  Above the wood it is seen again, with a meal mill on the
Tochty left nestling in among the trees, and one would call it the
veriest burn, but it was there that Posty lost his life to save a
little child.  And then it dwindles into the thinnest thread of silver,
and at last is seen no more from the beeches.  From the Tochty the eye
makes its raids on north and south.  The dark, massy pine-woods on the
left side of the glen are broken at intervals by fields as they
threaten to come down upon the river, and their shelter lends an air of
comfort and warmth to the glen.  On the right the sloping land is
tilled from the bank above the river up to the edge of the moor that
swells in green and purple to the foot of the northern rampart of
mountains, but on this side also the glen here and there breaks into
belts of fir, which fling their kindly arms round the scattered
farm-houses, and break up the monotony of green and gold with squares
of dark green foliage and the brown of the tall, bare trunks.  Between
the meandering stream and the cultivated land and the woods and the
heather and the distant hills, there was such a variety as cannot be
often gathered into the compass of one landscape.

[Illustration: Among the great trees.]

"And all our own," cried Kate in exultation; "let us congratulate
ourselves."

"I only wish it were, lassie.  Why, did n't you understand we have only
these woods and a few acres of ploughed land now?"

"You stupid old dad; I begin to believe that you have had no education.
Of course the Hays have got the land, but we have the view and the joy
of it.  This is the only place where one can say to a stranger, 'Behold
Drumtochty,' and he will see it at a flash and at its best."

"You 're brighter than your father, Kit, and a contented lassie to
boot, and for that word I'll take you straight to the Pleasaunce."

"What a charming name; it suggests a fairy world, with all sorts of
beautiful things and people."

"Quite right, Kit"--leading the way down to a hollow, surrounded by
wood and facing the sun, the General opened a door in an ivy-covered
wall--"for there is just one Pleasaunce on the earth, and that is a
garden."

It had been a risk to raise certain people's expectations and then
bring them into Tochty garden, for they can be satisfied with no place
that has not a clean-shaven lawn and beds of unvarying circles,
pyrethrum, calceolaria, and geranium, and brakes of rare roses, and
glass-houses with orchids worth fifty pound each, which is a garden in
high life, full of luxury, extravagance, weariness.  As Kate entered, a
moss rose which wandered at its will caught her skirt, and the General
cut a blossom which she fastened in her breast, and surely there is no
flower so winsome and fragrant as this homely rose.

"Like yourself, Miss Carnegie," and the General rallied his simple wit
for the occasion, "very sweet and true, with a thorn, too, if one
gripped it the wrong way."

Whereat he made believe to run, and had the better speed because there
were no gravel walks with boxwood borders here, but alleys of old turf
that were pleasant both to the touch and the eye.  In the centre where
all the ways met he capitulated with honours of war, and explained that
he had intended to compare Kate to a violet, which was her natural
emblem, but had succumbed to the temptation of her eyes, "which make
men wicked, Kit, with the gleam that is in them."

"Is n't it a tangle?"  Which it was, and no one could look upon it
without keen delight, unless he were a horticultural pedant in whom the
appreciation of nature had been killed by parterres.  There was some
principle of order, and even now, when the Pleasaunce is a wilderness,
the traces can be found.  A dwarf fruit tree stood at every corner, and
between the trees a three-foot border of flowers kept the peas and
potatoes in their places.  But the borders were one sustained,
elaborate, glorified disorder.  There were roses of all kinds that have
ever gladdened poor gardens and simple hearts--yellow tea roses, moss
roses with their firm, shapely buds, monthly roses that bore nearly all
the year in a warm spot, the white briar that is dear to north country
people, besides standards in their glory, with full round purple
blossom.  Among the roses, compassing them about and jostling one
another, some later, some earlier in bloom, most of them together in
the glad summer days, one could find to his hand wall-flowers and
primroses, sweet-william and dusty-miller, daisies red and white,
forget-me-nots and pansies, pinks and carnations, marigolds and phloxes
of many varieties.  The confusion of colours was preposterous, and
showed an utter want of aesthetic sense.  In fact, one may confess that
the Lodge garden was only one degree removed from the vulgarity and
prodigality of nature.  There was no taste, no reserve, no harmony
about that garden.  Nature simply ran riot and played according to her
will like a child of the former days, bursting into apple blossom and
laburnum gold and the bloom of peas and the white strawberry flower in
early summer, and then, later in the year, weaving garlands of blazing
red, yellow, white, purple, round beds of stolid roots and brakes of
currant bushes.  There was a copper beech, where the birds sang, and
from which they raided the fruit with the skill of Highland caterans.
The Lodge bees lived all day in this garden, save when they went to
reinforce their sweetness from the heather bloom.  The big trees stood
round the place and covered it from every wind except the south, and
the sun was ever blessing it.  There was one summer-house, a mass of
honeysuckle, and there they sat down as those that had come back to
Eden from a wander year.

"Well, Kit?"

"Thank God for our Pleasaunce."  And they would have stayed for hours,
but there was one other spot that had a fascination for the General
neither years nor wars had dulled, and he, who was the most
matter-of-fact and romantic of men, must see and show it to his
daughter before they ceased.

"A mile and more, Kit, but through the woods and by the water all the
way."

Sometimes they went down a little ravine made by a small burn fighting
and wearing its way for ages to the Tochty, and stood on a bridge of
two planks and a handrail thrown over a tiny pool, where the water was
resting on a bed of small pebbles.  The oak copse covered the sides of
the tiny glen and met across the streamlet, and one below could see
nothing but greenery and the glint of the waterfall where the burn
broke into the bosky den from the bare heights above.  Other times the
path, that allowed two to walk abreast if they wished very much and
kept close together, would skirt the face of the high river bank, and
if you peeped down through the foliage of the clinging trees you could
see the Tochty running swiftly, and the overhanging branches dipping in
their leaves.  Then the river would make a sweep and forsake its bank,
leaving a peninsula of alluvial land between, where the geranium and
the hyacinth and the iris grew in deep, moist soil.  One of these was
almost clear of wood and carpeted with thick, soft turf, and the river
beside it was broad and shining.

"We shall go down here," said the General, "and I will show you
something that I count the finest monument in Perthshire, or maybe in
broad Scotland."

In the centre of the sward, with trees just touching it with the tips
of their branches, was a little square, with a simple weather-beaten
railing.  And the General led Kate to the spot, and stood for a while
in silence.

"Two young Scottish lassies, Kate, who died two hundred years ago, and
were buried here, and this is the ballad--

  "'Bessie Bell and Mary Grey
  They were twa bonnie lassies,
  They biggit a hoose on yonder brae
  And theikit it ower wi' rashes.'"


Then the General and Kate sat down by the river edge, and he told her
the deathless story,--how in the plague of 1666 they fled to this
district to escape infection; how a lover came to visit one of them and
brought death in his kiss; how they sickened and died; how they were
laid to rest beside the Tochty water; and generations have made their
pilgrimage to the place, so wonderful and beautiful is love.  They
loved, and their memory is immortal.

Kate rested her chin on her hand and gazed at the running water, which
continued while men and women live and love and die.

"He ought not to have come; it was a cowardly, selfish act, but I
suppose," added the General, "he could not keep away."

"Be sure she thought none the less of him for his coming, and I think a
woman will count life itself a small sacrifice for love," and Kate went
over to the grave.

A thrush was singing as they turned to go, and nothing was said on the
way home till they came near the Lodge.

"Who can that be going in, Kate?  He seems a padre."

"I do not know, unless it be our fellow traveller from Muirtown; but he
has been redressing himself, and is not improved.

"Father," and Kate stayed the General, as they crossed the threshold of
their home, "we have seen many beautiful things to-day, for which I
thank you; but the greatest was love."




CHAPTER VII.

A WOMAN OF THE NEW DISPENSATION.

Carmichael's aunt, who equipped his house, was determined on one point,
and would not hear of a clerical housekeeper for her laddie.  Margaret
Meiklewham--a woman of a severe countenance, and filled with the spirit
of the Disruption--who had governed the minister of Pitscowrie till his
decease, and had been the terror of callow young probationers, offered
herself, and gave instances of her capability.

"Gin ye leave yir nephew in my hands, ye needna hae ony mair concern.
A 'll manage him fine, an' hand him on the richt road.  Ye may lippen
tae 't, a' wesna five and thirty year wi' Maister MacWheep for naethin'.

"He wes a wee fractious and self-willed at the off-go, an' wud be
wantin' this an' that for his denner, but he sune learned tae tak' what
wes pit afore him; an' as for gaein' oot withoot tellin' me, he wud as
sune hae thocht o' fleein'; when he cam' in he keepit naethin' back at
his tea.

"Preachin' wes kittle wark in Pitscoorie, for the fouk were awfu'
creetics, though they didna maybe think sae muckle o' themselves as
Drumtochty.  A' aye githered their jidgment through the week, an' gin
he hed made a slip meddling wi' warks or sic-like in his sermon, it wes
pit richt next Sabbath, and sovereignty whuppit in at the feenish.

"Ye ken the Auld Kirk hes tae be watchit like a cat wi' a moose, an'
though a' say it as sudna, Maister MacWheep wud hae made a puir job o'
the business himsel'.  The pairish meenister wes terrible plausible,
an' askit oor man tae denner afore he wes settled in his poopit, an' he
wes that simple, he wud hae gaen," and Margaret indicated by an
uplifting of her eyebrows the pitiable innocence of MacWheep.

"Ye guidit him, nae doot?" inquired Carmichael's aunt, with interest.

"'Maister MacWheep,' says I," and Miss Meiklewham's lips were very
firm, "'a 'll no deny that the Auld Kirk is Christian, an' a've never
said that a Moderate cudna be savit, but the less trokin' (trafficking)
ye hae wi' them the better.  There 's maybe naethin' wrang wi' a
denner, but the next thing 'll be an exchange o' poopits, and the day
ye dae that ye may close the Free Kirk.'

"And the weemen"--here the housekeeper paused as one still lost in
amazement at the audacity with which they had waylaid the helpless
MacWheep--"there wes ae madam in Muirtown that hed the face tae invite
hersel' oot tae tea wi' three dochters, an' the way they wud flatter
him on his sermons wes shamefu'.

"If they didna begin askin' him tae stay wi' them on Presbytery days,
and Mrs. MacOmish hed the face tae peety him wi' naebody but a
hoosekeeper.  He lat oot tae me though that the potatoes were as hard
as a stone at denner, an' that he hed juist ae blanket on his bed,
which wesna great management for four weemen."

As Carmichael's aunt seemed to be more and more impressed, Margaret
moistened her lips and rose higher.

"So the next time ma lady comes oot tae see the spring flowers," she
said, "a' explained that the minister wes sae delicate that a' didna
coont it richt for him tae change his bed, and a' thocht it wud be mair
comfortable for him tae come hame on the Presbytery nichts, an' safer.

"What said she?  No a word," and Miss Meiklewham recalled the ancient
victory with relish.  "She lookit at me, and a' lookit at her, an'
naething passed; but that wes the laist time a' saw her at the manse.
A 've hed experience, and a 'm no feared tae tak' chairge o' yir
nephew."

Carmichael's aunt was very deferential, complimenting the eminent woman
on her gifts and achievements, and indicating that it would be hard for
a young Free Kirk minister to obtain a better guardian; but she had
already made arrangements with a woman from the south, and could not
change.

Drumtochty was amazed at her self-will, and declared by the mouth of
Kirsty Stewart that Carmichael's aunt had flown in the face of
Providence.  Below her gentle simplicity she was however a shrewd
woman, and was quite determined that her nephew should not be handed
over to the tender mercies of a clerical housekeeper, who is said to be
a heavier yoke than the Confession of Faith, for there be clever ways
of escape from confessions, but none from Margaret Meiklewham; and
while all the churches are busy every year in explaining that their
Articles do not mean what they say, Miss Meiklewham had a snort which
was beyond all she said, and that was not by any means restricted.

"John," said Carmichael's aunt, one day after they had been buying
carpets, "I 've got a housekeeper for you that will keep you
comfortable and can hold her tongue," but neither then nor afterwards,
neither to her nephew nor to Drumtochty, did Carmichael's aunt tell
where she secured Sarah.

"That's my secret, John," she used to say, with much roguishness, "an'
ye maun confess that there 's ae thing ye dinna ken.  Ye 'll hae the
best-kept manse in the Presbytery, an' ye 'll hae nae concern, sae be
content."

Which he was, and asked no questions, so that he knew no more of Sarah
the day she left than the night she arrived; and now he sometimes
speculates about her history, but he has no clue.

She was an event in the life of the parish, and there are those who
speak of her unto this day with exasperation.  The new housekeeper was
a subject of legitimate though ostentatiously veiled curiosity, and it
was expected that a full biography by Elspeth Macfadyen would be at the
disposal of the kirkyard, as well as the Free Kirk gate, within ten
days of her arrival; it might even be on the following Sabbath,
although it was felt that this was asking too much of Elspeth.

It was on the Friday evening Mrs. Macfadyen called, with gifts of
butter and cream for the minister, and was received with grave, silent
courtesy.  While they played with the weather, the visitor made a swift
examination, and she gave the results on Sabbath for what they were
worth.

"A tall, black wumman, spare an' erect, no ill-faured nor ill-made; na,
na, a 'll alloo that; a trig, handy cummer, wi' an eye like a hawk an'
a voice like pussy; nane o' yir gossipin', haverin', stravaigin' kind.
He 'll be clever 'at gets onything out o' her or maks much o' a bargain
wi' her.

"Sall, she 's a madam an' nae mistak'.  If that waefu', cunnin',
tramping wratch Clockie didna come tae the door, where I was sittin',
an' askit for the new minister.  Ye ken he used tae come an' hear
Maister Cunningham on the principles o' the Disruption for an 'oor,
givin' oot that he wes comin' roond tae the Free Kirk view; then he got
his denner an' a suit o' claithes."

"A' mind o' Clockie gettin' five shillin's ae day," remarked Jamie
Soutar, who was at the Free Kirk that morning; "he hed started Dr.
Chalmers wi' the minister; Dr. Guthrie he coontit to be worth aboot
half-a-croon; but he aince hed three shillin's oot o' the Cardross
case.  He wes graund on the doctrine o' speeritual independence, and
terrible drouthy; but a 'm interruptin' ye, Elspeth."

"'The minister is at dinner,' says she, 'and can't be disturbed; he
sees no one at the door.'

"'It's reeligion a 'm come aboot,' says Clockie, stickin' in his foot
tae keep the door open, 'an' a'll juist wait at the fire.'

"'It's more likely to be whisky from your breath, and you will find a
public-house in the village; we give nothing to vagrants here.'  Then
she closed the door on his foot, and the language he used in the yard
wesna connectit wi' reeligion."

Drumtochty admitted that this showed a woman of vigour--although our
conventions did not allow us to treat Clockie or any known wastrel so
masterfully--and there was an evident anxiety to hear more.

"Her dress wes black an' fittit like a glove, an' wes set aff wi' a
collar an' cuffs, an' a' saw she hedna come frae the country, so that
wes ae thing settled; yon 's either a toon dress or maybe her ain
makin' frae patterns.

"It micht be Edinburgh or Glesgie, but a' began tae jalouse England
aifter hearin' her hannel Clockie, sae a' watchit fur a word tae try
her tongue."

"Wurk is a gude handy test," suggested Jamie; "the English hae barely
ae r, and the Scotch hae aboot sax in 't."

"She wudna say 't, Jamie, though a' gied her a chance, speakin' aboot
ae wumman daein' a'thing in the manse, sae a' fell back on church, an'
that brocht oot the truth.  She didna say 'chich,' so she 's no English
born, and she didna say 'churrrch,' so she 's been oot o' Scotland.  It
wes half and between, and so a' said it wud be pleasant for her tae be
in her ain country again, aifter livin' in the sooth."

Her hearers indicated that Elspeth had not fallen beneath herself, and
began to wonder how a woman who had lived in London would fit into
Drumtochty.

"What div ye think she said tae me?"  Then Drumtochty understood that
there had been an incident, and that Elspeth as a conversationalist, if
not as a raconteur, had found her equal.

"'You are very kind to think of my movements, but'"--and here Mrs.
Macfadyen spoke very slowly--"'I'm afraid they don't teach home
geography at your school.  Paisley is not out of Scotland.'"

"Ye've met yir match, Elspeth," said Jamie, with a hoarse chuckle, and
the situation was apparent to all.  It was evident that the new
housekeeper was minded to hide her past, and the choice of her last
residence was a stroke of diabolical genius.  Paisley is an ancient
town inhabited by a virtuous and industrious people, who used to make
shawls and now spin thread, and the atmosphere is so literary that it
is believed every tenth man is a poet.  Yet people do not boast of
having been born there, and natives will pretend they came from
Greenock.  No one can mention Paisley without a smile, and yet no one
can say what amused him.  Certain names are the source of perennial
laughter, in which their inhabitants join doubtfully, as persons not
sure whether to be proud or angry.  They generally end in an apology,
while the public, grasping vaguely at the purpose of such a place,
settle on it every good tale that is going about the world unprovided
for and fatherless.  So a name comes to be bathed in the ridiculous,
and a mere reference to it passes for a stroke of supreme felicity.

"Paisley"--Jamie again tasted the idea--"she 'll be an acqueesition tae
the Glen."

It was Sarah's first stroke of character to arrive without
notice--having utterly baffled Peter at the Junction--and to be in
complete possession of the manse on the return of Carmichael and his
aunt from pastoral visits.

"Sarah," cried the old lady in amazement at the sight of the
housekeeper in full uniform, calm and self-possessed, as one having
been years in this place, "when did ye come?"

"Two hours ago, m'am, and I think I understand the house.  Shall I
bring tea into the dining-room, or would you rather have it in the
study?"  But she did not once glance past his aunt to Carmichael, who
was gazing in silence at this composed young woman in the doorway.

"This is Sarah, John, who hes come to keep yir house," and his aunt
stepped back.  "Sarah, this is my dear laddie, the minister."

Perhaps because her eyes were of a flashing black that pierced one like
a steel blade, Sarah usually looked down in speaking to you, but now
she gave Carmichael one swift, comprehensive look that judged him soul
and body, then her eyes fell, and her face, always too hard and keen,
softened.

"I will try, sir, to make you comfortable, and you will tell me
anything that is wrong."

"You took us by surprise, Sarah," and Carmichael, after his hearty
fashion, seized his housekeeper's hand; "let me bid you welcome to the
manse.  I hope you will be happy here, and not feel lonely."

But the housekeeper only bowed, and turned to his aunt.

"Dinner at six?  As you were not in, and it did not seem any use
consulting the woman that was here, I am preparing for that hour."

"Well, ye see, Sarah, we have just been taking tea, with something to
it, but if--"

"Gentlemen prefer evening dinner, ma'am."

"Quite right, Sarah," burst in Carmichael in great glee; "tea-dinner is
the most loathsome meal ever invented, and we 'll never have it in the
Free Manse.

"That is an admirable woman, auntie," as Sarah disappeared, "with sound
views on important subjects.  I 'll never ask again where she came
from; she is her own testimonial."

"You mauna be extravagant, John; Sarah hes never seen a manse before,
and I must tell her not to--"

"Ruin me, do you mean, by ten courses every evening, like the dinners
West-end philanthropists used to give our men to show them how to
behave at table?  We 'll be very economical, only having meat twice a
week--salt fish the other days--but it will always be dinner."

"What ails you at tea-dinner, John? it's very tasty and homely."

"It's wicked, auntie, and has done more injury to religion than
drinking.  No, I'm not joking--that is a childish habit--but giving
utterance to profound truth, which ought to be proclaimed on the
house-tops, or perhaps in the kitchens.

"Let me explain, and I 'll make it as plain as day--all heresy is just
bad thinking, and that comes from bad health, and the foundation of
health is food.  A certain number of tea-dinners would make a man into
a Plymouth brother.  It's a mere question of time.

"You see if a man's digestion is good he takes a cheerful view of
things; but if he is full of bile, then he is sure that everybody is
going to be lost except himself and his little set, and that's heresy.
Apologetics is just dietetics; now there 's an epigram made for you on
the spot, and you don't know what it means, so we 'll have a walk
instead."

His aunt knew what was coming, but was too late to resist, so she was
twice taken round the room for exercise, till she cried out for mercy,
and was left to rest while Carmichael went out to get an appetite for
that dinner.

Nothing was said during its progress, but when Sarah had finally
departed after her first triumph, won under every adverse circumstance
of strangeness and limited resources, Carmichael took his aunt's hand
and kissed it.

"It is an illuminated address you deserve, auntie, for such a paragon;
as it is, I shall be the benefactor of a Presbytery, asking the men up
by turns on fast-days, and sending them home speechless with
satisfaction."

"Sarah was always a clever woman; if she had only--"  But Carmichael
heard not, in his boyish excitement of householding.

"Clever is a cold word for such genius.  Mark my words, there is not a
manse in Perthshire that shall not sound with the praise of Sarah.  I
vow perpetual celibacy on the spot.  No man would dream of marrying
that had the privilege of such a housekeeper."

"Ye 're a silly laddie, John; but some day a fair face will change a'
yer life, an' if she be a good wumman like your mother, I 'll thank
God."

"No woman can be compared with her," and the minister sobered.  "You
and she have spoiled me for other women, and now you have placed me
beyond temptation with such a cook."

So it came to pass that Carmichael, who knew nothing about fine cooking
till Sarah formed his palate with her cunning sauces, and, after all,
cared as little what he ate as any other healthy young man, boasted of
his housekeeper continually by skilful allusions, till the honest wives
of his fathers and brethren were outraged and grew feline, as any
natural woman will if a servant is flung in her face in this
aggravating fashion.

"I 'm glad to hear you 're so well pleased, Mr. Carmichael," Mrs.
MacGuffie would say, who was full of advice, and fed visitors on the
produce of her garden, "but no man knows comfort till he marries.  It's
a chop one day and a steak the next all the year round--nothing tasty
or appetising; and as for his shirts, most bachelors have to sew on
their own buttons.  Ah, you all pretend to be comfortable, but I know
better, for Mr. MacGuffie has often told me what he suffered."

Whereat Carmichael would rage furiously, and then, catching sight of
MacGuffie, would bethink him of a Christian revenge.  MacGuffie was
invited up to a day of humiliation--Sarah receiving for once _carte
blanche_--and after he had powerfully exhorted the people from the
words, "I am become like a bottle in the smoke," he was conducted to
the manse in an appropriately mournful condition, and set down at the
table.  He was inclined to dwell on the decadence of Disruption
principles during soup, but as the dinner advanced grew wonderfully
cheerful, and being installed in an arm-chair with a cup of decent
coffee beside him, sighed peacefully, and said, "Mr. Carmichael, you
have much cause for thankfulness."  Mr. MacGuffie had not come to the
age of sixty, however, without learning something, and he only gave his
curious spouse to understand that Carmichael had done all in his power
to make his guest comfortable, and was not responsible for his
servant's defects.

[Illustration: "Mr. Carmichael, you have much cause for thankfulness."]

Ladies coming with their husbands to visit the manse, conceived a
prejudice against Sarah on the general ground of dislike to all
housekeepers as a class of servants outside of any mistress's control,
and therefore apt to give themselves airs, and especially because this
one had a subtle suggestion of independent personality that was all the
more irritating because it could not be made plain to the dull male
intelligence, which was sadly deceived.

"What a lucky man Carmichael is on his first venture!"  Even Dr.
Dowbiggin, of St. Columba's, Muirtown, grew enthusiastic to his wife in
the privacy of their bedchamber on a sacramental visit, and every one
knows that the Doctor was a responsible man, ministering to four
bailies and making "overtures" to the Assembly, beginning with
"Whereas" and ending with "Venerable House."  "I am extremely pleased
to see . . . everything so nice."

"You mean, James, that you have had a good dinner, far too ambitious
for a young minister's table.  Did you ever see an entrée on a
Disruption table, or dessert with finger glasses?  I call it
sinful--for the minister of Drumtochty, at least; and I don't believe
he was ever accustomed to such ways.  If she attended to his clothes,
it would set her better than cooking French dishes.  Did you notice the
coat he was wearing at the station?--just like a gamekeeper.  But it is
easy for a woman to satisfy a man; give him something nice to eat, and
he 'll ask no more."

"So far as my recollection serves me, Maria"--the Doctor was ruffled,
and fell into his public style--"I made no reference to food, cooked or
uncooked, and perhaps I may be allowed to say that it is not a subject
one thinks of . . . at such seasons.  What gave me much satisfaction
was to see one of our manses so presentable; as regards the
housekeeper, so far as I had an opportunity of observing, she seemed a
very capable woman indeed," and the Doctor gave one of his coughs,
which were found most conclusive in debate.

"It's easy to be a man's servant," retorted Mrs. Dowbiggin, removing a
vase of flowers from the dressing-table with contempt, "for they never
look below the surface.  Did you notice her hands, as white and smooth
as a lady's?  You may be sure there 's little scrubbing and brushing
goes on in this manse."

"How do you know, Maria?"--the Doctor was weakening.  "You have never
been in the house before."

"We 'll soon see that, James, though I dare say it would never occur to
a man to do such a thing.  Did you ever look below the bed?"

"Never," replied the Doctor, promptly, who was not constructed to
stoop, "and I am not going to begin after that . . . ah . . . this
evening, with work before me to-morrow.  But I would be glad to see
you."

"I have done so every night of my life for fear of robbers, and the
dust I 've seen in strange houses--it's there you can tell a good
servant," and Mrs. Dowbiggin nodded with an air of great sagacity.

"Well," demanded the Doctor, anxiously watching the operation, "guilty
or not guilty?"

"She knew what I would do.  I hate those sharp women," and then the
Doctor grew so eloquent over uncharitable judgments and unreasonable
prejudices that his wife denounced Sarah bitterly as a "cunning woman
who got on the blind side of gentlemen."

Her popularity with Carmichael's friends was beyond question, for
though she was a reserved woman, with no voluntary conversation, they
all sent messages to her, inquired for her well-being at Fast-days, and
brought her gifts of handkerchiefs, gloves, and such like.  When they
met at Theologicals and Synods they used to talk of Sarah with
unction--till married men were green with envy--being simple fellows
and helpless in the hands of elderly females of the Meiklewham genus.
For there are various arts by which a woman, in Sarah's place, wins a
man's gratitude, and it may be admitted that one is skilful cooking.
Sensible and book-reading men do not hunger for six courses, but they
are critical about their toast and . . . nothing more, for that is the
pulse.  Then a man also hates to have any fixed hour for
breakfast--never thinking of houses where they have prayers at 7.50
without a shudder--but a man refuses to be kept waiting five minutes
for dinner.  If a woman will find his belongings, which he has
scattered over three rooms and the hall, he invests her with many
virtues, and if she packs his portmanteau, he will associate her with
St. Theresa.  But if his hostess be inclined to discuss problems with
him, he will receive her name with marked coldness; and if she follow
up this trial with evil food, he will conceive a rooted dislike for
her, and will flee her house.  So simple is a man.

When Sarah proposed to Carmichael that she should prepare breakfast
after he rung for his hot water, and when he never caught a hint of
reproach on her face though he sat up till three and came down at
eleven, he was lifted, hardly believing that such humanity could be
found among women, who always seem to have a time table they are
carrying out the livelong day.

"The millennium is near at hand," said MacQueen, when the morning
arrangements of the Free Kirk manse of Drumtochty were made known to
him--MacQueen, who used to arrive without so much as a nightshirt,
having left a trail of luggage behind him at various junctions, and has
written books so learned that no one dares to say that he has not read
them.  Then he placed an ounce of shag handy, and Carmichael stoked the
fire, and they sat down, with Beaton, who could refer to the Summa of
St. Thomas Aquinas from beginning to end, and they discussed the
Doctrine of Scripture in the Fathers, and the formation of the Canon,
and the authorship of the Pentateuch till two in the study.  Afterwards
they went to MacQueen's room to hear him on the Talmud, and next
adjourned to Beaton's room, who offered a series of twelve preliminary
observations on the Theology of Rupert of Deutz, whereupon his host
promptly put out his candle, leaving that man of supernatural memory to
go to bed in the dark; and as Carmichael pulled up the blind in his own
room, the day was breaking and a blackbird had begun to sing.  Next
afternoon Beaton had resumed his observations on Rupert, but now they
were lying among the heather on the side of Glen Urtach, and Carmichael
was asleep, while MacQueen was thinking that they would have a good
appetite for dinner that evening.

Sarah had only one fault to find with her master, and that was his
Bohemian dress; but since it pleased him to go one button less through
studied carelessness, she let him have his way; and as for everything
else, she kept her word to his aunt, and saw that he wanted for
nothing, serving him with perpetual thoughtfulness and swift capacity.

Little passed between them except a good-natured word or two from him
and her courteous answer, but she could read him as a book, and when he
came home that day from Muirtown she saw he was changed.  He was
slightly flushed, and he could not sit still, wandering in and out his
study till dinner-time.  He allowed the soup to cool, and when she came
in with sweets he had barely touched his cutlet.

"It is the sauce you like, sir," with some reproach in her voice.

"So it is, Sarah--and first rate."  Then he added suddenly, "Can you
put a button on this coat to-night, and give it a good brush?"

In the evening Sarah went down to post a letter, and heard the talk,
how Miss Carnegie had come home with the General, and was worthy of her
house; how the minister also had driven up with her from Muirtown; and
on her return she did her best by the coat, handling it very kindly,
and singing softly to herself "Robin Adair."

Next morning he came down in his blacks--the worst-made suit ever seen
on a man, ordered to help a village tailor at his home--and announced
his intention of starting after lunch for Saunderson's manse, beyond
Tochty woods, where he would stay all night.

"He will call on the way down, and, if he can, coming back," Sarah said
to herself, as she watched him go, "but it's a pity he should go in
such a coat; it might have been put together with a pitchfork.  It only
makes the difference greater, and 't is wider than he knows already.
And yet a woman can marry beneath her without loss; but for a man it is
ruin."

She went up to his room and made it neat, which was ever in disorder on
his leaving, and then she went to a western window and looked into the
far distance.




CHAPTER VIII.

A WOMAN OF THE OLD DISPENSATION.

Every Sabbath at eleven o'clock, or as soon thereafter as the people
were seated--consideration was always shown to distant figures coming
down from the high glen--Carmichael held what might be called High Mass
in the Free Kirk.  Nothing was used in praise but the Psalms of David,
with an occasional Paraphrase sanctioned by usage and sound teaching.
The prayers were expected to be elaborate in expression and careful in
statement, and it was then that they prayed for the Queen and Houses of
Parliament.  And the sermon was the event to which the efforts of the
minister and the thoughts of the people had been moving for the whole
week.  No person was absent except through sore sickness or urgent farm
duty; nor did rain or snow reduce the congregation by more than ten
people, very old or very young.  Carmichael is now minister of a West
End kirk, and, it is freely rumoured in Drumtochty, has preached before
Lords of Session; but he has never been more nervous than facing that
handful of quiet, impenetrable, critical faces in his first kirk.  When
the service was over, the people broke into little bands that
disappeared along the west road, and over the moor, and across the
Tochty.  Carmichael knew each one was reviewing his sermon head by
head, and, pacing his garden, he remembered the missing points with
dismay.

It was the custom of the Free Kirk minister to go far afield of a
summer evening, and to hold informal services in distant parts of the
parish.  This was the joy of the day to him, who was really very young
and hated all conventionalities even unto affectation.  He was never
weary of complaining that he had to wear a gown, which was continually
falling back and being hitched over with impatient motions, and the
bands, which he could never tie, and were, he explained to a horrified
beadle in Muirtown, an invention of Satan to disturb the preacher's
soul before his work.  Once, indeed, he dared to appear without his
trappings, on the plea of heat, but the visible dismay and sorrow of
the people was so great--some failing to find the Psalm till the first
verse had been sung--that he perspired freely and forgot the middle
head of his discourse.

"It's a mercy," remarked Mrs. Macfadyen to Burnbrae afterward, "that he
didna play that trick when there wes a bairn tae be baptised.  It wudna
hae been lichtsome for its fouk; a'body wants a properly ordained
minister.  Ye 'll gie him a hint, Burnbrae, for he's young and
fordersome (rash), but gude stuff for a' his pliskies (frolics)."

No one would have liked to see the sacred robes in the places of
evening worship, and Carmichael threw all forms to the winds--only
drawing the line, with great regret and some searchings of heart, at
his tweed jacket.  His address for these summer evening gatherings he
studied as he went through the fragrant pine woods or over the moor by
springy paths that twisted through the heather, or along near cuts that
meant leaping little burns and climbing dykes whose top stones were apt
to follow your heels with embarrassing attachment.  Here and there the
minister would stop as a trout leapt in a pool, or a flock of wild duck
crossed the sky to Loch Sheuchie, or the cattle thrust inquisitive
noses through some hedge, as a student snatches a mouthful from some
book in passing.  For these walks were his best study; when thinking of
his people in their goodness and simplicity, and touched by nature at
her gentlest, he was freed from many vain ideas of the schools and from
artificial learning, and heard the Galilean speak as He used to do
among the fields of corn.  He came on people going in the same
direction, but they only saluted, refraining even from the weather,
since the minister's thoughts must not be disturbed, and they were
amazed to notice, that he stooped to pluck a violet in the wood.  His
host would come a little way to meet him and explain the arrangements
that had been made for a kirk.  Sometimes the meeting-place was the
granary of the farm, with floor swept clean and the wooden shutters
opened for light, where the minister preached against a mixed
background of fanners, corn measures, piles of sacks, and spare
implements of the finer sort; and the congregation, who had come up a
ladder cautiously like hens going to roost--being severally warned
about the second highest step--sat on bags stuffed with straw, boards
resting on upturned pails, while a few older folk were accommodated
with chairs, and some youngsters disdained not the floor.  It was
pleasanter in the barn, a cool, lofty, not unimpressive place of
worship, with its mass of golden straw and its open door through which
various kindly sounds of farm life came in and strange visitors
entered.  The collies, most sociable of animals, would saunter in and
make friendly advances to Carmichael reading a chapter; then, catching
their master's eye and detecting no encouragement, would suddenly
realise that they were at kirk, and compose themselves to sleep--"juist
like ony Christian," as Hillocks once remarked with envy, his own plank
allowing no liberties--and never taking any part except in a hymn like

  "See the mighty host advancing,
    Satan leading on,"

which they regarded as recreation rather than worship.

It was also recalled for years that a pet lamb came into Donald
Menzies's barn and wandered about for a while, and Carmichael told that
pretty legend of St. Francis, how he saw a white lamb among the kids,
and burst into tears at the sight, because it reminded him of Jesus
among the sinners.  Indeed, these services were very extemporaneous,
with hymns instead of psalms, and sermons without divisions.
Carmichael also allowed himself illustrations from the life around, and
even an anecdote at a time, which was all the more keenly relished that
it would have been considered a confession of weakness in a regular
sermon.  He has been heard to say that he came nearer the heart of
things once or twice in the barns than he has ever done since, not even
excepting that famous course of sermons every one talked about last
year, the "Analysis of Doubt," which almost converted two professors to
Christianity, and were heard by the editor of the _Caledonian_ in the
disguise of a street preacher.  It was also pleasantly remembered for
long in the parish that Dr. Davidson appeared one evening in Donald
Menzies's barn and joined affably in the "Sweet By-and-Bye."
Afterward, being supplied with a large arm-chair, he heard the address
with much attention--nodding approval four times, if not five--and
pronouncing the benediction with such impressiveness that Donald felt
some hesitation in thrashing his last stack in the place next day.  The
Doctor followed up this visit with an exhortation from the pulpit on
the following Sabbath, in which he carefully distinguished such
services by an ordained minister, although held in a barn, from
unlicensed Plymouthistic gatherings held in corn rooms--this at
Milton's amateur efforts--and advised his people in each district to
avail themselves of "my friend Mr. Carmichael's excellent
ministrations," which Papal Bull, being distributed to the furthest
corner of the parish before nightfall, greatly lifted the Free Kirk and
sweetened the blood of the Glen for years.  It seemed to me, watching
things in Drumtochty during those days with an impartial mind, that the
Doctor, with his care for the poor, his sympathy for the oppressed, his
interest in everything human, his shrewd practical wisdom, and his wide
toleration, was the very ideal of the parish clergyman.  He showed me
much courtesy while I lived in the Cottage, although I did not belong
to his communion, and as my imagination reconstructs the old parish of
a winter night by the fire, I miss him as he used to be on the road, in
the people's homes, in his pulpit, among his books--ever an honourable
and kind-hearted gentleman.

One evening a woman came into Donald Menzies's barn just before the
hour of service, elderly, most careful in her widow's dress, somewhat
austere in expression, but very courteous in her manner.  No one
recognised her at the time, but she was suspected to be the forerunner
of the Carnegie household, and Donald offered her a front seat.  She
thanked him for his good-will, but asked for a lower place, greatly
delighting him by a reference to the parable wherein the Master rebuked
the ambitious Pharisees who scrambled for chief seats.  Their accent
showed of what blood they both were, and that their Gaelic had still
been mercifully left them, but they did not use it because of their
perfect breeding, which taught them not to speak a foreign tongue in
this place.  So the people saw Donald offer her a hymn-book and heard
her reply:

"It iss not a book that I will be using, and it will be a peety to take
it from other people;" nor would she stand at the singing, but sat very
rigid and with closed lips.  When Carmichael, who had a pleasant tenor
voice and a good ear, sang a solo, then much tasted in such meetings,
she arose and left the place, and the minister thought he had never
seen anything more uncompromising than her pale set face.

[Illustration: Carmichael sang a solo.]

It was evident that she was Free Kirk and of the Highland persuasion,
which was once over-praised and then has been over-blamed, but is never
understood by the Lowland mind; and as Carmichael found that she had
come to live in a cottage at the entrance to the Lodge, he looked in on
his way home.  She was sitting at a table reading the Bible, and her
face was more hostile than in the meeting; but she received him with
much politeness, dusting a chair and praying him to be seated.  "You
have just come to the district to reside, I think?  I hope you will
like our Glen."

"It wass here that I lived long ago, but I hef been married and away
with my mistress many years, and there are not many that will know me."

"But you are not of Drumtochty blood?" inquired the minister.

"There iss not one drop of Sassenach blood in my veins"--this with a
sudden flash.  "I am a Macpherson and my husband wass a Macpherson; but
we hef served the house of Carnegie for four generations."

"You are a widow, I think, Mrs. Macpherson?" and Carmichael's voice
took a tone of sympathy.  "Have you any children?"

"My husband iss dead, and I had one son, and he iss dead also; that iss
all, and I am alone;" but in her voice there was no weakening.

"Will you let me say how sorry I am?" pleaded Carmichael, "this is a
great grief, but I hope you have consolations."

"Yes, I will be having many consolations; they both died like brave men
with their face to the enemy.  There were six that did not feel fery
well before Ian fell; he could do good work with the sword as well as
the bayonet, and he wass not bad with the dirk at a time."

Neither this woman nor her house were like anything in Drumtochty, for
in it there was a buffet for dishes, and a carved chest and a large
chair, all of old black oak; and above the mantelpiece two broadswords
were crossed, with a circle of war medals beneath on a velvet ground,
flanked by two old pistols.

"I suppose those arms have belonged to your people, Mrs. Macpherson;
may I look at them?"

"They are not anything to be admiring, and it wass not manners that I
should hef been boasting of my men.  It iss a pleasant evening and good
for walking."

"You were at the meeting, I think?" and Carmichael tried to get nearer
this iron woman.  "We were sorry you had to go out before the end.  Did
you not feel at home?"

"I will not be accustomed to the theatre, and I am not liking it
instead of the church."

"But surely there was nothing worse in my singing alone than praying
alone?" and Carmichael began to argue like a Scotsman, who always
fancies that people can be convinced by logic, and forgets that many
people, Celts in especial, are ruled by their heart and not by their
head; "do you see anything wrong in one praising God aloud in a hymn,
as the Virgin Mary did?"

"It iss the Virgin Mary you will be coming to next, no doubt, and the
Cross and the Mass, like the Catholics, although I am not saying
anything against them, for my mother's cousins four times removed were
Catholics, and fery good people.  But I am a Presbyterian, and do not
want the Virgin Mary."

Carmichael learned at that moment what it was to argue with a woman,
and he was to make more discoveries in that department before he came
to terms with the sex, and would have left in despair had it not been
for an inspiration of his good angel.

"Well, Mrs. Macpherson, I did n't come to argue about hymns, but to bid
you welcome to the Glen and to ask for a glass of water, for preaching
is thirsty work."

"It iss black shame I am crying on myself for sitting here and offering
you neither meat nor drink," and she was stung with regret in an
instant.  "It iss a little spirits you will be tasting, and this iss
Talisker which I will be keeping for a friend, for whisky iss not for
women."

She was full of attention, but when Carmichael took milk instead of
whisky, her suspicions revived, and she eyed him again.

"You are not one of those new people I am hearing of in the Lowlands
that are wiser than the fery Apostles?"

"What people?" and Carmichael trembled for his new position.

"'Total abstainers' they will call themselves," and the contempt in her
accent was wonderful.

"No, I am not," Carmichael hastened to reassure his hostess; "but there
are worse people than abstainers in the world, and it would be better
if we had a few more.  I will stick to the milk, if you please."

"You will take what you please," and she was again mollified; "but the
great ministers always had their tasting after preaching; and I hef
heard one of them say that it wass a sin to despise the Lord's mercies.
You will be taking another glass of milk and resting a little."

"This hospitality reminds me of my mother, Mrs. Macpherson."
Carmichael was still inspired, and was, indeed, now in full sail.  "She
was a Highland woman, and had the Gaelic.  She sometimes called me Ian
instead of John."

"When you wass preaching about the shepherd finding the sheep, I wass
wondering how you had the way to the heart, and I might have been
thinking, oh yes, I might hef known"--all the time Janet was ever
bringing something new out of the cupboard, though Carmichael only
sipped the milk.  "And what wass your mother's name?"

"Farquharson; her people came from Braemar; but they are all dead now,
and I am the last of the race."

"A good clan," cried Janet, in great spirits, "and a loyal; they were
out with the Macphersons in the '45.  Will you happen to know whether
your ancestor suffered?"

"That he did, for he shot an English officer dead on his doorstep, and
had to flee the country; it was not a pretty deed."

"Had the officer broken bread with him?" inquired Janet, anxiously.

"No, he had come to quarter himself and his men on him, and said
something rude about the Prince."

"Your ancestor gave him back his word like a gentleman; but he would
maybe hef to stay away for a while.  Wass he of the chief's blood?"

"Oh no, just a little laird, and he lost his bit of land, and we never
saw the place again."

"He would be a Dunniewassal, and proud it iss I am to see you in my
house; and the Gaelic, will you hef some words?"

"Just the sound of it, Mrs. Macpherson," and he repeated his three
sentences, all that he had learned of his mother, who had become a
Scotswoman in her speech.

"Call me Janet, my dear; and it iss the good Gaelic your mother must
have had, and it makes my heart glad to think my minister iss a
Farquharson, by the mother's side."

"We sing nothing but Psalms at church, Mrs. . . . . Janet, so you will
be pleased, and we stand to pray and sit to sing."

"Tuts, tuts, I am not minding about a bit hime at a time from a friend,
but it iss those Lowlanders meddling with everything I do not like, and
I am hoping to hear you sing again, for it wass a fery pretty tune;"
and the smith, passing along the road when Carmichael left that
evening, heard Janet call him "my dear," and invoke a thousand
blessings on his head.

When he called again in the end of the week to cement the alliance and
secure her presence on Sabbath, Janet was polishing the swords, and was
willing enough to give their history.

"This wass my great-grandfather's, and these two nicks in the blade
were made on the dragoons at Prestonpans; and this wass my husband's
sword, for he wass sergeant-major before he died, a fery brave man,
good at the fighting and the praying too.

"Maybe I am wrong, and I do not know what you may be thinking, but
things come into my mind when I am reading the Bible, and I will be
considering that it wass maybe not so good that the Apostles were
fishing people."

"What ails you at fishermen, Janet?"

"Nothing at all but one thing; they are clever at their nets and at
religion, but I am not hearing that they can play with the sword or the
dirk.

"It wass a fery good intention that Peter had that night, no doubt, and
I will be liking him for it when he took his sword to the policeman,
but it wass a mighty poor blow.  If Ian or his father had got as near
as that, it would not have been an ear that would have been missing."

"Perhaps his head," suggested Carmichael.

"He would not have been putting his nose into honest people's business
again, at any rate," and Janet nodded her head as one who could see a
downright blow that left no regrets; "it hass always made me ashamed to
read about that ear.

"It wass not possible, and it iss maybe no good speaking about it
now"--Janet felt she had a minister now she could open her mind
to--"but it would hef been better if our Lord could hef had twelve
Macphersons for His Apostles."

"You mean they would have been more brave and faithful?"

"There 'wass a price of six thousand pounds, or it might be four, put
on Cluny's head after Culloden, and the English soldiers were all up
and down the country, but I am not hearing that any clansman betrayed
his chief.

"Thirty pieces of silver wass a fery small reward for such a dirty
deed, and him one of the Chief's tail too; it wass a mistake to be
trusting to fisher folk instead of Glen's men.

"There iss something I hef wished," concluded Janet, who seemed to have
given her mind to the whole incident, "that Peter or some other man had
drawn his skean-dhu and slippit it quietly into Judas.  We would hef
been respecting him fery much to-day, and it would hef been a good
lesson--oh yes, a fery good lesson--to all traitors."

As they got more confidential, Janet began to speak of signs and
dreams, and Carmichael asked her if she had the second sight.

"No; it iss not a lie I will be telling you, my dear, nor will I be
boasting.  I have not got it, nor had my mother, but she heard sounds,
oh yes, and knew what wass coming to pass.

"'Janet,' she would say, 'I have heard the knock three times at the
head of the bed; it will be your Uncle Alister, and I must go to see
him before he dies.'"

"And was she--"

"Oh yes, she wass in time, and he wass expecting her; and once she saw
the shroud begin to rise on her sister, but no more; it never covered
the face before her eyes; but the knock, oh yes, many times."

"Have you known any one that could tell what was happening at a
distance, and gave warning of danger?" for the latent Celt was
awakening in Carmichael, with his love of mystery and his sense of the
unseen.

"Listen, my dear"--Janet lowered her voice as one speaking of sacred
things--"and I will tell you of Ina Macpherson, who lived to a hundred
and two, and had the vision clear and sure.

"In the great war with Russia I wass staying in the clachan of my
people, and then seven lads of our blood were with the Black Watch, and
every Sabbath the minister would pray for them and the rest of the lads
from Badenoch that were away at the fighting.

"One day Ina came into my sister's house, and she said, 'It iss danger
that I am seeing,' and my heart stood still in my bosom for fear that
it wass my own man Hamish.

"'No,' and she looked at me, 'not yet, and not to-day,' but more she
would not say about him.  'Is it my son Ronald?' my sister cried, and
Ina only looked before her.  'It's a sore travail, and round a few
black tartans I see many men in grey, pressing them hard; ochone,
ochone.'

"'It 's time to pray,' I said, and there wass a man in the clachan that
wass mighty in prayer, and we gathered into his kitchen, four and
twenty women and four men, and every one had a kinsman in the field.

"It iss this minute that I hear Dugald crying to the Almighty,
'Remember our lads, and be their help in the day of battle, and give
them the necks of their enemies,' and he might be wrestling for half an
hour, when Ina rose from her knees and said, 'The prayer is answered,
for the tartans have the field, and I see blood on Ronald, but it is
not his own.'"

"And did you ever hear--"

"Wait, my dear, and I will tell you, for the letter came from my
nephew, and this is what he wrote:

"'It wass three to one, and the gloom came on me, for I thought that I
would never see Glenfeshie again, nor the water of the loch, nor the
deer on the side of the hill.  Then I wass suddenly strengthened with
all might in the inner man, and it iss five Russians that I hef killed
to my own hands.'

"And so it wass, and a letter came from his captain, who wass of
Cluny's blood, and it will be read in church, and a fery proud woman
wass my sister."

These were the stories that Janet told to her minister in the days
before the Carnegies came home, as well as afterwards, and so she
prepared him to be an easier prey to a soldier's daughter.




CHAPTER IX.

A DAUGHTER OF DEBATE.

They met under the arch of the gate, and Carmichael returned with the
Carnegies, Kate making much of him and insisting that he should stay to
luncheon.

"You are our first visitor, Mr. Carmichael, and the General says that
we need not expect more than six, so we mean to be very kind to them.
Do you live far from here?"

"Quite near--just two miles west.  I happened to be passing; in fact, I
'm going down to the next parish, and I . . . I thought that I would
like to call and . . . and bid you welcome;" for Carmichael had not yet
learned the art of conversation, which stands mainly in touching
details lightly and avoiding the letter I.

"It is very cruel of you to be so honest and dispel our flattering
illusions"--Kate marvelled at his mendacity--"we supposed you had come
'anes errand'--I'm picking up Scotch--to call on your new neighbours.
Does the high road pass the Lodge?"

"Oh no; the road is eight miles further; but the Drumtochty people take
the near way through the woods; it's also much prettier.  I hope you
will not forbid us, General? two people a week is all the traffic."

"Forbid them--not I," said Carnegie, laughing.  "A man is not born and
bred in this parish without learning some sense.  It would be a right
of way case, and Drumtochty would follow me from court to court, and
would never rest till they had gained or we were all ruined.

"Has it ever struck you, Mr. Carmichael, that one of the differences
between a Highlander and a Scot is that each has got a pet enjoyment?
With the one it's a feud, and with the other it's a lawsuit.  A Scot
dearly loves a 'ganging plea.'

"No, no; Tochty woods will be open so long as Kate and I have anything
to say in the matter.  The Glen and our people have not had the same
politics, but we 've lived at peace, as neighbours ought to do, with
never a lawsuit even to give a fillip to life."

"So you see, Mr. Carmichael," said Kate, "you may come and go at all
times through our territory; but it would be bare courtesy to call at
the Lodge for afternoon tea."

"Or tiffin," suggested the General; "and we can always offer curry, as
you see.  My daughter has a capital recipe she wiled out of an old
Hindoo rascal that cooked for our mess.  You really need not take it on
that account," as Carmichael was doing his best in much misery; "it is
only meant to keep old Indians in fair humour--not to be a test of good
manners.  By the way, Janet has been sounding your praises, how have
you won her heart?"

"Oh, very easily--by having some drops of Highland blood in my veins;
and so I am forgiven all my faults, and am credited with all sorts of
excellences."

"Then the Highlanders are as clannish as ever," cried the General.
"Scotland has changed so much in the last half century that the
Highlanders might have become quite unsentimental and matter-of-fact.

"Lowland civilisation only crossed the Highland line after '45, and it
will take more than a hundred and thirty years to recast a Celt.
Scottish education and theology are only a veneer on him, and below he
has all his old instincts.

"So far as I can make out, a Celt will rather fish than plough, and be
a gamekeeper than a workman; but if he be free to follow his own way, a
genuine Highlander would rather be a soldier than anything else under
the sun."

"What better could a man be?" and Kate's eyes sparkled; "they must envy
the old times when their fathers raided the Lowlands and came home with
the booty.  It's a pity everybody is so respectable now, don't you
think?"

"Certainly the police are very meddlesome," and Carmichael now devoted
himself to Kate, without pretence of including the General; "but the
spirit is not dead.  A Celt is the child of generations of
cattle-stealers, and the raiding spirit is still in the blood.  May I
offer an anecdote?"

"Six, if you have got so many, and they are all about Highlanders," and
Kate leant forward and nursed her knee, for they had gone into the
library.

"Last week I was passing the cattle market in Edinburgh, and a big
Highland drover stopped me, begging for a little money.

"'It iss from Lochaber I hef come with some beasties, and to-morrow I
will be walking back all the way, and it iss this night I hef no bed.
I wass considering that the gardens would be a good place for a night,
but they are telling me that the police will be disturbing me.'

"He looked so simple and honest that I gave him half-a-crown and said
that I was half a Highlander.  I have three Gaelic sentences, and I
reeled them off with my best accent.

"'Got forgive me,' he said, 'for thinking you to be a Sassenach body,
and taking your money from you.  You are a fery well-made man, and here
iss your silver piece, and may you always hef one in your pocket.'"

[Illustration: "Here is your silver piece."]

"'But what about your bed?'

"'Tuts, tuts, that will be all right, for I hef maybe got some six or
five notes of my own that were profit on the beasties; but it iss a
pity not to be taking anything that iss handy when a body happens to be
in the south.'"

"Capital."  Kate laughed merrily, and her too rare laugh I used to
think the gayest I ever heard.  "It was the only opportunity left him
of following his fathers.  What a fine business it must have been,
starting from Braemar one afternoon, a dozen men well armed, and
getting down to Strathmore in the morning; then lying hid in some wood
all day, and collecting a herd of fat cattle in the evening, and
driving them up Glen Shee, not knowing when there might be a fight."

"Hard lines on the Scottish farmers, Kit, who might be very decent
fellows, to lose their cattle or get a cut from a broadsword."

"Oh, they had plenty left; and seriously, dad, without joking, you
know, what better could a Presbyterian Lowlander do than raise good
beef for Highland gentlemen?  Mr. Carmichael, I beg pardon; you seem so
good a Celt, that I forgot you were not of our faith."

"We are not Catholics," the General explained, gravely, "although many
of our blood have been, and my daughter was educated in a convent.  We
belong to the Episcopal Church of Scotland, and will go into Muirtown
at a time, but mostly we shall attend the kirk of my old friend Dr.
Davidson.  Every man is entitled to his faith, and Miss Carnegie rather
. . ."

"Forgot herself."  Kate came to her father's relief.  "She often does;
but one thing Miss Carnegie remembers, and that is that General
Carnegie likes his cheroot after tiffin.  Do you smoke, Mr. Carmichael?
Oh, I am allowed to stay, if you don't object, and have forgiven my
rudeness."

"You make too much of a word, Miss Carnegie."  Carmichael was not a man
to take offence till his pride was roused.  "Very likely my drover was
a true blue Presbyterian, and his minister as genuine a cateran as
himself.

"Years ago I made the acquaintance of an old Highland minister called
MacTavish, and he sometimes stays with me on his way north in the
spring.  For thirty years he has started at the first sign of snow, and
spent winter spoiling the good people of the south.  Some years he has
gone home with three hundred pounds."

"But how does he get the money?" inquired the General, "and what does
he use it for?"

"He told me the history of his campaigns when he passed in March, and
it might interest you; it's our modern raid, and although it's not so
picturesque as a foray of the Macphersons, yet it has points, and shows
the old spirit lives.

"'She wass a goot woman, Janet Cameron, oh yes, Mr. John, a fery
exercised woman, and when she wass dying she will be saying peautiful
things, and one day she will be speaking of a little field she had
beside the church.

"'"What do you think I should be doing with that piece of ground," she
will be saying, "for the end iss not far off, and it iss not earth I
can be taking with me, oh no, nor cows."

"'"No, Janet," I said, "but it iss a nice field, and lies to the sun.
It might be doing good after you are gone, if it wass not wasted on
your mother's cousins twice removed in Inverness, who will be drinking
every drop of it, and maybe going to the Moderate Kirk."

"'It wass not for two months or maybe six weeks she died, and I will be
visiting her every second day.  Her experiences were fery good, and I
hef told them at sacraments in the north.  The people in the south are
free with their money, but it iss not the best of my stories that I can
give them; they are too rich for their stomachs.

"'Janet will often be saying to me, "Mister Dugald, it iss a thankful
woman that I ought to be, for though I lost my man in the big storm and
two sons in the war, I hef had mercies, oh yes.  There wass the
Almighty and my cow, and between them I hef not wanted, oh no: they
just did."

"'"Janet, you will be forgetting your field that iss lying next the
manse, and the people will be thinking that it iss a glebe; but I am
telling them that it iss Janet Cameron's, who iss a fery experienced
woman, and hass nefer seen the inside of a Moderate Kirk since the
Disruption."

"'Maybe you will be astonished, Mister John, but when Janet's will will
be read that piece of ground wass left to the Free Kirk, which wass
fery kind and mindful of Janet, and I made a sermon about her from the
text of the "elect lady."

"'It wass a good field, but it needed a dyke and some drains, and it
wass not our people that had the money.  So I made another sermon on
the text, "The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast
of the field doth devour it," and went down to the south.  It wass not
a dyke and some drains, but enough to build a byre and a stable I came
back with.  That wass in '55, and before '60 there will be a new manse
with twelve rooms that iss good for letting to the English people.  But
it wass ten years the church needed, and a year for the porch to keep
it warm, for I am not liking stoves, and will not hef one in
Crianshalloch.

"'It iss wonderful how much money the bodies hef in Glasgow, and it iss
good for them to be hearing sound doctrine at a time.  There will be no
Arminianism when I am preaching, and no joking; but maybe there will be
some parables, oh yes, about the sheep coming in at the manse door for
want of a fence, and the snow lying in the pulpit.'

"There is a cateran for you, and, mind you, a good fellow too.  It's
not greed sends him out, but sheer love of spoil.  Would you like to
see MacTavish next time he passes up with the cattle?" for Carmichael
was emboldened by the reception of his sketch.

"Nothing we should like better, for the General and I want to know all
about Scotland; but don't you think that those ministers have injured
the Highlanders?  Janet, you know, has such gloomy ideas about
religion."

"There is no doubt, Miss Carnegie, that a load of Saxon theology has
been landed on the Celt, and it has disfigured his religion.  Sometimes
I have felt that the Catholic of the west is a truer type of northern
faith than the Presbyterian of Ross-shire."

"I am so glad to hear you say that," said Miss Carnegie, "for we had
one or two west Catholics in the old regiment, and their superstitions
were lovely.  You remember, dad, the MacIvers."

"That was all well enough, Kit, but none of them could get the length
of corporal; they were fearfully ignorant, and were reported at
intervals for not keeping their accoutrements clean."

"That only showed how religious they were, did n't it, Mr. Carmichael?
Hadn't the early Christians a rooted objection to the bath?  I remember
our Padre saying that in a lecture."

"There are a good many modern Christians of the same mind, Miss
Carnegie, and I don't think our poor Highlanders are worse than
Lowlanders; but Catholic or Protestant, they are all subject to the
gloom.  I cannot give the Gaelic word.

"What is that?  Oh, a southerner would call it depression, and assign
it to the liver, for he traces all trouble to that source.  But there
is no word for this mood in English, because it is not an English
experience.  My mother fell under it at times, and I saw the effect."

"Tell us, please, if all this description does not weary you?" and Kate
shone on Carmichael, who would have talked on the Council of Nice or
the rotation of crops to prolong his privileges.

"It comes on quite suddenly, and is quite a spiritual matter--a cloud
which descends and envelops the soul.  While it lasts a Highlander will
not laugh nor sing; he will hardly speak, and he loses all hope about
everything.  One of our men has the gloom at a time, and then he
believes that he is . . . damned.  I am speaking theologically."

"The regiment must have been fond of theology, dad.  Yes, we
understand."

"Once he went out to the hill, and lay all night wrestling and
agonising to be sure whether there was a God.  You know he 's just a
small farmer, and it seems to me splendid that such a man should give
himself to the big problems of the universe.  Do you know," and
Carmichael turned to the General, who was smoking in great peace, "I
believe that is the reason the Highlanders are such good fighting men.
They fear God, and they don't fear any other person."

"I 'll vouch for one thing," said the veteran with emphasis; "our men
put off the gloom, or whatever you call it, when they smelt powder; I
never saw a panic in a Highland regiment in more than forty years'
soldiering."

"What's the reason of the gloom?  I believe that I have a touch of it
myself at times--don't stare at me, dad, it's rude--just a thin mist,
you know, but distinctly not indigestion.  Is it a matter of race?"

"Of course, but that's no explanation."  Carmichael had fallen into his
debating society style.  "I mean one has to go further back; all our
habits are shaped by environment."

"One moment, please.  I have always wanted to ask some clever person
what environment meant.  I asked Colonel MacLeod once, dad, and he said
it was out of the new book on tactics, and he was thankful he had
retired.  Now Mr. Carmichael will make it plain," and Kate was very
demure.

"It is rather stupid to use the word so much as people do now," and
Carmichael glanced dubiously at Kate; "scientific men use it for
circumstances."

"Is that all? then do pray say environment.  Such a word introduces one
into good society, and gives one the feeling of being well dressed; now
about a Highlander's environment, is it his kilt you are thinking of,
or his house, or what?"

"His country"--and Carmichael's tone had a slight note of resentment,
as of one ruffled by this frivolity--"with its sea lochs, and glens,
and mists.  Any one who has been bred and reared at the foot of one of
our mountains will have a different nature and religion from one living
in Kent or Italy.  He has a sense of reverence, and surely that is a
good thing."

"Nothing more needed nowadays," the General broke in with much spirit;
"it seems to me that people nowadays respect nobody, neither the Queen
nor Almighty God.  As for that man Brimstone, he will never cease till
he has ruined the Empire.  You need n't look at me, Kate, for Mr. . . .
Carmichael must know this as well as any other sensible man.

"Why, sir," and now the General was on his feet, "I was told on good
authority at the club last week by a newspaper man--a monstrously
clever man--that Mr. Brimstone, when he is going down to the House of
Commons to disestablish the Church, or the army, or something, will
call in at a shop and order two hundred silk hats to be sent to his
house.  What do you call that, sir?"

"I should call it a deliberate--"

[Illustration: "I should call it a deliberate--"]

"_Jeu d'esprit_.  Of course it is, dad," and Kate threw an appealing
glance to Carmichael, who had sprung to his feet and was standing
stiffly behind his chair, for he was a fierce Radical.

"Perhaps it was, lassie--those war correspondents used to be sad
rascals--and, at any rate, politics are bad taste.  Another cheroot,
Mr. Carmichael?  Oh, nonsense; you must tell my daughter more about
your Highlanders.  They are a loyal set, at any rate, and we all admire
that."

"Yes, they are," and Carmichael unbent again, "and will stick by their
side whether it be right or wrong.  They 're something like a woman in
their disposition."

"Indeed," said Kate, who did not think Carmichael had responded very
courteously to her lead, "that is very interesting.  They are, you
mean, full of prejudices and notions."

"If a Highlander takes you into his friendship, you may say or do what
you like, he will stand by you, and although his views are as different
from yours as black from white, will swear he agrees with every one.
If he 's not your friend, he can see no good in anything you do,
although you be on his own side."

"In fact, he has very little judgment and no sense of justice; and I
think you said," Kate went on sweetly, "his nature reminded you of a
woman's?"

"You're sure that you like cheroots?" for the General did not wish this
lad, Radical though he was, sacrificed on his first visit; "some men
are afraid of the opium in them."

"Please do not interrupt Mr. Carmichael when he is making a capital
comparison," and Kate held him to the point.

"What I intend is really a compliment," went on Carmichael, "and shows
the superior fineness and sensitiveness of a woman's mind."

Kate indicated that she was sure that was his meaning, but waited for
details.

"You see," with the spirit of one still fresh to the pulpit, "a man is
slower, and goes by evidence; a woman is quicker, and goes by her
instincts."

"Like the lower animals," suggested Kate, sweetly, "by scent, perhaps.
Well?"

"You are twisting my words, Miss Carnegie."  Carmichael did not like
being bantered by this self-possessed young woman.  "Let me put it this
way.  Would a jury of women be as impartial as a jury of men?  Why, a
bad-looking man would have no chance, for they would condemn him at
once, not for what he did, but for what they imagined he was."

"Which would save a lot of time and rid society of some precious
scoundrels," with vivid recollections of her own efforts in this
direction.  "Then you grant that women have some intelligence, although
no sense of justice, which is a want?"

"Far brighter than men," said Carmichael, eagerly; "just consider the
difference between a man's and a woman's speech.  A man arranges and
argues from beginning to end, and is the slave of connection.  He will
labour every idea to exhaustion before he allows it to escape, and then
will give a solemn cough by way of punctuating with a full stop, before
he goes on to his next point.  Of course the audience look at their
watches and make for the door."

"What would a woman do?" Kate inquired with much interest.

"A lady was speaking lately at Muirtown for an orphanage at
Ballyskiddle, and described how Patsy was rescued from starvation, and
greatly affected us.  'Patsy will never want bread again,' she
concluded, and two bailies wept aloud.

"Then she went on, and it seemed to me a stroke of genius, 'Speaking
about Patsy, has any lady present a black dress suitable for a widow
woman?'  Before we knew that we had left Patsy, the people were in a
widow's home, and the bailies were again overcome.  I mention them
because it is supposed that a bailie is the most important human being
in Scotland, and he feels it his duty not to yield to emotion.

"No, a woman speaker never sacrifices her capital; she carries it with
her from England to France in her speech, and recognises no channel
passage.  In fact," and Carmichael plunged into new imagery, "a man's
progress is after the manner of a mole, while a woman flits from branch
to branch like a--"

"Squirrel--I know," came in Kate, getting tired.

"Bird, I meant.  Why do you say squirrel?" and Carmichael looked
suspiciously at Kate.

"Because it's such a careless, senseless, irresponsible little beast.
Have you met many women, Mr. Carmichael?  Really they are not all
fools, as you have been trying to suggest for the last ten minutes."

"Highlanders are a safer subject of conversation than women," said the
General, good-naturedly, as he bade Carmichael good-bye.  "And you must
tell us more about them next time you call, which I hope will be soon."

Carmichael halted twice on his way through the woods; once he stamped
his foot and looked like a man whose pride had been ruffled; the other
time he smiled to himself as one who was thinking of a future pleasure.

It was dusk as he crossed Lynedoch Bridge, and he looked down upon the
pool below where the trout were leaping.  Half an hour passed, and then
he started off at high speed for Kilbogie Manse.  "Please God if I am
worthy," he was saying to himself; "but I fear she is too high above me
every way."




CHAPTER X.

A SUPRA-LAPSARIAN.

Jeremiah Saunderson had remained in the low estate of a "probationer"
for twelve years after he left the Divinity Hall, where he was reported
so great a scholar that the Professor of Apologetics spoke to him
deprecatingly, and the Professor of Dogmatics openly consulted him on
obscure writers.  He had wooed twenty-three congregations in vain, from
churches in the black country where the colliers rose in squares of
twenty and went out without ceremony, to suburban places of worship
where the beadle, after due consideration of the sermon, would take up
the afternoon notices and ask that they be read at once for purposes of
utility, which that unflinching functionary stated to the minister with
accuracy and much faithfulness.  Vacant congregations desiring a list
of candidates made one exception, and prayed that Jeremiah should not
be let loose upon them, till at last it came home to the unfortunate
scholar himself that he was an offence and a byeword.  He began to
dread the ordeal of giving his name, and, as is still told, declared to
a household, living in the fat wheat lands and without any imagination,
that he was called Magor Missabib.  When a stranger makes a statement
of this kind with a sad seriousness, no one judges it expedient to
offer any remark, but it was skilfully arranged that Missabib's door
should be locked from the outside, and one member of the household sat
up all night.  The sermon next day did not tend to confidence--having
seven quotations in unknown tongues--and the attitude of the
congregation was one of alert vigilance; but no one gave any outward
sign of uneasiness, and six able-bodied men collected in a pew below
the pulpit knew their duty in an emergency.

Saunderson's election to the Free Church of Kilbogie was therefore an
event in the ecclesiastical world, and a consistent tradition in the
parish explained its inwardness on certain grounds, complimentary both
to the judgment of Kilbogie and the gifts of Mr. Saunderson.  On
Saturday evening he was removed from the train by the merest accident,
and left the railway station in such a maze of meditation that he
ignored the road to Kilbogie altogether, although its sign post was
staring him in the face, and continued his way to Drumtochty.  It was
half-past nine when Jamie Soutar met him on the high road through our
Glen, still travelling steadily west, and being arrested by his
appearance, beguiled him into conversation, till he elicited that
Saunderson was minded to reach Kilbogie.  For an hour did the wanderer
rest in Jamie's kitchen, during which he put Jamie's ecclesiastical
history into a state of thorough repair--making seven distinct
parallels between the errors that had afflicted the Scottish Church and
the early heretical sects--and then Jamie gave him in charge of a
ploughman who was courting in Kilbogie and was not averse to a journey
that seemed to illustrate the double meaning of charity.  Jeremiah was
handed over to his anxious hosts at a quarter to one in the morning,
covered with mud, somewhat fatigued, but in great peace of soul, having
settled the place of election in the prophecy of Habakkuk as he came
down with his silent companion through Tochty woods.

Nor was that all he had done.  When they came out from the shadow and
struck into the parish of Kilbogie--whose fields, now yellow unto
harvest, shone in the moonlight--his guide broke silence and enlarged
on a plague of field-mice which had quite suddenly appeared and had
sadly devastated the grain of Kilbogie, Saunderson awoke from study and
became exceedingly curious, first of all demanding a particular account
of the coming of the mice, their multitude, their habits, and their
determination.  Then he asked many questions about the moral conduct
and godliness of the inhabitants of Kilbogie, which his companion, as a
native of Drumtochty, painted in gloomy colours, although indicating
that even in Kilbogie there was a remnant.  Next morning the minister
rose at daybreak, and was found wandering through the fields in such a
state of excitement that he could hardly be induced to look at
breakfast.  When the "books" were placed before him, he turned promptly
to the ten plagues of Egypt, which he expounded in order as preliminary
to a full treatment of the visitations of Providence.

"He cowes (beats) a' ye ever saw or heard," the farmer of Mains
explained to the elders at the gate.  "He gaed tae bed at half twa and
wes oot in the fields by four, an' a 'm dootin' he never saw his bed.
He 's lifted abune the body a'thegither, an' can hardly keep himsel'
awa' frae the Hebrew at his breakfast.  Ye 'll get a sermon the day, or
ma name is no Peter Pitillo."  Mains also declared his conviction that
the invasion of mice would be dealt with after a Scriptural and
satisfying fashion.  The people went in full of expectation, and to
this day old people recall Jeremiah Saunderson's trial sermon with
lively admiration.  Experienced critics were suspicious of candidates
who read lengthy chapters from both Testaments and prayed at length for
the Houses of Parliament, for it was justly held that no man would take
refuge in such obvious devices for filling up the time unless he was
short of sermon material.  One unfortunate, indeed, ruined his chances
at once by a long petition for those in danger on the sea--availing
himself with some eloquence of the sympathetic imagery of the 107th
Psalm--for this effort was regarded as not only the most barefaced
padding, but also as evidence of an almost incredible blindness to
circumstances.  "Did he think Kilbogie wes a fishing village?" Mains
inquired of the elders afterwards, with pointed sarcasm.  Kilbogie was
not indifferent to a well-ordered prayer--although its palate was
coarser in the appreciation of felicitous terms and allusions than that
of Drumtochty--and would have been scandalised if the Queen had been
omitted; but it was by the sermon the young man must stand or fall, and
Kilbogie despised a man who postponed the ordeal.

Saunderson gave double pledges of capacity and fulness before he opened
his mouth in the sermon, for he read no Scripture at all that day, and
had only one prayer, which was mainly a statement of the Divine Decrees
and a careful confession of the sins of Kilbogie; and then, having
given out his text from the prophecy of Joel, he reverently closed the
Bible and placed it on the seat behind him.  His own reason for this
proceeding was a desire for absolute security in enforcing his subject,
and a painful remembrance of the disturbance in a south country church
when he landed a Bible--with clasps--on the head of the precentor in
the heat of a discourse defending the rejection of Esau.  Our best and
simplest actions--and Jeremiah was as simple as a babe--can be
misconstrued, and the only dissentient from Saunderson's election
insisted that the Bible had been deposited on the floor, and asserted
that the object of this profanity was to give the preacher a higher
standing in the pulpit.  This malignant reading of circumstances might
have wrought mischief--for Saunderson's gaunt figure did seem to grow
in the pulpit--had it not been for the bold line of defence taken up by
Mains.

"Gin he wanted tae stand high, wes it no tae preach the word? an' gin
he wanted a soond foundation for his feet, what better could he get
than the twa Testaments?  Answer me that."

It was seen at once that no one could answer that, and the captious
objector never quite recovered his position in the parish, while it is
not the least of Kilbogie's boasting, in which the Auld Kirk will even
join against Drumtochty, that they have a minister who not only does
not read his sermons and does not need to quote his texts, but carries
the whole book in at least three languages in his head, and once, as a
proof thereof, preached with it below his feet.

Much was to be looked for from such a man, but even Mains, whetted by
intercourse with Saunderson, was astonished at the sermon.  It was a
happy beginning to draw a parallel between the locusts of Joel and the
mice of Kilbogie, and gave the preacher an opportunity of describing
the appearance, habits, and destruction of the locusts, which he did
solely from Holy Scripture, translating various passages afresh and
combining lights with marvellous ingenuity.  This brief preface of half
an hour, which was merely a stimulant for the Kilbogie appetite, led up
to a thorough examination of physical judgments, during which both
Bible and Church history were laid under liberal contribution.  At this
point the minister halted, and complimented the congregation on the
attention they had given to the facts of the case, which were his first
head, and suggested that bef

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