Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers Part 1

Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers.

by Ian Maclaren.

CHAPTER I.

PANDEMONIUM.

It was the morning before the Twelfth, years ago, and nothing like unto Muirtown Station could have been found in all the travelling world.

For Muirtown, as everybody knows, is the centre which receives the southern immigrants in autumn, and distributes them, with all their belongings of servants, horses, dogs, and luggage, over the north country from Athole to Sutherland. All night, express trains, whose ordinary formation had been reinforced by horse boxes, carriage trucks, saloons and luggage vans, drawn by two engines, and pushed up inclines by a third, had been careering along the three iron trunk roads that run from London to the North. Four hours ago they had forced the border, that used to be more jealously guarded, and had begun to converge on their terminus. Pa.s.sengers, awakened by the caller air and looking out still half asleep, miss the undisciplined hedgerows and many-shaped patches of pasture, the warm brick homesteads and shaded ponds of the south. Square fields cultivated up to a foot of the stone d.y.k.es or wire-fencing, the strong grey-stone farm-houses, the swift-running burns, and the never-distant hills, brace the mind.

Local pa.s.sengers come in with deliberation, whose austere faces condemn the luxurious disorder of night travel, and challenge the defence of Arminian doctrine. A voice shouts "Carstairs Junction," with a command of the letter _r_, which is the bequest of an unconquerable past, and inspires one with the hope of some day hearing a freeborn Scot say "Auchterarder." The train runs over bleak moorlands with black peat holes, through alluvial straths yielding their last pickle of corn, between iron furnaces blazing strangely in the morning light, at the foot of historical castles built on rocks that rise out of the fertile plains, and then, after a s.p.a.ce of sudden darkness, any man with a soul counts the ten hours' dust and heat but a slight price for the sight of the Scottish Rhine flowing deep, clear, and swift by the foot of its wooded hills, and the "Fair City" in the heart of her meadows.

"Do you see the last wreath of mist floating off the summit of the hill, and the silver sheen of the river against the green of the woods?

Quick, dad," and the General, accustomed to obey, stood up beside Kate for the brief glimpse between the tunnel and a prison. Yet they had seen the snows of the Himalayas, and the great river that runs through the plains of India. But it is so with Scottish folk that they may have lived opposite the Jungfrau at Murren, and walked among the big trees of the Yosemite Valley, and watched the blood-red afterglow on the Pyramids, and yet will value a sunset behind the Cuchullin hills, and the Pa.s.s of the Trossachs, and the mist shot through with light on the sides of Ben Nevis, and the Tay at Dunkeld--just above the bridge--better guerdon for their eyes.

"Ay, la.s.sie"--the other people had left at Stirling, and the General fell back upon the past--"there 's just one bonnier river, and that's the Tochty at a bend below the Lodge, as we shall see it, please G.o.d, this evening."

"Tickets," broke in a voice with authority. "This is no the station, an' ye 'll hae to wait till the first diveesion o' yir train is emptied. Kildrummie? Ye change, of coorse, but yir branch 'll hae a lang wait the day. It 'll be an awfu' fecht wi' the Hielant train.

Muirtown platform 'll be worth seein'; it 'll juist be michty," and the collector departed, smacking his lips in prospect of the fray.

"Upon my word," said the General, taken aback for a moment by the easy manners of his countryman, but rejoicing in every new a.s.surance of home, "our people are no blate."

"Is n't it delicious to be where character has not been worn smooth by centuries of oppression, but where each man is himself? Conversation has salt here, and tastes in the mouth. We 've just heard two men speak this morning, and each face is bitten into my memory. Now our turn has come," and the train wound itself in at last.

Porters, averaging six feet and with stentorian voices, were driving back the mixed mult.i.tude in order to afford foothold for the new arrivals on that marvellous landing place, which in those days served for all the trains which came in and all that went out, both north and south. One man tears open the door of a first with commanding gesture.

"A' change and hurry up. Na, na," rejecting the offer of a private engagement; "we hev nae time for that trade the day. Ye maun cairry yir bags yersels; the dogs and boxes 'll tak us a' oor time." He unlocks an under compartment and drags out a pair of pointers, who fawn upon him obsequiously in grat.i.tude for their release. "Doon wi' ye,"

as one to whom duty denies the ordinary courtesies of life, and he fastens them to the base of an iron pillar. Deserted immediately by their deliverer, the pointers made overtures to two elderly ladies, standing bewildered in the crush, to be repulsed with umbrellas, and then sit down upon their tails in despair. Their forlorn condition, left friendless amid this babel, gets upon their nerves, and after a slight rehearsal, just to make certain of the tune, they lift up their voices in melodious concert, to the scandal of the two females, who cannot escape the neighbourhood, and regard the pointers with horror.

Distant friends, also in bonds and distress of mind, feel comforted and join cheerfully, while a large black retriever, who had foolishly attempted to obstruct a luggage barrow with his tail, breaks in with a high solo. Two collies, their tempers irritated by obstacles as they follow their masters, who had been taking their morning in the second-cla.s.s refreshment room, fall out by the way, and obtain as by magic a clear s.p.a.ce in which to settle details; while a fox-terrier, escaping from his anxious mistress, has mounted a pile of boxes and gives a general challenge.

Porters fling open packed luggage vans with a swing, setting free a cataract of portmanteaus, boxes, hampers, baskets, which pours across the platform for yards, led by a frolicsome black leather valise, whose anxious owner has fought her adventurous way to the van for the purpose of explaining to a phlegmatic Scot that he would know it by a broken strap, and must lift it out gently, for it contained breakables.

"It can gang itsel, that ane," as the afflicted woman followed its reckless progress with a wail. "Sall, if they were a' as clever on their feet as yon box there wud be less tribble," and with two a.s.sistants he falls upon the congested ma.s.s within. They perform prodigies of strength, handling huge trunks that ought to have filled some woman with repentance as if they were Gladstone bags, and light weights as if they were paper parcels. With unerring scent they detect the latest label among the remains of past history, and the air resounds with "Hielant train," "Aiberdeen fast," "Aiberdeen slow,"

"Muirtown"--this with indifference--and at a time "Dunleith," and once "Kildrummie," with much contempt. By this time stacks of baggage of varying size have been erected, the largest of which is a pyramid in shape, with a very uncertain apex.

Male pa.s.sengers--heads of families and new to Muirtown--hover anxiously round the outskirts, and goaded on by female commands, rush into the heart of the fray for the purpose of claiming a piece of luggage, which turns out to be some other person's, and retire hastily after a fair-sized portmanteau descends on their toes, and the sharp edge of a trunk takes them in the small of the back. Footmen with gloves and superior airs make gentlemanly efforts to collect the family luggage, and are rewarded by having some hopelessly vulgar tin boxes, heavily roped, deposited among its initialled glory. One elderly female who had been wise to choose some other day to revisit her native town, discovers her basket flung up against a pillar, like wreckage from a storm, and settles herself down upon it with a sigh of relief. She remains unmoved amid the turmoil, save when a pa.s.sing gun-case tips her bonnet to one side, giving her a very rakish air, and a good-natured retriever on a neighbouring box is so much taken with her appearance that he offers her a friendly caress. Restless people--who remember that their train ought to have left half an hour ago, and cannot realise that all bonds are loosed on the eleventh--fasten on any man in a uniform, and suffer many rebuffs.

"There 's nae use asking me," answers a guard, coming off duty and pus.h.i.+ng his way through the crowd as one accustomed to such spectacles; "a 'm juist in frae Carlisle; get haud o' a porter."

"Cupar Angus?"--this from the porter--"that's the Aiberdeen slow; it's no made up yet, and little chance o't till the express an' the Hielant be aff. Whar 'll it start frae?" breaking away; "forrit, a' tell ye, forrit."

Fathers of families, left on guard and misled by a sudden movement "forrit," rush to the waiting-room and bring out, for the third time, the whole expedition, to escort them back again with shame. Barrows with towering piles of luggage are pushed through the human ma.s.s by two porters, who allow their engine to make its own way with much confidence, condescending only at a time to shout, "A' say, hey, oot o'

there," and treating any testy complaint with the silent contempt of a drayman for a costermonger. Old hands, who have fed at their leisure in callous indifference to all alarms, lounge about in great content, and a group of sheep farmers, having endeavoured in vain, after one tasting, to settle the merits of a new dip, take a glance in the "Hielant" quarter, and adjourn the conference once more to the refreshment-room. Groups of sportsmen discuss the prospects of to-morrow in detail, and tell stories of ancient twelfths, while chieftains from London, in full Highland dress, are painfully conscious of the whiteness of their legs. A handful of preposterous people who persist in going south when the world has its face northwards, threaten to complain to headquarters if they are not sent away, and an official with a loud voice and a subtle gift of humour intimates that a train is about to leave for Dundee.

During this time wonderful manoeuvres have been executed on the lines of rail opposite the platform. Trains have left with all the air of a departure and disappeared round the curve outside the station, only to return in fragments. Half a dozen carriages pa.s.s without an engine, as if they had started on their own account, break vans that one saw presiding over expresses stand forsaken, a long procession of horse boxes rattle through, and a saloon carriage, with people, is so much in evidence that the name of an English Duke is freely mentioned, and every new pa.s.sage relieves the tedium of the waiting.

Out of all this confusion trains begin to grow and take shape, and one, with green carriages, looks so complete that a rumour spreads that the Hielant train has been made up and may appear any minute in its place.

The suns.h.i.+ne beating through the gla.s.s roof, the heat of travel, the dust of the station, the moving carriages with their various colours, the shouts of railway officials, the recurring panics of fussy pa.s.sengers, begin to affect the nerves. Conversation becomes broken, porters are beset on every side with questions they cannot answer, rushes are made on any empty carriages within reach, a child is knocked down and cries.

Over all this excitement and confusion one man is presiding, untiring, forceful, ubiquitous--a st.u.r.dy man, somewhere about five feet ten, whose lungs are bra.s.s and nerves fine steel wire. He is dressed, as to his body, in brown corduroy trousers, a blue jacket and waistcoat with s.h.i.+ning bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, a grey flannel s.h.i.+rt, and a silver-braided cap, which, as time pa.s.ses, he thrusts further back on his head till its peak stands at last almost erect, a crest seen high above the conflict.

As to the soul of him, this man is clothed with resolution, courage, authority, and an infectious enthusiasm. He is the brain and will of the whole organism, its driving power. Drivers lean out of their engines, one hand on the steam throttle, their eyes fixed on this man; if he waves his hands, trains move; if he holds them up, trains halt.

Strings of carriages out in the open are carrying out his plans, and the porters toil like maniacs to meet his commands. Piles of luggage disappear as he directs the attack, and his scouts capture isolated boxes hidden among the people. Every horse box has a place in his memory, and he has calculated how many carriages would clear the north traffic; he carries the destination of families in his head, and has made arrangements for their comfort. "Soon ready now, sir," as he pa.s.sed swiftly down to receive the last southerner, "and a second compartment reserved for you," till people watched for him, and the sound of his voice, "forrit wi' the Hielant luggage," inspired bewildered tourists with confidence, and became an argument for Providence. There is a general movement towards the northern end of the station; five barrows, whose luggage swings dangerously and has to be held on, pa.s.s in procession; dogs are collected and trailed along in bundles; families pick up their bags and press after their luggage, cheered to recognise a familiar piece peeping out from strange goods; a bell is rung with insistence. The Aberdeen express leaves--its pa.s.sengers regarding the platform with pity--and the guard of the last van slamming his door in triumph. The great man concentrates his force with a wave of his hand for the _tour de force_ of the year, the despatch of the Hielant train.

The southern end of the platform is now deserted--the London express departed half an hour ago with thirteen pa.s.sengers, very crestfallen and envious--and across the open centre porters hustle barrows at headlong speed, with neglected pieces of luggage. Along the edge of the Highland platform there stretches a solid ma.s.s of life, close-packed, motionless, silent, composed of tourists, dogs, families, lords, dogs, sheep farmers, keepers, clericals, dogs, footmen, commercials, ladies' maids, grooms, dogs, waiting for the empty train that, after deploying hither and thither, picking up some trifle, a horse box or a duke's saloon, at every new raid, is now backing slowly in for its freight. The expectant crowd has ceased from conversation, sporting or otherwise; respectable elderly gentlemen brace themselves for the scramble, and examine their nearest neighbours suspiciously; heads of families gather their belongings round them by signs and explain in a whisper how to act; one female tourist--of a certain age and severe aspect--refreshes her memory as to the best window for the view of Killiecrankie. The luggage has been piled in huge ma.s.ses at each end of the siding; the porters rest themselves against it, taking off their caps, and wiping their foreheads with handkerchiefs of many colours and uses. It is the stillness before the last charge; beyond the outermost luggage an arm is seen waving, and the long coil of carriages begins to twist into the station.

People who know their ancient Muirtown well, and have taken part in this day of days, will remember a harbour of refuge beside the book-stall, protected by the buffers of the Highland siding on one side and a breakwater of luggage on the other, and persons within this shelter could see the storming of the train to great advantage.

Carmichael, the young Free Kirk minister of Drumtochty, who had been tasting the civilisation of Muirtown overnight and was waiting for the Dunleith train, leant against the back of the bookstall, watching the scene with frank, boyish interest. Rather under six feet in height, he pa.s.sed for more, because he stood so straight and looked so slim, for his limbs were as slender as a woman's, while women (in Muirtown) had envied his hands and feet. But in chest measure he was only two inches behind Saunders Baxter, the grieve of Drumsheugh, who was the standard of manhood by whom all others were tried and (mostly) condemned in Drumtochty. Chancing to come upon Saunders putting the stone one day with the bothy lads, Carmichael had taken his turn, with the result that his stone lay foremost in the final heat by an inch exactly.

MacLure saw them kneeling together to measure, the Free Kirk minister and the ploughmen all in a bunch, and went on his way rejoicing to tell the Free Kirk folk that their new minister was a man of his hands. His hair was fair, just touched with gold, and he wore it rather long, so that in the excitement of preaching a lock sometimes fell down on his forehead, which he would throw back with a toss of his head--a gesture Mrs. Macfadyen, our critic, thought very taking. His dark blue eyes used to enlarge with pa.s.sion in the Sacrament and grow so tender, the healthy tan disappeared and left his cheeks so white, that the mothers were terrified lest he should die early, and sent offerings of cream on Monday morning. For though his name was Carmichael, he had Celtic blood in him, and was full of all kinds of emotion, but mostly those that were brave and pure and true. He had done well at the University, and was inclined to be philosophical, for he knew little of himself and nothing of the world. There were times when he allowed himself to be supercilious and sarcastic; but it was not for an occasional jingle of cleverness the people loved him, or, for that matter, any other man.

It was his humanity that won their hearts, and this he had partly from his mother, partly from his training. Through a kind providence and his mother's countryness, he had been brought up among animals--birds, mice, dormice, guinea-pigs, rabbits, dogs, cattle, horses, till he knew all their ways, and loved G.o.d's creatures as did St. Francis d'a.s.sisi, to whom every creature of G.o.d was dear, from Sister Swallow to Brother Wolf. So he learned, as he grew older, to love men and women and little children, even although they might be ugly, or stupid, or bad-tempered, or even wicked, and this sympathy cleansed away many a little fault of pride and self-conceit and impatience and hot temper, and in the end of the days made a man of John Carmichael. The dumb animals had an instinct about this young fellow, and would make overtures to him that were a certificate for any situation requiring character. Horses by the wayside neighed at his approach, and stretched out their velvet muzzles to be stroked. Dogs insisted upon sitting on his knees, unless quite prevented by their size, and then they put their paws on his chest. Hillocks was utterly scandalised by his collie's familiarity with the minister, and brought him to his senses by the application of a boot, but Carmichael waived all apologies. "Rover and I made friends two days ago on the road, and my clothes will take no injury." And indeed they could not, for Carmichael, except on Sundays and at funerals, wore a soft hat and suit of threadbare tweeds, on which a microscopist could have found traces of a peat bog, moss of d.y.k.es, the scale of a trout, and a tiny bit of heather.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Carmichael had taken his turn.]

His usual fortune befell him that day in Muirtown Station, for two retrievers, worming their way through the luggage, reached him, and made known their wants.

"Thirsty? I believe you. All the way from England, and heat enough to roast you alive. I 've got no dish, else I 'd soon get water.

"Inverness? Poor chaps, that's too far to go with your tongues like a lime-kiln. Down, good dogs; I 'll be back in a minute."

You can have no idea, unless you have tried it, how much water a soft clerical hat can hold--if you turn up the edges and bash down the inside with your fist, and fill the s.p.a.ce to the brim. But it is difficult to convey such a vessel with undiminished content through a crowd, and altogether impossible to lift one's eyes. Carmichael was therefore quite unconscious that two new-comers to the shelter were watching him with keen delight as he came in bareheaded, flushed, triumphant--amid howls of welcome--and knelt down to hold the cup till--drinking time about in strict honour--the retrievers had reached the maker's name.

"Do you think they would like a biscuit?" said a clear, sweet, low voice, with an accent of pride and just a flavour of amus.e.m.e.nt in its tone. Carmichael rose in much embarra.s.sment, and was quite confounded.

They were standing together--father and daughter, evidently--and there was no manner of doubt about him. A spare man, without an ounce of superfluous flesh, straight as a rod, and having an air of command, with keen grey eyes, close-cropped hair turning white, a clean-shaven face except where a heavy moustache covered a firm-set mouth--one recognised in him a retired army man of rank, a colonel at least, it might be a general; and the bronze on his face suggested long Indian service. But he might have been dressed in Rob Roy tartan, or been a naval officer in full uniform, for all Carmichael knew. A hundred thousand faces pa.s.s before your eyes and are forgotten, mere physical impressions; you see one, and it is in your heart for ever, as you saw it the first time. Wavy black hair, a low, straight forehead, hazel eyes with long eyelashes, a perfectly-shaped Grecian nose, a strong mouth, whose upper lip had a curve of softness, a clear-cut chin with one dimple, small ears set high in the head, and a rich creamy complexion--that was what flashed upon Carmichael as he turned from the retrievers. He was a man so un.o.bservant of women that he could not have described a woman's dress to save his life or any other person's; and now that he is married--he is a middle-aged man now and threatened with stoutness--it is his wife's reproach that he does not know when she wears her new spring bonnet for the first time. Yet he took in this young woman's dress, from the smart hat, with a white bird's wing on the side, and the close-fitting tailor made jacket, to the small, well-gloved hand in dogskin, the grey tweed skirt, and one shoe, with a tip on it, that peeped out below her frock. Critics might have hinted that her shoulders were too square, and that her figure wanted somewhat in softness of outline; but it seemed to Carmichael that he had never seen so winsome or high-bred a woman; and so it has also seemed to many who have gone farther afield in the world than the young minister of Drumtochty.

Carmichael was at that age when a man prides himself on dressing and thinking as he pleases, and had quite scandalised a Muirtown elder--a stout gentleman, who had come out in '43, and could with difficulty be weaned from Dr. Chalmers--by making his appearance on the preceding evening in amazing tweeds and a grey flannel s.h.i.+rt. He explained casually that for a fifteen-mile walk flannels were absolutely necessary, and that he was rather pleased to find that he had come from door to door in four hours and two minutes exactly. His host was at a loss for words, because he was comparing this unconventional youth with the fathers, who wore large white stocks and ambled along at about two and a half miles an hour, clearing their throats also in a very impressive way, and seasoning the principles of the Free Kirk with snuff of an excellent fragrance. It was hard even for the most generous charity to identify the spirit of the Disruption in such a figure, and the good elder grew so proper and so didactic that Carmichael went from bad to worse.

"Well, you would find the congregation in excellent order. The Professor was a most painstaking man, though retiring in disposition, and his sermons were thoroughly solid and edifying. They were possibly just a little above the heads of Drumtochty, but I always enjoyed Mr.

Cunningham myself," nodding his head as one who understood all mysteries.

"Did you ever happen to hear the advice Jamie Soutar gave the deputation from Muirtown when they came up to see whether Cunningham would be fit for the North Kirk, where two Bailies stand at the plate every day, and the Provost did not think himself good enough to be an elder?" for Carmichael was full of wickedness that day, and earning a judgment.

His host indicated that the deputation had given in a very full and satisfactory report--he was, in fact, on the Session of the North himself--but that no reference had been made to Jamie.

"Well, you must know," and Carmichael laid himself out for narration, "the people were hara.s.sed with raids from the Lowlands during Cunningham's time, and did their best in self-defence. Spying makes men cunning, and it was wonderful how many subterfuges the deputations used to practise. They would walk from Kildrummie as if they were staying in the district, and one retired tradesman talked about the crops as if he was a farmer, but it was a pity that he did n't know the difference between the cereals.

"'Yon man that wes up aifter yir minister, Elspeth,' Hillocks said to Mrs. Macfadyen, 'hesna hed muckle money spent on his eddication. "A graund field o' barley," he says, and as sure as a 'm stannin' here, it wes the haugh field o' aits.'

"'He 's frae Glaisgie,' was all Elspeth answered, 'and by next Friday we 'll hae his name an' kirk. He said he wes up for a walk an' juist dropped in, the wratch.'

"Some drove from Muirtown, giving out that they were English tourists, speaking with a fine East Coast accent, and were rebuked by Lachlan Campbell for breaking the Sabbath. Your men put up their trap at the last farm in Netheraird--which always has grudged Drumtochty its ministers and borne their removal with resignation--and came up in pairs, who pretended they did not know one another.

"Jamie was hearing the Professor's last lecture on Justification, and our people asked him to take charge of the strangers. He found out the town from their hats, and escorted them to the boundaries of the parish, a.s.sisting their confidences till one of your men--I think it was the Provost--admitted that it had taken them all their time to follow the sermon.

"'A 'm astonished at ye,' said Jamie, for the Netheraird man let it out; 'yon wes a sermon for young fouk, juist milk, ye ken, tae the ordinar' discoorses. Surely,' as if the thought had just struck him, 'ye werena thinkin' o' callin' Maister Cunningham tae Muirtown.

"'Edinboorgh, noo; that micht dae gin the f.e.c.k o' the members be professors, but Muirtown wud be clean havers. There's times when the Drumtochty fouk themsels canna understand the cratur, he 's that deep.

As for Muirtown'--here Jamie allowed himself a brief rest of enjoyment; 'but ye've hed a fine drive, tae say naethin' o' the traivel.'"

Then, having begun, Carmichael retailed so many of Jamie's most wicked sayings, and so exalted the Glen as a place "where you can go up one side and down the other with your dogs, and every second man you meet will give you something to remember," that the city dignitary doubted afterwards to his wife "whether this young man was . . . quite what we have been accustomed to in a Free Church minister." Carmichael ought to have had repentances for shocking a worthy man, but instead thereof laughed in his room and slept soundly, not knowing that he would be humbled in the dust by mid-day to-morrow.