Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers Part 10

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 wa.s.s 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 Sa.s.senach blood in my veins"--this with a sudden flash. "I am a Macpherson and my husband wa.s.s 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 wa.s.s 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 wa.s.s 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 G.o.d 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 Ma.s.s, 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 s.e.x, 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 gla.s.s 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 rea.s.sure 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 wa.s.s a sin to despise the Lord's mercies.

You will be taking another gla.s.s 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 wa.s.s preaching about the shepherd finding the sheep, I wa.s.s 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 wa.s.s 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. Wa.s.s 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 Dunniewa.s.sal, 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 wa.s.s a fery pretty tune;"

and the smith, pa.s.sing 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 wa.s.s my great-grandfather's, and these two nicks in the blade were made on the dragoons at Prestonpans; and this wa.s.s my husband's sword, for he wa.s.s 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 wa.s.s 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 wa.s.s 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 wa.s.s 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 ha.s.s always made me ashamed to read about that ear.