The Stickit Minister's Wooing and Other Galloway Stories

"Will you parse the first verb, Mr. Denholm – no, not that word! That has usually been considered a substantive, Mr. Denholm – the next word, ah, yes!"

"The first aorist, active of —confound you fellows, where's that 'Bagster'? I call it dashed mean – *yes, sir, it is connected with the former clause by the particle – *have you not found that book yet? Oh, you beasts!"

(The italics, it is hardly necessary to say, were also spoken in italics, and were not an integral part of Gibby's examination as it reached the ear of Professor Galbraith.)

"Ah, that will do, Mr. Denholm – not so well – not quite so well, sir – yet" (kindly) "not so vairy ill either."

And Gilbert sat down to resume the discussion of the dress clothes. By this time, of course, he considered himself quite safe from further molestation. The Professor had never been known to call up a man thrice in one day. So, finding Nick McFeat obdurate in the matter of the dress suit, Gilbert announced his intention of visiting Kenneth Kennedy, who, he said pointedly, was not a selfish and unclean animal of the kind abhorred by Jews, but, contrariwise, a gentleman – one who would lend dress clothes for the asking. And Kennedy's were better clothes, any way, and had silk linings. Furthermore, Nick need not think it, he (Mr. Gilbert Denholm) would not demean himself to put on his (Mr. McFeat's) dirty "blacks," which had been feloniously filched from a last year's scarecrow that had been left out all the winter. And furthermore, he (the said Gilbert) would take Madge Robertson to the theatre in spite of him, and what was more, cut Nick McFeat out as clean as a leek.

At this the latter laughed scornfully, affirming that the grapes had a faintly sub-acid flavour, and bade Gibby go his way.

Gibby went, tortuously and subterraneously worming his way to the highest seats in the synagogue, where Kenneth Kennedy, M.A., reposed at full length upon a vacant seat, having artistically bent a Highland cloak over a walking-stick to represent scholastic meditation, if perchance the kindly spectacle of the Professor should turn in his direction. Gibby gazed rapturously on his friend's sleep, contemplating him, as once in the Latmian cave Diana gazed upon Endymion. He was proceeding to ink his friend's face preparatory to upsetting him on the floor, when he remembered the dress suit just in time to desist.

"Eel, you are a most infamous pest – can't you let a fellow alone? What in the world do you want now?"

Whereupon, with countenance of triple brass, Gibby entered into the question of the dress suit with subtlety and tact. There never was so good a chap as Kennedy, never one so generous. He (G.D.) would do as much for him again, and he would bring it back the next day, pressed by a tailor.

Kennedy, however, was not quite so enthusiastic. There are several points of view in matters of this kind. Kenneth Kennedy did not, of course, care "a dump" about Madge Robertson, but he had the best interests of his silk-lined dress coat at heart.

"That's all very well, Eel," he said, raising himself reluctantly to the perpendicular; "but you know as well as I do that the last time I lent it to you, you let some wax drop on the waistcoat, right on the pocket, and I have never been able to get it out since – "

Suddenly the pair became conscious that the gentle hum of exegetical divinity from the rostrum had ceased. The word "Hermeneutics" no longer soothed and punctuated their converse at intervals of five minutes, like the look-out's "All's well" on a ship at sea.

"Ah, Mis – ter Den – holm, perhaps you have recovered yourself by this time. Be good enough to continue where you left off – Mis – ter Den – holm – Mister Denholm – where in the world is Mr. Denholm?"

The spectacles were hardly beaming now. A certain shrewd suspicion mixed with the wonder in their expression, as Dr. Galbraith gazed from the Eel's position One to position Two, and back again to position One. Both were empty as the cloudless empyrean. His wonder culminated when Gilbert was finally discovered in position Three, high on the sky-line of Bench Twenty-four!

How Gilbert acquitted himself on this occasion it is perhaps better not to relate. I will draw a kindly veil over the lamentable tragedy. It is sufficient to say that he lost his head completely – as completely even as the aforesaid Miss Madge Robertson could have wished.

And all though the disastrous exhibition the Professor did not withdraw his gaze from the wretched Eel, but continued to rebuke him, as it seemed, for the astral and insubstantial nature of his body.

No better proof can be adduced that the Eel had become temporarily deranged, than the fact that even now, when it was obvious that the long latent suspicions of the Gentle Hermeneut were at last aroused, he refused to abide in his breaches; but, scorning all entreaty, and even Kennedy's unconditioned promise of the dress suit, he proceeded to crawl down the gallery steps, in order to regain position Number One, in the front seat under the Professor's very nose.

Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.

Meanwhile the class, at first raised to a state of ecstatic enjoyment by the Eel's misfortunes, then growing a little anxious lest he should go too far, was again subsiding to its wonted peaceful hum, like that of a vast and well-contented bumble-bee.

Suddenly we became aware that the Professor was on his feet in the midst of a stern and awful silence.

"My eye has fallen," he began solemnly, "on what I do not expect to see. I hope the – gentleman will remember where he is – and who I am!"

During the pronouncement of this awful allocution the professorial arm was extended, and a finger, steady as the finger of Fate, pointed directly at the unhappy Gibby, who, prone in the dust, appeared to be meditating a discourse upon the text, "I am a worm and no man!"

His head was almost on the level of the floor and his limbs extended far up the gallery stairs. To say that his face was fiery-red gives but a faint idea of its colour, while a black streak upon his nose proved that the charwomen of the college were not a whit more diligent than the students thereof.

What happened after this is a kind of maze. I suppose that Gibby regained a seat somewhere, and that the lecture proceeded after a fashion; but I do not know for certain. Bursts of unholy mirth forced their way through the best linen handkerchiefs, rolled hard and used as gags.

But there grew up a feeling among many that though doubtless there was humour in the case, the Eel had gone a little too far, and if Professor Galbraith were genuinely angered he might bring the matter before the Senatus, with the result that Gilbert would not only lose his bursary, but be sent down as well, to his father's sorrow and his own loss.

So when the class was at last over, half-a-dozen of us gathered round Gibby and represented to him that he must go at once to the retiring-room and ask the Professor's pardon.

At first and for long the Eel was recalcitrant. He would not go. What was he to say? We instructed him. We used argument, appeal, persuasion. We threatened torture. Finally, yielding to those heavier battalions on the side of which Providence is said to fight, Gibby was led to the door with a captor at each elbow. We knocked; he entered. The door was shut behind him, but not wholly. Half-a-dozen ears lined the crack at intervals, like limpets clinging to a smooth streak on a tidal rock. We could not hear the Eel's words. Only a vague murmur reached us, and I doubt if much more reached Professor Galbraith. The Eel stopped and there was a pause. We feared its ill omen.

"Poor Eel, the old man's going to report him!" we whispered to each other.

And then we heard the words of the Angelical Scholiast.

"Shake hands, Mr. Denholm. If, as ye say, this has been a lesson to you, it has been no less a lesson to me. Let us both endeavour to profit by it, unto greater diligence and seemliness in our walk and conversation. We will say no more about the matter, if you please, Mr. Denholm."

* * * * *

We cheered the old man as he went out, till he waved a kindly and tolerant hand back at us, and there was more than a gleam of humour in the kindly spectacles, as if our gentle Hermeneut were neither so blind nor yet so dull in the uptake as we had been accustomed to think him.

As for the Eel, he became a man from that day, and, to a limited extent, put away childish things – though his heart will remain ever young and fresh. His story is another story, and so far as this little study goes it is enough to say that when at last the aged Professor of Hermeneutics passed to the region where all things are to be finally explicated, it was Gilbert Denholm who got up the memorial to his memory, which was subscribed to by every student without exception he had ever had. And it was he who wrote Dr. Galbraith's epitaph, of which the last line runs:

"GENTLE, A PEACE-MAKER, A LOVER OF GOOD AND OF GOD."

DOCTOR GIRNIGO'S ASSISTANT

"Off, ye lendings!" said Gibby the Eel to his heather-mixture knicker-bocker suit, on the day when his Presbytery of Muirlands licensed him to preach the gospel.

And within the self-same hour the Reverend Gilbert Denholm, M.A., Probationer, in correct ministerial garb, had the honour of dining with the Presbytery, and of witnessing the remarkable transformation which overtakes that august body as soon as it dips its collective spoon in the official soup.

I knew a Presbytery once which tried to lunch on cold coffee and new bread. The survivors unanimously took to drink.

But the Presbytery of Muirlands were sage fathers and brethren, and they knew better than that. They dined together in a reasonable manner at the principal inn of the place. An enthusiast, who suggested that they should transfer their custom to the new Temperance Hotel up near the railway station, was asked if he had sent in his returns on Life and Work – and otherwise severely dealt with.

Gilbert had been remitted to the Presbytery of Muirlands from his own West Country one of Burnestown, because he had been appointed assistant to the Reverend Doctor Girnigo of Rescobie; and it was considered more satisfactory that the Presbytery within whose bounds he was to labour, should examine him concerning his diligence and zeal.

So they asked him all the old posers which had made the teeth of former examinees of the Presbytery of Muirlands chatter in their heads. But the Eel's teeth did not chatter. He had got a rough list from a friend who had been that way before, and so passed the bar with flying colours. The modest way in which the new brother (unattached) behaved himself at dinner completed Gibby's conquest of the Brethren – with the single but somewhat important exception of the Reverend Doctor Joseph Girnigo of Rescobie, Gilbert's future chief.

It was the cross of Dr. Girnigo's life that his session compelled him to engage an assistant. Dr. Girnigo felt that here were three hundred pieces of silver (or more accurately, £60 sterling) which ought to have been given to the poor – that is, to the right breeches' pocket of Joseph Girnigo – instead of being squandered in providing such a thorn in the flesh within the parish as a licensed assistant.

Dr. Girnigo was in the habit of saying, whenever he had made it too hot for his acting assistant, that he would rather look after three parishes than one probationer. At first the engaging and dismission of these unfortunate young men had been placed unreservedly in the Doctor's hands; but as the affair assumed more and more the appearance and proportions of a mere procession to and from the railway station, the members of Session were compelled to assume the responsibility themselves. So long as the Doctor's sway continued unchallenged, the new assistant usually arrived in Nether Balhaldie's "machine" on Saturday night, and departed on Tuesday morning very early in the gig belonging to Upper Balhaldie. He preached on Sabbath, and Monday was spent in Dr. Girnigo's study, where it was explained to him: first, that he knew nothing; secondly, that what he thought he knew was worse than nothing; thirdly, that there is nothing more hateful than a vain pretence of earthly learning; and fourthly, that Paul and Silas knew nothing of "Creeticism." No, they were better employed – aye, and it would be telling the young men of the day – the conclusion of the whole matter being that the present victim would never do at all for the parish of Rescobie and had better go.

He went, in Upper Balhaldie's gig, and Watty Learmont, the tenant thereof, who could be trusted to know, said that the rejected probationers very seldom engaged in prayer (to call prayer) on the road to the station. I do not know what Watty meant to insinuate, but that is what he said. He had that mode of speech to perfection which consists in saying one thing and giving the impression that the speaker means another.

But it was felt that this was a state of affairs which could not continue. It amounted, indeed, to nothing less than a scandal that the Session should be paying £60 for an assistant, and that at the end of the year eight of these should only have spent exactly twenty-seven days in the parish, while the remaining three hundred and thirty-eight days had been occupied by the Doctor in filling the vacancies he had himself created. Besides, since he always insisted on a week's trial without salary when he engaged his man (in order, as he said, to discover where there was a likelihood of the parties being mutually satisfied), the shrewd business men of the Session saw more than a probability of their good and hardly gathered sixty "notes" still remaining intact in the possession of their minister.

It was, however, the affair of the prayer-meeting which brought the matter to a head. For after all, such hard-headed bargain-makers as Learmont, Senior of Balhaldie, and his coadjutors on the Session, could not help having a sort of respect for the Doctor's business qualities. But they could not bear to be made a laughing stock of in the market of Drumfern.

"What's this I hear aboot your new helper's prayer-meetin' up at Rescobie?" Cochrane of Tatierigs cried one Wednesday across the mart ring to Upper Balhaldie. "Is't true that that minister o' yours broke it up wi' a horse-whup?"

No, it was not true. But there was enough of truth in it to make the members of Rescobie Session nervous of public appearances for a long time, indeed till the affair was forgotten.

The truth was that during the Doctor's absence at the house of his married son in Drumfern, Mr. Killigrew, a soft-voiced young man, who, being exceedingly meek, had been left in charge of the parish, thought it would be a surprise for his chief if he started a prayer-meeting on Wednesday evenings in the village schoolhouse. He pictured to himself his principal's delight when he should hand over the new departure as a going concern. So he made a house-to-house visitation of Rescobie village and neighbourhood, this young man with the soft voice. The popular appeal was favourable. He went round and saw the school-mistress. She was fond of young men with soft voices (and hats). She readily consented to lend her harmonium, and to lead the singing from a certain popular hymn-book.

The first meeting was an unqualified success, and the young man promptly began a series of rousing addresses on the "Pilgrim's Progress." There were to be thirty in all. But alas, for the vanity of human schemes, the second address (on the Slough of Despond) was scarcely under weigh when, like an avenging host, or Cromwell entering the Long Parliament, the Doctor strode into the midst, booted and spurred, as he had ridden over all the way from Drumfern. He had a riding-whip in his hand, which was the foundation of the Tatierigs story, but there is no record that he used it on any in the meeting.

The services closed without the benediction, and as the Doctor wrath fully clicked the key in the lock, he said that he would see the school-mistress in the morning.

Then he turned to the young man in the soft hat. The remains left Rescobie early next morning in Upper Balhaldie's gig.

Since this date it was enough to call out to a Rescobie man, "Ony mair Pilgrims up your way?" in order to have him set his dogs on you or wrathfully bring down his herd's crook upon your crown.

Being thus stirred to action, the Session wrestled with Dr. Girnigo, and prevailing by the unanswerable argument of the purse-strings, it took the appointment and dismission of the "helpers" into its own hands.

So Dr. Girnigo had to try other tactics. Usually he gave the unfortunate "helper" delivered into his hands no peace night nor day, till in despair he threw up his appointment, and shook the Rescobie dust off the soles of his feet.

First (under the new regime) came Alexander Fairbody, a thoughtful, studious lad, whom the Doctor set to digging top-dressing into his garden till his hands were blistered. He would not allow him to preach, and as to praying, if he wanted to do that he could go to his bedroom. So Mr. Fairbody endured hardness for ten days, and then resigned in a written communication, alleging as a reason that he had come to Rescobie as to work in a spiritual and not in a material vineyard. The Doctor burked the document, and the Reverend Robert Begg reigned in the stead of Alexander Fairbody, resigned for cause.

Mr. Begg was athletic. Him Dr. Girnigo set to the work of arranging his old sermons, seven barrels full. He was to catalogue them under eighteen heads, and be prepared to give his reasons in every case. The first three classes were – "Sermons Enforcing the Duty of Respect for Ecclesiastical Superiors," "Sermons upon Christian Giving," and "Sermons Inculcating Humility in the Young." The Reverend Robert Begg would have enjoyed the digging of the garden. He stood just one full week of the sermon-arranging. He declared that sixteen of the eighteen classes were cross divisions, and that the task of looking through the written matter permanently enfeebled his intellect. Sympathetic friends consoled him with the reflection that nobody would ever find out.

On the second Wednesday after his appointment he departed, uttering sentiments which were a perfect guarantee of good faith (but which were manifestly not for publication) to Watty Learmont as he journeyed to the railway station in the Upper Balhaldie gig.

A new sun rose upon Rescobie with the coming of Gibby the Eel. He had known both of his predecessors at college, and he had pumped them thoroughly upon the life and doctrine of their former chief. In addition to which Gilbert had taken to him a suit of tweeds and a fishing-rod, and with a piece of bread and cheese in his pocket, and guile in his heart, he had gone up the Rescobie water, asking for drinks at the farmhouses on the way, much as he used to perambulate Professor Galbraith's class-room in his old, abandoned, unregenerate, sans-dog-collar days.

Hitherto the helper, a mere transient bird-of-passage, had lodged with Mistress Honeytongue, the wife of Hosea Honeytongue, the beadle and minister's man of Rescobie. This brought the youth, as it were, under the shadow of the manse, and what was more to the point, under the eye of the minister. But Gilbert Denholm had other aims.

He took rooms in the village, quite three-quarters of a mile from the manse, with one Mrs. Tennant, the widow of a medical man in the neighbourhood who had died without making adequate provision for his family. She had never taken a lodger before, but since his investiture in clericals the Eel had filled out to a handsome figure, and he certainly smiled a most irresistible smile as he stood on the doorstep.

Gilbert arrived late one Friday night in Rescobie, and speculation was rife in the parish as to whether he would preach on Sabbath or not. Most were of the negative opinion, but Watty Learmont, for reasons of his own, offered to wager a new hat that he would.

On Saturday morning Gilbert put on his longest tails and his doggiest collar and marched boldly up to the front door of the manse, with the general air of playing himself along the road upon war pipes. Perhaps, however, he was only whistling silently to keep his courage up.

"Is Miss Girnigo at home?" said he to the somewhat stern-visaged personage who opened the door.

"I am Miss Girnigo," said a sepulchral voice. (Miss Girnigo was suffering from the summer cold which used to be called a "hay fever.")

"Indeed – I might have known; how delightful!" said the Eel, now, alas! transformed into an old serpent; "I am so glad to find you at home!"

"I am always at home!" returned Miss Girnigo, keeping up a semblance of severity, but secretly mollified by the homage of Gibby's smile.

"Then I hope you will let me come here very often. I shall find it lonely in the village, but I thought it better to be near my work," said Gilbert; "I am staying with Mrs. Tennant, the doctor's widow. Do you know Mrs. Tennant?"

"Oh, yes," said Miss Girnigo, smiling for the first time; "she is one of my dearest friends. I often go there to tea."

"I love tea," said Gilbert, with enthusiasm; "Mrs. Tennant has invited me to take tea in her parlour in the afternoon as often as I like, but I was not expecting such a reward as this!"

Miss Girnigo was considerably over forty, but she was even more than youthfully amenable to flattery and to the Eel's beaming and boyish face.

"You are the new assistant," she said, "Mister – ah – !"

"Denholm!" said Gilbert, smiling; "it is a nice name. Don't you think so?"

"I have not thought anything about the matter," said Miss Girnigo, bridling, yet with the ghost of a blush. "I do not charge my mind with such things. Have you come to see my father?"

"Yes, after a while. But just at present I would rather see your plants!" said the Serpent, who had been well coached. (No wonder Watty Learmont smiled when he asserted that the New Man would preach on Sunday.)

Now Miss Girnigo lived chiefly for her flowers. The Serpent had a list of them, roughly but accurately compiled from the lady's seed-merchant's ledger by a friend in the business. He had also a fund of information respecting "plants," very recently acquired, on his mind.

"How did you know I was fond of flowers?" asked Miss Girnigo.

"Could any one doubt it?" cried Gilbert, with enthusiasm. "Who was the Jo – " (he was on the brink of saying "Johnny") "g – gentleman of whom it was said: 'If you want to see his monument, look around' – Sir Christopher Wren, wasn't it? Well, I looked around as I came up the street!"

And Gilbert took in the whole front of the manse with his glance. It certainly was very pretty, covered from top to bottom with rambler roses and Virginia cress.

Gilbert entered, and as they passed in front of the minister's study door Miss Girnigo almost skittishly made a sign for silence, and Gilbert tip-toed past with an exaggeration of caution which made his companion laugh. They found themselves presently in the drawing-room, where again the flower-pots were everywhere, but specially banked round the oriel window. Gilbert named them one after the other like children at a baptism, with a sort of easy certainty and familiarity. His friend the nurseryman's clerk had not failed him. Miss Girnigo was delighted.

"Well," she said, "it is pleasant to have some one who knows Ceterach Officinarum from a kail-stock. We shall go botanising together!"

"Ye-es," said Gilbert, a little uncertainly, and with less enthusiasm than might have been expected.

"Good heavens," he was saying, "how shall I grind up the beastly thing if I have to live up to all this?"

But Miss Girnigo was in high good-humour, though her pleasure was sadly marred by the incipient cold in her head, which she was conscious prevented her from doing herself justice. At forty, eyes that water and a nose tipped with pink do not make for maiden beauty.

"I have a dreadful cold coming on, Mr. Denholm," she said; "I really am not fit to be seen. I wonder what I was thinking of to ask you in!"

"Try this," said Gilbert, pulling a kind of india-rubber puff-ball out of his pocket; "it is quite good. It makes you sneeze like the very – ahem – like anything. Stops a cold in no time – won't be happy till you get it!"

"I don't dare to – how does it work?" demurred Miss Girnigo.

Gilbert illustrated, and began to sneeze promptly, as the snuff titillated his air passages.