The Stickit Minister's Wooing and Other Galloway Stories

Jaimsie was used to conduct family worship morning and evening in the house of his sojourn, as a kind of quit-rent for his meal of meat and his prophet's chamber. To the ordinary reading of the Word he was wont to subjoin an "exposeetion" of some disputed or prophetical passage. The whole exercises never took less than an hour, if Jaimsie were left to the freedom of his own will – which, as may be inferred, was extremely awkward in a busy season when the corn was dry in the stock or when the scythes flashed rhythmically like level silver flames among the lush meadow grass.

Finally, therefore, a compromise had to be effected. My father took the morning diet of worship, but Jaimsie had his will of us in the evening. I can see them yet – those weariful sederunts, when even my father wrestled with sleep like Samson with the Philistines, while my mother periodically nodded forward with a lurch, and, recovering herself with a start, the next moment looked round haughtily to see which of us was misbehaving. Meanwhile the kitchen was all dark, save where before Jaimsie the great Bible lay open between two candles, and on the hearth the last peat of the evening glowed red.

Many is the fine game of draughts I have had with my brother Rob and Christie Wilson our herd lad, by putting the "dam-brod" behind the chimney jamb where my father and mother could not see it, and moving the pieces by the light of the red peat ash. I am ashamed to think on it now, but then it seemed the only thing to do which would keep us from sleep.

And meantime Jaimsie prosed on, his gentle sing-song working its wicked work on mother like a lullaby, and my father sending his nails into the palms of his hands that he might not be shamed before us all.

I remember particularly how Jaimsie addressed us for a whole week on his favourite text in he Psalms, "The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan – an high hill, as the hill of Bashan."

And in the pauses of crowning our men and scuffling for the next place at the draught board, we could catch strange words and phrases which come to me yet with a curious wistful thrilling of the heart. Such are "White as snow on Salmon" – "That mount Sinai in Arabia" – "Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain upon you, nor fields of offering."

And as a concluding of the whole matter we sang this verse out of Francis Roos's psalter:

"Ye mountains great, wherefore was itThat ye did skip like rams?And wherefore was it, little hills,That ye did leap like lambs?"

It was all double-Dutch to me then, but now I can see that Jaimsie must have been marshalling the mountains of Scripture to bear solemn witness against an evil and exceedingly somnolent generation.

Once when my mother snored audibly Jaimsie looked up, but at that very moment she awoke, and with great and remarkable presence of mind promptly cuffed Rob, who in his turn knocked the draught-board endways, just as I had his last man cornered, to our everlasting disgrace.

My mother asked us next day pointedly where we thought we were going to, and if we were of opinion that there would be any dam-brods in hell. I offered no remarks, but Rob – who was always an impudent boy – got on the other side of the dyke from my mother and answered that there would be no snorers there either.

From an early age he was a lad of singularly sound judgments, my brother Rob. He stayed out in the barn till after my mother was asleep that night.

At last, however, even my father grew tired of Jaimsie. He stayed full three months on this occasion. Autumnal harvest fields were bared of stooks, the frost began to glisten on the stiff turnip shaws, the wreathed nets were put up for the wintering sheep, and still the indefatigable Jaimsie stayed on.

I remember yet the particular morning when, at long and last, Jaimsie left us. All night almost there had been in the house the noise as of a burn running over hollow stones, with short solid interruptions like the sound of a distant mallet stricken on wood. It came from my father's and mother's room. I knew well what it meant. The sound like running water was my mother trying to persuade my father to something against his will, and the far-away mallet thuds were his mono-syllabic replies.

This time it was my mother who won.

After the harvest bustle was over, Jaimsie had resumed his practice of taking worship in the mornings, but any of us who had urgent work on hand could obtain, by proper representation, a dispensing ordinance. These were much sought after, especially when Jaimsie started to tackle the Book of Daniel "in his ordinary," as he phrased it.

But this Monday morning, to the general surprise, my father sat down in the chair of state himself and reached the Bible from the shelf.

"I will take family worship this morning, Mr. Tacksman," he said, with great sobriety.

Then we knew that something extraordinary was coming, and I was glad I had not "threeped" to my mother that I had seen some of the Nether Neuk sheep in our High Park – which would have been quite true, for I had put them there myself on purpose the night before.

It was during the prayer that the blow fell. My father had a peculiarly distinct and solemn way with him in supplication; and now the words fell distinct as hammer strokes on our ear.

He prayed for the Church of God in all covenanted lands; for all Christian peoples of every creed (here Jaimsie, faithful Abdiel, always said "Humph"); for the heathen without God and without hope; for the family now present and for those of the family afar off. Then, as was his custom, he approached the stranger (who was no stranger) within our gates.

"And do Thou, Lord, this day vouchsafe journeying mercies to Thy servant who is about to leave us. Grant him favourable weather for his departure, good speed on his way, and a safe return to his own country!"

A kind of gasping sigh went all about the kitchen. I knew that my mother had her eye on my father to keep him to his pledged word of the night season. So I dared not look round.

But we all ached to know how Jaimsie would take it, and we all joined fervently in the supplication which promised us a couple of hours more added to our day.

Then came the Amen, and all rose to their feet. Jaimsie seemed a little dazed, but took the matter like a scholar and a gentleman.

He held out his hand to my father with his usual benevolent smile.

"I did not know that I had mentioned it," he said, "but I was thinking of leaving you to-day."

And that was all he said, but forthwith went upstairs to pack his shabby little black bag.

My father stood a while as if shamed; then, when we heard Jaimsie's feet trotting overhead, he turned somewhat grimly to my mother. On his face was an expression as if he had just taken physic.

"Well," he said, "you will be easier in your mind now, Mary." This he said, well knowing that the rat of remorse was already getting his incisors to work upon his wife's conscience. She stamped her foot.

"Saunders McQuhirr," she said in suppressed tones, "to be a Christian man, ye are the maist aggrevatin' – "

But at that moment my father went out through the door, saying no further word.

My mother shooed us all out of the house like intrusive chickens, and I do not know for certain what she did next. But Rob, looking through the blind of the little room where she kept her house-money, saw her fumbling with her purse. And when at last Jaimsie, having addressed his bag to be sent with the Carsphairn carrier into Ayrshire (where dwelt the friends next on his visiting list), came out with his staff in one hand, he was dabbing his eyes with a clean handkerchief.

Then, after that, all that I remember is the pathetic figure of the little probationer lifting up a hand in silent blessing upon the house which had sheltered him so long; and so taking his lonely way over the hillside towards the northern coach road.

When my father came in from the sheep at mid-day, he waited till grace was over, and then, looking directly at my mother, he said: "Weel, Mary, how mony o' your pound notes did he carry away in his briest-pocket this time?"

I shall never forget the return and counter retort which followed. My mother was vexed – one of the few times that I can remember seeing her truly angered with her husband.

"I would give you one advice, Saunders McQuhirr," she said, "and that is, from this forth, to be mindful of your own business."

"I will tak' that advice, Mary," he answered slowly; "but my heart is still sore within me this day because I took the last advice you gied me!"

* * * * *

And it was destined to be yet sorer for that same cause. Jaimsie never was within our doors again. He abode in Ayrshire and the Upper Ward all that winter and spring, and it was not till the following back-end, and in reply to a letter and direct invitation from my conscience-stricken father, that he announced that, all being well and the Lord gracious, he would be with us the following Friday.

But on the Thursday night a great snow storm came on, and the drift continued long unabated. We all said that Jaimsie would doubtless be safely housed, and we did not look for him to arrive upon the day of his promise. However, by Monday, when the coach was again running, my mother began to be anxious, and all the younger of us went forth to try and get news of him. We heard that he had left Carsphairn late on the Thursday forenoon, meaning to stop overnight at the shepherd's shieling at the southern end of Loch Dee. But equally certainly he had never reached it.

It was not till Tuesday morning early that Jaimsie was found under a rock near the very summit of the Dungeon hill, his plaid about him and his frozen hand clasping his pocket Bible. It was open, and his favourite text was thrice underscored.

"The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan; an high hill, as the hill of Bashan."

Well, there is no doubt that the little forlorn "servant of God" has indeed gotten some new light shed upon the text, since the dark hour when he sat down to rest his weary limbs upon the snow-clad summit of the Dungeon of Buchan.

BEADLE AND MARTYR

I sometimes give it as a reason for a certain lack of uniformity in church attendance, that I cannot away with the new-fangled organs, hymns, and chaunts one meets with there. I love them not, in comparison, that is, with the old psalm tunes. They do not make the heart beat quicker and more proudly, like Kilmarnock and Coleshill, Duke Street and Old 124th.

Nance, however, is so far left to herself as to say that this is only an excuse, and that my real reason is the pleasure I have in thinking that all the people must perforce listen to a sermon, while I can put my feet upon another chair and read anything I like. This, however, is rank insult, such as only wives long wedded dare to indulge in. Besides, it shows, by its imputation of motives, to what lengths a sordid and ill-regulated imagination will go.

Moreover, I have never grown accustomed to the hours of town churches, and I consider, both from a medical and from a spiritual point of view, that afternoon services in town churches are directly responsible for the spread of indigestion, as well as of a spirit of religious infidelity throughout our beloved land.

(Nance is properly scandalised at this last remark, and says that she hopes people will understand that I only believe about half of what I put down on paper when I get a pen in my hand. She complains that she is often asked to explain some of my positions at afternoon teas. I say it serves her right for attending such gatherings of irresponsible gossip, tempered with boiled tannin. It is easy to have the last word with Nance – here.)

But after all the chief thing that I miss when I go to church is just Willie McNair.

The sermon is nowadays both shorter and better. The singing is good of its kind, and I can always read a psalm or a paraphrase if the hymn prove too long, or, as is often the case, rather washy in sentiment. The children's address is really designed for children, and the prayers do not exceed five minutes in length. But – I look in vain for Willie McNair.

Alas! Willie lies out yonder on the green knowe, his wife Betty by his side, and four feet of good black mould over his coffin-lid.

Willie was just our beadle, and he had a story. When I am setting down so many old things, if I forget thee, Willie McNair, may my right hand forget his cunning.

Ah, Willie, though you never were a "church-officer," though you never heard the Word, it is you, you alone that I miss. I just cannot think of the kirk without you. Grizzled, gnarled, bow-shouldered of week-days, what a dignity of port, what a solemnising awe, what a processional tread was thine on Sabbaths! We had only one service in the Kirk on the Hill in my youth. But, speaking in the vulgar tongue, that one was a "starcher."

It included the "prefacing" of a psalm, often extending over quite as long a period of time as an ordinary modern sermon, a "lecture," which as a rule (if "himsel'" was in fettle) lasted about three quarters of an hour. Then after that the sermon proper was begun without loss of time.

Now I cannot say, speaking "from the heart to the heart" (a favourite expression of Willie's), that I regret the loss of all this. I was but a boy, and the torment of having to sit still for from two hours and a half to three hours on a hard seat, close-packed and well-watched to keep me out of mischief, has made even matrimony seem light and easy. How mere Episcopalians and other untrained persons get through the sorrows and disappointments incident to human life I do not know.

It was not till the opening of the Sabbath-school by Mr. Osbourne, however, that I came to know Willie well. Hitherto he had been as inaccessible and awestriking as the minister's neckcloth. And of that I have a story to tell. I think what made me a sort of advanced thinker in these early days, was once being sent by my father to the lodgings of the minister who was to "supply" on a certain Sabbath morning. The manse must have been shut for repairs and "himsel'" on his holidays. At any rate, the minister was stopping with Miss Bella McBriar in the little white house below the Calmstone Brig. Miss Bella showed me in with my missive, and there, on the morning of the Holy Day, before a common unsanctified glass tacked to a wall, with a lathery razor in his hand, in profane shirt-sleeves, stood the minister, shaving himself! His neckcloth, that was to appear and shine so glorious above the cushions of the pulpit, hung limp and ignominious over the back of a chair. A clay pipe lay across the ends of it.

This was the beginning of the mischief, and if I ever take to a criminal career, here was the first and primal cause.

Shortly after I went to Sabbath-school, and having been well trained by my father in controversial divinity, and drilled by my mother in the Catechism, I found myself in a fair way of distinguishing myself; but for all that, I cannot truly say that I ever got over the neckcloth on the back of Miss McBriar's chair. When I aired my free-thinking opinions before my father, and he shut me off by an appeal to authority, I kept silence and hugged myself.

"That may be a good enough argument," I said to myself, "but – I have seen a minister's neckcloth hung over the back of a chair, and shaving-soap on his chafts on Sabbath morning. How can you believe in revealed religion after that?"

But I had so much of solid common-sense, even in these my salad days, that I refrained from saying these things to my father. Indeed, I would not dare to say them now, even if I believed them, Willie McNair regarded the Sabbath-school much as I did. To both of us it was simply an imposition.

Willie thought so for two reasons – first and generally, because it was an innovation; and secondly, because he had to clean up the kirk after it. I agreed with him, because I was compelled to attend – the farm cert being delayed a whole hour in order that I might have the privilege of religious instruction by the senior licensed grocer of the little town. This gentleman had only one way of imparting knowledge. That was with the brass-edged binding of his pocket Bible. Even at that time I preferred the limp Oxford morocco. And so would you, if something so unsympathetic as brass corners were applied to the sides of your head two or three times every Sunday afternoon.

After several years of this experience, I passed into Henry Marchbank's class and was happy. But that is quite another chapter, and has nothing to do with Willie McNair.

Now, Sabbath-school was over about three o'clock, and our conveyance did not start till four. That is the way I became attached to Willie. I used to stay and help him to clean the kirk. This is the way he did it.

First, he unfrocked himself of his broadcloth dignity by hanging his coat upon a nail in the vestry. Then he put on an apron which covered him from gray chin-beard to the cracks in the uppers of his shining shoes. Into the breast of this envelope he thrust a duster large enough for a sheet. It was, in fact, a section of a departed pulpit swathing.

Then, muttering quite scriptural maledictions, and couching them in language entirely Biblical, Willie proceeded to visit the pews occupied by each class, restoring the "buiks" he had previously piled at the head of each seat to their proper places on the book-board in front, and scrutinising the woodwork for inscriptions in lead-pencil. Then he swept the crumbs and apple-cores carefully off the floor and delivered judgment at large.

"I dinna ken what Maister Osbourne was thinkin' on to begin sic a Popish whigmaleery as this Sabbath-schule! A disgrace an' a mockin' in the hoose o' God! What kens the like o' Sammle Borthwick aboot the divine decrees? When I, mysel', that has heard them treated on for forty year under a' the Elect Ministers o' the Land, can do no more than barely understand them to this day! And a wheen silly lasses, wi' gum-floo'ers in their bonnets to listen to bairns hummerin' ower 'Man's Chief End'! It's eneuch to gar decent Doctor Syminton turn in his grave! 'Man's Chief End' – faith – it's wumman's chief end that they're thinkin' on, the madams; they think I dinna see them shakin' their gum-floo'ers and glancing their e'en in the direction o' the onmarriet teacher bodies – "

"And such are all they that put their trust in them!" concluded Willie, somewhat irrelevantly.

"Laddie, come doon out o' the pulpit. I canna lippen (trust) ony body to dust that, bena mysel'! Gang and pick up the conversation lozengers aff the floor o' the Young Weemen's Bible Cless!"

Printed words can give small indication of the intense bitterness and mordant satire of Willie's speech as he uttered these last words.

Yet Willie was far from being a hater of women kind. Indeed, the end of all his moralising was ever the same.

"There's my ain guid wife – was there ever a woman like her? Snod as a new preen, yet nocht gaudy, naething ken-speckle. If only the young weemen nooadays were like Betty, they wad hae nae need o' gum-floo'ers an' ither abominations. Na, nor yet Bible clesses! Faith, set them up! It wad better become them to sit them doon wi' their Bibles in their laps and the grace o' God in their hearts, an' tak' a lesson to themsel's oot o' Paaal!"

Here Willie dusted the pulpit cushions, vigorously shaking them as a terrier does a rat, and then carefully brushing them all in one direction, in order that, as he said, "the fell may a' lie the yae way."

Willie was no eye servant. No spider took hold with her hands and was in the Palace of Willie's King. Dust had no habitation there, and if a man did not clean his boots on the mat before entering, Willie went to him personally and told him his probable chances of a happy hereafter. These were but few and evil.

Then having got the "shine" to fall as he wanted it, and the dark purple velvet overhang, pride of his heart, to sit to a nicety, Willie lifted up the heavy tassels, and at the same time resumed the thread of his discourse, standing there in the pulpit with the very port of a minister, and in his speech a point and pith that was all his own.

"Aye, Paul," (he always pronounced it Paaal) – "aye, Paaal, it's a peety ye never marriet and left nae faim'ly that we ken o'. For we hae sair need o' ye in thae days. But ye kenned better than to taigle yersel' wi' silly lasses. It was you that bade the young weemen to be keepers at hame – nae Bible clesses for Paaal – na, na!

"And you mind Peter – oh, Peter was juist as soond on gum-floo'ers an' weemen's falderals as Paaal, 'Whose adorning, let it not be the outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and wearing of gold, and putting on of apparel, but the ornament of a meek and quiet speerit – '"

He stopped in the height of his discourse and waggled his hand down at me.

"Here, boy!" he cried, "what did ye do wi' thae conversation lozengers?"

I indicated that I had them still in my pocket, for I had meant to solace the long road home with the cleaner of them.

"Let me see them!"

Somewhat unwillingly I handed them up to Willie as he stood in the pulpit, a different Willie, an accusing Willie, Nathan the Prophet with a large cloth-brush under his arm.

"When this you see, remember me!"

He read the printed words through his glasses deliberately.

"Aye," he sneered, "that wad be Mag Kinstrey. I saw Rob Cuthbert smirkin' ower at her when the minister was lookin' up yon reference to Melchisadek. Aye, Meg, I'll remember ye – I'll no forgot ye. And if ye mend not your ways – "

Willie did not conclude the sentence, but instead, he shook his head in the direction of the door of the Session house.

He picked out another.

"The rose is red – the violet's blue,

But fairer far, my love, are you!"

Willie opened the door of the pulpit.

"Preserve me, what am I doin'? It's fair profanation to be readin' sic balderdash in a place like this. Laddie, hear ye this, whatever ye hae to say to a lass, gang ye and say it to hersel', by yoursel'. For valenteens are a vain thing, and conversation lozengers a mock and an abomination."

Willie threatened me a moment with uplifted finger, and then added his stereotyped conclusion: "And so are all such as put their trust in them!"

And through life I have acted strictly on Willie's advice, and I am bound to admit that I have found it good.

About this period, also, I began to take tea, not infrequently, with Willie, and occasionally, but not often, I saw his wife, the incomparable Betty, whose praises Willie was never tired of singing. I am forced to say that, after these harangues, Betty disappointed me. She sat dumb and appeared singularly stupid, and this to a lad accustomed to a housewife like my mother, with her woman's wit keen as a razor, and a speech pointed to needle fineness, appeared more than strange.

But Willie's affection was certainly both lovely and lovable. He was a gnarled grey old man with a grim mouth, but for Betty he ran like a young lover, and served her with meat and drink, as it had been on bended knee. His smile was ready whenever she looked at him, and he watched her with anxious eyes, dwelling on her every word and movement with a curious perturbation. If she happened not to be in when he came to the door, he would fall to trembling like a leaf, and the bleached look on his face was sad to see.

Willie McNair dwelt in a rickety old house at the bottom of the kirk hill, separated from the other village dwellings by the breadth of a field. There was a garden behind it, and a heathery common behind that, with whins growing to the very dyke of Willie's kail yard.

The first time that Betty was not in the house when we went home, it was to the hill behind that Willie ran first. Under a broom bush he found her, after a long search, and lifting her up in his arms he carried her to the house.

"Poor Betty," he cried over his shoulder as he went before me down the walk; "she shouldna gang oot on sic a warm day. The sun has been ower muckle for her. See, boy, rin doon to the Tinkler's well for some caller water. The can's at the gable end."

When I returned Betty was quietly in bed; and Willie had made the tea with ordinary water. He was somewhat more composed, but I could see his hand shake when he tried to pour out the first cup. He "skailed" it all over the cloth, and then was angered with himself for what he called his "trimlin' auld banes."