"A 've heard him wi' ma ain ears crackin' her up by the 'oor, an' a' canna mak' oot what set him against her the day; but he 's young," remarked Elspeth, sagely, "an' wi' his age it's either saint or deevil, an' ae day the one an' the next day the ither; there 's nae medium. Noo, maist fouk are juist half an' between, an' Mary hed her faults.

"Ma word, Jeems," continued Elspeth with much relish, "Mary wud sune hae settled the minister gin she hed been in the kirk the day."

"Ay, ay," inquired Jeems, "noo what wud the hizzie hae dune?"

"She wud juist hae sent for him an' lookit wi' her een, an' askit him what ill he hed at her, an' gin that wesna eneuch she wud hae pit her handkerchief tae her face."

"Of coorse he cudna hae stude that; a' micht hae gien in masel'," admitted Jeems, "but Knox wes stiff."

"Maister Carmichael is no a Knox, naither are ye, Jeems, an' it's a mercy for me ye arena. Mary wud hae twistit Maister Carmichael roond her finger, but a 'm judgin' he 'll catch it as it is afore mony days, or ma name 's no Elspeth Macfadyen. Did ye see Miss Carnegie rise an' gae oot afore he feenished?"

"Div ye mean that, Elspeth?" and her husband was amazed at such penetration. "Noo a' thocht it hed been the heat; a' never held wi' that stove; it draws up the air. Hoo did ye jalouse yon?"

"She wes fidgetin' in her seat when he yokit on Mary, an' the meenut he named her 'our Scottish Jezebel' the Miss rose an' opened the seat door that calm, a' knew she wes in a tantrum, and she gied him a look afore she closed the kirk door that wud hae brocht ony man tae his senses.

"Jeems," went on Elspeth with solemnity, "a' coont this a doonricht calamity, for a' wes houpin' he wud hae pleased them the day, an' noo a 'm sair afraid that the minister hes crackit his credit wi' the Lodge."

"Div ye think, Elspeth, he saw her gang oot an' suspeckit the cause?"

"It's maist michty tae hear ye ask sic a question, Jeems. What gared him mak' a hash o' the baptism prayer, and return thanks that there wes a leevin' father, instead o' mither, and gie oot the 103rd Paraphrase? Tak' ma word for't, he 's wishin' by this time that he 'd lat puir Mary alane."

It was just above Hillocks' farm that the General overtook Kate, who was still blazing.

"Did you ever hear such vulgar abuse and . . . abominable language from a pulpit? He 's simply a raging fanatic, and not one bit better than his Knox. And I . . . we thought him quite different . . . and a gentleman. I 'll never speak to him again. Scottish Jezebel: I suppose he would call me Jezebel if it occurred to him."

"Very likely he would," replied the General, dryly, "and I must say his talk about Queen Mary seemed rather bad taste. But that's not the question, Kate, which is your conduct in leaving a place of worship in such an . . . unladylike fashion."

"What?" for this was new talk from her father.

"As no Carnegie ought to have done. You have forgotten yourself and your house, and there is just one thing for you to do, and the sooner the better."

"Father, I 'll never look at him again . . . and after that evening at Dr. Davidson's, and our talking . . . about Queen Mary, and . . . lots of things."

"Whether you meet Mr. Carmichael again or not is your own affair, but this touches us both, and you . . . must write a letter of apology."

"And if I don't?" said Kate, defiantly.

"Then I shall write one myself for you. A Carnegie must not insult any man, be he one faith or the other, and offer him no amends."

So Donald handed in this letter at the Free Kirk Manse that evening, and left without an answer.

TOCHTY LODGE.

SIR,—Your violent and insolent attack on a martyred Queen caused me to lose self-control in your church to-day, and I was unable to sit longer under such language.

It has been pointed out to me that I ought not to have left church as I did, and I hereby express regret.

The books you were so good as to lend me I have sent back by the messenger.—Yours truly,

CATHERINE CARNEGIE.

When Carmichael called next day, Donald informed him with unconcealed satisfaction that Lord Hay was lunching with the family, and that the General and Miss Carnegie were going to Muirtown Castle to-morrow for a visit; but Janet had not lost hope.

"Do not be taking this to heart, my dear, for I will be asking a question. What will be making Miss Kate so very angry? it is not every man she would be minding, though he spoke against Queen Mary all the day. When a woman does not care about a man she will not take the trouble to be angry. That is what I am thinking; and it is not Lord Hay that has the way, oh no, though he be a proper man and good at shooting."



CHAPTER XVIII.

LOVE SICKNESS.

College friends settled in petty lowland towns, and meeting Carmichael on sacramental occasions, affected to pity him, inquiring curiously what were his means of conveyance after the railway ceased, what time a letter took to reach him, whether any foot ever crossed his door from October to May, whether the great event of the week was not the arrival of the bread cart. Those were exasperating gibes from men who could not take a walk without coming on a coal pit, nor lift a book in their studies without soiling their hands, whose windows looked on a street and commanded the light of a grocer's shop instead of a sunset. It ill became such miserables to be insolent, and Carmichael taught them humility when he began to sound the praises of Drumtochty; but he could not make townspeople understand the unutterable satisfaction of the country minister, who even from old age and great cities looks back with fond regret to his first parish on the slope of the Grampians. Some kindly host wrestles with him to stay a few days more in civilisation, and pledges him to run up whenever he wearies of his exile, and the ungrateful rustic can hardly conceal the joy of his escape. He shudders on the way to the station at the drip of the dirty sleet and the rags of the shivering poor, and the restless faces of the men and the unceasing roar of the traffic. Where he is going the white snow is falling gently on the road, a cart full of sweet-smelling roots is moving on velvet, the driver stops to exchange views with a farmer who has been feeding his sheep, within the humblest cottage the fire is burning clearly. With every mile northwards the Glenman's heart lifts; and as he lands on his far-away little station, he draws a deep breath of the clean, wholesome air. It is a long walk through the snow, but there is a kindly, couthy smell from the woods, and at sight of the squares of light in his home, weariness departs from a Drumtochty man. Carmichael used to say that a glimpse of Archie Moncur sitting with his sisters before the fire as he passed, and the wild turmoil of his dogs within the manse as the latch of the garden gate clicked, and the flood of light pouring out from the open door on the garden, where every branch was feathered with snow, and to come into his study, where the fire of pine logs was reflected from the familiar titles of his loved books, gave him a shock of joy such as he has never felt since, even in the days of his prosperity.



"The city folk are generous with their wealth," he was saying to me only last week, when I was visiting him in his West End manse and we fell a-talking of the Glen, "and they have dealt kindly by me; they are also full of ideas, and they make an inspiring audience for a preacher. If any man has a message to deliver from the Eternal, then he had better leave the wilderness and come to the city, and if he has plans for the helping of his fellow men, let him come where he can get his work and his labourers.

"No, I do not repent leaving the Glen, for the Divine Hand thrust me forth and has given me work to do, and I am not ungrateful to the friends I have made in the city; but God created me a countryman, and"—here Carmichael turned his back to me—"my heart goes back to Drumtochty, and the sight of you fills me with . . . longing.

"Ah, how this desiderium, as the Rabbi would have said, comes over one with the seasons as they come and go. In spring they send me the first snowdrops from the Glen, but it is a cruel kindness, for I want to be where they are growing in Clashiegar den. When summer comes people praise the varied flower-beds of the costly city parks, but they have not seen Tochty woods in their glory. Each autumn carries me to the harvest field, till in my study I hear the swish of the scythe and feel the fragrance of the dry, ripe grain. And in winter I see the sun shining on the white sides of Glen Urtach, and can hardly keep pen to paper in this dreary room.

"What nonsense this is," pulling himself together; "yes, that is the very chair you sat in, and this is the table we stuck between us with our humble flask of Moselle of a winter's night . . . let's go to bed; we 'll have no more good talk to-night."

When he had left me, I flung open my window in search of air, for it seemed as if the city were choking me. A lamp was flaring across the street, two cabs rattled past with revellers singing a music-hall song, a heavy odour from many drains floated in, the multitude of houses oppressed one as with a weight. How sweet and pure it was now at the pool above Tochty mill, where the trout were lying below the stones and the ash boughs dipping into the water.

Carmichael once, however, lost all love of the Glen, and that was after Kate flung herself out of the Free Kirk and went on a visit to Muirtown Castle. He was completely disenchanted and saw everything at its poorest. Why did they build the manse so low that an able-bodied man could touch the ceiling of the lower rooms with an effort and the upper rooms easily? What possessed his predecessor to put such an impossible paper on the study and to stuff the room with book-shelves? A row of Puritan divines offended him—a wooden, obsolete theology—but he also pitched a defence of Queen Mary into a cupboard—she had done enough mischief already. The garden looked squalid and mean, without flowers, with black patches peeping through the thin covering of snow, with a row of winter greens opposite the southern window. He had never noticed the Glen so narrow and bare before, nor how grey and unlovely were the houses. Why had not the people better manners and some brightness? they were not always attending funerals and making bargains. What an occupation for an educated man to spend two hours in a cabin of a vestry with a dozen labouring men, considering how two pounds could be added to the Sustentation Fund, or preaching on Sunday to a handful of people who showed no more animation than stone gods except when the men took snuff audibly. Carmichael was playing the spoiled child—not being at all a mature or perfect character, then or now—and was ready to hit out at anybody. His bearing was for the first and only time in his life supercilious, and his sermons were a vicious attack on the doctrines most dear to the best of his people. His elders knew not what had come over him, although Elspeth Macfadyen was mysteriously apologetic, and in moments of sanity he despised himself. One day he came to a good resolution suddenly, and went down to see Rabbi Saunderson—the very thought of whose gentle, patient, selfless life was a rebuke and a tonic.

When two tramps held conference on the road, and one indicated to the other visibly that any gentleman in temporary distress would be treated after a Christian fashion at a neighbouring house, Carmichael, who had been walking in a dream since he passed the lodge, knew instantly that he must be near the Free Kirk manse of Kilbogie. The means of communication between the members of the nomadic profession is almost perfect in its frequency and accuracy, and Saunderson's manse was a hedge-side word. Not only did all the regular travellers by the north road call on their going up in spring and their coming down in autumn, but habitues of the east coast route were attracted and made a circuit to embrace so hospitable a home, and even country vagrants made their way from Dunleith and down through Glen Urtach to pay their respects to the Rabbi. They had particular directions to avoid Barbara—expressed forcibly on five different posts in the vicinity and enforced in picturesque language, of an evening—and they were therefore careful to waylay the Rabbi on the road, or enter his study boldly from the front. The humbler members of the profession contented themselves with explaining that they had once been prosperous tradesmen, and were now walking to Muirtown in search of work—receiving their alms, in silence, with diffidence and shame; but those in a higher walk came to consult the Rabbi on Bible difficulties, which were threatening to shake their faith, and departed much relieved—with a new view of Lot's wife, as well as a suit of clothes the Rabbi had only worn three times.



"You have done kindly by me in calling"—the vagabond had finished his story and was standing, a very abject figure, among the books—"and in giving me the message from your friend. I am truly thankful that he is now labouring—in iron, did you say? and I hope he may be a cunning artificer.

"You will not set it down to carelessness that I cannot quite recall the face of your friend, for, indeed, it is my privilege to see many travellers, and there are times when I may have been a minister to them on their journeys, as I would be to you also if there be anything in which I can serve you. It grieves me to say that I have no clothing that I might offer you; it happens that a very worthy man passed here a few days ago most insufficiently clad and . . . but I should not have alluded to that; my other garments, save what I wear, are . . . kept in a place of . . . safety by my excellent housekeeper, and she makes their custody a point of conscience; you might put the matter before her. . . . Assuredly it would be difficult, and I crave your pardon for putting you in an . . . embarrassing position; it is my misfortune to have to-day neither silver nor gold," catching sight of Carmichael in the passage, "this is a Providence. May I borrow from you, John, some suitable sum for our brother here who is passing through adversity?"

"Do not be angry with me, John"—after the tramp had departed, with five shillings in hand and much triumph over Carmichael on his face—"nor speak bitterly of our fellow men. Verily theirs is a hard lot who have no place to lay their head, and who journey in weariness from city to city. John, I was once a stranger and a wayfarer, wandering over the length and breadth of the land. Nor had I a friend on earth till my feet were led to the Mains, where my heart was greatly refreshed, and now God has surrounded me with young men of whose kindness I am not worthy, wherefore it becometh me to show mercy unto others," and the Rabbi looked at Carmichael with such sweetness, that the lad's sullenness began to yield, although he made no sign.

"Moreover," and the Rabbi's voice took a lower tone, "as often as I look on one of those men of the highways, there cometh to me a vision of Him who was an outcast of the people, and albeit some may be as Judas, peradventure one might beg alms of me, a poor sinful man, some day, and lo it might be . . . the Lord Himself in a saint," and the Rabbi bowed his head and stood awhile much moved.

"Rabbi," after a pause, during which Carmichael's face had changed, "you are incorrigible. For years we have been trying to make you a really good and wise man, both by example and precept, and you are distinctly worse than when we began—more lazy, miserly, and uncharitable. It is very disheartening.

"Can you receive another tramp and give him a bed, for I am in low spirits, and so, like every other person in trouble, I come to you, you dear old saint, and already I feel a better man."

"Receive you, John? It is doubtless selfish, but it is not given to you to know how I weary to see your faces, and we shall have much converse together—there are some points I would like your opinion on—but first of all, after a slight refreshment, we must go to Mains: behold the aid to memory I have designed"—and the Rabbi pointed to a large square of paper hung above Chrysostom, with "Farewell, George Pitillo, 3 o'clock." "He is the son's son of my benefactor, and he leaves his father's house this day to go into a strange land across the sea: I had a service last night at Mains, and expounded the departure of Abraham, but only slightly, being somewhat affected through the weakness of the flesh. There was a covenant made between the young man and myself, that I should meet him at the crossing of the roads to-day, and it is in my mind to leave a parable with him against the power of this present world."

Then the Rabbi fell into a meditation till the dog-cart came up, Mains and his wife in the front and George alone in the back, making a brave show of indifference.

"George," said the Rabbi, looking across the field and speaking as to himself, "we shall not meet again in this world, and in a short space they will bury me in Kilbogie kirkyard, but it will not be in me to lie still for thinking of the people I have loved. So it will come to pass that I may rise—you have ears to understand, George—-and I will inquire of him that taketh charge of the dead about many and how it fares with them."

"And George Pitillo, what of him, Andrew?"

"'Oh, it's a peety you didna live langer, Mr. Saunderson, for George hes risen in the warld and made a great fortune.'"

"How does it go with his soul, Andrew?"

"'Well, you see, Mister Saunderson, George hes hed many things to think about, and he maybe hasna hed time for releegion yet, but nae doot he 'll be turnin' his mind that wy soon.'"

"Poor George, that I baptised and admitted to the sacrament and . . . loved: exchanged his soul for the world."

The sun was setting fast, and the landscape—bare stubble fields, leafless trees, still water, long, empty road—was of a blood-red colour fearsome to behold, so that no one spake, and the horse chafing his bit made the only sound.

Then the Rabbi began again.

"And George Pitillo—tell me, Andrew?"

"'Weel, ye see, Mister Saunderson, ye wud be sorry for him, for you and he were aye chief; he's keepit a gude name an' workit hard, but hesna made muckle o' this warld.'"

"And his soul, Andrew?"

"'Oo, that's a' richt; gin we a' hed as gude a chance for the next warld as George Pitillo we micht be satisfied.'"

"That is enough for his old friend; hap me over again, Andrew, and I'll rest in peace till the trumpet sound."

Carmichael turned aside, but he heard something desperately like a sob from the back of the dog-cart, and the Rabbi saying, "God be with you, George, and as your father's father received me in the day of my sore discouragement, so may the Lord God of Israel open a door for you in every land whithersoever you go, and bring you in at last through the gates into the city." The Rabbi watched George till the dog-cart faded away into the dusk of the winter's day, and they settled for the night in their places among the books before the Rabbi spoke.

It was with a wistful tenderness that he turned to Carmichael and touched him slightly with his hand, as was a fashion with the Rabbi.

"You will not think me indifferent to your welfare because I have not inquired about your affairs, for indeed this could not be, but the going forth of this lad has tried my heart. Is there aught, John, that it becometh you to tell me, and wherein my years can be of any avail?"

"It is not about doctrine I wished to speak to you, Rabbi, although I am troubled thus also, but about . . . you remember our talk."

"About the maid, surely; I cannot forget her, and indeed often think of her since the day you brought me to her house and made me known unto her, which was much courtesy to one who is fitter for a book-room than a woman's company.

"She is fair of face and hath a pleasant manner, and surely beauty and a winsome way are from God; there seemed also a certain contempt of baseness and a strength of will which are excellent. Perhaps my judgment is not even because Miss Carnegie was gracious to me, and you know, John, it is not in me to resist kindness, but this is how she seems to me. Has there been trouble between you?"

"Do not misunderstand me, Rabbi; I have not spoken one word of love to . . . Miss Carnegie, nor she to me; but I love her, and I thought that perhaps she saw that I loved her. But now it looks as if . . . what I hoped is never to be," and Carmichael told the Queen Mary affair.

"Is it not marvellous," mused the Rabbi, looking into the fire, "how one woman who was indeed at the time little more than a girl did carry men, many of them wise and clever, away as with a flood, and still divideth scholars and even . . . friends?

"It was not fitting that Miss Carnegie should have left God's house in heat of temper, and it seemeth to us that she hath a wrong reading of history, but it is surely good that she hath her convictions, and holdeth them fast like a brave maid.

"Is it not so, John, that friends and doubtless also . . . lovers have been divided by conscience and have been on opposite sides in the great conflict, and doth not this show how much of conscience there is among men?

"It may be this dispute will not divide you—being now, as it were, more an argument of the schools than a matter of principle, but if it should appear that you are far apart on the greater matters of faith, then . . . you will have a heavy cross to carry. But it is my mind that the heart of the maiden is right, and that I may some day see her . . . in your home, whereat my eyes would be glad."

The Rabbi was so taken up with the matter that he barely showed Carmichael a fine copy of John of Damascus he had secured from London, and went out of his course at worship to read, as well as to expound with much feeling, the story of Ruth the Moabitess, showing conclusively that she had in her a high spirit, and that she was designed of God to be a strength to the house of David. He was also very cheerful in the morning, and bade Carmichael good-bye at Tochty woods with encouraging words. He also agreed to assist his boy at the Drumtochty sacrament.

It was evident that the Rabbi's mind was much set on this visit, but Carmichael did not for one moment depend upon his remembering the day, and so Burnbrae started early on the Saturday with his dog-cart to bring Saunderson up and deposit him without fail in the Free Kirk manse of Drumtochty. Six times that day did the minister leave his "action" sermon and take his way to the guest room, carrying such works as might not be quite unsuitable for the old scholar's perusal, and arranging a lamp of easy management, that the night hours might not be lost. It was late in the afternoon before the Rabbi was delivered at the manse, and Burnbrae gave explanations next day at the sacramental dinner.

"It wes just ten when a' got tae the manse o' Kilbogie, an' his hoosekeeper didna ken whar her maister wes; he micht be in Kildrummie by that time, she said, or half wy tae Muirtown. So a' set oot an' ransackit the parish till a' got him, an' gin he wesna sittin' in a bothie takin' brose wi' the plowmen an' expoundin' Scripture a' the time.

"He startit on the ancient martyrs afore we were half a mile on the road, and he gied ae testimony aifter anither, an' he wesna within sicht o' the Reformation when we cam tae the hooses; a 'll no deny that a' let the mare walk bits o' the road, for a' cud hae heard him a' nicht; ma bluid 's warmer yet, freends."

The Rabbi arrived in great spirits, and refused to taste meat till he had stated the burden of his sermon for the morrow.

"If the Lord hath opened our ears the servant must declare what has been given him, but I prayed that the message sent through me to your flock, John, might be love. It hath pleased the Great Shepherd that I should lead the sheep by strange paths, but I desired that it be otherwise when I came for the first time to Drumtochty.

"Two days did I spend in the woods, for the stillness of winter among the trees leaveth the mind disengaged for the Divine word, and the first day my soul was heavy as I returned, for this only was laid upon 'vessels of wrath, fitted to destruction.' And, John, albeit God would doubtless have given me strength according to His will, yet I was loath to bear this awful truth to the people of your charge.

"Next day the sun was shining pleasantly in the wood and it came to me that clouds had gone from the face of God, and as I wandered among the trees a squirrel sat on a branch within reach of my hand and did not flee. Then I heard a voice, 'I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee.'

"It was, in an instant, my hope that this might be God's word by me, but I knew not it was so till the Evangel opened up on all sides, and I was led into the outgoings of the eternal love after so moving a fashion that I dared to think that grace might be effectual even with me . . . with me.

"God opened my mouth on Sabbath on this text unto my own flock, and the word was not void. It is little that can be said on sovereign love in two hours and it may be a few minutes; yet even this may be more than your people are minded to bear. So I shall pretermit certain notes on doctrine; for you will doubtless have given much instruction on the purposes of God, and very likely may be touching on that mystery in your action sermon."

During the evening the Rabbi was very genial—tasting Sarah's viands with relish, and comparing her to Rebecca, who made savoury meat, urging Carmichael to smoke without scruple, and allowing himself to snuff three times, examining the bookshelves with keen appreciation, and finally departing with three volumes of modern divinity under his arm, to reinforce the selection in his room, "lest his eyes should be held waking in the night watches." He was much overcome by the care that had been taken for his comfort, and at the door of his room blest his boy: "May the Lord give you the sleep of His beloved, and strengthen you to declare all His truth on the morrow." Carmichael sat by his study fire for a while and went to bed much cheered, nor did he dream that there was to be a second catastrophe in the Free Kirk of Drumtochty which would be far sadder than the first, and leave in one heart life-long regret.



CHAPTER XIX.

THE FEAR OF GOD.

It was the way of the Free Kirk that the assisting minister at the Sacrament should sit behind the Communion Table during the sermon, and the congregation, without giving the faintest sign of observation, could estimate its effect on his face. When Doctor Dowbiggin composed himself to listen as became a Church leader of substantial build—his hands folded before him and his eyes fixed on the far window—and was so arrested by the opening passage of Cunningham's sermon on Justification by Faith that he visibly started, and afterward sat sideways with his ears cocked, Drumtochty, while doubtful whether any Muirtown man could appreciate the subtlety of their minister, had a higher idea of the Doctor; and when the Free Kirk minister of Kildrummie—a stout man and given to agricultural pursuits—went fast asleep under a masterly discussion of the priesthood of Melchisedek, Drumtochty's opinion of the intellectual condition of Kildrummie was confirmed beyond argument.

During his ministry of more than twenty years the Rabbi had never preached at Drumtochty—being fearful that he might injure the minister who invited him, or might be so restricted in time as to lead astray by ill-balanced statements—and as the keenest curiosity would never have induced any man to go from the Glen to worship in another parish, the Free Kirk minister of Kilbogie was still unjudged in Drumtochty. They were not sorry to have the opportunity at last, for they had suffered not a little at the hands of Kilbogie in past years, and the coming event disturbed the flow of business at Muirtown market.

"Ye 're tae hae the Doctor at laist," Mains said to Netherton—letting the luck-penny on a transaction in seed-corn stand over—"an' a 'm jidgin' the time 's no been lost. He's plainer an' easier tae follow then he wes at the affgo. Ma word"—contemplating the exercise before the Glen—"but ye 'll aye get eneuch here and there tae cairry hame." Which shows what a man the Rabbi was, that on the strength of his possession a parish like Kilbogie could speak after this fashion to Drumtochty.

"He 'll hae a fair trial, Mains"—Netherton's tone was distinctly severe—"an' mony a trial he's hed in his day, they say: wes't three an' twenty kirks he preached in, afore ye took him? But mind ye, length 's nae standard in Drumtochty; na, na, it's no hoo muckle wind a man hes, but what like is the stuff that comes. It's bushels doon bye, but it's wecht up bye."

Any prejudice against the Rabbi, created by the boasting of a foolish parish not worthy of him, was reduced by his venerable appearance before the pulpit, and quite dispelled by his unfeigned delight in Carmichael's conduct of the "preliminaries." Twice he nodded approval to the reading of the hundredth Psalm, and although he stood with covered face during the prayer, he emerged full of sympathy. As his boy read the fifty-third of Isaiah the old man was moved well-nigh to tears, and on the giving out of the text from the parable of the Prodigal Son, the Rabbi closed his eyes with great expectation, as one about to be fed with the finest of the wheat.

Carmichael has kept the sermon unto this day, and as often as he finds himself growing hard or supercilious, reads it from beginning to end. It is his hair shirt, to be worn from time to time next his soul for the wrongness in it and the mischief it did. He cannot understand how he could have said such things on a Sacrament morning and in the presence of the Rabbi, but indeed they were inevitable. When two tides meet there is ever a cruel commotion, and ships are apt to be dashed on the rocks, and Carmichael's mind was in a "jabble" that day. The new culture, with its wider views of God and man, was fighting with the robust Calvinism in which every Scot is saturated, and the result was neither peace nor charity. Personally the lad was kindly and good-natured, intellectually he had become arrogant, intolerant, acrid, flinging out at old-fashioned views, giving quite unnecessary challenges, arguing with imaginary antagonists. It has ever seemed to me, although I suppose that history is against me, that if it be laid on any one to advocate a new view that will startle people, he ought of all men to be conciliatory and persuasive; but Carmichael was, at least in this time of fermentation, very exasperating and pugnacious, and so he drove the Rabbi to the only hard action of his life, wherein the old man suffered most, and which may be said to have led to his death.

Carmichael, like the Rabbi, had intended to preach that morning on the love of God, and thought he was doing so with some power. What he did was to take the Fatherhood of God and use it as a stick to beat Pharisees with, and under Pharisees he let it be seen that he included every person who still believed in the inflexible action of the moral laws and the austere majesty of God. Many good things he no doubt said, but each had an edge, and it cut deeply into people of the old school. Had he seen the Rabbi, it would not have been possible for him to continue, but he only was conscious of Lachlan Campbell, with whom he had then a feud, and who, he imagined, had come to criticise him. So he went on his rasping way that Sacrament morning, as when one harrows the spring earth with iron teeth, exciting himself with every sentence to fresh crudities of thought and extravagances of opposition. But it only flashed on him that he had spoken foolishly when he came down from the pulpit, and found the Rabbi a shrunken figure in his chair before the Holy Table.

Discerning people, like Elspeth Macfadyen, saw the whole tragedy from beginning to end, and felt the pity of it keenly. For a while the Rabbi waited with fond confidence—for was not he to hear the best-loved of his boys—and he caught eagerly at a gracious expression, as if it had fallen from one of the fathers. Anything in the line of faith would have pleased the Rabbi that day, who was as a little child and full of charity, in spite of his fierce doctrines. By-and-by the light died away from his eyes as when a cloud comes over the face of the sun and the Glen grows cold and dreary. He opened his eyes and was amazed—looking at the people and questioning them what had happened to their minister. Suddenly he flushed as a person struck by a friend, and then, as one blow followed another, he covered his face with both hands, sinking lower and lower in his chair, till even that decorous people were almost shaken in their attention.

When Carmichael gave him the cup in the Sacrament the Rabbi's hand shook and he spilled some drops of the wine upon his beard, which all that day showed like blood on the silvery whiteness. Afterwards he spake in his turn to the communicants, and distinguished the true people of God from the multitude—to whom he held out no hope—by so many and stringent marks, that Donald Menzies refused the Sacrament with a lamentable groan. And when the Sacrament was over and the time came for Carmichael to shake hands with the assisting minister in the vestry, the Rabbi had vanished, and he had no speech with him till they went through the garden together—very bleak it seemed in the winter dusk—unto the sermon that closed the services of the day.

"God's hand is heavy in anger on us both this day, John," and Carmichael was arrested by the awe and sorrow in the Rabbi's voice, "else . . . you had not spoken as you did this forenoon, nor would necessity be laid on me to speak . . . as I must this night.

"His ways are all goodness and truth, but they are oftentimes encompassed with darkness, and the burden He has laid on me is . . . almost more than I can bear; it will be heavy for you also.

"You will drink the wine of astonishment this night, and it will be strange if you do not . . . turn from the hand that pours it out, but you will not refuse the truth or . . . hate the preacher," and at the vestry door the Rabbi looked wistfully at Carmichael.

During the interval the lad had been ill at ease, suspecting from the Rabbi's manner at the Table, and the solemnity of his address, that he disapproved of the action sermon, but he did not for a moment imagine that the situation was serious. It is one of the disabilities of good-natured and emotional people, without much deepness of earth, to belittle the convictions and resolutions of strong natures, and to suppose that they can be talked away by a few pleasant, coaxing words.

The Rabbi had often yielded to Carmichael and his other boys in the ordinary affairs of life—in meat and drink and clothing, even unto the continuance of his snuffing. He had been most manageable and pliable—as a child in their hands—and so Carmichael was quite confident that he could make matters right with the old man about a question of doctrine as easily as about the duty of a midday meal. Certain bright and superficial people will only learn by some solitary experience that faith is reserved in friendship, and that the most heroic souls are those which count all things loss—even the smile of those they love—for the eternal. For a moment Carmichael was shaken as if a new Rabbi were before him; then he remembered the study of Kilbogie and all things that had happened therein, and his spirits rose.

"How dare you suggest such wickedness, Rabbi, that any of us should ever criticise or complain of anything you say? Whatever you give us will be right, and do us good, and in the evening you will tell me all I said wrong."

Saunderson looked at Carmichael for ten seconds as one who has not been understood, and sighed. Then he went down the kirk after the beadle, and the people marked how he walked like a man who was afraid he might fall, and, turning a corner, he supported himself on the end of a pew. As he crept up the pulpit stairs Elspeth gave James a look, and, although well accustomed to the slowness of his understanding, was amazed that he did not catch the point. Even a man might have seen that this was not the same minister that came in to the Sacrament with hope in his very step.

"A 'm no here tae say 'that a' kent what wes comin''"—Elspeth, like all experts, was strictly truthful—"for the like o' that wes never heard in Drumtochty, and noo that Doctor Saunderson is awa, will never be heard again in Scotland. A' jaloused that vials wud be opened an' a' wesna wrang, but ma certes"—and that remarkable woman left you to understand that no words in human speech could even hint at the contents of the vials.

When the Rabbi gave out his text, "Vessels of wrath," in a low, awestruck voice, Carmichael began to be afraid, but after a little he chid himself for foolishness. During half an hour the Rabbi traced the doctrine of the Divine Sovereignty through Holy Scripture with a characteristic wealth of allusion to Fathers ancient and reforming, and once or twice he paused as if he would have taken up certain matters at greater length, but restrained himself, simply asserting the Pauline character of St. Augustine's thinking, and exposing the looseness of Clement of Alexandria with a wave of the hand as one hurrying on to his destination.

"Dear old Rabbi"—Carmichael congratulated himself in his pew—"what need he have made so many apologies for his subject? He is going to enjoy himself, and he is sure to say something beautiful before he is done." But he was distinctly conscious all the same of a wish that the Rabbi were done and all . . . well, uncertainty over. For there was a note of anxiety, almost of horror, in the Rabbi's voice, and he had not let the Fathers go so lightly unless under severe constraint. What was it? Surely he would not attack their minister in face of his people. . . . The Rabbi do that, who was in all his ways a gentleman? Yet . . . and then the Rabbi abruptly quitted historical exposition and announced that he would speak on four heads. Carmichael, from his corner behind the curtains, saw the old man twice open his mouth as if to speak, and when at last he began he was quivering visibly, and he had grasped the outer corners of the desk with such intensity that the tassels which hung therefrom—one of the minor glories of the Free Kirk—were held in the palm of his hand, the long red tags escaping from between his white wasted fingers. A pulpit lamp came between Carmichael and the Rabbi's face, but he could see the straining hand, which did not relax till it was lifted in the last awful appeal, and the white and red had a gruesome fascination. It seemed as if one had clutched a cluster of full, rich, tender grapes and was pressing them in an agony till their life ran out in streams of blood, and dripped upon the heads of the choir sitting beneath, in their fresh, hopeful youth. And it also came to Carmichael with pathetic conviction even then that every one was about to suffer, but the Rabbi more than them all together. While the preacher was strengthening his heart for the work before him, Carmichael's eye was attracted by the landscape that he could see through the opposite window. The ground sloped upwards from the kirk to a pine-wood that fringed the great moor, and it was covered with snow on which the moon was beginning to shed her faint, weird light. Within, the light from the upright lamps was falling on the ruddy, contented faces of men and women and little children, but without it was one cold, merciless whiteness, like unto the justice of God, with black shadows of judgment.

"This is the message which I have to deliver unto you in the name of the Lord, and even as Jonah was sent to Nineveh after a strange discipline with a word of mercy, so am I constrained against my will to carry a word of searching and trembling.

"First"—and between the heads the Rabbi paused as one whose breath had failed him—"every man belongs absolutely to God by his creation.

"Second. The purpose of God about each man precedes his creation.

"Third. Some are destined to Salvation, and some to Damnation.

"Fourth"—here the hard breathing became a sob—"each man's lot is unto the glory of God."

It was not only skilled theologians like Lachlan Campbell and Burnbrae, but even mere amateurs, who understood that they were that night to be conducted to the farthest limit of Calvinism, and that whoever fell behind through the hardness of the way, their guide would not flinch.

As the Rabbi gave the people a brief space wherein to grasp his heads in their significance, Carmichael remembered a vivid incident in the Presbytery of Muirtown, when an English evangelist had addressed that reverend and austere court with exhilarating confidence—explaining the extreme simplicity of the Christian faith, and showing how a minister ought to preach. Various good men were delighted, and asked many questions of the evangelist—who had kept a baby-linen shop for twenty years, and was unspoiled by the slightest trace of theology—but the Rabbi arose and demolished his "teaching," convicting him of heresy at every turn, till there was not left one stone upon another.

"But surely fear belongs to the Old Testament dispensation," said the unabashed little man to the Rabbi afterwards. "'Rejoice,' you know, my friend, 'and again I say rejoice.'"

"If it be the will of God that such a man as I should ever stand on the sea of glass mingled with fire, then this tongue will be lifted with the best, but so long as my feet are still in the fearful pit it becometh me to bow my head."

"Then you don't believe in assurance?" but already the evangelist was quailing before the Rabbi.

"Verily there is no man that hath not heard of that precious gift, and none who does not covet it greatly, but there be two degrees of assurance"—here the Rabbi looked sternly at the happy, rotund little figure—"and it is with the first you must begin, and what you need to get is assurance of your damnation."

One of the boys read an account of this incident—thinly veiled—in a reported address of the evangelist, in which the Rabbi—being, as it was inferred, beaten in scriptural argument—was very penitent and begged his teacher's pardon with streaming tears. What really happened was different, and so absolutely conclusive that Doctor Dowbiggin gave it as his opinion "that a valuable lesson had been read to unauthorised teachers of religion."

Carmichael recognised the same note in the sermon and saw another man than he knew, as the Rabbi, in a low voice, without heat or declamation, with frequent pauses and laboured breathing, as of one toiling up a hill, argued the absolute supremacy of God and the utter helplessness of man. One hand ever pressed the grapes, but with the other the old man wiped the perspiration that rolled in beads down his face. A painful stillness fell on the people as they felt themselves caught in the meshes of this inexorable net and dragged ever nearer to the abyss. Carmichael, who had been leaning forward in his place, tore himself away from the preacher with an effort, and moved where he could see the congregation. Campbell was drinking in every word as one for the first time in his life perfectly satisfied. Menzies was huddled into a heap in the top of his pew as one justly blasted by the anger of the Eternal. Men were white beneath the tan, and it was evident that some of the women would soon fall a-weeping. Children had crept close to their mothers under a vague sense of danger, and a girl in the choir watched the preacher with dilated eyeballs, like an animal fascinated by terror.

"It is as a sword piercing the heart to receive this truth, but it is a truth and must be believed. There are hundreds of thousands in the past who were born and lived and died and were damned for the glory of God. There are hundreds of thousands in this day who have been born and are living and shall die and be damned for the glory of God. There are hundreds of thousands in the future who shall be born and shall live and shall die and shall be damned for the glory of God. All according to the will of God, and none dare say nay nor change the purpose of the Eternal." For some time the oil in the lamps had been failing—since the Rabbi had been speaking for nigh two hours—and as he came to an end of this passage the light began to flicker and die. First a lamp at the end of Burnbrae's pew went out and then another in the front. The preacher made as though he would have spoken, but was silent, and the congregation watched four lamps sink into darkness at intervals of half a minute. There only remained the two pulpit lamps, and in their light the people saw the Rabbi lift his right hand for the first time.

"Shall . . . not . . . the . . . Judge . . . of all the earth . . . do . . . right?" The two lamps went out together and a great sigh rose from the people. At the back of the kirk a child wailed and somewhere in the front a woman's voice—it was never proved to be Elspeth Macfadyen—said audibly, "God have mercy upon us." The Rabbi had sunk back into the seat and buried his face in his hands, and through the window over his head the moonlight was pouring into the church like unto the far-off radiance from the White Throne.

When Carmichael led the Rabbi into the manse he could feel the old man trembling from head to foot, and he would touch neither meat nor drink, nor would he speak for a space.

"Are you there, John?"—and he put out his hand to Carmichael, who had placed him in the big study chair, and was sitting beside him in silence.

"I dare not withdraw nor change any word that I spake in the name of the Lord this day, but . . . it is my infirmity . . . I wish I had never been born."

"It was awful," said Carmichael, and the Rabbi's head again fell on his breast.

"John,"—and Saunderson looked up,—"I would give ten thousand worlds to stand in the shoes of that good man who conveyed me from Kilbogie yesterday, and with whom I had very pleasant fellowship concerning the patience of the saints.

"It becometh not any human being to judge his neighbour, but it seemed to me from many signs that he was within the election of God, and even as we spoke of Polycarp and the martyrs who have overcome by the blood of the Lamb, it came unto me with much power, 'Lo, here is one beside you whose name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life, and who shall enter through the gates into the city;' and grace was given me to rejoice in his joy, but I . . ."—and Carmichael could have wept for the despair in the Rabbi's voice.

"Dear Rabbi!"—for once the confidence of youth was smitten at the sight of a spiritual conflict beyond its depth—"you are surely . . . depreciating yourself . . . Burnbrae is a good man, but compared with you . . . is not this like to the depression of Elijah?" Carmichael knew, however, he was not fit for such work, and had better have held his peace.

"It may be that I understand the letter of Holy Scripture better than some of God's children, although I be but a babe even in this poor knowledge, but such gifts are only as the small dust of the balance. He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy.

"John," said the Rabbi suddenly, and with strong feeling, "was it your thought this night as I declared the sovereignty of God that I judged myself of the elect, and was speaking as one himself hidden for ever in the secret place of God?"

"I . . . did not know," stammered Carmichael, whose utter horror at the unrelenting sermon had only been tempered by his love for the preacher.

"You did me wrong, John, for then had I not dared to speak at all after that fashion; it is not for a vessel of mercy filled unto overflowing with the love of God to exalt himself above the vessels . . . for whom there is no mercy. But he may plead with them who are in like case with himself to . . . acknowledge the Divine Justice."

Then the pathos of the situation overcame Carmichael, and he went over to the bookcase and leant his head against certain volumes, because they were weighty and would not yield. Next day he noticed that one of them was a Latin Calvin that had travelled over Europe in learned company, and the other a battered copy of Jonathan Edwards that had come from the house of an Ayrshire farmer.

"Forgive me that I have troubled you with the concerns of my soul, John"—the Rabbi could only stand with an effort—"they ought to be between a man and his God. There is another work laid to my hand for which there is no power in me now. During the night I shall ask whether the cup may not pass from me, but if not, the will of God be done."

Carmichael slept but little, and every time he woke the thought was heavy upon him that on the other side of a narrow wall the holiest man he knew was wrestling in darkness of soul, and that he had added to the bitterness of the agony.



CHAPTER XX.

THE WOUNDS OF A FRIEND.

Winter has certain mornings which redeem weeks of misconduct, when the hoar frost during the night has re-silvered every branch and braced the snow upon the ground, and the sun rises in ruddy strength and drives out of sight every cloud and mist, and moves all day through an expanse of unbroken blue, and is reflected from the dazzling whiteness of the earth as from a mirror. Such a sight calls a man from sleep with authority, and makes his blood tingle, and puts new heart in him, and banishes the troubles of the night. Other mornings winter joins in the conspiracy of principalities and powers to daunt and crush the human soul. No sun is to be seen, and the grey atmosphere casts down the heart, the wind moans and whistles in fitful gusts, the black clouds hang low in threatening masses, now and again a flake of snow drifts in the wind. A storm is near at hand, not the thunder-shower of summer, with warm rain and the kindly sun in ambush, but dark and blinding snow, through which even a gamekeeper cannot see six yards, and in which weary travellers lie down to rest and die.

The melancholy of this kind of day had fallen on Saunderson, whose face was ashen, and who held Carmichael's hand with such anxious affection that it was impossible to inquire how he had slept, and it would have been a banalite to remark upon the weather. After the Rabbi had been compelled to swallow a cup of milk by way of breakfast, it was evident that he was ready for speech.

"What is it, Rabbi?" as soon as they were again settled in the study. "If you did not . . . like my sermon, tell me at once. You know that I am one of your boys, and you ought to . . . help me." Perhaps it was inseparable from his youth, with its buoyancy and self-satisfaction, and his training in a college whose members only knew by rumour of the existence of other places of theological learning, that Carmichael had at that moment a pleasing sense of humility and charity. Had it been a matter of scholastic lore, of course neither he nor more than six men in Scotland could have met the Rabbi in the gate. With regard to modern thought, Carmichael knew that the good Rabbi had not read Ecce Homo, and was hardly, well . . . up to date. He would not for the world hint such a thing to the dear old man, nor even argue with him; but it was flattering to remember that the attack could be merely one of blunderbusses, in which the modern thinker would at last intervene and save the ancient scholar from humiliation.

"Well, Rabbi?" and Carmichael tried to make it easy.

"Before I say what is on my heart, John, you will grant an old man who loves you one favour. So far as in you lies you will bear with me if that which I have to say, and still more that which my conscience will compel me to do, is hard to flesh and blood."

"Did n't we settle that last night in the vestry?" and Carmichael was impatient; "is it that you do not agree with the doctrine of the Divine Fatherhood? We younger men are resolved to base Christian doctrine on the actual Scriptures, and to ignore mere tradition."

"An excellent rule, my dear friend," cried the Rabbi, wonderfully quickened by the challenge, "and with your permission and for our mutual edification we shall briefly review all passages bearing on the subject in hand—using the original, as will doubtless be your wish, and you correcting my poor recollection."

About an hour afterwards, and when the Rabbi was only entering into the heart of the matter, Carmichael made the bitter discovery—without the Rabbi having even hinted at such a thing—that his pet sermon was a mass of boyish crudities, and this reverse of circumstances was some excuse for his pettishness.

"It does not seem to me that it is worth our time to haggle about the usage of Greek words or to count texts: I ground my position on the general meaning of the Gospels and the sense of things," and Carmichael stood on the hearthrug in a very superior attitude.

"Let that pass then, John, and forgive me if I appeared to battle about words, as certain scholars of the olden time were fain to do, for in truth it is rather about the hard duty before me than any imperfection in your teaching I would speak," and the Rabbi glanced nervously at the young minister.

"We are both Presbyters of Christ's Church, ordained after the order of primitive times, and there are laid on us certain heavy charges and responsibilities from which we may not shrink, as we shall answer to the Lord at the great day."

Carmichael's humiliation was lost in perplexity, and he sat down, wondering what the Rabbi intended.

"If any Presbyter should see his brother fall into one of those faults of private life that do beset us all in our present weakness, then he doth well and kindly to point it out unto his brother; and if his brother should depart from the faith as they talk together by the way, then it is a Presbyter's part to convince him of his error and restore him."

The Rabbi cast an imploring glance, but Carmichael had still no understanding.

"But if one Presbyter should teach heresy to his flock in the hearing of another . . . even though it break the other's heart, is not the path of duty fenced up on either side, verily a straight, narrow way, and hard for the feet to tread?"

"You have spoken to me, Rabbi, and . . . cleared yourself"—Carmichael was still somewhat sore—"and I 'll promise not to offend you again in an action sermon."

"Albeit you intend it not so, yet are you making it harder for me to speak. . . . See you not . . . that I . . . that necessity is laid on me to declare this matter to my brother Presbyters in court assembled . . . but not in hearing of the people?" Then there was a stillness in the room, and the Rabbi, although he had closed his eyes, was conscious of the amazement on the young man's face.

"Do you mean to say," speaking very slowly, as one taken utterly aback, "that our Rabbi would come to my . . . to the Sacrament and hear me preach, and . . . report me for heresy to the Presbytery? Rabbi, I know we don't agree about some things, and perhaps I was a little . . . annoyed a few minutes ago because you . . . know far more than I do, but that is nothing. For you to prosecute one of your boys and be the witness yourself. . . . Rabbi, you can't mean it. . . . Say it's a mistake."

The old man only gave a deep sigh.

"If it were Dowbiggin or . . . any man except you, I would n't care one straw, rather enjoy the debate, but you whom we have loved and looked up to and boasted about, why, it's like . . . a father turning against his sons."

The Rabbi made no sign.

"You live too much alone, Rabbi," and Carmichael began again as the sense of the tragedy grew on him, "and nurse your conscience till it gets over tender; no other man would dream of . . . prosecuting a . . . fellow minister in such circumstances. You have spoken to me like a father, surely that is enough," and in his honest heat the young fellow knelt down by the Rabbi's chair and took his hand.

A tear rolled down the Rabbi's cheek, and he looked fondly at the lad.

"Your words pierce me as sharp swords, John; spare me, for I can do none otherwise; all night I wrestled for release, but in vain."

Carmichael had a sudden revulsion of feeling, such as befalls emotional and ill-disciplined natures when they are disappointed and mortified.

"Very good, Doctor Saunderson"—Carmichael rose awkwardly and stood on the hearthrug again, an elbow on the mantelpiece—"you must do as you please and as you think right. I am sorry that I . . . pressed you so far, but it was on grounds of our . . . friendship.

"Perhaps you will tell me as soon as you can what you propose to do, and when you will bring . . . this matter before the Presbytery. My sermon was fully written and . . . is at your disposal."

While this cold rain beat on the Rabbi's head he moved not, but at its close he looked at Carmichael with the appeal of a dumb animal in his eyes.

"The first meeting of Presbytery is on Monday, but you would no doubt consider that too soon; is there anything about dates in the order of procedure for heresy?" and Carmichael made as though he would go over to the shelves for a law book.

"John," cried the Rabbi—his voice full of tears—rising and following the foolish lad, "is this all you have in your heart to say unto me? Surely, as I stand before you, it is not my desire to do such a thing, for I would rather cut off my right hand.

"God hath not been pleased to give me many friends, and He only knows how you and the others have comforted my heart. I lie not, John, but speak the truth, that there is nothing unto life itself I would not give for your good, who have been as the apple of my eye unto me."

Carmichael hardened himself, torn between a savage sense of satisfaction that the Rabbi was suffering for his foolishness and the inclination of his better self to respond to the old man's love.

"If there be a breach between us, it will not be for you as it must be for me. You have many friends, and may God add unto them good men and faithful, but I shall lose my one earthly joy and consolation, when your feet are no longer heard on my threshold and your face no longer brings light to my room. And, John, even this thing which I am constrained to do is yet of love, as . . . you shall confess one day."

Carmichael's pride alone resisted, and it was melting fast. Had he even looked at the dear face, he must have given way, but he kept his shoulder to the Rabbi, and at that moment the sound of wheels passing the corner of the manse gave him an ungracious way of escape.

"That is Burnbrae's dog-cart . . . Doctor Saunderson, and I think he will not wish to keep his horse standing in the snow, so unless you will stay all night, as it's going to drift. . . . Then perhaps it would be better. . . . Can I assist you in packing?" How formal it all sounded, and he allowed the Rabbi to go upstairs alone, with the result that various things of the old man's are in Carmichael's house unto this day.

Another chance was given the lad when the Rabbi would have bidden him good-bye at the door, beseeching that he should not come out into the drift, and still another when Burnbrae, being concerned about his passenger's appearance, who seemed ill-fitted to face a storm, wrapt him in a plaid; and he had one more when the old man leant out of the dog-cart and took Carmichael's hand in both of his, but only said, "God bless you for all you 've been to me, and forgive me for all wherein I have failed you." And they did not meet again till that never-to-be-forgotten sederunt of the Free Kirk Presbytery of Muirtown, when the minister of Kilbogie accused the minister of Drumtochty of teaching the Linlathen heresy of the Fatherhood of God in a sermon before the Sacrament.

Among all the institutions of the North a Presbytery is the most characteristic, and affords a standing illustration of the contradictions of a superbly logical people. It is so anti-clerical a court that for every clergyman there must be a layman—country ministers promising to bring in their elder for great occasions, and instructing him audibly how to vote—and so fiercely clerical that if the most pious and intelligent elder dared to administer a sacrament he would be at once tried and censured for sacrilege. So careful is a Presbytery to prevent the beginnings of Papacy that it insists upon each of its members occupying the chair in turn, and dismisses him again into private life as soon as he has mastered his duties, but so imbued is it with the idea of authority that whatever decision may be given by some lad of twenty-five in the chair—duly instructed, however, by the clerk below—will be rigidly obeyed. When a Presbytery has nothing else to do, it dearly loves to pass a general condemnation on sacerdotalism, in which the tyranny of prelates, and the foolishness of vestments will be fully exposed, but a Presbytery wields a power at which a bishop's hair would stand on end, and Doctor Dowbiggin once made Carmichael leave the Communion Table and go into the vestry to put on his bands.

When a Presbytery is in its lighter moods, it gives itself to points of order with a skill and relish beyond the Southern imagination. It did not matter how harmless, even infantile, might be the proposal placed before the court by such a man as MacWheep of Pitscowrie, he has hardly got past an apology for his presumption in venturing to speak at all, before a member of Presbytery—who had reduced his congregation to an irreducible minimum by the woodenness of his preaching—inquires whether the speech of "our esteemed brother is not ultra vires" or something else as awful. MacWheep at once sits down with the air of one taken red-handed in arson, and the court debates the point till every authority has taken his fill, when the clerk submits to the Moderator, with a fine blend of deference and infallibility, that Mr. MacWheep is perfectly within his rights; and then, as that estimable person has, by this time, lost any thread he ever possessed, the Presbytery passes to the next business—with the high spirit of men returning from a holiday. Carmichael used, indeed, to relate how in a great stress of business someone moved that the Presbytery should adjourn for dinner, and the court argued for seventy minutes, with many precedents, whether such a motion—touching as it did the standing orders—could even be discussed, and with an unnecessary prodigality of testimony he used to give perorations which improved with every telling.

The love of law diffused through the Presbytery became incarnate in the clerk, who was one of the most finished specimens of his class in the Scottish Kirk. His sedate appearance, bald, polished head, fringed with pure white hair, shrewd face, with neatly cut side whiskers, his suggestion of unerring accuracy and inexhaustible memory, his attitude for exposition,—holding his glasses in his left hand and enforcing his decision with the little finger of the right hand—carried conviction even to the most disorderly. Ecclesiastical radicals, boiling over with new schemes, and boasting to admiring circles of MacWheeps that they would not be brow-beaten by red tape officials, became ungrammatical before that firm gaze, and ended in abject surrender. Self-contained and self-sufficing, the clerk took no part in debate, save at critical moments to lay down the law, but wrote his minutes unmoved through torrents of speech on every subject, from the Sustentation Fund to the Union between England and Scotland, and even under the picturesque eloquence of foreign deputies, whose names he invariably requested should be handed to him, written legibly on a sheet of paper. On two occasions only he ceased from writing: when Dr. Dowbiggin discussed a method of procedure—then he watched him over his spectacles in hope of a nice point; or when some enthusiastic brother would urge the Presbytery to issue an injunction on the sin of Sabbath walking—then the clerk would abandon his pen in visible despair, and sitting sideways on his chair and supporting his head by that same little finger, would face the Presbytery with an expression of reverent curiosity on his face why the Almighty was pleased to create such a man. His preaching was distinguished for orderliness, and was much sought after for Fast days. It turned largely on the use of prepositions and the scope of conjunctions, so that the clerk could prove the doctrine of Vicarious Sacrifice from "for," and Retribution from "as" in the Lord's prayer, emphasising and confirming everything by that wonderful finger, which seemed to be designed by Providence for delicate distinctions, just as another man's fist served for popular declamation. His pulpit masterpiece was a lecture on the Council of Jerusalem, in which its whole deliberations were reviewed by the rules of the Free Kirk Book of Procedure, and a searching and edifying discourse concluded with two lessons. First: That no ecclesiastical body can conduct its proceedings without officials. Second: That such men ought to be accepted as a special gift of Providence.



The general opinion among good people was that the clerk's preaching was rather for upbuilding than arousing, but it is still remembered by the survivors of the old Presbytery that when MacWheep organised a conference on "The state of religion in our congregations," and it was meandering in strange directions, the clerk, who utilised such seasons for the writing of letters, rose amid a keen revival of interest—it was supposed that he had detected an irregularity in the proceedings—and offered his contribution. "It did not become him to boast," he said, "but he had seen marvellous things in his day: under his unworthy ministry three beadles had been converted to Christianity," and this experience was so final that the conference immediately closed.

Times there were, however, when the Presbytery rose to its height, and was invested with an undeniable spiritual dignity. Its members, taken one by one, consisted of farmers, shepherds, tradesmen, and one or two professional men, with some twenty ministers, only two or three of whom were known beyond their parishes. Yet those men had no doubt that as soon as they were constituted in the name of Christ, they held their authority from the Son of God and Saviour of the world, and they bore themselves in spiritual matters as His servants. No kindly feeling of neighbourliness or any fear of man could hinder them from inquiring into the religious condition of a parish or dealing faithfully with an erring minister. They had power to ordain, and laid hands on the bent head of some young probationer with much solemnity; they had also power to take away the orders they had given, and he had been hardened indeed beyond hope who could be present and not tremble when the Moderator, standing in his place, with the Presbytery around, and speaking in the name of the Head of the Church, deposed an unworthy brother from the holy ministry. MacWheep was a "cratur," and much given to twaddle, but when it was his duty once to rebuke a fellow-minister for quarrelling with his people, he was delivered from himself, and spake with such grave wisdom as he has never shown before or since.

When the Presbytery assembled to receive a statement from Doctor Saunderson "re error in doctrine by a brother Presbyter," even a stranger might have noticed that its members were weighted with a sense of responsibility, and although a discussion arose on the attempt of a desultory member to introduce a deputy charged with the subject of the lost ten tribes, yet it was promptly squelched by the clerk, who intimated, with much gravity, that the court had met in hunc effectum, viz. to hear Doctor Saunderson, and that the court could not, in consistence with law, take up any other business, not even—here Carmichael professed to detect a flicker of the clerkly eyelids—the disappearance of the ten tribes.

It was the last time that the Rabbi ever spoke in public, and it is now agreed that the deliverance was a fit memorial of the most learned scholar that has been ever known in those parts. He began by showing that Christian doctrine has taken various shapes, some more and some less in accordance with the deposit of truth given by Christ and the holy Apostles, and especially that the doctrine of Grace had been differently conceived by two eminent theologians, Calvin and Arminius, and his exposition was so lucid that the clerk gave it as his opinion afterwards, that the two systems were understood by certain members of the court for the first time that day. Afterwards the Rabbi vindicated and glorified Calvinism from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, from the Fathers, from the Reformation Divines, from the later creeds, till the brain of the Presbytery reeled through the wealth of allusion and quotation, all in the tongues of the learned. Then he dealt with the theology of Mr. Erskine of Linlathen, and showed how it was undermining the very foundations of Calvinism; yet the Rabbi spake so tenderly of our Scottish Maurice that the Presbytery knew not whether it ought to condemn Erskine as a heretic or love him as a saint. Having thus brought the court face to face with the issues involved, the Rabbi gave a sketch of a certain sermon he had heard while assisting "a learned and much-beloved brother at the Sacrament," and Carmichael was amazed at the transfiguration of this very youthful performance, which now figured as a profound and edifying discourse, for whose excellent qualities the speaker had not adequate words. This fine discourse was, however, to a certain degree marred, the Rabbi suggested, by an unfortunate, although no doubt temporary, leaning to the teaching of Mr. Erskine, whose beautiful piety, which was even to himself in his worldliness and unprofitableness a salutary rebuke, had exercised its just fascination upon his much more spiritual brother. Finally the Rabbi left the matter in the hands of the Presbytery, declaring that he had cleared his conscience, and that the minister was one—here he was painfully overcome—dear to him as a son, and to whose many labours and singular graces he could bear full testimony, the Rev. John Carmichael, of Drumtochty. The Presbytery was slow and pedantic, but was not insensible to a spiritual situation, and there was a murmur of sympathy when the Rabbi sat down—much exhausted, and never having allowed himself to look once at Carmichael.

Then arose a self-made man, who considered orthodoxy and capital to be bound up together, and especially identified any departure from sovereignty with that pestilent form of Socialism which demanded equal chances for every man. He was only a plain layman, he said, and perhaps he ought not to speak in the presence of so many reverend gentlemen, but he was very grateful to Doctor Saunderson for his honourable and straightforward conduct. It would be better for the Church if there were more like him, and he would just like to ask Mr. Carmichael one or two questions. Did he sign the Confession?—that was one; and had he kept it?—that was two; and the last was, When did he propose to go? He knew something about building contracts, and he had heard of a penalty when a contract was broken. There was just one thing more he would like to say—if there was less loose theology in the pulpit there would be more money in the plate. The shame of the Rabbi during this harangue was pitiable to behold.

Then a stalwart arose on the other side, and a young gentleman who had just escaped from a college debating society wished to know what century we were living in, warned the last speaker that the progress of theological science would not be hindered by mercenary threats, advised Doctor Saunderson to read a certain German, called Ritschl,—as if he had been speaking to a babe in arms,—and was refreshing himself with a Latin quotation, when the Rabbi, in utter absence of mind, corrected a false quantity aloud.

"Moderator," the old man apologised in much confusion, "I wot not what I did, and I pray my reverend brother, whose interesting and instructive address I have interrupted by this unmannerliness, to grant me his pardon, for my tongue simply obeyed my ear." Which untoward incident brought the modern to an end, as by a stroke of ironical fate. It seemed to the clerk that little good to any one concerned was to come out of this debate, and he signalled to Doctor Dowbiggin, with whom he had dined the night before, when they concocted a motion over their wine. Whereupon that astute man explained to the court that he did not desire to curtail the valuable discussion, from which he personally had derived much profit, but he had ventured to draw up a motion, simply for the guidance of the House—it was said by the Rabbi's boys that the Doctor's success as an ecclesiastic was largely due to the skilful use of such phrases—and then he read: "Whereas the Church is set in all her courts for the defence of the truth, whereas it is reported that various erroneous doctrines are being promulgated in books and other public prints, whereas it has been stated that one of the ministers of this Presbytery has used words that might be supposed to give sanction to a certain view which appears to conflict with statements contained in the standards of the Church, the Presbytery of Muirtown declares first of all, its unshaken adherence to the said standards; secondly, deplores the existence in any quarter of notions contradictory or subversive of said standards; thirdly, thanks Doctor Saunderson for the vigilance he has shown in the cause of sound doctrine; fourthly, calls upon all ministers within the bounds to have a care that they create no offence or misunderstanding by their teaching, and finally enjoins all parties concerned to cultivate peace and charity."

This motion was seconded by the clerk and carried unanimously,—Carmichael being compelled to silence by the two wise men for his own sake and theirs,—and was declared to be a conspicuous victory both by the self-made man and the modern, which was another tribute to the ecclesiastical gifts of Doctor Dowbiggin and the clerk of the Presbytery of Muirtown.



CHAPTER XXI.

LIGHT AT EVENTIDE.

The Rabbi had been careful to send an abstract of his speech to Carmichael, with a letter enough to melt the heart even of a self-sufficient young clerical; and Carmichael had considered how he should bear himself at the Presbytery. His intention had been to meet the Rabbi with public cordiality and escort him to a seat, so that all men should see that he was too magnanimous to be offended by this latest eccentricity of their friend. This calculated plan was upset by the Rabbi coming in late and taking the first seat that offered, and when he would have gone afterwards to thank him for his generosity the Rabbi had disappeared. It was evident that the old man's love was as deep as ever, but that he was much hurt, and would not risk another repulse. Very likely he had walked in from Kilbogie, perhaps without breakfast, and had now started to return to his cheerless manse. It was a wetting spring rain, and he remembered that the Rabbi had no coat. A fit of remorse overtook Carmichael, and he scoured the streets of Muirtown to find the Rabbi, imagining deeds of attention—how he would capture him unawares mooning along some side street hopelessly astray; how he would accuse him of characteristic cunning and deep plotting, how he would carry him by force to the Kilspindie Arms and insist upon their dining in state; how the Rabbi would wish to discharge the account and find twopence in his pockets—having given all his silver to an ex-Presbyterian minister stranded in Muirtown through peculiar circumstances; how he would speak gravely to the Rabbi on the lack of common honesty, and threaten a real prosecution, when the charge would be "obtaining a dinner on false pretences," how they would journey to Kildrummie in high content, and—the engine having whistled for a dog-cart—they would drive to Drumtochty manse, the sun shining through the rain as they entered the garden; how he would compass the Rabbi with observances, and the old man would sit again in the big chair full of joy and peace. Ah, the kindly jests that have not come off in life, the gracious deeds that never were done, the reparations that were too late! When Carmichael reached the station the Rabbi was already half way to Kilbogie, trudging along wet and weary and very sad, because, although he had obeyed his conscience at a cost, it seemed to him as if he had simply alienated the boy whom God had given him as a son in his old age, for even the guileless Rabbi suspected that the ecclesiastics considered his action foolishness and of no service to the Church of God. Barbara's language on his arrival was vituperative to a degree, she gave him food grudgingly, and when, in the early morning, he fell asleep over an open Father, he was repeating Carmichael's name, and the thick old paper was soaked with tears.

His nemesis seized Carmichael so soon as he reached the Dunleith train in the shape of the Free Kirk minister of Kildrummie, who had purchased six pounds of prize seed potatoes, and was carrying the treasure home in a paper bag. This bag had done after its kind, and as the distinguished agriculturist had not seen his feet for years, and could only have stooped at the risk of apoplexy, he watched the dispersion of his potatoes with dismay, and hailed the arrival of Carmichael with exclamations of thankfulness. It is wonderful over what an area six pounds of (prize) potatoes can deploy on a railway platform, and how the feet of passengers will carry them unto far distances. Some might never have been restored to the bag had it not been for Kildrummie's comprehensive eye and the physical skill with which he guided Carmichael, till even prodigals that had strayed over to the neighbourhood of the Aberdeen express were restored to the extemporised fold in the minister's top-coat pockets. Carmichael had knelt on that very platform six months or so before, but then he stooped in the service of two most agreeable dogs and under the approving eyes of Miss Carnegie; that was a different experience from hunting after single potatoes on all fours among the feet of unsympathetic passengers, and being prodded to duty by the umbrella of an obese Free Kirk minister. As a reward for this service of the aged, he was obliged to travel to Kildrummie with his neighbour—in whom for the native humour that was in him he had often rejoiced, but whose company was not congenial that day—and Kildrummie laid himself out for a pleasant talk. After the roots had been secured and their pedigree stated, Kildrummie fell back on the proceedings of Presbytery, expressing much admiration for the guidance of Doctor Dowbiggin and denouncing Saunderson as "fair dottle," in proof of which judgment Kildrummie adduced the fact that the Rabbi had allowed a very happily situated pigsty to sink into ruin. Kildrummie, still in search of agreeable themes to pass the time, mentioned a pleasant tale he had gathered at the seed shop.

"Yir neebur upbye, the General's dochter, is cairryin' on an awfu' rig the noo at the Castle"—Kildrummie fell into dialect in private life, often with much richness—"an' the sough o' her ongaeins hes come the length o' Muirtown. The place is foo' o' men—tae say naethin' o' weemin; but it's little she hes tae dae wi' them or them wi' her—officers frae Edinburgh an' writin' men frae London, as weel as half a dozen coonty birkies."

"Well?" said Carmichael, despising himself for his curiosity.

"She hes a wy, there 's nae doot o' that, an' gin the trimmie hesna turned the heads o' half the men in the Castle, till they say she hes the pick of twa lords, five honourables, and a poet. But the lassie kens what's what; it's Lord Hay she 's settin' her cap for, an' as sure as ye 're sittin' there, Drum, she 'll hae him.

"Ma word"—and Kildrummie pursued his way—"it 'll be a match, the dochter o' a puir Hielant laird, wi' naethin' but his half pay and a few pounds frae a fairm or twa. She 's a clever ane; French songs, dancin', shootin', ridin', actin', there's nae deevilry that's beyond her. They say upbye that she's been a bonnie handfu' tae her father—General though he be—an' a' peety her man."

"They say a lot of . . . lies, and I don't see what call a minister has to slander . . . ," and then Carmichael saw the folly of quarrelling with a veteran gossip over a young woman that would have nothing to say to him. What two Free Kirk ministers or their people thought of her would never affect Miss Carnegie.

"Truth's nae slander," and Kildrummie watched Carmichael with relish; "a' thocht ye wud hae got a taste o' her in the Glen. Didna a' heer frae Piggie Walker that ye ca'd her Jezebel frae yir ain pulpit, an' that ma lady whuppit oot o' the kirk in the middle o' the sermon?"

"I did nothing of the kind, and Walker is a . . ."

"Piggie 's no very particular at a time," admitted Kildrummie; "maybe it's a makup the story aboot Miss Carnegie an' yirsel'.

"Accordin' to the wratch," for Carmichael would deign no reply, "she wes threatenin' tae mak a fule o' the Free Kirk minister o' Drumtochty juist for practice, but a' said, 'Na, na, Piggie, Maister Carmichael is ower quiet and sensible a lad. He kens as weel as onybody that a Carnegie wud never dae for a minister's wife. Gin ye said a Bailie's dochter frae Muirtown 'at hes some money comin' tae her and kens the principles o' the Free Kirk.'

"Noo a' can speak frae experience, having been terrible fortunate wi' a' ma wives. . . . Ye 'll come up tae tea; we killed a pig yesterday, and . . . Weel, weel, a wilfu' man maun hae his wy," and Carmichael, as he made his way up the hill, felt that the hand of Providence was heavy upon him, and that any highmindedness was being severely chastened.

Two days Carmichael tramped the moors, returning each evening wet, weary, hungry, to sleep ten hours without turning, and on the morning of the third day he came down in such heart that Sarah wondered whether he could have received a letter by special messenger; and he congratulated himself, as he walked round his garden, that he had overcome by sheer will-power the first real infatuation of his life. He was so lifted above all sentiment as to review his temporary folly from the bare, serene heights of common-sense. Miss Carnegie was certainly not an heiress, and she was a young woman of very decided character, but her blood was better than the Hays', and she was . . . attractive—yes, attractive. Most likely she was engaged to Lord Hay, or if he did not please her—she was . . . whimsical and . . . self-willed—there was Lord Invermay's son. Fancy Kate . . . Miss Carnegie in a Free Kirk manse—Kildrummie was a very . . . homely old man, but he touched the point there—receiving Doctor Dowbiggin with becoming ceremony and hearing him on the payment of probationers, or taking tea at Kildrummie Manse—where he had, however, feasted royally many a time after the Presbytery, but. . . . This daughter of a Jacobite house, and brought up amid the romance of war, settling down in the narrowest circle of Scottish life—as soon imagine an eagle domesticated among barn-door poultry. This image amused Carmichael so much that he could have laughed aloud, but . . . the village might have heard him. He only stretched himself like one awaking, and felt so strong that he resolved to drop in on Janet to see how it fared with the old woman and . . . to have Miss Carnegie's engagement confirmed. The Carnegies might return any day from the South, and it would be well that he should know how to meet them.

"You will be hearing that they hef come back to the Lodge yesterday morning, and it iss myself that will be glad to see Miss Kate again; and very pretty iss she looking, with peautiful dresses and bonnets, for I hef seen them all, maybe twelve or ten.

"Oh yes, my dear, Donald will be talking about her marriage to Lord Kilspindie's son, who iss a very handsome young man and good at the shooting; and he will be blowing that they will live at the Lodge in great state, with many gillies and a piper.

"No, it iss not Janet Macpherson, my dear, that will be believing Donald Cameron, or any Cameron—although I am not saying that the Camerons are not men of their hands—for Donald will be always making great stories and telling me wonderful things. He wass a brave man in the battle, and iss very clever at the doctrine too, and will be strong against human himes (hymns), but he iss a most awful liar iss Donald Cameron, and you must not be believing a word that comes out of his mouth.

"She will be asking many questions in her room as soon as Donald had brought up her boxes and the door was shut. Some will be about the Glen, and some about the garden, and some will be about people—whether you ever will be visiting me, and whether you asked for her after the day she left the kirk. But I will say, 'No; Mr. Carmichael does not speak about anything but the religion when he comes to my cottage.'

"That iss nothing. I will be saying more, that I am hearing that the minister iss to be married to a fery rich young lady in Muirtown who hass been courting him for two years, and that her father will be giving the minister twenty thousand pounds the day they are married. And I will say she iss very beautiful, with blue eyes and gold hair, and that her temper iss so sweet they are calling her the Angel of Muirtown.

"Toot, toot, my dear, you are not to be speaking about lies, for that iss not a pretty word among friends, and you will not be meddling with me, for you will be better at the preaching and the singing than dealing with women. It iss not good to be making yourself too common, and Miss Kate will be thinking the more of you if you be holding your head high and letting her see that you are not a poor lowland body, but a Farquharson by your mother's side, and maybe of the chief's blood, though twenty or fifteen times removed.

"She will be very pleased to hear such good news of you, and be saying that it iss a mercy you are getting somebody to dress you properly. But her temper will not be at all good, and I did not ask her about Lord Hay, and she said nothing to me, nor about any other lord. It iss not often I hef seen as great a liar as Donald Cameron.

"Last evening Miss Kate will come down before dinner and talk about many things, and then she will say at the door, 'Donald tells me that Mister Carmichael does not believe in the Bible, and that his minister, Doctor Saunderson, has cast him off, and that he has been punished by his Bishop or somebody at Muirtown.'

"'Donald will be knowing more doctrine and telling more lies every month,' I said to her. 'Doctor Saunderson—who is a very fine preacher and can put the fear of God upon the people most wonderful—and our minister had a little feud, and they will fight it out before some chiefs at Muirtown like gentlemen, and now they are good friends again.'

"Miss Kate had gone off for a long walk, and I am not saying that she will be calling at Kilbogie Manse before she comes back. She is very fond of Doctor Saunderson, and maybe he will be telling her of the feud. It iss more than an hour through the woods to Kilbogie," concluded Janet, "but you will be having a glass of milk first."

Kate reviewed her reasons for the expedition to Kilbogie, and settled they were the pleasures of a walk through Tochty woods when the spring flowers were in their glory, and a visit to one of the dearest curiosities she had ever seen. It was within the bounds of possibility that Doctor Saunderson might refer to his friend, but on her part she would certainly not refer to the Free Church minister of Drumtochty. Her reception by that conscientious professor Barbara could not be called encouraging.

"Ay, he 's in, but ye canna see him, for he's in his bed, and gin he disna mend faster than he wes daein' the last time a' gied him a cry, he 's no like to be in the pulpit on Sabbath. A' wes juist thinkin' he wudna be the waur o' a doctor."



"Do you mean to say that Doctor Saunderson is lying ill and no one nursing him?" and Kate eyed the housekeeper in a very unappreciative fashion.

"Gin he wants a nurse she 'll hae tae be brocht frae Muirtown Infirmary, for a 've eneuch withoot ony fyke (delicate work) o' that kind. For twal year hev a' been hoosekeeper in this manse, an' gin it hedna been for peety a' wad hae flung up the place.

"Ye never cud tell when he wud come in, or when he wud gae oot, or what he wud be wantin' next. A' the waufies in the countryside come here, and the best in the hoose is no gude eneuch for them. He's been an awfu' handfu' tae me, an' noo a'coont him clean dottle. But we maun juist bear oor burdens," concluded Barbara piously, and proposed to close the door.

"Your master will not want a nurse a minute longer; show me his room at once," and Kate was so commanding that Barbara's courage began to fail.

"Who may ye be," raising her voice to rally her heart, "'at wud take chairge o' a strainger in his ain hoose an' no sae muckle as ask leave?"

"I am Miss Carnegie, of Tochty Lodge; will you stand out of my way?" and Kate swept past Barbara and went upstairs.

"Weel, a' declare," as soon as she had recovered, "of a' the impudent hizzies," but Barbara did not follow the intruder upstairs.

Kate had seen various curious hospitals in her day, and had nursed many sick men,—like the brave girl she was,—but the Rabbi's room was something quite new. His favourite books had been gathering there for years, and now lined two walls and overhung the bed after a very perilous fashion, and had dispossessed the looking-glass,—which had become a nomad and was at present resting insecurely on John Owen,—and stood in banks round the bed. During his few days of illness the Rabbi had accumulated so many volumes round him that he lay in a kind of tunnel, arched over, as it were, with literature. He had been reading Calvin's Commentary on the Psalms, in Latin, and it still lay open at the 88th, the saddest of all songs in the Psalter; but as he grew weaker the heavy folio had slid forward, and he seemed to be feeling for it. Although Kate spoke to him by name, he did not know any one was in the room. "Lord, why castest Thou off my soul? . . . I suffer Thy terror, I am distracted . . . fierce wrath goeth over me . . . lover and friend hast Thou put far from me . . . friend far from me."

His head fell on his breast, his breath was short and rapid, and he coughed every few seconds.

"My friend far from me . . ."

At the sorrow in his voice, and the thing which he said, the tears came to Kate's eyes, and she went forward and spoke to him very gently. "Do you know me, Dr. Saunderson, Miss Carnegie?"

"Not Saunderson . . . Magor Missabib."

"Rabbi, Rabbi"—so much she knew; and now Kate stroked the bent white head. "Your friend, Mister Carmichael . . ."

"Yes, yes"—he now looked up, and spoke eagerly—"John Carmichael, of Drumtochty . . . my friend in my old age . . . and others . . . my boys . . . but John has left me . . . he would not speak to me . . . I am alone now . . . he did not understand . . . mine acquaintance into darkness . . . here we see in a glass darkly . . ." (he turned aside to expound the Greek word for darkly), "but some day . . . face to face." And twice he said it, with an indescribable sweetness, "face to face."

Kate hurriedly removed the books from the bed, and wrapt round his shoulders the old grey plaid that had eked out his covering at night, and then she went downstairs.

"Bring," she said to Barbara, "hot water, soap, towels, and a sponge to Doctor Saunderson's bedroom, immediately."

"And gin a' dinna?" inquired Barbara aggressively.

"I 'll shoot you where you stand."

Barbara shows to her cronies how Miss Carnegie drew a pistol from her pocket at this point and held it to her head, and how at every turn the pistol was again in evidence; sometimes a dagger is thrown in, but that is only late in the evening when Barbara is under the influence of tonics. Kate herself admits that if she had had her little revolver with her she might have been tempted to outline the housekeeper's face on the wall, and she still thinks her threat an inspiration.

"Now," said Kate, when Barbara had brought her commands in with incredible celerity, "bring up some fresh milk and three glasses of whisky."

"Whisky!" Barbara could hardly compass the unfamiliar word. "The Doctor never hed sic a thing in the hoose, although mony a time, puir man . . ." Discipline was softening even that austere spirit.

"No, but you have, for you are blowing a full gale just now; bring up your private bottle, or I 'll go down for it."

"There's enough," holding the bottle to the light, "to do till evening; go to the next farm and send a man on horseback to tell Mr. Carmichael of Drumtochty, that Doctor Saunderson is dying, and another for Dr. Manley of Muirtown."

Very tenderly did Kate sponge the Rabbi's face and hands, and then she dressed his hair, till at length he came to himself.

"This ministry is . . . grateful to me, Barbara . . . my strength has gone from me . . . but my eyes fail me. . . . Of a verity you are not . . ."

"I am Kate Carnegie, whom you were so kind to at Tochty. Will you let me be your nurse? I learned in India, and know what to do." It was only wounded soldiers who knew how—soft her voice could be, and hands.

"It is I that . . . should be serving you . . . the first time you have come to the manse . . . no woman has ever done me . . . such kindness before. . . ." He followed her as she tried to bring some order out of chads, and knew not that he spoke aloud. "A gracious maid . . . above rubies."

His breathing was growing worse, in spite of many wise things she did for him—Doctor Manley, who paid no compliments, but was a strength unto every country doctor in Perthshire, praises Kate unto this day—and the Rabbi did not care to speak. So she sat down by his side and read to him from the Pilgrim's Progress—holding his hand all the time—and the passage he desired was the story of Mr. Fearing.

"This I took very great notice of, that the valley of the shadow of Death was as quiet while he went through it as ever I knew it before or since. I suppose these enemies here had now a special check from our Lord and a command not to meddle until Mr. Fearing was passed over it. . . . Here also I took notice of what was very remarkable: the water of that river was lower at this time than ever I saw it in all my life. So he went over at last, not much above wet-shod. When he was going up to the gate. . . ."

The Rabbi listened for an instant.

"It is John's step . . . he hath a sound of his own . . . my only earthly desire is fulfilled."

"Rabbi," cried Carmichael, and half kneeling, he threw one arm round the old man, "say that you forgive me. I looked for you everywhere on Monday, but you could not be found."

"Did you think, John, that I . . . my will was to do you an injury or . . . vex your soul? Many trials in my life . . . all God's will . . . but this hardest . . . when I lost you . . . nothing left here . . . but you . . .—my breath is bad, a little chill—. . . understand. . . ."

"I always did, and I never respected you more; it was my foolish pride that made me call you Doctor Saunderson in the study; but my love was the same, and now you will let me stay and wait on you."

The old man smiled sadly, and laid his hand on his boy's head.

"I cannot let you. . . . Go, John, my son."

"Go and leave you, Rabbi!" Carmichael tried to laugh. "Not till you are ready to appear at the Presbytery again. We 'll send Barbara away for a holiday, and Sarah will take her place,—you remember that cream,—and we shall have a royal time, a meal every four hours, Rabbi, and the Fathers in between," and Carmichael, springing to his feet and turning round to hide his tears, came face to face with Miss Carnegie, who had been unable to escape from the room.

"I happened to call"—Kate was quite calm—"and found Doctor Saunderson in bed; so I stayed till some friend should come; you must have met the messenger I sent for you."

"Yes, a mile from the manse; I was on my way . . . Janet said . . . but I . . . did not remember anything when I saw the Rabbi."

"Will you take a little milk again . . . Rabbi?" and at her bidding and the name he made a brave effort to swallow, but he was plainly sinking.

"No more," he whispered; "thank you . . . for service . . . to a lonely man; may God bless you . . . both. . . ." He signed for her hand, which he kept to the end.

"Satisfied . . . read, John . . . the woman from coasts of—of—"

"I know, Rabbi," and kneeling on the other side of the bed, he read the story slowly of a Tyrian woman's faith.