Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers

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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 shirt. 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 harassed 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, assisting 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 feck 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.

It seemed to him on the platform as if an hour passed while he, who had
played with a city father, stood, clothed with shame, before this
commanding young woman. Had she ever looked upon a more abject wretch?
and Carmichael photographed himself with merciless accuracy, from his
hair that he had not thrown back to an impress of dust which one knee
had taken from the platform, and he registered a resolution that he
would never be again boastfully indifferent to the loss of a button on
his coat. She stooped and fed the dogs, who did her homage, and he
marked that her profile was even finer--more delicate, more perfect,
more bewitching--than her front face, but he still stood holding his
shapeless hat in his hand, and for the first time in his life had no
words to say.

"They are very polite dogs," and Miss Carnegie gave Carmichael one more
chance; "they make as much of a biscuit as if it were a feast; but I do
think dogs have such excellent manners, they are always so
un-self-conscious."

"I wish I were a dog," said Carmichael, with much solemnity, and
afterwards was filled with thankfulness that the baggage behind gave
way at that moment, and that an exasperated porter was able to express
his mind freely.

"Dinna try tae lift that box for ony sake, man. Sall, ye 're no'
feared," as Carmichael, thirsting for action, swung it up unaided; and
then, catching sight of the merest wisp of white, "A' didna see ye were
a minister, an' the word cam oot sudden."

"You would find it a help to say Northumberland, Cumberland,
Westmoreland, and Durham," and with a smile to Carmichael, still
bareheaded and now redder than ever, Miss Carnegie went along the
platform to see the Hielant train depart. It was worth waiting to
watch the two minutes' scrimmage, and to hear the great man say, as he
took off his cap with deliberation and wiped his brow, "That's anither
year ower; some o' you lads see tae that Dunleith train." There was a
day when Carmichael would have enjoyed the scene to the full, but now
he had eyes for nothing but that tall, slim figure and the white bird's
wing.

When they disappeared into the Dunleith train, Carmichael had a wild
idea of entering the same compartment, and in the end had to be pushed
into the last second by the guard, who knew most of his regular people
and every one of the Drumtochty men. He was so much engaged with his
own thoughts that he gave two English tourists to understand that Lord
Kilspindie's castle, standing amid its woods on the bank of the Tay,
was a recently erected dye work, and that as the train turned off the
North trunk line for Dunleith they might at any moment enter the pass
of Killiecrankie.

CHAPTER II.

PEACE.

"The last stage now, Kit; in less than two hours we'll see Tochty
woods. The very thought makes me a boy again, and it seems yesterday
that I kissed your mother on the door-step of the old lodge and went
off to the Crimean war.

"That's Muirtown Castle over there in the wood--a grand place in its
way, but nothing to our home, lassie. Kilspindie--he was Viscount Hay
then--joined me at Muirtown, and we fought through the weary winter.
He left the army after the war, with lots of honour. A good fellow was
Hay, both in the trenches and the messroom.

"I 've never seen him since, and I dare say he 's forgotten a battered
old Indian. Besides, he's the big swell in this district, and I 'm
only a poor Hielant laird, with a wood and a tumble-down house and a
couple of farms."

"You are also a shameless hypocrite and deceiver, for you believe that
the Carnegies are as old as the Hays, and you know that, though you
have only two farms, you have twelve medals and seven wounds. What
does money matter? it simply makes people vulgar."

"Nonsense, lassie; if a Carnegie runs down money, it's because he has
got none and wishes he had. If you and I had only a few hundreds a
year over the half-pay to rattle in our pockets, we should have lots of
little pleasures, and you might have lived in England, with all sorts
of variety and comfort, instead of wandering about India with a gang of
stupid old chaps who have been so busy fighting that they never had
time to read a book."

"You mean like yourself, dad, and V. C. and Colonel Kinloch? Where
could a girl have found finer company than with my Knights of King
Arthur? And do you dare to insinuate that I could have been content
away from the regiment, that made me their daughter after mother died,
and the army?

"Pleasure!" and Kate's cheek flushed. "I 've had it since I was a
little tot and could remember anything--the bugles sounding reveille in
the clear air, and the sergeants drilling the new drafts in the
morning, and the regiment coming out with the band before and you at
its head, and hearing 'God save the Queen' at a review, and seeing the
companies passing like one man before the General.

"Don't you think that's better than tea-drinking, and gossiping, and
sewing meetings, and going for walks in some stupid little hole of a
country town? Oh, you wicked, aggravating dad. Now, what more will
money do?"

"Well," said the General, with much gravity, "if you were even a
moderate heiress there is no saying but that we might pick up a
presentable husband for you among the lairds. As it is, I fancy a
country minister is all you could expect.

"Don't . . . my ears will come off some day; one was loosened by a cut
in the Mutiny. No, I 'll never do the like again. But some day you
will marry, all the same," and Kate's father rubbed his ears.

"No, I 'm not going to leave you, for nobody else could ever make a
curry to please; and if I do, it will not be a Scotch minister--horrid,
bigoted wretches, V. C. says. Am I like a minister's wife, to address
mothers' meetings and write out sermons? By the way, is there a kirk
at Drumtochty, or will you read prayers to Janet and Donald and me?"

"When I was a lad there was just one minister in Drumtochty, Mr.
Davidson, a splendid specimen of the old school, who, on great
occasions, wore gaiters and a frill with a diamond in the centre; he
carried a gold-headed stick, and took snuff out of a presentation box.

"His son Sandie was my age to a year, and many a ploy we had together;
there was the jackdaw's nest in the ivy on the old tower we harried
together," and the General could only indicate the delightful risk of
the exploit. "My father and the minister were pacing the avenue at the
time, and caught sight of us against the sky. 'It's your rascal and
mine, Laird,' we heard the minister say, and they waited till we got
down, and then each did his duty by his own for trying to break his
neck; but they were secretly proud of the exploit, for I caught my
father showing old Lord Kilspindie the spot, and next time Hay was up
he tried to reach the place, and stuck where the wall hangs over. I
'll point out the hole this evening; you can see it from the other side
of the den quite plain."

[Illustration: "Many a ploy we had together."]

"Sandie went to the church--I wish every parson were as straight--and
Kilspindie appointed him to succeed the old gentleman, and when I saw
him in his study last month, it seemed as if his father stood before
you, except the breeches and the frill; but Sandie has a marvellous
stock--what havers I 'm deivin' you with, lassie."

"Tell me about Sandie this minute--did he remember the raiding of the
jack-daws?"

"He did," cried the General, in great spirits; "he just looked at me
for an instant--no one knew of my visit--and then he gripped my hands,
and do you know, Kit, he was . . . well, and there was a lump in my
throat too; it would be about thirty years, for one reason and another,
since we met."

"What did he say? the very words, dad," and Kate held up her finger in
command.

"'Jack, old man, is this really you?'--he held me at arm's
length--'man, div ye mind the jackdaw's nest?'"

"Did he? And he 's to be our padre. I know I 'll love him at once.
Go on, everything, for you 've never told me anything about Drumtochty."

"We had a glorious time going over old times. We fished up every trout
again, and we shot our first day on the moor again with Peter Stewart,
Kilspindie's head keeper, as fine an old Highlander as ever lived.
Stewart said in the evening, 'You 're a pair of prave boys, as becometh
your fathers' sons,' and Sandie gave him two and fourpence he had
scraped for a tip, but I had only one and elevenpence--we were both
kept bare. But he knew better than to refuse our offerings, though he
never saw less than gold or notes from the men that shot at the lodge,
and Sandie remembered how he touched his Highland bonnet and said, 'I
will be much obliged to you both; and you will be coming to the moor
another day, for I hef his lordship's orders.'

"Boys are queer animals, lassie; we were prouder that Peter accepted
our poor little tip than about the muirfowl we shot, though I had three
brace and Sandie four. Highlanders are all gentlemen by birth, and be
sure of this, Kit, it's only that breed which can manage boys and
soldiers. But where am I now?"

"With Sandie--I beg his reverence's pardon--with the Rev. the padre of
Drumtochty," and Kate went over and sat down beside the General to
anticipate any rebellion, for it was a joy to see the warrior turning
into a boy before her eyes. "Well?"

"We had a royal dinner, as it seemed to me. Sandie has a couple of
servants, man and wife, who rule him with a rod of iron, but I would
forgive that for the cooking and the loyalty. After dinner he
disappeared with a look of mystery, and came back with a cobwebbed
bottle of the old shape, short and bunchy, which he carried as if it
were a baby.

"'Just two bottles of my father's port left; we 'll have one to-day to
welcome you back, and we 'll keep the other to celebrate your
daughter's marriage.' He had one sister, younger by ten years, and her
death in girlhood nearly broke his heart. It struck me from something
he said that his love is with her; at any rate, he has never married.
Sandie has just one fault--he would not touch a cheroot; but he snuffs
handsomely out of his father's box.

"Of course, I can't say anything about his preaching, but it's bound to
be sensible stuff."

"Bother the sermons; he 's an old dear himself, and I know we shall be
great friends. We 'll flirt together, and you will not have one word
to say, so make up your mind to submit."

"We shall have good days in the old place, lassie; but you know we are
poor, and must live quietly. What I have planned is a couple of handy
women or so in the house with Donald. Janet is going to live at the
gate where she was brought up, but she will look after you well, and we
'll always have a bed and a glass of wine for a friend. Then you can
have a run up to London and get your things, Kit," and the General
looked wistfully at his daughter, as one who would have given her a
kingdom.

"Do you think your girl cares so much about luxuries and dresses? Of
course I like to look well--every woman does, and if she pretends
otherwise she 's a hypocrite; but money just seems to make some women
hideous. It is enough for me to have you all to myself up in your old
home, and to see you enjoying the rest you have earned. We'll be as
happy as two lovers, dad," and Kate threw an arm round her father's
neck and kissed him.

"We have to change here," as the train began to slow; "prepare to see
the most remarkable railway in the empire, and a guard to correspond."
And then it came upon them, the first sight that made a Drumtochty
man's heart warm, and assured him that he was nearing home.

An engine on a reduced scale, that had once served in the local goods
department of a big station, and then, having grown old and asthmatic,
was transferred on half-pay, as it were, to the Kildrummie branch,
where it puffed between the junction and the terminus half a dozen
times a day, with two carriages and an occasional coal truck. Times
there were when wood was exported from Kildrummie, and then the train
was taken down in detachments, and it was a pleasant legend that, one
market day, when Drumtochty was down in force, the engine stuck, and
Drumsheugh invited the Glen to get out and push. The two carriages
were quite distinguished in construction, and had seen better days.
One consisted of a single first-class compartment in the centre, with a
bulge of an imposing appearance, supported on either side by two
seconds. As no native ever travelled second, one compartment had been
employed as a reserve to the luggage van, so that Drumtochty might have
a convenient place of deposit for calves, but the other was jealously
reserved by Peter Bruce for strangers with second-class tickets, that
his branch might not be put to confusion. The other carriage was
three-fourths third class and one-fourth luggage, and did the real
work; on its steps Peter stood and dispensed wisdom, between the
junction and Kildrummie.

But neither the carriages nor the engine could have made history
without the guard, beside whom the guards of the main line--even of the
expresses that ran to London--were as nothing--fribbles and weaklings.
For the guard of the Kildrummie branch was absolute ruler, lording it
over man and beast without appeal, and treating the Kildrummie
stationmaster as a federated power. Peter was a short man of great
breadth, like unto the cutting of an oak-tree, with a penetrating grey
eye, an immovable countenance, and bushy whiskers. It was understood
that when the line was opened, and the directors were about to fill up
the post of guard from a number of candidates qualified by long
experience on various lines, Peter, who had been simply wasting his
time driving a carrier's cart, came in, and sitting down opposite the
board--two lairds and a farmer--looked straight before him without
making any application. It was felt by all in an instant that only one
course was open, in the eternal fitness of things. Experience was well
enough, but special creation was better, and Peter was immediately
appointed, his name being asked by the chairman afterwards as a
formality. From the beginning he took up a masterful position,
receiving his human cargo at the junction and discharging it at the
station with a power that even Drumtochty did not resist, and a
knowledge of individuals that was almost comprehensive. It is true
that, boasting one Friday evening concerning the "crooded" state of the
train, he admitted with reluctance that "there 's a stranger in the
second I canna mak oot," but it is understood that he solved the
problem before the man got his luggage at Kildrummie.

Perhaps Peter's most famous achievement was his demolition of a south
country bagman, who had made himself unpleasant, and the story was much
tasted by our guard's admirers. This self-important and vivacious
gentleman, seated in the first, was watching Peter's leisurely
movements on the Kildrummie platform with much impatience, and lost all
self-control on Peter going outside to examine the road for any distant
passenger.

"Look here, guard, this train ought to have left five minutes ago, and
I give you notice that if we miss our connection I 'll hold your
company responsible."

At the sound of this foreign voice with its indecent clamour, Peter
returned and took up his position opposite the speaker, while the staff
and the whole body of passengers--four Kildrummie and three Drumtochty,
quite sufficient for the situation--waited the issue. Not one word did
Peter deign to reply, but he fixed the irate traveller with a gaze so
searching, so awful, so irresistible, that the poor man fell back into
his seat and pretended to look out at the opposite window. After a
pause of thirty seconds, Peter turned to the engine-driver.

"They 're a' here noo, an' there 's nae use waitin' langer; ca' awa',
but ye needna distress the engine."

It was noticed that the foolhardy traveller kept the full length of the
junction between himself and Peter till the Dunleith train came in,
while his very back was eloquent of humiliation, and Hillocks offered
his snuff-box ostentatiously to Peter, which that worthy accepted as a
public tribute of admiration.

"Look, Kate, there he is;" and there Peter was, standing in his
favourite attitude, his legs wide apart and his thumbs in his armholes,
superior, abstracted, motionless till the train stopped, when he came
forward.

[Illustration: Peter was standing in his favourite attitude.]

"Prood tae see ye, General, coming back at laist, an' the Miss wi' ye;
it 'll no be the blame o' the fouk up by gin ye bena happy. Drumtochty
hes an idea o' itsel', and peety the man 'at tries tae drive them, but
they 're couthy.

"This wy, an' a'll see tae yir luggage," and before Peter made for the
Dunleith van it is said that he took off his cap to Kate; but if so,
this was the only time he had ever shown such gallantry to a lady.

Certainly he must have been flustered by something, for he did not
notice that Carmichael, overcome by shyness at the sight of the
Carnegies in the first, had hid himself in the second, till he closed
the doors; then the Carnegies heard it all.

"It's I, Peter," very quietly; "your first has passengers to-day,
and . . . I 'll just sit here."

"Come oot o' that," after a moment, during which Peter had simply
looked; then the hat and the tweeds came stumbling into the first,
making some sort of a bow and muttering an apology.

"A'll tak' yir ticket, Maister Carmichael," with severity. "General,"
suddenly relaxing, "this is the Free Kirk minister of yir pairish, an'
a 'm jidgin' he 'll no try the second again."

Carmichael lifted his head and caught Kate's eye, and at the meeting of
humour they laughed aloud. Whereupon the General said, "My daughter,
Miss Carnegie," and they became so friendly before they reached
Kildrummie that Carmichael forgot his disgraceful appearance and when
the General offered him a lift up, simply clutched at the opportunity.

The trap was a four-wheeled dog-cart. Kate drove, with her father by
her side and Carmichael behind, but he found it necessary to turn round
to give information of names and places, and he so managed that he
could catch Kate's profile half the time.

When he got down at the foot of the hill by Hillocks' farm, to go up
the near road, instead thereof he scrambled along the ridge, and looked
through the trees as the carriage passed below; but he did not escape.

"What's he glowerin' at doon there?" Hillocks inquired of Jamie Soutar,
to whom he was giving some directions about a dyke, and Hillocks made a
reconnaissance. "A 'll warrant that's the General and his dochter.
She 's a weel-faured lassie an' speerity-lookin'."

"It cowes a'," said Jamie to himself; "the first day he ever saw her;
but it's aye the way, aince an' ever, or . . . never."

"What's the Free Kirk, dad?" when Carmichael had gone. "Is it the same
as the Methodists?"

"No, no, quite different. I 'm not up in those things, but I 've heard
it was a lot of fellows who would not obey the laws, and so they left
and made a kirk for themselves, where they do whatever they like. By
the way, that was the young fellow we saw giving the dogs water at
Muirtown. I rather like him; but why did he look such a fool, and try
to escape us at the junction?"

"How should I know? I suppose because he is a . . . foolish boy. And
now, dad, for the Lodge and Tochty woods."

CHAPTER III.

A HOME OF MANY GENERATIONS.

It was the custom of the former time to construct roads on a straight
line, with a preference for uphill and down, and engineers refused to
make a circuit of twenty yards to secure level ground. There were two
advantages in this uncompromising principle of construction, and it may
be doubtful which commended itself most to the mind of our fathers.
Roads were drained after the simplest fashion, because a standing pool
in the hollow had more than a compensation in the dryness of the ascent
and descent, while the necessity of sliddering down one side and
scrambling up the other reduced driving to the safe average of four
miles an hour--horse-doctors forming a class by themselves, and being
preserved in their headlong career by the particular Providence which
has a genial regard for persons who have too little sense or have taken
too much liquor. Degenerate descendants, anxious to obtain the maximum
of speed with the minimum of exertion, have shown a quite wonderful
ingenuity in circumventing hills, so the road between Drumtochty Manse
and Tochty Lodge gate was duplicated, and the track that plunged into
the hollow was now forsaken of wheeled traffic and overgrown with grass.

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