Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers Part 13

"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 pa.s.sage. 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 pa.s.sed, and then he started off at high speed for Kilbogie Manse. "Please G.o.d 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 att.i.tude 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 mult.i.tude, their habits, and their determination. Then he asked many questions about the moral conduct and G.o.dliness 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 pet.i.tion 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 circ.u.mstances. "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 coa.r.s.er 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 a.s.serted that the object of this profanity was to give the preacher a higher standing in the pulpit. This malignant reading of circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.sages afresh and combining lights with marvellous ingenuity. This brief preface of half an hour, which was merely a stimulant for the Kilbogie appet.i.te, 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 before approaching the doctrine of visitations they might refresh themselves with a Psalm. The congregation were visibly impressed, and many made up their minds while singing:

"That man hath perfect blessedness;"

and while others thought it due to themselves to suspend judgment till they had tasted the doctrine, they afterwards confessed their confidence. It goes without saying that he was immediately beyond the reach of the ordinary people on the second head, and even veterans in theology panted after him in vain, so that one of the elders, nodding a.s.sent to an exposure of the Manichaean heresy, suddenly blushed as one who had played the hypocrite. Some professed to have noticed a doctrine that had not been touched upon, but they never could give it a name, and it excited just admiration that a preacher, starting from a plague of mice, should have made a way by strictly scientific methods into the secret places of theology. Saunderson allowed his hearers a brief rest after the second head, and cheered them with the a.s.surance that what was still before them would be easy to follow. It was the application of all that had gone before to the life of Kilbogie, and the preacher proceeded to convict the parish under each of the ten commandments--with the plague of mice ever in reserve to silence excuses--till the delighted congregation could have risen in a body and taken Saunderson by the hand for his fearlessness and faithfulness.

Perhaps the extent and thoroughness of this monumental sermon can be best estimated by the fact that Claypots, father of the present tenant, who always timed his rest to fifty minutes exactly, thus overseeing both the introduction and application of the sermon, had a double portion, and even a series of supplementary dozes, till at last he sat upright through sheer satiety. It may also be offered as evidence that the reserve of peppermint held by mothers for their bairns was pooled, doles being furtively pa.s.sed across pews to conspicuously needy families, and yet the last had gone before Saunderson finished.

Mains reported to the congregational meeting that the minister had been quiet for the rest of the day, but had offered to say something about Habakkuk to any evening gathering, and had cleared up at family worship some obscure points in the morning discourse. He also informed the neighbours that he had driven his guest all the way to Muirtown, and put him in an Edinburgh carriage with his own hands, since it had emerged that Saunderson, through absence of mind, had made his down journey by the triangular route of Dundee. It was quite impossible for Kilbogie to conceal their pride in electing such a miracle of learning, and their bearing in Muirtown was distinctly changed; but indeed they did not boast vainly about Jeremiah Saunderson, for his career was throughout on the level of that monumental sermon. When the Presbytery in the gaiety of their heart examined Saunderson to ascertain whether he was fully equipped for the work of the ministry, he professed the whole Old Testament in Hebrew, and MacWheep of Pitscowrie, who always asked the candidate to read the twenty-third Psalm, was beguiled by Jeremiah into the Book of Job, and reduced to the necessity of asking questions by indicating verbs with his finger. His Greek examination led to an argument between Jeremiah and Dr. Dowbiggin on the use of the aorist, from which the minister-elect of Kilbogie came out an easy first; and his sermons were heard to within measurable distance of the second head by an exact quorum of the exhausted court, who were kept by the clerk sitting at the door, and preventing MacWheep escaping. His position in the court was a.s.sured from the beginning, and fulfilled the function of an Encyclopaedia with occasional amazing results, as when information was asked about some Eastern sect for whose necessities the Presbytery were asked to collect, and to whose warm piety affecting allusion was made, and Jeremiah showed clearly, with the reporters present, that the Cappadocians were guilty of a heresy beside which Morisonianism was an unsullied whiteness. His work as examiner-in-general for the court was a merciful failure, and encouraged the students of the district to return to their district court, who on the rumour of him had transferred themselves in a body to a Highland Presbytery, where the standard question in Philosophy used to be, "How many horns has a dilemma, and distinguish the one from the other." No man knew what the minister of Kilbogie might not ask--he was only perfectly certain that it would be beyond his knowledge; but as Saunderson always gave the answer himself in the end, and imputed it to the student, anxiety was reduced to a minimum. Saunderson, indeed, was in the custom of pa.s.sing all candidates and reporting them as marvels of erudition, whose only fault was a becoming modesty--which, however, had not concealed from his keen eye hidden treasures of learning. Beyond this sphere the good man's services were not used by a body of shrewd ecclesiastics, as the inordinate length of an ordination sermon had ruined a dinner prepared for the court by "one of our intelligent and large-hearted laymen," and it is still pleasantly told how Saunderson was invited to a congregational _soiree_--an ancient meeting where the people ate oranges and the speaker rallied the minister on being still unmarried--and discoursed---as a carefully chosen subject--on the Jewish feasts, with ill.u.s.trations from the Talmud, till some one burst a paper bag and allowed the feelings of the people to escape. When this history was pa.s.sed round Muirtown Market, Kilbogie thought still more highly of their minister, and indicated their opinion of the other parish in severely theological language.

Saunderson's reputation for unfathomable learning and saintly simplicity was built up out of many incidents, and grew with the lapse of years to a solitary height in the big strath, so that no man would have dared to smile had the Free Kirk minister of Kilbogie appeared in Muirtown in his shirt sleeves, and Kilbogie would only have been a trifle more conceited. Truly he was an amazing man, and, now that he is dead and gone, the last of his race, I wish some man of his profession had written his life, for the doctrine he taught and the way he lived will not be believed by the new generation. The arrival of his goods was more than many sermons to Kilbogie, and I had it from Mains's own lips. It was the kindly fashion of those days that the farmers carted the new minister's furniture from the nearest railway station, and as the railway to Kildrummie was not yet open, they had to go to Stormont Station on the north line; and a pleasant procession they made pa.s.sing through Pitscowrie, ten carts in their best array, and drivers with a semi-festive air. Mr. Saunderson was at the station, having reached it by some miracle without mistake, and was in a condition of abject nervousness about the handling and conveyance of his belongings.

"You will be careful--exceeding careful," he implored; "if one of the boxes were allowed to descend hurriedly to the ground, the result to what is within would be disastrous. I am much afraid that the weight is considerable, but I am ready to a.s.sist;" and he got ready.

"Dinna pit yirsel' intae a ferry tarry (commotion)," but Mains was distinctly pleased to see a little touch of worldliness, just enough to keep the new minister in touch with humanity. "It 'll be queer stuff oor lads canna lift, an' a 'll gie ye a warranty that the' 'll no be a cup o' the cheeny broken," and then Saunderson conducted his congregation to the siding.

"Dod, man," remarked Mains to the station-master, examining a truck with eight boxes; "the manse 'll no want for dishes at ony rate; but let's start on the furniture; whar hae ye got the rest o' the plenishing?

"Naething mair? havers, man, ye dinna mean tae say they pack beds an'

tables in boxes; a' doot there 's a truck missin'." Then Mains went over where the minister was fidgeting beside his possessions.

"No, no," said Saunderson, when the situation was put before him, "it's all here. I counted the boxes, and I packed every box myself. That top one contains the fathers--deal gently with it; and the Reformation divines are just below it. Books are easily injured, and they feel it.

I do believe there is a certain life in them, and . . . and . . . they don't like being ill-used," and Jeremiah looked wistfully at the ploughmen.

"Div ye mean tae say," as soon as Mains had recovered, "that ye 've brocht naethin' for the manse but bukes, naither bed nor bedding?

Keep's a'," as the situation grew upon him, "whar are ye tae sleep, and what are ye to sit on? An' div ye never eat? This croons a';" and Mains gazed at his new minister as one who supposed that he had taken Jeremiah's measure and had failed utterly.

"_Mea culpa_--it's . . . my blame," and Saunderson was evidently humbled at this public exposure of his incapacity; "some slight furnishing will be expedient, even necessary, and I have a plan for book-shelves in my head; it is ingenious and convenient, and if there is a worker in wood . . ."