The Stickit Minister's Wooing and Other Galloway Stories

For there were sympathetic hearts here and there among the folk of Drowdle. Women with the maternal instinct yet untrampled out of them, came to their doors to look after the tall slim "laddie" who was so like the sons they had dreamed of when the maiden's blush still tinged their cheeks.

"He's a bonnie laddie to look on," they said to each other as, palm on hip, they stood looking after him. "It's a peety that he is sae feckless!"

Yet Dairsie was always busy. He was no neglecter of duty. He worked with eager strained hopefulness. No matter how deep had been his depression of the evening, the morning found him contemplating a day of work with keen anticipation and unconquerable desire to succeed.

To-day, at last, he would begin to make an impression. He would visit the remainder of Dickson's Row, and perhaps – who knew? – it might be the turning of the tide. So he sat down opposite his mother at breakfast, smiling and rubbing his hands.

"To-day I am going to show them, mother," he would say.

"Show them what, Dairsie dear?"

"That I am a man!"

But within him he was saying, "Work while it is day!" And yet deeper in his heart, so deep that it became almost a prayer for release, he was wont to add – "The night cometh when no man can work!" Then to this he added, as he took his round soft hat and went out, "O Lord, help me to do something worthy before I die – something to make these people respect me."

* * * * *

It was a hot September afternoon. Drowdle was a-drowse from Capersknowe to the Back Raw. Here and there could be heard a dull recurring thud, which was the dunt dunt of the roller on the dough of the bake-board as some housewife languidly rolled out her farles of oatcake. For the rest, there was no sound save the shout of a callant fishing for minnows in the backwaters of Drowdle, and the buzz of casual bluebottles on the dirty window-panes.

Suddenly there arose a cry, dominant and far-reaching. No words were audible, but the tone was enough. Women blenched and dropped the crockery they were carrying. The men of the night-shift, asleep on their backs in the hot and close-curtained wall-beds, tumbled into their grimy moleskins with a single movement.

"Number Four pit's a-fire! The pit's a-fire! Number Fower!"

It was a mile to the particular colliery where the danger was. The rows of houses emptied themselves simultaneously upon the white dusty road, women running with men and barefooted children speeding between, a little scared, but, on the whole, rather enjoying the excitement.

As they came nearer, the great high-mounted head-wheels of pit Number Four were spinning furiously, and over the mounds which led to it little ant-like figures were hurrying. A thin far-spreading spume of brownish smoke rose sluggishly from the pithead. At sight of it women cried out: "Oh God, my Jock's doon there!" And more than one set her hand suddenly upon her side and swung away from the rush into the hedge-root.

A hundred questions were being fired at the steadfast engineer, men and women all shouting at once. He answered such as he could, but with his hand ever upon the lever and his eye upon the scale which told at what point the cage stood in the long incline of the "dook."

"The fire's in the main pit-shaft," he said. "They are trying to get doon by the second exit; but it's half fu' o' steam pipes to drive the bottom engine."

"Wha's gane doon?"

"Pate Tamson and Muckle Greg are in the cage tryin' to put the fire oot wi' the hose – "

"They micht as weel spit on't if it's gotten ony catch!"

"And Robin Naysmith and the minister are tryin' the second exit – "

"The minister —"

The cry was very scornful. The minister, indeed – what good could "a boy like him" do down there where strong men were dying helplessly?

So for half-an-hour Walter McCartney the pithead engineer stood at his post watching the cage index, and listening for the tinkle of the bell which signalled "up" or "down."

Suddenly the faces of such as could see the numbers blanched. And a murmur ran round the crowd at the long t-r-r-r-r-r-r which told that the cage was coming to the surface.

Had all hope been abandoned, that the rescue party were returning so unexpectedly? A woman shrieked suddenly on the edges of the crowd.

"Who's that?" queried the manager, turning sharply. And when he was answered, "Take her away – don't let her come near the shaft!" was his order.

Out of the charred and dripping cage came Pate Tamson and his mate, blackened and wet from head to foot.

"The cage is to be sent empty to the dook-bottom!" they said. "Somebody has managed to get doon the second exit."

With a quick switch of levers and a humming hiss of woven wire from the headwheels, down sank the cage into the belching brown smother of the deadly reek.

Then there was a long pause. The index sank till it pointed to the pit-bottom. The cage had passed through the fire safely. It had yet to be proved that living men could also pass.

"Tinkle – tink!"

It was the bell for lifting. Walter McCartney compressed his lips on receiving the signal, and pulled down the shiny cap over his forehead, as if he himself were about to face that whirlwind of fire six hundred feet down in the bowels of the earth. He drew a long breath and opened the lever for "Full Speed Up." The cage must have passed the zone of flame like a bird rising through a cloud. The folk silenced themselves as it neared the surface. Then a great cry arose.

The minister sat in the cage with a couple of boys in his arms. The rough wet brattice cloths that had been placed over them were charred almost to a cinder. Dairsie Gordon's face was burnt and blackened.

He handed the boys out into careful hands.

"I am going down again," he said; "unless I do the men will not believe that it is possible to come alive through the fire. Are you ready, Walter? Let her go!"

So a second time the young minister went down through the furnace. Presently the men began to be whisked up through the fire, and as each relay arrived at the pit-bank they sang the praises of Dairsie Gordon, telling with Homeric zest how he had crawled half-roasted down the narrow throat of the steam-pipe-filled shaft, how he had argued with them that the fire could be passed, and at last proved it with two boys for volunteer passengers. Dairsie Gordon, B.D., was the last man to leave the pit, and he fainted with pain and excitement when all Drowdle cheered him as they carried him home to his mother.

And when at last he came to himself, swathed in cotton wool to the eyes, he murmured, "Do you not think they will respect me now, mother?"

TADMOR IN THE WILDERNESS

The calm and solemn close of a stormy day – that is the impression which the latter years of the life of Bertram Erskine made on those who knew him best. Though I was young at the time, I well remember his solitary house of Barlochan, a small laird's mansion to which he had added a tiny study and a vast library, turning the whole into an externally curious, but internally comfortable conglomerate of architecture. The house stood near a little green depression of the moorland, shaped like the upturned palm of a hand. In the lowest part was the "lochan" or lakelet from which the place had its name, while the mansion with its white-washed gables and many chimneys rose on the brow above – and, facing south, overlooked well nigh a score of parishes. There was also a garden, half hidden behind a row of straggling poplars. A solitary "John" tended it, who, in the time of Mr. Erskine's predecessor, had doubled his part of gardener with that of butler at the family's evening meal.

Few people in the neighbourhood knew much about the "hermit of Barlochan." Yet he had borne a great part in the politics of twenty years before. He had been a minister of the Queen, a keen and vehement debater, a dour political fighter, as well as a man of some distinction in letters; he had suddenly retired from all his offices and emoluments without a day's warning. The reason given was that he had quite suddenly lost an only and much beloved daughter.

After a few years he had bought, through an Edinburgh lawyer, the little estate of Barlochan, and it was reported that he meant to settle in the district. Upon which ensued a clatter of masons and slaters, joiners and plasterers, all sleeping in stable-lofts, and keeping the scantily peopled moorland parish in a turmoil with their midnight predatory raids and madcap freaks.

Then came waggon-load after waggon-load of books – two men (no less) to look after them and set them in their places on the shelves. After that, the advent of a housekeeper and a couple of staid maid-servants with strange English accents. Last of all arrived Bertram Erskine himself, a tall figure in grey, stepping out of a high gig at his own door, and the establishment of an ex-minister of the Crown was complete.

That is, with one exception – for John McWhan, gardener to the ancient owners of Barlochan, was digging in the garden when Mr. Erskine went out on the first morning after his arrival.

"Good-morning!"

John looked up from his spade, put his hand with the genuine Galloway reluctance to his bonnet, and remarked, "I'm thinkin' we'll hae a braw year for grosarts, sir!"

The new proprietor smiled, and as John said afterwards, "Then I kenned I was a' richt!"

"You are Mr. McCulloch's gardener?"

"Na, na, sir; I am your ain gardener, sir," answered John McWhan promptly. "Coarnel (Colonel) McCulloch pat everything intil my hand on the day he gaed awa' to the wars – never to set fit on guid Scots heather mair!"

Mr. Erskine nodded quietly, like one who accepts a legal obligation.

"I have heard of you, John," he said. "I will take you with the other pendicles of the estate. You are satisfied with your former wages?"

"Aye, sir, aye – a bonny-like thing that I should hae been satisfied wi' thretty pound and a cot-hoose for five-and-forty year, and begin to compleen at this time o' the day."

"But I am somewhat peculiar, John," said Mr. Erskine, smiling. "I see little company: I desire to see none at all. If you remain with me, you must let nothing pass your lips regarding me or my avocations."

"Ye'll find that John McWhan can haud his tongue to the full as well as even a learned man like yoursel', sir!"

"I have an uncertain temper, John!"

"Faith, then ye hae gotten the verra man for ye, sir," cried John, slapping his knee delightedly. "Lord keep us, ye will be but as a bairn at the schule to what Maister McCulloch was. I tell ye, when the Coarnel's liver was warslin' wi' him, it was as muckle as your life was worth to gang within bowshot o' him. But yet he never hairmed John. He miscaaed him – aya, he did that – till the ill names cam' back oot o' the wood ower bye, as if the wee green fairies were mockin' the sinfu' angers o' man. But John never heeded. And in a wee, the Coarnel wad be calm as a plate o' parritch, and send me into the hoose for his muckle pipe, saying, 'John, that has dune me guid, I think I'll hae a smoke.' Na, na, ye may be as short in the grain as ye like, but after Coarnel McCulloch – "

At this point of his comparison John felt the inadequacy of further words and could only ejaculate, "Hoots awa, man!"

So in this fashion John McWhan stayed on as "man" upon the policies of Barlochan.

That night at dinner it was John who carried in the soup tureen and deposited it before his new master, a very much scandalised table-maid following in the wake of the victor.

"I hae brocht ye your kail, Maister Areskine," he said, setting the large vessel down with a flourish, "as I hae dune in this hoose for five-and-forty year. This trimmie (though Guid forgie me, I doubt na that she is a decent lass, for an Englisher) may set the glesses and bring ben the kickshaws, but the kail and the roast are John McWhan's perquisite – as likewise the cleanin' o' the silver. And I wad thank ye kindly, sir, to let the hizzie ken your mind on that same!"

With these words, John stood at attention with his hands at his sides and his lips pursed, gazing solemnly at his master. Mr. Erskine turned round on his chair, his napkin in his hand. His eyes encountered with astonishment a tall figure, gaunt and angular, clad in an ancient livery coat of tarnished blue and gold; knee breeches, black stockings, and a pair of many-clouted buckled shoes completed an attire which was certainly a marvellous transformation from John's ordinary labouring moleskins.

With a word quiet and sedate, Mr. Erskine satisfied John's pride of place, and with another (the latter accompanied with a certain humorous twinkle of the eye) he soothed the ruffled Jane.

After that the days passed quietly and uneventfully enough at Barlochan. Mr. Erskine's habits were regular. He rose early, he read much, he wrote more. The mail he received, the book packets the carrier brought him, the huge sealed letters he sent off, were the wonder of the countryside – for a month or two. Then, save for the carters who drove the coal from the town, or brought in the firewood for Mr. Erskine's own library fire (for there he burned wood only), and the boxes of provisions ordered from Cairn Edward by his prim housekeeper Mrs. Lambert, Barlochan was silent and without apparent distraction.

All the same there were living souls and busy brains about it. The massive intellect of the master worked at unknown problems in the library. Busy Mrs. Lambert hurried hither and thither contriving household comforts, and developing the scanty resources of a moorland cusine to their uttermost. Jane and Susan obeyed her beck, while out in the garden John McWhan dug and raked, pruned and planted, his hand never idle, while his brain busied itself with his master.

"It's a michty queer thing he doesna gang to the kirk," said John to himself, "a terrible queer thing – him bein' itherwise sic a kindly weel-learned gentleman. I heard some word he was eddicated for the kirk himsel'. Oh, that we had amang us a plant o' grace like worthy Master Hobbleshaw doon at the Nine-Mile-Burn, that can whup the guts oot o' a text as gleg and clever as cleanin' a troot. Faith, I wad ask him to come wi' me to oor bit kirk at Machermore, had we a man there that could do mair than peep and mutter. I wonder what we hae dune that we should be afflicted wi' siccan a reed shaken wi' the wun' as that feckless bit callant, Hughie Peebles. He can preach nae mair than my cat Tib – and as for unction – "

Here again John's words failed him under the press of his own indignant comminations. He could only drive the "graip" into the soil of the Barlochan garden, with a foot whose vehemence spoke eloquently of his inward heat. For the pulpit of the little Dissenting kirk which John McWhan supported by his scanty contributions (and abundant criticisms), was occupied every Sabbath day by that saddest of all labourers, a minister who has not fulfilled his early promise, and of whom his congregation desire to be rid.

"No but what we kind o' like the craitur, too," John explained to his master, as he paused near him in one of his frequent promenades in the garden. "He has his points. He is a decent lad, and wi' some sma' gift in intercessory prayer. But he gangs frae door to door amang the fowk, as if he were comin' like a beggar for an awmous and were feared to daith o' the dog. Noo what the fowk like is a man that walks wi' an air, that speaks wi' authority, that stands up wi' some presence in the pulpit, and gies oot the psalm as if he war kind o' prood to read words that the guid auld tune o' Kilmarnock wad presently carry to the seeventh heevens!"

"And your minister, John, with whom you are dissatisfied – how came you to choose him?"

"Weel, sir," said the old man, palpably distressed, "it was like this – ye see fowk are no what they used to be, even in the kirk o' the Marrow. In auld days they pickit a minister for the doctrine and smeddom that was in him. 'Was he soond on the fundamentals?' 'Had he a grip o' the fower Heads?' 'Was he faithfu' in his monitions?' Thae were the questions they askit. But nooadays they maun hae a laddie fresh frae the college, that can leather aff a blatter o' words like a bairn's lesson. I'm tellin' ye the truth, sir – Sant Paul himsel', after he had had the care o' a' the churches for a generation, wadna hae half the chance o' a bare-faced, aipple-cheekit loon in a black coatie and a dowg-collar. An' as for Peter, he wad hae had juist nae chance ava. He wad never hae gotten sae muckle as a smell o' the short leet."

"And how would Saint Peter have had no chance? Wherein was his case worse than Paul's?" said Mr. Erskine, smiling.

"Because he was a mairriet man, sir. It's a' thae feckless weemen fowk, sir. A man o' wecht and experience has little chance, though he speak wi' the tongue o' men and o' angels – a mairriet man has juist nae chance ava.' It's my solemn opeenion that, when it comes to electin' a new minister, only respectable unmairriet men o' fifty years an' upwards should be allowed to vote. It's the only thing that will stop thae awfu' weemen frae ruling the kirk o' God. Talk o' the Session – faith, it's no the Session that bears rule ower us in things speeritual – na, na, it's juist thae petticoated randies that got us turned oot' o' Paradise at the first, and garred me hae to grow your honour's veegetables in the sweet o' my broo!"

"But why only unmarried men of over fifty?" said Mr. Eskine, humouring his servitor.

"For this reason," – John laid down the points of his argument on the palm of one hand with the crooked forefinger of the other, his foot holding the "graip" steady in the furrow all the while. "The young unmairriet men wad be siccan fules as to do what the young lasses wanted them to do, and the mairriet men o' a' ages (as say the Scriptures) wad necessarily vote as their wives bade them, for the sake o' peace and to keep doon din!"

"Well, John," said Mr. Erskine, "I will go down to the kirk with you next Sunday morning, and see what I can advise. It is a pity that in this small congregation and thinly-peopled district you should be saddled with an unsuitable minister!"

"Eh, sir, but we wad be prood to see ye at Machermore Marrow Kirk," cried John, dusting his hands with sheer pleasure, as if he were about to shake hands with his master on the spot. "I only wish it had been Maister MacSwatter o' Knockemdoon that was gaun to preach. He fairly revels in Daniel and the Revelations. He can gie ye a screed on the ten horns wi' faithfu' unction, and mak' a maist affectin' application frae the consideration o' the wee yin in the middle. But oor Maister Peebles – he juist haes nae 'fushion' in him, ony mair than a winter-frosted turnip in the month o' Aprile!"

In accordance with his promise to his factotum, on the following Sabbath morning, Mr. Erskine walked down to the little Kirk of Machermore. It was a fine harvest day and the folk had turned out well, as is usually the case at that season of the year. John McWhan was too old a servant to dream of walking with his master to the kirk. He had "mair mainners," as he would have said himself. All the same, he had privately communicated with several of the elders, and so ensured Mr. Erskine a reception suited to his dignity.

The ex-minister of State was received at the little kirk door by Bogrie and Muirkitterick, two tenants on a large neighbouring property. These were the leading Marrow men in the district, and much looked up to, as both coming in their own gigs to the kirk. Bogrie it was who opened the inner door for him, and Muirkitterick conducted him to the seat of honour in the mountain Zion, being the manse pew, immediately to the right of the pulpit.

It was not for some time that Mr. Erskine perceived that he did not sit alone. Being a little short-sighted until he got his glasses adjusted, the faces of any audience or congregation were always a blur to him. Then all at once he noticed a slim girlish figure in a black dress almost shrinking from observation in the opposite corner. The service began immediately after he sat down.

The minister was tall, of good appearance and presence, but Mr. Erskine shuddered at the first grating notes of the clerical falsetto, which Mr. Peebles had adopted solely because it had been the fashion at college in his time; but it was not until the short prayer before the sermon that anything occurred to fix the politician's wandering attention.

Then, as he bent forward, he heard a voice near him saying, in an intense inward whisper: "O God, help my Hughie!"

He glanced about him in astonishment. It was the girl in the black dress. She had knelt in the English fashion when all the rest of the congregation were merely bending forward "on their hunkers," or, as in the case of not a few ancient standards of the Faith, standing erect and protestant against all weak-hammed defection.

When the girl arose again Mr. Erskine saw that her lips were trembling and that she gazed wistfully about at the set and severe faces of the congregation. The minister began his sermon.

It was not in any sense a good discourse. Rather, with the best will in the world, the hearer found it feeble, flaccid, unenlivened by illustration, unfirmed by doctrine, unclinched by application. Yet all the time Mr. Erskine was saying to himself: "What a fool that young man is! He has a good voice and presence – how easily he might study good models, and make a very excellent appearance. It cannot be so difficult to please a few score country farmers and ditchers!" But he ended with his usual Gallio-like reflection that "After all, it is none of my business;" and so forthwith removed his mind from the vapidity of the discourse, to a subject connected with his own immediate work.

But as he issued out of the little kirk, he passed quite close to the vestry door. The girl who had sat in the pew beside him was coming out with the minister. He could not help hearing her words, apparently spoken in answer to a question: "It was just beautiful, Hughie; you never preached better in your life." And in the shadow of the porch, before they turned the corner, Mr. Erskine was morally certain that the young minister gave the girl's arm an impulsive little hug.

But his own heart was heavy, for as he walked away there came a thought into his heart. A resemblance that had been haunting him suddenly flashed up vividly upon him.

"If Marjorie had lived she would have been about that girl's age – and like her, too, pale and slim and dark."

So all the way to his lonely mansion of Barlochan the ex-minister of the Crown thought of the young girl who had faded from his side, just as she was becoming a companion for the man who, for her sake, had put his career behind him.

In the afternoon Mr. Erskine sat in the arbour, while John in his Sunday best tried to compromise with his conscience as to how much gardening could be made to come under the catechistic heading, "Works of Necessity and Mercy." He solved this by watering freely, training and binding up sparingly, pruning in a furtive and shamefaced manner (when nobody was looking), but strictly abstaining from the opener iniquities of weeding, digging, or knocking in nails with hammers. In the latter emergency John kept for Sunday use the ironshod heel of an old boot, and in no case did he ever so far forget himself as to whistle. On that point he was adamant.

At last, after hovering nearer and nearer, he paused before the arbour and addressed his master directly.

"Thon juist settles it!"

Mr. Erskine slowly put down his book, still, however, marking the place with his finger.

"I do not understand – what do you mean by thon?"

"The sermon we had the day, sir. It was fair affrontin'. The Session are gaun up to ask Maister Peebles to consider his resignation. The thing had neither beginning o' days nor end o' years. It was withoot form and void. It's a kind o' peety, too, for the laddie, wi' that young Englishy wife that he has ta'en, on his hand. I'm feared she is no the kind that will ever help to fill his meal-ark!"

"I am very sorry to hear you say so, John," said Mr. Erskine; "can nothing be done, think you? Why don't they give the young man another chance? Can no one speak to him? There were some things about the service that I liked very much. Indeed, I found myself feeling at home in a church for the first time for years."