The Stickit Minister's Wooing and Other Galloway Stories

To the outer limit of the cordon of watchers came the carriers and the farmers, the country lairds' servants, and less frequently the bien well-stomached meal millers. In silence they deposited their goods, for the most part with no niggard hand. In silence they took the fumigated pound notes, smelling of sulphur, or the silver coin of the realm, with the crumbles of quick-lime still sticking to the milling of the edges.

So across a kind of neutral zone, fearful country and infected town stood glowering at each other like embattled enemies, musket laid ready in the crook of elbow.

And when one mad with the Fear tried to cross, he was hunted like a wild beast, or shot at like a rabbit running for its burrow. And the townsmen did in like manner. For ill as it might fare with them, there was deadlier yet to fear. In Cairn Edward they had the White Cholera, as it was called. The Black was at Dumfries – so, at least, the tale ran.

And as he went about his work, Allan Syme called upon his God, and thought of Elspeth. But her letter never reached him, and he knew nothing of her vigils. The day before he might have known the Fear fell, and the door was shut.

* * * * *

It was on Saturday afternoon that the tidings came to Elspeth Stuart, lonely watcher and loving heart. It was her brother Sandy who brought them. He knew nothing of Elspeth's matters, being young and by nature unworthy of trust. He had been down to Crosspatrick on some errand, and now, having arrived back within hailing distance, he was retailing his experiences to his brother Frank.

"I got yon letter back frae the Weedow – an', as I wasna gangin' hame, I gied it to my faither."

"What letter?"

Elspeth could hear the sudden angry alarm in Frank's voice; but she herself had no premonition of danger.

"The letter ye took doon to Crosspatrick for Elspeth ten days syne. Ye'll catch it, my man!"

The girl's heart sank, and then leapt again within her.

Her father had her letter – he would read it. It was plainly addressed in her handwriting to Allan Syme. What should she do?

But wait – there was something else. With a quick back-spang came the countering joy.

"But then he has never got my letter. He knows nothing of my unhappiness. He has not forgotten me. He loves me still. What care I for aught else but that?"

There came up from the courtyard a sound of blows, and then Sandy's wail.

"I'll tell my faither on ye, that I will. How was I to ken aboot Elspeth's letter? And they say the minister-man it was wrote to is dead, at ony rate!"

Elspeth heard unbelievingly. Dead – Allan dead! And she not know. Absurd! It was only one of Sandy's lies to irritate his brother because he had been thrashed. She knew Sandy. Nevertheless she threw up the window. Sandy was again at his parable.

"They buried twenty-five yesterday in the moss. The minister was there wi' the last coffin, and fell senseless across it. He never spoke again. He is to be buried the morn if they can get the coffin made!"

Then, so soon as she was convinced that Sandy was not inventing, and that he had only repeated the gossip of the village, a kind of cold calmness took hold of Elspeth. She called Frank in to her, and when he came, lo! his face was far whiter than hers.

She made him tell her all they had kept from her – of the dread plague that had fallen so sudden and swift upon the townlet to which Allan had carried her heart. Then she thought awhile fiercely, not wavering in her purpose, but only trying this way and that, like one who thrusts with his staff for the safest passage over a dangerous bog. Frank watched her keenly, but could make nothing of her intent. At last she spoke:

"Go and get me the key of your box."

"What do ye want with the key of my box?" queried her brother, astonished.

"Never heed that," said Elspeth, clipping her words imperiously, as, in seasons of stress, she had a way of doing; "do as I bid you!"

And being accustomed to such obediences, and albeit sorry for her, Frank went out, only remarking ominously that he would have a job, for that Aunt Mary carried it on her bunch.

He came back in exactly ten minutes, and threw the key on the floor.

"Easier than I expected," he said, triumphantly; "the old buzzer was asleep!"

"Give me the key," said Elspeth, still in a brown study by the window.

But this was too much for Frank.

"Pick it up for yourself, Els," he said, "and mind you are to swear you found it on the floor!"

Frank knew very well that if one is going to lie back and forth (as he intended to do when questioned), it is well to be prepared with occasional little scraps of truth. They cheer one up so.

Elspeth took the key, and hid it in her pocket.

"Now you can go," she said, and sat down on the bed, staring out at the broad river quietly slipping by.

"Well, you might at least have said 'thank you – '" began Frank. But catching the expression of her face, he suddenly desisted, and went out without another word.

* * * * *

No, Allan Syme was not dead. But he staggered home that night certainly more dead than alive. All day long he had moved in an atmosphere of the most appalling pestilence. The reek of mortality seemed to solidify in his nostrils, and his heart for the first time fainted within him.

He knew that there would be no welcome for him in the dark and lonely manse; no meal, no comfort, no living voice; not so much as a dog to lick his hand. His housekeeper, a mere hireling, had fled at the first alarm.

It was dusk as he thrust the key into the latch, as he did so staggering against the lintel from sheer weariness. He stood a little while in the passage, shuddering with the oncomings of mortal sickness. Then with flint, steel, and laborious tinder box he coaxed a light for the solitary taper on the hall table. This done, he turned aside into the little sitting-room on the right hand, where he kept his divinity books.

A slight figure came forward to meet him, with upturned face and clasped petitionary hands. The action was a girl's, but the dress and figure were those of a boy. Upon the threshold the minister stopped dead. He thought that this was the first symptom of delirium – he had seen it in so many, and had watched for it in himself.

But the lad still came forward, and laid a hand on his arm. He wore a suit of bottle green with silver buttons, a world too wide for his slim form. Knee breeches and buckled shoes completed his attire. Allan Syme stared wide-eyed, uncomprehending, his hand pressed to his aching brow in the effort to see truly.

"You are not dead. Thank God!" said the boy, in a voice that took him by the throat.

"Who – who are you?" The words came dry and gasping from the minister's parched lips.

"I am Elspeth – do you not know me?"

"Elspeth – Elspeth – why did you come here – and thus?"

"They told me you were dead – and my father locked me up! And – what chance had a girl to pass the guards? They fired at me – see!"

And lifting a wet curl from her brow, she showed a wound.

"Elspeth – Elspeth – what is all this? What have they done to you?"

"Nothing – nothing – it is but a scratch. The man almost missed me altogether."

"Beloved, what have you done with your hair?"

"I cut it off, that I might the better deceive them!"

"Elspeth – you must go back! This is no place for you!"

"I will not go back home. I will die first!"

"But, Elspeth, think if any one saw you – what would they say?"

"That I came to help you – to nurse you! I do not care what they would say."

"My dear – my dear, you cannot bide here. I would to God you could; but you cannot. I must think how to get you away. I must think – I must think!"

The minister, sick unto death, stood with his hand still pressed to his brow. At sight of him, and because, after all she had gone through for him, he had given her neither welcome nor kiss, a swift spasm of anger flashed up into Elspeth's eyes.

"You are ashamed of me, Allan Syme – let me go. I will never see you more. You do not love me! I will not trouble you. Open the door!"

"God knows I love you better than my soul!" said Allan; "but let me think. Father in heaven – I cannot think! My brain runs round."

He gave a slight lurch like a felled ox, and swayed forward.

Instantly, as a lamp that the wind blows out, all the anger went out of Elspeth Stuart's eyes. She caught Allan in her strong young arms and laid him on the worn couch, displacing with a sweep of her hand a whole score of volumes as she laid him down.

He lay a moment stiff and still. Then a spasm of pain contorted his features. He opened his eyes, and looked into his sweetheart's eyes. Then, with the swift astonishing clearness of the mortally stricken, he saw what must be done.

"Allan, Allan, what is the matter – what shall I do for you?" she mourned over him.

"Do this," answered the minister. "Take the cloak out of that cupboard there. I have never worn it. Go straight to John Allanson. He is my Ruling Elder. He bides at his daughter's house close by the cotton mill. Tell him all, and bid him come to me."

"The dreadful man who was so angry – that day at Lowe's Seat!" she objected, not fearing for herself, but for him.

"He is not a dreadful man. Do as I bid you, childie; I am sick, but I judge not unto death!"

"But you may die before I return!"

"Do as I bid you, Elspeth," said the minister, waving her away; "not a hundred choleras can deprive me of one minute God has appointed mine!"

She bent over quickly, and kissed him on lips and brow.

"There – and there! Now if you die, I will die too. Remember that! And I do not care now. I will go!"

Saying this, she rushed from the room.

* * * * *

It was a strange visitor who came to the house of the Elder's daughter that evening, as the gloaming fell darker, her feet making no sound on the deserted and grass-grown streets.

"A young laddie wants to see you, father," said John Allanson's married daughter, with whom he had been lodging for a night when the plague came, in a single hour putting a great gulf between town and country. Then, finding his minister alone, he was not the man to leave him to fight the battle single-handed.

Shamefacedly Elspeth crept in. The old man and his daughter were by themselves, the husband not yet home from the joiner's shop, where the hammers went tap-tap at the plain deal coffins all day and all night.

"The minister is dying – come and help him or he will die!" she cried, as they sat looking curiously at her in the clear, leaping red of the firelight.

"Who are you, laddie?" said the elder.

"I am no laddie," said Elspeth, redder than the peat ashes. "Oh, I am shamed – I am shamed! But I could not help it. And I am not sorry! They told me he was dead. I am Elspeth Stuart, of the Dullarg Manse."

The elder sat gazing at her, open-mouthed, leaning forward, his hands on his knees. But his daughter, with the quick sympathy of woman, held out her arms.

"My puir lassie!" she said. She had once lost a bairn, her only one.

And Elspeth wept on her bosom.

The daughter waved her father to the door with one hand.

"She will tell me easier!" she said.

And straightway the old man went out into the dark.

* * * * *

It did not take long to tell, with Allan Syme lying so near to the gates of death. Almost in less time than it needs to write it, Elspeth was arrayed, so far at least as outer seeming went, in the garments of her sex. A basket was filled with the necessities which were kept ready for such an emergency in every house.

"Come, father," the loving wife cried at the door; "I will tell you as we gang!"

And before she had won third way through her story, John Allanson had taken Elspeth's hand in his.

"My bairn! my bairn!" he said.

In this manner Elspeth came the second time to the Manse of Allan Syme.

* * * * *

But the third time was as the mistress thereof. For she and the elder's daughter nursed Allan Syme through into safety. For the very day that Allan was stricken, a great rain fell and a great wind blew. The birds came back to the gardens of Cairn Edward, and the plague lifted. In time, too, Dr. Stuart submitted with severe grace to that which he could not help.

"Indeed, it was all my fault, father," Elspeth said; "I made Allan come back by the stile. I had made up my mind that he should. I knew he would kiss me there!"

"Then I can only hope," answered her father, severely, lifting up his gold-knobbed cane and shaking it at her to emphasise his point, "that by this time your husband has learned the secret of making you obey him. It is more than ever your father did!"

A SCIENTIFIC SYMPOSIUM

(Being some Hitherto Unobserved Phenomena of Feminine Psychology from the notebook of A. McQuhirr, M.D. Edin.)

These papers of mine have been getting out of hand of late. I am informed from various quarters that they are becoming so exceedingly popular and discursive in their character, that they are enough to ruin the reputation of any professing man of science. I will therefore be severe with myself (and, incidentally, with my readers), and occupy one or two papers with a consideration of some of the minor characteristics common to the female sex. Indeed, upon a future occasion I may even devote an entire work to this subject.

I have mentioned before that my wife's younger sister was called the "Hempie,"3 which, being interpreted, signifies a wild girl. This had certainly been her character at one time; and though she deserves the name less now than of yore, all her actions are still marked by conspicuous decision and independence.

For instance, the year after Nance and I were married, the Hempie abruptly claimed her share of her mother's money, and departed to Edinburgh "to get learning."

Now it was a common thing enough in our part of the country for boys to go out on such a quest. It was unheard of in a girl. And the parish would have been shocked if the emigrant had been any other than the Hempie. But Miss Elizabeth Chrystie, daughter of Peter of Nether Neuk, was a young woman not accustomed to be bound by ordinary rules. In person she had grown up handsome rather than pretty, and was so athletic that she stood in small need of the ordinary courtesies which girls love – hands over stiles, and so forth. Eyes and hair of glossy jet, the latter crisping naturally close to her head, a healthy colour in her cheeks, an ironic curl to her firm fine lips, – that is how our Hempie came back to us.

Of her career in the metropolis, of the boarding-school dames, strait-laced and awful, whom she scandalised, the shut ways of learning which somehow were opened before her, I have no room here to tell. It is sufficient to say that out of all this the Hempie came home to Nether Neuk, and at once established herself as the wonder of the neighbourhood.

Nance was gone, Grace going; Clemmy Kilpatrick, the unobtrusive little woman whom Peter Chrystie had married as a kind of foot-warmer, had been laid aside for six weeks with an "income" on her knee. The maidservants naturally took advantage. Every individual pot and pan in the house cumbered the back kitchen unwashed and begrimed. In the byres you did not walk – you waded. The ploughmen hung about the house half the morning, gossiping with the half-idle maidens. The very herds on the hill eluded Peter's feeble judicature, and lay asleep behind dyke-backs, while the week-weaned lambs, with many tail-wagglings, rejoined their mothers on the pastures far below.

Upon this confusion enter the New Hempie. And with her gown pinned up and a white apron on that met behind her shapely figure, she set to and helped the servants.

In six days she had the farm town of Nether Neuk in such a state of perfection as it had not known since my own Nance left it. For Grace, though a good girl enough, cared not a jot for house work. Her sphere was the dairy and cheese-room, where in an atmosphere of simmering curds and bandaged cheddars she reigned supreme.

So much to indicate to those who are not acquainted with Miss Elizabeth Chrystie the kind of girl she was.

For the rest, she despised love and held wooers in contempt, as much as she had done in the old days when she ascended the roofs of the pigstyes, and climbed into the beech-tree tops in the courtyard of Nether Neuk, rather than meet me face to face as I went to pay my court to her eldest sister.

"Love – " she said, scornfully, when I questioned her on the subject the first time she came to see us at Cairn Edward, "love– have Nance and you no got ower sic nonsense yet? Love– " (still more scornfully); "as if I hadna seen as much of that as will serve me for my lifetime, wi' twa sisters like Grace and Nance there!"

It did not take us much by surprise, therefore, when one morning, while we sat at breakfast, the Hempie dropped in with the announcement that she could not stand her father any longer, and that she had engaged herself to be governess in the house of a certain Major Randolph Fergus of Craignesslin.

To a young lady so determined there was no more to be said. Besides which, the Hempie was of full age, perfectly independent as far as money went, and more than independent in character.

"Now," she said, "I have just fifteen minutes to catch my train: how am I to get my bag up to the station?"

"If you wait," I said, "the gig will be round at the door in seven minutes. I have a case, or I should go up with you myself."

"Who is driving the gig?"

"Tad Anderson," said I.

The Hempie picked up a pair of tan gloves and straightened her tall lithe figure.

"Good-morning," she said; "give me a lift with my box and wraps to the door. I would not trust Tad Anderson to get to the station in time if he had seven hours to do it in!"

At the door a boy was passing with a grocer's barrow. The Hempie swung her box upon it with a deft strong movement.

"Take that to the station, boy," she commanded, "and tell Muckle Aleck that Elizabeth Chrystie of the Nether Neuk will be up in ten minutes."

"But – but," stammered the boy, astonished, "I hae thae parcels to deliver."

"Then deliver them on your road down!" said the Hempie. And her right hand touched the boy's left for an instant.

"A' richt, mem!" he nodded, and was off.

"Don't trouble, Alec. Nance, bide where you are – I have three calls to make on the way up. Good-morning!"

And the Hempie was off. We watched her through the little oriel window, Nance nestling against my coat sleeve pleasantly, and, in the shadow of the red stuff curtain, even surreptitiously kissing my shoulder – a thing I had often warned her against doing in public. So I reproved her.

"Nance, mind what you are about, for heaven's sake! Suppose anyone were to see you. It is enough to ruin my professional reputation to have you do that on a market day in your own front window."

"Well, please may I hold your hand?" (Then, piteously, and, if I might call it so, "Nancefully") "You know I shall not see you all day."

"The Hempie would not do a thing like that!" I answer, severely.

Nance watches the supple swing of her sister's figure, from the stout-soled practical boots to the small erect head, with its short black curls and smart brown felt hat with the silver buckle at the side.

"No," she said, "she wouldn't." Then, after a sigh, she added, "Poor Hempie!"

That was the last we saw of our sister for more than a year. Elizabeth Chrystie did not come back even for Grace's marriage to the laird of Butterhole.

"I am of more use where I am," she wrote. "Tell Grace I am sending her an alarm clock!"

Whether this was sarcasm on the Hempie's part, I am not in a position to say. Grace had always been the sleepy-head of the family. If, however, it was meant ironically, the sarcasm was wasted, for Grace was delighted with the present.

"It is so useful, you know," the Mistress of Butterhole told Nance. "I set it every morning for four o'clock. It is so nice to turn over and know that you do not need to get up till eight!"

* * * * *

As suddenly as she had gone away, so suddenly the Hempie returned, giving reasons to no man. I am obliged to say that even I would never have known the true story of the adventures which follows had I not shamefully played the eavesdropper.

It happened this way.

My study, where I try upon occasion to do a little original work and keep myself from dropping into the rut of the pill-and-potion practitioner so common in rural districts, is next the little room where Nance sits reading, or sewing at the garmentry, white and mysterious, which some women seem never to be able to let out of their reach. Here I have a small wall-press, in which I keep my microscopes and preparations. It is divided by a single board from a similar one belonging to Nance on the other side. When both doors are open you can hear as well in one room as in the other. I often converse with Nance without rising, chiefly as to how long it will be till dinner-time, together with similar important and soul-elevating subjects. But it never seems to strike her that I can hear as easily what is said in her room when I am not expected to hear.

Now, if you are an observant man, you have noticed, I daresay, that so soon as women are alone together, they begin to talk quite differently from what they have done when they had reason to know of your masculine presence. Yes, it is true – especially true of your nearest and dearest. Men do something of the same kind when women go out after dinner. But quite otherwise. A man becomes at once broader and louder, more unrestrained in quotation, allusion, illustration, more direct in application. His vocabulary expands. In anecdote he is more abounding and in voice altogether more natural. But with women it is not so. They do not look blankly at the tablecloth or toy with the stem of a wineglass, as men do when the other sex vanishes. They glance at each other. A gentle smile glimmers from face to face, in which is a world of irony and comprehension. It says, "They are gone – the poor creatures. We can't quite do without them; but oh, are they not funny things?" Then they exchange sighs equally gentle. If you listen closely you can hear a little subdued rustle. That is the chairs being moved gently forward nearer each other – not dragged, mark you, as a man would do. A man has no proper respect for a carpet.

"Well, dear – ?"

"Well?"

And then they begin really to talk. They have only "conversed" so far. How do I know all this? Well, that's telling. As I say, I eavesdropped part of it – in the interests of science. But the facts are true, in every case.

The Hempie came in one Saturday morning. It was in August, and a glorious day. There was nothing pressing. I had been out early at the only case which needed to be seen to till I went on my afternoon round.

Nance was upstairs giving a wholly supererogatory attention to a certain young gentleman who had already one statutory slave to anticipate his wants. He was getting ready to be carried into the garden. I could detect signs from the basement that cook also was tending nursery-wards. The shrine would have its full complement of devout worshippers shortly.

It was thus that I came to be the first to welcome the Hempie upon her return. She opened the glass door and walked in without ceremony, putting her umbrella in the rack and hanging her hat on a peg like a man, not bringing them in to cumber a bedroom as a woman does. These minor differences of habit in the sexes have never been properly collated and worked out. As I said before, I think I must write a book on the subject.

At any rate, the Hempie's action was the exception which proved the rule.

Then she strolled nonchalantly into my study and flung herself into a chair without shaking hands. I leaped to my feet.

"Hempie," I cried, "I am dreadfully glad to see you." And I stooped to kiss her.

To my utter astonishment she took the salute as a matter of course, a thing she had never done before. Yes, somehow the Hempie was startlingly different.

"What," she said, "are you as glad as all that? What a loving brother!"

But I think she was pleased all the same.

"Where's Nance?" The question was shot out rather than asked.

I indicated the upper regions of the house with my thumb, and inclined my ear to direct her attention.