Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers Part 22

TOCHTY LODGE.

SIR,--Your violent and insolent attack on a martyred Queen caused me to lose self-control in your church to-day, and I was unable to sit longer under such language.

It has been pointed out to me that I ought not to have left church as I did, and I hereby express regret.

The books you were so good as to lend me I have sent back by the messenger.--Yours truly,

CATHERINE CARNEGIE.

When Carmichael called next day, Donald informed him with unconcealed satisfaction that Lord Hay was lunching with the family, and that the General and Miss Carnegie were going to Muirtown Castle to-morrow for a visit; but Janet had not lost hope.

"Do not be taking this to heart, my dear, for I will be asking a question. What will be making Miss Kate so very angry? it is not every man she would be minding, though he spoke against Queen Mary all the day. When a woman does not care about a man she will not take the trouble to be angry. That is what I am thinking; and it is not Lord Hay that has the way, oh no, though he be a proper man and good at shooting."

CHAPTER XVIII.

LOVE SICKNESS.

College friends settled in petty lowland towns, and meeting Carmichael on sacramental occasions, affected to pity him, inquiring curiously what were his means of conveyance after the railway ceased, what time a letter took to reach him, whether any foot ever crossed his door from October to May, whether the great event of the week was not the arrival of the bread cart. Those were exasperating gibes from men who could not take a walk without coming on a coal pit, nor lift a book in their studies without soiling their hands, whose windows looked on a street and commanded the light of a grocer's shop instead of a sunset. It ill became such miserables to be insolent, and Carmichael taught them humility when he began to sound the praises of Drumtochty; but he could not make townspeople understand the unutterable satisfaction of the country minister, who even from old age and great cities looks back with fond regret to his first parish on the slope of the Grampians.

Some kindly host wrestles with him to stay a few days more in civilisation, and pledges him to run up whenever he wearies of his exile, and the ungrateful rustic can hardly conceal the joy of his escape. He shudders on the way to the station at the drip of the dirty sleet and the rags of the shivering poor, and the restless faces of the men and the unceasing roar of the traffic. Where he is going the white snow is falling gently on the road, a cart full of sweet-smelling roots is moving on velvet, the driver stops to exchange views with a farmer who has been feeding his sheep, within the humblest cottage the fire is burning clearly. With every mile northwards the Glenman's heart lifts; and as he lands on his far-away little station, he draws a deep breath of the clean, wholesome air. It is a long walk through the snow, but there is a kindly, couthy smell from the woods, and at sight of the squares of light in his home, weariness departs from a Drumtochty man.

Carmichael used to say that a glimpse of Archie Moncur sitting with his sisters before the fire as he pa.s.sed, and the wild turmoil of his dogs within the manse as the latch of the garden gate clicked, and the flood of light pouring out from the open door on the garden, where every branch was feathered with snow, and to come into his study, where the fire of pine logs was reflected from the familiar t.i.tles of his loved books, gave him a shock of joy such as he has never felt since, even in the days of his prosperity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The driver stops to exchange views.]

"The city folk are generous with their wealth," he was saying to me only last week, when I was visiting him in his West End manse and we fell a-talking of the Glen, "and they have dealt kindly by me; they are also full of ideas, and they make an inspiring audience for a preacher.

If any man has a message to deliver from the Eternal, then he had better leave the wilderness and come to the city, and if he has plans for the helping of his fellow men, let him come where he can get his work and his labourers.

"No, I do not repent leaving the Glen, for the Divine Hand thrust me forth and has given me work to do, and I am not ungrateful to the friends I have made in the city; but G.o.d created me a countryman, and"--here Carmichael turned his back to me--"my heart goes back to Drumtochty, and the sight of you fills me with . . . longing.

"Ah, how this desiderium, as the Rabbi would have said, comes over one with the seasons as they come and go. In spring they send me the first snowdrops from the Glen, but it is a cruel kindness, for I want to be where they are growing in Clashiegar den. When summer comes people praise the varied flower-beds of the costly city parks, but they have not seen Tochty woods in their glory. Each autumn carries me to the harvest field, till in my study I hear the swish of the scythe and feel the fragrance of the dry, ripe grain. And in winter I see the sun shining on the white sides of Glen Urtach, and can hardly keep pen to paper in this dreary room.

"What nonsense this is," pulling himself together; "yes, that is the very chair you sat in, and this is the table we stuck between us with our humble flask of Moselle of a winter's night . . . let's go to bed; we 'll have no more good talk to-night."

When he had left me, I flung open my window in search of air, for it seemed as if the city were choking me. A lamp was flaring across the street, two cabs rattled past with revellers singing a music-hall song, a heavy odour from many drains floated in, the mult.i.tude of houses oppressed one as with a weight. How sweet and pure it was now at the pool above Tochty mill, where the trout were lying below the stones and the ash boughs dipping into the water.

Carmichael once, however, lost all love of the Glen, and that was after Kate flung herself out of the Free Kirk and went on a visit to Muirtown Castle. He was completely disenchanted and saw everything at its poorest. Why did they build the manse so low that an able-bodied man could touch the ceiling of the lower rooms with an effort and the upper rooms easily? What possessed his predecessor to put such an impossible paper on the study and to stuff the room with book-shelves? A row of Puritan divines offended him--a wooden, obsolete theology--but he also pitched a defence of Queen Mary into a cupboard--she had done enough mischief already. The garden looked squalid and mean, without flowers, with black patches peeping through the thin covering of snow, with a row of winter greens opposite the southern window. He had never noticed the Glen so narrow and bare before, nor how grey and unlovely were the houses. Why had not the people better manners and some brightness? they were not always attending funerals and making bargains. What an occupation for an educated man to spend two hours in a cabin of a vestry with a dozen labouring men, considering how two pounds could be added to the Sustentation Fund, or preaching on Sunday to a handful of people who showed no more animation than stone G.o.ds except when the men took snuff audibly. Carmichael was playing the spoiled child--not being at all a mature or perfect character, then or now--and was ready to hit out at anybody. His bearing was for the first and only time in his life supercilious, and his sermons were a vicious attack on the doctrines most dear to the best of his people.

His elders knew not what had come over him, although Elspeth Macfadyen was mysteriously apologetic, and in moments of sanity he despised himself. One day he came to a good resolution suddenly, and went down to see Rabbi Saunderson--the very thought of whose gentle, patient, selfless life was a rebuke and a tonic.

When two tramps held conference on the road, and one indicated to the other visibly that any gentleman in temporary distress would be treated after a Christian fashion at a neighbouring house, Carmichael, who had been walking in a dream since he pa.s.sed the lodge, knew instantly that he must be near the Free Kirk manse of Kilbogie. The means of communication between the members of the nomadic profession is almost perfect in its frequency and accuracy, and Saunderson's manse was a hedge-side word. Not only did all the regular travellers by the north road call on their going up in spring and their coming down in autumn, but habitues of the east coast route were attracted and made a circuit to embrace so hospitable a home, and even country vagrants made their way from Dunleith and down through Glen Urtach to pay their respects to the Rabbi. They had particular directions to avoid Barbara--expressed forcibly on five different posts in the vicinity and enforced in picturesque language, of an evening--and they were therefore careful to waylay the Rabbi on the road, or enter his study boldly from the front.

The humbler members of the profession contented themselves with explaining that they had once been prosperous tradesmen, and were now walking to Muirtown in search of work--receiving their alms, in silence, with diffidence and shame; but those in a higher walk came to consult the Rabbi on Bible difficulties, which were threatening to shake their faith, and departed much relieved--with a new view of Lot's wife, as well as a suit of clothes the Rabbi had only worn three times.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Two tramps held conference.]

"You have done kindly by me in calling"--the vagabond had finished his story and was standing, a very abject figure, among the books--"and in giving me the message from your friend. I am truly thankful that he is now labouring--in iron, did you say? and I hope he may be a cunning artificer.

"You will not set it down to carelessness that I cannot quite recall the face of your friend, for, indeed, it is my privilege to see many travellers, and there are times when I may have been a minister to them on their journeys, as I would be to you also if there be anything in which I can serve you. It grieves me to say that I have no clothing that I might offer you; it happens that a very worthy man pa.s.sed here a few days ago most insufficiently clad and . . . but I should not have alluded to that; my other garments, save what I wear, are . . . kept in a place of . . . safety by my excellent housekeeper, and she makes their custody a point of conscience; you might put the matter before her. . . . a.s.suredly it would be difficult, and I crave your pardon for putting you in an . . . embarra.s.sing position; it is my misfortune to have to-day neither silver nor gold," catching sight of Carmichael in the pa.s.sage, "this is a Providence. May I borrow from you, John, some suitable sum for our brother here who is pa.s.sing through adversity?"

"Do not be angry with me, John"--after the tramp had departed, with five shillings in hand and much triumph over Carmichael on his face--"nor speak bitterly of our fellow men. Verily theirs is a hard lot who have no place to lay their head, and who journey in weariness from city to city. John, I was once a stranger and a wayfarer, wandering over the length and breadth of the land. Nor had I a friend on earth till my feet were led to the Mains, where my heart was greatly refreshed, and now G.o.d has surrounded me with young men of whose kindness I am not worthy, wherefore it becometh me to show mercy unto others," and the Rabbi looked at Carmichael with such sweetness, that the lad's sullenness began to yield, although he made no sign.

"Moreover," and the Rabbi's voice took a lower tone, "as often as I look on one of those men of the highways, there cometh to me a vision of Him who was an outcast of the people, and albeit some may be as Judas, peradventure one might beg alms of me, a poor sinful man, some day, and lo it might be . . . the Lord Himself in a saint," and the Rabbi bowed his head and stood awhile much moved.

"Rabbi," after a pause, during which Carmichael's face had changed, "you are incorrigible. For years we have been trying to make you a really good and wise man, both by example and precept, and you are distinctly worse than when we began--more lazy, miserly, and uncharitable. It is very disheartening.

"Can you receive another tramp and give him a bed, for I am in low spirits, and so, like every other person in trouble, I come to you, you dear old saint, and already I feel a better man."

"Receive you, John? It is doubtless selfish, but it is not given to you to know how I weary to see your faces, and we shall have much converse together--there are some points I would like your opinion on--but first of all, after a slight refreshment, we must go to Mains: behold the aid to memory I have designed"--and the Rabbi pointed to a large square of paper hung above Chrysostom, with "Farewell, George Pitillo, 3 o'clock." "He is the son's son of my benefactor, and he leaves his father's house this day to go into a strange land across the sea: I had a service last night at Mains, and expounded the departure of Abraham, but only slightly, being somewhat affected through the weakness of the flesh. There was a covenant made between the young man and myself, that I should meet him at the crossing of the roads to-day, and it is in my mind to leave a parable with him against the power of this present world."

Then the Rabbi fell into a meditation till the dog-cart came up, Mains and his wife in the front and George alone in the back, making a brave show of indifference.

"George," said the Rabbi, looking across the field and speaking as to himself, "we shall not meet again in this world, and in a short s.p.a.ce they will bury me in Kilbogie kirkyard, but it will not be in me to lie still for thinking of the people I have loved. So it will come to pa.s.s that I may rise--you have ears to understand, George---and I will inquire of him that taketh charge of the dead about many and how it fares with them."

"And George Pitillo, what of him, Andrew?"

"'Oh, it's a peety you didna live langer, Mr. Saunderson, for George hes risen in the warld and made a great fortune.'"

"How does it go with his soul, Andrew?"

"'Well, you see, Mister Saunderson, George hes hed many things to think about, and he maybe hasna hed time for releegion yet, but nae doot he 'll be turnin' his mind that wy soon.'"

"Poor George, that I baptised and admitted to the sacrament and . . .

loved: exchanged his soul for the world."

The sun was setting fast, and the landscape--bare stubble fields, leafless trees, still water, long, empty road--was of a blood-red colour fearsome to behold, so that no one spake, and the horse chafing his bit made the only sound.

Then the Rabbi began again.

"And George Pitillo--tell me, Andrew?"

"'Weel, ye see, Mister Saunderson, ye wud be sorry for him, for you and he were aye chief; he's keepit a gude name an' workit hard, but hesna made muckle o' this warld.'"

"And his soul, Andrew?"

"'Oo, that's a' richt; gin we a' hed as gude a chance for the next warld as George Pitillo we micht be satisfied.'"

"That is enough for his old friend; hap me over again, Andrew, and I'll rest in peace till the trumpet sound."

Carmichael turned aside, but he heard something desperately like a sob from the back of the dog-cart, and the Rabbi saying, "G.o.d be with you, George, and as your father's father received me in the day of my sore discouragement, so may the Lord G.o.d of Israel open a door for you in every land whithersoever you go, and bring you in at last through the gates into the city." The Rabbi watched George till the dog-cart faded away into the dusk of the winter's day, and they settled for the night in their places among the books before the Rabbi spoke.

It was with a wistful tenderness that he turned to Carmichael and touched him slightly with his hand, as was a fashion with the Rabbi.

"You will not think me indifferent to your welfare because I have not inquired about your affairs, for indeed this could not be, but the going forth of this lad has tried my heart. Is there aught, John, that it becometh you to tell me, and wherein my years can be of any avail?"

"It is not about doctrine I wished to speak to you, Rabbi, although I am troubled thus also, but about . . . you remember our talk."