The Stickit Minister's Wooing and Other Galloway Stories

John Charles' bitter hour in the bank at Cairn Edward was sweetened by the sympathy and kindliness of Henry Marchbanks, who, being one of the best judges of character in Scotland, saw cause to give this young man a chance to discharge his father's liabilities.

At twenty-five John Charles was once more a free man, and there was a substantial balance to his mother's credit in the bank of Cairn Edward. Penny of his own he had not received one for all his five years' work.

But Mrs. Morrison was that most foolish of womankind – an old woman striving to appear young. She had taken a strong dislike to the girl mistress of the white cottage at her gates, and was never tired of railing at her pretensions to beauty, at her lightheadedness, and at the suitors who stayed their horses for a word or a flower from across the cropped yew hedge of Carnation Maybold's cottage.

But John Charles, steadfast in all things, was particularly admirable in his silences. He let his mother rail on, and then, at the quiet hour of e'en stole down to the dyke-side for a "word." He never entered Carnation's dwelling, nor did he even pass the girdling hedge of yew and privet. But there was one place where the defences were worn low. Behind the well curb occurred this breach of continuity in the dead engineer's hedges, and to this place night after night through the years, that quiet steadfast lover, John Charles Morrison, came to touch the hand of his mistress.

She did not always meet him. Sometimes she had girl friends with her in the cottage, sometimes she had been carried off to a merry-making in Cairn Edward, to return under suitable escort in the evening.

But even then Carnation had a comfortable sense of safety, for ever since one unforgotten night, Carnation knew that in any danger she had only to raise her voice to bring to her rescue a certain tall broad-shouldered ghost, which with attendant collies haunted the gray hillsides.

That night was one on which a tramp, denied an alms, had seized the girl by the arm within half a mile of her home. And at the voice of her sharp crying, a different John Charles from any she had ever seen had swung himself over the hillside dyke, and descended like an avenging whirlwind upon the assailant.

Yet so secretive is the country lover, that few save an odd shepherd or two of his own suspected the comradeship which existed between these two. Carnation was in great request at concerts and church bazaars in the little neighbouring town; she even went to a local "assembly" or two every winter, under the sheltering wing of a school friend who had married early.

John Charles did not dance, so he was not asked to these. He was thought, indeed, to be rather a grave young fellow, busied with his farm and his books. No one connected his name with that of his fair and sprightly neighbour.

Yet somehow, in spite of many opportunities, Carnation Maybold did not marry. She was bright, cultivated, winsome, and certainly the prettiest girl for miles around.

"Are you waiting for a prince?" little Mrs. George Walter, her friend of the assemblies, had said to her more than once.

"Yes," smiled Carnation, "the true Prince!"

"I suppose that is why you always wear a ribbon of true blue?" retorted her friend. "Do let me see what is at the end of it – ah, you will not. I think you are very mean, Carnation. All is over between us from this moment. I'm sure I came and told you as soon as ever George spoke!"

"But perhaps," said Carnation quietly, "myGeorge has not yet spoken!"

"Well, if he hasn't, why don't you make him," said her friend with vehemence, "or else why have eyes like those been thrown away upon you?"

"I have worn this nearly ten years!" said Carnation, a little wistfully.

"Carnation Maybold," said her friend indignantly, "you ought to be ashamed! And so it was for the sake of that school-girl's split sixpence that you refused Harry Foster, whose father has an estate of his own, and Kenneth Walker, the surveyor, as well as – oh, I have no patience with such silly sentiment!"

Carnation smiled even more quietly than usual.

"Gracie," she said, "if I am content, I don't see what difference it can make to you."

"You ought to be married – you oughtn't to live alone with only an old woman to look after you. You are wasting the best years of your life – "

"Gracie, dear," said Carnation, "you mean to be kind; but I ask you not to say any more about this. There are worse things that may happen to a woman, than that she should wait and wait – aye, even if she should die waiting!"

* * * * *

It was the evening of the August day on which Mrs. Walter had spoken thus to Carnation that John Charles came cottagewards slowly and gloomily. He had been thinking bitter thoughts, and at last had taken a resolve that was likely to cost him dear.

In the warm light of evening the girl, who stood at the farther side of the gap, seemed wondrously beautiful. The school-girl look had long since passed away. Only the fresh rose on the cheeks, the depths in the eyes (as if a cloud shadowed them), the lissom bend of the young body towards him were the same. But the hair was waved and plaited about the head in a larger and nobler fashion. The contours were a little fuller, and the lips, perfect as ever in shape, were stiller, and the smile on them at once more assured and more sedate.

"Carnation, I cannot hold you any longer to your promise!"

"And why not, John; are you tired of me?"

"I am not one of those who grow tired, dear," the young man's voice was so low none could hear it but the one listener. "I will never grow tired – you know that. But I waste the best years of your life. You are beautiful, and the time is passing. You might marry any one – "

"Have you any particular one in your mind?"

The question at once spurred and startled him. He moved his feet on the soft grass of the meadow with a certain embarrassment.

"Yes, Carnation; my mother was speaking to me to-night of Harry Foster of Carnsalloch. His father has told her of his love for you. She says I am keeping you from accepting him. I have come to release you from any promise, Carnation, spoken or implied."

"There is no promise, John – save that I love you, and will never marry any one else."

"But if I went away you might – you might change your mind. I am thinking of West Australia! I am making nothing of it here. All is as much my mother's as it was the day my father died! I can get her a good 'grieve' to take charge, and go in the spring!"

The girl winced a little, but did not speak for a while.

"Well," she said at last, "you must do as you think best. I shall wait all the same. Thank God, there is no law against a woman waiting."

"Carnation, do you mean it?"

The gap was a gap still; but both the lovers were on one side of it, and the night was dark about them. Indeed, they were so close each to the other that there was no need of light.

"If I go, I shall make a home for you!"

"However long it is, I shall be ready when you want me!"

"Carnation!"

"John!"

And so, as it was in the beginning, the old, old tale was retold beneath the breathing rustle of the orchard trees.

Yet their hearts were sore when they parted, because the springtime was so near, and the home they longed for seemed so very far.

* * * * *

Carnation slept in a little garret room with a gable window. She had chosen it, because she liked to look down on John Charles' fields and on the low place in the hedge where he always stood waiting for her.

The waning moon had risen late, and Carnation undressed without a candle. Having said her prayers, she stole into bed. But sleep would not come, and, her heart being right sore within her, the tears forced up her eyelids instead, as it is woman's safety that they should.

She lay and sobbed her heart out because John was going away. But through the tears that wet her pillow certain words she had been singing in the choir on Sunday forced themselves: —

"Weeping may endure for a night,

But joy cometh in the morning."

Nevertheless, Carnation must have sobbed herself to sleep, for it was nigh the dawn when she was awakened by something that flicked her lattice at regular intervals. It could not be a bird. It was too sharp and regular for that.

Could it be – ?

Impossible!

He had never come before at such a time! If it were indeed he, there must be some terrible news to tell.

Carnation rose hastily, and threw a loose cloak about her shoulders. Then she went and opened the little French lattice with the criss-cross diamond panes. The dawn was coming slowly up out of the east, and the gray fields were turning rosy beneath her.

A dark figure filled up the low place in the hedge.

"Carnation, I had something to tell you!"

"Is it bad news? I cannot bear it, if it is."

"No, the best of news! I am not going at Whitsunday to Australia. My mother told me last night that she is to be married at the New Year. He is a rich man – Harry Foster's father. She is going to live at Carnsalloch."

"Well?" said Carnation, doubtfully, not seeing all that this sudden change meant to them both.

"Why, then, dearest," the voice of John Charles Morrison shook with emotion, "we can be married as soon as we like after that. The farm and everything on it is ours – yours and mine!"

Carnation's brain reeled, and she found herself without a word to say. Only the sound of the happy singing ran in her head:

"Joy cometh in the morning – joy cometh in the morning!"

"Why don't you speak, Carnation? Are you not glad?"

The voice down at the gap was anxious now.

"I am too far away from you to say anything, but I am glad, very glad, dear John!"

"You will be ready by Whitsunday?"

"I shall be ready by Whitsunday!"

There was a pause. The light came clearer in the east. John Charles could see the girl's fresh complexion thrown up by the dark cloak, an edging of lace, white and dainty, just showing beneath.

"Carnation, I wish I could kiss you!" he said.

"Will this do instead?" she answered him, smiling through the wetness of her eyes.

And she lifted up the old worn class medal she had carried so long on its blue ribbon, and kissed it openly.

And that had perforce to "do" John Charles – at least, for that time of asking.

JAIMSIE

As I drove home the other day I saw that old lazybones Jacob Irving seated in the sun with a whole covey of boys round him. He had his pocket-knife in his hand, and was busy mending a "gird." The "gird," or wooden hoop, belonged to Will Bodden, and its precedence in medical treatment had been secured by Will's fists. There was quite a little hospital ward behind, of toys all awaiting diagnosis in strict order of primacy.

Here was Dick Dobie with a new blade to put into his shilling knife. A shilling knife, Jacob assured him, is not fitted for cutting down fishing rods. It is however, excellent as a saw when used on smaller timber. Next came Peter Cheesemonger, who was in waiting with a model schooner, the rising of which had met with an accident. And there hurrying down from the cottage on the Brae, was one of the younger Allan lasses with her mother's "wag-at-the-wa'" clock. The pendulum had wagged to such purpose that it had swung itself out of its right mind.

After I had left behind me this vision of old Jacob Irving seated on the wall of the boys' playground at the village school, I fell into a muse upon the narrowness of the line which in our Scottish parishes, divides the "Do-Everythings" from the "Do-Nothings."

I could give myself the more completely to this train of thought that I had finished my rounds for the day, and had now nothing to do except to look forward to seeing Nance, and to the excellent dinner for which the shrewd airs of the moorland were providing internal accommodation of quite a superior character.

The conditions of Scottish life are generally so strenuous, and the compulsions of "He that will not work, neither shall he eat" so absolute that we cannot afford more than one local Do-Nothing in a village or rural community. Equally certainly, however, one is necessary. The business of the commonwealth could not be carried on without him. Besides, he is needed to point the indispensable moral.

"There's that guid-for-naething Jacob Irvin' sittin' wi' a' the misleared boys o' the neighbourhood aboot him!" I can hear a douce goodwife say to her gossip. "Guid peety his puir wife and bairns! Guidman, lay ye doon that paper an awa' to your wark, or ye'll sune be nae better – wi' your Gledstane and your speeches and your smokin'! Think shame o' yersel', guidman."

As the community grows larger, however, there is less and less room for the amiable Do-Nothing. He is, indeed, only seen to perfection in a village or rural parish. In Cairn Edward, for instance which thinks itself quite a town, he does not attain the general esteem and almost affectionate reprobation which, in my native Whinnyliggate, follow Jacob Irving about like his shadow.

In a town like Cairn Edward a local Do-Nothing is apt to attach himself to a livery stable, and there to acquire a fine coppery nose and a permanent "dither" about the knees. He is spoken of curtly and even disrespectfully as "that waister Jock Bell." In cities he becomes a mere matter for the police, and the facetious reporter chronicles his two-hundredth appearance before the magistrate.

But in Whinnyliggate, in Dullarg, in Crosspatrick, and in the surrounding parishes, the conditions for the growth of the Do-Nothing approach as near perfection as anything merely mundane can be expected to do. Jacob Irving is hardly a typical specimen, for he has a trade. The genuine Do-Nothing should have none. It is true that Jacob's children might reply, like the boy when asked if his father were a Christian, "Yes, but he does not work at it much!"

Jacob is a shoe-maker – or rather shoe-mender. For I have never yet been able to trace an entire pair of Jacob's foot-gear on any human extremities. It does not fit his humour to be so utilitarian. He has, however, made an excellent toy pair for the feet of little Jessie Lockhart's doll, with soles, heels, uppers, tongues, and lacing gear all complete. He spent, to my personal knowledge, an entire morning in showing her (on the front step of her father's manse) how to take them off and put them on again. And in the future he will never meet Jessie on the King's highway without stopping and gravely asking her if any repairs are yet requisite. When such are necessary they will, without doubt, receive his best attention.

I had not, however, made a study of Jacob Irving for any considerable period without exploding the vulgar opinion that the parish Do-Nothing is an idle or a lazy man. Nay, to repeat my initial paradox, the Do-Nothing is the only genuine Do-Everything.

When on a recent occasion I gave Jacob, in return for the pleasure of his conversation, a "lift" in my doctor's gig, he talked to me very confidentially of his "rounds." At first I imagined in my ignorance that, like the tailors of the parishes round about, he went from farm to farm prosecuting his calling and cobbling the shoes of half the countryside. I was buttressed in this opinion by his expressed pity or contempt for wearers of "clogs."

"Here's anither puir body wi' a pair o' clogs on his feet," Jacob would say; "and to think that for verra little mair than the craitur paid for them, I wad fit him wi' as soond a pair o' leather-soled shoon as were ever ta'en frae amang tanners' bark!"

I had also seen him start out with a thin-bladed cobbler's knife and the statutory piece of "roset" or resin wrapped in a palm's-breadth of soft leather. But, alas, all was a vain show. The knife was to be used in delicate surgical work upon the deceased at a pig-killing, and the resin was for splicing fishing-rods.

After a while I began by severe study to get to the bottom of a Do-Nothing's philosophy. To do the appointed task for the performance of which duty calls, man waits, and money will be paid, that is work to be avoided by every means – by procrastination, by fallacious promise, by prevarication, and (sad to have to say it) by the plainest of plain lying.

Whatever brings in money in the exercise of a trade, whatever must be finished within a given time, that needs the co-operation of others or prolonged and consecutive effort on his own part, is merely anathema to the Do-Nothing.

On the other hand, no house in the parish is too distant for him to attend at the "settin' o' the yaird" (the delving must, however, be done previously). On such occasions the Do-Nothing revels in long wooden pins with string wrapped mysteriously about them. He can turn you out the neatest shaped bed of "onions" and "syboes," the straightest rows of cabbages, and potato drills so level that the whole household feels that it must walk the straight path in order not to shame them. The wayfaring man though a fool, looks over the dyke, and says: "Thae dreels are Jacob's – there's nane like them in the countryside!"

This at least is Jacob's way of it.

But though all this is by the way of introduction to the particular Do-Nothing I have in my eye, it is not of Jacob that I am going to write. Jacob is indeed an enticing subject, and from the point of view of his wife, might be treated very racily. But, though I afterwards made Margate Irving's acquaintance (and may one day put her opinions on record), I have other and higher game in my mind.

This is none other than the Reverend James Tacksman, B.A., licentiate of the Original Marrow Kirk of Scotland. In fact, a clerical Do-Nothing of the highest class.

Now, to begin with, I will aver that there is no scorn in all this. "Jaimsie" is more to me than many worthy religious publicists, beneficed, parished, churched, stipended, and sustentationed to the eyes. He was not a very great man. He was in no sense a successful man, but – he was "Jaimsie."

I admit that my zeal is that of the pervert. It was not always thus with me when "Jaimsie" was alive, and perhaps my enthusiasm is so full-bodied from a sense that it is impossible for the gentle probationer to come and quarter himself upon Nance and myself for (say) a period of three months in the winter season, a thing he was quite capable of doing when in the flesh.

In the days before I was converted to higher views of human nature as represented in the person of "Jaimsie," I was even as the vulgar with regard to him. I admit it. I even openly scoffed, and retailed to many the story of Jamie and my father, Saunders McQuhirr of Drumquhat, with which I shall conclude. I used to tell it rather well at college, the men said. At least they laughed sufficiently. But now I shall not try to add, alter, amend, or extenuate, as is the story-teller's wont with his favourites. For in sackcloth and ashes I have repented me, and am at present engaged in making my honourable amend to "Jaimsie."

For almost as long as I can remember the Reverend James Tacksman, B.A., was in the habit of coming to my father's house, and the news that he was in view on the "far brae-face" used to put my mother into such a temper that "dauded" heads and cuffed ears were the order of the day. The larger fry of us cleared out promptly to the barn and stack-yard till the first burst of the storm was over. Even my father, accustomed as he was to carry all matters ecclesiastical with a high hand, found it convenient to have some harness to clean in the stable, or the lynch-pin of a cart to replace in the little joiner's shop where he passed so much of his time.

"I'll no hae the craitur aboot the hoose," my mother would cry; "I telled ye sae the last time he was here – sax weeks in harvest it was – and then had maist to be shown the door. (Haud oot o' my road, weans! Can ye no keep frae rinnin' amang my feet like sae mony collie whaulps? Tak' ye that!) Hear ye this, guidman, if ye willna speak to the man, by my faith I wull. Mary McQuhirr is no gaun to hae the bread ta'en oot o' the mooths o' her innocent bairns – (Where in the name o' fortune, Alec, are ye gaun wi' that soda bannock? Pit it doon this meenit, or I'll tak' the tings to ye!). Na, nor I will be run aff my feet to pleesure ony sic useless, guid-for-naething seefer as Jaimsie Tacksman!"

At this moment a faint rapping made itself audible at the front door, never opened except on the highest state occasions, as when the minister called, and at funerals.

My mother (I can see her now) gave a hasty "tidy" to her gray hair and adjusted her white-frilled "mutch" about her still winsome brow.

"And hoo are ye the day, Maister Tacksman, an' it's a lang, lang season since we've had the pleasure o' a veesit frae you!"

Could that indeed be my mother's voice, so lately upraised in denunciation over a stricken and cowering world? I could not understand it then, and to tell the truth I don't quite yet. I have, however, asked her to explain, and this is what she says:

"Weel, ye see, Alec, it was this way" (she is pleased when I require any points for my "scribin'," though publicly she scoffs at them and declares it will ruin my practice if the thing becomes known), "ye see I had it in my mind to the last minute to deny the craitur. But when I gaed to open the door, there stood Jaimsie wi' his wee bit shakin' hand oot an' his threadbare coatie hingin' laich aboot his peetifu' spindle shanks, and his weel-brushit hat, an' the white neck-claith that wanted doin' up. And I kenned that naebody could laundry it as weel as me. My fingers juist fair yeukit (itched) to be at the starchin' o't. And faith, maybes there was something aboot the craitur too – he was sae cruppen in upon himsel', sae wee-bookit, sae waesome and yet kindly aboot the e'en, that I juist couldna say him nay."

That is my mother's report of her feelings in the matter. She does not add that the ten minutes or quarter of an hour in which she had been able to give the fullest and most public expression to her feelings had allowed most of the steam of indignation to blow itself off. My father, who was a good judge, gave me, early in my married life, some excellent advice on this very point, which I subjoin for the edification of the general public.

"Never bottle a woman up, Alec," he said, meditatively. "What Vesuvius and Etna and thae ither volcanoes are to this worl', the legeetimate exercise o' her tongue is to a woman. It's a naitural function, Alec. Ye may bridle the ass or the mule, but – gie the tongue o' a woman (as it were) plenty o' elbow-room! Gang oot o' the hoose – like Moses to the backside o' the wilderness gin ye like, and when ye come in she will be as quaite as pussy; and if ever ye hae to contradick your mairried wife, Alec, let it be in deeds, no in words. Gang your road gin ye hae made up your mind, immovable like the sun, the mune, and the stars o' heeven in their courses – but, as ye value peace dinna be aye crying' 'Aye,' when your wife cries 'No'!"

Which things may be wisdom. But to the tale of our Jaimsie.

Sometimes, moreover, even the natural man in my kindly and long-suffering father uprose against the preacher. Jaimsie knew when he was comfortable, and no mere hint of any delicate sort would make him curtail his visit by one day. I can remember him creeping about the farm of Drumquhat all that summer, a book in his hand, contemplating the works of God as witnessed chiefly in the growth of the "grosarts." (We always blamed him – quite unjustly, I believe – for eating the "silver-gray" gooseberries on the sly.) Now he would stand half an hour and gaze up among the branches of an elm, where a cushat was tirelessly coorooring to his mate. Anon you would see him apparently deeply engaged in counting the sugar-plums in the orchard. After a little he would be found seated on the red shaft of a cart in the stackyard, jotting down in a shabby notebook ideas for the illustrations of sermons never to be written; or if written, doomed never to be preached. His hat was always curled up at the back and pulled down at the front, and till my mother made down an old pair of my father's Sunday trousers for him (and put them beside his bed while he slept), you could see in a good light the reflection of your hand on the knees of his "blacks." It is scarcely necessary to say that Jaimsie never referred to the transposition, nor, indeed, in all probability, so much as discovered it.