Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers

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Persons raised to the height of a daily newspaper like the minister
might be supposed independent of Posty's precis, but even Doctor
Davidson, with that day's _Caledonian_ in his hand, still availed
himself of the spoken word.

"Well, Posty, any news this morning?"

"Naethin', Doctor, worth mentionin', except the failure o' a company
Glasgie wy; it's been rotten, a' wes hearin', for a while, an' noo it's
fair stramash. They say it 'll no be lichtsome for weedows an' mony
decent fouk in Scotland."

"That's bad news, Posty. There 's too many of those swindling concerns
in the country. People ought to take care where they place their
savings, and keep to old-established institutions. We 're pretty
hard-headed up here, and I 'll wager that nobody in the Glen has lost a
penny in any of those new-fangled companies."

"The auld fouk in Drumtochty pit their siller in a pock and hode it
ablow their beds, an', ma certes, that bank didna break;" and Posty
went along the avenue, his very back suggestive of a past, cautious,
unenterprising, safe and honest.

The Doctor glanced at the envelopes and thrust the letters into his
pocket. His good nature was touched at the thought of another
financial disaster, by which many hard-working people would lose their
little savings, and all the more that he had some of his private means
invested in a Glasgow bank--one of those tried and powerful
institutions which was indifferent to every crisis in trade. Already
he anticipated an appeal, and considered what he would give, for it did
not matter whether it was a coalpit explosion in Lanarkshire or a loss
of fishing-boats in the Moray Firth, if widows needed help the Doctor's
guinea was on its way within four-and-twenty hours. Some forms of
religious philanthropy had very little hold on the Doctor's
sympathy--one of the religious prints mentioned him freely as a
Unitarian, because he had spoken unkindly of the Jewish mission--but in
the matter of widows and orphans he was a specialist.

"Widows, Posty said; poor things! and very likely bairns. Well, well,
we 'll see what can be done out of Daisy's fund."

Very unlikely people have their whims, and it was his humour to assign
one fourth of his income to his little sister, who was to have kept
house for him, and "never to leave you, Sandie," and out of this fund
the Doctor did his public charities. "In memory of a little maid,"
appeared in various subscription lists; but the reference thereof was
only known after the Doctor's death.

"The Western Counties Bank did not open its doors yesterday, and it was
officially announced at the head-office, Glasgow, that the bank had
stopped. It is impossible as yet to forecast the debts, but they are
known to be enormous, and as the bank is not limited, it is feared that
the consequences to the shareholders will be very serious. This
failure was quite unexpected, the Western Counties Bank having been
looked on as a prosperous and stable concern."

He read the paragraph twice word by word--it did not take long--he
folded the paper carefully and put it in his pocket, and he stood in
the spot for five minutes to take in the meaning in its length and
breadth. A pleasant spring sun was shining upon him through a break in
the leafy arch, a handful of primroses were blooming at his feet, a
lark was singing in the neighbouring field. Sometimes the Doctor used
to speculate how he would have liked being a poor man, and he concluded
that he would have disliked it very much. He had never been rich, and
he was not given to extravagance, but he was accustomed to easy
circumstances, and he pitied some of his old friends who had seen it
their duty to secede at the Disruption, and had to practise many little
economies, who travelled third class and had to walk from the station,
and could not offer their friends a glass of wine. This was the way he
must live now, and Daisy's fund would have to be closed, which seemed
to him the sweetest pleasure of his life.

"And Jack! Would to God I had never mentioned this wretched bank to
him. Poor Jack, with the few hundreds he had saved for Kit!"

For some five minutes more the Doctor stood in the place; then he
straightened himself as one who, come what may, would play the man, and
when he passed Janet's cottage, on his way to the Lodge, that honest
admirer of able-bodied, good-looking men came out and followed him with
her eyes for the sight of his firm unbroken carriage.

"Miss Kate will be grieving very much about Doctor Saunderson's death,"
Donald explained at the Lodge, "and she went down this forenoon with
the General to put flowers on his grave; but they will be coming back
every minute," and the Doctor met them at the Beeches.

[Illustration: "To put flowers on his grave."]

"May I have as fair hands to decorate my grave, Miss Catherine
Carnegie," and the Doctor bowed gallantly; "but of one thing I am sure,
I have done nothing to deserve it. Saunderson was a scholar of the
ancient kind, and a very fine spirit."

"Don't you think," said Kate, "that he was . . . like A Kempis, I mean,
and George Herbert, a kind of . . . saint?"

"Altogether one, I should say. I don't think he would have known port
wine from sherry, or an _entree_ from a mutton chop; beside a man like
that what worldly fellows you and I are, Jack, and mine is the greater
shame."

"I'll have no comparisons, Padre"--Kate was a little puzzled by the
tone in the Doctor's voice; "he was so good that I loved him; but there
are some points in the General and you, quite nice points, and for the
sake of them you shall have afternoon tea in my room," where the Doctor
and the General fell on former days and were wonderful company.

"It's not really about the road I wish to talk to you," and the Doctor
closed the door of the General's den, "but about . . . a terrible
calamity that has befallen you and me, Jack, and I am to blame."

"What is it?" and Carnegie sat erect; "does it touch our name or . . .
Kate?"

"Neither, thank God," said Davidson.

"Then it cannot be so very bad. Let us have it at once," and the
General lighted a cheroot.

"Our bank has failed, and we shall have to give up everything to pay
the debt, and . . . Jack, it was I advised you to buy the shares." The
Doctor rose and went to the window.

"For God's sake don't do that, Sandie. Why, man, you gave me the best
advice you knew, and there 's an end of it. It's the fortune of war,
and we must take it without whining. I know whom you are thinking
about, and I am . . . a bit sorry for Kate, for she ought to have lots
of things--more dresses and trinkets, you know. But Davidson, she 'll
be the bravest of the three."

"You are right there, Jack. Kate is of the true grit, but . . . Tochty
Lodge."

"Yes, it will hit us pretty hard to see the old place sold, if it comes
to that, when I hoped to end my days here . . . but, man, it's our
fate. Bit by bit we 've lost Drumtochty, till there were just the
woods and the two farms left, and soon we 'll be out of the
place--nothing left but our graves.

"Sandie, this is bad form, and . . . you 'll not hear this talk again;
we 'll get a billet somewhere, and wherever it be, there 'll be a bed
and a crust for you, old man;" and at the door the two held one
another's hands for a second; that was all.

"So this was what you two conspirators were talking about downstairs,
as if I could not be trusted. Did you think that I would faint, or
perhaps weep? The padre deserves a good scolding, and as for you--"
Then Kate went over and cast an arm round her father's neck, whose face
was quivering.

"It is rather a disappointment to leave the Lodge when we were getting
it to our mind; but we 'll have a jolly little home somewhere, and I
'll get a chance of earning something. Dancing now--I think that I
might be able to teach some girls how to waltz. Then my French is
really intelligible, and most colloquial; besides revolver shooting.
Dad, we are on our way to a fortune, and at the worst you 'll have your
curry and cheroots, and I 'll have a well-fitting dress. Voila, mon
pere."

When the two Drumtochty men arrived next forenoon at the hall in
Glasgow, where the shareholders had been summoned to receive
particulars of their ruin, the dreary place was filled with a crowd
representative of every class in the community except the highest,
whose wealth is in land, and the lowest, whose possessions are on their
backs. There were city merchants, who could not conceal their chagrin
that they had been befooled; countrymen, who seemed utterly dazed, as
if the course of the seasons had been reversed; prosperous tradesmen,
who were aggressive in appearance and wanted to take it out of
somebody; widows, who could hardly restrain their tears, seeing before
them nothing but starvation; clergymen, who were thinking of their boys
taken from school and college. For a while the victims were silent,
and watched with hungry eyes the platform door, and there was an eager
rustle when some clerk came out and laid a bundle of papers on the
table. This incident seemed to excite the meeting and set tongues
loose. People began to talk to their neighbours explaining how they
came to be connected with the bank, as if this were now a crime. One
had inherited the shares and had never had resolution to sell them;
another had been deceived by a friend and bought them; a third had
taken over two shares for a bad debt. A minister thought that he must
have been summoned by mistake, for he was simply a trustee on an estate
which had shares, but he was plainly nervous about his position. An
Ayrshire Bailie had only had his shares for six months, and he put it,
to his circle, with municipal eloquence, whether he could be held
responsible for frauds of years' standing. No one argued with him, and
indeed you might say anything you pleased, for each was so much taken
up with his own case that he only listened to you that he might
establish a claim in turn on your attention. Here and there a noisy
and confident personage got a larger audience by professing to have
private information. A second-rate stockbroker assured quite a
congregation that the assets of the bank included an estate in
Australia, which would more than pay the whole debt, and advised them
to see that it was not flung away; and a Government pensioner mentioned
casually in his neighbourhood, on the authority of one of the managers,
that there was not that day a solvent bank in Scotland. The different
conversations rise to a babel, various speakers enforce their views on
the floor with umbrellas, one enthusiast exhorts his brother
unfortunates from a chair, when suddenly there is a hush, and then in a
painful silence the shareholders hang on the lips of the accountant,
from whom they learn that things could not be worse, that the richest
shareholder may be ruined, and that ordinary people will lose their
last penny.

Speech again breaks forth, but now it is despairing, fierce,
vindictive. One speaker storms against Government which allows public
institutions to defraud the public, and refers to himself as the widow
and orphan, and another assails the directorate with bitter invective
as liars and thieves, and insists on knowing whether they are to be
punished. The game having now been unearthed, the pack follow in full
cry. The tradesman tells with much gusto how one director asked the
detectives for leave to have family prayers before he was removed, and
then declares his conviction that when a man takes to praying you had
better look after your watch. Ayrshire wished to inform the accountant
and the authorities that the directors had conveyed to their wives and
friends enormous sums which ought to be seized without delay. The air
grew thick with upbraidings, complaints, cries for vengeance, till the
place reeked with sordid passions. Through all this ignoble storm the
Drumtochty men sat silent, amazed, disgusted, till at last the Doctor
rose, and such authority was in his very appearance that with his first
words he obtained a hearing.

"Mr. Accountant," he said, "and gentlemen, it appears to me as if under
a natural provocation and suffering we are in danger of forgetting our
due dignity and self-respect. We have been, as is supposed, the
subjects of fraud on the part of those whom we trusted; that is a
matter which the law will decide, and, if necessary, punish. If we
have been betrayed, then the directors are in worse case than the
shareholders, for we are not disgraced. The duty before us is plain,
and must be discharged to our utmost ability. It is to go home and
gather together our last penny for the payment of our debts, in order
that at any rate those who have trusted us may not be disappointed.
Gentlemen, it is evident that we have lost our means; let us show to
Scotland that there is something which cannot be taken from us by any
fraud, and that we have retained our courage and our honour."

It was the General who led the applause so that the roof of the hall
rang, but it is just to Ayrshire and the rest to say that they came to
themselves--all men of the old Scottish breed--and followed close after
with a mighty shout.

The sound of that speech went through Scotland and awoke the spirit of
honest men in many places, so that the Doctor, travelling next day to
Muirtown, third class, with the General, and wedged in among a set of
cattle dealers, was so abashed by their remarks as they read the
_Caledonian_ that the General let out the secret.

"Yir hand, sir," said the chief among them, a mighty man at the Falkirk
Tryst; "gin it bena a leeberty, ilka ane o's hes a sair fecht tae keep
straicht in oor wy o' business, but ye 've gien 's a lift the day," and
so they must needs all have a grip of the Doctor's hand, who took snuff
with prodigality, while the General complained of the smoke from the
engine.

Nor were their trials over, for on Muirtown platform--it being
Friday--all kinds of Perthshire men were gathered, and were so proud of
our Doctor that before he got shelter in the Dunleith train his hand
was sore, and the men that grasped it were of all kinds, from Lord
Kilspindie--who, having missed him at the Manse, had come to catch him
at the station--"Best sermon you ever preached, Davidson,"--to an
Athole farmer--"I am an elder in the Free Kirk, but it iss this man
that will be honouring you."

It was a fine instance of the unfailing tact of Peter Bruce that,
seeing the carriage out of which the two came, and taking in the
situation, he made no offer of the first class, but straightway dusted
out a third with his handkerchief, and escorted them to it cap in hand.
Drumtochty restrained itself with an effort in foreign parts--for
Kildrummie was exceptionally strong at the Junction--but it waited at
the terminus till the outer world had gone up the road. Then their own
folk took the two in hand, and these were the guard of honour who
escorted the Minister and the General to where our Kate was waiting
with the dog-cart, each carrying some morsel of luggage--Drumsheugh,
Burnbrae, Hillocks, Netherton, Jamie Soutar, and Archie Moncur. Kate
drove gloriously through Kildrummie as if they had come from a triumph,
and let it be said to the credit of that despised town, that, the news
having come, every hat was lifted, but that which lasted till they got
home, and till long afterwards, was the handshake of the Drumtochty men.

CHAPTER XXIII.

MARGET HOWE'S CONFESSIONAL.

When the General and Kate were loitering over breakfast the morning
after the ovation, they heard the sound of a horse's feet on the
gravel, and Donald came in with more his usual importance.

"It iss a messenger from Muirtown Castle, and he iss waiting to know
whether there will be any answer." And Donald put one letter before
the father and another before the daughter, both showing the Hay crest.
Kate's face whitened as she recognised the handwriting on her envelope,
and she went over to the window seat of a turret in the corner of the
room, while the General opened his letter, standing on a tiger-skin,
with his back to the fireplace in the great hall. This is what he read:

MY DEAR CARNEGIE,--When men have fought together in the trenches before
Sebastopol, as their ancestors have ridden side by side with Prince
Charlie, I hope you will agree with me they need not stand on ceremony.
If I seem guilty of any indiscretion in what I am going to say, then
you will pardon me for "Auld Lang Syne."

You have one daughter and I have one son, and so I do not need to tell
you that he is very dear to me, and that I have often thought of his
marriage, on which not only his own happiness so much depends, but also
the future of our house and name. Very likely you have had some such
thoughts about Kate, with this difference, that you would rather keep
so winsome a girl with you, while I want even so good a son as Hay to
be married whenever he can meet with one whom he loves, and who is
worthy of him.

Hay never gave me an hour's anxiety, and has no entanglements of any
kind, but on the subject of marriage I could make no impression. "Time
enough," he would say, or "The other person has not turned up," and I
was getting uneasy, for you and I are not so young as once we were.
You may fancy my satisfaction, therefore, when George came down from
Drumtochty last August and told me he had found the "other person," and
that she was my old friend Jack Carnegie's daughter. Of course I urged
him to make sure of himself, but now he has had ample opportunities
during your two visits, and he is quite determined that his wife is to
be Kate or nobody.

It goes without saying that the Countess and I heartily approve Hay's
choice and are charmed with Kate, who is as bonnie as she is
high-spirited. She sustains the old traditions of her family, who were
ever strong and true, and she has a clever tongue, which neither you
nor I have, Jack, nor Hay either, good fellow though he be, and that is
not a bad thing for a woman nowadays. They would make a handsome pair,
as they ought, with such good-looking fathers, eh?

Well, I am coming to my point, for in those circumstances I want your
help. What Miss Carnegie thinks of Hay we don't know, and unless I 'm
much mistaken she will decide for herself, but is it too much to ask
you--if you can--to say a word for him? You are quite right to think
that no man is worthy of Kate, but she is bound to marry some day--I
can't conceive how you have kept her so long--and I am certain Hay will
make a good husband, and he is simply devoted to her. If she refuses
him, I am afraid he will not marry, and then--well, grant I'm selfish,
but it would be a calamity to us.

Don't you think that it looks like an arrangement of Providence to
unite two families that have shared common dangers and common faith in
the past, and to establish a Carnegie once more as lady of Drumtochty?
Now that is all, and it's a long screed, but the matter lies near my
heart, and we shall wait the answers from you both with anxiety.

Yours faithfully,

KILSPINDIE.

Kate's letter was much shorter, and was written in big schoolboy hand
with great care.

DEAR MISS CARNEGIE,--They say that a woman always knows when a man
loves her, and if so you will not be astonished at this letter. From
that day I saw you in Drumtochty Kirk I have loved you, and every week
I love you more. My mother is the only other woman I have ever cared
for, and that is different. Will you be my wife? I often wanted to
ask you when you were with us in November and last month, but my heart
failed me. Can you love me a little, enough to say yes? I am not
clever, and I am afraid I shall never do anything to make you proud of
me, but you will have all my heart, and I 'll do my best to make you
happy.

I am, yours very sincerely,

HAY.

Carnegie could see Kate's face from his place, who was looking out of
the window with a kindly expression, and her father, who was of a
simple mind, and knew little of women, was encouraged by such visible
friendliness. He was about to go over, when her face changed. She
dropped the letter on the seat, and became very thoughtful, knitting
her brows and resting her chin on her hand. In a little, something
stung her--like a person recalling an injury--and she flushed with
anger, drumming with her fingers on the sill of the window. Then anger
gave place to sadness, as if she had resolved to do something that was
inevitable, but less than the best. Kate glanced in her father's
direction, and read Lord Hay's letter again; then she seemed to have
made up her mind.

"Father," as she joined him on the skin beneath those loyal Carnegies
on the wall, "there is Lord Hay's letter, and he is a . . . worthy
gentleman. Perhaps I did not give him so much encouragement as he
took, but that does not matter. This is a . . . serious decision, and
ought not to be made on the spur of the moment. Will you let the
messenger go with a note to say that an answer will be sent on Monday?
You might write to Lord Kilspindie."

She was still standing in the place when he returned, and had been
studying the proud, determined face of Black John's mother, who had not
spared her only son for the good cause.

"Did you ever hear of any Carnegie, dad, who married beneath her,
or . . . loved one on the other side?"

"Never," said her father. "Our women all married into loyal families
of their own rank, which is best for comfort; but why do you ask? Hay
is a . . ."

"Yes, I know; it was only . . . curiosity made me ask, and I suppose
some of our women must have made sacrifices for their . . . cause?"

"Far more than the men ever did, for, see you, a man is just shot, and
all is over, and before he falls he 's had some good fighting, but his
wife suffers all her days, when he is living and when he is dead. Yet
our women were the first to send their men to the field. Heavens! what
women do suffer--they ought to have their reward."

"They have," said Kate, with emphasis, "if they help those whom they
love. . . . Father, would you be quite satisfied with Lord Hay for a
son-in-law, and . . . would you let us live with you here as much as we
could?"

"Kate, if you are to marry--and I knew it must come some day--I have
not seen a more honest man; but you are forgetting that Tochty Lodge
will soon be out of our hands; I 'll have to get a bungalow somewhere,
not too far away from Muirtown, I hope."

"If I marry Lord Hay, Tochty Lodge will not be sold, and you will never
be disturbed, dad. We shall not be separated more than we can help,"
and Kate caressed the General.

"Do you mean, lassie," said the General, with a sudden suspicion,
lilting her face till he saw her eyes, "that you are going to accept
Hay in order to keep the old home? You must not do this, for it would
not . . . don't you see that I . . . could not accept this at your
hands?"

"You cannot prevent your daughter marrying Lord Hay if your daughter so
decides, but as yet she is in doubt, very great doubt, and so I am
going for a long walk on the big moor, and you . . . well, why not take
lunch with the Padre at the manse?"

"Hay is a straight young fellow, and Kate would supply what he wants--a
dash of go, you know"--so the General was summing up the situation to
his old friend; "but my girl is not to marry Hay or any other man for
my sake, and that is what she thinks of doing."

"Did it ever occur to you, Carnegie, that Kate had a . . . well, kindly
feeling for any other man?"

"Plenty of fellows tried their luck: first subalterns, then
aides-de-camp, and at last commissioners; it was no easy affair to be
her father," and Carnegie gave Davidson a comic look. "I used to scold
her, but upon my word I don't know she was to blame, and I am certain
she did not care for one of them; in fact, she laughed at them all
till--well, in fact, I had to interfere."

"And since you came to the Lodge"--the Doctor spoke with
meaning--"besides Lord Hay?"

"Why, there is just yourself"--the Doctor nodded with much
appreciation--"and that Free Kirkman. . . . Davidson, do you mean
that--oh, nonsense, man; she was quite angry one day when I suggested a
parson. Kate has always said that was the last man she would marry."

"That is an evidence she will."

The General stared at the oracle, and went on:

"She has made his life miserable at the Lodge with her tongue; she
delighted in teasing him. Your idea is quite absurd."

"Carnegie, did you ever hear the classical couplet--

"Scarting and biting
Mak Scots fouk's 'ooing;"

and although I admit the description applies in the first instance to
milkmaids, yet there is a fair share of national character in the
Carnegies."

"Do you really think that Kate is in . . . has, well, a, eh, tenderness
to Carmichael? it would never have occurred to me."

"How would you look on Carmichael as a suitor?"

"Well, if Kate is to marry--and mind you I always prepared myself for
that--I would of course prefer Hay, not because he is a lord, or rich,
or any snobbery of that kind--you know me better than that, Sandie--but
because he 's . . . you know . . . belongs to our own set.

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