Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush Part 19

o' idea o' what a' hed tae face." And Mrs. Macfadyen paused that I might take in the situation.

When I expressed my conviction that even the most experienced hearer was helpless in such circ.u.mstances, Elspeth rallied, and gave me to understand that she had saved some fragments from the wreckage.

"A'll juist tell ye the hale hypothic, for sic a discoorse ye may never hear a' the days o' yir life.

"Ye ken thae Hielandmen tak their texts for the maist pairt frae the Auld Testament, and this was it mair or less, 'The trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come from a.s.syria and the land o' Egypt,' and he began by explainin' that there were twa cla.s.ses in Drumtochty, those who were born and bred in the parish, which were oursels, and them 'at hed tae stay here owin' tae the mysterious dispensations o'

Providence, which wes Lachlan Campbell.

"Noo this roosed ma suspicions, for it's against reason for a man tae be dividing intae cla.s.ses till the end o' his sermon. Tak my word, it's no chancy when a minister begins at the tail o' his subject: he'll wind a queer pirn afore he's dune.

"Weel, he gaed up and he gaed doon, and he aye said, 'Oh yes, yes,'

juist like the thras.h.i.+ng mill at Drumsheugh scraiking and girling till it's fairly aff, an' by-and-by oot he comes wi' his heads.

"'There are fower trumpets,' says he. 'First, a leeteral trumpet; second, a heestorical trumpet; third, a metaphorical trumpet; fourth, a speeritual trumpet.'

"'I've got ye,' a' said tae masel, and settled doon to hear him on the first head, for fear he micht hae pints; but wull ye believe me, he barely mentioned leeteral till he was aff tae speeritual, and then back tae heestorical, an' in five meenuts he had the hale fower trumpets blawing thegither.

"It wes maist exasperatin', and a' saw Jeems watchin' me--but that's naethin'.

"'There be many trumpets,' says he, 'oh yes, an' it wes a good trumpet Zaccheus heard,' and afore a' knew where a' wes he hed start.i.t again wi' fower new heads, as if he had never said trumpet.

"'A big tree' he cries, 'an' a little man, oh yes, an' this is what we will be doin'.

"'First. We shall go up the tree wi' Zaccheus.

"'Second. We shall sit in the branches wi' Zaccheus.

"'Third. We shall come down from the tree wi' Zaccheus; and if time permits,

"'Fourth. We shall be going home wi' the publican.'"

It seemed only just to pay a tribute at this point to the wonderful presence of mind Mrs. Macfadyen had shown amid unparalleled difficulties.

"Hoot awa," she responded; the meenut ony heads cam a' knew ma grund: but the times atween I wes fairly lost.

"A'll no deny," and our critic turned aside to general reflections, "that Mactavish said mony bonnie and aff.e.c.kin' things frae time tae time, like the glimpses o' the hills ye get when the mist rolls awa, and he cam nearer the hert than the f.e.c.k o' oor preachers; but certes yon confusion is mair than us low country fouk cud stand.

"Juist when he wes speakin' aboot Zaccheus as nice as ye please--though whether he was up the tree or doon the tree a' cudna for the life o' me tell--he stops sudden and looks at us ower the top o' his spectacles, which is terrible impressive, and near dis instead o' speakin.'

"We will now come to the third head of this discoorse.

"'The trumpet shall be blown, for,' says he, in a kin' o' whisper, 'there's a hint o' oppeesition here,' an' a' tell ye honestly a'

lost hert a'thegither, for here he wes back again amang the trumpets, and a'll gie ma aith he never sae much as mentioned that head afore.

"It's an awfu' peety that some men dinna ken when tae stop; they micht see frae the p.o.o.pit; if a' saw the tears comin' tae the women's een, or the men glowering like wild cats for fear they sud brak doon, a'd say Amen as quick as Pittendreigh aifter his goat.

"What possessed Maister Dugald, as Lachlan ca'd him, a'd dinna ken, but aboot half nine--an' he begood at six--he sat oot upon the trumpets again, an' when he cudna get a haud o' them, he says:

"'It will be getting dark' (the mune was fairly oot), 'an' it is time we were considering our last head.

"'We will now study Satan in all his offices and characteristics.'"

"A' see they've been telling ye what happened," and confusion covered Mrs. Macfadyen's ingenuous countenance.

"Weel, as sure's deith a' cudna help it, tae be sittin' on peens for mair than twa oors tryin' tae get a grup o' a man's heads, an' him tae play hide-and-seek wi' ye, an' then tae begin on Satan at nine o'clock is mair nor flesh and bluid cud endure.

"A' acknowledge a' sc.r.a.pit, but a' houp tae gudeness a'll never be tempted like yon again.

"It's a judgment on me for ma pride, an' Jeems said that tae me, for a' boast.i.t a' cudna be beat, but anither oor o' Mactavish wud hae driven me dottle (silly)."

Then I understood that Mrs. Macfadyen had been humbled in the dust.

A DOCTOR OF THE OLD SCHOOL

I

A GENERAL PRACt.i.tIONER

Drumtochty was accustomed to break every law of health, except wholesome food and fresh air, and yet had reduced the Psalmist's farthest limit to an average life-rate. Our men made no difference in their clothes for summer or winter, Drumsheugh and one or two of the larger farmers condescending to a topcoat on Sabbath, as a penalty of their position, and without regard to temperature. They wore their blacks at a funeral, refusing to cover them with anything, out of respect to the deceased, and standing longest in the kirkyard when the north wind was blowing across a hundred miles of snow. If the rain was pouring at the Junction, then Drumtochty stood two minutes longer through sheer native dourness till each man had a cascade from the tail of his coat, and hazarded the suggestion, halfway to Kildrummie, that it had been "a bit scrowie,"

a "scrowie" being as far short of a "shoor" as a "shoor" fell below "weet."

This sustained defiance of the elements provoked occasional judgments in the shape of a "hoast" (cough), and the head of the house was then exhorted by his women folk to "change his feet" if he had happened to walk through a burn on his way home, and was pestered generally with sanitary precautions. It is right to add that the gudeman treated such advice with contempt, regarding it as suitable for the effeminacy of towns, but not seriously intended for Drumtochty. Sandy Stewart "napped" stones on the road in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves, wet or fair, summer and winter, till he was persuaded to retire from active duty at eighty-five, and he spent ten years more in regetting his hastiness and criticising his successor. The ordinary course of life, with fine air and contented minds, was to do a full share of work till seventy, and then to look after "orra"

jobs well into the eighties, and to "slip awa" within sight of ninety. Persons above ninety were understood to be acquitting themselves with credit, and a.s.sumed airs of authority, brus.h.i.+ng aside the opinions of seventy as immature, and confirming their conclusions with ill.u.s.trations drawn from the end of last century.

When Hillocks' brother so far forgot himself as to "slip awa" at sixty, that worthy man was scandalized, and offered laboured explanations at the "beerial."

"It's an awfu' business ony wy ye look at it, an' a sair trial tae us a'. A' never heard tell o' sic a thing in oor family afore, an'

it's no easy acc.o.o.ntin' for't.

"The gudewife was sayin' he wes never the same sin' a weet nicht he lost himsel on the muir and slept below a bush; but that's neither here nor there. A'm thinkin' he sappit his const.i.tution thae twa years he wes grieve aboot England. That wes thirty years syne, but ye're never the same aifter thae foreign climates."

Drumtochty listened patiently to Hillocks' apologia, but was not satisfied.

"It's clean havers aboot the muir. Losh keep's, we've a' sleepit oot and never been a hair the waur.

"A' admit that England micht hae dune the job; it's no cannie stravagin' yon wy frae place tae place, but Drums never complained tae me as if he hed been nippit in the Sooth."

The parish had, in fact, lost confidence in Drums after his wayward experiment with a potato-digging machine, which turned out a lamentable failure, and his premature departure confirmed our vague impression of his character.

"He's awa noo," Drumsheugh summed up, after opinion had time to form; "an' there were waur fouk than Drums, but there's nae doot he wes a wee flichty."

When illness had the audacity to attack a Drumtochty man, it was described as a "whup," and was treated by the men with a fine negligence. Hillocks was sitting in the Post Office one afternoon when I looked in for my letters, and the right side of his face was blazing red. His subject of discourse was the prospects of the turnip "breer," but he casually explained that he was waiting for medical advice.